The Finance Leader Podcast

078: Leaders Should Publish Leadership Tips to Help Grow Future Leaders

February 22, 2022 Stephen McLain Season 9 Episode 8
The Finance Leader Podcast
078: Leaders Should Publish Leadership Tips to Help Grow Future Leaders
Show Notes Transcript

The greatest responsibility we have is to grow other leaders so I want to encourage you to share your leadership tips by publishing them to reach a greater audience. Never stop trying to positively influence the next generation of leaders. 

Episode outline:

  1. Growing others is our greatest responsibility,
  2. Share so you can positively influence, 
  3. Publishing helps you grow as a leader, and
  4. Methods of sharing and publishing.



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Stephen McLain:

I believe that leaders should be communicating about how to grow their leadership continually. So they never miss an opportunity to help to grow others and also to positively influence their organizations and other leaders. The greatest responsibility we have is to grow other leaders. So I want to encourage you to share your leadership tips by publishing them, so you reach a greater audience. Never stop trying to positively influence the next generation of leaders. Please enjoy the episode. Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host Stephen McLain. This is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. Please consider following me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. My usernames and the links are in this episode's show notes. And also, please join the Facebook group that I have for this podcast community. Thank you. This is episode number 78. And I'll be talking about how leaders should be publishing in order to positively influence their organization and to grow future leaders. And I will highlight the following topics. Number one, growing others is our greatest responsibility. Number two, share so you can positively influence. Number three, publishing helps you grow as a leader and four methods of sharing and publishing. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, do not follow where the path may lead, go. Instead, where there is no path and leave a trail leaders create a pathway for their team and others to follow. And that pathway may very well be a new pathway, because that is what leaders do. They create a pathway even when facing adversity and challenges. And also when no pathway seems possible, the great leaders step up when no one else can and will be willing to do so. This week, I am encouraging all of you as leaders to talk about the subject of leadership, and to publish your thoughts about it, or at least share them in some meaningful way that helps others. There are many ways to share your thoughts on leadership. And we will cover those later in the episode. What I want you to share so you can help others so you can help positively influence something going on in your life or career and to also help yourself develop your own leadership ability. When you discuss leadership, you will be amazed by how much you learn about leadership and you learn about yourself. You learn about your mindset, any biases you may have, how to be better when handling conflict or adversity, you will learn a lot about what motivates you and even what scares you. And this is good, you may find out something really disturbing about yourself, which may include how you perceive others. This is good, as long as you identify it, assess it, and then develop a plan to correct it. Never stop learning about yourself so you can improve your approach to others. Leadership is still the best conduit to making a positive difference in your organization, and on your team. Leading is the commitment to creating a positive work environment to foster personal growth. To think about the organization as a whole. And to bridge gaps or communication is not happening. It's unselfish leadership that makes the difference. If you do publish your leadership thoughts, you will probably become a subject matter expert in your organization, which could provide more opportunity for you in the long term. I believe that leadership is key to your advancement, I highly recommend you publish leadership content in the form of articles or posts, or maybe even videos if you have time to do that. I wanted to become a leader more than anything because it was my opportunity to help elevate others. And to help the organization to see things it was missing. I embraced it and learned how to think differently, how to see problems differently, and how they can be solved. And to me, it did not matter what role I had at the time, I wanted to lead and to make a positive difference in my workplace so that we could achieve something that seemed just out of reach, that we could be better and how we approached a problem or a challenge. I sought out leadership training and leadership opportunities through the army. And you can find those same opportunities in your organization. It does not have to be the military. People in organizations are hungry for leaders who are committed to excellence. They are hungry to bring in great leaders who are committed to others. I believe that now let's talk about how leaders can share their leadership ideas to grow others in their organization. Number one, growing others is our greatest responsibility. As leaders, we need to invest in the growth and development of our future leaders, which are the people on our team. That's our great obligation to grow others, to grow our team and to make them better to prepare them for greater responsibility. I believe it is an amazing privilege to help our team grow, you get to shape a future leader in the right way. You get to coach and mentor the people in your sphere of influence, to achieve something greater, even when they may not believe in themselves. I want all of us as finance and accounting professionals to lead not just to be technical experts, but to shape and influence our organization. And when we willingly open up about how to lead and how to become a leader, we get to fulfill that vision number to share so you can positively influence the next best leadership responsibility we have after growing others is using our leadership to positively influence something in our life, and in our career. Specifically, we can help to influence the development of strategy in our company, and how that strategy is executed. We can help shape how we commit resources to best ensure the company delivers on what it says it will do. As finance and accounting professionals. We get to do this every day as we analyze and share data. As we communicate our analysis to decision makers, and how we interpret what the data means. I want to always advocate that our leadership is to be used for the greater good for the organization, and how we might see an idea implemented that will help our organization be successful. Develop your ability to combine leadership with your analysis, so