Sheri Winesett with Business Accelerators, LLC

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with the Business Accelerators LLC, Miss Sheri Winesett. How are you?

Sheri Winesett: I’m doing great, Stone. Thank you so much for having me on the show this morning.

Stone Payton: Well, it is an absolute delight to have you on the show. I know we’ve got some exciting news. I’ve got a ton of questions. We we probably won’t get to them all, but I’d like to start, if we could, by having you share with me and our listeners kind of an overview, mission, purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Sheri Winesett: Yeah, thanks for the question. Um, you know, Stone, I am a business coach and leadership coach. I’ve been doing it for about 20 years, and what I found over the years is that there is a lack of transparency and leadership, and that’s really what makes companies fall apart or prevents them from gaining traction. And so I, you know, people really want transparency in leadership. And I wrote my book. I really want to help people, really, women break the chains of traditional role of women in leadership, really to give seasoned female leaders a new perspective on leadership and the confidence, right, and their ability to lead, the courage to be vulnerable and the fire to really unleash their leadership potential. So I’m really out to help the person I used to be.

Stone Payton: Well, it sounds like very rewarding work. Noble work, if you can get it. Now that you’ve been at this a while. What? What are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you?

Sheri Winesett: Yeah, the most fun is just, you know, seeing those aha moments or, you know, seeing someone who is wearing so many hats getting discouraged, starting to question themselves and then say, wait a second, I really want to step back into my power and be the influential leader the world needs me to be, right, because the next generation and the future of work are really depending on us, right? How they are led is how they will lead into the future. And when people really take back that power and realize how important their work is and their leadership is in the world, that’s like a total win. So rewarding.

Stone Payton: How did you get in this line of work in the first place? What’s what’s the back story?

Sheri Winesett: Uh, well, um, I always like to say joke that, uh, I’m a recovering lobbyist. So I started as a lobbyist in DC and, and, you know, joined a law firm, started doing some international lobbying work for about ten years. And then I just came to a crossroads, um, in my career. And I said, you know, I really want to help people grow their businesses. I want to help them grow their leadership skills. So I transitioned into entrepreneurship to business ownership, and I started a coaching business, uh, built a coaching firm, um, that continued to evolve. And then I went to work for some franchises as a franchise executive to help them build some coaching businesses. And now, you know, I’m back and I’m doing leadership coaching and really focusing. I help anyone, right? Ceos, entrepreneurs, seasoned executives. But I really have a strong pull to focus on women right now. And so hence my book that just came out, which is why I wrote Transparent Leadership for Women Who Mean Business.

Stone Payton: I am really intrigued with this, this phrase, this term transparent leadership. Can we dive into that a little bit and maybe have you talk more about transparency and why it’s so important and the impact in the workplace, that kind of thing?

Sheri Winesett: Yeah, absolutely. So transparent leadership is really about openness authenticity. Right. Authenticity and communication, decision making. You know, transparent leaders don’t hide information or operate with hidden agendas, but instead they’re really focused on setting their team up for success. That’s the number one role as a leader is set your team up for success and foster trust, you know, accountability and collaboration by providing that visibility into your thought processes and actions.

Stone Payton: So when you were writing this book, did it come together pretty easily or did some parts of it come together easy and others were more difficult? What was the process of writing a book like for you?

Sheri Winesett: You know, it’s funny. Um, I actually had this outline for this book about nine years ago. Oh, my. Yeah. Nine, nine years. And it took me nine years to bring it to market. And so I had the outline. I had the seven keys that I thought were really important. And a lot of people ask, well, why didn’t you publish it then? And it’s just because I wasn’t ready, right? I had to experience more. And, um, I really had to determine who my target market was. You know, I, I could have put out this book and, and been like, this is for everyone, but what really my pivoting moment was when I realized and this was through coaching with a mentor of mine, um, that I wanted to share my story and really help the person I used to be. And so once I figured all that out, I actually, uh, got with a publishing coach, and she really helped guide me through the process, you know, on how to get this to market.

Stone Payton: So if you would say a little bit more about your your choice. While this certainly would benefit any leader, it sounds like y your choice specifically was to try to serve women with this, with this body of work.

Sheri Winesett: Well, um, you know, women wear a lot of hats, and it’s, um, it’s all too common for women to feel imposter syndrome and guilt, right? Causing them to give up on their dreams. No handbook is given to anyone to unlock your leadership potential when climbing the ladder or going after your dreams, seeking significance, wanting to create impact. And so, you know, as a woman, right? I wore a lot of hats, you know, and I was very fortunate to have a lot of mentors and a great career. Um, but at times I felt super overwhelmed. Right? And at times I questioned myself, you know, like, should I focus more on being a caretaker, a mother, a sister? Um, whatever it is in, in your life? And, um, you know, I just determined, right, that that we women have unique abilities and women can go after their dreams and they can leverage all these unique strengths by, you know, having all these different roles in their life to become a great leader.

