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The Duality of Leadership: From Weakness to Strength With Jeff Matlow · Expertise Made Real

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  What if your greatest leadership expertise is sitting on the other side of the exact thing you're afraid to admit?
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  In this episode, you're going to hear from three time founder turned leadership coach Jeff Mallow on why real expertise is usually hiding behind a frailty nobody's willing to name, how he shines a light into that corner with clients,
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  and why every weakness has a matching strength once someone's honest enough to go look for it.
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  You're listening to Expertise Made Real.
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  I'm Kristen N.
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  Spencer, and this is where your experience finally gets called what it is.
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  Expertise.
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  Hello, everyone.
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  I am here with the amazing Jeff Matlow.
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  So I'm gonna say the truth about this amazing gentleman right now.
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  That he is a three time entrepreneur who was able to have his business acquired publicly each time he admits that he was a crappy leader for most of his career, but he's somehow figured it out and he's going
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  to talk about that today.
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  And he also teaches companies like Porsche, l', Oreal, Peloton, you know, no big deal, how to avoid all the mistakes that he made.
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  And his superpower is quickly detecting patterns in people's behavior and understanding the root cause behind them, which is such an important and rare power to have.
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  Thank you so much for joining us today, Jeff, how are you?
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  I am great and I am excited to be here.
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  So thank you for having me here.
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  Well, I'm so glad you're here.
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  And as you know, my goal is to have you be the expert and you be the one talking.
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  So I'm going to go ahead and dive into question one.
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  Bring it on.
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  So, Jeff, you know that this show is about making expertise real and taking the thing that you're already excellent at and turning it into something visible and teachable.
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  We were just talking about frameworks in the pre show, so let me start there.
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  What is your number one piece of advice for someone who's coming to work with you on leadership?
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  I thought you were gonna stop at someone who's coming to work with me because I have that answer all set, which is make sure you think about the answers before you come to me with the questions.
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  But for somebody who's coming to work with me as a client, the one thing that they need to know.
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  Give me the question again.
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  Pause.
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  So what is the number one piece of advice for a client?
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  Like let's say working with you on day one.
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  But I know you specialize in leadership, so.
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  So that we can marry those two things.
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  The number one thing or I have a few number one things.
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  Okay.
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  I want to hear all of them.
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  Yeah.
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  The number one thing is that I'm going to give you my opinions.
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  And I have opinions, and I may not be right, but that's not the point.
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  The point is to get you thinking about things.
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  So if I'm wrong, you tell me, but that shows that you've thought about it and you have an opinion on it, too.
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  Number two or the other number one thing is that I'm gonna piss you off, and that's part of my job.
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  Right?
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  Like, I'm gonna tell you the things that other people aren't gonna tell you.
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  And you may not like it, but you'll probably realize it's true.
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  So let's work.
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  You can be mad at me, call me any.
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  I've been called all the names.
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  So.
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  And then the other number one thing is that we have to be honest and open and transparent with each other.
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  And if you're not willing to do that, this is not going to work.
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  Because you only find someone's expert expertise is usually hidden deep inside.
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  And my job, I always say, like, your true leader or your expertise is cowering in a dark corner somewhere inside of you.
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  And my job is to shine the flashlight in there and try to find it and bring them out, make them feel comfortable and bring them outside.
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  So now I'm curious, which I can't help.
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  It's a chronic condition with me.
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  Why do you, like, you have enough experience where I feel like I can ask you this question and you'll have an answer.
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  What leads to the cowering in the corner for the expertise?
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  How does that happen?
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  Well, a lot of people.
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  Let's just set the understanding here.
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  Nobody comes to me when things are going well, when I get the call, there are problems, and it's either a person leader problem or a team problem.
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  And they've tried various things, and none of it works.
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  And that's because most people are trying to fix a symptom.
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  So let's take somebody who was a great worker, an excellent performer, and they became a leader.
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  Right?
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  Let's take the example of the person who's afraid of conflict.
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  Because this is such a common occurrence that I work with all the time.
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  And so they usually come to me because the team isn't communicating well or the environment's getting toxic or sales have even slowed down a little bit, and they want me to come fix that stuff.
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  Yeah, sure, I will come fix that.
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  But that's the symptom.
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  What they think they're hiring me for is to address the Communication issues.
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  But the communication issues are a result of the fear of conflict when we get to that cowering in the corner.
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  And it's.
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  Why is there a fear of conflict?
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  Well, it's usually about something like want to be liked by everybody or want to feel respected or scared that they're going to do something wrong.
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  It's about finding out where that frailty is and then recognizing it and looking at the other side.
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  All frailty has a strength.
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  Right.
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  All superpowers have their weakness.
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  All weaknesses have a superpower.
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  And so it's bringing out that superpower in them, which is that expertise that is the.
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  The opposite side of the coin of the frailty.
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  So it can only be exposed, though, by acknowledging the frailty, which is probably why you get called names, is my guess.
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  Absolutely.
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  That is exactly why I get called names.
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  And I just want to say, if any of you are reaching out to Jeff, please don't call him names during this process, because he's my friend, and that will hurt my.
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  You know, I once had somebody.
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  I once had.
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  Somebody had a newsletter called the Best Leadership Newsletter Ever.
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  And I wrote an article, and somebody was so angry at the article, they said they're gonna fly across country, come to my house, and punch me in the face.
