How Real Leaders Actually Build Loyalty, Guaranteed!

Let me ask you something that might sting just a little bit. Have you ever worked for a boss who had the title but none of the skills? You know the one, big on managing spreadsheets and really light on managing anybody with a pulse. According to a U.S. News and World Report survey, a staggering 78% of Americans think corporate America has a leadership problem. We're not talking a skills gap or a talent issue. We are talking about a leadership problem. That means for every 4 people in your organization, 3 think that the leadership ship is sinking. And if you're watching this, you're probably one of the ones who are trying to patch all the holes. And that's what we're talking about today. Welcome to this episode. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs develop new skills to help them create the jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And I'm thrilled that you are here with me today because My guest is leadership veteran William C. Davis. And today, we are going to be diving into the messy, misunderstood world of, well, leadership. And we're not going to be talking about theory. We're not pulling from the latest LinkedIn Thought Leader of the Week post. We're going deep into what real leadership looks like and the kind that kind of builds trust.

Yeah.

drives loyalty, and gets results that last. And spoiler alert, it has absolutely nothing to do with leadership charisma and everything to do with building relationships. I do have one simple request. If there's somebody in your circle who could benefit from the insights that we're sharing today, maybe you know this person who is in a leadership role and doesn't have the leadership skills.

Maybe— Shh!

Don't say anything. Just do them a favor. Pass along a link to this episode. It'll do them good and it might help their team as well. Let's face it. Most people are promoted into leadership because they were really good at something totally unrelated to leading people. We've said on this show many, many times, right? A lot of people get promoted because they were good technicians. They were good workers. And the thought process was, hey Steve, if we promote you, you're such a good employee, such a good worker. Maybe if we promote you, you could teach everybody to be good, as good as you. Before you know it, you've got leaders who are stressed out, teams that are disengaged, and organizations bleeding talent and cash. And that brings us to— Our Question of the Day. So, how much is ineffective leadership actually costing your business? I'd love for you to go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. Put your comments down. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. conversation. But remember to hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. As I mentioned, my guest today is someone who knows leadership inside and out because he's been in the trenches for nearly 4 decades. William C. Davis is a leadership expert, a seasoned executive, and the author of How to Lead Without Just Managing. With 38 years in corporate America, most of it in senior leadership roles, William's approach blends practical wisdom with a deep commitment to people-first leadership. Here's the kicker. He's maintained a 90% retention rate throughout his career. That's not just leadership. That's legacy. William, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you here.

Thank you, Marc. And you got to make sure that people know that I started that 40-year career when I was 5 years old. So—

There you go. I was gonna say, maybe it's 5 plus tax.

There you go.

There you go.

Thank you for having me on.

I'd love to know, I'd love to know, let's start off by talking a little bit about how you serve your people. Who are your people and how you serve them?

Well, I don't look at people from a perspective of, do they have a line of reporting responsibility to me? If I come in contact with them, I treat them like they're someone who's part of my team, somebody that I'm going to help mentor if they need it or want it. And so, Everything I'm going to do in regards to how I approach them is as if they are somebody that is part of my family. I've always told my folks, this is, you know, when we come to work together, we're a family. You know, we're going to make sure we treat each other that way. And we're going to be supportive of each other. And it, to me, has never mattered whether they were a direct line report to me or not.

It's interesting because I hear this quite a bit. And I want to shake the tree just a smidge. This whole idea of being family, I don't know about you, but most families I know are hugely dysfunctional. So, to be able to hang our hat and saying, hey, we're like a family, I think does us a disjustice.

Yeah.

What would you say if I turned it around and said, let's think ourselves as being part of communities. Would that change your line of thinking?

Doesn't change my line of thinking because again, what I look for is we're not going to throw each other under the bus, right? We're going to support each other to the point where, you know, if you need me to step in and do something to help you, I'm going to do it. The reason I always phrase it as a family is because for probably 15 or 20 years of my career, we traveled. all the time together. And so, we were together from 8 in the morning until probably 8 o'clock at night. And so, I always joked about the fact that I was the father and all of my children had to be in bed and all that by a certain period of time.

