Brett Larson on Human-Based Leadership Development For Your Life, Career, and Organization

John: You’re listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development.

John: To change your experience of life and work with every episode. So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go. Let’s go. Welcome to another episode of the present professional on this episode. We have a special guest with us, Brett Larson. Brett spent the last 30 years in manufacturing leadership and the last three of those years in leadership development specifically. And through this has developed a novel approach to developing leaders. And he’s going to share a lot of that with us today. He’s also going to be sharing that with you directly in his new book, that’s just coming out called Leaders with a capital L. You’re going to have to grab yourself a copy and we will put that in the show notes. So without further ado, I want to welcome Brett. Thank you for being with us here today. And why don’t you start with telling the audience a little bit more about yourself?

Brett: Excellent. John and Tony, I’m excited to be here with you. I always love talking about leadership. Leaders have such an important role, not just for a company in creating performance on their teams, but also in affecting people’s lives. So my background, and I think one of the things that makes me unique in the profession of leadership development, is that I have a lot of experience being a leader. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes as a leader, and hopefully learned from those mistakes. So it’s not just a theoretical understanding of what leadership is, it’s a practical understanding as well. And it’s interesting because my first role in leadership about 33 years ago, I didn’t receive any training going into it i was an industrial engineer and i decided that you know engineering really wasn’t feeding me and i wanted to lead a team i wanted to create something and and help a team excel and so when i got into leadership and i was just focused on results i didn’t do real well to begin with and and i had to have an epiphany That you know while i had a self image that i cared about people i really wasn’t demonstrating. through my behavior, through my words that I cared. It was just all about business results. And so I had a pretty strong awakening and that was really kind of my first introduction to the need to be emotionally intelligent and self-aware and understanding at a deeper level how I was affecting others. So That’s just a little tidbit and then in the last few years when i went into leadership development the first thing i did was i tried to understand what the research was out there because my experiences had been that i take leadership development programs. And they didn’t really have a lasting impact on me. And so I really wanted to understand what research says makes a leadership development program effective. And so that was my approach. I enrolled in a doctoral program, took a few classes there, was exposed to a lot of research. But that was kind of the genesis for you know, this quote unquote novel approach to leadership development. So I’ll just pause there.

Tony: Wow. Brett, I thought that was such an incredible visionary journey that you just took us through from your experience. One thing that stuck out to me was when you talked about the results-driven leader. You know, there’s so many results-driven leaders today. What is some of the things that you notice for results-driven leaders that can make that shift? What does that shift look like for those kind of leaders?

Brett: Well, I think it probably varies. For me, it was just absolute in-your-face frustration in my leadership. So probably the pinnacle of it for me Was about six months into being a leader i wanted to have a team building event i wanted to have a picnic so i put up a sign up sheet and i announced it to the team please sign up we’ll have a potluck and a picnic and no one signed up and i reminded them. And then I looked one day and one person had signed up. And I changed the name of this in the book, but I’ll give you the actual name that they signed up with. Because I looked at the name and I’m like, gosh, I thought I knew everyone here. I don’t recognize that name. And then it kind of struck me. The name was Craven Moorhead. So it was this. It was this fictional name that basically said, you know, we don’t have any respect for you and we’re not going to have a team building with you. And I spent a lot of sleepless nights trying to figure out, I cared about people. What’s the deal? And through some great leadership by the person that led me at the time, we processed this. And I realized that I had been so focused on process improvement and performance of the department that I had overlooked the skills and abilities of the team. And I hadn’t included them. So that was my waking up. And I guess it was great that it was just a punch in the face. It really woke me up. Others it might be more subtle, you know, it might be um amy edmondson in her book on psychological safety Suggests that it might have been in an interview. I heard with her actually she suggests in a meeting notice the level of participation And if you’re just speaking as a leader and no one else is adding and there’s silence You know, you’ve heard the saying that I assume silence means agreement and that’s it’s garbage. Silence probably means a little bit of fear. And if there is silence, that’s an indicator that you need to do something to make it safer, to be a little more self-aware of leadership, maybe to stop talking so much as a leader.

John: Wow. And when you’re speaking about that and psychological safety and the things that you realize with your team and not wanting to come to the team building event, that it seems like establishing that connection on an authentic level with your team is a piece that was missing. What do you think about that?

