How Great Leaders Drive Results

When performance slips, most leaders double down on effort — not behavior.

In this conversation, Wingspan Advisor Mike Johnson and VP + Advisor, Ivan Konermann, reveal how great leaders drive results through Behavioral Performance — the discipline of building consistent, intentional behaviors that match technical skill.

They dig into what healthy control really looks like, how to turn accountability from fear into fuel, and why behavior — not more hustle — is what separates great teams from average ones.

What You’ll Learn:

• The difference between technical and behavioral performance
• How “healthy control” improves performance without micromanaging
• Why accountability systems fail (and how to rebuild them)
• The daily habits that create measurable results

🎧 Listen to and share “How Great Leaders Drive Results” now on Leading Without the BS with a friend.

This episode is packed with practical insights and grounded experience — not theory.

Connect with Wingspan Performance® to schedule your end-of-the-year Workshop - Say no to more awful team-building trust falls!

Subscribe for more real-talk leadership content that actually moves people.

4 Takeaways:

1. Explore Wingspan’s Leader Team Coaching & Advising — the proven path for leaders ready to multiply performance across their teams. Schedule a Clarity Call with one of our expert Advisors right now!
2. Subscribe to the Wingspan Newsletter — get practical leadership insights, podcast episode deep-dives, client spotlights, and weekly tools delivered straight to your inbox.
3. Check out our YouTube Channel for unfiltered clips on behavioral performance and leadership actions that actually work.
4. 📲 Text us for leadership performance advice — real answers for real leaders.

💥 Subscribe to Leading Without The BS now and share this episode with other leaders who want to stop spinning their wheels and start leading with intentional energy. Someone invested in you — now pass it forward.

Share your thoughts on this episode and join the conversation on Instagram LinkedIn & Facebook!

Transcript

Ivan Konermann 0:00

I like to define leadership as the intentional act of using your healthy control and your deliberate influence with others.

Cathy Maday 0:08

Welcome to Leading Without the BS. Unfiltered, unapologetic, unstoppable performance.

Mike Johnson 0:13

Hi, and welcome to Leading Without the BS. I'm Mike Johnson. I am the newest advisor on the Wingspan team. Hey, I'm Ivan Connerman.

Ivan Konermann 0:23

I'm the Vice President and also an advisor at Wingspan. So in our last conversation, I had the awesome opportunity to get to interview Mike and learn about his background and help people understand what not only he's bringing to the table for experience, also to hear some of the things that he's seen that he is connecting now to the Wingspan tools. So today we decided to flip the script.

Mike Johnson 0:45

Yeah, and today is my opportunity to put Ivan in the hot seat and ask some questions of him and leverage all the experience that he has as a long-term advisor at Wingspan. Yeah, yeah. So what you got for me? Alright, so with that, we'll jump right in. What are a couple of the biggest aha you've had since you started doing this?

Ivan Konermann 1:08

The the one thing that sticks out to me the most is uh, and I'm I'm a big analogy guy. Sometimes uh I'm sure my clients are a little like, okay, dude, I'll bring it down to one or two to use. Um the the the piece I would offer here is it's really about fundamentals. So, for example, when when I actually met Kathy, uh I was her shooting coach. That's how we met. Was I was uh the captain of a pistol team and I was working at the rate uh working at the range one day on some things, and Kathy and her brother and a friend came in to shoot. And um one of the things I was really big on as an instructor was breaking things down in into fundamental chunks and then practicing those very specific chunks. So if it was just getting the pistol on on the target and getting the sides lined up, just doing that by itself and then pulling it back and doing that again and again, or uh just working the trigger, nothing in it, just working the trigger. And so that translates really cleanly into this in terms of how easy it is to take something and go, oh my gosh, that's super complicated, and there's all these steps. Well, in reality, there's very specific pieces, and if people slow down and go, Oh, wait a minute, I can practice this piece and I can practice this piece and I can practice this piece in isolation, then they can get really good and then string them together, and that accelerates people's progress so much.

Mike Johnson 2:26

Yeah. How often do you find that those analogies uh help the clients that you're working with um hone in on the skills that they're working on?

