Latest / 20-Minute Health Talk / How good leadership equals good health — for people and businesses

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How good leadership equals good health — for people and businesses · 20-Minute Health Talk

0:09
Leading is complex,
0:10
and I don't think there's one
0:12
answer to shift it this way
0:13
or shift it that way.
0:14
You're just going to always
0:15
be trying to improve your
0:17
leadership and be authentic
0:19
about who you are.
0:20
Don't try to be some
0:21
perfect leader.
0:23
Find the right leadership
0:24
position for you,
0:25
for the right team,
0:26
doing the right work that fits
0:27
who you are. That's important.
0:40
Hello,
0:40
and welcome to 20 minutes Health
0:43
Talk. I'm Sandra Lindsay.
0:45
On today's episode,
0:47
you'll hear my conversation with
0:49
author Laura Freebairn Smith,
0:52
a partner and co founder of
0:54
organizational performance
0:56
group, or OPG for short.
0:59
This group specializes in
1:02
helping leaders reach their
1:04
full potential,
1:05
as well as that of their
1:07
organizations.
1:09
And they do it using what our
1:11
guest calls the abundance
1:13
leadership model.
1:15
Not only a game changer
1:17
in the boardroom,
1:19
Laura explains how it can be
1:21
used in your everyday life and
1:23
even personal relationships.
1:26
In 2023,
1:28
she put pen to paper and
1:30
published a book on the
1:31
topic called Abundance
1:35
Creating Energy, Joy,
1:36
and productivity in an
1:38
unsettled world.
1:40
Prior to OPG,
1:42
Laura served as director of
1:44
Yale's organizational
1:46
Development and Learning center,
1:48
which she helped create.
1:50
She has also consulted for
1:53
the New York Times,
1:54
Lehman foundation, and ESPN.
1:58
I recently caught up with Laura
2:00
to discuss her new book,
2:02
what she hope leaders
2:04
take from it,
2:05
and how these lessons can be
2:07
applied outside of the
2:09
professional setting.
2:15
First of all,
2:15
thank you so much for joining us
2:17
here today. A few months ago,
2:19
I attended a retreat where
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you facilitated.
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That was the first
2:24
time I met you,
2:25
and I was so fascinated
2:27
with your work.
2:28
even before hearing about the
2:31
book and reading the book,
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I was so fascinated with your
2:36
presentation there.
2:37
Hence why you're here with
2:39
me as my guest today.
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Let's get into it. So,
2:43
abundance leaders,
2:45
creating energy, joy,
2:48
and productivity in an
2:50
unsettled world.
2:52
So who are abundance leaders?
2:54
Abundance leaders are leaders
2:57
who operate from a particular
2:59
mindset,
3:01
a way that they interpret the
3:04
world and the things that are
3:06
happening in the world.
3:08
At the core of an abundance
3:10
mindset is optimism.
3:13
It's one of the critical
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psychological attributes of
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an abundance leader. So,
3:18
abundance leaders
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are people who,
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operating from a mindset of
3:21
optimism, look at problems,
3:25
challenges,
3:26
organizational issues as
3:30
fundamentally interesting
3:32
and solvable.
3:33
They also tend to think
3:36
of power as shareable.
3:38
They tend to be people who think
3:41
about making the world better
3:43
through their work and through
3:45
their organizations.
3:46
So this definition,
3:49
what you just explained,
3:50
sounds a little bit like what
3:53
we would call in nursing a
3:54
transformational leader.
3:56
Does that sound familiar to you?
3:59
Would you agree?
4:00
Yeah.
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Let me take a step back
4:03
for a minute,
4:04
and I want to talk about the
4:05
different leadership theories
4:07
that are out in the world.
4:08
And back 50, 70 years ago,
4:12
there was the beginning of a
4:15
real focus on studying leaders.
4:16
Oddly enough,
4:17
leadership wasn't studied in a
4:19
theoretical research way until
4:21
the forties in world War two.
4:23
And out of that camera.
4:26
theory of leadership called
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transactional,
4:29
where if I give you money,
4:30
you're going to do this.
