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Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Catherine Williams. I am head of practice management here at Dimensional Fund Advisors. If you've tuned into prior episodes, you know that for over 15 years, we have been measuring advisory businesses through our Global Advisor study. And while this data provides tremendous insights into key business metrics and industry trends, it really is the intersection of this data and the more qualitative factors we observe that give us true insight into what's driving success in your business. One of these key factors is leadership. And in my nearly 30 years of working in and with advisory firms, how leaders engage and behave, I believe is one of the most critical factors for success. So what does being an effective and motivational leader look like? And how can you further your own leadership skills, particularly when pivotal moments in the business occur? Well, I've got a great guest to help talk about that today. Dr. Suzanne Peterson and the Admired Leadership Team have been studying leadership qualities and behaviors for over 30 years, and they've done this across multiple industries and thousands of leaders. So to say that they have a deep and insightful set of research would, I think, be a little bit of an understatement. I'm really excited to have Suzanne with us today to share some of their insights. Suzanne, thank you for joining us.
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Thanks so much, Katherine. I'm thrilled to be here.
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I'd love to start with what may feel like a bit of a basic question, but even as I was thinking about our conversation today, I didn't want to skip over how do you define leadership?
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We actually like to keep it pretty simple. We say that leaders make people and situations better. And when you think about it like that, it's a very broad definition. But at the end of the day, isn't that what leadership's all about?
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So why have you chosen to specifically study this set of characteristics? There's a quote that says, you know, the greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things, but gets people to do great things. And so really studying what does that take both on the leader themselves, but also what they're trying to evoke in their organization. Why? Why has that been such an important area for you and for the Admired Leadership Team to focus on?
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Well, I think leveraging our passion and really our life's work, which is around if leaders make people in situations better, how can we give leaders the tools in simple, actionable ways to be able to do that? And the operative word with our firm really is how do we give them the tools and the behaviors of what to do that make people and situations better. Too often, most of the leadership development space is focused on the psychology of the leader. What are the characteristics, the traits, the values, the cognitions, you know, the tendencies. And a lot of times leaders are left with thinking, maybe I just don't have what it takes to be a leader. Maybe that's not who I am. Can I really be that person? And we really have debunked that. To say we believe leadership, it's not a temperament, it's a choice. And leaders choose how to behave. So we teach the behaviors that make great leadership.
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So is it fair to ask, if I were to ask, maybe for kind of those top two or three behaviors that you consistently observe in effective leaders, what does that look like?
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Now? We're, you know, given that our study's gone on for 30 years and we really are studying leaders on a regular basis, I mean, there's literally thousands of leadership behaviors we've been able to uncover that are special. Yeah, if I were to lead with a couple that are particularly important. I think there's a couple things, especially when you look at how much change and transformation is going through organizations today. You know, number one is leaders are really effective at reminding people what's not changing during times of change. We advise that a lot, which is we can always talk about how all the things affecting this world are changing and changing, how we do things, how we develop people. Right, how we do business. But at the same time, the best leaders and these admired leaders are really good at reminding people, hey, let me kind of remind you what's not changing here. There's a lot of things on a day to day basis that actually stay the same. Two, I think it's the idea that they focus on organizing their days relationally versus by tasks. So great leaders are very focused not on each day, on what do I have to do, what meetings do I have to attend, you know, what projects do I have to accomplish. They're more on who do I have to talk to, who do I need to see, who do I need to recognize, who do I need to update, who should I debrief, who should I include? Most of their days are very organized by who instead of by what. And three, I think they're extremely focused on how they inspire people on a day to day basis. They find ways to really keep people motivated, ignite that fire under them. They're always looking for creative ways to do that. And we've really uncovered some unique ways that people inspire beyond your traditional motivation techniques that are largely focused on extrinsic rewards.
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So I'm curious, it can be said this person is a natural born leader versus maybe the idea that you, you can in fact learn to be a great leader. What, what is your reaction or thoughts when we sort of maybe identify someone that we sort of tag as having that natural ability versus where it can be learned?
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Yeah, I love the question because it really does hit on. Of course we all have differences in personalities and tendencies, but those are largely immutable and unchangeable. We're not going to change people's psychology. We're not going to change who they are on the inside, which is perfectly fine and good for organizations. That's how we get great diversity. At the same time, if we take a behavioral approach, it isn't about who you are on the inside. Every leader, regardless of personality, tendency, upbringing, can choose to behave differently. Now when we talk about authenticity, we're not looking to have somebody change so radically that a behavior they engage in would be so foreign to them that they would say, that's just not who I am. That would be moving too far. But for us to develop as leaders, we have to be willing to try new behaviors. And when we try them and if that's within our realm of authenticity, and you say, you know, this feels more comfortable than this, but let me try it for a while. But the beauty of a behavioral approach is the fact that regardless of who you are on the inside, everybody can choose to behave differently. And that's why we've seen real effectiveness and people saying, great, you know, whether I'm a born leader or not, or whether I have charisma or whether I'm naturally extroverted. Right. Whatever it might be really doesn't matter because all those personality types can choose to behave and engage in the admired.
