Beyond The Leader: An Interview with Dr. Tony Bridwell

Summary

TheUPside Podcast: Beyond The Leader – An Interview with Dr. Tony Bridwell

Date: September 16, 2025
Host: Theresa Flood
Guest: Dr. Tony Bridwell

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Episode Overview

This episode of TheUPside Podcast, hosted by Theresa Flood, features an in-depth conversation with Dr. Tony Bridwell, an acclaimed organizational intelligence and leadership expert. The discussion centers on the real workings of leadership, the power of followership, building trust, optimizing team culture, and actionable strategies for leaders and parents alike. Bridwell draws on his own ‘squiggly’ career journey, blending personal anecdotes, research insights, and pragmatic tools from his latest book, Beyond the Leader. The episode is rich with practical advice for leaders, aspiring leaders, and anyone interested in understanding how to build strong organizations and healthier relationships.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Dr. Bridwell’s “Squiggly Line” Career Journey

• Background: Grew up dyslexic in a small Oklahoma town, struggled in traditional education, steered toward vocational training.
• Early wins: Excelled in architectural drafting, won state competitions, received a scholarship to Oklahoma State.
• Career Pivots: Moved from architecture to theology, then into the business world after economic downturns. Held numerous roles—project management, sales, people leadership.
• Main lesson: Embraces the non-linear career path and values accumulated lessons from each ’squiggle.’

  “Everything I have done along the way has somehow remarkably prepared me for you and me sitting in these chairs together today. Isn’t that crazy?” (10:33)

The Nature of Trust

• Key premise: Trust is complex and often misunderstood; most organizations don't realize it's broken until the symptoms are severe.

• The “Brilliant Jerk”: Toxic high-performers (“brilliant jerk”) are often the first obvious sign trust is broken.

• The Four Seeds of Trust:

  • Character
  • Consistency
  • Competence
  • Compassion (or Care)

    “One of the greatest exercises any team can do is just sit down, have a conversation, get level set on what it actually means to trust.” (16:55)

• Building trust: Knowing which “seed” matters most to each individual is crucial; leaders and teams should discuss and align on “how do I win with you, how do I lose with you?” (17:01)

• Practical takeaways: Use conversations to clarify which aspect of trust is primary for each team member; don’t assume what works for you translates for others.

The Science of Instant Trust

• Warmth & Strength: Within seconds, our brains assess two things—warmth (“Are you for me?”) and strength (“Are you competent, confident?”).

  “The two components that we’re constantly aware of at a subconscious level … your warmth and your strength.” (21:03)

• Sales & Leadership: First impressions are paramount; if you come across as too strong without warmth, you lose trust. Reputation can lend borrowed trust, but you must prove it quickly.
• Practical cues: Smiling, openness, posture, confident not arrogant, inviting demeanor.

Culture: Building, Breaking, and Optimizing

• Every team has culture—by design or by default:

  “Your culture is perfectly aligned to get whatever outcomes you’re getting today.” (36:57)

• Story–Mindset–Behavior–Outcome:
  • Culture starts with the stories people encounter (stories → mindset → behavior → outcome → new stories).
  • Leaders err by targeting only behavior (“behavior modification”), tiredly forcing change instead of addressing root beliefs and stories.
• Culture Hygiene: Proactive, regular checks (just like dental/doctor checkups) on your team’s culture.

Parenting & Influence: Building Relationships with Consistency

• Real-life wisdom: Bridwell cultivates an ongoing Saturday breakfast tradition with his daughter since she was 13, using simple rituals (“high/low” of the week) to build trust and keep communication open.
• Teaching vs. Listening: Don’t always wear the “tool belt”—sometimes the best move is simply to listen and let children work out answers.
• Emotional vocabulary: Encourages children to expand the language of emotions; inability to name feelings often blocks meaningful conversations.

  “As adults, we can only name four words sometimes. And so when we sit down, we get really frustrated. ‘Tell me what you’re feeling?’ ‘I don’t know what I’m feeling…’” (45:22)

Followership: The Forgotten Half of Leadership

• Definition: Followership is both active and passive and exists along a spectrum. It is inseparable from leadership—everyone moves in and out of both modes.

  “You as an individual are either leading or following all the time. Even if you have the highest title, at some point, you have to move into this mode.” (51:54)

• The Follower Effect: Effectiveness as a follower directly correlates to transformational leadership; ineffectiveness breeds toxicity.
• Attributes of Effective Followers:
  • Independent, critical thinkers
  • Mission-focused (not self-centered)
  • Active partners (vs. passive or competitive underminers)
• Passive followers allow toxic leaders to flourish.

The Anatomy of Teams (From Beyond the Leader)

• Engagement + Execution: Effective teams do both, but often organizations overvalue execution (results) and overlook engagement (connection, morale).
• Connection is Key: The discipline of moving in and out of leadership and followership is the “connector” that holds engagement and execution together.
• Seven Disciplines for Extraordinary Teams: The book outlines three engagement, three execution disciplines, linked by connection (leading/following).
• Not all success is healthy: Teams that execute but are disengaged suffer hidden costs (burnout, high turnover).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Career Paths:

  “We put a lot of pressure on our college kids…[to] make a lifelong decision. Declare a major, and you don’t even really know what that looks like in the real world.” – Dr. Bridwell (09:03)

• On Trust & Definitions:

  “If you and I were together…ten people up and say, ‘give me your definition of trust,’ we would get 10, maybe 11 different answers.” – Dr. Bridwell (12:20)

• On Leadership & Followership:

  “It really wasn’t about your leadership; it was all about how well you followed.” – Dr. Bridwell (52:40)

• On Charisma and Leadership:

  “Energy without character is really dangerous.” – Dr. Bridwell (33:47)

• On Culture and Outcomes:

  “Sometimes success can be a really bad teacher.” – Dr. Bridwell (36:47)

• On Raising Kids:

  “I did my dead level best…sometimes the answer is just to sit there and let them work the answer out…” – Dr. Bridwell (44:11)

• On Team Effectiveness:

  “If you execute without being engaged, there is a cost to your execution.” – Dr. Bridwell (63:39)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Dr. Bridwell’s Backstory & Career Philosophy – 02:20–10:44
• Trust: Recognizing Problems & The Four Seeds – 11:50–17:53
• Building Immediate Trust (Warmth & Strength) – 20:05–25:56
• Culture: How it Works & Where Organizations Fail – 36:00–39:45
• Parenting & Relationship Building with Children – 39:52–47:35
• Followership: Theory and Practice – 47:53–59:50
• Overview of Beyond the Leader & Team Disciplines – 60:24–66:51

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Actionable Insights & Practical Tips

• Have explicit discussions with your teams about what trust means, and “how do I win/lose with you?” for each individual.
• When meeting someone new (in sales or leadership): focus on demonstrating warmth (for me, care, compassion) and balanced strength (competence & confidence, but not arrogance).
• Attend to the origin stories that drive your team’s culture; don’t just modify behavior—address beliefs and the stories people are telling.
• Prioritize consistent rituals and emotional conversations with children to maintain influence through difficult adolescence.
• In leadership, recognize the importance of being a good follower; nurture the three followership attributes on your team and in yourself.
• Assess your team’s engagement and execution; don’t follow “successful” models blindly if they come at the cost of burnout and disengagement.

