Shepherding Souls to Safety: 3 Ways to Foster Psychological Safety in the Modern Workplace

September 16, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

By: Ryan Brence

“There are two kinds of people in the world. One walks into a room and says, “There you are!” The other walks into a room and says, “Here I am!”

— Abigail Van Buren

Have you ever dreaded attending a meeting due to the fear or anxiety of how you or your thoughts & opinions would be judged by the leader?

It seems like a rhetorical question because I know most, if not all of us, would respond with a resounding YES.

For me, this took place on a weekly basis over the course of a year during my time as an executive officer in the Army.

The brutal “Maintenance Monday” meeting…

Each week, I would be charged with reporting the status updates of millions of dollars worth of equipment within my respective unit. This included the repair or replacement of parts needed for multiple weapons systems, armored vehicles, and miscellaneous operational equipment.

While the responsibility and importance of my unit’s preparedness was not lost on me, I oftentimes had a hard time fully understanding the faults and breakdowns associated with the equipment.

Let’s just say that I’m not the most mechanically inclined…

However, with that being said, I would show up to “Maintenance Monday” meetings prepared to report on my unit’s equipment after having multiple conversations with my company’s operators and mechanics.

The soldiers I worked with would explain the faults to me in great detail by showing me the specific breakdowns and reviewing each problem with me in the corresponding equipment manuals. Then, I would do my very best to explain the issues to my superior officer in our weekly meetings.

Regardless of how prepared I felt, more often than not I would leave those meetings feeling frustrated, embarrassed, and discouraged. My emotions resulted from the tone set and the responses given by my leader.

Most of the times I reported my unit’s maintenance status, my authority figure would end up either interrogating, interrupting, or chastising me in front of my peers. In the rare occurrences that I made it out without questioning or blame, I was witness to another peer casualty being reprimanded without the opportunity to fully explain the situation or seek the assistance needed.

Over time, my fear and anxiety for these maintenance meetings stifled my curiosity, learning, and overall growth because I simply sought out the critical information that I knew would be most heavily scrutinized. There were also times that I would purposefully not report minor maintenance issues to avoid the retaliation that I knew would come from a longer list of equipment issues.

In the end, both my professional development and my unit’s overall mission readiness were stymied by my superior officer in these meetings. The weekly occurrences drained me of energy, confidence, and the desire to think creatively.

My voice simply did not feel heard. Can you relate?

Psychological Safety

In another Intentional Leader article, Wes Cochrane described how leadership is a profoundly human endeavor. We’re not dealing with robots - We’re dealing with souls. And all of our souls have truly been tested in recent years.

From the pandemic, geopolitical instability, and racial/ethnic tension (just to name a few), future uncertainty and fear of the unknown have catalyzed new collective movements in which individuals are seeking safety in a multitude of different ways.

Specifically, organizations across the globe are experiencing seismic shifts in turnover and productivity through the fallout of the Great Resignation and what is now being referred to as “quiet quitting.” While workplace wellness and employee engagement have been topics of discussion for many years prior to the pandemic, another term is being elevated in light of what’s currently at stake in the workforce - psychological safety.

Originally defined by William Kahn, and more recently developed and expanded upon by Amy Edmondson, psychological safety is “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” For employees, risk taking could mean freely speaking up in meetings, suggesting new ideas or processes, or simply feeling accepted enough to show up to work as their true selves.

This type of security is cultivated through demonstrations of engagement, understanding, and inclusivity. While these types of behaviors are shown in many diverse ways, it is ultimately the leader’s responsibility to not only create, but also maintain, this type of organizational climate.

On the surface, the expression seems to be more of an academic term used by social scientists and psychologists. However, the benefits of high workplace psychological safety speak for themselves through various studies provided by Gallup and Accenture. Workplaces that foster this type of environment in their companies experience many benefits as shown below:

12% increase in productivity
27% reduction in employee turnover
40% decrease in safety incidents
57% rise in workplace collaboration
74% less stress on the job

In a recent study by Google’s People Operations, the human relations team set out to answer the following question: What makes a Google team effective? After over two years and hundreds of Google employee interviews, psychological safety was by far the most dominant finding for overall team dynamics. Other behaviors, such as setting clear goals and reinforcing accountability were important to Googlers, but unless team members felt psychologically safe, the other factors were insufficient.

With all the brilliant minds and incredible resumes found within Google, the most important factor for driving team performance (as told by employees) was the ability to feel safe taking risks and being able to be vulnerable in front of one another.

So, as we all navigate the new work environment and the many stressors placed on employees both personally and professionally, what steps can we take as leaders to promote and develop psychological safety in our organizations?

In Amy Edmondson’s book The Fearless Organization, she discusses three interrelated practices for building psychological safety: setting the stage, inviting participation, and responding productively. Let’s take a look at each of these practices more closely to discover practical ways to apply them in the workplace.

Setting the Stage

Setting the stage is critical for framing the work done both within the company and how it is perceived and valued externally by the team and clients. As leaders, we must emphasize the purpose of the operations being executed and for whom it ultimately impacts. While high returns on investment, profit margins, and annual bonuses can speak to employees’ extrinsic motivations, the intrinsic motivations found within mission, meaning, and purpose can galvanize teammates around a shared cause.

Additionally, setting expectations surrounding core values, standards, communication, and interdependence clarify what is most important internally while operating as a team. If employees know what is expected of them and how they contribute to the larger cause, then they will feel more ownership and buy-in towards fully contributing to the collective group.

The leader must always strive to display these expectations while also communicating grace that is found in the midst of failure. Since many people have natural instincts to avoid failure at all costs, reframing these mishaps as learning opportunities gives workers the freedom to take risks and strive for excellence in their day-to-day tasks and duties.

Leader Action Steps - Setting the Stage

Focus on what’s most at stake for your team through your organization's operations.
What is your team’s why? What big problems does your company help solve?
Set clear expectations around standards, failure, and team collaboration.
Be the Chief Reminding Officer by continuing to reinforce these critical points on a consistent basis.

Inviting Participation

The next step in fostering psychological safety in the workplace is inviting participation. Most employees have passionate and innovative thoughts and ideas that could improve the organization. However, the instinctive nature of self-protection can inhibit these ideas from being presented and discussed in environments that feel unsafe. Once again, it’s contingent upon the leader to not only set the stage for openness but also pull these thoughts and ideas out of team members through the power of questions within the appropriate forums and situations.

Amy Edmondson shares three leader tasks that she considers key for inviting participation: demonstrating situational humility, practicing inquiry, and setting up structures and processes. Situational humility allows the leader to acknowledge gaps in their own knowledge or understanding of how problems can be solved in specific situations. By openly addressing the unknown and soliciting feedback, employees feel empowered to present their own views to help fill in the gaps and help the company move forward.

When it comes to practicing inquiry, the leader’s full presence is key. Complete attention shown through body language, active listening, and validating responses give team members the affirmation needed to continue to provide thoughts and opinions knowing that their voice will be welcomed and encouraged for the overall welfare of the organization.

While situational humility and inquiry may commonly take place casually throughout the day through informal conversations, it is also important for leaders to establish formal structures and processes for ideas to be generated, tasks to be documented, and metrics to be tracked. By having consistent and productive meetings in which employees are aware of the agenda and items covered, team members can continue to show up prepared and confident that they can participate in ways that bring value to the group’s strategic goals and objectives.

Leader Action Steps - Inviting Participation

Admit personal mistakes and acknowledge when you simply don’t have the answers.
Show curiosity by asking open-ended questions to your team and team members. Be present, demonstrate positive body language, and respond with understanding.
Clearly communicate the purpose of set meetings and come prepared with a succinct agenda with known guidelines regarding time, tasks, and communication.
Intentionally allow space for team members to share thoughts and ideas.

Responding Productively

Edmondson's final task for leaders to cultivate psychological safety is responding productively. After inviting participation, the way we respond can express appreciation for our team members’ thoughts, ideas, and opinions. After genuinely thanking others for their feedback, leaders can take it a step further by helping brainstorm next steps that will give way towards impactful action for the organization.

Similar to situational humility, the leader can communicate the need for one or a group of team members to spearhead an initiative that progresses the organization closer to the goals and objectives set. By offering any help needed and responding with trust and permission to take action, the leader accomplishes a collective orientation towards continuous growth and learning for all employees involved in the process.

At this point, it’s important to point out that psychological safety may be construed as an overly soft expression for allowing everyone to be known, heard, and appreciated regardless of their input. I admit to initially feeling like this all sounds too good to be true and seems challenging to sustain in the workplace filled with problems and different personalities. However, Edmondson argues that psychological safety is not an “anything goes” environment where people are not expected to adhere to standards and meet deadlines.

The goal of psychological safety is not comfort. Instead, it is an enabler towards openness and candor that, if fostered correctly, can allow teams to thrive with a sense of shared purpose, mutual respect, and awareness of guiding principles and processes.

The key to cultivating this type of work environment is finding the proper balance of psychological safety and overall accountability.

As seen in the four-quadrant chart below, the top right “Learning Zone” represents the ideal state of team members feeling known and accepted while being held highly accountable for important and purposeful work. When this is accomplished, organizations strive for excellence by working effectively with one another to achieve the mission at hand.

The other quadrants show the imbalances of these two critical factors that can result in either comfort, anxiety, or even apathy. While every team member shares a certain level of responsibility in promoting psychological safety in the workplace, it is the leader that often sets the tone through Edmondson’s three tasks (setting the stage, inviting participation, and responding productively) while maintaining awareness of the organization’s current state in the midst of changing circumstances.

Leader Action Steps - Responding Productively

Genuinely express appreciation to team members for participation.
Give constructive feedback, empower others to take action towards company goals, and open dialogue to drive next steps.
Ensure standards are known and team members are held accountable for clear violations. Stay true and consistent with how you “Set the Stage.”
Maintain awareness of what zone your organization is operating out of and strive for excellence found within the “Learning Zone.”

As I reflect back on my dreadful “Maintenance Monday” meetings, I realize that the Army can be an intimidating place to work considering what is at stake to deploy, fight, and win our nation’s wars. Most organizations do not share this same intense mission.

However, I do know that most, if not all, teams have an innate desire to win. And leaders must bring out the very best of their team members in order to achieve victory. While winning could look very different for organizations, fostering an environment of psychological safety helps bring uniquely distinct and valuable souls together towards a common cause. In today’s day and age, this type of leadership is much desired and needed in our modern workplace. As leaders, we have a duty and responsibility to genuinely care for our team members and shepherd them to safety so they can operate at their highest potential to make a difference in this world.

And to me, that sounds a lot like winning.

Life is short - let’s go make it count!

One last thing…If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

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Weary Souls Leading Other Weary Souls

August 05, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

Leadership is a profoundly human endeavor – we’re not dealing with robots. We’re dealing with souls.

And the soul demands care.

Another way to express this is that as leaders, we are responsible for “whole people.” Whole people are more than just their physical being and what they can produce. They have hopes. They have fears. They have concerns and anxieties. And all of this impacts their abilities to perform in the workplace.

The problem is we’re living in an age of soul ambush. Author and counselor, John Eldredge, wrote in his recent book, Resilient: Restoring Your Weary Soul in These Turbulent Times, that “[w]e have not yet paid the psychological bill for the pandemic.” Societally, we’re only beginning to uncover the impact the pandemic had on our families and institutions. Moreover, that impact was felt more profoundly than many of us might admit or realize. There was a psychological toll from the pandemic, alone, that was enough to burden any soul. This is to say nothing of the contentious political years that preceded COVID-19 and still rage, the deep and painful conversations surrounding race in our country, the abrupt end of our nation’s longest war and the beginning of a new one, strife over our education systems, the squeeze on our wallets and purses as the economy braced for inflation’s hard blows, the disruption to the supply chains – to the predictable comfort – that we have grown accustomed to. Further, these are all challenges and stressors that are felt universally. They don’t account for the unique difficulties that fill our individual lives day after day.

