The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – My Daily Leadership: A Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success by Antonio Garrido

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

My Daily Leadership: A Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success by Antonio Garrido Amazon.com Mydailyleadership.com A uniquely practical and powerful roadmap designed to ensure that business owners and managers reach their full potential and become the extraordinary leaders their people and company deserve. Most business leaders report that they are seeing success, yet often struggle because they are: · Uncertain regarding their own capabilities · Overwhelmed, and suffering from “imposter syndrome” · Anxious regarding the speed and trajectory of the business · Frustrated with an unhealthy work/life balance · Disappointed they’re not yet the leader that, deep down, they know they need to be Sound familiar? Whether you are a leader of a multibillion-dollar company, top-level executive of a small business, or senior manager looking to discover the secrets of elite leadership, My Daily Leadership will reveal and strengthen your own unique and powerful leadership style and forever transform the way you think, behave, and lead. Competitive advantage comes from implementing the five Core Elements of Exceptional Leadership as well as the twenty Critical Performance Competencies designed to futureproof yourself, your people, and your business. Learn the daily leadership habits, mindsets, and strategies that will unlock your full leadership potential to create a meaningful and lasting legacy of high performance and extraordinary success. My Daily Leadership— Creating the world’s best leaders one day at a time.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

Welcome to the show, my family and friends. The Chris Voss Show family. Family Welcome to the show, my family and friends. The Chris Voss Show family. Family loves you but doesn't judge you. At least not as harshly as when I haven't had my coffee in the morning. Because if I haven't had my coffee in the morning, I'm very bearish and very, I'm just ornery. I'm coming out of hibernation from the night. And I need my coffee. And if you mess with me,

people will die. So just remember if you're in the Chris Vosho family podcast, you're not in my family, you're in my podcast. But if you happen to be wandering out of my house in the morning or the office, make sure that I've had my coffee first because I will judge you. But until then we won't. So there you go.

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You're only as smart as the five people that surround you. So if the five people that surround you don't listen to the show and you listen to the show, I mean, yeah, you do have the benefit of being the smartest person in the room. But seriously, they're going to drive you crazy unless you get their IQs up. So get them involved in the show. We're going to be talking about leadership today. And it's one of my favorite topics. After writing my book, Beacons of Leadership and owning companies since I was 18, I've done a few companies.

And leadership is important. And it's not just being a CEO. Parents are leaders. There's everyday leaders that surround us everywhere. But we're going to be talking about some things that gave me an epiphany with this gentleman coming on the show. That opened my eyes to a few new things about leadership and how to be a great leader regardless of what you do and how you apply your leadership, whether it's being a great mom or dad or whether it's being the CEO of a $50 trillion company or being a great entrepreneur. So I think you're

going to be really surprised and interested in what he has to offer and we're going to be talking to him on the show about all the good stuff. So we're going to get to that here in a second. He is the author of the latest book to come out, August 30th, 2022. The title of the book is My Daily Leadership, A Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success. I'm joined today by Antonioio garito and he's going to be talking to us about his amazing book and insight he's the author of this latest book and founder and president of my daily leadership a leadership development organization with a mission to inspire 1 million only 1 million of the world's best leaders to reach their full potential he's

working he's going to start with a million he's going to the other seven billion or eight billion did a billion know there you go plenty of time uh antonio has over 25 years in senior leadership positions with world-class businesses he's an expert in leadership transformation shaping high performance leaders out of highly stressed and overworked leaders. Antonio blends his own vast commercial experience with proven techniques to embed a unique brand of leadership development. He's a serial entrepreneur, a successful business coach, charismatic speaker, and leader from small private businesses right up to fortune 60 size. Welcome to the show, Antonio. How are you? Hello, Chris. Gosh, there's so much to say about

that introduction i'm delicious thank you what a great introduction i got from that not only do you have a need for caffeine but you also have a high need for approval so it's probably like most leaders that we deal with i suppose there you go and i was teasing you about inspiring one million you know maybe there's only so much time one guy has, for real. Yeah. So, you know. Yeah. I thought we'd start modest, you know. Modest all. Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. It's like a marathon. You start with the first million miles and then, yeah, there you go. So, welcome to the show. Congratulations on the new book. Give us your dot com so people can look you up on the interwebs and find out more. It couldn't be easier. It's mydailyleadership.com. So, all the w's my daily leadership dot com all one word pop along see

what we have to say there you go so you've launched this book and uh what motivated you want to write this oh because of all of the leaders that we work with and helping them deal with their challenges, I suppose. I don't know how I'm fairly ancient. So let's say 20 odd years ago, perhaps even more, a very enlightened leader of mine, my boss, right? Chairman of a very large, complex organization called me into his office one day. I'd only been in the company for two or three three days and um asked me whether or not i journaled and i said no and he asked why and i said and i wasn't entirely really sure why so i just said probably because i'm not a 16 year old victorian school girl right because i didn't know who else would journal other than them.

