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Creating Leadership Capacity: The White Space You Need To Scale
92 Plays4 months ago
Welcome to The CEO's Wing Woman® podcast! In this episode, Olivia Jenkins explores the crucial topic of creating leadership capacity and the white space necessary for scaling your business.
🔑 Key Points Covered:
- The importance of investing time in leadership development and creating white space.
- The difference between growth and scale, and how to transition effectively.
- Five key principles to enhance your leadership capacity and support business growth.
- Practical advice on delegating, deleting, and outsourcing tasks.
- How to build robust systems and structures for scalable growth.
Join Olivia as she shares valuable insights and actionable advice to help you navigate the path from growth to scale, ensuring your business is built on a solid foundation.
🌟 Subscribe to the Podcast: The CEO's Wingwoman® Podcast
📱 Connect with Olivia:
Instagram: @oliviajenkins.co
Website: https://www.oliviajenkins.co/
If you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more content like this. Share this episode with fellow visionary CEOs who could benefit from mastering leadership capacity and scaling their businesses. Thank you for your support!
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Background
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the See You's Wingwoman Podcast.
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm Olivia Jenkins, your host and virtual coach, helping you scale your brand to cult-like status. Since 2019, I've helped over 100 clients generate in excess of 45 million in revenue. And now it's time for me to share my tips, tricks, and strategies to help you supercharge your growth. I'm here to help you step into your power to develop a bulletproof strategy and growth mindset to match. Consider me your secret weapon to scale. Let's get started.
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome back to the CEO's Wing Woman Podcast.
Topic Announcement: Leadership Capacity
00:00:40
Speaker
I'm your host, Olivia Jenkins, and today I'm super excited to dive into a topic, creating leadership capacity, the white space that you need to scale. Now, this is one of my favorite topics to talk about because it hits home for me as a consultant and being a solo consultant in the beginning versus being a firm principal now where I have the support of a team and my business is in a different stage.
Growth vs Scale and Leadership Needs
00:01:06
Speaker
Now, the reason that this is so important, especially when it comes to scale, is that there is a big difference between growth and scale. So many business owners get caught in the trap of only ever getting as far as being in the growth stage because they don't have the infrastructure, the skills, the white space, and the capacity to go from being in the growth stage of business
00:01:33
Speaker
to being in the scale stage of business. And we'll unpack exactly what I mean by leadership capacity and how to create this white space in your business so you know exactly what's involved and so that you're able to apply the principles from this episode into your business.
Building Leadership Capacity: Key Components
00:01:51
Speaker
So let's start with the main things that you need to know, the five main things that you need to know when it comes to creating leadership capacity and also what that means. So what is leadership capacity? What does that mean? What is this idea of white space and how to create it and why you need it when it comes to scaling a business? Well, the major thing to know when it comes to moving from growth to scale is that in order to scale something, in order to scale a business, you need to have into infrastructure. You need to have a system in place. You need to more than likely have more people
00:02:29
Speaker
to be able to help facilitate that scale and take you from being in the growth phase to then being in the scale phase. So in order for that to happen, more than likely, you are going to need to work on your leadership skills. You are going to need to increase your capacity when it comes to leadership so that you can hold more, you can hold more space for your team. You can create an environment that winning people like to be in and thrive in in order for you to continue the growth trajectory of your business
00:03:00
Speaker
and start to scale sorry the first thing is this concept of delegate delete outsour sorry There are likely lots of things that you're doing right now every day on autopilot that could be delegated to another team member. They could even be redundant. You might be doing things at the moment that you've done forever and you haven't actually consciously thought about that maybe you don't need anymore. Maybe you needed them at an earlier stage of business, but now you actually don't need that report anymore. Now you don't need that task being completed anymore. So,
00:03:37
Speaker
It'll either be something you can delegate, something you can delete, or possibly something that you can outsource. Is there something that you're doing right now in your business that actually, maybe it's not highest and best purpose of your time. Maybe there is somebody out there that's better at that particular task or has a certain skill set that you don't have. Can you outsource to somebody who is an absolute expert in their field in that given area to free you up of some time, to create some white space, but also to likely give you a better result as well. Because what I find with clients, if they have something that they find draining that they're doing in their day to day, and it could be something as simple as they're still doing their own bookkeeping, they're still finding receipts and reconciling payments,
00:04:26
Speaker
It could be something as simple as that, which maybe doesn't take that long, but drains them. They don't feel energized when they do it. They leave it to the last minute because they really don't like doing that particular task. And it drains them of their precious energy that they could be using to really zoom in on the three unique abilities that they have, the three superpowers that they have. And they could be delegating that task or outsourcing it to someone who absolutely loves bookkeeping and is amazing at it. So this is what I mean when I say delegate, delete, outsource. I'm talking about the things that you're doing every single day in your role as a CEO that perhaps it's time to delegate, delete, or outsource. Now, of course, as a business owner, as a leader, there are likely things that you're doing at the moment that perhaps
00:05:18
Speaker
You don't find that energizing, but you still need to do them. And that is important as well to use discernment to work out what things you can delegate and perhaps which things are more important to stay with you as a business owner for whatever reason. So if you are listening to this episode right now thinking, yes, that is me, I need to delegate, I need to delete, or I need to outsource, or all three, what I encourage you to do is to audit your time.
