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119. Transparent Communication: A Values-Based Leadership Approach

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Summary

Leadership is less this is what I do, and more this is my way of being. But how to fully express that principle throughout your business, your brand, your life? Transparent communication can get you there. You already know we’re keen on the power of conversation here Pause On The Play. A strategy of open dialogue telegraphs your values to those you work with, for, and around. 

Erica breaks down five essential, actionable steps that will ensure every aspect of your business is aligned and embodies your core beliefs.

In this discussion:

  • Defining the concept of leadership

  • Exploring the power of vulnerability and transparency

  • Why engaging your team in the dialogue strengthens working relationships

  • Considering core values when working with outside service providers

  • Why aligning team evaluation methods is important to values integration

  • Living team values out loud

  • Creating space for challenging conversations and inviting honest feedback

Keep The Dialogue Going

Here’s your invitation to join Erica Courdae and India Jackson in transparent conversation. Dropping The Veil, is their 3-day virtual event featuring a diverse panel of guests who have chosen to be more of who they are out loud in order to demonstrate what’s possible. 

Thursday, August 12 - Saturday, August 14. Details at pauseontheplay.com/events.

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There’s no better time than now to move into a fuller expression of your leadership capabilities. But how do you do that? After spending some time considering that question, Erica has gathered five actions from her own experiences that anyone can incorporate into their routine.  

“I want to be honest,” she begins, “I don't really think about myself as a leadership coach, but I also am fully aware that a number of the concepts that I work with and I support people with

absolutely requires leadership. It really requires you to get clear on what that means to you, how that plays out, how you can embody that in a way that is in alignment with your values, and how you can implore your team and those that are taking in your content, those that you support, your students, anyone that you influence, to step into their own level of leadership as well.”

Leadership is less this is what I do, and more this is a way of being. “This is very similar to DEI. These are threads that show up in all ways because it's not something that you can turn on or off; It really is, you know, this is how I just exist,” Erica reminds us. Likewise, she invites POTP audiences to consider whether or not those that are a part of our teams are also leading in a way that feels aligned not only with our values but our goals as well. Are we fostering the best environment for the team and utilizing the talents that we have access to? 

Conversation is key. There's no way to talk through challenges, to celebrate where you're winning, or to be able to discuss where things can be done differently for optimal results if communication and conversation are not fully present. To that end, all of the following points require open, honest, transparent, and clear communication and dialogue. And these are not things that everyone is going to be inherently good at. That’s ok! 

“You should always hold yourself to a standard of knowing that there's room for growth,” Erica says. “Even if you are great at it, there's always room to be better; there's always room to evolve, especially because the context of how good you are at something is absolutely congruent with the individual with whom you're good at it with. I can have someone that, you know, our dialogue is great; we have conversations, we talk through things, there's clarity, there's understanding. And then with somebody else, I can do the same exact thing, and they're like, ‘I don't know what the hell you talking about; I got nothing.’”

Before going into the list, remember that what fits one will not fit every person or situation. So, take these as frameworks versus a full-blown A to Z tutorial. 

If you have a team, communicate new initiatives to them.

We will often have new––sometimes grandiose–– ideas of what we want to do, how we want to do it differently, and the impact we want to make. And we start doing these things. We start working with service providers. We start auditing the things that we're doing. We start deleting old practices that don't work and getting them out of our workflows. But we're not communicating this with our teams. We're not allowing them to not only be on board but to know that they're a part of this and they have an opportunity to provide feedback. 

“One of the things that I see happen way too often is a leader will think this is what I need to do, but forget the people that are actually implementing these things and that are running up against any of the challenges that may come with them on a day-to-day basis because they're the ones actually playing these things out, you haven't gotten the feedback for them,” Erica says. “It's important to make sure that these things are communicated so that the lines of communication about what does and does not work and why is there, but so that everybody has an opportunity to be a part of the goal.”

Communicate with your team about which service providers you're working with and why. 

Although related to the first entry, this deserves consideration of its own. If you bring on a copywriter, a DEI coach (like Erica herself), a brand strategist (like India Jackson over at Flaunt Your Fire), your team needs to know. If they’re not aware of what's happening and why, there’s never any opportunity to ensure that these service providers you're working with are aligned with everyone in your organization.

