STAT Leadership Episode 2- Self-Awareness as the Foundation of Leadership

In episode two of the STAT Leadership podcast titled 'Leadership and Self-Awareness: Foundations of Leadership', hosts Chetan Kharod, Phil Moy, and JR Pickett delve deep into the importance of self-awareness in leadership. They discuss personal anecdotes and examples from both fictional and real-life leaders, emphasizing the values of authenticity, vulnerability, and integrity. The episode covers how knowing one's strengths and weaknesses helps in team building and fostering an environment of trust and reliability. Tune in to explore insightful discussions on leadership qualities, mentoring versus grooming, and maintaining credibility through genuine actions.
00:00 Introduction to STAT Leadership
00:08 Meet the Hosts
00:29 Musical Dad and Theater Background
00:17 Leadership and Self-Awareness
03:54 Imposter Syndrome and Authenticity
07:24 Charisma and Competence
18:01 Vulnerability in Leadership
26:02 The Role of Commanders: Balancing Authority and Approachability
26:26 Grooming vs. Mentoring: Understanding the Differences
28:49 The Importance of Honest Feedback in Mentorship
33:26 Self-Awareness in Leadership: Embracing Strengths and Weaknesses
36:55 Integrity in Leadership: Owning Mistakes and Moving Forward
42:36 Character Studies: Fictional and Real-Life Leadership Examples

Referenced in this episode:

Wicked   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262426/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2_tt_5_nm_1_in_0_q_wicked

Good to Great: A Study of Management Strategies of Companies with Lasting Growth, by Jim Collins   https://a.co/d/j1tMHaI

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know, by Malcolm Gladwell   https://a.co/d/9YXTlh8

Lessons from the Mouse: A Guide for Applying Disney World's Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life, by Dennis Snow   https://a.co/d/1p9ClvH

Michael Caine, “Use the difficulty”.  https://youtube.com/shorts/Cl0RG0KHDuc?si=FcaCdpXVRaOLVdVW

Fly Me To The Moon   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1896747/?ref_=fn_t_1

The Transformers   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086817/?ref_=fn_t_2

Dan Campbell talking about the heartbreak of losing:  https://youtu.be/DG0EX6jv7kk?si=g5h9JCbDSikTzJgV

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

When the call comes in, leadership is everything. We analyze the data in real time, making the tough decisions under pressure. Welcome to Stat Leadership.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

I am Phil Moy. Hey, I'm J.R. Pickett.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Hi, I'm Chet Kurud.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

And this is episode two of our podcast titled Leadership and Self-Awareness Foundations of Leadership. All right. So should we just get right to it? Or do we want to start with how everybody's doing? Let's get right to it. I don't care how you're doing. Nobody cares how we're doing. JR is just sad because in one moment he's doing musicals, and the next moment he's doing judo with his injured thumb. You know? That's fair. Nobody cares. There were a surprising number of people who responded to your Facebook post about being a musical dad. I was like, oh, everybody recognizes Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat. And all that stuff. I was impressed with everybody's knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

There's this underground theater community, I think, out there. I think that the more folks that I talk to, and I have a batch of fine arts and drama from a conservatory program. I did not know that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

So I write, yeah, seriously.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah. Conn Capellan, uh class of '96. And uh Wow. So theater design production. I was not on the performance side. If you've seen me perform, you then you would understand why. But it I find so many folks that when they find that out, they're like, oh yeah, at the theater and did this stuff. And so there is this sort of undercurrent of former theater kids. And I just find it really helpful for what I do now as far as not only being a doctor, but organizational leadership and collaborating with folks.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

So I'll ask the question that everybody's probably gonna ask. So what are what are your thoughts as a theater expert of the movie Wicket?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

I haven't seen it yet. So yeah, I'm sorry, I will watch it. My girls watch it. Blasphemy. We're gonna go out and see it for sure. But I've heard only fantastic things, not only about the movie, but of course about the the play or the stage musical as well as the books. I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I I expect an Instagram pick or Facebook pick of your face painted green when you see the movie. Well, I'll go on as a flying monkey. All right, that's it. That's actually a pretty cool costume. I'll I'll accept that.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Look, do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

That's reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

All right, well, let's let's get down to it. Leadership and self-awareness. Chet, do you want to kind of bring us in and tell us tell us what uh what the thoughts are on this one?

