Be the Influencer in your Team | Brian Smith | Episode 205

Scott McCarthy [00:00:00]:
Tay in episode two zero five of the peak performance leadership podcast, we speak to business expert Brian Smith, and he’s gonna teach you how you can be the influence in your team. That’s right, folks. It’s all about influencing your team today. Are you ready for this? Alright, Let’s

Scott McCarthy [00:00:19]:
do

Scott McCarthy [00:00:25]:
it. Welcome one. Welcome all to the peak performance leadership podcast. A weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the three domains of leadership. Those being leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization. This podcast couples my twenty years of military experience as a senior Canadian army officer with world class guests bringing you the most complete podcast of leadership going. And for more, feel free to check out our website at movingforwardleadership.com. And with that, let’s get to the show.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:12]:
Yes. Welcome one. Welcome all. It is your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy. It’s so great to have you here for another great podcast episode. Got a great rest lined up for you today. But before we dive in, got a question for you. That’s right.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:31]:
You, talking to you, the listener out there right now. Are you lonely? Are you tired of having a horrible supervisor? Are you tired of not having a place to go to to, you know, talk with other like minded leaders? Right? Do you deal with imposter syndrome? I’m not good enough for this. K. I have the solution for you, And that is getting together with other like minded meat leaders like myself and discussing these issues face to face or as much as what we can do in this day and age. And that is why I’m letting you know that right now, pre sign up, I’ll call it, is open for the leader growth mastermind. That’s right. Leader growth mastermind. I’m gonna be launching this thing in the near future for you, the audience, to help you overcome the hurdles that you’re struggling with on a day to day basis as a leader.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:36]:
Whether that’s leading yourself and not having time for yourself, not having great decision making process. Whether that is leading your team, you’re not communicating effectively, not dealing with conflict effectively. Or leading your organization, you’re having trouble establishing that culture that you want. Having trouble establishing those goals for your culture and getting your team to move towards them. Leader growth mastermind is going to help you overcome all these deficiencies. Why? Because you’re gonna get together with people like myself who have been there, have done it, and gotten past it. But that’s not just it. You’re gonna have the opportunity to help them and help me to grow and be better.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:23]:
Because you’re gonna bring your experience, which is different than everyone else’s. And together, in an iron sharpens iron mentality, we are gonna be the best leaders we can be. So if you’re interested, you wanna sign up to learn more, go to movingforwardleadership.com/mastermind, and you’re gonna join a mailing list. And what that’s gonna do is once more, I’m ready to push out more information. You’re gonna be the first to know. Again, movingforwardleadership.com/mastermind. Get ready because it’s coming, and we are going to move forward together. Alright.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:09]:
Enough of that, let’s dive in today’s episode. So we’re talking to Brian Smith. He’s a business expert. He began his career as accountant, but you know what? Wasn’t for him, so he went on and became a consultant. And he’s essentially helped over 18,000 business owners in his time. 18,000. He’s got a PhD in organizational psychology, a master’s degree in management IT information system, and he’s a certified six sigma master with and black belt consultant. This guy, if he if there’s a qualification for it, you know he’s got it.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:50]:
And today, we talk about well, first off, interesting thing. He’s gone to somewhere crazy. Guess what? Spoiler alert. I’m not going to spoil it. So you’re gonna have to listen to find out this crazy place where he went to. But we talk about why leaders should be the eye team. And when we say eye, we mean the influence in their team. And why it’s important, why smart goals are not the end all and be all, and why understanding your role is crucial, how to delegate like a pro, strategies to find time to be better prepared as the leader, and so much more.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:27]:
Today. You’re going to learn how to be that influencer in your team. All right. So you’re ready for this? All right. So why don’t you sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation about how you can be the influencer in your team with Brian Smith. Brian, welcome to the show. So good to have you here, sir.

Brian Smith [00:06:04]:
Oh, thank you, Scott.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:06]:
So kicking off, I gotta ask this one question. Antarctica? Really? We were just we were just talking before I hit record, and we’re both basically complaining about how cold it is right now. And you are talking about you know, you’ve been to Antarctica. So, one, why? And two, you know, what was that experience like out of curiosity for myself?

