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Future-proof your leadership with High Octane Leadership, a place where business leaders (whether by title or aspiration) share cheat codes for unlocking workplace excellence, lessons learned along the way, and insider tips for future generations of next-level professionals. With two decades of experience leading and growing multi-million dollar firms, host Donald Thompson is a serial entrepreneur and investor who worked his way to success with hustle and humility. He’s an expert in goal achievement, influencing company culture, and driving exponential growth. A Certified Diversity Executive, Donald is also CEO and co-founder of The Diversity Movement, a multi award-winning product-driven consultancy which offers an employee-experience product suite to personalize diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) through data, technology, and expert-curated content. Each week on The Donald Thompson Podcast, he talks leadership, competitive learning, diversity and inclusion, and business growth through personal development with guests who are shaping the future of work. Find him on Linkedin, and listen here to learn how you can become future-proof too.
Don - 00:00:04:
Welcome to High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. This season, we're diving deeper with more solo episodes where I'll share the experiences that have led to recognition by EY, Forbes, Fast Company, and others. Not as a boast, but as milestones on my entrepreneurial path. From growing multimillion dollar firms to successful business exits and building high performance teams with a global perspective. I'll reveal the insights and strategies from my journey and share them with you so that we can win together. Alongside these solo episodes, we'll have industry visionaries and thought leaders, and we'll explore effective leadership. Ready to empower your leadership journey with real success stories? Let's embark on this transformational journey together. Welcome to another edition of High Octane Leadership. My name is Donald Thompson, and I'm glad to be with you. Have the great pleasure to spend some time today with a good friend of mine, both an esteemed author, a globally recognized communications expert, and the author of The Authentic Leader, a brand new book by Mr. Bob Batchelor. Bob, thanks for coming on today.
Bob - 00:01:19:
Hey, Don. It's great to be with you. I get to expose the kind of secret side of my life. People know me as the author of the Bourbon King and the Stan Lee books, and they're always like, what's this guy do during the day? Well, I guess I'm being outed for my day job today as a global communications leader. So it's going to be fun. Always good to talk to you. Last week, we talked with you about Inclusive Leadership Handbook. Nnow, we;ll flip, flip the screen a little bit and talk about this book today.
Don - 00:02:14:
Yeah, one of the things that we'll jump in because we'll intertwine and talk back and forth. Um, share a little bit about our history and all the good things for our audience. But I'll start with the question that I, I had. Why another book on leadership? Right? The Authentic Leader is a great title and, and I've read the book. It's good stuff. But what made you take your time and effort and energy in this moment. Right, and create another book for audiences on leadership.
Bob - 00:02:20:
It's a great question, Don, and it's one that people have asked. I shared the book before I published it with about 45 leaders that I knew from different industries, not just business leaders, leaders in academe, nonprofit, a couple people who retired, a couple people who were younger. And I'll say the real impetus for the book started as my girls. I have two daughters. As my daughters, Cassie and Sophia, have been growing up and kind of maturing into fine young people. I started talking to them and realized how different they were. It's one thing to work with young people. It's a different thing when they're in your house and you can have real conversations. As you know, and I know as a dad, this will speak to you. It's a different vibe. When I tell them, yeah, I'm working for The Diversity Movement. It's a DEI consulting firm. And they look at me and like, you don't know anything about Diversity. You're a white guy. Okay, I do this every single day, but you know, it's a, so the conversation with them. Led me to thinking there's a lot of people who are in leadership positions who are not taking the time to speak to young people. They see them as something different. They're not sure. They listen to the media hype. And so I wanted to write something from one perspective that would help people understand this gigantic, massive generation that's coming into the workforce. And then also, and this maybe is a little more selfish. There's a lot of people, entrepreneurs, CEOs, CFOs even, who write leadership books. But there are not a lot of strategic communicators, marketers, people from my communications realm that write leadership books. They write how to market better, how to do public relations better, how to do branding. But I wanted to put it together because, and this is the real secret. When I started my corporate career, I had no idea what was going to happen. I didn't think that I would be staying in the corporate world for very long. I had different ideas. And so I always kind of imagined, and this is long before social media, that if there were a little camera up in the corner of the room recording all this, I'm really more like a spy. And so I've been had this kind of third vision of my career. And after 30 years now, I said to myself, well, you know, you've really learned a couple things because I grew into this role from, you know, a content guy, a guy who can write to really somebody was teasing with me the other day. They're like, you're like the CEO whisperer. And I'm like. Kind of, because if there's a lot of C-suite executives and a lot of people that I came up through the ranks with who are now in the C-suite. For some reason, they feel confident in me that I'll keep their secrets. And so the book's not telling their secrets, but I wanted to give a different perspective of what I think leadership is and will be based on all this kind of, you know, I get to see a little bit behind the curtain.
Don - 00:05:58:
That is powerful. One of the things that you said that I just want to echo and expand upon a little bit. Is having that third level of vision of leaders throughout your career. And from a different perspective, that marketer's eye, that communicator's eye. When you think about leadership as really a relationship with organizations and people that you're responsible for, one of the critical elements to leadership is communication. Because you describe an authentic leader, but it's tough to be authentic if people don't get to know you through the way that you communicate, the way that you talk, the way that you write, the way that you leverage information. So I'd like you to go a little bit deeper in terms of some of the insights that you gleaned along with writing the book. The book is a product, but your process, I'm also interested in and what you learned and gleaned along the way.
