The Skills Nobody Teaches You (But Every Leader Needs) - S2 E4

Leadership isn’t just about leading when things are easy—it’s about showing up when they’re not. In this episode, we talk about learning to pivot, handling conflict, and working through challenges with your team (even when emotions are high). These are the skills that separate good leaders from great ones.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is Beyond Leadership Season 2.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

In this episode, we break limits, challenge norms, and take leadership to new heights. Get ready for bold ideas, inspiring voices, and a journey beyond the expected. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome listeners to the Beyond a Leadership Podcast, a podcast for leaders by leaders across the state of Washington. I'm Roy Al, one of the hosts, and I'm a senior at Chiwana High School in the town of Pasco.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

I'm Aubrey, one of your hosts, and I'm a junior at Spanaway Lake High School in Spanaway, Washington. I'm Izzy. I'm a junior at Shell and High School in the town of Shelton.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

And my name is Vincent K. Sheeley, a senior at Seahome High School in the sublime city of Bellingham, Washington. Now, before we get into it, make sure to follow us on social media on Instagram and TikTok at AWS Leaders on Instagram and TikTok. That is at AWS Leaders on Instagram and TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Today we wanted to talk to you about something that's not always talked about when it comes to leadership, and that's soft skills. You might ask, what are soft skills? And soft skills are skills that complement your main skill. They're not necessarily taught in school, but they round out your professionalism, conflict resolution, customer service, and a bunch of other things. So how can you learn these soft skills? Soft skills can be learned in student leadership, jobs, club activities. Wherever you're involved with other people, you're probably learning or developing a soft skill. One soft skill that's really important and I've had a lot of experience with, especially this year, is how to pivot. We've had a couple assemblies at Chiwana High School that didn't necessarily go as intended about all of them. And it became an issue for a lot of the leaders at my school to learn how to work around things not going exactly as expected. In leadership, not everything's gonna turn out the way you want it to be. And that's just, well, I mean, that's the reality of life. Can anyone speak on pivoting and working around things that don't go as intended?

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Yeah. So actually, on the topic of assemblies, at our very first assembly of the school year, it was a little chaotic. Some things didn't go as planned. We implemented skits into our assemblies of like cell phone policy, which is new around the state, bathroom policy, all those things. And sometimes someone would be late, or where'd this person go? Or the prop broke. Okay, we would invite like a group of students who like I think it was our theater who wanted to showcase something and then like something goes missing. So I'm not gonna name every single thing that went wrong because realistically that's probably too many things. It was our first assembly after all, but it was definitely something because you know you have an idea of how something should look in your head. And when it doesn't go that way, and there's hundreds of kids sitting in front of you waiting to hear what you have to say, it's a little nerve-wracking. But I'd say honestly, the way I dealt with that is we always had a plan B. Like for our skits, for example, we all were in our own little group doing it. We always had a background, like, or no, a plan B, a plan B. So we knew if this person, you know, can't make it or something happens, we know that this person knows their lines. So if something does happen, they can fill in. So we always made sure to have a plan B. And I feel like that saved us in the moments of like where we had seconds to think of a plan before, you know, the students are like, what the heck is going on? And that left a huge time gap. So I'd say definitely have a plan B.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yeah, what I would say definitely connects to what Izzy's saying to some extent, because uh pivoting and these soft skills, secondary skills, a lot of them are either like they're fundamentally about controlling your stress and how you talk to people. It's about how you approach a social environment and how you work with other people and pivoting and remaining calm and putting your anxiety and your cortisol spikes aside and doing the next best option. So, yeah, when things are going really poorly, like when like what Izzy was saying, you know, you just have to see what's the next best option and what can you do, what can you control, what can you not control, and go from there. And then that's a very essential aspect of leadership is just remaining calm and doing the best that you can.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

I agree with Vince. I feel like, especially with pivoting, it's always great to have like one person who truly is just a calming presence and just knows, like, is quick on their feet and what to do in case anything goes wrong. So I feel like even just making sure you have that one person who you know you can go to and be like, hey, this isn't working out, what else can we do? And you know they're not gonna like freak out or anything, and they're just gonna be there and be willing to help you out.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

