January 21, 2025 • 35 mins
Our culture often equates leadership with tall, confident men. But history and scripture show us that true leadership comes from those willing to listen, collaborate, and empower others," says guest Tod Bolsinger in this episode. Join hosts Marcus Goodyear and Camille Hall-Ortega as they explore with Bolsinger the intricate process of transformation. Drawing from his books Canoeing the Mountains and Invest in Transformation, Tod shares how trust fuels change, why leadership is different from management, and how to navigate the pain of growth. What does it look like to lead with humility and courage? How can we embrace uncertainty, foster collaboration, and inspire transformation in our communities?
NOTES: Do you like this story? You’ll love Echoes Magazine. Print subscriptions are free from the H. E. Butt Foundation:
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Investigate materials referenced in this podcast:
Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolsinger
Invest in Transformation by Tod Bolsinger
Practicing Change series by Tod Bolsinger
The Mission Always Wins by Tod Bolsinger
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Leadership on the Line by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky
The Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1–15)
Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey (Matthew 21:1–11)
The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:10)
Eyes on the Lord (2 Chronicles 20:12)
Production Team:
- Written and produced by Camille Hall-Ortega, Rob Stennett, and Marcus Goodyear
- Edited by Rob Stennett and Kim Stone
- Executive Producers: Patton Dodd and David Rogers
- Funded by the H. E. Butt Foundation
Special thanks to our guest Todd Bolsinger, Founder of AE Sloan Leadership, Inc.; author of Canoeing the Mountains, Invest in Transformation, and the Practicing Change series.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marcus Goodyear (00:09):
When I was a kid, I had the original toy of
transformation. I'm not talkingabout Optimus Prime. I'm talking
about Lego. Santa brought me aLego spaceship which I built,
but then my sister and I couldtake it apart and build a
different spaceship, our owncreation. And then we could take
that spaceship apart and buildanything.
Even spaceships for my Star Warsfigures and a little jail cell
(00:30):
for my sister's princess Leiafigure. And she has since told
me that most of our Star Warsplay involved her waiting for my
Luke to rescue her Leia from aLEGO box. As a boy in the
1980's, I couldn't transformthose LEGOs beyond my childish
understanding of masculinity. Idon't see my sister that often
anymore, but I understand nowthat we are equals. That is, I
try not to put her in a box ofmy own expectations and make her
(00:53):
wait for rescue.
I like to think transformationis always possible. Little boys
and little girls grow up.Tadpoles transform into
bullfrogs. Caterpillarstransform into butterflies.
People turn into better people,communities into better
communities.
But transformation takes work.Those Legos don't build
(01:13):
themselves. Those little kidsdon't raise themselves very
well. And change can be scary,sometimes even painful. When we
face deep change, it's easy topine for the good old days, you
know, before everything changedand we could just go play with
our LEGO.
But change is required, and agood leader helps people
navigate that transformation.From the H.E.Butt Foundation,
(01:35):
this is The Echoes Podcast. Ontoday's episode, we welcome Tod
Bolsinger. Tod is the founder ofa Sloan Leadership Incorporated
with his wife, Beth, and authorof Canoeing the Mountains and
the Practicing Change series.I'm Marcus Goodyear, here with
my co host, Camille Hall-Ortega.
Today, we're going to talk abouttransformation and how good
leaders help us navigate thepain of change. Tod, welcome to
(01:58):
the podcast.
Tod Bolsinger (01:59):
It is my pleasure. Thank you for having
me.
Camille Hall-Ortega (02:02):
We're glad to have you.
In your work on leadership, Tod,you say that there is no
transformation without trust,but you also say don't rely on
trust. So can you please explainthat those two things seem
opposed to each other?
Tod Bolsinger (02:12):
Yeah. So when you talk about leadership, I always
say leadership is abouttransformation. That's why
leadership is not about a title.It's not about having a heavy
heavy furniture in a corneroffice. It's about how do you
lead a people through a kind oftransformation so they can
accomplish the mission that's infront of them.
That's what makes leadershipleadership. And so and it's also
what makes it different than,say, management. Management is a
(02:34):
really important skill set. I'mnot a person who thinks that
leadership is more importantthan management. But management
is about taking chaos andbringing order and control and
taking care of the thingsentrusted to your care, as my
colleague Scott Cormode says,and handling them as good
stewards, handling them over toother people.
That's all really important. Butleadership is where it requires
(02:58):
transformation. So when Moses isstanding on the other side of
the Red Sea, the manager wouldsay, "Hey, we checked the map,
and it's gonna take us 6 weeksof hard hard walk to get to the
promised land." The leader knowsit's 40 years, and not
everybody's gonna get there.
Marcus Goodyear (03:18):
Are those skill sets mutually exclusive?
Tod Bolsinger (03:20):
They're not mutually exclusive, but they
oftentimes get confused. Right?So many times, people who have
been good managers get askedthen to become leaders. And this
is when the trust andtransformation stuff works.
Right?
So I always tell people, there'sno transformation without trust.
And good managers build trust.Like, they're technically
competent. They care for you.They do what they say they're
(03:43):
gonna do.
They hit their deadlines. They,you know, they accomplish the
the things that are on the to dolist. Right? But trust is not
transformation. Transformationrequires people to go through
change.
So you need there to be hightrust, but you can't rely on
trust if you're gonna leadpeople through transformation.
It actually you have to getcomfortable with the fact that
when you take people throughtransformation, people who go
(04:06):
through transformation resisted.Right. You said it, change is
scary. That's the thing.
You're taking people through.You're taking them through the
scary part, through themetamorphosis, through the, you
know, the chrysalis stage.You're taking through all those
things that are scary. Thattakes a lot of trust, but
usually the trust goes down atthat moment, which is why you
need a big wellspring of trust.
Marcus Goodyear (04:26):
So is this why the our culture is experiencing
a a lack of trust overall? Arewe just going through a major
transformation as a culture?
Tod Bolsinger (04:35):
Well, I think in some senses, yeah. So one of the
things that I have to tellpeople is remember that the root
word for family and familiar arethe same root word. So when you
go through something unfamiliaror you ask someone to step into
something unfamiliar, or all ofa sudden the world around you
changes in such a way that itfeels unfamiliar, what most
(04:55):
people feel is not justdisoriented. They feel
unfamlied. They feel abandoned.
Right? They they feel and whenthey get highly anxious, and
then what they want is someoneto say, don't worry. I'll manage
this chaos. I'll take care ofit. I'll do it perfectly.
I know exactly the solution.
Matter of fact, I wanna promiseyou that I alone, I'm the only
one who can solve it. Right? Andpeople want that, and,
(05:17):
unfortunately, that keeps usfrom transformation because real
leadership requires us tochange. It invites us into a a
collective or communalexperience of transformation.
Camille Hall-Ortega (05:29):
That just reminds me of something that I
thought about when I was readingup on your work was that I
wondered how much expectationscome into play that we we hear
about change being painful andchange being difficult. And I
wonder if a lot of that has todo with expectations or I
(05:49):
thought of, expectancy violationtheory that maybe it's maybe
it's just that folks need toknow that there's a lot of
uncertainty in that change andthat maybe a good leader is one
that's telling people what toexpect even if it's it's gonna
be really hard or we're gonnahave times where it looks like
it's getting worse before itgets better. Or what what does
(06:12):
that look like to sort of setexpectations in a way that might
help with the pain of change?
Tod Bolsinger (06:17):
Well, you're exactly right. Good leaders do
set expectations, and they willtell you the truth. The problem
is most of us want eitherconsciously or unconsciously a
leader who's going to exceed ourexpectations and make this
change painless for us. Theywant us to make it easy. So what
we do is we end up in thisthing.
And this is actually one of thethings that's really
(06:38):
interesting. A lot of researchis that men get asked to take on
roles oftentimes beyond theircompetency because they project
confidence.
Marcus Goodyear (06:47):
Do you think that our culture has a bias
toward male leadership becauseof that?
Tod Bolsinger (06:51):
Oh, a 100%. That's not even clear. That's
because we have we have decades,centuries of assuming that
leadership is, masculine. Almostall the traits when you ask
people, what is a trait of aleader? What does a leader look
like?
It starts with tall. It's it'susually right? It starts with
tall.
Marcus Goodyear (07:09):
It's like King Saul. Right?
Tod Bolsinger (07:11):
Exactly. Exactly. Right. Right.
King Saul is like thequintessential I mean, for
anybody who has ears to hear,has a biblical imagination, you
better realize we have theseimages of David as this great
king who brought down toGoliath. But he was the one the
runt of the litter who was notpicked because he didn't fit the
mold of leadership. So, yeah,the most biggest bias of all is
(07:33):
that. And what's interesting isChristians fall into it even
though our sacred text literallytells us the opposite, right
down to Jesus, who was the manof sorrows, who did disappointed
because he didn't look like theleader, came in on a donkey
rather than a stallion. Right?
