IDL78 Season 2: The Leadership Project with Mick Spiers

Why must leaders lead by example to inspire true action in their followers? How can you become a better leader every day? What does it take to let your team shine?

Today we have a special guest, Mick Spiers. He has worked across the globe, in industries as varied as defense and public transport logistics. He is also the author of You’re a Leader Now What and together we dig into the ethos of modern-day leadership. We consider the nature of modern-day leadership and suggest tactical leadership principles to help empower your life.

Meet Mick Spiers

Mick Spiers is a writer, podcast host, and the founder and principal of The Leadership Project, a movement designed to challenge thought and practices for leadership in a modern and digital world.

The Leadership Project’s goal is to create a community of 1 million leaders that come together to share knowledge, experience and wisdom to continually adapt and improve leadership practices in organizations across the globe. 

Mick is an experienced executive with a strong track record in the development of exceptional high-performance teams. He strongly believes that his success in business and life has been through the development and support of the people, teams, and leaders around him.

Mick values diversity of thought and encourages engagement and active participation from people from diverse backgrounds on all topics.

Visit The Leadership Project and listen to Mick’s podcast. Connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Lead by example - 07:15

• Embody and provide emotion - 11:56

• Who can you learn from? - 31:53

• Believe in your team - 43:01

• Remember your values - 45:10

Lead by example

Lead people by your example, because it inspires meaningful action in them when they can see you do what needs to be done without hesitation or complaint.

If you are telling people to do things and forcing them to finish tasks, they will often do the bare minimum.

However, if you can inspire them to take meaningful action through your aligned behaviors and words, then they often naturally strive to do the best that they can.

Embody and provide emotion

When you can coach and lead people with emotion, you help them get to their work and complete it with a sense of fulfillment and passion because you trust them to enjoy it instead of critiquing them as only workers.

See your employees as people and value their contribution to get the best version of them in your team and in your business.

Step into coach-mode and ask more questions.

Who can you learn from?  

If you are a new leader, don’t just mimic what you see leaders around you do. Think about the type of leader that you want to be, and imagine how it would feel to be led by yourself.

If you are a new leader, who can you learn from? Think back to the last leaders you have had and people that you have looked up to. What about them inspired you?

How can you emulate their approach and incorporate it into your leadership style?

Practice daily self-reflection and self-awareness. Every day, ask yourself:

-        What went well today?

-        What did not go well today?

-        What can I do differently next time?

-        What did I learn about myself and others today?

Believe in your team

Your role as a leader is to recognize greatness in your team and to challenge those people to improve on it.

Believe in them and their capabilities, because it makes them stronger as a person and gives them a leg-up to believing in themselves, even if one day you are no longer leading them yourself.

Remember your values

The values whereupon you ground your business and guide your team are vital.

Instill and embody the values that mean the most to you in life and business within your company, and showcase them as the leader, so that those who follow you will be encouraged to do the same.

When your actions do not match your values, then your employees will lose trust in you and one another.

In times of pressure when your back is against the wall, do you stick by your values, or do you start cutting corners?

If you do, then they may not truly be values to you.

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

BOOK | Mick Spears - You're A Leader Now What?: The proven path to high performance leadership

BOOK | Michael S. Hyatt – The Vision Driven Leader: 10 Questions to Focus Your Efforts, Energize Your Team, and Scale Your Business

Visit The Leadership Project and listen to Mick’s podcast. Connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

Join the Impact Driven Leader Community

Check out the Impact Driven Leader Youtube Channel
Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn

Email Tyler: tyler@tylerdickerhoof.com

About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast

The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.

Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.

Self-doubt does more damage to success than failure ever does.

