Michael: Welcome to HaBO Village Podcast, I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: And I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And we're glad you're back with us. Thank you for joining us. We're excited to have you today. We're excited to be here today.
Kathryn: We are very excited to be here today.
Michael: And today we're going to talk about leadership fundamentals. It's one of the four major pieces of our quadrant, and we're excited to talk about just, what is it, what do we mean by leadership. What are the fundamentals of leadership as we see them, so we can just clarify the conversation, and then from there we'll kind of go on. So, today we're going to talk about the two major aspects, and that's internal personal development and external leadership tasks and leadership development that we see. We'll go into more and more about how we see those two pieces and parts.
Kathryn: One of the reasons that we divvy it up that way is because there's a lot, there's a ton of leadership training out there. But what we often see, I'm sure it's not universally true, but what we often see is that they're either focused on your internal personal development, or they're focused on the tasks of leadership and leading a company, and not often are they focused on both. So we want to just talk about the fact that leadership is a holistic thing, and what's happening with the leader personally has as much impact as anything on what's happening in terms of the external tasks of leadership. Both sides matter a lot, and we want to make sure that we're addressing both, so there we go.
Michael: So there's the big idea. I think what our goal is today for this podcast is to really talk about the idea, or communicate the concept that you can quantify a whole lot of what leadership is, and then you can be able to assess it, know where you are in the process, and then grow. Today is not going to be an in depth on measurements or anything like that, but what it is going to do, hopefully, is give you a little bit more perspective on some ideas and things that you can talk about leadership and how, why organizations divvy it up, like Kathryn said. Internal personal development, internal personal vision, things like that, personal trust. And external tasks of leadership, and why the word leadership or being a leader can be so confusing and frustrating at times.
Michael: This is going to give you the hope that you can understand it more, we can codify it more, and then from that, then you can start to assess yourself as leaders as companies, leaders in organizations, and you can better assess and be more helpful to the leaders underneath you, the leaders you're developing and growing up, and the leaders that are actual, functional leaders in your organization, so you can help them grow, and you can help hold them accountable in a more appropriate, effective way.
Kathryn: And in a way that's reflective of what you are also doing and believe, which is a fundamental aspect of leadership.
Michael: I think one of the reasons that leadership is so important to us, and you'll see this and hear this throughout everything we talk about, is Kathryn and I have had the fortune of caring about leadership for a very long time and having some great and amazing mentors. We were both born into families with parents that were leaders, especially my father and Kathryn's father, they were just leaders in their community. They were the type of people that, when they stood up to engage people and do things, people followed them. I can speak for my father that my dad was such an amazingly gifted leader, that there were people who didn't really like him, but they would follow him anyway, which is an amazing concept in leadership. It's like, well, if you don't like the leader, why don't you walk away? Well, there's something powerful in who we are as humans that rallies around somebody who is saying, this is the way, let's go, and I'm going to help you.
Michael: My dad was an amazing person. He had his weaknesses and those things that he was challenged with as a leader, but he had those places of strength too, where he would walk in and, as you know, as you've seen in leaders and we've experienced, leadership can be schizophrenic. Right?
Kathryn: Yeah, definitely.
Michael: She's laughing here. And leadership can have these great ... A great leader doesn't mean that they're perfect. A great leader does not mean that they're emotionally healthy all the time. They're not mutually ... Health and maturity and leadership are not these things that are inseparable, like you get one and you get the other. It's not true.
Kathryn: We have seen in our lives some really powerful leaders who absolutely fell apart because of the internal side not being addressed. So they were really, really powerful externally, but when it came to their internal world, it was such a wreck, and eventually that caught up with them. They used to say about my dad that he was ... We're British, I know you can't hear that in my voice, but I was born in the UK, and-
Michael: She does an amazing American accent.
Kathryn: I do. It's phenomenal. I moved here when I was seven and I've been practicing ever since. But my dad was a very strong leader, but he also had the benefit of being in America with a British accent, which basically meant that he could read the phone book and people would listen and follow him.