Ivan Konermann 2:38

Yeah, usually they seem to. Um sometimes um sometimes I can tell I'll throw it out, and people are kind of a okay, let me let me change gears. I actually had one the other day where I said to uh I said to a leader, are you more uh you more Star Wars or or are you more on the um Harry Potter side of the house? And he said Star Trek, and I was like, shit, I don't have a good Star Trek analogy for what I'm about to say. It's flat footed there. Yeah, so um I'm looking for one on that front. Okay, good, good. Um how do you define leadership? In the military, we had a uh long and overly complicated definition of leadership, and it involved it involved a bunch of things um that were very specific to that workflow. Now I have shamelessly stolen a a definition from a lady, I don't remember her name. She uh she wrote a book a few years ago, and I heard her on a podcast, uh, Brilliant. And and she simply, and we've modified it a little bit, so I like to define leadership as the intentional act of using your healthy control and your deliberate influence with others. So when when I break it down that way, it's not about just what am I doing relative to other people, it's also how am I using my healthy control of myself. We've all seen, and hell, I know I've done, and and from our conversation uh a few days ago, you've certainly done some of this too, of getting out of that healthy space and into some spots where it wasn't healthy. And so keeping it into that space and then being deliberate with influence, regardless of your title, regardless of your formal role or how many folks report to you or don't report to you, that's not the issue. We've all seen leaders who didn't have quote unquote formal direct reports, and man, they wielded incredible influence in an organization.

Mike Johnson 4:26

Yeah. Title doesn't uh always equal leadership uh capabilities. Yeah. Um you can be a leader without a title. Um, so yeah, those are it leading with influence when people come to you for guidance, um, it it's exciting to see that type of leadership as well. Yeah. How have you had others or heard others um define leadership as as an advisor?

Ivan Konermann 4:54

Yeah, it's actually one of my questions. I'll I'll keep handy depending on where a conversation is going. So sometimes people will they'll talk about leadership and it's obvious they're they're thinking of it in a certain way. And so I'll ask, I say, Well, how are you defining it? And oftentimes what folks will do is they'll get to what I would think of as components. So if you look at my definition, there are just like I said before, there are these building blocks underneath there of how do you, how do I use my healthy control to deliberately influence someone else? Well, that could be through my language, it could be through my questions, it could be through what I choose to not say sometimes. And that's where a lot of people will focus in on oh, it's inspiring, it's setting a clear vision, it's um seeing into the future and determining what our strategy is gonna be. Sure, those are all parts of it. It's just those are those are individual pieces instead of saying how do we define this as a as an entity.

Mike Johnson 5:49

Yeah, well said. Um switching gears just a little bit, what are some of the surprising commonalities that you see in the different um clients that you work with?

Ivan Konermann 6:00

Yeah, it's a good question. The the the thing that sticks out the most is that we're all creatures of habit. We we and myself included and and you as well, we all work to figure out how to handle a situation. And then when we look at another situation, we go, whether we realize it or not, we often go, oh, that's just like situation A. I'm gonna use this thing to handle that situation. Only we don't realize how sometimes a situation evolves over time, or now that situation is actually substantially different, and so then the tools we're bringing to the table don't fit. And I've certainly realized this on myself where I'm sometimes really frustrated, and I'm probably not exactly saying to myself, I don't know what the fuck is going on because this worked six months ago or six years ago. And I'm confident in the back of my head somewhere that thought's going on because I know I'm I'm frustrated and I'm confused. I'm like, I don't get it, what what's not happening here? And and so that unawareness of patterns is is the number one thing. It's absolutely the number one thing of how much we create uh routines for ourselves.

Mike Johnson 7:11

Yeah, that reminds me of the conversations that I have with my kids. Oh you know, having a a daughter and a son of slightly different ages, the same messaging doesn't work um with each of them in the same situation, you know, what I view as similar situations or the same situation. I actually heard uh a recent video um of a gentleman, I can't remember what he does, but he was speaking about no child is raised in the same home. Interesting. You know, every situation is different because there's been a time outside uh in the world what's changed in the family dynamic, what's happening in each of those situations. Yeah. And it reminds me a little bit what you're mentioning here, where it's that specific person in that specific situation in that specific time.

Ivan Konermann 7:59

Yeah. And it's so easy as people we are literally hardwired to create efficiencies. That's that's how our brain works because it takes so much juice for this mental muscle to solve a problem that we work to be really efficient and effective, and so we like to create those patterns, and it's just a way of recognizing that. I'd say a second thing is um how often people wait for permission. And so for me, that was a little extra surprising because then in having been quote unquote raised in the military, very much expected to go off and do it, just in in in civilian parlance, that'd be more of an entrepreneurial spirit. Don't wait for permission. Tell somebody, hey, I'm gonna go do X, and then ask for forgiveness, or tell them, hey, if you if you I'm gonna go do X unless you tell me not to. Yeah, freaking go, go get them, Tiger. Yeah. So so that that mindset was what I was used to. So now it's interesting to see how often people are, well, I'm gonna wait and ask. And I'm like, no, man, just just yeah, what would happen if you went for it? You just told your boss, hey, I'm gonna go do this, unless you tell me otherwise. Yeah, and it's funny to see how often people will shift and go, Well, dang, I never thought of it that way. I was like, okay, good. And how what kind of uh risk are you actually taking?