Bob - 00:06:53:
Yeah, I really was struck by the recent studies that have been done a lot by Gallup that shows how disengaged people are. And when I then look at the idea that maybe 70% of the people in the world, in the workforce, would not be classified as highly engaged. So they may not be totally unengaged, but there's days they probably are. They're somewhere in the middle. Tracking probably toward down. That's a sad state of affairs. And what I really started to think about in terms of what is authentic leadership is it's one thing we go to the problem. Okay. How do I fix employee engagement? And I started to think about... It's really how much extra work are your engaged people having to carry and how much extra weight are you having to carry as the leader? When you are just looking at the problem, like the problem in front of you. And it's like, We've seen it in the recent past. C-suite leaders who making mistakes and blaming the layoffs on AI. Now, you can tell somebody, the media, the media version is. AI's taken all these, you know, we're so much more efficient, but in what's really happening. Is that really the authentic rationale? You don't trust. The fact that if you tell people the truth and you show a little Transparency that you're going to be better in the end even if they're short short-term problems So the way I approach a problem is I start thinking about it. And then I start thinking about what's all the context. I look over here, history. I look over here, what's the macroeconomic thing? What's the microeconomic thing? And then I start going a level deeper. How do I bring sociology into this? How do I bring the theory that I taught for so many years across literary theory, marketing theory, PR theory? And so I triangulate problems. And this book, I hope the book is well-written enough that nobody realizes how theory-based it is, how information-laden it is, how data-centric it is. Because all my books, and if you read my Stan Lee book or my Bourbon King book, you'd see this is researched like a professional historian. I've gone into archives. I've done my interviews. I've done all the research. I've read 10,000 newspaper articles on the 1920s that were written in the 1920s. But I don't want the reader to ever know that. I want it to read like a screenplay. So what I hope to do with this book is produce something that's highly readable, but the problem has been triangulated because I have the kind of brain that works that way. And I thought sharing that would help other leaders because maybe they don't think about it. They don't have as much time as I do to think about it. They never viewed them. Just the fact that I one day went into the office and said, wow, if there was a camera up in that upper right-hand corner, up in the corner of the room, what would it capture today? And I started thinking that way. And I've been doing it for decades. Just that perspective. Gave me insight into the business world that maybe other people don't have. So I can bring some of that to them in a way that maybe they'll find beneficial. You know, if you go from You're 89% great and you read The Authentic Leader and you get to 91% great. It's a win. It's a win. It didn't cost you that much money. It cost you a little bit of time to read a book. So I think I bring some of that. In academe, we call it interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary. I just say it's contextual thinking. And that's what I do.
Don - 00:11:16:
That's good stuff. The process super interests me because it's like a football game or a play that I go to. I like to understand the behind the scene process and thinking as well as enjoy the show. Right. And so I appreciate you sharing some depth of your thinking and the historian aspect. Right. To how you've researched it well, but you wanted to read as a screenplay so that I, as the other readers, get to enjoy the moment with you. Right? Versus feeling like we're talked to, we're talked at. We're experiencing that learning together. For our audience. Explain. What an authentic leader. Behaves like. And then give me a couple of examples of people that you admire that model that behavior.
Bob - 00:12:09:
Yeah, it might sound self-serving or planned, but certainly you'd be a model, authentic leader in my eyes. And I've learned so much by your side for the last handful of years. And people that read the book will see examples of you. There are a couple of times I probably masked our interactions. There are definitely times an authentic leader. Is highly self-aware. Acts with compassion and empathy. Values trust, and transparency. And is confident enough in themselves. That they are able to continue engaging in lifelong learning. As well as... Bring that knowledge and gift to the rest of the world through thought leadership. That. Is not written down anywhere. You're not gonna find that quote in the book. I just kind of put that together now as I'm thinking about it. But if I had to build, you know, you used to see on ESPN, build the perfect quarterback. And they take this person's arm and this person's feet, this person's head. If I could build an authentic leader, that's kind of the parameters that I would want in that person. I've told this story before and I've told you the story, so it won't be surprising to you, but maybe to some of the listeners. When you and I first met and I started working, I wanted to join The Diversity Movement Avengers. I thought we got something special here. We're gonna create something that nobody's seen before. That- The inner entrepreneur in me just went bananas for that. That's my gig. And I didn't realize it about myself. And I'm realizing it more and more. It's one of the outcomes of this book. I'm realizing just how much I enjoy building things. And when you think about it. This is my 16th book. I've edited another 19 books. I've helped other people probably publish 50 more books. And each book is almost like a little company because people write them for different reasons. But the friends I have who were able to get tenure because they had a published book, I've given them lifelong employment. And that. Process. That's entrepreneurial. I'm building things. So to get back to you and I. Didn't believe you when you told me you can trust me Because I grew up. Career-wise. In the 80s and 90s. I honestly. I never got into a lot of trouble. I was a smart ass when I used to like to really show off that I was smart. I swear back then, because it's only, it was all bluff. It's the only thing I had going for me. I'd never taken a business class. I got my first PR job. I didn't even know, I'd never taken a PR class. I didn't even know what it was. Like, I don't know. The guy's like, can you write? And I'm like, yes, that's what I do know I can write. So, but you, so you had that, but you also. Your boss was like God in the, in the room. You know, I worked in places where you didn't even matter. It only mattered who you reported to. I walk into a meeting with 20 people and yeah, I'm Bob. I report to so-and-so. And then people around the room are calculating. Oh, he reports to so-and-so. Not important enough. Don't have to hear him. Doesn't matter. Years and years and years of that. Tamps down your inner happiness, your inner engagement. So when I joined the TDM Avengers, and you and I, getting along great, we're doing some things. But one day it was like... You asked me and I'm like, okay. Between you and me off the record, you're like, you look at me like, what do you, what do you mean off the record? It's you and I, I'm paying you to be off the record. I'm paying you to tell me the truth. What's the truth? I'm like, okay, I'll tell you the truth. And you're like, you know, you were thankful, but you're like, look, you're doing both of us a disservice by not trusting me. And even that day I left the meeting, I'm like, this guy's full of shit. I can't, you know, as soon as I say something that he disagrees with, I'm going to get my ass handed to me. But it wasn't true. And I got to that. It started the process. It was the catalyst. And it changed our relationship. And I know from that point on. I might not have done everything right. We might not have pursued every avenue that we could. I mean, within limitations of time, resources, et cetera. But we did a lot of great things. And when I started trusting in you and the process that you and I were creating. We were like a superpower. We were rocket ship. And if you look at the number of things, this little 20 plus person. Consulting firm achieved. In a little over three year time span, pretty astronomical. So. I don't see many leaders who embody all those things I laid out for The Authentic Leader. But I see traits in people. And it's based on their habits or the way they were brought up or the way they think about leaders, the way they see leadership portrayed on television, in movies, things like that. You know, you and I also grew up in the age of Wall Street where every guy wanted to be Gordon Gekko, you know, which absolutely bonkers. You know, Gekko's the villain. I'm like, oh, like all these people love Scarface. Oh, Scarface. I'm like, you do realize he was the enemy. Same thing with Gecko. You do realize Gecko was the villain in Wall Street. You're not supposed to idolize him. So I think that the goal in writing the book is, hey, maybe I can open somebody's eyes. I mean, you're not going to reach everybody. There are a lot of people who are, perfectly happy with what they're doing. They don't, they don't care. They don't need to read another leadership book. But I think I had something, you know, I had some things that are a little bit different to say. And that's where the book came from.
