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How to Not Suck as a Leader! · Humanity Working

0:07
SPEAKER_04: What makes an effective leader?
0:09
SPEAKER_04: Uh, the first thing I would say is self-care, which is probably not something that you're gonna hear a lot of people say.
0:18
SPEAKER_04: I don't mean selfishness, but I mean making sure that they're healthy as a leader and have the emotional agility to be able to navigate the inherent challenges that come with being a leader.
0:30
SPEAKER_04: And what comes with that is authenticity, ability to be vulnerable, clarity of purpose, which then drives some of these other behaviors that we look for that have been scientifically proven to be more effective.
0:43
SPEAKER_04: Um, but it really starts with making sure that they're okay.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: Hello, and welcome to what is our first for us at Humanity Working, our first ever live recording of a podcast.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: So, with it, uh joining me today is somebody who's actually been on the Humanity Working podcast just a few weeks ago, Dr.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Alessandria Politzi.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: And uh I'm really, really happy to have her back because we got so many questions related to um your last appearance, Al.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: And we thought, what better way to address them but than by having uh one of these live recordings?
1:19
SPEAKER_02: So so welcome along, Al.
1:21
SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much for having me back.
1:22
SPEAKER_04: I appreciate it.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so really looking forward to today.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: And first off, a big thank you because um we actually put out a little bit of a call for questions um for uh for this recording before we started.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: And frankly, we kind of got overwhelmed with them.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: There were there were a ton of questions that uh that came through, all of them really, really good.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: And um before we get to them though, I want to talk a little bit about the title of this session, why it is that we're uh we're calling it what it is, even like a little bit of the debate that we had about uh about whether we should uh whether we should call it this and the response we got.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: So for those of you that are just like driving along in the car and haven't noticed what this thing is called, and it just popped into uh into your feed, um, the title of this session is How Not to Suck as a Leader.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: And it was kind of interesting because when I put out the the call for uh for comments on this, Al, and for questions, I would say about 95 to 98% of people responded with something along the lines of great title, here's my question.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: And about one to two percent of people were like, huh, well, that doesn't resonate with me at all, or I don't think you should be talking about leadership like that.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, so um and I thought it was I thought it was very, very interesting.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: We even had one person, for example, who responded and and said, Yeah, I've been in this field like like 20, 30 years.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to be told anything like that.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: So really curious as to as to why, you know, I know obviously the back the background to this discussion, but maybe you could just talk a little bit about why we would even go there, why we would uh we would talk about it in in these terms.
3:14
SPEAKER_04: Well, I think one, according to all the latest research in Gallup, uh 80% of managers are rated as poor.
3:24
SPEAKER_04: So most people probably are sucking as a leader, unfortunately.
3:29
SPEAKER_04: And um also we wanted something a little cheeky, a little to kind of stick out from the crowd, not your regular like top three ways you can lead effectively or whatever.
3:40
SPEAKER_04: Because um, what I notice and what we'll talk about that's different in how, at least with with Verdant and our conversations around leadership, is that we focus also on the inside of the leader and how they can take care of uh, you know, the human side of being a leader.
3:58
SPEAKER_04: And so a lot of what we see around leaders is all about the head.
4:03
SPEAKER_04: Um, and we're gonna talk a little bit about the heart.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's so interesting about the comment about leaders being rated as poor, because that's against a backdrop, Al, where huge sums of money, certainly when you you know you total it all up, right?
4:20
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of people in the world.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: So if you total anything up, then there's gonna be a lot of money spent on stuff.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: But there is actually quite a lot of money spent on leadership development, right?
4:30
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
4:31
SPEAKER_04: And again, having been in leadership development for over 20 years, uh, like the person who responded, um, I can match that.
4:40
SPEAKER_04: Uh a lot of it isn't really, it's recycled the same things.
4:44
SPEAKER_04: And it's a lot of it is telling leaders uh what uh they should be doing and not giving them tactics around how to do it.
4:53
SPEAKER_04: And so I think a lot of what uh I'd like to talk about, what we'd like to focus on is tell me how, tell me not just why I should do X, um, but how to do it in a way that matches my style um and who I want to be as a leader.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so let's get into the details.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: We'll go into some of the uh the questions right away.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: Um the question that I wanted to start with, and we'll kind of go back and forth here, Al, you can ask me a question after I uh after I ask you one.
5:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I rather like this one.
5:29
SPEAKER_02: So it's from Adrian Boucher.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: Apologize if I've mispronounced your name.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: Um so uh and I'll take that as a blank, by the way, please take it as a blanket apology for me butchering anything.
5:41
SPEAKER_04: Uh I don't know what it's like to have people mispronounce my name at all.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, I can imagine that, Al and by the way, even listing out your like we had a slide for those people that are attending this live.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: We had a slide with your LinkedIn uh profile and it goes on and on and on and on.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: Um anyway, but uh Adrian Boucher is the uh is professor and director of the Voss uh Sport Business Management Program.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: So uh so thanks so much, Adrian.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: Um and love this question.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: I think it's probably gonna be in your wheelhouse.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: Are leaders born or made?
6:16
SPEAKER_02: If they can be made, what type of temperament do people need to have to be effective leaders?
6:23
SPEAKER_04: So um I get this question a lot, by the way.
6:27
SPEAKER_04: Um, and the answer is of course they are not born.
6:30
SPEAKER_04: Um, they are made.
6:32
SPEAKER_04: Um, because if only we only put people in leadership positions who had the uh pathway and the look of being a leader, um, that there's just a lot of bias inherent in saying, oh, the people who are in leadership positions are there because they were born to be there.
6:51
SPEAKER_04: Um I think that's a belief system that we're trying to dismantle.
6:54
SPEAKER_04: The thing that I would say is what makes an effective leader.