Michael: It was crazy.
Kathryn: They just thought he was adorable.
Michael: And he'd smile and he'd hug everybody and-
Kathryn: Call them love.
Michael: Love.
Kathryn: Yep.
Michael: Yeah, he did. And so, okay ... This is where we came from as growing up, and I'm speaking to our credibility in the midst of this, because leadership is something we've studied for years, we do leadership development, we train up young leaders. And the mentors we've had over the years we'll speak to at different times in this podcast, because we've just been so fortunate to have people that have demonstrated good leadership and ... I'm going to say this, this is going to sound weird. This is going to sound odd, but we are fortunate to have experienced the pain, multiple times, of being in situations where the leader has failed.
Kathryn: Yeah. You learn almost as much from the folks that fail as you do from the ones that are powerful in your lives. It is not a fun process, especially if you're under their leadership.
Michael: No, it's not at all.
Kathryn: And we've walked through some really treacherous waters with a couple of leaders that have blown it so badly, you just think, oh my gosh. You read about that stuff in a book, you don't walk through it.
Michael: And one of the reasons we're telling you this, I mean, as part of our personal value of transparency and ... What's the?
Kathryn: Authenticity.
Michael: Authenticity. Yeah, Kathryn has big letters that I built for her one year that sit across the top of her desk, a bookshelf in her desk, that says authenticity. The reason we want to share these things is, we're not people who are just speaking about leadership out of theory. We're not just book studiers. We've studied the books, we've read, we've listened, we've talked, we are consistently growing. Matter of fact, we had dinner last night with a dear friend of ours who's one of our mentors in leadership, and he started talking about where I am in my next phase of development. He just kind of commented on it. He said, "I'm excited to hear what's going on, but I'm not surprised." Because he sees it as the progression.
Michael: So, we're living this stuff, but we've not only been in those places where people have been hurt, and we've been hurt, and watched that from the inside, but we've also walked with a lot of leaders who have experienced their senior leaders around them falling. What does that look like? Why is it so important? Water runs downhill is one of the metaphors. A company or an organization is as good as its leader. You can only go so far.
Michael: Another friend of ours and mentor says, "I measure the length of the shadow of the leader." Because he doesn't want to work with folks that have a short shadow, is the way he puts it. If he's going to work with organizations and companies and leaders, he wants to work with people who are already strong leaders and then, as he contributes to a healthy team, his services, that's going to be way more productive and way less painful for him. He's not trying to shove off people who aren't mature, but he's realized that he's done that so many times and worked with people who are immature, as you probably have, and then you realize how painful that is and you can only try and rescue and help people who don't want to rescue and help themselves as leaders, only a few times, and you get wore out fast.
Michael: That's not the model. If they want help, we have a mantra here for picking clients and working with leaders, because that's what we do in marketing, is, you have to know you have a problem, you have to want help, and you have to need help. So you have to need help, you have to know you have the problem, and then you have to want help for it. If you don't have, if all those three things don't exist, we just look at you and say, "We're not the right fit for you."
Kathryn: No, and part of that is, you know, we learned from, again, our mentor leader that help is only helpful if it's perceived as help, and if people don't need or don't think they need help, then whatever you can offer them, no matter how great, is not going to satisfy them, because they're not, they don't perceive themselves as needing the help that you're offering, even if it's glaringly obvious that they do need it.
Michael: And one of those places that we see leadership being so incredibly important is in the place of when we work with companies and we're doing marketing and business consulting, the leaders that we interact with, the companies that are doing well and have the most potential to grow, whether their market is good or not, is when they have strong leadership. Strong leadership means people who have accomplished these two areas, internal and external, and are humble. There's a humility about them that if they're willing to learn and grow, but they're also not exhibiting a false humility of trying to be so kind and appeasing to everybody that they don't make a decision. They make decisions, they go forward, and they call people to a direction, and then they're willing to admit if they made a decision that was wrong and say they were wrong.
