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#08 - Letting Managers Fail So Leadership Can Actually Develop · Beyond Leadership - Adopting a Coaching Mindset

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Michael, do you think I should do a screen  uh you know uh behind some kind of blurring  
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or anything? Do you think I should? You can do  that, but since this is an audio only version,  
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I don't Okay, no problem then. And as a  matter of fact, I really like the idea of  
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this not being too perfect. The kind of the idea  here is that we're going to show all our warts.
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Welcome to Beyond Leadership, adopting  a coaching mindset. In this series,  
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our conversations aren't about biography  or polished advice. They're about how  
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decisions are made in the real world when the  pressure is on. We'll anchor on one situation  
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where the path wasn't obvious and explore  what goes on in the mind of a leader when  
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confronted with real tradeoffs, imperfect  information, and the need to move anyway.
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This podcast is brought to you by  PeerPlaza, human help instantly.
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My guest today has spent much of his life in  leadership roles, though he says the pattern  
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started earlier than most people realize. As a boy  scout, he became a patrol leader and discovered  
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what it meant to be responsible for others.  Later, he built a career as an attorney and  
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eventually earned an MBA focused on international  leadership and innovation. But the moment I want  
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to explore today happened when he stepped into  a director role at a large Danish IT company  
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and made a very deliberate choice about how much  control he was willing to give up and thank you  
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Jens Birk for coming to the program today. Good to  see you. I want to start out by setting the scene.  
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Could you tell our listeners what the situation  is that we're walking into right now? Yeah. Well,  
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I actually left the company for 3 months as a  part of a maternity leave and uh when I went to  
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maternity leave, I told my uh director at the  time that I wanted to have a new position when  
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I came back and to my satisfaction, he said,  "Sounds like a good idea for both of us." So,  
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I came back fresh from the maternity leave with  a new role. uh and in this in this new position  
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I would be the supervisor of uh something like uh  100 employees and seven business lines and four  
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uh team managers. Up to that day in these uh  positions I've had until uh that point. I never  
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thought that my own bandwidth of decision making  or overviewing the business units or whatever I  
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had the responsibility of was a problem. I could  do everything myself if that was the case. But  
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here I came to a conclusion that I needed  to trust on my managers. I needed to trust  
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on their ability to make their own decisions.  even though I could see that at some point they  
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were going in the wrong direction as long as I  could see uh so to say um light in the end of  
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the tunnel because if I didn't allowed these  managers to take their own decisions then we  
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would not have the business development that we  needed to uh have I needed more bandwidth in the  
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department. So you felt that you might become  the bottleneck. Yes, exactly. What was the risk  
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of letting those decisions play out? Well, to  my assessment, I knew that some of these four  
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uh team managers was not capable or was not mature  enough in their position to actually cover their  
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own businesses in a whole. I knew that. I could  see that. But I thought that if they did not have  
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the room for development for the first the this  would mean that the department would not get the  
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development that we needed and the other thing  is that I concluded that they wouldn't get the  
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development that they were supposed to go through  in their position as a team managers. M so it was  
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some kind of the best way of developing both the  business and the managers themselves. Right. At  
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the same time that might have backfired.  Yes. Yes. And that's that was also one of  
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the reasons of why I was pretty much in doubt of  whether this was the right thing to do or not.
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I like that phrase because most leadership  stories get cleaned up after the fact. We  
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hear about the decision that worked, but  not the uncertainty, the second guessing,  
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or the mistakes along the way. The  interesting part is usually in the warts.
