Strategies for Great Leadership in Today's Era

Transcript

Nicole Donnelly: Well, tell me, um, you know, we're talking about leadership today, which is. A topic very near and dear to my heart. And, you know, I think, you know, I just came off of a marketing conference last week where we were talking about how AI is going to disrupt the way  everything works and very rapidly and that the pace of change is happening more rapidly than it ever has in history. And it's so, it's such a critical topic because leadership and strong leadership is really going to be. What it's going to take for us to really survive and thrive with all this change. So my first question for you is what, do you think everybody is a leader? Like what are your thoughts on, on that? I mean, do you think leadership is something that's, you know, assigned to someone or when you get a role at work or.

Or are we all leaders? 

Ed Chaffin: Great question. We are all leaders. It's interesting that we would start with that first question, Nicole, because I get, I will ask if I'm speaking in a group or doing a team program or whatnot, oftentimes I will ask how many people in the room are leaders. And it's interesting, the number of hands that don't go up.

And then I'll ask that question again. And they somewhat get it. And then I'll talk about the fact that leadership for me, there's two, two pieces, it's personal and it's personalized. And the personal part is yourself leadership. It starts in the big question is, do you really know who you are as a person and a leader, and do you know how you affect others with leadership?

Your leadership style, but to the question you asked me, I've got this beautiful story. Uh, we went to her in Fort Myers and over the past few months, a young lady was cutting my hair and as I got to know her,  and she got to know me, she was asking me, you know, more about my work that I do as a leadership consultant, executive coach, and she popped up unprovoked and said, I'm not a leader.

And I went, Oh, I said, Maddie. What makes you say that? Well, well, I don't lead anyone. I said, okay, well, that's one version of leadership. I said, but let me ask you this. I said, how much weight have you lost the last two years? She says 150 pounds. Yeah. And I knew, obviously I knew the answer to that. And I said, now think about it, man, you had to number one, make an incredible commitment.

You, you had to say, wait a minute, what I'm doing is not working. Let's evaluate that, figure out what changes I need and want to make. You had to create some desire in there. And

then over that two year period, I'm sure you fell off the wagon a few times. Right. Right. So you had to self regulate, you had to self manage, you had to self discipline.

To make this journey as productive as you've made it, that's where leadership starts. It starts with me. It starts with you. It's personal leadership. And I'll come back to the big question as I call it. Do you really know who you are? And again, that ties to something else is my philosophy on leadership is Who you are is how you lead and who you are is the sum total of everything that's ever happened to you since the day you were born.

And maybe even before. So 

Nicole Donnelly: I love that. Maybe even before part. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. Oh, 

Nicole Donnelly: that's such a powerful example. So I have a follow up question about that. People aren't sure they know who they are or what's for, right. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. 

Nicole Donnelly: Many of us struggle with like that, you know, that. How do you recommend people go about finding out who they are?

Because I think that's such a valid point. Like your, your, your hairdresser who lost 150 pounds. Incredible. She had to have some deep intrinsic motivation to be self disciplined to do that. So how does one go about finding out who they are and finding that self motivation? 

Ed Chaffin: Well, I think it's a lifelong journey.

The starting point is I alluded to in Maddie's story is something triggered her. That said, wait a minute, what I'm doing is not working, or maybe it's not even that dramatic, Nicole. Maybe it's simply what I'm doing is okay, but maybe what does it look like to be more effective as a person and a leader?

So I think the starting point is just recognizing what I'm doing on a day in, day out basis. Is it working? If it's working, whatever is working, you want to keep and accentuate, right? 

Unknown: Yeah, and 

Ed Chaffin: then figure out what do we want to add? A lot of the executive coaching work that I do is people that have pretty solid base and fundamentals of leadership, but they're looking for that elevation, that proverbial next level.

I think the, the other piece of discovering who you are is finding out how you affect other people. 

Unknown: How do 

Ed Chaffin: you do that? Well, as long as you're not the CEO, because the higher you go, I was just reading this the other day, cause I'm coaching someone right now who aspires to become a CEO. Yeah. So I was reading this the other day.

Once you become a CEO, you're in an echo chamber. You're not going to get a lot of accurate feedback and you've lost your peers. Right. So if I'm, if I'm at that vice chair or executive VP level or VP level, I've got peers, I've got direct reports, and I think you can, for the most part, depending on the psychological safety you've created as a leader, can inquire simply, Nicole, you work for me.

How is what I'm doing as your leader working for you? Tell me what's working 

Nicole Donnelly: such a great question, 

Ed Chaffin: right? 

Nicole Donnelly: How, what I'm doing as a leader working for you, 

Ed Chaffin: right? And then the obvious question after that, after you've gotten some, is what else? Cause you want to, you know, dive a little bit deeper. We know from brain science that that first answer is usually sometimes a little bit superficial or not.

Well thought it's not deep. So you want to ask, well, what else is working? Anything else you can think of? And then obviously you flip the coin. What would be more effective for you? What, what is it you wish that I would do? What would inspire you differently? So you just, so you, hopefully you haven't created an environment where people are just going to tell you what you want to hear.

Oh, Ed, you're the greatest leader I've ever worked with. There's nothing you could do. Hopefully you have a, I feel 

Nicole Donnelly: like that's a red flag, right? It's a 

Ed Chaffin: total red flag. I 

Nicole Donnelly: have team members that aren't so. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. 

