Discover the Universal Factors Behind Inspiring Leadership

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In this episode…

What makes some leaders genuinely inspiring while others leave us frustrated and disengaged? 

In this transformative conversation with Columbia Business School's Professor Adam Galinsky, we discuss his latest book: Inspire – The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others

Along the way, we uncover the hidden psychology that determines whether you'll inspire or infuriate the people around you.

Adam reveals the "Inspire-Infuriate Continuum"—a powerful framework showing how every interaction we have falls somewhere on this spectrum. 

Through compelling stories and research-backed insights, he demonstrates how life naturally slants us toward the infuriating end but offers clear pathways back to inspiration.

The conversation takes fascinating turns through real-world examples, from the contrasting leadership styles during two famous crises to how a simple coffee machine placement can transform organizational culture. 

Adam shares the three universal factors that determine our position on the continuum. 

Perhaps most eye-opening is the "Leader Amplification Effect". To illustrate this, Adam recounts how Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's offhand criticism devastated him as a student, while a simple compliment weeks later has sustained him for decades. 

This awareness of our impact as leaders becomes the foundation for designing more inspiring interactions.

The discussion provides practical strategies for moving toward the inspiring end of the spectrum.

Adam's insights extend beyond traditional leadership contexts - executives report becoming better spouses, parents, and friends by applying these universal principles.

Ready to transform your impact on others? 

🎧 Listen now to discover the universal path for bringing out the best in yourself and everyone around you.

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Check out Adam's website

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Leading People with me, gerry Marais.
This is the podcast for leadersand HR decision makers who want
to bring out the best inthemselves and others.
Every other week, I sit downwith leading authors,
researchers and practitionersfor deep dive conversations

(00:22):
about the strategies, insightsand tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing short episodes
that deliver practical insightsand tips for immediate use.
Whether you're here for usefultools or thought provoking ideas
, leading People is your guideto better leadership.

(00:44):
Thought-provoking ideas LeadingPeople is your guide to better
leadership.
Have you ever wondered whatmakes some leaders truly
inspiring and others impossibleto follow?
In this episode of LeadingPeople, I sit down with Columbia

(01:09):
Business School's Professor,adam Galinsky, to unpack the
hidden psychology of influenceand inspiration.
During our conversation, weexplore many things, including
what Adam calls theInspire-Infuriate Continuum, how
you can shift your impact as aleader, and the three universal
drivers of motivation that everyleader should understand.
Whether you're leading a team,an organization or simply want

(01:31):
to inspire more in your everydayinteractions, this conversation
is packed with science-based,practical insight.
So let's dive right in.
Adam Galinsky, welcome toLeading People.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you so much for having me so, Adam you're
coming in from?

Speaker 1 (01:52):
where are you coming in from today?
New York City, new York City,the big, the big apple.
Yes.
So I was introduced to yourwork by a previous Leading
People guest and colleague ofyours, stefan Mayer, and he said
to me you should talk to thisguy.
So I was introduced to yourwork by a previous Leading
People guest and colleague ofyours, stefan Meyer, and he said
to me you should talk to thisguy.
And then I invited you on thepodcast today to talk about your
latest book on leadershipcalled Inspire, which happens to

(02:14):
be very well aligned with themission of leading people, which
is how to bring out the best inyourself and others.
So we'll get to the bookshortly, but first, so my
listeners can get to know youbetter, how did you get to being
a leading professor ofleadership at Columbia Business
School, and what people, places,events or anything else stands
out on your journey to where youare today?

(02:35):
And were there some epiphanymoments on the way?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, I'll say a couple different things.
The first thing is, I think oneof the keys to success in life
both you know is finding thatintersection where your talent
meets passion right, so thatyou're both you love what you do
and you're good at what you do.
And my dad was a clinicalpsychologist, a psychotherapist,
you know.
He was also a professor too,but you know.

(03:01):
And so I became a psych majorin college and, you know, I
always thought, okay, I'llbecome a therapist, you know.
And I got a job at Mass GeneralHospital doing psychiatric
research after I graduated fromHarvard University, and three
months after I was hired, I wasfired.
And my boss because you havelike three months where you can

(03:26):
fire people for for, you know,for calls for, for for nothing
and he just said I don't thinkyour heart's in this, you know,
and it was humiliating, it wasembarrassing, it was crushing,
it was all the things you canimagine.
You know, like I mean, I alwaysdid great in school, I'd gone
to Harvard, you know, and thengetting fired for my first job,

(03:46):
and then I started reflecting alittle bit.
Oh well, I'll say one morething.
The story so I'm getting a job,I love photography.
I got a job at a photo storeand then one day I just put a
sign up in the psychologydepartment at Harvard and said,
if you need resources and callme and a guy who had an
incredibly unique position hewas halftime Harvard psychology

(04:06):
in social psychology andhalftime in the business school
and he ended up, seeing my sign,or his research coordinator,
did hire me and then Ieventually became his full-time
RA and what I realized inretrospect was something really
interesting.
While I was an undergraduate Ihad never taken a single
clinical psych class.
I'd never taken abnormal psych,I'd never taken a psychotherapy

(04:29):
class.
I'd never done anything.
However, I had taken manysocial psych classes, including
advanced social psych.
So my own behavior was tellingme that I love social psychology
and that I did not likeclinical psychology and abnormal
psychology.
But because I had this prior ofwhat psychology was and all my
dad's own experience, I did that.

(04:50):
So that's a great example wheremy passion and my talent did
not lie in clinical psych.
It lied in social psych.
So then I get a job.
I get a PhD at PrincetonUniversity in social psychology.
I go on the academic job market.
I applied to 50 psychologydepartments and three business
schools and I got zerointerviews in the psychology

(05:12):
departments and I got twointerviews of the three business
schools and one of them wasNorthwestern Kellogg School of
Management and I was there for12 years and just really thrived
in the business schoolenvironment and I'm getting
tenured offers from Harvard andfrom Berkeley and Wharton had
interest.
But after a certain point Icame to Columbia.

(05:34):
I came to Columbia because Iwas single in Chicago and I
thought I might find love in NewYork and I met my wife three
months after I got here and nowwe have two kids.
So you can see these threecritical points getting fired
right.
Only a business school showinginterest in me coming to New
York to find love.
And here I am with a family,two kids and a job the best job

(05:56):
in the world.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Right.
So how do we follow that?
Well, one of the things I likedabout the book was that you,
you do these.
Can I use the phraseself-effacing you actually talk
about like you, you go, I gotfired, you know, but you frame
it in such a way that, you know,maybe it was the best thing
ever happened to me at thatpoint in my life, because I I've
, you know.
I've noticed that coming outquite strongly in the book.

