296. Building Psychological Safety and Inclusivity in Leadership with Jim Fielding

Feeling the pressure to have all the answers? You’re not alone. Mick Spiers sits down with Jim Fielding—former senior executive at Disney, Fox, and DreamWorks, and author of All Pride No Ego—to explore why modern leadership rewards curiosity over certainty. Together, they unpack how to build teams that think bravely, speak freely, and perform under pressure.

Jim takes us inside his pandemic pivot from corporate operator to coach and storyteller, revealing the ten leadership lessons he wishes he knew at 25. The conversation dives into the politicization of DEI and the real challenge leaders face today: teams are already diverse in background and thought. The true edge lies in creating workplaces where people feel safe, respected, and heard. Jim shares how leaders can adapt their language—focusing on community, collaboration, and belonging—while still holding managers accountable for the behaviors that drive inclusion.

The episode also tackles the chill around free speech, the mechanics of psychological safety, and how leaders can navigate political diversity at work. Jim outlines a calmer, more thoughtful approach: slow down for facts, invite dissent on purpose, and turn meetings into engines of learning. From supporting employees through sudden policy shifts to encouraging civic participation without partisanship, this episode offers practical tools and a steady compass for leading with empathy, courage, and curiosity.

🌐 Connect with Jim:
• Website: https://www.hijimfielding.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimfielding/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hijimfielding/

📚 You can purchase Jim's book on Amazon:
• All Pride No Ego: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1394165285/

Chapters

• 0:00 Curiosity Over Certainty
• 0:14 Meet Jim Fielding And His Book
• 2:44 Pandemic Pivot And Writing Journey
• 5:21 From Bestseller To New Career
• 7:34 Young Leaders Enter A Divided Workplace
• 8:16 How DEI Became Politicized
• 11:31 Competing While Creating Safe Spaces
• 14:04 Keep Inclusion Without The Label
• 17:06 Freedom Of Speech Under Pressure
• 20:08 Micro-Moments Of Psychological Safety
• 23:13 Leading Diverse Teams Amid Fear
• 27:16 Immigration, Visas, And Talent Mobility
• 30:11 The Hyundai Factory Flashpoint
• 33:00 Bridging Political Divides At Work
• 36:06 Practical Takeaways And Reflection
• 39:12 Rapid Round And How To Reach Jim
• 43:27 Closing Values And Subscribe

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

Jim, have you ever felt the pressure to have all the answers, as if leadership means never saying, I don't know, what if the real mark of a great leader isn't certainty, but curiosity. In today's episode, I'm joined by Jim, fielding former senior executive at Disney Fox and DreamWorks, and best selling author of all pride no ego. Jim's journey offers a master class in leading with authenticity when the world is noisy, politicized and constantly changing. In this conversation, we get practical about ego versus impact, inclusion without the labels leading in divided times and career resilience if you're ready to move from performative certainty to credible human leadership, this one's for you. Let's dive in. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Jim Fielding. Jim has enjoyed a decorated, successful executive career with organizations such as Disney Fox and Dream Works, and he's the best selling author of a book called all pride, no ego, and he specializes in authenticity and leadership, how to show up as your authentic self. We're going to do a little bit of a twist here. We're going to talk about what is happening in the world at the moment around authenticity, around dei the world politics that are impacting the way that we can show up as leaders, the way that we can show up as human beings in society and in the workplace. So bear with us. We might get a little bit deeper. We might get a little bit political in the first half of the show, but then we're going to twist it towards the end to go, Okay, what does that mean? What does that mean as a leader? How can you show up as a leader today in a world that seems to be increasingly divided, and when you're trying to bring a team together. So bear with us as we go through it. And apologies if you're from one side of the politics. We're just going to call it how we see it, but stick with us to the end as we go to some of those lessons as to what it can mean for you as a leader. So Jim, without any further ado, I'd love for you to say hello to the audience, and I'd love to know why you wrote this book, and why you wrote this book now?