Brett: Uh, totally. I, it was a one way conversation before that these people had worked. This was a die casting department. They, you know, some of them had 20 and 30 years of experience and I was learning by the book. I was taking classes. I was just, uh, not overtly including them and I wasn’t getting my hands dirty working alongside them. And. That’s really, you know, the first step a leader should do is build relationships a leader you know, we sometimes talk about new leaders and what are tips for for new leaders to start out successfully and I would say that you’re you’re probably a leader because of you what you’re able to accomplish because of your individual contributions. And when you step into leadership, you have to realize that you’ve got to maybe not abandon it, but set it on the side and learn who your team is. Learn, you know, what their challenges are, what their values are, what their ideas are, what’s, are the barriers they’re facing, and really just immerse yourself in developing relationships. And then that then creates the basis for moving forward and leveraging everything, all the great skills and abilities and experiences they have to offer.

John: And I like, I like this coming off of the question that Tony asked about results driven leaders, that it’s almost like that’s putting the cart before the horse, right? Is coming in with only a results driven approach and letting that come ahead of establishing the foundation, the relationships, the psychological safety. And so letting that come first, having that foundation, then creates the foundation for being results-driven with your team. Am I getting that right?

Brett: I think that’s very true.

John: And that foundation, we recently did a whole series on emotional intelligence and I’m hearing a lot of parallels in the way that, you know, to be aware of yourself, to be aware of the way that you interact with people, your social awareness, relationship management. And so how do you feel about the relationship between developing that foundation and emotional intelligence?

Brett: Um, well So you’ve I think you’ve gone through in previous podcasts That emotional intelligence starts with self-awareness and then you your self-awareness allows you to self-manage more effectively And then the third piece is empathy and your other awareness and then relationship management So it’s kind of all in there. Um, but without a strong basis in You know self-awareness you don’t even get to be effective in relationship management so you know i think what you’re asking about is that relationship management piece and i think that’s kind of the cherry on top that you can achieve when you’re self-aware when you’re other aware when you can. Manage your yourself. One of the things that, you know, it’s interesting to me is when somebody says, I couldn’t help it. I was angry, but that’s just the way it is. And I’m like, okay, you’ve got a little bit of self-awareness there. That’s beautiful. You’re lacking a little self-management because by the way, you can control it. We all have the ability to control it. It might take practice. Certainly, it might take patience with yourself, but it’s not okay. It’s not enough to say you’re aware. You also have to use that to manage yourself, and then you can manage relationships effectively. Did I answer your question, John?

John: Yes, somewhat. I’d say, you know, looking at that, given the fact that we did a whole series on emotional intelligence, I wanted to presence how important that is. in being the leader that you describe in Leaders with a capital L. So maybe posing that question a slightly different way is in your definition of a leadership, like the humble leader that you describe in the book, How much is emotional intelligence an integral part of that? And how do you recommend that people, even if they’re not in a leadership position today, integrate that into their self-leadership, their life leadership?

Brett: Well, I’ll start with some data. In Emotional Intelligence 2.0, one of the pieces of data is that when you look at high-performing leaders, 90% also have high emotional intelligence. So that would suggest that it’s pretty difficult to be a high performing leader without emotional intelligence. It’s pretty foundational. And so the, um, aspect of, and what I think makes a leader high performing is not because they are the best individual, because let’s say you have a team of 10 people. Um, you could be the best. performer in the world and you’re only capturing 10 percent of the potential with your contribution. Leaders, I think first and foremost, need to focus on how do I achieve and uncover the potential in the team. It’s really focusing on the 90 percent that’s available by helping support and make other people. much more effective now so that’s data that says it’s important in in as a leader in a business at home i’ll just give you some personal experience as a parent good and bad emotional intelligence and self-awareness allows you to make mistakes and learn from mistakes and Anybody who’s a parent makes daily mistakes. I made hourly mistakes and You know, I would have experiences where like One of my sons. I have three sons And maybe one of them broke something and then lied about it and this is natural This is not you know a devil child. This is a normal kid And when I reacted with anger, what that did is just promote more lying, you know, and I don’t want to go through that anger again. I don’t want to be exposed. And self-awareness allowed me to go back and go, Oh, how, how did I show up there? That was not optimal. How should I show up in the future? Um, what was my son going through? you know, where they broke something, they were scared, they were shamed, and so they wanted to cover it up. So knowing that, how can I behave differently? In my best moments as a parent, I would suppress my emotions, not react based on my emotions, but pause. And Covey, you know, talks about the To use the moment between stimulus and reaction to pause there and consider a better reaction. And I think that’s brilliant. And when I paused and just talked to my son about it and said, hey, I know you, you broke that. It’s okay. What happened? And allowed them to just be a human being, having a conversation and, you know, kind of like the techniques we learn in coaching where you want the other person to discover the truth. You want to just ask them questions and probe a little deeper and help them process. And then they get the learning. The next time it happens, they actually say, Hey dad. you know, this happened, I broke it. And then it’s like, thank you so much for telling me. Gosh, I appreciate that. That must have been hard to do. And you’ve now established a trusting, loving, spatial, expansive relationship with your son instead of a fearful cover-up, shameful. And then they become a healthier person. And there’s so much overlap between work professional and at home. And that’s the kind of way you want to treat people that you lead as well, that you respect them, that you know that people have good intentions and they’re not out to screw up. We got to create space for learning, I think is kind of the main thing.