Protecting White Space and Creativity
00:05:46
Speaker
and to write down every single thing that you're doing in your day over the course of three to five business days to really identify where your time is actually going so you can identify which things you can get off your plate to buy back your time and to create some white space for you. So that's number one. Number two, and again, this one hits home for me, is to prioritize white space in your calendar and don't
00:06:16
Speaker
fill it with something else. This is really important. Sometimes, particularly as Taipei personalities or very ambitious people that love to be productive all the time, we forget to actually keep the empty space. And that is really important because I can tell you that the most creative you will feel is when you have white space. It's when you stop and you have silence and you have capacity, you have white space to be able to be in your zone of genius, to be able to come up with new ideas. So when it comes to white space in your calendar, firstly, you more than likely need to put it in your calendar, because if you don't put it in your calendar, it likely won't happen. And the second thing is to make sure that you're really sticking to the boundary. And when you put white space in your calendar,
00:07:13
Speaker
you don't fill it with something because you've got white space there. So there is a real muscle that needs to be built here around boundaries, not only for other people, but also for yourself to be able to know that that white space is reserved for you to be having a rest, for you to recharge your batteries, for you to be able to have some creative time to be alone with your own thoughts. So really important to be able to prioritise that empty space and don't fill it with something else because you've got a gap in your calendar and you can just shove an extra meeting in there that you might've missed from the week prior. So really important to hold that boundary.
Role of Mentorship in Leadership
00:07:52
Speaker
The third is to work with a mentor, someone who can help bring out the best in you, someone who can help you identify blind spots that may not be visible to you right now, but may be obvious to a mentor. And they will be able to support you as well in helping you to increase your leadership skills.
00:08:11
Speaker
because there is a myth around leadership that you're either born a good leader or you're not. And while it's true, like all things in life, whether it's singing or dancing or any other skill in life, some people, yes, may be born with a more natural ability. But that does not mean that those skills are static, that they won't change. So really important to understand that when you work with a mentor, you may go into the mentoring dynamic and not feel super confident in your leadership skills and capacity in the beginning. But with time, as you start to increase those skills, and as you start to be open to having more experiences as a leader, you'll have more opportunities to learn and grow.
00:08:57
Speaker
And with that learning and with that growing, you will build upon those skills and eventually it will become second nature. So you may be consciously incompetent in the beginning, but before long, you'll be unconsciously competent. And it will be like riding a bike or doing any other activity that you do on autopilot. It will become more natural. So this is really important to be able to work with a coach or a mentor to be able to bring out the best in you and be able to guide you through different leadership situations so that you're able to increase your capacity.
CEOs and Self-Care Importance
00:09:34
Speaker
The fourth thing, and this is very overlooked, very, very overlooked, is CEO self-care. So one of the major things that I see with CEO clients is the inability to prioritize self-care as much as what they should.
00:09:52
Speaker
Now this could be very basic things like getting enough sleep, making sure that they're eating nutrient dense foods, that they're going out and exercising and moving their body. These may seem like very basic things, but I can assure you if you do not have the basics down pat, if you're not getting enough sleep, if you're not drinking enough water, if you're not prioritizing exercise and moving your body and getting out and having fresh air and resting, having white space to recover, before long you will head to a position where you're not showing up as your best self. You're not able to lead the team in the same way that you would usually because you don't have the capacity to. So you're running on empty. And this is really important again when it comes to your calendar to make sure that you've scheduled these things into your calendar
00:10:47
Speaker
It can't just be a wish list and, you know, a nice to have. It's something that needs to go into the diary and needs to be prioritised. So this idea of CEO self care, it's not just the basics and, you know, yes, I can do that, but realistically, you don't have a firm plan. It has to be something that you prioritise constantly in order to make sure that you can show up in a way in your business where you can guide your business to success through all stages of growth and through all different types of situations. So CEO self-care is very important.
