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Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
EEC 371: The Leadership Roadmap to Success, with Jim Carlough
00:24:17
With over 30 years of leadership experience, Jim Carlough is an accomplished business strategist, speaker, and author. Having successfully driven explosive growth for healthcare organizations—from start-ups to industry leaders—Jim is a trusted...
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- [00:05]
A
You want a road map to leadership success and find out things they don't teach you at school. Then let's talk to Jim Carlo and find out from his new book, the Six Pillars of Effective Leadership. Welcome to the excellent executive coaching podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Katrina Burus. And today we have Jim Carlo. Is that correct?
- [00:33]
B
That is correct.
- [00:34]
A
Great. So, Jim, you've written a book and I want to show it to everybody. The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership. Okay. And I'm going to ask you, there is a constant debate between are they born or are leaders made? And I want to know your take on that.
- [00:54]
B
Well, first let me acknowledge that there is scientific evidence that there is a gene that a lot of leaders do possess, but it doesn't mean that that makes you a great leader. So I don't want to discount the science that's out there, but the reality is, and I'm a perfect example of it, I was not born into a leadership family or a family of leaders. I became a leader specifically by self development and having great mentors and managers throughout my career. Now, I also had some managers that were less than the highest of quality, as we all have in our lives. But for the most part, I have been very blessed to have been mentored by and taken under the wing of some very, very great managers. And I've been able to use that to not only further my career, but to also help others. And one of the things I've learned is how you manage and work with people makes a significant difference in the level of success that you can have personally and what the people that work for can have. So to me, leaders are made. They're developed over a period of time. No one comes out of their mother, gets spanked by the doctor, and all of a sudden they're a leader. That may happen in a monarchy, but it doesn't happen in reality.
- [02:19]
A
So I'm going to ask you to develop one. What do you know about the gene that you possess as a leader? And then what statistics do you have or any evidence you have that managing people well is a key ingredient to successful leadership?
- [02:39]
B
I will give you anecdotal evidence in terms of the gene itself. I've read about the gene, but I don't really fully understand it because you still have the propensity to want to be a leader even if you have that gene. And the research that I read said it doesn't guarantee one's success as a leader.
- [02:59]
A
But.
- [03:00]
B
But it happens to be a trend. It's sort of like the percentage of people who are left handed in the world is not a big percentage. But the percentage of US presidents that are left handed is significantly higher than in the general population of left handedness. I know that because I'm left handed. And I've noticed when presidents are signing or writing things, whether they're right handed or left handed. So at one point I did google it. You know, know, are the majority of presidents left handed? Well, the majority is not, but it's higher than average. Than what? The average population is significant. So it is statistically significant. And so from my perspective, I think leadership is the same way. I think leadership is the same way. You have to want to become a leader at times. You have to understand that it's not about you either. It's about the team and it's about what you're trying to achieve. I have worked for leaders who are extremely selfish and are looking out for their own. I've worked for leaders that the way they led was to change the chairs on the Titanic periodically just to hide themselves from the ability, the fact that they were not the perfect leader. And so when you put those things into context, those are things that kind of go against my kind of thought process in terms of leadership.
- [04:31]
A
Great. I'm dying to ask you the six pillars of effective leadership. What can you tell us about and which is. I encourage people to take your book and to read it, but I would like to hear it for our listeners. The six pillars.
