Guest Bruce Tunnicliffe of VEI Contracting shares his insights on effective leadership, emphasizing the importance of communication and vision in leading a team. Bruce highlights the importance of task management, delegation, and fostering a positive culture. Host Christi Scarrow added to this by emphasizing the need for open communication and a supportive leadership style in navigating toxic workplace cultures and leading growing companies. Both speakers stressed the significance of a positive culture in achieving a well-functioning team and leader.

Action Items

• Discuss culture more with new hires to ensure they understand expectations around boundaries like the no email after hours policy.

• Work with individual team members to jointly define expectations and accountability, addressing any gray areas caused by evolving roles.

• Continually evaluate team members' strengths and passions to ensure they are optimally positioned.

Outline

Leadership lessons from his early career and the importance of connecting to purpose..

• Bruce Tunnicliffe shares lessons from his 20+ year career, emphasizing the importance of communication and seeing the big picture.

• Bruce Tunnicliffe shares how while doing his masters, his supervisor challenged him to think about the purpose in his writing. This has shaped how he leads others.

Leadership, culture, and delegation for high-performing teams.

• Bruce shares his perspective on effective leadership, prioritizing tasks, and delegation.

• He emphasizes the importance of identifying important and urgent tasks, and delegating non-urgent tasks to team members.

• Bruce emphasizes the importance of culture in a high-functioning team, citing open communication, mutual respect, and supportive leadership as key components.

• Christi Scarrow seeks advice on addressing a culture of "what have you done for me lately?" in a high-performing team, with a focus on managing up and creating a more supportive environment.

Workplace culture and leadership challenges in a growing company.

• Bruce shares how to Identify a problematic culture by understanding its impact on workplace morale and productivity.

• He encourages people to communicate concerns respectfully to promote positive change

• Bruce Tunnicliffe shares challenges of doubling in size, new people, and how to set guidelines for respectful working practices.

• Christi Scarrow agrees, highlighting leadership growth and potential new challenges.

Leading and managing a growing team with accountability challenges.

• Bruce Tunnicliffe recognizes the struggle with accountability in a rapidly changing work environment.

• He encourages leaders to “know your people deeply to work with them individually in a growing environment.” and avoid structuring people too much, let them excel in their own way.

Leadership skills and self-awareness.

• Bruce Tunnicliffe advises self-reflection for those struggling in leadership positions, suggesting continual education and learning are important.

• Tunnicliffe believes in leveraging strengths, rather than improving weaknesses, for maximum success as a leader.

Useful Links

Host: Christi's Web Page

Guest: Vertex Environmental Inc.

Lighthouse NINE Group: Website

Contributors

Music: All The Fixings by Zachariah Hickman

Editing: tribe74

Keywords

work, leader, culture, person, people, leadership, thought, team, important, talk, company, bruce, tunnicliffe, hard, yell, urgent, challenge, share, bigger picture, lead, organization