Think you don’t have a leadership superpower… think again!

In the first episode of How to Take the Lead, we discuss how to find your leadership superpower and how you can use it for maximum impact.

In this episode we cover a lot of ground, including:

• 03:11 – are leadership superpowers even a thing?
• 16:45 - how do you identify your superpower?
• 20:03 – can you lose your leadership superpowers?
• 25:11 – how to harness your leadership superpowers

Top tips from us include making time to discover what your leadership superpowers are, asking others (you might be surprised), understanding how your superpowers can have impact and not allowing your own superpowers to become your nemesis.

In our next episode we talk all things power dressing and why we have given shoulder pads the shove.

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You can find out more about Lee Griffith via www.sundayskies.com and about Carrie-Ann Wade at www.cats-pajamas.co.uk

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Follow or message Carrie-Ann on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Absolutely loving clarity to confusion that

yeah, you've nailed it.

Not clarity to confusion, that would be my anti

superpower!

You're listening to How To Take The Lead with Lee Griffith

and Carrie-Ann Wade.

Two corporate colleagues turned business

besties, who question everything we've ever learned about

leadership.

What started with us putting the world to

rights over a gin after work, is now a weekly show challenging

myths and perceptions and exploring what leadership looks

like in the modern day.

We'll also be sharing our experiences and

stories along the way.

You can find our show notes at

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And please share your thoughts and stories on the

topics we cover using the hashtag how to take the lead.

Hello, and welcome to episode one of how to take the lead, the

podcast. Can you can you even believe it a year ago we were

setting up for our first Instagram Live and absolutely

cacking our pants. Now we're like oh yeah, go us we're just

gonna do a podcast.

Here we are with five series' of live under

our belts and we could turn this into a podcast no probs.

So we are delighted to have you join us

today. We have a great first episode planned now. This

episode was inspired by something I saw on TV recently.

So you know I love my detective shows.

Anybody who has ever come across you must know

that you love your detective shows.

And no it wasn't an episode of Murder She Wrote

although I'm sure there'll be Jessica Fletcher inspiration at

some point in this series, but it was a show called The Rookie.

Have you seen it?

I haven't. I haven't. I've only got I've only

got your say so that is worth and watch Lee.

I'm not going that far but it's it's a American cop

detective show, trainee cops anyway. One of the episodes one

of the rookie cops was trying to figure out what his secret power

would be. And he was able to recognise all the things that

his colleagues were really great at but couldn't really pinpoint

his thing. And the show was as it was you know, goes through

different scenarios of which he's trying to fit. Is this what

my superpower is? Is this is what my superpower is? By the

end of it. He obviously had figured out what your superpower

was. And for him it was empathy because he'd served some time

wrongly, I say in prison, and so he could recognise in other

people who were scared about going to jail or being arrested.

So that was his superpower, you don't need to watch the episode

now I've basically just told you the story.

We should have done a spoiler alert, if anybody

wanted to watch it.

But anyway, it got me thinking about superpowers in

leadership. My train of thought, if you bear with me, was that

often we talk about the fact that as a leader, particularly

if you're a senior one, you've got to be across everything. But

that doesn't mean you have to be great at everything. And we know

that there's a lot of strength in knowing where you excel, in

the same way as knowing where you're not so great that you can

make sure you've got the right teams around you. But I don't

think I ever really thought about my superpowers until I

left my corporate role and was trying to figure out life where

I fitted in the world. And what I wanted to do next, and this

episode really got me thinking about that and how much

awareness do leaders bring to what is their superpowers? So

Carrie-Ann you know, was this an epiphany moment for you as

well?