Don - 00:18:52:
Bob, one of the things as I was just jotting notes and listening to you, which... I enjoy, learn from, and that lifelong learning piece, that compliment you shared about me. I've always felt that I can be better. I don't feel like I've arrived as a leader. I think leadership is something that is just this ongoing search stretch that I need to be better for the team that I'm. That I'm blessed to lead. And that lifelong learning creates a level of humility. And that humility allows you to be curious with your team. And allows you to lean into their expertise. Because I have an expectation as a leader that the people that I bring on are going to teach me something. They're going to push me. They're going to challenge me. And quite frankly, the leaders that I've responded to, the leader that I want to be, is one that the best idea wins. And that in order to find the best idea in your organization, you've got to be open to talking to the intern, to the executive, to the partner, to the consultant. But you're just chasing the best way to present your company and services to serve your clients. And that humility is how you build that trust. And I remember learning, both with you and some others, I didn't really realize why I wasn't being trusted. And that was my frustration, right? And not your challenge. It was my frustration that I didn't understand how to crack that code with people faster. And what I realized is that people bring to the table scar tissue. Past experiences, past relationships, past perspectives. So as a leader, no matter who you are, what you're doing, how hard you're trying, you're starting four or five steps behind with the relationship with that new employee, that new hire. And so what I had to remember is that I had to, and this is super important, both our relationship, but my mental model about leadership. I remember asking you to trust me. But before that, I had to earn your trust. And a lot of times if you have that over amplified ego. You should trust me. I'm the boss. You should trust me. I'm paying your salary. You should trust me. I'm the founder. And it just don't work like that. Right? And so I had to really get down off whatever mental model pedestal I had. Right. As I was growing as a leader and go, wait a minute. In order for me to get the best result, in order for me to get employee engagement in its truest form, I had to work every day to earn the trust of my team. That doesn't mean being perfect. Because part of trust is admitting when you fall short. That doesn't mean having all the answers. Earning trust is the questions you ask of people. And so as I learned this in my journey. I found my ability to build trust faster. It still takes time because you can't eliminate people's experiences. But now what I ask people for is give me a chance to demonstrate that I'm worth your trust. And I use different language when I'm talking to people that I work with because most people view themselves as fair. And so when I ask somebody on my team, give me a chance to earn your trust. In their mind, they're like, wait a minute, I'm a fair person. He asked me in a respectful, nice way. Maybe I ought to give them a chance. And then when you have that opportunity with people, you want to work as hard as possible, not to let them down. And that for a leader in today's crazy, chaotic environment, our crazy political environment that train wrecks on TV and the media are what are getting all the attention. We lose sight of the fact that we really do have the opportunity to learn from each other, grow from each other and work together. And so when I read the book and preparing for this conversation, I was super excited because here's the thing I want to want to leave you with. You mentioned if you move from 89% to 91%, that could be a big leap. Things that leaders are playing at at the high enough level is the percentages of improvement have an outsized impact. Because your control and power over the audience that you're influencing is so vast. That those small changes, that one thing that you read in The Authentic Leader, that one leader that teaches you to model better communication, pulley engagement, things of that nature. I was talking to a very high octane leader. And my only talk with him is ways that he could create true psychological safety. Because the leader said, I want my team to tell me the truth. I can take it. And I was like, not with the attitude that you have. You're not going to get the truth. They're going to tell you exactly what you want to hear. He was like, what? And I had to talk to him about the construct of psychological safety. And creating a space that disagreement, that healthy tension was allowed even against ideas that he held. And that was a big break point in that coaching relationship with that leader of a billion dollar organization.