4:31
What followed after that was the
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transformational leadership
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model,
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which is the more charismatic
4:37
leader, the purpose driven,
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the visionary leader.
4:40
Most leadership models now are
4:42
a blend of multiple different
4:44
kinds of leadership models.
4:46
There's another one called
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situational leadership.
4:48
You adapt your leadership to
4:50
whatever situation you're in,
4:51
and an abundance leader takes
4:53
into account all of that.
4:55
You can be transformational and
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somewhat transactional and
4:59
situational and be an
5:01
abundance leader.
5:02
And actually a good abundance
5:03
leader would adjust
5:05
their leadership.
5:06
Sometimes scarcity behavior
5:08
is the right behavior,
5:09
not frequently.
5:10
So let's talk about that
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scarcity mindset.
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Scarcity behaviors and mindsets
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usually arise out of
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some kind of fear,
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lack of resources,
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loss of power,
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or sometimes it's not having a
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skill set to be an
5:28
abundance leader.
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So we can teach people how to
5:32
be more abundance oriented.
5:34
So scarcity behaviors look like
5:37
hoarding information is one that
5:38
comes up in the model.
5:40
one is not being visible
5:42
to staff,
5:43
the leader who goes into their
5:44
office and you never see them,
5:46
who the staff say,
5:47
I haven't seen them in
5:48
two months. You know,
5:49
they never walk around.
5:50
Right.
5:51
a scarcity leader is the type
5:53
who doesn't argue for resources
5:56
for their staff.
5:57
They throw people under the bus
6:00
publicly, they blame others.
6:02
And we all do things that
6:04
hurt people as leaders,
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we don't intend to,
6:06
but we really good leaders are
6:09
paying attention to what they
6:10
say and do and the decisions
6:12
they make and trying to manage
6:13
the negative impact.
6:14
They also tend to not always be
6:17
as aware of what we
6:18
call their affect.
6:20
So they'll have sometimes
6:21
the way we come off,
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that's what your affect is,
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how we look to others.
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Abundance leaders tend to be
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aware of how they appear
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to others,
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and scarcity leaders less so.
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The full on scarcity behavior,
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unmitigated, unmoderated,
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unaware,
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is never really a great
6:38
moment for that.
6:39
Should never show up.
6:40
Should never show up.
6:41
You might have a moment when
6:43
you're leading where you
6:44
have to do budget cuts.
6:46
You have to let people go.
6:47
That is not necessarily
6:49
a scarcity behavior.
6:51
That's making good decisions in
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relation to scarce resources.
6:56
So I would say scarcity
6:58
behaviors,
6:59
for no reason are not okay.
7:02
Scarcity behaviors for good
7:04
reasons that you can articulate,
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are okay.
7:07
There's a little nuance
7:08
in there.
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How does having
7:11
an abundance leader,
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how does that translate to
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a healthy work environment, say,
7:20
for our staff?
7:22
Yeah,
7:23
I think we can tie it.
7:25
I know we can.
7:26
To not only healthy
7:28
work environment,
7:29
we can also tie it to
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individual health.
7:32
So let me start with the
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individual health.
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And I know there are wonderful
7:36
Northwell physicians who might
7:37
be listening to this,
7:38
who can weigh in on this.
7:40
Optimism in general,
7:43
is the kind of energy that
7:46
allows you to have better health
7:48
overall because you see the
7:50
possibilities in the future.
7:52
optimists tend to be
7:53
more proactive.
7:55
They tend to look for solutions
7:58
to problems.
7:59
So if you know that character
8:02
logically,
8:02
you tend to be a little more
8:03
on the pessimist side,
8:05
or maybe you're a little
8:06
more negative.
8:07
There's some verbal habits you
8:09
can acquire that are going to
8:11
help pivot you towards more
8:13
self empowerment,
8:14
more agency in your life that
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can help you with some of the
8:18
things that contribute to better
8:20
health. Exercise, for example,
8:21
diet, cooking. And those things,
8:24
those verbal habits are just the
8:27
tape that we have in our
8:28
head about the world.