That's awesome. And so, really then, what I'm arguing is semantics. It's really at the end of the day, we're part of a community. We are part of being in this together. And so, that is your frame of reference for the family metaphor.

Absolutely. Because what I've always told my people is we win together, we lose together. And that starts with me. If I don't hold up my end of it, I am not supporting you in the manner in which I need to be supporting you. And again, that filters down to everybody. Let's just, for example, if I had a payroll team, who does taxes, who does garnishments, whoever, they have to support each other in their process and the work that they're doing. And if you're not holding up your end, then you're not holding up that concept of community.

Right, right, right. So, let's start with the stat that I opened up with. This idea of 78% say that we're in a leadership crisis. Why do you think that is? What's going on, do you think?

Well, I think you nailed it in your opening is the fact that we have lost the ability to have relationships that are above superficial or deeper than superficial in the workplace. And that, you know, that was one of the reasons, Marc, that I left at the end of May, a 38-year career in corporate America and decided to start this business is because I've got tired of how we treat our people. We don't treat them as humans; we treat them as commodities. We treat them as endpoints to get things done. And they're not. They are people who have real aspirations. They have real challenges. They have real goals. They have real problems. They're human. And we need to be supportive of that in regards to help them succeed. And, you know, when you continue to look at corporate America from a perspective of the bottom line, that doesn't lead to supporting our people in the manner in which they want to be led.

Mm-hmm.

As humans, Relationships are part of our core nature, right? We have, you know, I, I was speaking at a national conference on Monday, and I asked the group, I said, tell me how many of you are in relationships? And people were kind of hesitant to raise their hand. And I said, you think I'm talking about romantic relationship, aren't you? And they said, yeah. And I said, no. I said, when I ask you if you're in a relationship, do you have family? Yes, you're in a relationship. Do you have friends? Yes, you're in a relationship. So, when we talk about relationship building and we talk about the sincerity that goes into that, I think that's where we've lost touch in corporate America. And not just corporate America, but in fact, a few months before that World News, U.S. News and World Report stat that you talked about earlier came out, the World Economic Forum at their national convention in Switzerland said that we had a world leadership crisis. And so, it goes hand in hand. It's not just corporate America. It's all over.

Yeah. So, for people tuning in today, what are some signs that an organization is suffering really from poor leadership?

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with dissatisfaction. And again, when I was in corporate America, we would always do these employee satisfaction surveys every year. And one of the categories was leadership. How happy are you with leadership? And numbers would be in the 50%, 60%, 70% range of satisfaction. And the executive was like, why are we not in the 80% and 90% range? Well, it's because you don't connect to your people. You make decisions based upon what's best for the bottom line. And you don't necessarily look at, hey, how does that affect my people? I want to give you a perfect example. In 2000, we had the pandemic. And we had to make the decision that everybody worked at home. So we uprooted everybody; we put them in a position where they could work at home. It was a very dramatic change for many people, especially had they had children. But we got through it. And I would dare say that there's not a corporation in the world that suffered from that. Now, all of a sudden, in 2024, late '24, or now '25, we have said to them, now you have to come back to the office. No rhyme or reason why, but we have to— you have to now come back to the office. Well, if— let's just take for an example, somebody has children. They are now, instead of having the safe culture and safe environment of their children at home with them, they're now having to worry about Okay, where do I leave my children? Who do I leave my children with? How does the transportation to get them from school or wherever to here, how does that work? But the biggest situation they run into is the fact that cost of living has gone up 10, 12, 14, even higher percentile since 2020. And corporations are giving out raises at the rate of 1% and 2% a year. So now you have this huge disparity between what I'm having to pay and what I have to pay it with. And they're not helping them out. And so, you know, you have to look at decisions that I make. How does that affect my people? And if it's a decision that has to be made and we have to follow through with it, how do I support them to get there?

Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting, kind of what you've been talking about, right? Because we kind of opened up the the floodgates to realizing that we could succeed from remote work. And really, the whole thing of let's bring it all back. Like I saw one report about how our downtown is suffering because there's a lot of people doing remote work now. And so, businesses don't need big offices anymore.

Right.

