EntreLeadership - How to Become a Leader Worth Following with Clay Scroggins

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks to Clay Scroggins. Clay is a bestselling author and a leadership speaker. He shares some ways leadership has changed in recent years and what principles remain the same. Then he dives into the skills he believes you should work on to become a leader worth following. Later in the episode, George chats with Katie Crenshaw, senior vice president of Ramsey Personalities here at Ramsey Solutions. Katie shares the leadership skills that were necessary for her to be successful and move up in leadership—and how you can use those skills to do the same.   You’ll learn: How leadership has changed in the last five years Why conflict matters now more than ever A key to having a good team How an assistant moved up to become a senior vice president   Sign up for The EntreLeadership Podcast takeaways—a weekly email where you’ll get three tangible takeaways and a tactical action step related to each episode: https://bit.ly/podcast-takeaways   Support our sponsors: BELAY: https://bit.ly/351P9AE Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital Kyro Digital: https://bit.ly/KyroDigital NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre   Links mentioned in the episode: The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast Clay Scroggins’ website: https://bit.ly/3zqTDhF The Aspiring Leader's Guide to the Future by Clay Scroggins: https://amzn.to/3xgLGZH How to Lead When You're Not in Charge by Clay Scroggins: https://amzn.to/3xB3U9u The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt: https://amzn.to/3zq6qkf Good to Great by Jim Collins: https://amzn.to/3xE7tfn The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle: https://amzn.to/39cLVx3 Download the Ramsey Solutions Leadership Model: https://bit.ly/3GnxPDf   Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops   Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, the leadership skills you need to become a leader worth following. And then, how to level up and grow in your role. From the Ramsey Network, I'm George Camel, and this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders like you grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. Joining me today is Clay Sproggins, best-selling author and leadership speaker. Clay's going to share some ways that leadership has changed in recent years and what principles remain the same. Then we're going to get into the leadership skills he believes will make you a leader worth following.

So let's jump right in. Here's our conversation. Clay, so great to have you on the podcast. How you been? How have I been? What a huge question. I know. Loaded.

I know. Just sum up in one sentence what the last two years of a global pandemic has been like. Yeah. But I'm doing great, honestly. Our kids are healthy, which is a massive blessing. My wife and I have five kids. We live in Atlanta. My wife and I are doing great.

I love her. most days I think she loves me, which is awesome. I resigned for my job six months ago, so a pretty significant mood. I stepped out of my own. I released a book last month, doing a lot of speaking. Got to be here at the worldwide headquarters

of Ramsey Solutions today. You called it the Taj Mahal of Office Buildings, which I think is apt. I mean, for those of you that haven't, anybody can come and just see it because you can just come and watch the people do that all the time. If you're ever in greater Nashville area, the Brentwood Franklin area,

you got to stop by. There's the pitch from Clay. And our whole team got to hear from you this morning with a powerful message, and we get to dive in to some of the concepts in your new book, The Aspiring Leaders Guide to the Future. What an epic title. So you wrote this book How to Lead When You're Not in Charge a few years back, and it made its way around Ramsey.

It went viral at Ramsey is the best way I can describe it. Well, that is kind of you to say, and I hope that is actually true. Truth be told, though, the cover is so bright. If it's anywhere in a room, you're going to see it. aggressively yellow. It's aggressively. That's the best way of that's that. Honestly, there was this publishing color that is not a distribution company that does a lot of stuff in airports and grocery stores.

I was talking about how bright it was and this girl tells me, she was like, I work in graphics and she showed me this little card that they were using for some, they were given to some suppliers. And she said, I actually had to turn the yellow down on your book because it was too bright for this graphic we were using. That's a good sign. It stands out in the crowd. It stands out. So, since you wrote that book, years ago, and you've got this new one out, what are some ways that leadership has changed since then? Yeah, so that was 2017.

2019, I wrote a book called How to Lead in a World of Distraction, which is that released right before the pandemic hit, which, you know, obviously I would love to go back and rewrite that because little did I know, it felt like all the distractions of life were about to be turned down, at least for a couple days. I mean, we all were like, all of a sudden, like, okay, everybody worked from home, you know. And then we all found new ways of distracting ourselves. That's right. Which is what the concept of that book was about.