you can help other leaders in the company to better execute their part of the strategy. Number three, publishing helps you grow as a leader. If you decide to publish, you will find as you're developing your own thoughts around leadership, and becoming a better leader, you will begin to grow. Also, I love this concept as you invest and grow others, you will also benefit in your own leadership ability because it will happen, you will need to invest in yourself so you can be a better leader for others. This, of course comes with the premise that you believe and will be committed to growing your team, it is a great opportunity to lead others. And when you decide to grow your team and to commit to them and to invest in them, you will also reap the same benefits that you are trying to show them and trying to teach them to become better in the ways of empowering them and to also be able to see problems differently, because you will also grow because as you develop your thoughts and your leadership philosophy, you will have to think about this, you will have to think about how what leadership means to you, and what leadership means to the organization that you are in. So you will always reap those benefits as you commit yourself to growing others. Number four, methods of sharing and publishing. There are many different channels and methods available to publish your leadership thoughts if you choose to. Publishing has never been easier. You have access to free tools through social media. And possibly you have a tool available at work where you can publish. Obvious social media tools include Facebook, where you can publish long posts, and with Twitter, you can post threads. If you have more time to prepare, you can record videos and post to YouTube. And you can even develop and publish a podcast like this one. I would also check with your company's internal website to see if it has a blogging capability. But of course, your audience will be limited along with your influence to only the company that you are employed with. The most ideal way to publish is to set up your own website. And that way you can blog away under something you control. There are some free versions, but they usually come with advertising that you don't control. There are also a few low cost options, where you can set up a simple blogging site that you control and you own medium.com is another great option for writers and leaders. I won't give specific membership details. Since terms can change. I do know people who write everyday on this forum, and they get to have a great impact. Whatever forum you choose, consider who owns the posts in the content you create, and what kind of control you have. Each method comes with a variety of control and ownership. So be aware. If you don't mind some costs, I would always recommend that you publish on digital real estate that you own so you have maximum control and there is no confusion over who owns the content. I know you can make a difference if you share your leadership philosophy and leadership ideas with your team and your organization at a minimal, the wider your share, the greater influence you can have. And that way you can shape the next generation of leaders. I believe that the great leaders published as a way to raise their own level of leadership, and to further establish themselves as a professional, and a subject matter expert. Now for action today. What are your thoughts about publishing your leadership philosophy and leadership tips? What would stop you? Is it confidence? Or do you believe you don't have the time to do it, or you may believe you have nothing to contribute? These are of course excuses. And I really don't like excuses, they limit us excuses limit our long term potential excuses harm us in the long term, even though you think you are protecting yourself. So I encourage you to consider at a minimum, posting the social media, your thoughts on leadership, social media is easily accessible, and easy to publish. Today, I talked about the importance of leaders publishing their leadership, philosophy, and leadership tips. And I highlighted the following points. Number one, growing others is our greatest responsibility. Number two share so you can positively influence number three, publishing helps you grow as a leader in four, I shared methods of sharing and publishing. Becoming a leader is not easy. It takes study and it takes knowing yourself very well. It takes commitment. I'm specifically talking about a servant leadership approach, not what a toxic leader does, but someone who is dedicated to growing others dedicated to making the organization better. And there's nothing wrong with you making gains from your leadership. But I do know that if you take care of your team properly, and ethically, they will take care of you. And what I mean by taking care of your team is that you help them to win, and to become better each day without knowing if you will gain also, you teach and hold them accountable. But you also resource them as best you can. And you coach them through a challenge. The difference is your attitude towards your team. Does your team believe you will want them to win and do well do they? I do believe that by publishing your leadership ideas, you get to have a wider and more continual influence to grow others, which is our greatest responsibility. Now before I end this episode, I want to continue to encourage you to review your goal progress for the year, and to also have the same discussion with your team set up some time to go over goals and their progress. Update your individual development plans with any progress and assess where you want to go this year, including adding any goals you can accomplish this year and beyond. And don't forget that this year, we will commit more time to the important people in our lives. So ensure you are building special events into your calendar. And also please encourage your team to do so. If you're not doing the one on ones I encourage you to go ahead and set up that time at a minimum every other week would be great, so twice a month. But doing one on ones each week would be a great investment in your team. It will show that commitment to ensuring that you want your team members to become better. It is a time commitment. That's incredible. You will get a great return if you go ahead and schedule those one on ones with your teammates. Next week I will be sharing about how leaders can create a positive work environment for their team. This is a great topic. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader podcast dedicated to helping you grow your leadership skills, to change your mindset and to clarify your goals. So you advance your career. You can find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, you can check out more resources at finance leader academy.com and sign up for my weekly updates. You don't miss an episode of the show. And now go lead your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you