Speaker 1: Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership.
Speaker 2: I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo.
Speaker 1: And Lorenzo in this episode, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: an article I saw that that was titled, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Axioms of Zombie Leadership, and it was kind of a
Speaker 1: weird title to me. Zombie leadership isn't something I'd ever
Speaker 1: heard used before. And what the author says basically is
Speaker 1: that there are things that we have thought are true
Speaker 1: about leadership that have that have happened over years where
Speaker 1: we just start thinking these things about leadership and the
Speaker 1: practice of leadership and the qualities that leaders have, these
Speaker 1: kind of things that we just assume are true, and
Speaker 1: we've thought they were true for a long time. But
Speaker 1: yet there has been significant evidence over the recent years
Speaker 1: to debunk those things and and say no, this is
Speaker 1: not right. There's a lot more to it than this,
Speaker 1: this is not accurate. But yet for some reason, we
Speaker 1: still hear them today. We still hear people talk about
Speaker 1: these things today as if they are gospel, when in fact,
Speaker 1: not only are they're not gospel, they've been debunked. There's
Speaker 1: there's they've been we can throw them out now because
Speaker 1: we know they're not true and yet people still quote
Speaker 1: them and bring them up and believe they're true. So
Speaker 1: you know, first thing I want to talk about really
Speaker 1: is why do you think we do this? Why do
Speaker 1: you think we hang on to these things? Even you
Speaker 1: know we're smart people, we have this new evidence, and
Speaker 1: yet we for some reason it's just so much easier
Speaker 1: to hang onto these old ways of thinking.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I would say when you say
Speaker 2: like zombie leadership, I immediately thought, like my early days
Speaker 2: of watching some leaders walk around a retail store looking
Speaker 2: like zombies.
Speaker 1: Yes, I can pick walking dead. Yeah, I been one
Speaker 1: of those zombies.
Speaker 2: In Yeah, but no, I think it's the same thing
Speaker 2: that it's very similar to what I see sometimes in
Speaker 2: the fact that as you know, as as leaders, as
Speaker 2: a young leader, as somebody who's new enroll, like, you
Speaker 2: really do a lot of emulating of the leaders that
Speaker 2: you have. You hear styles of leadership, You hear approaches
Speaker 2: to leadership. You hear things that are stated as fact
Speaker 2: or that have always been there, and so you start
Speaker 2: to like, you subscribe to those things, You believe those things,
Speaker 2: you repeat those things, and then you assign those things
Speaker 2: to leaders that were successful. And then as you find
Speaker 2: success in leadership. You then to believe, you believe that
Speaker 2: those things are what got you there and therefore those
Speaker 2: are the things that must continue. So like, I see
Speaker 2: that because a lot of times leaders don't take into
Speaker 2: account the fact that their style of leadership, the frameworks
Speaker 2: they build within their teams, their approaches to how they
Speaker 2: get work done, that not only are these things like
Speaker 2: the things that get the business going, but these actually
Speaker 2: become the pillars of the leaders that you're developing into
Speaker 2: the future. So you have to be really conscious of that,
Speaker 2: and you also have to be willing to challenge some
Speaker 2: of these things sometimes or you know, talk about these
Speaker 2: things if they are adjusting, if they're no longer relevant
Speaker 2: and stuff. So, but I think that to answer your question, like,
Speaker 2: over time, many of these leadership theories, many of these
Speaker 2: thoughts and approaches that were kind of assigned over a
Speaker 2: couple of decades or have been taught over the years,
Speaker 2: they just feel like, well, yeah, that's how it has
Speaker 2: to be, because that's how it's always been, versus kind
Speaker 2: of going deeper to understand, like no, actually, even if
Speaker 2: we say it worked for a time, maybe it didn't
Speaker 2: even work in that time, But we have to get
Speaker 2: away from these as we learn more and more about
Speaker 2: each other, about leadership, about how people like to be led,
Speaker 2: but also like there are things that we have to
Speaker 2: hold on to that are real pillars of leadership that
Speaker 2: have you know, kind of sustained over you know, you know,
Speaker 2: hundreds of years of not thousands of years, and I
Speaker 2: think a lot of times we want to smash some
Speaker 2: things next to those that probably shouldn't be there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. I like the idea of that
Speaker 1: when you said, even if these things worked for a time,
Speaker 1: maybe they didn't even work in that time. And I
Speaker 1: think I think it's both, right. I think there are
Speaker 1: some of these things that we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: that actually did work for a time and now they don't,
Speaker 1: and there are some things that we just assumed worked
Speaker 1: and they never did. I think I think it's both.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it just it didn't feel right to think
Speaker 1: that we did something that just never worked, but for
Speaker 1: some reason we gravitated towards it in order for this
Speaker 1: to happen. At some point, someone saw some results, right,
Speaker 1: Someone saw some positive, some positivity outcomes results from doing
Speaker 1: things a specific way, or by by lending credence to
Speaker 1: a certain leadership style, a way of thinking, and that
Speaker 1: had to be widespread enough to lead people to believe
Speaker 1: that this was the this was the case. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it is, you know, kind of chalking
Speaker 1: it up to you know what, uh, you know, all
Speaker 1: the things that we're gonna we're gonna talk about on
Speaker 1: this episode are related to focusing on the people being
Speaker 1: led as opposed to the leaders themselves. And and I
Speaker 1: like that, And I think that's because the the the
Speaker 1: differences between what's important to the people being led are
Speaker 1: more prone bounced now than they might have been thirty,
Speaker 1: forty or fifty years ago. The differences in the tea
Speaker 1: like just from a just from a diversity and inclusion standpoint,
Speaker 1: you know, if you fifty years ago, the you know,
Speaker 1: teams probably looked more like each other than they did
Speaker 1: wherever that team happened to be. And there's so much
Speaker 1: differentiation between people now, and that includes a differentiation of age,
Speaker 1: which means, you know, different stages of life and what's
Speaker 1: important to them. And so you can't just focus on
Speaker 1: the leader because the leader that assumes that all of
Speaker 1: those people want the same leader, when in actuality they
Speaker 1: may want different things from their leader. So I do
Speaker 1: like that kind of subtle but slow and deliberate movement
Speaker 1: towards you know, what is important is really defined by
Speaker 1: the people being led as opposed leaders themselves. So you know,
Speaker 1: the first one that I want to go over here
Speaker 1: is you know where it talks it talks about this
Speaker 1: axiom of zombie leadership is that leadership is about all
Speaker 1: leaders and it's the preserve of those who occupy the
Speaker 1: former leader formal leadership roles, and it can and and
Speaker 1: that leadership can be understood by focusing on leaders alone.
Speaker 1: And the problem with that, as stated by the article,
Speaker 1: is that leadership is proved by followership and it requires
Speaker 1: us to study and understand followers. And yeah, I again
Speaker 1: just what I said. I believe that wholeheartedly, and I
Speaker 1: think it's getting more and more so like that as
Speaker 1: time goes on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: just the the the belief that a leader by themselves
Speaker 2: can really create and inspire and motivate teams. I think
Speaker 2: we have examples of that. Do we have examples of
Speaker 2: that in the world? Most of the time those examples, though,
Speaker 2: are like looking backwards, and we tend to paint the
Speaker 2: picture of see so a leader themselves as like, Wow,
Speaker 2: here's all of the impact, here's what they stood for,
Speaker 2: here's the things that we remember, or here's the examples
Speaker 2: of amazing and great leadership. And you can google and
Speaker 2: there's articles about all types of leaders in all types
Speaker 2: of ways. But the reality is is it wasn't just
Speaker 2: that one person, like, there was teams of people people
Speaker 2: surrounded that person, people that also influence people that influence
Speaker 2: that person to be that way. Like there's so it's
Speaker 2: so much deeper than that. And I think when we
Speaker 2: get into those spaces where we think that it's like, wow,
Speaker 2: what an amazing leader and they really are doing this work,
Speaker 2: then what we also will realize over time is like
Speaker 2: with everyone in anybody, you're going to have strengths, and
Speaker 2: you're going to have opportunities, you're going to have things
Speaker 2: that you over use, You're going to have things that
Speaker 2: you have yet to learn yet in life, and and
Speaker 2: and what happens is when you put all of that
Speaker 2: time and attention into a singular leader, when they make
Speaker 2: a mistake, that mistake echoes through everything and it becomes
Speaker 2: much harder to recover and repair because everybody was kind
Speaker 2: of assigning to this kind of one idea that it's
Speaker 2: just this one leader. So I think that, yeah, it
Speaker 2: absolutely there are amazing leaders. There are amazing individuals that
Speaker 2: did amazing things. But I have yet to find any
Speaker 2: one single who, a single individual who did it all
Speaker 2: themselves and there were no examples of others around them
Speaker 2: that have helped to shape the work that they did
Speaker 2: and the results they get that they gathered.
Speaker 1: I think about this in the context of I had
Speaker 1: a leader once. I was an assistant manager at a store,
Speaker 1: and I had a leader who I thought was an
Speaker 1: amazing leader. I really enjoyed working for this person, and
Speaker 1: this person didn't know much about the specific jobs being
Speaker 1: done by the people reporting to him because he was
Speaker 1: hired in from the outside into this role and had
Speaker 1: not been with the with the organization before. And because
Speaker 1: myself and my peers knew our jobs really well and
Speaker 1: we were committed to doing quality work, it allowed this
Speaker 1: leader to not have to focus on the minutia of
Speaker 1: what each of our roles were and just focus on
Speaker 1: leading at a macro level. So none of us feel
Speaker 1: felt micromanaged. We all felt like we were allowed to,
Speaker 1: you know, do our jobs the way we wanted to
Speaker 1: do them and and kind of be left alone but
Speaker 1: still supported, and that the performance that we accomplished as
Speaker 1: a team got this leader kind of I don't say promoted,
Speaker 1: but they were asked to kind of go to a
Speaker 1: different location to fix things that were that were that
Speaker 1: were wrong. And I felt really bad when this happened,
Speaker 1: because this this person failed miserably at that at that
Speaker 1: other place. And it was because they they did They
Speaker 1: did it the same way they did it for us,
Speaker 1: which was to not micromanage and allow people to just
Speaker 1: show and do their jobs and try to just lead them.
Speaker 1: But because they didn't have a team of people reporting
Speaker 1: to them that were as committed to doing great work
Speaker 1: and knew the job as well, it required a lot
Speaker 1: more of them in terms of what their role became
Speaker 1: as a leader, and it was a skill that they
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily over index on on very much. And and again,
Speaker 1: same person, same leader, different set of followers. Obviously, you
Speaker 1: could if you just looked at them as in silos
Speaker 1: by themselves, you would think, oh, this was a great
Speaker 1: leader over here, and this was a terrible leader over here.
Speaker 1: But it's the same person, and so if the difference
Speaker 1: is the the outcomes can be can be you know,
Speaker 1: determined by who the followers are and what they need. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you can't just learn about leadership and about
Speaker 1: what good leadership looks like by studying the leaders. You
Speaker 1: have to study the followers. I think it's it is
Speaker 1: a it's an almost it's almost a duh kind of thing,
Speaker 1: but it but it it emphasizes the importance of making
Speaker 1: sure that that when you when you promote a leader
Speaker 1: or hire person in that you can't just look at
Speaker 1: the qualities of of the of leadership that you're looking
Speaker 1: for in the context of who this leader is. You
Speaker 1: have to look at the team that this leader is
Speaker 1: being hired to lead and think about, Okay, what does
Speaker 1: this team need right now? And and and that can
Speaker 1: that should impact your hiring or promotion decision. It might
Speaker 1: even it might even come out looking like of the
Speaker 1: person who was more qualified for the job didn't get
Speaker 1: it and the person who was less qualified for the
Speaker 1: job did get it. But in actuality, the person who
Speaker 1: got it is the one who that team needed in
Speaker 1: that moment, and and that that should be that should
Speaker 1: impact those decisions, which means they were the most qualified, right,
Speaker 1: I mean on paper versus like looking at the nuance. No,
Speaker 1: you're right, yeah, most qualified.
Speaker 2: Right, Like correct, We we tend we tend to want
Speaker 2: to believe that qualifications are simply words on a resume,
Speaker 2: total experiences, right, But to your point, you're exactly correct. Like,
Speaker 2: a big part of thinking about leaders and selecting leaders
Speaker 2: and a team is what does the team need and
Speaker 2: then what does this leader bring? And to be quite
Speaker 2: honest with you as well, like when you're talking about
Speaker 2: selecting leaders of leaders, selecting people that are going to,
Speaker 2: you know, like look to influence through a team or
Speaker 2: create positive work dynamics, things like that, I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: honest with you. Sometimes sometimes there's things that are like
Speaker 2: like less things on a resume are actually what you need,
Speaker 2: like you need less like less maybe like structured experience
Speaker 2: where somebody may feel like this is the only way
Speaker 2: to do something, versus someone walking in being wide eyed
Speaker 2: and open to be like, oh, I have confidence of
Speaker 2: what I can do, but also like I'm wanting to
Speaker 2: learn every day, right, Like I and I have an
Speaker 2: element about my personality where I'm very you know, I
Speaker 2: have a lot of transparency with the team and can say, hey,
Speaker 2: I know a lot of things, but I don't know that,
Speaker 2: so would you mind teaching me so that I can
Speaker 2: better serve you as a leader, versus the person who says, oh,
Speaker 2: I've done that, I know how to do that. I'm
Speaker 2: very confident there's a way to do that. Like, sometimes
Speaker 2: your team needs that. So when you're when you're building
Speaker 2: leadership teams, you have to find ways to select talent
Speaker 2: that gives you those things that your team needs over time.
Speaker 2: So I want to underline your point there, because it's
Speaker 2: more than just experience in a resume. It's more than
Speaker 2: just the job. If you're looking at qualified candidates, that
Speaker 2: means somebody can do the work that you're looking for.
Speaker 2: You know, as as as the job is described, it
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily mean who's had the most experience doing it,
Speaker 2: who's had you know, the most differences in their careers.
Speaker 2: It doesn't know who's done these jobs longer than this. Like,
Speaker 2: those things are important as you're assessing the leader's capabilities,
Speaker 2: but when it comes to selection, you take all of
Speaker 2: that into account along with what does this team need,
Speaker 2: what's going to help them to move forward faster? And
Speaker 2: not only the team that they lead, but the team
Speaker 2: that they're on, what about their peers, what's a piece
Speaker 2: of this that their peer group may be missing or
Speaker 2: can utilize or may need in the room when they're
Speaker 2: building strategies and whatnot. So there's a lot a lot
Speaker 2: to it when making those types of decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that. The next one I want
Speaker 1: to go over in terms of these axioms of zombie
Speaker 1: leadership is this idea that people can't cope without leaders
Speaker 1: So there's been an opinion that everyone needs leadership and
Speaker 1: that leadership is always required for group success, and over
Speaker 1: time it has been proven that that's not the case.
Speaker 1: In fact, if the leadership is poor, then that will
Speaker 1: cause disengagement, and almost no leadership is better than poor leadership.
Speaker 1: And you can see this in organizations. There are some
Speaker 1: organizations out there that will hire somebody and they won't
Speaker 1: work out, and they'll hire somebody else and they won't
Speaker 1: work out, and there's this massive turnover over a very
Speaker 1: short period of time. And there are other organizations where
Speaker 1: where you notice, like a role stays empty for a
Speaker 1: while and you wonder why, why is the role empty.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not a lack of a of a
Speaker 1: talent bench. It's it's a we we know that this
Speaker 1: team where they are, they're a high performing team, and
Speaker 1: we know that just having a person there because we
Speaker 1: want to say this role is filled, will cause more
Speaker 1: damage than not having a person there to begin with.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna let the team go and do their thing,
Speaker 1: and we'll check in on them and we'll make sure
Speaker 1: that that they're supported, but we're not going to put
Speaker 1: a person in this role until we know they are
Speaker 1: the right person for this And and the fact that
Speaker 1: that has been successful that way for for organizations really
Speaker 1: underlies that fact that leadership is not always necessary if
Speaker 1: you have teams that know how to do their jobs. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that they will never need a leader again.
Speaker 1: They may not be able to go forever without leadership,
Speaker 1: but for a short period of time, not having a
Speaker 1: leader in place is better than having the wrong leader
Speaker 1: in place.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And with that it brings us to this episode's
Speaker 2: one minute hack. But first, a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 1: All Right, for this episode one minute hackre is I
Speaker 1: want you to do I want you to get out
Speaker 1: a pen and paper, and I want you to write
Speaker 1: down the things that you believe about leaders, like about
Speaker 1: what good leadership looks like, write down the traits of
Speaker 1: good leaders. Write down you know, the names of people
Speaker 1: who you believe are good leaders, and why you think
Speaker 1: they're good leaders, all the things that you believe in
Speaker 1: your heart that you would need in order to define
Speaker 1: what good leadership looks like for for other people. And
Speaker 1: then I want you to look at that list that
Speaker 1: you wrote down and think, why do I think that,
Speaker 1: Like what has led me to believe that this was good?
Speaker 1: What has led me to believe that this is part
Speaker 1: of what good leadership looks like? Or why why do
Speaker 1: I believe these specific things? And really pick those things
Speaker 1: apart to figure out if, if why you think that,
Speaker 1: if it's evidence based over like a broader context, or
Speaker 1: if it's just your own individual opinion about what happened
Speaker 1: to you and your experience, and whether or not it
Speaker 1: could be applied elsewhere. Ask other people to look at
Speaker 1: your list if you want to, to see if they
Speaker 1: would agree with that situation, to agree that this is
Speaker 1: what makes a good leader, or not, see if they
Speaker 1: want to contribute something differently, If whenever you find a
Speaker 1: lack of consensus between you and somebody else about what
Speaker 1: makes a good leader. I don't mean they can't fill
Speaker 1: in more of the list. I mean where they say
Speaker 1: something and you think, no, that's not important at all,
Speaker 1: or you say something and they think that's not important
Speaker 1: at all. Figure out why that is. Because if you
Speaker 1: disagree on something and you both genuinely believe that you're right,
Speaker 1: it means that your own lived perspective has influenced that
Speaker 1: and not influence to the other person the exact same way.
Speaker 1: The more you can dig into this and figure out
Speaker 1: what things are are real when it comes to what
Speaker 1: good leadership looks like, and what things are just made
Speaker 1: up or that you heard and that felt right to
Speaker 1: you in the moment, the better equipped you're going to
Speaker 1: be to be a good leader as you move up
Speaker 1: through your roles, because you're not going to bring with
Speaker 1: you things that you just think are correct, but because
Speaker 1: they just happen to work correctly this one time, but
Speaker 1: they're not correct and they will derail you later on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great woman to hack. And I think
Speaker 2: the big part of this is just the dialogue.
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 2: Understanding how you perceive leadership understanding the things that you
Speaker 2: feel are those elements and those pillars of how you
Speaker 2: are have become a leader or are becoming a leader,
Speaker 2: and then having an open space to debate some of
Speaker 2: those types of things and think through some of those things. Again,
Speaker 2: like this is an ever evolving you know situation, as
Speaker 2: you know workforces and people are expecting different things from leaders.
Speaker 2: There are again I said this earlier, there are some
Speaker 2: really clear pillars, and I would tell you things like honesty, integrity.
Speaker 2: You know, these are things that once you lose them,
Speaker 2: or when people don't have that, they don't have trust,
Speaker 2: and then you're not leading anybody with anything. So like that,
Speaker 2: there are things that really will always be a major
Speaker 2: component of leadership. But there's a lot of approaches and
Speaker 2: theories and ideas that over time we've learned more about,
Speaker 2: we've adjusted, we've built on top of, or we've eliminated completely.
Speaker 2: So I think it's good to constantly think about how
Speaker 2: your leadership has been shaped, how you want to shape
Speaker 2: leaders but also hearing from other people and how they
Speaker 2: perceive some of these thoughts and approaches, because that's only
Speaker 2: going to help to sharpen your perspective on how you
Speaker 2: want to impact people as you continue your role in
Speaker 2: leadership capacity.
Speaker 1: I agree with that completely. I also think this kind
Speaker 1: of this underscores the importance of mentorship in the context
Speaker 1: of are there people out there that you can talk
Speaker 1: to who can articulate why they believe their way worked? So?
Speaker 1: Are there are there leaders who you think are good
Speaker 1: leaders who you can actually ask and ask this person, Hey,
Speaker 1: you were successful this and this and this, why do
Speaker 1: you think that is? Why were you successful? And see
Speaker 1: if they talk about qualities that they bring. See if
Speaker 1: they talk about this is what the team needed at
Speaker 1: the time. See if they can talk about how the
Speaker 1: learnings they had over time about how they had to
Speaker 1: change your leadership style for certain people or certain teams
Speaker 1: versus others, Do they have the staying power? Because if
Speaker 1: your person has moved up in different leadership roles throughout
Speaker 1: their career and taken on more and more responsibility leading
Speaker 1: people who are higher and higher up in their careers,
Speaker 1: there's no way to do that without being able to
Speaker 1: change your leadership style. You can't carry one style with
Speaker 1: you for thirty years of a leadership career. You have
Speaker 1: to be able to alter those things because of the
Speaker 1: changing needs of your team. So talk to people who've
Speaker 1: been able to do that and find out why they
Speaker 1: did that or what led them to believe that it
Speaker 1: was important, because that will give you more perspective on
Speaker 1: why that person was successful, because chances are the success
Speaker 1: that you see from them is based on whatever style
Speaker 1: is working for them at the moment and doesn't take
Speaker 1: into account the evolution of them as a leader over time.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now with that, it brings us to the end
Speaker 2: of this episode. This is hacking your leadership. I'm Lorenzo
Speaker 2: and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.