As we journeyed out of the havoc that COVID-19 wrecked on our world’s bodies, economies, and institutions, it became tempting to assume we were just marching back to “normal.” But that presupposes that “normal” was, at one time or another, a good thing.

The underlying truth is that life has always been and always will be a difficult battle for the soul. “Normal” is no refuge.

We can read about goal setting, vision casting, habit formation, managing commitments, navigating conflict, and self and organizational improvement, all day, but none of that will directly address the soul.

And it is weary souls that we encounter at home and at work.

Writing in September, 2014, in the wake of the brutal ISIS beheadings of American journalists in Syria, author David Brooks attempted to define the soul when he addressed what makes the human body sacred. In the New York Times, Brooks noted:

“Most of us understand, even if we don’t think about it, or have a vocabulary to talk about it…that the human body is not just a piece of meat or a bunch of neurons and cells. The human body has a different moral status than a cow’s body or a piece of broccoli. We’re repulsed by a beheading because the body has a spiritual essence. The human head and body don’t just just live and pass along genes. They paint, make ethical judgments, savor the beauty of a sunset and experience the transcendent. The body is material but surpasses the material. It’s spiritualized matter.”

The same spiritual essence in us that can savor the beauty of a sunset can also nurse the wounds or disappointments that come from trudging through life’s dark valleys.

Like us, the men and women we lead are carrying with them to work the myriad burdens of modern life, with its overwhelm, its overstimulation, and its limited rest and solitude.

If our leadership doesn’t account for this, we will miss major opportunities to influence our people – and by extension our teams – to perform at their highest potential.

And that is what leadership is all about – influencing others to consistently perform at their highest potential.

So how do we combat the ambush on our souls in the professional environment?

First, it’s going to look vastly different depending upon the size and nature of your office or team. Every organization has its own cultural DNA and its own challenges. There is no off-the-shelf approach to caring for the whole person. Since we’re talking about human beings and not robots, this should make absolute sense.

Second, it doesn’t mean coddling your people or insulating them from challenging work or circumstances. It also doesn’t mean invading their private lives.

On the other hand, it does mean engaging your people with an awareness that accounts for the burdens or dreams they carry with them. I’ll out myself right now – I have led teams before where my concern was almost exclusively the proverbial bottom line and getting the results I thought the team needed to succeed. The outcome was that I possessed a surface level of awareness of the men and women on my team. Caught up in the demands of the organization, I didn’t appreciate the complexities and nuance of the folks I worked with.

Awareness is the key principle.

Awareness is what makes people feel known. Are you aware that your employee just had her first baby? Are you aware that your new colleague is trying to buy her first house in a frenzied market? Are you aware that one of your junior team leaders is worried about a pending knee surgery? Are you aware that your officemate is a widower or has a child battling cancer?

When people feel known, they feel cared for. They feel cared for because the intangible part of them has been addressed. They are more than just their job. Maybe nothing was fixed. Maybe no amazing epiphany occurred. You just displayed awareness. You just extended soul care.

This is why anonymity and irrelevance comprise two of the three sides of Patrick Lencioni’s aptly named “job misery triangle.” All human beings need to be known, understood, and appreciated. We also need to know that we matter, that our work is relevant.

How does this look in practice?

Take the knee surgery, for example. You have a colleague who has an upcoming knee surgery. One day, as his supervisor, you stop and ask, “When is your surgery?” You learn it’s the following week. You ask how your colleague feels about it. Does he have post-op support in place? Could you bring him or order him a meal?

The point is not the particular questions you ask – it’s seeing your people. In one sincere exchange, you’ve communicated awareness. You’ve helped to mitigate the crush of the modern world on your colleague’s soul by reminding him that he is more than his job or position.

Do this consistently – across your team – and you will begin to influence the cultural fabric of your organization. You will begin to build a stronger team.

Quick Self-Assessment

Take a moment – in the morning before things get busy or at the end of your work day, before heading home – and jot down the first 3-5 adjectives that come to your mind to describe the way you relate to the people you lead. Don’t overthink it. Don’t stress about filtering it. Just write the words that come. What constellation of adjectives emerged?

What story do those adjectives tell you about your leadership? If that story is negative, don’t condemn yourself. You’ve just led yourself in a powerful way. You’ve prompted yourself to see the truth, which is the beginning of transformation.

Where to go from here?

Keep it simple. Who is one person on your team that you need to be more aware of next week? Who is one person on your team that you will communicate awareness to personally next week?

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Do You Know How to Engage Your People? 3 Tips and Why They'll Work

June 29, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

The views expressed in this article and page are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or endorsement of the US Army JAG Corps, US Army, DoD, or the US Government.

By: Patrick Sandys

When you hear the word “engagement.” What comes to mind?

For most, a ring and a proposal. However, for those of us interested in leadership, engagement is a unique aspiration. Engagement is the measure of employees’ mental and emotional connection to their place of work. In other words, engagement is “the level of an employee’s psychological investment in their organization.”

If that definition is a bit academic, think about the best job you have ever had. What made the job so great? You’ll probably say that it was some combination of the people, work, and leadership. When I had great jobs, I was excited to go to work, be a part of the team, regardless of the workload and time commitment; I was engaged.

Intuitively, leaders understand that an organization cannot succeed and meet its full potential without maximizing “buy-in” from their employees. But it’s not enough to simply increase engagement if you don’t understand why your team is responding to it. By only focusing on how to increase engagement, the benefits of engagement on employees—the “so what”—becomes overlooked.

I offer three ways to increase employee engagement and explain why it will matter to the employees.

Is the Boss Hearing Me?

People want to be heard. Whether it is the political issue de jour or an opinion on weather, look no further than the proliferation of social media and the myriad of statements posted every day about any particular topic. It is human nature to have something to say and to exercise the means to say it. Your employees are no different.

To receive employees’ feedback and opinions, you first need to create a “psychologically safe” environment where employees feel they have a meaningful and “safe” way to voice their opinions (without fear of reprisal). In this environment, leaders are receptive, non-confrontational, and responsive.

Once leaders set the “psychologically safe” environment, the next step is to ensure that employees feel heard, accepted, and valued. This means a leader must always follow up on the feedback they received. When leaders follow up and acknowledge employees’ feedback and opinions, employees feel empowered, it affirms the workplace’s “psychological safety,” and a higher sense of “procedural justice ” will infuse within the organization.

Leaders don’t have to implement every “good idea,” but they must respond. In fact, studies have repeatedly shown that soliciting feedback, meaningfully acknowledging the information received, and then providing an explanation for why the ultimate decision was made increases engagement among employees regardless of whether the final decision implemented the suggestion.

Though, like most leadership skills, leaders must learn to provide the environment for their employees to meaningfully voice their opinions, without getting inundated or overwhelmed, and be thoughtful in knowing how and when to respond.

And the Credit Goes To…

As a leader, how do you give credit where it’s due?

Admittedly, it is not easy. On one hand, if you set the bar too low, you risk inflating the number of awards or praise you provide, and over time, those recognitions become meaningless. Alternatively, withholding praise could lead to disgruntled employees, who feel underappreciated. There is the additional concern of ensuring you are recognizing the right people, which can be difficult if your employees work in teams.

To find the best balance, I recommend taking a page from the military. The Army has a tiered approach to awards and recognition. By creating these differing strata of awards and recognition, the Army has a meaningful way of ensuring individuals are properly recognized for services rendered or achievements accomplished. To reinforce the meaning and prestige of each award, the Army has developed standards by which each award is to be given, creating a relative value for each award and limiting the authority of who can authorize the giving of the award. Although the Army is not perfect in its practice and implementation of giving awards and recognition, the concept is one to be emulated.

A similarly important consideration is finding a method of identifying who should be recognized. There are times when wrong people are recognized for someone else’s hard work. Sometimes it is a “middle manager,” whose team did the lion share of the work and the manager swooped in and took the credit or possibly some level of nepotism is at play. I also know that the perception that gender and racial differences are often identified (rightly or wrongly) as being a determining factor. If any of these concerns arise within a leader’s team, the results can be catastrophic to motivation and engagement.

To defeat these perceptions before they can germinate, leaders must engage with employees to learn who is really putting in the work. Leaders must create an environment of trust and honesty within the organization, such that they are able to keep the pulse of the organization and understand each team member’s contribution to the organization and its mission.

Lastly, do not make recognition about metrics alone. The people who enable the team to thrive are just as important as the individuals who become the face of the final product. The importance of recognizing the right people and sharing their successes with the greater organization illustrates your commitment to them as their leader. It shows that you care and it shows that you are paying attention. Giving awards or simply recognizing the achievements of those whom you lead is the easiest and least utilized means of building engagement. Leaders must be creative in how they recognize their teammates and utilize the tools available to them. Failing to do so will inevitably lead to disengagement, a drop in morale, and a general frustration that can have significant detrimental effects on the organization.

Would you want to work for you?

How do your employees see you? Try closing your eyes and imagine you’re having an out of body experience. Observe your body language and interactions with people, starting the moment you walk into the office. Now ask, would you want to work for you?

Though hackneyed, the idea of “leading by example” is one that should be internalized, analyzed, and adjusted in real time by every leader. For many, leading by example means that you are putting in the extra time and energy every day, staying late, arriving early, and sacrificing your time for others. Without a doubt, there is a time and a place for this type of example setting, but such an approach is a recipe for burnout, and very often detrimental to the organization. Instead, I would argue that a leader’s focus needs to be on setting an example that emphasizes what is most important for the organization and motivates employees to accomplish those goals. Often, one's body language and interactions with employees must be geared towards employee engagement, rather than simply focusing on the bottom line. Ultimately, the work will get done, and it will get done faster and with higher quality, if employees are motivated and engaged.

So how does one become an example that motivates people to work harder, smarter, and with a positive attitude?

You must model the engagement you wish to see and it starts with how you are seen by those around you. Sixty percent of effective communication is one’s body language and appearance. How you present yourself and the way your team sees you approach the work, goes a long way to engage or disengage your people.

If you are a person whose hair is constantly on fire, or has a short temper, you need to recognize that and take measures to control it (one method is to seek feedback, as advocated in the first section above). Alternatively, if you are aloof, or generally disengaged with both your work and your people, that is equally troublesome. Leaders must constantly assess the effect and perceptions of their presence in the office, especially if they want to keep their people engaged.

The goal is always to be, or at a minimum, appear to be, the leader for whom you want to work for. If you can’t embody that, then how can you expect your people to want to work for you, and thus, be engaged in your organization? Aristotle may have put it best, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Employee engagement is a priority in leadership practice. To ensure success, leaders need to build feedback loops that allow them to assess and understand what drives their employees and what steps are needed to remedy shortfalls. Have a solid understanding of what is important to your people (and why), and all metrics from happiness to productivity will follow.

If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

Patrick Sandys is a compassionate leader, educator, attorney, and mentor. Pat’s primary legal focus has been military justice, having spent years as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and special victim’s counsel. He is now the Command Judge Advocate for the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hick, Hawaii. Before moving to Hawaii, Pat spent a year developing and teaching leadership as the Deputy Director of the Leadership Center at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, VA.

Pat is a graduate of Brown University and the University of San Francisco School of Law. A student of American History, when Pat is not reading the memoirs of President Ulysses S. Grant or the fight for Women’s Suffrage, he is finding his way to the ocean with his two beautiful children and his wife, Pearl.

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Does your Team Suck at Workplace Conflict?

