The Ryan Leak Podcast - How To Think Like An Owner w/Brad Lomenick

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Brad Lomenick is a leadership consultant, speaker, founder of BLINC, a strategic advising company, and author of The Catalyst Leader and H3 Leadership. He writes about leadership, the next generation, creativity, innovation, social media, teamwork, and personal growth. Highlights from Episode 6: "The healthier cultures/ leaders honor each other and have the ability to have nicknames. There is a true sense of friendship, allowing leaders to have freedom to do their best."   "When you have a culture of honor, authenticity, self-awareness, and congruency, it makes working for that person fun."   "High-level followers  are curious. They have a true sense deep down within them that they are great question-askers." "Great leaders are good thinkers, which pushes them towards asking great questions."   "When you become a great leader, you ask more questions than you give answers. Your posture is more of curiosity."   "Some leaders value being intimidating. At some point, they had an intimidating  leader they are trying to outdo, model, or emulate."   "We always lead like we've been led. Unless someone breaks the cycle."   "99% of leaders who are intimidating would like you to treat them like you would anyone else who is a peer." "Rather if it was an intern or rather it was someone who had been on the team for a long time. If they had appropriately approached me with feedback that was helpful, I was incredibly open to it."   "You may not have any of the authority, no title, or position that allows you to sit at the table but, you have to have a mindset of an owner at every level."   "If your feedback is more about helping you, people see through it."   "Leaders want their teams to see what they see."   "Focus on being faithful and a good steward of your current assignment."   "Figure out how to make a bad leader a partner in your journey and how to make them better." "Don't look at your leader as someone who is against you."   "Figure out how to add value to a bad  leader."

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to followership with Ryan Leakey podcast designed to equip you with the tools you need to succeed in the workplace. Hey, regardless of what kind of leader you might have today, I want you to know that that does not have to determine the type of follower you can become. Today's episode of followership, I have a good friend of mine on named Brad Lomeneck. We had a fantastic conversation about mastering curiosity. and having an ownership mindset. Brad is an consultant. He's an author. He's a speaker.

He led a catalyst conference for a number of years, which is a premier conference that has helped develop thousands of leaders. He's so artistic, so creative. His ability to produce large events that help large groups of people is absolutely amazing. He brings leaders together better than any person I know. And so I want you to jump in to this conversation. And before we do that, I want you to know that all of the show notes, for every episode of followership can be found at ryanlake.com slash followership.

Again, that's ryanleek.com slash followership. Ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, welcome. Brad Lominee. It's a followership for Ryan Lake. You have spent more time with high-level leaders than anyone I know. And with that, I thought you would have a lot to say and a lot of perspective on this idea of followership. So, dude, first off, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be on followership today. And, man, we're excited to have you.

Listen, you have, here's the thing. about Ryan Leak that all your listeners will just amen me is that you've passed me by like years ago with your influence. No. I mean, you're all over the place, man. Listen, I'm in the shadows these days. I'm just kind of hanging out, you know, side stage, stage right, behind the stage.

That's all, but that's always, that's the brilliance of Brad Lominee. Well, it has been intentional, that's for sure, yes. Dude, it's a gift how you bring, you bring people. together. Brad consistently invites me to the most amazing trips that I've yet to say yes. And the reason I say no is, well, one, number one, one of them is in, what was it Denver? Is it in Colorado? Where is it at in Colorado? It's about two hours from Denver up in the mountains. Okay, two hours from Denver in the mountains. Okay. One time I saw pictures of this event. Okay. And I saw African Americans on horses in the wilderness, which says,

said to me, this is not for Ryan. That that's not, that's not me. And, oh, man. Listen, listen, listen, the day you do an indoor resort type of trip, I'm all in. Did you invite me to London one time? Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. You invited me to London one time. I forget why I couldn't go.

