The Situational Leadership Model Behind Real Team Trust (with Sam Shriver & Suzie Bishop)

Are you leading every person on your team the exact same way and wondering why it's stopped working? In this episode, I sit down with Sam Shriver and Suzie Bishop of the Center for Leadership Studies, co-authors of a new book applying the situational leadership model to today's fast-changing workplace. Sam brings 45+ years of research into this framework; Suzie leads product innovation at CLS after 15 years of turning research into real-world training. Together, we unpack why one-size-fits-all leadership breaks down during constant change, how the situational leadership model gives you a repeatable way to diagnose exactly what each person needs task by task, and why trust erodes the moment you skip that step. We also dig into Gallup's engagement data and why adaptability, not just intelligence, is becoming the defining leadership skill in the AI era. If you've ever felt like you're leading in the dark, this conversation hands you the lens to lead with clarity again.

Books Mentioned

• Situational Leadership®: The Model for Leading Others, Navigating Change, and Unlocking Performance by Sam Shriver and Suzie Bishop
• Management of Organizational Behavior by Paul Hersey

Connect with Sam Shriver and Suzie Bishop on LinkedIn, explore their work at situational.com, and pick up their new book on the situational leadership model at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or your favorite retailer.

I want to invite you to check out the Committed Mastermind, a community I help lead along with world-class leaders like JC and Karen Hite, Vinnie Fisher, and Jonathan Mast, plus incredible mentors like Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages, and many others.

This is for entrepreneurs who want to build a thriving business without sacrificing their faith, their family, or their health.

Check out the Committed Mastermind at https://committedmastermind.com/

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

Dr. William Attaway 0:00

I'm excited today to have Sam Shriver and Susie Bishop on the podcast. Susie is Vice President of Product Development at the Center for Leadership Studies, where she leads innovation in leadership development and experiential learning. Since joining CLS in 2012, she's played a key role in revitalizing the brand and driving award-winning learning solutions. She holds a bachelor's degree in communication and media from North Carolina State University and is a certified professional in training management, a stakeholder-centered coach, and a Marshall Goldsmith 100 coach. Sam Shriver is a leadership expert, researcher, and author with more than 45 years of experience applying the Situational Leadership model. At CLS, he leads research initiatives and has designed and delivered more than 200 custom leadership development programs. Sam is a co-author with Marshall Goldsmith for Training Industry Magazine and is widely published in the learning and development field. Their new book is focused on applying situational leadership in today's fast-changing workplace. Together, Susie and Sam bring decades of experience in leadership development, research, and practical application of the situational leadership model to help organizations build stronger leaders and improve performance. Susie, Sam, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Suzie Bishop 1:33

Thank you for having us. We are very pleasure.

Sam Shriver 1:36

Our pleasure.

Sam’s Leadership Origin Story

Sam Shriver 2:17

So thank you very much. Yeah, and I uh William, if you don't mind, I just wanted to say thank you to whoever is listening to this. Um you obviously have other things to do, and we're honored by the fact that you would be interested in kind of what we have to say here. Um as I look back on my leadership journey, it was really kind of formed by two things. You know, one was sports and the other was the military. Um so I played basketball, you know, like a hundred years ago at the Coast Guard Academy. And, you know, I went through an academy, you know, experience and had, you know, five years of active duty in the military. And there were a number of coaches that impacted me. And I didn't necessarily appreciate it at the time, but there were a number of coaches that, you know, really pushed me and I looked at as leaders and really appreciated, you know, maybe much more after the experience was over than exactly when I was going through it. And and then, you know, in in the military, it was interesting because obviously very structured organizations, sort of defined by hierarchy, but but it was also um interesting and memorable to see who really got things done. And it and it wasn't really just by their position in the organization, it was about their ability to appeal to people in a variety of different ways. And then in in 1983, I don't know how long you wanted me to go on here because I could take the whole half hour. But uh, but just one one more little anecdote. But but in in 1983, I I got out of the service and I was in my 20s and just had no idea what I was gonna do with my life. I mean, just searching. Um, one of the main reasons I went back and got my MBA was was that I wasn't gonna be in the Coast Guard anymore, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. So if I was in a marketing class, I wanted to be in marketing. If I was in an advertising class, that's that's that's the ticket. That's what I'm gonna do. And and then I wound up sitting through um uh a session that Dr. Paul Hersey did and organizational behavior, situational leadership in particular. And I was just like, it was at that, it was like a moment. It was just like boom. I can remember at 230 West Third, Escondido Boulevard and Escondito at the Center for Leadership Studies. I went through this thing and I saw him just encapsulate 50 years worth of research in organizational behavior and leadership development at back in a time when you know you did these kind of things in a classroom with flip charts, you know, and he started with five blank flip charts in the front of the room, and by lunchtime it was filled up with everything you really needed to know. And that was like a seminal moment. That was like a thing where I just said, I don't know what form it's gonna take, I don't know what it's gonna look like, but this, I want to do this. This is like a great model that can help people, yes, in business, but also as parents and and you know, in any aspect of their life where they're trying to influence people. So probably longer than you wanted. Maybe, Susie, you shouldn't have let me go first, but but uh that was that was that was your fault.