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That's right. But you know in the end I concluded  that the backside of being the bottleneck would be  
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uh bigger than uh any backside of this risk  we could take by letting the team managers  
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uh decide themselves because you could of course  always correct errors or undo things they did  
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if they had done something wrong. Right. Sure.  So that was my conclusion and I also concluded  
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and that's something I always say to managers  or friends or I have mentees uh also I always  
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tell them that if you want to be a leader you have  to acknowledge that you have to be a you have to  
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uh be robust enough to be alone to be uh  lonesome in your leadership and some people  
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don't understand what that means. But that means  that sometimes you have to do decisions and you  
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cannot share them with anybody because you  are the one responsible for taking them and  
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you cannot talk to anyone if you were in the  top of the organization. Right? So that was  
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also something I had to work with myself at the  time that I took this decision but I didn't tell  
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anybody. I needed to do it in my own room so  to say. I needed to be alone in this decision.
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There's something about leadership that people  don't always talk about. The higher you move in  
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an organization, the fewer people there are who  can truly share the weight of certain decisions.  
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You can gather input, you can seek advice,  but eventually someone has to sit alone with  
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the responsibility and decide. So what I hear you  saying is that you took the decision to leave the  
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responsibilities up to them and at the same time  you didn't want to let people know that you were  
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doing that in case it would backfire and you would  take the blame for that so to speak. Yes. Exactly.  
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So, I guess it was an easy ride. They did all the  right things and you took all the credit later on  
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or uh were there some times when you wondered,  hey, maybe this wasn't the right decision. It  
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wasn't the easy ride. Uh I can tell you that.  But I actually never came to a position where  
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I doubted the decision because I was absolutely  right that the size of the department, the size  
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of the business would have meant that I have been  a bottleneck if I hadn't done this decision. And  
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um and so therefore I was never in doubt that it  was the right decision to do. And I could that's  
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another part of it. I could see already uh In  the first weeks after being responsible of this  
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department, I could see that at least two of  the team me managers took their new role and  
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their new responsibility. They took it really in  hand and I could see that they developed from day  
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one and they really did the decisions without me  being uh part of uh the process. So I knew that  
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we were going in the right direction. No doubt.  So the way you're describing this is in part as  
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an epiphany for yourself um learning something  about yourself of letting go and I'm thinking  
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previous to that time do you remember times when  looking back in hindsight you might have been a  
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little bit more open to leaving responsibilities  to your colleagues? Yes. Yes. And I'm afraid this  
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here shouldn't be a long history. Nevertheless,  I recall a situation in a cold November evening,  
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standing in the Swedish forests, having  had a very long day facilitated by some  
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Danish former special op soldiers. It was in  the same IT company. We were 19 colleagues.  
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Sorry, we should we should say here that KMD does  a lot of work for the government in so they're for  
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the soldiers and all of that. Okay. No, no, no.  That was not why the soldiers were there. No, no.  
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It was it was actually it was a whole new project,  a cultural transition we wanted to make and the  
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executive board of directors needed some advocates  of this new culture being able to help all the  
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colleagues transition uh the company into this new  culture. M. So we were 19 colleagues appointed to  
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get this uh education by a part of the education  was planned and um executed by former special ops  
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soldiers. Okay. So that's interesting. So we were  in the forest of Sweden. We were made bodies two  
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and two, right? And we got the knowledge that we  should go from point A to point B collecting some  
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posts on the way. So we started in the morning.  My body was a very process focused colleague  
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and I am not that process focused. I'm very goal  focused. So I knew that we had to be at the end of  
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uh we had to be at point B no later than 3 p.m.  uh this uh afternoon and approximately 1 and 1/2  
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hour after the start we were 45 minutes behind  schedule. What strikes me here is how differently  
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people respond to pressure. Some become more  process oriented, others become more outcome  
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oriented. Neither approach is automatically  right or wrong. But when the clock starts working  
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against you, those differences tend to become  very visible. So, uh, when we came in the canoes,  
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we canoed uh on the stream and I said to my  buddy, can you tell the other canoes that they  
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should just canoe to the uh point B, then I would  uh go out of the canoe, get the collect the posts,  
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and I will round up with you approximately 1  kilometer before point B. And he said, "Okay,  
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I can do that." So he canoed with the other  canoes from point A to point B and I collected  
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all the posts. And now we come and now we come  to the situation you actually asked me for.  
