079 - The 8 Keys to Inspired Leadership with Kevin Asbjornson

In this rich and wide-ranging conversation, John Marshall sits down with Kevin Asbjornson, global leadership development professional, executive coach, keynote speaker, and performing artist, to explore what it truly means to lead with emotional intelligence in the 21st century. Kevin draws on a career spanning more than 70 countries and a lifelong parallel passion for music to make a compelling case that leadership is both an art and a science — and that most organizations have been over-investing in the science while leaving the art largely untouched. He shares his signature Eight Keys to Inspired Leadership model, the powerful practice of using original piano compositions to develop emotional awareness in leaders, and the critical distinction between a leader's tune and their tone. From practical steps for accessing emotional intelligence assessments, to how the best organizations build learn-it-all cultures and measure leadership impact along the way, this episode is a masterclass in what human-centric leadership actually looks like in practice.

Resources:
Inspire Imagine Innovate Website - https://inspireimagineinnovate.com
Howard Gardner's Intelligence ReFramed - https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Reframed-Howard-Gardner/dp/0465026117
Hogan Assessments - https://www.hoganassessments.com
Daniel Goleman's What Makes a Leader - https://dme.childrenshospital.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/What-makes-a-Leader-HBR.pdf

Connect with Kevin Asbjornson: LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/kevinasbjornson Website - https://inspireimagineinnovate.com

Takeaways

• Leadership is both an art and a science, and most organizations have over-invested in the science at the expense of the art.
• People hear your tune, but they feel your tone — and when those two are out of alignment, connection breaks down.
• Emotional intelligence is not something we are born with; it is learned through experience and developed intentionally over time.
• The five pillars of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills — and intrapersonal intelligence must come before interpersonal impact.
• Leaders inspire people; people motivate themselves — and that distinction changes everything about how we approach leadership development.
• Closing the gap between identity and reputation is one of the most transformative things a leader can do for their team and their organization.
• Real-time feedback throughout a coaching engagement is more powerful than waiting for results at the end of the process.
• The three most common leadership refinements are shifting from tune to tone, distinguishing between urgent and important, and slowing down pace to better connect with the audience.
• The best organizations invest in learn-it-all cultures rather than know-it-all cultures, and they make emotional intelligence a measurable organizational priority.
• Leadership effectiveness at work is directly connected to how we show up at home — life, career, and well-being are not separate categories.

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)
Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the present professional. Today's conversation is about emotional intelligence, inspired leadership and what it means to lead in a world that's asking more from us than technical skill or expertise alone. And in Daniel Goldman's classic article, what makes a leader makes the case that IQ and technical ability matter, but

Kevin Asbjornson (00:54)
you

John Marshall (00:59)
Emotional intelligence is often what separates truly effective leaders from everyone else.

And today's guest brings that conversation to life in a really multi-dimensional way. So today I'm really excited to introduce you to Kevin Asbjörnson a global leadership development professional, executive coach, trusted advisor, keynote speaker, author, and performing artist. Kevin has worked with leaders and organizations across more than 70 countries, bringing together

Kevin Asbjornson (01:16)
you

John Marshall (01:32)
global business experience, leadership science, coaching, and the performing arts to help people create more meaningful connections and lead with greater purpose. He's also the managing director of Imagine, Innovate, has been recognized by Hogan assessments among the top 1 % of global executive coaches for 2026. Kevin, welcome to The Present Professional.

I'd love to start with your journey. How did these threads of leadership, coaching, global work, and music all come together for you?

Kevin Asbjornson (02:08)
Thank you, John. It's a pleasure to be a guest on your podcast. That's an excellent question to begin with. If we go back to the beginning, I actually studied a dual career. One was in the area of performing arts because I am a pianist, composer, and international recording artist. The other one was international business with an emphasis on global leadership, global mindset.

And so I decided since I was given gifts in both those areas, I would maintain both a profession and an avocation. My profession tended to be for the most part the global leadership, global mindset. The music was my avocation, which is one of my passions. And I kept them in parallel, actually from a very early age.

When I completed my international MBA at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, I initially decided to go into international marketing and brand management. So I spent about 10 years with American Express and Hewlett Packard. It was a good match for me given my creativity and innovation attributes. At about the age of 30, while I was on assignment in Amsterdam, Holland,

One of my mentors took me aside and said, Kevin, we really appreciate your work as an international marketing and brand management specialist. We've also noticed you might have an aptitude for talent and leadership development. Have you ever thought longer term about transferring your skills, your passion and your interest into that field? So I sat down. It was a very good question. And I said, we know when I think about it.

I really would rather develop talent and people than products and services. And so I began the process of transferring into that field. And when we make a commitment to life, life reciprocates. And so out of the blue, when I made the decision, one of my former clients reached out to me and said, I don't know what you're doing with your life and career right now, but we'd like to introduce you to the co-founder.

of the Center for Creative Leadership, which at the time was ranked number one in executive leadership development in the world. They have a beautiful campus here just south of Denver, Colorado. I interviewed with the co-founder and she says, we have an interesting offer for you. We have a lot of PhDs who don't have experience with international business or the language of business. And we have observed that you are a very good

facilitator and speaker, if you come in and help us with our marketing and brand management, we will accredit you on all of the assessments that are necessary to be both an effective facilitator and global coach with our clients.

John Marshall (04:56)
It's like you said, as you meet life, it meets you, right? Answers the questions that you have for it. And well, I guess that takes you into how you got into the talent development field and started forming your own perspectives on leadership and being able to go around and starting this development journey, right? Transitioning from developing.

products to developing talent. And I'm curious what experiences throughout your career or even in the center of creative leadership venture shaped how you think about leadership in general.

Kevin Asbjornson (05:38)
Good question. So when you transition into a new career, practice is very important. And on a weekly basis, I was in front of audiences of 20 to 30 people at a time, both as a facilitator, as a global executive coach. And that practice gave me the opportunity to

to learn how to connect with the audience, which was different every single week. And oftentimes out of the 30 people in the classroom, there were at least 10 different nationalities represented. I first was a very good student from all the IO psychologists and clinical psychologists, and I learned what they knew very well and very quickly. Then my performing artist acumen kicked in.

and said, wait a minute, most of our emphasis on the rest of the field is on the science of leadership, but there's actually an art and science to leadership. And those people who excel in their careers practice both the art and the science. And because the Center for Creative Leadership was ranked at that time number one in the world, that provided me an opportunity to work with

very distinguished people in the field, including Howard Gardner at Harvard University, who is the author of Intelligence ReFramed, Multiple Intelligence for the 21st Century. And I read his book, realized there were eight intelligences in the world, one of which was music, two of which comprised emotional intelligence. And I sat myself down and said, I am going to design a way

of using the language of music to develop emotional intelligence in clients using my original piano solos.

John Marshall (07:28)
Okay. Let's take, take me in, take me into this, take me into this, into this process. don't want to get too deep into the, technical aspects of the design yet. would, I would love to hear how in practice the language of music has supported developing emotional intelligence in your clients and leaders that you've experienced.

Kevin Asbjornson (07:49)
Yes, I'll keep it simple. One of the things I appreciated about my tenure with the Center for Creative Leadership is they had a beautiful grand piano in the Colorado campus and they actually encouraged me to focus on evolving this because they were in the business of innovation and creativity. And so I said, well, as a pianist, there are eight keys.

to every scale in music. And how might I leverage the eight keys on a piano into the eight keys of inspired leadership? And so I did a lot of research, reached out to Howard Gardner at Harvard, him what I was doing, asked for some of his guidance on that. And...

I decided to bring a lot of research together from multiple people around the world that wasn't being brought together and actually created a model of the Eight Keys to Inspired Leadership. Then, in my field as a performing artist, the most powerful performances are what we call performance in the round or theater in the round. And since I had this beautiful venue at the

Colorado campus of the Center for Creative Leadership. I moved the piano out into the center of the room and I placed circles of chairs around the piano and I placed myself and the piano in the middle of the audience and I began the process of saying, you know, the true artistry of leadership is making meaningful connections with the audience.

However, making meaningful connections doesn't come from the technical or the IQ. The connection comes from the emotional side because music is actually the international language of the heart and soul.

John Marshall (09:32)
Mmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (09:32)
And so what I decided to do is authentic leadership needed to be role modeled. So I used my original piano solos. And what I did is I set up one of the eight keys at a time. I performed an original composition and I asked the audience to listen. And at the end, I told them that I would ask them, what did you feel? What did you think? What did you hear? With no comment from me.

I then circled the grand piano at the end of each original composition and asked them, what did you think? What did you feel? What came to your mind? Very surprisingly, John, what they came up with was actually the intention of the composition myself. And I could not believe it.

So what they heard, what they felt, what they saw was actually what was behind the composition. And I immediately challenged them by saying, leaders inspire people. People motivate themselves. In the 20th century, we got it backwards. We actually thought our job was to motivate people. But leaders inspire people. And you do that through connecting with their heart and soul.

not just their mind. And music was such a beautiful medium that that just propelled me to put it together.

