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Taking the Time to Really Know Your People with Simon Kardynal

Being a visible leader isn’t the same as being an accessible leader, the latter requires you to put in the time and effort to really get to know your people.

In this episode, we’re joined by Simon Kardynal, host of the Trench Leadership Podcast and Contract Manager and Squadron Warrant Officer for the Canadian Department of National Defense. The insights Simon has gained through his military experience can be applied to various leadership roles in any industry. Whether you are a seasoned executive or a new team leader, Simon’s story offers valuable insights into the key qualities successful leaders need to develop. Listen in to hear about the impact of building authentic relationships with your team, asking open-ended questions, and regularly checking on your mental state.

After You Listen:

Key Takeaways:

  • Create opportunities for informal conversations and encourage input from others on group activities
  • Regularly check in on your mental state to help maintain a calm leadership demeanor
  • Invest early in leadership training to set yourself up for future success

Things to listen for:

  • [02:12] Lightning round with Simon
  • [06:01] Listening to your team to level up as a leader
  • [10:48] Prioritizing experience-based expertise
  • [20:13] The importance of relationship building in the workplace
  • [25:46] Simon’s advice for his younger self
  • [27:20] Craig’s takeaways

Simon’s Transcript:

Craig Anderson [00:00:00]:

I could almost hear the music of Jaws playing in the background. As I looked up from my desk and just over the edges of the cube walls in the distance, I could see her coming. It was the new boss. Welcome to Executive Evolution. I’m Craig Anderson. After spending 25 plus years in corporate America, I learned a lot of leadership lessons the hard way. I created this podcast so you don’t have to. Yes, we had a new boss, and in many ways she was a great boss. But we were very focused on the idea of management by walking around in those days is she walked around like clockwork and you could just see her coming in the distance. It was a long room full of cubes and here she came. And I really did, in my head, almost hear the music from Jaws every morning. And it was great that she did it, don’t get me wrong. She was trying to connect with the team, but all she really did was walk around and say good morning. We didn’t feel the opportunity to really build authentic relationships with her because otherwise she was hard to get to and hard to get to know. So sometimes we do things as leaders where we think we are connecting, we are building relationships with the team, but we’re really not. And when we do build, take the time and actually engage with our employees and build those authentic relationships, that’s how we can make a difference as a leader and how we get people aligned and engaged with the larger business as we start to move things forward. Today on this episode of Executive Evolution, I’m talking with Simon Kardynal. Simon is a podcast host of the Trench Leadership Podcast. He is also a contract manager and a Squadron Warren officer in the Department of National Defense in Canada. And we are going to talk to him about authentic leadership. He has a great story to tell of his executive evolution. So let’s jump right in. Simon. Welcome to the executive Evolution podcast.

Simon Kardynal [00:02:04]:

Thanks for having me. We’ve been talking about this for a while. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Craig Anderson [00:02:08]:

So before we jump into the lightning round, everybody’s favorite part, or at least my favorite part, let’s talk about what you’re doing today, maybe give folks a little bit of an idea of what you’re doing today and what your role is currently.

Simon Kardynal [00:02:19]:

For sure. Well, so I’m a Canadian. I’m in Ottawa, Ontario, which is Canada’s National Capital City. A couple of little fun things about Canada. No one says a boot. I personally don’t like poutine or maple syrup, if you can believe that. Hockey is a fun sport, but I’m a football guy, so what can you do? Different countries. But for myself, I have two jobs. One of them is with a civilian company called Talion, and it’s a contracting company. And the role I have with that is that of a contract manager. So it’s just I liaise between the company, the contractors, and the client to make sure that everything is getting taken care of so that the contract is being fulfilled and everyone is happy. And then as well. I’m also in the Canadian Air Force. The Royal Canadian Air Force. I was in the regular force so full time for a little over 26 years. Then I completely retired a couple of years ago. And I recently rejoined the forces as a reservist, so, like, part time. And I am the Squadron Warren officer at a unit in Ottawa called 412 Squadron. And we do executive carry and aircraft medical movement, which is a fancy way of saying that we move the dignitaries, the Governor General, the Prime Minister, members of Parliament, we transport them around the country, and we also have the capacity to move people if they need to be medically airlifted around. My role with that is I’m the Squadron Warren officer. I’m the Commanding officer’s advisor on all HR administrative related duties regarding the Canadian forces.

Craig Anderson [00:03:44]:

Yeah. And I’m a podcast host and you’re a podcast host. And we will drop the links to your very great podcast in the show notes as well. So, Simon, are you ready, as our second person with a military background to be on the podcast, to jump into the lightning round?

