EP005 - How to be a better leader during crisis with Dr. Jonathan H. Westover of Human Capital Innovations
About the episode
This episode focuses on leadership during challenging times. How owners and co-founders should approach leadership? Can we learn leadership skills, and how? Finally, how should leaders respond to challenges? I invited Dr. Jonathan H. Westover, author, and professor of Organizational Leadership and department chair at the Woodbury School of Business, and leadership consultant at Human Capital Innovations, to discuss the topic.
About the guest
Dr. Jonathan H. Westover is a Professor of Organizational Leadership and department chair at the Woodbury School of Business (UVU), Academic Director of the UVU Center for Social Impact and the UVU SIMLab, and Faculty Fellow for Ethics in Public Life (previously the Associate Director) in the Center for the Study of Ethics.
He is also an experienced OD/HR/Leadership consultant with experience transforming organizations across the globe. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Brigham Young University and his doctorate from the University of Utah, and he serves on a host of nonprofit, community, and association boards.
Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn.
Check out Dr. Westover's new book, The Alchemy of Truly Remarkable Leadership, here. Check out the Human Capital Innovations (HCI) Podcast here. Check out the latest issue of the Human Capital Leadership magazine here.
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact here.
Quotes from the show
When we have disruptive times like these we live in right now, change is a huge factor in success. New market opportunities, new environments, new technologies, or simply just black swan events - these are all shaping our business. However, reacting to changes is complicated, challenging, and can be difficult.
The best way to react to changes is to have a culture of change within our organization. If our organization has a culture that embraces change, we can have a higher probability of succeeding.
We have to see ourselves as leaders all the time. But when we look at an organization with their high-management, we find that people within high management are great at managing people. But they don't have the necessary skills to lead others. They usually end up in high management because of their expertise in a specific field.
But being a great salesperson, for example, leading a sales team, is not the same as leading a whole organization.
We need as leaders to maximize our potential. But a massive part of leadership, probably the essential part of leadership, is helping other people, the people in our teams, the people within our organizations to maximize their potential. When they maximize their potential, they will help the organization to become more successful.
That's the kind of environment that breeds a positive workplace culture with high employee engagement, innovation, and creativity levels. The whole goal is to try to help organizations be their best possible selves.
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Peter: Hello and welcome, I'm your host Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. In today's episode we will talk about leadership, more importantly, how anyone can transition from an expert to a leader. To discuss how we can learn leadership skills, I invited Jon Westover who's a professor in HR and partner and principal at human capital innovations. Hello, John, welcome to the show.
Jon: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
Peter: Lovely. So the first question is always to get some intro on what are you doing? I understand that you're working with and for human capital innovations . What are you doing with human capital innovations and what is the main service that you're offering? And what's your story so far.
Jon: Yeah, thank you. And again, thank you for having me on as a guest today. It was fun to have you as a guest on my podcast recently, I think just a couple of weeks ago. So you're returning the favor. Human capital innovations is a consultancy firm that I started back in 2007 and I was at the time I was finishing up my PhD and love doing research. I love the academic pursuit and I love teaching, but I also wanted to continue doing practical work, to help leaders and organizations. And I'd done that in the past with my work experience, both as an internal and an external consultant, working with companies. And so I decided I'm going to start my own firm. I had a partner. A founding partner at the time. And since then we've grown to bring other people on the team. And, you know, I finished my PhD. I became a professor. I have a full-time job at the university. But I've always done the consulting work with human capital innovations on the side and really a little over a year ago leading into the pandemic. I decided I wanted to, I'd hit a certain stage in my academic career where I, you know, progressed and reached the level of full professor. I decided I wanted to commit more time and energy towards the consulting work and then the pandemic happened and it actually coincided quite nicely because I wasn't traveling as much as able to focus some more time on some of the particulars of the business. Anyway, so that's, we can get more into that, but human capital innovations, as the name suggests, it's all about maximizing the human capital potential within an organization. So leaders individually, we need as leaders to be able to maximize our own potential, but a huge part of leadership, probably the most important part of leadership is helping other people, the people in our teams, the people within our organizations to maximize their own potential. It's when they maximize their potential, that they're going to be able to help the team and the organization be successful. That's the kind of environment that breeds a positive workplace culture high levels of employee engagement innovation and creativity. And ultimately that's what we need to bring value to the market on a continual basis and a hyper competitive global marketplace. So that's what we do. We help organizations with training solutions assessment solutions to figure out where their organizations at, where they at as a leader. We also do coaching and change management consulting as well. The whole goal is to try to help organizations be their best possible selves. If we're thinking of an organization as a person, but then each individual within our organization, including all leadership to be their best possible self to make it a rich, fulfilling environment for everyone involved.