Yeah, when we started having this conversation

about leadership superpowers, I was like, they are actually a

thing but I don't think I've ever really considered them as

superpowers before. So it got me thinking they're definitely

real, but I'm not sure how I thought about them before

superpowers came into my vocabulary about it. So I guess

really, for me when I started to reflect on it, I started to

think about things that as, not necessarily just as leaders but

as individuals, as people, that we are naturally and innately

good at things that just come naturally to us to be within our

gift to do really well. They might be skills, they might be

certain behaviours that arepossibly very unique to you

because they're based on your skills and experiences. But I

don't think until very recently, I'd ever considered talking

about them as superpowers but now that we have started to have

that conversation I am all over the leadership superpowers.

I want a cape and I will probably wear my pants over my

trousers again. Yeah, I'm loving the leadership superpowers

conversation now. Definitely.

So obviously, I need to know what your

superpower is. I mean, I think I know what it is from what I've

seen from you over the years. But you know, how would you

describe your superpower?

Oh my, this is such a hard question because I'm

one of those people I find it really cringey having to talk

about myself.

So I was I was trying to think about how I would sum this up

and I'm not quite sure even as a communicator that I've got the

words right, but I definitely feel like my superpower is

around enabling people to be able to contribute and come into

a conversation, into a topic, helping to facilitate them

having a voice and facilitating getting an outcome. And doing

that, I think, diplomatically so for me, I feel like there's

something for me about facilitation and collaboration

and bringing people together to get hopefully a positive outcome

and reach a good solution on something.

Fabulous. With my coaching hat on I'd be saying

you've got great self awareness because that's totally how I

would be nailing what your superpower was as well.

I'll just make little note of that for myself.

And I'm sure we'll get on to asking for feedback from others

at some point in this conversation. Thank you very

much, Lee, much appreciated.

You're welcome. You're welcome. So a bit of a

philosophical question.

Woah, woah, whoah. What's your superpower?

You can't make me say mine and feel really awkward and cringey

about it and then not tell me what yours is.

Do you know I thought is she going to ask me

or not. But then I thought, oh, it's a bit egotistical if I go

hang on, let me just tell you what my superpower is, thank you

very much. So my superpower I think, interesting, you know,

I'd love to get your reflections on it, but my superpower I think

is around being able to get clarity from confusion so you

know, you know I love organising stuff. Love a Trello board, but

can also be I love helping people sift through sort of out,

filter their thoughts and their information and ideas, and all

these things that might conflict and try and streamline it into

something that's really simple and easy to understand and help

them to communicate it. So that strategy and planning type stuff

but taking that confusion and bringing it into something

really simple, I think is what I love to do.

You, love to do it but also you are excellent at

it. I nearly dropped a swear word and I was gonna say your

bloody excellent at it. Absolutely loving clarity to

confusion that yeah, you've nailed it.

Not clarity to confusion. That would be like my

anti superpwer.

See this is why I need a Lee in my life because

I need that superpower.

Yeah, I'm not gonna be paying you to do my

marketing anytime soon.

Confusion to clarity, get it right confusion

to clarity. I think you've nailed it and I think that you

have other superpowers but that's definitely one of your

total supercharge boost superpowers.

Right. Can I move on now?

Yes, please move on quickly.

So my philosophical question. I don't

actually know if it's a philosophical question. I might

have to ask my husband this. But is a superpower something you

either have or you don't have? Or is it something that you

develop your powers in over time? Are we like saying for it

to be a real superpower then it's got to be really innate in

you.

So my personal view on this because it was a

bit of a nature versus nurture type scenario, I think. I think

there are things that you are naturally brilliant at, that

you're very gifted in and that are innate, and I think they are

definitely 100% your superpowers. Now I don't think

that's to say that you can't nurture those even further with

practice and learning. And it doesn't mean that you can't

learn over time, I don't think, to get better at those things

that you're innately good at. But for me, I do think if it's a

genuine superpower, it's something that just feels like

it comes very naturally to you. You might not even know that you

do it really well. But that it's there and you do it. Obviously

as a leader or as a human being, there are other skills and

things that we can learn to help complement those superpowers but

for me, it feels like it's definitely very much more of a

nature thing. I don't know about you Lee, you've got a look on

your face that says you might disagree, which might be the

first time ever in Take The Lead.