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Leadership behaviors is an important behavioral or characteristic of a leader include the ability to take feedback.
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Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that one because sometimes people will ask me, you study so many leaders and you work across so many industries and it is different levels of leaders from the very most senior to an emerging leader, is there anything they really have in common? Now, big picture, we'd say our admire leadership study means the behaviors in there are what these admire leaders, these leaders that seem to have this great balance of driving results and inspiring followership do. But if I were just to make it really simple for a minute, the one thing I would say they always have in common, they take feedback gracefully. They aren't defensive about it. They don't argue with it. They don't, you know, stonewall. They don't get petulant. They don't ask for 22 examples. Right. It doesn't mean they can't disagree with the feedback, by the way. But in the moment, the answer is always, thank you for giving me that feedback. To open up the idea that if I want to be able to give you feedback, I need to be able to take it. And, and so it absolutely is critical. And the best leaders are very good at not only taking feedback, they solicit it. And when they don't like it, they take it gracefully, spend some time stepping away, thinking about it, and then go back if they need to say, yeah, I need to understand more, because that didn't resonate with me or didn't really ring true. Tell me more. But in the moment, especially, very graceful with feedback.
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So as you've worked with leaders across, as you said, multiple industries, and we're going to talk in a moment about some of the things that are happening specifically in the investment advisory space and how that's having some impact. But as you have worked with leaders across the globe and across multiple industries, even what surprised you in the work that. And the research that you all have done, has anything kind of surprised you about what it means to be a leader or not?
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Well, what usually surprises us the most is no matter how much we talk about this behavioral approach and how anybody can do this, people so were so socialized to the psychological view that immediately people ask questions like this, will this work with the younger generation? Is it the same with men versus women? Will this work in a crisis situation? Or they naturally will say, can you give us two or three traits that I could be better at? And so we are naturally surprised that no matter how much we say it, people always revert back to, well, what traits do I need to develop? Or, and by the way, this couldn't possibly be a universal approach. And of course, that's the beauty of admire leadership is we believe through the behaviors We've studied for 30 years. As you've said, this isn't a quick study. We actually look for behaviors that meet three criteria. So we're not going to give advice that's admired leader advice unless it meets three criteria. And they're important because it's powerful. One, universal. As I said, it has to work with everybody. You have to say, this works with any generation. This works with my kids. This works my direct reports, my peers, my managers. Right. My customers, my clients. Two, it has to be simple. It can't be something you need to go like, look back to your notebook and go, is this step three or what was that seven principle framework again? Like I forgot. It has to be simple. And three, it has to be actionable. Has to be something you go do, not something you go become. And when it meets those criteria, anybody can do it and everybody feels, you know, give me two or three behaviors, I can go and act on Monday, regardless of who I am on the inside.
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So thinking of the behaviors and actually going and doing, implementing, trying at least. Anyway, as you said earlier, you may have to change course at some point, but we're at least going to try these things and sort of see what lands. What does that typically look like for? In fact, I'll maybe be a little more specific maybe for someone who is newer to wearing that leader leadership hat. What are some behaviors that often kind of come to the surface pretty quickly or as opportunities anyway?
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Yeah, I think most broadly, you know, oftentimes leaders come to us with a specific, you know, something very specific they want to work on. But mainly a newer leader or even other more senior leader or someone who just transitioned to a new role. Right. You know, I was in this role, now I've been promoted, now I've taken over a business. Now I've, you know, I've, I'm putting someone in this role. They usually, basically they would frame it in influence. Right. They want to be influential. But when you dissect it, influence is down to three areas. And so typically, very quickly, an emerging leader or a newer leader in a new role or in transition would need to work on one of these pieces of influence. One is who they are stylistically, meaning you as a messenger need to be influential. As you know, Katherine, you know, there's many leaders who are quite smart and competent and great at what they do, but either they're a little bit off putting to people. Abrasive, difficult, call it whatever you want, but there's something that says, I'd rather not listen to you, I find you, I want to go away from you. Or frankly, you're too passive, you seem unconfident and so I really just don't listen to you. So hard to be influential if you as a messenger. So that can be one area. Sometimes it's framed as executive presence or gravity tasks or. But the idea is people go, what is that? What does that look like on a day to day basis? So we have to work with them as a messenger and their style and approach to be more influential. Two, the other thing might be that it's about the message itself.