June 15, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

By: Wes Cochrane

Back in late 2012, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, in the shadows of the Pakistan border, at a remote U.S. combat outpost, a simmering workplace conflict was about to reach a boil – and I was the culprit.

I’ve only written about this story one other time. I penned a 2016 article, anonymously, for Rob Shaul’s website – Mountain Tactical Institute.

I was a handful of months into a new job as the Executive Officer for an Infantry Company. Not unlike a mini Chief Operating Officer, my role was to oversee company operations like: logistical support, vehicle maintenance, and stockpiling of critical supplies. Also, I stood ready to command the company in the absence of the Company Commander (an officer that outranked me).

The problem was that in those first four to five months on the job, I didn’t have a grasp on any of this. I had no idea what I was doing. Four years at West Point, sixteen weeks at the Infantry Officer Basic Course, two months at Ranger School, and a year of leading a rifle platoon had all made me fairly competent at being a Platoon Leader. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to add value as a Company Executive Officer when I stepped into that new role.

None of this would have been problematic if I’d just asked some pretty experienced people around me for help. But, I didn’t.

To my colleagues – especially our company First Sergeant, who was the senior Non-Commissioned Officer in the rifle company and principal advisor to my Company Commander – the cracks showed. Early on, my First Sergeant (a decorated and experienced soldier and keen leader) realized I was struggling.

He started by asking questions of me. Many questions.

Regrettably, I chafed at his questions and interpreted them as “sharpshooting me” or harshly nitpicking. I was a fool, who thought himself the victim of an overbearing colleague. I lacked the humility to see that he was trying to help me. All the while, I grew increasingly stressed and concerned that I was failing my company.

It didn’t take long for this to drive a wedge between us. I’ll never know how much consternation I caused my First Sergeant or how much of a distraction I was to my commander in those early months.

That said, things came to a head in late 2012 inside our company's tactical operations center (TOC; think command and control room). I can’t even tell you what provoked the explosion, but I had pressed one too many buttons, and my First Sergeant finally couldn’t contain his anger.

He took me to task publicly.

I didn’t relent. Instead, I doubled down and responded dismissively or arrogantly, prompting him to storm out of the TOC and leave me to face the embarrassment of a public scuffle.

My commander, to his credit, never [visibly] took sides. He immediately called us into his office and urged us to resolve our conflict. You didn’t need a Ph.D. in psychology to conclude that I was at fault.

Finally humbled, I apologized profusely. It was exactly what the situation needed. We needed a relief valve to open and unleash months of pent-up pressure. This come-to-Jesus meeting with my First Sergeant was the turnaround point in what proved to be a strong personal and professional relationship. Again, you can read more about it here.

It’s easy to forget that military units, despite their unique missions, share many common denominators with civilian organizations. Workplace conflict takes its toll in both worlds.

Workplace conflict is sapping our organizational strength week after week

Workplace conflict is ubiquitous. A 2008 global study that researched data from nine separate countries, from Europe to the Americas, questioned 5,000 full-time employees and found that employees spend 2.1 hours per week, on average, dealing with workplace conflict. For the United States, that number was even higher at 2.8 hours per week.

That’s more than an entire work-day per month…spent managing conflict.

I’d venture that most readers’ anecdotal experiences back these statistics up. If anything, for some, 2.8 hours per week navigating workplace conflict may strike them as an underestimate.

The negative impacts of this reality are self-evident. Players have to take their eyes off the ball as they deal with office tension, drama, and politics. Teams suffer the double whammy of delays in reaching their goals or benchmarks and the drain on their energy and resources as they battle what author Liz Wiseman refers to as the “phantom workload” or “ambient problems.”

In her book, Impact Players, Wiseman describes ambient problems as “the non-glaring, low-grade issues where the status quo is suboptimal but tolerable.” She points out that “[m]ost people learn to live with these problems, but ambient problems erode performance over time. They are particularly damaging because they are easy to ignore.” Wiseman characterizes them as “white noise” in the organization that persists until someone decides to take notice and do something about them.

Lest I contribute to the false notion that conflict, in and of itself, is a bad thing, let’s get something straight – conflict is a necessity; how leaders and organizations handle it makes all the difference.

We need to embrace conflict and leverage the conflict continuum

A leading voice in the organizational health movement, author and leadership consultant Pat Lencioni, writes and teaches on the concept of the conflict continuum.

Lencioni describes two ends of a spectrum. On the one hand is what he refers to as “artificial harmony.” Artificial harmony is a state of no conflict. People seem to be getting along, but they’re not truly being honest with each other. On the other end of the spectrum is negative, mean spirited, harsh conflict – really, a living hell. Lencioni describes this as “destructive conflict.”

According to Lencioni, most teams and organizations dwell on the artificial harmony side of the spectrum, afraid that any step toward the destructive end would be hell.

The result is that the vast majority of organizations have too little conflict.

Predictably, Lencioni teaches teams to search for a sweet spot – move further away from artificial harmony, closer to the other side, right up to the point where another step in that direction would be to tread into destructive conflict.

Great teams, he says, move toward constructive conflict. Inevitably they sometimes stray into destructive conflict, but they courageously recover and return to the sweet spot.

The leaders and players on those teams know how to own their mistakes. They know how to apologize sincerely and quickly. They know how to swallow their pride and ask for help.

This is actually a hallmark of what Lencioni and his team teach – cultivate conflict around ideas, not people, and do so quickly! Better to get to the heart of an issue or disagreement so you can adjust and move in a more efficient or productive direction. When done well, conflict can be a bridge to success. When done poorly, conflict drains your organization and contributes to the depressing stats about the phantom workload and the ambient problems that Liz Wiseman warns of.

We don’t need to be stuck with the status quo

Whether we’re in a formal leadership position or not, all of us can benefit from understanding how to navigate conflict in a productive way. There is no reason that we need to trudge through an average of 2.8 hours of exhausting workplace conflict per week.

My experience contributing to that sort of workplace conflict back in 2012 was a painful one. While it was nearly a decade ago, I’m still embarrassed by that professional failure. However, constructive conflict saved the day and turned things around. My commander had the presence of mind to handle the distracting workplace drama with maturity. My First Sergeant had enough patience to speak truth to me and give me a chance to respond, even though I hadn’t given him much reason to believe I’d handle his feedback like an adult. Those first five months in a challenging new job still remain a powerful cautionary tale to me as I not only lead myself but continue to lead teams.

Questions for You

What conflict is simmering in your organization or team right now? As a leader or player on that team, what will you do about resolving it this week?
What side of the conflict continuum would you locate your team on? What dynamic, if any, needs to change to get to the sweet spot?

Leave a comment below and let us know what has worked for you and your team in cultivating a healthy approach to workplace conflict.

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The Far Reaching Rivers of Life and Leadership: Imagery for an Intentional Life

April 21, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

I used to read a daily Christian devotional in high school and college called My Utmost for His Highest. It was written by the widow of a Scottish evangelist and Bible teacher – Oswald Chambers – who compiled notes from her husband’s many sermons into a book of daily devotionals (i.e., religious readings for each day of the calendar year), which she published years after his death. My first copy of the book is heavily dogeared and underlined. Notes and impressions fill the margins of the pages in different colored ink, reflecting the years I spent reading and re-reading the daily sections.

One entry, in particular, has long remained with me – and for good reason: It underpins the vast impact that one human life can have on the lives of countless others. And, it fuels my motivation to live an intentional life.

Chambers begins his entry for September 6th with this line: “A river reaches places which its source never knows.” He goes on to teach on Jesus’ words in John 7:38 – “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Chambers writes of the “victoriously persistent” river “overcoming all barriers.” He concludes with this encouragement to his readers: “If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.”

The theme of nourishing water is not uncommon in the Bible.

For example, in the Old Testament, Isaiah 58:10-11 reads, “...[I]f you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”

Also in the Old Testament, Proverbs 11:25 reads, “[w]hoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.”

You certainly do not need to be a Christian to appreciate the imagery that Chambers is drawing on.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) defines the length of a river as “the distance from the mouth to the most distant headwater source.” The “mouth” is the end of the river and that part that runs into a different body of water (e.g., the ocean, a bay, a gulf, etc.). The “headwaters” are the farthest point from the mouth (think the distance between the start of the Nile in Uganda, to the Nile river delta in upper Egypt, pouring into the Mediterranean Sea).

Chambers’ simple opening line forms the heart of his powerful analogy to our lives – we are all river headwaters, and our lives are the rushing rivers that flow from them.

When I consider this idea, I’m filled with a sense of beauty, a sense of humility, and a sense of power.

This idea fills me with a sense of beauty because it gives tremendous meaning and purpose to our lives, especially as intentional leaders. As leaders at home, at work, and in our communities, we know there is no question that our lives impact others. The real issue is whether that impact is positive or negative – whether it is life-giving or life-sapping. As the USGS notes in some of its educational material for students:

“The phrase "river of life" is not just a random set of words. Rivers have been essential not only to humans, but to all life on earth, ever since life began. Plants and animals grow and congregate around rivers simply because water is so essential to all life. It might seem that rivers happen to run through many cities in the world, but it is not that the rivers go through the city, but rather that the city was built and grew up around the river.”

This idea fills me with a sense of humility because I realize that much of what I “achieve” may never be known to me. “A river reaches places which its source never knows.” How utterly humbling. I don’t know about you, but I’m so painfully conditioned to want positive feedback and affirmation that I’m succeeding and making a difference in the world. This is understandable, but it’s incredibly self-centered. The river’s headwaters have no idea how responsible they are for nourishing the millions of lives and communities that live along its banks down river. As the headwater in my own life, am I OK with that? Can I live at peace with that? Can you?

Oswald Chambers did not live a long life; rather, he died at age 43. While ministering to allied soldiers in World War I in Cairo, Egypt, he was stricken with appendicitis on 17 October 1917. When urged to go to the hospital, he initially resisted, citing the fact that the beds would need to be reserved for the coming wounded during the anticipated Third Battle of Gaza. On 29 October, a surgeon operated on him, performing an emergency appendectomy. However, by 15 November 1917, Chambers expired from a pulmonary hemorrhage (acute bleeding from the lungs).

Chambers never published a single book during his life. At his death, he had been working on a manuscript for his first book. However, his widow, Gertrude Hobbs Chambers, spent the rest of her life editing and compiling her late husband’s teaching and writing into dozens of books. Unquestionably, the most famous book she helped publish was My Utmost for His Highest – a humble devotional that has been in print since 1935, has been translated into 39 languages, has sold over 13 million copies worldwide, and is read and shared online everyday.

Oswald Chambers never saw any of this in his lifetime.

This idea fills me with a sense of power because I realize that virtually anything is possible and there is no ceiling on what my life can accomplish if I’m willing to ignore the credit or glory. Every conversation we have, every effort we put into an endeavor, everyday we show up and serve faithfully at work, every interaction with our children, our spouses, or our neighbors can be the start of a new tributary or branch of our river. It can be the chance to refresh and bless others. In short, the idea of the river rouses me. It stirs my heart. It injects meaning into virtually everything I do. It helps me conceptualize what it means to make an impact.

Imagine the far reaches of your life’s river. What far flung places are your efforts, your encouragement, your diligence reaching? Who is nourished by your life?

Likewise, knowing the value and impact of a single headwater, what will you do to guard yours? What will you do to maintain it and keep it from becoming polluted or being reduced to a trickle?

While we don’t have control, necessarily, on where our life’s rivers will flow, we can be the stewards of the headwaters.

May all our rivers nourish far and wide.

Wes is passionate about leadership development and is a gifted speaker, coach, and teacher. Wes recently spent the last two years as a military prosecutor at the 82nd Airborne Division, where he was consistently praised for his advocacy skills by seasoned trial practitioners.