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Resources & Book Plug

• Dr. Bridwell’s New Book: Beyond the Leader (available on Amazon) – a story-driven, practical guide to building extraordinary teams by balancing engagement, execution, and the connection of leadership/followership.
• The Follower Effect: More on the duality of leadership and followership.
• Resources for teams to assess and develop the seven team disciplines mentioned.

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Memorable Moments

• Dr. Bridwell’s account of being told to consider “the trades” due to undiagnosed dyslexia and the unexpected path that led to architecture and global leadership roles.
• The personal story about Saturday morning breakfasts with his daughter, and the way ritual and curiosity sustain long-lasting parent–child relationships.
• The challenge of defining and actively practicing followership, and the call to leaders to do their own inner work and self-evaluation.

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Tone: Warm, conversational, and deeply practical; the episode is filled with laughter, stories, and honest admissions of mistakes and lessons learned. Flood’s questions are insightful, and Dr. Bridwell’s wisdom is accessible and actionable.

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For Listeners

• Recommended Action: Hold a “trust roundtable” with your team using the four seeds; discuss what matters to each member.
• Parental Advice: Try a “high/low/emotion” conversation at your next family meal.
• Leadership Self-audit: Reflect on your followership skills; are you an active partner, mission-focused, and an independent critical thinker?

Episode guest Dr. Tony Bridwell’s book, Beyond the Leader, is available now on Amazon. See show notes for the link.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Upside podcast where we help you get unstuck in your life, in your business, by elevating your thinking and provoking meaningful change. Always from the inside out. I'm your host, Teresa Flood, and I have a very special guest with me today, Dr. Tony Bridwell. I met him at a Go Leadership event that we did just a month ago, and I want to tell you a little about him because his resume is incredibly impressive and he is a organizational intelligence and leadership expert. So all of you that are writing businesses, all of you in a leadership role, building culture in an organization, you have got to stay tuned into this. He is the author of eight books, including the Follower Effect and his new book that is coming out today. Everybody. Well, not today while we're recording it, but while you're listening it today called beyond the Leader. He has spoken in 44 countries around the world. He was named the 2015 HR Executive of the Year by Dallas HR. He's a Strategic Leadership Award winner, 2022 Top 50 HR Professionals. He is the former chief people officer at Ryan LLC at Brinker International, the senior partner at Culture Partners. Oh, my goodness, guys, the list goes on. He's the head of Leadership Innovation currently at B Encompass Group, and he an adjunct professor at smu. What did I miss? And you're an organ donor.

[B]

Yeah. I'm taking you with me everywhere I go that I, I, I just need people to go before me and interview. Just like that walk up music. That is so fantastic. Wow.

[A]

That and your husband and father.

[B]

I am.

[A]

You've done a few things.

[B]

All the things. Yeah, all the things. Thank you for having me.

[A]

Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited. And as I was crafting the questions for this interview, I got giddy because I thought, oh, my goodness. I just get to pick this amazing man's brain about leadership, culture building.

[B]

It may go the other way. Well, I may end up picking on picking your brain when you get in.

[A]

You know, we'll see.

[B]

That's what we do. Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so tell us just a little bit about your story and how you got into being in the roles and with the voice that you have on leadership.

[B]

I, I'm a big fan of story. I, I have a squiggly line story and I, I think it's so fascinating. I love to hear about people's stories and there seems to be this, this, you know, this paradox that people think, I need to have a straight line story. I need to go from here to here to here to here. I am a big Fan of this squiggly line story. I mean, if I look back, I was thinking about this because when you wrote the questions, you sent them over to me and I'm like, these are some really good questions. I so love these questions. You know, I am dyslexic and I'm old enough that when I was in school it was not something we knew a lot about from an education standpoint. Right. So for some reason I was always the kid who was behind. I. The joke in my family is when it came to our class, I was in the half that made the top half possible. Right. So somebody had.

[A]

Somebody's gotta do it.

[B]

Somebody's gotta do it.

[A]

You really contribution.

[B]

It was.

[A]

See that service, leadership.

[B]

I was there, right? I was there. But you know, I. I was always slower reader. And you know, every Friday when we had spelling test, it was the worst day of the week for me. They didn't figure out that I had dyslexia until my senior year of high school. Wow. Right. So my. I remember my high school counselor saying, you know, you should really think about something in the trades. Well, in the small town I grew up in in Oklahoma, I grew up in a small south Oklahoma town in the oil patch. Right. So Halliburton started in my hometown. So oil patch. So in our high school we had an option in our junior year to take half of our high school education in a vocational school so we could learn vocation. A vocation. And because, you know, the oil field was really big, our voc. Our vocational school was really huge. I mean you can learn welding and machine shop and all the things. Well, they also had mechanical drafting and architectural drafting. Well, so I didn't want to sit in class and do all of the other things. That was horrible. So I thought, I'm going to do vo tech. So I love to draw. So I went into the architectural drafting class. I thought because it would be super easy and I didn't have to do reading and all the other stuff. Well, come to find out, I actually ended up being pretty good at. And so in the vocational school network you have skill competition once a year. And so regions and states compete against. You know, all the schools in the state would compete, then those people would compete on a national level, blah, blah, blah. Well, in our competition for my senior year, I won at the state level. I was the top architectural drafts person in the state of Oklahoma, which afforded me a scholarship to Oklahoma State to study architecture. I thought, I have found my calling. I'm gonna be an architect. And Truly, I got out of school, and school. School was interesting for me. I didn't know how to do school, right? And that was. That was hard. I did not know how to do school at all. And so school kind of was interesting. I love the architectural part, but you.

[A]

Still have to do the school.

[B]

I got to do this other stuff, right? So I just kind of. I started in architecture, and I love the architectural part. And then somebody came and said, you know, you could play basketball for us. And so I went to a small Bible college in Houston. I studied theology, and I thought, well, this is what I want to do. I want to do this. But this whole reading thing kept getting in the way, right? I got to read, and I got to learn Greek, and I got to learn. I have a hard. Greek is like a dyslexic's worst nightmare, right? Because it's just bad enough, right? And then I thought, well, okay, I thought at one point I'd go into the ministry. And that lasted for, like, a hot second. And then I realized I actually had to make money to survive. So I thought I would. I would do. I would use what skills I had, and I would go find a job. And so I'm going to date myself here. But 40 years ago, I came down to Dallas and I got a job as. Now, it's interesting. We call them intern architects.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

The word internship means something a little bit different now. It was really an apprenticeship. You had to apprentice as a young architect and then grow into that. And I thought, I have found my calling. I'm here. I thought for sure, Theresa, I was going to be an architect.

[A]

What did you love about architecture?

[B]

Oh, the design, the creation, the details. Being able to take nothing and turn it into something that people were able to interact with.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. Matter of fact, here in Dallas, if you go up and down the Dallas Tollway, here in Dallas, oh, man, 20% of those buildings had my fingerprints on them. That's cool. As a young intern apprentice working in those buildings. And then the economy changed and architecture went away. The two architectural firms I worked for both went out of business. I know. And so now I'm like, I wanted to be an architect, but architecture left me. And I'm like, what do I do now? So here's what's interesting. Early in my career, I didn't even know I was doing it. And I give this counsel to people that I mentor now. I had to realize that, okay, I had this skill set, but this particular place left me. So how do I find Adjacent opportunities. And how do I apply that to other things? And so architecture led into project management in one industry, and that led into someone saying, hey, you're pretty good in front of our customers. Why don't you come with me on a sales call? And then someone said, oh, my gosh, you're actually pretty good with people. Maybe you should do this. And that led to sales, and sales led to something else. And the next thing you know, I am here. And if I had tried my best on my best day as a freshman in college to figure out that I would be here today, there is no way. Which I think is pretty interesting, too, because we put a lot of pressure on our college kids.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, starting junior year, high school, hey, where do you want to go to school? Number one, pressure. Number two pressure is I get in. And what do you want to major in?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What do you think the average is? What do you think the average. How many times do you think the kid changes majors in school? What do you think? Best bet?