I don't disagree, per se but I do think that there

is probably a bit more of nurture, in my view point than

than perhaps you. I kind of think your superpower is a bit

like your muscles and you need to exercise them a bit. You

know, I've got a six pack somewhere hiding under this top,

but I need to work out to kind of really get it popping,

workout a lot to get a popping.

No, was that my key to go no you don't Lee, you

look fabulous?

So I think you know, yes people are going to be naturally

skilled in certain areas, but I do think that there are

nurtured side comes in a bit.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you actually Lee. I think that's

about people not, like it hasn't been identified. They haven't

identified for themselves yet what their superpower is and

that they maybe need somebody to say you are really good at this,

like you should do this more or you should practice it more or

understand a bit more about kind of the impacts that you have

when you operate in this way. So yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't

disagree with that point. And I think sometimes it takes another

person to maybe say to you, you know, you're in this situation,

you're really good at doing this. I think that's a brilliant

thing that you can do, which might actually for you just be

part of how you operate on a day to day basis. You might not

perceive that as a superpower but other people might, so I

definitely think there is something about identifying what

they are and how you can get better at them and how you can

utilise them more in your leadership journey, I guess.

So there's definitely something for me

about when I look at leaders that I've worked with, who have

perhaps had a limiting self belief or negative self talk

about they just can't do something so I don't like

presenting. I'm not great at presenting. Then you work with

them. You develop them, they'd get more practised at it. They

realise it's not as scary as they thought. They start getting

good feedback. It boosts their confidence. And then suddenly,

they're in lecture theatres, giving presentations and they're

not even thinking about it and then really connecting with

people, so I do think there is a journey that is is not

necessarily always just feedback. Some of it's your own

self internal work you have to do as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's

part of what we're about when we talk through how to take the

lead isn't it, about how you go on that journey and how you

identify some of these areas that you might need to work on.

So I don't necessarily think that you are born with your

superhero cape on day one, like you know what it is and you're

going to be brilliant at it. But I think over time you start to

identify those things that you are really good at and that you

want to spend more time practising getting better at,

enacting in your daily life, in your leadership life. I also

think there's something for me around you know, we've talked,

I've talked about identifying what yours are in terms of

superpowers, but I think there's also something about knowing

where maybe you don't have those superpowers, and that's okay,

too. And actually, as a leader, I think don't be afraid to build

your team around bringing in other superpowers that you don't

have. I think that's absolutely okay to do that. And it's a

really important part of being a leader and kind of knowing

actually what you're maybe not so good at and that you need to

bring some of that into your team to help you lead

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find out more or subscribe to our newsletter, you can visit

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You know I love Google so I googled leadership superpowers

and a whole load of articles popped up and they were talking

about the secret or hidden skills that leaders have. And

what surprised me, and it's something that we talk about all

the time, things like empathy, listening communication, these

so called soft skills, and I say in bunny ears because I hate

that word. But these are the same things that people either

belittle or don't think it was important when they're

recruiting people or developing people. And I just thought it

was really interesting that actually, for many they're seen

as superpowers yet in their day to day working people don't

appreciate them.

Yeah, well,we've talked about this in

many other episodes of how to take the lead when we were doing

our lives. I know and I think there is something about in this

day and age needing to just think differently about what

we're recruiting for from a leadership perspective. And I

think you know, it isn't necessarily always about being a

technical expert in a field. It's actually much broader than

that in terms of kind of what you're bringing to the table as

a leader and we talk a lot back it being about connection,

building relationships, and actually you need to have all of

those superpowers and some of that well, some of them might be

your superpowers, some might just be powers because maybe

like you say, you do have to nurture them a bit more

understand how you can kind of enact these powers bit more, but

definitely for me, I mean it, aggravates me when people call

them soft skills. I think they're actually just skills you

should expect every leader to have but being able to be

empathetic, for example, is really important. But I guess it

goes back to that nature versus nurture point because some

people are naturally more empathetic than other people. So

it's kind of how do you test some of these things when you're

looking at building your leadership team?