Jim Fielding: 2:26

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me and greetings to your entire audience. I've really been looking forward to this, you know, the book. I mean, I don't want to make it sound like a happy accident, but it was a happy accident. And like many authors that you probably run into, I don't think it would have happened if it wasn't for the pandemic. And it was really two parts of the pandemic. One, I was president of Consumer Products and experiences at 20th Century Fox, which got bought by Disney, and that deal closed six months before the pandemic, and I, for the first time in my life, said I'm going to take a sabbatical. I'm going to actually use the severance package my position was eliminated. I'm going to travel and visit my family and friends. I'm just going to take time off. And then I kind of announced to the world on LinkedIn that I'd be battling April of 2020, and there was no back to come back to, right? I was living in Los Angeles. Media and Entertainment and retail industries were pretty much shut down. Everybody was working remotely. They certainly weren't interviewing or hiring for new executives. And so I kind of retreated. And, you know, looked, I mean, it just gave me a real opportunity to look inward and examine and really think about what did I want to do. Yes, then one of the things that happened, honestly, Mick, was I was organizing my house like those weird cleaning binges we all got on right, and I thought, Oh, I've been journaling. And I had been journaling since I was about 12 or 13, but I had the journals spread out all over my house, and so I literally went to a local store and bought one of those big plastic tubs and said, I'm going to put all my journals in one tub, because someday, maybe my nieces will want to read the journals, right? Somebody might want to read these someday. But as I was doing that, I started reading it myself. And like, was bringing back memories and ideas and like, sometimes I didn't even fully recognize myself, and what I realized was, I wish it was like the benefit of age and wisdom at that point, it's like, I wish I'd known some of the stuff I knew now younger, right? It would have saved me. It would have saved me a lot of angst. It would have saved me a lot of therapy, frankly, and anxiety. And I started talking to friends, you know, over zoom and teams, like we were all doing during covid, and they were like, Why don't you write a book? It sounds like a book. And I was like, how do you. Write a book, like, why would I write a book? No one's gonna read it. But I had time, and so I worked on a book treatment, and I sent it out to some publishers, and people were interested in it. And I think, I think what's interesting about the book is it's basically a very selfish exercise in that. At the time, I wrote it, when I was 55, 56 I'm basically writing to 25 year old Jim like I'm writing to myself. And it's organized around these 10 life lessons and leadership lessons. And again, it's things that I wish things I knew at 55 or 56 that I wish I knew at 25 or 26 and so I dedicated the book to young leaders everywhere, particularly those who feel like they don't have a place, you know, like the systems are against them, basically. And you know it's, it's part memoir, for sure, but it's not organized like an autobiography, but the stories are personal and professional. Of how I got to these 10 lessons. And you never know when you write a book, I know you've had so many guests, you know authors like you never know, right? And it went out, and all of a sudden it started getting picked up, and it was got some good reviews, and it was on the bestseller list, and the next thing I knew, I was on a speaking tour and on a promotion tour, and all of that was unplanned and reactionary, and and I started loving it, and I felt the need. I felt people coming up to me from all walks of life, saying thank you, and saying, oh my gosh, you told my story, and I thought I was the only one like it was just really interesting about the reaction from really across the world, like I would get notes from the UK and Germany and Australia. I was shocked that people were picking it up, and a lot of people were also listening to it. I had recorded the audio book, and there was people that actually were listening and it literally, that was two years ago. I mean, fall of 2023 it's changed my life. I went back to school to become an executive coach. I'm now full time coaching, speaking, writing new books, hosting my own podcast, and if you talk to me in 2022 none of that was on a vision board. So it's, it's quite interesting that I just listened the world in a weird way, and kind of followed as the doors were opening I was walking through basically.

Mick Spiers: 7:22

Yeah, really good, Jim. So, congrats on the success. Is a US USA Today bestseller. So well done. And it's a it's a message out there that's having an impact on a lot of people. So the words that I picked up on there was writing to young leaders, and I instantly felt it too. It must be confusing for a young leader, potentially, that finished their schooling during covid years and through all of this, but then they come into the workplace in a world where the world is quite divided right now, and I'm confused at times, and I'm north of 52 Jim and I get confused.

Jim Fielding: 8:03

Yeah, you're experienced, right? You're experienced.

Mick Spiers: 8:05

So it must be confusing for those young leaders. The one I want to get straight into is you're you're an advocate and expert in Dei, one of the ones that I keep on scratching my head, at what point did dei become a dirty word where it gets thrown out now as an insult, something that was very altruistic and had great intentions has become an insult or a dirty word. Where did we go wrong?

Jim Fielding: 8:33

Well, I mean, besides being altruistic, I mean besides being the right thing to do, it was also it was also the reality if you look at, and I'm just going to talk about the US in this particular circumstance, Mick, but if you look at the population of the US, the demographics and psychographics, we're only getting more diverse. We're not getting less diverse. And so the reality is, for managers and leaders of human beings, as we talked about, you, by nature are managing diversity. Because when you look at the makeup, it doesn't matter if you're managing a team of three or 30 or 300 or 3000 they, by nature, are diverse and have diverse backgrounds and different needs and different expectations. And I think particularly for I spent a lot of time on college campuses with undergraduate and graduate students, and particularly for those of them that kind of went to school during covid, to your point, had a lot of hybrid learning or virtual learning. In many cases, got hired virtually, right? Got hired remotely over zoom, and now are trying to figure out their way in the corporate world. It's I've had to learn new skills, because, honestly, I grew up as a very physical leader of people, like most. My entire corporate career was in offices. I mean, I remember clearly when we got half day Fridays, we thought, you know, like they call them summer Fridays. We thought, Oh my God. And it literally the definition of it was. 2pm to 6pm like you were there and you ate lunch, and then you were allowed to leave at two. And we thought that was like the biggest gift ever to have Friday afternoons quote off. And now people and people that I'm coaching have hybrid teams, remote only teams, people that only work in an office. I mean, it's a whole new skill set. But to me, what I've really been spending my time on, because Dei, to your point, when did dei become like the dirty word? It was really during the campaign for the this recent election, 2024 so the period, really after the 2020 election, when President Trump lost that entire four year period, I think the right the Republican Party, started weaponizing and demonizing dei and started really spreading misinformation and disinformation about dei and affirmative action and dei hires weren't talented and weren't did not have the necessary skills that the only reason they got the job is because they were diverse, and unfortunately, I don't think those of us on the other side of the political spectrum had great speaking points or great retorts for that. We just kept saying they're wrong, they're bad, they don't know what they're talking about. But it struck a chord. I mean, he, obviously, and his his team, struck a chord with with people in America. And I think then when he came into office, when he won in 2024 and got inaugurated this January, it was like his first executive orders were basically saying dei is done, like he was just writing these executive orders. And it was like you literally. And I watched dei offices and people who had dei in their title either lose their jobs or get retitled. I personally had eight or nine training, speaking opportunities that were on the books that got canceled because the groups, you know, the groups got disbanded or they lost their funding. It was swift. And I think, I think if you talk to any of us in America right now, I think we've all been surprised. We knew there was going to be change. I think we underestimated how swiftly the changes would be implemented. It was swift, and it was almost like we didn't we didn't have time to react. It was almost all of a sudden, it was done. And then I feel like we've spent all this year just pivoting and but the reality is, and a lot of what I talk about with my clients, and when I do get speaking opportunities and training opportunities is it is a competitive advantage to create physically and psychologically safe spaces for all people to thrive. That's really where I come from. And so regardless of background, education, race, gender, gender identity, you know any, any of the identifiers, if people are working for you, I think it's the leader's job to create that physically and psychologically safe space for them to thrive and to bring their best to work. That's basically my theory of authentic leadership.

