September 24, 2025 • 23 mins
Jeff Hancher is a military veteran turned leadership developer, keynote speaker, and national bestselling author dedicated to empowering leaders to “lead with clarity, courage, and compassion.” Jeff Hancher He’s the author of Firm Feedback in a Fragile World, and he designs workshops and tools to help organizations build trust, improve team performance, and navigate difficult conversations.
https://www.jeffhancher.com/
https://www.jeffhancher.com/
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
And welcome in this is the CEOs You Should Know podcast.
I'm your host, Johnny Hurtwell. Let's say hello to Jeff Hansher,
Leadership expert, executive coach, author.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Thank you for joining me, man, it is an honor
to be here. Very excited about the conversation, and thank
you so much for what you do for the community
to recognize some local leaders.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
All right, so tell us everything we need to know
about Jeff Hansher.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh my gosh, what a story. How did I get here?
I guess is the question. I grew up in rural
southwestern Pennsylvania in a small town called Claysville. Shout out
to McGuffey High School Highlanders that it might be listening.
I grew up in a lot of dysfunction, not because
I had bad parents, but because they were very sick.
I had two parents never worked a day in my life.
(00:47):
I had a mom that battled a disease called lupus
and a father that battled chroniccost the arthritis and later
developed cancer. You know, this dysfunction, you know, and challenges
literally them fighting for their life led to a lot
of misdirection from my brother and I, our teenage yeers
were filled with a lot of bad decisions, alcoholism, crime,
(01:10):
you know, things that I probably wouldn't even want to
tell on this show. I wasn't a good person, I
guess is where I would leave that. And when I
graduated high school, I felt like I wanted more. I
didn't know what that meant, but I knew that if
I ever had a family, I wanted it to be different.
And I didn't feel like I was the academia type.
So I joined the military. And I'd love to tell
(01:32):
you it's because I'm a patriot. Although I love our country.
I was running from something, not to something. But I
took my first commercial flight to Fort Jackson, South Carolina,
and boy did I grow up during that experience. And
I come to find they have something called the GI Bill,
so when I transitioned from the military, I can go
(01:52):
to college for free. And I thought this is too
good of an opportunity to pass up. And so I'm
a couple weeks away from starting at CALU and I
get a call from my dad that I had gotten
many times, which is they're sending mom home in hospice care.
This time it was very unique because my dad was
getting a leg amputated from infection. And so here we
(02:12):
have my mom who's preparing for her death, and my
dad who's getting a leg amputated. My brother already has
a career, and he asked me to just put college
on the back burner for a semester to maybe help out.
And I did what you and anybody listening would do,
and I rolled my sleeves up and I jumped in
and I wanted to help, you know, because of it,
(02:33):
it's a poverished situation. I didn't want to be a burden.
So as I'm getting all the nurses set up, I
go and this is how we used to find jobs.
You'd go pick up a newspaper and open the classifieds.
The problem was I didn't have a lot of skill,
but I used that blue collar upbringing to think of
a job that maybe I could excel at. And I
found an article for a truck driver delivery truck driver
(02:58):
picking up dirty clothes. And so I applied to be
a fill in truck driver at Sintash Uniform Company and
they hired me, and I was excited. I mean I
was making four hundred dollars a week. They had a
four oh one k. Life was good. This is the
best seasonal job ever. Well, that seasonal job turned into
a twenty five year career, and I climbed the ranks
(03:19):
with twelve promotions in that Fortune five hundred company. And
I'd love to tell you it's because I'm amazing. Although
I worked hard, I had some of the best leaders
on the planet that pulled out potential. This is a
guy that didn't know how to tie a tie, didn't
know how to speak well, and these leaders really drew
it out of me. So I became passionate about leadership.
And in twenty nineteen, I was having lunch with a
(03:41):
good friend and he prompted me to start a show,
a podcast. Didn't even know what they were. I had
never even listened to an episode, and I launched it,
thinking this is a great way to give back what's
been given to me. Well, that podcast went on to
win awards from Apple and all the things. I become fulfilled,
and in December of twenty nineteen, very stressed and scared
(04:03):
to death, I left the company that I loved to
go out and spend the rest of my life equipping
leaders to make big impact on the lives of others.
And we've been doing that for about five years now.
So that's the that's the Nickel Tour. There's a lot
of detail in there, all right.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Let me dig it a little deeper when it comes
to the evolution or the you know, the directory of sentos.
You know, you said you started with you know nothing,
very You didn't have a college education at that point,
and so so when you talk about the leadership that
you received, what was some of the advice that kind
(04:40):
of made a difference.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I will tell you at the heart of everybody that
transforms is a tough conversation. It's a tough conversation, you know,
very firm feedback. And here's the key with this firm feedback.
And I'll ask it this way to you and the listener.
If you were to think of four leaders, you're mount Rushmore.
These are people that you would say, if they hadn't
(05:03):
come into my life, I wouldn't be who I am.
