Latest / The Expert Method / How to Become a Leader People Actually Want to Follow

Transcript

How to Become a Leader People Actually Want to Follow · The Expert Method

• speaker-0: For me, my experiences with trust started, like you said, years before you're put in the leadership position. When it's your first day as that lieutenant, they know you've already laid the groundwork and you've earned this. I'm never gonna put them in a situation that I'm unwilling to go. speaker-1: Today's guest is Mark Andrew, and not the guy dropping two-point conversions for the Baltimore Ravens, but the fire captain and author of Leading Through the Heat, a book built from decades of experience leading people in the fire service. In our conversation, Mark and I talk about how to earn the trust of the people that you lead long before the title gives you the authority to make decisions. We also get into what that looks like in practice, from taking responsibility when things go wrong to giving your team room to make decisions and being willing to do Anything that you would ask of them to do, right? You need to demonstrate that you're willing to do anything that you're asking someone else to do. And in the fire service, you can imagine that can get pretty intense. So if you're building a team or stepping into a leadership for the first time, this conversation is about becoming the kind of leader people actually want to follow. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now please enjoy my conversation with Mark Andrew. Mark, thank you so much for being here. speaker-0: It's a pleasure, Ian. speaker-1: Absolutely. So, Mark, a lot of the listeners, as I was sharing before we started recording, are early stage entrepreneurs, kind of zero to five years into their journey. But really the no matter where you're at in your journey, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're in an organization, some elements of leadership are going to be the things that are, you know, required for you to have success in whatever it is that you're working on, right? The ability to lead other people is one of those meta skills, meta abilities that's applicable in no matter the domain. And One idea that runs through your work is that a title can put somebody in charge, right? It can kind of give them the authority where people kind of have to listen or show up to the meeting, but it cannot make the team trust them really or want to follow them. And in most of those cases, people have been forming that opinion on whether or not they want to follow somebody if they see them as a leader long before that person ever gets promoted or into that position of leadership. So I'd love to start with you with by exploring the idea of like what really makes people trust a leader and want to follow them. speaker-0: For me, my experiences with trust started like you said, years before you're put in the leadership position. You've got when you're the younger worker in a in a job, whether it's the fire department, whether it's a factory, a warehouse, a law firm, you gotta be good at the job. Put the work in to get better. Always be learning. Show that you've got talent or skill for that vocation. And if you have weaknesses, then double down on those and make them strengths. And then you get 10 years in. And if you've shown a good track record of not only being good at the tasks, but being a good partner, a good teammate, a good coworker, somebody who cares about the team and is building up the people around them, building up or lifting up the younger people on the job. When you get that chance to then promote into a leadership role, you're now not having to flip a switch and say, I'm the boss today. You could come in and just start laying out some expectations. And then people will say, Yes, I can see that strategy because I've worked with this person for 10 years and I know the track record. So for me, it's a foundation that you build. speaker-1: Yeah. And it's something that you build again long before you're in that leadership position, you demonstrate your ability to care about and think about people other than yourself, right? And not pretend like you're the one that has all the answers, being able to admit your faults, be self aware enough to see the weaknesses that you have, and you know, lean on others to help you in those areas or do the work required to get better at those weaknesses or those areas where you might be lacking. And I think that self awareness. And that ability to just honestly judge and critique yourself is one of those critical characteristics of successful leaders. Would you agree? speaker-0: Absolutely. self awareness is key because, like you said, not gonna have all the answers. Any business, any vocation is gonna be dynamic enough to where there will be situations that come up that maybe you hadn't seen before. Or there will be a situation that comes up that actually falls in the expertise of one of your younger workers. And so being able to admit, hey, this person's got expertise in that area. I'm gonna delegate this task to them. I'll oversee, I'll trust and verify. But learning to trust other members of your team is another way where you can gain their trust because now they see that they are valued and that their opinions matter