Mick Spiers: 13:18

Okay, all right, so, so let me share a few reflections of my own, and then see how they sit with you. So I'll start with sharing how far I thought we'd gone, and we we hadn't gone far enough, but things had changed before recent events. So if I think about the very first multinational company that I worked for, and I think about the global executive of that company when I first started there, I can tell you that every single one of them on the comics, 12 of them were middle aged white men. That not only were they all middle aged white men, they all went to the same university, literally the same university. And all I could think of at that point is, if you throw a crisis at those people or some kind of problem, they've all been trained by the same people, who got the same background, they've got the same experiences, they're going to come with the same answers. So where the diversity was needed was diversity of thought to go, Well, no, well, we're not all the same. We need different ideas at the table. We need diversity of thought at the table so that we can better problem solve. And I can tell you that in my career, in in that 30 plus years, I have seen a shift in that. It hasn't gone as far as I would have liked, but I now do see more diversity in leadership roles, in in executive roles, etc, not as much as it should be, but certainly a lot, yeah, more, yeah. Then the other part is just the whole thing around inclusion, and that everyone deserves to work in a workplace where they feel included, where they feel that they belong, and no one deserves to work in a workplace where they don't feel that they belong, right? Right? So, and these are the things where I thought we were making progress, and then all of a sudden we get into this dei is a dirty word, to the point of a fatal air incident gets blamed on a dei hire. And we go to the point where that's all out the window, and now it's become, it's almost become the enemy. I'll share a reflection on that, and then I'm going to come to you is that, that my view is that when people are disenfranchised for whatever reason, they're on hard times. They might be unemployment them, they're struggling, whatever the case may be, they need someone to blame. So the political agenda became to give people someone to blame, whether it was dei or whether it was immigration or whatever scapegoat they needed a scapegoat. And that person, oh, let's call it how it is, President Trump, was clever enough to click on to one that was going to appeal to the masses, and all of a sudden you got people chanting for the end of dei right and for the end of immigration. And we could go on, but now let's bring this to the workplace. How does a leader who believed in Dei, who believed in creating diversity of thought, who believed in creating speak up cultures. And I think we'll come to that one again. Later LinkedIn play, creating inclusive workplaces. How do they do that? Now, in a world where as soon as you use the word Dei, you're going to get people from either one angle who are going to say, bullshit, sorry, to swear, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and other and others are going to go, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That's the kind of place I want to work. How do you do that today?

Jim Fielding: 16:44

Well, I mean, I think, I think you've hit on so many important things. I mean, first off, I love that you said diversity of thought, diversity of experiences, because a lot of times diversity has been watered down to sex, gender, color of skin, right? And diversity is so much bigger than that, I mean. And I think where you were going on, diversity of thought, diversity of experiences, I think there's for a lot of managers and executives, leaders of human beings, as I say. I honestly think this period, you know, the last two plus years of the election cycle and everything else has been a real opportunity for people to self reflect and say. How committed are you individually to the idea of dei regardless of what it's called, right? How committed are you personally to creating those environments you were talking about Mick to, you know, create inclusive environments where all voices are heard, all voices are respected. Because I honestly think some leaders were like, Oh, my God, thank God, I don't have to do that anymore. I'm just being honest. They were like, Oh, I'm just gonna go back to the old boys club that you talked about, and I'm just gonna hire whoever I want. And you know, I'm not gonna think about it. I think the authentic, you know, which consider my authenticity practice, the authentic leaders who truly saw it as a competitive advantage are still doing it. It's still in how they're hiring, it's how they're training, it's how they're setting up their teams. It's how they set up their collaboration teams and their work teams. They might not call it dei they might not call it belonging inclusion, because there's these incendiary words now that, like, get a target on you, but you start hearing lots of words like community, right? And you start hearing words like collaboration and belonging and inclusion. I hear a lot right, like the sense of belonging. And I think the ones who saw it as necessary and a competitive advantage and just right, as I said earlier, have figured out ways to navigate now, there is definitely a degree of trying to stay off the radar. To your point, right? Nobody wants to be the one who ends up in the headlines that the federal administration or state administration is coming after, quote Company X for their practices, or, God forbid, what's been going on with us the institutions of higher education, like what's been going on with Harvard and Cornell and other major universities and Colleges. You don't want to be in those headlines. But I think those of us who believe in this, then when somebody does stand up, and Harvard has stood up to the administration, then it's our job to applaud them and amplify them and support them, because it's not fun. It costs time and money and reputation, and it's very, very draining. But to me, when something is wrong, it has to be called out. And I will say that our court system sometimes we have good days and bad days with the courts. Our courts, in some cases, have stepped up the judiciary. The arm of our government has stepped up and curtailed presidential power and curtailed administration power, because some of the things they were doing or trying to do were not legal and were against the Constitution, and, you know, they were viewed as retribution or forms of bullying so but as you and I were talking about before we got on air, I think it's I think these are skills and tools that most leaders have never had to deal with before, because it's such a different environment, and so while they're trying to run their business, and, oh, by the way, we've even talked about it, if they're a business that's impacted by tariffs, right? The ever changing tariff policy, right? The ever changing can't keep up with that one either. Yeah, you know supply chain, right? The ever changing supply chain, these leaders are dealing with a lot. And so I have a high degree, I always have had a high degree of empathy, but I have a very high degree of empathy of anyone who's leading humans now. And in my coaching practice, I'm always with my clients, saying, Remember, I'm sitting on the sidelines and offering suggestions. It does not mean like I know you're in the trenches, like I know it's very different being in the trench every day. So, and that's the thing about being a coach, is we never tell them exactly what to do anyway. We try to make, you know, make them have a new insight, or make them have some new learnings. But it's a, really, it's a really tough time right now. It's, but it's a, it's a tough time, I think, to be a US citizen, right too, a US citizen who believes in America and believes in democracy and believes in freedom of speech and freedom of religion and freedom of assembly, I think it's a tough time for us.

