1st Lead U - Leadership Development

Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn - The Four Fs of Responding - CHART - Ep 333

• John Ballinger • Season 3 • Episode 333

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Pressure doesn’t create your character; it reveals your training. We dive deep into the four Fs—fight, flight, freeze, and fawn—and show how these hardwired trauma responses quietly shape decisions, meetings, and culture. Instead of shaming reflexes, we teach you how to recognize them in the moment and convert them into intentional leadership moves that build trust.

We share candid stories—from boardroom confrontations to tense staff moments—where a default response could have derailed the room. You’ll learn how to turn fight into principled assertiveness without theatrics, transform flight into a strategic step-away with clear follow-up, replace freeze with focused action commitments, and upgrade fawn from people-pleasing to empathy anchored in standards. Along the way, we connect the dots to early learning, post-COVID shifts in leadership, and the way modern media overload primes everyone for reactivity.

Grounding the conversation is CHART, our practical framework for selfless leadership. We walk through applying its subcategories in the heat of conflict, pairing them with a quick self-scan: Which instinct is firing, and what is the wise version needed here? That simple practice changes the tone of a team, because it models emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and consistency when stakes rise. We close with a challenge to “step outside your movie,” journal your patterns, and enlist a mentor who can spot your tells before they spill into the room.

If you’re ready to train your instincts instead of being trained by them, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a leader who needs it, and leave a quick review with the one F you’re working to reframe. Your team deserves the strongest, calmest version of you—and you can build it, one deliberate response at a time.

John Ballinger:

We know we're asking a lot of the leader. It's not it is not beyond me to know that. But I'm not asking you to do it all at once. I'm asking you to start a journey.

Announcer:

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.

John Ballinger:

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.

Announcer:

Now, here is personal growth coach, John Ballinger.

John Ballinger:

Hello leaders and welcome to First League View. My name's John Ballinger, and I'm here with my trusted co-host, Mr. Douglas Fort. Good night, John. How are you today? Happy Thanksgiving.

Douglas Ford:

Yes, happy Thanksgiving.

John Ballinger:

Tomorrow. Yep.

Douglas Ford:

Or maybe next week. If you're listening to it. Depends on when you listen to.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, depends on when you listen to it. Lots to be thankful for. Our audience, uh thankful for that. Thankful for technology. Thankful for podcasting. It just kind of started. I don't even know how old podcasts are to you.

Douglas Ford:

Um they're probably about they're actually probably about 15 years old. Are they really? Yeah, they're getting old.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. So we're we're getting this is the end of season three. Absolutely. Just crazy. Yep. I listened to the first podcast not too long ago, and I thought, I I said this. I think my daughter was with me. I thought, that's pretty good. But going back that far, that's been over two years ago, if I recall. Yeah. Um, and some of the things that we intended, we wanted to do with leaders, helping leaders be the best version of themselves and learning to first lead themselves, so first lead you. Um, and I think we're accomplishing that. Uh, this was a tough season because of chart and having to just grind through uh the the uh the chart series. But my hope is that leaders will go to our website, download the chart, put the chart somewhere where they can daily refer to it based on the activities going on, particularly um I had to use the other day with uh a board uh in a board meeting. I use the four C's in the board meeting.

Douglas Ford:

How'd they respond to that?

John Ballinger:

Um It was odd to hear them say, I've never heard that before. And this is a very seasoned board.

Douglas Ford:

Right. Yeah, a group of leaders for sure.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. And and they never thought about, oh, I needed four hats when I was in a leadership position because most are retired.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah.

John Ballinger:

And I thought, man, it's so what happens in their lives as leaders if they had a chart and somebody was developing them?

Douglas Ford:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, I was listening to um a podcast yesterday. Um, it's actually the Harvard Business Review leadership podcast, and they had a gentleman on there, he was uh the executive director for the Ford Foundation. And it was great. I mean, he really gave a good perspective on what leadership should be today, how leadership has evolved uh over the last few years. Uh he certainly talked about talked about pre and post-COVID leadership. He talked about the mindset of leadership prior to COVID, uh just the societal change since COVID and the conversations that we're afraid to have. It was a really good uh podcast, and he hit a lot of I mean, it was like he was checking the first lead you boxes. Uh I'm sure he listens to our podcast every week, but uh he So what if people do and they take what we're talking about and go, that's fine.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, absolutely. I I want leadership in America to be different than it's been the last 50, 60 years.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, but he was he was definitely just you know espousing the same things that we talk about. And I was like, you know, we and we talk about what's going on. It's like there are certainly pockets of people who understand this, who think in very similar fashion, who are trying to advance similar ideas, and I mean he even talked about the idea that leaders need to be able to first lead themselves before they're before they're leading other people. And so um it was it was really good. I enjoyed listening to it. Uh, but it was the Harvard Business Review uh leadership podcast.

