Professor Rao and I had a wide ranging chat about leadership, emotional intelligence, and employee engagement. Professor M.S. Rao, Ph.D.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professormsrao Substack: https://professormsrao.substack.comFounder of MSR Leadership Consultants, IndiaAmazon: http://www.amazon.com/M.-S.-Rao/e/B00MB63BKMVision 2030: https://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.com X: http://twitter.com/professormsrao YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorMSRao Meta: https://www.facebook.com/Professor-MS-Rao-451516514937414 See the Light in You: https://www.amazon.com/See-Light-You-Spiritual-Mindfulness/dp/1949003132

Most employees are disengaged, frustrated, and low performing at work.When we meet a happy and high performing employee - what are the behaviors of their team lead that makes this happen?First up is finding and removing friction.Smart team leads know this is crucial to great team performance. 

Suraj wanted to be an astronaut - he may still get there :-)Suraj is on a mission to equip you with unparalleled leadership skills, strategic planning, and team-building expertise for groundbreaking roles in technology.Learn more about Suraj's work at https://grounow.comor send an email to [email protected] you!

Sean has had a fascinating career spent spanning over 20 years as an executive in media, advertising, publishing and film production managing and developing sales, marketing, and creative teams.He studied performance at the Juilliard School and finance at Wharton. As an award winning musician and multi-instrumentalist, he borrows techniques from jazz improvisation to help foster creative collaboration and cooperation within and across teams.I do enjoy having people with diverse skills on the podcast :-)

This is costing companies a fortune.Execs and team leads can't read each other's minds. And they have very different perspectives on how to operate successfully.I hear about it in every conversation. Step 1 is awareness. Send questions and feedback to [email protected] you!

Michael Hicks is a passionate life strategist and the visionary behind the Liv2thrive proven module framework, a transformative approach designed to empower high achievers to unlock their true full potential.With a deep commitment to personal growth, Michael has dedicated his entire career to helping others embrace resilience, build confidence and self-esteem cultivate self-awareness, and thrive in every aspect of life; including career, relationships and self. 

My first tech job was a strugggle.The second had all kinds of struggle - including building my first teams.The third had layoffs - and my responsibilities exploded.Struggle is good. Each time, we learn new skills, grow our confidence, and earn career advancement. Opportunity often shows up looking like hard work - T. Edison

Most problems of leadership can be improved with better communication. How's your curiosity and growth mindset? Are you a scout for your team?Can you persuade effectively? Are you framing the conversation in your language or the audiences?And yes, this works for shy introverts with social anxiety - I was one for decades. 

This is for the CFOs in the audience. I'm competitive, and business is a competition. If you care about the financial side of business - upscaling your first level team leads is the biggest productivity change you can make. 

Team leads have an incredibly high level of power - and they rarely understand this. Understanding your power is critical to team leadership. 

Some thoughts on layoffs. I've been layed off and had ventures fail - so had to lay-off teams. Some thoughts on "why" and ideas to reduce layoff possibilities. 

Leadership has challenges - that's the game. Learning to have emotional resilience is how we handle challenges with grace. Want more?Send us an email - [email protected]

Solving impossible problems.Launching cash cow products in record time. Easy interviews (yes, they can be easy).And promotions without asking. One key skill enabled this and more. Want more? Send an email to [email protected]

40PB uses a simple framework for our leadership system. This framework is used in many contexts - but strangely no-one talks about it. Mental Models (aka beliefs or principles), Skills, and Reps

Change is always happening and usually the emotional aspects are hardest to manage.Jacqueline Kappers has a fascinating approach to help people move through the emotional part of change - in a variety of contexts.If you want to learn more - send her an email [email protected]

Everyone wants a great company culture - and employee engagement.But where do you start?Here's the recipe - build trust at the team level first. 

Great leadership requires specific mental models, here's the first three that we've found consistently in the best leaders. 

Leadership, mental frameworks, making systems, and improving team performance :-)Shawn's origin story.(he started as an accountant)Surprising mental frameworks Shawn has but his clients don't know yet. Financial impacts of mental health.Company culturesShawn is a business executive with over 30 years in the business world. Having worked for and with small businesses for much of that time as either a COO or CFO, Shawn is committed to business success at all levels.In more recent years, Shawn has found tremendous passion in helping business leaders reclaim their entrepreneurial dreams.Shawn is host of the Team Engagement podcast; a weekly “ rapid-fire ” podcast that discusses leadership and teams. With over 350 guests from all over the world Shawn is grateful to the many leaders who have contributed ideas, insights, and strategies.Shawn is the author of the Sapphire Leadership Development System, a unique and proprietary leadership development system that helps leaders develop the team building skills and strategies that turn excellent teams into high performing teams. Shawn is a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach as well as a certified TES facilitator with AIIR Consulting. He is proud to be a certified business coach with the Worldwide Coaching Group

but 2x teams doThere's a myth that super-human engineers exist and can outperform 10 "regular" engineers. This is the 10x myth of productivity. It's a lie.  And it's a damaging lie on multiple fronts.2x teamsInstead of looking for a 10x engineer, you can build a 2x team

Rule 1 of leadership is helping the team operate better.Rule 2 is that even if Rule 1 is uncomfortable - you are still responsible to do it.This episode dives into Rule 2.Yes, you can :-)

Yes you can figure it out.It takes time, research, experiments - but you can figure it out.

This is a sad reality of leadership. So many negative stories (and experiences) about managers/supervisors/leaders who do not take good care of their teams.

I'm a fan of anyone working on introversion. Felix is doing excellent work.Learn more about Felix at http://brokesurgeon.com#40pb

How did you do that?I've been asked repeatedly by colleagues and execs. Across all the other mental models and skills - initiative is critical.

Front line leaders who learn the skills to present up the org chart.This helps teams trust, care, and feel engaged.

Smart leadership is a system.It works the same over and over again.And it starts with first level leaders/supervisors/managers.

Every employee engagement journey starts with communication.I spent decades struggling with social anxiety - but now I talk with strangers every day and enjoy public speaking.The difference - learning and practicing skills in tiny increments (baby steps).

Being friends with your boss is nice - but often times ineffective for making change happen. What you need are the models and skills for persuasion. Persuasion means translating what you know into language that resonates with someone else. This is how I got my CEO to change his pitches, got funding for team projects, and solved an "impossible" problem at the big G.

We all have different approaches for leadership. Here's some that worked very well for me - and I've seen others use them also.