Speaker 1: Welcome back in your Leadership. I'm Chris, I'm Lorenzo, and
Speaker 1: Lorenzo on this episode, I want to talk about an
Speaker 1: interaction that we had on LinkedIn with one of our connections.
Speaker 1: This is a person named Matt Dunsmore, and we asked
Speaker 1: Matt if we could, uh, you know, talk about this
Speaker 1: on an episode, and he gave gave his permission. So
Speaker 1: Matt was kind of shared a post on LinkedIn where
Speaker 1: he had an interaction with his boss that didn't go
Speaker 1: the way that he expected to go. And basically, the
Speaker 1: boss reacted poorly in a moment and it was rooted
Speaker 1: in external stressors that that that his boss was going
Speaker 1: through because of other things happening at work, and you know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't you know, making an excuse for his boss.
Speaker 1: He was kind of giving an explanation, but but he
Speaker 1: talked very openly about how that reaction from his boss
Speaker 1: in the moment really eroded the trust he had in
Speaker 1: his boss. And you know, we've we've spoken about the
Speaker 1: importance of predictability if if you're if you're a leader,
Speaker 1: that you want to be predictable when you when you
Speaker 1: interact with your people so that they they know how
Speaker 1: you're going to respond in any in any you know, interaction,
Speaker 1: And I think this was a great example of this
Speaker 1: kind of playing out in reality and not just you know, hypothetically.
Speaker 1: He talks really candidly about the fear that comes along
Speaker 1: with that and what that can do to an entire team.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to discuss this because I think it's
Speaker 1: something that you know, we both think is very important
Speaker 1: when it comes to the responsibilities.
Speaker 2: Of a leader. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I enjoyed the post, And to your point, I
Speaker 3: know we've spoken about some of the similar concepts before
Speaker 3: on the podcast, but what I what I appreciated most
Speaker 3: about it was kind of towards the end of his
Speaker 3: post when he talks about it's not enough to be
Speaker 3: great when things are going well. True leadership shows up
Speaker 3: in the hard moments and it's about emotional regulation, self awareness,
Speaker 3: and accountability. And then he said this not using passion
Speaker 3: in quotation marks as an excuse for bad behavior, right,
Speaker 3: And I think that it's that's it's such a great
Speaker 3: call out and just a reminder around the role and
Speaker 3: the expectation of leadership and what you're doing and what's
Speaker 3: going on and what you're responsible for and what you're
Speaker 3: accountable for and the role that you have when it
Speaker 3: comes to shaping culture and ways of working and the
Speaker 3: framework of what you're in which your team operates. You know,
Speaker 3: these are things that I've seen over my career. When
Speaker 3: you have a leader like this, When you have a
Speaker 3: leader that has these kind of like off the handle
Speaker 3: moments or is not able to you know, regulate their
Speaker 3: emotions or these types of things, well, then guess what
Speaker 3: happens with the rest of the team. You see the
Speaker 3: same things start to happen amongst the direct reports. You know,
Speaker 3: especially if you're working on a team like this where
Speaker 3: maybe you've got one direct boss and you've got multiple
Speaker 3: leaders on that team. Well, now you start to do
Speaker 3: it to one another. Now it becomes a part of
Speaker 3: just how things get done here, and it becomes you know,
Speaker 3: it becomes okay to to make a comment and then
Speaker 3: walk out of a meeting like like, how is that
Speaker 3: ever productive? How is that ever you know, creating collaboration,
Speaker 3: creating space to to to make sure that we're we're
Speaker 3: having a you know, positive work towards trying to find
Speaker 3: a common goal. So okay, yeah, maybe you did walk
Speaker 3: out of a meeting maybe you did walk out of
Speaker 3: something where you know, things like that your leader treated
Speaker 3: you that way. And I think that's an exact example
Speaker 3: of that. To walk out of one meeting and to
Speaker 3: walk into this one and have that type of reaction
Speaker 3: to your team tells me all I need to know
Speaker 3: about the meeting you were just in, right right, I
Speaker 3: don't even have to be there to know what would
Speaker 3: have to happen to someone to put them in that
Speaker 3: type of a mentally emotional state to feel like that
Speaker 3: would be okay to do their own team. Well, I'm
Speaker 3: sure it was exactly the same thing that happened in
Speaker 3: that meeting, right right. Somebody felt embarrassed, they felt attacked,
Speaker 3: They maybe they had their their ego is hurting, you know,
Speaker 3: whatever that might be, and they're just kind of projecting
Speaker 3: and cascading that same emotion through their team. And if
Speaker 3: I had to guess, and I'm sure if I asked Matt,
Speaker 3: like number one, how long did you stick around? And
Speaker 3: number two that team that you were on, was this
Speaker 3: a team that was just like, you know, a great
Speaker 3: team and a high performing team. If I'm in Vegas,
Speaker 3: I'm putting my money on probably not especially over long.
Speaker 2: Periods of time. Right.
Speaker 1: So, so first of all, I think it's important that
Speaker 1: we when we discussing it like this, that an explanation
Speaker 1: and an excuse are not the same thing. Right, There's
Speaker 1: always a reason why something happened. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: it's okay. It just means that there's a reason.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, your boss treating you that way is not a
Speaker 1: good reason or an excuse to treat your people that way.
Speaker 1: But if that's the cause of it, then it is
Speaker 1: what it is. If you're saying that you know, if
Speaker 1: you if you're of a belief that the what's the
Speaker 1: old saying that the ship rolls downhill? Right, Like, if
Speaker 1: you believe that if you got treated a certain way,
Speaker 1: that it's now part of your responsibility to make sure
Speaker 1: that your people know that because either you you are
Speaker 1: blaming them for the fact that you got yelled at,
Speaker 1: either they didn't come through for you, and instead of
Speaker 1: owning that as a failure of leadership, if your people
Speaker 1: aren't coming through for you, what is it that you're
Speaker 1: doing that makes them either not want to or not
Speaker 1: capable of doing it. But this idea of you know,
Speaker 1: the reason why his boss treated him this way, was
Speaker 1: because that's part of the culture of the organization. Clearly,
Speaker 1: if he's being treated that way, it's not a one off.
Speaker 1: I think typically in organizations the culture, it's really difficult
Speaker 1: to change the culture with one bad apple, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if the culture is is good and people treat each other,
Speaker 1: you know, properly, and they are nice to each other.
Speaker 1: A person who gets hired in, who makes it through
Speaker 1: the interview process, who becomes the the you know, using
Speaker 1: air quotes, you're passionate screamer, that person typically won't last
Speaker 1: long the culture outs them, right, So if it's happening
Speaker 1: in multiple places, it implies it's part of the culture
Speaker 1: and it's considered acceptable. Right. So, so I agree with
Speaker 1: you that it's probably not a high performing team. But
Speaker 1: the the ability of Matt in the moment to look
Speaker 1: inwardly not just at why is this a problem because
Speaker 1: of his own personal experience, like don't yell at me,
Speaker 1: but what did it actually do? What did that do
Speaker 1: to me as an employee in the moment, and he
Speaker 1: says that it completely eroded the trust that he had
Speaker 1: with his leader, mainly because he didn't know what to
Speaker 1: expect from his leader going forward from now on whether
Speaker 1: you go when into any meeting or had anything to say.
Speaker 1: He didn't know whether he was about to be applauded
Speaker 1: or chastised or anything in the middle with an interaction
Speaker 1: with this leader from that point forward. And that's a
Speaker 1: huge problem if you want to make sure that your
Speaker 1: people are keeping you in the loop on what's going on,
Speaker 1: if you want to know what's happening on your team,
Speaker 1: if you want to be able to get if you
Speaker 1: want to be able to feel like the information you're
Speaker 1: being given by your people is accurate and truthful and
Speaker 1: all encompassing, then the only way to do that is
Speaker 1: to make sure that they have zero problem coming to
Speaker 1: you with that information. Even if it's information it says
Speaker 1: I messed up, like I made a mistake and I
Speaker 1: messed up. The response from you needs to be arong
Speaker 1: the lines of how do we get through this together?
Speaker 1: Not how do I make sure you were fully aware
Speaker 1: that this is your problem because you fed up?
Speaker 2: Absolutely No.
Speaker 3: I think it's a it's such an important, you know,
Speaker 3: thing to consider to think about because I think that
Speaker 3: as as leaders and as you kind of mature in
Speaker 3: your leadership and as you are really kind of solidifying
Speaker 3: and cementing who you are as a leader and how
Speaker 3: you go about doing things. You know, we take so
Speaker 3: much from the leaders that we've had, you know, both
Speaker 3: positive and negative, and there are always going to be
Speaker 3: those situations where somebody had maybe a not so great
Speaker 3: leader and has figured out ways to adjust their own style.
Speaker 2: To like never be that leader.
Speaker 3: But the reality is that, like so much of who
Speaker 3: we are in leadership is so much it is shaped
Speaker 3: by the leaders that we've always had.
Speaker 2: And so I share that because these.
Speaker 3: Are things that if you've experienced this, if you've only
Speaker 3: known leadership this style, if you've only seen it done
Speaker 3: this way over time, if you believe that this person
Speaker 3: is a good leader because they've kept their job for
Speaker 3: a long time, or you see that they have continued
Speaker 3: to get promoted, then it's only human nature that you're
Speaker 3: going to, you know, kind of follow in those footsteps
Speaker 3: to a degree and have these same types of qualities
Speaker 3: and same types of approaches to leadership.
Speaker 2: And I think that what we're seeing.
Speaker 3: Now and why you know, we've talked about this podcast,
Speaker 3: you know, being on for so long and people sitting
Speaker 3: us questions and information in scenarios is because we're seeing
Speaker 3: a major shift here and what is being allowed from
Speaker 3: a leadership standpoint, it's the accountability factor of leaders and
Speaker 3: saying like what is acceptable, what's not acceptable? And I
Speaker 3: think over time we're seeing that more and more conversations
Speaker 3: and dialogue like this is happening, not just amongst peers
Speaker 3: and amongst employees, but but in spaces around how we're
Speaker 3: assessing who leaders are and what they do. And we're
Speaker 3: finding that leaders that have this kind of approach or
Speaker 3: are inconsistent or create fear in a team, I think
Speaker 3: are being held accountable much more than they ever have before.
Speaker 3: And I think that's good. I think it's really good
Speaker 3: for the workforce in general. And I think it's something
Speaker 3: that we continue to do is call these things out
Speaker 3: and continue to share and push back on these specific
Speaker 3: types of examples. There's always going to be leaders who
Speaker 3: have to I mean, we all have to hold people accountable.
Speaker 3: We all have to be firm, we all have to
Speaker 3: be clear, we have to be you know, we have
Speaker 3: to be transparent in consequences for actions and what can
Speaker 3: happen if if goals or or or objectives aren't meant.
Speaker 3: We have to do that type of work. But there
Speaker 3: is a way to be clear and fair, and I
Speaker 3: think and do that with with elements of empathy. Then
Speaker 3: there is to just be it, to just do it
Speaker 3: in a very you know, uh, maybe maybe rigid way
Speaker 3: that causes people to feel fear and or to copy
Speaker 3: that behavior or think that behavior is okay.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, clearly Matt's boss was again not making excuses
Speaker 1: for him, but Matt's boss was probably feeling fear in
Speaker 1: the moment when he was yelling at Matt, because he
Speaker 1: felt fear of what could happen to his own job
Speaker 1: because of the meeting he just got out of with
Speaker 1: his own boss, and and not and in not feeling
Speaker 1: that sense of confidence he may have had in his job,
Speaker 1: you know, an hour before, and so that that comes out,
Speaker 1: that fear comes out in the you know, the the
Speaker 1: stress and the yelling and the and the passion and
Speaker 1: the emotional dysregulation. But I want to go back to
Speaker 1: something else you said I think is really important around
Speaker 1: what we get exposed to and what that leads to doing.
Speaker 1: Because you're right, we do learn from all of the
Speaker 1: leaders that we have, and hopefully over your career you
Speaker 1: have enough examples of leaders that are that are both
Speaker 1: good and bad. Like in reality, you you hopefully become
Speaker 1: blessed enough in your life to be able to work
Speaker 1: for a leader who is not a good leader at
Speaker 1: some point because you and not for a long time,
Speaker 1: but enough to understand what is important to you and
Speaker 1: what is not important to you, what is acceptable to
Speaker 1: you as an employee, was not acceptable to use employee,
Speaker 1: and how that feels, so that you know how it
Speaker 1: feels to other people when you do those things, because
Speaker 1: you're right, if you are only exposed to one type,
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to do anything other than that. And
Speaker 1: you know, you can make the argument that you know, oh,
Speaker 1: we should inherently know it's not the right thing to
Speaker 1: do to this, or it's not the right thing to
Speaker 1: treat people like that. Sure, I guess in your personal
Speaker 1: life maybe, But work life and personal life are different sometimes.
Speaker 1: And I know I know people who have had situations
Speaker 1: where they have a difficult time maintaining employment because of
Speaker 1: the way they treat people at work, but they have
Speaker 1: no problem maintaining friends and personal relationships at life. They
Speaker 1: just think this is the way a boss is supposed
Speaker 1: to act. And the reason they think that is because
Speaker 1: they work for the same boss for a long time,
Speaker 1: they got acclimated it, they got used to it, and
Speaker 1: they tolerated things they shouldn't have tolerated, and over a
Speaker 1: long enough timeline, they started to believe that that was
Speaker 1: the way you were supposed to treat people. And it's
Speaker 1: a frustrating thing to see. But if you can, over
Speaker 1: time work for enough people who have different leadership styles
Speaker 1: to see what not just you gravitate towards, but what
Speaker 1: feels good to you as a person. I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody can say that they want to get yelled at
Speaker 1: from a standpoint to where they lose trust in their leader,
Speaker 1: where they feel like their job is in jeopardy. If
Speaker 1: you've done something and you've made a mistake, you want
Speaker 1: someone who is a leader who said I want to
Speaker 1: be your leader. You want that person to say, how
Speaker 1: can we fix this? Not how can we make sure
Speaker 1: that you're punished for it? And there might be fallout,
Speaker 1: there might be consequences, but that's a different conversation. That's
Speaker 1: not something that has to have the emotion and the
Speaker 1: passion of the moment. The emotion and the passion of
Speaker 1: the moment should be the feverish ways in which you
Speaker 1: try to fix the situation together as teammates and as partners.
Speaker 1: And then if there are consequences later on, they are
Speaker 1: what they are, and you deal with them with you know,
Speaker 1: with empathy and with grace, and you and you treat
Speaker 1: people like human beings absolutely, and with that it brings
Speaker 1: us us to this episode's one minute hack.
Speaker 2: But first a few words for more sponsors.
Speaker 1: All right, for this episode one minute hackers, I want
Speaker 1: you to do. I want you to be cognizant of
Speaker 1: how you put the impression of yourself out when you're
Speaker 1: in your interactions with your people, and not just people
Speaker 1: reporting to you, but your colleagues, your peers, and your
Speaker 1: bosses too. Think about it from this from the standpoint
Speaker 1: of is is what I'm saying, how I'm acting, how
Speaker 1: I'm presenting myself. Is it representative of the personal brand
Speaker 1: that I want people to think of me? And if
Speaker 1: the answer is no, then obviously some changes need to
Speaker 1: be made. But on the flip side, it's not just
Speaker 1: about being consistent. Because you can consistently have bad behavior
Speaker 1: as a leader too, that doesn't mean it's okay just
Speaker 1: because you're predictable. You need to be predictably a good leader.
Speaker 1: But again, the consistency and the predictability is primarily what
Speaker 1: this is about. If your people can't predict how you'll
Speaker 1: respond to them in the moment, they're less likely to
Speaker 1: come to you with a problem. They're less likely to
Speaker 1: ask for help. But if they know that they can
Speaker 1: predict and trust that your response to them is going
Speaker 1: to be one of support and help and how you're
Speaker 1: going to get through this together, they're much more likely
Speaker 1: to come to you when they have an issue. And
Speaker 1: so think about how those interactions happen on the little things,
Speaker 1: because all your predictability, kind of quotient is is is
Speaker 1: a sum of all the previous interactions that people have
Speaker 1: had with you or seeing you have with other people
Speaker 1: over the last recent time. And one interaction that doesn't
Speaker 1: fit with the pattern might not hurt you that much,
Speaker 1: but more than one can, because you probably don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of interactions with a person to where they
Speaker 1: have a lot of data to go off of, and
Speaker 1: so every interaction is important because you never know who's watching.
Speaker 1: You never know who's talking with their peers and their
Speaker 1: friends and their coworkers about the interaction they just had
Speaker 1: with you. Every interaction is important. Be a predictable and
Speaker 1: consistent leader, and your people will come to you when
Speaker 1: they have issues because they'll want your guidance and your support.
Speaker 1: They won't just you know, be afraid of how you're going.
Speaker 2: To respond to them. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that, and I love your kind of point
Speaker 3: of like, don't be a predictable and consistent jirk. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, Like like that, Yeah, that those
Speaker 3: can be also, you know, you can be predictable and you.
Speaker 1: Can be told me to be myself. I'm just being me.
Speaker 2: I'm just being me, right, I'm just walking in here.
Speaker 2: Tell you what to think. Don't screw it up again?
Speaker 2: What's wrong with you? Right? Yeah? Truths hard truths.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, No, I I I appreciate that a lot,
Speaker 3: and I think it's again, it's it's it was a
Speaker 3: great you know, it's a great post by Matt. I
Speaker 3: think it speaks to a lot of things that are
Speaker 3: really really important when it comes to the responsibility of
Speaker 3: leadership and the things that you have to take into account.
Speaker 3: You know, I was having this conversation the other day
Speaker 3: with leaders is like you've raised your hand to say
Speaker 3: you want to be responsible for leading people. With that
Speaker 3: comes a different level of obligation to the people that
Speaker 3: you lead and accountability to the actions that you have,
Speaker 3: Like you have to that you get that by default.
Speaker 3: So like, if you don't want to be in that
Speaker 3: space where you have to be really conscious of what
Speaker 3: you say and do and you know, regulate your emotions
Speaker 3: and be like, if you don't want that, then don't
Speaker 3: be a leader of people. But you're saying you want to,
Speaker 3: So like you then take these things on and you
Speaker 3: have to make sure that you're conscious of them and
Speaker 3: for all of us. And it's not always the extremes.
Speaker 3: It's not always the I'm going to walk in the
Speaker 3: room and be a jerk and shut somebody down or
Speaker 3: do these types of things. It can be in the
Speaker 3: small things that you do, the small comments that you make,
Speaker 3: the hey, I have an idea, Hey, you know, now's not.
Speaker 2: The time for ideas. We need to figure this out.
Speaker 3: Even stuff like that that might come across as you're
Speaker 3: trying to be more efficient with the time or move
Speaker 3: a meeting forward. Those things can have a long tail
Speaker 3: of impact on your team, the individuals on your team,
Speaker 3: your capability to get great work done, so I think
Speaker 3: it's a great topic and you know, I'm looking forward
Speaker 3: to talking about this more often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean one of the one of my most
Speaker 1: favorite things that I heard somebody say once is they said,
Speaker 1: it's the little things, there's nothing bigger. And you know,
Speaker 1: obviously the implication is that it's the collection of those
Speaker 1: little things to add up, right. You know, the you know,
Speaker 1: baseball games aren't won by home runs, They're won by
Speaker 1: base hits, right, because they collectively add up to far
Speaker 1: more runs than the home run than the home runs do.
Speaker 1: And this is this is the same thing. You can
Speaker 1: have great meetings with people where you are level headed
Speaker 1: and calm and cool and collected, but that's a controlled
Speaker 1: environment for lack of a better word. That's a place
Speaker 1: where you can put yourself on the right frame of mind.
Speaker 1: If that isn't backed up by the interactions you're having
Speaker 1: with people throughout the day, throughout the meetings, in the hallways,
Speaker 1: at the cubicles, at the water cooler, you know, all
Speaker 1: the individual little ones you have. If you don't show
Speaker 1: consistency and predictability in those little interactions, then the big
Speaker 1: grand gestures of the meetings will be looked at for
Speaker 1: what they are, which is just you know, you know,
Speaker 1: a fabrication. It's not the real you, and you still
Speaker 1: won't be trustworthy. Those little interactions are just as important,
Speaker 1: if not more, because of how many of them there
Speaker 1: are compared to the big ones, and it's important that
Speaker 1: those are the things that tell people that you're You're
Speaker 1: a consistent boss, a consistent leader, and not one who
Speaker 1: is unpredictable.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and what that resists at the end of this episode,
Speaker 3: this is hocking leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and
Speaker 3: we'll talk to you all next time.