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“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

While you are listening to this podcast, I hope that you are taking the ideas you learn and you are implementing them into what you’re doing so it can take you places to where you want to go. My ultimate gift is to have an e-mail from you letting me know how this podcast has helped you, how you’re taking ideas and implementing them, whether it is in your leadership style, your business, or your organization or just how you live your life.

One thing I really want to hone in on the leaders being learners. Learning is not a one-time event. It is not about going to a seminar or conference and buying every package that might be sold or you or just attending and then just making it a social visit. Building relationships are very important but what I also need you to do is I need you to take away some of the things that you learn and start implementing them into who you are and what you do. It will change your practices. It will change your perspective of how you do things.

The reason why I want you to start being open to learning more and new information is because you become better today than you were yesterday. You will come up with better solutions. You will come up with new ideas to be implemented. Y might be saying to yourself, “I do not have a lot of time; I barely get to the gym, have supper, go to the kids soccer game.” I get it. I have three kids I am a busy lady too.

I know that learning is very important. Sometimes, I have the book stuck in my purse or by my bedside, even if it’s 10-15 minutes a day, I am reading. I take a book to the doctor’s office because there is downtime. Think about all the places you have downtime. There are other ways audios, the audio books, and podcasts like this one on Kindle or Kobos, going to conferences, workshops, reading the newspaper, or talking with others in the industry. There are lots of ways to learn and grow.

What I Have Learned About Leadership

One of the things I was learning more about leadership and in my own practices is that leaders are not afraid to show their gaps in their knowledge. They look for opportunities to learn how to handle situations better. They ask more questions they don’t assume that they know everything. I know I don’t, so I’m an insatiable learner. I am always trying to learn more information. As a leader, you could be willing to admit your mistakes and learn from them so that the people who follow you know that it’s okay to do the same. It’s about learning and growing. One of the biggest things that you can do that can make you more successful is to learn what motivates the people who work for you. How do you inspire them? How do you help them become a learner?

Shocking Stats

Shocking information that I came across while I researched statistics about this topic, just blew me away! According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2013, 80% of people watch TV on any average given day, TV takes up half of our leisure time. Other leisure activities in this category included: exercising, socializing, playing a game, and reading. Television viewing increases as you age. Think about it – 50% of your leisure time spent on TV. The other 50% is broken down further into that exercising, socializing, and all those other pieces of a very small amount 20% of our waking hours are spent watching TV incredible. Then I decided to check out the book consumption per capita. In 2010, 21% of adults consumed 11 to 20 books in one year, 21% read maybe one book a month. In 2012, this number decreased to 14%. I found this really interesting article via Chief Executive Magazine that the top CEOs read 4 to 5 books per month. Grant Cardone was quoted as saying that, “the average CEO is said to read 50 books per year and makes 319 times the income of an average worker who read one book a year but finds the time to watch 700 YouTube videos a year. How essential is it to helping people apply ideas from what they learned?”

This quote really shifted the way I was thinking because when you hear those statements and think about it learning and growing and being at the top of your game. This means that you need to spend your time very wisely. You need to have time for your family, time for exercise and looking after you as well. Volunteering and giving back to others. There are many ways to learn and even YouTube videos can be a part of that especially if it is intentional learning. You need to make time for learning.

What Can You Do When You Decrease Your TV Viewing?

One of the biggest things I am going to stress today is to decrease your TV time. Spend more time socializing and talking to people in your field.  Spend more time connecting with people, getting your exercise in, and really boosting that reading time. Look to the greats and read biographies; learn what they did when they were challenged with struggles. Learn from them, there’s so much to learn from other people. When you study the greats, you can get ideas of what they did what works well for them. As Daniel Coyle says that you can steal those ideas! You’re not copywriting or plagiarizing, you’re taking things that look really good that you admire and creating your own style of how you can present yourself.

Learning Can Improve Other Things

Leaders are learners can be timely topic. When you’re thinking about obesity rates and people on the couch and the sugar intake, all these different things are all interconnected. Take time to learn. Make a commitment to do at least 20 min. a day.

Try, forget try, I am asking you to do this because it is going to change your life. Maybe your topic will be spending more time learning about leadership, maybe it will be about managing your finances or maybe you will choose to study the expertise in your industry. Based on the averages, you are learning more than most people out there and you will be ahead of the game. One of the reasons is that you are putting more effort.

Our next podcast is called Effort Trumps Talent you will not want to miss it because you start to see how you can define yourself and help yourself step aside from the crowd. I decided to put together my top 20 books to read {DOWNLOADABLE}. If you haven’t read some of them or if you had, start reading them again. Think about some of the best books that you have read and whether or not you have implemented something from it. Can you read it again and pull out something that you want to do, something that you want to add? We talk about taking away a lot of things so we are decreasing the TV. I want you to add the excitement and the growth of learning, that anticipation, testing things out, and seeing how they work. If you’re in sales, try some new techniques. If you are into organization or want to be more organized, try some of the techniques.