6:58
SPEAKER_04: Uh the first thing I would say is self-care, which is probably not something that you're gonna hear a lot of people say.
7:06
SPEAKER_04: I don't mean selfishness, but I mean making sure that they're healthy as a leader and have the emotional agility to be able to navigate the inherent challenges that come with being a leader.
7:18
SPEAKER_04: And what comes with that is authenticity, ability to be vulnerable, clarity of purpose, which then drives some of these other behaviors that we look for uh that have been scientifically proven to be more effective.
7:32
SPEAKER_04: Um, but it really starts with making sure that they're okay.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think kind of related to that um is is a question that I I get asked around that um in a in a very similar way, which is well leaders all seem to look a certain way, right?
7:53
SPEAKER_02: And there's an image, I think, as to what we think of as a as a good leader that has really been embedded for 40, 50, 60 years, right?
8:04
SPEAKER_02: And you know, you can go as far you can go back as far as Jack Welsh or even before that or whatever, but it generally seems to be like a man in the 50s, um, who's worked their way through uh uh up in a certain way that has a certain set of characteristics, um and certain color exactly.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: And so when I start thinking about this question, I I think about it in terms in two ways, which is they should not be born into it.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: But it is certainly true that if you were if if you look a certain way and seem a certain way, then the likelihood of you ending up there is potentially greater.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: And and uh you and I have talked about this, but like, you know, there's a reason why, you know, X number of almost every president has been a certain height or above, you know.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: And so of course we're always like dealing with that, with that backdrop, right?
9:05
SPEAKER_02: Um but it got it's got nothing, it it's got nothing to do with actually what qualities of successful leaders are.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: And I suppose that's the that's the balance, right, that we um that we that we have to strike, right?
9:20
SPEAKER_02: This interpretation in our heads as to what we think leaders look like um and what they sound like and what they feel like, right, versus the reality of what it takes to be a successful leader inside an organization.
9:32
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
9:33
SPEAKER_04: I think what you're describing is a boss, right?
9:37
SPEAKER_04: But um, and research shows, I mean, research shows over and over again that if you have women in leadership, you're actually more successful as a business, full stop.
9:47
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so define what a successful leader is, then.
9:51
SPEAKER_04: If a successful leader is the archetype that we have been able to demonstrate does not ladder back to innovation, productivity, business success, uh talent retention, you name it, um, then what we're kind of working against ourselves by limiting our ability to have leaders that are more effective.
10:16
SPEAKER_04: Um, because that's uh for whatever we can we can define that reason for a wide variety of causes.
10:24
SPEAKER_04: Um and I shared with you this with you before.
10:26
SPEAKER_04: I did a session last week on um for women in manufacturing um on leadership, and it one of the studies we found was a study that looked at women um experiencing harassment.
10:40
SPEAKER_04: And what they saw was that actually the higher up you go, the more frequent harassment occurs.
10:47
SPEAKER_04: So if I'm an individual contributor as a woman, um, it's probably around 58% of women who experience uh around the 50% range, which that's gross right there, but it increases to almost 70% if I'm a woman in power, and especially in a male-dominated field and with um uh more male employees than not.
11:09
SPEAKER_04: So there are power, and then the other thing that is uh not helping us is if we don't see examples of leaders who look like us, then it's hard to uh see that as a possibility.
11:24
SPEAKER_04: So another data point is that you know, out of 20 uh executives, four of them will be women.
11:32
SPEAKER_04: Um, and or out of 16, I'm sorry, four will be women, and one will be a woman of color.
11:38
SPEAKER_04: So we just don't see those uh opportunities.
11:43
SPEAKER_04: And um, one of the articles I was reading around this calls it not the career ladder or the glass ceiling, they call it the broken rung, which uh being given the opportunity to be mentored as a leader, to be supported as a leader.
11:57
SPEAKER_04: There's just so much behind what has limited uh the ability for people who don't look like you to not be to not have the opportunities to be able to lead.
12:10
SPEAKER_04: So what you're describing is in a sense, a set of additional obstacles that people who don't look a certain way and don't behave a certain way have to go through versus other people that were born into different circumstances, I guess would be absolutely and so this is why where I like to start is with the leader as a human and understanding the emotional weight of that.
12:40
SPEAKER_04: So if I am uh am one of those folks, right?
12:44
SPEAKER_04: I I have been in leadership positions for the last 10 years minimum.
12:49
SPEAKER_04: And so I'm put in those positions.
12:51
SPEAKER_04: Now I just shared with you, there's a high likelihood there's going to be bias about me, there's going to be uh potential higher risk for harassment.
12:59
SPEAKER_04: Um, we don't talk about those things and the impact that can have on my emotional health, my psychological well-being as an individual human.
13:08
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so being able to understand what those hazards can be for me as a leader is incredibly important because it's the equivalent of me walking into, you know, a toxic spill without understanding how it could create harm or how it could injure me.
13:26
SPEAKER_04: So that's why I think it's really important for us to talk about these things, make leaders aware of them, and then give them the skills and capabilities to navigate um these very complex and psychologically potentially harmful um impacts on them as humans.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: By the way, for those of you listening on uh audio, I'm not snoring while Ell is talking here.
13:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, here she is.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: Elle's very cute dog is is with her and uh has decided that it's not interesting enough for her, but I but it's reviewed.
14:06
SPEAKER_04: This is her, she's doing her job, which is snoring.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely right.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: All right, uh, what you got for me, Al.
14:13
SPEAKER_04: Um, yeah, so let's kind of continue um to build on that definition of what it means to be a leader.
14:19
SPEAKER_04: So there's a great question that we received from Michael Boyink from um Driven to Wonder, and he talks about um the type of leader, he talks about leadership charisma and public speaking, which I think is part of this archetype.
