Lead Like YOU! The Courageous Leadership Podcast

In today's episode, I am sharing powerful strategies to set boundaries at work, especially as a leader.

Why is it important to talk about boundaries as leaders?

Setting boundaries is a significant leadership skill. As you move up the leadership ladder, you will have increased demands on your time. You will have to manage your own work, the work of your team members and manage relationships at all levels of the organisation.

Setting boundaries means defining what is "ok" and what is not "ok". It means defining where you place your attention, which habits you want to build, and which processes you set with others.

Enforcing boundaries can be difficult. It also often comes with consequences and might disappoint people. But by managing your boundaries, you will build trust, manage your emotional energy and lead by example.

In today's episode we dive into why boundaries are important and how you can implement them in your leadership.

The different types of boundaries I mention:

• Emotional
• Material
• Time
• Physical
• Mental

These questions are here to help dive deeper into how you can implement these boundaries and discover more about where you stand with them. Try them for yourself:

• Where do I need to set and define better boundaries for myself?
• What are the areas that I am finding I have not really defined for myself? But are very important to me?
• How much do I want to give myself?
• Which area do I need to define and set better boundaries with others?

How do you navigate difficult conversations in the workplace?

As a leader, you often have to engage in difficult conversations. It can feel tempting to avoid the conversation and wait for things to pass. This does not lead to any resolution and can cause more issues in the future. So how do you handle difficult conversations in the workplace?

Avoiding these conversations can have a negative impact on the relationships with your peers, with your colleagues, with your manager and with your team members. It's important you engage in difficult conversations because it shows you have the courage to speak up, to be vulnerable and to talk about things that might cause discomfort at the start. However, they can lead to great progress.

Your direct reports also need your feedback. They want feedback. 

In todays we look at five tips that will help you to make this a little bit easier for the next time you have to prepare and engage in a difficult conversation.

How do you manage emotions in the workplace?

We all get emotional. We are human beings. We express emotion daily. There are times in our day to day where we can struggle with emotions. Where they can get the better of us. In these moments we can often say or do things we regret later. So, how can we manage emotions in the workplace to prevent conflict?

You might need to learn how to regulate your emotions in the heat of the moment. Whenever you are overwhelmed, angry, frustrated or sad, it is important to recognise but then regulate in the workplace.

In todays episode we dive into the things you can keep in mind when you need to manage your emotions at work.

Self regulation is a big part of Emotional Intelligence, which starts with self-awareness. Self-awareness means that you are aware of what your emotions are doing with your body. Let’s go through some questions that can help:

1. What is the trigger for your emotional reactions?
2. What are certain situations that always set you off?
3. What are things that are important to you?
4. If you're feeling a certain emotion, how does that impact the thoughts and the things you tell yourself and impact your behaviour?
5. How does it feel when you start to lose control?
6. How does it feel in your body?

In todays episode I also share some techniques to calm yourself down. Including:

• Breathe deeply
• Take a step back, literally
• Take a break/ Remove yourself from the situation
• Go for a walk/ Take a shower
• Distract yourself/ Shift your focus
• Write about it

How do you create a positive workplace culture?

A positive workplace culture at its core is an environment where team members really enjoy coming to work. A place that provides inspiration, creativity and team members are engaged in their roles. Everyone is contributing towards a similar goal and are in the business to make a difference.

What does a positive workplace culture look like for you? What is your own definition of a positive work environment?

If you aren’t sure where to start to achieve this, or are looking for inspiration to create a positive place of work for your team, today on the podcast I’m sharing my top 8 tips to create a positive workplace culture.

Including:

• Why knowing your values, your team values & the company values are so important
• Building trust and creating psychological safety
• Fostering workplace relationships and connection
• Why having a common purpose is important

What is mindful leadership?

In this episode, I’m sharing ten things I wish I had known before becoming a leader.

Because I've been there. I've been a leader in the engineering and corporate world for 10 years and in that time, I really quickly moved up the leadership ladder. I started with a small team and then I got to lead bigger teams all the way to senior leadership role, where I actually managed teams in different countries in Australia and Southeast Asia.

I've learned many things along the way. There were a lot of challenges that I had to face on this journey in a male dominated environment. I set myself really high targets and was often very self critical.  I was doubting myself and I was really hard on myself as well. There were many moments where I struggled, where I didn't know how to manage difficult employees, where I had to have really difficult and tough conversations. So there's a lot that I learned along the way and some things I wish I had known just a little bit earlier, so that could either release some pressure or use some really beneficial strategies straight away.