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At the end 3:00 10 minutes before 3:00 we were  at point B and one of the special the soldiers  
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uh asked the team whether we did our tasks for  the day uh whether we were succeeded in this and  
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I said yes we did. And then one of my team members  said, "But what was the tasks?" And that was a  
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very good question because I didn't delegate  anything. I did the job myself even though I  
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knew I had a team of eight other colleagues  which I could have delegated everything to.  
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So going back to your question, do you remember  times where you could have delegated or you could  
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have uh made a forum where your colleagues could  have done this decision on your behalf? Yes.  
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I come back to this November freezing November  afternoon every time saying hence you are at this  
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at this point I was uh human. You are 35 years  old and you haven't learned that you have to trust  
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other members of your team if you need if you  if you want success. What is that? What is that?  
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So did you learn from that experience in the  moment afterwards when you realized that you  
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could have delegated or was it later on when you  realized that delegation is such an important part  
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of leadership that it took you back to that? Which  one was that? I think you are you know it was in  
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my mind uh from that day that I have something  that I need to work with and I think that's a  
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part of leadership that you must never forget  that even how even how long a period of time you  
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have been working as a leader there is there will  always be something that you can work with right  
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because it's a human uh action so you always have  something you can work with But you are correct.  
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It was at the moment when I got this appointment  uh of being department director. I said to myself,  
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I have to work with this on a daily basis and  I came back to the situation in the forest  
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and said to myself, this is what's at stake. If  you don't do it, uh you will you will burn out.  
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You will uh lose your energy. your team will not  understand where we are going. The strategy will  
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be strategy and it won't be operational and we  won't have success in developing uh the business.
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I think every leader has seen this happen. A  strategy can look brilliant in a PowerPoint deck  
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and still fail completely in practice. The real  test is whether people throughout the organization  
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can turn the idea into decisions and actions  when nobody is standing over their shoulder. I  
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think one of the things that we should also take  away from this is when you do it all yourself,  
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you prevent others from understanding what  responsibility is and uh from performing.  
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And I think that's a common mistake that managers  and leaders make in doing things all themselves.  
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I'll take care of this because typically when you  have experience you can do things 10 times better  
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and 20 times quicker. Yeah. But at the same  time if you keep to that uh your subordinates  
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won't learn and you'll constantly they'll  constantly be coming for the te and um they  
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just don't mature. I realized that if you actually  fertilize talent, if you actually support talent,  
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even though the talents uh in the end grow out of  your uh department, grow out of your uh ability to  
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develop and therefore they will find other places  to work. Even though that could be the situation,  
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you may never hold back talent because if you hold  back talent, it will eventually be bad for your  
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business, but it will also tell all the other  people that doesn't work at in your department  
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that I don't want to work there because he's  holding back talent. So it will be better for  
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uh you as a leader if you fertilize talent even  though they find other where other places to  
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work because it will attract other talents. So if  you fertilize and if you help talented people to  
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grow and to mature in their competences and their  ability to take on their own leadership, it will  
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be yeah incubator for even more talents and that  will by itself develop your business and it would  
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develop your you as leader even further because  you will all always be challenged by talents that  
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knows more than you and wants more than you.  And that's great because that's what makes it  
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important to wake up in the morning as a leader  is knowing that you have a team that wants more.
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Now, that's an interesting way to think about  leadership. A lot of people assume the goal is  
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to build a team that needs you less and less  over time. Jens is taking that a step further.  
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He's saying the real reward is building a team  that keeps growing, keeps challenging itself,  
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and keeps raising the bar  for everyone around them.
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So, how do you know when you're helping or  you're enabling? How do you know when you have  
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a direct report coming up to you and they're  asking you for help for some with something?  
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something goes in through your mind and makes a  decision about do I help this person or do I make  
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them do the hard work so that they grow. How do  you how do you judge that? Mhm. I had a I had a  
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uh consultant asking me at a at a point  and are you really trying to understand  
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uh people and their problems and  how I could help them with their  
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problems and so I said yes and then  he said to me why don't you shut up.