Mick Spiers: 21:52

So let's unpack the freedom of speech in a second, just to put a pin in the in dei for just a moment and just say thank you. Thank you for sharing your your thoughts there. So the right reasons, doing the right thing for the right reason for dei still exists, and those that believe in it and understand it, I've got to say, because most people that don't believe in it didn't understand it in the first place.

Jim Fielding: 22:15

And didn't and didn't really support it, I think that's what I was alluding to.

Mick Spiers: 22:18

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so.

Jim Fielding: 22:20

I think there's some people that were performing like it was performative for them.

Mick Spiers: 22:24

Performative Exactly. They were ticking a corporate box of something, that there was a corporate policy and they had to believe it. And now that that corporate policy is is gone, they they've reverted back to what they what they really believed right?

Jim Fielding: 22:38

Their comfort, right to their comfort.

Mick Spiers: 22:41

All right. So for the diversity, driving that diversity of thought, driving those inclusive workplaces, the call to action for everyone listening, you can still do it. Have a think about Jim's advice here. Maybe it doesn't get called what it used to be called, but in your actions, in your values, in how you show up, you can still create an environment where you respect diversity of thought, where you build diversity of thought, and where you build an inclusive workplace where no one feels like they don't belong, where their voice is not heard. And that's through little rituals. It's through little rituals where you can make sure that everyone's voice is being heard, where everyone feels seen, where everyone feels heard, where everyone feels valued and respected. You can still do that, even if you don't use the label dei for for a little while. I'm hoping that's not forever.

Jim Fielding: 23:35

I do I think, I think the pendulum. We've talked a lot about this with some of my colleagues. I mean, the pendulum has swung hard one way, I think it will settle a little bit, and I believe the leaders who stay committed in stalwart right now will actually have a competitive advantage when the world turns again, because they'll have a workforce that is diverse and innovative and productive and loyal, and that's going to matter, right? Because we still have less than 5% unemployment in the United States, right? There's still a war for talent. I mean, there is a war for even though you're hearing about layoffs and stuff, there's still a war for good talent. And people are choosing, using their values also as choosing where they work, not just the not just the benefits, not just the compensation, not just the title, they're actually looking at the values of the company and making their choices and where to work and so that that's also a reality that leaders are dealing with.

Mick Spiers: 24:35

Yeah, correct, yeah. If you want to attract a diverse and talented workplace, you need to behave in ways that they want to be there. Very good. Okay, all right. So I want to get to this freedom of speech topic. And Jim, Jim, I mentioned this to you before we started hit and record, but the US prides itself on freedom of speech. But I can tell you, watching from afar, from Australia, we see nothing of the sort at the moment. In terms of what we what we see in the media, okay? And I want to connect this to speak up culture psychological safety and how we can bring this to the workplace. How can a leader do that right now? How can a leader encourage a speak up culture with psychological safety when we see, and I'm going to call out the president again here we might get off the air here the way we're going when you have a political system where comedians are getting taken off the air if they tell a joke that the president didn't like, through to a president standing up in front of a room full of 800 military leaders and telling them, oh, you can leave if you want, but there goes your rank. There goes your career. So anyone that doesn't agree with him and kiss the ring gets punished. How on earth is that freedom of speech? First of all, and second, how can we still encourage speak up culture and psychological safety in the workplace, if we see the leader of your country behaving like that?

Jim Fielding: 25:59

No, I mean, it's, this is a daily learning, I think for all of us, is, you know, it's, it's about the First Amendment. The First Amendment actually has five freedoms in it. Freedom of speech is the one we talk the most about, but it's also freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, which is another area that's under attack. And I think what happens is some directive comes out, some executive order comes out, everybody panics, everybody screams, you know, on both sides of the aisle, by the way, on both sides of the political spectrum, and then we kind of settle down. And I've even had to learn myself. I don't react to the first news story. I don't react to the like, I kind of let it settle a little bit because, like, some of the headlines are so inflammatory that you literally think the world is ending, and we're going to be like in this post apocalyptic, you know, TV mini series in a minute here, but then you need to educate yourself. I mean, that's, that's what you and I were talking about before we came on. Like, you need to educate yourself. And I think that executives, and it also depends publicly traded companies versus privately traded companies. There's a lot of rules and regulations for publicly traded companies. I worked in publicly traded companies my entire life. If I was still at Disney or DreamWorks or Fox, I couldn't be as vocal as I am right now on social media in my own world, because now I'm an independent human being. I'm not a Disney employee or a DreamWorks employee. So there are rules of engagement, there are rules of how far you can go. And I think all of us, in a weird way, are testing the limits every day. And I've watched people you know get smacked down. And to your point about what happened with Jimmy Kimmel, our comedian, who lost his show for five or six days, and then it was brought back. There's a lot of reacting, and then re reacting, and then overreacting and then reacting. You know what I mean? There's a lot of trying to find equilibrium. And the rules have changed. I mean, the rules have changed. And even myself. Every time I hit post on a social media, post that I know is one of my more political ones, or on my newsletter, there's that moment where you're like, Okay, I'm going to hit Enter. It's going to go now, what you know? What are the, what are the potential ramifications of this? Like, I do think about that, but I also feel because I am independent and I have my own business, and I I feel like I have a responsibility, not a I also have the right to your point. I mean, that's the thing about the First Amendment. I have the right to say I agree or don't agree. That's the freedom of speech. I have the right to to peaceful protest. That's the freedom of assembly. I have the right to go to meetings and town halls and ask questions of our elected representatives. That is a right that's granted to us in the First Amendment. Exercising that right in some cases come with more has come with more costs than it ever has before in history. But if we stop, and if we stop exercising that, we're going to lose it, right? I mean, and that is, I was a political science major, Mick, and I were talking about it, that is the authoritarian playbook, right? Like taking away the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, the freedom of speech, taking away a free military, a military who supports the Constitution doesn't support an individual. When those institutions start sliding or start getting curtailed, then we're in really dangerous territory. And I think there's a lot of people in the United States, including. Saying over seven, I think the last count is over 74 million people who did not vote for President Trump as president. And we need to do our job. We need democracy. And civics is a participant sport. I've been saying, right? It is not, it is not passive. And if you believe in democracy and you believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and those first amendments, rights, those freedoms, then you have to work at it. You can't take it for granted. I think a lot of people are learning that again, right? Because maybe, maybe we did take it for granted for too long.

