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You know your business needs to change, but you’re caught in the emotional and relational dynamics that are holding you back. Welcome to Noble Metal, the podcast that helps you forge a new kind of leadership. Host Phillip Weiss, a seasoned executive coach and organizational consultant, reveals how to become a more resilient, deliberate, and less-anxious leader.
Through powerful insights based on Bowen Theory and systems thinking, you’ll learn to navigate complex workplace relationships, manage challenging strategic issues, and lead your team to sustainable change. Get the clarity and tools you need to forge a new path for your business.
Ep19
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[00:00:00]
Phillip Weiss: Hi, I'm Philip Weiss, and welcome back to Noble Metal, where we explore leadership both at work and in life through the lens of Bowen family systems theory. I just wanna note, uh, a little schedule interruption here that we had. Life has gotten really busy this summer with, with a move and a few other things, and so we're working to get back on, a nice rhythm here.
This [00:01:00] episode is actually the fourth in a series, but in a way it kinda kicks off, a larger portion that I'll get to in a second.
Leading Down Focus
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Phillip Weiss: But the fourth in a series on relationship quality, and we're turning our attention finally, if you will, downward, so to speak, depending on what perspective you're talking about.
I'm talking about leading from the top and leading direct reports to what happens when you're the one at the top of the org chart, so to speak, looking down. And in a way, as I was thinking about this, this is kind of a broad, really a punchline for this entire podcast. We've talked about leading up and leading across, and that's kinda neat and cute in a way, so to speak, to think about leadership from those angles.
But when somebody picks up or turns on or listens to a podcast about leadership, this is really what we're thinking about. We're thinking about, how do I need to be showing up as a [00:02:00] boss? Because I think in all honesty, the reason so many of those leadership books are popular in many ways is because I think people really want to do their best at this.
They wanna be good bosses. I think all of us do. So I'm gonna give you a fair warning. This, this episode's a little uncomfortable for me to record because I probably made just about every kind of mistake, that I'm about to kind of warn you about, like not to do or to, to do, not to do. Some of them probably more than once, which I pro-- I get probably defeats the purpose of actually making a mistake.
We're supposed to learn from them.
Define the Real Goal
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Phillip Weiss: So here is where I wanna start What are you and your team actually trying to accomplish? Not the, not the mission statement version, not, not the one you'd maybe put on a slide, you know, for a board presentation, but the real one. This quarter, this year, in the role you're in right now, w-with the demands that are on your plate right now.
Most-- I'd say [00:03:00] most leaders can answer that question in general terms, but I'm always kinda surprised that few, I think, can really answer it with, with good precision. And that gap between sort of the general and the precise is where I think a-- I think some leadership trouble can start. Not in a big dramatic failure, but quietly, kind of in the everyday decision a leader makes without a clear enough picture of what they're actually building toward.
So I just want-- I'm gonna ask you to just kinda hold that. How clear are you about what it is you and your team are working to accomplish?
So when we're leading from above, I think here's the thing that we need to w-reckon with You're not working, you know, by yourself anymore. You're not s-- You know, as we say in corporate speak, you're not an individual contributor anymore.
The work gets done through other people. That's the whole nature of the role, and it's exactly the part that I [00:04:00] think nobody warns you about when you often take the promotion, and I think most organizations are not good at preparing people for.
Bowen Theory Lineage
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Phillip Weiss: And that's exactly where I want to bring in Bowen family systems theory because I think it gives us a really sharp lens that standard leadership books just don't. This whole podcast, as I've said, leans on that thinking. So let me-- What I'd like to do here is kind of name the lineage again, just kind of as a refresher, some of the, the leading minds and thinkers behind Bowen theory.
We have Murray Bowen himself, who de-developed the theory in the twentieth century, working out of psychiatry but building something much bigger than a clinical model. It was really a way of understanding how people function in any emotionally connected system, families as well as organizations, and the power of that connectivity.
Michael Kerr worked alongside Bowen for [00:05:00] decades and with him wrote really still what's one of the clearest maps on the theory, a book called Family Evaluation.
And then, for the sake of organizational discussions, Ed Friedman is one who took, took much of this and pointed it squarely at leadership outside of the family dynamic. He was well known in organizations as well as congregations. In his book, A Failure of Nerve, which I know I've mentioned, if you, if you're leading anything at all, a team, a family, a little league group or team, it, it's totally worth your time.
