From Task Manager to True Leader: The Power of Servant Leadership | #iolglobal | Episode 12

What separates a task manager from a true leader?

In this episode of the Lead with Legacy™ Podcast, Amanda Chambers and Sloane Lott sit down with Mark Hedquist for a powerful conversation on servant leadership, emotional intelligence, and what it really means to lead in high-pressure environments.

Drawing from years of experience in project management and executive leadership, Mark shares real-world insights on navigating complexity, building trust, and leading people—not just processes.

In this episode, you will discover:
• Why communication and emotional intelligence are critical leadership skills
• The difference between managing tasks and leading people
• How pressure reveals true leadership character
• The importance of customer-first thinking in every role
• How servant leadership builds trust and long-term success
• Why reflection and personal growth are essential for leaders

This conversation is grounded, practical, and deeply aligned with leadership that lasts beyond titles and trends.

If you are serious about leading with purpose, serving others, and building something meaningful—this episode is for you.

🔔 Subscribe for leadership insights, honest conversations, and practical wisdom you can apply immediately.

🌐 Learn more about IOL Global:
www.iolglobal.com

Connect with Mark Hedquist:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhedquist/

Learn more about the PM Playbook at:
https://www.thepmplaybook.com/

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https://www.buzzsprout.com/2600300/support

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https://iolglobal.com/podcast

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Lead with Legacy, the official podcast of IOL Global. Here we will explore leadership that outlives titles and trends. Through conversations with faith-based and marketplace leaders, we will discuss integrity, conviction, and purpose. To learn more about us, visit us at iOLglobal.com. Hello and welcome to the Lead with Legacy Podcast. Today we are so excited to have Mr. Mark Hedquist on with us. Mark and I met through LinkedIn, actually through a colleague of his, Daniel Hemhauser, who we hope to have on the show at some point. I'm gonna let Mark introduce himself and then we got a couple of questions for you. So welcome. Thank you for being on here.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Thank you, Amanda and Sloan. I appreciate you both and uh just super excited to be part of this podcast series. Um, it's it's very exciting. I'm I just love uh the fact that we met each other really through a uh certification program that Amanda was involved in very heavily called the Pure Project Management Certification Program, which really is a startup, right? And so I'm a project manager. I've been in project management for just over, you know, roughly 10 years. I've also been involved in client administrative support, client service, customer service, uh really focused on the healthcare and retirement services industries. So I got a master's degree from the University of Utah in public administration back in 96. So it's kind of fun that it's been 30 years already, which is crazy. And then I kind of jumped right into working for a company called Signal Healthcare of Utah, spent a lot of time in Utah. In fact, I'm in southern Utah now, living in St. George. And most recently, um I came across a company called O'Reilly that offers educational programs online for really the IT world. But also I discovered that they offered a PMP project management professional preparation course, top like Joseph Phillips. And so I got pretty excited because I knew about the PMP program being a gold standard for project managers and decided to jump in and do that because it didn't cost me anything. And uh loved it. I loved Joseph's style of leadership and his way of delivering instruction, and then through his company, discovered the Pure program. I finished that certification program at the very tail end of uh last year, and uh have been spending more time with LinkedIn and just expanding my horizons with my network. I'm a big believer in networking and you know, maintain your professional career network and met Daniel Hemhauser through LinkedIn and loved his philosophies that he was posting about, which is human-centered leadership and human-centered skills for project managers, and discovered his brand new company that he started back in July of last year. He offered a free membership, and so I joined as a free member on the PM Playbook. So it's www.thepmplaybook.com. I joined back in August and became his number one user. It's pretty cool. So he built this portal on his own and it allows you to see a leaderboard basically of who is interacting the most in the community. And I became the number one uh volume producer in terms of my comments, my posts on the number one fan. And so through that process, yeah, through that process, I joined an original group of volunteers, and then as he continued to grow and develop, I believe the total free membership now is about 3,600 people globally. He recently promoted me to an executive position, and so I'm super excited to help him move it forward. Um so this is very, very exciting for you.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

You're executive vice president now.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Yes, yes, he promoted me. It's funny because I was just kind of having fun with him a few weeks ago, about a month ago or so. I was kind of showing him just for fun, he's sort of the hierarchy of our new little startup, and I put myself as the EVP. So he went ahead and said, I'm doing this. I said, Okay, you know, so it's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

