[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Cultural Things podcast. I'm your host, Brendan Rogers, and this is episode 58. And today I'm speaking with a fellow Liverpool supporter, Tom Lawrence. Tom's over in the uk. Tom, how are you, buddy?
[00:00:15] Speaker B: I'm not too bad, thank you. How are you?
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Very well, very well. But I'm going to give the listeners a bit of a view on your bio in a second. But you were just holding up a photo. What is that photo?
[00:00:25] Speaker B: This is me holding the Liverpool, the Champions League trophy that Liverpool won in 2005.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: The reason I'm holding that in 2011 is because we actually get to kept that trophy because we won it five times. I don't know if any club, is there any supporters on this who've won the Champions League trophy five times? I don't think there is, is there?
[00:00:45] Speaker A: I don't think there is, mate, at all, actually. So great point. A fantastic way to start the podcast. Well done, mate.
You're a champion. And I've got my Liverpool scarf on here as well. And all your stuff. So you're in London, but all your stuff's back home in Liverpool. But it's in your heart, no doubt, definitely.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Oh, definitely, mate.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Good to have you on. I'll go through a little bit of your bio and we'll get into our topic today. So Tom began his career in 1999 as an apprentice mechanical engineer with an automotive company in Liverpool, uk.
He moved into the train operator industry and earned his degree in mechanical engineering, his master's degree in maintenance engineering, and started his first leadership role as a project manager in 2009. Tom moved from Liverpool in 2011 and took on roles in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, where he now lives. Tom became a Chartered Engineer in 2013 and is a mentor for new and upcoming engineers working towards their chartership. There are hundreds of books that teach us how to be a leader. Most of them are good and teach the right things. But Tom has seen very few that teach us how to influence our people or take our personal growth seriously, or even lead if you're not in a leadership position. Tom wants to help people who are not in a leadership position but are aspiring to become a leader. Current managers who want to take the next step and become a highly effective leader and to help senior leaders enhance their leadership skills. And today, the focus of our conversation today is how to be a highly effective leader. So, Tom, officially welcome to the Culture of Things podcast.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Thank you. Great to be here, mate.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: It's fantastic to have you here. I didn't mention the book in the intro at all. You've written a book to tell us just a little bit about the process of this book. What's the book called and what is it about?
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Well, the book is called. It's basically what you've just read out in the bio is the book is called Manager to Leader and the subtitle is how to Be a Highly Effective Leader. So it's basically me writing my own story of how I became or how I started in a leadership position. But it's also then teaching the principles of when you do get that leadership position, you know, are you a manager or are you a leader? And it's like how to influence your people to want to follow you because they want to, not because they have to. And it's. And that's basically what a highly effective leader does.
They lead by example, they build trust with their people. And without trust, as I say, you can't influence or lead your people. It's impossible. Trust is the foundation of leadership. And that's actually chapter four in the book. So if anyone who's listening has got the book, make sure that when you read chapter four, you read it again and again because without trust there's no leadership. And that's basically what a manager and what a manager does to become a leader.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah mate, once again a great point, absolutely around trust and a foundation of so many things around leadership, isn't it? Why was it so important for you to write a book like this? Something with a bit of a practical take on leadership.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: As you mentioned, I've been in leadership positions since 2009, but I've obviously since 1999 I've worked for or with supervisors, managers, people who were in leadership positions. And most of them, this is when I was living in Liverpool, most of them were very old school type leaders, they're very dictator type, tells you what to do, didn't really listen to you, basically just do the bare minimum just to get the job done and then go home and then go have the weekend and come back on Monday and do exactly the same. There was no sort of, not a lot of like trying to develop you into a leader yourself or to develop you into, into a better engineer. It was just to sort of give you the right amount of training just to get the job done. And at the end of the day it wasn't about, you know, how you felt at work, it was just getting the job done. That was all it was about. And after a while, when I took my own leadership positions from 2009 up until 2018, I was trying to teach myself leadership and follow a certain style of leadership, which was, you know, to. Is to influence your people. Like when I first read John Maxwell's book, the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, that was in 2010. That was what turned me on about maybe I could become someone like John Maxwell, maybe I could do that in the future.
