The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 560: Dr. Barry Posner - Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Encourage Others to Act (The Leadership Challenge)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com to pre-order our new book, The Score That Matters. Once there, you will find pre-order bonuses to take advantage of. If you are curious to learn about why a strong purpose beats a good plan, Why being the greatest is a mirage, how to navigate the tricky art of building trust, or how to fight the poison of comparison, and why and how to create your ethos. Then I think you're going to love our book, The Score That Matters.

Starting point is 00:00:49 Go to learningleader.com to order it now. Now, on to our featured leader, Dr. Gary Posner, chair of the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University Levy School of Business, where he's worked for 47 years. He's the best-selling author of many books, including The Truth About Leadership and the Leadership Challenge, which is in its seventh edition. Amazing. During this conversation, we discuss the four characteristics of the world's most admired

Starting point is 00:01:26 leaders. How we could become more forward. looking leaders and then why dealing with challenges is the crucible for excellent leadership. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with the great Dr. Barry Posner. Dr. Barry Posner, great to have you here on the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome. Thanks, Ryan. Glad to be here. You are certainly qualified to answer a question that I love to ask. And that is, over the course of your career, you've surrounded yourself with amazing leaders. You've studied it.

Starting point is 00:02:03 You've done as much or more research than just about anybody out there. I'm curious from your perspective, Barry, what have you found to be some of the commonalities among leaders who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time? That answer your question, it's really the beginning of how we go about asking people to think about themselves as leaders, people who are the clearest about who they are. That's really where leadership begins. It begins with being clear about who you are, what's important to you, what your values, are. And that foundation is the foundation that enables you to sustain a lifetime of contributions

Starting point is 00:02:40 and avoid some of the hypocrisy that happens when you're not very clear. When you sort of say one thing and do something else, and people call you on that, and you call yourself on that, or you find slippery paths that cause you to veer off of the things that are really important. When I'm working with teenagers to senior citizens, the first question, Ryan, is always about, so who are you and what's important to you and why is that important to you? And we teach our first year students, a class year in leadership. And the question I asked them, three months out of high school, 18 years of age. So what's going to be your legacy? Not that I expect them to have an answer that's going to last them for the next 50 years or 60 years, but I want them to

Starting point is 00:03:25 start thinking about living their lives forward. And that gets back to, I think, to people who making the most difference are the people who are living their lives forward. Do you think it's uncommon for people to be clear, to have core values, to set that foundation and live by it? Well, I think everybody has core values. What's unusual is for people to be clear about them. You and I, we all have values and we operate on those values. The question is, are we intentional? Are we sort of use the phrase consciously competent? Do we understand? I mean, there's a lot of people who are unconsciously competent and good for them.

Starting point is 00:04:08 But the ones that really make a difference are the ones that are consciously competent. They are clear about what they're trying to accomplish and they're forthright in doing that. So let's say there's somebody who is an unconscious competent. It's hard for them to be aware of that. But let's just play with me here. But they want to be a more, they want to be a conscious competent. They're like, yeah, I like that, Barry. That makes sense.

Starting point is 00:04:30 I need to be better about it. I need to develop more self-awareness. I need to get more clear on what my values actually are because I obviously have them, but I'm not quite sure what they are. What are some ways for someone to get clear on that? So some of the things to do is to kind of review your past. Think about the events in your life and the decisions that you've already made. And think about why you made those.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Think about how you could try and connect the dots. And when you try to do that kind of even in a lifeline, trying to think about my life and my ups and day. downs in my life. What have been some common themes? Some people don't even like the word values. And so I'd say, what have been some common themes in your life? I always find myself wanting to make things better than they are. Or I always want to try to get the maximum enjoyment out of whatever it is that I'm doing, whatever they might be, finding those threads that allow you then to sort of see, ah, that's where I've been. And that's the trajectory that I'd like to continue to go on.

Starting point is 00:05:30 If you just even think about it this way, Ryan, the people who live the longest are the people who have something that they're looking forward to. When you have nothing left to live for, well, you have nothing left to live for. And therefore, get out of the way. And oftentimes, that's exactly what happens. What are you looking forward to? These days, I ask the question about happiness. I ask about my happiness and the ways in which I've made other people happy. And happy takes on a lot of different dimensions.

Starting point is 00:05:58 I mean, happy could be, a business sense, we made a profit today, we got a new customer. A student came up to me and said, this or that. But it's a sense for me, as I've kind of lived my life now, I think about how I've always been trying to be in service to others. How do I use myself as a teacher, as a writer, as an individual, as a father, as a spouse? How do I use myself to make other people happy, better? and that's very consistent with all the stuff that's been written about servant leadership, but it's really also the basis of why would anybody want to follow you? And they want to follow you because following you would make them better than not following you.