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Yeah, when we talk about leadership, as we mentioned before, a lot of times we or novices will get distracted by what position or title they've been given. But those of us that have had those positions, or not the position, but the opportunity, most of us know that it really doesn't start with the title. It really starts with knowing ourselves, being self-aware, understanding what our strengths and weaknesses are, understanding that how we do in terms of organization or relating to people and whatever that is, so that when we're building a team, we are able to and they say in the good to great book by Jim Collins, he says it it doesn't so matter, uh it doesn't so much matter where the bus is going at the beginning, you just gotta get the right people on the bus first. So knowing who I am helps me build the cast so that the leadership team or the execution team is able to meet the need, right? So all of that begins. And even if we're not in an official position, I always tell my my kids, and I think my fellows have heard it before. I'm like, no matter who you're at least leading your own life. So all of us lead something, lead well, and let's learn how to do that. And a big part of that is being self-aware. So I thought that would be a great topic for today.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah, I completely agree. Recently, I've had fortunately and unfortunately, because heavy lies the crown and all, I've had some leadership positions fall in my lap and had to take up responsibility. And as a as a as one of the younger uh leaders of this podcast here, it's it's been it's a little bit intimidating. You have the kind of imposter syndrome of like, oh my god, I'm gonna be leading an entire emergency department, you know, as the medical director of emergency department, what the heck? What do I do? I don't really know the first thing about this, but the more I delve into the leadership or being a leader, it's it's really it's really all about who you are and your character. Number one, people will trust you and will trust where you want to go as long as you have the right character and self-awareness of where you are in in the world and to your to your to your team.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, so I think to that end, people will see through you. That if you have in any direct contact with the people that you're leading, if you are if you're not your authentic self, then people will see through that eventually. And that's not to say that they won't follow you necessarily, but I think that being being self-aware, being who you are, that it makes as a leader, it makes you predictable, which is not a bad thing at all, because people like stability, they like safety, they like predictability and and the folks that they're uh that are being that are leading them. But I think that if if you at all are putting on a face that is not you, that either either who you are or who you want to be. That's but that's the other thing. Don't just act like who you are, act like who you want to be. I think if they if they see that what your interactions or your things that you say outside of certain settings don't match up with that, then you lose some credibility. And I had somebody say to me once, I don't need credibility, I'm in charge. And so you do uh yeah, no, like that's like what you lost me there as you're here and I'm screaming. But really, that's true because as we talked about before, there's no such thing as authority, it's all influence. And if you are seen as disingenuous, then then people will have a much harder time being led by you and falling into and supporting what it is that you wish to accomplish as the leader.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah, yeah. And I think long-term success, right? That person who said, I don't need competency, I'm in charge, or that it works in the short term, maybe once, right? And then your team starts drifting. So we used to jokingly say, I want when I was a squadron commander, I didn't say this out loud to anyone because I was did not want to get laughed out of the room. But my goal was to be the kind of leader where people like back behind me, there's the squadron command flag from when I was a commander, and in my mind, it was very much a Lord of the Rings kind of thing where you plant your flag on the hill and people rally to your banner because that's where the fight is gonna be. That's a little bit dramatic. But my thought was what makes people attracted to us? And it's these things that you guys are talking about. And that I read it somewhere that really it comes down to charisma equals competence plus warmth, right? So if you're super competent but a complete a-hole, or very hard to deal with, or you're aloof and you can't relate, right? Now your competence is not nearly as impactful because people avoid you. Or if you're super cool and everybody likes to hang out with you, but you don't have a clue, that's also dangerous, and people will avoid that. So striking that balance of competence and war gives us charisma. Charisma is the thing that draws people into our circle of influence, and then from there, a lot can be achieved. And Phil, the idea of imposter syndrome, man, I gotta tell you 100% of high-achieving people have a real sense of imposter syndrome that continues and persists no matter how much you do. So having when I entered Squadry Command, I felt that as I left and went to my next job, which is a higher responsibility, higher visibility job. I still had it. And I think if you leverage that, all it is your voice say, Hey, make sure you're up to this task. But it's like the athlete who gets a little queasy and then goes out and has a five for five, six RBI game, and they just crush it. And even low-level athletes like me, I had this high school baseball game, I'll never forget it. Doubleheader, end of the season thing. I don't know why I was so nervous, threw up before the game, which I never used to do. But man, I I got nine at bats between the two doubleheader games. I had eight hits, double-digit RBIs. I don't know what happened that day, but that queasiness or I don't belong here feeling was immediately followed by whatever that performance was. And I wish I could say all my gauge are like that, but that was a I think it's a normal response that we have when we'll try to rise to the occasion.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yeah, yeah. And it it is purely, it feels anxiety provoking, but in my experience and from what I've in my life, what I've experienced, and everything, it I'm reminded of this wonderful anecdote by Michael Cain, where he's talking about he's a young actor. Michael Cain is the British actor who played Alfred in the Batman movies with Christian Vale, if for those of our listeners who don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

There's like any number of movies that you could have brought up right then, and it's you know, you brought up Batman.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

