Great Leaders Play to Their Strengths, Part 1 Transcript

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Andy Stanley (00:02):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a conversation designed to help leaders go further, faster. I'm Andy Stanley. And before we get into today's content, I want to share a special offer from our friends at Belay. Unclear feedback is one of the most expensive mistakes a leader can make. When people have to guess what's expected of them, small issues quickly become big ones, right? But clear, timely, and specific feedback helps people get better and get better quicker. And when people get better, of course, our organizations do as well.That’s why BELAY is offering our audience their guide, entitled Feedback that Fuels Growth.This free, practical resource teaches you how to have the conversations most of us avoid, and helps us navigate difficult feedback with care, and build a culture where your team feels supported and empowered.Now, as you know, you can't help people grow if you're buried in the operational work that's keeping you from them. That’s where BELAY comes in. BELAY has helped over 10,000 leaders reclaim their time for the things that matter most. Their U.S.-based, highly-vetted Assistants and Financial Experts are personally matched to your business, taking operational work off your plate so you can focus on leading your team and moving your business forward. To claim your free guide, just text the word ANDY to 55123. That's A-N-D-Y to 55123. And now, back to today’s podcast episode…

(01:14):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a conversation designed to help leaders go further faster. If you're listening by way of a podcast app, you may want to check out the YouTube version of this conversation, something we've recently launched. And to those of you who are joining us by way of YouTube, welcome to the conversation or welcome back because this is the third episode of a special series.

Holly Goddard (01:35):
Yeah, that's right. And if it's your first time, I'm Holly Goddard. I'm the co-host of this series and a special series it is because you've written a brand new book, What Great Leaders Do, subtitle Seven Essentials for Enduring Impact. Now, I've been a part of our organization for 15 years. I've seen these play out. I know these will affect your day job and you've named the tensions, you've given us the practices, and you've told us what to do about it. So thank you.

Andy Stanley (02:01):
It's been fun to talk about the content of the book, so thank you for being a part of that.

Holly Goddard (02:05):
And with these episodes, we're really only scratching the surface. So you should pick up a copy because there's so much goodness, there's so much stuff in this book. So you ready to jump in?

Andy Stanley (02:14):
Yeah, let's jump in.

Holly Goddard (02:15):
All right. In the first two episodes, we explored the topic of exceptional self-leadership and the first essential that you unpacked for us. You taught us great leaders lead themselves well. So today we're going to unpack the second essential, which is great leaders play to their strengths. And thanks for being in the hot seat. Thanks for being willing to talk about all of this. And I want to start with an assumption that you just turn on its head right out of the gate. As leaders, we all have an assumption. The more responsibility we have, the more we're supposed to be doing.

Andy Stanley (02:46):
And the more we end up doing with responsibility, it just goes together.

Holly Goddard (02:49):
Yeah, that's our tendency. Yes. But then you give us something that just turns that on its head. You contradict that by saying the less you do, the more you accomplish. So for us high achievers, that feels kind of backwards. We're kind of prizzling against that one right there. So why is doing less, why is that a great leverage point for us?

Andy Stanley (03:08):
So to clarify, it doesn't mean doing less work or working less hours.

(03:13):
The idea is the scope of the work. So the idea behind this whole idea is that great leaders narrow the scope of their work, the scope of what they do. They don't do less. They do less things, they don't work less hours necessarily. So this is about leaning into our strengths, finding our sweet spot, staying there, scheduling there, and again, leaning into our strengths. When we lean into our strengths and we delegate our weaknesses or the things that we're not as good at because most of us are only good at one or two things. And when I say compared to our other strengths and weaknesses, not compared to other people, but when a person evaluates their personal strengths and weaknesses, there's usually just a couple of things that we are exceptional at compared to everything else we have the potential to do. So leaders identify that as early as possible.

(03:58):
It took me way too long to figure this out or to identify that. And then once they do, they lean into the strengths, we delegate everything else. And the reason everything gets better is because if I delegate the things I'm not that good at,

(04:11):
Then I'm going to be better at what I'm good at. And there are other people around me and around you and around our listeners who are good at the things that we're not good at. And when people are doing what they're best at, good things happen. But as long as I'm hanging onto and involving myself in things that I'm just pretty good at, and since I'm the boss or since you're the boss or you're the manager or the owner -

Holly Goddard (04:33):
You feel all the freedom to do that.

