Military Leadership, Growth Mindset & Building Teams That Perform Under Pressure | Ryan Batchelor

Leadership is not a destination — it is a discipline that demands intention, trust, and a relentless commitment to growth.

In this episode of the AI Accelerator Podcast, host Matt Zembrowski sits down with Ryan Batchelor, 28-year US Navy veteran pilot, commander, and founder of Crux Leaders, to explore what it truly means to lead under pressure, develop the next generation of leaders, and bring military-grade leadership principles into the business world.

Ryan shares what most corporate leaders get wrong about succession planning, why critical thinking is non-negotiable in the AI era, and how trust is built the same way whether lives or business outcomes are on the line.
Together they break down the gap between mission and vision, why change equals opportunity not extra work, and how tools like Working Genius and Maxwell Leadership help organizations build the leadership bench they need before they desperately need it.

In this episode, Ryan reveals:
◼️Why leadership development must be intentional or succession will always be a crisis 
◼️ The real reason organizations are caught off guard when a key leader departs 
◼️ Why a large gap between mission and vision is a sign of healthy growth mindset
◼️ How AI acceleration is raising the stakes for fixed mindset leaders 
◼️ The three things leaders must do to guide teams through technology adoption
◼️ Why critical thinking is the most important skill to teach at every level 
◼️ How listening before speaking transformed his work with joint military-civilian teams 
◼️ Why Working Genius and Maxwell Leadership unlock team potential together
◼️ The hardest parts of going from military structure to entrepreneurship 
◼️ Why change equals opportunity and how to help your team see it that way 
◼️ The vision for Crux Leaders and who it is built to serve

Key Learnings
✔ Leadership development must be intentional, organizations that wait until a leader leaves are already too late 
✔ Critical thinking is the foundational skill leaders must teach at every level of the organization 
✔ Listening before speaking unlocks the deep expertise already sitting on your team 
✔ Working Genius helps leaders understand what drives and motivates each person on the team 
✔ Fixed mindset leaders will be left behind as AI continues to accelerate change 
✔ Resistance to change usually means people don't understand why it's happening or don't see the opportunity in it 
✔ Entrepreneurship requires skills the military never teaches, especially selling and self-administration 
✔ Becoming a leader on an org chart is not arriving. it is turning the page to a demanding new chapter

Ryan's Most Powerful Quotes

"Just because something worked yesterday doesn't necessarily mean it works today and into tomorrow."

"Change equals opportunity — if we can get people to see the opportunity, it becomes something they might even get behind."

"You have to demonstrate to your team that you care — not just about mission accomplishment, but about them as a person."

"If the vision looks the same as the mission today, I kind of know where we stand."

"All we've done when we become a leader is turn the page to a new chapter, because now we have a responsibility for everyone on the team."

Follow Ryan Batchelor
Website: https://www.cruxleaders.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-batchelor-stl/
Email: ryanb@cruxleaders.org

