speaker-0: Just because she was hurt didn't mean she was right. There were ten people I was not treating well because I kept trying to be the nice guy. Guys, I'm not sure what tomorrow is going to bring. I don't know what next week looks like or next month, but here's what we know today.

speaker-1: What makes a leader worth following?

speaker-0: The answer is in the wrestle. How do I find that balance to bring purpose to whatever we find to do?

speaker-1: Today's guest is Dr. Andy Neely. Andy is a leadership coach, business owner, and a longtime student of how to turn a manager into a leader that people are willing to follow. In our conversation, we discuss the difference between kindness and avoidance, why leaders often delay hard conversations, how to delegate without abdicating responsibility, and the true characteristics of great leaders. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Andy. Nealy. Doctor Andy, thank you so much for being here.

speaker-0: Glad to be here. Looking forward to our conversation together, fellow Phoenician, a little bit, at least part of your year is spent there and I exited the Valley of the Sun a number of years ago and appreciate that it's not a hundred and twenty three degrees every day in the summer here.

speaker-1: Right. You know, that is definitely something to appreciate ⁓ after living in Phoenix a hundred percent. But Dr. Andy, super pumped for our conversation today. I wanna start off with this. So leaders have had to deal with this di this timeless dichotomy forever, right? Like you care about people, but you have to hold and set the standard. So when leaders say that they wanna lead with empathy, right, they care about people, they wanna lead with empathy. What do you think that should actually look like?

speaker-0: I I'm glad that you've led to that question. I think that question is more relevant in the twenty twenties than it's probably ever been. And I think leaders need to wrestle with it harder than they ever been, than they've ever needed to. You know, I'm not sure it's true, Ian, but I suspect if we were to go back to like the nineteen sixties or seventies, kind of that my way or the highway leadership model, you know, we at least believe it existed back then. I don't know if it really did or not, but but you know, in Employees have a landscape full of choice in the 2020s. And yet leaders still need to deliver performance. So how do they manage that tension? If you and I were to write that book together that was the definitive answer, we both could retire to some island in the Caribbean, I think. I think one of the concepts we need to think about here is the difference between static equilibrium and dynamic equilibrium. It's still equilibrium, but static equilibrium. You got a marble and a bowl. The bowl is sitting like this. You drop the marble in and it rolls around and eventually it finds equilibrium. The question you asked is not one of static equilibrium. It's one of dynamic equilibrium. And I'm not sure leaders ever get it right. It's it's the hey, we've got numbers we've got to hit this quarter, we've got a production schedule that we promised the client, we've got output. That they're expecting to see the first draft on by a certain date. And I've got a team member whose parent needs to go in a memory care unit and they need five additional days of PTO that takes them outside the HR policy and furthermore, puts our schedule at risk. If there is not a leader that's listening to you that's wrestling with that, they're not a leader worthy of the title leadership. I don't know if we ever get it right. That's why I'm always very careful. I'm a student of leadership. I'm not sure I've arrived, 'cause Ian, I don't I don't think there's a right answer. The answer is in the wrestle. How do I find that balance? Fifty years ago it might have been, well, if you're not going to show up, I'll fire you. At times I feel like LinkedIn is telling us if we're not crying for our employees regularly in the twenty twenties, we don't have enough empathy. Ian, I think the answer is somewhere in between. A leader's gotta push for performance and a leader has to wrestle with how do I make sure my people know I am for them? There's never an easy answer.

speaker-1: I love how you answered that, right? It's it's always gonna be nuance, right? This and the dynamic equilibrium is is a new concept that I had never heard of before. ⁓ where it's gonna be, you know, kind of like a give and take or it's it's never always gonna be the same. Like every day, every week, every month, every quarter is gonna require something different from you.

speaker-0: Yeah. Part of the reality is I think leaders are the ones that are stuck with the hard decisions. Leaders are the ones that have to have the hard conversations. Managers, they can take care of all the easy decisions. They can have the easy conversations. The type of question you asked, that's where somebody learns to be a leader. And it once again, I'm I'm not sure we ever get it right, but but when we lean into it, we learn from our mistakes and and judgment grows. And so we we begin to make better decisions as leaders on when do I go too far this way, when do I go too far that way? And how do I find the balance?

speaker-1: Yeah. And as I'm listening to you explain your answer to that question, something that kept coming up for me is as a leader, you need to have the humility to be able to say that you don't know, right? You don't have the right answer. You don't you're not going to get it right one hundred percent of the time. And I feel like the way that that really shows up is just being transparent, being open with the people that you're leading in saying something like that. Right. So what do you think it takes for somebody to be able to say something like I don't know. I'm not gonna have the right answer. I'm not gonna be right every single time. I'm gonna make mistakes. Like, what does it take for a leader to own that?

