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The Heart & Science of Leadership
The Heart & Science of Leadership" podcast, co-hosted by Dr. Paulie and A.J. Rinaldi, combines their diverse backgrounds in leadership to offer a comprehensive view on what it takes to lead effectively, no matter your position—be it executive, teacher, manager, principal, supervisor, or coach. Together, they explore the balance between the human side of leadership and evidence-based practices, providing listeners with practical tools, real-life stories, and actionable strategies. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey, this podcast delivers valuable insights that blend heart and science for impactful leadership in any setting.
The Heart & Science of Leadership
From Hiring to Inspiring: The Art & Science of Team Development
John Maxwell once said, “If you think you're leading and no one is following, you're just taking a walk.” Leadership isn’t about titles—it’s about the team you build, develop, and inspire. In this episode, we’re breaking down the 5 P’s of Team Building—Pursuing, Promoting, Purging, Pushing, and Pulling—to help you create a high-performing team that doesn’t just follow but thrives.
From attracting top talent to making tough calls on underperformance, from fueling motivation to inspiring action, we dive deep into the behavioral science behind effective leadership. Join us as we explore the strategies that separate real leaders from those just taking a walk.
🎧 Tune in and learn how to build a team that wins—together.
Motivational Interviewing: Getting Educator Buy-In is a comprehensive online course designed to equip behavior interventionists is a goal-oriented, person-centered approach that encourages individuals to explore and resolve ambivalence toward behavioral interventions and change.
The Behavioral Toolbox equips those charged with supporting behavior change in schools with practical applications of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference in the workplace. In this case, the classroom and school!
Be sure to subscribe to Dr. Paulie's Heart & Science YouTube channel for a variety of content related to behavior science and bringing out the best in yourself and others.
Welcome to the Heart and Science of Leadership, where evidence meets empathy. Co-hosted by Dr Paul Gavone, a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author, and AJ Rinaldi, a John Maxwell Team certified leadership coach, this podcast blends the human side of leadership with evidence-based practices, demonstrating that leadership isn't about title or intent. It's about impact. And now here are your hosts, pauly and AJ.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome to the Heart and Science of Leadership podcast, where we break down what it really takes to lead effectively, whether you're an executive teacher, manager, principal supervisor or coach. I'm Dr Pauly and with my co-host, aj Rinaldi, we're here to explore the balance between the human side of leadership and the science-backed strategies that make it work. Now a little bit about myself. I never expected to be a leader. I find being in leadership positions kind of stressful because I really care about the people under my leadership, so I take everything I do very seriously.
Speaker 2:I got into leadership because I saw so many people with positional authority struggling in leadership and I think a lot of them were good people but they were engaging in behaviors that I consider kind of bad because they were coercive.
Speaker 2:So I went on to get a couple degrees in leadership, ended up writing a few books on leadership and I have a little bit of a different view and bring the science to the background. Leadership and I have heart too. I came from social work but I put the heart in there and the science. But I decided that I wanted some other perspectives and my good friend, aj Rinaldi, who I actually used to coach his brother, Mario Rinaldi, as a professional mixed martial arts fighter. It turns out that he also has a love for leadership and he's also been in a number of leadership positions. So I said hey, aj, why don't we get in here and do a podcast? Because we went back and forth on some stuff. I'm like man, this guy really has some values that I share with him. So with that, aj, thanks for joining me on this podcast.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks for having me, paul. And that's right. I think too often leadership is either overcomplicated or it has too much jargon that just kind of waters down the true impact of leadership. So I believe leadership is a mix of both art and science, and of course, this podcast is all about breaking that down in a way that's practical and actionable. And a little bit about me held various leadership roles in youth work and education, just had a strong desire to influence and impact people at a greater level, and so I'm also a coach, trainer and speaker certified with the John Maxwell team, and I can't wait to share some of John Maxwell's ideas with you today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one of the things we both connect on. We both love John Maxwell, right, and I think we see it from different angles, uh, but in the end, it's still producing the results and engaging in, I think, leadership in a way that we both value. But one of the things I know we can agree on. So let's be real about this that leadership ain't about title, right? Uh, I think it's the way we influence others, the way we solve problems and the way we really work to bring out the best in the people, whether we have authority or not. So I think that's what we're going to be trying to cover in each episode.
Speaker 3:That's great, paulie. So, paulie, before we dive into today's topic, let's talk about, let's actually tell our listeners what they can expect from this show. We want this to be structured but not stiff, and we want it informative but also never boring. So how are we going to break that down, paul?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate that, man. Yeah, it's good to let these guys know. So I think we really want to have a very clear format, right? So one is, we're going to introduce a leadership question, right? So every episode will center around some sort of key leadership challenge and, aj, you sent me a bunch of those. I love those, right? So I can't wait to unpack those things right, and hear what you have to say about leadership.
