Leading by Listening: Guest Contributor, Jordyn Kay
#TheGroundFloor is thrilled to welcome guest contributor, Jordyn Kay for this week’s edition! Jordyn recently moved to Pittsburgh for her new role with one of my favorite places in the world, Emma Kaufmann Camp.
I am very excited to welcome Jordyn to #TheGroundFloor where she discusses her approach on what it takes to be a leader!
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My name is Jordyn Kay and I’m originally from West Bloomfield, Michigan. Right now, I’m living and working in Pittsburgh as the Director of Staff Engagement for Emma Kaufmann Camp (EKC). Before moving to Pittsburgh and joining the EKC team, I worked at Temple Israel of Westport, CT as their Director of Youth Engagement. I also worked for BBYO Michigan Region as their Regional Director of Jewish Enrichment and spent nine summers working in a variety of leadership roles at Tamarack Camps in Michigan. I graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in both Psychology and Judaic Studies.
While working for BBYO, a Jewish non-profit that focuses on building up the next generation of Jewish leaders, I met and became friends with Andrew Exler. Since moving to Pittsburgh, I have been fortunate to reconnect with Andrew and have someone to welcome me into a new city. I am very excited to watch Andrew Exler Consulting grow and I am honored to contribute to this blog with something I deeply care about.
For a long time I believed that leaders were simply people who demanded the attention of others and successfully obtained it. I thought that leaders must inherently exert power and authority over those around them and that was how they rose to the top. For some people, this method works - they can stand in front of a crowd and declare authority and they are immediately regarded as the leader. This method of leadership never worked for me.
Figuring out your leadership style is no easy task, especially when most examples of leadership in large companies, on television, and through social media show that the leader is the loudest person in the room. It can take years of trial and error to discover how you lead best and a willingness to fail and give it another attempt. Learning how to lead in your best way takes openness to feedback, trying something new, and being able to sit in your own discomfort, something I regularly try to teach the staff, teens, and kids I’ve worked with over the years.
The type of leadership that works for me is through relationship building.
I’ve spent the last several years working for various non-profit organizations. In most of these organizations, my role was teaching others how to lead, building-up leaders for the next generation, and working from behind the scenes. I rarely stood up in front of a room and forced people to listen to me and in fact did more listening than speaking (when I was doing my job right). This kind of work doesn’t give a person much of an opportunity to command a room or exert authority and that’s when something I had never considered was pointed out to me. I was not a person who led by demanding people see me as a leader. I was a person who led by developing and nourishing relationships with others. It was through those relationships that I was able to coalesce people into following my concepts and ideas, and got people to truly hear what I was trying to say without ever having to demand they listen.
This type of leadership, leading through relationship building, is not for everyone. I had no idea this was how I led until one of my former bosses pointed it out to me. He pointed out that I wasn’t one to raise my voice above those around me or to sit and wait for everyone to be quiet. Rather, when I needed people to do something, I focused on individual connections and conversations allowing me to get people to rally behind me.
When people feel as though you truly care about them, and when you do actually care, they will want to support you. People want to work hard for people who work hard for them. It seems simple. Yet, developing relationships is one of the most complex things we do as humans. We want to talk and we want to be heard but that means so does everyone else.
Here are some of my best tips for becoming a leader through relationships:
· Pay attention to others
· Be your authentic self - people respect people who aren’t afraid to be themselves
· Learn how other people respond to being led
· Allow for give and take - let others lead you when the timing is right
· Remember that a leader is not always the person with the loudest voice
Now, more than usual, we have time to build and nurture relationships. Focusing on the people in your life during these crazy times will set us up for success down the line. This is the time to connect with people and remember that at their core, everyone wants to feel that they are part of something.
Next time you want someone to listen to you and follow your lead, think to yourself, “Do I listen to them when they speak?”. If the answer is no, give it a try and you might just find they’re more willing to listen to you. Suddenly, you’re a leader.
- Jordyn
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Thank you, Jordyn, for being a guest contributor for #TheGroundFloor!
I am always open to welcoming guest contributors to #TheGroundFloor! If you are interested in writing or have a specific topic you’d like discussed, please contact me!
- Andrew