John Marshall (10:47)
Wow, what a beautiful parallel to kind of the resonance of emotional intelligence, if you will. Because we've all been around leaders and people that just, we feel.

more inspired, we feel more comfortable, we feel more psychologically safe, even if sometimes they're not saying anything. It might be how they say some things, it might be the music to their presence. So the fact that everyone in that room was able to get your intention from the composition, I mean, just really speaks to the power of resonance.

It speaks to the tone, the presence, the body language, the things that you pick up that are not just informative, spoken to you. That's such a beautiful story.

Kevin Asbjornson (11:38)
Well, in leveraging your use of the word tone, the second key to inspired leadership is what I call recognize the actual versus the intended impact of your voice. And using the Yamaha grand piano, I would demonstrate to them that prior to every performance, we of course tune the piano to ensure that each key is technically in tune.

but we also tone the piano, meaning we can adjust the tension of the keys to slightly influence the sound to the audience. And I told them, by the way, as leaders, people hear your tune, but they feel your tone. And if your tune is out of alignment with your tone,

you're not connecting with your audience. So this is the first insight into what a world of a performing artist has to do with the world of a leader is your tune in alignment with your tone.

John Marshall (12:34)
Wow. That could be a whole article in itself if you haven't written it already.

Kevin Asbjornson (12:40)
Yes, well, since

I was working primarily with quite senior level leaders and I was demonstrating vulnerability, they would reciprocate. And in the conversations after each composition, they would say, Kevin, I got to be honest with you. You know, I lead quite a large group of people and I'm pretty good about making sure that my tune is in order, but I've never thought about revisiting my tone. And I'm going to begin that process to see if I can bring the two together.

John Marshall (13:07)
Hmm. Beautiful. Well, previously you mentioned, right? How the approach to right. Inspiring versus motivating. And how we had that backwards in the 20th century. And now, I mean, even saying 21st century leadership, the beginning of the 21st century to now is like.

feels like a couple more centuries when it comes to the technology and the markets that we're working with right now. But for sake of juxtaposition, why does emotional intelligence matter so much in 21st century leadership versus the model that we, know, the model that emerged with industrial revolution and into business and information era before?

Kevin Asbjornson (13:53)
That's a good question. So another way of describing inspired leadership is human centric leadership. And what happened between the 20th and the 21st century is that around the world, people developed, became more self-actualized. We have now at any point in time, five different generations in the workplace with differing expectations. And in the case of my colleagues and I,

We have clients in 70 different countries. And so the ability for us to connect with our audience, whether we're facilitating coaching or doing an assessment of a survey, is to make a connection with the person. And that goes beyond the data. It goes beyond the science. It goes with our willingness to step back.

realize that our client actually has innate wisdom inside himself. And our role is not to tell the client anything, but to evoke.

an emotion from within that helps them to rediscover what is actually naturally inside them, truly naturally inside them.

John Marshall (15:00)
something tells me that as above, so below the similar process as you are supporting leaders in, right. In having evoke something within them, it feels like it might be the same parallel to inspired leadership on their end with their teams and kind of evoking things within their employees, their peers, their organizations. Does that track?

Kevin Asbjornson (15:24)
Absolutely. In fact, one of the most prominent IO psychologists in the world, Robert Hogan, who I'm affiliated with as a Hogan practitioner, he defines leadership in terms of our ability to create high performing teams. And we do not create high performing teams without evoking the emotional element.

John Marshall (15:26)
Okay.

Kevin Asbjornson (15:48)
and informing the team that collectively our primary focus is creating synergy and collaboration. The 20th century exaggerated the role of competition. Now I'm not saying that there's not a role for competition, but it was exaggerated. And in the classic definition of the ability of a leader to inspire teams to reach their fullest potential, that requires

all five components of emotional intelligence.

John Marshall (16:13)
Well, this, this good that you brought this up and we've been saying emotional intelligence a lot and resonance and inspiration and, you know, evoking not just motivation, but like you said, synergy and collaboration across the team. So just to take one step back and clue everyone into the five.

pillars of emotional intelligence. Can you introduce the audience to, I guess, maybe a 101 on emotional intelligence so that they can see the framework in front of them and then we can dive a little deeper.