Nicole Donnelly: And I'm, I know that something's wrong, 

Ed Chaffin: you know, Exactly. And, and hopefully you have the self awareness and the humility that if that's the answer you get, you'll call BS on it instead of going, really, I'm that great?

Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. But I will say like, you know, it's very, like you mentioned psychological safety, right? Is so critical. Absolutely. Bye. So I think, you know, how do you recommend cultivating that? Because to be, there is, there is a power imbalance between a direct report and a leader that makes it naturally, there's naturally what makes it difficult for that direct report to, to share.

Ed Chaffin: And 

Nicole Donnelly: so I feel like you have to create psychological safety, like even you have to go even more overboard in order for that to break through that barrier. Right. How do you recommend leaders go about cultivating that more? 

Ed Chaffin: Well, that  is the other piece of my philosophy about leadership. Leadership is personalized.

Unknown: Hmm. Okay. So 

Ed Chaffin: let's think about it for a second. Let's say I've got 10 direct reports. 

Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. 

Ed Chaffin: And this was an epiphany that I write about in my book that I had as a leader when I hired an executive coach like myself, she came, I'd been in the role as president of my company's division for six months, we were doing amazing things.

We had created this unbelievable vision and mission and the culture and I, you know, we were killing it in a lot of great ways, but what I found out from my executive coach was about half of my team. I'll never forget what Kathy said. She said, Ed, you haven't bothered to look over your shoulder. There's about half of your team laying in the ditch.

They can't keep up with you. Wow. And again, there was, I was in pace setting mode, which was what was needed at the time. Because there was a huge transformation that had to happen with that division.  At the time I took over that division was the sum total of four acquisitions. Right after I took over, we did a fifth and then a sixth and a seventh.

And we had, so we had these companies, we had to integrate into one culture. And when I took over, there was. It just wasn't working. You know, we had the four acquisitions, so the pace setting leadership style was the right one to really, you know, make that change effort. We needed to make, but then I needed to slow down.

So what I had to do was recognize that about half of my team could keep up with me and love keeping up with me. And the other half, I needed to understand what motivated them, and how could I get the most out of them. So it's that personalized, and then recognizing to the question that you specifically asked, the psychological safety.

My version of it may be completely different than yours. That's so true. For example, autonomy is one of my number one values when it [00:11:00] comes to psychological safety, where yours might be 

Unknown: mine the same, 

Ed Chaffin: yours is the same, very good. 

Unknown: Mm-hmm , 

Ed Chaffin: but somebody else's might be fairness or empathy or safety. So it's, it's again, creating.

You know, if we look at the work that Bernie Brown has done over the last few years, I believe it's about a leader being willing to be transparent and vulnerable such that people you create that environment where people are comfortable calling you out. And or having honest dialogue with you about what's working, what's not working.

But again, Let me just I want to go back and emphasize psychological safety And you know, there's a lot of talk about that in the market and has been for last several years But the thing I think people are missing is the personalized piece of that my definition of psychological safety may be very different than yours So if I try and again, you know, the back of my book, one size fits all leadership is dead.

So that's, that's what we're talking about. I can't, I want to understand what motivates you intrinsically. To see the best out of you. And that may be very different for each person that I'm blessed to lead. 

Nicole Donnelly: I have never thought about psychological safety as being unique to each individual person. Like you're totally challenging me to ask my team members one on one on what their mission is of psychological safety.

I think that's a great exercise for any leader and their one on ones to really try to understand that. Because I mean, I'm just thinking about people on my own team and how. You know, for example, I have one team member who is autonomy is, I mean, I would be her, her, she just wants to go get it done on her own time, just give her the 

Ed Chaffin: high level and leave her alone.

Right, 

Nicole Donnelly: right. But then other people, they want to collaborate, right? Like they want to be connected and well, 

Ed Chaffin: or they really need to know how you judge success. And what your full expectations are. 

Unknown: Yes. And that's 

Ed Chaffin: the thing that some leaders miss is that not every, again, some people, it's not micromanaging, it's, it's, What are your expectations as a leader?

How do I know that I'm doing what you want me to do and that I'm being successful at it? So, so there's some people that don't need that and other people that really need you to be definitive about how you're going. To measure their success. 

Nicole Donnelly: That's so relevant to me because I, I actually literally just had a conversation with a team member about setting expectations.

Is that right? 

Ed Chaffin: Was there an event that caused that? 

Nicole Donnelly: Yes. Yes. And so as I'm talking to you about that, like, you know, as leaders, we're not perfect. We're infallible. We are all going to make mistakes. And, you know, truthfully leadership. You know, when you own a company or you're leading a team, a lot of times it feels like it's a big mantle.

You know, I think you, I personally take it very seriously because I recognize, but because it's a big mantle, sometimes we can be hard on ourselves when we make those mistakes. What is your advice for leaders on how they can bounce back for, you know, when you make a mistake to just kind of like. Move forward in the best way possible and make the changes that need to happen to help elevate the team.

Ed Chaffin: Interesting question. Let me, let me think about that for a moment. Something bubbled up for me. I've had a couple of clients lately that have been struggling with perfectionism. And so what, what bubbled up for me when you were asking that question as well, it depends on. What are, what's their motivation?

