Learning from Leaders

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us at JLC Media. This is our series set of series on everyday leadership conversations. And it's really clear to us that our clients are asking for information about what does it look like when my leadership presence is really clear and the people that I am interacting with cannot just see what I'm doing but can sense what I'm doing. So this would be really working on refining our understanding of leadership presence. We've done two previous ones on leadership presence and one on awareness. So altogether they make up leadership with itness. Kind of an educational term came out of the educational literature that if you go in a classroom you can tell whether the teacher is with the kids and whether the kids are with the teacher. Any meeting you go to you can tell whether the participants are with the leader and the leader with the participants. So we're going to work on that today and I think you're going to really like it. What we will do is develop a common understanding about characteristics that are positive in establishing effective leadership presence so that each of you, if you choose to, can go ahead and take that information and use it in your own leadership role. So what did you guys just hear me say we're going to work on and what did that mean to you? Joe, start us off.

So we're going to talk a little bit about people who have been role models or perhaps models in other ways for us and kind of the things that we took away, the major lessons we took away from them.

That's excellent. I want to say to everyone listening as well as this wonderful team that I get to hang out with, I learned plenty from people who I would not identify as a great leader. There are non examples in leadership that you can learn a lot from. But yes, Joe, that's perfect. That's exactly what we're after. Vince, what are you hearing we're doing today?

I concur with Joe Heard, but in addition to that, you also stated that it was important to understand what great leaders are not just in the things that they say, but the actions that they actually demonstrate as an example. So that can be verbal but most importantly non verbal.

That's beautiful. So remember, if those of you listening watched our other ones, there were really three things we played and tagged on leadership presence. There's a lot of literature out there, you can read a lot of stuff about it. But we were very interested in the leaders stance, their focus and their talk. Those three things, they're very powerful and as we listen to a person lead us in A conversation or be part of us in a meeting, those three things really matter. Leadership presence. What is my stance? What is my focus? What's my talk? So, Terry, what'd you hear us say we're going to work on today?

Yeah, thanks, Ray. Yeah. You just said what I heard was great leaders, leadership presence, and then their stance, their focus and their talk really is what we're going to evolve this conversation about today.

Yeah. All of us have seen people stand at a podium and they obviously don't want to be there and it's obvious and they just want to get whatever they're supposed to do done with and moved on. That has an impact on the audience, that has an impact on the team, large or small groups. Very powerful stuff. Nicole, what are you hearing we're working on today?

One of the key things I heard you say is we're going to focus on the positive. We're going to focus on maybe not those non examples or the things we learned that we shouldn't do, but those we interacted with that inspired us to know more about ourselves and our own leadership with it. Ness and presence and awareness. Yeah.

Yeah. For me, I was really good at creating fear because I was scared as a new leader. And it was easy for me to kind of be the boss, you know, and over time, I realized that did not help. Right. And that there was another way to lead. And through lots of bruised elbows and skinned knees, there were things that came to me and to all of these wonderful people on this podcast today that I think you'll learn and enjoy. Thank you so much, Nicole.

Terry, Ray, I would add on to what Nicole was saying in what I heard was we have all seen leaders at the podium and then what we as leaders learn from that and what is it that that leader does on the podium that engages the audience or helps them achieve a common understanding? Because it's, you know, we've all seen those leaders that just get up there and talk and you lose it. But what does a good leader do when he's up on. He or she is up on the. On the podium to engage the audience so that everyone walks away with something from that lecture.