All those things. So, yeah, wehave these expectations of
leadership. And I thinkunconsciously, our expectation
of leadership is they're gonnasolve our problems so we don't
(07:55):
have to change. And that's thebig disappointment.
Camille Hall-Ortega (07:59):
That's so important. I'm I'm very curious
about what you've what you'vesaid about men and women because
I think it begs the question,what do we do about that? Is it
that we need to adjust ourexpectations that we we don't
need to be looking for a tallmale leader, or or do women need
to be more confident even ifthey're faking it? Right? What
(08:23):
what do you how do you weigh inon on the solve for that?
Tod Bolsinger (08:26):
Well, the first thing for almost every one of
these solves whenever you get agap like that. So the place
where my leadership stuff isbuilt is on adaptive leadership,
which is always in the gapbetween espoused values and
actual values or the gap betweenwhat we say we wanted to be
about and what we actually do.The first thing we gotta do is
(08:47):
we gotta name that gap. We justgotta name up front. We have
this bias.
What if you can't name it, youcan't navigate it. And then what
we gotta do is ask ourselves, sowhat do we get out of keeping
that bias? And mostly what weget is to live with the illusion
that our leaders are gonna makeour lives are gonna fix our
problems. They're gonna be ourquick fixes. Instead of our
(09:09):
leaders are the people who aregoing to empower us to
collaboratively fix themtogether so that we can be
transformed.
Camille Hall-Ortega (09:17):
Really good. Really good.
Marcus Goodyear (09:20):
So leaders, you you have said leaders need a
willingness to walk peoplethrough the disruption of
change, this transformationprocess you're talking about,
and that they have to be willingto disappoint people at a rate
that people can absorb. And thenjust a moment ago, you were
talking about Jesus. Would yousay that Jesus is a leader who
(09:41):
disappointed people at a ratethey could absorb?
Tod Bolsinger (09:44):
Well, it's so interesting because that quote,
disappointing people at a ratethey can absorb, comes from
Marty Linsky, who is a personwho I've gotten to know. He
wrote the foreword for my littlePracticing Change books, and
he's a really remarkable leaderand scholar and consultant. And
what's interesting is I knowMarty personally, and he
wouldn't have been thinkingabout Jesus because he's
actually Jewish by background.And he would tell me that he's
(10:06):
unreligious. But he asked me,why do Christians like adaptive
leadership?
Like, that's the stuff that Ido. I work with faith leaders.
And I told him, it's becausewhat you're describing is what
we really believe we found andsaw in Jesus, a person who's
willing to take people throughthe disappointment. And at
times, they could absorb it. Attimes, it took them it took them
(10:27):
a while.
Yeah. At times at times, theycouldn't. They did crucify him.
Marcus Goodyear (10:31):
I feel like it's taking us 2000 years to
absorb it. Right?
Tod Bolsinger (10:34):
Yeah. Exactly.
Marcus Goodyear (10:34):
We're still not there.
Tod Bolsinger (10:36):
Right. Right. And even the even the power of the
Holy Spirit, in Pentecost isreally about convincing a group
of people that have anexperience that says that thing
you thought was the kingdom ofGod, which you thought was a
military overthrow of Rome, isactually a radical
transformation of all the earthstarting with you. It's not
(10:57):
about us and them. It's startingwith me first. That's the that's
the whole Christianunderstanding that it starts
with my own confession of my ownfaith, my own sin, my own need
to, be forgiven of my sin.
Marcus Goodyear (11:08):
So you've made it very personal. Right?
And yet leadership is abouttransforming communities, and I
I've heard a lot of people,commenting on how personal
Christian faith has become, inrecent decades, maybe the last
100, 200 years. How do you thinkabout transforming an entire
community rather than just theindividuals within that
(11:32):
community?
Tod Bolsinger (11:33):
Yeah. I often say that if we had taught all of our
children from the minute theyever went to Sunday school, that
the most important verse was,your kingdom come, your will be
done on earth. Before you taughtthem John 3:16, "For God so
loved the world that he gave hisonly begotten son." It's really
important, the world, but wetake that as me. So I say
(11:57):
Christianity is personal, butit's not private.
It is personal so that I takepersonal responsibility to say
yes to something that is gonnatransform me in in a community.
That's why I believe we arebaptized into a people of God
for the sake of the world. It'sfor the sake of the
transformation of the wholeworld. What happens very often,
(12:18):
and I think this happens in alot of our singing and a lot of
our prayers and our programs, isit becomes not just personal,
Marcus. It becomes private.
Becomes just disconnected fromthe community. And I'll tell you
one place. I'm I'm a pastor bytraining. I was taught how to
work with individuals to gothrough loss and grief and
(12:40):
transformation. But most of uswere never taught how to to take
a community through loss andgrief and transformation, let
alone an organization throughloss and grief and
transformation that we wouldchoose so that we might be able
to participate in God'stransformation of the world.
Camille Hall-Ortega (13:02):
Well, you're talking about change, and
you're saying change is painful.Is it always painful? Is that
true to is that fair to say thatchange or transformation is
always painful?
Tod Bolsinger (13:15):
Well, sometimes it's chosen, but I think that so
I do really believe that changeis experienced as loss. And I
guess maybe it's because, youknow, I'm I'm 60, and I know
what it's like to have childrenwho are adults who no longer
play Legos with me. Right.
Marcus Goodyear (13:30):
Right. Right.
Tod Bolsinger (13:31):
Who are not home.
Marcus Goodyear (13:32):
That's what grandchildren are for. That's
what grandchildren are for.
Tod Bolsinger (13:34):
And and who are taking their own time to give me
grandchildren.
Marcus Goodyear (13:37):
Oh, no.
Tod Bolsinger (13:38):
But, I mean, like, it's like I love my kids,
but I I miss the heck out ofthem. And so, like, part of it
is wanting them to flourish asadults means I don't get to have
them under my own roof. Like,there's always loss.
There's always but that loss isgood loss. It's good grief. You
were letting go of the things sothat we can step into the new
(13:59):
into the new. But it is a it isa kind of loss.
Marcus Goodyear (14:02):
Yeah.
Camille Hall-Ortega (14:03):
And so what are what would you say are some
top ways that or maybe youwouldn't say that. Maybe maybe
not accept this premise, butsome ways to kind of deal with
the pain of that of thoseFeeling of loss.
Tod Bolsinger (14:17):
Yeah. Well well, one of them is just to
acknowledge the need for it. So,like, so, like, like, the book
that I'm probably most wellknown for Canoeing in the
Mountains is really a book thatsays, it uses the story of Lewis
and Clark to say that there wasthis European mental model of
the world that became theEuropean mental model of the
continent that assumedeverything was just a
continuation of the past.Eighteen months of traveling in
(14:41):
canoes upstream, and they got tothe Rocky Mountains. They
realized the world in front ofthem was nothing like the world
behind them, that the geographyof the west was, like, unlike
anything people of Europeandescent had ever seen before,
and that they couldn't just keepcanoeing their way forward,
which means that they had toactually, at that moment, drop
(15:01):
the canoes and become hikers.
They had to become mountainclimbers instead of canoers. It
it required a transformation
Camille Hall-Ortega (15:09):
Yeah.
Marcus Goodyear (15:09):
And they had to look to a different leader too.
Right?
Tod Bolsinger (15:12):
Well, the probably the biggest
transformation of all was thatthey began to listen to
Sacagawea. So they never paidattention to a teenage native
American nursing mother. Theydidn't write it down a single
word she said until they neededher to be the person who we can
who was the relational bridgewith the Shoshone that actually
helped them get through themountains. And so so it required
even so think about this.Meriwether Lewis was tutored by
(15:33):
Thomas Jefferson in the WhiteHouse.
But when he got so far off themap, he needed to listen to
someone who probably up untilthat moment, he barely
acknowledged her humanity.
Camille Hall-Ortega (15:43):
Woah.
Tod Bolsinger (15:44):
Now he had to be willing to. And not only did he
willing to, he did. And theywere remarkable. And when they
were off the map, they were thisremarkable community of people.
And the sad part of the story iswhen they finally when they went
back home, they basicallyreverted back to their old ways.
Camille Hall-Ortega (16:02):
Okay. So I I would imagine then that, and
I've I've always pronounced itSacagawea, but you're
pronouncing it correctly. I'msure. So help me with the name
here. Sacagawea. Is that right?
Tod Bolsinger (16:15):
Yeah. So this is interesting. We all learned her
name as Sacagawea. Yeah. Butthey actually wrote her name
down in the journals with k'sSakagawea or g's Sacagawea. And
so, I think it's good to giveher back her name, personally.
Camille Hall-Ortega (16:29):
Yes. I think that's great. I'm
imagining that she perhaps hadsome moments where she was
leading some reluctant folks.Right? That maybe they didn't
see her as competent until theyreally needed her.
How do you lead people who arereluctant?
Tod Bolsinger (16:48):
Yeah. Well, one of the ways okay. So let's
circle back to where we started.Yeah. She was incredibly
trustworthy.