[A]

I actually don't know.

[B]

Best guess? 4. Oh, it's. It's creeping up there. It's in the high twos.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

High twos. I changed four. Okay, so four was mine. My daughter changed two and a half.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Ish. But what happens is we try to get you to make a lifelong decision.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Declare a major, and you don't even.

[A]

Really know what that looks like in the real world. Thank you.

[B]

And look, there are. There's a generation entering into school right now that when they get to college, they will be faced with roles that. That don't even exist today.

[A]

Well, that's a good point. Right, Right.

[B]

And so we put a lot of pressure on this. And. And I, you know, maybe I came into this kind of backwards, but just by the grace of God, I was not smart enough to try to figure it out on my own. And so I kind of went. And I've got this squiggly line. And now I sit down and people say, well, okay, tell me how you got here. What is it that you do? You know, so my technical title is I'm an organizational behavioralist. Right. And so I lead a practice that consults with people and culture. And I really work every single day to help people optimize themselves personally, professionally, and organizationally. And I can look back, Teresa, now and say, okay, architecture helped me see a design, help me see the parts and pieces, help me see the beauty of how things go together. Theology really helped me understand, keep at a very empathetic, personal level. Business helped me navigate what it is that you struggle with every single day. Everything I have done along the way has somehow remarkably prepared me for you and me sitting in these chairs together today. Isn't that crazy?

[A]

So amazing.

[B]

It's such a wonderful grand design that often, if we will just pay attention to the path that we're on and realize that there's something in this path, whether in the pleasure or even in the suffering of the path.

[A]

Yeah. Nothing wasted.

[B]

Yes. So. So anyway, I. We could probably spend a whole podcast just talking about that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, you can ask me that question. One of these things. I want to sit down and ask you that question, how you got there.

[A]

I know my story. I don't bore the listeners here. Well, okay, so when you were speaking at our GO Network leadership meeting, you talked a lot about trust and about how trust is built, how trust is broken. It was really powerful. But my question is, how do you recognize when trust has been broken in an organization? Because I think sometimes it's very. If it's been broken for a long time, it's very obvious. Yeah, but what is the first signs, maybe as a leader, that you. You can look at an organization and say, we have a trust problem.

[B]

Yeah. Trust is this fascinating word. How many times a day do you think we'd use that word? Oh, I mean, it's kind of plots, right? We just. And this is just one of these throw out words that we just, you know, if you're in sales, you know, trust me. Right. It's like, you know, you're thinking, well, I've got to trust that that person's gonna stop at the light. And so this is a word that we come in contact with quite a bit. I have a whole chapter in my new book on this particular word, and there's a ton of studies on this particular word. The sad part is, at the end of the day, a lot of people inside organizations don't recognize that trust is broken because they don't understand trust to begin with. But then what happens is it has to get to a point that it's so bad. I mean, it has to escalate to get so bad that all of a sudden we sit back and go, well, this just isn't working. Right. Many people don't. If you and I were together, 10 people up and say, give me your definition of trust, we would get 10, maybe 11 different answers. Different answers on what that means. And often the biggest challenge we have is because you and I might have different conversations. I may think trust is really bad. And you may think it's not bad at all. Right. And so there's this confusion that happens often, though it manifests when the brilliant jerk shows up. Right. The brilliant jerk is this term that I've coined after doing a lot of study on it. Being in HR tends to be one of the things that pops up quite a bit. The toxic person shows up and they're burning the place down. Right. And just by me saying the brilliant jerk, there's probably people listening to this. Immediately somebody flashes in their mind, oh, I know that person.

[A]

We've all known one.

[B]

Exactly. And that's normally the first time that people get an inkling that trust has probably been damaged inside the organization. There's four seeds of trust, Right? There's four components of trust. Do you remember these? This is like a test.

[A]

I do.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I think.

[B]

Yeah. Okay, go.

[A]

Okay, so character.

[B]

Very good.

[A]

Consistency.

[B]

Very good.

[A]

Competence.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Hang on. Character, consistency, confidence, and. Probably starts with a C. I got that. I know. I'm under the gun now. So hang on. Character, consistency, competence and. Oh, for crying out loud.

[B]

It's probably the one that's the most important to you. Compassion.

[A]

Oh, compassion, yes.

[B]

Or sometimes it's referred to as care or benevolence. But benevolence doesn't start with a seed. So I don't use that word.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Because I keep them all.

[A]

So I think, I think character is my number one.

[B]

Yeah. Character is my number one. Yeah. So it's interesting, all four of these components, these seeds, are important to all of us. Research says that we all have a need for all of these. But one of those, whether it be character, which tends to be the. I refer to it as the break glass one. Yeah, right. I mean, you're going to see a high proportion of people that say, hey, if you don't act in a way that's integrous and ethical and morally right, if you don't act that way around me, chances are trust is going to drop.

[A]

We're never crossing, we're never passing.

[B]

Exactly, exactly. But that one tends to be a break class that most people have. But for some people, if you don't treat me in a way that shows care and compassion and benevolence, that you're going to take care of me, man, you could be out.

[A]

Doesn't matter what you say.

[B]

Exactly, right, Exactly. And so what's very interesting is often we can walk around thinking, hey, people are consistently showing up, and so we don't see things as going wrong, but the people around us may need People to care for them or they may need more competence. And in their view, they're going things around here, I just can't trust this person. Right. And so you get all of these different viewpoints and you get a lot of confusion inside organizations. One of the greatest exercises any team can do is just sit down, have a conversation, get level set on what it actually means to trust. So there's a definition that I teach that is probably the most consistent. And it is the confidence that you have in someone or something else to deliver on a promise in a way that shows care or compassion for me. Right. So it's the confidence I have in you or something else that they're going to deliver on the promise that their promise that they've made in a manner that shows care and compassion toward me. And if that is our overarching definition, it really does change how we interact with people on a regular basis.

[A]

And I think as a leader, as you mentioned, so important to know how you're going to lose trust with somebody.

[B]

Wow. Yes.

[A]

So in Keller Williams we have a process called career visioning. And in the interview process, one of the questions that you do in the expectation interview, before you even do day one with a new hire is how do I win with you and how do I lose with you?

[B]

Oh, it's so good.

[A]

And that really is. I've never thought about it in quite the terms of trust, but that is, how do I break trust with you and how do I prove myself to you?

[B]

There you go.

[A]

And both the leader and the person being led, the new hire, are going to answer those questions. Oh, that's okay. You have to know it on both sides.

[B]

And if you listen to how they answer, I would be shocked if it didn't fall into one of those four categories.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely right.