Tony: Brett, I got to jump in because I mean, when you translated it from personal life to personal life, that home example, like I’m a new dad, so I’m all over that. And I just love what you were saying and, you know, in tying it back to the the bigger conversation we’re having and then even emotional intelligence like John’s bringing up. It sounds like that fourth quadrant, which is relationship management, is really the real game changer. You get your self-awareness, your self-management down, you understand your social awareness a bit, but then that relationship management is when you really put it into practice. My question to you is, for leaders who we know that are results driven and they start to walk the walk a bit, how do they make it genuine with those employees or those people or even at home? How do they make sure it comes across as genuine? Because I’ve been working with people who say they’ve been attempting to change, but then the people don’t, they’re not receptive of their change, they don’t believe it’s real. Does it take time, or what do you have to say about that?

Brett: Well, that’s probably that self-awareness piece. So, that’s a great question, Tony, and I think sometimes we think that we can fool somebody else, we can just pretend to respect them or pretend to care about them, And convince them of it. And that’s garbage. You know, we’re, we, people are so much smarter than we can imagine. And you, you can see right through that. So what I would say is you need to believe it. You can’t fake it. So you need to do personal work to get to the point where you like. I care about people people matter that people have good intentions that you know even if you see some behavior that you don’t agree with realize that you have no idea what their history is you have no idea. what they’ve gone through and what fears they have, and just create space to love them as a human being, to know their infinite capacity. So you’ve got to get there, you’ve got to believe it, and then when you’re there and you’re trying to build relationships, that comes out in spades. The other thing I would say is listen. hear what their perspective is, what their background is, what their fears and dreams are. Don’t feel like you may have gotten into a leadership role because of what you’ve been able to express and how you’ve been able to communicate and what you’ve been able to accomplish. You’ve got to put that on the shelf now and you got to understand what others have available. And one other thing that I wanted to also say is, when I make a mistake as a leader, when I make a mistake as a parent, and then through mindfulness practices and reflection and other things, I recognize that. And maybe through feedback, you know, my wife is a great giver of feedback for me, and we all have blind spots and need that too. But when I recognize that, it’s so important. to be vulnerable and to go back to your son and say, you know what, dad screwed up there. Dad lost his temper. Dad isn’t perfect. I’m sorry. I learned. It’s okay. And I want to be a better father. So can I have a do over? And as a leader admitting When you make a mistake, then you enable other people through your example to be honest with themselves, to be vulnerable with you. I think sometimes we think leadership is about perfection and showing that you’re so capable, but I think it’s, and Brene Brown will tell you, it’s really largely about vulnerability.

John: I couldn’t agree more, and I’d say my experience with some of the most powerful leaders in my early career and in my life, it has been the ones that were the most vulnerable, the most authentically human. to where that it wasn’t such a separation of skill or insight or experience, that it was a level playing field in a way that I can relate to you and coaching in a way that’s helping me find my own answers, that’s helping me explore topics myself. And I love the way that you said that about parenting and and also wanted to presence of the audience that you know bread is also a coach as well also a certified coach and i love that, when that psychology comes out and a lot of the things that that you say in a lot of the concepts that you bring up and i saw that you when you’re talking about, being a parent and letting, you know, letting your son explore that issue on himself, like breaking, you know, breaking something and just asking the question to let him kind of explain the situation in his own terms, like without any projection from yourself. And I think that’s so imperative as a leader. And you’ve also naturally moved into feedback conversations here and how, how integral that is as well. And I love the way that you mentioned the importance of emulating, receiving feedback as well, right? And being the example there, setting the example as the leader, right? So you’re not just telling your employees or your family how to receive feedback. that they’re seeing that through you. When we’re thinking about something that our listeners can take into their lives tomorrow to be better at giving and receiving feedback, what would be your number one thing for them?

