How Do You Improve Your Leadership? [The Leader’s Playlist]

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Hi, I'm Susan Drum, and welcome to this special edition of the Leaders Playlist, where you can use the power of music and neuroscience to transform your leadership and your life. Each episode we're going to feature exclusive interviews with leaders to give you groundbreaking strategies that help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. Go to susandrum.com to learn more. My guest today is John Brampton, who was recently named the top online influencer in the world by Entrepreneur magazine. So I am so grateful to have you here, John, to talk about the book.

I'm very excited to be here. Thank you very much for making this happen.

Thank you. So tell me, what do you want to know about the Leaders Playlist? What's piquing your interest?

When I'm thinking of a leader, you know, I might have my preconceived notion, and I think all of us are like, oh, my word, you know, what is a leader about? Is it, Is it this? Is it that? But, you know, what is Leaders Playlist about for you?

Well, behind the scenes, it's really about how the experiences we had in childhood show up in how we lead and connect with others. And I think sometimes that's a blind spot for people or it's hidden. But what I found in doing this work now for over 20 years is our childhood wounds show up in the workplace, and unless we do the work to heal them, they're going to keep showing up in the way where others experience us and as well as the way in which we empower and manage or control others in the process when.

When we're talking about leaders and stuff. I know you have worked with some of the biggest companies out there, leaders from Fortune 500 companies, you know, big, big, big names. What got you into this work?

Oh, I have an eclectic background, and it took me a while to find my stride. I tried a lot of different things. I went to law school and at Harvard and didn't end up practicing law. So if you can imagine, my parents were probably like, okay, you just invested in all this education and you went to Harvard Law School and you're not going to practice law. But you know, what law gave me was this ability to make distinctions. That's what. But usually it's to make distinctions in case law, and instead I use it to make distinctions in mindset. So it was really powerful. And it was, it was out of that I started to realize that I was interested in more consulting work and the business side of things. I went into business strategy work at bcg and then I Went to NBC doing marketing and business development. And then out of that I went to drama school and I got a master's in acting. And little did I know that all these things would come together in the leadership development work I do. And I think it was really the acting experience that was the most transformative because it, you know, as an actor, you really have to learn how to deal with that inner critic inside your head or you can't be present with your fellow actor. You're worried about what the person. And I kept thinking, God, there's got to be a way I could use this in business. And the more I learned, some of the things in acting I started to explore, well, what is an avenue to bring this to business? And that was leadership development. So that's how I got started back in the field. I think it was 2002.

Wow. It's been a while.

Yes.

Yes. Yeah. What's probably along the road, one of the most important things that you've learned during that time. Yes.

I think that we all have blind spots and it's okay to be more open to discovering what that is. That this is a process of discovery. And even for myself, in writing this book, as I wrote about my life, I saw things that I had never seen before. And I've been doing this work for 20 years for myself. So part of that is to be in the process of learning and discovery. And those leaders that are sort of hungry to learn more about themselves and about other people are the ones that really thrive.

Yeah. And along those lines, kind of, what is the biggest differentiator between high growth leaders and non high growth leaders?

It's their ability to scale and lead through others. So. So sometimes people say, well, we've got this high performer, but he comes with so much damage along the way. Or she comes with so much damage along the way. And so we can't keep certain staff. I just heard a story like this. They hired a very senior executive into a company and the person that has the issue has been there for a long time and essentially drove this new person out. They're like, I'm not going to work with this. And they won't correct the stalwart's behavior because he's been so valuable over the years in his individual contribution. But as opposed to looking at someone's individual contribution, you need to look at how they impact the system, the company, the organization, the team. And that should be a big part of their compensation. Not so much this individual contributor. So that's what I see. The real differences Is the ability of a high performing leader to empower others to help scale the organization and recognize that just them performing well isn't the solution. You're not going to get any scale from that. It's can you create the conditions for others to succeed?

When working with Fortune 500 CEOs and any CEO really what is the biggest misconception that you see or problem or issue? But I would say misconception people see about their own leadership style.