[B]

And so, you know, knowing that up front, level setting on that language and being. And even if win with you, lose with you, even if, even if you have that language, but you say, hey, look, this is basically going to be one of four categories.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It really does change the dynamics on how we communicate. I had, and I told this story when we were together last time, but I had a young man come up to me after working with the leadership team and he said, Dr. Brudo, I've been trying to gain the trust back of one of my colleagues for several months. Somehow I broke trust that I've been trying to gain the trust back and for six months nothing I have done has worked. He would give me some advice and so I simply asked him, well, you know, what word is most important to you? All those words are important on a subconscious level, all those words are important. But which word really stands out? He says, it's compassion. I said, okay, that's fantastic. What's his word? And that's. When he looked at me, he said, I really don't know. I said, well, that could be part of the problem. You know, you're most likely. Because the word that's important to us is normally how we manifest going forward. Right. How we try to build trust.

[A]

So then was the consultation to go back and ask him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What his.

[B]

Yeah. To dig deeper. And what made it easier is that we just spent a day talking about that. So now it was easier to go back to this individual and say, hey, look, after today, I just realized what you weren't.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And now they're able to have a little bit different. Different conversations.

[A]

But. And it's also not a personal conversation. It's a principled conversation where everybody can kind of. It's less finger pointing and blame and less emotional.

[B]

Yeah. He had been trying to show how much he cared for this individual, but that other person's word was confidence. And he needed to know that he could do, he could depend that he could do the work that he was asking to do. So it just changes the dynamics of that.

[A]

So powerful. So I'm going to encourage everybody listening to go back to your teams and to put this into action and have that conversation around. The four things could be one of.

[B]

The most powerful things you do.

[A]

Awesome.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so let's talk about. So a lot of people listening are going to be in sales and they're needing to establish trust with a client quickly. They walk in, let's say, to a listing presentation or they're making a call and they're needing to develop this within seconds. Minutes.

[B]

You don't have minutes.

[A]

How do we have. How do we create trust immediately?

[B]

Such a good question. You know, I, I think that if you answer this for your listeners, they may actually have a competitive advantage because not everybody thinks about this. You're really onto something. So the brain science says that in less than a split second. So think about a second. That quick. Less than that. Your brain is actually processing. When you come into the presence of another human, your brain is processing two components. Right. And when we study this from a brain science standpoint, this goes way back. I mean, we've been doing this for a long time, right. The two components that we're constantly aware of at a subconscious level. So when I Come in contact with you. There's two things immediately that I notice about you. Your warmth and your strength. These are the two components that your brain is processing when I walk into your presence.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay. So when I say that quick, it's faster than that. Wow. Okay. That your brain is processing. How warm are you and how strong are you?

[A]

How does strong look? Yeah, I think warm is easier to say. How does he define warm?

[B]

Somebody, how would you define warm?

[A]

Well, now you put me on the spot. I think to me warmth would be an ease.

[B]

Okay. Keep going.

[A]

Non pretentious. Not feeling aggressive or feeling safe.

[B]

Yes. And.

[A]

And somebody I could feel comfortable with. Somebody that's smiling.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Somebody that is.

[B]

So you're naming a lot of the great behaviors.

[A]

Non proud. I mean, you know, not arrogant.

[B]

At the end of the day you're describing is somebody that when I walk into your presence, at some level, I get a sense that you're for me, not against me.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And that you care for me and may actually show compassion, benevolence to me.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So what's happening is one of the key indicators that our brain is looking for is do you care for me? Are you for me or are you against me?

[A]

Friend or foe?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Right. And so you, you name some of the great behaviors. Am I smiling when I walk up? Because your brain is processing that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, is it, is it inviting? And we use this word warmth because we feel cozy, we feel safe. You mentioned that. Right. Now the other one is strength. Right, Right. So how do you think strength shows up? What would be some ways that strength would show up?

[A]

So I think when I think of strength, I think of confidence.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Not arrogance, but confidence.

[B]

Okay, so you just hit on something very powerful right there. What you just said is so powerful. Confidence. There are many elements of what we do every single day that are superpowers. Confidence is a superpower. Right. But any superpower over indexed becomes kryptonite.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So confidence over index becomes arrogance. Very good. And so if I over index on my strength, if I come off as too strong, then my brain is processing not for me. This person can overtake me. This is why it'll process warmth first, Are you for me or against me? And then strength second. Because if I don't feel you're for me and you're strong, survival says you're not my person. You're not part of. Because at this point I'm like, yeah, that's not me. I don't know that I can trust you.

[A]

So is there a Correlation. Would you say that compassion and character represent the warmth and then confidence represents the strength and consistency can only be proven over time, or can consistency. Can you see that somebody is consistent based on reputation?

[B]

I suppose reputation's going to enter in front. Right.

[A]

So that's why rules are powerful.

[B]

Exactly. That story is going to get there at a time.

[A]

Essentially.

[B]

It is very good. It is, it is borrowed trust. And at some point, though, that borrowed trust is going to. Somebody's going to come in and immediately start processing that. Right. You're going to get one or two options to prove that out. That's kind of where this idea of faith coming in comes in. Because at that point, I'm giving you the benefit of doubt. I've. I've heard a story, or even if I haven't heard a story, I'm going to give you some benefit of the doubt that's going to get me there. So this strength really comes back to how competent do you come across immediately? Right. So a lot of times the strength is going to be in. Is it. Is it an upright posture? Is it a firm handshake? Is there this level of confidence in your competence that shows up? And here's what's crazy. Your brain is doing that math without you even knowing it. So this whole trust idea is. I mean, it is so quick. It is happening so fast. And you know, we've heard this at least I've heard it all my life is, you know, there's nothing more powerful than the first impression.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. Or you don't get a second chance at a first impression. I think sometimes we minimize that. Right. And your brain does it. Your brain is doing the math right off the bat. And it's saying, how warm are you and how strong are you? And it's measuring your strength. Are you for me or against me, Ward? And if you're against me, if you're strong, if you're too strong, I may. I may envy that strength, but I may not want to run into that strength.

[A]

So you're, you're. If you miss the boat on that first impression, it's an uphill climb. Not that it can't be reestablished or it's fun. Yeah.

[B]

But it's. Take time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And in the world of sales, you don't have time. Exactly.

[A]

You may not better become very good at follow up.

[B]

That's. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly right. Have you found that to be true in your business?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I can usually tell very quickly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If I'm in an uphill appointment or a downhill appointment.

[B]

Oh, what's the indicators for you? That's fascinating.

[A]

I don't. That's a really good question. I don't know if I could say that there is a specific thing.

[B]

It's how they respond to you.

[A]

It's how they. For sure. I mean, it's how they respond. So I would say there's. There's a reciprocation even just in how somebody is sitting, whether leaning forward or sitting back. The kinds of questions that they. Or the lack of questions. Yes, those types of things you can typically tell you you can't if you're and brains process. Read a book recently called the Full Fee Agent. It's specifically geared towards realtors. Talks about tactical empathy and he talks about being the can't remember, the fool, the something or the fool. And so essentially, almost all clients know before they meet with you whether they are going to say yes or no.

[B]

Interesting. Oh, my gosh, it's so fast.

[A]

It's a really good book. It's written by.

[B]

It's true.

[A]

It's written by. Never split the difference.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Author.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that's some really good sentence.

[B]

Ringside standpoint.

[A]

Savor to the full.

[B]

The favor. Yeah.

[A]

Favor to the full.