14:38
SPEAKER_04: So the question is um, is the reduction of face-to-face time and presenteism, I would kind of take that out, but presenteeism surfacing another or new type of leader that is less dependent on charisma and public speaking abilities.
14:52
SPEAKER_04: Is this a new opportunity for introverts to become leaders?
14:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this this I find is fascinating because it really talks to the nature and the way in which work is changing.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: Um and so often when you start to think about the the various different ways in which work is changing, there's some really obvious ways and then there's some kind of subtle ways, right?
15:17
SPEAKER_02: So, really obvious ways, a great example would be like, oh my goodness, there's been this explosion of AI, and you know, and all of a sudden everybody's using things like Chat GPT in order to be able to do their work.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: And then very clearly and obviously, there's been an explosion of companies that are tech companies or software companies.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: If you were to look at the Fortune 500 today, it's a huge amount of numbers of it are dominated by software companies with you know significant profit margins, and uh and less so of more of what you could consider to be more of, if you like, the traditional companies that would have dominated it even 30, 40 years ago, something along those lines.
15:57
SPEAKER_02: So those are examples of really obvious changes that are happening in the workplace.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: But while all that has happened, there has been this also a period of time, uh uh over a over a period of time, there's been this sort of like gradual but continuous shift in the way in which work is done, the the the how, the what, the when, the where, even the why of work, all of those different things, all those things are are shifting.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: And the shift is um is towards things like unstructured, ambiguous, flexible, agile work with people that themselves are hopefully pretty agile and resilient.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: And showing up to work itself is a more ambiguous activity.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: And often it requires more in the way of internal or intrinsic motivation than it did previously.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: And often it's less clear exactly what success looks like, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_02: You're in the old job, maybe you needed to move X number of widgets over from here to here.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: And if you did a certain amount in a certain period of time with your structured breaks, you were good.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: And now that new world of work is very, is very different.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: Most of the people, for example, that work in our programs, we asked them a simple question like, um, do you do you keep regular office hours?
17:16
SPEAKER_02: And huge numbers of people say no, right?
17:17
SPEAKER_02: And huge numbers of those people are not getting overtime when they're when they're not doing that, right?
17:22
SPEAKER_02: And then we even ask them about the wear of work, like, you know, do you do you show up at the same desk every day?
17:27
SPEAKER_02: And huge numbers of those people say no.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: So all of that is shifting uh under us um as as we try to, if you like, make sense of work.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: So if you think about it, if all of that is changing, right, it's very logical and natural that the types of skills that are required by leaders to excel in in those types of environments are themselves going to be somewhat different, right?
17:50
SPEAKER_02: If, for example, you're a leader that was a that was accustomed to bringing everybody in the office and doing the rah-rah in front of everybody in front of the office, and now you've got a workforce that is distributed across space and distributed across time and rarely gathers physically, you need a different set of skills in order to be able to work effectively with them.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: So I think I think the short answer is that the uh this is an opportunity for people that are wired differently to be highly uh to be more successful inside organizations, to use different communication mechanisms, to bring people together in different ways, and to do all of the necessary work, uh uh all the necessary work of a leader.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: Um but by the way, throughout history there have been uh successful introverted leaders.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: So it was never it again, we come back to this idea of what they what the image is of a leader, but it's never been the case that it's impossible to be a leader if you're introverted.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: It absolutely is possible though, to use the fact that all of this is is changing and to take your skills and apply those skills to lead really well in that type of environment.
19:09
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
19:09
SPEAKER_04: I like how you described it as changing underneath, you know, underneath us, um, because it's not something that we just all of a sudden, okay, let's all switch and we'll get trained on these things.
19:21
SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, and I would say um if your methodology for for managing people before was by keeping your eyes on them and monitoring their work, you weren't doing it right anyway.
19:34
SPEAKER_04: So it was time for you to change, and this is a good catalyst or forcing function to help you find new ways of working and new ways of leading.
19:44
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21:14
SPEAKER_01: All right, I got another one for you.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: Um let's go with Oh, I like this one.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh there's actually two here that are that I think connect really, really well.
21:31
SPEAKER_02: So um the first is from Amy, uh Amy Granick, who's director of marketing at Berthell Synagogue.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: And the second is from Zach Ratner, um, friend of the show, who's been on the uh podcast, uh, and uh CTO and co-founder at Yembo.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: So the first question is centered around how leaders can cultivate empathy in their leadership style while also maintaining professionalism.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: And the second is how can leaders effectively balance empathy and authority?
21:58
SPEAKER_02: So there's a Different views on the question in this in the same way.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: The way I think about it is like there's this here's the way it's been put to me, right?
22:06
SPEAKER_02: There's this sort of thing that you're supposed to be empathetic, but I don't really understand how empathy and professionalism or empathy and authority relate.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: So uh I hope you can talk about those.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
22:20
SPEAKER_04: Um, the best place to start is by being clear about what your purpose is as a leader and being really grounded in that, because that can help drive both empathy, vulnerability, um, authenticity, openness, and boundaries, clarity of purpose, expectation setting, um, tough conversations, etc.
22:44
SPEAKER_04: Because if you're grounded in your why, right, what is my purpose for being a leader?
22:48
SPEAKER_04: You that is your touchstone for everything you do, and you're guiding your guiding direction for what you choose to uh focus on and what you do not.
23:00
SPEAKER_04: So for example, let's say, what would you say actually, Paul?
23:03
SPEAKER_04: Your if you pick one word to describe what you would like to be known for as a leader, what would it be?
23:14
SPEAKER_02: That's a really good question.
23:16
SPEAKER_02: You can tell we haven't practiced we haven't.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: No, we didn't.
