Episode 1: Welcome to Leading from the Ground Up

Introduction to the Leading from the Ground Up Podcast.

Welcome to the leading from the ground up podcast. I'm your host John Hall. I wanted to start by giving you some background on me and why I am passionate about building strong leaders. I had been married for 24 years to a wonderful woman who's always encouraged me to pursue my passions. Together we have four great children ranging from ages 14 to our oldest who is 23. After retiring from 24 years of service in the military, I entered corporate life. Anyone who's ever transitioned from a life of public service knows that service isn't just something you do, it’s something you are.

While my military occupation didn't exactly translate directly to civilian life, the core skills I gained in the military have allowed me to excel in a variety of civilian roles, building teams in a wide variety of settings. My career both inside and outside the military didn't evolve exactly how I thought it would. But what I realized is that my real superpower is my ability to build effective teams, a skill I gained in the military and honed in corporate life and fatherhood. My true passion is building trustworthy, highly effective teams with strong communication. My teams are built on a foundation of people first, caring more about the people I work with, and lead is the core of what I do. If your team is running on fumes, it's likely because you forgotten the number one rule of leadership. Know your people, not just what they do, but who they are.

I found that caring more about each individual on my team as a person helped make them stronger, more effective and efficient in their mission or their job. What I liked most about the method I had incorporated from my military experience was getting to know each person on the team at a personal level. I genuinely cared about them beyond the mission or exercise. My goal was to inspire each team member to perform at their best level.

My goal here is to take my years of experience observing, learning, and applying principles from some of the top minds and leadership and distill it down to a set of reliable resources, tools and techniques that can help you transform your teams from just getting the job done to excelling in their role.

The problem I've seen is that there's a huge gap in leadership development. Many companies are tasked focused, mentoring leaders by teaching them the next skill and the next skill until they are effectively skilled in the tasks required to do the job. But they're missing critical components of leadership development, such as soft skills that are harder to understand and apply. The fact of the matter is that in this era of employee shortage, turnover matters, and the biggest influence on employee turnover is management. In fact, the top three reasons people site for leaving their job is lack of career development, non existent work life balance, and manager behavior. All three of these are a direct result of lack of leadership skills. The fact is people want to be challenged they want to grow but they want to be challenged in ways that support them as individuals and creates wins for the company, not just the latter. These are people who are leading with real lives, real challenges in real families. While we can't overlook incompetent behavior, like showing up whenever you please, knowing your employees means you can find ways to support them through difficult life transitions. Finally, the last one is manager behavior. We've all known at least one leader that fits that mold. But we should remember leaders are people too. If you are a leader going through a rough spot. Communication is going to be your best friend and will help your people support you to the best of their ability.

I believe we have gotten away from understanding that there is a very human and relational side to leadership. Some may not understand because they've never experienced it or been taught that it exists. They were taught old management techniques like manage processes and people and just don't understand that there's a better way. While some have chosen not to embrace a different way or to deny that it exists. By embracing the human aspect of leadership you can make your life as a leader so much more fulfilling, and you can free up time to create new and innovative ideas and can allow you more time to work on high level issues to create a trusting, highly communicative team that is mostly self sufficient and highly productive. True leaders start viewing their roles is so much more than just issuing orders and ensuring their work is accomplished. We view our duties as one of a mentor and take the time to communicate, inform and develop plans for each and every employee to help them grow beyond their current capabilities. This is an investment we make in our teams that returns tenfold. It builds trust develops a relationship that produces far more than just to show up to work employee leaders that don't recognize their impact. end up having far less time to complete their own tasks, develop growth plans, and it ends up in high turnover rates and a negative internal department culture.

This podcast will provide a resource for both new and experienced leaders who want to become highly effective in their role who are passionate about driving success in their company and want to increase employee engagement. You may be looking for a community that will provide feedback to some things you may be struggling with or looking for resources to help move things along. If that's the case, then you found the right place. My intent is to provide a forum for you to submit your questions or concerns and to receive answers. Just remember that if you're asking a question, someone else will have the same question. Or they will benefit from the answer as well. Ultimately, this podcast is all about providing new leaders and entrepreneurs with processes and procedures for developing high impact teams and employees. We will discuss ways to grow employees beyond what they are currently producing, ways to improve communications explore possibilities in developing high levels of trust and so much more. I can't wait to partner with you. And I hope that you join me on this journey.

It is my plan to produce and have available episodes weekly for you to listen to at your convenience. As always, if you have specific questions that you would like covered in an episode, please send those questions to John and aperture advising.com. Until the next time, remember, I believe in your ability to lead from the ground up

Categories: : Podcast