It's so great. You guys are a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Yeah, we've had a really good, we've had a good time getting to know you guys. It's been a lot of fun. So let's back up just a little bit for people who are listening or watching. Let's give a little context. Yeah, so Pure, which you'll hear about on this podcast quite a bit, because a lot of the guests that I have on here have been involved with that project. It was a huge, massive project that we did. Um, we started a little over a year ago. Um, and we had 21 instructors on. Um, and we created a credentialing program um for project management, real world project management. Again, it is not, it was not my program. I had the honor of working for Joseph Phillips. I've worked with him uh for six years now. He is incredible. He is one of the, if not the top online project management instructors um that we have. And he is amazing. He has over a million and a half students. We were able to work together and collaborate together over the years and really build um the amount of students he has because he just is a really incredible trainer. As you said, we were able to integrate into O'Reilly a couple years ago with Joe's material, which was incredible. So if you are on O'Reilly, I implore you to go on there and take his courses. He now has PMP, C A PM. Joe also has his own website, instructing.com, where he teaches project management. So we'll plug that as well. It was an extreme honor to work for him and to have his blessing to open my own company, IOL, um, and then start working from here in a little bit different space. But I'm super closely connected with a lot of you project managers. So we talk a lot of project management. So that's kind of where that comes in. But I was so honored through that program to again meet you through LinkedIn. Part of that program is like when you finish one of the courses that the instructors taught, you kind of link up with them on LinkedIn, uh, on LinkedIn. And then you we all kind of collaborate there. And so it's really fun um to continually watch all the people that we get to meet and collaborate with. And so really cool. And so you and Daniel are doing some really, really interesting stuff. It is pretty much impossible to be on LinkedIn and not see you guys. So you guys have a huge presence on there. Um, and then we have all gotten to meet a couple of times just to do some collaboration and just talk about different things that you guys are doing and that I'm doing through IOL. Um, and I think I did forget, I'm sorry, to introduce my amazing assistant, Sloan Lott. Um, nothing happens around here without her. Um, and I'm so grateful. And so thank you for being on with us too. So let's see, I'm gonna ask the first question, and I'm gonna let Sloan have it for a little while. So you have spent years in project leadership before stepping into executive leadership. What lessons from being in the trenches still shape how you lead today?

SPEAKER_02 7:17

That's one thing that Daniel and I talked about is one thing he likes about me is that I am in the trenches, right? I'm actually a project manager doing real projects with real clients, with real stakeholders. So I think, you know, as I think about it, I you know, I've learned a lot through the years of just working with internal and external stakeholders, the importance of clear communication, because obviously communication is huge, not only for project managers, but really for any client-facing business position, right? And so even when I was not a project manager and I was an administrator, you know, working with clients, with board of trustees, there was a position I had a few years ago where I was supporting um, you know, boards of trustees for labor unions. And it was it was fascinating. It was fascinating to take minutes to become a better listener, obviously. That's that's critical as well, and becoming a better leader. But really, you know, learning the importance of emotional intelligence, for example, and the importance of being calm, and that's one some of the feedback I've received as a strength of mine, is this I'm a very common protocol person on my personality, which I think bodes well for being an effective servant leader. But I've learned the importance of really putting the customer first. And I have to say, one of my favorite classes, Amanda, in the peer program was from your father. So Jim. I I just loved his course on customer service.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

We have heard that a lot. He's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah, he's fantastic, he was fantastic, but I completely agree with what he taught us. Putting, you know, putting the the customer first in terms of their needs, their desires, their expectations, their perceptions, and trying to solve the problems is really key. And if you can do that, if you can, if you realize that as a project, you know, as a project manager, I realize that I'm the expert. I'm the one that knows the ins and outs of what needs to get done and why in the projects. And knowing that you become a more effective servant leader in helping move those stakeholders to your desired outcomes, right? And so through my experiences and knowing that I love and I have a passion for projects and being a project manager because the variety and the personalities, the uniqueness of each project really drives my engagement, right? And for me, that really told me that delving into some of the certification programs, obviously the PMP being the big one, made sense for me, right? Because number one, I obviously qualified having about 10 years of experience doing project work in my in my career, but also just the fact that it touches on so many of the aspects of leadership that I love. In fact, it kind of takes me back to my master's program. And in my master's degree program in public administration 30 years ago at the University of Utah, I decided to write my final paper. Um we had to do a final paper for that, and it was on leadership. So it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