I'm not keeping a diary, damn it. Exactly. Mr. Darcy was mean to me today, right? So I think really quickly the value of this kind of self-reflection and the importance

of journaling for doing that. So I have been journaling avidly for the longest time, and the more time we spent helping, working with C-suite leaders from the small to the very, very big, B2B, B2C, all markets, all industries, and so on, I also realized that those that journal did much better than those that didn't. And I pulled those two things together, and I thought, I also realised that those that journaled did much better than those that didn't. And I pulled those two things together and I thought, hey, let's put a programme together to help those

that are serious about growing. And so we did and it's been a rollicking good ride and a great success. So we've been very fortunate in that regard, I suppose. This is my third book, but I have to say this is probably my favorite book. There you go. Well, they just get better with time, I think. Yeah, perhaps.

The more you do it and the longer you live, the more experience you have. So give us a synopsis of a 30,000 overview of the book and kind of what it entails, what's inside, and then we'll get into some of the deets as we go through the show. Oh, I guess it's just as I mentioned in terms of, you know, so many people, so many leaders really, you know, want to be the best that they can be, or at least they claim to be, they claim to want that.

And then when we ask them how much time did they spend trying to develop their self-awareness, how much time did they spend trying to develop their self-awareness how much time did they spend reflecting on their uh you know their their behaviors their results and and and it's it's staggeringly uh it's it's it's a disturbing and depressingly low number and so um yeah so the principle of i probably a good way to describe it is this. I did a talk not too long ago to 400 leaders around the world, all industries, all sizes, all of that kind of nonsense. And I asked them by a show of hands who here has no leadership blind spots.

Right. So fortunately enough, nobody put their hands up so that was a good start so i said okay terrific so now that we know some good self-awareness round of applause for that now that we know that we do have some leadership blind spots do me a favor and could you just take a minute and write down for me what they are right and exactly there's the problem they don't know what they are and here? And exactly, there's the problem. They don't know what they are. And here's the other thing that never happens, Chris, right? Nobody, let's say George, right?

So nobody comes and knocks on George's door in the morning and says, hey, boss, you got five minutes? And George says, yeah, come in, sit down. What's on your mind? You know, open door policy. You know me. Yeah, George, i just wanted to let you know that i've been watching your performance over the last six months and i think you're

dreadful in nearly every regard i think you're terrible at this and awful at that and that's even talking to my employees right exactly and so when i i always ask another supplementary question like what percentage of the time do you think your people are telling you the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, right? I make them put their hand on the Bible. Yeah. Well, it's not a hundred. I know neither is zero one.

But so when we wrap all of that up and a comment that I'd love from, we were talking presidents just earlier before we came on air, George Bush, loved from we were talking presidents just earlier before we came on air um uh george bush senior um he'd uh he'd you know he was no longer the president but you chaps still call ex-presidents mr president but anyway he was in a a pro-am golf tournament right and he walked off the 18th green and somebody shoved the camera into his face and said how was the golf mr president and he thought for a second and he said you know it's amazing how many games of golf he's lost since leaving the white house right because you know when you're the ceo when you decide to pay rises when you decide where people park in the car park you know getting to that truth is difficult so who's going to tell you yeah you take some kind of you know sub objective not

subjective assessment and uh start to build your self-awareness and journaling is a mechanism the best mechanism for doing that unless you do that then you are doomed to you know new day same old nonsense really i suppose there you go a lot to unpack there, we'll get to. Tell us about your hero's journey. What got you down this road? What got you interested in this field and writing about leadership and stuff? What's your journey of life that got you down this road? So probably only interesting to me, my mother. So when I came out of university, as I say, a million years ago,

because I'm fairly ancient, I was an architect architect so i was an architect for a little while uh much more by luck than judgment i found myself uh running a tiny department of an organization um like a drawing office department kind of over over sells it but you know i i thought that if i were to go into architecture i'd be designing airports and cathedrals all that kind of nonsense day in and day out that wasn't the case it was normally mrs miggins kitchen extension and so on but anyway it was slightly uh unfulfilling role but i found myself in management fairly quickly and then i continued to get promoted for uh when i asked my my ceo why he kept promoting me he told me the reason i might tell you the reason later if you're interested but anyway so i then found myself uh running a

company and then was poached and poached and poached. And I got to an organization, pretty large German organization, who said, hey, listen, if you want to get into the C-suite of this business, you need to go back to university and get an MBA. Or, you know, architecture is fine, but, you know, strategic market management might be a bit better. So I went and did my second degree in that and then because i was lucky enough to work for just outrageously inspired uh leaders that's where my kind of i was like what's the difference between this chap and that chap why is this successful not

so i i worked for some great companies i say fortune 60 companies and then about 12 or 14 years ago i thought you know i will um i'll start my own company uh doing this uh i've almost said nonsense but doing this stuff it's the company that you and i were talking about before we came on in miami uh And that company just grew gangbusters. That's really kind of sales and management and marketing and sales leadership. And then I wrote this book and thought, it's a separate brand. It's not the same thing.