Dude, traveling a lot already, it's always just, you know, that's the challenge. It's not because I don't want to go. Well, the outdoors one, I really don't want to do that. But I want to spend time with those people and you. I just want to spend time with them in an indoor setting where there's really, really good food. Yes. That's what I was. You're a city boy.

I mean, let's be honest. 100%. City boy through and through. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. No question about it. Well, the first thing that I want to, I want to ask you is with all of the high-level leaders that you've spent time with, what have you observed about not just who they were,

but their teams that followed well? Because a lot of times when you spend time and when you currently spend time with high level leaders, you also get access to their team and you're spending time with their teams. And a lot of times you're meeting their number twos or even setting up an event with some of their strategic leaders and followers. I mean, what, what what have you noticed about high-level leaders that they do well in terms of rallying? Like that second tier, what do they do well to support their high-level leader? Yeah. It's a really good question.

I'm going to rattle off a few things. Great. The first thing I would say is there is an equal amount of honor that flows up and down between them. Hmm. And, you know, that that looks like a lot of things. But I think that, you know, sometimes hierarchy will create, we'll create honor because we're scared.

We're fearful. You know, we don't get in trouble or whatever the case is. Like when you're, when you, when you have an authority environment, you know, that will dominate. I think the healthier cultures and what I've seen with healthy leaders, especially ones that I would consider to be leaders I admire. Right. Is there was just this sense that they honored each other,

but there was also the ability for them to, you know, have a nickname or for there to be a closeness. You know, there was a true sense of self-awareness about their friendship and the way they work together. Right. And what that did, ultimately, is it allowed for those leaders who work for. them to have all kinds of freedom right to pursue and to like do the do their role in the best possible way they knew how and what that ends up looking like is it ends up looking like they don't ever have to feel like somebody's watching over them you know they're self-starter so therefore they have they feel like I can take this project and run with it um you know my my leader has

my back. They're not going to question if I step out of bounds or I take a risk. And so when you've got a culture of honor and authenticity and self-awareness and congruency, man, it just makes working for that person fun. And because here's what happens a lot, Ryan, you know this. And I've been around leaders like this. They're not trying to be this way. but at some point they become untouchable.

Right. They become the leader that you can't necessarily both honor and make a joke about. Right. You know, you don't have a nickname for them. You can't bring something up. You can't confront them. You can't say in between sessions or teachings or whatever,

hey, listen, can I give you some feedback? Right. And when that starts to erode, man, it's going to be hard for that kind of high-level leader who follows them to actually stay with them. So you end up finding leaders who at one point had that kind of leader following them, and then five years later, you're like, what happened to those really sharp 27-year-olds? Oh, yeah. Where'd they go?

Well, they went somewhere else because that leader no longer gives them room, you know? And so that's one thing I would say that immediately comes to mind in regards to your question of what is it about them. I mean, they're curious too. Like that is the thing that I really have found over the years is that there is a true sense deep down within them that they are great question askers. And they're really curious, which turns into, I want to ask you, if you're on my team and you work from me, I really do want to know what you think. And that curiosity, you know, so what it comes back to is great leaders are good thinkers. They become great thinkers, which pushes them towards asking good questions.

And when you become a really great leader, you ask more questions than you give answers. You know, your posture is one of curiosity, which is, well, what would you do? Right. You know, Andy Stanley says it this way. He says, every time you have a meeting with that person that works for you, you're asking the question, what do you think? Or what would you do? And they will say, well, no, I want you to tell me.

You know, that's what creates, that's what creates a system or a culture that says, well, I'm going to wait on my boss. Right. Compared to, no, I got the answer. And in fact, they want me to have the answer. So honor and curiosity, man, I'll put those as the top two. Wow. No, that's great, man.

And I think I got to see that really modeled. Actually, it was the year that you actually had me hosting Craig Grisheel and Bobby, Bobby Grunwald. And for those you don't know who Craig Grissel is, he is the pastor of the largest church in America. I think they have 108,000 people. that are connected to their church across locations all across the country. And they also created the U-Version Bible app, which is how most people read the Bible in 2020. Yeah, almost 500 million, by the way.

