An inclusive leader establishes an environment where everyone on the team feels that they belong, and are valued for who they are for what they bring to the team. Team members feel that they are treated equitably and that they have the tools and resources they need to grow, improve, and move toward reaching their full potential. Many leaders assume they already do this well. But, inclusive leadership is not a default behavior for many leaders––it requires intentional effort. Today Chris and Perry discuss what it takes to be an effective, inclusive leader.

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Perry Holley:    Welcome to the John Maxwell Executive Leadership podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, John Maxwell facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:     And I’m Chris Goede, Vice President of the John Maxwell Company. Welcome, and thank you for joining.

Just as a reminder, before we get started, Perry and I talk about this a lot, but The 5 Levels of Leadership is really a foundation of which we help organizations, and leaders around the world, really help build a leadership culture. And so if you want to learn more about that model, even the 360° content that Perry’s written some content for us on, don’t hesitate to go to johnmaxwellcompany.com/podcast. And if you want to download the learner guide for today’s session, access to blogs, different resources there, please visit us there.

Well, I’m excited to let you know that, due to technology and everything that we’ve learned over the last 12 months, we are continuing our podcast series. Perry and I may sound a little bit different today. We’re doing this virtually because of our locations, but we didn’t want to miss this month. We wanted to make sure that we get this content out to you. And so I’m grateful for technology, and that’s tough to say. Right? Coming after the 12 months of what we’ve all led through. I know some of you are like, “I’m tired of technology.” But without that, we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this today and keep us on track, so I’m grateful for that.

But today’s topic, and something I think that’s so relevant, and Perry’s written a series for us, that is going to be four great lessons for us as leaders, but today’s topic is self-awareness and the inclusive leader.

Perry Holley:    Hmm.

Chris Goede:     And yeah, Perry, hmm is right. I think about that. I go, man, that whole title is loaded. The self-awareness piece, which we talk about leaders, the longer you’ve lead, the more complacent you get, the more unaware you become of yourself as a leader. I often joke around and say, “What’s it look like to be on the other side of your leadership?” And then run out of the room, because we really don’t want to know.

Can we talk about this inclusive leader part. Right? This is something that a lot of leaders are talking about. I think all of us are getting to the point to where we’re seeing more and more diversity on our teams. But what I love about this, and where we’re going, is that inclusion is still a choice that leaders have to make every day, and some aren’t making that. In order for us to really go after the best results as a team, both individually, for the organization, for your team members, we got to really think about, what does this look like? Because you can have the most diverse team possible, but if you don’t get people on that team that feel like they belong, they’re going to disengage from you, to your example, they’re going to be in the back of the rowboat, dropping their anchor. It is just going to be a lack of engagement on your team. And you’re going to miss out, as a leader, you’re going to miss out. Your people are going to miss out, and the organization is going to miss out.

So man, I’m super excited. I know you’ve done a ton of work on this Perry, not just for this podcast series, but even with some of your consulting, and your coaching prior to this. So talk a little bit about your heart, and around this inclusive leadership, and why you’re bringing this content to us for this series.

Perry Holley:    Yeah. I think you said it really well, the diversity and inclusion that was called diversity and inclusion for so long, and people talk about that. The part of that, the I part of that inclusion, is really where it’s a choice, as you said. Other things I can do as a leader that could exclude you, or include you, and what would included mean? What would that mean to my team? If everybody on my team felt safe, welcome, belong, that they could be themselves, their authentic self, whomever they are, whatever their makeup is, that they are welcome here. Would that be a different culture in my organization? Would it? And can I, as a leader, have impact on that. I tell you, I started today with this idea of self-awareness was, found it interesting.

You have consultants that work for you that are serving our clients around the country and the world. And I just ask from time to time, when we’re on our team calls or things, I’ll say, “What are you hearing? What’s the biggest requirement? What are people asking for?” And several of them said, “Do you have anything on self-awareness?” Because I think leaders are figuring out that if you’re not self-aware, it’s going to be very difficult for you to adapt to this. That’s why I made it first. You’re really not going to be a very good inclusive style leader if you can’t be self-aware about who you are? And so, I thought through, what would that look like? I really have a handful of questions that I would like to figure out what those are, how we ask that, to figure it out if I’m inclusive in doing that.