I didn't want to confuse stuff. So, yeah, so we started this business, which is exclusively leadership development. So that's my genesis, architecture to this, how it wasn't by design. The whole thing is an entire fluke. But, you know, some of the best things are, I suppose. And we learn so much as we go down the pathway. I'm sure there was things you learned as you went through, you know,

as you went up through the levels of management and stuff. So let's unpack some of the things that we talked about in your 30,000 overview. You talked about how you talk about blind spots. Some people call them scotomas. The one thing I imparted to my niece and nephew when they turned 18 was there are three things that are very important in life. What you know, what you know you don't know. But the most important thing you've got to figure out

is the things you don't know you don't know. Because many times, those will be the things that come at you like a freight train, as Metallica puts it, like a freight train coming your way and you think it's a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not. It's a freight train, and it's not going to be pretty. And so trying to, trying to identify those things. And so it's interesting. You sat down with CEOs and you asked them what their blind spots are. And then you

talked about George Bush, you know, where, you know, sometimes you can be surrounded by yes-men. One of the things that, you know, I identified early on with my CEO, as I said, I remember going to my, one of my last CEOs that I worked for that finished off my training on with my CEO. As I said, I remember going to one of my last CEOs that I worked for that finished off my training to be a CEO. And I said, you always have that one guy, Negative Nancy, who's on the board. And he's always the opposite dude. I want to say an altarian.

He's always the foil. If you say right, he goes left. And it almost seems like he just goes left because you go right. And then if you go left, he's going to go right. And he said to me, Chris, it's really important to have that guy on the board because the

worst thing you do is surround yourself with yes men. And you don't know where the truth is. You don't know where the stuff is. So can I tell you who first developed that principle? Who? You know, through any military strategy. We are.

We are. It was Napoleon. Oh. No. So Napoleon, right? We were talking about your Frenchman just before we came on air as well, right? But Napoleon, who, you know, did rather well in terms of, you know, became self-acclaimed emperor of the world, but he controlled

or France controlled getting on for a third of the world. Did France have more people than anybody else, more resources than anybody else, more horses than anybody else? No. But what Napoleon figured out, and it was genius really he figured out pretty early on that um when he so let's imagine that there is an objective right so all ceos have objectives right so so napoleon had an objective and it may be to besiege a city for example um he figured out pretty early that that when he was in the tent, you know, the forward tent,

deciding how they were going to, you know, enter the city and, you know, rape the cattle and stampede the women, right, whilst they were deciding how to do that, right, everyone kind of agreed with him. And he realized that, you know, everyone's agreeing with me because of who I am, as opposed to the genius, the proposition, you know, the idea. So he took one of his generals, the nomenclature of it became the idiot general, and he sent them out of the tent. And then all of the other generals and he would put a plan together to besiege the city.

Once the plan was fixed, they would then call the other general back, and one of the other generals would describe to that general the idiot general right what the plan is and and he had no idea which components were whose idea right so he didn't know which bits napoleon liked and which bits oh so he wasn't worried about pissing on the boss then exactly and and that that that single strategy you know in terms of dealing with yes men and so on that single strategy helped you know, in terms of dealing with the S-men and so on, that single strategy helped him conquer, you know, a third of the world. So, you know, it's difficult because we talked also about what percentage of the time the leaders hear the truth,

the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And they would like to think it's 100%, but I promise you it isn't. What everyone is telling the boss is a version of the truth that they think it's in their best interest to have him or her believe, right? And so one of the things that the leader has to do is close that truth gap. And how do they do that? Again, it comes back to this EQ and self-awareness has to be, he's got a lovely expression about this in terms of, you know, having low ego. And in the military, they say, leave your stripes at the door. Right.

But he says, you know, most leaders, they can either feed their ego or feed their kids. Right. You can't have both. And I love that as an expression. I didn't put it in the book because that wasn't mine but um yeah i now i've just said it out loud i think i've put it in some social media well i mean you can you can quote other people you know as long as you have attribution yeah yeah yeah i just don't like giving him plaudits okay we'll work that out on a separate podcast

yeah we'll bring the two of you in and have you work it out. So there you go. But so one of the things I teased out in my intro was the epiphany you gave me when I was going through some of your stuff. As we talked about in the pre-show, I read some of your posts on LinkedIn. And so people can follow you over there. You have a great little following. I'm sorry. I don't mean to demean that. You have a great you over there you have a great uh little falling little falling i'm sorry i don't mean to uh to mean that uh you have a great falling over there um i meant that as like you know uh the comedy bit of it uh so um on there uh you you talked about this journaling and

you know i journal uh i know most successfully those journal but i never really put it together and we'd had somebody earlier this week on the show where we were talking about leadership and being self-aware. And it hit me that journaling is one of the best ways to be self-aware or develop self-awareness. You know, it's a constant road of achievement and getting to know yourself better. But if you're not self-actualized as a leader, I think you're going to suck. Am I wrong? Tell me more.

