Notes on Resilience
Conversations about trauma, resilience, and compassion.
How do we genuinely support individuals who have experienced trauma and build inclusive and safe environments? Trauma significantly affects the mental and physical health of those who experience it, and personal resiliency is only part of the solution. The rest lies in addressing organizational, systemic, and social determinants of health and wellness, and making the effort to genuinely understand the impact of trauma.
Here, we ask and answer the tough questions about how wellness is framed in an organizational context, what supports are available and why, what the barriers are to supporting trauma survivors, and what best practices contribute to mental wellness. These conversations provide a framework to identify areas for change and actionable steps to reshape organizations to be truly trauma sensitive.
Notes on Resilience
139: Scaling Without Losing Your Soul, with Kenny Lange
How do you build an organization that grows without losing its soul?
Kenny Lange believes the answer lies in compassionate leadership—but not in the way most people think.
Kenny challenges the false dichotomy between organizational success and staying true to principles and argues that accountability represents one of the highest forms of compassion. In fact, organizational policies can often hinder authentic connection--they reflect what we do, not who we are.
We also discuss why leaders struggle with compassion: they're being asked to give something they never received. With most people receiving their first management position a decade before receiving any leadership training, it's no wonder we see gaps in human-centered leadership. His solution? Start with self-compassion, then extend that same grace to teams while maintaining clear boundaries.
Kenny Lange helps faith-forward founders scale without losing their soul. Creator of Lead to Scale™ and host of How Leaders Think podcast. Clients say he "calls you up, not out."
You can learn more about Kenny on his website www.kennylange.com. Download his free 5-minute diagnostic to figure out how to grow without losing your soul and to receive a 44-page PDF customized to your leadership stage and style.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
__________
Producer / Editor: Neel Panji
Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity.
Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us.
#trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor
I'm all for like systemized excellence. I'm all for that, but that's what we do. That's not who we are.
Manya Chylinski:Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, manya Chylinski. My guest today is Kenny Lang. He helps faith forward founders scale without losing their soul. He's the creator of Lead to Scale and host of the how Leaders Think podcast. Clients say he calls you up, not out, and we had a fabulous conversation talking about how organizations can scale without losing their soul, talking about compassion and leadership and the difference between leadership and management. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode, kenny. I'm so excited to be talking to you today. Thanks for being here.
Kenny Lange:My pleasure, Mamia. I'm excited to have this conversation.
Manya Chylinski:Well, to get us started, before we dig into compassionate leadership, what is one thing that you have done in any area of your life that you never thought you would do?
Kenny Lange:There's a whole lot. I'm just generally surprised I'm alive. Okay, I guess would be competing in two half Ironman triathlons with little to no training, which was, yeah, it was dumb, but it I didn't ever think that that was something I would do. I would do a triathlon to begin with, let alone start out and make my first one of 70.3 miles. Most people work up to it. Apparently, I am missing some brain cells. The other is sort of a surprise, while I knew that I would adopt at least one child at some point in my life just that's been part of my story. My dad adopted me after my parents got married, but I never thought I would be a foster parent. Wasn't something that had crossed my mind? And my wife and I we've fostered 18 and we've adopted two and then we have three biologicals. So I never saw myself fostering, I never saw myself adopting really probably more than one child, and I definitely did not envision five children in my house. But here we are.
Manya Chylinski:That is amazing. Both of those are very interesting stories in for their different reasons, but it sounds like you're very busy, is what it sounds like to me.
Kenny Lange:Yes. So between that and being an entrepreneur, I'd like to say I don't sleep a lot. I try to prioritize it, but I'm never bored.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, oh, I can imagine. I can imagine that. Well, thank you for sharing that.
Kenny Lange:And to dig into the topic of compassionate leadership, I know you and I talked in the pre-call about how to scale methodology that I use which works in a sort of a dual flywheel where the outside loop has lead, grow and scale, like you've got to be able to lead yourself and probably lead one other person really well, and then you've got to be able to lead a team. And what does that mean to have be a team leader versus just an individual leader? How do you establish culture and norms and things like that and then eventually like if that's going well, then you can scale the whole organization? Inside of each of those and the path I take my clients through within each of those three big stages it goes aware, aligned and accountable. And a lot of programs that I've been a part of I've seen they started aligned, they start with here's the thing you got to do.
