STAT Leadership Episode 8: Influence over Authority

The Art of Influence: Mastering Leadership Without a Title

In this captivating episode of STAT Leadership featuring Phil Moy, JR Pickett, and Chetan Kharod, the focus is on mastering the art of influence within leadership roles, especially without possessing formal authority. The hosts discuss key strategies such as influencing through character, building relationships, and demonstrating competence and warmth. They emphasize the importance of 360-degree leadership, where influence can come from any position within an organization, and share personal anecdotes illustrating the impact of leading with integrity and humility. The episode also covers handling difficult leaders and providing constructive feedback, with recommendations for further reading, including 'The Leader Who Had No Title' by Robin Sharma and 'The Gift of Fear' by Gavin de Becker.

00:00 Introduction to STAT Leadership
00:21 Meet the Hosts
00:38 The Art of Influence
01:14 Understanding Informal Influence
04:39 360 Degree Leadership
07:44 Leading as a Subordinate
11:29 Feedback and Charisma
16:45 Navigating Leadership Dynamics
29:12 Addressing Complaints and Leadership Challenges
31:15 Handling a Serious Threat with Compassion
36:52 The Importance of Transparency and Fairness
41:59 Balancing Mission Priorities and Team Morale
46:08 Building Influence Without Authority
49:15 Recommended Reads for Leaders

Referenced in this episode:
Cues, by Vanessa Van Edwards  https://a.co/d/7b6gBlV

The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life, by Robin Sharma  https://a.co/d/aAwRges

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny by Robin Sharma https://a.co/d/5M7H1JE

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence, by Gavin de Becker  https://a.co/d/2NGZwcf

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, by Malcolm Gladwell   https://a.co/d/4EtNETq

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When the call comes in, leadership is everything.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

We analyze the data in real time, making the tough decisions under pressure. Welcome to Stat Leadership. Hello, P P E C. God man, I have too many podcasts here. Fair. Yes, you do. Hello, leaders. Hello, podcast listeners. Welcome to another episode. Yes, episode eight, The Art of Influence. I'm Phil Moy from St. Louis, Missouri. I'm J.R. Pickett from Salt Lake City, Utah.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hello, I'm Chet and Caroud from New Braun Falls, Texas.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

All right. Now let's bring it in. So, Chet, tell us about the art of influence.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yeah, so this is a really interesting part of leadership. You can't always necessarily end up in a job with a title or a position, but you can always be a leader. And we're going to talk about how we can use influence and relationships and still improve the situation for everybody and lead well, even if you haven't gotten to the corner office or the big title yet. So it's going to be a fun podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Yeah, indeed. Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead, Chair.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

I love this topic because we're going to talk about influence and informal influence, particularly. And you've heard me say this before on here, there is no such thing as authority. It is only influence. No matter what office you inhabit, and anybody who's dealt with the E4 mafia in the Army understands this that it's not just your authority, you have to have the influence to convince folks whom you are leading to lead you. And I think it's easy to forget sometimes once we do inhabit the corner office. And if we embrace that idea, though, then I think that it makes our jobs as leaders a whole lot easier.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Yeah, and I'll piggyback off that. I think you said it is there is no authority, there's only influence. And I think that goes back to one of our earlier episodes where it's really the foundation of that kind of stems from character, right? And that's if you're known as a trustworthy person, an authentic person who looks off for everybody and yourself, as well as getting things done, man, your influence is skyrockets from there.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah, it's almost like you have to dial this stuff in before you ever get the title, before you get the position. I feel like what we see often is people end up in the title with the title in the position, and yet they haven't prepared themselves in all these ways. So they may have a leadership position, but they're really not in a position to lead at all because they don't they lack this. All they have is the office.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah, I think what having the office does, or having the title does, is it does give people, it does give you the benefit of the doubt. If you are in that leadership position and you especially if you're not well known when you arrive in that, people will give you a little bit of credit to begin with. They'll give you a little bit of leeway to do things as you prove yourself as a leader, which as someone who wields a great deal of informal influence and authority, that is truly built from the ground up from the beginning. At least as a leader, you come in, you got a title, okay. Uh people are gonna extend a certain amount of credit for being in that position. All right, I'm gonna listen to what they gotta say right off the bat, and then kind of let then your leadership style is that takes over and that defines how they think of you.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yeah, and related to that is when you're on the other side of that, right? So you have a new leader that shows up, you're giving them that initial benefit of the doubt or that latitude, you're assuming they were put in that position for a reason. One of the things that'll be interesting to talk about today is this idea that what happens when they don't live up to that? What are your opportunities and really obligations as a follower in that organization? What else can you do to help things roll along if that leader that got appointed isn't up to the task?

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Yeah, and to be very transparent, sometimes when you have that corner office, you'd rather be the hidden leader sometimes because when you have that corner office, sometimes it's the days are just like one one complaint one complaint after the other, because you are the person that people bring their issues to, and you're just like, oh my God. But to move on here, I mean there's a there's this concept called 360-degree leadership. Could one of you explain that or define that for us so we know what that is?