Peter: That's really great. Thank you for sharing this awesome story. If you're working closely with leaders, I suppose what do you think, what, what are the main or crucial or key challenges that they approach you with?
Jon: Yeah, I think most people who find themselves in leadership roles and when I say maybe I should step back for a second and, and clarify it. So I think, I think all of us are leaders. All of us have the potential to influence those around us. All of us have the opportunity to be change makers within organizations, within our communities. So everyone can and should see themselves as a leader. But if we look specifically at the formal leadership roles within an organization. So you have, you know, the CEO C suite all the way down you know, anyone who supervises or manages people, you know, those they're formal leaders with a formal leadership role, and most people who find themselves in those formal roles typically don't have a lot of training in how to be a good leader. They usually find themselves in that role due to their technical expertise perhaps, you know, they were really great at sales and now all of a sudden they're leading a team of salespeople. Now being great at sales. Isn't the same thing as being a great leader of salespeople. That's a different skillset. And so what we see in organizations all over the world is that you have people elevated to a role that they don't have any particular training in or understanding about. And so what do they do? The default becomes, what did I see other people do in my past? So if they happen to have come up in an organization where they've had good leaders who have managed really well and who have been empowering and engaging and motivating and such with the healthy culture and in a healthy environment, then they will tend to model after that and continue that along, but the opposite is also true. And unfortunately, the more common reality is that you have people who don't really know how to lead effectively. They're, they're perpetuating dynamics and cultures and approaches that aren't healthy, that aren't helpful and actually can hurt the team and the bottom line of the company. And it's not because they're doing it on purpose. It's not like they're setting out saying I'm going to try to stick it to my people, but they just, they don't know any different. And so they're just doing what they've seen in the past. So the, the biggest thing I think we do when we work with leaders is to try to help them. First acknowledge where they're at and where some of the gaps might be set, some goals on where they can develop and then help provide the tools for them to develop those skills over time. Because leadership skills and capabilities are learnable. I fully believe in a growth mindset and I believe everyone has the capacity to lead and influence and be a positive change maker. With others in their lives. And it's just a matter of being able to step back and recognize. Yeah we don't know what we're doing. We need some help bring people in to help you.
Peter: Awesome. We will get back to that learning curve by the way, because that's really interesting. But before, before we do that what I personally saw a lot is that there was a huge gap between managing people and as you said, and it's a great keyword influencing or leading people. And and there's huge difference between the two. Not all influencers or leaders are great managers. And most of the great managers are not really great leaders. So how do you see that?