Brett: It kind of all is in the same vein in terms of giving feedback to another it’s the mindset where you go into it you know where you’re assuming good intentions you’re connecting with the humanity of the person you’re creating space for them in the feedback and you know one model that’s out there that. that i’ve kind of adjusted modified is the situation behavior impact model sbi and. It’s a easy formula it’s something that is taught broadly and industry it’s i think for people that are uncomfortable and we’re all uncomfortable giving feedback. But where I think it falls short is it’s it’s tends to be a one-way conversation. It tends to be a I’m touching the base of giving feedback. So, you know, you’re stating a situation. The example I like to use, we work in a clean room in my full-time job. And when somebody is late, you know, situating behavior feedback would say, hey, Tony, I noticed you were five minutes late to work. We have a challenging build plan this month. And when you’re late, it lets the team down and it affects our ability to meet the build plan. Situation, behavior, impact. What happens if Tony was late because an engineer grabbed him in the hallway and asked him some questions on a change order that he was doing? Or let’s say a coworker of Tony’s was out in the hallway crying. And Tony took a moment to comfort them and to ask them if everything was okay. I just gave Tony a drive-by feedback. And Tony, if Tony had, you know, strong self-esteem, he might say, wait a second, this is why I’m late. But a lot of times Tony would just like, fine, walk away and be ticked at me. And it would hurt our relationship. So I, I think, you know, just again, the coaching way, I think you got to be curious. And I think it’s, and this isn’t to be soft. I mean, you can still say, Hey, you were five minutes late and we have a really challenging build plan. Is everything okay? What’s going on. And now Tony has an opportunity to say. You know I was late because of And 95 99 percent of the time if tony was late because he hit snooze too many times because he had a late night or something He’s gonna say You know what? I hit snooze too many times. I I screwed up I overslept and he will take responsibility and then then it just becomes okay. How do you avoid that in the future? and again now tony’s able to problem solve for himself and i’ve helped facilitate that personal responsibility without tearing Tony down and preaching to him. So conversational feedback I think is really important, and it’s a great opportunity to deepen relationships. So I think when you approach feedback in that way, You start embracing it. You start realizing that it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a scary thing. It’s an opportunity to have a conversation and get to a deeper level with somebody. In terms of receiving feedback, I love the approach of having a growth mindset. And if you have a growth mindset, which says, how can I improve? It’s okay that I’m not perfect. I am never, I’m never going to be perfect, but I can continue to grow. and I want to grow. That then, that mindset then is very welcoming to feedback. And so as a leader, if you can embody that and you can promote that in your team, that creates an awful lot of ability to be real with each other, ability to learn and grow and get better as a team.

Tony: Wow, you know, you said a lot there and I was thinking about the leader that is working on that at the top of an organization who’s trying to be the perfect model of that leader with the capital L, right? And it made me wonder, how does an organization build that culture? How do you disseminate a culture that receives feedback and gives feedback in a manner that you just mentioned or kind of builds those relationships throughout the rest of the organization? So to the staff level, the individual contributors, how do you infuse that into a culture no matter the size?

Brett: That’s a wonderful question and it’s tough. I think it’s easier to do it locally with your team. A lot of your team’s experience with culture is going to be how their leader behaves with giving feedback, receiving feedback, listening, being curious, and those things. Locally, I think it’s It’s about having these values and then practicing mindfulness, practicing reflection so that you don’t, you know, a month later realize you screwed up a month ago, but you can address it right away. And gosh, and asking for feedback. But Antonio, you might have, you know, as a coach, you might have some insight into this. It’s a challenge when you’re looking broadly, more organizationally, because really if your CEO doesn’t embody it or your leader doesn’t embody it, it’s a lot harder. And one of the things that I define as a capital L leader is a leader that is courageous, which means they go past their personal discomfort to give their leader feedback, to challenge their leaders, and to do so in a way that I’ve been talking about, to talk about the facts of the matter, the behaviors, and then to say, what’s your perspective on that leader, or how do you think that affects people that you lead, and create that conversation. But ultimately, they have to have the broader culture. They have to buy in. They have to participate. They have to embody it. That’s my perspective. Do you have any other thoughts?

Tony: I mean, I think you hit it on the head is that they have to participate. And what another thing I’ve seen, too, is, you know, if that’s the culture that’s set by the leader from the top down, it can work. But if people aren’t bought in and they don’t think it’s genuine, if they’re not being heard, and they don’t feel like they have a seat at the table to add to the mission or add to the direction that the organization is going, they’re not going to buy in. So I love the feedback model that you gave because it just lays a playing field where if I’m late, maybe there is a reason. Maybe I’m not a slacker, but maybe we can talk about that. And then I can bring in my perspective. So I think you hit it on the head though, Brett.