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, I think historically, some people have viewed leadership as a one-way street, but I think there's a lot more to that, and probably a lot more written about this now, probably in the last decade or more now, that leadership is not a one-way flow of command and instructions. There's very much this opportunity to work within this sphere with all our relationships at play, right? So that means that it's not just based on a strict hierarchy top to bottom, but anybody along the chain has an opportunity to influence and lead upwards, side to side with their peers and teammates, taking care of the people that are working for them or working in the organization on the chart beneath them, that kind of thing. And I think part of that is understanding that there is no really above or below in the sense of quality or how much a person means, but I think there is above or below in terms of how much accountability and responsibility a person can take. Regardless of all that, 360 simply means that there's really no limit there. You can be anywhere in the organization and exert influence. At least that's my thought. What do you think, J.R.?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, I appreciate organizations now that as part of your evaluations do these 360-degree evaluations, seeing not only how your leaders, those those appointed or whoever isn't above you think of you, but how your peers think of you, how the people you lead, people who are tangential to you think of you. And I appreciate that because if somebody is making a great impression on the leaders and their peers and their ordinance don't think that well of them, then you're quite obviously putting on a show as far as their capability and leadership and so forth. And it takes a lot of eyes to really build out this three-dimensional picture of you as a leader. And I think if we pay attention to that peer leadership and also leading up, then that ends up giving you more leeway, more street cred, and more ability to accomplish things that you want to accomplish as a leader.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think to touch on JR's comment about 360 kind of feedback here, uh, one of the things I always do when I'm giving feedback or when I get when I speak to any of my clinicians as a medical director is I always start off with give me any, be very transparent, give me feedback about how I'm doing. Am I messing up? What do I need to work on? You don't always have to be sycophantic and tell me, oh, I'm the best person in the world. I know I'm human and I know there are holes that I and there are errors that I can't see, so I need them pointed out to me so I can work on that. But it's interesting because I think it's hard for a lot of younger clinicians who want to become eventual leaders or younger people, is how do I lead as a subordinate? For example, I'm a brand new resident, I'm an intern. How am I gonna be a leader from down here when there's a whole layer of hierarchy above there? There's my second year, there's a third year, there's a chief resident, there's my attending, there's the medical director of the ER, yada yada. How am I gonna lead when I'm at the bottom?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, there's a tendency to think of that literally. I'm not the boss of these people, right? But when we think of leadership that way, we're selling ourselves short and actually limiting what we can do. To me, at least the way I look at this is your influence and leadership from any position in the organization starts with your character. If you are visibly and demonstrably who you say you are, and you're reliable, you're accountable, you engage people, all these things can start building this influence from the first time you show up. So it starts even with nonverbal communication. If you're dressed appropriate to the occasion and carry yourself with if you're bleary-eyed and look hungover when you're supposed to be presenting something, that's automatically gonna take away from you. Yeah. We're off, let me make sure. But that's one of those where sometimes it's misinterpreted. We don't have to be dressed up for it. You just have to be dressed and presenting appropriately for the occasion. So those nonverbals and then saying what you do and doing what you say, all this stuff adds up so that it gets to a point where even that intern or medical student on your team, that junior medic, if they are squared away and hustling, then the people above them feel obligated to live up to, man, I gotta be good enough to set an example here or to be worthy of this person trusting me. Right. I don't think everybody feels that who's in the higher position, but that is a great way to lead and influence initially just by example before we even do anything or say anything. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