Michael: Let's jump in now that we've talked about that and say, okay, what are the nuts and bolts here? The nuts and bolts of leadership start with internal. It's personal development. Kathryn?
Kathryn: So, there's several things within the area of personal development, and obviously this is a huge topic. We just want to be able to kind of give you at least a high level understanding of the kind of-
Michael: 30,000 feet?
Kathryn: Yeah, 30,000 foot of what we're talking about.
Kathryn: One of the key areas of personal development is that somebody who is kind of aware, self-aware of who they are, has a very clear idea of their skills, so what you're good at, what you're gifted to do, as well as your weaknesses. So a very clear idea of your skills, and also somewhat in touch with your maturity level in the midst of that. It's really fundamentally important that, as a leader, you have a very clear grasp on what you're good at and what you're not, because if you don't, then what ends up happening is that, in the areas that you are weak, you feel threatened. When you feel threatened, you can sabotage people around you, as opposed to somebody who's mature in their understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, they can begin to very clearly and very intentionally build a team around them that helps fill in those gaps and weaknesses, as well as be committed to growing in them.
Kathryn: So, to identify a weakness is not to say, man, you just need to be like, "That isn't how I was made. I'm all, I don't do that." You still have to sometimes press in and grow in those weak areas, but you can absolutely pull people around you and really give them an incredible sense of purpose based on the fact that they're helping fill in a gap or a weakness for you.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. So, one of those areas is in vision. Do you know where your organization is going? But even more succinctly with a leader and leadership, do you know who you are? Are you self-aware of and clear and at peace with the direction you're going? Do you have, what I would say for an individual, do you have a core purpose in your life? Do you know what that is, or are you pursuing, discovering that? What is your personal core purpose, and then what are your personal core values?
Michael: We work with those things with companies, but I like the language a lot for personal individuals, especially leaders, because if you don't have an idea of who you are, what your gifts, talents, interests, and skills are at the moment, and you don't understand what your core purpose that you feel like, "this is what I do, this is who I am, and these are my values," which, these are the rails. Those values help you know when you've gone too far to the left or to the right. This is the way I'm going to behave. And it also is amazing, because strong leaders always exhibit more clarity. Let me put it that way. More clarity in their self-awareness and self-understanding of who they are and what their purpose is and what their values are. Great leaders, when you find them, great leaders and great organizations, it's amazing. This is a super common trait. They didn't just come across this, they did the hard work.
Michael: So, clear vision and understanding of their core purpose and core values of themselves, and they have a spot on the horizon of life. Like, "this is what I'm about and this is my core purpose in life. This is how I fit into the world to share my contribution." But they also have some things on the edge of the horizon that are dreams that they have focused on a point, where they're headed in that direction. It might be something really big that they're hoping and thinking, that they've always wanted to contribute in addition to who they are, something to accomplish, and they're moving toward something. They have a purpose, and they know that they may have to change course and direction to get there, but they have something that says, "if I could do anything, maybe I would like to do this." And as they get older and more mature and everything else, and down the road more, you start to refine that, edit it, and tweak it. But they know, these leaders know that their life is about their contribution and when they get to the end of it, they want to have been closer to accomplishing all that they were potentially able to contribute.
Kathryn: Yeah, and I would say, Michael mentioned earlier that there's a settled place of identifying kind of who you are and what you're about and where you're going, but because of that vision and future, there's always going to be, in any strong leader, kind of a, what I would call a healthy discontent. Like, "it's good where I am, but I am not where I want to be." And there's always that sort of press forward to say, "How do I get closer to that ultimate contribution?" As well as continuing to refine along the way, especially if you're young, what you think your ultimate contribution is when you're 30 is probably going to be shaped differently when you're 40 and differently again when you're 50. It may just be a refining, but it also may be a complete shift as you become more aware of who you are, how you're put together, how you're made, and what you really want to press into as you get older.