Suzie Bishop 5:34

So that was I'll go to your line a little bit more succinctly. Um

Susie’s Mentors And Early Lessons

Suzie Bishop 5:39

I just because you brought it up, Sam, just like the leaders throughout your life, I've always had incredible parents who I felt like were guides for what leadership and treating people well looks like. Um, I also had great coaches growing up that my best coaches pushed me until I was like serious on the soccer field. Um, but there was extreme benefit on the other side of that and my development. And I also had great bosses through internships and initial jobs that I recognized that they went out of their way to show me around the company and explain what every single person did and how it all worked together. And when I first came into my career, individual contributor, and I was asking a lot of questions, and I had people that didn't shut me down. And so I think I've had a very, I guess, blessed experience, but I also recognized those moments. Um, I've done every job at the Center for Leadership Studies from marketing to events to working with our global affiliates. I've led people younger than me, older than me. Um, and so I never took that for granted because I had all those people before me that showed me my development, my path. Like you can really directly impact someone's life. And in all of my different roles, I've um taken that very seriously, how I approach someone in their life and their journey. And um, I I haven't gotten bored yet. Uh, so 15 years at the Center for Leadership Studies and excited to keep on

Why The Book Had To Happen

Suzie Bishop 7:20

going.

Dr. William Attaway 7:20

I love that. Uh, you know, you each one of you has such a unique journey, uh, but you have ended up together in writing this new book. Before we dive into the book, I've got to ask, did where did this idea come from for the two of you to write this together?

Suzie Bishop 7:34

Sam has always like his background, situational leadership, like like he said, '83. It's like this has been a part of his life for a very long time, facilitating it, selling it, doing additional research. Um, for me, again, I was in the marketing roles and I was kind of in commercial positions, but I feel like it really came together around the pandemic, is when we were mostly an in-person instructor-led organization. And I was at the helm, I was like six weeks postpartum. I got the job, and then the pandemic hit to um say, all right, Susie, like the future of the Center for Leadership Studies and how we like deploy training. Um, so I really partnered during that time with Sam as a subject matter expert, like what content has to stay, but like what's the new way of teaching it? For the past four years, we've gone beyond the model and said, well, what about situational leadership and trust or difficult conversations or hybrid and remote work and really talking about it in a modern context? Sam has always wanted to write this book, but as this curriculum was also developing at the same time and us having like our fresh perspective, he brought me in and said, like, what about us doing this together? Because we could always write a book about the situational leadership model, but what about the importance of everything we've done in these last couple of years in an additional perspective? And obviously very honored by that.