But what I needed at the time was experience to do it. So it's always been a dream of mine since, as I say, 2010, to become a leadership coach or a leadership teacher, whatever, whatever you want to call it, and to help people with their leadership skills. Because I don't like people going through the same journey as me, especially in the engineering world, where I'm from, and being dictated to and being told what to do every single day and coming to work and with the feeling of, I don't really want to be here and waking up in the morning thinking, oh, do I really want to get up this morning to go to work? There was even times when I thought, what kind of excuse can I think of to fall in sick? And there's a lot of people like that, and there still is all around the uk, around Europe, around the world. And I want to be one of those people who makes a difference in people's lives to change that. So the thought of writing a book actually did come to me in 2010, but I just didn't have the experience to do it. And then in 2018, I was working for a London rail company as a technical manager. And the role that I was doing was the deputy professional head of engineering. And basically the leaders who I worked for had a very similar view or a very similar stance to the leaders I'd worked for in the past. It was, you know, just do what you need to do to get the job done. It wasn't about, you know, being a great leader or anything like that, or developing your people. It was just about, you know, let's get the trains out the door, let's get profit into the business, all that type of thing. Whereas I saw it differently. But I just couldn't convince people. And after a while, I burnt myself out in that job and came out of it. And I took three months out of the job, and within that three months, I got a new job as a consultant, which I'm doing, which I'm working as now. And that was when I decided to write the book, because, you know, I had like 10 years experience at that time, but also because I was at a stage where Enough is enough. I need to do something to change, to change my life. And maybe writing the book is the way to do it. And, you know, I've been on that journey now since February 2019, and I'm still on that journey and I'm standing at between. Between February 2019 and now. I've helped quite a lot of people and people have bought the book and as you've said to me, it's really helped them. So hopefully I can expand on that and grow highly effectiveleader.com to become one of the biggest and best leadership companies there is.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Well, look, you certainly have the drive. You've taken action on writing a book and turning some of your experiences into something practical that can help people. So no doubt it sounds like you've got the work ethic to achieve all of those things that you're setting out to do. So well done in doing that. What I would like you to do is we hear a lot about leader versus manager and we see all sorts of slides and often it's part of leadership development training. It's all theory and not a lot of practical. But I'm interested in your take in these terms, leader versus manager. And what is the difference? In your own eyes, a manager is.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Someone who manages processes, policies, procedures, business growth, material things. It's all things. It's nothing to do with people. Leaders lead people. Things like procedures, policies, all those types of things. They don't have feelings, they don't have emotions, they don't have, you know, they don't tell you things that you need to listen to. Leaders lead people, they influence people. And with people comes emotions.
It becomes frustrations, becomes excitement, becomes all these different things.
So to be a leader, you have to be a really good listener. To be a manager, you have to be very practical and very good at time management, good at, you know, writing procedures, writing documents, business growth, profit into the business, all those things. Whereas if you take care of your people as a leader, all those things that I've just mentioned will take care of themselves. They become a byproduct of how good the people are. So if you're a leader and you can help your people to be their best selves, but first of all for themselves and for the friends and family and for the organization, then all the things that managers are supposed to manage become a byproduct of you leading your people well. So actually the people become the managers, whereas you're the leader. So your team will become the managers of what you're working on. They take on the responsibility of the job, whereas the leader takes on the responsibility of the people. So that's the difference between manager and leader for me.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Great, mate. And there's a few people on the live stream and you're getting a bit of thumbs up. But yes, leaders lead people and managers manage things. So it sounds like there's some aligned people on the call, mate.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Good, very good.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: You talk a lot about influence in the book and you've mentioned influence a number of times in the conversation already today.
Something that was in the book was the term false influence versus genuine influence. Can you explain that for us?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Well, false influence is where it's like I've explained before, having a manager or a supervisor or a person in a leadership position who has his or own team, but sort of gives the impression that, you know, you do what I say, basically, there's no room for ideas, there's no room for innovation, there's no room for, for you to sort of develop. It's all about me, basically. And in the beginning I actually thought that was how the way the world was.
So I was falsely influenced to believe that, yeah, I'm here to be told what to do. Whereas actually if I, if I would have known what real influence was, which is genuine influence is a leader who basically gives their power away. And that's exactly what empowerment is.
So if you have a team who have ideas to share, want to be innovative on the job, want to improve the job, then the only way you can do that or the only way you can help your people be like that is to be genuinely, is to genuinely influence them. Because if you tell them what to do and make them feel worthless and that, you know, they're only allowed to do a certain amount of work to get the job done, they're not allowed to express their own ideas, then they're not going to really give, they're not going to give 100%, they're not going to give their best selves for the team and for the organization. Whereas if you can influence them genuinely, I mean, it's not an easy thing to do. Influences. I mean, I'm talking about it like it's. It sounds like it's easy, but it's not, it's very, very difficult. But if you can get to a stage where your people want to come to work, want to do their best, give their best for the team and for themselves, and want to share their ideas, then imagine what team you can be in. Think of it as like a football team. I mean, if you think of like the Liverpool team. Imagine Mohamed Salah, right? He only gave just the right amount of effort to put the ball on the back of the net, but he didn't, he didn't sort of help with leading the team on the pitch or speaking to a different player to say, right, you don't seem to be yourself today. What if you tried, you know, let's, you know, let's talk, you know, you know what I mean? Like, they all want to give 100% because they're treated so well in a normal everyday job that I've been in in the past, you're not. So it's, you know, it's how you treat your people basically is genuine influence.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Let's unpack that a bit because you touched on the, you know, influence is a, it's a hard thing to achieve and a hard thing to work on. What are some of the things that leaders need to do or should be focused on in order to generate the level of influence they need in their role and to be successful in their role?
