Ged: [00:00:00] Welcome back to podcast. I’m back here with Milan Veverka. Let’s spin the cars and see what we are gonna talk about today.
Milan: It looks like the Art of Leadership card came up. One of the clubs, card clubs are about. Mindset and inner games that we play as leaders and as the CEOs need to play in order to get where they need to go. I love this one, you know. If you read a card, it starts with a story of me talking with some really, really bright at McGill University now. It was fresh when I wrote a card. Now it’s almost exactly a year ago when it happened. But it was great and really made me thinking and you know, brought me to the quote from Jim Collins that we both love, which is.
Ged: Leadership is the art of getting people to do what needs to be done. I love that quote. I think that, [00:01:00] that really does encapsulate leadership and, and you, you probably see many, many different d definitions of leadership and that one’s. Doesn’t come up very often, but it’s the one that I like best because I think that really sums it up.
It’s getting people to want to do things that need to be done. So it’s not manipulation and it is encouragement. It’s influence. It’s motivation, but it’s not stick. It’s definitely the carrot.
Milan: People. People have the tendency to think about, I need to get them, do what needs to get done. But that’s not a point really. The point is to get them want to do it right or to. Create an environment in which they want to do it. But really the card is more about the first part of the quote, which is the idea of leadership beacon art. It’s not a craft, an art. Yes, there is a skill involved, but there is a skill is involved in art as well. You know, it just reminded me, I think [00:02:00] that Ben Affleck, out of all people said that craft. It’s knowing what to do, and art is knowing when to stop, actually I think applies here really well too. The whole idea of art lays in the uniqueness, right? If we copy something, it’s not art. It’s either a copy or it’s imitation, or it’s plagiarism. Your pick, right? But really what, where we’re trying to go with this is the idea that every. Leader is different. Has their own unique style and their only own, unique set of strengths that make them great leaders.
Ged: I, I wanna call back to something you mentioned just a moment ago, Milan you know, ask is knowing when to stop doing something. And, you know, that takes me back to Michelangelo’s David. You know, he was asked about, you know, how did you create David, you know. That, that incredible [00:03:00] sculpture that he produced and took him a long time to produce it.
And his, his answer was as simple. I just removed what didn’t need to be there.
Milan: Yeah,
Ged: It took, took
Milan: I took a piece of Stone, stone and everything. I took everything that wasn’t David away,
Ged: That’s that’s right. That’s right.
Milan: But look, I think that and you know, we have a lot of cards and a lot of different conversations on this concept of stopping at the right time, stopping to answer questions. Like and asking, what do you recommend instead? Right?
Ged: Yeah. Yep.
Milan: Stopping to babysit people. Let them grow. Let them, let them, you know, carve their own paths. Creating that thing, it’s like, it’s like raising a child at one point. You just have to stop telling them what to do, right? It’s like the stopping is really, really important and picking the right moment, even more so.
Ged: So leadership is art. There is also a science behind leadership as well. And I think it’s that paradox. You know, you, you know, you can, you can [00:04:00] teach leadership, but unless you have it instinctively within you. You know, no matter how you, how hard you teach someone, if they haven’t got it, they haven’t got it.
So it’s it’s a combination, isn’t it? They have to have it within them. But you can teach aspects of leadership that make it easier for people to lead well, but if they haven’t got it, it’s all over.
Milan: Yeah, Jim Collins might disagree with you because you know, at the last workshop when I when I listened to him in Chicago last year he said something that everybody has the potential in them, or like, absolute majority of people have it. It’s more. Finding the ways of how it applies. And as he’s talking about level five leadership, you know, and, and, and all those things.
So there’s obviously some minimum requirements. Yeah. But I am not entirely con wins on the. [00:05:00] Need of getting it in the first place. There is obviously talent involved, but a lot of can be done by just embracing who you are and being honest about it with people you work with.
Ged: Let’s, let’s talk a little bit about, you know, using science to actually reveal gaps in leadership, because that’s certainly where the science comes in. And I, I, I use the leadership circle profile with a lot of my clients as a way of, as a way of assessing, you know, where people have leadership strengths and where they have leadership weaknesses. And I guess that’s not teaching them. Better leadership, but it’s revealing to them, you know, where they could potentially improve or where they could actually, you know, focus on their, on their strengths. And it for, for me, that’s a really, really powerful tool because it reveals, you know, the reactive and the creative sides of people’s leadership ability and having.
Had that revealed to them that the onus is on them to then go and find out ways of filling those gaps. Moving from the reactive side, [00:06:00] which is not great leadership to the creative side, the art side, which is great leadership. So that, that tool’s been really useful in a lot of the conversations I’ve had with leadership teams when they’re trying to improve their leadership skills.
Mm-hmm.
Milan: More of a game than a gap guy when it comes to these things, right? So I’m not necessarily all that great with that language but I agree with you. I’m looking at it more from the psychological point of view, which is really the self-reflection and understanding yourself, where you’re strong characters are, you know, a again, Jim Jim Collins is talking about a concept of encoding, right? That it’s unique to each one of us and the encoding of a leader of, you know, this. These are the things and, you know, understanding it. I am actually working on, and, you know, perhaps by the time this episode is out, it will be actually available on my website. On a assessment tool that uses your own opinion on yourself, [00:07:00] but also your peers to look at a perception, right? Like the self perception versus the feedback from the from the group or from your friends, or, you know, whatever, whatever that is. And really the only. Purpose here is to understand your encoding, because if you do, then you can use it properly.
You can amplify it than, you know, trying to work on the weaknesses that maybe you’ll never get out of. Because I think that we are so better, so much better, or it’s so much more effective for us to put our energy into getting great at something we’re good at than getting mediocre at something we suck at. The return on investment significantly higher. Yeah.
Ged: There’s the thing in the leadership circle, you’re not. Trying to improve a weakness, you are stopping a weakness. So going back to what we mentioned earlier on now by stopping a weakness, you can improve, improve your, the creative side of your leadership, which [00:08:00] makes you a better leader. And, and we’ve also mentioned Jim Collins a couple of times, and you know Jim Collins’ definition of level five leadership.
Now is a combination of humility and indomitable will. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say that word properly, but I know Jim does. You know that those two aspects, you have to be humble. You have to have humility, but you also have to have indomitable will now a will that’s a will in the the outcome that is so strong that you are gonna make sure that everything that needs to happen will happen to reach the outcome you want.