and they're part of the growth of the whole team or the whole company or the whole mission. And the self-awareness also comes in for when you might have the best intentions, but actually did make an honest mistake or you misjudged a situation or you tried a tactic, it didn't didn't work. You gotta be self aware enough to say, yikes, this is not working out. Man, I gotta rethink that. Hey, team, you know what, that's on me. This didn't work out. I'm gonna be better next time. I can see it now, and we're gonna try a different strategy next time. And I've had to do that myself as a company officer in the fire service. speaker-1: Yeah. The ability to admit when you're wrong, right? And be able to swallow that pill. And then I feel like it can even go further than that where taking responsibility, like the idea of extreme ownership. Are you f familiar with that idea from Jocko Willink, like extreme ownership? You are responsible for every outcome. Like where do you see that idea of extreme ownership playing into successful leadership? speaker-0: For me, it's goes back to your first question. It's another factor in trust. One of the biggest ways I've seen bosses lose trust is when a mistake gets made on a task, on a nine one one call, on a project in the corporate world, and one of the higher-ups comes in, all right, what's going on here? And then the boss goes. Don't look at me, talk to those guys. I I didn't know this was going on. It's not my fault. And then lets the junior people take the blame. That just kills trust and kills morale. When my chief officer was mad, I stood in front of the crew and he chewed me out. And then if it's just bluster in the moment, I'll disabs it and let it go. If it's a legitimate mistake, I will take that blame. And then I will go train with the crew later. And then we will fix the problem. But I won't let the boss yell at the junior guy. I gotta stand in front of that. And I hear horror stories in the corporate world of bosses telling people to do something, then the VP comes in, hey, who who did this? And the boss goes to talk to that guy and then completely denies being involved in any way. And then junior people are just, you know, getting promotions stifled and stuck in that corporate cubicle world that they hate going to work. And so for me, that ownership, one of the best ways to demonstrate that is when things go wrong, the boss takes the blame and absorbs that and protects their team. speaker-1: Yeah. And I think that protection of the team is one way to put it. It's almost like it's on me, right? I'm the leader of this unit, of this team, of this group. And if something does go wrong, right, I'm gonna be the one that is responsible for it. Right. It's it's on me, right? And just not shifting blame over to somebody else. So and I think that that kind of speaks to something that people expect out of their leaders, which would be another idea that I'd love to explore with you is like what beyond the leader taking extreme ownership over the mistakes or the things that happen, what else do people expect out of their leaders? Right? What do, you know, just the average guy on the team, what does he expect out of his leader other than just him, you know, taking extreme ownership when the when something does go wrong? speaker-0: I know when I was a junior person, I responded most to the leaders that gave me clear goals and expectations. So if they laid out a strategy, they laid out a training program, they laid out we're in the middle of a nine one call, and he gives me three tasks to accomplish. It was clear, it was concise, I knew what was expected of me. That was the type of boss I enjoyed working for. When Orders were vague, goals were vague. And then I have to then guess and navigate what the boss might want. I found myself constantly frustrated because I would always get to the end of whatever project at the end of the week. And then he would say, What are you doing it this way for? And I said I didn't know what was expected of me. Well, Jesus Christ, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm I'm sitting here getting chewed out. And for me, so much. wanted to be the type of boss that gave clear and concise direction, always laid out what the expectations were to the junior people. So I'm removing all of the guesswork. speaker-1: Yeah. And I feel like there's a there's a balance to walk there because I think you're a hundred percent right. Like one of the core responsibilities of a leader is to create the vision, cast the vision of the future and where we're going, what we want to achieve, and then translate that into clear strategy or tactical day to day things that every individual needs to do. Right. Their responsibility is almost being the the the translator of the future of like how we're gonna go and make this outcome, achieve this outcome. Right. And maybe that's in like the middle tier of a of a larger organization, right? They have to be able to translate the vision that the higher level leaders in the organization are are casting and then translate that to their team and turn that into a tactical strategy, clear and concise tactical strategy that people can go and execute. But I feel like giving that super clear instruction on exactly what you should do and how you