Speaker 1:
0:00
Thanks for joining us for today's episode. Today's episode we have a special guest join us. Katie Rose is a dear friend of mine. She came to talk about her story of learning how to lead well and she shared her story about as a leader, some struggles that she went through that maybe she learned she wasn't leading as well as she could. Can you relate to that?
Speaker 2:
0:21
Um, I mean, I more have experienced bad leadership, but in this episode I think it's really good. Even for people who think that they may not be a leader or have ever been a leader. This shows that really everyone has the opportunity to lead and to lead well.
Speaker 1:
0:44
That's great and I love that you point that out too, because I come from the interview. I came from the point of okay, I am a leader, like I'm leading a team, you know, like our team here at Killer B Marketing, and a lot of times I struggle with things. Am I leading well? That question for myself. So if that, let's go ahead and start this episode. Katie, thanks for joining us. I know a lot of people here might not know who you are, so would you mind, just about 30 seconds, tell us a little bit about who Katie Rose is.
Speaker 3:
1:15
Yeah, I started in radio really young, at like 12. No one asked how old I was and I I really should check references. And then, you know, I ended up stepping out of radio and, believe it or not, started a coffee shop with some friends, and in radio we had to endorse a bunch of nonprofits and so I loved the idea of if I wanted to do mission work, to run in my own business and financially support my own mission works, and so our coffeehouses were nonprofit. Everything above operating costs went to water projects and some of it. I'm surprised they let me run a business. My job, like previous, was radio. I talked to myself for a living. That person should not be in charge of financial decisions, but I loved it Like I learned so much in that season and I'm now back in radio doing consulting. But I'm really grateful for the coffee shop time and how much that taught me and grew me and I think a lot of who I am came out of that season.
Speaker 1:
2:31
So how long did you work at the actual coffee shop?
Speaker 3:
2:34
Yeah, you know what, almost a little over eight years, when COVID hit, we had to shut down for a little bit. And it was actually a really cool thing because we were next door to a grocery store and at that point I was doing operations for all of them, but I was managing one of our locations and our grocery. There was a grocery store next door and we sort of worked it out where my staff would work there and I would work at their location closer to my house, and so when we had to shut down for COVID it was sort of nice. No one got cut and they were just sort of able to move to something else until we were able to reopen.
Speaker 1:
3:18
Nice. Yeah that's good. When you say staff, like how many people were on your staff at the coffee shop, two different ones.
Speaker 3:
3:28
If I was saying like, oh, I did operations for all of our locations, at some points we had eight locations, so you're talking a little under 200 people, but managing like one location, like 10. And it was different than I thought, my normal, I just figure I'm diving into the leadership stuff.
Speaker 1:
3:50
I was gonna ask you. I was gonna say, like that's you're having a team, like is this your first? Is this the first time you're actually in a leadership position, like really over a team, like that?
Speaker 3:
4:01
No, but it was different.
Speaker 3:
4:02
I think for radio it's really easy to say that you love people because it's in theory you can't see them like every now and then you have nasty emails, but it doesn't.
Speaker 3:
4:12
It's people kind of general idea Versus the coffee shop was people, that one person standing in front of you that's messy and doesn't do what you want or like, just it was a different thing and I think my personality typically wants to make things happen the fastest way from point A to point B is a straight line and I'm typically really logical and not very emotional. And it was the first time I had to realize that leadership wasn't about intensity, it was about consistency. And if I wanted my staff to cover their friends when they were sick, it wasn't going to be or make sure they did all their tasks lists. As far as making sure things are clean, they weren't going to make sure the shop was clean because their boss asked them to. They did it because we had a barbecue and we did movie nights and game nights and if they didn't do their tasks they were sort of screwing over their friend that had the next shift.
Speaker 3:
5:18
And so it wasn't this direct line of pushing people to do what you wanted. It was about how do you build a culture and how do you love people really well, and it got the result. You wanted better, but it wasn't a straight line.
Speaker 1:
5:34
Gotcha. So when we were talking about, when you and me were talking about you coming down and joining us and talking about leadership, I thought this was a great topic for us to discuss in Horizons because there are a lot, of, a lot of world creators that are building things. Like you know, we have war feather here that actually has a world built now for For veterans and stuff and they're having different shows and people are starting to build. You know, teams like we have. You know we have war feathers helping off moderation still night. And we also have, you know, bobby G up there running all the wah-wahs and sound boards and and working of trainers and getting people trained up To help.
