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Hosted by Masi Willis and Shannon Scott, Lead Like You Mean It is a leadership podcast for those who want more than inspiration—they want impact. We’ll help you lead from the inside out, with tools that stick and some truth that stretches you.
Everything Made Beautiful (00:00.334)
Hello, hello. We're just wrestling around over here getting situated and I start every episode with these glasses on and then I'll take them off. I don't know why. We cannot see in our old age. I cannot.
I see anything without my reading glasses. And they are prescription now. The perils of getting older. Well, I'd rather my eyes go than a few other things. Well, this is true. If you gotta go, I'd rather it be slowly my eyes. And it be an irritation of blurriness that can be fixed.
my bones are falling apart or I've got some saggy skin and I'm like, look, I mean, hey, you all got it too. a way to start a podcast. We're a little bit delirious, but all right, we are back for our fifth and final voice of the five voices here on the lead, like you mean it podcast. And today we get to talk about the pioneers. And before we talk about the pioneers,
Mace, just to remind everybody real quick about our six assumptions that we always want to be filtering through when we're talking about voices. I will, and I am going to go a little bit funny right quick, but we did tell you earlier on this podcast that we are actually in right now, the Cayman Islands. We we set aside a focus week for focus, fun, friendship, and football. So this Saturday to us,
is actually opening game of the SEC season and ball football. But the Saturday upon us, while this is going on, Shannon and I are arch enemies of love. the one time, the one time because it is Florida Georgia weekend. This is a stalwart in SEC football. That was a big word. I know.
Everything Made Beautiful (02:01.73)
What was that word mean? It's just, this is the mammoth. This is probably the rivalry of all rivalries. Like people talk about Auburn, Alabama. And you know, I think it's Florida, Georgia. And I think everybody, we're the only people that have to play it in neutral sites. neutral little something you might not know this year, we're in Jacksonville, but next year, because the Jaguars stadium is going under construction.
Is it Tampa? I can't remember the sites between. Yeah. So we end up in Florida for a quote neutral site and then Georgia for a quote neutral site. But the, the Georgia Florida game, the Florida Georgia game, however you say it is always half and half. So that Jaguar stadium is half and half, half orange and blue, half red and black. What side do you sit on? I sit on the Georgia side.
Because I go with Macy and her sweet family who have the tickets and I am their good luck charm. Yes, every time she comes, we win. And so my brother's like the one time he will allow it. He's like, please invite Shannon. He's out in your orange and blue. It all helps us. So my children have forbidden me to ever go to Jacksonville again because of that problem, because we need the Gators to win.
We all that to say this Saturday. It is on rivalry. And the great thing is for those of you out there who lose in like all sorts of sleep who use so much anger or frustration over football or talk smack and a rude or whatever. That is just not who we are. We love football. We love SEC.
We love doing are cheering for your team, not against the other team. Absolutely. And so it's really, really fun for us, even though we are, um, we're cheering for different teams. We're cheering for each other. So let's talk about the Pioneer Tell us our six assumptions. So our six assumptions, let's remember that we have to know and always know that our voice is made up of all five voices. So do not assume
Everything Made Beautiful (04:14.946)
that it's only one voice, that you can only be a connector, you can only be a guardian. You're not, you are all five voices, you're capable of pulling from all five of them, but you will have a hard time with others than those that are your most natural voice. So our voices, we have a more natural voice to us than others. One's just our driver, then we've got others that are co-pilots.
backseat drivers and in the trunk kind of voices. And so remember that. And then as we mature and you have knowledge around the voices, you will actually begin to value the contribution of each voice and what it brings to the table. That maturity is not age, that maturity is understanding.
getting deeper, deeper, and deeper. This is a high level, one percent view of the voices. The depth of understanding voices and how you apply them in everyday life is really where the maturity comes from. Also, your voice is made up of nature, nurture, and choice. Like I said, natural, your DNA, how you're made. Then as life comes...
towards us or we get older or people speak into our lives, we start nurturing parts of our voices, whether it's you've married someone that you're adapting a second voice to or you have someone who leads in your organization. Nature can impart on us as well as choice. Someone made a choice in your life.
that really transforms your voice or you have made a choice, whether that's trauma, whether it is PTSD, anything can cause that choice. Also, the fifth one, don't assume you know what someone's foundational voice is. That is the worst nightmare ever. That is where weaponization comes from. It's where confusion comes from. Some people may actually not know their first voice and may get it wrong. I did for six months.
