In Episode 3 I share an excerpt from a webinar I taught for my friend Nicky Christmas’ Virtual Summit on PracticallyPerfectPa.com in June of 2018.
I talk about 3 tensions assistants must learn to manage well if they want to become Leader Assistants.
For this episode, I have a transcript of that session I thought I’d share so check it out below.
LEADERSHIP QUOTE
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
– John C. Maxwell
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EPISODE 3 TRANSCRIPT
Today I’m going to talk about a challenging scenario that taught me how to manage 3 tensions and how each of those tensions forced me to become a leader.
Ok, before I get started, I thought I’d share a bit about myself.
I’m an extroverted introvert who loves Jesus, my wife Meghan, my sons Weston and Silas, spending time with family and friends, coming up with business ideas, playing music, and the Kansas City Royals baseball team.
Professionally, I have 12+ years of experience as an Executive Assistant supporting fast-paced, high-capacity executives.
Currently I’m EA to the CEO of Capacity here in St. Louis, MO.
We are building an artificial intelligence platform – kind of like Siri or Alexa but for enterprise companies. It has been fun to be part of the AI revolution!
I am also Founder of Go Burrows, LLC where I help executives and assistants accomplish their goals without burning out.
I do this via my blog, group training, one-on-one coaching, and online courses on my website at goburrows.com.
Now for the reason we’re all here!
Today I’m going to share some insights from my last year and a half as an EA at a fast-growing startup.
How Assistants Become Leaders
So let’s jump right in!
In January of 2017, my boss – a very successful serial entrepreneur by the way (he sold his last company for $900mil) – came to me and said,
“I need you to oversee accounting, human resources, and operations for the company. Not forever, but probably for the next 12-18 months… until we can hire an experienced Accountant, Director of HR, and Operations Manager.”
As you can imagine, I was a bit overwhelmed at the thought, but with my prior experience at a fast growing organization, I was confident I could figure it out.
So I said something along the lines of, “To be honest, I don’t enjoy accounting or paperwork, but I’m happy to handle all this so you can focus on building our AI product and selling it. Just know that for your sake – and the company’s – you don’t want me handling all of this long term.”
He appreciated my honesty and committed to hiring a team to take those items off my plate when the time was right.
While I WAS honest with him, I have to admit my internal reaction was something more humorous like, “I’m an introvert, I hate math, and now I get to spend my time working with numbers and people… what could possibly go wrong…?” 🙂
But fast forward to today…
We now have a CFO, Accounting Manager, HR Recruiter, and an Office Manager. So – thankfully – I no longer have to balance our budget or gather onboarding paperwork which is awesome.
Alright, now that you know this story has a happy ending, what did I learn about becoming a leader throughout that time?
How can you tackle a scenario like this?
Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned to become a leader by managing the following 3 tensions:
3 LEADERSHIP TENSIONS
- Proactive VS Reactive
- Flexible VS Focused
- Confident VS Humble
I’m going to talk about these tensions and how “Leader Assistants” as I like to call them, can manage each of one.
Proactive VS Reactive
A Leader Assistant anticipates problems before they arise.
I was proactive in that I kept every receipt, and had a detailed spreadsheet with all reimbursement information. I was anticipating being asked for information about certain expenses by our eventual CFO/Accounting Manager. When our accounting manager was hired and started going through our expenses, guess what? She asked me about several particular expenses, so thankfully I had receipts and detailed spreadsheets to hand over so she was equipped to find the information needed.
When it came to HR, I did the same. I kept our HR files organized and have been able to hand over that workflow more easily because of it.
But I learned I can’t anticipate everything, so I must be reactive as well…
A Leader Assistant quickly tackles problems as they pop up.
As a software startup, 95% of our team members in the first year were software developers. Many were international students who either just graduated or were about to, and who were in America on a H-1B Visa. Come to find out, this complicated the HR / Onboarding process.
Or course, I had little to no experience in Human Resources in general, so I certainly had no idea how the onboarding process worked with international employees.
