February 5, 2025 • 52 mins
Unlock the secrets to impactful leadership with insights from Dr. Paul "Paulie" Gavoni and AJ Rinaldi. Discover how real leadership transcends titles and transforms cultures by focusing on influence and authenticity. Dr. Paulie reveals his journey from social work to leadership, driven by a passion for improving leadership practices. Meanwhile, AJ shares his wealth of experience in youth work and education, inspired by the wisdom of John Maxwell. Together, they offer a fresh perspective on the nuanced dance between leadership and management, urging us to look beyond mere positions to the heart of influence.
This episode promises to equip you with practical tools and real-world examples to enhance your leadership skills, no matter your formal position. Embark on a journey with us to redefine leadership as a set of behaviors that can transform not only organizations but also lives.
Pick up a copy of the #1 bestseller: Adaptive Intelligence: The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence Through the Proven Power of Behavior Science
The Behavioral Toolbox equips those charged with supporting behavior change in schools with practical applications of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference in the workplace. In this case, the classroom and school!
Be sure to subscribe to Dr. Paulie's Heart & Science YouTube channel for a variety of content related to behavior science and bringing out the best in yourself and others.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Heart and Science of Leadership, where
evidence meets empathy.
Co-hosted by Dr Paul Gavone, aWall Street Journal and USA
Today bestselling author, and AJRinaldi, a John Maxwell Team
certified leadership coach, thispodcast blends the human side
of leadership withevidence-based practices,
demonstrating that leadershipisn't about title or intent.
(00:24):
It's about impact.
And now here are your hosts,pauly and AJ.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
All right, welcome to the Heart and Science of
Leadership podcast, where webreak down what it really takes
to lead effectively, whetheryou're an executive teacher,
manager, principal supervisor orcoach.
I'm Dr Pauly and with myco-host, aj Rinaldi, we're here
to explore the balance betweenthe human side of leadership and
the science-backed strategiesthat make it work.
(00:54):
Now a little bit about myself.
I never expected to be a leader.
I find being in leadershippositions kind of stressful
because I really care about thepeople under my leadership, so I
take everything I do veryseriously.
I got into leadership because Isaw so many people with
positional authority strugglingin leadership and I think a lot
(01:16):
of them were good people butthey were engaging in behaviors
that I consider kind of badbecause they were coercive.
So I went on to get a coupledegrees in leadership, ended up
writing a few books onleadership and I have a little
bit of a different view andbring the science to the
background.
Leadership and I have heart too.
I came from social work but Iput the heart in there and the
(01:39):
science.
But I decided that I wantedsome other perspectives and my
good friend, aj Rinaldi, who Iactually used to coach his
brother, Mario Rinaldi, as aprofessional mixed martial arts
fighter.
It turns out that he also has alove for leadership and he's
also been in a number ofleadership positions.
So I said hey, aj, why don't weget in here and do a podcast?
(02:02):
Because we went back and forthon some stuff.
I'm like man, this guy reallyhas some values that I share
with him.
So with that, aj, thanks forjoining me on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh, thanks for having me, paul.
And that's right.
I think too often leadership iseither overcomplicated or it
has too much jargon that justkind of waters down the true
impact of leadership.
So I believe leadership is amix of both art and science, and
of course, this podcast is allabout breaking that down in a
way that's practical andactionable.
(02:36):
And a little bit about me heldvarious leadership roles in
youth work and education, justhad a strong desire to influence
and impact people at a greaterlevel, and so I'm also a coach,
trainer and speaker certifiedwith the John Maxwell team, and
I can't wait to share some ofJohn Maxwell's ideas with you
(02:57):
today.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, that's one of the things we both connect on.
We both love John Maxwell,right, and I think we see it
from different angles, but inthe end it's still producing the
results and engaging in, Ithink, leadership in a way that
we both value.
But one of the things I know wecan agree on.
So let's be real about thisthat leadership ain't about
title, right?
I think it's the way weinfluence others, the way we
(03:20):
solve problems and the way wereally work to bring out the
best in the people, whether wehave authority or not.
So I think that's what we'regoing to be trying to cover in
each episode.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
That's great, paulie.
So, paulie, before we dive intotoday's topic, let's talk about
, let's actually tell ourlisteners what they can expect
from this show.
We want this to be structuredbut not stiff, and we want it
informative but also neverboring.
So how are we going to breakthat down, paul?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, I appreciate that, man.
Yeah, it's good to let theseguys know.
So I think we really want tohave a very clear format, right?
So one is, we're going tointroduce a leadership question,
right?
So every episode will centeraround some sort of key
leadership challenge and, aj,you sent me a bunch of those.
I love those, right?
So I can't wait to unpack thosethings, right, and hear what
you have to say about leadership.
(04:12):
For today, for example, we'regoing to be answering what is
leadership and why does itmatter?
That would be really important,since we're going to be talking
about leadership, that you getour perspectives on what we
think leadership is.
Now, of course, we're going tobe taking a look at the science
of it, and this is where I'llprobably be, you know, speaking
up more in this area, breakingdown, like leadership, using
this kind of practical behavior,analytic lens, but also some
(04:36):
evidence-based practices, andyou know, I know, you're going
to bring lots to the table withevidence-based practices as well
.
And then there's the heart ofit, right?
This is where we can use ourpersonal stories, real-world
examples and leadership inaction.
Aj, I know we both have a ton ofgood stories and bad stories,
right, but never to put peopledown.
(04:56):
We just want to lift people up,but it's important to use
examples and non-examples, right?
And, of course, two more things.
We want to give practical toolsand takeaways so that you are
left with clear, actionablestrategies that you can apply to
your own leadership.
Remember, you don't have to bein a leadership position, right,
you don't have to havepositional authority to be a
(05:18):
leader, but if you have goodleadership skills and you do
have positional authority, youcan help a lot of people.
And so, and then we're going tohave maybe some final thoughts
and we'll move from there.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That's right, paulie.
I think that's so well said,because leadership isn't
something you learn.
It's not just something youlearn, right, paulie?
It's something that you do, andthat's why we're here.
We're here to help you do itbetter, and so we'll also bring
in guests, we'll break down somecase studies from time to time,
and we'll also answer listenerquestions that you guys send in
(05:55):
to us.
So, with no further ado, let'sget into it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
All right, man, all right.
So I crafted a number for thisone question, a number of
questions to guide us today thatwe can really bounce back and
forth on.
But let's start with the bigquestion what is leadership?
And now, of course, aj, thereis no right or wrong answer here
(06:21):
.
Right, we're just giving ourperspectives on it.
Right, but if you had to defineleadership in just one sentence
, if you you've got to give morethan one sentence, that's fine
too, but what would you say, aj?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
A while out, of course, being a member of the
John Maxwell team.
John Maxwell believes thatleadership is influence, nothing
more, nothing less.
And so I firmly believe that.
I believe that leadership isone life influencing another.
It's not about position ortitle, fighting that old
(06:49):
paradigm, it's influence.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, well, I think so too, but I'm going to, as a
behavior scientist, say it'sabout influencing behavior, and
I think that's suggested inMaxwell's stuff, right.
But I think it's alsopositively influenced.
I'd like to put that in thereas well, because we can
certainly influence people indifferent ways and, aj, I know
you and I in line with this verymuch, right.
So that's inherent in allMaxwell stuff that it's
(07:16):
positively influencing, becausewe've seen people in leadership
positions, man, that they're notinfluencing in the right way.
I call these folks dictators,right, the way that they do.
But with that, how do you thinkleadership difference for
management?
Because there's a lot of peoplethat get confused with that
(07:37):
stuff.
Some people think one is betterthan the other, and I've got
some thoughts on it.
But what do you think there?
And, by the way, I'm not goingto have to lead with all this
stuff or make you lead with allthis stuff.
I'll let you bounce back andask me the questions that you
always put on the spot.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, well, I think they certainly go together.
I think they certainly gotogether.
I think they're designed to gotogether.
But you know, being on abasketball team, it doesn't make
you a great scorer, right, itjust gives you an opportunity to
score.
So, leadership and managementyou know I coin it as they're
like peanut butter and jellythey're made to go together but
(08:10):
they're all together two verydifferent things.
And so just because you're amanager or an effective manager,
I don't think that makes you aneffective leader necessarily,
but it certainly puts you in thegame and gives you many
opportunities to show goodleadership, I think.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, I love that man and I would say that I agree
with that, because I breakeverything down to behavior.
I don't like to think aboutleadership and management as
like a noun, because I think youcan have a management position
and actually be engaging in goodleadership and vice versa, you
can have a leadership positionand engage in good management.
(08:48):
So I like to think about it asleading and managing, and from
my perspective, leading comesback to influencing positively
influencing behavior.
I think about, like inspiringpeople right towards some common
goals, and which, of course,means that you know, we need to
know what they value.
Right, if you're going toinspire them, we need to know
what's important to them, and Ithink managing is about
(09:10):
maintenance of those behaviorsyou know.
So this is where we have tohave systems in place with
scheduling and there are rulesto follow, and we want the
systems to design todeliberately deliver positive
reinforcement for value-addedbehavior, meaning that the
system ends up just runningitself, just like when you drive
(09:31):
into work every day there's asystem that gets you here and
there's lots of positivereinforcement that's keeping
your behavior going until youget to your ultimate cause of
behavior, which is thedestination, and, of course,
when you're driving, if youfollow the rules, you know great
, you get good stuff.
If you don't, you run off theroad a little bit, you get those
little vibrations, you get anail in your tire.
(09:53):
You know there's things thathappen, you know.
But if you speed, you do thingswrong, get a ticket.
You know you get pulled over,get a ticket maybe if they go
driving to schools, get yourlicense, spend it, etc.
So the system does the workthere.
So good managing becomes, ormanaging becomes easier with a
good system in place.
But what I find is that a lotof times there's not good
systems or people aren'tleveraging the system
(10:15):
effectively.
They're.
They're using it coercive, likethey're using fear of
punishment to drive behavior andman, that is the opposite of
leadership.
You know that's likemicromanagement, right, and we
don't want that.
I just don't want people topair management with something
bad, and you don't either.
Like you said, they go togetherlike peanut butter and jelly.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So, paul, that's so well said.
Why do you think, since we justbroke down leadership and made
it really simple to understandabout influence and influence
and behavior, why do you thinkso many people misunderstand
leadership still to this day,with so much content, so much
information out there, why dopeople continue to misunderstand
(10:56):
what leadership truly is?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Man, you know what?
That's a freaking greatquestion, and there's a couple
of reasons that I think.
And you know what I love aboutthis brother is that, just so
everybody knows, we're shootingfor the hip on this.
There's no like none of this isscripted, you know.
So here's one thing I think, aswe're, when we're younger, we
(11:21):
are taught that leadership isabout hierarchy, right?
So I know my wife is, my wifeis Jamaican and you know you
respect your elders.
You know and you see hierarchyand you respect the position.
I was brought up a little bitdifferently.
It's not that I don't respectmy elders, of course I do.
I respect, I don't care aboutyour.
Not that I don't respect myelders, of course I do.
I respect, I don't care aboutyour position.
I don't care about how muchmoney you have.
