Can I Teach Myself To Become A Better Leader?

[ANNOUNCER]: Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.

[COBY]: Did we lose a patient?

[JAMES]: No, that’s just my lunch.

[COBY]: Hey, thanks for joining us. I’m Coby, he’s James, and let’s get started with a question. Can I teach myself to be a better leader?

[JAMES]: Can you teach, is it possible? Sure. Absolutely. Is it probable, though? Well, in reality, I think it happens far less frequently than what we would expect. I think it really. The answer to this question really boils down to how well and how quickly is a person able to go through the stages of acquiring new information, internalizing that information as knowledge, and then properly applying that new information or knowledge to real life examples? It’s absolutely possible, and I think it happens frequently. And there are, because there are fantastic, authors, there are fantastic books out there, people who are extremely knowledgeable and who share that knowledge and provide excellent advice and examples of how leaders can or should think and how they should act. And if you have the time to not only read the information, but internalize it and begin putting it into, putting the new context, into action, then I think, you know, this is a great resource to you as a growing leader. You know, there’s several leadership books that I’ve had the fortune of reading over the years that have provided a lot of really good value and learning. I think the key factor, though, in my opinion, and why I think it’s far less probable, is it requires time. Do you actually have the time to acquire the new information, reflect on what that information means to your specific use case, and then begin applying that new information through trial and error? Even just knowing what information is most relevant to you or your yourself, to your team, to your business, within your specific context, is not always immediately evident. And where the problem arises is that if you’re in a leadership position and you have to make, you have to get better, in order to resolve challenges that you’re experiencing right now, then you probably don’t have the time that it takes to kind of go through that self improvement, self awareness, because the problems aren’t going to just wait around for you to learn, at your own pace. And the timeline that you need to have the results is just. It needs to be much faster than that.

[COBY]: Yeah, I mean, there’s lots of stuff out there in the books and talks and webinars, everything like that, and, you know, training that offer something of value, that offer, you know, different ideas and perspectives, you know, different stories, contexts and everything. But I think even those are really only telling part of the picture. Right. Because, I mean, you know, there’s. There’s so much that people can get from, you know, like, hearing about what success looks like and seeing everything about, you know, maybe I can look back on the way that I do things. I can look on the. On the way that, you know, what my journey has been. It’s really good for a reflective piece. It’s really good to kind of challenge your own assumptions. But it’s something that I think that the majority of people would really struggle to see the kind of progression and gains that they would be looking for in their leadership development by going at it alone. Because, I mean, like, think about the work that we do. We don’t see a lot of the, like, I’ve. You, know, I’m taking. I’m having the success on my own. I’m able to kind of grow some on my own. A lot of it is, again, when we’re talking to people, it’s this, the stuff. This was a total gap for me, and now we need to address this.

[JAMES]: So our specific example, too, like, our perspective is probably skewed by the clients that we work with, because when we’re working around leadership, you know, it’s usually because there are problems, that need to be resolved. Ah. So the timeframe, in which we have to resolve problems don’t lend itself to a self directed study. But where self directed can be really good is if you generally want to improve in this domain, and you have, and you don’t have that immediate press of, I’m in a position and I need these skills in a short period of time. I don’t see the, typical self directed, you know, read some leadership books as a viable strategy for improvement.

[COBY]: Yeah, no, and that’s a really good point, because often, you know, we don’t, you know, we’re in situations where we see folks that have ten years to turn things around leadership wise against skill wise. Likely they would be. It would be a lot if they had ten months. So, so you’re right that, that, that timeframe that lead up and development time, kind of that natural discovery piece, something that, no one that we really see in our work really has time for. But I think a lot of it, and the reason why, in my opinion, that a lot of it, kind of comes down to this whole problem with why aren’t the books enough? You know, why are not the stories of success enough? And why, you know, why does it take so much more time into doing it. I think a lot of it has to do with kind of going back to one of our favorite kind of comparatives. The difference between complicated and complex, does it mean, you know, again, just remind folks, so complicated is when things are, you, know, multifaceted, many steps, lots of involvement, but the results and the processes are repeatable, that what works in one situation will work in another situation. What works for one person will often work wealth and work for another. It’s about, you know, more about if you go through the processes, there’s, there’s almost a guaranteed path to success. And anyone that’s worked with people knows that’s not how people work. People are not complicated. They’re complex. And complex is just a matter of every time you have to carve out a new path, everything has to be conditional and everything has to be based on context. And this is the whole thing that if leadership development was complicated, the books, the self study, the self directed training, that process wouldn’t maybe, maybe wouldn’t not take the amount of time it does because there’s a clear, single path of success or numerous, clear, repeatable, guaranteed paths to success. But that’s not the reality leash. Development is complex and it requires a custom, unique, carved journey every single time.