So I had to react, and react quickly. Thankfully, early on I hired an HR expert to help us get set up with payroll, and employment verifications, etc. So when the time came to tackle the H1-B Visa complexity, I called her and she was able to walk me through the process.
This brings up a bonus lesson learned I want to share.
BONUS LESSON LEARNED
A Leader Assistant Outsources to Experts
There was no use pretending I knew everything, or that I could do it on my own. Sure, I could have spent a week researching H1-B Visa onboarding to teach myself, but remember — I was also the full-time EA to the CEO. So I couldn’t just drop everything to become an H1-B Visa expert.
Sometimes there are items we need to become experts in, but I made the game-time decision that this was not a topic I needed to spend my time mastering.
So I outsourced. I hired an HR expert I used to work with (so I trusted her) to handle this difficult aspects of human resources for the first year.
If you find yourself stuck on a problem, don’t be afraid to ask for help, and sometimes even hire help.
Ok, back to the tensions…
Flexible VS Focused
A Leader Assistant is willing to do (almost) anything.
As I mentioned, I was not only handling HR and Accounting, but I was the office manager. I had to be extremely adaptable, especially in the first 12 months when the team was small.
So I would take out the trash, assemble a desk, order lunch for meetings, clean the toilets, and whatever else needed to get done on a given day.
BONUS LESSON LEARNED
A Leader Assistant has a positive attitude.
This is pretty straightforward, but a Leader Assistant is someone who serves with a good attitude, no matter the task being done.
It isn’t always easy, but I try to keep a positive attitude no matter what is thrown my way.
A Leader Assistant knows when to say “NO” in order to stay on task.
Focus is crucial to being productive. In today’s distraction-filled world, it’s become more and more difficult to focus on anything for long periods of time.
There were several times in the first 12 months at our startup, where I would ask my boss if I could work from home, so I could lock myself in my home office and get everything done on my to-do list without co-workers pinging me every 20 minutes at the office.
But focus does not just apply to your work environment, it also applies to your to-do list. Are there items on your list that are not allowing you to focus on higher priorities? I would regularly ask my CEO if a certain task was necessary or if it could be pushed back, off-loaded to another team member, or disregarded completely. When a CEO says they want something done, they usually mean it. But not 100% of the time.
So one more bonus Lesson learned…
BONUS LESSON LEARNED
A Leader Assistant asks clarifying questions.
Especially if you haven’t been working with your boss for long, but even if you have for 5+ years, clarify what it is your boss wants to save you both the headache.
I had to do this several times when it came to accounting. I had never worked for a for-profit before, so I knew nothing about how he wanted the books run. I was annoying him with clarifying questions, but in the long run — it has made things easier on our Accounting Manager and CFO since I had things mostly set up the way our CEO wanted it from the get go.
Ok, the final tension can have the most impact on your attitude and performance as a Leader Assistant.
Confident VS Humble
A Leader Assistant knows they have what it takes to get the job done.
Everyone has doubts, that’s just part of being human. But, a Leader Assistant must be confident. As you all know, we assistants are in contact with some of the most confident and powerful people in the world.
How can we expect to lead from our role as assistants without being confident in ourselves and our ability to get the job done?
When my boss first told me I was essentially going to run the company for a while, I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I never once doubted I could do it. Part of the reason I was so confident is because I have been an EA for so long and nothing fazes me anymore. So yes, some of you will gain more confidence the further along in your career.
But if you struggle with doubting you have what it takes, I would encourage you to find someone with more experience, more confidence, and ask them to help you grow your confidence as an EA. It can be as simple as grabbing lunch with a fellow EA and sharing tips and tricks, horror stories and success stories. Or, you can reach out to me or one of the many other amazing Executive Assistant Coaches out there to seek more professional training and coaching to help you gain confidence.
But some assistants don’t struggle with being confident, they have the opposite issue. They are not humble. Another thing I learned is that…
A Leader Assistant is grateful for the opportunity to serve others.