Like, she was competent. I mean,like, actually, they they have
in their journals stuff likeCharbonneau, who's who's or her
husband, was completelyincompetent. Like, they
tolerated that guy because theyneeded her. Right? She was the
competent one.
(17:09):
But because of the way that thethe way the 18th century, you
know, European men thought aboutNative American people, you
know, they needed that theyneeded to bring the husband, and
the husband literally broughthis wife. And and they've only
brought one of his wives. Wedon't know what he did to his
other wives he had. So what werealized is we actually live in
this place where what she did isdemonstrated her confidence over
(17:32):
and over again, so they trustedher. And that led to their
transformation.
Camille Hall-Ortega (17:37):
Okay.
Marcus Goodyear (17:38):
And and what what it the transformation came
when they were able to set asidetheir old world assumptions
about what they expected to findand what what had been built up
in their mind. And, you know,they dropped the canoes like you
said. So but that that I alwayswanna come back to the present.
What old world assumptions arewe carrying around with us that
(17:59):
people, you know, a 100, 200years from now are gonna just
shake their head?
What what do we as individualsor Christians or Americans need
to let go of, in your opinion?
Tod Bolsinger (18:08):
So one of the things that I work with leaders
almost every single day is thatas my new little books, the
Practicing Change series, arewhat I call the 4 big mistakes
good leaders make. And one ofthe mistakes that almost every
good leader makes is believingthat at the moment of crisis,
they will have what it they needto rise the occasion. And what
(18:29):
they actually do is default totheir training. And if we were
trained well, great. We'llrespond well.
But if we were trained forcanoeing and you're facing
mountains, you'll tend to doubledown on paddling harder. And
then next thing you know, you'vejust burned out your rotator
cuff, you've exhausted yourself,and you haven't gone anywhere.
Camille Hall-Ortega (18:49):
Yeah.
Tod Bolsinger (18:49):
So one of the things we have to give up is, I
would say, is the expertexpectation. I think the single
biggest thing to give up in achanging world is that you the
expert will take you forward.
It's not the expert. It's thelearner.
Marcus Goodyear (19:04):
And that requires trust. Right?
Tod Bolsinger (19:06):
It requires trust and humility. Like, I mean, Eric
Hoffer said, you know, "In achanging world, learners inherit
the earth, and the learned findthemselves beautifully equipped
for a world that no longerexists."
Camille Hall-Ortega (19:18):
Wow.
Tod Bolsinger (19:19):
And what we have is a lot of leaders who want
people to trust you because Iwas an expert. And what they
need to learn is to trust youbecause I will lead us through
the learning. I'm humble enoughto say I need help. We're gonna
do this together. We're gonnacollaborate.
We're not gonna leave outvoices. We're gonna bring in
voices we haven't listened tobefore. How about diverse voices
(19:39):
like Sacagawea, who is on hometerritory, and we're and we're
not listening to her. Right?That that's what good leadership
looks like today.
Marcus Goodyear (19:47):
So good. The idea of trust is one that I get
a little stuck on. I mentionedearlier that we don't have a lot
of trust in our society, ormaybe it feels like we don't
have a lot of trust in oursociety. I don't know. There's 2
little studies I read recently.
One of them said only 22% ofAmericans trust the government
to do the right thing. Period.And I read another study that
(20:10):
said only 32% of Americans saidthey have a great deal or quite
a lot of confidence in organizedreligion and churches. And I
was, reading The Righteous Mindover the weekend where he talks
about just the the the failureof people's ability to trust
institutions and how ourinstitutions are losing our
trust.
How do we rebuild trust? I knowI know for leaders, you've said
(20:34):
we a leader rebuilds trustthrough skills, through earning
that trust. How does aninstitution earn trust? How do
we as a culture earn trust witheach other again?
Tod Bolsinger (20:46):
Yeah. It's so we talk about trust being built
through technical competence.That's the credibility of doing
the things that are the mostimportant. But it's doing what
you said you're gonna do. It'sdoing what you're entrusted
with.
Right? So I always say to topastors and religious leaders,
like, if you if people can'ttrust you with the texts, the
sacred texts, and they can'ttrust you with the traditions,
(21:07):
they can't trust you with souls,they can't trust you with
meetings and money. They can'ttrust you with all those things.
They're not if they can't trustyou on the map, they're not
gonna follow you off the map. Soit starts with competence, but
it also requires relationalcongruence.
And I think right now, what wehave is a giant trust issue in
(21:28):
credibility and authority. Wehave so much cynicism. It's so
high that people actually don'ttrust news reports. They don't
trust any of the the markers inour culture that we used to look
to for to be wise brokers. Noweverybody's on a team.
And, you know, Jonathan Haidt'swork on this has been so
(21:49):
powerful for me. Even even data.You know, Jonathan Haidt and
Adam Grant and others have said,people don't use facts anymore
like scientists. They use factslike lawyers to argue their
case.
Camille Hall-Ortega (22:01):
Mhmm.
Tod Bolsinger (22:01):
So until we name that we are actually trying hard
to win and hold on to powerrather than actually make things
for the common good, we're gonnawe're gonna have just a deficit
of trust.
Camille Hall-Ortega (22:14):
Yeah. I'm hearing a lot, I think, of
probably some misconceptionsthat our society has adopted
about leadership, and you'rekind of turning some of those
things on their heads. What doyou think are some top
misconceptions about leaders andleadership?
Tod Bolsinger (22:31):
Well, one of them is that I so I have a couple
things we work on a lot. Onething we talk about in one of
our little books, we have a bookcalled The Mission Always Wins.
The Mission Always Wins. Sountil we're all agreed on what
is the mission, what's thepurpose, what's the highest
value, so even the Lewis andClark story is interesting. They
were sent to find a water routethat would a navigable water
(22:52):
route that would be part of theeconomic plan of this new
country, the United States ofAmerica, a water route that
people have been looking for for300 years.
What they got to is the realityof the mountains that there was
no water route, but they didn'tgo back because they had a
deeper value. It was anenlightenment value. And I could
sit here and argue with youwhether it's at the right value
or not, but they had a deepervalue. And the enlightenment
(23:15):
value was the growth of humanknowledge will lead to the
growth of human happiness. Sowe're gonna keep exploring.
Even though it's not gonna begood economically for us, we're
gonna keep exploring becausethere's a deeper value. Until we
get clear on the deeper valuesthat we all agree on and until
we get clear on the mission thatwe're all put in front of us,
(23:37):
work is gonna be very hard. Sothe values I would say values
are more important than visionright now, and mission is more
important than any person, anyleader. What is the mission? The
mission wins.
Not the leader, not thestakeholders, not the donors,
not the people with the money,not the people who are the
loudest, the mission. And untilwe're clear on those things,
it's gonna be hard to moveforward.
Marcus Goodyear (23:58):
Well, one of the reasons, Tod, that we
invited you here is because ourmission is to cultivate
wholeness in people andinstitutions for the
transformation of communities.And it was the we kinda latched
on to that idea oftransformation, began looking
who can help us think aboutthis? Do you think of wholeness
as part of leadership?
Tod Bolsinger (24:18):
So I always say, the precursor to transformation
is health. Right? Soorganizational health is mostly
clarity. That's what I mean, thesimplest way to think about
organizational health isclarity. It doesn't mean it's
perfect, but we're really clear.
So when we when we get asked towork with organization, we
always start with, okay, sohealth is clarity. What's the
most important things? What isthe things that are not gonna
(24:40):
change? What are the values thathave been that have been, that
have anchored us?
And the actual values, not ouraspirational values. Let's get
clear on those things. And thenonce we're we're aligned and
we're living out our our valuesand our behavior, now we can
start talking about how we moveforward together.
Camille Hall-Ortega (24:58):
I'm wondering about I think our
tendency and maybe this is aboutus not wanting to feel pain or
feel lost, but I think for a lotof folks, when we're going
through change, we want ouruncertainty to be reduced. But
it sounds like maybe you'resaying there might may maybe
(25:22):
there's a a need to lean intothat uncertainty. Because it
sounds like you're you wouldchallenge a good leader to own
uncertainty. Can you talk moreabout that?
Tod Bolsinger (25:31):
Yeah. So adaptive leadership, which is the
leadership's mature work I do,starts when there are no best
practices. Right? There's nobest practices. We don't know
what to do.
It literally, for me, thebiblical text in second
Chronicles, lord, we don't knowwhat to do, but our eyes are on
you. Right?
Camille Hall-Ortega (25:49):
Oh, wow. That's great.
Tod Bolsinger (25:50):
Like, so the hardest part about that is it
starts then when somebody looksat the leader and says, Camille,
you're our leader. I trust you.I'm following you. I'm here on
your team.
What are we gonna do? Andbecause you're a good leader,
you gotta look them in the eyeand say the 3 hardest words for
any human to say. Like, harderthan I love you.
Camille Hall-Ortega (26:07):
Right. Right.
