Podcast

[00:00:00] Do you ever look at the leaders in your industry or even your profession and think, what do they have that I'm missing? Maybe you've been overlooked for a promotion, maybe you weren't even considered for it. You know that you have the ability to be a rock rockstar executive, but for some reason nobody else is seeing it.

[00:00:22] Well, it is time to stop waiting for permission and step into that role. So today we are going to chat about just how to do that.

[00:01:05] Hello, hello, hello, my safety friends. How are you doing today? I am coming at you after an entire day of binge watching the last season or the most recent season of the Bear.

[00:01:19] And I don't know if you guys have ever seen that show, it's about a restaurant, but , there's so many little nuances in that show. I absolutely love it. And strangely enough. It reminds me a lot of my hometown, which I'm not from Chicago, but I'm from New York originally, and I came from a very heavy Italian Irish town and there was just always a lot of people talking very loud, a lot of cuss words, a lot of people talking over each other.

[00:01:52] And it's not like it's like that in my family. I mean, occasionally it is, but. I don't know. I just, every time I watch the bear, I just [00:02:00] feel this nostalgia for home for some reason. But anyway, that's where I'm coming at you from and that's what's been on my mind lately is just the bear. And if you haven't watched the last season, it's amazing.

[00:02:12] I would like to say it has nothing to do with our topic today, but one of the characters actually had to make a decision as to who they were going to work for and, deciding over comfort versus career type of thing. And not that one decision was better than the other, but yeah, it was kind of interesting.

[00:02:34] Anyway, like I said, nothing about our topic. Just a nice little fun fact. So today we are talking about. Stepping into the role of an executive without waiting to get that title. Or it might be stepping into the role of a director or a manager, or whatever it is that your goal is without waiting for that title.

[00:02:56] 'cause too often what happens is people wait [00:03:00] until they actually have the title. To act like a leader and they have this attitude or this thought process or this mindset of, I'm just a manager, or I'm just a supervisor, and it's actually those thoughts that are holding you back from getting noticed. Now, look, I know that it can be very disheartening when leadership does not recognize your efforts.

[00:03:29] Or when they don't recognize your ability or your value. And it could be very easy to just contract and to go back and just be like, that's their problem. Or they're missing out, or they're gonna be sorry. But the only person that is actually hurting is you. And I remember I was working as a regional.

[00:03:57] And what you have to realize in my career at this point, [00:04:00] I had in the past been the director of safety over an entire organization that had multiple locations in multiple states. I answered to a board of directors. I had a team of safety professionals and trainers that reported to me as well as administrators.

[00:04:23] And I took a step back from that to broaden my experience because in that role, as much as I loved it, I kept getting underpaid and undervalued and I was being taken advantage of basically, because that's what happens when you are promoted into safety. , If you stay at the same company. You're always going to be undervalued because they will always see you as that hourly employee or that low level employee that they promoted.

[00:04:55] So that's what was happening to me was I felt I was taking advantage of. So I [00:05:00] shifted away from that job and when I did, I actually broadened my experience. I took a lower level position, so I went from a director this high level going down to a manager's position. Where I was the only safety person over two locations and I knew what my experience was.

[00:05:20] So many, many years later, I am applying for another director's position. I was a regional safety manager and the director's position over all the regionals came open and I was applying for it and they would not even interview me. And I was like, this is weird.

[00:05:41] My own like boss's boss. 'cause my boss had been fired and that was the role that was being filled. So the VP would not even interview me for this role. And when I questioned them about that, because I don't believe in just accepting [00:06:00] things the way they are, I was like, wait a minute. Why are you not considering me?

[00:06:05] Well, you don't have the experience for this role I felt very discouraged because my resume was like, well, did you look at my resume? So that's kind of how I felt. So I understand where you may be coming from, and this was an eye-opening moment to me, is that what is on your resume is not always going to translate the way that you want it to be, and that.

[00:06:36] VP at that point only saw me as a regional. They never saw me as a director and likely because at the time I wasn't acting like one. So that's what I wanna talk about today, is that leadership is not about permission or a title, it's about a mindset. [00:07:00] And you don't wanna wait to develop that mindset.

[00:07:03] And you'll probably see this in your current work, where you're currently working, you have employees that are hourly employees and you have, leadership, which are your executives. And you have your managers and all of them have a different mindset. And that mindset defines how they show up day to day.

[00:07:27] An hourly employee, they are typically out for themselves . Their mindset is all about what can the company do for me? What can I get outta this company where a leadership mindset is out for the organization and improvement or improvement of their team? They very rarely have the thought of themselves.

[00:07:52] Okay. And managers are kind of in the middle. Like when you have a manager's mindset, you are out for yourself. [00:08:00] It is what can this company do for me? But at the same time. In order for you to reach your goals for yourself, you have to reach the company goals.