Kevin Asbjornson (16:47)
Sure. So in my experience, Daniel Goldman, together with Howard Gardner, probably did the most comprehensive research into multiple intelligences and then what constitutes emotional intelligence. It just so happens that two of the eight intelligences which Howard Gardner identified, comprise emotional intelligence and they're called intrapersonal intelligence.

the degree to which we understand who we are and what motivates ourselves. And the second intelligence is called interpersonal intelligence, the ability to apply that self-awareness in creating meaningful connections with others. And in the article I shared with you on what really makes a leader, and I appreciate you reading that, the five components of emotional intelligence

in life and in work are comprised of self-awareness and self-regulation. Those first two comprise intrapersonal intelligence, the degree to which we understand ourself. examples of what that looks like is self-confidence, trustworthiness, integrity, trustworthiness, and openness to change. Those two are the foundation of emotional intelligence. The other three components

actually make up interpersonal intelligence, the ability to connect with other people in a meaningful manner. And they're comprised of motivation, empathy, and social skills. And examples of what that looks like is strong drive to achieve, organizational commitment, expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, which is the...

primary part of my career, persuasiveness. And what's interesting is when I am working with and evaluating managers and leaders, I ask them, how aware do you think you are of your current level of emotional intelligence? And the reason I ask that question is that while we're born with our IQ, we're not born with our EQ or emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is something that we must learn from experience throughout life and develop. And that's misunderstood.

John Marshall (18:54)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (18:54)
And so I actually use one of the gold standard self-assessments of emotional intelligence that my clients complete and it actually plays back to them where they actually fall along the five components. And then we benchmark them against a global normative database of other people. So they see where they fall in relation to others.

Surprisingly, John, many people are not aware of those two intelligences within the model and that if you don't have good intrapersonal intelligence or strategic self-awareness, as Dr. Hogan calls it, you're going to be impeded in your ability to create meaningful connections with others. So I often have to redirect them back to the beginning and say, well, we actually need to focus on developing your self-awareness and self-regulation before we make

progress with motivation, empathy, and social skills.

John Marshall (19:50)
So.

Just to take one step back. have the model laid out in front of us. And I mean, the research is out there. We've been hearing about emotional intelligence a lot. This isn't the first time we've had a conversation about it on the podcast either. And we know that it contributes to success, high performance. mean, the business results are there. The, it's so clear.

that emotional intelligence is the key differentiator in leadership success and I would say organizational success as well. Yet at the same time,

I feel like there's this resistance.

There's like some folks will lean into it. Okay. I hear that this is necessary. I hear this, that this works, but we're, focused on performance. We're focused on delivering results here. Like I feel like I need to be more, I need to be stronger and more assertive and more, and not that those

are mutually exclusive. You can be emotionally intelligent and assertive. Yet, at the same time, I feel like there's this old school, not even old school mentality, more like Western capitalist mentality of emotional intelligence being second to high performance when the data clearly says the opposite. So,

What do you say to someone listening that's saying, okay, I hear about this all the time. You know, what would you say to someone that could maybe finally convince them to say, okay, let me take a look at this.

Kevin Asbjornson (21:22)
Good question. So let me first respond to that language that you used and that is Western capitalism actually put the cart before the horse rather than the horse before the cart. All right. That was a classic blind spot, but no one really challenged them because the pressure was always on results, results, results, results, what they did rather than how they went about doing it. So that's a classic.

blind spot of Western capitalism. That's point number one. Point number two, and of course we do have clients who have skepticism or healthy skepticism, what we do is to help them kind of enhance their perspective is to say, well, we're going to interview people that you work with and we're going to provide you a 360 degree perspective on the actual impact of how you lead and your behavior.

When we collect that, and we can do that through various ways, there's wonderful 360 degree surveys that are out there. There's a section in there for rating the person on a scale of one to five, but most importantly, John, there's a verbatim comment section where without any filter from us, the people put in their own words the actual impact of the leader.

on them. And when they read those comments, they are humbled. They are

They are beside themselves because no one has ever taken approach of saying how you lead is just as important as the results that you deliver.

And then, since there's so much research by my peers and colleagues, we can actually statistically correlate how that 360 degree feedback results in leadership effectiveness. And of the four quadrants of leadership, and I think this is a good point to bring this in to further answer your question.

There are four quadrants of what the best leaders look like in the world. They are achievement focus, inspiring, strategic, and emotional intelligence. And these four quadrants are actually divided into a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. On the left hemisphere side are what we call the achievement focus and the strategic.

That's the what in the business. The right hemisphere is inspiring and emotional intelligence. And that's the how side of the equation. Consistently, our clients score higher on the left hemisphere because that's the way they've been brought up. And that's the way their senior leadership has role modeled.

what we do, not how we go about doing it. And when we share with them that innovation and survival and being competitive has more to do with the right side of the equation than the left side of the equation, they start saying, all right, I need to reevaluate the energy I'm spending on these four quadrants. And we actually assist them in saying, how do you reallocate your energy? Because it's

It's all about managing energy, not time. That results in truly effective leaders. And by bringing this in very practical terminology to their attention, then they begin to see the light.