Kathryn: Those things are kind of transitions in leadership and understanding and your own personal journey, but there is that healthy discontent of, "I'm not where I want to be yet, but I am pressing on, and I know that I am on the journey," and that's just a good thing to be.
Michael: Another thing that is important, before we go on to the external stuff, is the whole idea of emotional intelligence. That really fits in here. It fits into an issue of character, an issue of self-discipline, but there is an ability to have emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is, two main parts, it's actually three parts. First part is internal, that's combined of internal awareness of your emotions and internal control of your own emotions. Some people who are immature and don't have high emotional intelligence, they either aren't in touch with their emotions ... Here's a quiz. If I gave you an 8-1/2 by 11 sheet of words, just four columns of words, all in 12 point, and they were all emotions, and I said, "Pick the emotion you're feeling now. Pick the emotion you were feeling this morning. Pick the emotion you were feeling yesterday." How well could you do that? And would you go to more than four or five different emotions to describe the emotions in your life?
Michael: The more emotionally intelligent you are, the more that you can understand what emotions you're having and the nuances between different emotions and what they're called, and then your ability to control it. If you're not as mature in this area, then what happens is, one of two things happens on the extremes. You either never show your emotions, and you maybe think you don't have emotions, or you have all these emotions, and when you try and explain it to people, you go, "Well, at least I'm honest." That's what can happen on the everybody's got emotions side. At least I'm honest. At least you know where you stand with me. Well, you know what? I don't need to know all of your emotions and all of your thoughts. I need you to control them so that they're civil. The second part of ... Oh, go ahead.
Kathryn: No, I was going to say, I can chime in here. The second part of that, then, is how aware are you of other people's emotions, and are you able to actually ... It sounds weird, but control the environment. So if somebody else is hostile, are you able to speak calmingly to them? Do you understand what's happening with them enough to be able to contribute in a way that kind of ratchets down the situation. The old proverb is, "a gentle answer turns away wrath." An emotionally mature person knows how to do that. They're aware of the other person's emotions and they know how to interact in a way that is helpful to that person as opposed to making things worse.
Michael: Yeah. Absolutely, and the third part is how well you're able to motivate yourself. For a long time, the first two pieces were the only things that were talked about in literature, but what they've started to do more and more in emotional intelligence is be able to realize that that's a third characteristic.
Michael: Before we leave this internal, because I think we're about ready to move on, but Kathryn, I think now is a time to share, if you don't mind, and we're live, but you can ... We're not live, this is on Memorex.
Kathryn: Ooh, that's going to test your age right there.
Michael: That's an internal joke for people over 40. The discussion we were having last week about the continued clarity about your vision and when you came out of seminary and what you thought, and how it's changed from ministry to working in the marketplace.
Kathryn: Ah, yeah. Right. Okay, so yeah, I've had quite a journey in terms of where I've come from when I was in my mid-20s. I did my undergrad in psychology and religious studies, and then I went off to graduate school, got a Masters of Divinity in New Testament theology.
Michael: What is a Masters of Divinity, for those who don't know?
Kathryn: I don't know what it is, it's a Bible degree. Nobody knows. I have mastered the divine. I never understood it, it doesn't matter, it's just what they call it. It's the M.Div. I don't know, whatever. It's the Masters in the divinity world.
Michael: Right.
Kathryn: He's being difficult with it.
Michael: I'm not being difficult. It is, people are going to go, "What is that?"
Kathryn: Yeah, well, it is what it is. Look it up.
Michael: Right, okay.
Kathryn: So, got the M.Div and graduated with that. I really believed that my call, especially with all of that training and education and the Greek and the Hebrew and blah-de-blah-de-blah, and because I really, really enjoy preaching, speaking, public speaking. Really, really like that, that thing that's everybody's worst fear is like my happy place. Stick me in a room with a thousand people and let me talk, and I'm actually quite content, as long as I know what I'm talking about. But, I really believed that I was going to be in vocational ministry, because what else do you do with that degree, right? That was the journey.