[JAMES]: Yeah. Which is why, like, it’s reading the information and understanding it is hugely important and will help you in a general sense. But it’s when it becomes internalized, when you take that knowledge a bit further and you understand how to apply it in a situation that is not a carbon copy of the situation that you just read about, that’s where we need to be as leaders, to be able to not only understand what to do, but understand why and take that learning to a new context.

[COBY]: Yeah. And I think the idea of the journey that you kind of mentioned before about like, you know, that people go on that can take, you know, the ten year approach for self directed and, you know, and the people can kind of fast forward through when they actually have someone helping them or they can go through much, much quicker pace, when someone’s helping them or they have, you know, coaching or mentorship or whatever is really kind of the, the idea about, about the journey between information, knowledge and wisdom. So, information is the idea of just kind of like facts, stats, you know, kind of stories, results. Again, kind of the, the hard, just like, you know, again, this, this is something that, this is a statement, this is a fact. It’s just, here’s information. For you to read and be able to refer back to. So a lot of it, like, you know, what’s great is having, you know, things that you can kind of refer back to dates and, you know, processes and those kinds of things are more just about, you know, knowing about and being able to again, refer back to or pull up again. And that is, is helpful because that’s knowing this stuff exists, that these are things out there. And that’s especially what the books and the, and a lot of that stuff can really offer is they can provide great information. Now, to m move into knowledge. Knowledge is when you actually kind of look at what does the information mean for me? Like, what does it actually look like to manipulate or to use it, or what are some of the more, the more, specifics around it, like, how do I gain, you know, not just a, superficial understanding of the information. How do I actually create knowledge? It’s almost like being able to manipulate the information and make it work with you a little bit. It’s the idea of, you know, I understand this to the point that I can actually, you know, leverage it, use it kind of, you know, find alternative uses for it, you know, it, and allows you to kind of really kind of have that information that you can play with. And that’s really kind of what knowledge is. It’s a comfort and confidence with, and all with the information that you can almost kind of bend it to your will and be able to kind of use it in kind of some of the times that you want to, when the context is, or even find unique and alternative uses for it. And then wisdom is more about understanding the kind of the bigger picture. How does it play into it? When do I use this information? When does this information need to be adjusted? How, does information play into the bigger picture? What am I possibly missing? What are the limitations of my knowledge? What are the limitations of the times that I want to use this? When will this, you know, give me a stronger path of success than other times? So really it’s about the context, the use, and really kind of being able to kind of see the strengths and limitations of the knowledge that you’ve acquired. And that’s really where that full kind of mastery of an idea kind of comes from, is when you’ve gone from information to knowledge and into, into wisdom. And that’s really what it is that we have to get to in order to be the kind of leaders that we want. We want to be able to not just be stuck on information or second knowledge. You want to live in kind of our, everyday in wisdom.

[JAMES]: Well, and oftentimes wisdom comes from trial and error, right. It comes from experimentation of having done it before, of learning from the mistakes that we make. Right. I mean, it’s funny because talking about information, knowledge and wisdom, it always takes me back to, you know, the kind, of the cheeky analogy of, this thing that I’m holding in my hand. This is a tomato. This is. The information is that this thing is a tomato. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. Right. The idea of, those, the distinction between those three things, and unfortunately, putting, we may know that a tomato is a fruit. If you put it in it, you’re going to learn very quickly through your error that it was not a good idea that not all fruit should necessarily go in a fruit salad. Right. But it’s, although it’s a very dumbed down, simplistic example, it does kind of help to illustrate those three points, because there is a difference between having the information, having access to information, versus actually knowing and internalizing that information, and taking that information and finding use for it, knowing how to apply it, and the wisdom of not only knowing how to apply it, but when to apply it. And that is a journey that you can get to on your own. And I want to be clear, like, we’re not saying that, self directed learning doesn’t work, or that you can’t go through a self improvement journey, and that reading these books are, or watching videos or attending webinars or whatever that form of acquiring new information is, those are incredibly valuable. But if you are struggling with a, challenge, with a problem that is due to a leadership deficit, it’s very unlikely that you are going to find a carbon copy solution that you can copy and paste because of exactly what you said earlier, Coby, of the difference between complicated versus complex.