Almost 500 million downloads, yeah. Right. And Bobby is often considered, you know, Craig's number two. But watching their relationship, they're, like you said, there was that affinity. They joked with one another. There was, Craig is obviously clearly the leader,

but I thought watching their relationship, I thought Bobby followed him well. You know, I think whenever, whenever someone has a known leader, a high-level leader, I think there's an intimidation factor that's there for the follower.

How much can a follower do to make those relationships less intimidating? Because, I mean, I just think about that. I mean, again, we've been around some people that obviously most people would consider intimidating, but they're not intimidating to you. They're not intimidating to me. But I think about that often. I'm like, okay, what would I share with someone else? Well, some leaders like to be intimidating.

Some leaders actually, if you, if they're, if they're, honest, they value it because probably they had an intimidating leader at some point that they're now trying to outdo or model or emulate. And because we always lead like we've been led. I mean, unless you, unless somebody breaks the cycle, you, you always lead like you were led. You know, this is true in every season of your life. Like as a seventh grader in middle school, you got haste, you know, and then once you're a ninth grader, what are you doing to the seventh graders. Right? You know, it's the, it's the senior, the senior football captain with the freshman football player. I mean, so you lead like you were led. And if somebody doesn't break the cycle,

then it's hard. But there is a, I would say this, you know, the intimidation piece. As the, as somebody who's on the team of someone who might be intimidating, you're, here's what I think, 99% of leaders who are intimidating would like. from you, they would like for you to treat them like you would, anyone else for that matter, who is a peer, meaning this, when you get weird around them, they lean in more to intimidation. Right? So let's take a really practical example.

So you're setting in a meeting with a creative meeting, and that intimidating, intimidating leader is obviously in charge. They're running the meeting. All their answers are great. They've got all the right ideas. Every time they come up with something, you know, everybody goes, oh, that's great, Joe. Amazing.

The best idea of the day, you know. And compared to, I think, again, what they really would like is from you is not for you to call them out and to like try to create a confrontational moment. but they would like for you to bring some value to that meeting in such a way that honors them. And then, you know, obviously like starts to play at their level. So that it might be the difference of, oh, great idea of you saying, yes, and, how about if we, you know, and then they might push back or know everybody who get quiet when you say that. And then that leader will say, oh, I don't really like that. and then your job is to say, well, why not?

Like, I think it's got a lot of legs and this is why. And, you know, so you're actually creating some healthy tension in that particular meeting. You know, another way, again, appropriately, you're providing helpful feedback to that leader. So I know this for me, whether it was an intern or whether it was somebody on the team who would been there a long time, if they appropriately approach me with some feedback that would be helpful, I was incredibly open to that. Although, again, for the intern, they're like, really? Like, I have the ability, I've been here two weeks.

You know, like, I have the ability to go in and provide some feedback to Brad. I mean, he's been here. He's been running the show for a long time. But most leaders will lean into that. The intimidating leader, you just, you have to, like, hold. you know, hold the line even though you might be shaking in your shorts. Right. And at some point, you will start to be seen as valuable, helpful, appear,

even though you don't, you know, you're seven levels down or whatever the situation is. And that's hard, though, because, you know, most people, they don't, they won't do that. They won't take the risk. We naturally will, we'll push away from that and go, well, I'm just going to, I'm not going to ruffle any feathers around here. Right. And at some point, if that leader who is intimidating doesn't start to value those kind of people who are willing to push and lean in and create some healthy tension, like we just said, they'll all go somewhere else. And then you're looking at a team that they're just, yes, men and women, there's a genius with a thousand helpers, as Jim Collins calls it.

And you've now created a culture that says your idea is always the best one. and we can only go as far as you do. And I think that's actually, too, where a lot of train wrecks happen in terms of a leader who is so dependent on themselves, all of a sudden you see moral failures, you see dysfunction, you see stealing from the organization, you see obviously a staff that can't stand them, even though they won't say that.