Michael: For those of you who don't know what vocational ministry is, it means you work in a church.
Kathryn: Yeah, church, parachurch, something like that. But something that is intentional about being in ministry.
Kathryn: So, graduated, got married, and I had to go to work for a little while, just because we needed money. It wasn't in a church, but I was volunteering and working with Michael, and we were doing youth ministry.
Michael: You were working in the high tech industry in Silicon Valley.
Kathryn: Yep. So I was doing that, but then I was helping Michael in church ministry and that kind of stuff. And then we got the opportunity that I was absolutely born for. We moved to Colorado Springs and we went on staff with a church. For the first part of that, Michael was on staff and I was working, again, he gets all the fun stuff.
Michael: That's the theme.
Kathryn: Yeah, catch the theme. I support. No, okay, never mind.
Michael: That's not true.
Kathryn: So not true. But, about a year into that gig out there, I got to actually join full time staff, so here it is. It's the dream. I'm working in a church staff, and this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And then, because of, or at least in conjunction with the epic failure of a leader of ours, things shifted pretty dramatically. We ended up needing to leave that situation and came back to California, which point, Michael goes back to school, I need to go back to work in the high tech industry to put him through school and support our family. At that point, we had a little baby girl. So I did that, and again, I did that as, like, "I'm in business now, but I'm biding my time, because I'm going back to full time ministry. I am not doing this business thing for very long."
Michael: Yeah, and this is, you guys have heard us tell part of our story, but this is when I was going back to college, going to university again.
Kathryn: Yep. So, Michael finishes university, and fairly, sort of significantly in that time, I was offered the opportunity to go on full time staff at the church. It was very, very clear that I was not allowed to say yes to that opportunity, which was quite disturbing to me, because I really wanted to say yes. But Michael believed that we were supposed to be doing what we were doing together, and he felt that we were called to business. So, I had sort of went kicking and screaming, and it took me probably, I don't know, four years, maybe, into the journey before I was really able to settle in and change my perspective, my heart, sort of realign to see how being in business could still fulfill the vision and hopes for my life.
Kathryn: It's been a very big journey of transitioning through that and figuring out what leadership in this world looks like and how to contribute.
Michael: Okay. But you're leaving out the punch line.
Kathryn: Which is?
Michael: This is all important for you all to know this, the context of the story, but this is where Kathryn went and understood her core purpose as, the way she articulated it was her job was to have influence and authority in the context of a church. Our faith is very important to us, and that was a career, not only a faith thing, an internal personal thing, but it was a career thing too. And what you articulated to me a week ago was, you went through the progression of going, "I want to have influence. I'm designed to have influence."
Kathryn: Yeah. So to be able to restate that future or where my happy place is. It's when I am speaking truth from a place of influence. And to simplify it that way is like, "Okay, well, I get to speak truth to business leaders, I get to have influence." I still get to do it sometimes in church too, but I really get to do that in this context, and it's a very different, it's a ultimate fulfillment of that dream.
Michael: I need you to state for everybody, restate that in the way you had it ten years ago, or 15 years ago, how would you have said that statement?
Kathryn: I am happiest when I am preaching.
Michael: When I'm preaching.
Kathryn: It would have been that straightforward.
Michael: [crosstalk 00:24:31] influence there. Now, I had her tell this story, everybody, because what's interesting is the aha moment we had in our house two weeks ago, when she articulated this, it was so succinct for her because she went, "I realized that I believed I was supposed to only have influence and be able to speak in a certain environment." And then she realized that her core purpose and her core contribution had way more to do with the idea that she is a woman who cares about people, and through trust and behavior and who she is and her giftings, gets to have influence in people's lives, and that influence now where we are gets exhibited for people's betterment in the context of personal relationship and in business for companies. It impacts leaders and impacts employees, it impacts economies.
Kathryn: Yeah, that realization that I was actually quite happy when I was helping people discover values and kind of working in that process with Michael. I was just as filled with joy and fulfillment in the boardroom as I was in a different teaching capacity in ministry. So that was quite, and that's been happening for some time now, but there was just a sense of it all kind of coming together and gelling in my head a week or two ago. That was pretty powerful for me.