We gotta do Batman, right? Because that's probably one of the more recent Michael Cain movies, but anyway, he's he's telling the story of when he's a young actor and he's gonna walk, he's on a theater and he what tries to walk on stage, but they accidentally knocked over the chair and he can't get through the door. And he tells the director, he's like, hey, I can't get through it to the scene. And the director is like, use it. He's like, What do you mean? He's like, Listen, if this is a comedy, you trip over that chair and you fall down. If this is a drama, you kick the chair across the room, right? So I'm trying to approach this imposter syndrome with kind of that kind of mentality where I'm going to use this feeling of not quite inferiority, but anxiety to really help me learn about myself, about what it means to be a leader amongst your colleagues and use it to just be humble and just kind of, you know, just learn and learn the process. Another thing as well, you know, totally understand, Chet, you know, before a game, before a race for me for trathlons, you get that nervous knot in your stomach, you sweat, your heart's racing. Some people interpret that as anxiety. And if you look at the pro athletes, you ask them, hey, how are you feeling before your game? They'll answer, I'm excited, right? Because those very same feelings, knot in your stomach, fast heart rate, a little sweaty, kind of, you know, energy kind of pumping up. That's the kind of same feeling, the same symptoms of both anxiety and excitement. So yeah, I'm trying to kind of just reframe my mind and say, hey, I'm I'm this is I sure have a little anxious to acknowledge that, but I'm also acknowledging that this is exciting. I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to grow from this one. And, you know, we all know that growth is not fun, it can be painful, but it's just part of the process here. And so yeah, I I I thank you for that, you know, chat. But yeah, I'm I'm trying to just be very cognizant of those portions of how I'm feeling to when I'm in these leadership positions. And and JR, to your point where the the disconjugate actions or view of like actions versus who you are, that's that's that's so true because I agree. It's it's very blatant, but I agree. People will see through you. And there's this book by Malcolm Gladwell called Talking to Strangers, where he uses the example of how Neville Chamberlain, uh, the prime minister of the UK in the 1930s, kept on giving Hitler a second chance. He's saying, No, this guy is not going to evade any further than Poland. He ain't going any further. I trust this guy. He's gonna do good, he's gonna not go any further. And yeah, as we all know, Hitler kept on going. And then there's Winston Churchill, who, blunt as he is, is like, no, this guy's a jerk. He shouldn't trust any words he says there and everything. And Malcolm Gladwell says, you know, the major difference was Neville Chamberlain based his judgment on Hitler's character based on what Hitler said, whereas Winston Churchill based his judgment of Hitler's character on what he did. And so that's it's a very interesting point. That's just uh kind of some anecdotes to kind of bring that home there.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

I saw a video of Mike Tyson, of all people, and this was when he was in his like competition days and really in his prime, and he's on the roof of the venue wherever he's right about to go into a fight, and he's sobbing, and his coach is talking with them. It's it's the cameraman is behind them, and he's just over by the edge and he's sobbing. I don't want to be here, and this coach is talking him through these feelings, and like all right, champs, time to time to go, and like turns around and uh heads inside and crushes whoever it was he was fighting at that point. And here he's one of the really one of the best boxers to have ever lived. And if you had the opportunity to grow up watching him fighting in his prime and just how incredibly tangerous a human being he is, and uh and seeing that, okay, if this guy who has been knocking dudes out like seconds into the first round, it can have those feelings, uh of course we all do, and and that's natural. So, with that authenticity, I want to ask you guys uh do you talk about that uncertainty to the people that you lead? Nobody wants a a nervous Nelly, but uh do you say that anything about that to the folks that are depending on you?