Starting point is 00:06:42 Being in a relationship with you makes them better off than not being in a relationship with you. And where are we to talk about intimacy, that's what love is all about. This person loves me, even though I'm not always right. I'm not always beautiful. I'm not always funny. I'm not always as nice as I could be. But love transcends all of that. Have you always felt that way, or does it evolve over time? My consciousness has evolved over time. But I can think back, was in an undergraduate class recently, and they asked me a similar question, Ryan said, so where did this all begin? I'm a first-generation college student. My parents owned a shoe store in a small town in Southern California. and after school daycare for me and my brother was going to the store and sitting in the back doing

Starting point is 00:07:31 our homework, to we got old enough to stock the shelves, to we got old enough to write sales tickets or make change, or eventually to actually serve customers. And I think my sense of serving others is a part of customer service. I learned people came into the store and they didn't come in to I mean, they came in to buy shoes, but they didn't come in to make my family rich. They came in because they thought that there was something we had that would make them better. And so I think I learned about leadership first by learning about customer service. I've read that one of the questions you like to ask leaders is, when have you been at your personal best as a leader?

Starting point is 00:08:20 Why is that one of the questions that's important to you? Well, it's been important because it's been such a rich way to understand, you know, what we sometimes call now best practices. And when my colleague Jim Kuzis and I began working on leadership back in the early 1980s, we heard a lot about the Olympics and people getting their personal best. And we adopted that kind of notion to ask people, so tell us about a time. you've been at your personal best. As a leader,

Starting point is 00:08:52 and we continue to ask that question. And what we find is that's when people can become more conscious about what were the things that they were doing that made a difference. And they go, ah, I know I was doing, I was building a team. I was over-communicating. I was making sure that I didn't ask anybody to do something. I wasn't willing to do myself. And from that research, we continue to find a pattern that suggests that these are

Starting point is 00:09:19 behaviors that people, when they're at their best, when they're at their best, they do these things. And so now, in our workshops and seminars and in our writing, we're sort of saying so, these are the behaviors that matter. They don't explain everything because we're all special and unique. But if you want to kind of have a high probability of success, then you want to treat people with dignity and respect. You want to demonstrate that you have confidence in other people. abilities. You want to make sure you don't take people for granted. You want to speak about the higher purpose and meaning in the work that we're doing. And those statements, for example, have a universal appeal. It doesn't make a difference whether last week I'm talking to a group via this medium

Starting point is 00:10:08 in Shanghai. And I'm saying the same kind of thing. It doesn't make a difference whether you're Chinese or British or African or American. For example, nobody wants to be taken for granted. How we appreciate and recognize people, it's going to be different for every person, every culture, every situation. In the same way that I recognize and appreciate my seven-year-old grandson, it's going to be different than how I recognize my 40-year-old daughter. Or I won't even tell you how old my wife is, but the point is each one of them wants to know that I respect them and I appreciate who they are and what they're doing. It feels like you help unlock things in people by using great questions. What are some of your other favorite questions to use to help unlock them?

Starting point is 00:10:58 One of the things that we've asked that I think is interesting, we've been asking people for a number of years, Ryan, what are the personal values, traits, and characteristics you look for in someone that you'd be willing to follow as a leader and willing to follow as a leader? And we've been collecting that data for, again, four decades. in lots of different situations, lots of different industries, lots of different people. And what we find is that there are four characteristics that seem to be important, no matter your circumstances, no matter your time or your place. And so the most important one is honesty. We want to follow people who we can trust.

Starting point is 00:11:37 I always remind people that not everybody is trustworthy, but we know that if this is your level of motivation and then you find out that someone has lied to you, what happens? But we want to be in a relationship with somebody that we can count on. We want to be in a relationship with somebody that we think is, in our studies, we find that we use the word competent, smart, intelligent, experience, knows what he or she is doing. And again, a few of us would want to listen to somebody who we thought was incompetent, didn't know what they were talking about.

Starting point is 00:12:10 And sometimes they're our boss, and we have to follow them, but we don't put all of our energy into doing what they've asked, because we're not confident that they know what they're talking about. And so maybe we won't go too far down that path on our own just because they said so. Another thing that's important for what people say they look for in leaders is they look for somebody. We use the word inspiring. But again, you can think about some synonyms, energetic, enthusiastic. Again, you can only imagine, Ryan, in the hundreds of interviews that you've done,

Starting point is 00:12:42 the ones they have the most meaning to them are the ones in which the presenter has some energy, has some excitement, has some enthusiasm for what it is that they're talking about. In the same way that we don't like to take a class from somebody that's, I don't come into my classroom and saying, hey, I don't know about you, but I'm really tired today. And so I might not have a lot of energy. So it's contagious. And so we'd like to be with people who are inspiring. The word inspire literally means to breathe life into.

