The Art Of Modern Leadership

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0:29Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz, and my guest today is Dr. Kirsten Ferguson. She's one of Australia's most prominent leadership experts and a highly experienced business leader in her own right. Beginning her career as an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, Kirsten has held roles that have included CEO of an international consulting firm and was appointed acting chair and deputy chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation by the Australian Prime Minister. We're going to talk about her latest book, Heart and Head, The Art of Modern Leadership.

1:10So Kirsten, welcome to the show. Hi, lovely to be here. Great to meet you, John. So did you get to fly airplanes? Well, I did. I wasn't an air crew in the Air Force. I married a fighter pilot and I worked at a squadron, but that wasn't my core role. But I certainly got to go off and have a few flights. So with the term modern leadership, I mean, my first question, I guess, is how modern does leadership need to be? Like what has changed, let's say, in the last five years when it comes to leadership that it needs modernization? Oh, gosh. How much has the world changed in five years? It's incredible.

1:51And I think this whole idea of what I've written about head and heart, the art of modern leadership, It's really around understanding that those old models that we all grew up with, seeing leaders who, you know, felt they needed to have all the answers and that being a leader meant that you had a solution for problems that you were able to navigate, you know, through really difficult situations. All of that remains true, but so too does being prepared to rethink what you thought you knew and being prepared to be vulnerable and not have all the answers. And I think that's what leading with your head and your heart is all about.

2:26And the art of modern leadership is knowing what's needed and when. So is there a shift that you think has gone on in the workplace that makes this a very practical? Because, I mean, I can see some people saying, okay, we have to change some things, but why? I mean, some people, we're going to get into the head part and the heart part specifically. And I think some people have always been wired that way. But what is sort of the practical reason why people need to be looking at a new approach? I think expectations have absolutely changed and we can see that even about the debate with work from home suddenly you have employees saying actually I quite enjoyed working from home I don't want to do the commute and I'm productive and they're speaking up about it people are speaking up about social issues wanting their organizations to be actively campaigning and CEOs being vocal about those kinds of challenges so I think expectations have changed and no longer do we want those leaders who are just, you know, treating work as something that we have to do.

3:27And here it is. And I don't care what you think about it. And so leaders who don't incorporate others into their decision making or put people at the centre suddenly look like dinosaurs and they stick out. And I think we're reading in the press every day about leaders that are still that old school. And now shareholders and investors are saying it doesn't actually matter how much you might know the industry or your connections or whatever it might be that technical skill we used to promote on you now equally need to be able to lead people and bring them behind you with a vision and a purpose would you say that this is a generational shift or is this really just culturally every generation or you know every age every decade group whatever you want to call them, you know, is also demanding this?

4:19I think all generations, I mean, it definitely, you're hearing it loudly from millennials and that generation who frankly aren't prepared to, you know, take it anymore. They're finding ways to quit the traditional workforce and, you know, work in a gig economy or whatever it might be to avoid having to work with these kinds of leaders. So yes, definitely that generation. But I think even older generations who are wanting some flexibility with how they work with people who instead of retiring fully are saying, well, why can't I do some work from home a few days a week? So I think there's a real shift in working to live, not living to work and wanting to find leaders who are able to be flexible with that.

5:06One of the things you talk about a lot in this book that, and I think this is growing also, used to be a leader had to have a title. You were a director, you were this or what you were that. and you kind of talk about, hey, maybe everybody's a leader. Yeah, well, I firmly believe they are. Now, don't get me wrong. Not everyone is the CEO or the president. Clearly, that would lead to chaos. But I think in our own lives, in our families, we are leaders. At our local sporting club, whatever it might be, we're leading. I use the story I saw during the pandemic of a supermarket checkout operator who had to deal with a really difficult customer.

5:45In that moment, she handled herself, you know, brilliantly. And she was leading in that moment, yet, you know, under the old models and definitions of leadership, she would have been the most junior person in that organisation. And I think once we start to recognise that we're leading in all aspects of our life, then we realise that every moment is actually an opportunity to leave an impact with others. and if we are formal leaders with those titles, reminding people that we lead, that they too are leaders in their life is really important too. Yeah, and that's probably a cultural shift inside of a lot of organizations, right?

6:23It used to be kind of the top-down approach and I think that actually making that an expectation like that person you mentioned as the example, in a lot of organizations they're like, sorry, it's not my job and I think that what you're suggesting is that we can actually empower people to make leadership type decisions, right? Yeah, exactly. And I think we are having people make decisions. So people make decisions every single day. The words we use, the actions we role model, the behaviors we demonstrate, all of those are leadership decisions and moments. And I think for most of us in a really busy lives, we often miss those moments.

7:06We miss the opportunity to have an impact. And if you think back, John, to all of the leaders in your life who have had both a positive and negative influence on you, it's all been moments. You can think back to moments when a leader made you feel really small or undermined you or whatever. You don't forget those moments. But I guess it's harder to look in the mirror and recognize when we are impacting others on those moments as well. I was going to get to that, but since you mentioned moments, I'll jump to it. You know, as I read that part, I was thinking, you know, as a parent, same thing as a teacher, same thing, right?

