Why Leadership Development is Profit Development—with Jennifer Jensen

Jennifer Jensen: 00:00:00

What I'm finding is that organizations that actually invest in their middle managers and their teams, spending like $15,000 a year on those individuals. Your ROI is insane. We're talking over 1,000% return on investment. But I am the world's biggest super fan.

Freddy D: 00:00:22

You're like a super fan. Welcome to the Business Superfans Podcast.

We will discuss how establishing business Superfans from customers, employees and business partners can elevate your success exponentially. Learn why these advocates are a key factor to achieving excellence in the world of commerce.

This is the Business Superfans Podcast with your host, Freddie D. Freddie Fred.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:00:53

Foreign.

Freddy D: 00:00:59

Hey super fans. Superstar Freddie D. Here. Welcome to episode 148 of Business Superfans, the Service Providers Edge podcast.

In this episode we're joined by Jennifer Jensen, the leadership advisor and author who helps service based businesses solve one of their most pressing challenges, developing leaders who inspire rather than micromanage.

Too many talented professionals get promoted into leadership roles without training, only to stumble under the weight of ego, fear or self doubt, often creating toxic environments to drive away top talent.

Jennifer knows the struggle firsthand from her early career as a Project manager where she led teams with full accountability but no formal authority.

That experience shaped her adaptation and collaborative approach which she now brings to clients through her book Developing Authentic Leaders, Impressive Leadership Programs, and powerful tools like Lumina Spark and Leadership360.

If you ever wrestled with micromanagement, struggled to build trust in your team, or felt a sting of high turnover, Jennifer offers a refreshing, authentic path forward. One that transforms both leaders and the organizations they serve.

Freddy D: 00:02:22

Welcome Jennifer to the Business Superfans Podcast. Excited to have you here. We had a great conversation before we started recording. Let's continue that conversation. Welcome.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:02:32

Thank you very much for having me.

Freddy D: 00:02:34

Let's go back to the beginning here a little bit. Jennifer, how did you get started with what you're doing now?

You're working with leadership and helping people kind of get themselves out of the way and become better leaders. But you started someplace. So what's the backstory?

Jennifer Jensen: 00:02:48

I have been in progressive corporate career and have been in the corporate world for over 29 years. During that time I was a project manager for quite a bit of it in IT and in the business.

During that time I had all the accountability but no authority and had to quickly learn how to manage teams effectively and motivate them so that we could get the job done and be successful on the projects.

Through that I started mentoring other individuals and leaders and started advising leaders on how to be more effective which Then drove the book Developing Authentic Leaders and using that as a tool for coaching and mentoring as well.

Freddy D: 00:03:26

So what were some of the biggest challenges that you ran into when you were working with some of those leaders or wannabe leaders? Cause you were still really helping them become leaders.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:03:38

Some of the biggest challenges is micromanaging due to the fact that they weren't comfortable being in leadership and they were used to being the subject matter expert. It was based a lot on fear of why they were doing that.

And it was a comfort level as they became more comfortable in their leadership and understanding that they needed to start to be the architect across all business functions instead of just their role because they were expert at doing their role before and now they have to give that up to somebody else. That created a lot of dynamics and having to change mind shifts there because.

Freddy D: 00:04:15

You'Re used to being the expert in that area and now you get to hand that off to somebody. That one, that's a big pill to swallow because your ego gets in the way.

The other aspect is you're used to doing it a certain way and you're bringing somebody else to take over it. And they're not exactly doing it your way. They may take some of your stuff, but they're also putting in their flavor into it.

A lot of people have a hard time with that because of the fact that saying, well, that's not the way we do it. This is the way we do it. It's like, wait a minute, the end result is the same. Maybe in some cases it's actually even better. But people can't let go.

It creates a not energizing environment. It actually creates the opposite totally.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:04:58

I've been doing some research where 60% of new managers fail within their first 24 months, which is shocking.

Freddy D: 00:05:05

Sure.

Freddy D: 00:05:05

Because they don't know how to manage. I mean, you get promoted. There's Maslow's theory where you get promoted to a level of incompetence.

