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

Host Christi Scarrow and guest Shelly Anwyll, Vice President, Business Development & Member Experience at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and Executive Co-Chair of NextUp Toronto, discuss the importance of active listening, empathy, and proactive communication in leadership. They emphasize the need to recognize and respect the perspectives of others, foster trust, and prioritize stakeholders' priorities. They also share their experiences as new managers, highlighting the challenges of delegating responsibilities and trusting team members. Shelly offers advice on how to overcome these challenges, including reframing one's mindset and recognizing the value of learning from mistakes.

Action Items

• To actively listen, don’t go to into situation with a preconceived notion of the outcome

• Recognize that the priorities of individuals you are trying to influence may be different than the organizational priorities

• Build trust with others to make difficult conversations easier

• Continue enjoying the learning process of developing skills over time rather than rushing progress.

Outline

Active listening and its importance in leadership roles.

• Shelly Anwyll emphasizes the importance of active listening in leadership.

• Active listening is essential for effective collaboration, especially in diverse settings

• Christi Scarrow and Shelly Anwyll discuss prioritizing stakeholders' perspectives in collaboration.

Leadership, conflict resolution, empathy, and trust-building strategies.

• Shelly Anwyll emphasizes proactive communication to manage conflicts, which she is in tune with through visual cues.

• Christi Scarrow and Shelly Anwyll discuss empathy and trust in leadership, with a focus on generational differences and the importance of face-to-face interactions.

• Shelly Anwyll emphasizes the importance of direct feedback and leadership accountability in building empathy and trust, regardless of reporting lines.

• Shelly advises managers to prioritize building trust and comfortable relationships with their team members.

• Shelly suggests empowering team members to make decisions and learn from mistakes to help them develop and evolve as managers.

Leadership challenges and growth.

• Christi Scarrow and Shelly Anwyll discuss the challenges of letting go of control as managers and trusting team members to do their jobs.

• Shelly advises that when managers struggle to delegate to consider the worst that could happen if something goes wrong and to focus on learning from the experience.

• Shelly Anwyll: Leaders often overmanage due to discomfort with messy parts of leadership.

• Shelly Anwyll: Enjoy the journey, don't rush to the finish line, and recognize that experience is part of successful careers.

Useful Links

Host: Christi's Web Page

Guest: NextUp Toronto

Lighthouse NINE Group: Web Page

Contributors

Music: All The Fixings by Zachariah Hickman

Editing: tribe74

Keywords

individual, situation, empathy, hospital, evolve, part, managing, messy, manager, conflict, listening, people, conversation, leadership, struggling, team, behaviors, facilitated, occurs, organization