This could be apparent a coach, a teacher, a boss, whatever,
a book, a book. If I were to ask were
those people tough on you that had the biggest impact,
the answer is always yes. But then the follow up
question is do you did you know that they cared
the answers yes. And so what I have found about
those leaders that made the biggest impact on me was
(05:25):
that they were really tough on me, but they earned
the right to be tough. When you earn the right
to be tough, you're not a boss people report to.
You're a leader that people don't want to let down.
When you're a leader that people don't want to let down,
you earn the right to transform people, to help them
rise to their fullest potential.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, give me an example of maybe somebody who was tough,
but yeah, it showed that they cared.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, so I get promoted into sales. From being you know,
the truck driver, I get promoted into sales. Now I'm
in the white collar world. I found out quickly that
I sucked at the job. But the great thing about
sales is you can suck at it and win if
you work hard enough. And I had a boss his
name was Sean, who saw potential in me, but he
(06:08):
knew I wasn't doing well. So this was a guy
that would pull me in after work into the conference
room and role play scripts and interest creating statements and
taught me how to overcome objections. He would jump in
the car with me and observe my calls. He would
take a call and let me observe the master.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
He would take me to lunch whenever I would sell
an account to celebrate my achievements. But he knew about
my background. Not a lot of detail, but he knew
I came from humble beginnings, and I think he could
tell by the way I dressed that I didn't.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Really know what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I remember even one day he pulled into Joseph
a bank and taught me how to dress. I remember
going back to the office and going into men's room
and him teaching me how to tie wins or not.
You know, this is a guy that invested deeply in me,
and he was tough. One specific day. So my mom
recovers from that hospice event, but she has another one.
(07:01):
And I'm going to a sales call one morning and
I get a call from my dad and my dad says,
you need to get to the hospital. Mom is not
well well. I'd gotten this call a million times, but
I went like I did every time. What were their names,
by the way, My mom Alma, and my dad was Ron.
And I get to the hospital and this day it
was different. You know, this would be the day that
(07:23):
I would hold my mom for the last time. And
when I tell you, it rocked my world. I mean,
we were just looking at houses to get them out
of that one bedroom high rise apartment. You know, I
was starting to have a level of success that I
could provide for them. And now you know my motivation,
everything I'm fighting for. It feels like it's just gone.
I go into a dark place. My attitude sucks at work.
(07:47):
I don't care about results anymore. And I remember Sean
pulling me into his office one day and him saying
to me, enough's enough. I'm heartbroken that your mom is gone,
and I know how how much you wanted to care
for her. But you have a six month old son,
you have a dad that's disabled that needs you, and
you have an amazing new wife. I can't let you
(08:09):
throw this away, but I'm certainly not going to let
you continue to act like you are. I'm going to
give you the day off. I want you to come
back tomorrow and decide are you going to force me
to remove you from this team or are you going
to be the person that I know that you can be.
And I can tell you this. Had Sean not made
all those prior deposits and earned the right, I would
(08:29):
have probably went back to my teenage self and maybe
you know it, gave him a few choice words and
walked out of the building. But I'll tell you this,
I think about that moment, and I think about what
has happened after that moment. Eleven more promotions, now starting
a business that's impacting the nations. I often wonder if
(08:52):
Sean wouldn't have been the leader that he was, would
I even be who I am today. He earned the
right to have that tough conversation and it literally changed
my life. And that's possible for every leader that's listening,
and that is my mission in life.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Has he influenced your you went from executive to executive coach?
Do you hear his voice? Oh?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You speak for sure? Yeah, no question about it. And
you know, if you were to interview Sean and ask him,
you know, how did you get so great at it?
To him, it wasn't like he had some degree in leadership.
He was just doing what he felt was the right
thing to do. You know what we know is everybody
deserves to be led well, and everything rises and falls
(09:35):
on the hand of a leader. You could have the
best products, the best programs, the best everything, and if
you're short of great leaders, you will not have a
competitive advantage. But you can have mediocre products in service
with great leadership and dominate a marketplace. So not only
is it good for business, but there are there are
Jeff Hanshers coming into the life of a leader that
(09:56):
just need a nudge, that just need you know that
in encouragement. They need that tough accountability that we can
earn the right to draw out of them. The problem
is that I'm looking to fix is that most leaders
are never taught. They just do what they have seen done,
what they've seen modeled. That might make them an aggressive leader,
(10:16):
that might make them a passive leader. So they're just
adopting what they think is best. But most leaders have
never been adequately taught how to lead well. And that's
the mission of Jeff Hansher Enterprises.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
All Right, what's the bedrock of good leadership?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Then? I think the best leaders do three things, or
in this order. They set clear expectations, they give meaningful feedback,
and they hold people accountable. You know, a lot of
leaders will come in and they have no problem with
the accountability piece, they'll throw a chair and you know,
crack scalls, but without the expectations being clear and reasonable
(10:54):
and the feedback that's adequately training people and giving them
a guide. If you are void of those two things
with high accountability, you're a monster. Now. Adversely, if you're
big on feedback and you love bringing in the sheet
cake on Friday and there's pony rides every month, without accountability,
you're passive and you're a doormat. You're liked but never respected.
