Strong Ground: What Leaders Build Before Results

In this episode of The Leadership Buzz, we explore the newly published book Strong Ground by Brené Brown and the leadership idea that real performance starts with a strong foundation. Before teams can move fast or perform well, they need stability. Trust, clarity of values, and connection create the ground people stand on. When leaders rush past those things, teams often end up compensating for weak foundations. We also discuss the relationship between managers and leaders and why healthy organizations need both. Managers help execution happen while leaders shape the culture and direction that allow people to do their best work. If leadership is ultimately about service, then part of that responsibility is creating the ground others can stand on. The episode concludes with three coaching questions to help you reflect on the kind of leadership foundation you are building. Work hard. Tell the truth.

Transcript

TJ 0:00

Welcome to the Leadership Buzz Podcast with Lloyd Buzz Buzzle. Buzz is an International Coach Federation 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 0:57

Thanks, TJ. I started the leadership buzz because I don't think leadership improves by consuming more content. It improves when we slow down and think more clearly about the right things. After years in military leadership, I've come to believe leadership is really about service. Servant leadership means putting the mission first and the needs of the team ahead of your own. It's responsibility for people, for culture, and for what remains after we move on. The standard I keep coming back to is simple. Work hard, tell the truth. Now let's get into it.

TJ 1:33

Today we're exploring the newly published leadership book Strong Ground by Brene Brown. In this book, Brown introduces a powerful metaphor about leadership and stability. She explains that before an athlete can move with strength, they first have to find the ground. Without a stable base, the body compensates balance is lost and performance eventually breaks down. Brown argues leadership works the same way. Many organizations are moving faster than ever, adding new strategies, new technologies, and new initiatives. But if the foundation underneath those efforts is weak, leaders end up compensating for deeper issues like lack of trust, unclear values, and disconnection within teams. Strong ground in Brown's framework means leaders develop a stable foundation built on clarity of values, courage, and connection with others. The book also highlights the relationship between managers and leaders. Managers focus on execution and systems, while leaders focus on people and culture, and strong organizations respect both roles working together. Brown's message is simple. Coach Buzz Let's Roll.

Buzz 2:53

Thanks, TJ. Hey, thanks for uh tuning in again for this third episode of the Leadership Buzz. First off, I want to say thank you for the feedback I've gotten on the first couple episodes and, of course, the trailer. But I really appreciate it and I look forward to your feedback. That's the only way we can make this better. And just really want to talk about the intent here one more time. You know, it's not that you're going to gain a lot of get all the answers from me or that I have all the insight and that I'll be able to solve all the issues. That's that's not what this is about. This is really getting you to think more clearly and more in depth about things and and hopefully get those coaching questions from an intent from some of the books that we pick out. And as for the books, I look for recent books, uh, books that have been published, say in the last six months or seven months. Uh I want to get a new book. I don't want to take a book from you know five or six years ago that has been hashed over already. So most of the time when you're tuning in, you should be hearing about a book that's probably within the last eight months, if not last uh couple of months. And I think you'll see that as we go on. Today's book, uh Brene Brown, was just published in the last quarter, and we've got a really good one, uh, The Seven Rules of Trust by Jimmy Wales coming up uh next week.

TJ 4:11

Coach Buzz, Brene Brown uses the metaphor of strong ground to describe leadership foundations. What does that idea mean to you as a leader?

Buzz 4:20

For me, the idea of strong ground is about really stability, and that's what a team can move fast or perform well. There has to be some type of foundation under them. You know, Brene Brown uses that as a metaphor to talk about that, and she talked about getting over a uh a health issue and getting better and having a fitness coach work with her on pickleball. But in leadership, that foundation is about trust and clarity of values and knowing what the mission actually is. If those things aren't clear, people start compensating. They hesitate, they second guess decisions, and energy gets wasted. So when the ground is strong, people really know what matters and they can move forward. You really need to know what those lines of effort are and being able to connect people to the mission. She talks about at the Danny Thomas uh hospital, uh they worked on curing kids with cancer, and everybody was just connected to that. And I just remember being in the missile fields and the launch facility and launch control centers, and one night I was upstairs uh just after eating dinner, and this was while we were performing uh three-person type alerts over a three-day period. So a little different construct than what they're doing now. However, I was upstairs and there was only one other person in the area upstairs, and that was the the chef, and she was still in uniform, late in the evening, kind of humming away and singing and kind of cleaning tables and picking things up, and Zastra was like, Hey, I thought you were off duty, and she said, Well, the team's out in the field, and I didn't want to cook their food ahead of time because it wouldn't taste good for 'em when they got back. And that was a person that just knew what the mission was and how she was connected to the mission and what she could do in her capacity to have some effect on that. And that's kind of what Brene Brown was talking about in the book, that everybody knows their peace and what they are contributing to the mission to make sure that we have mission success. So I think when we can get people to understand what that is, and then when we're straying from that, that they can find their ground so that they can truly understand how they're connected.

TJ 6:28

The book also explores the relationship between managers and leaders. How do you see the difference between those roles? And why do organizations need both?