Mick Spiers: 30:39

The dichotomy here is it's the time where we need people to find their voice the most, and yet it feels dangerous to find your voice.

Jim Fielding: 30:49

It does. And that's the cancel that's the cancel culture, and that's wokeness, all these bad words, right? But if you look at what happened with with Jimmy Kimmel, the community you're referencing if you look again, it took the community a few days, because it was shocking when it happened, but we did react right? Other comedians came out, other talk show hosts came out. There was protests on the street. People started canceling their Disney subscriptions. You know, Disney owned the show. Disney owned the Jimmy Kimmel show. Started canceling their streaming subscriptions, started contacting Disney corporate offices like the community did react. It's just not instantaneous, right? Because it happens and again, you have to digest it a little bit and say, Okay, what does this mean? And what am I going to do about it? But I will say, I would say, within 24 hours, there was reaction. I mean, people didn't just roll over, I guess is what I'm saying, right?

Mick Spiers: 31:47

Glad to hear that. All right, so I want to, I want to bring that to more of a local lesson for leaders of teams that want to create psychological safety and speak up culture and encourage diversity of thought. Here for a moment now, it may not be as extreme as what we're seeing from your president, where if you disagree with me, you're going to be fired, whether you're a judge or anything, you seem to be in the firing line. If you disagree with me, you're fired. It's not as extreme as that, but there are little, little micro moments. I'll play something to you, Jim, and then I want to hear your reaction. There's little micro moments that tell the difference whether you have psychological safety or not. And those micro moments are when someone puts up an idea that is different to yours, right? And I'm going to play something to you and say that you know you're in a meeting room, and someone throws out an idea, and your instant reaction is, that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. It'll never work, right? Yeah, now, if you, if you say that out loud, do you think that person's ever going to bring up another idea, and for the 11 other people in the room that just witnessed it, are they going to bring up other ideas? Of course, they're not. So that key moment of like, let's say that you and I having a meeting, Jim, and you bring up an idea that I don't really like. If I shoot it down straight away, I'm going to kill psychological safety. But what I could do is go, Oh, that's interesting, Jim, tell me more, and then actually hear you out first. Thank you so much for speaking up, Jim. I really appreciate you speaking up now. I don't fully, I don't fully agree, and here's why, that's a completely different scenario than Jim. You're fired or Jim, that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. So I think psychological safety is built in those micro moments, and we can use the President's extreme example of what not to do to bring it to a local lesson for leaders. How does this sit with you?

Jim Fielding: 33:39

No, I definitely think, I think for sure, there's so many teachable moments in what's happening to your point, right? And bullying and bullying behavior is not a communication style that works in a corporate environment. It just doesn't. And I think what you're saying about again, when we're coaching behavior and stuff. It is discipline for a leader. Most leaders and managers of other people probably got promoted or got into their position because they were a solution provider, like they had solutions, right? And so I think, to your point, a leader's natural instinct when they're in a brainstorming situation or they're in a problem solving situation, and they have 10 or 11 people room, they think they have the answer right and they think their answer is the right answer. And I think again, this goes back to self awareness and self discipline. All of that. As a leader, you walk in and say, You know what, I don't have the answer. I actually want to hear from everybody else in the room, because I think two heads are better than one, and I think the collaborative efforts of this group like that is a mindset shift that you have to talk to yourself about as you enter the room, because otherwise, why, to your point about psychological safety, why pull 11 people into a room if you're just going to have them do exactly what you think is the right answer anyway you're. You've seen their time, and they're going to tell you, they're going to tell you that their meetings are a waste of time, right? They're going to tell you they'd rather be at their desk working or let them go home early that day, because if you're going to bring me into a room for an hour and ask my opinion and then just do what you want to do anyway, now it doesn't mean you might not get to a good answer out of that room. But again, as a leader, I think it's a leader's job when you do make the decision, provide the context where you were going. Mick, of, why did you make that decision? Like, what? And again, make it a teachable moment. Like, okay, I really appreciated everything you said. Sally and Joe and Charlie and like, acknowledge their contributions. Don't diminish their contributions, but say, I still think we need to do x, and here is why, and I think that's showing respect, and again, creating an environment so that the next time there's another opportunity like that, they do feel empowered and enabled to speak up, and they do feel that you're the boss, you're the type of leader. You're a boss that wants to hear ideas again. I think it's you as the leader in that situation. You've got to put yourself in that mindset. You've got to put yourself in that I'm, I'm excited to go to this meeting and see what's going to come out of this brain trust like you don't have that's, I think that's one of those things. When you talk about, what did I wish I learned earlier? There's so many things I wish I learned earlier, but I think I thought earlier in my career, the way I was going to get promoted was having all the answers, right? Like I had, I had to be, I had to have all the answers. That's a little bit back to the name of my book. All pride, no ego, right? That's ego thinking you have all the right answers, and you have to have all the right answers. That is ego. And what I'm basically saying in the book is, let's learn how to control ego. We all have ego. We all have pride. Let's learn how to control it.