Chris Goede:     When you say, hand full of questions, is this meaning five? Because I know that you like to bring us five points from every which way, and I love the number five. Or is this a new way of saying it, or what’s going on?

Perry Holley:    Gosh, you are on today, I’m telling you. I thought I could get that by you. Just a handful of questions, yeah, there might be five. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll maybe I’ll do 5.5 again. I think that threw you a real loop when I did that.

Chris Goede:     Yeah. Yesterday, I was with an organization and we were talking about culture, and we were talking about self-awareness, and we were talking about this inclusive way to lead. It’s interesting, because Greg Cagle, who was facilitating the day for us, talks a lot about, you got to really think about what is it that we… We think, we act, and we interact. And when you think about that around culture, that’s so true in regards to, as a leader, how do we think, how do we act, how do we interact? And what you’re talking about here, and where we’re going to go, is the self-awareness piece, which is about the thinking piece. Right? And acting.

But then this inclusivity is this interacting. I think inclusive leaders establish this environment where everyone on the team again, feels like they belong there. They feel valued for who they are and what they bring to the table. I had to have a conversation just this morning with a team member, and they had to make sure that even though they have diverse talents, that they’re bringing to our team, that we value those, and need those, in order for us to be as successful as we can, not only as leaders, but as team members. And so, when those team members that know they’re different. Right? And we all are different, by the way. Last time I checked Perry, no one else has the same DNA that I do. Right? The same background, the same story. Good. My wife would be saying, “Amen, thank the Lord for that.” But, we need to make sure that they’re treated equitably, and that they have the tools and the resources, and you have the tools and the resources, to grow and improve, and move towards reaching the full potential that you’ve been created to reach.

The other thing I can’t wait to get into is this equity versus equality, and we’re going to have those conversations. You and I’ve had some one-off conversations about that, to really understand and learn, and help some of leaders we’ve been working on. And so we’re going to get to that. But for now, you need to know that equality is giving everyone the same, and equity is giving each person what they need. I love how you say this. You’ve taught me this. Sameness versus fairness. Right? As a leader, and you need to be aware of this. Then you add inclusion, which is really as a leader, what allows you to get, experience the value from your diverse team. You can have a diverse team, but if you don’t figure out that inclusion part of it, then you’re missing out. So that’s where I’m excited about what you’re bringing to us, and your experience, and where we’re going with this topic today.

Perry Holley:    Yeah. It’ll be over the next probably, three or four episodes here, that I want to unpack this, really looking at what is the self-awareness starting point, and then the skills. What are the skill sets we need to be a more inclusive leader? Where does my intentionality really need to shine out?

I got a piece in there on cultural intelligence. So how culturally intelligent are you as a leader, and why would you even need to be? And then of course, where do you find the inclusive leader in the 5 Levels model? And so, we’re going to really get deeper on equality versus equity. I’ll provide a word picture that you can always think of, if you’re not clear on what that means. It has been very helpful to me personally, in doing that.

But if we dive in on this subject on self-awareness, I know the world’s changed over the last decade. Populations are changing, movement’s easy, especially United States, we’ve grown much more diverse, and that’s really good. With a team made up of individuals from very diverse backgrounds, you really open the door for this. The reason why we would want to do this is when you value people, and they feel like they can be themselves, you really unlock competitive advantage, more collaboration, higher morale, a higher engagement, which we talk about a lot here, greater retention of that top talent.

But if that diversity, even if this is high, you’ve got a really diverse team from different backgrounds, different come froms, you do not have that inclusive behavior, you risk… And I read this in a study. They said that the diverse people will even, they use the word assimilate. They will say, “This is too hard to be myself here. I’ll just be more like you, be more like the dominant culture. I can’t be me, so I’ll just act like you.” And you think about all that work you did to build and intentionally put together a diverse group of people, you just lost all the advantage in that. Everything really hinges on the leader. Just like John said, everything rises and falls on leadership.