And because of that, the downtown core is going to suffer. So, we better start bringing people back to the office. But to your point, if we're not going to cover now the The new lifestyle cost of being at home, being able to bring up my kids in the house while I'm working and so on. And now, we're going to add the daycare back in. And now, we're going to add travel costs back in and parking back in. And we're expecting people to do all that plus the same amount of work.

Right.

It's all of a sudden, no wonder people are saying, hey, you know what? I think I might look for something else.

Absolutely, absolutely. And again, what corporations don't seem to grasp because of funny accounting that we seem to have done for the last 30-some-odd years, when you lose somebody and now you have to bring somebody in to replace them, the cost to do that is 30% to 50% higher than if you were just satisfying them and keeping them in the position that they were in.

But it's all about the principle, William.

That's right. That's right. Well, and this goes back to what you talked about before, the boss syndrome, right? Boss syndrome is a horrific mentality that never succeeds, never will succeed. Because either your people will only put up for it a very short time and leave, or they'll band together and go to HR about you and you'll be gone.

Yeah, that's true. So, are there any myths that we need to bust about leadership or how we perceive leadership?

Yes. First of all, the myth that you have to have a title to be a leader is Absolutely incorrect. Some of the greatest people, greatest leaders that I worked with in almost 40 years never had a title. And a lot of it because they didn't want the title. Because when you have the title, there's obviously added responsibilities that go on with that. And, you know, I, I, the first book that I wrote that you were kind enough to mention early, early on was dealing specifically with what is the difference between a leader, a manager, and a boss.

Right.

And, you know, managers You know, pretty much anybody can be a manager. It's a matter of going through and let's, here's the work A to Z. Let's get through it. Where you take the extra step from a leadership perspective is you're inspiring your people in order to be able to succeed, wanting to succeed, and buying in and understanding that they're part of that success. And managers seem, seem to not lead oftentimes as much as others on their team do.

Right, right. And it's really interesting as well because I've been part of different corporations as well. And you can really see the people with the moral leadership versus the ones who have formal leadership and how that moral leadership really plays in defining kind of the culture that's acceptable and all the unwritten rules that go along with it. And sometimes, that moral leadership is positive and sometimes, it could be really, really negative.

Can be. That's right. Yeah. And that, my philosophy has always been, again, Golden Rule, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. And I want people to feel like that I'm on their side. Right? I may not always agree with what they do, may not always agree with how they do it. But you know what? I I firmly believe in somebody's sincerity and what they're doing, and I'm going to support them.

Yeah.

I've never had somebody work for me where I felt like, hey, this person is intentionally trying to mess this up. Never happened. And I'm always willing to give everybody the benefit of the doubt because you know what? Everything's fixable. I say that. I was reminded the other day that in surgery, that may not necessarily be true. So I'll qualify that a little bit with Outside of a surgical procedure, everything's fixable.

Well, and it does break down to things around being capable and having the competency, right? And so, when we're surrounding ourselves with capable and competent people, we know that people aren't just going to come in and sabotage our business. And I do know that there's some leaders out there that is their finger-pointing. They're like, I don't know what's wrong with my staff. It's just like they're sabotaging my business. Because in a restaurant, somebody broke a tray of glasses. Or in a business, somebody broke the photocopier machine and now we can't print the contracts. And it's all these types of things. But then, we get super emotional behind it and start blaming.

Yeah. And that's one of those attitudes that we've got to get past of blaming others, right? Things happen. Life happens, right? And mistakes happen. And so, OK, let's adjust. Let's do what we need to do to fix it. And let's move forward.

Yeah. What do you think, William, are some of the warning signs that a leader has lost respect or trust of their teams?

Well, I think the first thing is that your team quits communicating with you. I mean, that was the first rule I always had with my folks is, look, I want to be hearing anything that goes on from y'all. I don't want to hear it from somebody else, right? So, if you're not keeping that line of communication open where they are continually interacting with you, I think that's a huge warning sign because obviously, they're not comfortable. For some reason, they're not comfortable. I think the second one is when the work that needs to get done people are not buying into. Because you're, obviously, to me as a leader, I've got to help people understand the why. Right? Why are we doing this? And it can't be just because the corporation says so. We need to help them understand, you know, we've got to get from point A to point D. Here's how we do it. Here's why we're doing it.