Mick Spiers

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER DICKERHOOF] Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. Man, I'm excited for you to be here today. I'm excited for you to be listening. If you're watching on YouTube, thank you for being a subscriber to the YouTube channel, checking out all these live conversations, these interviews. Today, man, I have a special treat. One, it's a conversation that Mick and I, today's guest, Mick Spiers, we decided to do this as a tandem podcast. One, I have done back and forth podcasts in the past and what I found is that the conversation just, it got a little disjointed between the two. Either one had way more layers because the relationship with each other, the proximity, so I decided, "Hey, Mick, instead of you interviewing for me for your podcast, me interviewing you for your podcast, let's just have this conversation together because honestly, I think that's when the most best conversations happen." So get ready to listen to that. Let me tell you a little bit more about Mick. Mick is the author of the book, You're a Leader Now What. He has a 30-year history in a Defense, Defense Aerospace, and then into, he worked for an organization, built some software that is integral in public transportation throughout the world. He lives in the Philippines, from Australia, here in our conversation, spent time professionally in Australia, New Zealand. We talk a lot about Auckland in that, but as well, we dig deep into really this ethos of modern-day leadership. What does it look like? How can you as a leader be empowered and feel empowered in some great tactical tools that makes it easy for you to be able to use? I'm thankful that you're here listening, and I'm thankful that you're part of the audience of the Impact Driven Leader podcast the community. I'm thankful for those of you that are part of the round table, listening in the book club. There is an opportunity for you to join either the book club or the round table. We're going to be starting a new cohort group very soon, excited for that. If you're interested in that, just send me an email, click on the link in the show notes and will get you directed to where we have a conversation, what it looks like to be a part of the round table. I know this, that people have gotten tremendous value. I get a lot of value out of the conversations we have, and I'd love to just share that with you, what that looks like. Get ready, take some notes. If you're subscribed, if somebody share this with you, make sure they subscribe so you get to the next episode. But here's my guest Mick Spiers [TYLER] So excited to be having this conversation with you, man. I'm excited for this layout. This is something unique to both of us. I have not released a podcast where it's just an open conversation that's going to be released on two podcast shows. Your podcast, my podcast, Impact Driven Leader. You're going to talk about yours, but man, I'm excited about the conversation because as we got to meet each other, we're talking about, it's like, oh, I think we're along the same pathway, but with such different flavor that this is going to make it a lot of fun to have this conversation. [MICK SPIERS] Yes, I can't wait, Tyler. This is going to be awesome. So I'm going to be playing this on the Leadership Project Podcast as well. I've also never done this, so for everyone listening at home, we were going to interview each other. I was going to have Tyler on my show and Tyler was going to have me on his show. We thought it might be more authentic for us to just share a wonderful conversation with you. So we're going to record it once and then share it with you twice on both of those platforms and really looking forward to see where the conversation goes today. [TYLER] I appreciate you being willing to, the listeners of the Impact Driven Leader podcast, my style is very conversational as I tell guests. It's like we're sitting down at a coffee shop, we're just having a coffee, a tea, whatever that may be, and talking about this subject leadership. It really, I'm going to use that as a kickoff because to me that's where I'm most comfortable to have those conversations. One of the subjects that I know we've talked a little bit about, we talked about just prerecord about one of your guests, Jeff Bloomfield, who's had a tremendous impact on you. It's this theory and this idea, this understanding that when people feel safe, they will do anything. When they feel safe, you get better results rather than forced. To me, when I'm talking to a guest, when I'm talking to other guests and I want to get the best, like the deepest, not the canned answers, I want them to feel safe. So that's my directive. I want to kick off there and say in your history a little bit, bring in your background so the audience can hear that, where do you think that pivot point, that understanding of safety really finds an entry point? [MICK] Oh yes, that's a tough question. [TYLER] Off we go. [MICK] Okay, so I think about my long-term history. I started in the military and military was all about instinctive obedience. I learnt a lot there. Even when you unpack your history, when you're in the military and military leadership, and a lot of it's very directive and authoritative and all this stuff, but the ones that rise to the top and are exceptional leaders, even in the military, are the ones that take the time to take a genuine interest in the people around them and provide for them. To quote Simon Sinek, for a moment, it's not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in your charge. Those ones that make that pivot are the ones that always rise to the top, even in a very instinctive, obedient environment like the military. So I spend eight years in the Army, I spend five years in the public service in defense, aerospace area before, the rest is history, as they say and off into the corporate world. But the lessons that keep on emerging for me are all about human beings. They're all about emotion. I'm so glad that you brought up Jeff. He's been a huge influence in me. In fact, I stumbled across Jeff on a LinkedIn learning session, 38,000 or 36,000 feet in the air on a plane. I watched his learning multiple times and it had such an impact on me to start thinking about how people make decisions and how they get motivated into action. So he's one of them. William Glass is another one around his work on Choice Theory. I've got to say Martin Seligman is another huge one. So these different moments in my career where I've read something and you know it to be true. I'm sure you've had this before, Tyler, you know it to be true, but then someone codifies it for you in a way where these light bulbs just go off and you go, this is it, this is the answer, it's a leadership. It's not about telling people what to do, it's about inspiring people into meaningful action around a worthy cause and getting them to do something because they want to do it, not because you told them to do it. When they want to do it, they knock it out of the path. [TYLER] Yes. [MICK] When they're told to do it, they do the bare minimum to make sure they don't get fired. That's leadership. So create that environment where their unique gifts can flourish. Give them environment where they have some level of choice of how they do what they do, and then yes, let them thrive. Let them knock it out of the park because they want to do it. [TYLER] So would you say from your experience in the Army that that was always the case or that wasn't the case? You found yourself yearning for more of that, being inspired, you described it as instructive obedience, but help me and the rest of the audience as we're listening to this say, "Hey, where did this really set in and be like, man, there's got to be a better way?" [MICK] It did come later in my career for me to realize why, but I'm able to go back and unpack all of those leaders that I've had in my career and realize which ones had the secret source and which ones didn't. Once again, in the military, people will do what you tell them to do. There's the power dynamics and all that stuff, but they'll either do it dragging their feet or they'll do it with the most amazing energy that you've ever seen. The secret between those two is motivation, care, love, respect, and when you set that and you're inspirational and you inspire people into action because they want do it, they will run up that hill with all of their energy and all of their might. Whether that's, and I was in a technical field in the army, but we still carried guns and all of those things, so when you've inspired someone, they'll put their heart and soul into it. When they're doing it because you told them they'll drag their feet and they'll get up there and they'll, maybe even on the outside, it'll look like they're putting in a lot of effort, but on the inside, their heart's not in it. [TYLER] Which