00:13 - 00:22
Christian Napier: Well hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Teamwork a Better Way. I'm Christian Napier and joined as always by the incomparable Spencer Horne. Spencer, how you doing?

00:22 - 00:35
Spencer Horn: I am good, I am good, recovering. Little tired last week, I mean, traveling a lot, and I was all over Canada last week and they worked me hard, Christian.

00:35 - 00:37
Christian Napier: Yeah, what were you doing up there in Canada?

00:38 - 01:15
Spencer Horn: Well, I was speaking at a conference in Winnipeg, first time to Winnipeg. Been a lot of places in Canada, but Haven't been to Winnipeg before. And so 2 days of this conference, I did 2 breakout sessions each day, 2 hours each plus keynotes to end each day. So, you know, doing all these breakouts And then ending the day with a keynote, which is, you know, a lot of energy, as you know, to do and prepare and to and to do well. I was just exhausted. Then I flew to Toronto and did a board retreat that was

01:15 - 01:50
Spencer Horn: an all day affair, working with an organization to help them grow their leadership. And then Taylor Swift was in town in Toronto. I tell you what, the Taylor effect is real. Probably 3 quarters of my plane on Sunday morning at 6 a.m. Eastern time. So I had to get up at 3 Eastern time. So 01:00 our time and then get home and got home in time for church on Sunday. And then family coming over, didn't have a lot of time for naps, but I went to bed early last night.

01:51 - 02:16
Christian Napier: Well, that does sound like an exhausting trip, but it sounds like ultimately a very fulfilling 1. I'm sure you had a tremendous impact on the people that you served there. And I apologize to viewers who might be watching this. My internet's a little bit wonky this morning. So, hopefully, you can hear me okay but even if you may not see me okay, I might look a little bit jerky but welcome back Spencer to

02:16 - 02:17
Spencer Horn: the blessed United States of America. That's what

02:17 - 02:21
Christian Napier: my wife always tell me when I return home from a trip overseas.

02:21 - 02:25
Spencer Horn: And you just returned home, right? So tell us about your trip to Europe.

02:26 - 02:54
Christian Napier: Well, the week before last I was over in Cyprus and that was awesome. So thank you, Spencer, for introducing me to these amazing people. Aren't they great? My Cyprus chapter. Yes. Xenia and Alexia and all those there, they, they put on a fantastic conference and it was an honor to be a part of it and and so yeah very very much enjoyed my time my short time

02:54 - 02:58
Spencer Horn: I'm so sad you didn't get to see a lot

02:58 - 03:23
Christian Napier: no but you know that's that's all good it's all good and here we are back you know doing the work here in the state of Utah. And we have a short work week this week with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up here in the United States. And we're certainly grateful for so much. But that means we've got a lot to talk about in a short period of time here, Spencer.

03:24 - 03:51
Spencer Horn: Yes, we do. And just by the way, 1 of our listeners, Tina Guthrow is asking if this is gonna be recorded and it is, so not only is it recorded on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, it's going to be on a podcast platform. So whether you're listening to on Apple or Spotify or whatever you listen to, it will be available. So thank you for joining in, Tina. We're gonna have a fun discussion today.

03:52 - 04:23
Christian Napier: Absolutely. Well, why don't we talk about this title here, Spencer? The Authenticity Paradox. I know this is a subject that is close to you and also it's something that you work a lot with leaders on Around the world who are trying to be authentic, but at the same time You know feel a little pressure at times to do things different ways and and you know there are competing lines of

04:23 - 04:23
Spencer Horn: thought in this realm

04:23 - 04:46
Christian Napier: in the, what it means to be authentic. Yeah. What it means to be authentic. And should you just focus on your strengths or dedicate time to improving your weaknesses, etc. So I'm really interested to dive into this topic of conversation with you. So why don't you just kind of give us a brief overview of what you mean by the authenticity paradox.

04:47 - 05:22
Spencer Horn: That's a good opening. And why don't I tell a couple stories to maybe make it clear to you? You know, I'm a behavioral analyst. We've talked a lot about this on the show, Christian, about the different behavioral types. And I'm often asked, is there a style of leadership or personality that gives anybody an advantage at being an effective leader? And people think this and they ask this all the time. In all my years, I have never seen 1 style of leadership have an advantage over being a successful leader over another. Some people think, well, you got

05:22 - 06:02
Spencer Horn: to be the dominant personality to be a leader. No, I've seen so many effective leaders that actually are very supportive and collaborative. But there's not an advantage 1 way or another. And my anecdotal experience is backed up by over 1, 000 studies that ask the exact same question. Yet what's interesting is that all of these studies identify 1 characteristic of the most effective leaders, and that's authenticity. And that's the ability to develop trust, to connect with people. And I've talked many times about my mentor, and 1 of the most authentic leaders that I have ever known

06:03 - 06:39
Spencer Horn: was Kelvin Cullimore. And he's now in, you know, his late 80s, close to 90, but he hired me as I was graduating from the University of Utah with my master's in economics. And He was putting together a great leadership team for a new project. He was the CEO of 2 publicly traded companies. And as a leader of these companies, he wanted to put together a dynamic and effective leadership team. And so 1 of the things that he did, Christian, as part of the interview process, he took my wife and I, and we were building our first

