Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome to another amazing episode of Inspired Action where we dive into the most pressing leadership challenges and hope to inspire you to take a more coach, center and people focused approach to leadership. I'm your host, Kyle Pertwee, and it's time to get started with our three amazing guests for today. Hey everybody. Welcome back to this week's edition of Inspired Action. I'm your host, Kyle Pertwee, and I'm here today with three amazing guests to answer this question. What do you do when the loudest and most confident voice in the room is also the one that's holding back the team? But first, let me do a quick introduction to these guests. First of all, Karen, we know why. Preston Professional certified coach and founding president of EMCC USA, Linda Salazar. Founder and master corporate trainer at Bright Trainer, where she helps organizations supercharge their engagement and productivity by showing them how to create effective employee training. Last but not least, Jeremy York, keynote speaker, author and consultant. Jeremy is the lead consultant and president of Invigorate, Invigorate HR and co-author of the Joy Powered Organization. And man, I am thrilled to have the combination of expertise that you guys are bringing and that diving into this question and Linda, I think it was. Help proclaim. But you kind of knew that drew the short end of the stick to go first. So here is your question one more time. What do you what do you do when the loudest and most confident voice in the room is maybe the one that's also holding the team back? Ohh, it happens, right? First is to assume good intent, assume that this person is well meaning. And so when you assume that, then you can just redirect. So I might go up to that person and give them a different task or maybe they just feel like they need to be heard. So I would kind of see what's going on. Depends on, you know, of course, the situation. That I might say, hey, you know, great idea. Can you go write me up some pros and cons on that idea? I'd like to explore it further so that person then feels validated that ohh, well the boss wants to hear my idea. Let me you know, go develop it a little bit and then I can work with the rest of the group like OK, well what other ideas do we have? Or I might just put that person in charge and say, hey, great idea, can you help me get 2 more? Ideas from the rest of the team and bring it back. So kind of deputizing that person, giving them more responsibility. A lot of times that can make them, you know, feel useful like they're contributing and maybe they just didn't know other than, you know, saying they're they're. Point of view over and over. They weren't feeling hurt. So this might be a way to make them feel heard, make them feel valued because you always want all your team members to have that feeling about you as opposed to, you know, oh, well, you need to shut up. You need to sit down. You need to be quiet. Let other people talk. When you're admonishing that person, you really are stifling that person's creativity going forward, and you're also showing the rest of the team. That if they speak up too loudly, that's how they're going to be treated and that's when you're not going to get any more ideas out of that team. They're they're going to shut down on you. So yeah, I would say deputize, redirect that person and. Next time, maybe their idea is the right one. Who knows? I like it because I think what I hear is, is that energy is contagious, right? If in in your response, if, if arrogance is taken in admonishing that individual, that's probably going to be the energy that spreads. And, and I think your other point there around sometimes the loudest voice needs a listening assignment, You know, go find the other solutions from other people as powerful as well. Let's jump over to Karen. Karen, what would you add to this question as it relates to when the the loudest voice or loudest or most confident voice may also be the one that's. That's holding you back. Yeah. So I think I love Linda's approach in this and that's certainly assuming good intentions, I think is great being able to kind of help redirect and bring the voices into the room. I think from my coaching team coaching background, my question might be something like. To the team itself asking what is emerging in the energy collectively and where might there be an opportunity to shift? So instead of me calling this out, having the actual team itself emerge, what is happening in this and and having the team then identify where those opportunities might lie in, in terms of maybe some tweaks and perhaps some pivots. If there isn't anything that bubbles up from that, then I would maybe kind of take a little bit more of a proactive approach and ask, you know what, what, how do we value all of the voices in the room and how well might we be honoring all of those voices? And just again, stay in that really high level coach approach and ask to to, you know, hopefully someone will be able to say and surface some opportunities to umm, to balance the voices in the room a little better. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. I think, you know, you're kind of your opening statement speaks to leadership isn't really about winning the room, it's about lifting it right. And I think when you when you can bring that, that collective. Assuming that the, the, the psychological safety is there for that, that communication to exist, right? Absolutely. It's about how do we take that and lift it and, and maybe coach through it collectively to move to solution. I love it. Jeremy, let's jump over to you. What, umm, what would you add to these two ladies perspectives as it relates to the loudest and most confident voice maybe actually being the one that that holds the team back? Yeah. And you know, I think I'm very much in alignment with what Linda and Karen had kind of said, especially that that aspect of let's kind of assume good intent. What I like to coach leaders on and kind of share with them is like, start with curiosity and not confrontation. Let's really understand the why. Behind this individual that might have the loudest voice or me the first one to answer. Because I think a lot of times when I'm seeing is that the person thinks they're helping other people by jumping in and getting it going or like, hey, just wanna kind of ideate with people and get it all out in the open. When a lot of times they're stepping on other people's opportunity to actually share their perspective. So I think thinking about it and trying to understand from that curiosity standpoint is really, really important. I also think it's important to maybe put in some structured, what I want to say structured decision making processes. And what I mean by that is, you know, if we're dealing with a team and we're trying to get everyone to participate and we've got one person who might be domineering or dominate that conversation about being able to say, oh, well, you know, and I'm just going to use you, Kyle, as the example. I'm going to say, oh, thank you, Kyle. I appreciate your perspective. But you know, Linda or Karen, we haven't heard from you yet. You know what, what might you? Have to say about this, I'm really interested in hearing your perspective on this. And so a lot of times it's being able to know as the leader that hey, I'm going to have to pull in some of these other folks. Sometimes, you know, even though I might createspace, right, they still may not feel as comfortable. And you mentioned, Kyle, that psychological safety, they still might not feel as comfortable with the group and feel like they have that full psychological safety. They may want to be able to be vulnerable or to put those ideas. That are out there and I think it's important for us to empower those team members to stand up and share their perspective and almost help them understand that it's it might be an expectation of being part of this team that everyone collaborates and everyone shares that perspective. So I I think that this is as Linda alluded to yeah, this does happen it is a challenge at times and a lot of managers are taken back or leaders are taken back when this does happen and. They don't know what to do. And I think, you know, all of these points that we've discussed here today are always to be able to help break that ice and into deal with some of those issues that might come up. Yeah, Yeah, it's so good. And I think it's it as you were describing that it's really elevated awareness around the leader in the room to make that observation and see what is a dynamic. How, how is this individual who maybe with good intent, positive intent is trying to bring positive solution and is just more confident and comfortable than some of the others. Or over time, maybe people in that room have just silenced because somebody else is always speaking, right. And so owning that room and being observant and aware is the leader to facilitate. That collaboration, I think becomes really, really critical. And so maybe maybe we summarize that and saying turn down the noise and turn up the listening and the truth, right? And, and bring that to the table when it may feel like it's a little bit lopsided. And just a quick question, Kyle, because I think we could all probably speak to the fact that oftentimes the leader actually reveres this kind of behavior. And there is like those of us as coaches can see this and spot that maybe there's some imbalance in the room, but really how do we help the leader? Figure out how to recognize those moments to elevate the the voice and quiet right. So so I think one of the things that from from our perspective here is revering the loudest, most gregarious voice that presents very well is, you know, oftentimes does it's a destructive hero in some sense of the word. Yeah, I love that and that last little piece. Actually, I'm prompted me for the question I'm gonna ask next. But you guys out there on LinkedIn are going to have to wait and TuneIn on the YouTube channel to find out because that's all the time we have today. Thank you guys so much for joining me. Be sure to tune in every Thursday at noon Central for the latest episode of Inspired Action Have a great day. That's a wrap for another edition of Inspired Action, the Leadership Forecast. We're so grateful for our guest today and the impact they're making with the work they do. Be sure to check out. YouTube channel to watch the longer version of this episode and be sure to like, comment, connect with, and follow me and each of our guests. You'll find all of our links in the caption of this video. Thanks for watching and be sure to tune in every Thursday at noon Central, 1:00 PM Eastern for new apps.