077 - Journey of Leadership Development with Brett Larson

In this returning conversation, John Marshall sits down with Humessence coach, leadership development expert, and author Brett Larson to unpack what it truly means to lead people rather than manage them. Brett traces his journey from industrial engineer to plant leader at WL Gore, one of Fortune's most consistently recognized employers, where he learned that leadership is not defined by title but by followership. He shares how emotional intelligence became the cornerstone of the leadership development program he built, how values only mean something when they are woven into the systems and behaviors of an organization, and how a culture of direct, compassionate feedback can drive both human connection and measurable business performance. From a 97% team satisfaction score to real improvements in yield and efficiency, Brett makes a compelling case that the human side of leadership and the results side are not in conflict — they are the same thing.

Resources:
Discovering Leaders Within by Brett Larson
Humessence Website

Connect with Brett Larson: Website

Takeaways

• Leadership is not granted by title — it is earned through followership, service, and trust.
• The first mistake many new leaders make is solving problems instead of leading people.
• Values only hold meaning when they are systematized into performance, feedback, and day-to-day behavior.
• Emotional intelligence is teachable, and it is the single most important differentiator between good and great leadership.
• Selling a new idea internally requires the same emotional intelligence you are trying to teach — listen, welcome challenge, and answer the why.
• Empowerment does not mean walking away — it means consistent check-ins, balanced feedback, and genuine investment in your people's growth.
• Direct and compassionate feedback is one of the most powerful acts of respect one person can show another.
• When team members give feedback upward, it is a sign that the culture is working — not a sign of disruption.
• A psychologically safe culture is not soft — it directly correlates with higher yields, lower costs, and stronger engagement.
• Helping people find the truth for themselves is always more powerful than telling them what to fix.

Visit The Present Professional webpage on humessence.com and learn more about how we support leadership development and culture enablement at growth-stage organizations.

Thank you for listening.

Coach John Marshall | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook

Transcript

John Marshall (00:32)
Welcome to another episode of the present professional. Today we have a guest who's been with us before on the show,

Humessence coach, Brett Larson, Humessence coach and leadership development expert. Love to have him here with us again. And also not last but not least author of discovering leaders within. go ahead and show the title of the book there.

There there it is there it is we'll also put that in the show notes for you all to be able to access directly but I wanted to take a minute here for you to really get to know Brett and the expertise the insights the personality that he's brought to our team as well So just for you all to get to know him and see you know what? how his perspective differs from some of the

leadership development talk that you see out there. So with that, Brett, can you tell us a little bit more about your background and journey through your professional career to where you're at now with Humessence

Brett Larson (01:37)
Yeah, thanks, John. It's a pleasure to be here with you again. Yeah, so I was an industrial engineer, graduated from the University of Michigan. I took an industrial engineering job and I worked in that role for four years for a manufacturing company. And I decided that I really wasn't a dive deep crunching data kind of an engineer and I wanted to lead people.

John Marshall (01:56)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (02:05)
So I went into my first leadership role and, as we often do, we choose leaders based on individual contributions. So I went into that role trying to solve problems and make decisions. And we made a lot of progress, but I lost the team in trying to do that, trying to solve problems and implement.

John Marshall (02:25)
Hmm.

Brett Larson (02:30)
equipment and not really lead people. And that was a nightmare scenario. I created a culture where people didn't feel trusted, didn't feel heard, didn't feel part of the path forward because I was just making the decisions. So that was a miserable life learning experience. And throughout

John Marshall (02:33)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (02:54)
Then I led various teams for the next 29 years and grew my ability to lead. I went to a company called W.L. & Associates in 2003. And Gore, I found them because they were consistently on the list of Fortune Top 100 employers. And so I sought them out and I was the first manufacturing leader they had hired from the outside.

John Marshall (03:15)
Hmm.

Brett Larson (03:21)
And they had a unique culture and what they asked of me, they believed that leaders were not defined by title, but were defined by followership. And they challenged me with coming in and growing followership. So unlike my initial leadership experience, I was tasked with not getting a bunch of things done to begin with, but

John Marshall (03:35)
Hmm.

Brett Larson (03:46)
to grow followership with the team. So I started just learning people, trying to understand what their challenges were, and then figure out how I could reduce those barriers, serve their needs, solve the problems that were important to them. And sometime later, I realized they were actually starting to listen to me.