Simon Kardynal [00:04:00]:

Let’s get in and do this.

Craig Anderson [00:04:01]:

All right, so question number one in the lightning round, what is the best leadership book you have ever read?

Simon Kardynal [00:04:07]:

Best leadership book I’ve ever read is How Do We Choose to Be by Margaret Wheatley. The thing that I enjoyed about this book, other than the amazing content inside of it and talking about how we can choose to be, how we want to be. What I like about it is the book is more like it’s talking with me, not at me. It’s providing advice, but in a way that is allowing me to be a part of the conversation, even though it’s clearly one sided because I’m reading it. And I find that people tend to be more open minded to information when it’s not being jammed at them, but actually offered to them.

Craig Anderson [00:04:41]:

Nice. I like it. And just from the title and the little bit you described it, it sounds a little bit about something I talk a lot about with my clients, about kind of the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic locus of control, how much you control what happens around you. Is that some of the gist of what she gets into?

Simon Kardynal [00:04:57]:

Yeah, that’s exactly it. The book talks a lot about it’s up to us to choose how we want to be, and if we’re honest with ourselves and we express genuine authenticity in our curiosity, it can allow us to shape and mold ourselves to the direction we want to go.

Craig Anderson [00:05:12]:

All right, second question. Who is your leadership crush?

Simon Kardynal [00:05:17]:

You know what? That’s also an easy one. I just spoke about that. It’s Margaret Wheatley again. I discovered her when I was going through my master’s degree, a Master of Arts in Leadership, and a colleague of mine, one of the students she had actually gotten, sent one of the links over to a couple of different quotes I was trying to find, and it was leadership crush at first sight. There are so many different things inside there that just it seemed like every quote spoke to a specific item that I happened to be going through or had recently experienced in my leadership journey.

Craig Anderson [00:05:46]:

Yeah.

Simon Kardynal [00:05:46]:

So right away, I’m actually going to be having her as a guest in a few weeks on my podcast. So that’s a big bucket list tick mark that’s been going to be checked off.

Craig Anderson [00:05:54]:

Wow, you get to meet a hero. That’s pretty exciting.

Simon Kardynal [00:05:56]:

Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I’m looking forward to it.

Craig Anderson [00:05:58]:

Nice. Okay. And then finally, in ten words or less, Simon, how would you define leadership?

Simon Kardynal [00:06:04]:

Leadership is the ability to take the time to know your people.

Craig Anderson [00:06:07]:

Okay. And how does that help you as a leader? When you take the time to know.

Simon Kardynal [00:06:11]:

Your people well, how that helps you as a leader is if you’re actually going to sit down and take that time and not toss out the cursory, hey, how’s it going? And then just kind of keep on walking, your team will know that you don’t care. That really the focus is more on the production side of things, achieving that milestone or that mission success. And that’s great if you get that done. That’s part of what being a leader is. But at the same token, it’s the team that is getting that done. And so if you can take the time in the busyness of being a leader, to sit down and genuinely authentically, actively listen to what they’re saying and feeling, you’re going to get a lot more buy in when the tough times roll along. And they will come every time.

Craig Anderson [00:06:51]:

They always do. One of the things sometimes I have people who say, well, I really want to do that. I want to be out in front of my people. But I have so many things going on, and we’ve even gotten sometimes just to get to scheduling it in your book not to just walk around and go not around, as you said. Right. It’s to really have authentic conversation, but it’s important enough that you need to book it into your calendar if you can’t otherwise make it happen.

Simon Kardynal [00:07:14]:

Exactly. And the big thing with that is to not just do it once and think, hey, I’m good, wipe my hands and I’m done. Everything takes time. And I think that’s a theme that I’ve come across is leaders need to be patient. Sometimes we need to be able to push and press. But at the same token, the big lesson comes that the big changes are going to take time and repetition can’t just do something once a I walked around once this month, I’m good. It’s on the leader to strike that balance between being available but not too available, because then there’s all that goes the other way.

Craig Anderson [00:07:46]:

One of the stories I tell is for a while I took a new role and I moved into the person’s office who held the role before me. And I realized about two weeks in that my back was to my door and I was also oddly close to the bathroom, so people were going by all day long. But until I moved my office around, I never got to engage with people because I never even saw them. And it’s just such a simple thing of which way your desk is pointing sends a message to your team about your ability to engage with them.