7:43There are these moments. So how do you, I feel like that puts a heap of responsibility on a leader to think like they're always watching every moment. You know, it's like, how do you know, how do you know the core moments? So whether you like it or not, I mean, I'm a parent as well. Whether you like it or not, our kids are always watching. So it's not as though you can just say to them, hey, can you just give me a break for a week? I'd like to just not, you know, have to be responsible for you and the impact I have on you. None of that is reality. And so I think the more we recognize that it's not so much an overwhelming weight of pressure, it's simply being aware and being mindful of the fact that those moments matter.

8:31and they're happening every day. You may as well be conscious of them. No, I don't agree with you. It's exhausting. I'm just teasing. It sure is. So we've gone on for almost half the show and haven't really talked about Head and Heart, which is the title of the book. So kind of explain a little bit what you mean by Head and Heart. I think most people have an idea, but I'd love to hear from you. Yeah. And I mean, I'm glad most people have an idea because the idea is it's a metaphor. we've all heard of and used before. It's obviously not literal. However, research shows that actually the way you think about your head and your heart impacts your performance.

9:09And so what I wanted to do is research, well, what are the attributes of these modern leaders that stand out on the world stage and locally and those leaders that we all know who just seem so different to who we've been led by in the past but yet who seem so right for now. So I'm an adjunct professor at one of our universities and went and researched what those attributes are. And so leading with the head is around curiosity, wisdom, which is around making decisions and gathering data and evidence. It's around capability, which is a growth mindset, which many of your listeners would be aware of, and importantly, perspective.

9:49And that was the attribute found to be the most highly correlated with being a modern leader. And it's, in layman's terms, reading a room and understanding, the environment you're leading in, but importantly also see who's missing from that room and what's going on outside of the room as well. So they're the four attributes of leading with the head. The four of leading with the heart are around humility, self-awareness of the impact we're having on others, empathy, and so being able to put yourself in others' shoes, and then courage, speaking up for what you believe in. Now, all eight of those attributes, often qualities we've all got, everyone has those to some degree, but not everyone brings them to work.

10:36And so, you know, leading with your head is what we've been rewarded for at school and at college. And in our jobs, we get promoted from being capable and making decisions. Yet, I'm arguing that modern leaders are also able to excel at those heart attributes as well. And that it's those leaders who know what's needed when that will succeed best in today's world. Okay. Because everybody wants one answer. What's the most important? Yeah. Well, as I said, of the data, the data shows that perspective is definitely the one that's most highly correlated. So if you were to score highly, And I should say for all listeners, go and visit headheartleader.com, headheartleader.com.

11:24Totally free. You can go and self-assess your own head heart leadership and you'll get a personalized report. But what you want is to score highly in perspective because that means you're more likely to score high in the others as well. And perspective was linked most highly or correlated with empathy. So having the two, that balance, head and heart, is really helpful. And it's all about reading a room. So I will tell you, I did no research, but I'm going to tell you from my perspective, what I think I see in a lot of leaders is without self-awareness, you can't really pass go. I mean, you're not going to work on any of this stuff or even realize that you're deficient in it without that at least acceptance that I have to.

12:09Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you see? Go ahead. Yeah, self-awareness is clearly incredibly important. I'm not going to argue it's more important, but there was one question out of the 24 that people can do if they do their head-heart scale that came from the self-awareness attribute, and that is about knowing your limitations. So of all the questions, if you don't know your limitations, then you're likely to think you're the smartest person in the room. You're likely to think you're always right. All of those attributes of leaders that we don't want to see. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess what I was saying is it's not necessarily the most important in my view, but it definitely, it's almost like you can't really start on the others without some level of it.

13:00And I noticed that with people who come and hear me speak and who buy the book, it's all the people who are already aware that they want to be a better leader. The dinosaurs we're trying to get to, they don't tend to think they need it. I don't need all that happy crap, right? So how do you suggest, and I know that in addition to the leader scale you talked about, you also have some elements of an action plan, but how do you suggest somebody, I mean, these are great words, but for a lot of people, they're just words. How do you go to work on building these core attributes? Well, of course, luckily, if you buy the book, Then we can deal with all of them in detail about the action plan.

13:43But the most important thing that people need to do, and it comes back to your comment about self-awareness, is to have a team of people around them who will give them feedback. We are our own worst judges of how we're actually going. And there's some data that shows that 95 % of us think we're self-aware. Only 10 % to 15 % of people we work with would agree. Now, that terrifies me, John. so that is reflective that most of us think we're self-aware but you know everyone else has a different perspective so I think being able to give and receive feedback really well and hear it without getting defensive is an incredibly important skill so if you're going to start anywhere that's where I would start.

