Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
Unlocking the Power of Genuine Connections and Vulnerability in Leadership
Unlock the secret to impactful leadership with our expert guest, Ron, as he shares the transformative power of love and passion in the workplace. Discover how immersing yourself in your work can make time stand still and boost your effectiveness. Ron’s personal anecdotes bring to life the evolving dynamics of leadership, underlining the necessity of vulnerability and genuine human connections in today’s fast-paced environment. Learn how understanding your team on both personal and professional levels can pave the way for a more collaborative and efficient work environment.
Journey with us as we delve into the importance of self-awareness in leadership. Reflect on Stephen Covey's maturity levels and understand the critical shift from independence to interdependence. Through real-life examples, such as a plant manager overwhelmed with responsibilities and a trader transitioning to a managerial role, we illustrate how ego can be a roadblock and the need for leaders to ask for help. We also explore best practices for adapting to new roles and navigating the challenges posed by a rapidly changing workplace. Tune in every Monday for more insights as Ron Harvey provides real answers for real leadership challenges, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and continuous growth.
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Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...
Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host leadership consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron's delighted to have you join us as he unpacks and shares his leadership experience, designed to help you in your leadership journey. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron.
Speaker 2:Harvey, good morning. My name is Ron Harvey. I'm the vice president and the chief operating officer of Global Core Strategies and Consulting, a leadership firm. We're based out of Columbia, south Carolina. My wife and I have been in business for 10 years and we're both veterans of the armed forces, but today what we really do is try to do something that invites guests from around the world to come add value to you.
Speaker 2:We talk about leadership. We unpack things that often don't get talked about in an open or plain form with leaders, sometimes because they think they got to have all the answers and have it right all the time. So I invite guests from all over the world to share a perspective that adds value. So I'm super excited about today being able to invite for the first time, a Ron on the call for the podcast. So I'm super excited about today being able to invite for the first time a Ron on the call or the podcast. So I've had a lot of people, but I don't know if we had two Rons, so we're going to call this Ron times two today. So welcome to the show, ron. I'm excited to have you and thank you for saying yes.
Speaker 3:Oh, Ron, it is my pleasure to be here. Truly Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, thank you. So, as we were going through so if you're listening to the show, you're watching the show we were talking about vulnerability and we got kicked off, technology kicked us off and we're coming back in. So this is take two, with Ron too. So we're excited, and that's called being flexible and understanding. You just figure it out, and we talk about adaptability and not taking yourself so serious. So, ron, will you tell people who you are, what you do and what would you share with the audience? So a couple of reasons. I want them to know, because you're going to share something. They may want to reach you or you're in business, and they may want to do something with you. So can you share with the audience who you are and what you do?
Speaker 3:Sure, I have been in leadership, development, management, development and coaching for over 30 years now. I've just something that I am so passionate about and I'm just, I feel, so blessed just because I love what I do, I'm good at what I do and I know I make a difference, because people have told me over the years wow, ron, you have really, really helped me. And one of the things that we were talking about a little bit before to run is the importance of adding value, and I just absolutely love doing that. You know, I love working with people at all different levels, just helping them to get better at whatever it is they do, and it can be personal or professional either way, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:How do you help leaders? As you talk about it, I mean, you use the word love and very rarely do you hear love and leadership. How important is it for you to love what you do and what difference does it make? You know, I show up and I'm getting paid and I got bills to pay and I have responsibilities, so I got to have a job. You tie the word love into it. How important has that been for you to be effective?