Right.

But I need to let them understand that I am giving them the autonomy to be creative, right? We got to get from A to D, right? But how we get there, guys, I want you to stretch your brains. I want you to expand on the thought process of what's been given to us and see if there's a better way.

And to that point, I'd like to explore some of the solutions you have to help us create leadership that works. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I am here with William C. Davis. William, why don't you tell us a little bit about your book?

Give you a stage for it. Well, yeah, the first book that I wrote had everything to do with the difference between leadership, management, and being a boss. And I didn't really spend a whole lot of time on, on being a boss because early on, I said, this is just not something that works. If this is the attitude that you have in regards to leading people, then you need to find something else to do because it's not a workable mentality or a workable solution. Managers, I deal with from the perspective of, you know, again, I think anybody can be a manager. We train them there to get them there. And And a lot of managers are leaders. And a lot of managers are partial leaders or quasi-leaders. When I look at leadership, though, leadership takes the mantra, if you will, that I am all in for the success of my people, right? Too many people that quote or classify themselves as a leader consider their people competition. And they are, they're not. The success of my people as a leader is the greatest compliment that I could have, because I am preparing them to continue to move forward and succeed in their career. And I gave the example the other day. You know, I just retired. And if I'd had the mentality that my people were my competition, and I didn't do everything I could to support them and their growth, then there were 2 options. I either had to stay in this role. Or I had to leave my company without someone to step in and fill the shoes. So, but again, I love to see success of folks that are associated with me because, you know, you see the pride that they have. Because, hey, I've done something. I've contributed. I am a part of something bigger than myself. And that's what people want. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things I always did when I was worth, or with the financial institution I worked for, for about 25 years, we went through a period of time there where we did a lot of mergers and acquisitions. And during that period, we had to give executive report-outs. And we did the executive report-outs. I always allowed my team to do the executive report-outs. They did the work. They knew the material. But more importantly, I wanted them to get the exposure for doing the work, for knowing the material, and get the credit for how incredible they were in pulling off very complicated, complex work efforts. And I constantly got criticized from either peers or other execs saying, you can't do that. And I'm like, why? What What difference does it make? And they would give me different answers here and there. But bottom line, where it came to was by me allowing my people to get the spotlight, I was putting pressure on them to do the same thing. And they didn't want to. They wanted the spotlight. They wanted the kudos. They wanted the presentation time themselves. And I'm sorry, that's not what being a leader is about. If you can't get to the point where your people are more important than you, Then I have real problems with you calling yourself a leader.

I love that. I also love the fact and I want to acknowledge as well kind of your focus on that legacy piece. Because what you're essentially doing is by letting people step into roles like that and being able to kind of execute on your behalf, you not only help them build the confidence but you actually give them a training ground so that when they step into leadership roles themselves, they have a model by which Absolutely, absolutely.

And they know it's successful, right? And they're comfortable with it. Yeah.

It's interesting because in your notes, you mentioned that leadership is simple but not easy. What do you mean by that?

Well, it's not easy because good, great leadership is about building relationships with people. And I often equate it to marriage. My wife and I will be married 39 years this coming week. And You know, in marriage, and again, particularly in relationships in the business world, it's, it's a coming together of multiple personalities that are coming together from different backgrounds, with different experiences, with different, you know, makeups, whether it be, you know, ethnicity or whatever. And what are you trying to do? You're trying to put them together to now work as a cohesive unit. Right? And, you know, in marriage, you've got 30, 40, 50 years hopefully to do that. And there's going to be bumps in the road. But in the work relationship, it's not just 2 people. You're usually having, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20, even, you know, hundreds of people that are coming together. And you as the leader have got to try to figure out, one, how do I work with each of these people individually? But then, how do I take all of these relationships And make them work together or blend together. Not going to be perfect all the time. You're going to have confrontation, and you're going to have disagreements. But if you're able to build those relationships one-on-one, then you, as the leader, know, hey, Mary over here, this is how she reacts to certain situations. I know how to help get her through it, or help, you know, help her get past it. She has confrontation with Eric. I know how those 2 personalities are. And I know how to now navigate that and get them to a better spot.