Bob - 00:23:57:
Yeah, that's good stuff, Don. And I appreciate you bringing that out. It's... Psychological safety is huge. Trust is huge. And what I was having a conversation with a leader a while ago, consulting and. The person said to me, You know, he's like, I know you're empathetic. You're a compassionate guy. You're not real boisterous. You know, sometimes I'm boisterous, but usually I'm not that boisterous a guy. You know, you got to get me in my moments. He's like, but I think I've been too soft. He's like, I should have come in here and kicked a little tail. And I think maybe that's what I'm going to do. And I said to him, that's your prerogative. You're in this role. You can do that. He said, but. Don't forget about power. And he's like, power, what are you talking about? I'm like. You may not think about power is in every relationship, every single thing you do during the day. Power is at play. Every interaction that you have with somebody. There is a power. Structure that is going on. Years ago, a graduate student of mine and I wrote an article about the way power is used by corporations. And we wanted it to be really simple to understand. So we use Starbucks as an example. Starbucks had some highfalutin mission, like, you know, we're going to use coffee to save the world. But when you go into a Starbucks, what do you have to do? And I saw it the other day when you and I went into Starbucks. You're like, they're like the barista who we're forced to call them baristas. The person serving me my coffee. Ask you, what size would you like? And you're like, I don't know, like medium. Starbucks forces you to use their language because they want you, particularly they wanted you in the early days when Starbucks first started getting big, they wanted you to. Give over your power to them. Through the use of language. So that they could then sell you back the exclusivity of you being a member of their community. The same thing that I saw every day on college campuses with students walking around carrying Starbucks cups. Because they wanted other people, they were signaling that they had also bought in, they were part of that culture. But you don't get it for free. You have to pay them and you have to use their language. And so I told this leader. Think about power. Because if you're gonna start kicking tail some of those tails you're kicking they're going to be people who feel that they are powerless. Especially in their engagement with you. So you might win in the short term, okay? This month's QBR, this quarter's QBR is going to be fantastic. But you're going to lose them in the long run. Because the first opportunity they get to exude their power, their power is leaving you out the door when they go to your competitor and take the $300,000 worth of knowledge they have about you and your business in their head, the $50,000 it costs to recruit you, and the other $50,000 it's going to cost to replace you if it's not $150,000. So. That's why power matters. And that's one of the things that I wanted to bring out in the book. People don't think about these simple little things that we take for granted. I'll give you another quick example. And I use this in the book. I used to think as a professor, if I talk about... If I model critical thinking. And I just start to ask critically questions based on Bloom's taxonomy of critical thinking. And I get students engaged. They will then begin to adapt my way of thinking and they'll become great critical thinkers because I read this study that said basically most college students on a scale. They come in at a very low level of critical thinking. After four years of college, they've only gone up like one level. Which is really poor. It's really a condemnation of the way people are educated. All over the world. So I'm going to try to change this. I'm teaching thousands of students. I'm going to try to change it. So that was my result. One semester, it only took me one semester to figure it out. At the end of the semester, I ask them about critical thinking. They don't know anything about critical thinking. So what I learned next semester. I show them Bloom's Taxonomy on a PowerPoint. I have them read about critical thinking. I talk to them. What do you think critical thinking is? And they didn't get it. So I have to go back to the basics. Explain critical thinking. When I started doing that, not everybody would get it. But by the end of the semester, 10% of the students, 20% of the students would be doing the thing that I hoped all along, which was... Engaging with critical thinking concepts and asking one another. Critical thinking-based questions. And. That's why I bring it up in the book. Why I bring it up here is that books, the power of books, as you know, because I know you're an avid reader. Power of books is that it gives you something that you might not have time to think about. Gives you a different perspective. And that's what, again, going to the spy in the room, the undercover corporate spy who's now the CEO whisperer, what I can bring to the table is a perspective that you probably don't think you have time to think about. And so power is one of those things, you know, and all that coming from just the way we're ordering at Starbucks. But when you think about it, the way you engage with your significant other, the way you engage with your kids, the way you engage with the. The person doing service on your car, the people you deal with just on a day-to-day basis. There's always power. Power is, it's a key leadership thought. That people take for granted because they think power and they think, I don't know, some kind of. Domination or physical power or something like that, violence, but it comes to play in a one-on-one situation.
Don - 00:30:47:
That is good stuff. I am taking notes. I'm listening. I'm glad we're on the transcript. You explained it to the students, the construct of critical thinking. You modeled it. And then the other thing I would add is you have to reward the behavior when you see people doing it right. People are driven by recognition as much as anything else. And when you hear people or see people that are amplifying a set of behaviors that you want to scale in an organization, right, you got to let them know, right? It's that it's the way we were in elementary school when we got that gold star. Right. And we're not much different. Right. We drive different cars. We live in nicer. You know, like, you know, we do adulting things. Right. But as individuals, we want to know we're on the right track. We want to know we're expanding. We want to know we're moving in a direction that's good for the business, but also good for us career wise. One of the things that you mentioned is a term, and I'd love for you to define it and give some background, a term called thought leadership. And I was talking with, you know, I work a full-time job and then I do things around the edges. And one of the things I enjoy around the edges is coaching emerging leaders. And I was on a coaching call early this morning on a Monday, so I need to enjoy it. It was like 7.30 a.m. on a Monday. But it was a senior vice president of human resources with a growing tech. And one of the things that I described to them, we started talking about thought leadership and their personal brand. And I said, most people think about thought leadership in terms of external. But if you have external thought leadership, external powerful brand, you'll be more well thought of inside your own team as well. And her eyes lit up because most people are searching for, especially in human resources, how do I gain credibility with the P&L drivers, with sales, with marketing, with production, with the founders of an organization, when people think of HR and people ops as a cost center? So we talked about thought leadership from a standpoint of building your brand, building your credibility inside and outside of the organization. So I'll ask you, Bob, what would you define as thought leadership? And why should executives and organizations care about funding it in a strategic way?
Bob - 00:33:18:
That's a great question, Don. And it's one that's incredibly important to me. I think the easiest way to describe it, just the shorthand is it's brand you. Brand Y-O-U. And I shouldn't have to tell too many business leaders why that's important, but let's go into it a little bit because there seem to be a lot of people who aren't paying attention. The number one thing that thought leadership does for you, it builds trust. And You build trust by demonstrating the thing that you're really good at or the thing that you really know well. And through that trust. Your relationships grow stronger. Your relationships with sales prospects, your relationships with your team, your relationships in your community, all the things. That you're being judged on as a C-suite executive or any kind of business leader, any kind of leader in the community, all the things that people are judging you on will be improved. And you'll do them better if you think more about trust. And that is key. So if I, as a new executive, can show my team that I have. A reputation that is engaged in the main topics of our industry. Then they're going to trust me when I ask them to do hard work. They're going to go, okay, this person knows what they're talking about. Just like now, if I were to say, hey, Don, you need to take this class. One of the things you would do is you'd Google the teacher, whoever's teaching. Because you want to know they're trustworthy. Can I trust what I'm going to learn from this person? We were not able to do that growing up. Until you get to college, you're not really, you know, especially in our era, you have no internet. You're not Googling anybody. Math teacher, Sam down the street, you know, lives in the next neighborhood over something like that, you know, but now. You can't get away with that. Everybody can Google everybody. So your ability to generate trust. Is going to lead to you being better in every way that you're being measured. And so thought leadership just becomes super important. Because trust is the one thing that... You know, you can't, you can't really just go out in the street and buy it. You have, like you said, you've got to earn it. It goes both ways. And. Here's the secret benefit of trust. And being a thought leader. As you grow in your thought leadership efforts. You as a human being will naturally become more confident. As your confidence grows, you will also become better at the things that we normally judge leaders on. Like your ability to give presentations without relying on, you know, reading PowerPoints, your ability to lead. Trust is like learning through osmosis. Raising your confidence, raising your ability to engage with other people. Because, your personal brand, like you want people to be proud of you. You want people to be like, yeah, this, this person knows something that's human. We're all. We're all hardwired. Our DNA is hardwired for stories. All we want to know is stories. Tell me your story. What's your story? You know, think about when you meet somebody. You're either thinking that or going to ask, what's your story? Well, why do you ask that? Because you're hardwired. It's in your DNA. So tell your story. Thought Leadership brand you is telling your story.