is many workplaces in our world today. As we look at it today, and we're recording this July of 2022, we're going through this transitionary phase of do I want to be here in this job, or am I just showing up to get a paycheck? People are voting with their attendance and their compliance based upon their safety level. How safe do they feel, how comfortable, what's the trust level every single day? It's our opportunity as leaders to say, Are we recognizing that or are we saying, hey, we'll just force them and use instructive obedience to move ahead. [MICK] Yes, and then coming to your question, the moments probably come much later in my career. I'm going to say that there was another big moment in my career when I left Auckland. I'd been working in Auckland for a period of time, and I moved back to Sydney at that moment. I'd realized at that point that my leadership for the past two and a half, three, or in fact it was more like three and a half years, for the three and a half years I was in Auckland, my leadership was very much lead from the front and hands on everything. I had my fingers in everything. I was the one that was doing presentations to customers and I was the one that was engaging with the team in France and a lot was sitting at my desk. Yet I had this amazing, capable team around me that I was not engaging and empowering. They were having a good time. We had a very successful project. I wasn't an ogre, but I was very directive and I was very hands-on. So I moved to Sydney at that point, and less than one month later I had to move back to Auckland because I discovered that in my leadership style, I hadn't brought everyone else along for the journey. So I couldn't move on to my next role because when I left, I left a vacuum behind me. Not a vacuum of skill or anything like that. They knew they were a very talented team, but a vacuum created because I was too hands-on and I was too directive that when I left, they didn't know how to step into that breach, including the customer felt unsettled because the person that they had spoken to every day for three and a half years was no longer there. So that was probably the biggest moment when I went back to Auckland and I completely changed gears. I went almost a hundred percent servant leadership, if you like, and everything I did was about nurturing and encouraging those around me. Here's the key point, when they then started knocking out of the park without me opening my mouth, that was when the joy and fulfillment came. It was like yes, I was proud of what I did on the project, but now all of a sudden the joy and fulfillment was 10 times the personal pride of my own work. To watch the team gel together and do it without me was just so amazing and I've changed my leadership style ever since. [TYLER] So was there a catalyst in that, or you just realized, oh, it wasn't working, I got to fix this, so I got to fix it somehow, when you moved from Sydney back to Auckland? [MICK] It was that look around. It was a look around at the faces and realizing, hang on a second, I've got this amazing team here that I didn't provide the right environment for, that I didn't nurture. I didn't give them the opportunities that where they could grow, where they could knock it out of the park. It was actually the look on their faces to go, oh, yes, I created this. This was me, so I better fix it. Then when I did fix it and I saw the results of pivoting and taking a different approach, that changed me forever and now every role I've ever done since, yes, I provide the inspiration, I provide the vision, I provide the purpose, I declare the values and beliefs. I build a culture that I go into more coach mode and I ask more questions. So instead of coming into a meeting and go, "Right team, this is our number one priority for this week," I'll start with the question, "Hey team, what do you think our number one priority is this week?" Then the answers start coming and you go, "What do you think will be the positive impact if we're able to achieve this? What do you think the challenges are?" So turning into coach mode as a leader changed my life. On top of that, the things that you spoke about before with Jeff, doing it with purpose, doing it with intent, but doing it through emotion. These were the key moments in my career, and I've never looked back since. [TYLER] I think, go ahead [MICK] I want to know from you, what was the moment in your career where you went, okay, there's have got to be a better way? [TYLER] For me that was a point where I was trying to figure out how can I make a bigger impact? What can I do to really feel more engaged and like I had value? A lot of that for me was coming back, I'm going to tie this in to where we just left in that conversation, because I think so often, and this happened to me, and this can happen to other leaders, that we think our tasks are what brings us value. You have the opportunity where you left Auckland, you go to Sydney, and you got to see from afar as like, oh, this is not good. Oh, this is not going, their customers saying, we're not happy. You have your team probably being a little bit like what do we do? We're a little bit lost because that baton wasn't passed, that empowerment wasn't done. I found myself in a place to where I don't want to be a sole entrepreneur. I don't want to be just a one man alone on an island. I don't want to be a one-man band. I don't like that. There's a lot of people that think, oh, that's fortuitous. Henry Ford was that example. It's like, I am the guy with everything. Everyone else is just my helper. As he found out, and Ford organization found out, corporation, that that doesn't work well very long. I had experienced that too, because what you said, it wasn't very fulfilling and so I found myself in this place to say I'd gone through a couple different changes in my careers, different things, but along the same idea of this consulting, this helping didn't fully understand the coaching model. But I loved coaching, I loved helping, and I found myself understanding what's the barrier? The barrier was my insecurity and it's just like when I go back to the situation, yes, you moved, you left from Auckland, you go to Sydney, and that forced you, there was a catalyst there so like I got to do something different here. A lot of leaders I don't think are ever in that place. They maybe get promoted, but they're close enough to where they can have their fingers in the pot where they still keep doing their thing and they're like, oh, that's what value I bring. I'm irreplaceable. To me, that's for many, many leaders, that is a armor of their insecurity because if I was vulnerable enough to say, no, I'm really, I'm not the best at this is, make this better at this than I am, hey, can you do this for us? There's this fear that if I do that, I'm not empowering a leader. I'm disempowering myself, and now I'm replaceable. That's something that I wrestled with, especially as a individual consultant is I'm going out there, I'm trying to work with people and I can have my niche what I'm good at, but if I can't do everything they need, unless I have the team with me, if I'm just the one man to do this, well then I'm replaceable. So I had to wrestle through that and be coming into a larger organization, say, hey, what value can I bring? I had to understand and learn that I had to focus more on what others were trying to accomplish, and not just how do I keep moving ahead and making sure that I provide value? So that whole concept and that understanding centered around my insecurities and recognizing I meant when they showed up and that was creating a lack of trust or a lack of safety in others around me. I had to learn to deal with that and I had to say, ooh, this is a problem. This is a problem because I'm not helping others, I'm not able to do is what you did going to that situation and start asking the right questions in a comforting way. It was more of, all right, here's the problem. Let's put our head down and push and get it done because that's how with my intensity, I was able to move the ball forward rather than just ask questions, be a part of the team. So that was my personal experience in that, I guess that mixing pot of this emotional leadership turmoil to say, how do I do it better? [MICK] Thanks for sharing that so openly, Tyler. I'd love to unpack it just a little bit for a while. So first of all, I think there's a lot of leaders out there that are exactly like that. They tie their identity, they tie their self-worth to what they do, not who they are. When they go on a journey of discovery, discover who they are and what their genuine superpower is, they can then pivot and get the comfort from doing the leadership work, so getting the pride and the joy that they want from leading others instead of being impactful individually. I know you're a big fan of John C. Maxwell as I am, and one of