IAM357- Author and Coach Helps Leaders and Teams Realize Peace of Mind and Confidence

Lee Eisenstaedt is the founder of the Leading With Courage Academy in Chicago. He facilitates leadership assessments, workshops and coaching programs, including DiSC, emotional intelligence, and employee engagement, that help individuals and teams realize peace of mind and confidence as more effective leaders and managers.

Lee just published his fourth book, Leading With Courage, in June. He's also an Official Member of the Forbes Coaches Council and brings more than 40 years of experience in the US and Europe to his clients.

• CEO Hack: (1) Not being afraid and asking people for what they think you're doing (2) App- Calendly
• CEO Nugget: Identify and uncover your blind spots
• CEO Defined: Crafting and sharing your vision, creating other leaders

Website: http://www.lwcacademy.com/

Linked in: linkedin.com/in/leeeisenstaedt

Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE.

Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello. Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Lee Eisenstaedt of Leading with Courage Academy in Chicago.

Lee, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Lee Eisenstaedt 0:41

Hey, it's great to be here. Gresham, I appreciate the opportunity.

Gresham Harkless 0:43

No problem. I appreciate your time, appreciate you for being on. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Lee so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

Lee is the founder of the Leading With Courage Academy in Chicago. He facilitates leadership assessments, workshops, and coaching programs, including DiSC, emotional intelligence, and employee engagement, that help individuals and teams realize peace of mind and confidence as more effective leaders and managers. Lee just published his fourth book, Leading With Courage, in June.

He's also an Official Member of the Forbes Coaches Council and brings more than 40 years of experience in the US and Europe to his clients. Lee, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Lee Eisenstaedt 1:23

I'm looking forward to it. Gresh.

Gresham Harkless 1:24

Awesome, let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about your background, and what led you to start your business. So can you tell us your CEO story?

Lee Eisenstaedt 1:31

Sure, I'm more of an accidental entrepreneur, I'd have to say. I had been the chief operating officer of the fifth largest accounting firm in the country. They got a new managing partner, and what I learned when they get new managing partners is that they sweep out all the C-suite executives beneath him or her, and I caught up in that suit. But everything happens for a reason. That prompted me to start on a journey of looking for another job. But for a variety of reasons, I just wasn't finding what I really wanted.

I was finding people were interested in different things I had done in my background, for example, I had done a lot of client loyalty assessments, next large award from my prior employer for them. And people were asking me, Hey, can you do this for us? Or can you help us review our expenses and streamline things and so they were looking for projects, not a full-time Chief Operating Officer. It was the realization that said, I really do have something here to offer. I wasn't sure that I did at first, but as more people kept asking me for one-off projects, that eventually one of them turned into an Interim CIO role that lasted three years, I was with 60% of the time at that firm.

After about three months of searching for a full-time job, I started my own company. That's what I've been doing ever since. What's great about it, I find is I can never get fired from that again, I can say all but I can't get fired.

Gresham Harkless 3:06

There you go. That's definitely peace and understanding and I know it definitely takes a certain skill. I don't even know how best to put that skill, you probably can articulate that better than I can, on being able to see the forest for the trees, which seems like you're doing because it sounds like you've been on large chains.

But you also helped out a lot of organizations that have large chains to be able to be leaders to communicate and develop those that communication and engagement.

Lee Eisenstaedt 3:31

I was really fortunate in my career to work for some great leaders and for a few great companies that really invested in developing their leadership talent. And that's right pick up the bug for this I was a high potential up-and-coming executive with a large consumer packaged goods company, and they invested heavily in their people. It was during one of those early programs that I realized I had blind spots. We all have blind spots. But I went through a program, a week-long program that really highlighted one of them in particular. At the end of the program, you sit down with a psychologist for four hours, and the woman told me if you want to get where you want to go, you've got to get over being uncomfortable talking about myself as a finance Exec.

Many of us felt myself included, that was shameless self-promotion. I quickly came to realize that wasn't the case. And I needed to get past that if I wanted to get the international assignment that I was very interested in. Long story short, I came back from that program and started talking to a lot of people. And nine months later I got an offer of an assignment in Paris that lasted three and a half years. I would never have gotten that if I hadn't been made aware of that blind spot and encouraged to get past that to take those blinders off.

