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Hosted by Masi Willis and Shannon Scott, Lead Like You Mean It is a leadership podcast for those who want more than inspiration—they want impact. We’ll help you lead from the inside out, with tools that stick and some truth that stretches you.
Everything Made Beautiful (00:01.95)
Okay, welcome back to the Lead Like You Mean It podcast. Yes, we're all back. We are talking all about the five voices. And if you missed episode seven or episode eight, you are gonna want to go back and do your due diligence and make sure that you catch up because otherwise this will not make a lot of sense to you as a standalone.
But before we talk about the next voice mace, I just want to remind people of what those assumptions were that we talked about with each of the five voices as we learn about them. The first is that our voice, when we talk it, it, you you said Shannon's a nurturer, but my voice is actually made up of all five voices. Some voices are going to be more natural to us than other voices, and then we'll have some blind spots and what we call a nemesis voice.
But every voice has a contribution around the table. There is not a good voice and a bad voice, a better voice and a worse voice. Every voice has a valuable contribution to bring. And then we talked about the fact that when we assess and we decide that we are a, for instance, nurturer, nature, nurture, and choice have all played a part. The way that we were brought up,
and then what has been the way that we were created and then what has been nurtured in us through our upbringing and then choices we've made in our lives. We said we don't assume what somebody else's foundational voice is and kind of label them like that and just be like, you're such a fill in the blank because that's not helpful and it tends to weaponize something that really should be transformational and then not to assume what each word means. So just because a voice is called something don't assume
well here in America that means this so that's what this word means it isn't necessarily the case. So those are our assumptions and now we're going to talk about our second voice which is the creative. Take it away Mace. I love all the voices and the creative is such a champion of future ideas, innovation, and really organizational integrity. Some people will say well what does that really mean but at the
Everything Made Beautiful (02:22.382)
core of a creative, because of the history of where organizations have come, they really will go back to the integrity of the organization and want to stay true to the core integrity of it. Not necessarily, not innovate it, just where do we come from and where are we going. The creative, also some people will end up going, I'm a creator.
like well you're actually a creative first voice and so we'll talk about the strengths of the creative. And they are those con conceptual architects and they love to think outside the box. They really are seeing things that we don't actually see they have these early warning radar sit system kind of feeling like they're seeing opportunity and danger. can't really explain that that's.
hard for them because it's like this gut feeling that they have but also it's never been done before but they can somehow see it and trying to explain that's hard. They're never satisfied with the status quo. I they inherently want things to always be better and think they can which can be a downside for them that we'll talk about a little bit later but it is a continuous improvement.
It's not that they got 90 % there with excellence, it's that 10 % was missing. Also, they are, if the vision is compelling for them, can't is not a word in their vocabulary. If they see something that they think can be done, they will push and innovate and figure out that innovative approach to it. Doesn't mean they're gonna be necessarily the one to fulfill that innovation.
but they're going to figure it out. And they exhibit this strong social conscious, like I discussed, and desire for personal and organizational integrity, true to who they are. And that really matters, because if you start pushing the envelope around personal and organizational integrity, you lie to a creative, you will be done for. That is very hard for them. They, I have coached several
Everything Made Beautiful (04:41.88)
teams that have creatives on them. And I find really maybe of all the voices, creatives have a moment where they finally kind of feel seen in the five voices because it's so complimentary to their natural creativity. The brain of a creative is amazing to me. I will say this is not my
This is not in my top three. This is my fourth voice. And so the creative side of things is not something I easily access at all. I tend to want to take something that's already there and just keep making it better. And a creative can see things that do not exist in a really profound
And I love that you mentioned that because you think about other assessments and other things that you've heard of lots of lots of assessments to the divisible by you know there's four or there's six or there's thirty two with five voices the fifth voice that if you look through the Myers-Briggs lens is the creative that really Jeremy and Steve were like there is a future strategic visionary but who's the person or the
the makeup of the person who sees things that needs to change. I mean, let's just be honest, there probably wasn't a creative sitting at the table of blockbuster. yeah, that was unfortunate. Yes. And then there probably was sitting at the table of Netflix. Yes, yes. And so that can kind of help you understand again, the creative voice is not someone who is an artist. They do not have a medium.
creative let us define it as that innovative future thinking idea out of the box. When I think about organizational integrity too in them, one of the things that drives the creative nuts, and I'm gonna shout out myself here, is like exaggeration. That is even, it's not just that you lie, but if you are over exaggerating something for emphasis, they will call you up in that moment.