Yeah, yeah. And test do they have it versus

could they get it, which is really interesting, which I'm

sure is a whole other topic that we cover in another episode. If

you're, you know, someone's listening to this now, and

questioning what their superpowers are, a bit like, you

know, the guy in The Rookie at the beginning of the show, how

do you even go about starting to identify what your superpowers

are?

So I think for me in terms of that sort of how

to question, take some time to work out what your superpowers

might be. Think about what you're good at what you feel

you're good at where you feel most confident that you're

having an impact, you know, in the workplace as a leader, and

don't be afraid to ask other people for some feedback around

it. Like ask other people because they might recognise

things in you, as we've said previously, that you might not

highlight yourself as a superpower and you might not

realise how important that is for your team, for your

organisation for you to be kind of acting in that way. So that

would definitely be one of my tips. And I think on the point

of impact, as well. Understand, you know, once you've got a

sense of what you're bringing to the table as a leader, what you

perceive and others perceive to be your superpowers, and you

might have more than one which would be brillian, I also think

it's really important to reflect on where they can have the

biggest positive impact so that you are a bit more considerate

about where you might be using those superpowers and putting

them into action because you want them to have a positive

impact. So are you really clear where you can have that impact

in your organisation or team?

I completely agree about the sense checking with

other people. And when I was doing, setting up the business

or thinking about what I wanted to do next, I actually drew out

a Venn diagram of what people told me, if this sorry, this is

the super organiser filter and sorter coming out. I drew out

what people told me I was great at what I thought I was good at

and then what I loved doing because I do think there's a

difference between what you enjoy and what you excel at.

I've been told that I've been really good at stuff that I've

absolutely hated and found really unfulfilling. So it was

important for me that I had those three dynamics. And then

from that, I was able to identify the two or three things

that were cropping up, you know, in common across the three

areas. And they made me feel really excited and thought

actually, I can make a business just out of focusing on that. So

I thought that was a really helpful exercise. People can't

see me but I am doing a Venn diagram with my hands.

Excellent. I would just say sorry, I'm just

going pick up on a little point I noticed there Lee, when you

said it was what other people thought you were great at but

what you thought you were good at. Come on, big yourself up a

bit more. This is aboutour superpowers. It's got to be what

you think you're great at as well.

If I knew anything about superhero films, I'd

probably throw in some analogy here about Spider Man losing his

powers or something but I don't so I'm just gonna say

and Superman. There's something with that as

well, but I don't know enough about it.

Is it possible to lose your superpowers?

I think, I don't think maybe ever

completely lose them. But I think there is something around

how motivated you are to use them. So I think motivation can

play a big part in how much you choose to use your superpowers,

or not. And I think a lack of motivation means that you might

find it much harder to tap into your natural superpowers or

complete lack of motivation might mean that you're like, no

I've disengaged with this, it's not for me. So for me, I think

there is a bit of a connection between motivation and your

leadership superpowers.

Yeah, I always say certainly with people I work

with that any strength that you have if you overplay it can

become a weakness and I do think that would be the same for your

superpowers. So you know, a great leader is someone who is

really adaptable, who works on their skills and recognises when

they need to take a different approach and it's really

important that you don't become complacent and overplay that one

trick thing that's yours.

You don't want to be the one trick pony.

No I know that I love finding ordering things,

for example, but I also know of myself that if I do that too

much, I can become really indecisive. I can feel quite

overwhelmed with too much information. So my strength

becomes my greatest weakness, but it's something I'm aware of.

It's something I work on and I say the same to leaders that I

work with, you know, how can you make sure for example, your

attention to detail doesn't become micromanaging other

people. So it's a really fine balance sometimes.