As that uh new person in the hierarchy, and as an intern or resident, you're actually falling into sort of a middle rank in this. Step number one is step up and uh step into the fray and show that you that you can do your job well, but also that you're pitching in when you've got free hands, you're picking up a broom, you're helping to change linens on a on a bed, on a patient that you soil themselves. You you're just you're proving that you're a good teammate. And I because I think that the best leaders really are people who start out as good teammates. And so I think that another key thing here, you talk about being squared away, uh, is if you want to be in the game, show up dressed to play. You've you've paid attention to little things, whether that's your uniform, your appearance, your vehicle, the familiarity with the the environment. You've done your research on the place that you're working now. So you have some situational awareness that shows that you put in some work to get there, and that'll buy you some of that credibility. And again, from the folks that are that you are leading, you are showing that you you're putting in the work, that you're putting in that effort to understand the setting that you're stepping into. And that includes understanding the people that you're leading, includes your peers, understanding some of those relationships that exist already.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Yeah, yeah, and I can't stress this enough as somebody who has the title of medical director. Remember, your leaders are just as human as you are, and they have the same insecurities and have the same emotional angst that you have, but they're just more experienced in either hiding it or not showing it. But for our you're if you're a subordinate or lower on the totem pole, you guys, you have no idea the influence you have on leadership priorities if you do everything that JR and Chet had just said authentic, integrity, good character, a good teammate. You have accountability, you're mature in how you approach your job or what you do, you're a good teammate. I have, as a personal story, I have uh I'm a medical director for an emergency department, and I have a lot of clinicians, physicians who I'm the leader of. But honestly, I get my priorities as a leader, and I get what I'm gonna focus on by talking to my clinicians who work under me. I don't think they work under me, I think they work alongside them. But the person I get priorities from are those subordinates or those people who I know work hard, have integrity, are good team players who say, Hey, here's an issue we're having in our emergency department. Hey man, I really think we need to work on this. I'm sorry, but I'm sorry to tell you this, but I'm like, no, that's legit. And that will be my priority as a leader. I get my priorities from you guys. And if you guys show me that you're authentic and you're a teammate, man, that influences what I do, and you can influence the organization or your department or your division by doing everything that JR and Chet had just said.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned as we were discussing the this episode and what we're gonna talk about leading up. And what you're talking about there is the folks in that chain of command who are willing to be candid with you as a leader. So you as a leader have to convey the that approachability. And being approachable means being present. And but as a as someone, when you are talking to your leader, you have to be able to be candid with them about things, but you know, have to be willing to have uncomfortable conversations.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah, and there's a skill to this, right? And these are learnable skills. The mistake people make is assuming right out off the bat that, oh, I'm no good at that. And with my sons, I used to always tell them, I'm like, you're not bad at it, buddy, that you're looking for another B-word. You're a beginner. So it's okay to be a beginner. You don't exactly know, but you so if you're gonna give end-ed feedback to your boss's boss, because they asked you one day in an elevator, you should, but you do want to be as professional and coherent in how you say it. If you just spout off and vent, you're probably gonna have a terrible signal-to-noise ratio, as we say in the military, and your message is gonna get lost just because you lost your stuff. So there is a way to do this, and that's all learnable. These are all skills that we can acquire as we go. On that note, charisma is one of these things people talk about and they think it just means generally like good looking or something like that. But charisma, there's a really interesting discussion about what that is in a book called Cues, that we can talk about a little more sometime. In this, they say charisma is a combination of competence and warmth, right? So if you're super smart and great at your subject matter, but you have the personality of a piece of wood, people are not, you're not gonna have any charisma because they're like, Yeah, smart jerk. Or if you're super nice, but you're an idiot, then people are gonna be like, he's so nice, but don't actually ask him to do anything. So you gotta develop this combo of being really good at your stuff, but also being approachable, like J.R. was saying, being pleasant. It does not mean that you roll over on everything, but it means that you definitely engage, right? And if you can do these two things at any level in an organization, it's really gonna be a superpower.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Coming at it with humility, and we've talked before about humility as a leader and how important that is to the folks that you are leading, that you do approach things with humility, exactly like talking about I don't know the answer, but I'm gonna find this out. Wanting that feedback from folks that would be considered your subordinates. Uh it also humility is also important when addressing your leader, because as you say, if you're just a little clot of ailments that bothers the boss with the whatever like this week's gripe is, then they're going to listen to you, but probably only for so long. And uh then the that the messenger will discount the message in that case. So having humility and also and what I did want to get into here was we're talking about leading up, is your approach to the boss. There is a rank gradient there, and there are some that really they live by that, they really emphasize that, they have a certain expectation of you. And as you as you approach the boss, just being candid all the time with you suck, sir, is not going to get you very far. The message is not gonna be well received. And they and that's not to say that you should ever be obsequious, because I think that's a that's a uh not likable trait in someone who wishes to be a leader and as you're addressing them. But the image that you want to project here, ask yourself this are you an eager partner in success? Are you a champion of your boss's vision, or are you an upstart who threatens authority? Because that boss who maybe is insecure about the authority that they have or the position that they're in, and this may be it may come from a an honorable place of some imposter syndrome or something like that. But if they're insecure in that and they have a young up-and-coming leader that, well, people really like this person, and oh wow, she's really great, and oh, it's so nice, and they become the person that people ask questions to, that leader may think that they're that they're being sidestepped, and that people are starting to recognize their subordinate as that as that battlefield leader, is that that one that they is the go-to one, and you as that ultimate leader may feel diminished by that. So as the as that as that subordinate leader, as that lower level leader, you have to convey that I'm here to make your vision successful. And that in that I need to understand it, and then I also need to give feedback to it, because I do bring something to the table. But I have to be I have to be showing that I'm not simply waiting for you to die and to assume that position. That I actually here, I can be a champion for this, and we are going to be stronger together than we are separately, and and with those skills, that influence that I develop, that's gonna reflect on you and that in a good way and make it more likely that what you're saying is going to be well accepted.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Yeah, it's a it's a complex kind of dance, right? You have to, on the one hand, your boss, exactly like you said, might be just a little jealous and nervous about you and how you're skyrocketing, or how you get stuff done, or how popular you seem to be, not realizing that it's maybe positional too. People might not find you as threatening as the other person because you're not in that position. Either way, sometimes you can help them execute their vision simply by we had a in a deployed location, we were an operational medicine cell, I was a captain, so pretty junior. I think it was my second deployment, but I was still like junior in terms of officers, but still outranked like 85% of the military. So I had my kind of leadership roles defined for me that way. But we got assigned this lieutenant colonel who was pretty senior. He was a psychiatrist and really out of his element in the deployed setting. But he was a flight surgeon and got put in charge of all of us, right? He was way out of his experience. And it was my second deployment. I'd seen a lot of his stuff. And what we found was he was really impervious to all feedback. He didn't want to hear it. So instead, what we started doing was we started doing all the things that needed doing and just reporting to him repeatedly. Hey, sir, took care of that. Hey, I just want you to know this is what was going on over there, and we took care of that. So now instead of him smashing around looking for and making people do things, he was getting a constant stream of things taken care of or things that need a little help, or just need your signature here, that kind of thing. So there that was one of my earliest experiences in leading up where he meant he was you know out of his element. And the medics and I had the opportunity to pick up a lot of the slack, toss him some softballs so he was able to get a few hits, but also to execute the mission so that we weren't endangering the entire mission over the I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm here kind of leader. So sometimes it's it's if you know what needs to be done, just do it. And then, especially in his case, he was impervious to feedback. And I'll contrast this with a combat arms officer I worked for my second day on the job. He's like, here's what we're gonna do. And he laid out his whole plan. And I remember thinking, this is not really a very good plan. It's he it's gonna get him the one thing he wants, but it's gonna get him like 10 things he doesn't want to deal with. And I don't think he sees that. So at the end, he looked at me and goes, What do you think? I was like, I think that part of the idea is fine. If you don't mind my saying, there may be some other things that we're gonna get with this, the unintended consequences or the downstream effects. And you may have thought of them already, but here's what they are. And he received it incredibly well. It was like a leadership uh training manual, the way he absorbed that I was telling him the idea really wasn't that good. Because he sat there, he listened to it, and he goes, huh, guess we haven't thought all of that stuff through. If you can convince my senior enlisted leader here and this other person that what you're saying is true, then I'm willing to do whatever makes the mission go. So I was totally surprised by that. I was expecting him to say, get the heck out of my office, you're an idiot. I'm the boss here. But he didn't do that at all. And part of that was because I didn't throw a tantrum there either or roll my eyes. I just spoke the truth as I saw it.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Yeah. Yeah. What I love about your first story is you had a leader who was impervious to any feedback. But what I love is your team thought as, hey, let's do this for the team and not just for ourselves. Let's do this for each other. And so that unity is just amazing and that teamwork. If I could get my team to work like that, that'd be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

