Innovation Junkies Podcast

4.11 Leadership & Teamwork Questions from Listeners

The Jeffs are answering your burning questions! Today, they’re talking about leadership and teamwork.

Jeff Standridge:

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Innovation Junkies Podcast. My name is Jeff Standridge.

Jeff Amerine:

Hey, this is Jeff Amerine. How you doing, Jeff?

Jeff Standridge: 

Hey, I’m great, man. How about you?

Jeff Amerine: 

No complaints, Friday afternoon.

Jeff Standridge: 

Yeah, very excited. Very excited for good weekend. So, Jeff, over the course of season four here, we’ve had several guests on and we have a number of guests slated through the remainder of the season. But what I thought we would do today is, and maybe for next episode or two, depending on how far we get today, let’s respond to a number of common questions that we get from, certainly our clients from podcast listeners, from YouTube viewers and others that may serve them well today. What do you think about that?

Jeff Amerine: 

That sounds great. I’m game.

Jeff Standridge: 

So I’m thinking about maybe a couple of topics today. We start with the topic of leadership, maybe end up with a topic of teamwork. And one of the first questions we have is what are the key qualities that distinguish a good leader from a great leader? How would you answer that?

Jeff Amerine:

Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a fantastic question. And I would have to say that I think that going from a good leader, an average leader to a great leader is, is aspirational, right? I mean, it’s something you have to constantly work on, but, but the thing that I think separates a great leader is the ability to communicate well, the ability to be empathetic, have high EQ, the ability, as you often say to, effectively manage or balance results with relationships. I think all those things are important. And one of the things that I’ve probably said before is great leaders in my mind, when things go poorly, they take all the blame. And when things go well, they pass along all the credit.

Jeff Standridge:

Yeah. No, I think that, I think those are great. And, you know, if you, if you use that, that balance of results and relationships, you know, there are a number of skills that contribute to the sustained delivery of results or this, or the delivery of sustained high-quality results, things like time and priority management, things like, priority setting,

the ability to have a vision for the organization, a progressive vision for the organization, project management, you know, problem-solving, a lot of those harder kinds of skills when in aggregate lead to the sustained delivery of results. And then you mentioned it, you know, that high EQ, the ability to communicate well, et cetera, that all go into maintaining good, solid, strong relationships.

Jeff Amerine: 

Yeah. And delegating, empowering the team, you know, making sure that you push the authority, accountability and responsibility down as low as level as you possibly can. So that in some ways, great leaders work themselves out of a job because the organization is empowered and self -propelled and able to function effectively. So the leader can focus on strategy and vision and all those things that are coming next.

Jeff Standridge: 

You know, there’s a, this thing out there called the founder’s curse that says the more, the, what is it? The, the more dependent. Let’s see how the more valuable a founder is to the day-to-day running of the business, the less, the less valuable the, the business is. Right. So as you talk about working yourself out of a job and pushing down the responsibility and accountability, you use the word empathy and EQ. let’s talk about that a little bit because I think it can get misunderstood occasionally and leaders in the pursuit of being perceived to have high empathy can get into the trap of thinking that leadership is also a popularity contest. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.

Jeff Amerine: 

Yeah. Well, and I actually think empathy and EQ or the ability to listen well and to understand doesn’t mean you’re soft. It doesn’t mean you’re everybody’s friend. It means you can relate to what’s being said. And then you can effectively sometimes turn that around and work towards being respected and not always liked. You know, I think high EQ, high empathy leaders, that balance that well are very fair, but they’re not always making everybody happy all the time. They’re not people pleasers typically.

Jeff Standridge:

I’ve heard it said before that, being a leader who is worthy of respect, popularity often comes along with that, but being a leader who is more focused on popularity will in the end have neither popularity nor respect. Yeah.

Jeff Amerine: 

Exactly. Yeah, that’s absolutely true.

Jeff Standridge: 

So let’s talk about transitioning. We have a question here. What, how should leaders handle the transition from being a peer to managing former colleagues? So, you know, I actually experienced that in early in my career where overnight I went from being literally a peer with a number of folks to, to, to being the leader of the organization. And that, that comes with some inherent awkwardness. But it can be overcome. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you do that.

Jeff Amerine:

Yeah, I’ve gone through that as well. I mean, the classic example for me was I was a 27 or 28 year old former Air Force captain that had been a system engineer at Westinghouse Electric. We had a large satellite project coming along. I was put in charge as what we call the product element manager of a team of about 35 people, most of which were anywhere from 10 to 20 years older than me that had advanced degrees. And I was this sort of young, ambitious, snot-nosed kid that it would be easy to assume was pretty green. And I was, and I kind of realized that I was. And I think part of what I tried to do and what I think is characteristic is you build rapport with those experts that you have on your team to realize they know way more than you know. You want to start by saying, my job is to help ensure that the obstacles that are going to keep you from being effective in your area of expertise are removed. That’s kind of fundamental. And then you learn from those people and they realize that there’s that element of respect there. Now, quite honestly, that is not a bit different than being a junior officer with a bunch of senior non -commissioned officers or enlisted folks that have way more time and service than you do. You have to rely on them. And it’s an interesting dynamic you build up. You still kind of suffer from imposter syndrome, but I think it’s just getting in there and letting them know that you’re there to watch their back, to help them succeed, to help them be successful. And you’re not there to challenge their credibility or their subject matter expertise because you can’t. You just don’t necessarily have the experience or the wisdom to do that.

Jeff Standridge: 

Yeah. And, and so that goes along with being vulnerable, right? And, and vulnerability in leadership is if managed well and if communicated authentically can really be a strength. and so, you know, being able to say, Hey, look, I know that there are many of you who, who feel like that you could do this job better than I, and I recognize that. And I don’t doubt that there are some of you who, who might be able to, but, I’ve gotten the nod, I’m going to do my best and I’m not going to be able to do it without you guys. And being open and honest about that. And I’m open for feedback, I’m looking for open communication with you guys. And just as you said, I’m here to support, not here to challenge or override or what.

Jeff Amerine: 

It may sound cliche, but it’s, if you start with the philosophy of being a servant leader, you really are there to serve that team and to make them successful. And if they know that, going back to what I said previously about, you’re going to pass along the credit, you’re going to highlight them, you’re going to figure out how to get them promoted and rewarded. If they exceed expectations, I think that goes a long way when you’re in that kind of role.

Jeff Standridge: 

Well, let’s talk about having difficult conversations. As a leader, we talked about it’s, it’s not a popularity contest, but, but we also talked about the need for empathy and seeking first to understand before seeking to be understood, quality communication. You know, what about when you, when you, when you have to have a tough conversation with someone or someone’s, so to speak.

Jeff Amerine:

Yeah, for the most part, I think human nature has wired us to be conflict-avoiders. Unless you’re from New Jersey, I might be a little different, but forgive me for those of you from New Jersey. But generally speaking, all kidding aside, people don’t enjoy conflict. They don’t enjoy necessarily having to face an important issue head-on. It will draw energy from you, but it’s one of the most critically important things that you have to do as a leader. If you see a behavior or performance, that is not within expectation, doesn’t meet culture, not meeting performance. You’re not doing anyone a favor by tolerating that. You really have to be the standard setter. You have to have those difficult conversations. I think you also have to do it in a way that’s not accusatory. You know, sometimes if you are pointing the finger and you’re having conversations that start with you did this, versus outlining what has happened in a way that’s more objective,  then I think you’ll be more successful. I know you’ve had a lot of experience and have thought that through and studied it. What are your thoughts on it, Jeff?

Jeff Standridge:

Yeah, well, first of all, I’m kind of a slow learner, number one. And number two, I think fast, I talk fast and I walk fast and move fast. And so that means when you couple those things with being a slow learner, it means you can really screw up very, very quickly. And so I have to surround myself with crutches and mnemonics and some of those kinds of things. And one of the things I do when I when I’m at my best, keep in mind, we’re not always at our best, but when I’m at my best and I know I’m getting ready to have a tough conversation with someone, I try to remind myself that at the end of the conversation, I want them thinking more about their behavior than thinking about my behavior. You know, I want them thinking more about the situation than how I treated them in that conversation. And many times just that crutch of thinking through that will cause me to have a different tone of conversation. It can still be serious. It can still be direct, but it might prevent me from saying some things haphazardly that I might otherwise do. And then sharing an example that someone actually, a manner in which they gave me feedback was, you know, number one, speaking observationally or factually using I messages versus you messages. Your messages are accusatory, but speaking in a way that says, I observed this and I observed that. And because of that, here is the impact that it’s having and staying away from the use of the word you is a good way to kind of maintain that tone. You know, not speaking for other people, but owning the feedback that you’re giving. It’s many times when we are insecure about having a difficult conversation with someone, we feel the need to validate ourselves by bringing other people into the equation. And, and that’s not a strong leadership behavior at all. So, you know, and then giving them a chance to respond, you know, and, and talking through potential solutions and what have you. So that’s good. Let’s just transition to teamwork, and, and talk about the importance of team culture and, how it can be kind of deliberately cultivated.

Jeff Amerine: 

Yeah, I mean, we often talk about culture as being, well, first of all, cultures exist whether you’re intentional about it or not. And they can be either positive or negative. 100 % of the time is some type of culture, norms or mores, however you want to describe it, that define the behavioral guardrails that people follow. And sometimes cultures can be very positive and empowering and keys to success. And other times they can be the toxicity or the cancer that can erode the ability for the team to perform. And we say this often, but I think it was Drucker that said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. We often think of culture being an integral part of strategy these days. It’s not a separate thing, but building a strong culture, something that you use to define who your customers are going to be and how you’re going to treat each other and who you’re going to hire and who you’re going to fire and being really serious about it, I think is critical to building a high-performance team and a winning organization. What’s your take?

Jeff Standridge:

Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, I agree with that completely. You know, good, having positive strong cultures have been positively correlated with increased revenue growth, increased customer satisfaction, increased profitability, increased employee retention and weak and negative cultures have been positively correlated with increased turnover, increased disengagement or employee disengagement, accidents, absenteeism and poor quality and what have you. And so, to your point, an organization has a culture, whether they know it or not, and being very, very deliberate in stating, this is the espoused culture that we’re trying to build in the org. This is the culture we want to create by having those core values, by having those stated norms, by having the narrative around those examples of how they display themselves. And then by using them in every aspect of the employee life cycle, from recruiting and selection, to training and onboarding, to professional development, promotion, coaching, performance evaluation, feedback sessions and what have you. Using the espoused cultural elements through every aspect of the employee life cycle is a way to make certain that the gaps between the culture you want and the culture you got are fewer and further between.

So one of the things that we get a question about, and I know you and I have talked about this quite a lot, is the concept of remote workers and how do you maintain team culture but also team productivity in an environment where you have a significantly distributed workforce?

Jeff Amerine:

Yeah, that’s a great question. And most organizations of all sizes are struggling with this because post pandemic, there’s a very large segment of the workforce that feels like they’re more productive and possibly are more productive if they have flexibility, if they can work remote, if they can work from home or whatever. So it’s a reality. And we’ve got great tools like Zoom and Teams and Google Meet and other things that will, that allow us to maintain that connection. I actually think part of it is the best-performing organizations are going to be the ones that figure out how to keep people engaged and together and maintain that rapport and that opportunity for creative collisions and sort of whether it’s synthetic or real water cooler talk, just to make sure that the team building and team cohesion, the sprit of core is maintained.

I think you use the tools, but I think the best organizations are realizing a couple of days a week in the office for collaboration and meetings, regular touch points. Those are kind of the key elements to that. And it’s going to be an ongoing challenge because this is the reality of what we’re dealing with. Most organizations can be spread across geographies. Our own organization has major nodes in Northwest Arkansas and Central Arkansas. We don’t see each other face to face and in person regularly, but I think we do have a, make a good effort of having regular face-to-face collaboration through video chats and other type of means to make sure that continuity is maintained.

Jeff Standridge: 

Yeah, we seldom even use conference calling functionality anymore. It’s either Google Meet or Zoom or Teams or what have you. Same thing with our clients in many instances. So yeah, I think that does it. You know, one of the, and this kind of moves into one of the other questions, it crosses the lines of both remote and on-premise teams is examples of teamwork strategies that have led to remarkable outcomes. And I go back to, some research that was done actually in the nineties by a couple of Arkansas guys and Bob Fisher and Bo Thomas, that they wrote about in the book, real dream teams, the seven practices, world-class team leaders used to generate, extraordinary results. And they actually studied the best and worst team experiences, teamwork experiences across a vast, number of different teams and team leaders, everything from a brigadier general of the Thunderbirds Air Force, you know, aerobatic demonstration team, all the way down to a secondary school principal in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and pretty much everything in between professional athletes and others. And they came up with seven practices that I think are instructional to us as we think about strategies for world-class teamwork. And the very first one was commitment to a common mission, that everyone knows what they’re trying to accomplish, what the boundaries of that mission are and how they actually plug into that mission in terms of their individual roles. Then on either side of that mission, mission’s kind of at the tip of the spear, and on either side of that, you begin to have this yin and yang kind of aspect where you have individual competency, but also clearly defined and accepted roles. So if you have a bunch of individually competent people without clearly defined and accepted roles, then you have high-speed, low-drag people stepping all over each other, duplicating work, creating conflict. And so you need to have both the competence and the clearly defined and accepted roles. Then you start to have this concept of mutual respect and encouragement, an environment where, yeah, there may be conflict, but we’re going to mutually respect and encourage each other even in the face of conflict. And the yang to that is, and we’re going to drive toward win-win outcomes when we do have conflict within the organization. And then the last two are empowering communication. So a communication expectation, a communication approach and communication norms that empower people, which means make them stronger and more confident at dealing with their circumstances, all the way down to, having an actual winning attitude, coming to work every day, expecting to win in whatever it is that you’re facing both individually and collectively as a team.

Jeff Amerine:

It’s great stuff. And there’s been some more recent work done by Dr. Adam Stovering, who’s a director of the MBA program at the University of Arkansas. He wrote a book called Unbreakable Teams. And the thought there was one additional element is conditioning the team to be able to handle setbacks, building that resilience into the team, realizing that oftentimes things don’t go perfectly and how you respond to obstacles, building that resilience, that toughness, that grit and that tenacity are also key to having high-performing and successful teams that can drive strategy and can stay with it even when things are difficult.

Jeff Standridge: 

For sure. For sure. Good stuff. Good stuff. Anything else on teamwork and leadership?

Jeff Amerine:

Nothing other than it’s damn important. If you want to be successful, you got to focus on.

Jeff Standridge: 

Yeah. Yeah. Got to have it. Get you some, got to have it. So we’re answering listener, viewer, and client questions on the topics of teamwork and leadership today. We’ll round out this episode. We’ll come back in the next episode and talk about, what do you say? I say we talk about organizational change and innovation and some of the questions that we get on, on those topics. That sound all right? Very good.

Jeff Amerine: 

That sounds great. I look forward to it.

Jeff Standridge: 

This has been another episode of the Innovation Junkies Podcast. Thank you for joining.

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