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  That is outrageous.
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  Also, you should.
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  Listeners should subscribe to Jeff's newsletter, because I do, and I love it.
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  It's like one of my weekly reads.
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  Absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  For me, I'm like, okay, I brought emotion in somebody.
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  That's good.
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  That's the point.
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  At least they had a feeling about it.
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  That's true.
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  That is.
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  I like that measure of success.
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  Did they have a feeling about it?
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  Because if they didn't, then something's gone wrong.
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  Right, Right.
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  And in fact, maybe I should say that with my clients.
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  Listen, if you don't want to punch me in the face at least once, I'm not doing my job well, as.
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  You know, Jeff, I'm a ghostwriter, so I will say things to people that they absolutely hate, like book title, like book concept.
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  And I always tell them.
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  I'm like, listen, if you feel strong that you hate this, that's actually good information for me.
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  So please tell me.
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  I want to know when you have that reaction, because that means we need to go in a different direction.
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  Right.
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  And I.
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  I actually.
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  I wonder about this.
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  Right.
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  Because I'm sure you know about writing better than other people, better than your clients do.
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  So there must be times where you say, either you're trying to do the same thing as I am.
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  Is pull out their, their kind of weakness or the inside of them that they don't fully understand and, and probably tell them, no, we have to do it this way.
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  Or yes.
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  I mean, I wouldn't, I don't, I, I don't say we have to do it this way.
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  So I don't get to be as brazen as you.
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  So I'm a little bit jealous because ultimately it's their book and I do tell them.
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  I'm like, I'm only going to tell you what I think will improve your project.
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  But at the end of the day, you have to be able to stand with the book in front of you and promote it.
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  And so if we're gonna put something in there that you can't promote, then we're not gonna put it in.
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  Cause that kills the whole point of it.
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  But, you know, I will have strongly worded conversations and I'll be like, hey, this is my second time alerting you about this.
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  I'm not gonna push you again on this, but I really strongly, passionately recommend, please, let's not start your book with a really long conversation that leads to nothing that has anything to do with your system.
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  See, that's why you're such a nicer person than I am.
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  I'll give the.
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  The try to bring the good out of them.
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  You know, I'll be nice about it.
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  I'll try different ways.
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  And then the other day I said to one of my clients, listen, you're not an idiot, so stop acting like one.
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  And it finally got through to him.
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  Like, he's a smart guy and he doesn't need to do the things that he's doing to try to get other people to tell him he's smart.
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  Yeah, it worked.
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  I got a text later, I hated you, but you're right.
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  Well, because, like, you're a professional truth teller, right?
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  So you're like, you literally hired me to tell you what's happening.
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  Right.
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  I should put that as my LinkedIn title, shouldn't I?
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  Professional truth teller.
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  Pattern spotter and truth teller.
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  But it has to be benefit focused.
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  So if people don't know, that's what they need.
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  That's true.
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  That's true.
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  Get a LinkedIn.
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  Yeah, let's not go there.
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  You're right.
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  Well, I did just actually do Natasha Walstra's profile glow up myself on my LinkedIn.
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  It's really good, isn't it?
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  It's so good.
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  And I will.
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  I'm trying to get her on the show, but you and I both know she's so slammed being awesome and helping people.
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  So she is.
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  Hopefully soon.
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  Hopefully soon.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, she's really good.
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  I didn't do the glow up for a while and then I did it and I started kicking myself for not doing it earlier.
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  It's so good as everything that she does.
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  So, Natasha, if you're listening to this, I am so excited for you to have to be on the show eventually.
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  Yeah.
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  And if you're not listening to this, what the hell are you doing not listening.
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  She's gonna listen because it's you, right?
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  So you are so good at breaking things down.
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  Like, I love your bluntness because I feel like even though you're blunt, you're still kind, which is really difficult balance to find.
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  And I'm sure there are people listening to this right now and wondering, how do I get a hold of Jeff?
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  Like, what?
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  How can I reach out to him?
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  Where can I find his newsletter?
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  So this is like, please tell them how to get in touch with you.
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  You can find me on LinkedIn, Jeff Matlow.
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  But my website is thebestleadershipcompany.com and you can find my newsletter there, which is also the bestleadershipnewsletter.com and I'll give you one guess what my podcast is.
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  It's the best leadership podcast.
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  So go to thebestleadershipcompany.com and you can find all the ways to reach out to me.
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  Perfect.
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  Well, thank you so much, Jeff, for coming on and being part of our inaugural launch of a podcast that I finally feel like fits my voice.
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  Hooray.
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  I'm excited that I get to do two more episodes episodes with you.
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  Thank you.
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  I'm excited, too.
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  And now if you liked the episode, I'm going to make an ask because I wouldn't be a sales expert if I didn't.
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  Would you please leave a rating and review and hit subscribe.
• 12:26
  In exchange, I'm going to give you my find your wonder work system.
• 12:31
  It's five prompts, five minutes, and names.
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  The thing that you're already excellent at but don't know to call a skill.
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  This is basically a what do you do on autopilot?
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  Except I've created it as a tool.
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  So leave your review and then go claim your reward at bit ly expertisemr.
• 12:53
  That's bitly expertisemr.
• 12:58
  And I hope to hear you or my guest, I guess, in the next episode.
• 13:03
  Thanks.