[B]

Yeah. So interestingly, there's three components at play when trust comes into. Comes in. There's the truster, there's the trustee, and then there's the surrounding culture, a surrounding environment.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Right. And so if I am the one extending trust, I am going to show up in a warm and confident, you know, not over strong, not under strong. I don't want to seem wimpy, right. But I'm going to show up in a confident way. That's my extension to you now, your reception of that your brain is going to do the math. Right. In a split second. Now, based off prior experiences and prior stories that I have consumed. Now, you had an opportunity to see this. The way culture works is everything starts with story. And we're bombarded with these stories. Those stories form how we think. Our mindset or our beliefs, our values, our biases, our attitudes, all that resides in our mindset. That mindset drives our behavior and that produces an outcome. And an outcome always tells a story. And so that's constantly at play. Now, if in the world of buying and selling homes, if the stories that I have been, you know, involved with in the past haven't been fantastic, then I walk into my encounter with you. You're extending trust. But my trust is already somewhat skewed because My belief is my last experience with an individual with this title did not go well. So you're starting at a deficit right on the bat.

[A]

Right, Right.

[B]

You're starting at a deficit. And so that's probably what you're picking up on. And you know, one way to get over that is, and you probably do this almost instinctively in your business, is when you're finding out from this individual, you know, what's been your past experience with Realtors, what's been your passive, how many homes have you bought or sold or how many homes has your parents bought or sold or that you have experienced or whatever the case may be that gives you some indication right off the bat what story might be in their head. That's good, because what'll happen is you walk in with the belief that we're on level ground, I'm going to extend trust, you're going to receive trust, and it's going to be equal. And you may do everything right. You may smile, you may be confident, you may be warm, and you may extend just the right amount of strength. But if this other person holds a belief that you're just here to sell me something, then they're going to be much more blinded. Right. And trust is going to be very held back. Right. They're not going to extend it. It's going to be very held back. And you start to pick up on that. It's like, wow, you know, they're not asking questions, they're just looking down. They seem to be very distracted or whatever the case may be. And often that that can be driven because they hold a balloon well.

[A]

And tying it back into the leadership conversation, you think, what kind of percentage of the population.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Has had bad experiences with leadership? Bad bosses. Bad leaders in their life, even just looking at leaders in the world and having bad experiences or bad thoughts around that. And so I would almost say most leaders probably walk in at a deficit and have to bridge that gap with that consistency over time.

[B]

We did this when we were together. We played a little game to where I had you write down emotion.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. And the average adult, we're all, you know, 70% of our day is governed by emotion. Right, Right. Well, the science says that you skewed negatives. Yeah, right. Of the 500 researched emotion words, 67% of them are considered negative. So we skew that way automatically.

[A]

I did not like that because I was called the upside. I know more of my words were negative. I was surprised. Consider my. A very positive person. Positive person.

[B]

What was your first word? Though.

[A]

Oh, I don't remember. I. I honestly don't remember. Probably happy.

[B]

It was.

[A]

Probably happy.

[B]

It was. Yeah, it was.

[A]

Matter of fact, I went through like that. Happy, mad, sad.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, and those are the four.

[B]

Most common words that an adult.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Can recite. Happy, sad, mad, angry. So even those four most common. One, positive, negative. Right.

[A]

Three to one.

[B]

Three to one. And so that tells us something very interesting that, you know, we might skew that way, but that doesn't mean we have to stay that way.

[A]

Right.

[B]

However, if I'm coming into a first time encounter with an individual, I have to be aware enough to realize that they're more likely than not to come into this with a negative emotion attached to their day. And so you're working to overcome that. You're working to kind of navigate through that.

[A]

So would you say that warmth and strength are what makes somebody charismatic? Do you think that's different?

[B]

Oh, that's a. That's a fantastic question. It can. Yes. Right. Because how. So define charismatic.

[A]

I think some to be charismatic would be presence, attractiveness, somebody that draws people in, that has an energy about them. I don't think charismatic necessarily has to be bouncing off the walls. High energy, big person out. That can be charism. Absolutely. Somebody's very funny, can be charismatic.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But to me, charismatic would be more the energy, the presence.

[B]

You know, there's a. There's a Pied Piper effect and a charismatic effect that does play out when we studied leadership. And the charismatic leader is somebody that a lot of people want to follow.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. Which is, which is very interesting because charisma or high energy can be both good and bad.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Because you can be very charismatic and drag people into the ditch. Right. And so there is a level of energy that comes with charisma, but you also have to look under the hood a little bit. And is that energy backed by compassion? Right. And character.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because energy without character is really dangerous. Right.

[A]

Well, you see so many people, I'm sure, in any industry.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They come on strong.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

All the intensity they have wins right out of the gate.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then in six months, where is this person? What is this person doing? Because the, the character doesn't match the climb.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

And the. And, and it's short.

[B]

That's why I said all four of those are real. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. What is the biggest blind spot even a healthy organization has? Well, where a common blind spot may be that a healthy organization might not even know they have.

[B]

Yeah. That we've learned all there Is to know that. And I would say that we fully understand how culture works. One of the blind spots that we see often in my world, in my business, my phone normally rings when people break things, right? So a person has come in and created havoc, or we're not getting the results that we want. Although I've recently had some individuals call and say, our culture's really not broken, but we want to make sure it stays that way. And so we could do some culture hygiene, which is really fantastic. And when we start going in, doing culture hygiene work, meaning just take, you know, we go to the dentist, we go to the doctor and everything. But how often do we stop and check on the health and hygiene of our team culture or organization culture? And one of the biggest blind spots that we find when we going to work on that is that leaders, teams, they don't even really fully understand how culture works. So that's really number one. And number two, one of the big blind spots is we know all there is to know. And that's really one of the doctoral classes I teach is organizational learning. And even at a doctoral level, I am often surprised that students that are coming up, I mean, they've gone through grad, now they're in this deeper level, how little they really how. How little awareness they have on the impact and the need for learning. And we feel that I'm good or I'm. I know all there is. You know, I think that's a. I think that's a pretty massive blind spot.

[A]

So when you're talking about building culture, I think so many organizations stumble into some culture things accidentally, as opposed to building it intentionally. And also the word culture is not good or bad in and of itself. So we have culture. Well, everybody has culture, whether you like it or not. Yeah, you have toxic culture, you can have apathetic culture, you can have productive culture. And so as a leader, you know, I'm always looking at, okay, we're strong in these areas of culture, right. And where are weak spots that we can go be intentional? What would you say the number one or two? Or what would be some practical ways where you see a gap in culture? And you can say, as a leader, I'm going to go in and I'm going to do these kinds of the framework to build culture in a specific way?

[B]

It's a fantastic question. So you said this, and you said it really well. Every organization has one, whether you like it or not. And what you need to realize is that your culture is perfectly aligned to get whatever outcomes you're getting today. So whatever you're getting today, your culture's perfectly aligned to get that. Now, I will back that up and put an asterisk on that and say sometimes success can be a really bad teacher. Because if we're getting, quote, unquote, the outcomes we want, right? We get all our sales numbers, you know, bookings are up and referrals are up, and all of the. All the KPIs are up. We look at that and go, well, things must be good. But if I'm bleeding talent and if nobody will talk to each other, and if every day feels like I'm having to muscle my way to get there, then there's something in that culture that is fundamentally broken. However, the way you've designed it, you're delivering. And that means that you're going to have to keep muscling, keep muscling, keep muscling along the way. And so understanding how culture works, the biggest mistake organizations make is that when they're not getting the outcome they want, they go to the simplest, quickest, fastest place to work culture, and that is behavior. So if you think of. If you think of culture like a wheel, right? It's a. It's a cycle. At 12 o' clock is story. Okay? Okay. Culture starts with story. We're constantly bombarded with story. And then if you move from 12 o' clock down to 3 o'. Clock. Dyslexic. Being dyslexic sometimes can be bad, right?

