How to Be an Effective Leader While Under Pressure With David Arrington
6 Oct 2022 · 39 min
This is a transcript of a Negotiate Anything podcast episode (host Kwame Christian) interviewing Dr. David Arrington (COO, Arrington Coaching; author of Promotable) about leadership during crisis. They frame leadership around three themes: executive presence (calm, focus, preventing panic), 360-degree success (balancing professional and personal goals to avoid burnout), and compassionate/high-performing people leadership (patience, acknowledging stress, rebuilding trust). The episode includes practical examples, coaching perspectives, promotion of Arrington's "Leading Under Pressure" program (launching January 2021) and calls-to-action for negotiation workshops from the American Negotiation Institute.
Questions this episode answers
Over 5 million downloads
Listeners in over 180 countries
Beginning of January 2021
arringtoncoaching.com
Promotable
Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute here at A&I we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. David, thanks for joining us today, Kwame.
It is an absolute pleasure, my friend.
Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you. I've been excited about this since we first spoke. So let's jump into it. How about you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Cool. Well, My name is Dr. David Arrington. I have over 15 years of leadership development experience. I have 20 plus years actually of leadership experience. I am the COO of Arrington Coaching. I am the author of Promotable and most recently I have created Leading Under Pressure, which is an executive leadership development community.
Fantastic. I love it. And so Leading Under Pressure, David, why do you think it's important for us to understand how to do that?
Well, 2020, I could just stop there. Right, 2020. But if you notice the leadership landscape has changed fundamentally and indelibly. It's not going back to the way it was. And we have, in this one year, these 12 months or so, leaders have been put through a lot of changes. And what I've noticed working with leaders in a number of different industries is that they weren't ready. Right. The changes that happened, moving from in person to remote, handling remote teams, still being able to adapt on the fly as other leadership needs changed. There was definitely a gap for a lot of leaders. So right now we're going to see change continue and it's going to speed up and most leaders, again, still aren't ready. So what I've done is I think that this is the time for leaders to learn how to lead under pressure. You can argue that leaders are always leading under Pressure. But this is one of those moments that is a standout moment where the pressure is so. It's so heavy, the pressure is so great right now that people can actually step back and say, yes, I need to step up what I'm doing as a leader.
Absolutely, man, this is great. This is great. So let's jump into it. So the three things that we're going to cover today are first, presence, second, 360 degree success, and then lastly, how we treat people and lead people, really just rounding it all out. So presence, what do we need to know about that?
So executive presence is basically making sure that you are staying focused on the right things. You're enabling your team to stay focused on the right things, and you're not running around panicking and messing up the morale and doing more harm to your team and your culture than you're doing good. So one of the things I've noticed during this time is that many people didn't panic as outwardly as you think, but they retreated. It was a way of them dealing with overwhelm. And when you're in a time of crisis as a leader, you can't retreat, you can't hide out. You cannot. Because as you go, so goes the team, so goes morale, so go culture. So as a leader, a big part of what you're going to be doing is demonstrating that presence to let people know that you can stay calm. We may not have the answers, but we're working on it. I can't say what's going to happen, but we're working to make sure that everyone's jobs are stable, intact. Moving forward, we're going to take care of you. It's a lot of reassurance, It's a lot of people management above and beyond, assigning tasks and making sure that things are getting done and hitting targets. This is the softer side of leadership that is more nurturing and a lot of leaders have gotten away from because they don't see themselves as motivational, they don't see themselves as nurturers, they see themselves as employers making sure that people get work done. And fundamentally, that's a big difference between management and leadership.
One of the things I liked about that is the fact that you said focus, and that was interesting because typically when you think about executive presence, people say, well, stand up straight, shoulders back, shake with a firm handshake. Now virtually, I guess a firm wave, whatever it might be. Right. And I like that you started off with focus. That was interesting. So tell us why it starts there.
