023: Cracking the Leadership Code, with Alain Hunkins

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Alain Hunkins helps high achieving people become high achieving leaders. Over his twenty-year career, Alain has worked with over 2,000 groups of leaders in 25 countries. Clients include Wal-Mart, Pfizer, Citigroup, General Electric, State Farm Insurance, IBM, General Motors, and Microsoft. In addition to being a leadership speaker, consultant, trainer, and coach, Alain is the author of Cracking the Leadership Code: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders. (Wiley, March 2020), which was endorsed by leadership luminaries Jim Kouzes, Barry Posner, and Marshall Goldsmith. A faculty member of Duke Corporate Education, Alain’s writing has been featured in Fast Company, Inc., Forbes, Chief Executive, Chief Learning Officer, and Business Insider. 

In this episode, we talk about how leaders work hard to try and be a great leader, but sometimes lack the proper mind-set and tools. Alain provides a road map along with tips and tools to cracking the leadership code through Connection, Communication, and Collaboration.

Key Takeaways:

Connection

  • Leadership is a relationship between a person who leads and a person who follows
  • Demonstrate empathy; caring for you people is the number one thing that will increase engagement and retention
  • Cognitive empathy – knowing how people feel
  • Affective empathy – heart-based; you can feel what people are going through

Communication

  • We need to have a shared understanding of each other; align on what you mean, what you say, and what you hear
  • Give context to why and what you are talking about
  • Provide insights and not just information
  • “Ask for a receipt”, i.e., go around the table and recap what everyone is doing        

Collaboration

  • Design an environment focused on results and value vs. time spent on tasks
  • Give ownership to your people. Give them the space and autonomy to work
  • Look at your systems and processes to ensure efficiency, especially in a work from home environment, i.e., carve out time for focus to reduce interruptions
  • Create workplace rituals to make your engagements memorable. Your employees should feel excited or secure or happy to be there working with you

Leadership Resources

About the host, Rob Fonte

Rob Fonte is the founder and President of Sarto Leadership Group, whose reputation has been built on being a transformational leader and inspirational coach with a passion for developing others. His twenty-year career spans across multiple disciplines including leading award-winning sales teams. Rob is an academically trained Executive Coach certified by The University of Texas and the International Coach Federation.

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