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Sometimes the most valuable leadership  advice arrives in a single sentence.  
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It's funny because it's blunt, but it's also  true. A lot of leaders think they're helping  
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when they're really interrupting  someone else's thinking process.
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So, going back to your question, it is often  a matter of shutting up, listening. What are  
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they actually uh asking you uh for? Is it help or  is it is some kind of process they are in being  
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able to do the decisions themselves? And then  sometimes it is obvious that if you let them  
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speak and if you let them process the problems  when they are talking to you, they will come  
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up with a solution themselves. You sound like a  coach. Yes. No, I'm just old. You know, sometimes  
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If you are a kind of person like I am and you  would you would come to me uh with a problem,  
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I would see the solutions and I know this  because my wife is nagging me about that  
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often that if she comes with to me with a  problem, I have the solution immediately  
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and that's a problem, you know. By the  way, women love that. No, they don't.
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Not in Denmark anyway. Okay. No, no, no, no,  
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no. Well, not in Spain either. I have  to admit I laughed when Jens said that,  
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but underneath the joke is something many leaders  struggle with. When someone brings us a problem,  
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our instinct is often to solve it when what  they really want is to feel heard first.
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So, it's hard for me not to come up with a  solution. But I learned that if you actually  
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provoked by this consultant, if you actually  listen and if you actually let them talk until and  
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sometimes a little quiet pause in the discussion  is okay because then they will force themselves  
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to coming up with solutions and so on. If you  actually manage to do that, it's very rare that  
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you actually need to do the decisions on behalf of  them, right? Absolutely. Saves you so much time,  
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right? Yeah. But it is hard sometimes because you  are busy and you have mail account growing every  
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day and then uh people comes into your office  and they ask you do you have 5 minutes and you  
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actually don't have five minutes but you cannot  say that because you have to show awareness you  
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have to show that you're interested in what they  do uh and you have to be there when they need you  
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of course. So you take those five minutes and then  it is very hard not just you know if you can see  
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the solution it's very hard not to come up with  the solution because that in the first conclusion  
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would be the easiest but in the long run it is  not. So therefore you actually have to sit down  
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and even though you did only have five minutes  take 10 minutes listen and let them process  
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themselves. So good point and you know we don't  want to make this too rosy either because it is  
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also there is a responsibility on the subordinate  side to grow and to learn and to manage their own  
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problems and so yes giving them five minutes here  and there is a is a good idea. Uh however there's  
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a point at which you question whether or not  they're taking the ball and running or not. So,  
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uh, we also have to fine-tune that. So, it's not  just about their development. Um, we also have  
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our deadlines and we have milestones that we have  to pay attention to. And sometimes we just have  
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to blurt out the answer because it will simply  take too long for us to do too much explaining.  
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And it is knowing when to do which that shows  how wise you are. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that  
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is very hard. And that is why I think leadership  is not something you can be educated in doing.  
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Tools are of course a lot of it but intuition  and interaction with people their understanding  
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of importance of different goals and KPIs and uh  what have we you need to have a balance in that  
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and it's not something you know from day one. M  maybe you're talking about the difference between  
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book learning and mentorship. Um having a good  role model, somebody who teaches you to shut up,  
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for instance, someone who shows you that, hey, let  them speak. Allow them to figure this out. Because  
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if you pop out the answer every time, they're  never going to move their lips in order to hear  
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what they're saying to realize, well, that's  not a great idea. Yeah. and then rethink that.  