Follow Matt Zembrowski
Website: https://leadingaiagility.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattzembruski/
Email: matt@leadingaiagility.com
Phone/Text/WhatsApp: +1 978-618-5778
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mzembruski
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelifeofmattz/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome back to the AI Accelerator Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Zembroski, founder and CEO of AI Agility, where we believe that people plus AI in the workplace become superhuman workplace contributors. Today I'm excited to welcome Ryan Batchler to the show. Ryan's a 28-year U.S. Navy veteran, pilot, commander, and founder of the Crux Leaders. He's led a 250-person joint military civilian organization, managed some of the most complex weapons programs in the Department of Defense, and logged over 2,300 hours in the cockpit. Now, as he prepares for his transition out of the military later this year, we're lucky because he's coming into the world of entrepreneurship and business. He's building crux leaders to help organizations develop the kind of leadership that performs under pressure. He's also a Maxwell Leadership Certified Speaker and Coach, working genius facilitator, father of nine, and someone who generally walks to talk when it comes to leading with purpose. Ryan, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Thanks, Matt. I'm glad to be a part of this today, and I appreciate the invite.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I'm really excited. You and I know each other a little bit. The last, I don't know, four to four to five months or so. We've been um crossing paths in the business networking side of things. And for our audience who doesn't know you as well, just give us our you know one to two minute version of your story. I mean, you got a lot, I just uh shared a lot with the audience, 28-year Navy veteran, nine kids, leadership company. You know, how did you get here? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Well, I always wanted to fly. In reality, I really wanted to be an astronaut. Um, and to get to be an astronaut through one of the military services, you generally go through flight school. And so I went to flight school um, and uh it was a great experience. I found out that that I wasn't the fastest learner in flight school. There were people and they would do something for the first time and they had it all figured out. And I was like, how are you guys doing that? You know, it would take me two or three times to catch on. Um, and so that led me into flying P3 aircraft, which is uh an aircraft that's about the size of a C-130. So it's a big aircraft, you don't land it on an aircraft carrier. So, what everybody thinks about naval aviation is what they see in top gun and top gun maverick. I didn't do that, um, but I got a chance to uh uh search for submarines uh from the Chinese to the Russians to the Iranians, um, and I did that through a couple different deployments. After I did that, I started managing the programs that the Navy uses to buy aircraft. And so for the last 20 years or so, I've been buying the aircraft that the the Navy needs, and uh that has included some other services as well. So uh the F-15 has been in the news the last couple of days, and I've been at Boeing St. Louis where they build both the F-18 and the F-15 for the last couple of years. And so as I transitioned out of the military uh due to my retirement, the only thing that I really wanted to do was form my own company and help organizations train their leaders and be better at everything that they were doing so that their mission could be accomplished even better. And so when I told my wife that's what I wanted to do, she said, Well, what do you need to do? And I said, Well, I want to be John Maxwell certified. Um, I was already certified with Patrick Clincioni as a working genius facilitator, and they mesh really well together because uh John Maxwell is the operating system. Uh, sorry, I got that backwards. Patrick Clincioni is the operating system, and John Maxwell is all the apps, and so it's a great uh uh journey together with those two.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Oh, that's beautiful, Ryan. Thank you for sharing that background. I meant to start with this, but thank you so much for your service, everything you've done over the years. Really appreciate it. It's a it's a fantastic role that you played and very important in our in uh in our in our country's history and everything that you've done. So really appreciate that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

I really appreciate that a lot. And uh my family's learned a lot by being uh a military family.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

So well, and I think it's brilliant that you're bringing the leadership lessons that you've learned from the military into the civilian world business world. And I want to dig into that a little bit. You know, you commanded a 250-person joint military civilian organization. There's a lot of leadership lessons in the trenches that you've learned over the years. You know, what's the biggest leadership lesson from that experience that you're that you think most corporate leaders really um could use and want to hear today?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Yeah, when I was in command for four years at Boeing St. Louis, um, what I really discovered is that you have to be extremely intentional when it comes to developing the leaders in your organization. Because regardless of how solid the culture is in an organization today, uh, there's going to be people that are good that will leave the organization. They will leave because it's time for them to retire, just like I'm doing from the military soon. Uh, they will leave because they get offered a different position somewhere that they're more excited about. Uh, they will leave because of some family situation that requires them to move to a different place. There will be a change in leadership, even if everything seems like it's stable right now. And what sometimes organizations fail to see is that they need to have a leadership bench that is ready to go when those situations happen. And what usually happens is that a leader departs and they go, What are we going to do? We don't have anybody to replace them. And that's what I want to avoid happening for the organizations that I work with. And so uh that's where my passion really lies now as I move out of the military and into the entrepreneurial world.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

So, how does the working genius and the John Maxwell, those programs and everything they have available, how does that apply to that succession of leadership topic that you're talking about and how important that is? Do they do they dovetail into that pretty well? They do.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

