230: Why Leadership Is the Key to Growing Beyond You

Welcome to the She Thinks Big! Podcast. Get ready to level up your thinking and expand your horizons. I’m your host, Andrea Liebross, your guide on this journey of big ideas and bold moves. I am the best-selling author of She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary.

I support women like you with the insights and mindset you need to think bigger and the strategies and systems you need to turn that thinking into action and make it all a reality. Are you ready to stop thinking small and start thinking big? Let’s dive in.

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the She Thinks Big Podcast. Are you ready for the third episode in the mini-series we are doing on the roles in your business, the roles that you need to play, the roles that others need to play?

So I am recording this episode and the next one all in one day today. And this might be—I'm going to say—this might be the last time, if you watch these episodes on YouTube, that you see this little podcast recording studio in its current format or with its current decor, because it's getting a makeover.

When I first built this little podcast room, which is underneath the stairs in the lower level of my house, I did it because I needed to record my audiobook and I needed to have amazing sound quality. I did it rather quickly and didn’t think about lighting, because for an audiobook, who cares about lighting? But for recording podcast episodes, lighting is important. So we are improving lighting, we are improving backgrounds, so there may only be two or three more episodes you hear or watch with this background. I know. It’s very sad. Very sad.

But today, all right, here’s what we’re doing. So far, we have talked about the doer, the implementer, and the manager that you need in your business. But now we’re stepping into what I think is one of the most misunderstood roles in the business for several reasons, which we’ll get into. We're going to talk about the leader, okay?

This is where things really start to shift. It’s where a lot of entrepreneurial women start to feel the weight of what they’ve built, but also start to realize just how powerful their influence can be. So if you’re aiming to step fully into your CEO identity, you need to lead, not just keep the wheels turning, but actually shape the direction and culture of your business. That’s really what this role unlocks.

Let me tell you why this episode, or this topic, matters. I had a client—we’re going to call her Tasha—who had all the right pieces: a VA, a marketing coordinator, a project manager. Her operations looked solid on paper, but her team was constantly second-guessing themselves, waiting on approval, playing it safe rather than taking initiative. And she couldn’t figure out why she was still the bottleneck.

Here’s what we uncovered. She was delegating tasks, but she wasn’t leading. She never articulated her values. She never defined what "good" looked like. She never defined what "done" looked like. She never celebrated the wins or addressed what I’ll call the misses. She was giving directions without giving direction.

So let’s talk a little bit about what leadership really means and how you can step fully into the leader role without becoming a micromanager—or even a martyr—or feel privileged, okay? That’s another thing I hear sometimes from my clients: "Shouldn’t my team see me working hard? Do I deserve to be the leader?"

But here’s the thing. A leader really sets the tone and the direction and the culture. She doesn’t just ask, "What are we doing?" She asks, "Why are we doing it this way? What do we stand for while we do it?" Leadership is really more about influence. It’s about setting expectations. It’s about modeling values. It’s about making the hard calls even when they’re kind of unpopular.

The leader shows up as the standard setter, the culture creator, the decision maker, the vision translator, and the accountability holder. I’m not talking about this in a micromanagey kind of way, all right? Because a leader’s judgment should sound like this: "Does this align with our mission?" "What decision will serve the business long term?" "How do we embody our values in this situation?" "What energy am I bringing to the team today?" "Where do I need to be clear even when it’s uncomfortable?"

Remember, you may be building a business where you are the star. You are the face. You are the draw. But I see you struggling to grow beyond yourself because everything depended on your charisma and your expertise. And when you step into leadership, you get to define what makes your approach special, what makes the way you do it special.

I want you to start documenting your methodology, and then you can train your team on the values and the standards. Suddenly, when you do that, your business isn’t just you, it’s a whole philosophy and an approach that others can deliver honestly with excellence. That’s leadership. It’s creating something bigger than yourself.

But here’s where it goes wrong. Sometimes I think we’re leading, and I can be guilty of this, okay? I’m going to be super honest. I can totally be guilty of this. Sometimes we think we’re leading, but we’re really doing two things. We’re still managing because it’s familiar and gives us the illusion of control, or we’re hiding behind teamwork instead of making tough decisions, like maybe someone’s not pulling their weight, because we want to be liked.

Leadership really requires courage and clarity, and yeah, sometimes confrontation. It means being willing to say, "This isn’t working anymore. Let’s shift." Or, "This is where we’re headed, even if it feels uncomfortable right now." Or even saying, "That’s not meeting our standard. Let’s try again."

