The Leader Mentality
The Leader Mentality
The Art of Human-Centered Leadership at McLeod Health with Nick Destefano
Nick Destefano, Training Specialist at McLeod Health, shares powerful insights on leadership as leaving people better than you found them, emphasizing that true leadership transcends titles and is accessible to everyone.
• Developing 15,000 employees at McLeod through annual learning events that align personal and organizational values
• Creating authentic workplace culture where stated values match daily behaviors
• Hiring for cultural fit rather than just filling positions quickly
• Using values cards to help people identify what truly matters to them
• The importance of self-awareness and continuous growth in leadership development
• Asking better questions to unlock potential in others
• The "holy trifecta" of working hard, caring for family, and self-care
• Leadership as a practice rather than an event
• The "power of yet" as a mindset for continuous improvement
If you're interested in learning more about implementing these leadership practices in your organization, reach out to Nick Destefano at nickdestefano@mcleodhealth.org.
Welcome to the Leader Mentality Show with Rob Clemens. We are on with a special guest today, but before we get into that, as I like to do, there's a theme of the show, spoiler alert. We have a theme and it goes into how do you fancy yourself as a leader? Do you see yourself as a great leader? Do you think you're not a leader? What do you think a leader is? We're going to talk all about that today because there's an idea that I'm going to speak with my guests about of leaving people better off than where you found them, and that's his own line. So this isn't Rob Clemens talking, but he said leaving people better off than you found them, and that got me to thinking we want to do that with everything in life. Right, if I've got a garden, I want to leave it off better than when I found it, and so why not with people? And what would that look like if we could get that world of leadership created? So, with that being said, I have a guest.
Speaker 1:His name is Nick DiStefano and he's the training specialist for McLeod. He focuses a lot on the leadership and development of people, and McLeod is a huge organization, so when he speaks, I'm ready to hear some information. So, nick, welcome to the show, my friend, thanks for having me. Rob man, well, it's great to have you and I met you before and I kind of found out we can talk for a very long time we can. Today we have about 30 to 40 minutes to do it, so we're going to stay on topic. All right, game face, you know. But well, nick, you're with McLeod, a huge company, amazing company. Of course I'm on the board of directors for the McLeod Foundation and I got to know of such an altruistic organization that's looking out for people. And then so many great leaders in the organization and people like yourself. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what you've been up to lately. Man, and people like yourself, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you've been up to lately, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, we've been up to a whole bunch of amazing things. We could do a whole episode on what's happening at McLeod in terms of growth, but I'll talk about it from my lens, what I'm up to. So I get to work every day with, like you said, developing people. So we are day in and day out, either in person or virtually via the screen, doing some type of development of our people, and a lot of times people think about the healthcare aspect of it and developing our ability to treat people and the quality of care, and that is a massive part of what we do as a system. My area is all about how do we teach people the skills necessary to take care of people not just care for our people, but care about them.
Speaker 1:And when you're saying our people, you're saying in the sense of your employees, our employees.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So close to 15000 total employees. And we are doing we're in the middle of right now we're in a whole process of doing an annual learning event. We are doing it for every single employee, where we're reflecting on our values as an organization and then also giving people opportunities to clarify their own values and personal values. One of the things I said to people recently is have you ever heard someone tell a joke and the response is that's hilarious. Obviously, what you said and how you said it don't go together, and sometimes people work in organizations where you have these values for yourself. This is what's important to you as an individual and maybe it doesn't go together with the organization. So we want people to be driven, we want people to be motivated. When they show up to work, I jokingly ask raise your hand if you want to come to work and enjoy your job every day, everyone raises their hand to that.
Speaker 1:No, I want it to be terrible, I want it to be awful.
Speaker 2:But if you don't want to come to work and enjoy your job. Well, I don't know that I can help you, and that requires you to know your values and what's important to you, and so we're doing a lot of work around that right now, on top of just specific leadership development and people who have those leader titles. Yeah, so yeah, we've got a lot going on.
Speaker 1:Man, I think that's important. You know, one thing that we're talking about is sometimes customers are so critically important, you know we have to make sure our customers are happy are so critically important. You know we have to make sure our customers are happy. But sometimes these organizations and you and I talked about this off the air here but sometimes the organizations are so employee, are so customer centric that they're not taking that time to think how are our employees doing, how are they enjoying themselves? Because, as we know, a satisfied employee will do a better job than an unsatisfied one, right?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. Yeah, it's so important that you know you would never put it on a billboard for your organizations. But if you were to say, like customers, come second, the reality is that they have to come second and that's because you have to take care of your people first. You've got to develop them and help them to grow. And if you don't do that for all of your people, if you think it's just for you only need to worry about your quote unquote leaders or your managers or your supervisors and we do work specific to that. But if you don't provide development of the rest of the people, there's research shows and the generations that we look at now show that people aren't gonna stay and continue to work at the same place. They'll go find somewhere else to work and it's it's, it's extremely important that we take the time to develop.
Speaker 1:It's like all employers really need to stay ahead of this, especially as we get a more and more competitive workforce. There's an interesting thing that you mentioned there that I think is is something you we need to have a healthy balance on there, right you? You want your employees to come to work and enjoy themselves, enjoy and feel proud of going to work, but you also don't want them coming in and just coasting either. Hey, I enjoy my job because I can watch a movie all day. So there's that balance of motivation along with job satisfaction.
Speaker 2:How do you balance that. So I would say the same thing to you that we say at every single new employee orientation we talk about this all the time. If we say something is a value and we put it on the walls but there isn't behavior that you feel in the halls, then it's not a value. Oh yeah, at our values, and we look at what are the behaviors that are expected, that we can agree on, that are part of that. Make that value come to life, make it real.
Speaker 2:And so we have a set at the organization of behavioral standards that we say this is how we treat each other, this is how we treat our patients, this is how we and one of them, we you know it's funny, we have a whole, we have 10 of them and we put a slide up during this annual development that we're doing that talks about here's the 10 of them, and really it only has nine on there. And that's because the 10th one that kind of animates in at the end of this section is personal ownership and it's having that ownership for your behavior, for the way you show up, for the attitude you have, for the way you show up, for the attitude you have, for the way you treat your patients, your friends, your coworkers, I mean, and that's really that's at work. But I mean, if we all just took more personal ownership of how all the things we did impacted the others around us. Again, getting back to that idea of leadership is leaving others better than you found them.
Speaker 2:Maybe if we took personal ownership for that world might be a little bit better.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. I like it. There's a couple of things I want to talk about, then, and I'm going to tie together culture and I have some questions for you. I want to tie together culture along with. You mentioned something a second ago and I believe it's one of the reasons Trader Joe's does such a good job with customer service. Trader Joe's literally in there. If you go to their website, they say this is what we want a customer to feel like when they come to our store. And you know, maybe some people think, oh, that's not necessary. I think it's extremely necessary. I think it's very necessary to say, hey, when we're looking at values. What are those values? Because that's your culture, and if you hire people who come in and they go, well, to me saying hello with a smile every day isn't really important in my life. Well, culturally they don't fit in, but also you guys as a culture at a company may not care about that, so you do need to tell people this is what it looks like, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a culture is only as strong as the actions and the behaviors are that support?
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 2:Culture comes from things being passed down, from people knowing what the expectations are, what the norms are, what it should look like. When I first moved to the South and I'm originally not from here when I moved here, people said oh, people are going to be so friendly and wonderful. I remember the first time I went for a run in my neighborhood and people are like waving at me.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking who the heck is this guy? I don't know them.
Speaker 2:And now I'm doing the same thing because it's become that expectation, sure, but even that Southern hospitality, you can go from business to business in the area and you might not experience that everywhere you go, and that's not because those people aren't a part of the South, so to speak. But what's the culture of that organization? That's the behaviors that I'm experiencing when I walk in there and the people are like welcome, hello, how are you? Or they don't even introduce themselves.
Speaker 1:But there's an interesting thing. So you're saying what we need to talk about, right? You remember in the Seinfeld there was the I think they call him the soup, I don't even know where I want to go into that, but he was the guy and his whole culture within the place was that he would be mean to you and it became sort of like. So if you went in there and his personal culture, however we agree with or disagree with, it was no, we, we, we treat people like, like this, and you come in, mr Smiley, smiley, you actually don't fit in with his culture and you actually don't fit in with his culture, and one could say he hired the wrong person in the first place, but you also didn't understand what was expected of you. So we do have to talk about it.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome, well, and obviously we've both seen the episode. Hopefully people can relate Culture. So I believe that one of our first and most important things in creating our culture is getting people who represent the brand of leadership properly. Sometimes it's just hiring a person that has the internal culture and I'll tell you why I'm saying this, and I think you and I kind of agree on this. If I bring in somebody whose personal culture doesn't match up with my company culture. Why would I do that? Isn't that due to self?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. People do that because they feel like they need to have someone in the seat, and I would rather take more time and get the person that has the values and the culture that align with ours than to just fill the body Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I feel like too often both we as employees and we as employers, you know, whichever hat you know, you go in and you're like, hey, I like the fact that I can make good money here, I can do this or I can do this. But did you ever ask the question of your culture actually matched up with the company you're at?
Speaker 2:And if not, you're probably going to find at some point that bump is going to hit in the road, yeah, yeah, but I think a lot of people don't often reflect on it's very natural for us to not think about, even if it is something that drives your life. What is your personal culture? Like I have, I have my values cards here, so I've got like a pile. If I were to give someone this stack of like six, 50 to 60 values and say you've got two minutes to sort through it and put down anything that's important to you, like autonomy, love, control, spiritual, I mean we could go through this and like if I gave you two minutes to figure out what are the like what's important to you, you'd probably give me can I see one you want?
Speaker 1:I'm kind of curious. I'm kind of curious. So you got these cards for those who are listening on audio and this card says values and on the back side it says knowledge, facts and lessons learned, understanding of awareness and principles to organize and explain. Tell me, kind of, what are you trying to elicit from this?
Speaker 2:So what we're doing is I would give someone a stack of these, of all these potential values that you could have, and I would ask you to think about what's important to you.
Speaker 2:Put it into a stack. So if autonomy is important to me, love is important to me. Control might not be as important to me. So you put them into the stacks of important or maybe not so important to you and then look at this pile of things and some people when they do it and this is what we're doing with people right now Some people might have a stack of 40 of these, and I'm thinking okay, well, if we have 40, different values. Do we really have values?
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. How do we value it all?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah. So then it's important to think about all right, how do we take it from 40 or 10 or whatever it is, and really look at it and go okay, if I gave you of you and you had to pick your top four or five, what would be the things that you use to define your life? If someone said I just met Rob, and I would say this is how I would describe him what are three or four things that you would want someone to say about you? I want someone to say that I'm kind.
Speaker 2:I want someone to say that Nick is full of joy. I want someone to say Nick is someone that's courageous courageous and chooses to do hard things. So those are things that are my personal values and my culture Love it. So it's a really cool exercise and it's a great way to get people to think about, okay, what is this? And then imagine if we both have joy as a value, but it might look different based on what we do as our jobs or where we have come from, and so it's a really great way to get people committed to who they are and how they show up to work as their best self.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say, if you're a hiring manager, even if you're not a hiring manager, maybe you only have two people at your company. You're about to bring in the third. These people are so important to your culture because if you hire one that doesn't match your culture, you're just setting yourself back. This is an important thing. Whether you do something else a disc assessment, an Enneagram test, whatever you do make sure you're doing something and make sure, hopefully, that the people, when they're doing these tests, that they're being honest. One problem I ran into and I don't know how you handle this, but sometimes people think they're going to tell you what you want to hear, you know. So if one of these is like I'm a good teamwork guy, you know, it's like, oh, I'm a teamwork, you know, and they're giving you all the ones. And the interesting part is is maybe you're hiring for a position where, not to say, teamwork's not important in any position, but it's not the number one thing in a certain position.
Speaker 1:Right, If I have the top surgeon in the company, I mean, I guess teamwork is again, I'm using a bad example but you know, there comes a point where I may have certain roles sales maybe, where I'm like, maybe teamwork isn't quite as high as winning, you know. And so this becomes something. And so I tell you, as people looking for a job, you got to be careful. But what would you say as a hiring manager, how do you sift through people who are faking you?
Speaker 2:I think that if you're as a hiring manager, it's important that you and there's a difference right your values and then also your personality, right. So something like DISC or Enneagram is going to tell you more, or Myers-Briggs it's going to tell you about the person's personality, but their personality is different than their behavior, no doubt, and so people can. I think people can kind of rig a personality assessment and pick what they want based on what they think, and there are some organizations that do large you know personality assessments. To make the decision as to who it is you're hiring, I think you need to do an interview process that allows you to truly get to know the person and see what it is. How do they act, how do they behave, what do they say?
Speaker 2:Not just the questions they're answering in an interview, but do you take them to lunch and see how they treat the people that are the waiter or the waitress? Or do you see how they talk to your administrative support person? What does that look like? Because I can tell more about a person from their behavior in terms of what their values are, than if they were to say these are my four values. That's great. I tell people all the time. I'm glad you have these four values. But again, if you put it on the walls but don't feel it in the halls, what's the point Exactly? Is this who?
Speaker 1:you want to be or who you are.
Speaker 2:And that's a big deal.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny. I used to do this thing where you know I I might be the interviewer and you'd have the person sit in the hallway waiting to get interviewed. I just walked through like I was a regular guy and I am a regular guy, but you know I'm not, like I'm the interviewer, I might go in through and they don't know, and hey, good morning. And you see how they react and some people you know you'll get an impression right off the bat and then they come in and sit down in and they tell you about how they love people. So we've got to know something. Man, I love talking this leadership stuff with you and people development and leaving people better than we started, but, as I would say we could talk about this all day. I'd like to know a little bit about young Nick and how Nick DiStefano got into his role.
Speaker 2:Young Nick is a scary thought. He was all over the place. I told my parents when I was in high school I want to be a motivational speaker and I remember my parents going yeah, nick, you can't go to school for that. That's not a thing Like that's great, but you don't have like some story. You can't like you weren't born without an arm, but there's nothing. You can't just go do Right, right, right, Okay, cool.
Speaker 2:So I got to pick something to do. So I said I'm going to go to school for physical therapy and I went to a small school in Dallas, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the famous Dallas Pennsylvania. The pause is intentional. I was like hmm yeah.
Speaker 2:So I went to school for PT and I got actually really involved in all sorts of things around the school Everything leadership development, without anyone calling it leadership development. Orient development, without anyone calling it leadership development orientation student organization.
Speaker 2:I did a million and one different things and really loved what I was learning outside of the classroom more than in the classroom. Yeah, and was about to go into really into a. It's funny I tell our physical therapists this now and they laugh at me. I said I was about to go into a class where I was going to have to dissect human bodies and they're like oh yeah, human anatomy, about to go into a class where I was gonna have to dissect human bodies and they're like oh yeah, human anatomy cadaver lab.
Speaker 1:That was the best class ever.
Speaker 2:And I said that's when I said, nope, I'm out. I changed my mind and I ended up majoring in interdisciplinary studies. I ended up getting my master's degree in org management and really got into the world of helping people in organizations to be the best that they could. I did some of that in higher education for a while. I do some of it on the side in my own business. I do it full time at McLeod and at the end of the day it's how can I inspire people, empower people to be the best version of themselves so that they can then bring that to work and bring that to their life? And so it's funny, because now I I tell people all the time. I talk, every day. I speak in front of people. I get to be that motivational speaker that I never thought I was going to be able to be. And people you ever get tired of talking.
Speaker 2:No, I could talk in front of people for days, but it's not just talking in front of people, it's the connecting with the people and the reflection and doing exercises like the values and facilitating conversation that I just I love seeing people have that shift in their mind, that paradigm shift of this is how I always thought of this, and now I I appreciate that A big part of it is you're doing this and I appreciate you sharing the story and how you have a passion for helping people.
Speaker 1:you know, self-awareness um is you know, we almost talk about being too self-aware sometimes as a bad thing, and maybe it can be, but but some people are so completely self unaware that it's hard for them to improve. I mean so when you get into your situation where you're trying to help person and you talk about them clicking the light on, how do you, how do you deal with somebody that you consider to be really lacking in self-awareness?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Honestly, I think we all experience people that are lacking that self-awareness really every day as we just move through the world.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I work on every day in my job and in my life is asking better questions. So I think the person who is lacking self-awareness or who might not be where I might hope they could be, or where I recognize the potential in them, I think sometimes it's about being curious enough to unlock that potential for them with the right questions, asking a question that might get them to think differently. And also, for me, it's about creating the space where we can have that conversation. So if I've got a room of 50 people and we're talking about clarifying your values and I can tell that you're not fully engaged in this, it's not going to be all right. Well, I'm not going to worry about this one out of the 50. It's going to be a follow-up conversation to say hey, rob, let's talk about this. Do you have time for coffee or lunch? I want to sit down with you and figure out, help me understand where you're at and tell me more. And for me, that's also my personal value, right?
Speaker 2:one of my values is curiosity, and then with that, it's also kindness and I think, if we treat people and ask the right questions in a way that makes them feel valued and seen, which sometimes it's all people want. They just want to be heard absolutely, and so if you give, them that opportunity to tell you. Like you know, not everyone gets to come and sit on a podcast and talk about their life story, but they still want to be heard and just sometimes it's just the right question.
Speaker 1:That's great, great stuff. And I'll tell you, I think it's interesting. A lot of times when I'm talking to people, I do a lot of sports analogies, and the reason is everybody doesn't love sports, but they make so much sense. Everything's so applicable. I think about a person who's trying to become a better golfer. And what do you do if you get a golf trainer? If you really want to get great at golf and we can draw the parallel do you want to get great at your job? But if you want to get great at your golf which is ironic some people are willing to put in that time, but they won't put in time to be great at work.
Speaker 1:What do you do? You look at yourself your swing and they'll show you. You're going through your swing and you know what you're doing. A little bit, you're creating a little bit of self-awareness. You're seeing where the flaws are in your game. You're, you're, you're. Maybe start comparing what you're doing to what somebody else might be doing. It's a magical thing if you can just get the people in the right environment. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And it's also it's teaching people with that and awareness as a piece of it is having that right mindset.
Speaker 1:My kid.
Speaker 2:My kid said to me, seven years old he said it to me just a couple of weeks ago he's getting ready for bed. He said, dad, do you know about the power of yet? I said what are you talking about?
Speaker 1:buddy.
Speaker 2:What is this? And I'm thinking I have no idea where this kid is going and he starts telling me about he said well, I learned in school that, like, if you don't know how to do something, that you just need to use the power of yet. I said the power of yet. He said well, if I can't hit a home run in baseball, it just means I can't hit it yet, and that's a mindset- of I can't do this thing.
Speaker 2:Yet this person that I'm talking to doesn't have the self-awareness yet. So for me it's about having that growth mindset, which is the power of yet is how he says it. But it's giving people an opportunity to grow and sometimes people have always just been told well, you can't do this thing, you're not good at math, you're not this thing, and that's's very fixed mindset. And you know.
Speaker 2:The golf swing analogy is you're practicing, you're becoming aware, you're seeing it and to me, honestly, that's leadership yeah, it is for sure the like. Leadership is a practice, it's an art. It is. It's. Like you know, they said yoga is a practice. It's constantly doing it and thinking about it and growing and learning. You say learning continuously, as part of leadership.
Speaker 1:Leadership isn't an event.
Speaker 2:We do events at McLeod. We do 300 people at a time talking about what leadership looks like. That's not leadership, development Leadership development is the work that we put in your mind for you to go and think about and continue learning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Look, you said learning continuously is one, and the other one is altruism, and I believe great leadership has to have altruism. Now people could look back at historical figures that they consider to be leaders and say, well, that guy wasn't altruistic. And I think what the point of the altruism is is not so much that you're God's gift to perfection In fact, most people would say nobody's perfect it's more about to me.
Speaker 1:When I talk about altruism, I talk about I have to care more about the environment around me than I do about myself. I can't be completely self-driven, because the person who's self-driven? All the time? Everybody is just whatever to them, they don't care. So the altruism comes in with hey, how can I make people better? And sometimes kindness is a part of that, because, look, if you give me advice, I just want to know that you actually have my best interest at heart. It's like, hey, nick, should I wear a bathing suit to work today? And you go no, it's a bad idea. Yeah, exactly. And you want to know that you're going to say you're not going to go. Yeah, that'll look good, right. And I use that analogy sometimes because I feel like you do need that, that group around you Absolutely? Yeah, nice, 100%. Tell me something about McLeod. Uh, mcleod, a huge organization. How many employees are there roughly? I mean, is it 15,000?
Speaker 1:I mean we're talking major size, so I want to spend a little bit of time talking about that right. Number one when you have 15,000 people, heck, it's hard enough to have a good, strong company culture where you're what you say your values are, are practiced in real life. When you have 10 people. How do you do it with 15,000 people in?
Speaker 2:real life. When you have 10 people, how do you do it with 15,000 people? That's a great question. So it's again, it's continuous. We're not perfect no organization, no places but I think we lean into our values right. One of our values is integrity, so it's sharing when things go right and when they go wrong, and being transparent when things go right and when they go wrong, and being transparent. I would also say that we're constantly adjusting and doing new things and when you have that many people, a lot of times the development isn't on my team, it's on the manager, the leader the supervisor, and a lot of it is about trusting too and being able to say you know what.
Speaker 2:These are the resources we're going to give people and these are the time and the energy and what we're going to pour into people, but at the same time, you then have to trust that they're going to go out there and do the work.
Speaker 1:And some of that is definitely an element of hiring. If I hire wrong off the bat then I probably compromise the system. But you said the key word continuous. I feel like it feels like so many organizations the hire, the motivational, come in for the day and then you never see anybody again. There's no continuous part of it, it just becomes a fleeting thought at a point. So I'm going to speak to that next. Next, mcleod. On the other hand, mcleod Health here you know, and they're located, along for those listening, in other areas along the coast of Myrtle Beach, but also in Florence, south Carolina, north Carolina locations.
Speaker 2:Clarendon Dublin Sheraw. We say Eastern North Carolina and South Carolina.
Speaker 1:Did they make it to Dallas, pennsylvania, yet Not?
Speaker 2:made it to Dallas Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:Not yet, but maybe one day. But the thing is, mcleod has actually taken the time as a huge organization that could easily not spend the money doing this, and they've said you know what, we are going to invest in having a person like you who's focusing on leadership and training and developing people, and they're bringing in guest speakers and doing these things. What drives that kind of a methodology? I mean, is that part of your company values in itself, just having that training, or what?
Speaker 2:Yes, One of our values is quality.
Speaker 1:And it's.
Speaker 2:You know, we say quality of science, quality of service, quality of safety. It's all these areas in terms of how we are driven as an organization. We've always been values driven, from the beginning, when McLeod started back in 1906. Some of it is the tradition that we've had for so long. But also, if we say quality, it's not just quality medical care.
Speaker 2:If we're the choice for medical excellence, we need to be the choice for our employees and the choice for our physicians. And it's how do we create that same space where people show up and they say I'm making. And that's what we're doing right now in the middle of this annual learning for all of our people. It's all about we're calling it the McLeod choice and it's about how can you show up every day and make choices to put yourself first, and when I say put yourself first, I mean that you take care of yourself so that you can then take care of the people that you're responsible for, and so it's a part that's values-driven 100%. We have amazing leaders that just truly drive where we're going with it and support the work that we're doing, which can't happen without that.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of organizations that don't have organizational learning or talent development, people that do the work that I get to do and I think you see the result of that, no question about it.
Speaker 1:And the thing I think of when you're talking about that is, first of all, I want to go back to what you said with people. Part of my belief is that in a great organization, with people who are purpose-driven and you're really trying to care about people with kindness, I believe that we need to consider the holy trifecta for the human beings who work for us. One of them is work hard. Yes, absolutely. You can't come to work and not have any goals to succeed. You have to work hard. That helps the whole engine. It helps everybody around you.
Speaker 1:But number two in your personal life are going to be the other two parts of that, and one of them is take care of your family. Whoever your family is Look, maybe it's your dog at home and it's the only one you have around you. But if you have kids, if you have a wife, take care of them. And number three is take care of yourself. You know, at the end of the day, take that time to go to the gym, read a book, do what you do that brings you peace. And if you're missing any of those and so many companies have gotten into this work harder. Culture, just work harder and I'm like, yeah, work really hard. That's a part of that trifecta, but, but, but it's at the personal cost of your family, at the personal cost of your health. Then what are we doing here?
Speaker 2:man, absolutely, you know. Yeah, it has to be balanced.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the three legs of the stool, correct. If you take one of them away, it's no longer a stool, it's fallen over. Yeah, and that's so important that we help people to be whole people that's one of our other values is the person. It's not the healthcare patient, it's the person. It's who are you as a person you know. I look at my name tag. The most important thing on it is my name, not the job.
Speaker 1:It's not anything else on it.
Speaker 2:It's who is this person as a whole person, their overall well-being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I dig it.
Speaker 1:I dig it. Very cool stuff, man. Well, we can talk about this all day, for sure. I think one of the big takeaways I have from you is you've got to have leaders in the organization, and my brand of leadership anybody who listens to the show knows this I just believe your goal as a hiring manager should be to hire the best leaders honestly. And when I say the best leaders, I don't mean everybody can't be the manager, everybody can't decide we're going to go right or left, or and leadership to me doesn't mean you go right when everybody else was told to go left.
Speaker 1:I think leadership is the traits that you show to make everybody better around you. And sometimes it might just be that you did that thing that helps somebody else grow. And too often we, we pit people against each other when we're trying to get to find out who's going to be the next manager and we say, well, it's between Nick and Rob, which one's going to win, and we and now we're fighting it out it's like well, no, it's all wrong. Like, let's get the person who helps each other. Yeah, very cool man. We could talk about this all day. It's great talking about leadership, making people better, but let's kind of leave off with that idea. You start off the show. We were talking about leaving people better off than where you. You found them and I'd love to get your insight on if somebody is a leader listening to the show just what's a way that you can go about doing just that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such such an important thing for people to to think about is how can you leave others better than you found them? And the beauty is, anyone can do that. So I would say the number one thing that any leader can do is really redefine what leadership looks like in your organization. You need to make it a priority that everyone in your organization understands that you can practice leadership without the leader title. So my kids can be amazing leaders. They don't have a title of CEO of an organization, but they're great at leaving people better than you found them. Anyone can do that.
Speaker 2:A volunteer in your organization can do it, the CEO can do it. Your job title does not make a difference in terms of if you can leave people better than you found them, but that only happens when you, as the leader, redefine what leadership looks like. So we need to teach people that it's okay to do this, that you don't have to wait for one day. I've heard people consistently say I can't do that. I'm just fill in the blank, like let's eliminate the word just out of your organization.
Speaker 2:There's nothing that anyone just does. Everyone has value and purpose. So the second thing I would say, after redefining what leadership looks like and making it everyone's business, is, I would make sure that every single individual in your organization knows their value and their worth. So you, as the leader, need to make sure that you know about your people. You need to know what matters to them. You need to get to know them not just them as an employee, but take the time to learn about them as a person. And so the third thing I would say with that is learn to ask better questions.
Speaker 2:If you're a leader, you have got to invest in your skills of coaching, interviewing, listening, recognition All of those things are skills, it's not. Oh, some people are just great at writing thank you notes. No, like, that's a skill. Let's invest in it. That is.
Speaker 1:That starts with asking better questions so you can see what's going on and then recognize the people for it, because people just want to be valued man you know, I think with those three topics I can give you a kind of a simple story to tell where most quote unquote leaders go wrong and I would say if you're doing this, it doesn't mean you're not a leader, but it just means that you're not showing great leadership. We all get busy and the thing where you walk through and you go hey, good morning Nick, how are you? And by the time you've pretty much said how you're doing, I'm walking off in the, in the, and we go, sometimes even further. I found this in leadership Sometimes. Sometimes even further. I found this in leadership.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we go into people and we go how's it going today? And they go, it's going fine, and then we leave. That's not a good question. Back to your point Now. A better question is well, is the new system working okay? Is it as efficient as you had hoped it would be? Now we're starting to ask some questions, really starting to learn what's going on, and it's amazing the answers you'll get when you do actually ask those questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Very cool Well, nick, you talked about it. You said redefine leadership. Let people know their value and worth top to bottom. They all have value and they have to understand that they are important to your organization. And ask better questions and you can lead people better off than where you found them. Amen, very cool Well, nick man, very good having you on the show. So much great information. How can people get ahold of you if they ever need to reach out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you need help with any of this work, like we said, we're a large organization we do this work with our organization and with others, so just shoot me an email. It's nickdistefano at mcleodhealthorg. Yeah Right, so it's just. I'm sure you'll put it wherever they can get that information.
Speaker 1:We're going to put it right up on there, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Just just shoot me an email. I'd be happy to just schedule time and chat with whoever wants to learn about how they can make these things a priority in their organization, because the world needs kinder leaders who are willing to do all of these things, and if I can help someone do that, that's what I'm here for that's a win, man.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, thank you so much for being on the show man, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to have to have you on again for sure, because I feel like we're just scratching the surface for sure. Well, listen, everybody who's listening. First of all, kudos to McLeod for being such a great organization. Nick brought some great value today and I hope, if you're listening, the message is being received. There's no simple formula in this life. Anybody who's running a company. There's no simple formula. There's no answer. That's going to be the one answer for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:We have to be diligent in making sure that we're running a good company. We have to be diligent in making sure that people are getting treated properly, be diligent in making sure people are providing customer service and, at the end of the day, it all comes down to caring about people. So I love that and with that, I think that's a good stopping point for us. Make sure to like and share us on Facebook and social media of your choice. We appreciate our viewers, thanks to our sponsors, carolina Bays Real Estate and Construction, and we will see you all next time on the Leader Mentality Show. We're Rob Clements.