John Ballinger:

Right. So the end of the end of uh the end of the acrostic chart, uh, final episode for season three, and we're tackling the four F's.

Douglas Ford:

Which don't really seem like they have anything to do with the word chart.

John Ballinger:

They don't. This is this is a subcategory. And the reason we're doing this is because a lot of the four F's that are in someone's life actually hinder their ability to embrace chart. So we're gonna we're gonna talk through that uh today because the four F's are fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, it sounds like two of those we're pretty familiar with in society. Uh everybody talks about the fight or flight response.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. Freezing and fawning. I think was that new to you when I started talking about that?

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, I mean, I don't think I'd heard maybe the freeze, but the fawn certainly was uh newer version addition to that.

John Ballinger:

So I want to read the definition. I again I went to some old psychology books, uh, got them out, and I want to read the the general definition of what those four Fs are. What they're known. They're known as an involuntary, and this is in quotation, done without will or conscious control, responses to actions we are ill-prepared or trained to handle. So involuntary means it's no will or no conscious to it. Responses to actions we are ill-prepared or trained to handle.

Douglas Ford:

Those are interesting words. Ill-prepared or not trained. Untrained.

John Ballinger:

Right. And we talked about in the in pre-planning why why those words? Because the reality is we can be trained to be able to handle responses that are to actions that we're not prepared for, like surprises or shocks or things like that. And again, the military does a good job of putting you in scenarios to see how you will mentally and emotionally react to them and physically react to them. Um and I so as I'm you know thinking through this and I thought, you know, what's a shock? And I was talking to I can't remember who I was talking to, and uh and I came in yesterday and I said, Hey, you remember when TVs used to shut down 1130? And the I play play the Star Spangled Banner, and then it would just go to White Fuzz. Or the bars and tones. Or the bars and tones, and then it wouldn't come back on to like 5 30 when the news came on or the farmer home hour or whatever. Can you imagine today if that's what happened with TV and radio and social media? Like it went off at 11:30 and it didn't come back on to 5.30? I mean, what kind of in society what would happen?

Douglas Ford:

Well, maybe we'd all get more sleep and maybe we'd be all a little nicer to each other.

John Ballinger:

But there are people alive that don't even remember that and don't remember that there was a time where you didn't have a blue screen in front of you laying next to you, watch a TV all night, you know, somebody in your head from a social media standpoint telling you an influencer what to think, it just went off.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, well, yeah, and you only had three channels.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. There's only three options. That's it. That's all you had. And so we're we're so deluged with information today. We don't know, and now you've rear AI's head into all this, what's true and what's not true, and what should you use to benefit you yourself as a leader, as a person, to move forward in society. So I want to talk about those four F's are what's known in psychology as trauma responses.

Douglas Ford:

So what uh you got anything to help me understand why they call trauma responses?

John Ballinger:

A trauma response is an automatic reaction to a perceived threat or stressor. So something happens, your brain automatically reacts depending on what your natural bend is in the fight, flight, freezer phone. Gotcha. Okay. So when our brain detects danger, it activates our nervous system. And like we know, like you're driving down the road, it may be a little bit icy, and all of a sudden your car goes out of control on an icy road. Your brain automatically knows there's danger. If you don't, if you're not trained how to maneuver on icy roads, guess what you're gonna do? Make some mistakes. You're just yeah, you're probably gonna hit your brakes, which is not the thing to do.

Douglas Ford:

Yep.

John Ballinger:

But our natural reaction when we lose control in a vehicle on an icy road is hit the brakes, which is the wrong thing to do.

Douglas Ford:

Yep. Else can start spinning probably or yeah.