I don't care about the watch onyour wrist, I don't care about
the car that you drive, I don'tcare about the degrees, the
(11:44):
books, the articles you'vewritten, any of that stuff right
?
None of that stuff matters tome.
I don't.
Essentially I don't care howmuch power you have, but I do
judge you by how you treat thepeople with the least amount of
power, right?
So that's really important tome by my value, and my wife same
way.
She will do that as well.
But I don't let that line ofdemarcation, because somebody is
(12:05):
above me on the org chart,prevent me from speaking my
truth.
Now that doesn't mean that Ihaven't kept silent.
I've written about thisextensively that I feel shame.
I feel ashamed of myself fornot speaking up when vulnerable
people employees right werebeing attacked by aggressive
(12:26):
leaders.
You know people who wereengaging in narcissistic
behaviors.
You know before fear of my ownjob.
You know, and I think thishappens a lot, which is sad, but
I think anything.
So I think there might be somecultural stuff here, like
hierarchy and whereas we'rebrought up.
I think that's one thing.
I think the other thing is thatthere's a values thing, because
(12:47):
they see people in a positionthey're like all right, well,
that's a leader, but it's abouthow we influence behavior, as we
already kind of said here, andthat is like all right, you've
got people who are world leaders, but they've engaged in really
coercive behavior.
They've treated people poorlyin order to produce results, and
(13:08):
everybody's pointing at theresults from like man, you can
get results in many ways, right,you can cheat, be unethical.
You can scare the shit out ofpeople.
You know just all sorts ofnasty things to get people and
this is where I come back tolike this dictatorship.
I don't consider those peopleleaders at all, regardless of
the position.
I know that you and I agree onthat.
So I think there might be avalues thing here as well and
(13:31):
finally, just a simplemisunderstanding of behavior as
well.
And finally, just a simplemisunderstanding of behavior.
If you don't understand how weget behavior and the pros and
cons of getting, in certain waysyou might not be able to pair
with leadership.
But I think the main things arehow we're kind of brought up
and what we think leadership is.
We think leaders about title.
I said it's a cultural thing,but I also think it's kind of
(13:53):
universal that way.
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, I think when you said something I really like
, you said you really care abouthow people treat people and I'm
paraphrasing who you know don'thave power over them, so to
speak.
I think when you're reallyleading from a place of
influence and inspiration,that's leadership, and when
you're leading from a place ofstrictly power, I think that's
(14:17):
manipulation.
And maybe some of the dictatorsin history illustrate a very
clear example of that.
I'm big on that too, paulie.
I believe how you treat the CEOshould be the same respect
level that you treat the janitor.
You know what I mean.
(14:37):
So I think that's that's reallyhuge in terms of leading from
values, leading from our values,and I think that's what really
influences and inspire people isthe values that you model.
And actually leadership is not aadjective, it's a verb, you
know.
It's an action word.
It's just like love.
(14:57):
You really never reach a, youknow, a finish line with love.
You're constantly loving yourwife.
You're constantly loving yourchildren.
You're loving the people whoare in your family, that you
care about.
I think leadership works thesame way.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
I love that man and you know I want to share a
personal story of let's be anon-example based on what you
just said about how we treatpeople differently.
One of my books I talk aboutass clownery and I give my
positional authority andleadership book.
I give, like, some criteria forass clown behavior and ass
(15:32):
clown behaviors or ass clown isan acronym about certain
behaviors that people engage in.
Um, and it comes back to that,uh, where people on the org
chart is if they get treateddifferently, uh, based on where
they're at.
That's that drives me freakingnuts, man, and I remember uh and
this is not the first time thishappened, but it just sticks
out so vividly that I workedwith a woman and she was a man.
(15:55):
She was the salt of the earth,she was a hard worker, she cared
, she was very intelligent, butshe didn't have the degrees, she
didn't have the positionaltitle Right, but, man, she was
my right hand woman.
You know what I mean, man, sheworked hard, it was together.
We were making things happen.
I don't want to say what thesetting was because I want to
protect people, but anyways, ourdirect leader would treat her
(16:22):
so poorly and it was amazing tosee the shift of how this person
would treat my colleague.
And then, let's say, the COOwalked in and the change in
demeanor and like almost thebutt kissery that would go on,
for lack of a better term.
You know, man, that just I endup cracking on that one.
(16:44):
That was when I one of thetimes I started standing up and
just like I just let the dog outon that one and probably could
have cost me my job and theperson started crying.
The leader started crying.
I put leader started crying.
I got to put leader in quoteshere, you know, because they
were personal positionalauthority and I'm like I said, I
don't even believe those tears.
Those are crocodile tears, youknow, based on what I've seen
(17:04):
you do to people you're not.
You know you need to be better,you know.
And they didn't change, youknow.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah, I think people want to feel close to their
leaders.
I think a real leader makespeople feel safe.
I think you know they makepeople feel safe.
When the chips are down,everybody's looking at that
person to help come up with asolution, to help provide some
(17:30):
guidance, and I think it'sreally hard to go back and forth
between fear and making peoplefeel safe.
You know that's very hard to do.
So I don't know if thoseleaders have necessarily been
misinformed.
Maybe they had a poor rolemodel.
You know as a leader and theysaw those things play out, and
you know as a young leader.
(17:50):
They think, hey, that'seffective leadership in the long
run and I'm sure if they gatherhonest feedback from the people
they lead, they'll begin tounderstand it's really not and
it could actually impede thegoal or the mission that they're
trying to achieve.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Man, I'd like to really love that you just talked
about safety here, because Iman do.
I agree that with thatwholeheartedly, you know,
especially, of course, and Ithink we're talking about the
psychological safety thatwholeheartedly you know,
especially, of course, and Ithink we're talking about the
psychological safety, and Ithink psychological safety is
manifested when you know peopledon't have fear of consequences
of making a mistake.
You know that the leaders gotthem if they make a mistake, and
(18:28):
that the leader focus onincremental growth as opposed to
, you know, if you don't meetsome lofty criteria and knocking
people down, people are wherethey're at right.
There's a baseline foreverybody and we can help them
be a little bit better tomorrowthan they were today, which
means we've got to equip themwith the tools to be successful
and involve them in things.
(18:48):
I know we're going to talk alittle bit about what are the
qualities of effective leaders,but I think that safety part is
so important and it's like myfighters man AJ, you were a
fighter too, you were a wrestler, so you get this.
But here's an example that Igive, and that is if my fighters
(19:09):
everybody out here has feltfear, and when you feel fear,
you get tunnel vision.
You get fight or flight right,and you're certainly not
thinking about everything aroundyou.
You just want to escape thatthing, right.
So we get this immediateresponse when you feel fear of
the person with positionalauthority, the quote unquote
leader, what you're going to dois engage in behaviors that keep
you from getting in trouble andyou're going to do just enough
(19:31):
to get by and all those otherthings that are around that you
could innovate and everythinglike that.
You're going to do just enoughto get by, all those other
things that are around that youcould innovate and everything
like that.
You're going to stop thinkingabout those things.
It's just the thing that'sgoing to keep you from getting
in trouble.
You get this kind of tunnelvision, man.
That's the opposite man thathurts the organization, it hurts
you and you end up leaving.
It's silly.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, and that reminds me of a quick story,
paulie I remember several yearsago a new leader I had just
started working with.
It was right at the kind ofbeginning phases of COVID and
people are really scared.
You know people were reallyscared, not afraid, you know,
not knowing what the pandemicwould do, what it's going to
(20:10):
mean for our family.
You know people were thinking,you know, companies are going to
have layoffs.
And I'll never forget theorganization I was with at the
time.
They rolled out some, somepolicy changes that for some
people they were going to findthem comforting and for many
people they were going to findthe changes you know.
You know, regardingvaccinations and different
things, they were going to findthat a bit scary.
(20:32):
And this guy I mean the guy waslike Clark Kent, right, I mean
the guy's just really buttonedup glasses, the perfect partners
here, the whole nine, andreally played things close to
the vest.
And this guy goes in front of agroup of people and he took the
hardest questions, he didn'tback away from it, he stood in
(20:52):
front of the firing squad and Ijust the guy just endeared
himself to me.
He went from Clark Kent toSuperman in two minutes, man,
and from that point on I saidwell, this guy's really a guy of
high character and you know,oftentimes we consider integrity
.
You know doing the right thingswhen no one's watching, but I
think it's also doing thedifficult things when everyone's
(21:14):
watching, no one's watching.
But I think it's also doing thedifficult things when
everyone's watching and you knowthat's the impact of character
and values and leadership thatthat person just endeared me to
them and I learned so much froma moving forward the next
several years.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So, man, I love that.
What a great quote.
Doing the difficult things wheneverybody's watching Wow,
that's profound, brother.
Well said, man, I love that.
Yeah, I had a you know, I haveone of the best leaders I've
ever worked with, because beinga leader I would argue that
being a school leader is themost difficult leadership
position in the nation becauseyou're being dealt such a
(21:48):
terrible hand to work with.
Teachers are coming inunprepared because teacher prep
programs aren't preparing themfor the demands there, so you're
getting handed this card.
There's no money to give people.
If you fire people, who are yougoing to?
You know who are you going toreplace them with?
Right, because there's such ashortage.
But a good friend of mine now,dr Scott Neal, he, we were able
(22:09):
to turn around two failingschools, but I remember coming
into the second school that wedid and we were in the library
with a bunch of teachers and theschool was heading downhill.
They were a C, just barely madea C that year.
Going to a D.
Morale was really down and hejust got up there and he said
there's a new sheriff in townand I'm here to support you and
da-da-da, and he did it, man, hewas out and he was visible all
(22:31):
the time, you know, and he waslifting them up and of course we
put systems in place et cetera,et cetera.
So just didn't talk, but walking.
He said here's just what I needyou to do Do this stuff and
I'll take care of everythingelse, you know.
And it was just so inspiring tosee that because I've also seen
, on the other hand, where theschool leader walked into the
library and just another libraryexample, when I was giving a
training, and everybody got verysilent and I thought, man, this
(22:54):
spoke volumes, man, it was likeDarth Vader coming in.
It was terrible.
But, brother, I love that quotethat you just made there.
They do.
They give it to me again, man.
They do it even when they dothe tough stuff, even when
everybody's looking.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yeah, I think leaders are people of character.
They show a great deal ofintegrity and, like I said, we
think of integrity as doing theright thing when no one's
watching, but it's also doingthe difficult things when
everybody's watching, and youknow that's.
That's a real sign ofleadership.
And to the to the point of thestory you just told, leaders
need to understand the followersare always watching, always
(23:36):
watching.
They're always watching.
Subconsciously or consciously,they're always watching.
And you need to be carefulabout how you behave, what you
role model and what you say too,because your whisper is a roar.
You know what I mean.
So you have to be very, verycareful of your tone and some of
those you know behavioralscience, things that I know
you're you're really good attalking about, yeah, and you
better but you say you gotta begood at talking about yeah and
you better.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
But you say you gotta be careful what you say and
also do what you say.
We call that say-docorrespondence.
If you want to hurt trust, saysome things that you're going to
do and don't do it, that'sgoing to hurt you right away.
Man, do what you say you'regoing to do.
That's really important.