A Failure of Nerve.
There's a specific idea from that lineage of leading thinkers that anchors today's episode. I've mentioned it before, but I'm gonna mention it again.
Relationships Drive Results
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Phillip Weiss: Dan Paparo, another voice in that same tradition, put it, put it this way, " Productivity, real organizational productivity stands squarely on the shoulders of successful relationships."
Not the [00:06:00] org chart, not the strategy deck, but relationships. Simple to say, much harder to actually run an organization like you believe it.
If you were with us for the previous episode on relationship quality itself, you heard us dig into what actually makes a relationship successful. So not comfortable, not conflict-free, but successful, meaning we're getting done what we need to accomplish, and we're preserving the relationships along the way, and maybe we're even having some fun So the short version, if you missed it, is this.
A quality relationship is one where two people stay connected to each other. They stay connected to each other while each of them also stays true to their own thinking, their own values, their own sense of responsibility. They do not lose themselves con-- they're connecting without fusion. They're close without losing themselves again in the other person.
So here's the thread I, I [00:07:00] want you to hold on to for the rest of this episode, because I, I r- really think everything else today is just kind of an elaboration on it.
Clarity and Differentiation
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Phillip Weiss: The quality of your relationships as a leader is directly correlated to how clearly you've defined yourself. Clarity about who you are, what you believe, what you will do, what you will say, your clarity about your role, clarity about the vision you're leading toward.
This episode is about clarity. If I was to use one word, this would be it. The more defined you are on those things, I think the higher quality the relationships you're capable of having with the people you lead. The less defined you are, the more those relationships are gonna run on anxiety and guesswork So that idea is the foundation of everything I'm gonna say today about leading down.
There's a lot more that certainly can be said about [00:08:00] leading down, but I'm really trying to lay something-- As I've been thinking about this, I'm really wanting to lay something of a foundation for this idea of me as leader or boss If relationship quality sits underneath productivity, and relationship quality depends on staying connected while staying true to yourself, then leadership has to start in a very particular place.
It doesn't start first with your team or even your boss. It doesn't even, in a sense, start with a strategy. It starts with you. In Bowen theory, I, I would say we call this differentiation of self. Before I can lead anybody else, I have got to lead myself first, and we s- speak to this a lot in our work. So what do, what do I mean by that?
I mean getting really clear and very intentional about my own leadership. [00:09:00] No winging it. I cannot overstate how much trouble I think gets created by leaders who are essentially flying by the seat of their pants, reacting to whatever crossed their desk that morning, borrowing their sense of direction from whoever maybe spoke to them last.
Let-letting anxiety in the system set the agenda instead of setting it for themselves This role is simply too important to leave to instinct and improvisation alone. Ed Friedman had a line I think about a lot actually, which is: Leaders don't usually fail because they lack information. They fail from a failure of nerve, an essentially an unwillingness to be clear, an unwillingness to take a stand, to be the calm, what Friedman called the non-anxious presence in, in a room full of anxious people.
And here's the part I think worth holding onto. When you [00:10:00] actually start doing this, that is getting clearer, holding your positions, your system will probably almost always push back. Bowen and Kerr were both, I think, very clear on this. Any time someone in a relationship system starts to, quote, "differentiate," the system tends to react and sometimes really hard to pull people back into the old equilibrium.
That pushback isn't proof you're doing it wrong. It's more often proof that you're probably doing something right.
Four Points Overview
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Phillip Weiss: So for today, there are four points that I want us to work on. Begin to create that clarity and intentionality that we're, that we're pushing toward here.
Point 1 Role Clarity
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Phillip Weiss: Point one: I start with understanding my role and its dependencies. I get it. This sounds almost too basic even to stay-- say out loud. I mean, this sounds, this is captain obvious kind of stuff. At least it [00:11:00] sounds that way. And yet, I would bet a significant number of leaders listening right now couldn't give a crisp, confident answer if I asked them, quote, "What exactly are you being asked to do right now?"
I couldn't, uh, at times for longer than I'd like to admit in more than one job at times. So sit with these questions. Better yet, write your answers down because something changes, I believe, when, when it's on paper instead of just floating around in your head. That is, what am I being asked to do by the organization and the leaders above me explicitly?
Not just what do I assume, but what are they asking? What's the vision? What does s-success actually look like when this is working
And, and then the who specifically am I leading to get there? Not just my team in the abs- in the abstract, but, but who by name is depending on my direction? And do I know these people? Do I know what [00:12:00] makes them tick? Do I know what their strengths are and how to leverage those? Do I know what their gaps are and how to help them close those gaps?
What resources do I really have to work with? Budget, people, time, authority, sort of the real inventory of what I have, you know, going for me here, not just the wished for one. Where do I expect roadblocks, and from what directions? And how am I going to free-- you know, how am I gonna dislodge those? I think that's one of the roles of a leader, is to clear the path for those people that work for us How will my leaders actually support me?
What have they committed to versus kind of only implied
All of that is clarity. Clarity before acting. If your understanding of the role itself and, and all that it entails is fuzzy in some way, every decision downstream, every priority call, every [00:13:00] conversation basically inherits that fuzziness.
So clarity about the role is foundation, I think, to everything else that it gets built on.
Point 2 Define Yourself
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Phillip Weiss: Second point, who am I as a leader? I need to get clear about who I am, how I intend to lead in this particular seat. So many of us in life have different role-- We're leaders in different areas of life. We're leaders at home.
We're leaders, you know, in our communities. We're leaders at work. But in the particular seat that we're, you know, at, let's just say for work at the moment that we're talking about, how do you intend to lead in that spot? What is needed and required from you? So this is, this is different from the first point.
Point one was about the job. This one is about you, your principles, your operating code, maybe we could say. The things that you won't compromise on regardless of the external [00:14:00] pressure Friedman, I think, would push this even further. Part of self-definition as a leader is being willing to be a little bit unpopular, to hold a position even when the room wants you to soften it for the sake of comfort, because it just-- it's too hard to hold.
You know, it's just feels uncomfortable. If your goal is for everyone to like you at all times, basically, I've got some bad breaking news for you. It's just that's not how it works
A few examples, not to copy, but to prompt your own list. So for me, I take responsibility for cultivating the strengths already on my team rather than assuming that I need to import talent from the outside, a principle that I worked to live by. When I made a mistake, and I absolutely will, I'm gonna state it plainly without spin and without letting anybody else carry the blame I commit to direct conversation, the specific, uncomfortable kind [00:15:00] of face-to-face, hard to have kind instead of letting frustration sort of leak out sideways through gossip or even my tone of voice.
Your list is gonna look very different. What matters is that it's specific enough to guide a real decision on a real, you know, day of the week, not just sound good in a value statement maybe, or on a poster in the break room And then I, I, I really believe that you have to say some of this out loud deliberately to your team. Don't assume that they will infer it by watching you for, you know, for a while.
I'm thinking of a leader that I know and highly respect. He's very successful in the energy sector. And it was his typical practice that in-- when he was in a role, a new role in a new organization, very senior roles, in the first week, he would sit down with his team and say something to the effect of, "Hey, here's what you can expect from me."
He had like a one, maybe two-page document that he would say, [00:16:00] "This, this is how I roll. This is what you can, again, expect from me." It's not a mission statement, but in his case, it was a personal commitment. For example, I'll tell you the truth when it's uncomfortable. I'll pack-- you know, I'll back you publicly and correct you privately.
I'll own the outcome rather than, you know, push the risk down onto you, that kind of thing They stop guessing what kind of leader they're dealing with, and they can spend that energy on the work instead.
Shackleton Example
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Phillip Weiss: I want to draw an example from history, a very famous example, an excellent one that I would love to actually study more, and that's Ernest Shackleton.
He was the captain of the, the famous ship Endurance that got locked in ice in Antarctica in nineteen fifteen. Before the Endurance ever left port, Shackleton was known for being very explicit with his crew about his expectations and s-- in the same vein, what they could expect from him.
Steadiness under [00:17:00] pressure, honesty about danger, a refusal to leave anyone behind. So when the ship was eventually trapped and eventually crushed by ice and the crew being stranded for really almost two years, that early clarity became the emotional infrastructure that the expedition eventually survived on.
And, you know, happy to say, every single member of that crew made it home alive. Historians point to a lot of reasons for that outcome. But Shackleton's early, very deliberate communication about who he was and what people could expect from him is consistently named as one of those key reasons for their success. Know who you are as a leader, say it out loud, and don't make people guess.
Point 3 Build the Plan
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Phillip Weiss: Point three: create a plan. Create a plan for how you'll build basically the vision and carry it out. Again, no [00:18:00] winging it, no leaving it to chance, no letting it just float in your head, which was a thing that I would do in-- historically in the past. It was in my head, but I was not always getting it out on paper and articulating it.
So understanding your role and kn-knowing your principles, necessary, but it's not the only thing. At some point, clarity has to turn into a plan. There's three elements here that I want to note. First, narrow the vision to two to three concrete priorities. Not twelve, not a giant menu that's, you know, confusing and overwhelming. If everything's a priority, then as we know, nothing is, and your team will feel that confusion immediately, pulled in multiple directions, by trying to figure out, you know, what's most important.
Your job, I believe, is to do that hard work of narrowing and prioritizing so your team doesn't have to guess what matters most. Secondly, build the plan around people, not just tasks. And so, so what I m- [00:19:00] mean by this? This, this goes back to where we started. It goes back to... A- and I think this is where Bowen Theory shines.
The idea here is, bottom line, have a systems perspective. Recognize that it's not just about plan and process, but ultimately you are dealing with a very powerful relationship system that is emotionally charged, that is tasked with pulling all this off. So I'm, I'm really calling for a mindset, a, a framework, be aware of the dynamic.
A plan, I think that only accounts for tasks and deadlines and ignores these relational dynamics, the reality of those, I think tends to look great on paper, but it falls apart in practice. So own that system reality and that mindset. Begin watching for those system dynamics.
Third, [00:20:00] build in checkpoints and not just a finish line. I really believe that a plan without wise, appropriately placed checkpoints is really kind of almost just a hope. You want defined momen-moments, weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever the, the cadence needs to be, where you step back and you honestly ask, "Is this working?
And if not, what needs to adjust?" So the point here isn't to micromanage your team, but so, so that really you as the leader stay close enough to reality that you're never surprised in the, say, month three by something that was visible probably, you know, two months ago.
Point 4 Accountability
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Phillip Weiss: So point four, and, and this is the last one for today. Creating commitment and accountability for yourself and others to actually execute on this I, I have to say, this is the point I think where a lot of leaders quietly kind of lose the thread, honestly. You can do the first three steps.
You can understand your role, know your principles, you [00:21:00] know, create a nice plan, but still watch it all kind of erode over a few busy months because nothing was really holding you to it. This is also, not coincidentally, kind of right where Friedman's idea of sabotage tends to show up again. Because once you actually start holding yourself and others accountable, don't be shocked if the system tests you on it.
You know, a little foot dragging, a little, you know, "Hey, we've always done it this way. Don't rock my boat."
Kerr would call this chronic anxiety looking for its old comfortable outlet. Expect it. Stay steady through it. That's the job.
So I have three elements again for you here to consider. First, a clear standing summary of the plan. This is around creating accountability. A clear standing summary of the plan, short enough to recite from memory and something you actually revisit.
And I, I, I really emphasize that revisiting, not [00:22:00] something written once and buried in a shared drive. And I would say if you can't summarize your own plan in under a minute, it probably isn't clear enough yet to execute on. Secondly, again, in the spirit of creating accountability, a distinct communication plan, and I, I want to underw- underline that word plan because it is exactly the kind of thing we leaders wing.
I'm very good at winging that kind of thing. But who needs to hear what? How often? Through what channel? When? Et cetera. What gets said in a team meeting versus one-on-one? How do you communicate the things that are going well and just as important when things are not? Decide this in advance.
Third, real accountability structures for yourself and others. Use checkpoints that create accountability that gets articulated and not just implied. Accountability that only exists in theory isn't accountability. It [00:23:00] needs a date on a calendar and a conversation attached to it. Bef-before I move on to a particular kind of illustrating business story, I, I wanna just make a comment.
You know, when we talk about leadership, so often the language of inspiration and motivation is, is used. If you really want to inspire your team, hold people accountable. In particular, perfor- hold poor performers accountable. If you have a poor performer on your team, I can assure you, one, everybody on the team and beyond knows about it.
And secondly, everybody on the team and beyond knows that you're not holding them accountable. And of course, the in question knows it as well If you want to inspire your team, hold people accountable. A lot more I could say there, but I'm going to stop at that point and move on.
Alcoa Safety Story
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Phillip Weiss: I want to give you a real-world example that pulls all of this together.
When [00:24:00] Paul O'Neill became CEO of Alcoa, this goes back to the nineteen eighties, so a kind of dated but very strong story. Paul O'Neill, CEO of Alcoa, stood up in front of a room of, of Wall Street investors and announced his top priority. It's not profit, it's not market share, it's not shareholder return, but worker safety.
He was defining himself. He wanted Alcoa to become the safest company in America. Interestingly, the room did not break into applause, and by some accounts, a few investors actually kind of considered selling their shares on the spot. But O'Neill had a real plan sitting behind that one priority, not just a slogan.
Anytime a worker was injured anywhere in the company, anywhere in the world, he required that he personally be notified within twenty-four hours, along with a plan for how it would not happen again. So not a report filed up the chain over weeks, but immediately and directly to him. That single accountability [00:25:00] structure quietly rewired the entire company.
Plant managers who wanted to reach the CEO fast learned that they had to talk honestly to the people below them first. Information that used to move slowly and get filtered on the way up suddenly had to move quickly. Safety data doesn't lie when someone's checking it, so especially somebody at the top is checking it within twenty-four hours.
Notice what's sitting underneath that story.
It's the s- it's the same four points we've been building today. O'Neill was crystal clear about his role and the outcome he owned. He was explicit about who he was as a leader. Safety first, no exceptions. Said out loud to a room of skeptical investors on day one, not quietly rolled out later once the coast was clear.
He had an actual plan, a specific, unambiguous reporting requirement, and not a vague commitment to just caring about [00:26:00] people. The accountability was real. Within his first year, Alcoa's profits hit a record high. By the time he left the company more than a, a decade later, its market value had actually grown by roughly fivefold.
Injury rates had dropped to a fraction, honestly, of the industry average, it had become honestly, truly one of the safest industrial companies in the world One clear, non-negotiable priority backed by a real plan and real accountability restructured how the entire company operated top to bottom
Closing Thread and Questions
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Phillip Weiss: Before we close, I want to name the thread running I, I think underneath everything today. Because four points about role, principles, plans, accountability, it can start to sound like a management checklist. And it's not, and that's certainly, that's not what I'm intending. This isn't just a set of techniques that, hey, [00:27:00] do ABC and XYZ will happen.
I think Bowen and Kerr and Friedman, probably all of these guys would in their own ways tell you that the checklist is probably the easy part and the hard part is that every one of those points starts with you. Not your team, not your organization, your boss, but you.
Understanding your role is about your clarity. Knowing who you are as a leader is about your principles. Creating the plan is a task you own. Creating accountability is for yourself, is in fact yours before you can ever hold anybody else accountable.
The more solid and clear you are in yourself, the more genuinely present and useful you can be for the people that are depending on you. I think a leader who hasn't done this work tends to actually kind of lean on the [00:28:00] team for their own certainty, whether they realize it or not. It's kind of an anxious, fragile kind of leadership
But a leader who has done this work brings something steady into the room instead. They bring a steadiness that from the top is one of the most valuable things I think you can offer your people that work for you, and in fact, inspire them. So let me leave you with three questions to sit with this week.
And, and, and again, I, I would, I would suggest that you don't just let these wash over you, but that you maybe actually take a few minutes to write in a notebook. Again, the power of writing. First, can I state in two or three sentences exactly what I'm being asked to accomplish, and would my team state it the same way? Secondly, what are my non-negotiable leadership principles, and have I, have I actually ever said them out loud or have I just assumed that people figure it out?
And thirdly, if somebody [00:29:00] asked me right now for my plan and how I'm holding myself accountable to it, could I answer in under a minute or would I be improvising right on the spot? Things to think about.
Phillip Weiss: That's it for episode four in our relationship quality series. As I mentioned, we've kind of really only begun to scratch the surface of this top-down classic leadership dynamic. There is so much more ground to cover, and we will keep building on this in episodes ahead.
But for now, do the work of leading yourself first. Everything else you're trying to build on, I think, uh, depends on it. And if you catch yourself winging it again next, you know, say, next Tuesday, no judgment. I'll probably be winging something myself that same day.
But just notice it and come back to the four points. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next time.