Andy Stanley (04:34):
Yeah, nobody's going to take it away from you. But when we ignore this principle, we become a lid to the organization even though we may be enjoying everything that we're doing. And because again, if most of the people in the organization report to you, they're just going to smile and laugh at your jokes and cheer you on as you do things that you're not necessarily really that good at. So this isn't about fewer hours, this is about fewer things. And again, reducing the scope of what we do so that we're in our zone and therefore making the best contribution to the organization.

Holly Goddard (05:06):
Yeah, that's so good. So if we find our focus, then we don't put a lid on the organization. And you say at some point in your leadership, you had this realization that you were just doing too much or too many things. You write this, "I was working hard and slowing things down simultaneously." Okay, that's fascinating. So looking back, how did you realize you were becoming the bottleneck?

Andy Stanley (05:27):
Well, first of all, there were things that just weren't going well that I was responsible for. But the defining moment was my assistant, Diane Grant, who I talk a lot about in this book. She's worked with me for 30 years. Diane kept trying to take things away from me and other people did too. In fact, early on people would, and I thought they were just being nice like, "Oh, Andy, we want to help you." And I'm like, "Oh, no, no, no, I don't need help. I've got this." And I realized now they were thinking, "That's the problem. You've got this and as long as you've got it, it ain't going to be great." So I finally realized, because Diane was very overt, "Andy, I'm not just trying to help you. I'm trying to take something away from you because somebody else can do this better." And she would never go so far as to say, "You're not good at this," because I was probably good at it,

(06:15):
But two things were happening. I wasn't great at it, and the time I was spending doing some of these things was time that was taken away from my primary value add to the organization. So this was a learning thing. In fact, in our second part of this discussion next time, in the next episode, I'm going to talk about the reasons leaders don't apply this, and there are five reasons. And two of those were so true. But fortunately for me, I had somebody who came along, who loved our organization so much that they didn't mind potentially offending me to say, "Let us take that. You do you, you do your thing, let us do the rest." But that begins with some humility,

(06:54):
Some self-awareness, and figuring out what we're good at. And this is what I say to young leaders. I said, look, when you first start off in leadership, you have to do a little bit of everything to discover your passion, what you enjoy, and then ultimately what you're wired for. And that takes some experimentation, but you need to figure that out as soon as possible and try to work your way into a job or apply for a job that leverages that strength. So early on, I think we all have to experiment. Early on, we all get this wrong perhaps because especially if you're starting an organization, you really have to do everything because it's necessary. There's nobody else to do it. And I think this was part of my struggle. I felt like part of my responsibility when we launched our organization was I was trying to set a standard of excellence in some areas that in our particular industry, sometimes there wasn't excellence.

(07:49):
So all of that was well-meaning, but I went too long. I stayed in some of those roles too long.

Holly Goddard (07:55):
Yeah.

Andy Stanley (07:55):
Fortunately, I had some people that were like, "We're not trying to help you. We're trying to help the organization by taking -

Holly Goddard (08:01):
Get better.

Andy Stanley (08:02):
By taking this away from you." So anyway.

Holly Goddard (08:03):
Well, I love you creating the kind of environment where you could have those kind of conversations because it is so easy to swerve out of your lane as a leader. And we create a lot of chaos when we do that. You say part of the problem was that you bought into a myth and this myth that good leaders should be good at everything.

Andy Stanley (08:21):
Yeah, the well-rounded leader myth. In the book, I give some examples of this because I was fortunate to be introduced to, primarily through my dad, some extraordinary leaders, some people who had accomplished great things. And you are often less, especially when you're young, you're left with the impression, these people are great at everything. They're great public speakers. So I was left with the impression in order to be a great leader, I needed to shore up my weaknesses so that I could be like them great at everything.

Holly Goddard (08:53):
Do it all.