John Marshall (24:35)
Hmm. Really comprehensive to look outside to, I mean, to look outside for your impact and to see and let the impact drive your motivation, let the impact drive where you want to go next. So I'm thinking someone is sitting here listening to this right now that says, okay, maybe I should take a look at how my.

leadership style, how I navigate decisions, my work day impacts others. So I'm gonna go ahead and hire a coach to do a 360. I'm gonna go ahead and do a 360 assessment to see my impact on others.

That's one way to start. And then there's also just the folks that are interested right now to just, well, let me just go right into it and see my emotional intelligence. What's the, what would you recommend is the first step for them? Or I know you have a, assessment that you recommend as well, but practically do they visit, visit some website? Do they have to go through a coach? Like how does someone practically access the assessment that you recommend?

Kevin Asbjornson (25:39)
That's a very good question. And so to avoid the cart before the horse syndrome, we always begin with a particular self-assessment. And there's not just one right answer for that, okay? A self-assessment might be the Hogan Leadership Forecast Series. It might be the MHS EQI 2.0 Emotional Intelligence Survey.

I personally am certified in 30 different assessments and rather than just using the same one all the time, I try to match the assessment with where my client is and more importantly, with what their organization is expecting of them. And this is what we call strategic self-awareness. Based on a very validated, reliable model globally, here's where you actually fall as a leader, as an emotionally intelligent person.

and the initial coaching conversations are all around that. We take it a step further and we say, let's bring in your annual performance review and evaluation with your manager or that result of the client engagement survey that your business unit is using. What do you notice is similar between the results in your self-assessment survey, your annual evaluation, and the client engagement survey?

they are surprised to see what alignment there is between the three, because what comes out in the self-assessment, independent of which one we use, is exactly what their manager has encouraged them to develop, what their people have encouraged them to develop. And so we bring in all of those perspectives so that there's a natural motivation for them to say, okay, I do want to make a difference in this. How do I move forward?

Then, then, in due time, we don't do this automatically, in due time we say, well, would you like to really know what other people think about you? Because what we think of ourselves is oftentimes different than impression of others. And we call this the difference between identity and reputation. Identity is who we think we are. Reputation is what others actually say we are. And believe it or not,

John Marshall (27:20)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (27:40)
There's a very frequent discovery that their identity is not in alignment with their reputation and they want to bring those closer in alignment. And then we say, the best way to do that is through a 360 assessment or a behavioral interview because the data doesn't lie. And we don't filter or edit any of those comments from the people you work with, including customers. Some people actually give it to their customers.

John Marshall (28:08)
Hmm.

closing the gap between identity and reputation and I guess emotional intelligence within there starting to wake up to the different, starting to wake up to those differences, like what you think you're putting out there versus what's received. So a client starts this process with you. They are

getting their emotional intelligence results. They are getting some results from the 360 assessment. They're seeing the disparity between their identity and reputation. So can you share a success story or what the process looked like for one of your clients that saw that gap?

And experienced this process of closing it. Was that six months of coaching? that two years before they said, wow, we've experienced some congruency here and I'm seeing the results. What, does the process look like once the awareness has been evoked? If you will.

Kevin Asbjornson (29:58)
So those are two questions in one. Let me answer both of them. When we look at research and science, which is very important to us, it actually takes about six to nine months for people to make the refinements and adjustments.

in order for other people to observe them. And notice I use the words refinement and adjustment. I do not use the word change. We are not in the business of changing people or fixing people. We're in the business of helping them increase their strategic self-awareness, their emotional intelligence, so that there can be a greater impact on the people that they're working with and attempting to lead. And so over the course of a six to nine month

⁓ engagement. Again, we start with the right self-assessment. If their organization is progressive, they will put a workshop around this so that they interact with peers during this process because peer-to-peer based learning is very powerful. It's one thing to hear from me, but when they're in a class with 30 of their peers and their peers

are bringing up very similar things to what they saw in their assessments, that really hits home for them. And then we encourage our clients over that period of six to nine months to break it down into a step-by-step sequence. Don't try to do everything at once. Let's just start and have a couple of objectives for maybe the first three months, the second three months, and if we have nine months.

John Marshall (31:05)
you

Kevin Asbjornson (31:25)
the third three months. And during that, we encourage them to informally check in with people so that they get real-time feedback on how they're doing. That's important. What's the real-time feedback they're getting on that? And because we design that in, they are more motivated because they're seeing the difference in the words of the

John Marshall (31:35)
Hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (31:47)
people they're trying to lead or make a difference.

John Marshall (31:51)
got it that this real time feedback is one of the most important things you see for fostering that motivation, keeping the drive to improve their emotional intelligence going.

Kevin Asbjornson (32:02)
Yes, and this is a very common theme. in the initial conversation, I asked my client, what is it that you would really like to achieve, in your words, at the end of this coaching engagement, at the end of this leadership development engagement? Because it's important that they put it in their words. And then the entire engagement.

John Marshall (32:20)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (32:23)
is designed around that so that we don't wait until the end of the six months or the nine months. We have milestones built in so along the way they're seeing progress. And it's for the most part positive and constructive and that speaks louder than anything my colleagues or I would say to them because the people are speaking up and

John Marshall (32:46)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (32:47)
In between the conversations, depending on if it's a three, six or nine month engagement, of course, there are multiple conversations with me and as the executive coach. And I just ask them, what are you hearing from other people? What are they telling you? And they can't wait to share with me the stories that people have told them ⁓ that just really motivate them to continue on that path. But again,

John Marshall (33:06)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (33:12)
Keep in mind, we're not in the business of fixing people, not in the business of changing people. This has to be kind of a, what we call intrinsic motivation from within.

John Marshall (33:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (33:21)
order

to see results without on the outside.

John Marshall (33:24)
I love that refinements. We're not changing people. We're helping them be more strategic. Now, they're getting this feedback. They're excited to tell you these stories. I'm curious, what are some of the specific refinements that are leading to some of these reactions, these stories that clients are coming to tell you?

Kevin Asbjornson (33:26)
Yes.

John Marshall (33:50)
Anything to share there that would be something specific that a client did in a refinement versus the way that they used to do things that brought this kind of external feedback?

Kevin Asbjornson (34:01)
Yes, there are three very consistent observations that we make. The first one we've already talked about in the podcast, which is for the first time, they've understood the difference between the tune and the tone of their voice. And they've actually been tone deaf until they start working with us. And the first story that we hear is...

John Marshall (34:19)
Hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (34:23)
I just cannot believe that I have exaggerated the tune and the what it is that we're trying to do and the KPIs I'm expecting of my people with how I go about doing that. So that's the first adjustment that we hear about, tune versus tone, and they're leaning a little bit more into the tone of how they lead rather than the tune. That's the first observation. The second observation, especially

in Western countries, because we work in all geographies, is that for the first time somebody's challenged them on the difference between what's important and what's urgent.

And in Western cultures, especially the United States, there is a blind spot that has spilled over from the 20th century into the 21st century, which we call the FedEx syndrome. The senior leaders don't realize that there's a significant difference between important and urgent. So they create a culture of everything being urgent that results in additional

pressure, stress and duress on the people and I just challenge them directly and say, by the way, not everything needs to be FedExed overnight. You need to start role modeling what's important to your people. What's an A? What's a B? What's a C? You need to hold yourself accountable to that. You need to hold others accountable to that and stop thinking everything is urgent.

That's the second. And that's especially in Western cultures, including the United States. The third one has to do with what we call pace. Slow your pace down. Everything doesn't have to be done immediately. Slow the pace down in terms of how you're communicating with people, your expectations in terms of how long something will take. And by the way, when you look behind the scenes, everything takes longer than we...

initially think it will take. So just by slowing down the pace, you tend to pay more attention to your audience. And remember, as a performing artist from an age of five, I've been fine tuning the craft of understanding and connecting with my audience. One of the ways of doing that is making sure my pace is in alignment with my audience. Otherwise, I might lose them and leave them behind.

John Marshall (36:36)
Beautiful. Thank you for that. That's that really hits home about tangible refinements people are making that are being noticed, shifting their reputation or they're getting feedback in real time on. So to the, to the other person that's listening, who is a champion of this, right? Maybe they have already read several books.

on emotional intelligence. Maybe they've worked with a coach in the past and they are the champions within their organization yet are having a harder time selling it up line. Maybe the HR VP or HR director that's listening, that's saying, I know which teams need this. I know which leaders need this. How do I sell this to my organization and

kick off my first pilot.

Kevin Asbjornson (37:24)
Good question. So that comes up quite frequently. We believe that the use of appropriate data and research is the way forward. I gave you one of many examples. shared with you in advance the brilliant article entitled, What Makes a Leader by Daniel Goleman Well, we have a plethora of articles such as that, and we equip that individual with the right article.

sometimes two, to begin the process of influencing people internally.