That's what happens a lot of times is, okay, so and so is a great rock star in sales or marketing or engineering. Now they're put in charge of people, but they don't get put through any training.

They don't get put through any management aspect or understanding how to empower people and cultures. It's like, okay, you just got promoted, you're in charge of the team. Sometimes I think it becomes an ego thing. I'm the boss now that comes across.

So you can probably share some of that stuff. Stuff. Because I'm sure you've run into that.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:05:44

Ego plays a huge part. That's where we need to become a lot more self aware, understand our teams and remove that ego.

Because when you surround yourself with individuals who know how to do their job and who are allowed to do their job, they will make you look amazing. But it's when you don't allow your team to do that, then it's all on you. And you have a higher turnover rate.

Freddy D: 00:06:07

Yeah. People wonder why people are leaving. And the environment in the office is toxic. For an accurate way of wording it.

People are going there because they need the money. But if an opportunity presents itself, they're gone. I've seen it, I've been through it. Especially when I was in the tech world.

Decades ago, I had one manager that was just a super guy. We were prepping for a presentation. It was about midnight. I've shared the story in other episodes. He came in unannounced.

We're at the office, four of us working, because the presentation is the next day. And when we were selling engineering and manufacturing technology, people want to see their parts on the computer screen.

They don't want to see a dog and pony show. They want to see the real thing, how it's going to affect them. He came in with pizzas and beers, sat down with us.

We had some pizza and some beer in the office. He says, all right, see you guys. Don't stay up too late. Of course he knew we were going to pull all nighters to make sure we're ready.

But then presentation was the next day and it was a Thursday. I remember clearly. He just says, all right, see you guys Monday. Get the heck out of here.

That was somebody that all of us really appreciated, his leadership. He would throw house parties. Everybody just loved working with this guy.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:07:18

That's how you do it, is the small things. It doesn't have to be the big things. But he trusted the team.

For me, when I was doing project management and we were going to go live, I would bring in food. Then I created go live survival kits for each individual so that they would have something to do while we were going live and didn't have a task.

In that moment, they could go and pull something out of their survival kit. And they loved it. They had never seen that before.

Freddy D: 00:07:43

What does it mean by survival kit? Let's explore that. What is that?

Jennifer Jensen: 00:07:47

When you're doing an application and putting it in, you're going to have some hiccups and bumps. I would have stress balls in there.

I would have chocolate and candy and targets so that they could Throw their stress ball at it if they were frustrated for a joke. I put Kleenex in there too because sometimes there might be tears and so we'd have to cry a little bit and move on if something failed.

But it was just an encouragement to help them to keep going.

Freddy D: 00:08:12

I like that. Never heard of that before, but that's kind of pretty clever because it's a distractor in a sense.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:08:18

It's known that if individual can take step away from the situation for a few minutes and play with their stress ball, then come back into the conversation, they probably are more focused and will give different ideas and perspectives because they've had time to step away from the situation.

Freddy D: 00:08:34

You bring up a good point there, Jennifer.

And that's the fact that you can get caught up in a moment and sometimes when you're in that moment, the wrong thing's gonna come out, it's gonna cause more problems than escalate things. And a lot of times cause you can be in heated conversation about something you need to break step shift.

It gives you a moment to shift, shift out of that situation and go, wait a minute, I need time out here. It's a pattern shift. What you're doing is you gave the ability with the different tools that you had to enable somebody to do a pattern shift.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:09:04

Definitely they don't realize that's what you've done.

Because even with planning schedules, I would have planning sessions and bring in toys that they could play with during that session because it was probably going to be a two to three hour session, but gave them a break and they could think about their tasks and then come back with other ideas.

Freddy D: 00:09:21

Let's go further.

Let's talk about some of the things that you've seen and some of the people that you've worked with and how you've really transformed them from where they were to where they're at today.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:09:32

I've been working with a team right now where they're dealing with a lot of micromanagement.

And that was a huge mind shift for them because of the fact that they were consultants working for a director in an organization that was the micromanager. They brought me in to help advise them and figure out different solutions.