Wes is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the University of Richmond School of Law, and the US Army’s Ranger, Airborne, and Air Assault schools. Prior to attending law school, Wes served as an infantry officer in the US Army where he led a rifle platoon, served as the second in command of an infantry company, and deployed to Afghanistan. He is now a major in the Army and is attending the Graduate Course at the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, VA.

Wes and his wife, Anne, have four children.

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5 Keys to Self-Leadership and Why They Matter

March 11, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management, Organizational Leadership

By: Cal Walters

The hardest person you and I will ever lead is the person we see in the mirror each day.

It’s hard to lead yourself. I have a hard time leading myself.

At the same time, how well we lead ourselves determines our capacity to impact the world.

Think about it. Who do you respect the most? It’s the people in your life that lead themselves the best.

If you have a boss that doesn't lead himself or herself well, you likely won't respect them. You may still do what they ask you to do, you may want their title or their car, but you won't be inspired by them and you won’t aspire to be like them.

We often see this first with our parents. Whether you want to be like your mom or dad is ultimately a product of how well they lead themselves. Did they teach you a way of living that they don’t live out themselves? As one wise friend recently asked me, “Does their video match their audio?”

Helping leaders grow and lead themselves better is what gets me excited about the work we do at Intentional Leader. I get excited about the incredible impact you can have on those in your circle of influence when you are at your best.

I know that when you learn to lead yourself better, you become a better father, mother, friend, co-worker, organizational leader . . . the list goes on and on.

I also know that when you lead yourself well you will be able to sustain excellence over time. You are less likely to burn out, have a significant moral failure that implodes your career, or get to the end of your life filled with regrets.

On the Intentional Leader blog and podcast, our goal is to bring you inspirational and actionable material that helps you lead yourself. And we will continue to do that. Today, I just want to outline what I consider 5 foundational keys to leading yourself well. We will explore these in more depth with future content.

1. Commit to learning about yourself.

The best leaders I know create consistent moments in their lives to get quiet, journal, ask themselves questions, explore their values, reflect on experiences, and get to know who they are and who they want to become over a lifetime.

2. Don’t lie to yourself about yourself, even if it hurts.

It’s hard to lead yourself when you’re lying to yourself. As Andy Stanley points out on his leadership podcast, you have participated in every bad decision you’ve ever made. The same is true for him and for me. This means we have the capacity to convince ourselves to do things that are ultimately not good for us. A key to avoiding this is to commit to being honest with ourselves even when it hurts. Often this means taking ownership over those moments in life where we made poor decisions. It’s not someone else’s fault. I decided to do that. I decided to have a bad attitude. For more on this important topic, I encourage you to read the amazing book, Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute.

3. Be in community and under authority.

This may seem weird to say in an article about self-leadership, but we need community and accountability to thrive, learn, and grow. One way that we can lead ourselves is by intentionally allowing people we respect to speak into our lives and hold us accountable to our own highest values. This is where a lot of leaders get in trouble as they progress in their careers. They rise through the ranks and become increasingly isolated from people that will hold them accountable. The leaders that sustain excellence over time create their own “board of advisors” early in life and commit to being honest with them, even when it hurts. There is no shortage of cautionary tales about leaders who fail to submit to authority. One I recently examined was the story of Pastor Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Driscoll led Mars Hill Church through more than a decade of unprecedented growth in Seattle, but Mars Hill’s influence basically evaporated overnight largely due to a loss of trust in Driscoll’s leadership and due to his unwillingness to submit to authority.

4. Commit to being better on the inside than you are on the outside.

Self-leadership is all about being a person of integrity. It's about keeping your commitments to others, but more importantly, it's about keeping your commitments to yourself. Leaders get in trouble when they begin to value the way others perceive them over how well they are keeping their own commitments and living a life of internal alignment. This is a similar trap as #3 for leaders who rise in the ranks. As you become more senior, your rank or position gives you a presumption of competence and character. People are less likely to check your work because they assume you know what you’re doing. It becomes easier to cut corners, and if you’re not careful, you can begin to value your image over the reality of the situation. When this happens, leaders are less likely to admit mistakes and more likely to try to cover things up to keep their images intact. The best leaders–and the leaders that sustain excellence over long periods of time–know that integrity on the inside should always trump outward appearances. When you live this way, you can be at peace with yourself.

5. Choose your highest values over your immediate desires.

We all struggle with this, and we will never be perfect, but we can strive to become people who choose our deepest values in life over our immediate, short term desires that don’t support the person we hope to become. You say you value health and fitness because it makes you feel better about yourself, live longer, and have more energy, yet you keep choosing to cheat on your nutrition plan and you keep skipping your workouts. You’re choosing a short term desire over your highest values. Again, we all do this, but those that lead themselves well get better and better at choosing their deepest values over those short term desires. A key to success in doing this is doing the work to identify your values and your why behind each value. Then, share those values with your board of advisors and create consistent moments to be held accountable to those values. This is not easy and it takes a lifetime to get better at this, but it’s so, so important because it determines your potential impact on others and the world.

As you consider these 5 keys to leading yourself, think about the people you respect the most in life. The people you want to be like. Maybe there isn’t one person that you want to be completely like, but you probably know people that do lead themselves really well in a certain area. For example, is there someone that is fit and healthy that you want to be like? Is there someone in your life that exemplifies the type of parent you’d love to be? Maybe the type of organizational leader you want to be? I bet the reason you want to be like them in that area is because they lead themselves well in that area.

If self-leadership were easy, we wouldn’t need to talk about this. Yet, it’s incredibly important and we are honored to be on this journey with you. Please reach out to us at Intentional Leader if you want help in this journey of self-leadership. Let us know your pain points and areas you find it hard to lead yourself.

At the end of our lives, our impact on others will be proportional to how well we lead ourselves. Let’s go make it count today!

If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

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One Idea Leaders Should Take Away from the “Hippocratic Oath”

February 09, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

As leaders, recognizing that we lead human beings, and not robots, we need a simple ethical foundation that animates our daily practice of leadership. We would all be wise to borrow from the medical profession’s embrace of the ethical principle of primum non nocere; Latin for “first, do no harm.”

For centuries, Western physicians embraced the “Hippocratic Oath” – an ancient, 4th century BC expression of medical ethics – best remembered for the notion that physicians should “first, do no harm.” While most modern medical students no longer recite the Hippocratic Oath specifically, according to a 2011 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, most medical schools in the U.S. had oath ceremonies for their graduates. A 2015 survey of all accredited U.S. medical schools determined that 100% of all the respondents reported having oath ceremonies for their graduates during which they recited a code of ethics. The spirit of “first, do no harm” remains at the heart of these ethical expressions (see, for example, the 2019 Oath for Harvard Medical School graduates).

When you consider the role of a physician or surgeon, doing no harm is more than avoiding a “bad thing” for their patients. It’s more profound than that. A surgeon, for example, will inflict momentary trauma to her patient’s body as she ultimately works to set the conditions for that body to heal. The scalpel inflicts pain en route to promoting healing. The cardiothoracic surgeon, performing open heart surgery, cuts into the cavity that houses the most important muscle in the body. The oncologist administers chemotherapy treatments to her cancer patients; treatments that sap their energy, weaken their bodies, and leave them feeling utterly drained–all in an effort to terminate the threat of cancerous cells.

No doubt, physicians are well acquainted with causing pain. There is a key difference, though, between causing pain and causing harm. The physician acts to ameliorate, to improve. They act with their patients’ best interests in mind.

Leaders need to embrace this simple, but profound idea of first, do no harm. Likely, no one disagrees with the assertion that good leaders get results. However, if our understanding of effective leadership begins and ends with merely getting results, our lives, our families, and our teams will run astray. After all, poor leaders can still get results–even masterful results.

The problem is that such leaders risk leaving collateral damage in their wake. In short, they risk harming the very people they are charged to lead. I know from experience.

I used to be an Army prosecutor. The vast majority of my cases involved allegations of domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, and child abuse. These were often painful fact patterns and difficult cases. Domestic violence, in particular, was challenging because often alleged victims would recant their prior allegations, even in the face of powerful direct and circumstantial evidence. This reflects the sad, but not uncommon, dynamic of intimate partner violence–a scenario where victims often feel stuck living with their abusers. All of the prosecutors in my office took these cases seriously.

That said, pressing forward with recommendations to court-martial (i.e., prosecute at trial) soldiers is no small thing–a prosecutor should be able to say, with a straight face, that there is not merely probable cause that a soldier committed the alleged crimes, but there is a viable pathway to conviction (i.e., that there is sufficient admissible evidence to prove the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt). Recognizing the gravity (for both victim and accused), this led to disagreements within our team. Sometimes, prosecutors saw the evidence or the severity of the offense(s) differently, which led to multiple, reasonable recommendations (e.g., court-martial or something less severe).

On one occasion, as a supervising prosecutor, I found myself in a disagreement with one of my fellow prosecutors over the severity of a domestic violence case and the recommendation our team would make. My colleague felt the allegations and evidence didn’t warrant court-martial charges. I disagreed. The issue was not who was right (because ultimately, we could capture the various recommendations, identify that there was some internal disagreement, and present the options for a decision-maker to weigh in on). The issue was how I handled the disagreement in the first place. It didn’t go well…

Long story short, to my shame, it ended with me stating aloud that if my colleague couldn’t get behind prosecuting this case, I couldn’t see how my colleague could prosecute any domestic violence case… phew… To my colleague, a consummate professional, my comment was an unmitigated slap in the face.

Completely unwarranted. Completely unfair. Completely unkind. Blatantly poor leadership.

We all left the office that Friday afternoon. I drove home in complete silence; my mind replaying, over and over, how stupid and hurtful I was. I felt convicted all evening, the next morning, and later that afternoon. Sometime that Saturday or Sunday, I reached out and directly apologized for my insensitive, foolish comment. Thankfully, my colleague had the maturity to respond to me, affirm the hurtfulness of the comment, and, nonetheless, forgive me. We successfully moved beyond that Friday afternoon, but I had still done harm as a leader. I had demonstrated a lack of self-control and elevated achieving a particular result above caring for a person.

How do Leaders “First, do no Harm?”

Like the physician working on her patient, leaders cannot be afraid to cause pain or minor trauma to their teams as they work through friction and resolve conflict en route to accomplishing their organizational goals and imperatives. That said, leaders should first, do no harm.

However, doing no harm as a leader is not the same as never rocking the boat, never causing pain, and never causing disagreement. Further, doing no harm doesn’t mean avoiding frustrating somebody. Imagine having to counsel a subordinate through a poor performance or hold a teammate accountable for not meeting a necessary standard. These are not easy conversations and can often be uncomfortable. Nevertheless, just because they may be painful does not mean that they are harmful.

On a healthy team, there will be freedom to disagree and freedom to have productive conflict. Leaders should invite this because the momentary pain or discomfort of conflict (even difficult, and perhaps frustrating, debate) is worth the benefit to the organization. The momentary pain promotes longer term health. For example, author Patrick Lencioni writes in his book The Advantage that:

The reason that conflict is so important is that a team cannot achieve commitment without it…The truth is, very few people in the world are incapable of supporting a decision merely because they had a different idea. Most people are generally reasonable and can rally around an idea that wasn’t their own as long as they know they’ve had a chance to weigh in. But when there has been no conflict, when different opinions have not been aired and debated, it becomes virtually impossible for team members to commit to a decision, at least not actively.

Unlike what Lencioni depicts, my example of poor leadership, detailed above, went beyond appropriate conflict and became harmful. My words and conduct were a violation of the principle of first, do no harm, and a clear example of forgetting that the person on the receiving end of my words was a human being, not a robot.

It’s worth quoting the former Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, Dr. Louis Lasagna, who, among other accomplishments, was famous for penning a 1964 update to the original Hippocratic Oath. In Dr. Lasagna’s more modern version of the Oath, he writes, “I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.”

