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!

Welcome to another episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast, where we help you get the tips and the inspiration that you need to build your leadership skills and learn how to run outstanding meetings.

00:49 – How leaders can remain calm during heated meetings

And today on the show, it’s the kind of episode that I wish I’d had when I became a manager and worked in the corporate world. It would’ve been a real help to learn what you’re going to learn today, because today, we’re going to talk about how leaders can remain calm during heated meetings, 

00:54 – Welcome back, Kathy Archer! – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/50

and to help you learn how to do this, we’re bringing back guest expert, Kathy Archer from Silver River Coaching.

01:20 – About Kathy Archer – https://www.silverrivercoaching.com

Gordon Sheppard: Now, many of you may remember Kathy from episode 50 on the Meeting Leadership Podcast. It was called, How to Control Your Emotions in a Meeting, and Kathy gave us a whole bunch of great tips there that you can take right away and apply, and today, she’s going to do the same thing. And I’m not going to hold back any longer. Here’s the interview with Kathy Archer. Kathy, it is great to have you back here on the show. Back in episode 50, it was sort of value bomb after value bomb after value bomb. We got so much great information. We really appreciate that you were on that episode, but for many of the people that are listening to you for the first time, they don’t know who you are. Please take a second to introduce yourself.

01:39 – Kathy Archer on leadership development coaching and empowering women

Kathy Archer: Thanks, Gordon. Glad to be back. My name is Kathy Archer, and I am a leadership development coach, and I come to the world of coaching from the world of leadership. And so I spent many years as a leader, learned many of the things that have helped me to excel as a leader, but also learned many of the things that caused me some grief as a leader. And one of them was that sense of overwhelm, that sense of imposter syndrome, as primarily a woman leader, because I coach women leaders in Canada’s nonprofits. So I come back now as a leadership development coach helping these women learn to navigate all that’s going on inside of themselves, regain their sense of confidence in themselves, so that they can move from surviving to thriving in both their leadership and their life.

Gordon Sheppard: Well, and in this day and age, you can’t get enough of what you’re doing to help float all the boats, in a sense, to get people coming up to that parody level where we really need to go. And I always say, I wish that we were in that Star Trek episode a thousand years from now when this male/female issue was not a focused issue, but the fact that you’re doing the work that you’re doing, helping women leaders at this time, you just can’t get enough of that kind of thing.

02:45 – Q: What’s the first thing you want people to know about staying calm during heated meetings?

Gordon Sheppard: And I know before the show, we were going to talk about the very specific topic that we’re going to deal with today, and that is, how leaders can remain calm during heated meetings. Now, this is high level stuff. This is pro level athlete stuff. What’s the first thing that you want people to know about when you help them in this area?

Kathy Archer: That I’ve been there, first and foremost. I think one of the things that people need to know is, it’s real. It’s real for leaders that there are tons of heated meetings.

03:10 – The downside of a task-focused agenda

 Kathy Archer: The issue that we struggle with when we go into meetings is that we come into meetings with an agenda, and that agenda, however, is often a task focused agenda, and when we primarily only focused on a task focused agenda, we’re missing so much of what’s going on in the meetings, and that’s the relationship component. And we look at why do meetings get hot? It’s because there’s something going awry with relationships.

03:38 – Focusing on building relationships

Gordon Sheppard: And when you say relationships, what are you trying to focus on?

Kathy Archer: What I’m trying to focus on is the people in your team, and you, are people. We’re not problems. We’re not things that need to be fixed all of the time, and often, we look at a meeting as an opportunity to solve or fix a problem, but meetings are actually about building relationships. And so if we can look at, what is it we’re trying to do with the people on our team or on this project, or whoever we’re meeting with in terms of strengthening our relationships, growing and developing people, finding shared values, goals, that kind of stuff.

Gordon Sheppard: This is so important, and it’s funny that’s not reflected in the to-do list on the actual agenda itself.

Kathy Archer: Nope, not very often.

04:25 – Preparing agendas with team development in mind

Gordon Sheppard: And I really appreciate that you’re talking about building relationships. When you’re helping the leaders that you help, what are some of the practical things that you give them, tools to help them do just that?