I think you really have to start with the organizational health aspects that Patrick Clincioni brings from the table group. Um, and they talk all about making sure that your mission and your vision and your values are well known. And if those are not set for a company and if they're not known by the people in the organization, then honestly, people don't know why they're showing up for work in the morning. And if they don't know why they're showing up for work in the morning, then they're not going to be working as hard and as as well as they could to accomplish the mission because they don't even know what it is. So, so the the Patrick Lincioni material helps to set that mission, vision, and values and then helps to determine who it is that's going to go do that. And then once you have that uh stable and uh known throughout the organization, then you can start to work on the pieces that are unique to that organization. And that's where the John Maxwell products come in. Whether it's developing leaders, whether it's helping the middle managers with communication, whether it's making sure the entire organization is being proactive, whatever the crux of the challenges are, uh, we can find the tools to target them and make the organization better.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

So you're hitting on some topics that are near and dear to my heart. I mean, think about like growth mindset versus fixed mindset and and things like this, especially when you talk about missions, you know, mission of a company. And mission of a company, uh different than the military, but also very, very important. It's the mission, right? And it's it's high stakes in some kind, in some some cases, the margin for error is very thin. You know, what what does it look like uh from your perspective, you know, military versus versus business context, um, when a leader has a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset? Like how do you how do you lean into that or how do you help the leaders develop more of the growth mindset in today's world?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Sure. So usually the way that I can see how much of a growth mindset a company has is by looking at the gap that exists between the mission and the vision, right? The vision is actually the future view of what the organization to be you want it to be. So if there's a large gap between the current mission and the vision, that's actually a good thing because then you have the necessary um motivation to work to get to that vision. And that's where you need the growth mindset. If if you think everything is stable, everything's gonna be the same tomorrow as it is today, if you think that there's no opportunity to try to be better, then you're gonna be stuck in that fixed mindset. And what is eventually gonna happen is you're standing still and everyone else is gonna pass you by, especially in today's world where everything is now highlighted with the AI integrations where things are moving at a speed I have never seen before. Um, and you're helping that go faster and faster every single day. And so if you have a growth mindset though, you can look at this and you can go, okay, there's a lot going on with AI right now. I'm not sure I totally understand it all, but let me try to dig in on those points where AI can't help me. Let me try to dig in on those things that I can find that will help make our organization better. And maybe that's automating some tasks that before we're manual. Maybe that's figuring out how to uh, you know, get the AI agent of choice to speak just like the CEO speaks, so that the CEO doesn't have to write from scratch every single presentation that they now give. There's lots of options, but it all comes by having a growth mindset to start with. And so when I go in and start to work with an organization, one of the first things I want to know is what is the vision? What do you want this to look like in one year, five years, 10 years? If the answer is the same as it is today, then I kind of know where we stand.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, that's great. I love the way you describe that because it's so, so important. And to bring it into the like adoption of new technology like AI and so forth. And you you've managed programs, I had to look this up, but like the MQ-25 is if I'm right, is the Navy's first unmanned carrier aircraft. That's correct. Right. So that was that's a big program to manage. And I imagine there's a lot of technology involved, a lot of people involved. So, how do you lead teams through the adoption of new technologies that fundamentally are changing the way how they do their jobs?