So today, I share some of those things, including:

Invest in your own training and development (especially if you’re employer won’t) Your relationships may change and it can be lonely at times Check your unconscious bias regularly Strong leadership is about influence not authority And of course, lead like you because being authentic & vulnerable builds trust

In this episode, we're going to talk about how we can make hybrid teams work by tuning into our emotional intelligence. Now more than ever, is it going to be important to focus on the human connection. To really focus on powerful relationships and on the wellbeing of our employees.

By now we all have come to the conclusion that our way of working has changed and potentially has changed forever. There's going to be some mix of working from home and working in the office.

So, how can we make this work? There's a real challenge now for leaders and managers to start to look at: how can I, as a leader, support my team remotely, but also support my team when there are some people in the office and some are working from home, how can I build the connection? How can I understand my team better?

Today, we’re going to talk about how to answer those questions.

In this episode, I talk all about:

• The logistical and practical challenges of managing a hybrid team
• Tips to supporting your team members both in person and remotely
• Three key strategies to communicating with your hybrid team and boosting human connection
• And tuning into the emotional intelligence of ourselves and our team members

What are the benefits of authentic leadership? How does it support those around you?

If you are authentic, if you're vulnerable, you're also creating an environment that lets others be themselves and show more of themselves and feel safe to be themselves. And that will lead to a lot of amazing benefits.

These benefits include bigger trust, better relationships with colleagues and with the leader. Higher employee engagement, boosted productivity.  If we can start to focus more on what's right with ourselves and other people, instead of what's wrong and what we have to fix. So by creating this authentic leadership and this environment of psychological safety, we can fully step into this leadership and create a culture that is just so powerful.

So let's look at the key characteristics of authentic leaders and help you to step into your authentic leadership a little bit more today.

In this episode, I talk all about:

• The benefits of authentic leadership
• 8 key characteristics of authentic leaders, including:
• How authentic leaders have self-awareness and are transparent
• How they are courageous and ready to step into discomfort
• And how they create a psychologically safe environment for others to step into their authenticity
  

Have you ever been told to fake it until you make it? I'm sure that a lot of you have heard that before.

The thing though, and the problem with faking it until we make it or wearing a mask is that we can't really keep that up. And then the real problem here lies, that the people that you lead, they wouldn't really know the real you. And they will see through that mask.
And that will lead to a lack of trust because they don't really know who you are.

Today, we are talking about four big misconceptions of authentic leadership and learning how to remove that mask and lead authentically.

In this episode, I talk all about:

• Four big myths of authentic leadership
• How authentic leadership doesn’t equal oversharing unnecessarily
• How authentic leadership is not a permission slip to be rude
• A new approach to finding your unique leadership style

Developing the ability to hold space for effective coaching conversations allows leaders to empower others to develop themselves and encourage independent problem-solving.

Leaders and organisations that develop coaching skills also see increasingly higher levels of employee engagement, motivation and efficiency.

In this episode, I talk to Kristy Battista, CTO at Allume Energy.

Together we explore:

• How to develop your coaching skills
  
• The benefits of the “leader as a coach” style
  
• The key to deep listening
  
• Important tips about asking the right questions
  

How can we set boundaries as a leader, at work, in business and in life?

In this episode, I am talking to Carina O’Brien, a wife, employee and founder of Working Mumma - a community & podcast.

Together we will discuss:

• The different types of boundaries
• Why it is essential to set our boundaries
• How to define your boundaries and communicate these
• Lots of examples and tips to set boundaries at work, in business or life
  

How can we position ourselves and build a strong Leadership Brand in 2021?

In this episode, I am talking to my friend, award-winning business leader, engineer and entrepreneur Felicity Furey to explore what is key to develop our leadership brand this year.

Together we will cover:

• What makes a strong leadership brand?
  
• What is going to be the key in 2021? (Especially after the big influence Covid-19 had on us all in 2020)
  
• How can we best position ourselves as leaders this year?
  

If you would like to get started with developing your leadership brand, download this free workbook to get clear on your core values:

Do you feel safe to speak up in meetings, even if your opinion or idea might be going against the view of your manager? This is where the essence of psychological safety comes into play.

If the answer is no, your workplace or team may be lacking when it comes to creating psychological safety.

Today, we’re diving into what this means and why it’s important to build a more psychologically safe environment for your team.