Sam Shriver 9:04

Yeah, and I I would say um, you know, the the primary question that drove like why write this book was how could a model that was developed 50 years ago possibly still be relevant today? I mean, how how is it even that's not even at face value conceivable? And you know, my very biased suggestion would be that uh, or conclusion would be it, it's it's probably never been more relevant because you know, like people wouldn't care so much about leadership if it wasn't for change. And change is just like it's all over us, all around us, not going anywhere, only going to speed up. So the more change there is, the more leadership matters. So what we wanted to do in putting this together is kind of like we have two primary titles at the Center for Leadership Studies over those 50 years. One was a book, best-selling textbook, um, written by Dr. Hersey back in the late 1960s, early 70s, called Management of Organizational Behavior. And it was there that he introduced the situational leadership model. So there's been like 10 or 11, you know, editions of that over time. And then the other was a kind of a fable, you know, a story of a situational leader that is a new manager and comes across all these concepts and learns very quickly. And so the intent of this book was to kind of merge those two things together. It it was kind of like so there is some history in it, but there's also a number of stories about how it's used and what it looks like and all of those kinds of things. So that was from my standpoint, kind of the driving force of what we were doing. And I think also there's a number of people that author books and then do speaking and then develop training programs, you know. Well, in this situation, it's kind of the opposite of that. And Susie really understates her role in kind of getting our curriculum up to world-class global standards. But but we have this like amazing training curriculum, again, with bias duly noted. And so this is kind of a commercial or a marketing piece or whatever you want to call it that says, what is this situational leadership thing? What is it just you know, if you just want to kick the tires on it before you dive into one program or another, like what is it fundamentally, how does it help you? What value does it provide? So I think that was at least from my perspective, two or three things that were driving, you know, I think the need for this book to be written.

Leading Change Without Creating Chaos

Dr. William Attaway 12:01

You know, in the post-COVID era, the the the last the last five, six, seven years have really illustrated, I think, to us all what you said earlier that change is just such a constant and it's accelerating. And for leaders to navigate seasons of change requires a different type of leadership than a lot of people are comfortable with. You know, you spoke about this in the book. Can you speak a little bit about why seasons of change, navigating change demands a more directive type of leadership?

Suzie Bishop 12:35

Yeah, absolutely. I think even just naturally, like this is just me speaking from, you know, myself and when I'm overwhelmed and change and I don't know where the change is taking me. One, I like would naturally go towards speed and I would go to what's most comfortable to me.

unknown 12:54

Yeah.

Suzie Bishop 12:55

When everything else around me feels really uncomfortable. Um, I'm looking for something that I can control or like puts me at ease. And really that's the exact opposite of what a situational leader and someone who is looking towards others that they're also leading for that change, um, because they're not thinking about adapting or they're not thinking about the other people's needs that they need to that they need to approach. So we say with situational leadership is one kind of take the pause, assess yourself when it comes to change before you go start leading others because you don't want to be dumping and they said this and they said that, and I don't agree with, I mean, that's so many cultural impacts. So, first, like when you're leading change, take the pause for yourself. Next, then is because no one has done this task before or whatever the change is, that means that they don't have ability. They've never experienced before. It's brand new. So, me, and I assume just like Sam and you, William, as well, it's like when I don't know what to do, how to do it, or the why, the bigger picture, I want someone to break that down for me. And what we call is give them a leader-driven style or the right side of our model where you're giving more direction. You're telling them how, by when, what it looks like, why. That helps the team one just be grounded, but two, also gives them okay, here's like the bigger picture of this. Here's how I'm involved in impacting it. And also just that that feeling of, okay, if my leader's able to give these directives, that's something that I can then trust in. When it's chaos and feelings and like, yeah, you've got this, but I can't even wrap my head around where we're headed. That leaves me with a lot of a lot of feelings. Um, but Sam would love your perspective as well.