Michael: Okay. I hope you are getting this, because, and that was around the tree a couple of times, but it was really, I want you to know it was really important that I didn't just throw that out, and I didn't just give it to Kathryn, but I let her tease that out. Because now you have a context and understanding, this was a big deal because what she's saying now is not where she expected to be ten years ago.
Kathryn: No.
Michael: And we're saying that for you in your own personal leadership development, it evolves, it develops. But what it is, is where she is now does not negate what she had before, it expands and grows and builds on it. And it actually gives her more fulfillment while being able to accomplish where she was then in our community ... We're going to be preaching, this spring we're preaching four sermons in our church. We enjoy doing that. We're talking about the impact of the Bible and work. She still gets that influence, and yes, she's beautiful and smart and intelligent and she's awesome.
Michael: So, I wanted you to kind of have that, because if you're in your development, if you're in a place where you feel stuck, if you're in a place where you don't feel stuck, this stuff is, you're getting this. I know you are. You're sitting there in your car, you're running, whatever you're doing, and you're listening and you're going, "Yeah, I get this." And you have your own story that you can relate to this. If you're in a place where you're frustrated and stuck right now in leadership in your own personal development, who am I and what am I doing and everything else, first of all, I want to say, being stuck and kind of hitting that wall and having to go around and around and around is very normal. It's absolutely critical to your development, so there's nothing broke about you. But I also wanted to encourage you that as you seek help from mentors or anybody else and speak to people that are wise and trustworthy, you can get past this, and there is more clarity on the other side of this confusion and frustration.
Kathryn: Absolutely. And the confusion and frustration can be cyclical. It'll come again, so, if you're not experiencing it now, you might be at some point in the future. You need to understand that where you are is not the final destination, it's just a stop on the journey that you have to wrestle through.
Michael: Yeah. Okay, now, where we are in the podcast at the moment, today's podcast is going a little long, and I totally understand that. If you need to get out now, we're going to transition into external tasks of leadership. It's going to go a little faster, but if you need to take a beak, put a pause, this is a great place to put a pause in and come back to us later.
Michael: We first talked about internal aspects of personal development. Worth its own podcast completely, but the second one is the external tasks of leadership. So, for that, what we're talking about is taking this whole idea that we talked about earlier about clear purpose, mission, vision for you, now you do that for your organization. Healthy leaders realize that they are not the same for themselves and their organization. They realize they're separate, but what's amazing about really successful entrepreneurs and business leaders often is they found a company that the purpose and mission and vision of a company aligns really, really well with their own personal purpose and values. It's really hard to run an organization that is outside of your bailiwick completely, and also outside of your values, separate, even conflicting from your values.
Michael: So what we're talking about is, the external part is now, once you have that kind of internal vision clock and confidence and trust that's built, there are tasks in your company that are really important for a Passion and Provision company. You have got to set the clear vision, core purpose, core values, and BHAG, a spot on the horizon that you're going for.
Kathryn: Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.
Michael: Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.
Kathryn: That is a Good to Great, Jim Collins, Jerry Porras, they wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review back in September/October 1996. They do a really good job of breaking down and articulating, kind of how to get to this stuff. This is a process and a method we use with many of our clients as we're helping-
Michael: Large and small.
Kathryn: Large and small, as we're just helping them identify, why am I here, why does my company exist, why does anyone care, and where do we go from here. It's just a great article, it's a great tool.
Michael: And at some other point, we're going to go into this deeper and maybe dedicate a whole podcast to it, but let me just give you those very clearly. When you're setting up a vision for an organization, you need these four things. You need to identify the organization's core purpose, open-ended, you never accomplish the core purpose. Core values, come up with three to five core values that if you, what we tell our clients is, if you had to violate these core values, you would rather shut the doors of your organization than violate these values. That's what core values are. And then the other two, Kathryn?