Kenny Lange:And don't get me wrong, doing things is fun, but it leads to this false sense of progress when really really it's just activity and then most people find that they stink at accountability and so these great intentions sort of die on the vine. And especially since I work with a lot of nonprofits, I see this more, maybe more so is there's a false dichotomy, that that you're just a false choice, that I can either grow a really big, successful organization. You know successful might mean just you know like dollars reach impact, notoriety, brand equity, or I can stay true to who I am and my principles and my mission and and why I started this thing. Whether it's a business or a nonprofit, like it's hey, I've got a noble purpose and a noble cause, or, if you're Simon Sinek, a just cause, and I wholeheartedly stand against that. It's an either or.
Kenny Lange:And the reason it's a you know and lead to scale it. That I have those, those two flywheels, beyond the fact that you know they're kind of covering some different things, is, as soon as you make it around like the leader you were to build a team and then scale an organization is not the leader you still are when you reach certain milestones and to continue as if you are the same person is, at best, just lacking in self-awareness and, at worst, could actually damage all the progress you've made, damage your own reputation or cause you to lose the thing that you maybe have spent your life building towards. And that's where we dig back into that awareness piece of like well, who are you, what does your team look like and who is it now and then, who is your organizations? Because organizations have identities as well, so right absolutely.
Manya Chylinski:What role do you think compassion plays in that?
Kenny Lange:picture role do you think compassion plays in that picture? I would say it's woven throughout. I think it shows up differently depending on the circumstance or the stage the lead growth or scale. I think compassion probably factors more into that inner loop of aware and aligned and accountable.
Kenny Lange:I think the first place and this is really tough for high achievers and I say this as a recovering overachiever and perfectionist, and this is really tough for high achievers and I say this as like a recovering overachiever and perfectionist, and I know you probably peddled in that boat too but you can't give compassion to people if you're not willing to give it to yourself.
Kenny Lange:And so I think, from an awareness standpoint whether it's you and your own disciplines or leading a team, or maybe you've grown to the place where you're scaling and you're a CEO like in the true sense of the word not I arbitrarily applied this title to myself as a solopreneur, because that doesn't count but can I give myself compassion? Because if I can, then I'm able to empathize and I can give my team compassion and then I can give my whole organization compassion. And people think accountability means a lack of compassion and it's anything, but it's actually maybe one of the best forms of compassion you can extend another human being is keep holding them accountable or creating an environment of accountability, because ultimately, you want them to hold themselves accountable, which I think is a form of self-respect.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, and I appreciate you saying that. I had a conversation with a client where we had to talk about how boundaries are compassionate.
Kenny Lange:Telling someone you have certain boundaries about the things they can and can't do is also a compassion 100%, yeah, and people think those boundaries or their ambition or their goals are somehow discounting the humanity of others, treats them like a hog and it's like no, I can see where you you get that. I've seen people who have built boundaries or think they're building boundaries and really they're just being a mason and making a giant wall. That's why I really like dr cloud's imagery when he in his book boundaries and of course now it's like spun out to like 48 different variations and he's a great writer. But he said boundaries are like having, you know, like a white picket fence around your front yard, like it keeps most everybody up, but there there is a way in and we can still see and we can communicate, whereas I'm not building up walls and a castle and I'm isolating myself from connection with others. Right, and I think compassion means you are risking one. I think it just means risk because you have to be in relationship for compassion to actually be effective.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, that's true. So, speaking of that kind of relationship, what role does trust play in all of?
Kenny Lange:this. I do think trust can be built through compassion. I think that's a that's an easy, easier on ramp towards having relationship built on trust. Like there there's people I can, I can be compassionate towards, and we may not have a high degree of trust, but I can, I can empathize with a situation or something like that.
Kenny Lange:But I think trust is uh, again, you know I said compassion can exist really outside of relationship, but I think trust is again, you know I say compassion can exist really outside of relationship and I suppose it could from afar, like we could see a natural disaster halfway around the world from where we live and feel compassion towards a negative situation. But trust certainly cannot exist outside of an interaction and, I think, really building a relationship. You know, people say I've only met him once, I just don't trust him, and I was like, okay, but do you know him well enough to make that judgment? Like if you hang around him for a little while and then you say no, I cannot trust them, then cool, but if it's, you know, a chance encounter or something like that, and I was like, yeah, it's like well, you haven't built up trust, which isn't mistrust, it's just the beginning of a relationship.
Manya Chylinski:Right, yeah, that's true, that's true. I mean, you might have that sense initially, but you need to build that relationship to prove it one way or the other Right. What kind of policies or structures in an organization support, you know, building that organization with a soul or building that organization that in which people can truly trust?