Chris Goede:     Yeah. Now, this totally makes sense on why you wanted to start there. Right? We want to start with self. Leaders go first, and we need to make sure that we are self-aware. Again, I just want to go back to something I said when we kicked off this lesson today. I cannot tell you how many leaders, and I know I fall in this category, Perry, you do, leaders inside of our organization that we work with that are unaware of their blind spots, are unaware of their gaps in competencies, are unaware of where some of their strengths are.

Unawareness can be on a positive side or a negative side. And I think we become to the point where we’re not as aware as we need to be. So if we want a team that’s going to be like that, we got to make sure that as leaders, we are like that. And I’ve heard John say this, and I’ve heard other people say it, so, I’m not sure exactly where it came from. But we, they talk about how people don’t see things the way they are, they see things based on how they are, or themselves. Or, we talk a lot about it from the lens principle, when we’re talking about that from the leadership, and I think we’ve got to. It’s easy to say, “You’ve got to become more self-aware.” But let’s give, because John says, “Hey, let’s put the cookies on the bottom shelf.” That’s the only reason that Jake, you and I, are even able to do what we do. Right? Because it’s simple. It’s not simple to live out, but it’s simple to understand. So let’s talk a little bit about, how do we become more self-aware?

Perry Holley:    Yeah, we can do that. Tell me this. You did something a couple of podcasts ago where I would throw something out, and you’d say, “Well, I’m thinking, if I’m on the opposite side, what does the opposite of it looked like?”

Chris Goede:     Okay.

Perry Holley:    If I say… Because self-aware is a little bit hard to define, it’s a little mushy, you think, well, how do you know if someone is or isn’t? But you can tell. If you’ve ever been around someone who is not self-aware, what did you notice?

Chris Goede:     I’m going to protect the innocents here, and not mention any names. But yeah, that’s a great question. When I think about an unaware leader, and I’ve had a couple, I know everybody listening has had a couple. In fact, everybody listening is thinking probably two to four people right now, right off the top of their head. And hopefully, yeah, no, I’m going to stop right there.

When I think about that though, I think it’s a really good question, when you say, okay, what, in your experience, Chris, as growing up through leadership organizations, and different organizations, right, outside of the John Maxwell world, what does it look like to work for an unaware leader? I think the first two things that come to my mind is that, this is an age old little quote, right, to where their walk is not lining up with their talk. And then, what ends up happening is that becomes contagious. You say it all the time, that everybody’s watching you all the time.

And so your team, or the team for that leader that you worked with, that was unaware of the fact that their actions weren’t aligning with what they were preaching, what they were teaching, then the team followed suit. And all of a sudden, we just had a discombobbled team that you could begin to question the integrity behind what we were saying, versus what we were actually doing. And then, what ends up happening out of that. You want to talk about disengagement, and you want to talk about where the water cooler talks and you begin to, I like your example a little bit ago, where then you begin to get into silos of their own little disengagement teams. And so all of a sudden, we had two or three teams inside a team that were all saying the same thing, but acting two or three different ways. And so, it’s a complete mess for those leaders that are completely unaware.

Perry Holley:    You can notice it. To notice someone who is self-aware, there’s a few things that I pulled out for me that I want to be known for. And I also, I think, is helpful for any leader to consider this. But if I find someone that has a high degree of self-awareness, they are generally aware of their own strengths and weaknesses. They’re not fooling themselves. They’re not kidding themselves about what they can and can’t do, what they’re best at, and what they’re not best at. So there’s a general self-awareness about strengths and weaknesses. If you’re a high self-aware leader, you are probably aware, and very aware, of your effect on other people. You talk about that, what’s it feel like to be on the other side of your leadership?