[A]

When you question yourself, I start to question myself.

[B]

I know I almost had to look at my watch. But down to three o' clock from story, story forms our mindset, how we think. Okay. Mindset Travels down to 6 o'. Clock. That drives our behavior. Behavior Travels up to 9 o'. Clock. That produces an outcome. And then an outcome completes the cycle. An outcome always tells a story. So what happens, Teresa, is that when we're not getting the outcome we want, we tend to go work behavior because it's the closest one. And we just simply call this behavior modification. We all do it. If you're a parent, you've done it. You've ever been a child, you've had it. Hey, you're doing it wrong. Do it this way, right? And so we work behavior, and we do it because it's close, because we see it. And if we are truthful with ourselves, it actually works. If I can tell you what to go do. Very transactional, by the way. It's also very exhausting because you're constantly having to do what?

[A]

Tell them what to do.

[B]

Exactly. Over and over and over and over again. But to really work culture and to have something that's sustainable, you have to work further back and you have to understand what are they thinking and what got them there to begin. Or it's the origin story that ultimately got there to begin with.

[A]

I love that. Okay, so one of the things I I definitely want to ask you about is you have a podcast with your daughter, your adult daughter.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I listened to a couple episodes and what it was very aware to me that you guys have a great relationship and if you don't, it's great acting. So I could tell that there was a lot of love between you and her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm currently parenting Tommy and I 13 year old twin girls.

[B]

Oh wow. Twin girls.

[A]

Twin girls. Two very different little humans. And I want to know as a parent and you're a teacher by nature.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I'm a teacher by nature too. So I have to watch going into lecture mode or over teaching over training. I want to know how my adult daughters want to come talk to me and get advice from mom. Just like your daughter wants to get advice from dad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She trusts you. There's clearly relationship and you have influence in her life. And so how do I parent 13 year old girls where the majority of time parents lose influence in this season? Coach me.

[B]

That's such a fantastic question. Allie was actually 13 when we did our first breakfast date. And it was almost out of survival more than anything.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I'll never forget mom came in my studies one Saturday morning and said, you need to take your daughter out of this path or she's not going to make it to 14. An ownership change. It's like, wait a minute, ownership just changed your daughter? My daughter. And it was just one of those mornings that 13 year old hormones were going one day. Now hormones are going the other way. And so just being not, you know, super smart, I just said hey, let's go, let's just leave the house and let's just go have breakfast somewhere. So we got in my truck, we drove down to the first place we came to, which happened neighborhood in Chick Fil a. It's probably my second time. Never walk into a Chick Fil a. And I stood there just looking.

[A]

Did you make it to 13? Probably the second time you walked in Chick fil a?

[B]

That's a good question. I probably addicted to McDonald's.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I don't hate a McDonald's place.

[B]

I know.

[A]

So.

[B]

So you know, we're sitting there and I We. We laugh about this now, but it was probably one of the more awkward moments of our, you know, relationship. We didn't say anything. We just sit there and looked at each other. Drinking straight up hardcore sweet tea at the time.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And we would have, like, two of those suckers that like how I didn't end up being diabetic from all the sweet tea. Yeah. In the early days, the. But coming home, we were driving home, and I just, you know, she was so mad. And it was just one of those moments that, by God's grace, I was just smart enough not to say anything and just kind of let her be at that time. And maybe it was just because I was just scared more than anything. It's like, wait a minute. I don't want to break something here, so I'm just not going to say anything. But coming home, I was feeling a little chippy, and I said, well, that was fun. She didn't say anything. She's looking out in the front team looking out the window. And we got home and I said, you're gonna do it again next week. And she said something that changed everything from that going that point, going forward. She said, sure. And that was the only word she said the whole time. Sure. And that turned into every Saturday morning. She's 34, and we still have breakfast every Saturday. That's really cool. And we just talk about life. And I let her do a lot of it. Now, we started something when the kids were young that allowed us to have these conversations so they're not forced. Everybody does a little different. I come in contact a lot of people that do some variation of this, but we do high, low. Some people do hi, low, Buffalo and Florence. Right. But we do hilo that has. That has guided our conversations for 20 years. You know, what's been the high part of your week? It's been the low part of your week. And what'd you learn? That took so much pressure off of me to have to have all the right answers. Because a lot of times it was just, listen.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then at one point she said, dad, what would you do? And that changed everything. But I did my dead level best because, look, as a dad, I think the normal tendency, at least it is for me, is to wear the tool belt and to always have the answer. And I've had to learn along the way that sometimes the answer is just to sit there and let them work the answer out, which is really hard. But having this conversation, hey, what's been the high part of your week? What's been the low part of your week has really been life changing. We can get into that conversation so quickly now that we don't even have to ask the question sometimes. But on the podcast, we'll get very. Now, I've changed it over the years, and if you've listened to recent episodes, as I was doing my doctoral research, what I discovered is that emotions are very important to us. And so now I make her list her high emotion and her low emotion.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

She's not allowed to use the same word twice.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So we carry an emotion with us and we have an app that we can go on and look at different words because talking about the experiences of life are really important, but at the end of the day, you've got to really be able to unpack those emotions. This is why a lot of times our kids really struggle because their vocabulary isn't fully formed. As adults, we can only name four words sometimes. And so when we sit down, we get really frustrated. Tell me what you're feeling. I don't know what I'm feeling. I feel sad. And because their vocabulary is two words deep.

[A]

That's such a good point. And I've thought about it when I'm trying to get my kids to explain what kind of upset stomach they have.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And they have no frame of reference about what nausea is. Cramps. I mean, it's.

[B]

They haven't gone to that.

[A]

Thought about it quite. From the emotional perspective.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

Which is more powerful.

[B]

Right. And so they're building that. And if I could do a rewind. Well, if I could do a rewind. There's a lot of things. I think of Mulligan on a lot of things. Matter of fact, I apologize to my kids quite a bit. I am so sorry I screwed you up.

[A]

Yes, yes. I'm just gonna add it to the therapy bill.

[B]

Yeah, no kidding. Um, but we work on this. What's been your high emotion? What's been your. She says plenty of times. Matter of fact, did you listen to some of the recent episode? She will say, dad, I don't want to do this. Why? She said this hard. I said, well, that's the point.

[A]

We've got Pastor life.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Right. And so adulting. Adulting can be hard. But it's to the point now that, quite frankly, I get more out of what she's teaching.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's, It's. It's been a wonderful journey. I will say that for a parent that is wanting to go down a similar journey, consistency is. Is an important Seed of trust for kids. And that's one that. That's a lesson I learned the hard way. Right. Consistency. Because I traveled a lot when the kids were younger, and I probably not. Probably wasn't there as much as I should have been. And so there was a consistency gap. So this Saturday morning is. Was a very important component.

[A]

Well, there's not many people besides our spouse and our kids that see us every day.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And so that consistency, if there's not consistency, they're the ones that are going to see it.