Starting point is 00:13:10 It's the opposite of expire. So how do we breathe life into? How do we get people excited? And part of that is because we're excited. excited ourselves. And finally, people want in someone that they're willing to follow. They want somebody, we use the term forward-looking, which you can think about it as they have a sense of the future. They have a vision. They have a burning agenda. They have a passion. See, leaders are all about the future. They're all about thinking about how things could be better

Starting point is 00:13:38 than they are today. And so that's what inspires us. When I was in high school, it was maybe just okay to say to my parents would say, so where are you going? I could just say out. I didn't really just go out. Well, as you get older, you want to do something more than just go out. You want to go, so what are you going to do? And so we want to follow people who want to do something. And of course, we're going to remember again that once you have a point of view, you're going to lose some votes. People are going to say, well, that's what you want to do. That's not where I want to go. Okay. But in a political sense, small P, you don't need 100% of the votes in order to be elected. You just need one more than the other party. Or, as Margaret

Starting point is 00:14:21 Mead would say, never underestimate what a small minority of people can do to change the world. So these four characteristics. And there's other things that people want, but these four seem to top the list no matter what country we're in, what ethnicity we asked the question, what gender. Those things don't make a difference. We want people who are honest, competent, four looking and inspiring. When we started this study, Ryan, we literally asked 6,000 managers across the United States, just what are the personal values, traits, and characteristics you look for? And they could say anything that they wanted. And then we put these together. And long answer here, but let me go just a little bit further to tell you what we discovered in trying to understand what these four characteristics

Starting point is 00:15:06 mean, we were looking for a theory. Our research was initially, descriptive. But we were looking for a theory, and the theory that we found that helped to explain this data was what social psychologists had discovered, communication experts had discovered, political scientists had discovered, and they used the term credibility. Why do we believe some people more than others? Why do we vote for some people more than others? Why do we follow the advice of some weather forecasters more than others. And the theory of credibility suggests that we believe other people because we find them trustworthy. We believe that they have expertise and that they're dynamic. And all of a sudden, we kind of put these things together and said, okay,

Starting point is 00:15:57 honest and trustworthy, dynamic and inspiring, competent and expertise. And the difference between a a credible individual and someone that we'd be willing to follow, they have a point of view. They want to go someplace. So we often say that really the foundation upon which your leadership is built upon your credibility. You think about the word credibility, and its root is the word credo, beliefs. So you build this whole foundation upon a set of beliefs and then your ability to live those beliefs. I get this sense, Barry, from talking to you, and I've studied your work for a very long time.

Starting point is 00:16:39 You seem as excited and as enthusiastic about it now as you ever have. Yes. That's really cool. I think that's amazing. You think maybe after a while, like, I'm kind of tired. I've been doing this for a long time. Maybe I want to get into something else, but it's like, no, I'm in this path. I'm still teaching. I'm still doing it. I'm still right. I'm still here. And to me, that's inspiring. That's exciting that you are as juiced up about this now as maybe you've ever been. Thanks. One of my criticisms to some of my colleagues who have done some great writing is that they never write a second edition, they never write a third edition, they never take what they've done and stick with it and sort of say, well, I wrote this book in 1985 or

Starting point is 00:17:18 95 or 2015, but is it over? If it was useful then, is it still useful now? And if it is, you should keep working on it. I mean, we just published earlier this year, the seventh edition of the Leadership Challenge. And Jim and I just finished writing the fourth edition of the student version of the Leadership Challenge. And we keep asking people to tell us about times they've been at their personal best. And Ryan, they inspire us. Their stories inspire us and convince us that we didn't just make this up. We're just literally holding up a mirror and saying, hey, you tell me about what it takes to be at your personal best, and I'll mirror it back to you. And now that you know that, the question is, I like to say, would you like to be even more effective? I'm not saying

Starting point is 00:18:07 you're not effective now, but even more effective. And you can be more effective going from unconscious competency to an intentionality, to really thinking about what's really important and in making sure that you do those things. That's very one of the questions I'm asked, since I've asked it so much when I'm out speaking or whatever is, what have you found to be the commonalities among leaders who sustain excellence? The first thing that usually pops into my mind after getting so many answers, hundreds and hundreds of that question answered is from people that are amazing to have done great things, is two things, thoughtful and intentional.

Starting point is 00:18:40 These people take time to reflect, to think. They know themselves very well. They develop a comfort in their own skin because of how much work they've done on themselves. and then each action has intentionality behind it. They're not just wandering around, hoping for the best. They've thought about it. They've reflected on it. They've analyzed what works, what doesn't.

Starting point is 00:19:02 They've talked to a lot of people and asked a lot of questions. They've been driven by their curiosity. And then when they make a decision, when they act, it's with deep intention based on all of those thoughts. And I get a sense that's you and that's the people that you've, been around who have done really well over time, have that thoughtfulness, curiosity, humility to ask questions, as well as then that when they decide to act, they move with intention. I think that what we found, what many people have told us is just asking the question.