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Well, if a leader has a team of like say 10 people, then that leader needs to build a relationship with every single person. Obviously there's going to be some better performers than others. There's going to be some team members who need more development in certain areas. But the reason you need to build a relationship with every single person is because the first thing you want to do is you want to build trust with that person. Because without trust you cannot influence. It's absolutely impossible. If that person doesn't trust you, they're not going to listen to you, they're not going to take on board exactly what you say to them. They're not going to believe what you say. So the first thing that you need to do is build trust. And the way to build trust is for you to listen to that person to build a relationship with your team member. The first thing you should do is not talk to them, not tell them what you think and who you are and what you think is best and all that stuff. The first thing you should do is sit down with this person and listen to them. Let them tell you what, what their background is, where they came from, what their views of the future are, what, what their feelings are for the, for the job at the moment, what their views for the team are, who they think are the best performers, who they think aren't, you know, and build that relationship. And then from then once you've listened to them, they all feel heard. And when they feel heard, they feel cared for. And when someone feels Cared for, trust will build. And then once that trust builds, you can start increasing your influence more and more. And you have to do that with every single person. And that is actually a very difficult. If you've got a big team of, As I say, 10 people, that's a very difficult job to do. But it's a job you must do if you want to influence every single person, because you can't. You can influence a team as a whole, but you can't do that until you build trust with every single person and influence them as an individual first.
So it's as I say, if you've got a team of that many people, then it will take time and it will be difficult. And some of the things that you listen to will be difficult to hear. Because if you're a new leader coming into a team, then what will happen is the people who you are taking over as a leader will have heard certain things about you from other people that may or may not be true. You know, like it might be good things, it might be bad things, but, you know, it's up to you to sort of justify what they've heard of. And so for you to listen to them first and start building trust with them, once you start telling them about yourself, the trust will build even more. And then in the future, once you want to start bringing change into the team and lead and change, it'll be a lot easier for you to gain the team's buy in because you have that trust with the team. And then that's when your influence will grow even more once you start trying to change things for the better.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: It's lots of common sense stuff and practical stuff and you know those words, trust and building relationships and the individuals within the team and the strength of relationships. So let's not focus on like, how do you make that happen. My biggest question is, if it's so common sense, what's stopping more people doing that? Why don't they do it?
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Well, I think from what I have experienced with the managers I've worked with and also alongside is they don't know that's how to do it. They don't understand that leadership is influence. Leadership isn't telling people what to do. Leadership isn't micromanaging and being on someone's back every day saying, where are you with this? Where are you with that? Making people feel insecure and making people feel awkward in the job. You know, leadership is about making your people feel good and want to be their best. But the reason that people don't do It. The reason that managers and leaders or people in leadership positions don't do it is because they don't know how to. They don't know that that's how to do it. They don't know that their position or their role or their responsibility is people. They think their responsibility is results and getting the job done and business growth and profit and all those things. All those things I mentioned to you before about what a manager does, they think that's their role when it's not. Their role is the people. If you take care of the people, as Simon Sinek said, you take care of the people, everything else will take care of itself, whereas they don't. They take care of everything else and the people don't become the number one priority.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: So what you're saying is common sense is not so common sense as far as leadership goes?
[00:17:12] Speaker B: No, absolutely not. And that's not their fault either. It's because, you know, people who are promoted into leadership positions are usually the people who are the better performing team members, whereas doing the job and being the leader are completely different jobs. It's nothing absolutely, completely different. That's why sometimes, as I mentioned again, sometimes the best footballers aren't always the best coaches, because it's completely different. So, like in my industry, in the engineering industry, if you're the best technician or engine or fitter, like, mechanical fitter will not make you the best manager or best person for the leadership position or supervisory position. And that's. That's where it's breaking down for me, because people aren't taught. People aren't given leadership development until they get the leadership position. Whereas leadership development should start when you're in an apprentice position or when you're in. When you're actually starting the job. You don't wait until you start the job and then you get the development. You get the development and then you start the job. That's how it's supposed to work, isn't it? Like with an apprentice mechanical engineer. I learned how to become a mechanical engineer before I became a mechanical engineer. Whereas with leaders and managers, you become the leader, but then you get the developments. So you're sort of working backwards. So that's another thing that we need to change as well.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: It's a fantastic point, mate. How do you. What's your view on changing that? How do you change that? Because when you put it in those terms, it sounds daft. Like, why would we put someone in a leadership position but not having developed them to be a leader where, like, apprenticeships and all that sort of stuff. If you say, you know, there's a whole process of becoming competent, how do we change that?