TikTok was released. There we go. That's right. Tiger King was a thing, right? And now it's all about wordle. Speaking of evergreen content, that will certainly make this content. It'll still be cool, hopefully, a year from now. Then I started thinking about this concept then.

So I would say from 2020, that's when I really started asking the question, okay, clearly the world is changing. and if the world is changing, then certainly leadership is changing. And let me just stop and say, I believe in the definition of leadership that says we're all a leader, obviously. This is not to CEOs. This is not to team leaders. This is, hey, if you're awake today, you have an opportunity to influence people. And if you do, and if you're interested in growing that, then I consider you an aspiring

leader. So the book is really asking the question, yes, leadership is changing, but how? How is it changing? And some of the primary ways I see it changing, the amount of information that is now at our disposal, the amount of information that's being created, that's requiring some new attributes out of leaders. Humility has always been something that we admire in leaders. But there is a new kind of humility that says, hey, I am forever stuck in the, I call it, the nub state.

Are you a video gamer? Oh, yeah. So anyone... N-E-W-B. N-E-W-B. Anyone... I'm not really a gamer, but I know the term. In the gaming world, if you're a rookie or if you're brand new, or if you're playing your game

like you're a rookie, it's kind of a slight. It's a diss. It's a criticism. Derogatory term for amateurs. That's right. You knew. There we go. Yeah.

Well, what I've learned is because everything's being updated constantly, the technology that's going to impact the world most in five years hasn't been created yet or is in, still in the works. The technology that's affecting us today wasn't around five years ago. So because of how fast information is being creating, how much the world is changing, the idea of being ever stuck in that nub state is so important for us to accept that.

So the subtitle of the book is nine surprising ways leadership is changing. The first one is you have to be willing to say, I just don't know. and not let that exclude you or not let that create this insecurity in you that says, oh, well, if I don't know that, I guess I can't lead. Because there was a day where knowledge accumulation led to leadership. You became an expert in the field because you knew a lot about it. Well, George, I got these kids at home that they read one Wiki article,

and all of a sudden they know more about a topic than I know. Exactly, exactly. Teaching you about dinosaurs, probably. Exactly. And I love that. I love their curiosity. I love that we have that kind of accessibility to knowledge, but what it's teaching me is, if I think that I've got to be the foremost expert on whatever topic or whatever area or field

that I'm trying to lead out in, that in order to lead out, I have to be the knowledge expert. That's just, it's impossible these days. You can't be. We are all going to be forever stuck in a noob state. And we have to accept that and be willing to go, all right, well, that's different. So let me develop into the kind of leader that's willing to say, I don't know, but let's figure that out together or let me go figure out the answer to that. I'm going to get back with you.

But until then, here's what we're doing. Yeah, and that's the entrepreneurial mindset. It's problem solving. I'm going to figure it out. Nothing's going to stop me. But as you get further into business and you get older, change becomes scarier. And technology, social media, things are moving at such a rapid pace. You just feel disconnected and out of control.

You're like, I have no clue how to keep up with this. That's exactly right. Is there a way to keep up? What is the right approach to take? Well, I don't think we should stop trying to keep up. So I do think, you know, my wife and I were on a walk last week, and this just cracked me up because we're on this, you know, like Chastain Park in Atlanta, Big Park. We're walking around the park, and we walk past these two ladies, and of course I'm judging their age, but I think they were about in their 60s. It kind of reminded me of my mom.

I'm just picturing my mom on this walk. And, you know, you pass them, so you get like one sentence of their conversation. And I heard this lady, she's looking over at her friend, and she goes, so what I've heard is, is that these video reels are what you do to get more followers. And I was like, oh my gosh, good for you. Like, I was kind of proud of this mom. She got it. Yes, that is exactly right, because I've had to learn that. I mean, I didn't know what reels were on Instagram until somebody had to teach me.

I had to say, you know, I'm in a meeting last week and somebody was like, well, you're just going to want to make sure you put a link tree in your bio and Instagram. And I'm like, hey, I'm so sorry. Can we stop for one second? Can someone tell me what a link tree is? And then the dude that helps him with social media was in the meeting and he was like, hey, man, just click on your body. You have one in there. And I was like, you already have one. I was like, okay, I use that as an illustration to say, you have to try.