I’ve always been a helper and seem to have been wired to serve others. Not that it’s always easy, but in general I find joy in serving others. There’s something about helping others accomplish their goals that gets me up in the morning.
Good leaders must first become good servants.
– Robert Greenleaf
Having humility is so crucial to becoming a Leader. You cannot help others if you’re not willing to set aside your pride.
Jim Yong Kim says it well…
No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better – because your job is to try to help everybody else get better.
-Jim Yong Kim
Being humble means asking for and applying feedback from others, and also admitting when you screw up.
It doesn’t matter how confident you are, or how capable you are at doing your job, you will screw up.
The question is:
Will you let your screw ups humble you, or will your pride get in the way of you becoming a respected Leader?
To recap, this challenging scenario taught me how to manage these 3 tensions…
3 LEADERSHIP TENSIONS
- Proactive VS Reactive
- Flexible VS Focused
- Confident VS Humble
I hope this episode helps you work within these tensions as well!
—
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:03.520
<v SPEAKER_1>Welcome to episode three of The Leader Assistant Podcast.
00:00:04.380 –> 00:00:08.260
<v SPEAKER_1>Today’s leadership quote comes from John Maxwell.
00:00:08.600 –> 00:00:12.800
<v SPEAKER_1>A leader is one that knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
00:00:15.900 –> 00:00:23.620
<v SPEAKER_2>The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become irreplaceable, game-changing leader assistants.
00:00:24.660 –> 00:00:26.960
<v SPEAKER_1>And here’s your host, my dad.
00:00:28.200 –> 00:00:29.980
JEREMY: Hey everyone, welcome to episode three.
00:00:30.720 –> 00:00:49.160
JEREMY: Today’s episode is special in that I taught a webinar for my friend Nikki Christmas at practicallyperfectpa.com a while back, and I’m going to play back a part of that talk.
00:00:49.420 –> 00:00:55.300
JEREMY: And then you can check out the show notes at leaderassistant.com forward slash three.
00:00:55.680 –> 00:00:59.860
JEREMY: To get a copy of the outline in case you missed something.
00:00:59.900 –> 00:01:03.760
JEREMY: But I talk about how assistants become leaders.
00:01:04.120 –> 00:01:08.080
JEREMY: I share a little bit about life at my startup in St.
00:01:08.100 –> 00:01:17.580
JEREMY: Louis, and it’s hopefully helpful to you all as I wore different hats and learned how to manage three different tensions that I’ll talk about.
00:01:18.080 –> 00:01:23.220
JEREMY: So without further ado, here’s a clip from one of my webinar teaching sessions.
00:01:23.960 –> 00:01:25.000
JEREMY: And I hope you enjoy it.
00:01:25.160 –> 00:01:30.440
JEREMY: Also, I’d really appreciate it if you take a few minutes to leave a review on iTunes.
00:01:30.660 –> 00:01:38.900
JEREMY: It would really help get the word out, help the show rank better in iTunes and show up in search results better.
00:01:38.920 –> 00:01:48.320
JEREMY: So just go to iTunes on your computer, or you can review via the podcasts app on your iPhone.
00:01:49.220 –> 00:01:52.840
JEREMY: Okay, let’s jump right in to how assistants become leaders.
00:01:54.760 –> 00:02:02.680
JEREMY: Today I’m going to talk about a challenging scenario that taught me how to manage three tensions and how each of those tensions forced me to become a leader.
00:02:03.340 –> 00:02:05.960
JEREMY: But before I get started, I thought I’d share a bit about myself.
00:02:06.600 –> 00:02:16.080
JEREMY: I’m an extroverted introvert who loves Jesus, my wife Megan, my sons Weston and Silas, spending time with family and friends in the Kansas City Royals baseball team.
00:02:16.520 –> 00:02:23.980
JEREMY: Professionally, I have almost 10 years of experience as an executive assistant supporting fast-paced, high-capacity executives.