Speaker 2:For today, for example, we're going to be answering what is leadership and why does it matter? That would be really important, since we're going to be talking about leadership, that you get our perspectives on what we think leadership is. Now, of course, we're going to be taking a look at the science of it, and this is where I'll probably be, you know, speaking up more in this area, breaking down, like leadership, using this kind of practical behavior, analytic lens, but also some evidence-based practices, and you know, I know, you're going to be bringing lots to the table with evidence-based practices as well. And then there's the heart of it, right, this is where we can use our personal stories, real-world examples and leadership in action.
Speaker 2:Aj, I know we both have a ton of good stories and bad stories, right, but never to put people down. We just want to lift people up, but it's important to use examples and non-examples, right, and, of course, two more things. We want to give practical tools and takeaways so that you are left with clear, actionable strategies that you can apply to your own leadership. Remember, you don't have to be in a leadership position, right, you don't have to have positional authority to be a leader, but if you have good leadership skills and you do have positional authority, you can help a lot of people. And so, and then we're going to have maybe some final thoughts and we'll move from there.
Speaker 3:That's right, paulie. I think that's so well said, because leadership isn't something you learn. It's not just something you learn, right, paulie? It's something that you do, and that's why we're here. We're here to help you do it better, and so we'll also bring in guests, we'll break down some case studies from time to time, and we'll also answer listener questions that you guys send in to us. So, with no further ado, let's get into it.
Speaker 2:All right, man, all right. So I crafted a number for this one question, a number of questions to guide us today that we can really bounce back and forth on. But let's start with the big question what is leadership? And now, of course, aj, there is no right or wrong answer here. Right, we're just giving our perspectives on it. Right, but if you had to define leadership in just one sentence, if you've got to give more than one sentence, that's fine too, but what would you say, aj?
Speaker 3:I'm all out, of course, being a member of the John Maxwell team. John Maxwell believes that leadership is influence, Nothing more, nothing less. And so I firmly believe that. I believe that leadership is one life influencing another. It's not about position or title, fighting that old paradigm, it's influence. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think so too, but I'm going to, as a behavior scientist, say it's about influencing behavior, and I think that's suggested in Maxwell's stuff, right. But I think it's also positively influenced. I'd like to put that in there as well, because we can certainly influence people in different ways and, aj, I know you and I in line with this very much, right. So that's inherent in all Maxwell stuff that it's positively influencing, because we've seen people in leadership positions, man, that you know they're not influencing in the right way. I call these folks dictators, right, the way that they do. But with that, how do you think leadership difference for management? Because there's a lot of people that get confused with that stuff. Some people think one is better than the other, and I've got some thoughts on it. But what do you think there? And, by the way, I'm not going to have to lead with all this stuff or make you lead with all this stuff. I'll let you bounce back and ask me the questions that you always put on the spot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think they certainly go together. I think they certainly go together. I think they're designed to go together. But you know, being on a basketball team, it doesn't make you a great scorer, right, it just gives you an opportunity to score. So, leadership and management you know I coin it as they're like peanut butter and jelly they're made to go together but they're all together two very different things. And so just because you're a manager or an effective manager, I don't think that makes you an effective leader necessarily, but it certainly puts you in the game and gives you many opportunities to show good leadership, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that man and I would say that I agree with that, because I break everything down to behavior. I don't like to think about leadership and management as like a noun, because I think you can have a management position and actually be engaging in good leadership and vice versa, you can have a leadership position and engage in good management. So I like to think about it as leading and managing, and from my perspective, leading comes back to influencing positively influencing behavior. I think about, like inspiring people right towards some common goals, and which, of course, means that you know, we need to know what they value. Right, if you're going to inspire them, we need to know what's important to them, and I think managing is about maintenance of those behaviors you know. So this is where we have to have systems in place with scheduling and there are rules to follow, and we want the systems to design to deliberately deliver positive reinforcement for value-added behavior, meaning that the system ends up just running itself, just like when you drive into work every day. There's a system that gets you here and there's lots of positive reinforcement that's keeping your behavior going until you get to your ultimate cause of behavior, which is the destination, and, of course, when you're driving, if you follow the rules, you know great, you get good stuff.
Speaker 2:If you don't, you run off the road a little bit, you get those little vibrations. You can get a nail in your tire. You know there's things that happen. You get those little vibrations. You can get a nail on your tire. You know there's things that happen, you know. But if you speed, you do things wrong, you get a ticket. You know you get pulled over, get a ticket. Maybe if you go driving to schools get your license, spend it, et cetera. So the system does the work there. So good managing becomes, or managing becomes easier with a good system in place. But what I find is that a lot of times there's not good systems or people aren't leveraging the system effectively. They're. They're using it coercive, like they're using fear of punishment to drive behavior. And man, that is the opposite of leadership. You know that's like micromanagement, right, and we don't want that. I just don't want people to pair management with something bad, and you don't either. Like you said, they go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely so, paulie. That's so well said. Why do you think, since we just broke down leadership and made it really simple to understand about influence and influence and behavior, why do you think so many people misunderstand leadership still to this day, with so much content, so much information out there, why do people continue to misunderstand what leadership truly is?