Simon Kardynal [00:08:17]:

It’s amazing how those little things that we just assume we know what’s going on because in our mind, we know the narrative, but everyone else, if they don’t have that narrative, they will fill the voids. And more often than not, that void gets filled with the worst case scenario.

Craig Anderson [00:08:31]:

All right, well, so Simon, with the lightning round behind us, let’s go back. What was the first leadership role you can remember having?

Simon Kardynal [00:08:39]:

So my first formal leadership role was as a master corporal in the Royal Canadian Air Force. And that is the first formal position of a leadership that we have in our non commissioned member rank structure. And when I came into that role, I was newly promoted, obviously, and I had been posted out of the base I was at in Edmonton up north to a place called Cold Lake, Alberta, which is one of our fighter jet bases in Canada. And I was placed in charge of a team of two other guys, happen to be two guys in this case. And both of them had each of them had over 20 years of experience on the fighter jets. And they were both older than I am by about ten years. And so here I am, this brand new guy, knows nothing about the airplane, can barely find the front of it, much less tell you how to fix it. And I’m expecting to be in charge of this team to tell them to go and how to fix the aircraft and win when they are clearly the experience. That was my first time in that role. It was challenging.

Craig Anderson [00:09:35]:

They’re older than you, they know more than you. But how did that impact you and your level of confidence in working with them and asking them to do things?

Simon Kardynal [00:09:45]:

Really nervous? Because I knew that going into this, I was not going to be the expert. And it’s one of those things where a lot of people think that, oh, you’re a leader. You got put into that role because of your proven leadership skills. More often than not, that’s not the case. I got put into a leadership role because of my proven technical skill set. And it happens to be that in the trade, this particular trade aircraft structures technician, I was a really good painter and a really good welder, terrible machinist and a terrible metal fabricator. But that’s a side story. But I had been trained on other aircraft types and other ways to do these things. So showing up on this new platform, I had proven myself. But to be able to lead these people all of these many years of experience was challenging. I had to rely on what I knew, which wasn’t much.

Craig Anderson [00:10:31]:

Yeah. Oh, I bet. So when you kind of started, I guess, issuing orders, for lack of a better term, because you’ve got positional authority, does that just happen because of the military role structure, that they’ll just do what you said? Or did they kind of look at you and say, yeah, but in a.

Simon Kardynal [00:10:48]:

Normal army environment, we’d say, just do what you’re told and basically shut up. That’s the way it needs to be. The thing about the Canadian Air Force is they have created a culture whereby it’s more about the experience base of things. So what I mean by that is these two guys, they had more experience. So when we were talking about the maintenance aspects of working on these aircraft, it really didn’t matter which of us had the higher rank, the positional rank. It was really about making sure that the aircraft was maintained and repaired to their airworthiness requirements and that culture was created in such a way to ensure safety of the people and the airframes. The interesting part of that is this is still the military and I still outrank them. So what would happen more often than not is we would sit down, the three of us would talk about the plan for the day. And in the beginning, I would ask them, I’d just say, hey, listen, what do we need to do and what’s when? Because I don’t know what the proper schedule needs to be. You tell me and then we’ll figure it out. And then that’s how that would go. When I gained some more experience and confidence, I would kind of start taking that lead more as the days went by. That having been said, these people with all this experience, if they wanted to take a day or two off for a vacation or if they wanted to have an extended lunch for a medical appointment or something, they still needed to get my permission for that. So we kind of separated the two different environments. So from an administrative human relations perspective, I was very clearly in charge in making those types of decisions. But when it came to the actual technical aspects of the trade, I relied on their experience to help me be able to move forward and ensure we met the timelines.

Craig Anderson [00:12:26]:

So if you look back at that, how do you feel you did? What kind of a leader do you think you were to those two?

Simon Kardynal [00:12:31]:

Well, I think in the beginning, I wasn’t a very good leader at all. I think I stunk it up pretty badly because I was trying to learn at the time to differentiate the two. And then at the same token, they were also trying to get to know me and understand my flavor of things. And having no background on the airframe was a bigger challenge than I had anticipated because they were looking to me for answers for different things, and I just didn’t have them, so I had to rely on them. And if I didn’t know that I couldn’t go to them, I’d have to go to somewhere else. And it caused a lot of weird little quirks in that. The strength, though, was that the three of us actually became pretty good friends. And so when we were out not at work, we were able to actually have the other conversations to say, well, what’s working well and what’s not working well in a less formal environment, usually surrounded by a campfire and a bunch, a couple of empty cases of alcoholic beverages, that was helpful. We saved a lot of world problems.