But uh it helped Phil that we were in a very sandy place and the only US folks within hundreds of miles. Fair enough. Unfriendly folks around. So we had this like it or not unity that helped us.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Yeah, okay. That's a good that's a good motivator. And I like that go ahead, Dare.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

That's a that brings up probably an idea for another episode is how do you limit the influence of a poor leader? Yeah, that's a great idea. How do you limit the damage that a poor leader does?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Put yourself, put you and the team in a very tough situation and have the mentality that we're all gonna get through it together. What I loved about your second story there, JR, and uh chat, is that the leader was humble. He was like, listen, I'm coming, what do you think? And everything. And that again, that we've mentioned this in prior episodes. It's like the key to leadership, man. You have to be humble, and you're not your idea, while it may seem gold to you, may have a lot of tarnishes once you speak it out loud. And so it's always good to get that feedback. And to piggyback on what you, JR, said how you approach your leader as a personal example. I have I can think of two clinicians that that work in my department, essentially, and one clinician, this clinician's pastime, I swear to God, could be just complaining. Like every single conversation, there's nothing is right, there's always something to complain about. So whenever there's a one-on-one meeting, whenever there's something for feedback for me, I I hear it, the brain just turns off. At this point, I'm like, oh man, it's just another complaining thing. And I have another clinician who has very good insight into their reputation and the fact that they're very stoic. I swear to God, it took me a year before I could get them to smile, but I got them to smile and I was like, oh, it's a big notch in my belt. But this clinician does the silent work and goes to committees for the department, has represents us well, patients love him, and he doesn't say much, but when he does speak up, man, my my ears perk up as a leader. I'm like, oh wow, this is probably something that I really should pay attention to. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

