Episode 30 · 15 March 2023 · 1:09:28

How Not To Be An A**hole, with Rob Kalwarowsky and Susan Hobson

Featuring Rob Kalwarowsky, Susan Hobson

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Intro — asshole days and the 60% stat
intro#customer-insight #data #business
Introducing our guests — Rob, Susan, PJ and Duncan
intro#guests #introduction #leadership
News roundup — rage applying, Gary Lineker and the BBC
news roundup#news #rage-applying #gary-lineker #bbc
News roundup — Elon Musk and Halli Thorleifsson
news roundup#news #elon-musk #halli-thorleifsson
What makes an asshole boss?
panel interview#asshole-boss #leadership #toxic-workplace
Values as the foundation of leadership
panel interview#values #leadership #organizational-culture
Active vs passive destructive leadership
panel interview#destructive-leadership #active #passive
The self-awareness cure — and Rob's polo coach confession
panel interview#self-awareness #leadership #coaching
Values as the glue between systemic and emotional
panel interview#values #systemic #emotional #leadership
Transparency, vulnerability and leadership
panel interview#transparency #vulnerability #leadership
Why being a leader is genuinely hard
panel interview#leadership #challenges #management
Internal vs external self-awareness
panel interview#self-awareness #internal #external #values
Rob's engineering identity crisis
panel interview#identity #engineering #career
Failing from extreme values, not lack of values
panel interview#values #failure #leadership
Brave, smart, kind — PJ's framework
panel interview#framework #brave #smart #kind
"If you think you're an asshole, that's a good sign"
panel interview#self-awareness #asshole #leadership
Trump, ambition and the motive behind leadership
panel interview#trump #ambition #leadership
The health cost of bad leadership
panel interview#health #bad-leadership #wellbeing
When you get it right — the flow of high-performing teams
panel interview#high-performing-teams #flow #leadership
V.I.T.A.L.S — a systems approach to well-being
panel interview#vitals #systems #wellbeing
Different identities, different senses of self
panel interview#identity #sense-of-self #psychology
Outro — the fact you're asking means you're not a narcissist
outro#outro #narcissism #leadership

Show notes

How Not To Be An A**hole — with Rob Kalwarowsky and Susan Hobson

Guest: Rob Kalwarowsky — High Performance Leadership Coach, International Keynote Speaker & Co-Host of The Leadership Launchpad Project Podcast. Former professional athlete, blending neuroscience, mindset coaching and high-performance leadership strategies with cutting-edge technology & data. — and Susan Hobson — Founder & CEO of Elite High Performance Inc, Co-Host of The Leadership Launchpad Project Podcast (Canada's #3 podcast for leaders), Forbes Coaches Council Member and expert in Mindset Strategy Architecture. Former professional women's hockey player, NWHL Cup champion and Princeton graduate.

We've all had THAT boss. But according to the data, 60% of us might be one of them…

Rob and Susan join Al and Leanne — alongside guests PJ Brady and Duncan So — to answer the uncomfortable question: how do we know if we're the asshole? They unpack the behaviours that make destructive leaders, why values might be the cure, and how to transform from asshole to A+ leader.

They dig into the difference between active and passive destructive leadership, why self-awareness is the first (and most hopeful) sign you're not a narcissist, and how extreme values — not a lack of them — are what derail leaders. Plus, the neuroscience of trust, the WHO data linking bad leadership to 1.88 million deaths, and why the fact you're worried about being an asshole means you probably aren't one.

Top 3 Takeaways

If you're worried you're an asshole, that's a good sign. Narcissists don't ask the question. The very act of self-reflection is proof you're not doomed to destructive leadership — it's a choice you make daily, not a fixed identity.
People fail from extreme values, not a lack of values. The problem isn't having no moral compass — it's dialling a value (like ambition or achievement) to the extreme and letting it crowd out everything else. The fix is finding the opposite extreme to recalibrate what you truly stand for.
Bad leadership literally kills. The WHO estimates work killed 1.88 million people. Passive, inconsiderate, incommunicative management isn't just unpleasant — it's a health crisis. Getting leadership right isn't a soft skill; it's a matter of life and death.

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

Expand full transcript

Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.

Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.

Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

Leanne ElliottYeah, and you know, I, I have definitely had, had asshole days as a, as a boss, as a manager, without doubt. None of us are perfect. We're all human.

Al ElliottHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture Podcast, brought to you by HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Al, and I'm a business owner.

Leanne ElliottMy name's Leanne. I'm a business psychologist that specializes in building high-performing cultures.

Al ElliottI'm feeling that I should have a specialist— specialism. I need to go back and rerecord that. So my name's Al, and I'm amazing. No, that's not really a specialism, is it?

Leanne ElliottYou are amazing. The reason— before we said that, we're here to help you simplify the science of people.

Al ElliottSorry.

Leanne ElliottBut the reason for that is that we had— we've had some misunderstanding as to what I do the last couple of weeks. People thinking that I do some kind of consumer psychology. That is not it. I'm all about building businesses through people.

Susan HobsonYeah. Yeah.

Al ElliottSo that's why we had a big long chat over a gin and tonic the other night and we were like, okay, this is your new tagline on the, on the, on the pod.

Leanne ElliottYeah. Recruitment engagement culture. That's me.

Al ElliottYep. REM.

Leanne ElliottI'm not sure that's taken.

