041: Prepare Now for Your Future Senior Leader Role

Transcript

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Your desire is to be a senior leader one day and hopefully progress to the CFO and even CEO.

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have it listed as your long term goal. But you need to start working on becoming one today.

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You need to develop the skills and mindset to grow into an effective senior leader and start doing that today. Don't wait until you are a senior manager looking to break into a more junior executive position.

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Work on the key skills today and change your mindset. Please enjoy the episode. Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host Stephen McLain. This is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. This is episode number 41. And now we'll be talking about preparing and planning for a senior leader role. And I will be talking about the following four areas.

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Number one, develop your executive presence. Number two, I want you to start working on three key skills. Number three, protect your professional reputation. And number four, can you lead change at the organizational level? jack welch, former GE CEO said before you are a leader success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. Last week on episode 40. I talked about playing safe in your career.

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playing it safe will not help you advance to the executive suite. You need to take risk.

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You need to risk doing something difficult and maybe beyond your present capabilities to get better, and to show what you can do to show off your skills to show off your abilities. You need to ensure you're getting the opportunities you need and the training and development resources that are available.

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Don't fear what people will think about you for asking what you need to develop. If you don't care about your own career, I can promise that others will not care. You have to perform at a high level to garner a strong reputation for excellence. And then go get those opportunities to show what you have. As far as skills and abilities like leadership. You need to continue to communicate with your supervisor about what you want to do. I always recommend to people to share their goals and to share what they want to achieve with their supervisor. Because probably your supervisor can match you up to something to help you along with your goals. So take that risk, don't fear it. And if that supervisor doesn't want to help you, then it's probably a sign that you need to move on. This week, I am talking about your future. I want you to start now in preparing yourself for a senior leadership role. That is a director position and above.

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Don't wait until you're a senior manager to work on your skills and mindset. The executive level mindset and the necessary skills require work planning and assessments. Now leading with integrity, building trust, developing and taking care of your team, and achieving excellence are the constant requirements of all leaders.

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These are the non negotiables I want you to continue to grow your business knowledge, and how do the different business systems and functions work together to execute the strategy. That's one more piece of your skill and ability is understanding how the different systems within the organization work together to complete and execute the strategy. And this is why our goal setting process is so important. I know that most of you listening are looking to become a CFO and CEO in the future in our goal setting process. And in our individual development plans. We must address what we need to work on now. To prepare us to become a senior executive. We need to develop those skills and work on our mindset. We need to work on our confidence and how we influence positive outcomes.

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And by the way, how are you doing with your goals this year, this is the time of year in February, that New Year's resolutions wither away, the beginning of February, people fall back into bad habits. They get too busy for self improvement, and then get into a rut again. It's a never ending cycle. They lose focus, they lose momentum. The everyday grind destroys resolutions, because they are not rooted in a plan. But what we're gonna do is have a plan is have written down goals. And then we put them on the calendar and we continue to assess them every day you need to be looking over your goals.

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Where are yours posted so you can look over them. They are in your wallet Are they near your monitor? next to your bed? in your notebook? Where are they?

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Hopefully everywhere I mentioned, I want you on fire for your goals, I want you dedicated and focused. Now senior leadership is about steering an organization in the execution of a strategy leading an organization can be challenging, senior leaders are looking for people to grow and groom into senior positions. And they want to know that they can trust you when it gets tough.

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And when it gets time to solve problems, which is every day, Can people count on you during a crisis? Or any tough situation that comes along? Can they trust you with their people? Can they trust you with coming in with the big ideas? Can they trust you with executing the strategy?

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Can they trust you with sharing the vision of the organization?

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and getting people rallied around that vision? Can you communicate it? Can you talk about it? Can you get people excited about the work that they do every day? Now let's talk about four areas that I believe you need to be working on now.

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To prepare yourself for a future senior leader role. And number one, you should be working on your executive presence. You need to show confidence as an executive, will others follow you now how is your demeanor?

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Are you calm? Do you speak with confidence? Do people believe in your ideas and what you have to offer to the organization? Are you respectful? Do you show respect and treat others with dignity? At this point, you're probably thinking about some executives, you have worked with who haven't really shown this, that haven't really been respectful, and haven't really treated people with dignity. And I say that as finance and accounting professionals who are with me in this forum, we should always be striving to treat everyone with respect and dignity. We can lead without using fear and coercion. No, we can do it better. I talked about executive presence back in Episode 19 of the podcast. And it's also part of my adventure career course, that I offer through finance leader Academy, you need to look like a leader.

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You need to act like a leader and become a leader that others will follow and that others will believe in that your team can look to you and be happy that you are directing the organization. And I always want you to lead with integrity, and set the example set a strong example of good behavior, treating others with dignity and respect. always watch your actions and your words and focus on developing and growing your team at and look like a leader always. Number two, I want you to develop these three skills.