Mike Johnson 9:13

Yeah.

Ivan Konermann 9:14

Because that's where I don't want to make assumptions about what the risk is for them with their manager on that thing. So it's also where I get to realize uh the habit and the patterns I recognize them myself, and then also not want to extend those onto them.

Mike Johnson 9:26

What are some of the situations that you see leaders uh ask for permission?

Ivan Konermann 9:33

The the biggest one is where there's a there's a problem. And instead of so, for example, um I had a leader, gosh, within the past week, and I'm I'm losing, doesn't matter, losing track of the days, who who said, Yeah, I I want I want to get together with my peers at these other locations and I want to solve this problem. And I said, because this this person had told their manager, hey, I want I want you to, you know, get all of these group peers together. I said, How come you're asking your boss to get together with your peers? And and he's like, Oh man. Yeah, it was so funny how quickly he was like, and he just he's a really good leader. He immediately got it and he was like, dang it. He's like, I'm I'm just gonna go do it. I said, Absolutely, what is your what is your manager gonna say other than cool, you thought that was a good choice, rock on, man. Absolutely, no problem. So it's it's that um waiting for permission, and what I encourage people to do is to think about it more from the perspective of again, how how big of a risk is it? Because if it's a small risk, be bolder. If it's a bigger risk, then you get to it's up to you to choose and make that thoughtful decision. Okay, yeah.

Mike Johnson 10:43

Yeah, thanks. That makes more sense. Yeah, uh so you've been doing this for for quite a while now. Uh, we talked about how this is new to me. You have a lot of experiences, uh built a lot of relationships, uh, and sharing that with me has shown uh the the knowledge that you built over the course of your time as a as a leadership advisor and a leadership leader in general. Knowing you've been doing this for quite a while, what still excites you about doing that type of coaching?

Ivan Konermann 11:14

Yeah, it is absolutely positively when I get on a call with a leader andor a team, and one of two things happens. One is the team is operating in a way where even though it's it's the session that I'm running, they're doing so much of it on their own. Like they're prompting each other, they're stepping in, they're they're challenging each other and asking each other really good questions. And that's where it's kind of like I've been pushing, pushing, pushing with this group to get them going. And and and for my this is my favorite team in Pennsylvania, you know who you are when you're listening. Um, they they get up and they get rolling, and it is so freaking awesome to see that they are they're running. Yeah, again, it's kind of like that. Um, it's it's like they're pulling against the the the harness and just wanting to go and how they're working with each other. That is so yeah cool, it is so rewarding. Yeah, uh the other thing is on the individual basis when people come in and they've had this gnarly or meaty problem and they've been working to figure it out and going, I'm not sure how to do this, and I don't know what to do with that, and so we'll talk through it, and then they'll have really good notes, and sometimes I'll even role play it with them. And it's it's funny how often people will, when I say, Okay, we're gonna roleplay this, I'm gonna be Sally or George or whoever it is, and I'll see their eyes kind of pop like, oh shit, you mean right now? I'm like, absolutely. Get your get your get your crappy, get your crappy first swings with the bat, get those out with me, because there's no cost. This is a very safe place. It's like that way you're gonna know you're gonna know, you're gonna be a lot much more confident when you step into the into the conversation with that person exactly how you want to do this. And so then when they do that, and then they come back to that next call, and I was like, hey, how did it go when you talk to George or Sally? And they are they're so pumped up, they're like, oh man, it was the friggin' best. I did this, and a lot of times it's funny how often people will get concerned. They care about that person, they care deeply about the about the relationship and about the professional um professional bonds that they have, and they want to maintain that. And what they often tell themselves or stories, and hell I do it too, of I don't want to be the jerk, I don't want to be the bad guy. And I was like, of course you don't, and of course you won't. It's just a matter of how you prepare to go into that exchange, and then they do that, and they go, Oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. And I'm like, Yeah, it's not because you prepared, you took the time to to get your get your notes together, to get your headspace straight on how do you really want to show up? And man, that is just I I get goosebumps when I go into conversations with people and they they share that because it is so freaking cool. Yeah, it is so cool.

Mike Johnson 14:05

Asking that question and then seeing you, your body language, uh uh physically change uh the excitement exudes from you of sharing in those wins with the team. So that's that's really neat to see. Uh and uh that team that you called out, I'm sure will be excited to hear that as well. So people, they know who they are. So we talked about what excites you. Yeah. Um how do you continue to challenge yourself in this capacity?