You know, you see kids who are out of control because they've created that environment where there's not that give and take. You mentioned helpful feedback between the organizations you've ran and the high-level leaders and organizations you've been around. Maybe you've been asked this question a thousand times, or maybe you've never been asked this question. What do leaders need from their followers? When you spend time with high-level leaders, what's been their chief complaint about their staff? I think most the time it's they don't see what I see. Therefore, they don't have the eyes and the ears and the mindset

and the heart and the soul and the passion of an owner. Like they don't have ownership mindset. Whether that's an owner or not, you get what I'm saying. Like when you're at the top of the food chain, you see the entire landscape. So what leaders want from their team is they want, they want appropriate copycats in that way, which means you may not have any of the authority, right?

You've got no title, you got no position that allows you to set at the table. But I still want you at every level to have the mindset of an owner. And that way, because you see things differently then. And if you're walking in and I know that's true about you and you give me feedback, then it's helpful. That's the difference. So the mindset of a renter would be it's all about me.

Like I'm more concerned about what I'm going to do and how I'm going to get ahead by giving feedback. And this is just true in life. If your feedback to anybody is more about helping you because you're not. now like self-motivated and transactional in your approach, people are going to see through that, you know, I mean, in a second. Right. Compared to generosity, abundance mentality, a mindset that says, if I help you, that ultimately helps me.

You know, it's Zigler's quote of, if I help you get things, I can't, I'm, I'm, I'm butchering the quote, but it's basically, if I help you get what you want, then I'll, then me getting what I want will ultimately take care of itself. So that's the biggest thing is that leaders want their team to see what they see. They also get really frustrated by a posture that says, I'm going to wait on you to tell me what to do. So imagine if you could see me right now, if everyone who's listening could see me and I have a posture,

I'm sitting in my chair and I'm slops backwards, I've got my arms folded, you know, I'm giving off an impression or a body language that says, I have no interest. Right. Right. Compared to, I'm leaning forward

and I've got my arms open and my posture says, I'm in, let's go. I'm ready. And that's the mindset, again, of this person who says, I'm going to ask forgiveness more than permission. I'm going to take risk.

I'm going to anticipate. I'm going to be a self-starter. I'm going to have the eyes and ears of you as your leader, and now I'm going to walk in and go, hey, I went ahead and took care of that. Or I've been noticing, so therefore I took action. That's the kind of person people want on their team, because I'll, man, I will stand up for them every time,

even if they fail. I will say, this is the kind of person that we want to value in this organization. Again, if it's healthy, the unhealthy cultures would have a, but they would have a culture that says never step out of bounds, never take a risk, don't ever do anything you shouldn't do,

wait on someone to tell you, if you're just playing solitaire all day at your desk, that's a win. Don't ruffle any feathers. Well, that's great for a certain type of follower. Sure. But most of us don't want that. I mean, it sounds good for about a day,

and then we go on board, let's go take some risk let you know let's go getting some mischief um right so those would be a couple i mean what do you think man when i think about what leaders are looking for i think that ownership mentality is spot on i think the other thing that i think owners are are looking for are you know to take a bite out of your book h3 leadership um come on i think they're looking for somebody that's hungry. Mm-hmm. And someone that is

not just teach a bowl. It's one thing to say, you can teach me something, but somebody that's actively learning. Yes. Like, they're not, like, man, I sat with so many people this year whose jobs obviously say,

all right, you're working from home. So accountability went in the toilet because no one was walking past their cubicle or their office or their desk to make sure that they were doing their job. And so I have some friends that just said, okay, I'm going to Netflix during the day, or I'm going to place out there or a video game or, and I'm going, 2020 is the year that you have an opportunity if you have extra time to add a new skill set, go get certified in something. go read another book, go learn something that can add value to the organization.

