Ep230 Top 5 percent leadership
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[00:00:00] Hello, my friend. This is Dex Randall talking leadership performance under pressure. If you're doing everything right and it's not quite working, don't worry, you're a diamond in the rough. Here's the polish. 

[00:00:22] Today we're going to talk about the top 5% of leadership, because that's where you're aiming for as an ambitious and dedicated leader. That's probably where you've been heading for your whole professional career, and it's not hard to get there, but your present skill level may not quite pull it off.

[00:00:43] Do you feel like your career has stalled? That you're not pushing through to the next level? That there are headwinds? You can still get there more easily than you think, and today I'm gonna share how.

[00:00:56] But firstly, in your mind, look around you at the leaders in your organization. Who's doing better than you? And just ignore the ones who are stressed, overwhelmed, not advancing.

[00:01:09] If you can see rising stars or evergreen performers, even if there's protectionism or their roles appear easier than yours, it's worth asking yourself why they are succeeding.

[00:01:23] Why are they able to succeed and progress in your work culture if you're not?

[00:01:30] How specifically are they performing so well? What do they do, or not do, different to you?

[00:01:38] What are the relationships that support them? Whose ear do they have that you don't?

[00:01:45] How do they behave and react to difficulties? What's their leadership style and presence?

[00:01:51] How do they demonstrate resilience, strength, confidence, and patience, where you might not? What exactly sustains them?

[00:02:00] If you can see any of those things, then mirror them. It's not a coincidence.

[00:02:06] In this era of toxic workplaces, stress, overwork, unpredictability, burnout, layoffs, deflected blame, if other leaders are succeeding, growing, thriving even, how can you follow them there?

[00:02:22] Here's guaranteed one thing they're not doing is relying on others to do that work for them.

[00:02:29] They must surely be succeeding in spite of conditions, if they work in the same organization that you do. What sustains them then is likely to be a solid mix of purpose, vision, work ethic, and people skills backed by an easy confidence. You probably have most of that too, although possibly not confidence.

[00:02:50] Still, being in the top 5% is rarely accidental. You can start the journey from dedication, learning, intelligence, effort, and professional expertise, but you won't continue being promoted from there unless you prove to be an outstanding 5% leader, and this is where the 95% get stuck.

[00:03:13] Alternatively, if you look around you and see every leader in distress, what's the common denominator?

[00:03:21] Well, your organization is one, and you are the other.

[00:03:24] Why am I saying that? Well, what you see in life is what you expect to see. Your brain is programmed to ignore the vast majority of inputs. It has highly selective perception, otherwise it would fry immediately.

[00:03:39] Your brain only looks for data it can process easily, that confirm your prior beliefs. Look at it this way, the brain under two kilograms, around 2% of body weight, even at rest uses 20% of your daily energy.

[00:03:57] So it does everything it can to preserve bandwidth. Two ways it does that are, number one, it only sees what it expects, and number two, it recycles yesterday's thoughts today, because producing a brand-new thought, interpreting events in a new way, requires an extra 5% of energy.

[00:04:16] By the way, for you nerds, your brain uses approximately 20 watts to think, or 0.3 kilowatt hours per day.

[00:04:27] If you're in a diseased state such as chronic stress, anxiety, or exhaustion, the load is heavier. Your tired brain then borrows energy from other parts of your body in order to function, which might cause you to feel worse.

[00:04:43] According to Claude, AI uses 50 to 100 times the energy on analytical tasks, compared to looking up data. The thing is, it has virtually unlimited resources, which we do not.

[00:04:58] So what I'm offering here is that if your leadership is beset by low energy and many worries, you're taxing your expertise too hard. You're flogging yourself in a way we could demonstrate isn't necessary, even taking into account your workplace or your industry has a challenging culture.

[00:05:18] If anyone you know, at your work or elsewhere, is performing leadership more easily than you and more successfully than you, it's not because they're a genius, but are they applying smarts there that you're not?

[00:05:35] Could be time to shift your habits to align with a smarter way of producing strong results and still going home on time without feeling smashed, because wouldn't you like to reach that top 5%?

[00:05:49] Here are the quick wins that become available if you do, once you decide to challenge your existing MO to produce smoother, less fatiguing performance. And the evidence I use to support these ideas is not abstract or theoretical. This is the growth I mentor my clients through, and I'm going to supply a couple of examples.

[00:06:11] Such as the college entry consultant whose 25-year-old business was struggling financially and operationally. Considering he was about to sign a new five-year lease on his premises , as CEO, he needed to either fix the business or get out of the game.

[00:06:30] Together, we routed out what wasn't working for him: poor hiring quality and remuneration for the consulting team; unmotivating success metrics; low morale, engagement, and teamwork; a low-functioning PA working with ill will; low understanding of clients' real needs resulting in adversarial conversations; an inadequately structured client support system; an absence of dedicated student submissions editor, that was taking away the CEO's own time; and lastly, inefficient marketing.

[00:07:07] So as you listen to that, what struck you there in that list?