I think personality is gonna affect this dynamic no matter what. The kind of person you are, the kind of person your boss is. There's gonna be some dynamics there. And again, it's if the uh leader is a bit more insecure, if the subordinate is more is more popular or more likable, more outgoing, then the boss is always gonna feel threatened to some extent. And so you have to work hard to build trust with that boss. Uh, a lot of that is demonstrating that you are carrying a flag for them, that you're that you've taken tangible steps, not only to do what you're told to do, but how you how you convey the boss's intent with various things that you want to have accomplished. The uh when bringing feedback to folks, you when you disagree with the boss, generally a good idea to disagree in private when talking about it. But at the same time, the boss has to give you an opportunity to do it. Chet, when you're talking about the your leader who is not receptive, not open to any kind of feedback, and puts just puts stuff out there, he's not giving you a chance to give any feedback to it. So it's not really giving any uh giving any leeway there to make things better. And it could be that he doesn't respect folks or he feels that this is how it's supposed to be. I am supposed to say this, and then every people, everybody else does it, whatever that is. And you have to work to build that trust, have a lot of humility in front of them. But the other thing is once the decision is made, like decisions made, you as long as it's legal, moral, and ethical, you've got to support it and you've got to push uh push forward with it. And it may be that you anticipate failure with this particular idea. It could also be that there are other aspects that the boss sees, there are other influencing factors that the boss sees that you do not see from where you are standing uh at that moment. And they're considering that. A good boss conveys those things. A good boss conveys the fact that here is the other piece of this that I'm concerned about that why why I feel we should do this thing this way. Once once it's made, you support it the best you can and carry the banner for it and help to explain it to other people, especially if you were somebody who's developed a lot of informal authority amongst your peers and others within the organization. And it you may not agree with that decision. That's a tough position to be in. And my take on that is to convey what you believe the boss's intent is, especially if something's not working out well, if it's not if if the unintended consequences or unintended effects are predominating, and it's and folks are like, why are we doing this? Um my answer to that is not, well, the boss made the decision, because then you're casting the boss as the enemy. You're cat you're making you're casting in your lot with the rest of the employees, the rest of the organization, and then further isolating the boss. And that's not gonna be beneficial either for the boss or for the organization to have that kind of a dynamic there. So if that's the case, then convey what you think the boss's intent is. I believe that the intent is this, and these this is why we're doing it this way as opposed to that way. And hopefully, again, if the boss is can convey those other considerations to you, those hard left and right limits, and some of them may be legal constraints that you like simply cannot get around. But whatever that is, and folks can okay, I understand that. And then that's how you are using that informal authority and continuing to build that informal authority. Because if the leadership team, if the boss has come up with an idea that is not well received and it or is not working out really well, then you're giving depth to it there. It's softening the fact that people are just bitching like honesty, this ain't working. Okay, well, here's here's why we're here's what we're trying to accomplish with this initiative.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Yeah, and that that need to grouse or to complain is gonna exist. It just can't get in the way of getting it done. Right. When I first, and I think like that first story I was talking about, I think looking back with the experience I now have, I think his issue was that he was extremely accomplished medically, but he was not very accomplished leading people, and certainly not in a deployed environment. So I think a lot of the behaviors that he was exhibiting are actually novice leadership behaviors, despite his relatively higher rank. He just being was being dictatorial because he thought, I am the boss of you. What I say is the law, and he just didn't know any better. I think from our side, like my medics were complaining about him a lot. And there was one point where I initially wanted him to just shut up. I'm like, you know what? You're professionals, just shut it. But then I realized if they weren't gonna complain to around me anymore, now I was gonna lose the pulse of what was going on my team. So I would let it run, but I'd always tell them I'm like, hey, so we've defined all the things that are wrong with this guy and all the things that could go wrong. So I guess the challenge to us, it sounds like we know better. What are we gonna do about that? How are we gonna fix that? If we were in charge, what would we do? And initially they were like, oh man, doc, uh, we're just complaining here. Why don't you just let it be? And I'm like, I get that. And I also want to complain, but I also think you guys know what you're talking about here. So let's have some solutions. We redirected, we worked it mostly because I didn't want to lose the opportunity to hear their complaints. I didn't know if they would be totally disengaged at that point. I didn't know that as a leadership thing. I think I just knew it intuitively then and got lucky. But these are something leaders can do. You got to have opportunities where your people can sound off. We had another great one where I showed up at my office at 6:30 as a commander one morning, and there were two Air Force OSI, Office of Special Investigations agents. So these guys are gunned up standing outside my office, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

That's a good sign.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

I walk up with my coffee cup, I'm about to unlock my office and go in, and these two dudes with guns are sitting standing there, and I'm like, Good morning. Are you Lieutenant Colonel Carrode? I'm like, yes. They're like, there's been a threat on your life. We need to talk to you. And I was in a silly mood because I'd already had one cup of coffee. So I was like, What did my wife call? And they both looked at me and they're like, This is serious.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

You're under arrest, sir.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

So it turned out one of my sergeants had completely ranted on Facebook about mandatory suicide awareness training.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

And his comment ended with, maybe if some of these leaders would off themselves, we'd have a lot less problems. Right. So these guys had seen this and were like, oh, this is a threat. And they came over and I kind of, I was like, what? No, here, show me that. So they had the printouts of the thing, and we looked at it, and I'm like, at no point does he say Karod needs to die. So I'm not really feeling personally threatened. They're like, this is a punishable offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and blah, blah, blah. And I go, I get that. But as the commander, I get to enforce that law, the military law, on my people, not you. So give me a second. Let me sort out what's going on. So I talked to my first sergeant. We got this guy down there. And one of the things I used to do when I had to do discipline was I'd clear my desk of everything else except for the one piece of paper related to their case. So there was nothing on my desk. There's not even a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