At the end of the day, it was really telling to see where they started from because they were like, nope, we're all in, we're not leaving. We're going to do this till the very end. And when you're dealing with micromanagement, that isn't always the best way to deal with it.

Especially if you're not psychologically safe. Now they're coming out of it going, we're not psychologically safe in this environment. And recognizing that it's time to make changes.

It's unfortunate, but in this case, they've all had to walk away from that client because of the fact that it was a toxic environment and they couldn't get anything done. And that leader was going in and ChatGPT and all their documents to make sure that they didn't miss anything.

And she was talking to her partner outside of work and he was advising.

So the project manager couldn't really be a project manager, the organizational change manager couldn't be that, and the business analyst couldn't be a business analyst because they were under so much scrutiny. It was a very big life lesson on finding the right clients for the right team and how to deal with micromanagement.

And sometimes that's leaving the situation.

Freddy D: 00:10:56

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Freddy D: 00:12:20

Yeah, you have to fire clients. You remind me of a story. Last year I was introduced by a business coach that had worked with this particular individual.

I was stepping in as a fractional CRO guy to help them grow because they've been flatlined at about 3 million and they're in the commercial flooring space. Arizona last year when I looked it up, had $159 billion worth of commercial construction going on.

They didn't have a CRM, so I brought in a CRM I set it up. I actually manually entered a bunch of contacts and started importing some stuff. Long story short, he was a very much a family run business.

He founded it. His brother worked there, his brother's son worked there, his daughter worked there. He let go and he bring it all back in.

Then he was wanting to check everything and everybody had to go through his approval. And he wanted to let go and let other people do it. But he couldn't. It was in him because this is how he did it for 30 years.

The same thing as he would be screaming at subcontractors because they made a small mistake. It was like, wait a minute. 80% to your 100% is fabulous because you didn't do it. Basically you didn't spend 100% of your time doing it.

You spent none of your time doing it. They did 80%. 80%. I'll take 80% of what I can do that I didn't have to do all day long.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:13:38

Exactly. It's that 80, 20 rule. If you get 80% of the way with 20% of the effort, why are you going to spend 80% of your time trying to achieve 20%?

Freddy D: 00:13:47

Yep.

The fact that he wanted me to become a subcontractor to him so that I report to him, we had an agreement signed and everything else, I'm going like, wait a minute. That would be a really bad situation. I just said, you know what?

He was adamant about it because he slammed the door because of the fact that I would not sign the agreement. I was just like, okay, I'm out. That was it. We were done. Because it would have ended bad anyway.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:14:11

Yeah. We as individuals. This is what that team is learning too is looking for the red flags before.

If you start to see red flags before you need to start questioning it, then determine if you really want to be with this client or this individual working for that team. You gotta start following your instincts and your insights.

Freddy D: 00:14:28

Yeah. Because if you're looking over your shoulder and wondering what's going to happen? It's going to be a train wreck.

I saw with another company where they trained people verbally. There was no SOPs, there was nothing in place. They trained all these people verbally and then they went live.

And a week later they'd be making mistakes and they would get chastised. But not privately, publicly. So you know what happens when that happens? Let you explain what happens in that case.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:14:55

You're going to have a toxic environment, higher turnover rate. People are going to lose all desire to work for you. Morale is Going to crash. It's like totally detrimental to the organization.

You need to speak to individuals one on one and also analyze what your actions are, what is causing the issue, instead of chastising individuals because that is.

Freddy D: 00:15:17

Not effective at all, especially if it's done public. Because you're absolutely right on the money. It creates a toxic environment because basically everybody got chastised.

That person caught the blunt of it, but the whole company got chastised.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:15:30

Yeah. Now Morrell is shot.

Freddy D: 00:15:32

Let's talk a little bit more about.

Freddy D: 00:15:33

Your book and some of the things that you do with your leadership program.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:15:36

So my book is very different than what's out there for leadership books. I did it in bullet points and there's 52 topics and each topic has two to three pages.