Well, visually I was going to say often I'm brought in by, let's say this, the C suite team to fix the next level down. And I always want to go leadership culture is top down. So let's start with you and look at how you're leading because you are driving success. Some of the behavior that you see in the next level down. It doesn't mean that yes, the next level down or two levels down can't use some leadership development. But ultimately it also like what are you doing at the senior levels and what are you modeling? Is really is really the question. The misconception is it's everybody else's problem. And I think that's true even to the individual level that you know, if only my boss was different or if only this company had a better culture and you're always going to find roadblocks. But it's. Who are you being?

I mean that's, that's natural behavior though in each and every one of us. You know, in our marriage, you know, this is going wrong, our kids, it's, it's this, it's that. In business it's this. And when I go to the gym, it's this. Like we're always tend to blame others and blame this which I love that you're bringing up. You know, it does start at the very top and you know, it's not just, you know, lower level.

Yes. Yeah, for sure. It you really want to look at how you're leading your life. Like how often are you faulting the external world? And that's why this book is really about what can you do in the inner world to shift so that your external world shows up differently. And what I mean by that is when the external world will show up differently to you because you're paying attention to different things than you were in the past when you shift the internal world.

So over the past couple years we've had a pandemic potential recession, wars. Why is this so important right now?

Oh, it is. I feel like it is needed now more than ever. I think we've all faced some sort of trauma over the pandemic. Um, and I think there was a feeling for many of loneliness and isolation. And now that we're coming back, there's a lot of questions about what's my purpose and what really matters to me now that I went through this experience. Do I even like my job? Do I even like what I'm doing? Who do I want to be connected to? I think it's just surfaced so many questions about what our life is about and where we find fulfillment. And I really believe that if you don't get clear on what you're running towards, you're focused on what you're running away from. And that is never a recipe for success.

Yep. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. Pre pandemic. I mean, just giving you a little insight into me. Pre pandemic, I was on the road about 120 days every single year and now I'm not on the road a lot. I'm taking off almost every single Friday. I'm living more the life that I want to live versus letting others dictate, you know, how I should live. I think I'm not alone in this. There's a lot of people and, you know, some of the companies that I'm involved with are noticing that they're losing people if they don't subscribe to certain philosophies or allow their employees to do this, or they have a different type of leadership style. I think the leadership styles from pre pandemic to post pandemic are very different and they take different leaders, different ways of going about things, and different leadership styles on understanding this big shift in our world. And it's not just the us, it's not just Canada, it's not just the uk. I believe it's everywhere and I've been seeing that everywhere. So in, in this process and playlist that I'm going through, how long is this going to take? Like, is this. Are we talking like a day or two or a week or how long is this going to take?

And when you say take to what? Take to shift some underlying fundamental childhood wound that is showing up in your leadership.

I mean, it's going to take 30 minutes. Process. No.

Yes.

This process that you're taking us through, what should I expect?

Yeah, well, in the book, I outline a seven step process for the methodology of really uncovering where's the area where you're bumping your head up against a ceiling that seems to be just something you can't break through or you notice it being a pattern in your life and you want to shift it. But you first have to get, you know, step one, as I say, you have to have a belly full of it. You have to get to the point where, like, I no longer want to operate in this way. I'm committed to change, because without that, change just doesn't happen. So how long does that take? I don't know. Because how long does it take you to get to the point where you're really committed to make the shift? Once you're committed to make the shift, I think things transpire to make that happen. So part of the work is getting really clear on what the old playlist is. And, and we use, we use that term both literally and figuratively. So figuratively is like, what's that background music that's been playing that? It's like, I'm treated unfairly or I'm not good enough. Imposter syndrome, I'm not safe. What is that old emotional resonance? And how can we find an anchor song? That's the literally that represents that. So you can catch yourself when you're going down that four lane highway to hell, that neural pathway that's been grooved. And so there's a little bit of time to do that and then there's some time to say, what do you want the new to be? So we need to like, really get clear what the old playlist is and then get clear of what do we want to build as the new one. And so that work is looking at what is the new emotional resonance that you want to be in. Right. I want to feel welcomed, I want to feel blessed and in love, whatever it may be.