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Chief Change Officer
#332 Kevin Eikenberry: How Great Leaders Flex Without Losing Themselves — Part Two
00:32:43
Kevin Eikenberry didn’t learn leadership from textbooks—he learned it feeding hogs twice a day on a Michigan farm. In this two-part series, the founder of the Kevin Eikenberry Group and author of Flexible Leadership reflects on how early lessons in systems, discipline, and accountability prepared him for three decades of coaching leaders worldwide.
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- [00:00]
Kevin Aikenberry
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Vince Chen
Hi everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer, I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist Humility for change. Progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Kevin Agamerray didn't take the usual road into leadership. He started on a farm in Michigan, feeding hogs, hauling fertilizer, and learning the basics of discipline and responsibility before he ever set foot in a corporate office. Today he's the founder of the Kevin Akenberry Group and one of the top leadership thinkers in the U.S. he's the author of Remarkable Leadership From Bot to Boss, the Long Distance Leader, the Long Distance Teammate, the Long Distance Team, and its newest book, Flexible Leadership. In this two part series we talk about flexible leadership, why rigid styles backfire, how human nature stays the same even when the technology and the tools change, and what it really takes to lead when the old playbooks don't fit anymore. Let's jump right in.
- [02:06]
Kevin Aikenberry
You know, I believe Vince, it's the best work I've done and I think hopefully can be the most impactful work I've done. Because, you know, the subtitle of the book says, navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. And certainly we're in a world that's more uncertain than ever. And so it's super important for us to think about that and acknowledge that. And if the world is changing and uncertain, that means that we likely need to do something different as those things change. And I'm trying to give people a playbook to think a little bit differently about what they need to do to lead in and through that uncertainty.
- [02:44]
Vince Chen
Whenever a guest sends me the book, I always make sure to at least skim through it carefully. I read pretty fast. So while I might not promise to study every page in detail, I made sure to get a strong sense of the work. Now, looking at your book right here, there's one sentence from the introduction that really caught my eye. Let me read it out loud. Everything seems to be changing, yet the most important things aren't changing at all. The words aren't changing at all are written in italics. So my immediate question to you is, what are those most important things that aren't changing?
- [03:44]
Kevin Aikenberry
I'll answer that, but I want to say something else that's really important about change in general. And that is so often when we're leading a change or even thinking about change, we say, oh my gosh, everything is different. And the reality is it's almost never all different. And in fact, we make, we make the change efforts harder when we only talk about what's changing and don't talk about what's the same. So the first thing I think is an important point is that. So we're introducing a new process in our organization and one of the most important things we can do is say, okay, there's 12 parts of the. There are 12 steps in this process and we are drastically changing four of them. But everybody, eight of these steps aren't changing. And so we lower the anxiety level and we raise the clarity level simply by doing that and reminding people that not everything's changing. So there's an underlying truth there that is inside of that statement. But to your point directly, people have been leading other humans for centuries. And while context is changing, which is a big part of this, the idea of this book, while context is changing, when I started leading 30 years ago, I did have a fax machine. I didn't have email yet. Quite. And I didn't have a website and there weren't podcasts and we could go on and on and we can have the phones that we have now, all that stuff. But what was the same as now is that teams behave in certain ways based on team dynamics. And human beings are still human beings. Amazing, wonderful, remarkable, and messy. And all of that is still true, will continue to be true. And there are truths about leading, there are truths about influencing, There are truths about human behavior and group dynamics that aren't changing. And so when we try to say everything's changing, we are missing the boat and losing sight of the foundational stuff. Your values as a leader are likely not changing. And those most important things you and Wayne talked about, the long distance leader. And in that book, we say rule number one is think low, think leadership first, location second. And most people want to flip that around and say, oh my gosh, it's all different. Nope, it's leadership. And then the nuances that are important based on the fact that we're not in the same place matter a lot. But we got to start by with what's not changing and probably not going to change, certainly not in my lifetime.