Yeah, sure, try, like be willing to, but don't be afraid to say, I don't know the answer to that question. And you're right. It is about the expansion, evolution of technology. I mean, we've all had that experience of opening up an app, and you're like, where'd my menu go? Like, why did they, they've already updated? They changed it. Like, what happened, right? Yeah.

It's just constant. The cheese is moved. The cheese is constantly moving. Like you're saying, sometimes as a leader, you just got to go, I'm going to deliucing you're delegate this. And if you're in a place to do that, that's great. A lot of small business owners, they're not in a place to go hire seven people to do all the things they don't want to do or can't do, and they want to focus on what only they can do. That's right. So there's some great principles in there, but it does take a humility to go, I don't know, I'm going to figure it out. And over time,

it gets better, and Dave Ramsey experienced that. And now he's got all this leadership in place. He's got developers that know words that he has no clue what they mean. And so there's that trust that you can build over time to delegate those things. That's right. That's right. So what are the principles that have remained the same? Do you think there is this steady over 30 years? This is never going to change about leadership, and you've got to understand that. Yeah, I'll give you one that has stayed the same, despite how much the world has changed. The ability for a leader to navigate healthy conflict, that has always been true.

I think it is even more true today. The need for it is greater today for a number of. of reasons. Number one, we're all having more conflict than we've ever had before, right? I mean, the last two years, it's just been hard conversation after hard conversation. And what's amazing, George, or not, I don't know if it's good or bad, I guess parts of it are good and then some of it's a little dangerous, but it's one of those, it is what it is kind of things. Yesterday's taboo topics are becoming today's interview questions.

Ooh, that's good. So there was a day where you didn't talk about religion, it were. You didn't talk about your personal life at work. Well, now, I mean, I've had people in interview questions say, hey, tell me what your view on sexual orientation is. What is your view on gender identity? Tell me more about what your organization did in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

Wow. And I'm like, just real quick, can you tell me your name again? Like, what we just met? Turn into interrogation real quick. Yes, and I understand why. I understand why employees want answers to those questions, and I'm not mad at them for that. I think it's great. I would love to know that as well.

My point is that there was a day where we didn't talk about that at work, and now we're talking about that on a regular base. Every organization is talking about some of the most complicated, complex issues in the world. We're having to talk about those in bite-sized ways and in work relationships where we might not have a lot of security or we might not have a strong base of a relationship. and that's one reason why conflict is more important. Another reason is because we're not exactly getting better at conflict. I would say we're probably getting worse, right? I mean, helicopter. Is it scarier because if you respond the wrong way, there's more consequences?

I mean, is that part of it? Of course. And because I think our emotional intelligence is waning as a society, right? The more we all know this, but the more we stare at our screens, the less able we are to have hard, complicated, complex, high stakes emotional conversations because we're used to retreating to our corner and then lobbying insults to the other group of people or to the other person. Our critical thinking skills.

Our brain's turning to mush and we have no way to do this anymore. You said it, not I did, but you're exactly right. Yeah. Or I don't know, even with younger generations, I think, you know, to your point of do we just not know how to do it anymore or have we never even learn how to do it, right? We have these, you know, helicopter parenting is a significant thing. Jonathan Hates book, The Coddling of the American Mind is a fascinating read, but he's got so many stories of people that work at universities and HR executives who say, hey, we offered the 24-year-old

the job, and the 24-year-old said, well, let me, can, would you, could you, would you call my mom and just tell her the details of this? I mean, that's a thing. That's like a real thing. Wow. And so all that to say, conflict is more important today than it's ever been. And if you're going to be a leader in the future, if you are an aspiring leader, you have to grow in your ability to handle complicated, complex, high stakes, emotional conversations in a productive way because it's going to be even more required in the future as we look toward the way the world is changing. Yeah. It just reminds me of the importance of having your values in stone, written down, everyone knows it. there's no confusion because it can deflate those and go, okay, well, we'll just filter it through our values. Yes.