Well, you certainly won't reach your maximum potential. That's for sure. And if you can't reach your maximum potential, then you can't help your people reach their maximum potential. Therefore, by default, you can't help your business reach its maximum potential. And your job as a leader is to future-proof yourself, right, and your organization because, as Marshall Goldsmith says, one of our all-time business gurus and heroes,

what got you here won't get you there. And we know that the pace of change is ever faster, right? AI in the last five minutes and before that the internet and before that and before that and three you know all of that yeah it's moving faster faster it seems faster and faster and faster so the the requirement then to future proof ourselves is is ever increasing so so we have to figure out how do we maximize our potential how do we develop our people to maximize their potential and then how do we maximize our potential how do we develop our people to maximize their potential and then how do we maximize because what's what's leaders job

is to make decisions and to future proof the business that's that's what they get paid for right and the way they do that is to is to maximize themselves their people and their by default their business that's their it's not only their job that's their responsibility and if they're not prepared to do that in in my view, and it's harsh, then they should go do something else. And the leaders that ask us to work with them but are not prepared to make that kind of investment in themselves, we don't help them because they don't mean it.

And any leader that says that they are genuinely interested in developing themselves and their people in their organization and they don't journal don't believe them and they're not prepared to either then then don't believe them so it's it's just yes yeah most definitely i mean it's it's it's something where um if you're not self-aware self-actualized you know i always tell people being um being an entrepreneur will will change you if you let it. And if you really have to work hard, unless you have a bunch of money and you don't have to develop yourself, I suppose you can isolate yourself with money. And we see people that fail with sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars or sometimes billions of dollars in investments.

There's been some recent massive tech failures that uh you know had had so much money it was stupid and they still couldn't make success i'm thinking i'm thinking of things like clubhouse there was a pizza company that was going to do mobile pizza delivery mobile pizza making in in a trucks and then deliver them so they would be you know steaming hot right off the truck and i think they had close to a billion dollars and they failed. But let's talk about and delve into this a little bit. With journaling, how does one develop the insight to take and journal? And do you really need to, you know,

not focus when you're journaling on other people? Like, you know, I mean, I used to come home and tell stories about my employees. Like, you won't believe what Bob did today. Or does it more need to be more internalized where you go, hey, what did I do today? And how can I do better? Good question.

So this insight piece, and so many organizations are actually recruiting leaders now specifically for insight. Others for EQ, where in the past we always thought it was IQ and technical skill and maybe even time served. But it's none of those things anymore. The best of the best companies are looking for this, this ability to see between the numbers and what the trees and emotional intelligence and all that kind of stuff. But before I tell you that, can I give all of your listeners a quick exercise to do? Please do. Yeah, because I like to give theory as well as practical application.

And I'll tell a super quick story, then I promise I'm going to come back to this, how do we develop insight, I promise. So the same chap that I told you about a million years ago who said do you journal and i said no because i'm not a 16 year old okay that one um uh so then i was on the journaling you know process i was like most of our clients that would ask us well what do we write and how often and what and you know we would if we knew what to write and all that kind of stuff we that's the least of it and we give everybody all of that so so we make it a very light load but it's an everyday load just like brushing your teeth but anyway so he said this and here's what

i'd like all of your uh viewers and listeners uh to think about your audience to think about so so this group uh chair chairman asked me into his office again. This is one of my very inspirational leaders. And he said, hey, Antonio, he said, have you ever worked for a dreadful boss? And I said, yeah, of course. Of course I have. Hasn't everybody? He said, yeah, yeah, probably.

So then he got himself a piece of paper and a pen and he said will you just write down what does leadership dreadfulness look like what does a dreadful boss look like characteristics five or six so i wrote down five or six things that i could imagine most of your audience are thinking maybe you're inconsistent, place favorites, micromanagers, hot and cold, place whatever, right? Not strategic, everything's tactical, reactive, not responsive, all of those things, right? So I wrote a list of things, gave that back to him. And he said, yeah, yeah, terrific. Write some more, right? Slid the piece of paper back. So I wrote some list of things, gave that back to him. And he said, yeah, yeah, terrific. Write some more, right? And slid the piece of paper back. So I wrote some more things of leadership dreadfulness. And then, you know, passed it back and he passed it back again. He said, write me some more.

So anyway, long story short, I got to about 15 things that in my view were like, you know, the most dreadful things that leaders could do he said he said that's a really good list i love it i love it that's really really good he said now will you do me a favor i said yeah he said whilst ever you are the ceo or managing director there but it's the ceo the principal is the same whilst ever you're the ceo of this organization can you promise me you'll never do any of the things on that piece of paper? And I went, well, I'll try. He says, no, no, no, just don't ever do any of those things. I said, okay.