Andy Stanley (08:53):
Yeah. But behind the scenes, the reason that they were so accomplished and in some cases so well known is they had discovered this principle and they had leaned into their strengths, developed those strengths. They were not well-rounded leaders, but several of them certainly led well-rounded organizations. So that's kind of the, I don't know, the paradox in all of this. The less I focus on what I'm not good at, the organization gets better at what I'm not good at. And that's true for any organization. So when I lean into my strengths, delegate my weaknesses, everything gets done better because I'm not doing it or you're not doing it. So it's a bit of a paradox.

Holly Goddard (09:30):
Well, this is such an important statement that you make. You say your fully exploited strengths will always add more value than your marginally improved weaknesses.

Andy Stanley (09:39):
Yes.

Holly Goddard (09:39):
Okay, that's a really big thought.

Andy Stanley (09:41):
Yes. And so the key to this is fully exploiting our strengths rather than trying to shore up our weaknesses. Because again, this isn't compared to other people, this is just internally. My weaknesses will always be weaknesses compared to my strengths. Same for you. Same for you. Right. That's just the reality. And if we're going to devote our time to something, we should devote our time to, as much as we can, perfecting our strengths or developing our strengths, which then become the primary value add to the organization. And if that is a value that we both model, that we model and teach in our organizations, and as you know, this is something I've been teaching for years and have tried my best to create a culture where, and you're actually great at this, Holly. In fact, at a personnel level, management level, you're way better at this than I am, to recognize people's strengths, to position them, to use Jim Collins' language, to make sure they're not just on the bus, but in the right seat on the bus.

(10:41):
And when you get that right, they thrive. We narrow their focus, their scope. More gets done, more gets done better. But again, it begins with leaders recognizing that about themselves, giving other people on the team permission to experiment and positioning them correctly. And at the end of the day, everybody does perhaps fewer things, but more gets accomplished and it gets accomplished better. And people enjoy their jobs because -

Holly Goddard (11:06):
Yeah, they're in their sweet spot.

Andy Stanley (11:07):
Right. When you're working in your flow, I think that's a Daniel Pink phrase. When you're working in your flow, you're energized rather than depleted. In the early days when I was trying to do everything, I would just come home exhausted. And again, your passion starts to wane, your energy wanes. So this is a big deal. It takes some time to figure out, and it takes some humility to hand things off.

Holly Goddard (11:30):
Yeah. Well, I love the permission to go hard into your strengths. I remember the first time I ever did a 360 assessment and some of my weaknesses came back. I though, how do they know? I thought I was covering it better, but the truth is all you got to do is ask some people. They know the things you should hand off.

Andy Stanley (11:45):
Exactly. No, that's a great point. And that's one of the advantages of a 360. And since you brought that up, and this is really important because the temptation, my first 360 many years ago, when I saw some of the areas I needed to work on, they were things I knew that I was never going to be. I felt defeated because I thought, I'm doing the best I can. And I was doing the best I could, but I was never going to be the best at that. So going into a 360 with that in mind, and also for those of us that have employees that we ask them to do 360s, when that feedback comes back, differentiating between character issues, which we all were responsible for that, versus skill level issues. And when somebody consistently is kind of flagging, it's like, okay, before we decide this isn't the right person for the team, maybe they just aren't in the right seat with the team.

Holly Goddard (12:41):
Yeah, such a big deal. And when you have a well-rounded team, a lot of great things happen. In fact, we just experienced this past week on our team, something that we kind of though, I don't know if we could pull this off when we lended the authority to somebody else that happened.

Andy Stanley (12:57):
Yeah. So we work at a large multi-site church and we had a backlog of adults who wanted to be baptized, and we normally just baptize a couple people per service on Sunday morning. So our service programming director came to me and Holly and said, okay. She said, "I want us to do a Sunday morning where all we do is baptize people and I think we can baptize 80 people.

Holly Goddard (13:20):
Right.

Andy Stanley (13:21):
So it would just be music and baptism." And we're like, "Okay, that sounds like a lot, 40 per service. Okay." And then she came back, remember?

Holly Goddard (13:32):
Well, she came back and she was like, "I think we can double it." And I just wanted to just turn my head the other way and not look because I couldn't even figure out how you get all those moving parts going. But we were like, "If you think you can do it, let's try it." And then she just said, "All I need you to do is this." She gave us each an assignment. She figured out the day, we stayed in our strengths, and she stayed in hers, and it was unbelievable.

