From Solo Lawyer to Leader, The Psychological Shift No One Warns You About

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Are you looking for tips on how to be a good leader? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson interviews Nik Kinley, a psychologist and leadership expert, about the “power trap” and identifying early warning signs. They also discuss the challenges professionals face when moving into leadership roles.  

Nik shares the idea of the power trap and identifying signs within people. The power trap is the idea that power changes anyone who has some. When someone has control over something or influence over someone, it is easy to get lost and become someone who asserts dominance in a negative way. Determining a power trap within someone can include people with insecurities, those who are afraid of losing power and those with narcissistic tendencies.

When new leaders emerge, there are some psychological shifts that happen when a lawyer goes from working solo to working with a team to owning a law firm. There is an increase in responsibility which can be exciting or daunting for some. It is important to think about this and figure out how you want to proceed. You need to start thinking like a leader. Do you want to take more risks, give your opinion or be more conservative in giving your opinions. This will help determine what kind of leader you want to be.

Take a listen!

• 1:13 Early Signs of Power Trap 
• 10:00 Psychological Shift for New Leaders 
• 26:05 Psychological Safety vs. Information Flow 
• 53:03 Restraining vs. Surrendering Authority
• 1:02:17 Top Leadership Habit to Change 

Connect with Nik:

• Website  
• Linkedin

Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here. 

Creators and Guests

Host

Tyson Mutrux

Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.

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Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.

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Tyson Mutrux 00:00:00 So, Nick, I want to start here. You talk about the power trap and can you talk about what that is? And what are the earliest signs that a leader has already fallen into without realizing it?

Nik Kinley 00:00:13 Sure. So the the Power Trap is the simple fact that power changes everyone who has some. And when I say power, I, we often think of power as something that only the rich and famous has have. But actually, power is something that anyone who has control over something or influence over something or authority of any sort has. So if you've hey, if you've got the remote control, you have power of some sort, right? If you're the leader of the family, if you're a leader of a scout troop, if you're the boss of a of a team, right. You have power of some sort and power does good things to us. But it also I mean it. So there's an awful lot of research showing that it enables us. Right? It boosts our confidence. Right? It makes us more likely to make decisions faster decisions, quicker decisions.

Nik Kinley 00:01:13 it can make us more decisive, but it also can do negative things to us. And that's what I mean by the power trap, because unfortunately, we don't talk about power. It's, it's actually more socially acceptable to go in and to walk into a room and say, I love having sex, than it is to say, I love having power. It's it's just not that acceptable to go in and say, you know, I love having power. You can't really doing that. Hey, and because we don't talk about it, we don't really understand it. I've seen 1,000,001 leadership development courses. I've never really seen a leadership development course that properly prepares leaders for power. I've never seen a leadership development course that turns around and says, this thing that we're about to give you, this promotion, this thing that you've been aiming for, this thing that you've wanted, is actually going to mess you up. And here are the ways in which it's going to mess you up, that it's actually going to make your life harder.

Nik Kinley 00:02:19 Right. And so it it actually does things to people in ways that make their lives harder, their jobs harder, and actually changes them for the worse. And the longer you have power and the more of it you get. The more that it changes you in ways that aren't good for you.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:39 I wonder if you can assess employees or team members based on the small amount of power that you might give them and what they do with it. And I'll give you an example. I was at Disney World last week, and it was really it was just a really interesting moment that stuck in my brain. And so we were at. We were at Animal Kingdom. I don't know if you've ever been to Disney World, but there's one of the parks, Animal Kingdom, and there was this little exhibit where it looked from just there were there were kids climbing on it. It looked like it was open for kids to climb on and things. It was it, it nothing looked like you couldn't go onto it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:17 It had little stairs and things to climb on. And so my wife had was in this little exhibit area with and there were other parents, other kids. And this cast member, they call them comes over and he's really rude. He said, all right, you all got to get out of here. You stepped over my rope. He kept saying, you stepped over my rope. And they're like, no, no, we didn't step over your rope. And I remember thinking, man, this guy has such. He has a small amount of power, but what he's doing with it is really just insane. And so I wonder if there's a way of, of kind of giving, sort of testing out at lower levels, giving small amounts of power and see what people do with it.

Nik Kinley 00:04:03 Yeah. So it's it's actually really, really difficult because, I mean, selecting people for roles anyway is an awful lot harder than is advertised. There's 1,000,001 vendors out there who say we can do it, and we can do it with 99% certainty, right? That's BS.

Nik Kinley 00:04:22 It's rubbish. They can't it's really, really difficult to select people. But and when it comes to selecting how people are going to react to a certain thing, I mean, it's not chemistry, it's not if you insert X amount of this chemical with that amount of that chemical and this precise, conditions, this is what will happen. It's not like that. It's really, really tough to figure out what's going to happen. but what you can do is you can look for that. You can look for the extremes. What typically happens is, is, is if you look for in particular if you look for insecurities in people. So I think some of the most, some of the things that most commonly end up in a bad place or with bad outcomes is that when you find people who have deep insecurities of any particular sort, that doesn't usually end up with a happy ending, right when you start giving them power. because the power often brings that out. Often ends up amplifying those insecurities, because one of the things that power gives us a little gift, if you want, is it gives us a brand new insecurity that no one else has.

Nik Kinley 00:05:46 it gives us the fear of losing power. There was a wonderful article that was once written, which was. It had a beautiful title. I wish I'd thought. Thought of it. It was power doesn't corrupt, but the fear of losing power does so. It's the fear of losing power that corrupts people that gets them doing bad things, right. and it's this idea that the fear of losing power plays on whatever insecurities that you've got and really start amplifying them and playing them out. So. so what what research has been done on what are the bad signs for who's going to react poorly to power, what really stands out. And it's the people with insecurities that are most likely to react badly to it. The one other thing that really kind of stands out is, of course, narcissism. If you give power to narcissists, that doesn't usually end Well, because they often use the power to feed their narcissism. that said, there, even even with that, there are caveats. A little advertised fact is that there is consistent evidence that low levels of narcissism are actually positively related to performance, to leadership performance.

Nik Kinley 00:07:13 So actually low levels of narcissism are good for leadership. And if you think about it, that's because low levels of overconfidence and low levels of narcissism, that equates to someone who can kind of kind of walk in through those saloon doors and go, trust me, this is the right way, right? You know, I'm gonna sell you something, and you're gonna believe in it, right? That that kind of, you know, walk in and own the room. And if you can do that a little bit without getting carried away with it. That's not a bad thing. so the problem is, is that that can tip over a little bit. Right. It's not too hard to tip over the scales on on that. But if you can do it a little bit, that's not a bad thing. but in general, the bad signs for power are, high levels of narcissism or high levels of insecurity.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:14 So there's a couple of things you said there that really kind of kind of threw me a little bit.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:19 one is I never thought about it. It's the loss of power. Right? That part is really just I'd thought about that before. But the other thing is, I, I always kind of looked at narcissism as, like, black and white. Either you're you are a narcissist or you're not a narcissist. I never thought about the gray area of there being levels of narcissism. Is there a way of testing narcissism?

Nik Kinley 00:08:41 Yeah, they're all narcissism tests. for certain. I mean, I would suggest that most people are narcissistic to some degree, right? I think that if you don't. So narcissism comes in two forms, really. There is a low self-esteem form of narcissism, and there is what they call grandiose narcissism, which is very much the self-love, owning the center stage kind of narcissism. but if you think of narcissism as self-love, then some degree of narcissism is common to most people, right? A little bit. Right. and is not necessarily a bad thing. but the, the there is, yes.

Nik Kinley 00:09:36 You can you can measure it. There are tests out out out there. Google it. There are some, you know, there is, you know, there they are freely available out there. But most people have what I would call a healthily low level of it. and, you know, not not an unhealthy level of it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:00 So I want to I want to shift gears a little bit. I want to ask you about, there is a this natural progression that most law firm owners go through where they go from this, this lawyer that's sort of a solo that they're the working lawyer, they're the one that does all the work. And then all of a sudden they suddenly become the decision maker for staff and for clients and for for finances. And they're they're sort of thrust into this leadership role. So what's what kind of psychological shift happens when someone crosses that line? Because it is it's a sudden shift when it happens.

Nik Kinley 00:10:38 Yeah. So the the. If so, let me answer that in two kind of ways.

Nik Kinley 00:10:48 I think there is the the psychological. One way of having a look at that is the sudden increase in responsibility that comes with that. now, the the most obvious aspect of that is the decision making responsibility. Now some people thrive and enjoy that, and some people find it quite daunting. And a lot of that has to do with self-confidence. and there will be some people who struggle with that. and, that's where you get into kind of imposter syndrome, people who really struggle with the decision making. And those people are the types of people who are more likely to rely upon those around them to support their decision making, who will be slower to make decisions, who are less likely to, take risks in their decision? Are going to be more risk averse, less likely to give opinion, shall we say, and are more likely to, yeah, be very reserved and conservative in the opinions that they do give. so that's that's one aspect of it. The second aspect of it is, is just in terms of decision making.

Nik Kinley 00:12:15 The second aspect of it then, is responsibility for the people around you and how you manage those resources and manage those people. that's the second most, you know, the second most common aspect of stepping up and suddenly being a manager. And I certainly think for so law firms typically have fairly flat structures. At least that's been my experience of it. So that step up can be quite at least compared to a corporate environment anyway. So in a corporate environment, you can more commonly go from a couple of employees to, you know, 2 or 3 employees to 5 or 6 employees to ten employees. You know, the step ups tend to be more more graded, and you were more steps before you suddenly go to being in charge of a whole firm or a much larger group of group of people. so you get a lot more time to practice management skills. I my sense has been that within within law firms that you probably don't get, that you get to be more of a technical expert, and that's what tends to get you promoted.

Nik Kinley 00:13:21 I mean, correct me if you think if you think that's wrong, but it tends to be more I don't know, you're about to speak there.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:27 I, I think I think that that's right. There's it relates to a quote that I pulled from you and it's expertise plus authority is where blind spots accelerate fastest. And so I wanted to ask you what you meant by that, but I think there's also something really interesting because of that though. So I see this very often where you've got a lawyer who's who's excelling at being a lawyer. He's let's say that they're he or she is an associate at a firm. And so what, they're really good at what they do and then what they're done, the, the, the managers of that person or the owner of that firm says, hey, let's make you a manager. And they have zero management experience. They do a terrible job at managing because that's not what they were. They were excelling it. They were excelling it, being a great lawyer.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:13 And and then they're put into this other position which requires a completely different skill set. So when you talk about those two things, so the the quote, I'll repeat the quote for you two plus.

Nik Kinley 00:14:23 Yeah, yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:24 So

Nik Kinley 00:14:26 So I mean that that's the go.

Speaker 3 00:14:28 On, sir. You know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:29 Unless you remember it, I can give it to you again if you want.

Speaker 3 00:14:33 You know, give.

Nik Kinley 00:14:33 Give, give it give it to me.

Speaker 3 00:14:34 Again.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:34 Yeah. Just. Just make sure the audience is well. So expertise plus authority is where blind spots accelerate fastest.

Nik Kinley 00:14:42 Yeah. So I mean, if you've got one of the problems, one, one of the challenges that you've got is, is that if you think that you've. If you are an expert in something and then you are given authority as well, what tends to happen is that one of the so one of the things that authority and the power that goes with it does is that it tends to, lead you to be driven more by the knowledge that you have and to listen less to the advice that you've you're given.

Nik Kinley 00:15:23 It's just there's been study after study done that you tend to be driven more by the knowledge that you already have. even when you actually don't actually have much expertise in the area that you're making decisions on, you are more likely to be driven by your assumptions and your and your opinions. No matter how half baked they have. But if you if you are an expert, it gets even worse, right? so that's why blind spots can fall. Because you are more likely to be driven by what you know and you are. So you, you become less able to see what you don't know just because you've been given authority. You automatically become less able to see and less aware of what you don't know. And partially that is because there is this, this, psychological sense within you. I'm the boss. I need to make a decision. I'm the boss. I'm the one in charge. I need to make a decision. It is also because there is this one of the. The power traps that we talk about is that.

Nik Kinley 00:16:44 And you see it, time and again with the leaders in the study after study showing that people with power and even people who just feel powerful are more likely to be led by their internal states and knowledge, so they're more likely to be laid by emotions. They're more likely to be laid by assumptions. There they become more disinhibited. They become more authentic for better and for worse. Right? They're more likely to be led by what they want. They become more selfish. They become more led by their internal goals. They become more led by their emotions. They their anything internal, they are more led by than by external factors. So there's they are That whole internal thing is driving them more than by than anything. And that's by. So anything external becomes a blind spot to them. So that's one of the reasons why the other kind of thing, and you touched upon it as well earlier, is that possibly the biggest blind spot and the biggest trap waiting for any new leader as a result of the authority, the power, the position that they've been given is that they inherently become more distant from the people that they are leading psychologically distant.

Nik Kinley 00:18:12 Now, there is two kind of main things going on here. Firstly, the information that is reaching them reduces and distorts, so the flow of information to them reduces and distorts. So. First of all, people start filtering the information, reaching them. And to begin with, no one is open. Right. So so this idea of complete openness is is rubbish. If you ever meet anyone who's completely open, they are probably single, unemployed and friendless, right? No one's ever completely open. And, you know, I mean, you're not completely open with your boss. I mean, you're I mean, if your boss brings you, a completely silly idea, you're not going to turn around and say, hey, boss, you are a moron, right? No one does that, right? You find another way to say it, right? Even if you think that you're not going to say it right. And if you are married and your partner, your spouse. If my wife brings me, says to me, hey, honey, do I look good in this? There are only a certain range of acceptable responses that I am allowed to say to her, right, that are acceptable for me to say to her, right.

Nik Kinley 00:19:25 And likewise, if I said the same to her. Right. This isn't just a a male female thing. It goes the other direction too, I'm sure. Right. so complete. And the same is no matter how open we like to believe we are. And no matter how open. Right? We as a boss would like to believe that our people can be with us. Right. And I've never spoken to a boss. I always asked bosses, you know. Do you. Do you think your people can be open with you? And. And I've never met a boss who says, no, my people can't be open with me, right? Every boss likes to believe their people can be open with them. But that's not the reality, right? There's always something people wouldn't say to you. There's people are always filtering what they say to you as a boss. Right. And the millisecond, the millisecond you become their boss, that starts happening. And every time there's a crisis point or stuff gets busy and you show some irritation or you show some frustration, you start reinforcing that.

Nik Kinley 00:20:28 Or every time you're critical about something, you reinforce that. Or every time you show some disinterest about a topic, you reinforce that right? So the information reaching you reduces and distorts that information flow is not pure. So that's the first thing. That's the first way that you become distance from the people that you lead. But there's a second way and it gets even worse. Right. And this is something that every leader, including myself, really struggles to hear. But in the thousands of studies that have been done, the findings are utterly unanimous on just about every metric that has been done, because as a result of this reduced and distorted information flow of the thousands of studies that I've seen. Look, with all sorts of measures on every single metric that I have seen across different industries, different cultures, leaders ability to accurately gauge what their people, what their employees are thinking and feeling. In other words, the cognitive and emotional empathy of leaders gets less and less. The higher and higher up they go.

Nik Kinley 00:21:53 The more and more power and authority they have. So the more senior leader you are, the less empathy you have for the people that you lead. And it is. That doesn't mean you have less empathy as a human being. It just means because you become more distant from the people that you lead, you are less able to empathize with them because you're more distant from them. You're less able to gauge what they're thinking and feeling. So you put all of those things together and you have a blind spot. Right. Both cognitively in terms of your expertise, in terms of knowing stuff and in terms of understanding your people. And those are pretty big blind spots to have. Right. So that is part of the power trap. So not all of it, but it's a pretty big part of it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:53 I'm sure I'm not the only one terrified at the moment. because that's a lot. But it's I think it's things that we, I think if we step back and think of was like, yeah, that sounds.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:02 I mean, there are a lot of things you're you were saying thinking like, wow, yeah, I can see those things. I'm assuming there's ways that we can solve for these blind spots. And so let's take the first one when it comes to the filtering of information, because the filtering of information. It's it's probably a necessary thing, but how do we make sure that we're getting the best filtered information?

Speaker 3 00:23:28 Yeah.

Nik Kinley 00:23:29 the, the.

Speaker 3 00:23:31 There is a degree.

Nik Kinley 00:23:34 To which I think within.

Speaker 3 00:23:39 The legal.

Nik Kinley 00:23:42 Environment you are slightly more protected from that than other environments, but actually in a slightly more toxic way. And let me try and explain what I mean by that. most leaders don't fail. Most leaders don't explode in a ball of flames. you know, they don't. It's not spectacular. Most leaders become average. Most leaders become mediocre. Just mathematically. Statistically. Right. That's what happens to most leaders. They make a small mistake. They do something suboptimal. They do. They miss an opportunity to do something extra.

Nik Kinley 00:24:39 They miss an opportunity to do something. Well, optimal. They do something. They miss an opportunity. They miss an opportunity to do something special, you know, to do something extra. To do something great. To they. They just take a safer option. They they they make a small mistake. They do it. They do something average, right? They become mediocre. That's what happens to most leaders. That's. And that's. That is where.

Speaker 3 00:25:15 The.

Nik Kinley 00:25:17 Reduced information flow shows up. Most right people become average or slightly below average, or a bit above average if they're lucky, right? So, and I think in a way that is where when I say that those in the legal profession are more protected from it, but in a slightly more toxic or insidious way. What I mean is, is, is that you may get less people who crash and burn, but I think if you were to look at it on a graph, you might end up with more people in the middle, probably less crashing and burning, but more people in the in the in the middle and less stars, less crashing, burning, less stars, I would imagine.

Nik Kinley 00:26:05 I'm just guessing here. however, if you wanted to make sure that you were less in the middle and more up towards the top end as a result of having better information and better information flow from the bottom up. There are things that you can do, and that's really what you're trying to make sure that you have better information flow from the bottom up. there's been a lot of work done out there on something called psychological safety, and I've written before on psychological safety. And this is the idea that you need to make employees feel safe in order that they speak up. I have to say I am no longer a fan of psychological safety. I think that it's over. Egged. I need to be clear. I'm not saying that psychological safety isn't a thing or it's not a good thing, but I think that there's so much emphasis put on psychological safety that we often forget that it's not what we're really trying to create. We're not trying to create psychological safety. What we're trying to create is information flow.

Nik Kinley 00:27:13 And I've just seen too many organizations run a program or a course on how to create syslog. Can't say it. How to create psychological safety. Pat themselves on the back and then walk away and never check to see whether they've actually created better information flow. Right. And it's like, hold on half a second. You know, just everyone's feeling better about themselves, but you haven't actually checked to see whether you've done anything. and remember, I'm English, so I'm negative and pessimistic and miserable and cynical and all the rest of it. Right. So. And suspicious and, you know, English psychotherapist. So it's, you know, deeply cynical and suspicious. So what can you do? Right. If you're not going to focus.

Speaker 3 00:28:02 On can we.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:03 Because I don't want to derail this a second before we get into what we can do.

Speaker 3 00:28:08 yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:08 I just got. If we can stick on that topic for just a second, I.

Speaker 3 00:28:13 Switched topic the negative and miserable.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:15 Yeah, sort of a little bit.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:17 But if we go a little bit before that, what you said about, What are you. You wrote a book on a topic, right? And then. Yeah, there I'm sure there were other books that were done on it. And what I was thinking this morning before our interview actually was I was thinking about how the internet is basically run by a bunch of people that have taken a small bit of information from experts, and then they go and repeat said information. And they don't they, they they sound very they sound great when they're explaining it, but they're saying it wrong or they're only taking it out. They're taking it out of context. And so we have a bunch of these quote unquote experts all over the internet that are not experts on that topic. And so I wonder if how much of what you're talking about were they took a little bit of information from your book or from other people that have written on the topic, and then ran with it and then went way too far with it or misapplied it.

Nik Kinley 00:29:14 Yeah. Yes. yes. Full stop. The, So, look, I'm, I'm, I'm old and I'm a dinosaur, and I grew up in a different time. I'm really, really lucky. I'm a psychologist and psychotherapist by training. I've worked in prisons. I've been lucky enough to work with royalty and politicians and CEOs and children and murderers and sex offenders. And I'm really lucky. Right. And I professionally, I grew up in a time when, I was told to go and make myself an expert and people let me sit in on things I had no right to sit in in things and learn. Right. And I'm really, I don't know how the new age of consultants. I look at my son and I look at the new age of consultants coming through, and I don't know how they're going to learn because AI is going to do the jobs that they would have done, or I would have done that made it financially worthwhile for the company to still employ me. Like, you know, putting slides together is what I did.

Nik Kinley 00:30:26 And then I was allowed to attend meetings to sit on things, and I don't know how it's going to be worthwhile for the new age of consultants to learn. So, the it really? Yes. There are too many people out there running with things and saying, look, this shiny new bauble is the answer to everything. I've written about nine, ten books now. I spend about a year researching them and all of my books have been written. I probably read over a thousand articles for each I go off to. Each of them is based by me going off to academic research and then trying to research a thousand articles or so, and then trying to make them understandable for the lay reader and trying to congeal it all and say, okay, from all of this academic stuff, and I'm surprised I've got any hair left. but, you know, from, from all of this and I and I have, I've supported I work with IMD Business School over in Lausanne. Who pays for a team of researchers for me.

Nik Kinley 00:31:30 And then we we pull all this research together. We do some additional research on top. We try and pull it all together and we say, okay, for the lay business person, what does this actually mean? And we put it in try and language that the layperson can understand. Right. So someone who doesn't have an academic because these papers are some of these academic papers, I don't know what language is written in. Right. But, you know, it's like 70 words a sentence. And it's like what? You know, you kind of get to the middle of the sentence and you think, what are we talking about? It's it's insane. Right? so we try and we try and make sense of it. And the problem is, is, is that a lot of it? There are no easy answers, right? And it's it's so I major in an awful lot. I do a lot of assessment and coaching is where I do most of my work. And especially with assessment, there are no easy answers, right? There is no one sign that this person will be great, right? and it's it's I, I get really angry when I see, you know, use this one test or this one sign or the one question to ask it is it's not that way.

Nik Kinley 00:32:44 and the truth is, is that there tend to be a 6 or 6 month gap between me finishing a book and then it being published, probably 4 to 6 months. And I often present the book a dozen times between, when the book gets finished and when it comes out. And almost every book I fall out of love with before it gets published. One of the books, I actually changed the model before it got published. Actually, I eventually changed the model because I thought, oh no, I shouldn't have done it that way. I should have written that instead. And she knew that wasn't that way. But I changed my mind. I changed the model in some way with almost everything, and or some new bit of research comes out and it's like, and it's evolving. And so when I see people kind of running with these things or running with ideas that are ten years old and it's like things evolve. So no, I can turn around and say, no, I wrote a book on.

Nik Kinley 00:33:45 So we recently, probably the most successful book I wrote was something called Changing Employee Behavior, and we recently published a second edition of it. And so and, and we wrote these extra chapters at the end, which were really quite sick on how we've changed our mind on so much of what we wrote, or how new research has come along and completely disagreed with something that we wrote, and we just had to be honest about it. because so much changes. and so I think you have to be really just honest and careful out there with some. I'm sorry. There's a very long winded answer when actually I should have stuck with the original answer, which was yes. I get really frustrated when I see people just picking stuff up and then saying, no, look, behold, this is the answer to everything. And no.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:36 Well, someone that deals with experts on multiple levels where we'll have our experts the other side, we'll have other experts, and they never want to change their opinion. I think it's very refreshing that I've found an expert that is okay with changing their opinion on something.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:51 I think that's, I think that more people in general should be like that instead of getting stuck into our hour. One train of thought. And this is the way. This is the only way. There are way too many of those experts because that's just not reality. So I think I'm just I think it's refreshing to hear that, but I, I stopped your you were going to get into what can we do about it. So I'll, I'll, I'll bring us back on track. so we identified the blind spot. So what can we do about it? You're about to get into that.

Nik Kinley 00:35:23 So, the first thing that you can do is a need to try and do is to reduce distance. Right? And that literally means get out into people, walk into people, walk the halls. Right? Actually go out and meet people and speak to people. And I know that sounds obvious, but you would be surprised how many leaders I meet who just don't make the time for it. Ring fence time, get out.

Nik Kinley 00:35:51 Meet to people. Speak to people. Never, ever, ever cancel a meeting with a direct report or a team. Just don't do it. Just don't do it. Because if you cancel a meeting with a direct report that signals to them. Your time doesn't matter. You don't matter. Clients matter more than you do. And that is a really, really slippery slope, right? So the second thing is to ask questions. I once knew a CEO used to terrify people by saying, what do you think? And you absolutely knew that he would never have a go at you for saying something stupid or. But if you had nothing to say, oh, heaven help you, heaven help you if you had nothing to say. Heaven help you ask questions. Right. And ask. Ask them in different ways. Just. But ask questions. What do you think? What about this? What about that? Just always have a question. and I contrast that with a CEO I knew who once went in, and, he would do these big town halls really eloquent.

Nik Kinley 00:37:03 Go and speak to people and say, you can ask me anything, ask me anything. And he'd proud him. He'd pride himself on. You can ask me anything, right? And he came up to me once and he said, I don't get it. I don't get it. People say they don't feel free to speak up, but I always tell them they can ask me anything. And I said to him, yeah, but how often do you ask them anything? I've never heard you once ask anyone or anyone a question, right? You've never shown any interest in what anyone thinks. Just ask. People have less to say yourself and ask people more, more, more, more questions. Right? third thing, be really careful how you manage moments. Stress. Difficult moments. Conflict. How you manage moments is really, really important because people will judge you on how you are at your worst, right? So if you are someone who and you know that you tend to show your irritation or frustration or anger, find a way to deal with it.

Nik Kinley 00:38:04 And if that means you have to find a way to step back for five minutes. we make some suggestions in the book, and there's plenty online too. But just manage moments, right? You people will judge you how you are at your worst, and you can be great on a good day. But if on a bad day, you can get a little bit snappy, that's how people will remember you. It doesn't matter how much great work you do on other days, they'll judge you how you are at your worst. there are other things as well that you can do, and I'm just going to mention one. I mean, we mentioned all sorts in the book, but I'm just going to mention one because it's really cool and it's new, right? This has only come out in the last year or year, a year or so. And it's cool, right? And it all came out of research that was done. Having a look at the amount of confidence that boards had in CEOs and the way from the way that they communicate.

Nik Kinley 00:38:58 Right. And, they had a look at how much certainty CEOs had when they communicated. And what they found is that boards had less CEOs, had less confidence in CEOs who sounded more certain. So CEOs who came out and said, well, we're going to be like this 100% sure, right? This is the way it's going to go, right? Boards had less confidence in them than when CEOs kind of came out and said, well, we think this is going to happen, but there's a chance that it may not. This is why it may not happen. And this is what these are the constituencies that we put in place. Boards were actually more confidence, had greater confidence in the CEOs who sounded less certain. Now, this was a bit counterintuitive, because we're kind of led to believe that as CEOs, we need to be, well, you know, certain and confident and all the rest. You know, we know what we're doing, right? Because we're the boss. so they carried on this research and they had a look at leaders further on down the organization, and they found they replicated the findings.

Nik Kinley 00:40:01 So they thought, well, this is interesting. And they actually then kind of thought, well, okay, actually, what's the effect that it has downward in the organization as well. So they asked a whole bunch of leaders to actually and they, they gave them kind of a script to use. And they got these leaders when they were talking to their teams to talk in terms of percentages. Right. So they got these leaders to say when they were speaking to their teams to say things like, well, we're 60% sure that this will happen or we're 80% sure that this will happen, you know, and the 40%, you know, if it doesn't happen, you know, there's a 40% chance it won't happen. This is why it might not happen. And these are the reasons why. Right. Or there's a 20% chance this might not happen. These are the reasons why. Right. And then they look to see how teams responded. In the following three months afterwards, and what they discovered was that these teams had greater confidence in their bosses.

Nik Kinley 00:40:58 And and this is where it gets really cool. Those teams were more likely to respond in kind. They were more likely to articulate risk to their bosses, more likely to then turn around in in the following months and say, we're concerned there's a small chance that this may go wrong. We're concerned that a small chance that this may happen. So just by leaders articulating doubt, articulating uncertainty in this way, they were. Encouraging their teams, indirectly encouraging their team or directly encouraging their teams to voice risk uncertainty back to them. Now, obviously that's an incredibly useful thing, right? If there is uncertainty or risk, you want your team to articulate it to you because it's uncertainty and risk that that are the very things that's probably most important for your team to articulate to you. Right. It's not the good stuff. It's the uncertainty that you want them to articulate to you. So it's a really simple technique that when you're speaking to your team, start using percentages. We think, well, there's probably a 80% chance of this.

Nik Kinley 00:42:25 There's probably a 20% chance the client is going to do this. If the client does that, this is what we're going to try doing. Just see what happens, see what your team do. But what you're effectively doing is you're trying to train your team up to articulate uncertainty. And you are role modeling how to articulate uncertainty to your team and hopefully they will respond in kind. But there's recent research to suggest that works, and I've seen it replicated a couple of times. But so with each of these simple techniques and we've put a bunch more in the book and there's a bunch of others you'll find out there on the web. Two. What you're trying to do is you're trying to get you're trying to encourage your team to, make what you're trying to do is ensure that information flows, right. You're trying to encourage bottom up communication. You're trying to encourage them to voice, any kind of, anything that otherwise that they might try and filter. You're trying to counter that natural filtering of information. Because remember, openness is unnatural and power is something that naturally dampens openness.

Nik Kinley 00:43:45 So you're trying to counter the effects of power. And you have to do something because. Because because otherwise it's its power will cut it down. And by the way. Something that we pull out in the book is that this is something that is getting worse. And one of the reasons I wrote the book now is that the effects of power becoming more toxic, and certainly on information flow. Information flow is getting harder now than it's ever been before. And that's because of things that are happening in broader society. If you if we can trace it back to June the 1st, 1980. Or was it 1990? it was 1980. I blame it all on CNN. because June the 1st, 1980 was when CNN launched. Right. And you get the first 24 hour news channel. And then and that changed reporting. That changed news reporting. And then of course, you get the launch of Facebook. You get the launch of Twitter. And with them it was, in 2006, you get the first algorithms launched.

Nik Kinley 00:44:55 and interestingly, in the same year, algorithms and likes both get launched in 2000. Yeah yeah, yeah. And the same in the same year. And that was 2009, I think. you both get both get launched and retweet. So you get retweets, likes, both getting launched at the same time. And the first algorithm on Facebook. and all of a sudden you get people becoming far more image conscious. Not long after this, well, few years, you start getting cancel culture coming along. And if you think that stops at the doorstep of your office, you're wrong. And if you think the image consciousness that goes with, a social media stops at the door of your office. You're wrong, and there's plenty of studies out there to show that it doesn't. And if you and if you think those studies are wrong, we'll just look at LinkedIn. Right. It doesn't. Right. That stuff permeates into into the office. And people are more aware now of what they say and are the potential consequences of saying the wrong thing.

Nik Kinley 00:46:03 And I think that voice and voice of the people, sorry, the the psychologists call it voice, but the the speaking up and saying things and the risks of getting it wrong are far more in people's mind than they've ever been before. And that's before we get on to the fact that actually, people are probably less exposed to a range of opinions than they've ever been before. with the rise of echo chambers and that kind of thing. And the polarization of news sources. So it's it is it is harder to ensure proper information flow than ever before. And I haven't even started to talk yet about the potential impact of AI on the information that is reaching you. Because of course, there are concerns about the sycophancy in AI upon the opinions that it's giving people. And so even if it's not giving those opinions to you, it may be giving those opinions to your employees who are then filtering them up to you. Tough job being a leader.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:20 You know, you're someone I would love to just kind of have in my office and just pick your brain all day.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:24 I think, I find all of this very fascinating, I found, because you're really looking at all facets of life. I mean, you. There are so many things that when you were, you were touching on multiple topics, especially when it comes to like social media and the rise of social media and also the rise of CNN and all these different topics that it made me think of all these different things of my own life. And I think it's it's really fascinating what you do. I really I don't know how you stay focused. I really don't, because your work is it can touch on so many different things, but I, I want to I want to shift gears a little bit to culture because you have a quote. it's culture is how power behaves when no one is watching. And I wonder, and that way it has to do with that. That one was in 2024. It had to do with media commentary. But I wonder what how that how that relates to to running a firm.

Tyson Mutrux 00:48:21 So culture is how power behaves when no one is watching.

Nik Kinley 00:48:27 Yes. So I think an awful lot of what Howard does is below the table. organizations try to place limits on power. but most of what they do only place limits on the worst cases and the worst offenses. The worst abuses. And. You know, they're very they put thresholds, but anything below that threshold kind of gets ignored. Really? Right. A little bit of mild abuse, a little bit of mild bullying. Right. Is, assertive management. Right. and that is what I kind of really meant that that power. How power is expressed. When no one is watching, is really says an awful lot about what your values are, is an expression of your values, right? I mean, in a way, you can judge someone's values by what they do when no one is watching. Right. It's not what they do in the public, right? It's not what they do on Instagram. It's what they do when no one is watching.

Nik Kinley 00:50:09 Right. I think that's how we all ought to be judged. What we do when no one is watching. away from the cameras. And it's the same with power. Power expresses itself a way when. When no one is watching. That's where you can really see the effects of power. And power is integral to culture because power affects how we treat each other. And it is it it it is interwoven with how we treat each other, with how people treat each other in teams. there was a beautiful, beautiful study and you can Google it. Just Google power monopoly. and there's a wonderful little two three minute Instagram video, which shows what happens to players when they're winning in monopoly. As simple as that. They have the power in a game of monopoly. And they start treating people differently. and it's as simple as that, really. Right. You don't need a lot of power to start behaving differently. And suffice to say, it didn't bring out the necessarily the best in people and around.

Nik Kinley 00:51:38 All right. So it was a competitive environment. Right. but workplaces can be too. And it's it's, I. I've seen. An awful lot of unpleasant workplace cultures. And I've seen some good ones, too. And and a lot. Hey. Well done. That's efficient. and a lot of it tends to be determined and driven by how the leader expresses their power within their team. And if you've got a leader who is expressing their power in a fairly healthy way, when I say expressing their power, I just mean not abusing it. You know, in a fairly healthy way. Right. you find out it tends to be a fairly positive, nice culture. Right? And if you've got a leader who's, you know, mildly bullying, Right. Fairly abusive with their power. Then, lo and behold, you've got a pretty horrible culture, a pretty toxic culture. And that's all I kind of meant, really. It kind of plays out through the culture.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:55 There's a quote in your book, and for I don't know if we've mentioned the title of The Power Trap 2025.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:03 and we'll get to how people can get that in a second. But it's good leaders don't surrender authority. They restrain it. And I'm kind of chuckling because it makes me think of early on in my career, I won't mention the attorney's name, but and I don't know if he still does this, but he talked about I was at a mastermind. He was talking about how he, they made. They made all of their employees, when they got to work, put their phones in a locker, and they had to lock their lock their phone away so they couldn't use it during the day. And I thought it was such an insane thing to do because I was thinking like, I don't know. For me, it's like, you don't own these people like these. These are people. These are human beings. You don't lock your damn phone away. And to me, it just seemed like such a an abuse of authority. And so I just wondered, do you have any thoughts on that? Because I just thought I was so insane.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:55 And I know that people still probably do it to this day. I think it's crazy.

Nik Kinley 00:54:02 I do have some thoughts on it. do you mind if I. It all depends. So how much is it okay for me to swear?

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:11 Yeah. You? Absolutely. Yeah.

Nik Kinley 00:54:14 It depends how much you. It's okay for me to swear, right. Because I have quite a few thoughts on that. none of them are very polite. look, I, I am not very. I don't have very many polite thoughts on that. I as I've grown older, I have increasingly become convinced that the. These case studies that we see in Harvard Business Review or whatever MIT Sloan of these wonderful companies that treat their employees well and great are are the exception to the rule. I think there are some really, really great leaders out there. I think there's some really, really great managers out there. I genuinely believe that the vast majority of managers and leaders are kindly people who do not mean harm to their employees and are just doing their best in a very difficult situation.

Nik Kinley 00:55:43 But the very difficult situation is that, at least in the West. Most companies value the profits that they are making over the welfare of their people, and are increasingly putting their leaders in a very difficult position. Where and are making the lives of their leaders harder and are making the power that they are holding more and more toxic. And let me give you one very, very simple example of what I mean by that there is very clear evidence. Indisputable evidence. Research evidence that shows the larger the span of control that a leader has. And by span of control, I mean the number of employees that they have. Once it gets beyond a particular point, and we can argue about whether it's five employees or eight employees or seven, I think it's usually 6 or 7 is a magic number, right? The quality of their management goes downhill, and the welfare of the employer and the performance of the employee goes downhill for most employees. Full stop. No debate, no discussion. Evidence overwhelming. And yet, in the search of greater efficiency, most companies will exceed that ratio.

Nik Kinley 00:57:19 If there are efficiencies to be had and there is sufficient pressure for money to be saved. They will put shareholder value. By which I mean money and profit. Short term, over the long term performance of employees in the welfare of employees. And it is managers and leaders who are stuck in the middle trying to make it work. And the evidence is very clear that when they are put in that the power trap, what power does to people becomes worse. And. It again. It is managers and leaders who are left trying to hold that and trying to deal with that. and in terms of the number of hours they work, the stress levels, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It is managers and leaders who have to deal with that. So it that may be different within mid-size, smaller law firms or larger law firms. But within big corporates, that is certainly the way that it is going. and it is, it is it is a trend that we see across the board within larger corporates. And it is not a good trend.

Nik Kinley 00:59:00 And it is, again, a reason why the effects of power are growing worse and worse.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:09 There's so many more topics I want to go into. But I'm going to I want to end it on this question. But before I get before I get to that question, how do people get the book to pitch the book real quick? How do people get the book and how do people get in touch with you if they want to reach out to you?

Nik Kinley 00:59:25 Okay, so the power trap pulls out form. We've only really touched upon two. We haven't even touched upon the ego boost that power does yet. And then also how power amplifies some of the stuff within you. but the Power Trap looks at four things that power does. It kind of looks at all of these thousands of studies over the last 50 years and tries to pull out some of the core research, and it even touched upon neuroscience. And then it tries to get into the practicalities of what you can do about it. It then even finishes up on the minor issue of why are all our politicians so bad? and what can we do about that as a society as well? and it doesn't pick on anyone's eye.

Nik Kinley 01:00:06 It just talks about politicians as a whole. And I write that as a European. so, it but it really has a look at, as all of my books have at a how to and it's got kind of like 75, 80 kind of different techniques that leaders can try and use and organizations as well. What you can drive down in organizations to try and support your leaders. and that's what it's what it's really all about. What can we do about it? Because I'm an immensely impatient and practical man, and eventually I just want to get to. So what can we do about it? where can you get it? All good booksellers. that's that's it. Without wanting to advertise anyone in particular. but I believe the old phrase all good booksellers is, is the phrase, how to get get me. I have a website, Nick Kinley com. and Nick has spelt really weirdly Nick or you, can I blame my parents? Or you can find me, on LinkedIn. I've got a Substack on under the same same same name as well.

Nik Kinley 01:01:11 But any of those three avenues.

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:15 Thank you for that. Yeah. Well great pitch by the way. That was well done. I that was maybe the top pitch on the podcast. And we usually don't have people pitch at all. And, but I, I opened the door for you. It was great. That was, that was perfect. I think we should cut that right there and like but I'm.

Nik Kinley 01:01:34 I'm miserable and dark and English. How can that be?

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:38 I am changing my last question based on the more of the how to model of the book. I. I want to change it to this. If you could change one leadership habit in in leaders, what's the one that they should should focus on first? And I'm guessing you're going to have to sort of average out all leaders and what they usually do wrong and all that. But what's the one habit you would focus on first with with most leaders and what they should change.

Speaker 4 01:02:17 With you.

Nik Kinley 01:02:18 Can I cheat and have to.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:20 Go for it?

Nik Kinley 01:02:22 Okay.

Nik Kinley 01:02:29 The first one. plug number two. there's a book over one of my shoulders. It's a red one. I don't know if you can see it. we did a bit of research called leadership or the leadership industries built up all about thinking about your capabilities and all the rest of it and what's inside you and your qualities and all. All the rest of it. rubbish. Well, not rubbish. but here's a thing. Right? whether you, Tyson, are a caring leader is utterly irrelevant. Doesn't matter at all. Whether you're motivational rubbish, who cares, right? What matters is whether the people around you feel cared for. Whether the people around you feel motivated and that is not the same thing. What matters is the impact you have, not the qualities and capabilities you bring to the situation. And they are very, very different things. So my first bit of advice would be to focus on the impact you have, and not the intention you have or the capabilities you think you've got. Focus on the actual impact you're having.

Nik Kinley 01:03:48 And that would that would be advice number one. Think about the actual impact that you have that you're having. What is the impact you want to have when you've got a direct report, you're having a 1 to 1 with a meeting. How do you want them to leave the room? Slightly different. Do you want them to be more confident? Do you want them to take the initiative more? What is the impact you want to have on them when they leave them with them? How do you want them to be different when they leave your office? Just think about that one thing. That's that's oh, and there's a second bit of second tip for your one 1 to 1 with you.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:21 Give me the one.

Nik Kinley 01:04:23 We always we always we always begin meetings with a question. Finish your 1 to 1 with a question. Always finish your 1 to 1 with a question. Right. We begin with a question. Finish with a question. What do you leaving it with? How are you feeling? What are you up to? What are you going to? What are you going to do next.

Nik Kinley 01:04:39 Whatever. Just finish a 1 to 1 with a question.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:40 Any question.

Nik Kinley 01:04:41 Anyway. Any. Just finish it with a question. I mean I mean make it related if you want, but you know, what are you taking from here? What are you leaving from? What are you going to do next? What have you understood from this? What's your favorite color? What's the capital of Zimbabwe? I don't know what, but just. Just finish it with a question. so, second thing, right. Second, biggest bit of advice just to remember, right? New CEOs, single most common point of failure. They don't get the right. They don't get the team right quick enough. I say this just because it's top of my mind. I was assessing a CEO this morning. they don't get the team right quick enough. So most people tend to be a little bit. They like to give people a chance, right? They like to give people a chance. They tend to be a bit cautious.

Nik Kinley 01:05:33 They don't get the team right. Get the right people in the right roles. Get the team right. Because if you don't get the team right quick enough, the change curve, the growth curve will be slowed, will be shallow, and you're not going to be able to deliver as much quick enough. Get the team right. There we go.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:02 Man. I've got more questions I want to ask you, but I'm going to hold up.

Nik Kinley 01:06:04 I've got more answers I want to give.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:06 I'm gonna hold it. There we go. Episode.

Nik Kinley 01:06:08 Because we're gonna have to do it again.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:10 We have to. There's got to be a part two to this. this is one of those. I think it's one of those episodes where it forces people to look in the mirror, but in a good way. And, I'm. I've not yet had a chance to read the book. I've looked at snippets of it.

Nik Kinley 01:06:27 That's probably why you're still enthusiastic about it.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:29 I'm super enthusiastic about it. I'm going to.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:31 I'm going to get it right away. I'll even do this. I've never I've never done this before. if the first person that reaches out to to me about the book and says they want to copy, I will buy them a copy and send it to them. So, reach out to me. You can do it through maximum com through the website. If you have my cell phone, text me as well. I've given the cell phone number out on the podcast on, on multiple occasions. so that's kind. We'll put it in the show notes. But the first person that the texts me, I get, I get nothing out of this. This wasn't a paid. This isn't a paid endorsement by Nick. This is just me loving this episode. And so anybody that reaches out to me, you know, shoot me a text and I'm happy to to buy you a copy of the book, the self the texting line. I had to I had to pull it up. [phone]. Shoot me a text.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:23 Just say you want to copy the book and I'll send you a copy of the book. So first person to reach out, I'll do that. But, and who knows, maybe if I'm feeling generous, I'll buy a couple more instead of two people. But, But, Nick, really appreciate this. I really love doing it. Well, like I said, we're going to do a part two. And, if you're ever in the States, you have your free place to stay. If you want to stay at my place or, we'll we'll hang out. Gotta hang out.

Nik Kinley 01:07:47 That's an offer I can't refuse.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:49 Love it. So. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Nik Kinley 01:07:53 Many thanks indeed, Tyson. Thanks a lot. Loved it. Thank you.