And that's what people are wanting to know, especially these younger generations, they're going, I don't just want to work somewhere for a paycheck. I want to work somewhere that aligns with my values. So I think that's where those questions are coming from. And leaders, you've got to have an answer. And how do my values make other people feel the emotional intelligence to know, when would I bring out my personal value? And when do I go, you know what, now's not the time.

And if I bring it out, am I aware of how this might make the other person feel? I think that's really important, too, because you're right. Knowing what I believe and where I am and what I think is true is certainly important. And it can feel dangerous at times in today's climate of employment. Well, and it feels impossible to go, well, your values have to perfectly align with every single thing that I believe. You're so right. It's also an impossible task on the other. side. So it takes a level of maturity. My own values hardly align with myself sometimes. So you're right to

think that we're going to find an organization that completely aligns or find people that, well, I got to agree with them 100% to be able to work with them. I don't see that happening in the future. That's one of the ways the world is changing. So conflict is one area where, you know, that's always been true. But I think it's even more true as we look toward the future. I'll give you another one that I think is, there are parts of it that will always be true. But Jim Collins, good to great, I mean, the best. I mean, it's like the goat of leadership books. Yes, every great, you know, every business leader has that book on their shelf.

He says, hey, it's, when you're starting out, it's all about the who and not the what. The what's important, you know, the mission, the vision, where we're going, how we're going to get there. But what's more important than the what is the who. And he says you have to get the right people on the bus. That line is, I mean. We use it all the time around here. All the time. What do you do, though, if you're running a small business and you realize that you don't have the right people on the bus?

And even more important than that, what do you do when you've adopted people or you've stepped into a role where you are managing people or working around people? And you're not sure. Are they the right person? Are they not? And here's my contention. Obviously, I would never disagree with Dr. Jim Collins. But what I would say is I wonder is the word right changing. You know, we rise and fall based on our definitions.

You know, when I first started out in the working world, my view of right, I have found this in myself. My view of right naturally meant same. Are they like me? We're all predisposed to placing more potential on someone who looks like us, comes from where we come from is our same gender, has similar educational background than we have, has similar experience than we do. And I've found that in myself, that it's really a form of self-love. It's a form of me saying, oh, well, if you do it the way I do it, or if you came from where I came

from, or are the way I am, it makes me feel better about me. But obviously, as the world is growing more and more diverse, as the world is changing and morphing, I think we have to, you have to, start asking the question, what does it mean to be right? And why is it important to get people that see the world differently around the table? I think we ought to think about our bus roster a little different than we once did. Yeah, that's some powerful questions to think through. So the takeaway I'm getting is leadership is hard and it may be getting a little harder in the sense that there's a lot of things we've got to grapple with as the times change. So what I want to leave with is this. How do we all become leaders worth following? Yeah.

What are the skills, what are the character traits that we can start to step into, start to gain in order to become that leader worth following? Here's the truth that will, I don't believe, ever change about what makes someone a person that we want to follow. And it's who are they ultimately for? Are they for themselves or are they for other people? and that is the heart and soul of what Jesus's message was. Hey, you know, he got down on his knees to wash his disciples feet, you know, and he wasn't like, good, grieve Peter, you need a pedicure, bro. Like what's the deal?

Like New Birkenstocks maybe at the very least, right? No, he was just like, hey, I'm here to help you. How can I help wash these feet? How can I help serve you? How can I help challenge you? It doesn't mean that we're soft and that we always, just get along. Sometimes love requires us to say something that might seem challenging, but can we do it in a way that says, I'm saying this because I believe in you? Daniel Coyle and

Culture Code has this whole section about Greg Popovich, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs. He said, the thing that made him so great or makes him so great, he's not even done yet, his former players said, they never doubted that he was going to tell them where they fell short. He was always willing to do that. But he believed. believed in them so deeply that they knew he believes I can get there. And so I'm going to continue to hustle and grind and try because he's in this for me. And I just think that is what all of us should continue to strive to be. And that's the way leadership wasn't a past, but that's the way leadership's still going to be in the future, is that the greatest leaders of the future,

the people that have the most influence in the future are going to be the ones where we are convinced, they are not in this for themselves. They are here. They're showing up. One of those phrases that are always saying today is, I'm here for it. You know, I'm here for it. You know, these chips and queso, I'm here for it, right? Well, they know, hey, I'm here. I am here, not for me, not to just help my career, help my business, but I am here for you. I'm here to help you.

