EntreLeadership - #173: Lt. Gen. George Flynn—Developing Trust With Your Team

Episode Date: November 14, 2016

When it comes to leadership, no one plays a more critical role than a military officer. The decisions they make can mean life or death. On this week’s episode, we’re featuring one of the best. Lt. Gen. George Flynn, USMC (Ret.) spent 38 years in the Marines, serving in some of the highest levels of leadership in the military. He currently consults with major corporations, think tanks and universities on organizational adaption and leadership. He joins the podcast to discuss the winning attributes of outstanding leaders and how you can build trust within your team. entreleadership.com/podcast General Gray's "Warfighting" Free Tool: "5 Habits That Kill Team Unity" Free tool: 5 Habits That Kill Team Unity Free tool: 5 Habits That Kill Team Unity Infusionsoft's Office Automation Guide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. Broadcasting from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature interview this episode is with Lieutenant General George Flynn. Now, you may not have heard of his name, but if you're a faithful listener to this podcast, you heard Simon Sinek mention his name when he answered.

my question, who are some of the people you most admire? And after that episode, I looked at Eric, the producer, and I said, let's go get that general. If Simon Seneca admires him, he's somebody we need to talk to, and you're going to enjoy this. Also, we have two new resources for this month. Entree leadership team is bringing you the five enemies of unity. InfusionSoft is bringing you the Small Business Office Automation Guide. Again, very practical things. I'll tell you more about those tools a little bit later in the episode. And then we open up Ken's electronic mailbag. to answer some of your questions. So it's all going to be fun. Folks, before we get into our conversation with the general, I want to share with you something very, very personal and encourage you leaders.

I am a big history nut. And in thinking about this episode, after my conversation with the general, I was thinking back to some of the military generals that I've read about. I'm a huge fan of biographies and have read a lot about the Civil War and the Revolutionary War, two specific periods of time that I have a lot of interest in, and as a result, you know, have studied leadership from the eyes of biographers of great military leaders in American history. And one that stands out to me today in a form of encouraging you is probably one of my favorite people from history. He is Thomas Jackson. Most people know of him as Thomas Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate General. He started out the Civil War as a brigadier general. And in reading about him, he was almost described as awkward

You know, a strange human being, yet his men loved him. As I've read about him in battle, one thing stands out is that he had an unbelievable ferocity of his courage. He almost was cavalier with his life, reckless. Many men and counterparts described him as almost fearless in the face of battle. And I always wanted to know how did he get his name. And if you haven't heard this, I'm just going to give this to you briefly and then encourage you on what I've learned about Thomas Jackson that is true of you as leaders of what we need to do.

Simply put, he was leading in the Battle of Bull Run, first battle, and his regiment was standing upon a hill in the face of Union artillery and were taking great losses, yet he would not retreat. He was standing on his horse in front of his men, musket fire all around him, cannon fire all around him, and one of his fellow generals from South Carolina, Barnard Lee, was looking at him from a distance and said to his men, it is reported, there stands Jackson like a stone wall, rally round the Virginians. Whether that was it word for word or not, but it's been widely reported that way. And thus the name Stonewall Jackson, and it stuck.

And I was thinking about that before I walked in the studio this morning. And what can we as leaders learn from a Stonewall Jackson and his unbelievable courage in the face of almost certain death? He did not die that day. And I think it's the idea of standing. There's just something simple but profound about the act of standing that to me symbolizes one of the most important things you as leaders do. stand stand for what is right stand for your team stand for your vision stand for your values stand for your customers stand when times are stuff stand when you're under attack stand when you want to quit and even people around you would say they probably should have quit don't stand

stand when you get knocked down stand when you get knocked down it is that act of leadership that will move men and women to stand with you. You know, I think of boxing. I grew up in the 80s when boxing was really a glamorous sport at that time, at the height of its sport. And I always remember seeing guys get knocked down. And there's something dramatic about a guy getting knocked down with a vicious blow. And as the referee stands over them and counts, one, two, three, four.

