Lead from Any Seat: Unleashing Leadership Without Titles | Scott McCarthy | Episode 297

Scott McCarthy [00:00:01]:
Have you ever thought to yourself, I wish I was a leader, but just don’t have the title, the position. I’m not a place of authority or I’m just not, you know, that figurehead, but yet I have this drive and this ambition to lead others. If you thought those thoughts or thoughts similar, not alone. And you know what? You’re wrong. Because you can and are a leader regardless of where you sit in a hierarchical structure. In today’s episode, that’s exactly what I talk about in my live video training within our free Facebook group and if you want to join us over there feel free to go to lead dump boss.comforward/group and it’ll bring you right to it. So without further ado, I’m gonna let that video play. So are you ready for this? Alright.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:09]:
Let’s do it. Welcome 1. 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 20 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. Greetings, leaders everywhere.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:10]:
It is your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy. And welcome to this week’s live video training that we’re kicking off and then we’re gonna keep doing here in the group. So if you’re new to the group, welcome. It’s great to have you here. If this is something which you’ve been around for for a long time and you’ve been following me, it’s great to have you as well. As you know, it’s been quite a journey for me for the past, few months now. And really, this is the kickoff of, the new normal here within Veeam For Leadership. So within from basically here on out, we’re gonna be doing live videos weekly.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:54]:
So feel free to throw in your suggestions, ask your questions, and I’ll definitely do my best to get to them. This week, I kind of got inspired, by the topic of this week. And it’s basically, you don’t need a title or position to lead. So yesterday, I was kind of taking the break and just, you know, mindlessly scrolling through my phone is what we do, right? We do that from time to time. And I saw this reel, which was awesome, and I ended up resharing it and putting my own little spin on it, and it was of a mixed martial art type fight. And you can see in between the rounds, one of the fighters was getting coached by this young kid, and I mean young. He was probably the kid was probably 6, 7, max 8 years old. And what he was doing was talking to the fighter and saying, hey, listen.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:55]:
You gotta throw a punch and then throw elbow. Put an elbow in there. He was doing the motion. And you can see the fighter going, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. And then and the reel skipped forward showing the fighter in the round throwing some punches then throw landing an elbow and end up winning the fight.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:13]:
So I talked about that reel and I said there was 2 main leadership lessons here. The first one is you don’t need a title to lead. That kid was not the fighter’s coach. Right? And the second lesson quickly was that, you know, you gotta leave your ego at the door. It would have been totally, accept I wouldn’t say acceptable, but it wouldn’t have been surprising to anybody if the fighter basically told the kid to, you know, buzz off. Right? That wouldn’t have shocked anybody. Reality. But he didn’t.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:49]:
Instead, he kept Zego at the door because he knew this kid had a different perspective of the fight and listened to what he had to say and guess what? It worked. So that inspired me today to talk to you about how leadership you don’t have to have a title, you don’t have to have a position. You can be a leader no matter what. Okay? So let’s talk about some of the key aspects of leadership. Vision, empathy, influence, integrity. Right? Those things don’t require a title or position. They don’t. Okay? You can have a vision for something and not be in charge of it.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:35]:
Okay? You can be you can have a vision of anything and not necessarily be the quote unquote person in charge. You can go and put forth your ideas. You can work towards making that vision happen. So you don’t need that title. Empathy. Anybody and everybody can have empathy for everybody. You don’t need to have a title or position to have empathy. Influence, back to the kid.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:06]:
You can have influence. It’s about sharing your ideas, talking about your thoughts, and then having others agree to it because what you’re saying makes sense to them. And then integrity is adherence to, you know, principles of morality and ethics, which no matter what, you know, if you don’t have that then you’re not going to be a leader because people will know that and then they won’t follow you. So these are all just, you know, very basics qualities of a leader, but the moral of the story is is that they’re not tied to position. They’re not tied to a title. They are principles because they apply equally no matter what and or who you are or you do. So keep that in mind moving forward. Because the thing is there’s so many misconception out there, like, oh, I’m not a leader yet, because I don’t have a manager role.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:11]:
Oh, I’m not a leader yet because it’s only me and one other person in my team. Oh, I’m not a leader yet. Who cares? Stop with the limited thought process. K? That is you’re limiting yourself. The reality is you are a leader as much as you want to be. You wanna be a leader? Go out and go after it. Don’t wait for it because it’s not going to come to you, rather you have to go out and demonstrate so that people begin to follow you. So a few different ideas for you to exhibit leadership, and this is a great way for people who are there like, I’m trying to get promoted.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:01]:
And they keep saying I need to exhibit leadership, but how do I do that? So here are just a few ways to exhibit leadership. 1st and foremost, take initiative. You see a problem, go be a solution person. Go be that person that people rely on to get things done to fix problems. Take the initiative. Don’t just sit back and go, well, I’ll wait, but the boss tell me that I need to do this and then I’ll do it. Okay? No. Go after it.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:36]:
Identify the problem, provide the solution for the problem, and explain how you’re going after do implementing that solution anyway. It just get after it. And that ties into being proactive. If you follow the podcast for any length of time, you will know I talk about being proactive vice reactive. You need to be proactive because it is so much better. When you’re reactive, you’re stuck. You’re waiting. Whereas being proactive, you get to influence how things happen, how things transpire, why things are the way they are.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:24]:
Go after it. Anticipate the needs and act. Again, it goes tie and hand in hand with initiative. Another way to lead without, you know, being a leader is to support others. When you see a colleague struggling, go help them. Teach, coach, coach. Don’t fish for them, but teach them how to fish. This is the big thing.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:55]:
Leaders are coaches. They’re mentors. And if you’re out there and you’re teaching people and coaching them how to do better, enabling them to do it for themselves, that is the mark of a true leader. You go and build influence. Okay? And this goes hand in hand with supporting others. Is that building influence through supporting others enables you to achieve things for the greater good, achieve things for the team, maybe unlock, you know, some relationships with other teams out there. K? Building that influence within the greater organization enables you to help your smaller team influence other teams and allows them to help you to achieve the things that you’re looking to achieve. Consistency as a leader.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:00]:
You have to show up day in day out. Moral story is as a leader, there is no time off. Right? You have to be consistent. You have to be reliable. People need to be able to depend on you. When you’re that, you become a leader. If they know they can go to you for that coaching, know they can go to you to, you know, build that relation with the other team. They can go to you to be proactive on something.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:32]:
You become consistent. You’re reliable. Okay? Transparent. Being transparent is so important this day and age. No longer do people accept statements like, oh, it is the way it is because that’s how it is here, or it’s always been that way, or I’m the boss, I get to do whatever I want, or it’s none of your business. Transparency is so crucial because people want to know that you’re following the rules just like they’re following the rules. And if there’s any hint of perception that you’re not, then that’ll come against you. So being transparent enables you to build that trust.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:15]:
People now, you know, they it doesn’t give them the opportunity for rumors, speculation, the all these negative things, but rather you’re you’re squashing it right then and there. Like, yeah, I was late because, I my my kid was sick and I had to help out before and then I got stuck in traffic. It’s not because I just didn’t feel like showing up work on time today. Okay? That happens. That’s life. Okay? For example, today, I held up one of my managers, one of my subordinates because we’re having conversation and we walked and he was going to a meeting. I held him up from a meeting and I told him, I said, go and use me as the excuse, like, be, you know, tell them you’re with me and I accept it that this was my fault. K? Be transparent.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:03]:
And finally, be respectful at all times. When you show respect and you earn respect, I say it all the time. It’s the cornerstone of leadership. You have to be respectful. So these are just some key practical things for you to go and, exude your leadership without a title, without a position, no matter what. When you’re like, Scott, I don’t you know, I need I need to grow. I need to develop my skills further. Well, 1st and foremost, you’re doing the right thing.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:39]:
You’re here. You’re in this group. Ask questions. Throw your situations up there. Listen to the podcast. Okay? Check out my podcast. There are so many different topics out there. Okay? Speak to others.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:58]:
Have communication. Right? Talk to others. Go and read some books. I don’t have a book yet, so I can’t recommend mine, but there are plenty of books. And if you’re interested in suggestions, feel free to comment below on any type of book. Okay? Just saying a leadership book is not good not great. There are 500,000,000 different leadership books out there or rather what’s a topic within leadership that you need some help in, I can definitely there recommend a book or 2 for you. And then finally, if you want to grow, you want accountability, you want like almost like a course like setting, we have our leader growth mastermind, which is designed just for that to help you grow as a leader, to overcome these challenges that you face, and that’s what we do.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:49]:
And guess what? There are people in the mastermind without leadership titles because they’re growing as leaders, and that’s why they’re there. So keep that in mind as you move forward in your leadership journey. Alright? So with that, we’re gonna wrap up here. So just a few, again, closing remarks and just think about in your leadership journey, how many times have you been like, oh, I’m not a leader therefore, you know, can’t really do anything. I’d love to know because the moral story is you are and you can and with our help here you will are ladies and gentlemen that’s it for now we’ll see you next week Remember as always, lead, don’t boss. Take care now. And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening.

Scott McCarthy [00:15:49]:
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. 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.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:47]:
So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show via moving forward leadership dot com forward slash subscribe. Until next time, lead, don’t boss, and thanks for coming out. Take care now.