Don - 00:37:25:
So, Bob, let me... This sounds in conflict. I know it's not, but I want you to explain it. When you say brand you, when people think about branding because the world is so cynical now. Right? It's putting out all this stuff into the ether so that people think I'm an expert. How do you balance authenticity? Because the book is The Authentic Leader. How do you balance authenticity in that building of a thought leadership profile for yourself, for your business, for the organization that you work with?
Bob - 00:37:59:
Yeah, that's a great question and a good counterpoint that I would say, you know, definitely people's BS meters. It's like those super high functioning landmines they have now. It's like you you, you look at the landmine and it goes off. You know that our tripwire for BS is super sensitive. So I know there are a lot of faux gurus out there in the world. How you overcome that is the way that you do your thought leadership work with consistency. You have a set of principles that you've thought deeply about. And you don't deviate. For reasons that aren't worth. That amount of money, really, of that. If you're valuing your own services, you're not going to then go out and do something silly to blow it all up the next day. So it comes with consistency. It comes with the self-awareness that you've done to really know what you stand for. I mean, that's really, and all those things are ways of building trust. So the trust, as the trust meter goes higher, the feeling like that you're a fraud or imposter syndrome or something will go down and people will believe you. People are super sensitive to BS and being sold. Like they're like, Oh, that just, it just, I need to take a shower after that. It just didn't feel right. But, but. People also, like I said, DNA hardwired for stories. They want to believe. People want to believe. They want to look up to other people. They want to be around people who are engaging. Think about one of our measures for how we rank people in our lives. Is that person somebody you'd want to have a beer with? If you were at a cocktail party, is that somebody? I think I saw it on some show, somebody said, he or she, that's the person you always want at your party. Life of the party. And not for being drunk and putting a lampshade on your head and acting silly, but because you can engage in conversations with a variety of people. It's like a microcosm of building your own personal brand. And those are the kind of people that we want to be around. In a world full of inauthenticity, we search out, both consciously and subconsciously, people who exude authenticity.
Don - 00:40:44:
Bob, I want to jump on that real quick. The world's noisy. Social media is noisy. Media is noisy. I like the point that you made. I just want to put a fine point on it. Authenticity is how you cut through the noise. And if you put authenticity and consistency. Now, all of a sudden, you create difference, uniqueness. And as you were talking and I was writing things down, and how do you build trust with thought leadership? I was answering the question in my own head, right? One thing is people don't realize how much they have to give. And so when I talk to business leaders about thought leadership, I tell them in two ways, right? What have you researched? Study. Right? People respect what is researched, that you have data and facts and science behind your way of thinking. And then to your point on storytelling, what have you learned? People love to hear what you learned. And quite frankly, and I learned this, more from your missteps than your successes. And the reason being is when you talk about your missteps, you become relatable. Even though as an executive or a leader, you might not be relatable, but you have to bring that mental model downward so that you're talking on the same plane and mistakes are something that we've all made. Right. So so now we're talking just as friends. Right. Because we've let down the veil of vice president, CEO, founder. And we just said, you know what? When I was learning how to professionally sell my ideas, right, let me tell you the dumbest thing that I've done. Literally got me thrown out of a meeting. And people are like, what did you do? Right? Because we all have had those experiences where we've had spectacular failures. And people want to know that. And then what did you do to overcome it? People love that failure and then that overcoming mindset in the story because everyone's trying to muster up the courage to overcome something in their life. I've met very few people that just went from zero to 100, straight line to success, no family drama, no issues at home. They just got it all together. I've not met that person. Right. I've met that facade. But as soon as you dig deeper, we're all trying to get better each day. And so I try to give folks an opportunity to use thought leadership, but also practical leadership of how you can take that knowledge and you're better at your job because you read this book. You're better at your job because you read this article. Bob, let me ask this. People are busy. Attention is at a premium. This book is going to have 55,000, 60,000 words, writer does, right? A good white paper is still 3,000 to 5,000 words. How do you balance? The attention span deficit. And allow people to get focused on really digging in to thought leadership content in this hyper-connected, always on social media driven space that we live in.