And you're watching, will they get? up? Will they choose to fight? Can they actually get up? And when you see a boxer struggle, hand on the rope, trying to gain a sense of balance after they've been knocked silly and they stand. There's something inspiring about that when they stand up and say, I'm going to fight on. That moves us. That's a beautiful analogy for this role of leadership. Sometimes no matter the situation is, all that is called for is to just stand. And so as we head into a conversation with a general who has led men in the toughest of times, stand. That's my challenge to you. Stand because people are looking at you and people are following you. They just need you to

stand. Simon Sennick said of Lieutenant General George Flynn, I think he's a man of such high integrity and such remarkable humility. When I think of myself getting a little bit cocky, I think of how George would react to something. Lieutenant General George Flynn served 38 years in the Marine Corps. He's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has several master's degrees in national security and strategy and international relations. He was a joy to talk to you the first time I have ever interviewed a general and I enjoyed it. I think you will too. Well, General, this is a real treat.

for me because I feel like I know a decent amount about you from all of the conversations I've had with Simon Seneca. And I just made a decision after our last conversation that I said to Simon when we stop recording. Give me his info. Let's get the general and I'm really excited about this. And so I think it would be wonderful context for our audience, many of which are big Simon Seneca fans. And he has spoken glowingly about you and shares how much influence you've had on him. I want to go back. How did that relationship come about? A couple of years. ago, I did a project to help out the Air Force on how they were going to do some leadership training. I was stationed at the Marine Corps base at Quantico.

And after the engagement, one of the Air Force generals, General Speedy Martin, said, you know, you need to meet Simon Sinek. So he gave me his email address. I sent Simon an email that led to a phone call. We thought the phone call would have been a quick introductory call. We spent about an hour or two on the phone. And then we arranged to meet. I had an office in the Pentagon as well.

so we arranged to meet at the Pentagon. Honestly, when I saw Simon waiting to come in the office, I kind of said, I don't know if this meeting is going to go very long because he wasn't the normal guy you saw walking around the Pentagon. He came in. We spent what was supposed to be a half-hour office call. We spent about two hours just talking about leadership and things in general, and we've been friends ever since.

You know, I've always thought about the idea of spending time with a general. I never have gotten the opportunity the first time I've ever been able to interview a general. So this is a real treat for me. But I think there's something here that just popped into my mind. You know, if the average person, certainly a leader, someone who wants to maximize their potential, which this audience is made up of, had the opportunity to sit down with someone like you. And Simon did. What was it about him that we can learn? What was it about his questions?

How he connected with you that turned what you thought, well, I'm going to give this guy 30 minutes into a couple hours of conversation. and now a deep friendship. What can we learn about talking to military leaders and gleaning wisdom? Well, I think what the first thing was is that military leaders just come from the general population as well. And many of the thoughts that Simon had about leadership were the same views that I had about leadership. At the time, Simon already had written his book, Start with Why. And I read the book before Simon came there. And I said, you know, there's many things here that I can relate to. And I think that the bond came from the fact that I probably had more practical leadership experience than Simon did, but Simon had more experience in writing about leadership.

So it was kind of a perfect match there to take a practitioner with somebody who really could articulate what leadership should be about with both, you know, his first book, Start With Why, and later on with Leaders Eat Last. You said something that leads me to my next question that military leaders come from the general population, and much like the rest of us, yet they have a unique experience and the people factor. That's what I want to start our conversation with here in getting your wisdom. And it's about relationships with people. Certainly in the military, people's lives are on the line.

There is an unbelievable camaraderie that develops because of the intensity of the operations and the stakes. but I want you to talk to us leaders about the importance of relationships in a leadership context. What does that mean to you? Okay, well, the first thing I'd have to tell you is that leading is easy. All you have to be given is some authority and responsibility, and you can lead with a task. But leadership is hard because leadership is about basically building relationships. You have to build relationships with people in order to get them to do those things that they normally would not want to do. And the key to making that is to build trusted relationships.

You know, I like to say trust is what makes the magic happen. You know, trust is the glue that holds an organization together in hard times. And the most important function that a leader can have is to build those trusted relationships. And how do you build them? Well, you build them by being a person of integrity. People have to believe what you say. You have to be compassionate. That doesn't mean you have to be easy on people, but it does mean that you have to be easy on people,

but it does mean that you have to see both sides of it. You have to be competent in what you do. You have to be consistent, and also you have to be empathetic. And by empathetic, I mean you have to take the time to listen and understand both sides. And if you do those things, you know, you do create those relationships. And as you build those relationships based on trust, you know, I think Abraham Lincoln had it right when he said, if you would win a man to your cause first convince him that you are his sincere friend. So the key there is all about those relationships.