Sam Shriver 14:59

Yeah, where to start here. There is so much. I I I think first off, William, um, in in the context of the situational leadership model, um people enjoy stability. Like, hopefully, you find something you enjoy doing and you get good at it. And then you don't want people to mess with it, right? It's like you you got this thing and you know how to do it, and you just want to come in and keep doing it and have everybody say, wow, William, you're really good at doing that thing. And and a lot of times, you know, disruptive change obviously it comes out of nowhere. And and it it takes your ability to perform and it casts it in a very, very different light. Like with the change that comes, maybe your skills are transferable, maybe they're not. Maybe you got to learn something entirely new. And right along with that, there's kind of a the component of willingness, you know, rears its ugly head. It's like, I don't want to learn new things. I want to keep doing it the way I'm doing it. You know, this is crazy, right? So there's that whole resistance piece. But but when you, in our terms, regress, your ability becomes less, your willingness becomes less. You need something different from your boss when that takes place. The one thing you don't want to do as a leader is just, you know, keep empowering, keep delegating, just let everybody figure it out on their own. That's gonna lead to a chaotic mess, you know, nine chances out of ten. But but an interesting thing, I think an interesting thing, I guess everybody else will be the judge of whether they think it's interesting to kind of tie on to what Susie had to say is that William, there was a time, wasn't too long ago, when when people could manage change. Remember that? You could see change coming, you know, as an executive or whatever, and you could prepare for it. You could prepare for that change. And then you could really get prepared, and then you could go to the people that reported to you and say, okay, here's here's the change, as Susie mentions, here's the change, here's what we're gonna do differently, here's why we're doing it, this is what this means, all that kind of stuff. I I uh I used to describe it as, you know, like you managers would come down the mountain with the tablets, and then people, people would listen to what they had to say. Yeah, and COVID is the best example, but there's there's many others. Sometimes now there's change and nobody knows what to do. Like, like managers still come down the mountain, but there's no tablets. So, so in terms of what they need to do, is they they need to huddle up with their teams, with people, take a far more participative look at it at what's what's taking place, align on what makes the most sense to do next, to take a baby step, to measure that, to calibrate, to see if they're moving in the right direction. So, so that to me is kind of this connection between leadership and change. And when change hits, readiness shifts. And managers and leaders and parents need to shift with it.

Dr. William Attaway 18:10

You know,

Trust And Engagement In Low-Morale Times

Dr. William Attaway 18:11

when the when the managers come down the mountain, so to speak, to use your analogy, even if they have the tablet, it seems that now there's less trust of that manager or of what's written on the tablet. And so there's there's more pushback, and that's creating less engagement in the workplace. We're we're seeing uh engagement at nearly record lows, according to some recent research I was reading. You know, is this change fatigue affecting that? Is that what's affecting engagement and trust levels? Or is there something else at play here?

Sam Shriver 18:46

When you say something you've read, I keep peering behind your head and looking at the seven thousand books. I'm not gonna question that uh at all. But but yeah, when I I heard a statistic and it was from uh Stephen Covey. I was listening to a podcast from Stephen Covey not too long ago. And in it said something like six percent of Gen Z that's in the workplace aspires to move into management. That slapped me in the face. Right. It was like, what? You know, so so there's evidently less than 10% of the people that are out there, and all they want to do when you talk about engagement, they want to come in, they want somebody to tell them what to do. They're going to do that. If they do that, they want to be rewarded for it. By the way, that this isn't only Gen Z, this is kind of permeates the entire you know culture and organization. But but um it's it's it's a really significant and different uh challenge, and it's also an opportunity for those people. If you're not engaged, I've never seen a Gallup study where global engagement was higher than 35%. That again is a very troubling statistic to me. You know, so there's all these people that have all of this discretionary effort that they could be applying to their job, to their work site, and they just don't see the benefit. They it's nothing they aspire to do. So to me, that's what really good leaders do is they they help you care about what you're doing and the impact that can have on your life. Like when you care and you take pride in your job and in what you're doing, no matter how mundane that thing may be, not everybody's curing cancer, but no matter how mundane that thing might be, when you get a sense of dignity and self-worth and what from doing what it is you're supposed to do at work and how that fits into a bigger peak picture that moves the needle forward, that's when people get engaged. And and the other thing, I think the flip side of that, it in and we do a lot, and Susie will probably talk about it, like you know, self-leadership. It's like if you're one of those people that isn't engaged, what are you doing about that? Like, are you are you just waiting around passively for somebody to come and like get you engaged? You know, like just you, you know, take charge of your own career, take charge of your own. You're spending whatever time you're spending at work for crying out loud, like like get in the game and start telling your boss this isn't working, this is what we ought to be doing. Take that risk associated, have that courage to take that risk associated with leadership to begin, you know, kind of impacting your own environment. Susie, official baton pass to you.