I think that's what leaders are really looking for in a follower. I think about even the people that work for me. It's weird because one of them is editing this podcast. So, hey, Zach, nice to see you. Shout out. Shout out. Zach is a forward thinker. and one of the things I love about Zach, Zach said something to me the other day

where he, this is how he couched it. These are the words he used. And the words he used were perfect. They were so disarming. He said, Hey, Ryan, can I submit something to you in regards to your podcast? Can I submit something to you?

It was humble in tone. It was humble in wording. It wasn't combative. It wasn't. And again, it just gave me so much perspective and it added so much value that I shifted just a small deal as it pertains to how we post about the podcast and how we record the podcast.

Again, it was, I wouldn't say it was necessarily a blind spot, but it was it was something that it was a 50-50 ball for him. There was risk for him, but I thought he disarmed me so well with that word. Hey, can I submit something to you? And I'm very grateful that he did that. So that's what I would say that people are looking for. That's good. The leaders are looking for in terms of what they look for in followers.

I was going to ask you about H3 leadership. I thought about writing a book called H3 followership. There you go. Just taking the same fonts, twisting in a row. And just give me a percentage. Just give you a percentage for the H3. H3 leadership is about being humble, hungry and having some hustle. Let's flip that on his head for just a little bit in terms of for followers.

Yeah. We just talked about the hungry piece. let's talk about the hustle piece. What does that look like for a follower that really has more drive than their leader? I deal with this every single week with various clients where the leader's been there 20 years. They're usually smarter than everybody. They know the product. They know the service.

They have the client relations. They have a multi-million dollar budget weighing on their shoulders. And then you've got this 27-year-old that we've been talking about during this podcast that is thinking about leaving. And they've got so many ideas. They want to push everything on social media. They're full of energy, futuristicly thinking. But they're just. not seen, they're just not heard, they've got that hustle in them, but it feels squashed.

Maybe they've got a ceiling on them. Man, what would you say to that, to that 27-year-old? Well, there's a lot of factors in that scenario, but I would say, first thing is, as much as possible, let's focus on you being faithful and being a good steward of the current assignment you have. And, you know, crush, crush the now. That will give opportunity for the next. And there are, there are all kinds of scriptural references that, that also give,

give that a sense of validity and truth. You know, because faithfulness really is your scorecard. Right. At a bigger level. And I know that, you know, you've got dreams and you think you could do your boss's job and you might be able to. But there's also something to say for the stick-wittedness of, you know, be really good, be the best in the world at what you currently are doing.

Right. And that will lead you to the next opportunity. And it might take a while. But so many times we get focused on the next thing or the person that's holding us back. Right. And that kind of mindset is toxic. So the way you approach your boss who might be holding you back or they're comfortable. They've been in that VP role and they have a protectionist mindset, which means you're an enemy now.

You're a threat to their survival. So what you have to do is figure out, well, how do you actually make them a partner in the quest for whatever you might want to do? but also how do you make them better? And this goes back to curiosity. So my job, if I have a bad leader, is I'm trying to figure out, why? Why do I think they're a bad leader? Why are they trying to hold me back?

And there might be family issues. There might be insecurities. There might be a boss before them. You know, they might, who knows? So what I'm trying to do is be so curious in a helpful way, not annoying, not a brown noser. But I want to be curious in such a way that I'm able to sort of unpack. I'm going to build relational equity with them that's real.

Right. And I'm going to try to be a friend. And then what I'm going to try to do is actually help them be better at their job and figure out, well, how can I add value to them? And it might be asking the question, hey, are there some things that, like, I could do? for you right now that you don't either want to do or you don't feel like, you feel like it's something that if I took it off your plate,

that would be a win. And sometimes when you ask that, they're going to feel really insecure. Because again, what they think is, oh, here's the young buck trying to take my job. Right. But, you know, over time, like you gain trust, and then they go, yeah, you know what?