It starts there because what you're focusing on is what your team is going to focus on. And I've heard all of the same stuff. The firm handshake, look them in the eye, hand your business card with one hand and shake with the other. That's not necessarily executive presence as much as it is making a. Making a good impression. Right? Executive presence goes well beyond making a good impression to ensuring that your team can function through crisis. That's fundamentally the role of executive presence and coming back to focus as you help your team to stay focused not on the crisis, but on what they're doing now and how they will move through the crisis and who they will be on the other side of the crisis. That is executive presence helping your focused on getting the right things done. Even when everything is a distraction, when they can't turn on the news without being distracted, and they can't get away from the distraction because perhaps it's hitting them personally, perhaps it's hitting them in their social circles, they're being distracted. There are things outside of your control that are clamoring for their attention. Your role and the fundamental role of executive presence, from what we're talking about right here, is making sure that they can function. Letting them know that you understand being a human being in the middle of this crisis, allowing your team to breathe and understand that, yes, it's not good right now, but we're going to get through this. That's executive presence, that calming presence that lets your team know we're going to make it. If you're running around, I often use the Six Days, Seven Nights, Harrison Ford, and I can never remember the young lady who's in that with him. I love that movie. But there's a scene when they've tried everything and Harrison Ford, who was a pilot in this movie, walks this tall grass and he starts shaking the grass and cussing and kicking and everything. And she walks back out and the actress looks at him and says, I understand you're upset. Don't ever do that again. I can't afford to see you like that. That's understanding executive presence. You can't kick the grass. You can't go off and have a hissy fit or a meltdown that's public. Because it will undermine not only their confidence in the direction and tomorrow, but it will undermine their confidence in your ability to get them there.
That makes a lot of sense. And we can understand why it's so important for leaders to be like this, right? But we understand at the same time that it's incredibly difficult for them to be like this too, because just like how their employees are feeling pressure and they're afraid too, the leaders feel the same way. And for a lot of leaders at the top, that's almost like. Not almost. It really is the loneliest place in the organization. So how do leaders still maintain this presence while still maintaining their mental health?
So two things. One, it's Ann Hetch or Ann Hetchy. I did remember her name. And two, you're hitting a great point here. For leaders, it's always lonely in times of crisis. It's even lonelier because the stakes are even higher. So one of the things I've done working with my clients, I become that safe space. I become that calm in the middle of the storm, as it were. The eye of the storm, where they can step back, think, they can game plan, and they can get ahead of the curve versus always playing catch up and always fighting fires and always trying to figure out what's next. I become a confidant that allows them this is an executive coaching. And even in the program we do this, give them an opportunity to step back and think and breathe and take the loneliness out of leadership. Because that's one of the things that's different now. It's always been lonely, but before you were lonely in the same office building. Right now you're lonely at home, really feeling disconnected from your people, not being able to get those subtle cues in a meeting or those subtle cues as you walk down the hallway or in between meetings. You're not able to read the people like you could before. So now it feels even more disconnected as leaders are making decisions that have greater impact, that are more crisis driven than vision driven. Right. So you end up having leaders struggling. And this program I mentioned, leading under pressure, is designed. Leadership doesn't have to be this lonely. That's why I built a community. But when I'm working with clients, one on one, one of my clients was when I went and spoke to his entire executive, all of his peers, at an executive level. The way he introduced me was David helped me when Covid broke out. Didn't even know I needed the kind of help he gave. He helped me to think, he helped me to understand what was happening and to not react, but respond more effectively. So those are the types of things that having someone like myself, a coach, or someone in your sphere of influence that works with you help you as a leader to make those good decisions and not react, but respond more effectively.
Does your company invest in professional development training if you believe that your team would benefit From a negotiation workshop. All you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more and we will be right back after this. That makes sense. And folks out there who fit this, right, who you are, a leader in your company, and you're looking for resources, I strongly and highly recommend that program. There's going to be a link in the description below so you can learn more about that as well. And I think this is a really great opportunity for us to address the fact that I know there are some hard charging leaders in this audience who are saying, well, I hear this David guy here talking about being nurturing. Well, nurturing. I have numbers to hit, of course. Isn't that coddling somebody?
