Lead Beyond Control; Build What Lasts

Control can turn a crisis around, but does it build a team that lasts? We dig into the hard gap between short-term wins and long-term strength, guided by Surrender to Lead from Jessica Kriegel and Joe Terry and a field-tested equation: purpose plus strategy plus culture equals results. Through a candid military story, we show how metrics can spike while psychological safety sinks, why innovation dries up under constant pressure, and how a leader’s presence can become the bottleneck if everything depends on them.

We get practical fast. You’ll hear how to decide when to step in and when to step back, how to use “intent and bookends” to return decisions to your team, and why clear standards with real trust beat endless oversight. We talk about surrender not as weakness but as discipline: yielding recognition, resisting the urge to solve, and creating space for others to grow. If you tend to chase control or praise, you’ll learn to spot those tells and trade them for habits that scale your impact.

Culture sits at the center. It’s slower to measure and easier to ignore, yet it multiplies every plan you make. We unpack ways to build psychological safety, invite dissent, and respond to bad news without blame, so truth travels faster and judgment improves. The three coaching questions near the end help you test your legacy: what would still work if you stepped away, where your push for results limits someone else’s growth, and what will remain because of how you lead.

If this conversation sparks something, share it with a leader who values both performance and people, then hit subscribe for weekly insights. Leave a quick review with your biggest takeaway and the one habit you’ll change this week—we read every note and it shapes what we build next.

Transcript

Welcome & Podcast Premise

TJ 0:00

Welcome to the Leadership Buzz Podcast with Lloyd Buzz Buzzable. Buzz is an ICF ACC credentialed coach with over 37 years of Air Force leadership experience guiding individuals and teams. His vision is to serve others. This podcast is for leaders who want to align behavior with values and build self-awareness. The podcast is built on a simple structure: one book, one story, one concept, and then we'll leave you with three coaching questions. No noise, not overwhelming, just focused on leadership growth. Each episode explores one idea shaping today's leadership conversations grounded in experience, coaching insight, and real stories from the field. Because leadership isn't just about results, it's about character. Work hard, tell the truth, and build something that remains. Let's roll.

Buzz 0:52

Thanks, TJ. I created the leadership buzz because leadership doesn't improve by consuming more content. It improves by thinking and reflecting more clearly about the right things. I've noticed small shifts in thinking create big shifts in leadership. I've spent over 30 years in military environments in uniform and beyond, where mission success wasn't theoretical. Standards, accountability, and results mattered. My faith has shaped how I understand leadership and not as authority to control outcomes, but as a servant leader. Responsibility for people, culture, and for what remains after I move on. I haven't always got that right. Leadership is not about being in charge, but it's about building strength on others so the mission continues without you. If everything depends on you, the system isn't strong, it's just centralized. There's a standard beyond everything we talk about here, and that's work hard, tell the truth. When I say work hard, it's not just about more hours, but built on discipline, resilience, courage, and more. It's doing the uncomfortable work that builds strength instead of shortcuts. Tell the truth, especially to yourself, about your leadership, your impact, and what you're really trying to build, because leadership is measured by what remains. This is the standard I aim for and the work I continue to do myself.

TJ 2:15

Today we're exploring the newly published leadership book Surrender to Lead by Jessica Kriegel and Joe Terry. In this book, the authors challenge one of the most common assumptions in leadership, the belief that control is what drives results. Instead, they argue that sustainable, extraordinary performance doesn't come from tightening oversight, but from building alignment. At the center of their framework is a simple but powerful equation: purpose plus strategy plus culture equals results. Most leaders are comfortable with purpose. They define the mission. Most are confident in strategy. They build the plan. But culture, the environment people operate in, the behaviors that get reinforced, the trust that either grows or erodes, is often the least measurable and least intentionally developed part of leadership. And yet, culture is the multiplier. Because you can win the mission and still leave the team fragile. You can deliver short-term performance and still fail to build something that lasts. The real test of leadership isn't what happens while you're present. It's what continues after you leave. As you listen today, consider this. Coach Buzz, let's get into it.