Speaker 1:
6:10
And what I saw was there's a lot happening in Horizons here where people are stepping into a leadership role. And when you said part of your story about learning that at one time you learned that you weren't leading as well as you thought you were or the way you're used to wasn't working, I really wanted to see if you could share some more insight, like what brought it to your attention that something had to change, and yourself on the way you led, because it might be helpful to other people. That's in here. That's just stepping into leadership and maybe not even realizing that's what they're doing, like meta Olivia, you know she's. She said she doesn't really lead, but she's a boss, so can you talk about that?
Speaker 3:
6:48
I have always looked at leadership like parenting and it was sort of funny when we had eight locations. Each location of the coffee shop really looked like that manager and Whatever that person valued is what their staff started to value. And so if they valued being really like coffee for it and latte art and like the really like Spiffy baristas that were, like over.
Speaker 1:
7:19
You know the one.
Speaker 3:
7:21
Their staff would become that if they've really valued the place being clean, like whatever they stacked as what they've valued is what their staff and start to value. And so I used to tell my staff there's things they're gonna have to deal with because it's my personality in court, so things like I am super OCD, so they're gonna have to do more tasks in cleaning our Location because that is what I value. That they're just gonna have to put up with. But if there's things that are actual character flaws in me and they're paying the cost, that's a me problem. So if I don't handle conflict well and so the culture of my location starts to turn, they're paying the cost of my character flaw.
Speaker 3:
8:04
And so I think for me it was just being aware that Leadership was. It's almost like when you live by yourself if there's dishes in the sink they're yours and like realizing, like okay, if there's a problem, most likely it's a character inside of me being exponentially shown in the way that I'm developing a culture and it's it's almost like a Relationship. It's a big giant mirror that goes in front of you and just being aware of like hey, most likely it's a me thing and I'm gonna check there first.
Speaker 1:
8:36
That's good.
Speaker 2:
8:37
Do you feel like you've had some Like leaders in the past that kind of shaped how you have said if I ever get in a leadership role, I want to make sure I do this and I want to make sure I don't do this? Do you feel like some of that came into play as your leadership role, or was it just like I'm starting from a blank slate there?
Speaker 3:
9:01
is a book by Gene Edwards and it's like a hundred pages. If you listen to it on audiobook it's like just slightly over an hour and the whole book, the like. First half of it was Looking at like the Bible, where David was under a king that hated him and this king used to like throw spears at him and it was saying how much he would be justified to take those spears back and, out of protection of himself, throw him back. But it was saying that him being under bad leadership Taught him how to be a good leader. The second, the half of the book is like when you're in leadership, how do you judge if you're a good leader? But I think no matter what leadership you're under, it teaches you something.
Speaker 3:
9:44
I think even who you are under other leaders tells you what leader you're gonna be. Um, when I would have baristas want to manage, you know, they know that we've had. We went from one to eight locations within two years, so the growth of our company was really fast and so there was a lot of opportunity for, hey, you like social media? Great, you're in charge of that now. Like people were.
Speaker 3:
10:07
Promoted quickly because we needed people to be involved. But the first thing I would do is, if someone said they wanted to be a part of that growth, I would go to the people they work with and I go do they do the dishes before they leave? And If the answer was no, I would go back and say hey, you're not ready yet and we would have that conversation. But if you don't do the things you don't want to do when you're required to do them, you're not gonna do servant leading when no one requires you to do the dumb gross. No one wants to do that yeah.
Speaker 3:
10:42
So I think there was a balance between I did take things from all sorts of leaders and For me though I think me being a really logical person and non-emotional, some of it was also me just learning really how to care it didn't matter what position like the company I'm in now has three owners. I'm not in leadership, I still do director of operations, but it's not the same. It's not my company or some of that stuff. I don't think it matters what position and, in fact, if you're relying on positional leadership, to me it's the cheapest form of leadership, when I've seen people be like well, I'm the boss, you're like great, that's the leg you're going to stand along like that's what you've got.