Speaker 2:Man, you know what? That's a freaking great question, and there's a couple of reasons that I think. And you know what I love about this brother is that, just so everybody knows, we're shooting for the hip on this. There's no like none of this is scripted, you know. So here's one thing I think, as we're, when we're younger, we are taught that leadership is about hierarchy, right? So I know my wife is, my wife is Jamaican and you know you respect your elders. You know and you see hierarchy and you respect the position.
Speaker 2:I was brought up a little bit differently. It's not that I don't respect my elders, of course I do. I respect, I don't care about your. Not that I don't respect my elders, of course I do. I respect, I don't care about your position. I don't care about how much money you have. I don't care about the watch on your wrist, I don't care about the car that you drive, I don't care about the degrees, the books, the articles you've written, any of that stuff right? None of that stuff matters to me. I don't. Essentially I don't care how much power you have, but I do judge you by how you treat the people with the least amount of power, right? So that's really important to me by my value and my wife's the same way. She will do that as well. But I don't let that line of demarcation, because somebody's above me on the org chart, prevent me from speaking my truth. Now that doesn't mean that I haven't kept silent.
Speaker 2:I've written about this extensively that I feel shame. I feel ashamed of myself for not speaking up when vulnerable people employees right were being attacked by aggressive leaders. You know people who were engaging in narcissistic behaviors. You know before fear of my own job, you know, and I think this happens a lot, which is sad, but I think anything. So I think there might be some cultural stuff here, like hierarchy and whereas we're brought up. I think that's one thing.
Speaker 2:I think the other thing is that there's a values thing, because they see people in a position they're like all right, well, that's a leader. But it's about how we influence behavior, as we already kind of said here, and that is like all right, you've got them. You've got people who are world leaders, but they've engaged in really course of behavior. They've treated people poorly in order to produce results and everybody, everybody's pointing at the results from like man. You can get results in many ways, right. You can cheat, be unethical, you can scare the shit out of people. You know just all sorts of nasty things to get people.
Speaker 2:And this is where I come back to like this dictatorship. I don't consider those people leaders at all, regardless of the position. I know that you and I agree on that. So I think there might be a values thing here as well. And finally, just a simple misunderstanding of behavior. If you don't understand how we get behavior and the pros and cons of getting in certain ways, you might not be able to pair with leadership. But I think the main things are how we're kind of brought up and what we think leadership is. We think leaders about title. I said it's a cultural thing, but I also think it's kind of universal that way. What do you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think when you said something I really like, you said you really care about how people treat people and I'm paraphrasing who you know don't have power over them, so to speak. I think when you're really leading from a place of influence and inspiration, that's leadership, and when you're leading from a place of strictly power, I think that's manipulation. And maybe some of the dictators in history illustrate a very clear example of that. I'm big on that too, Paulie. I believe how you treat the CEO should be the same respect level that you treat the janitor. You know what I mean. So I think that's that's really huge in terms of leading from values, leading from our values, and I think that's what really influences and inspire people is the values that you model.
Speaker 3:And actually leadership is not a adjective, it's a verb, you know. It's an action word. It's just like love. You really never reach a, you know, a finish line with love. You're constantly loving your wife. You're constantly loving your children. You're loving the people who are in your family that you care about. I think leadership works the same way.
Speaker 2:I love that man and you know I want to share a personal story of let's be a non-example, based on what you just said about how we treat people differently. One of my books I talk about ass-clownery and I give my positional authority and leadership book. I give some criteria for ass-clown behavior and ass-clown behavior is or, uh, or ass clown is an acronym about certain behaviors that people engage in. Um, and it comes back to that uh, where people on the org chart is, if they get treated differently, uh, based on where they're at. That's that drives me freaking nuts, man.
Speaker 2:And I remember uh and this is not the first time this happened, but it just sticks out so vividly that I worked with a woman and she was a man, she was the salt of the earth, she was a hard worker, she cared, she was very intelligent, but she didn't have the degrees, she didn't have the positional title Right. But man, she was my right hand woman. You know what I mean. Man, she worked hard, it was together, we were making things happen. I don't want to say what the setting was because I want to protect people, but anyways, our direct leader would treat her so poorly and it was amazing to see the shift of how this person would treat my colleague.
Speaker 2:And then, let's say, the COO walked in and the change in demeanor and like almost the butt kissery that would go on for lack of a better term man that just I end up cracking on that one. That was when I one of the times I started standing up and just like I just let the dog out on that one and probably could have cost me my job, and the person started crying, the leader started crying. I put I got to put leader in quotes here, you know, because they were personal positional authority and I'm like I said, I don't even believe those tears. Those are crocodile tears, you know, based on what I've seen you do to people you're not. You know you need to be better, you know, and they didn't change, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think people want to feel close to their leaders. I think a real leader makes people feel safe. I think you know they make people feel safe. When the chips are down, everybody's looking at that person to help come up with a solution, to help provide some guidance, and I think it's really hard to go back and forth between fear and making people feel safe. You know that's very hard to do. So I don't know if those leaders have necessarily been misinformed. Maybe they had a poor role model. You know as a leader and they saw those things play out, and you know as a young leader. They think, hey, that's effective leadership in the long run and I'm sure if they gather honest feedback from the people they lead, they'll begin to understand it's really not and it could actually impede the goal or the mission that they're trying to achieve.