(11:18):
The goal of leadership isn't just to be liked, it's
to be followed. We want to lead people to a
greater place those three things. Inconsistency is what I believe
the formula for great leadership.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
The people who come to you for advice, what is
the number one question you get?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I mean, a lot of whether it's coaching or consulting
that we do inside of companies is well. For example,
I might get a call because the company it has
very high turnover, and I go through a series of
questions to kind of diagnose what's the root cause. One
of the questions that I always ask is is everybody
in your company consistently on a routine basis getting a
(12:01):
one on one conversation with the boss that they report to.
And I will tell you greater than ninety percent of
the time, the answer is no reason being Number one
survey says, we don't have time for that. Here's what
we know about effective leadership cultures. The greatest gift that
you can give somebody is spelled time. Forget about all
(12:22):
the tools I have, forget about all the systems I have.
What we need is leaders that can reproduce themselves in others.
This is the art of reproduction. You want a healthy
leadership culture, you want a healthy company culture. Equip great
leaders and have them reproduce themselves in others. So I
often do get the question on how do I solve problems?
(12:44):
The answer almost always comes back to leadership and time
and time. And here's the answer to we don't have
time get more leaders. Well, we can't afford it. Compared
to the eighty percent turnover you have, compared to the
market share that you're losing, compared to the inability to
attract top talent. Here's what we know. Leaders will attract
(13:08):
who they are, not what they want. You will attract
who you are, not what you want. You can't say
I want top talent and be inadequate in leadership. Leadership
is the greatest recruiting tool that there is. It's the
greatest retention tool that there is. If you have great leadership,
you don't have to go through all the songs and dances,
and I'll prove it to you. If you have a
(13:30):
great leader in your organization, then they leave. What typically happens,
there's a trail of people going out the door. And
it's not because you don't have a great four one
K and you don't have a great ping pong table
in the game room. They follow leadership because when you
can hit your wagon to a great leader, they can
take you from being somebody that makes money to somebody
(13:52):
that has the opportunity to build wealth. How does that happen?
That happens through skill. When a leader can reproduce themselves
in other people and take them somewhere, people will follow
that leader.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
You mentioned that you have a military background. Yeah, so
in addition to Sean, did the military also kind of
is that part of your formula as well?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It really is. I mean you talk about a shaping process.
Oh my gosh, you know I was a short tempered teenager.
I'm angry at the world. I mean, my conditions are horrible.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
A lot of us were.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I mean it was rough. You know. One of my
chores growing up was I had to cut squares out
of metal coffee cans and pop rivet them to the
floor of our car. You know, there was just chaos.
I was mad, so I was always fighting. I was
always But look, when you get to the military, you're
all wearing green. Nobody cares if you came from you know,
the other side of the tracks, or you came from wealth.
(14:48):
We were all the same, and you learned really quickly
who was in charge. And you also learned really quickly
that there was accountability for not doing things the right way.
So this taught me great attention to d tail, It
taught me structure, and it taught me I would tell you.
I get asked the question what did I get most
out of the military. I learned the bedrock of it
(15:10):
was in order to do anything great, it requires sacrifice.
I remember day two of being in basic training and
drill Sergeant Jackson had us doing push ups, which was
a common thing for us, but this day was the
day that for the first time in my life, I
would reach muscle failure. It's a wild thing that your
(15:30):
body goes to where it physically can't function. And our
drill Sergeant Jackson, was just laughing hysterically. He loved every
minute of it. And he said to us, I'll never
forget it. He said, if it's not paining, it's not training.
And here we are all laying on the ground literally
and he's asking us to do one more push up.
And when we got to our most depleted moment, he
(15:53):
went from this sarcastic guy to stone faced and we're
all just sitting looking at him, exhausted in sweating, and
he said, I want all eyes on me. And he said,
you're sweating now so that you don't bleed later. He said,
there's going to come a time that you're going to
be in a situation that this training's going to pay off.
(16:16):
He said, you can either sweat on the grass of
Fort Jackson, or you can bleed in the desert of
the Middle East. Nobody on my team is going to bleed.
And with that, he said, keep pushing privates. And it
made me realize this value of you got to be
willing to give up what you want now for what
you want most. There's no free lunch. You have to
(16:40):
equip I came from nothing, and I'm not here to
tell you I'm great, But I will tell you two
things that changed my life. What I consumed and who
I surrounded myself with. I paid to be in the
workshops out of my own pocket. I paid for the books.
I went to the library and got books out. I
did the things because if you want what you don't have,
you have to do what you've never done. And I
(17:02):
learned that in the bedrock of it was from the military.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
One person gave me a piece of advice. They said,
plant a tree, have a child, and write a book.