Kenny Lange:I mean the immature side of me says that policies don't encourage trust. Policies don't encourage trust, I mean when done well. I think that they do provide boundaries. Often, though, what I see is their organizational scar tissue and decreases the chances. They write a policy that mandates it doesn't, and it's a little like trying to like mandate morality. You can teach morality, you can, you can shape a culture around morality, but you can't necessarily mandate it or write policy towards it. I mean, I suppose you can, we have those attempts, and I'm not here to get into that debate, but I think if you want high trust, high compassion, full of soul, I think the number of your policies should be relatively little. It's easy, it's easy, it's easy to write policy. It's hard to build a relationship that encourages that same behavior.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, and organizations tend as you were mentioning the scar tissue tend to be very risk averse and afraid. If we don't have this as a policy or a formal piece, how are we going to make sure it really happens?
Kenny Lange:Right, and that's when companies start getting and I work a lot with like lifecycle stages on the predictable success model and a lot of companies when they start down, the decline is where you start to see that they're overly processed. It's just policy that we have policies about policies, yeah, and which is redonkulous, and of course, on your way up in growth, you just need enough to make sure you don't go to prison, and so you don't have any of those, and then those people are fighting against any form of policy because it's a restriction of their fun and autonomy and these things, and they view what are boundaries as walls, and so both are. Both are an incorrect view for most leaders, sadly. They'll look at what's the most efficient, not what's the most effective, because on your way up you do whatever is effective and you gain efficiency over time as you gain proficiency in your craft and your leadership and the team structure and whatever it is. But at a certain point you add structure, structure, structure.
Kenny Lange:You can start to get into where you're efficient but not effective at all, and we could all think of you, know you can start to get into where you're efficient but not effective at all, and we could all think of. You know you can go to the blockbusters and others of the world that didn't want to change and they held to these policies and they wouldn't innovate. And that's where that other ditch is protective leadership and not they came from heroic leadership, which is I got to lift everything on my back and do it all myself and we're making up the rules as we go and there's a certain thrill about that. But if you swing the pendulum the other way and you get into protective leadership, that's not good. And where I encourage leaders to arrive and how they think through things because I want them to stay human centered is a synergist leadership mindset which is both effective and efficient.
Manya Chylinski:Is this a scale issue, that the bigger a company gets, the more they are inclined, and or need, to have policies and procedures that then make it difficult to be more human centered?
Kenny Lange:I think it's the easy ditch to fall into. Because if building policy, writing out rules and regulations and handbooks does help you in a certain stage of growth because I mean, you're just unbound energy, you are just sunlight, you're everywhere all the time, are just sunlight, you're everywhere all the time and if you endeavor to scale, which is substantively different than growth, which I'm happy to talk about but if you endeavor to scale, you're going to go through the stage which the stage I call is whitewater comes from the predictable success model, but it does feel like whitewater. You're on a class five rapid and you're wondering what the hell happened, all the fun times you were having and what gets you through that is adding more structure, process, procedure and you're like, okay, this did make things better. I may not have agreed with it, but I am liking the result. Like the waters are smoothing out and now we're starting to hit a place to where you know, when we put our foot on the gas, the car goes forward.
Kenny Lange:Like now we're scaling, but the thought is, if a few processes were good, then a lot will be even better. Right, and, and it's sort of that I forgot the term and calculus, but I always relate it back to like the law of diminishing return, is you're going to hit a peak where the effectiveness has reached its maximum, its apex, and it is going to decline. Now, right, and so it's people not knowing where to stop. And where do we keep hold things a little lighter? Where do we not bound things to? Where we lose that spark of innovation that allows us to keep iterating on what we do for the people we serve and get even better? Instead of putting my customers first, we're putting the processes first, and that's an early sign of organizational death.
Manya Chylinski:Well, I think about it. All makes sense to me what you're saying. My corporate experience was with a couple of very large organizations, one global, multinational, tens of thousands of employees, and another one well, actually the other one was pretty big, about that size as well and I think about the tension between treating people as human but also having those policies and I think there's certainly some bloat policies for the sake of policies and I'm just curious about that tension. How is it possible to be big, established company and still truly be human centered and truly have that soul and compassion?
Kenny Lange:Yes, if you're willing to work on your culture and your relationships.
Manya Chylinski:Okay.
