Dear Leader,

​Last week, I shared how the pillars of Responsible Leadership can benefit all types of leaders, from emerging leaders to executives.

After writing that letter, I felt a deeper connection to my roots as an emerging leader and first-time manager. Which is why today I’ll share 5 important leadership lessons I learned throughout my early life as a leader.

The initial call to leadership can be strong. Without the right tools and mindset, it’s quite easy to embrace a performative style of leadership, rather than a style that is authentic to who we really are.

To finish off your holiday weekend, I hope you gain a few powerful insights into your own ways of leading from this piece. As always, let me know what resonates most with you.

Lesson #1: Embrace the call to lead

I remember the first time I was encouraged to run for a leadership position as an adult.

I’d been a member of a life-changing collegiate service organization called Circle K International for a few months.

As part of Bradley University’s Circle K club, we’d complete different service projects in the Peoria, Illinois area. From staffing homeless kitchens, to making pet toys for sheltered dogs, to engaging in park clean-ups, no community service project was too small for us.

Not only did I get to give back to my new community, but I also formed several lifelong friendships.

Yet the most pivotal moment of that first year in Circle K came when the club’s Vice President (my friend Bailey) told me she planned to run for club President the next year. She encouraged me to run for Vice President so I could serve alongside her.

Even though I’d been a leader in editorial positions in my high school newspaper, I was floored that she thought I’d be a good fit to serve as a leader of the club in the next service year.

Until that moment, I was perfectly content to treat the club as more of a social engagement.

A place to get to know other people while doing some good along the way. I never thought the club would set me up for the many other leadership roles that followed.

And it all started with another leader that believed in me. Someone who saw my potential when I couldn’t see it myself. It was at that moment I saw myself as a leader, and someone who could help the club grow to have an even greater impact on our campus and community.

Even if the call to leadership doesn’t feel right to you, trust in your abilities.

Trust that you will summon the courage, the aptitudes, and the vision to be the leader that the world needs you to be.

It all starts with answering the call and stepping up to lead. Once you do that, trust that everything else will follow.

You can lead. And the world needs you to.

I’m forever grateful to that friend who believed in me and set me on the leadership path that followed.

Reflection question: When did you first feel compelled to answer the call of leadership? How did you (or would you like to) embrace that call?

Lesson #2: Strive to be a more impactful leader

That initial call to leadership made me believe I could lead.

But it was an internal compulsion that made me hungry with the desire for leadership.

This hunger served as the fuel for a life of leading and desire to make an impact that still lingers today.

After serving as both Vice President and President of Bradley University Circle K International, I felt called to run for a leadership position on our district board. The district board consisted of student leaders from other Circle K clubs. The board’s job included governing the district, planning fundraising and social events, and developing club leaders.

I’d grown very close with other members of the board and decided to run for a Lieutenant Governor role. In that position, I guided the club leadership of my home club and 4 other clubs in my division (one of several divisions in the district).

Unlike my first foray into leadership, I felt incredibly confident and excited at the prospect of taking the lessons I’d learned as a club president and sharing those with other clubs.

These club leaders experienced many of the same struggles I did, such as creating beneficial service opportunities in their local communities, growing their membership, and creating exciting social events for members.

From the day I was elected as Lieutenant Governor, my mind was bursting with ideas to benefit the members of my division.

From a division-wide service project, to club visits, to club president calls and check-ins, my role provided me with a model I would use when I became a manager later in my career.

It showed me that stepping up to a higher level of leadership can be both rewarding and exciting. It’s not about following an exact model of leadership that someone else set out for you. Rather, it’s about finding your own unique voice and heeding that inner call to embrace leadership in your own way.

If you feel a yearning to take the next step in your leadership journey and strive for more impact as a leader, you should listen to that internal nudge.

There are always opportunities to continue to learn and grow as a leader, but it all starts with trusting that inner voice to keep going, even if the road ahead seems hard.

Reflection question: Have you felt the urge to grow into a higher level of leadership? What’s pushed you forward (or held you back?)

Lesson #3: Leadership isn't about doing, it's about leading

Sometimes the call of leadership rings when you least expect it.

About 5 years after college, 9 months into a new job, I was promoted to manager.

I’d moved to Chicago earlier that year to join a hyper-growth healthcare company. In my role, I was asked to design, document, and iterate on salary and bonus programs. Along the way, I worked with leaders throughout the company, including VPs and founders, to use compensation to drive business goals forward.

As I reimagined our compensation programs, I thought my value mostly derived from my technical skills, like Excel modeling and compensation benchmarking.

But to my manager, the VP of HR, that’s not where I made the greatest impact.

Instead, my value was from the strategic conversations I had with leaders at the company. I’d coach managers through difficult conversations with their employees about raises, bonuses, and career development at the company. I explained how bonus programs worked and how the company planned to pay employees more in line with the market as it grew.

I was an expert on my team and the go-to person to discuss compensation with.

I trained recruiters on how compensation worked and how new hires could best understand our comp programs. I showed I could collaborate effectively with employees and leaders across teams.

These leadership qualities had more value than the technical know-how I was hired for. Only, I couldn’t see it at the time.

So when my boss approached me with news of a promotion, I was completely shocked.

I enjoyed working at the company and loved the team I worked with, but never saw myself as a manager this early in my career at the age of 26.

Instead, I was more focused on my personal goals outside of work like publishing my first novel.

But deep within, I knew that accepting the promotion and growing my career would serve me well.

Becoming a manager would lead to a whole new set of challenges, which I’ll share more about in the lessons that follow

The deeper lesson here is that career growth (and leadership growth) isn’t about adding more technical skills to your tool belt.