From my experience with pivoting and and like I said, the assemblies at Chiwana High School not going well. Our first assembly of the year was actually really great when we came back from the summer break, introduced the the freshmen to what they were going to be a part of, and really got what we wanted to call the culturally or the cultural revival of Chi Wana High School going. It turned out really well, but then we got too comfortable, we got too focused on what we really wanted to do, and we were we became unable to overplan, really. That was the issue. We kept running into time restraints and not having enough to fill in the time that we had for the assemblies. With pivoting, it doesn't just have to pertain to assemblies, it can be certain events that you're trying to throw within your school that just don't exactly go as planned. And sometimes this can turn out creating conflict within the leadership team because some people start to believe that you're just not capable of planning or it can create conflict and it can start to change how people view you as a leader. So, how do you manage conflict? How do you resolve it? That's another soft skill that we wanted to talk about today. And in my experience, conflict resolution is something so valuable when it comes to leadership because at the end of the day, we everyone has their own opinions and feelings, especially uh in high school, and that and they're gonna be open about it. So, how do you deal with that? And a lot of what Chi Wana has done with conflict resolution, we've we've talked about it a lot, and it's more so just the the key piece with conflict resolution is to be open-minded and to be just prepared for the different personalities that you're going to come across as a leader. You have to interact with everyone. It is, it is the main goal and objective of what we do is to interact and to be engaged with the communities we're leading. I'm sure you guys have had some experiences with conflict resolution. Does anyone talk about that?

SPEAKER_02 6:25

I feel it's important that when you're going into contact conflict resolution, that you just go in with an open mind and you're able to understand that you don't know the other person's point of view, you don't know their perspective on things. I've actually been like going a lot into perspective and like just how that can really affect it. So you don't know their perspective on things. So it's just important to remember that like what you think might have happened, they might not think it's the same thing that happened. So it's important to just go in with an open mind and not be too angry at anyone and just remember that like everyone makes mistakes and it's okay. But resolving them is just like it's part of being a human, and you have to just be open and willing to resolve the mistakes or conflict that happened.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, I completely agree with what Aubrey was saying, and it's the same in my experience. I'd say it's also once again, it's crucial to know what you can change and what you can't change, but it's always important to stay calm and never let your emotions influence what you're doing or conflict at all. And if you are the bigger person, then things will almost always work out in your favor. And yeah, like like you were saying, Royale, there's a bunch of different kinds of people out there that you'll have to work with and interact with, and you just have to learn to adapt, you know, because yeah, some people will start conflict for no reason, and you know, sometimes it's in good faith, sometimes it's in bad faith, but you just have to adapt and try to put yourself in their shoes and uh empathize with whoever you're in conflict with, and then you know, if if people are acting as adults, then it's pretty easy to resolve the conflict in my experience.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Yeah, I'm going off of what they're both saying, obviously, a little bit, but like Vince was saying, adapting, I feel like that's really huge because also kind of what Aubrey was saying. Sorry, you have to put yourself in their perspective. Like for me, we had something with one of our ASP officers. I'm obviously not gonna go into it, but I will say that it was something that frustrated me because it wasn't something that I had envisioned for my ASB team and whatever it was that was going on, I didn't it was kind of an inconvenience, but the person had just a lot going on in their personal life and it was a lot of things that I couldn't see. So although at first when I had figured out, you know, what the problem was and all that, I was angry. Honestly, I was I was angry because I was like, why are you doing this? And you know, all that. But I had to put myself in her perspective and really see that there's things that I don't know that's going on, and I don't know, you know, when she leaves school what's going on for her and all the things she's doing. I don't know her on that level. Like, I may talk to her every day, it doesn't mean I know exactly what she's going through. So you have to really put yourself in their shoes and you have to be able to come back from that and be like, I know this is going on, but there's nothing like I can't change it. So what can I do to like how can I fix this or how can I come up with a solution where my ASB team is still gonna be good and you know, we're not gonna have like a huge negative now. Like, how can I bring this back to a positive, basically? So you just really have to be able to not only like come up with a solution, but also understand because you don't want to hold that grudge either. So just be really understanding is what I'd say.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, I agree with what all you guys said, and I really appreciate the additions you guys added. Specifically, Izzy when when when talking about, you know, not understanding a person's situation and not being able to like really feel how they feel is is definitely something that can bridge gaps between people. But what happens when you know the person? Like when you're friends with someone and you two are both involved in leadership, man, conflict arises through that. Because I mean, friendships, yeah, can maintain or can can form stronger bonds. It is a stronger bond than than just someone you've just met, right? But with friendships, conflict can always arise. And I've I've made a lot of friends through leadership in the past four years, and something that that I've noticed is being friends with people in leadership and then having something happen where it it kind of divides you is definitely a lot harder to manage than just a simple argument between a friend group, right? Because like uh in my experience, it's almost become like a personal competition on who can be a better leader. I don't know if that's ever happened to any of you guys, but I've watched uh especially like this year with the assemblies and and the the difficulty pivoting, it kind of pitted people against each other because one person who was friends with another person believed that they knew how to do something uh a lot better and uh without the the assistance of the rest of the our ASB team or even their own friends. And how do you resolve that? How do you keep friendships like maintained even while you are leading together or heavily involved in your communities or spaces in school? What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_03 11:30