speaker-0: You know, it's interesting because I think there's a difference between leadership delegation and leadership abdication. If every time something comes up and you say, Man, I don't know, I don't know what the right answer is, I'm gonna say, then you're not really the leader. You should be there because you're at the tip of the spear. You're you're the one with conviction and passion and courage and you see the future and you know the way to go and are working at showing your people the way to go. But in the twenty twenties, not always. And so that's when you need to have enough humility to say, we when COVID hit, I was running a multi unit, multimillion dollar retail business that the government said you gotta lock all your doors. And I've got landlords saying you still owe us rent. I've got people that still needed to be paid, and we've got no revenue coming in. I had a management team of about ten people and We just started meeting virtually. We're all trying to figure out Zoom or Teams or WebEx or whatever it was at the time. And I don't think it was our term, but we started using the term confident uncertainty. Guys, I'm not sure what tomorrow is going to bring. I don't know what next week looks like or next month, but here's what we know today. And based on what we know today, here's the messaging we need to engage in. Here's the effort we need to and and so that it gave us a a ⁓ Pathway to move forward, rather than just wringing our hands and throwing up in despair. We were uncertain, but what we were certain of, we practice confident uncertainty. And I think part of what you're asking about is how do we do that in the 2020s? And you know, part of it is you just you lean in and then you remain agile as you lean in, I think.

speaker-1: Yeah. What I'm loving so much about your answers is you represent the nuance that exists in almost every answer to any question perfectly. Right? And it's well, you know, okay.

speaker-0: I hate that there aren't any black and white answers, but but we're talking about people and we're talking about a time in our history that is a relatively volatile time. So anybody that comes up and says, Man, I've got the solution. I've discovered the four steps, you and I should turn the microphone off and shut the studio down if they're saying that.

speaker-1: And I feel like this is a this is kind of a funny ⁓ moment, but it's like in the way you're answering these questions, I almost feel like you're demonstrating this characteristic that's required of a leader to be able to give an answer, but without saying I'm a hundred percent correct, like this is absolutely right. Like you're you're almost delivering these answers in a way that represents the principle and ⁓ characteristic that we're talking about.

speaker-0: Well, and that very well may be why I say I'm a student of leadership rather than a true leader. I've made all these mistakes so many times myself. Right. I've fired people I shouldn't have fired. I kept people way longer than I should have kept them. I spent money on things I shouldn't have spent money on. I didn't invest where I should have. I mean, it's expensive being in charge.

speaker-1: Yeah, it sure is. And it ⁓ you know, it carries a weight of its own. But you know, those two mistakes that you mentioned that you made seem to be the principal mist principal mistakes that every leader who's been a leader for an extended period of time says are like their biggest mistakes, right? It's keeping somebody for longer than they should have or letting somebody go that maybe they shouldn't have. But it's typically the the f the the former rather than the latter, like keeping somebody for longer than they should have. Why is that? something that so many people, so many leaders seem to get wrong.

speaker-0: Well, I think two reasons. First is your reason. We all want to be empathetic. Nobody shows up at work saying, Man, I just want to be a dastardly hard guy today. If they do, that's a bigger issue that they and their psychologist or pastor needs to work on. But we all want to be good people for the most part, which means we want to be good bosses. And and once again, this is not book theory for me. The the very first employee Who left long after she should have left. I I call it the Gwen Axiom. It was such a lesson to me. Just because just because she was hurt didn't mean she was right. Here's why that got solidified in my brain as the Gwen Axiom. After she stomped out of the building, swearing at me, swearing at our management team, all of those bad things. I walked out to meet with the rest of my team. One of the team members said, Well, it took you long enough. And I realized right then and there. Man, there were ten people I was not treating well because I kept trying to be the nice guy to this employee. That's the bigger picture that I needed to learn as a leader. My desire to be empathetic was actually not being empathetic for most of the team members that were having to put up with her her behavior and her lack of performance and things like that. So there's a difference between being nice and being kind. Maybe some people know that lesson going in. I I had to learn that lesson the hard way. I'm still not sure I get it right every time.

speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, even in my own journey, right, I had a marketing agency that I was building with a friend of mine and ⁓ you know, we were very young. We were like twenty one, twenty two when we were building this, but we had a lot of older mentors around us who were, you know, helping us along the way. And, you know, I knew that idea going into it. It's like, ⁓ yeah, the you know, hire slow, fire fast, right? I'm reading all these books and I'm understanding the concepts, understanding the principles. I got all the quotes memorized, right? And then we make our first hire. And Pretty early on we realize like well actually our first hire at Dane was the main, but our second like our first in person hire and pretty early on like you quickly realize like, ⁓ I don't know, like you don't feel a hundred percent about it. And then we just kinda let things drag on and on and on for a long much longer than they should have. It's just you talked about the idea, it's like a desire to be empathetic, which gets in the way of you taking the necessary action of letting this person go, right? Or unhiring this person as ⁓ one of my clients calls it instead of firing, unhiring. I feel like it's less of a Trying to be empathetic to this person, but almost like, I don't want to go through that uncomfortable. Like, yeah, like especially me at that, I did not want to have that conversation.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. It's like I'd I'd rather have that little nagging injury than go see a doctor and go through physical therapy to get it fixed. You're exactly right. And I think one of the things that differentiates a a manager from a high achieving leader, somebody that's that's doing the right things, is they lean into those types of conversations. They push through that discomfort when others kind of say, Man, I hope I hope next week wasn't as hard as this week. It's probably gonna be better. And it's like no, it's not gonna get any better as long as he's still on board. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. As I think about it here in this moment, I would see that as like the defining characteristic that separates a high performing leader versus manager is that ability to recognize that it's your responsibility to have those difficult conversations and you know, make the decisions that need to be made.

speaker-0: Yeah, I fully agree. I think as an outsider looking in from my consultant's role a a lot of times that's one of the ways I can identify the true leaders inside an organization is who are the ones that are not afraid to have the hard conversations. Now, hard doesn't necessarily mean harsh. I think the good leaders know how to have a hard conversation where I walk out of that meeting saying, Man, I just kind of got called to the woodshed, but I know that Andy's got my best interest in mind. And that's that's the the wisdom of a leader who is seasoned by hard conversations, I think.

speaker-1: Yep. Absolutely. Right. As with anything, you only get better when you get reps. and you know, when you start doing anything new you're gonna suck and you only get better by sucking for a while and then getting better at it. But

speaker-0: And and need to be purposeful reps, right? I'm a big cross fitter and I can go and do squats all day long and if I'm only going down eighty five percent of the way and and I'm leaning in too much and not, you know, using my back as a brace, I can do a gazillion reps and I'm still not getting better at back squat. It's gotta be purposeful practice produces improved performance. Yeah.

speaker-1: Absolutely. Yep. And it's another one of those representations of the nuance that exists in this domain of leadership of you need to have this hard conversation, but you don't want to just completely slam on this person, right? You want to do it in a delicate way where you walk that tightrope of giving direct critical feedback, but doing it in a way where that person doesn't feel like you're just doing it because you don't like them. They're like almost if you can do it in a way, if you can deliver that feedback in a way where that person feels like He's only doing this because he cares so much about me, you know, because in the end that's really where it should be coming from. Because like you giving this feedback to them, you're doing it because you care about them and you want them to get better and you care about the team, right? Yeah. But I love it. So something that I've been wanting to dive into is ⁓ you mentioned early on that you're a student of leadership. And I think that's a a great way to say it. So as you're in your experience of being a student of leadership. What leaders would you say you most look up to, admire and why?

speaker-0: The leaders that stick in my mind are the ones who are kind of in the back row and the people in the front who are coming to me with stuff that they want to do or improve or work on. And I realized, man, the reason these people are so free to put the pedal to the metal is because somebody has told them, you know what, you're in charge. Go do it. I do a lot of work in the construction and in the kind of cattle and ag space. And a lot of these guys are kind of pickup driving roughnecks. There's a a phrase if you're a horseback rider, the it's the phrase use a soft glove. We moved to Texas a number of years ago, and just like other people who fall in love in Texas, we we found somebody that had a little ranchette outside Austin that you could go and on a Saturday afternoon go horseback riding with them for three hours and they take you out into the hill country. And and I remember Helen at one point yelling at me Andy soft glove. I didn't know what she meant by that. I'd gone to a home depot and bought some leather gloves and I got my cowboy hat and she and I ended up having a conversation afterwards. She said, Andy, when I said soft glove, I didn't have anything to do with the gloves you bought. My problem when I looked over at you, Andy, you were trying to do this to the horse. The best riders are in the best control when it looks like they're not working that hard. They've got a soft touch with their Their horse, soft glove. I think that's that's what a good leader looks like. Now at times in if if somebody comes into a situation, they might have to clean house a bit before they've got the right type of people that they can be a soft glove with. But the best leaders I've worked with, it wasn't about them. Their team members performed because they weren't doing this.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So how does that let's say somebody's listening to this, they do feel like they have the right team, but they know that they wanna up level themselves as the leader, right? Like you as the leader need to grow as yourself if you want your team to grow and the business to grow, especially in a smaller business. So what does leading with soft gloves look like?