- [04:45]
B
The six pillars, and I put them in this. Integrity, compassion, empathy, humor, focus and stability. Compassion and empathy are not the same thing. Compassion is something you show for someone who's going through something in their life or situation. Empathy though, is putting yourself in their shoes. And a good leader has to be able to show that, that they understand the difference between that. Now to me, the most important of these pillars, and I call these pillars, but they're the foundation of, I think, something bigger that has to happen. You can learn to read. You could be taught in college to understand financial statements or accounting principles. It's very difficult to learn integrity. It's not something you can pick up in a book. So for example, integrity to me is a non negotiable factor for myself and anybody I've ever worked with. And I'll give you an example of how that came about. When I was 22 years old, the year I graduated from university, I ran for a city political position, a city councilman position in the town I grew up in in New Jersey. And I won. And shortly after the election, the city Manager asked me to come and visit with him and I sat down with him and his name was Don. And he said, jim, congratulations on the election. You did a great job. You're a smart young man. But I want to give you one piece of advice. Even though we're not a big city, you will meet some unscrupulous people and you'll need to understand how to deal with that. And he said, the one thing I want you to do is every night when you put your head on your pillow, you have to ask yourself this one question. Did I do anything today to benefit myself at the expense of someone else? Do you know, to this day I do that every night. And I can honestly say that it helps me sleep better. But it's also a principle that I fully internalized and I preach to everyone. If you don't have integrity, your teams are not going to trust you and you're not going to be successful over the long term. You'll end up moving from position to position or corporation to corporation, because if you lack that integrity, it's kind of like somebody who joins the military. You're taught to follow your leader because your leader has your back. And I believe that in life as well. So to me, integrity is non negotiable and leadership is a 247 job. You aren't a leader just when you sit down at your desk. You have to be a leader the moment your feet hit the floor in the morning, to when you get to the office or to the coffee shop, to the people you interact with. And you can't have an attitude about yourself other than the fact that these are individuals that you can engage. I often would walk into the office building and I would talk to people I didn't even know. I would say good morning to them, ask them if they're having a good day. Only because I thought as a leader, it was important for them to understand I'm approachable. And so integrity wraps all of that. And I think that's why as long as my career has been going, I've had people come back to work for me in different positions because they enjoyed being led by me, even the people that I mentor. I have one person I've been mentoring for 25 years and he continues to call me for business advice. Not much personal advice, which is probably a good thing, but for business advice in various business situations. And so he knows that when he calls me, I'm going to be straight with him. I'm going to speak honestly with him. And he often will take my Suggestions and implement them. And I think that's probably rare for a lot of people, but I think it's important.
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A
So you've defined what it means to have integrity, compassion and empathy. What about the other elements?
- [09:23]
B
The other one. So focus to me, focus. And I'll give you an example of focus. Elon Musk, his singular focus is to put people in outer space. Everything that he does, including the creation of the Tesla cars, was to build technology that could get us more mobile and to get the average citizen into outer space. Singular focus. Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the same thing. Singular focus. To be the most successful retailer in the world. It took him a while to get there, but if you look at what he does today, or you look at both of those two gentlemen today, that focus is something that really never sways, and it allows their teams and their organizations to understand the pathway that they're going. I often wonder when I read about certain companies, how they survive because they keep changing either the chairs on the Titanic deck or they keep changing their strategy or direction of where they're going so that they can try to fit in as opposed to keeping to the original charter and continuing to strive for what they had originally dreamed of in terms of success.
- [10:51]
A
Can you give us another example of someone not staying on course?
- [10:55]
B
Oh, you're going to make these. Let's talk about the automobile companies, for example. Back in the early mid 2000s, 2004 to 2005, Ford had a terrible quality problem. They had a terrible financial problem, and a new CEO came in, and I'm going blank on his name, but he was only there for two years. But what he did was he refocused the company on quality. And if you think back, there was a series of years where Ford always said, quality is number one. That's our focus. And in two years, he turned Ford Motor Company around. They were on the brink of bankruptcy. But that singular focus on quality made a big difference. So there's a situation where somebody walked in to something that was broken and got everybody aligned for that one goal, and they focused and stayed course on that.
- [12:01]
A
Right. Well expressed.
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B
And thank you for making me think that was a hard one. I appreciate that.
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A
Okay, good. So focus. It's really staying online. And also what you said is that the focus helps other people understand much quicker and much better what to do. What are the other elements?