I can’t think of better words to adopt if I were to begin penning a leader’s “Hippocratic Oath.” As leaders at any level, we have the solemn responsibility to remember that we’re not leading or managing robots (i.e., the “fever chart” or “a cancerous growth”). In the Army, a rifle platoon leader (PL) is not merely leading a “squad leader” or a “machine gunner” or a “radio operator.” That PL is leading human beings. In other industries, leaders aren’t responsible merely for warehouse workers or sorters or drivers or tellers or electricians or secretaries or nurses or teachers or salespeople or junior associates or clerks or managers or attendants or directors. The people we lead and interact with on a daily basis are infinitely more than their productivity, their titles, or the functions they play in the organization. They are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, neighbors, volunteers, etc. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, those we lead know if we view them as a person or just another object–another company asset. Accordingly, if we want healthy long term outlooks for our organizations, reminding ourselves of the burden of leading ethically, on a daily basis, is vital.

So, if you take anything away from the medical community’s ethical expressions founded on that ancient Hippocratic Oath – remember, primum non nocere – first, do no harm. Remember that the employees in our charge and the colleagues in our orbits are more than their functions–they’re not robots. The way we treat them will echo in their families, their communities, and their lives.

If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below to download a free 12-page PDF full of powerful, actionable ideas and concepts from some of our previous guests on the Intentional Leader Podcast. These pages are bullet points, not lengthy text—perfect for a quick hit of inspiration in your leadership journey.

Wes and his wife, Anne, have three children.

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How to Energize your Team Regardless of your Personality

October 19, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Tim Janes

Do you believe a leader’s energy affects the way their team performs?

Should we pay close attention to our mood, and how it influences those around us?

My answer to both questions is a resounding: YES! Let me tell you why.

The Milestone

About two weeks ago, my organization hit an awesome milestone for one of our customer solutions. As the original project manager, I wanted to celebrate the milestone with the whole organization - we all worked to drive this solution together. To start the planning process, I met with the marketing team to discuss how we would make the big announcement.

I showed up to the meeting in our boardroom a little early to set up - I pulled up my short PowerPoint, connected my phone to the bluetooth speakers, and thought about the environment that I wanted to create for this meeting. Most of those attending knew the general idea of the meeting, but did not know the details, so I wanted to make it a big reveal for them. As I set up, I kept thinking about the excitement that I wanted to portray. Being a relatively reserved person, I knew I had to muster all the energy I could.

I surprised myself... and the team!

I greeted the marketing team members as they arrived one by one. Once everyone was settled, I began: “Okay everyone, thanks for coming. Let’s get to it - we have some pretty serious stuff to discuss.” *cue “Get Ready for This” by 2 Unlimited*

I continued (with loud excitement): “WE JUST HIT A HUGE MILESTONE!!!” I followed that with a short, energetic presentation of the details.

For those that don’t know me, this behavior was out of character. As I alluded to before, I’m known for being quiet, laid-back, and whatever the opposite of this was. That said, it caught everyone by surprise - even me!

What followed was an excited, engaged conversation about how to celebrate the milestone, with all attendees enthusiastically participating.

Setting the Temperature

As leaders, we set the temperature in the room. Whether it’s when we walk into the office in the morning, during a one-on-one conversation, at the coffee pot, or in a meeting, our energy, mood, and behavior is absorbed by those around us.

We have a choice to set the temperature. Regardless of our current emotional state, we can be intentional with how we interact with others to create the environment of our choosing. In fact, whether we are intentional about this or not, the fact is that every time a leader walks into a room, the proverbial temperature changes. So, if you’re not thoughtful about this, you’re leaving the atmosphere entirely up to whatever mood you walk in with.

So, do we have to walk in the door every single morning with a huge smile, high five everybody, and tell everyone how excited we are to be at work? Of course not. Not every day is fun, easy, or exciting. The question is, even on difficult days, how are we reacting? Are we throwing our arms up in the air and yelling at people? Or are we encouraging the team to gather information and come together to overcome obstacles?

Authenticity is important - people can tell when we’re being fake. Coupling our authenticity with our actions and words is how we create an atmosphere of safety, satisfaction, and growth. Even on our bad days, we have to be aware of the impact that our actions have on those around us.

It’s important to consider an epidemic of the modern workplace here: burnout. Too many leaders and too many individual contributors are experiencing this phenomenon. When a leader is burned out, their energy plummets along with their authenticity. In turn, their team often bears the brunt of the leader’s mood and apathy. As we recently heard from Carey Nieuwhof on Episode 72 of the podcast, managing our energy should be at the top of a leader’s priority list.

Lead Thyself

Whether you are the CEO, a team leader, or even if you don’t formally lead anybody at all, you can make this choice. Energy is contagious. Be aware of what you’re feeling, and how you’re reacting. Understand how your actions and words affect the atmosphere of the room. If you find yourself in the middle of a negative group conversation, be the one that makes positive change. If your team is going through a difficult moment, be the one that shows support and creates cohesion.

As a leader, it starts with you. Leadership is a choice. Part of that choice is how you show up for those around you, and the environment that you establish.

Before you walk into the office or log into work tomorrow, ask yourself:

What impact can my attitude and actions have on my team’s success?
What actions will I take to create a safe, welcoming environment for others?
How can I bring my authentic self, and in turn encourage others to do the same?

Do you have any tips for managing your energy? Have you intentionally created an environment of safety and growth for your team? If so, please tell us about your experience by leaving a comment on this post or on social media. Other leaders could benefit from hearing what you have to say!

Tim is a young professional whose life mission is to create supportive communities, so that others may thrive. He is the Process Manager for an HVAC distributor, where he has worked since he graduated from The University of Scranton in 2015.

With a bachelors in Operations Management and a minor in Philosophy, Tim spends his time critically thinking about optimizing people and processes. He strongly believes that each person has the power within them to positively affect the world, and that the role of a leader is to help their people harness that power.

Tim subscribes to the ideals of Servant Leadership, more specifically in connection with Jesuit/Ignatian ideals of care for the whole person, service of others, and striving for the "more." Tim lives in New Jersey with his wife, and he has a passion for soccer, photography, and personal development.

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Is this One Simple Thing We're Failing to Do as Leaders?

October 04, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

If you’ve ever played a team sport, you know how simple effective leadership can be.

It’s the team captain that sticks around after the final huddle to help the staff pick up all the gear and equipment on the field.

It’s the teammate that refuses to quit at halftime despite a sizable deficit in the score.

It’s the freshman on varsity that shows up and puts in twice as much effort as the seniors on her team.

Each of the players in these examples is a leader. It’s not a stretch to imagine that the team captain, choosing to serve his student staff after a hard practice, is setting an example in humility. It’s not a stretch to imagine the flame of inspiration flickering back to life in a locker room at halftime when a teammate is confident the team can turn the tides in the third quarter. It’s not a stretch to imagine that the seniors on a team will find a different gear when they see their freshman counterpart putting in the work to get better.

Effective leadership never needs to be extravagant. In some cases, it can be as simple as a sincere apology.

The Broken Work Relationship

A good friend of mine spent nearly six years as a highly successful sales rep for an innovative medical device company. Before that, he’d earned his MBA. Despite being offered an opportunity to lead a sales team of his own, a medical software startup recruited him away to head up its business development. He jumped at the opportunity to be a part of building something from the ground up.

True to form, he dove right in and began adding value from day one. The only problem was that his boss—the CEO—seemed unable to care less. My friend spent the first few weeks learning the startup’s unique software products, mission, and corporate roadmap. He talked with various stakeholders and read everything he could get his hands on. Within that first month or so, he not only understood the startup’s competitive advantage, he really believed in the products and the mission to get them into the hands of clients.

After he felt comfortable enough, he prepared 90-day and 180-day plans on where and how he could plug in and influence.

He just needed to get thirty to sixty minutes on his CEO’s calendar. As we say in the Army, he wanted that “azimuth check” – a sense that he was moving in the right direction in his new role.

No dice...

For the next two weeks, any effort to connect with the CEO was met with apparent indifference—the classic “meh” response. More frustrating was that multiple times, in group meetings, the CEO had deliberately stopped the meeting to publicly correct my friend for things as innocuous as apologizing to the presenter when asking him to return to a previous slide because he had a question (picture a leader interrupting a meeting to say, with a dose of machismo, “[bro] stop apologizing when you have a question – this isn’t the south.”).

By the time my friend and I reconnected for beers one night, it was clear that he was frustrated at work. He just didn’t get it and he didn’t know what to do. He was exasperated with his CEO—a man to whom he directly reported.

Forget feeling appreciated; he felt like he’d been deliberately ignored and publically condescended. None of this made sense to him: “Why hire me in the first place if he’s just going to ignore me or talk to me like that?”

He asked me what I thought.

I considered it for a minute and then asked him, “What if your boss were to apologize? Like, sincerely apologize. What if he came to you and said, ‘[Friend]… listen, I owe you an apology. I haven’t been available to you as your CEO and I haven’t shown you the respect you deserve. I’m sorry. I really am thankful that you’re a part of this team and I want the opportunity to reset and get off on the right foot, like I should have done in the first place.’?”

“That would change the game,” my friend said. “I’d overlook everything. That would be a real game changer.”

Of course, the entire conversation was hypothetical, and there was no guarantee my friend’s boss would apologize. My friend can only control himself. We discussed other ways he might tactfully, but firmly approach his boss about the current circumstances and the perceived tension in their relationship (after more than eight weeks, he still hadn’t had that initial sit-down meeting!).

But I couldn’t forget my friend’s response: “…I’d overlook everything. That would be a real game changer.”

Power in Apologies

There is tremendous power in a sincere apology. An apology is a recognition of wrongdoing – whether as a result of doing or failing to do something.

A sincere apology, unlike a hollow statement of regret that merely acknowledges that someone is upset, has some key ingredients:

It’s personal – that is, the one apologizing uses personal pronouns and expresses vulnerability (e.g., “I’m sorry I offended you;” or “I owe you an apology for …”). Contrast this with some poor alternatives that usually employ the passive voice (e.g., “I’m sorry you feel hurt;” or “I’m sorry you’re upset by what I said…”).
It’s tailored – that is, the apology isn’t generic; rather, it’s designed to fit the facts and it’s to the point. In short, it’s situation specific and conveys the sense that the one apologizing has put some actual thought into saying sorry (e.g., “I’m sorry for calling you out in that meeting yesterday. That was totally uncalled for and I not only caught you off guard, but I was just plain rude–and you didn’t deserve that.”)
It’s timely – that is, it’s close in time to the offense or omission. An apology at some point is better than an apology at no point. However, a sincere apology is best delivered close in time to the offense, while feelings are fresh. Problems or wounds don’t get better with time – they can rot and hearts can harden. A quick recognition of wrongdoing and ownership for it can lead to early restoration before resentment settles in for the long haul.
It’s humble – that is, there is an actual sense of remorse and no effort to justify. People can sniff out a phony apology (e.g., “I’m sorry what I said offended you.”). In a humble apology, one forgoes the chance to “save face” and one actually asks for forgiveness (e.g., “I apologize for talking about you behind your back. That was immature and I have no excuse for doing that. I would be equally hurt if I were in your shoes. I hope you can forgive me.”).

When sincere, an apology not only lowers the temperature, it sets the conditions for restoration of a relationship, often leaving the relationship even stronger than it was.

And relationships at work are everything. Most of us work with people. We work in teams. Most of our work, regardless of industry or profession, is a people business.

We will inevitably have conflict. One of my favorite authors and leadership thinkers is Patrick Lencioni, who often preaches that conflict around ideas is a good thing; while conflict over people and personalities isn’t. Conflict over ideas leads to more clarity, to a better solution, or to a better product.