All right, so let's switch up towhy leadership matters, because
(24:16):
we already acknowledge thatleadership is not about position
, although those with a largeposition with lots of people
that they're responsible fortime, that it doesn't have to be
about a position in general.
Right, you're a householdleader.
You know you could be with agroup of people who have.
(24:45):
You know that you're a leaderin that group.
You could be at the bottom ofthe hierarchy and I've seen this
right.
But you know, I've seen like aparaprofessional in a school be
like the major influencer ofpeople there.
Right, they were a pillar of aschool.
I loved seeing that thing.
The cafeteria worker man, thatstuff made me excited, you know.
But how does you know?
Why do you think leadership'simportant to everyday life?
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, it's really I mean, it's really personal for
me.
I think that I think that,besides love, leadership is the
most powerful, powerfulphenomenon we have in our world,
and so I think when a personchooses to lead with love is
(25:28):
just earth changing, and I'veseen it so many times.
And to your point about.
You know, leadership is notabout position.
There's been some new teamsthat I've joined over my work
career and I knew that, eventhough I had the position, I
wasn't the most influentialperson on that team and I had to
figure out who was and I had toearn their business and kind of
(25:51):
get them on my side as Iestablished my influence on that
new team or that new athleticteam or what have you.
So I mean, whether you'releading your family, you're
leading an organization, you'releading your athletic team, the
ability to influence peopletowards something that is
ultimately in their bestinterest and in the best
(26:13):
interest of the group, I thinkthat's what makes leadership so
important and so valuable.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, and you mentioned leading with love and
it kind of goes back to what yousaid earlier about the Clark
Kent guy.
That came out right.
He did said the tough thingsright when all eyes are on it.
Leading love also means givingtough love.
Sometimes, um, and I don'tthink it's.
You know people I never want togive the uh, you know the the
impression that we're not sayingyou shouldn't correct behavior.
(26:42):
You know that you shouldn'ttell people they're doing
something wrong.
But when you create that safetynet for people, when they know
you really care, when they knowyou're really there to be
supportive for them, uh, whenyou focus more on growth than
you do on correcting, when youdo have to correct and you do it
in the right way, you say theright thing at the right way in
a way that's helpful, right,that helps them be better moving
forward.
They understand it, they'lltake responsibility for it far
(27:04):
more often than they're going totake offense to it, because
they know your quality of humanbeing.
So it requires both, but itrequires mostly recognizing,
giving them the tools, theresources, support, engaging
them, et cetera, et cetera.
But you do have to correctbehavior and performance
sometimes.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah, and I think people won't learn from it as
much as you want them to.
If they don't feel safe, right,they're going to feel attacked,
they're going to feel kind ofpersecuted by you kind of making
that correction and pointingthat out.
And then back to the you know,the human behavioral science
thing.
Are you giving that positivefeedback much more often than
you're giving that constructiveor that negative feedback, right
(27:44):
?
Isn't, isn't that so huge?
You know, dr John Gottman, andwe could go on and on and on
about that but I mean real goodleaders who are good at
developing people.
They're coming from astrength-based platform when
they manage and lead people.
I think.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, I agree, man, it's well said, strength-based.
And have you ever seen I'vebeen in organizations, I got a
term for it, but I'll see whatyou have to say about it but
when you have an organizationwhere somebody has a position
right, that leadership position,but they're very ineffective, I
mean they're not bad, they'renot coercive, but you know
they're not doing the toughstuff either.
They're not doing either.
(28:21):
You know the place is just kindof running itself right without
leadership.
Have you?
Have you seen that kind ofthing?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Oh yeah, I've seen that before and I think I've had
enough experiences now whereI've seen the effect of it and
systems.
I mean you say systems, ittakes systems, right.
I think.
I think it's James Clear thatsays we don't rise to the level
of our goals, we fall to thelevel of our systems.
(28:48):
Right, there's so many timeswhere those, those people who
are less than effective leadersthey don't design great systems,
the meetings don't start ontime, the meetings don't have
agendas, the ball is gettingdropped on key tasks and key
initiatives and things like that.
So they can influence andinspire people to do the
(29:11):
difficult things.
They can influence and inspirepeople to do the hard things
when they're not watching ordirectly supervising them and
they can't make thosecorrections that you're talking
about and still maintain thetrust and the relationship with
people.
So when ineffective leaders orineffective leadership is in
place, everybody suffers, Ithink, and that's whether you're
(29:34):
in a business organization oreven I've seen some bad fathers,
if I'm being candid, I've seensome bad coaches on athletic
teams.
It always points back toleadership, I think.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Man, I agree 100% with that stuff.
Man, what people in thesepositions need to understand
that the measure of yourleadership is in the behavior of
the followers If your peoplebelow you aren't doing the
things around you that you'retrying to support, or above you,
if you're trying to influence,if they're not doing those
things.
But when you do have hierarchy,if they're not doing the things
that you need, the first placeyou need to look is in the
(30:09):
mirror.
Aj, when my fighters lose, evenwhen your brother lost, which
his brother beat former UFCheavyweight champion Rico
Rodriguez, which was friggingawesome man, anyways but when my
fighters lose, even if theyweren't eating well, if they
weren't showing up to the gym, Icould be like you aren't doing
your stuff.
(30:29):
But the first place I look is inthe mirror and think about
could I have inspired them more?
Could I have put them on abetter training regimen?
Could I have helped themschedule things, schedule the
meals right, somehow?
How could I have been betterfrom them?
That doesn't mean they don'thave agency for their own
behavior and their ownperformance, but I really want
(30:51):
to create an environment thatgets the best out of people
right.
I think that's really importantto reflect on our own behavior
when the behavior of ourfollowers are not moving in the
right direction.
Too often poor leadershipstarts pointing the finger right
.
They start blaming.
You seen that one?
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Oh, yeah, oh, without a doubt.
And I think, know, I think thatyou know there's only so many
people that can be the CEO right, can be the president of the
organization.
So most of us that will ascendthe leadership positions, most
of us are going to be middlemanagers, and so is everything
going to be in your control?
No, Are you going to be able toinfluence every variable?
(31:33):
No, but you know.
To that question you askedwhat's your self-reflection,
Where's your effort?
What have you done to influenceand inspire and create some
positive change?
You know, in your work area, inyour family, in your community,
on your athletic team, whathave you done?
I think that's a real gauge ofleadership.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, it really is, man, and if you're not getting
what you want, it means you gotto do something more or less or
differently.
I've seen organizations wherepeople the leader was really
nice, right, very nice person,they were fun to be around, but
people didn't respect thembecause they also didn't, you
know, they didn't have systemsin place, right, they were
(32:16):
getting walked on.
I call these happy, crappyorganizations.
You know what I mean.
They weren't producing theresults and you know you need
both ends of the spectrum.
I don't.
You know you can't be passive,you can't be aggressive.
You know you create a system,that where people feel
supportive, and if you need tobe assertive, I think that's
just fine.
So let's go to this now, likein terms of the qualities of
(32:37):
leaders.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Do you think leaders are born or made?
Well, I think all leaders areborn.
I mean, even Jesus Christ, youknow, was born.
So everybody's born.
But I know what you're tryingto ask.
I would say that some peopleare gifted with some leadership
talent, some natural leaders,some qualities that lend itself
(33:03):
to leadership.
Some people may be moreassertive, some people may be
very gifted communicators.
Those things all can help youin your leadership journey, but
every great leader is made,without a doubt.
I think leadership is aboutcertain skills, certain traits
and attributes that we can alldevelop, we can all choose to
(33:26):
get better at.
So I think, yes, some peopleare born with some innate gifts
that help with leadership, butevery leader is made, in my
opinion, paul.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent.
I mean, we all have geneticpredisposition that we're
bringing to the table.
But the end, like we said, youknow, leadership is behavior and
I always think of you know, allthings being equal.
You know, and we, you know,like you have a certain level of
intelligence.
You know you gotta be able tosolve problems and da-da-da at a
certain level.
But the mean, the averageperson, can be engaged in good
(34:00):
leadership.
They can influence people, theycan gather the right people
around them to help them besuccessful.
So I think that's reallyimportant, because that's
another thing.
I think maybe that goes back towhat we said before about why
people don't understandleadership.
I think a lot of people thinkleaders are born, are born right
(34:21):
, and not understanding thatfact, that that's just behavior
and if they can do it, you cando it too.
In fact, um, there are folksthat are super intelligent.
They're like you know,intelligence is not a measure of
leadership.
You know, you have these peoplewho end up, you know, with this
level of intelligence wherethey can't even communicate with
others, right?
(34:41):
So that's certainly not ameasure of leadership.
I think emotional intelligenceis really important.
I'm actually writing a bookcalled Adaptive Intelligence
that talks about that.
But it's important tounderstand how people feel about
your leadership, et cetera, etcetera, don't you think?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah.
So, paul, let me ask you this.
So I think extroversion, forexample, is considered, you know
, a good leadership trait.
Leadership leaders need to beextroverts.
Have you ever seen a dynamicleader that would qualify as an
introvert, paul?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I definitely have.
You know, my wife is one ofthose.
You know, like she, shebelieves in the hierarchy and
everything like that.
But, man, she has peoplegravitating to her all the time.
When there's an issue, theycome to her prom.
She's a major influencer, youknow.
So she's.
She's to your point.
I like how you mentionedearlier that we're most in, most
of us are in middle managementsomewhere.
She's a major influencer of herculture, of the students of the
(35:34):
school, of the community, and Ilove seeing that.
And she does not want to be outin front of people at all.
I went and took you ever do theMyers-Briggs personality test.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
I believe so yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, so I couldn't figure out what I was.
Like I'm on the cusp ofsomething, right, there's an
INFJ and an ENFJ and I'm notgoing to go into details about
that, but like I don'tunderstand which one I am.
You know what it is and I showup professionally as an ENFJ,
but I'm really more introverted.
I don't, even though I dokeynotes and I turn.
What I do is I turn onprofessionally.
(36:07):
But some people just desire tobe upfront and they desire for
that attention.
I'm not making people wrong fordoing that.
Like, we all want attention.
Attention is the most powerfulpositive reinforcer in the world
, right.
But it's like these people whojust want that hierarchy and
position, I never care aboutthat stuff.
Like, if you just want position, I think that makes you that
(36:27):
could be making you dangerous,right, doing that.
I see leadership as being such ahuge responsibility.
That's why it comes back to thebeginning.
It's like man, I'm like sketchyof it, you know, because I want
to make a difference for peopleright now, brother, I've been
in lots of leadership positionsvice president, coo, you know,
et cetera, so you name it.
You know, been athletic leader.
Right now I'm engaging insolopreneurship, right, and I'm
(36:50):
teaching other people aboutleadership, my own consulting
business, my own training, butthe responsibility is so much
less.
But that doesn't mean I'm notinfluencing people.
I'm just doing it from adifferent position where there
is no org chart.
You know through my writing andeverything like that.
But I don't think it matters.
I think extroversion people canmistake that for leadership.
(37:11):
I think that makes dangerous.
But you can be absolutely be anintrovert and be a very
effective leader.
What you know.
What are your thoughts on thatone?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yeah, I've seen.
