Brain Science: How to Build Belonging and Inspire Your Ward | An Interview with Scott Taylor

Summary

Podcast Summary: Leading Saints

Episode: Brain Science—How to Build Belonging and Inspire Your Ward

Guest: Scott Taylor (Area 70, Prof. at Babson College)
Host: Kurt Francom
Date: August 2, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode explores the intersection of brain science, organizational behavior, and church leadership, focusing on how leaders in Latter-day Saint communities can foster deeper belonging and inspire their congregations. Guest Scott Taylor combines extensive experience as an academic and Area 70 to offer practical, research-backed strategies for building positive, innovative, and relational church cultures—moving beyond tradition to more dynamic, people-focused ministry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Scott Taylor’s Background & Dual Roles

• Scott is a professor at Babson College, renowned for entrepreneurship (Home Depot, Ring started by alums) (04:28).
• Former management consultant—last client: Enron scandal. Moved to academic study after questioning why smart leaders made bad, unsustainable decisions (05:24).
• Serves as Area 70 (since April 2022), covering 18 stakes in New England, working closely with stake presidents and councils (09:00).

2. Bridging Secular and Spiritual Leadership

• Both secular research (organizational behavior/OB) and gospel truths are bridges to better leadership.
• “For me it's not how does...the church fit into organizational behavior, but how do the principles...fit into that truth.” (14:46 — Scott)
• Referenced Elder Bednar and Elder Maxwell’s encouragement to build bridges across these domains (14:46).

3. Universal Characteristics of Outstanding Leaders

• After research in 100+ countries, two patterns consistently emerge:
  1. Outward Focus: Leaders connect relationally with individuals, prioritizing others over themselves (18:40–19:39).
  2. Positive Environment: Outstanding leaders create a generally positive, emotionally healthy culture (19:39).
• Notable Exception: Technical expertise and IQ don’t differentiate outstanding church (or secular) leaders—it’s the relational skills that matter.
  • “They don’t say, 'Boy, that leader was the smartest person I ever met.' ... Leadership is a relational phenomenon.” (20:04)
• Intrinsic motivation in church is fueled by autonomy, competence, and relatedness—needs which church leaders can and should feed (21:40–23:17).

4. Tension: Task Performance vs. Belonging

• Leaders face a continual tension between driving outcomes (ministering stats, attendance, baptisms) and cultivating relationship, trust, and belonging (23:26).
• Brain science shows that the analytical network (tasks, performance) and empathetic network (innovation, inclusion) in the human brain are antagonistic—they can’t fully operate at the same time (24:47–28:45).
  • Negative emotion & pressure shut down creativity and teamwork.
• “As an elders quorum president, I've got to be intentional about being aware of the emotional climate...” (28:45).
• Stories and positive reinforcement open people up; pressure and negative emotions shut them down (30:45).

5. Making Ministering and Growth Natural, Not Forced

• True ministry emerges from a culture of belonging, not just rigid assignments or metrics.
• Leaders should spotlight and amplify positive, organic ministering stories—making them visible and contagious (34:49–36:21).
  • “As people share examples...that just ignites this positive emotion and this excitement.” (32:26)
• Confidence and engagement are built by seeing real-life successes and being inspired by relatable narratives.

6. Charisma vs. True Leadership

• American culture over-values charismatic leaders (height, public speaking, charm), but research and Church experience show charisma is often mistaken for effective leadership (38:56–43:11).
• Leaders should confront implicit biases that equate charisma with capability; outstanding leaders may not fit the classic “leader mold.”
  • “He was an extraordinary bishop. But the shock factor was, well, that’s not what a bishop looks like...He was wonderful, influential.” (43:23)

7. Church Leadership Principles & Getting "Out of the Box"

• Four anchoring principles for all church leaders (48:55–58:03):
  1. Prophetic Priorities
  2. The General Handbook
  3. Scriptures
  4. Inspiration from the Holy Ghost
• Many wards operate in a narrow “little box” of tradition and comfort; real growth and innovation often happen when leaders explore the full space within sacred guidelines (58:03).
• Examples:
  • Re-think youth ministry assignments—let youth minister to challenging or new members, not just leadership (52:48).
  • Bring problems to the congregation, especially youth, and let their innovation drive solutions (55:40).

8. Practical Innovation & Acting (“Be the Problem-Bringer, not the Answer-Bringer”)

• Avoid imposing top-down solutions; involve diverse voices in tackling local challenges (61:30–62:56).
• Different wards, even within the same region, need different approaches—context matters.

9. The Ultimate Fruit: Humility & Spiritual Dependence

• Leadership should make us more reliant on Christ, not more self-assured:
  • “The more I serve, the more inadequate I feel...an awareness that the Savior, this is his church...the more dependent I become on him...” (63:26)
• True leadership makes us better disciples.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Merging Gospel and OB:
  • “It's really our attempt in the world to discover gospel truths and priesthood principles and organization.”
    • Scott Taylor (14:46)
• Surprising Truth about Leadership:
  • “Leadership is a relational phenomenon...the minute you think of it otherwise, you’re creating problems for yourself and the organization.”
    • Scott Taylor (20:04–21:40)
• On Emotional Climate:
  • “If everybody's feeling depressed because no one's doing ministering, I got to change the emotional dynamic to just get people to be open and receptive...”
    – Scott Taylor (28:45)
• About Bias in Leadership Calls:
  • “...you pray fervently not to have any of my assumptions or biases weigh in on this. I want to look on the heart. I want to feel what the Lord feels.”
    – Scott Taylor (45:29)
• On Humility and Leadership:
  • “The more I serve, the more inadequate I feel. Now, that may sound like, what are you talking about?...the more dependent I become on him [the Savior], His teachings, his example, his ways.”
    – Scott Taylor (63:26)
• On Youth Innovation:
  • “We love these new converts. We're thrilled. But it's creating challenges...I would say, ‘Youth, what can we do? You be the consultants to the leadership...’”
    – Scott Taylor (55:40)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• 00:02–03:40 Introduction & Overview of Zion Lab / Leading Saints
• 03:53–07:19 Scott’s Professional Background
• 07:19–13:27 Church Service as Area 70, Day-to-Day Responsibilities
• 14:46–19:39 Principles from OB and Gospel: Outward Focus, Positive Culture
• 20:04–23:17 Leadership Is Relational, Not Just Technical Expertise
• 23:26–30:45 Belonging vs. Performance—Brain Science of Motivation
• 32:26–37:07 Building Ministering Culture via Storytelling & Positive Narratives
• 38:56–43:23 Charisma Bias—Assuming Leaders "Look" a Certain Way
• 45:29–48:14 Stake Reorganizations and Avoiding Bias
• 48:55–58:03 Four Key Anchors for Church Leadership (“The Square”)
• 61:30–62:56 Bringing Problems to the People; Context Matters
• 63:26–65:03 Personal Reflection: "Leadership Made Me More Dependent on Christ"

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Actionable Takeaways for Leaders

• Focus first on belonging and building positive, emotionally nourishing environments.
• Use stories and lived examples to inspire and ignite intrinsic motivation.
• Challenge your own biases about who is a “good leader”—don’t reduce leadership to charisma or outward appearance.
• Organize leadership work within prophetic priorities, scriptures, the handbook, and revelation—but don’t be afraid to “get out of the small box” and innovate.
• Enable others, young and old, to act, innovate, and solve problems—involve your congregation, especially your youth, in real solutions.
• Embrace feelings of inadequacy as an invitation to greater dependence on Christ.

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This episode is a treasure trove for church leaders and anyone interested in the science and spirit of effective, Christlike leadership.

Transcript

[Kurt]

Hey, everyone, you probably don't know this, but Leading Saints is not just a podcast. I know in the past we've been known as a podcast, but now Leading Saints is an online platform, an online community that we call Zion Lab because we are focused on not just preparing leaders to be better prepared to lead, but we want to help everybody, regardless of their church calling, to build Zion. And Zion Lab is the place to. It's the laboratory of Zion, if you will, to step into, share your ideas, best practices. What are you doing in a specific calling? What are you doing outside of a calling? Where do you feel inspired? What are other people doing? And it is becoming such a dynamic, phenomenal community. And there's an AI bot in there that you can ask questions to. And it will scour the archives of the Leading Saints. What has it been since 2010, we've been creating content. It will scour those archives and give you a specific answer to the content

that you're looking for.

So come join us over at Zion Lab, which you can [e-mail] Zion. Hey, if you're a newbie to Leading Saints, is important that you know, what is this Leading Saints thing? Well, Leading Saints is a non profit organization dedicated to helping Latter Day Saints be better prepared to lead. And the way we do that is through content creation. So we have this phenomenal podcast, we have a newsletter, we have virtual conferences. So much more at articles on our website. I mean, I could go on and on, right? And we encourage you to jump in, check out Leading Saints, go to the search bar@Leading Saints.org and type in some

topics and see what pops up. We're just glad you're here to join us.

You guys, before you even get into this interview, you need to go grab a notebook, all right? Or get out the note app in your phone, whatever it is, because you're going to be taking some notes. I have the opportunity to sit down remotely with Scott Taylor, who is in Area 70 in the Northeast area of the United States. So I think we're talking Maine to Connecticut, Massachusetts, that area. He's over 18 stakes, two coordinating councils, and he teaches at Babson College, which is a business college, very well respected. It was Casey Boardman who actually connected us. He's a student there doing some graduate work and also a Latter Day Saint. And so he said, you gotta connect with Scott Taylor. And he brings such a unique perspective of organizational behavior, which is often framed as ob and just his background in the business world in leadership development and consulting. And so bringing these Worlds together. This is where I geek out. And we talk about things such as what are the main components of that people see in effective leadership? Like some good, applicable stuff that we can actually start implementing right away just from you explaining it. Right. And he definitely does that. And then I bring up it and he responds to it.

So, so awesome.

With this concept of this tensions in. In church leadership of, like, making progress.

Right.

Like getting the ministering done, like getting people to show up, the baptisms, the

missionary work, but also creating a culture

of belonging and connection and relationship. And how do we navigate that? And he goes into some deep academic wormholes here, but so insightful, what he talks about. And then we have a great conversation about charisma. And is a leader always charismatic, or do we sometimes fall into the trap by assuming someone who's charismatic is actually a good leader? And how to explore that?

And you're going to be.

How to solve problems, like leadership issues in your area, like how to effectively do that. Like, it's such great conversation. You're going to love this. Go get your notebook and a sharp pencil, if anybody still uses pencils. Here's my interview with Scott Taylor.

All right, Scott Taylor, welcome to the Leading Saints podcast.

[Scott Taylor]

Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Appreciate it.

[Kurt]

Yeah, we need to give a shout out to. Is it Casey Boardman, right, who connected us?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, yeah, he's.

[Kurt]

I. I met him at the Northstar Conference. He came to town and. And, and attended that and got to meet him in person. He says, you got to meet this, this Scott guy. That, that has inspired me. And so here we are, we're chatting now, and I'm really excited to learn more about you, your background and. And so forth. And maybe first I'll start out with your professional career because you are a professor at Babson, is it?

[Scott Taylor]

Yep.

[Kurt]

Is it university or what is it?

[Scott Taylor]

Babson College. So it's a private business school. Only a business school, which makes it quite unique. Been ranked in the number one for entrepreneurship education for over 30 years. That's what we're known for. So 70% of the graduate students are coming from family businesses, 40% of the undergrad. And we get a lot of folks that come here to want to be entrepreneurs. So you think about Home Depot. That's an alum that started Home Depot. The ring doorbell was an alum, started the ring doorbell. So a lot of businesses have come out of this place.

[Kurt]

And do you. Do you do undergrad degrees as well?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Kurt]

Okay.

[Scott Taylor]

So we're only about 4000 students 25, 2600 are undergrad. The rest are grad. So we're small, but for a business school, we're actually quite large with over 200 faculty. Yeah.

[Kurt]

And what career did you have before this that led you to actually teaching about business?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah. So in my prior corporate life, I started out at Ernst and Young as a management consultant. And that took me all over the place. My last client, some people may recall a company called Enron, which was one of the largest scandals in U.S. history. I got out of Enron, I was consulting to them with Ernst and Young, that was my last client. So that started to tip me toward a direction outside of corporate America. But before that happened, I joined American Airlines. And this was an exciting time because Travelocity or the Sabre system was spinning off from American Airlines. And so I went with Travelocity Sabre and this would have been 2000. And that was really the tipping point to say I need to go back to school. Because I felt like my frustration with corporate America was you had really smart people making really dumb decisions and I couldn't understand why leaders were having a hard time changing anything about themselves in sustainable ways. And part of our mandate when I was with went with Sabre Travelocity was we are now a high tech company. We need to act like a high tech company. Yet we just all came from a bureaucratic, low risk, you know, airline. And so there were four of us chosen at that time to kind of drive this behavioral, cultural change to thinking and operating and acting like a high tech company. I by far was the youngest. The other three were very seasoned change management specialists. I don't know how I got pulled into that, but we did incredible work to get a sense of the best practices, the latest research on how to do this, and we utterly failed. And that's when I knew it was time to go back to school. So I did a PhD and then my first job out of my PhD was at Boston University. Got recruited away and then we came back to Massachusetts about 12 years ago.

[Kurt]

Wow, that's awesome. And on your, your religious life, you're currently serving as an area 70 right now, is that right?

[Scott Taylor]

That is correct. Since 2022 April conference. So I it's a usually a five year calling. So I'm in my final year and it's been an incredible ride, a great blast, learning experience, humbling experience and just miraculous in so many ways.

[Kurt]

What's the story behind getting called to that position?

[Scott Taylor]

So I member of the area presidency. I'm in the United States Northeast area. So the northeast part of the United States. Member of the area presidency reached out, Elder Bennett, excuse me, Elder Bassett, who unfortunately just passed away, as we know, he reached out and said, I'd like to have a zoom conversation with you and your wife. And I was wondering, what is going on? What's this up about? I was a stake president at the time. Our Area 70 had not been serving that many years at that point. So it never crossed my mind. And it was just a, hey, we want to get to know you. Sometimes we like to touch brace with stake presidents and see how they're doing and their wives and that was it. So I figured, oh, okay. You know, that was a wonderful experience to connect with him and have him connect with us. And so we just kind of moved on figuring, you know, that was just a neat experience that somebody took notice of a stake president in Massachusetts. And then a week later, Elder Bennett, our area president, called up and said, I'd like to also meet with you and your wife. And that's when we knew something was going on. And what happened is my predecessor, Elder Richard Hutchins, was being transferred by Pfizer. He worked with Pfizer in Connecticut out to Colorado. So that created that vacancy.

[Kurt]

Interesting. Yeah.

[Scott Taylor]

My area of responsibility is New England. So from Maine down to Connecticut and the 18 stakes that comprise those areas.

[Kurt]

Wow. And does that require you to. Do you do much on flying to an assignment or you pretty much drive everywhere?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, even to Bangor, Maine, which is the furthest north stake up in Maine. I can drive, but I'll do it over two days. I'll drive up on a Saturday and stay the night and then spend time with the stake president on Sunday and then either stay the night or drive back all the way. That's the furthest away or northern Vermont is, is can be far. So those two, I'll tend to stay overnight, but the rest I can get in, you know, in a couple of hours, sometimes four or five at the most.

[Kurt]

Yeah. And how would you describe that experience? Just sort of the day to day structure of it. I. In my understanding, I mean, you essentially have a state conference assignment most weekends and you're going here, there and everywhere in your area.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, it's a great question. A lot of members of the church don't know what area 70 do. They're more familiar with the general authority 70s. We've got stake presidents that are certainly a priority. And so when we're not on an assignment from the 12 to be at a stake conference, then I'll try to be with those stake presidents, given their meetings, my meetings and everything, it takes about a year for me to go visit one on one with each of them. Now I'm in contact with them all the time about issues, needs, questions, et cetera. But to physically be spend time with them, it takes me about a year. The conference assignments, state conference assignments tend to be about one a month. And so you think about calendar month minus December and July, which are kind of tend to be months off, you're looking at on average about one a month. But then you've also got meetings with those stake presidents. When they come together, those are once a quarter. And I've got two groups in the north and south, what they call coordinating councils. And so I'm doing two of those meetings every quarter. And you've got where all the area 70 get with the area presidency once a quarter. And so when you start in general conference, when you start adding in those meetings, it's taken up, you know, the rest of those weekends pretty quick.

[Kurt]

Yeah. And then you said It's. You're over 18 of those stakes, right?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah.

[Kurt]

And is that one coordinating council or is that two?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, that's two. Nine in each. But in addition, what the biggest surprise for me to the call was after I knew about Area 70 working with stake presidents, but I had no idea the 40 other people that I work with, and that is from FSY advisors for each coordinating council, communication directors and their teams for each coordinating council, auditors, and the list goes on. So there's 20 other people for each coordinating council. They look to me to connect with them and give them direction. So, yeah, it takes 20 to 30 hours a week, I would say.

[Kurt]

Wow. Wow. And then your assignments for state conferences don't necessarily come for the. From those 18. It might be outside of those 18 stakes, right?

[Scott Taylor]

That's right. Very rarely will you have. I've lucked out on a couple of occasions, but no, very rarely will you have a state conference assigned in your coordinating councils.

[Kurt]

Oh.

[Scott Taylor]

And so up until last year, when Canada was part of the United States Northeast area, we called it the North American Northeast area. I got to go to Montreal, got to go to Quebec, all the way down or all the way south as far as Virginia and then east as far as Michigan. That was kind of our area.

[Kurt]

Wow.

[Scott Taylor]

So that's taken me all over the that part of the United States, which has been amazing. I mean, one of the most exciting things, as you can imagine, is whether you're in Kalamazoo, Michigan, or Quebec, Canada, or down in Fredericksburg, Virginia the faith, the commitment, the example, the love that you see and witness is just astounding. It's just I come home energized and I love sharing with my family. It's our ritual on Sunday nights when I am assigned somewhere to come back and just debrief the experience so they can get a view of how good the people are and what good they're doing and how inspiring it is. So it's just wonderful.

[Kurt]

That's cool. What an experience. That's awesome. And I guess you're. You're winded down over the next year, so you better enjoy it while you can, right?

[Scott Taylor]

That's exactly right. I am.

[Kurt]

Well, I so much appreciate your professional background, your academic background. And, you know, I'm kind of a, you know, when I went through college, I didn't even know that organizational behavior was a thing. Like, if I could go back again, I think I definitely, that'd be my focus and major and because I've always been sort of just intrigued by it and I'm reading books and you know, culture building books and there's so as you know, there's so much research out there and, and perspective around that. And some people get a little awkward trying to maybe force some of these principles in our Latter Day Saint church experience. And I don't necessarily, you know, want to force anything that know is more secular than, than not. But I think there's a lot of these principles and research and perspectives that we could learn from as we at least maybe just lay, lay it over the church leadership experience. And that's what we do here at Leading Saints. And you know, if there's something to learn, great. If it just doesn't fit or it's more awkward than not, then, you know, we move on and figure out. But I'm just curious, like, just over the last several years, especially visiting different stakes, you see different types of leaders, you see different cultures. I'm sure you can walk into a stake and it's only, you know, a few hours where you think, wow, I can definitely. There's a vibe here, whether good or bad or whatever. And so I'm just curious, like, what comes to mind when you think about your professional experience, your study and leadership and your church leadership experience?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah. Well, it's interesting if I go back, Kurt, a little bit and then I'll jump back to your question, how I got into this. It plays out in how I kind of view things. I remember years ago I had a conversation with Elder David A. Bednar, who also focused in on organization behavior and his academic career. And one of the things he said that stuck with me was it's really our attempt in the world to discover gospel truths and priesthood principles and organization. And in 1976, Elder Maxwell at BYU Brigham Young University gave a talk to social scientists at byu and he talked about how we have a responsibility with our citizenship in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and God's kingdom, but we have a passport and our passport can take us and build bridges. So I came into this with the strong intention to do exactly that. I want to build bridges. And for me it's not how does it the church fitted to organizational behavior, but how do the principles that we hold dear and know doctrine as well as organizational principles, how do those, how do the secular area of organization behavior fit into that truth? Very rarely will I go and preach what I'm doing in my research in my church setting. But what it has done is helped informed inform me about how people work, why they do what they do. And I think the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost can use that insight in effective ways. You know, as we know, all good truth is valuable and useful. So practically for an example, for 25 years I've been all over the world asking large and small groups, organizations, you know, what, what makes an outstanding leader? If you were to think about someone, you know, that you've worked with directly in your career, in your volunteer work, in your, you know, capacity in the community, think of a specific individual who you think is the most outstanding person leader that you've ever worked with. And then I asked them bliss characteristics of why are they outstanding? I was just in Ireland earlier this week. Last year, I was in Italy, Singapore before that. Anyway, we've asked hundreds of organizations, the small research team that I'm a part of, and their answers to that question are identical, almost identical. Everywhere you go, every industry, every type of organization, every language, We've hit all continents and over 100 countries collectively. And I don't care where I'm at, high school students, boards of directors, for profit, not for profit. So any factor of diversity as important important as they are, is irrelevant to this question, which is stunning because what we've captured is something about the human condition that rises above those very important and significant factors of diversity that make us unique and identify us in many ways. And what we hear, if you were to look at that data and we've done interviews as well as transcribed stories of people telling about these leaders, is that number one, these individuals create an have an outward Focus, they're inner, directed by a set of values, aspirations, strengths, weaknesses, et cetera. But they are outward focused primarily on you, on the person, on the people. And second, they create an overall positive environment. So emotion matters to leadership. And these individuals create an overall positive environment. Doesn't mean they don't have a bad day, doesn't mean they never lose their temperature, but overall, the climate to create is positive. Now, that's if I'm sitting in Germany or if I'm sitting with MIT engineering students here in Massachusetts. The same list, Dublin this week, the same list. These were entrepreneurs from all around Ireland. And so when you think about that from a gospel perspective, it makes complete sense because we say the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, and people thrive on that. They want that. They want that experience. And second of all, all the research that's been coming out about loneliness and belonging and sense of inclusion and psychological safety in my field is all saying, hey, people want to feel like they're adding value, that they're noticed, that they're contributing. And a leader who's outwardly focused is going to notice those opportunities and a way to give people autonomy and build competence and connection. So for me, there's a synergy there, but I don't look at it. How does the gospel fit into ob? It's how does OB fit into the gospel?

[Kurt]

Yeah, yeah, that's really insightful. And. And I think that's a great way to frame it that, you know, that we're not. We're leading with the gospel. You know, that's sort of the. The core of what we're aiming for, and we're seeing what pieces fit in and can highlight it. So you mentioned these two. So that the thing that most people will recognize about a good leader, an influential leader, is they're outward focused and they create a positive environment. Was there any others there that. That I missed? Yeah.

[Scott Taylor]

I'll tell you one that's shocking that also shows up as a pattern, clear pattern. And when I say outward focused, I mean they make a connection with you. There's a connection. But one of the other things that doesn't show up in that list is that they were the best at whatever technical expertise and cognitive capability, IQ don't show up. They don't say, boy, that leader was the smartest person I ever met, or, oh, my goodness, that leader is the best financial analyst we've ever seen. Which is stunning because we focus so much on technical expertise and cognitive capability in education and in so many ways, I mean, decades ago, we used to promote people simply based on that. And frankly, a lot of police forces now around the country, in the United States, at least promote based on taking a standardized test. One of the things that, as I've worked with a lot of police and law enforcement agencies, is that you may have somebody in a senior leadership position that has no leadership capability from a relational perspective, but they can take a really good standardized test. So it's not that technical expertise and kidding capability are not important. Important they are. You're going to get fired from your job if you can't. You know, if you're a financial analyst and you don't understand finance, if you're a surgeon and you can't do surgery. But that's not what differentiates outstanding from average or below average leaders. It's relational. Leadership is a relational phenomena. And for decades we have pushed leadership. Being the hero on the mountain. You know, get behind me, follow my vision, which is important to have a vision. And certainly followership is everything to leadership. But my writing over the last decade or so more has been really, leadership is a relational idea. And the minute you think of it otherwise, you're creating problems for yourself and for the organization. It's relational. So we got to pay attention to the quality of those relationships. We know, for example, from a very robust theory in psychology called self determination theory, that intrinsic motivation, which is one of the most powerful forms of human motivation because it's self driven, self directed, self determined, is ignited, if you will, in people when they feel like they're given autonomy, when they feel like they're getting competent and confident in what they do, and when they feel like there's what they call in the theory relatedness, relationship, connection. Well, if you think about it from a gospel perspective, one of the things that's amazing about what heavenly Father and our Savior do is they're wanting us to be actors, agents. They want to give us autonomy. They are constantly trying to build our competence, our sense of capability. The Holy Ghost can fuel that within us. Leaders can do that. Priesthood leaders, women leaders in the church build that confidence. And then relatedness is embedded in everything that we're doing in terms of ministry. So one way that intrinsic motivation gets ignited is feeding those three innate human needs. And a leader who's outward focused does that really well if they're relational in the way they look at leadership.

[Kurt]

Yeah. So this is really interesting concept. And I'm currently serving as an Elders Corps president right now. And I'm sort of feeling this, you know, especially. I mean, I've done thousands of interviews around, you know, leadership and perspectives and things. And so I, I'm always. It's sort of my laboratory to some extent. And there's this constant feeling, I guess there's these. I often feel like there's these two cultural forces constantly at odds with one another. One is getting the work done.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah.

[Kurt]

And two is this belongingness or this relationship. Right. And you try and, you know, find a balance and do both of them. But you know, there's sometimes where I wonder if I air too much on the side of, you know, we want everybody just to be relaxed in elders quorum and come together and connect and you know, we want them to be there. But then there's sort of this swing to the other side of like, well, hey, let's talk about ministering, right? Or in this, this motivation, you know, or trying to motivate others, right? So someone's called as a leader and they think, okay, well I want to do a good job and that means we got to have good ministering. And so then it. You sort of leave belonging and relationship behind to be like, hey, have we emphasized this week just how important ministering is and we got to get this done.

Or if I go to an area

I think of, I've had been to like area, you know, missionary meetings and you go in there and it's. So there's sort of this passive aggressive of like, you know, we really got to talk to our friends, we really got to get the missionaries in there. Sort of this pounding the drum of motivation. Like we need more, more, more.

Right.

And so what comes to mind with those sort of those forces of getting the work done but also creating belonging.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, it's a great question. I'll. I'll translate a little bit into the OB speak and then come back to the church speak. In the OB world, we talk about performance and management, we talk about performance. We gotta drive performance. We've got goals, you set goals, we want to hit these targets. It's all about profitability. And if it's a for profit organization. So performance in general and organizations have built structures and policies, practices and procedures ad nauseam to drive performance. And there's been theories over the years about how do you get the highest performance out of people. The other side of the notion is development or the notion of culture. And how do you bring out and help people grow, develop and change in the most sustainable ways? Well, these are often in conflict because if the margins get tight, if the business is going down, I drive performance or you know, we'll invest in you and your develop it later. But right now it's all about performance. Or if you've got a heavy development culture, we're going to invest in our people, we're going to care about them. And you put off, you let go of the pedal on performance. You may not have the revenue coming in that you need to invest in your human capital like you would in some other capital. We are actually on the verge of publishing an article, it's in the final stages of academic review that talks about this tension given a lot of insights we've had from neuroscience in particular and what we've learned about human motivation. And a lot of that has not filtered into practice, let alone being exposed even in the academic world. So let me just give you a small taste of what I mean. In our brain we have many networks that influence, you know, what we do in terms of behavior. One network is called the task positive network, or probably more healthier, easier way to understand. It's called the analytical network. That's the network in your brain that you use to focus your attention to analyze data, to make decisions, to assess, to evaluate. Very important network. Most education worldwide has strip mined our minds, our brains, for that commodity. It's highly valued and necessary for all the reasons you can imagine. Another network in our brain is called the default mode network. It's not really a good term because it's not the default, but a more accurate or healthier, easier to understand way to describe it is the empathetic network. Now it's not. We're talking about cognition here, about thinking. So even though it's the empathetic network, it's still cognition. The empathetic network is where innovation, creativity, moral reasoning, social evaluation, openness and receptivity to new ideas, that's what's lit up in your brain when that's going on. And we are made to oscillate between these two networks. But here's the kind of earth shattering finding that has occurred within just the last 20 years, and that is that these two networks are antagonistic. They do not activate at the same time. So when I'm stressing people out and pushing performance, performance, what's often happening is I'm getting analytical, I'm firing up in people's brains, analytical cognition. If you add emotion to analytical cognition, particularly negative emotion, you're actually suppressing innovation, creativity, curiosity, let alone the desire to work together in a collaborative way. You're shutting it off. It's like when a professor comes into a classroom on the first Day of class and says, this is the toughest class you're going to ever have. 20% of you are going to fail. Buckle up. Well, that's the dumbest thing a professor could ever do because they've shut down the desire to work together, They've shut down my openness to learning, and they've created a stress response where the analytical mode is kicking on and my ability to innovate and create is being suppressed. So effective leaders, we believe, can move very quickly between these cognitive states. Positive emotion is highly correlated with empathetic cognition. Negative emotion is highly correlated with analytical cognition. Now, that doesn't mean when I'm analyzing or making a decision, I'm feeling negative. But if I have negative emotion, I will almost never trigger empathetic cognition. Negative emotion doesn't create openness, receptivity. And there's a third piece to this triad, and that is the hormonal system. Emotions precede cognition, so they often influence what we think. Negative emotion will drive analytical cognition, which activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is the stress hormone. Positive emotion often ignites empathetic cognition, which has a relationship with parasympathetic nervous system, which is the renewal hormone. So as an elders quorum president, I've got to be intentional about being aware of the emotional climate. If everybody's feeling depressed because no one's doing ministering, I got to change the emotional dynamic to just get people to be open and receptive to exploring. Let's take a look at how we can do better at our ministry. If I walk in and say, look, you guys are doing terrible. Look at these percentages. I'm activating negative emotion, which then puts on our defensive analytical thinking. Let's solve the problem. And yet we've already suppressed the ability to brainstorm effectively together because the emotional climate is triggering analytical cognition rather than empathetic cognition.

[Kurt]

Wow. Yeah. So true. So there is this sort of this temptation for a leader, like an elder quorum president, Walk in there and focus on the numbers, focus on the performance. But it's the culture that that stimulates that actually works against you.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah. And it's not like it's a zero, you know, it's not like you can't do one or the other. We're made to do both. But as a leader, I've got to be paying attention, because go back to what we said about outstanding leaders. They create an overall positive environment. It doesn't mean you can't go in when moved upon by the spirit afterwards showing an increase of love. But sometimes we have to go in and say, this is unacceptable as a parent or as a teacher or as an Elder Quorum president. But if that's kind of the default of what I'm doing, I'm not unleashing human capability. I'm actually suppressing it.

[Kurt]

Yeah. And so, because in my mind, like, when you come to the ministering thing, like, it can be such a task, performance oriented, you know, program.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah.

[Kurt]

Because you got to keep track, I guess, somehow. And there's members and, you know, who's assigned to who and those types of things. But sometimes, you know, I would rather have an Elders Quorum that has a culture that naturally stimulates a ministering dynamic. So when I hear, you know, I hear it all the time where, you know, I'll be talking to somebody like, oh, yeah, we. We went with the Johnsons in the ward and we went and did this thing together. And then the. The Joneses joined us as well. In my mind, I'm thinking, well, that's fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Like there's ministering happening, even though that they may not be assigned to one another. But then I could then go to the numbers and be like, oh, man, our elders corps are just doing terrible with ministering. When in reality, my hope is that the culture is naturally stimulating more of that.

[Scott Taylor]

Right.

[Kurt]

And so, and I've, you know, and that's hard to navigate because my performance and my. How people, you know, how my stake president or bishop look at me as Elder Scorpion president. It could be, well, I look at the numbers and they're not there. I'm like, no, they're there. They're just more nuanced. Right.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah. No, you're exactly right. So as an Elder Scorp President, what I want to do is, first of all, how can I help people catch the vision that the Savior has about ministry? Because that's what he was all about, is ministry. How can I get them to feel the power and the joy of it? And certainly one of the things we do really well in the church is storytelling. So as you as people share examples of the impact ministering has had in their lives, as they share examples of impact of where others have been ministered to, that just ignites this positive emotion and this excitement, then I can say, all right, well, let's set some goals. You know, let's now analyze what we've just heard and say, what can we do to move forward? I mean, one of the fun things I love to do when I do preside at a state conference on a Saturday leadership session, is I'll have two speakers speak for five minutes, and it'll end up being about 45 minutes. One speaker will be a new convert and another speaker will be someone who's recently returned to participating in the church. And I'll say, I'll emphasize to the stake president, five minutes, five minutes only. But choose somebody that's not going to be uncomfortable if we pop up and start interacting with them. So they give five minutes of their story. This is how I found the church and I was baptized six months ago. Inevitably, every time I've done this, they start talking about people who are sitting out in that congregation. Yeah, my ministering brother, he was so wonderful. He really took me in. We got to the temple within two weeks of my baptism. It changed my life. And then sister so and so and bro so. And I'm sitting next to state president. Are they here? Are they here? Are they here? And then I say, all right, Kirk, you were just mentioned by this good brother who's been baptized. Come up and tell us about your experience, loving on him and being with him. So you come up and you share your experience. Elders Corum president, come up. Release society president, you were mentioned as well. Come up here. And so by the time we hear these stories, what's happening is all the leadership principles I hope they grasp are unfolding in view. Loving, not giving up, sacrificing, mentoring, shepherding, caring. All this unfolds. And yet they're feeling it and seeing it, rather than me standing up and saying, all right, I've got a 10 minute talk on how we need to improve ministering and how bad we're all doing. Very different approach.

[Kurt]

Yeah. A strong component in that is the narrative. Right. That it's embedded in a story that's real and you can see the people and cognitively, like we're pumping on all cylinders, you know, and that's. Then that's where that intrinsic motivation will come.

[Scott Taylor]

That's right. In fact, what I do after those two speakers is I'll say, brothers and sisters, what are you hearing? What are you observing in these two stories, these two examples? And they just flood. And what happens is they're building confidence that, you know what? I can do that. This is what it is. I can do that. And so the confidence is growing. Plus they're being inspired by these stories. So positive, in the language of ob, positive motion is creating innovation and creativity about how I can change and do better. Holy Ghost is witnessing, giving me ideas, and I'm building competence that I can act on these ideas. That I can do something in a confident way.

[Kurt]

Yeah, that's really great. And again, it's. You're sort of addressing the issue more culturally because you're stimulating a culture. You're spotlighting the positive component in the culture that we want to multiply.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, think about it. It's not my work and my glory is to save you people who are just got all kinds of problems. It's my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality in eternal life. That is an inspiring, hope filled purpose, vision, mission. And if we go in and saying, look, we got problems and this is a mess and that's our kind of modus operandi. It doesn't help, it doesn't change behavior, let alone the heart.

[Kurt]

Yeah, that's really, really helpful. And that's like those are the type of moments to. Again, of course, you know, in maybe a state conference setting, you can kind of formulate that a little bit where you know, you bring up a new convert, there's a story there. Yeah, right. Or you bring up someone who's returned from a mission. Like there's multiple stories there that you can then sort of wait for these people to come to the surface. And yeah, as in church leadership, I think there are those like whether in a, in a simple passive ministering interview where something comes up and it's like, oh wow, like they went to the hospital and who showed up. Interesting. So then the next core meeting, the next relief citing meeting, you can say, let's focus on that. Let's hear that story. Witness to all of us here and it. That can really shift that culture and stimulate the result we want.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah. And the confidence that I can do this. I think one of the challenges, people make it way too hard. They think, oh my gosh, I gotta, how do I. But you know what, it's actually very simple. Primary children are ministers, youth are ministers. Everybody in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a minister. I just think we have to make it too complicated because we're feeling negative about it and because we're having that analytical cognition firing all the time as if it's a problem to be solved as opposed to an opportunity.