Conflict over people and personalities merely increases office drama and politics. Further, such conflict actually stifles conflict over ideas (at a meeting, for example, people don’t feel like speaking up because they just “hate that freakin’ guy” and want the meeting to end), which prevents clarity and may lead to poor decisions (given the reduced input from the very people who will be asked to implement the decision).

**Inevitably, though, there will be conflict around people—which is why being able to reconcile (and reconcile quickly) is a vital soft skill for everyone—not merely leaders.**

As leaders, I don’t think we have an excuse not to tap into this. As Lencioni has noted, we either have a culture where there is healthy conflict around ideas, or we don’t.

As you read this, if you conclude this is basic, it’s because it is. But as Lencioni has pointed out, “…most organizations are unhealthy precisely because they aren’t doing the basic things, which require discipline, persistence, and follow-through more than sophistication or intelligence.”

As leaders, it’s not uncommon that we’re the ones who need to apologize.

Let’s challenge ourselves this week : this week, when you get that sense in your gut that you’ve offended someone at work (or even at home, for that matter) don’t run from that. Own it and take the time to apologize sincerely. Tell them you appreciate their willingness to be transparent with you.

This is the opportunity that awaits my friend’s boss, if he decides to take it. As my friend revealed, an apology from him would wipe out eight weeks of slights and indifference.

This is what leadership looks like. Like the simple examples at the beginning of this post, being humble enough to apologize when you’ve wronged or offended a colleague is the sort of basic, blocking-and-tackling leadership that creates an impact. There’s nothing fancy about it – it never needs to be extravagant. It just boils down to a straightforward choice. As we teach at Intentional Leader, leadership is always a choice. It’s not a title or a degree or a reputation, it’s a choice.

Lead well, friends.

Wes and his wife, Anne, have three children.

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Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

September 20, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

By: Ryan Brence

“Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what you want, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

— General George Patton

“Teamwork makes the dream work.”

How many times do you catch yourself saying that phrase to those around you?

More recently, I’ve been using this mantra with my two-and-a-half-year-old as we navigate life with the addition of another baby girl into our family.

But here are some key questions to consider in light of this popular catch phrase:

What is the dream (or vision) that your team is actually chasing?

What are the different groups and their roles on the team that you are working with to reach that vision?

And how do these different groups on your team work together to accomplish the mission?

The Intentional Leader Podcast recently welcomed General (Retired) Stanley McChrystal onto the show. Having reached the highest rank in the United States Army, General (R) McChrystal is certainly no stranger to leading teams. However, in 2004, he took over as commander of the U.S. Special Operations Task Force in Iraq fighting Al Queda, a network of Islamic extremists focused on eradicating Western influence from their perceived territories.

In his fascinating book, Team of Teams, McChrystal describes the challenging situation of leading the most elite armed forces from every branch of the U.S. military against an unconventional enemy within an ambiguous operating environment. With an often unclear insurgency force attacking them across the battlefield, the U.S. military adapted by engaging in asymmetrical warfare. This unorthodox means of conflict required quicker decisions to be made in order to save American lives and combat networks of enemy tribes and combatants that did not always adhere to the international rules of armed conflict. Over time, General (R) McChrystal realized the crucial need to transform the slow-moving bureaucratic military decision-making process into an adaptable and nimble “team of teams.”

As the commander, McChrystal continually sought to understand the big picture of the operation and ensured that information was disseminated across all units under his leadership. By sharing important context across the operating environment, along with his commander’s intent, General (R) McChrystal exemplified the nuances associated with mission command. This command philosophy encourages subordinate leaders at all echelons to exercise disciplined initiative and act aggressively and independently to accomplish the mission. Leaders focus their orders on the purpose of the operation, rather than on the details of how to perform assigned tasks, reinforcing a climate of mutual trust and understanding. ADP 6-0, Mission Command, Section 1-14, July 2019

By allowing his most well-trained and competent units to make decisions independently in an extremely convoluted environment, General (R) McChrystal’s “team of teams” were able to make headway and ultimately eliminate key threats in the fight against terrorism in Iraq.

The centerpiece of success in this equation was trust and common purpose as subordinate units understood General (R) McChrystal’s intent, realized the capabilities of those around them, and internalized the importance of their own specific task and purpose within the grand scheme of the operation. This strategy helped turn an extremely complex environment into one of adaptability through the use of shared consciousness and empowered execution.

I’ve been part of many teams in my life – whether in sports, the military, or the business world. I’m sure you have as well. The most successful and effective teams are those that trust each other because they have a shared purpose, also known as a shared consciousness. Everyone understands the big picture (the vision), what they’re seeking to achieve (the mission), and how they’re going to go about doing it (core values/principles/expectations).

Each team member realizes the importance of their role and how everyone fits into the equation. As teams grow and the environment becomes more complex, shared consciousness becomes harder and harder to achieve. Therefore, it is critical for leaders to be the Chief Reminding Officers of their organizations by consistently communicating the core foundational ideas to their team members openly and often.

From this shared consciousness, leaders should encourage their followers – typically organized in several different teams – to act without constant need for approval. This empowered execution frees individuals and groups up to make calculated decisions based on their leader’s guidance and best interest of the collective team.

The Terminators

A personal example of this concept of “team of teams” comes from one of my father’s Texas high school football coaches in his book, The 70-30 Split. As the head coach, my dad challenged each position group to come up with their own name and identity within the collective team. One assistant coach took this idea to another level by inspiring his defensive ends to take on the name and swagger of “The Terminators.”

In his meetings with “The Terminators,” this coach would constantly tell his players about the two different wolves inside of them. He said that one was evil and consisted of envy, selfishness, self-pity, and resentment. The other was good and included joy, peace, passion, and humility. Ultimately, the wolf that wins is the one that is fed the most.

“The Terminators” were on a mission to feed the good wolf and terminate the evil wolf inside of them.

The defensive ends coach would reinforce this message often, and this shared consciousness among his players made the entire team better. “The Terminators” proactively took it upon themselves to volunteer for any and every task typically reserved for younger and less experienced players.

If practice equipment needed to be picked up, “The Terminators” were on it. If the locker room needed to be cleaned, “The Terminators” divided and conquered. If a teammate’s family was moving down the block, you guessed it, “The Terminators” were there ready to do the heavy lifting. Their reputation grew amongst the rest of the team, and as the season went on, more and more players began to adopt the identity of “The Terminators” with the good wolf winning inside each of them.

Shared consciousness led to empowered execution across the team.

As an intentional leader, it’s imperative to know your organization’s why, passionately communicate it often, and entrust your team members to go out and make things happen. Of course, there will be roadblocks and challenges along the way. But if there is shared consciousness around the mission / vision / values, and trust built between you and your team, then individuals will feel empowered and compelled to execute according to plan. In the end, teamwork really does make the dream work.

Let’s go make it count!

Questions for Reflection

1. Do you and your team have a clear understanding of the organization’s mission / vision / values?

2. How is information shared across the organization? Is trust and purpose integrated into this sharing of information?

3. What are tangible ways that you can entrust and empower your teams and/or team members to take action without direct approval?

Ryan Brence is passionate about intentionally growing in his faith, relationships, and personal & professional knowledge. As a coach's son, Ryan grew up playing sports in Texas which eventually led him to play football at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

In the US Army, Ryan graduated from Airborne and Ranger School and served over eight years as an air defense artillery and civil affairs officer both at home and abroad.

After transitioning into the civilian sector, Ryan has worked in several roles spanning from sales and business development to operations and account management. He currently lives in Dallas, TX with his wife and two daughters and enjoys working out, reading, writing, and watching his favorite sports teams - Go Cowboys and Beat Navy!

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Be Your Own Chief Reminding Officer

September 07, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Cal Walters

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” Proverbs 23:7

In 2016, I was a news junkie.

I had a 45-minute commute to and from work, and I spent most of that 90 minutes in the car each day listening to the news.

Being informed is not a bad thing, and I genuinely enjoy keeping up with politics and current events. But soon I started to realize spending so much time focusing on the news was impacting the way I viewed the world. I found myself dwelling on things that had little direct effect on my life. I also started to notice that what I was listening to and consuming became what I thought about, and what I thought about became what I talked about. The doom, gloom, and negativity that makes for good headlines, if dwelled upon, leads to a negative way of viewing the world.

The interesting thing about this is that I didn’t realize how much my daily consumption was affecting my thought life. The changes were gradual, but the effects were real.

I started to think more about what I was thinking about. And I wondered, if consistently consuming news that was filled with negativity brought about negative emotions and thought patterns, what if I filled my 90 minutes a day in the car with positive information?

Around January 2017, I made a shift. I discovered podcasts and became committed to audio books. As a general rule, I only consumed podcasts or books that were positive and helped me grow in my life or leadership.

My go-to podcasts to begin this shift were the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast and the Your Move Podcast by Andy Stanley. I’ve now listened to nearly every episode of those podcasts, many of them two or three times. I also listened to dozens of other uplifting, thought-provoking books. I noticed that my entire state was far more positive as I repeatedly consumed positive content in the morning before work and in the afternoon before returning home to my family.

Even if I woke up in a bad mood, listening to a podcast on leadership, for example, on the way into work shifted my mindset. It was as if I needed to be repeatedly reminded of what was important.

I needed to put leadership on the forefront of my mind to be a better leader.

Winning the Battle in Your Mind

This is actually how our brain works, and we should take advantage of it to lead ourselves and our teams.

Let me share some bad news first.

Without deliberate effort, our minds often tend towards the negative. We have what psychologists call a negativity bias. The circumstances of life lead us to focus on fear, lies, anxiety, comparison, and victimhood. Organizations and teams--because they are made up of human beings just like you and me--also tend towards the negative without an involved leader creating a different culture. Unfortunately, if left alone, the default direction of most teams is dysfunction.

This probably doesn’t surprise you. But hopefully it highlights why we have to take intentional steps each day to inject positive, true, thoughts into our life and leadership.

“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” Samuel Johnson, English author, critic, and lexicographer (1709-1784)

This quote from Samuel Johnson is one of Patrick Lencioni’s favorite quotes. Lencioni is the Founder and President of the Table Group, a “firm dedicated to making companies more successful and work more fulfilling.” In his view, the CEO should also be the CRO, the Chief Reminding Officer.

In my view, we should become the Chief Reminding Officer of our own lives and in the lives of our teams.

Repeated thoughts create paths in our brains. Just like a big truck driving down a dirt road, our thoughts create ruts in our brains. These ruts become more entrenched by a collection of nerves at the base of our brain stem known as the reticular activating system (RAS).

This is why many of our thought patterns are so deeply entrenched. If you think you’re a failure, you may convince yourself that you are destined for more failures. You create a failure rut. These thoughts repeat themselves over and over again in your mind. You begin training your brain to look for evidence which supports that belief and to filter out evidence which doesn’t. Our brains are designed to create neurological pathways to help us keep thinking the things we keep thinking.

As leaders, we should harness the power of the RAS for self-leadership and keeping our teams inspired.

Here are three practical things you can begin doing to maximize the power of the RAS:

1. Inject positive content into your daily life.

We ultimately become what we repeatedly think about. We’ve all heard the phrase, “garbage in, garbage out.” Maybe your mom said that growing up. It’s true. Each time I was listening to the news on my drive into work and my drive home (90 minutes a day!) I was creating paths in my brain. When we combine negative news with our inherent negativity bias, we can easily create a life full of negativity. But injecting positive, inspiring content into our lives helps us fight our negativity bias and creates new brain paths that serve us far better in our life and leadership.