Al ElliottYeah, I think it might have been taken out of time. So, uh, today we're talking about how not to be an asshole boss. Now there is some, already some contention around this because we are Brits, so we say asshole. Whereas I think all of our guests are either North Americans, so they're either American or Canadian, and they say asshole.

Leanne ElliottAsshole versus asshole. Get in touch, listener, and tell us which one you prefer. Maybe you're from North America and you just fancy saying asshole.

Susan HobsonYeah.

Al ElliottMaybe.

Susan HobsonMaybe.

Al ElliottYou see us Brits, we have bad food, bad teeth, but we are good at saying words. Asshole. Can you imagine just someone taking that completely out of context and, and just playing me going asshole? Anyway, I think we've— my concern was we're gonna say it too much this, this episode, and I've already said it about 8 times. So we'll just, we'll move on.

Susan HobsonWe'll move on.

Leanne ElliottIf you listened last week and you are playing that responsible drinking game, good luck to you, friend.

Al ElliottSo our first guest is Susan Hobson from Elite High Performance. She runs a network of elite coaches from around the world who help leaders to unleash their highest passion.

Susan HobsonHi everyone. I'm Susan Hobson. I am the CEO and founder of Elite High Performance Coaching. We are a science-based coaching practice here in Canada. We actually now in the last year have coaches from every part of the globe. So, but I've been doing this whole high-performance mindset coaching thing for about 15 years. I was a high-performance athlete. This is sort of where I first got exposed to this whole concept of mindset. And it was such a game changer. I had to come out of those gates on my mission. To bring this to high achievers everywhere.

Leanne ElliottOur second guest is Rob Kalwarowsky, who works with Susan and also hosts the Leadership Launchpad podcast. Rob's background is mining and engineering, and not only has he had his fair share of asshole bosses, but he's caught himself being a bit of an asshole himself from time to time.

Rob KalwarowskyI'm Rob Kalwarowsky. I'm a high-performance leadership coach, and similar to Susan, I was a Canadian junior national team water polo player. I am a graduate of MIT in mechanical engineering. I spent 10 years in heavy industry. And through working in heavy industry, I met a lot of asshole bosses and I worked for a few. And it led to a lot of the mental health challenges that I struggled with. And as I started pivoting into leadership coaching, I started learning about what leadership could be and how people could feel. And some of the gaps that a lot of leaders have, that it's not their fault. They just have these behaviors that they've learned over their life.

Al ElliottOur 3rd guest is the world-renowned PJ Brady, who describes himself as an accidental author and speaker, but he created this Brave, Smart, Kind framework. There's an accompanying book for it. And it helps businesses from 10 employees to 10,000 to uncover both company and individual values.

Rob KalwarowskyPJ Brady, Father of 3 little girls who dabbles in leadership, uh, speaking and, and coaching. And, uh, yeah, I'm the owner of the Brave, Smart, Kind Company, which I started several years ago when I started to notice that there was a significant need for values-based leadership, especially with entrepreneurs, especially with business owners to say, if you can get a lot of your own stuff right, you know who you are, you know how you succeed, you know how you fail. A lot of the rest of the parts of your business go fall into place too.

Leanne ElliottAnd finally, we have Duncan So, a thought leader from Canada. He's also an engineer turned clinician and famous for his advanced thinking around how technology and leadership can improve companies and prevent disengagement.

Rob KalwarowskyI'm Duncan So, and I run the Burnout Recovery Accelerator, what was once used to be called the Burnout Clinic. Um, and I focus on helping executives and, uh, workplaces recover from burnout.

Al ElliottSo before we hear more from our 4 guests, let's get my, my favorite time of the week. It is the news roundup week with the amazing Leanne Elliott, business psychologist. Hello, Leanne.

Leanne ElliottCue the jingle. I love the jingle.

Al ElliottMe too. I might, I might change it this week, actually.

Leanne ElliottI think you should. I like the kind of jaunty one from week 1. It's all a bit serious. Anyway, new word.

Al ElliottGo on.

Leanne ElliottRage applying.

Al ElliottOh, rage applying.

Leanne ElliottWhat do you think?

Al ElliottI think it's good. And I think also what is the first word of the week that actually I, I think I understand what it is.

Susan HobsonPlease.

Al ElliottWell, I would imagine that you, that you have a bad day and you go, right, fuck this shit, I'm gonna go and apply for another job. So you're in a rage, you go and apply for 5 different jobs.

Leanne ElliottPretty much, yeah. And it'll usually be triggered by, by something that your boss says or your coworker says. Something just pushes you over the edge, so you get on your laptop and you start applying furiously. Uh, rage applying. Um, it's kind of considered a bit of an extension from quiet quitting, and I think we talked about this in our Quiet quitting episode that, you know, quiet quitting is, is not gonna— people like the, like the backlash was that, oh, that's not sustainable for your career and you're gonna suffer. Yeah, of course, but people aren't gonna stay in that state forever. Um, so yeah, arguably the next state is rage applying, where people will respond to all sorts of jobs in a very short period of time, um, in a bit of a scattergun approach. But yes, a word of warning around again these scattergun applications, and this is from somebody who has been in, in the recruitment world or recruitment adjacent for 15 years. Talent acquisition is the fancy word, Al, quite rightly used. Um, I guess a couple of things if you are that person. One, remember that 6-month rule. A lot of organizations won't allow you to apply for other roles until that 6-month time period is up from your last unsuccessful application. And so if you've not put a lot of effort into that application, it doesn't go through, that might then cut off your chances for that company for a little while. Um, and also bear in mind, a lot of organizations use recruiters. And if you're applying to different organizations but it's kind of going to the same recruitment consultancy, they're gonna really question what your intention is in terms of applying for roles because you're applying for different roles with different salaries, with different expertise. Um, it could really potentially, um, kind of have a really negative impact on your own professional brand. So just be careful. Secondly this week, did you hear about the Gary Lineker scandal?

Al ElliottI did, I did. Now, it may be those— maybe across They haven't heard because Gary Lineker's British and it all happened in the British Broadcast Corporation, the BBC.

Leanne ElliottIt really did. It's, um, yeah, it's an interesting one. Uh, so Gary Lineker, English, uh, former professional footballer, played for the Premier League clubs Leicester, Everton, um, and Tottenham Hotspur, also played for England and Barcelona. Um, he's currently sports broadcaster of Match of the Day, which is the main football soccer program on the BBC. Um, and he's been the host since the late 1990s, so a long time. He was suspended from his job with the BBC because he tweeted about the government's new immigration policy being akin to something out of 1930s Nazi Germany. Um, now we're not here for the politics, but the point is, and you might be wondering, why would somebody be suspended from a job for having quite liberal left views?

Susan HobsonYeah.

Leanne ElliottWell, the point is the BBC is meant to be neutral. Um, and the BBC said that that had broken editorial guidelines on impartiality. Now, staff at the BBC lost their shit over this, including big names, big TV personalities. Nobody would host the show, nobody would step in for Gary. Um, and it was the first time since 1964 this show went on air with no hosts and no commentary. So people, people kicked back. So you might be wondering, Leanne, why is this a people and culture issue? Well, the thing is, the reason this all got completely blown out of proportion— there are a few issues that stem back to people and culture. So first, a psychological contract arguably has been broken between members of staff at the BBC, including Gary Lineker, and BBC leadership. Very briefly, BBC values include trust, respect, accountability. We are one BBC. They actually say on their website, more than just words on a page, our values set out what we stand for and inform everything we do. Marvelous. Yet bear in mind that the current BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, is currently facing growing calls to resign following allegations that he helped secure an £800,000 loan for Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the Conservative UK government.

Al ElliottAnd fairly famous right-wing Right-of-centre politician.

Leanne ElliottIndeed. And this was before he took up the role in January 2021, having been recommended by the then PM, Mr. Johnson, for his appointment approval by a committee of MPs.

Al ElliottHold on one second. So what you're saying is that this dude here, Richard Sharpe, helped Boris Johnson get an £800,000 loan, and then Boris Johnson went, oh, do you know what? We've got a job going at the BBC, which is the head of BBC. Would you like it? Oh, that— I didn't know that.

Leanne ElliottYeah, cheeky. So this whole one BBC, and then you also have to ask that, you know, if it's impartiality, would Gary Lineker have been suspended for backing the immigration policy by the UK government? Because that would have been the same argument— impartiality. I doubt it personally. Um, so I think that's the thing, it's calling into question this lack of integrity and accountability around leadership. And again, this incongruence drives us mad. Equally, staff from the BBC came forward with stories of being disciplined for their views, expressing their views on social media, where other kind of the big stars like Gary Lineker have been let off in the past. And this points to huge inequities in organizational justice. That's how organizations are made around, around people in terms of promotion, in terms of pay, in terms of treatment. And that is essential to psychological safety, and then in turn innovation And creativity. And creativity is another BBC value. So this whole thing has been blown out of proportion because there are deeper-rooted issues here in terms of organizational culture. And this might sound familiar to any business owners or leaders who feel like they're constantly firefighting, or they make one small policy change and everyone goes up in arms. It's probably not that change. It's probably not that thing that's just happened. It's probably just a sign of some much more deep-rooted issues in your culture that you really need to, need to start to deal with. But yeah, Gary Lineker has since been reinstated at the BBC, and he's also called out social media users for the abuse they gave him and his son George Lineker in reaction to the matter. And he's also publicly reported that to Elon Musk at Twitter. Speaking of Elon Musk and asshole bosses—

Al ElliottUh-oh, what's he done now?

Leanne ElliottYou must know what he's done.

Al ElliottI do know what he's done. The Icelandic, um, Icelandic guy.

Leanne ElliottYeah, so Halli Thorleifsson, I think that's how you say it. Halli, I apologize if you are by chance listening and I said that incorrectly, uh, but he joined Twitter when the company was acquired, um, his startup company was acquired by Twitter in 2021, um, and that was then under, under co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. What a guy, eh? In comparison, um, so yeah, he was celebrated massively in the media in Iceland, um, where he lives. And he actually chose to receive the purchase price as salary rather than a lump sum so he could pay higher taxes in his country to support public services.

Al ElliottGoodness.

Leanne ElliottThis is the kind of guy Halli is. So amid the mass layoffs at Twitter, um, second round of them, um, he went 9 days without knowing if he had a job or not. He'd been locked out of his systems but had no idea. So in the end, he, he tweeted Musk himself. Elon Musk then decided to publicly troll this person who just simply wanted to know if they still had a job. He told the employee to justify their work, posted laughing emojis to his responses, and also memes when— to some of the answers that Hallie gave.

Al ElliottSo I did see that.

Leanne ElliottYeah, proper asshole move.

Al ElliottI did see this. It did feel that Hallie came off as the bigger guy, as the person who was just like going, look, this is what I'm doing. And Elon just was like a child, wasn't he? I mean, I don't think—

Leanne ElliottA petulant child.

Al ElliottA petulant child, yes. I don't think he— I think if I remember, he doesn't drink, but I know he smokes. So maybe he'd had a little, uh, a little recreational cigarette before he, uh, before he tweeted. Maybe.

Leanne ElliottBut that conversation took a turn for the worse, uh, when Musk concluded, uh, that Halli did no actual work at Twitter and they had used an excuse That he had a disability that prevented him from typing. Yeah, Hallie does have a disability, but that is— and it's called muscular dystrophy, which is a degenerative disease. But he's also in a team that rarely requires typing and has actually, you know, been doing his job more than, more than well for a number of years. Is it illegal? Sadly, no, it's not. But another asshole move? Absolutely. And very bad for business.

Al ElliottYep. So there's, there's the lesson. Don't token tweet if you're, if you're Mr. Musk, because you're gonna end up being sued for an awful lot of money. Okay. So should we get stuck in?

Leanne ElliottYes.

Al ElliottOkay. So I think everyone has had an asshole boss. There's that meme with the guy who's saying, I'm gonna have to get you to stay over the weekend. You know, he's got braces. You know the guy from Office Space, I think it is the movie, who's just basically an asshole boss. Then there's, like, on TV, there's, there's the boss from Fight Club who's an absolute asshole. Then there's Bob Kelso from Scrubs, universally disliked. But the main questions we were interested in is, How do they get like that? And do they even know they're an asshole? Is it like being stupid and dead? Like, you don't know you're dead.

Leanne ElliottWhy are you the way you are?

Al ElliottOne of our favorite things from, from The Office, funnily enough, who I—

Leanne ElliottThat's another example of a questionable boss, I guess.

Al ElliottExactly. Exactly. So, yeah. So, so we asked them, how do they get like that? And do they even know they're an asshole boss? Are all asshole bosses even that easy to spot? So we spoke to Rob first, and Rob doesn't think so.

Rob KalwarowskyWhen we think of an asshole boss, typically, Typically what we're thinking of is these arrogant and violent bosses, these folks who, they're going to make demands, they think that they're the greatest thing since sliced bread, they're going to verbally or physically abuse their employees to get what they want. And actually, the data shows that that's not as common as we think. It's only around 5.5% of the workforce actually experiences those Bosses. Now, if we expand it to just what bosses are destructive to their folks or to their workplace, it's around 65.1% of leaders. And so destructive leadership is actually experienced by basically 2/3 of the workforce. And what that can be— It can be anything from a boss who's messy, doesn't really understand what they're supposed to do, doesn't really set clear expectations or deadlines or goals, anywhere to someone who's like an abusive narcissist who's, you know, basically claiming credit for everything and, you know, denying that they've ever done anything wrong, and anywhere in between.

Leanne ElliottI don't think it's a coincidence that About 2/3 of managers are destructive in their behaviours, and about 2/3 of our workforces are disengaged. I'm not sure this is a coincidence, Al, and I think we should learn more about that.

Susan HobsonMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottBut I think what's really interesting about what Rob said there is it's not necessarily about being an asshole boss, isn't just about being abusive or verbally, or being a narcissist. It's actually really destructive to be a very laissez-faire leader in terms of, you crack on, you do it, you do you, hun. Also isn't what employees want, it's not what we want work. We need those expectations. We need those boundaries. We need that support.

Susan HobsonYeah.

Al ElliottAnd I think you gotta ask yourself, does this, does this narcissism, all this kind of thing, does it come from insecurity? Like, do they have this massive imposter syndrome? Maybe they're scared. Maybe they don't know what they're doing. Susan's got a thought on this.

Susan HobsonI feel like the asshole boss falls more on the 1.0 side of that fence. What, whereas we, we talk about leadership 1.0 as being the old school management, not leadership style that was born in the industrial era. So This is the leader who has power over rather than awakening the power within. This is the leader that leads with fear. They're commanding control. And we know that that is what creates the toxicity in those cultures.

Leanne ElliottI think the interesting thing about, about narcissistic people or narcissistic bosses is it's a very, it's a very defined personality and way of thinking. So things like insecurity, imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome, aren't even going to be in their vocabulary. I think it's more the people that are maybe looking up at Susan instead of these, these more, um, you know, leaders that were maybe, maybe more boomer, maybe more older Gen X, but only simply because we tend to learn our leadership styles from the people who have led us, or what is kind of the social norm within the work environments. And that has shifted massively in the past kind of 15 years or so, and certainly more accelerated over the past few years. I think we're seeing, you know, I think insecurity, yes, and ruling with fear is, is an ineffective leadership style. Um, but also being more passive is an ineffective leadership style. Um, you know, so I think it's, it's, it's whether you are leading people for the first time or leading people and not really had that support around your own development as a leader, as a manager. Um, there might just be some misunderstanding here in terms of the actual leadership behaviors That are effective. Yeah.

Al ElliottAnd I think as PJ explains, like, this is down to the values of the individual leader. Like, if your values, if you've borrowed your values from Gordon Gekko, probably not a great example, but borrowed it from someone from the '80s, like Jack Welch perhaps, who wrote, who did lead with fear, then, you know, potentially those are the sort of values that make you become the leader you are. So PJ explains a bit more about this and how it comes back to childhood sometimes.

Rob KalwarowskyWhen I go into businesses and we talk, values, it's with 30, 40, 50-year-olds who haven't had this conversation before. And every time I talk to them, we trace the roots of their values back to childhood. We trace it back to their childhood. And if we know that values are established at a young age, why aren't we teaching values? Like, the goal of a lot of schools is we need to get good grades so that from the standardized testing, we show up at this level, at this whatever. All right, well, if that's what you're getting measured on, that's where people are going to put their efforts. That's true in business too, right? If anything that you measure gets accomplished.

Leanne ElliottYeah. Values, values are essentially a social construct, and any social construct is formed in our childhood. It's like we were talking about gender roles. You know, that might be a, a value of, of yours in terms of how men and women operate in the world. Um, you know, I'm thinking of, of what's your man who's now in jail? Sad story. Andrew Tate. Some of his values I'm sure are rooted in his, in, in his childhood, as, as all of us are. Um, so yeah, it makes complete sense to me that if we're looking for these shifts, then we need to be You know, looking at that systemic change at a much younger age in terms of how we're educated. And I think as well, you know, with those values, bearing in mind then that if we're reassessing our values as we get older, and we're starting to find that our values that we want to hold personally are very different from the external world or environment that we're in, there is gonna be this clash and there is gonna be this resistance. And we don't like confrontation. And as a leader, that can be very difficult to manage that confrontation and that change.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottEffectively, and it can, you know, lead to then some of these more destructive leadership behaviors being used. So, let's hear a bit more from Rob as he explains a bit more about 2 types of destructive leadership.

Rob KalwarowskyDestructive leadership basically gets divided into 2 forms. One is active and one is passive. It's not that you are actively going out there going, hey, I want to be an asshole today, and I'm going to punish my Right? Often, and the statistic from Dr. Tasha Urich says that 95% of people think they're self-aware when only 12% actually are. And so, if we think about it this way, there's around 80% of folks who literally have no self-awareness and we're just flying blind in the world. Because it's not that you want to be a bad person. No one ever sat in their career and was like, you know, hey, where do you want to be in 5 years? I want to be the greatest asshole. That's all of all time.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Rob KalwarowskyIt's as a child, you know, the teacher sits at the front of the room and tells you what to do. And then you go into sports and your coach says, do this, right? And so, it's not your fault. And so, on a passive side, often the behaviors or the categories that we would call destructive leaders in a passive sense are Messy bosses, they're cowardly bosses, and they're passive-aggressive or passive egocentric bosses.

Al ElliottI think we've all been a bit of an asshole sometimes, haven't we? I know when I had my first business, it was beer delivery company. If you want to hear the full story, then spin back about 10 episodes to around about Christmas time, and there's my story there. It's ridiculous. And I was so stressed, and we're working through the night, and then the printer stopped working. This is a laser printer. This is going 20 years ago. Sleigh sprint stopped working. So I genuinely took it out to the car park and kicked it around the car park with all my staff looking through the window at me going, what the fuck is he doing? So, yes, I think that, like, like Rob says, there's no one sets out to be an asshole, but it's just down to those either the external factors or just being too passive or too aggressive or perhaps this brave, smart, kind idea that PJ brought up.

Leanne ElliottYeah. And, and, you know, I, I have definitely had, had asshole days as a, as a boss, as a manager. Without doubt, none of us are perfect. We're all human. And I think mine is maybe mine came from kind of like a new member of staff on. I was really excited about the, you know, the skills that we could leverage from them. And I was with, it was kind of mid-month, lots of things going on, target-driven role, just needed to get this done. This person's coming in, they're doing this, they're doing that. It's gonna help you in this way. Marvelous. Let's all celebrate and, and go about our day. Whereas because I'd made so many assumptions and decisions already in my head, And pushed this solution onto my team, I got pushback, I got reaction, and we ended up chatting about it for about an hour and a half to come all full circle back around to the solution I was trying to implement in the first place. But we had to go through that process of discussion to get them fully on board with that fundamental change in their ways of working. I understand it can feel like you don't have the time, um, but you'll save, you'll save more time in the long run if you, if you just have that conversation. That's what I learn anyway.

Al ElliottSo being aware that you're an asshole is probably one of the best things that you can do as an asshole boss. And it's— and you don't have to say, I am an asshole boss. You can have asshole moments like Rob explains here.

Rob KalwarowskyActually, one time when I was the polo coach, I was putting the guys through a really hard workout. And one of the guys on my team got up and got out of the pool during the swim set and went over to his bag. And I was walking down the Pulled back and I was thinking of all the things I was going to yell at him for. And then he pulled a diabetes needle out of his bag. He was diabetic and he needed an insulin shot. And that was like a screeching moment for me going, you know what? I'm an asshole even though I'm not trying to be.

Susan HobsonMm-hmm.

Rob KalwarowskyAnd those moments, we've all had them, right? But does that mean that I'm doomed to this Rob's an asshole forever and I cannot change and I cannot be? No.

Leanne ElliottAm I an asshole or am I trying really hard not to be an asshole? And I think the second one is where this kind of self-awareness comes from, because you might think, well, I'm not an asshole, and if I am, I'm not doing it intentionally. Well, then are you intentional enough or aware enough in your behaviour as a leader to stop these destructive or maladaptive behaviours from coming out in the first place? I don't think it's enough to go, oh, well, I'm not an asshole. It's going, am I actively trying not to be an asshole in this moment and so many others? I think that the difficulty that leaders have with this, as we know from our conversations that we've had in the past few episodes around stress and burnout, Is that when we're under pressure, our brain chemistry changes and our behaviors that are strengths in the majority of situations, but can become weaknesses if they're overenacted, it's harder for us to moderate those behaviors during times of stress or fear or pain. And that's not just in the work environment. We know if things haven't been going on in our social life in terms of health issues or our family, then it's very hard for that not to impact our personal stress levels and in turn our own behaviors and moderate our own behaviors. Duncan explains this a little bit more.

Rob KalwarowskyIf you want to connect the systemic and the emotional sides, values is the glue, because values at a deep level is how we operate, how we evaluate our time to be meaningful, just by definition, right? It's not some values where you have on the wall or projected or hallucinate. I mean the values in which you were imprinted as a child Right, that you know neurologically is how you wanna spend your time and what's important to you. And so when you align to your values, and you can nerd out a little bit, is what we call neurological arousal. We're aroused, right? When we're aligned and turned in and tapped on and, and activated, right? And excited, we're turned on. And when we violate our values, which we call moral injury, we feel tremendous amounts of pain as well. And so the, the challenge for the modern workplace and modern leaders is You know, we have to come from a place now for Generation Z and all generations, to be honest, is let's have an honest conversation.

Al ElliottEven one of our other guests, PJ, who is the most laid-back and self-aware man in the world, he found himself being an asshole.

Rob KalwarowskyI saw the lack of kindness in so many people. I treated other people unkindly too. And so when I started realizing what some of my superpowers were and the way that I could do it and to say, No, PJ, you're a smart dude. Just quit manipulating people with it. PJ, you're a brave guy, but what you need to do is to not take— don't bet it all on one hand, PJ. Maybe diversify your blackjack bets. It's just to say, quit risking things that you don't want to lose. And as soon as I said, look, yeah, stop getting walked over, man. So, I looked at my values and then when I started to understand that I failed from those values because I was just living them in the wrong way. It was such a quick switch to turn it on, to turn it in that positivity. And because I defined them so well, I know when my values tip negative, and they do. You get stressed as stuff goes wrong in a day. Someone triggers you with the wrong word at the wrong time, with a childhood trauma, whatever it is. There's reasons why we get mad. I know why I get mad. I know why I fail, which still means I still get mad and I still fail. I just get to recover from it so much quicker. Yeah.

Al ElliottSo we've mentioned before that this feeling of pain or fear is the major way of becoming an asshole boss. But there's an idea that Leanne came up with that leaders should be a filter for information. Leaders should be deciding how little or how much info to share. And Susan explains a bit more.

Susan HobsonI really have an appreciation for now how I coach leaders on this whole transparency piece and like how vulnerable to be, you know, because on the one hand, you definitely, you, You want to be transparent so your people understand your decision-making process. But on the other hand, you also don't want to destabilize them by giving them too much of that information, which I sometimes can be guilty of. So I feel like that is something that I really connect with when I was watching Rob's keynote there in Australia, right? I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, that is definitely an aspect of where I'm being a little bit toxic as a leader, right? Where I'm either not giving enough information or I'm giving too much.

Rob KalwarowskyYeah.

Susan HobsonSo that's something that I'm knee-deep in right now as a leader of our team and trying to calibrate and navigate.

Leanne ElliottWhat Susan's kind of explained perfectly there is that, you know, even the behaviors that we would associate with effective leadership, being transparent, if that behavior is overenacted or enacted in a context that isn't very productive, then that becomes an ineffective leadership behavior. It becomes a destructive leadership behavior. There is a difference between being transparent with your team and saying, look, these are the shifting expectations from senior leaders, or this is the economic climate we're operating in, and this is why some of these things are changing, and it might, you know, feel difficult. The difference between that adult-to-adult conversation than kind of screeching into the office, throwing your bag down, go, oh my God, what a shit morning I've had. This happened and this happened, and John from blah blah blah, you won't believe what he said. What we have to do now. And you're like, whoa, I've worked for many people that have done that. And that was what my manager, my manager John— and if you're interested in, in my amazing manager and mentor John, and go back to my episode, um, just before Christmas— but he talked about hiding the wires. And this is exactly what it is. It's not, it's not kind of hiding everything from your teams, it's hiding the mess, it's hiding the noise, and it's just kind of being that filter that you're giving them the that they need to empower them to do their job, to understand the context that they're working in, and to learn. But they don't need, they don't need the information that's just going to put your added stress onto them. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's us by the way, and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?

Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.

Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.

Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not going to say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s—

Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the worlds of politics, business, and brands as well.

Leanne ElliottIt is, it's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing, but there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?

Susan HobsonIt can.

Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys? I am.

Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

Leanne ElliottBut come back.

Al ElliottYeah, come back.

Rob KalwarowskyDefinitely come back, because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back.

Leanne ElliottI'll cut that out.

Rob KalwarowskyKeep that in.

Al ElliottExactly. That's why being a leader is hard. It's really hard. It's not a question of just being promoted until you're good at the actual technical side of it. You've got to be good at the actual empathy. You've got to be good at managing people. You've got to understand how much to tell people and how much you have to kind of absorb yourself. So we've learned about the signs of an asshole boss. How do we— I said asshole. Then we learned about the signs of being an asshole boss. How do we stop being an asshole? Now, PJ's got this really simple framework, what he calls Brave, Smart, Kind.

Rob KalwarowskyI mean, any business owner knows that your company starts to live Your values. And what people don't know is that you live and die by your values. Very frequently do people fail because there's a lack of values. Typically, people fail because there's an excess of value. So, think about yourself being too kind. Well, if you're too kind, you're going to get walked over. Think about yourself being too smart. If you think you know everything in the room, are you going to listen to others? Are you going to open your mind to other perspectives? Think about being too brave. Are you taking too many risks without enough thought, without enough considering the people? So, it's really this trifecta. Of do you understand how you overcome, how you critically think, and how you treat others and yourself? And if you live in that balanced space, knowing your values, there's so many parts of your business that start to fall into place anyway. If you see it as 3 buckets of the brave, smart, and kind, the beautiful part is it encapsulates every single value that's on the planet. There's not a value— and I've done this exercise a billion times— there's not a single value value that doesn't fit into how we overcome, how we critically think, or how we treat others and ourselves. And so because of that, we just take the time to define it because we understand it.

Leanne ElliottGary Lineker and the BBC. Do you see what I mean there? And, and, and again, PJ's explained it so beautifully, is that if you're, if you go one way too far or the other, if you're too much of something or not something of something else, or you are not authentically reflecting your values in your own behaviors and decisions, Then it's not— there's going to be anarchy in your organization. That isn't going to float anymore. Those days of that type of control command leadership are gone. And I love what PJ says there, and it often comes down to this again. It's just having that balance.

Susan HobsonYeah.

Al ElliottSo obviously, your key is to have good values, but also be aware of those values, as Rob explains.

Rob KalwarowskySo, just to keep going a little bit deeper, there's 2 types of self- There's internal self-awareness. I am aware of my values, my mindset, my goals, and how the things I do align with that. There's external self-awareness, which is how aware am I about how the 3 of you are experiencing me in this moment? They're not correlated, right? So you can have very high internal self-awareness and be completely You know, like you can be walking around like Mr. Magoo, right? Like have no idea what's going on. And the opposite is also true. Like I can be absolutely aware of how the 3 of you experience me and I can have no idea what my values are. And so, just for folks out there, it's like really digging into— I mean, and self-awareness is proven as like one of the top leadership skills, the top skills for success along with emotional intelligence, which they're kind of correlated. But for folks out there, if you want to start doing this work, self-awareness and emotional intelligence are really the foundation, starting point.

Leanne ElliottClearly a value shared between, between ourselves and Rob and Susan. Self-awareness is, is, you know, a really incredible place to start improving your leadership capability and effectiveness and not being an asshole. The interesting thing as well about self-awareness that Rob brought up there is that one, we're not always very good at being self-aware. We think we are, but we're not always very good at it. And to my, my understanding of me is going to be very different to Al's understanding of me, or Rob's understanding of me, or Susan's understanding of me. And one thing that we always recommend to our clients when they come to us and they want to explore either leadership behaviors or team strengths in terms of using a psychometric to help them is to look at something called a 360. And that's where we're going to gather information from what the line manager thinks of that member of staff, what their senior leader thinks of that member of staff, what their customer thinks, what their stakeholders think, what their teams think. Because often there are discrepancies, as Rob says, between what we think we're good at and what we think our strengths are and what other people see them as. And that's similar if you're a leader. You can do your own self-awareness and reflection, introspection in terms of various psychometrics, but if you really, really Wanna know if you're an asshole boss or not, you're gonna have to ask somebody else. So not only do you need to be self-aware, but you need to have confidence in what you're doing. And if you don't feel you're doing a good job, when you aren't confident, then your team can pick up on this. Here's Susan.

Susan HobsonYeah, like, I think that that can leave a leader in a chronic and constant state of insecurity, right? Because they're always feeling like they're not enough, and therefore they're always gonna be destabilized. In their energy, right? So they could be saying the exact same things, but depending on whether or not they're getting their needs met in adaptive ways or maladaptive ways, that's what's going to carry the most weight in terms of how that messaging lands with their people. So whereas we work with our leaders to make sure that they have intrinsically based strategies where they know where to go inside of themselves at all times, no matter the conditions externally, so that they actually can be on strong, stable ground in their nervous system, right? Which then opens them up to more of a growth mindset, right? Where it's like, of course, this is the whole purpose of this leadership thing. It's to grow and to evolve and to realize max potential, which is not a motivation that's not coming from a deficit, right? It's not coming from, oh my God, I'm not enough. I have to get there so I can be enough. It's like, I got all this value intrinsically that I know I validated, that I feel in my confidence, in my nervous system, that starts to set that leader up to be able to go and grow sustainably and realize max potential and impact.

Al ElliottSo this idea of lack of confidence, lack of self-awareness, and then the lack of actually core values that PJ talks about means you kind of have to fall back on who you think you should be, which is not only really bad because it's incongruent, but also having to play that part every single day can have a dramatic impact on your mental health, as Rob explains.