Mick Spiers: 36:53

Yeah, all right. Well, said, Jim, I think the way you went through that, it's exactly that's the lesson learned. If you're going into all your meetings thinking you have all the answers, and then you're walking away from those meetings with the same thought that you had walking in the meeting was a waste of time, and

Jim Fielding: 37:10

Waste of time for you too, not only your team for you, like,.

Mick Spiers: 37:13

That's right, you've wasted everyone's time. And you know, you know wiser you weren't even listening. You weren't even listening to what they contributed if you didn't really take the time, they don't feel seen, they do feel heard, they don't feel valued, and might as well be an autocracy. Okay, very good. Next one, this one's going to be challenging as well. Jim, both our countries, Australia and the US are very multicultural, and we have lost a lot of this somewhere in the last few years as well. How, as a leader, can we deal with situations where some of our people in our workplace probably don't even feel safe right now, now? Now, to be clear, I said this, when we're off air as well, in Australia, we see the US through a lens of what the media represents to us, whether it's whether it's mainstream media or social media. So we might be seeing the extremes, and it's not as bad as it really. It really looks. But if I've got a multicultural workforce in the US, and now I've got people that are frightened to go to work because they're too concerned that a bunch of ICE agents are going to interrupt them because of the way they look, their surname, whatever the case may be, how do we look after our people in a world where some of them are walking around on eggshells?

Jim Fielding: 38:33

Well, again, I think, you know, we're talking a lot about EQ, right, emotional intelligence. I think a lot of what you're talking about is leaders who have that sensitivity to even acknowledge the fact that their teams feel that way, right? Because I think there are leaders here in America, they're probably leaders like that in Australia, I'm not going to assume, but who are oblivious to it and are not understanding what you're talking about. But I think those leaders that do understand it, and again, badge of creating physical and psychological safety, it's probably not going to happen in large group meetings. I think as a leader, you're going to be having a lot of one on ones and a lot of small group meetings, because it's a very individual, very private situation. And I think immigration and ice and legal immigration versus illegal immigration, it's all gotten thrown into this too right now. And you and I were talking about before, before we started recording, America is the nation of immigrants. I mean, unless you, as I said, unless you can trace yourself back to the indigenous people who were here when Christopher Columbus arrived, then your family somewhere immigrated, emigrated from somewhere, right? Europe, Africa, South America, Canada, I mean it. They've come from somewhere. And we used to celebrate that. And you. It's quite interesting to me that people seem to have forgotten their heritage, right? And their their background and their their lineage, per se. But as leaders, I think this sensitivity and this empathy and just this awareness that your team is dealing with this, and particularly, again, if you're in a corporate this is what's so interesting here. I don't know about Australia, Mick, but we have had forms for over 30 years in corporate. There's a form called the I nine form that when you get hired at a corporation, it's an immigration form. We had it way before ice, way before President Trump. We had to fill out an i nine form and verify that that employee had the right and the authority to work in the United States. And there was a process you especially when you were hired by a company like Disney or DreamWorks, and if you did not qualify, you did not get the job offer. So every, every job offer we made, what we would literally say, we're making a job offer for job x, but it's contingent on I nine clearance, like we've been saying that for 30 years, that you have to have work status. Now, that work status could come through a special visa, that work status could come through marriage, you could do through a green card, but you that had to be verified, and you mentioned your background. I worked at Disney and dreamers. We were moving executives around the world all the time. We were using these H, 1b visas that have become very hot news right now, because we wanted to move the best and brightest talent around. When I was president of Disney Store, I had the head of stores globally open. That job was based in Los Angeles, the absolute best candidate for that job happened to be a British man who was living in London. We moved him and his partner on an H 1b visa to make him the head of Global disney store, store operations, because he was absolutely the best candidate. And that's what the legal immigration and H 1b were for was to move talent around the world. It wasn't about stealing jobs from Americans. There was very good Americans that were candidates for that job, but the absolute best person for that job happened to be a Brit and performed beautifully for us for many, many years. So immigration status and legality and all that is something you we were dealing with as leaders for years, for years, and we talked about openly, and we were aware that there was illegal immigration. Of course, we were aware of that, like you'd have to live under a rock if you didn't know about it, particularly when I was living in California, if you were living in Texas and Florida and one of the border towns, of course, you knew about immigration. But the truth was, if you were an illegal immigrant and didn't have the right papers, you weren't going to get that job offer. You were not going to clear. You were not going to clear. And again, that doesn't mean you're a bad person. You were not going to get hired in that situation. And so again, I think we've always had this differentiation between legal and illegal immigration. We've always had it. It's just been amped up and, again, weaponized. And, you know, we were told by the administration that they were going to go out and get the criminals and they were going to go out and get the quote, bad people. They're not. They're just going out and willy nilly rounding up immigrants and then figuring it out later afterwards.