Yeah. As you were talking, you kind of tapped into my philosophy. I believe in this day and age that we give our managers way too much technical work.

Yeah.

And because of that, they can't become the coach they Is that a fair assessment?

Oh, I think that's dead on. And now, I've always told people, I said, if you choose to be a leader, and again, I think that is critical. I have to ask myself, do I want to be a leader? And I have to be the leader for, or leader for the right reason. It can't just be the title or the, you know, get to give people, you know, commands. It has to be for a reason; it has to be for the right reason. And so I've always told people, being a leader is the job. You have to, you have to be, you know, focused in on leading people. And the first and foremost to doing that successfully is establishing relationships where you can, again, deal with them, good times and bad times. And I think, you know, one of the frustrations I've always had, Marc, was the fact that we would, as corporations, have what we would call leadership training.

Right.

And it wasn't leadership training; it was management training. Here's how you do employee evaluations, which, you know, don't even get me started on those because they're, they're just atrocious, how that process is done.

I love that you said that because that's my soapbox too.

Yeah, it is. It's just an atrocious process. And, you know, so that's the job, you know. And I've had people say, you know, go back to the example I gave you. If you allow your people to do the report out, people are going to ask, what do you do? And I said, well, I lead the team. Take me out of the equation and see how well it works. Yeah, right.

Well, you know, it's really interesting as well because, you know, I follow hockey, right? And I'm terribly sorry that our Oilers conquered your Dallas Stars.

I'm sorry about that. Not my stars, buddy. I'm a Bruins fan.

So, but you know what's interesting about that is The expectations in corporate, in the corporate world is that the leader is there. And it's like, I want you to be visible. I want you to be on the floor. I want you to do this. I want you to do spreadsheets. I want you— and that's kind of sort of like looking at the people behind the bench and saying, your team is down 3 to 1. Why don't you get on the ice and do something about it?

Yep, exactly.

And you never would in hockey. You would never turn around to the coach and say, get on the ice and do something about it.

Right?

We have to give our people the means to be able to play on their own.

That's right. And, you know, again, I think to your point, you know, leaders have to— maybe they don't get in and do the dirty work, if you will. But they are there for their people, supporting them. Hey, I, you know, just, it may be as simple as, hey, we got to work through lunch. Would you mind getting us lunch? No, I'll go get you lunch, bring it back to you. Right?

Yeah.

Or, you know, some, I've had situations before where people would, you know, want report-outs from my team, and they would just constantly hassle them. And I'd meet them at the door and say, You'll get the report out when it's ready. You know, leave my team alone. You know, it's, it's the little things. And it's, and it's the mentality that I've got your back. And I'm going to support you in whatever, you know, shape, form, or fashion I can, and help you get through what, you know, what you're going through.

Love that. For the people tuning in, could you just let everybody know how they can get in contact with you if they, if this is resonating and they want, they need help?

Yeah, I have a website, williamcdavis.net, williamcdavis.net. And there's a section there that has my Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, phone number, email, all that. They can, they can reach it there. Also, the book that you have been so kind to promote for me today is also— there's a link there that they can go to Amazon and pick it up either via Kindle or paperback. And the next book that I'm trying to get finished here, and I hope to have finished by the end of next week, is all about building relationships and doing it the right way and how it makes a huge difference in your success as a leader.

Love that. So, when you talk about this idea of building relationships and kind of leadership habits as a whole, what are some key habits that you think leaders need to adopt Well, you have to look at building relationships on a one-on-one basis.

There is no right answer or one-size-fits-all answer in building relationships with somebody. Because again, we go back to the example of marriage or building relationships. Everybody's got different experiences that makes them comfortable. And, and as I was telling the group on Monday, you've got to meet people on their comfort level when you're trying to establish the relationship. Nobody likes to be called into the boss's office or into the conference room and said, hey, let's sit down and get to know each other. That doesn't work because you have still put them in a position where they're not comfortable because they still perceive you as up here and them here. So, for example, you know, I had a young man had just come to work for me, but he was constantly worried about And I'm like, you just got hired. You're not going anywhere. But what I had to figure out is how do I get him comfortable? And so I asked him, I said, you know, what do you like to do when you're not in the office? And he loved to golf. And what I didn't realize at the beginning, but I did finally realize later on, he was a ringer. And he just absolutely smoked me on the golf course. But I just said to him, I said, OK, you know, we're going to take an afternoon off, and we're going to go to the golf course.