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And sometimes it's just a glance as well. I know  for my own teams, they'll come in, somebody will  
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come in my office and ask me a question and I'll  look at them and they know they've done two things  
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wrong. One is they came in asking me for an answer  without having their own answer to begin with,  
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right? Because I fully expect them to come up  with something. Yeah. Um and the other one is  
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not having fully thought it out before they come  in because just in general we have to be very  
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careful with our time. The higher up you are in  an organization, the more careful you have to be  
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about the use of your time. So they should learn  and appreciate that and their direct reports as  
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well. Yeah, you're right. Uh or how should I  put it? If you are actually available, it is  
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also easier for you to let them understand that  this availability can only function if we have a  
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mutual respect. And that means yes, I will open  my door for you. It will actually not be closed.  
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So you can just go in the office. But it you need  to be prepared. You need in respect of my time and  
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in your own as well, you need to be prepared when  you come to me. and that's I think that's okay to  
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set that premises. I would do the same if I came  to them because as a as a subordinate you also  
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have a day filled up with uh meetings and males  and what have we not right so it's it's just a  
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very uh profound culture to have that in respect  of each other before I ask you of course I will  
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have done five minutes of preparation to see if I  had a solution myself right yeah right but coming  
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back to the things we talked about before letting  people decide on their own. You just have to be  
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sure and you have to be true to yourself that if  you cannot any longer see the light at the end of  
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the tunnel, you have to react. You know how far do  you let them go down that deep dark tunnel before  
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you say stop? Yes. And that is a very important  question because if you cannot see the light at  
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the end of the tunnel, you have to stop perhaps  not in the first place correcting the team manager  
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or who else you have the mentorship of or who you  are managing, but you have to at least stop up and  
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try to process it yourself, asking yourself why  you cannot see the light any longer. And if you  
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come to the conclusion that the reason of why you  cannot see the light any longer is because of the  
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inability of this person's choices going on and  the consequences of what they are he or she are  
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doing and then you of course have to stop it. You  have to interact. Ever wish you could just talk to  
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27:37
So, so what I hear you saying is that you can ask  all the facilitative questions in the world and  
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when you notice that's not helping them, they're  not seeing the options that they have, then this  
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is the time when you intercede and say, "Hey, why  don't I help out here?" Yeah, I think you have to  
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you have to do that because the risk and that's  your responsibility is that we're not going in the  
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wrong direction and then uh yeah then the strategy  is only strategy right I think that's one of the  
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great frustrations in leadership strategy  feels productive because it involves smart  
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conversations planning sessions and big ideas but  until someone translates it into day-to-day-to-day  
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decisions and behavior. It's really just  a theory about how the world might work.
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Did anything go terribly wrong? Anything happen  that I don't know if you regretted, but maybe  
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you wished you had interceded earlier? Uh I wish  I have seen this being a leader as 25 years old.  
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I wish I actually could go back and say that say  to myself that you need to do this here because  
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it's so important for your uh your employees that  they have the room for development themselves and  
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that also answer your question that it never came  to a point where I wished that I had not done this  
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decision. Having said that, Michael, it's never  positive to have to lay off an employee manager  
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or not. It becomes very personally to me of  course as a leader but it becomes even more  
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personally to the person you have to lay off  because it's the family it's their economy it's  
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uh their self-respect it's everything. It's a  shock you know. So if you come to a conclusion  
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where you have to come to that position where you  need to lay off another person, that's not a very  
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nice position to be in. Um when you've laid off  people, what was it usually surrounded by? Either  
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interpersonal conflicts or the lack of ability  to develop. The flip side of giving people room  
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for development is that you need development to  be in that room. And if people sometimes people  
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just come to work, right, uh 8 hours every day  and go home and uh they don't want to uh be uh  
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developing as uh part of the business. And in  today's business, I don't think I can come to  
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any workplace where you are in a position  where you don't need to develop every day.
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That may sound demanding, but I think Jens  is pointing to something bigger than formal  
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training or taking courses. The world keeps  changing. Our work keeps changing. And the  
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people around us keep changing. Standing still  for too long is often a decision in itself,  
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whether we realize it or not. When you talk  about development, what goes on in your mind?  
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Are you talking about technical development  or are you talking about personal leadership?