John: And Tony, you brought up something right there that I want to call out and it’s having a seat at the table. I think that’s a huge part when we talk about an organization, like when there’s an initiative that comes out from the top down, right, without having feedback from the people that it’s going to affect. I’ve seen that really divide organizations. So I think that when we’re thinking of a larger organization or you’re thinking about a major rollout of something that’s going to be around feedback or your leadership development structure or a framework that you’re going to use to evaluate employees or evaluate different things that you’re doing within the organization, When that is just pushed down without any feedback in the development phase for the people, I find that it’s, I want to say impossible, but it’s hard. It’s hard to get buy-in like after the program’s been rolled out, if the people that it’s influencing have had no hand in its development. So I think that, you know, that is a big thing of being a self-aware leader in a more aware organization is to whether it’s a, whether it’s a group, a small group of a representative from each of the different departments that that’s going to affect to have a seat at the table. during the development, whether it’s at least feedback surveys, at least in the development of a new program to roll out. I wanted to just presence that, that having a seat at the table is so important.

Brett: Just to add to that, John, let’s point to some additional data that’s in Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and that is in an appendix, at least in the version I have, where they measure average emotional intelligence from starting entry-level leader all the way through CEO. And what they find is it’s still true at every level that the higher performers have higher emotional intelligence. But the average emotional intelligence, let’s say, let me just throw out a number. There’s a score that they give. I don’t know if this is accurate, but let’s say entry-level leaders score a 70 on emotional intelligence. And then when you go up to middle management, Maybe middle managers the average is eighty and then when you progress beyond middle management. The average emotional intelligence starts going down to where the CEO and their average emotional intelligence is actually lower than that entry level leader. So why why is that it doesn’t explain it in the book i have some theories but we need to recognize that the broader level of leader you are it’s probably a lot more stress you’re probably a lot busier you probably. Are you when you act under stress you behave differently than when you’re not under stress as well. And you typically tend to be, you know, reactive and and maybe you don’t feel like you have time for mindfulness, but you really don’t have time to not do mindfulness. So there’s a lot of pressures. You probably are more insulated from other people. You probably get less feedback because it’s harder to speak truth to power. So recognize that the circumstances are different for CEOs and it’s easy for us to say CEOs need to be this way. But The challenges are unique and it’s a unique challenge for us as people trying to influence and help organizations to connect with those CEO challenges and help them look past all of the fires that are burning today, all the things they need to do And how can they pull people in and work through people? And that’s exactly your point. And just one other thing, I’m sorry, I recognize that I’m talking a lot here. But I always thought when you’re creating a strategy, it’s the process of creating the strategy is more important than the actual strategy. So grabbing your team together, looking at the broad strategy, looking at the broad environment, looking at the local challenges, and then opening it up to what do you think our priorities should be? And getting people to participate in that, the strategy that results now everyone owns. When a leader just creates their own strategy, to your point exactly, I don’t own that, you know, okay, I’ll follow it. I’m going to follow it with, you know, 50% of my potential because I’m not really super engaged because I don’t think those are the priorities. So the process is really crucial.

John: Wow. I couldn’t agree more. And as you were saying that and talking about having everyone buy in and part of the process, I was even thinking down to planning something at home, like having, having the kids involved in the vacation planning. Like, it’s not like, Hey, we’re going to the beach. We’re doing X, Y, and Z. It’s like, how do we get, how do we get everyone involved? everyone involved in the strategy, right? I love seeing those parallels between the two. And so what is one thing? So as you kind of grow, as you move up to higher levels of leadership and management, and we’re talking about that disconnection, right, from the group, right, from the ground floor, from the guys on the factory floor, Right. And so how do you notice, I guess it’s at that level of self-awareness, but what’s a couple of things that people can look for, like for signs of disconnection, for maybe signs of reprioritizing, you know, connecting back to the people, connecting back to, you know, lower levels of leadership or the ground floor?

Brett: Gosh you know that that is so hard for broad leaders because you they want to i would guess they want to clone themselves because there’s so many more people that they could connect with. It’s a tough one and i’ll give you my thoughts but i’d love to hear yours as well a couple things one is. having broad formats that hey I am going to be accountable to the entire organization at least once a quarter maybe once a month and I’m going to create a forum where I just answer questions or maybe I give 10 minutes of overview and then I answer questions and by the way I’m not And this is hard, but I love the approach, even though I haven’t seen it followed, so this might be very idealistic. But I think that questions should not be anonymous, and I think they should not be filtered. And if somebody asks you a tough question, I think you acknowledge, thank you so much. This is a hard question, and it’s an important question, and let’s try and wade through that. And I think that demonstrates courage. It demonstrates vulnerability. It demonstrates receptiveness and that you’re not above being challenged. Plus, not being anonymous, sometimes you have to be anonymous to get the tougher issues exposed. But over time, I think if you’ve created a culture of safety, of vulnerability, anonymity, uh is just is not a good sign of open communication and psychological safety to have to have it and when you and it creates a sense of responsibility when i know that i’m asking a tough question and it’s not anonymous I need to ask it in a professional respectful way. And so it creates good behaviors on both of our parts. And I’ve been in organizations before where you’ve had anonymous questions that get filtered, and then broad leaders are complaining that people aren’t being professional with their questions. It’s like, oh, wait a second here. Look in the mirror. And how should you address that because you own it, you know, it’s just other people that are not being responsible so That those are a couple of things but i’d love to hear thoughts you guys have on that

