National University Podcast Series

ETHE Ep. 45: Leadership Toolboxes with Dr. Jeff Belsky

September 22, 2021 Dr. Jeff Belsky Season 2 Episode 45
National University Podcast Series
ETHE Ep. 45: Leadership Toolboxes with Dr. Jeff Belsky
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Dr. Jeff Belsky, a professor in the School of Business, discusses essential skills for all managers and supervisors which are covered in his recently released book: The Leadership Toolboxes.

Samantha Wilcox  0:02  
Hello everyone and welcome to emerging trends in higher ed. My name is Samantha Wilcox and I am your host for this podcast series. Joining us today is Dr. Jeff Belsky professor in the School of Business at North Central University. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jeff.

Dr. Jeff Belsky  0:18  
Thank you, Samantha. Nice to be here. Awesome. Well, Dr.

Samantha Wilcox  0:21  
Dr. Belsky and I will be talking about a leadership toolbox today. So I am excited to jump in. First, again, thank you so much for joining us. I'm excited to hear your expertise in this area. But first, can you tell us how long you've been with North Central? And a little bit about your role here?

Dr. Jeff Belsky  0:40  
Sure, absolutely. So I've been with North Central University for about three years. I'm an adjunct professor there teaching a lot of the courses in leadership business, and mostly in the MBA, master's program doctorate program, I've been the chair of some, some dissertations subject matter expert, and, and so forth. My background spans 30 years in industry, over education, consulting, and a lot of different areas.

Samantha Wilcox  1:15  
I love it, I love that you come to ncu with a ton of experience in the industry. And I know that really impacts our students in great ways. So appreciate that. Now, leadership toolbox, this is a term we've, we've thrown around quite a bit, um, how would you describe a leadership toolbox?

Dr. Jeff Belsky  1:33  
Well, I gotta be honest with you. The The idea came to me probably five years ago. And I looked at it as you know, just to bring you back in time, somewhat, when I was about three foot high, and you know, 10 years old, I used to I used to work with my father, who had a side business and I was installing air conditioners and furnaces and he did a lot of things electrical work, and plumbing and carpentry whatever it was, for a part time job. And I often remembered him saying to me, you know, hey, Jeff, go get the electrical toolbox, and I'd go down there and get it. 

And he was pretty methodical, as far as lining up these toolboxes. So depending on where we went, and what job it was, I would go and get the toolbox and put it in the car. And, and that was, of course, many, many years ago, you know, it as time passed, and the number of companies that I've been in, and I, you know, now being a consultant full time in the leadership and executive development role, I look at the the similarities of what leaders do. And, you know, what we do as leaders is that we, we fill our toolboxes, and that could be from education, from experiences from coaches, or mentors. And I look at it as having individual toolboxes in your mind. 

And when you are presented with the problem issue, any type of situation, you reach back into those toolboxes similar to what I did with my father of growth, grabbing the right toolbox for the right job. And it's what you have in that toolbox is how you handle the situation. So you know, if I grabbed the the electrical toolbox, and we were doing plumbing, I would get a little discussion for my father, when we got there. It's no different than as a leader, if you reach reach into the toolbox, and either there's not the right tools there. Or you don't have the tools at all in that toolbox, it's gonna be hard for you to handle that situation. 

So leaders have to continually practice what they're doing, and fill those toolboxes to be ready for any situation. So I've identified eight toolboxes in my book, and I just recently released a book called The leadership toolboxes. And it covers eight of those toolboxes that are essential for just about any manager, supervisor, leader that's out in the industry right now,

Samantha Wilcox  4:06  
That is excellent. I love that metaphor of maybe working with your father and grabbing the wrong toolbox for the job. I think this toolbox theory really crosses industries, right? educators have a toolbox leaders have a toolbox. So I absolutely love that. Now really focusing on leaders and leadership. Can you expand on some of the tools that leaders need specifically to be successful?