And the other part, leadership has a way of giving you self-test along the way to know how you're doing. So like, for example, if someone comes to you and admits a mistake, they trust you. If someone comes and asks you for your help, they trust you. If someone takes a risk for you, they trust you. And if someone sacrifices for you, they believe in you. I want to ask you about moving into this trust factor or the trust level of the relationship. So you've got young men that come in and just giving people a mental image here. You come into the military and you've got leaders and obviously in the military are very structured, very clear chain of command.

And at its lowest level, these young men have to follow their leader. They have to. And you're talking about the importance of trust. how quickly do you establish trust? And this is just your personal leadership philosophy because you want to get them from, they have to follow you to, they want to follow you.

So how have you, over your 38-year career, really developed trust quickly and effectively? Well, the first part is you have to be a role model. And I mentioned those little traits before. You have to be competent. You have to be honest and all those things. But I think whenever I went into a unit, My initial position was I trusted everyone. You had to lose my trust. And to lose my trust, you had to do something that you shouldn't be doing. But I think when someone is looking up to a leader, the leader coming in has to earn the trust of the people that you're leading. And part of that is, you know, being that role model, but part of that is also realizing that it's not about you. It's about the men and women you're privileged to serve with. And the other part is you have to realize that the cost of your leader,

leadership is self-interest. At the lower end of that scale means that you have to give of yourself. It means that you have to give of your time. At the higher end of the scale, it may mean that you have to take a stand for what's right, even if it puts your career at risk. So I think when people look at you as a leader, people are always watching you and they're seeing how you behave. Because when you do leadership math, trust equals values plus behavior. I grew up in the Marine Corps. We have a shared set of values, and I think that's what attracted people to the Marine Corps, but our behavior has to be in line with those values. If you're a person of value, if you behave in and consistent with those values, you'll create that trust. And again, as a leader, you've got to remember that somebody's always

watching to see if you are the real thing. I want to ask a teamwork question here in the context of the Marine Corps. So how do you take a unit that's put together and on paper they're a unit. Yet you want to build unity because we're talking about life and death. We're talking about big stakes. How do you build unity among a team? I think the first part is you have to realize that why did people join the team? They joined because of the culture of the organization. And that same equation holds that a culture of the organization is its values and behavior. So they're attracted to the culture. Leaders then have to exhibit values and behavior consistent with that culture. So you've got a leg up when people decide to join an organization that has a strong culture. And as long as you're

acting as a leader consistent with that culture, that's the essence of teamwork. When you say follow me and you don't need to turn around to see if anyone's coming, that means that you've built those relationships. And you know, you evolve as a leader, just as you evolve has a leader in the eyes of the people that you're privileged to lead. So when you first go into a unit where an organization built on rank, they have to follow you. But after a while, as you prove yourself to those men, as you prove your competency, as you prove that you care, you hit the next step of that leadership journey, and that is people will follow you because they trust you. So that's kind of like a, that's a really good organization when people follow the leaders because they trust them.

But when you reach the high end of leadership, you want to get to the point where people follow you because they believe in you. Because when people believe in you, you, they will sacrifice for you, and they will take risk for you. And that's all about proving yourself along those lines of your professional competency, but also the other part of that you take care of your people and that you are committed to the same cause that they are. And most importantly, and again, I emphasize this, that you are willing, you're not expecting them to sacrifice for you, but you're willing to sacrifice for them. Yeah, that's so consistent with something you said earlier, I want to highlight. I thought it was great.

You said one of the cost of leadership is self-interest. And Simon Seneca actually said this about you in our last conversation with him on this podcast, and I asked him to name some leaders that he admired. And when he mentioned you, he mentioned the word humility, I think two or three times. And so I want you to talk about that, you know, the idea of humility and what that really looks like. That's a word that gets talked about a lot. It gets misunderstood some. But how does strong leaders lead from humility?

So now you're asking somebody to talk about why they're humble. That's a little bit hard. I know. I know. There seems to be a contradiction there. The way I look at it is it's not about you. And that's the heart of it. It's about others. You know, I decided to choose the career path I did because I wanted to serve. And I didn't necessarily realize when I first started that the key part of that was going to be taking care of others. But I quickly realized that there was no way. a team could get anything done or a unit could get anything done if it wasn't a team of teams or, you know, created others to be able to help lead that team. So you get humbled really pretty quick when you realize, you know, that you can't accomplish anything by yourself, that you need the help of others. So that's the first step in humility is realizing even though you may be the leader responsible for everything, you have to quickly realize that you have to develop a team in order to accomplish the really hard task. And that's why humility comes to the forefront.