It's also not a good sign. You walk in your boss's office and there's just one piece of paper sitting there. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Focus on that. Yeah, there that was all my nonverbal messaging and cueing, right? When you're ordered to the boss's office formally, you have to go in there, stand at attention and salute. So he did, saluted him back. And I looked at him and I go, is everything okay? And he's like, Yes, sir. And I was like, hey, so I was wondering, like, what do you think of the suicide awareness training that we have to do? And he looks down at the paper for the first time and his face just goes deathly white, and just the tears start. He's that I did not mean you. I did not mean you when I posted that. I should not have posted that, but he totally lost it. So then I was like, all right, have a seat over there. And I came around, the first sergeant and I sat next to him, and we all sat in a triangle. So his point was actually brilliant, right? He we knew that there's mandatory suicide awareness training because everybody's concerned about mil active duty military killing themselves. It worries the bosses. There are also bosses who feel like, check the box, we have to do training. So if you know that the boss's boss is going to make you do training, if you're smart, you jump ahead of it and do your training a week early. So you can say, I already did it. So when that happens three levels down, the airmen end up having to go to multiple trainings instead of everybody saying, Yeah, you get credit for that. So this guy was just complaining, man, that why do we have to do this four times? We did it once with Colonel Caroud. Why do we have to do it with everybody else? So when we got down to it, it was that. But then I just asked him, I go, Look, man, you're a staff sergeant. That means you have authority and your airmen look up to you. Is this how you want them to see you? And he goes, I'm really nervous. Are you gonna fire me? I was like, I'm not gonna fire you, man. But you should know that there were some OSI agents here to take you into custody this morning for threatening an officer. There's people taking this seriously, but I was like, I'll tell you what, I'm taking it seriously too. But here's the deal: I don't think you were threatening anybody. I think you were venting. And actually, I agree with you. This is IBS the way we're doing this training. But maybe we can just do it better and not rant on social media. That's not the way for a professional to do it. Any thoughts on how we can fix it? So I turned it around and then I did put some pressure on him. I said, look, you're coming up to re-enlist in 90 days. I don't feel like signing your paperwork if this is the best you can do, ranting and raving all the time. So, can you lead people in our squadron? Can you help me solve some of these problems? Because you're clearly concerned about this. It turned out to be, you know, a turning point for him and a turning point for me. He went on to get promoted multiple times in his career and ended up retiring later. We've kept in touch, and he came back and he said, I honestly thought you were going to kick me out of the Air Force that day. I was like, who would that have served? But I was also trying to teach him that if he wanted to influence the leadership, he had other avenues other than ranting, and that served him and ultimately served me as well. There's all kinds of different opportunities there when you get experienced leaders versus novice ones, and when something's genuinely wrong and the people that are ranting are correct, maybe their style is off and you can coach them into. And I I had a secondary motive there too, which is if I could get good sergeants leading, then that was one less thing I needed to do. The people closest to the mission were now leading, and that was the uh that was my intent. Not to mention I really didn't want to have to outprocess this guy simply because he had an opinion.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Yeah, that that's such a strong anecdote because and we've been talking about a lot of influence, how to influence upwards. But this I think one of the themes of your anecdote is I think one of the themes of your that scared the shit out of me.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Sorry, this is what she does. Like when she wants something, it's it's food, it's water, or out, and then she sits there and yips at a very high volume when I'm left to guess at what she wants. Sometimes it's coconut is getting petted and I am not.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

So that influence there with this sergeant just opened the world, and that influence, we have no idea where it gained, but it probably went down generations, I would say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Yeah, so we hope so, right? And in the moment, I that was not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was one, what's correct and incorrect here. Two, I know the OSI agents are thinking a certain thing, but I want to make my own decision about what happened. Three, if you really did do this, I want to hear from him what was on his mind. It has to be done fairly. And then I used to, I had a mentor who used to always say, Hey, Chet, justice must not only be done, but it must be seen to be done. So I was a big believer in transparency. So if I was gonna hammer somebody, I was gonna do it in as professional and unimpeachable way as I could so that we were actually hammering what they did and not hammering the person. But I wanted to be clear so that everybody should know there should be no need to gossip about justice that was done. Everybody could see it. And part of that is a warning shot to leaders too. Everything we do has to pass the sunshine test. Would we do this on the front page of the newspaper? Would we do this if it was gonna go viral on the internet? Would we do this by the bright light of day? If you're not willing to do it that way, then you got to ask yourself, what's holding me back? Am I doing something unquestionable, sketchy, or just wrong? So that sunshine test also helps. And then once you do that once or twice, everybody on your team knows that you're gonna give them a fair shot. And that pervades too, because people even above me notice that. So my boss and his boss were like, yeah, so the OSI, they talked to us about your little death threat that you got. I'm like, it was not a death threat. It was a stressed-out guy complaining.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

