It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.’
When you’re the Anti-Hero of your biz
If you’re between the ages of 1 and 120, I’m sure you’ve heard Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero song before.
“It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me”
I think these lyrics are in reference to a failed romantic relationship, but what happens when this statement is true for your business?
Hmm..
As a CEO, your job is to be the visionary for your company. You steer the ship and mostly stay out of the day-to-day grind.
But you’re human.
And sometimes you do stuff that isn’t great. Some of that “stuff” might be what’s causing your business’ growth to stall:
✅ You’re never on time for meetings
✅ You manufacture second-hand stress on the daily: your direct reports are tired of your reactive personality. They start to identify this toxic behaviour for what it is and start polishing up their resumes
✅ You panic and switch from shiny idea to shiny idea, week after week. Nothing sticks because you aren’t committing to any initiatives long enough to find out
✅ You give clients ‘promise dates’ for projects, but fail to hit them.. you always seem to need to ask for a few more days to get stuff done
✅You repeatedly reschedule your 1:1 Check Ins with your key team members. Or worse yet, you turn those 1:1s into group meetings.
(believe me, these are not rando-examples… I’ve been there too, friend)
Unfortunately, these behaviours are all undermining your ability to lead, nurture and scale your business
And slowly, your team loses faith in you - no one knows what they should be doing or which direction the ship is headed. In short, they think You Need to Calm Down (see what I did there lollll…?)
Why?
Because these repeated behaviours eat away at your credibility as a leader.
And if your team and clients don’t trust you and see you as a credible leader, they are going to vote with their feet.
I don’t need to tell you that team and client attrition is def not helpful when you’re trying to scale to $3M in annual recurring rev.
So let’s do better.
Let’s Shake it Off and discuss 3 super simple things you can do TODAY to stop being the Anti-Hero and start rebuilding your credibility as a leader.
DO = SAY
Doing what you say you’re going to do is a simple concept, but it’s tricky to practice.
My math-y brain says you basically have two options:
Do more aka get better at following through on your ideas and promises
OR
Promise less
Here’s an example I dealt with last week. I had offboarding meetings with each of my team members for 2 clients who recently completed with us. I took notes. At the end of those meetings, I “promised less” - instead of promising a written summary with action steps and tasks put into Asana by EOD, I said I was going to take the info away and think about it. I actually said there might be no next steps taken by me.
THAT WAS HARD FOR ME.
2. Start and end meetings on time
Ugh this is challenging - especially when you are juggling internal and external meetings.
But if you are running late, you’re sending a message to whomever is waiting FOR YOU that “Priority X is more important than this meeting”.
It’s a big show of respect to both start and conclude meetings on time.
3. Do not reschedule 1:1s with your team members
If you have a monthly or quarterly check in with your key team members, do not, I repeat DO NOT reschedule those meetings.
There is no easier way to say “I don’t see talking about your professional growth as important” than to send an email like this: “Hey - so sorry to do this last minute, but something came up with a potential client that I need to deal with. Can we meet next wk instead?”.
Just don’t do it.
Rebuilding credibility can be a long process for a CEO. My advice is to start small. Pick one of the suggestions above and try incorporating it into your upcoming week.
If you’re interested in taking a look at the specific things you, as CEO, could be doing differently to create more revenue, snag better-fit clients, and a nurture team that you gives max ROI, listen up.
I hope there’s some Blank Space in your email Inbox next week because I’ll be announcing the newest way to work with me and my team!!
Take care and talk soon,
Tanya