Dr. Jeff Belsky  4:32  
Sure. So let me go through the eight real quick, just to give you a a an overview. And of course, if anybody's interested, they can always go on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and in and purchase the book and it goes through the eight individual ones pretty thoroughly. But to go through, the first thing I always look at is, you know, understanding the people that you're leading, and that's so important. So I I call the first one the people's toolbox. And this is really the importance of knowing your employees and putting the employees first. And a lot of that has to do with emotional intelligence. 

And I talk a lot about that in the book. Emotional intelligence is so important right now, that leaders really need to understand not only themselves, but they need to understand the other person. And it's probably more prevalent now than it's ever been in history. So, I look at in in the book, we I actually put the reader through an exercise of looking at a personal SWOT, the personal SWOT analysis, looking at your strengths and weaknesses, what opportunities you have, and what threats that might impede on you leading in in a more effective way. And also, we have so many, what we call unconscious biases out there and, and tendencies that we look at, and how do we eliminate those that we look at each individual based on their talents, and nothing more, and build our team, a diverse team of different talents that that will encompass a team to be successful High Performance Team. 

So the first one I discuss is the people's toolbox, understanding exactly who your employees are. The next one is strategy. And I consider that the strategic pobox any leaders right now have to move from operational thinking, to more strategic thinking. It's great to look at operational based, you know, decision making, and they have to look at operational agendas. But we all have to think of strategic thinking and strategic analysis. You know, I give a, give a clear example, in the book where the chapter or the or the section was called, I just run the mailroom. And quickly, it's, it's, you know, I was at a session one time, this was many years ago in a room, and there was probably 20 people in the room, and we went around introducing, and it was a vice president, a director, a manager, and so forth. And there's a lady in the back, and she kind of was very quiet. 

And she says, Well, my name is Marian, I just run the mailroom. And I looked at her and I said, Well, if you just run the mailroom, you're giving me the indication that your job is not important. She goes, No, my job is very important. And I said, Well, you seem you know, you seem like it's not. And she goes, Well, it's, you know, I'm here with a lot of directors and VPS. And I said, Well, what happens if you are not around and she goes while the mail goes all over the place, and people won't get it and customers will be unhappy. And I'm thinking about new processes on how to how to create streamlined, and she was thinking very strategically. And I looked at her and I said, you know, your job is extremely important. 

And you're not only think of operationally how to get the mail out, but you're thinking about strategically How can you do it better for the organization. So it's an all levels No matter if you're running the mailroom, where you're running the organization, that strategic thinking has to be in play. So you have to have a visionary thought process. Looking ahead. How do you transfer transform, either your department or or the organization and how you change things. And this whole process of being an intrapreneurial intrapreneur, not an entrepreneurial, but an intrapreneur. 

And what that is, is somebody that's inside the organization that thinks out of the box, that's creative, that's not afraid to throw a lot of mud against a wall and see what what sticks, and really drive success forward for the organization. So that's been a strategic thinker, and on all levels, leaders need to do that. The third one is what I call the individual toolbox. And this has really taken a look at yourself. And you know, one question that I asked in the book is, how will you be remembered? What will people think of you? Whenever you're across that stage and done? How much have you learned and grown? 

And how much have you served employees and been selfish in you know, self less in your actual leadership pursuit? And are you willing to change and this really takes a a tough approach of really just looking in the mirror. And leaders The reason this is an important toolbox is leaders have to understand their strengths and weaknesses before they can identify and look at other people's strengths and weaknesses. They have to look at themselves. And and it's a complete analysis. 

So I really believe that's a that's an important toolbox for for leaders. The fourth one, and this is one that that was questionable whether I actually put this in a book or not because a lot of people that read read the book, actually said to leave it out when they said to leave it out because it would, it would probably quote unquote, scare people away.