[COBY]: Yeah. I think that what we should do to kind of, kind of, as we kind of explore this idea of teaching ourselves to be a better leader, maybe it’s. I think what we’ll do is we’ll break down kind of what happens at the information stage, what happens at the knowledge stage, what happens at the wisdom stage. To kind of help somebody under, kind of visualize the kind of whole process, why it probably takes longer to do it on your own, but also what does it look like to do it right, and, what in hacks? Because again, if you may only have the ten months, turn things around rather than ten years. What does that need to look like? And why do you need to have, you know, the right things in the right place to go through those three stages?

[JAMES]: Sure.

[COBY]: So, yes, let’s start off with kind of digging a bit more into information. like you said, there is a lot of great information that can come from the books, the webinars, the talks, something like that. Like, I mean, authors like Sinak and Maxwell can offer really great advice or ideas, that provide you good information about things that, you know, things that you should know about, things that can be helpful, things that, you know, can I. Ideas and frameworks that can be. That you could utilize or at least kind of knowing, kind of how it all plays together. Then there’s also other authors that provide kind of stories and examples of, like, you know, of their journey and their process towards success and leadership, and that can provide good information, too, kind of giving you more of a contextual, version of information rather than kind of almost like a structural framework version. But the one thing that, again, this is kind of my personal bias is I tend to prefer more of the. The ideas and advice type of authors as opposed to the personal story ones. Not because the personal story ones are necessarily bad, but the context of personal stories can make them less effective. Like, again, though, I read a story as someone’s journey to becoming the titan of industry and then building their career kind of the mid nineties. I’m, like, that’s cool, but I can’t really pull a lot of that into the, you know, into our context now.

[JAMES]: Like, you know, everything has changed substantially, right? The. Not only the business context, but the social context, the world, geopolitical context, whatever we’re talking about, there have been, spoiler alert, there’s been a few changes since. In the past, like, 30 years.

[COBY]: Yeah, yeah. And so there’s. There’s definitely value in kind of hearing kind of someone’s journey. But I mean, like I say, the workforce is different, the nature of work is different, you know? So I’m like, this is cool, but I don’t know if, like, if it really is going to be helpful because, I mean, if, you know, because there are, unfortunately, there are some authors that are like, well, this worked for me 30 years ago, so obviously it’ll work for you. Buy my next book.

[JAMES]: Well, it’s not just that, too. It’s. Whenever we get on this topic, I always like, there’s a lot of information out there. We have access to a tremendous amount of information. A lot of it’s garbage. And a lot of it is these gurus who, just are peddling. They’re snake oil salesmen. They are peddling, information because they. The only thing they know how to do is peddle information. And these garbage gurus who just. Actually, I really like that. Garbage gurus.

[COBY]: Garbage guru, that’s good.

[JAMES]: But it’s the. It’s the clickbaity stuff. It’s like the Facebook articles that you see of, you know, here’s the secret, the 15 steps that you need to be, successful in whatever. And number seven, it’s going to blow your mind. Right. It’s the same garbage crap that gets peddled all of the time. And the problem is, anybody can call themselves a guru or an expert, but you’re competing. There are legitimate, excellent authors and speakers who know what they’re talking about and can provide you with excellent information. And part of the discernment, part of the wisdom that you eventually are able to. That you want to build is being able to discern between those who peddle easy answers and those who provide valuable information.

[COBY]: Yeah. So, first of all, I want to say I actually really like the term garbage guru. So. Yeah, like the. That clickbait grabbing attention voice with provides very little substance, is. That’s a great term for that. So I just want to give you a props for that. but again, I think a lot of it, too, is where the. Where the problem comes is that the garbage guru, does promote the easy answers. The two quick tips to guaranteed success kind of thing is. And the problem is, and this is something that we’ve seen a lot in all the work that we do, is that businesses usually don’t have a lot of time for a big process or a big change or a big implementation. They want the quick fix. And the problem is, is that people are telling them what they want to hear.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: And so they’re actually avoiding the unsexy.