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Yeah, the first thing you got to do is you got to make sure that everybody on your team is thinking critically. And and that's one of the things I tried to instill in my team when I was leading them uh at Boeing St. Louis with the the 250-person organization is that is that just because something worked yesterday doesn't necessarily mean it now works today and into tomorrow. We have got to think differently, and and to do that requires the skill of critical thinking. And so I would intentionally teach critical thinking to every single person in the organization. Usually do it with start with the managers and then and then take it to the team members. Um, but you've got to make sure that everybody understands critical thinking and how they can use it in the role that they have on their team and in the organization. So that's the first thing. The second thing is making sure that you listen more than you speak. And this is a big one, and this is really hard for leaders in the military because we're kind of biased towards action. And action usually involves speaking. Um, so listening before you speak is really hard. But when I first started working with combined teams of military and civilian personnel, what I found was that a lot of the civilian personnel have been doing their job in the federal government for years, some of them decades. They are the subject to matter experts. I've only been here for six weeks or six months. Um, definitely not 16 or 26 years like they have. And so I gotta listen to what they're telling me because they are the expert. Um, I may have the operational link to what they're talking about, but I do not have the subject matter expertise that they do. So I gotta listen before I speak. That was that's kind of the second thing. And then I think the third one is just making sure that um you are having a growth plan in your own personal life that allows you to understand the new things that are out there, right? Like it I would think right now it would be hard to find somebody who hasn't heard of AI and the advances that we've seen lately, but I guarantee there's someone out there that hasn't heard of it yet. They're like, what are you talking about? Well, what do you mean AI? What is this thing you guys are talking about? So you've got to be in a posture where you're willing to continually improve and learn.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Those are those are great examples uh or aspects of how you do it. And I appreciate you sharing that. The critical thinking topic comes up a lot in conversations today because you you're not just you you bring up AI and critical thinking, you're not just outsourcing all of you to AI, but it's more of like your critical thinking needs to stay engaged. I don't care if you got AI involved or not. So what you just shared is is absolutely perfect with with a with the critical thinking and having the plan and the growth mindset and really leaning in with that. It's it's so important. Let's talk a little bit more about crux leaders and and what you're doing there. And you retired from the Navy this fall, so congratulations in advance. It's coming up, it's gonna be a big uh a big thing for you. What's what it just foundationally, what's the hardest part of going from a more structured military career into the wild west of entrepreneurship for you?

SPEAKER_02 14:29

Yeah, yeah. So for me, Matt, I I went to college and and I graduated from college, and the next day I got commissioned in the Navy. And that's all I've done for 30 years, right? So the Navy's taught me a lot about leadership. The later the Navy has has taught me a lot about how to manage various things. Um, it hasn't taught me some of the skills that you need as an entrepreneur, like how to sell things. Right now, granted, I've had to give some briefs to some admirals and generals that had to make some decisions. That's kind of like selling things, but it's not the same as it is in the business world. And so uh I really had to work on that. YouTube university has been really important for me in terms of the sales side. I've watched a lot of YouTube videos on how to sell. Um, so that's one thing. The second thing is just the aspect of um, you know, in the military, there's a lot of administrative stuff that gets done for you. There's there's people whose jobs it is to take care of those things. And so it it doesn't make sense for you to go and do them when they're already supposed to do that job. As an entrepreneur, there's nobody that's sitting in my office volunteering to do those things for me. Um you have to do it all yourself. So that's been interesting to learn. Um, and then the balance of time has been difficult uh to give the the time that my Navy job requires, which it's national security, it gets priority every day of the week. Um that's just the way it is. Um, and then uh also finding the time to do the things that are necessary to run the business. So fortunately, the Navy gave me permission to start my business while I was still in, so I would be prepared best to retire. Um, but the time balance has definitely been a challenge for me.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

And and by the way, father of nine, on top of all that you just said. So there's there's there must be a little some family obligations, I'm guessing, that overlay into that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

There are. I get home and it's not, it's it's not just I can relax and and spend the rest of the night preparing for tomorrow. Um I walk in and there's already 17 things to do at the house. Unfortunately, some of those kids are either in college or um I have two in the military already. Um, and so I might have another one here here soon. We'll see. He's still making his final decisions on what he's gonna do uh with with uh with his life after high school graduation. But um, so that has gotten a little easier, but yes, you're right. Uh it's not just uh uh relax when I go home.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

So I got a question. Uh I've I've worked with some um people in in the in the corporate world, more than the entrepreneurial world, but in the corporate world, I've worked with some folks who have uh military background, military families. And um, and my background is more in change management and in working and helping bring out the highest and best in teams and leaders and a lot of this similar to yours, but I don't have a I don't have a military background. But it leads up to my question. You know, you built trust in environments, and in the military, you know, lives are on the line. So it's really important to build that trust amongst the team. It's so critical. You know, how do you see that trust being built in the when the lives aren't on the line, but maybe the company's on the line, maybe the team's on the line, right? It's a different type of high-stakes environment in a corporate office. So, how do you bring that military effectiveness of trust building into the corporate environment? Do you have any thoughts or ideas on that?