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Right.
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They haven't too caught in the lingo. The jargon can't really tell great stories. People kind of lose the big picture, the clarity. You're not influential in some way because you have to get more succinct with your messaging. Brevity, brilliance, right. Just isn't there. And three, people are influenced by people they know, like and trust. So if we don't truly understand relationships, how to invest in them, you can't influence people that you're to have only transactional relationships with. I only call you when I need something, right. These for internal, external. If I'm deeply invested in the relationships and I understand how to build them on a regular basis, then what happens is when I need to influence you, you're more open to my influence because we have a real relationship. So if I broke that down a little more simply there it'd be working on someone's style or presence to working on their communication in terms of what they communicate in the clarity of communication. And three, how they build relationships falls into that. Throw in a little bit of how they manage their time and priorities because most leaders spend their time doing the wrong things for the right reasons, but we need to help them there. Those are the big ones.
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I really appreciate your comments on the communication piece and thinking about not only helping leaders find and really own their style and their way of communicating and being confident about that. That's where then they're authentic right. When they can do that. But recogniz that, you know, particularly if you're communicating into a larger organization or across a leadership team, things like that, that, that's often, that's a pretty tricky thing at times and we certainly see, you know, I, I got a phone call a few months ago from a, from a CEO that said pretty much we did everything you told us not to do on talk to the communication and and so they were dealing with a, you know, a bit of that fallout and, and by the way but turned out to be an incredible opportunity for humility and owning it. And that probably ended up in the end building more trust with the team than if they had avoided the miscommunication to begin with. So sometimes there's a little bit of that silver cloud. But I really appreciate your comments on that because you know how you then convey your thoughts, how you're, you know, making an ask of an organization potentially things like that, really critical to get comfortable, authentic about that, but also just build good skills around it. It's the trickiest part in my opinion.
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Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's kind of akin to as coaches, when we get the, hey, I did something, I know I should have called you first.
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It's all good. I guess that's that, you know that that's why they can pick up the phone and give you a call. Right. It's a good thing. So, you know, sometimes when I'm speaking with up and coming talent in an organization, even within my own team, there's an element of, I don't know if this is the right phrasing, so you can correct me or give me a better way to refer to it, but this idea of formal versus informal leadership, certainly if you were to look up the job description of certain roles, like a C suite or head of, or team lead, probably the word leadership is in there somewhere. But I believe, and we talk with clients quite a bit about the opportunity for leadership and as you said, thinking about your behaviors, thinking about the tools that even if you're not formally in a, in a formal leadership role can be important. So what do you think of when we talk about the difference between you're in a informal versus a formal leadership role?
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Yeah, you know, it really doesn't matter to us when it comes to development. And I'll just point out a couple things that should kind of cue that anybody really can be leading if you choose to do so. Again, not a temperament of choice. First of all, I mentioned leaders make people in situations better. So no matter where you sit or what you can do, you know, at any moment you can choose to make a person better. You can choose to make a situation better. Two, our formal definition of an admired leader is a leader is someone who drives superior results. They execute flawlessly, but at the same time inspire loyalty, followership and commitment from those around them. And by the way, that can be peers that can be in your communities. Right. When you're not necessarily formally in a leadership role. And then if I dig deep into the admirer leadership library of the content that's in there, right. We have things like decision making. So everybody, regardless of whether you have a formal title, need to make great decisions, build relationships. I just mentioned, you have to do that, right? Communicate effectively, give feedback effectively, hold somebody accountable, even if it's just your kids, right. When you kind of look through what it entails leading through change, you have to lead your peers through change, your families through change, right. When you start to dissect it, you say, I kind of think this is for anybody. Again, who chooses. You choose to become a stronger leader. And of course, I think that's a big trend today, that more junior leaders than ever before and emerging leaders are looking to be invested in and are starting to realize in the way that work is organized that they can make people in situations better and they can build expertise in these areas, which really just make them kind of ready next.
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Right.
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They're. They're preparing for their future when those roles are available.
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You shared, I thought, some really, really interesting points around this idea of one of the behaviors of a. Of a strong leader is their ability to endorse and build up the people around them. And how do they do that, whether it's in meetings, in front of clients, out in the community, whatever the scenario the situation might be. Can you talk a little bit about why that's powerful and why that's something that, that you all are. Are observing or wanting to observ.