Then when you do that, all kinds of great things happen. For me, that assignment in Paris was a game-changing, life-changing experience. And so that's what I started to bring, I really got the passion for this after that and saying we all have blind spots, what can I be doing to help people in their careers, identify them so that they can be more effective in their jobs. And that then gets back to this notion of peace of mind and confidence that you're being the most effective leader, you can be.

Gresham Harkless 5:23

Nice. Yeah. And just like he said earlier, I feel everything happens for a reason. So the fact that you had that blind spot, and then you had somebody that point that out to you and had such an impactful opportunity that resulted from it. If that probably means, if that may not have happened, you may not have been able to do the same thing that you're doing with the clients that you're working with. So it's funny how everything comes full circle. So I know you touched on it a little bit, could you tell us I guess a little bit more about what you're doing and what kind of help support these clients and organizations you're working with?

Lee Eisenstaedt 5:55

Yeah, well, we work with individuals and teams, in any industry. And what we have is a toolbox of assessments and workshops and coaching, that are grounded in the book, second edition of a book I just published called Leading With Courage, the nine critical behaviors of effective leaders and managers. And so it's through those different programs that we help people understand what they're good at what limitations are, and help them develop a plan, or plans to address them.

And then we stay close to them during the next six months year, and help them stay accountable for working on those plans. What I think people find the most helpful, it's when they have the courage to ask others, what do you think? And how am I doing? That's the key to their whole self-awareness thing? I mean, that's part of it, you got to ask the question, but then you have to be willing to listen, and not be so arrogant that you don't want to change. And that's what we help people do we encourage them to face up to their limitations.

Gresham Harkless 7:07

Absolutely, yeah. And I think that's true in my perspective, I just say a true sign of leadership is to be able to ask for help and to bring people on that are experts. And that can help you to see those blind spots, but also, as you said, have the humility, and not be arrogant and have that bravado to say, Oh, I know everything, or I'm good at everything, but understand that, hey, this person wants to see you succeed as much as you do. And I think that's a true sign of leadership in my opinion.

Lee Eisenstaedt 7:35

Well, I couldn't agree with you more. Our biggest competitor isn't other consultants. It's people in the C suite. It's managers who say something you just said, I already know all this stuff, or I don't need that I'm the CEO. Why do I need this, that's why I'm in the position I'm in. And really, we've all got blind spots, we can never be self-aware. Or if we were totally self-aware, if we are, it doesn't last very long. I read an article not too long ago that said, 95% of us think we're self-aware, the real number is 12 to 15%. So that creates the market for my services when they have the courage to tackle the self-awareness issue. Were a great, one of many great resources for them.

Gresham Harkless 8:18

Right. That makes perfect sense. And so would you consider that to be like your secret sauce? What do you feel kind of distinguishes you guys and sets you apart?

Lee Eisenstaedt 8:26

I think what really distinguishes us, from a lot of coaches out there, is there's a host of $13 billion a year being spent on leadership development, what I find is different about what we do is we can measure everything that we do, we can tell you the impact it's having on you, we can tell you the impact it's having on your people. And we do that through quarterly employee engagement surveys, that as we work on things with you, it's going to be reflected almost immediately in how people feel about the organization or the energized, focused, and present. Most coaches that I know, they'll tell you.

Well, let's wait a year and look at turnover statistics. Let's take a look at the P&L which should be better. We don't have to wait that long. We're doing this almost in real time, with the ability to measure the impact that we're having on an organization and on an individual. So I think that's probably one of the big things is we're data-driven. And the other is the toolbox. It took us almost two years to put this together. And it can always get better. There could be more things added. But we're really quite happy with the tools we've got which you touched on employee engagement and emotional intelligence. We have some great tools that help people on the self-awareness journey.

Gresham Harkless 9:47

That makes perfect sense. And I think that's huge as well just because a lot of times like you mentioned, some people might say, Okay, let's look in a year to see how everything is actually going but to be able to get that data on a real time basis. because you never know if they might fill out that survey form and they may not have had a good day and may not even be able to work. And sometimes that can skew some of the results. So to be able to constantly check on that, and probably see the trends and see where things are going probably gives you a more realistic maybe perspective on where things are and how things have improved.

