Be The Boss

Results Press

Unit 229

#180, 8601 Lincoln Blvd.

Los Angeles, California 

90045

www.theresultspress.com

ISBN: 978-1-953089-02-1

First Edition

Copyright © 2021 by Randy Maus

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the prior writer permission from the publisher. The opinions and conclusions drawn in this book are solely those of the author. The author and publisher bear no liability in connection with the use of the ideas presented.

Table of Contents

Section One – Mindset: Think Like a Leader

2. Hard Versus Soft Skills

3. See Yourself as a Leader

4. Know the Difference Between Confidence, Arrogance, and Humility

Section Two – The Hard Truths of Leadership

5. Your Team Wants You to Lead

6. You Are Not Equals

7. You Will Be Judged. Get Used to It.

Section Three – Shaping Your Mindset

8. Multiple Ways of Doing

9. Choose Your Language

10. Useless Words

11. Samurai Poker – What Options Do You Have When You Accept Failure?

12. Prepare for Constant Change

13. The Learning Process

14. What If It's Not About You?

15. Receiving Feedback and Recognition

Section Four – Understanding and Moving Forward

16. The Myth of Being Self-Made

17. The Thrive Curve

18. Moving from Hustle and Grind to Business Professional

19. See Yourself Beyond Where You Currently Are

20. As You Change, the World Around You Changes

Section Five – Skills: Act Like a Leader

21. Clarity

22. Ask

23. Listen

24. Acknowledge

25. Decide

26. Making Decisions – The Infinity of Every Decision

27. Manage the Gray

28. Living in a World Where You Don't Have to Be Right

29. Deal With the Big Stuff

30. What you value is what you expect

31. Use Stories to Communicate Your Values

32. Manage Up

33. Create Your Own Career Plan

34. Treat Everyone Like They Are a Member of Your Team

35. Always Look for Talent

36. Never Take on Someone Else's Problem

37. Ownership of Communication

38. Sins Versus Mistakes

39. Know the Difference Between Whining and Complaining

40. Bringing Purpose, Productivity, and Meaning Back to Meetings

41. Start With an Idea

42. A Few Tips for Being More Efficient

43. Networking. It's Not Just for New Jobs

44. Download Your Thoughts

45. The Benefits of Practice

46. The One-Step Method to Getting Started

47. Avoid Hey, Buddy Syndrome

48. Office Morale

49. Fun

50. Overcome Power Over

51. Be Nice

52. People Need Structure, Not Stricture

53. Coach Your Successor

54. Get Outside Help

55. Coaching for Advanced Success

56. Be the Boss

Appendix

57. Leading During Challenging Times

58. A Common Leadership Challenge

Further Reading and Resources

Prologue

The Leadership Gap

Leadership is the most powerful way to influence a group of individuals to achieve extraordinary outcomes. Why is it that there is such a challenging shortage of strong leadership in our organizations? It all comes down to our first job.

Think back to your first paid job. Perhaps you were in high school or just graduated. Did you babysit, deliver papers, or work at fast food behind the counter? I myself was a dishwasher at a country club. I held the privilege of cleaning all the plates from the various weddings, dances, and other events held at the club. Was I hired for my leadership skills or potential? NO! My boss cared that I showed up to work for my shift and cleaned the dishes as I was expected to do. Most jobs are like this. We are hired for a technical skill. By technical, I mean any skill needed in the organization.

Let's continue to explore the evolution of my dishwashing job. If I came into work and did a good job, they may offer me a job helping prep the food (peel potatoes and such). If I do this well, I may be promoted to work the line as a cook. If I continue to do well, I may now be asked to lead the cooks and run the kitchen. This is where it gets really challenging.

Up to this point, I have been developing my own technical skill. As soon as I am asked to lead others, the gap becomes apparent. All this time, I've been developing my technical skills, not my leadership skills. Leadership is an entirely different skillset. Knowing how to cook a medium-rare steak does not make me proficient in leading a team to produce multiple perfectly cooked steaks to serve a 500-person wedding reception.