06:39 - 07:14
Spencer Horn: project for this company in a place called Branson, Missouri. And if you're not from the United States, it's actually a small city in southern Missouri, not a couple hours from St. Louis, a couple hours from Dallas, a couple hours from Kansas City. So right in the middle of the country. And it's a country music capital, kind of like in Nashville, only for old retired musicians. And it's a beautiful place. It's incredible. It's in the Ozark Mountains. It's amazing. So as part of the hiring process, he flew me and my wife to this town and he wanted

07:14 - 07:50
Spencer Horn: to see how I would interact with the community leaders because I would be very involved with the community as a small community. He wanted to see how I treated my wife, Jana, how she responded to me, to see if I could handle adversity and the stress of the position, to see if I would represent the company well, the shareholders well, it was a publicly traded company. And he wanted to know just that I would be a good member of the team. And so this was really my first experience with him. He had high standards, but I

07:50 - 08:29
Spencer Horn: loved working for him. I've talked to him so many times, and he inspired me to grow and develop as a leader, and he led by example. He was somebody that cared deeply for his family, his employees, the shareholders, and he inspired trust in those who worked for him. And how he did that is he was aware of his strengths and weaknesses as a leader. He listened to his executive team, strong leader yet very much encouraging of his executive team to speak up and to share their perspective. He empowered and encouraged that. He was decisive and thoughtful.

08:30 - 09:05
Spencer Horn: He empowered and encouraged us, as I said. Yet his standards were very high and he never compromised them. At 1 point, early in my career, and I'll explain why this is significant in a moment, I wasn't meeting his standards of expectation of what he thought I should be bringing to the team. And he sat me down. He said, Spencer, you need to step it up. And I'm summarizing, this was 30 plus years ago. And he said, if you can't make a change, I'm going to have to replace you. And I'm going to give you 6 months

09:05 - 09:37
Spencer Horn: to make these needed changes. Now, I could have taken that and said, well, he's disrespecting me. Oh, my goodness, I'm going to screw this. I'm out of here and quit. But because of my relationship and my trust and respect in him, I didn't want to let him down. And at the end of that 6 months, he sat me down once again and he promoted me to be the vice president of this publicly traded company because I had made those changes he was looking for. He was open enough with me to be able to have that conversation.

09:38 - 10:09
Spencer Horn: And you know, what's interesting is he could laugh at himself, he could make others feel at ease, he could also make you very uncomfortable. And through his leadership, he really innovated something that we take for granted today, and that's Hollywood films in these IMAX theaters all around the world. We were developing IMAX theaters in more tourist destinations, so they were more entertainment-based instead of the traditional science-based museum type of experiences. And now, you know, these 32 years later, you can go to regular theaters and their IMAX theaters and you can see Hollywood films. That wasn't the

10:09 - 10:46
Spencer Horn: norm back then. And we did that because we were competing with live entertainers like Andy Williams, the Mandrell sisters, the Glenn Campbell, the Osmonds, Jim Stafford, you Remember that guy? I don't like spiders and snakes. Some of you listening have no idea what we're talking about because you're too young. But maybe you remember people like Tony Orlando, Lee Greenwood, those kinds of people. And so here we are competing with them with a film, with an entertainment center. It was really hard, but yet we competed in the industry, excuse me, in the market, and we influenced the

10:46 - 11:26
Spencer Horn: industry. That's the kind of leadership he had. And Christian, in my experience, there are fewer leaders today, in my opinion, like Kelvin. And I think 1 of the reasons why is what I call the strengths-based movement. In other words, this suggestion that all you need to do is focus on your strengths as a leader. And I think that is doing a disservice to many leaders because we're ignoring our weaknesses. And as a result, I think we're not as resilient as we once were. I know many CEOs want to develop their direct reports the way Kelvin could

11:26 - 12:08
Spencer Horn: but they can't give feedback in a way that can be heard And so they're frustrated, their proteges are frustrated. And so both end up in this frustrated situation. And so that's kind of the start. And I'm going to say, To sum it up, there is a benefit to the strengths-based approach, no doubt about it. We obviously want to be able to use those things that we consider our strengths because it feels good. But I believe that many of the frustrations and problems that exist in organizations comes from an overuse of strengths and really ignoring of some

12:08 - 12:44
Spencer Horn: of the weaknesses that we have. And we think this idea of authenticity means we just get to be who we are and it's that's what we're going to talk about it's a flawed sense of what it means to be authentic and I believe our happiness and success as humans as leaders comes from using our strengths combined with a strategic focus on some of those weaknesses. And when the light comes on with leaders and they realize how much pain they're causing in their organization by ignoring their weaknesses and just focusing on their strengths, I love to see

12:44 - 13:16
Spencer Horn: that. I'll just say 1 more thing before I switch it back to you. I was at a global conference and listening to 1 of the speakers and she was talking about strengths-based leadership, Christian. Here's what she said, all you have to do, folks, is focus on your strengths and it will lift up all of your weaknesses. Well, I disagree. See, if I'm really good at being direct and being assertive, if I just focus on that, will that make me less defensive and a better listener? What do you think?