I wrote an article once on my website, about how much wake do you create? It was on a boating trip, and watched some inexperienced boater pull the boat into the marina going full speed. The reason they have a no wake zone is because they don’t want everything banging up against each other. Well, that’s exactly what unaware leaders do, is they come into a room and they have no self-awareness of their effect on other people, and you start banging people up against each other.

Number three is, I find that highly self-aware people are aware of other’s presence, and other people’s contributions. Other people’s presence in the situation, in the room, in the dialogue, in the circumstance, and the contributions that they have.

I’ll just add onto those three, that self-aware people are generally growth mindset type of people. They exhibit a large amount of humility, most likely, because they know, they’re self-aware that they are not the own… They’re more others oriented, not self oriented. They may also use vulnerability, a big word in leadership today, to invite other people into the conversation. And the emotions of other people don’t threaten them. You getting upset actually causes me to lean in. It might even be empathy to say, “I care. And, I’m aware that something’s not right here.” And I think about these factors. I mean, just the time we’ve been talking there, is that why self-awareness is considered one of the real essential factors in your leadership effectiveness, I think.

Chris Goede:     Well, it’s interesting. What we’re talking about here is, in order for us to get to inclusivity, it starts with us as leaders around self-awareness. So not only those things that Perry just mentioned to you, but there are also incredible tools out there. We are all familiar with Myers-Briggs, and DISC, and Enneagrams are big. My wife loves the Enneagram. And as you begin to learn more… We use an incredible tool, we partner with RightPath Resources, where it’s really a behavioral profile to where man, it gets down into… We like to talk about it being the x-ray and the MRI, and even down into a little bit further, what we call the sub factors. Which are an area of sub factors that really drive why you do what you do. And if you find the right assessment, man, they are so enlightening.

Now I say that, but what’s enlightening about them is, when you invest in allowing somebody to interpret the data for you, don’t… Listen. Perry, you know a couple of leaders that have taken their assessment, and been like, “It’s exactly what I thought.” Right? Then they’re completely misinterpreting data, and there is no self awareness there. And so I want to encourage those leaders. And get people around you that will be candid, that will be honest, that will help point out your flaws, and not take offense to it. And be able to have those candid conversations and use tools and assessments, say, is this really what this looks like? Can you help me speak into this? And I think once you get a good understanding of that, both your strengths and the struggles, or opportunities for growth, then I think what’s going to end up happening is, it’s just going to drive your ability to interact with your team, with your people, and be able to include them in a way that they’ll want to be included.

I love your word about even just transparency. Yesterday, again, we were with a client on site, and socially distancing, wearing masks, and doing all the right thing. And the leader got up in front of the room, and was just, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to this, let’s talk about it. What questions do you have? What questions can we have? Matter of fact, tell you what, I don’t want any solutions to this problem. I want, what questions should we be asking? Because I need you to help me figure that out. And I was like, wow.

Perry Holley:    That’s vulnerable.

Chris Goede:     Yeah. And so I think that when you’re able to do that, and you have that type of confidence in yourself, and be able to be comfortable with it, it just goes a tremendous way of having inclusivity around your team.

Perry Holley:    Right. And I do agree, we do the RightPath, and we always do it in every coaching agreement we have. We do a debrief on that, and we walk through where your strengths and weaknesses are. But also, what are your learned behaviors, your values, how do they fit into that? So we’re looking at the picture of who you are.

Another thing that comes out of that… So that’s a picture of who you are. The next one, I would think, the 360 assessments, another one we use a lot, also from RightPath. The 360 assessment tells us what other people think you are. I think, if there’s nothing better for a good old, healthy self-awareness session then, to receive the feedback of those above you, beside you, and below you, candidly with you and your coach, one-on-one in a dark, quiet soundproof room.

Chris Goede:     Maybe a few beverages. I don’t know, whatever it might take for you to get through.

Perry Holley:    Boy, I’ll tell ya. But yeah, it’s a great tool. So once you have those two together, I think it’s a great starting point for knowing who I am just naturally, and my temperaments, and then, how do I come across to others? And that sets us on a plan for what we can do to make it better.