Infrastructure for Scaling Success
00:11:24
Speaker
And finally, and this really links back to scale, which is what this is all about, creating leadership capacity, the white space that you need to scale. Now, in order to scale, and we touched on this at the start of the episode, you need to have structure and systems in place. It is very difficult
00:11:43
Speaker
to build anything that is capable of scaling if you don't have solid foundations. You don't have structural integrity in your business to be able to cope with scale. So a very simple way of thinking about this is if you think about building a 10 story building, if you have a solid foundation, you can build additional levels and you can go up in stories and be able to build a building that's going to stand the test of time. But if you don't have that structural integrity, if you don't have those solid foundations, it's incredibly difficult to be able to build a 10 story building that is going to stand the test of time because it's built on shaky grounds. So a commitment to focusing on the structure that you have in your business, the systems that you have in your business is really, really important because in order for the business to scale and in order to have a business that runs like clockwork,
00:12:41
Speaker
and is a well-oiled machine, you need to have a system and you need to have a business that is capable of operating without you. Because if you don't have a business that can't operate without you or can operate without you, what that means is ultimately, you have a job. You don't have a business. And one of my favorite books of all time is E-Myth, and I think E-Myth as a book puts this perfectly. When you first start your business, You are the technician. You're doing the doing. And then you're the manager. And then you're the entrepreneur. And so in the early stages, you are wearing all three of those hats. But as time goes on and your business goes from being in the startup stage to being in the growth stage and then into the scale stage and finally into the mature stage, we aim to elevate you out of technician, out of manager and into the entrepreneur seat.
00:13:38
Speaker
So you can be the visionary CEO that you were destined to be and you don't get stuck in your business and feel like you have a job and not a business. So the idea here with the structure and the systems is even if it's faster for you to do something on your own, even if it's better, if you just do it yourself, think about the things in your business that you're doing more than once and ask yourself, is there a system procedure, standoff rating procedure that I could put in place to be able to empower somebody else in my business to do this for me. And even if it's not 100%, even if it doesn't meet your expectation 100%, even if they get it 80% there or 90% there, it is far better for you to do 10 or 20% of proofing or editing or checking than it is for you to have to do all of the tasks from start to finish yourself.
00:14:35
Speaker
sorry I encourage you to think about the structure and the system that you have in your business right now and ask yourself what things am I currently doing or is the team currently doing that we don't actually have documented and we should, or we could use technology to be able to automate that so that we could focus our efforts as a team on things that are more high impact, that are more of a priority. So the structure and the systems, is what's required to be able to give you the capacity to scale from solid foundations and not shaky ground. So to recap, on those five points, we know that we need to focus on delegating, deleting and outsourcing. So auditing time that's being spent currently by you in your business to determine which tasks could you delegate, delete or outsource.
Essentials Summary and Final Thoughts
00:15:29
Speaker
Number two, we focused on prioritizing the white space and not filling it with something else that you didn't do the week prior, treat it as a really, really important meeting or a really important commitment that you've made to a customer or a client so that you aren't tempted to fill it with something else. Number three, work with a coach or a mentor to help bring out the best in you and really develop your leadership potential. and guide you through things that perhaps you haven't clocked in your awareness on your own, so your business blind spots. Number four was CEO self-care. So making sure that you're prioritizing the basics. So sleep, exercise, your nutrition, making sure that you're looking after yourself, and you're at least an eight out of 10 when it comes to your CEO self-care score. And finally, structure and systems. Placing an emphasis
00:16:24
Speaker
on creating structure, creating systems in your business to make sure that your business is set up in a way that it's built on solid foundations so you have the appropriate infrastructure and structural integrity in your business to be able to support the scale. Because I can tell you it is not very much fun being able to scale a business if you don't have these systems in place. It is very dangerous from a reputational standpoint because it's highly likely that something will go wrong or you will feel incredibly burnt out in the process. So let's spend the time, let's invest in the strategy first, get the structure and the systems right, and then it's all systems go when it comes to scaling the business. Sorry, I hope you've learnt lots in this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:17:12
Speaker
As always, I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and Share it with just one other business owner that you know that would benefit from listening to this type of content and learning more about the topics we cover for business, brand and leadership. Until then, I'll see you in the next episode and I look forward to connecting with you on Instagram.