So I'm actually fit and going then.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

One of the things I want to do on LinkedIn is to eventually launch a newsletter on leadership, on servant leadership, and really focus it on project managers and how servant leadership and project managers come together, right? And so my master's paper was on the use of the intentional use of language by leaders to use metaphorical phrases to influence meaning for followers. And it was it was pretty fascinating. In fact, my committee were kind of a, you know, they're trying to encourage me to delve further into it after I finished my degree, which I never really did, but I mean it's a pretty fascinating topic. And when you think about, because obviously leadership's a huge, huge topic. It's very broad, right? Very broad based, but that that that little niche of looking at metaphorical language and how that's used by leaders, I want to now with the newsletter, kind of go back over the last 30 years of my career and kind of use stories and obviously talk about experiences and reflect on those experiences and how that has worked for me in terms of using language as a leader.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

That is so great. Yeah. And I look forward to seeing that when it comes out for sure, too. And we can when when you get to that point, um, because I know you have a lot going on, but when you get to that point, let's come back and talk about that too. And I'm glad you I'm glad you like Dr. Chambers' class. It was, it was, it was a hit for sure. Um, and I think one of the reasons why is because we like we think of customer service, right? That's like the grocery store or, you know, Walgreens or whatever. That's customer service. We don't think so much as customer service is in the industry that we're in, you know, learning and development, even. Like, is there customer service and learning development? Yeah, absolutely. I have a responsibility to one, lead my team well to know what customer service is like and what it should look like. And then also to make sure that we are treating people in the manner that they should be treated at all times. And the same thing in project management. I think that that is a portion in the training. Because of course, I've been deep in the trenches of the training of project management. And I know that there are several really, really good trainers that I'm close with that do make it a point to train those real world applicable type of skills like customer service and, you know, emotional intelligence and things like that. But I think that a lot of times a lot of people who are doing project management trainings, they take the training so that we can get the certificate so we can put it on our resume, but they're not taking the time to get those real skills so that when we get out in the world and we're in this project management world and we're doing these projects, because we're all doing projects, what does that really look like? How do we really treat people? How do we really talk to people when things blow up and the project's going crazy? How do we deal with it? And our stakeholders are our customers, our team are our customers, our outward-facing customers, our vendors are our customers. And so we have to know really how to treat them. And I am so honored that I was raised by uh a family that really, really instilled that into me. And so I try really, really hard, even in the frustrating days, even when things, you know, do seem to go awry because they're going to remember those principles. So I love that you brought that up. So I will now give the floor to Sloan and we'll we'll go on from here.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So at the PM Playbook, one of the things that you guys are doing, you're focusing on raising the standards, right, of project leadership. So, in your opinion, what separates a task manager from a true project leader?

SPEAKER_02 13:57

That's a great question, Sloan. I appreciate that. Um, you know, um traditionally, and I agree with the founder Daniel Hemhauser, that when you think about traditional project management, it really has focused on frameworks and really being very efficient and effective at using the tools and techniques for scheduling, for scope management, for budget, for managing costs, obviously knowing and understanding your stakeholders, who they are and kind of what their involvement is in the project. But what distinguishes a true effective leader in my mind is the mastery over really the human element, the human interactions of really what you're seeing and sensing in the emotional intelligence skill that you have to perceive the room, what is not being spoken, body language, really knowing the perceptions of the individual stakeholders, not only obviously the external stakeholders, the project stakeholders, the client stakeholders, or I should say project sponsors, but also your your project team, right? The cross-functional members of your team that may not be reporting to you, you may not have a functional, higher hierarchical reporting relationship with these people. And that's something that Daniel talks a lot about, and I agree with him 100%. That being effect and an effective leader, and you could even throw in there the servant leader is something completely different, right? It's mastering those soft skills, mastering the ability to effectively and clearly communicate and influence your internal team members on the project and also your project sponsors to align everyone to what the valued outcomes are for the project. And that typically will come from you know the clients, right? The clients are wanting to make sure that the end users of your project have the best possible outcome envisioned that you're you're gathering and you're kind of clearly articulating that to everyone so that everyone is in lockstep in doing that. And it's not easy, like you said before, Amanda and Sloan, there are high-pressure situations where things get off track because, as we know, people are complex. And I believe that's what Jim had said, right, Dr. Chambers said you're dealing with complex people, and you can't anticipate changes that take place because of realistic situations and real projects that was really the philosophy of Joseph, right? And the peer program is we need to talk about real projects and how we can really become experts at improving every day in emotional intelligence, right? Becoming a better active listener every day. And I have that long way to go.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