Beautiful. So we've already hit three big things just with the comments by. By the way, I focused the conversation. I engaged you by closing the loop. And now look at us. Focus, engagement. Close the loop. Right. Common understanding. We're actually building the practices just in watching this opening piece with us and those of you that are watching this is. We do this and sometimes it is so internalized. In us. We don't stop and say it to you well enough. And there's also opportunity for any of you listening to give us a ring. We'd be happy to meet you on a discovery call and let you know more about this. But we just did focus, engage, close the loop leading toward common understanding, even about what the focus is. Sometimes people hear the focusing statement to your point, Terry, and their minds are gone. They're somewhere else now, waiting for this other thing they thought was going to happen. By closing the loop like we just did, something begins to clarify as a team, as a little community. So thank you. Thank you. Final thoughts before I move you. This one I think you're going to really enjoy. I learned this from someone who I really admire, and I. I want to do a good job honoring the work that she did with me years and years ago. And I'm going to ask a very simple question. If you could visualize one leader, one leader that you felt had an incredible impact on you, how would you describe their leadership presence? And again, don't name their whole name. Just tell me what their position might have been and maybe their first name or a cute name you used to call them. I don't want to tell you what they called me. Anyway. If you could identify just one person like that and their position where you were in the organization and what did you see in terms of their leadership presence? Who'd like to start?

Yeah, this is Terry. I'll start. I will. I'd like to identify an admiral I worked for, an admiral that I worked for several years ago, and he was the former deputy surgeon general. I was what was called an executive assistant and executive assistant. And I watched this person every day and in his interactions with the multitude of people that came in. And he was a role model for me. And I modeled a lot of my behavior later in my career after him. And one of the top, one of the things that he did that I was very appreciative of and intrigued by was his in present, being present in the conversation. Right. Making good eye contact, being very calm with the multitude of people that were in the room and being attentive around the room as others were speaking. And so I really appreciated that, learned a lot from that. And I watched that in other leaders today, in all conversations that I'm in. Every time I'm in the conversation, I'm learning. And that was one of my big takeaways from that time in my career.

A lot of focus on all the people that were speaking throughout the course of that interaction or meeting. That's really beautiful, Joe. You got one?

Sure. So despite the provocation, I'm going to go a little bit in the other direction.

Okay.

So I was in a combat organization and I worked for somebody for whom bad news always required two trips. And so for me, this was just a. A huge lesson in how if leadership is not receptive to all sources of information and is not willing to take on whatever the facts are and work logically with the team to get to the next place that you have to go, that that has a way of essentially paralyzing the entire organization. That instead messengers get shot, that instead people will go to extreme measures not to communicate bad news because nobody wants to have to do the multiple trips and have the multiple conversations. They just become very. Avoiding it not only makes the organization less effective, but it's less adaptable and less able to deal with emerging and changing situations, which is what organizations are all about, change and management. I think the lesson I would offer is, and again, I think you touched on this earlier, Ray, that many times in good leadership positions in, it's hard to discern what the leaders do because it looks so natural and it flows so well, whereas bad leadership or difficult leadership examples, you just learn a lot more from those. And so that would be the one I would offer.

So he's also. Joe, that was magnificent. There's something here that we work on, all of us work on at jlc, and that is the ability to establish and sustainability safe space. And if the space isn't safe and I only want to hear good news, I'm just going to kill you if you keep bringing me a bad news idea or you keep telling me things that are not going well. I'll never be able to resolve or solve any problem, dilemma, or situation without hearing all sides of the dilemma or situation. Joe, that was magnificent. Thank you. Nicole, what are you thinking about?

There's so much to unpack with Joe's story. So it's really engrossed and engaged in that. But the leader that came to mind when you first asked the question for me is a department manager director that I worked with very early on in my corporate career. And this individual, this guy. Rex. Hello. If you're out there listening, I'll tag you and you can listen in. But he, he was someone who built really strong relationships with everyone in the organization. And one of the things that I really noticed was it was everyone from the person who delivered the mail to the executives that we worked with at the top of the chain in the organization, it didn't matter what position you were in, you had value, you had something to add. You were important part of how the organization ran. So that was one key thing. And then he always. He knew everyone and he knew their story and he knew about their family and he knew. He just knew people. He generated and created relationships with people that were long lasting and meaningful. And the other thing that really impacted me, what he modeled as a leader, was giving people opportunities. He was always behind the scenes, sort of pulling strings. And if you did the work, you. He wanted you to be the one to present it to the executive team. He gave you that opportunity to show the work that you had done. And he consistently did that. I saw him do that with many different people. He was always there behind the scenes looking for people to give them the resources they need to set them up for success. Whether that was our senior executive leader, he gave that person what he needed to be successful and deliver the best presentation. And he was content to be the person behind the scenes pulling the strings, brokering the resources, and giving others the opportunity to show the work that they had done and to be successful. And that has always just really stayed with me as just kind of the embodiment, I think, of leadership awareness and leadership presence.

That's actually a magnificent little piece, and I hope Rex is listening. I do know who that is, and that deserves those kudos. And the work that we've been studying together as a community is that we don't need to take any credit as leaders. We need to diffuse that credit outbound. But if something goes wrong, that's me. I want it, Let me have it. I will be responsible for that. That's beautiful. You also brought another big piece up about JLC that when we coach people, we talk to them about one of your biggest responsibilities is to broker the necessary resources. That was really nice. Thank you. Vince, who are you thinking about? And give us a little, little bit.

Of your backstory here so I could embarrass someone in this group today and get into some really, really deep talk.

Feel free.

So a person that I truly, truly admire, his name was Terry and he was the captain. He was at the time a captain. He was going to be the CO of one of our hospitals in the Navy in Okinawa, and we were doing some ventures. I was in Japan. He'd come to this meeting, and at this meeting all of his leaders were there. I was a junior guy, just kind of looking up and we went to the Officers Club that night. And at the Officers Club all the sailors from my command who had known him, they knew him by reputation at work with him. They were just all gathered around him at the club. And I remember thinking, who is that guy? Because whoever he is, man, everybody's in love with him. And just as the evening went on, I remember thinking, damn, I want to work for him. And so fast forward a few years. I had the privilege of working under him and watching his leadership style, his connection with people, his ability to paint clear pictures. He talked in very simplistic terms to leaders, so he made it very easy for his leaders to understand and to connect. What he really, really did that struck me was he never talked about bad things. He only saw the good things in people and his leaders. And everything was everyone had the benefit of the doubt with him. And making a mistake was okay if you talk to him about it. He always sought work for a position of kind of making you feel pretty good about yourself, even though you screwed the pooch and to rebuild you and to give you that next opportunity. And so I had an opportunity to work for him two times after that. And he was very consistent. He was very caring about people. And that just resonated with me. And so I just understood and learned that the most important part of my job was people. As long as you take care of people, things tend to work out.

So those of you that are listening are hearing. And because of Terry, that's just magnificent to hear that. Anyway, his focus was people, right? That was really what his focus was. And to embrace them so they could be the best that they could be. Stance was, we can do anything. And to Joe's story, when you have that type of relationship, no matter what the bad news is, you will be able to resolve it. The wisdom is there if the relationships are right. If the relationships are not right, then people withhold. It's really fantastic. And as we move forward and we think about presence, I'm now going to ask Terry a question that I'm going to ask all of you to respond to in a minute. Vince just said what he learned from you. T. What did you learn from Vince? What did you learn from Vince?

Well, that's pretty nice. I'm trying to figure out who that guy Terry was.

Yeah, we all know.

You know, I will tell you, what I really appreciate was the openness and the candid. And as I watched Vince during his time, he was always in support of what the bigger piece of the organization and people also, right? And you could watch him walking down the hallway and people would acknowledge and I never saw frowns. I always saw smiles. And I think that's so important when you lead people right and you want them to know where the mission is, and then you want to demonstrate your commitment to that, and others follow with that. So I learned a great deal from Vince during our time together.

You know, Vince, I sometimes think when I did this, I was the participant in this activity. It was overseas. And when the facilitator shifted it to, what did you learn? What did you learn from that person that you admired? And then they asked us, what do you think they might have learned from you? That shifted everything for me. So those of you that are listening that are in leadership positions now, you. You just saw that interaction. Vince is saying, this is what I learned from Terry. And Terry said, this is what I learned from Vince. This is an interdependent, interactive, very collegial way of developing your leadership and leadership presence. That was a wonderful gentleman. Joe, what was some of your learning, especially from that person who said, I don't want to hear any bad news. How did that change you as a leader moving forward? Because that obviously had a big impact on you?