Speaker 3:
11:32
Yeah, versus the people that built a culture, gained respect. And I think when I was doing operations, I had a hard time because I'm such a numbers person and I'm cheap that it's really easy to look at a spreadsheet and you think, well, we can make cuts here, we could do this here, and you don't know the culture that it's building, or you know, sometimes it's like paying your employees more gives better customer service and better business. There's different things in business theory, but for me, to have a location and these are people that I love as people, whether they're my employees or not I still text these people for their birthday. I still like, I'm still involved in their life because the leadership and the commitment I've made to them was beyond their employment. So when I stepped out, we actually had problems with them trying to like walk out because they knew like their commitment was to me and not the company.
Speaker 3:
12:32
But it was because they saw the commitment I had to them.
Speaker 1:
12:37
I think that's a really good point too, cause, like you just were talking to about knowing their birthdays and stuff like that, I can tell you, well, everybody already knows like I'm terrible at names Like that's. That's one thing, right, and another thing is you know. I mean, you know, meta Olivia is on our team at Killer Bee Marketing, so she's part of our team, so I'm the boss. I'm saying, hey, I'm your boss. Look, I got the title. That's the approach I take. So thanks, katie.
Speaker 3:
13:02
Now I have to go check myself?
Speaker 1:
13:04
No, no, but with like with our team. You know our team works remote. You've worked with some of our team and they're all over the place and one of the things I struggle with is keeping up with those kind of things, Cause I know it's important, but I'm in meetings all the time and connecting, but also trying to make sure I stay connected with the team that's working remotely. Anybody that's working with people in here. You've got people from all around the world probably you're working with. So my wife is amazing hospitality she's great at. She wants to send gifts out.
Speaker 1:
13:33
Usually I have a tower like nah, you gotta gotta watch the budget here. You know she's all about that, you know, but I'm like you know what? Why don't you do that? Because it's something that you're really passionate about and you're good at. Instead of me trying to do that, find the people on your team that can help do that and let them you know they're passionate about. Let them really just flourish in that area. Is there anything that you had to learn as a leader that you had to kind of let go of? And if there was something, if you're open, would you mind to share it? And what was it like for you to learn how to let go of something.
Speaker 3:
14:06
I. One of the hardest things at the beginning for me is I don't do confrontation. I used to not do confrontation, but I also realized it was easier for me to write off the bat, set expectations and communicate really clearly, because at that point most of the time I didn't have to do correction later I also, and so I would even tell, like as barista stuff it is very precise, and so there's things where it's like I would spend a lot of time with that person. I'm like I know this is annoying, but like I want you to be able to, and I would communicate on that path of what they were learning. So there are even times where I was like hey, I know a barista can do $75 worth of coffee in an hour, so I'm going to let you flail so that you can get faster, like. So I let them know, like hey, I know you're panicking right now, I'm right back here and if I see you hit that point I'll jump in, but I'm doing this to make you stronger.
Speaker 3:
15:11
So I think a mix of like really training them in the beginning and communicating in that path, then really I didn't have to do correction. In the same way, at the end I also paid the cost of that sometimes, because there was, we had a staff member who was just that like super negative, gossipy kind of person and I under, like I underestimated the cancer that was. And when they ended up quitting and everyone just sort of exhaled and the culture changed, it actually made me a lot more swift on that. Specifically, like there's some things where, like there's times I should have canned people, I should have whatever, and it's like no, I'm going to walk through the trenches with you until we really know this isn't going to work, and at that point we've come to this as a group decision kind of thing. But that was the one thing that I was like, hey, I don't have legnancy here because I'm not going to risk everyone else for this.
Speaker 3:
16:17
But it took me a while with that confrontation stuff to balance and put that in a healthy spot.
Speaker 1:
16:44
I think that I mean you touched on the being very clear about what you're looking for, right, what's what they're doing, what they're supposed to do. I know for myself as a leader, it's something that that I've had to learn to is the importance, like I mean, having given clear direction is so crucial, and I know, as you shared, about being under bad leadership. I've been under bad leadership and I found myself there going what the heck, why am I here? Why am I here? Why do I have to do this and and but ultimately, it was God preparing me for the time where he actually put me in leadership to say this is what you don't want to do, because you know what this is like and what this feels like and why it's important to treat your team differently than this.
