IT Leaders

In this compelling episode of the IT Leaders podcast titled "How Authentic Are You," Shane Rodabaugh, an experienced leader at Baptist Health, unpacks the critical importance of authenticity in leadership. With over three decades of experience across major organizations like GE, Yum Brands, and UPS, Shane brings a treasure trove of insights and stories that illuminate his journey and the lessons learned along the way.

Throughout the episode, Shane delves into the essence of authentic leadership, which he describes as a blend of integrity, transparency, and self-awareness. He emphasizes the significance of being genuine and consistent in one’s actions and decisions, which he argues is fundamental to cultivating trust and respect within a team. Shane also touches on the nuanced balance between vulnerability and strength, challenging the notion that showing vulnerability is a weakness, instead framing it as a cornerstone of courageous leadership.

Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of authentic leadership through Shane’s exploration of its various dimensions, including self-management and the ability to genuinely value others' opinions. He provides practical advice on how leaders can enhance their authenticity and discusses the long-term benefits of being authentic, both in personal growth and in fostering a positive organizational culture.

This episode is not just a discussion; it's an invitation to reflect on one’s own leadership style and to embrace authenticity as a vital component of effective leadership. Shane’s candid sharing and the engaging discussions provide a roadmap for IT professionals and leaders aiming to enhance their influence and impact through authenticity.

Creators & Guests

Guest
Shane Rodabaugh
System Vice President, IT Infrastructure | Baptist Health System KY & IN

What is IT Leaders?

The purpose of the IT Leaders Council is to bring together IT Directors and Managers for leadership training, educational content from guest speakers, and peer discussions in a vendor-free, collaborative environment. IT Leaders Councils are currently offered in Indianapolis, IN and Columbus, OH, with more cities coming soon!

00:00:00:04 - 00:00:17:07
Shane Rodabaugh
I should have went first because now everybody's going to be going to clean it. Is it? Is he rubbing his eyes? I thought she even said that. While they're back there preparing, I wasn't actually sizing up the room, but I was sitting back there, running through everything in my head. And then she made me pause for a second.

00:00:17:09 - 00:00:26:03
Shane Rodabaugh
Am I ordered to wait? And I started checking off all the boxes and then forgot what I was going to say when I got.

00:00:26:05 - 00:00:54:11
Shane Rodabaugh
Okay, so we're going to talk about how authentic are you today? this is more about talking about an individual skill as a leader. So a little bit about me. I worked for Baptist Health, been there for 11 years. My boss reminded me of that yesterday. I didn't realize it was my my work anniversary. Prior to that, I spent a couple of years at GE.

00:00:54:13 - 00:01:22:03
Shane Rodabaugh
Prior to that, I was almost 15 years here at yum brands, and then before that I was at UPS and ironically, the people that I've worked with are all sitting in this room for my entire 30 year career. So yeah, there's a little nugget of information for you today. other than that, I've got, I love working in it.

00:01:22:04 - 00:01:42:05
Shane Rodabaugh
I really love working in health care. So what I'm not going to do is I won't go through the system overview slides. But I did add a couple so that you can know a little bit about Baptist. you guys can look at those later. I won't dig into all that. We're just under a $4 billion organization. So we are pretty large.

00:01:42:06 - 00:02:02:15
Shane Rodabaugh
We cover all of Kentucky for the most part, and we get into Indiana, and we've got some offices in Illinois and Tennessee. So you guys can look at that. You guys can look at that later. This is my favorite slide out of all of them. It shows all the nine hospitals that we have across the system. So here's our touchpoints.

00:02:02:15 - 00:02:30:10
Shane Rodabaugh
We'll talk about what authentic leadership is. We'll talk about why it's important and how we can be more authentic. So getting back to why I think we need to focus in on one thing at a time. I'm not an expert in any part of leadership. Don't look myself that way. Never have. What I always try to do, as I try to find one thing that I can continue to hone.

00:02:30:12 - 00:02:51:11
Shane Rodabaugh
These are dimensional skills. They always are. Just what? You think. You're good at something. Then you realize. Wait a minute. This is falling off. What happened? There's nothing we're going to talk about today that you all don't already know. That's that's a fact. That's a lot of the soft skill training that we talk about as leaders. There's a lot of things you're like, yeah, I knew that.