Starting point is 00:19:40 Tell us about a time you've been at your personal best. And for those of us that are listening, those people who are listening to this conversation, I hope we're beginning to think about, well, what is my personal best leadership? experience. And what was I doing in that experience? And if those were the things that made that my personal best, how are those reflected in my life going forward? And how could I maybe do those more? And if that's the case, Ryan, then you achieve exactly what you were describing, you know, people who also are kind of curious about what's going on around them. How can you be forward-looking? I mean, who knows the future? No one knows it with perfect certainty and all kinds of

Starting point is 00:20:20 unexpected stuff happens. And yet, we can all get a sense of the future by thinking about the past being the prologue to the future, as well as the sense that there's all kinds of clues around us right now, things that are going on. Jim and I tell a story. We wrote our second book called Credibility in the late 1980s. I was on sabbatical at the University of Western Australia, and Jim was here in California. And we were exchanging files through something then called ARPANET, kind of a university government kind of file sharing. And we thought it was really cool and it helped us to put this book together despite the miles we were apart. But had we been more thoughtful than Jim Coosers and Barry Posner could have invented the internet. It was right there. We were doing it. We just

Starting point is 00:21:14 didn't recognize. My whole life would be different. But the same thing is happening today. There's stuff going on. And I think one of the things I was saying to this undergraduate class recently, I said, I hope that when you graduate, you'll continue to be curious. You won't somehow assume that you got your graduate degree or you got your MBA and now those are terminal degrees. Now everything you need to know. Back to who are the people I admire the most as leaders. They are the ones that have those characteristics you mentioned, they are curious, which makes them open to new information, and humble, which also makes them realize that however smart they are, they don't know everything. And in fact, the people I most admire as leaders, I would say, are some of the

Starting point is 00:22:03 most humble people. I could go on and on about how great I think they are or the things that they've accomplished or the books that they've written. We did some writing on courage for a while. It shows up in one of our books called A Leader's Legacy. But when we were trying to understand what it meant to be courageous, we asked for nomination. So tell us about somebody that you know that is exercise courage and tell us a little bit about the situation. We'll go talk to them. And when we talked to those people, what we found was that they did not see themselves as courageous. They saw themselves as doing something that had to be done.

Starting point is 00:22:41 I could not live with myself. if I didn't talk back to the boss when he or she said this or that. I've been preparing all my life as a firefighter to enter a burning building. That didn't take courage. That's what I've been preparing myself to do. Sure, it was a dangerous situation for Barry, but not for me. This is what I have to do. And it was an interesting revelation to think about courage and leadership then.

Starting point is 00:23:08 That's just something that you prepare yourself, that this is something that you just believe needs to be done. and it kind of compels you to take action. One of my favorite stories about you, you're in the middle of responding to an audience question. And you said, I don't know what you call something that's been the same for 25 years. And Ken Blancher, leadership legend, been on this podcast. I love Ken, said, I'd call it the truth. And you wrote a book called The Truth About Leadership.

Starting point is 00:23:35 And I like to hit on a few of those if you'd like. And maybe we can riff on a couple of them, if you're good, Barry. Sure. So my background is in team sports prior to doing this, played in high school college and a little bit after college. I played football as a quarterback. And so I know the benefit of being surrounded by 10 other guys in the huddle by a good defense to help me out by good special teams, great coaching staff. And number five is you can't do it alone. Leadership is a team sport.

Starting point is 00:24:03 What strengthens and sustains the relationship between leader and constituent is that leaders are obsessed with what is best for other. not just what's best for themselves. Can you talk more about leadership being a team sport? Sure. I don't know if in your background preparation, I did a TED talk a few years ago. I made two points. I said, one is you matter. You are important and you can't do it alone.

Starting point is 00:24:33 But nothing great ever happens all by yourself. And part of what the paradox for leaders is that leaders, that leaders turn their followers into leaders. Football is a great example. It's that offensive lineman who, you know, who makes a key block that lets the running back cut through and make 10 yards. And we focus on the running back, typically, as a person who did this. But the running back goes back and says to the lineman, thank you. I couldn't have done this. I couldn't have done this without you. Or at least they should do that, yes. I think the good ones do. They do. You're right. They definitely do. And I think sometimes we don't appreciate enough in the world of work that it's a team

Starting point is 00:25:17 sport because it's not, nobody's taping the play. You can't see later. The fact is that I made this sale because somebody designed, just did a great job on marketing this product. They did a great job. And so when I went to the customer was already primed to buy this thing, and I go, well, I must be a great salesperson, as opposed to the marketing people, the designers, the engineers, all those other people who put this product together that enabled me to go out and sell it. And I think that goes back to our notion about humility of understanding that none of us is as good as we think we are and none of us is as bad as we think we are. Well, nobody's self-made. That's why I like words. I want to use proper words and language is important to me. When I see the list of like,

Starting point is 00:26:05 youngest self-made billionaire. It's like, that's crazy talk. That person may be smart and they may have worked hard. Maybe they were lucky. Maybe not probably, certainly, if they're a billionaire, there is luck along the way for all of us, definitely for some like that. But there's no chance they're self-made. They're just not.

