The Leader's Podcast with Maxie Carpenter: Recent Episodes
The Leadership Consortium/Maxie Carpenter
An informative Podcast providing simple, relevant compelling content and context regarding Leadership Character and Behavior.
It's understandable to some degree that the current cultural climate in the country fosters a Risk Aversion approach to Leadership. However, it isn't the answer when you keep asking your people to trust you, yet you demonstrate no trust in them.
I interact with more and more people every week despairing over not being trusted enough to do the jobs they've been hired to do. They report to Leaders who are resistant to any conversations having to do with ideas that do not align with theirs.
Organizational culture is determined by the Leader, not by HR, Operations, or any other process that may or may not be the primary focus. If the Leader doesn't set the tone for how everyone communicates and behaves, then the eventual outcome is dysfunction, which we seem to be surrounded by in every sector today.
The graveyard of failed businesses and organizations is littered with Leaders, who were equipped with great vision and the ability to inspire, but without the ability to chart the path forward. It's one thing to provide a picture of the future. It's quite another to develop, implement and execute a plan that answers three questions: What's next, why is it important, and what are we going to do about it?
Every organization has a life cycle. It starts with an idea, builds the infrastructure, amps up to impact, and then, if there's no innovation or willingness to adapt, decline begins all the way down to collapse. It's the same with Leadership. It's all about the balance.
Personally, I can't remember in my lifetime if I've ever seen a greater vacuum of leadership across the whole of the fabric of our country. Note I said the whole, meaning not one ideology vs the other, one political party vs the other; whatever. It matters not. The Leadership Vacuum is undeniable.
A conundrum is something that happens unexpectedly. Leadership also, at times, happens unexpectedly.
The data says that, for the most part, when a leader reaches the pinnacle of his/her profession, they rarely change what got them there in the first place. As a result, you don't see them stay at the pinnacle very long. Today's environment has no patience for a leader that won't learn continually from their people about how to better lead them.
The final 5 leadership fundamentals are just as important as the first 15 covered in the first three Podcasts. The 20th fundamental may be the most important of all and in today's environment, the hardest to model and maintain.
The only things that change about Leadership are the character and behavior of those who lead. Most don't fully understand that those who follow, for the most part, model the behaviors of those who lead.
As noted in Part I, the best leaders lean into the fundamentals when challenged with crisis or unplanned pressure. The best leaders are students of leadership, never ceasing to scan the environment, collect feedback from their people, and keep a hand on the overall pulse of their organizations.
There are so many so-called subject matter experts out there today, with many of them coming up with some new innovation or trend in Leadership that you just have to buy into. In my experience, when in doubt, under stress, or in crisis,, always lean into the fundamentals, which all have to do with investing in your people.
The top 4 haven't changed since the earth cooled. I will never agree with the 5 challenge and any Leader who does, shouldn't be the Leader.
There are times when Leaders should create some discomfort, dysfunction or mild chaos in order to jar the organization or key people out of complacency or misguided behavior.
We all have behavioral defaults we go to in times of stress or anxiety. Often, those defaults only serve to increase the stress and the chaos that comes with it. Because they're subconscious for the most part, the chaos dulls our level of awareness.
Leaders who put people first, face fewer dilemma's in their decision-making. The data doesn't lie about the results, both financially and culturally, of organizations with a healthy balance between both. They're willing to suffer short-term pain for long-term gain.
As a leader, if the best you can do is default to policy or protocol, when a challenging issue or crisis arises, then you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself and everyone else in the process.
We live in an environment of more resistance to just about anything I've seen in my lifetime. The reality is that most leaders are great when times are good, but not so great in times of crisis. Leading through resistance is a skill set not many have.
Organizationally, change has to start at the top. Where's there's a significant RC Factor (Resistance to Change) in the culture, that change oftentimes has to start with the individual. If you're going to take that risk, have a plan.
Myopia is shortsightedness and we're seeing an epidemic of Myopic Leadership today that borders on the incomprehensible!