Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I can intensely see the difference between really, really good leadership and really, really poor leadership and how that impacts the individual worker, the team, and the families of the people that work for that team. Some people do have an advantage, starting with a personality or a style or preference that enables them to maybe more easily lead other people and others just have to work hard at. But good leadership can definitely be learned. When you're living on purpose, there's a power to it. That's the name of Terry Fox, power of purpose. And it's almost like the difficulties of life roll off your back a lot easier because you're committed to your purpose. You're not just doing a job, you're not just working a business, owning a business. You're actually committed to a purpose much larger than your business and sometimes even much larger than your family.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Imagine being hired three times to help transform a company, only to be told by a new leader, who are you and why are you here? This was the reality for today's guest, Don Freirex, who went from feeling like a corporate reject to becoming a top executive coach passionate about creating extraordinary leaders. In this episode, Don shares his powerful insights on the disciplined habits, adaptability and purpose that define confident leaders. If you're interested in learning more, then stay tuned.
So, Don, welcome to the Cultural Leadership Podcast.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Brendan, mate, it's a pleasure having you. And look, as we said before we hit the record button, we're not going to dive into politics, sort of the US stuff that's happened recently, so. Or within the last 24 hours. So let's leave that alone. You're a registered independent, which is fantastic. But let's get into a bit about you before we dive into our topic. Really keen to learn about these five steps to rapidly develop yourself as a leader and set yourself up as a leader that you want that people will follow you. So. But tell us a bit about your background and really what's got you to where you're at today.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Brendan it's interesting because I think most people's stories are fairly benign and uninteresting. So let me tell you the part of the story that exactly I was a corporate reject. I was hired by major corporations. I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and three times in my life I was hired by a senior executive who said, don't, please come join me and help me transform this part of the company. And I love anyone that talks about transformation. I just have always been inspired to do that kind of work. And I'M thrilled to join anyone that says, come join me to do that. But six months later, in all three cases, that person had left the company for some unknown reason to them or to me. And I was left with another leader who said to me, who are you and. And why are you here and what the heck are you doing? And I'm like, what, are you kidding me? And it just. It was unbelievable how it happened to me three different times. I never made sense out of it. I thought, I'm just a corporate reject. There's no reason for me to do that. I love small business. I'll just do consulting work, et cetera, et cetera. Until one day I was really thinking about, like, why did those. Why did that happen to me repeatedly, not just once, not just twice, but three times? And it came to me like a blinding glimpse of the obvious, which was, oh, my gosh, I can intensely see the difference between really, really good leadership and really, really poor leadership and how that impacts the individual worker, the team, and the families of the people that work for that team. And I intensely care about that. So today I dedicate myself, My purpose is 100% to create extraordinary leaders in the world because they believe that more extraordinary leaders in the world reduce the amount of suffering in the world. I mean, you brought up a little bit of the election, and I believe both people that we're voting for here in the US Were poor leaders. I almost wanted to abstain from the election, but I felt like I couldn't. But it pains me to no end to believe that both are such miserable leaders and to think that a country like the United States can't put two candidates in front of the people that are better leaders. So my whole platform, my whole purpose in life, I wake up every day thinking about, how can I help create more extraordinary leaders to lessen the amount of pain in the world?
[00:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah, mate. And a bit of, I guess a leadership lesson already.
How did you feel when these people came to you and said, who are you? What are you doing? Why are you even here?
How does that make an employee feel?
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, you're right. All of your confidence is just shook in one meaning with that person, because you can feel judged. And that's how I felt. And you felt like you weren't important to them, and you really wondered whether or not you could connect with them, because they were basically saying, that agenda is not my agenda, and if you're part of that, I won't have anything to do with you. So it was almost like instant Rejection. And in all three cases that either I either left because I was terminated later because they actually got rid of me, or I left on my own. And very, very hard feelings, Very difficult times for me. Raising a young family, as you can imagine, in your own family, it's very, very difficult to go through those professional things.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it absolutely is, mate. You also mentioned see the leadership, and you didn't say the words leadership standards, but I think we have spoken a number of times on this show before about how there seems to be a low bar about what leadership actually is. So it's not really setting a great precursor for, you know, for young people coming in. And even, I guess it's topical to talk politics at the moment, we're not going to dive into it. But political leaders and sort of how they hold themselves, their character and their connection with audience and stuff like that, there's probably a lot of political leaders out there that the leadership bar is really set quite low, isn't it? Which is very sad.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: It is very sad. I wonder why that's happened. It's an interesting phenomenon, isn't it? You would think that the best leaders would be those that we would see in our political organizations, but it's actually the opposite today, at least here in the us. What's it like in Australia?
[00:06:09] Speaker B: In my view, not a hell of a lot better, mate. I think part of it is the.
There's a lot of scrutiny, obviously, on politicians full stop. So, you know, you couldn't pay most people enough to be in those sort of roles anyway. And the reality is they don't really get paid. You know, on the surface, our Prime Minister, I think he's maybe half a billion dollars or something a year, maybe a little bit more. But on the surface, with the scrutiny and the pressure and all that sort of stuff, compared to the commercial environment, it's really not a lot of money. It is a lot of money. But when you put it in the context of what great people great leaders get who are leading these commercial environments, it's nothing.
So very difficult to attract very good people when they can go and get probably three, four, five times the money somewhere else. And they're probably appreciated by a lot more of their staff than what they are of the Australian population, let's say.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Yes, yes, no, I understand. Yeah. Where's the Mahatma Gandhis? Where's the leaders that everyone would follow just because they're men of character? I mean, they don't seem to be there. Martin Luther King Jr. Was another man. Just a total, total Conviction, total passion, total character, and a very, very good leader. And we just don't see that much today.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: No, we don't. It's funny you mentioned that as well because, you know, looking at some of your background and your history and stuff like that. But one of the or the model that sort of I use for my own sort of leadership landscape is talking about building or developing character, building competence and creating connections. So I like to put sort of people through those three lenses. And that's the thing, isn't all of those things together? There's a lot of, I guess, character. None of us are perfectly moral students. We're all imperfect humans for some reason. But yeah, there's a lot to be said about a person's character and a leader's character.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Absolutely. I worked for, actually had a client, I've been doing executive coaching for about 15 years and one client actually asked me to join his leadership team. He said, don, please join me. He had a large nonprofit that he was running and I had not done non profit leadership before and we had about 350 employees when I joined. But anyway, when I took him on as a client, I knew he had lots of room to grow as a leader. But when I started working for him, I didn't realize how much he had room to grow. And it was so large, it was enormous. There would literally be people be playing bingo in meetings with him where they would be keeping track of some of his bad behaviors, like falling asleep while other people were talking, just not taking notes, not paying attention. And they would actually have a bingo card that they try to cover as he was going through. How can anyone be that bad? You almost would have to work at it to be that poor. But back to your point about it's a low bar today to be in leadership.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Sounds like a fun game, I have to say. Maybe I have to do it on cultural leadership at some point in time.