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Hey, it's a great point. And I think it the messaging is key, right? So to deny that or to pretend it's not happening is the exact opposite of where you want to be. It's completely inauthentic, and people can see through that. On the other hand, if you're dithering and stammering and wringing your hands over it, now you're gonna lose confidence for the entire organization because you're supposed to be the figurehead or the symbol of it, right? So some of it is kind of delivery and like you were talking about before JR communication or ability to master that that moment. And one of my mentors used to always say to be the kind of person you want to be, you have to do the things that kind of person would do. And whenever I was faced with one of those moments, I would imagine that what would an in-control leader in this situation look like? And what would they act like? And maybe it was a stage presence, right? There's a there's a great Disney kind of organizational management book where they talk about don't let your acts your backstage get on stage, right? When I talk to my people, I if it was say we were doing something really unusual that was gonna make us short staffed, and to to the people working the squadron, what they were worried about was am I gonna have to work overtime? The Air Force doesn't pay overtime, who's gonna do child care, understandable and natural human concerns. And what I wanted out of them was 100% effort. So I would start out saying, This is our mission, this is what we're gonna do. A number of us are gonna talk to you about how we're gonna do it. Let me tell you that I have some concerns myself about how we're gonna do this, right? And this is how we're gonna address those. Pretending it didn't exist would have been the wrong thing to do. Going down the rabbit hole of all the problems up front, probably would have been the wrong thing to do. Acknowledging that there were some barriers or obstacles there, saying it out loud got it over with. And here's a better example, a little less stressful one. I was awarding a medal to one of my officers one time in front of about 200 people in my squadron, a bunch of enlisted people, and this officer completely muffed the customs and courtesies. He didn't know how to shake, take, and salute. He didn't know how to do facing movements, he looked like a complete mull dude. And my first response was, Oh, my mind and my cut. Oh, god, that's embarrassing. He's an officer for crying out loud. Thankfully, none of that came out because all I said was, okay, stop. Everybody, time out, however, you are. Since I was the ranking person, I could just pause the whole thing and I go, listen, I just realized that I've never gone through this with you guys. And what I want for you is to be comfortable doing our customs and courtesies. We are the U.S. Air Force, we're the Air Force Special Operations Command. Let me show you how this is going to be, how we do this, and then we can all do it. And next time we do it, it'll be a lot smoother. So I just called two people that I knew how to do it out there, and I said, let's walk through it. Part of our job is to learn how to do this. So a little different. It wasn't really uncertainty about what we were facing, but it was an awkward situation where either that officer would have looked ridiculous, or as a leader, you can own the situation, diffuse it a little bit, reset everybody. And what that led to was people really paying attention to customs and courtesies, people wanting to be. I've never had a squadron ask for an inspection before. Sir, when are you ever going to inspect us? We want to show you how awesome we are. And I didn't expect that.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yeah, yeah. And to answer your question, CR about do we do I show our team my feelings of of inadequacy or anxiety and everything like that? I I I agree with Chet that it has to be portrayed in the right way, but I am a big proponent of doing that because I believe and and feel free to give me your thoughts on this, but I think in order to gain trust of your team, you have to be vulnerable with your team team. And me just kind of sharing that allows me, you have to be vulnerable first. You have to tell them, like, listen, I've never done this before. I will try to do what's best, and I'll always ask you guys your thoughts here. But in the end, you know, part of being a leader is you, you're gonna when the going gets tough, you're gonna have to make that tough decision. But that vulnerability of of just just just communicating that and just letting them know that, hey, I am not arrogant. I'm okay saying, I have no problem saying I don't know. And I think that's a better answer than saying, well, this is how it's done, or I know how it's done. Because if you have someone like that, you're not gonna follow them. But if you have someone that says, I don't know, but let's work through it together. I'm I'm not really sure. I don't know what's gonna happen, but let's let's let's see where we go from here. And and I think that vulnerability really helps build that trust with your team because if you're vulnerable first and people like I like to think people are good people, so people like helping out other people. So as your team can help you out, you know, they'll be more open to being vulnerable with you and trusting you with what's the what's truly going on with them instead of just hiding it saying whatever.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yeah. I think that's a great point. That it if you are human to them then and willing to admit a mistake and own it and admit what you don't know, then I think that comes to adaptability too. But to chat what you said about you gotta start off, it doesn't matter where the bus is going, you gotta get the people on the right bus. If you've got oh you get the right people on the bus, if you have the right people on the bus, then you're adaptable to whatever comes. And your organization can can flow. And if things aren't working, you can shift your efforts and how you approach certain problems there. So I think that I think it you certainly should not predict failure, right? You shouldn't be like, yeah, we're gonna do this, it's gonna be useless, and I don't know why we're doing it. I uh like it just utterly it just gets under my skin when it granted, there's stuff that we're made to do that from other from oversight organizations or from our own leadership chain command, say, hey guys, we gotta do this thing. And maybe from our perspective, it doesn't make a lot of sense or it seems like a waste of our time, and so forth. Okay, why are we doing this? Again, if I come out and say, Um, I don't know why the commander's making us do this, but we're gonna do this. Oh, okay, now I'm undermining the commander as well as whatever it is that we're doing. And so I don't think that's the way she would do it. And I think it's okay to acknowledge, okay, we're gonna do this thing, and this may ultimately not be the right way to go, but I think based on what we know right now, this is that this is the way for us to uh to go. With that, it it's yeah, it's it's okay to be it's okay to be a little like to be a little human, to display humility, but also a little bit of a self-effacing there. And this is why I feel like I maintain a social media presence, uh, and not everybody that's in a leadership position does. And part of that is that I know I cannot reach everybody in my organization all the time. Like I cannot develop that close personal relationship with them. And but that helps to round me out as a person. And they see you as a whole human being. Yes, I am this person, the leader, doctor, whatever professional title you want to put in that, but I am also a husband. And a father and a nerd and and love dogs and so forth, it completes you as a human being. Much more difficult to hate a whole person than it is to hate a role or a position that you're in that you then become conflated with.