FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:00 – Show Opening

Are you a professional who wants to become a more effective leader? Then get ready for daily tips from the coach, with the experience and inspiration to help you succeed in any leadership situation. You’re listening to The Meeting Leadership Podcast with Gordon Sheppard.

00:27 – Start Here – Podcast content starts here!

Gordon Sheppard Speaking

Welcome to another episode of The Meeting Leadership Podcast, where we help professionals just like you to build your leadership skills and get the strategies that you need to run highly effective meetings. Now today, we’re going to tackle three key leadership responsibilities in meetings. And when I look back at the 25 plus years that I’ve been in business, I can tell you for the 2000 meetings that I’ve either run or participated in, many of the people that lead those meetings did not consider the simple things that we’re going over today.

00:58 – Overview – 3 Leadership responsibilities explained

And here’s an overview of the three concepts. The first one, is to know yourself. The second one, is to understand your team. And the third one, well that’s to be firm and fair. And while you might think that these concepts would be basic for any facilitator leading any meeting, I can tell you they’re definitely not and that’s why this episode is so worthwhile.

01:19 – Meeting Leadership Responsibility #1 – Know Yourself

And let me jump right in and start with number one, know yourself. Now of all the different ways that I’ve tried to get to know myself over the years, one of the best ways was to actually do a personality test, and I can tell you the first time I did it I wouldn’t have done it unless I had to. And let me take you back to that first moment. It was actually at orientation for my MBA class and we had to go through doing the Myers Briggs Personality Test. And basically what happens is that you sit down and you fill out a really long questionnaire, and then based on your answers you’re given a result. It actually says, “We think you’re this type of person.” And I’m happy to share with you my four letter designation according to the Myers Briggs results. I am an E-N-T-P. And basically you can learn more about it, but it means in my case I’m kind of a visionary who talks too much and really should learn how to be more quiet. And I have to say that I would have continued to be suspicious about that result except a few years later I actually did the Myers Briggs test again and got the exact same letters, which has really led me to pay closer attention to the report that comes out with it. It actually points out some of your shortfalls, some of things you need to work on, helping you to acknowledge some of your strengths. In the end, it’s actually been really valuable for me because it helped me not fall down the same pitfalls and actually go down roads I need to go down, where I would have been blind to that before I took the personality test.

02:44 – Get A Meeting Mentor –  Link to MLP 009: How A Meeting Mentor Can Improve Your Leadership Skills

https://meetingleadershipinc.com/how-a-meeting-mentor-can-improve-your-leadership-skills/

And another great way to get to know yourself, especially if you have to run meetings, is to get a meeting mentor. Now, I covered this in an entire episode back in episode nine of The Meeting Leadership Podcast. It’s actually titled, How A Meeting Can Improve Your Leadership Skills? And I will definitely leave a link to that episode in the show notes.

03:05 – Meeting Leadership Responsibility #2 – Understand your team

which brings us to the second key leadership responsibility that I believe you should have in meetings, and that is to understand your team. Now of course, it’s really important to know who is in the room in any group situation that you’re in, but it is definitely more important when you’re actually leading the meetings. For example, if you know that you have somebody in your meetings who talks too much, then you have an opportunity either in the meeting to actually slow them down or before the meeting starts to actually take them sidebar and say, “Hey, you know, you’ve got a lot of great ideas, but you’re actually going on and on, a little bit too much about them. Can you just hold them down in just sort of an elevator pitch? If we were on the elevator for 30 seconds together, just get it down into that tight way to make your point, and if you can do that, then it’s going to make for a much better meeting.” And of course there are all kinds of other people in your meetings, including introverts. Now, when you have introverts, if they’ve got something really important to contribute to your meeting and you know that they’re not going to really, say it out loud during the meeting itself because they’re kind of quiet or shy, well then you really need to again, work with them outside of the meeting to learn what their great ideas are, so that those ideas make it into the room, so that everybody can hear them. 

04:18 – Working With Introverts –  Link to MLP 015: How To Better Engage Your Introverts In Meetings

https://meetingleadershipinc.com/how-to-better-engage-your-introverts-in-meetings/

And if you’d like to learn how to better engage your introverts in meetings, then check out episode 15 of The Meeting Leadership Podcast.

04:25 – Meeting Leadership Responsibility #3 – Be firm and fair

And finally, we come to the third key leadership responsibility in meetings, and that is to be firm and fair. And when I was making notes to get ready to teach about this point, I had a flashback and it was to a moment during a very charged meeting in a corporate setting where I worked many, many years ago, and I just remember the senior leader at the end of the meeting where there had been back and forth and this and that and he said, “Well, I guess it’s nobody’s fault then.” Silence, and that was that. It was not fair, it was not firm and we hadn’t followed him before and that made it even worse going forward, especially in meetings. So when I say that a meeting leader should be firm and fair, it’s not only for their sake, but it’s for yours as well. Because if you are fair, if you can create that atmosphere of trust, where people know they can say what needs to be said, that’s a great way to lead a meeting. And if you can be firm, as in slow the talker down when they’re talking too much or help the introvert to speak up or create accountability and follow up after every meeting, then you know for sure that you’re going to increase the overall productivity of your team every time you get together.  

05:40 – Managerial Courage –  Link to MLP 017: Why Leaders Need Managerial Courage with Kevin Whelan

https://meetingleadershipinc.com/why-leaders-need-managerial-courage-with-kevin-whelan/

And if you’re looking for a little inspiration when it comes to being firm and fair as a meeting leader, check out episode 17 of The Meeting Leadership Podcast called Why Leaders Need Managerial Courage, with Kevin Whalen.

05:53 – Summary of 3 Key Leadership Responsibilities In Meetings

And before we move on, let me take a moment to recap the three key leadership responsibilities in meetings. The first one, is to know yourself. The second one, is to understand your team. And the third one, is to be firm and fair. And you can see how valuable it will be for you if you take the time to invest in those three things, bring them into your next meeting and really put them all into action to turn that meeting into a highly profitable venture.

06:21 – Meeting Leadership Academy – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy

And I also want to let you know that this episode of The Meeting Leadership Podcast is brought to you by, The Meeting Leadership Academy. If you want to learn to be firm, fair and inspiring, we’ve got the best and live and online training at meetingleadershipinc.com/academy.

06:40 – Inspirational Quote – Benjamin Franklin

And one more suggestion that I have to help you build your leadership skills comes in the form of a quote. “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can get done today.” Thanks Benjamin Franklin, and thanks to you for listening and we’ll see you tomorrow on The Meeting Leadership Podcast.

06:55 – Podcast Outro

Thanks for listening to The Meeting Leadership Podcast. Be sure to subscribe for more strategies to help you become an outstanding leader. And don’t forget to rate and review so we can bring you fresh content every day. We’ll see you tomorrow, right here on The Meeting Leadership Podcast.