John Ballinger:

So you have to think about when your brain detects danger, that's a dangerous situation that just happened when you start spinning out of control, and how you react is how the is is part of the outcome. Okay. These responses evolve to help us in life-threatening situations. What they've what they've created though, because of our inability or we're ill-prepared to handle them, is they've become normal reactions that we hide behind. Okay. Which that's tough to say when so what do you mean by that we hide behind? So in a leadership situation, if you don't like confrontation and somebody comes in and they're being very confrontational, and your natural bend is to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, you're gonna automatically do one of those four and not deal with the situation. Gotcha. And your people are gonna know what type of person you are. And the people that are the bullies, quotation bullies, are the people that want to be the loudest know what kind of leader they're they're operating under. And what are they gonna do?

Douglas Ford:

They're gonna scream louder.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, they're gonna push back, they're gonna push harder, they're gonna push buttons, and you as the leader are going to true, you're gonna do everything to stay away from that person. You're gonna avoid that person, you're gonna tell somebody else to go deal with that person. I mean, anything you can do to not be confronted by that person, you're gonna do as a leader. When the reality is, what should you do, Mr. Ford? Go talk to them. Go talk to that person and have a discussion with them. And ask them, why are you doing this?

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, creating new disruption.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. Difficult scenarios are stressful. That's just just period. How you react to those scenarios can make them more stressful or less stressful. And that's why we're that's why we brought up the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn is because you as a leader need to look internally at yourself and say, when things get tough, what's my natural reaction? And I'm gonna go through what each one of those mean on the fight, flight. So we'll do fight, flight, and then we'll come back from the break and do freeze and fawn, and then we'll do some uh we'll I'm gonna say some things at the end to close out this season to make people think. Okay. People normally, and this goes back, I I think this goes back to the first initial episodes of zero to five, six to ten. I think wasn't that our first five, or inside our first five. So I think it's it's irony, if you will, that we're ending season three talking about zero to five and six to ten with fight, flight, freezer, fawn, because a lot of what you experience in the zero to five, which is your natural learning phase, you're a blank slate, information's getting pushed at you faster than you've ever had anything pushed in your life, than you ever will get pushed in your life, zero to five, and six to ten emotional and social growth. Anything that's happening inside those that create what we call negative responses or things that are trauma related create sp they create road bumps in your brain. And they create how you respond under duress. And people will know what your natural identity is. If you ask people today, John, when things get bad, wonder what John's first response is. And I'll ask I'll ask my partner, in a difficult situation when things get bad, which F am I?

Douglas Ford:

Well, depending on the exact situation, uh, it's probably going to be uh fight, yeah, is most of the time. You know, yeah. Now not not an appropriate response. Either appropriate. I mean, you're you're not going to you know freeze or fawn for sure. Uh uh the flight uh maybe depending on the circumstance, there might be a uh time when you would uh choose flight versus uh something else. But but you know, you're you're gonna you're gonna push back, you're gonna stand up for yourself or for the situation, or you're gonna assert your your your thoughts for sure.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, my natural bend is not just to lay down. Right. You've just that's just not me. Right. Yeah. I'm not a freezer. I'm like, right, there's something we're gonna do, we're gonna do it, and I can process information and say what we need to do. I would say if there's any flight part of me that's I've learned is just know when to walk on, walk on, right, move forward and not deal with it.

Douglas Ford:

Based on what the situation requires.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. But my natural bend is I'm just not gonna lay down. Yeah. And so when when we're in a staff meeting recently and I'm going around the room and I'm asking, what do you want to be known for? My natural response was, I want to be known for somebody that just never quit. Yeah. Now, part of that is a fight process that you can learn how to handle. Because the reality is these four Fs aren't negative responses. If you learn how to use them appropriately in leadership, they can actually be a benefit to you. But it's learning how to control them and know it's kind of like the four C's. When do I pull which C out, depending on the situation?

Douglas Ford:

Yeah.

John Ballinger:

There could be times where you know what? I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut and just lay down because it's not worth it. Right.

Douglas Ford:

That's the best option.

John Ballinger:

So let's talk about the fight response. It's characterized by a strong urge to confront the threat head on. Some people take that fight like it doesn't matter what you do, they're just gonna fight. Right. Yeah. Again, it's not intended to just be that. It's intended to be when do I trigger that response to deal with whatever's going on in front of me.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, and it's not uh it's not a you know, about true fight. Like it's just the approach that you take to dealing with the quote unquote threat or whatever it is. So, you know, let's let's not you know read more into these than there should be, but also to understand what each of them mean.