No, use that. Build your street cred. Like, yes, I'm getting death threats for the judge me by the enemies I have made.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

I'm that's right. One other quick go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

I'll say another story. You handle that with such compassion and that with uh because yeah, it would be pretty easy to drop a hammer on somebody who went to a very public forum to complain and uh loudly and you have got it to root cause. And what you conveyed with that is that I want to hear what you have to say, your opinion matters. Because I think that a rant is the language of the powerless, and people rant because they have no confidence that anybody is going to do anything about it, they don't have confidence in the leadership to change things, or they can't, they don't know how to approach that in a productive way, or they don't feel that they have a forum for it. That's a great point. And um, by addressing that one-on-one, you're showing, hey, you there you do have a forum for this, and I'm interested and I want to hear it. We've all got the uh folks who are like professional complainers in our departments, right? They just complain about everything. A lot of times on it's on Facebook, and sometimes I realize, okay, they're just venting stress. That's that's about it. Some of them I just have to unfollow. It's just I do not want to hear like your copy was just like the worst this morning. Um but if they complain about something at work and they're they're if they're just bitching about it in the employee lounge or on Facebook, which to them is an extension of the employee lounge, then they're doing that because they don't feel they have any other phone forum in which to address this issue.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

I I I'd love to say that I had some grander vision. I did have some leadership sense by then. I was I was far enough along in my experience and career, but really my ultimate goal when I engage with people is I want to treat you the way I would like to be treated. And that's such a great and easy starting point. I think all of us at any level of experience can do this. I'm gonna treat you the way I like to be treated. And then hopefully, that sets the stage for a more meaningful, whatever it is, interaction, dialogue, action, communication, whatever. And then sometimes the leaders have to do the hard thing too, say no. So we had a down day for our entire clinic. They'd been working really hard, and the and our boss, the clinic commander, had decided everybody's gonna get a day off. We're gonna take the day off and go do some mandatory fun. So it was cool though. The mandatory fun was gonna be at Juana's uh bar and grill on the Santa Rosa Sound, and we were gonna have kayaks out there, there's volleyball. Uh, it was just a day to bring your family, hang out, have fun, whatever. In the middle of the planning for this, so that was gonna be on Friday evening or Friday all day with kind of a barbecue in the evening. Wednesday, this mission kicks off uh in the middle or Tuesday night in the middle of the night, and we're clearing commandos to go somewhere in the world. And as it turns out, now it's been declassified, they were going to rescue hostages somewhere in the world. Naturally, they all needed medical clearance, immunizations, all the unsexy stuff that you have to do. They weren't taken off till Saturday or late Friday night. So we were gonna work through our downtime, right? So my boss, who was the clinic commander, was struggling. I don't really want to turn off their down day chat. That's gonna be a problem. I was like, I think you need to let them know that we need to do this. And he was like, no, then they're gonna think I'm an a-hole. They already don't like me, and they're gonna, they're gonna like me even less. I was like, well, it all depends on how you package the story. Either way, we're gonna we're gonna miss the down day and they're gonna work. So if you frame it, they're gonna think you're the biggest best boss. And he's like, No, I'm actually not gonna do it. I'm gonna send a joint email from all of us and say it's from your command team. I was like, don't do that. Don't do that. You're the commander. And he goes, If you feel so strongly about it, you do it. And he literally just left it. So I was standing in his office and I picked up the phone and I went with the code for the intercom. So I was broadcasting across the entire clinic. And I just said, Good morning, Commando Medics. This is Lieutenant Colonel Carod. I've got a message for you on behalf of our commander. I know we're all looking forward to this Friday's festivities as real world missions sometimes take priority over our plans. We're going to have to buckle in and take care of business so that our teammates can get over where they need to and take care of their business. So we're going to miss our Friday down day. The boss is going to make it up to us later, but I can't be more proud of the fact that you're leaning in and getting the job done without a single complaint. I think the worldview, and I'm inspired by you, corroded out. So I didn't know, but people actually clapped in the different sections. Like in the dental clinic, people heard that and they were like, Yeah, we're doing the mission. So he got a bunch of feedback later. They're like, We're so glad you canceled that. We would have felt like dirtbags if we were out playing volleyball when there was a mission going down. So he comes up to me and he goes, How did you know? And part of it was his thing was I think he was on the spectrum somewhere and he just didn't really read people that well. He was doing his own thing. But I remember thinking that leaders have to do the hard thing sometimes too and say no and take away something. But it's in your delivery. And I think it goes back to some of the other stuff we talked about. If you're compassionate with people, if you treat them like real people and look them in the eye, if you're transparent, these things make the other side of leadership a little easier to deal with, also.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

In that, too, you gave credit to the commander. It wasn't it's it's corroded. Here's the deal. You didn't make it about you. You made it about this is a message from the commander, and this is the story, and this is why. Even though you were the one conveying that in a in a very compassionate and reasonable way, it was still reflecting well upon that commander.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Yeah. And we're buttoned up to the time now where we have our last segment of this podcast here. By the way, which one are we going to do?

