Men’s Leadership Development with Dr. Nicole Ferry

Episode Transcript
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Scott Allen (00:00):
Okay, everybody really really excited for this
conversation, as always.
Thank you for checking inwherever you are in the world.
I have today Dr.
Nicole Ferry, and she is atenure track assistant professor
at the Copenhagen BusinessSchool.
She has published in theworld's best journals and her
current work explores thecompetitive and cultural
dynamics of the leadershipindustries, as well as

(00:22):
contemporary approaches togender-based leadership
development, and so there's somethings, just even what I've
just said.
Of course, more of her bio isin the show notes, so please
check that out, but I'm soexcited, nicole, I know you're
just coming off of Academy ofManagement, so that was just
held in Copenhagen.
I hope that was absolutelyincredible, and I think where

(00:43):
we're going to take theconversation today is just a
very open-ended question ofwhat's on your mind.
But before we do that, what dolisteners need to know about you
?
What are a couple of fun factsthat you know will introduce you
a little bit to folks who arelistening right now?

Nicole Ferry (01:01):
Thank you for having me on the show.
And, yes, the Academy was justhere and it was incredible to
have that big of a conference inyour own backyard where you
didn't have to pre-plan youroutfits and you could just, you
know, go with what the weatherwas actually like.
So that was super nice, and itwas actually nice also to have
it in one spot, versus likejumping from building to

(01:21):
building, which sometimes theacademy has.
So, yes, so things to knowabout me.
I think one of the things thatis important to know is that I
actually I work at a businessschool.
Obviously I work at Copenhagenbusiness school, but I do not
have a business schoolbackground.
My background is actually incritical theory and cultural
studies.
So I've spent a lot of timelooking at race, class, gender,

(01:46):
sex, sexuality, ageability andhow all of those things sort of
play out in terms of education,in terms of institutions and the
like, and so I take that lens,that critical lens, and I sort
of apply it to leadership andleadership development and
different dynamics therein, andso I think that that really
shapes the kind of scholarshipthat I do and also the kind of

(02:09):
ways that I think aboutleadership, which maybe are
often more from a critical lens.

I mean, I just always love our conversations
and I think that's where I wantto start, like, what are you
thinking about now?
I know you've had some recentpublications that were pretty
awesome, some nice hits, and sowe could go in that direction,
but there could just be otherthings that are just kind of on
your mind right now that havecaught your attention, that
you're pondering.
I mean, I think that's whereI'd love to begin the

(02:35):
conversation.

Yeah.
So I think both what I'mthinking about and my current
publications are in line, and soI've been just thinking a lot
about men actually, so yeah, somaybe you can relate.
So I've been thinking a lotabout what are men's roles in

(02:57):
leadership and also how we canthink more critically about
men's roles in gender equity andequality within organizations,
and so I just recently publisheda piece in AMLE, the Academy of
Management, learning andEducation, on a proposal to
create men's leadershipdevelopment, which I know sounds

(03:19):
funny, doesn't exactly roll upthe tongue in the same way that
we've so often heard women'sleadership development, but it's
sort of a piece to provoke butalso to hopefully inspire maybe
some more practical elementswithin organizations when it
comes to how we address genderequity.

So talk more about that.
So men's leadership developmentI've literally never had a
conversation about this, sosuper excited.
How are you thinking about that?

a conversation about this, so super excited.
How are you thinking about that?
Yeah, so, really, maybe I'lljust go back for a second,
because I this started as justsort of a thought experiment and
, like I said, sort of aprovocation, because we have for
a long time and for very goodreason, had a focus on women's
leadership development, like, asa you know, women have been
historically marginalized fromleadership positions.

(04:05):
There's also been the idea thatmen are sort of the
prototypical leaders thinkmanager, think male for for
Shine's work.
And so I think originally I wasjust sort of saying, okay, well
, when you have women'sleadership development and then
you don't have men's leadershipdevelopment, then when you just
have leadership, it kind ofcodes it as for men or masculine
, and so it's in the same waythat you can think about.