Everything Made Beautiful (06:14.21)
But allow each person individually to own their voice. That's why it's a lot different than some other assessments is because assessments have said, we have the ability to assess you, but you really don't. Cause I can choose to answer a question the way I hope people see me, but that isn't my natural state. And then finally, don't assume that you know what all the words mean. Don't assume that just cause we're about to talk about a pioneer that they ran across the country and stayed in covered wagon.
and Forge the Frontier. Have you seen that new show on? I have not, but apparently it's good. I think it's Magnolium Network, little plug for them. I think it's Frontier something, but those funny... to live like... In Frontier life, and they actually have to stake their land, and they have to be able to live and get their homestead agreement. So it's those funny people on TikTok.
Stacey and anyway, total, there's my squirrel and the connector voice. I just squirreled all over the place. Anyway, don't assume that you know it. Yes, don't assume you know what the word means. And so today we are talking about our fifth and final voice in the five voices, which is the pioneer. The pioneer voice is the champion of strategic vision, results, and problem solving. So,
A pioneer is going to be the person in the room who, unlike a creative who has lots of brilliant ideas about what can happen in the future, a pioneer is going to be bringing intense strategy, military grade precision to what needs to happen in the future. They are the true vision, visionaries in an organization. Yeah. And to build on that is that
They really anything is possible. No is not in their vocabulary to their detriment at times because people can be on the other side of that. But they are vision, visioning and shaping a future that can is always their highest priority. They really are looking at the future and how to like Shannon said, strategically and militarily get there different than the creative because their innovation and future thinking.
Everything Made Beautiful (08:35.756)
They, the pioneers, are to be very results oriented, very military in their thinking. They're effective in aligning people and systems and resources. Think military. They're those, those kernels or those, I'm terrible here, I don't know the names, but the ones leading the platoons that are like, I know where we're going, I know what we need to be doing, these are all the people I need in place, this is the line they're going to form, this is all the resources we need.
to fight this war. Winning is a massive driver for them. They hate giving up and can actually drive their team toward burnout. And winning isn't like, need to have the trophy. There is not an option for losing. There is not an option for not balancing this Chick-fil-A drawer to the penny, even if it means the whole entire staff is staying until two o'clock in the morning.
It really is that massive driver for them is to make sure they win. I've even had a pioneer who I was coaching that was a female that she was pioneering her relationship. And I had to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's don't win this relationship when it's not something you actually want to win and need to win or will desire winning later. Be really careful that you're not just trying to pioneer this relationship to the end. And finally, they are powerful communicators.
using logic and rationality where the connector is powerful with their connections and persuasive approach, the pioneer will bring that precision and rationality to provide any unattractive and compelling vision of that future. They can have that charm snap on that. Like they so think they can see it, it's palpable to them.
but they haven't really necessarily considered all the steps it's going to take to get there, but they can present it in a very compelling future. have said that the pioneers that have led me, I have thought, well, I'll follow him or her over a cliff just because they've made it sound like this is absolutely the right thing that we should do. They present such a compelling vision of the future that your buy-in with a pioneer is really high. And that's a gift.
Everything Made Beautiful (10:58.518)
that they have to be able to not only see the future, not only strategically get there, but thirdly, communicated in a way that's compelling and makes everybody else want to jump on board. Well, and you think about it for the pioneer. I'm glad they don't, that they just see it as a win because they're not thinking of all the things that can go wrong or holding them back or lessening. Literally, they are strategically looking on
we can make this happen, which is how things have gotten across the line and how we've changed and been able to drive success and future innovation creative ideas forward. So that's definitely their strengths. What about their challenges? Well, I'll let you do that one. Since we both worked for a of pioneers. been on the other side of some of these challenges.
An immature pioneer, and that's what we want to be really careful about, is not reducing any of these voices to caricatures based on weakness or challenge. So there's immaturity and maturity that's got to be assigned in all of these cases. For an immature pioneer, they can appear to be very arrogant and that it's all about me and my agenda. So.
Nope, everybody get on board. I'm obviously the leader. I've got it going. I know where we're going and I how we're going to get there. And I'm telling you that this is what we're going to do. And when I say we're going to do something, that is what I mean. That's very, not only arrogant, but me focused. That can be a challenge. They can also really quickly dismiss contributions of people they don't believe to be competent or experienced. For instance, an immature guardian,
who is coming with a litany of questions against a pioneer's vision, oftentimes an immature pioneer in that situation will go, you know, so and so cannot ever be in my meetings again. And so there will just be a pretty quick dismissal of contributions rather than the maturity to take a step back and really value all the voices at the table. And the strength of that voice, you can imagine, would shut the nurturers down. And so a very
Everything Made Beautiful (13:17.204)
immature pioneer would say, hey, let's have this creative session. Let's invite everybody in and the best idea wins. And I go first. Like, let me tell you what I think. And the nurturer is never going to say anything other than what that pioneer just said. So in fact, in a room like that, most people will not speak second and go against a pioneer that has spoken first.
which is why it's so important for a pioneer to understand both the weight and the power of their words, because it will be very difficult for the harmony nurturer and some of the quieter voices, certainly a creative to go, but remember we said a creative can almost immediately see possible pitfalls or challenges or warnings or dangers ahead.
But if a pioneer has already come out guns blazing with a compelling vision, we all want to go get on board and go over the cliff. It's going to be really difficult to hear any different viewpoints in that room. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. We have we have talk a lot about what triggers these voices and maybe we'll look at.
next year coming back and being able to talk about some of those. But the thing that is crucial with you to understand as we talk through the final voice is I want y'all to know this little clip that you're listening to is just not enough for you to understand fully yourself because what we wouldn't want to pioneer to hear in this moment is that, this is who I am. No, this is what you may naturally be bit towards. But when you're fully aware and mature,
all of us are capable of adapting to new patterns before we act doesn't mean the tendency is going to go away and it certainly doesn't define us but it takes a lot of coaching a lot of growth I mean I'm five years in and I'm still working at it so that's just a little bit about what actually makes the strengths and the challenges of the pioneer the pioneer is our rarest breed they are seven percent of the population
Everything Made Beautiful (15:26.018)
Which when you take the 7 % of the pioneers and the 11 % of the connectors, that's 18 % on a previous episode I mentioned that there's a study that was done and 82 % of the voices are not heard, valued, and appreciated at the table. Therefore, organizations function at 60 % if not a little bit less of ability and capacity. I actually have a client and a social proof
of this I started working with them about. Three years ago and out of the shoot I did team performance assessment and they assessed at seventy seven percent which is really high compared the average is sixty percent I thought. How am I going to help them like what can I really do this is kind of scary. And now at the two year mark little over to your mark at the end of this past year we assessed again and they were at ninety three percent.
And over those two plus years, two and a half years, they've grown from 45 million in sales to 80 million in sales. And that, of course, is not all leadership coaching. That has to do with tariffs and tires and all sorts of things. But the proof of the pudding is that that 60 % of performance rate can be impacted when we fully understand these voices and how to actually adapt and work together. So 11%, 7%.
Very rare. Very rare, but in certain contexts are holding a lot of leadership positions. Absolutely. And so depending on what your particular sphere is, for me, I've been around a lot of pioneers because it takes that makeup to lead some of the large things I've been part of, but they are the rarest in the population. And that's important to remember because you're not dealing with a pioneer everywhere you go.
It's also a little bit frustrating for me because I fully believe that every single voice, first voice, can be a leader of organizations. It doesn't matter whether you're a future or present voice, whether you're logic or you're a people decision maker, whether you're extroverted or introverted, whether you perceive how to get to a deadline or you can judge out the performance you need to do to get there. All leaders can have a first voice different.
Everything Made Beautiful (17:53.632)
It matters who you put around you. It matters that your table is full. And so I can, there might be different sectors that might be better with a nurture or better with a creative or guardian or connector pioneer. But I want to sit out there and say, I do believe America in its fact really puts this high emphasis on future thinkers and C-suite positions. And as I believe some have been
I believe that some of our really unhealthy organizations and unhealthy burnout of people and the desire even to be in this whole world of entrepreneurship working from home is quite possibly really hard leaders that aren't healthy. Yeah. Right. So let's talk about because of that and the champion of their strategic vision and
really results focused and problem solving. What do we want to watch out for and how do we actually empower the pioneer? So obviously watching out for we talked about some of it. We talked about the the quickness to shut down or dismiss people that they view as incompetent or just simply contrarian sometimes in a room.
And in doing that, there can be a lack of sensitivity. They can be unwilling to listen. And we said they can be perceived as arrogant. So those are just natural challenges in the pioneer voice to look out for. But in order to empower a pioneer, we say, don't worry, they'll empower themselves, which is actually a compliment. It's not a withdrawal. They are competent, highly,
highly competent. And so provided that they're mature and they're considering the other voices at the table, there's not a lot you have to do to empower a pioneer. That is their natural strength. Well, and that's telling because they are incredibly competent. So we have to be aware that when we're empowering them, when you really want to, especially if you've been in a place where you've siloed a leader because they have burned some folks if they're a pioneer,
Everything Made Beautiful (20:14.306)
really invite their competence to the table. Let them shape things with you because they are so strategic and they are so results oriented. You show up incompetent or you show up wasting their time. The way you can empower them is to respect the fact that they do not want you to waste their time and they would like for you to show up competent. I don't believe that pioneers want you to be the smartest in the room.
They want you to come prepared. And sometimes I actually had someone guide me at a process in my career to say, don't go with a full blown contract. They actually are, you're talking to a pioneer, go and let them shape the contract with you. Have some options and actually.
They, the person came back with a better opportunity for me that were none of my choices. And had I put them into a contract form, I could have boxed that pioneer in and him just say, well, there you go. Have it go at it. And instead he came back with a generosity mindset, came back with an opportunity of a lifetime for me. And I really just unlocked that brilliant results focused problem solving solution he had. And I'm.
empowered him to really come back with a better solution for me. So good. So that is all five of our voices. All of them are essential around the table. All of them bring specific gifts. All of them have specific challenges and all of them can be developed.
and we can show up as the best version of ourselves for ourselves, for our families, in our relationships with friends, and in our workplaces. And that's really the goal of the Five Voices, is how do we champion one another's highest good, and how do we become the best version of ourselves? Because we really believe everybody's created on purpose for a purpose, and the best version of ourselves is what enables us to see that realized. And I like saying this, and a lot of people do, I want you to fight for people's highest good.
Everything Made Beautiful (22:25.538)
for those that you work with and lead and fighting for someone's highest good is believing what you know to be the best in them. Even though they might show up accidental, like we're fighting because we know this is what, is how a nurturer's created, how a pioneer's created. So I'm gonna finish out with just a challenge. If you've listened to the whole series, I want you to take one step towards
really implementing and transforming the way you do things in your household or at work or on your team. Now you do not know everyone's voice around the table because we haven't figured that out yet. And we ask you not to assume it. But a rules of engagement is the order in which people speak. So maybe you don't know if it's a quiet nurturer or a connector that's scared to speak, but
Think about around the table who is your quiet child or who is your child, your person at the table that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Go ahead and invite the rules of engagement into conversation, which is the order in which people speak. You start with the nurturer, you go to the creative, the guardian, then the connector, and finally the pioneer. So figure out if there's a way that you can implement that. Are you the person who always speaks first? Is that 10 seconds of silence awkward?
Are you the person that always holds back and waits for everybody to speak and thinks everyone said everything they needed to? Or do you ask a ton of questions because you don't really think people know what they're talking about? Or you actually feel like you're never really understood and you brought that idea to the table of a nonprofit organization or committee you were on and then six months later someone gave the same idea? You're probably that creative. So think about how to implement it over the next couple months.
And as we said, if you want to assess and determine what your five voices and your voice order might be, there is a free assessment in the show notes that you can take and we encourage you to take that, but then take a next step. Reach out to Maci and ask her what might be the best next step for going deeper with the five voices content. And that will bring this series of the Lead Like You Mean It podcast to a close.
Everything Made Beautiful (24:43.758)
But we will be back next month on November the 18th, which will be about a week and a half before Thanksgiving. We'll give you a little holiday episode. And what does it look like when all five voices are represented at a Thanksgiving table? What do we do about conversations about politics and religion that sometimes come up over Thanksgiving and make things awkward and difficult? What if there was a way?
to be so knowledgeable about yourself and others that a lot of those triggers didn't get pulled and a lot of those weapons didn't get fired because we can talk to you about what it looks like to navigate interesting holiday challenges. So that'll be in November. And maybe we should, when we record that episode, maybe we should do that around a Thanksgiving meal. Like we should eat, well not eat while we're talking, but that.
Like get us in that frame of mind. Yes. And maybe we invite some other people to that table. Maybe one from every voice. Yes. Okay. So we'll think about that. We've had an idea on the podcast. That means Casey, if you're listening. Exactly. But then we'll also be back on December 16th. That will be a holiday episode and we'll talk to you really transparently and authentically.
about holidays, what it looks like as certain voices to experience holidays, but also in certain seasons of life. And so be sure to join us in November and again in December. And as always. Go dogs. goodness. See, I was taking the high road because I'm a nurturer and she was out there with it. So I'm going to say chomp, chomp, chomp, go Gators on Saturday. And we're going to all lead like you mean it. See you later.