Discover the unexpected strength in leadership that comes from being courageously vulnerable. Join us, John Ballinger and Douglas Ford, as we reveal why letting your guard down could be the key to unlocking a more trusting, disciplined, and patient team dynamic. Our latest episode at 1st Lead U isn't just a discussion; it's an invitation to a shift in mindset, where the soft side of leadership isn't a weakness but a foundation for authentic connections and strong leadership.
Struggling to connect with a team that spans from traditionalists to digital natives? We've got your back with witty banter and real-life stories that showcase how to balance relatability with authority. Learn how to navigate the tightrope of generational nuances in leadership, from the silent generation's "work speaks for itself" mantra to Generation Alpha's emotional intelligence demands. Douglas and I dissect the delicate art of being openly vulnerable while safeguarding against the exploitation of that transparency in a multi-generational corporate realm.
Wrap up your leadership toolkit with our deep dive into the transformative 30-30 rule of decision-making. Vulnerable leadership isn't just about asking the tough questions—it's about being open to the answers and the array of perspectives that come with them. Post-pandemic leadership is evolving, and our conversation provides actionable insights to make that leap. So plug in, engage with these ideas, and witness the power of leading with a vulnerable, yet strategic, heart.
We leave you with four questions to help you step into the world of vulnerability as a leader as you practice self-reflection and discuss with your team. 1. Have I considered all the angles? 2. Whose voice are we not hearing? 3. What would be the counter aurgument? 4. How am I wrong and why will this fail?
Become more relatable. Build a more trusting team. Inspire creativity. Encougage Psychological safety. Create a stronger team. These are just a few of the benefits you wil experience when you take the next step in leadership development by admitting your vulnerabilities, first to yourself and then having the courage to share them with your team.
Discover the unexpected strength in leadership that comes from being courageously vulnerable. Join us, John Ballinger and Douglas Ford, as we reveal why letting your guard down could be the key to unlocking a more trusting, disciplined, and patient team dynamic. Our latest episode at 1st Lead U isn't just a discussion; it's an invitation to a shift in mindset, where the soft side of leadership isn't a weakness but a foundation for authentic connections and strong leadership.
Struggling to connect with a team that spans from traditionalists to digital natives? We've got your back with witty banter and real-life stories that showcase how to balance relatability with authority. Learn how to navigate the tightrope of generational nuances in leadership, from the silent generation's "work speaks for itself" mantra to Generation Alpha's emotional intelligence demands. Douglas and I dissect the delicate art of being openly vulnerable while safeguarding against the exploitation of that transparency in a multi-generational corporate realm.
Wrap up your leadership toolkit with our deep dive into the transformative 30-30 rule of decision-making. Vulnerable leadership isn't just about asking the tough questions—it's about being open to the answers and the array of perspectives that come with them. Post-pandemic leadership is evolving, and our conversation provides actionable insights to make that leap. So plug in, engage with these ideas, and witness the power of leading with a vulnerable, yet strategic, heart.
We leave you with four questions to help you step into the world of vulnerability as a leader as you practice self-reflection and discuss with your team. 1. Have I considered all the angles? 2. Whose voice are we not hearing? 3. What would be the counter aurgument? 4. How am I wrong and why will this fail?
Become more relatable. Build a more trusting team. Inspire creativity. Encougage Psychological safety. Create a stronger team. These are just a few of the benefits you wil experience when you take the next step in leadership development by admitting your vulnerabilities, first to yourself and then having the courage to share them with your team.
Speaker 1:
Today we're dealing with the toughest word, because if you can embrace this and you can own vulnerability and learn that arm's distance and boundaries, those other ones will start happening. You'll start building trust, You'll start learning how to be calm, how to discipline. But man, this is it. This is the thing.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to First Lead you, a podcast dedicated to building leaders, expanding their capacity, improving their self-awareness through emotional intelligence and developing deeper understanding of selfless leadership.
Speaker 1:
Hello, america, and welcome to First Lead you where we believe selfless leadership is essential. America is suffering a leadership crisis. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence is the key to developing selfless leaders. Now here is personal growth coach John Ballinger. Hello America and hello world. My name is john ballinger, with first lead you, and I'm here with my co-host, mr douglas ford hello, john.
Speaker 3:
How are you this week?