And he said, I'll tell you what. He said, carry it with you at all times. Whenever I see you in the corridor or pass you the canteen or whatever, he said, get that list out and we'll have a conversation about some of those things. So that started my, you know, this insight that you were talking about, this self-awareness, this reflective and reflexive practice. He then asked me another question, and this is the point to it,

and then I'll tell you where the insight comes from, right? He said, ask yourself two questions every day. He said, I ask myself two questions every day. The two questions are, did He said, I ask myself two questions every day. The two questions are, did I earn my money today? And did I try my best? Not, did I do my best? Because he said, you almost never do your best. Doing your best is the 100-meter runner that every single day when he practices and trains, he gets a personal best. I mean, that's just impossible. But did I earn my money today and did I try my best? Here's what happens. When you start to – and he said,

if there are ever three consecutive days where you think you haven't earned your money, he said, can you come and talk to me more, Chas, about that? Sort of very kind of veiled threat like you'll soon find yourself on the job market right wow yeah so i said i like this guy yeah oh i love this guy so here's why i think i did you know i tried my best today and he goes no that's nonsense right so he said this he said look when you start saying did i earn my money today did i try my best today not did i do my did i try my money today? Did I try my best today? Not did I do my, did I try my best today?

When you start asking yourself that question every day, what then happens, Chris, is you go, well, you know what? I'll give myself an A minus for today. Because when I said this, maybe I could have said that when I did this, maybe I could have done that. Perhaps I could have said that or done that or not, right? Maybe have done this better well that what so what that then does chris is it starts to build that self-awareness muscle that we talked about but unfortunately it's all in the rearview mirror it's retrospective right it's hindsight yeah the thing about when you do that when you do that hindsight analysis with enough frequency and with enough seriousness right when you constantly look back what then happens is before too long chris somebody asks you a question

in the moment in the present and asks you hey boss what should we do about this what do you think we should do about that right and you know oh crikey'm going to have to review my answer in about four hours, right, when I get to my journal, right? So you think to yourself, do you know what? I'm going to give a world-class leader's review. What would a world-class leader say to this, right? Or how would they respond to this? And so you go from hindsight to in the moment insight. Now, when you do that with enough frequency, what then happens is you develop foresight, right? So hindsight, insight, foresight.

And that foresight allows you to just see the tiny piece of the iceberg piece peeking above the waves, right? And knowing that there's like all of this stuff below, but, and you're the Titanic and you think, okay, let's make it, let's course correct now, rather than when this issue becomes too big. And it leads to foresight. So hindsight, insight, foresight. And we have, you know, our program, you know,

addresses that specifically and does that specifically. But it's interesting to think, what does dreadful look like and when you define dreadful it makes you start kind of define what does what does gorgeous look like right and then you can start to well how do i measure against that and how could i get closer to that and good things happen there you go uh and this is this is the journey that i think more leaders need to go on because we talked about the pre-show. You know, I've heard of, I think there's a famous baseball player who would literally keep a library of swings, not just his swings, but he would have all the top players' swings recorded on videocassette or something. And he would watch them, how they would hold their arms, how they would hold their elbows, how they would swing, how they would hold their arms how they would hold their elbows how they would swing how they approach the ball and all the mechanics of the thing and

we've you know we've had olympic coaches on the show uh and everyone's talked about you know all the coaching that they do for people and and trying to develop self-awareness of just integral parts in fact there's there's a extensive scientist stuff they do with the science that they do with the Olympic things where they'll cover them in nodes and do like a computerized thing of how they're utilizing their body. But a lot of times

when I ask CEOs, in my experience, what is your leadership style? How do you lead? What are the core natures of your leadership attributes? They have no idea. They're just like running on whatever. And I know they have a little bit of a toolbox that they use

and it kind of works for them if they will. But a lot of them are just like, I don't know. I just get blistered. I don't know what it is. Is that what you find as well? Yeah, absolutely. And we talk like all of the time. And here's an interesting statistic,

or here's an interesting fact that surprises most leaders when we first tell them. And it relates to, you know, you were talking about sports, for example, but it's the same in many. You know, it can be entertainment. It doesn't just have to be sports. So the military, for sports so the military for example the military are world class at this kind of stuff and so let's take Top Gun as an example you know

when I'm talking about this this evaluated experience so top I mean the place not the film right so um so there is you know for those that don't know Top Gun is a movie but it's actually based on a real place called Top Gun. And Top Gun, what do you imagine they train them? What's the purpose of Top Gun, Chris? Because it isn't to teach them how to fly a plane, right? Because they know how to fly a plane. They wouldn't be there unless they were the best of the best

of the very, very, very best. So they know how to fly a plane. So it's not that. What do you imagine they do in Top Gun? The real place, not the movie. Uh-huh. What do you imagine they do? You tell us.

You tell us. Okay. Well, so here's the thing. I didn't watch the movie, so I'm kind of out. I never saw Top Gun. It's nothing like the movie. So let's imagine then we've got some pilots and they're being briefed before a training event

or before an event. And they'll say, okay, you're going to come in. You'll enter theater at this speed, this altitude, this height. You'll enter at this speed and this bearing and this height. And then go and then we'll just try and have a dog fight and see who wins, right? And then they go and then we'll just try and have a dog fight and see who wins right and then they go and do that thing and then they'll come back and land and they'll talk about it they'll review it they will do an assessment they'll do a debrief so the the the the actual dog fighty thing that

they do right is it's normally about just three or four minutes you know it's not hours it's just three or four minutes maybe five or six minutes maximum and then they go back and talk about it and they debrief and they assess how long do you imagine they assess the you know four or five minutes what do you? I know the answer to this. They do it as long as it takes to debrief, but usually it's about 45 minutes to an hour. It's 45 minutes to an hour for every minute. So if it's a four-minute thing, it's like the whole of the rest of the day.