That has always been, and I don't think that's ever going to change, but the aspiring leader of the future has got to continue to grow and develop into that. Is that servant leadership? It's a redundant saying we can take the word servant out. That's right. We assume that leaders exist to serve, and the best leaders do that really well. and Clay, you are one of those people, and I'm super excited about this book. So I want everyone to unpack all nine principles in here because I think it can change the game

as we step into the future that we're already in so we can continue to have impact on our teams, our communities, our families that we need to have as leaders and as business owners. Love it. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you. Always a great conversation with our friend Clay Scroggins. Thank you so much, Clay. If you want to get a copy of his new book, The Aspiring Leaders Guide to the Future, Nine Surprising Ways,

leadership is changing, just use the link in the show notes. Now, Clay shared some of the leadership skills that are needed to become a leader worth following. But how do you develop those skills to level up in your leadership? We'll have a conversation about that right after this. All right, coming up, I talk with Katie Crenshaw, senior vice president of Ramsey personalities here at Ramsey Solutions. We're going to talk about the leadership skills that were necessary for her to become successful and move up in leadership at Ramsey.

Here's our conversation. Katie, thank you so much for being on the podcast. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me, George. So we work on the same team, and you're one of my leaders, and it's an honor, by the way. But you— The honor is all mine. It didn't start that way, Katie. You started at an entry-level position. How many years ago? 14 and a half. How time flies. Yes. And you've moved up in leadership roles, and I've got to watch some of that growth over my nine years here. What has that journey been like for you? Long. It's been long, George. But I started to start to here at 23 years old, right out of college, which was about 14 and a half years ago, and I started

as an assistant on our marketing team. And the company was about 140 people, which now you're looking were over 1,100 people. And so I've seen a ton of growth. But I stayed in the assistant role for a couple years. And my leader at the time, who's been on this podcast a couple of times, Jen Sievertson, she asked me to come into her office and she said, hey, I want to talk to you about something. And I was like, okay. And she was like, I really think you might do well in this other position where we need somebody. And I was like, I don't know. I'm not sure I really want to do that. And she just sort of gently kept nudging me and pushing me. And we still joke about it to this day because I still work pretty closely with her in my role. And she says that she saw a lot of potential

in me. And I always say, like, it's okay, Jen. I can say that, like, I was a terrible assistant and you needed to find another place for me. But she still holds firm to that. So I did. I moved into that role, which was in project management. And I worked in project management for about three years here at the company. And I was having another conversation with the leader. And he was asking, you know, the question leaders ask their team members all the time, where do you see yourself going? Like, what's your vision for your role and for your career? And I said what any like 26, 27 year old would be like, you know, I want to grow. And I was like, but I do know one thing, like, I do not want to be a leader. And that's just kind of where we left it. And two or three months

later, I was back in his office. And he said, okay, I need you to start leading. And so I just kind of looked at him and was like, I'm sorry. I thought we had like an agreement here where I I said I did not want to do that. And it was just another example of a leader seeing something in me and believing something I didn't believe about myself yet. And I'm a one on the anagram. And so I'm totally motivated by not failing. And in my mind, like stepping into leadership and stepping out of what I was comfortable in

was a possibility for failure. But he sort of gently nudged me into that. And I started leading and led within project management for about the next five years. So I was getting close to being at the company for about 10 years. and was getting to work on some personality initiatives and doing project management with those teams and with those personalities and was just realizing how much I connect

to what the personalities are doing and what they're taking out into the world even more so than what I was doing in project management, which had always been an amazing place and a safe place for me. And so this role opened up for a brand leader, which was a new role within the company, and I was able to step in that. And so I've been brainleading for Rachel Cruz

for the last about three and a half, four years. and in the last couple years, I've gotten an opportunity to take on some leadership with other brand leaders. And I love just leading in such a unique part of our business. There's not really anything else like leading in the personalities area. Yeah, that's amazing. I love your story, and there's so many lessons that we could unpack from that, but a leader seeing potential in you, a good leader asks you, hey, what is your vision? What, like, really lights you up?