(06:19):
But let's get to the book then.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Now the full title is inspire the universal path for
leading yourself and others.
Can I just follow up on onething you just said because I
think it's really important?
You know is one of the thingslike I I talk about my, my um,
fairs a lot and, and part of itI do it, you know,

(06:41):
psychologically because it helpsme deal with that.
You, you know like.
So I'll give you one exampleThree years ago.
I'm a great teacher.
I've won teaching awards.
I taught two sections of theleadership class.
One of them I got near perfectscores and the other section
gave me the lowest scores I'veever received.
You know, just shocking, likethey hated me and you know some

(07:05):
people would probably stuff themin the drawer and like never,
you know, like try to avoid it.
But like I literally walked outof my office to one of my
colleagues and said I'm likelook at this, and so we talked
about it and like that helps medeal with it.
But the other thing is I thinkit's really important to tell
people that I almost got fired,I almost got kicked out of grad
school, and the reason why isbecause people see the finished

(07:27):
product right, they see me todayand they look at me and think
that's impossible, you know, um,but they don't realize the path
that got you there.
The other reason why I thinkit's so important is you say I
got fired, um, but this is how Irecovered.
And so someone else who's goingthrough a difficult situation
they might say, oh, adamrecovered this way, I could

(07:49):
recover that way.
And that's why I tell peopletalk to lots of different people
, because the way that Irecovered might not help you,
but the way that Jerry recoversmight help someone right, and so
we can start to see how this.
So I think there's incrediblevalue in talking and your
question is such a great andbrilliant and important question
.
How did you get here?
Because the path tells us somuch and that path also provides

(08:15):
opportunities that other peoplemight take, yeah, and help them
deal with their own travails.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, and those of us who've been on many journeys in
life know that, um, you know,flights get delayed, trains get
cancelled, and we don't give upbecause we, we know where we
want to get to.
So we either put up withwhatever's happening or we find
alternatives and and, and youknow, find all the ways to get.
It's quite, quite useful whenyou kind of know what lights

(08:44):
your lights floats your boat andlights your fire for you, you
know.
So, um, yeah, I think anybodyout there who's maybe a little
bit um, lost in in in thataspect of their life can take
some inspiration from yourself.
Uh, that's, you know, to pursuethe things that make you happy.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah and and um, you know and and you know it's so.
Example of like it's hard toknow what you love without
knowing what you don't like.
Like that comparison is reallyhelpful.
Like the clinical to socialpsych comparison.
Like maybe I would have gone onsocial psych and I would have
liked it and when happy with it,but because of my experience of
clinical psych I knew I lovedsocial psych and then that made

(09:24):
me even more, you know,passionate and embracing and you
know, joyful from it.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Okay, so let's go to the book.
The book is packed full ofbrilliant stuff, and the first
question I have for you is whois this book for and why no?

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yes.
Well, first of all, I think thebook is for everyone.
You know, it's, technically, Ithink, a leadership all.
I think the book is foreveryone, you know it's,
technically, I think, aleadership book, right, the
Universal Path for LeadingYourself and Others.
I've been doing research andteaching on leadership for 20
years, but I think one of thethings that most shocked me
about the book is, like you know, a CEO reached out to me and
said, you know, reading the bookmade him a better spouse right,

(10:02):
you know.
A Fortune 500 executive saidthat the principles in the book
made her a more motivatingparent, right, you know.
Or people say, you know, I'm abetter friend, a better
colleague, from reading thisbook.
Because the book is really aboutlife.
Right, it's about how do wenavigate our world and we are
inherently biologicallyconditioned as social beings

(10:25):
right, we're interacting withpeople all the time and how do
we act in ways that inspireother people rather than create
infuriation and resistance andreactance and seething cauldrons
of rage and resentment.
And I think one of the thingsthat just you should know is
that anytime someone's payingattention to you, you're going

(10:48):
to have an impact on them, andthat impact could be positive or
negative.
It could inspire or infuriate.
Oftentimes we don't have achoice of whether to have an
impact, but we always have achoice of the type of impact.
So what I'm trying to do inthis book is give people a set
of skills and a mindset and aframework for going through the
world, where they are going tospread the seeds of inspiration

(11:09):
and make themselves other peoplein the world a better place.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
So let's unpack a little bit of that now, because
you divide the book into twoparts.
The first part is reimagininginspiration and then designing
inspiration.
So let's maybe start with thefirst part, sure, and so one of
the things you do quite nicelyis you you sort of capture a lot
of probably more complex stuffin simple enough to understand

(11:34):
principles, like one of them,which is the inspiring,
infuriating continuum.
So what is this?

Speaker 2 (11:41):
yeah.
So so I'll take a step back andtell you.
You know, how did I get here?
Like the reimagining stuff andeven the designing stuff.
But so you asked about my story.
A number of years ago I wasteaching the FBI the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the toplaw enforcement agency in the
United States and one of theparticipants just happened to
start talking about a leaderthat inspired him.

(12:03):
Participants just happened tostart talking about a leader
that inspired him and I was sostruck by the transformation in
his, in his voice, right In hiseyes, in his face, his body, you
know, and I was like it was.
It was like this person was,was you could see the
inspiration filling them up, youknow.
And so I turned to the rest ofthe the, the class, and said can

(12:23):
anyone else tell me about aleader that inspired you?
And everyone could, andeveryone was excited to talk
about it.
So I literally changed myteaching that day forward and my
research and I started askingpeople all over the world tell
me about a leader that inspiredyou.
Now, of course, the next time Iwas teaching the FBI, someone
was like I don't want to talkabout a leader that inspired me.

(12:43):
Let me tell you about thisbastard that made my blood boil,
that infuriated me, created aseething cauldron of rage and
resentment.
So then I started asking peopleall over the world to tell me
both about a leader thatinspired them but also that
infuriated them, and Idiscovered that they really
exist on a continuum, and Ithink this is really really
fundamental.
I mentioned before that anytimeyou give someone attention,
you're going to impact them, andthe impact is going to be

(13:05):
positive or negative.
It's like our brain has beenpreconditioned to sort of pay
attention along this continuum,and so, just to give you what I
mean by this is like theinspiring leader is an optimist
who sees the big picture right.
The infuriating leader ispessimistic, pedantic right.
The aspiring leader is calm andcourageous in a crisis.