00:02:24.600 –> 00:02:34.820
JEREMY: I’m also the founder and executive coach at GoBurrows, where I help executives and assistants accomplish their goals without burning out.
00:02:35.620 –> 00:02:41.300
JEREMY: I do this via my blog, group training, one-on-one coaching with executives and assistants.
00:02:41.820 –> 00:02:47.580
JEREMY: Today, I’m going to share some insights from my last year and a half as an EA at a fast-growing startup.
00:02:48.120 –> 00:02:49.120
JEREMY: So let’s jump right in.
00:02:50.200 –> 00:03:06.880
JEREMY: In January of 2017, my boss, a very successful serial entrepreneur, by the way, he sold his last company for $900 million, came to me and said, I need you to oversee accounting, human resources, and operations for the company.
00:03:07.260 –> 00:03:09.980
JEREMY: Not forever, but probably for the next 12 to 18 months.
00:03:10.900 –> 00:03:15.940
JEREMY: At least until we can hire an experienced accountant, director of HR, and operations manager.
00:03:16.380 –> 00:03:25.000
JEREMY: As you can imagine, I was a bit overwhelmed at the thought, but with my prior experience at a fast growing organization, I was confident I could figure it out at least.
00:03:25.680 –> 00:03:36.440
JEREMY: So I said something along the lines of, to be honest, I don’t enjoy accounting or paperwork, but I’m happy to handle all this so you can focus on building our AI product and selling it.
00:03:37.520 –> 00:03:43.320
JEREMY: Just know that for your sake and the company’s, you probably don’t want me handling all of this long term.
00:03:44.160 –> 00:03:50.700
JEREMY: He appreciated my honesty and committed to hiring a team to take those items off my plate when the time was right.
00:03:51.500 –> 00:04:05.760
JEREMY: While I was honest with him, I have to admit my internal reaction was something more humorous like, I’m an introvert, I hate math, and now I get to spend my time working with numbers and people.
00:04:05.780 –> 00:04:08.160
JEREMY: Well, what could possibly go wrong?
00:04:09.340 –> 00:04:17.240
JEREMY: But fast forward 17 months, we now have a CFO, an accounting manager, an HR recruiter, and even an office manager.
00:04:17.660 –> 00:04:23.220
JEREMY: So thankfully, I no longer have to balance our budget or gather onboarding paperwork, which is amazing.
00:04:23.460 –> 00:04:31.280
JEREMY: All right, now that you know the story has a happy ending, what did I learn about becoming a leader throughout that time?
00:04:32.160 –> 00:04:34.640
JEREMY: And how can you tackle a scenario like this?
00:04:35.760 –> 00:04:41.400
JEREMY: Over the past 17 months, I learned to become a leader by managing the following three tensions.
00:04:41.760 –> 00:04:44.980
JEREMY: The first was proactive versus reactive.
00:04:46.740 –> 00:04:49.360
JEREMY: Second is flexible versus focused.
00:04:50.500 –> 00:04:53.200
JEREMY: And the third is confident versus humble.
00:04:54.320 –> 00:05:01.920
JEREMY: So I’m going to talk about these three tensions and how Leader Assistants, as I like to call them, can manage each one.
00:05:03.160 –> 00:05:07.400
JEREMY: The first one is proactive versus reactive.
00:05:07.420 –> 00:05:13.060
JEREMY: I believe that a Leader Assistant anticipates problems before they arise.
00:05:14.560 –> 00:05:15.380
JEREMY: Here’s an example.
00:05:15.400 –> 00:05:23.840
JEREMY: I was very proactive in that I kept every receipt and had a detailed spreadsheet with all reimbursement information.
00:05:24.120 –> 00:05:32.120
JEREMY: I was anticipating being asked for information about certain expenses via our eventual CFO or accounting manager.
00:05:33.040 –> 00:05:36.740
JEREMY: When our accounting manager was hired and started going through our expenses, guess what?
00:05:37.040 –> 00:05:40.720
JEREMY: She asked me about several specific expenses.