Lee Eisenstaedt 10:18

Yeah, that's exactly it. But it also, if you wait too long, there's so many events that happen so many things that take place in the course of say a year that you can't really pin down what was the cause and effect of a change, let's say an employee engagement by measuring that every quarter, you know what you did? All we did, we took the whole team to a DISC assessment, or everyone went through some training on emotional intelligence. And you will see that reflected very quickly in the employee engagement metrics, so we can pin down what's going on and the cause and effect of changes in leadership styles.

Gresham Harkless 10:59

Absolutely, that makes sense. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit annd ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This could be an app or book or a habit that you have or something that you know from your book, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Lee Eisenstaedt 11:14

Well, certainly that whole notion of not being afraid to ask people, what do you think? How am I doing? That's probably my best pack.

If you want an app, the one I absolutely love is Calendly, which takes all the back and forth out of setting up a meeting with someone. It's so frustrating to say, are you available, then, no, I'm not available. How about this date? Now, that doesn't work for me. Calendly takes that all out of it. And I can't tell you how much time I save with that. So that's my favorite app.

I think I use that almost every day. But if I had one hack that would be asking people, what do you think? How am I doing? And then listening to him.

Gresham Harkless 11:54

Right. I think those are two great hacks. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Lee Eisenstaedt 12:06

Identify your blind spots sooner. We all have them. Don't be afraid or uncover them. But I wish I had done some of this work much earlier in my career. I think I identified that one blind spot we discussed earlier when I was in my mid-30s. I wish I'd started doing this when I was much younger in my 20s. But these things could have been radically different. I would not have stepped on as many landmines as I probably did, unintentionally, just because I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was behaving okay, but turned out. I wasn't. And that's what really led to the book. There are these nine blind spots that are the core of the book that anyone coming into an organization can learn from and needs to be aware of.

Gresham Harkless 12:56

Absolutely, yeah, I think that's a huge thing. And that kind of that quest for self-awareness is always evolving. It seems but I've taken a disc analysis and read a lot about emotional intelligence. So I think those are key things because I always say, mastery of others, before you master others, or master the world or master whatever you're trying to master. The hardest and maybe most difficult thing is to master yourself. So to have an understanding of who you are, and your strengths and weaknesses and who you are, how you act interact in certain situations is huge.

Lee Eisenstaedt 13:24

Yeah, and well, people can go to our website, where I wrote the book and identified these 26 attributes of effective leaders. I created a self-assessment, and it's free, absolutely no charge. There's a link to it on our website, takes you five minutes to complete. It'll show you which of the nine blind spots that I keep referring to that you may have to be on the watch for.

On average, we find people have 2.75 blind spots. If you're new, if you're earlier in your career, you could have all nine. And if we're further along in your career, let's say you're the CEO, and you've been there for a number of years, you may think you have zero, but you probably have one or two. The one that always seems to come up, there are two in particular, sticking with underperformers too long, and not being comfortable with delegating those people up yet it's great, totally free, you won't get a bunch of emails from us if you fill it out. It's just out there for you to learn about yourself.

Gresham Harkless 14:32

Nice, and we'll definitely have that link in the show notes as well so that everybody can follow up. So now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We are hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show.

So Lee, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Lee Eisenstaedt 14:47

To me, it's two things. One, it's crafting the vision, and sharing the vision with others. But the other thing I think it's so important for a CEO to do is to create other leaders.

It isn't enough just yet to lead the organization, you have to be creating other leaders and the sign of a great leader is that they've created, and developed other leaders that can follow in their path.

Gresham Harkless 15:10

Absolutely. Because you never know what might happen or what could come up. So you want to make sure that the organization and the whole team are very well prepared. So Lee, I truly appreciate your time.

And in line with what you just said, I want to ask if there's anything more you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get ahold of you.

Lee Eisenstaedt 15:28

Yeah, I would love to hear from anyone that I told you about the Free Self Assessment, you'll find it on our website at www.lwcacademy.com. Or you can just give me a call, my phone number is 312-827-2643.

I'm also on LinkedIn. You mentioned that I'm on the Forbes coach's council. So I publish regularly on their publishing platform. So I'm easy to find. Encourage anyone to reach out to me, send me a note. I love to hear from you.

Gresham Harkless 16:08

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lee. We'll definitely have those links as I mentioned before in the show notes so that you can follow up with Lee and hear about and connect with him with all the awesome things that he's doing.

But Lee, I truly appreciate your time and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Lee Eisenstaedt 16:20

Thank you Gresh I appreciate the opportunity.

Outro 16:23

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This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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