Let's dive into our sort of five steps or elements of what you believe is really helps leaders develop themselves. So this first one is about. It was a point of are extraordinary leaders made or born? Talk to that.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that question. I want to ask you the question too.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: I'll give you a little bit of.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: An insight and then I'd like to hear from you as well. I asked this question to about 21 different extraordinary leaders that I had interviewed in the area. And I pulled together like a white paper, a mini book on their views about leadership in general. And every one of them said that to a large degree, leaders are made, not born. And the belief there is that people can learn the skills of leadership. However. Let me give you a however statement too. A couple of people said, but, Don, some people are predisposed to be better leaders because maybe like this one person said, you know, I'm an extrovert. I love being around people and leadership is about people. And so he said, I think I have an unfair advantage because I really enjoy people. If you're an introvert, you probably have to work harder to be a good leader. Now, you can still be a very good leader, but you might have to expend a lot more energy. And I think he was right about that. So my view of leadership is that some people do have an advantage, starting with a personality or a style or preference that enables them to maybe more easily lead other people and others just have to work hard at it. But good leadership can definitely be learned. What's your opinion? I'm curious.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: It's always the interesting one, isn't it, that one of the things that sort of threw some of that out of kilter a little bit was the dreaded Covid, the C word. There. There was this view that the leaders who are actually more introverted type were actually better leaders during the COVID situations because they weren't sort of trying to thrive off the energy of people. But they still have to love people. I mean, 100%. And personally, I don't think that it links to personality so much. I think that's where the energy comes from. So I'm more about. And I am more introverted. Absolutely. And I love people, but also love time away from people because I need to recharge my batteries and those sorts of things. So, yeah, I can see the perspective. I definitely agree. Well, my view is that leaders are made. It's actually why I call my business leader by design, because to me, you put deliberate intent into things then. And provided there's some level of competence attached to that and some level of really wanting to be better at and enjoying the type of work, then you can learn the skills, you can learn the competencies. I think the character, going back to developing character, There are people out there that I think are just wired to be in the fast lane by themselves. That's where they operate best. And they're probably not, in my view, the best leaders because they're often more about themselves, but they certainly can make very good team members sometimes, provided their energy is channeled in the right direction.
I'm a bit of a person that can take a bit of Each way bet. But I definitely lean on the side that they are made or designed. And we're always in the making too, aren't we? We're always. Hopefully leaders are always trying to get better because otherwise they probably shouldn't use that tag.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: That's right. What was the book? Maybe you can help me remember that was done by about mastery. Basically saying that if you studied something, practice something for 10,000 hours, you could become excellent at it. I think it was.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: That was Malcolm Gladwell's book.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Yeah, Gladwell talked about it, but he was quoting another author. And maybe it'll pop into our heads. But anyway, the concept, to your point, like 10,000 hours effective practice would allow anyone to become great at their sport or their profession. And I think to a certain degree, if you put 10,000 hours of practice into leadership, you too would also become an outstanding leader. What I find is a lot of people don't practice leadership. They try to read about it. They try to listen to wonderful podcasts like yours, but they're not practicing. And if you don't practice leadership, it's really, really hard to get good at it. And so that's why I think a lot of people are stuck in how they are a leader today, because they aren't really getting involved with a meaningful way of practicing. And I think that's the challenge for all good leaders today, is to try to figure that out. We know, Brendan, based on research now, that if you're running a small business or if you're running any business, that you can have a dramatic impact on the culture and the people within your business based on elevating your leadership effectiveness. And to me, that's very inspiring because, you know, all of us struggle with, you know, should I hire another marketing person or a different marketing firm, or do I hire new salespeople or how do I find more growth? You know, we're all looking for ways to grow our businesses. Do I focus in on the operations side and work on my processes and systems? I like to say, why don't you consider working on yourself and becoming a better leader? Because we know that the amount of impact that you can have on the culture and thereby the amount of sales and the amount of customer satisfaction scores that go up, that you'll actually have a greater impact on your business quicker if you are working on yourself and your own leadership ability. But a lot of people don't think of it that way. They think about having to hire another firm that helps them or hire another person, that type of thing. And I think it's an easy solution a lot of people miss.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: And what's your view on how do you think that's evolved over time? Because I know when I started in organizations in 1994, it was when I had my first full time role in a corporate organization. I didn't see that and I saw some evolution through my journey of sort of 25, 30 years where there's that responsibility seems to have either been taken or relinquished from people leading people, from leaders leading people. What's your view? Where do you think that's. How do you think that's happened? How do you think that's just evolved?
[00:15:15] Speaker A: I, I don't. That's a really good question. It feels like society. I'm 65 now, so I've seen a lot of years of society evolving and it feels like we're sliding away from accountability. It feels like we're sliding away from doing difficult things like leadership. Leadership's not easy, it's lonely. It's a challenging game. A lot of people don't practice it because it is a challenge. They prefer to just have the title then actually work on the responsibility of the title which is to lead others with effectiveness. So I don't know. I think there's an element that we seek comfort and convenience more than we seek challenging and to serve other people. I think societally we've slipped away from that. So a lot of people don't choose to have leadership responsibility for that reason. That's my thought. What do you think? Any thoughts?
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Yeah, the thought I do have and I have no research to back this up, but what I saw over time, and this took some reflection was much later. I wasn't smart enough at the time to identify these things and realise what the hell is going on. But I feel that going back to your point about there's that self leadership and there's that responsibility and personal accountability that we have to take. So that's the number one thing I feel that people leaders have given that up and I feel that they've given that up to HR because they felt like they've been inept at some of these skills. And then this, somewhere along the line some smart person thought, well, how about we develop these human resource experts and become, because they're called human resource experts or people and culture managers or whatever they're called nowadays, that apparently they're just the expert at that stuff because they've got that role and title. And then I think leaders have just naturally through that journey, they put a lot of trust in HR people and people and culture people. And believe me, I know some fantastic ones and I've met and know some very, very poor ones as well over the time. But I think people in those roles should be far more like us. They should have a coaching mindset if they're skilled in those sort of things, which hopefully they are if they've got those roles that they work with the leaders in the organization and actually to some extent make themselves redundant from dealing with people issues because the direct leader should be able to do a lot of that stuff with support from a HR or people of culture manager and stuff like that. So that's what I've seen in the organisations and the experiences I've had directly.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting.
Either an organization could be led by their human resource priorities and goals and objectives, or not. And sometimes they need to be very much involved with leadership because leadership doesn't always have the perspective of people first and so they have to represent the culture and the people and protect the HR policies. But it's hard to find a balanced leader that can do both. And I think your point is like, hey, we really need to find leaders that don't necessarily need the crutch of human resources, that they actually understand the priority of people and the priority, the values of the organization and they can lead the organization forward as a result of it.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think going back to this sort of first point about extraordinary leaders are made or born, I think where we're settling is that generally they're made. There might be some traits or some wiring somewhere. There's some natural tendency to gravitate towards people and love working with people as opposed to stuck in a back room somewhere hacking in into, you know, Chinese government things or whatever it is. But yeah, I think that's where we're settling. Does that sound fair?