his favorite sayings, which is an African proverb, is if you want go fast, go alone, if you want go far, go together. That is, I mean, your podcast is all about impact and Impact Driven Leader, leaders are only ever given 24 hours a day just like everyone else. But if you are able to multiply your impact through those around you and to generate value from their gifts, then you've multiplied your impact far more than anything you could have done with your own pen in your hand, your own keyboard at your fingers, whatever the case may be. You're now multiplying and multiplying and multiplying through your influence and the environment that you're creating around you. Being self-aware enough, you said about, there's someone else on my team that's actually better at this than me, be comfortable with that. It's not a, that's not a sign of weakness. That's a sign of strength for you to be able to say, I'm not the best person on the team to do this, but Jim is or Sally is, and let them shine. Good one, Tyler. [TYLER] I think is, one of the things that I often reflect to, and it's a part of our fabric and human culture, in many, many different locations and cultures and geographies and that sport. Now that sport can be in the way of actual like sport. It could be cricket, native rugby, those sports that are native to Australia, New Zealand. It could be football, it could be basketball, doesn't matter. It could be whatever type sport that your culture is centric to but it also can be in a family, family's team. There's teamwork there. If I look then to the corporate world if we look at the team in our corporate world, and it gets real muddy, it gets real muddy because we're not sure in a lot of organizations what our roles are because everyone is in sales. So directive in sales is go make as many sales as you can make. Then maybe you are in billing, you're in it or whatever else. Like your job is to support all the sales people. It's like this, if you're in a soccer team and you're like, hey, our premier player is our striker. The guy at the top of the field, he usually scores the most goals. The rest of us don't matter. It's all about him. If the team goes with that approach, they're not going to have success. Yet that's what we do corporately. That's what we do in a lot of times in a family. We have this one person who is just the rainmaker. Often, then they get promoted to that next level, which is leadership and yet we don't have this comprehension understanding their roles are uniquely and decidedly different. That's where I really take the opportunity and I look at it, being a leader has nothing to do with being the star performer. Sometimes great leaders were star performers. A lot of times they weren't. It was the person on the team who you never really notice sometimes. Sometimes they weren't glaring where they were like this over performer, yet they never underperformed. Then you realize and you start understanding that everyone that's around them in their little circle, they just perform a little bit better. You start to see, oh, they're a little bit better there. There's a quote from the Hall of fame, the perennial I would say master of the sport and that is Wayne Gretzky. He said to hockey players and they said, “It's not the best players that play in the NHL, the National Hockey League. It is the players that make everyone else around them better.” To me, that is the sign of a leader. It's a person that they're not looking for those personal accolades sometimes where they're not focusing on how can I absolutely win because I have to win. They're more of saying, how can I get close to the finish line and then take the rest of my team and push them across it? What can we do to say, "Hey, Mick, I'm really good at this. You're really good at that. If I help you do what, if I do what I do and you do what you do, man, we're both going to do better. What can we do in those situations?" That's where I see coaches that have started to understand the dynamics of teams and that effectiveness start to pinpoint it. That happens in the corporate world, that happens in all levels of sports and it takes that retraining to understand those are the best leaders. Sometimes they are the person scoring the most goals on the field, but they're also going back to the four other players who made that last play possible. It's the pass before the pass before the pass. Hey, you had a great defensive stand. I was able to four passes later, get the ball in score, man. That's what made the difference. I was able to what, you had a good entry call with this potential client. You built such rapport and trust. You knew exactly what their needs were that then you put it onto the next person that threw our fulfillment capacity and we had all the right people in the right place that we were able to land this major client. But it was because of that first person who talked to him on the phone and then identified and build that rapport and that trust. Initially that's how we had success, not because I came in at the end and I'm so good that I closed the deal and I solved it. I think those are the big changes that organizations have to wrestle with and have to pivot on in order to have more sustainable success. Or if it's not, it's just a bunch of rabbits, the hare and the turtle where it's like the rabbit goes and the rabbit goes, the hair goes, the hair goes, and the turtle's like, "Hey, I'm just doing my thing here, just doing my thing here. I'm just going to keep doing my thing here." If we focus on that as a team, that's when you go far. It's not about fast, you just go far. [MICK] Brilliant, Tyler, and there's a lot to unpack there, but some of the key ones. And there is a dichotomy here, and to be fair to a lot of organizers out there, it these challenging to do what we're about to say, but those individual superstars that knock it out of the park, they are the ones that become very visible and that's how they end up getting tapped on the shoulder and put into the leadership role. But if you are the best software engineer in the company, it does not necessarily mean you're going to be the best leader. In fact, it could be the exact opposite. You might be better served being the best software engineer in the company because what got you to where you are today will not get you to where you need to be as a leader. It's a mindset shift that needs to change. What happens is you get these people promoted who were the best software engineer in the company, and now they're in this leadership role. They've never been shown what it means to be a leader, to be fair to them. They do a poor job, they start getting frustrated with themselves, they don't enjoy leadership sometimes and now you've got a double whammy. The company has got a poor leader in a pivotal role and they've lost their best software engineer. Then some of the human nature kicks in and you get people saying, "Oh, I feel like I'm doing two jobs." Part of it is they're doing two jobs and part of it is they're reaching back into their comfort zone and they're still doing parts of their old job because they liked it and they were good at it and they're struggling with their new job. The other part that I loved or what you're saying is about the co-creation and one of the problems that we have in the organization is you get the culture, you get the culture that you celebrate, that you honor, that you reward and that you tolerate. Tolerates maybe a different topic for another conversation, but you get that behavior. If all you are doing is applauding and clapping the individual that put the ball in the net at the end and you're forgetting about the three people that did the lead up play, then you are going to shift the culture and everything's going to be about getting the ball and getting that only that one person. So yes, you need to celebrate everyone that led to the success and your sales example is perfect. There are people that are very good at account management and setting up the account that are terrible at closing the deal. There are other people that are really good at closing the deal, but celebrate both. I used some words here from Sharma, he uses this wonderful analogy around a orchestra. So a violin player, sitting down and listening to a violin player is beautiful and violin, there's something special about it. A string quartet, oh, this is something new again, that's richer an environment. Then the string quartet gets into a mini orchestra and oh wow, something just shifted and this is amazing and now into a full orchestra and you've got this amazing thing where all of the, some of the parts adds up to something much greater than the individuals could ever create by themselves. The conductor is the one that, quite often conductors are talented musicians themselves, but they're not playing an instrument, are they? But they're drawing out the best of every part of