(13:26):
Right.
The infuriating leader is ananxious coward.
The aspiring leader is generous, elevates others right.
The infuriating leader isselfish and diminishes others.
And so what you can really seeis that this exists on a
continuum.
I think this continuum isincredibly valuable as a
metaphor, for two reasons.
Here's the first reason Lifeslants us towards the

(13:47):
infuriating continuum.
We get tired, we get hungry, wehave strong emotions, we're
under pressure, we're inuncertain times.
All of those push us towardsthe infuriating end of the
continuum.
But because it's this continuum, we have a pathway back to the
inspiring side.
Right, we know if I'm feelinganxious, I can be more inspiring
if I can find calm.

(14:08):
Right, I know that, oh, I'm alittle self-focused here.
Wait, I can get back to theinspiring by focusing on other
people, and so I think that'sreally instructive.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
On leading people.
The goal is to bring youcutting edge thought leadership
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(14:43):
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and talent professionals.
So, adam, can you maybe tell usa bit more about this continuum
?

Speaker 2 (15:05):
And I believe there are some universal factors that
you discovered in your research.
Yeah, exactly so this inspiring, infuriating continuum is made
up of three universal factors,and I actually just previewed
those factors for you.
The first factor is how we seethe world, and I call it being
visionary, right, and that isthat optimistic, sees the big
picture, visionary, right, andthat is that optimistic, sees
the big picture, communicateseffectively.

(15:26):
The second factor is I call theexemplar.
That's how we are in the world,that's our calm courage, but
also our authentic passion.
And the third is how weinteract in the world.
That's what I call the mentor,and that's how we elevate others
and empower others andempathize others.
And each one the visionary,exemplar, mentor are universal

(15:49):
because they each satisfy afundamental human need.
So what we need, um, when we'refeeling uh, we have fundamental
need for meaning andunderstanding and a sense of
coherence, and so that's whatvisionary provides.
We have a need to feel safe andprotected, but also energized.
That's what the exemplarprovides.
And then we have a need to feellike we belong, but we're also

(16:11):
valued and respected.
Right, and that's what theexemplar provides.
And then we have a need to feellike we belong, but we're also
valued and respected right, andthat's what the mentor provides.
And so you can see that there'sthis enduring continuum right
that's made of these threeuniversal factors, because they
each satisfy a fundamental humanneed.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
And in the book you actually use two contrasting
examples.
Maybe people should just go andget the book to find out what
those are, because they'repretty powerful examples from
two crises that you show thecontrast between somebody who
showed the vision, the exemplarand the mentoring, versus the
other person who didn't.

(16:47):
Will we leave that?

Speaker 2 (16:48):
I think it's worth us doing really quickly, I think,
because it's I write it in sucha gripping and engaging way that
people want to go read it.
But I'll just say so.
There's two captains of vesselsthat both had giant holes in
their vessels.
So there was a captain, tammyjoe schultz, of southwest
airlines 1380, and the leftengine exploded and tore a hole

(17:10):
in the side of her passengerplane.
And there was a guy namedFrancesco Schettino, who's
captain of Costa Concordia inthe Mediterranean, and he got
too close to shore because hewas trying to impress his
mistress who was on shore aMoldovan dancer and they tore
over a hundred foot hole in theside of his ship.

(17:32):
That eventually led to thecapsize and they just acted so
differently.
In this situation and I'll justtell you I won't give you all
the details, but I can just giveyou one example is that when
the hole tore on the side ofSouthwest Airlines plane you
know the 150 passengers on board, as Captain Tammy Jo Schultz

(17:52):
would later say the plane wantedto descend, so I let it descend
and she dropped about 20,000feet in five minutes.
Now, if you're a passenger on aplane and there's a hole in
your plane and your plane isdropping 20,000 feet in five
minutes.
You probably think you're goingto die, you're going down.
But this is what made her soremarkable, is she recognized

(18:16):
that she was not just theprotector of them physically but
also the protector of thempsychologically.
And she went on the intercomand she said 10 words, that's it
.
But those 10 words were soprofound, so transformational,
so fundamental, and she justsaid we are are not going down,
we're going to philly.
Now I want to just point out wehave a fundamental need faced

(18:40):
with uncertainty, with a needfor understanding, she gave them
a meaningful, coherentframework for understanding what
was happening, they'reexperiencing right, and that it
wasn't as scary as it might seem.
She also did it in a very calmvoice, you know, which also was
very soothing for people.
She did lots of other thingswhich you'll have to read about
in the book, but FrancescoScintino I'll just tell you one

(19:03):
thing that he did is we hear himtalking to the Coast Guard.
We hear Tammy Jo Schultztalking to the air traffic
controllers in incredibly calmvoice like she's ordering soup,
but we hear Francesco Scintinotalking to the Coast Guard.
Now the remarkable thing ishe's talking to the Coast Guard
from a lifeboat.
The captain of the ship was in alifeboat while over 100 people
were dying on board, and it justincensed, infuriated, this

(19:28):
Coast Guard person.
But the two great things abouthim being in the lifeboat is, he
claims he didn't intend to bein the lifeboat, he stumbled and
fell into it, so it was just apure accident that he was being
saved from the sea.
But the second thing was is, youmight not know, he was a
captain, because he also somehowtripped and fell out of his

(19:49):
captain's uniform and stumbledinto his civilian clothing
before stumbling into thelifeboat.
You know, and so that's justyou know, he basically tried to
hide that he was the captain,and so you can just see these
two very, very different people.
In the end, tammy Jo Schultzlanded the plane with no further
injuries.
One person did get fatallyinjured when the hole, just from

(20:10):
the immediate explosion in thehole, but no one else was
injured, whereas cetino had, youknow well, over 100 people pass
away, none of which should haveand should have been saved if
he acted um in a moreexpeditious and inspiring way so
, just apart from the vision,extemporamental aspect there,
there is this notion of owningsomething, uh, taking

(20:31):
responsibility for, forsomething maybe it's unintended
consequences and at the sametime, you know, trying to walk
away like he did.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Uh, it's probably not very inspiring, to say the
least.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yes, okay and he spent time in prison.
I mean, I think the furiationwas so large.
Right, he was charged withmanslaughter, dereliction of
duties, a number number of otheryou know crimes.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, so that might actually be a nice segue into
this notion of the leaderamplification effect and the
whole role that self-awarenessplays in that.
And you also give a personalexample from the late great
Danny Kahneman where you were ontheahneman, where you had some
experience with that great manat one stage in your early

(21:16):
career.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, so I got a PhD at Princeton and the first class
I ever took was with DannyKahneman.
It was a three-hour discussionclass, you know.
We did a bunch of reading 11people in the room, 10 other
first-year doctoral studentslike myself.
So it's my first class ever.
I'm a little intimidated, wantto prove that I belong right and
I find an opportunity to saysomething I think is insightful,

(21:38):
will impress Danny and the restof my classmates.
And I still remember what hedid that day, which is the exact
opposite of that FBI agent.
Remember I talked about theFBI's transformation.
When talking about inspiring,danny crossed his arms, shook
his head, scrunched up his faceand spit out that's not right at
all.
And then he moved on and therest of the class moved on, but

(22:00):
I didn't Like I was frozen inplace.
Those words just reverberatedinside of me.
I was humiliated.
Right, it would take me weeksto speak again in his class, but
it took me weeks to speak inany class.
But six weeks into the semesterI was just walking down the
hallway and Danny, without stop,while you're walking, kind of
over his shoulder, offhand saidhey, adam, I love reading your

(22:23):
reflection papers, you're agreat writer.
And they turned the corner, Iwas filled with so much
unbridled joy.
I literally just startedskipping down the hallway, like
you know, the old Heidi skippingthing.
And, and I realized later, Icoined this phrase, this
construct, I invented thisconstruct, I guess, if you will,
called the leader amplificationeffect.

