280 | The ‘Learn It All’ Leader: How Curiosity & Self-Leadership Create Unstoppable Teams

What sets the best leaders apart? In this must-listen episode of the LeadCulture Podcast, Jenni Catron sits down with Damon Lembi, CEO of Learn It, to unpack the leadership mindset that fuels unstoppable teams. From lessons learned on the field to the boardroom, Damon shares why self-leadership is the foundation of great leadership, how delegation and accountability go hand in hand, and why the ‘command and control’ approach is officially outdated.

If you want to develop a high-performing, learning-driven culture, this conversation is your playbook. Discover why the most successful leaders aren’t just know-it-alls—they’re Learn It All leaders.

🚀 Listen now and take your leadership to the next level!

We need your help to get the LeadCulture podcasts in front of more leaders! There are three simple things you can do that truly help us:

1. Review us on Apple podcasts 
2. Subscribe - we’re available wherever you listen to podcasts.
3. Share - let your friends know about the podcast by sharing your favorite episode on social media!

Transcript

Jenni Catron (00:02.311)
Hey, leaders, welcome to the LeadCulture Podcast, part of the Art of Leadership Network. I'm your host, Jenny Catron, CEO of the 4Sight Group. We're a company dedicated to helping leaders develop thriving teams. Each week, I'll be your guide as we explore practical strategies to equip you with the tools you need to lead with clarity, confidence, and build unstoppable momentum in your organization.

My mission is to be your trusted coach, empowering you to master the art of self leadership so you'll learn to lead yourself well so you can lead others better. Each week, we take a deep dive on a leadership or a culture topic. You'll hear stories from amazing guests and leaders like you who are committed to leading well. So let's dive in and keep learning on this leadership journey together.

Well, friends today I am joined by Damon Lemby. Damon is a two-time bestselling author, the host of the Learn It All podcast and CEO of Learn It, a live learning platform that has upskilled over 2 million people. Drawing from his prior baseball career, Damon brings an athlete's perspective to leadership. Through his journey, he's gained invaluable insights into what helps organizations grow, how great leaders learn.

and why Learn-It-All companies outpace their competitors every time. So Damon, welcome. Thanks for joining me today.

Damon Lembi (01:39.074)
Jenny, it's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jenni Catron (01:41.861)
So fun. Well, we already got a conversation started before we started recording. And I'm like, these are always, those are always the good ones. When we get into conversation before we hit the record button and I'm like, Ooh, we needed to be recording a few minutes earlier, but this is going to be fun. I would love for you to share with us. When did leadership become a passion for you?

Damon Lembi (02:01.944)
So leadership became a passion for me. It really started with my dad. My dad was my idol growing up and he was a president and CEO of Savings and Loan, a real estate company. And he was also a great soccer coach. He was a great storyteller. He really motivated people. So that was my first inspiration for leadership. And then, kind of as you mentioned, I played baseball, college baseball, where I got to play for three Hall of Fame baseball coaches.

Jenni Catron (02:31.196)
Wow.

Damon Lembi (02:31.406)
Um, and really my, one of my first great leadership, um, lessons was when I was being recruited to go play at Pepperdine in Malibu, the coach Andy Lopez was like, okay, we're a small college, know, 2,500 people, but we're, he set this moonshot vision. We're going to win the college world series and we're going to do it by working together as a team. Um, you know, focus on this, this and this. And, uh, well, I ended up getting hurt, but, um, and I left, went to Arizona state.

but they won the College World Series. And it just goes to show you that you can set moonshot goals and you can set a clear vision and you get everybody to buy into it and you can really, you know, make things happen. that, and then I took over Learn It 25 years ago and I kind of just jumped in as a receptionist and built my way, you know, developed as a leader through there. So that's really where I was inspired for a leadership.

Jenni Catron (03:02.843)
Wow.

Jenni Catron (03:12.721)
Yeah, that's amazing.

Jenni Catron (03:26.257)
That's so cool. I'm so curious. think athletes, understand team dynamics so well, which almost feels like it goes without saying, but why do you think that is? mean, so you referenced your dad being a soccer coach, your own experience with baseball and the coaches you were under. Like what's the connection there for, how sports teams really help develop leadership and team team skills? Like I'd love for you to.

