The Ryan Leak Podcast

Rachel Frank is the Premium Account Executive at the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks. She is dedicated to creating lasting memories and providing exclusive luxury experiences for premium clientele and their guests. Highlights from this episode: "I found that communication is the key to wearing many hats well."   "You have to be okay asking questions and knowing that you're not going to have the answer to everything."   "Be willing to listen and learn from your peers and those who have more experience than you."   "When someone asks you to do something you might not want to do, or you don't think it's your responsibility. Think about the fact that they trust you enough to put that  thing in your hands."   "It's the relationships you foster offline that are invaluable." Shownotes can be found at ryanleak.com/followership.

Danny Kim is Director of People + Culture at Raindrop which is a marketing, branding, and advertising agency in SoCal. He’s a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach. He’s also a Communication coach. And he also has a PHD in Industrial and organizational psychology. Highlights from Danny Kim: The biggest psychological hurdle followers have is fear. Fear can manifest in so many different ways; Fear of Self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and of what people think. “Fear is a hurdle followers need to overcome. They need to be their authentic selves and know they are enough.” "People need to have certain rituals and rhythms to ground themselves in gratitude." "You are your greatest product." "If you come into work knowing I am going to produce and be the best version of myself, that's a huge hurdle to overcome." "You have to have mentors, friends, colleagues, confidants, and partners who are going to be in your corner." "You don't overcome fear by running. You overcome fear by facing it." "If you're afraid of saying something and then getting fired, you probably shouldn't work there anyway cause it's not a psychologically safe place to work." “If followers step into hard places and have hard conversations they become leaders.” "You need to say when is it appropriate to speak my truth and how do I not let the fear of my leader impact my integrity." "Process where are my fears, What can I control, and what can I not control?" "Rather, you are a follower or leader. I hope that we can use our power and privilege to lift and support those that are usually in the  nondominant culture." “If you start leaning into the ways you are naturally wired, it does two things for you. Number one it gives you permission to be who you are. Knowing that your perspective is unique and what you bring to the world is unique. The second thing is it gives you permission  to not be who you are not.” "Part of addressing your fear is naming and claiming this is who I am. This is what I bring to the world and do I believe in myself?"

Having served as the Chief People Officer at NorthRock Partners, Lacey has profound insight on something she's done most of her career to help her be successful as a follower and now as a leader. Show notes can found at ryanleak.com/followership. Lessons from Lacey: As a follower, you have to appreciate the challenge your leader is carrying. Give them grace. Leaders have a way of making it look easier than it really is, but it’s not easy at all. Often times, leaders are building the plane while flying. Followers can’t be obsessed with what’s next and forget to celebrate what’s current. You’re in control of your emotions and how you show up to work. You get a choice as to what Monday through Friday looks like. For years, Lacey has sent a Friday email every week to almost every manager she’s ever had. In that email, she laid out what she had done that week, 5 questions that will help her have an even better week the following week. Some of those questions are: Can you provide clarity on various projects? If this is where I’ve failed, can you provide feedback on how I can get better? You can’t bank on your leader thinking about you every Monday morning, but if you’re in their inbox every Friday, you’ve positioned yourself to be a better follower. For more notes go to ryanleak.com/followership.

Joel Manby is a dad, a 25 year CEO, an author and a speaker. As a former CEO of major organizations such as Sea World, Saab, and Herschend Enterprises, Joel endured my fair share of each of these situations. He's learned a number of leadership and life lessons and have found solutions to each of these concerns. As a result, he's built strong teams and created corporate cultures that have thrived amidst major adversity. Highlights from today's episode: Undercover Boss URL: https://www.cbs.com/shows/undercover_boss/video/owrUga37IMHm4Sjw9haRh1xo0snCmzHJ/undercover-boss-herschend-family-entertainment/ Lessons from Joel: Leaders lose faith in followers that would tell me what they want to hear. Leaders wish followers would bring them recommendations over problems. Followers should always try do the right the thing and do the best thing for the company over any personal agendas.

Sometimes you're stuck with a mediocre leader, but Ryan Skoog teaches us that a bad leader can actually be a gift.  Ryan Skoog spends half of his time running a couple of for profit travel companies and the other half of his time running a non-profit organization called Venture. Venture is an organization that serves in areas of the world that are the least reached and least resourced by partnering with local leaders in those communities to end some of the worlds greatest injustices. Through their organization, you can raise money for injustices by doing tough things like running long distances, hiking mountains, or biking. You can learn more about Venture at venture.org. Show notes for this episode are available at ryanleak.com/followership.

Welcome to Followership with Ryan Leak, a podcast designed to help followers follow their leaders, and to help leaders understand their followers. While leadership is often a more popular discussion and billions are spent every year consuming leadership resources, most of us will spend most of our careers doing more following than leading and we need help to do it. Take some of the the largest employers in the world like Walmart, who employs roughly 2.3 million people around the world. How many of those people would we say are leaders? Kroger reportedly has 453,000 employees with 2700 stores spread across 35 states. How many leaders does it take to run each Kroger grocery store? Let’s say 15. That’s generous, but let’s go with it. That’s 40,500 leaders which is less than 10% leaving the majority of their workforce… following. Amazon has 840,000 plus employees. Let's say 80,000 of them are leaders. That still leaves 79,999 people following Jeff Bezos and his leadership.  And how many people do you know that can say they work for a GREAT leader? In fact, working for a GREAT Leader is pretty rare. But just because you may not work for a great leader doesn’t mean you can’t be a great follower. Everyone has grandiose ideas of what a leader should and shouldn’t be and should and shouldn’t do and should and shouldn’t say. But most of us live with a lot of opinions about leadership with virtually zero control over how they actually lead. This is a podcast to help you do your part well.