(04:27):
I do some work with therestaurant industry and there's
awards for best chef and bestwoman chef.
Right, there's not an award for,like, best man chef or things
like that, because we sort ofcode and expectations into our
language and things like that,and Bert Spector has also
written about this, as manyfeminist scholars, about sort of
the ways that our languagemasks the normative expectations

(04:49):
or privilege and power.
And so I thought, okay, well,maybe if we have women's
leadership development, then weshould also have men's
leadership development to likerectify that.
And so it just sort of startedas a playful thing, but then it
really turned into thinking like, okay, well, what if we took
that seriously?
And what if we really thoughtlike, well, what would it take

(05:11):
to do a men's leadershipdevelopment program with the aim
of gender equity?
And so that is what I startedto develop with this article and
, of course, the AMLE reviewersreally pushed me to do that more
in depth and theoretically thatI maybe started with.
And so I sort of developedthree different elements which,
if you want, we can talk.

Yeah, please, let's do it.

Yeah, so these are not kind of the end all be all
elements, but I was justthinking about, you know,
there's always the phrase thatyou, you know, add women and
stir.
And that's been a critique ofleadership programs where you've
just thrown women in and thenthey've sort of become trained
and assimilated to take up likemasculine performances of
leadership.
And so there's been a critiqueand I was thinking, okay, well,

(05:51):
we have women's leadershipdevelopment, so we have one form
of what I call gender-basedleadership development, so
that's like leadership targetedor aimed towards a particular
gender and you use gender as ameans to sort of develop
leader-ness.
And I thought, okay, well, wehave that, but you can't just
add men and stir to women'sleadership development, because
men are socialized differently,they navigate organizations

(06:14):
differently and have differentprivileges and power in
organizations.
And so I thought, okay, well,you have to expand the women's
leadership blueprint and youalso have to expand just the
general leadership developmentblueprint, okay, to account for,
like, the social positions ofmen.
And so the first one was, okay,reflexive identity development.

(06:34):
And so we know, in leadershipdevelopment there's a lot of
identity work, so cultivatingthe self, a lot of kind of
inward focus, and that sometimeshappens through like
personality assessments ordifferent kind of reflective
exercises and such, and Ithought, okay, well, that's
great, but if you do that formen and you don't connect

(06:55):
personal identity to broaderissues of gender and power, then
that's not necessarily going tocreate gender equity, because
you could have.
Then, let's say, tom, and Tomrealizes that he's like really
good at this and this and thathe succeeded maybe because of
these things.
But that doesn't necessarilyaccount for the fact that, like
gender and masculinity and thosethings, when they're mapped
into the body, are readdifferently than if somebody

(07:17):
else were to do that.
And so, for example, it's kindof that it breaks down that idea
of meritocracy or the idea thatwe've all just achieved where
we are just because of how hardwe worked, and so critical
feminist scholars and racescholars and all the critical
theory folks will tell you thatthere's more to it than that.
So if you're just doingidentity development that's
isolated from these largersocialization practices and

(07:38):
larger privilege and systemicsystems, then that could do a
disservice to leadershipdevelopment systems.
Then that could do a disserviceto leadership development.
And so I'm saying, if men aregoing to do identity development
, that's great, but always inconnection to understanding how
gender works in organizations,how their gender works.
That's the first one.

I'm assuming but I don't want to so just so we're
on the same page that thesewould be leader development
programs, really with just malesas participants, that this
would be led by a male and thenit's male participants who are
in a space and even exploringthat concept, just in a space
where they're dialoguing.
Is that accurate?
Am I thinking about thatcorrectly?

Yes and no, and it's a nice transition to the
second element.
Actually, I mean, yeah, I think, again, this is a kind of a
conceptual exercise that I wantto put in practice, but I think
and we can talk about this alittle later I think there are
limitations, of course, toactually like implementing these
kinds of things.
But, yeah, in the same way thatyou know you've had women
having shared spaces, there'salso evidence that men, when

(08:37):
they're amongst other men, thatcan be a very influential
process, and so, yeah, I thinkthat it's important that maybe,
if these were to be implemented,that it would be people who
identify as men in this groupworking together.
But, having said that, thesecond element that I have is
called intersectionalrelationality, and that's the
idea that leadership should bebuilt or should be

(08:58):
conceptualized as a practice ofrelationship building, which I
know many of your guests havetalked about that in various
ways, and there's great work ondistributed and collaborative
and relational leadership andall these things, and so it's
the idea that we want to do thatkind of relationality work, but
through also accounting forintersectionality, which means
that, like when you and I cometo build a relationship, it's

(09:19):
not like we necessarily meet onan equal level playing field
where you're going to have nobiases of me or you, right, and
we just get to navigate as twoequal parties.
Actually, of course, just likein the first thing, our
identities matter and they showup in various ways, and so you
have to think about buildingrelationships while always also
staying attuned to the fact thatrace, class, gender and systems