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First skill is communication.

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Can you communicate with clarity conciseness? And also confidence? Do people understand what you're trying to communicate? With no confusion?

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Can you communicate clear guidance? Are you able to positively influence others? And can your team Believe in your vision? This all requires strong communication skills. The second skill is relationship building.

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Do you know how to connect with people. If you desire to lead in a significant way you must connect with those you lead.

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This connection still means you hold everyone accountable. Often leaders think that they need to remain distant to keep the team on track. And that if you do form strong connections that you are weak, and this is not true at all. It's when you connect that you become an effective team. You can do this through becoming an active listener.

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Continue to build strong connections with your team and know what they are feeling know where they are at and know where you can help them solve problems and overcome obstacles to the tasks that they are working on.

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Now the third skill is strategic thinking, we need to see the organization as a whole. You need to be able to solve complex problems and lead teams who are charged with solving complex problems. How do you lead a team solving complex problems for the organization, thinking and solving problems at a strategic level requires flexibility, patience and vision. strategic thinking helps you to determine options for the challenges your company faces in the future. Now this is a critical skill to develop. So I want you to find courses on these three skills and then add them to your individual development plan.

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There are additional skills to learn but I want you to focus on developing these right now. Now number three, I want you to protect your professional reputation. You need to guard your reputation continually what you post on social media should be encouraging and not demeaning, nothing extremist or even perceived to be extremist.

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Do not do microaggressions I want you to watch your behavior and change their behavior to be supportive. I want you to focus on self awareness. So you pay attention to your behavior and your words, and how do you speak to people? Do you speak respectfully, or rudely and condescending how you act will determine how far you can go in your career organizations will protect their reputation by not associating with people who are outside the norm. And bottom line, if you are doing these things outside the norm of respecting people, you probably don't belong leading people anyway, and leading organizations and you probably have a bigger problem. So I want you to focus on that anyway.

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Number four, I want you to learn to lead organizational change, you must know your industry and be able to see the trends. I want you to follow and pay attention to industry leaders, in any organizations, including government agencies, who may affect change, you have to have a balance between knowing what's critical to change, and not being an alarmist, getting everyone crazy, you must focus on what's important. Some people just can't change nor doubt. And that means death. For any business, we must be ready to adapt. And often it's the small changes that hardly anyone notices. And sometimes it's the huge transformative change that will require special leadership.

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The key deleting is confidence.

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And that lies in your body language, your demeanor, the words you choose your integrity, how you react and respond, and how you solve problems. For people to follow you, they must believe in you. There's a difference between doing what you ask and going all in. When we show confidence. It gives others a comfortable way to get their tasks done. But when we lead with confidence, and we have a strong connection, a real relationship, that's where we build others and start to accomplish the bigger work of the organization together.

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Together is where we go to a higher place, a higher level of goal achievement, lead with confidence, and show great respect for your team build strong connections, and you will be amazed by who follows you and what you can get done. Now for an easy one. Today, I want you to look over your individual development plan and add in the skills I mentioned earlier, and that's communication, relationship building and strategic thinking. I want you to find courses and books to help you grow these skills. I want you to conduct skill assessments to determine your needs, and also level of expertise. I want you to be working on your executive level skills constantly continue to grow, continue to work on these, continue to do this skill assessments and just figure out where you need to go and your expertise on these skills. I have a free guide for you. It's called the leadership growth blueprint for finance and accounting managers. In the guide I talked about three leadership areas communication, team growth, and empowerment.

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Plus a few recommendations around challenges with the systems you are probably using to complete your work. The link to the guide is in the episode description. Or you can go to Stephen McLain Comm. Please use it to help you with a few leadership wins today. Thank you. This episode is sponsored by my new online course offering through finance leader Academy is called Advanced your finance and accounting career developing a promotion strategy that will set you apart Are you having difficulty getting recognition from your leadership, despite all the hard work you pour into your job and your organization.

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This course helps you analyze what you bring to the organization. How you can set yourself apart from your peers to high visibility work and developing your leadership skills. Plus hiking devise a strategy to move ahead, you can go to Stephen mclain.com. For more details. Today I talked about developing into a senior leader role and I talked about the following. One you need to work on your executive presence.

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Number two, you need to develop these three key skills. And that's communication, relationship building and strategic thinking. And number three, you need to protect your professional reputation. And four, you need to learn to lead organizational change. Next week I will be discussing improving your morning routine. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader podcast I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership. I hope you enjoyed the show. You can get this episode wherever you find podcasts. Until next time, check out the more resources at Stephen mclain.com and sign up for my updates so you don't miss an episode of the show. And now go live your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you

041: Prepare Now for Your Future Senior Leader Role

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