I I still like you said people are complicated, and I'm like, well, I'm complicated. You know, I I think it starts there, right? I have to say I'm complicated. I can be difficult. Um, and and I have challenges that I need to work on, I need to overcome. And there's days, like there's days when I have to say to someone, like, you know, it's it's me today. It's not you, it's me. Um, you know, because sometimes it really is just us. And I think that's step one is realizing like I can be the problem, right? I can be the issue.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

You know, um, and and trying to work through that one and acknowledge it. One, share it with your team, be real with your team. If you have a project team and you're working on something and things are because we all have a lot going on, right? There's just so many things behind the scenes that we don't always see. And, you know, I'm not saying you have to pour your whole heart out to everybody on a project team, but just to say, hey, you know, I I'm having, I'm having some stuff going on. I might need, you know, I'm I might not be the person I want to be right now. And I think that's part of leading with emotional intelligence. Um, you don't have to pour out your whole life, but you you can say, look, I'm still a human too, and I'm walking through some things and things a little more difficult. So if I act out of sorts, you better tell me. And and I tell Sun, I'm like, correct me if I need to correct it. I I think it's so important that we have people in our life that can be honest with us and tell us, um, you know, and say, hey, are you okay? You know, what's going on? Are you a little off today or what's the situation? So we can help each other in that way.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

So no, absolutely. I think I think that's a big part of it is and it's not easy, be right, because if you think about organizational culture, there's macro cultures, there's subcultures in project teams, there's macro cultures that are outside the maybe the scope of the project, right? So there's large company cultures. And as a project manager, you can't necessarily quickly change you, obviously can't change the macro culture, but I believe you can influence the mic the microculture of the project team. And I what we were talking about, Amanda, I think is true. I think being transparent, being authentic, being humble, right? And admitting that we're human, that we have lives outside of work. And if we can build relationships of trust with our colleagues and allow for psychological safety where people can feel safe to speak up and be themselves and admit that they need to be home for four hours to take care of a family situation. Whatever it might be, I think that's I think that's huge. I think and that's where I think Daniel and I want to move and influence the profession. Not we want to transform the profession, not just in the playbook, but we want to be thought leaders and try to influence the entire project management profession to be and others outside of the project management profession to perceive project managers as being more than just a task master or a scheduler or very good at frameworks. We want them to look at us as leaders, real leaders, where we can actually influence all stakeholders to feel safe and to be able to build relationships of trust where we can get the best possible performance because of that. I think it's critical for us to continually ask for feedback, right? So feedback loops, retrospectives, I think, need to be a huge part of our culture that I want to implement as part of the playbook culture so that we continually are trying to give the best possible experience for the individual members of the playbook so that they are growing and developing and feeling supportive and are able to obviously give back because we believe as well that part of the the new company is to allow project managers to be mentors and to serve their fellow project managers and allowing their experiences to help others grow and develop in their careers.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah, and that's something that you know I'm so passionate about too, not just in the project management world, but just you know, collaborating with other people and helping other people. That's one of the whole reasons that we started this podcast. I somebody asked me the other day, like, why are you doing this? I'm like, well, I don't know, just to have these conversations and talk about things. What are you doing? What's going on? What struggles are you having? How can we help one another? I think it's really interesting to hear everybody's different perspective on things. Um, I know we've had some really good conversations, you know, off camera with you and Daniel, just talking about different things that you guys have been planning and things that you're interested in doing, picking Things like that. So here's a question for you. Projects often operate under tight deadlines and high visibility. With you having as much project management experience as you have, which is a lot, how does pressure reveal somebody's leadership character?