8:29
So let me give an example.
8:31
A car cuts you off in traffic.
8:34
What's your.
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What's a person's reaction?
8:37
Not yours, Sandra.
8:38
What might a person respond to?
8:41
Somebody cutting them off?
8:43
A few choice words
8:45
for that person.
8:46
And it could set you off.
8:47
Now, what's happened physically?
8:48
I'm not a physician,
8:49
but I would say.
8:51
The physicians would say that
8:52
your heart rate would go up.
8:53
Your heart rate goes up.
8:53
you know, your blood pressure,
8:56
the agitation level,
8:57
all those stress indicators
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are going up.
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One of the things we can do when
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a car cuts in front of us is
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we can mentally construct a
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different scenario of what's
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happening in that car.
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So what I say is, oh,
9:09
maybe there's somebody in that
9:09
car who's about to give birth,
9:11
and they got to.
9:11
Give them an emergency.
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Maybe they're having an
9:13
emergency just so that we change
9:16
that frame of how we're
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interacting with the world.
9:19
I'm connecting now the abundance
9:21
leadership with that mindset.
9:23
The mindset, the mindset, yeah.
9:26
I'll say one other thing about
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individual health,
9:27
and then I'll talk about
9:28
workplace cultures
9:29
and abundance,
9:30
which was the second part
9:31
of your question.
9:33
now,
9:34
often we are surrounded by
9:36
others who are negative.
9:38
Look how gorgeous it is out
9:40
today, I might say, now,
9:41
what's a negative person say?
9:43
What's so gorgeous about it?
9:45
It's cloudy, it's rainy,
9:47
it's going to rain tomorrow,
9:48
right?
9:49
They just take the wind
9:50
out of your sails.
9:52
Most people have someone in
9:53
their life that does this,
9:54
or someone at work.
9:55
So I encourage people to really
9:57
be careful about how much time
9:59
you spend with someone whose
10:01
constant refrain is changing the
10:04
positive to a negative or always
10:06
saying why something won't work.
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Let me answer the question
10:10
about workplace cultures.
10:11
Because we spend a huge amount
10:13
of our awake time at work.
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I believe it's the greatest
10:17
percentage of our weekend
10:18
is spent at work,
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our awake time versus in bed.
10:22
And I hope everybody's getting
10:23
a good night's sleep on
10:24
the screen, listening.
10:26
that means that our workplace
10:29
culture greatly influences
10:31
our health.
10:31
Absolutely.
10:32
If we feel disempowered,
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we have no voice,
10:35
if we feel unrecognized,
10:37
if we feel we don't have
10:38
the right tools,
10:40
if we feel we're not getting
10:41
feedback, positive or negative,
10:42
we're just being ignored.
10:44
All these things contribute to a
10:46
feeling of not achieving
10:47
a life purpose,
10:48
not actualizing our
10:50
full potential.
10:51
So a good leader,
10:53
a good manager,
10:55
a good workplace culture does
10:57
the opposite of all
10:58
of those things.
10:59
There's good performance
11:00
reviews, there's team building,
11:02
there are staff meetings.
11:04
Information is shared regularly.
11:06
I do know that Northwell health
11:08
regularly wins a great
11:10
place to work stamps.
11:12
So this is one if the staff
11:14
are out there listening,
11:15
the personnel,
11:16
medical personnel and others.
11:18
North Wales,
11:19
a place that really works on
11:20
its culture quite a bit,
11:22
that alone is going to improve
11:24
health. Coming to work,
11:26
purpose driven, happy,
11:27
and feeling like you are in a
11:30
place where you can change
11:31
things. It may not be perfect,
11:33
but that you can find a
11:34
way to change things.
11:35
Well,
11:36
that's why I will be celebrating
11:38
my 30th year at Northwell.
11:41
It's incredible.
11:42
And still enjoy coming to work.
11:44
One other tip that might help
11:46
with those difficult
11:48
conversations. Well, two tips.
