Executive Podcast #289: Becoming a High Road Leader (Part 2)

Chris Goede:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership executive podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. I’m Chris Gode, executive vice president with Maxwell leadership, and I’m super, super excited to have Jared Cagle back with me for yet another episode on high Road leadership. If you are listening to us right now, you may be questioning if you didn’t listen last week. Where’s Perry? Okay, Perry’s just taking a little bit of a break, but that means you didn’t hear our first episode on content. In regards to Hyrule leadership. You need to go listen to that first episode before we get started. Just as a reminder, I want to encourage you to go to maxwellleadership.com/podcast. There you can inquire about, man, what do I.

Chris Goede:
How do I find an executive coach? What. What do I do to bring training to my team? What is a question that you’re struggling with right now that maybe we can address on a future podcast? If you’ll go there, you’ll click on the podcast that Jared and I are doing today. There’ll be a form. You can fill it out and submit that, and our team will be back in touch with you shortly. Well, Jared, thank you so much for joining us again.

Jared Cagle:
Thank you.

Chris Goede:
Jared is our executive vice president over our personal solutions group. He also oversees our publishing department and is directly responsible for getting John’s book out on time. He’s been pushing them. He wanted it a lot sooner. Jared had to manage that tension with getting John’s book out because he’s super excited about it. And he always talks about the fact that the book he’s currently writing is one of the most. This one, though, I’m telling you, is at a different level. So we’re going to unpack for you today one chapter.

Chris Goede:
We picked the chapter. We’re gonna talk a little bit about it from a leadership perspective before we do that. Jared, though, for those that didn’t listen last week, give us just a little bit of an overview of the book and John’s excitement about it and then why he wrote it.

Jared Cagle:
Yeah. High road leadership, bringing people together in a world that divides. We think it’s critical for such a time as this that leaders all around the world, especially in our country, hear this message and really consider how they can be a part of the solution. And so John gets pretty honest and open, vulnerable in the book, and talking about how some of the lessons he’s learned about what it takes to really live on the high road, something that he’s said a lot through this process of the book, is the high road is a toll road, and it’s going to cost you something if you’re going to lead on that high road. And there will be sacrifices that you have to make. So I’m excited for really any leader that’s leading people, any father that has a family, any mother, you know, that has children or friends or groups or, you know, there’s opportunities to influence people all over. And I think that this resource is really going to help a lot of.

Chris Goede:
You know, we talk often here that we define leadership as influence. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s John’s kind of claim to fame on, on leadership and influence. And so as Jared was just talking about, it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter what your title is, your tenure, what role you’re in. We all have influence over other people. We’re all in the people business. And so this book will speak to you. Well, what I want to do is you talked about the toll road.

Chris Goede:
You talked about the high road being it’s going to cost you a little bit. And we’re going to unpack one of your favorite chapters in the book. We’re going to talk about chapter eight. And this chapter is really about embracing your authenticity. And I immediately began to think about when you just said, man, John says it’s gonna cost you something to take that road. As leaders, a lot of people don’t lead authentically because they know that it is gonna cost them something. Whether vulnerability, whether embarrassment, whether, I don’t know the answer, whether I shouldn’t have acted like that. And so I immediately tied that together and I was like, man, there’s no doubt it’s gonna cost us something, but we need to understand this leaders authenticity.

Chris Goede:
We’ve shared this before on here. I think it was a Harvard Business review study where it said the number one attribute that has been studied, 200 executives around the world, different size organizations, came back, wasn’t even close to the second one was. Leaders that were authentic separated themselves from that. And so we’re going to talk a little bit about that. Chapter eight is your favorite chapter. Embrace authentic authenticity. Talk to us a little bit about why and give us just a couple of nuggets and we’ll go back and forth on that chapter.

Jared Cagle:
Authenticity is my favorite, and I guess Harvard Business Review’s favorite as well.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. That’s right.

Jared Cagle:
That’s good. Embracing authenticity is really about the fact that you can’t hide as a leader. You know, we may fool ourselves into believing that we’re able to hide from our people, but our people see more than, than we may give them credit for.

Chris Goede:
They do.

Jared Cagle:
And so ultimately we have to be honest. Are we fooling ourselves? Are we trying to fool our teams around us? Are we being genuinely who we are? There’s a story that John tells at the beginning of the 8th chapter, and he was speaking to a group of C suite leaders and a CEO came up to him after because the whole talk was about being open and honest and even taking responsibility and apologizing when you need to in front of your team. And the CEO came up to him and said, John, I just don’t think that a leader should be open about their flaws and their mistakes or their shortcomings. I think that that puts them in a position where they can’t be authoritative or strong in their leadership. And John said, I think you’re working under a misconception. And that misconception is you think your people don’t already know.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Jared Cagle:
The reality is, the reason you should be authentic is, is not to tell them something that they don’t already know, but it’s to show them that, you know, awareness, who you are, self awareness. And being willing and open and honest in that moment allows them really to trust you. Right. And so tearing down that wall and bridging that trust gap is critically important for leaders. And we may think we’re presenting strength when we don’t apologize, but what we might be doing is actually sabotaging the trust that our team has for us. What do you think about that? What does that make you?