Speaker 3:I'll put it this way when I am facilitating or when I am coaching somebody, I'm going to say probably 85, 90% of the time, time stands still. Yes, time just stands still, where, all of a sudden, it's like we've been doing this. How long We've been at this? Two hours, it feels like we just got started. How important is it overall for leaders and just anybody in an organization? To me it's critical, Because otherwise, how engaged am I going to be if all it is is yep, okay, yay. Here's another day at work and there's a friend of mine who works in tax accounting and and Ron, that's how he approaches his job and I feel sorry for him. I really do. It's like another exciting day in the office and I was like man David, I am so grateful to be able to do what I do and just love it yes, yes, an opportunity to, like you say, to get to do what you do.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't seem like I have to do it, I get to do it. You know, in the green room we were talking a couple of minutes and we had to jump into the show to, like you say, to get to do what you do. So it doesn't seem like I have to do it, I get to do it. You know, in the green room we were talking a couple of minutes and we had to jump into the show. We were talking about being human and being vulnerable. You know, as a leader and today's world, I was brought up, ron, honestly, two different ways. Don't let people see you sweat and don't let them see the human side of you. Keep your professional and your personal separate. Don't let people get too close to you. But you were talking something different. And so, as the world changes and it is changing fast what's effective now? Because not letting people know you doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 3:My perspective very simply is in the research of which I'm aware, and it's been my direct experience over and over again the better you know the people with whom you work, the more effectively you will work with them, and that goes from both a personal perspective and a professional perspective. For example, a number of years ago I was down in Atlanta. I was working with a technology company. I was helping them put together a vision statement, a mission and some values and so forth. Along with the work, I asked the leadership team. I want you to tell a story, I want you to tell a story to your colleagues and I'd like you to make yourself vulnerable as long as you're comfortable.
Speaker 1:Okay, fine.
Speaker 3:And then we gave them some time to prepare and so forth. I told Nick the CEO I'd like you to go first if you don't mind. And please again, as long as you're comfortable, Nick, make yourself vulnerable, I will. We get to the storytelling piece. We are meeting in his house, so we're sitting around his dining room table. His whole leadership team is there. Story time guys, Nick, if you don't mind, would you go first? And it's a pretty long story, I'll make it short, Says folks.
Speaker 3:When I was a little boy, I was incredibly ambitious. I didn't get one paper route, I got two. And the reason I got two paper routes is because I desperately wanted to get a VCR. I wanted that VCR so badly. I saved my money and guess what folks? I did it. I got my VCR and you know what, After I paid for that, I had $65 left. I went to my mom and dad. Mom, dad, the carnival is in town. Can I go by myself? And they looked at me and said son, you've proven to be responsible and so forth. Yes, yes, you may go. Go to the carnival. His team is sitting around the table. They're like where is this going? You know, whatever, let's go.
Speaker 1:Let's go here, nick. You know I already did whatever.
Speaker 3:Let's go. Let's go here, nick. Nick continues. I got to the carnival, I got my wristband, I got my hot dog and then the tears started, slowly at first, and then I started to play the games and within a half an hour he is openly crying now Openly in front of his whole team. My money was gone and the guy who took my money said I was the biggest sucker he had ever seen in his entire life. Nick slammed his hand down on the table and said loudly I vowed I will never let that happen to me again. And, folks, that is the reason I am so tight with the money at this company. And everybody was like, oh my goodness, we just thought you were cheap.
Speaker 2:That lesson has carried him a long way. He said, yes, I would never be a sucker again.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's exactly right. The vulnerability, making yourself human, letting people in to know the story and moving forward. I don't want to say it became a joke amongst them, except they were like Nick, you're not 12 anymore, we can spend some money here, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yes, they can help you grow. You were sharing earlier too, ron. You were sharing an opportunity where you were out and you were doing some training for a tech company and you hadn't done your homework. Yes, Can we pick that story back up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, sure, I was doing a training class Again. Long story short here. I was not nearly as prepared as I should have been. There were a couple areas where I thought I could concentrate and do fine. Two people walked out. They said you don't know what you're doing. I got a telephone call from my boss's boss about two hours after they left. Tony tore me apart. I mean he tore me apart, rightly so, because I mean I made a dumb mistake. From that. I will never, ever walk into a presentation or a training session again unprepared. Never, because I never want that to happen to me again. It hasn't happened to me and it won't, because I'm not going to let that happen. And part of being a good leader, too, is knowing yourself, and I know that about myself now yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So always walk and prepared, own it. When you mess it up, just own it. You know one of the things someone, a leader, asked me the other day. Well, ron, I made this major mistake. What do I do? I say it's two things Fess up and clean it up. Good, simple, I said. I'm making it simple intentionally because we'll put this long strategic plan land together. A bottom state is no, no, no, just fess up and clean it up.
Speaker 1:What more can you do?
Speaker 2:Yes, fess up and clean it up, leaders. If you make a mistake, own up to it and go clean it up and let people help you. How do you help leaders? Most leaders feel like you know, Ron, in the work that we're doing. Leaders are good at helping others, but not so good at receiving help from others. How do you help new leaders that are falling behind or watching what we're doing and has an aspiration to be at a higher level in the organization, but they struggle at getting help from other people? How do you help them make that shift or that switch?