John Ballinger:

Correct. Most people would say that someone that has a fight response are quick to anger, they're very defensive, they want to control situations, they have explosive outbursts, uh, they have a need to be right, and they will bring physical uh presence to anything with clenched fist or you know, tightened jaw and things like that. That's what the average person saw. Somebody's like that, that's no. You can have a fight response to something and not be all that.

Douglas Ford:

Right, yes. Be still be very calm. I mean, but you're you're pushing back against that, you're going to question what's going on, you know. And yeah, it absolutely could all be very calm and civil. And the person that you're pushing back against may not even realize it if you are able to handle that situation with some finesse.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. I call that if you can learn to do that, I call that you're just a determined person at that point. You're not gonna let the trauma or the event going on just take over and encapsulate you and control you. You're determined that I'm gonna figure this out and I'm gonna do it in a manner that's beneficial as the leader. Remember, we're talking about leadership. I'm gonna do it as the leader, and I want people to see me operate like that. Because guess what that grows trust and confidence.

Douglas Ford:

Correct.

John Ballinger:

Okay. You've seen me in court where I was being attacked, and my flight was my fight response came out.

Douglas Ford:

It was it was relatively strong.

John Ballinger:

And I remember, I remember it was happening, and what did I do? I looked out in the courtroom at you.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah.

John Ballinger:

Because I knew what you were thinking. It is this is part of the mentor-mentee program. Your mentor needs to know your weaknesses, and you need to understand that when you're having a response that's negative to the situation, journal it, write it down, go to them, and if they're active and watching it, listen to them. Them being able to say this may not be the right time, or just calm down, or just eye contact is enough to be able to deter you from making a out of yourself. Right? Right. But which was the intent for that attorney that was attacking me. Right. He wanted he wanted the jury to see Right.

Douglas Ford:

He was definitely trying to throw you off your game.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. So I want the leader to think about this. Fight can be a positive when utilized properly, and you don't have to be a jerk when doing it. Correct. Okay. The flight response is the urge to flee or escape, like I'm just gonna run. That is not the response people need that are under that you're you're the leader of. They don't need to see you fleeing a situation that comes up, and they sure don't need to see you fleeing them when they're coming to you with a with an issue or a challenge. Right. Because that erodes trust and confidence in you as a leader.

Douglas Ford:

Right. And that can look a uh different uh in a lot of different ways. I mean, in terms of like that can look like slamming a door when you go in your office. Like that's a flight response. Like you dealt with something, even if you blew up, if you didn't blow up, but you go in your office or whatever, you know, you slam the proverbial door, and people are like, oh, they're well, they don't want to deal with that. Yeah. So it it it doesn't necessarily mean uh you're just you're just running off. It could take on some other characteristics as well.

John Ballinger:

I actually read an article and asked so you know, some of our research, we read the normal articles we read, and they're these articles or these publications are doing um they do several articles on things that we talk about at first lead you. And I think it's it's one of those humorous things like they talk about, they'll report on, but they don't teach how to do it. And really that's what our niche is, if you will, is we want to teach people how to first lead themselves. But they ask employees if you if you work for a leader that has a flat response, what does that mean to you? They said they avoid conflict and difficult conversations, they're always anxious and restless, they act like they're perfectionists, they want to overwork us because they're not doing their job, they feel overwhelmed, the employee feels overwhelmed because of that, and the leader avoids responsibilities. I think there's probably a lot of truth to that.

Douglas Ford:

Yep. Well, it's certainly their perception. I mean, but um there's a lot of reality in there for sure.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. Now, as I said earlier, there may be times where, you know what, it's just best to walk away as a leader and not engage into a game or word warfare or whatever it is. Right. What your team needs to, they need to see the leadership. And there are gonna be times where they say, you know what, that was just the right thing to do because they'll know the other person, the other person that's poking a leader, they'll say, you know what, that's how old Joe is. And the best thing Jim could do right now is just walk away.

Douglas Ford:

Right. Yeah, and there's a definitely a difference between making a conscious decision to walk away, quote unquote, uh, versus the flight response, which is I'm just gonna do everything I can to get out of the situation as quick as I can so I can get away from this, and so I'm not I don't have to deal with it. There's so that's two different responses. One is it, I mean, choosing to walk away, to not engage, to avoid the conflict at a particular moment is much more of a leadership response than just I gotta go. Right.