Speaker 1:
I am. Well, you know, I keep putting that world thing in there because we keep looking at our stats and we keep growing um throughout the world we are, we yeah, so we're going to do a world tour soon.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, maybe we get a uh, like some of the bands from our genre, to follow us around like deaf leopard. I'm dating myself Now, people know. No, it's. It's really cool to look on those analytics of your podcast and see even if it's one person that's listening to it or downloaded it and listening our first podcast is getting more downloads, so the origin of the story getting more downloads. So it's picking up steam and it's actually cool to see that happen, which makes us want to keep doing this, keep pouring into it.
Speaker 3:
And people are welcome to share. If they listen and they enjoy the show, we invite them to share that with other people and encourage them to start listening as well.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the difficult part there are. I've listened to podcasts that are really touchy, feely or make you laugh or you know you wait on the next episode to come out. And I've been told this in the past, John, you deal with some of the most unsexy topics in your business and while these are not sexy topics, they are topics that, if embraced, will make you a better leader as yourself and then a better leader for your people, because a lot of hard stuff is not sexy stuff.
Speaker 3:
Exactly. We had another podcast that we were going to launch. That wasn't a very interesting subject to most people, but we put that in the title. This is the most interesting podcast about this subject.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
So so we're going to say that this is the most interesting subject about self-development and leadership.
Speaker 1:
It is, and I keep getting more questions and fine tuning myself on this and this podcast, and I'm telling you it was a tough research podcast. This one was the title of the podcast. Is vulnerability important as a leader?
Speaker 3:
That's a great question.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, now words we've used so far this year. We've used words like calm. You need to be a calm leader. You need to be a disciplined leader, a trusted leader, a patient leader. You need to be a disciplined leader, a trusted leader, a patient leader. And guess how you become those, that type of leader, those traits a lot of experience that, or learning how to be vulnerable.
Speaker 1:
Oh, vulnerable, yeah, yeah, it's. It's really hard to learn to be those character traits if you're not vulnerable with yourself and your team reflection, the willingness to be honest with yourself, which takes some level of vulnerability right.
Speaker 3:
If you're not willing to spend that little bit of time and to be honest with yourself about things and examine why things are the way they are with you, it's going to make it very difficult for you to be vulnerable and open with other people.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, this was a previous podcast. Remember the 4-H? Yes, I was just thinking through this. Why?
Speaker 3:
don't you run through those again?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the 4-H I call it the 4-H method of leadership is, first, remembering that we're all humans, that all have human nature, that need human resources, not the department. And when all those three things happen from a leadership standpoint. The fourth, the holy grail of business is everyone creates human capital for the organization and all of this leads up to that Business owners realizing that, hey, we're all human Business owners, realizing that all of my we're all human business owners, really realizing that all of my team have different natures to them, including the owners. You know, the owners are the leaders. And then giving us them, the team, resources in order to be better, creates human capital. But we're not used to that.
Speaker 1:
That's the old you've said this on one of our podcasts the CEO, cfo, walking down the halls and you know what if we, what if we invest in our leaders and they leave and like what happens if we don't? And they stay. You know, and and all this is kind of evolving. You know, post COVID, everybody's trying to figure out what's the next thing to go take us into the next 10 to 20 years of business, especially when we're going automated AI. I mean, we've got all these things going on that really detach us from each other, and we're saying that, more than ever, a leader in an organization needs to be touchy feely.
Speaker 3:
It needs to be touchy-feely. Well, yes, but I would say that it's more about just being vulnerable, I mean, it's not so much about touchy-feeling. I mean, I think there's a balance, and maybe that's where a lot of people struggle when you start talking about some of these issues is like, what's the balance in that? It's like, do I need to tell them all my deep, dark secrets from my family or where is it? And I think some of the things we're going to talk about today is going to help you kind of start to draw some of those lines and some of those boundaries, because it absolutely needs to be boundaries.
Speaker 3:
There's still a certain dynamic to a relationship where you have someone who's the leader in their team, but it's okay to kind of blend in some things that makes your team realize like, well, you're kind of the same as them. You're just in a different position, maybe a different station in life, maybe different experiences in life, because the leader could be younger or older. So it's, yeah, I think the idea of the touchy-feely leader is something that a lot of people would shy away from. But a vulnerable leader who has got appropriate boundaries in place is something that a lot of people would shy away from, but a vulnerable leader who has got appropriate boundaries in place, I think brings a lot of people along.