Chris Goede:     Yeah, we all have a certain image about ourselves, and we all have an intent behind what we do. However, we need to make sure that we compare that to what we’re seeing on these assessments, the conversations that we’re having with our team, to make sure that there is not too big of a deviation between what our image is, and what we think, versus what those that we have the privilege of leading or influencing or being around think. Because we know our intent, it’s so easy to think about ourselves as being better than we really are. And I’m not saying this in a negative way. I want people to have a positive self image. I want you to carry yourself with an executive presence. I want you to have positive self image, but I want to make sure that we’re doing it in a altruistic way that you’re able to build off of.

Listen, the only way for us to really grow in anything is to truly know where you’re starting. Right? We talk about this all the time. One of the hardest things that we have to do in our industry is, how do you measure development? That’s what we’re talking about. This emotional intelligence, this becoming aware of self and leading self. It’s so hard to be able to do that.

And I go back, I’ll give you this one last illustration. I’ve used this before. I love what you were talking about the RightPath, which is how you’re wired. And then this MLA, Maxwell Leadership Assessment, it’s like a 360. I say it this way. Anytime you take a personality profile assessment, it’s like the cards you have been dealt. This 360 is, how are you playing your cards? I think that as leaders, I think we have some gaps in both assessments that we need to be aware of.

Perry Holley:    I totally agree. So I want to just, I’ve got these questions that I thought might be helpful to ask.

Chris Goede:     Yeah.

Perry Holley:    And I’ll try, it’s a handful. And I would-

Chris Goede:     Five?

Perry Holley:    … love to.

Chris Goede:     They’re five?

Perry Holley:    There might be some. Yeah. But let’s just do it rapid fire here, and then I’ll let you wrap it up for us, save it.

Chris Goede:     Okay.

Perry Holley:    I’ll share what I think the question is, and maybe you could add your comment on, where the value of that, how you do that, is there any advice you’d like to give on that?

Question number one is, asking yourself, what is your reputation as a leader? What is it, and you’ve already said it, what does it feel to be on the other side of your leadership? But how hard is it for someone to assess, what is their reputation as a leader? We all coach enough people to say, “Oh, I’m an outstanding leader.” It says you, what does it feel like? I guess a self-aware, versus a not self-aware person. But what’s your thought on your reputation as a leader?

Chris Goede:     Yeah, I think, it precedes you. You always hear that. Right? It’s out in front of you, and your reputation is based off of how people have experienced you in the past. It has nothing to do with what you’re thinking about yourself as a leader. That’s why I like the 360° content that John talks about so much. To where I say, “Hey, you have to understand that we believe leadership is influence, not a title, not a position not a tenure.” So you have influence with people that you report to, your peers, people that work directly with you, vendors, family members, whatever that might look like. I think when you begin to look at that, as that holistic picture of what your leadership looks like, that would give you a really good picture of what your reputation is as a leader.

Perry Holley:    Yeah. Fantastic. The second question, I’m going to say this, I’m going to say it twice. What is your level of influence with the people around you? And then the way I would rephrase that, what’s your level of influence with the people around you, really?

Chris Goede:     Yeah.

Perry Holley:    Really.

Chris Goede:     Yeah.

Perry Holley:    Because I think we tend to kid ourselves again, a little bit about that. But how do you judge your level of influence with the people around you, really?

Chris Goede:     Yeah. I love the really question, because that aligns with what we tell leaders all the time, which is, hey, in this 5 Levels model that Perry and I are so passionate about, and we build these organizational cultures off of, once you understand this model, let me be very clear about something. You don’t get to decide what level you’re on with people.

Perry Holley:    Yeah.