Jon: Yeah, there's definitely a difference between management and leadership. Management involves processes, procedures. Those sorts of transactional types of issues within an organization. And those are important. You need someone to be an effective manager, so they can stay on top of schedules and processes, the operations side of the organization, and the people involved with carrying out the various tasks and response abilities. Leadership though, is something quite different. And you can be a very good manager handling all the logistics and be really crummy leader. And in fact, that's often the case. You have many people that are quite good managers, but they're not good with people. They're not good with relationships. They're not good with communication. They're not good with motivation and empowerment. And those are all the elements that go into good successful leadership. Now, ideally you'll have someone with both skill sets, right? So someone who's elevated to a formal leadership role within an organization. Hopefully they're good managers and chances are, they are, otherwise they probably wouldn't have been promoted or hired into that position. That the big question Mark, more often than whether or not they're a good manager, it's whether or not they actually have those soft skills around effective communication and such. And are they willing to commit the time and the effort into good leadership. That's one of the biggest gaps I see is you have, well, you have well-meaning individuals who get bogged down into the day-to-day grind of their formal leadership role. And because of all the logistical stuff, all the process stuff, all of the transactional things that need to happen, they end up spending all of their time or most of their time every day. Doing those things, putting out fires, responding to yeah, sometimes it's micromanaging, but a lot of times it's also just, it's just being reactionary to the environment and the circumstances around them and they don't spend enough time. Building the foundation for trust and, and sustainable relationships and sustainable team dynamics. The strategic focus of what a leader needs to be doing and those sorts of formal roles. So again, even if, even if their intention is a really good intention. I think people tend to fall into the trap of the day-to-day grind of just managing people. And then if they have a lot of expectations and pressure on them from above, then they're inclined to pass those that onto the people below them, and then micro-managing happens and it just becomes dysfunctional. So we need to recognize that while it's certainly, it may seem like it's easier to be reactionary as a leader. Like that takes less time, less effort, less work. It's not true, especially if you take the long view. So with a longer term time horizon, a longterm perspective, if we can focus our energies upfront towards those systemic elements that build the trust that build the relationships that help people that create the culture and the healthy environment. That all takes energy. That all takes commitment over an extended period of time. But if we can focus on that, then the other stuff starts to take care of itself more and you don't have to do as much handholding. You don't have to do as much directing and guiding even. You can really take a leadership role where you're leaning on and relying on the expertise of the people in your team and, and then just supporting them and helping them to drive success and in creating the clear vision for them to move forward. That's what leaders should be spending more of their time doing. And the business realities of a hectic world, I would say most don't end up using most of their time that way.
Peter: Yeah. Most of them, most of them are reactive, but they have to be reactive. And and they didn't have the chance or the time or efforts to figure it out beforehand, how to create a great system of process. And I think, yes, as you said, most people are really great managers. Because they built up a company they built up a company with a core set of co-founders, for example, or senior managers around them. But when they actually need to hire someone to do their own job, right, that's the first hire that you always do. They are not really great leaders, but they had to become really great manager because, you know that makes them to that place that they are already in. But, but they have to learn and should learn some soft skills. And let's talk about that learning curve.
Jon: And I haven't been before we get into to that. A principal that maybe you and all of your listeners already know about. It's a, it's a common management principle called the Peter principle. If you're familiar with that, it's the simple idea that most people end up getting promoted to their level of incompetence within organizations. Right. And so you can think of humorous examples in TV and in movies. I think of in the U S we have a TV show called the office. With a leader. I don't know if, you know, if you in your audience know that show Michael Scott, who's the office manager, he's the poster boy for incompetence as a manager and a leader. Right. And how did he find himself into that find himself in that role? He was, he was the best salesperson and because he was great at sales, he ends up getting promoted. Now he's a manager. It's a completely different skillset. He doesn't know what the crap he's doing. And that's the classic example of the Peter principle. People getting hired and promoted to their level of incompetence. If they were good at that new role, they would probably get promoted again. But eventually we get promoted to the level that we're not any good at. So the challenge I think for organizations is to recognize the competencies and capabilities of our team and create lanes and pathways for people to have career development and promotional opportunities, but to not force people into roles where they're not going to be any good. So the Michael Scott example, you know what, he didn't need to be an office manager. He could have kept being a sales person, made a lot of good, good money been very successful, very happy, right. But instead he ends up finding himself in a role that he's not in good at. And then we end up. Perpetuating that across the organization with lots of people in lots of roles that they're not any good at. So let's focus on competencies and capabilities. And as we're talking about leadership, that's again, a different set of competencies, skills and capabilities than, you know, being a great coder or a good sales person or whatever, right.
Peter: Well, it works totally differently if you're a small or medium size business or an enterprise level business, because for, for most of the big companies, of course you have to take into account the time and the loyalty of the employee so, so they spend, well, not enough, but as much time in the, within the organization that after a while they had to be promoted anyway, upwards, but the big enterprise level organization usually supports that promotion or hopefully support that promotion with some internal training programs, teaching those soft skills teaching those capabilities and how to get promoted and become a leader. And yeah, I think the medium size companies, this is different.