Brian Smith [00:06:31]:
Yeah. So, back in the nineties, ‘1 of my first companies, which was an IT and ERP, implementation company, we did work for Noah, and we managed an infrastructure upgrade in one of their sites up in Antarctica. So, it was in the summer, but it was still cold. And, it was an interesting trip to say the least.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:01]:
I can imagine it would be an interesting trip. But that’s that’s pretty neat. That’s, that’s pretty you know, that’s something that not everyone gets to say that they’ve done. You know, very few people in reality get to say that they’ve been to Antarctica. So, nah, kudos to you. Congratulations, I guess. You you know, that kind of check-in the box per se. Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:22]:
Thank you. But but today, you know, we’re we’re you know, that’s that’s neat. But here we are. We’re talking about leadership. We’re talking about hitting peak performance. So leaders out there can, you know, motivate, inspire, deliver results to, you know, their organizations, tutor bosses, but most importantly, you know, of course, to their team. And you wrote a book and, you know, the underline part of the, you know, cover page says, be the I in team. Now how many times have we heard there is no I in team? So where did this come from? You know, that that standpoint.

Brian Smith [00:08:01]:
Yeah. Well, first, it’s a play, obviously, on there is no I in team. And, we have a few beliefs in our work. One is that individual has a dual meaning. One, ourselves as a single person. And two, when we work together, with other people, we are working individually as one together. So we believe that dual meeting is constantly going back and forth. As humans, obviously, you know, we have a propensity to have that I I, you know, me me.

Brian Smith [00:08:38]:
But the reality is is that I am a, the result of all the wheeze in my life. And the I in team is not necessarily individual. It’s influence. And it’s be the influence in those teams and be the influence in whatever that team makes up yourself, if you’re a single person team, or if you’re a bigger part of a of a a lot of different people.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:08]:
No. I actually really like that. And, I wanna hit on the influence part. So, you know, why, you know, is being influential as a leader so important for the leaders out there?

Brian Smith [00:09:26]:
Yeah. Well, for one, it’s important to all people. The biggest responsibility we have as a human is our influence. So understanding that first should set the stage on how important influence is. Take that to the next level when we have authority or responsibility of authority over people. That influence gets escalated. And the responsibility we have is amplified because the ripple effect of our actions, our words, and the things that we do and say every day at all times influences the people that work with us and for us. If it’s peers, if it’s subordinates, if it’s partners, if it’s customers, if it’s vendors.

Brian Smith [00:10:15]:
But our influence as leaders can can have this ripple effect that can, you know, affect lives even unintended. So it’s very important that we understand the influence we wield, especially when we have leadership responsibilities.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:36]:
Yeah. No. I couldn’t I couldn’t agree with you more. And I think that’s probably one of the things that, you know, almost gets underestimate how much influence we actually do have, especially for, the new leaders out there or the very humble leaders out there. They don’t realize the amount of impact that, you know, that they can have on an individual, their life, their family life situation, and not just the work life situation. So with that, you know, how you know, what are some of the best ways the leaders out there can make sure that they are influencing in the right ways and not necessarily the wrong ways per se?

Brian Smith [00:11:21]:
Yeah. You know, the the first is is understanding what your influence is and ensuring that the values that you wish to have for your organization or for those that you have influence over are, equal to or that your actions are equal to those values. And to do that, you have to slow down and pay attention. One of the things that we teach is listen to learn. You know, listen to understand what it is you’re responsible for, what the people that you have responsible, leadership to are responsible for. So that when you give them direction or you delegate to them, that you do understand the context by which you’re doing that. The the other thing is is we are a firm believer that smart goal setting, which a lot of us know about and have heard about, is really a verb. It’s not really a goal setting program for us.