Because when the article is read, it's based on data and research on a global longitudinal manner. People start paying attention to that. And we say, by the way, we believe in benchmarking. so going back to identity versus reputation, one of the ways you make progress is to understand that the identity and reputation is probably out of alignment.

John Marshall (38:02)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (38:15)
within the organization and you want to start bringing that back into alignment not by demeaning people or demoralizing people but by introducing the right science, introducing the right data. And remember what I shared with you when we first met today, there's an exaggeration on the science of everything including leadership but there's an art and science to leadership. So we equip those

John Marshall (38:35)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (38:40)
internal influencers with both the art and the science. And then if they want, sometimes I'm invited in to the conversation to speak with the people that are attempting to influence in HR or senior leadership. And it's pretty difficult for them to challenge the data because I said, hey, this is not my opinion. This is not my perspective. I have a lot of perspectives, but this is data on a global basis. And one of the

One of the ones we use is based on 100,000 similar managers and leaders. That's a pretty significant global database to put up there. And so I say, I hear that you're interested in developing more effective and impactful leaders. Well, let's start with the data on what the best leaders in the world really look like in very practical terms, very easy to read English language.

And then using the four quadrants model of leadership, I actually give them the exercise of saying, I want you to be very honest with me. As you step back and take a look at your organization, and you now know what the four quadrants of effective leadership look like, I want you to rank order those. I want you to tell me which one of those you think your current leadership is most proficient in, second most, third most, and last.

And notice I use the word proficient, not competence. And so they come up with a one, two, three, four, or an A, B, C, D And I say, well, as we take a look at that, you've got your entire leadership team focusing on the what of the business, not the why and the future of the business. And so you have an imbalance. Here's how we could go about adjusting that imbalance.

John Marshall (39:58)
Mmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (40:18)
that you have a more centered approach of the four quadrants with your leadership team. That works quite effectively.

John Marshall (40:25)
Hmm.

This, this is really helpful when it comes to someone being able to introduce a specific project scope. Like let's introduce this initiative and benchmark it against certain data and have a pilot cohort start developing people. But I'm curious on the best cases organizationally, what are the best

organization culture setups that promote emotional intelligence and maybe even have it built into operationally how people are hired, how people are promoted. I guess what are the best cultural systems that you've seen produce successful, like a successful language of, of emotional intelligence throughout the organization. So I guess I'm.

To put it simply, it's like what, what, an emotional intelligence perspective, like what are the best organizations doing right culturally and systems wise that others are not.

Kevin Asbjornson (41:29)
Good question. So if we lift it above the terminology of emotional intelligence or inspiring leadership, we notice several things that differentiate these organizations. The first one is they believe and invest in a learn-it-all culture rather than a know-it-all culture. And unfortunately, we still have, especially in the United States, too many know-it-all cultures.

where they think they have all the right answers and that immediately cuts them off from the fact that no one has all of the right answers, especially in the year 2026 with everything that's going on in the world. So that's the first observation I make is that they have a learn it all culture, number one. Number two, they're willing to invest in, I like your word, pilot. Oftentimes our clients do start with a pilot.

because that's a nice way to do your best in the initial design, but there's always something to learn. And then refine from the pilot and do that sequentially moving forward. And oftentimes, a successful pilot will result in year after year repetition of what was fine-tuned originally. The next thing we observed is that the C level, or the highest level,

John Marshall (42:38)
Mm.

Kevin Asbjornson (42:43)
of the organizations want to be involved. And so quite often I invite either the CEO, COO, CFO, doesn't matter which one to co-facilitate with me upfront.

co-facilitate with me. And so on the first day, if a workshop is involved, not a workshop isn't always involved, on the first day, I will put the C-level officer in front of the group of emerging and high potential leaders and in his or her own words, not my words, not other people's words, in his or her own words, describe...

briefly his or her leadership journey missteps along the way and why he or she feels that's imperative that money be invested in the future leadership of the organization. And I also invite that person back at the end of the workshop to do something similar on the back end because that's commitment from the C level.

John Marshall (43:39)
commitment and what an environment of psychological safety hearing your C-suite leader say something like that at the beginning of this. it's, you know, it's, it's humble. It invites you to come as you are. And it shows that this is a, this is a priority at the highest levels, not just another training program because we need to train our leaders.

Kevin Asbjornson (43:44)
yeah.