Jon: Yeah. Yeah. And well, and on the flip side of what we were just talking about, it's important for organizations for leaders and executives to recognize that because of the skillset we're discussing is different than those, the technical expertise, perhaps of the people that they're going to be leading. You should be looking for a different type of. Potential leader in that formal role, you don't need the, you don't need the best salesperson to now be the manager, right? You need a good leader to be in that role where they have a team of people. And so it's shifting part of, it's just shifting the mindset that we look, we think in different ways, we look in different ways for the people who are actually going to be a really good fit for that, that particular role with that particular team and the overall culture and the dynamic of the organization and that, that kind of approach flies in the face of a lot of tradition and a lot of ways that companies have run, you know, for a really long time. And that's part of the problem. We just end up perpetuating the same dysfunctions over time.
Peter: Yeah. And how do you, how do you learn those? Let's talk about the learning curve. We can't skip that. How do you learn the soft skills? Let's give an example then. I'm highly introvert person, I don't really know how to influence others and other people. But I do know my trade. I'm an expert in my skills. I have capabilities and I also spent enough time in various organizations and senior roles. So I do know how to work within a team, how to work with other people, but I'm not a great influencer, shall we say? So how can I learn that.
Jon: Yeah, I think the first step in learning is sometimes we need to shift our mindset. So Carol Dweck talks a lot about fixed versus growth mindset. I'm a big believer in growth mindset, right? That's the idea that we, we actually can learn and grow and develop continually throughout our life. That. Yes, we were born with certain capabilities. Certain talents were, were born into a particular situation that influences our opportunity. You know, our privilege dictates, you know, the type of education we get. So there's lots of these external factors that we don't have any control over that influences what we end up doing with our life. But we there's a lot of stuff that we do have control over. And so when we focus on our sphere of stewardship versus sphere of influence what we actually can control and what we actually can manage, and then focus on that, then we can start to set goals towards developing new skills and new capabilities and growing into those new types of roles over time. And there's a lot of ways to do that. But the first step is shifting that mindset. So if we are inclined to think of ourselves as stuck. If we're inclined to think of ourselves as no, I'm a technical person. I'm, I'm a coder. I'm not a leader. If that's the way we view ourselves. Chances are we're not going to be a good leader. First thing we have to do is realize that, Hey, I can develop these skills if maybe I want, maybe I recognize I don't have the skills right now, but I can develop them. I want to develop them. I'm going to set goals. I'm going to put myself in places where I can interact with people and learn from them. I'm going to have stretch opportunities where I can, you know, learn little by little and gain confidence. Do you know, formal training programs are great. But there's no substitute for on the job training and experiential learning. And so, you know, finding yourselves. Exactly. And so finding yourselves in those opportunities, putting yourselves into those circumstances where you can start to learn those skillsets, you know, that's, that's really vital. Now clearly organizations also need to do their part. So if I'm an executive or an organizational leader or say an HR manager or the CHRs in an organization, you know, I have responsibility for the learning and development of the people throughout the organization. So hopefully I have set up career pathways, career lanes. And I target individuals that are high potential individuals. And I involve them in training and development programs, mentoring programs, coaching opportunities, those sorts of, of initiatives, so that you can have a continual pipeline of really great people learning and developing as they go throughout their career. We, we also need to recognize that life stage matters. And so some people say in their twenties, you know, out of college, they're a coder. And they're just really great at it. They love it. They liked the money. They liked the lifestyle, but maybe, you know, now they're in their thirties or their forties, and they're settled down a little bit. Maybe they have a family, maybe their, their, their needs, their goals, their desires have shifted just due to their, their changing trajectory in life. That's natural. That happens for a lot of people perhaps most people. And so we, as organizational leaders need to understand that. And just because someone five years ago said they weren't interested in a leadership role, that doesn't mean they won't be interested in today, right. Their circumstances could be completely different, but one thing I've seen over and over again is actually people end up getting pigeonholed in an organization. If they've been there for a long time they, they ended up getting pigeonholed and there's this kind of general perspective around that individual throughout the leadership in the organization. And then people just make assumptions and they just say, well, no, no, they're not interested. They're really great at what they do. They have no interest in this. Again, that may have been true five, 10 years ago. That may have no validity today. Go ahead.
Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. But as you said, most of the time, the, the situation can change. Most of the startup founders I mean everyone around things that just the usual startup founder is some 20 something year old kid in San Francisco running with a bunch of VC money. But, but the truth is farther than that. So most of the people who are founding startup companies or new companies are late thirties, early forties, spend some time in a job in a senior or wealth manager or a role, saw a problem. And now, you know, there's a situation where they can shift and and do something with their own entrepreneurial spirit, but they still do not have the skills to become a really great leader. They have the master expert skills of certain types of jobs of course, because they spent like a decade in there. But they don't have the leadership skills and that's why they need to learn at the age of, you know, 30, 38 or more.