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Well, we need to talk to the leaders of the, of the businesses. We need to talk. We need to talk to the head of, like the training departments and say, look how you've sort of set this up, you know, if it's an engineering company, like where I'm from, the way you've set up your engineering training department is right. Yeah. People get trained and then they do the job, whereas your leadership department is not. And you need to change that. And then we need to sort of. To explain it to them and sort of, as you say, it sounds daft. So we need to show them a daft example, you know, and if we have those daft examples, then they'll see it. But they're the people we need to go to and they're the people who need to listen and need to change their sort of style of training. You also need to, as part of that leadership development, you need to find out who is the best or who, sorry, who was trained the best and did the best sort of. If they have to do any assessments or anything like that, who did the best assessment, and then we'll put them in the leadership role. They might not have been the best engineer, but if they're the best leader and they've practiced those leadership skills within the team, because remember, a leader, you don't have to have a position to be a leader. You know, leadership is not about position or title. If you have a leader within your team, then, you know, promote them. Don't promote the best engineer, promote the best leader. And that's another way to look at it as well.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: So many common threads, mate. I'm just going to go back to. You said the word insecure. And once again, I know through the book there's a specific area around. You talk about secure leaders versus insecure leaders and there's various different behaviors around those. Could you explain those two terms, insecure versus secure leader and the behaviors that.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Each one of those has for an insecure leader? Basically, they're in a nutshell, they're a micromanager. And what that means, I mean, everyone knows what that means, but in layman's terms, that means somebody who doesn't trust their team. They don't believe that any one of their team members can do the actual job as good as they can.
So they're on their backs every five minutes saying, this task that you were set yesterday, it's not being done yet. Or the way I've seen you doing it, you're not doing it right. And the reason that the person's not doing it right is because the manager's on their back. They're not giving them the time and space to actually do the job, to make a mistake, to learn from that mistake and then move on. Whereas a secure leader empowers their team. So what does empowerment mean? It means to give your power away. They give the free rein to their team to, you know, go away to do the job, learn from their mistakes and come back with either new ideas or new solutions that could benefit. And then what a secure leader will do then is listen to their ideas, ask open questions to dig deeper and maybe come to a better solution. But the leader will not give them the solution. They will not tell them what to do. They will ask open questions like who, like what, how, why and when to help their team member think deeper within themselves and maybe come to a better solution. So it's not giving them the task or giving them the answers, it's just helping them come to the answers themselves. And that's what a secure leader will do. Whereas an insecure leader will tell everyone what to do, but then don't trust them enough to do the job. So they're on the backs every five minutes. And I've worked for, I mean most of the time I do, I've worked for micromanagers and it's not, I mean I'm pretty sure you have as well, but most people do probably work for micromanagers all over the world. And that's the thing we all need to try and change as well. Our interview will continue after this.
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What's your view around micromanagement? I guess I asked that because I have lots of discussions with leaders, some clients, some are not. But telling them that actually micromanagement is not a bad thing. It is if you define micromanagement as being on top of and you know, asking someone every five seconds or you know, not trusting them like you said. But, but if you call micromanagement as being people being really clear on what's expected of them and leaders following up on performance related goals and progress, then if you call that micromanagement, that's good micromanagement in my book. So have you got a view on that?
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Well, having cleared expectations and having performance objectives and things like that, I do agree with that. But the micromanagement I'm talking about is somebody who doesn't even think about those things.
All they want to do is be on your back every five minutes to get the job done. And the reason that they're on your back is because they don't trust you. That's real micromanagement. I mean, having performance objectives and having clear expectations, that is a good thing. That's actually what a leader should do. But I wouldn't call that micromanagement. I would call that a path of leadership. But it's the practical side of it. It's like, you know, the thing that you sort of measure yourself against, but you have to be secure enough to let your team member go away, work on themselves and work on the job against these objectives and these measurements, make mistakes, learn from them and then come back and say, right, this happened. I didn't reach this performance objective this period, but I've learned from working on myself that by next period I'll exceed it. Whereas if a micromanager was testing you against these metrics, they'd be on your back every five minutes saying, how are you against these? We set these objectives like this last period. Where are you with them? I want to know. Come on, tell me. You know what I mean? That's the micromanagement I'm talking about. Whereas if you're measuring yourself, because you do, we all need to sort of measure ourselves against our performance.