speaker-0: Well, particularly in your in your space where, you know, you you got a bunch of people that follow you that are content creators and they live in that creative world. If I've got three people on my team and I am the resident expert, I can do a hundred percent excellent. I know what I'm gonna show the client is gonna be perfect and wonderful, and that's why I was successful establishing this business. Now I've got three people working for me, and truth matter is One of them at his or her very best it's going to be ninety percent of what I would have done. Another one it would be ninety five percent, one of them's gonna be at eighty percent. Man, do I do I just take over? 'Cause a hundred percent is better than eighty or ninety percent, but then you do the math and you do eighty plus eighty five plus ninety, all of a sudden I'm at two hundred and seventy percent of what I could have done on my own. So I think part of what leaders in a creative space and in a Closely held small, tight knit team is is you gotta practice what Carly Fiorona, CEO of Hewlett Packard said twenty years ago. Perfect enough. We gotta get to market. We can't wait for one more iteration of additional memory or a new processor because we're losing market share. Perfect enough. And sometimes ninety percent is what you have to to do. Th that that almost sounds contrary to the call for excellence. But leader, if your a hundred percent is the only way to get to excellence, you're pretty arrogant. I suspect they're ninety percent of what you think is probably better in ways you hadn't thought of it.

speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And one of the ⁓ preliminary I'm I'm I'm blanking on the word right now, but one of the necess necessities of excellent is done, is finished, is completed. Yeah. Right. And ⁓ if you're striving for only a hundred percent, you're never gonna get anything done. But I think that situation you painted is it's very close to home because we did work in a creative space. Like my first business was in a creative world where the marketing agency video production and you know People in our team did find it hard to delegate and give it to other people. Right. And get it off their plate and just trust that somebody else, okay, maybe while they're not going to do it a hundred percent as good as you, you cannot be focused on this. You can't be we need you worrying about and thinking about and doing other things. Like it's the only way that we're gonna be able to grow. And it's the only way that that person's gonna be able to grow because they need to get the reps and the experience of doing it. And then sure, you spend more time giving them feedback early on, but we need to build this person up. to get them close to doing it as good as you do because you cannot be doing this forever. So why is that? Like why why do some leaders have a hard time kind of letting go and delegating?

speaker-0: Well, probably for some of us it's because we've delegated in the past and it has gone poorly. We lost that client. We got called on the carpet. I mean, some of us we've got scars from delegating more than we should have delegated. But I think a a lot of times, Ian, it's it's the arrogance of assuming that I know best. And you might know your way, but there's other best ways. I have this very interesting reality going on right now. We've sold our businesses that we grew for the last sixteen years. I continue to do leadership training, consulting, and keynoting, but my wife knows I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur and I scratch itches and I'm always thinking of creative things and and I'm a big fitness buff and and we're big dog people. In fact, while I'm working at home this afternoon and one of our recent rescues jumped up on the bed in our in our den. in the front of our house here. We're big dog rescuers. We're CrossFitters. We're launching this brand called Fit Old Dog. It's going to be a lifestyle brand. It'll be out later this year. I got all kinds of ideas. And I've got some people around me telling me, yeah, but Andy, you've got to think about it differently. And so I've turned over web development to somebody else and I've turned over brand development. I still will be the key decision maker, but other people are going to do a better job than me at launching this lifestyle brand. I'll simply be the one that picked things up, became the spokesperson and and was the front person. I had to get to the point where I realized I not only do I not have enough time to do everything or skill set, there are other more creative people than me who know this space better. understand marketing of this type of activity better. And so, Andy, you know, get off your high horse. You don't have all the right answers.

speaker-1: Yeah. I think how you labeled it as the arrogance of thinking that you know best to the arrogance of thinking that you can do it best, a hundred percent is one of those things that needs to break down before you can effectively delegate something, before you can really give it away. How can you do that though? Like is there really like a prescription that you can give for how you can break down the the arrogance of thinking that you know best? Because first off, I think if you're in that situation where you think you know best, you think you are best I think if you're that kind of in that situation, it's gonna be hard for you to recognize that in yourself. And then you just be like, ⁓ no, absolutely like they won't even consider it. But maybe it's a leader on their team or like somebody's listening to this, they're the founder of their business. They have a leader on their team where they recognize this individual has a hard time giving things up because they think they know best. Or somebody is self aware enough that's listening to this can recognize in themselves that maybe they do kind of have the symptoms of sink thinking that that this arrogance of thinking they know best. So What would you tell to that person, like how could they kind of break down that arrogance of thinking that they know best?

speaker-0: I mean, first of all, a caveat. There are the the Steve Jobs, the Elon Musks, there there are these unicorns where they really do see a future that nobody else sees. They see a product that nobody else can imagine. They find an opportunity that nobody else has even imagined. And so, first of all, I just have to put out that I think there are some unicorns out there where, you know, Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ivey. Man, everybody else just needs to kind of get in line behind them and do what they say. But I think that's relatively rare. I know the best leaders I work with have a degree of humility where they recognize my role in some respects is the bottom of the pyramid rather than the top of the pyramid. And I think when leaders can view themselves As at Simon Sinek wrote the book a number of years ago, Leaders Eat Last. It captures that same concept where, man, the most important people in this organization are not the generals in the boardroom. The most important people in this organization are the ones that are in the front line. The best leaders I work with really choose to believe that. And once again, I would say that doesn't mean they don't have permission to come into the final design meeting and say, Hey, this is this color scheme we ought to be using because I I know this client's history long enough to know a little bit more. But they've got to work at taking their hands off the wheel if they're gonna grow. If they simply want to practice and not a real business, maybe they stay fully in charge, but you're never gonna scale a practice. You're gonna scale a business.

speaker-1: Yeah. Right. And it almost feels like that again, arrogance is probably a really strong word, but just the belief that like I do this best. I'm gonna do this. Like having just that get in the way. Like it's g it's it's a non starter, right? You cannot have that characteristic and be a leader of people because you just the people that work under you are gonna suffer because like my sister, even she just started, she entered the workforce last year. And she works at this big engineering firm in Arizona. And she has a boss, or she did. This guy recently was relocated, probably for a lot of what she told me about. But this guy would just be sitting next to people. There's like a team of seven. They'd have all these client reports and and things that they would have to do, which would just create like these big surges of of work that would, you know, keep them there until three in the morning. And he would be going from every individual on the team of like eight to ten people. sitting next to them, just going through absolutely everything that they did and like doing the work with them right over their shoulder, kind of taking over the keyboard, like just wild. So is that guy definitely has that symptom, that characteristic of thinking that he knows best and he has to do absolutely everything in that process. And in my opinion, like when I hear about a person like that, I almost think that person's just not really fit to be a leader. And that's okay. Like not everybody is like You don't have to be a leader. You can just be an excellent practitioner at that craft and just work within a team and just do your work. Do be amazing at it because you you probably are amazing at it. But I just don't know if that person is gonna be fit to be a good leader.

speaker-0: One, it's interesting because that's that's that difference between are you growing a practice or are you growing a business that we talked about a minute ago. Ken Blanchard's situational leadership model from fifteen or more years ago comes to mind. Ian at times part of that leader's job is to lean over that CAD program and show that team member how to do it with excellence. That's that's part of the job of a leader is that training, that hands on training. But if you continue to do it weeks on weeks and months on months, three AMs on three AMs, you've never gotten to the point where you've given them enough that now you need to just coach them and take your hands off. And that's I think that's the challenge is this ability to delegate is hard at times for people that you and I are talking about. You gotta train them, make them as good as they can be, and then you've got to take your hands off the wheel.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And there is like a completely different angle of this that we haven't really addressed. And that's the fact that training is really hard and it's exhausting and ⁓ it takes a lot of time and effort and like you have to prioritize the the training time. Right. Like I remember again, like going back to the marketing agency when we would hire somebody new, like my business partner Matt, he was a he was he still is a wickedly talented creative individual. Like everything down to Filming something, editing it, publishing, like the whole creative side of everything. He was a wizard. Yeah. He was so good. But we would have to spend so much time because he kind of like his style is what created our business and what people really loved. So it takes a long time, especially in that creative, like video production space. Like it's almost like an artistic style to the whole thing. So we would have to spend so much like Matt, when we would hire somebody new, we would take like a month and that person that new hire, that editor, that videographer would spend so much time with Matt just because we learned it's just what is required. But it it sucks. Like in that moment, like when he's spending two hours a day training somebody, is there other things that he could be doing? A thousand percent. But it almost is like the recognition of knowing how important this is because if we don't spend this time, it's he's still gonna have to be the videographer. He's still gonna have to be the video editor.

speaker-0: from now be in the same dilemma. Well, the other thing, not only is it taking his time, but you're cutting a paycheck to this new guy who's not doing any independent work yet. So it's expensive. And I think that's another principle of leadership. Leadership is gonna cost something. Is there a a force multiplier that eventually kicks in? Yeah, it should, but sometimes that that long tail of the dragon can be weeks or months or even years before that force multiplier. Takes place and in the meantime, you're writing a paycheck every two weeks.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It it is tough, but it is, again, just required for effective delegation. Do you feel like there's anything else that we haven't covered just yet about like what goes into effective delegation? Like what is required for effective delegation to happen?

speaker-0: This concept of the difference between delegation and abdication, where I am not being a good leader if I just walk into the room and say, guys, you're in charge. Let me see the end product 32 hours from now so we can present it to the client at the end of the week. That's a bit of an abdication mentality. And you can only do that a couple of times and all of a sudden you don't really have a business left. So the balance between micromanagement and delegation is another one of those fine lines where I don't know if you ever get it right. If you're not wrestling with it, you're not becoming a high achieving leader. That's one of those wrestles of man, when do I just drop the pencil and walk out of the room and trust Andy to do a better job than I thought he was going to do? Versus when do I say you and I are gonna need to meet for three hours tomorrow morning? Leaders need to wrestle with that. That's part of the leadership mandate. And that's, you know, that dynamic equilibrium rather than static equilibrium. The answer is never as clear as you'd like it to be.

speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. How about this one? This one might be a little bit tough, but in your experience, what makes a leader worth following?

speaker-0: So Robert Greenleaf wrote the book Servant Leadership. There's this great quote in that book that said, At the end of your leadership, the question is not what did we accomplish? The question is were those people better for the time they spent with me? I think that begins to answer the question you just asked is do those people understand better? Are they richer and deeper themselves? Are they better able to lead from a position of humility because of what they've learned from you? Has their expertise grown because of their time with you? If you can answer those questions, I think those are beginning to answer the question, ⁓ am I a leader rather than just a manager? The problem with that, Ian, is in some respects you don't know that until After you've left the organization, or at least until after that period of time has gone by. Some of the people I led, I didn't hear for them until two years after they left the organization. And then and then they reach out and say, Man, Andy, you were the best boss I ever worked for. Well, neither one of us knew that at the time. And I remember all the mistakes I made with them, but they learned and grew underneath. leadership. I think that begins to answer this million dollar question you just asked.

speaker-1: I would a hundred percent agree. And as you're answering that, it kind of reminds me of another question that I asked ⁓ another guest earlier this week where we were having a conversation about how to build and live a life, a fulfilled life, you know, in line with your purpose. Right. And we were talking about this idea of okay, if you optimize everything in your life and you are incentivized purely by money, right? Making money, making dollars, like that is gonna be what leads you astray, right, in life. Because that's what's gonna if you're Operating with that mindset of money, dollars, material things, that's what's it's hollow. Right. So then we we explored the the question of what would replace money then as the incentive or the thing that you optimize for, right? If you're instead of living a life optimized to make the most money as possible, what do you optimize then for? And the closest that we got is, you know, how many people have you served, impacted, like how many people have you helped, right? Like if you optimize for a life that is lived as a servant to help as many people as possible, that seems like the life. Like if you optimize for that is that if that is your incentive, that seems like it's going to be closer to steering you in the direction of living a life of more fulfillment and aligned with your purpose. So long winded way of getting back to this point where, okay, if for leaders, right, if you want to become a leader that's worth following and you want to set an incentive that is going to steer you in the direction of becoming a better leader. Again, I feel like money is that one thing. If you are leading purely incentive incentivized by making the most money possible for that business, I don't know. I guess that could be like fairly decent. But like what do you think? Like where do you think what kind of incentive can steer people off track for their leadership roles? And then what kind of incentive do you think kind of steers them more in line of being a better leader?

speaker-0: I mean it's interesting. I I I have been a part of some CEO roundtables here in Austin and had a recent discussion in one of these roundtables where an entrepreneur who's just launching a new business, he was kind of up on his soapbox saying, You know, guys, if you're willing to put in the work, it doesn't take that much money. You don't need that much money to get by if you're really committed to what you're building. And a couple of other people in at the round table challenged him. He's a single guy living in an apartment with no family, no obligations. So it's easy for him to say that, not quite so easy for a parent, a mortgage holder, somebody who's got children, and and so I think part of the answer is what's important to them. I've worked a lot with sales teams over the years and sales managers helping them improve their coaching skills and up their leadership and A lot of sales teams are driven by people that want to make a lot of money. I went into medical device sales instead of going to medical school. Partly I did it because I can still have a bit of a life, and partly I like the fact that I can make multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Well, part of what their sales manager is doing, if that sales manager does a good job, is enabling that medical device salesperson to make $300,000 a year. ⁓ That's what's important to that person. Now that sounds a little shallow to me, but that's what their team member was wired for. You know, other team members are wired for different things. I think it's really finding out what's important to that person and then trying to line things up. The, you know, classic example is somebody just hit it out of the park and Man, you want to honor them by calling up in front of the entire company and having them be up on stage talking about how they did it. And then you find out they're an introvert who hates speaking in public. You thought you were doing them a favor, giving them accolades in front of seventy other people. For them, you know, it gave them indigestion to think about being on stage in front of the whole company. So Yeah. You know, part part of it is finding what's important to your team members.

speaker-1: Yeah, that's definitely one of those tactical things. Like as a leader, you gotta kind of understand human psychology and understand the people on your team. Yeah, you have to know your people and kind of know like what carrots and what sticks are really gonna drive them and make people tick. Yeah. ⁓ because again, and I think again, it's like I think what I was trying to get at with this question, I gotta figure out and kind of sit and think with how I can ask this question. Cause I think the question that I was trying to get to is something that can be asked in a lot of different domains, like how to lead a life of fulfillment and purpose and also how to live a life or how to how to be a leader that people want to follow. But I think the angle that I was getting at, and we can use it and apply it to this example of what we were just talking about of carrots and sticks and getting people like knowing how people tick. Are you doing it? It's like the intention behind your actions, right? Are you using the carrots and sticks purely because you see this person as just like You know, they're a mechanism in the business that's here to help produce more dollar signs, or are you doing it because you genuinely care about this person? You want to make them better off having worked under you than if they haven't, right? And I think again, I think if you yourself as a leader wanna set yourself an incentive that is going to or a reason for doing what you're doing that is going to make you a leader worth following, I think it's something closer to that idea of like, how many of my people that I am in charge of?

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: are better off because they worked under me. Like they became a better version of themselves because they worked under me. Not so much like obviously performance is going to be a lagging indicator of that, but interesting idea to

speaker-0: Well, and in some respects, that takes us back to that Robert Greenleaf quote that I quoted so poorly, but are your people better for the time they spent with you? However, they chose to be better. I think the only caveat I'd put out on that is I I think in the 2020s, I I think there's still the echo of that late 1990s that was, you know, f find what you're called to do and go do it with all your vigor. And part of me wants to say, You know what, for for the last thousands of years of human history, I didn't get to wake up in the morning and decide what I wanted to be. I was going to be a carpenter because my dad's mom's our shop at the back of our house was the village carpenter shop. And so I you know, I think part of it is we're supposed to find our purpose, but part of it is I I think we're supposed to bring purpose to whatever we find to do. And that I think can be done. Where, you know what, I may not be passionate about this, but I'm gonna do the very best I can and all all of a sudden I start caring about it because I want it to be done with excellence and I find satisfaction in, you know, the job well done, whether it's a carpenter or a field worker or a or a a ⁓ CEO of a Fortune five hundred company, leaning into what you're doing and doing it with excellence is in some respects the reward itself.

speaker-1: That is so good. You know, we definitely spend a lot of time thinking about like what's my purpose, why am I here? Once I find that, it'll show me what to do. But instead flipping that on its head and saying, Whatever I do, my purpose is to find purpose in the act of doing it and bringing ex and doing it with excellence. Like my purpose is to do whatever I do with excellence and engagement and the best to the best of my ability. That is a new kind of schema and You know, reframe that I haven't heard before, but definitely resonates with me.

speaker-0: Well, and I like what you said. It's not doing it with perfection, but it's doing it with excellence. You knowing I'm doing what I can do to bring the best of me to the table. If you were to ask me to come alongside you, Ian, and develop a marketing plan, my level of expertise would be far short of your level of expertise. But would I still work hard at it and try to get better? Yeah. And I think that's you know, that's part of what we're talking about. Particularly in the twenties where every one of us is gonna have What do the experts tell us? Each one of us is going to have five to seven careers in our adult life. It's not like you're going to go and do one thing for the next thirty years and become the person, the world class person. You're going to do five to seven different things.

speaker-1: Yeah. And that is so like I'm gonna be thinking about this for the rest of the day at least. Like the 'cause I think, you know, we spend so much time again exploring to find purpose. And in my opinion, like I always thought that that answer would be found in a thing to do, right? But I almost feel like purpose is found in how you do anything that you do. Purpose is almost found in the in how you do whatever it is that you decide to do. You can find purpose in the act and the art of doing it. And that is such an interesting idea that I haven't thought about. So thank you for that.

speaker-0: Well, that's you know, that's kind of biblical wisdom. Jesus saying, Whatsoever you find to do, put your hand to the plow and don't look back. My wife is a masterful communications expert. She loves to help people put their best face forward. She works with people on presentation skills and communication skills. And ⁓ when she gets to do what she does well, people become their best self. And so her unleashing her creativity allows other people to unleash their creativity. That's that's a part of what you and I are talking about, the right. The the people that hire her to do her work, they end up being better for the time they've spent. And, you know, she gets these accolades. Hey, my my personal demeanor is better, not just my work demeanor. And and so I think when you find somebody that gets really good at what they do. The world benefits because of that.