I've seen some really effectiveleaders who are introverted.
I mean, I'd say I'm one of them, if I can say if, if my
followers believe I'm effective,at least I think you, you can
be introverted, which I thinkyou know.
You need time in solitude, youneed time to gather your
(37:40):
thoughts.
You may be a person who enjoystime of self-reflection, but I
think, even though you mayqualify as an introvert, you're
able to pull out the necessaryleadership characteristics and
skills when they're required.
So, in other words, being atyour best when your best is
required for leadership.
(38:02):
And if there's times where anintroverted leader needs to be
more authoritative, they need tobe able to do that.
If there's times where theyneed to be more charismatic and
inspirational, then maybe theyneed to do that.
But there's times where theyneed to be more charismatic and
inspirational, then maybe theyneed to do that.
But there's a lot of differentways to lead.
There's not one specific moldand I've seen really effective
(38:23):
leaders who would qualify asintroverted people and I've seen
really extroverted leaders,really charismatic people, the
life of the party, who are justflat out ineffective leaders.
So I don't think there's aspecific mold.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, and I think at the heart of that stuff is about
because you know, aj, as I'mgetting to know you more, you
know, I can see you have theheart, you know.
But you're very thoughtful,right you are.
You know you reflect a lot,you're your own person, which I
love.
That, right, you really letyour own values guide you and
that's why we're connecting sowell on this leadership stuff.
(39:00):
But in the end, the cream risesto the crop like the squeaking
wheel.
The person that's loud might getthe attention initially, but I
can imagine a guy like yousitting at the table, reflecting
, asking some questions, right,being thoughtful before you
speak, as opposed to just beingspeaking to be heard.
I think that's incrediblyimportant and this is where
people start to respect andtrust you.
(39:21):
Uh, or in people like you, um,just because of that, because of
your own integrity, I think isincredibly important.
Um, all right, so let's let'slike move on down here.
Uh, uh, because we're gettingup to the time, I do want to
keep these under an hour.
I'm thinking, but you knowwe'll find out how it goes.
Uh, let me see.
(39:41):
Why does leadership requireboth?
I'm going to skip over that.
Well, that's good, we'll saythat.
So, um, why do you thinkleadership requires?
Well, I'll take this one, thenI give you.
Did I give you the lastquestion, or did I take the last
question?
Speaker 3 (39:53):
um, I think it's on you.
Go ahead, paul.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Okay, All right.
So why does leadership requireboth heart and signs?
So I think we've unpacked someof this stuff.
I think people need to knowthat they need to feel cared for
and supportive in theirposition.
And some leaders well, why do Ineed to care for them?
They, they're getting paid,right, they should care about
that.
Well, let me know how that'sworking for you.
(40:18):
You know what I mean.
Like, yeah, and the end of theday, I think the most powerful
reinforcer in the world is forpeople to feel that they're
valued by the organization andthat they're producing valued
outcomes.
Those are things that keeppeople show up, way more than
(40:39):
money.
You know, people come for themoney, but they stay for the
culture, and the leader isresponsible for developing that
culture.
Right, this is where we helppeople to thrive, to get the
best on them, which means weneed to know what they value.
They need to know thatcafeteria worker in a school
needs to know how them providingnutrients to the students is an
important role for them beingsuccessful in student
achievement, et cetera, etcetera.
Right, so we need to tie intowhat people value, but we also
(41:01):
need to be systematic in ourapproach to whether you know the
behavior science or not, itdoesn't matter.
But by building people right,Understanding key performance
indicators, understanding how tobuild fluency and key skills,
understanding you know how tocreate feedback loops, and we
could go on.
We'll talk about this, you know, later on, but I think you know
(41:23):
you really need both.
Man, If you're just scientificwith it, people are like not
going to trust you.
They're like who's this person?
You need to connect with them,whether it's connecting with
them on a personal level or justhelping them connect to the
important outcome they're havingfrom their position.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, I'd like to comment on that.
So, heart and science Right, soyou have the heart with.
You.
Want a leader who cares forpeople, because they're leading
people.
I mean, we don't want to bepromoting bad human beings to be
caring for people.
Right, you want a leader whocares for people.
That's the heart, the scienceaspect.
(41:58):
Just think about a skill welinked earlier feedback.
How often you deliver feedback?
What's the ratio of positivefeedback to constructive or
negative feedback?
Building systems that havereinforcers in them.
So you know, what kind ofreward system do you have in
place?
Are you a leader who cancontrol the compensation that
(42:20):
staff members get?
If not, are you a leader whocan control?
You know how the teamcelebrates reaching goals and
accomplishing certain objectives.
So that to me, that's a veryspecific way of how you can link
the heart of it caring aboutpeople to the science of it.
How do you, how do youreinforce people?
(42:41):
How do you refine people?
What are you doing to craft areally strong working
relationship with people?
That's a really clear way oflinking art to science.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I love that.
That was very, very well said,man.
I think you're a behaviorscientist.
You don't know it, brother.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Hey, I'm working on it.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
You're doing great, man.
You're doing great, all, right.
So I'm going to take two morequestions from what we have down
here.
Okay, one, I'll take this firstone.
What are some common mistakesthat leaders made?
Then we'll finish on someadvice that we can give people
so they go away with somethingactionable, right?
So what are the biggestpitfalls new leaders fall into?
(43:24):
I think, from what I've seen,there's a number of people that
the pitfalls right, but I thinknot engaging the stakeholders.
Right, finding out what'simportant to them I think that's
incredibly important.
When you come to a position,right, I think we need to
identify what I call quick wins,and that is you know what are
some of the challenges that aregoing on there.
For the staff right, it mightnot directly impact the result,
right, but you need to engageyour stakeholders, and if you
(43:46):
can do something that's going tomake a difference for them, it
becomes huge, right?
So, finding out the pillars,the things that they love hey,
please keep this and finding outthe things that they hate,
right, and if you can changethat when I say hate, that's a
strong word but the things thatare challenging for them, if you
can do that for them, to engagethem so they see that you know
what.
Hey, this person is here for usas a team.
(44:08):
Then you can shift them tofocusing on some of the results
that are important for theorganization.
But I've seen people come intobusinesses like, well, here's
what we need to do, and they'vechanged, they've removed some
pillars of the organization.
It could have been somethingsimple as like painting the
outside wall where there's amural Right, and that mural was
important because the staff hadcome together to make that
(44:30):
mirror Right.
So it undermined everything,changing some process that had
been built on, and it was likeit was literally a pillar that
was holding something up and itmight've made sense.
But people just changed itright.
The leader just changed it.
But we need to, with any of thechange that we make right
whether it's in getting them onboard right, finding out what's
important for them and focusingon those things, or making some
(44:50):
substantial changes we need toengage our stakeholders.
We need to get their feedbackon it.
The more we engage ourstakeholders, the more likely
that they are to engage in thebehaviors that is going to be
required to make the change.
If they author things, they ownit right when they tell them
that they need to do it right,and especially if you don't give
the why or something like that,it's terrible.
They need to know what's in itfor them.
(45:11):
So I think this is a commonmistake going into a new place
and starting to make changes,even though they might be
well-intended and people don'tunderstand it and they're not
involved in it and it or you youmake a mistake by not, you know
, understanding something's apillar man.
It could undo everything.
The rest of your time therecould be a huge challenge.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Yeah, yeah.
I think somebody said one timeeverybody listens to one radio
station, wifm, which meanswhat's in it for me, right?
So you, you talk, you talkabout like a leader goes in and
they create that ownership, theyfind out what's the most
important thing the keystakeholders because without
that ownership people aren'tgoing to really be hard driving
(45:51):
to fulfill the mission and thepurpose.
Ownership is very important,right?
Nobody ever washed a rental carbefore they took it back right.
So creating that ownership isjust such a key component to
good leadership, particularlywhen you're trying to turn
something around or you're a newleader on a team.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, well, said man, All right.
Well, I'm going to hand thisone to you.
We'll make this the lastquestion here.
What is something that you wishyou had known earlier in your
leadership journey?
What do you think?
What do you think about that?
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
There's so many, I would say understanding the
power of growth, reallyunderstanding and cherishing the
power of growth.
And so I want to say for, likethe last eight years, I've been
just very intentional anddeliberate about my growth,
(46:52):
almost obsessed with it.
Just very intentional anddeliberate about my growth,
almost obsessed with it, beingthe best person, I could be, the
best man, I could be the besthusband, I could be the best
leader I can be.
And so, for an hour every dayand this is something John
Maxwell believes is doing alittle bit every day For an hour
every day, I do something todevelop my leadership or
(47:14):
leadership skills, whetherthat's a podcast like this one,
whether it's reading a book likePositional Authority, ain't
Leadership by Dr Paul Gavanishameless plug for my guy there
having leadership discussion Ijust do something every day to
invest in my leadership.
And somebody says, well, aj, doyou do that on the weekends?
(47:34):
Yes, I do it on the weekends.
Aj, do you do it on Christmas?
Yes, I'll do it on Christmas.
I'll listen to something in theshower during a workout, but
just being really intentionaland deliberate about your growth
as a leader.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yeah, I think that's that is so important, man.
You know like it just showsyour value, your value for
people, AJ, that's what'sdriving you in the end.
You know you value, you want tomake a difference, you want to
support people in the way youwant to be the best, want to
help people.
You are in the human servicebusinesses, right, you are
helping children in order tohelp children.
We have to help the employees,right, to bring out the best in
the learners that we support, weneed to bring out the best in
the people who are supportingthem, and that becomes
(48:26):
incredibly important.
Man, there are so many thingsthat I've learned along the way.
We'll hit those another time,but if I break it down into two
simple things, I think that whatI've learned is that it's about
systems and leadership, and soyou can't have good leadership
(48:49):
without good systems I've foundin organizations now can't have
good leadership without goodsystems I've found in
organizations now.
Um.
So the analogy I'll make wouldbe like out driving, you're a
really good driver of your car,but there's no lines in the road
, there's no rails, right,there's no.
Uh, you know green light,yellow light, red light.
You know there's no rules thatgovern what people do, and it'll
be chaotic there.
(49:10):
Even though you're a greatdriver, you're going all around
right and even if you've gotpeople trying to follow you,
they're trying to follow you,but they're getting the accents
just trying to follow you.
So it's really important tohave systems in place and I find
that businesses, likewell-established businesses,
have good systems but, like ineducation, they don't have good
systems.
I found right.
So I think you need goodsystems, but good systems, but
(49:34):
good systems won't work withoutgood leadership.
Right, because you need to beable to navigate.
That it's about people andinspiring people and make sure
they have knowledge and skillsto be successful and that
they're getting coaching to movein the right direction and then
that system maintains it.
So I feel like we need goodleadership and good systems.
That goes together hand in hand, and I see like and going back
(49:55):
to what you said like peanutbutter and jelly sandwich, I see
managing as being one of thecomponents of a good leadership,
and when you have that verb ofmanaging with a good system in
there, it just about likepushing the buttons of the
system, you know, because thesystem does the work for you.
You just let it do the work foryou, but but if you don't have
a good system in place, youcan't engage in good managing.
(50:17):
Yeah, it creates lots ofchallenges.