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B
Stability. So when I think of stability, I think of Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett has also focus, but he's very stable and methodical about how he goes about his investments. And his investments are never short term investments. I mean, he may have some short term investments, but most of them are long term investments. He sees an opportunity, he'll invest in it, and he'll stick with that opportunity and see it continue to grow. And if you look at Berkshire Hathaway today, in fact, I didn't really realize this till about four hours ago. Berkshire Hathaway owns a significant number of automobile dealerships in the United States. Never knew that. Never. And I was just in a conversation with someone this morning over breakfast, and we got to talking about a local car dealership that unfortunately, the original owner passed away. And the discussion morphed into, probably the only people wealthy enough to buy this dealership is Berkshire Hathaway. And I was like, warren Buffett doesn't own car dealerships. So we, we got out our telephones and we started googling and we googled I live in Texas. So we looked up Texas and we said, Berkshire Hathaway car dealerships near me. And it lit up like a Christmas tree. I mean, there had to be 25 or 30 of them. So it was very, it was very interesting how you stumble on these things. But, you know, Warren Buffett, again, very stable and methodical about his process.
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A
Right. And it's value driven. He finds undervalued assets and then will stay with them till they turn around.
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B
Correct?
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A
Yeah. Good. Okay. So that's stability. Now we have one more of the same humor. Yes. Well, that was intriguing, because if you have humor or you developed it, it's a great thing. But it's not given to everybody.
- [14:31]
B
It's not. And it's not meant to mean that you have to be a comedian. I'm not a comedian, but I can, I enjoy to have fun, and I won't do something if I can't find enjoyment in it, including managing people. And so I like to make sure. And how I use humor is not telling jokes with people, but to use it to diffuse conflict or discussions that are going sideways to get people redirected. And it's a big difference between that and just coming to the office and telling jokes at the water cooler. To me, I use it as a way to deflect and when people are having conflict or in a stressful situation, to create calmness. And so, in fact, I was flying one time with a manager of mine that I reported to, and whenever you travel with me, I'm really dangerous because I like practical jokes as well. So you may order a filet, but what you end up getting is a little piece of meat on your plate as an example. And I used to do this to manager of mine every time we traveled. And every time he knew it was coming, but it was always something funny that happened at dinner or after dinner or whatever. So he never knew what to expect. I think that even with managers or leaders, you have to be able to sit back and have a good chuckle and have a good. I mean, business is stressful. And I think. And times have changed from 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. Today, people could lose their job for making one mistake by hiring the wrong vendor to do one thing. And I don't believe in kind of that management philosophy. But the reality is business has changed. People are afraid to make mistakes. And to me, if you don't make mistakes, you don't learn. And again, you know, someone once told me, if you want to borrow money from a bank for a business, you're more apt to get the money if you had failed at another business first. And I was surprised at that. And I said, if I have good credit and I have some money, why would they be less likely to give it to me the first time, but more apt to do it after I failed at a business? And the reality is most people won't fail two times in a row. So the willingness to give that money to someone who has learned from their mistakes is a big decision factor in a bank's decision to give you money.
- [17:09]
A
I hope this applies to marriage. Second, marriage should learn.
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B
Well, you know what? It must, because I'm my wife's second husband, but she's my first wife and we've been married 34 years, so. So it's working.
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A
So give me an example of when you were in a situation and you diffused it with humor.
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B
Perfect situation. I had two women who worked in my organization who were friends, both at work and outside of work, and I heard them down the hallway having an escalated discussion. And I walked up to them and I looked at them and I said something to the effect I never expected to see a cat fight in the hallway and got them to laugh at what was going on at the moment. And then I invited them to come and sit down with me and talk through it. The reality was they both were right, but they couldn't see the forest through the trees. And once I got them to sit down and talk through it, I said, person A, you're right on this, and person B, you're right on this. And if you put it together, you have the perfect solution. But you can't say that person B is wrong, because they're not wrong. You just aren't able to see that putting them together really solves the problem. And they both looked at me, and one started to tear up, and I was like, did I upset you? And she said, no. I said, so I handed her the box of tissues that's always on my desk. And. And I said, well, I don't understand why you're upset. And she said, because you're always right. You always do the right thing. And I said, okay, I'll take that as a compliment. And she said, well, I mean it as a compliment, because you are absolutely correct that the perfect solution is half of what I said and half of what this other person said. And there's a perfect example of using humor to break the ice, bring the people together, talk through it, resolve it, and move on.