Oh, that's great.

course and, and just play. And first of all, that surprised me. It's like, can we do that? And I'm like, yeah, we can go. It's, you know, part of building, building a relationship between us. And so I had him drive the golf course, uh, golf cart. And in the first 3 or 4 holes, you could just tell he was so nervous. And I got up and, and hit a tee shot. And man, I shanked that thing so badly out into the trees. And I could tell him looking at me is like, oh gosh, how's he gonna re— how's he gonna react to this? Because some people who take themselves too seriously are just going to go off and whatever, throw a temper tantrum, break a club, whatever. And so, I just started making fun of myself. I was self-deprecating. I made up every excuse in the world. And he realized, hey, this guy is not the boss-boss type attitude. He relates to me. He can be normal. He can have He can joke. And from that point on, I mean, by the time we got to the back 9, you would have thought we'd have known each other for 30 years. And it just changed the whole dynamic of how he felt about being with me, dealing with me, relating to me. And I got to know him because he now opened up. He relaxed, and I learned all sorts of things about him that were just, you know, invaluable to me, not just knowing him, but also giving me keys of how to help him in future times when he would get stressed or something would go wrong. I could get him past it.

So, none of what you said is, if I want your opinion, I'll tell you what it is, or if I tell you to jump, I'll tell you how high. Don't ask me why.

Yeah. No. And I mean, you can You can ask my family. I'm always the dumbest one in the room, right? And I don't worry about that because when my kids were 4th and 5th grade, they're learning computers to an extent that I had absolutely no clue in my 40s what was going on. That ship of being the smartest guy in the room sailed way past me. So I don't worry about that. I mean, I want my people to gain knowledge. And I've always told them, I said, guys, if there is some training, if there's some seminar, if there's something that, you know, you could benefit from, let me know. We'll get it, we'll get it for you. We'll get you, you know, set up. And because I, as a leader, don't have to know it all. Right? And I'm never gonna know it all. And if any, if you think you know it all, you're fooling yourself. And I don't, Marc, wanna know it all. Right? I don't, you know, there's a lot of stuff, particularly from a technical perspective, that is just, that gives me a headache. It's just too deep. I just, I don't, you know, I trust you to know what you're doing. And we'll see the results on the backside when we do testing. Right? And And so, yeah, you have the autonomy to be creative. You have the autonomy to make mistakes. You have the autonomy to think outside the box. And I want you to explore how great can you be and how good can you make things.

It really is interesting because what you need to do that above all else is trust.

Yeah.

Right. So, you yourself as a leader have to become trustworthy.

Yeah.

And then, you have to become trusting as well that people aren't out to screw you. And they're not coming into work to hurt your business. And when they make mistakes, it's a human thing to make mistakes. And let's find ways to grow from it and move forward. I I have tons of stories of where we failed, where it cost us money. But at the long term, long run of it, it made us so much stronger because we realized we had a liability we didn't know we had.

Right. And not everything can be about the bottom line. I mean, I know there are CEOs all across the world say everything is about the bottom line.

All the CFOs on the planet have just blown a gasket there, William.

Not everything can be about the bottom line. And there's the return on investment when you talk about your people is going to buy you more value than anything else you'll ever do.

Yes, absolutely. And you create that legacy. So, you create that legacy where 20 years later, people are reaching out and saying, hey William, I worked for you back 20 years ago and I can't tell you how much my life was affected as a leader myself Well, and think about the loyalty factor, right, to, to not just, not just the leader, but to their other teammates, to the corporation, to the work that's being done.

I mean, if you can help people buy into the fact of what you're doing is important, what you're doing is, you know, what you're part of it, right? You're going to be part of this success. This is something that's going to go forward. Forward and you understand why you did the work. That's just huge.