[JAMES]: You know, diligent work that goes into it. Yeah. This is this. And I’m gonna steal one of your, sayings. They want the baby, not the pregnancy. Right. They want the result without everything that goes into it. and, I mean, it’s these ideas of, you know, here’s the five things that you need to know as a leader. And if you know these five things, you are going to be successful. Well, no, I’m sorry. There is not a single simple answer to what it means and what it takes to be an effective and good leader in every situation. It requires discernment. It requires a lot of information transformed into knowledge and used in a way that showcases or that, exemplifies wisdom.

[COBY]: Yeah. But I do think that, you know, again, not to get too far, so we should kind of reel it back in from. From that great soapbox and the garbage guru. Man, I love that term. the idea of. Because, again, the, the experts and the actual gurus, because nothing wrong with being a guru, but those ideas, those people who write the effective books, the good, diligent, there’s work involved, but here’s something that’d be helpful. Information to know. Those can be helpful, but what they require is critical thinking and guidance to turn the information that you’re getting from these books into effective skills or strategies or tools that are actually going to be helpful to allow you to manipulate that information to benefit you and move out of the information stage into the knowledge stage, which I think is a good place for us to get to.

[JAMES]: It is. I just like, I was fortunate early in my career, to be, gifted a number of books by John Maxwell, who I consider to be an expert. and I’m not the only. I’m not. This is not a big revelation, right. he’s well regarded as an expert. But it wasn’t just that I had access to the information. I also had access to somebody who also had gone through and read all the information. And I could ask questions and I could challenge, and we could, and I could talk through these things, which is a very incredibly valuable, point. To be able to not just have access to information, but to have access to being able to challenge that information and to be able to question it and get answers to your specific, responses or questions.

[COBY]: Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, you know, like, again, going back to, you know, the idea of teaching yourself to become a better leader with through the information stage, you know, you can, you know, a lot of kind of reflective, critical thinking and reflection. You can start to kind of really challenge yourself and do that. It’s a process that some people can do m better than others. But, you know, going back to the idea of it helps to not take the journey alone, that it does help if you can actually challenge ideas or you can actually look at different perspectives. Again, like I said, moving into knowledge is about being able to manipulate and modify it and make the information, you know, effective and useful for you. Take what you take, what works for you, you know, adapt it. And that’s really kind of how knowledge kind of, kind of plays into it. And again, picking up. But the one thing that I always am, like, you know, concerned about when someone goes on this journey is, is realizing that you might not. Again, all the different books, a lot of the different experts have different approaches and they work better for some than others. And kind of someone’s like, you know, what’s your confidence level, your personality, your skill set, like, you know, the, your industry? And there’s different things that kind of can impact what fits the right fit for you. So saying, you know, picking up a book or give or reading a single book that, you know, you kind of have to, like, it’s a roll of the die whether that’s going to work in your context. So. So the idea of it, too, is to realize that if you have, like, that support, kind of like what you were saying, someone to talk to, or if you’re involved in kind of more of the leadership kind of training and you, and you’re involved in your, that’s more active or you’re involved in it, that you can, again, talk things out, with a group or with instructor and allow you to explore different contexts and different types of uses. It allows you to not try and find one model for leadership and find a way to force it to work, but explore what’s going to be the idea that will work for you and help you kind of help within your own context and create a strong knowledge base and framework to handle situations, make decisions, think strategically based on what’s going to be a good fit for you, not just the first book you pulled off the shelf.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I think that’s important because there’s, there’s, there’s so much information out there. And if you are starting down this, self improvement, journey, or the self learning, journey, and you have a timeline that you have and, you know, I’m just thinking about the leader who is experiencing problems, who has the self awareness to identify that, they have, that some of the problems that their company is facing is due to a deficit in leadership skills. Whether they identified that it was identified for them doesn’t really matter. Being able to source the correct information and learn it, apply it in a timeline that’s actually going to resolve the challenges that they’re facing, I see as very unlikely.

[COBY]: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, there’s, you know, again, it really does kind of kind of pay to have the time to kind of, like, look at what’s going to be something that will, again, give me the most to work with based on where I’m at.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: And because, like, one of the things that. So, again, in again, we don’t do excessive amounts of work in the leadership space. A lot of the work that we do is about trying to improve operational efficiency through culture and manage skills, stuff like that. But we do play in the space. It’s hard not to be involved in it somehow. Right. And one of the. And one of the methods that we use when we’re in the leadership space is our integrity leadership program, which is really about providing a tool of frameworks and supportive coaching to kind of practice and use the framework integrity leadership to kind of help people realize how do you handle decisions, how you think strategically, you know, how do you. How do you deal with. With the tough realities of being in charge? You can, build confidence in yourself by kind of having this model of this framework to work off of. I mean, I don’t want to get too far into our interior leadership program because this will be a really long podcast.