Crisis Control Vs Culture Health

Buzz 3:31

Thanks, TJ, and thanks for being here today. Hey, on this first podcast, I just want to make it clear that we're trying to make this useful for leaders. We're trying to make this something that the listener can actually get something out of. So I welcome comments back. I welcome the feedback. So please, this first book that we're talking about, the Surrender to Lead book, really hits on a core piece of leadership. And that's really hitting on the uh core concept coming out of that as purpose plus strategy plus culture equals results. And that's focusing on the culture and how leaders can really heavily focus on purpose and strategy because those are visible, but culture is just so much slower and harder to quantify. So in these podcasts that we're putting together, I want to be able to relate something from my military background. And then what I also want to do is for you to get something out of it as you're listening. And if you're not getting something out of that, I'd like to hear back on that in the comments. Uh, you can direct message me, get me on LinkedIn, whatever. But I want to make this a useful piece of your leadership tool. So this is going to be short. We're trying to keep it under 18 to 20 minutes so you can listen to it on a commute, on the treadmill, or wherever you are, so you can get something out

Speaker 4:49

of it.

TJ 4:49

Coach Buzz, take us back for a minute. Can you share a time in your military career when the results looked strong on the surface, but something underneath wasn't healthy?

Buzz 4:59

Okay, let's talk a little about a time in my military career when those results looked great on the surface. And I had a military leader come into several units that I was in, and when that military leader showed up, there were problems. People had to be removed, hard choices had to be made, we had to change our culture to be able to match what the crisis was. And the issue with that is when you get into that crisis situation, that crisis is going to get solved sooner or later. And to continue in that type of atmosphere where people are under pressure and people are being questioned on everything they do, it now becomes almost a micromanagement type situation bordering on like a toxic environment. The issue with the leaders is their leaders are seeing improvement and results turnaround. The ship is getting turned around. That's clear. But the problem is that it's extending into people's lives, down into their families at home, the pressure's there, and small things, very small things get amplified. And then also innovative type things don't get added into the mix. So, in other words, people aren't feeling free to innovate and speak up, that all that psychological safety goes by the wayside. Because when you're in a crisis situation, control can restore order. But then only really ownership builds that strength. And that's kind of where that book is going. And in this situation, this leader would constantly step into situations where there were problems and they would get fixes, quick fixes, short-term fixes, and then move on to the next unit. But if everything depends on you, you have really not built the strength of the unit, right? You've built supervision and results do matter. I I I don't want to uh have somebody not understand or think that I'm advocating for a laissez faire, hands-off type environment. That's not where we're going there.

When To Step In Or Step Back

TJ 7:02

Okay. How about when performance starts slipping? How do you personally decide when to step in and take control and when do you step back?

Buzz 7:12

Well, you're gonna have to decide to s step in when that crisis comes up, right? So when that leader stepped in, he was directed to go there or he had to step in because of some type of problem or some type of situation. But when you see somebody failing, you need to be able to step in. You need to let people fail to a certain point. I was just reading a LinkedIn post on somebody that they had a boss that would constantly step in for them. Well, if that boss is temply uh always stepping in for you, you'll never get a chance. You'll never get a chance to really do your job and to feel what it's like not to have that safety net underneath you. So I I would recommend looking at what the uh what the uh payoff is to see what the result could be.

The Hardest Thing To Surrender

TJ 8:00

Coach Buzz, another question. What would you say has been the hardest thing for you to surrender as a leader? Is that control, recognition, being the problem solver? And how did that shape the way you lead today?

Build Ownership With Clear Bookends

Buzz 8:13

What's been the hardest thing to surrender? You know, uh we all have kind of personality, we all have uh work behaviors. Uh definitely whether it's control or recognition, um, you know, I thrive on a people type oriented type situation. Um, if you take a disc type behavior assessment, I'm very high I. So for me personally, uh it would might be recognition or words of affirmation. So I realize that and I and I really need to know that I need to step back from that and control that. Uh for some people, if you're very high in a dominance type over in a disk type behavior situation, then you might have an issue with being able to step back and not having control over that situation. And the delta, the difference between how you solve those problems and how you take ownership for those, are a huge step forward and a huge piece of how you lead people and how you develop that culture. That's really where this matters, right? This this culture type build that surrender to lead is like saying, hey, you don't have to have total control to be able to have a uh strong culture. And when you overcentralize decision, performance may rise under that pressure, but initiative shrinks. And that's really kind of what you're trying to buy there is you're trying to develop that culture where you have psychological safety and people speak up. The hardest thing to surrender for me would probably be the recognition piece.

TJ 9:53

Buzz. For the leader listening right now who needs strong results but doesn't want to create dependence, what's one practical shift or tip they could make this week?