00:05:40.840 –> 00:05:47.120
JEREMY: So thankfully, I had receipts and detailed spreadsheets to hand over so she was equipped to find the information needed.
00:05:48.660 –> 00:05:53.120
JEREMY: I also learned that being proactive isn’t everything.
00:05:54.320 –> 00:05:56.520
JEREMY: I can’t anticipate everything.
00:05:57.280 –> 00:06:00.520
JEREMY: So I must learn to be reactive as well.
00:06:02.120 –> 00:06:07.320
JEREMY: I believe that a leader assistant quickly tackles problems as they pop up.
00:06:08.260 –> 00:06:13.940
JEREMY: For example, as a software startup, 95% of our team members in the first year were software developers.
00:06:14.200 –> 00:06:25.380
JEREMY: Many were international students who either just graduated or were about to and who were in America on an H1B visa.
00:06:25.740 –> 00:06:30.940
JEREMY: Come to find out, this is a very complicated HR onboarding process.
00:06:32.080 –> 00:06:41.400
JEREMY: Of course, I had little to no experience in human resources in general, so I certainly had no idea how the onboarding process worked with international employees.
00:06:42.040 –> 00:06:44.420
JEREMY: So I had to react, and I had to react quickly.
00:06:45.560 –> 00:06:53.960
JEREMY: Thankfully, early on, I hired an HR expert to help us get set up with payroll and employment verifications, etc.
00:06:54.580 –> 00:07:03.000
JEREMY: So when the time came to tackle the H1B visa complexity, I called her and she was able to walk me through the process or handle some of it on her own.
00:07:04.380 –> 00:07:07.000
JEREMY: So that brings me to a bonus lesson that I learned.
00:07:08.080 –> 00:07:11.200
JEREMY: A leader assistant outsources to experts.
00:07:12.100 –> 00:07:16.500
JEREMY: There was no use pretending I knew everything or that I could do it on my own.
00:07:17.080 –> 00:07:28.960
JEREMY: Sure, I could have spent a week researching H1B visa onboarding to teach myself, but remember, I was also the full-time EA to the CEO, so I couldn’t just drop everything to become an H1B visa expert.
00:07:29.800 –> 00:07:37.580
JEREMY: Sometimes there are items we need to become experts in, sure, but I made the game time decision that this was not a topic I needed to spend my time mastering.
00:07:38.960 –> 00:07:39.960
JEREMY: So I outsourced it.
00:07:39.980 –> 00:07:48.160
JEREMY: I hired an HR expert I used to work with to handle this difficult aspect of human resources for the first year.
00:07:48.340 –> 00:07:54.420
JEREMY: In summary, if you find yourself stuck on a problem, don’t be afraid to ask for help and sometimes even hire help.
00:07:55.100 –> 00:07:56.440
JEREMY: Okay, back to the tensions.
00:07:56.920 –> 00:07:59.860
JEREMY: The next one is flexible versus focused.
00:08:01.160 –> 00:08:05.360
JEREMY: Flexible Assistant is willing to do almost anything.
00:08:06.820 –> 00:08:10.820
JEREMY: As I mentioned, I was not only handling HR and accounting, but I was the office manager.
00:08:11.120 –> 00:08:16.140
JEREMY: I had to be extremely adaptable, especially in the first 12 months when the team was small.
00:08:16.660 –> 00:08:24.940
JEREMY: So I would take out the trash, assemble a desk, order lunch for meetings, clean the toilets, and whatever else was needed to get done on a given day.
00:08:26.360 –> 00:08:28.800
JEREMY: So I’m going to actually share another bonus lesson.
00:08:29.380 –> 00:08:32.640
JEREMY: A leader assistant has to have a positive attitude.
00:08:33.180 –> 00:08:38.760
JEREMY: This is pretty straightforward, but a leader assistant is someone who serves with a good attitude no matter the task being done.
00:08:39.560 –> 00:08:43.520
JEREMY: It isn’t always easy, but I try to keep a positive attitude no matter what is thrown my way.