John Ballinger:

So we come back from break, we're gonna talk about the other two F's. Uh maybe do a little reflection on season three, and then we'll end up with uh a challenge to the uh leaders as we go into uh season four. We'll be back.

Douglas Ford:

Hello, First League Youth listeners, Douglas Ford here. I want to take just a few seconds during this break to say thank you for spending a few moments with us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of being a leader. We hope that in every episode you find some bit of information that will help you on your own personal leadership journey. In order to reach more people and to improve our positioning on all the podcasting and social media platforms, it's important that you subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcasting platform like Apple, Spotify, or any other platform where you listen to First League U. We would really appreciate you clicking on the subscribe button to help us reach more people and expand the message of First League U. And please take time to visit the First League U website. That's the number one, ST, the word lead, and the letter you dot com. First lead you dot com. Number one, ST, the word lead, and the letter U.com. I hope you have a great day as you continue to learn to first lead the five. And we've gone through the first two: the fight response, the flight response, and how even in those moments, uh, they may not take on what you might consider as your stereotypical responses. Uh fight response can look very calm and reserved based on the situation and how you handle it. And the flight response could actually be the best leadership decision if you handle it appropriately. And so uh we're going to uh go through the final two Fs, the freeze and the fawn, and then uh get into uh a little bit of a recap about what season three really meant, uh what the chart acrostic was, how it came about, and what it was intended for, and how people can use it moving forward. So, John, you want to uh lead us through the freeze and uh fawn?

John Ballinger:

The freeze. Here we are at number uh three, the freeze. The freeze response occurs when the nervous system shuts down in the face of threat or loss. That's kind of the paralysis uh F. It's not one that's talked about widely in public. Um but today I would say that the most from a from just a reaction standpoint of leaders that I see, these two F's are the most common responses that I see. Because they're and I'm saying this based on going all the way back to the military to 20 years now of coaching and development and leadership, and even myself, my own journey. The freezing and the fawning are two very common uh trauma responses, and there's reasons why, and we're gonna get into that. But the freeze response is your nervous system shuts down, you just don't want to deal with it. It goes in survival mode, and you will emotionally and physically just stop.

Douglas Ford:

That's the deer in the headlights.

John Ballinger:

That is the deer in the headlights, and and we'll say that. That's like a phrase, right? Right. Absolutely. When you're in a critical situation with your team and they need answers, the deer in the headlights is not the response you need to give them. It's better to give them some kind of response of, I don't know. I'll need to check on these things or check with these people, and I'll get back with you and actually get back with you. But just freezing is not the response that your team needs. That, again, erodes trust, erodes confidence when your team needs you and you're not there to perform for them. Most people would see someone that is in the freeze response in a leadership standpoint, and this was the number one out of those articles, they struggle to make decisions across three different articles. People that see leadership that are constantly freezing are leaders that do not, they struggle to make decisions, and so they just don't make a decision.

Douglas Ford:

Right.

John Ballinger:

And they hope somebody makes a decision so that things continue moving forward.

Douglas Ford:

Right. And they paralyze the organization. And a lot of times, even if other people do make decisions, they will retract the decisions of other people uh and causes the organization to really go into a lot of chaos because then nobody knows what to do, and then when pressure mounts and a decision has to be made, oftentimes it requires Herculean efforts to resp to make to fulfill the decision that's been made.

John Ballinger:

Right. Have you heard the term passive aggressive before? Yes. Okay. The the leader that fits the freeze mode, and that's kind of their operational uh process when it comes to things that are difficult, trauma or things like that, they're mostly passive aggressive people. So they'll freeze, they won't make a decision, they'll hope somebody else makes a decision, or after a period of time they may make a decision, and if that decision doesn't work, they get very passive aggressive about it. And then start blaming people. The second thing, besides struggling to make decisions, they're very blame-oriented. That's I mean, I can say that's true.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah.

John Ballinger:

Right?

Douglas Ford:

I've experienced that before with with other leaders.

John Ballinger:

So I want you to leadership. I mean, this is not beat the leader up. This is just the the fact that you have a natural bend on how do you react to trauma or events that you're not accustomed to or ill prepared or trained to do, and you need to recognize that, own it, and figure out how to use the response of Appropriately, but don't use it as a crutch that's going to cause erosion of trust and confidence in your team.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah. I mean, all this is about creating awareness. I mean, once you are aware that that might be your natural response, then you can become more intentional about the types of response you use in the future.