- [06:17]
Vince Chen
I completely agree with you, especially when it comes to human nature and all the biases we carry. Psychologists argue that there are thousands, not hundreds, of biases. We're emotional, we are flawed, and sometimes we don't act rationally simply because we don't feel like it. And that alone can be a bias. That's why, like you said, even though our tools have evolved from craft machines to smartphones to AI, the fundamentals haven't changed. In fact, this Reminds me of what I observed in the education technology space before COVID Some entrepreneurs call it digital transformation when all they really did was transfer textbooks onto a digital platform. That's not much of a transformation. That is digitalization. Learning on the phone and learning in person are not the same in a tech driven world. We still need that human element. We need the personal connection, the understanding, the guidance, the nuance. So yes, a lot of things don't need to change. And like you said, even if one important step changes, the other 11 might stay the same. But for any transformation to work, everything still needs to move in sync.
- [07:55]
Kevin Aikenberry
Yep, I agree. I'll just take an example from what you're just talking about. And that is I was in a, I was in a meeting with a bunch of clients last week, a listening session, and there was all this conversation like all of our people want to learn now by watching a three minute video. They didn't say this, but fundamentally the world is changing because now it's all about a three minute video. And I would say no, because what people have wanted forever is give me a way to access quickly what I need to know to do this job right now. And if you'd given people the ability to watch someone else do it next to them 10 years ago, 20 years ago, that's what they wanted. And now if that person can't be next to them but is on this phone, on a video, that's easily created. That the fundamental need for people to see a demonstration and to get advice from someone in like real time that is practical for their needs, that hasn't changed. All that changed was how we were able to deliver it. And that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Yes, the medium in that particular case, the medium has changed. And I'm not disagreeing with that person who said my employees would like to have a 3, 4, 5 minute video to help them with this task. I agree, I do it too. But the core idea of how we learn and what we would value in that hasn't really changed. And that's, and that I think is what leaders need to do is to be able to look a little higher and to gain a little new perspective. I believe that's one of the ideas that we're trying to get across in this book, is that you have to think a little differently. You have to not say it's either this or it's that, but rather it's probably some of both of those things. And that's just since you were talking about education, that was an example that pops in my head because it describes how not everything's different just because some things are changing.
- [09:47]
Vince Chen
In your book, you talk about flexible leadership. At first glance, people might just think it means being agile or adaptable, but you actually define it more precisely as a formula, intention, context, and the flexor. I'll let you walk us through each of those three elements. But what really caught my eye was when you said in the book one plus one plus one equals three. Each of those three elements make someone a flexible leader. Because mathematically we could just say 0 plus 0 plus 3 equals 3. The answer is still 3. But your point is, to truly be a flexible leader, we need to develop all three components, not just focus on one and hope is enough. All in full. Intention without context, without flexor. So first, can you explain what intention, context and flexor actually mean in your model? And second, how they work together in practice.
- [11:12]
Kevin Aikenberry
So I define the flexible leadership approach. It is, as you said, intention plus context plus flexors. And I know flexors is something new because I made up the word. So let's go back and start at the beginning. The first thing is we have to. Here's the thing about being a flexible leader. It me I'm challenging us to do something that is against our nature, because our nature is to do what comes natural, to do what our first inclination is, to do what we've always done, to follow our habit. Like in any situation as a leader, to do what comes automatically. And to be flexible means maybe that natural response is, okay, maybe that's natural response is the. Is a great answer or a great approach. But we can't know that until we stop long enough to think about it. So there we have to have intention and we have to believe that being flexible is actually to our benefit. And then we have to say, yes, that being a flexible leader is being a more effective leader. So we. And then we have to say, I'm going to stop long enough. And it may be a half a second, it might be a half an hour, or it might be till tomorrow morning, but we need to stop and say, okay, let's think about what the best approach that I could take is. And that means that we have to look at the context of our situation. So intention plus context. So context is what is the actual situation that we're dealing with and what could we know or see about that context or situation that might lead us to think about something differently? So for example, we have a whole framework that we use in the book. We don't have time to go into. But I'll simply say this. Is it a situation where there's everything about what's going on is known and you have all the information, then you can lead in a certain sort of way. Is it a situation where maybe there are others who have information or I need to get information from the larger group? There are things that I don't know but are known, or that we don't know that are known, that we need to gather some information, and we need to come at those very differently than if it's a clear context and if a situation is chaotic, like what do we do in the moment of. Moment of chaos? But I think the one that. The fourth one, the one that I think is the most important for us to consider is what we call the complex, complex context, which is where there are things that we don't know and that we don't even know we don't know. And so the question then becomes, what could we try? We don't necessarily know what dominoes are going to fall from what actions we take, Whether that's an individual interaction that I'm having with a member of my team, or whether that's a decision that we're making or that I need to make for our team or our organization. In a situation like how do we think about what's possible and what's plausible a little differently. All of that requires us to interact with our team differently, make some, maybe make some different decisions. And so that's context. So intention plus context plus flexors. And so we've identified a bunch of things where, how do we. What. On what dimension might we need to flex? So I'm guessing that you want to talk a little bit more about that. But it's those three things together that may that allow us to be more flexible as a leader. In other words, I recognize it's possible and even perhaps more effective for me to flex. And then secondly, what does the situation tell me or dictate to me that would lead me to flex? And then in what ways might I be able to flex?