“If you bring on someone [who] possibly is not LGBTQIA+ friendly, and you have a team member that’s like, ‘Wait! That person actually doesn't support me. Why would you work with this person?’ You need to know these kinds of things,” Erica says.  Likewise, your team needs to know when you bring someone on that’s fully aligned with the organization, that you’re living these values out loud. And if you’ve yet to fully communicate your values with your team, this is that opportunity to have that honest, clear dialogue about what the brand supports, what we honor, the threads that make up who and how we are, the impacts that we want to make.

Again, alignment requires transparency.

Make sure that the evaluation tools you, as the leader, use are the same as your team. 

What’s an evaluation tool? You use a personal eval tool all the time––when you consider where to eat, where to shop, which organizations to support. “ This goes back again to making sure that the values that you are acting through are the same set of values that your team is acting through,” Erica says. 

And, again, this requires conversation. Time to get transparent about what the expectations are and how you operate as a brand? If you are operating from a different paradigm than everyone else in your business, it’s confusing. It’s disjointed. It will create confusion and chaos. You want to make sure that everybody is evaluating through a similar lens. 

“The reason I say it's not the same lens is because we're not carbon copies of each other. We're not Stepford people,” Erica says. “So, we're all going to have these unique pieces that are based on our own unique experiences and what colors our lens as a human and individual.”

Periodically ask your team if the brand or business is collectively living its values out loud. 

Feedback is constructive so, open up that dialogue. Here are a few questions to ask your team:

  • Do they feel as though the way the team is operating and the choices they’re making align with the values?

  • Do they feel as though they are given the space to do so?

  • Do they feel anything needs to change to truly honor those values?

  • Do they feel that you, as their leader, are living your values out loud? What are you doing well, and in what areas do they see areas where you can shift? 

  • Are there any places within the organization where things can be done differently (and, remember, differently is not about whether this is good or bad, it’s just uncovering space for evolution)?

Remember, evolution isn’t possible without these conversations. What do you do after you receive that feedback? If it's not exactly where you want to be, you’ve got the intel you need to make changes. Or, you’ve uncovered areas that are cause for celebration. “Hell, if it’s great––you like it, I love it, it's great,  let's do that––celebrate that! I think it's important to celebrate wins,” Erica says. “So often we say ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah; that's great.’ and we keep going. Take a pause. Celebrate when you have excelled, when you have succeeded, when you have created bountiful and beneficial impact.”

Communicate financial challenges. 

The suggestion alone might make folks uncomfortable, never mind the act itself. “But hey, I'm here to challenge you, not to let you be comfortable,” says Erica. If you're in a position where you have a slow season, you must be transparent about this with your team, whether the slowdown manifests in less client activity or company spending, or you name it. That doesn't mean that you have to share every piece of what's happening—you’re simply fostering more comfort for your team by engaging with them. There's a certain amount of security in understanding that things won’t swing from one extreme to the next because you’re keeping them abreast of what's happening.

“This is often the type of communication that you're having with your leadership team,” Erica says. “You may not be having this with every person that's on your team, but I think it's worthwhile for you to kind of consider what you want that transparency to look like, not just for the current structure of your brand, but where you're going because if we've not seen anything else, we've noticed that through the pandemic, a lot of businesses did not flourish because there wasn't any transparency.”

It’s worthwhile to consider what transparency looks and feels like even if it’s only amongst the leadership team when it comes to the financial piece of things. 

Closing Thoughts

“Everything that I gave you is about conversation,” says Erica, “and that's the main thing that I want you to understand.” This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor do you have to prioritize one over the other. These are things to consider because, at the end of the day, it puts you in a position to reflect on how you’re communicating with your team. What are your expectations for how they communicate with you? How easily are you letting them know that you’re open to sharing with them? How much space are you providing for impactful dialogue? And how does open conversation fit into your company culture?

“I think it's an opportunity to really consider and possibly reconsider, if necessary; what value does communication and dialogue have in your team?” Erica says.

Auditing your approach towards communication within your business or brand often extends beyond it. How much do you value dialogue in your personal life? So often in our lives, we don’t think about whether or not we are having the types of impactful conversations that we need to have but, what happens next with them? 

“It's important to really consider where can I have conversation that opens me up to reconsider my needs,” says Erica, “then, to take that information and make it actionable and go forth.”

Quoted

Erica Courdae

“Leadership is less this is what I do, and more this is a way of being.

“There's no way to talk through challenges, to celebrate where you're winning, or to be able to discuss where things can be done differently for optimal results if communication and conversation are not fully present.”

“You should always hold yourself to a standard of knowing that there's room for growth.”

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