Tod Bolsinger (26:07):
Right. People think I love you. I forgive you.
I'm sorry. Those are not evennearly as hard as standing
before someone who trusts youand is looking for you for
leadership, and you got to say Idon't know.
Camille Hall-Ortega (26:17):
Wow.
Tod Bolsinger (26:18):
And it is still ours to do, so we're gonna
figure it out together.
Marcus Goodyear (26:22):
Yeah. So it's looking beyond yourself. And and
that's that's a good word.
Tod Bolsinger (26:26):
And we and we work we do this with churches
and organizations. We say tothem I mean, we ask this
question, how might your charismthat's a kind of a Catholic
word, your gifts, your values,the uniqueness that is you. How
might your charism address thepain point of the world as an
expression of what God wants todo in the world? How might your
(26:47):
cares and make the pain point ofthe world? It's not just how
might you get to be theorganization or church you wanna
be and ask people to support it.
And it's not just no matter whatwe gotta do, we gotta take on
the things of this world thatare painful. Like, I would think
Jesus didn't take everything on.Right? There were people he
walked by.
(27:07):
Right? He healed one person atthe pool of Bethsaida. Thank God
he did. We got a great story,but a lot of other people he
passed by. So what is it for us?
And that's the discernment work.That's why I say the spiritual
gift that every leader has tocultivate and every community
has to cultivate is discernment.His discernment helps us to say,
what is ours to do? What is thetransformation we need to take
(27:30):
on? What is the thing we need tobe willing to lay down?
Camille Hall-Ortega (27:35):
I'm wondering we're talking a lot
about kind of what a leaderbrings to the table and how that
affects the folks that they'releading. But what about the
leader themselves? What if theyhave been hurt or betrayed in
some way? How do they trust, andhow do they how how do they have
(27:56):
to adjust from those past hurtsfor themselves?
Tod Bolsinger (28:00):
Well, my first answer is every leader has been
betrayed or hurt in some waybecause we are humans. Right?
When we're so the the mostimportant thing for me then is
don't fake that. Like, I don'tbelieve fake it till you make
it. I really don't.
I understand the the the mindsetof that. But I really think that
what you were actually doing istelling the truth. Like, so when
I walk into a room if I like,I'm aware of this. I rarely
(28:23):
struggle with whether or notpeople are gonna like me if I'm
working with them. For somereason, I'm pretty freed from
that.
But what I'm not freed from is Iactually wonder whether or not
they're gonna respect my work.Like, I will be aware of
everybody when I'm speaking.Anybody who closes their eyes
for a second because it's thelate afternoon and they've had
a, like, a a sugar low, like, Iwill think in my head, I will
(28:47):
have that person's face, andI'll think later. They're
thinking, well, there's 2 hoursI'm never getting back. Right?
Like I struggle with peopledoubting my competence or
whether or not I get a badvalue. Now once I say that out
loud, I realize, okay. That'susually me. I mean, sometimes I
gotta do a better job, butthat's usually me being overly
insecure. I just have to let goof and Yeah. Ask, I just got to
(29:09):
let go of and Yeah. Ask and lookfor healing and recognize that
leaders are formed in theleading. You're actually formed
in the process. It's not likeyou get it all worked out and
then you get asked to lead.
Camille Hall-Ortega (29:20):
That's really good.
Marcus Goodyear (29:21):
All this talk about kind of the pitfalls of
leadership and and the trust andthe mistrust, it it makes me
think of something I readsomething I heard, sorry, at
Laity Lodge many, many yearsago, 2011. So several years ago
now from Linda Roberts. She wasspeaking there. Laity Lodge is
our adult retreat centeroperated by the H.E.Butt
Foundation here in the TexasHill Country. And she was
(29:44):
talking about trust and mistrustand how it feels like
everything's at stake, but Godcan use it all for good. So I'd
like to play this clip. It's alittle bit old and scratchy, but
I think you'll be able to hearit.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
So much of what happens to us in growing up is
about trust and mistrust. Andone of the things that we know
is that when we're raisingchildren, we do the best job we
can, but we blow it. Right? Whatwe have to trust is that the
mistrust they get from what wedo wrong because we're not
(30:20):
perfect, that that mistrust Godwill use.
Marcus Goodyear (30:26):
So, Tod, when you hear that, does that set you
free as a leader? Is that hardto accept?
Tod Bolsinger (30:33):
What Linda is really saying here is as a
leader, just like as a parent,you have to trust that you're
gonna be imperfect. And thatthat literally our active that I
always think my activeleadership or our active being a
person who steps in and lead,into a leadership position is an
act of service. I put it on thealtar. God's gonna use it.
(30:53):
I want God to multiply it. And Ihad somebody say to me, God
works through us and in spite ofus. That's an important thing to
remember. It keeps me humble,and it keeps me from thinking
that I'm the person with thesolution. But it's also when in
times when I have been theperson with a leader who has
hurt me or who has not who hasfailed me, It's helped me to
(31:14):
realize, I can what I often canlearn at this moment is to look
beyond that leader to what Iwant from God.
And I think it's reallyimportant. You know, people say
you learn the best from reallygifted leaders with obvious
flaws. And when you startthinking about that, it gives
you the opportunity to then takeresponsibility for yourself.
Right? So, I mean, I come from afamily of really, really great
(31:37):
people, but to be honest, wewere not good listeners.
I did not learn how to listen inmy family. We learned how to
talk over each other. I need alot of people in my life who
said, Tod, you're a good talker.But you know, brother, what you
need? And I needed to hear thata lot.
And I didn't learn that from theleaders who were my models. I
(31:58):
had to learn that from peoplewho confronted my leadership
problems. And I'm better I'm amuch better listener today than
I used to be.
Marcus Goodyear (32:07):
I just feel like that is a common problem in
our culture, that we are allgood at talking. We're good at
posting. We're good atcommenting. We're good at
thinking somebody wants to hearour take instead of listening.
It's just just the world needsmore listeners.
Tod Bolsinger (32:24):
One of the ways I found myself to getting into
that was by saying, I'm gonnalearn to listen as deeply as I
need to until I completelyunderstand what the other
person's saying.
Camille Hall-Ortega (32:36):
That's so good. I love that. We we heard
from another guest that we spokewith that you want to be able to
share someone's story in the waythat they would share it. That
you wanna be able to listen tothem so well that you could
share their story in the waythat they would they would share
it themselves.
Tod Bolsinger (32:54):
Oh, that's beautiful. See, I'll take that.
That's good. I'll I'll practicethat. That's beautiful.
Camille Hall-Ortega (32:58):
That's awesome.
Marcus Goodyear (32:59):
Which is a lot of what we try to do in Echoes.
We're trying to to share otherpeople's stories in partnership
with them in Echoes Magazine.And often that means we do the
journalism no no of the subjectgets to review the story. We try
to we're we're not looking forpuff pieces, so we're not gonna,
(33:20):
you know, we're not gonna bringin somebody who's just gonna
spread their agenda.
But at the same time, we wannamake sure that they feel honored
and that they feel that thestory is representing them well.
Tod Bolsinger (33:30):
Yeah.
Marcus Goodyear (33:30):
Todd, any any last thoughts or last words for
us? Anything we didn't think toask you?
Tod Bolsinger (33:36):
Well, you this is a great conversation because it
was so far ranging. I would saythat maybe to circle back to the
whole part about trust. WheneverI say to people there's no
transformation without trust, Ialways say, if you need to, stop
right here. Like, if you doubtthat, stop right here. Because
trust is a sine qua non.
(33:57):
Like, you're right. The factthat our country doesn't trust
each other, it's going to bevery hard for us to be
transformed into the nation wewant to be or the culture we
want to be. So you're right. Itstarts with that. What I just
want people to get though isstockpiling trust, especially if
you're a leader that everybodytrusts me and I don't wanna lose
anybody's trust and I don'twanna do anything to make
anybody mad at me.
Stockpiling it's like building abig barn filled with seed, and
(34:21):
everybody's starving becausethere's no fruit. You're gonna
have to figure out how to buildthat seed and plant that seed in
such a way in a healthy soilthat will bear fruit. And that's
that's the that's the workthat's the work that has to be
done.
Marcus Goodyear (34:33):
So a a leader uses the trust that they've
built up in order to address thepain people are going to feel as
they're transformed.
Tod Bolsinger (34:42):
Yeah. Yeah. And one of my little books is called
Invest in Transformation, andit's Invest Trust in
Transformation. That's what it'sabout.
Marcus Goodyear (34:50):
Yeah. In fact, that book is one of the ones
that guided this conversation,and it's part of a 4 part series
that you can get right now byTod Bolsinger. And there's an
illustrator as well whose nameis, I think, listed as an
author. It's very good. And, ofcourse, Canoeing the Mountains,
as well.
Thanks.
Tod Bolsinger (35:07):
Thank you.
Marcus Goodyear (35:07):
Tod, thank you so much for your time. Thank
you. It's been great to talk toyou again. It's been too long.