SPEAKER_02 22:13

You know, that's a great question. I I think pressure and high pressure situations, especially when you're dealing with high emotions from project sponsors, can really reveal your level of emotional intelligence as well as your ability to influence those project sponsors and PMOs, so project management offices, the functional leadership within an office. And I'll just give you a quick story. So about a year ago, I was working on a project where I was converting a agency's retirement plan in California over to our platform at SSNC, and the CEO, president of the agency, it was a housing agency, had some brokerage accounts, and most of his retirement dollars were tied up in these brokerage accounts, two different brokerage accounts. We had a partner which was Charles Schwab that we worked with as a partner with our platform to move brokerage assets over to that platform. We ran into a situation where because the prior record keeper for those brokerage assets for this particular individual, the CEO, was difficult in terms of the timeline and the individuals that were responsible to liquidate and send that wire over to us for those brokerage assets really threw us off as far as the scheduling. It really made this individual CEO stakeholder very, very nervous. And he was very upset. In fact, he threatened to report us to the Department of Labor, to write up a letter to the Department of Labor to complain about our customer service, basically. And because I was the project manager, you know, I was the quarterback. I was the one that was going to take the blame for this. And it was interesting because even my functional managers, my bosses in the PMO were very, um, how would I say it, not very mature when it comes to emotional intelligence. They were very nervous and they unfortunately I don't think it's conscious, but because in a nice way, I'll just say that they don't have the best leadership skills in the world. They're very good managers. They're very good at managing uh mitigating risk. You know, we were I was able to successfully navigate through that basically by providing even deeper customer service to this gentleman. I was able to be on a be on the phone with him daily. I sent him emails a couple times a day for a couple weeks just to make sure he knew that he could trust me, that I was gonna solve this problem for him. So that was a great learning experience, but because even with pressure from my internal uh PMO managers that I reported to, they were demanding me to drop everything and to focus on this with all the other projects I was working on, which was fun. So I had to be adaptable and flexible, which project managers have to do, but I handled it very calmly. I basically was able to influence them to say, hey, here's the solution, here's the creative solution. We just need to have a couple conference calls with key individuals, with that prior record keeper, along with the advisor, because the advisor was a financial advisor was a key stakeholder, external stakeholder that had to be convinced that we could get this done and solve the problem in a timely fashion. And it took a few weeks to get done. It was out of scope in terms of our overall schedule. But in the end, he did not send the complaint, right? And he was satisfied that his money had moved over to Schwab successfully, and therefore I had succeeded. Now, did my PMO office pat me on the back? Nothing. I didn't get any recognition for it. But internally I was very happy because I knew that I had exhibited effective leadership in in solving the problem and providing that customer service in that situation, and all worked out. And I think that's the difference, right? That's the difference is being able to adapt to the situation and to solve the problem with elite level customer service. That's the key. That was the key.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

That's a lot of servant leadership there too. I think that speaks to your heart. Because if you were just managing a task, it wasn't efficient, right, to spend all of that time on the phone with him, making sure he knew I'm here, your concerns are my concerns. We're gonna work together through this. And someone, anyone could have told you, maybe even your bosses, your manager said, you know what, let's just write this one off and move forward. And he can send his letter, write his letter, whatever, but we don't have time to do this. And you made the time to do that and to reach out to him as you know, person to person, and you weren't just you know a project leader in that, but that it takes a humble heart for sure. You mentioned humility, right? And I definitely I can see that servant leadership, that style that that you lead with in that one that one.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yeah, yeah. No, it was a great story. In fact, I wrote about that story in the P PM playbook when I had just joined the portal. And I remember Daniel at the time and a few others were saying, wow, that's cool, that's a great story.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

I was I was gonna say, well done. And I like what you said about you know, creating that trust because sometimes that's so important. Sometimes when we're in larger organizations, especially, but it can happen in small organizations too. But when someone on the team loses or breaks that trust, it's very difficult to get that back. But it takes a special, a special leader like you, a special team member like you who will go the extra mile. And that is what customer service is, right? It's going that extra mile, it's doing the extra thing, it's really caring because you know what? People can tell if you care or not. You're gonna be able to tear tell do I really care about your mission and your passion and what's going on, or am I just trying to check a box and get through it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Exactly. It's like it's taking ownership, it's being an owner of the situation. I think that's a big part of it, is taking accountability. So accountability, ownership is huge, and then being willing to jump into that elite level customer service, right? To say, Absolutely, I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure this guy is satisfied with our level of service so that he knows he can he can trust me that I'm going to solve this problem for him, and that there's no need for him to to send a letter into the DOL, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Right. Yeah. And and we've all worked with or for people at some point or another, right? That don't get that. They don't get it for the employees, they don't get it for the team members, they don't get it for the project as a whole. It's it's more task-oriented, like you said, they're great at at running tasks, they're great at managing risk, but are they great at managing the people around them and not so much even so managing them, but just being a part. I think a lot of times when when people get to certain levels, it's like, oh, I that's beneath me. I don't need to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