[00:07:11] This man was highly accomplished, a leader in his field, yet his own business was stagnating, and he'd come to dislike his work. As we worked together, all of his issues were resolved quickly and simply by taking a fresh look at the root cause of each problem, and adopting a new practical solution.

[00:07:30] He gave his business essentially the spring clean it needed, resulting in an immediate uplift in process quality, team engagement, customer satisfaction and, of course, revenue. Then he happily signed that five-year lease. His growth has continued since then on a much higher predictable path than he could have imagined before he started this work.

[00:07:53] The point is, nothing external changed. But this man, on the verge of quitting, cleared the roadblocks and fell back in love with his business.

[00:08:05] Another example, this time a Big Four consultant partner, under extreme pressure to perform, making himself available to his top-tier clients around the clock, not daring to take his eye off the ball or delegate to his team. Run ragged.

[00:08:21] So first, what we did is we established communication protocols to avoid the always-on mentality that was costing him sleep. He negotiated this directly with his clients to make sure he met their expectations and needs. Next, we worked on delegation and mentoring his team, fostering a sense of unity and power within them as he established a coaching mindset where they all reached a higher watermark together.

[00:08:52] He also split his teams into his A and his B team to make that process easier. And this supported increased trust and efficiency, cleaner decision-making, bolder delegation, a much stronger collaboration, and hence results. He quickly felt able to promote team members and yield more authority to them. With renewed confidence, he himself swiftly got another promotion.

[00:09:19] And by the way, his family life, previously pretty fractious, became much warmer once he had morale and energy to spare for them

[00:09:28] So when you listen to those two quick examples of what's possible, notice that nothing external to my clients changed. Anything they achieved came from personal effort only.

[00:09:41] My position on this is, for anyone who wants to improve their leadership success, you can do this without changing your external situation, your boss, your job, your organization, your industry.

[00:09:55] All the change you need -to be happy and successful- will come from inside you where it currently lies dormant, untapped potential. Most people don't take this leap. That's why getting to the top 5% is deceptively easy, and that's why, secretly, my job is quite easy, too. I can help you super perform, and most importantly, enjoy greater success and career growth. Because you need to enjoy work, right?

[00:10:26] Otherwise, your energy will flag, you'll be moody, irritable, unrewarded. Hmm. Success must come from enjoyment and passion to be truly sustainable and also to produce the top quality results. And if you've lost your passion, I can help you get it back.

[00:10:44] So then going back to those two examples, those two high-achieving men started off very pissed off, demoralized, demotivated, exhausted. They dreaded going to work, and they dreaded coming home.

[00:10:58] In this era, sadly, this is quite normal. Well, isn't it?

[00:11:04] Very many professionals are doing their best work, like the troopers they are, but grinding their teeth and permanently out of sorts. Of course, this is workable forever, almost regardless of ongoing suffering and depletion. You could keep going. But with that level of dissatisfaction, why would you?

[00:11:25] The way I mentor my clients then gives them a 95% edge over the people who put up with the pain.

[00:11:31] Why? Because they reclaim their youthful passion, vigor, and application. They make things right -for themselves, and by extension, for their boss, their colleagues, their team, and also their family.

[00:11:47] It's a big claim, yet it's my goal to help every single client find that, because every single client is talented, experienced, professional, and hardworking. They deserve it.

[00:12:01] The 95% uplift is actually releasing your inner talents into the wild. And ask yourself right now when that last happened.

[00:12:12] Look around you again. How many leaders do you see out there living the dream and looking good on it? Fewer than 5% of leaders take the journey, but the results speak for themselves. Those courageous outliers command great respect and increase their career options going forward by repeatedly demonstrating success.

[00:12:36] I think it's a waste not to use all of your talents, and the eventual cost, is it worth it? A career that peters out, a legacy of what? An empty feeling that stifles your unfulfilled dreams.

[00:12:53] So what is the 95% upside you're probably leaving on the table right now? If you're dissatisfied with your leadership success, status, career, fix each and every small and overlooked or seemingly insurmountable problem that stands in the way of your powerful contribution.

[00:13:15] And I can help you there. Some of the tools I use are entirely practical. Some are strategic or tactical. Some are just about relieving pressure and inviting collaboration. It's bringing work back into congruence with your personal drivers and nature so you feel good in service to your dream and to your job, and everything becomes more seamless.

[00:13:41] It really isn't that difficult. It's just a systematic examination of what's not working and fixing it, and a similar examination of what is working and amplifying it until you reach this higher satisfaction that motivates and facilitates continued growth.

[00:14:01] Genius is surely at root a commitment to intelligence applied creatively.

[00:14:07] To give that room to move, you need a good supply of energy, and I will guide you there.

[00:14:13] The way I know my clients have got it at the end is they start smiling and laughing a lot. They're joking with me, finding previously challenging situations and people easy. So if you're interested in creating that resurgence in yourself, highly recommend it.

[00:14:29] I work across industries to support leaders to get where they want to be. Come and talk to me, and we'll work out a personal plan for you. See leadership.dexrandall.com to book an appointment. The link's in the show notes, and I will see you then.