What's, what's one of their driving, um, values or, or, or yeah, what, what's driving them. And if perfectionism is driving them, that's a tough one to overcome. So it, because it, it really starts with forgiving yourself and recognizing we're all human and no one's perfect. Um, but if, so let's move that aside and say, okay, I'm, I'm just a normal person.

Not that a perfectionist is normal. Didn't mean to say that, but

Nicole Donnelly: we're all abnormal, right? Yeah. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. But, but if, if someone has made a mistake with a leader and what I'm assuming, what I think I heard in the question is made a mistake that affected someone on your team. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Okay. Well, It goes back to that honest dialogue, 

Nicole Donnelly: you 

Ed Chaffin: know, asking the questions and being willing, I think, to come with the mea culpa to say, let me apologize.

And beginning that way. In fact, I'm looking at our time. I'm a storyteller. Let me tell you a quick, quick story. So mentioned that. You know, when I took over that division, it was the sum total at the time of four acquisitions. Well, one of my VPs on the team was just this phenomenal rock star. And so about a year into my leadership there of that division, I was doing her annual review and I made the comment to her, um, and I'll make up a name.

I said, and, um, you and I used to collaborate a lot on client situations. You used to bring me a lot of our client Opportunities and problems. And you and I brainstorm and figure out what to do to say, you know, say the client or solve the client's problems. You don't do that so much anymore. What, what, what caused that?

Cause you don't care.

Yeah. I managed to take a deep breath and I managed to continue to talk. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm dual, you know, here trying to think what in the world have I done as a leader to send the message, I don't care. And all of a sudden a lightbulb hit me and I went timeout and I said, um, you said a few minutes ago that the reason you didn't, you don't bring me these opportunities anymore because I don't care.

I said, I got to tell you what. That kind of upset me a lot because I don't think you've ever worked for anyone because I know you've worked for the last 20 years that cares more about customers and their satisfaction than I do. So I had to do a quick reflection in the mirror. What have I done? And I said, I think I got it figured out.

I said, you've been in this business a long time. You know, a lot of these clients inside and out, you come to me with their problem. You used to come to me with their problems and you would go on and on and on and on and on. And I said, I would cut you off. Wouldn't I? She go, Oh yeah, you did all the time.

You do it all the time. I said, okay, so here's, here's the divide that we've got to cross. I said, you have got all this history and you want to give me context and you want to tell me the whole story. I said, well, you've got to understand. Is that I make very quick decisions. 

Unknown: I'm 

Ed Chaffin: moving at warp speed. And I said, so you're two minutes, three minutes, five minutes into this conversation, I've already figured out what I think we ought to do.

I'm cutting you off. She goes, yeah. I said, so here's the deal. I'll make, I'll make a promise to you. I'll start moving more in your direction. I'll allow you some more runway to give me more context and more information. But I said, hey, you got to land the plane. You got to land the plane. So you got to meet me somewhere in the middle.

And so that's, that's going to be our dialogue buzzwords. If I, if, if I look at you and say, And can you land the plane? That's your rubber band to know, Oh, I'm, I'm, Ed's got his formulated his ideas. Let's talk about that now. And then, and I said, can we agree? And I said, you've got my commitment. I'm going to give you more runway.

I'm not going to cut you off, but can I get your commitment? If I say, can you land the plane? You're going to go, Oh yeah, let me finish up here. And she goes, yes, we can do that. I said, but here, here's one thing I'm not going to compromise on. You leave me five minute voicemails. I don't listen to them. I star six them every time.

And I said, so, just, you know, say, Ed, it's urgent. I need to talk to you about X, Y, or Z. Know that as soon as I'm available, I will call you back. But please stop leaving me long voicemails. The funny thing is, she and I haven't worked together since 2008. She's still a friend. We communicate from time to time.

She still leaves me long voicemails.

Nicole Donnelly: That is a beautiful example. What I love about that is first of all, you had created that psychological safety that she could come to you and say, you don't care. 

Ed Chaffin: You don't care. Boy, you talk about, uh, you talk about a gut punch though. Woo. 

Nicole Donnelly: Uh, yes. But you know, what was great about that is you found this way to humbly accept her feedback by also acknowledging.

Not like that. You did care and showing respect for yourself to say, like, here's how this is, you  know, I think it was just very, very respectful and gracious to her and to you the way that you manage that situation. Right? Like you didn't fall on the sword. No, I, 

Ed Chaffin: yeah, I didn't fall on the sword, but I also, you know, I'm proud of the fact that I didn't react because I wanted to trust me.

I wanted to go me. Don't care. You know, I really wanted to get self righteous right in the moment, but something caused me to take a deep breath. And I will tell you, you know, the, the main thing is that I, I valued her so much. She was one of the most incredible people I've ever worked with in my entire career.

You know, I, in fact, I used to joke that if I was going to war, she'd be the first person. That I would draft, 

Unknown: you know, 

Ed Chaffin: and so I valued her so much for the work and the effort that she put into it as well as recognizing the massive conversion that she had to make when we bought her company, um, you know, to adjust to, to our culture and to where we were going.

So she, you know, she, so that was part of it is I, I was. Recognize. Wait a minute. One of the most valued people on my team. I've upset in a way that I never intended to do. So that that goes back to do you really know how you affect other people with your leadership style, your natural leadership style? Do you really understand that?