- [14:54]
Vince Chen
I'll definitely ask you more about flexors in a moment. That part really caught my attention when I saw the term flexor. Immediately I thought of muscle, how we stretch, adapt, and train them over time. Yes, our brain is a muscle, too. I used to play tennis, and I remember how important muscle memory was that repetitive motion becomes second nature. So I'll circle back to that. But before we go there, let me share how I personally interpret your model. Intention, to me, is about willpower is the conscious choice to take action or not. For instance, when I started the show, I told myself I would hit 100 episodes by the end of the first year. That was my intention. But now, already, 14 months after the show was born, is over 300 episodes. I set my focus and fully committed to it. Then there's context, which I see as the situation or environment we're operating in. In your book, you break that down across a few dimensions, like complexity, uncertainty, or how much is known versus unknown. And that makes sense because in real life we often focus only on what is in front of us. But there's always a bigger picture. Variables we we can control, or things we aren't even aware of yet, and that bring us to the flexor.
- [16:49]
Kevin Aikenberry
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. So again, intention is making a conscious choice to say, what's the best approach here? Rather than, to your point, relying on muscle memory, relying on our natural habits. And the other thing that I talk about early in the book that we haven't mentioned, I probably should, and that is that many of us, many of you who are listening have taken some or maybe several assessments. You've taken a strength finder, you've taken a Myers Briggs or a disc, you've taken some sort of leadership style assessment. And so you have your strengths, you have your style, you have those things. And those things are very helpful until they're not. And they're helpful when they help us see all of those are models. And models are a simplification of the world. And what we too often do is we take the model and we make the model truth. We lose the complexity and we lean into the model. And not only that, but now we identify with that style as who I am and how I lead. And if I am identifying myself by this style or approach, the ability for me to flex is dampened significantly. That's why we have to get past that with the intention to say, okay, that would be what I would do naturally, but is that really the most effective thing for me to do right now? But if it's my identity, then I don't really have choices. Like, this is what. This is what a facilitative leader would do. This is what a coaching leader would do. This is what a servant leader would do. And there's nothing wrong with any of those things, except that they oversimplify the world and we have to be really careful about that.
- [18:46]
Vince Chen
Let's talk about flexors. What exactly are they? Can you walk us through a few examples, maybe specific situations, so we get a clearer picture of what flexors look like in action.