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Yeah. You're referring to our concept around inspiration, motivation, which really is the frame of fanness. Now, everybody can relate to this because the idea of being a fan, we can all relate to our favorite sports team and whatever that is or your child sports team or whatever if you're not a big fan outside of child sports. But the idea is you're rooting and clapping and cheering for them all the time. And by the way, when they lose, you hurt for them, you still root for them, you're mad at them, but you come back anyway. There's a level of fanship to our favorite teams and our children that we have found really exists amongst the best leaders. The idea that when you know someone's in your corner, when you know someone, regardless of high performance or low performance, is always rooting for you. People can do amazing things for anybody that is a sports fan out there, most recently, you know, you've seen this even in. As the NFL season kicked off, the Buffalo Bills had a comeback win against the Ravens. And what did their famous quarterback of the Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen, say when he watched thousands of people leave the stadium when they were down by 15? In the end, he said, I saw so many people walk out and that's fine, but have a little faith. Next time be a fan. Right? And a lot of behaviors in there that we could go through. But ring understand how to be a fan. They know what that looks like. They don't just say it. By the way, that doesn't work. You can't just go, I'm your biggest fan.
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Right.
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They have to show people behaviorally and admired leadership has 20, 30 behaviors that what we know is that these admired leaders are really good at figuring out a way to say, by the way, it's not soft. It doesn't mean I'm not going to hold you accountable. It doesn't mean I don't have to give you tough feedback. It doesn't even mean you're going to win the game. By the way, you might miss the shot, you might not get the touchdown, you might fumble the ball, but. And we're gonna have to talk about those things. But at the same time, you always feel I'm in your court. And when leaders can do that, behaviorally, people do amazing things because it's reciprocal. If, Katherine, if you're a fan of me, I'm gonna be a fan of you. When was the last time you really disliked somebody but they love you back? It tends to be reciprocal. So that's what we're looking for in inspiration.
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Well, we know from our work and, and even with our Global Advisor study and some of the surveys we've run.
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That.
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A lot of organizations are struggling with that next generation of leadership. Not because they have concerns about the next generation being able to buy equity, for example. You know, it really is about feeling confident about skills and their ability to truly take over the business one day. A lot of focus gets placed around, okay, does that mean they can bring in new business? Right. Bring in clients? Maybe they're sitting in an advisor seat. But this leadership piece, I think, is a really critical one. And as businesses are getting bigger and more complex, how do you really prepare for the true leadership that's needed to take over the helm of a business? And that's probably one of the biggest barriers we see for G1 to transition to G2, or in some cases G2 to transition to G3 at this point in time, given the, given how long we've been around. So I can appreciate, even if you don't have formal leadership, but maybe you want it one day there's some tools and behaviors you can start working on.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, there has been a trend in the very large organizations over the last five years to invest in more junior talent than they used to. It, not surprisingly, things like executive coaching, large scale development programs, they're expensive. Right. And so companies would say, hey, once you reach a certain level, kind of in the finance industry, you know, once you're managing director in a large firm, but now we'll invest in you, well, what's happening? And there's no real pipeline. And so, you know, not surprisingly, it starts with the really large firms who have now made much bigger. They were sort of all in on saying we have to get these leaders ready sooner to be able to sit in those seats. Now it leads to some impatience with more junior talent that they think they can become these managing directors very quickly or take over a business than they can. But I guess then the, the for the smaller organizations and some that are looking, you know, family run businesses, those that are not obviously huge firms, there's still ways, there's scalable ways to go in and say, you know, a great example would be, you know, something we developed for this type of population would be our coaching office hours. So it's basically a way to say, hey, we can have more junior talent, have access to a coach because the coach is just available on a certain day, you sign up for a session, right? It's not the same as our long term coaching engagements. And there's other options out there around the marketplace to say I need to invest in junior talent, but I need to do it in an affordable way. You know, we're Not X Fortune 100 company, right?
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When I think about behaviors, and we're talking about it in the context of leadership behaviors, but for anything that we want to behave our way towards something in achieving a goal. For me, a couple words come to mind. Habits and routine. When I think about truly driving behavior. So when you think about the habits, routines of leaders, what are some of the ways that you see that showing up as they're building out those behaviors over time?
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The example I like to use is this, is we have some people that are out there that you know, might, let's just say, for example, you're an exerciser and you're a runner and you identify as a runner, right? So people that identify as a runner, they're really good. They have the exact right clothes that work for them. They have the perfect shoes and size and water bottles and they know when to have their protein and when they travel, they have everything with them. And it's like, you know, you're just like impressed with these people that it doesn't matter where they go, they have all the tools, the equipment, they stay on routine. That's their habit, it's who they are. And then you have others of us that might just occasionally run, right? We say, you know, when I'm, I run when I can. When I get time, they go on vacation, it's like, well, this kind of hurts. I'm getting a blister. Like, should I have had coffee before? How long am I, I don't know how to measure how long a mile is.