Now you talked about going to the libraries. Now you
have written a book. Yeah, tell us all about it.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Isn't that It's wild to even hear you say that
Jeff Hansher wrote a book. I barely made it out
of high school. If it wasn't for cliff notes, I
wouldn't have made it. I didn't even read a book
until I was twenty three, and that was Sean. Sean
gave me the book Lead the Field by Earl Knight
and Yale. Yeah, and it changed my life. And then
there came Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. But
(17:38):
if you would have told me that Jeff Hansher was
going to write a book forget About a national bestseller,
I would have told you you are out of your
ever loving mind. But here's how the book came about.
During the pandemic, the shutdown, the world's coming to an end.
I'm sixty days out of quitting my job, scared to death.
What did I just do? But I had a lot
(17:59):
of time, and so I looked through all my succession
planning notes from my corporate days to find out what
was the root cause of leaders that never got promoted
or weren't making impact. I boiled it down to two things.
One emotional intelligence or a lack of and two a
lack of accountability. I thought emotional intelligence was talked about
(18:19):
quite a bit, so I went deeply into my research
on what holds leaders back from holding people accountable. I
reflected on my journey of great leaders. I reflected on
my journey of leading others. And I did a lot
of research, and I built a one day leadership workshop,
and I thought, if this pandemic ever ends and we
all don't die, I'm going to launch this to the market,
(18:41):
and so I did. I launched it to the market,
did very minimal marketing, a lot of cold calling, and
we filled the room. It sold out. I couldn't believe it.
The feedback was amazing. So I did what any good
entrepreneur would do and I hosted another one and it
sold out, and it kept selling out.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
About the first one. Yeah, well, leading into the first one,
you're anticipating, you're hoping that somebody shows up.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Oh my gosh, scared to death. I thought it might
be like me and maybe I have to call somebodies
to fill some seats to make it look better than
it actually is. But word got out, and I think
the topic was one that was like people were scratching
their head. They're curious, what is this about? And it's
not like I have this great marketing topic, but the
bullet points under it. What we know is most leaders
(19:31):
are challenged with this. If you have to go into
a tough conversation, think about the scenario peak performer that's
bringing in thirty percent of your results, but they're not
a culture fit and you have to sit them down
and have a hard conversation. I mean, your sweating, what
if they quit. What if they cry, what if they
get mad? What if you know what, I'm just going
(19:51):
to let this thing lie. We know that's not the answer.
So what led from that first one was them going
back and telling everybody you got to in this you
got to sit in this workshop. So we've been doing
these workshops ever since, and now we do them all
over the country. I develop a mentorship with an amazing
guy by the name of Tim Elmore, and in my
first mentorship meeting, he was one of John Maxwell's first employees.
(20:14):
He's a guy that he's been there. He's written thirty
eight books. I always say combined, we've written thirty nine.
But he said, have you written a book yet? And
I said no. He said, listen, you got to write
a book. He said, think about this. You're at breakfast
with your buddies. A big storm came through last night,
and you tell all your buddies man, half the shingles fell,
you know, blew off my roof, and your other buddy says, well,
(20:37):
call Johnny. He wrote the book on roofing. Did Johnny
really write a book on roofing? No. What they're saying
is he's an expert. That's why you have to write
a book. He said, what would you write a book about? Jeff,
I said, I would write a book about my life.
I have a keynote called the State a Readiness. People
love it. He said, absolutely not. He said, I hate
to tell you this. Nobody cares about your story. You're
(20:58):
one of a million stories just like you, and I'm
sure it's an amazing story. What do you do that's
making big impact? I said, well, I have this performance
management workshop. Tell me about it. I told him about it.
He said, Jeff, if I wasn't a man of integrity,
I would steal your idea and write my thirty ninth
book about it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That's the book. You got to write the book accountability.
That's is that the focus of the book.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
The name of the book is firm Feedback in a
fragile world, and the premise is that it's fragile, I
mean quiet. Quitting is costing the global economy nine trillion
dollars a year. Turnover inside of businesses has never been higher.
The people we thought were going to be here forever
are quitting. Attracting top talent is harder than ever before.
(21:41):
We're battling through political injustice, social injustice, pandemics, you know,
the great resignation. It's a tough time to lead. That's
the fragile world. So what do we we walk away
from Firm Feedback. No, we double down. But the key
is earning the right, and so through the book, I
take them through those three pillars of earning the right
(22:02):
to have a tough conversation that not only transformed cultures
but transforms people.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Well, you gave me a lot to chew on. I
do want to read your book now, all right? I
told another one. Well yeah, all right. So if somebody
wants the book or wants more information on Jeff Hansher,
what was the how do you remember your last name?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Which is Jeffhansher like Jolly Rancher, but with an H?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I love that? Is that how you introduce yourself to
you all the time.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So it's like the corneis dad joke, but it's sticky,
so I go with it. So the website website is
Jeffhansher dot com. If you want the book, let me
encourage you to go to firmfeedbackbook dot com because we
have tons of bonuses. I didn't write the book to
sell books. I wrote the book to make impact. Go
get the free bonuses and don't just check the box
that you read it, internalize it. Go get the free
(22:50):
bonuses at firmfeedbackbook dot com. Jeffhanscher, this has been an
absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for it is my honor.