Ivan Konermann 14:38

Yeah, it's a it's a spot where, like any role, it can there are almost uh, and we use a rough analogy of there's these steps. Ooh, I want to get to where I've got this kind of proficiency or I'm proficient to this level in these areas. Okay, good, I've got that, and then keep climbing and adding more and more. And so now I've I've been doing this for long enough where I very rarely hear something for the first time. I've had I've had folks cry, I've had folks get pissed off and frustrated, I've had folks who have wanted to run away because they're they're not comfortable. So for me, we're where where I'm at and where I work to keep challenging myself is how do I continue to broaden the the set of situations where I can be really effective, not just okay, where I can be really effective. And that means uh for me, it means really dialing in my intentionality and also dialing in my level of intensity. Um a lot of folks want I am a high energy person normally, and so what can be challenging is in some situations that actually is a problem, and so for me it's being much more aware and deliberate around what what's gonna help this person around this thing right now, and then how in a healthy, productive way, and then how do I how do I bring that to the table? And in some cases it's a smaller stretch, in some cases it's a bigger stretch.

Mike Johnson 16:05

And how does that align with uh the leaders that we work with? So when you were thinking about how you challenge yourself uh to grow, how can you spin that to help people, our listeners and the clients and leaders, um, think about how they might be challenging them themselves?

Ivan Konermann 16:27

Yes, great, great question. It's it's in exactly the same way. So the um I'll offer the analogy of uh oftentimes when people think about using a tool, like, oh, I want to ask better questions, I want to learn how to hold someone accountable, which are very simple, very common things that people focus on. They're deceptively simple, they're also uh surprisingly difficult to master. And and that's where I would say it's just like when you're starting a kid playing baseball and you put the little baseball on top the T and that way they get to wail away at that darn thing. It's a lot like that to where when they get those first hits, then it's okay, how do you get them up to the spot where they're continuing to prepare for more and more difficult conversations, prepare for conversations where they want to bring a range of intensity. A lot of folks are in the what I call the a jokingly called the the work-appropriate mode of a level two to a level four intensity, and they rarely stay out of that, they rarely stray out of that. And so what happens is people see their manager at either lower intensity or their medium intensity, which is very close, and the manager isn't effectively communicating enough. We understand, I don't remember the numbers, it's some absurdly small percentage, like 7% of the message by the literal words that someone's saying or that we're reading. We understand the other 93% or whatever the number is through cadence, through uh all the non-verbal, the the hand gestures, the the how the face is animated, all those kinds of things. And that's where when when somebody comes in at this really moderate level or low to moderate level of intensity, and they're not getting the message across, what I say to them is, I mean, this is a spot for you to pop open that that range to get into those higher intensity spaces. And it doesn't mean standing up and yelling or doing anything that that's that's not honest for them. It does mean though, working to figure out what is that gonna look like for you? How are you gonna raise intensity as a leader in a healthy, productive way to get people's attention when you are at a seven and you want them to be at a seven or maybe even at an eight?

Mike Johnson 18:43

Yeah.

Ivan Konermann 18:44

Yeah.

Mike Johnson 18:45

How well does that answer your question? Great. That's that's what I was looking for, tying it back for people listening. You know, it's interesting to hear your perspective as an advisor, but also how how can they or we as leaders uh leverage those same skill sets, those same tools in in our everyday business to drive business results for our organizations. Yeah.

Ivan Konermann 19:07

Yeah, and and it and it's the number one thing I I encourage leaders to do is I'll say every single day, first thing when you get into the office, before you turn on emails or chats or all the other things, and your attention just goes into the seemingly black hole. Um, I'll tell them open your calendar and look at your calendar and then pick one conversation in the morning. Could even be an email, or what's one conversation or email that you're gonna handle in the afternoon. And then I'll encourage them before you get into everything else and you start to get pulled and or start to go in a bunch of directions, really be thoughtful about how do you want to show up for that. What is it you're working to do in each of those exchanges? What level of intensity do you want to bring to that? How do you want to convey that level of intensity through your words, through your nonverbal? That is the kind of preparation where when people really stop and do that, I can it shows up in our conversations that fast because it is so much more obvious in the stories that they tell.

Mike Johnson 20:14

Okay.

Ivan Konermann 20:14

Yeah.

Mike Johnson 20:15

So we've talked about uh leadership philosophy, some of the biggest aha moments that you've had since becoming a leadership advisor, uh, and definitely conveying what still excites you. Yeah. Uh what other uh aspects of wingspan and or your experience as an advisor do you want to share with the audience?