I threw that one at you. didn't give you that one in advance, but I'm just so curious because I feel like sports influences leadership and team dynamics so much.

Damon Lembi (04:03.726)
It really does. so my entire life, I wanted to be a major league baseball player. You know, I got drafted a couple of times and then at 22, I didn't get drafted again and my career came to an end. And I, and I, didn't know if I had any skills, right. I identified as a baseball player, but what I didn't realize Jenny is I had like a athletic education, you know, um, and you learned teamwork, collaboration. look at these sports teams, if you're a sports fan and if they go out and they hire this big free agent, a lot of times.

Jenni Catron (04:09.18)
Mm-hmm.

Jenni Catron (04:18.365)
Hmm, sure.

Jenni Catron (04:23.964)
Yeah.

Damon Lembi (04:33.506)
they don't win because they don't have synergies or, you know, collaboration, they don't work well together, they don't have each other's backs. And so that is all that I learned from playing sports, along with perseverance, resilience and discipline. I mean, there's like, you just have to so that yeah.

Jenni Catron (04:44.199)
Mm-hmm.

Jenni Catron (04:51.077)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's part of it. I mean, it just forces you at such a, and I think I'm curious about this because I played some sports, but I played like tennis, which is more of an individual sport. And so I feel like I kind of envy people who played team sports growing up because I think there's so much that you learn in that collaboration and the partnership and the unity and the shared goals that,

is so powerful in the application to leadership later on. And so I think like there's this little piece of me that's a little jealous of I wished I had played more team sports growing up because I see so many just positive byproducts of people who who grow up doing team sports and their ability to work well with the team in the workplace. And so just always curious about that.

Damon Lembi (05:41.966)
Yeah, and I just want to emphasize, I know I'm sure a lot of your listeners have kids and you don't need to play college baseball or call it professionally. Get your kids involved in sports early. You know, they learn how to they learn how to collaborate. They learn. They learn, like I said, again, discipline. And so there's just so many valuable skills that you can pick up even at an early, you know, playing soccer at 10 years old.

Jenni Catron (05:52.701)
Mm.

Jenni Catron (06:02.193)
Early age. Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating. That's awesome. Sorry. That was totally off the subject of what I actually want to talk about today. I want to dig into the topic of delegation and I think so many leaders struggle with this idea and you've shared that you made the mistake of trying to do everything yourself early on. I'm super guilty of that myself. So I would love for you just tell us a little bit about.

Damon Lembi (06:08.958)
I like it.

Jenni Catron (06:28.902)
maybe what you recognized as you began to delegate better. Like maybe give us a little backstory on this topic for yourself.

Damon Lembi (06:36.632)
So what I would say is, you know, I've been the CEO of Learn It for about 25 years now. And I thought early on, I thought that it was the leader's responsibility to work 60, 80 hours a week, you know, and be the hero, you know, jumping in, being involved in every decision. And for the first 10 or 12, I mean, I'd lose some great talent because they're, you you're stifling their growth. And so what I also realized is that when you jump in and you don't delegate, what happens is,

Jenni Catron (06:48.061)
Mm-hmm.

Jenni Catron (06:52.07)
right?

Damon Lembi (07:06.134)
you end up becoming the bottleneck yourself. And you you can't get, you just can't scale. So I've really worked hard over the last two decades to becoming much better at delegating.

Jenni Catron (07:18.801)
Yeah. What, I think what I've noticed in myself is that I have the tendency to. Abdicate instead of delegate is what I would describe it as. that a lot of times I'll bring on somebody who's a rock star, right? Like I've hired somebody onto the team and I know that they are really capable. They are really competent and I tend to just go, whoo. Okay. You've got this go make it happen. And I'm almost completely hands off.

and or maybe somebody is not quite meeting expectations and then I'm more micromanaging because I'm trying to like make sure they're actually getting done what needs to get done. And I feel like I struggle to find, I don't know if that's a continuum or not. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, like micromanagement to abdication and is delegation somewhere in there or how would you respond to that? How would you coach me if I were like, I tend to be one of these two things, help me delegate better.

