Roxanne Kaufman Elliott
Executive Coach | Speaker | Author
Ignite Your Leadership
Episode Summary
I had an interesting leadership discussion with Roxanne Kaufman Elliott. Roxanne does one thing – leadership development. She does it through her love of the art of performance blended with the science of transformation in business and life.
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Bio
From her first main stage performance of a Celtic Sword dance at the age of 5; throughout school and college years as an arts and communication major; during years of non-profit work in the performing arts and leading restoration projects of old theatres into performing arts centers; through a meteoric rise in a highly successful corporate career as the only woman in a male-dominated industry; to stepping into the entrepreneurial sphere of creating a transformational leadership development company devoted to helping others become the very best of themselves; Roxanne has learned, developed, honed and discovered a deep understanding and passion for the art and science of genuine and authentic leadership and the power of performance… and how both are intrinsically and inherently linked to achieving success in life and business.
This kind of leadership development results in three powerful success factors:
- It restores and inspires our passion,
- It renews and ignites our intellect,
- It transforms and impacts all that we do.
It’s Leadership to the power of 3
Website
https://roxanneleadership.com/
Other Website
https://www.prolaureate.com/
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxanne-kaufman-elliott-4909571/
Twitter
https://twitter.com/kaufmanelliott
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/roxanne.k.elliott
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/roxannekaufman/
Leadership Quote
“Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart.” James Kouzes & Barry Posner – co-authors and founders of The Leadership Challenge (r)
Get Your Copy of Roxanne’s Book!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1628653973/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0
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Full Episode Transcripts and Detailed Guest Information
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Transcript
The key to sustainable leadership lies in the ability to thrive during uncertainty, ambiguity, and change. Grand Heron International brings you the Coaching Assistance Program, giving your employees on-demand coaching to manage through a challenging situation and arrive at a solution. Visit GrandHeronInternational.Ca/Podcast to learn more.
This podcast is part of the C Suite Radio Network, turning the volume up on business.
Welcome to the Keep Leading!® Podcast, the podcast dedicated to promoting leadership development and sharing leadership insights. Here’s your host, The Leadership Excelerator®, Eddie Turner.
Eddie Turner:
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the
Keep Leading!® Podcast, the podcast dedicated to leadership development and insights. I’m your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. I work with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact through the power of executive coaching, facilitation, and speaking.Today, we’re going to discuss how to ignite leadership. We’re going to have that discussion with Roxanne Kaufman Elliott. Roxanne does one thing – leadership development. She does it through her love of the art of performance blended with the science of transformation in business and in life.
So, let me welcome to Keep Leading!® Podcast Roxanne Elliott Kaufman.
Roxanne:
Eddie, thank you so much. It is my absolute delight and pleasure to be here.
Eddie Turner:
Well, I am super happy to have you with me, Roxanne. Roxanne, tell me what I missed. Fill in the gaps for us.
Roxanne:
Oh, my goodness, I don’t think we have that much time, Eddie. So, I’ll make it as quick as I can here. Filling in the gaps, yeah. Between the performance aspect of leadership and then the actual development, the transformational part of leadership, it’s been a lifelong journey. I started out as a as a kid performing, went through school in the performing arts and went on to a career in nonprofits and performing arts, moved into a corporate position and learned so much there about what leadership is and what leadership is not. And as many of us, Eddie, when we go through our lives and our careers, we don’t even realize the lessons that we’re learning and then we reach a place somewhere along the way where it all starts to come home to you. And that happened with me when the corporation I had been with for almost 14 years was sold and I knew it was time for me to move on and do something differently and different and I wasn’t sure what it was. So, I took a big step back. This was back in around 2003. I took a really big step back and did a reassessment and a reinvention of where I had been where I was and where I wanted to go. And what I began to learn and discover and understand is that this leadership thing is really, really big in terms of personal and professional success and how we define that and how we think about it and what we do with it. So, I reinvented myself. I went out and I found resources and other organizations and humans that had been working in this field for decades and lifetimes and continued to learn as much as I can and created my own firm ProLaureate which is a leadership development firm that I’ve had since 2005.
Eddie Turner:
Okay. So, you said you learned some things as a result of that corporate engagement. What’s the biggest thing you learned?
Roxanne:
That companies, organizations, people who embrace leadership, authentic genuine leadership and develop it within their organizations and their people not only survive, they thrive. They create success in their own terms. They create sustainability going forward into the future for generations to come. And those who don’t falter, leadership is really the key. It’s the key to success in life.