(09:40):
of patriarchy and racism andthings like that will shape how
we get to relate and show up andthings like that.
And so one of the things aboutthat is that if leadership is in
a practice of relationshipbuilding, then that means that
we need to build, of course,between genders so men in the
group, but also across gendersto women, and of course, in this
sense, I'm doing a very binary,like men and women gender thing

(10:03):
, but there are multiple gendersand things like that they can.
You know that men can buildrelationships with, and that
could include also not justhaving male or men as
facilitators, but also havingmaybe women as facilitators as
well, and thinking about whatthat might look like.
So, yes, I do think it'simportant to have men working
with men, but I think that therealso needs to be an effort to
hear from other voices, becausefeminist work is very big on the

(10:25):
fact that like narratives andstorytelling is a big part of
how you can like changenarratives or change the story
and all that kind of stuff.
So that is the second one,intersectional.

Cool and three.

Three is organizational accountability.
So this is shifting the ideathat leadership development
happens in these sort of likeone-off programmatic models
which we know both in women'sleadership development and in
just general leadershipdevelopment.
That can be ineffective inactually changing the way

(10:57):
organizations work.
It's not like you go to oneworkshop and you're just a
changed human and all of asudden then you get to become a
leader.
And I know, like Kellerman, forexample, has talked about that,
that you know the developmentindustry, the leadership
industries, work in that way.
But my point here would be thatif you actually want to advance
gender equity, that we shouldexpand beyond just these kind of

(11:18):
like programmatic standalonemodels and make certain
practices or features ofleadership development part of
men's roles in the organizationitself.
So, for example, trackingmetrics that we know shape
gender inequity in organizations, like family leave or the pay
gap or bonuses or things likethat.

(11:39):
If we actually track, doingthat kind of work is actually
doing the work of leadershipdevelopment, that you do that
outside of the program.
But the expectation is that itwould happen in kind of your
daily routine, your daily work.

Okay, so my head's in like four places right now.
Let's see if I can unpack someof this.
I love the notion of having aspace.
One insight that I've had ofdoing five years of this podcast
is that I have found myself inconversations that really
challenged me, challenged my ownthinking.
I didn't even know they were aconcept.

(12:10):
I didn't have awareness.
I didn't even know they were aconcept.
I didn't have awareness.
Again, I am a white male,heterosexual from North America,
and that's just my livedhistory, that's my worldview,
that's what I've experienced,and so something I've loved
about this podcast is that Ihave had conversations with
people who've opened my eyes toa number of different
perspectives and realities,different perspectives and

(12:36):
realities, and so having a placewhere some of those
conversations can happen, Ithink is super important, and
even to build awareness, becauseso many things I'm not aware of
I mean, really the only thing Iam like really firmly embedded
in and as an opinion, is that Iam not aware of the whole.
That's my hard kind of realityis that there's a lot that I'm

(12:58):
not seeing and experiencing andliving, and so having a space to
be exposed to some of thatespecially for white men, at
least in the context of theUnited States, I think could
open a lot of eyes, because Ithink a lot of people are blind
to some of those realities.
How we create that space, Ithink is incredibly important,

(13:18):
because we've all sat insessions and conversations,
maybe where it's around DEI, forinstance, where people are
because they're afraid thatthey're going to be offensive or
that they're going to trip onsomething or that they're going
to say something that is goingto be experienced and not the
way they intended.

(13:38):
So at least what I've observedin some of those situations is
people stay quiet, they don'tbring their full selves and they
stay safe.
So creating that space wheresome of that conversation can
happen it seems fundamental.
Would you agree with that?
What do you think?

can happen.
It seems fundamental.
Would you agree with that?
What do you think?
Yeah, so I think recognizingprivilege is like a fundamental
part of this, because privilegeis invisible to those who have
it.
That's how it operates andworks at a fundamental level,
and so I really think thatthat's one of the things to
break through with.
Men's leadership.
Development is, like you know,women are very aware that
they're women leaders, but menjust get to be leaders and not

(14:17):
think right.
And so, just briefly, I do thisfantastic activity with my
students where and I think itcould be implemented for example
, in organizations where I havethree people who identify as
women come up and three peopleidentify as men come up and the
women are the interviewers, menare the interviewees and they
ask them a series of questionsthat I've already created for
them, and all of these questionsbasically flip the narrative of