And then notices that, finds opportunity for that and nudges you, as you said, into that. And so that's a great example of what it looks like to level up. And the people who are itching and raising their hand constantly, I need to be in leadership. It's usually a sign they're not ready for leadership versus your story, which is the reluctant leader. Yeah, I was totally a reluctant leader. It's not lost on me the part that other people played in my journey here. And I'm super grateful for all those people. All of my leaders have always been some of my biggest cheerleaders.

And like I said earlier, they saw things in me that I couldn't see in myself yet and believe things about me that I couldn't believe about. myself yet and that's something that I've tried to carry forward in working with my teams as well. So on top of your roles, multiple, I guess now, you also lead what's known as Ramsey Solutions Leadership or RSL for short. What is that and how did it form? So I'm just one part of leading that. We have a whole committee that works on that and I don't want to shock you with the creativity, but it's called Leadership Development Committee and it's responsible for developing all of our leaders in the company. It's known as LDC. We see around the building for short.

We love an acronym all day long. So I'm a part of that committee, and as part of that, I work with a few different groups, but it has multiple levels to it. And we put a lot of intentionality into growing and having our leaders poured into by other leaders and them spending time together. And so if I kind of go from where you could be, if you're not a leader yet, there's an aspect of that within RSA all the way up to the operating board. And so that earliest level is open to end.

anybody in the company, and we call it Entree University, and it's basically, like Clay said earlier in the podcast, an aspiring leader. We're all leaders, right? But if you're an aspiring leader, you better find yourself at that monthly meeting at 7 a.m. in the morning. And it's where we're just teaching, like, how we run this business and what are the principles we make decisions on. And then there's kind of a second level of RSO, which we really want you to be leading people or leading products or projects that are of some kind of scale. And you get nominated into that by your leader. and that is also a monthly meeting and that moves more from just understanding

how we do things to really understanding the tactics you're responsible for day to day, like in the trenches of leadership. And then we actually have a couple other levels that meet monthly and mastermind groups so that's some of our top leaders from all our disciplines and business units across the company and again they meet monthly in those masterminds

and that's moving more from tactics to like accountability and that ongoing accountability with other leaders. And obviously that's highly relational. And we do all of this and we invest a lot of hours every month into all of those meetings and into those plans and those things. And again, we have a whole committee that meets weekly just to talk about how we're developing our leaders across the company. That's amazing. And it wasn't always this way. We've gotten a lot better over time about creating these kind of growth tracks for our team. Because as a growth company, people come here and they want to grow in their role.

They want to step into leadership roles. So how do people do that well? I'm sure you've seen it modeled poorly and modeled really well. If someone's listening and they're going, Katie, I'm not where I want to be. I want to level up. I want to step into this next thing. Yeah. How do I do that tactfully?

Yeah. I think a couple of things that have helped me in doing that as I've grown in leadership and as I've moved roles in the company, probably two or three things I would call out. We have a leadership model that we use and we use that a lot in all of the RSL and LDC things we do. We use it for growth conversations to manage expectations, help leaders self-forms. identify their strengths and their weaknesses. And it's vision results relationship. And then there's ongoing personal transformation that kind of is the engine that keeps all of that running, right? And so if I look at that for myself and where I've seen myself be able to use those things well, I'm relationships, results, and vision. Those are kind of mine in that order. And if I pull out

a couple self-awareness has been huge for me. It's not constantly looking inward and being like, what's going on with me. That's not what that means. It's my ability to kind of be aware of the wake I'm leaving. And so as I'm going in and out of meetings or in and out of one-on-ones, being able to read a room, read people's body language and say, what effect am I having on the people around me? And being aware of it is one thing, but being able to go and follow up on it is another thing. So being willing to say like, hey, when I said this thing, I saw you react this way. And sometimes it may have nothing to do with you. It may be something that's going on with them. But being willing to go have those conversations has kind of constantly kept me