Speaker 2:Man, I'd like to really love that you just talked about safety here, because I man do. I agree that with that wholeheartedly. You know, especially, of course and I think we're talking about the psychological safety, and I think psychological safety is manifested when people don't have fear of consequences of making a mistake, that the leader's got them If they make a mistake, and that the leader focus on incremental growth, as opposed to if you don't meet some lofty criteria and knocking people down. People are where they're at right. There's a baseline for everybody, and we can help them be a little bit better tomorrow than they were today, which means we've got to equip them with the tools to be successful and involve them in things.
Speaker 2:I know we're going to talk a little bit about what are the qualities of effective leaders, but I think that safety part is so important and it's like my fighters.
Speaker 2:Man AJ, you were a fighter too, you were a wrestler, so you get this. But here's an example that I give, and that is, if my fighters everybody out here has felt fear, and when you feel fear, you get tunnel vision, you get fight or flight, right, and you're certainly not thinking about everything around you. You just want to escape that thing right. So we get this immediate response when you feel fear of the person with positional authority, the quote unquote leader, what you're going to do is engage in behaviors that keep you from getting in trouble and you're going to do just enough to get by and all those other things that are around that you could innovate and everything like that. You're going to stop thinking about those things. It's just the thing that's going to keep you from getting in trouble. So you get this kind of tunnel vision man, and that's the opposite man. That hurts the organization, it hurts you and you end up leaving. You know it's like silly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that reminds me of a quick story, pauly I remember several years ago a new leader I had just started working with. It was right at the kind of beginning phases of COVID and people are really scared. You know people were really scared, not afraid, you know, not knowing what the pandemic would do, what it's going to mean for our family. You know people were thinking, you know, companies are going to have layoffs. And I'll never forget the organization I was with at the time. They rolled out some, some policy changes that for some people they were going to find them comforting and for many people they were going to find the changes you know. You know, regarding vaccinations and different things, they were going to find that a bit scary.
Speaker 3:And this guy I mean the guy was like Clark Kent, right, I mean the guy's just really buttoned up glasses, the perfect partners here, the whole nine, and really played things close to the vest. And this guy goes in front of a group of people and he took the hardest questions, he didn't back away from it, he stood in front of the firing squad and I just the guy just endeared himself to me. He went from Clark Kent to Superman in two minutes, man, and from that point on I said well, this guy's really a guy of high character and you know, oftentimes we consider integrity. You know doing the right things when no one's watching, but I think it's also doing the difficult things when everyone's watching and you know, that's the impact of character and values and leadership that that person just endeared me to them and I learned so much from a moving forward the next several years.
Speaker 2:So man, I love that. What a great quote. Doing the difficult things when everybody's watching Wow, that's profound, brother. Well said, man, I love that yeah.
Speaker 1:I had a.
Speaker 2:You know I have one of the best leaders I've ever worked with, because being a leader I would argue that being a school leader is the most difficult leadership position in the nation because you're being dealt such a terrible hand to work with. Teachers are coming in unprepared because teacher prep programs aren't preparing them for the demands there, so you're getting handed this card. There's no money to give people. If you fire people, who are you going to? You know who are you going to replace them with? Right, because there's such a shortage.
Speaker 2:But a good friend of mine now, dr Scott Neal, he, we were able to turn around two family schools, but I remember coming into the second school that we did and we were in the library with a bunch of teachers and the school was heading downhill. They were a C, just barely made a C that year. Going to a D. Morale was really down and he just got up there and he said there's a new sheriff in town and I'm here to support you and da-da-da.
Speaker 2:And he did it, man, he was out, he was visible all the time, you know, and he was lifting them up and of course we put systems in place, et cetera, et cetera. So just didn't talk but walk. He said here's just what I need you to do Do this stuff and I'll take care of everything else, you know. And it was just so inspiring to see that because I've also seen, on the other hand, where the school leader walked into the library and just another library example, when I was giving a training and everybody got very silent and I thought, man, this spoke volumes. Man, it was like Darth Vader coming in. It was terrible. But, brother, I love that quote that you just made there. They give it to me again. Man, they do the tough stuff, even when everybody's looking.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think leaders are people of character. They show a great deal of integrity and, like I said, we think of integrity as doing the right thing when no one's watching, but it's also doing the difficult things when everybody's watching, and you know that's. That's a real sign of leadership. And to the to the point of the story you just told, leaders need to understand the followers are always watching, always watching. They're always watching. Subconsciously or consciously, they're always watching, and you need to be careful about how you behave, what you role model and what you say too, because your whisper is a roar. You know what I mean. So you have to be very, very careful of your tone and some of those behavioral science things that I know you're really good at talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you better. But you say you got to be careful what you say and also do what you say. We call that say-do correspondence. If you want to hurt trust, say some things that you're going to do and don't do it, that's going to hurt you right away. Man, do what you say you're going to do. That's really important. So let's switch up to why leadership matters, because we already acknowledge that leadership is not about position although those with a large position, with lots of people that they're responsible for time, that it doesn't have to be about a position in general.