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Both. Actually right now I'm in a position  where I'm not managing formal leadership  
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anyway but I'm in a position where I uh develop  my skills as legal advisor and that is actually  
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uh very satisfying for me to be back in a  situation where I uh have to develop my legal  
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competences. I have been away from that uh for  uh several years as uh having focused on being a  
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leader right so I don't think that you could say  either uh developing as a leader or developing  
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uh technical skills or whatever it is  I think and you know being a being a  
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father of three developing uh every day  you wake up is actually a responsibility  
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you have because of the responsibility you  have for other people. You have to develop  
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every day. Yeah. Having three kids, that'll  develop you. Yes. At least number three will.
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Any parent listening probably smiled at that one.  There's a certain humility that comes from raising  
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children because they have a remarkable ability to  expose all the gaps in your patients, your plans,  
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and your assumptions. That's development whether  you signed up for it or not. But I want to go back  
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to uh skills or personal development. And can  you give me an idea? Is it a 50/50 split? Do  
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you think that people were let go because they  didn't develop the personal side and the let's  
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say the soft skills side or they didn't develop  the technical side? Can you define it in some  
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way? I can tell you that the situations where  I had to lay off people that didn't want to do  
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uh personal development was the easiest part  for me. the other situations where we had uh  
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technical KPIs or we had economical KPIs  which um one of a person didn't uh meet  
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uh the where a person didn't meet the requirements  was actually easier for me because it's it was  
33:35
based on some kind of objective uh measurements.  I actually think that I have laid off more people  
33:44
who didn't develop in the technical or in the  economical uh direction. Uh that the KPIs they  
33:52
didn't meet the KPIs and so that has perhaps been  the majority of the layoffs I have done. Michael,  
34:00
I think actually I think it's quite sad being  uh discussing about layoffs because it's very  
34:07
but it's a hard it's a that there was the flip  side of being a manager, right? You have to do it  
34:14
sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's sad that you have  but you have uh Yeah. And that's the point as we  
34:22
see it today that when businesses develop uh some  people are just not uh either capable of going in  
34:31
the new direction or they just don't want to do  that. Yeah. Let me ask you this. You were saying  
34:37
before that you had wished that somebody had told  you these things 25 years ago. I think I said 40  
34:44
years ago. I'm 60 now, you know. Okay. Okay. Well,  many years ago. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Today  
34:53
we have all these resources in coaching. Yeah.  Do you think that coaching could have assisted  
35:01
you back then or not? I'm not sure. You know,  co coaching is a lot of things. I have uh been  
35:11
uh using coaches uh both in as private in a  private setup but also a business coach. But  
35:18
a situation uh as this one I told you before in  the forest of Sweden. It was certainly not a coach  
35:27
uh saying to me that I needed to develop something  here. It was special op soldier who had put me and  
35:35
all the colleagues in a situation where the energy  was gone. We were just so tired freezing our asses  
35:43
off in the forest of Sweden. and coaching  sometimes uh of course would have been good,  
35:51
but I'm not sure that would have been the right uh  thing for me anyway. Um I just wonder how we view  
36:00
coaches and you said to me, I don't think a coach  could have helped me with that. And you know, I'm  
36:08
just thinking the coach doesn't really help people  learn lessons. The coach unveils opportunities for  
36:17
you to learn lessons, right? The coach would say,  "What did you gain from that experience or what  
36:23
would you have done differently?" Yeah. And that  is the opportunity that sometimes we don't get as  
36:29
younger leaders and managers um where if you had  have a weekly or bi-weekly or monthly coaching  
36:35
session. So, what went on? Oh, I had troubles with  this one employee and so what did you do and okay  
36:41
and what were some other things that you might  have done that might have changed that situation  
36:45
and then it gives you an opportunity to think  about it and the more of those experiences you  
36:49
have the more you have the possibility of deciding  to change that's more of what I'm talking about  
36:57
yes and you know as I as I said before listening  to you actually listening to your question makes  
37:06
me remember that some years ago together  with uh five other business colleagues,  
37:13
I coached a group of 12 youngsters from  uh what we call a uh ghetto uh in Denmark.