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Yeah, I I I agree with that. And if you even shrink it down, if if some of our audience are emergency physicians or physicians in general, I kind of use this side of the same approach for when I'm working a shift, is I want my nurses and my ER techs to come to me and not be afraid to tell me things because I can't keep an eye on the patients that I picked up because I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off. And to do that is you have to kind of approach the job with the humility and the comedy and the and the lightheartedness, even though what we do can be pretty heavy. But to let them know that, hey, I'm not gonna yell at you, I'm not gonna bite your head off. Just come to me. And if you made a mistake, that's fine, we'll work through it together and everything. But yeah, it's that it's that kind of the transparency that, you know, I'm I'm more than just a doctor, I'm more than just uh a comic book nerd, you know. Um I read all these things together.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yeah, and there's it there's there's operational knowledge we have to have, and then there's this kind of human knowledge or basic connection ability that we have to develop as well. So whether it's uh our EM team that we're working with, medics and nurses, it goes a long way to look people in the eye, to know them by name, to know a little bit about them. But a lot of leaders fail to understand the impact of making the time to know your people like this. Uh, when you do that, they are they feel pulled in a little bit more into that. They feel safer a little bit to exert themselves and take the risk, not necessarily a negative risk, but to go a little further, go above and beyond, because they know that whoever that leader is, they personally know who I am. What we see a lot of times now, and I think part of it is people are in a hurry, and part of it is actually the reason we're podcasting on this topic, is we expect certain leadership behaviors from our medical leadership teams, and yet it nowhere in our educational pathway is there emphasis on leadership. And I would say there's a gradual movement toward this, but it is not one of the core competencies that the accreditation council for GME is teaching in American medicine. The Canadians have leadership as one of their core competencies. They have a little different approach to it. We want our doctors specifically to behave a certain way, and yet at no point was that an expectation followed with a preparation or a coaching or a mentoring. And again, uh coaching and mentoring, that's another part of this. When you're mentoring people, you're giving them the benefit of your experience. So if I I had another great mentor in the military, you say mentoring is for the many. Everybody should have access to your experiences, and you should be gracious enough and approachable enough to share those. But grooming, Chet, grooming is not for everybody. You have to pick and choose which performer is gonna fit well into which job and help them explore that path. And so if mentoring is giving them the benefit of your experience, grooming is more like giving them the benefit of their own new experience. And I was like, oh that was really insightful. But you can't really do any of that if you don't start with who am I? Why am I in this role? I didn't get this leadership job because I'm the best looking, the smartest, and the funniest. In fact, we were just you, it says you. Thank you. We were specifically told that by our general on our first day. He goes, Hey, love you guys, so glad you're our commanders. But let me tell you something. Your people are not laughing at your jokes because you're all of a sudden hilarious. It's because you're their boss's boss. So just remember, don't tell one joke too many. You know, don't hang around too long. You're not that charming. You're just the boss's boss. Say what you gotta say and skedaddle so your people can relax and do their thing. Of course, there's a balance in there, but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Well, I had this thought, I didn't want to let it go because you talked about that difference of grooming and mentoring. And of course, grooming is a term that I know more in the negative context. And but that and I think uh as you were talking about, uh distill this down when you know you're grooming somebody, you are bringing them to what you want them to be or do. And whereas when you're mentoring somebody, you're helping them meet their goals. As they seek mentorship, they see something in you that it aligns with where they want to be, and that's why we're talking with you, versus grooming is bringing about something that is your own personal goal, because you need that person to to be this, do this. That's all right. And yeah, I agree, two completely different processes, and you look to you look to different people for that a lot of the time. Now, not to say if you're that person that is being groomed for that next position of that next higher position of authority or that next role, that may be in line with your goals as well. And so there's that element of mentorship that uh that goes out as well. But when I think of mentors, I think of finding mentors. I'm not asking them like, hey, make me into what you want me to be. I'm thinking, make me into what I want to be. And that's why I've selected you as a mentor.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Yeah, so mentoring, that's a great point, too. It's maybe more global and grooming, maybe more organization or machine specific, where a leader who's doing both probably has to have the organization in mind as you're grooming people. Who will what's my succession plan? Who will those are grooming functions there? And you're so right about that term because of so many of the other associations with that. I think we need a new word, uh, maybe just professional development. I don't know, but that's two words. But yeah, and the mentoring thing also, I think it's so interesting that we often look within our own community, right? So who are the leaders in my community? Maybe they will mentor me. And what we don't realize is sometimes you can get tremendous guidance from people totally not in medicine or not in the leadership positions we're in, and yet their perspectives and their experiences are so relatable and useful for us.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