Mick Spiers: 43:31

So, Jim, the one that got me your attention here in Australia recently was this Hyundai factory with the South Korean workers who, from what we hear they were there to build and set up a factory that was going to create jobs, not steal jobs. Where did things go wrong there?

Jim Fielding: 43:49

Well, I mean, I think unfortunately, and I think all the forensics aren't done on this yet, but I think there was a lot of misinformation and disinformation. But the facts were these, 340 technical experts, engineers. It people. There was a lot of very technical people had been sent here by Hyundai on approved visas to set up that factory. To your point, it was a factory that was supposed to build our battery batteries for electric cars in and provide up to 8000 jobs in southeastern Georgia, down near Savannah, and somehow somebody gave them a bad tip or something. And but I think again, what was, what was interesting was something that was supposed to be about economic development and job creation in the United States quickly became an international incident, became a diplomacy issue, and the South Korean government and Hyundai, to their credit, sent a chartered jet to pick those people up and took them home. And guess what we have now. We have a half finished factory with no guarantees from Hyundai or the South Korean government that. Going to finish it at this point. And so whoever was the tipsters or the tipster or the tipsters now actually created, we have this hulk of a half finished factory just sitting there, and no new job creation, creation, which was supposed to be like bringing jobs back to America was part of the President's platform. So I think that one's just, I mean, I think we should call it what it was. We call it it was a failure. It was it was a diplomacy failure. It was a they were not here illegally. They were here doing a legal job, trying to create jobs in the United States. But I think what's happened is, again, with this pace of change and the swiftness of change, all this stuff is just happening at once. And I don't think there's enough leaders in place in some of these organizations, like ice to step back and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Like, let's really look at this one. Like, before we go in and round everybody up, like, I think they just go and then they deal with the ramifications afterwards. And that's, that's just not good leadership. I mean, it doesn't matter where you are on the political spectrum. That's just not sound leadership. Like, round round everybody up and then figure it out later. Is not a good strategy.

Mick Spiers: 46:17

That's not a good strategy, yeah, okay, all right, I've got one more topic I want to explore, and then we'll go to our Rapid Round. So the other thing that's happening, if we think about diversity and the things that you and I believe in, that also means that in the workplace, we have a political divide, and we try not to bring politics into the workplace. But the truth is, and don't quote me on the numbers, I'm going to just estimate some things in your team. Right now, there's a possibility that you've got, let's say, 30% of people that are actually pro Trump, maybe 20 something percent that are anti Trump, and then 50 something, and then the gray middle who either don't care or are disengaged or don't want to talk about it at all. How do we make sure that our workplace is inclusive for all in a way where that doesn't divide us?

Jim Fielding: 47:18

Well, this is such a great question, Mick, because it goes back to the whole freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and freedom of religion and freedom of choice, right is and again, when I was leading physical teams, I'll give you a perfect example. We didn't talk about politics in the workplace. We did not like come in and say, Are you Republican? Are you democratic? How are you voting? But here's a perfect example. Is me as a leader. What I would do when I knew that an election was coming, I would send an email to my team or talk to them in a team meeting, or put it in my newsletter and say, Hey, our elections in the states are always on Tuesdays. And I say, next Tuesday is election day. I don't care how you vote. I don't want to know how you vote. I'm not encouraging you to vote one way or another. I am asking you to vote, be an American and participate, and so I am going to allow you to come in late that day or leave early, because we know there's always lines at the polls on that day. Just tell your leader, your individual, manager of your group. What are you doing? You're going to vote before you come into work. You might be late, or you're going to leave early to go vote before the polls closed. And I would say to them again, I am not telling you how to vote. I'm not telling you how I'm voting. Most people knew what my leanings were. But again, that was not in the workplace. That was not proper. But what I was saying is, participate in the democracy. Use your voice. And again, I don't care where you fall in the spectrum, like where you fall in those buckets that you said, but please vote. Because I think one of the saddest things about United States right now is we have less than 50% of eligible voters who actually vote, less than 50% of the people who are eligible to vote vote. So that disengaged group who is impacted by the rest of us who are voting, that disengaged group, that makes me sad. We have one of the lowest for a democracy this size. I think we have one of the lowest voter participations in the in the world. And I see democracies like India, where it's much harder to vote, by the way, than it is to vote in the United States. And they have like 85 90% participation. We have less than 50. And I think that's because a lot of people think the systems and government and this two party system is not built for them. But to me, you cannot abdicate your right to vote like you. You need to vote and, and, and be educated. Be educated. Go in and vote with some education.

Mick Spiers: 49:48

Yeah, all right. Nice message there. Jim, so, so as I draw us to a conclusion, what the message or the lesson I want to take from our discussion today is that we can observe what's happening. The world, in the political circles, in the world, in the multi national situations, all of these conflicts and division that we're seeing, we can silently observe that, and we can then take lessons and apply it in our leadership. So I'll just use the one example of the psychological safety when we see someone of whichever political leaning, because they can be both as bad as each other at times, if you see someone like a president saying, you can leave the room if you want, but you know, there goes your rank, there goes your there goes your career, you can apply that and go, Well, I never want to be like that in my workplaces. So you can take those, those lessons, you can observe that is not what psychological safety looks like. That's what not to do. Now, what am I going to do in my micro sphere? What micro moment, what small moment? What actions am I going to take to create the environment that I would be proud of, an environment where people feel seen, where they feel heard, where they feel valued, where they feel included, where they feel respected. I want this diversity of thought. I want this speak up culture. What actions am I going to take so notice and name it when you see something that you would not do in the workplace, and then make sure you take action to do the opposite in terms of how you create an environment. And I think that applies to Dei. You can take actions like Jim is saying. It doesn't have to be called Dei, but you can in your values, in your actions, in your behaviors, you can create an environment that prides itself on diversity of thought, equity and inclusion, speak up, culture, all of these things that we're talking about. All right, Jim, now I'm going to take us to our Rapid Round. These are the same four questions we ask all of I guess, what's the one thing that you know now? Jim, fielding that you wish you knew when you're 20?