Yeah, I love it. Hey, when we come back, I'd like to talk about some cautionaries and pitfalls that we should be aware of. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! We are having such a great discussion. I hope you're getting a lot of value from it today. As evident from our discussion today, you can tell that William and I are deeply dedicated to supporting business leaders just like you. So, if you're in the midst of planning a leadership retreat, or maybe you're part of an association planning an industry conference, or you want to get people, your frontline managers and your middle managers together to help change the way that they lead today, maybe you need some guidance and some expert leadership training. We're just a message away. We're here for you. Feel free to reach out. Have a conversation about your unique challenges or call us just to discuss how we can collaborate to help you achieve your goals. That's why we're here. That's why we do what we do every single day.

So William, if someone's tuned in right now realizing that their company's leadership strategy isn't working, what's one mindset shift you think Well, again, I think that the first thing we've already hit on is the fact that not everything's about the bottom line, right? Again, too many corporations make decisions based on bottom line and can't explain, you know, how is this really beneficial to the bottom line? But you can, without very much effort, understand that it's a negative on your people. So, I think I think when we make decisions, particularly as technology has advanced, you know, there's so many more opportunities for people to be able to do things outside of the office setting. But we have to be careful because there's too much intrusion on work-life balance anymore. You know, just because you have a smartphone, just because you have a laptop, just because maybe you happen to work from home doesn't mean I'm available 24 hours a day.

Right.

So, the first component is understand your people are human beings. They have lives and that you need to respect that. And I always told my people, if you didn't get something done by the end of the day and the organization is not going to blow up overnight, it's going to be here tomorrow. Go home, have fun with your family, do whatever you do. Yeah. Come back tomorrow. Because again, if it's that critical, you probably should have had more than one person working on it. Right? And you should have probably been right in the middle of it to help them navigate any challenges that they were having. So I get you know real and I've again I've said this before I get real hot about the fact that we do not in my mind treat our people. As human beings, we look at anything under the sun.

I really love that spin, William, on if it's a failure of performance, it's probably more a failure of leadership.

Yep, absolutely.

And I mean, you can have bad performers on your team. But our role as leaders is to figure out what does it take to make this person successful. And to that point, maybe it's a bad fit. And we need to take that step, that's okay. But in general, looking at everybody as being kind of a contributor rather than kind of an expense column, labor expense, right, in the financials. You're talking very much about this idea that we not only have to create this trusting environment, but we also have to look at our people as being assets, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And again, they have wants, wishes, desires, right? They want to succeed.

They're human beings.

Yeah, they're human beings. And again, this goes back to, I think, the disconnect. And is we don't establish the relationships because we don't consider them as human beings. And if you need any evidence of that, look at all these corporations where the execs get millions and millions of dollars in bonuses and 10% and 15% pay increases. And yet, when we look at the people that actually do the job, that actually provide the success of the company, they're stuck in a forced ranking or a stacked ranking or a bell curve idiocy to figure out bonuses. And then, oh well, we can only give 1% or 2% raises because financially, we We don't have the ability to do it. Well, no, it's because you already gave all the money to the upper, you know, management executives. And, you know, I'm sorry. Pay your people first. And then those who are at the top of the food chain, they need to get paid last with what's left.

There you go. And I wonder, I wonder what would happen to that leadership structure, right? If that was the case, if poor leadership resulted in poor returns when they stopped punishing employees for it. Like I can't believe how many people are on food stamps, right, who are part of the working poor.

Yeah.

And I've had discussions with my daughter, for instance, to say, if we paid, if we got rid of the whole tipping culture and we started to pay people what they're worth, what their contribution is worth, would you still be a server? And she said, absolutely not. I make a ton of money on tips. It's like, oh, isn't that interesting?

That's right. That's right. That's right.

So, it's interesting that we have some of these industries that personal contribution reaps high rewards even though it's a minimum wage job. So, as talking about this, William, common pitfalls and cautionaries for people who are tuning in going, yeah, you know what? I need to make a change. What should they be on the lookout for?

As the leader making a change?

Well, trying to make a change to be kind of this more inclusive kind of leader, coach leader rather than the manager.