[JAMES]: But we’ve done entire podcast episodes on our integrity leadership, too.

[COBY]: Yeah, I think we broke it down really well in a kind of q and a at the end of, last season. I’ll put a link, identify that episode in the show notes. but again, kind of broadly speaking, it’s about looking at the kind of, you know, again, how do you handle, difficult situations with moral courage? How do you treat people with reliable respect? How do you empower your team to, you know, to kind of build on their own successes and be able to kind of show. Have autonomy and independence in their work? And again, this is something that, you know, we find a very helpful, tool for the right kind of situation. We don’t say it works for everybody in all situations. We’ve identified where it works great. And then, And sometimes we say, you know what? This might be something to build towards, but we, you know, there’s some work needs to be done before that. But, I mean, you know, we did. I mean, trying to think, was it a couple years ago, we worked with a client. we was owner of a company, and they were. He was. He was a great candidate for the integrity leadership program. And I’m not sure if. Remember that. If you remember this guy, it was this really compassionate boss. He was just kind of reeling over his head and when.

[JAMES]: Yeah, I know who you’re referring to.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: Yeah, the big thing with him, it was kind of a neat situation because while there were absolutely challenges that they were facing because of leadership conflict, we’ll call it, there was a willingness to change. Right. They wanted to do right by the employees. Like they didn’t know what they didn’t know, and they were making mistakes, which was causing a lot of problems. And when those mistakes were brought to their attention, they sought out, solution to it. We happen to be working with them on a structural, organizational, structural, project, and we’re able to help guide them, a bit, as these. As we were able to identify other problems. It’s like, here’s where some of the root causes are coming from. yeah, they were an excellent candidate for. Because they, we had to address the problems in an immediate term and they needed a, they needed a system that they could use on a regular basis that would help them kind of filter decisions, because it was the spur of the moment when put on a, when kind of put on the hot seat, so to speak, and had to make a decision. Oftentimes they were not consistent in that, or the decisions would be geared towards one group, or they could be swayed towards and with, favoritism and whole messy situation. So having a framework to actually be able to filter that decision making process through and then some, you know, I met with them on a regular basis to just check and see how things are going, provide a bit of a sounding board, so that it’s not just, you know, here’s some information. Do with it what you will, but actually, how do you use and apply it? it worked really well in that situation. It provided them with a strategic framework that they could begin to use over and over again. And they had access to somebody who they could, you know, follow up with and, seek clarification and try to figure out the. When do I use this part of the framework versus that part of the framework?

[COBY]: Yeah. And what was great about the situation with him is that he had you to kind of like, help kind of guide him through this. But this really was kind of, he was motivated on this journey himself, was more like, I have, I have the time I got. I’m able to do it. I, you know, like, I can do a lot of this myself. I just need a little bit of help. I see a little bit of knowledge to let me sink my teeth into, and then I can really run with it. And that was a great situation for that because, again, and he did really well with it, kind of, it’s more like just kind of nudged him in the right direction, give him a little bit of help to kind of structure his thoughts, and then boom, he did. He’d agree with it, but he also had the time to make sure the problems that, yeah.

[JAMES]: The problems that were coming from the leadership deficit were not things like, he wasn’t at risk of losing key personnel because, you know, of their toxic behavior. Right. It was a lot of frustration and irritation and, like, everybody loved the guy, but everybody also identified that he wasn’t a great leader, and he was identified m that in himself as well. that same solution, I’m not sure, would work as, like, there has to be an earnest desire to want to do better, really. And that for him, he had, like you said, the time to make course corrections, with. And have access to a little bit of guidance to make sure that he stayed on the right track. But I guess, actually, maybe it’s the difference between course corrections and a u turn. Right?

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: Make small course corrections with, a little bit of guided support. If you need to do an entire 180, then, you are in an immediate problem, and there needs to be a much faster, much more intensive intervention.

[COBY]: Yeah. That makes me think of a client from a more recent client from a little while ago that needed that u turn where they were again. They were a good person. They were in over their head, but.

