Enlightened Executive Podcast

If business is a game, how do you play to win? As a leader, it’s natural to put pressure on yourself to avoid losing at all costs. You have investors and employees counting on you. But the most effective leaders are resilient to setbacks and comfortable testing new strategies. 

Without mutual trust, it can be hard for your team members to be open to receiving important feedback. In most cases, feedback feels like condemnation, rather than a learning opportunity. Building a strong and collaborative team takes being a conscious leader.

Wellness is so much more than physical and mental health. For decades, physical health was the number one conversation happening in the wellness space. Food and exercise were the primary focus. Over time, the conversation started expanding to mental health.

What do you picture when you think of wealth? For most executives and entrepreneurs, wealth means one thing: having more money. We build our teams and lead our companies to grow and scale as quickly as we can, all in hopes to increase revenue and make more profits.

Leaders can sense the anxiety rippling through their teams as the impact of the pandemic lingers in 2022 (and they may feel it themselves!). How can leaders respond in a way that diffuses that anxiety and promotes employee well-being, engagement, and performance?

The old paradigm of leadership views a company’s role as providing professional opportunities and a paycheck — and that’s it. But in today’s post-COVID landscape, companies must do much more by helping employees feel connected to a sense of purpose at work.

The way we are taught to learn in school may make us poor delegators later on. Schools often expect students to master all subjects. And if a student isn’t naturally gifted at that subject, they’re advised to put in even more time studying. But delegation is a skill worth cultivating.

As individuals, many executives care about the big issues facing our world today, like climate change and racial/gender inequality. But as leaders, it can be tough to make corporate decisions that align with those big issues due to the disruption of business as usual.

What would happen if you stepped away from your routine for a full week… to focus on crafting your future? For some leaders, this might sound like a dream — but challenging. In our busy world, it’s a rarity to dedicate so much uninterrupted time to thinking about what you want.

Though adopting a hybrid model sounds like a natural solution for this period of uncertainty, it’s more complex than it seems. Without knowing how COVID-19 will progress, leaders are scrambling to decide whether to reopen offices or to allow employees to work from home.

You might be familiar with the idea that the events of your past (particularly of your childhood) continue to impact you today. But did you know that the same is true for culture challenges in your organization? Formative attitudes likely still permeate company culture.

One secret to resiliency as a leader is self-compassion. The more readily you can forgive yourself for mistakes, the faster you can bounce back. Some leaders may believe this leads to laziness and a lack of ambition. However, this punitive mindset only leads to exhaustion.

You have a business plan. You have a marketing plan. But do you have a relationship plan? Most leaders would agree that success depends heavily on relationships — with team members, with suppliers, with partners, with clients and customers. And yet they neglect this vital aspect.

What’s your current process for making complex, high-stakes decisions as a leader? Research? Intuition? Advice from trusted parties? Most decision-making models include some version of each of these components. But few actually guide you through a specific, logical research process.

Pay attention to people who annoy you or whom you wish you could be more like. They are mirrors for the parts of yourself you may have rejected. Erica believes that better negotiation starts not with learning classic negotiating tactics, but with learning to negotiate better with yourself.

Would you be brave enough to deliver a video training to hundreds of people for Tony Robbins…. with bandages all over your nose? You might think that delivering a presentation at this magnitude with a bandaged face would be, at best, distracting. At worst, it could ruin your impact entirely.

Who would you be without the ambition that drives you onward to attain success? Is your ambition driven by the need to create financial stability or make your mark on the world? Many leaders would candidly cite those motivators as the reason for their success.

John Rampton says his team would describe him as “overly relaxed.” But for him, it’s his >secret to leading through chaotic periods (such as post-pandemic). As things rapidly change this year with back-to-the-office plans, there’s pressure for companies to adjust faster and faster.

Maybe you recognize yourself or another leader you know in this ineffective leadership pattern: A leader wants to scale their organization, so they start working even harder, adding more hours to their workday and everyone else’s, pursuing results at the expense of people.

There are countless fitness training programs to optimize your physical health. But what about training programs to optimize your emotional health? The truly gifted leaders are incorporating emotional and mental activities as a core part of their wellness routines, too.

Launching a company without a clear mission statement is a recipe for disaster. Yet, so many of us walk around as individuals without a clear “mission statement” for our lives… and then wonder why we don’t feel fulfilled or motivated. Rabbi Simon Jacobson discusses the consequences.