- [19:20]
A
Great. Thanks for that example. And we're coming to the end of our podcast. So I want to ask you, you put a lot of emphasis on learning, right? Will that be the seventh pillar, how to keep evolving?
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B
It could be the seventh pillar. I think it's intertwined between all of them. Anybody that works for me when we do annual reviews, I always give them a professional development goal, and it could be whatever they want. I actually had a person a few years back tell me that they wanted to get on the board of a nonprofit related to animal rescue. So we made that her professional development goal for the year, and we succeeded at getting her place. Now, I gave her the motivation and the opportunity to do it. Didn't pull the strings to make it happen. She did. But I gave her the opportunity to seek out during work. Right. It's still professional development. And her being on the board of a nonprofit benefits the organization.
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A
Yes.
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B
And it benefits the animals that that organization's going to serve. So even as a leader, I didn't focus on business things that she wanted to do. This was something personal to her that would make her better in her life. It would help the company get some more exposure, and it was a win win for everyone. So, yes, I think leadership is a continual developmental process and doesn't end after you read the sixth pillar. You have to continue to learn and evolve. And I tell everybody, and I told these students last night that I met with that. Find a mentor. Even in college, find. Find a professor who's a mentor other than the one that was assigned to you to help guide you through the college experience. And then when you get into the work world, you'll be working for a manager, but find another manager that may be able to serve as a mentor as well, or even somebody externally on LinkedIn. And I even said to them, if you can't find one, call me. And I put my number on the blackboard. I said, I'll mentor you. And the students appreciated that. So I do believe it's a continual process, probably the seventh pillar. And I probably could dedicate the entire book to the seventh pillar on development, because it really is all encompassing of a lot of things.
- [21:48]
A
Yes. What a wonderful thing to propose to be a mentor to these students. I just want to acknowledge that. And learning is keeping your open mindset. I had interviewed the CEO of Nestle and I said, why don't you hire the best students from the Ivy League? He says, I don't select the first, or maybe not even the second. I'll do the third. I said, well, why when you can get the first? And he says, because the third knows he doesn't know everything. And he has that mindset. That is correct. Yes. And then he says, in seven years, any technology or knowledge or expertise they have, it's out of date. Yeah. So I thought that was very interesting. So I appreciate that you help these students, you know, have the mindset that they continue to learn. I want to ask, where can people get your book? And I'm going to read the six pillars you have here as a summary because you've mentioned it. First is the leadership landscape today. So you put it in context. Integrity in leadership, focus, compassion, stability, empathy, humor, and leadership. And bringing it all together was the eighth chapter. So thank you very much. Where can they get a hold of this book?
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B
The book is available on Amazon as well as Barnes and Noble, and it is available for purchase today.
- [23:17]
A
Okay, congratulations. It's hot off the press. And where can people get a hold of you?
- [23:24]
B
My website is www.jimcarlo.com J I M C A R L O U G H.com or they could call me at area code 972-838-0060.
- [23:40]
A
Thank you very much, Jim. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.
- [23:44]
B
Well, thank you for having me. Of course. Thank you for listening to the Excellent executive coaching podcast. You can subscribe to all Future podcasts@excellentexecutivecoaching.com join us each Wednesday to learn more about the latest trends in leadership techniques and bring your coaching to the next level. To learn more about Dr. Burris CEO mastermind, use the contact form form@excellentexecutivecoaching.com.