Leaders in most organizations are given their positions because they have grown technically. It may not be dishwashing and culinary skills. For you, it may be skills related to drafting, nursing, construction, business consulting, software development, pharmacy and medicine, finance, logistics, or any of a multitude of competencies. As you gained professional experience and technical expertise, what opportunities did you have to develop your leadership skills?

If you are a new leader or facing challenges with your current team, you may experience a leadership gap. This happens when your technical skills are far advanced compared to your leadership skills. This book is designed to help you close that gap.

The book is separated into three main parts. The first focuses on building a leadership mindset. It's important to see yourself as a leader, and this section will help you do that. The next section is a series of tools effective leaders use in getting their work done. These are practical, applicable skills that can be used anywhere regardless of your working environment. The final section is dedicated to your continuing development and evolution as a leader.

Thank you for the opportunity to help you evolve as a leader, and thank you for applying your wisdom, experience, and learning toward improving our world.

Section One – Mindset: Think Like a Leader

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

— Marianne Williamson

This has long been my favorite quote. It is powerful and providential. It speaks to our ability to have a great impact, no matter our circumstances. Indeed, we serve others when we live big. It allows others to rise and bring more of themselves into the world.

As a leader, this is you. The more you shine, the more your team has permission to shine. Bring your best and allow your team to do the same. Be visionary. Be vulnerable. Bring all of yourself to your leadership, and this will allow your team to shine with you – brightly.

1. You Know It When You See It

What is leadership?

When I start a talk or a coaching relationship, I ask people what leadership is. Most can't explain it, but they know it when they see it. If I ask who they think of as good leaders, they will give me examples from their lives. When I ask them what makes the person they mentioned a good leader, they first tell me that the person is a natural or born leader.

Saying that someone is a natural or born leader is not a compliment. It is like saying someone is an overnight success. This overlooks and undervalues the hard work that the person has put into becoming the leader they are today. They have, consciously or unconsciously, been practicing skills their whole life that contribute to the leadership abilities they are displaying right now.

When someone uses this phrase, they are not really talking about the leader who seems like a natural. They are really creating an excuse for themselves to bow out of the work required to become a stronger leader. Instead of focusing on developing their skills, they can think to themselves, I'm not a natural-born leader, so I don't need to try or practice to become a better leader.

There have been leaders for as long as there have been people. What is a leader? A leader is the person who brings a group of people together to work toward a common goal. Doesn't that sound easy? Simple? In the end, this is what a leader does. Why is it so challenging? It's hard because leaders have to develop a range of unseen skills whereas, in many other professions, you can see the skills being developed and applied.

A great example of this is my friend Chris, who is a carpenter. He learned how to cut, shape, and finish wood. Whether he was building a table or installing trim along a baseboard, the product of his work was easy to see. In fact, the process and progress of his work are easy to observe. I can watch as he measures, cuts, and nails in each piece of wood. I can make judgements about the quality of his work, though not with the practiced eye his instructor may have had when he apprenticed. Chris himself can see the results of his work and self-critique in order to become better and refine his skills.

The biggest difference between what Chris does and what a leader does is that Chris and those around him understand the final product, what it should look like, and how to measure the quality of it. At the end of the process, a table should look like a table. Furthermore, there is a defined process of learning that Chris followed to acquire the skills for his profession. Ironically, this is not how most leaders are developed.

Most leaders are promoted into positions of leadership because they were good at a technical skill of some kind. They were proficient and worked well enough so that at some point they were offered a leadership position in their company. This is when the pain starts.

Now they are the manager. What they weren't told is that there is an entirely different skillset they need to develop – LEADERSHIP SKILLS. Organizations focus on the development and advancement of people with great technical skills without understanding the need to develop leadership skills at the same time. Now the person is a manager. They have great technical skills, but they have not practiced the skills required to lead a group of people to accomplish their business goals.

Fortunately, leadership is a set of skills that can be learned. Through practice and reflection, leaders are able to learn how to lead, understand how their strengths contribute to their leadership style, and close the leadership gap.