00:02:51:11 - 00:03:12:04
Shane Rodabaugh
Well, that was common sense. So we'll talk about we'll talk about that. But just know I'm not an expert with this. Never have been. Never will. I just try to get better every day. My mom had a little plaque on the wall. We. We lived in a trailer. I'm from from actually from Indiana. Purdue lost last night. What happened?

00:03:12:06 - 00:03:30:06
Shane Rodabaugh
You got be very upset about that. It must have been that drive back. But anyways, my mom had a plaque hanging on the wall. Said, please be patient. God hasn't finished with me yet, and I don't think that's actually ever going to happen because he made me on a Friday. He took all the bits and parts and pieces left over and this is what you get.

00:03:30:07 - 00:03:53:03
Shane Rodabaugh
So I'm like, follow me. Right? okay. So let's dig in. What's authentic leadership? And this is all about what you think it is, right? So when you think about authentic leadership, you think about honesty. Somebody who's honest, somebody who's got a lot of integrity. Somebody who's transparent. You can always have somebody who's, like, overly transparent, right? Maybe shares too much, maybe shares too little.

00:03:53:04 - 00:04:20:23
Shane Rodabaugh
I'd rather have somebody who shares too much than not enough. So you got that balance. Then you've got character. So with character you've got three of the four dimensions of character that apply to authentic leadership. So what are some of those dimensions? Authenticity is one of them. Part of authenticity is vulnerability. When you all think of vulnerability, do you think of weakness?

00:04:21:00 - 00:04:46:04
Shane Rodabaugh
If I'm with my team, I'm going to be vulnerable with my team. You think, hey, is that a sign of weakness now? It's a it's a sign of courage. Teams appreciate that. So you want to try to be vulnerable with them. It feeds the authenticity. It feeds trust with the team. One. How about. I put something up here with Harvard Business Review.

00:04:46:04 - 00:05:13:23
Shane Rodabaugh
But it was for something else. And I actually tripped across something else. They did a study on 250 CEOs, and they could really be any chief, that they could assess within an organization. And out of the 250 CEOs, they did a a survey. If you're Baptist, it's going surveys, probably, but they did an assessment with the people to find out what's the number one or number two attribute that they would want the most out of their leader.

00:05:14:01 - 00:05:23:22
Shane Rodabaugh
Authenticity because of that attribute. They want somebody who's real, not somebody who's fake okay.

00:05:24:00 - 00:05:46:16
Shane Rodabaugh
So the second dimension self-management. You think about emotions. Do they walk the talk with their emotions? Are their emotions always in check? We kind of heard a little bit about that with Laura. She was touching a little bit on that as we were moving along. Do your actions match your words? Are you walking the talk? I still that from.

00:05:46:18 - 00:06:06:09
Shane Rodabaugh
Yeah. I had this a little bit further down the young had a young university here. I don't know what they have now, but they had young university here and it was amazing from a leadership training standpoint. And walk the talk was a big sign that they pushed. They had walked the talk cards. You saw somebody walking the talk.

00:06:06:09 - 00:06:28:23
Shane Rodabaugh
He would ride them a walk the talk card and say, hey, I saw you doing this. And it was very, very impressive. So walking the talk, when you're thinking about how I'm doing self-management, I can stand up here and talk about it all day long. But if I'm not walking that talk danger pretty good humility. Are you a humble person?

00:06:29:01 - 00:06:51:03
Shane Rodabaugh
Well, I'm not always a humble person. Try to be a humble person, but there's something that goes with a level of humility. When you all came here, you saw what the agenda was, right? You come here and you kind of look at what the what's going to be taught today. And you think, well, am I teachable? You ask your question and it's my teachable if you're looking at what's on the agenda.

00:06:51:05 - 00:07:11:09
Shane Rodabaugh
If you didn't think you were teachable, you wouldn't be here today. And being teachable can either be I'm going to listen to the speakers presenting some topics. I'm going to network with somebody, but I'm just going to take one thing away. So you're humble enough to say I'm teachable. That's a good that's a good sign of a leader.