(22:44):
And Danny personifies itcompletely right, he's like
that's not right at all, whichfor him was an offhand criticism
.
That was not that consequential.
Like you know, it's not right,let's think about what is right,
you know.
But for me that becamehumiliating criticism.
But at the same time, you knowthat phrase, you're a great

(23:05):
writer, right, that was just anoffhand compliment, but to me
that became glorious praise.
I mean, that phrase hasnourished me for 32 years, right
, and so you can really see,like the power of you know the
leader's words, but it's notjust our words.
Like I tell a story in the bookabout the CEO of Deloitte, barry

(23:27):
Salzberg.
Now, barry Salzberg was CEO ofhundreds of thousands of
employees around the world andhe became CEO Six months into it
he realized there was bananasat every meeting.
He's like huh, I've been atDeloitte for 30 years.
Is bananas a symbol of Deloittethat I didn't know about?
Who really loves bananas.
So he went to his executiveassistant and he said hey, why

(23:47):
do we have bananas at everymeeting?
And she said because you lovebananas.
So he went to his executiveassistant and he said hey, why
do we have bananas at everymeeting?
And she said because you lovebananas.
He said, wait what?
I don't love bananas.
So what happened was in thefirst meeting he ever went to,
she was watching him like aneagle, right Cause she wants to
know what is Barry Salzberg likeand he picked up a banana and
he smiled and looked a littlepositive and the executive just

(24:13):
the assistant coded that asBarry Salzberg loves bananas,
let's have bananas at everymeeting.
And it's such a great examplebecause that's not even a verbal
thing.
He didn't say anything, he justperked up a little bit.
And so when we are leaders,we're on stage, we're under the
microscope, people are payingclose attention to us and one of
the things we know fromcognitive psychology is

(24:34):
attention is the currency ofimpact.
So anything we pay attention to, the signal from that thing
will become amplified, it willhave a greater impact on us and
our reactions will beintensified.
So from amplified signals tointensified reactions, that's
what happened to me with DannyKahneman, right.
And so another example I givein the book, which I really love

(24:58):
, is if your friend texts youand said hey, I need to talk to
you today.
You'd be like, huh, I wonderwhat's going on.
Is it good, is it bad?
Does it involve me?
So you probably worry, but justa little bit.
But now imagine you get thosesame six words from your boss
hey, I need to talk to you today.

(25:18):
Then you're like oh my God,armageddon.
You know, and um, you know,someone told me this great story
.
Um, that's not in the book, butI love it.
Um, afterwards that they got anemail from their boss that said
hey, can you come by my officenext Tuesday at 2 pm?
I need to talk to you.
She didn't sleep for five days.
Like what is going on?

(25:39):
She walks into the person'soffice and he said hey, I just
want to go over the agenda forabout five minutes with you for
the meeting on Friday.
Make sure that you're on board.
And she's like why didn't youjust say that in the text
message?
You know she was freaking outlike oh my God, am I being fired
?
Am I losing resources?
Is something else going on?
You know, and you know it wouldhave cost them nothing to say,

(26:01):
um, hey, come by us at 2 PM togo over the agenda.
Like it's like four extra words,you know, um, but one of the
problems with the leaderamplification effect is we're
not aware of the impact we'rehaving on others and we can't.
We sometimes forget that we'recursed by our own knowledge.
He knew it wasn't scary.
It never occurred to him thatshe would not sleep for five

(26:23):
days, right, because he knewinside his head it was trivial,
straightforward, bureaucratic,meaningless.
You know, pedestrian, I guess,is a better way of saying it.
And so one of the key things asa leader is we just have to
recognize that all of ourbehavior, when people are paying
attention to it, is going tohave impact.
It's like the beginning of arelationship, right, a romantic

(26:46):
relationship.
Like we are scrutinizing every.
You know we pour over this textmessage for six hours.
Like you know, they use theword.
But what does the word but meanin this message?
You know?

Speaker 1 (26:57):
it depends how they spell it.
Huh, that's true too.
That's true too, that's truetoo, that's a good one, but uh,
just.
But I use the word, but you'veinspired me the one thing.
When you tell that story, Iimmediately can identify
situations I found myself inwhere, as you say, you
completely mind read thesituation and it's completely

(27:19):
wrong.
You've distorted it out of.
It's completely wrong.
And I'm sure a lot of thelisteners out there probably
identify with that.
Probably nearly everybody hashad that experience where we
thought it was going to be likeX but it turned out to be more
like y, yeah, and at the end ofit we were asking ourselves why
did I get so upset?
You know, why did I get so?
I guess what?

(27:40):
What is the?

Speaker 2 (27:41):
um, I want to just go back to exactly this is also
speaks to the power of beingvisionary and communicating
effectively.
Right, because we effectivelyright, because we fill
uncertainty with our ownmishigas, if you will, right.
And so if we don't communicateeffectively, we don't give
people that vision, we don'tgive people the lay of the land.

(28:01):
They're going to fill it withwhatever they have, and you
might fill it with, you knowthis horror and someone else
might fill it with a differenthorror, and then you're both
horrified, but you can'tcoordinate because you're
horrified about different thingsand neither of you should have
been horrified by anything,right?
So it's a great way of thinkingabout that yeah, and, and our
brains don't like this.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
That's what sets us off.
We don't like ambiguity, wedon't like uncertainty.
Yeah, and, and so it's corrosiveyeah, that little bit of
clarity, that extra little bitof clarity for anybody out there
who's found themselves as aleader, noticing that they get a
reaction that they didn'texpect, like probably that
person in that particular storydid.
There's some useful insightsthere.