So, brother, this was a lot offun.
Man, what do you think for ourfirst episode?
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Oh yeah, I think it was great man.
It's so much more to bediscussed.
I mean, leadership has so manydifferent components and avenues
.
I can't wait to do it again.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, man, so we'll.
I'll drop some informationabout us in the show notes here,
in case you want to reach outto AJ or myself.
And well, this is the firstepisode and we'll be back in a
few weeks.
So everybody, take care, man.
We got to come up with somecool saying at the end.
For the next one, we'll come upwith some hashtag or something.
But everybody, take care.
All right, take care guys.
Welcome to the Heart and Science of Leadership, where
evidence meets empathy.
Co-hosted by Dr Paul Gavone, aWall Street Journal and USA
Today bestselling author, and AJRinaldi, a John Maxwell Team
certified leadership coach, thispodcast blends the human side
of leadership withevidence-based practices,
demonstrating that leadershipisn't about title or intent.
(00:24):
It's about impact.
And now here are your hosts,pauly and AJ.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
All right, welcome to the Heart and Science of
Leadership podcast, where webreak down what it really takes
to lead effectively, whetheryou're an executive teacher,
manager, principal supervisor orcoach.
I'm Dr Pauly and with myco-host, aj Rinaldi, we're here
to explore the balance betweenthe human side of leadership and
the science-backed strategiesthat make it work.
(00:54):
Now a little bit about myself.
I never expected to be a leader.
I find being in leadershippositions kind of stressful
because I really care about thepeople under my leadership, so I
take everything I do veryseriously.
I got into leadership because Isaw so many people with
positional authority strugglingin leadership and I think a lot
(01:16):
of them were good people butthey were engaging in behaviors
that I consider kind of badbecause they were coercive.
So I went on to get a coupledegrees in leadership, ended up
writing a few books onleadership and I have a little
bit of a different view andbring the science to the
background.
Leadership and I have heart too.
I came from social work but Iput the heart in there and the
(01:39):
science.
But I decided that I wantedsome other perspectives and my
good friend, aj Rinaldi, who Iactually used to coach his
brother, Mario Rinaldi, as aprofessional mixed martial arts
fighter.
It turns out that he also has alove for leadership and he's
also been in a number ofleadership positions.
So I said hey, aj, why don't weget in here and do a podcast?
(02:02):
Because we went back and forthon some stuff.
I'm like man, this guy reallyhas some values that I share
with him.
So with that, aj, thanks forjoining me on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh, thanks for having me, paul.
And that's right.
I think too often leadership iseither overcomplicated or it
has too much jargon that justkind of waters down the true
impact of leadership.
So I believe leadership is amix of both art and science, and
of course, this podcast is allabout breaking that down in a
way that's practical andactionable.
(02:36):
And a little bit about me heldvarious leadership roles in
youth work and education, justhad a strong desire to influence
and impact people at a greaterlevel, and so I'm also a coach,
trainer and speaker certifiedwith the John Maxwell team, and
I can't wait to share some ofJohn Maxwell's ideas with you
(02:57):
today.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, that's one of the things we both connect on.
We both love John Maxwell,right, and I think we see it
from different angles, but inthe end it's still producing the
results and engaging in, Ithink, leadership in a way that
we both value.
But one of the things I know wecan agree on.
So let's be real about thisthat leadership ain't about
title, right?
I think it's the way weinfluence others, the way we
(03:20):
solve problems and the way wereally work to bring out the
best in the people, whether wehave authority or not.
So I think that's what we'regoing to be trying to cover in
each episode.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
That's great, paulie.
So, paulie, before we dive intotoday's topic, let's talk about
, let's actually tell ourlisteners what they can expect
from this show.
We want this to be structuredbut not stiff, and we want it
informative but also neverboring.
So how are we going to breakthat down, paul?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, I appreciate that, man.
Yeah, it's good to let theseguys know.
So I think we really want tohave a very clear format, right?
So one is, we're going tointroduce a leadership question,
right?
So every episode will centeraround some sort of key
leadership challenge and, aj,you sent me a bunch of those.
I love those, right?
So I can't wait to unpack thosethings, right, and hear what
you have to say about leadership.
(04:12):
For today, for example, we'regoing to be answering what is
leadership and why does itmatter?
That would be really important,since we're going to be talking
about leadership, that you getour perspectives on what we
think leadership is.
Now, of course, we're going tobe taking a look at the science
of it, and this is where I'llprobably be, you know, speaking
up more in this area, breakingdown, like leadership, using
this kind of practical behavior,analytic lens, but also some
(04:36):
evidence-based practices, andyou know, I know, you're going
to bring lots to the table withevidence-based practices as well
.
And then there's the heart ofit, right?
This is where we can use ourpersonal stories, real-world
examples and leadership inaction.
Aj, I know we both have a ton ofgood stories and bad stories,
right, but never to put peopledown.
(04:56):
We just want to lift people up,but it's important to use
examples and non-examples, right?
And, of course, two more things.
We want to give practical toolsand takeaways so that you are
left with clear, actionablestrategies that you can apply to
your own leadership.
Remember, you don't have to bein a leadership position, right,
you don't have to havepositional authority to be a
(05:18):
leader, but if you have goodleadership skills and you do
have positional authority, youcan help a lot of people.
And so, and then we're going tohave maybe some final thoughts
and we'll move from there.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That's right, paulie.
I think that's so well said,because leadership isn't
something you learn.
It's not just something youlearn, right, paulie?
It's something that you do, andthat's why we're here.
We're here to help you do itbetter, and so we'll also bring
in guests, we'll break down somecase studies from time to time,
and we'll also answer listenerquestions that you guys send in
(05:55):
to us.
So, with no further ado, let'sget into it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
All right, man, all right.
So I crafted a number for thisone question, a number of
questions to guide us today thatwe can really bounce back and
forth on.
But let's start with the bigquestion what is leadership?
And now, of course, aj, thereis no right or wrong answer here
(06:21):
.
Right, we're just giving ourperspectives on it.
Right, but if you had to defineleadership in just one sentence
, if you you've got to give morethan one sentence, that's fine
too, but what would you say, aj?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
A while out, of course, being a member of the
John Maxwell team.
John Maxwell believes thatleadership is influence, nothing
more, nothing less.
And so I firmly believe that.
I believe that leadership isone life influencing another.
It's not about position ortitle, fighting that old
(06:49):
paradigm, it's influence.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, well, I think so too, but I'm going to, as a
behavior scientist, say it'sabout influencing behavior, and
I think that's suggested inMaxwell's stuff, right.
But I think it's alsopositively influenced.
I'd like to put that in thereas well, because we can
certainly influence people indifferent ways and, aj, I know
you and I in line with this verymuch, right.
So that's inherent in allMaxwell stuff that it's
(07:16):
positively influencing, becausewe've seen people in leadership
positions, man, that they're notinfluencing in the right way.
I call these folks dictators,right, the way that they do.
But with that, how do you thinkleadership difference for
management?
Because there's a lot of peoplethat get confused with that
(07:37):
stuff.
Some people think one is betterthan the other, and I've got
some thoughts on it.
But what do you think there?
And, by the way, I'm not goingto have to lead with all this
stuff or make you lead with allthis stuff.
I'll let you bounce back andask me the questions that you
always put on the spot.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, well, I think they certainly go together.
I think they certainly gotogether.
I think they're designed to gotogether.
But you know, being on abasketball team, it doesn't make
you a great scorer, right, itjust gives you an opportunity to
score.
So, leadership and managementyou know I coin it as they're
like peanut butter and jellythey're made to go together but
(08:10):
they're all together two verydifferent things.
And so just because you're amanager or an effective manager,
I don't think that makes you aneffective leader necessarily,
but it certainly puts you in thegame and gives you many
opportunities to show goodleadership, I think.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, I love that man and I would say that I agree
with that, because I breakeverything down to behavior.
I don't like to think aboutleadership and management as
like a noun, because I think youcan have a management position
and actually be engaging in goodleadership and vice versa, you
can have a leadership positionand engage in good management.
(08:48):
So I like to think about it asleading and managing, and from
my perspective, leading comesback to influencing positively
influencing behavior.
I think about, like inspiringpeople right towards some common
goals, and which, of course,means that you know, we need to
know what they value.
Right, if you're going toinspire them, we need to know
what's important to them, and Ithink managing is about
(09:10):
maintenance of those behaviorsyou know.
So this is where we have tohave systems in place with
scheduling and there are rulesto follow, and we want the
systems to design todeliberately deliver positive
reinforcement for value-addedbehavior, meaning that the
system ends up just runningitself, just like when you drive
(09:31):
into work every day there's asystem that gets you here and
there's lots of positivereinforcement that's keeping
your behavior going until youget to your ultimate cause of
behavior, which is thedestination, and, of course,
when you're driving, if youfollow the rules, you know great
, you get good stuff.
If you don't, you run off theroad a little bit, you get those
little vibrations, you get anail in your tire.
(09:53):
You know there's things thathappen, you know.
But if you speed, you do thingswrong, get a ticket.
You know you get pulled over,get a ticket maybe if they go
driving to schools, get yourlicense, spend it, etc.
So the system does the workthere.
So good managing becomes, ormanaging becomes easier with a
good system in place.
But what I find is that a lotof times there's not good
systems or people aren'tleveraging the system
(10:15):
effectively.
They're.
They're using it coercive, likethey're using fear of
punishment to drive behavior andman, that is the opposite of
leadership.
You know that's likemicromanagement, right, and we
don't want that.
I just don't want people topair management with something
bad, and you don't either.
Like you said, they go togetherlike peanut butter and jelly.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So, paul, that's so well said.
Why do you think, since we justbroke down leadership and made
it really simple to understandabout influence and influence
and behavior, why do you thinkso many people misunderstand
leadership still to this day,with so much content, so much
information out there, why dopeople continue to misunderstand
(10:56):
what leadership truly is?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Man, you know what?
That's a freaking greatquestion, and there's a couple
of reasons that I think.
And you know what I love aboutthis brother is that, just so
everybody knows, we're shootingfor the hip on this.
There's no like none of this isscripted, you know.
So here's one thing I think, aswe're, when we're younger, we
(11:21):
are taught that leadership isabout hierarchy, right?
So I know my wife is, my wifeis Jamaican and you know you
respect your elders.
You know and you see hierarchyand you respect the position.
I was brought up a little bitdifferently.
It's not that I don't respectmy elders, of course I do.
I respect, I don't care aboutyour.
Not that I don't respect myelders, of course I do.
I respect, I don't care aboutyour position.
I don't care about how muchmoney you have.
I don't care about the watch onyour wrist, I don't care about
the car that you drive, I don'tcare about the degrees, the
(11:44):
books, the articles you'vewritten, any of that stuff right
?
None of that stuff matters tome.
I don't.
Essentially I don't care howmuch power you have, but I do
judge you by how you treat thepeople with the least amount of
power, right?
So that's really important tome by my value, and my wife same
way.
She will do that as well.
But I don't let that line ofdemarcation, because somebody is
(12:05):
above me on the org chart,prevent me from speaking my
truth.
Now that doesn't mean that Ihaven't kept silent.
I've written about thisextensively that I feel shame.