- [18:59]
Kevin Aikenberry
I'll use an example. So I think there are 19 in the book that I talk about in one place or another. And say later in the book that even though I've identified 19 and I've identified 19 that I think are really useful to us as leaders, they are by no means all of them. And in fact, I'm going to use one. And then I think it will help you see how they all would work or how any you might see in your world would work. So here's one. Do I want. Do I lead for commitment or compliance? Do I lead for. I'll do it this way. Compliance or commitment? And I've asked that question of thousands of leaders, and they almost always, I want to lead for commitment. I say, awesome. And yet oftentimes what we see in the world is leaders that aren't leading for commitment, they're leading for compliance. They're leading for people to say, yes, sir, yes, ma'am, yes, boss, and then moving on. And what I would say is that if we think about those things as compliance and commitment, and that's one of the flexors, the compliance commitment flexor, if you think about which am I leading for, we're on one end or the other of the continuum. I would suggest that while I think most of us would be better served by leaning in the direction of commitment, there are times when compliance is all we really need. And, you know, people don't need to. If you have all of the information and people trust your judgment and know that you know what you're doing, there are many times when they would say, honestly, just tell us which direction you want us to go, and they will comply, and that will be all that's needed. Now, if we always are just trying to get them to do what we say, then we know there will be all sorts of unintended consequences. So the idea of this flexor is, what's the situation? Tell me. If the situation is truly chaotic, people just need you to give. Which, by the way, doesn't happen nearly as often as we like to think it happens. Then in that moment, people would just say, kevin, tell me something. Tell us what to do right now. But that doesn't mean we need to live in or stay in that leading for compliance forever. We probably want to be shifting across that flexor over time as the context changes. So while generally speaking, I might lean toward, and I might even hope that you would lean to the comply to the. To the commitment side of this Flexor all the way to the end of that probably doesn't get us the best results. And certainly we can come up with times when the other end is actually perhaps better in that moment. And so that's an example of one of the flexors which gets at the big idea that the right or best answer is really what I should say, that the best answer isn't at the ends of either one, but rather somewhere in the middle based on the context, which takes us back to the context. Just think about it like a scale. And like, where would I put. Where would I put my dot for this situation? Do I need to lean more in the direction? Do I need to be to you go back to your political gimbal. Am I more left of center here or right of center here? I have a natural inclination, and if that's the politics thing, is a useful one, like I have a natural inclination in one direction or the other. And. And my. And I might even have identity associated with one end or the other. And too often the identity is limiting us in the context of a situation. And I would even go as far, and I haven't said this out loud and maybe even thought about it quite this way before, but if you think about right and left politically as a flexor, that we are almost always better able to make real progress with a group by everyone flexing and finding a place that works. And sometimes we might be left of center, sometimes we might be right of center for a given situation in order for us to actually get agreement enough to move forward. Right. And again, I don't want to make this a political conversation, but if you want to think about it in that context, Right. So, yeah, everything else being equal, I'd rather have people be committed. And yet sometimes all I need is for people to say, I'm in. Let's go, let's do this. I don't need to have people saying, man, this is the greatest thing ever. I just didn't need to have people saying, I'm glad we know where we're at it. And if we stay there all the time, I know where I'm headed. At least that's not where we want to be all the time, forever. But in that moment, that might be the most expedient, effective, and productive thing for us to do. Even though my tendency, my natural inclination might be, I really need to build commitment around this decision. No, at this moment, all we need is for everyone to say, we can follow this direction. Let's go.
- [24:26]
Vince Chen
One thing that really stands out in your book is how you structure it into three parts, mindset, skill set, and habitat. A lot of leadership books focus mostly on mindset, or sometimes just a specific skill or set of habits. But you've laid out all three. Is that meant to be a sequence? Mindset first, then skills, and finally habits. And how do you see those layers working together to make flexible leadership more sustainable? Especially when we need to flex based on different contexts There.