John Ballinger:

Yeah. Um the fond response is a survival mechanism that involves I want to please everybody. I don't want any conflict. I want everybody to love me. I want to gain approval for everybody. Well, guess what that is, Mr. Ford? That's a recipe for disaster. That's what that is. If you want to please everybody and you're in a leadership position, go sell ice cream. Because you're and and and if you've got 31 flavors, they're going to ask for 32. In today's society, you're never going to please everyone. So the fact that you think that, well, my natural response to anything that's attacking me or out of is going to be, I'll just fawn, I just will not respond, is dangerous in in corporate America today, in business of any kind today. The what's odd is so the people know this the leader that's in these, you know, they know their leader.

Douglas Ford:

Right.

John Ballinger:

So what's the number one thing? I'm on dating number one, number two. The number one thing is they fear conflict. The person that is a fond response is always walking around fearing any type of conflict, and so everything's eggshells.

Douglas Ford:

In terms of the employees and employees feel like they're always on eggshells.

John Ballinger:

Always on eggshells. Because they know that that leader does not want any type of conflict whatsoever. Right. And so let him bring it because I'm not going to deal with it. The second thing is, is they they being the leader will say no or yes to anybody they're confronted with when they actually don't believe in the no or the yes. And they'll go to the next person and say no or yes that would refute what they just said no or yes to, to the person that they said that to.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, so you can't trust their position on something. Ever. Yeah.

John Ballinger:

There's a term I don't even know if this is a word. Wishy-washy. Is that a word? Yeah. Yeah. So your people know if you're wishy-washy. Right. Which is not a healthy place to be in as a leader. No. When your people think, oh well, they're just Mr. and Miss Wishy-washy.

Douglas Ford:

Right. Yeah, cuz because they don't then they don't want to come and ask you for direction because they know that it could change tomorrow. Or with the next person.

John Ballinger:

With the next person. Yeah. Just down the hallway. Yeah. And you could you could sometimes I've heard I have heard a leader leave one meeting saying something and overhear them talking to somebody else that was contradictory to what you they just said in the meeting. And I'm like, did I just did I hear that wrong?

Douglas Ford:

Yeah. I mean, and I've heard, you know, cases where uh people were in various situations and they've known leaders um in a in a group of leaders that may have been a little wishy-washy or didn't hold the position, and try to get them to commit to a position uh in public so they could hold them accountable. And uh they they wouldn't do it. I mean, I I think there's even an example in one of our our favorite books that talks about you know uh went over to a person's house, got them to commit, said this is what we're gonna do. Are you on board with that? Absolutely 100% on board with that. In the meeting the next day, somebody else raises an objection and says, Here's why I'm not on board with that. And the person that they had gone to their house to talk to them to get their commitment, it's like, yeah, I agree with the the new idea. It's like so yeah, it makes it very confusing for uh for people who uh have leaders who are constantly changing their position.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, so as we round out those those four Fs, think about that from a leadership standpoint. Think about your natural bend to dealing with conflict or unanticipated things coming up, and then how can I use those four Fs actually to the benefit from a leadership standpoint on the different circumstances that are going on in my in the life of leadership today's in today's time frame? So we've gone through chart C H A R T with four subcategories to each one of them. The four F's. Um so what do you think about the chart and season three, Mr. Season three?

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, I think uh certainly there's a lot to digest. Uh people do have the chart uh across stick that they printed out and they're using that. Uh the I think the key thing for season three is that we took the time to go through each of the subcategories, uh, which gives you a place to like what does that mean? You know, how can I apply that in my leadership? It gives you a good you know 20 to 30 minutes of of narrative uh that can help you kind of walk through that. So um we've seen uh that if people would adopt chart or some other similar framework, I mean there's other ideas and thoughts out there, but uh if they would adopt chart and use that in their own personal leadership development, I mean we de we have already seen that there can certainly be success in that. And so it's a great place for people to start if they're looking for like I know I need to improve my leadership. Uh, what are some steps I can take? Just starting to think through and work through the chart across it is, you know, which is a chart leadership journey, um, is a great place to start.