Start implementing what you learn. You’re going to learn more so you can earn more. You can become the top person in your industry. You’ll be the person that they want to come and talk to at networking event because you know some trivia you know some great information. Learning can make you stand out from the crowd

Email me at Debra@debrakasowski.com and let us know what you would like to be featured on the show. Subscribe to The Millionaire Woman Show. Give us a 5-star rating! Sign up for our Newsletter www.debrakasowski.com

DEBRA KASOWSKI, BScN CEC is an award-winning best-selling author, transformational speaker, blogger, and Certified Executive Coach. She has a heart of a teacher and is certified in Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Her writing has been published in a variety of print and online magazines. Debra Kasowski International helps executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations boost their productivity, performance, and profits. It all starts with people and passion. Sign up the Success Secrets Newsletter and get your free mp3 download today! www.debrakasowski.com

Time 11:17 min

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“The only thing that works is management by values. Find people who are competent and really bright, but more importantly, people who care about exactly about the same things you care about.” Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

What is Value Based Leadership?

When we are talking about value-based leadership, we are talking about having a leader who is aligned with organizational values and who we believe has the same values as us. Otherwise, we would not want to be working for the leader of that organization. There has to be that alignment. When we are looking at organizational cultures and different things, I want to reinforce to those of you listening to the podcast today, this is for entrepreneurs and business owners as much as it is for organizations. I believe that every single person no matter where they are in life is a leader and recognizing that we need to be able to operate from those core values.

When I think about core values, I think of a sliced apple where you can see the cross-section of it, where you see the seeds. The core values to me are those little seeds that help grow within a culture. They create a culture. They are not the culture but they are part of it. They enrich how the people behave within the organization and how they’re delivering the vision through those values. In order to demonstrate this I am going to go through our vision, mission, and our why, and our core values at Debra Kasowski International.

One thing I want you to keep in mind is that values are not the operations, logistics, or about sales and marketing strategies; they go much deeper than a strategy. It is really about how you personify and make your company or your business really come alive.

Our vision at Debra Kasowski International is:

VISION

To be an internationally acclaimed and chosen authority in developing emotionally intelligent leaders by dramatically improving communication, decision making, interpersonal relationships, and the well-being of executives, business owners, their staff, and their families while contributing and impacting communities at large.

MISSION

To delivery easy to follow dynamic and interactive online and live training, coaching, speaking, podcasting, and books for leaders, executives, business owners, and entrepreneurs that create a powerful learning experience in personal professional growth to achieve epic results.

WHY

The world around us is moving faster and faster. People are being challenged with: doing more with less, struggling financially, an inability to tolerate stress and decision-making are becoming more complex. It is getting harder for people to set their priorities and to find the time to do everything they want to do. It does not matter if you are climbing the career ladder, managing a business, or growing a company, there seems to be inner conflict and competition with reaching life goals. Personal and professional relationships are being strained. Life balance seems to be a mystery. Through our mission, we want to change the way people do business and live their lives and so they can become their definition of success.

CORE VALUES

Community of Trust

Creating a nonjudgmental environment where people feel encouraged and supported

Respect for the Individual

Respect people for where they are, who they are, and who they have yet to become.

Commitment to Excellence

Provide exceptional quality and commit to continuous learning.

Integrity

Do the right thing, even when no one is looking.

Responsible for Results

Taking 100% responsibility for the results we deliver.

Solution Focused

Focus on discovering positive solutions.

Unconditional Gratitude and Giving

Express gratitude for all things; without expecting anything in return.

I have a phenomenal team – Cheryl, my virtual assistant (VA), I love her to pieces. She is so dedicated and she resembles a lot of this; that is why I believe we get along so well.

You need to operate with people who are a part of your core values and who are aligned with who you are and get it. They get who you are. It’s about being able to “walk the talk”. I am sure you have run into leaders out there where you are questioning who they are because they are great at talking but you are still waiting for them to demonstrate through their actions that they follow their core values.

Why are Core Values important?

Core values are so important. Not only do they help you people have a goal toward a vision and provide direction but they inspire your culture. When people feel they’re part of something bigger than themselves, they are more motivated and they want to be a part of it.

What happens when there is a lack of values in leadership?

A downfall occurs when there is a lack of values in leadership. This is where you see leaders who will become self-serving- they only care about themselves and that they get credit for everything. They want to be seen in the spotlight but fail to recognize that it took many people to get them to where they wanted to be versus them carrying all that success. They do not share. They are unable to demonstrate it.

What needs to happen with core values within an organization?