11:49
One is try to avoid what's
11:51
called judging mind and go
11:53
into learning mind. Tony,
11:55
my business partner,
11:56
writes a lot about that.
11:58
You want to suspend judgment
11:59
and go to learning.
12:00
How do you go into learning
12:01
mind? You ask questions.
12:03
So try this at the next
12:04
party you're at.
12:05
This is a very cool thing
12:07
to try at a party,
12:07
and then you can start
12:08
applying it at work.
12:10
You meet somebody at a party,
12:11
you don't know them.
12:12
What do we ask of somebody?
12:14
Where do you work?
12:16
Or usually we ask,
12:17
where do you work?
12:18
Or where do you live?
12:19
What do you do for a living?
12:19
What do you do for a living?
12:21
Force yourself to ask five
12:23
questions in a row.
12:25
Five questions in a row
12:27
of that person.
12:28
So they're going to answer
12:29
your first question,
12:30
come up with another question.
12:31
Ask that. Ask five questions.
12:33
Watch what happens to the
12:35
conversation. It gets deep.
12:37
They feel heard.
12:39
You learn a huge amount.
12:41
I did this at a family gathering
12:43
a few months ago,
12:44
and my nephew Jonah,
12:45
who was in his twenties,
12:46
was standing next to me.
12:48
And I remember he was watching
12:50
me do this with someone.
12:51
I didn't say I was doing it,
12:52
but he said, well,
12:53
that's really cool.
12:54
You just asked a ton of
12:55
questions. I said, yeah,
12:56
because I'm curious about this
12:57
person and how they got
12:59
interested in opera.
13:00
And I don't particularly
13:02
like opera,
13:02
but I want to know how you
13:03
get turned on to it.
13:04
So I really encourage listeners,
13:07
just try this little technique
13:08
at the next dinner you're at.
13:09
Ask five questions. Yeah.
13:11
I hope for our audience that's
13:14
listening, you know,
13:15
they can get a good idea of what
13:18
an abundance leader is and hold
13:21
their leaders accountable,
13:23
because this is what I
13:24
want from my leader.
13:25
Yeah, this is what I, this is.
13:27
How I want to show up at work.
13:29
This is how I want to feel.
13:31
And since you're my leader,
13:33
this is what I expect from you.
13:35
Yeah. In the book,
13:37
I outline all the different
13:38
behaviors,
13:39
and that's language people can
13:40
use with their leaders,
13:42
their managers, with themselves,
13:43
and even with colleagues.
13:45
And one part of the book has
13:46
a how to manual in it.
13:48
it's great to have
13:49
a good theory,
13:50
but if you don't know
13:51
what to do.
13:51
So in that how to manual are
13:53
tips and techniques that even
13:55
staff members can bring to
13:57
their bosses and say,
13:59
could we try this as well?
14:01
What are some of those
14:02
behaviors? So things,
14:04
what are some of those how to.
14:05
Yeah. So I'll give you,
14:06
I'll just give you some random
14:07
examples. At OPG,
14:09
my organization,
14:11
we have a, in our office,
14:13
we have an outside of work wall
14:15
where people post pictures of
14:17
things they do outside of work.
14:19
Oh, I love that.
14:20
Yeah, it's beautiful.
14:21
And so people walk by and go,
14:22
oh,
14:22
look at this person's out
14:23
horseback riding or look at
14:24
their kids. This is so cool.
14:26
People can put up any picture,
14:28
of course,
14:28
appropriate to the workplace.
14:30
and they can take down pictures.
14:32
We have people who've left
14:33
the organization.
14:33
Their pictures are
14:34
still up there.
14:35
It's a way of honoring
14:36
our past as well.
14:38
so just little things like that.
14:40
We call these micro levers or
14:42
micro behaviors that signal
14:44
you're a different
14:44
kind of leader.
14:45
I think all these
14:49
behaviors that we're
14:50
talking about,
14:51
many of these personal
14:52
individualized ones.
14:53
There's nothing groundbreaking
14:56
about it.