Brian Smith [00:12:26]:
It’s actually an action item. So when we speak or do something, we do it with smart in mind that we’re specific, measurable. The things that we’re talking about are asking for are attainable and realistic, and they can be done in a done in a timely way that is clearly understood by all parties.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:47]:
I I really like that last bit. And in fact, I have a goal setting course, which I which I developed, for for the listeners out there. Just go to movingforwardleadership.com/power, and power is an acronym. And, when I was trying to achieve some goals, I struggled because, you know, you hear about the smart goal setting program, you know, acronym for god. It’s been around for decades. Right? And everyone talks about it, and it was just like, this is not doing it for me. And then I came to realization that’s just one variable of the whole equation. Right? Like, those are action items.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:29]:
You know? Like, okay. These now are action items which are gonna support the goals that I have. It isn’t how I go about achieving the goal. And I fell on that. SMART goals have, you know, a huge gap in that they don’t allow you to solve problems such as, you know, let’s change our culture, which for for a company or an organization that has a huge culture problem, which everyone talks about and can see, feel it every day. It’s like, okay. We have a goal. Let’s change our culture.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:04]:
Like, alright. Let’s put a smart goal to that. Well, you can’t put a smart goal to change your culture. Being put a smart goal to the individual actions that go behind the goal of changing your culture. So I I I really like that part of the book, actually. So, you know, we talked a lot about influence out and and so on and so forth. Let’s talk a bit because in your book, you you talked about, you know, for the leaders out there, understanding the responsibility. So when you when you say that, what what do you, you know, from your standpoint, what is it that you actually mean by understand the responsibility?

Brian Smith [00:14:45]:
Yeah. Well, when you I think when you get a promotion or you are, become the leader of people, you gain this responsibility. And it goes beyond just the influence you have over people. You’re now responsible for, providing those people or teeing up for those people their ability to come back every day and repeat and do what they are hired for, what you manage them to accomplish. And, you know, that responsibility has influence. And, what influences you to manage that is whatever your, requirements are, whatever leadership position you’re in. I don’t care if you’re the head baker, the head plumber, the head ditch digger. If you have people that are working with you, under you, that take direction from you and rely on you, you have a responsibility to make sure that you give them all the tools and all the information that will make them successful, whatever that means in your area of influence.

Brian Smith [00:15:54]:
So what what we mean by that is is know that responsibility, understand it. And, again, like I just mentioned, that’s where smart comes in as a verb for us. If you are specific and, you know, all the things that go with with smart about that responsibility and you use it as an action item, not just, you know, putting a goal up on a wall and trying to fit it into a box. If you take those actions in a smart way, then that responsibility follows and it builds. And the people that are below you also build on that, and they take responsibility, so on and so forth.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:39]:
Where does empowerment delegation fall into that? I I I would see it as being a huge piece of that cog, would it not be?

Brian Smith [00:16:48]:
It is. So, you know, delegation’s a huge part and a and a huge responsibility. Because just because you delegate something to somebody doesn’t mean that you have transferred responsibility for it. You’ve just delegated part of the responsibility for it. So, in empowering people is engaging them and teaching them and getting them more involved and having a positive influence on them and and allowing them to grow with you and to share in all that being a leader is. So, when we empower and when we, delegate, we are doing you know, we’re not trying to get rid of work to get rid of work. We’re growing our organization. We’re growing the individual that we’re doing that for.

Brian Smith [00:17:44]:
We’re mentoring them through a process, especially if you are doing it in a smart fashion and you’re engaged with them constantly in whatever it is you’re asking them to do.

Scott McCarthy [00:17:58]:
I really like that part that you said that, you know, if I, as a leader, delegate something, you know, hand a task down, it doesn’t dissolve me to responsibility of it. In fact, I would argue it even actually makes it even more my responsibility because no longer is it just mine. But in fact, I’ve handed it off to someone else to take and own and run with, but now that mine too. So I I I really like that part. And too many leaders out there, especially the new leaders, you know, just first kicking off, I see it all the time when I coach entrepreneurs. They have a really difficult time in, doing that, you know, handing off and delegating because they’re scared. They’re scared that, oh, the other person won’t do it right, or they won’t do it on time, or they won’t, you know, they won’t meet the mail, whatever, excuse after excuse after excuse. But the reality is is that, you know, you can’t afford not to delegate because you have 50,000,000 other things you need to worry about.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:08]:
So go through the process and enable them to take these tasks on. And then in turn, one, you’re developing them, but two, you’re actually freeing yourself up to do your actual job.

Brian Smith [00:19:24]:
Yeah. And you’re practicing leadership. You know? You can start this at very low levels in your organization. You can encourage, delegation at the lowest levels and encourage and teach how to train and how to trust and how to empower people. And when you do that from the lower levels as they grow in areas of responsibility, You learn as a leader how your delegation is performing, and they learn that also when you do it together within the context of whatever, area of responsibility you have as an organization. And and it’s all relevant to the situation that you and your team find yourself in. Delegation is not the same, you know, from military to medical to manufacturing widgets to finance and professional services. It’s amazingly different.