And I hear that a lot. I hear that a lot. And the reason I hear that a lot is because we don't fully understand what leadership entails. And in our western approach to leadership, it's all numbers. When I was doing my doctorate, one of the papers I wrote was people first, then process, right? And I would update it now to say people first, then profit. Because if you lead people effectively, the targets will hit themselves. If you focus on people, the people being nurtured, being motivated, will hit those targets and people will say, david, oh, it's not going to work here. If I had a dime for every time I was in a workshop and said some, I was like, oh, David, that's not gonna work here. I would, I'd have at least 30 bucks, right? So. But the point is, it will work here because people are people are people. It doesn't matter what company they're in, what industry they're in, People need to feel as though they are valued. And when they know they're not valued and it just calls in the machine and they're just there to help you hit a target, they become disinterested, disengaged. I mean, the numbers, the engagement numbers are insane. Only 38% of the population is engaged. And that was prior to Covid. I'm pretty sure it's a little lower than that. So. And that's a Gallup study. That's not David Arrington. That's Gallup. So you'll find now that even in a remote environment, you have to learn to engage people. I often say when you're leading, leadership is relationship. And you're never leading a team, you're always leading individuals. Individuals you have to galvanize to work as a team to hit that common goal. But if it starts with the goal backwards, generally that's what your focus is on. If it starts with the people forward, then that's what your focus is on. I had another client speak to me earlier this year, and she was, this was over the summer, she was telling me how she had spent so much time working on her team that now the results come so much more simply. They come without the friction, they come without the arguments that the dissent that you would normally get. Because people are on the same page. They know that they are appreciated and they give the leader the benefit of the doubt when things are in question versus questioning everything and choosing to die on every hill, right? So that's what you get when you focus on people. So you touched on a hot button topic for me because people are the backbone of your success as a leader. I had an experience. I'll tell this story and then I'll let you get back, but I had an experience. I was working with a leader, right. And I firmly believe you can learn more from people that are terrible leaders than sometimes you learn from good leaders, Right? You learn what not to do. So I was working with this one leader and I went in first conversation, I'm here to help you look good. I'm here to make you look good. I was very sincere because I understood that my success was his success. Problem was, he didn't understand that my success was his success. He thought his success was his success. And his role was to drive me into the ground, Right. So that didn't work out well. And when people feel, and it may not always be that adversarial, right, it may not always be someone wants to drive someone else in the ground. When your team feels that you're neutral to them, or you could care less, or you're, you know, they're, they're nice people, but they're only here to do X, Y and Z. When they know you have checked out on their success, they will check out on yours. And that's a symbiotic relationship most people don't see when it comes to leadership because they say, well, I'll fire them. Good luck with that. We all know the cost of hiring and all that good stuff. So you go, you want to make sure that you can build an A team with the people that you have right now. And that's one of the things I like to think I do very well. I help people take F troops and turn them into A teams.
I love it. And I think this is a great opportunity for us to shift to 360 degree success. And that's a term that I wasn't familiar with. So I'm really interested to hear what that is and how it applies.
So 360 degree success means you're succeeding at work and at home. Most people focus, especially my hard charging leaders who are listening right now. Most people focus on business success. I had one client this summer who went through my goal sprint course and he said one of the things that he really didn't see before was that he had no real personal goals. All of his goals were tied up in hitting business and corporate targets. And he realized he didn't have any personal goals. That's one of the things that we allow to happen and it's almost subliminal. It's in the background. It's white noise. We start losing sight of our goals and we are more and more focused on personal success, I'm sorry, professional success. But unfortunately it comes at the loss of our personal success. So we may give 150% at work, but when we get home, we're already tired, we've had a long day, or we've just been on so many calls and we've been homeschooling and we've been keeping up with the kids and doing all the other things we have to do all in one place. By the end of the day, you just don't have anything left. And who loses out there? The people that matter most, the people you go to work to provide for, are usually the ones that get the short end of the stick.
Okay, so I understand that that makes sense. And again, I'm gonna play devil's advocate here, please. What about somebody who is single? They don't have anybody at home. And so they say, well, let me just work hard right now. Let me make my money now and push my team really hard, push myself really hard at work. Yes, I feel tired when I get home, but I'm really hitting these goals and then I'll focus on a family later when they come. What's the harm there when it comes to considering 360 degree success if they don't have that same Concern.
So great question. And it doesn't extend just to families because there are a number of single people. You have a life outside of work, whether it's hobbies, whether it's friends, whether it's recreation, whether it's things you do to fill you back up. If you spend 100% of you focusing on work goals, I that means there's 0% left for you to nurture you. That's going to be a recipe for burnout. It's going to be a recipe for bitterness. It's going to be a recipe for you not being the best you. You're going to need constant Snickers moments because you are not going to be your best self because you're burning yourself out, you're grinding gears. It doesn't matter how much the Lamborghini costs. You can only run that Lamborghini flat out for so long before the engine blows. Right? And if we take that metaphor without, before I stretch it too far and apply it to us, there's only so long you can continue to work tirelessly for a job, for your business, even before you burn out. That's what I'm talking about. When you're 360 degrees successful, it means that you have outside interests, things that you can decompress with, things that bring you joy and fill you up. It doesn't have to be necessarily a family. It could be your pets, it could be a social group, it could be anything that fills you up. That's what I talk about. And most of us lose sight of what fills us up, what recharges us. And we just have 100% business goals. And we're trying to climb the corporate ladder only to find out if we climb it without building us, by the time we get to the top of that ladder, we don't even recognize us anymore.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I think again, for those folks out there who are really hard charging, it helps you to recognize that even if your main focus is work, this is an important part of that process because it makes you better at work. And when you think about negotiation, we often focus so much on the external that we forget that we can negotiate with ourselves. And I think this is an important internal negotiation that we have to have when we're setting boundaries with ourselves to make sure that we can take the time to rest and recharge.