(14:40):
what's typically or has beenhistorically asked to women in
positions or in interviewpositions, and so, for example,
they'll ask things like are youcomfortable working on a
female-dominated team?
And, oh, that's a nice shirt.
Do you think it might distractothers in the office, or they
might not take you as seriously?
Or what does it mean for you tobe a male leader or a man

(15:03):
leader, you know?
And then they launch thesequestions at them.
You know, and you watch menrealize that they've never
actually had to address thesekinds of questions and so often
what they say back is oh, Idon't know.
And the thing is, is it's notto like make them seem like
they're inadequate interviewees,but sort of to point out the
fact that, like pretty muchevery woman could tell you in

(15:24):
that classroom quickly how theirgenders affected their
leadership style, but for men toactually think how their gender
has affected their leadershipstyle like takes a minute
sometimes, you know or we endwith them.
We ask them in how will youraise up the next generation of
men as leaders?
You, know, because women arealways asked like what are you
going to do to raise up the youknow?
And so it's like supposed to belike provocative and funny, but
with the intent to sort of likestir, because it is a privilege

(15:47):
, I would argue, to not have tohave thought about these things
right, to just get to lead, andso connecting that to the second
half of what you said in termsof creating a safe space, I mean
, there are many ways to do itand I think that this article
that I just published sort offalls short in the real
practicalities of implementing.
But I do think, of course,using techniques like humor and

(16:09):
like embodied activities I feellike are really important for
these kind of things, becauseoften if you don't feel it, you
don't necessarily get it, and sohaving these kind of aha
moments I think are reallyimportant.
But I think, in addition tothat, the organization itself
also has to create theimportance of this kind of work.
I mean, if you just mandate menand say, go and do this

(16:30):
leadership training to becomeJekyll or Equity, you know that
could create really initialdefensiveness and all these
kinds of things.
That I don't think creates asupportive environment.
All the research for like men'sallyship and men's activism for
gender equity shows the samething that like people
themselves have to get on board.
But I will just add that I dothink there is a current moment

(16:51):
that's happening in terms ofthis attention that we're
starting to put on men andmasculinity in public discourse,
not just in like leadershipdiscourse, but you have people
on both the right and the lefttalking about, like, the crisis
of men and masculinity.
You know the male lonelinessepidemic that men are leading
and things like deaths ofdespair and different things
like that, and so you have aheightened attention on men and

(17:15):
of course, then you have themanosphere and certain the
Andrew Tate and JordanPeterson's coming up.
So I think right now is animportant moment to start not to
start because people have beendoing this for a long time, but
to give attention to men inleadership development, to sort
of acknowledge the fact thatthere are a lot of men, I think,
that are saying, well, we don'tknow how to be men anymore,

(17:36):
which is problematic and we candiscuss that in a sense but to
sort of tap into an interest inunderstanding, performing
manhood and masculinity and toshape that in a way that
supports rather than detractsfrom gender equity.
I think that it's a good timeto start doing that, because
certainly the alt-right or themore manosphere groups are

(17:57):
certainly offering a playbookfor how to be a man and I would
say that it is not one thatnecessarily supports at all
gender equity and so we couldtake the interest in learning
what it means to be a man andharness that and use that in a
way that's for good.

Yeah, I mean, what I love about your work and what
I love about what you'reexploring is, I think, how do
you help build awareness, but ina way that it can be heard and
a way that where it's not goingto cause individuals to puff up
and to become resentful or tolash out, or to just really
create an environment wherepeople can understand.
And it's I don't know, I don'teven know how to verbalize what

(18:32):
I'm thinking right now, nicoleunderstand, and it's I don't
know.
I don't even know how toverbalize what I'm thinking
right now, nicole.
And that's what's sointeresting, because I want to
learn, I want to understand andbetter kind of navigate some of
the conversations, especiallywhen you get into.
Now we're going to have, youknow, men and women.
People identify as men, womenhaving conversations and trying
to understand.
So even the scaffolding of okay, how do we have these

(18:52):
conversations?
How are we gonna enter thespace?
How do we stay open?
How do we work to empathize?
How do we work to really trulylisten so that we can hear what
the other person's experiencesare and what they're saying?
So I'm just kind of fascinatedby how we create that space so
that, again, people don't puffup.
People don't get back and getdefensive.