Andy Stanley (13:59):
It was amazing. And the other kind of takeaway, and this applies in every organization, you know your strengths, I know my strengths. And when she created this event or the potential for the event, we said to her, "How can we help?" In fact, what can I do to help is one of the best questions a leader can ask constantly because people who report to us, they're always asking us that. Very few employees hear from their boss, "How can I help?" But that's what we said to her. How can we help? She said, "Andy, you do this. Holly, you do this." We're like, "Yes, ma'am." And we loaned her our strengths and in loaning her our strengths and in her being in the position she was, it was an incredible event. So the point is lean into your strengths, stay in your lane, position and resource people to do the same.

(14:46):
And the organization becomes a well-rounded organization. One more thing on this, and you know this. Our organization is an events organization, so to speak. And we are known for amazing events and neither one of us are event planners and logistics is not our thing. But again, we're not well-rounded leaders. Well-rounded leadership is a myth, but a well-rounded organization is a goal. And when people have the opportunity to play primarily, not exclusively, but play primarily to their strengths, the organization is strengthened. So this is a really big deal.

Holly Goddard (15:24):
Yeah, they begin to thrive and then so does the organization, which one of the ideas that jumped off the page for me is you say it this way, only do what only you can do. All right, that's one of those statements, really clear, really hard to be consistent with. So why do you think that is? Why is that hard to live that out?

Andy Stanley (15:41):
Well, let me define it a little bit. And this is something, again, I've taught for years, talked about on the podcast multiple times. Only do what only you can do is not a destination. I think it's more of a navigation point. In the ancient times, mariners navigate it according to the North Star because visually it doesn't move. So that's what this statement is, only do what only you can do. There may be people in this world who are in some sort of corporate life or organizational life who literally only do what only they can do. I think that's rare. I don't know. I've never met a person whose job description or responsibility is limited to that, but it is something to navigate by. So only do what only you can do is to do all that you can to be positioned in such a way in the organization that the majority of your time, and this is important, the majority of your most productive time is dedicated to the area where you make the most value add to the organization.

(16:40):
So it's not just limiting scope, it also has to do with schedule. And again, when I know my primary value add and I'm able to devote my most productive time to that, then that's probably as close to only do what only you can do as somebody like me could get or most people. Because when I would teach this or say this to people, there's kind of an eye roll like, yeah, right, that would be great. But wait a minute, before you discount it, it's something to navigate toward over time. And as influence grows, organizations grow and job descriptions become more and more segmented and they're more specialist, this is more possible than people think. But for the leader of a team or an organization, it needs to be a north star. Otherwise, to your point earlier, we drift and the areas we drift into are areas we enjoy whether we're good at it or not.

(17:32):
And we should all enjoy what we do, but we've all met people who don't want to give something up because they enjoy it so much. And it's like, yeah, you enjoy it, but you're not great at it. So you're going to need to find some joy somewhere else. Somewhere else. And when you're doing something where you're creating the most value for the organization, there's definitely joy there. So it's a point of navigation.

Holly Goddard (17:55):
Well, I like that the practice is really orienting your schedule and your calendar so that your strengths and your priorities can show up in time in your work life.

Andy Stanley (18:04):
Yeah, because our schedule, this is a bit of an exaggeration, our schedule is our future. When you get up and you look at what's going to happen in the week or I look at what's going to happen in the week, there's my future. So I can look at the calendar and go, "Is this week, this future, is my best time given to my greatest value added to the organization?" I know that ahead of time and I determine, you determine, you determine what gets on the calendar. So these things go hand in hand.

Holly Goddard (18:34):
I learned this one the hard way. I had a direct report come into me, and I'm responsible for leading our all staff meetings at this campus. So I'm leading a bunch of staff and I was just not putting time on my calendar to prepare for this. And he literally called me out on that in a one-on-one and said, "Hey, this is one of the most important things you do. It kind of seems like you're winging it. You're not spending time during the week." And he was right. And I realized I'm actually the only one standing up there thinking about this, leading this through the week, so I got to change my calendar so my life reflects it.