- [25:14]
Kevin Aikenberry
There are, as you mentioned, great books written about what we can are really learning. And what we know about how the brain works around habits. What we've learned about that in the last 15 years has really exploded. And so there's been great books. Atomic habits certainly being one of those by James Clear, although not the only is a great book around this idea. And. And I lean in to James's book in this book by making some comments and connecting to some of his ideas. The big thing I'm after here is, and I think you're right, there are certainly some books about mindset, but they're basically a whole book about mindset. And there are certainly books about habits, and we just talked about one of those there. But most leadership books are about you ought to do these things. They're mostly about skills. And so what I've tried to do is say the skills alone are not enough. Because even if you understand and can apply them, if you don't believe they will help you, you will never apply them. Why would you? And if you have them in your little toolkit, but they gather dust and rust because you never try them, what's the point? I believe that for us to be successful in as a leader developing our skills, we must develop full first the mindset that matches the skill set, and then we must move toward a habit set. And if we're doing it organizationally, we need to think about that more than just here's the tools I want you to have. Mr. Or Ms. Leader, the habit piece that I want to talk about, I know our time is about up is this idea, the idea that my hope that as you become a flexible leader, your habit is intention, context, flexor, right? Rather than doing what comes natural, what becomes your new natural, what becomes your new normal, is to say, what does the situation tell me before I decide what to do? Rather than just acting. And if we can get to that point, we will more often make more effective decisions and lead in more effective ways.
- [27:12]
Vince Chen
Actually, what you just said reminds me of something I learned at Chicago Booth. The professors who taught astrology and leadership, many of them are sociologists. They would always emphasize that leadership isn't just about the individual. A lot of courses focus on the leader as the hero, but in reality is often the situation, the context that drives behavior, both yours and others. One professor, whose name is Nick Apley, said that 70 to 80% of behavior in organizations is shaped by the environment, not individual traits. So as a CEO or leader, the goal isn't just to hire the smartest people, which is the usual saying. Instead is to build the kind of environment that brings out the right, the best fit behaviors for the whole organization. That really stays with me.
- [28:26]
Kevin Aikenberry
100%. Yeah, 100%.
- [28:29]
Vince Chen
As we are concluding, is there anything you would really like to add? Maybe a key message we didn't touch on yet or something you want to leave the audience with to close out our conversation?
- [28:42]
Kevin Aikenberry
Yeah, I love that question. I ask that on my podcast all the time. What didn't I ask that I should have? And I think you did a great job and we obviously covered a lot of ground. I just want to go back to this idea that I'm guessing that if you're listening to this show that you are dedicated to wanting to be a better leader. Otherwise you wouldn't be listening to this. You'd be listening or watching something else. And we're both thankful for you to be dedicated and interested in being more effective leader. And what I really hope is that you find that what you heard here helps you think about that a little differently. And so I hope that you don't get too locked into whatever your style or approach is and say, maybe, just maybe, probably there are times when I need to flex what I do because I don't need to change the things that aren't changing. But I need to change the how. The why, and the what of leading is not changing nearly as much as our need to change the how of our approach at any given time. In my book, Remarkable Leadership, a number of years ago, I wrote that as we become a better leader, we become a better human being and vice versa. And so I do believe that the things that we've talked about today absolutely apply in all parts of our lives. It's just that as a leader, the things that we do and the choices that we make have such leverage for others that it's especially important that we think about them. So I hope that this has been useful, Vince, for everyone in that way and giving them that thought a little bit more clearly.
- [30:18]
Vince Chen
Kevin, thank you so much for staying with us, sparing one whole hour to share honestly your human intelligence in flexible leadership.
- [30:29]
Kevin Aikenberry
I appreciate that. I'd be happy to come back anytime. And so for everyone who's here before, before we go, before I go, I just want to tell you that because Vince has invited me here and you've chosen to listen, I have a gift for you. And that gift you can find@Kevin ikenberry.com gift and what I have for you there. There's information there about the book Flexible Leadership. And of course, if you've written that name down or have in your head, you can go find it and buy it wherever you buy books. But if you go to kevininconbree.com gift what I have for you there is a a chance to have a free to have the chance to use our masterclass on building confidence in ourselves and others that we sell every day for $79. But for you, because you're listening to us here, it's my gift to you. Hope you'll take advantage of that. Kevin. I agree.
- [31:17]
Vince Chen
Slgift Wow, $79 worth of value, completely free. That's not what I expected. Thank you so much, Kevin. What a nice surprise. I'll make sure to include that in the show notes that brings our conversation to a close. Kevin reminds us that flexible leadership isn't about losing your values, it's about applying them in ways that actually work. Context changes, people change. But real leadership stays grounded in knowing when and how to flex. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show, Leave us top rated reviews, check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, you ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.