Brian Smith [00:20:23]:
But it’s if you learn delegation within those areas where you have influence, you’ll become very good at them, and you became a good leader in that in that particular area of influence.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:37]:
Yeah. I know. Absolutely agree with you. I wanna shift gears a little bit. And one of the things I often like to talk about on this podcast is failures and pitfalls and such because always find the best, teacher out there, as long as you’re up for it, is our failures. Right? How we learn from them. So with your experience, what are some of the key things out there that, you know, leaders should be watching for to make sure that they’re actually not doing it themselves?

Brian Smith [00:21:15]:
You mean not failing?

Scott McCarthy [00:21:17]:
Not failing or not falling into these, you know, traps, these pitfalls type things.

Brian Smith [00:21:25]:
Yeah. So well, for one is slowing down and understanding the capabilities of your team and yourself. If the that understanding, it doesn’t have a foundation in reality. You’re going to make decisions that are dangerous, that have risk inherent in them. You know, I can’t walk out this door and give a task to just anybody to do any any task in our organization. I have to understand what people’s capabilities are. And if I don’t care to learn about our people and about their capabilities and understand understand their strengths and their weaknesses, their fears, how they react to challenges, how stress affects them, how, you know, all the different variables that go into decision making, then I inherently have risk, and I inherently set myself up for failure or disappointment, and which, in turn, are the traps and the pitfalls. And leaders that do that, that don’t take the time to have that understanding, are the ones that find themselves micromanaging and not actually trusting to delegate because their delegation or their direction to others fails so often because they haven’t prepared themselves that they finally just say, well, I can’t trust anybody to do what’s needs to be done.

Brian Smith [00:22:52]:
And it’s a vicious circle. So, having clear understanding, knowing your teams, understanding the processes and the procedure, being clear in in in direct, in your leadership and in your explanation and in your delegation will set you up for less failure. Because you’re never gonna wipe out failure, Scott. It’s you’re always gonna have setbacks. There are too many variables that are out of our control in today’s business world.

Scott McCarthy [00:23:28]:
Well, I like that, I like that last part. Now you said something earlier that, spike my interest. I wanna jump into that. And that was, you know, essentially, we need to do our homework. You know, we need to be prepared. And, but then you you kinda countered yourself with, you know, we can’t be prepared for everything because no matter what, you know, we’re gonna make a failure. So for the leaders that are listening, like, man, gotta be prepared. I don’t got time.

Scott McCarthy [00:23:59]:
Like, I I I got 50 people I need to take care of. I got the boss breathing down my neck on this project. We’re coming up to the end of the queue, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. How do leaders go about making the time to be prepared for all these different things that they need to be aware of on a day to day basis?

Brian Smith [00:24:21]:
Yeah. So if I had somebody come to me and said they had 50 people that they had to be responsible for, that’s just too many direct reports, first of all. And I would challenge them to shore that up and to build into that some leadership that shared that responsibility downline to help manage a a team that was that large. Secondly is is, if you don’t have time to focus on your area of influence, you’ve developed an area of influence that is much too large for you. And you have to really slow down and look at the scope of where you’re at in your area of responsibility and think about that area of responsibility more practically. And if you say to me, I don’t have time to do that, you’re already telling me that you’re way beyond what your area of responsibility should be as a leader. And that I would urge you it’s the most important thing you could do is slow down and really think about, what you’ve done to yourself, what corner you put yourself in, and what parts of your area of responsibility can be outsourced, can be delegated. I mean, you can do outsourcing certain things, that can help take that pressure off and give you better focus.