Everything Made Beautiful (06:56.406)
Now those are their strengths. Let's talk about their challenges. With the creative, their brain is so amazing and they're seeing things that no one has ever seen before. And so for them to get it from their brains to their mouths, it's really hard for them to clearly communicate. So on the other side of that, they can seem confused or what it?
What are they even saying? And people around the table will write them off and be like, they are just speaking some babble language. I don't dismissive, just dismissive of them. had a creative that I worked with. She was a contractor and she truly was a designer, but she would describe something to me and I would have this visual and think that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. That flag is going to look stupid inside of that event. But then she'd send me a rendering and I would say,
Flag, not like the college pennant, like, triangular thing. It's one of those flags from the ground up. It's 50 feet tall and it has the shape. You know, it was just so different. I had to learn to tell her, ask her, hey, draw that out for me. Show me something that looks like that. This sounds really brilliant to me, but I'm not getting there because I don't have the brain you have to get there.
The other thing is they are internal perfectionists. Like I said, they will always celebrate the part that failed. And so it could be 90 % great, but 10 % failure. We used to have a creative on our team, the last organization firm I worked with. And I mean, we would have this fantastic meeting with this incredible billion dollar company and the president stood up and would speak. And we were so proud of them and just celebrating them for their first gathering ever.
And our little creative would get in the car, go into the airport and go, well, let me tell you, I think we should have put him like pause, do not speak. You may sell it. You may look at critique tomorrow, but today we're going to celebrate. So because the creative is in continuous improvement, they really have a hard time with it. Yeah. I just as by way of re saying something, Macy just mentioned.
Everything Made Beautiful (09:13.186)
Just because somebody is the marketing director doesn't mean they're a creative first voice. Just because they're the graphic designer doesn't mean they're a creative first voice. So that's where we have to not assume we know what each word means and we have to ensure it's applied correctly in this context because the marketing designer at the company I'm coaching right now is a connector first voice. She is not a creative first voice.
So it's really important to go, what is that foundational voice? And for the people who are champions of future innovation, they can see what people cannot see. They have an early warning radar system for danger or risk, those sorts of things. That is likely a creative first voice. And the other illustration Macy gave, if you are working with or
are the parent of or have a relationship with a first voice creative, learning how to ask questions that draw out what they're trying to say is going to be so important to the maintaining of that relationship because they can see it, but the difference in the conceptual and the articulation, it gets really jumbled trying to come out. Sometimes that looks like.
fragmented sentences. Sometimes that looks like squirreling all over the place with no dots connecting. Sometimes that sounds like something we could never in a million years make happen. But the piece that we're missing is they already know how to make it happen. They just didn't articulate that first. So I have learned, I work very closely with a creative. And if I cut him off too quickly or speak for him and assume I know what he's trying to say,
it doesn't work as well as when I say, okay, I'm hearing what you're saying, but I do not have the brilliant mind that you do. So can you say that again for me in a different way? And even sometimes that pause helps him be more articulate. Yeah. I love that you also said, you know, you were talking about the roles. Creatives are creative problem solvers. Logistics directors can be creatives.
Everything Made Beautiful (11:29.132)
You can have analytical creatives who are on purchasing teams or looking at forecasting and can use cubes inside of Excel spreadsheets. what I wanna make sure everyone understands, and I think America has a problem with this, the Western world, every voice can be a leader. Unfortunately in America, we do a really poor job of truly looking at hiring
leaders who lead people well and understand their makeup and then shore up their team around them. And so this creative voice definitely is that here's the uniqueness about the creative voice. It's nine percent of the population. Not quite the rare rarest, but only nine percent. And with them, I we didn't speak about this with earlier with the nurture voice, but they are a future oriented voice.