37:26
I think it's important to pay attention to  what Jens is describing here. This wasn't  
37:30
a conversation about business strategy or  leadership inside a company. It was about  
37:35
helping young people see possibilities that might  not have been obvious from the environment they  
37:41
were growing up in. Sometimes the most meaningful  leadership happens far away from the boardroom.  
37:48
Some of those guys they were they were 14 to  16 years old, right? And the first meeting we  
37:55
had with these kids, one of the kids said to me  that week before he had been approached by uh  
38:03
some elder guy from the community proposing to  him a job. The only thing he should do was to  
38:11
sell those small backs and then he would earn  3,00 3,500 or something like that every week.  
38:18
Okay. So we're talking drugs here. Yes. And that  was of course a very easy way of having a lot of  
38:24
money when you're 13 years old, right? Yeah. And  that was the path laid out for those kids here,  
38:31
right? And during a period of six or seven  months actually, we succeeded in uh helping  
38:39
these youngsters in building their own project  so to say. And we the idea of the whole thing  
38:45
was making them able to have an understanding on  how a business actually works. And as of today,  
38:54
one of those uh youngsters uh I think he's not  more than two months ago and he's 20 or 21 years  
39:02
old now. He came back to me and uh he told me that  he has actually got an education now and he is  
39:09
uh working as a soccer coach in um the town where  we come from uh in Denmark and that really makes  
39:18
me proud that I have been able to help him choose  another path and see what I could do for this  
39:25
guy. Right. Mhm. So going back to your question,  could a coach have helped me understanding the  
39:32
importance of yeah the decision you take as  a leader earlier in my career? I have to say  
39:38
of course he could. There was just not a tool  that had been available for me earlier. Right.
39:50
What I find interesting is that Jens doesn't talk  about coaching as someone giving him answers. He  
39:56
talks about it as having a structured  opportunity to reflect. Looking back,  
40:02
many of us can see lessons we eventually  learned on our own and wonder whether we might  
40:07
have learned them a little sooner if someone  had simply asked the right questions. Hence,  
40:13
we've gone way over time because it's just been  so enjoyable to have this talk. I'm so lucky to  
40:21
um have a job where I can have wonderful  conversations with intelligent, wonderful  
40:27
people and thank you very much for the time that  we had today. Is there anything that you would  
40:33
like to add to our podcast today before I let you  go? I just want to say Michael that I think that  
40:41
the way you your approach to these conversations  they are so u what I don't know how to put it the  
40:50
angle you put into this is very cozy it's very no  well you need that environment to actually open  
40:56
up so it's very straightforward I very much look  forward to hearing more podcasts from your side  
41:05
and uh and thank you very much for reminding  me that developing every day you wake up as a  
41:13
leader is necessary for you to uh manage uh your  business. You have to wake up and remember that  
41:21
uh every day we go to work, we have to develop  ourselves as leaders but also our businesses,  
41:28
our employees, the people we meet every day,  right? So, thank you very much for that,  
41:33
Michael. That's been a kind of wakeup call. Once  again, Jens Birk, thank you so much. All the best.  
41:41
One of the themes that runs through this entire  conversation is that leadership is less about  
41:46
having the answers and more about creating the  conditions for other people to grow. Jens learned  
41:52
that lesson in the forest, in the boardroom,  and in mentoring young people. It's a lesson  
41:58
that seems to keep teaching itself no matter how  much experience we accumulate. I want to thank  
42:04
Jens Birkk so much for sharing his story and his  insights with us today. It's been a real pleasure  
42:11
having him on our show. Thanks to my guest and  to all of our loyal listeners. Subscribe today  
42:20
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42:27
a review. It helps others discover the show and  keeps the dialogue growing. For more information  
42:33
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42:40
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