Eddie Turner:
Indeed. And you said that you learned that lesson as a result of that experience. So, then you took steps to reinvent yourself. What steps did you take?
Roxanne:
Well, the first thing I did was to start writing what I envisioned the future to be. I had come out of two extremely successful careers. And in the second one in particular, corporately, we were living the dream for a long time and then because of the buyout and a different team that came in to run the company, that kind of leadership was not there anymore. and I saw what happened to that. First of all, I had to discover what my purpose, was why I was here, why was this important to me and why did I care. And what I began to understand about myself is, I had learned leadership along the way that it is servant leadership, that it is not about myself, that it is about others, that it is about truly understanding self – what inspires us, what ignites that inspiration and how can we make an impact with that. So, I looked for resources. I found an organization based on two gentlemen out of California that have been working for over 40 years in the area of leadership Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner who created The Leadership Challenge, that book is now in its sixth edition and I have been a student and a follower of that for the last 15 years, as well as other resources. So, I began studying Leadership, I began studying Behavioral Psychology and applying what I was learning to my practical experience over the years throughout my career and also my personal life and discovering on my own the best way that I could put that message into developmental processes for teams and organizations that would help them to really define who they are authentically, define a clear vision for where they were going and then actually execute on that and that’s what I was doing for myself along the way. So, I completely went from being a corporate executive in a male-dominated industry, a global organization to the other side of myself that’s at the heart of what we do, the why of what we do, the purpose of while we were there. And what I discovered, Eddie, was that my purpose is to do exactly that and it always has been. No matter what I’ve been doing, it’s always about digging in deep with people, figuring out what drives them, helping them to figure out the same thing and then laying strategy out in front and driving that with passion, with heart and with inspiration.
Eddie Turner:
Okay. So, you went on a journey of personal reinvention and along the way developed a leadership competency and studied under two of the major authorities of leadership in this field. Their book is referred to some as one of the most important tools to have in a library of leadership, The Leadership Challenge. So, fantastic.Through this study and through this reinvention, Roxanne, what would you say is the single most important key to effective leadership of others?
Roxanne:
Eddie, there are so many things that are so important but if I had to boil it down to just one, it would be truly taking the time to know yourself and develop your own leadership first to understand what that is for you, realizing that it’s not about you, it is about other people and how knowing yourself and developing your own self-leadership first is the biggest step towards helping others to do the same.
Eddie Turner:
All right. And what are the most important elements of leadership that we should learn to emerge as a leader?
Roxanne:
Well, I’m going to take a page out of Jim and Barry’s book on this one because it encapsulates everything that I’ve ever believed and ever thought all of my life long before I ever met Jim and Barry. As a matter of fact, when I first read their book, I was blown away, I jumped up out of my chair and said “Oh my gosh, there are other people out here in the world who get this.” And, Eddie, when I look at your things, I say the same thing. I look at all of your work that you do. It’s like “Oh, we do have a family out here.” So, I would say there are many things. For me, find the inspiration in what you’re doing, ignite it with a plan and then make an impact with action. That being said, the five keys or the five most important things, and this is based on 40 years of research Jim and Berry had done, is first of all to walk your talk, model the way. If you don’t, you lose your credibility. If you do, you build your credibility.Secondly, inspire others to their own vision and share yours. Sharing visions amongst ourselves allows us to see the intersecting points that we share and where we come together in where we’re going, where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re going and how we can collaborate, communicate and cooperate to get there together. So, inspiring “not just my vision for you but I want to know yours.” I want to reach a place where we share visions. That’s so important in organizations and it’s lost a lot of times.
Thirdly, it’s important to look around and say “Okay, what am I doing that really works well? What am I doing that really drives my purpose forward, helps other people, helps other organizations and yet, what do I need to challenge? How do we challenge the processes? How do we look at what we’re doing and saying “Wait a minute, maybe it’s a function, maybe it’s a mechanical or it’s a technology process”?” That’s one way of looking at it and saying “Well, how can we do this better? Maybe if it isn’t broken, we should just go ahead and use it but maybe we need to break it a little bit and then see what comes of that, pick up the pieces and put it back together and see how we can do it even better.” And when it comes to people, it’s the same thing. The interpersonal relationships we form with people, the way that we work with our teams, our direct reports, our bosses, our families, our friends and each other, what about those relationships, what about the way that we walk through and live in those relationships is good and what is maybe not so good, what do we need to be challenging within ourselves about the way we work with other people and what changes do we need to make.