I feel ashamed of myself fornot speaking up when vulnerable
people employees right werebeing attacked by aggressive
(12:26):
leaders.
You know people who wereengaging in narcissistic
behaviors.
You know before fear of my ownjob.
You know, and I think thishappens a lot, which is sad, but
I think anything.
So I think there might be somecultural stuff here, like
hierarchy and whereas we'rebrought up.
I think that's one thing.
I think the other thing is thatthere's a values thing, because
(12:47):
they see people in a positionthey're like all right, well,
that's a leader, but it's abouthow we influence behavior, as we
already kind of said here, andthat is like all right, you've
got people who are world leaders, but they've engaged in really
coercive behavior.
They've treated people poorlyin order to produce results, and
(13:08):
everybody's pointing at theresults from like man, you can
get results in many ways, right,you can cheat, be unethical.
You can scare the shit out ofpeople.
You know just all sorts ofnasty things to get people and
this is where I come back tolike this dictatorship.
I don't consider those peopleleaders at all, regardless of
the position.
I know that you and I agree onthat.
So I think there might be avalues thing here as well and
(13:31):
finally, just a simplemisunderstanding of behavior as
well.
And finally, just a simplemisunderstanding of behavior.
If you don't understand how weget behavior and the pros and
cons of getting, in certain waysyou might not be able to pair
with leadership.
But I think the main things arehow we're kind of brought up
and what we think leadership is.
We think leaders about title.
I said it's a cultural thing,but I also think it's kind of
(13:53):
universal that way.
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, I think when you said something I really like
, you said you really care abouthow people treat people and I'm
paraphrasing who you know don'thave power over them, so to
speak.
I think when you're reallyleading from a place of
influence and inspiration,that's leadership, and when
you're leading from a place ofstrictly power, I think that's
(14:17):
manipulation.
And maybe some of the dictatorsin history illustrate a very
clear example of that.
I'm big on that too, paulie.
I believe how you treat the CEOshould be the same respect
level that you treat the janitor.
You know what I mean.
(14:37):
So I think that's that's reallyhuge in terms of leading from
values, leading from our values,and I think that's what really
influences and inspire people isthe values that you model.
And actually leadership is not aadjective, it's a verb, you
know.
It's an action word.
It's just like love.
(14:57):
You really never reach a, youknow, a finish line with love.
You're constantly loving yourwife.
You're constantly loving yourchildren.
You're loving the people whoare in your family, that you
care about.
I think leadership works thesame way.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
I love that man and you know I want to share a
personal story of let's be anon-example based on what you
just said about how we treatpeople differently.
One of my books I talk aboutass clownery and I give my
positional authority andleadership book.
I give, like, some criteria forass clown behavior and ass
(15:32):
clown behaviors or ass clown isan acronym about certain
behaviors that people engage in.
Um, and it comes back to that,uh, where people on the org
chart is if they get treateddifferently, uh, based on where
they're at.
That's that drives me freakingnuts, man, and I remember uh and
this is not the first time thishappened, but it just sticks
out so vividly that I workedwith a woman and she was a man.
(15:55):
She was the salt of the earth,she was a hard worker, she cared
, she was very intelligent, butshe didn't have the degrees, she
didn't have the positionaltitle Right, but, man, she was
my right hand woman.
You know what I mean, man, sheworked hard, it was together.
We were making things happen.
I don't want to say what thesetting was because I want to
protect people, but anyways, ourdirect leader would treat her
(16:22):
so poorly and it was amazing tosee the shift of how this person
would treat my colleague.
And then, let's say, the COOwalked in and the change in
demeanor and like almost thebutt kissery that would go on,
for lack of a better term.
You know, man, that just I endup cracking on that one.
(16:44):
That was when I one of thetimes I started standing up and
just like I just let the dog outon that one and probably could
have cost me my job and theperson started crying.
The leader started crying.
I put leader started crying.
I got to put leader in quoteshere, you know, because they
were personal positionalauthority and I'm like I said, I
don't even believe those tears.
Those are crocodile tears, youknow, based on what I've seen
(17:04):
you do to people you're not.
You know you need to be better,you know.
And they didn't change, youknow.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah, I think people want to feel close to their
leaders.
I think a real leader makespeople feel safe.
I think you know they makepeople feel safe.
When the chips are down,everybody's looking at that
person to help come up with asolution, to help provide some
(17:30):
guidance, and I think it'sreally hard to go back and forth
between fear and making peoplefeel safe.
You know that's very hard to do.
So I don't know if thoseleaders have necessarily been
misinformed.
Maybe they had a poor rolemodel.
You know as a leader and theysaw those things play out, and
you know as a young leader.
(17:50):
They think, hey, that'seffective leadership in the long
run and I'm sure if they gatherhonest feedback from the people
they lead, they'll begin tounderstand it's really not and
it could actually impede thegoal or the mission that they're
trying to achieve.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Man, I'd like to really love that you just talked
about safety here, because Iman do.
I agree that with thatwholeheartedly, you know,
especially, of course, and Ithink we're talking about the
psychological safety thatwholeheartedly you know,
especially, of course, and Ithink we're talking about the
psychological safety, and Ithink psychological safety is
manifested when you know peopledon't have fear of consequences
of making a mistake.
You know that the leaders gotthem if they make a mistake, and
(18:28):
that the leader focus onincremental growth as opposed to
, you know, if you don't meetsome lofty criteria and knocking
people down, people are wherethey're at right.
There's a baseline foreverybody and we can help them
be a little bit better tomorrowthan they were today, which
means we've got to equip themwith the tools to be successful
and involve them in things.
(18:48):
I know we're going to talk alittle bit about what are the
qualities of effective leaders,but I think that safety part is
so important and it's like myfighters man AJ, you were a
fighter too, you were a wrestler, so you get this.
But here's an example that Igive, and that is if my fighters
(19:09):
everybody out here has feltfear, and when you feel fear,
you get tunnel vision.
You get fight or flight right,and you're certainly not
thinking about everything aroundyou.
You just want to escape thatthing, right.
So we get this immediateresponse when you feel fear of
the person with positionalauthority, the quote unquote
leader, what you're going to dois engage in behaviors that keep
you from getting in trouble andyou're going to do just enough
(19:31):
to get by and all those otherthings that are around that you
could innovate and everythinglike that.
You're going to do just enoughto get by, all those other
things that are around that youcould innovate and everything
like that.
You're going to stop thinkingabout those things.
It's just the thing that'sgoing to keep you from getting
in trouble.
You get this kind of tunnelvision, man.
That's the opposite man thathurts the organization, it hurts
you and you end up leaving.
It's silly.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah, and that reminds me of a quick story,
paulie I remember several yearsago a new leader I had just
started working with.
It was right at the kind ofbeginning phases of COVID and
people are really scared.
You know people were reallyscared, not afraid, you know,
not knowing what the pandemicwould do, what it's going to
(20:10):
mean for our family.
You know people were thinking,you know, companies are going to
have layoffs.
And I'll never forget theorganization I was with at the
time.
They rolled out some, somepolicy changes that for some
people they were going to findthem comforting and for many
people they were going to findthe changes you know.
You know, regardingvaccinations and different
things, they were going to findthat a bit scary.
(20:32):
And this guy I mean the guy waslike Clark Kent, right, I mean
the guy's just really buttonedup glasses, the perfect partners
here, the whole nine, andreally played things close to
the vest.
And this guy goes in front of agroup of people and he took the
hardest questions, he didn'tback away from it, he stood in
(20:52):
front of the firing squad and Ijust the guy just endeared
himself to me.
He went from Clark Kent toSuperman in two minutes, man,
and from that point on I saidwell, this guy's really a guy of
high character and you know,oftentimes we consider integrity
.
You know doing the right thingswhen no one's watching, but I
think it's also doing thedifficult things when everyone's
(21:14):
watching, no one's watching.
But I think it's also doing thedifficult things when
everyone's watching and you knowthat's the impact of character
and values and leadership thatthat person just endeared me to
them and I learned so much froma moving forward the next
several years.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So, man, I love that.
What a great quote.
Doing the difficult things wheneverybody's watching Wow,
that's profound, brother.
Well said, man, I love that.
Yeah, I had a you know, I haveone of the best leaders I've
ever worked with, because beinga leader I would argue that
being a school leader is themost difficult leadership
position in the nation becauseyou're being dealt such a
(21:48):
terrible hand to work with.
Teachers are coming inunprepared because teacher prep
programs aren't preparing themfor the demands there, so you're
getting handed this card.
There's no money to give people.
If you fire people, who are yougoing to?
You know who are you going toreplace them with?
Right, because there's such ashortage.
But a good friend of mine now,dr Scott Neal, he, we were able
(22:09):
to turn around two failingschools, but I remember coming
into the second school that wedid and we were in the library
with a bunch of teachers and theschool was heading downhill.
They were a C, just barely madea C that year.
Going to a D.
Morale was really down and hejust got up there and he said
there's a new sheriff in townand I'm here to support you and
da-da-da, and he did it, man, hewas out and he was visible all
(22:31):
the time, you know, and he waslifting them up and of course we
put systems in place et cetera,et cetera.
So just didn't talk, but walking.
He said here's just what I needyou to do Do this stuff and
I'll take care of everythingelse, you know.
And it was just so inspiring tosee that because I've also seen
, on the other hand, where theschool leader walked into the
library and just another libraryexample, when I was giving a
training, and everybody got verysilent and I thought, man, this
(22:54):
spoke volumes, man, it was likeDarth Vader coming in.
It was terrible.
But, brother, I love that quotethat you just made there.
They do.
They give it to me again, man.
They do it even when they dothe tough stuff, even when
everybody's looking.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yeah, I think leaders are people of character.
They show a great deal ofintegrity and, like I said, we
think of integrity as doing theright thing when no one's
watching, but it's also doingthe difficult things when
everybody's watching, and youknow that's.
That's a real sign ofleadership.
And to the to the point of thestory you just told, leaders
need to understand the followersare always watching, always
(23:36):
watching.
They're always watching.
Subconsciously or consciously,they're always watching.
And you need to be carefulabout how you behave, what you
role model and what you say too,because your whisper is a roar.
You know what I mean.
So you have to be very, verycareful of your tone and some of
those you know behavioralscience, things that I know
you're you're really good attalking about, yeah, and you
better but you say you gotta begood at talking about yeah and
you better.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
But you say you gotta be careful what you say and
also do what you say.
We call that say-docorrespondence.
If you want to hurt trust, saysome things that you're going to
do and don't do it, that'sgoing to hurt you right away.
Man, do what you say you'regoing to do.
That's really important.
All right, so let's switch up towhy leadership matters, because
(24:16):
we already acknowledge thatleadership is not about position
, although those with a largeposition with lots of people
that they're responsible fortime, that it doesn't have to be
about a position in general.
Right, you're a householdleader.
You know you could be with agroup of people who have.
(24:45):
You know that you're a leaderin that group.
You could be at the bottom ofthe hierarchy and I've seen this
right.
But you know, I've seen like aparaprofessional in a school be
like the major influencer ofpeople there.
Right, they were a pillar of aschool.
I loved seeing that thing.