So they go out into the future and process the information back in where the nurture is a much more present voice. Do what happens today and then work myself towards the end. And it's crucial because if you speak in future language to a present voice, we're going to have to build the gap between the two. We've said this quite a bit. They struggle to communicate effectively.
That's really what we have to watch out for and so we have to take the time around the table to ask really intentional questions. you, well why did you say it that way or that doesn't make any sense to me, what are you talking about? We'll put the creative on the defense because they think that you don't think their idea is fantastic. When in actuality we need to think about how we're asking the questions so that they know we believe there's something great in there.
I told a creative the other day, we were drawing some things on the dry erase board and you know, those words where you leave out the vowels, but you can still make out the word. Yeah, somehow your brain still reads it appropriately. And our brain works to read it. That's what I tell the creatives on the other side. If you don't really think about the words that you're using, it's like you're giving us words and we're having to use more of our brain power.
Everything Made Beautiful (13:47.906)
The unfortunate thing which you mentioned about children is with a creative child, if you do not look at them in their high school years or their younger years and understand they could quite possibly be creative, you could think they're aloof. You could think they're not paying attention and they could get really bored in the.
classroom and I have a client that I've dealt with that really he didn't assess as a creative first voice and when we finally got to his first voice, he actually had gone into substance abuse because he felt like he was just losing his mind and he could see things people weren't seeing, not in like a ooey gooey or like some like read your palms kind of way. He just could anticipate things that other people weren't and over a life of just tragedy for like 10 years.
came out of it and now is flourishing and is creating these crazy organizations and people are partnering with him to do it because now he fully understands how his brain and his body behaves to how he was naturally created. Well, and when you mentioned that about children, it just makes me think I spent a while as a school teacher and a creative.
frankly, of all five of the voices would most struggle inside a traditional educational construct. And it's because, you know, it's a very present focused benchmark reliable structure. And while that works for certain types of people, a creative would most struggle inside that. So I would just.
say for any parents listening who are wondering, wonder what my kids are. Number one, as we said, we'll put the assessment in the show notes. But if your child is having a particularly hard time in school, but you say things like, he's so smart, I don't know why he's having such a hard time, it might be that he's got that creative brain. And oftentimes in the traditional educational model,
Everything Made Beautiful (15:56.14)
which is really effective for a lot of people, there can be some struggle to get that brilliant mind out into traditional schoolwork. Yeah, and in the Myers-Briggs makeup of the creative, one of the formats, because there is something unique about the creative, is there are two creative voices. And we distinctly separate the two because there is a creative, they're all future voiced. They are all future thinkers.
But there's a creative that their second voice is connector. So they have ideas through the lens of how people can connect to this idea. And then there's a creative pioneer. And we'll talk about the connector and the pioneer in a little bit. The creative who has that innovative thought process and then the lens of I can pioneer this to the end. half the creatives really don't do a great job of fulfilling the vision they have. It's not really.
the fulfillment strategic military process to get a result. That's more of a different voice. But that pioneer second voice, two creative voices, creative connector and the creative pioneer distinctly define the two as they show up through people or through profit with that lens. The thing that the creative I think is really encouraging for them is to help them know it's okay to be wrong.
because they have so many great ideas. Let's try a few out and if one's wrong, keep moving past it. They are, like you said, in IQ. They are one of the highest tested voice orders, our first voice, because of their intellectual knowledge and that innovative way, they can sometimes be really misunderstood.
Good. All right. That's our second voice in our five voices series. And remember, we're going to go through all of these, but if you're curious about what your voice is, or maybe you and your spouse, or you and your kids, then we really encourage you just take the assessment. I will say just taking the assessment.
Everything Made Beautiful (18:12.076)
won't give you everything that you need to know in order to know yourself well and lead yourself well, like we talked about back in the mile framework with mirror. However, it is a first step to beginning to understand the unique way that you were wired. And as we come back next week, we'll talk about our third voice in the five voices series, but until then in your sphere, in your sector, in your circle of influence, our encouragement to you is to go out.
and lead like you mean it. We'll see you next time. Bye.