Damon Lembi (08:17.23)
I think that in order to delegate better, one, you got to start off with what should you be delegating? There are certain things as a leader that you really can't delegate, right? And especially if it falls in your strength zone. But there's a lot of things that you should be delegating. So it's kind of like first starting off and like, OK, how do I surround myself with great talent, figure out what their strengths are, and then hand things off to them?

Jenni Catron (08:27.485)
Mm.

Damon Lembi (08:46.326)
Now, I'm the same way. mean, sometimes it's hard. You got to have patience. You you just, I understand this. So just want to tell them what to do and say, get it done, you know. But what I've learned is, you know, the old saying, go slow to go fast. If you take time and you ask open-ended questions and you set clear goals, especially now in this hybrid, you know, workforce, it makes a huge difference.

Jenni Catron (08:56.337)
Right. Yeah.

Damon Lembi (09:14.644)
And when you do that, there's a lot of benefits in it. It accelerates decision making. It gives people learning opportunities. And people really feel empowered to be that they're part of the organization.

Jenni Catron (09:24.709)
Yeah, yeah. That's, mean, so valuable because we all know what it feels like when we've been entrusted with something, when somebody's delegated something to us and you've been given that responsibility, you feel some pride and you you feel that sense of responsibility. I'm curious, what's the relationship with delegation and accountability, right? So what I see happen a lot of times with some of the leaders that I work with is that they might delegate something

but then they never follow back up on it or check in to see how that person is doing with that project or that responsibility. And so what's the follow-up look like after you've delegated something?

Damon Lembi (10:06.038)
Again, it kind of depends on what you're delegating and the level of complexity that happens. But I think that the delegation and accountability, I think at the end of the day, the leader still has ownership of what, you know, if things are a success or not, right? I mean, you delegate to your team member and if it's a task, you turn it, you shift the mindset from being, okay, this is a task to a learning opportunity. And you help them understand, ask,

Jenni Catron (10:32.231)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Lembi (10:35.212)
you know, ask questions, have them repeat back what you're doing. But then you got you got to set check ins with them for sure. And and again, it's like not jumping in and just answering questions. Excuse me, and just telling them what to do. It's having the patience to say, OK, so how's this going? What are you working on? You have you thought about doing this other ways? And you want to make it so that they are accountable and, know, and it helps build the ownership. at the end of the day, if it gets executed on or not,

Jenni Catron (10:40.369)
Yeah. Yeah.

Damon Lembi (11:04.224)
If it doesn't work out, you have to be a leader step up in front and say, Hey, I have I have my team members back, you know, it's on me, I should have done something different or better, maybe do a post mortem and see what the deal was.

Jenni Catron (11:15.473)
Yeah. Yeah. I always feel like that is one of the, again, one of the things that I can be guilty of from time to time, but I see it in a lot of leaders is that sometimes, again, I feel like that's when it leans towards abdication is like we will delegate, but then we don't have follow-up conversations to check in, to coach around that, to give feedback, to problem solve. and again, then ultimately hold them accountable to, you know,

the outcome that we described when we delegated, whether it be a project or sometimes we're delegating a much broader responsibility of some kind. But I think that accountability piece and recognizing that even though I've delegated, I still have a responsibility as a leader to follow up and support that individual in whatever that project or that initiative is. Would you say that's fair?

Damon Lembi (12:07.694)
100 % because that builds trust. It builds trust. again, the whole command and control method of leadership, just doesn't work anymore, especially these days. so following up, being supportive, having your team members back, it builds trust. gives them a feeling of ownership and accountability. And I see a lot of times when you do that, know, innovation and ideas and creativity bubble as bubbles up from all over the place.

Jenni Catron (12:19.281)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jenni Catron (12:36.751)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love how you brought out the command and control style of leadership just really doesn't work anymore. would you tell a leader who that is either the oftentimes, I mean, I know for myself and many of my peers, that's the style of leadership we came up under, like that we were developed under. And so then our tendency sometimes is to reproduce what we experienced, right? So how do you coach leaders

to move beyond command and control and move to a more collaborative style of leadership.