You know, I'm just the taskmaster, I just say, and that's or Amanda, that's not my job, right? Or that's not my role. That falls out of my lane. So I'm not gonna go there. Um, they're not willing to adapt or customize their approach in serving the customer because it falls out of their scope of responsibility. So in that in that sense, you're right. Taskmasters and those who are really good and efficient at everything involved in the nuts and bolts of being a project manager is great, but if you haven't mastered the emotional intelligence piece, if you haven't mastered the customer service realm for the stakeholders, you're not gonna be a leader. You can be a good manager, you can be an effective manager, and there's a difference between managing and leading, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:17

And there is a huge difference between managing and leading. I want to go back just a second because I have like an interesting little story about you said that when people say it's not their job. So a long time ago, in a whole different lifetime, I worked in real estate and I was a real estate agent in a different place, but I also worked in a real estate firm, a very large firm. And we had like I think upwards of 20 neighborhoods that we were we did we built and did construction and then sold the houses. Um then we also had some huge um like office parks. I think we had five big office parks, and our office was in one of those parks, and we had the main office. Um, I worked there with the founder and CEO and his wife, and I was kind of the gatekeeper of that office. And so you would walk in, and there was a huge window that ran the whole length of my office. And so everybody that came in, I would see, and now, you know, you could go this way or that way, or you couldn't go at all. Anyways, we had um a lot of different employees because this was such a massive company. And so we had people that were on site on construction in the neighborhoods, on-site and these other facilities as well. Um, but we had a gentleman who was amazing. His name was Jose, and he was in charge of all of the maintenance guys. So it didn't matter what site you were on, what office park you were on, what neighborhood you were on, he was the boss of all the maintenance guys. And so uh in my office, the light was flickering and it kept flickering, it kept flickering, it was driving me crazy. And so Jose came in one day and I was like, hey, Jose. I was like, can you help me? And he's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, I can help you. And I was like, okay, great. I was like, is there any way you could, you know, fix this? Because it's driving me crazy. I can't, you know, it's really hard to work with the thing flickering like this. And and he looked at me straight and face, he goes, Oh, Samana, that's not my job. And I was like, what? And he goes, it's not my job. And I was like, okay, well, whose job is it? How do we get to do this? Um, and so that was like probably my closest encounter with, I mean, he just literally told me and he walked off. That was it. It did, I mean, that was the end of it. Um so yeah, I always go back to that story when I hear something about this. Like, it, I was literally left speechless, like, what do I do? You know, I'm fine, I'll get up there and change the light bulb. I just don't even know where the light bulbs are.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Well, definitely going along that same story. I've noticed that in in my work as a project manager as well, because I work with other cross-functional experts as part of the project, right? And my in my world in retirement plan um implementations where we're transferring plan assets from another system to our system, we have someone in charge of training on the website for the plan sponsors. We have another individual that is another cross-functional piece of it that's part of the project team that does the actual reconciliation of the assets to make sure they match what was on the prior record keeping platform. And what I've noticed is that there's individuals on the cross-functional teams that will display that same mentality of, well, that's not my job. That's not what I do. But it's interesting as the quarterback at the process, as the project manager, even after I hand off the project and the project's completed, a lot of times these cross-functional experts will come back to me and say, Mark, I need this or I need that, or I need your help in this area or that area for the client. And I've never had the attitude like, well, the project's over. I'm not gonna do that because I need I have all this other work I'm working on. It's my attitude that in my my mindset that, hey, if if you need my help, I'm gonna help you do that because you're still a customer of mine. So I think that's a big part of it as well, right? Absolutely a leader versus a manager.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yeah, a hundred percent. And actually, it's one of the things that I love about Sloan because she came from another position. And of course, like I kind of stole her away and and I'm so blessed to have her. But um there's people who will contact her, you know, occasionally, not all the time, but hey, what about this or you know, this thing or that thing? And she's always so good to help them with such a servant's heart, and she's so kind and so gracious to them. Um, and it's one of the things I really love about her because it doesn't, we're not like saying this is a boundary. I'm not doing this, I'm not helping anymore because I'm working for somebody else. Or um, and I don't want her to, you know, I want her to help people. Um, you know, our mission is to serve people. Um, and that that's not exclusive to only certain people or only sometimes. And of course, there's there's some boundaries there, you know, like within within reason. Um, but that's one of the things that I'll kind of give her a shout out to because I want a team like that. I want a team that is gonna go out of their way to help people to any means that we're capable of doing. And that's really important. So I love that that you speak to that. I love that you, your heart is is there, um, and that the mission of what you guys are doing is there on this podcast. Um, we have two questions, two of the same questions that we ask every single guest. Um, and it's been really fun and interesting to hear what everybody says because everybody's answers have been different and vastly different, actually. And so I'm gonna let Sloan lead us into that and then I'll ask you the second one. Sounds great. Mr.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Mark, I just want to know about a leader you admire, and I'd like to know why you admire them.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Okay. I'll give you someone that I admire that's passed away. Um in fact, I'll grab his book because it just came to my mind, right? So this is a gentleman that uh his name is Warren Venice, and he wrote a book, my very favorite book on leadership. I'll hold it up here, on becoming a leader. And as I was going through and finishing my master's degree program, I was learning about organizational culture, organizational leadership, which fascinated me about your company. Warren talks about in his book on becoming a leader the importance of reflection. The importance as a leader to reflect on your experiences, to either do that through a journal or do that through just talking to people like yourselves, just reflecting on your experiences, right? But the importance of reflection and improving your skill as a leader through reflection. And I just love that. I just love that. And he became a hero for me in terms of his approach. He was a big believer in leadership being more relationship focused with people, that you can only succeed in business and as a manager through other individual people on your team. So really, he was like a fore a forerunner for cedar for certain leadership. So Warren Venice. Warren Venice.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