I will say, so this is kind of the same thing I was just talking about a little bit. It's the same situation that I'm referencing. But the versus that I had the problem with or ASB had the problem with. She was actually a very good friend of mine. Obviously, I'm, you know, still not gonna go into all of it, but we were very close outside of it. So, you know, me being frustrated and angry was a little bit harder than maybe someone I wasn't as close with because I knew her so well. And I still do. But I think again, you just have to be so understanding because that person, obviously, most of the time, at least in every situation I've been, they don't want these things to happen, you know. Whatever the the situation is that happened, the problem happened. They usually aren't like they don't mean for it. Like they're not how do I word this? It's not intended. So if a problem happens, they usually they're not trying to create a problem. It's just something that can happen, whether it's something they forgot, something they accidentally did, something that happened and it's reflecting off of them. You just have to understand that and you have to take the person kind of out of the situation. Like, for instance, we work together, but we're also friends. So how I perceive you and our like when we're working or being like more professional, we may have a problem there, but that doesn't that shouldn't take away from how we are outside of school. So I still had to really like understand and be like, I know certain things happen, I may be angry, but she's my friend first because we were friends before we were in um ASB or you know, whatever it may be. So you just really I guess be kind is kind of an easier way to say it. Like not only understanding, but be kind because again, you don't know everything someone's going through. So just be kind and be intentful. Intent, I think that's a word with what you say and what you do and how you act around them, and know that they probably didn't mean for things to happen. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

I agree. I I very much agree. Like I was saying, you gotta, you know, make the distinction of whether things are in good faith or bad faith. But you know, you can usually assume that people are in good faith when they cause a conflict, and you know, people do disagree. But if it is like a personal issue, like Royale was saying, you get into these personal disputes, you try to one up each other, or you know, you start being angry and rude towards each other. And sometimes you have to just know when to quit. And everybody's gonna have professional relationships in their lives with people who they don't like and they don't like their character. Off of the podcast, I was just talking about my old boss who I didn't like, and you know what? You still gotta just pull through and be professional sometimes, and you know, and there's people in my leadership class who I am not fond of. I don't, you know, and I think that the feeling is mutual, but we still are able to talk to each other because that's what life is. You have to do things that you don't like, and you gotta do it anyway. And sometimes that's communicating and working with people who you don't like, and sometimes you gotta just work over a conflict and you can't let it, you just can't let it hold you back, whether that's as a you know, as a group or yourself. You just can't let things get into your head sometimes. Same thing. That's moral of the story from what I've said this whole episode. You gotta just do things regardless, you gotta keep going, never give up. I'm getting super inspirational. But yeah, that's that's basically what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Thank you, thank you, Vince, and shout out to your old boss. That I don't did you say you didn't like him, but I don't know, but he's not he's not getting the shout out.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

I'm shutting that down.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

I don't think I can top that, but much sympathy towards Vince's boss because I know Vince is a lot sometimes. But I feel like wait, actually, guys, Loki, Vince got really off topic. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Whatever you say, whatever you say.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

With your friends? Then why'd you bring up your boss?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

That wasn't off topic at all. It's about conflict resolution with your friends. Because it's conflict resolution, and what I was saying was sometimes you gotta just stay professional, and even you can't be friends with everybody, and you know, sometimes it's not about being actually friends, sometimes it's about being professional regardless. That's what I was saying, and that is completely on topic.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Sorry, guys, I got really like I got confused there for a second.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

So that's completely that's completely on topic in what he was talking about, just for the record.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Conflict resolution IRL.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, but that's not okay. I feel like with resolving that conflict right now.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

I feel like with conflicts and especially if it's with your friend, like and you're close with them, you want to resolve it. Sometimes maybe you can't resolve it in a way that you would like, where just like you're right, so you're you're the right answer. Sometimes you need to meet in the middle and compromise. Compromising can be really difficult and it can be really hard because sometimes you don't want to give up, like you just want to be right. But I feel like it's also very important to remember that if you want to stay friends sometimes, you just gotta meet in the middle. You can't always like get out of an argument, but you want to get out of it, and I feel like that's okay. So when you compromise with your friends, I feel like even just like meeting in the middle or being open, like you really just need to have an open mind about everything. I feel like just have an open mind, be positive, go into it with a positive mindset, being like, okay, maybe I'm not gonna get exactly what I want of this out of what I want of this, but it's also just like it's okay because I'll still have my friend at the end of the day. So I feel like it's just important to know when you need to compromise and know when to just like give up a little bit and just leave it aside what you need to leave aside.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

So that was just a little bit about certain soft skills that pertain to leadership. Obviously, there's a lot more that we could talk about, but we're gonna end it there. We hope you enjoyed this episode and uh gonna leave it to Vince.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yes. So if you want to keep up with us and learn more soft skills, you hear them a lot amongst us. And make sure to keep up with us on social media. You can follow us on TikTok or Instagram at AWS Leaders. That is AWS Leaders on TikTok or Instagram. And that's a wrap on today's journey beyond leadership. If you're ready to keep pushing boundaries, be sure to join us next time. Until then, lead boldly, live fully, and always go beyond.