Damon Lembi (13:13.034)
And I grew up in sports, it was pretty command and control. It's like you show up and this is what you're going to do. A lot of times, great teams, the leaders weren't there micromanaging you. Everybody kind of held each other accountable, but it was still command and control. mean, you know who's in charge. What I would recommend for leaders out there is that, and this goes for all generations. mean, we have five generations in the workforce. But people, all generations,

Jenni Catron (13:36.848)
Right?

Damon Lembi (13:40.748)
One of the number one things they want is personal growth and opportunity. people, their growth is going to be stifled if it's just command and control. Again, you're putting them in a box and they're not growing. They're not learning. They're not trying new things. And you're going to lose great talent. And so you have to be self-aware enough to take a step back and reflect and say, hey, how is my leadership style? Am I micromanaging people too much? Am I giving them, I think, great

Jenni Catron (13:43.901)
Hmm.

Damon Lembi (14:10.478)
cultures are I like to call them learning cultures, you know, where people have the psychological space to be able to make mistakes and learn things. And you don't see that in the command and control. And so I think it's self reflection. And hopefully, if you're a good leader, you know, you're able to receive feedback. You know, there's a lot of talk around, you know, giving feedback. I think great leaders

Jenni Catron (14:13.575)
Mm-hmm.

Jenni Catron (14:18.171)
Yeah.

Damon Lembi (14:33.72)
can model receiving feedback so they can ask people, hey, how do you think things are going? Am I a little too tough on you on this, or do you feel like you're learning? And if people feel like that they can open up to you, that helps you realize whether or not you are too much of the command and control style.

Jenni Catron (14:35.293)
Yeah.

Jenni Catron (14:47.791)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the ability to diagnose that is so big. And like you said, the welcoming and creating opportunities for feedback. I'll have leaders tell me sometimes, well, I'm open to feedback. I'm like, well, have you, have you invited them to give you the feedback? Because the thing we miss all the time when we're in, you know, a more senior leadership seat is that

they're not just gonna offer that without some invitation in a lot of cases, right? And so we have to actually be the ones to say, could you give me some feedback on that? How did that land? Was that too direct? Did you have the information that you needed to be able to follow through on that or whatever the case might be? It's actually hard to get good feedback in a lot of cases.

And so again, creating that environment of safety where then how you respond to it when they actually give it to you is going to determine whether they give you feedback again in the future.

Damon Lembi (15:47.726)
100%, like you said, especially as a senior leader. One little tip that I do quite a bit is when I was writing my book, I would share different paragraphs or chapters with team members of mine. And I would say, what do you think about this? Honestly, I don't think it's very good because of this, this, or this. So you're being a little bit vulnerable in the sense so that you're opening up the door.

Jenni Catron (16:08.487)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Lembi (16:16.044)
And then really the trick is after that is if they come back in this particular gentleman did and he's like, yeah, this this is no good because of this, this and this. didn't get defensive 15 years ago, the Damon would have got that Damon would have got defensive, but I was like, okay, I took a step back and I said, you know, this is something he's bringing up a good point. And I actually implemented what he said. And I pointed that out to him afterwards. And I and I kind of gave him praise. said, Hey, look, you know, this is something in my book, you know, Nick really helped with this.

Jenni Catron (16:36.274)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Lembi (16:44.266)
And when you you model that behavior and you share it out with your team, I think you create an environment where I found that people feel more comfortable to giving feedback. And I think it's so critical to be able to receive feedback because again, it's like the fuel for learning. I don't think you can grow as a senior leader or anybody if you're unable to accept feedback. You don't have to implement something all the time from it, but you got to be able to accept it.

Jenni Catron (16:53.777)
Yeah.

Jenni Catron (17:08.23)
That's right. I was working with a team a while ago. This is a couple of years ago. They had increased the feedback from... It was a senior leadership team. There had been a lot of tension between the senior leadership and the rest of the staff. We did a lot to work on increasing the communication. Ultimately, we got to a place where the...

the team members were giving feedback to the senior leadership, which was really valuable because decisions were being made without the insight from the rest of the staff. And so was creating, know, complexity and challenges throughout the organization, not an uncommon challenge. And, but then what happened was they were receiving the feedback, they were listening to it, but they weren't always taking action on it. So then the rest of the team felt like then their feedback was going into no man's land. And so they didn't feel like their feedback was being valued.