But you need to be the leader, needs to let the person have the free rein and the empowerment to go away, work on themselves and try to reach those objectives and those performance measures.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: I've got these, the driving in the car as a parent and kids in the back micromanagement is are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Right, yeah, exactly.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: But the other single word that's popping up in my head quite a lot as you're talking since the start of this interview is mindset. Again, so much of what you're talking and sprouting is, you know, really clear, practical in our view, common sense sort of stuff that's not so common as we spoke about. But how do you help change a person's mindset around this stuff to start to get them to think more like what you're explaining? Because to me it sounds like if you can help them change the mindset, even if they don't know some of the stuff you're talking about, they'll be far more open to it.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: I mean, that comes down to like, if I was to have a one to one with a person in a leadership position today, and the way I would sort of go about changing their mindset is to ask them questions, empower them with, I mean, questions at the start of empowerment. And I would say, you know, ask questions like, you know, so how do you find your role as a leader at the moment? Like, what do you think your responsibility is? And if they come back to me saying the responsibility is I need to get the job, I need to get a certain amount of work completed by the end of the week, every single week. We need to reach this amount of profit, we need to have this much business growth by the end of the year, then I would basically be blunt with them and tell them, well, from a leadership point of view, your responsibility is people. You know, your responsibility isn't business growth. That's the, that's the, that's your people's responsibility. That's the team's responsibility. And I would just, I would tell them and I would expand, I would give them examples. So like an example for me would be my first leadership position when I moved to London, was only a small team, but I helped change the whole sort of outlook on the team. Whereas every, all the leads in the, in the depot that I worked in were all talking about, you know, it's all about trains, everything. Trains got to be out the door by a certain amount of time to get in service and all that stuff. Whereas, no, you're the leaders, we're the leaders, our responsibility is the people. So I basically encourage them to start thinking more about people. Put people as your priority. In the meetings that we were having, we're always talking about train performance, but we're never talking about people performance.
Why don't we talk about the people? Why don't we give the people the development that they need so that they can be the leaders of the ones who are responsible for the trains and getting the trains out the door and getting the business growth going and the profit? Why aren't we doing that? A leader's role is people. So when we have meetings, we don't talk about trains, we talk about People, unless the people who are in the meeting are the people.
So if we have our teams in the meeting, then yet we'll talk about performance because that's their thing. Sorry, train performance because that's their thing. Whereas if we were all leaders in the meeting, then we need to talk about people. And that's the mindset we need to start having. Is my number one priority is my people, not business growth, trains, whatever you want to. Whatever your business is. No, your business. If you're in a leadership position and you have a team of one to 10 people or however many people you have, then your number one responsibility and priority is your people. So what are you going to do to make your people the best that they can be? What are you going to do to help your people be their best selves for themselves, for their families, for the organization, for their community?
How are you going to develop your team into a team of leaders? That is what I would be saying to a manager or a person in a leadership position if I was having a one to one with them. Why aren't you doing that? What are the reasons why you're not?
[00:29:18] Speaker A: I love what you just said in that. Just went back to a note I took from your book and you just basically explained that and lived what you've written. Like you said, as a team member, your job is to have the answers. As a leader, it is your responsibility to have all the questions and you just frame that answer to that question that I put to you around. I would get them and in a room and asking the right questions and really poking and prodding through questioning. So again, so much in your book you just write really clearly, simply, which is really, really effective. So it was sort of probably authentic the fact that you've written a highly effective leader book and there's some highly effective, simple language in there, right?
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if you think of a leader's mindset, I mean, leaders have the most simple minds ever. You know, you think of the best leaders in the world, like Nelson Mandela, when he spoke, he spoke very simply. It's the easiest thing in the world to make something simple complicated, but it's the most difficult thing in the world to make something complicated simple. And that's what leaders do, they make things simple. But as people like managers, they like to make simple things complicated. And that's what sometimes enrages me because some of the people who I work with do that and I try and stop them. And I'm saying, look, we don't need to make it so complicated.
Can we discuss this in a much more simple way so that everybody who's listening to us understands what we're talking about? To be the most effective team or to be the most effective person?
Wouldn't it be better to know things in a simple way than to know things in a complicated way?
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Mate? There's a couple of comments on the chat which are really fantastic from Joe and Sonja, and there's a recent one about meetings. And I know you talk a little bit about meetings in your book as well. So the comment was, it's deflating to be in a meeting where you don't feel valued. How do you, as a leader, how do you have more effective meetings?
