The Three Elements of Leadership Fitness

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In today’s podcast episode we interview Bill Treasurer, Chief Encouragement Officer of Giant Leap Consulting and Author of Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People. Giant Leap Consulting offers a variety of services including leadership development, strategic planning, team building, meetings and retreats, and training courses. Today’s topic is focused on the three essential elements of leadership fitness: leading yourself, leading people and leading work–and using two-word phrases to improve and to effectively lead teams from anywhere.

What is on Bill’s Mind as 2022 Ends?

Amidst all of the noise and challenges of the last two years, many things are vying for our attention, sometimes shaping narratives in their own interests. Consequently, Bill emphasized that it is getting harder and harder to find the truth and suggests that leaders must exhibit the characteristic of being objective. Being objective helps leaders from being manipulated. Objectivity gives leaders the ability to stay focused on what really matters and not be swayed by distracting agendas.

Three Central Ideas to Leadership Fitness

According to Bill’s new book, Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People, there are three (3) central ideas that support leadership fitness.

Lead Yourself – As a leader, you need to have personal discipline and manage time and priorities wisely. Leading oneself involves setting and prioritizing goals, and setting aside time to be self-evaluative and introspective. Self-awareness stabilizes leadership.
Lead People – Leading people is not the same as leading yourself. A fit leader has to create an environment of psychological safety for team members. This means clarifying expectations, coaching, providing resources to enable people to do their best work, , and making time for bonding.
Lead Work – Leaders have to have business-mindedness, and develop business-mindedness in the people they lead. Doing so ensures that each individual is adding value, enabling the organization to become more valuable. Everyone should continuously be improving themselves while striving for better collective results..

How Bill Came Up with the Two-Word Idea?

When Bill worked for Accenture as the $60 billion company’s first fulltime internal leadership executive coach. One person he coached was an associate partner who wanted to become a partner but whose desperation for the role made people uncomfortable. He lacked the composure necessary to be successful in the role. Bill asked him to envision the necessary characteristics to become a successful partner and to state it in the fewest amount of words. The associate replied that he needed to be calm and confident.

It was an illuminating experience for both of them. Bill then had the “a ha” discovery of realizing that the idea of envisioning a goal or solution with fewer words made it more likely that a person would actually take action towards lasting behavior change.

Three Culminating Characteristics of Leadership Fitness

During the podcast, Bill highlighted 3 additional elements of Leadership Fitness that give strength to those mentioned above.

Know Thyself – Knowing yourself as a leader is the most courageous journey that a leader has to take. This can be done with counseling, journaling, coaching, and other reflective activities. Leading yourself requires knowing yourself.
Creating Safety – Fear inhibits productivity. A leader needs to drive out fear and encourage risk-taking and innovation. People will feel safer if the leader isn’t a hothead or fearmonger. You want to make sure that team members can express themselves without fear of their head getting chopped off when they make honest and forward-falling mistakes. Creating safety is key to leading others.
Getting Results – At the end of the day, the organization expects results from your leadership. As a leader, it is your job to solve problems, capitalize on challenges and opportunities, and deliver value–while also supporting team members to walk the path with you. Getting results is the whole point of leadership.

Who is Bill Treasurer?

Bill Treasurer is the Chief Encouragement Officer at Giant Leap Consulting (GLC), a courage-building company that exists to help people and organizations be more courageous to drive superior performance. He is dedicated to advancing the new organizational development practice of courage-building, a concept that he introduced in his internationally bestselling book, Courage Goes to Work.

Bill’s newest book is Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People. It serves as a playbook for new leaders, covering the essentials that will improve performance, effectiveness, and enjoyment.