Because again, we I'll use, I'll keep using the same number. If I have 10 direct reports, my natural way of leading may work for half of them without any effort. I don't have to change a thing. The other half, I may need to really get individual. 

Nicole Donnelly: Oh, true. That sounds like 

Ed Chaffin: a lot of work. Doesn't it? 

Nicole Donnelly: It is, but it's, you know, but it's just, uh, I feel like if you can really dial that in well, 

Unknown: Yeah.

Nicole Donnelly: And you're going to, it's going to be a multiplier because as a leader, you know, you lead teams and if you can figure out and they're going to, it's just, it's going to multiply the impact that your team's going to have if you're able to do that. Wow. 

Ed Chaffin: That's just, I just realized too, I'm not sure I've really answered the other question.

You asked me about how does a leader overcome, um, Mistakes that they've made that. So I've given a case study of how in the moment I was able to overcome that, but it really is about humbling yourself, I think, and being willing to have that honest dialogue to say. What's going on? I think something's not working.

Help, help me understand what we can do to bridge that gap. It just, so it, you know, it, it comes down to, I think, some level of humility and forgiving yourself and recognizing none of us are going to, as long as we are leading people and working in a, in a, in any kind of business environment, whether it be B2B or B2C or whatever it may be, we're not going to get it all right every day.

Nicole Donnelly: It's so true. I think too. I was just having a conversation with my brother last week. So, you know, you know, and sometimes when you're you have disagreements with people in your family, right? And we were having a disagreement. And I remember, you know, it got pretty heated, we were having this heated conversation, you know, about this thing, you know, he got upset about something.

And, The conversation shifted the minute I became very vulnerable. It was like, you know, 

Ed Chaffin: what did you actually do to be vulnerable? What would that look like? 

Nicole Donnelly: Sheesh. I, I shared with him like something that I, it was like a personal, like I basically shared with them a personal weakness. I said, you know what, this is something that I struggle with.

Unknown: Um, 

Nicole Donnelly: and he, and I thought softened everything because, you know, I, I think I shared a store. I think I shared a story illustrating how this was something that I, you know, it was something that I, it was a moment of humility for me. And the minute I did that whole conversation shifted and he softened. And then we were able to kind of work through it.

And I think that was like an example to me of like, what you're just saying is like, try to lead with humility. It's hard. It's really difficult, you know, to do it. But, um, 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah, our, our egos get in the way sometimes, right? 

Nicole Donnelly: A lot of the time. And, you know, I think for leaders too, it's even harder because you're the one that there's this expectation that you've got to have it figured out.

Right. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. And now we're 

Nicole Donnelly: not societal or whatever the case may be, but what do you think about that Ed? Well, you just, you just, yeah. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. You just tipped off something else that I coached you quite often is that you're always leading. You're never not leading. So if you are a leader that has direct reports, maybe leading a team or a department or division, or maybe even an entire company, everything you do is being watched and it's being observed.

And it's being measured by that person's values and beliefs and perceptions as to whether it's working for them, are you authentic or not? But. So if you let's just make it up. The division I ran ended up with 1200 employees. All 1200 of those employees could form completely different opinions about who I was as a leader.

And I've got no control over that. But the thing that a lot of leaders is. Forget is that everything they do is being observed. It's the old saying about what you do speak so loudly, I can't hear what you're saying, right? 

Nicole Donnelly: So true. 

Ed Chaffin: Right. So that's fundamental from a leadership standpoint in recognizing that when you've been given that mantle, when you've been given that responsibility, uh, you're on stage.

You're on stage, whether you want to be or not. 

Nicole Donnelly: You're on stage, whether you want to be or not, that is such a true statement. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. Yeah. 

Nicole Donnelly: And I think you're, what you said too, is really interesting is you can't control what people's perceptions of you are. 

Ed Chaffin: No. 

Nicole Donnelly: Um, which, which I think makes it so much more critical as a leader that you're making decisions That are in alignment with your value system, your integrity, and also accepting that you can't please everyone or make everyone happy.

Ed Chaffin: Yeah, 

Nicole Donnelly: which leads 

Ed Chaffin: me to another one of my saying is, is that there are times when the leader has the right to define reality. 

Nicole Donnelly: Ooh, 

Ed Chaffin: tell 

Nicole Donnelly: me more. I like that. 

Ed Chaffin: Well, so if you, if you take, if, if you, Have the leadership philosophy that I have, which is a, when you sum it all up, it's really a servant leadership.

I, I, you know, I, if I'm given a mantle, then I believe that I've, I've been put to serve them, not them serve me. So starting with a servant's heart in, in, in, in leadership, some people then believe, well, how am I going to keep everybody happy? Well, you're not number one, just what we talked about. But number two, to the point I made a minute ago, they're looking at you.

They want to see a strong leader. They want to see a leader that can make decisions. They want to see a leader that can set the vision and, and, and, and marshal the troops to around that vision and that mission. So there are times when I'm coaching, in fact, it's the same executive I'm coaching that wants to be a CEO.

Uh, and he has the potential in the next three to five years in his organization, that could be a reality. His profile based on the assessment that I used, the Berkman Method assessment, showed me, and then we confirmed in the 360 I did, he's a democratic style of leader. He likes to get everybody's opinions.