[00:31:18] Speaker B: You've got to make sure that everybody who you invite to your meeting is involved. You know, they have something to say. They have. They've been away, they've done something and they're coming back and they're reporting back what they've done. But also you need to. I mean, as Sonja, who said, how do you feel valued? Well, the first thing you need to do as the leader is to value everybody. Is everybody in your meeting valued? Do you value them? Do you help them feel valued? First of all, what you should do is make yourself valuable. You can't add value to people unless you make yourself the most valuable person you can be. Leadership is about others, but it starts with you. That will always happen. So you, you need to be the most highly effective leader you can be for your people. So if you have a meeting with 10 people, you need to understand that it's not just about inviting people for inviting people's sake. Everybody in the meeting needs. Because the biggest currency that we have is time.
And if we're wasting people's time by being in an hour meeting just to talk about something that they're not even involved in and they haven't said a thing or meeting, then what's the point? The leader who's calling the meeting needs to make sure that everybody who's in the meeting has something to say or has an action to do or something like that. And if the person in the meeting doesn't have all the answers, that's not the time to shoot them down or anything like that. To keep the meeting going, you help them and ask them more questions, open questions to dig deeper into themselves, to find a solution, to find the answers. And if you can be that effective in the meeting, you'll lead them by example. So everybody who's in the meeting will go away, start their own meetings, and do the same thing, you know, behavior breeds behavior at the end of the day.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, mate. Well said. Again, you said in that statement, leadership is not about you, but it starts with you. Can you just, it's such a really important statement. Can you unpack that a little bit? What do you mean when you say that?
[00:33:16] Speaker B: If you want to be the most highly effective leader you can be, then the first thing you need to do is work on yourself. You need to learn about leadership. Like as I mentioned before, in 2010 or 2009, I got the leadership position of project manager. But in 2010, I discovered the book by John Maxwell. And that was the time when I thought I need to become the best leader I can be. But I can also be someone who can help others be the best leader that they can be. But at that time, I didn't have the experience and I didn't have the know how. So what I did was I treated my leadership positions as new experiences to learn from. So each, each different, each position that I've had, I've gone into that position with a few to learn. It's not about, you know, going in there to do, to get the best results and all that stuff. I mean, that, that is important.
But the first thing that I need to do is learn from it and obviously become the best leader I can be for my people. So me working on myself and being the most valuable leader I can be, the byproduct of that is adding value to my people. Because I'm putting my people first. It's sort of, you know, it like comes out of me. It's like a natural progression. So if you look at it like that, if you look at it like, okay, leadership is about other people, but I can't add value. I can't help my people be their best selves unless I'm my best self. You know, it's about being, you know, if you want to add value to people, then make yourself the most valuable you can be.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, mate. And what do you suggest?
You know, have you got a maybe top tip for you that has helped your own journey? Working on yourself, developing yourself. What would you suggest for other people that maybe haven't started that journey yet? What would you ask them to do to help them develop themselves?
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Well, what helped me with writing the book and also with starting the website was write down your experiences. Like, create like a journal doesn't have to be every single day. But you know, if you, if you have an experience in your, in your career with either you leading somebody else or influencing somebody else, or you being influenced by somebody else. And you've seen them as an example, write it down. Write down what they did and, you know, try not to forget it. And try and use what you've learned from that person in your own leadership journey. Leaders are learners at the end of the day, and leaders are readers as well. So, you know, another, another tip would be read books like this book Manager to leader.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: My book manager to leader. I've seen that somewhere before.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's in Waterstones. No joking.
Yeah. So, and the big tip I would say is, as I say, read books, watch YouTube videos, watch podcasts, listen to people, but also with your own experiences, write them down and don't forget them. And share your experiences with others as well. It doesn't have to be in a blog or a video or anything like that. Share your experiences with your people. Try and help your people become the best leaders they can be.
Imagine having a team of leaders that would be, you know, imagine how good that team would be, you know, and then when you move away from that team, do the same. Keep sharing your experiences with others and helping people. You know, as I say, leaders are learners and there's not one person you can't learn from. Leaders are just in leadership positions. Leaders, I mean, I've worked with some amazing leaders who have never had a leadership position. They were just in the team as a technician. But they're followed more than the managing directors or even that, the engineering director, because of how they. How they behave, you know, how they think of others, how they put others first, you know, how they do their best for the team and do their best for the organization. Their example is something to be followed. I actually, the person I'm talking about, I'm still friends with now, he still lives in Liverpool, but I still stay in touch with him as a friend, but also to learn from him, because there's absolutely nobody you can't learn from as a leader. You can learn leadership from your parents, from your brother, from your family, from your friends, from your colleagues, from a person you meet in the pub one day, from a person you meet in a coffee shop.