I had a a sit-down with one of my bosses recently because I'm going up for promotion, and I said, put together my CV, sent it to him, and uh he's uh it is an extensive like there's a committee, there's this whole process of a formalized CV and where you put in all your stuff. And he sat down with me and said uh he said, Okay, tell me uh who you are, give me the uh uh the uh uh professionally who are you? What is your the expertise that you bring to uh this uh role, this setting of the role that you want? And so I told him, I tell him I'm a progressive thinker in EMS, I'm a change agent, and uh this is what I th uh this is where I think we are, this is where I think it could be as a field and as a profession and as a specialty. And he said, That's all great, but this CV does not say that, it doesn't convey that. And what he uh told me, and as I look at it more, he said, You've done a lot of things, and you've done these many great things. So, what's coming through in this CV is that you are a doer and not so much a the thinker that that thought leader in this. Now, it would not be the first time that somebody says I was doer and not a thinker, of course. But I really it was such a great bit of of information from somebody who I whom I greatly respect to say, Oh yeah, and it's it has nothing to do with what I've done. It's just how do I word that in such a way that it shows where I'm going. And having that deliberate mentorship from from him was uh was really one of the more valuable meetings that I've had.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

And I don't think they could have done that without being self-aware in their own right. They understood one, their position in a respect with respect to where you were, but also they probably had some sense of mission and self in that role that they were bringing, and it came out this way in a useful way to you. And I don't think a non-self-aware leader could have done that.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Yeah, he was probably self-aware of the fact that he's like, I've been in your shoes before, hence the the experience that we've been talking about. And, you know, I wish someone gave me the same advice I'm giving you. And so this is what maybe, you know, obviously I'm not him, but her, her. But you know, the the the self-awareness be like, this is what you really want to say. I know this isn't what you this is this isn't what you want to show the committee, but I understand you, I know you JR for you, and this is how you should do it. And I think another valuable thing from that anecdote you've provided is is the honesty that your your mentor gave you, right? Because that that honesty, everybody says, you know, honesty is the best policy, and I think that that's great. I mean, that that's why your mentor is a mentor, probably a leader, is because of the honesty. And I think it's strategic honesty in the fact that they knew that that your CV needed work, but they weren't, I hate this term, brutally honest, right? You could be honest without being need brutality with honesty, especially if somebody's seeking your advice. Right. Exactly, exactly. And I I I liked her or his honesty with you. I mean, like, you know, have and sh and let you kind of come around to it. He kind of guided you to there, as opposed to him saying, JR, this fucking sucks, man. He's a piece of shit. I'm just throwing it out here.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

That would have been the Gordon Ramsay approach to mentoring, right? That's what that was.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

What are you? I mean, it's sandwich. Yeah, yeah. And and and I think it's honesty is hard for any leader to do, and your your mentor just hit it in the nail on the head there, right? Is in the moment, if if you got to give one of your team team members, you know, feedback, and but they're really excited they did a job, you're like, man, it was freaking terrible. But now's not the time for me to pop their bubble. Now's the time for say, I'm very proud of you, can you look like you're doing the moment and you did a great thing, wait a couple of days and then come back and with the honest feedback and everything. And again, your your mentor hit the nail on the head. And as you as you guys, as the listeners can see, JR, the mentee, really took those words to home and you know, is really changing up the CV for the better.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

But you'll see that actually, that JR or Phil or myself, we may never have gotten feedback like that, right? Because a lot of times the attention of the leaders is drawn toward the people who are failing or about to fail, or uh ones who are not performing. So there's this kind of performance bias where if you're doing well enough, then your leadership may not even notice you. And the other side, when we are in leadership positions, we need to remember not to be threatened by the overperforming subordinates or teammates that we have. That's the other thing that happens. And that's where kind of self-awareness again comes back in. If I am threatened by every junior faculty, fellow, resident, medical student, paramedic, nurse that I work with, I am never going to be able to work with them, serve them as their leader, make the most of what they're bringing to the team. I can't do that if I'm always worried that somebody's going to show me up. There's so that's also a certain degree of self-awareness. I'm constantly in awe of these medics that I work with, the questions they ask, the types of things they do under pressure. Look around and go, man, I'm lucky I got into medicine when I did, because I don't think I'd be a competitive candidate today. So I'm grateful for that. But it also makes me try a little harder. I see where my limitations are. If I have a Phil or JR on my team, then I'm I'm either gonna have to hustle a little more or relate to the fact that I'm driving the left lane here. Maybe I should move over to the right and let these dudes pass because they are coming out strong on this.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