Absolutely. And as you're resting and recharging, you make sure that it's for you, it's not for other people. So you have to find things that Bring you joy. And let me be very clear, while it sounds like I'm doing the whole. The sears in the 90s, the softer side of leadership. Right. What I want you to understand is I focus on helping people hit goals. That's critical. I never downplay that. We identify the goal and then we create a plan to hit that goal. But I also make sure that my clients hit the goals that are outside of business as well. So it's fundamentally making sure that you don't lose you in the shuffle in all of the work and all of the busyness, that you don't lose yourself, that you are still a whole individual and someone other people want to be around. Someone who can carry a conversation beyond what happened at work today.
Yeah, it makes sense. And let's take a little bit of a detour here.
Sure.
Because I know there are going to be people listening to this episode who are saying to themselves, you know what? This is something blah, blah, blah, needs to hear. There's somebody who's coming to mind. And so if there's somebody out there who is saying, hey, I need to talk to this person about this, other than, of course, sending them the podcast and letting them know about your resources, how would they have that conversation? What suggestions do you have for them to have that conversation? To maybe persuade the person to think differently and consider 360 degree success?
Ooh. So that's tough. And the reason I say it's tough is because most people, it's a blind spot. And when you tell them they're not balanced, they'll give you a hundred reasons. They'll play devil's advocate, just like you did, and give a hundred reasons why what they're doing is the right course of action. This is one of those elements in life where people have to come to it themselves. You can't force a horse to drink this water. You've got to let people get there on their own at their time. And when you see people that are growing more restless, that are looking, they're starting to display signs of early stage burnout. Right. They're becoming more combative, more argumentative. Their mindset and outlook is becoming less and less positive and more and more sliding to the negative. That's when you can start to have a conversation and say, hey, you know what? What are you doing for you? How are you developing you personally and professionally? What is it that you do at the end of the week or the end of the day that is just for you, something that fills you up and don't let them get away with, I sit on the couch and veg. Because that's not filling you up. That's just passing the time. That's just living to death, right? That's not actually growing you in any tangible, substantive way. Ask them what they're doing and they may say, you know, I, you know, I used to go horseback riding or I used to, I used to, I'm trying to figure out how to say archery. I used to shoot. I used to play basketball. Let me go to a whole different example, because I couldn't, couldn't conjugate that there. So I used to play basketball or I used to play touch football, but we can't do that anymore. So then you say, well, how have you shifted now that things are different? What have you filled that gap with? Because that's what a lot of people are suffering with. A lot of their pastimes have been taken away by this pandemic and this moment. So how have they adapted, how they shifted? They've done a lot of shifting at work, and that change leads them to change overload, right? So now they don't have the energy to figure it out for themselves. So you just got to ask them how and then present them another way to make those changes for themselves. Because you can't force people to invest in themselves. You can't force people to make good decisions that will keep them from burning out. But you can just hint at them and you can share resources to help them do that for themselves.
This is great. And I know the listeners are probably familiar with this phenomenon where it turns into a personal therapy session for Kwame, realize, oh my gosh, I need help. But I think this is really great. And again, you've made fantastic points just recognizing, helping people to become a little bit more aware of the fact that, hey, you might have had some things outside of work that you turn to and that you and you might have had a healthy balance, but it might have gone away and you don't want to make an adjustment. I think that's brilliant. And again, one of the things that you mentioned was that the fact that if you're not maintaining this 360 degree success where you're not just focusing on success at work, but also success personally in your personal life, it changes the way that you treat people. And that's the third point that you mentioned, how we treat people and lead people, and now we're coming back all around full circle. So what are the things that we need to keep in mind there?