Bob - 00:43:54:
Yeah, I think there's an easy answer and I'll tell it to you, but I'm not trying to be trite. Okay. When you wear a suit. When you wear a suit, did you press that suit? Did you wash that suit? No, you didn't. You know why? You're not an expert in that. You hand me an iron, I don't know. I get the idea. I don't know how to use the thing. Okay. Why would you trust something that's important to you? But you know what you have done? You've thought or you've asked somebody, okay, my wife, Suzette, dresses me. If I need to look good, she dresses me because I don't have that skill. So what do I do? I find somebody I trust and love who knows how to do that for me. When I need my shirts pressed, Suzette, or I take them to the cleaner. Because you outsource your things you're not good at. So for a busy leader, here's what you gotta do. You gotta put in the thinking. You have to know what you stand for. Here's the three to five things I stand for that I want to be known for. Then you put together a team to help you in areas that you're not strong in. And maybe someday you'll take it over yourself and you will be strong. But if writing a book is the worst thing you can imagine because you just don't feel comfortable in that process. Find a partner who shares your ideas. You have conversations. You use technology. You do the things that you can do because we live in this great age of technology. You can record anything you want on your phone and send it to a file to anybody in the world. You can videotape yourself. All these things you can do using technology and building a team to help you do the things you're not either comfortable with at the present moment or that you don't have time for. Because when you've done the hard work to understand what you stand for and what you'd like to be known for and what you want your legacy to be, You will find the team to put together to help you tell that story because the payoff. If one person, if one person right now is listening to this podcast and says, oh my gosh. Those two. That was an interesting conversation. I need to talk to Don Thompson because I need an executive coach. I know where I want to go, but I don't know how to get there. And that person... You get together with them, you hit it off, and they become a client. It's worth your 45 minutes of talking to me. So. And that person's building their team. Tiger Woods has a swing coach. You know, there you go. You know, how much more do you know? Need to know. Tom Brady had a quarterback coach. You know, everybody needs that help. But then when you say, oh, brand building for myself? Oh, no, no, that's, why would I do that? That's not right. Come on! You're not pressing your own pants. Find the team to help you achieve the things you want. The cost, you're going to, I read a thing, the return on investment of business books. Got people who write business books. Something like... You make $4 for every dollar spent. And some people were making like 13x times return on investment. Having a book. Hey, it's worth the effort if you're going to get 13 times return on your investment.
Don - 00:47:35:
That is the language of leadership. Is the payoff. And I remember you talking to me, it's been a couple of years ago, and you said, Don, PR thought leadership strategy is going to take some time. So you're going to have to trust me. And. 2023 Entrepreneur of the Year, EY Entrepreneur of the Year. Published, underestimated, partnering with you, the book. Exited a company. Part of that was our brand was the value of the business. Inclusive leadership, partnering on that. LinkedIn following 10,000 plus with thousands of executives in that following. It's not just the vanity numbers. It's the quality of what your numbers represent. It's high-octane leadership in the top 10% of podcasts. I am a poster child of someone that... I'll share this with the audience. This was 15 years ago. This was way before Bob. I literally laughed a PR firm out of my office 15 years ago when they started talking about thought leadership. I literally said, I need leads and revenue. And this thought leadership isn't bringing me any of those. Get out of my office. I literally like, I get out of here. Right? I got phone calls to make. I got things to do. And now I'm like the biggest proponent of thought leadership that you can imagine, but it wasn't explained to me. Well, one, you have to be open-minded. So if you're listening to this podcast, then we think you're open-minded. But number two, it has to be put in a context of how you work and what the payoff is. Executives and business leaders don't mind investing for the long term. They don't mind if things take a little time. But you said, Don, this PR strategy is going to take a few months to gel. But the payoff is every room you go into, you're going to have a higher degree of credibility. If you have a higher degree of credibility, then you can earn trust faster. If you earn trust faster, then the people you need to motivate will hear you. And when you explained it to me in terms of the payoff, then I was able to get strategically patient. For us to work a plan together. And that's one of the reasons we're sharing this with leaders today, both The Authentic Leader, the book that you've written, but that chapter within the book talking about thought leadership, because leaders have a responsibility to represent the brand in a powerful way. And you do that through giving people powerful education that they can use. And people always want to know and hear from experts. So with all of the noise and the X and Twitter or whatever it's called today and Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and all the things that we use a part of thought leadership, people know that it takes time and discipline to do. So you become different. You can't just wake up in the morning and crank out a 5,000-piece white paper that's highly credible, highly reviewed, highly researched. So that executive that's reading your content, know that you're a serious minded person. Because you're developing content for other serious business people. And that, I think, is really, really critical when we think about the investment in leadership, but then also sharing your thought leadership with the world. And as I'm telling this, man, I appreciate you, number one, but I'm a testimony in terms of it working and being a little skeptical. But it was because I wasn't an expert in it. But when I listened to you as an expert and the authority that you spoke about it and you're a mild mannered, humble. But when you when we're talking about something in your wheelhouse, you have a different little gumption to you. And I remember you smirking just like you are now. And you're like, hey, listen. Let me tell you something. Do you want to really get on this rocket ship? Do you want to be famous? This is what you need to do. And then you just told me the blueprint and we started working. And so I think thought leadership is something that all executives should consider. But I also think that the way we explain it is important. And what triggered me in a good way was that payoff.
Bob - 00:51:46:
Yeah, it doesn't have to be that when I've encountered resistance to the notion of thought leadership. Leaders will tell me, oh, you know, that's not, I don't want it to be about me. And I'm like, that's fine. Talk about your organization. Talk about why, why'd you wake up this morning? Why'd you go through that? Why'd you stay up until 2 a.m. last night doing your thing? What is it that you love? Share that. And there's a rebound effect. You and I have talked about that. We've never directly talked about this. So maybe this is the time, but there's kind of a rebound effect. As you work on your thought leadership, pushing yourself out there into the world, it's like the Bob Dylan song, you got to serve somebody. Everybody's got somebody they're serving. By doing the work, the internal work that it takes to be an authentic thought leader. There's a bounce back. You're going to become. More confident, more self-aware. Able to walk into different rooms with a better attitude. Push through at 2 a.m. When you need another half hour and you're tired because you just work 16 hours. So there's a reverberation of doing the hard work of, of being willing to put yourself out there. You're going because people, smart people, and let's, let's, let's say that, you know, a lot of smart people are going to think twice about, Hey, I should be doing my part of thought leadership. So as you're developing. You're going to continue to evolve and grow. I know you, you personally, are not the same person you were when we first met. Middle of the pandemic. It was a different time. That evolution of person becomes part of your story. And it fuels you from inside. It's going to fuel you from the outside. And you're going to continue to evolve and grow. And that's, you know, I don't know. I'm not. People might read this book and go, this guy says compassion in here way too much, says empathy way too much, too new agey for me. I'm not new agey. I was born in the fields in Western PA. I grew up on the farm. I'm a very realistic thinking person. But I do think there is personal evolution. And that's a lot of people's top five, in their top five goals. Thought leadership not only can help you establish something, it can help you in other areas like growth. Like your relationships. That's why I put the subtitle, The Power of Deep Leadership in Work and Life. Because I think this has value for you and your relationships. I think your relationships with people you just meet on the street, who you engage with day to day. So that's that piece of it. That personal growth piece, I think, is an added value.