Stone Payton: Well, and it speaks to, like you were talking about earlier, transparency, uh, authority, credibility. I mean, as my dad would say, you am one, right? You are.

Sheri Winesett: Love it. You know, it’s interesting to stone research shows that there’s certain traits that women possess, right, that contribute to the effectiveness of them leading in teams. And there are things like, you know, empathy, collaborative leadership style, resilience, adaptability. Um, but they’re so important because, again, you know, future generations are depending on leaders to lead them. Right. And how we lead them, like I said in the beginning, is how they’re going to lead others. And so it’s just really important that, um, we take on that responsibility. You know, we have a responsibility to lead.

Stone Payton: You mentioned seven keys. Say more about the structure of the book, and maybe even some tips on getting the most out of the out of the book.

Sheri Winesett: Yeah. So in the book, I actually, you know, at the end I give a lot of action steps. I give a lot of tools and different strategies. Um. But, you know, I actually have an action plan at the end of the book. And if you just did one thing in each of the areas of the action plan, you could change, like the whole trajectory of your career, your team, you know, whatever it is you’re trying to go after. And so the seven keys are actually, um. They start with a, you know, accountability right. And self-awareness, you know, ah, first you gotta look inward, right. And really understand the leader that you are. Um, but also determine the leader you want to be. Um, and then, you know, we move into things like, um, leading with integrity, embracing transparency, visionary leadership, visionary leadership. Stone is one of my favorite chapters because I’ve worked with a lot of clients who have made the statement, they’re just not buying into my vision like I have it out there. Um, well, the number one thing that you need to do for people to buy into your vision is get them to buy into you. Hmm. So, you know, how are you getting people to buy into you? Are you someone that they respect? You know, do you lead with wisdom and the heart and then, you know, some of the other keys are congruency, alignment, and measurement.

Stone Payton: So this strikes me as a marvelous resource for the individual leader. But I and I maybe this is coming from me having kind of a training and consulting background, but I could see this as a, as a, as a book that you might utilize with a team of leaders that report to you if, if, if you are responsible for a team of leaders to kind of I mean, do you think it would lend itself to that as well, like to have a group read it and then come back and talk about the different pieces of it?

Sheri Winesett: Oh, absolutely. I mean, that’s what this book is all about. You know, you don’t have to do everything. Um, it’s really about you empowering others to lead. And so it gives you some really awesome tools to teach others on your team how to do that.

Stone Payton: And as the author, I wonder if this has had an impact on you in a similar way I’ve spoken, as you might imagine, to to quite a few authors of business related titles, and I’ve been told that just the simple act of creating the book, committing all those ideas to paper, has often helped them solidify their own thinking, like crystallize their own thinking around their domain of expertise and make them make them that much more effective in their training, consulting, coaching, speaking work. Have you found that to be the case?

Sheri Winesett: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Um, you know, there’s a quote that I love and it’s, uh, one that a lot of people are probably familiar with, but, um, it really stays within, you know, my core focus and it’s by Jim Rohn, and it’s work harder on yourself than you do on your job, or then you do on your business. And so, you know, there there are so many ways that we can actually grow as a leader, but it takes a lot of self-awareness. And so, um, in this book, you know, I’m hoping that I can I can teach people that, you know, I can give them some tools, uh, for alignment and things like that, but really help them adapt to the leader that they need to be for others.

Stone Payton: So I got to ask about the. And I often ask people about what sales and marketing looks like for their practice. And I’m always interested to hear that. But, uh, what is the whole sales and marketing thing look like when you’re trying to get a book off the ground? Will you? You’ll start, I guess, making it available at at speaking engagements. Maybe you you go on tour. Yeah. How do you sell a book once you get once you write one.

Sheri Winesett: Yeah. You know, it’s, um, speaking engagements will be a real core focus for me. Um, you know, I may create I have in the works to create some modules, some training modules that follow the seven keys in this book. Um, really finding strategic partners who are aligned with your mission to, you know, change the leadership, um, and create transparency in leadership, you know, really aligning with those strategic partners and finding the win win to help each other get the word out and have more impact on the world. Um, obviously there’s, you know, tons of social media and things like that that you can do. But my goal, Stone, is to really get in front of big audiences so I can create more impact. Right? When I’m coaching, it’s like one person at a time or one team at a time. Um, and so I think the way you really get your message out in the world is through speaking.