Starting point is 00:26:24 Like, even if they didn't inherit a single penny and they grew up in a rough home, they're community made. My friend Jason Gannert always says that we're all community made. And we can be intentioned about surrounding ourselves with the right people. that's good on us by doing that. But nobody's self-made. I think that's just a crazy statement to use. We're all community made, whether that's good or bad, we're influenced so heavily by our teammates that we should regularly recognize that. Yeah, absolutely. It takes a village, just like with a great coach. If the team wins, the team played well. If the team loses, I'm the coach. It's my fault.

Starting point is 00:26:58 Same we're quarterbacks, right? Quarterback gets so much credit, and they're the one there. It was like drilled into us by my great high school coaches. I remember, hey, when we lose, it's on you. When we win, it's because of your offensive linements, it's because of your defense, because your receivers, right? It was just like drilled into us, but it's also true. You're able to throw that touchdown pass because they blocked and because he caught the ball. And your running backs picked up the blitzer. You had kind of the easy part of it, of dropping back and just throwing the ball. Those guys get none of that recognition. They don't get any stats for picking up the blitzer or blocking. but if they didn't do it, you're on your back.

Starting point is 00:27:36 And I think that's a great reminder that you need them. Because you also do feel those times when you are on your back and you're like, God, I need those guys. I need them. I'm going to do whatever I can to love on them to take care of them and to show them how much I appreciate them and credit them when things go well. That's a good learning ground for life as a leader beyond sports because that's the way teams work in all of business is that we need each other.

Starting point is 00:28:01 Absolutely. We talk about five practices that lead to extraordinary leadership. Model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart. And of those five practices, we wrote a book called Encouraging the Heart because we felt it was one of the things that was least understood. And our conversation, Ryan, reminds me that it's absolutely important to make sure that people feel valued for who they are and for what they do and how they make it. possible for others to be successful. And that builds that sense of community, that sense of all for one and one for all. And so when anybody wins, we all win. And that's the reason that no matter where you are in an organization, everybody's got to feel that what they're doing makes a

Starting point is 00:28:52 difference. And if you're the frontline receptionist or you're the division manager or you're in facilities, what you do makes a difference. This past summer, I did an in-service for a school district here in the Bay Area, and we were talking about this. And one fellow raises his hand, he says, is Barry, I know exactly what you're talking about. He said, because he said, my group, he said, my group, I don't know who these people are. My group, he says, is the most important group in this organization in this school district. And I know he's not the school superintendent or the principal, but I don't. So I say, so, so what is it that you do? He says, well, I'm in charge of the buses. And if we don't get the kids to school, then it doesn't make a difference. How good the food in the

Starting point is 00:29:41 cafeteria is, how great the teachers are, the library staff. None of that stuff makes a difference. We don't get them to school. You want everybody in that organization, you want everybody to feel that what they're doing. We don't feed the kids right. They're not going to be able to learn. If we don't keep the classrooms clean and safe and sanitary, it's not going to work. No matter what it is that you're doing, a high-performing organization, everybody feels like they're a leader in the sense that what they do makes a difference. What they do matters. And gosh, if that's the way you feel, it seems naturally then that you would put your heart, not just your head in your hands, but you put your heart into what it is that you're doing.

Starting point is 00:30:25 Now, Daysberry, one of the things that gets me down every once in a while is when I hear friends that work at big companies, maybe they work in sales or whatever, and they're not at the top of the company. Maybe they're a native is a contributor or a mid-level manager, and they're like, our leaders, I'm not inspired by them. I'm not motivated them. So I'm going to keep working and kind of do what I do. And then if I find something better, I'm going to go.

Starting point is 00:30:49 And that just bums me out when I hear that because that's no way to like kind of go through life. But it's it is the reality for some people. And so sometimes they're like, you don't live in the real world with what you get to do and just talk to people and teach and share and go speak. And I go, yeah, I guess because I think you could tell I love this stuff so much like talking to brilliant people like you who've been heroes of mine. So what do you say to those who like at times are like, hey, I got to. pretty good job. It pays me pretty well. My boss isn't very good. I'm not inspired by the leaders, but yeah, whatever. I'm going to do it until I find the next thing. What do you think about people who are in that moment right now? I'm sad. Yeah. Me too. I was the dean at the Levy School of

Starting point is 00:31:31 Business. I'm now my fourth year as the department chair. We got together at Thanksgiving here, and most of the people, the oldest, all the people in my family, most of them have retired by now. And when I ask them, and they ask me why I'm not, I say, well, I love what I'm doing. I really like what I'm doing. And then they talk about how they couldn't wait to retire because they didn't like what they were doing. And I agree, Ryan, that's sad. So here's a couple of things. One of the positive things from the pandemic was that it really provided people an opportunity to ask the question, what brings you joy? And are you doing something that brings you joy? And if not, as we found, a great kind of resignation, a whole bunch of people changed jobs, a whole bunch of

Starting point is 00:32:19 people figured out that they'd like to be doing something else, that they'd be willing to make some compromises, perhaps on salary or location, to be able to serve a different population, to provide a different set of services. And I think that what we're reading today is that is that more and more people are really willing to find meaning and purpose in what they're doing, not just a job. For some of us, we're just in a job. So what do I say to those folks? I say, where is it that you could experiment?