Well, I would answer that, Ray, by saying that the first thing that I observed from that individual was really how it changed the relationships with everybody that he came in contact with. And so it was really a front row seat on how people with good intentions, high motivations, and a great work ethic just wilted because they felt that their ability to communicate about their challenges was not there or it had to be handled in some very careful way, which was just like an additional burden that had to be handled. So I think, to me, it was a lesson in leadership accessibility, on leadership treating. I mean, again, you always want to be positive about good things, but I think leadership also has a responsibility to welcome problems and to be buoyant about the solutions.

I love the way you articulated that, too. The people can help us. The collective wisdom can help us solve any problem, but we can't solve a problem we don't know about. I remember the executive director at BUMED asking me to do a seminar on how to accelerate an issue to the right level. Sometimes in the pharmacy, there's a significant issue, and the resources in the pharmacy can't solve it. Well, one of the things you can do is ignore it. And this particular gentleman said, ray, we really need your help to teach us how to accelerate this problem to another level where it can be solved. Of course, if no one's interested in hearing any bad news, and there's actually many Cute little books written about this. No bad news books, right? Those issues die on the vine and people are not being served. Joe, that was really good. Nicole, what's resonating with you in this conversation? What are you thinking?

I'm just thinking about all the ways in which we impact the people in our lives. We're all talking about our leadership stories. We're all talking about people from potentially years and years ago who have impacted us. And I think that just part of that leadership awareness is recognizing the impact that you have on people, on the individuals that work for you, on the organization at large. And the little conversations, the everyday little interactions and conversations are going to compound and, and impact that influence. You can't come to a meeting and show up and be one way and then be a different way in those one on one or little conversations, or if I catch you in the hallway and have the kind of environment and relationships that you want to have. So just thinking about just how collective it is, this idea of being a with IT leader.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're really deep down the rabbit hole about systems and interdependencies. And I cannot tell you how many times there I would. There would be a meeting. There's a meeting, and either I was a participant or I was the leader of the meeting, but I was there right then the meeting ended and everybody went out in the parking lot. There were like 30 or 40 different meetings and they weren't very good and they were very colorful and people were. It was just amazing. So if the culture loses its capability to really listen and care for one another, you get these very strange interactions elsewhere. And those little one on one interactions impact the larger system. That's really, really good. Thank you. Thank you. Well, those who are listening, thank you for being with us on the podcast. I'd like to get each of the participants to do a quick checkout. I want you to notice something. They didn't know what I was going to ask them at the end of this. And because of that, there's always that little bit of, oh, what, Ray, what? And there's that vulnerability that unfolds. I'm telling you, this woman and these men are quintessential learners. And one of the men that I really admired a lot talked about humble leadership. How do I lead? Through humility, Recognizing, I don't know everything. Recognizing I've got to figure out how to get to the wisdom that is with me on this journey. So I can't tell you how incredibly impressed I am with this team and their Stories. Oh my God, they are just magnificent. So being a learner today, and I know I did pull the wool out from under a couple of times, but being a learner, what's a number one takeaway? Something you hadn't thought of before we started this conversation today. Who'd I start?

Well, it's Terry. I'll start my one little takeaway, really. And what resonated with me is from Nicole. And it's a reminder. Those one on one conversations that you have in the hallway with whoever that's in the organization, whether it be the housekeeping staff or the providers that are in the organization, every one on one conversation is an opportunity to build relationships and to achieve the greater good for the organization. And we as leaders ought to be reminded of that. And with your leadership, with itness, that is part of that, that we should practice and learn about. And I'm out.