Thank you, and thank you for the listeners for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
This has been the seat CEOs you should know podcast,
showcasing businesses that are driving our regional economy. Part of
iHeartMedia's commitment to the communities we serve. I'm Johnny Hartwell,
thank you so much for listening.
And welcome in this is the CEOs You Should Know podcast.
I'm your host, Johnny Hurtwell. Let's say hello to Jeff Hansher,
Leadership expert, executive coach, author.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Thank you for joining me, man, it is an honor
to be here. Very excited about the conversation, and thank
you so much for what you do for the community
to recognize some local leaders.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
All right, so tell us everything we need to know
about Jeff Hansher.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh my gosh, what a story. How did I get here?
I guess is the question. I grew up in rural
southwestern Pennsylvania in a small town called Claysville. Shout out
to McGuffey High School Highlanders that it might be listening.
I grew up in a lot of dysfunction, not because
I had bad parents, but because they were very sick.
I had two parents never worked a day in my life.
(00:47):
I had a mom that battled a disease called lupus
and a father that battled chroniccost the arthritis and later
developed cancer. You know, this dysfunction, you know, and challenges
literally them fighting for their life led to a lot
of misdirection from my brother and I, our teenage yeers
were filled with a lot of bad decisions, alcoholism, crime,
(01:10):
you know, things that I probably wouldn't even want to
tell on this show. I wasn't a good person, I
guess is where I would leave that. And when I
graduated high school, I felt like I wanted more. I
didn't know what that meant, but I knew that if
I ever had a family, I wanted it to be different.
And I didn't feel like I was the academia type.
So I joined the military. And I'd love to tell
(01:32):
you it's because I'm a patriot. Although I love our country.
I was running from something, not to something. But I
took my first commercial flight to Fort Jackson, South Carolina,
and boy did I grow up during that experience. And
I come to find they have something called the GI Bill,
so when I transitioned from the military, I can go
(01:52):
to college for free. And I thought this is too
good of an opportunity to pass up. And so I'm
a couple weeks away from starting at CALU and I
get a call from my dad that I had gotten
many times, which is they're sending mom home in hospice care.
This time it was very unique because my dad was
getting a leg amputated from infection. And so here we
(02:12):
have my mom who's preparing for her death, and my
dad who's getting a leg amputated. My brother already has
a career, and he asked me to just put college
on the back burner for a semester to maybe help out.
And I did what you and anybody listening would do,
and I rolled my sleeves up and I jumped in
and I wanted to help, you know, because of it,
(02:33):
it's a poverished situation. I didn't want to be a burden.
So as I'm getting all the nurses set up, I
go and this is how we used to find jobs.
You'd go pick up a newspaper and open the classifieds.
The problem was I didn't have a lot of skill,
but I used that blue collar upbringing to think of
a job that maybe I could excel at. And I
found an article for a truck driver delivery truck driver
(02:58):
picking up dirty clothes. And so I applied to be
a fill in truck driver at Sintash Uniform Company and
they hired me, and I was excited. I mean I
was making four hundred dollars a week. They had a
four oh one k. Life was good. This is the
best seasonal job ever. Well, that seasonal job turned into
a twenty five year career, and I climbed the ranks
(03:19):
with twelve promotions in that Fortune five hundred company. And
I'd love to tell you it's because I'm amazing. Although
I worked hard, I had some of the best leaders
on the planet that pulled out potential. This is a
guy that didn't know how to tie a tie, didn't
know how to speak well, and these leaders really drew
it out of me. So I became passionate about leadership.
And in twenty nineteen, I was having lunch with a
(03:41):
good friend and he prompted me to start a show,
a podcast. Didn't even know what they were. I had
never even listened to an episode, and I launched it,
thinking this is a great way to give back what's
been given to me. Well, that podcast went on to
win awards from Apple and all the things. I become fulfilled,
and in December of twenty nineteen, very stressed and scared
(04:03):
to death, I left the company that I loved to
go out and spend the rest of my life equipping
leaders to make big impact on the lives of others.
And we've been doing that for about five years now.
So that's the that's the Nickel Tour. There's a lot
of detail in there, all right.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Let me dig it a little deeper when it comes
to the evolution or the you know, the directory of sentos.
You know, you said you started with you know nothing,
very You didn't have a college education at that point,
and so so when you talk about the leadership that
you received, what was some of the advice that kind
(04:40):
of made a difference.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I will tell you at the heart of everybody that
transforms is a tough conversation. It's a tough conversation, you know,
very firm feedback. And here's the key with this firm feedback.
And I'll ask it this way to you and the listener.
If you were to think of four leaders, you're mount Rushmore.
These are people that you would say, if they hadn't
(05:03):
come into my life, I wouldn't be who I am.
This could be apparent a coach, a teacher, a boss, whatever,
a book, a book. If I were to ask were
those people tough on you that had the biggest impact,
the answer is always yes. But then the follow up
question is do you did you know that they cared
the answers yes. And so what I have found about
those leaders that made the biggest impact on me was
(05:25):
that they were really tough on me, but they earned
the right to be tough. When you earn the right
to be tough, you're not a boss people report to.
You're a leader that people don't want to let down.
When you're a leader that people don't want to let down,
you earn the right to transform people, to help them
rise to their fullest potential.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, give me an example of maybe somebody who was tough,
but yeah, it showed that they cared.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, so I get promoted into sales. From being you know,
the truck driver, I get promoted into sales. Now I'm
in the white collar world. I found out quickly that
I sucked at the job. But the great thing about
sales is you can suck at it and win if
you work hard enough. And I had a boss his
name was Sean, who saw potential in me, but he
(06:08):
knew I wasn't doing well. So this was a guy
that would pull me in after work into the conference
room and role play scripts and interest creating statements and
taught me how to overcome objections. He would jump in
the car with me and observe my calls. He would
take a call and let me observe the master.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
He would take me to lunch whenever I would sell
an account to celebrate my achievements. But he knew about
my background. Not a lot of detail, but he knew
I came from humble beginnings, and I think he could
tell by the way I dressed that I didn't.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Really know what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I remember even one day he pulled into Joseph
a bank and taught me how to dress. I remember
going back to the office and going into men's room
and him teaching me how to tie wins or not.
You know, this is a guy that invested deeply in me,
and he was tough. One specific day. So my mom
recovers from that hospice event, but she has another one.
(07:01):
And I'm going to a sales call one morning and
I get a call from my dad and my dad says,
you need to get to the hospital. Mom is not
well well. I'd gotten this call a million times, but
I went like I did every time. What were their names,
by the way, My mom Alma, and my dad was Ron.
And I get to the hospital and this day it
was different. You know, this would be the day that
(07:23):
I would hold my mom for the last time. And
when I tell you, it rocked my world. I mean,
we were just looking at houses to get them out
of that one bedroom high rise apartment. You know, I
was starting to have a level of success that I
could provide for them. And now you know my motivation,
everything I'm fighting for. It feels like it's just gone.
I go into a dark place. My attitude sucks at work.
(07:47):
I don't care about results anymore. And I remember Sean
pulling me into his office one day and him saying
to me, enough's enough. I'm heartbroken that your mom is gone,
and I know how how much you wanted to care
for her. But you have a six month old son,
you have a dad that's disabled that needs you, and
you have an amazing new wife. I can't let you
(08:09):
throw this away, but I'm certainly not going to let
you continue to act like you are. I'm going to
give you the day off. I want you to come
back tomorrow and decide are you going to force me
to remove you from this team or are you going
to be the person that I know that you can be.
And I can tell you this. Had Sean not made
all those prior deposits and earned the right, I would
(08:29):
have probably went back to my teenage self and maybe
you know it, gave him a few choice words and
walked out of the building. But I'll tell you this,
I think about that moment, and I think about what
has happened after that moment. Eleven more promotions, now starting
a business that's impacting the nations. I often wonder if
(08:52):
Sean wouldn't have been the leader that he was, would
I even be who I am today. He earned the
right to have that tough conversation and it literally changed
my life. And that's possible for every leader that's listening,
and that is my mission in life.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Has he influenced your you went from executive to executive coach?
Do you hear his voice? Oh?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You speak for sure? Yeah, no question about it. And
you know, if you were to interview Sean and ask him,
you know, how did you get so great at it?
To him, it wasn't like he had some degree in leadership.
He was just doing what he felt was the right
thing to do. You know what we know is everybody
deserves to be led well, and everything rises and falls
(09:35):
on the hand of a leader. You could have the
best products, the best programs, the best everything, and if
you're short of great leaders, you will not have a
competitive advantage. But you can have mediocre products in service
with great leadership and dominate a marketplace. So not only
is it good for business, but there are there are
Jeff Hanshers coming into the life of a leader that
(09:56):
just need a nudge, that just need you know that
in encouragement. They need that tough accountability that we can
earn the right to draw out of them. The problem
is that I'm looking to fix is that most leaders
are never taught. They just do what they have seen done,
what they've seen modeled. That might make them an aggressive leader,
(10:16):
that might make them a passive leader. So they're just
adopting what they think is best. But most leaders have
never been adequately taught how to lead well. And that's
the mission of Jeff Hansher Enterprises.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
All Right, what's the bedrock of good leadership?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Then? I think the best leaders do three things, or
in this order. They set clear expectations, they give meaningful feedback,
and they hold people accountable. You know, a lot of
leaders will come in and they have no problem with
the accountability piece, they'll throw a chair and you know,
crack scalls, but without the expectations being clear and reasonable
(10:54):
and the feedback that's adequately training people and giving them
a guide. If you are void of those two things
with high accountability, you're a monster. Now. Adversely, if you're
big on feedback and you love bringing in the sheet
cake on Friday and there's pony rides every month, without accountability,
you're passive and you're a doormat. You're liked but never respected.
(11:18):
The goal of leadership isn't just to be liked, it's
to be followed. We want to lead people to a
greater place those three things. Inconsistency is what I believe
the formula for great leadership.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
The people who come to you for advice, what is
the number one question you get?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I mean, a lot of whether it's coaching or consulting
that we do inside of companies is well. For example,
I might get a call because the company it has
very high turnover, and I go through a series of
questions to kind of diagnose what's the root cause. One
of the questions that I always ask is is everybody
in your company consistently on a routine basis getting a
(12:01):
one on one conversation with the boss that they report to.
And I will tell you greater than ninety percent of
the time, the answer is no reason being Number one
survey says, we don't have time for that. Here's what
we know about effective leadership cultures. The greatest gift that
you can give somebody is spelled time. Forget about all
(12:22):
the tools I have, forget about all the systems I have.
What we need is leaders that can reproduce themselves in others.
This is the art of reproduction. You want a healthy
leadership culture, you want a healthy company culture. Equip great
leaders and have them reproduce themselves in others. So I
often do get the question on how do I solve problems?
(12:44):
The answer almost always comes back to leadership and time
and time. And here's the answer to we don't have
time get more leaders. Well, we can't afford it. Compared
to the eighty percent turnover you have, compared to the
market share that you're losing, compared to the inability to
attract top talent. Here's what we know. Leaders will attract
(13:08):
who they are, not what they want. You will attract
who you are, not what you want. You can't say
I want top talent and be inadequate in leadership. Leadership
is the greatest recruiting tool that there is. It's the
greatest retention tool that there is. If you have great leadership,
you don't have to go through all the songs and dances,
and I'll prove it to you. If you have a
(13:30):
great leader in your organization, then they leave. What typically happens,
there's a trail of people going out the door. And
it's not because you don't have a great four one
K and you don't have a great ping pong table
in the game room. They follow leadership because when you
can hit your wagon to a great leader, they can
take you from being somebody that makes money to somebody
(13:52):
that has the opportunity to build wealth. How does that happen?
That happens through skill. When a leader can reproduce themselves
in other people and take them somewhere, people will follow
that leader.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
You mentioned that you have a military background. Yeah, so
in addition to Sean, did the military also kind of
is that part of your formula as well?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It really is. I mean you talk about a shaping process.
Oh my gosh, you know I was a short tempered teenager.
I'm angry at the world. I mean, my conditions are horrible.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
A lot of us were.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I mean it was rough. You know. One of my
chores growing up was I had to cut squares out
of metal coffee cans and pop rivet them to the
floor of our car. You know, there was just chaos.
I was mad, so I was always fighting. I was
always But look, when you get to the military, you're
all wearing green. Nobody cares if you came from you know,
the other side of the tracks, or you came from wealth.
(14:48):
We were all the same, and you learned really quickly
who was in charge. And you also learned really quickly
that there was accountability for not doing things the right way.
So this taught me great attention to d tail, It
taught me structure, and it taught me I would tell you.
I get asked the question what did I get most
out of the military. I learned the bedrock of it
(15:10):
was in order to do anything great, it requires sacrifice.
I remember day two of being in basic training and
drill Sergeant Jackson had us doing push ups, which was
a common thing for us, but this day was the
day that for the first time in my life, I
would reach muscle failure. It's a wild thing that your
(15:30):
body goes to where it physically can't function. And our
drill Sergeant Jackson, was just laughing hysterically. He loved every
minute of it. And he said to us, I'll never
forget it. He said, if it's not paining, it's not training.
And here we are all laying on the ground literally
and he's asking us to do one more push up.
And when we got to our most depleted moment, he
(15:53):
went from this sarcastic guy to stone faced and we're
all just sitting looking at him, exhausted in sweating, and
he said, I want all eyes on me. And he said,
you're sweating now so that you don't bleed later. He said,
there's going to come a time that you're going to
be in a situation that this training's going to pay off.
(16:16):
He said, you can either sweat on the grass of
Fort Jackson, or you can bleed in the desert of
the Middle East. Nobody on my team is going to bleed.
And with that, he said, keep pushing privates. And it
made me realize this value of you got to be
willing to give up what you want now for what
you want most. There's no free lunch. You have to
(16:40):
equip I came from nothing, and I'm not here to
tell you I'm great, But I will tell you two
things that changed my life. What I consumed and who
I surrounded myself with. I paid to be in the
workshops out of my own pocket. I paid for the books.
I went to the library and got books out. I
did the things because if you want what you don't have,
you have to do what you've never done. And I
(17:02):
learned that in the bedrock of it was from the military.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
One person gave me a piece of advice. They said,
plant a tree, have a child, and write a book.
Now you talked about going to the libraries. Now you
have written a book. Yeah, tell us all about it.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Isn't that It's wild to even hear you say that
Jeff Hansher wrote a book. I barely made it out
of high school. If it wasn't for cliff notes, I
wouldn't have made it. I didn't even read a book
until I was twenty three, and that was Sean. Sean
gave me the book Lead the Field by Earl Knight
and Yale. Yeah, and it changed my life. And then
there came Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. But
(17:38):
if you would have told me that Jeff Hansher was
going to write a book forget About a national bestseller,
I would have told you you are out of your
ever loving mind. But here's how the book came about.
