The Leader Factor

Today's lesson:Become an Agile, Self-directed LearnerKey Points:The biggest barrier to learning today is not access, it’s motivation. Many individuals stop learning when they get out of school or they don’t have outside requirements, external expectations, or a structured learning environment. Many people stop learning even though it’s an innate need and desire. The solution? Make learning completely your responsibility and avoid learning welfare like the plague.Today's key action:Identify an area of your professional life that you feel would benefit from some deliberate, aggressive, self-directed learning. And then book a 20 minute slot on your calendar within the next two days to do some intentional learning.

In this episode of Culture by Design, we're finishing up our Character and Competence series with the final episode. And if you've been with us each week, thank you. This has been an impactful few weeks where we've discussed topics including integrity, humility, accountability, courage, learning, change, judgment, and finally today, we cover the fourth cornerstone of competence, vision. Tim and Junior will discuss, vision is to see what does not exist, to see what others cannot see, and to see potential and possibility in yourself, in others, and in the organization. What is vision? (03:16) Vision is another differentiator between leaders and managers, and great leaders have two kinds of vision for two units of performance: the individual and the organization. But vision isn't made up of dreams, you have to take note of your wanting/willing ratio.‍Vision helps you survive (17:24) Inevitably, disaster will strike. Vision helps pull us through when we face uncertainty. Uncertainty paired with the vision that can pull us forward and create some mobilization.‍Vision precedes creativity (20:37) Tim and Junior explain that vision begins the creative process. Creating a vision is creating a conception of the future and defining a goal. Leaders need to enable independence in their people before they can enable creativity.‍Creating a vision (32:01) Our hosts delve into how to create, simplify, communicate, embody, and endure your vision. 

This is a LeaderFactor Single Point Lesson. These 10-minute episodes are packed with practical learning on a single topic. These episodes will be published in addition to our regular full-length episodes every Monday.Today's lesson:Leadership makes it harder to get to reality.Key Points:When you step into a formal leadership role, you face a built-in obstacle: you have to work harder to stay in reality. Why? Because now there’s a power differential. Honesty and candor comes with risk; it can be dangerous. You get less feedback and it’s filtered. In addition, leaders often develop a tendency to focus inwardly. Welcome to the reality distortion field. What's the solution? An open door policy will never work. That’s passive. The solution is to go get reality by soliciting feedback, being accessible, and rewarding the feedback when it comes.Today's key action:Go solicit feedback from those who have local knowledge regarding an issue you’re currently working on. 

In this week's episode of Culture by Design, Tim and Junior dive into the penultimate episode of their series, Leading With Character and Competence, with a discussion on judgment. If decisions are the primary output of any leader, then improving decision-making is a crucial part of becoming a better leader. The two define and frame the concept, and then share practical ways to improve judgment as a learnable skill. Judgment diagnostic questions (04:45). Tim asks listeners a few questions to gauge where they're at with their judgment abilities. The first one? Would you say that you're a good decision-maker? Judgment, systems thinking, and searchlight intelligence (14:16). Junior brings up analysis paralysis and the components of good judgment, including good information.Tackling adaptive challenges with good judgment (27:54). The faster you can identify adaptive challenges, the better your judgment will be. What are the opportunities, threats, and crises facing your organization?Judgment and delegation (46:47). Do you use your judgment to multiply force and accelerate the development of people around you? Can you resist the arrogance and overconfidence that comes with success?