Speaker 1:
I do too. I say touchy-feely because when we start talking about this, the leader's saying, well, I don't want to be that type of leader. Guess what? You do have to get in touch with yourself, your inner self, to be a vulnerable person, because you do have to learn to put those barriers and those walls up. I call it the arms distance approach to leadership. Keep them far enough away, to where they don't feel like that they own you or have influence over you, but close enough to where you're comfortable and they're comfortable coming to you, and that's the balance. That's that arms distance approach to leadership. Where do you think I learned that at?
Speaker 3:
I'm going to go with the military. Yeah, I thought I at. I'm going to go with the military. Yeah, I thought I mean I was. I was a wild hair, I was just just a guess.
Speaker 1:
That's, that's true, I did. I learned arms distance approach. Uh, so the word for the day is vulnerable. Imagine that, and it's here's the definition capable or susceptible to being attacked, damaged or hurt, open to moral attack, criticism or temptation.
Speaker 3:
Well, that didn't really want to make you embrace. That Does it.
Speaker 1:
And we're we're asking today's business leader to be that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that's not something you want to embrace.
Speaker 1:
No, and that's that's the difficult part. That's why so many leaders will not go into this door and open it, say I'm ready to go through that and learn who I am, and learn who my team are, who my teammates are, so that I can be a better leader for them. That's why they will not open this door. This is the toughest out of the 25 words Today we're dealing with the toughest word because if you can embrace this and you can own vulnerability and learn that arms, distance and boundaries, those other ones will start happening. You'll start building trust, you'll start learning how to be calm, how to discipline. But, man, this is this, is it? This is the thing.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely. I believe it is, uh, like I said, the the linchpin in all of the leadership, especially for today, and we're going to talk a little bit about what leadership has meant in other generations. And you know we've got definitions of baby boomers and Gen Xs and millennials, and so we're going to walk through some of those things and why actually there's different expectations from those different age groups of people as a leader. But we'll do that in a few minutes.
Speaker 1:
You know why it's hard for a leader, or just anybody, to be vulnerable, because our human nature puts us on the defense when we're attacked. That's self-protection it is. That's 100%. And the sad part about leadership one of the difficult, sad parts of leadership is you have to learn how to let your proverbial guard down and be able to learn how to be and I don't call it attacked. The leader may feel like their teammates attacking, and sometimes they do. What you're doing is you're exposing yourself to vulnerability by asking people that a lot of times know more about the situation than you do to teach you, as the leader, what they know to help you make a better decision. That's tough because you're going to have some people, mr Ford, that sit there and say why are you asking me for this information? You're the one in the leadership position, you're the one making the. Are you ready for it? The big bucks? Why are you asking me for that? You know there's those type of people in company.
Speaker 3:
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
You, as a leader, should know who those people are in your company too. Don't go to them Unless you absolutely have to, and if you have to, just eat crow and go in and ask them. But find people in your organization that know the answers to what you need, the information you need, and utilize them and watch your relationship with them grow.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely, and even those people that may try to use that against you in some way. I mean, if you continue to demonstrate that vulnerability and you continue to demonstrate your genuineness in that, I think that starts to open up new opportunities to grow a relationship and to to bring them, to bring them closer perhaps yeah, that's I'm going to call that step two in your vulnerability phase of growth, because that person normally gets under people's skin and elicits a lot of emotion.
Speaker 1:
You have to practice calm, discipline, trust and patience when you're dealing with that person, who could potentially use against you in a court or law if at some point they needed to because you asked them for information. So what does today's leader and why does today's leader need to expose him or herself to attacks, criticism or being hurt? I mean, like, why are we even talking about this? And so Forbes magazine September 8th 2023 article about the ever-changing landscape of the modern leadership in the world says it's no longer confined to traditional image of a stoic figure at the helm. The leader is expected to embrace natural human traits, including fear, empathy and compassion. Yeah, that's 2023, not that long ago. Yeah, you and I've talked about this post-covid emotional intelligence started becoming more talked about these character traits. I mean, the articles just kind of blew up everywhere and here we are finding ourselves reading an article by Forbes and there's some more information by Inc about vulnerability and how important it is as a leader today.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and part of the reason is the marketplace is expecting it. The younger generations are coming in. Their life experiences are starting to dictate more about what should happen in the workplace in terms of connectedness between leaders and teams and coworkers, than the generation that's closer to retirement, because that was the dominant voice for so long. Now they're starting to age out. There's becoming fewer and fewer, while the bottom age group is maturing into the workforce. Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:
And we get to talk about that after the break. But one of the challenges in that magazine article, it said, is shifting gears from stoic to vulnerable is difficult because of what you just described the, the, the generation that was leading, mentoring, teaching. The leader of today came from the silent generation and the baby boomer. And we read the character traits You're going to like oh okay, well, that makes sense, why they're like that, why the leader today is like that, and then how we have to shift the mindset because of the Ys and the Zs and the Xs of those generations. Why do leaders not embrace vulnerability? What do you think that?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think some things we've said fear of, of exposure, but maybe even fear of having that used against them yeah.