Speaker 3:I think part of it is I go back to Stephen Covey's work and the maturity levels that he talks about being dependent and independent and interdependent, and I think for me, part of being independent is knowing myself really well, knowing what my strengths are and what my limitations are as well are and what my limitations are as well. And one of my limitations and we experienced this a little bit, ron, during the show itself here when the technical stuff happened I'm not strong technically. I never have been, I never will be. I again. I know that about myself. If something goes haywire, I need help, I need help and it's okay.
Speaker 3:I shared with you again in the green room. I had my knee replaced about two months ago and right after the surgery. I am so, so, so grateful to my wife for helping me so much Because, ron, I couldn't do anything by myself. Helping me so much because, ron, I couldn't do anything by myself. I couldn't. I couldn't get my socks on and again, all kidding aside, I couldn't dress myself and I was like I need help, I need help and realizing that it's like it's OK because if I don't ask for help I'm going to suffer.
Speaker 2:What are the things that stop us from asking for help. What gets in the way of leaders when you get to that level of asking for help? What gets in?
Speaker 3:the way For myself. At times I've gotten much, much better at this ego. Yeah, I think so much of it is just ego where it's like I'll do it and, like we were saying before, I have all the answers, I have to know the answers. No, you don't. It's okay. It's funny because again, I haven't thought of this in a long time.
Speaker 3:I did some leadership work with a plant manager manufacturing facility in New Jersey many years ago. We were in his office and I had talked to his staff and a lot of the people working on the floor and so forth, and I liked him. You know, we had a good relationship and so forth. And he said well, what did you know? How did the survey come back? And I was like nobody likes you here, hans, nobody likes you here, and that's a problem. And again his point to me was that I've got so much to do. We have a merger coming up, I've got to reconfigure the floor, there are electrical problems and there's this and there's this and there's this. And I just looked at him and I was like where does it say in the leader handbook you must do everything yourself. Who do you think has some ideas about how to reconfigure the floor who can help with the electrical problems? You've got people, people all around you who can help you.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, ron, yeah. So leaders, you're listening, listening, and I know that you worked hard to get to where you are, but what you did to get to where you are will not sustain you there. There's a different way that you have to show up, and you know covet talk. If cove hasn't taught us anything, it's taught us to be flexible, adaptable, and things change that you have no control of. You're going to have to use other people. None of us would have made it through COVID had we not learned to lean on other people, because most of us were faced with the unknown. Most of us had never in our lifetime been put in that situation where the world shuts down.
Speaker 3:The other thing I'm reminded of here too, is that as managers, as leaders, begin to move up within the organization, at each level, the competencies change. You are no longer doing the same job and there are different things you're going to need to do and you're probably going to need help. I was talking to my friend, tim the other day, and he essentially is a trader and a manager of people who do trading fun. Long story short, his organization is considering moving him up a level. Tim is considering taking a big promotion and I just said to him I was like Tim, you know what. You really need to think about this carefully, because you are no longer going to be a manager. You are not a manager any longer. You are going to become a manager of managers.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And he was like, well, yeah. And I was like, well, what do you think that entails? And he shared me. He said yeah, he said that people told me I'm going to have to start writing business plans. I've never done that. I'm going to have to start thinking much more strategically, and so forth. And I was like you're not going to be doing the same job, tim. You need to understand that. And as long as you're willing to do that and learn these new competencies, and the people will help you asking for help and accepting the help, so be it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's so important as you're listening leaders is the importance of what's the new role and responsibilities and skill sets. We live in a skill set world today, so what is it that's required? And it's totally different. Most often as you grow higher, we revert back to what we're comfortable with because they're nervous and growth can be painful sometimes. But what Ron is sharing is that please ask for help, separate the fact of what you're used to to what you need to do going forward. So that's going to be important. If you were to leave with the audience, the top five things that you think, as leaders, are moving forward, there's five generations in the workforce. We're doing a lot of technology. Ai is out. The world has changed the way you communicate. There are so many changes that leaders face. What are some things that you're noticing as best practices? If I'm a new leader, that if you were coaching or sitting down, help me get better. What would you share with me that I need to pay attention to?
Speaker 3:I'm a New York Giants season ticket holder and I have been for many, many years. One of the individuals in our group, peter, is chief financial officer for a technology company in Manhattan. He came up to me at a tailgate recently and just asked me. He said all right, mr Leadership Development man, throw me the one tip. Throw me the one tip that could make me the best leader possible.