[B]

That's right. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. I want to talk about followership because I love this topic.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So quickly tell everybody what is the principle of followership in regards to leadership? Nobody talks about followership.

[B]

Your listeners are actually getting, like an MBA level course on this podcast. This is so fantastic. So when I started my doctoral research, my professors asked me, what do you want to study? And as a chief people officer of, you know, two global organizations, one of the biggest challenges that HR always faces is the toxic person is the toxic individual. And the toxic individual is the person who. We call them the brilliant jerk that we talked about earlier because, you know, they have some level of brilliance. Big book of business, the most listings, the most sales, the most referrals, the longest tenure. But yet they're burning the place down. Nobody wants to work with them, nobody wants to hang out with them. And so we don't know what to do with them. So HR would always get the call, bridville, come in here and help with Frank. Frank's my imaginary person. Come help Frank. And we'd go coach Frank and talk to Frank. And then Frank's manager would always show up and say, bridville, look, you're overblowing this. Frank has the biggest book of business. Frank's been here 20.

[A]

It's untouchable.

[B]

Frank is untouchable. And so we would get the brush off. You know, you're overblowing this. That's just how Frank is. That's just Frank. Right. And we'd get blown up. And so when I started my research, my professors said, what do you want to study? And I said, I really want to help Frank. I want to figure out the brilliant joke. And foolishly I said, and I think I know the answer. Which, if you really want to get your professors to laugh, then that's. That's what you want to do. You want to start your doctoral program and say, yeah, I think I know the answer.

[A]

Prove myself.

[B]

I know, I know I'm going to prove myself. Right? And they just grinned. They laugh just like you. I was just recently in Nashville a couple weeks ago and presented to all the professors of the doctoral program, which was very intimidating because half of them graded my papers when I was in school, right? So I'm like, oh, my gosh. Wow. It was a very intimidating time, but it was also very fulfilling because they were very patient with me as I went on that journey. And I discovered that it wasn't about leadership at all. And, you know, we've been studying leadership for over 5,000 years. I mean, there's carvings on walls of, you know, leadership development programs for pharaohs and kings, et cetera, et cetera. But along the way, I came across another word that you mentioned, followership, which if you Google the word leadership, you're going to get 4 billion responses. If you Google the word followership, you're lucky if you get 4 billion responses. It's not something that we've spent a lot of time studying formally, academically, for maybe 30, 40 years, we've studied it. But if you query people and ask them, define a follower, you're more likely than not to have somebody define being a follower in a very negative or passive form. And followership, being a follower really falls on a continuum. You could be passive, but you could also be very active. And that was a. That was a little bit of an aha when we started looking at this. And some of the fantastic researchers that have been laying the. The foundation for this did the heaviest lift. And I'm very fortunate that my research was able to stand on the shoulders of some fantastic people. But in the early, in the early studies, we saw leadership and followership as being two separate constructs. You're either one or the other. And we started really digging into it. And I'm not the first one to discover this, but it's certainly not been talked about much. But when you really dig into it, the reality is you're not either or you're both, and that you as an individual are either leading or following all the time. Even if you have the highest title, at some point, you have to move into this mode. And so we call it the follower effect, which means that there is this inseparable duality. Said another way, you're both and. And you can't get away from it. And what the research proved out, and it was somewhat novel research, what the research proved out is when you're effective in follower mode, you're more likely to be transformative when you're in leader mode, but when you're ineffective in follower mode, you are more likely to be the toxic leader when in leader mode. So it really wasn't about your leadership, it was all about how well you followed.

[A]

So. Interesting. So I was in my current role, I started in 2013 as the assistant team leader at Dallas Preston Road. And I was always, I always joked at the time my job was to make Brett Caldwell look good and that was a hard job. I'm kidding. It wasn't. But I was a great assistant team leader and I, I actually at that time, I have a squiggle squiggle story too. I never aspired to be the next to be the leader. I've always considered myself more of a great number two, more of a leader, follower. Never thought about it in that way. And I know the reason that I'm good in my role now is because I was good in the role I had before and I learned that, that followership and was able to excel there. I've just never thought about it quite in those terms. And then I think as I'm a leader and I'm looking for people to raise up as leaders, it's the ones that, that adopt, that follow well, that get on the bus, that are. It actually creates the leadership. It does, it's so, it's, it's, it does. It's.

[B]

Yeah. Well, at a subconscious level when we look at people, we're looking at that warmth and we're looking at that strength. Part of, part of that observation is we're. When we're looking at your strength and your warmth, what we're really doing is we're trying to assess how well you follow. Right. Because if you're over strong then from in leader mode, you're going to be overbearing. So we're really summing up, are you for me? And we're looking at those, we're looking at those followership attributes in the early moments of coming in contact with somebody, this was so alarming. And I say alarming because the first person that I held the mirror up to was myself. And I realized, holy snap, in my early career I wasn't even brilliant, I was just jerk. And it was so sobering. And a lot of people when I wrote the Follower Effect, and it's a parable, it's a story that teaches. And when I wrote that, people say, who'd you have in mind? I say, well, you know, there's a little bit of me in all the characters, but. And the main character that was the brilliant jerk, there's probably more me in there than anything else. And People ask me why I write and frequently I will say to remind myself of the journey that I've been on. And it's a little bit like reading my own personal journal sometimes that I'm just sharing with everybody else, but it's kind of a reminder to me. But this idea of being a better follower in order to be a better leader is pretty impactful. And there's three attributes that we look at now. Sometimes people will say, well, isn't that being a servant leader? And there's similarities, but there are nuances. Servant leader is when you're in leader mode, what are you doing? Followership or the follower effect is when you're in follow up mode, what are you doing? And there is a nuance, there is a difference there. And we do move in and out.

[A]

Now when you both, you can't have ego.

[B]

Oh well, yes, absolutely. Well, and look, if I, if, if I have ego and follower mode, it will, it will burn me down when I get in leader mode. Yeah, by, by large amount. Now, earlier in your career as an individual contributor, I may not have any direct reports. A lot of people say, well, this doesn't apply to me because I'm an individual contributor. I don't have any direct reports. But I promise you, you're moving in and out of being either a leader or a follower at any given time, whether it be at home or with your clients or whatever the case may be. And as we move into that first frontline supervisor, middle management role, you move in and out very fast and we're going in and out very, very fast. And then as we move up into our roles and in the role that you're in right now, you're still moving in and out. The cycle is just a little slower.

[A]

You still have leaders unfollow.

