FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:00 – Show Opening

Do you know that in Canada, the country where I live, there’s over 10,000 people over the age of 100, and guess what else is 100? It’s the Meeting Leadership podcast. We’re on our 100th episode, and that’s this one right now. Roll the music.

00:39 – Podcast content starts here!

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.

Welcome to the 100th episode of the Meeting Leadership podcast. A hundred episodes ago, I talked to you about how I want to help professionals build their leadership skills, help professionals learn how to run outstanding meetings, and we have done that episode after episode. It’s so good to have you here. It’s so good today to talk about the importance of leadership skills and why I produced the Meeting Leadership podcast.

01:07 – Find Your Why 

Now let me work into this honestly by telling you something that happened for me in the last month. I was handed a copy of Find Your Why. This is by Simon Sinek, David Mead and Peter Docker. In there, they build on Simon Sinek’s work, and his idea is people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. This book helps you to build so many different things, including your own why statement. Of course, I don’t have enough time right now to explain the entire process. I really actually recommend that you pick up the book, find your why, but from this read, I was able to develop my own why statement, and I want to read it out to you right now.

01:50 – Empowering leaders to take action so they can build outstanding organizations

To empower leaders to take action so they can build outstanding organizations that positively transform the lives of their customers and their community. That is the focus I was able to get into that statement. That is the level of focus that I’m bringing to the Meeting Leadership podcast. That’s why we’re at a hundred episodes, and we’re going to continue because the fatigue is so high out there across all industries, across all organizations. For the most part, meetings are running poorly. For the most part, leaders are not feeling empowered to know what to do to actually run better meetings. Every episode that we’re putting out right now, it’s like a mini training. It’s like going to school for five, 10 minutes a day because from each episode, you can pull up something that’s either inspiring or actionable to take into your next meeting to make it significantly better.

02:43 – Using reader feedback

One of the main ways that I know the podcast is working is from the feedback that I’m getting in the field. I had someone come up to me and say, “You know what? I was going to go into a meeting unprepared again, but then I was listening to your show, and I actually took the time to write an agenda.” That’s the kind actionable thing. It’s not spectacular. It’s actually reminding another leader when they’re actually working with people to do the little things that make that next meeting better and help them to grow. I love, love hearing about that kind of thing.

This is because I believe that great meetings are the building blocks of great organizations. If you can have a great organization, then you can serve your end user, your customer, your community at the highest possible level. Of course, you can’t have a great meeting without having a great meeting leader. That’s why this all goes together. That’s why in my live work as well, we start at the mechanics. What’s the cost of a meeting? How do you have a better agenda? How do you deal with the space? We work up to things like what is your attitude? What is your meeting leadership mindset? Are you connecting every meeting that you’re in directly to your strategy? Of course, we’re on to inspiration. This is the upper level. This is making every meeting go into orbit in terms of what it can do to inspire, retain and really keep the people that you’re dealing with super, super excited.

04:01 – Notable episodes – MLP 017 –  MLP 019 – MLP 039 – MLP 056 – MLP 089

There are so many things to say about each episode that’s happened, but let me tell you about a few of my favorites. Episode 17 was called Why Leaders Need Managerial Courage. That was with Kevin Whelan. That was a great one. Managerial courage. What a great way to immediately get into that area where you know every manager needs to go if they want to be at the highest level.

In episode 19, it’s called Why Leaders Need to Say Less So They Can Mean More. There, we had expert, Lauren Sergy on to give us the insights into how that’s going and really draw from her work in helping people to be better communicators and give us the practical knowledge that we need to get better at that very skill.

From a leadership perspective, check out episode 39. It’s called Why Intercultural Competence is Critical for All Leaders. Dan Garcia came on to talk about the really substantial way that he’s tackling this issue, and he really helped me to learn the difference between multicultural and intercultural. That is definitely worth a listen from a leadership point of view.

Martin Parnell showed up as an expert on episode 56. It’s called How Leaders Can Go Beyond SMART Goals. You know those ones: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. He goes beyond that. He gives us a framework to take action to really put those things forward. It’s helping people all over the world.

Another episode where people have gotten a lot of help is from episode 89. It’s called Why Sarcasm Is Hurting Your Team And What Leaders Can Do About It. There, we were lucky enough to have Lyle Benson, a really experienced professor from MacEwan University, tell us why you’ve got to be aware of this. You can’t keep people on edge and defensive. You’ve really got to move forward and eradicate that from your leadership style so that people can be at their best.

05:56 – Meeting Leadership Exercise – MLP 081 

Another aspect that we tried out that I’m super proud of is really in the demonstration area. In episode 81, it’s called Meeting Leadership Exercises, the pros and cons technique for managing disagreements. I did that episode with my theater professional wife, Tracy Caroll, and in there we did an actual demo. When you go in to listen to it, not only are you getting information but you’ll hear actually how it carries out when it’s a negative scenario and a positive scenario.

06:24 – Practical and strategic episodes – MLP 042 – MLP 009 – MLP 002

I was also super proud of all the practical and strategic episodes that were created as well. In episode 42, it’s called Why Effective Meetings Start With You. Episode 2, it’s called How to Connect Your Meetings to Your Strategy. In episode 9, it’s called How a Meeting Mentor Can Improve Your Leadership Skills. I’m ripping through the titles because again, it’s a hundred episodes, but think about it. Each of those episodes on their own, if you listen to it, took action, would really help you to build out a better meeting and become a stronger leader.

For all the great guests that were mentioned earlier, so many of them stuck around to offer an inspiring leadership story. I really recommend you go through the list and find the great ones there. They will really help you get a lift in your day and really want to go on and do great things. Of course if you’d like to take action and listen to any of the episodes that I’ve just mentioned, just go to meetingleadershipinc.com, forward slash, and then put the number in. I think what you could really actually do if you want to grow is just start at number one, hit subscribe and then listen to every episode along the way to get a mini university that will help you build your leadership skills.

07:36 – Thank you to my team

I also have to send a huge shout out and a massive thank you to my team, Chandrima, Emanuel, Chris. This doesn’t happen without you. Thank you so much for bringing me along the journey with you. So many details have been flying through. I look forward to continuing our work together.

07:53 – Thank you, listener

The other big thank you goes out to you, the listener. Thank you for being with the show. Thank you for spreading the word about the show to make it successful. I really, really appreciate it. The big thing is I know you’re here to come along for this ride where you pick up something and you take action. It’s like we’re dropping a zillion pebbles in a zillion ponds. The meetings and the leadership abilities that are growing out of the information that’s being picked up here and then put into action, that’s where I get super, super excited. Thank you so much.

08:26 – Meeting Leadership Academy – https://meetingleaderhshipinc.com/academy

If you’d like to go beyond the podcast, then check out the Meeting Leadership Academy. There, you’re going to find some really terrific options for live training and online training for you and your team to help you, of course, grow your leadership skills, learn how to run great meetings, influence your organization, and then ultimately serve your customers and your clients and your community at the highest possible level. Just visit meetingleadershipinc.com/academy to learn more. As always, thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you tomorrow in episode 101 of the Meeting Leadership podcast.

09:03 – Podcast Outro

Be sure to subscribe for more strategies to help you become an outstanding leader. 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.