Speaker 2:Right, you're a household leader. You know you could be with a group of people who have. You know that you're a leader in that group. You could be at the bottom of the hierarchy and I've seen this right. But you know, I've seen like a paraprofessional in a school be like the major influencer of people there. Right, they were a pillar of a school. I loved seeing that thing. The cafeteria worker man, that stuff made me excited, you know. But how does you know? Why do you think leadership's important to everyday life?
Speaker 3:It's really I mean, it's really personal for me. I think that I think that, besides love, leadership is the most powerful, powerful phenomenon we have in our world, and so I think when a person chooses to lead with love is just earth changing, and I've seen it so many times. And to your point about, you know, leadership is not about position. There's been some new teams that I've joined over over my work career and I knew that, even though I had the position, I wasn't the most influential person on that team and I had to figure out who was, and I had to earn their business and kind of get them on my side as I established my, my influence on that new team or that new athletic team or what have you. So I mean, whether you're leading your family, you're leading an organization, you're leading your athletic team, the ability to influence people towards something that is ultimately in their best interest and in the best interest of the group, I think that's what makes leadership so important and so valuable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you mentioned leading with love and it kind of goes back to what you said earlier about the Clark Kent guy. That came out right. He did said the tough things right when all eyes are on it. Leading love also means giving tough love. Sometimes, um, and I don't think it's.
Speaker 2:You know people I never want to give the uh, you know the the impression that we're not saying you shouldn't correct behavior. You know that you shouldn't tell people they're doing something wrong. But when you create that safety net for people, when they know you really care, when they know you're really there to be supportive for them, uh, when you focus more on growth than you do on correcting, when you do have to correct and you do it in the right way, you say the right thing at the right way in a way that's helpful, right, that helps them be better moving forward. They understand it, they'll take responsibility for it far more often than they're going to take offense to it, because they know your quality of human being. So it requires both, but it requires mostly recognizing, giving them the tools, the resources, support, engaging them, et cetera, et cetera. But you do have to correct behavior and performance sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think people won't learn from it as much as you want them to. If they don't feel safe, right, they're going to feel attacked, they're going to feel kind of persecuted by you kind of making that correction and pointing that out. And then back to the you know, the human behavioral science thing. Are you giving that positive feedback much more often than you're giving that constructive or that negative feedback, right? Isn't, isn't that so huge? You know, dr John Gottman, and we could go on and on and on about that but I mean real good leaders who are good at developing people. They're coming from a strength-based platform when they manage and lead people. I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, man, it's well said, strength-based. And have you ever seen I've been in organizations, I got a term for it, but I'll see what you have to say about it but when you have an organization where somebody has a position right, that leadership position, but they're very ineffective, I mean they're not bad, they're not coercive, but you know they're not doing the tough stuff either. They're not doing either. You know the place is just kind of running itself right without leadership. Have you? Have you seen that kind of thing?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I've seen that before and I think I've had enough experiences now where I've seen the effect of it and systems. I mean you say systems, it takes systems, right. I think. I think it's James Clear that says we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.
Speaker 3:Right, there's so many times where those, those people who are less than effective leaders they don't design great systems, the meetings don't start on time, the meetings don't have agendas, the ball is getting dropped on key tasks and key initiatives and things like that. So they can influence and inspire people to do the difficult things. They can influence and inspire people to do the hard things when they're not watching or directly supervising them and they can't make those corrections that you're talking about and still maintain the trust and the relationship with people. So when ineffective leaders or ineffective leadership is in place, everybody suffers, I think, and that's whether you're in a business organization or even I've seen some bad fathers, if I'm being candid, I've seen some bad coaches on athletic teams. It always points back to leadership, I think.
Speaker 2:Man, I agree 100% with that stuff. Man, what people in these positions need to understand that the measure of your leadership is in the behavior of the followers If your people below you aren't doing the things around you that you're trying to support, or above you, if you're trying to influence, if they're not doing those things. But when you do have hierarchy, if they're not doing the things that you need, the first place you need to look is in the mirror. Aj, when my fighters lose, even when your brother lost, which his brother beat former UFC heavyweight champion Rico Rodriguez, which was freaking awesome man, anyways.