[B]

Exactly right. And so it's just a little bit slower, but you're moving in and out constantly. And so what we, and again, some of the fantastic research by some of the giants in the, in the research world has identified these attributes. Being an independent critical thinker. Right. So in follower mode, I'm curious, I'm looking inward and if I challenge it is to move the mission forward, not to miss my agenda forward. So I look internally first that independent critical thinker. And I'm asking myself, am I holding on to something here too hard? And so independent critical thinker and then mission focus. Well, if you're an independent critical thinker, you are curious, you're looking internally, that's very effective. If I'm ineffective, I can Be very passive. I just walk in and say, boss, just tell me what to do, I just go do it. Or I can be very fixed. Yeah, that's not how we do it around here. So in follower mode, I become very fixed or I just become very passive. It's very ineffective. Which by the way, I will say this. The passive follower allows the brilliant jerk to flourish. And so it's interesting that we have this joint responsibility that I may be moving in and out of leader or follower mode, but when I'm in follower mode, if I am passive, when I'm in follower mode, I am opening door for another individual who in leader mode is the brilliant jerk. And that brilliant jerk then takes advantage. And then I empower that individual by being passive when I'm in follower mode. So there is this inseparable duality that I'm moving in and out. But there's also this responsibility that I have when I'm moving in and out of so independent critical thinkers. First one, mission focused is the second one. I'm very effective when I see the bigger enterprise. When I'm ineffective, I'm very self focused. I don't care what the practice goal is. I'm just focused on life, right. And I've become very self centered on this. And then the last one is being an active partner. I'm sure that at times you've had to make decisions that not everyone agrees with. Sure. Well, if I'm in follower mode, if you as a leader have made a decision, if I'm in follower mode, active partner means I'm in. I may not fully agree, but I'm in because you have made a decision and we have agreed that you're making that decision. And so I'm in active partner. Effective, ineffective is I become an active component competitor to that decision which to.

[A]

Take us full circle. That's why you better have trust.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Or you'll never have a culture of followers.

[B]

Oh, it all connects. It's like in glove. Right. All of these things work together. When I'm. When I'm doing leadership and followership very well and I'm moving in and out of leadership followership very well, I am more likely to produce those four seeds. But when one of those is broken, those four Cs are going to be diminished. Which those four seeds by the way, are not the only leading indicator, but a leading indicator to psychological safety which is so important inside organizations. So it's a whole system, It's a whole thing.

[A]

I'm geeking out. I could talk to you about this all day long.

[B]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

And today's a big day for you. The day that this podcast is dropping is a big day because it's the launch of your latest book.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Beyond the Leader.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Tell everybody. Why should. I mean, they're going to know why they should order this book after listening to you, this podcast. But give them just a highlight of who this book was written for and how it will.

[B]

Well, I wrote it for change. I wrote it for me, but I'm sharing it with everybody else. Right.

[A]

Rory Vaden says you're most powerfully positioned to help the person you once were.

[B]

Oh, my gosh, that's brilliant. Yes. So all of my work, I try to help people personally, professionally, and organizationally. And so when I wrote the Follower Effect, that was really about the person. The second half of that book, if I'd written it all at once, it had been 500 pages. Nobody reads a five. Well, I read 500 page books, but not the average person would do. So this is the second part of that. Beyond the Leader is really. It's a fable about the seven disciplines that define extraordinary teens. And so how do I take this leadership and followership idea and put it into a team and make that team extraordinary? Now, there's a word that I did not say, because this is really about optimizing teams. And a lot of times we miss how teams really work and we misidentify teams. We don't do it maliciously, but we misidentify. The team has two halves engage. The team is engaged, engagement and execution. Team's got to be able to go get stuff done. Right. So there's these two halves and they have to come together. What holds them together is connection. They're almost like magnets that's trying to pull apart. And so what holds them together is connection. And connection is the discipline of knowing how to move in and out, of leading and following. So if you think about that as the connector that holds engagement and execution together. There's three disciplines that allows a team to be fully engaged, and there's three disciplines that allows a team to execute at its highest level. Now, if a team is really engaged but can't execute, sometimes people joke to say, well, that's hr, right? I mean, they're super fun to be around. Everybody wants to go to happy hour with this team. They just can't get stuff done. But, man, they know how to have a good time. They're super engaged. But if a team can execute but they're not engaged, we actually have a name for that too. Sadly, Teresa, we call that team effective because we simply look through a very narrow lens and we say that team executed because they pick your poison. They hit the number, they got a time on the. You know, we had four KPIs. They hit all four KPIs. Right. And so we call that team effective because they got stuff done. But if you open the aperture and look at what cost, because if you execute without being engaged, there is a cost to your execution. But sadly, we sit there and go, well, man, they're just super effective. They get stuff done and we just keep feeding them.

[A]

And then sometimes we use that as the model for how everybody else should thank you.

[B]

Right. And we say, oh, this is the best practice. And then in the process, they're burning the place down. Yeah, right. And it comes at a high cost of burnout or brownout. And it's just. It comes at a high cost. So I wrote the book to help organizations and teams and people that settle teams and lead teams to figure out how can I do both hand, not either or, but how do I do both hand and what holds it together. And so there's three disciplines that help you gauge, and there's three disciplines that help you execute. And it's held together with connection. And that's all about how to lead and how to follow effectively. And so in the book, I talk about followership. Yes. I also talk about some of the barriers that can get in the way of connection. But all of this is research based and backed by what the science says, that what will help me be better engaged changed, what will help me execute at a higher level. And so there's a ton of information in this super fast read. It's also a story, it's a parable. But at the end of the. Of every chapter, there's like, answers. Right. Because a lot of people just want the answers. Yeah, Right. So I started my last four books. I've had to. I've written eight. And my first four books were just straight up parables. And I thought, you need to go find the treasure. Yeah, the treasure's in here. Go look for the treasure. And some people go, fantastic book, but I'm a little lazy. Can you just give me the answer? Exactly. So I wrote Saturday Morning Tea, and it was a shorter format and it was still a story, but at the end of every chapter, I gave everybody the answers. And people were just like, going, this is my favorite book ever. I'm like, what do you like about it? Give me the answers. I'm like, oh, great, you read the story. Oh, yeah, the story was cool. But he gave me the answers.

[A]

And so let's remember the answers, because the story.

[B]

I know. Yes. From your lips to God's ears. Right.

[A]

Jesus did it that way after Bridwell, to borrow.

[B]

Yes. I'm a big fan of story.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so, yeah, it would. It would do my heart great joy. It would fill my heart with great joy if people bought it and if they were able to actually get nuggets out of it and then take it. Look, most teams are not broken. There's just a discipline that can be enhanced that would help them be more optimal. And it's different for every team. You know what? We have a assessment that we can actually give teens that would allow them to see which discipline may be just off. And it's like, you're not broken. It's just, how do you create a little bit better discipline? And we do this in life all the time. I need to have a better discipline in eating or I need to have a better discipline in my working out and everything. It doesn't mean I'm broken. It just means I need to work on this discipline a little bit. And so that's why the book is. There's a simplicity to it. Our clients love it when we teach this. Our clients are just all over this. And what's beautiful is that it's not one size fits all. You may read it and go, wow, this is the discipline for me and my team that I really need to work on. Someone else will read it and they'll find something else.

[A]

So, yeah, so they can buy the book on Amazon.

[B]

You can buy the world on Amazon, right?

[A]

Yes, absolutely.

[B]

So thank God. You can't buy houses on Amazon.

[A]

Thank God. Not yet.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay, so we're going to put the link in the show notes.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

And I encourage everybody listening, please buy this book. I will be buying it, reading it, putting it on my bookshelf.

[B]

You're so awesome.

[A]

Sharing it with everyone I know. So thank you. Thank you so much just for investing in me today and our listeners. This was so awesome. And maybe I can get you back in the future. If you write another book. We'll get you back.

[B]

I'm in. No, I'm in it. Yeah.

[A]

Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Well, thank you, everybody, for tuning in. As always, when you invest in your life and your business and your growth every single day, it will yield you great returns. If you go to teresaflood.com and subscribe, I always include a training guide in each episode, so don't forget to do that and don't miss out on that. But as always, keep living on the upside and we'll see you next week.