Before he makes these big decisions and that works at some level, but not always. It can't be the only style he's using. So there, so we're working on that. And he's been able to give me some examples when he decided, okay, this is what we're going to do. And, and, and told the, and he's got a huge group that he,  that he runs at this organization.

Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's the leader saying, wait a minute, this is my decision. Cool. And here's, and then communicating the why. 

Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. Wow. I think that's so interesting. What you've mentioned about being able to change your leadership style, depending on what the decision is like that requires a ton of discernment.

Like a massive amount of being able to discern based in this situation, I need to do democratic style based on this situation. I need to take a more authoritative approach, you know, how do you help? Um, I mean, I sure a lot of that just comes from experience, right? Lived experience, failing and making mistakes.

But as a coach, what do you do to coach your, your, your, um, leaders on how they can get better at discerning? 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah, 

Nicole Donnelly: each situation requires because it is so nuanced and I think that is just going to be such a more critical skill Looking forward. 

Ed Chaffin: Can you may be familiar with ken blancher the the dancer who wrote the one minute manager back in the 80s?

um his organization a few years ago did a study and what they determined was 52 of us use one leadership style all the time So we're at a deficit most of the time for most leaders. You know, we can, we can actually say most leaders are only using the one style. So, uh, how, how does, how do I coach to that?

Well, I have an HBR article that is one of the most widely read that's ever been published by HBR, um, by Dan Goldman and some of his team members, Dan Goldman, the father of social emotional intelligence called leadership that gets results where they've actually, uh, codified, quantified and studied six leadership styles of what works and what doesn't.

Well, there's, there's two styles, coercive and pay setting that actually have a, a neg, a negative factor over time. Uh, they can be positive at certain moments, but they can't be the only style of, and they're not sustainable. That's the right term to use. So I coached to that, to help people understand, uh, and figure out when they, in the, in the one that as an executive coach that a lot of leaders.

is the coaching style. So let's say I, and again, in fact, I don't know how many listeners we've got today, but if they want to email me, I will be happy to send that article to them, that HBR article, um, at, at Ed Chafin. com. That's two Fs. And, um, the, the, the, um, um, Gosh, I just lost my train of thought. But the, I hate that 

Nicole Donnelly: article.

Yeah, I did a 

Ed Chaffin: left turn on the article. But, but the different the different leadership styles. Um, yeah, I forgot where I was going with that 

Nicole Donnelly: story about it. We can come back to it. 

Ed Chaffin: It'll come back. Yeah, no, 

Nicole Donnelly: I think that's That's going to be so important. I like, I, I mentioned this conference that I went to, and one of the interesting facts they talked about was because of the proliferation of AI and how it's just going to change our lives.

What's happening is they've already found that low performers who use AI in their jobs can improve their performance 43%. So there's like this going to be this great leveling field where basically. You know, you know, everyone's going to be middle of the road and everyone else is going to have to be elevated above that.

Right. 

Ed Chaffin: So 

Nicole Donnelly: what they're predicting is that at some point in the near future. You know, the, the, the, the jobs that aren't being done by AI are going to be so far advanced that people are going to have to come out of college and go directly into middle management. 

Ed Chaffin: Oh, wow. Interesting. 

Nicole Donnelly: Can you imagine what that would be like?

Can you imagine a 21 year old fresh out of school, having to jump into a management position like. What do you think about how people that are young kids, you know, teenagers, college students, even young kids, like what can we be doing? I'm a parent. What are the things that we can be doing now as parents of these younger generations to help prepare them for like those kinds of challenges?

Ed Chaffin: Wow, that's a big question.

You don't, you don't ask easy questions, Nicole. That one's been 

Nicole Donnelly: on my mind because I think it is a big, I mean, that is going to be the challenge of our next, that we're going to be facing. It's not, It's not gonna be technical skills and knowing, you know, how to code or all that. It's going to be how can we get better at all of this that you're talking about, you know?

Ed Chaffin: Well, maybe it goes bad. I don't know that I have the answer. I think there's multiple answers here. But the first one that comes to my mind is modeling at home. The second one is Having those conversations early on with kids in your home to say, this is what leaders, you know, one of the other things that stands out for me, especially in the work that I do, I do a lot of teamwork is very few people when I, one of the exercises I do is I have them stand up a pair up and talk about a leader they admire.

And why they admire that leader. But when I asked the direct question, have you ever worked for a leader that you truly admire and have wanted to emulate very few people say yes, very few people. So we're already at a negative, in my view, I think all you've got to do is look in the world and look at our politicians.

Not that I want this conversation to become political, but, but how many great leaders do you really know? And so we need to give them examples of what we believe great leadership looks like. And then at some level, they they've got to have the education to understand maybe it's a coursework, but it's also, I'm going to speak for the profession I'm in.

It's some coaching. Yeah. Right. Right. 

Nicole Donnelly: Coaching at a younger age. 

Ed Chaffin: Well, 

Nicole Donnelly: you know how to coach them on empathy and how to coach 

Ed Chaffin: them on everything. You know, the classic thing that happens is today is Johnny or Mary, they're doing great in their role in, Oh, well let's promote them and throw them into a director or a VP slot and say, go sick them tiger.

And it's like, Oh yeah, I know exactly what to do. Right. And so if you believe what I said a minute ago, that very few of us have actually worked for people that we admire and want to emulate, where have they learned leadership skills from? What does that look like? And so when you see people that early on, I mean, I've been doing executive coaching now since 2009 early on in my executive coaching work, I, it was funny because I set out, I want to coach high potentials and executives and help them be, you know, more effective bunch of broken executives showed up.