Suzie Bishop 21:48

Yeah, I was going just thinking back to like coming down the mountain, maybe being able to talk to your team about change, but then like they don't trust you. And And um the leader obviously is in a unique position where they are in between where that original message even came from and like bringing that change to fruition. And I don't know who the I think it's a Gallup as well, um, but like 70% of change initiatives fail. Yeah. Um I I hear that and I'm I'm not surprised. And kind of bringing it back to like, well, what was missing in that? One was probably the leader, not self-leading, and asking up in their organization, I know my team is going to ask me these questions. Can you help me wrap my head around this, this, this, and this so that I can speak to them and give them the direction that they need so that this doesn't fail, so that they don't lose trust in me. Um, because often, like, I remember um coming home after work before, and I was, and I'll use a different name, but I was like, oh my gosh, like Alex is no longer in the organization. And my husband was like, Why do you care? You have you never have anything great to say against Alex. I was like, What do you mean I love Alex? He's like, You would always say, and it was always these things that he didn't come through on his promises. I was like, I love Alex as a person, but he like puts out all these initiatives or these changes or whatever gets people excited about it and never happens. So I like him as a person. I know he's a trustworthy guy outside of work, but I just don't believe anything that he says. And I think a lot of times that leader is caught in the middle where they're not getting the answers from above or pushing back or asking questions because they want don't want to put themselves at risk. But really, they're putting a whole not only the initiative at risk, but the people and their trust, and you create this vicious cycle.

Dr. William Attaway 23:55

You know, I I hear the the research that you're referring to, and I was I was thinking it it was a Gallup study that I was thinking about the state of the workplace, right?

Speaker 1 24:03

Yes.

Dr. William Attaway 24:03

Yeah. Worldwide, 21% of people are engaged at work. And here in North America, we're at 31%. Ooh, look at us. Yeah. You know, but we're honest. The 69% are not. And how much of that has to do with the leadership that we are, that we are exhibiting, that we're creating, the environments that we're creating. And one of the things I loved about your work is that you talk about how leadership is something that can affect those environments and how you lead different people differently. And sometimes you lead the same person differently, depending on what it is that you're inviting them into, and how to know when to lead someone in one way and when to lead them in a different way. Hence the situation of leadership model. I I'd love for you to share a little bit about that because I think for a lot of the leaders listening, maybe they maybe they grew up in an era or maybe they saw a model for them and then they adopted uh more of a one-size-fits-all approach to leadership. And that's just not working. And we see that in in research, like what Gallup's doing.

Suzie Bishop 25:10

Yeah.

Readiness And The Four Leadership Styles

Suzie Bishop 25:12

Can I make one quick point? And then maybe Sam, you jump into that, is just a a thought that I had is while you said like that Gen Z, like such a small population, even wants to get into leadership. I mean, we've got a whole series of problems if if that's the case.

Speaker 1 25:27

Right.

Suzie Bishop 25:28

But I also think we, you know, we have some time. But there is a part of that of I would rather have people be aware enough that they don't want to take on the responsibility of leading other people, even though I do I think we're all leaders. I think regardless of your title, um, I think we're leading in projects, we're leading in this conversation, we're leading in the home. There's but there is something about like specifically moving into management that they're aware of, well, maybe I don't want to get into this because of X, versus I feel like many generations before, it's like that's just what you do. You move up the ladder in this way, whether you consciously took on that responsibility or not. And I do think there's a responsibility that you take on moving into management for others people's development, the work of the company. Um so we could debate that piece all day, but there's like maybe there's like a positive in there as well, even though I hope to change many of those people's opinions and turn them towards it. But Sam would love to have you unpack like the readiness piece, how we assess that, but just had that note.

