The Top 5 Leadership Lessons I’ve Learned in 2021
The Top 5 Leadership Lessons I’ve Learned in 2021
As 2021 draws to a close, I’ve been in an incredibly reflective mood. Oh my word, the things I’ve navigated this year, both personally and professionally. Here are some highlights:
Our entire family was displaced for 12 weeks from our home due to water damage (FYI: the novelty of hotel living wears off pretty early on)
We somehow have a 6’2” teenage son who is now a Freshman in high school (How did this happen? He was in Kindergarten two days ago!)
We completely rebranded and overhauled the look and feel of Choice, including a new logo, website, podcast... all the things
Our team launched our first-ever Choice product, Book(ed) by Choice: an online Book Publicity 101 course
We bought a new lot to build our future home
I was the one in front of the camera on national television
My parents live 5 minutes from us, and we regularly have dinners and dates; and the boys spend the night, and Gigi and Pop attend all their ball games
Our Choice team changed drastically with a lot of transition and new team members
The Adams family rescued two new puppies, Herschel and Chubbs (properly named after our beloved Georgia Bulldogs, Herschel Walker, and Nick Chubb)
Choice was named #18 on the Bulldog 100, which honors the fastest-growing companies owned by a Georgia Bulldog
Matt and I celebrated 18 years of marriage
I traveled again for work for the first time since February 2020
We moved our Choice Summit to 2022 due to COVID Delta variant concerns
I unplugged completely from the world for 6 days at Onsite for a leadership training experience
The Georgia Bulldogs football team had its first-ever undefeated regular season
After so much life lived this year, I think it’s important that we actually stop and recount the lessons we’re taking away. As a CEO and leader of so many women, I’m moving into 2022 with these realizations:
You Don’t Always Have to Stand In the Wonder Woman Pose: I’ve learned a great deal from Amy Cuddy about the power of the Wonder Woman pose right before I tackle something hard or where I need to have extreme confidence and authority. I literally stood in this exact position when we launched Book(ed) by Choice right before my first webinar training. But here’s the deal... this year, I felt like I had to permanently stand in the Wonder Woman pose because there were so many hard, stressful, anxiety-causing moments. As the CEO and leader of Choice and example to so many, I felt like I needed to constantly hold that position to showcase confidence, authority, and control. I told our team at our strategic planning retreat that while I was holding that posture on the outside, internally, I was cowering in the corner worried, not sleeping, and afraid at times. As leaders, we must share this with the people we lead. Not only does it build relational equity with the team, it allows our team to step forward and assist. We don’t have to have it all together at all times. For this Enneagram 1 and recovering perfectionist, I’m learning there’s real power in being transparent and honest.
It’s Healthy for Your Organization to Talk About Hard Things: As I mentioned in the annual highlights, our Choice team experienced many team transitions this year. As I spoke with and learned from other business owners, like myself, we weren’t alone in being affected by the Great Resignation of 2021. I immediately blamed myself. I was the only consistent theme, which made me think I was doing something wrong. So, I asked our HR consultant and trusted partner, Laura, to conduct an employee satisfaction survey with the entire team. I was terrified of the results. But, do you know what happened? I learned a lot of really helpful, valuable information. One thing I was doing was trying to paint every transition as a good move, a benefit, an opportunity. Instead of putting on my publicist hat and trying to spin it, I learned I should have let our team talk about it, sit in it, share how we were all feeling. When we did just that thing, it was transformative to our culture. So my takeaway was to allow time to sit and talk about the complicated topics, even when it’s uncomfortable or you’re afraid. What results is so much more powerful - a trusting, honest work culture.
Your People Are Paying Attention When You Model the Expectation and When You Don’t: Two significant things transpired this year that taught me this lesson. First, when Laura conducted the survey with our team, they specifically noted that I was not caring for myself well. I wasn’t setting the example of what I was saying about work/life balance and quality of life. I was working all hours of the day and night. I was over-programmed and overcommitted. I wasn’t unplugging. I was putting myself at the very bottom of my to-do list. And they were paying attention. Eeeeek! That’s the thing about building a culture where you teach, preach and lead the expectation... when you fall short, the team holds you accountable. And, I have to say how grateful I was for that very good reminder from them. Secondly, this year we fired a client. We fired a client who brought in a significant amount of revenue for Choice. But as the partnership continued to become more and more toxic, as my team repeatedly came to be beaten down, worn out and mentally and emotionally drained, as I saw over and over again the client not sharing our values and not being accountable, I realized the impact of my decision to protect the team fiercely. I was reminded of a time when Michael Hyatt stood up for me to an author who spoke to me terribly and treated me atrociously. He wouldn’t stand for it. That leadership example never left me, and I wanted to be that for my team. So we fired the client. Your team is paying attention... ALL THE TIME. Model the expectation.
You Can Care For Your People Well While Still Holding Them Accountable: For the last almost two years, we’ve all sat in this state of uncertainty. There’s very little that’s able to be predicted. We’ve tried to bring calm and order to chaos, but living in a global pandemic era has significant ramifications - mentally, emotionally, physically. This year, I learned that I can really care for our people well, while still holding them accountable for a job they’ve been hired to do. And, guess what? That’s what they prefer. They desire the opportunity to have some wellness benefits (like shorter work weeks) and want to know when they’re doing a good job and where they need to improve or learn to benefit the entire organization. And, they rise to the occasion and expectation. These things - loving people as humans and holding them responsible for their work - don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Culture Trumps Everything: If you can only work on one thing in your business this next year, focus on having a solid foundation built on culture. At the end of the day, every other thing can go away, but if your team knows your values, if you’re living them out, and if you’ve selected people that share them, your organization won’t just survive challenging, stressful seasons, it will thrive!