As a professional keynote speaker and former management professor, Dr. Todd Dewett has made it his mission to help develop leaders into better leaders. He uses his experience in the business world as a way to share what he has learned with attendees in an effort to help them excel as leaders.
Dr. Dewett was recently interviewed on “Top Down: Sales Growth Stories,” a podcast that aims to share inspiring insight on sales, leadership, and success. Click here to listen to the full interview and continue reading for some leadership advice from Todd.
Start by maintaining positive and healthy relationships in the workplace.
During his time working at Anderson Consulting as well as Ernst & Young, Todd fell in love with business. More specifically, he was intrigued by the relationships he observed in the workplace. Soon after, he came to the realization that people are not always great at optimizing personal relationships in a number of settings, but especially in an office environment. He then became a professor at Wright State University, where he taught students about leadership and how to handle different relationships in different settings.
Dr. Dewett’s advice for aspiring leaders: Get over yourself.
If you’re going to lead a team, you must be completely invested and listen to what your team has to say. As a leader, you must care about your team and be ready to work hard.
“Take off your rosy glasses and get ready to work harder than you did before you were promoted.” – Dr. Todd Dewett
Although your skills most likely play a major role in why you were promoted, you must not rely on them to help you breeze by in your new position. In a new leadership position, you must be ready to not only build upon old skills, but also to learn new skills and apply them on the job.
One of the most important things you must learn as a leader, however, is how to get over yourself. As a leader, you must focus more on those around you rather than yourself. The reason behind this, Todd says, is that you’ll never optimize a team if you don’t start caring as much about them as you do about yourself.
Be sure to integrate human connection into the workplace.
Everyone wants human connection, which is something we don’t get a lot of in the workplace where many people showcase their professional personas instead of who they really are. Todd argues that a leader should practice authenticity in the workplace so employees can get the sense of a human connection and have more trust in their boss.
People often avoid being their authentic true selves in the workplace. Taking this approach, however, can do more harm than good. By no means do you have to be best friends with the people you work with, but you should at least try to be real and approachable, even if it means talking about a failure you have experienced. The key is to be vulnerable and relate to your team by showing them that you make mistakes too.
Dr. Todd Dewett speaks on everything from leadership and authenticity to team-building and corporate culture. For more information or to book Todd, please visit eaglestalentmanagement.com or call 1.800.345.5607.