You can learn from anybody. So always have that mindset of leaders are learners and don't stop learning.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great perspective. If you do have that perspective, then like you say, you see it everywhere. The learning opportunities are everywhere. So we've sort of focused a little bit just there on the self and leadership about focusing on your own learning to start with. But have you got Any, a couple of other tips. You've spoken about a lot of stuff today and there's a lot of stuff in the book as well. But what would be two other tips you would say that you want to give listeners a chance to say, well, this is what I can start to continue to focus on or to progress to become a highly effective leader.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: As I said at the very beginning, the first thing, if you're in a new leadership position, then the first thing you need to do is build relationships. But if you're in a team and you're not in a leadership position at the moment, then the thing that, the tip that I would give is to the relationships that you have with your team members and even your other colleagues in other teams and departments is strengthen your relationships. There's never a sort of limit of how far you can go with a relationship. So the thing, the tip I would do, I would, I would give to your listeners is when you go back to the workplace or when you go back home or when you go back to whatever it is, it doesn't have to be. It's not about just being in the workplace. It's about all of life is to start listening to people, to understand them. There's a difference between listening to understand and listening to reply. Now most people listen to reply. I sometimes do that myself as everybody still does it. But I try my best to listen to understand and then respond. Because once you listen to understand the person, like I said before, the person feels heard and when they feel heard, they feel cared for and that's when trust will build. So if you keep, if you go back to your, if we say in the workplace, if you go back to your team and you're wanting to build and strengthen on your relationships that you have with your team members, then the first thing to do is listen to understand them. Don't always listen to respond. And in the conversations that you have, if you have, like, if you sit down with a team member and you have a one, like a, not a one to one, but like a one on one conversation, then let them do 80% of the talking and you do 80% of the listening so that you do 20% of the talking as well. That's how I, that's how I gauge my, how I listen to understand is I do 80% of the listening, they do 80% of the talking. And that's how I listen to understand.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: My people love it, mate. How am I going with the ratio of listening to understand, seeing as I'm interviewing you? Am I Doing okay?
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, my mouth is killing me. I think I've done 90% of the talking.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Have you got some water there? You feel free to grab a water if you like.
Good on you, mate. Hey, I want to go into again, once again, another part to the book. And you refer about leading up. Can you explain what leading up is about?
And once we understand that, how can we lead up? What are some suggestions to help us in that area?
[00:40:33] Speaker B: Leading up, it's basically how you lead anybody. It's like, so if you have, if you have a leader who is sort of leading like in a dictator ish way or a micromanage way, then if you have that confidence to go back to your manager or your supervisor and ask them open questions, basically, why are you thinking that?
What would you say if we tried something this way? You know, like ask them empowering questions, help them to think within themselves the way a leader would ask their team member, you know, so, okay, so you've got this far. So what if you tried something else? Like what, what would be a different way you could do that? Like, what would be a different way you could try that? Asking open questions, like empowering questions that will help the leader to think within themselves and maybe come out with something better, you know, so it's basically the same way a leader would ask their team member. You just ask the leader the same types of questions in the same way. So it's basically seeing everybody within the team as an equal. You know, you don't, I mean, in the past, you know, I've seen, I've worked for different supervisors and managers where if I said that to them, I would be absolutely. The butterflies would be going in my stomach. I'd be so nervous and so scared because I would be afraid to what they. How they would react. But if you have a leader who is a secure leader, who gives their empowers you, who treats you well, treats you the way that they would like to be treated, then anybody within the team can be the leader to a certain extent. You know, as far as like, you know, as long as they're not talking like hierarchy and positions and all that stuff. But, you know, if you can, you can empower your leader just as much as you can empower your team member by, as I say, like, empower questions are the start of empowerment.
Helping your leader think a bit deeper within themselves. Maybe they've not thought, maybe they've not sort of delved into that idea sort of deep enough or thought about it long enough. Maybe you could help them to do that and help them either come to a better idea or a better solution or a better thought.
And that's basically how I, with the leaders that I've worked with, who I've been able to lead up, that's how I've done it, basically treat them the way they treat me with the leader. Who you are, who you're leading up to, they know that as well. They feel that you're leading them. And that's the great thing about it is they don't feel threatened or they don't feel, oh, I'm going to minute, I'm the leader, no, he shouldn't be leading me. It's, you know, they don't feel that. It's, we're all one team, we're all, we're all equal and that's that having a team like that, that's that, that is the best team to work in.
[00:43:13] Speaker A: For me, we just had a comment on the chat mate about the difference between an insecure leader and a secure leader is like night and day. Fair comment?
[00:43:21] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: I'd like to start to wrap this up a bit. I know we're under a little bit of time pressure with yourself as well this morning, so I always like to ask my guests, what's the one thing that has had the biggest impact on your own leadership journey?