I tend to, when I look at people who I don't think maybe have that humility trait, it becomes all about them. And that's when you get in a situation like that, that's when you start seeing what, you know, some people referred to as toxic leadership kicks in. I want to ask you about that, the dangers of a self-interested leader. And I want it in the context of the military. I mean, how can this be dangerous on the battlefield? Because I just think the answer to this is very applicable to leaders in the workplace.

When you've got a leader who's just completely self-consumed and self-interested, how is that dangerous for the rest of the team? Well, it's dangerous in a couple of ways. And first of all, let me give you a couple of personal views on toxic leaders. Toxic leaders, you know, perform very well. They tend to get units to do things. So if they're toxic as a young leader, what happens is the organizations that they're in tend to reward them for the performance or the unit performance that they had, even though the cost of it was born on the backs of the young men and women that they were leading. So they get passed up and pass forward. And at each level, they become more toxic because don't forget, they've been rewarded for their behavior.

So they think it's right. unfortunately when they get to higher and higher levels, the impact of that toxic leadership has a bigger and bigger impact, not on that unit, but on the organization as a whole and can actually threaten the internal and public perceptions of that organization. The danger when you're talking in life or death situation is that people may not take the risk that they need to take or they may not do the sacrifice that they need to do to achieve the success because they don't believe in you and they can't see the risk in doing what they're doing. So, you know, many times that can lead to mission failure and the loss of life because of their toxic approach. I want to talk to you about different environments. You know, as leaders, we have to be adept in adjusting, you know, and that's one of the things I think military leaders model so well for us. I read a lot of military history, a lot of civil war history, some of the great strategists, you know, in American military history, I think we're civil war generals on both sides. But I want you to talk to us about different environments. And certainly as a military leader, you are many times shifting from different environments in a matter of minutes. How do we as leaders, adjust to different environments? Well, the first thing is, I'd have to tell you this,

that a key responsibility to leadership is to anticipate transitions in your operating environment and to lead the transition. So you have to be a student of what's happening in your environment. And for many things right now, in this day and age, the key characteristic I think of the environment is that everything happens very fast. the speed of information, the availability of information has really transformed the business world,

the security world, the economic world. So a key part of being a leader is understanding your environment and all the aspects of your environment. It's understanding the human element of your environment. It's understanding the economic element, the cultural aspects of your environment. Because by having to understand all that, you can better act in your environment. When you don't understand in the military, you go to the military. different countries. You have to understand the culture of those countries and the behavior

norms that are expected. And if you take the time to learn them, you can build great relationships with people who may not share a common background with you. And the other part is understanding technology and how that can impact how you do business is important as well and also understanding the human element. We talk about all these different generations, whether it's Gen X or Gen Y or millennials, you have to understand all of that if you're going to be an effective leader. So part of being a leader is also studying about your environment and taking the time to learn from people around you as to what's really going on in your operating space. I want to talk to you about chain of command.

We've mentioned this a couple of times in our conversation, and I think chain of command is very important. But I've seen situations, certainly not in a military situation where I've seen it with my own eyes, I've read about it. But I want you to talk to us about the value of chain of command, but also empowerment so that chain of command doesn't paralyze an organization. Okay. The key part about chain of command, what maybe separates each level of a chain of command is the authority and responsibility and accountability that you have. So I would argue in every organization, the newest man or woman is a leader in their own space. and then what makes that person different than maybe the person at the top is their level of accountability, responsibility, and authority.

So then how do you operate at the speed that you need to in this new day and age? Well, I think the key is, is you have to realize that one of your responsibilities, that if you're going to keep pace with what's going on around you right now is you got to be able to figure out how to create more of you. And the way you create more of you is to take the time to develop those young men and women in your care and a key part of that is being able to effectively communicate. If you want people to act on their own initiative, if you want people to move out on your behalf and to take those risks, it's important that you communicate the what and also the why,

because if you get disconnected or if things get really hectic, you want people operating on your intent or on your vision towards that common goal. And that's the key thing to be successful in a complex and quickly change, in world is for people to understand the what and why to you have taken the time to develop their technical skills to be able to act on your behalf. And then when everything starts going, is to make sure that people have the authority and responsibility to the tools they have. The other part of that, when people make a mistake, and at times they will, and if it's well-intentioned, consistent with the what-and-a-why you explained, is in most cases you can treat that

as a learning experience. And that's the other part is how you treat those mistakes will ensure how people act in the future. And they see if you took it as a learning experience to help others, people will be willing to take some more mistakes or maybe they're able to take risk. And the next thing you know, you get better and better at doing what you're doing because people are empowered to act on your behalf. They know the limits of what authorities and responsibilities they have, but equally is important. They know that they're accountable to you to do a good job. I've read so much, as I mentioned earlier, about military history throughout the Civil War and some through the Revolutionary War. And I've always marveled in the great stories of battle where it was almost an insurmountable odd.