14:26So particularly and I could be wrong on this it's probably both camps but particularly in matters of the heart it feels to me like remote work has made that so much harder and not just work from home, but a lot of people are building entire distributed teams from the start. And it feels like some of the things that seem to translate better in person maybe are lost or much more difficult in remote. How do you suggest that people adapt to that with some of these more, I used to call them handshakes and hugs. It's like the handshake was kind of the head part where the hug part was something that you obviously did more from a heart place, a lot harder to do all of this across video.

15:10Yeah. So I have a different perspective, John. I think there's just different ways. Not everyone, you know, was getting handshakes or wanted hugs even before COVID. And I think as long as we've had multinational corporations and large companies, we haven't worked in the same offices as, you know, everyone that we've worked with. I think the onus is on leaders to work a bit harder. I do think you have to find ways to make those moments matter, to be interested and focused on what's going on in the lives of the people that you're leading that might be on the other side of the world. But I think if we say that it has to be a physical co-location, then that's really quite limiting in thinking about how you connect with people.

15:58No, and I would never suggest that. Frankly, my company has been distributed for 15 years. I have people that our entire relationship is a video screen. But I would also say that you have to be far more like the moments you talked about. They just don't happen as often. You have to be far more. Yeah. And that's exactly what I'm saying. You actually have to work harder. It's harder work, but it's not impossible. And I think the payoff for those who want to work remote, remembering it's not for everyone. I know with my husband, he loves going into the office. He loves talking to people and catching up over lunch and doing all those things.

16:39And it's good for him. So that's how he works. But whereas I'm more than happy to work from home and catch up with people intentionally online. But if you've got people like me, then we need to find ways to make those connection times. And it's really just now the shift we talked about at the beginning of not treating everyone exactly the same. We've now really got to understand the people we lead and what motivates them, what drives them and how they work best. Yeah. Do you talk about, you know, one of the, I don't know, I'll call it responsibilities of a modern leader is to see their role also as building a family tree of leaders.

17:21And I love that idea. So kind of talk a little bit about how you address that idea. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's really being, again, conscious that you are there to develop the next generation of leaders. So if you are so fortunate to be running your own business or at the top of the tree, that formal tree, then really succession and making sure that the people coming up behind you are better than you. And that is not something that you should be fearful of, but see as your main job. And so for me, that's what building a family tree of leaders is about. It's all about those opportunities that if you're in a meeting and you're doing all the talking as a leader and you're giving all the solutions and coming up with all the answers, then you're not using that moment as a coaching opportunity, you know, to really ask great questions.

18:13So every single opportunity to build leaders in others and leadership in others, I think needs to be taken by those of us who have been around a while. Yeah, I think you're also telling people that you don't have to use your brain. So wait, and I'll tell you what to do, which is, you know, is very disempowering. But it's also, it also means you as a leader are going to have to come up with all the ideas. Exactly. You know, I have worked with many entrepreneurs over the years, so not somebody who's been hired to do a certain role, who maybe has years of management experience. You know, a lot of times entrepreneurs, when they're building an organization, it is on the fly.

18:53I mean, it's the first time they've ever done, you know, half of these things. And I think that for them, you know, books like this or, you know, really taking time to reflect on building that skill is even more important because I don't in many cases, they've never had an example, you know, to go by. So how would you suggest somebody like that who is really, you know, everything they're doing in many ways is just being done on, you know, God, you know, how do they start addressing more what you would seem, what you would probably call kind of normal leadership practices? How do they acquire those?

19:31Well, I don't know a person that hasn't worked for a bad leader. so not only have they not seen you know good leadership they've actually seen actively terrible leadership ideas and traits and I think we learn as much from that as we do from working with good leaders so if you're feeling alone and you're the only one you know who gets it my advice is it can be very frustrating trying to change someone else you can't do that you can only look after yourself and if what you're doing is working in your context and the feedback you're getting confirms that, then keep going. Keep, you know, being you and leading in the way that is working for you.

20:12I think it's important to be aware that style, however it works, might not work in the next place. And that's perspective. That's leading and understanding your environment and adapting. You mentioned at the beginning, I started my career in the military. I then went into law firms with lawyers. I then went and led a group of psychologists. And so every time I had to completely adapt, you know, the way that I led. But I brought tools from each of those roles. But understanding and really reading the room is critically important. So my advice would be get feedback. That's the only way you're going to know and to recalibrate if you need to.

20:52And occasionally listen, I bet. Always listen, always. Well, Kirsten, I appreciate you taking a moment to drop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Do you want to invite people where they might connect with you or certainly find more about your work and about Head & Heart? Absolutely. So if they visit headheartleader.com, you can do the scale. Get onto Amazon. The book's available to order now. It's out very shortly. Perhaps when you're listening, it will be out. So jump onto Amazon. And my website is kirstenferguson.com, K-I-R-S-T-I-N, ferguson.com. Can't wait to hear from your listeners. Kirsten, don't call me Kristen Ferguson, right?

21:35Gets everyone. It does get everyone. So again, thanks for dropping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days when I'm in your hemisphere. Look forward to it. Thanks, John.