So in crisis leadership and in when you're leading under pressure, right? You've got to remember to be more patient because as a leader, you're already stressed and your stress is going to, it's going to be passed along, right? And you have to remember that everyone else is stressed as well. It's not just you stressed right now, but the people you lead. And this is one of my clients this summer. This was a big eye opening moment. This is an aha moment for him where I said, guess what? I hear you. I understand you're trying to hit these targets. I understand that things are going crazy and it may not happen for you because of everything that's happened. But understand, understand this as well. Everyone on your team is stressed right now. We had so many things happen, from race protests to a pandemic, to murder hornets. I mean, this was 2020, right? There was a lot going on. Everybody was stressed. And it's not you alone. One of the ways you can treat people with respect during these times is to acknowledge their stress, to be patient with people, to be understanding. Because everything everybody keeps saying, oh, new normal, new normal, new normal. You know, I get that. I hear that this ain't normal. This is not normal. The way we're living right now. I really don't want to continue this forever. I'd like us to figure out how to harness this. Start imagining, reimagining what can be. But in the moment that is, we need to. Well, I keep saying be patient, be clear. Let your folks know exactly what the goal post looks like, then celebrate when you get there. I would encourage leaders to celebrate things now more than ever. Give people more opportunity to take a victory lap. Right? You have to be the chief motivational officer for your team. One of my clients, this was her hang up. She was not, she was all about business, business, business, business, right? I Lego Movie. For those of you who have kids and have seen Lego Movie, you'll know that's that business, business, business. But she was all about business. And one of the things I shared with her, as I said, you've got to become the chief motivational officer. When people see you, they need to smile, not frown. People need to walk up to you to share their good stories, not try to avoid you because they think you're just going to hit them with something else. And when you're leading under pressure and you're leading in crisis moments, we have a tendency to double down and try to muscle up and man up and woman up and put it on our shoulders. And that means we drive people harder. So we can get results. And guess what? When people are already grinding gears, all that does is accelerate burnout, accelerate drops in morale, accelerate you not hitting the targets because people keep checking out. So, yeah.
Oh, man. David, the timing of this is so, oh, so painful because I think for me as a leader, I'm being confronted with my failures, quite frankly, my failures. I realize that I have a high tolerance for change. And as an entrepreneur, there needs to be a willingness to move fast, break things and do better and continue to iterate. Right. And then I have to remember that other people aren't like me in that regard and I need to be more patient. Now, patience is something that I. It is nausea inducing for me. I cannot never have been good at patience. We are, yes, audience, yes. We are turning this into a personal therapy session. It's my podcast. I'll do what I want. How does one become more patient?
I didn't know if you was done with the question, so I'm going to blow you away with a very simple answer. Practice. Yeah. There's no other. You can't force patience. So I'll give you a for instance with me personal, right? So when I'm like, I pull it. Because we're entrepreneurs, we do this right. There'll be times when I'll pull an all nighter and I'll be working on something and I'll be up, I'll get two, three hours of sleep, and then I'll see my kids. Right. On those days, I have to be very intentional. So practice. And here's the second one, intentionality. I have to be very intentional to say, David, you didn't get a lot of sleep last night. You have a tendency to be short when you're tired. Listen, don't react, don't say something dumb. I'm telling me this, right? Don't say something dumb that's gonna upset your kids. And then you've got to deal with that. Be patient. Listen, be kind. And I've done this for years. My oldest is 22. So I've got a little practice. Like I said, practice. So that is something you learn. And it happens with repetition. You can't just be patient to Mars. It's not one of those things. You can't Zen that you can't will that you can't man. You can't man that up. You can't willpower that into existence. It does take. Patience takes practice and intentionality.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the. What is it, the saying that says the only way past is through?
Yep.
Right. You have to, you have to kind of get, get through that. And I think that's, that's tough, especially for people who are very competitive. I would assume that people who are listening to this show have some level of competitive drive where they want to improve.
Ye.
I mean, we, I think we're pretty entertaining guys, but people probably don't look at this to laugh. They probably want to get some tangible skills right in order for them to improve and do better. And so again, I might be speaking for a lot of folks out there. It's tough to be patient because you're competitive and you recognize when you're slowing down, you're not hitting those goals. But what you need to do is think differently about those goals. What's really the goal? Do you. Yes. Hitting some numbers are. That, that's nice. That is a thing that you could go for, but also what your team need from you right now in order to be a good leader.