As we're talking about honesty and authenticity of a related story, but this back in during our COVID days, and I was in public health too, as well as EMS. And uh, we had a daily briefing with a lot of our leadership the mayor, city council members, city manager, assistant city managers, hospital system CEOs, very University of Texas, community college, a lot of of very high-ranking the stakeholder leaders in this. And every day we're updating on this is what we're doing, this is what we're seeing, these are the concerns we have, this is what we're trying to figure out, and what we're doing, these are because of course elected leadership is catching flack for everything that we do wrong and or every unmet need and so forth. Giving a good picture of things is very important. And one day I'd gotten some some data from our team and looked at how we'd done how you remember what it was exactly, and I talked about this in that meeting. And what became clear to me later, I think I want to say like the following day or two, was I was wrong. I had misinterpreted the data, and I had given this bad information to our leaders, which they which in fact, I think at least the mayor had repeated on TV. I've made this mistake, and and this was at a time like the public is always looking to try to prove you wrong in some way. They're lying. They want, I was gonna catch you in a lie, and this is as you're doing it. And in so the next meeting in front of that group, I had to tell the mayor I was wrong, and I gave you bad information, and this is how I interpret it, but this is why it was not correct. And and the picture that I had given him in the previous meeting was a lot sunnier than what the data was actually showing, just wasn't showing it to be that sunny. And I was like, oh man, in front of all these people, I gotta say, I I screwed up, and here's where you are. And I really did not catch any grief over that. I was okay, and I think having having that uh that leeway to screw up is helpful from a leader, uh, but also if you are honest and not trying to sweep something under the rug or you know, found to be disingenuous by them, then you're gonna get a lot more leeway for that. Yeah, and I think as leaders, as we display honesty about ourselves and candor about what we know, don't know, we get right or wrong, then the folks that work for us will feel that they have the safety to also to be wrong and therefore to take chances.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Now, I I I I I really like that story for a little bit different reason, but but as you said, JR, you're a doer, but you're also a thought leader. But you're a doer. And I think when you have the integrity to do the right thing, you know, that's what integrity is, doing the right thing, but also doing the right thing when no one's watching. But to do the right thing and say, I messed up or I made a mistake, if if the team is the right team and the leader is the right leader that says, okay, we made a mistake. Now we know where to go from here. Let's move forward. What's our next steps? Kind of thing, right? Whereas opposed to if you swept it underneath the rugs, we've seen this time and again, things just keep on getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And when it blows up, man, it blows up pretty big, and you get that egg on your face. So I I like that story for the fact that, you know, the the your group, your team didn't make you feel bad about it. You already, you know, you already made yourself feel bad, but they had the the the audacity to say, okay, let's move forward. What can we do? Right. And I think that that's what makes a team function when things go wrong.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Yeah. I I think that anecdote captures a lot of this self-awareness kind of topic that we're trying to address, right? There was uh authenticity that you demonstrated and the mayor did too. The mayor was able to read the room with some emotional intelligence and go, yeah, this isn't, and also look at your history, see how you align your have aligned yourself with organizational values. So he knew that this was not a malicious or deliberate attempt on your part to seed disinformation. Probably also appreciate your intellectual honesty and go, oh she made a mistake. And then the I had a boss who used to say, good news is not like fine wine, it does not get better with age. I want to know right away. So I'm sure your mayor appreciated that too because you did not sit on that as soon as you realized it. You know, we would all have a natural tendency to go, oh man, I don't want to talk about this anymore. But it is absolutely the authentic thing to do, to own it and put it out there. The there's a great role model for leadership that is very thankfully available to all of us is uh he's a retired senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff named Ramon Colon Lopez. So if you just look up CZ, he now works with the Robert Irvine Foundation to help first responders in the military. But CZ, I knew him back when he was a pararescuan. But it's in his nature not to just be any old kind of PJ. And the reason I'm connecting him to this story of admitting a mistake is when he was a chief master sergeant, he used to always tell us, guys, we cannot afford to have one mistake organization. We can't. Because if people are afraid to make a mistake, they'll never do anything that is worth achieving. We, as their leaders, need to give them a little bit of room to swing. That's the only way you're gonna get base hits and home runs. They gotta have room to swing. This was a great story that you told because it was an opportunity for you to not only swing when you hit a foul mall, you didn't wait for somebody else to tell you that. You were able to just own it, uh, which goes back to be real and then from the mayor's side, read the room and kind of roll with it.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another thing I want to mention on just the the value or the characteristic of integrity is I said it's doing the right thing when no one's watching. And we like to dramatize that the right thing is always gonna be like this really difficult thing, and man, your soul's gonna be on, you know, the chopping block and whatever. But I also want to let you know that integrity or doing the right thing when no one's watching is also the boring stuff, right? Showing up to work every day, you know, making sure I don't know, your reports are all in order or you know, your your to-do list is checked off. It's it's it's that everyday, consistent process of doing the boring stuff of, you know, which is integrity, which is doing the right thing. It's boring, it's not fun, but you'll get the payoff at the end. It's kind of like going to a gym every day or working out every day. You don't expect yourself to look like The Rock or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Mike Tyson when he fought when he fought Jay Paul. You know, you don't expect yourself to look like that. But if you go every day or you know, consistently every week, you're gonna see some changes and you're gonna see it. So that's something I also want to bring to light of that that that value or that characteristics of integrity when it comes to leadership.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Yeah, absolutely. He's got a couple minutes left here. Give me another character study. Uh fictional or real?