SPEAKER_00 46:08

There was I did want to touch on something. We because this is about like influence when you don't have authority and leading up. And how do you build that influence within the organization? We've talked a lot about personality traits that that help that having humility and taking care of your folks. Um and a lot of ways you can do that without highlighting yourself is I'm going to make a show of how great a leader I am that may contrast negatively with other leaders in the organization and not doing that. One is supporting people behind the scenes, an encouraging message here and there that's privately conveyed to somebody is a big thing, especially, and this is why I'm active on social media. I want to know what's going on in folks' lives if they if they permit me in there. And so if somebody's going through a tough time at home, a family member is sick, or if they have a great triumph, or even something like, hey man, that's a really nice new car that you that you got. It was something that your historic car that you've been working on or whatever. So, you know, one is supporting behind the scenes. Number two, reciprocity is a strong motivator. The two strongest human motivators. Number one is self-preservation, number two is reciprocity. And so as you do stuff for people, then they do feel somewhat of an obligation toward you. And that you should never like count those. Okay. You never you should never keep score on the favors that you've done for people, but count on the fact that as you do favors for folks, or if you as you do nice things, just kind word, a little bit of support, donate to the GoFundMe, whatever that is, then they're going to feel some obligation to you, some alliance with you. And that's a good thing that that because that'll pay dividends down the line. And then third thing long term, plant the seeds. Because the folks in the organization that maybe are not of high rank, but have some influence or authority, informal authority there, as you develop those relationships, they're uh they may help to to defray some negative feedback or negative ideas about what you're doing. But also those individuals are going to rise in the organization. And you plant those seeds for that relationship of demonstrating who you are to people, then uh they that later on, like that that like low-level, mid-level leader that you really supported, you did something nice to later on. I am never forget that that you did this thing. Now they're in a position to really help support something that the that you've talked about for the organization that they that they believe in, and you've been able to have those conversations, and now they're in the place that they can do it.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Yeah, great points, JR. Love that.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

All right, we are butting up to the time where we get the last segment of this podcast. What do we want it to be? Someone you should know, or do we want book?

SPEAKER_01 49:07

So I had a book this time. So if we go leader, I'm just gonna silently observe and clap.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

Let's go book. Books? So the last segment will be about books that we're reading or have read that we highly recommend.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Appropriate for our uh topic for today is a book by Robin Sherma called The Leader Who Had No Title. Uh, one nice thing about Robin's books are he writes these business fables. So you follow a character through and you learn your lessons through the story. So highly recommend that one. He's written a couple other ones. Another great one is The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. All of these have a series of points he's making, but The Leader Who Had No Title. I think that's a really interesting and quick read.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

Got it. I am putting it on my audible list right now, The Leader Who Had No Title. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

JR, do you want to go or do you want me to go? I can go real quick. A book I'm reading right now called The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker. And I've heard this in tactical forms, law enforcement. A lot of it is about various cues to violence, and how you may understand that somebody's ramping up to violence, but there's a lot in it about organizations and how to look at other people, like what sort of cues they're giving that they don't have your best interests at heart. And now the this is focused on on violence because it cut this book comes from a lot of interviews with victims of various types of violence. But it the a lot of these little cues about folks that we talk ourselves into liking somebody, even in spite of various psychological cues that that maybe are off-putting. And he puts words to a lot of that, articulates a lot of that. Not that we should necessarily expect it, but what it what it does talk a lot about is manipulation and these unlearned behaviors that people use to manipulate others. Again, the gift of fear by Gavin De Becker, that's what I'm reading at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

Yeah, yeah, and I'll go quickly. I know this is probably an older book, and I love listening to Malcolm Gladwell. He does such a good job in just the podcast format, in the audiobook format. He does wonderful inflections with the voice to make you laugh, cry, consider, and everything. But this book, I guess I must have just gone over it, so I just recently read it. Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath. And it's pertinent for this one here, which is The Art of Influence, because he delves into the the conventional wisdom of hey, there's winners and losers, but it's like the winners or the people who look like they're probably gonna win, don't have as much advantages as you think. And the underdog or the people who look like they're gonna lose don't look as aren't as disadvantaged, don't look as weak as they come off, and they often possess advantages that can be leveraged to overcome like overwhelming odds. Obviously, David Glad, the famous biblical story, but he utilizes a lot of modern day stories and anecdotes that kind of make you consider that despite whatever station you are in life, you have certain advantages and influences that you can do to achieve your objective, priority, whatever it may be. But I think this book captures that kind of essence very well. So David and Goliath by Melkin Ladwell, I highly recommend.

unknown 52:51

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

All right, very good. We will sign off here and we'll see everybody for the next episode.