(28:44):
And then you talk aboutsomething kind of contrasting
with that, which is the leadersilencing effect.
Yeah, I couldn't help but be alittle bit aware of the work of
Sunstein and Hastie with youknow the book Wiser, where they
talked about who goes first andthat.
But tell our listeners a bitabout that impact.

(29:08):
We get back to the word impactagain.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, so the leader silencing effect is basically
just an offshoot of leaderamplification effect.
So leader silencing effectbasically says is that when
we're a leader, our power,authority, our position tends to
silence other people's voices,because speaking up when you
have less power is risky, right,like to me, I was tempted to

(29:31):
speak up in front of DannyKahneman.
I did speak up.
He had such a strong negativereaction like it silenced me.
Now the issue is it might alsosilence other people, right, you
know because of that, and so Itell the story in the book.
But, like I was asked about amonth before my first son was
born, by a company that was onthree different continents, to

(29:52):
travel, basically to go from NewYork to San Francisco, to
Singapore, to London, back toNew York and give lectures all
around the world on how to speakup for yourself.
Now, why did I have to do this?
Because they had a company-widemeeting and the president was

(30:13):
so dismissive towards somecomments that no one felt they
could ever speak up again.
So people in the audience whosaw him be dismissive, to like
Stefan right, would say, ok, Iknow not to speak now, because I
saw what happened to Stefanright, and so then I had to like
do?
I did two lectures three hoursin the morning to more junior

(30:36):
associates to help them learnhow to speak up effectively, and
then a three-hour session inthe afternoon to all the senior
leaders and senior vicepresidents on how to help other
people speak up.
And so one of the things that wehave to recognize is that our
power really silences otherpeople's voices.
Now it's so powerful that wedon't even have to criticize

(30:59):
people to have the effect.
So I give you the extremeexample where Danny Kahneman,
you know just, is like SimonCowell on American Idol, just
dismissive, you know, rolls hiseyes, you know, etc.
But you know, when the leaderspeaks first in a meeting,
everyone just then actsconsistent with the leader,
right?
So one of the ways we canreduce the leader silencing
effect is just having the leaderwithhold their own opinion or

(31:22):
judgment to later in the process.
But sometimes even being presentas a leader is enough to
silence other people.
And so President Kennedydiscovered this in the Cuban
Missile Crisis, the closest theworld has come to nuclear war,
right, all-out nuclear war.
He noticed that in initialbrainstorming meetings people
would say something and look tosee his reaction.
Kind of like Barry Salzberg,like, is he smiling, is he

(31:44):
frowning?
And so he realized they can'ttalk if I'm in the room, so I
just have to leave the room, youknow.
And so sometimes that reallyhelps us think about it, so we
can help people speak up bypraising them when they do,
acknowledging their ideas,following up on them, right.
But sometimes people are goingto only feel free when we're not
there.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
You're listening to Leading People with me, gerry
Marais.
Today's guest is Professor AdamGalinsky, and we're talking
about his recent book onleadership Inspire the Universal
Path for Leading Yourself andOthers.
Coming up, adam shares what hisinsights mean for managers,
teams and cultures.

(32:30):
What his insights mean formanagers, teams and cultures,
and how even small changes candramatically improve your
ability to inspire others.
So back to our conversation.
You're practicing what youpreach with your doctoral
students, isn't that right?

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, I would say a couple of different things about
that.
Well, one thing I do is in allmy doctoral classes is I have a
co-leader.
So what I do is I have someoneelse lead the class with me each
time and that helps give themvoice and helps them to
recognize.
But there's another story thatI love, which is I had a student
of mine who just could notspeak well with me.

(33:07):
And another thing I talk aboutin the book is about where do
you sit.
Like that can make a difference.
If you sit at the end of thetable, you're saying I'm in
charge.
Right, if you put someone elsein the end of the table, you
give them some authority.
So this doctoral student justcouldn't articulate any ideas
with me and finally I had thisbrain inside.
I said let's just switch seats.

(33:28):
You sit in the professor chair,I'll sit in the student chair.
And then I like to say hebecame like the Muhammad Ali of
ideas.
Right, you know, just likethere's something about being in
that bigger, higher up chairenabled him to speak more
effectively.
So one of the things and thisis you know you talked about
first half of the book is aboutwhat is inspiration.
Second half of the book is howwe design it.
That's a good example of design, like I've just talked to you

(33:49):
about three design features.
It that's a good example ofdesign, like I've just talked to
you about three design features, like where you sit are you at
the meeting?
Where do you sit at the meeting?
When do you speak at themeeting.
Those are all ways that we canthink about in advance and
design how that meeting is goingto go in a way that's going to
promote certain outcomes or not.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
So that's actually.
I think you talk quite a bitabout how our behavior tends to
also convey the message of wherewe are on that continuum,
doesn't it?
As, depending on how we behaveand as a leader, you have to be
much more aware of how ourbehavior is impacting people and
you actually do.
I remember a nice example inthe book where you talked about

(34:28):
this distinction between statusand power and how it affects our
sense of security or insecurityand how that impacts our
behavior.
Can you unpack that a littlebit for the listeners.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, so you know I've been studying for 20 years
social hierarchy and aboutstatus and power, and we often
use these words interchangeablyright, and often you know, like
the president of the UnitedStates obviously has a lot of
power and they're obviously ahigh status person.
But status is really about howwe feel, how other people treat

(35:02):
us Like.
Do they respect us, Do theyvalue us, Do they admire us?
And it turns out that I'vediscovered something pretty
remarkable in my research isthat the most infuriating
leaders in the world and a lotof people make their own
judgments about their own CEOsor politicians in their
particular countries ororganizations the most
infuriating leaders tend to bepeople who have a lot of power

(35:27):
but also feel very insecure.
They don't feel like they'retreated with respect, and so
they tend to enact revenge thenon people and they notice any
slight and they put peoplethrough hell, and so sometimes
that's purely based onbureaucratic positions.
So, like in most organizations,the person in charge of

(35:48):
reimbursements has tons of power, but they're not very well
respected by others, and so theyoften put people through, you
know, a type of bureaucratichell.
There's a.
If anyone's seen the TV showSeinfeld, there was a character
called the Soup Nazi and he hadthe best soup in New York City,
but you had to like follow thisprecise regimen, and if you did,

(36:10):
you had to like hold your traythis way.
And you had to follow thisprecise regimen.
And if you did, you had to holdyour tray this way and you had
to move this way and you had tohand the money this way, and if
you messed anything up, he wouldtake your soup away and say no
soup for you.
And so that's what a lot ofreimbursement clerks.
Okay, you had a scribble onyour form.
I can't submit it.
You have to redo it.
They have right to do that, andbecause they don't feel

(36:31):
respected, they want to demeanpeople and punish people, and
they almost get a joy out ofinfuriating other people.
And so one of the things that Isay is you want to make sure
that the leaders you select aredeserving of respect.
Right, that's one thing, andthen two is you want to treat
them with respect.

