AP 0005: How Do You Become a Better Leader and What Tools Do You Use to Delegate Tasks to Your Team?

AskPat 5 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up? This is Pat here, and thanks for checking in to Episode 5 of AskPat. I'm so thankful you're here. And of course, at the top of every episode I mention some call to action or product or service that I use and recommend. However, this time, I want to ask you for a quick favor.

We're five episodes in and if you've enjoyed AskPat in any capacity, I would love for you to head on over to iTunes. Just go on to iTunes and search for “AskPat” and leave an honest rating and review. Please, please make it honest because I'm always looking to improve and your rating is going to help with the exposure of the show on iTunes as well with the rankings, which is going to help us reach more people and help, in turn, just the show become better because more people are going to find it. More people are going to ask questions and there's going to be more content.

Again, you guys drive the show. Thank you so much in advance, again, an honest rating and review on iTunes would help out so much. Now let's move on to today's question. Today's question come from Adam and it's about leadership which is so important even if you're just starting out with your business. Leadership is something you should always be thinking about and looking to improve so let's go and hear what Adam has to say.

Adam: Hey, Pat. My name is Adam Hart. I live in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada and I have a company called, Power of Food. I am a Canadian bestselling author of a book called, The Power of Food. I also have my own line of food called, Raw Energy.

I have been doing my business for ten years. 2003, I started. I do want to ask: as my team grows, I'm finding it a little bit more difficult for me as a leader of the team, for one, the leadership aspect as far as how to be a better leader. That's one and two is as far as delegating. Maybe, if you could share a couple of your key strategies or maybe even tech pieces for better structure or better organization of teamwork.

I'm using right now, I have used Teamwork and now I'm using Trello which I do enjoy Trello but if there's one that you recommend, I'd love to hear which one that would be. Yes, that's for your time. I love your podcast and all the work that you're doing so that's very much.

Pat Flynn: Adam, thank you so much for your question. I'm actually going to address it in two parts. The first part's going to be about how to become a better leader or things you can do to be a better leader and secondly, about delegating those tasks that you need to do in your business, to your team members.

The first part, how to be a better leader, there's five things I want to talk about. A lot of these things will help you as far as becoming a better leader with your team; the people who are helping you in your brand and in your business directly. Also, how to be a better leader for those who are following you for example, on Twitter or on Facebook or your raving fans or people who are sort of, following your brand and how to be a better leader for them as well.

The first one is global. This one goes for everything and this is something that I live by. I lead by example. Great leaders lead by example. They are role models for those who are following them and those who are working with them. There's nothing worse than somebody who's trying to lead somebody who's a hypocrite, right? They tell their team or their followers or their fans to do something and they're not doing it themselves. How can you possibly lead if you're not doing or not really embodying the things that you believe in, or you share? It's just really important to lead by example.

This is something I want to do with my kids. If I want to be a great dad, I know I have to lead by example and I can't say things and not do them or I can't do one thing and say . . . or tell somebody, “Don't do that,” you know? I want to be a role model. You need to lead by example and when you can show that you are actively doing these things to become a better person or to help take your brand to the next level, the people on your team, the people who follow your brand, they’re going to feed off of that energy and they're going to want to help as well. So lead by example.

Number two, admit your faults. This kind of has two sides to it. The first one is, when you do something wrong, admit it. Don't pretend to be this all mighty, high, perfect person because that's not possible. You are going to make mistakes and it's best if you're open, honest and transparent with those you are working with when you do make mistakes. It'll show that you're a real person, that you actually care, and that you're a human being but, you're there also to work with others to help take your brand to the next level; not just pretend somebody that you're not. None of us are perfect.

The second part of that is to know what you're not good at but know your strengths as well and use what you're good at to help the business and also know other people's strengths as well. People on your team; you want to know what they're good at and what they're not good at and delegate things to them. I know this is sort of the second part of the question: delegating. But know what other people's strengths are and give them tasks that perfectly feed those strengths, right?

Again, part of it is knowing what you are good at and doing the things that you know you should be doing because that's what you're good at and that's what you enjoy doing and that's what you're passionate about and also, having others on your team do things that you know that they're good at and you, perhaps, want to hire based on those strengths as well and how they play with what you're not good at too.

So that's the second thing. First thing was, again, lead by example. Second thing was admit your faults and know your strengths. Know the strengths of your team. Third thing, this is of course important for anything else as well, listen and communicate effectively. A great leader listens.

They listen to those who they work with, to try and better the brand but they also listen to their followers and their customers and the people who are a part of their brand as well. Communicate as well. That's why I love the fact that I do podcasting and that I get up on stage and speak in front of a crowd and I work with coaches to help me become a better and more effective communicator because I know that just trickles down to every other part of my business.