Sam Shriver 26:42

I really think too, and William, you hit the nail on the head here. Um, the essence of the book is adaptability. The essence of the book is diagnostic skills. It's it's like who are good leaders? Well, leaders are thoughtful people. They think before they do, they they they take a look at things. We we know and we cover this in the book. We don't belabor it, but you know, there's no such thing as a one best style. You know, they all work, they all don't, right? You know, empowerment's great unless it's abandonment, and providing somebody with direction is great unless it's micromanagement, and participation is great unless it's manipulation. So, so all of these styles work, but who are good leaders? Who how do we identify? Well, they're the people that know when to do what. You know, so so I I I've often I've often thought, you know, well, often, like since back to 1983, that situational leadership, it's it's a timing mechanism. It it really tells leaders when to do what. So if you identify a task, which is step one in our framework, and that's an important thing, hopefully at its lowest common denominator, easily, as easy as you can define it, and sometimes that that's a problem in and of itself, because some tasks are easier to find than others. But but when you zero in on a task and align on that task with a follower, with somebody that you're leading, the next thing is to assess and align on their ability and willingness, their performance readiness to perform that task. So it's all a task-specific model. So as you mentioned, same person, same conversation can be, you can have three or four different approaches with that same individual, depending upon what you're talking about. Sometimes really, really good salespeople are incredible when they're face to face with a customer. But boy oh boy, if the task is getting them to fill out their administrative work in a timely way, that's a whole different thing. They don't like that as much, they're not as good at it. And if you're gonna get that done, you you can't empower that. You can't just say, oh, get it to me when you can. So again, it's the whole idea of differentiating your style based on a task and an individual's ability and willingness to perform that task. And that's gonna push you, common sense, right? That's gonna push you in one direction or another. The better somebody is at something and the more they really like doing it, yeah, empowerment's probably a pretty good path. The less those people know about it, and again, think back to our change conversation, the less they know about what they're doing, and the more intimidated they are about, you know, dipping their foot in that pool, the more they need a leader to, you know, create some semblance of movement. And the more you're in between kind of novice and expert, well, that that's where the higher relationship styles, the participative styles have a tendency to make more sense. So if if you identify, like, you know, that leadership is common sense, okay, it's not common practice. Why, why is that? People don't follow that. You know, they they either just want to do it from the standpoint of here's what's comfortable for me, and I'm gonna deploy that. I don't have time, I really can't make an impact on this anyway. People are gonna hate me no matter what. So, you know, like I'm I'm just gonna, you know, do the most expedient thing. And you know, you know, back very quickly um you know you know to what you had to say about trust. You can't talk about leadership without talking about trust, right? So it if you if people don't trust you, let's just say you're a new manager, new situation, new team, and and you know, obviously you haven't established some you know deep sense of trust with them. Well, how do you how what do you how do you develop that? Because most organizations won't give you the leeway of saying, okay, well, you know, take six weeks or three months to establish trust with everybody, and then you can start producing, right? It's not the way it works. So if you don't have trust, how best to establish trust? Well, you give people what they need when they need it. You you give them direction when they need direction, and they say, huh, wow, that was good. Okay. Or you stay out of their way when they know what they're doing. But but you can make those distinctions, and what people do over time is they say, hmm, this person leads me effectively in a variety of different situations, therefore I trust what they have to say. Susie, I went on too long. I'm sorry. I'm passing the baton again.

Suzie Bishop 31:29

I uh when you're describing that, I you talked about dignity earlier. And so that just made me think about dignity again. It's like when I feel seen by my leader and they even care to pick up on my behaviors or what I'm saying versus just plowing through the meeting or rifling me off tasks and making me feel like I'm, you know, just like a part of the machine. That builds trust. It also builds my engagement. That's someone I want to work for, that's a culture I want to be a part of. And it also drives success in the organization because I know how to do well. I know what's expected of me, I know the standards. Um, so a lot of benefits coming from, you know, leading situationally or adapting your leadership style. Um, one of which I think the most important is just feeling seen.

Dr. William Attaway 32:23

Yeah, that's that is so well said. I think that that some of the research that we've done and appreciation at work is around how to help people feel seen and heard and thus valued. Because, you know, 79% of people who leave a job voluntarily say that they don't leave because of pay or benefits. They say that they leave because they don't feel appreciated. And and I think what you're describing is the culture that the leader is creating. And your book is so helpful as as I was looking at this and thinking through that lens. Like, what does it look like to be a leader who is going to create that type of an environment? And it's not just at work, is it? And you you mentioned this earlier. This this hits every part of your life because you're one person. To be a person of integrity means that all the parts of your life are integrated. They all touch. You're the

Adaptability And Leadership Beyond Work

Dr. William Attaway 33:13

same person everywhere. Well, so your model, the situational leadership model, is something that can be applied in all these different contexts.