Jim Fielding: 52:01

I wish that I could have embraced the fact of like this mantra I have now daily, which is, I am enough and I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, like I wish I would have known. I think that's something that I learned in my 50s, that I wish I learned in my 20s, because I was always searching, I was always reaching. I mean, I was ambitious, I was goal oriented, but I there was many times I felt like I was not enough. And the reality is, we are enough and we're right where we're supposed to be.

Mick Spiers: 52:31

Thank you, Jim. I think a lot of us need to hear that, and we need to hear it early, like you said,

Jim Fielding: 52:35

Early for sure.

Mick Spiers: 52:37

What's your favorite book?

Jim Fielding: 52:38

My favorite book has always been Catcher in the ride by JD Salinger, always Holden Caulfield is my fictional like, he's the person. Like, if I was having a dinner party and you were allowed to have a fictional character, I went Holden Caulfield at my at my dinner party, it was I, I read it over and over and over again. And full credit to Mrs. Elaine Coots, my English teacher in Whitmer High School in Toledo, Ohio. I think I read it every year of high school, and I still go back to it. It's, I have an old little copy that's tattered. I still go back to it.

Mick Spiers: 53:10

Very good, sir. Okay, what's your favorite quote?

Jim Fielding: 53:13

My favorite quote is, I mean, it's terrible to say it's one of my own, but it's, may we leave our corner of the world a little better than we found it. It's really my guiding principle of you've mentioned it several times, but like these small, incremental changes, these small, little acts of kindness, I try to encourage people, we don't have to make these big, sweeping changes. It's like these small changes that like have a ripple effect and like a multiplier effect. It's by far, it's, I think about it every day.

Mick Spiers: 53:39

Really good chair. I want to unpack that lesson a little bit more and say there's a lot of there's a lot of things that are happening in the world that we can't control, but what we can control is our patch, if we can control our patch.

Jim Fielding: 53:50

100% No, I say that. You know, one of the first lesson in my book is control the controllable belief space for the possible. And I've had to update it in this current environment, and say we can't control the situation, we can control our reactions to the situation. And again, that's a learning I wish I had learned younger, because I tried to control things that were uncontrollable for sure.

Mick Spiers: 54:16

Now, Tim, final question is, there's going to be a lot of people listening to the show who are a bit lost, lost and confused, and they want to play their role in the world. How do people find you if they'd like to know more about your work, your speeches, your seminars?

Jim Fielding: 54:33

I'm super I'm super easy. My My website is hijimfielding.com, jimfielding.com is a lovely British artist I could not own just Jim fielding.com but hijimfielding.com is me. I'm Jim fielding on LinkedIn. Hi Jim fielding on Instagram. And I tell everybody when I'm on these, these podcasts, Mick, it is me. So if you DM me on Instagram or send me a message on LinkedIn, I will. Answer it. I'm not saying it's going to be instantaneous. It's but I don't, I don't use bots. I don't use AI for answers. That is me and I, and I, I post every day on LinkedIn, seven days a week, and those are it's me commenting as well. So, you know, a lot of times people like and I'll comment back on comments like, I really love that interaction. And I mean, one of the other things about me is I'm a lifelong learner, and I'm constantly curious, so I learn from every one of those comments I and not everybody likes everything I post. I don't expect them to, but I learned. I read every comment, and I really do learn and try and grow.

Mick Spiers: 55:37

Yes, that's really mature. I love it. Jim, so well. Thank you so much. Thank you for showing up as authentically yourself. You absolutely shared a lot of yourself today. I really appreciate it, thanks to the gift of your time and your wisdom and your experience. Greatly appreciate it.

Jim Fielding: 55:55

No, I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much for having me.

Mick Spiers: 55:59

What a powerful conversation with Jim fielding what landed for you this week? For me, it was the moment you felt the shift from having answers to hosting questions. Here are today's takeaways that you can use this week. Number one, tame the ego. You don't need every answer. Instead ask invite and listen. That's how you unlock the brain trust you hired. Number two, ritualize inclusion. Don't wait for a program. Start with the small things. Make space for every voice rotate first speak close the loop and credit the contributors. And number three, lead above the noise in charged environments. Be clear on values, slow down for facts and set psychological safety as a non negotiable. Here are your reflection questions for this week. Where is ego crowding out curiosity in your leadership? What is one meeting you'll run differently. Specifically, what new ritual will you add to surface diverse thinking, and who on your team needs to feel seen, heard and valued? Today, in the next episode, we're going to be joined by the inspirational key one, Amy, who's going to talk about his book, why not me? And embracing resilience. You've been listening to The Leadership Project. If today sparked an insight, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with one other person who would benefit from listening to the show. A huge thank you to Gerald Calibo for his tireless work editing every episode, and to my amazing wife say, who does all the heavy lifting in the background to make this show possible. None of this happens without them around here. We believe leadership is a practice, not a position that people should feel seen, heard, valued, and that they matter, and that the best leaders trade ego for empathy, certainty for curiosity and control for trust. If that resonates with you, please subscribe on YouTube and on your favorite podcast app. And if you want more, follow me on LinkedIn and explore our archives for conversations that move you from knowing to doing Until next time, lead with curiosity courage and care you.