1. Who is a Leader?
Have you ever thought, “Who am I to be a leader?” If so, today’s episode is for you!
I believe we are all leaders in one way or another…even if we don’t feel like a leader.
We’re kicking off the first episode of The Impact Ripple podcast with this important message, because too often, we are the ones holding ourselves back with toxic stories.
Toxic stories are what we tell ourselves about who we are not, what we can’t do, or how we should show up in the world, which can all limit our potential and our impact.
If you’re like many of our clients here at SproutHR, you have dreams of bringing something bigger than yourself to life in this world. You want to create a positive impact ripple.
The toxic stories we tell ourselves hold us back, keep us playing small, living in fear, and not showing up fully. Whether or not we’re cut out to be a leader is a toxic story many women business owners face.
There is more available to you and those you dream of helping. What if it took stepping into a leadership role in your business to bring it to life?
Tune in for this important conversation that may open your mind to a world of new possibilities you’ve never considered before!
In this episode, you’ll Learn:
What toxic stories are and how they may be holding you back
Examples of toxic stories, so you can identify them in your life
3 strategies to start overcoming toxic stories that you can implement today
Mentioned In This Episode:
Transform Your Stories (book) – www.sprouthr.co/transform
Transform Your Stories Free Sample – www.sprouthr.co/transform
Transform Your Stories
If you’re ready to overcome your toxic stories and create the impact you really want to have in this world, click here to grab a free sample of my book, Transform Your Stories!
Transcript Episode 1 - Who is a Leader?
Ashley Cox 0:04
Welcome to Episode One of The Impact Ripple podcast. The go to source for hiring and leadership made simple, doable and fun for visionary female business owners. I'm your host, Ashley Cox, author and certified HR expert. And I believe that you don't have to change who you are to be a great leader, you already are one! Join me as we kiss uncertainty and overwhelm goodbye and say hello to the tools and support you need to grow a profitable, sustainable, impactful team with more confidence and ease.
Ashley Cox 0:42
On today's episode, we are exploring who leaders really are and how to step into your full leadership potential. First, I'd like to start though with a personal message from me to you. Thank you so much for being here. I have been thinking of and dreaming of starting a podcast for several years now. And this is the culmination of years of hard work, and the amazing team of people who have really come together to bring this right to your earbuds today. So join me as we explore some incredible topics over the coming weeks, months, and hopefully fingers crossed years. And we're going to have a lot of fun doing it along the way. I also would love to hear from you, our listeners to understand more of the topics you want to hear about and learn about on your hiring and leadership journey. So feel free to drop us a message anytime at hello(at)SproutHR.co.
Ashley Cox 1:47
Okay, let's dive into today's topic, who is a leader? In one way or another, I believe that we're all leaders. In fact, I feel so strongly about this, that it happens to be one of our core values here at SproutHR. Our value is called "we all lead". And it says: we make decisions hold ourselves and each other accountable, take ownership of our problems, and work together to resolve that we support one another and cheer each other on. Because we believe a win for one is a win for all.
Ashley Cox 1:47
So while job titles and positions do play an important role in the workplace, they are not everything. How we think about ourselves can be the difference between people who come to work just to get a paycheck, and those who come to work to make a difference. And for business owners like you and me. It's the difference between fulfilling a bigger vision or mission and creating massive impact in the world, and settling for less simply because we just don't see ourselves as leaders.
Ashley Cox 3:10
In my book, transform your stories, I talk about the stories that we tell ourselves as part of the journey of life and leadership. The ideas and beliefs that we hold about our abilities, skills, knowledge, self worth, place in this world and purpose in life. We have a mixture of both healthy and toxic stories and the toxic ones are what holds us back from reaching our full potential including, and especially stepping into leadership roles. Some of the stories that we have are founded in truth. And while we create others really based on many factors from our own fears, insecurities, self doubts, to cultural and societal norms and family dynamics and expectations and so much more.