For core values to really be a part of the core of an organization or business, values need to be:

• Clear and understood,
• Role modeled -not just by your front-line people or the people working for you. They need to be role modeled from the very top of the organization. People need to be able to reference them and need to be able to communicate them through orientations and through trainings that these core values are important.
• All too often, they will be introduced and nobody talks about them again. They need to be communicated on a regular basis.
• You need to be within your interview tools.

I can’t empathize this enough. Your core values really like a captain’s steering wheel the ship so if you don’t have the wheel steer you will not be going in any direction.  Think about the components of those spindles, those core values, but in order to develop those that being value leadership to be able to really develop your communication skills. This means listening to your people and providing them feedback on a regular basis and giving them redirection if they need it, honing your management skills and really becoming an emotionally intelligent leader.

EQi – 2.0, one of the assessments that I provide for people. If this is something of interest to you, don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail and we can set it up for you. It comes to by e-mail and we can do coaching session to debrief the results. Email me at Debra@DebraKasowski.com. Get your downloadable about Determining Your Core Values and you have the e-mail address and website on the form.

Emotional intelligence is something that is developed over time. It grows throughout our lifetime and it plateaus when we reach old age.  It is a continual arch going upward that through our experiences were hopefully learning from them. We are becoming more empathetic to people’s situations.  Not sympathy.

What is the difference between sympathy and empathy?

Sympathy is different than empathy. Sympathy is that you are your feeling sorry for someone. Empathy means that you’re actually putting yourself and thinking about being in another person’s shoes and understanding where someone is coming from. It may be rationalizing some of the decisions they are making based on their experiences and where they are. What supports do they have? If you were in those same shoes, would you be making some of those same decisions? Would you be making the same mistakes because that is all you know?

When we come from a place of empathy, we have a way to build people up because we can see where they are at and we can help them see where they are able to go.

What do value based leaders do?

Mother Teresa is known for value-based leadership. One of the things she said that sticks out for me is, “Be faithful in the small things this is where your strength lies.” Give of yourself full as a leader, don’t hold yourself back. You need to step into the leader who you want to be.

• Leaders in organizations who step up and show up as who they want to be – they lead with a purpose. People can’t help but be magnetized; they want to be drawn to that.
• They engage their followers. They want their people to be a part of the vision, walking alongside each other to be a part of the success.
• They have trust, that character, where people see them as credible. They stick by their values.
• They operate on what is good for the people.
• They are open to the diversity ages, nationalities, sex, and religions so they can learn from their traditions, their cultures, their norms so that they can embrace and incorporate people’s ideas. If we all exactly the same, it would be pretty boring. We would not have the creativity, innovation, and the brainstorming that can go on in a boardroom or in an office or even in a restaurant on the back of a napkin – for those entrepreneurs out there. They are able to see a brighter future and want to achieve it by valuing their past and present.
• They respect people for who they are NOT just on what they can do for you. It is about really getting to know them for who they are – they have families, interests, and hobbies. These are the leaders we are looking for.

Value based leadership is very much synonymous with servant leadership. They are the people who are willing to serve to make the world a better place in service of others.

Think about your leadership style. What are your core values? Print off the downloadable and determine your core values. Make your decisions by your core values and live by them. What happens when people are not aligned with their core values that this is when they struggle, have hardships, hit the roadblocks because something is not right with their core. Their decisions do not match with who they want to show up as in the world.

Who is the person you want to show up as?

It is really important to be very clear. Who are the people are people who inspire you? Who are the leaders you would like to be like? Steve Jobs, Mother Teresa, or Princess Diana? Recently, I watched a video of an interview of Princess Diana on Facebook, where the interviewer asked her if she wanted to be the queen of people’s hearts. She said she wanted to be the queen of people’s hearts – That is quite a mission. She did not just want to be a queen of a country; she wanted to be a queen of people’s hearts. She did capture the world with her style because she led by heart. She really cared about people for who they were and not for what they could do for her. Pay attention – we can only really do great things if we work together. And we collaborate.

Remember to be faithful in the small things! Whether it be the breakdown of your goals that where your strength lies. Go back to recognizing those small things. These are the core values the golden thread throughout your organization and your business. This is why people want to do business with you because they are aligned with what you believe in and they see your vision. They resonate with your why. You can go out and make a difference by living by your values.

Email me at Debra@debrakasowski.com and let us know what you would like to be featured on the show. Subscribe to The Millionaire Woman Show. Give us a 5-star rating! Sign up for our Newsletter www.debrakasowski.com

DEBRA KASOWSKI, BScN CEC is an award-winning best-selling author, transformational speaker, blogger, and Certified Executive Coach. She has a heart of a teacher and is certified in Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Her writing has been published in a variety of print and online magazines. Debra Kasowski International helps executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations boost their productivity, performance, and profits. It all starts with people and passion. Sign up the Success Secrets Newsletter and get your free mp3 download today! www.debrakasowski.com

Time 19:35 min