And, I'm grateful for all thatyou're doing out there, for
leaders, for Christians, allthat you've done for Laity Lodge
and the H.E.Butt Foundation inthe past. It's been great to
talk with you.
Tod Bolsinger (35:24):
Thank you.
Camille Hall-Ortega (35:25):
Thanks, Tod.
Marcus Goodyear (35:29):
The Echoes Podcast is written and produced
by Camille Hall-Ortega, RobStennett, and me, Marcus
Goodyear. It's edited by RobStennett and Kim Stone. Our
executive producers are PattonDodd and David Rogers. Special
thanks to our guest today, TodBolzinger. The Echoes Podcast is
a production brought to you bythe H.E.Butt Foundation.
You can learn more about ourvision and mission at
(35:49):
hebfdn.org.
When I was a kid, I had the original toy of
transformation. I'm not talkingabout Optimus Prime. I'm talking
about Lego. Santa brought me aLego spaceship which I built,
but then my sister and I couldtake it apart and build a
different spaceship, our owncreation. And then we could take
that spaceship apart and buildanything.
Even spaceships for my Star Warsfigures and a little jail cell
(00:30):
for my sister's princess Leiafigure. And she has since told
me that most of our Star Warsplay involved her waiting for my
Luke to rescue her Leia from aLEGO box. As a boy in the
1980's, I couldn't transformthose LEGOs beyond my childish
understanding of masculinity. Idon't see my sister that often
anymore, but I understand nowthat we are equals. That is, I
try not to put her in a box ofmy own expectations and make her
(00:53):
wait for rescue.
I like to think transformationis always possible. Little boys
and little girls grow up.Tadpoles transform into
bullfrogs. Caterpillarstransform into butterflies.
People turn into better people,communities into better
communities.
But transformation takes work.Those Legos don't build
(01:13):
themselves. Those little kidsdon't raise themselves very
well. And change can be scary,sometimes even painful. When we
face deep change, it's easy topine for the good old days, you
know, before everything changedand we could just go play with
our LEGO.
But change is required, and agood leader helps people
navigate that transformation.From the H.E.Butt Foundation,
(01:35):
this is The Echoes Podcast. Ontoday's episode, we welcome Tod
Bolsinger. Tod is the founder ofa Sloan Leadership Incorporated
with his wife, Beth, and authorof Canoeing the Mountains and
the Practicing Change series.I'm Marcus Goodyear, here with
my co host, Camille Hall-Ortega.
Today, we're going to talk abouttransformation and how good
leaders help us navigate thepain of change. Tod, welcome to
(01:58):
the podcast.
Tod Bolsinger (01:59):
It is my pleasure. Thank you for having
me.
Camille Hall-Ortega (02:02):
We're glad to have you.
In your work on leadership, Tod,you say that there is no
transformation without trust,but you also say don't rely on
trust. So can you please explainthat those two things seem
opposed to each other?
Tod Bolsinger (02:12):
Yeah. So when you talk about leadership, I always
say leadership is abouttransformation. That's why
leadership is not about a title.It's not about having a heavy
heavy furniture in a corneroffice. It's about how do you
lead a people through a kind oftransformation so they can
accomplish the mission that's infront of them.
That's what makes leadershipleadership. And so and it's also
what makes it different than,say, management. Management is a
(02:34):
really important skill set. I'mnot a person who thinks that
leadership is more importantthan management. But management
is about taking chaos andbringing order and control and
taking care of the thingsentrusted to your care, as my
colleague Scott Cormode says,and handling them as good
stewards, handling them over toother people.
That's all really important. Butleadership is where it requires
(02:58):
transformation. So when Moses isstanding on the other side of
the Red Sea, the manager wouldsay, "Hey, we checked the map,
and it's gonna take us 6 weeksof hard hard walk to get to the
promised land." The leader knowsit's 40 years, and not
everybody's gonna get there.
Marcus Goodyear (03:18):
Are those skill sets mutually exclusive?
Tod Bolsinger (03:20):
They're not mutually exclusive, but they
oftentimes get confused. Right?So many times, people who have
been good managers get askedthen to become leaders. And this
is when the trust andtransformation stuff works.
Right?
So I always tell people, there'sno transformation without trust.
And good managers build trust.Like, they're technically
competent. They care for you.They do what they say they're
(03:43):
gonna do.
They hit their deadlines. They,you know, they accomplish the
the things that are on the to dolist. Right? But trust is not
transformation. Transformationrequires people to go through
change.
So you need there to be hightrust, but you can't rely on
trust if you're gonna leadpeople through transformation.
It actually you have to getcomfortable with the fact that
when you take people throughtransformation, people who go
(04:06):
through transformation resisted.Right. You said it, change is
scary. That's the thing.
You're taking people through.You're taking them through the
scary part, through themetamorphosis, through the, you
know, the chrysalis stage.You're taking through all those
things that are scary. Thattakes a lot of trust, but
usually the trust goes down atthat moment, which is why you
need a big wellspring of trust.
Marcus Goodyear (04:26):
So is this why the our culture is experiencing
a a lack of trust overall? Arewe just going through a major
transformation as a culture?
Tod Bolsinger (04:35):
Well, I think in some senses, yeah. So one of the
things that I have to tellpeople is remember that the root
word for family and familiar arethe same root word. So when you
go through something unfamiliaror you ask someone to step into
something unfamiliar, or all ofa sudden the world around you
changes in such a way that itfeels unfamiliar, what most
(04:55):
people feel is not justdisoriented. They feel
unfamlied. They feel abandoned.
Right? They they feel and whenthey get highly anxious, and
then what they want is someoneto say, don't worry. I'll manage
this chaos. I'll take care ofit. I'll do it perfectly.
I know exactly the solution.
Matter of fact, I wanna promiseyou that I alone, I'm the only
one who can solve it. Right? Andpeople want that, and,
(05:17):
unfortunately, that keeps usfrom transformation because real
leadership requires us tochange. It invites us into a a
collective or communalexperience of transformation.
Camille Hall-Ortega (05:29):
That just reminds me of something that I
thought about when I was readingup on your work was that I
wondered how much expectationscome into play that we we hear
about change being painful andchange being difficult. And I
wonder if a lot of that has todo with expectations or I
(05:49):
thought of, expectancy violationtheory that maybe it's maybe
it's just that folks need toknow that there's a lot of
uncertainty in that change andthat maybe a good leader is one
that's telling people what toexpect even if it's it's gonna
be really hard or we're gonnahave times where it looks like
it's getting worse before itgets better. Or what what does
(06:12):
that look like to sort of setexpectations in a way that might
help with the pain of change?
Tod Bolsinger (06:17):
Well, you're exactly right. Good leaders do
set expectations, and they willtell you the truth. The problem
is most of us want eitherconsciously or unconsciously a
leader who's going to exceed ourexpectations and make this
change painless for us. Theywant us to make it easy. So what
we do is we end up in thisthing.
And this is actually one of thethings that's really
(06:38):
interesting. A lot of researchis that men get asked to take on
roles oftentimes beyond theircompetency because they project
confidence.
Marcus Goodyear (06:47):
Do you think that our culture has a bias
toward male leadership becauseof that?
Tod Bolsinger (06:51):
Oh, a 100%. That's not even clear. That's
because we have we have decades,centuries of assuming that
leadership is, masculine. Almostall the traits when you ask
people, what is a trait of aleader? What does a leader look
like?
It starts with tall. It's it'susually right? It starts with
tall.
Marcus Goodyear (07:09):
It's like King Saul. Right?
Tod Bolsinger (07:11):
Exactly. Exactly. Right. Right.
King Saul is like thequintessential I mean, for
anybody who has ears to hear,has a biblical imagination, you
better realize we have theseimages of David as this great
king who brought down toGoliath. But he was the one the
runt of the litter who was notpicked because he didn't fit the
mold of leadership. So, yeah,the most biggest bias of all is
(07:33):
that. And what's interesting isChristians fall into it even
though our sacred text literallytells us the opposite, right
down to Jesus, who was the manof sorrows, who did disappointed
because he didn't look like theleader, came in on a donkey
rather than a stallion. Right?
All those things. So, yeah, wehave these expectations of
leadership. And I thinkunconsciously, our expectation
of leadership is they're gonnasolve our problems so we don't
(07:55):
have to change. And that's thebig disappointment.
Camille Hall-Ortega (07:59):
That's so important. I'm I'm very curious
about what you've what you'vesaid about men and women because
I think it begs the question,what do we do about that? Is it
that we need to adjust ourexpectations that we we don't
need to be looking for a tallmale leader, or or do women need
to be more confident even ifthey're faking it? Right? What
(08:23):
what do you how do you weigh inon on the solve for that?
Tod Bolsinger (08:26):
Well, the first thing for almost every one of
these solves whenever you get agap like that. So the place
where my leadership stuff isbuilt is on adaptive leadership,
which is always in the gapbetween espoused values and
actual values or the gap betweenwhat we say we wanted to be
about and what we actually do.The first thing we gotta do is
(08:47):
we gotta name that gap. We justgotta name up front. We have
this bias.