that orchestra to create this new magical thing that would not have existed without bringing it together. So co-creation, holding space so that all of those natural gifts of every member of the orchestra can play to their full capacity and their full talent but bringing it together to something that's magical and beyond the sum of its parts. [TYLER] I think one of the great challenges, as we stop and we think about this and I think about your charge in the leadership project and helping new leaders, and that's really what the Impact Driven Leader is about too, is empowering, ill-equipped, these Gen X millennial leaders who maybe haven't had a great example of leadership before them; a leadership model that was very authoritarian or just do it because I told you, or it's very wishy washy where there's lack of accountability because they're like, well, I don't want to hold your feet to the fire. You might leave. Which brings off its own problems. I think we find ourselves into this place where we have a lot of experienced leaders and they've fallen into a set of bad habits and we have these inexperienced leaders where they're going in and they're doing a lot of things we've talked about earlier, but then they start looking around and saying, "Well, what does it mean to be a leader?" We have in our society today, it's a global world. It's no longer these pockets in Europe, in Asia and the Australian continent, including New Zealand and North America and all these different pockets. It's not, it's really a global world. The pandemic of 2020, 2021 prove that even greater because now you have people that live all over the world and they work in many different places all over the world. So everything's now intertwined and connected and we have this feeling to say, hey, what should a leader be doing? Do we need to come in and we just need to appease people and say, hey, show up whenever you can, do whatever you can or is there accountability to where we're going to be directive and we're going to take the right actions? That may be polarizing in itself, but the actions I'm coming to take are actually to bring us all together and say, hey, we have this vision. I want to make sure that we're moving towards that. If you're in, great, I'm in with you too. If you're not, okay, great. Where can you go find a place? Because here isn't the place. But one of the things, to stick back, that's the whole piece of the pie, the whole pie, to cut it up in the little slices is identifying and understand if I'm an experienced leader, what are the things that I've been doing that I need to stop doing? What are some of those things that you've seen that leaders right now are challenged with that they really need to say, hey, I don't know if you should be doing that anymore or re-look at it with new eyes and maybe some of the, well, this is the way we've always done it. What things have you seen there? [MICK] All right, so in defense of the new leader, so they're often thrown into these leadership roles where no one, no one has taken the time to show them what true leadership looks like. So their only reference point is to look around at leaders around them. Unfortunately, that's a very hit and miss affair because we've got a lot of, not purposely horrible bosses, but we've got a lot of horrible bosses out there that have got no self-awareness that their actions are impacting the emotions of the people around them. So they start going, "Oh, okay, well that's what that person did. That's what this person did." They start mimicking those behaviors. So take the time to stop and really reflect on what good leadership has felt like for you. Everyone's had had a mixed bag. They've had that, okay, here's a leader that, and there's no such thing as a perfect leader, by the way, so it's picking and choosing different attributes. So look at the leaders that you've had before and think about what worked and what didn't work. Then as you practice your own leadership practice daily self-reflection, be self-aware and self-reflect every day to go, "Okay, what went well today? What didn't go well today? What would I do differently next time if I had the chance to do a similar thing again? What did I learn about myself today? What did I learn about others?" Every day you can become a better leader by paying attention to what's working and what's not working. Human beings are complex. So what works for one person may not work for another person. By the way, to rub salt into the wound, what works for that one person two weeks from now might not work for them anymore because they will be growing and they will have different emotional states at different times. So a leader is very in tune to their environment, very emotionally aware of themselves and those around them, and they're learning every day. One of my favorite quotes that one of my podcasts shared with me recently, and I need to find out who originally said this because they couldn't remember either, was next year, I hope you have a better leader. I hope that leader is me. That's where you get to, if you want to become a great leader, it's about paying attention and learning every day about what's working and what's not working. Then in terms of what you are saying about the accountability, this is really key because, I teach choice theory and I talk about freedom of choice and freedom from oppression. This is all work from William Glasser and I'll often get comments, well, but if we just leave everyone up to their own devices, it'll be chaos. People will just, if you give them a blank sheet of paper every day, there'll be no direction, there'll be no accountability. So yes, that's true. The leader's role is to be able to paint that, paint that vision of the future, inspire people into meaningful action around that vision so there is a north star that everyone is heading towards. A great leader is also able to espouse their values and beliefs so that they can then start surrounding themselves with people that believe in the things that they believe, so people that believe in the cause. Once you've got people that believe in the cause, the battle's almost half one, Tyler to tell the truth. So you're painting that North star and the North Star might be something very visionary, or it might be very tactical about this week, team. The most important thing by the end of this week is we need to do this. But instead of telling people what to do, then embrace freedom of choice and remember that you attracted talented people around you. They know more things than you do. So tap into those gifts, tap into those talents, set the direction and go, this is where we need to get to. Now, team, what do you think is the best way to get there and then let them shine. You're paying them good money for their intellectual capability, not for their arms and legs. You're paying for their intellectual capability. [TYLER] I'd even go deeper with that, to step in and say, the problem is if you don't encourage them to find out their way, you go right back to where you were when you left Auckland and go to Sydney and have to come back. Because now you haven't created where they're starting to think through it because the best position that leader can be in, and into this quote next year, I hope to have a better leader and I hope it's me, well, I'd even go, next year, I hope you have a better leader and I hope it's you. I hope it's you who have grown because if now you've replaced me, well that's the ultimate goal. If you go back to that sitting in in Auckland, you're like, man, if I went into this and said I'm going to be out of here in two and a half years, who can I have replace me? Because I hope they push me out or I have to be out. [MICK] That's brilliant. That's wonderful growth for everyone then. So yes, absolutely. Then coming to this point of accountability, so you're creating environment where they can think and they can think for themselves and they will enjoy that. They will enjoy that because everyone wants to feel like they're holding the steering wheel of their own life. So I have this acronym, TCA in any of these meetings, create an environment where everyone can think and they get into a thinking state or a reflective state that the thinking might also include a bit of visualization where they can visualize the end result. But not only can they visualize the end result, they visualize the journey along the way and what might some of the potholes be that we need to avoid some of the challenges. Then C is challenge. Once they've come up with a great way of doing it, challenge them, "Okay, what would better look like? What would best look like? What would 10% more look like? What do we need to do more of? What do we need to do less of?" Challenge them a little bit. That is your job. It's not just to go, "Oh yes, well done, congratulations. Off you go." Challenge them to be the best version of themselves so that they can knock it out of the park. Then A, in the TCA is action, but it's not you telling them the actions, it's getting them to say it. I have this saying, who's holding the pen? So in a meaning, give them the pen to summarize the actions, because if that comes out of their mouth, they take extreme ownership of it. [TYLER] Totally [MICK] So you're finished with, so what are you going to do about it? Oh, boss, I'm going to do this, this, this and this. What's stopping you from doing it? Nothing. Do you need any help? No, I've got everything I need to do. All right, let's go. Then the accountability comes in where you bring them in and say, okay, team, at the start of the week, we said that we're going to head towards here. You said that the best way to get there was here. How did you go? Accountability. Hold them to account to the plan that they came up with. That was their plan. They took ownership of it and you know what, you won't have to do to much accountability because if they develop the plan, they'll put their heart and soul into it. [TYLER] Well, it's self-loaded consequences. I mean, choices are, without a framework choice is just anarchy. It's absolute chaos but if you put together that framework, like the vision that you have, it's like, hey, this is the box that we're trying to accomplish. Whatever happens inside of that box, that's up to you. If you're saying in the process of that we need to expand our box, we need to change our box a little bit in order to meet our objective, then okay, but you're discovering that because you took ownership on the actions. If midweek you have that meeting on Monday and midweek all of a sudden is Tuesday, it's Wednesday, and someone's like, "Hey, we didn't see this," all of a sudden now we have to make this pivot. You're like, well, okay, you're in the midst of it. I'm not the one to decide that so go off and run with it. Eventually that's when they start to think a little differently. So then the next week you're like, hey, I learned from last week when we set in this way, but yet it didn't quite work out. We had to pivot. Well, now I need to start thinking about that rather than as a leader, when I put that all on my shoulders that I am sending out the work orders every single week and then getting frustrated because why aren't they being intuitive? Why aren't they thinking ahead? Why aren't we helping with inventory management to customer service to all those other factors that are part of your business? Well, because you haven't empowered them to, as you said, to think, to be reflective, to challenge, to, all right, wait a second, I remember this happened. Did we account for that? Yes. This is what we're going to do account for. Awesome. Great. What are actions? As you said to me that makes an environment engaging to where with the right culture, meaning, if everyone's empowered and that everyone feels safe, meaning they know their place and their value, every business in this world has the capacity to do that. [MICK] Yes. Two magic things happen with those little pivots that you spoke about as well. When they're able to think for themselves and they're able to do those little pivots to go, oh, I hit a bump, but it's okay, I've got it, they start having that learning mindset themselves and they're growing every week. But the other thing that happens is the pride at the end of the week. What do you feel most proud about, Tyler, do you feel most proud about when you do a project and everything went perfectly to plan and at the end of the week you went tick? Or do you feel more proud when you hit a bump on the road, but you used your own methods or whatever to pivot around it and overcome it? That's when you feel proud. You feel proud at the end of the week where you go, I did it despite the challenges, not I did it and it was easy. So with those little pivots, they grow, they learn and they feel really proud about what they achieved. [TYLER] I think that's the key. Everyone, our entire being in one way, shape or form is centered around learning. Our existence as humans is about learning. If there isn't a fulfillment of either purpose or positive feeling by learning, we wouldn't exist. Because every single human had to learn in order to continue to exist. It's don't eat the poisonous plant, don't step there, don't touch that. I mean, the simple little things that you and I do every day. I think when that is a part of our culture and when it's done in a safe way to where it's not chastising the failure, it's not chastising the mistake, but say, what did we learn from that? Great, we know not what not to do. Hey, that's going to direct us closer to what to do. To me, there's a huge part of buy-in there and as you said, it's when you get through that road bump, through that barrier, over that hurdle and that ingenuity that comes with it, man, that just brings this entire spirit of we can do it. I think that that feeling is so important that I don't think there's a, to me, that that centers to the feeling of belief. As a leader, I believe this, the number one superpower any person has in this world is belief. With it they can do anything. Without it they're not going to accomplish anything. Our great opportunity as leaders is to stoke that, to pour in more, to foster it, to recognize those opportunities. Man, did you see what you did? Maybe you missed it. Man, that was brilliant. Man, keep doing that. That's great. Those little belief pieces as, what they call a cheerleader as a leader, but man, what you're doing is you're creating this, going back to how I very, very first started, you're creating an entire layer of trust because if my leader is doing that, man, even if I mess up, I know they still have my back. I know they still care about me because they believe in me. They're telling me they believe in me. [MICK] That's a very powerful thing. Self-doubt does more damage to success than failure ever does. So if you fail, you learn from it, and you pick your socks up and go again, no problem. But if you have self-doubt, you never started in the first place. You spoke about Gretsky before. You miss every shot that you don't take. So if you got self-doubt, limiting belief, you don't take the shot in the first place. You can always take the shot and you can fail and you can learn from it and grow. So, yes, great one. A leader needs to invest in the belief of their team, make them believe in themselves, and then once they believe in themselves, they'll knock it out of the park all the time. Probably the only boundary I would put on all of this, probably people thinking, oh, we're getting a bit crazy here. The only boundary I'd put on here is the values and beliefs of the team. So there might be some very clear rules of things that you will not do as a team. So we'll not succeed at the expense of another human being. We will embrace diversity of thought. We'll have an inclusive environment where everyone feels that they belong, so having some values and beliefs that everyone in the team understands, lays out the boundaries of the playing field, but then let the people play the game. Let them go. Once they're on the playing field, let them go and let them shine [TYLER] In the last couple months, as part of the Impact Driven Leader, we have a book club. We have a round table. We go through discussions and we were in the last couple months going through the book, The Vision Driven Leader by Michael Hyatt. In that book, he talks about vision and mission and identifies values. In the conversation of that book, we talk about mission, how your vision, how important it is, and identifying, asking the right questions. A thought that one gentleman, his name is Josh, he shared and talked about, he works in a construction company, a VP of a construction company. He talks about when we focus on the values, man, everything goes better. I really have used that conversation to tie into that last little piece that you were talking about, the vision, the values, and the beliefs. When we focus everything on our values, you fit in based upon our values, not your skill set, not where you went to school, not your previous experiences, not what you look like, not your hobbies. Do your values align? Great. If we can move past that, check that box, then the rest is actually pretty easy. The great thing that we discussed as a group is when you focus on those values first, you'll be amazed at the diversity that you bring in, the different viewpoints, the, oh, well, you have a totally different experience set, which is going to be value to us, because now we're going to see things so differently. I come back to, again, what you were saying of where does this not fit? I think this also goes to the next step to maybe finish up here in our conversation is when that's not the case. When is that, when maybe there's a value disagreement or maybe they're not commonly held and, or say we're in a position and we're mid-level management. You talk about all the different things you discussed and you were talking about I had to change and I had to go back and reassess how I led in this office than what I did previously in order to foster up other leaders. Well, what if you were in a situation to where your superior was saying, “What are you doing, Mick? That's not the way to do it. That's not the way to lead. Or, we don't do that here,” even though you know, well, if I don't, then I'm going to get burnout. I'm already seeing it. Or man, I feel overwhelmed and now all of a sudden, I have all this pressure on me, and you just sink lower in your chair as I am for those of you watching on video, and you're like defeated. I think that this value alignment is the great resignation played out. Even though people aren't able to put their finger on it, that's what's happening. I think all the different layers have an opportunity to raise their hand and say, hey how are we addressing this? [MICK] Yes, I think there's two layers of that, Tyler. The first one is the values alignment, fully agree. We need to have more conversations. We need to have leaders that are out there with the ability to articulate with clarity what their values and beliefs are. Then you will surround yourself with people that believe in the things that you believe. So that starts with the value alignment. The next one is congruence. This is a killer. If you are the leader and you've heard, oh, you've heard this podcast with this guy called Tyler and Mick and they said that I should state my values, so I wrote a really nice values statement, and I read it out to the team and I said people first and this, and I told them all my values, but then my actions don't match those values. Then this is when trust completely disappears. If you have a team that don't trust each other, then no, you're not heading anywhere significant anytime soon. So it's not just about stating your values, it's living those values and being congruent with those values at all time. That's what people want in a leader. They want a leader that's open and transparent about their values, their belief, their vision, and then they want someone that lives by it, particularly in times of pressure. So in those times of crisis where your back's against the wall, do you stick by your values or do you start cutting corners around those values and people pick up on it? So yes, talk about values and values alignment, and then values congruence, where your actions match those values. [TYLER] I think there's also a genuineness about that. Oh yes, this is my value. Oh, Mick, you're not living by it. Oh you're right. Thanks for that. I appreciate that. Yes, I wasn't, and being able to accept that, that's a place as one yourself, if you're looking at saying, I asked this conversation of a mentor, I said, how do you handle that situation? I'm just going to use you in this case, Mick, you say that one of your values is valuing people. I see in an interaction, you're like, well, you don't treat Mary the same as what you treat Elaine. There's a difference there like Elaine just, she's always, you're giving her the benefit of the doubt and Mary's on a very short leash. It's like, what's going on there? It's like you say that you're a person that values everyone, that they have their individual strength, and yet I'm not seeing that. Is that something you're aware of? What am I missing? I think the opportunity, as I laid that out, may be a little bit clunky, but in this idea that if you say your values are that, in this case for this conversation valuing every person, and I'm not seeing that, take the opportunity to say, hey, I believe you. I know you. Where am I missing it because I want to believe in you? I want to feel trusted and trusting and it's on me. It's on me not being able to see it. It's not on you living it out because that's what you say you do. I believe that. It's me to say, hey, help me see what I don't see and what that is, that mentor expressed that upon me. What's amazing when you do that in organizations and you do so with vulnerability and genuineness, how it leads to tremendous conversations to say is either one, oh man, I didn't realize that Mick. I didn't realize the different interactions. Thank you. Or you conversely saying, "Wow, Tyler, thank you for bringing that to my attention. I did not realize that. I didn't recognize it was that way. I appreciate that being the case because that is making enough, that is affecting the team because if you're seeing it, other people are seeing it too." [MICK] Yes, so wonderful. I've got to tell you, every single person on this planet has got blind spots. Even you, everyone listening to this show, everyone has got blind spots. So one of the greatest things that you can do is empower at least one person, if not the entire team, to show you what yours are. Give them the psychological safety that if they see something that is incongruent to your values, to your leadership credo, if you like, that they can say, oh yes, not so sure about that. Can we have a chat about that and give them the psychological safety where they can give you that feedback without fear of judgment, without fear of retribution. Or at least give them the ability that the benefit that would come from giving you that feedback outweighs any fear that they have of the conversation. So yes, everyone has blind spots. Empower someone to show you what yours are. [TYLER] I want to layer in this one last piece to go back to what you shared at the very beginning. Say you go to that circumstance. I come to you and say, "Hey Mick," I ask you and you bristle and you come back, or maybe you're upset with me or retaliatory. My role is not to be constructively obedient, is to say, okay, is that a violation of my values? If it is, then you know what, this doesn't work. And I shouldn't show up every day and just constructively be obedient because I'm not serving you as the leader. I'm not serving the other people at best when I'm thinking, hey, they're violating a value. I'm just going to do enough to get by here. Do yourself and everyone else the benefit to fit out, to choose to say these are values that I don't agree with, that I don't align with. There's some place out there that does, and I empower you. I want to say, find that place because you're going to be healthier and your team is also going to be better off by doing those things. Because the only way that change occurs is when tension is relieved. Tension brings on change. The only way that tension is relieved is through change. If you keep thinking that status quo is going to keep it and it's just going to change someday, it won't. Maybe your action to say, hey, this is not the place for me actually makes it better for this story of Elaine and Mary because it brings about change. Don't know. [MICK] Yes, brilliant Tyler. Great things happen just outside your comfort zone and you do need that little bit of tension to move you down the road, otherwise you're not going to just stay still. You're going to go backwards as Tyler is alluding to. So that little bit of tension in a safe environment to push yourself and push your team. Absolutely Tyler. Well, said. [TYLER] Yes. As we wrap up here, man, I'd love to put a cap on this for your podcast, for the Impact Driven Leader podcast to say what are you most excited about being a catalyst of change in today, in this July of 2022? I'm not talking about the five years from now. You and I won't have hair, let's just be honest. I'm cool with that. It's a lot easier to not have hair and shave my head. That's freaking free. I don't know, maybe you, but when I look at that to say right now, today, what's driving you to make a change for other leaders? [MICK] I'm going to give a short- and a long-term answer to that. One more question how do I tell, the short-term answer is, I get great joy and fulfillment, personal joy, fulfillment, when I see a leader that I've worked with get comfortable in their skin and become the leader that they can become. When they knock it out of the park and they've got a team that all of a sudden, a feel of full of joy and fulfillment, it brings me joy and fulfillment to watch that success. So the short-term is one by one, watching those leaders transform and become the best leader that they can become. It's like a renewable energy source for me that just keeps me going every day. But the ultimate goal is to get past this leadership crisis that we quite at the moment where only 16 to 20% of people in the world truly love their job and like their boss. I want people to fall in love with their jobs again and fall in love with their workmates and to jump out of bed in the morning with purpose and intent because they know that they're about to go to a workplace that has meaning and brings them joy. Not, ah, it's Monday again. Or getting to work on Monday morning and going, is it Friday, yet? We've got a problem. We've got a problem that there's so many businesses like that. We're spending up to one third of our lives in these workspaces. We deserve better. The long-term goal is that everyone starts to fall in love with their jobs again. That they jump out of bed on Monday morning with purpose and intent, knowing that they're going to have a great time at work. They're going to feel proud on Friday when they finish. That they did something of substance, that they did something they can go back to their families and be proud, "Oh, this is what I did this week. It was amazing." So people, what happens now? People come home from work, how is work? Hmm? What about it? How is work? It was amazing this week. We, and I used the word we, not, I we did so many great things this week and we really made a difference. That's what I want for the world. Back to you, Tyler. I want to hear your answer the same question. [TYLER] Well, it comes back to our initial conversation and messages up until we had the alignment we have and very much the same in different words. My directive now and my excitement is I shared earlier I had to become healthy as a leader. I understand, had to understand what that was, to recognize my insecurities, to find that empathy, that practicing actual empathy, putting my arms around people and walking with them and retracting on some of my intensity in order to surround myself with people and feel empowered by that and empowering them and having value there to understand. That's a lot of what I think leaders deal with today, and it's my directive is to help other leaders get healthy too. In circumventing, not circumventing, but in circling what you're saying too is if we have the day for our families and for all those around us, if we're more excited about the contribution we're making, then we have a bigger impact on our family and on our community and on our outside of that to the world. It comes from starting to identify what can I do as a leader, as a person, every one of us a leader, because the person we're leading is ourself. What are we doing to become healthier? To understand what are those barriers that maybe cause a value misalignment? What are those things that make me feel uneasy about being in a workplace or, oh, why am I dreading this? Because I think when we start to unlock those things and we put our arms around other people, our community and our world gets smaller and smaller and we start to realize it does not matter where we live in the world. We're all trying to do the same thing and that is to serve, survive, and serve and be a part of the world. When we do that, we're all moving in the right direction. So that's my passion and my directive. I think so much aligned with what you said and there's so many congruencies in the topics and the conversations but this is what I also understand, we're two people and we're two people in a world of billions that are going through this situation. That's where it doesn't take less of us to do more. It takes more of us that we can all do more. [MICK] Well, I've got to say, Tyler, if more leaders out there were listening to your show and everything I've heard from you today, we're going to make an impact on the world because you are spot on in everything that you say. It's been such a pleasure having this conversation with you today. I've learned something. We have common values and beliefs between you and I, without any doubt. I learned something from you today. It's something that I feel richer from this conversation and I know that your audience is very lucky to have someone like you that's giving them the guardianship and giving them the ability to learn and look at leadership through a different lens. So thank you Tyler, this has just been amazing. Thank you. [TYLER] Well, right back at you and absolutely, I look at my page of notes that I have from this and the different conversations and the framework and the organization by which that you help people. I think that's paramount and I appreciate that and I appreciate that that structure and the research and the understanding and the implementation. Because that's what's so impactful to move organizations is when people feel empowered and they have the tools, man, that's when they can make the change. When they can be inspired, but they don't have the tools, well, then they just go look for the next inspiration. So I appreciate you sharing all that. You're a master at it. You have a great resource in your book, all of your courses. I suggest everyone go check it out. I appreciate you being a guest today, Mick, and I appreciate the opportunity to get to share with your audience as well. So thanks for this and it's been an absolute joy and treat and I can't wait till we talk again, man. [MICK] Brilliant. Tyler, thank you so much. For those listening to my show, I will be putting all of Tyler's details in the show notes as well because I encourage you to get in contact with him. What a wonderful river of information that we have here in front of us with Tyler. Please connect with him and continue your own journey of learning what it truly means to be a leader in a modern world. [TYLER] All right, thank you, Mick. [TYLER] One of the, as I'm wrapping up and I'm sharing this outro from this conversation with Mick, one of the things that I shared there at the very end about our community, about creating connections that I've realized, and I've seen this in my world and I've seen this, I'm going to spotlight and discuss this for my son. My son Braxton is a soccer player. He plays in a pretty competitive league and he plays with kids that are from all different schools. He doesn't have a teammate of 20 different kids on his team. He doesn't have a teammate that goes to school with him in our community. What I found is that makes the community really small. Well, he's had the opportunity to play at higher levels where he is gone to play with kids from other cities. My younger son, Landon, he plays with three or four kids from his school. He plays with a handful of other kids from other schools on his basketball team and there's a difference there. What I find is the difference is how small the community is. With my son Braxton his soccer world, his community, his connections, his texting with friends that play throughout the country is different than my son Landon, whose focus is on just the kids close to him. Why do I share that? Because I know this, walking away from this conversation with Mick, my leadership world has gotten smaller. The connection that he and I have made, the ability to share and say, how can we support each other on the cause that we both have because they're so well aligned. I encourage you to do the same. Find people that are aligned in the opportunity to grow in this space that you're in. If you're listening to this podcast, then you have some interest in leadership and I'm excited about that because I see a great need as Mick shared, to empower and support and equip leaders, emerging leaders, existing leaders, experienced leaders in our world today to say what does it look like to lead in 2022 and beyond? I'm excited for that opportunity to be a little bit closer. I want to invite you to be a member of the Impact Driven Leader round table I talked about at the intro. I'm going to talk about here again, the opportunity that you have to be on a weekly Zoom where we read through a book, we go through leadership 101, right there in our face. It's not just 101, but it is dealing and working through leadership and real-life examples, what you're working with. But it's not just me individually coaching you. You're making the world smaller by you bringing into other leaders that are in other circumstances, other walks of life. The perspective they share is absolutely outstanding. As well, be a part of our Impact Driven Leader book club. Be prompted each day to, as we read through those books with questions and daily thoughts of what is it, what information, what teaching are you taking from these books? Take these books and go a little bit deeper. As well, thanks for just being a subscriber. I say just, but thank you for being a subscriber to this community, supporting the community, the Impact Driven Leader. I've had a tremendous amount of fun interviewing everyone and because you listen, that's what makes them possible. Thanks again. I hope you got tremendous value out of today's episode. Make sure, check out the show notes. Wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening, you're going to have all those little links there to go check out Mick, to check out his book You're a Leader Now What and everything, all the courses he has. I encourage you to go check it out. Hopefully learn a little bit and make your world a little bit smaller too. Thanks for listening in. Hope you have a great, wonderful day.