I coached a number of remedial folks that were literally told shape up or you're fired. And, and so it's, it's, it's, it's recognizing that going back to what I said quite a while ago, who you are is how you lead and who you are is the sum total of everything that you've experienced in your life, maybe even before, so whether you're 18 or 21 or 41 or 61, you're bringing your whole self into that role.

And if you had, you know, and this goes back to maybe something else we've talked about is how do you really understand how everything that you brought with you is affecting how you show up and how you lead other people?

So 

Nicole Donnelly: good. I will say I've been on this personal journey lately, um, of dealing with some issues from my childhood. I think a lot of people. Had not a lot, I don't know how many, I'm sure statistically quite a lot of people have had difficult childhood. Just 

Ed Chaffin: about everybody I've ever coached has.

I don't know too many people that have had perfect childhoods. 

Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. Right. Like it's a rare thing. There's all, you know, and so with that, a lot of us are, you know, we, we have these neural networks that are just programmed. To keep us going in this way to survive, because that's what we had to do when we were young.

It's, it's how we, we were in survival mode and, and they're not healthy, right? Like in, and you have to untether some of those. You know, negative self beliefs and that takes a lot of work. 

Ed Chaffin: Yes. That's 

Nicole Donnelly: your point earlier. Like if you, you know, if you grow up in this kind of environment, like what could, what, how can the, how can these children get the coaching that they need if they're not getting it in the home or, 

Ed Chaffin: you 

Nicole Donnelly: know, like how did, how did you find your way that way?

You know, 

Ed Chaffin: two, two, yeah, two questions there. One is companies have got to start investing in people sooner. It's that, it's that simple. They, they, you know, they got to stop playing, paying lip service to our most important asset is our people. And then they don't invest in them. Right. So companies have got to recognize that they have to invest in people at the, as soon as they get into a role.

You know, I, I won't name the company, but 

Nicole Donnelly: yeah, 

Ed Chaffin: but my daughter. Works for a company here in, in the Indianapolis area. And as soon as they get into a new role, they're already talking about the next role. They're already talking about what they need to do to level up and to grow into that, that proverbial next role.

Every company needs to be run that way. And then the second part of your question, I'll answer it this way. I mentioned, I've done a lot of remedial assignments, which a lot of executive coaches don't like to do. And I don't blame them. They're not fun sometimes. Um, Of the people that survived and actually figured it out, that saved their jobs, every one of them got into counseling as well.

Nicole Donnelly: Isn't that interesting? 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. 

Nicole Donnelly: I think it just goes to show, like, to your point earlier, you take your whole self 

Unknown: to work. 

Nicole Donnelly: Everything from your home, from your past, and I think for leaders to have that self awareness. And to really understand all of those belief systems, you talk in your book about, um, belief systems and our subconscious and our unconscious thoughts that were kind of like made up of those two things.

I'd love to like, tell us a little bit more about what is the difference between your subconscious and your unconscious thoughts and how can you kind of like understand more about that and how it serves us? 

Ed Chaffin: Well, I'm not Carl Jung, um, but I'm thinking of a quote of one of my friends, um, right now, Terry small, who calls himself the brain guy goes around the world teaching people about the brain.

You have to become aware of your awareness. And so if we think about the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, you know, the conscious mind is, you know, the prefrontal cortex and how we activate our executive functions and whatnot. But there's so many things that have happened to the point you use the term neural pathways, neural highways.

We have programmed our brain. Our brain has to do that. By the way, if we had to think about every decision we made, our brain couldn't survive. So we build up, um, something happens, our brain reacts a certain way. And so we have to become aware of our awareness to figure out, well, when I am triggered. Is my reaction a healthy reaction or not?

What's the emotions attached to that? To that reaction and then figuring out the strategies and sometimes just being able To name the emotions that go with a trigger a triggered event Is we'll set people free and i've done this in workshops where we'll actually you know I work with an organization a few years ago.

That was in massive stress mode. It was seven men Um, they were way behind on opening um The facilities they were attempting to open and losing a million bucks a month. Massive stress. And just being able to identify the triggers on a day to day basis, putting words to those emotions and then reframing those words, it was life changing for him.

One of the guys in, in the, in the workshop, it was a one day workshop, made the comment. I've, I've been an executive for 42 years. That was a single best exercise I've ever done in any kind of workshop and helping them understand what's going on. So it's, 

Nicole Donnelly: I think that's such a powerful tool because I think so often we're, we're taught that.

It's not okay for us to feel, or we don't know how to feel what we're feeling. And I've, I've experienced the same thing where like I'll practice mindfulness and I'll just sit outside and try to pay attention to what is it that I'm actually feeling right now and give that space. You know, I'm feeling angry.

Okay. Let's sit in that for a minute and let's just let anger have its face anger trying to tell me what are you trying to teach me? And then, then I think once you feel it for me, I've noticed it's easier for it to just let it go. Cause I've given it kind of the space. 

Ed Chaffin: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and that's the one of the differences between therapy and coaching, you know, therapy is looking at the past and trying to, to figure out, and, and, and again, I mentioned that some of the remedial assignments, the people that were successful did some of that work too, but in coaching, there's a very fine line that we as ICF, Uh, international coach federation certified coaches, we can't cross unless I'm certified also as a psychologist or social worker, whatever it may be.