Buzz 10:02

I think uh this is a very small thing, maybe, but when somebody comes in and says, Hey, should I do A, B, or C, sometimes the answer is, hey, I think you can decide that. I think you can make that decision. And when people start realizing that you've given them their your intent, the you've given them the bookends. Hey, here are the bookends for well, how I want you to operate. Then you can continue and let them operate inside that decision space so they can get things done. And when they realize that, oh, uh the leader is gonna tell me I can do A, B, or C as long as I keep them informed, then that's the way, a small way that you can encourage them to make those decisions and not create dependence on yourself.

TJ 10:49

Let's get to this week's three coaching questions for our listeners.

Buzz 10:53

Three coaching questions for this week? I'd say if you if you stepped away from your role for 60 days, what would continue to perform at a high level and white what might begin to stall? Describe that. Two, where might your desire for strong results be limiting someone else's growth or decision-making capacity? Let me tell me how that shows up for you. Think through that on how that shows up. And then finally, what will remain because of how you lead? Not just what you accomplish, but kind of think through that and describe and internalize what will remain because of how you lead. If you were to lead two years from now, and now you're two years from now, right now, what does that look like?

TJ 11:42

So, Coach Buzz, any other final thoughts today on Surrender to Lead or what was discussed today?

Legacy, Trust, And Self‑Awareness

Recap & Listener Invitation

Buzz 11:49

Thanks, TJ. Hey, I just want to say in these leadership buzz episodes, we're really just trying to provide you to be able to work through your leadership journey and maybe provide some answers to some version of what am I missing right now, or what might this cost me if I ignore it? What would it look like to lead this moment with integrity? For you to consider on your leadership journey of where you might want to be and how you show up, you know, there's a lot to be said for the phrase, it's not what you say, it's how you make people feel. And as a leader, that carries a lot of weight because you can really build that culture. And the book Surrender to Lead really is focused on not being worried so much about control. In other words, that you can be less controlling, you can surrender some of that control and still be super effective. And you want to be aligned with your values though, and and let's let's face it, results matter. So you talk results versus relationships in life, but everything is built on relationships. So if you build your culture just on task-oriented control type methods, when you depart and leave, that's what you're gonna leave with. Let's face it. So is it all control or is there trust there? And when you're not around, and you can't be around all the time, they can't call you on the phone all the time and ask for advice. Your team, your folks, your subordinates, your direct reports, your collaborators are gonna have to make decisions without you there. And it is not weak to be kind to other people, it's just not a weakness, it's a strength. And there's also that confidence for your first humility. You know, to be humble is not a bad thing. So if you're showing up and you think you have all the answers, I don't think any leader has all the answers, regardless of who they are. We have some pretty intelligent leaders out there. But as in my example, is the leader goes from place to place, and when he does finally make a mistake, it gets super amplified because they're trying to control everything, and now we're following that leader down a corridor that we don't want to go down, and he doesn't want us to be there behind him. But there's nobody that's willing to speak up just because of the type of control and the type of control mechanisms that have been put in place. So I hope you don't feel that every leader knows everything when they're going through life. That there's and you can notice when you're drifting and that you notice where you are in that self-awareness. Self-awareness breeds good leaders. And then when you're self-aware, you can make those changes and those course direction changes that will improve your leadership and will improve the culture and your team. So when we finally talk about that with the book, and we talk about that purpose plus strategy plus the culture is going to equal results, and as we've echoed back several times today, it's what you're gonna be leaving behind as a legacy. And really our legacy is what we're really working on, not just short-term results. I hope you're getting something out of leadership, buzz. Send me a message, LinkedIn me, give me a Facebook message, whatever, to reach out to me and give me some feedback.

TJ 15:10

Today we explored Surrender to Lead by Jessica Kriegel and Joe Terry, and one powerful equation: purpose plus strategy plus culture equals results. We looked at what happens when leaders focus on performance but neglect culture when the mission is won. But the team is left fragile, and we unpacked a critical leadership tension. You can deliver results in the short term and still fail to build something that lasts. The real test isn't what happens while you're present, it's what continues after you leave. As you think about today's conversation, ask yourself, what are you building that will still function without you? Buzz, over to you.

Buzz 15:50

Thanks, TJ. Let's remember leadership isn't just about what you accomplished, it's about what continues without you. If this episode resonated, share it with a leader who values both performance and people. Subscribe to the Leadership Buzz for weekly insights. One book, one concept, one story, and three coaching questions to sharpen your leadership. And remember work hard, tell the truth, and build something that lasts.