Speaker 1:
So I've got six reasons written down, after research, why leaders do not embrace vulnerability. They fear it perceives them as being weak. Probably one of the number one they can't figure out how to do that arms distance approach, how to even sit down and have a conversation with someone and expose themselves to weakness. Where do I even start at to do that? Culturally, they believe they will face skepticism due to entrenched resistance to a hierarchical. That ain't that a word, did I say that? Right, that sounds pretty good culture.
Speaker 1:
But the hierarchy of the culture is one that if you're up here and you're up there in the ivory towers, can't be weak. You got to have every answer. You got to know everything. Another they don't know how to communicate with their team that being vulnerable is okay and can be a positive long-term goal for the company. They don't. They don't even know how to say that and can be a positive long-term goal for the company. They don't even know how to say that. How do you go in after you've been stoic all these years and have the company meeting and say beginning Monday at 8 am?
Speaker 1:
we're going to be vulnerable it's a hard transition. It is a difficult transition. Learning how to place boundaries this is a difficult transition. Learning how to place boundaries this is a difficult one. They don't embrace it because they don't know how to learn how to place boundaries on the team. Once they understand that you are being vulnerable, learning to strike a balance and maintaining appropriate boundaries is critical so that your team members will not see that they can't take advantage of you. So that's that I am being vulnerable, but I understand that I cannot take advantage of the leader in my organization because I've asked for them to learn to be vulnerable. That's what they're asking for, and now that we are being that way, don't take advantage of it. That's difficult.
Speaker 1:
So the bottom line is that being a vulnerable leader means that you're learning how to be an authentic leader. So I kind of rested on that. Authentic and that's all these articles Inc. Forbes, hbr, harvard, business Review. All I'm saying is you've got to learn to be an authentic leader. I'm like what's that? You know, what are people asking for? And so I looked up the definition of authentic. I think still.
Speaker 1:
The definition of authentic is one word Real, all right. The one word real, all right. The secondary word is genuine. So it appears what the workforce is asking for in their leadership is someone that is just a real person and genuine, generally cares, you know, generally wants to be involved in them, the team members being involved in decision-making, you know. It seems like they're just looking for somebody that's real, not somebody ivory tower, stiff suit, that can't come through and have a conversation with the team. That's what it appears they're looking for. And so when I started thinking like, so what's caused this to be this far off? And so I went and looked at the actual generations themselves and when we get back from the break, we're going to talk about the different generations, from all the way from really the silent generation to the alpha generation, and what that's caused today. Welcome back to First Lead U.
Speaker 3:
Today we have been talking about being a vulnerable leader and we left off with John about to introduce us to kind of the generational differences in the workforce and how that impacts leadership and what those different generations of people learned and what kind of what they expect from their leadership. So, john, won't you get us into that with talking about the earliest generation that could still possibly be in the workforce?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so that's the silent generation, and I looked up these definitions and I tried to condense them down, so just bear with me as I but the silent generation, they want to be seen, not heard. They want to let their work do the talking for them.
Speaker 3:
That's why they call it so that silent generation, what it? It's 19?
Speaker 1:
1925 to 46.
Speaker 3:
Okay, so just right up to just after World War II. Correct, that's where they ended.