00:08:44.180 –> 00:08:46.660
JEREMY: So a leader assistant is willing to do almost anything.
00:08:46.680 –> 00:08:47.300
JEREMY: They’re flexible.
00:08:47.900 –> 00:08:53.860
JEREMY: But a leader assistant also knows when to say no in order to stay on task, i.e.
00:08:53.880 –> 00:08:54.980
JEREMY: they need to be focused.
00:08:55.540 –> 00:08:57.920
JEREMY: Focus is crucial to being productive.
00:08:58.380 –> 00:09:04.880
JEREMY: In today’s distraction-filled world, it’s become more and more difficult to focus on anything for long periods of time.
00:09:06.180 –> 00:09:22.080
JEREMY: There were several times in the first 12 months at our startup where I would ask my boss if I could work from home so I could lock myself in my home office and get everything done on my to-do list without coworkers pinging me every 20 minutes or every 2 minutes at the office.
00:09:23.080 –> 00:09:25.720
JEREMY: But focus does not just apply to your work environment.
00:09:25.960 –> 00:09:27.660
JEREMY: It also applies to your to-do list.
00:09:27.760 –> 00:09:31.600
JEREMY: Are there items on your list that are not allowing you to focus on higher priorities?
00:09:32.380 –> 00:09:42.020
JEREMY: I would regularly ask my CEO if a certain task was necessary or if it could be pushed back, offloaded to another team member, or disregarded completely.
00:09:42.560 –> 00:09:47.560
JEREMY: When a CEO says they want something done, they usually mean it, but not 100% of the time.
00:09:47.920 –> 00:09:55.800
JEREMY: So another bonus lesson learned, a leader assistant asks clarifying questions, especially if you haven’t worked with your boss for long.
00:09:56.400 –> 00:10:04.160
JEREMY: But even if you have worked for 5-10 years with your executive, clarify what it is your boss wants to save you both the headache.
00:10:04.320 –> 00:10:06.820
JEREMY: I had to do this several times when it came to accounting.
00:10:07.280 –> 00:10:12.360
JEREMY: I had never worked for a for-profit before, so I knew nothing about how he wanted the books run.
00:10:13.000 –> 00:10:16.820
JEREMY: I was annoying him with clarifying questions over and over and over.
00:10:17.660 –> 00:10:26.480
JEREMY: But in the long run, it has made things easier on our accounting manager and CFO, since I had things mostly set up the way our CEO wanted from the get-go.
00:10:27.520 –> 00:10:33.940
JEREMY: Okay, the final tension can have the most impact on your attitude and performance as a leader assistant.
00:10:34.860 –> 00:10:37.240
JEREMY: It’s being confident versus being humble.
00:10:37.960 –> 00:10:39.360
JEREMY: Let’s start with being confident.
00:10:40.060 –> 00:10:44.400
JEREMY: A leader assistant knows they have what it takes to get the job done.
00:10:44.560 –> 00:10:45.380
JEREMY: Let me say that again.
00:10:46.380 –> 00:10:53.040
JEREMY: A leader assistant knows they have what it takes to get the job done.
00:10:54.360 –> 00:10:55.620
JEREMY: Sure, everyone has doubts.
00:10:55.640 –> 00:10:57.200
JEREMY: That’s just part of being human.
00:10:58.040 –> 00:11:00.520
JEREMY: But a leader assistant must be confident.
00:11:01.100 –> 00:11:06.140
JEREMY: As you all know, we assistants are in contact with some of the most confident and powerful people in the world.
00:11:06.540 –> 00:11:14.120
JEREMY: How can we expect to lead from our role as assistants without being confident in ourselves and our ability to get the job done?
00:11:14.480 –> 00:11:22.380
JEREMY: When my boss first told me I was essentially going to run the company for a while, I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I never once doubted I could do it.
00:11:23.000 –> 00:11:28.700
JEREMY: Part of the reason I was so confident is because I have been an EA for so long that nothing fazes me anymore.