What if you can't name it, youcan't navigate it. And then what
we gotta do is ask ourselves, sowhat do we get out of keeping
that bias? And mostly what weget is to live with the illusion
that our leaders are gonna makeour lives are gonna fix our
problems. They're gonna be ourquick fixes. Instead of our
(09:09):
leaders are the people who aregoing to empower us to
collaboratively fix themtogether so that we can be
transformed.
Camille Hall-Ortega (09:17):
Really good. Really good.
Marcus Goodyear (09:20):
So leaders, you you have said leaders need a
willingness to walk peoplethrough the disruption of
change, this transformationprocess you're talking about,
and that they have to be willingto disappoint people at a rate
that people can absorb. And thenjust a moment ago, you were
talking about Jesus. Would yousay that Jesus is a leader who
(09:41):
disappointed people at a ratethey could absorb?
Tod Bolsinger (09:44):
Well, it's so interesting because that quote,
disappointing people at a ratethey can absorb, comes from
Marty Linsky, who is a personwho I've gotten to know. He
wrote the foreword for my littlePracticing Change books, and
he's a really remarkable leaderand scholar and consultant. And
what's interesting is I knowMarty personally, and he
wouldn't have been thinkingabout Jesus because he's
actually Jewish by background.And he would tell me that he's
(10:06):
unreligious. But he asked me,why do Christians like adaptive
leadership?
Like, that's the stuff that Ido. I work with faith leaders.
And I told him, it's becausewhat you're describing is what
we really believe we found andsaw in Jesus, a person who's
willing to take people throughthe disappointment. And at
times, they could absorb it. Attimes, it took them it took them
(10:27):
a while.
Yeah. At times at times, theycouldn't. They did crucify him.
Marcus Goodyear (10:31):
I feel like it's taking us 2000 years to
absorb it. Right?
Tod Bolsinger (10:34):
Yeah. Exactly.
Marcus Goodyear (10:34):
We're still not there.
Tod Bolsinger (10:36):
Right. Right. And even the even the power of the
Holy Spirit, in Pentecost isreally about convincing a group
of people that have anexperience that says that thing
you thought was the kingdom ofGod, which you thought was a
military overthrow of Rome, isactually a radical
transformation of all the earthstarting with you. It's not
(10:57):
about us and them. It's startingwith me first. That's the that's
the whole Christianunderstanding that it starts
with my own confession of my ownfaith, my own sin, my own need
to, be forgiven of my sin.
Marcus Goodyear (11:08):
So you've made it very personal. Right?
And yet leadership is abouttransforming communities, and I
I've heard a lot of people,commenting on how personal
Christian faith has become, inrecent decades, maybe the last
100, 200 years. How do you thinkabout transforming an entire
community rather than just theindividuals within that
(11:32):
community?
Tod Bolsinger (11:33):
Yeah. I often say that if we had taught all of our
children from the minute theyever went to Sunday school, that
the most important verse was,your kingdom come, your will be
done on earth. Before you taughtthem John 3:16, "For God so
loved the world that he gave hisonly begotten son." It's really
important, the world, but wetake that as me. So I say
(11:57):
Christianity is personal, butit's not private.
It is personal so that I takepersonal responsibility to say
yes to something that is gonnatransform me in in a community.
That's why I believe we arebaptized into a people of God
for the sake of the world. It'sfor the sake of the
transformation of the wholeworld. What happens very often,
(12:18):
and I think this happens in alot of our singing and a lot of
our prayers and our programs, isit becomes not just personal,
Marcus. It becomes private.
Becomes just disconnected fromthe community. And I'll tell you
one place. I'm I'm a pastor bytraining. I was taught how to
work with individuals to gothrough loss and grief and
(12:40):
transformation. But most of uswere never taught how to to take
a community through loss andgrief and transformation, let
alone an organization throughloss and grief and
transformation that we wouldchoose so that we might be able
to participate in God'stransformation of the world.
Camille Hall-Ortega (13:02):
Well, you're talking about change, and
you're saying change is painful.Is it always painful? Is that
true to is that fair to say thatchange or transformation is
always painful?
Tod Bolsinger (13:15):
Well, sometimes it's chosen, but I think that so
I do really believe that changeis experienced as loss. And I
guess maybe it's because, youknow, I'm I'm 60, and I know
what it's like to have childrenwho are adults who no longer
play Legos with me. Right.
Marcus Goodyear (13:30):
Right. Right.
Tod Bolsinger (13:31):
Who are not home.
Marcus Goodyear (13:32):
That's what grandchildren are for. That's
what grandchildren are for.
Tod Bolsinger (13:34):
And and who are taking their own time to give me
grandchildren.
Marcus Goodyear (13:37):
Oh, no.
Tod Bolsinger (13:38):
But, I mean, like, it's like I love my kids,
but I I miss the heck out ofthem. And so, like, part of it
is wanting them to flourish asadults means I don't get to have
them under my own roof. Like,there's always loss.
There's always but that loss isgood loss. It's good grief. You
were letting go of the things sothat we can step into the new
(13:59):
into the new. But it is a it isa kind of loss.
Marcus Goodyear (14:02):
Yeah.
Camille Hall-Ortega (14:03):
And so what are what would you say are some
top ways that or maybe youwouldn't say that. Maybe maybe
not accept this premise, butsome ways to kind of deal with
the pain of that of thoseFeeling of loss.
Tod Bolsinger (14:17):
Yeah. Well well, one of them is just to
acknowledge the need for it. So,like, so, like, like, the book
that I'm probably most wellknown for Canoeing in the
Mountains is really a book thatsays, it uses the story of Lewis
and Clark to say that there wasthis European mental model of
the world that became theEuropean mental model of the
continent that assumedeverything was just a
continuation of the past.Eighteen months of traveling in
(14:41):
canoes upstream, and they got tothe Rocky Mountains. They
realized the world in front ofthem was nothing like the world
behind them, that the geographyof the west was, like, unlike
anything people of Europeandescent had ever seen before,
and that they couldn't just keepcanoeing their way forward,
which means that they had toactually, at that moment, drop
(15:01):
the canoes and become hikers.
They had to become mountainclimbers instead of canoers. It
it required a transformation
Camille Hall-Ortega (15:09):
Yeah.
Marcus Goodyear (15:09):
And they had to look to a different leader too.
Right?
Tod Bolsinger (15:12):
Well, the probably the biggest
transformation of all was thatthey began to listen to
Sacagawea. So they never paidattention to a teenage native
American nursing mother. Theydidn't write it down a single
word she said until they neededher to be the person who we can
who was the relational bridgewith the Shoshone that actually
helped them get through themountains. And so so it required
even so think about this.Meriwether Lewis was tutored by
(15:33):
Thomas Jefferson in the WhiteHouse.
But when he got so far off themap, he needed to listen to
someone who probably up untilthat moment, he barely
acknowledged her humanity.
Camille Hall-Ortega (15:43):
Woah.
Tod Bolsinger (15:44):
Now he had to be willing to. And not only did he
willing to, he did. And theywere remarkable. And when they
were off the map, they were thisremarkable community of people.
And the sad part of the story iswhen they finally when they went
back home, they basicallyreverted back to their old ways.
Camille Hall-Ortega (16:02):
Okay. So I I would imagine then that, and
I've I've always pronounced itSacagawea, but you're
pronouncing it correctly. I'msure. So help me with the name
here. Sacagawea. Is that right?
Tod Bolsinger (16:15):
Yeah. So this is interesting. We all learned her
name as Sacagawea. Yeah. Butthey actually wrote her name
down in the journals with k'sSakagawea or g's Sacagawea. And
so, I think it's good to giveher back her name, personally.
Camille Hall-Ortega (16:29):
Yes. I think that's great. I'm
imagining that she perhaps hadsome moments where she was
leading some reluctant folks.Right? That maybe they didn't
see her as competent until theyreally needed her.
How do you lead people who arereluctant?
Tod Bolsinger (16:48):
Yeah. Well, one of the ways okay. So let's
circle back to where we started.Yeah. She was incredibly
trustworthy.
Like, she was competent. I mean,like, actually, they they have
in their journals stuff likeCharbonneau, who's who's or her
husband, was completelyincompetent. Like, they
tolerated that guy because theyneeded her. Right? She was the
competent one.
(17:09):
But because of the way that thethe way the 18th century, you
know, European men thought aboutNative American people, you
know, they needed that theyneeded to bring the husband, and
the husband literally broughthis wife. And and they've only
brought one of his wives. Wedon't know what he did to his
other wives he had. So what werealized is we actually live in
this place where what she did isdemonstrated her confidence over
(17:32):
and over again, so they trustedher. And that led to their
transformation.
Camille Hall-Ortega (17:37):
Okay.