Stone Payton: Well, I can tell you my personal experience as an attendee to watching great speakers. I get so much more value. I, you know, I enjoy the moment, of course, and I get inspired and pick up an idea or two during the talk. But to go home with their book and dive back into it immediately and then periodically over time. To me, it makes the it makes that speaking engagement so much richer and more valuable to me in my day to day attempts to live into what the speaker talked about.

Sheri Winesett: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, my that was my intention was with including an action plan in the book because, you know, after a speaking engagement. Right. We can all get like super motivated and hyped up. But what’s really important is the results that come out of that and continuing with those best practices, or just those few keys that you took away. And in the book, you know, there’ll be that action plan to kind of walk you through how to execute well.

Stone Payton: And I love the idea that it’s, uh, I think you said that this is foundation for some modules for other curricula, right? In your training consulting practice. Did I hear that right?

Sheri Winesett: Absolutely. This is in, uh, one and done.

Stone Payton: That is. Well, I don’t know where or when you would find the time, but outside the scope of this work, other hobbies, passions, interests that you pursue, anything you nerd out about that doesn’t have anything to do with this?

Sheri Winesett: Yeah. Um, I love hiking. I used to live in DC for 17 years. In about 12 years ago, I moved out of the area just to get in the mountains and around all the water and the rivers. So, um, I’m a I’m a big hiker. I love to be on the water. I’ll take the river, I’ll take the beach. I’ll take the lake, whatever you can give me.

Stone Payton: Well, you know what I’d love to do before we wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners with 1 or 2, you know, just actionable. I’ll call them pro tips. And look, gang, the best way to get your hands on some on some really strong, actionable tips is to is to reach out, have a conversation with Sherry or somebody on her team. Get your hands on this book. But let’s leave them with something they can be thinking about doing, not doing. You know, right now as they listen into this conversation.

Sheri Winesett: Yeah. Um, I think what is key for any leader is to start with really developing a relationship with your team and creating some self-awareness on how you do that. How can I be more authentic? Am I leading with integrity and then really putting a great communication plan in place? And what I mean by communication plan is scheduling those meetings right with your team. You’ve got to get them together quarterly for a day and let them build relationships. You you have to do, whether it’s weekly or bi weekly meetings. Now, now here’s the key on that though stone. They have to be effective meetings. Don’t get people together to meet just to meet. Right. It’s, uh, I remember the old term death by PowerPoint, right? There can be death by meetings. Make them a meeting that people want to show up to. And so, you know, stop doing things the way you’ve always done them and take time to reflect on how you build relationships and how you be a super effective communicator within your organization.

Stone Payton: It sounds like communication and a structured communication plan is so foundational to actually putting all of this in into practice. And I I’m kind of reflecting on my own behavior. You know, I have standing calls with some of the folks that I have the privilege of leading, and I suspect I don’t know, that I probably fall into some of the traps that you that you talk about in the, in the book or in your or in your work. Sometimes it’s, uh, it’s a little bit like, oh, the Wednesday afternoon standing call with so and so just going through the motions and I guess a regular communication rhythm that’s properly executed, that also, I guess it would help you not avoid, but make it through those times when maybe you weren’t that great last week at leading, or maybe the other person wasn’t that great living into what they said they would do that communication. That’s the bedrock, isn’t it?

Sheri Winesett: Yeah. And I think it’s important to structure it and let everybody be a part of it. And there’s so many different ways that you can weave others into the conversation. So they feel like they’re making an impact as well.

Stone Payton: Okay. What’s the best way to connect with you? Tap into your work and get their hands on this book.

Sheri Winesett: So you can get the book by going to Transparency in Leadership Comm. Really excited. It just launched today. And then you can connect with me on social media channels just uh, at Sherry Mindset. So it’s s h e r I w I n e s e t t.

Stone Payton: Sherry, this has been a marvelous way to invest a Tuesday morning. Thank you so much for sharing your insight, your perspective. Congratulations on the book launch. Keep up the good work, what you’re doing. It’s so important. And we we sure appreciate you.

Sheri Winesett: Oh, thank Stone, and if I could just leave one thing that you could do every day when you wake up. Can I do that?

Stone Payton: Absolutely. Please.

Sheri Winesett: Just ask yourself one question and this is going to change. You know how your team views you. How will I empower someone else on my team today?

Stone Payton: Oh, what a powerful way to wrap this conversation. Again, thank you so much Sherry. This has been marvelous.

Sheri Winesett: Thank you Stone, thanks for having me.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Sherry Winsett with Business Accelerators, LLC, author of the book Seven Keys to Unlock Your Leadership Potential, saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.