Suzie Bishop 33:21

Yeah, it's something we um we talk about like your sphere of influence and truly how you know everyone is a leader. If leadership is influence, well, we're influencing each other right now. You influence at work, you influence in your community, at home, in sports, going back to, you know, where we started our conversation. Um, so situational leadership, when we first teach it, and in the book, we try to make it as practical as possible. You know, there are four steps. You're looking at the task, you're looking at someone's readiness for that, you're adapting your leadership style, and then you have this recognition that nothing stays the same. So you don't check the box and then you move on. So we teach steps, we teach the framework. But really, when it becomes a part of who you are, and you know, kind of giving away the ending of the book, but it gives it's a lens. It's a lens in just how you see your interactions, how you influence others, how you dialogue with others. And when you start to be more in tune with behaviors and how other people are reacting to whatever it is in front of you, it can be a behavior, a skill, a challenge. We call it all a task. But whatever that thing is that you're working on together in your conversation, if your lens is situational leadership, you're adapting to the needs of that other person.

Sam Shriver 34:43

Absolutely. And um we how many times have we used the word adapt? I mean, obviously a situational leadership, it's about but but it it's really interesting, again, in literature. We started out with IQ, right? Intelligence. Oh, how smart are you? And then, you know, it was EQ. You know, okay, so IQ is it's not bad, but there's this whole EQ piece to it now. Well, you know, like HBR, Forbes, McKinsey, or they're doing all these studies on something they refer to now as AQ. What's your adaptability? And it has everything to do with change, it has everything to do with what's coming, has a lot to do with AI and kind of what AI is bringing. But but but how um adept are you, you know, regardless of how smart you are or how emotionally intelligent you are, to adapt, to move, to change, to adjust. And and like I say, our model is just grounded in adaptability. It's it's it's like that's the one of the foundations of it. Diagnostic skills, adaptive skills, and communicative skills. You know, so this is becoming far more, far more, I mean, important in this day and age and into the foreseeable future. How good are you at learning new things, at taking an objective look at the data that's in front of you and formulating a plan on the basis of the objective evaluation of that data? You know, and and those are skills that that situational leadership has been talking about for the better part of five decades.

Book Recommendations And Where To Connect

Dr. William Attaway 36:24

You know, I could continue to talk to you two for another couple of hours because there's just so much wisdom here. I mean, I I just I love this conversation, and I'm so grateful that you put this into a book. This is one that we're gonna have a link to this in the show notes. I'm gonna challenge every one of our listeners to pick up a copy of this. This is gonna be a book that you are gonna use and refer back to and recommend for years to come. So much wisdom, so much insight, so much practicality in this. This is this is stuff you could take and go do and practice right now. Uh I'm so grateful to you for writing this, for putting this together, and for sharing with us just a little taste of it today on the show. Thank you for doing that.

Suzie Bishop 37:12

Thank you, William. And as you can tell, we get really excited about it too.

Sam Shriver 37:16

So Yeah, and by the way, I I think maybe um one of the reasons our conversation went so well is that we are so very much in sync. As I mentioned before we got started, went to your website, love what you're doing, and sincerely appreciate your your endorsement. So continued success to you.

Dr. William Attaway 37:36

And to you guys. We're gonna put that link in the show notes. If people want to connect with you and learn more about you and what you're doing and stay connected, and perhaps even with the organization you're with, what's the best way for them to do that?

Suzie Bishop 37:51

Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn, Susie Bishop, Sam Shriver on LinkedIn as well. Our company website is situational.com, and our book is now available at Barnes Noble, Amazon, and all other major book real retailers. So thank you. Excellent.

Dr. William Attaway 38:09

We'll have those links in the show notes as well.

Suzie Bishop 38:11

Thank you, William.