Yeah. Thank you. The idea of what kind of culture do we want? Do we want a dismissive culture? No, bad news culture. Those are really. They'll stop us in our tracks. That's really excellent. Thank you for treating that as a learning opportunity. When I think Vince would probably tell you, nonsense. That's how you are. I remember working with school people early in my work on the road, and I asked them if they knew who the cafeteria workers were in their school, if they knew their names, if they knew what they did, if they knew how many kids they. And the responses were varied, let me say it that way. But it was interesting to notice that all the relationships matter because it's an interdependent system. That's great, Terry. Thank you. Vince, talk to me. What resonated most with you today? What's a learning for you?

Yeah, so a learning for me is centered around Joe's thoughts as he told his story about his leadership experience. And he specified the community. Right. Joe started off saying, this is a line community item in military circles. So communities matter. And the way that you learn and that you grow and community culture is as important as organizational culture. But being self aware of the culture of the community in which you come up and what those expectations are. So then when you rise to leadership, you're no longer working within that specific space. You are now oftentimes responsible for a much wider aperture of individuals from various communities. And your ability to understand your leadership strengths, your leadership weaknesses, and your communication is as important as the talent that you bring with you. As Joe told his story, that was the learning of not forgetting what you learned coming up. You have to adapt and open your aperture a little bit once you leave the wider system, organization. And I'm out.

Yeah, the agility piece. And that was really magnificent. So there's a sense here that people sometimes try and figure out, why is that person behaving that way? Of course, the question I prefer is, what can I do to help that person behave differently? For me, that was a reminder today. For me also in my own practice. Joe, what resonated with you today as learning?

I thought it was a nice reminder of the fact that as a leader, you get to construct your leadership Persona. But there's a real need to select that Persona with care. The leader that typically in organizations, they are most responsive to a leader who is consistently up the middle, fair, impartial. I think it was Rudyard Kipling who said something about meeting success and failure and treating those two imposters just the same.

I love it.

And so I think that's, again, for people to know that you know that as a leader, you're going to recognize good things, and also you understand that bad things are going to happen, but that you're able to process that and move to the next level, which is what it's all about. And I'm out.

That was magnificent. I love the Kipling quote. I think it is about. There's actually more to it than that, Joe, if you can recall it, and treating those success and failures as imposters, it's a magnificent notion because whatever judgment we put on it, then that was a success. And another person might say that was a failure. Being able to see those distinctions in leadership, absolutely critical. Nicole, what did you get today? What resonated with you the most?

I really loved the question. You flipped the question. You asked us at first to think about what we learned from these prominent leaders in our lives, and then you flipped it and you asked us to think about what they learned from us. And I think that just opened up a few things for me. And one was, yeah, even, you know, wherever you're at in your leadership journey, it's likely that the leaders above you are learning from you and then as the leader, being really intentional about what are you learning from those that you lead? Just that exchange of learning that can occur, I think is so powerful. So I just kind of keep thinking about that. Like, I don't know how to answer that question. What did the leader I thought of learn from me? But I like thinking about it, so I thank you and I'm out.

Yeah, I bet Rex would tell us what he learned from you would be my guess. And I think all of these great leaders are able to articulate what they learned from people that were hierarchically junior to their level. But there's learning there. There's learning there all the time. This is, you know, I went and chased down a piece that came up in an earlier podcast that I love this. People who think, don't judge. People who judge, don't think. Carl Jung was the author of that and I love this sense of I need to look at this as an event, something for us to learn from, not for something to us to decrypt or applaud. This was really one of the best ones I've seen you guys do. Well done. I look forward to it. Ladies and gentlemen that are listening, hope you enjoyed the gang. As you can tell, they are magnificent. If you'd like to chat with them, you'll get a little follow up. Or you can get a follow up. Go to the website, they're all on there, send us a note, we'll give you a follow up phone call and they will work with you on developing your own leadership presence which happens through Everyday Leadership conversations. Great being with you everyone. Thank you so much and thank you to my friends, my wonderful friends and colleagues. Take care everyone.

Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page at gojlc.

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