Chris Goede:
A great story, right? A CEO of a very high powered organization. Coming up to John and talking about that, you know, I’ve also heard it said to where authenticity is a trust accelerator. Now, you flew right by the word trust, but that was key, right? Like you said, hey, John said, no, no, no. By doing that, they’re going to trust you.

Jared Cagle:
There you go.

Chris Goede:
At a whole different level. And so leaders listen, it’s okay to be authentic with your team. Like Jared said and John said, they already know. Now you want to, you want to build trust with them. By the way, when we talk about the five levels of leadership, at level two, influence, that’s where it starts. That’s the foundation. Do your people trust you? Right. And by being authentic, they’re going to trust you.

Chris Goede:
So authenticity is a trust accelerator. You want to, you have a new team member. Um, you want to gain trust a little bit faster, man. Make sure you’re being authentic. It’s good you have a team member that’s been with you a long time. You want to make sure you continue to be authentic because they know who you really are.

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Chris Goede:
Here’s another thing I was thinking about that I want to talk to you about for just a second. I was sitting here listening to you about this question, and I was thinking to myself, how, as a leader, right? How can I go home? How can I put my head on the pillow and go, was I really Chris today? Or was I my title? Whoa. Right? Like, I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe all of our conscience sits a little bit different than it does. But I was sitting there thinking, man, I could not rest me personally if I’m at home reflecting on the day. We talk a lot about this around here. It’s like, hey, you know, you’re going to have a ton of experiences as leaders.

Chris Goede:
We got to reflect on them. And as I’m reflecting on the day, was I truly authentic? Like, was I apologetic? Was I. Did I tell the truth? Did I try to whatever. Did I try to manipulate somebody? We also talk about the fact that, you know, between influence and manipulation is the word motive. Did I have the right motive? Was I. And I started thinking, I had all these thoughts, and when you said that to myself, and I was like, I don’t know how leaders can sit with themselves when maybe they’re not being their true selves at work. We also talk about what other. And I’ll let you.

Chris Goede:
I’ll let you respond to this. We also talk about, people don’t need to be someone else at work, that they’re not at home. And what we want is, we want the best you. And so that should be a whole person holistically, should be the same person that shows up at work, that is at home. And so we want to add value to people at home so that they’re better at work. We want to add people, add value to people at work so they’re better at home. I don’t know. I was just.

Chris Goede:
I was working through all those thoughts. When you scared that about a leader, any reaction?

Jared Cagle:
So many things come to mind. One is your leadership. Let me just speak into this for a second. I’ve had the opportunity to be coached by you, mentored by you, I would say. I also have the opportunity to lead alongside of you and lead teams, even collaboratively in some contexts. So we’ve had some.

Chris Goede:
We ought to do a podcast. Yeah. I don’t know.

Jared Cagle:
Maybe not, but, you know, but one of the things I love so much about your leadership is the way people talk about the way you lead them is consistent with my experience having walked alongside of you or even being led by you. And that’s a testament to that. You’re like, I can’t sleep at night if I go home. And, well, that’s probably why.

Chris Goede:
Right?

Jared Cagle:
That’s why the people that are led by you are saying to me, man, Chris Gode, is this, this and this and that lines up with what I’ve experienced as well. That’s a powerful, powerful encouragement, I hope. And it leads me to a really big point from the book, too. John talks about how we need to prioritize character over reputation. And in a world where we’re very focused on image and what we’re presenting, and we spend all of this time curating our message and our. Our face. We’ve got filters, we’ve got editing on our phones to where we can make it look how we want it to look. We need to be prioritizing character instead of reputation.

Jared Cagle:
He has a statement in the book where he says, reputation has no substance.

Chris Goede:
Wow.

Jared Cagle:
Images are often inauthentic. And if you’re spending your life trying to garner followers or likes based on reputation and based on what you’re putting out in front of the world, you’re building on something that has no substance and is most likely not actually authentically you. So how long are you gonna last? Like, how many leaders do you know? How many leaders have you worked with that have fizzled out or faded out because they built on straw? You know, they built on something that had no substance. Character over reputation.

Chris Goede:
That’s brilliant. That’s super strong. And if you could do anything right now, unless you’re driving or out exercising, I would like, for you to write down those two words and to really think about your leadership, and what does that look like in your own personal life? Because as you were talking and I was thinking, man, isn’t it true that if we would focus on character, our reputation would take care of itself? Too many leaders are worried about their reputation. And to your point, they become, they become very non existent, right? They become like a turnstile. But if they would just focus on their character, their reputation will exceed that in a heartbeat. And I also think, too, you know, as leaders, when you’re talking about kind of the image of myself as a leader and anybody’s a leader, the things that are posted, right, like nowadays in the social media and the imagery that’s out there about leadership in general, just, just one little niche around leadership is absurd. And it’s not anything anybody’s had to deal with. And so I used to hear it said that reputation is your leadership brand.

Chris Goede:
And then you had me sitting there thinking about that and I was like, no, really, it goes back to your character is your leadership brand. It’s going to show up in your reputation, which is going to become your leadership brand. But it all starts with, how am I developing my character more than. Right. And then my last thought about this, and I’ll throw it back to you for a comment or so, but is, I believe that it would be more focused, it would be more dialed in for me to go, hey, I’m going to develop my character in ways and I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to put a growth plan around it. I’m going to study it, I’m going to learn it. I’m going to live this out than it is to think about what do I want my reputation to be to this group of people, to this group of people, to this group of people. And then all of a sudden you got all these different lanes that you’re trying to juggle or say, no, no, no, I’m going to come back to the, the root of who you are and I’m going to develop my character.

Jared Cagle:
In that love that what gets stored up shows up.

Chris Goede:
Shows up. That’s right. That’s right.

Jared Cagle:
And if we cultivate our character, right. If we build our character even in the dark, when nobody’s paying attention, because that’s one character, Mama always said, yeah, that’s right. Your character is what happens when nobody’s watching. And so if we’re building our character in the dark when nobody’s watching, it’s going to show up. How many leaders have you? This is a real question, so I want you to answer this. We’re off script. Did we have, did we even have a script?

Chris Goede:
No, we didn’t have a script. That’s okay, though. Let’s go. Just fine.

Jared Cagle:
So my question to you would be, how many leaders have you been around that were title hungry and were so interested in what you said earlier? You said, when I go to bed, am I, was I my title today, or was I Chris Gody today? Speak to the leaders out there that might be infatuated with what their title is or is going to be, and help. Help us all. Help me think through the difference when we focus on character and who we are rather than our title or our reputation.

Chris Goede:
So one of the things, as you know, I spend a lot of time with our team, taking John’s five levels of leadership methodology and installing that into organizations. Right. Building the methodology of how they define leadership in that model. Level one is you have influence with people because you’re a title. And one of the things that really breaks my heart, and this is, this is true. I don’t know this. The stat. Exactly.

Chris Goede:
This is my interpretation and my team’s interpretation from traveling the world, all size organizations, is that 75% of leaders in corporate America, leading teams, leading whatever, are level one leaders. It is because I said so. It is command and control. It’s because of the title that I have on my chest. Right. And so they’re in it for themselves. It becomes a dictatorship. It is, hey, I’m going to leverage.

Chris Goede:
I’m going to manipulate the opportunity to influence people to get what I want versus what’s best for that individual or for the team. And so, to answer your question from, just, like, Chris Godistat, I would say it’s. It’s 70, 75% of leaders care more about, this is my title, this is my following, this is what I do. This is da da da da versus thinking about the people that you lead and how to invest in and add value to them, which, by the way, that’s a, that’s a byproduct of you making sure you have really good character, uh, traits. And so, um, it is, it is three quarters of the leaders out there right now probably care more about what their title is, what their reputation is. We. We have this little phrase, too, that we tell organizational leaders. We’re like, hey, be careful, because that title is walking in the door before you do.

Chris Goede:
Wow. So if it says general manager, okay, they may not know you, but they know general managers. Coming in the door. So what are you doing differently than previous general managers or the general manager thought that the team might have that is going to separate you from, you know, separate. Separate you from the crowd. Get out of the pile, as John likes to talk about it. And too many people are just staying in the pile because they just care more about their title.

Jared Cagle:
What I love about that the most is when we think about getting out of the pile and kind of separating ourselves, a lot of times the natural tendency is to think about our image and the way that we’re looking in a crowd or. But what you just said is to really get out of the pile, your character needs to line up.

Chris Goede:
So here. Okay, let’s build off of this one more time. John talks about this. He teaches about how to get out of the pile and you just hit it on the head. Never does he teach about posturing yourself in a different way to get you out of pile. It’s always about, how am I adding value to people in a different way than other people are in order to get out of the pile.

Jared Cagle:
Yep.

Chris Goede:
And so, to your point, that’s a brilliant point. Right? It’s like, hey, we’re not. We’re not going to posture ourselves to get out of the pile. What are we doing differently to add value to people in order to get us out of the pile?