John: Man, when it comes to the anonymity, I think that the level of courage has to be a part of the value system of the organization. So if you are courageous enough to speak up, to ask a difficult question in front of a room, to put your name behind it, and to bring things to light that can drive the organization forward, but may make half the people in the room uncomfortable. In a performance-driven organization, that could be a big risk financially to your development track. But then if that is rewarded in the organization and really lifted up and saying, this is the kind of behavior that we want in our leaders. This is the kind of behavior that gets you a seat at the table. This is the kind of behavior that we want to highlight in the organization. I think that is really key to, again, Tony’s question of, you know, how does this framework kind of filter down, right? It’s in that development planning structure and how you, how you recognize people, right? And if you want that feedback structure and that courage to be a part of the fabric of the organization, it has to be built into how people are, how people are rewarded.

Tony: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John: What do you think, Tony?

Tony: Well, I mean, I think about courage, you know, like Brett said, that capital C there, another capital to the leadership, you know, development. But I think that the organizations I’ve seen that actually go forth and you put your name behind what you believe and what you say, I think it just creates a culture of transparency, too. A lot of organizations want their leaders and want the organization to be transparent with information or with plans or development, but then they won’t say what they mean. Like the individual person won’t say how they feel when they feel offended or when they feel like they’ve been overlooked or they feel like they’ve been disproportionately developed even when it comes to training opportunities. And for an organization to truly move forward in the in the pathway of transparency, then we have to take anonymity off the table sometimes and just say what we mean and have those tough conversations or have those crucial conversations or what we used to call in college a lemon squeeze, you know, say what you got to say and stand behind it and mean it in a safe place. You know, you talk about psychological safety, that part matters too. So I think it depends on what kind of organization the leadership wants to develop, but Sometimes it’s good to rip the band-aid off a bit to move things to progress forward. But I think it just all depends on the leader and leadership style that they have too.

Brett: This is why humility is such an important trait in leaders. It allows room for sharing authentically and thinking independently and so on. The Japanese led the world in manufacturing efficiency. And I think their term for it is jidoka, which is let’s be transparent. Let’s make errors obvious. And for example, I toured a plant one time and they had a jidoka table. And on that table, there was a product that wasn’t working right. It was a new product and it had a design flaw. And this was in the engineering room and they put it on the table the engineers that the culture was such that I. I don’t have the answer to solve this let’s get everyone involved let them go touch it pick it up see it and give ideas on how to solve it. my gosh talk about vulnerability i’m a design engineer and it’s not working and i’m putting it for everyone to see they also had a board when somebody caught a mistake they would post it on the board you know tony holmes caught this error it saved it stops this many products from being made and this much money, and let’s celebrate that we caught the error. So those are examples where the Japanese have incorporated that transparency into their culture.

John: Wow, that level of transparency is, I mean, that’s something that we can incorporate into a lot of different areas of our life. I feel that, you know, the secrets and being guarded about a lot of things is really, you know, based out of fear and you mentioned, you mentioned when we were talking about, you know, moving up to the CEO level and how your emotional intelligence may decrease the things that kind of get in the way of that. And, you know, I see some of those as, you know, as stress. your workload, burnout, as fear as well. Fear from, it could be your board, it could be your shareholders, it could be from something happening in your personal life. And when we think about things that get in the way of being a humble leader, of having that humility, of being connected to your people, what are some of the things that you think are the biggest barriers to that? and how do you overcome that?

