Kerry Siggins Podcast

Kerry Siggins

This show is about exceptional leadership. Game-changing leadership. Learn from peers, experts, authors, and more on how to be an uber successful leader…one that stands out from the rest. One that inspires others to do great things. One that others want to follow. How does this podcast fit into exceptional leadership? You can only become great at what you do by deliberately creating your future by reflecting on the past and present…what you did well, mistakes you’ve made, and lessons you’ve learned. Kerry Siggins is the CEO of StoneAge, the global leader in the manufacturing and distribution of high pressure waterjetting tooling and automated equipment. Kerry is also a member of Young President's Organization (YPO) and sits on several boards. She is a sought-after speaker, thought leader, leadership blogger and podcast host.

  1. Sep 15

    When Does Giving Someone Another Chance Become a Failure of Leadership?

    Most leaders I know have someone on their team right now that they know is not working out. I just went through this. And the reason I recorded this episode is because I think we talk about accountability in the abstract far more than we talk about what it actually feels like to sit with a decision you know you need to make but keep not making. I cared about this person. I believed in them. I kept giving it more time. And while I was doing that, other people on my team were quietly absorbing the consequences — fixing mistakes, picking up work that wasn't theirs, and watching me not deal with something they could all see clearly. That's where this one started for me. Not with a framework for accountability. With the specific discomfort of realizing that my compassion toward one person had a real cost for everyone else, and that I'd been calling it leadership when part of it was just avoidance. The episode works through the questions I ask myself to tell the difference: am I still trying to understand this situation, or am I looking for another reason not to do what I already know needs to happen? Where has my belief in someone started interfering with my ability to see what's actually there? And who's absorbing the cost of my hesitation while I figure it out? I don't have a clean answer. But I do have a question I try to end with: where are you waiting for more evidence because you don't like what the evidence you already have is asking you to do? My new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/ TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

    When Does Giving Someone Another Chance Become a Failure of Leadership?
  2. Sep 8

    How to Lead When Everyone's Looking at You for Answers

    My company is being hit right now. A war in Iran is affecting oil prices, customer behavior is shifting, and my employees are asking me questions I do not have answers to. How long will this last? Are there going to be more changes? Am I going to be okay? That last one is the one underneath all the others. And as the CEO, people expect me to have the answer. What I keep wrestling with is how easy it is to slide from optimism into false reassurance. You want your people to sleep at night. You want them focused on their work, not sitting in anxiety. And so you say things you are not fully certain of, and eventually you have made a promise reality may not allow you to keep. I have done this. I am talking about it because I think most leaders have, and the pressure to perform certainty is real and almost never discussed honestly. What has helped me is a distinction I keep coming back to. Certainty says I know what is going to happen. Confidence says whatever happens, we will face reality and respond to it. The first one I cannot offer my team right now. The second one I can. And that, I think, is what talking with trust actually looks like when there is no clean answer. Just telling the truth about what you know, what you do not know, and what you will do when things change. My new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/ TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

    How to Lead When Everyone's Looking at You for Answers
  3. Sep 1

    Why Your Team's CONFLICT Isn't About What You Think

    Something I keep seeing in my company, in the situations leaders bring to me, and honestly in my own life, is that the argument on the surface is almost never the actual conflict. Someone gets left out of a meeting and suddenly they are furious. Someone's idea gets overruled and now there is tension that feels personal. Someone misses a commitment and now they cannot be trusted with anything. None of those responses are really about the original event. They are about what the person decided the event meant. I caught myself in this not long ago. Someone questioned a decision I made, and I had a thought I would not say out loud: I'm the CEO. Just do what I say. I did not act on it. But that instinct was real, and it was useful information, not about the other person, but about me. About what I was afraid would happen if I lost control of that situation. That is what this episode is about. Not conflict resolution as a skill set, but conflict as information. What does it reveal about what you are protecting? Underneath most emotionally charged conflict, I have found a threat to one of three things, control, trust, or respect. Sometimes all three at once, stacking on top of each other until what started as a simple disagreement feels like a personal attack. My new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/ TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

    Why Your Team's CONFLICT Isn't About What You Think
  4. Aug 11 ·  Video

    How to stay calm when someone gets EMOTIONAL at work

    Kerry has given a lot of difficult feedback over the years. And the conversations that went sideways almost never fell apart because she said the wrong thing. They fell apart because she stopped managing herself. The moment emotion entered the room, she started explaining too much or softening the message or rushing through because she just wanted it to be over. This episode is the final one in the SHARES model series, and it covers the last S: stay emotionally grounded. Kerry almost called it stay emotionally regulated when she was writing the book, because that is the language psychologists use. But she chose grounded because everyone knows what it feels like to lose their footing. And grounded does not mean you stop feeling things. It means you do not let those feelings run the conversation. The thing Kerry keeps coming back to is this: emotions do not always tell us the truth. When you are activated, you stop listening, you misinterpret, you react. The tiny pause, the moment before you respond, is the only thing that gives you enough space to choose differently. And that choice is where trust is actually built. Kerry’s new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/ TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

    How to stay calm when someone gets EMOTIONAL at work
5
out of 5
36 Ratings

About

This show is about exceptional leadership. Game-changing leadership. Learn from peers, experts, authors, and more on how to be an uber successful leader…one that stands out from the rest. One that inspires others to do great things. One that others want to follow. How does this podcast fit into exceptional leadership? You can only become great at what you do by deliberately creating your future by reflecting on the past and present…what you did well, mistakes you’ve made, and lessons you’ve learned. Kerry Siggins is the CEO of StoneAge, the global leader in the manufacturing and distribution of high pressure waterjetting tooling and automated equipment. Kerry is also a member of Young President's Organization (YPO) and sits on several boards. She is a sought-after speaker, thought leader, leadership blogger and podcast host.