23:18
SPEAKER_04: Just first, first word, first word that comes to mind.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm biased because I think I would say followers, but the reason that I'm biased is because uh um another friend of the podcast, I just uh interviewed him the other day for uh something called uh a book that I'm holding up right now, One Drop of Poison.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: And um, it's written by Sean Lempson.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: And Sean uh Sean asks a question of his leaders, and he says, uh he says, What what is a leader?
23:46
SPEAKER_02: Is the question he always asked them.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: And he thinks there's one right answer to that, which is a leader is someone who has followers, which is But towards where you need to be following you toward a goal or a direction.
23:58
SPEAKER_04: So tell me where you're headed.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: So I yeah, I'm gonna go vision.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: Vision.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, but I don't know.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
24:10
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: And it's weird that I I'll tell you what though, isn't it weird that I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head?
24:16
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
24:17
SPEAKER_04: Well, and that's so you know, I when I teach leadership classes, um, one of the things I do, I use the picture of Ted Lasso's sign above his door.
24:25
SPEAKER_04: If for those of you who haven't seen it, um, he's a coach for a UK football team.
24:30
SPEAKER_04: Um, and uh it says believe.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:33
SPEAKER_04: So I say, what would be on your door, right?
24:36
SPEAKER_04: So you some words that have come up have been empathetic, curious, creative, authentic, um, supportive, you know, all kinds of different things that people see themselves.
24:47
SPEAKER_04: What do I want to be known for as a leader?
24:49
SPEAKER_04: Why do I lead?
24:50
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so let's just say toward yours is vision, right?
24:54
SPEAKER_04: So how so that gives you a great place to start when it comes to making connection with your team around what is the vision, getting people behind the vision, making sure it's clear, aligning everyone, having everyone feel like they're part of the vision.
25:08
SPEAKER_04: And when people are doing behaviors that are counterproductive to the vision, like undermining the team or not meeting their deliverables, et cetera, the conversation you can have is again still tied back to what's most important and you've been very clear about.
25:25
SPEAKER_04: So this is why I think it's important for us as leaders to be able to articulate what who do I want to be, what do I want to be known for as a leader?
25:35
SPEAKER_04: What is my purpose in leading people?
25:37
SPEAKER_04: It can't just be to get people to follow me.
25:40
SPEAKER_04: Um, uh, because again, that's that's a boss.
25:43
SPEAKER_04: Um uh and it needs to be about, but but in how it's the how.
25:49
SPEAKER_04: So uh having that, and the reason I say that isn't because it's something I just made up, it's because the scientific research shows when we are connected to our purpose, we are better able to navigate challenges, um, be able to drive clarity, align people, uh, drive innovation.
26:10
SPEAKER_04: It all helps us with our own internal management of emotional agility, resiliency, etc.
26:17
SPEAKER_04: And as we talked about earlier, if you are a person who is a non-traditional looking person in your field, um, it also can help bolster you against the biases that may already exist about you as an individual.
26:32
SPEAKER_04: So there's uh psychology and scientific research behind being really clear about your why.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: And just for a uh just for a sec to kind of like uh defend Sean's uh Sean's view of the world on this, which is good, which I think is interesting.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm not attacking it.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no, I don't.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: But I think what is the uh what's what's really interesting about that and what he goes actually into into the uh into the book for in in in some detail is that he what he's really talking about is that success successful leaders have followers.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: So sort of like a statement of fact, right?
27:09
SPEAKER_02: So in other words, you can behave in a certain way, you can even behave in a certain way where you try to recruit followers, right?
27:14
SPEAKER_02: And you may or may not be success, be successful at that.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: But it's true to say that if if you're leading a company and nobody buys into anything that you're doing, you're not being a successful, uh you're not being a successful leader.
27:31
SPEAKER_02: So there has to be so in other words, he for him, it's almost like a it's almost like a measure, right?
27:37
SPEAKER_02: And now do you go out and actively seek it?
27:39
SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily, but do you behave in certain ways where you where you're gathering followers as a result of what you're doing?
27:47
SPEAKER_02: That's that's somewhat different, I think.
27:49
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think so I've seen leaders who um are more focused on finding followers than leading.
27:55
SPEAKER_04: Um so I've been I've been a front row seat to that.
27:58
SPEAKER_04: Um and that's again, that tends to be more kind of author auth authoritarian um leadership, more narcissistic leadership skills, uh skills, leadership behaviors um that are about me and following me.
28:14
SPEAKER_04: Um and if you don't follow me and do what I say, um, then you're not really part of it.
28:19
SPEAKER_04: So I just I'm not saying that he's saying that in his book at all, but I'm just saying that if if my only measure is who's following me, um, I have seen that erupt in bullying behavior, narcissistic leadership, et cetera.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's almost like the equivalent of like being obsessed with your followers on social media or whatever.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's it has its own challenges associated with that.
28:39
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: As as we're chatting about, Sean, why don't you?
28:43
SPEAKER_02: I know that uh that he had a a question uh that you wanted to ask me, I think.
28:48
SPEAKER_04: I yes, absolutely.
28:50
SPEAKER_04: So um what he had here was companies seem to be coming more and more comfortable laying off and reorganizing employees, seemingly at the drop of a hat.
29:01
SPEAKER_04: What is the impact of this behavior on a company's ability to innovate and recruit talent?
29:05
SPEAKER_04: And I have a strong opinion on this as well, so this will be a good two for.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and who knows which uh which direction this is gonna go.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm actually quite excited by this one.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: So um, first off, I think is actually relatively complicated the question about um whether companies are becoming more comfortable uh laying off and re-orging at the drop of a hat.
29:25
SPEAKER_02: I think um certainly in tech um that's uh we're seeing a bit more of that.
29:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think there's a few reasons behind that, right?
29:36
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of them actually have nothing to do with leadership, but it's worth being aware of them.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: So I mentioned early on we've got this AI thing that's going on, right?