(19:13):
People stay open.
People don't feel judged ifthey ask a question.
That might be a little bit offbase or Because, again, the only
thing I can kind of relate itto is in some of the
conversations I've been inaround DEI and I literally just
watch the room and I watch themen, especially the white men,
begin to shrink, disengage andthey don't even know how to

(19:37):
contribute so it stalls.
Does that make sense when I saythat?

Yeah, yeah, I mean , I've been teaching DEI related
courses for almost 10 years now, or over 10 years now, and
there's a very particular waythat you have to do it and I've
taught at predominantly whiteinstitutions, predominantly
institutions of higher classlevels and things like that, and
so I'm talking to sort of theprivileged groups often, if
we're thinking about certainidentity categories, and there's

(20:04):
a certain way that you have todo it to sort of you know and I
don't think that I'venecessarily figured that out,
but I do think humor isimportant.
I think creating spaces wherepeople can say the wrong thing
and not be sort of immediatelycast out is important.
So not necessarily safe spaces,but safe spaces of
accountability, right when youcan.
You know you can voice what youwant, but necessarily also will

(20:26):
need to know if what you'resaying is something that might
marginalize somebody else.
I think you know, as I said,sort of embodied activities help
with that.
I also think that the way youframe certain things, so I think
if you come in and youindividualize a problem, that's
never helpful.
So you can't, I can't walk intoa room and point to the men and
be like you're sexist andyou're sexist, because that
would really that would sort ofshut the conversation down, but

(20:50):
it's sort of to.
Oftentimes what I do is I try tomake sure that they understand
that these things are likesystemic issues that they often
participate in and can enable orcan or cannot, can work against
, and I think that maybe helpssometimes for I'm thinking more
of students and stuff but helpthem to kind of see that there's
, there's some wiggle room here.
I mean, often too, you know,when you talk about gender as a

(21:11):
social construction, which Ithink, for example, in the men's
leadership developments, wouldbe something that's really
important.
So, moving away from thatessentialist notion that you
know you are this way because ofyour particular like genitalia
or your hormone levels orwhatever, it might be right that
men are born this way.
They are this way to a sociallyconstructed understanding.

(21:35):
So you come to understand thatyou know you have social
institutions and family andreligion and government that
shape what we understand, whatit means to be a man.
And once you understand, Ithink, that gender is socially
constructed in this way and thenperformed, you then get a
little bit of wiggle room tosort of say, okay, well, I could
perform differently or I canenact.
You know that kind ofleadership style in a different
way, that it's not likepredestined or predetermined,

(21:57):
and I think that that's reallyimportant for people to feel
that they still have agency inthese kinds of discussions and
it's not like predetermined.

Yeah, and I think again, maybe my mind is stuck
here too much, but how it's setup, I think it is an art form.
I really do.
I think it's an art formbecause you need people to stay
in a place of maintaining anopenness and you're not going to
win with everyone, of course,but to your point, we're not
shutting things down right awaybecause I think the topic is so

(22:26):
incredibly important and, again,it wasn't until I started doing
some leader developmentprograms that were with the YWCA
in the United States, or a bankthat I work with has a business
interest group of women, so Idid some programming with them
and I would go and have sessionsand they would say things to me
.
Like you know, it takes me 15minutes to choose what I'm going

(22:48):
to wear every morning because Iwant to look stylish but I
don't want to look provocativeand me like literally a second
to decide what I want.
Or you know everyone else inthe C-suite.
They have stay-at-home partners.
I don't, I can't drop everythingand go to China tomorrow.
That's not how I work.

(23:08):
So my eyes were opened to somany differences that I was
completely blind to, had nosense of.
And there's so much value inthat, because then I think you
can better understand, right?
That's what so much of this isabout.
It's just even an understandingand eyes being open to some of
the lived experiences.
My wife will come home and sayyou know, this person said this

(23:30):
to me in a meeting today and Iwas totally taken aback and I'm
like that's a thing I never evenwould have imagined.
That's something you couldexperience, but it's happening
and I'm blind to it.
I don't see it.

Yeah Well, and I think you know, if you move
beyond, just like the men whomight participate in this
imaginary leadership developmentprogram, you know, and you just
move to thinking about the ideaof men's leadership development
, it speaks a little bit to whatyou're talking about in terms
of responsibility and sort oflike the mental load and the tax
that's put on women to do sooften.
You know, even though women'sleadership development is maybe

(24:05):
a well-meaning initiative, itstill means that women are then
going to do these trainings anddo this sort of maybe extra work
on top of their other work,while men get to stay in the
office and do the things rightin front of the boss and get
that done right.
And it also, you know, when it'sconstantly women that are
having to sort of you know,quote fix themselves to be more

(24:25):
leaderly, men are then sort oflet off the hook for all of that
responsibility to do any ofthat kind of personal work on
their own leadership developmentstyle as it relates to their
gender.
And it also just like removesof the responsibility that they
have to also participate ingender equity initiatives, like
you know.
So women's leadershipdevelopment, if it's framed as a
gender equity initiative inorganizations.
That is great and that isimportant.