[JAMES]: They were a good person. Not in the past tense. They still are a good person, I suppose.

[COBY]: Yeah. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, it’s been a while since we talked to them, but, yeah, I was. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But no, you’re right. but it was more of the stress and everything they were projecting outward, which had them lashing out at employees, which had them, like, you know, like, almost like they. Well, they were creating a toxic environment. They’re creating a lot of toxic stress in their workplace. They were becoming a core problem for the retention issues. And this was something that we were like, okay, there’s, you know, like, we, again, like to play to our strengths, like to do what we’re good at. And we recognized, you know, in that project that we needed to bring in an actual, like, someone that specializes in leadership coaching to kind of help flesh out the work that we do. Because a lot of the work that we were doing at the time was, again, that more infrastructural improving processes like, you know, improving the culture, you know, and everything. But we had this. This. This issue of this leader that was, you know, really needed a, real u turn in their skill set, and it was something that, you know, there’s. Our process alone wouldn’t have been a faster turnaround when they needed a much bigger intervention.

[JAMES]: Yeah. What they. They did not need information. And, you know, a monthly check in to see if things are going well. They needed a coach who, you know, met with them and held them accountable on a weekly basis. But it was also available at a moment’s notice to troubleshoot. so that was, I mean, that’s not who we are. That’s not typically the work, that we like to focus on. So we brought in colleague, of ours, who is an expert in that area.

[COBY]: Yeah. Yeah. And again, this whole idea was that part of what they were trying to do was, was, again, kind of collectively, we’re trying to move this organization and this leadership, the team of this leader, as well as themselves into the whole wisdom side of it. Right. Because it was the idea of, it wasn’t just, because, like, they, they knew the information, they had the knowledge that they. Because they. Because they used to. They used to m have a lot. Not have a lot of these issues. Sorry. They, you know, they knew how to manipulate the information and make it work for them. But it was the idea of, because, you know, under stressful situation, under the, or whatever was they were dealing with, the wisdom was almost, you know, something that they had to almost like, rebuild. And kind of moving into this whole idea of the wisdom side of it is that part of, part of wisdom is understanding the bias or assumptions that you bring with you. And it’s the idea that, you know, like, challenging yourself, realizing that, you know, there’s, there’s, you know, the broad perspectives, the critical thought. It needs to be almost like the foreground of every environment. Walking into a meeting, almost like being able to kind of understand the context of different perspectives. So, you know, how do I handle this delicate situation? And what tools do I bring for my knowledge base to make this as effective for everybody, not just for myself, but for all people? So everyone walks away with a little bit better. And part of it, too, is to really kind of go into that, because one of the things that when without intentional strategic leadership development, leaders tend to lead how they’ve been led.

[JAMES]: Yeah, we see this a lot. We talk about, we frequently talk about the fact that most managers have never received any form of management training. The same is true, in terms of leadership. we don’t train people to be effective leaders. We model leadership. And the leadership style that has been modeled to you often becomes the default, that you use sometimes. you know, if you are fortunate enough to have several excellent models of leadership, you know, throughout your career, you can kind of take pick and choose, styles from different. From different, leaders or, mentors that you’ve had that will really kind of work for your situation. And that’s an excellent, situation to be in. Sometimes, though, we, just get into the situation of, well, this is what my boss is. This is how my boss treats me. So this is what the expectation is. So this is how I have to treat others with open. And I, again, I don’t believe that it’s necessarily a conscious thought. It’s more of a, I’ve got so much stuff on my plate that I’m going. I operate in a default, default, default form of, just using what has been shown to me in the past. So I like the statement that you use of leaders lead how they’ve been led, because I think that is really very common situation, that I don’t think really gets enough notice that if you also want to, train up the next generation of leaders in your company, then you also need to be modeling good leadership skills and abilities to them because they are looking to you because you are the leader.