I would love for you to take on this part of my job. because you know what, it's sideways energy for me. I really don't do it well. And so you're just building credibility. And at some point, you know, there's going to be all kinds of things that you learn in that season of faithfulness and leading up well that are going to serve you whenever you get to that spot or the next spot. And you're going to treat your, you know, your followers now like you wanted to be treated. Right. Because that's the thing.

Like once we break the cycle, man, it's fun then. Right. Because we can go create that culture that we want to be part of. I love that. Don't look at your, this is so important, don't look at that leader or that manager or that boss as somebody who's against you.

The reality is they're probably not even thinking about you that much. Truth be told us. Right? But you think they are. Well, hey, here's the last question. and it's one that I've just been asking a lot of leaders lately. Who are you learning from right now that you think other people should be paying attention to? I've got so many outlets, and I don't see that as like a humble brag, but I just, I'm kind of a nerd as it relates to. Which is why you're the perfect person to ask the question to.

Well, it makes it hard for me to give you an answer. You can give me five. You can give me five if you want. Okay. Well, I'll give you a couple of podcasts that I'll, I'm, that I listen to quite frequently. I mean, one would be Craig Groschelle's leadership podcast. So you mentioned him, you mentioned him earlier. Yeah. I also listened to a handful of, of, a wide variety of cultural podcasts, like Masters of Scale

with Reed Hoffman, which is, you know, he's the founder of LinkedIn. I love listening to how I built this from Guy Raz, that with, in the podcast. PR. You know, I've got a new podcast I'm listening to that's called How Leaders Lead. And it's from a guy named David Novak, who is the former CEO of Yum brands, which most people don't know Yum, but they know they know KFC and Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. So that's the holding company for Yum, or for those brands is Yum. I get a lot of newsletters. And, you know, I've probably get, I don't know, 30 or 40 a week into my inbox. So James Clear is one of my favorite newsletters.

Yeah, he sends out a newsletter called 321 on Thursdays. I like Tim Ferriss's Five Bullet Friday. And a lot of these are just curation newsletters. Ryan Hawk is another guy that he has an outlet called the Learning Leader, which he does a podcast. and he's also got a newsletter called Mindful Monday that he sends out the first part of the week. So those would be a few there. You know, I mean, everything...

Can you tell our listeners about your podcast? Well, sure. I'd love to, yeah, H3, H3 leadership. And it's... That's the name of the book. It's not really about the book. It's more that that was just a good name, and so I'm sticking with it.

Right. Go for it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's a curation podcast. So I'm links, resources, recommendations, you know, young influencers that I'm paying attention to. What are the events we should attend? What books am I reading? What books should you be reading?

So I feel like the curator actually, you know, in many ways has more influence today than ever. And that's the difference between somebody who is the expert compared to somebody who knows the experts and is the experts. and is the experts on the experts, right? Right, right. And both are important, but I'm trying to move into a curation role in this season of my life. And you've always done that really well.

Always. I want to build a platform that other people can stand on, right? That's, if you ask me, you know, what's my calling statement? It's really influencing the influencers by building platforms that other people can stand on. and gathering, connecting, and aggregating leaders who are behind me

that I can push further than I'm ever going to go. I absolutely loved my time with my good friend, Brad Lomeneck. I want you to pick up his book. I want you to listen to this podcast. Here's my two takeaways from today's episode. My two main takeaways. Number one, I think you've got to get some time with your leaders. and figure out ways that you can perform better and asking that leader, man, how can, how can I

get better? What's something that I can be doing to add value to the team? The second takeaway that I want you to walk away with today is this. I think you should be asking yourself, how can I think more like an owner? How can I go about my business with an ownership mindset that it's not on the leader? It's not on someone else. No, no, no. It's on me. How can I do my best with my department, my area, how can I truly own what area I've been given in my job? That's what I want you to think about today. Hey, today's episode, add a value to your life in any way, shape, or form. That's what I want you to do. I want you to share with a friend. I want to rate us, what you review. Please don't forget to subscribe.