Whereas initially, know, leader doesn't mean anything to us. You need to earn it. So that was a tremendous experience that taught me a ton about leadership. It enabled me to help create a and be a part of a great environment, a great team. And my life was so much easier because it wasn't all on my shoulders. We were a team working towards the same end. So that's briefly my experience and how

John Marshall (04:12)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Mm.

Brett Larson (04:36)
my views on leadership have changed from a personal standpoint.

John Marshall (04:40)
Interesting. You know, I knew, I knew a good bit of that story, but I did not know that you sought out WL Gore, like for those, for that kind of specific culture and you know, what they were known for. That's, that's, that's really, it's really interesting. And, know, says a lot about kind of, you know, your initiative and knowing what, knowing what you wanted to be a part of and enjoying kind of in the first place. I think there's a lot that.

You know, lot that people are just all of us in general can learn about, you know, going after the kind of team that you want to be a part of in the first place. Right.

Brett Larson (05:18)
Yeah, and it was interesting because I had come from a company that I won't name that they didn't ever define what their values were. the values kind of blew with the wind depending on what the next challenge is. Whereas Gore was very clear about here's our four principles, here's our foundational beliefs.

John Marshall (05:24)
You

Brett Larson (05:40)
So I had, and others had the ability to look at what they were about and it attracted like-minded people with similar values. So it's very powerful for a company, an organization to define what their values are, what's important to them. And then, that's not enough because they also have to live that. So very quickly.

You know, if they aren't actually living those values, you see that there's a lack of integrity there. But at Gore, they lived their values. So it was great.

John Marshall (06:14)
It's like the values and then associated behaviors with those values. I feel there's something about...

Brett Larson (06:20)
Yes.

John Marshall (06:22)
You know, because, you know, I've been a part of organization and teams where, know, there's been values defined, you know, values and behaviors defined on the wall and everything. But until I found that, you know, until those were actually woven into the performance or individual development planning process and kind of how people were evaluated, that it was a little bit,

I guess more difficult to find them being lived out than when they're part of that performance review process.

Brett Larson (06:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, you point to it needs to be systematized. Your systems need to be in support of the values. And one thing Gore did, one of their values was the freedom. One of their principles was the freedom principle. It still is. And the freedom principle was basically the expectation that every associate support the growth and development of their teammates. So instead of

John Marshall (07:07)
Hmm.

Mm.

Brett Larson (07:20)
I came from an environment where information was power and you didn't share information. Gore explicitly said, we expect you to help others be better, to share information, to be a great teammate. And to your point, their process of reviewing and determining compensation, all employees, all associates had input. So we ranked each other. And if you

John Marshall (07:45)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (07:46)
weren't supportive of me, then I'm going to not rank you as high. So the system supported that freedom principle. And then when leaders got all that data on how people were ranked and we reconciled it, we would explicitly ask the question, is this person a multiplier of others? Are they a divider or are they just kind of an individual contributor?

John Marshall (07:56)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (08:12)
So that was really an important principle for us to follow.

John Marshall (08:12)
Hmm.

Awesome, awesome, yes, build it into the system. So now you've talked about some of the core lessons that you learned from early leadership moving into leading for the next 20 plus years, but then made that transition to actually leadership development and training for the organization. guess it was learning and professional development part of the organization.

What was that transition like from leading to helping to develop other leaders and teams?

Brett Larson (08:49)
Thank you. It's a good question. Well, it was interesting because my role was identified because we had a leadership development group, but we had like 2,500 manufacturing associates and about 250 leaders in manufacturing. And it didn't feel like our needs were being met by that team.

the manufacturing, divisional manufacturing leader said, you know, we need to hire our own leadership development professional that specifically address needs of manufacturing. And that's how I got the opportunity. And what I first sought out to do was to understand what makes one a good leader to a good leadership development program. And so I started to take a doctorate

program that I didn't complete, but I took several classes, got access to a ton of research. And one key learning from that is the importance of emotional intelligence that makes a leader really effective in being a good leader and growing strong teams. And we weren't being taught emotional intelligence within our current leadership development system.

And so that's one of the things that I adopted because you can teach emotional intelligence. You can also lose emotional intelligence. So that was a key part of what I adopted in my leadership development program. There's lots of other things too that I learned about such as, you know,

John Marshall (10:14)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (10:26)
development planning and trying to support the growth and development of people of the next generation of leaders and how to do that effectively. But all those things are kind of documented in my book, what I learned, what I applied, and what we were able, the system that we created that actually demonstrated improvement in culture survey data in teams engagement and their experience.

with psychological safety.