Kathryn: So, on the other side is the-
Michael: BHAG.
Kathryn: BHAG, which is your long-term goal, and then the vivid description of that long-term goal. So, not just saying, "this is where I want to be," but really writing a paragraph that says, "this is what it would look like if I got there."
Michael: Yeah. For Half A Bubble Out, ours is to help 10,000 companies become Passion and Provision companies. But we need a vivid description for that. We have quite a lot of description about that. But it helps you give more meat to it. What does it look like, how would you evaluate it? The more real it becomes for you, actually, the easier it is to set course for that place.
Kathryn: Yeah. So, the second thing, once you actually have those things clearly defined, is to communicate those.
Michael: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely.
Kathryn: And one of the things that, I just feel like this happens a lot in organizations, they realize they need help, they go out, they get help, they have a consultant. Consultant comes in, they get everything all written down and tidied up and then they go, "Well, I'm glad we did that," and they put it in a drawer and that's the end of it. And that is so sad, because once you've done that hard work, the next step then is implementing that across your organization, and literally sort of banging the drum over and over again to help people understand, this is who we are, this is why we exist, this is what we need to live into, so if our culture doesn't quite align with that, here's what we need to tweak.
Kathryn: There's just so much to be done. That constant, regular communication, which isn't just putting a mission statement on the wall and hoping people read it, because they don't, they just see it once and then it's out of sight, out of mind, or in sight, out of mind. They just walk past it. So it's just incredibly important that you set up a ways of implementing the work that's done.
Michael: It's real important that you make sure you don't make a fatal mistake. Understand this. Identifying a clear vision is not the same as casting a clear vision.
Kathryn: Yeah. Very well said.
Michael: You have to make sure that you don't do that. I'm going to say that again, because this is super important. Identifying your clear vision is not the same thing as casting a clear vision, and you have to do both. Identify it first, cast the vision to your staff, to your investors, to your customers, and you have to do it over and over and over again. As a leader, as a chief leader, that's one of your jobs.
Kathryn: We have a principle in advertising, and I'm not sure it's very different, that for something to stick in someone's mind, they need to hear about it three times a week, 52 weeks a year. Okay, that might be a little overkill for a vision mission, but it might not be.
Michael: No, I don't ... Well, it goes into long-term memory.
Kathryn: Long-term memory.
Michael: You can't, this is a fundamental rule of neurology. It's not even psychology. I mean, it has psychology, but it's a fundamental rule of your brain. Your brain is sorting through this stuff. So, that said, just note, you've got to identify it, and then you articulate it, and then you cast the vision. You have to communicate it to all the stakeholders.
Kathryn: And I will tell you that when somebody takes the work that we have done with them and they start implementing it and seeing shifts and changes in their organization, it is a sweet gift to those of us who are consultants. We love it, because it's just super dynamic.
Michael: Okay, another thing that you have to do is identifying systems. Identifying systems and organizations in your work, in your company. That's another external task. So, you've identified the vision, you've identified the mission and all that, what that looks like. So these are the rules and the terrain in which you're going to be competing and working in. You're articulating those rules and the values and motivating people, and then, from there you're identifying systems.
Michael: You've got to build, you're responsible to either build them or make sure they're built. But you've got to make sure. All right? Do you have systems in place, and is the organization in place? That's pretty self-explanatory. We'll talk more about that in another podcast. And then, after that, you've got to make sure that you're communicating the expectations of what those systems are and walking that through. Leadership and management overlap a lot. Leadership is making sure all those things are in place and making sure you're continuing to call and cast the vision and call people towards you. There's an old saying, "you can pull a rope, but you can't push it." And there's a lot of leaders who are trying to push their people in a direction as opposed to going before them and calling them to it and pulling them and drawing them towards the goal.
Michael: It was an old saying, when I was young and I had the skills of leadership, but I was just ... I was in my early 20s and one of my mentors said to me, "You're a leader. It just is. People will follow you. The question is, where are you going to lead them? Are you going to lead them to something productive, or are you going to lead them and sit them in the corner and have a Kumbaya?""
