August 19, 2025 • 50 mins
Kyle Courtaway has over 25 years of experience working in all areas of strategic talent management including succession planning, high potential identification, competency alignment, performance management systems, executive coaching, 360° instrumentation, intact leadership team development, and key talent development. Kyle’s previous roles have included Learning and Development Consultant, Senior Leadership and Team Development Consultant, and Organizational Development Manager at Andersen/Accenture.
Leadership isn’t just about titles or corner offices; it’s all about influence, relationships, and the conversations we have. Today, we’re diving deep into the world of leadership with our guest, Kyle Courtaway, a leadership development consultant who’s all about demystifying what it means to lead effectively. We’ll break down how your ability to connect with others and engage in meaningful dialogue can shape your leadership style and ultimately, your success. It’s like a truth bomb—once you realize that leadership is less about authority and more about building rapport, everything clicks into place. Buckle up as we explore how to build those vital relationships and have the tough conversations that can elevate your leadership game to another level!
Leadership isn't just about being in charge; it's all about influence—and that influence is built through the relationships we cultivate and the conversations we have. We dove deep into this topic with Kyle Courtaway, a seasoned leadership development consultant, who shared his journey from a confused college grad to a knowledgeable leader in organizational development. Kyle brought up some heavy-hitting concepts, like how many new leaders are thrown into the deep end without the necessary tools to swim. He emphasized that leadership is often misunderstood as a solo endeavor, when in reality, it's a team sport. During our chat, we discussed how leaders often need to unlearn old habits and pick up new ones that are more suited for their roles. Kyle also touched on the importance of having a shared vocabulary in leadership—because let's face it, everyone uses the same buzzwords but means totally different things. It’s crucial for leaders to have that precise understanding so they can truly connect and lead effectively.
We had a laugh talking about the absurdity of being promoted to lead a team just because someone is good at their job. It’s like saying, “Congrats on being a great accountant! Now, go manage a bunch of people!” This transition often leads to a lot of confusion and, frankly, a few performance improvement plans down the line. Kyle's insights on how to avoid that pitfall were golden. He explained that successful leadership requires ongoing conversations and building relationships, emphasizing that many leaders feel isolated and unsupported as they navigate their new responsibilities.
In a nutshell, if you’re stepping up to lead, you better be ready to build some serious connections and have some real conversations. We wrapped up our deep dive with some practical advice for current leaders: seek clarity in your conversations, be intentional about your relationships, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Because at the end of the day, leadership is not just about the position; it’s about the people you influence along the way. Tune in for a whole heap of wisdom and a few laughs along the journey of leadership growth!
Takeaways:
- Leadership isn't just about making decisions; it's about building relationships and having conversations that influence others.
- Understanding your leadership style requires knowing the key partners you work with and the conversations that matter.
- Successful leaders learn to adapt and unlearn behaviors that no longer serve them in their new roles.
- Creating a supportive environment for leaders to share experiences reduces feelings of isolation and fosters peer learning...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Leadership is fundamentally aninfluence process, and you do it
primarily by the relationshipsyou build and the conversations that
you have. And the moment thatI can do that I have at least put
some boundaries around thingsthat says, tell me about the key
partners you work with. Tellme about the conversations you got
to have, and you tell me aboutthose things and I'll tell you about
your leadership. Right.Because at that point, what we've
(00:25):
done is we've gotten a. Bestway I can frame it is a boots on
the ground perspective on whatit really means for you to lead others.
Hi there and welcome to theStep up expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
(00:47):
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
(01:10):
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome everyone, tothe show. Today we are talking about
demystifying leadership as aset of relational and conversational
skills. And with me today forthis conversation is Kyle Corduay,
managing partner, leadershipdevelopment consultant from 9th Edge
(01:33):
out of Chicago, Illinois.Kyle, thanks for coming today.
I'm glad to be here. It'sgreat to be with you, Ken.
Awesome. Well, I'd love tostart with. Just tell us your story.
I'd love to hear how you evengot into this line of business, let
alone, you know, lead us intowhat you're doing today.
I mean, there's a little bitof probably where we end, which is
always in the story at thebeginning. Right. Which is the first
(01:54):
thing is if I, you know, goingback to the place where it's most
interesting is probably anindividual who, finishing up their
college had no idea what theywanted to do. And so that's the perfect
way you end up in grad school.Let me, let me recognize that.
Yes.
If you don't know what you want.
To do, but just go to more.
School, just go to moreschool. I ended up, luckily falling
(02:15):
into a graduate program thatwas an interdisciplinary program,
but it was focused oncommunication and I'm also going
to tell you that in mypractice right now, I'm going to
tell you it's one of my leastfavorite words. Like I tell almost
everybody, if you could, ifyou could say one word, don't. If
you could erase the wordcommunication from your vocabulary,
erase it. And I'll tell youwhy in just a little bit. But I do
(02:36):
remember sitting in, in a, ina seminar when I was once in that
program and thinking I'mactually being able to have conversations
with people about the way wetalk to one another. And at that
stage that was somethingpretty transformative, at least for
me. The idea that thereactually was a vocabulary to describe
how we were doing what we'redoing. Right. If you think, if you
(02:59):
think about the David FosterWallace idea, like when he gives
that speech where he talksabout what's water, right. The, the
idea that you're, you'reswimming in something you don't even
know you're swimming in. Mostof us have a way that we interact
with folks, but we don't havethe vocabulary for how we interact
with folks. We learn thatlater on. Fast forward to my first
real job as I ended up inprofessional services. What was Arthur
(03:22):
Anderson eventually becameAccenture and like all the way back
to the big eight consultingfirms, if you will. And I, and I
was with them and I wasactually, believe it or not, my,
my role was actually in aninternal role within the Anderson
ecosystem. And we were part ofa 200 person group that focused on
organizational development andleadership development and assessment,
(03:44):
instructional design. And, andI did that work for a number of years
and I actually shifted fromvarious teams. So I started in the
instructional design space,moved over to leadership and team
development, eventually endedup in organizational development.
And then at some point, youknow, the story of that organization,
they melted down quitespectacularly and I was looking for
new opportunities. And thatwas so many years ago. And interestingly,
(04:08):
for a while I. Because forthose of you who don't know, Arthur
Anderson as an accounting firmat the time was caught up in the
Enron scandal, whicheventually created issues around
the trustworthiness ofadvisory organizations like public
accounting firms. Beingsomeone who actually focused on leadership
development in anorganization, that was not lost on
(04:30):
me.
Yeah, so you're. So your rolewas sort of more of an internal HR
role kind of at the time.
That's right. That's exactlywhat it was. Yeah. So I was, I was
developing partners, I wasdeveloping leaders that like inside
an organization. Theinteresting thing about, about if
you go all the Way back thatorganization actually won awards
(04:52):
for its at least how much itinvested in it. That was a 65,000
person organization at thetime, Global. And I was able to work
with really smart people whoare really good at what they did.
But something I'll point to alittle bit later is the first place
I saw an example of somethingI'm sure you've seen before too,
(05:14):
which is this. You've gotsomeone who's a really good accountant,
really good tax accountant,really good business consultant.
And then we say, you knowwhat, now what you're going to do,
congratulations, I got anopportunity for you and you're going
to lead this team and thenwe're going to see what happens.
And inevitably when you gotsomeone who by definition, you know,
(05:36):
your, your price of admissionis just being super smart, they were
going to super smart their waythrough this thing. Of course, without
the which out, without therecognition of okay, well what do
I actually need to learn? Whatdo I need to unlearn, what do I need
to let go of, what do I needto pick up along the way? And so
I, I, my first, my firstopportunities within that organization,
(05:56):
I, I, my first coachingclient, I was 27 years old and I
was coaching the manage one ofthe managing partners who's 20 years
my senior. And my firstthought is what do I have to share
with this person that's goingto be of any value? Right? Yeah,
but you learn along the wayanyway, I bring that up to say. So
I started in that space,financial services, professional
services. When that stopped, Iactually stepped away from the corporate
(06:19):
world for a bit. I actuallyworked in, I worked in the outdoors,
I did some wilderness guiding,I worked in addiction recovery. But
mostly what it all had incommon was I just wanted to be able
to facilitate conversationswith people, whatever we were trying
to do, because that was thething I think energized and interest
(06:39):
me in some way, shape or form.Eventually came back and I started
working with some differentsmaller boutique firms and it's still
in the same space. Right. Sowe're now talking about what data
predicts, what's, who's goingto be good when we put them in the
next role. What are they goingto need when they get there, how
do you facilitate them gettingthere without creating any, you know,
(07:01):
as little damage as possibleand helping them along the way. So
you would see that process inmy career, that's what I did. And
I can tell you to this day Istill have a significant amount of
passion around. I feel verylucky that that's the case at some
point, and I think this mightbe where we even interacted. The
Korn Ferry organization waslooking for what they were describing
(07:25):
as a group of master faculty,meaning people who could facilitate
some of their publiccertifications, which meant, how
do you help teach tools? Howdo you help facilitate learning?
How do you certify people inthe use of those? And I was part
of. I think we started outwith 14 people and ended up whittling
it down to like, two. And Iwas one of those folks. And I was.
(07:46):
I was lucky enough to do thatfor about seven or eight years, working
as part of that team andworking with some great tools. And
it's also there where I thinkwhen I talk about the idea of demystifying
leadership, I really come toone of the first things that really
hit me, and I think it does goback to the nature of where I began,
(08:08):
which is. And I say this allthe time to my clients, which is
to be able to do what you needto do to be successful. You learn
a language you don't even knowyou learn. That's quite precise,
meaning the technical side ofalmost any function of any business
has a level of precisionbecause that shared meaning allows
us to do what we need to do.It doesn't matter if it's the commercial
(08:30):
side, the R and D side, theoperations, supply chain, regulatory,
doesn't matter. However,someone tells you you now need to
be a great leader, and thefirst thing you learn is that you
have this, what I woulddescribe as a fluency comprehension
problem. Everybody uses allthe same words, and everybody just
means different things by those.
Yeah.
And the other piece is no oneshows up to being a leader as a blank
(08:53):
late. Like, they've all beenshaped by the leaders that have led
them in the path, whether ornot they even know how. Right. Most
of the time, we know that. Youknow, when it comes to the better
leaders that we've workedwith, like, they kind of set the
emotional tone that we want toestablish when they're in that space.
The not so great leaders teachus the things we never want to do
(09:13):
to other people. Right. So we.But again, we still show up with
this basket of experiences.But that's not necessarily a sense
of, well, what does it reallymean I'm being asked to do here?
Yeah. So you've stumbled intothe, like, perhaps we have both of
the same hot button issue.It's not just the first level of
leadership where you have toreally learn. Right. It's actually
(09:36):
every single level you havethis need to unlearn and relearn
what is now needed at this newlevel. And the trap that most people
fall into is I'm just going todo more of what I was doing before.
Just, just more. We're just hard.
Right.
White knuckle through.
(09:56):
Absolutely.
And, and so let me just stickwith hot button issues. Hot button
issue for me, because I'm.
Glad, I'm glad I found one.
Well, and we, and we, wetalked about this and you know, so
I talked about this a lot inall of my external consulting experiences.
But then it was really seeingthis play out inside organizations
myself, right where we are, weare creating succession plans, developing
(10:19):
leaders and, and then hopingto have people ready and enact plans
when there is that opening andthen sitting there.
By the way. By the way, ifwe're, by the way, if we're doing
it right.
If we're doing it right. Yes,yes, yes, we're doing it right.
I mean, I would say if you'redoing that, you're 10 steps ahead
of most people that you'reeven, you know, even thinking that
(10:40):
succession.
The person didn't interrupt.No, no, no. It's spot on because
it's. The percentage of thetime when we actually enact those
succession plans is very low.Now, is that because the process
is broken or are we wastingour time? No, no, I would say absolutely.
No, no, no. Yeah.
As long as you're doingsomething in the near term after
(11:00):
creating these successionplans, that's caveat. Like, are we
actually saying what does thisperson need to develop and are we
going to put our time, effort,investment into that? Then it's not
wasted time. Because theproblem is, is you can't predict
the context of the point intime when that opening occurs.
That's right.
(11:21):
But let me fast forward to, oh.
There'S, by the way, 20 placesmy brain wants to go with this. That's
so good. Keep going.
Yeah, yeah. Wherever you wantto go next. What I would say is what
I think kind of broke my hearttime and time again was watching
people get placed. And, youknow, I was never in the role where
it was my role to focus onthat one person and transitioning
(11:42):
them when I was inside hr.
Right.
But it's the lack of focus andtruly helping that person make that
step up into that new leveland then, then being catching wind
of, if not being in theconversation 6, 12, 18 months down
the road where we're havingthis conversation of essentially
it's time to put this personon a performance improvement plan.
(12:04):
This Person who we oncethought walked on water.
Yeah.
Is now a performance problem.And as anybody, any HR person will
tell you when it comes timefor a pip, there probably was, let
alone not even just abouthaving chosen potentially the thought
that I've chosen. We chose thewrong leader. Any HR person will
(12:26):
tell you if we're getting tothe point of a pip, there is leadership
failure every step of the wayif we're now at a pip. Right. That
feedback and support. So Idigress to say the thing that broke
my heart time and time againwas catching wind or being a part
of these conversations wherewe are thinking about how do we exit
this person that we oncethought was great. And the reality
is there was so much more thatcould have, should have been done
(12:49):
to help that person. Becauseagain, everybody's instinct is, well,
what I'm just going to do whatgot me here. Just, just on steroids.
And that's.
That's right.
Yeah.
So gonna stay with that whatgot me here thing because it, you
know, one of the things I'lloften say is if you, if you look
at the aggregate data of what,what price of admissions you into
(13:12):
this space to begin with and Irecognize I just created a verb out
of announce, so I apologizeabout that.
It's not the first time on the podcast.
Here's what I could probably,I mean, and, and again, I, I, I'm
not trying to take away thatevery candidate, every individual
has got their own unique setof gifts that they bring to the table.
I'm not suggesting that. Buthere's what I at least could say
(13:35):
would tell me, aggregate, froman aggregate perspective, what likely
got you there in the firstplace? Okay. You're probably a little
more action oriented thanmost. You're probably a little more
results driven than most. Youtend to be good at keeping your commitments
even if it burns you out.
Yep. Accountability.
And you likely figure out whoyour customer is pretty fast. Who
(13:59):
do you got to keep happy?Meaning if I knew nothing about you,
but I needed to take aneducated guess about what got you
here to begin with. Right.When you say that what got you here
piece. Well, all we need to dofor a moment is say what's the white
knuckle version of those fourqualities look like? And you can
pretty well start predictingwhat your 6, 6, 912 months look like.
(14:19):
And from that perspective, andthat would be understandable, we
would get what does, what doesthe overuse of action oriented, results
driven keeping commitmentslike these are all good things. Right.
I mean it's even hard toimagine like customer focus. What's
(14:41):
wrong with that? Like I getthat. And this by the way gets a
little bit later on about whatmy advice is to other leaders. But.
But I'll say it right here isdo you know what your, do you know
what overuse looks like? Doyou know when you've tipped into
it? Because most of us don't.
Right.
Like, like if I'm grabbingthe, the, the. If I'm grabbing your.
(15:02):
If I'm grabbing the wheel likeyou're describing, I don't know what
too tight is. I know what Iknow I don't have a grip tight enough
if I'm not getting what I want.
Yeah.
So I say that this idea of howdo you help somebody when they find
themselves in that positionwith the recognition that the vocabulary
of leadership is one thatwe've evolved and developed along
(15:24):
the way. But I'm not sure it'ssuper precise. An example might be
if someone who leads me askedfor my. I could really use. I'll
use just this word justbecause it's very easy. I could use
more support from you. I'mnever going to say no. And I have
absolutely no idea what you'rereally asking for. And it could literally
be the list of 30 differentthings. So I started again back to
(15:50):
the idea that it was simply arecognition that we often had really
precision definitions of thetechnical side of what got you successful.
We didn't always had precisedefinitions by the way precise and
practical ones. We could, youand I have both gone down the list
of creating speak that couldbe helpful for those in the know.
(16:10):
But for someone who's got tostep into this relationship, do I,
do I actually have somethingpractical that describes and defines
for me what's important inthis space? And most leaders spend
three to five years trying tofigure that out. And that's okay.
That's the way that goes. Theother thing that I that that again
we can talk about researchbased, you know, I'll use the, I'll
(16:34):
use the metaphor of theperiodic table of elements of leadership
behaviors. Right. We, you knowwhich whichever research based visual
you want to use, you'reeventually going to get 80, 85% overlap
with those behaviors becausethey're the same behaviors. Now you
just need to get some sort ofprecision about what it looks like.
So at the very least we can weat least can I help those leaders
(16:56):
stepping into it? Do we havesomething that at least starts outlining
the new landscape you steppedin? Because for to your perspective
most leaders just say I'm inthe same old environment. I'm just
going to do this more.
Yeah. And it's, it's easier.It's, it's accessible for most people.
(17:18):
When you're explaining thatfirst time leadership experience.
Yeah.
Right. Because it's just, it'seasiest to explain there because
it's like, well, now you're,you know, you were an individual
contributor, now you'remanaging individual contributors.
But the trap that people fallinto is no, I'm just going to be
a super individualcontributor. That's the easiest to
(17:39):
explain. But then, but Iliterally, when I was working in
the restaurant industry, Iliterally heard this from a store
GM going to be a regionalmanager. He's like, oh yeah. I mean
now I manage five restaurantsand I'm like, do you manage five
restaurants or do you managefive restaurant managers? Like, which
is it? But, but it gets, itgets more. The challenges are eerily
(18:03):
similar, but it gets harder toexplain what that.
Yeah.
Really feels like at higher levels.
So one of the places weactually find ourselves, and I mean
in, in our organization, weactually do spend a lot more time
at the director level now.
(18:23):
Yeah.
And a case that we would makeis. And again, I recognize that that
level could look verydifferent depending on the organization.
Right. Director, seniordirector, space. But there is something
to be said that to your point,there's almost a, like a bit of a
perfect storm in that spacewhich is to step in can feel like,
oh, it's just more, it's justthe same thing, just a greater degree
(18:46):
without recognizing thereactually is another fundamental transition,
but this one's kind of hidingin plain sight. And then there's
another space which is whenyou hit that. I mean, to me this
is like there's a little thatthat space probably sees more of
the organization than anyother space. Meaning that the pure
(19:08):
landscape of the organizationthat it sees and the pure landscape
of the organization it mustinfluence. Because if you think about,
I have people that mightreport to me, but now my ability
to develop peer relationshipsis becoming that much more important
to be able to get my workdone. Obviously being able to translate
the vision that's being handedto me. I think you're right that
things get missed in that nexttransition. I think it makes a lot
(19:31):
of sense.
Yeah. Well, and I like howyou've been kind of teeing up language.
Right. Words matter. Right.
Words matter.
I'd say one of my favoriteexamples personally that, you know,
I had to learn primarily in mytime in hr, but I've now very clearly
Taken it with me into my, youknow, back into consulting that I'm
(19:55):
doing now is just one exampleof like bringing your stakeholders
along. And what. One, A hardlesson I had to learn was defining
what the heck that means witheach key. With, you know, the key
stakeholder for a project isto say, hey, everybody says you got
to bring your stakeholdersalong. Tell me what that means to
(20:16):
you. What does that look liketo you? What. And if I do what you
will feel like I have broughtyou along? Yeah, like let's, let's
chalk the field on thatbecause I don't want to get to month
three or six and here you'renot bringing stakeholders along very
well.
That's right. Would beespecially frustrating if you feel
(20:40):
like you've also been puttingeffort into. Try to make it.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, like it hasn't beensomething that just been going over
your head. If you've beengiving conscious energy to this thing
that you know and accept isimportant, but because of some sort
of strange trick of language,we'd never actually gotten to understanding
what that means. Yeah, so, soyour, the version is bringing your
(21:01):
stakeholders along. Mine isalignment. Anytime I hear that term,
we need alignment.
What does that mean?
Well, and, and you know, andmy somewhat semi humorous statement
around this is the quickerwe're nodding our heads, the less
likely we are in agreement.Like if you and I. Of course, yeah.
(21:23):
Who's gonna. Like if there is.
If there's.
So eventually to me, what,what does start showing up is. Okay,
so, so I. Oh. Over time I'mgoing to tell. I'll, you know, share.
(21:44):
In terms of why I thinkdemystifying leadership is important
is because I could probablyget on Amazon right now and there
has been a leadership bookreleased today. Literally today.
There is no shortage of pointsof view around this and there's no
shortage of the quote, unquoteright way to things. I do tend to
(22:05):
take a fairly material view ofleadership that says leadership is
fundamentally an influenceprocess and you do it primarily by
the relationships you buildand the conversations that you have.
And the moment that I can dothat I have at least put some boundaries
around things that says, tellme about the key partners you work
with, tell me about theconversations you got to have and
(22:26):
you tell me about those thingsand I'll tell you about your leadership.
Right. Because at that pointwhat we've done is we've gotten a.
The best way I can frame it isa boots on the ground perspective
on what it really means foryou to lead Others. Now we've at
least said, okay, there arepeople that I need to build relationship
with.
Yeah. Yep.
And they're. And I'm gonnahave to do that primarily through
(22:50):
having conversations. Now,again, if we want to go back to where
I began, which was the wordcommunication, the one thing that
again, we talked about, thehead nodding fast, meaning we don't
know what we mean, not onlyget that of a bad thing, but the
word communication, the numberof times we land on a. The prescription
(23:12):
is we need bettercommunication. I am not disagreeing
with that. I do think I likethe idea that we sometimes, in our
language, we sometimes reachfor our intent quicker than we can
find our precision. Like, weknow it's there, but for whatever
reason, it really hasn'tgotten at the thing. So that's why
(23:33):
one of the things I would say,I often say to my, if I'm coaching
someone and, and that some ofthose words start trickling in, I'll
say, if you couldn't use thatword, what would you use? Like, if
you like if, if the phrase isI need better communication with
this individual, I'd say,okay, what can't use that word?
You gotta tell me.
Yeah. And there's a bit ofstarting to get at. Okay. What I
(23:56):
really need to be doing isbuilding more consistency in my touch
points with them. Okay, great.That's. That, that's communication,
but that's something we cantalk about. Or I need to actually
learn how to stay present andlistening to this individual. Especially
when we're getting to thepoint where I'm once again in disagreement
with them. Okay. That's alsocommunication, but a completely different
(24:18):
skill set.
Yeah. Yes. Okay. So if mylisteners can get half of what I
get out of these convers, thenI'm. Then I'm doing my job as a podcaster,
my self appointed job as apodcaster, because I think I'm finding
in real time to be true verymuch what I think you said at the
beginning. I'm gonna put it inmy own language, which is, I laugh
(24:43):
because that's what we're kindof talking a lot about, language.
I tracked it, I got it. I'mright there with you.
Is what I love is theintentionality you're bringing to.
I think some of how I've beeninteracting as a coach with the people
that I work with, but I lovethe intentionality you're bringing
to the precision of language.Right. Words matter. I just love
(25:07):
it because I think some of thethings I'm running through in my
head are some of the coachingexperiences that I've had, some of
the challenges that I've beenchatting with, you know, people I've
been coaching, I'm talkingthrough with them. You know, I'm
even thinking about the, theidea of. And I think you were saying
this is like buildingrelationships. Right. That's a, that's
a whole competency huge.Right. You know, there's pdi had
(25:29):
probably, I don't know howmany behaviors, let alone anchored
rating scales to say, well,here's what a one looks like and
three looks.
That's right.
But did we even define whatthat means in the context of the
seat you're currently sittingin? Right. When you're. Here we go.
Okay, so we're saying you, youneed, you know, one thing that's
going to be needed here isbuilding relationships. But are we
(25:49):
actually pausing and slowingdown and stopping? And I think what
I'm saying we here. I thinkI'm even, I'm just putting myself
in the shoes of a leader who'sjust completely positioned and their
manager. Have we even stoppedto say build relationships with whom?
Yeah.
(26:09):
For why and to do what? Right.And. Because, and, and just picking
that apart because I think,you know, you might, you might get
brought in to coach someone orthey might say, hey, that, you know,
this person really needs towork on building relationships. Right.
And it, it's.
And by the way, off often whena coach gets brought in, it's because
(26:30):
of something relationally tobegin with. Because what started
relationally is now showing upas a performance metric of some kind.
Go ahead. Starting.
Yeah, yeah. No, no. Perfect. Ithink maybe I'm just meandering.
I'm trying to think, where wasI going with that? Which is, are
we talking about, do they needto build better relationships with
their direct reports? Is thatfalling apart in some way? Is it?
(26:53):
And even, even just saying youneed to build relationships with
peers is still pretty broad.Well, which peers? The peers that
all report to the same leader?Or are we saying, like, hey, this
salesperson, the sales leaderneeds to actually build relationships
with folks in marketing, folksin customer service, or are we just
(27:15):
saying they need to buildrelationships with the other sales
leaders? Like, who are we?Yeah. So I think I'm meandering to
say, like, I'm personallygoing to be, you know, chewing on
this, I think, and taking itinto conversations with people because
I feel like I, I do thisalready. But what I like that you're,
I like the intentionality thatyou're, you're bringing.
To this well, there wassomething you, you raised before,
(27:37):
which is, it's the space inthe conversation from the internal
HR perspective is when we're,when we're looking at the data and
the data suggests this personis going to be a fit. Right. And
we've certainly given energyto having the right data and are
we measuring the right thingsand how, how confident do we feel
(27:58):
in this? And then, then we didthe fast forward 9 to 12 months if
we find ourselves in the. Whydidn't that work? What was the fit
element around that? Andlet's, let's, let's recognize it.
It's the group of people whoare doing their best. No one's trying
to set somebody up forfailure. No one's trying to create
challenges around that. Thereis probably a wider range of ways
(28:21):
that an individual contributorcan find success. And I'm not suggesting
that there aren't a wide rangeof ways that leaders can be successful.
I don't mean that at all. Itjust means that the nature of influence
become more relational. And atthat point, and at that point you've
got this little, you know,it's like, it's like the difference
between, it might, it's anoversimplification, but it's the
(28:44):
difference in a case study androle play. And all I mean by that
is a case study is a placewhere I can talk safely about what
I would do. Right. When yougive me the case, what I go is, well,
what I'll do is, and I'll tellyou my plan case that you never see
how I'd actually do it. Roleplay is the place where my mouth
opens and you see what it,what actually occurs.
Yeah.
So I'm not, they both are goodthings, but it is kind of the difference
(29:05):
between we're doing our bestfrom getting them set up. But that's
why when I think about theleader who's actually in the position
where the rubber often hitsthe road is in how I'm creating,
managing and buildingrelationships and how I'm having
conversations on a day to daybasis. Right. Because those are the
little things that are goingto be the bricks in the wall that
(29:26):
either are going to show upnine to 12 months from now. And here's
the other piece because youtalked about kind of the research
based element on this and I'llalways keep the. It was an internal
white paper I remember thattalked about that not all competencies,
not all skills are alldevelopmentally equally easy or hard.
Right. That there are justdiffering levels of difficulty. What
(29:50):
stuck out in my brain and itnever left was the extent to which
something was moredevelopmentally difficult was based
on its cognitive complexity.The extent to which it required expertise
to get good. The extent towhich it challenged our beliefs,
the challenge to whichrequired us to use or manage our
emotional systems. Right. Sothe harder something got. You're
(30:11):
just talking about the thingsthat are involved in what makes it
good or not.
Yeah.
You don't need all that towhite knuckle. But to step into.
I now need to be able toconnect to cross functional leaders
that I work with. I need toknow how to faithfully report back
(30:34):
to my team what, what occurredso they feel like they got this straight
story. But guess what? I'malso now in a position where as a
leader I'm being asked to betransparent and be more authentic.
Well, what the heck do thosethings mean? Right.
While also being asked becausethe other just right along what you're
talking about here, a trapleaders falling into while also representing
(30:57):
the company.
There you go.
To your direct reports too.
That's right. Yeah. And Icould. And by the way, if we want
to think of the needle tippinginto overuse or not enough of something.
I talk to leaders all the timeabout the challenge that they're
in about. About beingtransparent as a value versus being
transparent as a skill.Meaning I'm not suggesting you're
(31:21):
somehow withholding things,but any leader gets into a position
where they learn what theyshare and how they share it. And
I don't get it right right offthe bat, but it is also an understandable
thing. If I was on the team,I'd want more sooner. But let's take
your example. When I've alsoseen leaders who stay too much in
the peer relationship spacewith my people.
(31:41):
Yep.
They end up sharinginformation in a way that ends up
undermining their owncredibility because they were wanting
to just connect with people.Again, this is back to the relational
piece.
Yep. Yep.
So, so that's, that's what Imean. When we start getting into
the day to day of what I thinkleadership is, I am not taking away
(32:02):
from getting good data, makinggood decisions. I just want to recognize
that great decisions thatdon't have clear vision fall apart
where the execution of itfalls apart. So again I'm, I, we.
It's hard to make a baddecision. Good execution. Right.
(32:23):
But plenty of good ideas canfall apart on the Runway in terms
of how people are mobilized orhow they're connected or the climate
that they're in. To be able tomake that Happen So that that's.
At some point your leadershipwill be tested on your ability to
build relationships. And I'llbe the first one to even press myself
(32:45):
to say, well, what does thatmean? Okay, so I'll turn, I can turn
the camera on myself. But if Ido say about conversations, I think
now we're getting some harderedges around things because we can
talk about kinds ofconversations that leaders need to
have. Right. You can build avocabulary around that. I think when
it comes to the nature ofrelationships, you're. You're also
talking about what level ofcoordination do we need to engage
(33:09):
in? What is my level ofcommitment to. To our agreed upon
mutual thing that binds ustogether? Why are we here doing what
we're doing?
I'm gonna make. I was like,should I ask this as a question or
just make a statement? Myassumption is, yeah, go for it. What
stops these conversations fromhappening is this level of what we
(33:33):
should be calling curiosity.Right. But this level of question
asking. I'm just going to putit that way. My assumption is people
feel like I should know.
Yeah.
And so asking these questionsand asking you what is, you know,
what relationships and withwhom, what's most important or what
(33:57):
you know, how do you definebringing you along it? My assumption
is, and perhaps this might beassumption from personal experience
as well, which is you feellike you're being exposed as not
knowing.
Yeah. There's vulnerability in this.
Vulnerability. Yeah. Right.Like that somehow this is going to.
It hits imposter syndrome.Right. It's. It's going to.
(34:20):
I think it does.
Right. How is asking thesequestions going to expose. Expose
you and now you're going to befound out that you don't really know
what you're doing. Whereas Ithink we probably easy to say, maybe
also hard to do. Right. Ascoaches. Probably really easy for
us to say.
Ken, it might be why we'rethere in the first place. Right.
I mean, we might be there inthe first place to just create a
(34:42):
little bit of space for themto be able to put the thing on the
table they've been holding onto anyway. I mean, that might be
the, you know, one of thereasons why. There are lots of reasons
you have.
A coach, but yeah.
Certainly the idea of testingthings out or trying to, trying to
surface an assumption you'vebeen holding onto that's been driving
your behavior. You didn't evenknow was driving your behavior.
Yeah. It just sounds likethere's so many necessary conversations.
(35:05):
Right.
Like, well, can I highlightsomething you were just saying about
and I actually it's, it'sfunny the things that I've landed
on that I find that I careabout when it comes to what an organization
can do from a leadershipdevelopment perspective. And there
(35:27):
is something aboutprogrammatically, when I have a group
of leaders who are in asimilar space, maybe they have distance
that they're not all in thesame team. Meaning I've reduced a
little bit of that pressure onthem that I have to be competing
with the person next to me.But maybe I've got some people from
different parts of theorganization if I can get them. If
(35:49):
we're learning togetherprogrammatically, we can probably
do a couple of things. One, wecan reduce some of the isolation.
Right. That they're going tofeel we're going to increase some
peer learning. And part of itis because if you're in supply chain
and I'm in commercial, I'm notsuper worried about like we're both
(36:10):
in commercial and we're bothfighting over the same next position
kind of that's just a realityI want to recognize that's real.
Yeah.
I don't want to pretend thatsomehow that that's not going to
be a dynamic. But if you and Iare both, we have a shared desire.
We've already got some selfselection pressures that have put
us in the room togetheranyway. But we're likely facing things
that we think we're alone in.And I know that that's a total inside
(36:33):
baseball stuff but for me assomeone who thinks about developing
leaders, relational skills aredeveloped relationally. So really
the kind of space you createfor people to be able to. Appears
to be able to have thoseconversations together where they
actually can do a little bitof you face that I face that's hugely
powerful. And you don't getthere overnight but you can be thoughtful
(36:58):
about the way you create thosethings. And this, you know, we think
about, never forget. I cantell you one of the. One of my. One
of my most positive pandemicmemories was transitioning a three
day face to face directorlevel program that we transitioned
over. And again everybody wasfiguring it out as they went along
(37:23):
but we turned this into aeight sessions over and again. No
session was over a couple twoand a half hours long. Right. Sitting
for two and a half hours.Right. But the idea that we did it
over the week, is it the exactsame experience? No, it's not. What
our compass point in switchingthings over when we were going to
this idea that leaders aren'tgoing to stop developing. We can't
(37:46):
Stop. In fact, they're goingto need it more than ever before.
Here was the one thing wecouldn't lose. We couldn't lose taking
a group of. If it was face toface with a group of 25 directors
in that room, what you wouldhave seen is the sheer number of
ways we would have gotten theminteracting in different cohorts,
different permutations. And ofcourse, there's good stuff and tools
(38:12):
they're walking away with. Butthe building of the network was primary.
Yeah. Yep, yep.
And our goal was when we weredoing this virtually, we're going
to utilize every featurewithin, zoom around, breakouts and
all these kinds of. And we didit. And it was. And it was. The thing
that I was probably most proudof was getting to the end of that
(38:32):
week and having people saying.And it isn't about tooting my own
horn. It was, it was happythat we could actually create this
something where peopleactually felt a sense of. Of connection
and they were actually able toshare real challenges they were facing.
Yeah.
And also even reducing theperceived difference across this
(38:54):
group because you're in supplychain and because, I mean, oh, we
must deal with differentthings. And how quickly you start
realizing, oh, you deal withthat. I deal with that.
Yeah.
So. So I think there issomething in how we create conditions
for learning for leaders whichis relational in general. If you
don't know those things, it'sgot to be hard to help people build
those relationship skills.
(39:14):
Yeah. Yeah. So me, me closethis section with. With a few thoughts.
Yeah, please.
From my time in hr, when we'vedone, you know, so I generally come
from the place of, like, Idon't feel like things I've designed
are, like done. Right. Like, Ialways keep learning, always keep
tweaking. So from all, all theprogram sort of feedback that I've
(39:38):
gathered, you know, especiallyin my time in hr, the three things
always come out that peopleloved and wanted more of. Right.
The assessments. People alwayslove the wavy lines and dots and
graphs.
Data. About myself. Love it.
Tell me about me.
Yeah.
Any program that came withcoaching that's, you know, I'm not
(39:59):
even rank ordering this. Notrank ordering these, of course, but
the assessment, the coaching,the peer interaction. Not even necessarily
the content. Right. The peer interaction.
No.
And I think what you saidthat. So you're. What's fun about
this conversation is you'resaying a lot of things that I felt
but maybe not. Not thought ofexactly as explicitly and intentionally
(40:21):
is the. I love that. I lovewhat you said around reducing the
feeling of isolation. Right.
Yeah.
And I've seen that time andtime again. You know, the classic
example I give from my ownbackground is when we were bringing
corporate leaders in from thehead office with restaurants managers
or regional directors and itdawns on them in the first hour or
(40:42):
two of the program like, oh,you're dealing with the exact same
leadership problems as I am.
I've spent the last yeartalking about how corporate doesn't
understand what we're goingthrough and then in about a few hours
you've broken that apart.
I think you do. Yeah. So Ilove that. That was just a aha for
me. And then interestingly Ithink that's also where the power
(41:04):
of one, you know, one on onecoaching comes from. But let me back
up before I finish thatthought which is. I think that's
what's missing in pushelearning content. Right. Is to.
What you're saying here is therelational, you know, learning happens
relationally because I alsothink there's accountability that
comes with learning in arelational element of it. Like so
(41:25):
even if you are going to pushan asynchronous bit of learning out
there, I do think you need tofollow that up with at least a short
session where you're bringingpeople together that all watch that
same thing to talk about itor, or have an assignment go do something
with this and now let's gettogether and talk about it. But let
me come back to coaching whichis if you can't do it as a group.
(41:47):
I, I do think there is. Thatis one of the powers in coaching
too is. Is a coach's abilityto say is to help reduce the terminal
uniqueness feeling right. Isto say like you're not. You're not
alone. This is. Yeah. And Idon't mean. I'm not saying it's clear.
I'm not saying your cliche.I'm just saying you're. You're not
the first person to deal withthis and you're not alone that this
(42:09):
does not. This is a classicchallenge. You're in good company
actually.
Yeah. And you're exactly whereyou're supposed to be. A little.
Yeah, there's a little bit ofthat. Yeah, I think that's right.
For the sake of time, I'mgoing to give us a violent shove
into our advice section. So.
Yeah.
What's your, what's your bigadvice for leaders out there?
My big advice is. It's funnybecause going back you were talking
(42:32):
about the thing that theydon't talk about of the three things
you recall that they don'ttalk about is content. Right. And,
and I do think there'ssomething where, where that has been
a humbling experience for mein my career, which is certainly
early on I was, you gotta havethe killer content and then at some
point you just startrecognizing it's not the content's
(42:53):
unimportant, but it's merely astarter to things that are gonna
be created along the way. Sohaving said that, I think to myself,
like, what is it that I couldgive somebody that isn't totally
contextually based, totallysituationally based? And I guess
I do think about the role thata framework plays. I don't know if
(43:16):
a framework counts as content.I just don't know. But to me, a useful,
healthy framework is somethingthat helps me make sense of what
in front of me. You know, it'sa map, it allows me to. If this is
here, this is here, this is,ah, this has this relationship to
that. So two things come tomind for me. Number one is do you
(43:39):
have, as a leader, have you,have you come across yet a metacognitive
framework of your ownthinking? And the quickest and easiest
one is generally Ardurist'sladder of inference. Right. And so
the idea of a ladder ofinfinite inference, of these, it's
just a nested way that ourbrains work. So there's stuff happens
and then we do stuff with it.So if the simplest version is stuff
(44:01):
happened, I create a narrativearound that, I draw conclusions from
it, I add emotion to it, andthen I tend to act from it. Right.
And why I say that's ametacognitive tool is it helps me
not just be in my thinking,but look at my thinking. And what
I would say to any leader isif you don't have something that
helps you look at yourthinking to separate out the component
(44:23):
parts, a way to recognizethat, ah, I saw this, I added this,
this showed up, and then I didor said this. If you don't have something
around that, I think it's veryhard to actually engage any level
of not even behavior change,because everything I'm talking about
(44:45):
is upstream from yourbehavior. Right? It's, it's, it's.
Do you have a useful Swissarmy knife for your own thinking?
Is the way I guess I would putthat. That's one, I like it, right?
And then number two and I.There's a, there's a. In, in sessions
I'll often talk about ourintent for speaking, like what is
(45:05):
our motivation for speakingup? And I tend to have Two lists.
And one list says things liketo better understand, to deepen the
relationship, like. Like allthe things we know we're supposed
to do. And then on the otherside, it's to win, not lose, to punish,
to blame. And, and, and I, andI, and I. And I use this as a way
to try to start tipping intosomething, which is you are like,
(45:29):
a lot of us would love toclaim one chart and say we never
do the other. And I get that.So do I. Now I'm a lot. Now after
30 years of doing this, I'm alot more comfortable going, actually,
I was just blaming you. Or,you know what? At that point, I was
just really trying to win or Iwas actually just trying to punish
you. And, And I'm not soprecious about the fact that there
(45:50):
are moments where mymotivations shift. And if I can get
a leader to recognize, andwhether or not you want to call that
their shadow or like the. Themoments where they tip into the things
they're not most proud of, Iwould say the only thing that matters
is to recognize that, is thatour behaviors do tend to be downstream
of our motivations when wespeak. And it's okay to give yourself
(46:14):
space for the idea that atthat moment I was, you know, I actually
was trying to win that interaction.
Cool.
We're not going to judge it,but the moment we try and say, oh,
no, no, no, and then we engageplausible deniability. No, no, no.
I was just trying to actuallyget clarity on something. And it's
like, okay, that's okay. Itcould also just be, you wanted to
(46:35):
win. And again, this is ourcoaching relationship. But if I can
give a leader a tool thatgives them the space to be. To engage
a bit of self honesty, to saywhat happens when I tip into the
protective space, you know,and how does that show up? And the
reason I say that for anyleader is those are going to be the
(46:56):
moments that people rememberabout you that you won't remember
at all. Right. Like, you'llhave the moment where you were like,
I was having a bad day. Andfor somebody else, that's the thing
they'll talk about. Notbecause I need you to have a whole
lot of pressure, but justbeing able to catch that a little
bit earlier.
Right.
I think is a good thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Those are two things I'd give.Love that.
Yeah. Building, you know,intentionality. Right. How can you
(47:19):
show up with intentionality? So.
And you're not going to get itright, by the way. Like, you're not
going to get right every day.No, you're gonna have bad days and
you're gonna, you're gonna,you're gonna speak and totally wish
you never opened your mouth.And that's cool. Can you be honest
enough about what you did wantin that moment as opposed to shifting
into the. What's the mostvirtuous version of my bad behavior?
(47:39):
Yeah. Yeah. So what's youradvice for, you know, the HR folks
out there, senior leaders whoare supporting other, other leaders
in their, in their journey?What. What should they be doing?
The. The good news with thatis, is I think we've talked about
it, which is how do you createspaces where leaders at levels can
actually have those peerconversations? You give them good
(48:02):
content. Right. But you canget them in the same room. And by
the way, even if the same roomis zoom, that's fine. But how do
we create the spaces where thecontent becomes the inspiration to
the things that we need to betalking about to building the healthier
climate, especially with theleaders who are actually creating
(48:24):
the climate? That's probably.And since we. I won't say much more
about it because we've alreadyhad, I think, a good thought around
that, but that's probablyrelational skills are learned relationally.
Nice. Nice. Well, and so I.The final part is, you know, I know
9th edge is in Chicago. You'rein Chicago. But for the listeners
out there who want a littlemore Kyle Cordaway or 9th Edge in
their lives, where can peoplefind you? What are you, you know,
(48:47):
what are you all trying tolean into?
Yeah, Wesley, you could findus@ninethdedge.com, you can find
me on LinkedIn. And we reallydo, we do spend time trying to create
intentional leadershipdevelopment experiences. And I will
say experience is leadingexperiential learning, how you get
(49:10):
people doing, talking. Right.Those kinds of things. So that's
the place where we love toplay. That's the place where we have
a chance on a passion. Andbecause experiences like that don't
just teach skills, they createnetworks, they also create climate
inside the organization. Sofor any of us who are actually going
to set aside trying to get 25people in a room, you can't do just
(49:32):
one thing. You got to do itall at the same time. And that's.
That's something we get a lotof energy out of.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thishas been a very fun, fun conversation.
Kyle, thanks so much forcoming on today.
I really appreciate it andthank you.
All right, that brings us tothe end of our episode. Thanks for
listening. I'D encourage youto head on over to my website, Kent
(49:54):
Coach, and start aconversation with me there. Or check
out my promotion playbook atKent Coach Playbook. Before you go
on with your day, I ask youplease take a moment to leave a rating
and a review wherever youlisten to podcasts. Five stars. That
helps put this podcast infront of more eyes and ears. Until
next time, take it easy.
Leadership is fundamentally aninfluence process, and you do it
primarily by the relationshipsyou build and the conversations that
you have. And the moment thatI can do that I have at least put
some boundaries around thingsthat says, tell me about the key
partners you work with. Tellme about the conversations you got
to have, and you tell me aboutthose things and I'll tell you about
your leadership. Right.Because at that point, what we've
(00:25):
done is we've gotten a. Bestway I can frame it is a boots on
the ground perspective on whatit really means for you to lead others.
Hi there and welcome to theStep up expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
(00:47):
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
(01:10):
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome everyone, tothe show. Today we are talking about
demystifying leadership as aset of relational and conversational
skills. And with me today forthis conversation is Kyle Corduay,
managing partner, leadershipdevelopment consultant from 9th Edge
(01:33):
out of Chicago, Illinois.Kyle, thanks for coming today.
I'm glad to be here. It'sgreat to be with you, Ken.
Awesome. Well, I'd love tostart with. Just tell us your story.
I'd love to hear how you evengot into this line of business, let
alone, you know, lead us intowhat you're doing today.
I mean, there's a little bitof probably where we end, which is
always in the story at thebeginning. Right. Which is the first
(01:54):
thing is if I, you know, goingback to the place where it's most
interesting is probably anindividual who, finishing up their
college had no idea what theywanted to do. And so that's the perfect
way you end up in grad school.Let me, let me recognize that.
Yes.
If you don't know what you want.
To do, but just go to more.
School, just go to moreschool. I ended up, luckily falling
(02:15):
into a graduate program thatwas an interdisciplinary program,
but it was focused oncommunication and I'm also going
to tell you that in mypractice right now, I'm going to
tell you it's one of my leastfavorite words. Like I tell almost
everybody, if you could, ifyou could say one word, don't. If
you could erase the wordcommunication from your vocabulary,
erase it. And I'll tell youwhy in just a little bit. But I do
(02:36):
remember sitting in, in a, ina seminar when I was once in that
program and thinking I'mactually being able to have conversations
with people about the way wetalk to one another. And at that
stage that was somethingpretty transformative, at least for
me. The idea that thereactually was a vocabulary to describe
how we were doing what we'redoing. Right. If you think, if you
(02:59):
think about the David FosterWallace idea, like when he gives
that speech where he talksabout what's water, right. The, the
idea that you're, you'reswimming in something you don't even
know you're swimming in. Mostof us have a way that we interact
with folks, but we don't havethe vocabulary for how we interact
with folks. We learn thatlater on. Fast forward to my first
real job as I ended up inprofessional services. What was Arthur
(03:22):
Anderson eventually becameAccenture and like all the way back
to the big eight consultingfirms, if you will. And I, and I
was with them and I wasactually, believe it or not, my,
my role was actually in aninternal role within the Anderson
ecosystem. And we were part ofa 200 person group that focused on
organizational development andleadership development and assessment,
(03:44):
instructional design. And, andI did that work for a number of years
and I actually shifted fromvarious teams. So I started in the
instructional design space,moved over to leadership and team
development, eventually endedup in organizational development.
And then at some point, youknow, the story of that organization,
they melted down quitespectacularly and I was looking for
new opportunities. And thatwas so many years ago. And interestingly,
(04:08):
for a while I. Because forthose of you who don't know, Arthur
Anderson as an accounting firmat the time was caught up in the
Enron scandal, whicheventually created issues around
the trustworthiness ofadvisory organizations like public
accounting firms. Beingsomeone who actually focused on leadership
development in anorganization, that was not lost on
(04:30):
me.
Yeah, so you're. So your rolewas sort of more of an internal HR
role kind of at the time.
That's right. That's exactlywhat it was. Yeah. So I was, I was
developing partners, I wasdeveloping leaders that like inside
an organization. Theinteresting thing about, about if
you go all the Way back thatorganization actually won awards
(04:52):
for its at least how much itinvested in it. That was a 65,000
person organization at thetime, Global. And I was able to work
with really smart people whoare really good at what they did.
But something I'll point to alittle bit later is the first place
I saw an example of somethingI'm sure you've seen before too,
(05:14):
which is this. You've gotsomeone who's a really good accountant,
really good tax accountant,really good business consultant.
And then we say, you knowwhat, now what you're going to do,
congratulations, I got anopportunity for you and you're going
to lead this team and thenwe're going to see what happens.
And inevitably when you gotsomeone who by definition, you know,
(05:36):
your, your price of admissionis just being super smart, they were
going to super smart their waythrough this thing. Of course, without
the which out, without therecognition of okay, well what do
I actually need to learn? Whatdo I need to unlearn, what do I need
to let go of, what do I needto pick up along the way? And so
I, I, my first, my firstopportunities within that organization,
(05:56):
I, I, my first coachingclient, I was 27 years old and I
was coaching the manage one ofthe managing partners who's 20 years
my senior. And my firstthought is what do I have to share
with this person that's goingto be of any value? Right? Yeah,
but you learn along the wayanyway, I bring that up to say. So
I started in that space,financial services, professional
services. When that stopped, Iactually stepped away from the corporate
(06:19):
world for a bit. I actuallyworked in, I worked in the outdoors,
I did some wilderness guiding,I worked in addiction recovery. But
mostly what it all had incommon was I just wanted to be able
to facilitate conversationswith people, whatever we were trying
to do, because that was thething I think energized and interest
(06:39):
me in some way, shape or form.Eventually came back and I started
working with some differentsmaller boutique firms and it's still
in the same space. Right. Sowe're now talking about what data
predicts, what's, who's goingto be good when we put them in the
next role. What are they goingto need when they get there, how
do you facilitate them gettingthere without creating any, you know,
(07:01):
as little damage as possibleand helping them along the way. So
you would see that process inmy career, that's what I did. And
I can tell you to this day Istill have a significant amount of
passion around. I feel verylucky that that's the case at some
point, and I think this mightbe where we even interacted. The
Korn Ferry organization waslooking for what they were describing
(07:25):
as a group of master faculty,meaning people who could facilitate
some of their publiccertifications, which meant, how
do you help teach tools? Howdo you help facilitate learning?
How do you certify people inthe use of those? And I was part
of. I think we started outwith 14 people and ended up whittling
it down to like, two. And Iwas one of those folks. And I was.
(07:46):
I was lucky enough to do thatfor about seven or eight years, working
as part of that team andworking with some great tools. And
it's also there where I thinkwhen I talk about the idea of demystifying
leadership, I really come toone of the first things that really
hit me, and I think it does goback to the nature of where I began,
(08:08):
which is. And I say this allthe time to my clients, which is
to be able to do what you needto do to be successful. You learn
a language you don't even knowyou learn. That's quite precise,
meaning the technical side ofalmost any function of any business
has a level of precisionbecause that shared meaning allows
us to do what we need to do.It doesn't matter if it's the commercial
(08:30):
side, the R and D side, theoperations, supply chain, regulatory,
doesn't matter. However,someone tells you you now need to
be a great leader, and thefirst thing you learn is that you
have this, what I woulddescribe as a fluency comprehension
problem. Everybody uses allthe same words, and everybody just
means different things by those.
Yeah.
And the other piece is no oneshows up to being a leader as a blank
(08:53):
late. Like, they've all beenshaped by the leaders that have led
them in the path, whether ornot they even know how. Right. Most
of the time, we know that. Youknow, when it comes to the better
leaders that we've workedwith, like, they kind of set the
emotional tone that we want toestablish when they're in that space.
The not so great leaders teachus the things we never want to do
(09:13):
to other people. Right. So we.But again, we still show up with
this basket of experiences.But that's not necessarily a sense
of, well, what does it reallymean I'm being asked to do here?
Yeah. So you've stumbled intothe, like, perhaps we have both of
the same hot button issue.It's not just the first level of
leadership where you have toreally learn. Right. It's actually
(09:36):
every single level you havethis need to unlearn and relearn
what is now needed at this newlevel. And the trap that most people
fall into is I'm just going todo more of what I was doing before.
Just, just more. We're just hard.
Right.
White knuckle through.
(09:56):
Absolutely.
And, and so let me just stickwith hot button issues. Hot button
issue for me, because I'm.
Glad, I'm glad I found one.
Well, and we, and we, wetalked about this and you know, so
I talked about this a lot inall of my external consulting experiences.
But then it was really seeingthis play out inside organizations
myself, right where we are, weare creating succession plans, developing
(10:19):
leaders and, and then hopingto have people ready and enact plans
when there is that opening andthen sitting there.
By the way. By the way, ifwe're, by the way, if we're doing
it right.
If we're doing it right. Yes,yes, yes, we're doing it right.
I mean, I would say if you'redoing that, you're 10 steps ahead
of most people that you'reeven, you know, even thinking that
(10:40):
succession.
The person didn't interrupt.No, no, no. It's spot on because
it's. The percentage of thetime when we actually enact those
succession plans is very low.Now, is that because the process
is broken or are we wastingour time? No, no, I would say absolutely.
No, no, no. Yeah.
As long as you're doingsomething in the near term after
(11:00):
creating these successionplans, that's caveat. Like, are we
actually saying what does thisperson need to develop and are we
going to put our time, effort,investment into that? Then it's not
wasted time. Because theproblem is, is you can't predict
the context of the point intime when that opening occurs.
That's right.
(11:21):
But let me fast forward to, oh.
There'S, by the way, 20 placesmy brain wants to go with this. That's
so good. Keep going.
Yeah, yeah. Wherever you wantto go next. What I would say is what
I think kind of broke my hearttime and time again was watching
people get placed. And, youknow, I was never in the role where
it was my role to focus onthat one person and transitioning
(11:42):
them when I was inside hr.
Right.
But it's the lack of focus andtruly helping that person make that
step up into that new leveland then, then being catching wind
of, if not being in theconversation 6, 12, 18 months down
the road where we're havingthis conversation of essentially
it's time to put this personon a performance improvement plan.
(12:04):
This Person who we oncethought walked on water.
Yeah.
Is now a performance problem.And as anybody, any HR person will
tell you when it comes timefor a pip, there probably was, let
alone not even just abouthaving chosen potentially the thought
that I've chosen. We chose thewrong leader. Any HR person will
(12:26):
tell you if we're getting tothe point of a pip, there is leadership
failure every step of the wayif we're now at a pip. Right. That
feedback and support. So Idigress to say the thing that broke
my heart time and time againwas catching wind or being a part
of these conversations wherewe are thinking about how do we exit
this person that we oncethought was great. And the reality
is there was so much more thatcould have, should have been done
(12:49):
to help that person. Becauseagain, everybody's instinct is, well,
what I'm just going to do whatgot me here. Just, just on steroids.
And that's.
That's right.
Yeah.
So gonna stay with that whatgot me here thing because it, you
know, one of the things I'lloften say is if you, if you look
at the aggregate data of what,what price of admissions you into
(13:12):
this space to begin with and Irecognize I just created a verb out
of announce, so I apologizeabout that.
It's not the first time on the podcast.
Here's what I could probably,I mean, and, and again, I, I, I'm
not trying to take away thatevery candidate, every individual
has got their own unique setof gifts that they bring to the table.
I'm not suggesting that. Buthere's what I at least could say
(13:35):
would tell me, aggregate, froman aggregate perspective, what likely
got you there in the firstplace? Okay. You're probably a little
more action oriented thanmost. You're probably a little more
results driven than most. Youtend to be good at keeping your commitments
even if it burns you out.
Yep. Accountability.
And you likely figure out whoyour customer is pretty fast. Who
(13:59):
do you got to keep happy?Meaning if I knew nothing about you,
but I needed to take aneducated guess about what got you
here to begin with. Right.When you say that what got you here
piece. Well, all we need to dofor a moment is say what's the white
knuckle version of those fourqualities look like? And you can
pretty well start predictingwhat your 6, 6, 912 months look like.
(14:19):
And from that perspective, andthat would be understandable, we
would get what does, what doesthe overuse of action oriented, results
driven keeping commitmentslike these are all good things. Right.
I mean it's even hard toimagine like customer focus. What's
(14:41):
wrong with that? Like I getthat. And this by the way gets a
little bit later on about whatmy advice is to other leaders. But.
But I'll say it right here isdo you know what your, do you know
what overuse looks like? Doyou know when you've tipped into
it? Because most of us don't.
Right.
Like, like if I'm grabbingthe, the, the. If I'm grabbing your.
(15:02):
If I'm grabbing the wheel likeyou're describing, I don't know what
too tight is. I know what Iknow I don't have a grip tight enough
if I'm not getting what I want.
Yeah.
So I say that this idea of howdo you help somebody when they find
themselves in that positionwith the recognition that the vocabulary
of leadership is one thatwe've evolved and developed along
(15:24):
the way. But I'm not sure it'ssuper precise. An example might be
if someone who leads me askedfor my. I could really use. I'll
use just this word justbecause it's very easy. I could use
more support from you. I'mnever going to say no. And I have
absolutely no idea what you'rereally asking for. And it could literally
be the list of 30 differentthings. So I started again back to
(15:50):
the idea that it was simply arecognition that we often had really
precision definitions of thetechnical side of what got you successful.
We didn't always had precisedefinitions by the way precise and
practical ones. We could, youand I have both gone down the list
of creating speak that couldbe helpful for those in the know.
(16:10):
But for someone who's got tostep into this relationship, do I,
do I actually have somethingpractical that describes and defines
for me what's important inthis space? And most leaders spend
three to five years trying tofigure that out. And that's okay.
That's the way that goes. Theother thing that I that that again
we can talk about researchbased, you know, I'll use the, I'll
(16:34):
use the metaphor of theperiodic table of elements of leadership
behaviors. Right. We, you knowwhich whichever research based visual
you want to use, you'reeventually going to get 80, 85% overlap
with those behaviors becausethey're the same behaviors. Now you
just need to get some sort ofprecision about what it looks like.
So at the very least we can weat least can I help those leaders
(16:56):
stepping into it? Do we havesomething that at least starts outlining
the new landscape you steppedin? Because for to your perspective
most leaders just say I'm inthe same old environment. I'm just
going to do this more.
Yeah. And it's, it's easier.It's, it's accessible for most people.
(17:18):
When you're explaining thatfirst time leadership experience.
Yeah.
Right. Because it's just, it'seasiest to explain there because
it's like, well, now you're,you know, you were an individual
contributor, now you'remanaging individual contributors.
But the trap that people fallinto is no, I'm just going to be
a super individualcontributor. That's the easiest to
(17:39):
explain. But then, but Iliterally, when I was working in
the restaurant industry, Iliterally heard this from a store
GM going to be a regionalmanager. He's like, oh yeah. I mean
now I manage five restaurantsand I'm like, do you manage five
restaurants or do you managefive restaurant managers? Like, which
is it? But, but it gets, itgets more. The challenges are eerily
(18:03):
similar, but it gets harder toexplain what that.
Yeah.
Really feels like at higher levels.
So one of the places weactually find ourselves, and I mean
in, in our organization, weactually do spend a lot more time
at the director level now.
(18:23):
Yeah.
And a case that we would makeis. And again, I recognize that that
level could look verydifferent depending on the organization.
Right. Director, seniordirector, space. But there is something
to be said that to your point,there's almost a, like a bit of a
perfect storm in that spacewhich is to step in can feel like,
oh, it's just more, it's justthe same thing, just a greater degree
(18:46):
without recognizing thereactually is another fundamental transition,
but this one's kind of hidingin plain sight. And then there's
another space which is whenyou hit that. I mean, to me this
is like there's a little thatthat space probably sees more of
the organization than anyother space. Meaning that the pure
(19:08):
landscape of the organizationthat it sees and the pure landscape
of the organization it mustinfluence. Because if you think about,
I have people that mightreport to me, but now my ability
to develop peer relationshipsis becoming that much more important
to be able to get my workdone. Obviously being able to translate
the vision that's being handedto me. I think you're right that
things get missed in that nexttransition. I think it makes a lot
(19:31):
of sense.
Yeah. Well, and I like howyou've been kind of teeing up language.
Right. Words matter. Right.
Words matter.
I'd say one of my favoriteexamples personally that, you know,
I had to learn primarily in mytime in hr, but I've now very clearly
Taken it with me into my, youknow, back into consulting that I'm
(19:55):
doing now is just one exampleof like bringing your stakeholders
along. And what. One, A hardlesson I had to learn was defining
what the heck that means witheach key. With, you know, the key
stakeholder for a project isto say, hey, everybody says you got
to bring your stakeholdersalong. Tell me what that means to
(20:16):
you. What does that look liketo you? What. And if I do what you
will feel like I have broughtyou along? Yeah, like let's, let's
chalk the field on thatbecause I don't want to get to month
three or six and here you'renot bringing stakeholders along very
well.
That's right. Would beespecially frustrating if you feel
(20:40):
like you've also been puttingeffort into. Try to make it.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, like it hasn't beensomething that just been going over
your head. If you've beengiving conscious energy to this thing
that you know and accept isimportant, but because of some sort
of strange trick of language,we'd never actually gotten to understanding
what that means. Yeah, so, soyour, the version is bringing your
(21:01):
stakeholders along. Mine isalignment. Anytime I hear that term,
we need alignment.
What does that mean?
Well, and, and you know, andmy somewhat semi humorous statement
around this is the quickerwe're nodding our heads, the less
likely we are in agreement.Like if you and I. Of course, yeah.
(21:23):
Who's gonna. Like if there is.
If there's.
So eventually to me, what,what does start showing up is. Okay,
so, so I. Oh. Over time I'mgoing to tell. I'll, you know, share.
(21:44):
In terms of why I thinkdemystifying leadership is important
is because I could probablyget on Amazon right now and there
has been a leadership bookreleased today. Literally today.
There is no shortage of pointsof view around this and there's no
shortage of the quote, unquoteright way to things. I do tend to
(22:05):
take a fairly material view ofleadership that says leadership is
fundamentally an influenceprocess and you do it primarily by
the relationships you buildand the conversations that you have.
And the moment that I can dothat I have at least put some boundaries
around things that says, tellme about the key partners you work
with, tell me about theconversations you got to have and
(22:26):
you tell me about those thingsand I'll tell you about your leadership.
Right. Because at that pointwhat we've done is we've gotten a.
The best way I can frame it isa boots on the ground perspective
on what it really means foryou to lead Others. Now we've at
least said, okay, there arepeople that I need to build relationship
with.
Yeah. Yep.
And they're. And I'm gonnahave to do that primarily through
(22:50):
having conversations. Now,again, if we want to go back to where
I began, which was the wordcommunication, the one thing that
again, we talked about, thehead nodding fast, meaning we don't
know what we mean, not onlyget that of a bad thing, but the
word communication, the numberof times we land on a. The prescription
(23:12):
is we need bettercommunication. I am not disagreeing
with that. I do think I likethe idea that we sometimes, in our
language, we sometimes reachfor our intent quicker than we can
find our precision. Like, weknow it's there, but for whatever
reason, it really hasn'tgotten at the thing. So that's why
(23:33):
one of the things I would say,I often say to my, if I'm coaching
someone and, and that some ofthose words start trickling in, I'll
say, if you couldn't use thatword, what would you use? Like, if
you like if, if the phrase isI need better communication with
this individual, I'd say,okay, what can't use that word?
You gotta tell me.
Yeah. And there's a bit ofstarting to get at. Okay. What I
(23:56):
really need to be doing isbuilding more consistency in my touch
points with them. Okay, great.That's. That, that's communication,
but that's something we cantalk about. Or I need to actually
learn how to stay present andlistening to this individual. Especially
when we're getting to thepoint where I'm once again in disagreement
with them. Okay. That's alsocommunication, but a completely different
(24:18):
skill set.
Yeah. Yes. Okay. So if mylisteners can get half of what I
get out of these convers, thenI'm. Then I'm doing my job as a podcaster,
my self appointed job as apodcaster, because I think I'm finding
in real time to be true verymuch what I think you said at the
beginning. I'm gonna put it inmy own language, which is, I laugh
(24:43):
because that's what we're kindof talking a lot about, language.
I tracked it, I got it. I'mright there with you.
Is what I love is theintentionality you're bringing to.
I think some of how I've beeninteracting as a coach with the people
that I work with, but I lovethe intentionality you're bringing
to the precision of language.Right. Words matter. I just love
(25:07):
it because I think some of thethings I'm running through in my
head are some of the coachingexperiences that I've had, some of
the challenges that I've beenchatting with, you know, people I've
been coaching, I'm talkingthrough with them. You know, I'm
even thinking about the, theidea of. And I think you were saying
this is like buildingrelationships. Right. That's a, that's
a whole competency huge.Right. You know, there's pdi had
(25:29):
probably, I don't know howmany behaviors, let alone anchored
rating scales to say, well,here's what a one looks like and
three looks.
That's right.
But did we even define whatthat means in the context of the
seat you're currently sittingin? Right. When you're. Here we go.
Okay, so we're saying you, youneed, you know, one thing that's
going to be needed here isbuilding relationships. But are we
(25:49):
actually pausing and slowingdown and stopping? And I think what
I'm saying we here. I thinkI'm even, I'm just putting myself
in the shoes of a leader who'sjust completely positioned and their
manager. Have we even stoppedto say build relationships with whom?
Yeah.
(26:09):
For why and to do what? Right.And. Because, and, and just picking
that apart because I think,you know, you might, you might get
brought in to coach someone orthey might say, hey, that, you know,
this person really needs towork on building relationships. Right.
And it, it's.
And by the way, off often whena coach gets brought in, it's because
(26:30):
of something relationally tobegin with. Because what started
relationally is now showing upas a performance metric of some kind.
Go ahead. Starting.
Yeah, yeah. No, no. Perfect. Ithink maybe I'm just meandering.
I'm trying to think, where wasI going with that? Which is, are
we talking about, do they needto build better relationships with
their direct reports? Is thatfalling apart in some way? Is it?
(26:53):
And even, even just saying youneed to build relationships with
peers is still pretty broad.Well, which peers? The peers that
all report to the same leader?Or are we saying, like, hey, this
salesperson, the sales leaderneeds to actually build relationships
with folks in marketing, folksin customer service, or are we just
(27:15):
saying they need to buildrelationships with the other sales
leaders? Like, who are we?Yeah. So I think I'm meandering to
say, like, I'm personallygoing to be, you know, chewing on
this, I think, and taking itinto conversations with people because
I feel like I, I do thisalready. But what I like that you're,
I like the intentionality thatyou're, you're bringing.
To this well, there wassomething you, you raised before,
(27:37):
which is, it's the space inthe conversation from the internal
HR perspective is when we're,when we're looking at the data and
the data suggests this personis going to be a fit. Right. And
we've certainly given energyto having the right data and are
we measuring the right thingsand how, how confident do we feel
(27:58):
in this? And then, then we didthe fast forward 9 to 12 months if
we find ourselves in the. Whydidn't that work? What was the fit
element around that? Andlet's, let's, let's recognize it.
It's the group of people whoare doing their best. No one's trying
to set somebody up forfailure. No one's trying to create
challenges around that. Thereis probably a wider range of ways
(28:21):
that an individual contributorcan find success. And I'm not suggesting
that there aren't a wide rangeof ways that leaders can be successful.
I don't mean that at all. Itjust means that the nature of influence
become more relational. And atthat point, and at that point you've
got this little, you know,it's like, it's like the difference
between, it might, it's anoversimplification, but it's the
(28:44):
difference in a case study androle play. And all I mean by that
is a case study is a placewhere I can talk safely about what
I would do. Right. When yougive me the case, what I go is, well,
what I'll do is, and I'll tellyou my plan case that you never see
how I'd actually do it. Roleplay is the place where my mouth
opens and you see what it,what actually occurs.
Yeah.
So I'm not, they both are goodthings, but it is kind of the difference
(29:05):
between we're doing our bestfrom getting them set up. But that's
why when I think about theleader who's actually in the position
where the rubber often hitsthe road is in how I'm creating,
managing and buildingrelationships and how I'm having
conversations on a day to daybasis. Right. Because those are the
little things that are goingto be the bricks in the wall that
(29:26):
either are going to show upnine to 12 months from now. And here's
the other piece because youtalked about kind of the research
based element on this and I'llalways keep the. It was an internal
white paper I remember thattalked about that not all competencies,
not all skills are alldevelopmentally equally easy or hard.
Right. That there are justdiffering levels of difficulty. What
(29:50):
stuck out in my brain and itnever left was the extent to which
something was moredevelopmentally difficult was based
on its cognitive complexity.The extent to which it required expertise
to get good. The extent towhich it challenged our beliefs,
the challenge to whichrequired us to use or manage our
emotional systems. Right. Sothe harder something got. You're
(30:11):
just talking about the thingsthat are involved in what makes it
good or not.
Yeah.
You don't need all that towhite knuckle. But to step into.
I now need to be able toconnect to cross functional leaders
that I work with. I need toknow how to faithfully report back
(30:34):
to my team what, what occurredso they feel like they got this straight
story. But guess what? I'malso now in a position where as a
leader I'm being asked to betransparent and be more authentic.
Well, what the heck do thosethings mean? Right.
While also being asked becausethe other just right along what you're
talking about here, a trapleaders falling into while also representing
(30:57):
the company.
There you go.
To your direct reports too.
That's right. Yeah. And Icould. And by the way, if we want
to think of the needle tippinginto overuse or not enough of something.
I talk to leaders all the timeabout the challenge that they're
in about. About beingtransparent as a value versus being
transparent as a skill.Meaning I'm not suggesting you're
(31:21):
somehow withholding things,but any leader gets into a position
where they learn what theyshare and how they share it. And
I don't get it right right offthe bat, but it is also an understandable
thing. If I was on the team,I'd want more sooner. But let's take
your example. When I've alsoseen leaders who stay too much in
the peer relationship spacewith my people.
(31:41):
Yep.
They end up sharinginformation in a way that ends up
undermining their owncredibility because they were wanting
to just connect with people.Again, this is back to the relational
piece.
Yep. Yep.
So, so that's, that's what Imean. When we start getting into
the day to day of what I thinkleadership is, I am not taking away
(32:02):
from getting good data, makinggood decisions. I just want to recognize
that great decisions thatdon't have clear vision fall apart
where the execution of itfalls apart. So again I'm, I, we.
It's hard to make a baddecision. Good execution. Right.
(32:23):
But plenty of good ideas canfall apart on the Runway in terms
of how people are mobilized orhow they're connected or the climate
that they're in. To be able tomake that Happen So that that's.
At some point your leadershipwill be tested on your ability to
build relationships. And I'llbe the first one to even press myself
(32:45):
to say, well, what does thatmean? Okay, so I'll turn, I can turn
the camera on myself. But if Ido say about conversations, I think
now we're getting some harderedges around things because we can
talk about kinds ofconversations that leaders need to
have. Right. You can build avocabulary around that. I think when
it comes to the nature ofrelationships, you're. You're also
talking about what level ofcoordination do we need to engage
(33:09):
in? What is my level ofcommitment to. To our agreed upon
mutual thing that binds ustogether? Why are we here doing what
we're doing?
I'm gonna make. I was like,should I ask this as a question or
just make a statement? Myassumption is, yeah, go for it. What
stops these conversations fromhappening is this level of what we
(33:33):
should be calling curiosity.Right. But this level of question
asking. I'm just going to putit that way. My assumption is people
feel like I should know.
Yeah.
And so asking these questionsand asking you what is, you know,
what relationships and withwhom, what's most important or what
(33:57):
you know, how do you definebringing you along it? My assumption
is, and perhaps this might beassumption from personal experience
as well, which is you feellike you're being exposed as not
knowing.
Yeah. There's vulnerability in this.
Vulnerability. Yeah. Right.Like that somehow this is going to.
It hits imposter syndrome.Right. It's. It's going to.
(34:20):
I think it does.
Right. How is asking thesequestions going to expose. Expose
you and now you're going to befound out that you don't really know
what you're doing. Whereas Ithink we probably easy to say, maybe
also hard to do. Right. Ascoaches. Probably really easy for
us to say.
Ken, it might be why we'rethere in the first place. Right.
I mean, we might be there inthe first place to just create a
(34:42):
little bit of space for themto be able to put the thing on the
table they've been holding onto anyway. I mean, that might be
the, you know, one of thereasons why. There are lots of reasons
you have.
A coach, but yeah.
Certainly the idea of testingthings out or trying to, trying to
surface an assumption you'vebeen holding onto that's been driving
your behavior. You didn't evenknow was driving your behavior.
Yeah. It just sounds likethere's so many necessary conversations.
(35:05):
Right.
Like, well, can I highlightsomething you were just saying about
and I actually it's, it'sfunny the things that I've landed
on that I find that I careabout when it comes to what an organization
can do from a leadershipdevelopment perspective. And there
(35:27):
is something aboutprogrammatically, when I have a group
of leaders who are in asimilar space, maybe they have distance
that they're not all in thesame team. Meaning I've reduced a
little bit of that pressure onthem that I have to be competing
with the person next to me.But maybe I've got some people from
different parts of theorganization if I can get them. If
(35:49):
we're learning togetherprogrammatically, we can probably
do a couple of things. One, wecan reduce some of the isolation.
Right. That they're going tofeel we're going to increase some
peer learning. And part of itis because if you're in supply chain
and I'm in commercial, I'm notsuper worried about like we're both
(36:10):
in commercial and we're bothfighting over the same next position
kind of that's just a realityI want to recognize that's real.
Yeah.
I don't want to pretend thatsomehow that that's not going to
be a dynamic. But if you and Iare both, we have a shared desire.
We've already got some selfselection pressures that have put
us in the room togetheranyway. But we're likely facing things
that we think we're alone in.And I know that that's a total inside
(36:33):
baseball stuff but for me assomeone who thinks about developing
leaders, relational skills aredeveloped relationally. So really
the kind of space you createfor people to be able to. Appears
to be able to have thoseconversations together where they
actually can do a little bitof you face that I face that's hugely
powerful. And you don't getthere overnight but you can be thoughtful
(36:58):
about the way you create thosethings. And this, you know, we think
about, never forget. I cantell you one of the. One of my. One
of my most positive pandemicmemories was transitioning a three
day face to face directorlevel program that we transitioned
over. And again everybody wasfiguring it out as they went along
(37:23):
but we turned this into aeight sessions over and again. No
session was over a couple twoand a half hours long. Right. Sitting
for two and a half hours.Right. But the idea that we did it
over the week, is it the exactsame experience? No, it's not. What
our compass point in switchingthings over when we were going to
this idea that leaders aren'tgoing to stop developing. We can't
(37:46):
Stop. In fact, they're goingto need it more than ever before.
Here was the one thing wecouldn't lose. We couldn't lose taking
a group of. If it was face toface with a group of 25 directors
in that room, what you wouldhave seen is the sheer number of
ways we would have gotten theminteracting in different cohorts,
different permutations. And ofcourse, there's good stuff and tools
(38:12):
they're walking away with. Butthe building of the network was primary.
Yeah. Yep, yep.
And our goal was when we weredoing this virtually, we're going
to utilize every featurewithin, zoom around, breakouts and
all these kinds of. And we didit. And it was. And it was. The thing
that I was probably most proudof was getting to the end of that
(38:32):
week and having people saying.And it isn't about tooting my own
horn. It was, it was happythat we could actually create this
something where peopleactually felt a sense of. Of connection
and they were actually able toshare real challenges they were facing.
Yeah.
And also even reducing theperceived difference across this
(38:54):
group because you're in supplychain and because, I mean, oh, we
must deal with differentthings. And how quickly you start
realizing, oh, you deal withthat. I deal with that.
Yeah.
So. So I think there issomething in how we create conditions
for learning for leaders whichis relational in general. If you
don't know those things, it'sgot to be hard to help people build
those relationship skills.
(39:14):
Yeah. Yeah. So me, me closethis section with. With a few thoughts.
Yeah, please.
From my time in hr, when we'vedone, you know, so I generally come
from the place of, like, Idon't feel like things I've designed
are, like done. Right. Like, Ialways keep learning, always keep
tweaking. So from all, all theprogram sort of feedback that I've
(39:38):
gathered, you know, especiallyin my time in hr, the three things
always come out that peopleloved and wanted more of. Right.
The assessments. People alwayslove the wavy lines and dots and
graphs.
Data. About myself. Love it.
Tell me about me.
Yeah.
Any program that came withcoaching that's, you know, I'm not
(39:59):
even rank ordering this. Notrank ordering these, of course, but
the assessment, the coaching,the peer interaction. Not even necessarily
the content. Right. The peer interaction.
No.
And I think what you saidthat. So you're. What's fun about
this conversation is you'resaying a lot of things that I felt
but maybe not. Not thought ofexactly as explicitly and intentionally
(40:21):
is the. I love that. I lovewhat you said around reducing the
feeling of isolation. Right.
Yeah.
And I've seen that time andtime again. You know, the classic
example I give from my ownbackground is when we were bringing
corporate leaders in from thehead office with restaurants managers
or regional directors and itdawns on them in the first hour or
(40:42):
two of the program like, oh,you're dealing with the exact same
leadership problems as I am.
I've spent the last yeartalking about how corporate doesn't
understand what we're goingthrough and then in about a few hours
you've broken that apart.
I think you do. Yeah. So Ilove that. That was just a aha for
me. And then interestingly Ithink that's also where the power
(41:04):
of one, you know, one on onecoaching comes from. But let me back
up before I finish thatthought which is. I think that's
what's missing in pushelearning content. Right. Is to.
What you're saying here is therelational, you know, learning happens
relationally because I alsothink there's accountability that
comes with learning in arelational element of it. Like so
(41:25):
even if you are going to pushan asynchronous bit of learning out
there, I do think you need tofollow that up with at least a short
session where you're bringingpeople together that all watch that
same thing to talk about itor, or have an assignment go do something
with this and now let's gettogether and talk about it. But let
me come back to coaching whichis if you can't do it as a group.
(41:47):
I, I do think there is. Thatis one of the powers in coaching
too is. Is a coach's abilityto say is to help reduce the terminal
uniqueness feeling right. Isto say like you're not. You're not
alone. This is. Yeah. And Idon't mean. I'm not saying it's clear.
I'm not saying your cliche.I'm just saying you're. You're not
the first person to deal withthis and you're not alone that this
(42:09):
does not. This is a classicchallenge. You're in good company
actually.
Yeah. And you're exactly whereyou're supposed to be. A little.
Yeah, there's a little bit ofthat. Yeah, I think that's right.
For the sake of time, I'mgoing to give us a violent shove
into our advice section. So.
Yeah.
What's your, what's your bigadvice for leaders out there?
My big advice is. It's funnybecause going back you were talking
(42:32):
about the thing that theydon't talk about of the three things
you recall that they don'ttalk about is content. Right. And,
and I do think there'ssomething where, where that has been
a humbling experience for mein my career, which is certainly
early on I was, you gotta havethe killer content and then at some
point you just startrecognizing it's not the content's
(42:53):
unimportant, but it's merely astarter to things that are gonna
be created along the way. Sohaving said that, I think to myself,
like, what is it that I couldgive somebody that isn't totally
contextually based, totallysituationally based? And I guess
I do think about the role thata framework plays. I don't know if
(43:16):
a framework counts as content.I just don't know. But to me, a useful,
healthy framework is somethingthat helps me make sense of what
in front of me. You know, it'sa map, it allows me to. If this is
here, this is here, this is,ah, this has this relationship to
that. So two things come tomind for me. Number one is do you
(43:39):
have, as a leader, have you,have you come across yet a metacognitive
framework of your ownthinking? And the quickest and easiest
one is generally Ardurist'sladder of inference. Right. And so
the idea of a ladder ofinfinite inference, of these, it's
just a nested way that ourbrains work. So there's stuff happens
and then we do stuff with it.So if the simplest version is stuff
(44:01):
happened, I create a narrativearound that, I draw conclusions from
it, I add emotion to it, andthen I tend to act from it. Right.
And why I say that's ametacognitive tool is it helps me
not just be in my thinking,but look at my thinking. And what
I would say to any leader isif you don't have something that
helps you look at yourthinking to separate out the component
(44:23):
parts, a way to recognizethat, ah, I saw this, I added this,
this showed up, and then I didor said this. If you don't have something
around that, I think it's veryhard to actually engage any level
of not even behavior change,because everything I'm talking about
(44:45):
is upstream from yourbehavior. Right? It's, it's, it's.
Do you have a useful Swissarmy knife for your own thinking?
Is the way I guess I would putthat. That's one, I like it, right?
And then number two and I.There's a, there's a. In, in sessions
I'll often talk about ourintent for speaking, like what is
(45:05):
our motivation for speakingup? And I tend to have Two lists.
And one list says things liketo better understand, to deepen the
relationship, like. Like allthe things we know we're supposed
to do. And then on the otherside, it's to win, not lose, to punish,
to blame. And, and, and I, andI, and I. And I use this as a way
to try to start tipping intosomething, which is you are like,
(45:29):
a lot of us would love toclaim one chart and say we never
do the other. And I get that.So do I. Now I'm a lot. Now after
30 years of doing this, I'm alot more comfortable going, actually,
I was just blaming you. Or,you know what? At that point, I was
just really trying to win or Iwas actually just trying to punish
you. And, And I'm not soprecious about the fact that there
(45:50):
are moments where mymotivations shift. And if I can get
a leader to recognize, andwhether or not you want to call that
their shadow or like the. Themoments where they tip into the things
they're not most proud of, Iwould say the only thing that matters
is to recognize that, is thatour behaviors do tend to be downstream
of our motivations when wespeak. And it's okay to give yourself
(46:14):
space for the idea that atthat moment I was, you know, I actually
was trying to win that interaction.
Cool.
We're not going to judge it,but the moment we try and say, oh,
no, no, no, and then we engageplausible deniability. No, no, no.
I was just trying to actuallyget clarity on something. And it's
like, okay, that's okay. Itcould also just be, you wanted to
(46:35):
win. And again, this is ourcoaching relationship. But if I can
give a leader a tool thatgives them the space to be. To engage
a bit of self honesty, to saywhat happens when I tip into the
protective space, you know,and how does that show up? And the
reason I say that for anyleader is those are going to be the
(46:56):
moments that people rememberabout you that you won't remember
at all. Right. Like, you'llhave the moment where you were like,
I was having a bad day. Andfor somebody else, that's the thing
they'll talk about. Notbecause I need you to have a whole
lot of pressure, but justbeing able to catch that a little
bit earlier.
Right.
I think is a good thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Those are two things I'd give.Love that.
Yeah. Building, you know,intentionality. Right. How can you
(47:19):
show up with intentionality? So.
And you're not going to get itright, by the way. Like, you're not
going to get right every day.No, you're gonna have bad days and
you're gonna, you're gonna,you're gonna speak and totally wish
you never opened your mouth.And that's cool. Can you be honest
enough about what you did wantin that moment as opposed to shifting
into the. What's the mostvirtuous version of my bad behavior?
(47:39):
Yeah. Yeah. So what's youradvice for, you know, the HR folks
out there, senior leaders whoare supporting other, other leaders
in their, in their journey?What. What should they be doing?
The. The good news with thatis, is I think we've talked about
it, which is how do you createspaces where leaders at levels can
actually have those peerconversations? You give them good
(48:02):
content. Right. But you canget them in the same room. And by
the way, even if the same roomis zoom, that's fine. But how do
we create the spaces where thecontent becomes the inspiration to
the things that we need to betalking about to building the healthier
climate, especially with theleaders who are actually creating
(48:24):
the climate? That's probably.And since we. I won't say much more
about it because we've alreadyhad, I think, a good thought around
that, but that's probablyrelational skills are learned relationally.
Nice. Nice. Well, and so I.The final part is, you know, I know
9th edge is in Chicago. You'rein Chicago. But for the listeners
out there who want a littlemore Kyle Cordaway or 9th Edge in
their lives, where can peoplefind you? What are you, you know,
(48:47):
what are you all trying tolean into?
Yeah, Wesley, you could findus@ninethdedge.com, you can find
me on LinkedIn. And we reallydo, we do spend time trying to create
intentional leadershipdevelopment experiences. And I will
say experience is leadingexperiential learning, how you get
(49:10):
people doing, talking. Right.Those kinds of things. So that's
the place where we love toplay. That's the place where we have
a chance on a passion. Andbecause experiences like that don't
just teach skills, they createnetworks, they also create climate
inside the organization. Sofor any of us who are actually going
to set aside trying to get 25people in a room, you can't do just
(49:32):
one thing. You got to do itall at the same time. And that's.
That's something we get a lotof energy out of.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thishas been a very fun, fun conversation.
Kyle, thanks so much forcoming on today.
I really appreciate it andthank you.
All right, that brings us tothe end of our episode. Thanks for
listening. I'D encourage youto head on over to my website, Kent
(49:54):
Coach, and start aconversation with me there. Or check
out my promotion playbook atKent Coach Playbook. Before you go
on with your day, I ask youplease take a moment to leave a rating
and a review wherever youlisten to podcasts. Five stars. That
helps put this podcast infront of more eyes and ears. Until
next time, take it easy.
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