And, of course, number four would be enable others to act. In other words, be sure that when we’re working with people or within our family experiences that we’re looking for ways to help others to be their own best champions, that we are helping to provide the tools, the insights, the mentoring, the guidance, the listening. Just being quiet and listening sometimes can be the greatest tool of all.
Finally, encourage the heart. What a time we’re in right now to be thinking about that. Encouraging the heart is important and especially in times of crisis or especially in times of great challenge when we’re facing things in the unknown. So, encouraging the heart is just saying “I see. You’re marvelous. You’re great. What an extra effort.” Maybe it’s just a pat on the back and saying “I really appreciate that you took the extra time to do that.” It can be simple things but it means the world to humans. So, it’s really understanding how we make the biggest impact and how others see us and how we can model the way for them.
Eddie Turner:
And is this how we ignite leadership in ourselves and others, these steps you’ve listed?
Roxanne:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Eddie Turner:
All right, wonderful. Thank you.We’re talking to Roxanne Kaufman Elliott. We’ll have more right after this.
This podcast is sponsored by Eddie Turner LLC. Organizations who need to accelerate the development of their leaders call Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. Eddie works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact. Call Eddie Turner to help your leaders one on one as their coach or to inspire them as a group through the power of facilitation or a keynote address. Visit EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more.
This is Peter Margaritis, the Accidental Accountant, and you are listening to the Keep Leading!® Podcast with Eddie Turner.
Eddie Turner:
Okay, we’re back and we are talking to Roxanne Kaufman Elliott. Roxanne does one thing – Leadership Development – and we’re talking today about how you ignite leadership in our self and others.Roxanne, before the break, you shared some steps with us on how we do exactly that. Roxanne, earlier you talked about how important credibility was in leadership. I’d love for you to expand on that a little bit more for us. Especially when we look around and take a cursory glance of any newspaper article, what is the relationship between credibility and leadership?
Roxanne:
It’s everything, Eddie. It’s everything. So, let me ask a question first. Have you ever worked with or for someone, particularly if you’ve worked for someone, who says one thing and does another?
Eddie Turner:
I plead the Fifth.
Roxanne:
I don’t blame you. I will too. By asking the question, I think we know the answer though. I think, anytime I ask that in one of my sessions or when I’m coaching or whatever it may be, the answer is always “Well, sure.” And I don’t know about you growing up but one of the things my parents were very fond of saying was “Do as I say, not as I do.” Well, that just flies in the face of credibility in leadership. So, I think, one of the most demoralizing things that a person can experience is when they have an expectation, when someone says something, when they tease something up and say “Here’s where we’re going with this gang, team, whomever. This is what we’re going to do and this is what we’re going to see at the end of the road. And here are the core values that are driving us toward that vision, toward getting to that place that we’ve just outlined.” And then you get started and that same person, whether titled a leader or not, that’s a whole other topic, but the person who was saying that is not doing any of the things that they have charged the team to do in order to get to the end result, they’re flying in the face of it. They say “We have to be on time at every meeting” and yet they’re always 10 or 15 minutes late. They say “We work for our clients. We are always looking out for our clients” but instead, they’re trying to oversell in certain areas for a commission. And I call those things out because they’re obvious examples. And when you see that from your leader, how much respect do you have for that person, how far are you willing to follow that person? When on the other hand you see someone step up and say “I’m looking at our core values around this business decision and letting those values guide where we go.” And so, they make a difficult decision that may not seem like the most profitable one or the one that will move the team or the organization in the quickest way toward the goal but it will be a more substantial way. And when they do it according to the way that they have set it up what they have said, they are walking their talk, they are doing what they have said they will do, you respect people like that, we are drawn to people like that. Credibility is the foundation of leadership. If you are not credible to other people, they simply will not follow. And without followers, the only person we’re leading is ourselves. And I would ask where are we leading ourselves if that’s the case.
Eddie Turner:
Yes, one of the titles of one of my earlier books in leadership, Leadership and Self-Deception.
Roxanne:
There you go. Yeah, let’s hear more about that.
Eddie Turner:
Yes, indeed. Very nice. So, it sounds like basically, to get that credibility, using the examples that you shared in your answer, one must set the example.