It was just an unbelievable story of how a unit rose above the challenge and won the victory. And that's the context for this question. And when I read these stories, I'm impressed with the leader, but I'm also eager. impressed with the men who said, all right, I'm going to follow this leader into this almost impossible situation, tremendous sacrifice of life, yet the victory is won. And sometimes they followed that leader and they didn't win. And there was tremendous loss. The question is, what is it about the great military leaders that we leaders can also learn in inspiring men and women to risk it all? And in business, we're not talking about life, but to risk greatly, to step into the unknown,

to charge into battle when the odds are greatly against you. What is it about those great leaders that they could inspire people to follow them? I think it goes back to, first of all, they had great men and women who volunteered to be inspired. I look at the men and women who are volunteering to serve today, and they come in with the idea. they have high expectations of their leaders. So the key part here is they come in and they've heard a lot about this great leadership that they're going to get. So that puts a burden on your shoulder not to let them down. And the other part is what gets you there is it starts with them first.

They are men and women of great value, great dedication. They're committed to a cause. They volunteer to serve. And it goes back to what we earlier said. if you show that competence and your ability to do it and you show that you really care and when you say follow me or when you say go you don't have to say whoa they just go and it's because they believe in a cause they believe in that higher cause but equally is important like I said you've reached that third level of leadership they believe in you and because of that

they'll sacrifice you but the other part is that's because you demonstrated that you'll sacrifice for them and with them. There's something inspiring, isn't it? When you see the man on the horse holding his sword and he's leading you, the general's leading you into battle. That's impressive. And the other part is you may not be able to go on every patrol with the people that you're in charge of, but periodically you need to go and share that risk so that they understand

and they see that you understand the risk that they're taken on your behalf. I want to turn this on you. I know you have tremendous humility, but I think it's so. great to learn from the personal stories of people that have led and led well. And I just want to ask you if you could share maybe a defining moment in your leadership over your 38 career. You look back on something that shaped you and propelled you forward as a leader. Well, I'll give you a pretty simple one. When I was a young lieutenant, I checked into my first unit. My first platoon sergeant was a man by the name of Staff Sergeant Augusto. And that first day when you meet your platoon sergeant, obviously I was the

commander, he was the platoon sergeant. So I was accountable and responsible for everything. And he said to me, he said, lieutenant, he said, I will follow every order you give or every directive that you give. All I ask is that you listen to me. And let me have a voice now and then. And if you listen and you tell me to go ahead and do it, I will do it and I will own it just as much if it was my idea. But all I ask is that from time to time, you listen to me. So I learned in that first early on was that I had to trust other people, but equally as important, I had to listen for those other point of views because I may not always have the best idea. So for a number of years, I would hear from Sergeant Augusto either by email or a phone call on every Marine Corps birthday, which is November 10th, wishing me a happy

birthday and every time I got promoted, he would call me up or send me a note telling me how shocked he was and that the Marine Corps would see fit to promote me. But then he would take credit for instructing this young lieutenant how to be a good leader. As you look back on your career, what did you love most about leading men in the Marine Corps? I loved hanging around Marines. They're just a great group of folks, a great group of people who volunteer to serve others. and also to be part of the Corps, which is a very special place. I'm curious to know. What military leaders do you look up to that you've read about or studied their career and why? Well, obviously in the Marine Corps, you have to be a fan of Chesty Puller.

But I would say that I'm a Grant fan. Ulysses S. Grant. Ulysses S. Grant fan. I'm also a fan of Patton, but equally as important. I'm a fan of Bradley, but I guess the most influential, I think you'd have to go back to Marshall, General Marshall, and also in the Marine Corps, one of my favorite Marines and most legendary Marines is General Al Gray, who was the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps. And why? Why does he stick out to you?