Ashley Cox 4:05
And sometimes our stories shift based on our circumstances. So for example, I had a business owner client, let's call her Beth, who said this to me at the onset of our work together. In my corporate job, I was a great leader. I was the best actually. She went on to share that she was great at giving her team encouragement and solid feedback that she wasn't a pushover, but she did remain flexible. And that she loved to partner with her HR team because she knew that together they could get things done important things. But as she began to talk about her journey into business ownership, she shared that she had gotten quote, "rusty," and she needed some guidance on how to delegate things to her team without overwhelming them, and how to motivate her team and get them excited about building and growing this business with her, she said to me, "I need to get better at managing my team. I know this comes from owning my own business and not working for someone else. And I have insecurities about my business. But I don't want to show those to my team." Beth's ability to lead didn't vanish like a thief in the night, it was still there, it was always there. But the stories that she told herself had changed.
Ashley Cox 5:34
When she was working in corporate, she didn't have the same fears, insecurities, and doubts that come with owning and running a business. And I know, you know what I'm talking about, right? Constant worries about whether or not you can sustain the business, let alone grow it, knowing that if it all comes crumbling down, it's on your shoulders. And no matter how wonderful of a leader you are to your team, they would all be without a job. If you don't keep this thing afloat. I mean, no pressure, right? You see, sometimes the stories we tell ourselves aren't really even about the thing that we're telling the story about. In Beth's case, her toxic stories stemmed from her fears and doubts around running a successful business, not her leadership abilities. But it impacted the way that she showed up in this world as a leader.
Ashley Cox 6:32
So let's take a look at some toxic stories so that you can hear what they sound like. These are some pretty common stories that I hear from women, when it comes to stepping into a leadership role, and specifically, business owners. So here we go. First, I'm not really sure I'm cut out to be a leader who would listen to me usually said with a wry laugh at the end, right? I'm too young to be a leader too old to this to that. What if I'm not a good leader? What if I mess up? And there are also parallel stories that hold many, many people back? Like, I'm a control freak, I can just never trust anyone else to help me. If you want something done, right, you have to do it yourself. Nobody wants to work anymore. I can't afford to hire help. And we're going to talk about that one in a future podcast episode this season. So be sure to stay tuned. So have you ever told yourself one or more of these stories, and believed them? Why? Because you've never been a leader before. Because it's intimidating, and you're worried you're gonna mess up. Because you don't know what you're doing.
Ashley Cox 7:56
Let me tell you something, all throughout your whole entire life, you have been new at something, driving, tying your shoes, feeding yourself. The process to learn these things was likely slow, messy, and filled with funny stories. I'm sure you have funny stories about things that you learned when you were brand new. But you learned each of these tasks and hopefully, became quite good at them. Well, I don't know about you. But I still struggle with the whole eating and not being messy thing. But that's another story for a different day. You'll see when we tell ourselves though, these toxic stories like I'll never learn to fill in the blank, drive, tie my shoes, lead a team, we can end up creating that experience for ourselves where we don't learn to do the thing that we're saying we'll never learn to do. It's kind of like a self fulfilling prophecy right? And leadership doesn't happen just because someone bestows a title upon you. There are many, many people in positions of power, who are truly not leaders and maybe shouldn't be.
Ashley Cox 9:16
You see, leadership is who you are and how you show up in this world. It's also about how we talk to ourselves. At the end of the day, leadership is really this simple. It's humans helping humans work together toward a common goal with dignity, respect and collaboration. And they're beautiful. And leaders come in all forms. Some are corporate executives, others are mothers. Some are activists and yet others volunteer at their local animal shelter. I bet you are already a leader somewhere in your life. You just have think giving yourself credit for showing up as a leader. In places where we're often told, we aren't leaders, you don't need a title to be a leader.
Ashley Cox 10:13
So to help you overcome some of these toxic stories that you might be telling yourself, I want to share three strategies that you can start implementing today. These are super simple, okay, get your paper, get your pen. Let's go. Number one, remember your worth. This is the first and most important thing that you can do in overcoming your toxic stories. And stepping into your full leadership potential. Remembering your worth. Toxic stories have a tendency to strip us of our self worth, and it is awful hard to lead someone else when you can't lead yourself. So before you can hire a team of employees to lead, you first have to believe you're worthy of hiring help. And we're going to explore this topic more in episode three coming up.