(24:46):
But it's not just women'sresponsibility.
So just to create a men'sleadership development program
would sort of highlight andshowcase like that men bear that
same responsibility to makechange and there's plenty of
research and history that showsthat we also need men to be
involved in these kinds ofinitiatives.
But it shouldn't just be thatresponsibility for women.

Yep, anything else that you want listeners to know,
because we're going to begin towind down our time, of course
I'll put links in the show notesto the article and to other
resources that we'll talk about,but anything else that you want
to underscore as you thinkabout this, do you know of any
real quick question of any men'sleadership development programs
?
Obviously there's men's groupsthat has existed for decades but

(25:30):
do you know of any that areframed specifically in this way?

initiatives that focus on healthy masculinities
and do some of the kind of workwe were talking about earlier.
Those are nonprofits often kindof things like that.
And then you go to the otherside, which are gender
reinforcing programs, and thoseare often those pay-to-play
commercial workshops to awakenyour inner warrior out in the
desert with the fire and themeat and things like that, and
so those are available.
And then in terms of what'soffered inside organizations, I

(26:16):
mean there is nowhere near thenumber of men's leadership
development programs you know,initiated in organizations as
there is for women, like it'salmost virtually non-existent.
But there are certainconsultancies and certain
programs that targetorganizations to sort of help
men.
So there's this program theacronym is MAIL and that's, I

(26:36):
think, run in Australia.
Perhaps there's also the Betterman Movement which will come
and hold workshops for men andthings like that.
So there's opportunities whereorganizations can send their
aspiring men leaders to go tothese kinds of men leaders, to
go to these kinds of healthymasculinities consultancy

(26:57):
workshops, but really nothing asinstituted and as commonplace
as women's leadershipdevelopment.
In terms of your question aboutanything else, I'll say that,
after having said all of this, Ithink I would like to live in a
world where we actually don'thave any of this.
So I think that sort of genderbased leadership development, be
it for men or women, can walk adangerous line in several ways.

(27:22):
I mean one if we have men'sleadership and women's
leadership development, ofcourse you've excluded a number
of other gender identities andthings like that, so it creates
a binary that actually doesn'texist, and I think in addition
to that it also sort ofmisrepresents what gender is and
how it functions, becausegender isn't this like stable

(27:43):
category.
Of course intersectionality ishugely important here, but then
you know, in addition to that,it's not something you can like
grab onto and use to train.
It doesn't work like that, andwhen you have that women should
lead like this or women leadersare like this, you can so
quickly fall into this sort ofessentializing narrative, and so
I try best in this article tomake the men's leadership

(28:06):
development program that Iproposed to get away from that,
to just sort of think more aboutpower, privilege and difference
in a systemic way versus anindividual way.
But I still think that when youhave these kinds of programs,
they're sort of based on thingswhich the foundations could
really crumble, and so I thinkI'd like to live in a world
where, when you do generalleadership development, you're

(28:28):
doing these things anyways.
So general leadershipdevelopment would mean that
you're, of course, alwaystalking about your leader
identity in relation to all theother social identity markers
that you have.
Or, when you do leadership, youknow relationship building,
you're consistently aware of theway that you show up in space
and how you affect others andhow they're affected by you.
I think these are fundamentalthings to any kind of leadership

(28:50):
development initiative, but fornow, this was just sort of to
get the conversation going, sowe focused on men's leadership.