What a great answer. I love it because I I feel like I well, I need to get that book. I think conversations that like this are so helpful because I can learn from you for the stories that you have and the things that you've been through. You've worked in very different um areas than I have. And um, and it just these good conversations of learning from one another how to be a better leader, what does the better leader look like? Um, it surprises me sometimes, but I have to remember that some people have never really heard of servant leadership or emotional intelligence. They don't really know what that is. And so it's important for us to have these conversations and kind of open up those pathways for people to say, okay, well, what is that? Let's look at that more. And and if you are listening and you don't know what those things are, you want to learn more about, um, you know, reach out to one of us. We would love to help you and point you in the right direction to people who can teach you more about that or give you more insights. Um, you know, like I said, one of the things that's so important in the mission that we're doing at IOL is just to serve people. All right, last question. When you think about your legacy as a leader, what lasting impact do you hope it will have on the teams or professionals that you have worked with?

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Yeah, so I think for me, I want to I want to set the example of what I'm preaching. So I want to have integrity and leave a legacy based on the personal example of being a servant leader, right? So I thought to myself, you know, last year, as I was looking to kind of change my profile on LinkedIn, for example, why not go ahead and label myself as a servant leader? So I did that, but I want to I want to set that example for others. So one thing I'm I'm doing, which I think ties into your company's mission and your culture, right, Amanda and Sloan, is is faith-based. So one quick thing about me is that two years ago, I decided, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to to become a temple worker, and we have temples in my in my faith across the world. We have uh, gosh, probably 175 operating temples now. I decided to become an ordinance worker in my temple and actually pick up a shift to serve patrons, right? To actually serve patrons on pay, just volunteer. And I do I do that on Saturday mornings. It's from 6 30 to 10 30. It is so awesome to be able to be there in this beautiful temple dressed in white, because everybody dresses in white, in a very spiritual, holy place, and to serve others that are going through problems, right? People come to the temple because they're wanting to come to the Lord, they want to be at peace with the Lord and to find him there. And I basically, for four hours every Saturday, I'm serving patrons that are coming into the temple to find peace, to find spirituality, to find answers to their problems. And I get to serve them for four hours every Saturday. Yeah, I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