I think the first thing you have to do is be introspective. on yourself. You know, why did I want to lead? Why do I want to lead? And again, in that, then you start looking at your people differently. If I want to lead because I want to help people, I want to help people, you know, reach the goals and aspirations that they have, I look at them a different way than if I just want the title, want the prestige, and want the accolades that go along with So I think that's first. Look at your people. Understand that, you know, you have a responsibility to them. And the responsibility starts with you thinking of them as more important than yourself and their success as more important than your success. You know, what I've always tried to help leaders understand is, if you're a leader, you've already gotten the kudos. You've already gotten the credibility. You've already gotten the status and standing. Right? Or you wouldn't be in that role. So, you know, I've always looked at it then. So from then on, the success that I have is going to be directly related to my people. Now, there are some execs that you will have higher up, and I had them through the years, who don't look at it that way. And, you know, my answer to them is, that's your problem. I don't care whether you look at it that way or not. That's the way I, that's the way I'm going to lead my people. People. And so I think the second thing I would tell them is, after you have that introspection and understand why you're wanting to lead, is understand that there will be personal costs that you have to pay in order to lead that way and in a human-centric fashion. Because you're going to have some just real jerks along the way that don't accept that, don't like it, don't agree with And my, you know, comment to you is hold the course. Because, you know, even if you end up, you know, even if you lose a job over it, it's still the right thing to do. It's still the right way to lead. And it's still the right way to deal with people. And in the end, it works out. Right? I, you know, 38 years, I haven't changed that attitude. And I've had ups and downs. I've had good performance appraisals. I've had bad performance appraisals. I've had good raises, bad raises, good bonuses, bad bonuses. And I wouldn't change one minute of it because of how I feel like my people thrived throughout my career.

And really, the proof is going to be in the pudding because the proof will be in higher retention, lower turnover. turnover costs, higher productivity, more profit. I mean, the proof is there.

Yeah, right.

So, anything alternate to that. So, if you have a colleague or you have a boss specifically who says— I remember at 17 being a first-time manager. And I've told this story on this show before. But at 17, I was told I was promoted to a swing manager. And then, I was chastised because I wasn't a good manager because I didn't yell enough.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, particularly these days, that kind of mentality, that kind of attitude doesn't get you very far, and you're not going to be in that position very long. And again, I just, I still, and I know I'm just beating a dead horse here, but I still go back to, I look at people From a perspective that they have the same challenges, the same goals, same aspirations, all of the same, same things that I've had all my life. How did I want people to treat me? And I didn't want people to treat me like that. So I'm sure not going to treat people like that.

Well, yeah, that's interesting.

And there's gonna be, there's gonna be some people that, that don't accept that. And that's perfectly fine. If you, if, you know, if my leadership style is not your cup of tea, That's fine. We can still work together, right?

Well, you know, and some people, some people, the way they treat others is because it's a rite of passage. When I was coming up, that's the way I was treated. And it's like, well, how did you like it? Well, I hated it. But that's just a rite of passage.

And it's like, then why are you inflicting it on other people?

It's like, that's such a ridiculous sense of logic.

That's right. I mean, it doesn't make sense. Don't do that. Yeah, don't do it.

Well, I've loved this conversation. This, it's just been brilliant. Do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

Well, I would just say to people out there that if you're working for somebody who's not the type of leader that you and I've been talking about today, Marc, then be it yourself. Start becoming it yourself. Because again, you don't have to have a title. You don't have to have responsibilities of somebody reporting to you. You can be a leader. And, and by just doing the right thing, making sure that your, your teammates, the people that you work with, work around, are associated with, know that you've got their back, they have your support, and you're going to do everything you can to help them, you know, get, get through whatever's going on.

Love it! Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get ahold Yes, sir.

I have a website, williamcdavis.net. It's got all my contact information and phone, WhatsApp, email, everything.

Lovely. Hey, William, I want to thank you so much for sharing your passion and your expertise with us today. It has absolutely been brilliant. Thank you for joining me today.

Marc, I appreciate you and all the work that you do. Thanks very much for having me on.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to help you brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. Kind of convenient, isn't it? It would be my honor to be of service to you. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and leave a comment or review about this episode. Was it of value to you? I'd love to get that feedback. And of course, if you haven't done so yet, make sure that you're subscribed to this podcast. That way, you get notifications when I bring fresh new content each and every week. Thank you very much for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.