SPEAKER_01 42:41

I'll go last because I went first last time. So I'll go last. Okay. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

All right. A fictional leader. I don't know if you are a fan, but you will be after I describe Optimus Prime, the uh the leader of the Transformers. Uh I did not appreciate this back in the 80s when I first watched a cartoon. I just thought it was cool. But when I had a chance to re-watch it with my kids, then I suddenly realized that this guy was somebody who was able to engage his team at their level and yet help to elevate them to the higher order, you know, what this is what we believe in, and this is what we stand for kind of thing. He was able to represent that in his actions as well as in his words, which kind of goes along with our authentic discussion today. He demonstrated a unity in his thought, word, and action. He didn't set his followers up for a fall, he didn't blame shift. Not only that, he was powerful and exciting, right? For a fictional leader, I thought he was the whole package. Uh I'll come back to nonfiction in a second if we're gonna come back to that.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Let's roll. Yes. Yeah, fiction. I'm gonna pull a movie that I just saw recently called Fly Me to the Moon, which is a fun romantic comedy. Got Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum and it and working on the uh Apollo 11 moon landing. And there's it's a fun romantic comedy, but there's there's some tension as they're building up, launching the rocket, and and uh Channing Tatum is the flight director. And as they're getting ready to launch, there's certain things they know and certain things they don't know about what's going to happen. He's got everybody there at at NASA and at Cape Canaveral. He says the whole room they're in Final Countdown. He says, I support every decision you make from here on out. And I think as a leader, that is such an important thing to make sure that your folks that you work with and work for you understand about you. And especially when it's a crisis situation, especially when you got lives on the line or the stakes are the highest. That's exactly when you need to trust your people the most and and support them. Even if the with your perspective, even with the perspective of hindsight, you say, Oh, maybe I would have done that a different way. Saying, I know I got the right people on the bus, and I know you're gonna make the best decision you can based on what we have.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

All right. I I'm gonna swing to the realistic character because I couldn't think of any fantasy character. I remember three years ago, I was watching a post-game interview. Dan Campbell, the head coach of the Detroit Lions, he was standing on the podium. It was a devastating loss to a division rival, the Minnesota Vikings. They were in the lead and they lost it at like the last second, like heartbreaking, right? And you have to remember, in context, the Detroit Lions three years ago are where my Chicago Bears are now. It's all right, it's all right. It hurts, but it's all right. But the Lions, yeah, uh three years ago, they were pretty darn bad, and they've been bad for it seems like forever. And Dan Campbell's on the podium and he's talking, and he is he just breaks down crying and saying, you know, these guys are working their butts off day in, day out, and they get these kind of results, you know. I feel for them, I feel so bad. And he's just he's bawling his eyes out, you know. That I think that's like, and I remember thinking to myself, watching him just be purely vulnerable, crying for his players and facing the media for his players. And I was like, wow, I'd follow that guy. I remember thinking like, man, this guy's a great leader. I was like, and I remember thinking to myself, like, this team's gonna go far. This team's gonna be good in the future, I can tell you that, right? And I Mike Crystal Ball was right. I'm not right all the time, but you know, the Lions are now one of the more fair teams in the NFL. And Dan Campbell is still the coach three years later, right? And I and I just remember watching that interview and just seeing his authenticity where his actions met his values, he was honest, he was vulnerable. I'm like, man, this is a guy that if he were my head coach, I'd I'd I'd walk to the ends of the earth with him because man, this guy really cares for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

That's awesome. And it reminds me of another real-world guy that was much like that. His name is David Brooks, and there's probably not much chance that anybody would have heard of him. He was a lieutenant colonel on my first deployment to Southwest Asia. I was a very junior flight surgeon on this team, and David Brooks was our commander or deployed commander. So we land there in the middle of nowhere. We're living in tents, and the person I was replacing had not left yet. So I didn't have a place to stay for the night. And Colonel Brooks did three things within the matter of the next 30 minutes that have stayed with me for decades afterwards. It was really impressive. One, he didn't lose his cool. He just said, Oh, okay, no problem, Doc. Just stay with me until we sort all this out. I got a couple places to go. Just come with me and keep your bags in the Humbi with mine. So they were like, Sir, we're gonna take you to the commander's quarters now. Or just he goes, hold on, I don't need to see the commander's quarters. They're not going anywhere. What I need to see is where did all my aircrew go? Like, where are they sleeping? Then he looks over at me and he goes, Doc, our air crew are the reason we can execute the mission, not the plane. The plane we'll get to the people. So let's go see how they're sleeping. So we go and inspect their sleeping area, and he goes, Yeah, this will do. And then he turns around. The guy's You ready to go to your uh commander's quarters? He goes, Nope. Need to find out how we're gonna feed and water my people tonight. They're hungry. We've been on a plane for eight hours. What's the plan? Sir, we already have your plan figured out. And he goes, I don't think you're hearing me. I need to know how my people are gonna get fed and watered tonight. And then when he was done with that, he turned around and he goes, and what about this guy? And he made sure I was attended to and had a place to throw my bag that night. And then he was willing to go. And he was older than us, he must have been tired like the rest of us were. But that indelible, I've got your back, I'm providing the top cover. Now, when he told you to move your ass and had that stony look in his face, you were gonna do it, but you were doing it out of love and admiration and not just out of fear, because this was a leader we were willing to follow.