The whole premise behind it is for the busy leader or the individual that doesn't have time to read or want to read that, they can quickly pick this up and just read a chapter if they want to. If they're dealing with a situation, it does key insights, guidance and reflection.

So you can improve and change how you are doing leadership as well. You can do it with your team accountability partner or use it as a mentoring tool as well.

Freddy D: 00:16:10

So it's kind of like a playbook.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:16:11

Yeah, totally.

Freddy D: 00:16:12

So I can go and look at. I need a play to take care of this situation. I can pick up the book. Okay, here's how I should handle this thing.

I can apply the things that's in a book to the situation right then and there.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:16:24

In a lot of the cases, communication.

But I also did it in the viewpoint of figuring out who you are as an individual and what characteristics are required to truly be authentic so that you can stay true to who you are as a leader. And you're not losing that because somebody has a mold of what a leader should look like.

Freddy D: 00:16:43

Talk a little bit more about that. Jennifer.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:16:45

You need to understand your priorities, what's important to you, what are your values. And understanding that is going to help define your leadership too, because you're going to hold true to that.

Once you understand it, then when you're working with your teams, you need to be very self aware of who you are to increase your emotional intelligence. When you're doing that, you need to understand why you respond to situations that you do and how you can change those effectively.

I bring a lot to my clients is that ability to understand who they are and when they're stressed out, what's happening and how can we change that behavior so that you can be more effective as a Leader. It also helps you to understand what drives your team and why they respond the way they do as well.

Freddy D: 00:17:27

Let's go a little further down that road is how do you work with somebody to help them figure all that stuff out?

Jennifer Jensen: 00:17:32

So I have assessment tools that I use. It's Lumina Spark that I use a lot. It's very effective because like Insight and Disc, those are great products too.

This one looks at your colors as well.

And then it looks at your eight characteristics, and then it breaks it down into 24 qualities that you have and looks at those when you're at home and most comfortable when you're in your everyday. What you present to the world and what you present at work. Then it looks at your overstressed. What happens when you're overstressed?

Then we go through a whole journey of how do we change those overstressed behaviors so that you can get the most out of yourself and out of your team?

Freddy D: 00:18:10

I remember in sales years ago, that was one of the things I had to do is the personality types. Disc and all that stuff didn't exist back then. But we had the four quadrants, which was driver, expressive, amiable, and analytical.

Then you divided those into four, and then you put those same personalities into those four. And then you figured out it was a driver far to the top right hand corner, or the opposite was an amiable.

You got a person that's completely in the far left, bottom corner, amiable with a guy that's far right.

Those two personalities do not get along because the driver personalities, I want it now the other one goes, well, I want to make sure I understand and make sure everybody's involved. So, yes, it's important to understand those colleagues as well as management.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:18:56

Yes, understanding helps you to be a lot more effective. And you would be shocked at how fast your team starts to work together when they understand that about each other as well.

Freddy D: 00:19:05

I think you bring up a good point, Jennifer.

And that's the fact that I don't think enough companies invest in that time to help their teams really understand their different individualism and how to leverage that individualism, that it becomes a cohesive team.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:19:21

Exactly.

Freddy D: 00:19:22

By understanding each other.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:19:23

It's huge.

What I'm finding is that organizations that actually invest in their middle managers and their teams spending like $15,000 a year on those individuals. Your ROI is insane. We're talking over 1,000% return on investment.

Because now they feel like you're paying attention to them and you're investing in them and they want to be a part of an organization that's willing to do that.

Freddy D: 00:19:50

One of the quotes of my book, and I've said this numerous times on this show, is people crawl through broken glass for appreciation and recognition. We don't give enough of it. It's one thing to say, okay, Jennifer, really appreciate the great work you did on this particular project. Nice job.

Another thing to say, hey, team, I want to take a moment to recognize Jennifer for really going above and beyond on this particular project. She killed it for us. You're going to feel like a rock star because you got recognized in front of your peers.

That's how you start creating super fans, for example. Now I have to recognize you in front of your peers. You feel like a rock star. The team says, man, this manager or this leader really appreciates us.

