Ep 92 // Elevating your Engagement Strategy

NOTE: Please excuse any errors in this transcript; it was created using an AI tool. Akua Nyame-Mensah 00:00 Imagine you're a caveman who is just being chased by a lion. You're in survival mode. Your heart is pumping, and adrenaline is coursing through your body. We may not live in caves anymore, but the human body's response to stress is still the same. In the business world. These fight or flight responses can occur because of overwhelm impostor syndrome, feeling like you need to fight your fight. So without learning to self regulate and manage our response to stress, it's almost impossible to be an effective leader. Hello, and welcome to the open door conversations podcast. My name is Akua Nyame-Mensah I also respond to Aqua and Akua. I'm a certified executive and leadership coach recognised learning and organisational development facilitator, speaker and former startup executive. And I am so excited because this year I'm celebrating five years of working for myself five years of supporting leaders, and I am so grateful because I've had the opportunity to partner with amazing organisations, from hydro startups to multinational brands all around the world, and 2022 alone, I serve over 600 Yes, over 600 leaders around the world. And in this podcast, you will have the opportunity to learn my three step leadership framework. I actually break it down in Episode 71. I use this framework with my high achieving and entrepreneurial minded clients that are juggling a million responsibilities so they can easily build wealth. This three step framework is going to teach you how to leverage your innate personality to learn how to prioritise and maximise not just your time, but also your money. You don't have to work harder or turn into someone else. To get more done. Let's tune into this week's episode. Hello, and welcome to this week's open door conversations podcast episode. I'm really excited about this week's episode because we're doing a wrap up of our series all about engagement. And one of the things I wanted to share in this episode is that leadership truly is a habit. It's a routine, it's a system, you're not always going to get it right, not everyone's going to like you and you're not always going to be in the best mood. And that's why it's so important to first be self aware and then decide how to engage over the last few weeks, we've been talking through different elements to consider related to the second step of my three step process of effective and influential leadership engagement. It's not just about building your skills, but it's also about your attitude, and mindset. It's about your openness to try something new, and experiment. And that is what engagement is all about experimenting with yourself and with others. I wanted to put together a summary episode similar to what I did for the Cultivate self awareness series to walk through the sixth episode focused on engagement. The first episode that's episode number 84 is really introducing engagement and I talk about how engagement starts with self regulation and management. The second episode in this series is episode number 85. And that's where we demystify executive presence with Kelly Lynn Adams episode 86. Grow your leadership by asking powerful questions, Episode 88 Storytelling for engagement episode 89 network internally first, and the last episode in this series, episode 91. Mastering meetings, the secrets to engaging and efficient facilitation. I want to take a few seconds and just outline and summarise what you'll get from each of these episodes. I of course recommend that you go back and listen to them. But if you feel like you're short on time, hopefully this gets you up to speed and maybe even more excited about diving in episode number 84 was engagement starts with self regulation and management. We talk about the second step in my three step leadership framework. And really how engagement is a crucial part of becoming a conscious and effective leader in the workplace or within your own business. As a business leader, founder or executive. Sometimes your biggest barrier to engaging your team is staring at you in the mirror. So in this episode, I talk about how your own thoughts, emotions and existing habits could be sabotaging your efforts and some simple ways to self regulate your way to a meaning engagement, influence and productivity as a leader in episode number 85 with the amazing Kelly Lynn Adams, we introduce executive presence Something that every leader wants, but is not always sure how to get it. So in this episode executive and life coach Kelly Lynn Adams really gives us a look at how she breaks down executive presence for her clients. And I promise you if you take a listen, you will be inspired and learn how to gain the confidence and credibility with executive presence. Episode number 86. Grow your leadership by asking powerful questions is actually one of my favourite episodes within the series, I've gotten some really great feedback on how powerful thinking about your questions can be. But the question I have for you if you haven't taken a listen to this episode yet is Do you know how to leverage the power of questions to engage and inspire your team. In this episode, I'm sharing some coaching tools and techniques that will help you ask the right questions to help your team members become more engaged set goals, create an action plan, and most importantly, problem solve episode number 88. Storytelling for engagement is such a crucial episode as well. Anyone who's watched a memorable TED Talk knows how powerful a well told story can be in the business world storyteller can inspire build rapport with your stakeholders and help set a common goal with your team. And that's why in this episode, I talk about the power of storytelling, and how to engage your team through storytelling. Tell a story that's both relevant and impactful. And most importantly, think about how to incorporate stories into your daily life. Episode number 89. Network internally first, was such an important episode for me to put together I've done several other episodes related to networking and how important it is. But I recently put out an article related to my own relationship with networking, how it's evolved over time, when I think of networking, or when I used to think of networking, it very much was something that was quite scary to me. And so if the mere mention of networking fills you with anxiety and dread, you are not alone. And so in this podcast episode, I talk about how I went from feeling like networking was sleazy, and manipulative to realising how fun it can be. And last but not least, episode number 91. Mastering meetings, secrets to engaging and efficient facilitation. If you've ever walked out of the meeting, and been like, why on earth did I even bother? That was a total time waster than you need to listen to this episode, I can't even count the number of times it's happened to me as someone who's constantly having conversations for a living. This is something that I am always thinking about. If you've ever been the one leading a meeting where your team felt that way. Trust me, you're not alone. And you need to listen to this episode. It's all about the art of hosting, facilitating and moderating great meetings. A huge part of it is asking yourself, can the information I'm sharing in this meeting be shared in another way? And how can we make sure we use this meeting to really focus on problem solving, brainstorming, assigning tasks and getting permission? So there you go. These are all the episodes in my second mini series all about engagement. If you haven't taken a listen to them, I recommend you take a second to do so before you move forward. I will be back very soon with my last mini series related to my three step leadership process all about setting expectations that you can exceed. Please let me know what you think of these episodes. Have you have a chance to take a listen and stay safe and sane. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode, please share this episode with someone who can benefit from its contents. If you found this episode helpful, I want to ask you to leave a review. This makes it easier for other people to find my podcast and also allows me to bring on even bigger guests and even more fascinating stories. Thank you so much for listening again. Stay safe and stay sane