Kenny Lange:If you want to treat people like human beings instead of human doings. But one is messy, complicated and difficult and the other is straightforward, regimented and it works really well in the short term, Like it's just. It's just easier to be a jerk and or or just mandate everything and say you know, I'm, I'm all for like systemized excellence, I'm all for that, but that's what we do, that's not who we are, and if a company is unsure of who they are, then they're going to throw. Then all sorts of policies, procedures and and guidelines are going to make sense, because you have nothing guiding you of nothing guiding you.
Manya Chylinski:What are we missing in how we're developing leaders? That's preventing us or slowing down the number of people we teach to lead with compassion and with heart and with soul.
Kenny Lange:I get a version of this quite a bit. As a matter of fact, I'm preparing for a summit where I'll be sharing this about going from chaos to coaching, but the thesis of it is most senior leaders, even managers, are being asked to give something that was never given to them achievers, self starters, self feeders, self learners and then they're told all right now that you've reached this level. Number one all of your technical ability doesn't matter all that much. We need you to make good decisions. Number two we don't need you to put your hand to anything. We need you to win and succeed through others, which is wildly different. That's why the, the. It's an easy go-to, but the, the high-performing sales leader who gets made the sales manager and fails miserably.
Manya Chylinski:Yes.
Kenny Lange:It's because they're substantively different skills. There's even a study I want to say. I came across it in Tim Spiker's book the Only Leaders Worth Following Phenomenal book. I highly recommend it. But most people are given their first management or leadership position in their early 30s and the first time they're ever trained on it is in their early 40s. Wow.
Kenny Lange:So why are any of us surprised when all the stuff we thought was going to work well doesn't? We didn't equip these people. We're asking them to do a job and not giving them the tools. Leadership doesn't happen. Yes, some people have more natural ability to lead in a certain way, but there isn't one best way to lead right. We all have our own styles and personalities, strengths and weaknesses, and that's why I think leadership really is a team sport, even though, at least here in the US or maybe just in the Western world, it's easy to glorify a singular leader who made everything happen. But that's a false narrative. But we have to start with how do you win through others? And you do that by building relationship with them and coaching them and bringing out the best in them.
Kenny Lange:Chick-fil-a has a phenomenal quote. I don't know if it's like been turned into a value or something like that inside the organization. But they would say our first customer is our employees, customer is our employees. And they said because here's how it goes If we take care of our employees and they're treated well, they're humanized, they're given time off and support to achieve their goals tuition benefits, whatever it is and we empower them, well, now suddenly they're seeing that from us. It's reasonable. We ask them to go and support and serve our clients, our customers who come through every day. And, by the way, when we do that, our customers will repay that with actual cash which takes care of us. So it's not self-protective, it's my first job is to pour into this person. That is a direct report and if I do that, everything else will start to trickle downstream. But I have to set the tone for that.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, and I think all of us can point to an example in our lives where we've dealt with somebody as a representative of a company who clearly didn't feel valued and didn't feel trusted, and that comes across as a customer or someone dealing with them and you, unless you have to, you don't go back to them.
Kenny Lange:Yeah, and that's why I view I really do view leadership as a, as a spiral, and that's why I like, within the lead to scale, even though it's a two-dimensional figure of flywheels. I talk about it, though, as you're spiraling up, you're just, you keep going around the mountain and you get a new perspective on it. But spirals can go down too, and I think when you have that so the boss doesn't trust the worker who then acts in a particular way towards a customer who doesn't like the interaction and doesn't return, that worker's numbers drop or have negative performance implications, which then leads to them being on a performance improvement plan or fired by the manager who said I knew you weren't good or this wasn't going to pan out. You just built a self-fulfilling prophecy and really what it was is that manager doesn't have the courage I'll say that to go first. Yes, If you want to be trusted, you need to give trust first, even if you feel like it's unearned, and it starts from the top down, not the bottom up.
Manya Chylinski:Interesting yes, interesting that you talked about that self-fulfilling prophecy, and I imagine that manager can feel very frustrated that why isn't this person doing more but doesn't recognize that cycle?
Kenny Lange:do think that there's a distinction between leadership and management. Both are necessary, but you've got to be able to interrupt patterns. Momentum is at work, good for you and against you. There's a story I heard and it was, I think it was like at a parent conference or something like that and they were telling the story about this dad was driving a minivan. God bless him, I couldn't do it.
Kenny Lange:But he's driving a van, his daughter, I think she's like four or five in her seat and she's screaming at the top of her lungs. And he's tried everything. He's flipped down the TV, he's turned on her probably baby shark for the millionth time and he's like you've got to stop. And she's like no, got to stop. And she's like no, and just getting defiant, rude, and he says if you don't stop, I'm going to pull this thing over and spank you or get you in trouble or take away your toys or whatever it is that you know you can't do while he's driving and she's like I don't care All these things.