Speaker 1:
So 47 to 64, that's the baby boomers and their general trait is they're determined and competitive and their work-life they kind of merged together, like they didn't have a separation of work and life. Work was life and life was work, and the only thing they didn't embrace was they didn't like embracing change and they didn't like technology. That's kind of a general of the baby boomers. Then you go into the Gen X, which is 65 through 79, very independent. They embrace technology. They want a work-personal-life separation if possible. They'd like to see that not have to take your phone on vacation or your laptop and work, you know, take time off. Then you roll into the millennials or the Y, and that's 80 through 94. They tend to embrace online communication, like I don't care if I talk to anybody. We got messaging platforms, we got text messages. I don't like calls, let's just text. And they, uh, they're motivated by meaningful work. What it said I want to, I want to work.
Speaker 3:
A place has a purpose so that's when we started seeing a lot of the social responsibility.
Speaker 1:
Yes, that's when it started at now really in in the gen z, that's, the 95 to 09, they embrace that social responsibility and they valued it. Then they added diversity into it. So that's when diversity really started. Coming the most technologically advanced of the five generations, however, they expect flexibility period. I mean, their whole mantra is work-life balance, flexibility. Don't tell me, I've got to do something, I'll go somewhere else where I can have that flexibility. And then the last generation, which is what I call a non-working generation at this point, is alpha generation. That's 2010 to 2024. But you can imagine, based on how you see this going, where we're headed right. So I started thinking through that when it comes to this vulnerability, and I said it's possible that today's business owner could have the five working generations working in their company.
Speaker 3:
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
And so how does a business owner or a leader today have a conversation with all five generations, with the way that they're wired?
Speaker 3:
Well, it's a slightly different conversation with each group.
Speaker 1:
It is you can't take a baby boomer conversation into a Gen Z conversation, cause they wouldn't. They wouldn't even know what you're talking about. If you're going to hear them saying we're going to do this and you start pounding away at them, they've checked out, so you've got to learn how to communicate. And to do that, guess what? You've got to be vulnerable. You've got to go in and sit down and ask the the y's and the z's and the x's how can I lead you? Well, what can I do better to serve you? Now? Can you imagine walking into a silent generation conversation and asking the people in the room say how can I serve you? Well, they'd be like I thought that was our job.
Speaker 3:
Exactly yeah, it's a totally different kind of mindset.
Speaker 1:
It's a mind shift. It is One of the most critical items that can be uncovered and benefit a company from a growth standpoint is when your teams know that you, as a leader, are vulnerable, because it makes them this is critical it makes them feel safer to speak up. One of the reasons that the X's and the Y's and the Z's are like that is because they saw the silent and the boomers not be able to speak up. They heard their parents come home and say I wish I could say such and just you know. And you're sitting there like, well, why didn't you say it? Oh, I'd get fired. Can't say that.
Speaker 1:
Well, there's a healthy respect with being able to walk in and actually be able to talk to someone about an issue you have and knowing that leader's going to listen and not just, you know, blow you off or set you out the door. Right, we've worked in companies. You and I have worked in a company, in companies not just one in companies where we will work with mid-level management or management and they will say these words to us. I want to say this about what's going on when it comes to culture and leadership but please don't tell my leader. That's what they'll say, which tells us what.
Speaker 3:
That they're scared of repercussions. Yeah, and that's, in today's environment, us what that they're scared of repercussions?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that's in today's environment. Guess what? If you appreciate, if you value your team, you've got to learn to listen to them. Even if it's Charlie Brown's school teacher's language that you hear, some people won't even know what that means, Will they?
Speaker 3:
They will not, but that's okay.
Speaker 1:
We know what it means and it's a. It's wah, wah, wah. That's all they hear. Inc magazine article in in November of 2023 stated according to neuroscience. You know what neuroscience is? Mind science. It's mind science. It's basically the science of the nervous system.
Speaker 3:
Which starts with the mind.
Speaker 1:
It does. The best leaders are those that are the most. They put the word most vulnerable in the caption, word most vulnerable in it in the caption. Why? Why does neuroscience say that the most vulnerable leader is going to be the best leader? Why do they say that, mr?
Speaker 3:
ford. Well, I think if you can truly embrace this idea of vulnerability and understand kind of the boundaries that need to be set in the workplace, it really kind of frees you up, like you're not constantly checking over your shoulder. Am I doing you know? Am I you know asserting my authority? Am I do I have all the right answers? Am I, you know being everything to everybody. It's like it kind of takes the pressure off if you're willing to say I'm not all those things and gives you an opportunity to create a better relationship with your team.
