The Best Question for Leaders to Ask

Welcome to the Leadership is Feminine podcast. This is Kris Plachy, your host, always your host, lucky you. And I'm thrilled to be chatting with you this week. I actually have a pretty short podcast I want to share.

I know sometimes they're a little bit longer than others, but this one is one that, sometimes I think magic can be very easy and short. And I actually think that maybe it's just because I've been doing what I do for so long, and I also have been learning and learning myself for so long, that I appreciate brevity more so than anything else anymore. I think that I, along with a lot of other people, have mistaken length and duration of something for also quality and substance. And I don't actually know that that's always true. I think sometimes it is, but I don't think that in the case of what I want to talk to you about today, it is.

My hope is, as I have found that the majority of my clients come from my podcasts, that means that the majority of you that are listening are a lot like my clients. And that means that you like things to be meaningful, substantial, and probably not take a lot of time. In fact, I'm sure a lot of you already put me on at least one and a half speed. I don't know how good I sound on two speed, but maybe it worked. I, maybe I have good enough enunciation that you could put me on two speed.

But regardless, I want to talk to you about a question that is a magic question. And it's a magic question for any leader who is trying to get the team, get a project, get a movement, get a decision back on track. Honestly, getting yourself back on track.

So I'm sure we've all been in a meeting where everybody has opinions about what we're doing and there's all sorts of conversations and we have a lot of what I call "Squirrels!" Like, a lot of these moments where things go one direction to another direction and a lot of squirrel moments, we're down rabbit holes, we're on to things that we didn't start the meeting about. And before we know it, a lot of us are like, "Wait, what is happening?" Right? Or we're having conversations that you did not expect to be happening and you don't have a lot of time.

So years ago, I worked with an executive coach and she was really one of the first people that got me turned on to this kind of work and what I do now for a living. Her name is Vicki Merrill. She's amazing. And she taught me this magic question and I have used it so many times. I use it with my clients, I use it with my family, I use it with my husband, I use it with my team, I use it in large groups, I use it in small groups, and I use it with one person. Are you ready?

Have I set it up well enough? Oh, before I do that, I want to tell you one thing. I have a secret goal that I have been not very vocal about. And I'm actually going to tell you what that goal is because I would like your help and I don't think it's going to require a lot of work for you, but I do think I have to ask for help if I want to achieve the goal.

Now, you might think this is a silly goal. You might think it's a really ambitious goal. You might think it's like a, okay kind of goal, but I have a goal. And that goal is this, that I know that there are a lot of different ways for people to consume and gather information and get the ideas or the support that they need. And I'm sure you have plenty that you love.

You listen to this podcast, maybe you've watched some YouTubes, maybe you read some books. Well, for me, it's this podcast and it will soon be a lot more of my writing. And I would like to be able to impact 20 million women who are in founder, owner, entrepreneurial, and/or even leadership positions across the globe.

When I say impact, that doesn't mean they all need to hire me. That would be wonderful, but I don't think I could handle it. What I mean is, can we get some alternative ways of thinking about being a woman who is leading her vision, who believes in herself, who believes in what she's capable of, who might hit the wall sometimes about dealing with the people on our team and how to get this done and how to lead better, how to think better. And, right, all the things that I know we talk about here.

Could we, 20 million women just through this podcast? And if 20 million women had a better understanding of how to set expectations, how to hold people accountable, how to have a difficult conversation, how to deal with a poor performing team member, how to deal with the challenges they have as women who are leading, how to negotiate moments that they never expected, how to make decision, how to delegate a little bit, right? All of the different topics that I know I've covered here and more.

If 20 million women had a shift in the way that they think about who they are as leaders and how they lead, could we change the world? Listen, I told you it was ambitious, but I kind of think we could. Because I see in my small little world, what happens to women.

And as you know, the, the vision of my business is to prove the power of one thriving woman. When one woman has a deeper sense of who she is, has a rooted, anchored knowing of who she is, when she has access to an alternative way to think about leading and managing people and building a team, not only is her life better, not only does she make more money.

In fact, we're in the practice right now, we're in the, in the process, I should say right now, of actually figuring out what that is. Because we've helped so many women, I'm like, how much have these women made as a result of our work together? I'm super excited about it because I have no idea, but I think it's going to be super fun.

But when women have more agency in who they are as leaders, because we know the truth, right? Women are not raised to be leaders, especially those of you who listen to this podcast. Because the majority of you I know that listen to this are more my contemporary. You're in the mid 40s and up range. That doesn't mean you younger ones were also like not taught to lead because I don't think you were either. But women's sports, there were things that had started to have a lot more traction over the last 20 years than did in the 20 years that I was a lot younger.

And so what would happen to the world if women had more personal agency, had more voice, led on her own terms. I do believe we could change the world.

And y'all know I don't get too hot under the collar on this podcast about things, but things are getting pretty gnarly right now for women. And I'm very worried about it. Very worried. I have a daughter. I have nieces. I am worried. And so my charge is to now stop trying to be humble and maybe quiet about it and to actually just say to you, will you help me share this podcast with the potential that we could touch 20 million women?

And how do we do that? Well, I think the process is really easy. I want to think it's easy, but I also made you like some incentive. So here's how it works. You go to thevisionary.ceo/ catalyst. The visionary.ceo/catalyst. That's step one.