Speaker 3:
17:28
And I think it trained me. In those times. I had a very bad leader who would openly say, like I believe that yelling at your staff is most productive because you only have to do it once, because everyone else sees it like they had chose. This is what they, how they do things. And I remember shutting myself in a room and being like, all right, I'm not leaving here till I have an attitude change and like I come from a place of faith. And so that was the thing where I really felt like I just struggled with God in that moment of like hey, I need to see how you see this person, because I only see the bad.
Speaker 3:
18:08
And it trained me a lot, like even not just like hey, I'm never going to lead that way, because I knew I didn't want to leave that way. I thought that was really stupid way, like I thought general public knew that that was a horrible way to leave. But what it trained me for was to be able to get my attitude in line and to even in that, be able to see someone where I'm going. Wow, like the insecurity this person's carrying affects his job, yes, but it affects his marriage, it affects his friendships. And then, all of a sudden, I just felt going man me being pissed off. Is the smallest weight or the smallest consequence of this baggage he's carrying?
Speaker 3:
18:53
And this isn't a me thing, this is a him thing. But, like even being under bad leadership, train me on how to get my heart and attitude in a better, right place.
Speaker 1:
19:03
That's good and it's it's. It's like it's an important thing to remember too is like to remember that people that were working with whether it be at your workplace maybe you're not in a leadership role, but you work with a team the people that come in or even in here in horizons, the people that we meet in here, we there's people that's carrying baggage that we don't know about. So I think it's it's good to give some grace and kind of understand. We don't know, we don't see everything that's happening, thank you. I want to talk about something else here with you, katie, about leadership.
Speaker 1:
19:38
For myself, something that I've been having to learn is, as leaders, as we lead, as leaders, sometimes we don't always have the complete picture. What's down the road, right, I mean we as leaders. It's a lot of responsibility to carry on your shoulders. You have a team that you're taking care of and you're trying to stay focused of what this is, what our purpose is. One of the things that I've been learning a lot is how important it is for me, as leader, to step away from everything and get out and just spend time reflecting on what's happening in the business.
Speaker 1:
20:15
As you say, you're a person of faith, and so am I, so I spend time out there talking to God and just listening. Today they actually came and did our carpets today. Usually, my reflection time is on Fridays. I usually go out for two to four hours and just process and write down notes. I did that today. Is that something that you found was important to do as a leader is find time just to get away and try to wrap your mind. Or how do you lead a team too? Maybe they want you to have all the answers, but you just don't sometimes.
Speaker 3:
20:46
Part of that goes into your business structure of. I make a really good second. I know how I work best and you can give me the most elaborate idea and I've got a bunch of weird skill sets I can make that happen. But the people who sit in a room and dream for three hours, I'm like no you got 20 minutes. Then I need you to pick one because my mind's already going and how to make that happen.
Speaker 3:
21:10
So it'll wear me down, I think, knowing what your seat on the bus is of, I do think if you're the business owner and you're in charge of that big picture, you need to have that space that you're like okay, this is the big picture because you get in the daily weens and that kind of thing, and I don't think people are looking for every answer in every step and I think, even like when COVID hit, no one knows how this is going to go, and especially when we were working at a coffee shop, like restaurants were shutting down, the city was saying you had to shut down. I don't know if we've got jobs tomorrow because I don't know that the city wasn't going to come tell us we don't have jobs.
Speaker 3:
21:51
And so there's things where it's like I don't think their expectation is that I have every answer and I know the future.
Speaker 3:
21:57
But you want to know that the person driving the ship isn't tossed with every wave, that they at least are stable at driving and so just being able to communicate of, hey, these are the things that might come up, that might toss us and I'll let you know and this is our plan.
Speaker 3:
22:15
And if that goal point moves, great. But like they're looking for that clear size communication and I do think it's that balance of I would try not to communicate things that were too far off, because their brain wasn't going at the locations we might open in five years, like they might not be here at five years, like they're not thinking that far ahead. So even if I had a location and I'm already signing papers on it, I might say like I might tell them what's coming up this year or three months from now, because they're it's almost like if you see a trailer right now and it's like the movie comes out in a year and a half, you're like I don't care, let me see this trailer when it's out in two weeks and so it is sort of that balance of clear, concise communication, but also don't overload them with, like, everything that a business owner has to know.
Speaker 3:
23:11
You have to do projections of, if you drop a bunch of clients, what's your plan If you you know like there's things that you need to know as a business owner and business strategy that isn't for an employee to have to carry. I think leadership is such a hard word because everybody thinks it's positional.
