What You Do as a Leader Matters | Episode 241

Scott McCarthy [00:00:00]:

In episode 241 of the peak performance leadership podcast, I go solo. I’m gonna give you a personal story that what you do as a leader matters. That’s right, folks. It’s all about how you matter as a leader today. Are you ready for this? Alright. Let’s do it. Welcome 1, welcome all to the Peak Performance Leadership podcast, A weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the 3 domains of leadership. Those being leading yourself, leading your team and leading your organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:00:45]:

This podcast couples my 20 years of military experience as a senior Canadian army officer with World class guests bring you the most complete podcast of leadership going. And for more, feel free to check out our website at movingforwardleadership.com. And with that, let’s get to the show. Yes. Welcome 1. Welcome all to Peak Performance Leadership Podcast. It is your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy, and Thanks for coming in. And if you’re wondering why this is late, I will be getting to that in the recording, but thank you for your patience nonetheless.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:33]:

Anyway, I just wanted to give a quick preamble about tonight’s show. It is a solo show, which I actually recorded in our free Facebook group, leadership skills for managers who want to be leaders, not bosses. I know that’s a mouthful. So if you just go to lead don’t boss.comforward/ group. That’s gonna take you right to it if you’re not a member already. So That being said, this week’s episode is all about why you as a leader How you as a leader, I should say, matter. And what you do matters. And I’m giving you a very personal story about how you can change the life of someone.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:28]:

Because recently, that’s why I’ve been informed I did. So without any further ado, why don’t you sit back, relax, Enjoy this episode on why what you as a leader do matters. Leaders everywhere across the globe. How’s everyone doing? It’s your chief leadership officer, Scott McCarthy, and, Kinda doing a live podcast episode here in the Facebook group tonight because why not? You know? So first off, if you’re following the podcast or if let me rephrase. If you’re not following the podcast, one, you should be, and you can easily do that by going to lead dump boss forward slash subscribe. Okay? And there you can grab, a link to your favorite podcast player, and subscribe immediately to the show. 2, for those who are actually subscribed to this podcast, my apologies for missing the past couple weeks. Life has just happened, and as you all know, this is my side hustle.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:51]:

So I kinda had to prioritize, which is something which I talk about here at the podcast office. Right? We need to prioritize. So practicing what I preached, but here I am with an episode, and you know what? My goal is to get caught up on those 2 episodes that I missed recently. So Here’s 1, and I will be coming back with a couple more and dropping them in to get caught back up. But, the reason why I missed those couple episodes was because I was away on a work trip. Right? But day for those who don’t know or haven’t been following for a long time. I’m actually a senior Canadian army officer, and I was away on a trip. And I got a story for you, and it it’s it’s a happy story.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:37]:

In the end, it’s it’s a great actually, great story. And I want to talk about something that occurred in my past. And then I got some closure on that during this trip lately. So let’s go back to the past. So one of my jobs In the past was that I was a commander of 200 member unit. And during that time, I had a member who made a mistake, messed up. I won’t get into the details, but he messed up. He messed up pretty bad.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:13]:

Ironically, one of the first you know, the first time I met this member was after he made this mistake And he was in front of me in a formal trial situation. And essentially, David. It it’s just like court. It’s military court at very smaller level for minor military infractions. So Long story short there, you know, he was guilty of the infraction that he committed. However, In between the time that that instant, you know, where he made a mistake occurred to where we had that That trial, known as the summer trial, he had made a lot of progress in bettering himself. You know, he made a mistake, But he showed me that he was working on bettering himself as a person, as a, you know, as a soldier, as a member just as a human being. So when I saw all this progress and I saw what he was doing and all this stuff, I gave him what was called what’s known as a cautionary.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:25]:

Stop on the wrist. Don’t do it again. But what I Said to him afterwards, I said to him, let’s see what you’re made of. And it was a challenge. It was a challenge for me as his superior, as his leader per se to him direct in saying, okay. You messed up. I saw that you messed up. However, I also see all the great work you’ve been doing since then.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:56]:

And what I want to see and what I wanna get out of you is in fact, you know, let’s see this progress. Right. So as we move forward, Couple months, few more months pass. You know, I keep hearing good and great things about this individual and how he’s still doing well and how he’s holding the line and how he was doing all these, you know, work and so on and so forth to the point where before I left that job, I actually, presented him with a coin. And, also, you know, a coin kinda like this one showing for people who are alive or watching the video in our Facebook group. Coin similar to that one. And And I said, this is for not for what you did in the past, but rather what you’re doing now and what you’re doing going to do in the future. And that was the last time I actually saw that person saw that member.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:55]:

That was 4 years ago now. Almost actually, about four and a half years ago, actually. Crazy how time flies. Right? Well, let’s fast forward to recently. And recently, when I was on this work trip, I was visiting an organization. I walked in, and low and behold, who is sitting at the desk. But this is exact same member. No idea that he was there.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:25]:

No idea that he worked there. But let me tell you, he was happy to see me and one of the other people who’s working for me yet again and who was, you know, involved with that whole backstory I just mentioned. And his reaction is what drove this podcast and led me to reflect on how I want to talk about this podcast. And what he said to us was this, we changed his life. That’s right. We didn’t do something small. He literally said we changed his life. You see, how we went about that incident Could’ve drove him in multiple directions.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:16]:

But instead of hammering him down further when he was already down per se. I gave him a rope. I said, here you go. It’s now up to you what you decide to do with it. And showing him a little bit of respect for, you know, not that what he did wrong, but rather what he was doing right and where he was going in showing him, some trust and showing him that it’s not all bad all the time. It didn’t just help him, but rather it inspired him to continue to push forward, to continue to do better, to continue to improve himself. And That is the whole moral of this podcast episode this week. It is what you do as a leader Matters.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:16]:

It matters to your people. It matters to your organization. It matters to yourself. Decisions that you make on a day to day basis matter. It matters for your entire team. How you’re going to go about enabling your team? How you lift them up? How you put them down? How you support them or not support them? How you give them direction or you kinda let them go free. The moral of the story is this, what you do, it matters to people. Now, was I expecting to hear that that day? Heck no.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:55]:

Am I proud of it? Absolutely. But I’m more proud that he is still on the right track. Not about what I did but rather what he is doing. It’s not about me, it’s about him. And you as a leader have the same ability. And I know a lot of people out there think, well, Scott, You’re in the military. You know, it’s to be expected and all this stuff. It doesn’t matter.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:25]:

I hear the same thing from my civilian friends. I hear the same thing from civilian leaders out there who talk about their stories. What you do as a leader matters. How you show up for your people, it matters. This is not a job that, you know, we need to take lightly, but rather we need to take it seriously day in day out. Does it mean we can’t have fun? Absolutely not. I implore you to have fun. But know this, what you do, it matters to your people.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:07]:

And ladies and gentlemen, that is the moral of this lesson, of this story, and of this podcast. So when you go to sleep tonight, when you show up to work tomorrow, when you finish your day, take some time. Take some time and reflect and go, am I giving enough attention to my people to ensure that they know that they matter. And if the answer is no to that, You best start figuring out a way to do it. And let me tell you, we can help. We could definitely help get you on the right track. Right? And that is what our leader growth mastermind is all about. It’s all about helping leaders get on the right track and get moving.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:04]:

So wrap up. Don’t take your your job lightly, but rather at the same time, don’t take it too seriously that you’re stressed out. But just know, as I’ve said multiple times, what you do, it matters to your individuals. It matters to your people. And when you find that person and they tell you that what you did Change their life. You’ll feel pretty damn good too, let me tell you. So ladies and gentlemen, Thank you. Thank you for tuning in.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:45]:

Thank you for your patience. And as always, lead, Don’t boss. Take care now. And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the peak performance leadership podcast. But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast? And, no, that’s not leaving a rating and review. It’s simply helping a friend, and that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them if you think this would resonate with them and Help them elevate their performance level, whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:34]:

So do that. Help me, help a friend, win win all around, and, hey, you look like a great friend at the same time. So just hit that little share button on your app, and then feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it. Finally, there’s always more. There’s always more lessons Round being the highest performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s for yourself, your team, or your organization. So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show via moving forward leadership .comforward/ Subscribe. Until next time,