Step two, you put your name and your email in there. Super simple. That's step two. Right?

We go to thevisionary.ceo /catalyst. Then you put in your information. You create an account, basically. Not a lot of details. You don't have to share your life and everything. It's just a way for me to then give you a personal link that you could share to this podcast. And that personal link stays active for 90 days after you share it.

So if you share it with Janet and Janet doesn't click on it right away, but she clicks on it two weeks from now, it's still considered your link. Your link for 90 days, which means you can send it lots of times if you want. Then Janet now has access to the podcast. So we want to tell Janet, "Hey, this podcast is, is really helpful. I've really found this podcast valuable."

If you're one of my diehard listeners, I know that's true because I hear from you. You tell me you love this week. You tell me what I hear most, which is, "Did you record that podcast for me?" Um, no, but yeah.

Then Janet clicks on that link. So now I can see in my Catalyst portal, my dashboard, how many links people have clicked of yours. How many times someone has gone and clicked on your link. And I'm going to make you a deal. As soon as you get 20 clicks on a podcast link, I'm going to give you a free digital course of mine.

And I'm going to let you choose which one you want. Because I have a store. If you go to the visionary.ceo/store, you'll find all the digital courses that I teach. And we're going to add more. You could pick from that store, the digital course you want, and it will be free. And they're all about $300. So it's a great value.

But there's a second thing that happens when somebody clicks your link. Let's say Janet loves the podcast, and then Janet decides, "Hell, I'm going to sign up for Kris's Lead Advisory. That's good news. I need coaching. I'm going to get some support." She signs up for Lead Advisory. I'm going to send you a thank you with money because I like to share money with people who share my work.

So if you're kind of that person who's always sort of talking about stuff anyway, like, "Hey, oh my gosh, you should listen to this podcast. Oh my gosh, you gotta listen to this podcast." You're going to get your own link.

And I just want to invite you to share it. Share it to the women's associations that you belong to. Share it to your girlfriend's chat groups. Share it to your sorority sisters. We can step up. Share it to, you know, the network that you're a part of. Whatever it is, all of us are involved in something as entrepreneurs. I know that, but share it.

So that's my ask of you. Go to the visionary.ceo/catalyst. Dump your info in there. You're going to get a link. It's very intuitive once you're in there, I promise. You'll get some emails from me and then we will track our dashboard and we're going to let people know, "Hey, look at Sam, you've got 20 clicks." Oh, I love that.

E can change the world, but we need more women helping women. And we need more women helping women leverage tools. They don't even know it yet. I mean, I've had clients from Africa. I've had clients who are in Bolivia. I've had clients who are in South America. I've had clients who are in Australia, New Zealand, and all over.

I want them all to benefit because we need women all over the planet to feel more connected to and understand how much more powerful their voices are, especially when they learn how to lead on their own terms.

Okay. Back to my question, my magic question. Are you ready? You're in the midst of a mayhem situation. You're talking to an employee who is going off the rails. You're talking to yourself and you can't make a decision. Here is your question. What is the goal? What is the goal?

So we all got together to have this meeting to talk about next quarter. And now we have 12 things on the list. My flip chart is full. My brain hurts and I don't feel like anything's happened. What's the goal? What is the number one goal for the next quarter? You lob that thing on the table and it shuts everybody up and it redirects. Right?

You're talking to a friend. You're talking to an employee. You're talking to your spouse. You're talking to your kid. And they're like, "I'm going to tell you all the problems." They're telling you everything that's going wrong, all the things. Okay. So I hear this. I got this. I got this. But what is the goal? What are you trying to achieve?

I do this with myself all the time. "Well, I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. I could, well, I could try this. But what about this? Okay, Plachy, all of that sounds great. What's the goal?"

The goal is the greenest filter you will ever have. Or you'll realize you didn't set the right goal. And that's good too. But it is a superpower question. So I want you this week to try it. I want you to prove that I'm right, to yourself.

Or if I'm wrong, you can tell me, but I think I'm going to be right. So you're going to be sitting in a room, or you're going to be on a zoom call, or you're going to be having a conversation with a couple of people, and you're going to feel this thing slipping away. You're going to feel it going down a weird area. You're going to feel yourself trying to make a decision. All the things could happen this week. I want you to apply it.

What's the goal? What are we trying to get done here? What do we most want to have happen? What is the goal?

So my goal is 20 million people, 20 million women touched by this podcast. That's it, right? That's what I want to give my attention to. What is your goal right now? What's your goal? What is the goal that you want to achieve just this week? Silence is all the noise. It becomes this immediate filter for clarity. Now you may not like what you find out when you ask that question, but that doesn't make the question bad.

Because you might ask the goal, what's the goal to an entire team of people, and they might all have 12 answers. So doesn't that mean then we need to calibrate the goal? Because what we know for sure is if I'm trying to wrangle a bunch of people to get something done and they all don't know how we're going to win, how we're going to measure our success, how we're going to know if we actually did what we thought we were going to do, then now I have an issue as the leader.

So what's the goal?

So I hope you'll help me with my mission. I'm going to ask you this more than once, but I promise I won't take as much podcast time to do it, but I would love, love, love, love, love for you to go to thevisionary.ceo/catalyst. Get yourself registered. You'll pick your podcast link.

It'll be super easy and tell people about it. You in?

All right, love. Thanks for tuning in.