Kathy Archer: First and foremost, I want them to, what I said in the last podcast episode, prepare for meetings. We create agendas, but what I want you to also prepare is an agenda that focuses on that relationship building. If you are a leader in an organization or on a team, part of your primary role is to grow and develop people, and so I want you to develop an agenda with that in mind. What is it that this person’s strengths are? What is it that you are looking to develop in your team this time? Maybe you’re looking to get better at brainstorming together and being nonjudgmental as you’re throwing out ideas. Maybe you’re looking at developing some creativity and innovation, but create an agenda outside of that meeting, before that meeting, so that you’re looking at what is it we’re trying to do with the people on this team.

05:25 – The impact of a team-focused agendas, or lack thereof

Gordon Sheppard: And this great idea about developing this outside agenda really is going to be helpful, I can see, for the individuals that are in the room. When you add all this together, what’s the overall impact on a team when you take this approach?

Kathy Archer: The overall impact is pretty powerful. We talk about organizational culture and team culture all the time, and that’s ultimately what we’re focused on here. If your culture is toxic or negative, that overflows into meetings, but when you can start to look at preparing ahead of time for what kind of culture you want to create in that meeting, then you’re going to have that impact on the individuals and the whole organization going forward.

06:04 – Meetings are not task lists, but relationship-building opportunities

Gordon Sheppard: Well, and for leaders, what I can hear in what you’ve said and the big takeaway for me, in terms of attitude adjustment in this interview, is this idea of it’s not a task list when you’re walking in the room. It really is a relationship building opportunity.

Kathy Archer: Absolutely. That’s the biggest key takeaway that people need to highlight.

Gordon Sheppard: Kathy, this is gold for any leader that’s listening to this. I hope they’re able to go out today, immediately in their next meeting, and practice this and really keep it in mind, and that’s going to definitely help them to remain calm during any heated situation.

Gordon Sheppard: Kathy, thanks for being on the show.

Kathy Archer: You’re very welcome, Gordon. Thanks for having me.

Gordon Sheppard: I have to say that one of the biggest takeaways for me from doing that interview is the fact that meetings are more than about tasks. They are about relationships, and if you can focus on relationships first, then there’s a good chance that you’re going to run a highly productive meeting.

06:59 – Free Download –https://silverrivercoaching.com/meetingleadershippodcast

Gordon Sheppard: And, of course, thanks to Kathy for offering a free download, and you can get that download for this episode by going to SilverRiverCoaching.com/MeetingLeadershipPodcast. 

07:10 – Get in touch with Kathy Archer – https://silverrivercoaching.com

And if you’d like to get in touch with Kathy directly, then visit SilverRiverCoaching.com.

07:17 – How To Control Your Emotions In A Meeting With Kathy Archer –https://meetingleadershipinc.com/50

Gordon Sheppard: And like I mentioned at the top of the show, you can get more great tips and information and inspiration from Kathy on episode 50 of the Meeting Leadership Podcast. It was called, How to Control Your Emotions in a Meeting, and you can get that episode by going to MeetingLeadershipInc.com/50.

07:34 – Inspiring Leadership Stories With Kathy Archer – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/83

Gordon Sheppard: And I also want to let you know that Kathy’s going to be on again in episode 83, and that one’s called, Inspiring Leadership Stories with Kathy Archer. Now, there, she’s going to share a great story about someone that she worked with, and took that leader from 80 hours a week, down to a controlled week where that leader learned how to be authentic, lead from themself, instead of trying to do what other leaders were doing. It’s a great episode, and I hope you take a moment to go find it at MeetingLeadershipInc.com/83.

08:06 – Meeting Leadership Academy –https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy

Gordon Sheppard: 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. There are so many great things going on there in terms of live training and online training for you and your team to help you grow your leadership skills and learn how to run outstanding meetings. And you can learn more about that by visiting MeetingLeadershipInc.com/Academy.

Gordon Sheppard: And, as always, thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you tomorrow on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.

08:39- 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 write that review so we can bring you fresh content every day. We’ll see you tomorrow, right here, on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.