Permission to Lead: The LEAD Framework for Conscious Entrepreneurs

Discover the LEAD Framework: Listen, Enlist, Allow autonomy, and Delegate to transform your business while creating positive impact.

Permission to Lead: The LEAD Framework for Conscious Leadership

Introduction: A New Approach to Leadership

As I sit down to record this episode, I want to share the core principles that guide my work and business philosophy at Worth of Work. With this being the second episode of the Permission to Lead podcast, it's the perfect time to set the stage and provide background on what truly drives my approach to leadership.

The LEAD Framework: A Blueprint for Conscious Leadership

The podcast is called "Permission to Lead" for a reason. At Worth of Work, LEAD is actually an acronym that serves as the framework for all my coaching, courses, and content. This framework guides decision-making, determines which tools are necessary for team building, and helps us decide which skills to develop as leaders and CEOs.

What does LEAD stand for?

L: Listen actively to coach your team (with emphasis on coach)
E: Enlist the best minds to innovate
A: Allow autonomy to build confidence in your team
D: Delegate to remain in your zone of genius as the visionary

These principles are reminders of what it means to truly lead a team. Whether you already have people working for you or you're burning out and realizing you'll eventually need help, it's crucial to start with visualization: When you inevitably step up as a leader, hire someone, or meet with a team member who's there to support you, how do you want that to work? What do you want that experience to feel like for you?

The Transformative Responsibility of Conscious Leadership

The orientation at Worth of Work acknowledges an important truth: becoming a leader and hiring someone—providing a job to another human who relies on that position for their livelihood—is a massive responsibility.

For the conscientious, empathetic, and intentional entrepreneurs I work with, this realization creates an important shift. As soon as you connect the dots that needing help with copywriting, social media graphics, or whatever task directly leads to being responsible for someone else's livelihood, you understand that your business is no longer about you.

Unless you want to remain a hobbyist, the time during which your business is solely about you is incredibly short. This is precisely why I started this podcast—because I don't hear enough people talking about this aspect of business.

Moving Beyond Traditional Business Conversations

The typical business conversation focuses heavily on marketing, selling, and mindset work. But there's rarely focus on what a business actually is at its core. When you start making money successfully but realize you can't continue operating the same way without burning out, what then?

We constantly hear about making our lives easier and being more efficient, with coaches advising us to "hire someone as soon as you're comfortable" or "as soon as you're able." But they're not connecting the critical dots. If it were that simple—if it were just about us—we'd hire someone from Upwork or find a virtual assistant immediately.

But that's not the problem. We hold back from getting the support we need because we understand the massive impact that decision has on someone else's life.

The Ripple Effect: How Leadership Transforms Lives

At Worth of Work, we recognize that when you hire someone, you're not just impacting them—you're affecting:

How they provide for their family
How they show up at home
How they parent
The financial safety they feel when they can pay their bills

The potential domino effect of positive impact you could have on someone's life is precisely what I want to encourage you to embrace. But it feels high-risk, high-reward. And because we're empathetic, intelligent people who have made that connection, we struggle to reconcile it.

The Leadership Dilemma: Breaking the Cycle

Many of us face this cognitive dissonance: We need help and can't do everything alone, which means we need to lead someone. But our own experiences with managers and employers have often been terrible—which is frequently why we started our own businesses in the first place!

As a military spouse with firsthand experience of this challenge, I understand the struggle. When my husband was deployed and my infant son needed to be picked up from daycare due to illness, my boss threatened to fire me. This isn't uncommon—my own mother faced similar challenges as a single parent.

This creates genuine fear: we don't want to be hypocrites. We don't want to escape bad management only to become poor managers ourselves. We wonder, "Who am I to think I could provide someone's livelihood? Who am I to think I'd be better at managing than those who managed me?"

Your Fear Is Your Qualification

But here's what I need you to understand: That very fear—the fact that you're hesitating to get support because you're concerned about how you'll impact others—is precisely what qualifies you to become the kind of leader that others weren't.

The solution isn't to do nothing. It's not to accept high risk. The solution is to trust that you—as someone kind, aware, loving, and eager to make a positive impact—can gain the tools and mindset shifts needed to build processes that support who you are.

All you're missing is some key information, knowledge bases, and skill sets that you either don't have yet or don't know how to apply to leadership situations. Sometimes you just need a mirror to help you see what gaps you're not closing.

Be the Conscious Leader the World Needs

You are exactly the type of person the world needs to step into leadership roles. Together, we can shift workplace expectations so fewer parents feel forced to choose between their jobs and their children, between purpose and family responsibilities.

As someone who finds purpose and fulfillment in work, I understand the struggle to balance career and parenthood. For years, I questioned whether I could have both—whether I could contribute to society while being a present mother.

My goal in helping you understand leadership through the LEAD framework is to provide an end goal that informs your daily decisions: how to spend your time, what skills to develop, and whether those skills align with your goals.

Ready to Transform Your Leadership Journey?

If you need help with a specific scenario or want someone to serve as a mirror while you navigate leadership challenges, I offer 30-minute consulting calls. Visit worthofwork.com, scroll down, and schedule a call with me.

The more of us who embrace this mindset and make these positive shifts, the faster we'll see meaningful societal change around work and leadership.

Categories: : leadership, scaling, sustainable business