should do it, there's a balance to walk there where you almost don't want to tie down the people in your organization. You want to leave room for them to be able to, you know. find their own way of doing something or find a better way of doing something. How do you how do you navigate that? speaker-0: We actually have a phrase for that in the fire service. I will tell them the strategy, but they get to choose the tactics. So if I say, hey, we got a fire on the first floor, I want an inside attack, and I want the roof ventilated, then the crews will pick which hose line to grab. They will choose which door to go in based on reading the smoke pattern and the layout of the construction. They will choose what side of the building to put the ladder on based to where the fire is at compared to where the power lines are. They will cut a hole in the roof based on the smoke presentation and the roof construction style. And I have been on scenes where we've had that micromanager boss who says, All right, we got a fire on the first floor. I want this line, I want it pulled in that direction. You're going to go at this angle. I want this much water pressure. I want this many gallons per minute. I want this type of nozzle. You're gonna be on the front, you're gonna be number two on the line. This ladder, I want it moved over three feet off the left side of the front gable, and you're gonna take the twenty-four foot ladder, but I want the sixteen foot ladder to come at another angle off here, and it's just mind-boggling how I've seen some bosses want to micromanage every one of the tactics. For me, all of that should be in preparation before. So I could say, here's what we got, go, and then For the most part, the crews, when they've been built up, will know what to do. speaker-1: Yeah. And I think we can all recognize that micromanagement idea. Like we've all experienced that in one way or another. But what do you see are the the costs of micromanagement? Like what is if somebody's a micromanager, if a leader takes this micromanagement kind of approach, what do they lose what do they lose out on? speaker-0: They're losing out on all of the great ideas their crew likely has and is now scared to tell anybody. For the most part, almost all of the people we hire are bringing in enthusiasm, job skills from different areas, life experiences, prior job experiences. And if I don't empower them to be able to make some decisions throughout their career. Their ideas never come to the forefront. And then we're just stifling all creativity. And sometimes we're actually stifling the handling of a scene. If if I don't get information from people whose eyes are physically in a different part of the building, if I don't get that information, I could make the wrong tactical decision. If somebody has been to this house before where we might have a fire, they could say, hey, there's an addition off the back. I was on a medical run here last month. But if I'm micromanaging every task. I'm gonna lead a team who goes into a situation knowing to keep their mouth shut because they're afraid of getting yelled at. So for me, the micromanaging, one leads to stifling of all creativity, but worse than that, in a more macro sense, it leads to a killer in morale. speaker-1: Yeah. If we just want to underline that idea of the killer in morale, like why is that such a morale suck when people are just have no room to have any ideas, they just have to take orders, stay in line. Like why why is the freedom, the ability to have your own ideas, contribute your own ideas so important for morale? speaker-0: for me, it's because people want to feel valued. They want to feel like they're contributing to something bigger. They don't want to be a cog in a machine. and this is just straight out of nineteen fifties management theory, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Once we get past people being rookies on our job, they're not worried about the money. They now have enough job skill they could just go to another department at any time and make a lateral move. They're now looking for a department that not just provides some safety and shelter and job security. They are looking for a department that's going to value them, where they can be self actualized and they feel good about being at work. They want to be part of the team. They look forward to their work day because they know I'm going to be valued. The work I do is going to make a difference. We're going to help this mission of helping other people. And so for me, I've I've just seen it so tangibly that when you empower people to make decisions, they so buy into the program because they're now an equal part in what we're doing. speaker-1: Have you done any thinking on where the tendency to micromanage? Cause I don't know if it's, you know, default approach, but I found myself when it was my first time to be in charge of someone, right? I was young, we were talking before we started recording. It was like twenty-two or twenty-three when we started building our team in our marketing agency. And now I was in charge of someone, and now it's like kind of a tendency almost like a to just go and micromanage and be no, this is the way that we're supposed to do it. So where does that tendency of Micromanagement, where