Speaker 3:And I was like, okay, peter, give me a minute to think about it, I'll let you know, I did I thought about it and I went back to him and I was like, peter, if you're going to limit me to one, it would be this Get to know yourself extraordinarily well. Get to know yourself. What are your strengths, what are your limitations, what are your passions? What do you really want to do? What triggers you at work? The better you know yourself, peter, the more effectively you're going to work with your other colleagues, and that would be the one big tip for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most people don't want to own what triggers them, because they want to feel like they always have it together and when people push their buttons, they're like, hey, you seem angry and the first thing you say I'm not angry and your blood is boiling and you're still trying to defend that you're not. And I think it's so important. Like, everybody has a button, everybody has a button, that's right. And if you don't know it, it's probably going to get pushed more in the most inappropriate time and you're probably not going to respond well because you won't own up to that. I do have that as a button. So I love that you're saying that, ron, get to know you really really well as a leader, because if you're going to lead others, it starts with you and most people honestly, ron, I've noticed in my time most people are really really good at leading others but struggle at leading themselves. Yeah, it's a challenge. So, leaders, if you're listening and you're thinking about how do I get better, I love that Ron said get to know you. Do some assessments. There's tons of things on the market. There are plenty of coaches and people out there that like pause and get to know you really really well. So, ron, as we begin to close out, thank you for your patience. And as we walk through, we navigate.
Speaker 2:Y'all see this in real time. This is unpacked. This is what we do. We've gone in and out. That's leadership. That's what happens for real, so we're not cutting anything out. We'll let you see the real stuff behind the curtain. That's why we call it unpacked. If someone wanted to reach out to you, what would be the best way? And are you doing anything really nice or doing something that you're doing up and coming? Share a little bit about what you're doing and how people reach you.
Speaker 3:I've been working a lot on culture development with organizations and it's been a lot of fun. More importantly than being fun, I am realizing more and more and more how important establishing a formal culture is with organizations, and I'm fond of quotes, and I read something the other day that got my attention. I said you better develop the culture you want or you will get the culture you deserve. Yes, yes, I was like that's good, I like that. Yes, and the way to do that simply is and I mean, it's not simple. It's a lot of work. You've got to develop a mission, you've got to have values. You've got to realize how are we going to treat each other now? How are we going to treat the employees? No, no, no. How are we going to treat everybody within this organization, because we're all colleagues?
Speaker 3:Yes, and I mean again, that's just scratching the surface. That's a lot of what I've been working on. The best way to reach me is through LinkedIn. Just very simply, ron Reich, r-e-i-c-h name of my company, r-l-b Training and Development, and Ron, if anybody would like to chat, oh my goodness, please feel free to reach out. I promise you it will just be like what ron and I are doing right now we will chat if we want to work together and we decide that's best, wonderful.
Speaker 2:If not, I will gladly talk with you gladly yes, yes, and that's what we want to offer to you out there. I mean people that are doing the work that we do. I have an opportunity to meet so many phenomenal people in this space and I love it. I mean, culture is super important. We spend a lot of time. So thank y'all for tuning in, thank you for being patient as we walk through it. You know, as Ron talked about you to allow his wife to help, and that's what she probably wanted to do, but sometimes we get in the way of someone helping us. So leaders ask for help and once you ask for it, receive it. Make sure that you get to know yourself well enough. Take care of yourself, take care of your team and please follow us on Unpacked. With Ron Harvey, we release a different episode every single Monday, and the technology and the level of knowledge that we're trying to show you is just to add value. So thank you all for joining us.
Speaker 2:Again, this is Ron Harvey, with Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Linkedin is where I hang out most of the time for all the professional access. So if you need to find Ron or I, go to LinkedIn, look us up, ask us questions. We want to help and it's not just about us doing business with you. Oftentimes it's about us just supporting you and if business comes out of it, great, we'd love to do business. So we're not going to say no to business if it's right for our companies. But it's not just about us doing business. So please reach out to each one of us and help you get better as a leader. That's what we want to do. Thank y'all for tuning in and Ron and Ron will sign out on this particular day.
Speaker 1:And thank y'all. Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpacked Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron unpacks sound advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference, where you are, for the people you serve, because people always matter.