Michael: I never had anybody articulate it that way to me, and it was that day or that week that I made a decision that I wanted to be a better leader. I wanted to make sure that if people were going to follow me, I wanted to make sure I took them somewhere that had some purpose and meaning. As a leader, people follow you, and that's just the way it is. You're put in situations where you lead people and people look to you for answers. You have an incredible gift and opportunity to make a huge positive impact on human beings' lives. I just urge you to feel the weight of that and take that seriously.
Michael: Now that we've come out of that, those external tasks, I think just having a clear understanding of your business model and all that, and there's a lot of other pieces, but as we kind of recap here ... Okay, let's say this again. There's an internal and external aspect to leadership. The internal aspect-
Kathryn: Is your personal development, your understanding of your skills and maturity, the internal convictions you have, values, ethics, and all about your character, as well as what your level of competence is in the skills that you have.
Michael: And then the external task is making sure that you apply some of those skills of finding and discovering clear purpose, values, BHAG or direction on the horizon. Where is the holy grail that you're going after? Then making sure that you can articulate those values and core purposes and everything and you've done the hard work to identify them for the organization, and communicate them well on a regular basis, and then casting that vision so that people become more and more motivated.
Michael: The Speed of Trust is a great book. We talk about it often. Speed of trust is really, really important here at understanding that. I will suggest you go out and read that book, because building trust in people that are following you is a significant way to motivate them and leverage motivation in them.
Kathryn: Absolutely.
Michael: And then we talk about identifying systems and organizations in place and knowing how to communicate those things. There's four areas of management we talk about leadership when it comes to this. It's, after you know what needs to happen, you have to have clear goals, you have to have clear communication. There are rules to these things. Then you have to have accountability, and then you have to have trust. If you have those four things, then you can leverage encouragement, which we call public recognition based on the Carrot Principle book, great book on this subject.
Michael: But really, what you're talking about it is, you've got to have these things where, think about it, close the loop. Here's your goal, I'm going to communicate it in a way that I know that you've got it, I'm going to hold you accountable to it, and in the midst of that, we're going to build trust. And then when you've accomplished things and you've done a good job, I'm going to come back and tell you that your work and your contribution is appreciated and valued, or your uniqueness in the midst of it.
Michael: As we walk through those things, there's a lot going on in leadership, and we'll talk more about leadership in other podcasts, but that's what we mean by the leadership fundamentals, is those two core things and what goes into that. Anything else you want to add, Kathryn?
Kathryn: I think we have maxed our time here, so I think that's good for today. And again, we're going to unpack these things over and over again, but we just wanted to make sure you had a high level understanding.
Michael: Yeah. This stuff is super powerful and I want to just swing back and go, when we talk about the four core areas, leadership, marketing, management, and finance in business, and this whole area today about leadership, these are core attributes to a Passion and Provision company, a company that's thriving financially, and a company that's running smoothly and an organization where you as the leader are fulfilled and the people in your company are fulfilled. Because, you know, we say it, that the more you can have a Passion and Provision company, even with your organization, you have people that are spending more time in your organization, lasting longer. It's just powerful, really powerful.
Michael: So, thank you so much for joining us today. We're going to wrap this up. We really would love it if you would go to our show notes page on our website, HalfABubbleOut.com, and look on the HaBO Village drop-down. You'll be able to find it over there. Leave a comment, we would really love a comment. And then, we would love it if you'd subscribe over in iTunes.
Kathryn: iTunes.
Michael: Because we want to be seen by more people and we want to be helpful. Let us know how we're helpful, let us know the topics that would be helpful to you, because we really want to do a great job of being valuable in business.
Michael: So, I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And this is HaBO Village Podcast. Thank you again for joining us. Have a wonderfully awesome, cool day.
Kathryn: Bye-bye.
Michael: Bye-bye.