Marcus Goodyear (17:38):
And and what what it the transformation came
when they were able to set asidetheir old world assumptions
about what they expected to findand what what had been built up
in their mind. And, you know,they dropped the canoes like you
said. So but that that I alwayswanna come back to the present.
What old world assumptions arewe carrying around with us that
(17:59):
people, you know, a 100, 200years from now are gonna just
shake their head?
What what do we as individualsor Christians or Americans need
to let go of, in your opinion?
Tod Bolsinger (18:08):
So one of the things that I work with leaders
almost every single day is thatas my new little books, the
Practicing Change series, arewhat I call the 4 big mistakes
good leaders make. And one ofthe mistakes that almost every
good leader makes is believingthat at the moment of crisis,
they will have what it they needto rise the occasion. And what
(18:29):
they actually do is default totheir training. And if we were
trained well, great. We'llrespond well.
But if we were trained forcanoeing and you're facing
mountains, you'll tend to doubledown on paddling harder. And
then next thing you know, you'vejust burned out your rotator
cuff, you've exhausted yourself,and you haven't gone anywhere.
Camille Hall-Ortega (18:49):
Yeah.
Tod Bolsinger (18:49):
So one of the things we have to give up is, I
would say, is the expertexpectation. I think the single
biggest thing to give up in achanging world is that you the
expert will take you forward.
It's not the expert. It's thelearner.
Marcus Goodyear (19:04):
And that requires trust. Right?
Tod Bolsinger (19:06):
It requires trust and humility. Like, I mean, Eric
Hoffer said, you know, "In achanging world, learners inherit
the earth, and the learned findthemselves beautifully equipped
for a world that no longerexists."
Camille Hall-Ortega (19:18):
Wow.
Tod Bolsinger (19:19):
And what we have is a lot of leaders who want
people to trust you because Iwas an expert. And what they
need to learn is to trust youbecause I will lead us through
the learning. I'm humble enoughto say I need help. We're gonna
do this together. We're gonnacollaborate.
We're not gonna leave outvoices. We're gonna bring in
voices we haven't listened tobefore. How about diverse voices
(19:39):
like Sacagawea, who is on hometerritory, and we're and we're
not listening to her. Right?That that's what good leadership
looks like today.
Marcus Goodyear (19:47):
So good. The idea of trust is one that I get
a little stuck on. I mentionedearlier that we don't have a lot
of trust in our society, ormaybe it feels like we don't
have a lot of trust in oursociety. I don't know. There's 2
little studies I read recently.
One of them said only 22% ofAmericans trust the government
to do the right thing. Period.And I read another study that
(20:10):
said only 32% of Americans saidthey have a great deal or quite
a lot of confidence in organizedreligion and churches. And I
was, reading The Righteous Mindover the weekend where he talks
about just the the the failureof people's ability to trust
institutions and how ourinstitutions are losing our
trust.
How do we rebuild trust? I knowI know for leaders, you've said
(20:34):
we a leader rebuilds trustthrough skills, through earning
that trust. How does aninstitution earn trust? How do
we as a culture earn trust witheach other again?
Tod Bolsinger (20:46):
Yeah. It's so we talk about trust being built
through technical competence.That's the credibility of doing
the things that are the mostimportant. But it's doing what
you said you're gonna do. It'sdoing what you're entrusted
with.
Right? So I always say to topastors and religious leaders,
like, if you if people can'ttrust you with the texts, the
sacred texts, and they can'ttrust you with the traditions,
(21:07):
they can't trust you with souls,they can't trust you with
meetings and money. They can'ttrust you with all those things.
They're not if they can't trustyou on the map, they're not
gonna follow you off the map. Soit starts with competence, but
it also requires relationalcongruence.
And I think right now, what wehave is a giant trust issue in
(21:28):
credibility and authority. Wehave so much cynicism. It's so
high that people actually don'ttrust news reports. They don't
trust any of the the markers inour culture that we used to look
to for to be wise brokers. Noweverybody's on a team.
And, you know, Jonathan Haidt'swork on this has been so
(21:49):
powerful for me. Even even data.You know, Jonathan Haidt and
Adam Grant and others have said,people don't use facts anymore
like scientists. They use factslike lawyers to argue their
case.
Camille Hall-Ortega (22:01):
Mhmm.
Tod Bolsinger (22:01):
So until we name that we are actually trying hard
to win and hold on to powerrather than actually make things
for the common good, we're gonnawe're gonna have just a deficit
of trust.
Camille Hall-Ortega (22:14):
Yeah. I'm hearing a lot, I think, of
probably some misconceptionsthat our society has adopted
about leadership, and you'rekind of turning some of those
things on their heads. What doyou think are some top
misconceptions about leaders andleadership?
Tod Bolsinger (22:31):
Well, one of them is that I so I have a couple
things we work on a lot. Onething we talk about in one of
our little books, we have a bookcalled The Mission Always Wins.
The Mission Always Wins. Sountil we're all agreed on what
is the mission, what's thepurpose, what's the highest
value, so even the Lewis andClark story is interesting. They
were sent to find a water routethat would a navigable water
(22:52):
route that would be part of theeconomic plan of this new
country, the United States ofAmerica, a water route that
people have been looking for for300 years.
What they got to is the realityof the mountains that there was
no water route, but they didn'tgo back because they had a
deeper value. It was anenlightenment value. And I could
sit here and argue with youwhether it's at the right value
or not, but they had a deepervalue. And the enlightenment
(23:15):
value was the growth of humanknowledge will lead to the
growth of human happiness. Sowe're gonna keep exploring.
Even though it's not gonna begood economically for us, we're
gonna keep exploring becausethere's a deeper value. Until we
get clear on the deeper valuesthat we all agree on and until
we get clear on the mission thatwe're all put in front of us,
(23:37):
work is gonna be very hard. Sothe values I would say values
are more important than visionright now, and mission is more
important than any person, anyleader. What is the mission? The
mission wins.
Not the leader, not thestakeholders, not the donors,
not the people with the money,not the people who are the
loudest, the mission. And untilwe're clear on those things,
it's gonna be hard to moveforward.
Marcus Goodyear (23:58):
Well, one of the reasons, Tod, that we
invited you here is because ourmission is to cultivate
wholeness in people andinstitutions for the
transformation of communities.And it was the we kinda latched
on to that idea oftransformation, began looking
who can help us think aboutthis? Do you think of wholeness
as part of leadership?
Tod Bolsinger (24:18):
So I always say, the precursor to transformation
is health. Right? Soorganizational health is mostly
clarity. That's what I mean, thesimplest way to think about
organizational health isclarity. It doesn't mean it's
perfect, but we're really clear.
So when we when we get asked towork with organization, we
always start with, okay, sohealth is clarity. What's the
most important things? What isthe things that are not gonna
(24:40):
change? What are the values thathave been that have been, that
have anchored us?
And the actual values, not ouraspirational values. Let's get
clear on those things. And thenonce we're we're aligned and
we're living out our our valuesand our behavior, now we can
start talking about how we moveforward together.
Camille Hall-Ortega (24:58):
I'm wondering about I think our
tendency and maybe this is aboutus not wanting to feel pain or
feel lost, but I think for a lotof folks, when we're going
through change, we want ouruncertainty to be reduced. But
it sounds like maybe you'resaying there might may maybe
(25:22):
there's a a need to lean intothat uncertainty. Because it
sounds like you're you wouldchallenge a good leader to own
uncertainty. Can you talk moreabout that?
Tod Bolsinger (25:31):
Yeah. So adaptive leadership, which is the
leadership's mature work I do,starts when there are no best
practices. Right? There's nobest practices. We don't know
what to do.
It literally, for me, thebiblical text in second
Chronicles, lord, we don't knowwhat to do, but our eyes are on
you. Right?
Camille Hall-Ortega (25:49):
Oh, wow. That's great.
Tod Bolsinger (25:50):
Like, so the hardest part about that is it
starts then when somebody looksat the leader and says, Camille,
you're our leader. I trust you.I'm following you. I'm here on
your team.
What are we gonna do? Andbecause you're a good leader,
you gotta look them in the eyeand say the 3 hardest words for
any human to say. Like, harderthan I love you.
Camille Hall-Ortega (26:07):
Right. Right.
Tod Bolsinger (26:07):
Right. People think I love you. I forgive you.
I'm sorry. Those are not evennearly as hard as standing
before someone who trusts youand is looking for you for
leadership, and you got to say Idon't know.
Camille Hall-Ortega (26:17):
Wow.
Tod Bolsinger (26:18):
And it is still ours to do, so we're gonna
figure it out together.
Marcus Goodyear (26:22):
Yeah. So it's looking beyond yourself. And and
that's that's a good word.
Tod Bolsinger (26:26):
And we and we work we do this with churches
and organizations. We say tothem I mean, we ask this
question, how might your charismthat's a kind of a Catholic
word, your gifts, your values,the uniqueness that is you. How
might your charism address thepain point of the world as an
expression of what God wants todo in the world? How might your
(26:47):
cares and make the pain point ofthe world? It's not just how
might you get to be theorganization or church you wanna
be and ask people to support it.