Brian Smith [00:25:53]:
Have somebody come in and help you have that 30,000 foot foot view and understand why you’re overwhelmed and where it’s coming from Because, we lose the forest through the trees, and it’s it usually happens when we’re overwhelmed and we’ve painted ourselves into that chaos corner, that oftentimes small business leaders find themselves in.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:21]:
Yeah. I I definitely agree with everything you had to say. Sometimes it’s just difficult to, as you said, see the forest for the trees type thing. You know, take that step back. Have a look at everything that you’re responsible for. Have a look at, you know, your whole sphere of influence, your your your your requirements, etcetera, etcetera, and really go, okay. Am I, you know, is my organization structured properly? Am I doing the right things? Am I doing the things, you know, right? You know, because sometimes certain aspects is like, right now, like, I suck at, you know, whatever. You know? I suck at finances.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:00]:
But yet here I am spending all day with my nose in the budget and the books and all this. Like, well, bring a finance guy on. You know? You know? Cut that off to the side. That’s their responsibility. They’ll keep you informed of all the big issues and stuff like this, but then that frees you up to do other things, to move away from, your weaknesses and really focus on your strengths. I like that part about, you know, if you get 50 directs, yeah, definitely, you wanna maybe throw a layer in there for sure. I I I kinda come with the mentality, though, you know, regardless. So let’s say you had a couple layers of management in there with the 50 with the 50 people.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:45]:
I still look at it as, you know, my 50 people if I’m responsible, the overhead type thing. But, again, I come from a military background. So, you know, you ask me how many people am I in charge of, I will tell you 25 right now. But there’s about 10 different layers between me and and the and the person at the bottom of that totem pole. But that’s just how we roll. Right. Another thing that I definitely would like to tackle in, in this interview is the idea of culture, organizational culture, and how we can you know, as leaders, obviously, we have a huge part to play in the culture and influencing our culture. So what are some of the best practices out there? Because I feel like there is a lot of talk on organizational culture these days.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:36]:
There’s a lot of change, a lot of pressure for change. And with that, leaders need to be there. They need to be at that tip of that sphere of, you know, pushing or, the culture change towards, you know, moving forward in the right direction. So what’s your best advice for the leaders out there with organizational culture change?

Brian Smith [00:28:59]:
Well, for one, set values and higher to those values. And there are no you know, everybody has a different moral compass, and everybody has different values, but they’re not dramatically different. I mean, most of us believe in the same things, you know, honesty, integrity, hard work, doing the right thing if somebody’s not looking. You know? I mean, there’s all these little acronyms and sayings that go with it. But define what that is for your company and make it part of all that you do when you hire into your company and when you sell your company, to customers and when you bring on partners that work with you. And with that foundation, and if you do that, then you’re going to have a a culture that you can work with. If you have never done that before, get your team together and start to understand where you have commonality for values, where everybody is aligned for those things. Understand if you have people that might be different.

Brian Smith [00:30:20]:
You don’t have to fire them or get rid of them. But if you understand them, you can incorporate, maybe what their thoughts are or what their ideas are. For example, remote work versus not remote work. We have people that wanna work, you know, from home every day. And they’ll tell me they’re the great greatest workers in the world if we could just let them work from home. And we have team members that wanna be here every day. So we had to find a hybrid for that and offer that hybrid, for that and met them in the middle, and it became part of our culture. Our team needed, you know, support.

Brian Smith [00:31:03]:
They needed to vent. They needed to talk about frustration that they had. We created a one on one structure that’s part of our culture. We had people that need to and and all organizations have this, that need to have, you know, kudos and a slap on the back, and they wanna express the gratitude and how they feel with their peers. We have a gratitude group, and you can come and go as you please. And it’s created this outlet for people to share these positive things that happen for them. And we have some people that go every week. We have some people that pop in once a month, but it’s part of our culture.

Brian Smith [00:31:46]:
And you can create all of these things as the champion, and you don’t have to participate all the time, but you give your team the ability and the flexibility to engage and to grow within whatever those values are, whatever those tools are that you can provide them. And you will create a culture that is based on the people you have and the goals you have as an organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:13]:
So what I’m hearing from you is, you know, one, take ownership of that change. But two, you know, empower your people to be part of it and listen to them and then act on, you know, that direction that, you know, they believe the organization should go in, which basically

Brian Smith [00:32:36]:
says They’re they’re doing the heavy lifting. Right, Scott? I mean

Scott McCarthy [00:32:40]:
Absolutely.

Brian Smith [00:32:40]:
As the leader, I don’t do the heavy lifting for our organization. The heavy lifting’s done in the trenches with our consultants for IA or some of our private equity holdings. We have construction companies. We have guys that are out swinging hammers and carrying drywall, and, you know, they do the heavy lifting. And so we have to listen to what is gonna keep them balanced and keep them motivated and keep them engaged. Because if we don’t, then the heavy lifting can’t get done.