Starting point is 00:32:51 Where is it that you could play around? Where is it that you could express yourself a little bit? Maybe it's just one or two or three or four, maybe it's just five percent of your job. Where's a customer you could have more fun with? Where's a product that you could tweak a little bit? You go to bed thinking about and wake up thinking about. Honestly, Barry, I'm not just saying this because you're here.

Starting point is 00:33:09 Last time I went to bed thinking about this conversation, and I woke up thinking about it. That's how excited I get about to us. I had a meeting recently with my financial advisor. I know what I'm about to say is not realistic for everybody, but maybe a part of it could be. And he said, what normally they'd say is, okay, everything's looking good. We're all good. What date?

Starting point is 00:33:26 What date you look into retire? Like, what age? What do you think? And I said, never. What do you mean? I'm doing exactly what I want to do every day for the most part. Will I slow down and maybe stop doing some of the stuff? Yeah, sure.

Starting point is 00:33:38 But never. And he's like, huh, what do you mean? I'm like, why would I stop? If you're doing what you want to do, why would you stop? And to me, it was a kind of an enlightening moment from his eyes. And then to me, because he's like, dude, that's awesome. That's what he said to me. And I said, I know, man, I work really hard at it.

Starting point is 00:33:55 But that is possible. And I also, Barry, it's funny, you said that what could you do with experiments? I did this for three plus years where I lost money and had a real job. You know, that I worked full time at that real job. And did this like nights, weekends, lunches, early mornings, whatever. to try to get good at before went full go. So that's another way. Like, it is possible even if you have a real job that it wasn't a bad job.

Starting point is 00:34:19 Actually, it was a pretty good job. I liked it. It supported my family. It was great. But it wasn't necessarily a thing that I'd want to do forever. And I think it is possible, but it doesn't just happen. You have to make it happen. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:31 What's amazing is that there's some people, if you look at the people who are volunteering as little league coaches, who are referees for soccer games, I mean, so sometimes your trade work is a thing that allows you to do some of those other things that you really, you know. Absolutely. You can't make a life being a little league coach. But this job then enables you to be able to have the time to be able to do something like that. In this case, a group of kids on a sport that you love, or it's the scouts, or it's a community organization. And I know that there's some people that sometimes you're making a tradeoff.

Starting point is 00:35:09 We did a study years ago for a national volunteer organization. And what we found was that the people who were interesting enough, the people who were most committed to the organization were those that had the opportunity to provide leadership. They felt like they could innovate. They felt like that people were listening to them when they came up with ideas. And so part of our advice back to the organization was to continue to find those opportunities to listen to people.

Starting point is 00:35:42 Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize winning scientist, won the Nobel Prize twice, when asked about how do you get good ideas? He said, well, it's quite easy. He'd have lots of ideas, law of large numbers. So what we want to try to do in an organization or as an individual leader is you want to get, you want to get lots of ideas from people. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're all going to be good. But the more ideas you get, the better the opportunity that one of them really,

Starting point is 00:36:09 could be good. It could be tweaked in such a way that it's going to be a good idea. Speaking of that, truth number nine, the best leaders are the best learners. Leaders are constant improvement fanatics, and learning is the master skill of leadership. I feel like you embody this, but that's why I named this podcast, the Learning Leader Show, because my favorite coaches, my favorite teachers, my favorite bosses, we're learning and are learning leaders. Can you share more about truth number nine and the fact that the best leaders are the best learners? It goes back to our comment about humility, about that sense of being open. I mean, that's what learning is all about. Learning happens when you have an opportunity to do

Starting point is 00:36:55 something that you didn't already know how to do. And part of what happens in that is having the courage to make a mistake. And of course, one of the things that happens to too many of us, in the maturation process, become mature, we become adults and we somehow believe that we can't make a mistake or we believe that a mistake would be fatal, although they would kill me if I tried that. Well, just try a little one.

Starting point is 00:37:21 Don't try it with your biggest customer. Try it with your smallest customer. Try it one-on-one. Don't do it in a big group. See how this happens. Every famous comedian doesn't use the biggest stage to try out new stuff. They find small clubs

Starting point is 00:37:36 and try out some lines to see what happens. Martin Luther King, I have a dream. We heard that in August of 1963, but he had already been talking about that dream for months in small churches and in small community gatherings and found that idea of a dream kind of resonated with his audience.

Starting point is 00:37:56 And on the big stage then that day, he shared with everybody this dream that he had. It's funny about that speech because it wasn't in the actual, I talked to George Ravling, who actually has the speech because he was working security that day. And it's not written on the paper, but a lady in the front row who had heard him speak at one of those smaller gathering said, Martin, tell her about the dream.