John Marshall (10:54)
Hmm. So listeners, you can learn more in depth about this through the Humessence website, as well as within Brett's book, Discovering Leaders Within, where he'll go in more depth into what

human-based leadership development is really like. So if you want to learn more about what that can be for your teams or how your organization can adopt some of those processes, you know, don't hesitate to reach out. There will be contact information in the show notes as well as reaching prep directly through the humessence website. So don't hesitate to start the conversation, but I'm glad that you're all joining ours right now.

Brett Larson (11:33)
And I hope you do reach out, because this is the joy of my life. I love helping leaders be more effective. There's a multiplier effect when leaders improve.

John Marshall (11:44)
It's almost like that you, not just the joy of your life in helping the leaders improve, but seeing that halo effect to their teams as well. And that overall elevated workplace human experience.

Awesome. Now, when you are, you're starting to create this leadership development program, you're noticing what the gaps were within manufacturing that you didn't have previously. And then you brought in this, like you mentioned, the succession planning and how that feeds into the development process for the next generation, almost kind of leaning back to that systematized comment that we had for values, but it's also,

systematizing the leaders that you want to create and how to kind have that pipeline moving forward. So you identify the gaps.

you found that emotional intelligence was the core part that was missing that you wanted to implement. And what were some of the learnings that you had from maybe the first couple times that you tested that out, the first couple times that you worked with the leadership team in teaching emotional intelligence? Like what was the best?

what were the best ways that helped it actually land with the leader and put it into practice versus, you know, maybe it missing the mark.

Brett Larson (13:05)
Well, one of the great things about GORE and being kind of a lattice organization where the hierarchy is not stressed, they wanted to make sure that people felt empowered to talk to anybody they needed to. One of the great things about that is it requires you to, it doesn't really attract a hierarchical leader that is just,

making decisions and barking orders, but it attracts a leader that sells ideas. And it takes longer to sell ideas, but once you do that, there's a lot more broad support. You're not doing the thing because somebody told you to, but because there's merit there. So I did a lot of work in sharing data and promoting the value of growing emotional intelligence.

John Marshall (13:36)
Hmm.

Brett Larson (13:55)
having those conversations before I actually even undertook the process of teaching emotional intelligence. And then when I... ⁓ go ahead.

John Marshall (14:03)
Mmm.

Just to, just,

feel like there's something there that, cause I feel like there are probably a lot of people listening to this that realize that that is important. And I think you hit on a really important piece there of, know, how you, how you went about.

selling that internally because regardless of if you are in learning and professional development, maybe you're a leader that realizes that this is important and you want to incorporate it into the curriculum. And so what advice would you give someone listening that, you know, wants to help educate their HR training and development, their leaders on

the importance of training and implementing emotional intelligence training or curriculum.

Brett Larson (14:54)
What I heard you ask there is why is it important to go through that sales approach?

John Marshall (15:06)
Yeah,

it's well why and how any recommendations you have for people that are trying to sell something like this internally.

Brett Larson (15:17)
Well, at Gore it was easy because everyone was watching Simon Sinek's talks and this is very much aligned with answering the why, the importance of the why. And not only are you, and it's a two-way conversation, you're not just presenting the importance of the why, you're welcoming a conversation about that. You're encouraging challenge.

John Marshall (15:20)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Brett Larson (15:43)
because you don't want people to just sit back and go, eh, that sounds good, but I really don't believe it. That's not my experience. You want them to go, that's not my experience. Here's what concerns me, and to have a conversation about it. So, the beauty of teaching emotional intelligence is it requires me to act with emotional intelligence, which...

not only includes self-awareness and self-management, it's also other awareness and relationship management, which is that conversation piece. So what I would typically do is go into a team, identify a team of leaders. So it might be 200 manufacturing associates that are led by 15 people. And I'd go to those 15 leaders. We would first kind of

John Marshall (16:28)
Mm.

Brett Larson (16:31)
talk about the approach, what we're going to do, what the path is before I even taught emotional intelligence. And I would measure their culture. I would get their support for measuring it. And we would measure engagement from Gallup survey questions and psychological safety from Amy Edmondson's questions that she developed. And we would review that data together.