Everybody's going to step up their game.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:20:34

Totally. Wouldn't you rather have that because now it's going to increase your profitability.

Freddy D: 00:20:39

Sure. The things I talk about is that tonality of that energy of that organization comes across.

Freddy D: 00:20:46

You can't hide it.

Freddy D: 00:20:48

Prospective person's reaching out via phone call. If the person's not happy about their job, their tonality is going to be, I'm not happy about my job. Versus man, this is a great place.

Got energy, they got pop in their step. That's going to be something People can tell. They're going to go, oh, wow, something's happening at this place. Versus not sure about this place.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:21:09

It's just a common sense approach that so many people don't truly understand or take.

Freddy D: 00:21:14

Well, because a lot of times with that one company I said where they chastise people, their mindset was they should be grateful we're giving them a job. That was the mindset. We're giving you work. And it's like, wait a minute, no, you couldn't do this business if it wasn't this team.

It's too big now, like you mentioned earlier, saying, thank you, I appreciate your extra effort. Like you mentioned earlier too, you've had your bag, stress bag, kind of situation bag. I'll call it a situation bag.

That was a mechanism that just got. People could offload some stuff, but that was a little thing.

But to that end of the individual, which is one of my other things is the little things are really the big things. That was that situation bag because that was a little thing that you provided. But for that individual, when they needed it, it became a big thing.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:22:01

Totally. That was 15 years ago. I still hear about it. Jen's the PM that gave us that survival bag.

Freddy D: 00:22:08

There you go survival bag. Situation bag.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:22:10

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:22:11

Starts with an S. So we're close. I was close.

Share a story Jennifer, when you worked with the leader and how did that transform to where now their team is actually excited and happy to work with that leader.

Now that company has created super fans and the leader is a super fan of you because you've transformed their life and that business now is going like this versus flatlining.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:22:36

For one leader that I've been working with for over a year now and they are growing by leaps and bounds. They're a lot more confident in who they are.

What's interesting is watching the team grow as well and they're all becoming a lot more confident in their roles and how they want to progress in their careers. It's just awesome to see because it's exciting to see them have all these light bulb moments when you're talking to them and advising them.

They're like, that makes sense.

One of the fun things too is I have a tool that is an app on your phone so they can compare themselves to another individual for tips and tricks on how to be more effective and work more effectively with them and to understand them. Now they're gelling even more as a team because they can quickly go, oh, she's overextended, so what do I need to do?

Then they can quickly figure that out and work better as a team and understand it's fun to watch teams actually blossom and actually going into other departments.

And I know of one who's now being promoted to director level who are excited to spread this to the their new teams as well because they're finding that recognition from the organization that they're a lot more effective too.

Freddy D: 00:23:46

What was the things that they were doing beforehand, before you started working with them that was really kind of sabotaging the whole process.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:23:54

The big thing is they didn't understand each other. They didn't understand the strengths, the weaknesses and how to work effectively with each other. It was every man for themselves, basically.

Instead of working as a team and going, hey, you're really strong in this area, so maybe you could help me with this because you can see the big picture where I tend to go into the weeds. This way they could pull each other out of the weeds or push them into the weeds a bit more so that they could be much more effective.

That understanding really changes the dynamics of the team, but it has to be an openness and willingness from the leader that really supports it.

Freddy D: 00:24:29

Weaknesses of one another in a positive way. Nan says, let's leverage okay, Larry's got this capability, capability. Let's put Larry on this particular aspect.

Sally over here, she's really strong in this area. Let's put her in charge of that.

Now everybody was empowered to really leverage their skill sets in a positive way that creates a collaborative environment. Because now everybody's maximizing what they're good at and they'll be recognized as that day. That's their strength. That's her strength.

Let's make this thing fly.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:25:03

Definitely, even those that may not be strong in those areas, they can develop those and they have team members that can mentor and help them now develop that skill set.

And I think another big thing is setting up the mission and vision for the team so they knew what they were driving to and ensuring that it matched with the overall organization so that they felt like they were part of the bigger picture and they knew what they were going towards.