And so the problem was they weren't closing the loop on, thank you so much for that feedback. Here's what we did with it. You know, because in not doing so, the team was feeling like, well, they aren't listening to us. doesn't matter. We shouldn't give feedback anymore. And so that was such a valuable learning for that team in that, yes, it doesn't mean that we have to take action on all of it, but closing the loop and letting them know, hey, we heard you. Here's what we, you know, here's how we process that. Here's the decision we came to was really important to keep building the trust.

especially in a situation where there was some trust broken within their organization. So that was a fascinating piece. I want to go to, as I was reading some of your stuff, you talk about how delegation frees you up as a leader, but then there's also other benefits. So we often think when we're talking about delegation, we think, whew, okay, I can get that off my plate. That gives me margin, that gives me space. But there's other things that really kind of come out, there's other benefits to delegation. And I think,

Some of that might happen in team dynamics. Some of that might be like just even the development of others, faster decision-making. So I'd love for you to maybe hit on a couple of those of what are some of the other benefits of delegation? I think we make it all about us when in fact there's really a lot more going on.

Damon Lembi (19:14.902)
Well, you you stole some of them right there faster decision making, you know, people aren't waiting around, Jenny, for you to make the decision anymore. They feel they have the ownership to go so you can accelerate decision making. Again, you're creating a learning opportunity, a learning culture where people feel like they're able to learn from their mistakes. I also have found that delegation also yes, it does free up leadership, of course. It also helps you build a stronger leadership bench. So if people are taking on new opportunities in their in their in their

Jenni Catron (19:40.48)
yeah.

Damon Lembi (19:44.342)
succeeding with them and they're learning other aspects of the business and they're getting more confident and they feel valued. Well, if somebody leaves, they're more likely to be able to step into that role than you know, having to bring in somebody from the outside. So there's a there's a ton of benefits. And I would just say, I mean, in the last four years at learn, I mentioned to you before we came on that I feel like we have a great culture. Not perfect, you know, everything's not perfect. But I've removed myself from probably 90 % of

the day to day activities, which I've never been like that, right? I've never been like that. And we've never been better. We've never been better operationally in sales. And I think as a leader, it goes back to that question about command and control and accountability is you got to kind of sit back and reflect and say, and be open to other ideas, you know, be curious, surround yourself with great people who are maybe experts in areas that you're not and have the trust in them and give them the tools they need to be successful. And if you do,

Jenni Catron (20:15.153)
Awesome. Sure.

Jenni Catron (20:32.154)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Lembi (20:43.01)
I mean, the team dynamics, I mean, it's it's fantastic.

Jenni Catron (20:46.587)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so good. mean, it does like creating that environment, just it, the opportunities for the team and their development specifically and with each other. So, so, so valuable. So good. Okay. I want to save time because I want to talk more about your book, the learned leader. you emphasize the importance of having curiosity and a commitment to continuous learning. So

You can either zoom in on that or you can zoom out and tell us more about just the idea of the Learn It leader. But I'd love for you to unpack that for us a bit.

Damon Lembi (21:20.782)
So the learn it all leader is really about my my career from from baseball to learning from my father and you know didn't I didn't get a MBA from Harvard Which is that's great if you did but you know, you can't continuously learn and grow I like to say great leaders aren't born or made they're constantly in the making and you know, the first half of the book is about doing the second half about the book is excuse me is about the first half of book is is being a second half is doing and I think when it comes to

Jenni Catron (21:32.292)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Lembi (21:50.008)
curiosity for great leaders, that's like the thread through everything. You have to be curious. And when it comes to continuous learning, I think you owe it to your team, you owe it to your family to always be continuous, continuously learning and growing and evolving and almost a little paranoid because I want to make sure that I'm a great dad, a great husband. And, you know, things change in this world with AI, things are accelerating faster than they ever had.