Brett: Self-judgment, I think is a big barrier to humility. This is a whole nother hour or week show of self-judgment and the inner critic. But when you are just beating yourself up, For the stuff you’re doing, you’ve got to recognize that you’re hurting your ability to learn, you’re hurting your ability to be open and to receive things honestly, because who wants to go through more misery of more feedback if you’re beating yourself up? If you can look at mistakes objectively without the judgment and just say, okay, my behavior, I wish I had a do-over, If I did have a do-over, how would I do it differently? Take the learning, discard the judgment, and move forward. I think that’s a healthy way to go about it, and it enables you to then be more vulnerable because it’s not an indictment of your humanity anymore. Gosh, I think just mindfulness practices on an ongoing basis helps with humility. But that’s a tough one, John. I’d be curious to hear what you guys think. And I’d be curious, one question that I haven’t been able to come to the answer with is, how do you judge somebody else’s humility? So if you believe humility is really important, and you’re interviewing for a leadership role, How do you assess it at another?

Tony: You know, I got to comment on that, because I took one of my doctoral courses. It’s on entrepreneurship and creativity. It’s going to say creative thinking, but it’s on creativity and innovation, actually. And one of the projects that we had to do was a failure resume. So everyone in the class had to creatively bring your failures over the course of the semester, not all at once, and just publicly shame yourself in front of the whole class. And, you know, the professor, he started and he did it first. And I mean, his failures were, you know, ginormous compared to all of ours, but everybody shared. And what it did was it just leveled the playing field where everybody got a chance to see what we all have been through, what we all struggled with. and still struggle with today in many ways. We had a lot of even veterans in our course too. So what I brought that up for is because organizations need to be okay with failing. It’s okay to have a failure resume internal or just in general with the people and the things that you’ve done in your own life. And so, you know, you talk about humility, there’s nothing more humbling than talking about your failures in community. So, I mean, organizations probably don’t do that enough, but I think that that could definitely bring a new light of humility to leadership and people in general. So I just had to comment on that.

Brett: Hey, Tony, I love that idea. I just wrote it down. And let me ask you, did you notice a change in the kind of culture of your class before and after that exercise?

Tony: Man, it really, yes, the answer is yes. And people really got a chance to see each other differently. I think people You saw patterns, so after everyone went, we talked about patterns. So it was what’s the pattern that you saw in their failure? And then what you would do is you would ping across the course and you would see other people who had similar patterns in you. Some people had very specific failures that connected to someone else. Some people’s failures were rooted in institution. Some people’s failures were rooted in religion. Some people’s failures were, again, rooted in veteran status and working and being a military veteran and having failures in the military. So it was so many things there that connected us even deeper, but then also we allowed each other to let someone else in to tell you where your failures were and why too. And I think that part is where it really sunk deep. It’s almost like you had a little bit of coaching with strangers, but now friends because the cohort just became so much closer when we talked about our failures publicly. So, I mean, that’s a true game changer because we always highlight ourselves. I mean, Instagram, social media, it’s like, look at my perfect life. But where’s the app that says I screwed up two years ago and I’m still recovering, right? Wow, that is a great exercise.

Brett: Just one thing that popped into my brain when you said that, too, is how much pressure does that put on you when your facade is just of perfection? Holy crud. Talk about self-induced stress, but when you can be real. The pressure has got to be released, I would think.

Tony: What it’s done for me personally is I don’t have to take myself so serious. I’m a human being. I’m a perfectly imperfect human being, and so is everyone else around me. Because you would see I have CEOs in my cohort. I have people who are really doing amazing things. And now we just look at each other and say, man, you’re human. I’m human. We’re out here just trying to figure it out and be the best we can be. And it just takes so much pressure off yourself when you’re able to be in a community like that. So if any of our listeners, our professionals out there have failures that you’ve been through, it’s OK. You’re not alone. All of us on this show and everybody that you’re walking beside also has gone through things, so I just want to highlight that for you.

Brett: I just want to make an additional point here, and that is when I finally shut up in this podcast and I ask, oh my God, how much richness I just received from you, and thank you for that. And as leaders, I think one of the best techniques is when you’re asked a question as a leader, often people have a thought behind the question. And I like to just go, gosh, that’s a really hard question. I don’t know. What do you think? And then you hear the gold. You mine the gold that is within others. And thank you for that gold, Tony. I really appreciate it.

John: Wow, that’s, even when there’s a feedback conversation, I found that, you know, if you even just ask, you know, what feedback do you have for yourself? Nine times out of 10, they say everything that you were going to give them.

Brett: That’s great.

John: It’s the same thing in coaching of like this belief that our clients already have the resources that they need, right? To live the life that they want. Like this theme is going across this whole conversation. I love that.

Tony: Man, I just hope that the professionals out there who are listening have also had a chance to take notes because I’ve been taking notes the whole time. Brett’s been dropping some gems. I’ve been, literally, I have probably three sticky notes over here that I’m going to translate into my personal journal so I can adopt some of these practices in real time. I hope others are doing the same.