Speaker 1:
Right and on the other side of that. If the leader is like that, does it help the nervous system of the team?
Speaker 3:
No, because they feed off of your lack, lack of vulnerability, and you're kind of putting up this front and so they're like I can't let the leader say I'm weak right.
Speaker 1:
So now they get apprehensive and I think one that's one of the words that we use a lot in company. A company is there's a lot of apprehension going on between the leadership and the people because of the nervousness of what if I say this, what if I do this, on both ends. And then when a decision's made and it's not maybe the best decision and it's not embraced well or communicated well, and then the team members come back with a vengeance and you've exposed yourself as a leader, how do you handle that? I guess what you got? To admit, maybe I could have made a better decision. We're going to talk about how you make those decisions in a vulnerable state.
Speaker 1:
Some traits that you need to work on as a leader to better understand vulnerability, workplace, and I've got six traits I'd like to share with the audience Learn how to participate and have difficult conversations that lead to progress. Key word lead to progress. Listening and having different viewpoints from your team during a discussion. That's healthy. We've talked about that with working genius. You may call in somebody that's not on the team because they have this, this, uh, this genius in them. Why don't we have them at the table? That's vulnerability. Absolutely Admit you're struggling in your position. That's, there's nothing wrong with that. Admit you're struggling in your position. That's there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:
I come to you all the time, shut the door and like man, this just stinks right now, you know, but you've got to admit that. Does that mean that I don't want to continue plowing forward? No, sometimes I just need the bin and I need to know who I can do that to, who's not going to pick up the phone after I leave and say you are not going to believe what just happened. Provide difficult feedback to your team members. That's a tough one because you've got to do that with care.
Speaker 1:
Like I need to provide difficult feedback, but I want you to know I care about you and your team, as I'm giving you that Number five as you grow in your confidence. Learning to be vulnerable will allow you to have better conversations. So allow you to have those difficult conversations and challenges you face personally and professionally. That helps you and helps the team. And, last, all of this will assist in helping reduce turnover. I mean statistics show the leader today that embraces vulnerability and listens to the team decreases turnover in their organization, which anybody in the leadership position knows is a very costly unseen tax on the organization.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah, Turnover can be crippling from a knowledge standpoint and a financial standpoint.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
You have people walking out the door with years of experience that understand how to do the job, then you've got to spend all the time hiring somebody to replace them and getting them up to speed. Well, I found some benefits of all that that I can share, sure.
Speaker 1:
Share it please.
Speaker 3:
Again, a lot of research in today's episode, and so this is again a Forbes article. You know Forbes and Inc Magazine and Harvard Business Review. They seem to be the source of a lot of this information, which you presume would be the information that a lot of corporate America is looking at and reading, and so you find a lot of articles related to these type of topics that we're talking about in the first lead you in these magazines. So some of the benefits of being a vulnerable leader are it makes you more relatable. I mean we've already been talking about that. It drives trust amongst the team members, between you and the team members. It demonstrates a strength of character. You have to have a certain degree of self-confidence and character to be willing to admit those things, and so that again goes back and builds more trust. It actually inspires creativity, which is what you mentioned earlier about having open discussions between your team. It opens up those opportunities for people to say things without the fear of repercussions or being shot down. It enables you to continue to grow. The more vulnerable you are, the more you learn about yourself. The more you grow, the more other people can hold you accountable for some things. It encourages psychological safety Again, we talked about that with this idea of there not being any sort of repercussions.
Speaker 3:
It's not necessarily that no idea is a bad idea, but it certainly gives everybody the opportunity of everybody's idea should be heard and then allows for authentic connection. Again, the more you get to know your team, the better they get to know you, the more open and free the communication can be. Create shared ownership. If I provide an idea that then gets adopted, I've got more ownership into that and if I feel like I'm part of the team because we're all getting to know each other better, we're all understand each other's strengths and weaknesses better, I want to do better for my team. So, shared ownership. And then the last thing that kind of leads into that is it just builds stronger teams. So the more vulnerable you are as a leader, the more vulnerable you can be with your team and your team can be with you, the stronger that team's going to become, because they know where they need to pick up for other people.