[00:43:38] Speaker B: As I mentioned before was in 2018, the biggest impact was getting to a stage where I just couldn't, couldn't go on anymore. It's like, you know, I was like burnt out. I was like, no, why have I let myself get to this level? Why have I let this happen? Even though, like I was being treated by the leaders in a certain way, I let that happen, you know, and I shouldn't. So that was basically the reason why I started writing the book and creating the website and the things that I'm working on at the moment.
That was the sort of switch on moment where no, I need to help people who have been in this position because I know I can, I've been in it before and I know how I can get out of it. So that was the sort of the biggest wake up call for me was, you know, don't ever let yourself get to that stage and I will not let myself get to that stage ever again. If I can feel anything like that happen and I'll stop it. You know, I'll make sure that, you know, whatever we're talking about, you know, either we change the subject or I say, you know, I'm gonna minute I'M being spoken to in a certain way and I don't appreciate this. We're also going to be speaking to each other as leaders and as professionals. Come on, let's all. Let's try and change this around a bit. Whereas before I was, you know, wasn't as strong. I didn't have that in me, if you know what I mean. So that was the biggest. The biggest change for me was letting myself get to a stage where I had to take a few months out and I don't want that to ever happen again.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: Really important question this next one, mate. How confident you're feeling about Liverpool in the season coming up. We're going to win it.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Don't need to say anymore. I love it. We should just finish there.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: I really do think we are. I think. I think. I think. I think Klopp's got his eye on a few things and I'll leave it at that.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a. What are your thoughts on West Ham? I thought I'd mention West Ham because there's a chap I know who listens to the podcast, Andrew, and he's a. He's a crazy man, a West Ham supporter. Have you got any love for those guys at all?
[00:45:38] Speaker B: I've never heard of them.
Where are they based?
[00:45:40] Speaker A: I don't remember, mate. I've just heard the two words he's mentioned a couple of times, so I don't know a lot about them either.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Well, that reminds me, I'm having a ham sandwich today.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: With some West.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: What are you talking about?
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Some west sauce or something.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: Western. Western ham, it's called.
Yeah.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: Oh, mate, look, it's been. It's been an absolute joy to talk to you today again. We'll put it. The details of how people get in contact with you in the show notes. Also a link to the book as well. Thank you very much for spending the time with us. Always good to have a chat with a fellow Liverpool supporter as well, mate. So, mate, once again, thanks for coming on the Culture of Things podcast. Fantastic to have you, buddy.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure. It's been a really good interview and it's actually brought a few things out of myself and it's making me feel it's nine o' clock in the morning here in the UK and it's given me a good start to the day. So thank you very much.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Pleasure, mate. Like we joked before we went online, went live, didn't we, that I'll go and have my beer now and you're Just going to have your ham sandwich.
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
Coffee?
[00:46:47] Speaker A: Absolutely. Mate, mate, once again, thanks again and look forward to catching up soon. Buddy.
[00:46:51] Speaker B: Yeah, you too. Thank you very much.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: I want to make a difference in people's lives. These are the words of a leader. They were Tom's words and this underpins the mindset of a leader as opposed to a manager. Managers manage things. Leaders lead people. How often does someone get trained to lead people? When it does happen, it mostly occurs when the person is already in their leadership role. Most companies don't seem to have a leadership apprentice program where people can learn and develop into becoming a leader. What a difference an apprenticeship in leadership could make for the leader and for the people they lead. These were my three key takeaways from my conversation with Tom. My first key takeaway Leaders build genuine influence. How is genuine influence built? By placing other people's interests ahead of your own. You can only do this by building strong relationships which will develop trust and trust will lead to influence. In other words, invest time in your people and this will build genuine influence. My second key takeaway Leadership isn't about you, but it starts with you. Leaders are learners and leaders are readers. You need to always be working on yourself, learning about leadership. You have to become the best leader you can be for your people. After all, if you aren't being your best self, how can you help others to be their best self? Leadership starts with you. My third key takeaway Leaders embrace simple. They speak simply, behave simply, and always seek simple solutions.
They're skilled at turning the complicated into simple. Managers embrace complicated as it makes them look smart. To be highly effective leader, you must embrace simple. So in summary, my three key takeaways were Leaders build genuine influence.
Leadership isn't about you, but it starts with you. And leaders embrace simple. If you want to talk culture, leadership or teamwork, or have any questions or feedback about the episode, leave me a comment on the socials. Or you can leave me a voice
[email protected] thanks for joining me. And remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.
Thank you for listening to the Culture of Things podcast with Brendan Rogers. Please visit brendanrogers.com to access the show Notes. If you love the Culture of Things podcast, please subscribe, rate and give a review on Apple Podcasts. And remember, a healthy culture is your competitive advantage.