(19:06):
Okay. Speaking of calendar, since you brought this up, at the end of the book, there's a great interview with you and Diane. Diane's your executive assistant of 30 years. She's amazing. But you talk about how reluctant you were to give her control of your calendar when y'all first started working together, which that conversation is worth buying the book, especially if you're an executive and you've got an admin assistant. The way y'all have navigated this and how honest you were with each other is so, so helpful. And honestly, it seems like it has changed your leadership and the way that you construct your weeks.

Andy Stanley (19:37):
Yes, it did.

Holly Goddard (19:38):
And Diane led you there.

Andy Stanley (19:39):
She did, because once we agreed upon or we had the conversation around what's my value add, which she knew that. In fact, like you said it earlier on, most people know this about us and the people they work with, whether the person recognizes it about themselves or not.

Holly Goddard (19:53):
Yeah.

Andy Stanley (19:53):
So she knew that. She knew what my values were and what my priorities were and where I needed to spend most of my time. So she took responsibility for making sure my most productive hours were given to what makes the organization most productive. But for that to happen, I had to give her control of the calendar. So in the book at the end, I talk a little bit about, and she does too because it's an interview, but we're both way in on this, that kind of tug of war because I wanted to control it. But the problem was I kept putting things on there that distracted from my primary value add to the organization. So it's my fault. The calendar's my future. I'm my own problem. And finally I said, okay, you control the calendar. You and Sandra, my wife, you got that. That was a game changer.

Holly Goddard (20:40):
Best decision you made.

Andy Stanley (20:41):
And then what happened is my priorities, my strengths and my time were in sync, and that was huge. And so just real quick to those of you listening to this conversation, you're going, I wish. This isn't just a principle that you think about, oh, that's an interesting principle. The application really has as much to do with your schedule and your calendar as it does with just agreeing with, oh, I'm going to lean into my strengths because again, the calendar is the future.

Holly Goddard (21:09):
Well, I love thinking about your calendar. It's your future. It's not your to-do list.

Andy Stanley (21:13):
Exactly. Right. Thank you. Yes.

Holly Goddard (21:15):
And so if you treat it that way, you can stay in your sweet spot.

Andy Stanley (21:20):
Yeah.

Holly Goddard (21:21):
All right. So we need to prioritize our calendars and to do that, you got to delegate. And we know that as leaders. We know, okay, delegate, but knowing's really not the problem. Letting go is the problem. And I've heard you say this before, you've got to let go to grow. Okay, that's hard, but what's at stake if we get this wrong?

Andy Stanley (21:38):
Well, first of all, to give credit where credit is due, I'm pretty sure that's a John Maxwell quote, but again, memorable, it's portable, and it rhymes, and it's true. You got to let go to grow because when we do too many different things and many of those different things aren't in our sweet spot, what happens is the calendar gets full because that's kind of the goal. Oh, you got an hour on Thursday. Oh, what re you doing Friday afternoon? So you fill up the calendar, which means there's no margin. And this is a big deal, and I've been there and done that and don't want to go back there. When the calendar's full and there's no margin, we stop leading and we simply start managing because leadership requires margin. Management is what needs to get done. Leadership is what do we need to think about in the future that's not on anybody's calendar because nobody's thinking about it yet.

Holly Goddard (22:30):
One's reactive, one's so proactive.

Andy Stanley (22:32):
Yeah, one is almost all reactive. It's problem solving,

Holly Goddard (22:35):
Yeah

Andy Stanley (22:35):
Problem solving. And what happens is when the calendar's full, we become problem solvers and we become managers. You've got to have margin, which means the calendar is a tool. It's not just a response to request. And so what happens is we get reduced to managing, and I've been there. The way I would say it is I was busy, very busy, but at the same time I was bored and my passion for what we were doing began to wane. And I'll tell you sort of the wake-up call was Diane, who we've talked about, she had an assistant back then named Dawn. Dawn was a few years older than me, and Dawn did not need to work. She didn't need a job. She loved me, but wasn't overly impressed. And so she was not afraid to say what was on her mind. And literally, I remember where I was standing.

(23:21):
I'm standing in Diane's office in front of her desk, and Dawn walks by and she says, "Andy," she's very motherly sometimes. "Andy, do you know what your problem is?" I'm like, "What, Dawn?" She said this, she said, "You're bored."