During the pandemic, the shutdown, the world's coming to an end.
I'm sixty days out of quitting my job, scared to death.
What did I just do? But I had a lot
(17:59):
of time, and so I looked through all my succession
planning notes from my corporate days to find out what
was the root cause of leaders that never got promoted
or weren't making impact. I boiled it down to two things.
One emotional intelligence or a lack of and two a
lack of accountability. I thought emotional intelligence was talked about
(18:19):
quite a bit, so I went deeply into my research
on what holds leaders back from holding people accountable. I
reflected on my journey of great leaders. I reflected on
my journey of leading others. And I did a lot
of research, and I built a one day leadership workshop,
and I thought, if this pandemic ever ends and we
all don't die, I'm going to launch this to the market,
(18:41):
and so I did. I launched it to the market,
did very minimal marketing, a lot of cold calling, and
we filled the room. It sold out. I couldn't believe it.
The feedback was amazing. So I did what any good
entrepreneur would do and I hosted another one and it
sold out, and it kept selling out.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
About the first one. Yeah, well, leading into the first one,
you're anticipating, you're hoping that somebody shows up.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Oh my gosh, scared to death. I thought it might
be like me and maybe I have to call somebodies
to fill some seats to make it look better than
it actually is. But word got out, and I think
the topic was one that was like people were scratching
their head. They're curious, what is this about? And it's
not like I have this great marketing topic, but the
bullet points under it. What we know is most leaders
(19:31):
are challenged with this. If you have to go into
a tough conversation, think about the scenario peak performer that's
bringing in thirty percent of your results, but they're not
a culture fit and you have to sit them down
and have a hard conversation. I mean, your sweating, what
if they quit. What if they cry, what if they
get mad? What if you know what, I'm just going
(19:51):
to let this thing lie. We know that's not the answer.
So what led from that first one was them going
back and telling everybody you got to in this you
got to sit in this workshop. So we've been doing
these workshops ever since, and now we do them all
over the country. I develop a mentorship with an amazing
guy by the name of Tim Elmore, and in my
first mentorship meeting, he was one of John Maxwell's first employees.
(20:14):
He's a guy that he's been there. He's written thirty
eight books. I always say combined, we've written thirty nine.
But he said, have you written a book yet? And
I said no. He said, listen, you got to write
a book. He said, think about this. You're at breakfast
with your buddies. A big storm came through last night,
and you tell all your buddies man, half the shingles fell,
you know, blew off my roof, and your other buddy says, well,
(20:37):
call Johnny. He wrote the book on roofing. Did Johnny
really write a book on roofing? No. What they're saying
is he's an expert. That's why you have to write
a book. He said, what would you write a book about? Jeff,
I said, I would write a book about my life.
I have a keynote called the State a Readiness. People
love it. He said, absolutely not. He said, I hate
to tell you this. Nobody cares about your story. You're
(20:58):
one of a million stories just like you, and I'm
sure it's an amazing story. What do you do that's
making big impact? I said, well, I have this performance
management workshop. Tell me about it. I told him about it.
He said, Jeff, if I wasn't a man of integrity,
I would steal your idea and write my thirty ninth
book about it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That's the book. You got to write the book accountability.
That's is that the focus of the book.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
The name of the book is firm Feedback in a
fragile world, and the premise is that it's fragile, I
mean quiet. Quitting is costing the global economy nine trillion
dollars a year. Turnover inside of businesses has never been higher.
The people we thought were going to be here forever
are quitting. Attracting top talent is harder than ever before.
(21:41):
We're battling through political injustice, social injustice, pandemics, you know,
the great resignation. It's a tough time to lead. That's
the fragile world. So what do we we walk away
from Firm Feedback. No, we double down. But the key
is earning the right, and so through the book, I
take them through those three pillars of earning the right
(22:02):
to have a tough conversation that not only transformed cultures
but transforms people.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Well, you gave me a lot to chew on. I
do want to read your book now, all right? I
told another one. Well yeah, all right. So if somebody
wants the book or wants more information on Jeff Hansher,
what was the how do you remember your last name?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Which is Jeffhansher like Jolly Rancher, but with an H?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I love that? Is that how you introduce yourself to
you all the time.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So it's like the corneis dad joke, but it's sticky,
so I go with it. So the website website is
Jeffhansher dot com. If you want the book, let me
encourage you to go to firmfeedbackbook dot com because we
have tons of bonuses. I didn't write the book to
sell books. I wrote the book to make impact. Go
get the free bonuses and don't just check the box
that you read it, internalize it. Go get the free
(22:50):
bonuses at firmfeedbackbook dot com. Jeffhanscher, this has been an
absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for it is my honor.
Thank you, and thank you for the listeners for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
This has been the seat CEOs you should know podcast,
showcasing businesses that are driving our regional economy. Part of
iHeartMedia's commitment to the communities we serve. I'm Johnny Hartwell,
thank you so much for listening.
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