(36:51):
And so I had a reimbursementclerk at a university that was
just like that.
She was like the soup Nazi, butI discovered she couldn't
travel for health reasons andalso probably economics, but she
loves snow globes, and I didn'tdiscover this.
Someone tipped me off to this.
They're like you know, if youget her a snow globe from your
conference, she'll expedite allof your reimbursement.

(37:11):
So every time I traveled, I'dbuy a snow globe at the airport
and I'd give it to her.
And then, you know, I becameone of her favorite child, and
so, instead of being no soup foryou, it was extra soup for you.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, I actually found that as well in like the
person at reception.
Often in a company, you knowthey're often just treated as
the person that you go to whenyou want a pen or a.
You know they used to do thestoreroom as well and, yeah, you
know, please put me through.
These were the days when you,you know the reception would put
you through to somebody and youknow there's tendency to come

(37:45):
up and give them commands and atsome point then they'd say you
know what I'm gonna get you,mate.
Uh, whereas if you went up andtalked to them and asked them
just little things, politethings like how was life and and
how they were getting on, andyou just remembered their name,
for example, that's anotherpolite thing to do, in a way,
just show them that they've beenseen as a person, as a human
being.
It it kind of elevated thatsense of status, as you say.

(38:07):
The status thing went really upand they felt, oh, this person
shows me respect, they, they,they know me as a human being
and and I will, I will help them.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
I've noticed that over the yeah well, I have a
great story from my own life.
So when I was at princetonthere was um, uh, two
administrative people for thedepartment, um and um.
Just because you can probablytell I'm a curious person, I
like talking to people.
So, you know, very early on Istarted talking to them and I
discovered one of them lovedgoing to Atlantic City and
Gamble.
The other one had a specialneeds child and so, like I'd

(38:40):
come in, you know, on a Mondayand I'd say to Vera I'd say, hey
, vera, how was Atlantic Citythis weekend?
Did you go?
And she'd tell me stories.
And then, you know, I talked tothe other one about, like you
know, what her son was doing andhow, like some of the struggles
but also some of the littlemoments of joy.

(39:01):
And then, a few years into mydoctoral program, I noticed that
every single doctoral studentat Princeton psychology had an
envelope in their mailbox but me.
So I asked one of them what'sthe, what's the?
What are these letters?
They're like oh, that's ourmonthly bill.
I was like for what they'relike, you know, for phone, for
copying things like that.
They had never charged mebecause they liked me Right, and

(39:23):
so they could, they could, theycould just put it under
probably some departmental code.
And so for I probably, you knowmy being nice to these people,
generally being nice to them.
You know it wasn't strategic,you know, probably saved me
hundreds of dollars in my youknow my graduate career because
they liked me and wanted to dosomething nice for me.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
I'm a big believer in treating everybody with respect
.
I mean, I've been on, worked onbuilding sites.
I was a bus boy in Chicago oncefor a few weeks.
No-transcript.

(40:22):
Every human being, uh, respectfor who they are and what they
do yeah, and I think what theydo you can.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
You know we can talk about perspective.
We can also talk aboutexperiencing it Right.
And so one of the Southwestairlines I don't know if they
still do this, but I know thatthey did this at some point in
their career, especially whenthey were the number one ranked
airline, you know, for customersatisfaction, for, as they had,
everyone had to do like one offive jobs at one day a year.

(40:50):
So you know they didn't makepeople be pilots, of course, but
, like you know, even the pilotshad to load bags one day a year
.
You know they had to be aflight attendant.
You know they had to be areservationist, so you got to
see what it's like to be on eachpoint of the process.
So if you might get so angry atthe baggage, you know handlers
are like, okay, I get it becauseI know what they're going

(41:10):
through, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah, yeah.
So let's just now segue intothis second part of the book a
bit more.
How can we become moreinspiring, and what can
architects teach us about how todo this?

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, I mean, I think that what architects really
teach us is that they design abuilding to really inspire
certain types of interactionswith people and reactions with
people.
And we want to think like anarchitect in what's the end goal
for an architect, right?
Is this beautiful building, etcetera.
But like what do we want tohappen?
And you know, I actually shareda story, you know, an earlier

(41:50):
time with you and we weretalking about, which I really
love it, from a design feature,which is that in our old
business school building it waslike a bus terminal.
It was disgusting.
But there was this one place onthe third floor, the faculty
lounge, that had this beautifulespresso coffee machine maker
and everyone would gather thereto get coffee.
Even the dean would walk up twoflights of stairs to go get the

(42:13):
special coffee.
We move into this beautiful,amazing building.
I got my coffee right here andthey put one of these beautiful
coffee machines on every facultyfloor.
Now no one leaves their floor,no one sees each other.
I never see any of my colleagues, and so I think one of the

(42:35):
really interesting things isthis idea that if we thought
about what and we designed thisbuilding to increase spontaneous
interactions with people, likethe whole building was signed
this way and then at the finalstep, they gave us this perk
that trapped us in our own silos, and so I actually recommended
and I don't think it's really noone's listening to me, but I

(42:58):
said we should take out all thecoffee machines on every faculty
floor and just have a facultylounge.
So I honestly think you knowthis is what I would do and I
honestly really believe it.
I think it would make thebusiness school a better place
to be if there's only one placeto get coffee for all the
faculty.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah, because it would.
That would amplify the socialeffect that you get from from
people.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
And so that's kind of what I mean by designing.
You know things.
I'll give you just one otherquick example that I think is
really profound is that when Iwas at another university we
used to fight so fiercely abouthiring other faculty.
It's the only time I've everfelt homicidal where I just
wanted to kill my colleagues,you know, and part of it was
that we were all trying tochange the voting rules every

(43:43):
time to fit what was going tohelp our candidate.
And so one of my colleagues hadthis great idea.
It's from John Rawls, it'scalled the Veil of Ignorance.
It's let's meet in the summer,when we have no idea about our
jobs or who the candidates are,and just come up with a set of
voting rules in advance.
We're going to design ourprocess.
You know, we created athree-step voting process and

(44:05):
after that I would lose votes,but I didn't feel homicidal.
I felt disappointed, but I feltit was fair.
And so that's like setting upin advance what's our role,
what's the processes we're goingto use to make decisions, and
if we don't do that, we getchaos.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Now, Daniel Kahneman would be proud of you for that
as well, because he writes aboutthat when he talks about
recruiting people, that you needto have clear criteria and
everybody needs to work from thesame criteria so that you can
create that level playing field.
Yes, so what happens, supposingwe slip into the infuriating

(44:43):
end of the spectrum here, thecontinuum?
How do we get back?
What are some of the ways weget back to the inspiring side
of that continuum what's yourexperience with that?