[COBY]: Yeah. And one thing that we, so we see this a lot kind of in mid size companies that have, an owner president who’s not involved in the day to day. They are the owner, but they’re, you know, but it’s the CEO that runs the show is that when the owner president is very, very hands off, that’s kind of the unintentional, almost like expectation that the CEO thinks, okay, well, I need to be hands off, too. Like, how my manager manages me is the way that I should manage those beneath me. Again, often leaders lead the way they’ve been led. So m. And this is kind of what runs into these problems. Again, kind of going back to the guy we talked about before that was having the major issues that we need to bring in the leadership coach for was, again, even those types of things where sometimes it’s a matter of like, you know, eventually, if you’re too hands off, then stuff starts to, like, percolate and kind of go bad. And eventually you’re in all reacting mode because you, you know, weren’t using the right approach, the right style. You weren’t even had the wisdom to look at the right knowledge base for the situation. So, you know, now you’re playing, you’re playing catch up and, and often that being behind the eight ball is what causes a lot of the stress lasting out and everything else like that, too. So there’s a lot of, you know, so that situation is, is surprisingly common. And it’s, it’s, and it’s all, but it’s also kind of like very, it’s a very simplistic kind of situation. Like, you know, there’s somebody who’s not involved in the everyday that the CEO reports to. This CEO doesn’t have a lot of guidance around them, so they don’t know how much so that they, it’s not being modeled good behavior to them. So they don’t model good behavior down and then the problem ends up spreading.

[JAMES]: Well, and it’s, yeah, I don’t even know if it’s, they’re not mod, yes, they’re not modeling good behavior, but again, it’s not a conscious decision. I appreciate the freedom that I’ve been given, in my role as a CEO. The president gives me directives and I can operate pretty freely within that. I want to provide that same type, of support to my team. Not necessarily a bad, mentality and train of thought to follow, but there still needs to be. A leader cannot lead people they don’t know.

[COBY]: Yeah.

[JAMES]: So if you’re too hands off, if you’re not, checking in with people, if you’re not, you know, showing recognition, and appreciation, especially. And this tends to be a big problem with this style of leadership of, well, I want to provide people with the autonomy to do what they need to do to be successful. Wonderful. We are in agreement. You still need to show appreciation and recognition. You still need to be involved and you can’t be completely separated from, because if you, if you don’t know the people you’re leading well enough to be able to talk to about their strengths and to show, appreciation for the work that they’re doing, how are they going to know you well enough to trust in your leadership capabilities?

[COBY]: Well, it also goes back to, again, do you have, as leader, do you have the knowledge to know or do you have the wisdom to know which knowledge base to use? When should you be, you know, providing that level of autonomy? When should you be more involved in building the rapport? When should you be showing firm lead by example actions and when should be taking a step back and empowering your team to do this, to do their own, to use their own judgment. That’s kind of where the wisdom piece falls into it. You know, you’ve got different knowledge bases that you can pull from. Knowing when and how to use them is something that is essential towards the leadership pieces, which is why it’s so much beneficial to have somebody in your corner to kind of help you talk things through, because the idea of it’s lonely at the top is so true. And one of the benefits that come from, again, a lot of leadership coaches, they can be so invaluable, just even by the single act of being that confidant and letting the person talk things through and bounce ideas off of, you know, judgment free zone, you know, just let’s, you know, you have the answer in your knowledge base. Let’s figure out the wisdom to which one to use in this, in this situation is powerful. And we love working with leadership, consultants and coaches that do this sort of stuff because again, it’s something that we don’t do. We don’t really enjoy doing a lot of it of ourselves, but we like doing all the stuff that surrounds it. because one thing that I always caution people when they are jumping right into the leadership, development pool is to take a step back and realize that personal transformations are not sustainable if the environment that you’re going to be working in reinforces the old ways of doing things.

[JAMES]: Yeah. And that’s why like when we’ve had projects where we’ve developed these, collaborative leadership, programs where we’ve had the opportunity to work with a leadership coach, like the, everything works so much better when you can improve the personal, skills and abilities of the leadership team and actually fix the structural, environmental, situational context of the workplace and systematically working through both of those areas is hugely powerful.

[COBY]: And the analogy we use a lot in these conversations, we call it our rowing analogy, is that when we work with a leadership coach or consultant, and they are working on the leadership team, we say they’re like a rowing coach. They’re trying to optimize the skills and the capabilities of each of the, their participants, like the leaders. But like, you know, again, as rowers trying to make the best team that will row…

[JAMES]: The best possible rowers individually and as working together as a team.

[COBY]: Absolutely. And what we do just to support that is we are working on the boat, making sure the boat is well structured, that everything within the boat, all the gaps and the holes and stuff with that are not there because we want the strong rowers to have success in a strong boat. We don’t want, you know, because again, you, you want to make sure that you’re covering both sides, otherwise you’re going, you’re going to end up wasting all of your time by having very little success because you’re taking care of one, not the other.