29:47
SPEAKER_02: And in our research, what we've seen a lot of is that um the tech companies that obviously probably have a deeper understanding as to what the AI revolution is going to mean for them, they're starting to think quite deeply about okay, what does that mean in terms of the number of people I need, the type of people I need, in order to be able to maximize the opportunity uh for my company in this new world.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: And I think the one thing, whether there's the whether you think this is morally correct or not morally correct is is is separate, right?
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Is a separate question.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: But it is true to say that um I think many of the tech companies have got their heads around just how revolutionary this AI wave is that is that is just beginning.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I've been giving talks recently about AI, and I've been struck by um in many cases how in some cases how few people have even used it, which is amazing, um, as in use the generative AI stuff.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes, about half of us are using it on a day-to-day basis, but that means about half of us are not, right?
30:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's that to me is is is amazing.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: But it's also, I would true to say, I started I I first started like doing work for money when I was very young.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: I was a child programmer in the in the mid-80s, and I have never seen a technology revolution that I think is more impactful or will be more impactful than this one.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: And so the tech companies are get that, intrinsically get that, and are restructuring in order to be able to uh to take advantage of that.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: That's my belief as to sort of like the why it's happening.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: And then I think there is um there's this sort of group of other companies that are looking at the tech companies laying off 10,000 people here and 15,000 people there and going, whoa, whoa, whoa, what does this mean?
31:49
SPEAKER_02: Right.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: And in many of those companies, what I've seen is well, we don't know exactly what we're gonna do around learning and development.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna we're gonna pull back our investment in people.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: We don't really know if we're gonna lay off a bunch of people, so we're gonna pull back and invest in the people that we investing in the people that we've got, and we're gonna try and we're gonna try and figure all of this out.
32:08
SPEAKER_02: So I say that to the to a point as to sort of like what's the what's the backdrop in my my what do I believe is the backdrop, and what am I hearing from leaders is as to explain what's going on in terms of the layoffs and the various other things that are uh that are happening.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: The second part of the question is I think really more uh as interesting or more interesting, which is what is the impact uh of this behavior on a company's ability to innovate and recruit talent?
32:36
SPEAKER_02: I think it depends hugely on what the company is.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: If you are, this is just a fact.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: If you are Microsoft or Apple or uh many of the, or let's say Google, and you laid off 15,000 people today and in a month you tried to recruit another different 15,000, 20,000 people, you would have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of applications for those jobs.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: Why?
33:08
SPEAKER_02: Because people still want you on their resume, they still want that.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: They want to say, hey, I can, you know, I worked for Microsoft for this period for this period of time.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: And I know that because I worked for Microsoft for 10 years, right?
33:18
SPEAKER_02: And I and I there's a there's a feel to that, right?
33:21
SPEAKER_02: And there's a and and every job application that I put out there would have hundreds of people applying for the uh for the job, even if it wasn't a spectacular job.
33:31
SPEAKER_02: So I think for the sort of like top, I don't want to call them top tier because they're not, right?
33:37
SPEAKER_02: But but but for this for this group of companies that have this veneer of innovation and have this veneer of like we do really interesting stuff, it's probably not going to affect them very much at all.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: Now, but the the mistake I think that we make is that we take that, we look at that, and we look at those types of behaviors in those types of companies and we go, oh, well, we could we can do this, we could do the same thing, right?
34:01
SPEAKER_02: But in reality, if you don't have that cache, if you don't have that, oh, I want, you know, I want to have that on my resume, if you don't have that, then the other things like how you look after your employees and what you do with what you do with your employees and how safe your employees feel to work there becomes much, much, much more important.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think that we always we always realize that.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that we think we think that we're we almost think like we're a mini-version of those other companies.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: We're not, right?
34:33
SPEAKER_02: We don't we're not a brand in the same way that they are, right?
34:38
SPEAKER_02: And because we're not a brand, part of our brand to employees needs to be this is a safe place to work, that is fun to work, and we'll look after you, and all of those kind of things, which are which have become much more important.
34:52
SPEAKER_02: So anyway, that was a long answer, but that's my sort of view of the whole thing.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: Can I add?
34:58
SPEAKER_04: Please.
34:58
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
34:59
SPEAKER_04: So one, I would I it says to uh recruit, but I would talk about how to retain talent.
35:07
SPEAKER_04: Because research shows that um about 10% of your population that you kept will end up leaving as a result of having a layoff.
35:15
SPEAKER_04: And we um after having done research and work with several companies who've gone through layoffs in the last 18 months, um, we have a program we call um in a fog, which looks at the um specific reactions that people can have from a psychological perspective when they go through a layoff.
35:34
SPEAKER_04: Not the people who've been exited, but the people who you've decided to retain.
35:38
SPEAKER_04: And there are a variety of things that can impact them that would increase their likelihood to depart.
35:45
SPEAKER_04: The second thing it will do is completely undermine innovation.
35:50
SPEAKER_04: Because in order to have innovation, I need to be able to take risks and make mistakes, ask questions, learn new things.
35:58
SPEAKER_04: All of those are undermined when I don't feel safe.
36:01
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so if if I don't feel safe asking questions or making mistakes because I'm afraid I'll be the next one on the chopping block, my innovation decreases exponentially.
36:11
SPEAKER_04: And so absolutely there's an impact on innovation when we have layoffs.
36:16
SPEAKER_04: One of the questions I have now, when you talk about the volume of layoffs that you're talking about, financially, I can see okay, somebody did some math somewhere and said, yes, this is the right move.
36:27
SPEAKER_04: But when we position a layoff as somehow tied to the financial performance of the organization, and it's like 10 people, I question the finances of that business, right?
36:42
SPEAKER_04: Like if the salary of 10 people is the difference between you being a business and not being a business, you've got a lot of other problems going on in your organization.
36:51
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, that's kind of one of the ones that I'm like, are we being honest about why we're making the decisions we're making?