And I want to make sure I feel, you know, to a degree responsible for my 75 employees that learn it. So I don't want to, I want to make sure I'm staying relevant and, um, and that we're staying relevant. I don't have all the answers. got a lot of people around me who can help with that. But if you're not continuously learning and you're not curious to find ways to do things better all the time. And now it's even like, okay, curious as far as like, okay, how do I do this? Now I just say, how do I do this?

even better with AI. How do I get curious of using AI to leverage some of this? And so you have to constantly I believe great leaders are constantly curious, they're humble, and they they enjoy learning.

Jenni Catron (22:49.948)
Right.

Jenni Catron (22:58.151)
So good. Do you think Damon that we ...

I feel like the tendency is to do less of curiosity and less continuous learning. The more experience, the more time we've been in our work. Do you think that's true or do think it's more personality driven? Do you think most leaders have to really engage this commitment to be the learn-it-all leader and stay focused on curiosity and continuous learning is the drift towards

complacency, guess, maybe is the question I have in there.

Damon Lembi (23:37.07)
One of things I want to say is, you know, learn it all leader. That doesn't mean you're just constantly learning all the time, right? I because you have to execute at the end of the day. If you're not executing, you know, somebody told me that learning without doing is treason, you know, and that's, and that's a great one, right? You know, so learning without doing is treason. So you have, you have to actually execute. So I'm not saying, Hey, just spend all your time, you know, reading and learning, you know, it is super important. And just like, I'm sure with your show on my show, interviewing some of these leaders like Doug Kona from Campbell soup. mean, they're.

Jenni Catron (23:41.955)
Mm. Really, right?

Jenni Catron (23:49.765)
Yes. Yeah.

Jenni Catron (23:59.022)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Lembi (24:06.904)
constantly continuously learning. So it just I think it's a personality thing. I have have friends who are super, super successful. And they're but they're know it all. You know, I mean, they're more of better individual contributors than they are. And so in my talk to them about new things or books, you know, their eyes kind of roll back in their head or thinking I got it all figured out. It's funny, too, because a lot of them like, I'm gonna learn it all. I'm like, Yeah, right. You haven't heard anything I said. So I think it's a personality type. And I think that

Jenni Catron (24:08.817)
Right. Yeah.

Jenni Catron (24:18.034)
Yeah.

Damon Lembi (24:36.974)
Sometimes it evolves over time. I mean, I think for me is I made some big mistakes early on over expanding and everything at Learnit and it really humbled me. was lucky to have my family. So you realize that you don't know it all. You don't have all the answers and you owe it to yourself again and your team to constantly be learning, I believe. And it doesn't mean, I mean, even reading 20 minutes a morning, that's all you gotta do, game changer.

Jenni Catron (24:45.149)
Hmm.

Jenni Catron (24:50.586)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jenni Catron (25:00.29)
game changer. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Well, you said the word in there that was coming to mind as you were talking about it is the humility. Like there's a humility required to keep a posture of curiosity and learning. And there's a vulnerability and going like, even with all the AI stuff, which we've mentioned a little bit, we talked about before we started recording him, but just keeping a pulse on what is changing around us.

to make sure that we're keeping pace as leaders. And there's a vulnerability in that because you're like, after this many years of doing what I do, you kind of want to, like, there's a part of you that's like, have I not paid my dues yet? Can I like, and the reality is we have to keep learning and growing, right? Everything is changing around us and we need to keep learning and growing in order to lead well. At least that's probably one of the convictions that I hold so far in my journey.

Damon Lembi (25:55.822)
Well, I think, I mean, I'm kind of a rare case. I've been at Learn It for 30 years. A lot of people have done several jobs. I mean, obviously I have outside, you know, investments and I do other stuff, coach people and everything. But I wouldn't be this, I wouldn't enjoy work so much if I wasn't continuously trying to figure out how do we get, if I wasn't curious on how to make things better, how to evolve and how to change and how to do things. If it was stale and it was just like, you know, picking up a paycheck.

Jenni Catron (26:04.923)
Yeah.

Jenni Catron (26:18.129)
That's right.