Roxanne:
Absolutely. You must do what you say you’re going to do.
Eddie Turner:
Interesting. Tell me about the best example of leadership you’ve ever seen or experienced.
Roxanne:
At one point in my career, an organization that I was working with had an internal crisis take place. And I’m going to intentionally not being specific because it relates to a company that I worked with a few years ago and I don’t want to call them out by name but it was a situation that had occurred internally. And it could have been devastating to the organization because a small band of people that were critical to a certain line of business in one felled swoop left the company. And they did it in a way that was abrupt and unexpected. And the leader of the organization, instead of reacting to that in a negative way, stepped into the situation and spoke to the entire organization, the entire company and accepted the responsibility for what had taken place, explained how and why it did and what they were going to do going forward, the most important thing being never let that happen again but that also, when it comes to things like this happening in this organization, this person said “This was totally on me.” And, Eddie, I got to tell you I worked with that organization for many years and it was a turning point for them. They have a very, very strong culture of leadership. They’ve worked very hard on that developing it. And the followers in the organization are company-wide but I will tell you, at that moment, every single person in the organization said “I’m never going anywhere else. I’m never going anywhere else. This is our leadership. I will be loyal to this kind of leadership for the rest of my career.” It was one of the most profound acts of leadership I have ever experienced in my life.
Eddie Turner:
Okay, thank you for sharing that with us. What would you say is the core message you would like to leave our listeners with?
Roxanne:
The core message, Eddie, is this. Everyone has the potential for leadership. It’s not about title. It’s not about ego. It’s not about what you wear, where you live, what car you drive, what house you live in, the friends. It’s not about any of that. We all have the potential and the capacity for leadership. We just have to recognize that. A few Olympics ago I was watching television with my husband and a commercial came on and it was this incredibly powerful and very dramatic commercial. And what it was about was that every human being is born with 0.2 milligrams of gold in their heart. And the ending line in the commercial was, it goes through all these athletes showing tremendous courage and tremendous strength and tremendous leadership, and then at the end of the commercial it wraps up by saying “We all have the 0.2 milligrams of gold. It’s in all of us. It’s in our heart. It runs through our bloodstream. And we only discover it when we have the courage to dig it out.” And to me, that spoke to the main message about leadership is that we have it, we are born with it. So, all leaders are born but not all people who are born become leaders. We have to develop our self-awareness around it, understand what it means to us, how it impacts others and how we want to bring it forth into the world. It’s a game changer.
Eddie Turner:
Thank you. And what’s the best piece of advice that you ever received or a leadership quote that you use that helps you to keep leading?
Roxanne:
In The Leadership Challenge, 6th Edition, on Page 313, you will see the quote, it’s the very last thing in the book, from Jim and Barry and I quote them on this, “Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart.”
Eddie Turner:
All right. Thank you. Where can my listeners learn more about you?
Roxanne:
On my website at www.ProLaureate.com. The translation of that is “Professional champions based on the laurel leaves of our Olympics.” They can also find me or contact me at Roxanne@ProLaureate.com.
Eddie Turner:
All right, we’ll put all that in the show notes and make sure folks can access you. Thank you so much, Roxanne, for being a guest on the Keep Leading!® Podcast.
Roxanne:
Thank you, Eddie. It’s been my absolute pleasure.
Eddie Turner:
And thank you for listening. That concludes this episode, everyone. I’m Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®, reminding you that leadership is not about our title or our position. Leadership is an activity. Leadership is action. It’s not the case of once a leader, always a leader. It’s not a garment we put on and take off. We must be a leader at our core and allow it to emanate in all we do. So, whatever you’re doing, always keep leading.
Thank you for listening to your host Eddie Turner on the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Please remember to subscribe to the Keep Leading!® Podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen. For more information about Eddie Turner’s work, please visit EddieTurnerLLC.com.
Thank you for listening to C Suite Radio, turning the volume up on business.
The Keep Leading!® podcast is for people passionate about leadership. It is dedicated to leadership development and insights. Join your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator® as he speaks with accomplished leaders and people of influence across the globe as they share their journey to leadership excellence. Listen as they share leadership strategies, techniques and insights. For more information visit eddieturnerllc.com or follow Eddie Turner on Twitter and Instagram at @eddieturnerjr. Like Eddie Turner LLC on Facebook. Connect with Eddie Turner on LinkedIn.