2. Remind yourself daily who you are.

Not every thought that comes into our brains is true. In fact, many of the thoughts we think on a regular basis are lies, and we have the power to redirect those thoughts towards the truth. In his book, Winning the War in your Mind, Pastor Craig Groeschel recommends we adopt personal declarations to remind us of the truth. As he puts it, “The goal of a declaration is to have it become my new neural pathway, my intentionally dug trench of truth.” When dealing with money, Groeschel often begins to fear he will not have enough. Here is the declaration he has adopted to deal with this mental rut:

“Money is not and never will be a problem for me.

My God is an abundant provider who meets every need.

Because I am blessed, I will always be a blessing.

I will lead the way with irrational generosity, because

I know it’s truly more blessed to give than to receive.”

On the Intentional Leader podcast, Brigadier General Pat Work also emphasized the importance of personal mantras. Adopting declarations helps us become our own Chief Reminding Officer. What do you need to remind yourself of daily? Here are a few simple declarations I have adopted in my life as key reminders:

I am loved by God. My identity is firmly rooted in God and his love.
I am grateful. I will commit to intentionally giving thanks for the blessings in my life.
I am a person of integrity. I choose the harder right over the easier wrong.
I will give my very best today. What I do today matters.
I will genuinely listen to the people I am with. I am present and ready to make a positive impact on anyone I come in contact with.
I will not be discouraged by setbacks. These are opportunities to learn and grow.

3. Remind your team who they are and what they stand for.

Some leaders don’t like the idea of repeating themselves. But the reality is people need to hear things more than we think to become deeply rooted in their way of thinking. On your average Monday morning, your team doesn’t walk in the door focused on your values, vision, and priorities. You have to remind them of these things. That’s actually your job as a leader. Create the neurological paths you know will serve your team and the culture you want to create. For example, when my team gets together at our Monday morning meetings, I remind them what it takes to be a successful team. I talk about the importance of trust, true humility, relying on each other, leaning into conflict around ideas, accountability, and why what we do matters. Maybe they roll their eyes some Mondays, but repeating this over and over again creates the culture I want to create.

Remember, what we think about is ultimately who we become. The same is true for our team. If you feel like you’re repeating yourself, you’re on the right track.

Commit to being the Chief Reminding Officer for yourself and your team.

Let’s go make it count!

Questions for Reflection

1. What are you currently consuming (books, TV, social media, podcasts)?

2. Of the things you are currently consuming, which ones are creating positive thought patterns and which ones are creating negative thought patterns?

3. What are some lies you find yourself routinely believing?

4. What declarations can you adopt to remind yourself of daily?

5. What should you be repeating on a consistent basis for your team?

Cal is the Founder and Host of the Intentional Leader podcast. He is also a major in the US Army and currently serves as the Chief of Criminal Law at the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC.

Cal is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Campbell Law School, US Army Ranger School, and the US Army Airborne School. Prior to attending law school, Cal served as an infantry officer in the US Army where he led a rifle platoon, served as the second in command of an infantry company, deployed to Iraq, and served as an aide-de-camp for an Army general.

He is passionate about helping leaders grow and hopes every interaction you have with Intentional Leader helps you grow in your life and leadership.

Cal and his wife, Natalie, have one daughter.

Listen to some of our most popular podcast episodes here!

Help us grow by leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts

Help us close the gap in leadership instruction by partnering with us financially at Patreon

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Strength in Numbers: Getting Wins by Getting Help

August 10, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

“Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors, there is safety.” Proverbs 11:14, English Standard Version.

Some translations of Proverbs 11:14 use the word “victory” in lieu of “safety.” Either way, I love this proverb and its message—seek help and win.

Have you ever battled insecurity over the prospect of asking for help?

Have you ever worried that asking for help at work was somehow an admission of incompetence?

How many times have you fretted over how colleagues – or superiors – would perceive you if you admitted that you needed a hand or (as is not uncommon) were treading water?

You’re not alone if you have.

Somehow, along the way – whether a result of Hollywood depictions of seemingly self-sufficient leaders, or some other input – many of us (myself included) imbibed the notion that leaders have the answers.

Always. They know everything. They don’t really need help. Admittedly, as I read these words, it is absurd to imagine that to be the case. Yet, I’m certain I’m not alone in this warped thinking.

The promotion, the predicament, and the prescription

In June 2020, I was internally promoted to a position I was not qualified for on paper. No joke. I was selected to be a Special Victim Prosecutor. In short, my job was to closely follow federal law enforcement investigations of soldiers and energize the development of certain “special victim” cases (e.g., child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, and rape) to go to trial. I had developed and prosecuted these types of cases the year prior, but now, with limited experience, I was expected to lead a team of prosecutors focused exclusively on these cases. I had done well the year prior and knew the nuts and bolts of what I was doing – knew how to block and tackle – but, frankly, my own inexperience terrified me.

From July to September 2020, we plugged along. I did my best to lead, and things appeared OK on the outside. Inwardly, however, I was battling massive pressure and fear – fear of failure, fear of not getting the results the team had the prior year, fear of embarrassment. It wasn’t until a conference (fully masked and socially distanced at the time) in mid-September, that I voiced some of these concerns to one of my superiors (a great mentor of mine who was helping to lead the conference).

His first question? “Wes, have you reached out for help?”

I had a blank, sheepish expression on my face, no doubt, as I responded, “Uhh, no Sir; nothing more than an email here and there.”

He gently admonished me to reach out and physically coordinate for more-than-email advice. He reminded me that we had experts within our organization that would field calls and even physically travel down to help me and my team in person.

Game changer.

I started asking for help. I don’t want to understate this. These weren’t just phone calls, texts, or emails. I literally asked these professionals (some of whom were peers of mine) to come help in person on more demanding cases. They graciously did.

Over the next 10 months, the small team I led (and our office in general) directly benefited from the injection of expertise that poured in through the simple act of asking for help. We worked with some of the best practitioners in our field. The results were not only encouraging, they were impressive; and we grew as a team. We had new connections and friendships with other practitioners that we would never have enjoyed.

All from getting help.

In admitting my need, doors opened to me that took me far beyond where I would have ever been on my own.

My team received help (and in some cases one-on-one coaching) that I wasn’t able to deliver. Pride narrowly held me back from that.

Three observations:

(1) One byproduct of reaching out for help is the culture it creates. When leaders ask for help, it makes it OK to ask for help. The prevailing culture of our team came to be one of collaboration and humility. We flexed to friction points as a team. We strategized as a team. All of us were smarter than one of us. We didn’t do this perfectly, but this became our normal.

(2) When you ask someone for help in your work, and you actually implement their advice and express genuine thankfulness, you’re giving them something in return – you’re affirming their usefulness, their expertise, and their decision to help. It feels good to be thanked and needed.

(3) Asking for help doesn’t mean you laze around while someone else does your job. In asking for help, neither I nor my team sat like bumps on a log. We did our homework, we worked hard, we listened to the advice we got. We showed gratitude. We actually formed relationships with these amazing people that took time to work with us. In short, to ask for help, is to build a relationship. And that’s what we did.

This simple idea of reaching out for help extends, universally, to any area of life (professional or otherwise). Humans are relational. We suffer in isolation. We thrive in teams. In our work, in our relationships, in our responsibilities, or in our physical or mental health, we all will need help. We all need “an abundance of counselors.”

A few questions for you:

In what areas are you holding yourself back by not seeking the counsel of others?

Right now, what problem could you solve at work by getting help?

How can you create (or cultivate) a culture of collaboration and humility in your team?

What can you do to avoid creating a no-fail type environment, where folks are afraid to appear weak or incompetent if they don’t immediately know something?

If you liked this post, sign up for our weekly emails. Every week, Intentional Leader publishes content (either a podcast interview with an amazing leader or a blog post on intentional leadership). We have some excellent content planned for these next few months, and you won’t want to miss it!

Check out this recent episode with Sarah Roberts, where she discusses humble leadership:

Wes and his wife, Anne, have three children.

Listen to some of our most popular episodes here!

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Help us close the gap in leadership instruction by partnering with us financially at Patreon

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Leading with Toughness AND Tenderness: In Memory of Coach T

July 26, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

By Ryan Brence

I’ve never heard a voice like his before.

As a young coach’s kid, I would make my daily walk after classes ended from my grade school to the neighboring high school to watch football practice. I could always get a sense of the energy in the air from his booming voice, which I recognized from a mile away.

“FIRE OFF THE BALL! GREAT PUSH! GET LOWER! WAY TO POP! MOVE YOUR FEET! PUNCH - DRIVE - FINISH!”

I don’t know whether to call it a roar, bellow, or bark, but it would scare the living daylights out of you—especially if it was your first time hearing it. But if you played football for this man, you quickly became intimately familiar with his resounding voice. That was the voice of the one and only Coach T. This man spent over 50 years coaching high school football, and last year, he passed away during the height of the pandemic.

This past weekend, generations of players, coaches, family, and friends gathered to reflect on and remember what Coach T. meant to our town, high school, and those he deeply impacted throughout the course of his career.

While his voice received attention, it was his intentional actions, caring nature, and generous heart that were most notably remembered.

Everyone that plays sports knows and remembers this type of coach—the one who shows and expresses their love for you but also holds you accountable to be the very best you can possibly be. This is the type of coach that you never want to let down but you know always has your back through the ups and downs and successes and failures.

When I reflect on Coach T.’s influence and impact, two things come to mind: his toughness AND his tenderness.

Toughness: Coach T. was a large, strong man. A past college football player himself, he embodied the tough, hard-nosed coach that players respected and also feared to a certain extent. His massive hands would engulf yours, and you were certain to feel (or hear) his presence whenever he was in close proximity.

Regardless of your position or status on the team, Coach T. would let you know, loudly and emphatically, if you were out of line or making fundamental mistakes.

He also made it a point to follow-up those coaching opportunities with a bear paw around your neck and explanation for his correction and how it impacted the team. This brings me to my second point - Coach T.’s tenderness.

Tenderness: As big and scary as Coach T. seemed, every one of his past players would emphasize his loving and caring nature off the field. As a long-time elementary school physical education teacher, Coach T. loved and adored kids of all ages. While he was passionate about the game of football and coached with all of his heart and soul, he recognized the bigger picture of helping mold young boys and girls into the very best versions of themselves.

He used his platform to honor his faith in God and consistently cultivated a family atmosphere that brought everyone together. As I mentioned before, regardless of your status on the team, Coach T. loved and cared for everyone equally, and we all felt it. It was tangible and genuinely authentic to who he was and the values and principles he stood for.

When I think of great leaders, it is those who have the right blend of toughness and tenderness that stand apart from the rest. Coach T. displayed this natural touch of leadership and influence that made you want to perform at your very best while also doing things the right way on and off the field. He inspired you to be the very best teammate you could possibly be in every sense of the word.

I’m so thankful and appreciative of Coach T.’s godly example of a life well-lived. As loud as he could be, it was his intentional actions and generous heart that will always be remembered. With the thousands of kids that he impacted over the years, I know Coach T.’s legacy will continue to echo on generation after generation...just like his one-of-a-kind voice that I could recognize from a mile away.

APPLICATION

Here are a few questions to consider:

Do you have a “Coach T.” in your life? If so, what qualities make them an effective and memorable leader?

Would you consider yourself more of a tough or tender leader? How can you intentionally lead with a combination of both approaches?

How can you live more intentionally to be someone else’s “Coach T.” months and years from now? The world desires and needs more leaders like him...

Let’s make it count!!

In the US Army, Ryan graduated from Airborne and Ranger School and served over eight years as an air defense artillery and civil affairs officer both at home and abroad.

After transitioning into the civilian sector, Ryan has worked in several roles spanning from sales and business development to operations and account management. He currently lives in Dallas, TX with his wife and daughter (with one daughter on the way!) and enjoys working out, reading, writing, and watching his favorite sports teams - Go Cowboys and Beat Navy!

