Becoming the Woman People Want to Work For

 Kris Plachy: Hey, I'm Kris Plachy, host of the Lead Your Team podcast. Running a million dollar business is not easy, and whether you are just getting started with building your team or you've been at this for a while, I'm going to bring you honest, specific and clear practices you can use. Right now today to improve how well you lead your team.

Let's go ahead and get started.

Well, hi, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I have a lot to share with you. The last podcast I did was a little bit longer, so I'm going to try and be more thoughtful about your time. I try and make these not too long so that you get your bit for the day and then you can go about your business. So as I'm recording this, we are just about to conduct the empathic c e o virtual intensive, which I'm incredibly excited about.

I know I will have more to share with you once that's completed. And I should also let you know that there's two things that are coming. So we are going to be enrolling for and starting a new how to c e o program. And that will start at near the end of April. And so if you're not on the early notification interest list, you can do so by going to how to ceo register.com.

And you'll you can add your name and you'll get notified. We are in the process of lining up our guest experts and listen, this has just been crazy fun. The women are amazing, and if you're looking for somewhere to come and this isn't every org, every type of program I know that you participate in has a slightly different flavor, and it's a little tough for me.

I know because I'm a, I feel like I'm a little bit inside the bottle trying to explain to you the flavor. Of this bottle that is the Hadda ceo. But what I can tell you that women are experiencing is insight like they've never had before. Support like they didn't know existed. Validation that they're not alone.

This isn't the, this isn't it. A lot of these groups that I know, a lot of us do because we wanna figure out how to make more money in our businesses, which there's nothing wrong with that. You should wanna do that, but there tends to be, then we overlook all this team. Part, and I think it leaves a lot of people feeling in incompetent, like, all these revenue ideas are great, all these abilities, these ideas to scale, and all the things that you do in your business to grow and expand and find more customers or clients or clicks or whatever you do.

But. Then you have to figure out the mechanics of, of building the business, the organization part, the, that, that leverages people to get it done. And I just think a lot of women feel very lost there. And so I just. I just know that coming into how a ceo, it's like a language that you knew you needed to learn how to speak and I teach it to you.

So I just, I really would love to invite you in if this is what you need right now. And the second thing is we're going to be launching Advanced Leadership Coach certification for Life Coach, school certified coaches. You do have to be certified through LCS in order to join this program because we are, we are sort of like the.

Well, we are the advanced right certification. You have the primary certification in Life Coach certification through the Life Coach school, and then you can come in and do the the Leadership Coach certification. I'm gonna talk more about this in the future on a future podcast, but what I will say to you is I have been doing and using the tools taught by the Life Coach School and Brooke Castillo.

For over 15, 16 years, and I really am, I really am the pioneer of taking the work of the Life Coach school and applying it to leadership. And I have worked with many other coaches, HR leaders, organizational leaders, and. To teach them the principles that I use to apply leadership concepts to the life coaching concept.

Like blend them together to collaborate together and and generate new wisdom. If you're a certified life coach through the life coach school and you really wanna build your leadership coach skills, whether you are looking to do them because you wanna coach leaders, or because you are a leader and you wanna get better, Being a coach leader, I would certainly love to share more with you about that.

And the best way to get information about that is to actually go to the leaders, to the Life Coach School's certification site. And there's a link there under advanced trainings, we will also have a link in my Instagram bio. So if you miss. If you don't have your certification login, you can go to my bio, my Lincoln bio on Instagram and you can find it there.

Okay. Enough of the announcements. Let's talk about what I wanna talk about. So this weekend had a C E O I just did hiring. Hiring is just like everything. It's a process that you have to follow, yawn, right? I mean, hiring is. For a lot of people it's terrible because you have hiring P T S D, which I've talked about before, and you just don't trust yourself and how do I know?

And, but I do know that when you really do do a better job preparing, you do a better job hiring. The part of the preparing that I want you to think about though is for purposes of this podcast, is less about them and more about you. And we tend to focus a lot on the employees, right? Who are the employees that we hire and what do they need and what do we need from them?

And. Can't they just do their job and all the things, and I want you instead to take a minute and think about, who is your ideal boss? If you're still working for someone, which I know most of you aren't, but if you are, or if you did, which you probably did at some point, who would be your ideal boss?

Like the most amazing person to work for and why? Really asking yourself what makes. For a person that you wanna work for, and that's what the title of this podcast is, right? Are you becoming a woman who people want to work for? There's a business that people wanna work in, but are you a woman that people wanna work for?

I think it's an incredibly important question. Now, I talk a lot about, having an employee avatar. And that you really do have an employee niche, just like you have a marketing niche right in, in how you have to put your business in the world. You have to have an employee niche. And I think that the more you develop the, your idea of your employee niche, the more you identify who you need to continue to become to attract that employee.

All right. So in its simplest form, if you are looking for a really evolved smart, highly intelligent, critical thinking, problem solving employee, that's your dream employee. And then when they come and work with you, they meet a micromanaging, controlling. Mistakes. Intolerant Ballbuster who minimizes their work and wants 'em to only do it your way, will they be happy working for you?

The opposite is true. What if you want like this highly organized, structured, clear, this is my dream detail oriented, right? All of that. And then they come to work for you and you're a train wreck. You're not organized at all. You don't even know how to tell them where the bathroom is. Like it, right?

Are you that person? And then there's the style. So I was talking to a few clients and I, I think you just have to tell the truth. Like I have clients and friends who all are in their own business and we're all so different, right? You work in my business and sometimes we start a team meeting with a song and we're all dancing.

We talk, we laugh, we we're silly. We're also pretty serious when we need to be. And I think everybody gets the sides of that. But we have a good time. And I don't mind if you spend a, the first 15 minutes telling me about your birthday party. Like I think that's fun. Unless I really have to get something done.