Ashley Cox 11:08
Number two, grow your self awareness. This is the only quality the only trait that you will ever hear me say is absolutely essential for every leader, regardless of who you are, or how you show up in this world or your background or skills or training, self awareness. It's important because if we aren't aware of how we're showing up in this world, we'll never have an opportunity to identify what we're doing well, where we could use some improvement, and what else we could be doing to elevate our expertise. So listen to what you are saying to yourself whenever you're presented with an opportunity to lead. And this is usually where I kind of say something like I am on to me, I know exactly what I'm doing. I am being hateful to myself, stop it. Because those are the times when I realized that I am holding me back with a toxic story. Again, my book Transform Your Stories, this is a great tool to help you grow your self awareness. And you can actually download a free sample of the book at SproutHR.co/Transform, I'll be sure to include a link in the show notes so that you can grab that. But Transform Your Stories will help you understand more about what stories are, where they come from, who experiences them – surprise, it's everyone – and how to overcome them. It's a really fun engaging book, and it has built in journaling prompts that will help guide you along the way, which is very intentional because journaling this is kind of like to be journaling is also an excellent way to grow your awareness to listen to what you're saying to yourself and explore these thoughts. And ask yourself, Is this really true? Is this really true? If not what's true instead?
Ashley Cox 13:19
Okay, so we have remember your worth, grow your self awareness in number three, seek out a mentor. Women especially don't have mentors, like our male counterparts. But mentors are an incredible partner in our journeys, and mentors are really especially great at calling you out on your toxic stories, usually, because they've been there, done that and got the t shirt. Think of a mentor as a wise and sage guide on your leadership journey. They're the person who's usually been where you want to be. They've had experiences that you want to have. And maybe there are a few steps of where you even envision yourself going. Mentors allow you to see what's possible. I love talking about possibilities. We'll definitely talk more about possibilities on this podcast because there are so many possibilities that are available to us.
Ashley Cox 14:25
For example, my clients love to work with us because I've led teams of nearly 400 employees and worked in leadership in HR for over 16 years and maybe they're never going to lead a team of 400 employees. But they know that I have that experience and that's invaluable to them. They may only have five or 10 or 25 employees one day, they may work as a leader for five years or 10 years. But that experience lends a A whole other layer to their own toolbox resources support, access to knowledge and expertise that they might not otherwise have. Mentors can help you shortcut long learning paths so that you can get to doing what you want faster. And I, for one, am all for that. I am 100% on board with reaching back and helping the next lady step up into that leadership role, because we need more women leading the way, especially today.
Ashley Cox 5:37
Those are our three strategies. They're simple, they're effective, you can start today. Remember your worth, grow your self awareness, and seek out a mentor.
Ashley Cox 15:50
As we wrap things up today, it's time for our final segment. And since this is our first episode together, I'm excited to introduce you to this segment, we're calling it imagine the impact. And this is where we're going to talk about one key takeaway or idea from the episode, and help you envision what it could look like for you in your business to take action around this topic today. So here we go. Our key takeaway is that you are already a leader, you simply need to believe in yourself and see yourself and talk to yourself as the leader you truly are. Imagine the impact that stepping into a leadership role could have on you, your business, your community, and the world around you. I bet that you have a big vision for what you want to create in this world. A passion for helping others a drive to create something meaningful. You want to help other people there is something that you are passionate about. And if you step into that leadership role, imagine the impact that you could create with those things that are near and dear to your heart.
Ashley Cox 17:20
That's our episode for today. I hope that you enjoyed this conversation, and had some aha moments. If you found this episode helpful. We'd love for you to share about it on social media so that it can reach more leaders, just like you simply take a screenshot of the episode on your phone, share it on Instagram stories and tag us @SproutHR.co.
Ashley Cox 17:45
Thanks so much for joining me today on the impact ripple podcast. It's absolutely an honor to be here with and for you on your leadership journey.