Familiar, but Uncomfortable

Take a moment and find someone nearby—roommate, workmate, spouse, friend, random stranger. Ask to shake hands with them. Shake their hand. Now ask them to shake hands again, but hold out your other hand, the one you don't usually use for shaking hands. I'm guessing the first shake felt familiar and comfortable where the second handshake was probably familiar, but uncomfortable.

This is a great example of leadership. We have experienced leadership all our lives. When we see it, it feels familiar. Yet, when we try to lead, it can feel uncomfortable. This discomfort comes from our lack of practice in using leadership skills. The good news is that we can get more comfortable as we practice the skills required to lead and gain experience leading others.

If you are growing as a leader, remember that everyone contributes in their own way. Some will want to grow to be amazing leaders like you. Others will produce fantastic work without ever desiring to manage others. As a leader, you can still bring all of these people together to achieve amazing success.

2. Hard Versus Soft Skills

I have often heard the term hard skills versus soft skills, which caused me to wonder where the phrase originated. From what I could find, the concept of hard skills versus soft skills originates in the U.S. army. As you can imagine, this is an organization dedicated to training, as they have a constant supply of new recruits. The phrase was used to denote hard skills as technical skills and soft skills as interpersonal skills—both considered important in military affairs. After this idea was introduced in 1972, it became ubiquitous across North America and used globally.

I grew up associating hard with tough, committed, and all in, whereas soft meant weak, wimpy, and lazy. I never liked this phrase as to me it set up a false dichotomy where technical skills somehow rated better than interpersonal skills. It wasn't until I was speaking to my spouse that she offered a new perspective. Her interpretation was that it makes sense to call the interpersonal skills soft skills because the skills you use to influence others are often required to be done in a soft way.

I reflected on this immensely and see the wisdom of this point of view. Soft can have many meanings. I was interpreting it to mean weak; however, I may have misinterpreted. My spouse's interpretation was a great view of how we use our interpersonal skills to get things done. The most effective leaders don't hammer their people in a hard way, time and time again. They often use softer approaches that draw out the best in others.

This is illustrated in the Tai Chi exercise called Push Hands. It is a graceful exchange where two people are moving back and forth while constantly connected. The object is not to literally push someone across the room. The goal is to connect and allow energy to flow between you. If you push too hard, you will push the other person away and lose connection. Contrarily, if you offer no resistance, you lose connection. Therefore, you need to be soft and firm at the same time. Prior to this, I'd always seen these two words as opposites. Practicing Push Hands, I realized that they aren't opposites. Instead, they are different and complementary.

Another example of this is partner, or ballroom, dancing. I used to think that the leader had to make all the decisions and communicate them through a strong posture and powerful movements. As it turns out, dancing is a partnership and requires both partners to be soft and firm. If one partner is too forceful, it disrupts the flow. If the other partner is not firm enough in their posture, it is difficult to communicate through their bodies as they move.

Though hard skills are useful and important, soft skills are now recognized more broadly and tend to have a greater impact on professional advancement and project success. As a leader, how can you adjust your style to be firm and soft at the same time and bring together the hard and soft skills in your team and yourself?

3. See Yourself as a Leader

Identity is a core part of being human. Hence when someone has an identity crisis it is a major life event. Yet, our identity is an adaptable and changing construct.

We start out as children and we think of ourselves as a son or daughter. Depending on our family, we may add brother, sister, cousin to that list. In a few years, we enter school and add student to our identity along with friend. We enter a workplace and see ourselves as an employee. These are a few of the many labels we use to identify ourselves as people.

To be a leader is to take the next step. Saying it is a step doesn't do it justice. It is more of a leap, yet it is critical and the first place to start in growing as a leader.

Step 1

Your first step to seeing yourself as a leader is to realize—YOU ARE NOT AN IMPOSTER!

You were chosen specifically to take on this role and you agreed to it.

Many years ago, Alfred Adler created the concept that has come to be known as Imposter Syndrome—a belief system in which