does that come from? speaker-0: I have always had the suspicion, and I can't prove it, but it's been my experience that people who are micromanagers do it because they have an insecurity of their own knowledge or skill. So they don't want to take a chance that they'll be second guessed, because if somebody else's idea is better than theirs, they would take that as an personal insult. Whereas I And and a lot of leaders that I enjoyed working with, somebody had a good idea and it was better than the one they had. They were thrilled and happy. Wow, I didn't think about that. That's really good. We're going with that one. And with the pride in just saying, I got a good team, I can trust them. It doesn't have to be all about me. Let's use that person's idea and move forward. You'd mentioned Jocko Wilnock earlier, his Business partner Leaf Babin said in an interview once, You were a sergeant and Jocko is your lieutenant. How many times did he give you a direct order in the four year deployment you had with him? And he goes, I think just once. And it might have been twice, but the second time he made it seem like it was our idea anyway. And I'm talking hundreds to thousands of orders. And one time Jocko told them what to do. Almost every other time They were allowed to pick the tactics based on the training that Jocko had laid out months ahead of time. So yeah, you don't need to micromanage. their ideas are almost always going to be good if you've prepared them correctly. speaker-1: Yeah, I think that idea that the micromanagement tendency can come from almost an insecurity and belief that you ha it it's about me, right? And that comes I feel like you can tie like any faults in leadership back to that one idea that they're trying to make it about them. Like they're putting them in front of the team, right? And as a leader, you just have to be the person that puts other people and the people on your team ahead of you, right? In so many different applications. Or we had another conversation here on the podcast with Joshua Block. And he talked about the idea that, you know, hard conversations, having hard conversations with the people on your team, whether it's, you know, giving direct and kind of challenging feedback, I'm gonna put your growth ahead of my comfort. Right. I'm not going to let me not wanting to have this uncomfortable conversation get in the way of me telling you what needs to be said and you growing because of it. So I feel like every almost every fault of leadership could come back to the idea of Making it about me instead of me making it about you. speaker-0: That's a really good point because I've used that same nugget of thought and applied it to discipline. So often a leader is so worried about how they'll be perceived. Am I still going to be seen as a nice guy or people's friends? Or am I getting invited to outings? Am I going to be part of the club that they're afraid to hold people accountable? Whereas I found in practice it's actually the opposite. When you do hold people accountable, as long as you're fair and and reasonable and in confidence in private, if you have to counsel somebody, they appreciate that you're willing to tell them straight, hey, we had this problem. I'm gonna need you to work on areas A, B, and C. Can I help you with the program to get better in this one area? They usually appreciate that. So the the boss that is afraid To have that hard conversation with somebody because they're afraid of their own ego or their how little be perceived is only stifling everybody else's growth. speaker-1: Yeah. I feel like leadership is one of these ideas that has been studied for a long time. And like you brought up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, nineteen fifties, right? Management books. Like we leadership is something that has been studied and valued throughout history, right? For thousands of years, right? We can recognize what a great leader is, what a bad leader looks like. But you would think that with that understanding, we would be able to consistently have great leaders rise to the top. Right. There's like we know what great leadership looks like, right? There's some countless books, countless podcasts, countless conversations that have been written, had about what makes great leaders, but still consistently there's a lot of really bad leaders finding themselves into leadership positions. How does that happen? How with such a good understanding of what great leadership requires, what it looks like, what great leaders do, how are bad leaders still getting into leadership positions? speaker-0: In the fire service with, you know, paramedics and firefighters, we have more of an objective promotional system. So if you're good at writing a test and can give a good interview, you could just score well on an officer's exam and you have enough seniority points added to that and you could just get promoted. In the corporate world, I've always wondered at that, because I hear just such horror stories of of bosses that don't quite understand the even day-to-day nuts and bolts of what the job is. They're giving conflicting orders, they're giving illegal orders because they don't understand the OSHA regulations or the accounting principles. They're just telling people to do things for the sake of telling people to do things. But we find out later that they got promoted because they know so and so in s in the governor's office or their brother-in-laws with this VP and and so I hear horror stories in the corporate world and I can't truly wrap my mind around why so many corporations allow it. In the fire service and in police departments, a lot of it is Maybe those departments just don't put enough into management training and so people just study the textbooks and get good enough at passing exams. And then after you get promoted, it's really just the hopefully the the human nature of it all that we're just gonna have more people that want to be good than people that want to be bossy. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And that that the few people that have micromanagement tendencies tend to be in the minority. But in in a municipal fire department it's it's hard to to manage around 'cause you could just pour it on in a good interview and a good rent exam. speaker-1: Yeah. So I guess just to clarify, do you feel like you see consistently better leaders in organizations like the fire service or the police department or organizations like that than you do in the corporate world? speaker-0: I get the impression that yeah, we do a good job in at least in in the fire departments that I'm had a chance to, you know, be colleagues with people in my geographical area. That we're just in a generation of firefighters in the last fifteen to twenty years where we actually care about training and caring about build building up teams and care about having a high skill level for the job at being fit and able to do the job. Whereas when I came on, we had a lot of people that stayed well past the pension cap and were almost to the point of hitting the age maximums before mandatory retirements. And there was a phrase we used which was called retired but still working, where they just came in and delegated all of their job to the junior people and then just relaxed in their office all day. We have gotten past that through just the good nature of this generation of firefighters. We wanted to be better, because these were conversations I had with my peers coming up the ranks. These were constant conversations and constant plans. When when it's our turn, here's what I would like to do better. So I think we came in with a strategy and a goal in mind. speaker-1: Nice. Yep, and that's the key to any kind of successful endeavor, right? Is knowing what the end looks like or knowing what the desired end looks like. And, you know, everything comes down to the system that you have in place of like what is the system that you have in place that is bringing leaders to the top, that is nominating and installing the leadership team. And, you know, honestly, I think that system and how you evaluate, nominate, promote leaders in your organization might be the most important system that you have in place because There's not many things more important than leadership in your organization, but it is at the same time one of those challenging things to evaluate. Like leadership is kind of one of those soft skills, right? And you never really know until somebody's in that position of leadership how they're going to perform in that position. I think the natural, just kind of way that leadership systems are. I don't know if I've never even thought about the idea of an intentional leadership promotion or leadership development system. Like I've never even thought about it. But I think the natural way is like, okay, we're gonna promote leaders through like kind of bureaucratic or political kind of avenues. But if you were to install or try and create some kind of leadership evaluation system, what would you be looking for in people to evaluate whether or not this person would be fit to lead? speaker-0: One of the things I liked in our promotional testing is when they would have fire and EMS based scenario questions. So we could at least judge can you handle the nuts and bolts of making decisions on a job? If I've got this construction style and fire in this area of the building, are you offensive or defensive? Where would you extend your cruise through? If these conditions change to this, what would your next tactic be? And then do they have the nuts and bolts of a of a command structure? How do you give the radio calls? Where do you deploy your people? How do you communicate on the radio to your bosses, to what you your needs are versus what your conditions are? And then I would love to see the tests talk a lot about it and it doesn't have to be the real nuts and bolts, fifties era management. We're breaking down Maslow. We're breaking down Theory X, Theory Y, but at least a an overview of how people are motivated and what are some ways you can motivate people. And we have some promotional books that occasionally touch on that. They're hard to delve questions out of, but some some of them are a little vague but others have been better. So I I would love to see more doubling down on that as well. So we we're we're we're looking at l management technique in terms of the motivation of the employee and what what are techniques you could use to draw the best out of the people that are with you. speaker-1: Yeah. And I think this might