Jared Cagle:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
Okay. We could talk about that for a long time. There’s one other, um, there’s several in this thing, chapter, but there’s another principle in there that captured my attention as we were going through this, that I want you to unpack a little bit about what’s in the book and in there, um, it talks about we need to focus on the choices that we make versus the gifts that you have been given.

Jared Cagle:
Yep.

Chris Goede:
Why I’m intrigued by this is, in the athletic world, um, you and I both seen a lot of talented, talented athletes, and the gifts that they have been given are off the charts. And then you see other people that maybe their gifts aren’t as talented, but the choices that they’re making, they end up moving above that extremely gifted, talented athlete. And so I always have this lens of leadership and principles when it comes into sports. It’s just been part of my life and your life for a long time. But I’m intrigued about this principle, and I want you to unpack it a little bit more about what’s in the book, and then we’ll talk about it.

Jared Cagle:
I mean, the truth is we have no control over our gifts.

Chris Goede:
Correct.

Jared Cagle:
They were given to us.

Chris Goede:
That’s correct.

Jared Cagle:
And so the posture of humility that we should take as people, if we are gifted in an extreme way or a profound way, is humility. Gratitude.

Chris Goede:
Gratitude. Thankful humility. Yeah.

Jared Cagle:
I did not gain this on my own. It was given to me. That being said, our choices are that much more important because we can control our choices. John talks in the book. He talks about how his dad always would grab his report card every time he brought it home from a young age, grade school. He’s coming home 3rd, 4th grade, and he’s looking at the, he’s looking at all the grades on the scorecard and the one that he cared the most about. I don’t even know if yours had this. I mean, this has been a long time ago for all you young people around here.

Jared Cagle:
And on his grades, the one that he always pointed to, the only one he cared about, was effort. I want to know, did you make an a in effort? Did you give 100%? Cause that’s the only thing that you truly can fully control. John, you may never be good at math. Your brother’s gonna be good at math.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Jared Cagle:
You may not. You can be great at English. But did you control your choices today? Did you make good choices? There’s a quote in the book from Jeff Bezos, somewhat successful CEO that you may have heard of. Take pride in your choices, not your gifts. And this has kind of become a mantra, I think, for him and for Amazon. Take pride in your choices. Don’t take pride in your gifts. You didn’t do anything to earn those.

Chris Goede:
I love that. And it’s a true statement to where you can only control what you can control, which, to John’s dad and to your point, it’s the effort. And so you may be listening to this and you may say, hey, listen, I just feel like. I feel like there’s a lid on my leadership inside this team or inside this organization. I feel like I’m gifted. I feel like I could do that. I feel like I could do that. I was just having a conversation last week, a coaching conversation, where there’s a little bit of tension and frustration in this team and feels like certain individuals that are at a different level aren’t going anywhere.

Chris Goede:
They’re the same age. And I was using that as an example of saying, okay, that’s great. You guys may be equally gifted. Continue the pace, control what you can control, give incredible effort, continue to add value, and that opportunity may not be right in front of you. It may be somewhere else. And so I love that he’s talking about the choices. It also made me think a little bit about Marcus Buckingham and his statement of make choices and view them as a scavenger hunt for what’s next. You may be extremely gifted.

Chris Goede:
He’s talking about, you know, he obviously from a, from a statician, you know, all the things, the research and, I mean, he’s just gifted at all that and everywhere he went, everything that he was doing it for him, it was about the choice I have. I feel like I’m gifted that area. But what am I going to do different? What am I going to learn as a part of this experience to say, I’m going to then potentially use that down the road. And I think if we control what we can control, it’s good. And I think if we view all of our opportunities that are in front of us by making the right choices and view them as a scavenger hunt, we’ll be in good shape. Well, listen, I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. We just briefly touched the chapter. By the way, there is a ton of meat in that chapter for leaders that whether you’re on your own personal journey, whether you’re leading a team, whether you’re an executive in an organization, this is a book that is a must read.

Chris Goede:
As soon as it comes out, it comes out on May 7.

Jared Cagle:
That’s right.

Chris Goede:
It’ll be May 7. It’s coming out. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go to highroadleadershipbook.com. There. Jared’s team’s got everything set up for you to figure out. You want one book? Do you want a case of books for your team? You’re going to listen. Let me give you this challenge.

Chris Goede:
We have heard from so many of you that you take the content of our podcast, you send it out to your team, and then when you have your team meetings next week, you say, what’s your number one takeaway? And you talk a little bit about it. I want to challenge you to get high road leadership and use it as a book study for your team for the rest of the year. It is fantastic content for leaders. The other thing is, I would just encourage you, if you have a question again, back to what we’ve talked about today, maybe even futuristically, something you’d like for us to talk about on the podcast, go to maxwellleadership.com/podcast. You can leave a comment for us there. We would definitely welcome any feedback from you. Well, that’s all for today. Thank you for joining us.

Chris Goede:
This is the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.