208 | How to Build a High-Performing Team with Leadership Expert Karin Hurt

Between employee burnout, working remotely, and economic stress, being a leader these days comes with its fair share of challenges. This week’s podcast guest shares how to steer your team to success.

Karin Hurt is the Founder and CEO of Lets Grow Leaders, a global leadership company known for practical tools and leadership development programs that stick. A former Verizon Wireless executive with more than two decades of experience in sales, customer service, and human resources, Karin is known for growing courageous leaders, building great cultures, and inspiring high-performance teams.

Karin and her husband, David have helped tens of thousands of leaders on every continent (except Antarctica) with their leadership development programs and keynotes. They also provide clean water to the people of Cambodia through their Winning Wells philanthropic initiative. Karin is an award-winning author of five books and host of the popular LinkedIn show, Asking for a Friend. She was recently named by Inc. Magazine as a Top 100 Great Leadership Speaker.

Developing Leaders in Your Company

Lets Grow Leaders works with fast-growing startups to help them expand beyond the founder group. When you have a small team, everyone is a visionary and free to pursue their ideas. But once you reach 50 people, you need systems and processes. You need to create alignment throughout the organization.

The first step is to clarify your vision. Where is the company going and what are your most important things (what Karin calls MITs). What is your communication style? How are you how are you leading? How are you training and growing leaders within your company? Get everyone on the page.

Turning Conflict into Collaboration 

After surveying 5,000 people in 45 countries, 70% said they were experiencing the same or significantly more workplace conflict than before the pandemic. More people are working remotely, some are feeling disconnected due to lingering mental health challenges. Others are experiencing burnout from understaffing and increased workload.

The biggest cause of conflict is a lack of shared expectations. As the leader, you might think you’ve clearly communicated your expectations, but your team could have misinterpreted them.

If you tell your team they can work from anywhere, it’s worth clarifying what exactly that means. Do they still need to attend meetings in your time zone? Do they need to have their camera on? If you require people to come into the office, what are they expected to do with that time? Define what success looks like and share that definition with your team.

Enjoy this episode with Karin Hurt…

Soundbytes

10:16-10:32
“It gets very frustrating because you do not have the systems and processes, and everybody is used to being able to come up with their idea and follow their idea, but you really need alignment and you need communication plans. You need all those foundational things.”

15:03-15:28
“You've got remote and hybrid teams. You've got people who are feeling disconnected with lingering mental health challenges. You've got burnout and understaffing, and all of that is emerging, and yet we're coming to people and saying, ‘You've got to do more.’ The economy is uncertain, and all of that is really creating a lot of stress and anxiety for people. And so we need to give people practical ways to collaborate.”

Quotes

“The biggest challenge that we're seeing right now is that there is so much conflict.”

“On the other side of differences of opinion, that's where innovation really lies.”

“One good conversation about expectations can prevent 14 ‘why didn’t you’ conversations.”

Links mentioned in this episode:

From Our Guest

Website: https://letsgrowleaders.com/

Connect with Karin Hurt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-hurt/

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