Ivan Konermann 20:37

The the thing that surprised me the most when I first started to talk to Kathy many years ago was this concept of shifting out of technical performance and into behavioral performance. And it I have a conversation I'm remembering with a leader I work with, gosh, two or three weeks ago, and he was frustrated with his team and and and with some of his things, the way his team was showing up. And he said, I'm gonna go tell him XYZ. And as he said it, I had in my head, like, man, there's no way he didn't tell those guys this already. So I said, Hold on a second. And I said, Hey man, how many times have you told him that exact message already? And he stopped and he goes, eh, probably 15. And then I said, So what's gonna change when you say it the 16th time? And it just, it just it hit him, it hit him like a like a like a 10-pound break. And just he just stopped and he goes, Shit, he goes, that is such a good point. I go, you don't have a technical problem, you have a behavioral problem. I and so that was where it like for him it just clicked that fast. And that's what I hope people listening to this will get is if you're doing something again and again and again, it's not, or you're working to get someone else to do something differently and you're having that conversation again and again and again. It's not that they don't understand, probably not, what to do. It's they're either not choosing to do it, they're not asking questions, they're not speaking up as they're running into problems and getting some steering or some help. And so separating that technical from the behavioral piece has been absolutely eye-opening. Now, when I'm working with leaders, and I'll I'll often ask them what portion of this problem is technical, what portion of this problem is behavioral, and man, it is crazy how often they're going 80%, 80% behavioral all day long. Yeah, all day long.

Mike Johnson 22:32

Interesting. Yeah. Well, um, I this has been really insightful for me. Uh and uh I'm hoping that our leaders are getting some uh some really quick points from this that they can take away, uh, other than just looking at two bald guys. Uh that is a treat. That is a treat. Let's not let's not kid ourselves. So we've talked about a lot of things today. I'm thank you for the insight. It's very helpful for me. Yeah. Uh and I'm I'm sure that it's very helpful for our listeners as well. Yeah. Um we've talked about a few things today that I want to uh make sure that we shine some additional light on. Uh patterns um created for good reasons, figuring them out, you know, observing those behavio those patterns that you see in those behavioral patterns. Yeah. Um technical versus behavioral performance. Huge. You mentioned again a time and time and again. Uh people deferring that, hey, this is a technical not a technical gap, it's a it's a behavioral uh opportunity that we're gonna that we're gonna focus on. Uh and then foundational nature of the skills that that uh we equip our our clients with. Um basic blocks, you know, activating language, advancing questions, uh, and building off of those and continuing to think about different scenarios, this this person, this situation, and this in this instance.

Ivan Konermann 23:56

Um real fast, so for folks listening or watching, that's where I encourage you as you're looking at a a challenge you've got. Um Maribeth isn't doing that or William isn't doing this. Ask yourself how much of this is a technical thing versus how much of this is a behavioral thing. Because if you realize you've explained it several times, it's it's now in the behavioral space. Uh and then the last piece is practicing. So I encourage everyone listening to just pick one thing and start to practice it. Even if it's just once or twice a day, uh, I'm gonna prepare better questions. I'm going to write out what I want to say to get somebody's attention around this thing, and then I'm gonna, I'm really gonna wordsmith it to make sure it's accurate, to make sure it's tight. That kind of practice doesn't sound fun and sexy, and I totally get it. I'll also tell you that's how people get good. Um, one of the things that Kat and I connected on when we first met up was I was a master class shooter and I became a master class shooter because I would get up every morning at 4:30, drink a half a pot of coffee. How come I have a problem? I have heart problems now. And then I would go, I would go do drills, I would go work, work with the pistol to get really comfortable with it. And it over time, those those little incremental steps, those little gains, man, they just add up. And before long, it there's things that I really didn't even require thinking. I was just knocking them out, and that's the way you want to be with these tools is getting to the point where they're so comfortable, yeah, you can confidently roll into a situation and go, oh, I want to ask a question here, or I want to I want to make a statement there, or do this kind of a thing. And having those reps in is really what it takes.

Mike Johnson 25:37

The way I visualize that is I'm not reaching into a bag looking for a tool. I have those tools readily available. The more efficient that you become with them. I like that. You know what to use, when to use it, yeah, and to your point without consciously thinking about it in some scenarios.

Ivan Konermann 25:53

Yeah. Yeah. Or without consciously thinking about it as much. So I I don't want to paint the picture of we're not thinking. We certainly are. It is, though, that um more comfortable, more ready to use tool that you can bring to the table, still being choosy about where and when it makes sense. Good. Thank you for clarifying. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, you bet. Awesome. So for everyone listening or watching, uh, start putting these things into practice and you'll be leading without the BS. Two ball guys, five out.