Our capacity for increased responsibility in our leadership journey separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. As our influence grows and we gain new titles, we face new challenges. Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) understand where they are on their leadership journey and what is required to continue growing. How? Transformational leaders have Leadership Intelligence (LI). I defined LI as aligning emotional intelligence with the organization's needs and the operating environment. LI, at its core, means the less influence you have in your organization, the more you must do personally to succeed.
Link to Article: https://www.mcmillionleadershipcoaching.com/blog/tales-of-leadership-article24
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My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills.
Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!
Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!
Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC
Our capacity for increased responsibility in our leadership journey separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. As our influence grows and we gain new titles, we face new challenges. Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) understand where they are on their leadership journey and what is required to continue growing. How? Transformational leaders have Leadership Intelligence (LI). I defined LI as aligning emotional intelligence with the organization's needs and the operating environment. LI, at its core, means the less influence you have in your organization, the more you must do personally to succeed.
Link to Article: https://www.mcmillionleadershipcoaching.com/blog/tales-of-leadership-article24
✅ SHARE THIS PODCAST
✅ GIVE A 5-STAR REVIEW
✅ SUPPORT
-Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/McMillionLeadership
-Resilence-Based Leadership Program: https://resiliencebuildingleader.com/
- Discount Code: JMCMILLION
My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills.
Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!
Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!
Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC
You're listening to the Tells the Leadership podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader what I like to call a pal. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership.
Speaker 2:All right team. Welcome back to the Tells the Leadership podcast. I am your host, Josh McMillian. I'm an active duty Army officer, I'm the founder of McMillian Leadership coaching and I'm an Army leadership coach and I'm on a mission to create a better leader what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader. My vision is simple I want to impact one million lives in the next 10 years by sharing transformational stories and skills, and on today's episode I'm going to be going over a transformational skill with you. But before I do that, I want to arm you to make sure that you know that you can go to McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom, click the Leadership Resources tab and find a blog article that accompanies this episode. But every episode that I produce now to include interviews with other purposeful, accountable leaders, there is a blog post that is in there for you. So I try to distill down what the key facts are so you don't have to go back and take any notes if you are actively using this information on your leadership journey. So before we jump in, make sure you go to McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom before or during this episode and then check out that information in the article. I'd love to hear your feedback and you can leave comments on there as well. Let's go ahead and jump right in.
Speaker 2:So this episode is going to be solely focused on a topic that I like to call leadership intelligence. Our capacity for increased responsibility in our leadership journey separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. As our influence grows and we gain new titles, we face new challenges. Purposeful, accountable leaders or pals understand where they are on their leadership journey and what is required to continue to grow. And here's a simple question how can we do that? Transformational leaders have what I like to call leadership intelligence, and I define leadership intelligence as aligning emotional intelligence with the organization's needs and where you find yourself within the operating environment and at its core. Leadership intelligence means the less influence you have in an organization, the more you must do personally to succeed. But as influence grows, it's less about you physically doing the work and the more about the time that you are invested in other people. As leaders advance on their leadership bridge. Throughout the six phases of leadership that we've already covered, you can go back and you can review those. It will require more work, not less, to achieve results. In fact, as we advance on our journey together, our influence grows, which is directly correlated with time and investment in others. Our time is stretched, that's just a fact. Our emotions are tested and our character are forged as we continue to get stretched as leaders.
Speaker 2:The best illustration of this that I can think of is I've created, essentially a scatter plot diagram. I nerded out on this and you can go to McMillianleadershipcoachingcom and kind of see this. On the X axis it represents the leaders, physical involvement required to gain influence. Physical involvement is the time and effort to achieve results, and on the Y axis is the influence gained from that investment. Remember this fact as leaders earn more titles, we do not become less busy, but we become more busy and more engaged. It's important to note that this is not an accurate representation at all of your time invested, but that diagram that I just mentioned clearly demonstrates as you gain more influence, your time exponentially increases. So you have to be willing to pay that and before we even jump in here, this is a serious question that you have to reflect. Are you willing to make that sacrifice? If you want to chase more pay just because you want to make more money, I'm betting that you're not willing to make that sacrifice, because leadership at its core, is about being a servant serving other people, and the longer that we stay in, the more that we serve other people, especially with time. And here's a quote to kind of kick this off as your influence grows, so does your time invested.
Speaker 2:So the first phase through this leadership intelligence is what I like to call tactical, and I broke this down from my military experience. Right Like, when I'm thinking about an operational battlefield, we always have the tactical, the people that are actually doing the work, fighting the battles. Operational, which is kind of an environment, an operating environment that we're in an AO, and then we have strategic, and that is a theater that is decisions at a very large scope that shapes the entire operating environment. So we're starting now at tactical intelligence, the first level of leadership intelligence. When leaders find themselves at this level tactical level they are typically just starting a new career or a position. Shakespeare defines the seven ages of man and I actually love kind of going back to this and referring to it. But the fourth stage is the soldier. That is where most leaders begin their journey. When junior leaders chart new paths, they are eager to build a reputation and focus on performance versus teamwork.