be another idea that we can kind of explore is the idea the difference between management and leadership. Like what do you see as the difference between being a manager versus being a leader? speaker-0: For me it was the trust. If I came in and barked ten orders, I want this, I want that, I want this, they would all do it. If I had said, All right, crew, here's our strategy. We've got this training evolution, we've got this new hire rookie on the job, these skills checked off in this kind of a time frame. I don't know what other skills he's gonna need beefed up because I'm not sure what training he had before he got here. What are your thoughts as how we could get to this goal at the end of the month so we could write a training report to our training department. And then they'll say, you know, I got a good drill on this. Hey, I've got a fitness program that works well where we could do a circuit thing. Hey, I've got a real good thing for memorizing the medical protocols. Great. You go with that. In the afternoons, you lead this one off in the morning, and then you handle the fitness. Can you guys each handle those tasks? Do you need me to help you with any of them? And most of the time they say, No, let me handle it. I want to do it. And so now I've got this team where each individual has been tasked with something decently important. They feel valued and they feel trusted because now the rookie is looking up to them. As a leader, looking up to them as a senior person who's got talent and skill and should be listened to and trusted. So now they're coming to work with the motivation of wanting to do a good job because they're getting the benefit of one, developing their own leadership capability, but they're also getting the development of earning the trust of the junior person. So when they're on a scene, the junior person is now looking up to them, not seeing them as all equals down there and I'm the guy at the top. I'm able to lay out a strategy, but then delegate. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. And I think just on the surface, right, if we look at just the my initial reaction to those two words of management versus leadership, it really does feel like management, that idea, that word, just really lacks the the spirit, the human side of its responsibility. Right. Ma management sounds like very clinical. And then leadership really sounds like, you know, inspiring. It has the spirit. It has the soul. It has the trust as you talk about it. As you talk about it's like that's the difference between, you know, a leader versus a manager, right? A manager is just somebody, okay, I'm gonna listen to them because I have to. A leader is somebody that you wanna follow, right? Somebody that's blazing the trail, somebody that's gonna that I can really communicate with, kind of have a back and forth. And then you talked about the idea of when you delegate ownership of certain things to the rest of the team, right? You're not micromanaging, but you you give other people responsibilities to make decisions and contribute their own ideas. You're giving them that opportunity to kind of hone and practice their own leadership ability. Right. And then that's building up the leaders. That's building up the people underneath you, which is another one of those ideas from previous conversations on the podcast around leadership is, you know, pouring into the people on your team, building them up, right? People should be better off because they worked with you or under you or for your team. They should be better off for that experience, had they not, because they've grown and they've developed underneath you. And then there's a interesting idea that you also talk about in your work. Which is the moment that somebody that you've worked alongside then becomes the leader, right? Maybe you have spent 10 years working with this crew of guys, and then now you step into the leadership position. Right. So what changes in that moment where maybe you've been side by side with this crew, you've been working with these guys for, you know, a long time. And then now you step into that leadership position. And now it's not, hey, me and you, but like now it's like, I'm supposed to be the one in charge. Like that sounds like a yeah kind of a weird transition. So what changes in that moment? speaker-0: Hopefully not a lot has to change. It is a challenge because we are a paramilitary organization. So we're all in the same labor union, but we follow the a military rank structure. So there's a respect that goes with each rank. There's some rules and regs to orders you have to follow based on the rank of the person that gave it to you. But the goal would be when you get promoted. You've got a track record of, like I said, being good at the job, being a team player. So when it's your first day as that lieutenant, they know you've already laid the groundwork and you've earned this. But I have seen it the other way, where the person was a good test taker, but didn't have a good track record, was kind of lazy, never wearing their uniform, always wearing an off duty shirt. slacking off on medical protocols, having other people do all the stuff. And then all of a sudden, or or or just taking, taking long breaks, laying in the recliner all day. And