Buzz 6:37

Yeah, sometimes organizations, and sometimes we in the military treat management like it's a lesser role, but that's I believe is a mistake. And I think managers really make things work for us, and it really is illustrated pretty well in Brene Brown's book that she has a little interaction with another person there if you read the book or listen to the book. And uh these managers, they'll handle systems, processes, and that execution, and then leaders will focus more on those people, culture, and the direction. And we need both those types of people. And in reality, the best organizations respect both of those things because the vision without execution goes nowhere, and execution without leadership eventually just burns people out. And there are some people that just want to do the J O B, they just want to actually do the job and get along. It's pretty hard in the Air Force because we put people on leadership tracks and we promote the fact that we need leaders, and that's part of it is that we don't promote from the outside of the organization. Everything comes from the inside, and so that makes it difficult for us to leave that alone and let people just do the JOB and do what they're comfortable with. And why a lot of times that's not working in the military is because we have to create a pool of people to be able to promote from within, to be able to choose those leaders. So we put those people on a leadership track, but uh we can't look down at people that are really good at executing. Uh in the Navy, we have limited duty officers that are incredible at their jobs. And the Air Force fairly recently created warrant officers. So it was a great move by the Air Force to be able to recognize that there was a need there.

TJ 8:21

You spent many years in military leadership. Where have you seen the importance of that kind of strong foundation in a team?

Buzz 8:30

One thing I learned while I was in the military, and that was as a very young officer and even as an NCO, was that people perform best when they know their leader, actually cares about them, respects the work they're doing, and really takes an interest in their personal lives. In some of the units I served in, we spent time early on making sure expectations were clear and people knew what the mission was, and that we spent time with them getting to know them and who they were and their families. Once that foundation was there, performance usually will follow you. I mean, when people trust the leader and they they trust each other, they don't waste energy protecting themselves. I I think that's pretty important. If you take care of people, the people will focus on the mission. And even as a flight commander, even as a young officer, and especially as a senior officer, if somebody had a baby, I went to the hospital so that we could see the baby. In one situation, we got there and we couldn't find the room where the baby was and the mom was. And my wife wandered around and discovered that the baby had just been born like a few minutes ago. And so I I thought it had been like a couple hours. Anyway, they had us in, and geez, we were the maybe the second or third one to hold the baby. Years later, I happened to run into that mom, and she was at another base, and I was able to see a picture. It was the son was like ten or eleven years old, and she had remembered that moment and very spoke very fondly of it. And I I think when people see that, they're gonna react to you and they will progress and they will serve the mission better.

TJ 10:08

Coach Buzz, for leaders listening today, what is one practical thing they can do this week to strengthen the ground under their team?

Buzz 10:16

Well, TJ, uh a simple place to start is just clarity. You know, taking take time this week to make sure your team knows two things what the mission is, why it matters, and how they relate to it. Then listen to them. Ask them what's getting in their way. You know, sometimes we as leaders rush past those conversations because they feel pressure to move fast, but those conversations are exactly what builds strong ground. When people feel heard and understood, the mission will follow. The whole team becomes steadier. And I did notice uh I'd been in squadron command for about a year, and I was at the movies, and I got a call from somebody, and I had to initiate the recall. Well, when I got the recall roster and I used to carry them in my back pockets, we'd traditional military type thing, and I had one of the back pocket of my jeans that day, and I took it out and started looking it over and realized there was nobody in the squadron anymore. We'd had such turnover that on the first day of command, when I briefed everybody my expectations and who I was and where we were going and our priorities, our lines of effort, and how we matched up with the commander, the wing commander and the group commander, they were no longer there. So the next week I got people together in smaller areas and just started talking about what our mission is and reiterated everything. So I would say being able to make sure that you continue, continue to be able to pass that mission on because you're gonna have turnover, you're gonna have new people, and you're gonna have changes in your personnel throughout the organization. It's really important that they hear this from you and that they hear what the intent is and that they hear what's going on in the organization. Uh it's really, really important.

TJ 12:01

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

Buzz 12:05

Great. Yeah, I want to focus on some coaching questions again. Uh, every episode, and I think this is kind of key to the podcast, is that I leave you with these three coaching questions so you can kind of think through where you are and what space you're in right now. And I give you the first one is about you know, when pressure or uncertainty shows up on your team, how do you notice yourself responding as a leader and what kind of ground are you creating for others in that moment? How would you describe that and how would you think through that? I would just sit on that for a minute and just kind of think through that for yourself. And then two, if your team described the experience of working with you day to day, would they say you create clarity, stability, and trust and how would they describe that? If you were on their your team, how would you describe yourself on a day-to-day type of experience? I think that's really important to see that in that lens. And then finally, what is one thing you could do this week to strengthen that foundation on your team? And it's could be related to trust, clarity of mission, or connection with people. And I would just think through that and how does how would that show up for you on a daily basis or uh something that you could do by the end of the week? Something simple.

TJ 13:24

Coach Buzz, any final thoughts today on strong ground or what came up today?

Buzz 13:30

One thing that stands out to me from this book is that leadership strength doesn't come from moving faster than everyone else. It comes from creating the kind of foundation where people know the mission, trust each other, and feel steady enough to do their best work.

TJ 13:48

Today we explored Strong Ground by Brene Brown and the idea that leadership starts with the foundation people stand on. We talked about how trust, values, and clarity create the stability teams need to perform. When leaders move too fast and skip those things, teams often end up compensating for weak ground underneath them. Strong organizations recognize both leaders and managers because execution and culture have to work together. As you reflect on today's conversation, ask yourself this: what kind of ground are you creating for the people you lead? Buzz, over to you.

Buzz 14:24

Thanks for listening to the Leadership Buzz. If this episode made you think, take a moment to subscribe so you don't miss future conversations. And if it was helpful, share it with someone you lead. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn where I post weekly leadership reflections and continue the discussion. Until next time, work hard to tell the truth.