Speaker 2:To achieve results at the first level, leaders must understand their success solely depends on themselves. If you succeed, it's due to you physically doing the work. Leaders at the tactical level are what I like to call subject matter experts. At their jobs I like to refer to SMEs or subject matter experts as wells meaning they're Knowledge is a yard wide and a mild deep. However, another critical aspect is tactical intelligence is leading yourself well. As discussed in the six phases of leadership, leaders must master themselves before leading others. A trade-off begins as a leader progresses on the next leadership phase. Their physical contribution begins to turn into more time invested. It's important to note that this is just a simple visualization of a diagram that I'm getting ready to explain and that you can go to McMillianleadershipcoachingcom and kind of see that trade-off analysis of what I'm talking about, of how our time is more committed as we progress through the phases of leadership. Even though the work we physically do is less, the amount of time exponentially grows.
Speaker 2:Team, let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share an additional leadership resource with you, and that is one-on-one leadership coaching through McMillianleadershipcoaching. So what do I do? I help leaders discover their purpose, create a long-term growth plan and take inspired action. I believe everything rises and falls on leadership and regardless of where you are in life, one fact is true you are a leader of others, you are a leader of your family and, most importantly, you are a leader of yourself. To lead others well, that starts by leading yourself well. If you want to learn more, you can go to McMillianleadershipcoachingcom and schedule a free call today.
Speaker 2:Back to the episode. So here's the trade-off. Even though that your physical work is diminishing as you increase and rank or title, the amount of time and effort that you have to invest to be successful only grows Because you have more people underneath you that are at that tactical level of intelligence. This is a key point, because if you're not willing to pay the price, do not seek to gain that level of influence. So now we're transitioning from the tactical intelligence level to the operational intelligence level, the next level on our leadership journey, which marks a milestone in a leader's career.
Speaker 2:Leaders with operational intelligence have assumed leadership positions and actively are managing teams. It doesn't really matter the size, but you're actively managing other people. Teams can be small or they can be large. What's important is, the success previously achieved in tactical intelligence is not occurring unless the team works together towards a shared vision. An example of operational intelligence is a mid-level manager or a junior military officer. When leaders are at the operational intelligence, they embrace the higher organizational vision and create a nested vision of their own. They develop plans and have their teams implement those plans. Most leaders today will achieve this level. But why do people hit burnout around this phase? As you progress on your leadership journey, your physical contribution I've said this countless times already to achieve results is significantly reduced. However, your time invested substantially increases. Leaders fail to advance because they're too fixated on doing the work and fail to supervise, or they fail to lead, they fail to manage whatever word you want to use there. As a result, they fail to gain momentum and hit a leadership burnout. They just cannot physically go because they've met their potential unless they can change.
Speaker 2:Operational intelligence is a decisive point in any leader's career. If leaders realize extraordinary results are possible with effective teamwork, if they can inspire, if they can foster trust and they can allow mission command to blossom, they will continue to grow. It's important to define what a decisive point is. If you haven't listened to all my podcast episodes, a decisive point is a military term that is used for operational planning. There's always a moment in time in any battle that we achieve a decisive point, and a decisive point essentially just means that we have gained enough combat power and objective to where we are going to win. We control key terrain or we've attritted the enemy down to a certain number where success is inevitable. It's going to happen. That is the decisive point of where momentum shifts from one side to another.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, leaders that fail to delegate based on individual strengths and find themselves doing their work create a kind of rescue culture, and that's why I believe a lot of people would really fail when this happens. They cannot keep the time invested and it becomes unsustainable and they eventually hit that burnout that we just talked about, failed to maintain accountability and they never achieve their true results as a leader. Purposeful, accountable leaders create organizations that empower at the lowest levels, hold people accountable and create winning cultures. My base leadership principle is meekness, and we've defined this and I think I've defined it more in multiple different episodes and in blogs. But the most important thing to understand is you, as a leader, you're going to make unpopular decisions. Not everyone is going to like you, but what you need to be able to do is to empower people but also hold them accountable, and that means holding yourself accountable.
Speaker 2:You are not a rescuer. You're put into this position for a reason, and one of the biggest things that I see nowadays within this type of leadership intelligence is failing to hold people accountable. When you fail to hold people accountable, you just lowered the standard within your organization, and are you okay with that? Are you okay with rescuing people and not holding them accountable? And there's multiple different levels of how you can enforce accountability, and I'm not always saying go to that 100 levels straight away. That could just simply be being more involved in a time capacity and helping people kind of work through problems, and one of the best ways of doing this is putting a coaching hat on. If someone is running into an issue or if they failed, simply just go in and do a coaching session with them and identify the root cause of why they failed and how they can get better and what type of systems can be implemented within the organization to prevent this from happening, because, at the end of the day, it's all about creating a winning culture that is resilient. All right, team, let's take a quick break from this episode, and I wanna share a leadership resource with you, and that is the Resiliency-Based Leadership Program.