I'm oftentimes.
Just about to release anepisode with Barbara Kellerman
where we talk about scaffolding,so you could start with
theoretically, how are you as alistener and in any leader
development program are wetalking about listening and is
that kind of like fundamental?
If you don't listen, if you'renot skilled in listening, how do

(29:19):
you build relationships, how doyou build trust?
I mean it's kind offoundational and so I think in
the leadership development spacewe have done a horrible job.
I mean, sometimes we're walkinginto conversations about
systems thinking in anintroductory leadership course
and that's like flying a Boeing737 out of the gates.
You aren't starting with theCessna or even just like these

(29:41):
are the instruments on theairplane.
You're going really big, reallyfast.
And so you know we were gettinginto this really kind of fun
conversation about, well, whatwould some of those foundational
elements be?
Maybe it's reflection as ahabit of mind could be another
foundational element.
But I love how you're thinkingbecause of some of these pieces

(30:01):
were woven in and woventhroughout.
Then it eliminates the need for, you know, men, women, it's
just we are all aware of andhaving conversations and I think
it's baked into it from thevery, very beginning and I think
that's wonderful.

That's why I have a problem when sometimes people
say like, oh, we're doing asocial justice leadership, and I
understand why they say that.
But if you have to put thatbefore leadership then you're
insinuating, that's not a pieceof it.
And I would say that you cannotfundamentally be a leader or
practice leadership if you don'tunderstand how power, privilege
and difference shapes how youdo that right.
And so I admire, like the kindof initiatives that want to do

(30:40):
like DEI leadership andinclusive leadership, but all of
those kind of modifiers in thefront, just like women's
leadership development sort ofre-inscribes leadership as
something other than that, and Iactually don't think that it is
so.
So yeah, I completely agree.

Yeah, well, and I think, as we get better as an
industry and as a field ofresearch, I think a major
element of all of this is how dowe scaffold the work?
It's been done in piloting.
It's been done in surgery Ifyou want to become a cardiac
surgeon we've scaffolded thelearning in an appropriate way
Architects, appropriate wayAttorneys but in leader

(31:18):
development, I don't know that.
We have done that work and, asa result, we're starting all
over the place and it might noteven be that there's one solid
way.
But again, I might use theSuzuki method Wonderful, that's
one way of scaffolding thelearning.
Of course there's others, but Idon't know that anyone has
really come up with a real clearunderstanding of where do we

(31:38):
need to begin, what are thosecore topics that are fundamental
and foundational, and we startfrom there and then we move up,
and that's just a fascinating.
We'll have that conversationnext time.

Yes, for sure.

There's topics that are so important, like this one
, that have to be embedded, andif they're not from the
beginning, I don't know.
I mean, we can start withtransformational leadership and
Norhaus' textbook.
We can start there.
Is that the right place tostart the conversation?
Lmx no.

But I mean it's a fundamental matter also of
practice too.
I mean, to your earlyconversations about how you hold
space for these kinds of things.
I tell my students often, likeit's just a matter of practicing
talking about these things,that you then become better at
it.
So if you're talking aboutprivilege or power or things
like that, I mean one.
It's a language unto itself andthe language is constantly

(32:30):
evolving, so you need to getused to saying these kinds of
terms and phrases.
But in addition to that, it'sall a matter of just like
consistently doing it.
So in, you know, if you startat the basic level and you
understand the basics, then youcan start, as you say, like
scaffolding and going deeperinto like what gender inequity
means, or going deeper intogender bias and how it affects

(32:51):
you.
And once you have acomfortability at least
acknowledging and addressingthese things, then you can go
quite far.

Yeah, and if I don't have even some of those
basics, like it could beintimidating for me to have this
conversation with you, becausea couple times in the
conversation I've even in realtime, been worried about how to
phrase something because itmight not be the contemporary or
correct way to phrase it Right.
Yeah, of course that'shappening all the time in so
many different spaces, and soeven yes, having some of those

(33:17):
baselines and getting clear onsome of that is critical because
otherwise it stifles me.
I stay quiet because I don'twant to again offend or hurt or
step in something I didn't knowI was about to step in and so I
stay quiet and then I don'tbring my full self or I don't
feel like I can, and it's again.

(33:39):
It kind of comes back to thatcreating space conversation, but
it also comes back to that whatare some of those foundationals
that we need to do?
And because for you, after 10years of teaching this, you're
pretty comfortable with it Iwould be super uncomfortable
with it Right.

Yeah, yeah.

And so you're my guide.

No, but you talk.
I mean I've listened to episodes.
I mean you talk a lot about likehumility, you know, and I think
that if you just approach theseissues with humility and
general kindness and eagernessto learn, like I think, for the
most part, like people arereceptive to that, I think.
And also, you know, I don'twant you to be nervous because I
mean, think about my ownpositionality in this right,

(34:17):
like I'm not, I don't identifyas a man, I identify as a woman
and you know, and I'm tellinghere, telling a man, like what I
think he needs to do.
So I think you know, like thereneeds to be like a humility on
both sides here where, like Ineed to be really careful, like
I don't have the livedexperience of men, I know the
other side of it and I know therelationships that that operate
there, you know quite often.
And so this is, of course, justmy interpretation and I think I

(34:41):
hope, I hope I approach it alsowith humility and sort of an
eagerness to also learn, becauseI think exploring it further
could prove beneficial forgender equity in organizations.