grounded and then I think keeps me humble, which is just another huge part of being a leader. Clay said this earlier, but it's also just a huge one. Healthy conflict, like the ability to do that, I think a lot of times we can blow it up into this huge thing. And it was one of the reasons I thought I didn't want to be a leader because I was like, I'm not good at doing conflict. And it looks like it's just a whole lot of conflict all the time. And so that was one of the reasons I was kind of shying away from moving into leadership. But once I realized that I'm a highly relational person, I realize how leaning into healthy conflict could come for me. And it's, It's actually something now, like I come to the table with a lot of energy for, and it's not

like I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I'm so excited. I get to do healthy conflict or I get to do conflict with someone today. But I do come to the table with energy because I feel like it's a thing that helps us move forward. When we're not having healthy conflict or we're not leaning into that, I feel like we find ourselves stuck in these cycles of having the same conversations over and over again or expecting people to change, but we haven't told them how they need to change. And so being able to lean in and have a hard conversation with somebody just creates forward movement. And I'm all about forward movement because my second one is in results. And I think just the

ability to like get stuff done is huge. If you give me something and this has kind of been true of my whole career, I will run it to ground and I will make sure it happens. And what I've transitioned to in the last few years is being able to delegate that and bring people along in that and just coach people. But those are probably the three that I see have helped me win as I've moved through and that I try to coach and other people that I'm working with as well. I love that. And you've got, you know, one of your best skills and traits is that you're so reliable. You know, if someone gives you a project, like, Katie's got it. I feel great about this. There's such trust there. You're great at communication. There's a lot of soft skills and hard skills, as you mentioned, that come along with growing leadership.

And those are things you've always got to be working on. And no one's ever done. That's the fun part. Well, and that's what we love to help provide with LDC and RSL, like just those constant opportunities for the conversation to be ongoing, where nobody ever feels like they're fully responsible for that, that there's always people they can bring into that conversation to help them and mentor them. And now it's not just someone's opinion of how you're doing as a leader. Now we have the measuring stick with this leadership model with vision results and relationships, which is super helpful to go, yeah, I got to work in this area. Yeah.

I can see how that may be the case. Yeah, totally. And a good leader has that awareness and humility. Mm-hmm. There's something that a quote, Andy Stanley has said, that I heard it years ago and it stuck with me, kind of just talking about strengths and weaknesses and how you lean into both. and he says you're fully exploited strengths are a far greater value to your organization

than your marginally improved weaknesses. And just that ability to know what you're really good at and lean into that versus spending all your time trying to figure out how to get better at things you're probably never going to get better at. And it's not a license to say, like, I don't have to do anything I'm not good at

or I don't have to do anything I don't like or my weakness is I'm a jerk. Like being a jerk is not a weakness. It's a character flaw. And that's not an excuse to not do it. That felt like a personal attack, Katie. Never, George. But, I mean, here's an example of using your strengths and leaning on other people's, right?

So I work with a great group of guys who are also brand leaders. And one of my colleagues has an amazing eye for, like, design and how it connects to branding. And he looks at something and sees, like, what it could be, what it should be, what it's not. And I look at it and see, like, pictures and words. And so we just see things very differently versus me taking away from all my strengths of the things that I bring to the table that only I can. And I know that any time something like that comes up, I can lean on him and say, like, what do you think about this? Hey, well, you run with this and kind of run with this for all of us.

So just being able to know not only what you're good at, but also what those around you are good at. And I think that's something else that all the things that we provide within RSL are really good at helping facilitate that too. Yeah. Well, Katie, I've loved watching you grow in leadership. I appreciate leaders like you, who I get to serve underneath and have humility, character, integrity, they're trustworthy, they're reliable, they're relational, and I appreciate you

unleashing some wisdom on our listeners today. Thanks, George. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much, Katie. Grateful to have you as one of my leaders. As she just talked about, we use a three-part model to assess our leaders, and we call it the Ramsey Solutions Leadership model. Genius, I know. Our team created a free guide for you that you can use as an assessment. This will help you evaluate your own leadership and determine which area you need to work on the most, vision, relationships, or results. If you want to download it, just click the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show.

If you did, give us a five-star rating and write us a review. We appreciate your feedback. And the simplest way to help us grow the show is to send this episode to a friend. Be sure to follow us at Entree Leadership wherever you hang out on social media. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team. Thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like Ramsey Everyday

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