But again, just being able to understand source quick, quick story. I was coaching a gentleman in Switzerland a few years back, really struggled with conflict. And so as we were going through some of our coaching sessions, I kept probing, kept asking questions. And finally, all of a sudden the light bulb went on.

He goes, he goes, Ed, I figured it out. I said, figure what out? He said, why I'm so conflict diverse. He said in language school, I was the worst kid in the class and I was constantly ridiculed and made fun of. And so once he was aware of that, I said, so Sven, what would you like to do with that today? That happened long time ago.

You're now an executive in a firm. You have to manage conflict. We you've got to grow in that area, be able to embrace it. And he thought for a moment, he says, I think I could just let go of it now. Can I? I said, it's your choice. And he goes, yeah, I think I can. But it was understanding that source for him without, again, I was not playing therapist.

I was simply just asking them good coaching, coaching questions to say, when this happens, what's going on inside of you when this happens that, you know, just asking good coaching questions where the light bulb went on for him. 

Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. I think that's such a great example of just validating the experience and being aware of your awareness and aware of what happened.

It's a perfect example. And then how, how he was able to reframe it and move forward from that. Exactly. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. He didn't need to go through, you know, years of therapy to, to unravel all the ridicule that he had as, as a young man growing up in Switzerland and not being able to, because I don't know if you're aware of this, but there's four major languages spoken in Switzerland, right?

So, so I can't, I can't imagine that. 

Nicole Donnelly: Yeah, it immediately the, this quote comes on, you probably heard before what we resist persists, like if we just let go of that resistance and just kind of give it space, right. Fascinating. Oh man, this is such a fantastic conversation. I feel like we could talk all day long.

Ed Chaffin: Oh yeah, I think as you can tell, it's my passion. And I feel Very blessed in my book. I do outline the journey for me.  and to the point that we talked about just a few minutes ago, I've done a lot of work to unravel a pretty difficult childhood of my own. And, and, and, you know, was that fun work? Was it work that I wanted to do?

No, it was work I had to do because some things kept happening in my life that weren't productive. And so once, once we began to figure some of that out and begin that journey of healing and discovery, then it's amazing what showed up after that. But 

Nicole Donnelly: yeah. And I think it's, what you mentioned earlier is such an important point is you mentioned that the brain has these neural pathways and it doesn't want to think it, that's how it works.

Like it's supposed to work that way. And I think that can be a very. What's the word I want to, it takes the pressure off. Right. And it also makes the healing process a little, you give yourself a little bit more grace with it to say like, This is going to be work. It's going to, it's not going to be an easy process because this is just how the brain works, but give yourself the patience to say, if I keep on doing this, keep on learning this and consistently put in the work, I can change it because the brain is that plastic.

So it's just like giving yourself some grace through all of that. Like, it's not going to change it right away and that's okay. 

Ed Chaffin: Well, you have to rewire. The neural circuitry in your brain and that rewiring. One of the myths that I write about in my book is the 21 days to change a habit. It's a myth. It, you know, if you go do the research on Wikipedia on it, it was a plastic surgeon or somebody, something like that, that came up with that idea.

Um, it, you know, the example that I use, in fact, right now, as I'm sitting at my desk in my home office, The trash can is just to my left. If I were to move the trash can over to the right, about 21 attempts from now, I would not automatically want to go over here. I could, but if I've got a major neural pathway, I'm trying to rewire.

It may take months. Or years it in because what the brain likes the path of least resistance. And so you've got to basically like the old vinyl records, you've got to scratch that old highway and rebuild a new highway. And that can take a day or a month or a year. So that if anybody still is operating on that philosophy that, oh, 21 attempts are 21 days and I can change any habit.

No, maybe. 

Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. It reminds me of your friend, Maddie, you talked about at the beginning, who had lost 150 pounds. And she even mentioned herself that she had fallen off the bandwagon, you 

Ed Chaffin: know, exactly. 

Nicole Donnelly: Still lost 150 pounds. So it's like, it's just when you fall down, just getting back up. And moving forward and trying again, you know, and just being committed that way.

Um, 

Ed Chaffin: You and I talked briefly right before we got on the call and something bubbles up right now. Is that that concept of the growth mindset and getting comfortable being uncomfortable? Because when we are trying to rebuild New habits and new thinking and new ways of doing things and new ways of showing up, you know, again, the path of least resistance.

We, you know, the default wants to override the new highway. We have to get comfortable being uncomfortable and knowing that there's that period of time where. I go from, well, I used to be an expert and now I'm a flat beginner. And over time, uh, I can move from beginner to novice to maybe eventually expert, but it takes, you have to be willing to go through that pain of the learning curve.

Nicole Donnelly: I love that. I love that quote in your book. We must become comfortable being uncomfortable in order to move beyond our current beliefs and achieve the goals we want to achieve. Yep. So I've been thinking a lot about this quote and What does that feel like? The living in discomfort, right? Like, we all want to be happy.

We talk about being happy and everybody's pursuit of happiness. Right? Like, but if we're, if we're constantly wanting to go into this place where we are living in this discomfort, how do we find, how do you find peace in that? You know, if you're someone that really wants to grow and challenge yourself, but know that you're going to be in the red zone and it's going to be hard.

