Leading With Meaning

“I've got tons of experience, years in leadership, and yet I still can't get an interview.”

I hear this all the time, and the main problem is not that you don't have enough experience.

Here’s how someone stood out from a pile of resumes and actually got hired.

I was looking to hire a new product manager.

I got a stack of resumes of product managers who were all “looking for the next challenge” and “who were motivated by growth.”

I didn't hire them.

I did hire an engineer.

I'll tell you what made him stand out.

In his introductory paragraph, he said he was excited.

Nobody else that I talked to used the word excited anywhere on their resume.

He said he was excited to grow his career by taking what he had learned in his MBA, and his years of experience as an engineer in a new direction to take ownership of a product.

And later on his resume, he described areas where he had taken ownership.

But what really stuck with me was his personality.

So if you're looking for the one thing that you can do to help you get that interview, show up as your most authentic self.

Bring your excitement, your curiosity, your motivation, the things that make you a unique individual.

For more tips like this, follow along or reach out to me directly. I'd love to have a conversation with you about how we make you more visible and turn you into an undeniable candidate for your next role.

Ever opened your laptop on Monday and had all your plans fly right out the window?

A lot of leaders tell me they feel like their time is owned by other people.

They say: “Hey, why am I not the one in charge of my own calendar?”

This is one of the traps of leadership.

The belief that you have to be available to everybody, accept every meeting, and be a participant in every decision.

The truth is, you DO have control over your own calendar.

You just need to free yourself from that mental expectation, and think: “What deserves my attention this week? What are the top priorities I need to focus on? What can I do to make sure things that come up either align with my goals or are delegated to someone else?”

That’s how you transform from a leaders who’s just getting the job done to a leader people want to follow.

If you're interested in getting out of the 60-hour-a-week grind where you're simply reacting to everybody else's priorities and find an operating system for your work that works for you and how you like to lead, click the link below.

We've all seen the type of leader who feels like they have to have 100% buy-in before they can take any action whatsoever.

That’s just not an effective form of leadership.

The reality is, people are going to disagree with you.

Having an organization where those differences can be surfaced and dealt with is a much more authentic form of leadership than trying to be in perfect harmony all the time.

When you move away from the theater of consensus building and into direction-making, it allows you to lead with the strengths that you bring, as well as listening to the opinions of others in a new light.

You’ll stop thinking: “How do I convince them that my way is the right way? How do I show the direction we’re taking is the absolute correct direction?”

And start thinking with genuine curiosity: “Okay, they’re bringing this point to the table. Let me really listen and figure out how how it affects what direction I wanted to go.”

In other words, you’ll start actually leading, instead of just performing leadership.

You’ll be someone people want to follow.

If you're ready to stop the theater of leadership and actually move into leading more authentically in ways that leverage your strengths, your ability, your values, and your personality, click the link down below.

“He's often confident, but rarely accurate.”

That’s what I call the theater of leadership.

It’s what a leader believes about how they are supposed to show up.

There’s a foundational belief that the leader needs to have all the answers, that they need to be the smartest person in the room.

But you’re not going to be the smartest person in the room on every topic.

If you understand that and start leading from a position of curiosity, you’re going to be a much more effective leader.

Ask good questions.

Rely on your people to bring you the best answer.

Then, make a decision and move forward as a team.

That’s a much stronger example of leadership than appearing to have all the answers all of the time.

And it also helps you internally.

When you get comfortable not having to have all of the answers, it allows you to act more authentically and with more confidence, instead of feeling like you're simply acting a part that someone hired you for.

If you're tired of your role in the theater of leadership and are really looking to lead more authentically, click the link down below.

I'd be more than happy to have a conversation and get you started on the path towards leading with meaning.