Dr. Jeff Belsky  10:01  
I call it the faith and trust toolbox. And you know, anytime you put faith in any type of book, it always reverts back to some sort of some type of religious faith or something like that. But but the approach that I took is more in, you know, we have faith and trust in a lot of things. But it's important for leaders to build the trust of their employees, so that they have faith in you. And that's really hard to do. 

Because if you think about it, the time that we're born, and in the time that we're, you know, three years old, or whatever, and, you know, old enough to understand our parents, they're always telling us, you know, watch who you're with, don't go over there, watch the, you know, watch who gives you candy. And we're, we're trained very early on not to trust, and then we become leaders, and we expect our employees to trust us, just because we say, trust me. And that doesn't happen, we have to earn that trust. And once we earn it, it's very quickly dissolved if we do something wrong. So we have to maintain that trust. And once you have trust from your employees, they will have faith in what you do, they will have faith in your your judgment, in your decisions in your goals and objectives that you're trying to achieve in your vision. 

And you will have that. So it takes into account honesty, commitment, consistency, you know, you're modeling that behavior, but building trust and having faith from employees. So I believe that's a really important one. And that's why I put that in the book. The next one is the fifth one is the coaching toolbox. And this is really important for leaders to understand also, how do they develop themselves? But and that's important, but how do they develop employees? And how do they make them better? How do they coach for for performance improvements for corrective actions? How do they identify, develop and nurture future organizational leaders? And more importantly, how did they look at succession planning and prepare the younger generation to take over for you know, what right now is, is a massive exodus of employees that you know, are retiring. And employees are leaving right now with a wealth of information and knowledge. 

And organizations are struggling with that, because the knowledge is leaving with these employees. So, you know, it's important and more, it's really imperative for successful organizations to continue coaching these people, and developing them so that they can have a place in the organization so that the organization can succeed in the future. So I believe that leaders need to continually coach and develop other employees to take over their role or another role in the organization for the succession of the organization. So that was number five, the coaching toolbox. Number six is the technology and in the in technology and innovation toolbox, and what we've seen over the last, you know, 1218 months, especially with COVID, and, and, you know, the implications that that has put on organizations, employees working from home, the technology needs that they have, whether it be you know, whatever platform they're using to communicate, you know, leaders have to have an abundance of knowledge, and be willing to accept the technology that's out there. 

And the other thing is the the generation right now, that is the new generation, the younger generation, Gen y's Gen Z's that are that are coming into the workplace, are very highly tech technologically advanced. And leaders have to understand that, that employees are demanding that technology, they're they're demanding processes, and, and so forth, that are that are requiring technology. So when we look at innovation and technology, it's something that leaders need to drive that and then they, they don't necessarily need to need to know everything about technology and innovation, but they have to hire the right people to do that in order to remain competitive.

Dr. Jeff Belsky  14:40  
The whole process of working remotely, and that falls underneath technology and innovation because that's an innovative process is going to be a competitive benefit. When employees prospective employees are being interviewed, those being interviewed normally ask about benefits for On k healthcare, vacation time, sick time, what we are now seeing an industry is now the next question is, is how much can I work from home. And not every job can be handled by a remote workforce. I mean, you can't have an airline mechanic working from home. But if jobs are, are capable of being remote, employees are going to start demanding this. 

And it's a competitive benefit, which means that employees are going to use that to compare one company against another company, and they make may make their decision based on whether they can work remotely. And research has shown right now that employees are willing to take less pay, if they can work remotely. So that's something that leaders right now have to really take into account, how are they going to structure their organizations, and be technical, logically advanced, with the remote workplace. So I had that as number six, as far as a toolbox. Number seven is what I call the social toolbox. 