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Right.
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There's all sorts of things because it's not a routine, it's not a habit. And so, you know, they just, they do it for 15 minutes and they go, well, I tried. Right. We want to think about leaders like that. We want leaders to become runners, but we have to start somewhere. And so the way we talk about it is there's a difference between a technique and a habit or a technique and a routine. We say more commonly, and the technique is something you're doing for cause and effect. Right. I'm going to run today because I will feel better. I'm going to run today because I ate too much last night. I'm going to run right? There's like, I'm looking for it. Just like we, oh, I'm going to give feedback that one way that technique might work with this point. And we do have to start somewhere. But the idea is if you want to be good at something and you want to be skillful, Techniques are never skillful because again, cause and effect and I don't do them enough. They're not who I am. They're just kind of what I do occasionally. So we want to get people to pick like one or two behaviors at a time and say, you need to become a runner with this behavior. Like, you've got to say, I am a leader who gives feedback this way. I am a leader who invests like this. But that doesn't come overnight. Just like becoming a runner would take six to eight weeks to longer to really say it's, it's who I am. So that's how we like to think about it. Got to move slow. A lot of discipline to it.
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Yeah, have a lot of discipline to it. I think that's, that's so great. So specifically within our industry, in the investment advisory space, we've had a couple of things in play for more than a few years now. One, lots of M and A activity happening. So forget whether an organization is going through lots of organic growth or leadership changes, things like that. The M and A element alone is putting a lot of impactful big change and transition on a lot of businesses. Is there anything uniquely in that environment with leaders that you've seen for the effective leaders on how to handle what is, you know, this is a pretty big transition happening in businesses today.
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Yeah. I think the number one thing that can help on a short term basis. Right. There's obviously a lot that goes into, you know, whether these cultures will meld and the people and the duplication of processes and, you know, how do we move toward organic growth versus so. But, you know, one thing we've seen work really well is when there is any kind of merger, there's usually one that obviously is the stronger than the other. It's rarely truly mergers of equals. Right. Somebody acquires and then always a buyer, always a seller.
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We can call it a merge if we want.
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Yeah. And so the buyer needs to be very good with trying to uphold and find out what is really, really an important tradition, ritual, something by the one that they bought. Great example would be this worked with a company that acquired or became, in this case, a major, major investor in a major league baseball team. When the technology organization came in to get the baseball park ready to be, you know, cybersecurity compl. Be able to trade in there, be able to everything that obviously this place was on lockdown, security, everything had to be great. Not something that maybe, you know, a major league baseball park was used to worrying about if someone could trade during the day. One of the things that they noticed that the CTO at the time is every time he would talk to people, he would say, so how long has this person been here? And they would say, person's been here six seasons. And they were very. And you know, they'd be like, seasons. The firm was like, you mean six years? Like, yeah, but, you know, so they were very attached to that language. So very quickly the organization started referring to everybody, even within the buyer side. How many seasons have we been here? Right. Or in airline acquisitions, there was an example of the airline that was acquired. They were the only airline in the industry that when upon landing, would ring that bell four times instead of three. And it was really important to them. It was a distinguishing factor. So the buyer said, we're going to ring the bell four times. So it's finding a few things to say. How do we make those people and that organizations and that culture find a few things we will give on. There's a lot you're not going to give on. There's a new strategy. But finding a few of those things immediately start to say, hey, we are actually part of this. We love that. As a, as. As a small advice, I think that's great.
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When we look at firms that are quite active on the acquiring side, the ones we see happening that seem to just go a little bit smoother, I mean, they're all. There's always something. There's always a bit of a hiccup of some kind. But generally, one of the characteristics we've observed Is that they come to the table with an idea of, you know, we're joining our organizations together because we both have really great things to offer. And so let's make sure we lean in on that as opposed to we've got all the answers, we're here to fix you kind of a thing. And I think that that's a cultural mindset of behav. Behavioral mindset. I think it makes a difference for sure.
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A lot's changing when you acquire somebody, but let's remind you a couple things aren't going to change. And then by the way, we're going to keep some of your norms, rituals and traditions as much as we can that fits our cultural norm. And then you just have a lot more smoother integration.
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Are there some key questions? You know, maybe someone listening is thinking, you know what? I kind of, I want to assess, am I a good leader? Maybe I think I am a good leader, but I don't really know. Or maybe I do have a sense that I could probably raise my, my game a little bit in this area. But if someone is interested in kind of doing a bit of a self assessment, any key questions or areas that they could contemplate on that, I think.