Speaker 2:But when my fighters lose, even if they weren't eating well, if they weren't showing up to the gym, I could be like you aren't doing your stuff. But the first place I look is in the mirror and think about could I have inspired them more? Could I have put them on a better training regimen? Could I have helped them schedule things, schedule the meals right, somehow? How could I have been better from them? That doesn't mean they don't have agency for their own behavior and their own performance, but I really want to create an environment that gets the best out of people right. I think that's really important to reflect on our own behavior when the behavior of our followers are not moving in the right direction. Too often poor leadership starts pointing the finger right. They start blaming. You seen that one?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, oh, without a doubt. And you know, I think that you know there's only so many people that can be the CEO, right, can be the president of the organization. So most of us that will ascend the leadership positions, most of us are going to be middle managers, and so is everything going to be in your control? No, are you going to be able to influence every variable? No, but you know. To that question you asked what's your self-reflection, where's your effort? What have you done to influence and inspire and create some positive change? You know, in your work area, in your family, in your community, on your athletic team, what have you done? I think that's a real gauge of leadership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really is, man, and if you're not getting what you want, it means you got to do something more or less or differently. I've seen organizations where people the leader was really nice, right, very nice person, they were fun to be around, but people didn't respect them because they also didn't, you know, they didn't have systems in place, right, they were getting walked on. I call these happy, crappy organizations. You know what I mean. They weren't producing the results and you know you need both ends of the spectrum. I don't. You know you can't be passive, you can't be aggressive. You know you create a system, that where people feel supportive, and if you need to be assertive, I think that's just fine. So let's go to this now, like in terms of the qualities of leaders.
Speaker 3:Do you think leaders are born or made? Well, I think all leaders are born. I mean, even Jesus Christ, you know, was born. So everybody's born. But I know what you're trying to ask. I would say that some people are gifted with some leadership talent, some natural leaders, some qualities that lend itself to leadership. Some people may be more assertive, some people may be very gifted communicators. Those things all can help you in your leadership journey, but every great leader is made, without a doubt. I think leadership is about certain skills, certain traits and attributes that we can all develop, we can all choose to get better at. So I think, yes, some people are born with some innate gifts that help with leadership, but every leader is made, in my opinion, paul.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent. I mean, we all have genetic predisposition that we're bringing to the table. But the end, like we said, you know, leadership is behavior, and I always think of you know, all things being equal. You know, you know like you have a certain level of intelligence, you know you got to be able to solve problems and da-da-da at a certain level. But the mean, the average person can be engaged in good leadership. They can influence people, they can gather the right people around them to help them be successful. So I think that's really important, because that's another thing.
Speaker 2:I think maybe that goes back to what we said before about why people don't understand leadership. I think a lot of people think leaders are born right, not understanding that fact, that that's just behavior and if they can do it, you can do it too. In fact, there are folks that are super intelligent. They're like you know, intelligence is not a measure of leadership. You know, you have these people who end up, you know, with this level of intelligence where they can't even communicate with others, right? So that's certainly not a measure of leadership. I think emotional intelligence is really important. I'm actually writing a book called Adaptive Intelligence that talks about that, but it's important to understand how people feel about your leadership, et cetera, et cetera, don't you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, paul, let me ask you this. So I think extroversion, for example, is considered, you know, a good leadership trait. Leadership leaders need to be extroverts. Have you ever seen a dynamic leader that would qualify as an introvert, paul?
Speaker 2:I definitely have. You know, my wife is one of those. You know, like she, she believes in the hierarchy and everything like that. But, man, she has people gravitating to her all the time. When there's an issue, they come to her prom. She's a major influencer, you know. So she's. She's to your point. I like how you mentioned earlier that we're most in, most of us are in middle management somewhere. She's a major influencer of her culture, of the students of the school, of the community, and I love seeing that. And she does not want to be out in front of people at all. I went and took you ever do the Myers-Briggs personality test.
Speaker 3:I believe so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I couldn't figure out what I was. Like I'm on the cusp of something, right, there's an INFJ and an ENFJ and I'm not going to go into details about that, but like I don't understand which one I am. You know what it is and I show up professionally as an ENFJ, but I'm really more introverted. I don't, even though I do keynotes and I turn. What I do is I turn on professionally. But some people just desire to be upfront and they desire for that attention. I'm not making people wrong for doing that. Like, we all want attention. Attention is the most powerful positive reinforcer in the world, right. But it's like these people who just want that hierarchy and position, I never care about that stuff. Like, if you just want position, I think that makes you that could be making you dangerous, right, doing that.
Speaker 2:I see leadership as being such a huge responsibility. That's why it comes back to the beginning. It's like man, I'm like sketchy of it, you know, because I want to make a difference for people right now, brother, I've been in lots of leadership positions vice president, coo, you know, et cetera, so you name it. You know, been athletic leader. Right now I'm engaging in solopreneurship, right, and I'm teaching other people about leadership, my own consulting business, my own training, but the responsibility is so much less. But that doesn't mean I'm not influencing people. I'm just doing it from a different position where there is no org chart. You know through my writing and everything like that. But I don't think it matters. I think extroversion people can mistake that for leadership. I think that makes dangerous. But you can be absolutely be an introvert and be a very effective leader. What you know. What are your thoughts on that one?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've seen. I've seen some really effective leaders who are introverted. I mean, I'd say I'm one of them, if I can say if, if my followers believe I'm effective, at least I think you, you can be introverted, which I think you know. You need time in solitude, you need time to gather your thoughts. You may be a person who enjoys time of self-reflection, but I think, even though you may qualify as an introvert, you're able to pull out the necessary leadership characteristics and skills when they're required. So, in other words, being at your best when your best is required for leadership.