14:57
It's getting the habit,
14:59
finding that one thing that
15:01
changes what you keep doing over
15:03
and over and over and making
15:06
things better.
15:07
I think what's groundbreaking
15:08
about the book is that
15:09
underlying mentality of
15:11
the abundance mindset,
15:12
and that's the deeper work,
15:14
that all these behaviors help
15:16
you start to have a more
15:17
abundance mindset that then
15:19
helps you in all those other
15:20
places in your life.
15:22
We talk a lot at the program
15:24
about parenting and marriages
15:26
and partnerships.
15:28
How do these behaviors make
15:30
your marriage better,
15:31
your partnership better?
15:33
How does it make your marriage,
15:35
your relationships,
15:36
your relationships with
15:37
your children better?
15:40
So one of the behaviors I talk
15:42
about in the book and this comes
15:44
from Oprah Winfrey, who is,
15:47
I think, brilliant.
15:48
You may know she has a genius
15:50
level iq and she's incredible.
15:52
Just she's an abundance leader.
15:54
She's a walking personification
15:56
of an abundance leader.
15:57
She said an article in
15:59
one of her magazines,
16:00
I'm not sure it was her,
16:01
but I think it might have one of
16:02
her editorial pieces in
16:04
one of her magazines.
16:05
She said there's two fatal flaws
16:07
that professionals make mistakes
16:10
they make all the time.
16:11
They mind read and they
16:13
fortune tell.
16:14
So we mind read,
16:16
we assume what somebody's
16:18
thinking.
16:19
We go, oh, I know how they feel.
16:21
I know what they're going
16:22
to say, etcetera.
16:23
And fortune telling is
16:24
predicting what will happen.
16:25
Well, if you do that,
16:26
then that's going to happen.
16:28
Well, she's going to.
16:29
I know she's going to.
16:30
These two behaviors are also
16:33
incredibly detrimental to a
16:34
marriage or to any relationship,
16:36
including with children.
16:38
So how do we not mind read and
16:40
how do we not fortune tell?
16:42
So first you have to recognize
16:44
for mind reading.
16:45
As soon as you start to say,
16:46
well, I bet they feel this,
16:48
well,
16:49
I know what she was thinking.
16:50
You know your mind reading,
16:52
you have to say, stop.
16:53
Let me ask, how are you feeling?
16:56
You seem unsettled,
16:57
but I'm wondering what
16:58
you're feeling.
16:59
Can you tell me more about
17:01
what happened?
17:02
Can you tell me more about what
17:03
you hoped for? So you get,
17:05
you see the switch
17:06
in the questions?
17:07
Fortune telling is to not assume
17:11
what's going to happen.
17:12
So notice when you start to
17:14
predict the future and you make
17:15
your decisions based on a future
17:17
prediction that you don't
17:18
actually know is going
17:19
to happen. Well,
17:20
I'm not going to go to that
17:22
party because so and so is
17:23
coming and it's going to be
17:23
a terrible party. Well,
17:24
how do you know?
17:25
Why don't you go try it.
17:27
So this opens up your world to
17:29
be more open to different
17:31
possibilities.
17:32
I don't know if you'd
17:33
like me to.
17:34
I can go into the five rules
17:35
of life as well.
17:36
Yeah,
17:38
let's do it.
17:39
So, the five rules of life,
17:40
which are also in the book,
17:42
and they help you not mind read
17:45
and not fortune tell.
17:46
You want to think about which of
17:48
these five rules at this given
17:50
moment, on this day,
17:51
do I need to pay attention to?
17:53
Because at any given moment,
17:54
one of these five rules is our
17:56
challenge in any situation.
17:58
So the first one is to show up.
18:01
That's the first rule
18:02
of show up.
18:03
Be where you're supposed to be,
18:05
show up for yourself,
18:06
for others, etcetera.
18:08
Second rule is be present.
18:11
Hard to do these days with so
18:14
many distractions and notice
18:16
the difference.
18:17
Most people assume showing
18:18
up is being present.
18:19
They're not the same.
18:20
Be present means you don't
18:22
come in with a hangover,
18:23
you don't come in late,
18:24
you don't come in distracted.