Chris Goede:     They do. Right? We joke around and be like, “Hey, my name’s Chris Goede, I’m a level four leader. We’re going to kill it on my team.” I’m like, this guy’s an idiot. I’m out of here. He has no earthly idea. And so to truly understand what your influence level is, I think if they understand the 5 Levels, because that’s the model, which we believe in, once they understand it is to have an open conversation. And to say, “Hey, no job threat here. You have job security.” Could you just truly tell me, when I explain this model to you, where’s my influence level with you? Because it’s my job as a leader to close that gap and continue to take us on this journey. Us as a team, and each other. So the only way to truly do that, number one, is to teach them the model. But number two is, then to ask those questions in a conversation of those that you have the privilege of leading.

Perry Holley:    Yeah. Question three. I was thinking about your reputation, but also as it aligns with your values. If you’re a self-aware leader, does your reputation align with your values? How do you see that one?

Chris Goede:     Well, I’ll tell you, I think this is a great question. Because oftentimes, if I’m just being honest, in a lot of organizations that we work with, there is not an alignment when it comes to this. It’s like when we get into leading people and when we get into running organizations, it’s all of a sudden, a lot of us feel like, hey, our values don’t need to be present in the workplace. Our values are a personal thing. I think you and I would agree that that is not the case. Your values are your decision making filter, period, both personally and professionally. And so your reputation ought to be in direct alignment with what you value.

Now, the great thing about this is, if there is complete alignment and transparency with that, then your leader, the individual you report to, will be able to lead you so effectively. Because they’ll be able to speak to, and lead you through those values, and most importantly, not violate them. I think if they’re not in alignment, then even if someone violated your values, right, and they didn’t even know it was different than your reputation, it wouldn’t even matter. And so for us, it’s one in the same. Your reputation should be in direct alignment with your values.

Perry Holley:    Yep. Absolutely. Question four. How do you want to be perceived by others? I’m always thinking about, do you have control over that, or you just assuming I’m perceived a certain way. But how are you actually, how do you want to be perceived by other people?

Chris Goede:     Yeah. This goes back to… So two questions there. How do you want to be perceived? I think you do, but again, we’re going back to the topic today that you’re bringing it to us, is the self-awareness. And if you do it really, really well, not only will you increase your influence as a leader, but you’re going to drive inclusivity, which is what we’re talking about.

I think this concept of the intent versus perception gap, where we all judge ourselves again, I’ve used this word a couple of times in today’s session. We all judge ourselves by our intent, and yet, we judge other people by their actions. It’s human nature, right? So we need to understand that our people are doing the same thing with us. They have a pure intent, but they’re really just judging us by our actions. And until you begin to have a dialogue and a conversation, and you communicate with your team and saying, “Hey, this is my intent behind this. How is that being received? How do you perceive that? What am I missing? Where are the gaps in that?” And then as a leader, it’s our responsibility to close that intent, versus perception gap. I think the only way you’ll really, truly know how your decisions, how your reputation, maybe even your values, are perceived by others is, begin to have those conversations.

 

Perry Holley:    Very good. I added this number five based on some other work we’ve been working on together, but what is it you want to be known for? And I guess, you need to ask this, it’s a two-part question, not only what do you want to be known for, but what are you known for?

Chris Goede:     Yeah.

Perry Holley:    Can you identify that gap? I guess. What do you think?

Chris Goede:     Yeah, there is a gap. Right? And I’m really excited about this conversation, I think, even just us bringing it up here in this lesson. Because we’re working with Jeff Henderson to help organizations begin to define this gap that they do have. Because I think, if you think about your leadership team, let’s say maybe it’s just your team in general, maybe it’s your department, whatever it might be, I think if you said, “Hey, what is it that you think our organization, our team, our department is known for? How do we serve our team, the organization, the clients best, what does that look like?” And then you went and asked the end user, or the customer, “Hey, what is Perry’s department known for? What is Perry’s product known for?” I promise you this right now, that there is a major gap between the two of them.