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You gotta start with asking yourself the question that, you know, what are you most famous for at the current time? And usually it falls into two camps. Most people are either famous for their ability to execute flawlessly, their results, their acumen, their expertise, their pedigree, their track record, their, you know, the numbers they've been able to produce. That's kind of what their brand is, right? That, that's why been so successful. And the truth is, most of those leaders that have been so good and so focused on that, for good reason by the way, they lack some of the skills on the relationship side, the followership side, because they've just been really laser focused on producing, or are you that other leader where you say, you know, I feel like I, you know, conversation with people's easy. I build culture, I build teams. People want to partner with me, I'm a good listener, I'm present, I'm high character, I'm all about building a network and I spend so much time with clients and all these also wonderful things that organizations need. But if you were honest, you don't execute as flawlessly. You don't always meet your deadlines. You sometimes, you know, not as organized as you want to be. You don't really give your team tough feedback because that's kind of hard, you know, holding people accountable. It's like, gosh, we're kind of friends, so it's hard.
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Right?
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There's something where you can have a little bit of honest assessment to say, where do I fall the most? Because of course, admire you fall right in the middle and then you start to go, do I need help on the relational side to be a really, really admired leader, or do I need help on the execution side to be a really admired leader? That's where I like people to start because it sort of narrows the content of where you need to focus. We want you to be followed, but not to have people say, listen, that person's brilliant, but. Or, oh, he's really nice.
- [31:04]
B
But yeah. Benjamiller talks in his book Renegade about kind of you're this awesome leader. You're showing up and really you might be creating a lot of chaos in your wake a little bit at times too. And so how do you create awareness around that and really assess. Do I have on both those eyes. I love that you've. Because you absolutely. Leaders, especially if you then have a job description that is suggesting that you have to execute. You've got to execute on the strategy of the business. You have to execute on the growth, whatever that might be. But how you go about doing that. And you know, on the quote I read earlier about, you know, getting people to do great things, really, really critical there, I mean, that's really great. You know, as you think about just leadership coming down the pike here, what you think about just as particularly in the. In the investment advisory space where the pace of change and businesses are growing and evolving, anything that stands out to you that you think will be really important for leaders to pay attention to and to consider adding to their behavioral toolbox over the next few years even.
- [32:07]
A
Yeah, I think, you know, the first one is, as we mentioned, focusing more on how do I get people ready sooner to. For roles, projects, positions. Right. Take over something that we can't even predict. You know, you need really what we found and admired leadership really focuses a lot on the idea of what does talent really look like. You know, unfortunately, you can't see talent, but what we know is it has predictors and so getting better at. Better at predicting who's truly talented. And we define talent as people who you can put in any situation and they're going to be successful. Right. Oh, now AI is going to help with that. Now we're going to have a new leader. Now we're going to acquire this company and we're going to mix this. Now we're going to Ask you to take on something kind of new that you're going to have to get a skill set for now you're going to manage 12 people instead of two. You really talented people tend to rise to the top. So we focus a lot on do we really know what talent looks like, can we predict it, can we test for it? Because you can get a really skilled person that's skilled but not necessarily as talented as you need through this changing world. So there's a lot more focus on developing leaders, identifying true talent and not being sort of fooled by just skill or pedigree track record. And then I think the other thing is really preparing people to embrace kind of a world that is going to be, you know, obviously in a consistently changing world. I think what we're finding is with the younger generation as they come into the workforce and they are in the workforce, some of the outdated views that, you know, change is hard, it's still always going to be a little hard, but they're much more adaptable and open to it. And so I think that's also critical that we recognize that those that are sort of resisting changes more than others, we're going to see less of that as time goes by.
- [33:51]
B
We've actually begun to observe and work with several firms we work with where they, even when they're crafting a job description or job posting, even talking about, you know, really looking for folks that. And it's not enough to say, oh, we're a fast paced environment. I think that that phrasing's been used, you know, quite some time and can mean a lot of different things. But having, you know, an appetite for change and having curiosity about that and what that can look for, you know, really starting to lean in around, you know, let's put this on the table and make sure we hire people that, as you were saying earlier, they might have some great technical skills, but if they don't have the other piece, the other. And the appetite for what businesses are going to require the behavioral pieces of that over time may not be a fit long term with the business.