In this episode, I talk about:

• What psychological safety means
• Why psychological safety is important
• What the benefits of psychological safety in your team are
• Strategies you can implement to build a more psychologically safe environment for your team

People with a growth mindset believe that their brain and talent is just a starting point and from there they can study, practice and grow to achieve anything that they envision. Pretty powerful, right? So in today’s episode, I’m talking about how we can foster a growth mindset, as well as some tips on how to maintain it.

In this episode, I talk about:

• What a Growth mindset is
• Fixed vs Growth mindsets
• Embracing challenges & obstacles
• How the success of others can tell us about our mindset
• Building our own self-awareness
• Tips on how to maintain a growth mindset
  

2020 was a challenging year for many of us, but it was also a year that brought us new opportunities to grow and develop our leadership skills.

There are some key leadership lessons I have learned through the work with my clients and for myself as a business owner.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why empathy has proven to be one of the most important leadership skills
  
• Effective Communication skills leaders have learned
  
• The power of Connection
  
• How leaders have learned to be more adaptable
  
• The importance of leading by example
  

As we near the end of the year, a topic that’s on a lot of people’s minds are Performance Reviews and setting objectives for the new year. Whether you’re the employee or the manager, this process can be quite daunting and stressful, so I’m sharing with you today my top tips for having effective (and not awkward!) Performance Reviews.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Being mindful the extraordinary difficulties of 2020 we’ve all faced and how that may have affected employee performance
• The importance of investing in training yourself
• How to get prepared for Performance Reviews
• Investing in your Emotional Intelligence
• How to set clear expectations and define success
• Frameworks for providing effective feedback
  

This week I’m talking all about how to build your Resilience Support Kit as a Leader so you can be ready for challenges and lead your team through challenging times. I’ll be running you through the seven C’s for Resilience.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why having a Resilience Support Kit is important
• The seven C’s for Resilience
• How confidence and competence helps to build your Resilience
• Reflecting on who can support you during challenging times
• Why having clear core values helps build your Resilience
• What is your purpose and how it can help you to stay motivated when things get tough
• Having coping strategies to look after yourself
• How to focus on what you can control

If we want to lead with integrity and authenticity, we have to live by our values, and our values drive our motivation, passion and the energy we bring to our work. So, in this episode I talk all about what leadership values are, the benefits of leading with our values and how to lead with your leadership values so you can be an authentic leader.

In this episode, I talk about:

• What are leadership values
• The benefits of leading with our values
• How to identify our values
• How to lead with our values
• How to create a value-based culture
  

Leading our teams through times of uncertainty and change can be challenging. As leaders, we might be going through the same doubts as our team members and not everyone will be ready for the change.

Gallup has defined 4 basic needs of your team that will support the team to embrace the change.

In this episode, I will share 4 of my top tips so you can feel more confident with leading through change and uncertainty.

In this episode, I talk about:

• The importance of having strategies for self-management during times of uncertainty
• Being authentic and honest during change while managing your emotions
• Leading with compassion during times of change
• Providing stability for your team members
• Sharing positive thoughts and providing hope
  

The truth is teams are complex and managing teams can be difficult. Today I’m talking about the 5 most common dysfunctions of a team and how you can manage those to build an effective team.

In this episode, I talk all about:

• What the 5 most common dysfunctions of a team are
• What you can do as a leader if you have lack of trust in your team
• How to encourage positive conflict within your team
• What to do if a team member is showing a lack of commitment
• Why accountability is important within a team
• How to help team members identify themselves with the team goals
  

Harnessing the power of Emotional Intelligence in your communication creates incredible impact and is a vital skill to be a courageous Leader. In this episode I talk about 3 ways to use Emotional Intelligence to communicate with impact.

In this episode, I talk all about:

• What impactful communication means
• How to use Emotional Intelligence to communicate with more impact
• Why self control is important in communication
• The role empathy plays in Emotional Intelligence and communication
• How to invest and build relationships to truly engage in meaningful communication

To have impact on other people, we have to lead ourselves first, so today, we’re diving into why Self Leadership is key to becoming a Courageous Leader and the different elements that make up Self Leadership.

In this episode, I talk all about:

• Why Self Leadership is key to becoming a Courageous Leader
• What having Self Leadership looks like
• The role self awareness plays in helping us to have Self Leadership
• The role of self actualization in Self Leadership

Welcome to Lead Like YOU! The Courageous Leadership Podcast with Anne Koopmann. This podcast is to support emerging leaders and small business owners to step up with confidence and lead with impact!

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your IG stories and tag me @annekoopmann_leadlikeyou

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