Starting point is 00:38:16 Tell about the dream, Martin. And he heard her and actually started back into that because he knew how it resonated and he was able to adjust. But that's what's inspiring about it because you tell, like he believed it with everything. He had love for it and was so passionate about it. And that's why I think it created so many followers. There's so many people who speak and communicate with teams and want to almost influence and create a movement, we can learn from people like that because they've put everything they've got into it. And I know that's the 10th Truth is the affair of the heart. And we've talked about that.

Starting point is 00:38:49 But it's so true. I'm going to hit one more truth before we run, Barry. We might have to do a round two because there's so much good stuff here. But that is about challenge and that the seventh truth is that challenge is the crucible for greatness. Great achievements don't happen when you keep things. the same change invariably involves challenge and challenge test you. I think this one's so good because when it comes to leading, there's always going to be things that adversity strikes all the time. We don't know exactly what it's going to be. We just know that it's going to happen. And the

Starting point is 00:39:21 best leaders, they're the ones who step up when it's really hard, when something we didn't necessarily prepare for happens, but we're there, right? We're right there right in to think of it with our teams. Can you talk more about the fact that challenges the crucible for greatness? When we ask people to tell us about times they've been at their personal best, Ryan, more than half the people tell us about times that they didn't necessarily choose. You didn't say, oh, I think I'll do something great here. As you said, something happened. And all of a sudden, the machine went down on their shift. The tsunami happened on their shift. The customer complained in their region.

Starting point is 00:40:06 I mean, it wasn't something, or their boss said there's this problem and I think you should do something about it and you go, I never did anything like that before. Well, this is your chance. It's not like we're all running into burning buildings. There are no shortage of opportunities today for leadership to make a difference. The world's crying out. In fact, you know, you ask HR people and senior executives. What's the most important issue these days? It's about leadership development and it's about

Starting point is 00:40:36 developing your bent strength. Challenge, we say, is the crucible for greatness because we're talking about, you know, it's boring? Boring is doing the same thing over and over and over again. And it's hard to get any better. Einstein said something to the effective. Insanity is the notion that you can do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. So if something's not working or you think it could be better than it is today, then it's a requirement that you have to do something different. I think it's also important to recognize that a learning curve doesn't look like this. Learning curve looks like this. Microsoft comes out with a new version of word or something, and then your productivity goes down

Starting point is 00:41:23 before it's going to go up. So we have to be willing to kind of understand that most innovations are failures in the middle. we've got to believe that somehow things could be better and that we can work it out. And the truth is, even when people tell us about their personal best, there are still setbacks and disappointments, but it's their belief that somehow this thing could be better that inspires them, compels them, motivates them, drives them forward and says, no, we've got to continue with this. One of the questions that's on our leadership, inventory that I think is really important is this one, to what extent does your leader ask the

Starting point is 00:42:06 question? What can we learn when things don't go as expected? When we look at when people, direct reports are asked that question, how frequently does your supervisor do that? And then we ask them, do you trust your supervisor? Do you feel motivated to work hard here? Do you feel like that you're proud to say you're part of this organization? There is just such a strong association with being in a learning organization, a learning environment, working for somebody who believes that you can be better because they give you a chance to be better. You want to kill innovation, tell people,

Starting point is 00:42:43 well, I want you to get it right the first time. I remember in the middle of the pandemic, like right as it was like people were scared, lockdowns, all that was happening. I was meeting by Leadership Circle members on Zoom and I said, this is the time. These are leaders that are a mastermind group, I've formed that are from all over the world, different levels of leadership.

Starting point is 00:43:03 This is the time that we're needed most. This is the time we step up the most because it's never fully easy to lead, but it is easier to lead when everything's going fine, everything's going well. In sports, it's easy to be the leader when you're winning by 40 points at half time, right? Anybody can lead and be the captain. When you're really needed, when we really have to be there is when we're losing or when it's hard, when there's uncertainty, when people are scale. That's when we're most needed.

Starting point is 00:43:31 That's when we have to step up. And so I think we always have to be prepared for whatever that adversity is going to be. We know what's happening. We know it's going to have. We don't know exactly what it's going to be, but we always have to be overly prepared for how we're going to respond as leaders when it does because they're watching. They need us. And I think that's one of the biggest things about it is the fact that we have to be ready

Starting point is 00:43:55 for those tough times because that's when they need us the most. Yeah, what we can anticipate, Ryan, is that a plan looks great before we start. And then leadership, if you will, is managing the variance against the plan. Yep, exactly. I'm curious. One last question. Let's say you're meeting with a student who has graduated. Maybe they're graduated with a graduate degree or whatever.