Let’s take Megan. Megan really prided herself on being a collaborative leader who never pulled rank, who never thought she was better than anyone else, or a leader, more of a CEO or leadership-type role. But what her team actually experienced was confusion. When faced with really tough choices, Megan would say, "Well, what do you all think?" when her team really wanted direction. But she was too afraid of being seen as controlling to provide the direction. She didn’t want to be controlling. So true leadership isn’t domination, it’s clarity.

Sometimes clarity means making decisions that not everyone will love, but that everyone will respect. Culture really comes from the top. If your team is confused or chaotic or constantly coming to you for validation, look at the culture. Culture isn't ping pong tables and Slack emojis. It's how decisions get made, how people handle mistakes, how safe your team feels to own their roles.

You, as the leader, set that tone. Even silently. You model what's okay and what's not. And if you respond to emails at midnight, you're creating a culture of always being on. If you never acknowledge mistakes, you're creating a culture of perfectionism. And if you celebrate quick fixes over long-term sustainable solutions, then you're creating a culture of band-aids.

Here's the kicker. If you're not clearly in the leader role, someone else will unconsciously fill it. Or worse, no one will. That leads to friction. Not freedom, right? And we're big about finding freedom.

So I want you to ask yourself, what culture are you creating through your actions, not just your words? Hmm, that's a pretty good question, isn't it? Pretty good question.

So I want you to ask yourself, am I defaulting to managing because I don't trust my team? Or do I have clear values that guide our decisions? Or am I making it up as I go? Am I making space to think strategically? Am I reinforcing our values with consistency? Am I hiding behind busy work to really avoid the higher, harder parts of leadership?

One of my clients realized that she was spending 70% of her time in her manager role, and only 10% in her leader role. No wonder her business felt stuck. And we created dedicated leadership blocks in her calendar, times specifically for vision and culture and strategic decisions.

Within three months, her team was more autonomous. Her culture was more defined. And she finally felt like the CEO she’d always wanted to be. So if you're still a decision-making machine for every corner of your business, it might be time to release control and really empower your team to lead in their own right. Because when the leader is solid, you're finally able to rise into your visionary role where the real CEO work begins.

Okay, so here's your homework. Here's where you shift from passive listener to massive action taker. Take out your notebook. 15 minutes, set your timer for 15 minutes. Ask yourself, what kind of leader do I want to be remembered as? What three words would I want my team to use in describing my leadership?

And I want you to look at a recent decision you made. "Were you acting as a doer or as a manager or as a leader?" What would have changed if you had approached it from a different role?

Third question. I want you to identify one value that you want to reinforce this week and one way to show it, not just say it. And if you are someone that's worked with me and we've done core values, you can pull that list out. Might be a good place to start.

Next, fourth piece of homework. Create a leadership block in your calendar. Not a “get shit done” block, but a leadership block. Even 30 minutes dedicated solely to thinking about direction and culture and strategy.

And then have one conversation with your team about expectations or standards that you've been avoiding. You can't lead from the top if you're too busy managing the middle. And leadership is what allows your CEO vision to be seen and heard and felt across your entire team.

So if you want support in stepping into this role with more clarity and confidence, this is what we do inside coaching. We define your leadership style. We align it with your goals. And we build systems and structure to support it.

This is especially what we do in our mastermind, and we start to do this inside I've Really Got This. So I've got two coaching containers where we do some of this work, along with tons of other work.

Do you want support in stepping into the role so that you feel more clear and you are more confident? This is hard to do alone, my friends. Direct message me on Instagram or set up a call via andreaslinks.com. Let's talk about how and what support would look like. Because I know from my own experience, it's hard doing this alone.

All right, next up, last episode in this series, we are going to talk about going full visionary. This is the top of the mountain. This is the dreamer. This is the disruptor. This is the big thinker.

I will meet you next week in our next episode in this mini-series. As always, keep thinking big. Because when you do, big things happen. See you next time.

Thanks for tuning into the She Thinks Big! Podcast. If you're ready to learn the secret to unleashing your full potential, don't forget to grab a copy of my book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary. It's available on Amazon and at your favorite bookstore.

And while you're there, grab a copy for a friend. Inside, you'll both find actionable strategies and empowering insights to help you navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and life, and step confidently into your extraordinary future.

If you found value in today's episode, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you're ready to take this learning a step further and apply it to your own business and life, head to andreaslinks.com and click the button to schedule a discovery call. Until next time, keep thinking big.