John: Yeah. Brett, a couple, you know, a couple more questions here just to a little bit more of a rapid fire around to close us out. What’s the, what’s the best leadership advice or advice from a leader that you’ve gotten ever?

Brett: Well, I, I don’t know that it’s captured in a concise, um, phrase, but just, you know, build relationships, spend time, getting to know people. That I think is so powerful and pervasive throughout success as a leader. I also kind of like the, I think it’s John Stuart Mill who had this saying that helps remind me to be humble, and that is, wisdom is the realization of the vastness of your ignorance. And I try and recognize my wisdom every day because infinite amount of stuff that I don’t know. And it just kind of helps ground me and make me curious to create space for others.

John: That’s beautiful. Relationships and curiosity. I love that quote. What about the worst piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?

Brett: Ah, geez, john, I will, uh, I guess one of the things that kind of relates to what I was thinking about in this conversation that isn’t so much advice, but it’s maybe behavior. And that is, and I, and I have this in my book too, where every time in my professional career that the organization I’ve been in has experienced a crisis, whether it be, we’re not making, we’re not, uh, our profitability is going down and we’re We’re being unprofitable in the short term, or we’ve made an acquisition and now funds are tight, or we have a new metric and we need to improve to that metric. Anytime those things, the broad leaders, the CEO, the C-suite folks, have come across that their reaction has been control to try and control more we are all of your decisions for investments need to come through me now i need to approve those any hiring decisions need to come through me it’s a tightening it’s a shutting out of authority it’s reduction of authority of everyone else and it’s trying to grasp for control. And to me, that’s the exact opposite reaction. When you are under crisis, your true foundational values will come out and you will have the opportunity to demonstrate greatness or to demonstrate fear and reactiveness. And to me, the reaction should be, let’s pull everyone together. Let’s outline the challenges that we have. Let’s empower people to come up with ideas for how to address those, and let’s unite in facing these challenges and aligning behind addressing these challenges together. It’s not an excuse for me to now not trust my team, because that will have lasting ramifications that will be hard to recover from. So how you act under crisis I think is a wonderful opportunity and it’s also a potential turning point to disaster.

John: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. And so one, one more quick one is, you know, so if you were, if you were to recommend say, you know, one book or one piece of information, you know, that was kind of the most influential for you in your journey to recommend to our listeners other than other than your own, we’ll recommend that. What would that be?

Brett: You know, I, I think, Was it Tony in your first podcast that talked about the four agreements? I, I loved the four agreements for a couple of reasons. One, it’s so practical and it really talks about you, not anything outside you, but here’s your contract with yourself to be, to live a fulfilling life. And it’s simple. And I think so often we try and come up with the 100% solution and it’s so complex that no one can follow it. No one can live by it. And so I, I, and I, I think often we miss the value in simplicity. And so I love the four agreements for its practicality and its simplicity. And Tony, you might remind folks, I could probably remember the four agreements, but you probably have it on the top of your.

Tony: I have it on the top of my Google, so I’m just going to go over them real quick, no problem. The four agreements, number one is be impeccable with your word, speak with integrity, say only what you mean, avoid using words to speak against yourself, kind of what Brett mentioned, I think you talked about that just a little while ago, and also be careful with gossip. Use the words, use your power of your words to offer love, never use it to cause fear or pain for another person or yourself. Two, don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a result of their own dream or perception of their own rules. Number three, don’t make assumptions. Find the quiet courage to ask questions and express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstanding, sadness, or drama. And number four is always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment. It’ll be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Brett: So listeners, we did not rehearse this.

Tony: Tony nailed it.

Brett: Thank you, Tony. I put you on the spot.

Tony: Always ready, baby.

John: Oh man, beautiful, beautiful. Well, Brett, I want to just express a profound level of gratitude to have you on the podcast, to have you as a guest facilitator for the Humble Leadership Program for Humescence and for what you’re going to give to the world with leaders with the capital L. So listeners, you’ll find the link to interacting with Brett and purchasing the book in the show notes. And if you’re looking for something to incorporate these values into your training and development programs or have Us come to lead something like this, you know, with your team or organization, the link to the humble leadership program will be in the show notes as well. So that’s human based leadership development. And Brett will go through a lot of that in the book, and we’d love to go through that with you guys as well. So again, Brett, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing your wisdom insight with the present professional listeners. And as always, thank you guys so much for listening. You can find us anywhere that you get your podcasts. Please listen, subscribe, rate us, review us. It makes a big difference. Your ratings and reviews. Thank you so much. Look for more at the present professional podcast.com and until next time, take care.