The cafeteria worker man, thatstuff made me excited, you know.
But how does you know?
Why do you think leadership'simportant to everyday life?
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, it's really I mean, it's really personal for
me.
I think that I think that,besides love, leadership is the
most powerful, powerfulphenomenon we have in our world,
and so I think when a personchooses to lead with love is
(25:28):
just earth changing, and I'veseen it so many times.
And to your point about.
You know, leadership is notabout position.
There's been some new teamsthat I've joined over my work
career and I knew that, eventhough I had the position, I
wasn't the most influentialperson on that team and I had to
figure out who was and I had toearn their business and kind of
(25:51):
get them on my side as Iestablished my influence on that
new team or that new athleticteam or what have you.
So I mean, whether you'releading your family, you're
leading an organization, you'releading your athletic team, the
ability to influence peopletowards something that is
ultimately in their bestinterest and in the best
(26:13):
interest of the group, I thinkthat's what makes leadership so
important and so valuable.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, and you mentioned leading with love and
it kind of goes back to what yousaid earlier about the Clark
Kent guy.
That came out right.
He did said the tough thingsright when all eyes are on it.
Leading love also means givingtough love.
Sometimes, um, and I don'tthink it's.
You know people I never want togive the uh, you know the the
impression that we're not sayingyou shouldn't correct behavior.
(26:42):
You know that you shouldn'ttell people they're doing
something wrong.
But when you create that safetynet for people, when they know
you really care, when they knowyou're really there to be
supportive for them, uh, whenyou focus more on growth than
you do on correcting, when youdo have to correct and you do it
in the right way, you say theright thing at the right way in
a way that's helpful, right,that helps them be better moving
forward.
They understand it, they'lltake responsibility for it far
(27:04):
more often than they're going totake offense to it, because
they know your quality of humanbeing.
So it requires both, but itrequires mostly recognizing,
giving them the tools, theresources, support, engaging
them, et cetera, et cetera.
But you do have to correctbehavior and performance
sometimes.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah, and I think people won't learn from it as
much as you want them to.
If they don't feel safe, right,they're going to feel attacked,
they're going to feel kind ofpersecuted by you kind of making
that correction and pointingthat out.
And then back to the you know,the human behavioral science
thing.
Are you giving that positivefeedback much more often than
you're giving that constructiveor that negative feedback, right
(27:44):
?
Isn't, isn't that so huge?
You know, dr John Gottman, andwe could go on and on and on
about that but I mean real goodleaders who are good at
developing people.
They're coming from astrength-based platform when
they manage and lead people.
I think.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, I agree, man, it's well said, strength-based.
And have you ever seen I'vebeen in organizations, I got a
term for it, but I'll see whatyou have to say about it but
when you have an organizationwhere somebody has a position
right, that leadership position,but they're very ineffective, I
mean they're not bad, they'renot coercive, but you know
they're not doing the toughstuff either.
They're not doing either.
(28:21):
You know the place is just kindof running itself right without
leadership.
Have you?
Have you seen that kind ofthing?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Oh yeah, I've seen that before and I think I've had
enough experiences now whereI've seen the effect of it and
systems.
I mean you say systems, ittakes systems, right.
I think.
I think it's James Clear thatsays we don't rise to the level
of our goals, we fall to thelevel of our systems.
(28:48):
Right, there's so many timeswhere those, those people who
are less than effective leadersthey don't design great systems,
the meetings don't start ontime, the meetings don't have
agendas, the ball is gettingdropped on key tasks and key
initiatives and things like that.
So they can influence andinspire people to do the
(29:11):
difficult things.
They can influence and inspirepeople to do the hard things
when they're not watching ordirectly supervising them and
they can't make thosecorrections that you're talking
about and still maintain thetrust and the relationship with
people.
So when ineffective leaders orineffective leadership is in
place, everybody suffers, Ithink, and that's whether you're
(29:34):
in a business organization oreven I've seen some bad fathers,
if I'm being candid, I've seensome bad coaches on athletic
teams.
It always points back toleadership, I think.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Man, I agree 100% with that stuff.
Man, what people in thesepositions need to understand
that the measure of yourleadership is in the behavior of
the followers If your peoplebelow you aren't doing the
things around you that you'retrying to support, or above you,
if you're trying to influence,if they're not doing those
things.
But when you do have hierarchy,if they're not doing the things
that you need, the first placeyou need to look is in the
(30:09):
mirror.
Aj, when my fighters lose, evenwhen your brother lost, which
his brother beat former UFCheavyweight champion Rico
Rodriguez, which was friggingawesome man, anyways but when my
fighters lose, even if theyweren't eating well, if they
weren't showing up to the gym, Icould be like you aren't doing
your stuff.
(30:29):
But the first place I look is inthe mirror and think about
could I have inspired them more?
Could I have put them on abetter training regimen?
Could I have helped themschedule things, schedule the
meals right, somehow?
How could I have been betterfrom them?
That doesn't mean they don'thave agency for their own
behavior and their ownperformance, but I really want
(30:51):
to create an environment thatgets the best out of people
right.
I think that's really importantto reflect on our own behavior
when the behavior of ourfollowers are not moving in the
right direction.
Too often poor leadershipstarts pointing the finger right
.
They start blaming.
You seen that one?
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Oh, yeah, oh, without a doubt.
And I think, know, I think thatyou know there's only so many
people that can be the CEO right, can be the president of the
organization.
So most of us that will ascendthe leadership positions, most
of us are going to be middlemanagers, and so is everything
going to be in your control?
No, Are you going to be able toinfluence every variable?
(31:33):
No, but you know.
To that question you askedwhat's your self-reflection,
Where's your effort?
What have you done to influenceand inspire and create some
positive change?
You know, in your work area, inyour family, in your community,
on your athletic team, whathave you done?
I think that's a real gauge ofleadership.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, it really is, man, and if you're not getting
what you want, it means you gotto do something more or less or
differently.
I've seen organizations wherepeople the leader was really
nice, right, very nice person,they were fun to be around, but
people didn't respect thembecause they also didn't, you
know, they didn't have systemsin place, right, they were
(32:16):
getting walked on.
I call these happy, crappyorganizations.
You know what I mean.
They weren't producing theresults and you know you need
both ends of the spectrum.
I don't.
You know you can't be passive,you can't be aggressive.
You know you create a system,that where people feel
supportive, and if you need tobe assertive, I think that's
just fine.
So let's go to this now, likein terms of the qualities of
(32:37):
leaders.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Do you think leaders are born or made?
Well, I think all leaders areborn.
I mean, even Jesus Christ, youknow, was born.
So everybody's born.
But I know what you're tryingto ask.
I would say that some peopleare gifted with some leadership
talent, some natural leaders,some qualities that lend itself
(33:03):
to leadership.
Some people may be moreassertive, some people may be
very gifted communicators.
Those things all can help youin your leadership journey, but
every great leader is made,without a doubt.
I think leadership is aboutcertain skills, certain traits
and attributes that we can alldevelop, we can all choose to
(33:26):
get better at.
So I think, yes, some peopleare born with some innate gifts
that help with leadership, butevery leader is made, in my
opinion, paul.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent.
I mean, we all have geneticpredisposition that we're
bringing to the table.
But the end, like we said, youknow, leadership is behavior and
I always think of you know, allthings being equal.
You know, and we, you know,like you have a certain level of
intelligence.
You know you gotta be able tosolve problems and da-da-da at a
certain level.
But the mean, the averageperson, can be engaged in good
(34:00):
leadership.
They can influence people, theycan gather the right people
around them to help them besuccessful.
So I think that's reallyimportant, because that's
another thing.
I think maybe that goes back towhat we said before about why
people don't understandleadership.
I think a lot of people thinkleaders are born, are born right
(34:21):
, and not understanding thatfact, that that's just behavior
and if they can do it, you cando it too.
In fact, um, there are folksthat are super intelligent.
They're like you know,intelligence is not a measure of
leadership.
You know, you have these peoplewho end up, you know, with this
level of intelligence wherethey can't even communicate with
others, right?
(34:41):
So that's certainly not ameasure of leadership.
I think emotional intelligenceis really important.
I'm actually writing a bookcalled Adaptive Intelligence
that talks about that.
But it's important tounderstand how people feel about
your leadership, et cetera, etcetera, don't you think?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah.
So, paul, let me ask you this.
So I think extroversion, forexample, is considered, you know
, a good leadership trait.
Leadership leaders need to beextroverts.
Have you ever seen a dynamicleader that would qualify as an
introvert, paul?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I definitely have.
You know, my wife is one ofthose.
You know, like she, shebelieves in the hierarchy and
everything like that.
But, man, she has peoplegravitating to her all the time.
When there's an issue, theycome to her prom.
She's a major influencer, youknow.
So she's.
She's to your point.
I like how you mentionedearlier that we're most in, most
of us are in middle managementsomewhere.
She's a major influencer of herculture, of the students of the
(35:34):
school, of the community, and Ilove seeing that.
And she does not want to be outin front of people at all.
I went and took you ever do theMyers-Briggs personality test.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
I believe so yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, so I couldn't figure out what I was.
Like I'm on the cusp ofsomething, right, there's an
INFJ and an ENFJ and I'm notgoing to go into details about
that, but like I don'tunderstand which one I am.
You know what it is and I showup professionally as an ENFJ,
but I'm really more introverted.
I don't, even though I dokeynotes and I turn.
What I do is I turn onprofessionally.
(36:07):
But some people just desire tobe upfront and they desire for
that attention.
I'm not making people wrong fordoing that.
Like, we all want attention.
Attention is the most powerfulpositive reinforcer in the world
, right.
But it's like these people whojust want that hierarchy and
position, I never care aboutthat stuff.
Like, if you just want position, I think that makes you that
(36:27):
could be making you dangerous,right, doing that.
I see leadership as being such ahuge responsibility.
That's why it comes back to thebeginning.
It's like man, I'm like sketchyof it, you know, because I want
to make a difference for peopleright now, brother, I've been
in lots of leadership positionsvice president, coo, you know,
et cetera, so you name it.
You know, been athletic leader.
Right now I'm engaging insolopreneurship, right, and I'm
(36:50):
teaching other people aboutleadership, my own consulting
business, my own training, butthe responsibility is so much
less.
But that doesn't mean I'm notinfluencing people.
I'm just doing it from adifferent position where there
is no org chart.
You know through my writing andeverything like that.
But I don't think it matters.
I think extroversion people canmistake that for leadership.
(37:11):
I think that makes dangerous.
But you can be absolutely be anintrovert and be a very
effective leader.
What you know.
What are your thoughts on thatone?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yeah, I've seen.
I've seen some really effectiveleaders who are introverted.
I mean, I'd say I'm one of them, if I can say if, if my
followers believe I'm effective,at least I think you, you can
be introverted, which I thinkyou know.
You need time in solitude, youneed time to gather your
(37:40):
thoughts.
You may be a person who enjoystime of self-reflection, but I
think, even though you mayqualify as an introvert, you're
able to pull out the necessaryleadership characteristics and
skills when they're required.
So, in other words, being atyour best when your best is
required for leadership.
(38:02):
And if there's times where anintroverted leader needs to be
more authoritative, they need tobe able to do that.