00:11:29.680 –> 00:11:33.120
JEREMY: So yes, some of you will gain more confidence the further along in your career.
00:11:33.780 –> 00:11:43.360
JEREMY: But if you struggle with doubting you have what it takes, I would encourage you to find someone with more experience, more confidence, and ask them to help you grow your confidence as an EA.
00:11:44.000 –> 00:11:51.940
JEREMY: It can be as simple as grabbing lunch with a fellow EA and sharing tips and tricks, horror stories, and success stories.
00:11:52.640 –> 00:12:01.640
JEREMY: Or you can reach out to me or one of the many other amazing executive assistant coaches out there to seek more professional training and coaching to help you gain confidence.
00:12:02.680 –> 00:12:05.120
JEREMY: But some assistants don’t struggle with being confident.
00:12:05.440 –> 00:12:06.640
JEREMY: They have the opposite issue.
00:12:07.280 –> 00:12:08.800
JEREMY: They are not humble.
00:12:09.740 –> 00:12:19.340
JEREMY: So another thing that I learned is that a leader assistant is grateful for the opportunity to serve others.
00:12:19.700 –> 00:12:20.640
JEREMY: I’m going to say that again.
00:12:20.820 –> 00:12:25.720
JEREMY: A leader assistant is grateful for the opportunity to serve others.
00:12:26.900 –> 00:12:32.620
JEREMY: This isn’t in my notes, but if you’re not grateful for the opportunity to serve others, you may be in the wrong profession.
00:12:32.640 –> 00:12:34.660
JEREMY: All right, back to my notes.
00:12:35.280 –> 00:12:39.280
JEREMY: I’ve always been a helper and seem to have been wired to serve others.
00:12:39.700 –> 00:12:43.240
JEREMY: Not that it’s always easy, but in general I find joy in serving others.
00:12:43.960 –> 00:12:48.560
JEREMY: There’s something about helping others accomplish their goals that gets me up in the morning.
00:12:49.060 –> 00:12:55.340
JEREMY: Robert Greenleaf says, Good leaders must first become good servants.
00:12:55.800 –> 00:12:59.040
JEREMY: So having humility is so crucial to becoming a leader.
00:12:59.160 –> 00:13:02.760
JEREMY: You cannot help others if you’re not willing to set aside your pride.
00:13:03.140 –> 00:13:05.760
JEREMY: Jim Young Kim says it well.
00:13:06.780 –> 00:13:15.080
JEREMY: No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better.
00:13:15.540 –> 00:13:24.640
JEREMY: So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better.
00:13:25.180 –> 00:13:29.120
JEREMY: Because your job is to try to help everybody else get better.
00:13:30.640 –> 00:13:35.320
JEREMY: Being humble means asking for and applying feedback from others.
00:13:36.060 –> 00:13:38.320
JEREMY: And it also means admitting when you screw up.
00:13:38.400 –> 00:13:42.320
JEREMY: It doesn’t matter how confident you are or how capable you are at doing your job.
00:13:42.480 –> 00:13:43.400
JEREMY: You will screw up.
00:13:43.660 –> 00:13:44.780
JEREMY: You will make mistakes.
00:13:45.460 –> 00:13:55.100
JEREMY: The question is, will you let your mistakes humble you, or will your pride get in the way of you becoming a respected leader?
00:13:55.260 –> 00:14:00.400
JEREMY: To recap, this challenging scenario taught me how to manage these three tensions.
00:14:01.380 –> 00:14:08.120
JEREMY: Proactive versus reactive, flexible versus focused, and confident versus humble.
00:14:08.800 –> 00:14:11.960
JEREMY: I hope today’s session helps you work within these tensions as well.
00:14:12.380 –> 00:14:12.900
JEREMY: Bye for now.
00:14:16.740 –> 00:14:21.580
<v SPEAKER_2>Check out this episode’s show notes at leaderassistant.com forward slash three.
