418 | Marie Kondo Can Have An Impact On Your Leadership Effectiveness

Leadership effectiveness is more determined on what you let go of than what you keep doing. Let’s start with a question. Do you know who Marie Kondo is? She is the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I have been watching the Netflix show with Marie Kondo. I started thinking about how leadership effectiveness and cleaning up are very closely related. I am sharing a personal side of me today to share insights on leadership effectiveness. You can learn from this story and make improvements in your leadership effectiveness.

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Leadership Effectiveness: The Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

Sometimes you have to let go so that you can go grow beyond where you are right now. Do you know who Marie Kondo is? She is the author of the Art of Tidying up. This is a best-selling book but it’s also on Netflix and I’ve kinda been caught up in some of the stories of people letting go of the junk in their lives.

Now I say junk, everything that we have, we have for a reason but why do we have it? Why do we have the clothes in our closet that don’t fit anymore? Why do we have the piles of stuff and books? They’re many books behind me that I never will read. I keep them around for what reason, I’m not sure. But I have something I wanna share with you ’cause you want to be a better leader. I wanna talk to you about this specifically.

My name is Gene Hammett, I work with fast growth companies. Companies that have a dream to growing faster than they are right now and they know that they need new strategies for growth. I help them come up with those strategies and help them implement them and execute the exact ways to engage the teams so that they have grown long-term not just some moment in time.

Now I would’ve been talking about letting go. Now as a leader we have to learn to let go of the disempowering beliefs in our life that no longer serve us. Sometimes we have to let go of employees that are no longer really catapulting the business forward. Sometimes we let go of energy that no longer serves us.

For example, maybe you need to forgive someone. Maybe you need to express more gratitude in what you’re doing. You know all of these things are nice to have, right. You’ve probably heard them before, but let me tell you a story. I have been matching these Marie Kondo videos on Netflix and I’ve watched probably five or six of them over the last couple of months and I’ve been thinking about letting go of things around the house.

Now I have been thinking about it but not doing anything about it. So it’s actually been costing me some energy because every time it comes on, I think about what it would be like to let go of the clothes that don’t fit anymore specifically because her method starts with clothes. Her method starts with clothing, so what do you do in this case?

Well, I finally did it. I sat around one day and my wife was in bed, I think she was watching some stuff on TV and she wasn’t napping or anything and I get up and I just start doing it. She goes what are you doing? And I’m like, I’m gonna Marie Kondo the heck out of my closet which means I’m gonna let go of the things that no longer bring me joy and no longer fit, no longer really a part of who I am right now and that’s something that’s been needed to do for a long time but I wasn’t willing to do it. Now what happened when I went through the process? I got kind of a little bit of momentum growing and I loved doing it.

Here’s my closet the way it looks now. I didn’t take a before because it’s a little bit embarrassing but I also forgot I would share it with you because I’m open enough to be vulnerable with you but this is what it looks like now with organized shoes and organized shirts and pants and my jackets and all of the things that go into here. I used to have another half of a closet I shared with my wife for the clothes that were off-season. That is completely empty, I don’t have any of that anymore. So, what does this do for me and what does it mean for you?

Well I feel lighter, I feel invigorated because I let go of something that I know I needed to let go of so I can continue to grow. I see this as a big moment in leadership because you’ve got to learn to let go of old strategies that are no longer working anymore. You gotta let go of the people that are not longer working toward where they are. The people that got you here won’t be the people who get you there. You’ve probably heard that before but you’ve got to learn to let go as a leader.

It really will empower you to create the momentum you need to trigger growth. So this was all about Marie Kondo-ing my closet and as it relates to your leadership you wanna Marie Kondo all of the negative things that are keeping you from where you are right now, ’cause most of the time it’s not about adding more to your list, it’s about letting go to create room for new ideas, new strategies.

I work with leaders all the time around these concepts. This is just one of the stories in that journey for me and for you, what’s next, what are you gonna let go of? As always, lead with courage and I’ll see you next time on Leaders in the Trenches.

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

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