They'll fly for four minutes and then they'll review for the whole of the 45 minutes for every minute. It's true. They pick it apart and even the leaders admit they're wrong and the non-leaders are

it's open forum where the non-leaders can criticize the leader and go hey at this point in our flight path you fucked this up and everybody it's like a self accountability sort of meeting. It's exactly that.

And so when was the last time the CEO did that? I asked the CEO just last week, so tell me about your annual board meeting. How did that go with all of your shareholders? He went, oh, really, really well. Okay, what makes you say that? He went, well, because this reason, this reason, this reason, this reason. I said, all right, terrific.

I said, when you think back about over that board meeting whose voice do you remember hearing more than anybody else you know well mine i said oh okay i was on stage barking at them yeah yeah that's how most shareholder meetings go yeah right so what did you learn i asked ask. And he went, coffee. Anybody want a coffee? It's just the self-awareness. Honestly, Chris, you would think that the great and the good and these people who have been running the largest,

most complex organizations in the world, you would think that they are the Lionel Messi's of the world. But earlier you said baseball players, world you would think that they are the leonel messes of the world right but you come earlier you said you know baseball players they watch hours and hours of of film of themselves right same in football same in soccer same in tennis same everywhere same in top gun why don't leaders why don't leaders intentionally build their self-awareness? All they think is, well, what I'm doing so far, it got me here, right? It got me here. So I can't be that dreadful. And of course, of course they're not. But the issue is, do you want to be okay?

And I'll often say this before we even train a coach, take on any client, we'll ask them this question. Do you want to be okay? Do you want to be good? Do you want to be above average? Do you want to be best in class or do you want to be world class? What do you want to be? And if they don't say world class or best in class,

we won't take them on, right, because they don't have that appetite. They won't put them on right because they don't have that appetite they don't they they won't put in the reps they they they they are not prepared to get far enough outside their comfort zone and you and i both know chris that there's no growth in your comfort zone there's no comfort in your growth zone so so unless you're prepared to get comfortable being uncomfortable this isn't for you right go and go and go and go to the tennis club and get yourself a prawn sandwich and enjoy it put your feet up can you give us that line again because that was a great epiphany uh and a great uh little axiom about there's no growth

so no there's no comfort in your growth so but it's true right yeah because if you're not prepared because we all know that magic happens outside your comfort right so and and so what a lot of leaders do is you know that because of ego right they they don't want to take too many risks they don't want to be that uh brene brown if uh if anybody's watched dare to lead with brene brown where she has the best leaders have the courage to say, I don't know. I'm not sure. Help. What do you think?

And those are the best ones because they have enough professional humility to say, I don't have to know everything. And they're brave enough to say, help. And those are the best. Those are the ones that we help. One of the most important things I learned at a very young age, I can't remember who it was that turned me on to this knowledge, but Henry Ford, they tried to take away his company because he had a fourth grade education

when it became successful. And the board, I think it was the board of directors and other people were like, Hey, this guy is, you know, not the brightest. Let's try and take his company from him.

And he appeared in, according to the way the story was told from him and he appeared in uh according the way the story was told to me is he appeared in um court and from the stand they you know they're asking him you know how is it that you think you're smart enough to run you know this very successful company that you've now built and he said you know i don't know everything he goes but i have a little uh pad or something uh some sort of device, electronic device on my desk. And I have all these experts that I've surrounded myself with. And any question that I want an answer for, I can push a button and that person will come in and answer my questions.

I'll get the data I need. So I don't, he basically, the communication was, I don't need to know everything. And I need to be self-aware that I don't know everything, but I need to have access to the knowledge and insight when I need it. Whenever, whenever, gorgeous, whenever a CEO thinks they're the smartest guy in the room, they've got problems. I learned a long time ago, man, I do not have the corner on all the great ideas. I have some. Chris, you'd be staggered about how many of them think they are the smartest. Yeah. You'd be flabbergasted.

It's an easy buy-in because you're the leader and people worship you. And if you're not careful, you can get caught up in the egotism of it. And then you start making all the wrong decisions. And then, you know, suddenly, you know, nothing's working. And you're like, and the uh you know uh you you you suddenly you know nothing's working and you're like and the mirror is staring at you and you and you could try laying off people but uh sometimes after you lay it off enough people it becomes really obvious where everyone's going like well you fired everyone and everything still sucks so it could be you my coach my coach my coach is a fourth-generation submarine commander.