And I think really important to have that

awareness of what you've just said and kind of test it out a

little bit. Like, if you're going spend the time considering

and thinking about what your superpowers might be spend the

same amount of time thinking about, as we send about that

impact, like if I do this too much, what's the impact going to

be? What's the potential negative impact? So yeah, I

think that's a really good, I think that's actually a really

good tip. And something I'm thinking that I might need to do

for myself

It's something that we don't do because we all

like to be in our comfort zones as well. So it can be so easy

for us to just fall into the thing that we like to do, but it

can put you into a quite destructive cycle if you are

someone that just completely goes OTT with it.

I also think one of the other things around

superpowers is sometimes once other people know what yours

are, they want to utilise them a lot and sometimes that can feel

quite constricting in the workplace. So like if your

organisation, your leadership team, whomever, know that you're

really good at something you sort of become the go to person

for that thing all of the time and sometimes you can feel like

actually I want to stretch myself outside of this and we

need some other people to be able to help lead some of this

and be good at it as well. Otherwise, I think that can feel

like quite a difficult scenario to be in.

So what would your advice be if someone is in that

situation where they're going, you know, oh, hang on a minute,

this is the fifth time this month I've been told to do this

project of this type for example. Why can't someone else

pick up the slack?

I think you have to be able to have that

conversation. And you know, there are lots of ways around

that conversation. Some of it might be about actually I don't

feel like I'm getting any learning opportunities because

you're always expecting me to lead the same thing. And

actually I need that opportunity to grow that might be one part

of the conversation you need to have. Some of it might be about

your capacity as in you know, often what can happen is you get

given extra things because they are of that type because people

know your superpower is going to make it happen. And I think

sometimes you have to have that conversation about I don't have

the capacity to take that on because I've got all of this

other workload that I need to be responsible for. So I think

there's different ways around having the conversation

depending on the impact that it's having. But I think

definitely you have to have that open conversation otherwise you

might become a bit resentful that you you know you're not

getting those other opportunities to use your

superpowers in different ways.

Yeah, and I think that's a really good point for

leaders in general to be aware of when they're looking at

perhaps their teams and how they're dividing tasks or giving

opportunities to people you know, if you think about a chief

executive, who might be looking at their executive team going

right, well, I know so and so's really great at doing the staff

facing stuff so I'm going to just keep pushing it to them all

the time. But then they're actually causing an issue where

you've not got great visibility by the you ever executive

members, internally, for example. So as a leader, it's

not necessarily just about you looking at your own skills, but

looking at the broader skill sets of your team and their

superpowers and not letting them be overused as well.

We are building the superhero team. I love it.

To wrap up, every episode we're going to bring you

the how to, so this is the bit you can skip right to the end of

the episode for if you just want the headlines of what we've been

talking about or some really practical takeaways. Although of

course, we do hope that you stay and listen to the whole thing.

So in today's how to we're going to focus on how to harness your

superpower, obviously. Carrie-Ann, what would be your

kind of key tips or takeaways?

My key tips would be take the time to work

out what it is if you don't already know. And if you're

anything like me, you probably find it quite cringey thinking

about io you might need to make that time to work that out. And

ask for feedback to help you with some of that because one of

your superpowers might be something you don't consider to

be one. And then my third kind of top tip or takeaway could be

to really take that time to understand where your

superpowers can have the biggest positive impact to make sure

Well, mine you've stolen two of them. So the whole

you're focusing them and your energy in the right place.

mapping what you love and what people say you're great at, I

think if you do that as an exercise, then you'll start to

realise where your superpowers lie. And then I would just end

with the remember if you overuse your superpower, it can become a

weakness.

That is honestly, yeah, I'm glad I

didn't steal yours because that was your top tip. But that is

the top tip of the episode. I think that's what I'm going

reflect on.

Excellent. Well, that's it. End of Episode One.

We've done it!

Look forward to seeing you, hearing you, talking

to you for Episode Two.

Well, I can see you but no one else can!