I mean, a Marine through and through, intellectual, got the Marine Corps thinking differently, wrote a great book on what we called our capstone concept for operations called warfighting. If you want to know how to lead in a tough situation, just pick up General Gray's document called Warfighting, and it tells you everything you need to know about understanding the situation, about how to gain advantage, and about how to make sure that you communicate and operate on commanders' intent. And to this day, he's legendary in the Marine Corps for giving us philosophy about being quick on our feet and knowing what to focus on. That's great. I love that. That's a great resource, folks. There you get a little extra nugget there. So go pick that up. Eric, the producer, will try to get a link to that.

as well. Well, General, it's been fun to be with you before I let you go, though, and you've shared so much, but I want to create a hypothetical situation. If you could sit down with our vast audience and have lunch or breakfast or coffee with all of them in a one-on-one setting and just share one thing from a leader to a leader, what would that one thing be? The one thing I would share with them is what I call the self-test of leadership. So John Quincy Adams said, you are a leader. If you inspire you. others to dream more, learn more, and become more. So at the beginning of your day, you should say to yourself, today, who am I going to inspire to dream more, learn more, and become more? And at the end of

your day, you should say, did I inspire anybody today to dream more, learn more, and become more? That is a great word. Wow. Fantastic stuff. Thank you, General, for being with us. We appreciate you. And on behalf of our entire Entree leadership audience, I do want to say, what I know that, feel. We thank you for your service to America. It is many women like you who've chosen a sacrifice and serve our great country that we owe so much of our freedom to. And we appreciate not just your leadership wisdom, but your service to our country. I thank you for the time. And again, I really do appreciate that you sought me out. And again, I believe Simon's one of my heroes right now. Big thanks to Lieutenant General George Flynn. I walked away from that with so much to think about

and to do, and I hope you will do the same. Entree leadership has got a great tool this month. Five enemies of unity. Unity has to be in existence. Unity has to be strong in the military, and it does in your organization as well. And so there are going to be five enemies of unity that this resource breaks down. Poor communication, gossip, unresolved disagreements, lack of shared purpose, and sanctioned incompetence. These five enemies of unity can be defeated though. And so what's going to happen is we'll

unpack each of these enemies so that we can clearly identify what they look like, what they sound like, what they smell like, so that we can see them from afar off and keep them at bay. And then we'll actually tell you how do you then defeat them. What are some actionable steps to protect you in your organization? We'll have some links to additional videos. and articles that will again further prepare you to identify and defeat and keep away these five enemies of unity. We've got some checklist so much in this tool. And of course, this is coming from Dave Ramsey and him teaching our leadership this. And our Ontario leadership team, of course, teaches this and lives this out.

It's a PDF, and here's the best part. It's free. So all you have to do is text the word enemies. Text the word enemies to 33444. 3-34-4-4-4-text the word enemies to 33-44-4. Or, of course, if you'd rather just download the link, you can go to Entreeleadership.com slash podcast, and the link will be in the show notes. All right, I love getting your email correspondence, and I read them from time to time, and we

call it Ken's Electronic Mail. Ken's Electronic Mail. You've got mail. All right, this email is from Andrew B. Here's the question. How can we employees motivate our own leaders? We listen to your podcast. We read the books and buy in and lead our own teams as best we can. But when our own leaders show signs of poor leadership, how do we approach them and get them to do their best and lead? Although that is a gigantic question. Thank you, Eric, for putting me on the spot with that one. Here's where you start, Andrew. First, you need to lead into this conversation with great humility. This has got a across is, hey, I appreciate your leadership so much, trying to be my best. Can I give you some feedback about some things that I think may help our team? And when you approach it that way, and again, you know who this is, you know them better. So I'd make a personal connection.

And I would be just as soft as a dove on this. Don't pull any punches on what you have to say. But in your posture, that means the way your body language is coming across, the way that you say it. It needs to be not in a tack form, but in a trusted. This is just between us. I haven't shared this with anybody else. Here are some observations. I think that could help. And I'll tell you one way to, I think, do that is to go in asking some questions. I think many times if you can choose between a declarative statement, meaning, hey, I'm seeing this. I think you as a leader could do better on this and it could help our team, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, versus asking a question. I think you can make the same point, but ask a question to where the leader has some ownership in the answer.