Kenny Lange:And he pulls over to the side of the road, walks around, slides open the door and he sees this little girl is just ready for a fight, but in between him getting out of his door and going around to the side door, he realizes that she's probably responding to his dysregulation a bit, but also that getting her more in trouble is actually not gonna bring about the end result he wants, which is close connection with his daughter. He wants her to model good behavior because she's being distracting all these other things, and when he slides it open she's ready to fight Like she's just ready to have it out and yell, and instead he leans up and he gives her a hug, oh, and he just holds her.
Manya Chylinski:Yeah.
Kenny Lange:And she relaxes. And then he says, hey, I'm sorry I yelled, you are not being obedient, you're being pretty disrespectful to me. You know we don't do that in this family and I want to get us home safe and that's hard for me to do when you're yelling, and so let's make sure you have whatever it is that you need, but I need you to act differently with me, can you do that? And she agrees and then they drive home in peace. Yeah, and what he did was he didn't continue to rupture the relationship as he repaired it, but he did something that seems counterintuitive. That seems counterintuitive.
Kenny Lange:So there are times when our direct reports, our team members, are performing poorly, and I always teach my clients. I was like you can complain about whoever you want. I'm starting with you. If they are not performing well or exhibiting the behaviors or hitting their KPIs, I start with you. Have you done everything within your power to equip them? How are you treating them? How are you showing up? What's your availability like?
Kenny Lange:And if they perform poorly and you just bash them and berate them or, you know, shame them in front of the team and all staff or something like that, do you really think that's going to help them perform better, because your goal is also their goal. They want to perform well, right, unless you just hired like a psychopath jack wagon, then fire them. But for the most part, ninety nine point nine percent of the population actually wants to do a good job, and they and and you want them to do a good job. So if you're on the same side, if you're chasing the same goal, then why are you making them the enemy? They're not trying to make you look bad. They're not trying to tank your career. They're not trying to perform poorly on purpose.
Kenny Lange:What they need is your support more than anything, and you might even find that, the loyalty and the motivation that they feel because a supervisor, a boss, a manager, leader invested in them. Now, suddenly they're running through brick walls and they have the release of what Dr Timothy Clark talks about, the release of discretionary effort. That's when people stop punching a clock and just having a J-O-B and now they see that where they are today and they may not be there forever, and I don't think any of us are going to be in the same company forever but where I am now, this is a step in my career and I value it and I want to get the most out of it and I want to give the most to it. Yes, absolutely.
Manya Chylinski:Well, kenny, thank you so much for helping us understand this from your perspective, and I like the concept of the organizations not losing their soul. Now, before I let you go, can you share with our listeners a little bit more about who you are and what you do, and how they can reach you?
Kenny Lange:Absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me on. This was a real, real pleasure, so I always love these conversations because it's not often I get to nerd out with other coaches and consultants and talk about these things, and so thank you for that. Yeah, so I'm a coach working primarily with founders in the nonprofit space somewhere probably between 10 and 150 people that things are taking off and growing and success feels as painful and disorienting as a lack of it. So I help them navigate and scale their leadership as well as their team and the whole organization, without losing their soul in the process, which makes them more likely to get donors, funders, volunteers, and it's a place people want to contribute to.
Kenny Lange:You can find me KennyLangcom that's K-E-N-N-Y-L-A-N-G-Ecom, and actually I, just as of this recording, I'm a few days past hitting a three-year anniversary for the business and I released a free diagnostic that goes over the lead to scale so you can figure out where you are, how to grow without losing your soul, and that's diagnostickennylangcom forward slash, lead to scale. I'll give you the link and everything and it'll be on the website. Takes you 27 questions, should take you less than five minutes Most people are completing it in three and you'll get a 44-page PDF that is customized to your leadership stage and style and the area of greatest growth. It'll give you a 90-day plan and a bunch of research and materials that you can just keep referencing so that you can grow in a way that is unique to you.
Manya Chylinski:Oh, very cool. Well, thank you for sharing that and I will put the links in the show notes to make sure folks can find that easily. And, kenny, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure chatting with you today.
Kenny Lange:My pleasure Take care.
Manya Chylinski:And thank you to our listeners for listening to this episode of Notes on Resilience and I will catch you next time.