Don - 00:54:55:
One of the things, Bob, that I want to share with our audience. When you're thinking about social media metrics, The larger the number, the better is most people's view. When you're thinking about thought leadership, it's much more targeted. And I was being interviewed and vetted for a pretty significant board, multi-billion dollar organization. And the CEO of that organization listened to my podcast before they interviewed me. And You don't know who's interviewing you. You don't know who's watching. And so in this world, to your point earlier, where everyone can Google everyone else. What information do you want out there about you, your thought process, and the results that you deliver? And so I think when I talk to leaders and we talk about thought leadership and we talk about. Building that brand you, that organizational thought leadership. Why would you leave that to your competitors to define you? When you have the power, the capability, the ability. To define yourself so that you're putting the best foot forward for the expertise you and your organization can deliver. And when I think about kind of bringing it into a tight. Phrase if you will. Is it an education first? Mindset to brand building, marketing, and selling. And when I educate someone, when you educate me, when you educate someone, you give somebody useful knowledge. You've given them something. Value When somebody gives, I have plenty to work on, but if somebody gives me something of value, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to thank them for it. Number two, I'm going to remember them. And number three, when I have the opportunity to pay them back or give them something of value, which may be a meeting, a lead, an opportunity to pitch their services to our company, I'm going to do it. Because they gave me something of value that helped me be better. In the book, you talk about providing value through insights. Could you dig into that a little bit more in terms of the value of those insights and how that thought process aligns with The Authentic Leader?
Bob - 00:57:12:
Yeah, definitely. I think that, um, people get so busy. We've filled up our lives with the noise that we talked about earlier. There's so much going on. You ask any person, pull anybody. Into your life from stranger or your partner, it doesn't matter who it is. Say, how busy are you? Universally, you'll get, oh, man, I'm so busy. Oh, I don't have a second. It's because we filled our lives with all this stuff. So we don't, most people, and I'm going to say we don't, most people do not have the time to think. We don't have time for a moment of silence, let alone time to actually deeply reflect. Who we are, where it is we want to go. Some people are afraid of this conversation, quite frankly. Some people can't handle. Silence. They can't handle those moments of quiet. They need to fill themselves up because I talked to a guy the other day who said, I always have to be moving. If I sit down too long, my mind will go places I don't want to go. And I thought immediately, like, that's pretty self-aware to understand that. If those demons are that close, you're going to have to confront them soon. They're coming around sooner or later. So you can fill your life with all the busyness you want. But if those demons are right on the right outside the door, you're going to get to them sooner or later. And so. Where do you draw the insight? It has to, it has to, the fountain has to be from inside. Then you start to think about what are your goals and aspirations? Where is it that you want to be? And then you plot a course. I mean, the campaigns that you and I drew up were really just maps. We drew up maps of where, if we show up here, will it lead to A, B, or C? And if we hit C, where will C take us? Because I'm always thinking, you know I don't use sports analogies all that much anymore. But it's like people used to say, if you don't, if you don't get, if you don't have your glove, you can't get in the game. And if you're not in the game, you don't know what's going to happen. You may hit the game-winning home run. Whatever. But if you don't have your glove, there's no way. There's no entry. So I see thought leadership and the hard work that it takes to draw insight as the beginning stage of you opening up a new world of possibilities. So thought leadership leads me to places, and I would bet a million dollars that when you started the podcast, All those years ago. You didn't say to yourself. I bet somebody is going to listen to this podcast and ask me, use it as part of our interview process to get me on a multi-billion dollar board. True or false?
Don - 01:00:26:
True. I did not ask that question.
Bob - 01:00:30:
You know who does ask that question? Me? I think about that stuff because that's my expertise is helping people create thought leadership programs. When people say to me, you know, writing a book's really hard work. I'm like, yeah, it is. But you don't have to carry the whole load yourself. You find the team. You can help. If you don't want to write, find somebody to write it for you. Vet them like you would in any business decision. Find a trusted partner. It's trust. So what is it? It's trust, transparency. We keep saying these same words over and over again because they're so central to the idea. Instead of thought leadership, we should call it trust leadership or something. Trust leadership. Because what do people lack? They don't trust. People don't trust their bosses. 95% of people don't like their boss. Ask people like, how's work? I hate work. I hate what I'm doing. You don't want, so why don't, why are, why are 70% people around the world not engaged? They don't trust. Because too many leaders aren't thinking about trust as, you know, quote unquote, soft skill. Because you got to do soft skills. I'm Mr. Businessperson. I want hard data. Well, here's your hard data. Your employee, and I call this in the book, the leadership chasm. What's the gap between what you think you're doing and what your employees think you're doing? It's huge. If CEOs use thought leadership... And the other ideas in The Authentic Leader to build trust, they're going to start filling in that chasm. So maybe it's going to take some time, but by the time you put the effort in, maybe you've started to build a bridge, but maybe it's a little shaky at the beginning. But over time, consistency, as you mentioned, consistency, you've done deep thinking, you're authentic, you're transparent. Then we're going to get somewhere.