then you get promoted to lieutenant. And on day one, it's all right, standard attention, you drop you, give me twenty, you tuck in that shirt, you shine that badge. And they lose the crew on day one because they think they could just come in and flip a switch. is the worst way to inspire people. And I use a quote in the book from a really awesome officer I had the chance to work with. He became a an officer a couple years after after me, and he got promoted, and the only opening was on the exact same crew he was on. So he was the driver of the fire truck for five years. And then the next day on the exact same team, because there were no other openings, so he couldn't transfer it to another station. He's now the lieutenant. And I said, Was it difficult? And he says, Nah, they know who you are by now. And I j I just love that quote. speaker-1: Yeah. They know who you are by now. Yeah. And I think the idea that you brought up of you know, you've seen it the other way, where somebody who slacked out they were a good test taker, right? They kind of were able to play the system the right way to find themselves in that leadership position. And as soon as they get into that leadership role, it's all about do as I s do as I say, not as I do. Right. I think that also represents another one of those leadership principles that they have to be the standard bearer of the standard, right? They have to be day in and day out. You have to represent what you're gonna ask everybody else in your team to do. speaker-0: Can I touch on that that phrase right there? We're talking about inspiring people. I think that's a great way to inspire people is you're asking them to do everything you're willing to do yourself. I'm never going to put them in a situation that I'm unwilling to go. Because I have seen the boss stand there with his coat open, doesn't even put an air pack on and say, It's over there, guys. Go go in and get it. I gotta stay out here and supervise, but I'll keep my eye on you. And so like here here's my book. The cover photo on the book is actually me. And that was a a thing we had with the publisher. He had said, Hey, I could save you a lot of time and money. I have rights free AI generated fire photos. And I said, Absolutely not. I will pay for the rights for some news photographs we've had of fire scenes that I'm in the middle of. And I've It was a picture I liked because it's me ahead of my partner sounding out the roof, checking for stability, using an axe to get a starter hole so we could create a big vent opening. And then once once I've checked for the safety, then I back away and my partner comes in with the chainsaw. But I'm ahead of my partner making sure thing things are safe and always right with them. And so that was another way of inspiring. And that's the kind of thing you can't do. If you're just gonna come in on day one and flip a switch and just say, I'm the boss, you have to do as I say. It's it's gotta be a groundwork that's laid before. speaker-1: Yeah. Yep. You have to build that trust over time. You have to establish that, you know, I this is the wrong word, but the image, right? You have to demonstrate your willingness to lead from the front, right? And do the things that you're gonna ask of others. That was always something that pulled at me. It's like I felt like an inability to like, okay, we're gonna set this standard. It's like, okay, we're gonna be in the office at eight AM. I couldn't do that if it's like I've I'm not gonna be in the office at eight AM, right? Or like any any one of those little things. It's like I have to be the one that's going to establish the standard and demonstrate what needs to be done. I can't ask anybody else to do something that I'm not willing to do myself or I haven't demonstrated that I do consistently myself. it's just it's hollow, right? It's just it's hollow. Like nobody's gonna listen to it. It's like, what are you talking about? Right. speaker-0: I've heard the same thing in with lawyers and law firms. You're doing trial prep. You can't delegate this to the associates if you're a partner. You you gotta you gotta be doing those late nights and all nighters with them. If you're an inji lead engineer and you've got a product deadline because they need your seat, your steering wheel, they need your dashboard completed by this date. And it's got to meet these specs because this factory's production line is getting ready to start production in in two weeks. You'd better be with your team of engineers pulling those late nights, or they're not gonna respect you. speaker-1: Yeah. Right. And it r reminds me of an idea that I think I picked up from a Ryan Holliday book, the the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. One of the responsibilities of the leaders are they're the ones that sweep the floors, right? They're the ones that clean the locker rooms. They're the ones that kind of do that dirty, ugly work. It's almost like a it becomes like a privilege. Like obviously it's just like a part of their all black team culture of like the leaders are the ones that are willing to do the dirty work and they're gonna sweep the floors. I don't know what that really speaks to, but the idea that the the leader is the one that's just willing to get their hands dirty, like