Damon Lembi (26:25.62)
or leading a team that was just like, hey, this is how we've always done it. We just want to float by. I would probably left 15 years ago, but I always want to continue to figure, maybe it's the competitiveness in me and other people. But I think a lot of the, I've found that a lot of the best leaders, they just want to continuously learn and get better. And I've also been, had the fortune, I know you have too, to just be around great leaders and some of the very best leaders of all, they're so humble.

Jenni Catron (26:55.171)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Damon Lembi (26:55.474)
And you would never really know how successful they were, because they're just kind of curious and they're asking you questions and having a conversation. But I think that that's one of the traits that sets great leaders apart, is being humble and being curious.

Jenni Catron (27:11.377)
Yeah, so good, so good. I was thinking, you know, just the, that commitment to humility and growth, the value in it in both for yourself. And I often will just even tell myself, so I've been leading the Forsythe group for eight years. My title hasn't changed, but...

the organization has changed significantly and my responsibilities have changed significantly. This was true even before I was leading this company, you know, in the previous jobs that I had, most of the time my title didn't radically change, but every six months I would reevaluate my work and say, hey, what's changed? What's different? And what does that require of me? And even that like little rhythm of every six months or so,

just saying, what's changed and what does it require of me? Even though there's not a title change, I found helped me identify where I needed to keep learning and growing to keep succeeding. You know, so like to your point of being in the same organization for 30 years. Well, I'm quite confident what you do today is radically different than you did 30 years ago. And you wouldn't still be there today if you hadn't been curious and committed to learning along the way. So, love that example.

Damon Lembi (28:34.732)
Well, I would say it was radically different from what I was doing about seven years ago. And what you just pointed out right there, I think it was a great piece of advice for your listeners is self-reflect, think about what have you been doing the last six months? Is this where I should be spending my time? Where am I going to have the most impact and value as a leader? And be curious and really challenge yourself or, again, get feedback from other people. How can I make our organization better?

Jenni Catron (28:39.2)
yeah.

Jenni Catron (28:58.704)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Lembi (29:02.734)
regardless if my title has changed or anything. But if you just come in with the approach of, you're just, I'm just going to jump into today and just get done and just be busy. mean, it's going to be tough to grow and evolve. You know, you have to take a chance to step back. And it goes into our whole conversation about delegation. You got to free yourself up some time so you can you can spend time on the bigger picture.

Jenni Catron (29:26.075)
Yeah, that's so good. Well, and all of it comes back to the thing that my listeners have heard me say many, many times is lead yourself well to lead others better. The self leadership piece, nobody else is going to do it for you. mean, you might, you know, depending on the seat that you're in, you might have a leader above you who's invested in your development and is challenging and drawing out the best of you. And I hope that's true.

But at the end of the day, you've got to be the one that's most committed to your growth and development. so, Damon, I would love for you to tell us more about how we can connect with you, where we can learn more about Learn It, find your book, tell us all the things so we can connect more.

Damon Lembi (30:03.928)
So check us out on the Learn It All podcast. I can't wait to have you on Jenny, that'll be great. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there. And learnit.com is our website and my book's called The Learn It All Leader. And I've got another one called Good Decisions Equal Success. And you can find those on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles or wherever you buy books.

Jenni Catron (30:07.481)
Yes.

Jenni Catron (30:25.949)
That's perfect. Damon, thank you so much. This was fantastic. I appreciate your insight and your investment in leaders for all these years as a part of learn it. I want to encourage everybody to make sure you go to learn it.com, go grab Damon's books on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, wherever you find books and be sure to reach out to him on LinkedIn friends. I'm grateful you were here today. Thanks for listening. we would love to know what you thought of this week's episode.

Let us know on Instagram or Facebook. You can find us at Get4Sight. That's G-E-T the number four S-I-G-H-T or we're on LinkedIn at the 4Sight group. You can also find me at Jenny Catron on all of those channels as well. And if you enjoyed this, share it with a friend, maybe the rest of your team, maybe delegation has been a conversation that you guys have been wrestling with on your team. Well, listen to the podcast together, take some notes and

and process together your learnings from today and more than anything, stay curious and keep learning. Thanks for joining me today. Keep leading well. We'll see you next week.