Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the level up leader podcast. My name is Michael King. I am an executive coach and also the founder and CEO of teams that coach. Now I come alongside sea level leaders, entrepreneurs, other coaches, business owners, some of the most tenacious visionaries that you could possibly ever imagine to make sure that we’re clarifying their vision, but also developing the right systems and strategies and the structures to make sure that we can elevate their life and also the performance of their organization. Today, we’re heading into version 2.0 of the level up leader podcast with a short form version of this called level up leader lessons, you’ll be getting this from me a couple of times a month, so hang in there, I think this is gonna be really good. So a few weeks back here in Nebraska, it was in the negatives when it came to the temperature outside. So you wake up in the morning, and you start getting ready for your day, and you want to be able to check out like, Okay, what’s the damage outside? Like, how many layers? Do I have to actually wear things like that? Because in the winter, it can get a little bit cold, right? So you pull up your cell phone, and go to the weather app type thing, and find out that it’s, you know, it’s negative 10 degrees outside because it’s winter, right.
But then there’s these two little words that appears right below it with a small script in it says, but it feels like feels like said it felt like negative 40. So because there’s all these factors that come into these things that actually make it feel differently than what the data shows, right? So on the same way, it’s it plays out like that in the summers as well. Have you ever noticed that too, it’s could be 80 degrees, according to again, the nice little app. But because there’s some other factors that are playing into it, humidity, or whatever, gives you a heat index score, it says it feels like 90, or it could be 90 degrees outside and it feels like scorching hot, like 110, miserable, whatever it is. But it’s these outside factors that lean in to actually compromise the way things feel a bit. So it’s not always exactly what it appears to be. Have you ever noticed that it’s the same way with our organizations that we lead and the ones that we serve? I want to remind us today that, you know, the way that we make people feel at the end of the day is really the only thing that matters. I’ve sat in countless numbers of business meetings, board meetings, sing with executive level teams. And we go over these metrics every single week, top line performance sales numbers, on and on and on. And at the end of the day, we’re able to tell whether the organization is winning or losing based on these metrics for the most part. But there is this thing about how it feels. That’s a very, very relevant factor.
On one side of if we call it the windshield factor, when we’re dealing with temperature or the heat index, in the same way, we should be referring to this almost as your leadership index, or your leadership chill factor. Because here’s the thing is that what I found was that as I’m working with senior leaders and their teams, but also the full enterprise, based on the level of trust that I have within the organization, typically things start to leak out within certain team members. I might be having a one on one or asking some discovery questions just to learn something about somebody that’s on a specific team. And then I get around to the question of asking him what you know, how they feel about the organization? How do they feel about working here? Are they excited? Do they feel like there’s opportunities for advancement, and they feel like their direct reports have their back? They feel like they’re being pushed in the right direction? And they’re being challenged in healthy ways? Do you feel like the organization as a whole has a high level of EQ? Do they care about you as a person? Do they understand who you are? And it never surprises me. Typically, three to six months in, you might start to find, you know, one or two things that might come out some something starts to leak to where somebody says, You know what, I feel like I’m being a little bit overworked. Or I feel like maybe the culture is a little bit too confrontational, maybe just the level of toxic relationships that are happening on a team isn’t necessarily comfortable.
But it usually starts with one singular comment. And then by six months and nine months, the tsunami door opens. And it comes in like a storm, raging rapids. And somehow we get to find out that maybe the data that we report on forms to show that Like our successes, and sometimes our losses, sometimes it just doesn’t necessarily feel like the data that’s being reported. This is your leadership index. How you make people feel at the end of the day is the only thing that matters. Now on the flip side of it, I’ve been in situations as well to where leadership has been healthy. And we’ve been able to report, you know, some pretty reasonable wins along the way. And everything seems like it’s on a right trajectory for great year over year performance, reaching goals, maybe they never really reached before. But then you start having some of these conversations, and you start hearing things like, you know what, my boss invited me over to dinner to his house with him and his family. And I love working here. They know the name of my kids, they give me time off because, you know, flexibility with doctor’s visits or something like that. And you start to hear about how the way somebody is treated internally, somehow affects the way that they feel about the organization. Or they might be really excited about the culture of the organization, and really excited about the products and services they provide, creates this fan culture within an organization.
Again, the way that we make people feel is the only thing that they will remember. So I want to just give this to you today, just to remind you, in some simple ways for you to be able to take into consideration the feeling factor your leadership index, how are you developing people? How are you making them feel? Are you inviting them into something bigger than themselves? And are you giving them a seat at the owners table? These are all really important things. And this is the way that you’re going to leave a legacy and a lasting impact, helping you elevate the emotional intelligence of your organization, and allow that data to be the true measure of your success. Thanks for tuning in. Take some time today to help level up the leadership and those around you and also yourself. If you can make sure to hop on to Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your streaming for all your podcasts and make sure you like and subscribe our stuff. We want to make sure that you are kept in the loop on everything that we have going on here at level up leader. So until then, see you next week.