Instead, it involves getting more comfortable with conflict, building relationships, and taking ownership of your work and the work of those you support to make your organization better.

Reflection question: What did you learn from your first promotion to leadership?

Lesson #4: The habits that made you a successful individual contributor won't make you a good manager

I stepped down as a Senior Manager—and questioned if I ever wanted to lead again.

After an internal promotion to my first formal corporate leadership role, I applied for a new management role in a different company presiding over three functions: compensation, benefits, and HRIS. This was a big change for me, as I only oversaw 2 functions and one full-time employee in my first manager role.

My intention in taking this role was to not only grow my leadership skills but take everything I’d learned in my first manager role and do it even better.

I found I loved building new compensation systems and enjoyed the process of guiding other employees to perform better to be deeply rewarding.

And early in this new role, I flourished.

I had a brilliant manager who pushed me to give better feedback to my employees, focus on the right things, and polish my managerial presence. But at the one year mark, I found myself burned out, just like in my previous role.

Even though I’d been promoted from Manager to Senior Manager, my mindset was still stuck in individual contributor mode.

I didn’t trust my employees enough to delegate tasks. On top of burning myself out, I wasn’t authentic with who I was.

Not being out as a gay man not only impacted my dating and personal life, but prevented me from being the authentic leader I needed to be for my team to succeed.

My personal frustrations affected my work life, to the point where I was constantly irritated. It didn’t help that I felt like I had to do everything myself, even though I had a team to support me.

My inability to delegate and my lack of courage to give tough feedback to improve my team’s performance not only impacted me, but caused leadership above me to question my abilities.

Even though I knew I needed to improve my delegation skills and accomplish more at work, I simply couldn’t. I was so burned out from logging 60-hour weeks that I felt the only option I had was to resign and find an entirely new career to pivot to.

While I don’t regret making that move and exploring my interests as a working writer, in hindsight, I knew I could’ve been a much better leader than I was.

Now, as a Responsible Leadership Coach, I’m taking these pivotal lessons learned from my struggles in middle management and helping leaders struggling with these same challenges thrive.

Even though my last leadership role ended in failure—with my resignation and career pivot—it birthed something completely new within me.

Both as a coach and as a leader who is ready to step up to the plate and guide other leaders toward responsible leadership, complete with the ability to give tough feedback and ask for support when needed to make my vision possible.

Reflection question: What’s a leadership lesson you learned the hard way? And how have you grown from it?

Lesson #5: Hold your vision and fulfill your true purpose as a leader

For a year, I squeezed myself into coaching niches that didn’t fit.

But leadership kept knocking—and I finally answered the call.

When I first launched my coaching business just over a year ago, I positioned myself as a career coach.

Then, a few months after landing my first client, I pivoted to work-life balance coaching, before focusing on other gay male clients who are also high achievers.

When I reflected on the topics and challenges that most excited me as a coach, I realized they all centered around leadership.

That same first client came to me with career struggles, but realized around the midpoint of our coaching work together that they could no longer shy away from leadership. They needed to lead to shape their work environment (and career) for the better.

That client went from reluctant leader to an empowered leader—willing to step up and lead in a way that best worked for them.

I was so proud of that client’s transformation. By the time I landed new clients, I was thinking of who else I could serve.

I offered a free coaching conversation to a neighbor of mine facing a career challenge a few months after wrapping up with that first client.

This person didn’t end up becoming a client, but gained some tremendous insights about themselves during our 90-minute session together. So much so that they said if they didn’t hire me for career coaching that they would love my support as they moved into leadership.

As disappointed as I was not to work with this potential client, I was intrigued by the possibility they might benefit from leadership coaching in the future.

Shortly after that, a recruiter reached out to me about a possible in-house Leadership Development position.

Even though I’d never built a formal leadership development program before, I was very intrigued by the role and considered how I might apply my coaching expertise to a position like that in the future.

The conversation I had with that recruiter about the Leadership Development role was the third and final sign I needed to see that leadership was my new coaching niche.

I’ve always been triggered by ineffective leadership and deeply inspired by thoughtful, responsible leadership. I knew I wanted to coach leaders in how to best step up and serve humanity according to this new model and vision for leadership.

I realized that just like my first client and other leaders I aspire to work with, that I needed to step up and answer the call by living out this vision for the world to see.

That call is coaching other leaders in owning their authentic voice and leading in a new, responsible direction with confidence.

If you’re a leader or changemaker looking for support on your journey to becoming a confident, authentic, and responsible leader, I’d love to help.

Just reply to this email and let’s discuss how you can lead in this new way.

Wishing you the best on your leadership journey this week,

Spenser
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How I can help you

As a Leadership Coach birthing the way forward for Responsible Leadership, there are a few ways I can help you beyond reading this newsletter each week.

1. ​Step Into Your Leadership Discovery Call: This free 45-minute discovery call is meant for you to explore the leader you're becoming—and awaken the one already within. We'll chat about what feels aligned, what no longer fits, and what’s calling to emerge.You’ll walk away with greater clarity, renewed energy, and deep insight into stepping into a more aligned version of leadership—and how my coaching can support that transformation.
2. The Responsible Leadership Roundtable (new time!): Starting Thursday, July 17th @ 11:00 AM central time, this will be an intimate 1-hour conversation about the idea of Rebirth. We’ll discuss how to apply the theme of Rebirth in our leadership styles and in our businesses. Follow me on LinkedIn to stay updated on how to register.
3. ​1:1 Coaching: If you’re ready to take the leap with one of my customized 1:1 coaching programs for leaders, you can find more information by visiting the link.

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