[Kurt]

Yeah, that's really good. So I want to go back to something that was sort of passively mentioned, just this. As you talk about, you know, when you ask individuals, the type of people or habits or routines or you know, as far as being outward focused, creating a positive environment, relationship of those things, my mind goes to this concept of Charisma. And it's, you know, I think they've done studies of, like, the average height of a CEO is. Is like over six, three or something. I don't know what it is. But the point being is they're often tall people because I think naturally we see someone who's tall, and our biology, genetic or whatever it is, signals, okay, that that person may be a leader. Right?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah.

[Kurt]

And then there's also these charismatic components where, like myself, I'm rarely the smartest guy in the room, but I can work a room pretty good. I can engage. I'm very comfortable engaging one on one with people, or, you know, one on 500, you know, whatever it is, I can. I can be very charismatic. And so our brains naturally frame like, oh, this is a leader. But my worry there is that we just have one subset of who a leader is. Not necessarily because they've developed as a leader or that they have good ideas or often bad ideas or whatever it is, but we sort of attach these characteristics to a Persona and say, oh, that's a leader. Well, even though they're not effective or. Or, you know what I'm getting, so.

[Scott Taylor]

Oh, absolutely.

[Kurt]

Is there a danger in that, in charisma of. Because I think as we're calling people, we. Our brain naturally goes to a place of, oh, that person's very charismatic. And we interpret that as, oh, the spirit's telling me that I should maybe lean towards that person.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, so true. Especially in the United States. Everything you're describing is very common in the United States. In the United States, we are in love with charismatic leaders. And I won't mention political leaders who have lost elections, but most of the cases that come within the last 20 years, where one income, one individual lost another, you look at who won, and you're going to find a charismatic leader and the other who wasn't as charismatic. And so we are pretty entrenched in the United States about loving charismatic leaders, because charismatic leaders do two things really well. One is they give us a sense of hope. They give us a sense of they're going to take us to a good place. And. And the other thing is they're confident in interacting with a variety of people, and so they make us feel good. So both this future orientation and also how we feel around them, we resonate. Now, other cultures are not so hyped up on charisma as we are. Stoicism may be more valued in certain cultures than others, but to your point, where we take a very narrow view and make these attributions is really something to think about. One of the fun things I love to do is I show a nine minute video of a gentleman, my name of Arnell Pineda. Most audience have no idea who Arnel Pineda is. Arnel Pineda is the lead singer for the rock band Journey.

[Kurt]

Oh yes, the Filipino, right?

[Scott Taylor]

Steve Perry was. Yes, he's from Philippines. Steve Perry was the iconic band the Voice. They used to call him the Voice. He got booted out of the band. They hired two others who didn't work out and then they found Neil Sean, the lead guitarist on Journey, found arnel on a YouTube video singing Journey songs. That's how they found him. Well, I show this video of Arnel Pineda. It was on, I believe cbs and I say, you've got nine minutes to make a decision whether you think Arnel is a leader or not. Nine minutes of video, that's it. You can't say it depends or I need more information. You have to make a yes or no. He is or he is not a leader. And then I want your evidence as to why you think he's a leader. And the video portrays how they found him. And his body language is he's kind of down like this. I mean, he's got these much older gentlemen around him. He says that he was terrified to go out in front of 10,000 people. He'd never sing to a group that big. And he was homeless because his mother died and his father couldn't take care of him at age 14. So it's this inspirational story. But at the same time, he's not making any of these decisions. He's not bringing anything new to the band. He's singing all these legacy songs. Neil Sean, the lead guitarist, is clearly the one that's making the administrative decision. And so in groups where I do this, the debate will ensue very quickly. He's not a leader because. Or he is a leader because. And then they give their evidence. And then I paused the group and I said, you know what, we've debated this now for about 15, 20 minutes. I really don't care whether he's a leader or not. That's irrelevant to me. But what I do care about is the assumptions you're making about who a leader is. Because those assumptions not only determine what you're going to going to do when you're in a role or a responsible position of leadership, elected, inherited or promoted, whatever you want or called, but it also is going to influence whom you choose to follow. And my question is how deeply Aware are you of those assumptions. So to your point, I think people do make assumptions that leaders are charismatic, leaders are tall, and that can be catastrophic in how they approach their own leadership efforts. Or not, because I'm not tall or whatever. But also who they choose to follow, who they choose to vote for are all related to those assumptions. So those assumptions matter.

[Kurt]

Yeah. And I mean, is it important to identify those assumptions and make sure that our, that cognitive bias isn't leading us and, you know, are interfering with that spiritual process?

[Scott Taylor]

I think it is. And I'll give a specific example. I grew up in Arkansas, northwest Arkansas, and I remember vividly when a gentleman was called to be the bishop. The ward was shocked. He was the first Arkansan not moving in from the west, if I recall, the first Arkansan in that area to be called as the bishop. Born and raised in Arkansas, he worked in a sewer treatment plant. I knew him well because he was the deacons quorum advisor and I was the only participating deacon at the time. So it was me and him every Sunday. And he was an extraordinary bishop. But the shock factor was, well, that's not what a bishop looks like. That's not what a bishop does. That's so and so. He's not a bishop. He was wonderful influential as a bishop. But if you've got assumptions that this is what a bishop looks like, then you may hold back some of your followership, some of your attention, some of your sustaining. You know, you may sustain explicitly with the hand, but are you sustaining in every way? And by the time he was released, people wanted to have him serve forever. He was an amazing bishop, loving, kind, influential, and he really understood a broader demographic of the ward because a lot of those folks were from Arkansas. They didn't come from the west. So that's where those assumptions start influencing behavior. Yeah.

[Kurt]

I'm curious, have you learned anything about this dynamic? Just I'm sure you're involved in numerous changes in state presidencies as you go in with maybe a general authority and interview individuals. You know, when I was called to a state presidency, it was a four minute interview, you know, that led me there. And so I just worry sometimes that, I mean, and I don't want to take anything away from, there's obviously revelation, there's a spiritual dynamic happening, all that. But you know, it's really hard to turn off those cognitive bias triggers. And so when the 6 foot 6 former football player walks in and he's really well spoken, you think this guy looks like a state president, you know, I don't know, like, what have you learned about this process?

[Scott Taylor]

So first of all, that was one of the craziest things. When I got called as an area 70 and realized I was going to be involved in stake reorganization, this was where my curiosity was off the charts. How does this work? I know how it works in the Catholic Church, you know, but how does this really work? When you walk in, you don't know anybody. In most cases, you're there for a few minutes, you're interviewing 20 brethren, 25 brethren or whatever, and you're making this decision that's going to change his life, their family's life for the next, you know, eight to 10 years. It is remarkable. I've now done many stake reorganizations with the general authority. And it is just clear every time for me it has been. I know there are times where you hear stories in church lore about we didn't know and so we went back to the existing state or is there anybody else that's not been My case, My experience and in most cases the gen authority I'm with, you know, we're not sitting there comparing notes, we're sitting there taking note ourselves. And then we come together at the end of those interviews and say, let's take, you know, we've got photographs and bios on each person and I'll organize my, you know, three or four. That really impacted me. He'll do the same. And it's amazing how they align. In one or two cases we may have to have further discussion, but I think we go in there fasting, we go prayerful. I don't think, at least for me, I'll speak for me. I don't go in there with any assumptions whatsoever. In fact, I pray fervently not to have any of my assumptions or biases weigh in on this. I want to look on the heart. I want to feel what the Lord feels. And I walked out of some of those going, Scott Taylor probably wouldn't have picked that person. We just called one here, had the opportunity to participate in a stake reorganization within my coordinating councils because the Area 70 couldn't come in. So I was close by. We called a very young brother and I thought, boy, he needs a little more time. That's what Scott Taylor would say. Give him, you know, he's got a young family. But it was so clear to me and the general authority that this is who the Lord wants. So you just leave your assumptions and biases at the door. You pray for that, you fast for that. And when you do, it's a beautiful experience.