Scott McCarthy [00:33:17]:
I always say, my people are the reason for our success, and I’m the reason for our failure. And the whole premise of that is, yeah, you’re exactly right. Third one out there doing the job, doing the heavy lifting. You know? In my world, they’re the ones that are loading up aircraft pallets. They’re the ones that are fixing vehicles. They’re the ones getting supplies ready. They’re the ones doing all this stuff. Whereas I I’m the one that’s kinda, you know, helping do the plan and interacting with the boss and taking all the phone calls and, you know, generally, which aren’t, you know, necessarily the nicest ones all the time.

Scott McCarthy [00:33:52]:
But end of the day, that stuff is, you know, it it’s white noise. It’s it’s, you know, it can be important for sure and often is important, but it’s not the results in a day. It’s not it’s not the actual physical results. It’s my people that are doing that. So they’re the ones that are are making our success. And if I don’t give them the tools, if I don’t give them whether that’s physical tools or psychological tools, I don’t, you know, make the space for them. If I don’t do this or that or the other thing that impedes them to be able to do what it is that they’re supposed to do that given moment, then we’re gonna fail. And that’s on me.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:28]:
Not them, but on me.

Brian Smith [00:34:31]:
Right.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:32]:
Awesome. Awesome. Go ahead.

Brian Smith [00:34:36]:
No. I say how you treat them, resonates.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:39]:
And %.

Brian Smith [00:34:40]:
It sets the tone. So and when you do that, it’s like dominoes, and it is picked up on, and it’s carried again and again. Your your team will mimic good behavior, but they’ll also mimic bad behavior, and that’s also part of your culture.

Scott McCarthy [00:35:00]:
Absolutely. For sure. It it it drives you. Now talking with culture, you know, a lot of culture organization cultures right now are under a big force of change due to the ongoing situation, which you you hinted at a little bit with the with the COVID nineteen pandemic that’s still unfortunately going on. I’d love to get your thoughts out there for the audience because you did write a little piece in your book about COVID nineteen and and, you know, being influential in organizations to that. So what you know, from your standpoint, you know, how can us leaders lead our teams through this?

Brian Smith [00:35:38]:
Well, again, by example, look. People are afraid. Some aren’t. You know? It’s like politics. There’s people on every side, everything in between. We all know people who have been sick now. I mean, there’s enough people who have been affected physically by COVID that we all know somebody that’s had a bad experience. We all know somebody who’s had that experience that was like, hey.

Brian Smith [00:36:05]:
It was no big deal. I think being objective, open minded, listening to our team’s, fears, correcting them if they have you know, they get on a tangent that is politically driven or, not factually driven. Sitting them down and discussing with them that the influence they have when they, regurgitate information that can be contrary to your peers or to your teammates or that can scare them or influence them in a negative way might be better served if it was delivered differently. Just, you know, guiding our teams to have the best understanding that they individually can have without overly influencing them. It’s a complex time. It’s a complex problem. I don’t particularly for me, I wasn’t into the whole let me get a shot that just came out, but I did it anyhow, because it’s important for our business. I had to make that decision, and it set an example for our whole organization when I chose to be vaccinated early so that I could still travel, so that I could still meet with people face to face, so I could visit our teams all over the world.

Brian Smith [00:37:36]:
And it set an example. So I was mindful about everything that has to do with COVID. And you just have to slow down, listen, set the example that you would want, your whole organization to be proud of, not just the ones who agree with you or not just the ones who, support your way of thinking, but your whole organization. And it’s hard to do, very hard to do in these times, as a leader with what we’re facing, especially in certain countries where the restrictions are amazingly difficult on on overall life in general.

Scott McCarthy [00:38:24]:
You’ve mentioned the phrase leaders need to slow down. So, you know, one was that look like? And then two, how can they go about achieving that?

Brian Smith [00:38:42]:
Yeah. It’s the biggest chapter in our first book, Scott, is titled Slow Down. You can there’s a sloth hanging over here in my office to remind me that I need to slow down. There’s a sloth on my desk, a picture of one, reminding me to slow down. You know, the business today is, at hyper speed. Back in February, when I wrote my, dissertation, for my doctorate, it was titled technology induced attention deficit disorder because we were learning in the late nineties and early two thousands just how fast data’s being delivered to us and how fast decisions were going to be requested to be made. So when I say slow down to a leader, I literally mean slow down. Take a pause.