This is our first LeaderFactor Single Point Lesson. These 10-minute episodes are packed with practical learning on a single topic. These episodes will be published in addition to our regular full-length episodes every Monday.Today's lesson:You will grow based on what you demand of yourself.Key Points:As humans, it is natural for us to seek comfort and equilibrium, but equilibrium leads to mediocrity. In the end, mediocrity will deny you the opportunity to discover who you really are and who you can become. What's the answer? Demand more of yourself. Don’t wait for your environment to demand more of you because it might not. Embrace discomfort (but not to your panic zone) and recognize that there has never been a time of significant progression that wasn't characterized by discomfort.Today's key action:Write down an area of your life that's falling or has fallen into equilibrium in which you should demand more of yourself. Then go and do whatever might be appropriate to improve

In this episode, we're continuing our Leading with Character and Competence series with a discussion on the second cornerstone of competence, change. Previous episodes in this series have been on the four cornerstones of character, which in case you missed them, are integrity, humility, accountability, and courage. In order to become an effective leader and become what we would truly consider competent, you have to become skilled at adapting to change yourself and leading others through change. Tim and Junior talk about facing change as an individual and as a leader, as well as the two failure patterns that organizations face when running change initiatives. What is change? (0:03:15) Change always requires the performance of additional work and the absorption of additional stress. It's a gateway competency in the 21st century. Sometimes we choose it, and sometimes it chooses us. What is resilience? (0:09:38) In order to become an effective leader and become what we would truly consider competent, you have to become skilled at adapting to change yourself and leading others through change. And in order to manage change at the individual level, we have to be resilient. Tackling organizational change (0:23:51) Tim and Junior discuss the two domains of change, personal and organizational. They explain the cocktail of confidence, adaptability, and optimism. Applying confidence, optimism, and gratitude (0:28:56) How do these three apply to relationships, renewal, learning, contribution, achievement, and purpose?Two change failure patterns (0:40:35) You can't muscle or smuggle change. When we smuggle, we try to hide the fact that we're changing from people, to bring it into the organization and conceal it, cover it up, bring it in as a covert action, minimize it. When we muscle change, we use formal authority and positional power to force change. Neither yield promising results. 

In this episode of Culture by Design, we're entering the second half of our Leading with Character and Competence series with a discussion on the first cornerstone of competence, learning. Tim and Junior discuss what it means to be an agile self­-directed learner, why it's important to learn at or above the speed of change, and how to keep yourself competitive and relevant in an increasingly fast-­paced, changing environment.Character vs. Competence (0:01:21). If character is the infrastructure, competence is the superstructure. Tim and Junior introduce the next four episodes of this series, all of which will focus on how listeners can develop and improve their levels of competence. The perishability of knowledge (0:05:08). We live in a different world than it was just a couple of years ago. Things are changing quickly, and the perishability of knowledge and information are accelerating. Tim and Junior discuss how the linear nature of a career has been disrupted.The desire for stability and job security (0:13:13). Through a story about union negotiation, Tim illustrates the human need for stability, and how our concept of stability has changed over time. We're no longer looking for a role that'll last us decades, we're looking for one that'll grow with us. The three types of learning (0:15:00). There are three types of learning: permanent, continuous, and agile. Permanent learning is based on permanent qualification, continuous learning is ongoing qualification, and agile learning is rapid, collaborative, self-­directed learning at the moment of need.Formal vs. informal learning (0:22:03). Eventually, we graduate from opportunities and environments where we learn formally. This means we have to be proactive in creating and seeking out places and times to learn informally. Junior shares four self-reflection questions to help listeners assess their current impact on their learning.Encouraging learning in leadership (0:24:17). If you're a leader, people are watching you. They're watching how you interact with others, how you perform, and how you learn. If you can lead by example, you'll increase the learning agility of your team because you're creating that prevailing norm on your team.Reading for curation and pattern recognition (0:39:30). Tim and Junior share their advice on how to maximize what you read, plus a small discussion on Tim's most recent Harvard Business Review article, How to Read a Business Book.LinksHow to Read a Business Book (HBR)