just do the do the seemingly little things, right? You would imagine that for a rugby team, it should be the you know, the the rookies that are out there doing the dirty, ugly stuff. Like why do you think that idea from the like one New Zealand all blacks example? Like why do the leaders have to be the ones that sweep the floors? The leaders that are the ones that get their hands dirty, do that dirty, ugly stuff. speaker-0: Yeah, I gotta assume it's it's because they want the team to know that having a clean, orderly, professional locker room, if it means enough to the boss, then it it's gotta mean as much to everybody else. If it's important for the boss that this is orderly, then they're gonna take an ownership in it as well and they're gonna care about it as well. speaker-1: Yeah. Amazing. Well, Mark, thank you so much for the time. I have one final question for you. It's a recurring question that I ask every guest, but before we get to that, how can people find you? speaker-0: my book, Leading Through the Heat, is on Barnes and Noble and Amazon, online. I'm at MarkDBN Fire on Instagram. Yeah, so I thanks for having me on. I I hope people check out the book, because honestly, having discussions like this on various podcasts is is been eye opening to me. I'm learning so much about other types of workplaces. speaker-1: Yeah. And again, before we started recording, we talked about the idea of leadership being one of those quote unquote meta skills that's valued and applicable and useful in any domain, whether it's in a fire department or whether it's in a small business, in your family, right? These leadership principles and what you can learn in in a book like yours leading through the heat. and I was lucky enough to be able to get it my hands on a copy and read through portions of it. And if you like a story driven like educational books, you'll love leading through the heat, where it's just like you use so many different fascinating and intense and pressure packed moments and stories from your time in the in the fire service to teach these principles, much like Jocko Willing's Extreme Ownership. You'll love this book. So links in the description. Check out the book. Go get yourself a copy. Follow your work. You are an active like I it's hard to see met more people on as many podcasts as you are. You're active. You're out there. You're having a lot of conversations all the time. So you got a steady stream of content. Talking about leadership th through so many different lenses. So it's awesome. So check out Mark, links in the description. But Mark, my final question for you is a recurring question that I ask every guest. So if you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds with like one message to the world, what would it say and why? speaker-0: Care about your workers. Care about the team. speaker-1: Yeah, that is a good way to summarize pretty much everything that that we've talked about today, right? If you start grounded in that idea of caring about your team, caring about your workers, it feels like every like the the quote unquote right decision to be a great leader will stem from that. speaker-0: Sure. Absolutely. Empathy is not a weakness. speaker-1: Mm. Man. Yeah. Well, Mark, we'll have to have you back and we'll we'll open with exploring that idea of of how you can use empathy and why it's not a weakness. Cause I would imagine that seems like a very soft, especially in like a intense service like the fire service, right? You would think that emotions and showing empathy, that kind of thing would be soft, right? And something that you're you're not gonna show that in that group. But we'll we'll have you back another time and we'll explore that idea. So Mark, thank you so much for the time. speaker-0: All right, let's do it again. Thanks for having me on. speaker-1: Thank you for listening. My main takeaway from this conversation is that good leadership is less about controlling every decision and more about creating clarity than giving the people that you're leading room to operate and, you know, do what they do best. I really liked Mark's distinction between strategy and tactics. I feel like this just makes it really easy to understand. Right. As the leader, your job is to make sure people understand where you're going and what needs to be done in order to get there, right? Kind of have that. You know, you set the destination and then you work together with the team to kind of figure out the plan on how to get there and you delegate responsibility for the different things that they own along the way. And then if you've prepared the team well, you'll just have to trust them to kind of decide how to do their own own part. And that gave me a much cleaner way to think about the line between giving direction and micromanaging. So if you want to get connected with Mark, you can find his links and his book Leading Through the Heat in the description of this episode. And if you're an author or a coach and you want to make it easier for your clients to engage with your ideas and get results, I put a free resource in the description of this episode as well. It will help you build more execution support into your program without adding more to your plate. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.