Jon: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, so once you have people, I guess my point is don't force it on people who have no interest or desire to take on leadership roles. Right. Depending on where someone's at in their life and their career that can ebb and flow. Right. But assuming you have someone who now they have the desire, they have the ambition, they have the trajectory in their career. They have these goals in their life and for their career, they want to be better leaders. Once you've established that and you have established the mindset that they can develop and grow into these roles. I think the next part of that mindset, but really the next phase is to foster the humility necessary for them to continue that learning. Because they've been so successful up to that point in their career there, there can be a tendency to have a level of arrogance about them. Right. And that's true for all of us. Right? You have, you, you have successes. You feel more confident. The challenge is can, can you be both confident and humble at the same time, recognizing that there's still more to learn? There's still more that you don't know. And so I kind of joke about this, but some of the stupidest people I know are some of the most intelligent people I know. And the reason I say that is I feel like they're stupid because they're, they're stunting their own continual growth. Because of their mindset because of their hubris and their arrogance. They think they have it all figured out. They think that they know everything. And so then they stop pushing themselves. They stop trying to learn new things. They stop looking at the environment and trying to figure out where the gaps are. Those are the types of people. I don't care how intelligent they are. They may have a crazy IQ. And I know some people like this, like some of the people in my life that are the most brilliant people are also the most arrogant and kind of stupid. They really miss the big picture a lot of times. Right. And so that's, that's the next challenge is you have to make sure that these very successful people who are now in these roles and there's, you know, that that has an ego factor for them because now, you know, you're in this important role and people look up to you and stuff. That's great. Confidence is good, but you have to foster can, you know, a certain level of intellectual humility in order to continue to continually grow progress throughout your life and throughout your career. And that's what the greatest leaders do. The greatest leaders have a growth mindset. They recognize the importance of lifelong learning. They don't ever allow themselves to become stagnant. And they're always pushing themselves. They're always pushing their thinking. They're always challenging their assumptions, and they're always trying to surround themselves with brilliant people. They're not intimidated by having smart people around them. Leaders who are insecure, want to want to. Be the top person. Right. And then they try to ha they try to surround themselves with sycophants and yes, men and yes, women, you know, who, who will think that they're brilliant and do everything. They say that that's not a good leader. The great leaders are those who recognize that they don't have all the expertise in all the specific technical areas. That's why you create a great team and you get all the people around you and then together you create something awesome. That's a different mindset, right?
Peter: Yeah. I love it. I love it. And I, and I see that so often that you just described by the way, if you, if you do have this, shall we say arrogant mindset that you've, that you think that you figured everything out you are prone to, to respond worse to change. It's really hard to change your way of thinking really hard to change the course of your company, because you think that you figured it out, but well, you didn't. So let's, let's address a little bit of change because, well, we are living in a really disturbed time and businesses need to adapt and need to change to certain levels of environmental change anyway. And you also teach change management for companies as well. So what do you think? How a company can successfully adapt to a new, totally new or changed environment in business. What are the necessary steps that need to take?