36:58
SPEAKER_04: Because I will um second your position of a Me Tooism, um, of well, and I've seen boards asking, well, everyone else is laying off, what are you doing?
37:10
SPEAKER_04: Right.
37:10
SPEAKER_04: And they feel like they have to because everyone else is, which again, there's no financial background, it's just the board asked.
37:18
SPEAKER_04: So um that's very dangerous to an organization.
37:22
SPEAKER_02: Well, and even though um I mentioned that there are some, I think there are some underlying reasons why some of the big tech companies have been doing some very significant layoffs.
37:33
SPEAKER_02: Even though that's true, I think that we shouldn't underestimate the ability of large Fortune 10 companies to do stupid things.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: And the and the and the funny thing is that if you are a Fortune 10 company, what does that mean?
37:55
SPEAKER_02: That means that you've got way more leeway to do stupid things before it before there's a significant on you as an organization.
38:05
SPEAKER_02: So a lot of the reasons why you kind of look at some of this stuff and and kind of scratch your head is because to your point, right, to uh uh to a the finance person inside the organization or to the or indeed to stockholders, this can look like a, you know, this can look like a really smart move.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: Um and actually, I keep plugging uh Sean's book here, but it, but he there's a really interesting section in in there where he talks about um you know the accounting practices and how accounting practices affect the behaviors of firms in ways that can be completely disconnected to what, in quotes, is the right thing for the organization when you took e when you take even a two-year time horizon or a three-year time horizon.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: So that's the other thing to think about when we think about these sort of the Me Too stuff, right?
38:58
SPEAKER_02: Um something may have been in quotes the right thing for a company like a Microsoft or a uh or an Apple.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: Meta or whatever, yeah.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: Right.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: But they've got their own reasons why that's the right thing.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: And they're not your reasons, right?
39:14
SPEAKER_02: They're not the that their company is not your company.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: And so the simple answer to the question should be like, well, I've seen other people do layoffs, why aren't you doing layoffs?
39:23
SPEAKER_02: Would be, well, that's because they're a different company to us, right?
39:27
SPEAKER_02: It should it should be like, as we'd say in Britain, simple as, you know, it would be it, it's like I mean, it should be as simple as that, but in many cases it's it's not as uh not as simple as that for the uh because of this sort of need to uh I have to match the big dogs.
39:42
SPEAKER_04: So I actually can I do another question because we've got 20 minutes.
39:46
SPEAKER_04: Are we doing this until 12 minutes 24 minutes?
39:49
SPEAKER_02: We got we got 12 more minutes, and we should probably uh rush through a couple of them.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: But I'm actually I want to ask you, I want to ask you.
39:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:57
SPEAKER_02: So um it's from uh Philippos Sevidas, who's the uh friend of the show and director of the uh venture associate uh acceleration at ASU Enterprise Partners.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: Um you're gonna love this one.
40:14
SPEAKER_04: I've already been looking at it.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: You've been licking your lips over, haven't you?
40:17
SPEAKER_02: So uh visionary leaders are known for pushing boundaries.
40:21
SPEAKER_02: How can they maintain this innovative drive without losing sight of practical uh constraints and operational realities?
40:29
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so are we doing a 10-minute speed run?
40:32
SPEAKER_04: You go, yeah, we're gonna go quickly.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you what, do do this one whatever speed you want, and then we'll then we'll go a bit faster through some of the other ones.
40:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so when we talk about archetypes, one of the archetypes we have is that visionary leaders push boundaries.
40:45
SPEAKER_04: You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, yada, yada, yada.
40:49
SPEAKER_04: But the research shows that the more you can be what they call leader management exchange, or the more that you have a give and take with your teams, the more they see you as part of the team, the more authentic you are, the more uh transparent you are.
41:03
SPEAKER_04: They call it transformational leadership.
41:05
SPEAKER_04: These are the skills that have been um associated with innovation, not people who run around and yell things or like, oh, we're gonna tighten the belt to drive creativity.
41:16
SPEAKER_04: Um, and yes, constraints can drive creativity, but um, here's the difference um an effective leader has constraints and pushes ideas.
41:27
SPEAKER_04: An ineffective leader has constraints and pushes and criticizes humans.
41:35
SPEAKER_04: So I want to have debates about ideas while keeping the humans safe.
41:41
SPEAKER_04: So when I it is not personal, right?
41:43
SPEAKER_04: It's about ideas.
41:45
SPEAKER_04: And the way you do that is by creating a psychologically healthy and safe workplace.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and keeping the humans safe is a foundation to that, right?
41:52
SPEAKER_02: If you're absolutely yeah, they're not sitting alongside each other, right?
41:56
SPEAKER_04: You have to have you can't you cannot have innovation without psychological health and safety.
42:02
SPEAKER_04: I don't care what model, those are flukes, there's zero studies that show that abusive behavior drives innovation.
42:11
SPEAKER_04: In fact, I I I shared with you I had seen this question, I did a bunch of research, it got me all fired up about it.
42:18
SPEAKER_04: And you know, that what they identified in looking at driving innovation are all the behaviors I just talked about.
42:24
SPEAKER_04: There's very little correlation to some of the behaviors you talked about before.
42:30
SPEAKER_04: Authoritarianism, um, you know, narcissism, et cetera, et cetera.
42:37
SPEAKER_04: Those don't drive outcomes.
42:39
SPEAKER_04: They get in the way.
42:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: And if we had half an hour longer, we'd explain all the reasons why those of you that are listening to this or watching this are gonna scream, Tesla, Tesla, or SpaceX or whatever.
42:52
SPEAKER_04: We're gonna uh Okay, but yeah, but tell me, so just be but hold on.
42:57
SPEAKER_04: Just because an organization was successful doesn't mean it was as successful as it could have been.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: Precisely.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: And that would we know that's that's the shortcut.