SPEAKER_02 18:12

I do have some thoughts on that. And while the stakes are not the same, um, the the benefit of the stakes being high in the military is it builds trust quickly. In in the business world, I think you can build trust. It's not built as quickly because generally the stakes are not as high. It's not actually life or death. It might be uh uh financial life or or death, but but still that's that's only related to money. It's not related to your actual, you know, soul and spirit. Um, but the whole point is that the way you establish trust in the military is by doing what you say you're gonna do, right? Making sure your words and your actions match. Well, that's the same thing in the business world. It's the same thing in an organization, right? If you say you're gonna do this thing, then everybody's now watching to see if you're gonna do that thing. And if you do, you start to build trust, you start to establish credibility, um, and then and you start to build a reputation of I'm gonna do what I say I am going to do. And so from that basis, it's the same. The stakes are not as high, it takes longer, but that's still the way that you build trust. You you do what you say you're going to do. The second thing is that you show you care for your people. That's also the same thing you do in the military. You you care for the people that are under your charge. It doesn't matter whether it's one person, two people, 250 people, it doesn't matter. You have to demonstrate to them that you care. When they know that you care about them, not just mission accomplishment, which is also something you have to care about. But team members can tell when the leader is only concerned about mission accomplishment and not them as a person. So when you can show that you care about them as a person, that also builds more trust and credibility. If you can do those two things well, then the team, the team will align with you, the team will buy in, and then you'll be able to accomplish the mission even better.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Do you find that the working genius or the Maxwell um applications and mindset play into that uh to support that one better than the other? Or that is it just a blend? Because there's a lot of a lot of nuance to what you just said. It's not just a press a button and you're good to go.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Right, right. Working genius is both an individual and a team assessment. So I do think that um it helps when you understand your teammates better, when you can understand what drives them, when you understand what motivates them. It doesn't matter whether it might be a Myers Brig or whether it might be a disk assessment or whether it's a working genius assessment. All of those help you to understand people better and might help you to understand, like when they say something and you're like, I don't know that that totally computes for me. But when you understand them a little bit better through some type of assessment, then you might be able to have the chance to go, okay, it didn't necessarily resonate with me the first time, but remembering what I learned about Bob when we talked about work and genius and the fact that he has the genius of wonder and he's always asking questions now makes me understand him a little bit better. It makes me understand why he's still asking these questions when when we thought that the the situation was already determined.

unknown 21:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

So that can help there. I think the the Maxwell uh material that I teach is is mostly centered around uh either personal growth or being a better leader. And so for those people who are in leadership. Positions within the organization. I think a lot of times we think once an organizational chart shows that we're a leader, we kind of think that we've arrived. But in reality, like all we've done was turn the page to a new chapter because now we have a responsibility for all those that are on the team that we now lead. And so we we have a whole new chapter and chapters, I would say, that we now need to work on and learn to be the best leader possible.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

That's fantastic. And with your experience, you know just where to, you know how to get in involved with the leaders and teams, meet them where they're at, and then move them forward. And that that's that's based on your experience. Because what you just shared is is is um it's it's I think complex to the people who aren't in that same line of work, right? Because it's uh it's you can't just read that in a textbook and go apply it. Like you have the experience plus the knowledge and and the uh the training uh to go in and do that and figure out how you can make the most benefit.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

And the and the fact is that every organization is unique because each business was started for a different reason. It it might be somewhat related, right? I mean, there's multiple trucking companies out there, right? But they didn't all start from the same uh reason. They they started for different reasons, and those reasons still exist, and so that's what makes each company unique. Um, and the fact that they each have people in them makes them unique. And so you know, I can't say, well, every organization is gonna have this problem, this problem, this problem, and this problem because they may not have those problems, they may have another set of problems. Uh, and so I can't say that I'm gonna go in and tackle these four things because I don't know what the four things are yet for your organization or for any organization. So there's always a little bit of time spent talking to the leadership, uh observing the team, um, and understanding what it is the organization does so we can start to figure out what those things are that we need to go tackle.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