[00:08:09] So it's a combination of the two. So I'm not sure where you are right now, but if you are acting or feeling more about yourself than you are about others, that's where you need to shift.

[00:08:26] So a leadership mindset is always more about others and helping others and serving others and helping others succeed, and that includes the company as well . so common behaviors that I see in safety professionals who are getting overlooked and are not moving up in their careers is that they're waiting around. They're waiting around to be asked. They're waiting around to be noticed. They're not stepping up. And they're [00:09:00] avoiding taking ownership of things that are not given to them, and they feel like they're following the rules to a T and that if they keep doing that, that they will eventually be noticed and get promoted or get the raise or, or whatever.

[00:09:17] And when you're in this position, you're feeling frustrated. You might start feeling resentment towards the organization or towards your management team, and you're probably feeling invisible or unimportant, or that they don't care about safety or they don't support safety.

[00:09:33] And unfortunately, when a leadership opportunity does come about, you are not looked at. Because those opportunities are always gonna go to people who are already showing leadership. So have you ever noticed in society, the people that stand out, the people that are a little bit louder, it's sometimes it's annoying.[00:10:00]

[00:10:00] The people that are a little bit louder, they get all the attention. The people that are. Showing off in their knowledge and their expertise, they get the attention. So sitting back and just waiting for people to notice you being that wallflower is not going to help. And there's a great quote that I love to think about, which is, if you're acting like an assistant, you will never be seen as a director.

[00:10:27] So one of the first steps that you can take. Is to communicate your vision to management. When you are presenting your ideas, or if you are asked a question about safety in your response, you always want to communicate a vision. Which is, this is the way I would like to see it happen, and this is why.

[00:10:54] And focusing on the why behind what you wanna do, which has to be [00:11:00] safety outcomes. But at the same time, as we've discussed multiple times, you need to attach it to the business goals. But talking about the why behind your idea gets them to see you as a person that is thinking bigger, not just thinking about the compliance rules.

[00:11:17] I think that prior to buying this piece of equipment, we should go examine it in another facility, talk to their leadership to see what problems they've had with it. So that way when we bring it into our facility, we can know. Any safety hazards that are associated with it, any efficiency issues they've been having, and we can plan for those things in advance so that way we have a better outcome when we are bringing this new piece of equipment into our facility.

[00:11:52] And when you're presenting things in that way, you end up coming off sounding more like a leader than you do. Just [00:12:00] somebody who's. Just checking a box. Okay? And the thing is that doing this does not mean you're gonna get a yes. You're not always gonna get a yes. In fact, if you plan for the fact that they're always going to reject you or say no, it makes when they say yes, more exciting and interesting.

[00:12:19] So you wanna actually normalize rejection for yourself. And this is at any leadership level, whether you're in safety or anywhere else, you know there are the top head people that are making the decisions. They're not always gonna go your way. So getting used to getting a no and emphasizing that you're still, even with that, no, you're gonna still make consistent, forward moving.

[00:12:43] Progress. It's gonna help build your credibility because to me, a no is never a no forever. It's a not now. It's something that like, okay, how can we do that? So you wanna make sure that you're handling that No, without feeling defeated. Or [00:13:00] without it getting you down or without building resentment.

[00:13:03] Because having resentment towards your leadership team or your organization is 100% the best way to get ignored. To never get that promotion, to never get that raise, and to actually be your first step out that door because you can only work in resentment for so long and then it's going to eat at you and you're gonna end up quitting.

[00:13:25] So when you present things, you're always gonna present the why behind it. You're gonna be okay with the no, and you're gonna learn how to build credibility from that because you're gonna have consistent forward motion in your program, in your thinking. Now I want you to act like a safety executive now, regardless of what your title is.

[00:13:50] So there is this framework out there. It's called Be, do, have, and unfortunately, most people work on the [00:14:00] opposite mindset. They work on the have, do, be, which means that they wait until they have something. To do the actions of that thing, to be the person that they wanna be. So they wait until they have the title of executive to do the actions of an executive, to actually feel and be like an executive.

[00:14:23] But there's an interesting thing that happens when you actually flip it around. When you be meaning that you act and do the things that a leader or an executive would do. When you have the mindset of a leader, it causes you to take different actions, which, if you were in my influencer bootcamp, we went into this deep about how your actions come from your beliefs and your thoughts. So if you are being and thinking like a leader, you are taking actions like a leader, which actually gets you to be [00:15:00] noticed. So that way when time for promotion or time for a raise or time to include you comes around, you are more likely to be included.

[00:15:10] Those are the two frameworks that you're gonna have to fight against. 'cause it's a natural belief to think that you have to wait until you have the title to act like the title. But in truth, if you act like the title now it will increase the likelihood that you will have the title.