43:04
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but two out of every three exactly.
43:07
SPEAKER_04: The two out of every three projects fail every day in business.
43:11
SPEAKER_04: Okay, what we're doing isn't working.
43:14
SPEAKER_04: Um, and that costs the business money.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: Couldn't couldn't agree more on that.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I got so excited I nearly uh turned over the laptop.
43:23
SPEAKER_04: Uh dog snored extra for that one.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: All right, let's do speed run.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: You can ask your one.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna try and get all my all my answers in 45 seconds or less.
43:32
SPEAKER_04: Okay, let's go.
43:33
SPEAKER_04: Um, I'm gonna say ask you a question that's not on here.
43:35
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
43:35
SPEAKER_04: How can leaders not suck?
43:38
SPEAKER_02: Very good.
43:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh I would say they start by um understanding themselves better.
43:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, I would say that uh there's a huge uh gap, particularly among men, uh in uh in terms of of men actually sort of wanting to go there and uh and understand who they are, what they're what they mean, uh what's important.
43:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh What's important to them and whether they want to be uh a leader, right?
44:04
SPEAKER_02: So in many, many, many cases, uh, people's motivation for being a leader.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: We talked about the idea of like gaining followers just for, right?
44:12
SPEAKER_02: That's one of it.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but also the other thing is that we're often brought up with ourselves, you know, either it's grouped from within or from our parents, my friends, and they're like, oh, you're a CEO material or whatever.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: And suddenly it becomes like this sort of like natural thing that you should do because you're not fulfilling your potential if you don't do it.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: Not everybody's wants to be a leader, not everybody's cut out to be a leader.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: Some leaders should be like super ICs or whatever.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: So understanding why you what it is about yourself that means that you want to do this, do you have are you wanting to do this for the right reasons?
44:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, can you is this something that you can contribute?
44:46
SPEAKER_02: Is this something that will fulfill you if you do?
44:49
SPEAKER_02: And investing in that is is a huge starting point, I would say.
44:54
SPEAKER_04: Can I add?
44:55
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
44:56
SPEAKER_04: So uh 45 seconds, less than that.
45:00
SPEAKER_04: Uh practicing self-compassion is actually one of the biggest things you can do to differentiate yourself as a leader and to not suck.
45:08
SPEAKER_04: And that's counterintuitive because that sounds selfish.
45:11
SPEAKER_04: But when we're kind to ourselves, we actually activate the nurturing parts of our brains that enable us to even be able to take care of our teams.
45:20
SPEAKER_04: So if we are uh taking away from ourselves, if we're uh sacrificing ourselves, if we push ourselves to burnout, research shows that that wreaks havoc on the performance of our teams.
45:32
SPEAKER_04: Uh so self-sacrifice, and then of course, those high ego behaviors we talked about, or those dark behaviors we talked about, those are unproductive.
45:40
SPEAKER_04: Making sure that you're healthy um is one of the best ways that you can uh not suck.
45:46
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:47
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'm gonna ask you a couple of ones around um uh let's see.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: I think I like I want to get to the bias one.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: All right.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh where's the buy?
45:58
SPEAKER_02: Why don't you ask it of yourself?
45:59
SPEAKER_04: Okay, here we go.
46:00
SPEAKER_04: Hey, Al.
46:01
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
46:02
SPEAKER_04: So Stella Brockbank from uh Chewy actually uh said sent this one in, which is how does implicit bias and leadership affect team dynamics and decisions?
46:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that is a good one, yeah.
46:13
SPEAKER_04: Uh a lot.
46:14
SPEAKER_04: There's my two-second answer.
46:16
SPEAKER_04: Um, so you cannot have uh so we are all biased.
46:22
SPEAKER_04: Everyone is biased.
46:23
SPEAKER_04: We all have un uh unknown biases, we have those cognitive biases or distortions.
46:30
SPEAKER_04: There's over 200 documented cognitive distortions which alter how we see the world around us.
46:36
SPEAKER_04: And that doesn't just include how we see other people, it also includes how we see ourselves.
46:42
SPEAKER_04: So if I do not have so things like imposter syndrome can be very detrimental for a leader and undermine the dynamics of the team because an unconfident leader or a leader who doesn't feel like they have self-worth will that will destroy relationships within the team.
46:59
SPEAKER_04: Obviously, having bias about people on your team is a no-go, but I feel like we talk about that more openly.
47:06
SPEAKER_04: What we don't talk about is either the biases that we have toward ourselves and how we should feel as a leader versus how we do feel, or the biases that people have about what a leader means to them.
47:20
SPEAKER_04: Because in many cases, we're repeating old patterns of power dynamics, be it seeing your lead your leader as similar to a teacher, a parent, a friend, a hero, a villain.
47:32
SPEAKER_04: Um that dynamic also comes into play.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: Very good.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: I will not add anything to that so we can get through some other ones.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: I think it's brilliant.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, let's uh let's, I'm gonna give you a couple uh as well, though, a couple of additional ones.
47:46
SPEAKER_02: And these are both sort of similar.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: So the first one is from uh Becky Farone, uh, again, friend of the show, who's the founder of uh Fireworks Coaching.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: Hi, Becky.
47:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh and also from uh Catherine Munn, uh, who's a freelance product leader?
48:01
SPEAKER_02: Um I'll give you both of them, um, and then you can just take it how you want.
48:05
SPEAKER_02: So, how do leaders who want to best support their teams do so when they don't agree with the directional messaging coming from above them?
48:13
SPEAKER_02: And how do you navigate through situations where you don't agree with your direct report's working or thinking style?
48:20
SPEAKER_02: Um and so that this is kind of interesting.
48:23
SPEAKER_02: It's about uh one's coming from above and one's coming from below, but it's almost like you've got your own set of values, as it were, and they're disconnecting with what's happening above you or below you.