[JAMES]: Yeah. I mean, a great rowing team in a leaky boat can still pass the finish line. It’s just going to require far more time, energy and effort.

[COBY]: Exactly. So it’s one of those things where like, you know, there’s a lot of value in kind of that, that dual approach to improving both the people and the environment. But again, the kind, of the whole idea is that, you know, the, is that there’s. It takes some wisdom in your leadership development to know that, to know about seeing those two things. And that’s one of the things that we often kind of kind of say is that, again, is that going back to this whole idea of information, knowledge and wisdom is you want to make sure that you have that you see that bigger picture. You understand the context of we need to improve both the rowers and the boat because again, we can change, but it won’t work if the structure stays the same. So it really does kind of realize that there’s, this is kind of at that wisdom stage where this is going to be what’s going to have a great impact on us. It’s not just, you know, make myself better and then go back to the same environment where everything is, you know, where I’m never going to get to use these new skills because that’s just a waste of time for everybody.

[JAMES]: Yeah. So I think going back to kind of the original question and my answer to it, it’s not that you can’t get to, you cannot do that journey of information to knowledge, to wisdom on your own. You absolutely can. And we encourage you to take that journey because it’s a wonderful self improvement, self discovery process and will ultimately make you a, ah, better leader in the future. But the key is it’ll make you a better leader in the future if you need solutions now, we strongly encourage you to look at something that is more immediate, something that will actually, whether it’s mentorship, whether it is training, whether it is coaching, there needs to be some immediacy to help speed up that, transfer from information to knowledge to wisdom.

[COBY]: No, that’s really good. All right, I think I’ll do, a little bit of a wrap up.

[JAMES]: Yeah.

[COBY]: All right. So the question was, can I teach myself to be a better leader? Well, we say that it is possible that you can do that. It will take significant amounts of time, it will take a lot of patience, and it kind of takes being in the right environment to try stuff out in order to kind of build your skills. It’s something that could be a long journey, like a ten year journey that you have to go on. The real question is, do you have the time to do it all yourself. Most of the people out there likely don’t, especially if your leadership, situation is something that needs a vast improvement, you know, in the short term. And we have to realize that, you know, we have to be very thoughtful when, when we go on any kind of leadership journey, because sometimes people, underestimate the complexity of improving your leadership skills. That it is something that requires, you know, a different approach, a customizability. The situation is going to change for everybody, and what works for one won’t work for the other, or what worked today might not work tomorrow. So the idea is that you have to accept that it’s complex and go on the journey in a way that will allow you to kind of meet the needs of the situation that you’re in. Whether that’s a short, quick turnaround to improve your leadership team, to avoid, I don’t know, a retention issue, or if it’s a matter of you trying to get to that, to the next level in your career or in your kind of company’s kind of, life cycle. But we say the journey is typically in three stages, the information stage, where you can actually get a lot of great ideas and information from books and from talks and from webinars. And a lot of this stuff can be very, very helpful. But to make that really effective, think that information is something that you can actually work with, it requires a lot of critical thinking and guidance to turn that information into effective tools, skills and strategies that will help you in your everyday. Once you’re able to do that, you can obtain knowledge. And knowledge really more about, being able to adapt and mold and manipulate the information to work for you in the context that you’re in. But again, it’s about understanding that there is situations that some of your knowledge bases will work and some of your knowledge bases won’t. And realizing that, you have to make sure that, you know, you’re able to practice the skills that you need in the knowledge base before you can really turn into wisdom. And that might be a very, very difficult thing to do if you’re going at this alone. Because in the wisdom stage, it’s about understanding when and how, in the context to use them, which tool, which knowledge base, which skill set is going to be effective in this situation. What is the perspectives of those around you? What bias or assumptions are inherent with you and those you work with, and how can you address those when you’re going into new situations? And that’s something that wisdom is really difficult to achieve in a silo or in a vacuum. It really does help to invest in your development by bringing someone along with you on this journey because kind of summarize this whole thing can I teach myself to be a better leader? Well, it’s possible to take that journey through information, knowledge and wisdom alone, but the likelihood of you having all of the time capacity resources in order to make that journey as a solo journey is probably very unlikely. Leadership development is something that is best not tackled alone. All right, that about does it for us. For a full archive of our podcast and access the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit www.roman3.ca/ podcast thanks for joining us.

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