And leaders really have to have a balance. There's a balance between technical skills and human skills. And if there's an imbalance there, for example, if an engineer knows how to build a bridge very well, and that's their technical skills, but they can't work with a team, or they can't communicate effectively or collaborate with external stakeholders, then really, what is the value of them building that bridge? So the technical skills and the human skills really have to equal and leaders have to have what's called an executive presence, they have to have that confidence when you walk into a room, what do people see you as a leader? Do they see confidence and strength and trust and being energizing, really see weakness and timidness and being unapproachable? So what's that presence that you're communicating to other people, and some of that is basically nonverbal. So the social toolbox is one of those where leaders have to have this skill. 

And it's becoming so important now, because of the fact that remote workplaces are somewhat limiting the social skills or building the social skills, and the younger generations are very used to gaming and, and online communications and social, you know, online social rooms, and so forth. So, you know, it's one of those things where, where leaders have to continue to build this skill in order to balance off their technical skills, to continue having those human skills. So I marked that as number seven, the social toolbox in my book. The last one, is what I call the team building toolbox. 

And this is really encompasses a few things, it encompasses looking at behavioral tendencies of of your, your team members, what's it what are their individual needs? And once and how does generations? You know, right now we have five generations in the workplace. And sometimes five different generations are working on an individual team, how does the leader lead that team? effectively, you can't lead every individual the same way, you can expect the same results in the same productivity, but you can't lead them the same way. So how do you build that High Performance Team where a team is very goal oriented, they have a singular focused goal that they're trying to achieve and how did they have you know, and how do they manage team conflict? 

And you know, how do they become inclusive in in work with each other. So I talk a lot about team dynamics, behavioral tendencies conflict and how to really ultimately become that high performing team. So those are the the eight and you know, to be honest with you, I could have you know, I've could have listed probably 18 more and who knows, maybe another book will show the other 10 Oh, with with any of these eight, it's, it's important to really sharpen them and keep them in focus.

Samantha Wilcox  19:23  
I love that so much. Those are incredible tools. For leaders for really anyone in any industry I think it can draw and pull from that. Now I know you mentioned where we can find your book on Barnes and Noble and Amazon. I know we have it linked on our NC store comm page out to your Amazon as well. Anything else you'd like to share about your book?

Dr. Jeff Belsky  19:48  
Well, the only other thing is is you know, I want to let the listeners know. I appreciate if they do buy the book. It is Going to be the all the proceeds of the book are going to to two organizations. One is North Central University, and that's going towards scholarships and contributing to their, you know, to their their nonprofit status and their scholarships. 

The other half of the proceeds are going to the what's called the Pittsburgh pink tie affair, and that I lost my sister in law actually, about 10 weeks ago, she was 55 years old to breast cancer, after a long and courageous battle, she was 55 and passed away that that organization supports breast cancer survivors with funding when they can't afford medication. So half of the funds are going there. So this is roll really my way of giving back. So you're not appreciate supporting the book and also supporting NCU with students that, you know, may or may have issues funding their education or or whatever else is student focused. And then also, breast cancer at the pink tie affair.

Samantha Wilcox  21:15  
What an incredible way to give back. That is amazing. That is that is leadership and compassion. And we just we really appreciate that. Thank you so much for your time today. I was taking notes to be totally honest, I was like, these are great points. And absolutely just ordered your book so I cannot wait to dive in. I hope others listening will do the same. I think these are incredible tools to have all our toolboxes

Dr. Jeff Belsky  21:42  
well like like anything else Samantha it's practicing. What I always say is you know, a doctor practices medicine, a lawyer practicing practices law, leaders need to practice leadership. And you know, we we as human beings, we normally don't do anything better unless we practice. So this is just one piece of the practice schedule. To make anybody in any industry. It doesn't matter if you're in education, in medical or in manufacturing, leadership is leadership. And, you know, so I hope whoever purchases the book enjoys it, and I hope it helps them on their leadership journey.

Samantha Wilcox  22:21  
Oh, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Um, well thank you again for your time today. For folks listening, be on the lookout for additional episodes in the coming weeks from others in the MCU community and beyond. And until next time, goodbye. Thank you so much.