It helps me better share my ideas and better delegate the things that I want to delegate and again, the biggest part about that is just listening because, how am I supposed to know what I can do better to become a better leader if I don't listen to those I'm working with or those who I'm trying to help. Listen, it's the best thing you can do.

Number four: encourage people to contribute. Part of what becoming a good leader is knowing that other people will be able to benefit you and your brand just as much as you can yourself. Have people contribute and what that does is it gets people excited about becoming a part of your team. It gets people excited about becoming a part of your brand and also gets them more connected with the overall mission that you have. It gets them to contribute and feel like a part of the team. There's nothing worse than having a team member not play.

This goes back to high school when I used to play basketball with my friends. I was the shortest kid in school, probably one of the shortest kids in school. I had friends that were taller than me and they all played basketball and they were nice and they let me play. They'd put me on the court but they'd never pass me the ball. How did that make me feel? That made me feel useless.
Then, when they invited me—this actually happened—when they invited me to some of the top players on this basketball team who were my friends, they invited me to watch them do a three on three (sort of San Diego based) tournament and they were like, “Pat, you should come and support the team.” I was like, “No. I don't really feel like it because I don't feel like I'm a part of the team.” Even though they'd put me on the court, they'd never pass me the ball and they never gave me a chance.

They didn't let me contribute at all. If they'd just passed me the ball a couple times, I knew I wasn't a good basketball player. I could shoot every once in a while. I'd probably get packed and rejected most of the time. But if they passed me the ball a couple of times, they made me feel included. If they asked me to come to that three on three tournament, I would have been there with a cheerleader outfit on, maybe not, but I would have been them for them. I would have bought Gatorade for them and brought towels for them during time-outs. I would have done the whole thing for them but because they didn't let me contribute, I didn't feel like a part of the team.

Encourage the people on your team, even the people in your audience, to contribute. They will feel like they are a more a part of your brand. That they are vested in it and that they have a part in it.

The fifth thing—this goes along with the four other things we talked about—is to motivate. You want to motivate and do what you can to help the people on your team and to help people in your audience to actually take action. A lot of those things we talked about, will help with that already. Encourage people to contribute. Listen and communicate and allow people and give them permission to talk to you and tell you how they feel. Admit your faults and know your strengths and know other people's strengths as well and give them jobs that help and play with what they're good at. That'll motivate people as well and also, lead by example.

If you can do something and you share what it's all about and the ups and downs with it, it's going to motivate people as well. That's what SmartPassiveIncome.com is all about, my main blog. Those are five things that will help you become a better leader. Of course, there's a billion other things but those are the top five things I thought of. Lead by example, admit your faults, listen and communicate effectively, encourage people to contribute, and motivate others.

Part two, as far as delegating, a couple key strategies and things like that for better structuring and better organization of teamwork. Again, like what we talked about, know what your position is, know what the strengths and the qualities of the other people on your team, how they can contribute as well, and give them tasks that are perfectly suited for them.

As far as tools that I use, I use BaseCamp. You use Trello. That one's okay. Asana is okay. Trello is the one you use. That one's totally fine. BaseCamp. Whatever works for you. Just have something. For those of you that don't know those names—BaseCamp, Trello, and Asana—they are basically project management tools to help you share tasks with your team members and they can communicate with each other based on different projects and goals within each of those projects and it keeps track of all the files that go along with it. Some of them connect directly with Evernote.

If you use that to keep track of notes and stuff, it's really, really handy. I would recommend getting into any one of those. Asana, Trello, or BaseCamp. As far as team members are concerned, I have one specific team member that I just couldn't live without right now. His name's Matt. He is the producer. Sort of like a project manager and I know I'm at a point now—my business has grown so much over the years that I need somebody to help me manage all the different things that I'm doing for me.

He helps me take these new ideas that I have and then hires the right people or works with the right people to make those things happen and he also helps me keep track of the things I have going on now to make sure I'm still on track with those things.

So, if you're at that point in your business where you feel like you are doing so many things, it might be time to hand off a lot of those things to someone who is someone that you trust, of course. Someone who, perhaps, you've worked with before who can then manage those things for you so you know that you can spend your time doing the things that you need to do in your business because all that other stuff that you used to take care of is being taken care of by somebody else.

Now, I want to thank Adam for his question. Adam, I'll be sending you an AskPat t-shirt so look out for an email from me if you haven't gotten one already and of course, if you have a question out there, if you're listening and you have a question, head on over to AskPat.com, leave a question there. You might win a t-shirt too and also get featured here on AskPat.com.

Thank you so much. I appreciate all of you. Thanks again for listening to episode 5 of AskPat. If you've enjoyed any part of this episode, I would love for you to head on over to iTunes and leave an honest review and rating. It would help out the show so much and of course, I always want to leave you with a great, inspiring quote. Today's quote is from Donald Mcgahn and he says, “Leadership is an action, not a position.” Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode.