Dr. Foster Mobley on Loneliness, Ego, and Why Leadership Can Be So Isolating

Half of all CEOs say they feel lonely in their role. Sixty-one percent say it actively hurts their performance. So why don't more leaders talk about it?

In this episode, Foster sits down across the table for an unusually candid conversation about his own experience with loneliness, the moment that started separating his ego from his identity, and what it actually took to build relationships he didn't have to perform for. He gets into the role executive coaches often play as a "safe place" for leaders who can't be vulnerable anywhere else, the slow and sometimes painful process of stepping out of a 35-year identity as CEO, and a book that reframed how he thinks about connection altogether: Mattering by Jennifer Breheny Wallace.

Foster and host Jana Devan talk about:

• Why loneliness in leadership often isn't about being alone, it's about not feeling fully known
• The moment with his son that began breaking down years of inflated ego
• How a five-year, deliberate succession process with Matt Brubaker became a case study in doing transitions right
• Why so many leadership and CEO transitions go badly, and the bad assumption behind it
• The difference in how men and women report loneliness, and what that gap is actually hiding
• What Foster's twice-monthly men's group around a Bozeman campfire taught him about community
• One true thing Foster wants every leader to hear if they recognize themselves in this conversation

For more on the themes in this episode, check out two earlier Step Wise conversations: Jen Fisher in Season 1 and Matt Brubaker in Season 2.

This episode was hosted by Jana Devan of Zettist.

Resources: 
https://www.harvardbusiness.org/insight/new-to-leadership-heres-how-to-address-loneliness/
https://www.lgt.com/global-en/market-assessments/insights/entrepreneurship/lonely-at-the-top-the-high-price-of-success-285466
https://hbr.org/2024/12/ceos-often-feel-lonely-heres-how-they-can-cope

To find out more, visit our website: Mountain-mule.com

Go to ourwholenessatwork.com to learn more.

Hosted by Foster Mobley
Learn more about Foster at fostermobleymt.com or follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Foster Mobley.
www.instagram.com/fostermobley
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fostermobley/

Produced, Edited, and Promoted by Zettist

Additional support from Amber Jillard Consulting

Music for Season 3 composed and performed by Philip Aaberg. Courtesy of Sweetgrass Music.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's a cheat code here. There really is a cheat code. And the cheat code is ask for feedback. I mean, truly, ask for feedback. The number of leaders that actually do that in a meaningful way is very few, proportionally, of all the people that I've ever worked with.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

They expect the natural forces of performance feedback and that kind of cyclical stuff is enough. And it's not. Every day we are creating impacts of the people that we work with. We're saying some things and sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn't. Do you really need to know all that stuff? Yeah, only if you want to build alignment, which I say sarcastically, of course you want to know how the your actions are impacting others.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Hi, I'm Jaina Daven. I'm the producer here at Stepwise and the owner of the marketing firm Zedist. Today we're here to talk about something that doesn't get enough airtime in leadership conversations. Loneliness. Half of all CEOs report feeling lonely in their role. 61% say it actively gets in the way of their performance. And here's the thing that should stop you in your tracks. The people we expect to have it the most together are often the most isolated. I sat down with Dr. Foster Mobley, the man behind this podcast, to talk about why loneliness is one of the dirty little secrets of leadership, what it cost him personally, and what actually helps. We get into the difference between being around people and actually feeling seen, why ego and identity are more tangled than most leaders want to admit, and what it looks like to finally do something about it. If you've ever sat in an organization and thought, who do I talk to? This one's for you. Let's go. The research that I was reading said that half of all CEOs feel lonely in their role. 61% say it actively gets in the way of their performance. And I want to start there.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

The dirty little secret about executive coaching is that many times our subject is loneliness.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

And CEOs, male and female, will say it a little differently. They won't say, gee, I'm lonely. What they'll say is, if they are so bold, they will say, it's lonely in this job. Because everyone that comes through the door has an agenda. They want something from me. At no point in my work life do I have the opportunity to let down my hair, try out some new ideas, wildly speculate on things and have it safe. Know that it's not going to go outside this room, but just to, and sometimes to vent. And again, the dirty little secret is that for executive coaches, that's an important part of our jobs. To be that safe place.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Tell me more about that. How do you accomplish something like that?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

I am a very powerful advocate for the leader that I'm working with. I want nothing more than them to be wildly successful. Now that said, I don't know what that wild success looks like or feels like to them. So therefore, I'm not pushing my agenda. I ask them a lot of questions. I sit and listen very deeply and very powerfully. I give them honor and respect through those processes, again, without an agenda. And that's a very powerful place to have a relationship. You know, high trust, high integrity, high mutual respect, high safety.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Yeah. Well, you've been doing this for 45 years, building businesses, coaching, executives. When did you first feel loneliness?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

What a brilliant question. You know, there's a level at which I've always had this sense of question about certain of my relationships. And when I looked up the definition of loneliness, it says the subjective feeling that your relationships are not as meaningful, close, or as supportive as you want.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Not not being around people because I've always been around people. I think I've always had that feeling at times. It's interesting. It's a double-edged sword, kind of. There have been some things in me, certain anxieties and insecurities in me that have really kept me back from being very open to a deep relationship, very guarded, very protective. It has to look a certain way. And I had an image to uphold and all that stuff. And at the end of the day, that really kept me back from honest, vulnerable, candid, deep relationships with a lot of people, especially in the workplace. So that's that. It's definitely self-reinforcing because then that holds me back, and then you feel more isolated or more lonely. You know, it's taken a lot of work to get to the point of having the kind of ego strength needed to have relationships without that big boulder in the middle of them called worry about how they're going to perceive me, worry about my image, worry about my brand. It's taken a lot to get there. It's taken a lot of years. You know, we always say on the Stepwise podcast, we always say, you know, can wisdom be accelerated? Sure. Well, there's certain parts for me that were definitely not accelerated. It just took its time.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

And life had to go. And I had to get knocked around a little bit and I had to succeed and I had to try new things and fail and succeed and all that stuff. And then finally got to the point of humility in life where I could let down some of those pretenses and then finally, finally it's begin to separate ego from identity. And for me, that was huge, huge, huge, huge. And it's still a part.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Do you feel like there was a moment where you noticed that shift able to happen in yourself, or was it more gradual and you can kind of connect the dots now that you see him?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

There was a very clear moment, and I talk about this in the book Leadership, where um I was dealing with an issue with my son, and it was a huge moment of humility for me. You know, the the message I took was how can I be a leader or teacher to others if I can't be a leader in my own family, if I can't be a guide, if I can't. So that was a real big moment that began to um knock down an inflated ego that way. And then the rest of it, the development happened much more slowly. And it really had to do with my identity change as a result of me transitioning out of the CEO role of this company that had founded. And by that time, it had been 35 years. So that was kind of ingrained. I saw myself in a particular light. And then beginning to step out of that really forces that recognition, that look at who I am that's different than my current identity. And trap, you know, getting all wrapped up in that. And that took, I don't know, five, six, seven, eight years, and a slow, gradual process to the point where I feel I'm in a much better place today with regard to that.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Yeah, it seems like something you might not be able to really see in yourself until you're through it.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

I think so. You know, there's something that I want to mention this. A book that really hit home for me is a book called Mattering by Jennifer Brani Wallace. She makes incredible points about kind of how important it is that we are seen and that we are acknowledged and that we are valued. Not because our egos are so fragile, but because that's kind of a core part of the need, the psychology of all of us. And by the way, Jennifer, if I can get you on stepwise, I'd love to have you and have this conversation. I'm going to quote from her book. So the deep sense of crisis we are feeling globally, marked by rising rates of depression, loneliness, and burnout, has been blamed on many factors such as polarized politics, rapid technological advances, social media, and culture wars. Caregivers are overwhelmed by the mental and emotional labor of holding their families together, often while working full time. Men are no longer sure how they fit into society. Workplaces are more demanding than ever and less fulfilling, and on top of that, AI is now coming for our jobs. Our faith in government institutions has eroded, so we don't believe that any relief or remedy is on the way. Many people have turned away from religion and the community it offers. Technology has eliminated in-person interaction, third spaces have disappeared, and trust in our neighbors has crumbled. And here's our conclusion. The widespread struggles and the effects they've had on all of us, from isolation to exhaustion to a persistent sense of instability, can be also understood as symptoms of not feeling seen, not feeling valued, and not feeling essential. And I thought that was brilliant. I just thought that was brilliant. One of the more insightful things I've read in a while.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

And you've talked about that a lot in the past few seasons about the trust we don't have anymore in institutions, the lack of third spaces, all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

In our little town of Bozeman, a new co-working space just opened. And people who opted out of the corporate world or were solopreneurs or entrepreneurs or whatever are flooding to that place for any sense of connectedness and community. It is surprising to me. Not that people are using an office, but they're using that as their kind of social lubricant now.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Which makes total sense to me. And so on the one hand, we opted out of the whole corporate thing, and I don't want to, you know, I want to work virtually, blah, blah, blah. And so the pendulum swung that way, especially during the pandemic. So digitally enabled isolationism by choice. And now it's starting to swing the other way, saying, you know, that work at home, that was kind of okay. But and I could take my dog for a walk whenever I wanted to, but man, I miss a little bit of this from time to time, and Zoom just doesn't get it. So we are social beings. There's a wonderful book called The Social Animal by one of my favorite authors, David Brooks. And it's highly recommended for anybody who wants more detail in this stuff. David Brooks, if you're listening, by the way, I'd love to have you on this podcast.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Keep that up. Yeah, I mean, we're not the only social animals either. I mean, you can see loneliness in the animal kingdom if you look through it and the way we grieve and the way we we need connection with each other. It's not that it's not something that we just think we have to have, that we just think we should connect with someone, but loneliness has a real impact on everything mental mentally, physically, in every part of our body, too. So it's just such a hard thing to wrap around. That's why Vivek Merth Murthy, the former Surgeon General, Surgeon General talks about how it's a public health crisis because to solve the loneliness would be to solve a lot of other um problems that are coming along with that.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Well, let's deal with a with a $64 million question kind of sitting in front of us. Why should a leader worry about loneliness in others? Meaning, look, I can hear the argument. It probably hasn't been made to me, too. Look, I'm not a sociologist. I didn't go to school to study study sociology. I studied spreadsheets, I studied scaling organization, I studied finance, I studied technology, I did not study sociology. Why should I worry about this? To me, there are two answers. One is first, if you are familiar with the data about presenteism, about sustainability, about performance, then loneliness is in your people, which many, many, many of us have, and it's not an illness, it's a condition of today's society. You need to be be attentive to that. Two, how does this affect how I lead? Here's what it means: it doesn't mean you need a personality transplant. It means pause for a moment longer when you ask a question about how somebody that how somebody is, really deeply understand and listen and hear them and see them, maybe demonstrated by asking the second question as opposed to, well, my weekend was. You know, hey, how was your weekend? Oh, it was great. Well, my weekend was. If you can pause a minute and simply say, tell me more about that. What's going on? Hey, how was that? I've never done that. Or look, look forward to, and give people that present connection. You'll go a long way to helping people feel seen and therefore feel valued. And that's really to me what all this is about.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

And you're talking about the research on presented and everything. Is there anything you could share about that for those of us who haven't?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

No, honestly, I threw out the term because it's kicked around a lot and I've done very little research. I look at the opposite of absenteeism, turnover, burnout, all of those things when people are not seen. And so I just figured presenteism was the opposite of that.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Well, perfect shit worked for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

You get to make stuff up, you know?

SPEAKER_03 14:37

It's it's so great. Um, there's a framing that kept coming back in the research that leadership loneliness isn't a personal failing, it's more structural. The higher you go, the fewer people can be honest with you. Um, and it's just how the structure, especially when your executive comes around. But I've also seen people on Reddit reading loneliness threads saying they felt similar things coming from college into an office and feeling like, who do I trust? I don't have like the network that everyone else has. Um, do you think most leaders understand that it's a structural problem, or they just feel something's wrong with them?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

It's the better ones do. They the better ones recognize how important that deep connectedness is. They get out of their office, they open their doors, they walk through the halls, they talk to people, they engage. Now recognize, you know, somebody on a floor uh in a ward, on a factory floor isn't gonna come up to you and say, in a deep way, gee, my wife is struggling with this. What do you got? What do we, you know, how can we do it? How is this affecting you? They're not, we're not, you're not gonna have that in nature. But the better CEOs I know create um connections. We will talk about this in the next book, but things like reverse mentoring, where you find somebody in the organization who is levels below you who's willing to tell you the truth and ask them to tell you the truth, make it a very safe, great environment. You're gonna learn so much, you will be more connected, you will, you know, your place will not be questioned. But they have to go another way to create these levels of connection that are different than, you know, people have this image of I I hate the term, Ivory Tower. But, you know, people have the image of sitting in an office and people having to come in one direction. And I think that gets blown up. I think that just that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Yeah, to me it seemed like something that happens at every level, but maybe is the most magnified when you're all the way at the top of something. But you know, you switch from being a marketing assistant in the beginning of your career to being the marketing manager, all of a sudden you're managing the team that you learned with and you were best friends with, and all of that, and the structure of your relationship changes. That's a very lonely place to be. And then maybe when these sort of th opportunities keep coming to you, you feel that a little bit each time. Is there any advice for even if you're in the beginning of your career and you know, maybe you want to be the CEO, you want to be the CMO, or whatever position you're striving to be in, like you're gonna feel this more than once. So what is there any advice there that you have?

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, and I mentioned this on the on the podcast with Tim Baldwin, Mountain Mule, um, and I was listening to yesterday. There's a cheat code here. There really is a cheat code, and the cheat code is ask for feedback. I mean, truly ask for feedback. The number of leaders that actually do that in a meaningful way is very few, proportionally of all the people that I've ever worked with.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

They expect the natural forces of performance feedback and that kind of cyclical stuff is enough. And it's not. Every day we are creating impacts of the people that we're we work with. We're saying some things and sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn't. Do you really need to know all that stuff? Yeah, only if you want to build alignment, which I say sarcastically, of course you want to know how the your actions are impacting others. So the cheat code is ask for it and routinely do so. Don't do it at the end of the meeting. Hey, how did I do leading this meeting? No, what am I doing? That's, you know, with all your direct reports, actually, two downs or three downs. The better leaders I've ever seen do a fabulous job about soliciting and ingesting the information they get from others on their impact. And then they are able to have a more real conversation with those people all around us about what they are feeling and what they are thinking. And it's a much more honest conversation based on my willingness to be vulnerable and ask for it.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Do you have any stories of someone who does that really well that you can share?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah, I think I told this in the first book, too. My wife, Kathy, went to work for a company, and she was hired in part to design employee indoctrination meetings or their onboarding. The first 90 days, all employees of this, and they called them teammates, all employees of this very large organization had to go through this thing, and it was two and a half days, and it was a lot of fun, and but very informative, and the key leaders would come in every single time and give whatever. Kathy for this reported to the CEO of this very large organization. And so the very first one happens, and there's 300 people in the audience, and the CEO comes in for his piece, and then he he and Kathy walk off the stage, and they're just getting to know each other. And he says, So, give me feedback. And what does a new employee do? She said, You're great. And he stopped right then and in a kind but very clear way said, Look, you're very smart. I didn't hire you to tell me what I do well. I hired you to help me get better. Now, now what did you see? And how can I get better? And she goes, Okay, I'm a New Yorker. Came on. And she gave it to him. And they did 51 more of those 300-person things over the course of four years, and every single time coming off the stage, he asked and insisted on honesty with her answer 50 times a single time. Yes. Wow. You would never end a meeting with him where he didn't ask for feedback, and he would take notes and follow up. And you say, you know, you said this, but you didn't do this, and follow up, and within 24 hours, that person would have an answer. Like, we fear information coming this way sometimes. We're used to, you know, we talk about energy out and power over. We're used to energy out as executives. We think we've got to give all the answers, and we've got to we've got to give all the narrative and all the communications and stuff when reality says it is bi-directional information that really is going to make us powerful performers.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

That sounds like advice that would be beautiful for someone starting their career too. Hey, what can I do better? I mean, I think we're all so afraid to ask that because what if everything we're doing needs to improve? And you know what? What if it does? Then at least you have the information that it does and you can take steps. In that way.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Go one step further, every relationship.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Every relationship between two people or two or more people, characterized by information being shared, and then all of us making up our own stuff about it. Because we all come from different perspectives. Well, let's find out what we're making up about it and clean it up. I had a conversation with a very dear friend last night, and it turned political, and we've I have avoided political conversations with him for the last three years. And um, but a very good one. And I checked in with him this morning and said, Are we okay? Like we ended in a very different place. Are we okay? I'm fine. And if there's anything else we need to say to get things clear, asking the next question. And it's something, honestly, because it's been tied up with my ego and my identity, for a long time I haven't asked the question. And I've found that emulating the practices of best leaders, you ask that question. And you truly want to listen to the answer.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Do you feel closer because you opened up that world of conversation, or you're like, I wish I would have kept that closed?

SPEAKER_01 23:05

It's a hard to put the genie back in the bottle, isn't it? For me, I haven't shared this part with him yet because I want to do it face to face. In the past, we would sit, we would have a um uh an a brown adult drink. It felt as though we could say anything to the other one because the other one was listening and not trying to sell or convince the other person. Huge difference. Last night felt like a like he was trying to sell me on a couple of ideas, and we're out of practice. So I'm gonna have that conversation with him and said, you know, loved it. Man, let's get it all out on the table and recognize that if we could do this in a respectful way without feeling the need to, as they say, tell, sell, or persuade.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

And we can just do it as um uh a learning opportunity. We could talk anything. We really could talk. And it's funny, I I've heard people say that about me, and I don't think it's all always true. When I can be part of conversations like that, we can literally talk about anything. We could make anything out, we could figure out Middle East peace without dropping bombs on people. But it takes real powerful listening, very respectful listening, honoring, frankly.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Wow. So this idea of performing comes up as well, specifically performing competence, kind of what you're talking about right now. You want to be very certain and you want to come off as intellectual, especially in these higher-up positions, and in a way that seems to increase the isolation people are feeling. Um, and you know, it's almost like a mask someone's wearing all the time, and they can't take it off because it's a part of their position. And I'm curious if that's something you've seen in your work, and then what does that cost leaders?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Separating one's ego from one's identity, getting clearer on who you are without the role is a central part of really good executive coaching. It's not just pull this lever and these people will be more engaged. It's not mechanical and it's not ten steps to health. But really, a lot of it involves around that separation of ego and identity. When people are clear on they are not what they do but who they are, that makes having some of these conversations an awful lot easier and a lot more meaningful. And it takes work to get to that point that I am not my job, I am not my title, I'm not my stock options. Those are things I created. I should not be ashamed of them. I've worked hard for them, but at the end of the day, that's not who I am. And this is where we get to the basic notion that I've been preaching for 25 years. Leadership is about doing and being, it's about what you do, but it's also about how you show up. And to be able to separate those two things sometimes is a really, really important thing. Without it, many times we're lost.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Is there a moment that people start to recognize that in themselves that you've seen, or has there been a pattern in your coaching where you're like, okay, they're finally starting to realize that they need to separate these?

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Another dirty little secret of coaching. One of the highest predictors of success in a leader's growing is failure.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

And it is tell me about a time where you wanted something desperately and you failed. So we can unhook the doing and being pieces of it a little bit when people realize that they are not that failure. Yeah, they may have contributed to it and as long as they're learning from it and they didn't, you know, whatever. I was gonna say, you know, cause a nuclear meltdown somewhere, which invites a different conversation. But assuming that people went into a situation with full intent, full effort, their full capabilities, and they failed, sometimes those are inside in our control and sometimes they're not. But failure is an important aspect of the humility needed to open to new ideas and learn and grow. Honestly, that's what makes coaching physician leaders so challenging sometimes because they relate to that word failure in the way of life and death. Yeah. If I have failed as a clinician, I've really caused bodily harm to someone, or it's certainly not helped them. So kind of disabusing of that notion, there are you know, failures in a non-clinical sense that are super valuable. But many physicians, you know, the ones we work with are so esteemed and so capable, they've not really experienced any failure. And then one day their spouse decides to leave them. And then one day, blah, blah, blah, fill in the blanks. And then they know, they know how that feels and the requirement to kind of open up and deal with it.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

I have a few questions on this. It's really fascinating. But the first thing would be you know, I've known you now for a few years. I can't imagine you failed. You know, I just look at you, I see this beautiful view in your office, looking at Montana, and you know, you have a beautiful family and you've grown a business. And so it it sometimes feels like there are people that don't fail. And so I'm curious, have you and is there a story that is shareable from you in failing?

SPEAKER_01 28:55

It was right after 9-11 when the world was going to hell in a handbasket and we didn't really know what the future was, and our sense of security in the United States was shaken to its core. I went inside, I took an internal job in a health system because a friend of mine was named CEO and he asked me to come over. And I went in as the CHRO, Chief Human Resources Officer. I knew the human resource and human capital fields really well. Didn't know the mechanics of how you run a human resource department of thousands of people, especially in a um uh healthcare environment that everything you do is going to be scrutinized. Um your certification as a capable healthcare organization is gonna depend upon how well you've record kept. Jaina, if you are a physician, where are you are your certifications up to date and current? Have we followed up on them? Do we have copies of like logistics like that? I took this job against the advice of a number of people, but I was really worried about getting on an airplane again and where the consulting industry was gonna go. I'd leave my home at 4 45 in the morning to drive up to beat the traffic. I'd get into the office before anybody else was. I would try and figure out how we were gonna tackle this piece. And the um accreditation body, joint commission, announced just shortly after I got there that they were gonna do an audit in six months. Now, generally in the hospital, you prepare for two or three years. The minute they leave the next previous time, you start preparing. No preparation had been done. It was a mess. And so we kind of jumped in full speed every waking moment to prepare for joint commission, get files together, get all of our documentation together, and just killed it. Just, I mean, killed it. We got in the top 1% uh for HR practices for all of their um organizations they were surveying that year. That said, the rest of the HR function did not do well. I mean, not according to Joint Commission, but I'm not certain we were serving the needs of the people in that those hospitals at that time. We were so focused. And so I and I was burnt out. It took me a year. I was, you know, 16 hours a day at work and working seven days a week and gained a ton of weight and was really unhealthy. And at some point I just said, you know, I can't do this. Working for an organization that I don't really feel aligned with, you know, they're just about making more money and I'm not. And so I left after a year. Yeah, I would say that was a pretty clear failure experience. I I did not, if you looked at the metrics of what makes an effective HR department, I probably I hit one of them out of the park. I mean, killed one while ignoring others.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

I think that's so relatable as an entrepreneur. I have a very small business, but I'm trying to grow it. I've had it for 10 years now. And oh my goodness, the times I've been like, should I take that job? I mean, it would be nice to have the security. But there is like, it's for me fear-based. Well, my work's going great now, but anything can happen. Someone can invent AI and it can take over my entire job within a year. I'll find out. So um yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that story because I think for a lot of people, building something that is what that is kind of always on your shoulder. Like, well, I could apply for the job, I could reach out to my old contacts, and sometimes that's not the path you're supposed to be on, and it's hard to listen to that too.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

You know, failure happens, and um the the um cliche is that the strongest tissue in the human body is scar tissue. So after we've been hurt, the rebuilding of that, according to Joseph Campbell and his work on mythology, after that failure or hurt, it is the process of recovery and renewal that really makes us who we are and makes us better. And so failure does have a very important relationship with leadership effectiveness. And it doesn't mean that you go out and try and fail all the time. In the 80s, there was a management theorist named, uh I believe it's Richard Sloma, who wrote a book called No Nonsense Management. And he differentiated reversible decisions versus irreversible decisions. Like if you're helping a young leader grow, give them some reversible decisions, things that if they decide one way and it goes south, they can always pull it back from the fire. You don't give them the irreversible ones, the ones that are permanent. We all have to try them and we all have to fail. And just that's part of the deal. I'll make one more one more um story about this. The military, I uh speak to the U.S. Army, is famous for, and I believe they all all branches of the service do it. It's famous for their after-action reviews. And it is without punishment, without without shame, it is okay, let's replay what just happened. Okay, so you saw the enemy here, you guys responded over here. What led you to that conclusion? Okay, was it the most effective one or not? Okay, it worked in these okay now. Great. What were your other alternatives at the time? Like it's very let's look it through, not like failure, shame, failure, but let's do an after-action review to figure out what really happened, to think about your thought process so that you can learn and grow for the next step.

SPEAKER_04 34:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

And they're fabulous at doing that. And I wish businesses did that more regularly and better.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

How fascinating. Um, why don't you think they do that more regularly and better if we have proof that it works?

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah, because we're on to the next thing. You know, I know in FMG we've always wanted to do that. And we do it occasionally, but it's it's more sporadic, maybe more routine now, but it's been more sporadic. And it's like, yeah, let's take an hour and debrief what just happened. Yeah, no, I've got my schedules back to back, and I'm going on the road to Louisville next week, and then, you know, and then Memphis the week after. We don't have time for it. Let's schedule it out a month. Okay, we schedule it out a month, and then the urgency is gone. People have forgotten what they what they experienced in the moment, and the learning is passed. We're just too freaking busy. Now, could we build that into a project plan and says at the conclusion of everything, here's a half a day and we're gonna throw everything up on a whiteboard and figure it out? We could absolutely do that. We could absolutely do it. We just don't. We're too busy moving.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Yeah, how fascinating. I think when when you were talking about that, things that came up for me were elite athletes reviewing tape or you know, creatives or actors reviewing tape to do things better, and you do see people at the top of their game, that's typically a piece of the routine.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

One of my dear colleagues, um Chris Mitch Mitchell, speaks in terms of that when he coaches, and he talks about any source of feedback as reviewing tape. He's a big New England Patriots fan. And uh let's go watch film together. Let's watch film, let's take a look at what you just did. We have sources of feedback here. Now let's just like no no judgment, but we're gonna go watch film. Fabulous, it's super powerful.

SPEAKER_03 36:40

Have you ever reviewed film with your athletes you work with?

SPEAKER_01 36:43

No, I don't do that because I'm not involved with them from a technical standpoint. What I do do is to say, okay, you're standing on a balance beam or you're standing down at the end of the uh of the runway for the vault. What's going through your head? What are you thinking? So we kind of review tape that way. I worked with an athlete one time that was so mentally blocked in gymnastics that she would run down the runway to the vault and she would freeze and run into the end of the horse. But she was so panicked, like locked up in that moment. And just kind of get her to think about and um create new associations with what she's feeling in that moment to more success was our work together, and it worked. She didn't do that after we started working, but um it it's a journey.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

But it all starts with great, much more feedback, whether you're watching tape or you're kind of thinking about those cues in the moment.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

Um, something else that surprised me when reading about loneliness, and I touched on it a little bit earlier, but it's that younger people report loneliness more frequently, um, but older people are hit harder when it lands, so maybe feel it more impactfully. I keep thinking about what that means inside of an organization where you might have a late 20s drowning in this feeling, and then someone who, you know, is in their 50s or something, um, experiencing the same version of that thing. So what do you make of that? Is there a way to close that gap?

SPEAKER_01 38:26

There would not be a gap if we could all recognize and value the importance of those feelings. In my generation, we denied them, even though we might have felt them or recognized them. Remember, we came from a generation that were trained by our parents through the depression. And, you know, you put on your corporate hat at the front door and you put your own hat down, or you on the company uniform, so to speak, when you walk in the door, they don't want to know if you're having a bad day. They don't want to know if you're feeling a certain way. Keep that out. Go do your job. And the younger generations don't have that same burden, you know, for better or worse. They are much more likely to be honest and candid with what they are feeling. Some old timers in my generation will make that wrong, will deride that, like, oh, well, it's all about their feelings all the time, which it's really not, I don't think. But they're much more fluent in that language that says, I want, I need. And so some people, again, my generation have labeled that as self-indulgent and entitled and stuff like that. They're just better at it than we are. And so my wonderful mantra is what if they're not wrong? And that was the first stimulus to the next book. Sitting at a dinner party listening to a story of a person in my generation um judge somebody from a younger generation for stating what they wanted, which was to go watch a kid's soccer game for two hours in an afternoon that absolutely would not have affected their job, but nobody had ever done it before. And I finally said, What if they're not wrong? Have we gotten it right? Like we come from a place of superiority because we were standing on our work ethic and our attitude as if it's everything. Well, it may not be. What if they're not wrong? So if we could all get to the point where we acknowledge the value of feelings, being in touch with our own, sharing the ones that help connect us with people, there wouldn't be a gap.

SPEAKER_03 40:38

Do you think younger generations being willing to talk about it creates an opportunity in the leadership culture that hasn't been there before? Or do you think it's just a difference in how we were raised, and therefore it's just always going to be something that's different?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Aaron Powell I'll say I think the better organizations have always created space for this. Um, an organization I respect a great deal, Deloitte, largest privately held professional services firm in the world. 10, 15 years ago, started realizing that their model for producing results, which is hire young people, have them work their butts off for seven years, you know, 90-hour weeks on the road all the time, and then, you know, supporting the high-paid senior partners who would, you know, dip into 10 projects, but they'd be able to do their thing. Um, it wasn't sustainable for this kind of generation of people. So they made dramatic changes to find better ways to listen, better ways to engage, better ways to honor health. And in fact, Deloitte was the very first large professional services organization to have a chief wellness officer. Their first chief wellness officer was somebody I know very, very well, Jen Fisher, who wrote a best-selling book. She talks about her experiences trying to recover from being a compulsive performer in an organization that would just keep asking for more and more and more and more and more. And it burned her out. And she was working 19 hours a day and loving it and getting all the kudos and moving up the chain and all that kind of stuff. Deloitte made a dramatic shift, and that wasn't easy for them to do because again, it affect affected their financial model, how they price projects and think about projects and make money from projects and stuff like that. Huge, huge, huge benefit.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Yeah, and Jen was in the first season of Stepwise and talks a little bit about that. I thought she was such a fascinating guest. Um and yeah, and talks a little bit about that shift in Deloitte as well. Is there a version of leadership loneliness that you've experienced but haven't talked about publicly that you'd be willing to share?

SPEAKER_01 42:58

You know, it's interesting. I hadn't thought about it like that, Jaina, but you know, in my little journey inside our little firm of 50 people, as I aged, um, we moved to Montana at 60, when I was 60 years old. And there were things about the last two years of us living where we lived before and then moving to Montana, getting farther away from our home office, shifting out of the roles that I had done forever. There are parts of that that I felt like there was nobody inside that I could really talk to. And so um it it didn't feel like crippling depression, but it was clear I was going through some stuff um psychologically that uh represented a new phase of my life. And you know, my partner, I love him dearly, and he's really good at what he does. He's 20 years my junior, so there's some part of that experience he couldn't relate to. Okay, my identity and role and all that are a little bit different. You know, he's coached other CEOs on this, but this was me. You know, so I needed help. I wanted help. And so, you know, engaged a therapist I'd worked with for um years before we moved at various stages of transition in my life to have that safe place to talk about. God, I'm feeling these things. Am I nuts? How should I reframe this? Like it, you know, that kind of thing. And so, you know, I sought help. But there were, yeah, there were some really important pieces of my life that were not easily or probably properly discussed at work.

SPEAKER_03 44:43

Did you find anything out about yourself in that transition?

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Boy, a ton. And um again, it's separating these tentacles of ego and identity and role and all that stuff and pulling it apart. It's like a three-legged stool for me now. Like my true identity, who I really am. And then this notion about ego and accomplishment could be kind of over here, and that sense about how I show up over here. And so being able to untangle those things so that you can take a look at them from a distance and go, yeah, okay, oh boy, look at that. Your identity says you've got to be blah, blah, blah. Is that true? And so it gave me an opportunity to take a look at some beliefs that I've been holding to see whether or not they were true. This is a story I tell all the time, but am I dependent if our leadership team meets on extension 101, mine, or 102, Matt's. Shifting, just that little simple thing, like Foster, you're not leading those meetings anymore. It was 2017. You're not CEO. Wait, it's not on my extension anymore.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

I'm not the guy. That took a bit. Now, to his credit, Matt and I have handled that transition, I think, really well, but it's taken a while.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

That sounds like such a good story to hear even more about. You shared a little bit about that transition in season two of Stepwise with Matt and how you both worked through that together. And it sounded like such a healthy sort of way to go through a transition where someone decided, hey, it's your turn now, and then the other person you worked through it together and and kind of got through that phase. And is that what you usually are coaching CEOs to do or leaders to do on their own?

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Unfortunately, we get called in months after that work should have been done, and we get called into founder transitions or CEO transitions that are not being handled well.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

So we get called in when the heat is really high. Whereas, had they started a little bit before and done their own work and had some deep conversations and gotten real and blah, blah, blah, seeing their own version of a counselor, whether it's an executive coach or therapist, a lot of it could have been avoided. Intelligence, drive, and values for me were the three things. Once I've felt very comfortable with Matt about that, we took a five-year process and we started transitioning him in over a course of five years. But each year he would learn and take on responsibility for different parts of the firm's operations. You run finance this year. Next year, you're going to run ops. You own that for a year. So go for it. And then the next year was strategy. So we did this over the course of five years of five different topics. So by the time I'm ready to step out, he's very, very able. He's always been able, but more experienced and capable and knows who we are, that he can take over leading. Very few people do that. Now, there's a lot of politics involved. I have conversations with CEOs all the time that said, you know, that person is my error parent, but I can't tell her, or I can't tell him because then they want more money and they, you know, whatever it is. A lot of good reasons, and I don't mean to disparage that, but in our case, it was deliberate and it was over time. We took our time to do it well. And it was seamless, absolutely seamless. Wow. And when we tell we tell founders and all that kind of stuff the story now, they go, oh well, I wouldn't work here. But we get called in, honest to God, all the time. Especially we we focus a lot on investor-backed healthcare. What does that mean? You know, private equity buying a surgical company. And so the private equity company has some money in the game, but they want results. And the surgical company now has an investor, and several of the people in their executive team have gotten wealthy, but they still need to run an effective organization. And a lot of times when an investor comes in, they'll insist on a leadership transition. So by the time our investor came in for FMG, we had to show that the organization was not dependent upon me because they knew my time there was fairly limited. Well, the same with other investor-backed organizations. And that transition from founder, some cases or CEO, to someone new is so poorly handled so often it's shocking.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

It sounds like you're setting the new person up for failure, too, by just saying, oh, they're in now and go take it over and run with it when it's already a stressful position to step into and feel lonely in.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

So I think that's right. And it's based on an assumption that businesses or organizations are perfectly rational things. And they're not.

SPEAKER_05 49:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

And they're very, and I don't mean this in the wrong way, but they're very social beings. They're social entities. We have a lot of people with different ideas about things, and it is their interaction with not only their job and the things and the resources, but with each other that's going to make the difference. And if we just say, go to it now, you're this title, go, we're assuming that this is a rational organization. All you really need to do is have a good strategy that is a differentiator in your marketplace, and that you break that into departments with goals and objectives and stuff, and that you've got the right talent and everything's going to go take care of itself. It doesn't a hundred percent of the time. Wow. Yeah, it just doesn't because we are social entities. Having the right talent, vital. Having the right strategy, vital. Now, how we how do we pull this off? We're a human organization. And how do we pull it off sustainably?

SPEAKER_03 50:33

Fascinating. Last question. If you're talking to a leader right now who recognizes themselves in what we've said, um, in the loneliness piece of it all, or in this transition piece, what's one true thing you'd want them to hear?

SPEAKER_01 50:52

You know, I think about that on two levels. One is at the organizational level, and one is at the personal level. And both answers are similar but a little bit different. The organizational level, I think leaders are really smart these days to um lean into um the relationships with our people more deeply. That does not mean collude with if somebody's, you know, a grumpy gus and doesn't mean you have to agree with them all the time, but but at least find ways to listen to each other. So build into your culture and your organization's practices for allowing deeper conversations to occur. Go out and ask more questions. Make that your environment a safe place for people to really truly be themselves and be candid. So deeper relationship between leader and follower. Sometimes that requires that we each do our own work to really explore the biases and the judgments we might have about people or about the organization and explode those because those are huge boulders between that get in the way between people in relationship. On a personal level, it is uh uh maybe I should take men and women. It is often said that uh women have a lot better and more readily available, emotionally, emotionally available relationships than men do. So, you know, continue to reach out and whatever that looks like a coach, a therapist, a friend group, a book club, all super useful if it allows you to express yourself openly and honestly. And men, you know, join up. I just started a not not a men's group, men's group here in Bozeman, where every other Tuesday night we sit around a campfire and um we the only ground rules really are you know what's said here stays here and uh try and listen deeply, don't judge another man. About three hours we just sit and share what's on our life in our lives, and and people reported to me after that, like, wow, that's the first time I've done that. And boy, that was good, and I want to come back and do more. If community is important to you like it is to me, make something happen.

SPEAKER_03 53:06

Yeah, and it doesn't have to be crazy. It can be come over by a bonfire and let's talk for an hour.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Doesn't have to be complicated. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

To speak a little bit on the women versus men, I saw the report that I believe four 54% of men say they're lonely and 56% of women say they're lonely. But men are underreporting because they're likely more afraid to be admitting something like that. So it seems like a pretty even issue amongst everyone. And so starting these little steps like have everyone meet up at a coffee shop and chat for an hour can really make a huge difference.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

Life's too hard and complicated and fast-paced to forget the fact that we are human animals on this planet who desire and crave and need connection. So if you're not getting it, figure it out. Go get it.

SPEAKER_03 54:01

Thank you so much. Fascinating. Um, I really appreciated this conversation. That's a wrap on today's conversation. If this episode hit close to home, good. That means you're paying attention. Reach out to someone this week. It doesn't have to be complicated. Foster said it best, we are human animals who crave connection. So go out there and get it. Foster and I mentioned a few other episodes from previous seasons in this conversation, which I'll share links to in the show notes. First was with Jen Fisher of Deloitte, the first chief well-being officer. And the second from season two is his conversation with Matt Brewbaker. I encourage you to listen to both and explore our past episodes because there's so much wisdom in them. And as Foster always says, set the table, invite cool people, magic happens. Thank you for listening to Stepwise.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

If this conversation was worth your time, and I hope it was, do one thing for me before you close the app. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and take 60 seconds. It's how people like you help people like me find this show. And if what we talked about today sparks something in you, good. That's the whole point. There's a book called Leadership Rethinking the True Path to Great Ladies. That's the real title that goes deeper into this territory. It's on my website, fostermobbly.com. Check it out. And then sign up for our email list to be notified when my next book, Honoring, goes into pre-sale in 2027. And if there's one person in your life who needed to hear this episode, send it to them. Not because we need the numbers, but because they need the conversation. Set the table, invite cool people, and magic happens. I'm Foster Mobley. And as always, friends, step wise. Our music for season three is composed and performed by Montana musical legend Philip Auburg, courtesy of Sweetgrass Music. Phil's recent passing was felt by many, including those of us associated with this podcast. If you're not familiar with Phil's Grammy nominated music, do yourself a favor and follow him on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your music. We thank Patty Auburgh and Sweetgrass Music for access to this beautiful piece.

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Thank you for listening to Stepwise. Stepwise is produced, edited, and promoted by Zedist with support from Amber Gillard Consulting. Find more episodes and resources at fostermobli.com and follow Foster on social media at Fostermobley. We'll see you next time.