Holly Goddard (23:38):
Terrible.

Andy Stanley (23:39):
And there sits Diane with the calendar, got all this stuff going on.

Holly Goddard (23:42):
You get all this stuff on your -

Andy Stanley (23:44):
She knew me. We've known each other for years. She sensed, okay, you're busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but there's something missing and you're bored. And I respected her enough to think, okay, I don't know. Bored, I have so much to do, but she knew there was something. And so that's when I stepped back and realized, no, I'm bored because I'm bored with what I'm doing, but I'm problem solving. I'm not leading because there's no margin on the calendar. So you find yourself in that spot, you got a heady jack. That's not going to work itself out.

Holly Goddard (24:19):
You got to take some agency here.

Andy Stanley (24:21):
Yeah, you got to do something kind of drastic.

Holly Goddard (24:23):
Busy and bored sounds terrible, but you mentioned passionless. Yeah. Okay.That sounds like a really red flag. And going back to leaders playing to their strengths, when we don't stay in our strengths, not only are we in the doom loop, but there seems to be a lot of implications in the organization. Is that fair to say?

Andy Stanley (24:39):
Yes, absolutely. Neglect this principle, and there are implications for the organization. And the primary one is this. Ultimately, and we've seen this, it makes it difficult to keep talented people.

(24:52):
And the best way to explain this, we mentioned John Maxwell just a minute ago, and for all of the John Maxwell fans out there, of which I am one, you may be familiar with his 21 Immutable Laws of Leadership, and one of those laws, he calls it the law of respect. And so here's the law of respect. Leaders are attracted to leaders they perceive to be better, more capable leaders than themselves. And I learned this a long time ago, very few leaders feel like they have to be number one, but they want to work for somebody they respect and they want to be in the circle that influences their future in the organization. So I don't need to be number one, but I want to be in the conversation that influences where I'm going to be in the organization, and I want to work for somebody who I respect as a leader.

(25:38):
So the law of respect, leaders are attracted to leaders they perceive to be better or more capable leaders than themselves. So to attract the best leaders you can possibly attract, you must be the best leader you can possibly be. In other words, if people perceive me to be a leader worth following, that I've got to be the best leader I can possibly be to attract the best leaders for the organization. So maximizing our leadership potential, this is where these two come together, maximizing our personal leadership potential is essential to maximizing the quality of the leaders on our team, because I think John is right. Leaders want to work for people or report to people. They respect as leaders.

Holly Goddard (26:19):
Yeah

Andy Stanley (26:19):
To some extent feel like they might be better leaders than me. So again, if I'm not in my sweet spot, my leadership, not my leadership ability, but my leadership potential isn't maximized, which could potentially impact who would even want to work for me or with me or in our organization, if that makes sense.

Holly Goddard (26:37):
Yeah, it does. No, there's lots of ripple effects from not getting this right. You actually write it this way, that high capacity leaders want to work with leaders they perceive to be better than themselves. And I read that and I though, okay, that's intimidating, but it's true. I know that because that's what I want. I'm attracted to a seat or an opportunity if I perceive that the people leading me in the circles I'm in are better and I'm going to grow. And then John gives us this interesting.

Andy Stanley (27:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, if you're a John Maxwell fan, he talks about this all the time, and I'll be honest, and I even say this in the book, the first time I was introduced to this idea that he talks about, I didn't like it. I pushed back on it and over time I'm like, no, he's right, as offensive as this sounds. So here's the way he describes it. You've probably heard this before. I'll just read part of my notes. He says it this way, "On a scale of one to 10, an eight leader will not follow a six leader." So on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the greatest leader ever, so if you're an eight, you're going to have a hard time following a six. You're not going to follow them long anyway because it creates too much tension. And I compare it to a rear end collision.

(27:45):
Everybody's moving in the same direction, but the eight is to the six like, "Come on, come on, come on." Again, it's not a vision or direction issue, it's a quality of the leader issue. So the moment, and this is the takeaway, the moment a leader steps away from his or her core competencies, their strengths, their effectiveness, their real world capacity diminishes. Nines become eights, eights become sevens, not because their potential has changed, but because they're not playing to their strengths. Stepping away from our core competencies does not diminish our potential as a leader, but it does diminish our real world day-to-day effectiveness.