Brian Smith [00:39:39]:
Walk away. Don’t make decisions before, you’ve written them down. Don’t just snap off answers to people out of emotion. You know, if you have a long, directive to give to somebody, write it out first. Literally write it out and put it in front of you and read it. It makes you think about it. It makes you slow down. Find a way to slow down those things in your life that tend to get you in trouble or that tend to end up making you question yourself or doubt yourself or wonder if you’ve made a good decision or a bad decision.

Brian Smith [00:40:22]:
Try to find a way to add a pause. And for each of us, that’s different. Our situations are different. It could be shutting a door. It could be, turning your phones off. It could be blocking time on your calendar just for yourself. It could be using a task list, but whatever that means to you. Is it paper? Is it a computer? You have to find ways to create pauses so that you become more thoughtful about the decisions you make as a leader.

Brian Smith [00:40:58]:
And within the context, and subjectivity of your lives, you have to figure out what that means. And but at the end of the day, it’s all about just slowing things down just enough to have better focus, to make better decisions, and communicate better.

Scott McCarthy [00:41:21]:
If that last bit doesn’t, you know, scream to leaders out there to slow down, right, make better decisions, communicate more effectively, you know, influence better. I don’t know what will. Like, come on. And I I love everything that you had to say there, especially the tactics. Right? You know? I like putting time in my calendar to give myself time to think and reflect and plan and organize. You know? I I make sure I take breaks throughout the day, etcetera. I I do purposely walk away from phones and computers. Why? So that I don’t get distracted when I’m doing something else.

Scott McCarthy [00:42:10]:
Right? I I love everything you say. Brian, it’s been a fantastic conversation, sir. As as we wrap up here, I do got a couple last questions for you. First being question to ask all the guests here at the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast, and that is according to you, Brian Smith. What makes a great leader?

Brian Smith [00:42:30]:
I think what makes a great leader is one who, understands his environment, understands his personal purpose, and applies himself consistently, to what that is, whatever it is, whatever environment you is. And when you do that and you are true to those convictions, then you will be a great leader. You’ll have positive influence, and you will continue to move forward and, do that in a way that make people respect and want to, well, either hire you, work with you, work for you, but be around you for whatever it is that influence you’ve chosen.

Scott McCarthy [00:43:17]:
Love it. Absolutely love it. And the following question of the show is, how can people find you? How can they follow you, be part of your journey? It’s all about you. Shameless plug. Have at it.

Brian Smith [00:43:29]:
Wait. Say that again. I’m sorry.

Scott McCarthy [00:43:31]:
I said it’s all about you now. So feel free to, you know, plug your book, plug your company. It’s all about you.

Brian Smith [00:43:39]:
Oh, well, thank you. So, you know, my company is IA Business Advisors, and we help, companies, grow. I mean, we are a fractional business advisory service, which means that we look over our client’s shoulders and answer their questions as they come up, whatever those questions might be. We have a philosophy, as you’ve heard, which is, you know, there’s an I in team and we are that I in team. We’re that influence and that individuals matter from ourself to every individual that we influence. And for me, I am we. We being every single person in my life has influenced me to who I am at this very moment in time. And that changes every moment I interact with a new person.

Brian Smith [00:44:32]:
And if you wanna understand what that means more, please consider reading our books. It’s the I in Team series, and and our book is Individual Advantages, Be the I in Team. And, look for our new books coming out in the future. We have two out now, and our third will be out, in about twelve months.

Scott McCarthy [00:44:54]:
Awesome. Looking forward to seeing that one as well. And for the listeners always, it’s easy for you. Just go to movingforwardleadership.com/20five. 2 0 five, and the links are in the show notes. Right. Again, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule, sir. Come on the show and talk to me, but most importantly, the audience out there.

Brian Smith [00:45:16]:
Thank you, Scott. I appreciate it very much.

Scott McCarthy [00:45:22]:
And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the Peak Performance Leadership podcast. But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast and know that’s not leaving a rating and review? It’s simply helping a friend, and that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them. If you think this would resonate with them and help them elevate their performance level, whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization. So do that. Help me help a friend win win all around, and hey, you look like a great friend at the same time. So just hit that little share button on your app, and then feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it.

Scott McCarthy [00:46:12]:
Finally, there’s always more. There’s always more lessons around being the highest performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s for yourself, your team, or your organization. So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show via movingforwardleadership.com forward slash subscribe. Until next time, lead, don’t boss, and thanks for coming out. Take care now.