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. I will tell you one thing and there's a One of the best bosses I've ever had. He went on to become the US Bancorp chairman and CEO and Richard Davis. We're just thinking of the world of. And he said to me, don, I think extraordinary leaders. And I asked the question, do you think extraordinary leaders are made or born? He said, I think extraordinary leaders are actually born. And I said, wait a minute, no one else has said that. Why do you believe that? He said, well, think about what you're saying, like extraordinary. What percentage of the population of leaders is extraordinary? Well, I don't really know. Probably at least the top 10% or less. And they said, think about all the things they have to learn. And we disagreed. We went back and forth quite a bit on that. But he felt like extraordinary leaders have, to your point, that character that's almost difficult to develop, but it's inborn. They have that unfair advantage of maybe being a personality style that allows them to love being with people. And they just have a way with people that allows them to inspire and motivate at a high level. And he said, it's rare to find those people. You can develop them. He said, no doubt. But it's more likely that you find those people and you kind of soften their hard edges and you help them become fantastic. But they had a great gift to begin with, and he felt like they were a gift to society. So just representing what he said, I find that interesting. I still believe fully that great leaders are extraordinary leaders are made.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: And look, I'm sure there's. It would be really interesting to unpack this. I know that sort of neither you or I have probably got the scientific experience and the research behind us to go deep dive into this. But if I look back at the young ones that we're involved in caring for and some of the trauma attached to that, some of the environmental factors that attached to that, that they were. Are they born sort of a clean slate. And okay, yes, some of them have some challenges right from birth because of drug dependencies of parents and all those sorts of things. So maybe there's some things there. But then through those environments, people take those situations in any different way. I mean, I had a guest on the show just recently and his episode will come out in a couple of weeks, I think. And he was adopted. And at 16 years of age, he was. His father bought him a suitcase to his workplace and said, look, I don't want to do this, son. But apparently he didn't get on with his, you know, his mother. His adopted mother, and, you know, you're on your own. So, you know, okay. He'd had 16 years of being with him and loved and all that sort of stuff. Apparently not so much from his mother, but he had choices. Right. And he speaks very, very strongly about this, is we all have a choice. You know, there's various traumas attached to that, but his choice was he's going to let that impact or he let it impact him, but in a really positive way. His mindset's very positive. How he has an impact on people is very, very positive. So he could have taken that many ways. Right. That fork in the road he chose, the high road and the low road was definitely an option. So I think we all have that based on our experiences and environment that we've been brought up in.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt environment matters a lot. And I think we're, we're both agreeing on that, that the environment that we grew up in either accelerates what we were given as a gift or can actually decelerate whether or not that gift comes out. And it's interesting that sometimes the suffering that people experience allows them to use the gifts that they have in a better way. It's almost like the suffering sometimes brings it out better. So it isn't just perfect environments create better people, but sometimes the suffering type environment where someone's deprived of maybe love or nurturing like the person you're talking about, that too can be a catapult, a catalyst to get people to move on and use the gifts they've been given.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: And I think it would be very, very interesting to know or to learn. Is there something in a person's character, in their wiring that makes them go a certain way? Why does some people choose that way versus the choice of some other way? Fascinating.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: Someone just asked the question, maybe you have an opinion on this. Is, is grit something that can be learned or is it inborn? Since we're talking about this topic, what are your, what's your thoughts about that?
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah, mate, that's a whole other rabbit hole, isn't it, that you know, the, the work that Angela Duckworth has done around and grit and things like that. And I just, Look, I don't. I can have an opinion, but I, I guess from a. Just some of the basic stuff I've read, you'll work. And I relate some of this back to work ethics. So work apparently really solidified more in those younger years, like six, seven, eight through to early teenagers. So if you can develop your children having good work ethic, understand the power of putting hard trying and putting effort into things. It's not always about winning, but you worked hard, you try hard and there's corresponding result off the back of that, then that to me is what sort of keeps people coming back, keep trying, keep working harder. And if it's. It's like some of these challenges we talk about in society today are people, they're given too much, are they allowed to get away with too much? We talk about the friend I know talks about fun, food and flags. Everyone's getting an award for something. Even just for turning up at work, you get an award sort of stuff. It's really that mollycottling sort of environment that we've created. So I wonder what that means for work ethic or grit moving into the future. Where do you sit on this, mate?
[00:25:22] Speaker A: I. I'm not sure actually, quite. I, I thought a lot about it today and I, I was wondering if, to your point, like if we. You haven't been challenged, if you've been given too much to the point that you're making, is grit going to be available to you? Can you just kind of intellectually learn it? And I would say no. I would think that grit comes from suffering. Grit comes from being behind and having to fight your way through life, so to speak.
There maybe, you know, we think about the, at least here in the U.S. the World War II generation, men that had to go to war at, you know, 17, 18, 19, 20 years old, they had incredible grit because they were just thrown into a terrible situation.
Did they learn grit because they were in war?
Did they have it before they went there? I mean, it's hard to say. I think if you're trying to stay alive, you're going to find a way to grit your way through that, I would think.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a fair point. Isn't that the context and the elevation of the situation might be a contributing factor? I guess again, environments and all these social things. The social environment it is today that you compare it to the wars and what people went through and what families went through, great depressions, all that sort of stuff. There was this fighting out, you had to fight, you had to have that sort of grit to survive. People don't have to have that as much today. You know, again, they get away with stuff and people get very cranky about if their pronouns are misused or whatever. This sort of stuff. I mean, that's a whole other level of non grit, if you ask me.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: I agree. The book that I was referring to, I finally found it as we're talking. Anders Ericsson wrote a book called Peak and Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. It's an interesting book. And it helps people, if your listeners are interested, think about, you know, what is, what is mastery like? And I'd love for them to kind of juxtapose that, that research that Erickson talks about and try to use that in a way of how do I show up as a leader? In the environments where I show up, whether it's church or your family or your business, there's different ways that we can lead more effectively. But most people don't think about how else can I lead more effectively? And so I think that's a helpful context for people to use.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Absolutely, mate. And that one will go onto my read list without a doubt, once we go over the show again and take some notes from that. And it'll appear in our show notes as well, for other people to look at and download if they want. But let's go on to the second step or the second element. So you talked about what do great leaders do that others do not do as well? Tell us a bit more.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: I recently asked this question I posted on LinkedIn and I didn't get a lot of answers. But what I said to people, I think there are three things that stand out for me that are pretty basic but very powerful. The first one is I believe that great leaders are great learners.