If there's times where theyneed to be more charismatic and
inspirational, then maybe theyneed to do that.
But there's times where theyneed to be more charismatic and
inspirational, then maybe theyneed to do that.
But there's a lot of differentways to lead.
There's not one specific moldand I've seen really effective
(38:23):
leaders who would qualify asintroverted people and I've seen
really extroverted leaders,really charismatic people, the
life of the party, who are justflat out ineffective leaders.
So I don't think there's aspecific mold.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, and I think at the heart of that stuff is about
because you know, aj, as I'mgetting to know you more, you
know, I can see you have theheart, you know.
But you're very thoughtful,right you are.
You know you reflect a lot,you're your own person, which I
love.
That, right, you really letyour own values guide you and
that's why we're connecting sowell on this leadership stuff.
(39:00):
But in the end, the cream risesto the crop like the squeaking
wheel.
The person that's loud might getthe attention initially, but I
can imagine a guy like yousitting at the table, reflecting
, asking some questions, right,being thoughtful before you
speak, as opposed to just beingspeaking to be heard.
I think that's incrediblyimportant and this is where
people start to respect andtrust you.
(39:21):
Uh, or in people like you, um,just because of that, because of
your own integrity, I think isincredibly important.
Um, all right, so let's let'slike move on down here.
Uh, uh, because we're gettingup to the time, I do want to
keep these under an hour.
I'm thinking, but you knowwe'll find out how it goes.
Uh, let me see.
(39:41):
Why does leadership requireboth?
I'm going to skip over that.
Well, that's good, we'll saythat.
So, um, why do you thinkleadership requires?
Well, I'll take this one, thenI give you.
Did I give you the lastquestion, or did I take the last
question?
Speaker 3 (39:53):
um, I think it's on you.
Go ahead, paul.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Okay, All right.
So why does leadership requireboth heart and signs?
So I think we've unpacked someof this stuff.
I think people need to knowthat they need to feel cared for
and supportive in theirposition.
And some leaders well, why do Ineed to care for them?
They, they're getting paid,right, they should care about
that.
Well, let me know how that'sworking for you.
(40:18):
You know what I mean.
Like, yeah, and the end of theday, I think the most powerful
reinforcer in the world is forpeople to feel that they're
valued by the organization andthat they're producing valued
outcomes.
Those are things that keeppeople show up, way more than
(40:39):
money.
You know, people come for themoney, but they stay for the
culture, and the leader isresponsible for developing that
culture.
Right, this is where we helppeople to thrive, to get the
best on them, which means weneed to know what they value.
They need to know thatcafeteria worker in a school
needs to know how them providingnutrients to the students is an
important role for them beingsuccessful in student
achievement, et cetera, etcetera.
Right, so we need to tie intowhat people value, but we also
(41:01):
need to be systematic in ourapproach to whether you know the
behavior science or not, itdoesn't matter.
But by building people right,Understanding key performance
indicators, understanding how tobuild fluency and key skills,
understanding you know how tocreate feedback loops, and we
could go on.
We'll talk about this, you know, later on, but I think you know
(41:23):
you really need both.
Man, If you're just scientificwith it, people are like not
going to trust you.
They're like who's this person?
You need to connect with them,whether it's connecting with
them on a personal level or justhelping them connect to the
important outcome they're havingfrom their position.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, I'd like to comment on that.
So, heart and science Right, soyou have the heart with.
You.
Want a leader who cares forpeople, because they're leading
people.
I mean, we don't want to bepromoting bad human beings to be
caring for people.
Right, you want a leader whocares for people.
That's the heart, the scienceaspect.
(41:58):
Just think about a skill welinked earlier feedback.
How often you deliver feedback?
What's the ratio of positivefeedback to constructive or
negative feedback?
Building systems that havereinforcers in them.
So you know, what kind ofreward system do you have in
place?
Are you a leader who cancontrol the compensation that
(42:20):
staff members get?
If not, are you a leader whocan control?
You know how the teamcelebrates reaching goals and
accomplishing certain objectives.
So that to me, that's a veryspecific way of how you can link
the heart of it caring aboutpeople to the science of it.
How do you, how do youreinforce people?
(42:41):
How do you refine people?
What are you doing to craft areally strong working
relationship with people?
That's a really clear way oflinking art to science.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I love that.
That was very, very well said,man.
I think you're a behaviorscientist.
You don't know it, brother.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Hey, I'm working on it.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
You're doing great, man.
You're doing great, all, right.
So I'm going to take two morequestions from what we have down
here.
Okay, one, I'll take this firstone.
What are some common mistakesthat leaders made?
Then we'll finish on someadvice that we can give people
so they go away with somethingactionable, right?
So what are the biggestpitfalls new leaders fall into?
(43:24):
I think, from what I've seen,there's a number of people that
the pitfalls right, but I thinknot engaging the stakeholders.
Right, finding out what'simportant to them I think that's
incredibly important.
When you come to a position,right, I think we need to
identify what I call quick wins,and that is you know what are
some of the challenges that aregoing on there.
For the staff right, it mightnot directly impact the result,
right, but you need to engageyour stakeholders, and if you
(43:46):
can do something that's going tomake a difference for them, it
becomes huge, right?
So, finding out the pillars,the things that they love hey,
please keep this and finding outthe things that they hate,
right, and if you can changethat when I say hate, that's a
strong word but the things thatare challenging for them, if you
can do that for them, to engagethem so they see that you know
what.
Hey, this person is here for usas a team.
(44:08):
Then you can shift them tofocusing on some of the results
that are important for theorganization.
But I've seen people come intobusinesses like, well, here's
what we need to do, and they'vechanged, they've removed some
pillars of the organization.
It could have been somethingsimple as like painting the
outside wall where there's amural Right, and that mural was
important because the staff hadcome together to make that
(44:30):
mirror Right.
So it undermined everything,changing some process that had
been built on, and it was likeit was literally a pillar that
was holding something up and itmight've made sense.
But people just changed itright.
The leader just changed it.
But we need to, with any of thechange that we make right
whether it's in getting them onboard right, finding out what's
important for them and focusingon those things, or making some
(44:50):
substantial changes we need toengage our stakeholders.
We need to get their feedbackon it.
The more we engage ourstakeholders, the more likely
that they are to engage in thebehaviors that is going to be
required to make the change.
If they author things, they ownit right when they tell them
that they need to do it right,and especially if you don't give
the why or something like that,it's terrible.
They need to know what's in itfor them.
(45:11):
So I think this is a commonmistake going into a new place
and starting to make changes,even though they might be
well-intended and people don'tunderstand it and they're not
involved in it and it or you youmake a mistake by not, you know
, understanding something's apillar man.
It could undo everything.
The rest of your time therecould be a huge challenge.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Yeah, yeah.
I think somebody said one timeeverybody listens to one radio
station, wifm, which meanswhat's in it for me, right?
So you, you talk, you talkabout like a leader goes in and
they create that ownership, theyfind out what's the most
important thing the keystakeholders because without
that ownership people aren'tgoing to really be hard driving
(45:51):
to fulfill the mission and thepurpose.
Ownership is very important,right?
Nobody ever washed a rental carbefore they took it back right.
So creating that ownership isjust such a key component to
good leadership, particularlywhen you're trying to turn
something around or you're a newleader on a team.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, well, said man, All right.
Well, I'm going to hand thisone to you.
We'll make this the lastquestion here.
What is something that you wishyou had known earlier in your
leadership journey?
What do you think?
What do you think about that?
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
There's so many, I would say understanding the
power of growth, reallyunderstanding and cherishing the
power of growth.
And so I want to say for, likethe last eight years, I've been
just very intentional anddeliberate about my growth,
(46:52):
almost obsessed with it.
Just very intentional anddeliberate about my growth,
almost obsessed with it, beingthe best person, I could be, the
best man, I could be the besthusband, I could be the best
leader I can be.
And so, for an hour every dayand this is something John
Maxwell believes is doing alittle bit every day For an hour
every day, I do something todevelop my leadership or
(47:14):
leadership skills, whetherthat's a podcast like this one,
whether it's reading a book likePositional Authority, ain't
Leadership by Dr Paul Gavanishameless plug for my guy there
having leadership discussion Ijust do something every day to
invest in my leadership.
And somebody says, well, aj, doyou do that on the weekends?
(47:34):
Yes, I do it on the weekends.
Aj, do you do it on Christmas?
Yes, I'll do it on Christmas.
I'll listen to something in theshower during a workout, but
just being really intentionaland deliberate about your growth
as a leader.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yeah, I think that's that is so important, man.
You know like it just showsyour value, your value for
people, AJ, that's what'sdriving you in the end.
You know you value, you want tomake a difference, you want to
support people in the way youwant to be the best, want to
help people.
You are in the human servicebusinesses, right, you are
helping children in order tohelp children.
We have to help the employees,right, to bring out the best in
the learners that we support, weneed to bring out the best in
the people who are supportingthem, and that becomes
(48:26):
incredibly important.
Man, there are so many thingsthat I've learned along the way.
We'll hit those another time,but if I break it down into two
simple things, I think that whatI've learned is that it's about
systems and leadership, and soyou can't have good leadership
(48:49):
without good systems I've foundin organizations now can't have
good leadership without goodsystems I've found in
organizations now.
Um.
So the analogy I'll make wouldbe like out driving, you're a
really good driver of your car,but there's no lines in the road
, there's no rails, right,there's no.
Uh, you know green light,yellow light, red light.
You know there's no rules thatgovern what people do, and it'll
be chaotic there.
(49:10):
Even though you're a greatdriver, you're going all around
right and even if you've gotpeople trying to follow you,
they're trying to follow you,but they're getting the accents
just trying to follow you.
So it's really important tohave systems in place and I find
that businesses, likewell-established businesses,
have good systems but, like ineducation, they don't have good
systems.
I found right.
So I think you need goodsystems, but good systems, but
(49:34):
good systems won't work withoutgood leadership.
Right, because you need to beable to navigate.
That it's about people andinspiring people and make sure
they have knowledge and skillsto be successful and that
they're getting coaching to movein the right direction and then
that system maintains it.
So I feel like we need goodleadership and good systems.
That goes together hand in hand, and I see like and going back
(49:55):
to what you said like peanutbutter and jelly sandwich, I see
managing as being one of thecomponents of a good leadership,
and when you have that verb ofmanaging with a good system in
there, it just about likepushing the buttons of the
system, you know, because thesystem does the work for you.
You just let it do the work foryou, but but if you don't have
a good system in place, youcan't engage in good managing.
(50:17):
Yeah, it creates lots ofchallenges.
So, brother, this was a lot offun.
Man, what do you think for ourfirst episode?
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Oh yeah, I think it was great man.
It's so much more to bediscussed.
I mean, leadership has so manydifferent components and avenues
.
I can't wait to do it again.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, man, so we'll.
I'll drop some informationabout us in the show notes here,
in case you want to reach outto AJ or myself.
And well, this is the firstepisode and we'll be back in a
few weeks.
So everybody, take care, man.
We got to come up with somecool saying at the end.
For the next one, we'll come upwith some hashtag or something.
But everybody, take care.
All right, take care guys.
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