00:07:11:11 - 00:07:42:05
Shane Rodabaugh
Genuinely valuing other's opinions and perspectives and being able to talk through it's a superpower. What I didn't write down was who said that? And that was my bad. So how does Harvard Business Review, how do they define authentic leadership? It's a style that's exhibited by individuals who have high standards of integrity. They take responsibility for their actions, and they make decisions based on principle rather than short term success.

00:07:42:07 - 00:08:05:22
Shane Rodabaugh
There's a lot to unpack and to read it twice. It's a style exhibited by individuals who have high integrity. We beat up that horse already. They take responsibility for their actions. I own it, I own it, I always am. So whatever my team does, I'm owning right and make decisions based on principle rather than short term success. So it's about the principle of the matter.

00:08:05:22 - 00:08:26:15
Shane Rodabaugh
It's it's the long game, right? It's not the short. One of the thing I caught there was a Becker's article over the weekend. If you're in health care, you may or may not have read it, but the title of it that had caught my attention was When to Lead. Firmly. In the era of soft CEOs, you're probably thinking they're weak.

00:08:26:17 - 00:08:47:20
Shane Rodabaugh
No no, no. Soft. They're squishy. Right. What a lot like this topic. This topic is kind of squishy, right? We're working on our soft skills. Can a CEO listen and be listened to? Can they wield a soft heart and a firm hand? Dennis Polen, president and CEO of Martin, new Jersey based Virtua Health, thinks the answer is yes.

00:08:47:22 - 00:09:16:06
Shane Rodabaugh
Am I demanding? Absolutely. But I don't believe in this commander kind of disposition, he said. I believe in holding people accountable. But I like authenticity in terms of showing up with a willingness to be vulnerable and to hear ideas that might contradict my own. What I love about what he said was may even be talking about a different topic, but he's talking about that authenticity going into a meeting.

00:09:16:07 - 00:09:41:00
Shane Rodabaugh
It doesn't matter what it is that we're talking about and you want to go in. You may have your mind made up on something, but you're listening to understand right upstream. Remember that one that goes back to the 90s? You're listening to understand others so that, hey, I might change my perspective on it and you're keeping the team engaged that way because they're just not going to come and just clam up and go, well, it's whatever Shane said.

00:09:41:00 - 00:09:47:17
Shane Rodabaugh
That must be the way that it goes, right? Okay.

00:09:47:19 - 00:10:11:22
Shane Rodabaugh
Where my time is okay. Authentic leaders I know you guys can't really hardly see that, right? But these are a couple people that I perceive as authentic leaders. But you decide, right? So this is Tony Dungy, though. Tony Dungy I love, love him. He coached the Colts. I'm an Indiana boy. Don't hold that against me. but I am an Indiana boy.

00:10:12:00 - 00:10:40:18
Shane Rodabaugh
he he coached the Colts, started following him. I listened to him speak a couple of times on the internet. he has written multiple great books. quite a strength. And then he did a quiet strength men's Bible study. Now, the crazy thing about Mr. Dungy is he said he got more reward out of writing those books and and helping other people grow than he did winning a Super Bowl.

00:10:40:20 - 00:11:04:03
Shane Rodabaugh
That's pretty powerful. The other thing that he said was a team with soul will accomplish far more than a team that doesn't. He's the real deal. I would love to see him speak in person. Haven't done that yet. Mr. Novak, this guy, right? You. He was CEO when I was here working for yum brands. Did I know the guy personally?

00:11:04:05 - 00:11:27:11
Shane Rodabaugh
No. What? Do you remember me? No, not at all. I was just a guy working in it. But he had a passion. I'm a passionate guy. I'm passionate about a lot of things. I share that attribute with him. He was really big on recognition. He was almost crazy on a crazy recognition. But love him or hate him, the guy.

00:11:27:13 - 00:11:55:11
Shane Rodabaugh
He had a heart of gold when it came to that kind of stuff. I was doing some work for him in his house in a different state, and we were putting in a video conferencing equipment for him. I heard him talking to a restaurant manager. Restaurant manager? This guy's a global CEO, and he's talking to a restaurant manager, like, gets one of his vice presidents or another chief spent 30 minutes with this guy.

00:11:55:13 - 00:12:15:14
Shane Rodabaugh
Coaching and mentoring. And I'm like, Holy crap. The guy's the real deal. Today he has a series of podcasts on leadership. If you don't follow him, I'd encourage you to do so. He has a ton of people that that comes on his shows all the time. He's great to listen to. Mr. Kelsey, we have the other fans in here.

00:12:15:16 - 00:12:35:00
Shane Rodabaugh
Okay, great. I'm a blue house. So even though I'm from Indiana, we are UK, apparently. The next time I speak, I'm going to have to put a slot over here for whoever our new coach is going to be. I don't know, cause that's not confirmed, but okay, so, Mr. Kelsey, you're probably going. Why is he up there for authentic leaders?

00:12:35:00 - 00:12:59:14
Shane Rodabaugh
Well, he impressed his charisma, everything about him with hitting some notes with me. The proof is in the pudding. We haven't seen him do anything yet, but I love. I'm loving what I'm seeing with this guy. Okay? He's. He's bringing something different than what I've seen before. You could argue that about anybody else, but all I'm saying is, I like what I see so far.

00:12:59:16 - 00:13:21:08
Shane Rodabaugh
Okay, who goes right here? The waiters and the canoe. It's not a person. No, I don't think that's an authentic leader. But if you have a government official that you believe is an authentic leader, you better put the waiters on and you better get in the canoe because they're so full of B.S.. You're going to need the B.S. meter, right?

00:13:21:10 - 00:13:45:07
Shane Rodabaugh
You've got to have a meter. But there are a lot of government officials that are great. They're authentic. I agree, but I needed something to kind of capture them because I always struggle to see how authentic they truly are, because they're always got an agenda, right? We don't know what that is, but they always have an agenda.

00:13:45:09 - 00:14:11:05
Shane Rodabaugh
The only thing I want you to take away from this slide is it's all perception. You perceive these leaders when we, as leaders are trying to be more authentic. We have to build the perception of it's a culture within the team. That has to happen. And that takes a lot of time for us to to go through. One thing I want to touch on, John Maxwell, he's another person that I follow a lot.

00:14:11:05 - 00:14:30:23
Shane Rodabaugh
I'm sure you all have heard about him. When we think about offense history, how does that fit into the five different levels of leadership? Right. So real quick on the five different levels, level one's position people follow because they have to eat. Right. So if you have a supervisor or manager put in position, hey, you got to follow this person because that's your new boss, right?

00:14:31:01 - 00:14:57:06
Shane Rodabaugh
Level two is permission. Permission is they follow because they want. So you've built yourself up to now. People want to they want to follow you. So it's a permission granted. Level three is production. So in production you produce, you gain credibility with your team. Level four people development level. Wish I was there, right? But people development level key is in recruitment.

00:14:57:08 - 00:15:15:23
Shane Rodabaugh
So you can recruit with the best of them. You get people in the right seat at the bus. So you can kind of see how this is building on top of each other. And then the pinnacle is level five. This respect you just got you just have respect. People are just going to come in. I hope by the time I retire I get that but I don't know.

00:15:16:01 - 00:15:39:11
Shane Rodabaugh
hopefully that'll that'll hit. Where does authenticity land in this? It's at the permission level. If you can get the team to see how authentic you are, it builds that trust. Then you hit the permission. Make sense? Okay. So. Building a culture of authenticity.

00:15:39:13 - 00:16:05:05
Shane Rodabaugh
Oh, did I skip one? No. It didn't. Okay. Sorry. All right. How can I be more authentic? Can I take a pill to do it? There seems to be a lot of pills out there right now. There's an anxiety pill. The depression pill, the the weight loss pill. That seems to be the great one right now. But there's a lot of pills.

00:16:05:05 - 00:16:24:12
Shane Rodabaugh
You can't take a pill for this. You can't take a pill to help you become a better leader. It's not going to happen. It's not going to be the the slow release pill. It's not going to be the slow, anything pill. What I can guarantee you is slow is building yourself up to. To get these. You have to be consistent.