48:36
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
48:37
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna go back to understanding your why.
48:39
SPEAKER_04: Um, as long as you're still connected to the values of what you're trying to achieve, the how should it matter?
48:46
SPEAKER_04: Um, because there are multiple ways to get to the same destination.
48:50
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so sometimes we get real stuck in a well, this is the only way.
48:54
SPEAKER_04: Um, if your disagreement is from a values perspective, right?
48:58
SPEAKER_04: Um if you believe that the decisions being made don't align with your values as a leader, you have to be really careful because having to tow the line is one of the psychosocial hazards that's been identified for by the WHO.
49:14
SPEAKER_04: Values misalignment can increase the likelihood of you burning out.
49:19
SPEAKER_04: Um, and I would say the same as when you uh when you lead uh your team.
49:25
SPEAKER_04: Often when we delegate or we try to direct how work gets done, we uh we hinder our teams from innovation and being able to come to the table with ideas.
49:34
SPEAKER_04: Adults want to share their ideas.
49:36
SPEAKER_04: Um, but as long as we're clear on the how on the why and those guiding principles of what we're trying to accomplish, then uh that should help kind of clear the path for the conversation.
49:49
SPEAKER_04: But you have a right to have those conversations as well.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: You're doing such a great job on these.
49:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay, all right.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: You asked me one then.
49:58
SPEAKER_04: Okay, there's several here about generational differences.
50:02
SPEAKER_04: Um from Diane Cody, um, she's CEO of Nova Modus.
50:12
SPEAKER_04: Um, and is there an effective way to get educated on generational differences so you can be an effective leader across all generations?
50:21
SPEAKER_02: Yes, uh, employ them and learn from them.
50:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's the I mean, a book, no, not really.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: And and I think that the other the other aspect is I think we over we simultaneously try to simplify this and overcomplicate it at the same time, if that's entirely if that's possible.
50:40
SPEAKER_02: But I think it is, right?
50:41
SPEAKER_02: Because if you think about this, and we've seen this throughout our work, right?
50:44
SPEAKER_02: There are two things that are going on at once, right?
50:47
SPEAKER_02: On the first, in the first case, um you have like a gener, you know, generational zeitgeist or whatever it is you want to call it, which is like you're in this generation, things feel different to your generation than they do to other uh than they do to other generations.
51:01
SPEAKER_02: And that follows kind of a universal trend, right?
51:03
SPEAKER_02: So we're always changing and shifting or adapting to what's gone before us and for our life experiences and our shared life experiences.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: And as you and I have discussed before, Al, I mean, there's this very, very dramatic event um that has happened in uh uh to all of us, which is COVID, which is part of that, uh, feeding into part of that.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: But previous generations would argue, well, you know, uh, if you're in America, there was 9-11, if you there was the Great Crash, there have been all these various different things that have been impactful for us within our generation.
51:31
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, you're in a generation, your generation has a certain set of characteristics associated with it, and and and there are some interesting differences associated with it, but we can learn from those by having people in our company and learning from them.
51:45
SPEAKER_02: But the second aspect of this as well is that as generations move through the workforce, then the nature of who you are as a human and your circumstances change dramatically.
51:55
SPEAKER_02: So if you're five years away from retirement, your view of work, even though you're the same human, right?
52:00
SPEAKER_02: You're still part of gen whatever it is, right?
52:03
SPEAKER_02: Your set of motivations are different because now you're closer to retirement, you've got unique financial circumstances and all that kind of stuff.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: You maybe you've got parents that need looking after or kids that need to bring up and so on.
52:13
SPEAKER_02: And so your journey through the workforce changes you.
52:16
SPEAKER_02: So these generational traits are not fixed, they're a journey that people are uh that people are working through.
52:23
SPEAKER_02: So I think it really does come down to treat everybody with respect inside your organization.
52:29
SPEAKER_02: Don't make stupid assumptions that young people today are crap compared to the generation that you know or anything along those lines.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: Treat them as people, learn from them, and adjust and adapt as uh your leadership style based on the needs that they have.
52:42
SPEAKER_02: I think it's as simple as that.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
52:45
SPEAKER_02: Agree.
52:46
SPEAKER_02: All right.
52:47
SPEAKER_02: Uh so wow, that was just like a whirlwind tour.
52:50
SPEAKER_02: Apologies to all the people that were whose questions we did not get to.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: There were a ton there, like uh Allie Green's question, for example, I really uh loved.
52:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna do like a one-one answer that.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: One belief that no is no longer serving leaders.
53:03
SPEAKER_02: Why is this uh belief still being held and what should people do to change?
53:07
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I'm gonna throw that at you.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: What's one belief?
53:10
SPEAKER_02: What's one belief you think that is no longer serving leaders?
53:13
SPEAKER_04: Um that I have to sacrifice myself in order to protect my team.
53:17
SPEAKER_02: Love it.
53:17
SPEAKER_02: All right.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: We'll go with we'll go with that one, Allie, and uh and hopefully that was helpful for you.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: Um and I think we'll uh with that, we'll uh we'll leave it there.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: Gosh, I enjoyed this.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: I hope you did.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: I hope you did, Allie, and I hope the our audience did as well.
53:32
SPEAKER_02: Um we'll probably do more of these.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: Um if you found the sort of QA format um really useful, um, then please send in questions, send in ideas for different podcasts that uh that we're gonna do.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: Um but uh thanks for joining me, Al, and uh and look forward to uh to continuing the discussion with all those that sent in their questions.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much.
53:56
SPEAKER_00: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matt Neal.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: Our interviewer is Paul Slater.
54:02
SPEAKER_00: Music is by Dolo Records.
54:03
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54:07
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54:09
SPEAKER_00: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable, resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.