And I'll tell you, there's other environments where it's like absolutely not. There's no personalizing, there's no socializing, there's no tell. Please don't tell me about your weekend. I wanna punch myself in the face if I have to listen to you talk about your weekend, right? So you have to understand that about yourself and hire people who wanna work in your environment.

Are you a woman that they wanna work for? And the re the requirement for you to design that with intention is honesty. I have another person I know who's just really sarcastic, right? Ed? They'll cut you off at the knees because it's funny. Not everybody likes that, this is something that I learned ages ago.

Somebody said it to me, honestly, I don't even know who it was. I just remember someone saying to me that you really wanna get, build a reputation as somebody who is amazing to work for, because that the more you build that reputation, the easier it will be for you to hire top talent. And at the time I was working in a, in a startup that was growing rapidly and we were in like, talent.

Hunger. Like we, we were starving for great talent. And so by being a leader within an organization that was growing so fast, you could attract people and they would, they would move to come work for you if they knew they could be more successful working for you than for someone else. And that's true. I can't tell you how many people came and worked with me, weren't successful somewhere else, and they came, worked with me and they were, that doesn't make me a magician, it just means I was the right person for them.

And they knew it. And the way they knew it is because I broadcasted it and I was, and I'm clear about it. You know what it's like to work for me. I there, I do not hide it. The way I sound on the podcast is the way I sound in a team meeting. I could promise you that, right? So don't dismiss that. Every interaction you're having, you are building a brand with who you are to work for.

And in my experience, most of the people I have hired who have been instrumental in the success of my business were people I already knew. Now, we all know the old adage that 60 some odd percent of our life comes from networking. I think it's actually closer to 70, right? The majority of who we interact with in the world comes from networking.

And I think the same is true for hiring. We if, if you're constantly grooming, building relationships, networking, and listen, I know some of you hear these words and you want to throw up in your mouth. I really do know that this is not your jam. So I, I want you to remember though, that this we're, we we're weaving a web all the time around us.

And part of that, so part of the web that you're weaving is a web that catches, and this is a weird analogy, but Right. The catches or metaphor catches, clients, catches, customers, catches revenue, constantly weaving this web, right? You're also weaving a web that catches great employees. Now, I think for a lot of, a lot of my clients, because you don't have a management background, right?

You are a creator, not a manager. You're not thinking about it. You're just thinking about, how to generate and build the business. You're not thinking about that. This team member is an integral part of that web, right? And their experience with you is an integral part of that. And so what I'm talking about on this podcast is you not the business.

So what is it that is in the world about working for you? And what I'm very happy with and proud of is that when I put a drop out there that someone that I have an opening in a particular kind of role, especially my more strategic roles, I get really great response and I know that's because I've developed this brand.

Now this is my wheelhouse, leading and managing. But I believe you can do the same thing, but I think you have to do it with intention. So are you a woman that other people want to work for? Yes or no, and why? And if there are deficiencies in there that you know that you have, that's not failure. It's just undeveloped talent.

Okay. It's just not developed yet, and we can help you with that. I don't, it doesn't even have to be me. You can develop that in the world. I know I can. I've watched it happen hundreds of times. I would so much rather you recognize who you are. Tell the truth, develop that story about who you are and be as honest as you can about it so that you attract that employee on a regular basis.

And I know this is also true for me because where I struggle in my hiring is always when I don't have someone in the network. If I have to go stone cold and go out in the world to find them, it's harder for me. Because I don't have a built up relationship it with them and them with me, right? They don't know who I am, and so they don't know what they're getting into and it takes all this time.

So my preference is always too higher through a network than just cold. But you can't always do that. So even the people who leave your company are a part of that brand. Of who it is, what it is like to work with you. Now, I want you to understand, the last thing I'm gonna say is I know there's people who have worked with me who would never wanna work with me again.

I know that sh trusts me. I'm gonna guess the feelings mutual, but that's okay to me because that means we just weren't the right fit for each other. That doesn't mean they're bad and I'm good, or vice versa. It just means we weren't the right fit and we didn't figure that out until we were already working together.

Okay, so are you a woman who people wanna work for? And if you don't answer that wholeheartedly, yes. How do you become her? How do you intentionally lean into who you are and become more of her unabashedly, and then develop the skills to lead and manage and coach, right? You compliment that so that you're attracting this most perfect person.

To work for you regularly instead of it being such hit or miss. The reason why we are hiring people and they're not lasting is because we're not being honest with ourselves about what it really means to work with us. That's why it has less to do with the candidate and a lot more to do with you, and the closer they work with you, the more this is true.

Okay, so just give that some thought. What's your dream boss? What are they like? Get some characteristics in your brain and then correlate yourself. Like how? How well am I aligning to what I would love to have? What are my areas of opportunity? Am I a woman who people wanna work for? Do I have a reputation from being a really great leader boss?

Why are I not, why not? What could I do? What's one thing I could do differently? What do I tell myself I suck at that maybe I could just work on instead? Instead of seeing it as a failure I just haven't developed that yet and build the network. I tell my my clients all the time, always be hiring, always be looking.

I tell my team, I'm like, oh, I met someone today. She doesn't know she's gonna work with us. She's in the slow recruitment model. Just wait, gimme a little time. Always network, always connect. You just never, no. Okay. My wonderful, wonderful, beautiful people. Thank you for tuning in today. I'll talk to you again.

Soon. One more thing before you go. In a world of digital courses and online content, I like to work with my clients live because I know that when you have someone you can work with, ask questions of and meet with, you're so much more likely to get the success that you want. So head on over to how to ceo live.com.

To learn more about our very exciting, very exclusive program just for female entrepreneurs. We'll see you there.