- [34:42]
A
Yeah, I think the job descriptions are going to get more broad. For that reason, we're not hiring to enroll with certain skills. Again, we're trying to hire the best athlete. And the other thing that, you know, we're trying to change views on is still so many people. I was just talking to a leader recently in a financial organization that was talking about the pros and cons of offering someone a contract to kind of lock them in for the next Two years because they're so critical to the business. And would that contract demotivate them or motivate them? Right. And, you know, there was a difference in opinion between her leadership and herself in terms of whether that was a good move or a bad move. But ultimately, you know, she won her side of the argument by going with what we discussed, which is, do you really want to have the absolute best athlete on the field for two years or a mediocre one on the field for five? So talent is not going to stay as long anymore, especially young talent. So trying to retain people forever, which is why often they don't get invested in. I'd invest in making them get the absolute most you can out of them for two years. And if they stay wonderful, you're going to do everything you can. But the expectation is, you know, great athletes are going to move around.
- [35:49]
B
I think that's such a great point. And we're certainly seeing, generally speaking, overall tenure is shortening. With that said, lots of reasons why talent is moving around. And so. But you've gotta be willing to make those investments. I think it's a greater risk to the business if you don't, for sure. I think one advisor we has said for years that I steal his comment. He's like, hire for character, train for competence. And I think there's something to that. There's certain roles where you have to have some baseline skills, for sure. But if you err, for lack of a better word, on the side of that character piece, their appetite to learn and grow and be challenged, take feedback. Even as we were talking earlier, probably going to serve you a little bit longer on that.
- [36:37]
A
Yeah. And it's hard, too, because we're fooled sometimes. Right. And that's. I think that's what I was trying to allude to is we have to get better and better at assessing character because too often we're fooled. In an interview, they seem to fit. They say all the right things, plus their resume looks great. Right. And everything. And, you know, all of a sudden, six months down the line, you're not getting the work ethic you wanted. You're not getting that character. You think, how did I go so wrong? And it's, you know, it's human bias. So it's more about how do we get better and better at really getting some as bullproof as possible tools on selection. And so much of that, not only, you know, can there be these predictors of talent that are a little different that we can look for, but there's also something we Talk about a lot, which is you've got to find ways to. We call it a show me test or I don't know if we coined that or that's been out there, but we refer to it that way, which is don't tell me you can do the job, show me you can do the job. And not every job lends itself to this, but you know, many you can put them in some situation and say you say, and based on your track record, you should be able to do this. Is there a way you can show me? Can you run this model? Can you plan this event right? Can you, you know, deliver a presentation that's engaging, that's easy for a client to understand if they're unsophisticated? How can I have you, you practice that before I just let you talk me into it.
- [37:52]
B
So admired leadership has been, as we talked about earlier, has been measuring, assessing, researching, working with leaders for a few decades now. What are you all thinking about or focusing on these days right now? What's some, maybe some exciting research or some areas that you're seeing a real opportunity for the next iteration of admired leadership even.
- [38:15]
A
I mean, certainly an easy answer would be to see, you know, the impact of AI and that type of thing. But I'll tell you, we stay pretty focused on the same mission, which is to study what the best leaders do across every industry and sector we can find. The biggest difference for us has been in the last decade is to gather more leaders, more female leaders and more leaders around the globe. Not because we weren't always interested in that, but when you look at a 30 year study starting in the, you know, late 80s, early 90s, there just weren't as global and there weren't as many women leaders. So now there are. So the last decade we've been excited to see that we're studying more of those. And the good news is we're again from the universal approach. We're not seeing differences. Meaning Myer leadership works around the globe. It's obviously works with women and men. And that wasn't the research question, it was more. Listen, we do have a study that admittedly is pretty biased toward white men in America. Right. For a while now the study is a lot more diverse, which we love. And we're getting the same findings that these, the behaviors are the behaviors of the best leaders. Regardless.
- [39:17]
B
I think that's in some ways a great example of what we've been talking about here that, you know, it's not maybe so much the question of will the results look Differently younger, older men, women, us, non us, whatever it might be, but more so of. Let's just make sure we are gathering insights and if the current, you know, set of data, if you will, we use a lot of data here at Dimensional is still the same. The effort to stress test that, so to speak, and kind of confirm that is still valuable, that it doesn't have to be that because we think something's going to be different on the other side and there's still value in that. So being willing to do that. Right. Go through that exercise and go through that effort and that very much aligns with what you all have built is really the legacy of the business. So that's pretty cool.