Don - 01:02:46:
You mentioned find the team, and I want to comment on this. Relative to others, I have a baby brand and all that good stuff, but relative to where I started, we've made some really significant leaps. And one of the things that I did right, did some things wrong along the way, for sure. I didn't try to do everything on my own. When I wanted to launch a podcast, the folks at Earfluence have helped me. When I wanted to write a book, Bob Batchelor started out. We weren't even working together. He just took a phone call with me and gave me advice. Right. And we got talking and then found a way that we could work together successfully. Right. When I look at repurposing content from podcasts to social and LinkedIn and different things, there's a PR resource I use. Her name is Kia Bell and she does some freelance work with me. As a busy executive, as a business leader, one of the excuses we use is I don't have enough time. And what I want to just impart to folks that are listening is to focus on what the payoff is, and then you'll find the time or the team. Find the time if you want to do it yourself. You'll find the team. But you have to understand the payoff and the reason why your brand building helps protect your brand, helps grow your revenue with your business, and helps you attract top employees. Your highest performing people want to work for somebody that they can learn from and that they respect. And so you want to have something out there that someone of the caliber of a Bob Batchelor, Jamie Osterhardt, Shelley Willingham, Jackie Ferguson, Kurt Merriweather, Greg Boone, Tony Pease, the CEOs and the business leaders that have worked with me that are doing things still with me or amazing things on their own in their own genre. But you have to be someone that they can learn from and that they want to learn from. And so the final thought I'd like to get your take on, Bob. And we've covered why you wrote The Authentic Leader. And the nuggets in the book. We've talked about thought leadership. And what I want to leave our audience is what do you think a leader's responsibility, the genre of leadership and then leadership individuals? What is their responsibility in kind of the chaotic times we live? If you had a magic wand, what would you have leaders improve upon so that corporations and the lives of people that they lead are better?
Bob - 01:05:14:
One of the things I think right off the top of my head is that in today's world, more than ever, perhaps. People are giving over their trust and their faith to charlatans. And they don't know the difference. So if you have a position of power. And it's within your ability to truly lead. It is your responsibility, I think, as a human being. You must become an authentic leader. Because people are making choices. Because they're given options that are horrible. You know, you and I have talked about this. We've both seen it. We've seen organizations run from. Any kind of media problem. As soon as something, as soon as the media starts to twist something into a negative. Companies just go running away. Think of all the CEOs that signed the pledge after George Floyd's murder. Where are they now? A lot of them are disappeared. But they made the exact wrong decision. Society and the world needed them, needs them, continues to need them to step up. Not just within your organization. But if that's all you can handle, okay, do it there. Become transparent. Become empathetic. Get people to trust you because you're helping them live better lives. But if you have it within your ability to lead in a larger setting. Then do that. That's one thing for definitely for sure. The second thing would be, you know. Think about power. It's always there. We've gone into that conversation and also. The leadership chasm is real. So many leaders think that they're doing it, they're killing it because they're making money, they're achieving some of the things they want, but their people are miserable. They're ready to quit. They want to quit. They're looking for jobs. Because you haven't been transparent. You're blaming AI for your downsizing. And the people left know that they're going to have to carry a heavier load. And you lied to them. And that's what people hate. Everybody just wants to have a little hope. I want to have some hope. I want to have, I want to do well for my family and the people who depend on me. I want to be a good partner, a good person. But then you go to work and all it is is lies and being treated as a subordinate. It doesn't have to be that way. And. For some reason. You know, my little book isn't going to change the whole world. But if I can just change a couple people's minds. It does not have to be the way it was. You can be successful. You don't have to look. You give me a pecan pie. My first thinking is going to be, I'm going to eat this whole thing. But that's just selfish, even though I will enjoy it for a time being. At some point, I'll get such a sugar rush, I won't enjoy it anymore. But it'd give you a lot more joy to just share it. With whoever you want. And, and. You know, it's amazed me ever since the The Great Recession. After the real estate crash. Read this article, all these corporations are sitting on cash. Like, billions and billions. I mean, all told, the pocket is, you know, trillions of dollars. What they're not doing is going back out and hiring people. And that was then. And we see these vestiges. Keep making the same mistakes over and over again. You can't have just... Everybody at the top, very few people at top, everybody else at the bottom. It just doesn't work. Like. Everybody's got to pay a rent or mortgage. Everybody's got to live some kind of life that fulfills their dreams and aspirations. So much of it hinges on leadership. The leadership that we take in our organizations. The leaderships we take in our communities. It's, um, It doesn't, it, it, you can change, you know, a person can change. I think. You've told me, and I don't think I'm telling anybody any different, used to be a... You throw a lot of elbows early in your career. You know? And I've seen you still get mad. I've seen you because getting mad is, that's normal. You're going to get mad. Things aren't always going to go your way. But I don't, I've never seen you take it out on somebody like we used to. You know? It can be different. It's that simple.
Don - 01:10:24:
Bob, I could literally, I get this hour and a half, hour, I'd literally talk to you all day and take notes. Thank you for making the decision to bring The Authentic Leader to the world. And your ability to share and give. The things that you've learned is one of the reasons that I respect you. That I learned from you and that I'm glad to call your friend. Thanks for spending some time, my friend.
Bob - 01:10:47:
Yeah, and I'll make this... I'll make this, Don, I've enjoyed this so much. All your listeners have to do, anybody that downloads this, if you're interested, I'll send you the ebook for free. Just reach out to me. My email is so simple. It's bob at bobbatchelor.com. I'm easy to find. You want a free ebook? Drop me an email. Love to do it.
Don - 01:11:11:
Awesome. Thanks, my friend.
Bob - 01:11:13:
Okay, thank you.
Don - 01:11:23:
Thank you for joining us on High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. Today's episode is a step in our collective journey towards leadership excellence. Remember. Every story we share and every insight we gain is a piece in the puzzle of our leadership journey. For more insight and detail, hit the subscribe button so that we can stay connected. For deeper information and more episodes, go to donaldthompson.com. Continue to lead with vision and purpose. And until we meet again, embrace your role as a high-octane leader. Ever evolving world of business.