Speaker 3:And if there's times where an introverted leader needs to be more authoritative, they need to be able to do that. If there's times where they need to be more charismatic and inspirational, then maybe they need to do that. But there's times where they need to be more charismatic and inspirational, then maybe they need to do that. But there's a lot of different ways to lead. There's not one specific mold and I've seen really effective leaders who would qualify as introverted people and I've seen really extroverted leaders, really charismatic people, the life of the party, who are just flat out ineffective leaders. So I don't think there's a specific mold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think at the heart of that stuff is about because you know, aj, as I'm getting to know you more, you know, I can see you have the heart, you know. But you're very thoughtful, right you are. You know you reflect a lot, you're your own person, which I love. That, right, you really let your own values guide you and that's why we're connecting so well on this leadership stuff. But in the end, the cream rises to the crop like the squeaking wheel. The person that's loud might get the attention initially, but I can imagine a guy like you sitting at the table, reflecting, asking some questions, right, being thoughtful before you speak, as opposed to just being speaking, to be heard. I think that's incredibly important and this is where people start to respect and trust you, or in people like you, just because of that, because of your own integrity, I think is incredibly important. All right, so let's let's like move on down here, because we're getting up to the time.
Speaker 2:I do want to keep these under an hour. I'm thinking, you know, we'll find out how it goes. Uh, let me see. Why does leadership require? But then I'm going to skip over that. Well, that's good, we'll say that. So, um, why do you think leadership requires? Well, I'll take this one, then I give you. Did I give you the last question or did I take the last question?
Speaker 3:um, I think it's on you. Go ahead, paul.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right. So why does leadership require both heart and science? So I think we've unpacked some of this stuff. I think people need to know that they need to feel cared for and supportive and supported in their position. And some leaders well, why do I need to care for them? They, they're getting paid, right, they should care about that. Well, let me know how that's working for you. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, and the end of the day, I think the most powerful reinforcer in the world is for people to feel that they're valued by the organization and that they're producing valued outcomes. Those are things that keep people show up, way more than money. You know, people come for the money, but they stay for the culture, and the leader is responsible for developing that culture. Right, this is where we help people to thrive, to get the best on them, which means we need to know what they value. They need to know that cafeteria worker in a school needs to know how them providing nutrients to the students is an important role for them being successful in student achievement, et cetera, et cetera. Right, so we need to tie into what people value, but we also need to be systematic in our approach to whether you know the behavior science or not, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:But by building people right, understanding key performance indicators, understanding how to build fluency and key skills, understanding you know how to create feedback loops, and we could go on. We'll talk about this, you know, later on, but I think you know you really need both. Man, if you're just scientific with it, people are like not going to trust you. They're like who's this person? You need to connect with them, whether it's connecting with them on a personal level or just helping them connect to the important outcome they're having from their position.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd like to comment on that. So, heart and science Right, so you have the heart with. You want a leader who cares for people, because they're leading people. I mean, we don't want to be promoting bad human beings to be caring for people. Right, you want a leader who cares for people. That's the heart, the science aspect.
Speaker 3:Just think about a skill we linked earlier feedback. How often you deliver feedback? What's the ratio of positive feedback to constructive or negative feedback? Building systems that have reinforcers in them. So you know, what kind of reward system do you have in place? Are you a leader who can control the compensation that staff members get? If not, are you a leader who can control you know how the team celebrates reaching goals and accomplishing certain objectives. So that to me, that's a very specific way of how you can link the heart of it caring about people to the science of it. How do you reinforce people? How do you refine people? What are you doing to craft a really strong working relationship with people? That's a really clear way of linking art to science, I think.
Speaker 2:I love that. That was very, very well said, man. I think you're a behavior scientist. You don't know it, brother.
Speaker 3:Hey, I'm working on it.
Speaker 2:You're doing great, man. You're doing great, All, right. So I'm going to take two more questions from what we have down here. Okay, one, I'll take this first one. What are some common mistakes that leaders made? Then we'll finish on some advice that we can give people so they go away with something actionable, right? So what are the biggest pitfalls new leaders fall into?
Speaker 2:I think, from what I've seen, there's a number of people that the pitfalls right, but I think not engaging the stakeholders. Right, Finding out what's important to them I think that's incredibly important. When you come to a position, right, I think we need to identify what I call quick wins, and that is you know what are some of the challenges that are going on there. For the staff right, it might not directly impact the result, right, but you need to engage your stakeholders, and if you can do something that's going to make a difference for them, it becomes huge, right? So, finding out the pillars, the things that they love hey, please keep this and finding out the things that they hate, right, and if you can change that when I say hate, that's a strong word but things that are challenging for them, If you can do that for them, to engage them so they see that you know what. Hey, this person is here for us as a team. Then you can shift them to focusing on some of the results that are important for the organization.