Speaker 3:
23:30
And it's like to me and I feel like there's so many books and things that are like leadership and it's so much about that intensity of like hey, I did this workshop. Now you're a leader and you're like no, it's almost like a relationship of the one person that wishes you happy birthday once a year but you're like we're not friends.
Speaker 3:
23:52
Like you wished me happy birthday that didn't fill in the rest of the year, that we didn't talk and sometimes I feel like the leadership stuff is talked about in that way of like this intense hey, I came in and I did a workshop and I told everybody what to do and you're like, yeah, but did you care about them? Do you know what they do on a daily basis? Like to me, leadership I'd rather say it's like, hey, how much do you care and serve the people around you versus and so and that's done at every level Like you can be the bottom of most entry level, how do you serve? Because the thing is is when you genuinely care about people, people will follow you. And I think even the more that life has got more crazy and so many things are fluid, and when people find someone who's solid and consistent, it's a rarity and they'll follow it and they trust it, and so it doesn't matter your position in that.
Speaker 3:
24:58
But and I think there's a difference between, like going through and go, how to be a good business owner, how to be a good manager but I think, no matter your position, you can be a good leader, you can lead those around you, you can care for those around you. That's good, yeah.
Speaker 1:
25:16
That's good and I actually something I wrote down today in my in my my business journal was it was something that we talk about as a team is we always try to consult or if we're going to share an opinion, like we do it from a place of experience, like if we have an experience, that I encourage our team don't give advice on something that we haven't experienced for ourselves. Find someone else that's experienced it and that's the person like cause. I mean, like you said, there's a lot of people that I'm a leader now and you know they read a book but they really haven't experienced anything. There's a lot more opinion leaders than there are leaders coming from experience.
Speaker 3:
25:56
I think if you show people that you have their best interest at heart. When I was in college, I worked as an advertising manager for a newspaper and I had great sales, and part of it is because I didn't try to go sell ads. I would try to figure out how to market their business, and so I would go to the ice cream place that was a few blocks away from our campus and tell them like hey, we have. You know, school is starting and so we have all these new freshmen. Why don't we have you put in a coupon in our newspaper for buy one, get one free, so that way people get used to having groups come into your business. You know like these habits are set with these new freshmen coming in, and so when they know, oh, you are putting my best interest at heart.
Speaker 2:
26:48
I actually saw a quote on LinkedIn today that actually is going along with what you're talking about, and it said that leadership is not transactional, it's relational. And I thought that was so good, because the whole post was about. This woman was talking about how she had a one on one with her boss. But she's like I just moved into a new house, we talked about my new house and all of that, so she's like not every meeting has to be you know about work. It just showed that like she actually cared, and so I thought that was really good, especially myself coming from some horrendous bosses.
Speaker 1:
27:41
But yeah, so One of the things that I want to encourage everybody here, as we talk about leadership and wondering if you are a leader, if you can be a leader, I think it's again it's important to realize that we're all leading someone. There was a time in my life where I was trying to process what, what God wanted me to do with this group of men that I was leading, and I was really struggling with it because I'm like I don't feel good enough to do this. I don't feel good enough and I was just spending time processing and just listening to God. And the scripture came to me from Matthew, where it was about the story about Jesus getting in the boat and about Peter walking on water. Are you guys familiar with the story of hearing about the guy that walked on the water, that came out of the boat? Well, when I was reading that story, I'm like, ok, that's cool, but not a lot of people want to jump out and walk on water.
Speaker 1:
28:35
That's something we always focus on. And I'm like are you trying to show me here? And what God showed me and this is the reason why we have this little cell boat up here is because what God was showing me during that time was. I don't need you to go walk on the water Sometimes, I just need somebody to be the boat. Take people where you've been, katie, if you don't mind. Before we wrap up, is there a thought that you would want to leave us with? Is there something that, if we took anything away from our discussion today, what would it be that you would hope we would take away?
Speaker 3:
29:05
I think it's just genuinely care about the people around you. When you ask, how are you stop and listen. It's consistently caring about the people that God has put in your life that you'll end up leading you just love the people around you and it'll be amazing how many times the stuff you've gone through can be used for their life. And those are the people you can lead.