Craig Anderson [00:13:28]:

I am sure that is an interesting piece of the leadership equation, though. Is that relationship building, especially when we tie in what you talked about with Marco Wheatley, about having conversations about things going on. Is that something you took away for your later leadership development as a core piece? How did that piece of it impact how you viewed leadership?

Simon Kardynal [00:13:50]:

Oh, it was a big part of it because what I had learned was that just because I’m in charge doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in charge. You can have all the labels you want, but it’s about the team collective coming together to get something done. And really how it gets done at the end of the day doesn’t really matter. What matters is the mission was successful. Now, of course, there’s a million different caveats that come with that. But for the example, we’re talking about what matters, we got things done. And what I also took away from that was to try and find my flavor of when to listen and when to lead, because that can be challenging as a leader. When are we going to find those two ways to go about them? And it’s a balancing act that we all experience.

Craig Anderson [00:14:33]:

Yeah, when you think about that, when to listen, when to lead, what is the guideline? How do you start to develop that sense as a leader?

Simon Kardynal [00:14:42]:

For myself, one of the ways I would do is I would normally sit back for just a second and kind of assess whatever the challenge is, and I would say ask myself questions like, am I knowledgeable at what I need to be to be successful? Can I make technical decisions based off of my knowledge base? And if I could answer was yes, great. I would be more of a technically inclined leader, or if not, the answer was no. I would defer to the experts inside the group. Not to say that I would blindly listen to what they’re talking about, but I would certainly take what they were talking about into account, because ultimately, the leader makes the final choice. So you have to be open to all the different options that exist. That’s been my perspective of it, anyways.

Craig Anderson [00:15:24]:

Sure. No, I agree 100%. Everybody kind of thinks everything rolls downhill. My experience in leadership is, no, actually, everything goes against the laws of physics and gravity and rolls uphill exactly and lands in your lap. So now let’s take ourselves forward to today. In the leadership roles that you have, what is the big takeaway from that time that is still resonant for you as a leader today?

Simon Kardynal [00:15:47]:

I think even more importantly now is that ability to listen to your team members, to listen to the people and the groups that you’re involved with back and then back in more. Gary it was pretty simple. I’m in charge. And ultimately, even if those guys, I didn’t agree with them and they didn’t agree with me, I still had the ability to say, well, this is the way it’s going to be and that’s the end of it. And we would have just kept on going and probably made a bunch of mistakes. And from a military perspective, in my role as the SWO that still exists, I’m the highest ranking non commissioned member in the squadron. So ultimately, if I say something is going to happen, so long as it’s a legal justifiable order, they kind of have to follow along and there’s no question.

Craig Anderson [00:16:25]:

So talk to me today, as your leadership style has evolved, how do you approach kind of this bigger group, of this larger sense of responsibility you have as you move your passengers around, who seem to be very important people? How are you balancing all that to keep the team together? What’s working for you?

Simon Kardynal [00:16:45]:

Well, it is a challenge because this is a very small squadron. There’s only around 30 or so of us, and that makes it challenging unto itself because we have very few airplanes and we’re flying them all over the place, so it’s hard to get everyone together. But one of the things I try to do is I will ask open ended questions. How might we work together? How might we achieve this success? Or if we’re thinking it’s time to get together and have a group function instead of in the days of past where we would just put something together and everyone would attend and have mandatory fun. Now we will put out a survey, what would people like to see on what day and what time? So it’s more of a conversation that’s had and then eventually, once we’ve received that information, then we start making orders and directives and those different types of things, whereas not that long ago. That wasn’t the case. It was, oh, the Chief has said, this is the way it’s going to be. Everyone will attend. And we’ll say, we had fun.

Craig Anderson [00:17:38]:

Yeah. And so moving away from that command and control to more kind of servant or democratic leadership, what’s the difference, you see, in how that impacts the team.

Simon Kardynal [00:17:48]:

They’re willing to be more open. Once they see that I’m authentic and genuine in my desire to want to be sure that everyone is heard, then there tends to be more buy in for people coming up with different ideas of doing different things or if it’s a last minute change to the schedule, people are more open to the idea of having to work later or longer or whatever, because they get it that it’s just a part of the job. And sometimes that’s going to happen.

Craig Anderson [00:18:14]:

One of the things I think that I have seen with leaders is where they don’t build those relationships or even when they’re setting the wrong example, right. The leader says, no, we’ve got to have our nose to the grindstone, we’ve got to put the hours in. And then, well, on Fridays, when it’s warm out, I leave at 03:00 to go play golf. But you all can’t, right? That’s just the end of any kind of moral authority you have as a leader, because now you’re not aligned, you’re not making it’s not the same sacrifice, right. But you’re unaligned with the team, and that really disrupts your ability to be a strong and powerful leader for your team.

Simon Kardynal [00:18:49]:

The amount of work that it will take to get that back is monumental. It’s herculean and what its requirements are going to be. And that question will always be in the back of people’s minds. Is this just a blip when the leader is trying to get our team back? Or has this person really changed? And that question mark is something that will linger.

Craig Anderson [00:19:07]:

So now the other piece that I’m interested in is because as you kind of move up the ranks and you get these more authority and there’s more things to worry about, how do you maintain perspective as a leader when the situations are becoming more stressful or you’ve gone from two people to 30 people? How do you kind of keep that sense of calm as a leader?

Simon Kardynal [00:19:27]:

Big part of it is to take the time to ask myself relevant questions that I think are important and also to remember that building a community, it takes time, but that effort and that patience are the things that are going to get us all through those difficult times.

Craig Anderson [00:19:43]:

And we think about important characteristics of leadership. Is it a self awareness thing that you would call that? Or how would you kind of describe that for yourself?

Simon Kardynal [00:19:51]:

The big thing is we have to be honest in where we are with ourselves. And the only way to do that is to ask ourselves these questions. Am I doing a good job? Am I really taking the time to listen to my people? Or am I doing what I like to call a shotgun? Hello. Where you just go, hello, how’s it going? And that you keep going. You don’t even stop walking and thinking, well, I’m the leader. I said hi. They’re lucky they have spoken to me.

Craig Anderson [00:20:13]:

Yeah, it’s so interesting. I had a client who was really struggling with that because the culture of the business they were in was very much about being with the team and being seen by the team, being engaged with the team and to know them not to be their best buddy, but to have relationships with the teammates. And I was recently reprimanded on LinkedIn for saying that was being introverted, but he was actually shy and he also was very about getting things done and it didn’t feel practical to him to just wander around and have conversations with people. So we had to really work on, all right, how do I pivot that thought pattern around to say, no, this is the work, the building, the relationships, the engaging with the team, that actually is the work that needs to be done aside, in addition to everything else. But there’s a value proposition there and I don’t think people always see the ROI on relationship building with their teams.

Simon Kardynal [00:21:07]:

I’ve done a bunch of the different self help assessment tools and whatnot, and every single one of them, what comes up is, Simon is a Pragmatic leader. I am. I love a good old fashioned checklist and all the different things, but at the same token, if I get my nose down into that, I’m going to miss all of the things that are going on. And in these leadership roles, my job isn’t necessarily to be the one ticking off the checklist anymore. My job is to make sure that everything else around that is being done effectively so that the team is able to come together. And like you said, the work is making sure that team is stable and strong and empowerful, and if not, make the adjustments to make that happen.

Craig Anderson [00:21:47]:

Yeah. And that’s such a tricky proposition when you’re going from strong individual contributor, where the checking the boxes is the thing. You’re now being looked at as what responsibility are you carrying? How are you getting things done through other people? And that’s the point of failure, I think, right there, if you don’t figure out how to make that transition pretty quick.

Simon Kardynal [00:22:06]:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. One of the interesting stats I use often with my podcast is that in 2012, most leaders were not given their first formal training. Leadership training, not education, until they were 42. And then recently that same survey was put out and now the number is actually 46 years old. Most people are 20 years into their career and they’re just getting their first formalized leadership training. That is an epic fail because up until then you’re kind of fumbling around the dark. And more often than not where we’re getting our leadership guidance from is the people that we perceive to be strong leaders for whatever that might be. We’re trying to take their bits and pieces, but then that doesn’t even necessarily mean we’re making our own leadership style. We’re taking others. Hopefully the person is evolving and maturing to create their own leadership blend. But if not, that’s a significant challenge. And you’re now middle manager.

Craig Anderson [00:23:04]:

And by the way, that person you’re looking to for guidance and mentorship didn’t get any training either. But you’re creating generational failures of leadership in your organization when you’re letting people kind of figure it out in their late twenty s and maybe that first kind of managerial less leadership role and then if you never get them better now they’ve built all these habits. And with your statistic right now I’m 46 years old, my habits are there. I mean, I’m 56 years old. Getting me to change a lot is it takes a level of effort. So when you’ve ingrained all that and plus what damage did you do over those twelve or 15 years? One of the reasons I really started my practice was we need to do a better job of training leaders. I came up through corporate America and as you said, there was just no training. We don’t Craig leaders, I would imagine in the military. Is it more so that they train you younger in leadership?

Simon Kardynal [00:24:00]:

Yes and no. So there’s two ways to look at this in the Canadian military and my understanding is the US military has a very similar formal military leadership training program in that the officers are all their role in the military to do is to be leaders. So from the day they join they are automatically assessed in everything they’re doing for their leadership abilities, their potential and how they’re doing with it. For the NCMS, the non commissioned members, the role in the beginning is to be a worker. There’s no way to shortcut that. That’s just that’s the role the first few years is to work, produce, and that’s fine. But then when we start getting promoted to master corporal or master sailor, lance corporal, whatever it is now all of a sudden we’re getting these leadership roles and we’re in charge of small teams of three to five, for example. The great thing about this process is we’ve had the years of experience we’ve achieved that technical acumen, that expertise. But the interesting thing is in the military and in the civilian sector, we’re getting promoted based off of our proven technical skill set with a little tiny bit of a perception of what our leaders think, what our leadership skill set will be. Well, we really don’t know. It’s a bit of a trap shoot. So in the NCM cores, what happens is we have really good training to be a leader. In the rank that we’re at plus the next one. And that’s highly advantageous because it makes us very skilled at the technical abilities to lead in those particular roles within our trades. And as we go up in the rank structure, that window expands.

Craig Anderson [00:25:37]:

Okay, so now the last question, the wrap up question for the interview I always like to bring in is, let’s put you in a time machine. Go back in time to Simon, who’s been sent out to be the leader for these two other people and is not feeling great about it. What’s the one piece of advice you would give him that would make the road ahead of him easier as a leader?

Simon Kardynal [00:26:01]:

Take a breath. Simon, back then was busy running around like a chicken. It was not pretty. I hadn’t yet learned the value of stopping and taking a moment to assess what’s happening around me. That was massive. If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout 27 plus years of time in the military, regardless of how busy things are, there is always, always time to take a second and get reorganized. I’m not saying sit down and watch an episode of Star Trek, although I love Star Trek, but I’m certainly saying there’s time to sit down and take a second and have an honest look. There’s always time for that. Ultimately, you’ll be saving yourself time down the road by not having to redo things.

Craig Anderson [00:26:45]:

Awesome. All right. Well, Simon, if people want to connect with you, follow you, follow your podcast, what are the best places and best ways for them to do that?

Simon Kardynal [00:26:53]:

I appreciate the opportunity to share that. So the best way to reach out to the podcast is it’s called Trench Leadership, a podcast from the front, and it’s available everywhere. You listen to podcasts, and as well, if you want to reach out to me, I’m on LinkedIn. I have the Simon Cardinal LinkedIn facebook. I would recommend LinkedIn. That’s where I spend most of my time. I also have the Tranche leadership LinkedIn account as well. And if you just want to shoot me an email, it’s at Simon K at trenchleadership CA.

Craig Anderson [00:27:20]:

I really appreciate Simon’s perspective on leadership. It’s the second time we’ve had an opportunity to get the military perspective on leadership and what that looks like. So I always like to close out the episode by looking at the three key leadership characteristics of confidence confidence and calm, and where my guests showed us those aspects. So in the area of confidence, I think Simon really nailed it where he talked about building up your leadership confidence by building relationships with your team. Even in that very early leadership role, he had it’s. When he built the relationships with the teammates, they actually began to gain more confidence as a leader. In the area of competence, where I think he really brought a great point home is to be constantly asking open ended questions from the team. When you start asking those open ended questions, you gain the perspectives that you may not have. Because, let’s face it, as leaders, we’re not in the business at the same level we used to be, and there’s things we don’t know. Asking those open ended questions of the team are going to help us make better decisions as leaders. And then to almost extend the point into the area of leadership calm, he talked about asking himself questions, asking himself questions about where he’s at, how he’s feeling. So he’s constantly doing a gauge and a check in his mental state. So he’s always showing up with that calm leadership demeanor. So that was today’s episode. Thanks so much for attending. If you would like to learn more about how you can grow your leadership competence, confidence, and calm, I’d invite you to join my Masterclass. You can register for it@clearpathcoaches.com. Masterclass. We’ll get you signed up and invited to our next training. Thank you so much for listening in. And remember, leaders are born, they’re made. And you go from being an accidental leader to the greatest of all time. It just takes confidence. Confidence and calm. See you next time.