[00:15:28] Okay, so there is a mindset to executive management that you need to start adopting now. And I talk about it a lot, right? I talk about business case for safety and ROI and all those little business terms, but you need to make sure that in everything you're doing, you're being a strategic thinker and you're showing confidence in your decisions.

[00:15:53] And in your beliefs and in your thoughts and in your actions, and you always wanna be [00:16:00] proactive. And I know like we talk in safety about proactivity as being like be proactive to prevent accidents. I want you to be proactive in the mindset of the company. Like how are these actions going to help the company?

[00:16:15] And you always wanna be solution focused. You can't be the person that's always bringing problems without solutions. And if you don't have the solution, that's okay. Being solution focused means that then you find the people that can help you with the solution before you present the problem. So, you've identified a problem and you need to present it to the executive management team or the leadership team, but you don't know how to solve that problem. So that's where being a safety influencer and having the three pillars come into play, because you need to have that strategic engagement and that operational expertise to go in there and find that solution and find [00:17:00] options for that.

[00:17:01] And then once you have those solutions, that is what you are presenting to your management team. So it makes you look more like a strategic executive. You have more confidence in your solutions because you've talked to several people about them, and you're being proactive because you're talking about what it's going to do for the company in the future.

[00:17:21] Now, some examples of how this would play out is that if. You have a near miss report, an executive or a safety rockstar as I like to call you, you would be looking at that near Miss report as an opportunity to close a gap and prevent something that could happen in the future that's being proactive if you have a resistant supervisor.

[00:17:48] You don't just go complaining to their boss that they're resistant. You take actions to solve that problem and align what you want that [00:18:00] supervisor to do with those supervisor's goals. And then you can report back on your activities and the results. And when you have budget pushback, then you just be strategic on how can you get the same result with a smaller budget.

[00:18:14] And I want you to realize that when I'm having you think this way, when I'm having you be more strategic and confident, solution focused, you might not be feeling like you are, right? Like when you think about the be do, have, it's well, I'm not an executive yet. I'm faking it. If I'm putting myself in the mindset of an executive.

[00:18:35] You are not faking it, you're practicing it. That's what I want you to think of is that this is just practice. And as with any skill that we wanna learn, the more you practice, the easier it becomes. And this is why we see people that practice this end up getting selected for leadership in the future. So I want you to remember that your future role starts with how you're showing [00:19:00] up today.

[00:19:00] And go back to that quote of, if you're acting like an assistant, you will never be seen as a director. So let's talk about how doing these things actually elevate your role. So leadership actions actually shift how people perceive you. So it's when you act like a leader. And I don't know if you've ever experienced that, like I actually worked with a gentleman.

[00:19:24] That, gosh, he was like the smartest man I'd ever met, and I just looked at him and he was just a manager, right? But the way that he showed up for his team, and in the conversations and in the planning process, in my mind, I was like, you're a vp. Like you're stuck here right now. Why are you a manager? You need to be a vp.

[00:19:47] And if I saw that, other people saw it as well. So just think about that. How you show up is gonna shift how people perceive you, and then people are [00:20:00] gonna start seeking your input. Because when you're talking strategically and solution focused and you're confident and you're being proactive, people know that you are the go-to person to solve problems, that you're the go-to person to chat about their issues.

[00:20:16] So they may have a problem, they need help solving, and they know that you're a problem solver, so now they're gonna come to you more often. And when that starts happening, management starts including you in decisions because you're already acting like you belong there and they already know that you thought process and your mindset aligns with the company goals.

[00:20:37] So they're gonna start including you in those processes. And after a while you're building up that Braggable track record of results that just makes promotion inevitable, whether it is promotion at your current company, or you can build up that braggable track record of positive results and projects that you've helped with and things you've [00:21:00] done that you can then tell your network about or talk about during interviews.

[00:21:06] And it makes it a lot easier for you to get promoted.

[00:21:10] So when you lead from where you are, the role actually rises to meet you. So if you constantly have that attitude of I'm just a manager, I'm just a supervisor, I'm just a coordinator, I'm just a safety guy, not like I'm the safety rockstar. I'm the executive, I'm the leader. Even just saying, I'm the leader is gonna change your mindset, and eventually that role will rise up to meet you.

[00:21:39] So hopefully this helps you. I want you to stop waiting. I want you to start stepping into the role of leadership right now and ask yourself before anything that you're doing. What would a safety executive do in this position? If I [00:22:00] was the VP of safety, how would I act? What would I do? And then that is how you present yourself in the workplace.

[00:22:08] Alrighty, my safety friends, that is what I have for you this week. I hope you got a lot out of it. Send me a message if you have any questions, and I hope that you have an amazing week and don't forget to check out the bear. It's awesome. I'll chat with you next week. Bye for now.