[Kurt]

Yeah. And like you said earlier, I think it's. There's no way to effectively completely turn off biases. And, you know, your brain's gonna. God gave us a brain for a reason and wired us a certain way. But I think it's just the exercise of saying, I want to increase my awareness of some of these things that I attribute good leadership to. And maybe there's. There's a flaw in that.

[Scott Taylor]

And I believe if you're humble and submissive, that the Holy Ghost can override those biases or assumptions that you have. I really do. I think you can speak to your heart and say, hey, this is who the Lord wants. And you go, okay, I'm submissive to that. As opposed to imposing your biases or assumptions. Yeah.

[Kurt]

Any other principle? I'm just thinking of, you know, there's so many new leaders out there. They want to do a good job, they want to stimulate a positive culture. You know, they want progress to happen, but they don't want to be the leader that's tyrannical or always harping on the numbers. Are there any principles that you see as you travel around or that come to the surface is how a leader can just effectively walk into leadership? Yeah.

[Scott Taylor]

I think first of all, from the church perspective, I would have four things that I'm riveted on. One is I'm going to focus on prophetic priorities. That is our agenda. I'm not going to create my own agenda. I'm going to make sure what we do is aligned with what the prophets, seers and revelators are talking about. There's safety, there's protection, and the spirit is going to complement you a lot more. If that's the case. Number two, the general handbook, you know, I'm not going to run off with exceptions. I think of it as a square. And, you know, one side is prophetic priorities, another is the handbook. Another side is the scriptures, and then the fourth side is inspiration from the Holy Ghost. Now, one of the things that I loved about President Hawke Holland before he passed away and others, I mean, Elder Bednar has been saying this for years, is we can't continue to run the church the way we've always run the church. If you're a young women's leader, do not try to run the young women's organization like it was when you were a young woman. We've got to get out of. You take that box that I said and you draw a little box up in the top left corner. I walk into some wards and organizations within the church stakes as well, but mostly wards or branches where they're operating. In that little box, for example, I'll give a very practical example. You've got the priority of helping the youth rise up. And they are. They need to be better prepared to go to the temple upon graduating from high school. They need to be better prepared for serving in a darkening world as missionaries. You've got all these new converts. At least we do in New England. I mean, we had United States, Northeast area had more convert baptisms this last 20, 25 than any other area within the United States. So we've got a lot of new converts coming into these wards. There are baptisms every week in some of our wards and branches. And you've got members are going, hey, slow it down. Let's just do it once a month. I mean, what, you know, the pace they're not used to. So that's creating complications. You know, are they really prepared? Why are they baptizing so much? This is a burden on us because now we've got all challenges. Well, take a look at who the youth are ministering to in terms of their ministry consignment. They're probably going and visiting the elders, quorum president, the Relief Society counselor. Is that really who they should be ministering to? Is that who they're going to be teaching out on a mission? I'd take them and assign them to one of the most grumpy, challenging or members or who's not participating or to a new convert, because that's going to give them the experience that they they need going forward. That solves a lot of these challenges of trying to manage so many balls, when in reality, if you integrate some of these things, we're getting outside of that little box. And yet there's a lot of space to explore and innovate within those four walls that we haven't even tapped into. And I think that's what President Holland was trying to say. We can't keep doing the way we've always been doing, given the growth of the church. I mean, one thing I said to our 18 stake presidents there in New England, I said, let's just assume it's the day after the Savior has returned. The entire world knows now who he is, what's happening, and that his church was established on the earth. You show up to your ward building and you've got 300,000 people in the parking lot saying, hey, I now know. I want to be taught. I want to learn. What are you going to do? How are you Going to reciting elders corn prayer. How are you going to handle that? How merciful that we're only having three or four baptisms per week to slowly acclimate to a hastening which is going to increase to someday when the Savior returns and you've got 300,000 people. So to your point, what can leaders do? One is try to get outside that little box, but stay within those four walls. Another thing is relationships, connection, find ways to connect one by one. You know, you say, oh my gosh, we've got 300 people on our rolls who aren't attending. Overwhelming. And so nothing happens. Let's just start with a one. You know, you and I go out together, we minister to a one, we bring back and now we're three. And then we take that one and then go minister and then we bring a one. That's how the church has always grown one by one. And so don't get overwhelmed with the list and the numbers. Just one at a time. What's the next opportunity, the next ordinance. That's what the work of salvation is, one by one. The other thing I would say in the church in particular is we need people. And this is why I love the new curriculum coming out. I love it in September or being implemented in September. We need to get away of talking at people as leaders and we need to allow them the opportunity to act and to be agents and to share their experience. And so what's going to happen in September is you're not going to be able to come to Sunday school or elders quorum president elders quorum meeting and be lectured to for the next whatever. Instead it's the question is what did you learn at home that you can now bless us and help and strengthen us as opposed to going home and saying what did you learn at church? And so it's reversed. Kind of the focus of coming together is really Moroni 6 speaking one with another concerning the welfare of our souls. And I think great leaders enable that to happen in any organization. They are pushing the ability to act, to be agents rather than to be acted upon. And the minute I start to think you're an object, a vehicle or a means to an end, I'm stepped into a form of self deception because you're not. Even though I want to drive performance, the minute I start to think of you that way, I'm in a state of self deception because you're not a chair that is built to do what I want to do, how I want to do it, even if I'm paying you some money and giving you some benefits. And all you're going to get in that environment is resistance, rejection, rebellion, and then if they're really upset, revolution. And that's the way it's been throughout human history, regardless if a dynasty got away with it for a couple hundred years. But the window of getting away with treating people that way is rapidly closing. And the generation, younger generation has very little tolerance for that. They'll go home and live with mom and dad and play video games rather than put up with a manager that's going to treat them like an object, even if it's at McDonald's. So leaders that can foster autonomy, build connection, help people feel capable and competent at any age or stage. I don't care if you've been a member 30 years or three months. We all want and need those intrinsic needs, autonomy, relatedness and competence. And it's built in naturally into the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so a leader that can be feeding those needs and others is going to be a very influential and effective leader. And the last thing I'd say is today more than ever, just be open to. I know we don't say this in the church, but I'll say that, be open to innovating. You know, here's a quick example, and I'll stop after this. We were in an area council meeting. So we had all these mission leaders from the United States, northeast area. We had our area presidency, and we had all the Area 70. And we were talking about the challenges. Elder Haney, our area president, got up to the whiteboard and said, you know, tell me all the challenges. You're hearing from wards and stakes from their leaders about all these new converts coming in. And he filled the entire whiteboard with all these challenges. And I sat there thinking, I'm going to take this photo. If I were a bishop, I'd take this photograph. I'd go back to our youth on a Tuesday night and say, you know what? I was in this meeting, and here are all the challenges and frustrations that the area is experiencing with these new conference. We love these new conference. We're thrilled. This is what we prayed for, right? But it's creating some challenges. And I would say, youth, what can we do? You be the consultants to the leadership about how to address these. And I'm absolutely convinced those youth would come up with extraordinary ideas that would blow these adult leaders away, away. Instead, what do we do? Okay, let's go and play basketball in the gym for Tuesday night activity. Are you kidding me Now? I'm not Poo pooing. Basketball. I love basketball. But these youth are built for something. They were saved for something very different. So if I'm a leader in the church today, just called, I want to innovate. I want to find ways to accomplish the purposes as outlined in the handbook, Prophetic Priorities, Scriptures. And by virtue of inspiration that gets outside of that little box. And that's just an example.