Yes, and on day one, I intentionally put the C-level officer first, not me or not my colleague. They need to hear from the C-level person, him or herself. We do a little bit of prompting of the C-level person. They usually come with a very nice short PowerPoint to kind of back up what they're saying. And then after that session, when he or she hands it over to me, then I start articulating how everything within the

workshop or the initiative is designed around what we shared by the CEO and most importantly how we're going to measure it. That's the key thing, how we're going to measure it. And I'm not just talking about annual performance evaluations. How are we going to measure it along the way so that we are really seeing a difference in the impact.

John Marshall (44:39)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Asbjornson (44:53)
others.

John Marshall (44:55)
And that takes it to yes, the CEO's message is powerful and that's compelling and inspiring, but is the rubber hitting the road, right? And where the rubber meets the road, I think is where it's actually assessed, right? Where we're actually measuring it, where we're promoting against it, where it's seen as an organizational priority, not just by words, but by.

action assessment and promotion.

Kevin Asbjornson (45:23)
And the real sharp ones, they want to know what their people are going to experience. And so sometimes the very senior leadership team of three, four, or five, they actually ask my colleagues and I to do the assessment, do the debriefing on them, set up the four quadrant model of leadership so that they at least understand the framework around what it is that we're doing. And then at the back end,

when they're speaking in the workshop, they can speak to that. And they say, you know, here's what I learned from the assessment that I did with Kevin, talked about. And I'm hoping that the same thing happens for all of you. That's very powerful, very powerful.

John Marshall (46:02)
Well, I mean, there's so much that we've covered already and there's so many more things that I want to ask you about. So you're going to have to come on again as a guest again, for sure. But I want to ask you just one question, just stepping out of where we've been so far and just what gives you hope about the future of leadership?

Kevin Asbjornson (46:23)
I'm glad you asked that question, John, because when you look at some of the research that comes from third parties, I'm thinking specifically of the annual Edelman Trust Barometer Report. In the world, trustworthiness is at its lowest level. In the world, trustworthiness is at its lowest level. There are other reports that come from Gallup, for example.

John Marshall (46:42)
you

Kevin Asbjornson (46:48)
that clearly articulate the dissatisfaction of people that work for corporations and organizations. And the number one reason for the dissatisfaction is their manager, their direct report manager or leader. The third thing that gives me hope is that the citizens of the world, whether they work for corporations or are entrepreneurs, are beginning to realize that

they are responsible for their life, career, and well-being. It's not the job of their employer, it's not the job of their manager, it's not the job of somebody else. It's my responsibility, and therefore when they come to us, they articulate what they would like to accomplish so that they are back in the driver's seat of their life, career, and well-being. And notice the three words I used, because it's not just about business, life.

career and well-being, we coach to all three of those because since you're a father now of two, what we do applies to family life and parental life. The foundation of how we lead ourselves and our family influences what we do with others in the workplace. Does that resonate with you?

John Marshall (48:01)
Certainly, it's all

connected. There's no compartmentalization when it comes to the moment.

Kevin Asbjornson (48:08)
Yes, and I have a lot of clients who are lifelong clients of mine and after the first engagement they will come back to me and say, I've definitely learned how to be a more inspiring or impactful leader but you surprised me because I'm actually a better parent, a better father, a better mother, a better partner and I wasn't aware of how they're all intertwined. And so that's what gives me hope and inspiration is that

slowly but surely the world is waking up that we have to let go of the 20th century. The cart was put before the horse. That model wasn't as effective as people think it is and it doesn't work in a time where we have multiple cultures in the global workforce, five different generations. That's what gives me hope.

John Marshall (48:56)
Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this, Kevin. Where can listeners find you in your work?

Kevin Asbjornson (49:04)
Well, our website is inspireimagineinnovate.com. Inspireimagineinnovate.com. I'm also on LinkedIn under my name, Kevin Asbjörnson And one thing your listeners might be interested in, I'm actually the executive editor of a Transformation Insights blog. And that can be accessed in its totality at no charge.

in the website in the Transformation Insights section. And so my colleagues and I try to publish leading edge, future thinking articles that help bring people along with this process. And we just keep them all posted there, accessible, free of charge to kind of encourage their thought process.

John Marshall (49:48)
Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you for sharing that and listeners. We will be putting links to everything that Kevin just said, as well as the articles that we've mentioned in the podcast today. So you'll be able to find those in the show notes. So thank you so much for being here, Kevin and listeners. Thank you so much for tuning into the present professional. We will see you next time.

Kevin Asbjornson (50:12)
Thank you, John, and thank you to your listeners.