Again, this is our common theme, at least in my head right now, keeps coming back to this communication, and this open dialogue, and this transparency. Are we truly being honest between really what we want to be known for, and what we actually are known for? I think there’s a big gap there, and until you have that conversation, and until we’re bringing some of this content from Jeff, who’s an incredible communicator, wrote a book on it, and we’re going to have some of these leadership teams be able to go through this and be able to really, really discover what is, where’s the gap, and how do we get in direct alignment with that, so that we’re credible?

Perry Holley:    Yeah. I think it’s one of the great self-awareness questions of all time. What do you want to be known for? What are you known for? And I’ll close it with, I couldn’t leave it at five, so five and a half or six, wherever you want to call it.

Chris Goede:     I’m staying with five. 5.5.

Perry Holley:    5.5 is, I think that a very self-aware people, how aware are you of your unique strength, your superpower? What is it you do better than others?. I think if you know that, your self-awareness on that, it’ll stop you from trying to be super everything else, that you’re not unique, strengths set, and invite others to the table, but it’ll help you fine tune your brilliance while you’re there, what you add.

Chris Goede:     Yeah. I think leadership is contagious. Again, back to your comment about people are watching you as a leader all the time. I think there are questions you need to be asking yourself, which is what is it that only I can do for our department, for our team, for the organization that would serve our team, our department, the organization, the best? What is that? I think you can even have an open conversation with your team to identify that for each team member, and go around the room and say, “Hey, this is what your superpower is for our team. We need you to stay right in that lane.” And I think as you begin to model that, you begin to have that self-awareness, and become aware of that, and have your team help you become aware of that.

What I love about this is, you’re building a team that is then becoming very self-aware of their superpower. You want to have a team that’s very effective, very efficient. You get a great team full of people that are extremely self-aware, very comfortable with the differences, and being able to drive for inclusivity on business practices, KPIs, and all kinds of ideas. Man, I think your production, and your fulfillment as a team will go through the roof.

As I wrap up, man, I think there’s a lot that we talked about today from a very high level. What I love about what we get to do is that leaders are struggling with these type of topics, whether they want to admit them or not. That’s the first self-awareness problem.

Perry Holley:    That they’re not self-aware.

Chris Goede:     They’re not self-aware. Some are, don’t want to talk about it. Some aren’t, and want to talk about how they are. That’s probably a whole other podcast. I’ll let you get creative on that title.

But what I love about this is that, this is at the root of how you become a better, more effective leader of people, is the self-awareness. And so we’ve given you some tools, some ideas, some thoughts, some questions. Maybe you even have a team.

This is my closing thought. Coming off of yesterday, my closing thought was, we developed a content piece called, Discovering Your Authentic Leadership Style, and I love that. It’s a little bit of a long title, but we take this RightPath profile, we begin to talk about, what does it look like for you to be an incredible leader, to increase your influence? Because, there’s all kinds of different profiles, all kinds of types of makeups of people, and DNA, and all that stuff, but how you were created, you can lead great just from where you are, but you got to become very aware. You got to know where your superpowers are. You got to know where your blind spots are. You got to know all those things that come with it. And so I would encourage you, ask the questions that Perry asked of me, have the conversations with your team, be vulnerable, be transparent.

And if we can help you in any way, again, go back to what I said early on about questions or thoughts, go to johnmaxwellcompany.com/podcast. Even if you want to learn more about the Discovering Your Authentic Leadership Style course and bringing it to your team, man, Perry and I would absolutely love to be able to do that. So that’s my takeaway thought for them. It just led to me thinking about that content piece.

Perry Holley:    Yep. Thank you, Chris. This self-awareness is so important because, you can do all the inclusive and diverse behaviors you want, people will exclude themselves if they find themselves working for someone who is not self-aware. So the first step you take is the most important.

Chris mentioned it earlier, but we have a learner guide for this episode, if you’d like to download that. If you’d like to leave us a comment or a question, you may do all of that at johnmaxwellcompany.com/podcast. We always love hearing from you there. And as always, we’re so grateful that you would spend these few minutes with us each week.

And that’s all today from the John Maxwell Executive Leadership podcast.