Jon: Yeah. Yeah. Great, great question again I think it starts with the mindset and the assumptions that people have around learning and growth. And if, if we have a growth mindset that not only applies to individuals, but that applies to organizations. So we want a growth culture within our organization. We want a learning organization, a learning environment where we're continually trying things. We're iterating, we're innovating, right? That's the kind of organization that has the potential to be successful in today's ever, you know, quickly changing hyper competitive marketplace, right. We have competitors we're so globally interconnected, we have competitors, not just in our own little geographic region. We have competitors everywhere. And the rapid pace of, of change is constant. So if we want to be able to function in that kind of an environment, then we, I mean, there are processes that you can go through for specific change initiatives. And we can talk about that, but generally speaking, we just need to have a change culture within our organization, so that, so that we're not continually running into resistance to change because the human tendency, if we don't proactively create an alternative paradigm in culture, the human tendency is to resist change because we like certainty. We like comfort and stability. We, and so organizations, the traditional organization is set up to perpetuate, sustain and move forward the status quo. That's why bureaucracies were invented. Institutional structures exist to continue the existence of the institution. So if you, if you want to change, then you have to break down the resistance and you have to create this culture where everyone just knows and expects like, yeah, we're. We're we're, we're learning, we're growing. Things are gonna constantly be changing. That doesn't mean it has to be a threat. And in fact , it's the opposite. If we create that kind of a, of a learning environment, we are better positioned to continually respond to the ever-shifting marketplace to continue to drive value, which means the organization is going to be more successful, more sustainable, and our jobs are more secure. The most insecure we will be is if we're, if we're stuck in an old way of doing things and everything changes around us, we're slow to adapt or to pivot. And then all of a sudden, you know, we're filing for bankruptcy and everyone loses their jobs. So, I mean, I know it's kind of counterintuitive, but that's, that's the kind of environment we need to create. Once we can start to create that kind of environment, then we can start to go through, you know, specific processes, you know? In, in dealing with specific change initiatives. So say tech integration, you know, maybe we have some new technology we're trying to use throughout the business or digital transformation you know, and utilizing that technology better across all areas of the organization. Maybe you have a new hierarchical structure, maybe there's merger, or an acquisition. Maybe you're just, you're trying to bring on new executive or new division and that you're spinning up to address a new need. And so there are shifts related to that. There's all these different specific types of change initiatives that an organization might decide they need to undertake. And then, you know, we can, there are processes to try to go about doing that.
Peter: Yeah. And I think, I think vision, this is, this is where the vision comes, comes into the play into it, into the picture because what I see also even so more regurarly now that, that the company because of a huge change and constant change within the business environment, they are also embracing change usually. So they are changing within the environment, but that also has some wild side effects. Right? So without the vision of the leadership, usually what happens with the constant changing is that the team around the leader gets tired of the constant switches focus, the constant switches of change. That's important.
Jon: We call that change fatigue, right? Yeah. So change fatigue is a big problem and yeah. I didn't mean to cut you off, but part, part of the issue that we need to face is again, creating a culture of continual growth, continual development continual in iterations in our processes or policies, practices, procedures, you know the products and services that we create. All of that, you know, we're, we're continually iterating. If we can create that environment. That's, that's wonderful. The change fatigue that I see really hitting organizations the most, it happens when you have continual change that doesn't make sense. So, you know, maybe it's a leader, you know, it's, it's like the, the latest flavor of the month, the new fad. So, you know what, whatever you're chasing the fad instead of chasing the strategic. You know, direction of what the organization needs to do to be successful when you connect the change with a clear why back to the vision and the mission of the organization and how it's going to help the people do their jobs better and be more successful. Yeah, there's still going to be some resistance. But it's going to be way easier, but when you just have continual fad chasing and you're going after the next thing, people get so tired of that so quickly, and they don't see the benefit of it. And so then they, that's where the resistance really gets built up. And that change fatigue really takes hold. And that is toxic. So that's certainly not what we want.
Peter: Yeah. And also see that it's in to come up with a certain age gaps, by the way the change fatigue and the constant changing, usually it's around above 50 when they are, don't really know how to respond to changes the ground environment because of the lack of leadership skills and vision. But, but they are still embracing the change. And also, I see that it's very same with very young people when they are also in this instant gratification thing, and, Oh, here's the new trend should jump on at that. And that leaves most of these organizations in the constant changing environment. And that's really tiring for for, for the team members usually. Yeah. What do you think the psychological effects of the business environment and talking about, for example the COVID situation that we do have right now did I think it, it really creates personally oh. And also business anxiety as well. As a leader, personally, I do think that it's totally fine to show that anxiety to your team members honestly. And, and make it a little bit more transparent. Yes. I'm also a human. Did you know that? So that's, that that's really important, but, but I'm not sure how, or what would you advise how to deal with that anxiety, that stress level that is not from within your organization because of you're doing something wrong, but it's some, something like external. Coming from your environment.