So to to uh pick a particular area of that, let's say, let's say an organization, one of their challenges is that a particular leader with their organization, their their team is just resistant. Their organization is resistant to change. They've been doing it that way for a while. You know, people in general, change is not doesn't uh naturally come easy to them mentally, physically, right? To do things differently. Um, how do you create momentum when the organization or the teams tends to be sort of dug in into their existing way of doing things?

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Yeah, we really have to work on changing the paradigm of what change is. And and this will be uh uh right up your alley, because yes, there is a natural resistance to change, but that's because we think change equals work. Right? Like, oh, I'm gonna have to go work harder because of this change we're making. But in reality, change equals opportunity. And so if we can get people to see the opportunity in change, then it becomes more palatable and it and it becomes something that they might even get behind if they can truly understand the reason for the change and the opportunity that exists. My perspective is that if if the CEO or the COO or the HR director didn't think that there was value in the change, then we probably wouldn't be doing it at all. So uh when there's a lot of resistance, then it's either people don't understand why we need to make the change, or people are resistant because they don't realize there's opportunity in the change. Um, and so if we can change those two things, then it really helps to move an organization forward from there.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

I love that. Changing the paradigm is so, so important. So as we wind up here, Ryan, let's get back to the mission and something near and dear to your heart, crux leaders. What's the vision? What's the I said mission, but I meant to say vision. What's the vision for crux leaders? Maybe what's the mission too? But um just share that with our audience. Where do you want to take things over, you know, when you come out of the gate and you're you're full time, you know, what is your what is your big vision where you want to go? And how can people connect with you and find out more about about what you're up to?

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Sure. For the for the vision of crux leaders, we want to be the premier uh leader development organization, uh, you know, headquartered in the Midwest. Um, and I'm currently in St. Louis, and that's where we're staying for now until all of our kids graduate from high school, which is still a little bit down the path for me. Um, and so we want to be that organization that that is the center for uh whether it's annual uh leadership summits, whether it is leadership retreats, where we go out into uh the wild and uh learn about leadership and climb mountains together. Uh, because that's my other passion, is climbing mountains. And anyone who goes to my website, they'll see lots of mountains on there. So um that's what I want to do. The the mission is just to help as many organizations as possible, because uh the mission of the the military that I've been in for the last 30 years is is really clear. It's it's national security and protecting freedom. That's what we do. It's pretty simple. Um, but the the missions that exist for all the different organizations out there, whether they're for-profit, whether they're nonprofit, whether they're a church, whether they're just starting out, is different. And so I want to help each of them perform their mission better. So as many organizations as I can reach, the better. So my website is www.cruxleaders, c-r-u-xleaders with an s dot or g. I also have an account on LinkedIn, it's uh Ryan Bachelor S T L. So you can find me on LinkedIn. And then uh my email address is Ryan B. So R-Y-A-N-B at cruxleaders.org. And so those are all ways that people can get in touch with me if they'd like to reach out and find out more about what we do.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Thank you so much, Ryan. I really appreciate that. We're gonna include all that in our show notes too. I'll make sure with our team, we'll include those links in the show notes too. So it make it really easy for anybody if they're driving in their car right now, they can go and uh and take a look at it uh later on on YouTube and uh and get access to that on the show notes. Really appreciate everything that you shared today about leadership, the insights you talked with about change management and really moving teams to the next level and bringing all of your amazing military expertise in and and um and and vision into the corporate world, into the business world. It's such a it's such a needed thing, and uh really appreciate you being here. And um and uh thank you so much for your time and your insights today. Really appreciate it, Ryan.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Thanks, Matt. This has been really fun. I hope this was a lot of value to your listeners. Um, and I hope they gained something from uh the discussion today.