Freddy D: 00:25:28

I think that's important because if you don't have that mission and this is the goal, then you really are just kind of going in the wind. Wherever the wind's blowing you, that's the direction you're going to go in. Versus oh, we gotta tack back and get back in line.

My buddy used to be an airline pilot. He'd fly from Phoenix to Maui all the time.

He says the plane is constantly making corrections because of the wind, the situation and the weather and everything else. And he says if we didn't do that, we would never get to the destination.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:26:01

That's the same as one company I worked for where the cio, the Chief Information Officer, didn't have a mission and vision or values for the team. The foundation was constantly changing. We were constantly adapting and flip flopping and didn't know where we were going, which is problematic.

Freddy D: 00:26:20

Sure, I'll use the example. I've used this example many times because it's the best example that I can come up with and think of a racing rowboat team.

There's eight people in that boat. They have a single oar, there's not two oars. Everybody's got a single oar.

And you got someone that's basically beating the drum to kind of get them a tempo.

There's really nine people in the boat, but those eight people have to be in complete synchronization, AKA they have to know the mission and they've got to be working together as a team, in sync. Otherwise that boat's going no place.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:26:54

Exactly.

Freddy D: 00:26:55

Because if everybody's pulling the oar on their own way, it's not even going in a circle. What you're doing is you're helping those leaders align their team into a vision, into a direction.

It may not be pretty at the beginning because everybody's got to get in sync and everybody's going to be miss rowing. But eventually that machine starts to roll.

And once you get a business to where everybody is in sync, knows the goal, knows the mission, that boat flies just like that business you mentioned earlier. That business just explodes because everybody's on mission, everybody's energized.

It becomes a fun thing because you start hitting milestones and they share it with the team. Hey, we hit this threshold and so everybody's part of it.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:27:39

It's huge. But it's fun to watch and to help the team go through the messy bits all the way into finally the most beautiful part of it. And seeing it go.

Freddy D: 00:27:48

What's some of the biggest things that you found or seen that people self sabotage themselves in the leadership role?

Jennifer Jensen: 00:27:55

There's so many.

I've seen the politics play into it, the lack of trust of their teams, their ego where they need to be the center of attention and have to get to the top as quickly as they can and they'll get through anybody and everybody they possibly can, but they leave a mess behind them.

But for those invisible leaders or those individuals that truly want to be it, they can self sabotage themselves by saying, I'm not good enough, I'm not going to be effective. It's the whole imposter syndrome that comes into play.

I think it's also not thinking the big picture and having to be a lot more strategic and they're thinking just tactically.

Freddy D: 00:28:34

No, self confidence is probably another one that comes into there that I can think of. You self sabotage because I'm not worthy. You get that little movie playing in your head which is like you said, the imposter syndrome.

But I kind of call it that negative movie playing in your head that you don't deserve this.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:28:49

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:28:50

So what are some of the other things you've got in your book besides the playbook You've mentioned you do some speaking. Right. And then you mentioned your thing. What was that program again that you use?

Jennifer Jensen: 00:29:00

It's called Lumina. Spark is the assessment tool. I also do lumina Leadership and Leadership360 and then there's also emotion.

But you need to be pretty mature about that one to do it. It was a wake up call for me and it's very intense and insightful on who you are.

Freddy D: 00:29:16

Intriguing. So you're going back to your childhood?

Jennifer Jensen: 00:29:20

No, it's Understanding the emotional aspects. Because with the 24 qualities, they add 16 more. And it really helps you to understand why you respond. Are you modest or are you more egocentric?

Confident? And it just looks at different areas, like 16 qualities deeper.

And then it also looks at what are your fears and vulnerabilities and going to that level of understanding you and then figuring out what are your true values.

Freddy D: 00:29:49

So really kind of deep dive into yourself. You might be scared of what you find out about yourself.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:29:54

Yeah. But it's actually very good. It's very positive experience too. But it's also very much, okay, I know these areas I need to work on a little bit more.

Freddy D: 00:30:03

It could also be humbling.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:30:05

Oh, yeah, it is. There's no ego. You can't have an ego. When you're done with that one, I.