Speaker 1:
And we've seen that happen. Absolutely, as teams have gotten more vulnerable, they will walk in the room stronger each meeting that we have with them and you'll start seeing it's not an arrogant swagger, but it's a swagger by, like you know, our team's gelling it's. It's coming together, we feel trust with each other and we've seen that happen absolutely so here's, here's another, here's another.
Speaker 1:
Multiplier of when you're vulnerable is when you're making decisions. There are four things that it readily helps you do. You'll start asking yourself have I considered all the angles? Whose voice am I not hearing? What would be a counter argument to our current position? How am I wrong and why will this fail? I mean when you're, when you're going through this and keep in mind, you know we talk about the speed of leadership is your mind, as a leader, has got to always be processing information, because it's coming at you hard every day, more than it ever has, especially with all this new change in how you have to lead people versus when you were trained. And so I think it's crucial to understand that leadership isn't having all the right answers. It's about having the right questions, asking the right question. That's another critical piece of vulnerability. You think that, as a leader, I've got to have every answer and be spot on. No, but you do have to know the correct questions to ask in order to assemble the information.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, how about going back through those questions you just asked? I think those are key questions for leaders to consider as they're going through this process, and it will help them start down the road of vulnerability yeah, and it would be good homework when we get to that question.
Speaker 1:
Have I considered all the angles? Whose voice are we not hearing? What would be the counter argument to our current position? How am I wrong and why will this fail? And keep in mind again all those things are going on at the same time as you're processing information, as you're getting it from it, and I brought this back up because I think now this is critical. I said remember the 30-30 rule that we've talked about in past podcasts.
Speaker 3:
We've talked about that a couple times.
Speaker 1:
yes, so I want you to think about what we've talked about today and these questions that you're asking yourself and you're processing with your team. And that's why I think this 30, 30 rule is so critical to get to, because you're you're learning how to ask the correct questions that you need. So to get the 30% of the information you need you got to ask the correct questions and then who to get that 30 from of your team, so that it speeds up your process of decision-making and being vulnerable, to be able to relate to that team in a manner when you need an answer to a question quickly, knowing I can go to that person and trust them and here's where I need to get this information at. It will help you take your 80-80 rule down to 30-30. So I don't need 80% of the information from 80% of the people to make a decision, I only need 30-30. And look at how you've just compressed your decision-making at that point. Compress your decision making at that point.
Speaker 1:
So I think that's a critical piece to learn with vulnerability is the 30-30 rule, and have a. Consider the angles. Whose voice are we not hearing? What's the current argument, the counter argument, and how am I wrong and why will this fail, as you're talking about this. So today's homework, mr Ford.
Speaker 3:
Well, I think it is what you just read off there with those four questions would be a great place for people to start down this journey of vulnerability and really exploring those, not only with themselves, but bringing those before the team and asking them some of those questions, asking them to contribute to some of those. And we would encourage you to take some time to look up some articles. There's a lot of information out there about being a leader vulnerable. There's books, new books that are coming out, talking about why it's a benefit, how to do it, how to lead your team in being vulnerable, because this is not necessarily something that's been in the workplace for a long time. This is relatively new concepts again, not necessarily started after COVID, but it certainly enhanced and become more prominent since we came out of the COVID kind of shutdown that we had for a while, and more and more people on your team are going to be looking for you to be this type of leader.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I'm going to close with this. I know this is a long podcast because it's a big topic, but I'm telling you how. Before COVID, I want you to go back before COVID If you can remember that far, if COVID didn't give you a COVID brain fog and say how many times in society were we talking about leaders need to be calm and patient and social with their? I mean, we didn't it. What was wrong in society from a leadership standpoint? Covid exposed and it gave people time to go home and reflect at the house and they come back to the workforce and said, yeah, if we're going to do this, this is the way we want it this time.
Speaker 1:
And you're talking about a whole business climate that's having to shift right now and you've got a lot of people resisting it and those people that resist that are in leadership positions. Mark my word will fail in your leadership position If you don't start embracing this new mind shift. So tough discussion today, but necessary, and we would ask our leaders to really reflect on this. Do some self-assessment of yourself, answer those questions. We'll have those up on the website and social media so you can reflect on them, on the website and social media so you can reflect on them, but really start your journey of vulnerability, because it's going to be necessary if you're in a leadership position.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely Well. Thanks for helping us to get to know ourselves a little bit better and be willing to share that with other people.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
Have a great week, you too. We'll see you next time.