Hey, are you noticing this among our team? Do you think the way that you're communicating this has any effect? It's just a slight, it's not a game, but it is a nuanced change. And I think if you can ask some questions that are leading questions, but allow the leader to respond with their opinion as opposed to handing them this declarative statement in their lap and then going, now respond. I think that sometimes can help with the humility approach and the respect approach. So really the two things I'm saying here is approach this with your leader, with great humility, and tremendous respect. I think you're in good stead if you go in that way. And I think if you can ask some questions and see if they're seeing some of the same things you're seeing, what's their point of view on it?

I think it creates a little bit more healthy conversation. But I commend you, Andrew B, for A, the question and B the desire to say, hey, I'm willing to. to lead up. And by the way, leaders of all ages, shapes, and sizes, let me just say this as a kind of a tie on to what Andrew's asking. As a leader, no matter where you're at in the org chart or within the organization, you need to always be leading up, sideways, down the whole nine years. You know, John Maxwell actually wrote a book on this called the 360-degree leader with this whole point. And so, Andrew, I commend you. And I think that you can win by doing this. But again, you have to be completely soaked in humility and respect and go for it and learn through the process and make sure they know that you're completely on board and you're just looking out for the entire team and that you've done this in private.

I think you can win with this. So great question. And folks, if you'd like to send your question in, we'd love to get it. Very simple. Email us. Podcast at entreleadership.com. Podcast at entreleadership.com. That's Ken's electronic mail.

Hey, folks, I recently read this quote in Entrepreneur Magazine, which is one of my favorite magazines. Eric the producer and I get Entrepreneur Magazine, and we're always perusing it for great content. And this is the quote I want to share with you. In today's competitive environment, automation is not a luxury. It's a requirement for keeping a competitive edge. In fact, the benefits of automation are so numerous you can't afford to ignore them. Good news. You don't have to.

I think entrepreneurs right and good news for you folks. because Infusionsoft, who's been an incredible partner in this podcast, they help us power this thing. They believe in this, which means they believe in you. And so their tool to help you in November is the Small Business Office Automation Guide. This is an e-book, and it's free. Check this out. They're going to help you automate routine communication. Oh my gosh, I can hear you people right now, jumping up and down.

I think how much time you waste with routine communication. I mean, when you say routine communication to me, I can tell you right now, I literally get nauseous. Eric, the producer, is laughing behind the glass because he knows. I break out in a rash. If I have too much routine communication, sucks the life out of me. So just one of the amazing benefits of Infusion Soft's tool on Small Business Office automation is they're going to help you automate routine communication. Number two, they're going to give you a way to automate administrative. administrative tasks like data entry.

Duh. Did that just come out loud? You hear the sucking sound. Billing, paperwork. Number three, they're going to help you automate appointment scheduling and follow up. Number four, automate employee hiring and training operations. Things that are involved with that. How do you streamline it?

Make it faster so that you can get these people on board and on track. and winning. So that's just a quick snapshot of the Small Business Office Automation Guide from Infusionsoft. Here's where you get it. Infusionsoft.com slash office dash automation. So don't spell out dash. Just put a dash between office and automation. I'll give it to you one more time.

Infusionsoft.com slash office dash automation. If you can't remember that, don't worry about it because you could go to Entray leaders. dot com slash podcast and in this show's notes Eric's producer has a very easy and clickable link it's automated it'll send you right to the tool why wouldn't you do this listen

I'm telling you infusionsoft is doing as much as the hair care industry is to help guys not lose their hair you get this automation tool leaders you keep your hair you don't lose your hair you're not pulling it out so there you go thanks to Infusionsoft in their team for that

I've got to tell you, very, very valuable stuff. Hey, I want to give a special thank you to an American hero, a great American, Lieutenant General George Flynn, for being our guest. And a side note, thanks to Simon Seneca for the old nod to the general so we could find him and have a conversation with him. Hey, Simon Sennett is going to be at our summit event. Hard to believe this, Eric. But that'll be around the corner. Here we are in November.

And in May, we're going to have our third summit event, entreeleadership.com slash summit. Entreeleadership.com slash summit is the location to learn more about it. May 21 through 24. In addition to Simon Seneca, we have Robert Hershevec, Lou Holtz, John Maxwell, Pat Lincione, Christy Wright, Chris Hogan, and Dave Ramsey.

Entreeleadership.com slash summit. I'll be there. It's such a privilege to host. It's going to be big fun. So don't miss it. We would love to have you. Well, folks, that's going to do it. So I want to say on behalf of Eric, the producer,

and the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again. Very soon.