There's no doubt to me that the men and women that I've interviewed that are just considered extraordinary are really, really good at learning. And what I mean by that is that they spend a lot of time connecting the dots, that they will do something they'll notice, did that work or not? And if it did work, how do I keep doing that? And when you ask those people questions about how they show up as a leader, they have really good answers because they think about it, they reflect about it. They actually think about how they're showing up in meetings and with their team. The second thing is I think that they also are outstanding listeners. People that listen well, connect deeply with the people they're trying to lead. And normally, great listeners are also very good questioners. They use curious questions. So they're not just listening, but they're really deeply interested in what you have to say. And because of that, they elicit great dialogue. They are able to pull people's hearts out. They inspire and motivate more because they are connected deeply with the people around them. And then the third thing that I proposed is that extraordinary leaders are, on purpose, like they have a mission about themselves that's second to none. You know, that they are trying to make the world a better place. And that all of their leadership actions are based on trying to do that. So you don't second guess whether or not they're just trying to climb the ladder or make more money for themselves. You actually think about them as a person that is somebody that you aspire to be because they are working hard to salvage something, to change something for the better, to make the world a better place. Like I said, so those three things stand out for me. But I'm sure there's a bunch of others, too. I don't think the list is just three long. I'm sure it's more like 30 or, you know, 50 long. What do you think? I'm sure you've got some ideas. Because you think about this as well, don't you?
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. But again, I think that there's always lots of things, right. But I really love trying to get to the root cause of stuff, so I actually, I love what you're saying. Like learners. I mean, there's so much attached to that, and there's, you know, that's a basis. If you've got that mindset around learning, then, like, the paths are endless, right? You can take yourself there, I guess, jumping back to or forward to purpose. And the last one you mentioned, then if you're clear on what your purpose is or you've got some shining light about the sort of direction you want to take, then that can help your learning path be a little bit more focused. Because otherwise there's just so many avenues to go down. That. And then listening. Well, absolutely. I mean, part of the reason why I love doing podcasts is just listening and understanding people's stories. Because you seem like the sort of guy that could just sit there and have a conversation with someone. And you mentioned to me before we started recording, Brennan, I'd love to have conversations in here. Don't just hit me with question after question. I'd love to get your insight. It tells a bit about you already that you just love to understand people, what makes them tick, what's in their DNA, what their experiences have been, what's made them sort of operate or think and believe or believe what they believe today. So I really like those things. So we take it back to root cause. Well, I would put a loop around those and say they're pretty solid foundations to build from.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Yes, I think so. I think there's a lot of things to practice. People attempt to use tips and tricks for leadership development, and I'm somewhat opposed to that. I think that's the cheap way out, you know, There's a lot of.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Tell us about some tips and tricks. What do you. What are these things that get you goat? I've got a couple, so maybe I can share later.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: Well, even the whole listening category, you know. So we would say use active listening. And I was with a client this afternoon before we. We are talking, and he said, I've been given feedback that I need to use active listening. I said, that's fine. What does that mean to you? And he said, I'm not sure. I said, okay, well, let's. Let's think about that, because it is. If you're not sure about it, it's probably not going to work.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: So we read it in a book or watch the YouTube video on it that morning.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: I think you might be right. So the more he kind of thought about it, he thought that probably what he does is when he's listening to someone else, he's formulating his. And so he doesn't listen to them fully, nor does he listen to what they say at the end. And he said, I'm guilty of that. He said, I think maybe active listening for me means that I should maybe paraphrase or summarize what the other person has said before. I just launch into what I want to say. And I said, great, that's a great way to think about active listening for you. I actually personally love that. That's a good example. Like, if we just use the tip of active listening, it really is somewhat meaningless, but if we interpret it to ourselves and what we need to do with other people, it can be very powerful.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. There's a chap that, again, we interviewed on the show, and he's become a friend of mine called Oscar Trimboli. He's known as the deep listening expert. So he uses deep listening as that term. But what I love about his work and the real foundations of it is he's through research, he's identified four listening villains and he uses the acronym called DILs, D I L S. So there's a dramatic listener, there's an interrupting listener, there's a lost listener, and there's a shrewd listener.
So I definitely encourage our listeners and watchers to our community to go and look at Oscar's work because it's fantastic around.
And again, really, really quick summary. So that dramatic listener is actually me. My first category is a dramatic listener. It's not as bad as what it sounds, but it's about creating a connection with people. So, Don, you can be talking and something you say might really resonate and I've got a connection with that. If I don't understand that dramatic listener is my villain, then I would very quickly jump in. And I've had to learn this because I would very quickly jump in and say, oh, I had a situation like this and all of a sudden you're not listening. You've turned the conversation back. That's what a dramatic listener can do. Their underlying is creating a connection and wanting to. So when they hear those things, they come in and it's got a bit of drama attached to it. The interrupting listener is. Well, it's probably not hard to understand, but they can be listening and they're sort of wanting to get out something already before you even there. So they just can't wait to sort of burst at the seams. The lost listener is the one that, strangely, you could say that people that are a bit more neurodivergent, their minds are wandering and stuff. So it's not that they're. They're not good listeners, but what they do is they're just. If you're giving them too much detail or whatever, their personality style and the communication style is their mind will wander and you'll actually see it in their eyes or in their face. They're just sort of like, my wife's a lost listener, so if I go too deep with her, she's like, whoa, wandering off of the stars. I'm like, oi, oi, back here.
And then there's the shrewd listener, which is the one that's listening but trying to solve the problem before they even know really what the problem is. Oh, I know what to do here. And so they're just interrupting like that. So it's not about changing those, but like anything, it's about using your point, like learning around those villains, learning what yours are, acknowledging that. And then when you're having a conversation, just be aware of those. You can't suppress them, but you can control them. And I found that work really powerful from a listening perspective.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: I think you're right. I love Oscar's work. I have not read it. I'll certainly connect with it, though.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Worthwhile, mate. Absolutely. He's a really good fella too, so there's no doubt about it. So Oscar Trimble, he wrote a book, Deep Listening. He's got his Deep listening survey or analysis, assessment, whatever is on his website. I think it's like 20 or 30 bucks. He gives it away for a steal. And it's Aussie dollars too, so in US dollars, it's about $5.
Anyway. But I really do love that learners 100% agree. I mean, to be an extraordinary leader and to be an impactful leader, you've always got to be learning the listening side of things. People have to feel understood. They feel like if you're sitting there and you're giving them time of day, then that actually makes them feel a lot more important than what you did in your corporate life. When they said who are you? Why are you here? And all that sort of stuff. Just giving them the time of day and some space because we're all busy people, right? And then the on purpose sort of wraps it up together, making sure we're on track with things. And has your. Over the course of your journey, how has your purpose changed, if at all? Like when did you really start to solidify that? Or do you feel you're still on that journey?
[00:36:50] Speaker A: It's a really interesting question. I think purpose can change for people throughout their life. I have been living with this defined purpose for the past five and a half years.
Before that I was an executive for nine years and floundering I would say, because I really didn't understand my purpose. My children were going through college, I have four. We're trying to help them with private school and then their college expenses. So I was attempting to, to make money to provide for my family, I think is what I would have said my purpose was. And that's a fine purpose. Many people will say that's what they are trying to do with their life and they're dedicated to that. And I get that. But I really think that purpose is deeper than that for all of us. Certainly we're all here to. If we're trying to provide for our family, there's nothing wrong with that. But it seems to me like purpose. Do you know the, the chap called Terry Fox? Canadian. Have you heard Terry Fox's story?
[00:37:49] Speaker B: No, I haven't.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Oh my goodness, it's such an amazing story. Terry was in the late 70s, early 80s, an 18 year old who lost his leg to cancer.