00:16:24:17 - 00:16:42:05
Shane Rodabaugh
You can't be doing one thing this week and then, oh, I'm going to do a different decision in the next week. If you do that, the team is going to go, man, wait, what day of the week is what what side of the bed to change it up? Right. We sometimes feel that way about our organizations, right. We don't know what our organization's doing.

00:16:42:06 - 00:17:02:03
Shane Rodabaugh
We may not understand the strategy. So what day, what week is or what are they going to do this time? When you start having that, it jolts the trust, right? We as leaders, it affects our authenticity. So we have to be consistent in everything that we do. It's a trust accelerator. So if we're authentic, we're going to get there.

00:17:02:08 - 00:17:29:16
Shane Rodabaugh
Self-awareness is the biggie. Self-awareness. There's a lot with self-awareness that we have to make sure that we're hitting on walking the talk on everything. Right. Everybody's watching you. So let's just think about that for a second. If you were to ask any one of my team, which of Jeff's here, Todd's here, my directors, none of my directors are here.

00:17:29:16 - 00:17:59:06
Shane Rodabaugh
But if they were, and you were to ask them, did I walk the talk two weeks ago? no. I had a directors meeting, had a bad day, and a couple things set me off. I didn't take my pill beforehand, and I popped off. I was pissed. Pardon my French. And, yeah, that resulted in me apologizing to the team.

00:17:59:08 - 00:18:24:01
Shane Rodabaugh
Now, here's what I can't do. I can't apologize today. And then turn around the next week and lose my crap again. Right. I have to apologize and then course correct. It's much like I'm not Catholic, but you, you know, you don't go to confession and say, well, father, you know, forgive me, for I have sinned only to turn right around, walk out the door, go do it again.

00:18:24:03 - 00:18:57:15
Shane Rodabaugh
That defeats the whole purpose, right? So you have to keep that self-awareness way high. And it's something that has to be constantly on your mind. Respected versus being liked. throughout my career and being a leader. And it started with being a manager. I wanted to be respected and liked. If you were to ask me today, even in the position that I had today, I want to be respected and liked.

00:18:57:17 - 00:19:21:05
Shane Rodabaugh
But one thing I want to remind you is the higher up you get and the broader your responsibilities are you the like goes over here and you have to lean in to respect that. You're not going to be like, you can't do everything to be like, it's not going to happen. It's not going to work. Be real. It's not deep.

00:19:21:05 - 00:19:43:15
Shane Rodabaugh
It's just simple. Think about when you are recognizing your team. You got to make sure you're you. Don't mess this part up as a leader. When you're recognizing the team, make sure you're recognizing that big thing, not that little thing or the wrong person. Right? So you want to go embellish the team because you're like, hey, I'm a leader.

00:19:43:21 - 00:20:04:05
Shane Rodabaugh
I'm going to recognize them. And then you recognize somebody who only did something that took like two hours to do, where you had a team over here, spent four months on something, and you didn't embellish them. And the amount of work that went into that. Make it count. Right.

00:20:04:07 - 00:20:30:21
Shane Rodabaugh
All right. The other thing about being real, I think I said this already too. The mistakes and weaknesses just admit to it. That's that's part of your, you know, you're you're being vulnerable with the team, Jack. Something just don't own it. That don't take your authenticity to the next level. Okay. So we talked about we talked about the culture side of this.

00:20:30:23 - 00:21:01:01
Shane Rodabaugh
It's the culture of authenticity is built by values. They're they're not conditional. They don't they don't change because of circumstances. So don't don't let the values don't let the values start. Just start spinning around. You can add values to your to your list. But don't let that. Don't let that sway anything. if the culture doesn't catch on, you want to look inside.

00:21:01:01 - 00:21:25:08
Shane Rodabaugh
You can't necessarily set culture for an organization, but you have a team. I don't care if you're managing a team of three, or you're managing a team of 50 or a team of 100, you can help drive that culture within your own teams. So my advice to you is continue to build that within your own group culture. For an organization.

00:21:25:09 - 00:21:47:18
Shane Rodabaugh
That's the that's the Chiefs right. That CEOs and all them they can figure out what they what they want from that. But you can build you can build a culture within your own teams. Back to the development side. Your when you think about your leadership styles or your listening styles or your communication styles, you have to be you.

00:21:47:19 - 00:22:17:19
Shane Rodabaugh
You can't go, man. You know what? I see this Tony Dungy. I see this other person over here and I want to be that leader. No, you have to be you. It's okay to take pieces and bits and parts of them and add that to you, but you're always going to have to be you. And if you're not following someone you admire, you probably need to take a look at your list and of course, correct that people will buy in to you before they buy into your vision.

00:22:18:00 - 00:22:41:02
Shane Rodabaugh
So when you're talking about trying to build a culture, you need authenticity. You need trust so that people buy into you. Once they're buying into you, they're going to latch on to your vision. All of these things connect. It's it's like a it's like the spinal cord. Right? Culture is a hot button. And all this I think I beat the dead horse onto that.

00:22:41:04 - 00:23:21:10
Shane Rodabaugh
it is truly the, the the foundation of the foundation concept of this. Anybody have any questions? I haven't raised this question and don't have anything to say. how do you balance authenticity with, With some of those those thoughts that you have maybe, maybe, balancing when to be authentic versus in those low moments. sharing too much writing, staying on that even stage, even enough for your team to not feel like there's, you know, the writing rules.

00:23:21:12 - 00:23:43:22
Shane Rodabaugh
That's a really good question. So the why is there a right or wrong answer? I don't think so. That's part of reading the room right? Do you know the person? Do you know their leadership style that they need? You probably want to know that much like their communication style, you know their leadership style. Do you know the people that you're that you're leading?

00:23:43:22 - 00:24:13:04
Shane Rodabaugh
If you don't, that's okay. Hopefully they're on video or in person and you can start reading, reading their body language. But the the vulnerability side sharing too much if if it gets it in your mind, you're thinking, hey, that's probably sketchy and I probably shouldn't don't. That's what I would say to them. Who else? The question is, which is a comment.

00:24:13:05 - 00:24:29:17
Shane Rodabaugh
sometimes I think we try to be authentic in order to get approval from others to tell us, hey, that was authentic, what you just did. And so, but the thing I did two years ago, I was sharing simple with my team, and one of the owners of the company said, I don't think he shared too much about this personal situation of yours.

00:24:29:18 - 00:24:45:20
Shane Rodabaugh
I'm like, oh, well, I felt kind of bad. And then two years later, the person said, hey, that thing you shared two years ago really resonate with me and this is what I choose in my life because of that. Yeah, right. So I think my point I'm trying to make is that, when you're being authentic, don't worry about dead people think you're being authentic or getting approval on have.

00:24:45:21 - 00:25:09:10
Shane Rodabaugh
I'm just just like you said, just do you. Right. So you you you just you you. So when you're when you're being authentic, I need to walk that talk with the people below me, my peers and up. So if I'm in a department meeting and there's people here that that I work with, I try to be engaging like I am here today.

00:25:09:11 - 00:25:31:06
Shane Rodabaugh
I try to be an authentic person. I don't I don't have an agenda today. I don't want anything from you all. It's just Sharon. Hey, this is how I dig. Drill into one topic, share it with you. And if you walk away with one thing, great. But yeah, you know, different, different styles for for different people. But yeah, that's a good point.

00:25:31:08 - 00:26:02:01
Shane Rodabaugh
Anything else? All right. So yeah, I think one thing that's helpful with all of this, but the intensity. So authenticity is when we are aiming at a goal. It matters a lot less what people think about us. And as long as we don't think too highly of ourselves and we see here's the goal, how do we get there?

00:26:02:03 - 00:26:25:01
Shane Rodabaugh
And we invite everyone to come on board. And that's that's authentic. It's just like like, hey, we're all in this together. How do we get from point A to point B and a lot of people feel like you're buying. And it's just that mindset of it is, like, what's up? We're all togetherness. And that kind of builds a level of authenticity.

00:26:25:03 - 00:26:29:08
Shane Rodabaugh
Yeah.

00:26:29:10 - 00:26:33:17
Shane Rodabaugh
You think that's in the book? Thank you.