Exactly, yeah, that .
Humility, kindness, like yousaid, curiosity, openness and
just that, working to beempathetic, to try and
understand the perspective ofthe other Again, some of those
foundationals that at least setthe table for the conversation
to happen.
Nicole, I always end theseconversations by asking what

(35:12):
you've been listening tostreaming, reading what's caught
your attention in recent times.
So it could have something todo with what we've just
discussed.
It could have nothing to dowith what we've just discussed,
but what's caught your eye thatlisteners might be interested in
.

Two recommendations related to our
topic and then one that's just ageneral one, but I, of course,
would recommend Adolescence,because I was late to watch that
, so I know most people havealready watched that.
But that Netflix miniseries,sort of on boyhood I guess I
would say it's also filmed in aone shot, which I'm a big sucker
for, because I find that reallyinteresting and how they

(35:50):
logistically pull that off.
So I'd recommend it, not onlyfor the way that it's done, but
also just for the discussionthat it has around growing up as
a boy currently, and so I wouldrecommend that and also this
movie called Men, which actuallycame out in 2022.
It's an Alex Garland film andit's kind of debated in the
feminist community whether ornot it's helpful or not, but I

(36:10):
think beyond that, it sort ofspeaks to this kind of feeling
if I'm generalizing amongstwomen, this feeling of existing
in patriarchy.
And the title is Men and it's ahorror movie about men, and
I'll just leave it at that, notto spoil it, but just about what
would a horror movie look likeif the villain was men?
And the last one.
I'll just say that I just lovethis film and I just rewatched

(36:32):
it last week called Coherence.
It came out in 2013.
It wasn't like it was a superbig blockbuster, but it's just
about a group of friends thathave dinner during the night of
a comet and sort of how thedecisions you make in life take
you to different avenues andpaths, and I think it's worth a

(36:53):
watch, if you like.
Kind of a mind bending lifechoices movie.

Oh, I love it.
I love it when I think of likelife choices.
I think of what was the GwynethPaltrow song Sliding.

Doors.
Yeah, it's quite.
It's quite similar to that kindof a concept.

And then you can get into like mini worlds
conversations where there's allthese branches of our lives,
depending on what choice?
Oh, so cool yeah.

I love stuff like that, so check out coherence.

My mind that I'm just going to bring to the table
real quick, is have just fallenin love with the television
show the Bear.
I don't know if you've, butthat is just.
It's whether it's a Jamie LeeCurtis and some of her acting or
whether it's just.
You can look at that throughthe lens of organization
development and you can look atit through the lens of personal
growth and development of thecharacters.

(37:42):
I mean, it's just so forlisteners Coherence and Men,
adolescence and the Bear.

And the Bear?
Yeah, and they do quite a bitof episodes in Copenhagen in the
Bear.
I don't know if you've seen,yeah.

And when I was there for the International
Studying Leadership Conference acouple of years ago, I mean, we
went to our first Michelin starrestaurants, my wife and I.
So we went to Host, and we wentto a couple of years ago, I
mean we went to our firstMichelin star restaurants, my
wife and I.
So we went to host and we wentto a couple of others and it was
just, oh my gosh, I can't waitto get back, nicole.
Thank you so much, I appreciateyou.

Yeah, thanks very much for the invitation to come
on and it's been really nice totalk to you.

So thankful for the opportunity to check in with
Nicole, challenging us to thinka little differently about how
we do the work that we do, andyou know I always love
conversations like we just had.
They challenge my own thinking,they challenge me to step into
the perspectives of others, andI think that is just a great way

(38:47):
to be as a leader.
We have to have that ability,that perspective-taking capacity
, to work, to understand thelived experience of others, so
that we can make better senseourselves, because for each one
of us, we suffer from about 180cognitive biases and my
perception and understanding ofthe world is limited, extremely

(39:09):
limited, and so I alwaysappreciate those types of
conversations and the work thatNicole is doing, as always
everyone.
Thank you so much for checkingin.
I appreciate you.
Take care, bye-bye.

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