Speaker 2 (44:53):
I mean, I think there's a couple different
things.
So, first is, you know, one ofthe core features of being an
inspiring person is beingcourageous, and I think one form
of courage and you said itearlier is to accept
responsibility for yourinferiority and behavior, um,
and I think that's reallyimportant.
But there's a caveat, and thisis something my research shown
is that, um, we want to acceptthat we act in a fearing way,

(45:14):
but we don't want to beatourselves up about it.
We don't want to feel shame.
And one of the things I'veshown in my research I've
studied the machine shame andguilt.
And shame is a destructiveemotion because it either makes
us run and hide or it makes usdefensive monsters externalize,
externalize, it's your, it'syour fault, right, and so,
because shame is such a horriblefeeling, and so we don't want

(45:36):
to feel shame, we want to sayyeah, I excuse my language, I
fucked up, you know, and here'swhat I'm going to do differently
in the future.
And then we got to commit tothat, and that's how we become
more inspiring.
Is we think about what's onething we could do tomorrow,
commit to doing tomorrow thatwill make us more inspiring.
So, as just one example, likeyou know, columbia University we

(45:58):
got on the phone and you'relike your university has been in
the news for all the wrongreasons, and you're exactly
right.
And I think one of the reasonswhy I've been in the news for
all the wrong reasons is thatour presidents we've had two
failed presidents in the lasttwo years have just done a
horrible job of communicatingright, and I think they both
made the exact same mistake,which is I can't communicate

(46:21):
till I have all the informationI need.
But that just createsuncertainty and people fill it
with their own mishigas.
And so one of the things that Iwas just quoted in Fortune this
week about, what should CEOs doduring these times of
uncertainty?
And they should communicatemore.
And they should communicate,you know, even when they don't
have complete information.
They should just communicateabout the lay of the land and

(46:41):
let people know they're there.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Well, the example is often given that even in a time
of crisis or change, if you justsay I don't know what to do
next, but I'm working on it, canactually at least people know
that something.
It gives them a sense ofcertainty, apparently, that they
actually can say, oh, butsomething is actually happening,
so I can at least.
Obviously, if you don't go backto people and keep them updated

(47:07):
, they're going to startwondering what is happening.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Yeah, I mean, rudy Giuliani became mayor of America
after 9-11, right, the attackson the Twin Towers because he
simply got on every day and letpeople know what the garbage
pickup schedule was Like.
He literally was up theresaying, okay, I just want
everyone to know, you knowtomorrow.
You know, andrew Cuomo, duringCOVID, did a press conference
every day.
Some people thought he wasgoing to become the next
president until some otherscandals hit him, but he

(47:30):
basically just read whateverinformation he had at that
moment.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
And Zelensky's been doing the same thing in Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah, absolutely, zelensky's a great example.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Master communicator, if there ever was one.
So what are some strategies toget better at vision?

Speaker 2 (47:47):
So I think one of the strategies to get better at
vision is to start with yourvalues.
What are your values Like?
What do you really value?
And articulating those values.
And everything stems fromvalues, right, and some values
then lead into this big picture.
But the second thing you needto do is take that big picture,
values-based idea and simplifyit right.

(48:08):
You've got to make it so it'sreally simple.
And then there's another thingthat's really important is
you've got to make it grow inpeople's mind by making it vivid
.
And so, as one example I loveto give, is like just a subtle
difference.
Drew Carton did this research atWharton School of Business.
But the difference betweensaying you know, our mission is
to make our customers satisfiedversus our mission is to make

(48:32):
our customers smile, and thatsmile is more visual.
And so I just did a study thatwe're writing up right now for
publication, where we analyzedevery presidential election over
100 years, and we just analyzedthe convention speeches of the
presidents and the Republicanand Democrat nominees, and we

(48:52):
coded for how metaphorical thelanguage was, and one of the
things we found is that we canpredict the winner, who wins,
based on whichever one's morevivid, more metaphorical, more
visual.
We control for economic factorsGDP, inflation, unemployment.
We control for politicalfactors like incumbency.
We even control for what theirGallup popularity polls were at

(49:12):
the time of the first convention.
So we submitted this topublication.
Someone's like?
Well, that's just one context.
So we went back and we just rananother study with
parliamentary elections in GreatBritain and we looked at the
party manifestos that werewritten.
We can again predict thewinners, controlling for,
controlling for you know, theseother external factors, and so

(49:34):
make it vivid.
And then the third thing andthis goes back to what we just
talked about is repeat it,repeat it, repeat it.
And I'm going to tell you whyyou want to repeat it, repeat it
, repeat it.
What does every song in theworld have?
It's got a chorus, it's got arefrain.
If every song in the world hasthe same thing, that tells us
something about the human mind.
The human mind has beendesigned to crave a repeated,

(49:57):
unifying theme.
So that's how you become morevisionary, right?

Speaker 1 (50:01):
and how do we get good at priming the exemplar
pump?

Speaker 2 (50:06):
yeah, so, so, so.
So how do we become umauthentically passionate and
calm, courageous protectors?
How do we become authenticallypassionate and calm, courageous
protectors?
How do we become super?
Right as one way to do that,and I discovered something 25
years ago and this has beenreplicated in hundreds, hundreds
of experiments around the world, all over the world that if you
just take time before astressful situation to think

(50:29):
about a time when you werepowerful, in control, when
you're your best self, when youhit it out of the park, you will
feel superness, start to courseyour veins and you're going to
act and be more super.
And we've shown this.
For example, this was a study Ididn't do.
Someone did it in, actually inEurope I think they were in

(50:51):
Switzerland, but I can'tremember now exactly Um, but
they had people do high stakesspeeches and before the speeches
they asked them to um just, uh,reflect on a time right when
they felt powerful and control.
You know, um versus they'd lackpower and lack control, and
they gave their speeches.
They also measure theirphysiology.
So people who thought abouttime and their powerful control

(51:14):
had calmer physiology.
They also gave better speeches.
They could because of theircalmness.
They could be visionary.
They could see the big picture,um, and so that's a, that's
another way that we can do thatthat actually probably ties into
this envisioning.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Uh, because a lot of musicians and athletes and
people they run their best raceyeah, absolutely, and lots of
people who go rational, almostto kind of go, yeah, but that
doesn't make sense and and youknow, I've been a musician all
my life and and I've, you know,also played sport and everything
else if you run the performance, even if it's a class, like
adam, you're teaching a lot ofclasses.