We would kind of set goals as a leadership team of how do we grow that culture. And then we would start the process of teaching emotional intelligence to that team, answering the whys of emotional intelligence and all the entire way promoting challenge, participation, conversation throughout the process.

John Marshall (17:23)
And that sounds like right how you introduce the process to the leadership team. And I guess I'm thinking a little bit more if, you know, say someone's listening that was, was on that is on a leadership team like that and is thinking, you know,

We do, you know, we do management training. do, you know, sales training. We do, you know, kind of entry level, but nothing ever really mentions emotional intelligence, but you know, they're seeing that it's important. So that person that might be on that leadership team that, you know, once, I mean, I guess they could reach out to you to help them have that conversation as, as one option, but,

If they wanted to raise that to HR or to have the conversation in their next leadership team meeting about a training that might be supportive for them, what would you, what would you recommend that they, I guess, how would you recommend that they go about that process? Like getting, getting their organization interested in adopting this, this program or any kind of emotional intelligence training within the group.

Brett Larson (18:30)
Yeah, it's a tough one because it largely depends on the mindset of the leaders, their openness, their comfort with the current way that they lead and manage. And if they are managers today that are kind of looking over people's shoulders and that they value strength and hierarchy and

decision-making, then it might be tough. if they're often, they often say change needs to have some crisis to drive it. I think that's true. That allows you to open up your mind, but there also are leaders that saying, need our teams to be more effective. We have leaders that are getting burned out. They are trying to do everything.

John Marshall (18:59)
Hmm.

Brett Larson (19:20)
They don't understand how to create high performance among the entire team. If those are things that describe your environment and you feel like you're leaving a lot of potential on the, you know, not being utilized, then maybe you're going to be receptive to a new way to lead that is

John Marshall (19:40)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (19:48)
based on serving people, it's based on growing followership for the leader because of your service, because you're creating an environment where they can be successful as a driver. So yeah, I think it depends. The sales pitch is different depending on the type of culture, the type of leader that you're currently working with.

John Marshall (20:12)
Hmm, definitely, definitely have to adapt to your audience and you know, we're happy to help you have that conversation or just, you know, just see where you're at and see if anything like that would be a good fit. So, you know, don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions about trying to connect with your team, your leadership team, or, know, your learning and development organization. Now,

Just taking a step back to leadership in general, what would you say are, what needs to change about how a leader has been defined in the past or maybe even is still being defined today?

Brett Larson (20:55)
Yeah, you know, you look at kind of historic great leaders, like maybe in government, might be Winston Churchill, who had a circumstance where it was very different. It was wartime. He had to be strong and decisive and so on. And then you people translate, he was a great leader. So that's the way I should lead in business. And maybe they look at a Jack Welch who

had a very strong philosophy, was very decisive, was incredibly intelligent. But when he left, he did not leave behind strong leaders to keep things running well and growing for GE because it was all about Jack Welch. I think those are the kind of leaders of the past. And today, we have so much information flowing.

John Marshall (21:37)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (21:44)
so many things going on. And it requires our teams to be flexible. It requires decisions to be made broadly, not a central command, control and command. It requires salespeople to be able to be decisive in the field and supportive customers and be comfortable with that, not.

Going back, as the car salesman has to go back to his manager to negotiate a price, who wants to go through that? The customer that can talk to somebody who can make a decision in support of the customer experience, that's going to create loyal customers. And so it's more of the leader that creates an empowered, trusting, psychologically safe environment.

John Marshall (22:25)
Hmm.

Brett Larson (22:33)
where their team can feel ownership, can make decisions, can challenge decisions, can be a part of a productive discussion and even disagreement towards making better decisions. That's the type of leader that will, especially with our new generation, that will create an environment where people will feel like they have ownership, like they're...

John Marshall (22:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (23:00)
They're important.

John Marshall (23:02)
Now, this comes up a lot when I talk to clients about empowerment, right, and creating more empowered teams and culture, but how do you balance empowerment with a culture of accountability as well?

Brett Larson (23:19)
Yeah, you know, often we think that empowerment means I don't check on things. I don't follow up. I'm just handing it all over to you. But it's not that way at all. I love the book Nine Lies About Work. One of the things it says is there's, you know, it talks about what are the attributes of a great leader. And it says there's no such thing. The great leaders in history have

have become great leaders because they have been authentic to their thinking. They didn't have this 17 list, 17 item list of capabilities. But what makes a great leader is followership. All the great leaders have had strong followers who have trusted in their leadership, who have felt empowered and trusted.

So the accountability piece of that, I feel like a leader that met with me consistently, didn't just give me a performance review once a year and tell me all the things that I needed to improve, but met with me and said, how are you doing? How's that project coming? What are your challenges? How can I support you? But also said,

You know what, I noticed in the last meeting that you weren't very organized. These were the things that I saw that had me conclude that. And I'm wondering how I can support you in being more organized in your next meeting or whatever it is. But just has a, and also notices the good things. You know, if you're just noticing the bad things, then people start feeling beat up.

But if a leader is having a balanced conversation, hey, you met this milestone, congratulations, what were the factors in that success? Who can I, know, who do I need to follow up with to say thank you as well? And also gives candid feedback on where they can improve. That's a balanced conversation that creates accountability and it also grows trust because I'm hearing

the truth from you and you're not pulling any punches and you're concerned about my success in that, that's very apparent in that conversation.

John Marshall (25:31)
Hmm, I'm hearing.

empowerment, trust.

Regular feedback?

as part of this culture of accountability. And one word I left out was authenticity. All right. Not doing the, you know, the feedback sandwich, but authentically, you know, authentically bringing positive feedback or constructive feedback whenever needed and being straightforward with your intention in having those conversations.

And just doing that regularly helps balance the empowerment and trust with accountability and delivering results. So it's this kind of awareness of what your people are up to and being able to check in with them on some regular schedule or, you know, ensure that your leaders are checking up on their people on some regular schedule, allowing that to have a system to proliferate down in this.

of

accountability and feedback and you know not not not radical candor but you compassionate candor

Brett Larson (26:40)
Yes, yeah, respectful, compassionate candor. And I would like to highlight that. That was a great summary, John. I want to highlight feedback a little bit more because it's not just a one-way street. That leader should also be receptive to feedback and create an environment where learning is what's important. if learning is what's important,

John Marshall (26:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (27:06)
then feedback is critical and feedback is valued. It now becomes less of a uncomfortable thing and more of a welcoming, I need feedback because I need to improve. And I will say my example of feedback being powerful is I became a plant leader of a plant about 125 people. And we had terrific

John Marshall (27:09)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (27:32)
individuals from the frontline leader through their leaders and up to me. And we all agreed and Gore emphasized this, that feedback was really important and direct feedback was important. So if I'm a leader and you come to me and you're person I lead and you come to me and say,

I'm having a real problem with Joe. Joe is treating me disrespectfully. He is criticizing me without merit. I need help. My first question to you, we were trained, it should be, John, have you talked to Joe? Is Joe aware of your frustration with him? And if you haven't done that,

John Marshall (28:13)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (28:18)
then I don't want to insert myself there because inserting myself to solve your problem creates a terrible relationship with you and Joe. Now Joe's like, he's going to be running to Brett every time. And so Joe will run to me and I will be solving everyone's interpersonal problems. if I, right, but if I can help you have that conversation with Joe, it's very difficult, but

John Marshall (28:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

and have no time left for strategic.

Brett Larson (28:47)
We can do some practice. We can do some role play. We had training at Gore for how to give feedback. And you gave that feedback to Joe. Now the chances for Joe improving are better because it's direct. You can use direct examples. And Joe will feel, even if he doesn't agree, he'll feel respected because you came to him directly.

John Marshall (29:02)
Hmm.

Brett Larson (29:11)
And so you just work it out then and maybe Joe has some feedback from you and you guys work it out together. So when I went into this plant, we had this philosophy and we had this practice. And I actually had a leader, if we had a chain of command, it was two steps down, came into my office, closed the door and said, I need to give you some feedback.

John Marshall (29:12)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (29:34)
my gosh, that was the most satisfying feeling in the world. And the feedback she gave me was really appropriate, really appreciated. And to me, it was an indicator that we were creating a successful culture. And I used that. So her coming to me directly meant she wasn't sharing her frustrations with her teammates. She wasn't creating a

perception of me that I now had no control of, but she was facing it directly and it allowed me to address it. Also, when we had new employees coming into the plant, I used that, I asked for permission and I used that as an example. This is the culture we want to create. Here's an example of where it manifests and our expectations are that you will also give feedback.

directly. And if people were so uncomfortable, they didn't come or they left. And so it became an environment where we respected each other, we talked directly, and we had a culture survey that assessed our overall culture through a satisfaction score. And our satisfaction was high to begin with. It was like 81 % satisfaction.

John Marshall (30:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (30:50)
But over the course of two years, because the whole leadership team was doing this, our satisfaction in manufacturing for hourly manufacturing associates went to 97%. And that was actually scary when we got that data. It's like, my gosh, there's only one direction to go from here. But it was a tremendously powerful environment. and by the way, we made the same product as a duplicate

John Marshall (30:59)
Yeah.

wow.

Hahaha.

Brett Larson (31:18)
manufacturing line at another plant. We had something like 2 to 4 % higher yields and 5 to 10 % greater efficiency in cost per device manufactured. So the culture translated into performance as well.

John Marshall (31:20)
Mm.

That's beautiful. It's just a lovely balance between, you know, because emotional intelligence, followership, empowerment, right? It all sounds really great, but then, you know, does it deliver results? Does it still hold people accountable? And right. The other side of that is the psychological safety and the comfort having uncomfortable conversations.

providing that direct feedback. Because if you just have the positivity without the comfort and the comfort in the discomfort, then you kind of just have chaos, right? It's this empowerment without accountability. And, you know, in order to hold each other accountable, you have to have this culture of feedback, culture of learning where it's promoted and

People feel safe sending that up, down and sideways.

Brett Larson (33:16)
And the emotional intelligence linked to this is the realization that giving feedback is uncomfortable. Who am I to give feedback to this person? How are they gonna react? Are they gonna hate me for the rest of my life kind of a thing? And that's a self-awareness thing, which is part of emotional intelligence, but also being able to step back from that and realize that

John Marshall (33:16)
Beautiful.

Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (33:44)
What is my objective in giving this feedback? I want that other person to grow. I want them to be successful. This feedback of how they're treating me, for example, is really important for them to hear because they might not even be aware of it and it might be affecting other people. So really, when you get at the heart of it,

John Marshall (33:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (34:08)
Giving feedback is really to try and help somebody be more successful. And when you think of it in those terms, it's not as hard to give now. And it creates the delivery of the message to sound a little softer. I'm not just criticizing you and beating you up. Is it OK if I share some feedback with you because I'm really concerned? And I'd like you to be as successful as you possibly can be.

John Marshall (34:35)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (34:35)
Sure,

give me the feedback. here's, let me share observable facts. Let me share how I interpreted it, how it affected me. And let's have a conversation about that and what your perspective is and what opportunities you might see in that. And it's just like coaching, John, you you're a coach. If you can get somebody else to see the truth in it and then to own it.

John Marshall (34:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brett Larson (35:00)
The chance of them changing behavior is so much higher than if you're just telling them what they need to fix.

John Marshall (35:08)
Yep. Yep. It's, you know, helping our people become more resourceful rather than just giving them the resources or telling them what to do. Beautiful. Well, this has all been so informative and, know, just such a great conversation about, you know, really, you know, our vision of leadership and

You know what we've been working with clients to create and you know, really why we connected in the first place, Brett, you know, it's, ⁓ it's awesome to kind of come full circle on this, this conversation to just between us. And, with that, what would be your, you know, one, one piece of advice to leave with, you know, someone listening to this.

Brett Larson (35:52)
I guess my advice for leaders is to understand that the title doesn't make you a leader and you have to earn it. And you earn it with humility, with service, with respect, with candor, with developing relationships with the people that you lead and checking in regularly. And when you do that,

The payoff is huge because not only is the team performing at a higher level, you're just kind of looking at the culture and managing the environment and supporting the team. And you go to sleep at night a lot. Your sleep is a lot more sound. It's an easier lifestyle for a leader than one that feels like they have to make all the decisions and control everything.

John Marshall (36:31)
you

Well said, well said my friend. Well, thank you all for, for being listeners. We will have the links to the books mentioned in this episode and don't hesitate to reach out to either of us directly. We're open to having a conversation about, know, you, your team coaching workshops, trainings, even just questions that you may have with something that came up in the episode, something that you want us to cover in the future or just.

Have a conversation to meet. We'd love to meet you. With that, we'll see you next time. Thanks again for listening.

Brett Larson (37:13)
Thank you, John, and thank you all listeners