As a leader, it's not always about the goals. It's about what your people need in this moment to perform. And that performance will provide the goals. You cannot coerce people to high performance. You can't beat people up and expect high performance. You can't walk into a room and give people both barrels and give them your, you know, give them a piece of your mind and expect high performance. At best, you'll get mediocrity after that. I'm giving you, this is not. This is. I've seen this happen and I've helped leaders turn things around when they've screwed up like this. So you walk in, be patient, be human, be understanding, be in the same moment everyone else is, even though you may be looking at that moment through different lenses. But as a leader, you've got to be able to, to sit in everyone's seat and say, okay, if I were this person, what would I need? If I were this person, what would I need? And this is a whole. We're jumping into leading high performing teams. But you're going to step into understanding how to motivate each of your team members. And that's a skill that most leaders never realize they need to develop. They hear, motivate, motivate. And then they say, I'm not a motivator. I mean, I again, if I had a dime for every time somebody told me they weren't a motivator, I'd have at least 30 bucks. So you have these folks that say, I'm not a motivator, I'm not a nurturer, then I'm Then I'm going to say you're not a leader. I'm going to say you're a manager. I'm going to say you. You help people get places. You're not leading them anywhere, though. They're doing a job for you. They're not working with you.
Wow. Okay, now, David, hypothetically, maybe there's somebody out there who listens to this podcast and says, wow. The third point was how we lead and treat people. And I realized that I may have left a lot to be desired with how I lead and treat people. As a leader, how do I recover and start to rebuild that relationship with my team?
You're not gonna like this answer either. It's gonna be slowly and again intentionally, because this is what people don't learn and they don't get. When you give people a piece of your mind, let's just say you've gone in, you've given people double barrels and doesn't. You don't even have to do this to everybody on your team. If you do this with one person on your team, right? If one person on your team, everybody. So if you've watched Parks and Rec, you don't. Jerry is just the butt of every joke, right? So if there's somebody on your team who everybody knows is a Jerry, that means I could be the next Jerry, right? So you create this more stressful situation because you don't treat everybody the same. So if you've broken trust with anybody on your team, now you've got to rebuild trust with everybody on your team. That takes time. So how do you rebuild that slowly? And you're going to have to prove time and time and time again that you're not that guy. You're not that. That lady. Because your team is going to have a very long memory for your mistakes and a very short memory for their own.
That makes a lot of sense. And again, it falls in line with the things that we've heard on this show a lot. There's no quick fix. There's no easy way through it, you know, and that's the thing. We need to develop new habits. Right? And I think this is fantastic. And, David, as you know, because we've had long conversations already, I could keep on going, but I am. I'm really excited for your program. I'm really excited for the next time I have you on the show because, you know, this isn't the last time. But before we go, make sure you let the listeners know about this exciting new program starting in January.
Excellent. So thank you, Kwame. And of course, I look forward to the next time, you know, being on because I love our conversations. So Leading Under Pressure is coming up, starting the beginning of January 2021. Again, because leadership has become so lonely, we're creating community with structured leadership development. So it's not going to be, you know, shotgun. Like a lot of things I've participated in and a lot of things you've seen as well. So there's going to be coaching community and courses. So the courses I say I build, they're going to be a part of this community where people can come in and they can grow intentionally. The reason I built this, couple of reasons. One, because things have changed so dramatically and I've talked with and worked with so many leaders who are struggling to keep up, struggling to develop on the fly, in the moment, like building the plane as they've already jumped off the cliff, the leadership skills that they need for this new moment. Right. And those skills that are going to be needed after because things are never going back to the way they were now. So also it's, I've developed this because for a lot of my, I worked with a lot of people and I've talked to a lot of people who wanted to work with me but they couldn't afford me for smaller and mid sized companies. Even some executives were like, David, I like that. But I don't have the money for that. I get that. I understand completely. Especially after everything that's happened, budgets have been slashed. So that's another reason we built this, because I wanted to make a bigger impact, to share these types of skills and these types of insights with more leaders. Because if we can do that, we're going to create a better leadership environment for everyone. One of my stated goals is to impact an entire generation of leaders. And leading under pressure is one of the ways I'm planning to do that. So if you are listening to this amazing podcast and you're one of Kwame's regular listeners, then you want to go to arringtoncoaching.com Kwame K W A M E arringtoncoaching.com KwAME and there you'll get an opportunity to, I think there's a link there to schedule a one on one conversation with me. And there's a value to that. So you probably want to take me up on that. Then there's opportunity to attend a webinar if you'd want to, or more getting more information about leading under pressure. And there's some other goodies on that page as well. But I'M not going to give it all away because. Because you should probably go check it out. But yeah, you want to go to arringtoncoaching.com Kwame Fantastic.
David, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with the audience. Thank you so much for this personal coaching session with me. Really appreciate it, man.
Anytime, my friend. This has been a blast.
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