So he was a commander of a nuclear submarine. His father was a diesel submarine, and his father was a diesel. And his son is actually in the Navy. I mean, talk about pressure. But anyway, so one of our very, very first sessions, he asked me this. He said, hey, question for you antonio he said well there was uh we we were about four months from baltimore we we were under the arctic circle around the arctic circle we've been about four months

tracking four months tracking red submarines across the globe, that's kind of Chinese and Russian submarines, whilst ever trying to remain undetected. So that's what they were doing. They were just tracking submarines whilst ever remaining undetected. That was their goal at this particular time. And he said, and it was 4 a.m. in the morning, four months underway. I was asleep in my quarters. And he said, unfortunately, an 18 year old a young chap a welder uh 4 a.m had an accident whilst he was welding and he electrocuted himself

and died almost instantly oh no and i went oh gosh that's okay, terrible. He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, terrible. Whose fault? And I went, I said, well, before you answer, let me give you some options. Is it his fault or was it his fault? Was it the person that asked him to do that at 4 a.m.? Was it the person that trained him? Was it the person that was supposed to be accompanying him? Was it the person who was in watch be accompanying him? Was it the person that was in watch? Whose fault was it?

And I said, I feel that it was his fault, but I also feel that it was your fault. He said, it was entirely my fault because it's a nice submarine. And I said, you were asleep. And he went, yeah, I was asleep. But when I take on the role when i assume the captains i accept responsibility for anything that happens on the ship right cool so when we say coming back to your point right so when we say to a ceo um how many how many people report to you let's just let's just imagine a number and that's okay

when you've got you probably 20% standard deviation bell chart, 20% A players, 60% B players, 20% C players. Name me a C player. And I go, Frank, give me another C player. George, how long has Frank been with you? Six years. How long has George been with you? Four years.

Anybody else? Yeah, probably Mary. How long has Mary been with you? Yeah, about nine months. And I'll say, okay, cool. Tell me this. Did you hire them like that or have you made them like that?

Right, these C players, right? Then they'll go, oh, I don't know. I said, well, so whose fault is it that they're here? And they'll go, probably HR. And I'll go, no. Right? It's your submarine. And then I'll go, tell me about the numbers.

Yeah, we're a bit behind this year. So whose fault is that? And they go, CRO. I go, no, it's your submarine. It's not the chief revenue officer. How are you doing with your on time in full? Yeah, we're about 84%. What should you be?

90%. Whose fault is that? Manufacturing director. No, it's your submarine. So how can – and so many leaders, they think they are A-star players, but they're surrounded by B players. And I say, you only get an A-star when all of your people get an A-star. Yeah, there you go.

When all of your people get an A-star, you do. And until they do, you don't. And that's your job. And that's one of these ep epiphanies which is like oh i guess it's my submarine i guess everything that happens here is my responsibility so if i want the world to get better i better look in the mirror before i start you know start handing out you know there you go i love that analogy i'm gonna put that on my wall it's mine it's it's my submarine or mine but it is It is. The buck stops here.

I used to keep something on my desk that basically inferred that just because you have a title doesn't mean anything and that you've got to earn that every day. And yeah, people don't realize the buck stops here. The leader sets the tone from the top down.

And I mean, and also not only sets the tone because you can put a bunch of bs mission statements and you know all sorts of pr but unless you live it work it deliver it and set an example to people because people see through your bs i mean i tell us whether your leader is a parent you know your child your BS, you know, if you tell your child, don't lie, and then you lie to them, well,

yeah, they're like, mom and dad's full of shit. Same thing with a leader. And how many leaders, how many leaders, sorry, it's going to crush you there,

that, you know, people will, people will watch what you do much more than they listen to what you're saying. How many leaders judge themselves by their intentions, but everyone else by their actions, how exactly yeah so yeah yeah we mentioned george w bush senior earlier and and uh he was an interesting and amazing man especially when i saw him in his his later years almost 90 jumping out of airplanes i'm like man i haven't jumped on an airplane i'm young he's this guy's got more going on than i do but know, a good funny example is when he said, read my lips, no new taxes.

And then he did something completely different. It didn't work out too well. And it's cited as one of the things that sunk him. There were no new taxes. He just put all the other tax rates up. I mean, there were no new ones, right? Oh, that's true. Yeah.

It didn't also help the economy kind of tanked right at the same time but people that really stuck with people that was one of the things they found that stuck with them and people watch how you act you know and that's why it's important to be self-aware as we come around full circle with that because if people are watching how you act and you're not aware of how your performance and the standards and morals and ethics and emotional intelligence you talk about in the book uh talk about then there that uh we we're running out of time on the show as we approach the hour but i want to tease out a few things on your book and i'll let you decide if you want to if you want to tease out any of those as

we go but i want people to know about them because i i found them incredibly interesting um you talk about your book about aligning with five core elements of exceptional leadership you talk about the three c's of alignment from conversation to collaboration uh identifying your uh blind spots etc etc and 20 critical performance competencies that leaders need proof prove a future proof themselves. Any, any final thoughts as we go out that you want to tease out, but people should definitely pick up the books. They can.