That's so beautiful. Thank you. I love that because, you know, again, our mission is to serve people, serve God and serve people. That starts, um, obviously, I don't think it's any secret to anybody. We're a faith-based company, and it's really, really important to us, to our family. Sloane and her husband, they serve in our local um celebrate recovery program, which is an amazing program. Um, it's really, really beautiful. If anybody hasn't looked into that, it's amazing. It is not for just certain people, it is for everyone. Um, and it's really great. And then um we serve our family serves. We have um a Sunday group every Sunday um that comes to our house and we just love it. It's so much fun. Um, and then we serve meals in some other capacities. And I think that there is nothing more fulfilling or fun or exciting than being able to serve in those capacities. And I would encourage anybody to do that, even if you're not in a faith-based community, you can still serve in so many ways. And of course, we encourage you um, you know, to to have faith in Jesus and and to be saved because it's really important. Um, but we also would encourage you just to have that servant's heart. It really just changes your perspective on most everything, really. It's it's such a beautiful thing. It really kind of just changes the posture of my heart. And and Sloan can speak to that a little bit too with the work that they do. They get to work with some kiddos, and that's outside of my scope, but they really like, you know, we love it and we we love toddlers and they're so funny.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

And people will say, Oh, you have to, you have to work with the toddlers. No, I get to work with the toddlers, right? And so sometimes just when you when you change that language, you know, it is an honor to serve. It is an honor for us to to serve others in whatever capacity we're in. And so yeah, we get to do that. And we we love it. We wouldn't trade it for the world. Sometimes you think, oh, what have we gotten into? You know, they've got Oreos up their nose and somebody ate a crayon. And but you know, you get to to be that servant leader to the least of these, you know, to the little children. And so um back around to Dr. Chambers and his customer service, right? Sometimes you're your your customer's a toddler.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

That's true. You get to serve.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

I completely agree. I mean, just just I love it. I love being there. You know, I just I'm so glad I followed the Holy Spirit to do that because it's been a wonderful experience over the last two years to be there in that holy place and to draw closer to the Lord Jesus Christ, right? To be there and to to realize this is his house, right? This is his house and it's a holy place. And not only that, but you're serving the patrons and everyone that comes into the temple to have a great experience. And I just I just love it.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

That's really beautiful, Mark. Thank you so much for sharing that.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

All right, so we're gonna wrap up because we've kept you a long time. And so tell us real quick before we wrap up, where can we find you guys? How what's the best way to find you? I know that you um are on LinkedIn, so we can do Mark Headquist on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

I'm on LinkedIn, and you can find me by just searching for Mark Headquist, and you'll also pull me right up. I'm on LinkedIn, that's the best way to locate me, as well as you know, www.theplaybook.com, then you can find me there as well. And obviously, Daniel, the founder and CEO. And obviously, we would love to encourage not only project managers, but anyone interested in anything related to projects, can find a community where we'll you'll feel supported, you'll find all kinds of resources in terms of developing human-centered leadership skills. And you can do that in the playbook, the portal. And so just take a look at us, come out, yeah, check us out, and uh, we're growing like crazy.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Well, and and I'm so proud of you guys. You guys have really like just expanded so exponentially over a very short amount of time. We've talked a little bit about that too. Like what you guys are doing is working. Um, and I I am honored to take some pointers from you guys and and to collaborate with you guys. And we wish you absolutely all the best. If there's anything that our team can do to help you, please let us know. And yeah, everybody definitely reach out to them, connect up with them. They're doing some fun, cool stuff. Um, and let's just remind everybody, too, that pretty much everything is a project. Um, they're painting your house as a project, you know, moving in and out as a project. So that was one of the amazing things I learned from Joe um when I was working from him, is like everything is a project, pretty much. And so if you don't think you're a project manager, you are probably a project manager. Um, and so that's a lot of fun. So connect up with them. Thank you so much for being on with us.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

You are welcome.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Talk to you and to learn from you.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

It's an honor for me as well. It's an honor for me to to be uh on this podcast series. And I, you know, Daniel and I both want to do all we can to support your mission and everything you're doing at Iowa as well.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Thank you. We appreciate that so much. And you guys really have been. You've been great cheerleaders and champions of ours, and I am so incredibly grateful. And I just I am excited to see what you guys are doing. I'm excited to see what comes next because it's big stuff that you guys are doing. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

You're welcome. You're welcome.