John Ballinger:

Yeah, and you said something that the reason I feel like that we're different with our leadership development is we actually get in the trenches with the leaders and we actually help them. So I wrote this down. We educate them and then we help them with the application process, so there's a transformational process. Right. And we've actually seen transformational growth because we've helped apply what we've educated. Right. We just don't tell them to do something and figure it out, like we're down there with you, shirt sleeves rolled up. This is the reality, there's sometimes there's tears involved in it. Right. Because it's not easy. But if the leader that you need to be for your team, it necessitates doing some hard things.

Douglas Ford:

Right. Yep. Yeah, and there's there's something biblical about the education application transformation process.

John Ballinger:

There is, isn't there? Absolutely is. I mean, I did a lot of because Douglas does all the digital editing setup. I mean, he does all the all the that's hard stuff, but I remember going through those myself thinking, man, this is tough. This is tough for a leader to really embrace this. And the earlier a leader starts, the quicker they'll be able to embrace chart and actually apply it without having it in their desk, hanging on the wall. It'll just become natural.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah. Every week you came in and said, Man, this was a tough one. This is gonna be tough.

John Ballinger:

I know. Every week. Every week. And I would think just when I thought I'd done the tough one, I'd be going into geez, this is tougher. So when you're saying rechart, apply chart and all the categories to chart, and then work on your 4F to make sure that your natural bin is not just that in a negative manner, we know we're asking a lot of the leader. It's not it is not beyond me to know that. But I'm not asking you to do it all at once. I'm asking you to start a journey. And I started a journey literally decades ago that allows me to sit in front of this microphone and say something like I said to this board of seasoned people the other day. And I said, before I said it, I said, this is not to be an arrogant statement, but there's nobody in this room that's a board member that can carry my water. And that's a tough statement to make to a lot of seasoned, competent people in that room. And one of the people in that room that's known me for 17 years pointed his big long arm and finger at me and said, I agree with every word he just said. And he said, You said it at the appropriate time because of the discussion that was going on. And I don't say that to be grandiose whatsoever. I'm saying that is I'm not the same person I was even five years ago, 10 years ago. I'm not the same person I was last year because I've continued to develop myself because the people that are in my responsibility deserve me to be the best version of myself every day. And the more difficult society gets, the more I have to work to be the best leader they deserve. And all I'm asking for is the the if you've if you've raised your hand and said, I want to be a leader, the people that are under your care deserve for you to be the best version of themselves, which means that you've got to work twice as hard, three times as hard today than even five years ago to be the leader that they need to be. Because Mr. Ford, I'm gonna tell you, I can this is the crystal ball. You see my crystal ball in front of me? You see that? Yep. It's not gonna get easier. It's gonna get more difficult. And lack of development, lack of training, lack of intentional application means that you're going to wilt if you're in a leadership position. So the culmination of all that that was that was that uplifting?

Douglas Ford:

It was kind of uplifting. I just this is just the truth. Maybe it was more truthful than uplifting.

John Ballinger:

Well, I can say it's the truth. Right. So I want you to this is something that came up in reflection of myself uh this week. And I wrote this down. We live in our own movie. We must learn to step outside of our movie and watch ourselves act and react in that movie. Our adult life is a series of circumstances and events that we've seen, heard, and experienced, and now we're living inside inside our own movie reel. And to be the leader, you need to be, you have to take the chart, the four Fs, step outside the movie, and watch yourself react and and act, and how you act and better yourself so that you can be the best version of yourself for your you and your team. Because it impacts your family, it impacts everything around you. Your leadership impacts personal, professional, friendships, all those things.

Douglas Ford:

Right.

John Ballinger:

The better off you are at developing yourself and handling the stressors that are gonna they're gonna be here, the better off you and your team are gonna be.

Douglas Ford:

Yeah, and and some of that times looking at that reel requires rewinding and looking at scenes. And I mean, we talked about it yesterday. I mean, there's scenes that happen in life that cause us to react in ways, and sometimes we may not even know that that is what happened, but just taking the time to reflect on like, here's the behavior, what causes that behavior, and try to figure out like where where did that create uh behavior originate? Yeah.

John Ballinger:

Well, it's been a pleasure uh to do season three with you, Mr. Ford. I appreciate uh all you do. I'm thankful for you. Um, and I look forward to uh season four, which we've already started kind of uh laying some groundwork for uh in season four. But I'm very thankful for our audience and I wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, and a happy new year because in 2026, season four will begin. Thank you very much. And remember, in order to lead your teams well, you must first lead.

Contributor

John Ballinger

Host
Contributor

Douglas Ford

Co-host