- [40:02]
A
Yeah, when you think about it, we're a lot more focused on. It's somebody who's been part of a business school for many years as well. Most of the classes, especially across cultural leadership or any kind of large leadership classes are again focused on individual differences. Right. Let's talk about the differences around, of leadership around the world. The differences of people around the world. Again, we're not arguing with that. Of course there are a lot of differences with people around the world in different countries and cultures. We celebrate that. But we say actually our research question is to study what's the same. Right. Wouldn't it be great to know that wherever you were operating, whatever country, whatever industry, whatever context, whatever generation. Right. Wouldn't it be kind of cool to say there's certain behaviors that are going to be universally applicable so we're going to make that our life's work to figure out what works for everyone in any context and then leave that differences work, which is still worthy work to do to other individuals, mainly psychologists.
- [40:55]
B
We do joke a little bit with our global investor study where we capture and that's had a hundred thousand end clients do that study. So we've got lots and lots of data. We capture nps and we do chuckle a little bit that we'll even see detractors that say, oh no, I've referred friends and family to my advisor. It's like, do they not like their friends and family or they're not like their advisor? Like, you know, because on the surface you would, you know, you would think of the promoters for sure. Right. That's how they identify. They're willing, they have an appetite to refer. But. But we even see detractors to say that they've referred on occasion. So there's a little bit of that in play too. That's great. Do you have any leaders that you particularly admire. That's a horrible, unfair question to ask you at the end of our podcast, but we're going to do it anyway.
- [41:39]
A
Yeah, you know, it'd be really easy, but it's true. But to talk about the leader of our organization right now, I admire him for so many reasons, but truly, you know, I can articulate it. I don't know if I've ever even articulated it to him. But first and foremost, talk about somebody when we talk about admire leadership, high competence on what they do, but also great followership. Talk about somebody that's truly competent in all aspects of his life. I mean, no matter what he does, he does with absolute excellence, precision right there. It's really hard to find fault with his intellect abilities and all that. And so, you know, I guess you respect that, you look up to that, you want to role model that as much as you can. But two, the idea of creating a vision where you want to follow somebody on a regular basis, you believe in them, you believe ultimately they want the right thing, they do the right thing for people at every turn, even when it's difficult on the business. But you always feel people come first. You know, that's something I've witnessed for 25 years. So it's certainly not a technique. Right. It's something that you've seen. And when you look at our organization, despite talking about turnover in your basic organizations, and we're a smaller business of about 80, 90 people at this point, the idea is the people that have been there, we have a huge percentage of our population that has been there, you know, 10, 15 years plus, starting with very junior talent that grew up there that have never left because of that vision and because of what we've been able to inspire and that passion for what we do. So, you know, those types of things. He's an obvious one. But I gotta tell you, on a regular basis, the least suspecting people, it's the, you know, the person that works in a still in a factory environment that has no voluntary turnover in seven years and no defects on their line. And you just are inspired by people like that because again, that level of performance and that level of followership makes you just want to study them.
- [43:35]
B
I love it. I couldn't agree more.
- [43:37]
A
Couldn't agree more.
- [43:37]
B
That's fantastic. Suzanne, thank you for joining us today and thank you for the work you do and by extension, the admired leadership organization. This is such an area that can be easily sort of set aside for purposes of let's just focus on production, let's focus on on getting that next client in the door, whatever that might be within a business. But in our experience, this is ultimately what wraps around an entire organization and certainly for individuals within that business. So I'm just really thankful for your time here today and the work that you're doing to help continue to drive true admired leaders within all industries, but certainly within our industry. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
- [44:22]
A
Thank you Katherine. It's a pleasure to be with you and for you trusting me with your listeners.
- [44:27]
B
For those listening today, if you want to know a little bit more about what Dr. Suzanne Peterson is doing and what the Admired Leadership Organization is doing, you can check them out@admiredleadership.com you can find Suzanne on LinkedIn as well. Good old LinkedIn. We never can't go wrong with that in most cases. And if you're wondering or interested in knowing more about how Dimensional works with advisors, you can check us out on dimensional.com and with that, we will catch you all next time.
- [44:56]
C
Thank you for joining us for Dimensional Fund Advisors Managing youg Practice Podcast. For more information, please visit www.dimensional.com. dimensional Fund Advisors LP is an investment advisor registered with the securities and Exchange Commission. The views, information or opinions expressed during this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Dimensional or its affiliates. Dimensional is not responsible for, and does not verify for accuracy any of the information contained in the podcast. All expressions, information and opinions are subject to change. This podcast is distributed for informational purposes and it is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation or endorsement of any particular security, products or services. Please consult with qualified legal or tax professionals regarding your individual circumstances. Investing involves risks. Risks include loss of principal and fluctuating value. This podcast is available for private, non commercial use only. You may not edit, modify or redistribute this podcast without the express written consent of Dimensional. Dimensional assumes no liability for any activities in connection with this podcast or for use in connection with any other website, computer or playing device.