And it's not just no matter whatwe gotta do, we gotta take on
the things of this world thatare painful. Like, I would think
Jesus didn't take everything on.Right? There were people he
walked by.
(27:07):
Right? He healed one person atthe pool of Bethsaida. Thank God
he did. We got a great story,but a lot of other people he
passed by. So what is it for us?
And that's the discernment work.That's why I say the spiritual
gift that every leader has tocultivate and every community
has to cultivate is discernment.His discernment helps us to say,
what is ours to do? What is thetransformation we need to take
(27:30):
on? What is the thing we need tobe willing to lay down?
Camille Hall-Ortega (27:35):
I'm wondering we're talking a lot
about kind of what a leaderbrings to the table and how that
affects the folks that they'releading. But what about the
leader themselves? What if theyhave been hurt or betrayed in
some way? How do they trust, andhow do they how how do they have
(27:56):
to adjust from those past hurtsfor themselves?
Tod Bolsinger (28:00):
Well, my first answer is every leader has been
betrayed or hurt in some waybecause we are humans. Right?
When we're so the the mostimportant thing for me then is
don't fake that. Like, I don'tbelieve fake it till you make
it. I really don't.
I understand the the the mindsetof that. But I really think that
what you were actually doing istelling the truth. Like, so when
I walk into a room if I like,I'm aware of this. I rarely
(28:23):
struggle with whether or notpeople are gonna like me if I'm
working with them. For somereason, I'm pretty freed from
that.
But what I'm not freed from is Iactually wonder whether or not
they're gonna respect my work.Like, I will be aware of
everybody when I'm speaking.Anybody who closes their eyes
for a second because it's thelate afternoon and they've had
a, like, a a sugar low, like, Iwill think in my head, I will
(28:47):
have that person's face, andI'll think later. They're
thinking, well, there's 2 hoursI'm never getting back. Right?
Like I struggle with peopledoubting my competence or
whether or not I get a badvalue. Now once I say that out
loud, I realize, okay. That'susually me. I mean, sometimes I
gotta do a better job, butthat's usually me being overly
insecure. I just have to let goof and Yeah. Ask, I just got to
(29:09):
let go of and Yeah. Ask and lookfor healing and recognize that
leaders are formed in theleading. You're actually formed
in the process. It's not likeyou get it all worked out and
then you get asked to lead.
Camille Hall-Ortega (29:20):
That's really good.
Marcus Goodyear (29:21):
All this talk about kind of the pitfalls of
leadership and and the trust andthe mistrust, it it makes me
think of something I readsomething I heard, sorry, at
Laity Lodge many, many yearsago, 2011. So several years ago
now from Linda Roberts. She wasspeaking there. Laity Lodge is
our adult retreat centeroperated by the H.E.Butt
Foundation here in the TexasHill Country. And she was
(29:44):
talking about trust and mistrustand how it feels like
everything's at stake, but Godcan use it all for good. So I'd
like to play this clip. It's alittle bit old and scratchy, but
I think you'll be able to hearit.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
So much of what happens to us in growing up is
about trust and mistrust. Andone of the things that we know
is that when we're raisingchildren, we do the best job we
can, but we blow it. Right? Whatwe have to trust is that the
mistrust they get from what wedo wrong because we're not
(30:20):
perfect, that that mistrust Godwill use.
Marcus Goodyear (30:26):
So, Tod, when you hear that, does that set you
free as a leader? Is that hardto accept?
Tod Bolsinger (30:33):
What Linda is really saying here is as a
leader, just like as a parent,you have to trust that you're
gonna be imperfect. And thatthat literally our active that I
always think my activeleadership or our active being a
person who steps in and lead,into a leadership position is an
act of service. I put it on thealtar. God's gonna use it.
(30:53):
I want God to multiply it. And Ihad somebody say to me, God
works through us and in spite ofus. That's an important thing to
remember. It keeps me humble,and it keeps me from thinking
that I'm the person with thesolution. But it's also when in
times when I have been theperson with a leader who has
hurt me or who has not who hasfailed me, It's helped me to
(31:14):
realize, I can what I often canlearn at this moment is to look
beyond that leader to what Iwant from God.
And I think it's reallyimportant. You know, people say
you learn the best from reallygifted leaders with obvious
flaws. And when you startthinking about that, it gives
you the opportunity to then takeresponsibility for yourself.
Right? So, I mean, I come from afamily of really, really great
(31:37):
people, but to be honest, wewere not good listeners.
I did not learn how to listen inmy family. We learned how to
talk over each other. I need alot of people in my life who
said, Tod, you're a good talker.But you know, brother, what you
need? And I needed to hear thata lot.
And I didn't learn that from theleaders who were my models. I
(31:58):
had to learn that from peoplewho confronted my leadership
problems. And I'm better I'm amuch better listener today than
I used to be.
Marcus Goodyear (32:07):
I just feel like that is a common problem in
our culture, that we are allgood at talking. We're good at
posting. We're good atcommenting. We're good at
thinking somebody wants to hearour take instead of listening.
It's just just the world needsmore listeners.
Tod Bolsinger (32:24):
One of the ways I found myself to getting into
that was by saying, I'm gonnalearn to listen as deeply as I
need to until I completelyunderstand what the other
person's saying.
Camille Hall-Ortega (32:36):
That's so good. I love that. We we heard
from another guest that we spokewith that you want to be able to
share someone's story in the waythat they would share it. That
you wanna be able to listen tothem so well that you could
share their story in the waythat they would they would share
it themselves.
Tod Bolsinger (32:54):
Oh, that's beautiful. See, I'll take that.
That's good. I'll I'll practicethat. That's beautiful.
Camille Hall-Ortega (32:58):
That's awesome.
Marcus Goodyear (32:59):
Which is a lot of what we try to do in Echoes.
We're trying to to share otherpeople's stories in partnership
with them in Echoes Magazine.And often that means we do the
journalism no no of the subjectgets to review the story. We try
to we're we're not looking forpuff pieces, so we're not gonna,
(33:20):
you know, we're not gonna bringin somebody who's just gonna
spread their agenda.
But at the same time, we wannamake sure that they feel honored
and that they feel that thestory is representing them well.
Tod Bolsinger (33:30):
Yeah.
Marcus Goodyear (33:30):
Todd, any any last thoughts or last words for
us? Anything we didn't think toask you?
Tod Bolsinger (33:36):
Well, you this is a great conversation because it
was so far ranging. I would saythat maybe to circle back to the
whole part about trust. WheneverI say to people there's no
transformation without trust, Ialways say, if you need to, stop
right here. Like, if you doubtthat, stop right here. Because
trust is a sine qua non.
(33:57):
Like, you're right. The factthat our country doesn't trust
each other, it's going to bevery hard for us to be
transformed into the nation wewant to be or the culture we
want to be. So you're right. Itstarts with that. What I just
want people to get though isstockpiling trust, especially if
you're a leader that everybodytrusts me and I don't wanna lose
anybody's trust and I don'twanna do anything to make
anybody mad at me.
Stockpiling it's like building abig barn filled with seed, and
(34:21):
everybody's starving becausethere's no fruit. You're gonna
have to figure out how to buildthat seed and plant that seed in
such a way in a healthy soilthat will bear fruit. And that's
that's the that's the workthat's the work that has to be
done.
Marcus Goodyear (34:33):
So a a leader uses the trust that they've
built up in order to address thepain people are going to feel as
they're transformed.
Tod Bolsinger (34:42):
Yeah. Yeah. And one of my little books is called
Invest in Transformation, andit's Invest Trust in
Transformation. That's what it'sabout.
Marcus Goodyear (34:50):
Yeah. In fact, that book is one of the ones
that guided this conversation,and it's part of a 4 part series
that you can get right now byTod Bolsinger. And there's an
illustrator as well whose nameis, I think, listed as an
author. It's very good. And, ofcourse, Canoeing the Mountains,
as well.
Thanks.
Tod Bolsinger (35:07):
Thank you.
Marcus Goodyear (35:07):
Tod, thank you so much for your time. Thank
you. It's been great to talk toyou again. It's been too long.
And, I'm grateful for all thatyou're doing out there, for
leaders, for Christians, allthat you've done for Laity Lodge
and the H.E.Butt Foundation inthe past. It's been great to
talk with you.
Tod Bolsinger (35:24):
Thank you.
Camille Hall-Ortega (35:25):
Thanks, Tod.
Marcus Goodyear (35:29):
The Echoes Podcast is written and produced
by Camille Hall-Ortega, RobStennett, and me, Marcus
Goodyear. It's edited by RobStennett and Kim Stone. Our
executive producers are PattonDodd and David Rogers. Special
thanks to our guest today, TodBolzinger. The Echoes Podcast is
a production brought to you bythe H.E.Butt Foundation.
You can learn more about ourvision and mission at
(35:49):
hebfdn.org.
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