13:17 - 13:50
Christian Napier: No, it's interesting to hear this. You know, I'm wondering, you know, as I'm thinking about this, the ability or desire for someone to improve Can be a strength in and of itself. Right. You say, Oh, well, yeah, I'm not good at shooting free throws, using a sports analogy, for example. Yeah.

13:50 - 13:51
Spencer Horn: Like Shaq,

13:51 - 14:30
Christian Napier: remember? But I am good at putting in the work, right? So I can take that strength that I have innately. I have a strength, I want to become better, right? And I think a lot of people are like that. Like they do understand that they are not perfect yet and they do want to get better. And this simple desire to want to get better, I think is a strength in and of itself, you know, because there are some people that don't have any desire to get any better and they think I am the way that I

14:30 - 14:33
Christian Napier: am and I have no desire to improve.

14:33 - 14:39
Spencer Horn: It's like that song that James Bay sings, right? You be you and I'll be me. And that's just the worst ever.

14:40 - 15:21
Christian Napier: Because people can make a half-hearted effort to get better. That's not authentic. And your employees will see right through it. If you are making this half-hearted attempt to do something that seems to run counter to what you do, people see that, hey, you know what? Our CEO is talking about this because a consultant came and said, he needed to talk about it. And we know based on how he's behaved over the last 12 years, that in 4 months, this is going to be completely forgotten and he'll be on the next shiny object And so we don't

15:21 - 16:00
Christian Napier: need to really pay attention to it because honestly this dude is not sincere in his effort to change right and and you know so 1 of the questions that I've got for you Spencer is as you are working with CEOs with leaders throughout the world you know how many of them actually do have this desire you know they do have a desire an authentic desire within them to actually get better. How many of them do you think are just stuck in their ways and they're contracting with you, 1 of the world's premier consultants and team building,

16:00 - 16:33
Christian Napier: just to kind of satisfy the demands or the placate the you know the the the needs of their audience I Guessing that there's a good percentage of people who generally do want to get better and change What are you seeing up out there as you're working with some of these, you know, leaders, these clients, organizations that you're working with, what do you see? Are you, do you see, are you seeing actual genuine desires to make a difference, to make an improvement or, is a lot of it just window dressing?

16:34 - 17:11
Spencer Horn: Great, great question. And you know, what I find fascinating and quite shocking really is that apparently, based on research, and I say apparently because it is shocking to me, Only 10 to 12% of people worldwide are self-aware. Now, I don't have any research to correlate the next piece of data that I'm gonna share with you. I have shared this many times on the show, 10% or less of teams around the world are high performing. And I wonder, is there a correlation? I'd actually like to do a study because I believe so many leaders are not self-aware.

17:12 - 17:44
Spencer Horn: And a lot of the leaders that I experience that are not self-aware, they say they want to improve, but what they want is they want their people to change. They don't want to change. They want their people to do what they want them to do and create results. And yet they themselves are, you know, I just heard Adam Grant talking about a new bias that he's found. And the new bias is that we don't have bias, right? And he says, the higher the education level, the greater the chance that you think you don't have bias. And

17:45 - 18:10
Spencer Horn: so I'm, again, just extrapolating this idea that I think there's a lot of leaders who are at the top of an organization. They're there because they think, well, I'm smart, I'm educated. I'm here because I'm such an amazing individual. And so everybody else needs to kind of change and not me. And I see that far too often. What about you? Do you see a similar dynamic or have you found something different?

18:11 - 18:47
Christian Napier: No, I think that's absolutely true. And I'm gonna make a weird correlation here with AI because bias is a big conversation around AI. 100%. We have our biases that we've baked into the tools. So last week, I was doing a presentation on AI with a local association, the Association of Government Accountants was AGA. It used to be just accounting, but it's now broader than that. And we were talking about AI and I was referencing the fact that, I thought you said you weren't a speaker.

18:47 - 18:52
Spencer Horn: I'm not a speaker, but you know people speaking all over the world. What are

18:52 - 19:39
Christian Napier: you talking about? Anyway, you know IIII was focusing on communication and I had AI create an image for me. And in that, to create that image, I used a prompt that said, generate an image with 2 animal cartoon characters arguing with, dressed in business attire, arguing with each other and pointing fingers at each other. So it created these 2 characters, a lion and a mouse. And then I used this illustration to point out bias. And I said, well, did anybody notice that both of these cartoon characters are male and the business attire that are wearing is

19:39 - 20:14
Christian Napier: they are wearing business suits. Now, I'm not saying that this is a good or a bad thing, but you have to be aware that this kind of stuff happens. I mean, we did another thing where we used AI to create synthetic data for testing, and we asked to create a few thousand records of data so we could do some tests. And that data we asked for, our names and email, or fake Names and physical mailing addresses and email addresses and so it created these records well about 95% of the data that it created were names that

20:14 - 20:36
Christian Napier: were northern European names right this is because of the training data and again I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing just have to be aware of it and over and to your point nobody in the audience when I showed this graphic thought twice

20:36 - 20:36
Spencer Horn: not that

20:36 - 20:56
Christian Napier: there was any bias there right they didn't think anything of it which is okay you're right but you just have to be aware of it and I think that you raise a really really your point which is a lot of us the majority of us myself included oftentimes go throughout our lives having no idea. The bias is

20:56 - 21:28
Spencer Horn: who might have. It's all my team, it's all my team. They're the problem. And I see that far too often. And so when I hear that number, 10 to 12% are self-aware, it makes more sense to me. And I think that that's where some of the problem is. So let's go back to this idea of, Well, let's go back to the authenticity paradox. And you mentioned a sports analogy. I like to use 2 sports analogies. 1 is the game of golf. Do you ever play, Christian?