Freddy D: 00:30:09

Have to look into that. That sounds interesting because I've done a lot of different leadership programs. I've done the Dale Carnegie leadership.

Learned a lot about really empowering teams. That was the biggest thing I learned in Dale Carnegie's is you basically empower them.

My job as a leader was to basically, basically facilitate their success. It wasn't me barking orders.

I would write and have them write up their own job descriptions, their own goals, their own measurement tools, and then I just kept them accountable to it. But it was their plan. You wrote your job description. Don't come to me. It's your job description. You own it.

But then my job was to help them achieve their success.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:30:48

Totally. And I had to do that with project management, because with project plans, I never dictated the plan to them.

I always allowed them to tell me the task and how long it would take to do it, which helps me hold them accountable at that point because I didn't dictate it to them. Now if they were going to miss their timelines, they had to come and negotiate with me because I'm not the one who set it up. They are.

Freddy D: 00:31:11

They own it. Yeah, that's good leadership right there. Because then that individual, they've got ownership in it.

And it's very different than you need to get this done by such and such a day. That's a task versus ownership. It's my project. I'm responsible. Whole different mindset.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:31:28

Totally. It took one team a little bit to figure it out because they're like, well, Jen, I can't get this done.

And I'm like, but you're the one who wrote it and told me when you could do it. So why aren't you coming to me and talking to me about it in order to help them. We got them back on track.

But I said, okay, you're like three weeks behind already. I'm going to give you two weeks to catch up those three weeks that we're behind and finish off the task that you have for the two weeks.

One guy goes, well, I'm already done all mine. I said, well, that means you need to step in and help your friends here be successful too.

Nobody wants to be the last man standing or the one that caused the team not to get completed. Then I said too, if you do it, I'll buy you lunch from wherever you want.

I didn't expect them to do it because they were so far behind, but they did it and I had to buy them lunch.

Freddy D: 00:32:13

What you did was you empowered him and you also threw out a little bit of a challenge. Okay, you guys messed up. Now it's on you. Now. If you do a face plant on that, well, then you gotta look at yourself. Yep, very cool.

Well, Jennifer, as we kind of get close to the end here, great conversation. You and I could talk about this stuff for quite a while, I'm sure. How can people find you?

Jennifer Jensen: 00:32:34

You can find me at authenticleader Ca or you can email me at infothenticleader. Ca.

Freddy D: 00:32:40

And again, the name of your book.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:32:42

Is Developing Authentic leaders.

Freddy D: 00:32:44

Where's that available?

Jennifer Jensen: 00:32:45

It's available on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, all online.

Freddy D: 00:32:51

We'll make sure that's all in the show. Notes and great conversation, great insight. We definitely would love to have you on the show down the road again.

Jennifer Jensen: 00:32:59

I'd love that. It has been an honor and a privilege to be on your show. Thank you.

Freddy D: 00:33:04

You're welcome. And it's been a great conversation. Thank you, Jennifer.

Freddy D: 00:33:08

That wraps our conversation with Jennifer Jensen an inspiring reminder that authentic leadership is less about authority and more about creating safe, empowering spaces where people thrive.

From letting go of micromanagement to embracing tools that boost self awareness, Jennifer showed us how leaders can transform teams and themselves in ways that fuel growth and loyalty. Freddie D Reminded us the recognition, trust and empowerment aren't optional.

They're the levers that build business superfans both inside and outside your company. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. Thanks for tuning in today.

I'm grateful you're here and part of the business superfans journey. Every listen, every action you take gets you one step closer to building your superfans. And if you're ready to map out.

Freddy D: 00:34:01

Your next growth move.

Freddy D: 00:34:02

Schedule your free Prosperity Pathway Business Growth discovery call at ProsperityPathway chat. Remember, one action, one stakeholder, one superfan closer.

Freddy D: 00:34:16

We hope you took away some useful knowledge from today's episode of the Business Superfans Podcast. Join us on the next episode as we continue guiding you on your journey to achieve flourishing success in business.