Jon: Yeah, it's a, it's a great point. And, and right now we can talk about the pandemic, but it's, you know, there's all sorts of disruptive things happening around us. It can be anything. And I think one thing that we've learned, we knew about this before the pandemic, but I think it's, it's. We we've really zoomed in on it and really more and more people recognize it today. Then maybe a year ago is the importance of empathy in the business place, vulnerability and authenticity. You mentioned transparency. So I think those, those all go together. So the traditional model of like a strong, powerful, confident leader, isn't really compatible with this idea of a vulnerable leader who admits to difficulties and challenges who admits distress and anxiety and whatnot. But when we, when we can do that with our people, what it will, it does a couple of things. One is it's just, we're more genuine and authentic which means people can trust us more. It it's people aren't stupid. They know stuff's going on. And so we just need, we just need to be open with them, but when we're vulnerable and when we're when we're showing genuine compassion and empathy, it gives our people the permission to do the same, right. Everyone's dealing with these difficult challenges. We're not fooling anyone. If we just have this workplace environment where everyone shows up, they check all of their personal stuff at the door. You know, once, you know, sometimes people say we want a professional culture and what they mean by that is, you know, leave your own personal stuff at home. Check your emotions be stoic, come into the workplace and just do your job. You know, that that's, that model is not sustainable. That's not sustainable for humans. Yeah, exactly. We're human beings. And so we, as leaders set the tone, we need to be able to show that vulnerability ourselves. We then give permission to our people to do the same. And then we develop meaningful genuine relationships with our team and we can lean on and rely on each other because everyone has good days and bad days, everyone, you know, everyone's mood ebbs and flows, and everyone has you know, real big difficulties that they have to face in life from time to time. Hopefully no tragedies befall anyone on our team, but it happens like things happen. And so we need to remember that we're all human beings and, you know, even if we set the human argument aside and we just talk about the business case. Of transparency, open communication, authenticity and such the research is pretty darn clear that even, you know, setting, you know, what we may call the warm, fuzzy human stuff, set that aside and just say, what's going to help the organization be more effective and efficient and innovative. It's the research is clear it's as we do these things, to lead our people in genuine ways and develop trust in relationships that helps us attract and retain the best people. It creates a more dynamic learning environment where innovation can happen and where our people can thrive. That helps the bottom line of the organization. It's pretty darn crystal clear. So that's what we need to be doing. That's what leaders need to be doing. And again, coming all the way back to where we started. Frankly, that's not what most leaders have been trained to do. That's not the skill set that they have. That's not what they've seen other people do in their past. And so we need to proactively try to counter, you know, any of those dysfunctional styles or approaches and be more proactive about making sure that we're leading a healthy organization.
Peter: I love that that was a really happy and humble closure for this talk. I love it. Thank you for sharing. If anyone wants to engage with you or have any questions or they want to develop their leadership skills, can you share some contact details, please?
Jon: Yeah, you can definitely reach out to me or anyone on my team by going to innovative human capital.com. That's the firm's website. We also, so we have tons of awesome resources there. Lots of free resources, webinars, research, briefs, snapshots, and such. Our goal is to try to add value and to help provide practical tips that can allow leaders to start improving and making an impact today. So go check out our website, check out the research section and subsections. We have tons of really great content there. We have a podcast. I referred to that earlier. The human capital innovations podcast we're approaching our 500 episode. About, about 300 of those episodes have been interviews with thought leaders and executives. People from around the world. So that's a great resource. I would definitely encourage you to check that out. I also have a book that came out in the fall in November called the alchemy of truly remarkable leadership that's available on Amazon and, you know, in any major book outlet take a look at that. It gets into a lot of the things we were talking about today, frankly and spells it out and I tried to make it really practical. And so there's at the end of each chapter, there's guiding self-reflection questions and there's opportunity for goal setting. The whole idea being we want to grow. We want to learn, we want to continue to develop ourselves. So please do reach out to me check out the website and let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything I can do to help you.
Peter: I love it. Thank you. Thank you. I love this approach that you're providing so much, so much, so much value for free for people. I think it's very humble and really appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you for being on the show.
Jon: Thank you for having me and I look forward to interacting with you again.
Peter: Likewise. Thank you. I hope we could provide valuable insights on leadership and how to develop leadership skills. We'll cover more business challenges in our upcoming episodes. And as always, we will follow up this show with more content on our site at V 99. challenges.com. Thank you for listening.