(28:28):
So to put all that together, if I want to attract and keep the best leaders possible, I have to be the best version of the leader that I can possibly be. And when I get bored and passionless, when there's so much on the calendar that there's no margin for leadership, when I drop down into management rather than leadership, it impacts the people that I work with or the people that are going to want to work with me. So this isn't just be the best you can be, this has real world implications for the whole organization.

Holly Goddard (28:59):
Well, that's the big thing, the real world implications. So I've experienced this. When I step outside of my sweet spot, I've been told, someone on my team always says, "You make things a little wonky."

Andy Stanley (29:08):
They say that to you?

Holly Goddard (29:09):
Yeah, that's just a slang for get back in your lane. Things are getting off. So not only is it bad for me, but here's the thing that really I don't like. It frustrates the ringers on the team, and you know me. You know I like to have a roster full of ringers, and I want them to be in their sweet spot doing their best work. So if we don't get this right, we eventually will run off the really good people on our teams. You say it this way, we maintain our potential while undermining the potential of the organizations we lead, in part because we make it difficult to recruit and keep high capacity people. That is a scary thought.

Andy Stanley (29:44):
It's true. And I do tell the story in the book about my daughter-in-law who came to work for us.

Holly Goddard (29:48):
Oh, she's so high capacity.

Andy Stanley (29:50):
She's so high capacity. And the way we got her when she graduated from college, she went to work for a company that everybody watching or listening has heard And the department she was working in, they kept telling her to slow down. You just slow down. Well, you know Danielle, you don't tell Danielle.

Holly Goddard (30:09):
That gear is not there.

Andy Stanley (30:10):
No, and she was out of there. And I just though you just lost a ringer. She's amazing. So I said, come work for us. We will never tell you to slow down.

Holly Goddard (30:21):
That's so true. Okay. So for the leader listening, they've heard all this, they know my plate is too full. What should they do this week?

Andy Stanley (30:29):
Okay. So two suggestions. One might be to have, if you have an admin assistant, executive assistant, to have them listen to this conversation and to sort of create a paradigm or a context for your calendar, your schedule, what you're feeling and sensing. And it may give him or her permission, maybe they've not had before, to address some of this with you. And they're like, "Oh, good. I've been waiting for you to ask the question. I wasn't sure that we could put this on the table." So that's one thing. And again, the conversation between Diane and me at the end of the book, that might be a great place to start because again, going back to what we said last time in the other episode, you can't lead yourself by yourself and the people closest to you are the people that can probably help the most with this.

(31:16):
The second thing is to, and this goes to what you just said, Holly, is to monitor your passion, your energy. One of my mentors years ago said the most important thing a leader brings to his team or her team is their energy. And our energy, day-to-day energy is tied to our passion for what we're doing. So if your passion is waning, that is a really, really big deal. That's not just a personal thing, that is an organizational thing. So to acknowledge that and to address that. And if you were to say to me, Andy, well, how do I fix that? Here's what I would say. You're a leader. You know how to fix things. Admit the problem, acknowledge it, and you'll figure it out. That's how you got to where you are. But again, reframing, re-contextualizing what you're experiencing, which is what we just did.

(32:03):
Your calendar's too full. It's too full of things that you really don't need to be doing. I mean, every one of them individually feels like it's critical, but the sum total, it's killing you. Address that, invite somebody to help you and go from there.

Holly Goddard (32:18):
That's so good. Bottom line, don't be reduced to a manager. You're a leader. Great leaders play to their strengths. Thank you so much for that. We're going to pick it up right there next time. We're going to explore five traps that leaders fall into that make it almost impossible for them to stay in their lane and to play to their strengths. But thank you so much for joining us. And before you go, take a minute to subscribe wherever you access this content. By subscribing, you help us grow the audience, which allows us to keep bringing you great content to help you go further faster. And be sure to visit andystanley.com where you can download the leadership podcast application guide. That includes a summary of this episode plus questions for reflection or group discussion. And we will see you next time right here on the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast.