Transforming Leadership: How to Retain Talent and Cultivate Culture | Bonus Episode
Leadership in today’s world requires a nuanced approach that moves beyond traditional, rigid methods. The discussion highlights the importance of understanding individual team members, emphasizing that a one-size-fits-all philosophy is no longer effective. Arjun draws parallels between leadership in sports and corporate settings, citing the successes and failures of various renowned figures. By examining the coaching styles of notable leaders like Pete Carroll, who fosters deep connections with his players, the conversation explores how personal engagement can significantly influence team dynamics and retention. Ultimately, it’s about cultivating a culture where individuals feel valued and understood, leading to enhanced performance and loyalty. The key takeaway is that successful leaders must invest time in learning about their team members, which can create an unshakeable camaraderie and drive towards shared goals.
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Introduction to Leadership and Connection
(00:30) - The Rarity of Multi-Talented Success
(00:57) - The Challenge of Transitioning Skills
(01:16) - Understanding Leadership Failures
(02:22) - The Shift from Tough Love Leadership
(04:51) - Learning from Great Coaches: Pete Carroll
(06:37) - The Importance of Knowing Your Learner
(10:39) - Creating a Culture of Connection
(11:25) - Conclusion: The Human Experience in Leadership
Welcome to the LFG Energy podcast! Your host, Arjun Dhingra, is a two-time Taekwondo world champion and the former Team USA co-head coach. He is a 23-year mortgage veteran of the industry who loves influencing change in people.
This podcast is about the stories and lessons of those who have had their backs against the wall and have ultimately overcome. Former Olympians, coaches, entrepreneurs, and incredible human beings will share their experiences of resilience and beating the odds in spite of adversity so that you too can learn to start doing the same in your life.
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Transcript
If you are part of anything, where you are in a role of leadership or heading anything up again, regardless of the level or size, take the time to actually learn and connect with the people that are supposed to be following you.
Speaker A:If you do this, I promise you, you'll have greater chance of success, you'll have even greater retention and buy in, and you'll also be creating a culture where people are never going to want to turn it off for you.
Speaker A:Do you ever wonder why somebody was really good, if not excellent, in one particular area?
Speaker A:Like maybe running a company?
Speaker A:And then you just think that everything that this guy does has got to be so good or gal that whatever they touch is going to turn to gold, but that actually happens so rarely.
Speaker A:In fact, you can probably kind of want to hand how many people were great at one thing and then ultimately were able to follow that up with another great result.
Speaker A:Most of the time people have their genius zone just kind of honed in in one area and it's difficult to transition that over.
Speaker A:I want to focus on just athletes today.
Speaker A:As you know, that's where I come from and the space I love the most because I find it so relatable.
Speaker A:But I want to ask this question and get you guys thinking about it.
Speaker A:Why is it that some athletes are so great in one aspect and when they transition over to another, they end up being like sometimes these catastrophic failures or why is it that certain leaders or heads of state have so many people quitting their cabinet or leaving their administration?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If they were such a great leader and they got into that position, wouldn't everyone want to continue working for them?
Speaker A:Wouldn't everyone want to stay connected to them?
Speaker A:What is it that makes all these people quit?
Speaker A:Even a company or a head of a company, you think about a genius CEO or someone, one of these like renowned founders that has changed the world.
Speaker A:Why is it that they have such high turnover at their company or within their business?
Speaker A:There's a lot that goes into it.
Speaker A:I'm going to just focus on one key area to keep this simple.
Speaker A:But I don't mean to say simple in the context of that.
Speaker A:It's just a quick fix.
Speaker A:This is a pretty complex topic, but we're going to keep it simple and get right to the point with it today because I think it's going to be the separator between what keeps people really successful in their leadership style in the modern day versus those that just kind of flame out.
Speaker A:And what this ultimately comes down to, guys, is that the one size fits all philosophy when it comes to coaching or leadership is canceled.
Speaker A:That philosophy comes from the tough love days and I grew up in those days having played for coaches that were like this or having worked for people that were like this, where this one size fits all, take it or leave it my way or the highway type of talk and type of culture was what everyone was supposed to subscribe to and abide by.
Speaker A:And you were either on board with it or you weren't.
Speaker A:I'll give you some examples of people that are going to be tied to everyday life.
Speaker A:Think of on the political side, if you think of Donald Trump or even Kamala Harris, these are people who are really rigid in their governing and leadership style and it's evidenced by the fact that they have such high turnover within their cabinets and or administration or offices.
Speaker A:Now you can agree with these people politically or not.
Speaker A:I'm focused on what's actually happening culturally as it pertains to their leadership style and the people that are around them in sports.
Speaker A:Think of Bobby Knight.
Speaker A:Nobody was more tough love or hard headed and rigid than Bobby Knight.
Speaker A:Polarizing, rigid as I said, and definitely not for everyone.
Speaker A:You were either on board with it or you weren't.
Speaker A:Sure, they had loads of successes, tremendous wins and even some worthy of historical reference.
Speaker A:But it was clear that there was something missing.
Speaker A:One ingredient that if was part of the mix, might have prolonged their success, might have etched them even more and deeper into the history books and maybe would have kept more people around them for longer.
Speaker A:So I want you to do this.
Speaker A:I want you to think back to a coach that you played for.
Speaker A:If you were an athlete, whether it was in high school, collegiate, whatever it was, or someone that you worked for, a boss ahead of a department, a manager.
Speaker A:And this was somebody that you loved to work for or loved to play for or be coached by.
Speaker A:You bought into whatever that they had created.
Speaker A:You were so ingrained in that culture and you experienced so much growth and success as a result of it.
Speaker A:Do you recall, if you really think about it, what was it that made that experience so special and unique and what made you continue to think about it and miss those days and recall and gain so much strength and wisdom from your time there?
Speaker A:Now, I have worked for people like this.
Speaker A:I've been coached when I was an athlete by people like this.
Speaker A:And I very much tried to morph into a coach that would do this for the people that and athletes that I was going to serve during my tenure run as co head coach for Team usa.
Speaker A:But it took me some time to actually identify this.
Speaker A:And I didn't actually quite do it fully and come full circle with it all until I read a book by coach Pete Carroll.
Speaker A:Now, the book was called Win Forever, and I read it during the pandemic because that's all you could do, right?
Speaker A:Since we were all locked inside, you had to focus on personal growth or you just binged Netflix or drank.
Speaker A:Now, there were lots of aspects to what made Coach Carroll an amazing coach and someone who's going to be etched in the history books as one of the greatest.
Speaker A:He won at the collegiate level as a national champion as coach of the University of Southern California, which is one of my favorites because my dad went there for his graduate degree.
Speaker A:And then he also won as coach for the Seattle Seahawks.
Speaker A:Nearly won two Super Bowls, if not for a bad call at the goal line in the final seconds.
Speaker A:But there's no doubt that Pete Carroll is a Hall of Fame coach, world class in his craft, and that people loved playing for this guy.
Speaker A:There's an expression in coaching that people refer to their coaches or the people leading these teams as a player's coach, meaning players love to be coached by this person.
Speaker A:They love to play for this person.
Speaker A:They give it their all for this person.
Speaker A:Now, sure, he was a disciplinarian, but he had a unique way of connecting with people that I think we can all learn something from when it comes to either leading our groups, whether we are sales managers or we head up a small team or a unit, or if you're in a real serious position of leadership, whether it's in government or politics or you are heading up an organization or you're an actual coach of a team.
Speaker A:Now, again, if you read Coach Carroll's book, there's a lot that goes into this.
Speaker A:But the one takeaway, which is what this episode is all about today, is the concept of learning your learner or knowing the people that you actually coach.
Speaker A:Now, for the one size fits all tough love people, their philosophy was served as is because this is what they wholeheartedly believed in, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker A:I think that's actually a starting point because part of having a coaching or leadership philosophy is to clearly state what it is you stand for, what you're going to tolerate or not tolerate.
Speaker A:You need this.
Speaker A:It's paramount.
Speaker A:It's part of the foundation if you're going to have any kind of success in this arena.
Speaker A:But in the tough love days, that's where it stopped.
Speaker A:Once they had that, they served it to you and it was take it or Leave it, get on board with this now we're in a different era and that doesn't quite work the same way.
Speaker A:And I don't mean that people are getting soft because I'm definitely against that.
Speaker A:If you know anything about me, I don't want anyone to ever get soft.
Speaker A:But I think as human beings, as employees, as entrepreneurs, as individuals, we're all starting to develop a different degree of self awareness.
Speaker A:First of all, we're acknowledging that it actually exists and we're understanding that there's a whole emotional component to everything that we do and how we connect with people and how we want to be connected with.
Speaker A:So the concept of learning your learner is to understand that one size fits all is not going to work when it comes to communicating.
Speaker A:You can have your culture and your philosophy of what you want to stand for as a coach or a leader.
Speaker A:Is this hitting home with you guys?
Speaker A:Let me know if this type of a strategy is something you've already incorporated or you now feel like you're going to incorporate.
Speaker A:And how are you going to do it?
Speaker A:Drop me a comment on that here in the comments section.
Speaker A:But then if you want to get the most out of all the people that you're serving and leading, you've got to find out what makes each of these individuals tick.
Speaker A:This is the success of any community or group is knowing how does that particular person respond?
Speaker A:How do I reach this person, what's going on in that person's life, taking the time to do this.
Speaker A:And I'm not saying that coaches and leaders of the past didn't spend any time on this, but I don't think it was done enough.
Speaker A:Because if you do this, this pretty much tightens all the gaps to where there's no fall through when it comes to retention and also when it comes to continuing to build a culture where others are going to want to buy in and continue to buy in and keep drinking what you're serving as a coach.
Speaker A:And I don't mean that manipulatively, I mean you have this cult like following of people that will walk through fire for you.
Speaker A:And if we think about it closely, guys, the best coaches and leaders, the people that followed them, actually employed this type of a mindset.
Speaker A:Now in the 10 years that I coached, I tried to make it a point and I think everybody can do this.
Speaker A:When it comes to evaluating or taking stock of what you've done thus far, adjusting what's working, what's not working, and make the pivots that are necessary to take some steps forward and advance.
Speaker A:But every single time we finished a coaching cycle through the World Championships in Taekwondo, I would sit down and evaluate all the coaching notes that I had from all of the months of training, all the people that I was connecting with, and I would be really, really hard on myself in all of the lead up to the actual moments and big events, and then what I was actually doing during those events.
Speaker A:And what could I have done differently?
Speaker A:What adjustments could I have made?
Speaker A:What could I have done to serve my athletes better and ensure that they had an even better chance of success in those great moments?
Speaker A:Because that's who I'm there to serve.
Speaker A:And I feel like with each cycle I got a little bit better.
Speaker A:And the final one, before I stepped down as co head coach, which I believe was my best personality performance as a coach in terms of the people I reached and served, it was because of this I really spent the time to connect with all of the individual athletes and learn what makes them tick, how do they respond, what's the best way to get more out of them?
Speaker A:Because if I had just applied what I started with on day one, which was the one size fits all approach, and in my defense, it's all I knew because that's how I was coached, that's how I came up in athletics, it wouldn't have worked, and it wasn't working in the beginning, but each time I would evolve by spending a little bit more time connecting with the people that were part of my team, part of my organization.
Speaker A:So for you, if you are part of anything, where you are in a role of leadership or heading anything up again, regardless of the level or size, take the time to actually learn and connect with the people that are supposed to be following you.
Speaker A:If you do this, I promise you, you'll have greater chance of success, you'll have even greater retention and buy in, and you'll also be creating a culture where people are never going to want to turn it off for you.
Speaker A:And that creates such team and camaraderie and a force that ultimately can't be stopped.
Speaker A:So sure, it's fine to be polarizing and rigid in certain ways, but I think you can have that and be really firm and concrete in terms of your philosophy, but still employ this human aspect of connecting with other people, learning what makes them tick and how they operate, and ultimately seeking the best ways to get the most out of them.
Speaker A:That's what the human experience is all about.
Speaker A:And when you've had that done to you, it unleashes all kinds of growth and positivity.
Speaker A:So I hope you got something out of this if you are in a position of leadership or you hope to be one day.
Speaker A:And remember this podcast, because I know from personal experience this has been the difference between having ultimate success and just getting by and also having people stay with me versus losing them along the way.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening guys, and we'll catch you on the next episode.