18:26
You come in here,
18:27
you turn off your phone,
18:29
you're ready to go.
18:30
Third rule is speak your truth.
18:33
And that takes a lifetime to
18:35
learn how to do in a kind,
18:37
productive way.
18:38
Speak your truth,
18:39
not in aggressive,
18:40
not in a detrimental way at the
18:42
right time, in the right way,
18:44
so it improves your
18:45
relationships.
18:46
The fourth rule is,
18:49
don't be attached to an outcome
18:52
very hard.
18:53
We want things to turn
18:54
out a certain way.
18:55
And the fifth is be open
18:57
to all possibilities.
18:59
Really beautiful rules.
19:01
And when you can enact
19:02
each of those,
19:04
all of your relationships
19:05
get healthier.
19:07
Wow.
19:08
And this can be All of these
19:14
the rules that you just
19:15
mentioned can be applied
19:16
to a person,
19:18
to a team,
19:20
any of our listeners,
19:22
and in a workplace.
19:24
Absolutely right.
19:26
For a whole team,
19:26
those can be the guidelines
19:27
for the whole team.
19:29
So my final question to you,
19:31
Laura.
19:32
Do you think effective
19:34
leadership, then,
19:36
is a matter of adjusting your
19:37
mental model to fit
19:39
your personality,
19:41
or rather adjusting your
19:43
personality to fit the
19:45
desired mental model?
19:47
Yes.
19:52
I think I say in the book,
19:53
I think leading is one of the
19:54
most difficult things people do.
19:57
But I have a passion for
19:59
leadership. I love leadership.
20:01
You are the people.
20:04
Only about 10% of the population
20:06
feels that way.
20:07
Really just love it.
20:09
Want to do more of it.
20:10
My brother thinks I'm crazy.
20:12
Most people would say you're
20:15
crazy because managing people is
20:16
like hurting cats sometimes,
20:18
and you get a lot of criticism,
20:21
and you're really trying to help
20:22
people solve problems.
20:24
So I think the first question
20:26
leaders should ask is,
20:27
do I want to keep doing it.
20:28
Someone like you says,
20:29
absolutely.
20:29
It gives me meaning and purpose,
20:31
and I love it.
20:32
Others often choose to do it
20:34
because it's a promotion and
20:35
there's a paycheck that comes
20:36
with it and more influence,
20:37
but they're pretty miserable
20:39
leading.
20:40
I always encourage those clients
20:42
to think about going onto
20:43
some other trajectory.
20:45
So leading is complex,
20:48
and I don't think there's one
20:49
answer to shift it this way
20:50
or shift it that way.
20:51
You're just going to always
20:53
be trying to improve your
20:54
leadership and be authentic
20:57
about who you are.
20:58
Don't try to be some
21:00
perfect leader.
21:01
Find the right leadership
21:03
position for you,
21:03
for the right team,
21:04
doing the right work that
21:05
fits who you are.
21:07
That's important,
21:08
where you can show up,
21:09
be present,
21:10
and be your authentic self.
21:12
Exactly.
21:13
I work here as John.
21:15
Sandra,
21:16
drop the mic.
21:17
I agree with that
21:19
wholeheartedly.
21:24
That does it for this episode.
21:27
I really enjoyed talking to
21:29
Laura about a topic that I
21:31
am so passionate about.
21:32
I have learned so much and hope
21:34
that you have as well.
21:36
Remember,
21:37
you can lead from any seat at
21:40
home, among your friends,
21:43
any organization that
21:46
you're involved in,
21:47
and also you can lead in
21:49
your workplace with,
21:50
whether you have a formal or an
21:53
informal position of leadership.
21:55
And I highly recommend that
21:57
you check out her book,
21:59
abundance leaders.
22:00
It's a great resource for anyone
22:03
who's interested in leadership
22:05
or organizational culture.
22:07
Until next time,
22:09
I'm Sandra Lindsay,
22:10
and this has been another
22:12
episode of 20 minutes. Health.