Right. 

Ed Chaffin: Are you sure you're not a philosopher? You ask very deep questions.

Nicole Donnelly: I don't know. I don't know. Maybe so. I just think about these things because, you know, we want life to not always be painful, but if we want to grow, it's going to be painful. So how do we reconcile that, you know? I don't know. If you don't have the answer, I don't either. 

Ed Chaffin: Well, I think there's a starting point for the answer.

I don't know if it's the answer, but the starting point is what's your motivation? 

Unknown: Yeah. 

Ed Chaffin: What is it that you're trying to accomplish? And is it worth going through the pain? If the why is big enough, 

Nicole Donnelly: if the why is big enough to hold you 

Ed Chaffin: to hold it, like in the example of Maddie, apparently, and I, you know, in fact, I'm headed back to Fort Myers tonight.

I'll be getting my haircut next week. I'm going to ask her what her why was. Because I didn't ask her that the last time she cut my hair. But I want, I want to know that now. What, what was the actual trigger event that caused you to get, get in motion? So I think that, yeah, if, if, if we know, well, let me think about this.

We as humans make decisions. So we're looking for those two things. Normally based on two motivations, moving toward pleasure, moving away from pain. Hopefully we can add a third element, which is moving toward wisdom. 

Unknown: So we 

Ed Chaffin: learn, we learn from our experiences that worked and didn't work. We learned from others that have gone before us.

We learned, but unfortunately a lot of what we do is moving away from pain and moving toward pleasure. 

Nicole Donnelly: We're looking for this homeostasis right? The body wants to stay where it's safe. It doesn't. Exactly. And you were constantly having to fight against that. 

Ed Chaffin: Well, then you just triggered the other thing about the basics of the brain.

What's the number one job of the brain? 

Nicole Donnelly: Stay safe. Exactly. 

Ed Chaffin: Keep you alive, right? 

Nicole Donnelly: Don't die. So 

Ed Chaffin: there's a natural negative bias to the brain that we have to overcome. And if you look at whatever you believe about, you know, how long we've been on the earth and all that, we've overcome that or we wouldn't be here.

Nicole Donnelly: Yes, so true. It makes me think about stress too, like a lot of times stress is this big negative thing, but stress is a motive. Stress is a healthy thing in inappropriate doses. The way we look at it and the way that we, um, see it, I think makes a big difference. We need stress in our lives. 

Ed Chaffin: Kelly McGonigal.

Are you familiar with her? 

Nicole Donnelly: No. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. I would look up on YouTube her video on stress. She started off researching stress with the same belief that most of us have, which is stress kills, right? Stress is bad for you. What she now teaches is that it's not stress that is bad or that kills. It's what you think about stress.

Nicole Donnelly: It's like being aware of the awareness, right? Like it goes back to that whole. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah, because actually the stress response from a chemical standpoint is a very positive experience. And if we can channel that and recognize that's, and again, that's what I did with that organization. Those seven gentlemen that were made, they were 18 months behind schedule and losing a million bucks a month was by reframing the word, the negative words they were using into productive positive words.

And, and I know some people went, well, that's just Pollyannish. They're just ignored. No. Is they were reframing how they were thinking about what they were experiencing every day. And that's not being Pollyannish, that's owning your mindset. 

Nicole Donnelly: Yeah, it's acknowledging. 

Ed Chaffin: Acknowledging and choosing, choosing how I'm going to react to this.

Versus the oh woe is me, we're in deep you know what.

Nicole Donnelly: That can be applied in so many ways. That's such wisdom. 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. 

Nicole Donnelly: Well, Ed, I want to talk a little bit about your, you founded the uncommon leadership Institute. And I, I, as I was looking at, you know, I love your book. It's fantastic. I see that you are just, you've really lived this life of service. I think it's just really incredible.

And so my, my question is like, what is your, why, what do you want your legacy to be like when you think about. What you want to be known for and what you, you know, what is that, what is it that really has motivated you to kind of pursue this path of significance? 

Ed Chaffin: Yeah. Well, as I was, I and my family were going through a process of rebuilding after a major life event for me, uh, early nineties.

We did a Mission Vision Values work and in Stephen Covey's book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, there's one of the habits is begin with the end in mind and Covey has the exercise in there of imagining your funeral. And that four people will come up and speak about your life, but you're sitting on the front row.

You've got a front row seat to your funeral, right? And I did that exercise numerous times over about an 18 month period, 1992, 1999, 91, 92, actually. And from that came the mission of to change the world one life at a time. And and in that, that, North star. That is what then, yeah, I don't want to get down too much of a rabbit hole, but after that, as I was moving forward in my life and career, I was able to know, was I on track or not?

And I wanted it to happen a lot quicker than it actually happened. But eventually God gave me the platform to make the difference. So that's, that's, you know, and that's why, um, at my advanced, um, age, I still work. Um, I, I don't believe in retirement. We, you know, as I say, as long as my brain is working, my body's working and I can make a difference in the lives of other people, I plan to continue to do it.

Now I don't do it. I don't work 40 hours or 60 hours or 80 hours a week anymore. Uh, I'm very selective in the clients that I take on, but I, um, it just, you know, fills me up to be able to come alongside people and help them figure out their why sometimes, and also figure out what it means to be the kind of leader they really want to be.