Starting point is 00:44:18 They're early 20s. So they're well-educated. They want to do good in the world. But they're not 100% sure of what they want to do, which is very normal for a person that age. definitely for me. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to them? I suggest a couple things. One is that they should remain curious. And in fact, they have the cover right now is that you're not expected to know everything. So take advantage of that. When you're 40 or 50 or 60, people, it's going to be harder perhaps to say, well, I don't have much experience with

Starting point is 00:44:47 this. They go, what do you mean? You've got 20 years of experience. I don't have a lot of experience with this. So be curious. Ask a lot of questions. It's amazing how much people will be willing to help you if you ask. And the research also suggests that people who ask questions are actually considered to be smarter than people who don't ask questions. And our general sense is kind of counterintuitive. Like, gosh, if I ask a question, my boss is going to think, I'm not very smart. If you ask a question, particularly when it's coming from, I'd really like to understand more about how this works. I'd like to understand how you learned this. I'd like to understand how I could have done this better.

Starting point is 00:45:29 So being curious, asking questions, looking for ways to volunteer. One of the ways that this is particularly true, I was saying to, again, our college students, it's great while you're in college, your instructor, your boss, your leader, gives you a syllabus, gives you a set of assignments, gives you a rubric about how you get, you know, what you have to do to get certain grades. In the workplace, your boss is not going to do that. And if all you do is your job description, you're going to get meets expectations. If you want to get ahead, you're going to have to do things that aren't in your job description. And volunteering is a wonderful opportunity to do that, to push yourself out of your comfort zone,

Starting point is 00:46:09 to increase your network, to maybe find that there's other things that you like to do more than you're, you don't really like accounting so much, but you really like working in philanthropy. And the accounting firm's got a big philanthropy kind of, you know, group. And so you can kind of move, move to that area and see where that takes you. So those are just some of the things I encourage people. Be proactive. When I see great organizations, they have people who have their day jobs, but they're doing extra stuff. They're like, oh, they're good photographer.

Starting point is 00:46:39 Or they're the one who runs this training or they're the one who does that. I'm like, is that part of their job? No, they just took it on. And like, that person is so valuable to the organization. They take on extra stuff because they're passionate. about it. They want to help. They want to make the team better. They're proactive. And I think that is a great trait to develop. As a person who's led within corporate America, it's okay to have people who just kind of wait and do what you tell them to do. It's just okay. They're the meets expectations

Starting point is 00:47:05 ones. But I love it. I love the ones who proactively mentor others, ask to lead trainings about a specific thing that's hard that they figured out more so than others. Like being proactive will really get you ahead. Man, Barry, this flew by. I love this. I highly recommend all Barry's books. As you said, seventh edition of the Leadership Challenge you just finished. So it's iterated and updated and better. I love the truth about leadership too. Another great one of the books you've written so much out there. This was fantastic. I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. This is great. Okay. We'll throw me another pass. We'll try to score another touchdown.

Starting point is 00:47:43 What extra thing? I just remember this. One note about people who have sustained excellence, They, this may be weird. They respond quickly to things, which you'd think they'd be so busy they're not able to. I think I sent you a cold email and you responded in less than an hour. And it's amazing how many very busy, high caliber, excellent leaders respond quickly to things. It's wild. So many of them are quick responders, whether it's to friends and text messages or emails from a random dude out of the blue from the internet who emailed you. I think there's something to that, though.

Starting point is 00:48:22 They're quick responders, and that's definitely used. So I really appreciate that. All right. We'll talk more about that next time. Let's do it. Thanks so much, Barry. It is the end of the podcast club. If you're a member of the end of the podcast club, send me a note,

Starting point is 00:48:38 Ryan at Learning Leader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Dr. Barry Posner. Another reminder, go to LearningLeader.com to pre-order our new book, the score that matters. If you care about creating your values, it's interesting that Barry and I talked about this, this is a chapter in our book, The Score That Matters, tells you exactly how to create your core values, your ethos, the credo that goes along with this. It's interesting that Barry and I happen to talk about this.

Starting point is 00:49:10 So go to learning leader.com and pre-order the score that matters. Okay, a few takeaways from my notes from this conversation, the four characteristics of leaders who we most choose to follow, honest, trustworthy, they do what they say they're going to do, competent, smart, constantly learning, inspiring. They have big energy, enthusiastic. Inspire literally means to breathe life into. They're also forward-looking. They have a sense of the future.

Starting point is 00:49:37 They share a compelling vision. Next, people all have values, as I've mentioned, but we don't all know what they are. And in order to know what our values are, we must be thoughtful. intentional about them and do the reflective work to understand what we value most. And then questions to ask, whether it's yourself or others, when have you been at your personal best as a leader? And then what are the personal traits and characteristics you look for in a person you would follow?

Starting point is 00:50:09 And ultimately, we are looking for someone who is credible. As leaders, we want to be credible. And usually a credible person has a credo or beliefs. They believe in something. They can share that vision and others can get behind it. Again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show, Dr. Barry Posner. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader.

Starting point is 00:50:33 And because you continue to do that and you continue to write a review on Apple, podcast, or Spotify, or wherever you listen, and you rate the show, hopefully five stars, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love most. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk me soon. Can we?

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 560: Dr. Barry Posner - Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Encourage Others to Act (The Leadership Challenge)

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