21:29 - 21:32
Christian Napier: I am not a golfer. I have to.

21:32 - 22:06
Spencer Horn: And I. Well, so let's, so let me just very quickly, let me say there's 14 different clubs, okay, in a set. Now mine doesn't have 14. I have like a 12 club set and I think that's fine. But the point of all these different clubs is that there are different situations. Some are for sand traps, some are for long distance, some are for shorter distance, some are for putting, driving versus putting versus medium range. And all these different situations call for a different club. Well, there are golfers out there that have preferences. Some of them are

22:06 - 22:35
Spencer Horn: really good at the driver. They love that because they love to whack the ball far. They get, you know, have fun with that. Others love the putting because that's where they make the most money, you know, because you can really win or lose the game on that putting green. So some people have the strength of a driver, some people have the strength of the putter or kind of the intermediate irons. And so let's say that you're really good at driving, yet you struggle with the putter. And you want to be a better golfer. The point of

22:35 - 22:45
Spencer Horn: golf is to get the lowest score possible. Where are you going to create the greatest gains or most improvement in your game? Working on your strengths or working on your weakness?

22:47 - 22:57
Christian Napier: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense to say, hey, I need to work on my weakness. If my driver's really great, then I got to work on my putting and I've got to improve that. Are you any less

22:57 - 23:28
Spencer Horn: authentic of a golfer if you're kind of quote unquote cheating on your strength? No, I mean, the whole purpose or the value of the game is to be the best you can be. And so when you're working on your weakness, you're actually becoming a more authentic golfer. I'm going to share 1 other example. You and I had, because of you and your experience working with the Olympics, we had Scott Hamilton come on our podcast a couple of years ago. Loved that episode and I refer to it often because he was talking about how when he was

23:28 - 24:01
Spencer Horn: growing up as a teenager, he would usually finish at the bottom of the US Nationals, ninth, ninth, seventh. And he talked about how his mother had cancer and passed away. And in his 18th year, he dedicated his career to his mother to be the best that he could possibly be. And he finished third in the US or 11th in the world. 2 years later in 1980, he made the Olympic team and he came in fifth. The first place with a gold medal skater was Robin Cousins from the UK and Jan Hoffman was the silver medalist and

24:01 - 24:33
Spencer Horn: Charlie Tickner was the bronze medal from the US. And the very next day Hoffman retired to go to medical school and cousins and Tickner both went professional. That means he woke up, he said, the next day ranked number 2 in the world. The number 1 skater was David Santee from the United States. And he was thinking, what do I need to do to beat David? What do I need to be the best skater in the world? As you know, Scott Hamilton was great at the acrobatic moves, the back flips and all the fun crazy twists and

24:33 - 25:08
Spencer Horn: turns. Yet David Santee was brilliant at what's called compulsory figures. Remember the boring figure 8 things, right? He says, I hated them and they hated me back. And so he has this discussion with his children all the time. He says, kids, what's the greatest strength? And they respond because he's been coaching them on this. They say, lack of weakness, dad. He says, that's right. I take my weaknesses and I start to slowly work on them and add them to my asset or strength column. He learned to embrace and love compulsory figures. Now he was never number

25:08 - 25:49
Spencer Horn: 1 because that wasn't his strength, but he could be second or third, and that made him unbeatable for 4 years. He won 4 world championships in the 1984 Winter Olympics in men's figure skating. And so you may think, well, what does all this talk about sports have to do with leadership and being an effective leader? And My answer is authenticity or what I like to call flexible authenticity. When I talk about flexible authenticity, I'm not talking about your aptitudes as an individual. For example, you talked about talking to CPAs. If somebody is listening and they're bad

25:49 - 26:20
Spencer Horn: at math, I'm not suggesting you go become a CPA or if you if you're not good at technology, you should go get a certificate in IT. I'm there's a lot of professions. I wouldn't be good at I wouldn't be a good jockey. I'm 2 meters tall 6, you know, 6 foot 7 I wouldn't be a fighter pilot. I just can't fit in the cockpit. I mean, there's a lot of things I can't do very well. And I would have disadvantages at what I'm talking about is our communication style and our leadership style. So several years ago,

26:20 - 27:00
Spencer Horn: the Hay-McBair Consulting Group took from a pool of 20, 000 executives worldwide and randomly selected 3, 871 of them. That's a big sample size for doing a research and they did this over many years. And what they found, Christian, was the most successful leaders had 6 leadership styles that they identified through this survey process. They identified 1 was coercive, which is, hey, do what I say, do it now, right? There was authoritative, which is all about creating a vision and saying, hey, come with me, and getting people excited about that vision. There was pace setting, which

27:00 - 27:38
Spencer Horn: is all about creating high standards and do that right now. Affiliative, which is all about creating bonds of connection and harmony between people and teams and that is people are the most important. There was democratic, which is all about getting buy-in and asking, you know people what's what's your approach? What's your opinion and lastly coaching which was all about developing people for the future and asking them things like what's working for you? What's not and if you look at all of those leadership styles Christian and I'm so think about it coercive authoritative pace-setting Affiliative democratic and

27:38 - 27:45
Spencer Horn: coaching Would you say that there's 2 or 3 that are more natural for you than another 2 or 3?

27:47 - 27:56
Christian Napier: For me, it would be probably more affiliative, democratic kind of style. I'm certainly more of a consensus builder than a, take charge,

27:56 - 28:03
Spencer Horn: let's go down this track. So you might struggle with the coercive and the authoritative, just

28:03 - 28:05
Christian Napier: as an example. Absolutely, yes.

28:05 - 28:35
Spencer Horn: And so if someone, if we're to reverse that, if someone was really good at the coercive and the authoritative, they might struggle with the democratic and the coaching and the affiliative. Would you agree? Yes, I would agree. So what they found is that the most effective leaders were able to use all of those. Kelvin, my mentor, 1 of the things that made him so authentic, he could be all those things, he could be listening, he could be assertive, he could be thoughtful. Think about so often what we need to be effective. Sometimes we need to be

28:35 - 29:08
Spencer Horn: outgoing, sometimes we need to be reserved, sometimes we need to be assertive, sometimes we need to be supportive, sometimes we need to take action, sometimes we need to contemplate. The balancing of these types of traits sometimes seems inauthentic, right? For you to go out and be that hard driving coercive, that's just not me. And what I say to you and all of our listeners, I believe that's a flawed sense of what it means to be authentic. Because so often we think what it means to be authentic, Christian, is to be who we are, quote unquote, right?

29:08 - 29:41
Spencer Horn: Who we are in all circumstances. That means we behave in ways that is most comfortable or ways that are most comfortable for us in all circumstances. And I agree that we should not change our values and our beliefs, that we should always behave in ways that are aligned with our beliefs and our values, yet be flexible in our behavior. And that's the idea of what I mean by flexible authenticity is not, not to change who you are at the core, but to change the club that you use to the situation that is needed so that you

29:41 - 29:57
Spencer Horn: can get the results. And, and I'm going to give you, you know, a couple of examples. I just, I want you to think about this idea. Have you ever heard somebody say you should be lions, not sheep? Have you heard of that?

29:57 - 29:59
Christian Napier: Well, yeah, yeah, we've definitely heard that.

29:59 - 30:38
Spencer Horn: See, I believe you should be a lion and a lamb. I think you should be able to use your heart and your mind, be supportive and controlling, be outgoing and reserved, be speaking and listening, to be patient and urgent, to have focus and meta view, to be rules-oriented and flexible. I think you should be able to follow processes and focus on people. I think you should be strong in management and leadership. I think you should be visionary and detail-oriented. I think you should be structured and adaptive. I think you should be confident and humble. I think

30:38 - 31:15
Spencer Horn: you should be assertive and empathetic. I think you could be independent and collaborative. I think you should be stable and innovative. You see those things are seemingly contrary. Think of justice and mercy. Think of things that you gotta have. If you have too much of 1, there's a problem. You know, too much justice and then there's no flexibility or innovation. Too much mercy, then people are chaos and take advantage of the rules. So we need to be able to balance, and that's what I mean by this leadership that is flexibly authentic. So There are a couple

31:15 - 31:22
Spencer Horn: of places where we really struggle with being authentic. Let's, can we talk about those for a second?

31:23 - 31:37
Christian Napier: Let's do it. So

31:37 - 32:12
Spencer Horn: 1 of the places where people struggle to be authentic is as a new leader. I was in, I've been in Indonesia the last 3 years. The last year that I was there, I was speaking with a, 1 of my co-speakers was the president of PMI Malaysia, and he's a brilliant consultant with a major firm in Malaysia. And he was talking about when he was a young project manager, he said, I, my belief was I had to finish that project on time, on budget, no matter the cost. He said, I did that. And sometimes there was quote

32:12 - 32:52
Spencer Horn: unquote blood on the walls, right? I mean, that's obviously a metaphor. And what he found Christian is that after a while people didn't want to work with him. And so he wasn't able to sustain his idea of productivity of that hard driving project manager. He had to learn to adapt and focus on people's mental well-being, physical, emotional well-being in order for him to be able to sustain his productivity. Now, does that mean he's no longer his authentic hard-driving self? No, he had to learn how to adapt to that. You see, anyway, that's 1 example. Now, when

32:52 - 33:23
Spencer Horn: I was first in my career with Kelvin, I had this idea of who I needed to be, having all the answers and sometimes messing up because I didn't have all the answers. And if I would have just quit when I got that negative feedback, I would have missed out on so many opportunities to learn, grow and change as a person and as a leader. I had a similar situation where I had to learn how to adapt. And so sometimes with new leaders, what happens is that we think we have to have all the answers. Somebody gets

33:23 - 33:39
Spencer Horn: promoted and they feel like, well, I've got to prove to management and my team that I deserve to be here. And so they don't listen to their team. They don't, they're not vulnerable. They don't ask for input and feedback because like I'm the leader now I need to tell you all what to do. Have you ever seen that?

33:40 - 33:49
Christian Napier: Oh all over yeah that is so natural. It is so natural and at the same time it's also natural for people to feel imposter syndrome, right?

33:49 - 33:51
Spencer Horn: Which is the, and that puts pressure on them.

33:52 - 34:11
Christian Napier: It's like the antithesis of authenticity, right? I don't feel like I deserve this because if I look at my authentic self, there's a disconnect between my authentic self and what I perceive, the person, the persona of the role, right? And so we struggle with that because we think

34:12 - 34:48
Spencer Horn: our authentic self doesn't measure up and so we have to start behaving inauthentically in order to measure up. That's 100% correct. So that's 1 place where we struggle to be authentic. Another 1 is self-advocating. Think about selling yourself for a raise or a promotion or getting a job. I remember speaking at a conference in, this was in 2019, I was giving a keynote at a conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And after my talk, 1 of the members of the audience came up and she was this talented and smart manager. And she says, you know, I have

34:49 - 35:22
Spencer Horn: 5 direct reports that I care about a lot. I just want to ask you, I applied to be promoted to be a vice president of the region because I felt like if I could take what I'm doing with my team and expand it to a more regional thing, then I'd be able to protect my team at even a higher level. And the person who got the job, I feel like was not as qualified as me. Why did that happen? And just listening to her Christian, I could tell she had what I call an earning style of

35:22 - 35:53
Spencer Horn: leadership. Meaning, I said, do you just put your head down and work really hard and hope you get noticed? And she says, that's absolutely what I do. And I said, it's really hard for you to say, Hey, here's why I want the job and here's why I deserve it. She says, yeah, I think that's very inauthentic. I said, your view of authenticity has just ensured that the person who got the job, who probably had a winning style and the hiring manager also had that winning style. They were willing to self-advocate and speak up and say why

35:53 - 36:10
Spencer Horn: they wanted the job but because you were unwilling to get uncomfortable your team now has a vice president that is not as good or effective as they could have had, had you willing to be quote unquote inauthentic. Does that make sense? It does. Let me

36:10 - 36:22
Christian Napier: ask you this Spencer, I wanna come back to the sports analogy in the golf clubs, even though I'm not a golfer, but I've watched it on television. I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night,

36:22 - 36:23
Spencer Horn: so I can't be an expert.

36:24 - 36:54
Christian Napier: Another dated reference there for people. But It seems to me that focusing on strengths can offer potentially incremental improvement. So for example, if the driver is my strength, I can work on that. I can get to the green and fewer strokes and that will help Compensate for my weakness to a certain degree right

36:54 - 36:56
Spencer Horn: covers like for a while. That's right.

36:56 - 37:23
Christian Napier: I can cover it up I could have some incremental growth by focusing on my strengths however if I focus on my weakness and I work at my putting and you know my short game becomes aces, then what I've done is I've created a Transformational change right it's

37:23 - 37:26
Spencer Horn: not an increment. They're not marginal improvements.

37:26 - 37:57
Christian Napier: It's not marginal. It's Transformative And that can be not just for myself, but also for my organization. And I'm curious, aside from your mentor, Kelvin, have you seen examples of leaders, CEOs that you've worked with who have made this kind of transformation and seen that and seen not only how it's impacted their own ability but also how it's impacted their organization.

37:57 - 38:34
Spencer Horn: Yeah, so I'm going to give you a couple of examples. So I'm 1 of those examples. I made those changes as you saw and was promoted. I was coaching a senior manager in Europe who works for a major telecom company. You would know them if I shared that with you. And she has, this individual has 6 direct reports that work for her. And she has, let's call it this earning style of leadership. She's not somebody that, you know, is look at me, I'm amazing as a leader. She's very much a get in there and lead by

38:34 - 39:16
Spencer Horn: example, a wonderful leader, happens to however, have 1 of her managers that reports to her who is very much self advocating, egocentric and very much into politics, you know, has a member, his family works for the company, wants to use those connections and feels like he deserves his boss's job. And so it's actually disruptive on the team. Now with the corporate culture, it's really hard to, you know, shut some of those behaviors down. And so we had to do that very carefully in terms of how she set expectations with this man who happens to be, I

39:16 - 39:48
Spencer Horn: don't know if you've ever worked in European environments, but you think that there's racism here in the United States. There are some people who work in different countries that feel like they deserve more leadership positions just based on where they were born in Europe. It's really interesting. And So this is happening, all these dynamics that are very awkward and difficult. And she's like, okay, how do I do this? And so just working really hard to set expectations and standards. And it is not comfortable for her to be able to stand up and self-advocate. She had to

39:48 - 40:18
Spencer Horn: learn how to do that. And she had to learn how to stand up to HR in their company and say, listen, this is not acceptable. And at some point, I'm going to give this individual a chance to change like I was given on my team. And if he doesn't, we need to find another team for him because he is disrupting my team and creating all kinds of terrible dynamics. Well, ultimately he had to leave for another team and she took a hit in her, just in the perception of her leadership initially until those same behaviors started

40:18 - 40:51
Spencer Horn: showing up elsewhere. And then I started to realize, oh, this really is a problem. But she had to take that assertive approach. And as a result, her team is so much stronger and better today because she was willing to get uncomfortable and do that thing instead of just, you know, what I'm suggesting here and we could talk about this for so long. There's a problem for some of you listening on this show thinking, well, So that means I just need to work on my weaknesses. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm doing my best to counterbalance

40:51 - 41:27
Spencer Horn: this whole strength-based movement where we ignore our weaknesses. There is a problem with working on our weaknesses. There are some people that have, as you've already mentioned, imposter syndrome. There are some people that feel like I'm not worthy already and if I work on my strengths only, it's going to be in some ways depressing and defeating because it takes energy to work on our weaknesses. Please hear me out. I'm not suggesting that that's all you do. I said in the very beginning, use your strengths because that's where our confidence comes from. Strategically focus on 1, maybe

41:27 - 42:02
Spencer Horn: 2 weaknesses, and all I'm suggesting is get a little better. I'm talking 5% better. If you got a little bit better at some of those weaknesses, Christian, as you learn to be just a little more assertive in certain circumstances where it's appropriate, I'm not saying that you need to become that coercive leader as your strength. But can you step up and hold your ground when you need to and then go out and shake it off, right? And maybe not be perfect at it, that's fine. If you already have those strengths to listen a little bit more

42:02 - 42:35
Spencer Horn: and empower your team just a little bit more. Even the movement towards making those weaknesses a little stronger will go so far with your team. And all I'm suggesting is work on 1 or 2, because it's going to take energy. 1 of the things that I do as an exercise is I ask people to sign their name, right? And they sign it on a piece of paper and then I say, okay, now sign it with your non-dominant hand. And it's like, oh, this is so ugly and it looks terrible. And I say, yes. If you practice

42:35 - 43:04
Spencer Horn: with your non-dominant hand, would you get better? And of course the answer is yes. Would it ever be as good as your dominant hand? Probably not. But over time, it will take less energy the more you do it. Now the goal isn't to be as good as your as your dominant hand right it is just to get a little bit better to have a little less energy drain and once you get that that weakness to a point where you feel like it's it's not no longer an anchor or dragging you down. Work on the next 1.

43:05 - 43:11
Spencer Horn: You only have so much energy and so much willpower, so use it strategically and wisely.

43:13 - 43:20
Christian Napier: Can I ask about another dimension of this? I know we're coming up against it on time I had

43:20 - 43:22
Spencer Horn: so much more to say about this

43:22 - 44:07
Christian Napier: aside from the the self-employed individual or the solopreneur most of us work in teams right and you know sometimes we end up as a team leader, hiring people that look very much like us because we're comfortable with them. And so those weaknesses may be exacerbated throughout our team because we bring in people that have similar personalities and so the weaknesses are are magnified whereas if we had a diverse team that had you know different strengths complementary strengths then you know even if I as an individual may not be perfect in all areas, and I may have

44:07 - 44:32
Christian Napier: weaknesses, that even if I work on them, they'll never become as naturally powerful as my strengths. Those weaknesses could be complemented by the diverse nature of my team working for me. And so I'm curious in the work that you've done with teams over the years, if you see this as an issue where the teams are fairly homogenous versus, you know,

44:35 - 45:20
Spencer Horn: The potential for high performance Using a diverse team where the people have complementary strengths and weaknesses I have I've seen that quite a bit and there's an organization right now, it's interesting, they are in the top 5 nonprofits to work for in the entire United States. They didn't start that way. And what happened was, there are a children's charity, a healthcare charity, and there was a tremendous amount of bias in the hiring just because of who the HR people felt comfortable with and felt like these are people that get the mission. But what they found is

45:20 - 46:00
Spencer Horn: that the nurses were very just altruistic and caring, but they had to work with these doctors who sometimes were a little more aggressive and assertive, and they would never speak up. They would shut down. So you had this environment of back channel, backbiting and disgruntled nature, but never speaking up and sharing what they felt. And so it's a natural behavioral tendency of the certain profile. And those are people that are often drawn to, you know, these types of jobs. And so they didn't necessarily go out and create a bunch of diversity. They just realized that in

46:00 - 46:40
Spencer Horn: the hiring of these nurses, they wanted to find people that had 1 difference, 1 different trait, and that was greater extroversion. So they could have high patience and low dominance and attention to detail and supportiveness, but if they found those people with a little higher extraversion, they were able to then speak up and share and express their concerns and it wasn't being repressed, it was coming out. The culture completely changed, but they were very conscious about creating that culture within the team. And so that's what was needed for that core of nurses. And it completely changed

46:40 - 47:26
Spencer Horn: the dynamic of the team. You want to be very purposeful about the culture that you're creating. And sometimes, you know, a culture can happen accidentally and be a weakness. And you do need that diversity. So with my speaking association, we had a, 2 years ago, we had a board retreat where our focus was completely process-oriented on bylaws. Well, 85% of our board, we did a team scan, are high extroverts. When it comes to focusing on details, that's a challenge for somebody with low conformity, high extroverts. We'll get bogged down in all kinds of tangents and never

47:26 - 47:58
Spencer Horn: get it done. Knowing that about our team, we were able to point it out, listen, this is our natural tendency as a team. And these are the things that are probably going to show up as we start working on these, on these bylaws. And so we empowered the 2 other people on the team who had high dominance, very out of balance team. This was right. They said, when it happens, when you see it, call it out and keep us on track and we had an incredibly successful day so even the self-awareness of knowing our individual weaknesses

47:58 - 48:14
Spencer Horn: we were able to make up for that and have success just because we're aware that this is our habits and we're like, okay, there it is guys, let's get back on track and we all laughed about it and had a great time. And we were highly successful today just because we were aware of our own shortcomings and imbalance on our own team.

48:16 - 48:35
Christian Napier: I love it Spencer. Gosh, this is a fascinating topic and I know that you speak with a lot of organizations around the world on this because it does resonate with them. They, you know, they see the importance of this and and so I do want to give you a chance to kind of give you, you know, put a bow on our conversation here.

48:35 - 49:13
Spencer Horn: Well, let's, you know, here's what I think we need to do. I actually think we need to, to finish the discussion is we're not even halfway through some of the things that we need to do, but III do want to just say that there's 1 more place that I think we struggle to be authentic and that is in receiving feedback. And I have a situation where I had a client that was putting, another nonprofit was putting the organization at risk because in his view of being an effective leader he was completely transactional just very logical very

49:13 - 49:50
Spencer Horn: very driving hard-driving and was creating a lot of anxiety within the organization. 2 of his employees filed a complaint with HR. His peers wanted him fired. Yet here was a hardworking, dedicated individual been with the company 18 years. So we had more and more responsibility. But he was creating all this tension and on the team he wouldn't hear the feedback because he thought his more logic-based you know productive oriented approach was superior to his more emotional peers you know And so listening to feedback is a way sometimes we think is an, you know, I don't need,

49:50 - 50:22
Spencer Horn: I don't need to change who I am. Learning to listen to feedback is something that will help all of us. And for him, he was putting the company at risk and his own career at risk. Is all feedback gonna be a good feedback that you receive in your career? The answer is no. But if you shut down feedback that you don't agree with, you're in danger of people stopping to give you any feedback that is helpful to your career. Christian, we're getting close to the holiday season in the United States. Have you ever gotten a gift

50:22 - 50:38
Spencer Horn: that you didn't like? Oh yeah. I mean, a tie that you'll never wear, a sweater or maybe somebody listening got a skirt or something or a blouse that you would never wear. What did you say? Did you say, this is the stupidest gift? I am not gonna wear that, take it back. What did you say?

50:39 - 50:42
Christian Napier: No, I mean, we just accept it gracefully, right? Because we

50:42 - 50:44
Spencer Horn: don't want to take it back later. Yeah, we

50:44 - 50:46
Christian Napier: don't wanna offend anyone, of course. So

50:46 - 51:24
Spencer Horn: if somebody gives you, this is what I'll say, if someone gives you feedback that you don't agree with, say thank you. Don't equivocate, don't blame. Listen to what they're saying and say, is there some truth to what they're saying? Can I see from their perspective what they're seeing and maybe I can make a change? And next time we talk, I'll give you a few more examples. I actually met with a friend of mine in Toronto while I was there who's somebody that I've coached. I'd love to share some of her stories and then strategies to be

51:24 - 51:34
Spencer Horn: able to shift your behavior a little at a time. And we'll do that next time if you think that's something that, I mean, I think it's very, very valuable.

51:34 - 51:41
Christian Napier: And yeah, we definitely need to continue the conversation and Spencer, I appreciate you carving an hour out of your day to

51:41 - 51:42
Spencer Horn: appreciate you

51:42 - 51:51
Christian Napier: like me, along with our viewers and listeners. And if people want to connect with you, learn more about what you do, what's the best way for them to reach out?

51:52 - 52:28
Spencer Horn: Reach out to me on LinkedIn. And I'll tell you 1 of the things that I, that I would love to do. I talk about awareness and we'll, we'll talk about that as a strategy. Take a behavioral assessment, have a coach, have a mentor, take a 360 assessment and start categorizing your strengths and then also those weaknesses. However, don't focus so much on your weaknesses that it becomes defeating or depressing. Remember what I'm saying, utilize your strengths with a strategic focus on 1 or 2 of those things. And I'll share with you a methodology and how to

52:28 - 52:48
Spencer Horn: overcome those next time. Christian, thank you for letting me chat this time and I know you have so much value. I can't wait to have you talk more about AI, what you've been sharing with communities around the world. So how can people get in touch with you if they wanna hear more about your fascinating topics?

52:49 - 53:07
Christian Napier: LinkedIn as well. Just thank you, Spencer, very much for the kind words. And yeah, people just look up Christian Napier on LinkedIn. You'll find me and happy to connect with anyone. And listeners, viewers, thank you for connecting with us and for liking and subscribing to our podcast. We look forward to catching

53:15 - 53:15
Spencer Horn: You