Shut Your Mouth: An Actual Leadership Strategy

Um, and I have worked with entrepreneurs now for about 12 years doing operational efficiency.

My background is from the corporate world and operational efficiency, but working with entrepreneurs over the past 12 years, what I've realized is a lot of what you're talking about, right? Like that, when I start working with them on the systems on the team, I'm like, I'm giving you the answer.

I'm telling you exactly what to do.

We probably even put the team member in place and you're still struggling.

And so then I started to really investigate more of that leadership side, which I definitely don't have the expertise on the identity like you do.

But even over the past, probably six, seven years, I've been working with leaders going, okay, you've got the foundational pieces in place, but you're still not actually utilizing them, right? Like you hired this person, And you're not utilizing them.

You're still not handing things over to them.

You're still doing it all yourself, or you're still the bottleneck for every single decision.

Right.

And so it's like, okay, what is actually happening here? And this is not have anything to, there is a piece of this that does have to do with installing the right team members, making sure that they're really supported.

installing the right systems, making sure we're getting things out of your head so that someone else even knows how to do something that you do.

But there's this deeper layer too, that we're going to talk about today, which is like, if you, if you can't get past yourself or if you can't trust someone else, or if you can't remove, you know, yourself from the idea that you're no longer needed for everything, then you will continue to like fall back into that identity piece.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think.

You know, there's a certain stage that founders get to where it's very clear that they have to move beyond themselves.

Like they can't be the one who is the methodology.

They can't be the one who, you know, every single client knows by name and they start to have the experience of like, if I don't show up, this work doesn't get done or this, you know, this thing no longer exists.

And often the first place that we go is operations, is strategy systems, you know, efficiency, streamlining, how do I delegate? What do I delegate? And that work is so important because first and foremost, you are, most people, when you're a founder, you're good at what you do.

Right you're the best at what you do, but that doesn't necessarily translate into knowing how to build systems and automation, which is what you are absolutely incredible at helping people with.

But inevitably.

there tends to be a ceiling that happens.

And that ceiling looks like having the best strategy in the world, the best systems in the world, all of the automation mapped out and something's still holding you back, right? And it's frustrating for someone who like, Adrian knows what the hell she's doing.

Like, this is good.