Really nice question. Thank you. I think I would say a couple of things and I don't want these to sound like trite kind of throw away words that you can put on a coaster, right? But one of the things I'd like your audience to think about is what's the difference between leading and managing? Now, we have a model in the book, and please do, you know,

it talks about those 20 competencies and those five pillars about company development, self-development, and so on, right? So they're all there, and it's a really, really great model for leadership, and we have a tremendous, terrific assessment to measure yourself against that. Get, you know, benchmark yourself against the best of the best, and then deal with the gaps, right? We don't have to deal with them, but, you know,

at least figure out where you are in the game but I'll ask leaders what's the difference between leading and managing and and the answer is surprisingly weak most of the time so so let me give you a quick definition of those things so management is the use of directed authority and it's delegating tasks. And you've seen it a million times where someone will say, well, why don't you tell him this? Or perhaps you could do this, try this and see if that works. And even if you do it with a really good nurturing parent tonality and say, well,'t know but maybe you want to try that right that's ill managing because it's the use of directed authority and it makes it very difficult for

somebody to say actually george i'm going to go do something else right because you're the boss and you decide you know uh who gets the parking spot and what happens at the you know the next salary review so a lot of people think they're leading when all they're doing is managing with a nice tonality because it's the use of directed authority and delegating tasks. But leadership is the use of directed influence and it's delegating results.

So you don't have to micromanage everything, just lead by exception, manage by exception, lead by exception. So delegate by exception. Lead by exception. So delegate really well. So many leaders think they're great delegators. They're not. They just bark orders at people and think that's tremendous delegation, but it really isn't.

You've been talking to my employees again, huh? What's that? You've been talking to my employees again, huh? I've been barking orders at people. Well, just the ones that felt brave enough to answer my email. Off with their heads. Off with their heads, right? huh i've been barking well the ones that felt brave enough to answer my email yeah yeah alice in wonderland terrific the other thing i would then say is this last is the last point um collaboration the we've got to go from conversation, communication, coordination. We've got to get to collaboration. And if you want to know, if there's anybody watching this,

I have genuinely no axe to grind. I've got no horse in this race. Learn about how the man that saved Lego saved Lego. Everybody loves Lego. Lego were almost about to go to the wall, and then they got an outside CEO, wasn't a family guy like the Henry Ford thing, wasn't a Lego guy, saved Lego based on this principle of collaboration.

When you as a leader can set up a collaborative culture where everybody works for and everyone's trying to help everybody and and and people in the c-suite will share their resources with other people i saw a great example not too long ago there was a company whose sales were a little bit behind and so therefore logistics was a little behind you know they were a bit quieter than they would have been and the guy that heads up logistics said to the sales guy hey listen things are a bit quiet for us at the moment. I've got eight men. I can give you five.

If I gave you five of my men, what could they do to help the sales function to get us all busy again, all the marketing function? And that's collaboration where it's like, how can I help you? And how can we share resources? And all that silos, let's break down all of that kind of BS. So learn what the difference is between leading and managing manage by exception and and generate

a collaborative culture and and you'll do better there you go that and i i know the stories you're talking about with lego in fact the collaboration with the lego movie people people and how they did that that helped really re-explode, re-ignite the brand is an amazing story in and of itself. And they literally gave them free reigns to do whatever, but the collaboration they used to

get them to communicate and incorporate the brand into those movies that just made them just such a huge success and revitalize them was an amazing story as well. So this has been really insightful. Excellent. I'm sorry, Chris,

go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. There you go, Antonio. This is really insightful. We could, we can spend another three hours going through your book,

but we want people to buy it. I mean, he's not people. You got to go buy the book to get the deets. As the kids say, I don't know if the kids say that i just made it up there you go so antonio thank you very much for coming on the show give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs please yeah so it's all the w's my daily leadership.com and you can find my daily leadership the book on amazon if you download the audio.

It's me narrating it. If you want to hear my jokes in my accent, then give that a whirl, too, if you want to. But whatever it is, the five-star review on Amazon would be very much appreciated. There you go. And what's the best way to people that are interested in working with you, maybe having you coach them or give them some advice? What's the best way for them to reach out to you? Yeah. And genuinely,

please do. So it's Antonio at my daily leadership.com. So it's A N T O N I O Antonio at my daily leadership.com. And I promise within 72 hours, somebody more than likely me because Alice will kill me. Otherwise, if I don't, but I will get back to you personally and see how I can help

there you go well thank you Antonio for coming on the show thanks to my audience for tuning in order the book where refined books are sold as we teased out there's a whole mess of stuff we didn't even get to cover in the show or touch on because it's just jam packed with data and information

to make you a better leader August 30th 2022 it came out my daily leadership a powerful roadmap for leadership success and uh like i said order it where fine books are sold uh also uh guilt and shame time uh for the plugs go to goodreads.com fortunes chris foss refer to your family and friends five-star review on itunes uh linkedin.com fortunes chris fossie chris voss uh chris voss one on tiktok and i think youtube is in there as well thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time