Speaker 2:Rblp's vision is to create a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading resilient teams. So why do you need to build and lead a resilient team? Resilient teams are the key to individual and organizational growth, regardless of being in the military or in the civilian workforce. Building collective teams allows for exponential growth and the team's ability to overcome adversity and adapt and, most importantly, grow. And in bottom line, up front, resilient teams are just stronger together. And here's the fact 99% of the people who take that course recommended to others, and I'm one of them. I just completed my certification and I highly recommend this. And the great news is it's most likely free to you and if you're in the military, it is 100% free to you. And if you wanna learn more, you can look in the show notes for this episode and find the link and use the discount code J-M-C-M-I-L-L-I-O-N, and that is also in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Back to the episode. So I put a picture and you can go to McMillian Leadership Coaching and see all the different kind of phases that I have. I call the journey and it's all just about growing. And you have self leadership, you have leading other people and with here I have I just graduated e I b expert infantry badge and that is a very coveted school within combat arms, specifically the infantry if you go through because you have to go through all these different Trials that you have to master if you want to be an expert infantryman. And then I have where I just completed my second company command, I was getting ready to go to graduate school, and then I have a picture with my family and then I have a picture of just me crushing a workout. That's part of the journey, that's part of all this, and you also need to understand that this isn't just a fixed moment in time.
Speaker 2:You can fluctuate between tactical Intelligence and operational intelligence. It's not a clear, linear line. It's messy remember, leadership is messy, it's chaotic at best. So we have to be able to learn to go with it and Figure out where we are operationally and, within that environment, continue to move forward to the last phase on. This is strategic intelligence. So we talked about tactical intelligence, operational intelligence. Now we're at strategic intelligence, the final level of leadership intelligence. This is when leaders operate at a level. They impact entire organizations, large, vast amount of people. Examples of strategic intelligence are senior military leaders in the terms of general officers, a small business entrepreneur that is getting ready to create their own company and try to build their own brand, or an organization's CEO.
Speaker 2:Success is directly connected to the vision created by leaders. At this level of intelligence, does your vision create what we call triple h remember head, heart and hand alignment within your organization? Does it inspire others to chase challenges and overcome them? To achieve this, the balance of time invested is tipped, and we've talked about this. Your work becomes less involved, but the time invested becomes More involved and it only grows. And strategic intelligence? Because the leaders influence is so massive, the time required to maintain momentum is enormous. Remember, as your levels of responsibility increase, so does your time commitment. You will not inspire large groups by doing the work or simply supervising. You must inspire by dreaming and creating personal and professional alignment.
Speaker 2:To achieve success and strategic intelligence, leaders must make time to think. That's one of the most critical things and you're going to get that countless times with me. What is the direction that you want to take, your life or the organization or your family? It doesn't matter. How can I achieve a vision that builds momentum and creates by what can improve the culture to drive people to go that extra mile because they want to, not because I told them to. Leaders at strategic intelligence are focused on the future and allow the subordinate leaders to delegate underneath them, supervised, and then put in the physical work. They're focused on charting the course and consistently checking the asthma to make sure they're on the right track. Purposeful, accountable leaders create a vision, so compelling others seek them out for employment. So here are my final thoughts.
Speaker 2:We're now in our after action review, after reviewing the three levels of leadership intelligence. Take some time to complete this exercise. After completing this exercise, you should have a better understanding of where you fall within this leadership spectrum. First, write down your weekly job activities and, once you've written them down of what you're doing in a week, begin to mark them as either a tactical, operational or strategic. After you've collected them, begin to sum up those totals and put them into bends what percentage of your day is tactical, what percentage of your work is operational, and then what percentage of your work is strategic? Once you begin to see where your job aligns, it will help you realize how to achieve greater influence and success. After you complete this exercise, have your team repeat this exercise. Remember, leaders are shepherds, guiding their team to success. Here are three questions you must spend some time reflecting on when it comes to leadership intelligence. Were the results that you completed out of that exercise something that you were expecting? Number two do your actions align with your leadership roles and responsibilities? And then, number three does your leadership intelligence align with what your team needs you to be right now? All right, team.
Speaker 2:If you like the content that I continuously produce for you guys, make sure that you rate this podcast, whatever platform you're listening, make sure you share this podcast with other peoples and that you can support this podcast. You can do that by going to McMillianleadershipcoachingcom or you can go to my Buzzsprout hosting page. All of those links are in the bio and you'll be able to find them with the additional leadership resources tool and go to McMillianleadershipcoachingcom. Look at all the additional leadership resources I have to offer for you guys, absolutely free, and go follow me on social media. As always, team, my name is Josh McMillian. I'm your host. Saying every day's a gift, don't waste yours. I'll see you next time. I'll see you, guys, next time.