And back then they didn't have great prosthesis, but they gave him one. He's an 18 year old, didn't know what he was going to do with his life. Now he's lost his leg. All he loves to do is run and play basketball. He can't do that any longer. He has no idea what he wants to do with his life. Now he's lost a leg and he's just emotionally distraught about it. He had to go to a cancer treatment facility, I guess back in the days in Canada, you went to the facility as opposed to doing in the hospital. Remember this? A long time ago. And he saw younger children there, this is pediatric. And he became friends with many of them and some of them passed away during his chemo treatments and some of them also lost a limb. And he was so saddened by their story that he started to wonder, gosh, doesn't make sense that we do something about cancer. Is there a way that we can try to change the world? And this is where I think the root of purpose is, where we notice something that's so dramatic to us that we really want the world to be different. And we dedicate ourselves and our lives to that. We may still provide for our families while we're doing that, but there's something bigger and larger than that in our lives that shows up and it's like beckoning us. It's calling us to change. And so Terry said, I don't know what I can do, but I think I actually, because I love running, I can, I can try to run on this one leg and figure out if that's possible. And he trained for a while and then he announced to his family he was going to do a fundraiser to raise money for cancer research, which was a new idea back in 1980. And they said, what? And he said, yeah, I'm going to run across Canada and I'm going to raise a million dollars at that time. Well, if you go on and find it, the YouTube documentary, you'll just love it, Brendan. It's a fantastic story. Terry Fox has motivated me many, many times. I've got a picture of up him on my wall here. But Terry became so committed to his purpose that he didn't just run, but he ran a marathon. He ran 26 miles a day, every day for like over 150 days. Now who can run 26 miles even with two good legs? But here's a man on purpose and ain't at that time probably 19 years old running across Canada raise money so that these young kids that he saw that were suffering and dying right before him would have a chance at life. He committed his whole life to it. And so today the Terry Fox foundation has raised over $750 million US dollars towards cancer research because an 18 year old said, I'm going to attempt to run across Canada.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: Wow, that's a fantastic story, mate. And thanks for sharing. Well, the thing, why is it, do you feel that people don't take the time or there's not that life changing situation and you don't want life changing situations to happen to people like that, to find their purpose. But it's almost like those that have those sort of situations in their life, they're really back to their backs against the wall and they've got to show grit. Let's get back to that point. Or they really think deeply and like, what am I going to do to make this life that I have left? Because I've still got a lot to give. What am I going to do? It's almost like that's the sad thing with people, that it's that thing, that life changing situation that drives that. What's your view? What have you seen?
[00:41:33] Speaker A: It could certainly be that life changing situation like Terry. But let me ask you the question. You mentioned that you foster a couple of children. Not everyone in the world does that.
Why do you do that? What's the purpose behind that?
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Well, when people ask me that, I always turn to my wife because she was a driving force behind that. She's wanted to do that for a hell of a lot longer than what I did. If she didn't raise it, then we wouldn't be doing it. It certainly wasn't on my radar at all. But thankfully she did raise it with me after 20 odd years of marriage, which was amazing and fantastic. She kept it to herself for so long. And I say thankfully because it's just like as far as my world, our family's world, the people we get to work with, the children we get to support, the relationships we've got to build. And again, these are people from all sorts of backgrounds and situations and there should be no judgment there. It's curiosity and they've grown up environments they haven't known any better. So that has really helped me become, I feel more of a person and more complete. Not complete, but continuing to develop my character. But it's put my character on a level of steroids where I have to be more curious. If I'm judgmental, then I'm not going to be able to help the children. I'm not going to be able to help the family. So how that actually has driven my purpose and funny. Another friend of the podcast who I interviewed some time back, she did a bit of a reading for me. That's not generally my thing, but it really started to solidify that. I love to take challenging emotional situations and bring them down to some sort of simple path. And I think that's something that fostering allows us to do. And I look at it as coaching as well. I mean, it's really helped me be a better coach for my clients because my empathy has risen even more, my understandings has risen even more and my relativity to people. And it's where I've really evolved into. The clients that I seem to attract, which I've only just known in the last few years have been those family orientated business owners. I've worked with lots of business owners, but the ones that we worked really, really well, we get fantastic results and there's this balance and more money, more time, more freedom in their life. They're always family orientated. So yeah, it's been quite a journey and that might still evolve, but that's where I've said I really feel like in the last four or five years that like everything has come together as far as living the purpose, which is bloody good place to be.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: It's really amazing, isn't it, that when you're living on purpose, there's a power to it. That's the name of Terry Fox, power of purpose. And it's almost like the difficulties of life roll off your back a lot easier because you're committed to your purpose. You're not just doing a job, you're not just working a business, owning a business. You're actually committed to a purpose much larger than your business and sometimes even much larger than, than your family. You're making a huge commitment in two children's lives because you're committed to that purpose of helping them with the difficult emotional experiences that they might have had before, you know, you were able to raise them. And so I can see that you're making that difference and on fire because of it. Thank you for doing that.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: My pleasure. Well, I'll tell you what, it's not without its challenges too, mate, because there's a lack of sleep happening at the moment, I tell you. And I think every morning wake up and think, geez, sleep is underrated, isn't it?
Anyway, look, I guess you mentioned your sort of at the top of the show and your background and I guess you led into the purpose. I sort of feel like we are very, very similar on different sides of the world because what you're doing with leaders and your executive coaching and that whole business that you've evolved into and based on your experiences, your journey, it seems like a very similar path to me.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Yep, it really does. It's interesting that there needs to be more of us, there needs to be an army of us to really change the world. If we're going to have a dramatic impact on our society, we need to have More character driven leaders, Leaders that trying to be extraordinary that are practicing their leadership ability. And I think all of your listeners can take that to heart in whatever way they want to. I believe there's always at least one thing for us all to be working on as a leader, that our church needs us to lead better, our family needs us to lead better, our business needs us to lead better. But because we're so distracted with all of the things that we have to do, you know, whether it's running kids to and from their activities or trying to pay the bills, or if our business is so busy that we don't have time to sit and think, we don't really think about what that one thing is. And there certainly is one thing that could be very leverageable upon the families, the church groups, the businesses that we're trying to lead. And, and it's up to us to figure that out. And I think that's the first step towards leadership development that we can all take. And I know that as a dyi, if we don't take that step, it just never happens, Right?
[00:46:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. And talking about diy, mate, was it diy?
[00:46:37] Speaker A: I think I said it backwards. I think do it yourself. Diy.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. That's right. I wasn't sure if it was typo on my side or not because it leads us into our next point. I'm really interested also in this. What's the DI approach to leadership development?
What's this perspective of Don's DIY approach?
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the first thing is there's too many things to practice when it comes to leadership. I mean, how many leadership books do you think are out there in the world today? What's your guess?
[00:47:10] Speaker B: I've got a ton just over here to my left.
I do too.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: I do too. I think if we went out, we could probably find at least a thousand active books today. And you and I together probably have 50 outstanding books. And they're just great. Right? And they're wonderful. And if you tried to learn everything about leadership, like if that was your goal, I'm going to learn everything about leadership because that'll make me a better leader. I believe you'd fail. Like, that ocean is too big. You cannot swim through that ocean. There's just too much to try to cover. So what I like to say to people all the time is like, hey, let's work on, you know, what's happening in your situation and what life is calling for you to be as a leader. Like, what is it that, you know, you need to do that you maybe push aside, you don't practice, you don't do a better job at. You know, some people say, well, you know, I know I need to be more formal and more regular about giving feedback and coaching my people, but I just don't make the time for it consistently because I'm so busy, busy. Okay, well, if that's your thing, that's your one thing. That's where your leadership development should, should begin. And as a do it yourselfer, you need to figure out, how can I do that? How can I practice with that? And then how can I make sure that I hold myself accountable to try that week in and week out? I think there's a great way to do that accountability piece, which is, you know, acknowledging, am I practicing what I said I would practice? And that's just a Saturday morning cup of coffee where you sit down and you talk about with a journal, did I do what I said I was going to do? And I love to sit alone with my journal where the white paper is just talking to me in a very subtle way saying, hey, Don, what did you do this week that made you a better leader? And if you can't answer that question, you probably didn't really practice your leadership. But if you know what you did and you can actually review the tapes of that experience and understand what worked and what didn't work, work. You learn so much and so, so fast, Brendan. It's just unbelievable what people can learn if all they do is buy themselves a journal and determine to practice one leadership thing each and every week.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: I love that, mate. And journaling, what, what got you journaling?
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Well, I would say I'm deeply reflective to begin with, so I like to think things through. But I also noticed that I have a very poor memory, so if I don't write it down, I won't remember it. And then when I started to play around with it, I noticed that by writing it down, it was in my brain and I could do it more frequently rather than having to wonder what was it that I was working on. So it's almost. It isn't just about retention, but it's also about the ability to access and work on things that you've been thinking about. Because you wrote about it, you didn't just think about it.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Just very interesting because journaling is one of those things I understand the power of, and it's one of those things that I've been really, over my years have been really haphazard with.
I do enjoy the self reflection. I mean, again, you have to, you've got to be able to reflect on it. Even at the end of an off site with a leadership team, I do a bit of a self reflection, please. What worked well, what didn't and make changes, ask the leader what worked well today. All those sort of things that we should be doing. But journaling, it's just one of those things for me. I've never, I've never found the secret source to my consistency. Yeah, I, I, I understand the power of it, but there's something in me that I'm still haven't put my finger on that says you, you just don't be consistent about journaling. Yeah, I don't know what it is, mate.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: I'm guilty as charged. I'm right there with you. I, I agree and I actually think that's the, the seduction of journaling that a lot of people use to not do it, but it's actually calling them to do it. And, and so if you think about, I've got a couple journals on both sides of my desk, sometimes I'll pull them off and sometimes I won't. But it's the desire to journal that pulls us forward, right? It's the desire to go back to that. It's like this wonderful relationship that you can't wait to get back to. And if we ignore that desire then we never seem to get around to it. So the fact that you're kind of up and down with your consistency isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing actually.
[00:51:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So thanks, mate. You made me feel better. Maybe I don't need to beat myself up as much as I am.
[00:51:28] Speaker A: I don't think you do.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: It gets back to the DIY side.
I love the fact what I'm taking from what you're saying is that it's important to meet the person where they're at and back to listening, asking questions. One of those important pillars that you mentioned before, if you're asking those questions, like you said, where are they at? What do you think that, what would you like to develop, what would you like to improve upon, where you're having challenges, that sort of stuff, and you can settle on something, then you've got a really starting point, a really great starting point. You've met them where they're at, and more importantly from my lens and what I talk about is that growing confident leaders, so you're really starting to bring them to a place of confidence. If they can work on that, build some confidence and they see some impact there, then that again creates that foundation of confidence to go and attack more challenging items potentially.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a very good point. Traditionally, I like to take my leaders through a 360 assessment. 360 degree assessment means that their boss would give them feedback, their peers would give feedback, their direct reports, and others would give feedback as well. And I think that's a great way to establish a benchmark of where their leadership effectiveness is at and how other people perceive them. And then from that it's easier to put together a development plan, but for a do it yourselfer, it's difficult to do a 360. So I was talking about that. As for the experience for maybe small business owners that aren't going to get a 360 assessment process, but once you have an assessment, it's amazing how if you use that as a benchmark, that becomes the baseline of how you get started and then you can work on your development approach and create skills that you didn't have before and new habits. And as you develop more skills, develop more habits, start to see progress and you take that assessment again. I've seen people that have had like a 10x improvement in their overall leadership effectiveness. It's truly amazing. There's a gentleman that I was working with that I think lived in Singapore at the time and I got his results of his second assessment and I said, oh my goodness, you've increased by tenfold what you had before. And he said, yes, I know. I said, what did you do? He said, I, I don't know. I said, well, you, you got to tell me because I, I'm so curious. I need to know. He said, I just did what you told me to do. I said, I don't even know what I told you to do.
He said, well, Don, I just did something every week. He said, I just, to be honest, I didn't, you know, have a big practice schedule. I just tried to do one thing every week. And I, he said I was really consistent about thinking about what that one thing did for me. Did it help me with my relationships with my people? Did I communicate better? He said, I really did spend consistent time reflecting on what I had done that week. And he said, over, you know, 18 months, I think it was just cumulative of doing that each and every week. I said, wow. And I think he's exactly right. It's, it is that simple, it's that profound and it's also that challenging. So most of us fall off the development path and we don't always pick ourselves up to get back on. But it sounded to me, like, he. He always picked himself back up. He always started again, and he went right back to what he wanted to do and practice and reflected on it, and it's that simple. But it's not that easy.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: Isn't it always the way again, it's always a way where if you've got a desire to improve on something, you've got a focus to do it and you put some deliberate intent into it. It's just amazing what can happen. Right. But like you said, it's easy, but it's also challenging at the same time.
[00:55:02] Speaker A: Yes. Well said.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: Just one other point I want to make with that or ask you about is that I assume that, you know, if I came to you and we had a conversation, you're coaching me, and I said, ah, you know, Don, I'm sure I need to work on my listing and my active listening, and you asked me what it was and I gave you some great explanation, and then you sent me on some course straight away. Is that right? Is that. Is that the done thing? Nowadays you just send them on a course?
[00:55:29] Speaker A: No, I really don't.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: I was hoping you'd say no.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: I wish it was that easy. Right. You know, I really like to make people squirm a little bit and to come up with their own answers. So I think coaching. I'm sure you do this too, Brendan. Right. Is this wonderful interaction between two human beings searching for solutions together.
And the wisdom that I have is useless to my coaching clients unless they are coming up with the answers until they find the solutions to their own problems. I love to start a coaching session by just saying, hey, what's going on in your life? You know, what are your big challenges today? And they'll tell me that. I'll say, well, why don't we look at that like, you know, if you're always talking about other people being your challenge, there's one common denominator to that, isn't there? It's you. And so if you're the one that's always involved in all these challenges, what is it that you can do differently to be better for them and to solve some of these problems? And that's where I think leadership, and I'm sure you experience this leadership coaching is so fun because people start to really look at things that they wouldn't look at on their own because you're asking them the challenging questions. Right. Do you have that same experience?
[00:56:38] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. And are you familiar with Patrick Lencioni's work on Working genius?
[00:56:44] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: There you Go. So one of my genius is discernment. So I just love that aspect of sort of challenging those situations, asking those questions. I sort of. I joke about this sometimes, but I feel like I love being the coach sometimes to sort of drop the bomb and see where it lands.
Like you also said, like seeing people squirm. It's always a bit of fun. Just ask a question. If they haven't got an answer. Sit, wait, sit, wait. Eventually they'll come up with something. But again, you don't want to jump in too early. Right? Let them squirm a bit.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:57:18] Speaker B: Good fun. We sound like we're a bit sadistic in our coaching methods, mate.
No one will ever employ us again.
[00:57:28] Speaker A: Right, let's not bring our clients on. They might say the wrong thing.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: No, no, exactly. I forbid my clients to listen to this episode.
Let's move on to the fourth sort of point. So how do people fail in personal leadership development? What's your opinions around this?
[00:57:46] Speaker A: It's very simple and it's consistent with what we're talking about. Brendan, Failure in leadership development only means one thing. It means giving up normally, because we are trying to do a lot of things in our work and running our businesses that when we say we're going to try to become a better leader, that's on top of everything else that we're already doing. And so it's one more additional responsibility. And it's a lot. It sometimes overwhelms people. And so what happens is they get very, very busy with the situation with a client or a group of clients or whatever situation's happening. Maybe they need to hire people and they forget about or stop doing what they said they were doing to develop their. Their leadership skills. So that's a moment of truth. And be in the moment of truth, they can either choose to eventually go back to what they had started or not. And leadership development failure, to me, are people that have just quit. They just stopped working on what they wanted to work on.
Quite honestly, our lives, just like our journaling, as we were talking about, you know, there's ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs. And that's the same thing with leadership development. So the only real way to fail is to not continue.
[00:59:00] Speaker B: Does it in your experiences come back to that lack of. Lack of grief, grit, lack of desire? Did they think that leadership was going to be this sort of fancy role at the top where you didn't have to do much? Like, what's your view?
[00:59:13] Speaker A: I really do think you're right. It is Lack of desire. It's not enough motivation to push yourself.
Some people say old dogs can't learn new tricks. I disagree with that completely.
Old, unmotivated dogs can't learn new tricks because they don't have the motivation. But I think anyone can learn that really wants to push themselves. I think to your point earlier, point about sometimes when you have a difficult situation that's happened to you, maybe that's it. Maybe they haven't experienced enough failure. I was coaching or beginning to coach someone who I was assigned to, and he wasn't really interested in what we're doing, and he was pushing back and kind of a driver personality. And. And you're like, I don't understand this. It's no big deal. I know that I'm rough around the edges, but they pay me to be tough on other people here. What's the big deal?
Blah, blah, blah. And then I said, hey, you know, quite honestly, I don't want to do this if you don't want to do this. And, you know, let's, let's not, you know, do something that neither of us are motivated to do it. But I said, I'm just curious. You mentioned you have some teenagers at home. He said, yeah, what about them? I said, well, how's it going with them? Them?
He was quiet.
And he said, when do we begin?
And I said, okay, there we go. So, I mean, until you find someone's motivation, I think that's true for all of us. If you're going to do it yourself, find your motivation. Like, why would you want to be a better leader? Like, why would that make a difference? Is there a relationship in your life that is troubling you, that if you were a better leader that you could make an impact on that relationship? Is it your spouse or your children or friends or people that you work with? There normally is at least one important relationship to people that is impacted by our negative leadership ability, and we need to adjust that. But it is always clear what we can do. So I would suggest to your listeners that if they're looking for a way to get started, to ask themselves, what's the motivation of why you'd want to be a better leader isn't just to be a better leader. There's something else behind that.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah, again, I love that question. I think people should also realize, and you touched on it, that the motivations can be different. I know when I think about my own leadership journey, I've loved the challenge of leading because it is tough and you're dealing with lots of different people, lots of different perspectives, lots of different backgrounds, all that sort of stuff. And it's just like if you can navigate some of these waters and work through them, and again, you're never going to be liked by everybody. But respect is a big thing. If you're respected for what you're doing and decisions you make and you can bring people along that journey, then that's a big thing. So I definitely think motivation is absolutely critical. I agree that if you are motivated to learn something, to get better at something, and you actually enjoy that, then, geez, you've got a much greater chance of being successful in learning and enjoying that and actually being decent about it. But if it's a grind because you hate doing it and stuff like, like, you're just never really going to be good at it, are you?
[01:02:14] Speaker A: Never. No. I agree 100%. Yeah. There's just no way.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: How to know if you are a great leader. Well, this is something we should have spoke about at the top of the show when we're talking about some of these various leaders around. Right. It's this low bar, so probably a good one to wrap it up with, mate. How to know if you are a great leader.
[01:02:36] Speaker A: Well, there's probably a lot of answers to this question, as there were for the other questions we've looked at, but let's try to unpack this together again. Brendan, if you don't mind. For me, one of the things that you notice about great leaders is they have a trail of feedback that follows them. And for instance, I mentioned Richard Davis's name earlier and he was someone that I hadn't seen for maybe like 10 years. And I would run into alumni of people that I had worked with and they would say, hey, I saw Richard Davis. They were very excited, excited about having seen him. And the story was always consistent about this. This man called Richard Davis. He. They would say, oh, he's such a great guy. That's the first thing. Second thing they would say is like, he remembered my name, which is unbelievable because in his company he had 73,000 employees.
That's how big U.S. bancorp is. And the third thing is, is that he always said something about my family. He seemed to recall something about my wife or my kids or something and just blew me away that this man who has all this responsibility was a. That interested in me as a person and my family and then could ask me a meaningful question about it. And it was so inspiring to people because he deeply connected with people. He wasn't just a big time bank leader. He was a human being that loved people and really understood their story and how important it was to remember who they were and what was important to them, that feedback followed him around. And so I think great leaders, one way to know if you're a great leader is to know whether or not the feedback that's following you around is that powerful or not. What are people saying about you? I can guarantee that all leaders have a trail that's following them. It isn't always that positive though. What's your thoughts?
[01:04:21] Speaker B: I think my thoughts are fairly similar. I would just use slightly different language from my own side of things. Is that, you know that old chestnut question about what's a manager versus what's a leader? When you go to these sort of seminars and unfortunately I've been one of those people in corporate environments that have created training around different stuff and you've got one side of the chart that's manager and one side of the chart that's leader is like, wow, I wish I had my time again. But I just look at that and say, well, I actually think that there's lots of great task managers out there. And the fundamental difference between people who are great task managers and people that that managed tasks, but also are leaders of people is that connection piece. And to me, that's exactly what you're speaking about. Like how do you connect with people? How do you help them feel that you care about them, you have an interest in them as a person and then when you've got that foundation of connection, then you can build up from there, you know, all the trust and all that sort of stuff from that. So, yeah, it sounds like, I think we're pretty much on the same page as far as that goes.
[01:05:29] Speaker A: I think you're right. I would say to your listeners that one way to begin to answer that question for themselves would be to ask the question. Be curious. We don't normally ask people meaningful and specific enough questions about our leadership to know whether or not it's resonating with them. And so a good place to start, I mean, if you have the opportunity to use a Leadership360 assessment, go ahead and do that. Of course, if you don't, if you just need to ask people specific questions when you're one on one with them, that works as well. But you need to have good questions that can elicit their specific responses to that. If you just say, do you think I'm a good leader and you're the boss? The answer is always going to be yes, but they're not going to tell you the truth behind that unless it's their last day.
What's that?
[01:06:19] Speaker B: Unless it's their last day.
The good old exit interview chestnut or something. But not that people tell the truth in that. I think they're a complete waste of time. But anyway, yeah, again I think speaking to that point is I don't usually go into the more formal 360 stuff that you refer. I've had a few of those myself and I have used them with leaders at the appropriate time. But I do use a form of 360 and I like to use this quite a bit because it's, it's fresh, it's in the moment and it's hot and it does make people squirm a bit because it's just the start, stop, keep method. But I get people to work with each other. It might be sometimes it's one on one, other times it's sort of group to leader and it's like, what do you want that leader to start doing? What do you want that leader to stop doing? What do you want that leader to keep doing? And again that's where back to the point about, I think meeting people where they're at, then you can come up as a leader of people, you can come up with all sorts of things as you're saying to say, well, this is what it means to me to be a great leader, but if that's not what your team thinks is a great leader, then there's a complete disconnect. You think you're doing a great job, they think you're a twat and where does it end?
[01:07:28] Speaker A: Yes, that's really well said.
[01:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Meeting people at their place and actually getting feedback. Because also if you've managed various teams, how you've had to lead and the sort of environment you've been in, you may have had to adjust certain things and that's work for that team. But if you just go and think that that vanilla style is going to work for some other team and some other environment, some other culture of an organ that you're in, then you're probably going to be sadly mistaken.
[01:07:54] Speaker A: That's a good point. Maybe what you're saying is that leadership effectiveness is in the eye of the beholder.
[01:08:00] Speaker B: I think so. I think so. I mean, do we believe that? I mean again these cliches about servant leadership and stuff like that, you've got to, there's, to me, there's got to be a balance of serving others is super important. I like to say elevating Others to be better than what they thought they could be. But if you're always serving others and not serving yourself, like you said about back to like, it's sort of draining. Right. You've got to be able to fill your cup, make sure you're focused and energized, and then you can serve others as much as possible. But yeah, you sort of. You've got to meet people where they're at, and you've got to adjust your style for individuals and for that environment, for that team and that culture and that context you're working within. That's what I think, anyway.
[01:08:40] Speaker A: No, it's a great way to put it. I like to work with some different four box models. I'm sure you do the same thing. And it's interesting if you say, okay, Brendan, you're in this box of these four, and it's equally distributed amongst the people that you lead in your organization.
You are very good with 25% of the population and maybe 75% you're not very good with. So it's going to take some work on your behalf to be able to adjust your style to be more like their styles and to invite them into a different kind of communication, a different kind of decision making and problem solving that allows them to be comfortable with your style. But your job as a leader is to know what their style and preferences are and then to adjust your style to make them more comfortable with you. And if you don't adjust, they won't adjust. And if they don't adjust, then we end up using adjectives about each other that aren't always pleasant. And we describe each other in ways that. Right.
That aren't very kind. Sometimes because we don't understand each other's style. You know, we just get in each other's way because it's so different. You take a very analytical person versus A. A person that's very much a driver trying to drive results. They don't think about the business in the same way. It isn't that one's good and one's not. It's just that one needs more data and the other one needs more action. And those two things look very, very different.
[01:10:00] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I often say to people that most people don't wake up in the morning wanting to do a bad job. I also think most people don't wake up in the morning wanting to upset other people. Like, there's just a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication, again, because of lack of understanding of people's styles and how they like to interpret information and rece receive information and communicate and all those sorts of things.
[01:10:20] Speaker A: I agree, mate.
[01:10:23] Speaker B: I know we're slightly over time, so let's wrap this up.
Five elements. Fantastic. Really appreciate your insights and I always certainly appreciate you asking me about my own thoughts and opinions. So it's nice to have a show, isn't it, when you can share your own thoughts and opinions. Apparently that's why some people do these things.
The last question that we always ask our guests is what's the one thing that's helped you build a culture of leadership?
[01:10:50] Speaker A: I think culture is a leader's responsibility and so one of those things is to be clear about what kind of culture do you have today. I mean, it's very difficult to know what you're building unless you know where you're starting from. A lot of culture books are written as if they're green fields, but most culture improvement projects are brownfields where you're trying to build off of something that's already there. So I think the challenge of a leader is to get their arms around what am I working with, how am I starting on this particular project and then how can my skills be used to develop the kind of culture that I'd like to see. So it takes some cultural analysis and then it takes a culture building plan and then it takes a lot of dedication towards working on that plan until it comes to fruition.
[01:11:42] Speaker B: Love that, mate. I would say get the lay of the land. Don't try and change the land before you know what it is. It is a certain way for a reason. Understand that. And then you can work with and bring the people along depending on what you're trying to do. So love that point, mate. Thank you for sharing, mate. Thanks for spending quality time with us today. Really appreciated the conversation. Appreciated you and your insight into these very, very important points. I hope it's given a lot of insight to people to go and think about, reflect, write in their journal and understand how they can improve some more. So thanks for being a wonderful guest on cultural leadership.
[01:12:15] Speaker A: Thank you, Brendan. I've enjoyed being with you. Thank you.
[01:12:18] Speaker B: Been a pleasure, buddy.
These are my three key takeaways from my conversation with Don. My first key takeaway, Confident leaders build productive habits. Confident leaders commit to continuous growth by consistently practicing the skills they aim to develop.
Rather than relying on quick fixes, they focus on building long term habits that reinforce their effectiveness. This disciplined approach enables them to grow steadily, creating a strong foundation for themselves and their teams.
My second key takeaway, confident leaders meet others where they are effective leaders. Team members understand the importance of connecting with their team by meeting them at their current level. Through active listening and tailored communication, they adapt their leadership style to align with the needs of their people. This flexibility fosters trust and engagement, empowering team members to excel.
My third key takeaway Confident leaders are relentless in their purpose.
Purpose driven leaders bring a power powerful sense of commitment to everything they do. They remain steadfast in their mission, inspiring those around them to embrace a shared vision. By staying true to their purpose, they create a culture of motivation and resilience within their organizations.
So, in summary, my three key takeaways Confident leaders build productive habits Confident leaders meet others where they are and confident leaders are relentless in their purpose. You can let me know your key takeaways on YouTube or at theculturalleadership.com thanks for joining me. And remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.