[Kurt]

Yeah. So I want to make sure I got those four components. So Prophetic Priorities, General Handbook. And then you say Scriptures.

[Scott Taylor]

Scriptures. Yeah, the scriptures. And then the last is the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Now, I can't take credit for that. Elder Kopiska. I was on an assignment to reorganize a stake, and Elder Kapischka taught me that because I asked him. We were creating a new stake and reorganizing stakes. We had two stake presidencies that had just been called and their wives. And one of the questions came up was, you know, President Holland keeps talking about how we got to lead differently. We can't keep doing the things we've always done him. And Elder Bednar keeps saying that too, and Elder so and so as well. And so one of the state presidents said, how do we do that? You know, because. And Elder Kapischka said, elder Taylor, go up to the the board, draw a square. And then he had me label these four sides. And they said, draw that little box up in the left hand corner. And it just enlightened us and me as to, hey, we don't have to stay in the little box up there. We don't have to run young men and young women's the way you did when I was a young man or young woman. We don't have to run Elders Quorum presidency and elders Quorums like we did the predecessor who did or the one we admired years ago. We can think for ourselves. We can seek inspiration. We can discuss as a presidency on what do we need to do in this day and age and give them what the future is going to be to bless, you know, the quorum and the members of the war.

[Kurt]

Yeah, that's really good. So I don't know if other examples come to mind of when maybe wards get kind of stuck in that smaller box. What? You know, you mentioned sometimes you see it where there's this hyper focus on like the youth of the ward.

Right.

Which is good. Obviously there's a lot of concern there and they need a lot of help and things, but sometimes then everything becomes about the youth. The budgets go to the youth, the Activities are about the youth. And. And then elders quorum is kind of forgotten or release society sort of subpar or whatever. Right. And so is that kind of what you're saying is breaking out of that?

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, absolutely. If I were to say what's kind of the aggregate of what award or branch ought to be focused on is, number one, how do we help every member, from a primary child to the oldest member, to become a minister? I mean, primary kids could go and minister to a sick person, take the primary, and they go sing. But let's help everyone become ministers, because that's what the Savior was, number one. Number two, what ought to be shared across the congregation is the idea that not only are we all ministers, but we also are all thinking about the next ordinance for each other. How can we help each other with that next ordinance? Now, if you say, well, wait a minute, he's 60 years old, he's done all the ordinances, well, then how can he or she get more meaning out of each ordinance, whether it be the sacrament or the temple ordinances, but the work of salvation is the ordinances and covenants that bring us to Christ. And it's not. Elder Bednar teaches this so clearly and so well. It's not a bunch of other stuff. It's as simple as how do we help each other move through the covenant path by making and keeping covenants and through ordinances. And so, you know, if I'm a primary president, I ought to be thinking about how can I help these children prepare for this next ordinance? How can I help them become ministers if I'm a young women's president, the same thing. If I'm an elders quorum president, release society president. If I'm Sunday school president, same thing. It's it. As we get united in those prophetic priorities, there's great power and simplicity at the same time.

[Kurt]

Yeah.

And what I'm learning from this is so, for example, going back to that story of you were in this meeting with the, you know, the area presidency, area authorities, 70s stake presidents, like the temptation of that sort of gathering is one. You know, it's good to write those things on the board and identify the problem. But then the temptation is, is that group wants to then create a program or a system or something to solve the problem and then sort of blast it out to all the local units.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah.

[Kurt]

It's more powerful to not be the leader that's bringing the answer to the people, but the be the leader that's bringing the problem to the people and inviting them to engage that's right.

[Scott Taylor]

Because then they become actors.

[Kurt]

Yeah.

[Scott Taylor]

And they're entitled to that inspiration. By the way, if you tried to do that, and Elder Haney would never do that. New York City is not Kalamazoo, Michigan. Manhattan is not, you know, Grafton, Massachusetts. So, I mean, even in my two coordinating councils, Cambridge is definitely not Houlton, Maine. They are two very different contexts with very different types of people all trying to do the same thing, which is come unto Christ. But the way you go about doing that effectively is going to be very dependent on the people in the context. And the leader, an effective leader, because of that outward focus, sees those needs. And with the help of the Holy Ghost and counseling with counselors and the quorum, you start to see, hey, this is how we need to adapt to achieve the same outcome, but maybe in very different ways.

[Kurt]

Yeah. That's really powerful. Love it. Well, something tells me we didn't hear everything you know about leadership or culture development in this hour we've been recording. So I'd love to maybe find another time to keep this conversation going. There's probably so much for you to share and for us to learn, but this has been awesome. Thank you.

[Scott Taylor]

It has been fun for me, too. Thanks, Kurt.

[Kurt]

Awesome. Well, the last question I have for you is just reflecting on your time as a leader, both in the church and in the secular world. How has being a leader helped you become a better follower of Jesus Christ?

[Scott Taylor]

That's a great question, I think, and I'll speak to the church, but I think even in my profession, it's been the same thing. The more I serve, the more inadequate I feel. Now, that may sound like, what are you talking about? You think the more you serve, the more confident you become. And it's not a feeling of I'm a loser. It's a feeling of an awareness of that the Savior, this is his church. It's his stake, it's his core, it's his ward. And the more I serve in leadership, the more dependent I become on him. His teachings, his examples, his ways. You know, we read in Isaiah 55, his ways are not our ways. Our thoughts are not his thoughts. That becomes more salient and more embedded in me the more I serve in the church. So I hope when I'm released as an area 70 and I think this is happening, all I'm going to feel more inadequate than when I was called. And that means to me, you've served very, very well because you realize who's quorum or who's church or in this case, whose two coordinating councils. This is. And it's his, it's the Savior's. And I'm completely dependent on him in every way. And I love that growing sense of inadequacy. Not as a I'm a loser, you know, depressed discouragement, but just a desire to build my relationship with him even strong. Stronger. Because that's how I think we become the most effective leaders we can be.

[Kurt]

The end. That's it for this leading Saints episode. I encourage you to check out some of the most popular episodes of the podcast that we list at the bottom of the show notes. If you haven't listened to all of those, do so now.

[Elder Neal A. Maxwell]

It came as a result of the position of leadership which was imposed upon us by the God of heaven, who brought forth a restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And when the declaration was made concerning the only true and living church upon the face of the earth, we were immediately put in a position of loneliness. The loneliness of leadership from which we cannot shrink nor run away, and to which we must face up with boldness and courage and ability.