For more learning, check out the following episodes of the Intentional Leader podcast:

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Leadership in Action: The Power of a Simple Mantra

July 13, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

By: Wes Cochrane

One of the most effective leaders I ever met was a 21 year-old college junior. It was the summer of 2007, and I was heading into my second year at West Point. West Point’s training model has since morphed (and no doubt, improved), but back then, rising second-year cadets (also known as “Yearlings,” or “Yuks”) went to an intensive 6-week training program located at West Point’s Camp Buckner, where they learned small unit tactics, received training on medical skills, use of artillery, and integration of combat and close air support, and put everything together in a culminating field training exercise involving sustained combat operations against a simulated enemy. We were divided into 9-person squads, with a rising third-year cadet (or “Cow”) leading 8 of us Yuks.

My squad leader for a portion of that summer training was an impressive cadet named Dana. A West Point football player, Dana was powerfully-built and had a seemingly immeasurable reservoir of energy. Among an already fit group of cadets, Dana seemed stronger and faster than any of us. He covered kilometer after kilometer with a heavy rucksack on his back with zero complaint, which, if you’ve ever “rucked,” you know it’s awful… just like jumping out of an airplane; I don’t care who you are :) . He also seemed to know – really know – what the heck he was actually doing. He understood not just how to perform the skills we were learning, but also how to effectively teach the concepts to us.

However, what made Dana truly effective was not his physical prowess and knowledge. Of course, being competent is a necessary ingredient for any leader; but, what made Dana truly effective was his attitude. Only a third year cadet himself, Dana already knew how to actually lead. And his leadership style was straight-forward and uncomplicated.

He consistently did two things well:

(1) he maintained a relentlessly-positive attitude; and

(2) he used a simple, but powerful mantra: “Get your minds right.”

Before any long movement, under heavy loads, “Get your minds right.”

Before a combat water obstacle course, “Get your minds right.”

Before a long night of patrol-base operations where the squad would get limited sleep and brave the typical summer thunderstorm, “Get your minds right.”

Even at the beginning of a day, before some routine training, “Get your minds right.”

Every day, “Get your minds right;” delivered with a steady stream of positivity and encouragement.

Such mantras can risk being facially cliché, and, initially, the squad’s response was muted. However, over time, Dana’s approach won us over. He delivered his simple mantra genuinely, sincerely, and most importantly – consistently. The squad caught on. “Get your minds right” became almost talismanic in its effect. It had a sobering, focusing effect; and our squad responded. It prompted us to make the choice to be engaged. To show up. To get in the right frame of mind. In an environment where the “work” was physically exhausting and often grueling, Dana focused our squad with a simple, but powerful mantra – day after day. His simple mantra and consistent positive attitude were the tools he used to get us to put one foot in front of the other and keep marching toward our goals. While seeing significant, measurable success over the course of the summer, the squad bonded and avoided the drama that other squads fell prey to.

Dana married positivity with a simple mantra, and it worked. Fourteen years later, after working with numerous leaders, and leading teams myself, I can still see Dana grin and announce, “C’mon… Get your minds right. Let’s go. We got this.”

APPLICATION

As you consider Dana’s example, think about how you could apply it to your team.

What are your team’s goals? What do you need or want out of your people? How are you going to get them there? What do you need to focus them on? What positive mantra can you employ tomorrow morning, next Monday, or when the project’s deadline is drawing near and stress is peaking?

If this feels awkward for you, as a leader, then just start with yourself. What positive mantra can you offer yourself each day this next week?

Leadership is always a choice. Leaders are neither born nor made. They simply choose to lead. That’s what intentional leadership is all about.

Lead well, my friends.

Wes and his wife, Anne, have three children.

For more on leadership and life mantras, I highly recommend this episode of the Intentional Leader podcast with Brigadier General Pat work:

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Leadership is a Choice

May 24, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

By: Wes Cochrane

Leadership. It’s not about the haves or have nots. You ain’t born with it. It’s not made.

Leadership is a choice. It’s a choice.

It’s a choice to wake up each day and choose to lead. It’s there for you.

Before your feet hit the ground, you clothe yourself with humility. Before your feet hit the ground, you clothe yourself with strength.

You choose—each day, everyday, to serve; to listen to others; to withhold judgment; to forego pettiness; to set an example; to do what others do not want to do; to put in the time that others aren’t willing to give; to ask for help; to be help; to engage those around you; to leverage the talents and skills of those around you; to keep your head on a swivel for those who are struggling around you; to be quick to say sorry; to be quick to forgive; to be willing to take the blame; to be quick to give credit to others; to speak with authority; to be kind; to be one who continues to learn and inspires others to continue to learn.

Leadership is a choice.

It is not a gift.

It is not a talent.

It is is not a character trait.

It is a choice.

And it’s democratic.

It’s available to all who are willing to learn about; to pursue it; and to implement it—in all of its messiness. It is available to all those who are brave enough to go for it and to practice it.

It is a choice.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been leading for 5 months, 5 years, or 50 years. You have to choose—every morning—to show up and lead others.

You will not lead by accident. You do not stumble in to it. You do not default to leadership.

This is because leadership is hard. It takes effort. You’ll fail at it. You struggle with it. But, it’s universally accessible.

Are you ready to learn, are you ready to put in the work, are you ready to do what you are called to do?

That is up to you. Every single day, that is up to you and no one else.

Lead well, my friends, today and every day.

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Why Servant Leadership is Important in the Age of Individualism

April 29, 2021 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Tim Janes

Servant leadership is a popular topic in managerial and leadership circles today. There are many opinions on what it actually is, whether it’s effective, and what outcomes it may produce in an organization. In this article, I will give a definition of servant leadership, discuss the potential organizational outcomes, and show why it is so important in the world today.

What is Servant Leadership?

Most people trace the term “servant leadership” back to Robert Greenleaf, who outlined what the role of a servant leader is, and why it is important to use the model of leadership in the workplace. Many studies have been done on the topic since then, and it’s hard to say that there is complete clarity into what a servant leader actually looks like. It doesn’t help that the term itself seems paradoxical – a leader who serves?

Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

Perhaps that is why servant leadership seems so radical; it seemingly calls one to actually lead through serving.

In order to define servant leadership, it helps to identify characteristics of a servant leader. A servant leader has many characteristics, including good listening, empathy, foresight, awareness, persuasion, and a strong focus towards others. They also have solid self-awareness, they conceptualize things well for others, and they hold a strong commitment to creating empowered community.

With the characteristics of a servant leader in mind, let’s turn to their role in the organization. A servant leader, like any leader, is tasked with bringing about the realization of organizational goals. However, their tasks don’t end with the goals of the organization; rather, they feel tasked to empower and grow employees, get things done ethically, and to facilitate positive organizational behavior. This contrasts with a traditional view of leadership, where the focus is on personal gain for the leader (and the organization) through accomplishing goals and hitting metrics. Instead, servant leaders focus on gain for other individuals and for the community as a whole.

So, what is servant leadership? It is ethically leading others through compassion, listening, and empowerment in order to promote growth of individuals and the community, thereby leading to positive organizational outcomes.

Outcomes, Strengths, and Potential Weaknesses

Many positive outcomes correlate to servant leadership. Chief among them is the creation of empowered individuals. Instead of hoarding power at the “top,” a servant leader chooses to give power to their subordinates and have power with them in accomplishing shared goals. Servant leaders believe that their followers are capable of growth, so they trust their followers to make decisions themselves. In this vein, a servant leader views their role as one of support – they look at what needs to be done and ask, “How can I support this person to help them realize their potential?”

Servant leadership leads to better job performance and organizational citizenship behavior. It also positively contributes to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and trust.

In a study by Kiker et al. (see below), they described many of these findings along with other results. They found that males increase their job performance more than females in response to servant leadership. On the other hand, females’ positive sentiments increase more than males’. Interestingly, there were differences in results between non-profit and for-profit settings. While job performance increased more in non-profit settings than it did in for-profit settings, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, commitment, and trust all increased more in for-profit settings than in non-profit settings. Perhaps the increased positive sentiments in for-profit settings is due to the starkly contrasting nature of what people in the business sector are used to from leadership.

Kiker et al. also found that servant leadership is more effective when practiced at an organization-wide level than at the individual leader level. It seems that it’s more beneficial to infuse organizational operations with servant leadership on a grand scale than it is for individual leaders to adopt the model themselves. This may be due to one of the potential pitfalls of servant leadership: not everybody wants a servant leader. Some people just want to be told what to do, rather than to be empowered to make their own decisions.

Another concern raised by some researchers is that servant leadership requires the leader to give up other tenets common in leadership, such as directing, concern for production, goal setting, and creating a vision. However, I believe that view runs contrary to what servant leaders are called to do, which is to bravely execute a vision by helping others set their own goals that will contribute to the accomplishment of communal objectives that serve the greater whole.

There is one other major positive aspect of servant leadership: it may inspire others to become servant leaders. Therefore, there is a potential ripple effect that is waiting to be unleashed if leaders at the top of an organization are willing to adopt this leadership model. As the model makes its way down the organizational chart, empowered individuals adopt the same ideals. In doing so they turn around to serve those under their purview. Even individual contributors can adapt their personal leadership to the principles of servant leadership – leading themselves, their coworkers, and their customers with compassion and humanity, thereby creating deeper connections and commitment to one another.

Servant Leadership in the Age of Individualism

There is a vicious lie that leaders have been told throughout history: it’s all about you. Servant leadership flips that in the opposite direction: it’s all about them. In an age where we are bombarded with messages telling us that our priorities should be comfort, power, and safety for ourselves, it’s no wonder that servant leadership sits uneasily with many people. But isn’t that why it is so important to adopt it now?

As the Covid-19 pandemic ripped through the globe, we became more isolated from one another than we have been in modern history. As we come out of this pandemic, there is going to be an urgent need for leaders who can build supportive communities based on trust, compassion, and companionship. This is especially true as the next generation of people come into the workforce. Young workers will be entering work environments that require collaboration, after their formative years have been full of messages that call for radical individualism. They – and the experienced workforce – will need servant leaders to help them grow, feel fulfilled, and integrate into their teams.

Final Thoughts

Think about your own professional life. Specifically, think about the best leaders that you ever met. Were they focused on lording power over their subordinates, giving directives, and being intolerant of mistakes? Or, were they focused on giving power to their subordinates, encouraging thoughtful decision-making, and tolerating mistakes that lead to growth? The first scenario is a leader who is out for personal gain, while the second is likely a servant leader.

Servant leadership, though focused on others, starts with the individual. If you want to become a servant leader, it will require a journey of introspection, discernment, and personal growth. It takes constant time, effort, and mindfulness to maintain commitment to those that you serve, but the results speak for themselves.

Most importantly, remember to always lead with love, compassion, kindness, patience, and trust. Your people will reward you with commitment, loyalty, effort, growth, and success.

Tim is a young professional who chooses to lead himself and others intentionally. His life’s purpose is to create supportive communities so that others may thrive.

If you want to read more of his content, check out his website at intentionalleadershipexchange.com, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Tim gives credit for the following sources for this blog post:

https://www.greenleaf.org/
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed.) (pp. 195-256). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Kiker, D. S., Scully Callahan, J., & Kiker, M. B. (2019). Exploring the Boundaries of Servant Leadership: A Meta-Analysis of the Main and Moderating Effects of Servant Leadership on Behavioral and Affective Outcomes. Journal of Managerial Issues, 31(2), 172–197.

For more on servant leadership, listen to Intentional Leader’s podcast series on this topic.

Cal also recommends you check out Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Motive, where he talks about the two motivations of a leader.

The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities (J-B Lencioni Series)

By Lencioni, Patrick M.