speaker-1: Absolutely. Yep. And I think, you know, the optimistic side of me sees that as that opportunity for people to, you know, step in, contribute their unique gift to the world and get better at what they, you know, were born to do, or however we want to phrase that. I think yeah that opportunity is growing for more and more people every single day. ⁓ and I'm excited to see what contributions people are gonna continue to make to the world. But Doctor Andy, this has been a wonderful conversation. I have one final question for you, but before we get to it, how can people get in touch with you?

speaker-0: Well, first of all, I want to thank you as well. I've been doing a number of guest podcasts. This has been one of the most thought-provoking discussions. I'd love to jump on another interview with you maybe in a few months and continue this discussion. It's obvious to me that you've done some deep thinking in this area. I'm really passionate about it. NealieLeadership.com is how people can access me. And if you go to my website, there's a little link on the top. Man, I'd love to jump on a 15 minute call with anybody to talk further about the practical implications of what you and I have been talking about. The other thing is my marketing person has told me, Andy, have a way people can access you easily. So at leadershipmaterials.com, leadershipmaterials.com, and there's an eight-page ebook on the three imperative leadership conversations, how to hold the hard conversation, we talked about that, how to hold a coaching conversation, a developmental conversation, and how to hold a threefold affirmation conversation. There's an eight page ebook with some content in it, some worksheets in it. And so people go to leadershipmaterials dot com. They can download that book. ⁓ so yeah, I I would love for us to stay connected and any way I am, ⁓ you know, I can contribute to your tribe. It would be my privilege.

speaker-1: Amazing. Yeah, thank you for that. And would absolutely love to have you back on for another conversation 'cause I would agree ⁓ this has been a very enjoyable and thought provoking one for me as well. But yeah, all those links that in

speaker-0: Listeners listeners, I do have to say he said he's gonna be thinking about this for the rest of the day. He's in Milwaukee, it's the end of the day. If I remember people in Milwaukee at the end of the day, there's a Paps Blue Ribbon beer waiting for him as soon as he gets off this podcast. So he may not be thinking about it that long.

speaker-1: No, the a little P VR will ⁓ will ⁓ get me thinking even more deeply about this idea. And but and with more confidence that I'm gonna find the answer, of course. But ⁓ yeah. And it's ⁓ yeah, Friday night in Milwaukee nonetheless. But ⁓ That's right. Yeah, all the links to Andy shouted out will be found in the description in the show notes. So go check those out. Go dig deeper into Andy's work. ⁓ some amazing stuff out there. And also Andy, you have a book, right?

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. And in fact I you know, I told you I was working from home today and you've seen one of our dogs pop up on the day bed in our den. I've got a dissertation, I've got five million frequent fire miles. I've traveled all over the go thinking about and talking about leadership, and I think I've learned more lessons about leadership from the rescued dogs my wife and I have rescued. And a number of years ago, I was at a conference where there was a small book publisher. He said, Man, you got you got more dog stories and A year later the ⁓ the golden principles, life and leadership lessons from a rescued dog came out and I was privileged to have ⁓ Amazon turning into a bestseller a few years ago. And you know, it's Ian, we could have another whole conversation about what my dogs taught me about getting down to their level, about proactive yes is always better than a reactive no, about sometimes peers make the best leaders. I mean, there's some profound leadership principles that you You learn from four paws rather than a dissertation on leadership.

speaker-1: That's beautiful. I love that. I'm definitely gonna get a copy for that for myself and and my mom, she's a big dog fan, ⁓ as well, and she's also in ⁓ leadership. So that's amazing. Cool. So Dr. Andy, my final question for you is a recurring question that I ask every guest. But if you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds, what would it say and why?

speaker-0: I would probably borrow from my colleague Stan Slap. Be human first. You'll never be a better leader, I would say. You'll never be a better leader than you are a person. So start with yourself first. Be human first. That's the language Stan uses.

speaker-1: That's good stuff. Be human first. Doctor Andy, thank you so much for the time today.

speaker-0: ⁓ it's been my real privilege. Thanks, Ian.

speaker-1: My main takeaway from my conversation with Dr. Andy Neely is the fact that great leaders don't always have the right answers. Great leaders don't always know what to do. They understand that leadership often means making a decision before the situation is fully clear. They take responsibility for the call, stay honest about what they know, and change course when they learn something new. They have the hard conversation, admit when they get it wrong, and use the experience to build better judgment. The goal when you're trying to be a great leader is not to appear certain. The goal is to be somebody that people can trust and turn to and look to when the answer is not obvious. If you want to get connected with Dr. Andy Neely, you can find his website, leadership resources, and book links in the description of this episode. If you're an author, a coach, or a course creator, and you want to make it easier for your clients to get results, download the free program execution system toolkit in the description. It'll show you how to install what I call execution infrastructure and make it easier for your clients to do the work and get the results from your program. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.