(51:50):
So if you run that class basedon the best one you ever did, it
might be a totally differentgroup of people and you're going
to get yourself into thatresourceful state which is going
to take you into your probablythe best version of yourself
yeah, absolutely, and and Ithink you know there's the power
of of that, and I think youknow it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
How much are you know ?
Um, we live in the present and,um, and what I mean by that is
that, like, whateverpsychological state is right now
is going to impact what we do,but we can leverage the past to
get in the best psychologicalstate today.
Um, just as one other example,I, you know, talk about being a
great mentor, and one of theways that we can help people be

(52:34):
better mentors is just to remindthem to what's a time that you
learn from someone that has lesspower than you, and then you
realize, well, not only can Ihelp this mentee, they might be
able to help me and thereforeyou're going to.
And so we show if we just askmentors to think about a time
when they learned something fromsomeone below them, and then we
follow their mentorrelationship, the mentees who

(52:56):
don't even know about our littleexperimental intervention will
rate their mentors as being moreencouraging, more empathic, you
know, just more effective youtalk about wire mesh mentors and
terrycloth mentors.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Maybe we won't unpack that one here, because I wanted
to ask you about the.
Read the book.
It's kind of fascinating whatthose metaphors represent.
And one quick, two quick thingshere the value of partnerships
and how that affects inspiration, and you also talk about taking
a kaizen approach to life.
So maybe you can just segueinto both of those and then

(53:30):
we'll come towards the end.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Yeah, I call them inspiring partnerships, and I
think one of the keys to being amore inspiring person is
self-reflection.
Right Is to reflect on what amI good at?
Where am I most inspiring?
Where are my pitfalls?
Where do I fall into theinfuriating hole sometimes?

(53:58):
And some of the ways that wecan do better is we can team up
with someone who's inspiring onour infuriating side.
And you know, I mentioned, youknow, the whole growth of Apple,
right, the computer company.
Right, you have these twopeople, steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak the Steves, if you will.
And Wozniak was a brillianttechnician and Steve Jobs didn't
really care about the technicaldetails, but he was
unbelievably visionary, right,and super creative, and so

(54:22):
together they were the perfectpartners, right, like Steve
Wozniak had no interest incommunicating or selling the
vision, right, so they teamed uptogether.
And I tell the story about mywife and I.
So you know, when I was inChicago, I was incredibly
unhappy because I basically I'mnot a planner.
I would just sit at home unlesssomeone planned something for

(54:44):
me, and my wife is an incredibleplanner and curator of
experiences, and so when Istarted dating her, I started
doing something fun everyweekend.
Now, at the same time I'm likethe COO, like my wife is not an
operationalist.
And so I tell this story abouthow, like the first time she
went on an international tripwithout me after we were married

(55:06):
, we're TSA pre-checking globalentries.
So we go into special lines.
She got in the wrong line goingover and stood in line for an
hour when she didn't need to.
And she got in the wrong lineat customs coming home where she
didn't need to because shecould have just gone right
through because she's globalentry.
And so I say at the end of thebook I say without Jen I'd be

(55:28):
sitting at home doing nothing,but without me should be
standing in the wrong line.
But together we're standing inthe right lines and having great
adventures together.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
And the Kaizen approach to life.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
It's a nice concept that you came up with.
Yeah, yeah.
So so my it's also from my wife, so so my wife lived in Japan
for two years, and there's aphrase called Kaizen, which is
continued improvement.
And I talk a little bit aboutmy parents and I say, you know,
my parents had their owninfuriating flaws, but the one
thing that I think that mostinspired me about them is that
they really wanted to be abetter person tomorrow than they

(56:01):
were today, and they wanted tobe better today than they were
yesterday, and so they reallylistened when they failed and
they really they didn't feelshame, but they committed to
doing better tomorrow, and theydidn't always do it, but then
they try to pick themselves upand be better the next day.
And so if we just take acommitment to I'm committed to
tomorrow being a little bit moreinspiring than I am today, then

(56:22):
we're going to be on theinspiring path of life.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Okay, so, coming to the end, what's one key insight
or big idea you want people totake away from this book?

Speaker 2 (56:34):
The single biggest thing I want people to take away
from the book is that you havean incredible responsibility in
life, that you are going to gothrough life and you're going to
impact other people, and youhave no choice whether to impact
people.
But you have a profound choicebetween inspiring versus
inferting people.

(56:54):
And I guess here's the biggestinsight Every single person out
there can become more inspiring.
Inspiring leaders are not justborn, they're also made, and the
reason why we know this isbecause there's a universal set
of attributes that everyone canidentify, practice, learn and
work on and develop and nurture.

(57:15):
And even if you're inspiringtoday, you can infuriate people
tomorrow.
So the key is your behavior inthe moment is what matters.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Right, so that's fantastic advice for people to
think about.
How do people get in touch withyou, adam, and do you have
anything special to offer them?

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Well, people can get in touch with me through
LinkedIn, but alsoadamgalinskycom.
You can learn more about thebook.
You can even self-assess yourown whether you're inspiring or
infuriating.
Even self-assess your ownwhether you're inspiring or
infuriating, um.
But yeah, if um the first threelisteners out there who uh um
connect with me either throughmy website or through LinkedIn,

(58:01):
you say you know I heard you umon uh, you know the, the, the
leading people podcast.
Um, I will.
I will send you a free copy ofthe book.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Oh, wow, I wish I'd, uh, I wish I was going you going
being a listener to my ownpodcast now so I could take
advantage of your offer.
So, as ever, thanks, Adam, forsharing.
Yeah, Thanks for sharing yourinsights, tips and wisdom with
my listeners here today.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Great Well, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Coming up on Leading People.
My next guest is Amara Naeem,client Experience Director at
the Top.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
Employers Institute.
Let's talk about themulti-generational aspect.
Right, the workforce today hasseveral different generations
that we are expected to manageas leaders as well.
Right, and understanding whattheir expectations are becomes
the top priority.
We did some research into Gen Zand we quickly, very quickly,
something that was reallyobvious came out.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Amara shares how leading organizations are
adapting to the new world ofwork by rethinking culture,
embracing generational shiftsand creating spaces where people
want to stay, grow and evencome back to later in their
careers.
It's a conversation packed withinsight, data and real world

(59:25):
examples of what it takes to bea top employer today, before our
next full episode, there'sanother One Simple Thing episode
waiting for you A quick andactionable tip to help you lead
and live better.
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast

(59:47):
Until next time.