In this episode of Culture by Design, Tim and Junior talk about courage as a leadership trait. Courage is a characteristic you need if you want to take risks, innovate, and progress. It's the biggest difference between managers and leaders. This episode is full of practical advice on developing courage, including embracing reality, deep listening, and aiming high. (0:02:38) Management vs. Leadership, what’s the difference? The risk profile of leadership as an applied discipline is quite a bit different than the risk profile of management. Why is leadership higher risk? Because leaders venture farther into the unknown than managers do. And it takes courage to explore, to disrupt, and to create.(0:15:29) What is your leadership-to-management ratio? As disciplines, leadership and management complement and yet compete with each other. They’re interdependent but not interchangeable. They represent different roles, but not different people.(0:28:54) Creativity requires courage. If innovation is about deviation and disrupting the status quo, then creativity is part of that process. But luckily, courage, like creativity, is a learnable skill. (0:35:11) Tim and Junior share four ways to increase courage. (1) Listen, (2) change before it becomes obvious, (3) embrace reality, (4) aim high. 

Leadership podcast discusses accountability, embracing transparency and ownership. Stories highlight the importance of internal accountability and avoiding entitlement. Tips for improving accountability include finishing tasks and avoiding short-term gratification. Emphasizes the need for intrinsic accountability and taking ownership of personal values.

In today's episode, we're continuing our leadership series on leading with character and competence with a discussion on the second cornerstone of character: humility. Humility is a performance accelerator; it allows you to develop, grow, and progress faster. It's the culminating stage of a leader's emotional and psychological development, and it's also one of the most difficult character traits to cultivate. This is a unique episode that will leave you with insights on humility that you haven't considered, which you can use to improve your leadership today.(04:27) What is humility? Tim and Junior describe the behaviors of humble leaders and define humility. "Humility is the unresented acknowledgement of two things: number one, you need other people's help, and number two, you don't know everything. It puts you in a different frame of mind, a different attitude, a different emotional state."(08:26) Humility is a performance accelerator. "The problem with hubris is that you become your own obstacle, you get in your own way, and with humility, you're able to move on, learn from the experiences that you're having, and go forward unencumbered, unrestrained."(17:31) Humility is an acknowledgment of the truth. "Humility is simply an acknowledgement of the truth of things, and the truth is we are all dependent, and we do need each other. So an attitude of humility is really appropriate in human interactions as we think about how we need each other and how we should help each other. If you live life and you're hoarding, trying to hoard recognition, praise, honor, and credit, it diminishes others."(25:19) To achieve humility, we must overcome insecurity without using junk theories of superiority. "One of the distinguishing characteristics of those who have humility is that they stare right into their imperfections and weaknesses. They acknowledge them, they know what they are, and paradoxically, that is actually what enables them to stand with so much confidence. Because they're not worried about being found out, there's not something that they're trying to hide, that they're self-conscious about and worried that people are going to discover."(35:36) Leaders can think about their inquiry vs. advocacy ratio to overcome personal hubris. "If we're just stuck in advocacy mode, then we're not getting the feedback, and the reality that we're looking at may be distorted."(41:00) Humble leaders are kind and demanding at the same time. "These are humble, very effective leaders that have evolved as leaders to a world-class level. They delegate more with the understanding that people grow only when they leave their comfort zones and travel to their outer limits. They realize that stretching, because they put a lot of stretch in the goals they give people, is both painful but also exhilarating. And that's the only place where people can build new capacity."(51:13) To gain humility, you must develop a high tolerance for candor. "Ask yourself, on a scale from 1 to 10, what is your tolerance for candor?"(54:45) Tim and Junior share additional characteristics of humble leaders. "They don't need to hear themselves talk, so they don't clamor for airtime. They stop telling the world how smart they are. They don't subscribe to the leader as an expert model in which the leader is the repository of all knowledge. They value the appreciation and recognition of their peers when it's meaningful, but it's not a requirement. They have learned that leadership often requires that we go for long periods and long distances without reward or recognition, that we toil in obscurity, and that due credit might come, but it might not. Final-stage leaders learn to fuel their efforts through intrinsic rewards. They learn that achievement carries its own compensation."Important LinksLeading with Character and Competence