Speaker 2:But I've seen people come into businesses like, well, here's what we need to do, and they've changed, They've removed some pillars of the organization. It could have been something simple as like painting the outside wall where there's a mural Right, and that mural was important because the staff had come together to make that mirror Right, so it undermined everything, Changing some process that had been built on, and it was like it was literally a pillar that was holding something up and it might've made sense. But people just changed it right. The leader just changed it.
Speaker 2:But we need to, with any of the change that we make right whether it's in getting them on board right, Finding out what's important for them and focusing on those things, or making some substantial changes we need to engage our stakeholders. We need to get their feedback on it. The more we engage our stakeholders, the more likely that they are to engage in the behaviors that is going to be required to make the change. If they author things, they own it right when they tell them that they need to do it right, and especially if you don't give the why or something like that, it's terrible. They need to know what's in it for them. So I think this is a common mistake going into a new place and starting to make changes, even though they might be well-intended, when people don't understand it and they're not involved in it and it or you, you make a mistake by not, you know, understanding something's a pillar man. It could undo everything. The rest of your time there could be a huge challenge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I think somebody said one time everybody listens to one radio station, wifm, which means what's in it for me, right? So you, you talk, you talk about like a leader goes in and they create that ownership, they find out what's the most important thing the key stakeholders because without that ownership people aren't going to really be hard driving to fulfill the mission and the purpose. Ownership is very important, right? Nobody ever washed a rental car before they took it back right. So creating that ownership is just such a key component to good leadership, particularly when you're trying to turn something around or you're a new leader on a team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, said man, all right. Well, I'm going to hand this one to you. We'll make this the last question here. What is something that you wish you had known earlier in your leadership journey? What do you think? What do you think about that?
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, so many things, I would say understanding the power of growth, really understanding and cherishing the power of growth. And so I want to say, for, like the last eight years, I've been just very intentional and deliberate about my growth, almost obsessed with it. Just very intentional and deliberate about my growth, almost obsessed with it, being the best person I could be, the best man, I could be the best husband, I could be the best leader I can be. And so, for an hour every day and this is something John Maxwell believes is doing a little bit every day For an hour every day, I do something to develop my leadership or leadership skills, whether that's a podcast like this one, whether it's reading a book like Positional Authority, ain't Leadership by Dr Paul Gavani shameless plug for my guy there having leadership discussion I just do something every day to invest in my leadership.
Speaker 3:And somebody says, well, aj, do you do that on the weekends? Yes, I do it on the weekends. Aj, do you do it on Christmas? Yes, I'll do it on Christmas. I'll listen to something in the shower during a workout, but just being really intentional and deliberate about your growth as a leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that is so important, man, and it just shows your value, your value for people, aj, that's what's driving you in the end. You know you value, you want to make a difference, you want to support people in the way. You want to be the best leader you can be, to grow. You want to help people. You are in the human service businesses right, you are helping children. In order to help children. We have to help the employees, right. Bring out the best in the learners that we support. We need to bring out the best in the people who are supporting them, and that becomes incredibly important.
Speaker 2:Man, there are so many things that I've learned along the way. So many things that I've learned along the way. We'll hit those another time, but if I break it down into two simple things, I think that what I've learned is that it's about systems and leadership, and so you can't have good leadership without good systems. I've found in organizations now. Um. So the analogy I'll make would be like out driving, you're a really good driver of your car, but there's no lines in the road, there's no rails, right, there's no. Uh, you know green light, yellow light, red light. You know there's no rules that govern what people do, and it'll be chaotic there. Even though you're a great driver, you're going all around right and even if you've got people trying to follow you, they're trying to follow you, but they're getting the accents just trying to follow you. So it's really important to have systems in place and I find that businesses, like well-established businesses, have good systems but, like in education, they don't have good systems.
Speaker 2:I found right. So I think you need good systems, but good systems, but good systems won't work without good leadership. Right, because you need to be able to navigate. That it's about people and inspiring people and make sure they have knowledge and skills to be successful and that they're getting coaching to move in the right direction and then that system maintains it. So I feel like we need good leadership and good systems. That goes together hand in hand, and I see like and going back to what you said like peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I see managing as being one of the components of good leadership, and when you have that verb of managing with a good system in there, it's just about like pushing the buttons of the system. You know, because the system does the work for you. You just let it do the work for you, but if you don't have a good system in place, you can't engage in good managing. Yeah, it creates lots of challenges. So, brother, this was a lot of fun. Man, what do you think for our first episode?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I think it was great man. It's so much more to be discussed. I mean, leadership has so many different components and avenues.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to do it again. Yeah, man. So I'll drop some information about us in the show notes here, in case you want to reach out to AJ or myself. And well, this is the first episode and we'll be back in a few weeks. So everybody, take care, man. We got to come up with some cool saying at the end. For the next one, we'll come up with some hashtag or something, but everybody, take care. All right, take care guys.