Rob KalwarowskyWhen I got into work, I was like, hey, I gotta be this high-performing engineer because this is who I am. My self-concept was, I'm reliable Rob. This is who I am, the guy who delivers. I got into work, I saved them a bunch of money, and my boss was like, hey, I don't want this because it makes me look bad if you're doing something that I should have done before. This was catastrophic to my self-concept. If I couldn't deliver, who am I? This is where you get into these deep pockets where I went, which was like, Well, if I don't know who I am, does my life have purpose? Is there meaning in the world? And then ultimately almost led me to taking my own life. As we can construct our way out of this, that's when we can start changing the narrative. Like literally, I would've kicked my grandma down the stairs to win a game, right? I say this as a joke. But like, it's serious. Like, I would have done anything to win. It doesn't matter what. I would just do anything to win. And now it's changed. It's not about like doing anything to win. And I still love winning, but it's about the way that that win lands in your experience. I don't need it like a breath of fresh air. I know who I am. I know that I'm not like— my identity is not just this fact that I deliver. I know who I am. And that's the transition point.

Susan HobsonRight.

Rob KalwarowskyAnd Buddhists talk about life is suffering. And really what they mean is life is thirst. And once They talk about, but as they work about transcendence, it's like once you can let go of desire, you no longer need that next drink. And for us, it's not that we don't want you to perform well at all. Actually, the data is correlated that you will perform better.

Leanne ElliottOkay.

Rob KalwarowskyBut it's about once we can realize our self-concept is not tied to our performance, then it's not about like pushing you down so I can look better, or, or, you know, taking credit for your work, or, you know, having to be the smartest person in the room and telling everyone what to do instead of just allowing folks to become better. And that's the transition from asshole boss to great leader.

Susan HobsonYeah.

Al ElliottI think what Rob said there, and he was— he is quite open. He's got— there's a great talk he did in Australia, which I think Susan referenced earlier, around the point where he did try to take his own life. And that was just this incongruence of, like, if I can't be the person who I wanted to be, then who am I? And you just have this loss. And I think that there are so many leaders out there who go, I want to be this type of leader because that's who I believe I should be, rather than actually just saying, hang on a minute, what are my strengths? Going back to PJ, brave, smart, kind.

Rob KalwarowskyYeah.

Al ElliottWhat are my strengths? What am I good at? That's how I lead. Not by having some, not by being this amazing, you know, like really famous person who fires the bottom 10% regardless, regardless of, of how well they've done.

Leanne ElliottYeah. And I, I wonder if that is also where, you know, we, we, you know, a big source of the great resignation was people suddenly find themselves in a, you know, in a world where their, you know, their physical health and their, their, you know, their mortality was being seriously brought into, into question. At that point, you know, thinking, are my own personal values out of sync with the way that I'm expected to behave or have to behave in, in this environment? And yeah, it went— it took an extreme, extreme route to, to doing that and quitting their job. I say extreme route, you know, Rob stayed in an environment like that and it almost killed him. Um, so yeah, there's lots of pressure that we can put on ourselves to, to act and think and feel a particular way. Um, that's also a phenomenon called moral burnout, or an environment where Our values are, are misaligned with the, the world around us. And, and we've talked at, at length about burnout and the physical and, and mental health challenges that it can bring.

Al ElliottSo PJ explains that it's not just having no values or not knowing what your values are that can make you fail as a leader. It's also having an extreme value of some kind. Here's PJ.

Rob KalwarowskyI don't believe that people fail from a lack of values. I feel that people fail from an extreme value. If you get walked over, it's because you're valuing that kind value too much. If what you do is— if you're an overthinker, analysis paralysis, well, your smart value has gone too far. If you take too many risks and you aren't able to hold back or don't have balance or something like that, your brave value has been taken too far. Ambitious, stubborn, intention can be manipulative. All of the things are in extremes.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Rob KalwarowskyDial them into the extreme of the other direction, you find out what you truly stand for.

Leanne ElliottThis might sound a bit familiar, what PJ's talking about here, from our, um, How Not to Be a Psychopath, um, episode, uh, which talked about dark side personality traits and again how they are absolute fundamental strengths until they're taken to the extreme and can be hugely maladaptive and destructive, not only to ourselves but to those around us.

Al ElliottSo as it comes back to these values, if you use PJ's idea of brave, smart, kind, then you can easily see what's out of kilter. So perhaps if you're not hitting targets, you're not being brave enough. If your team is working all hours to get everything done, you're maybe not being smart enough. It sounds easy, but a lot of companies have already established their values. So PJ suggests that going back to the basics can be really helpful.

Rob KalwarowskyFor a lot of existing companies, they already have their values in place. So then from that, we say, all right, you've got your values, Have you defined them? And they're like, yeah, it's on our poster. I'm like, no, okay, slow down. Just because it's on a poster, have you spoken to your people about this? And when they say, no, we haven't, then the exercise goes, we go around to all the sites and we sit down and we talk to the people and say, all right, one of your values, and this is one of Malexis's, is take care of people. It's easy enough. It's not rocket science. Lots of businesses say take care of people. What does that mean to your teams? And then when they start to walk through that, then they start to see that across their sites, they've got sites, 18 sites all over the world, about, I think, 1,800 staff. Then they start to see the patterns in which they lead. They start to see the patterns in which whether someone's in Korea or someone's in France or someone's in the US, these are the ways in which we want to take care of our people. For the companies that haven't done that, Local culture can take over. The issues that they start to see from site to site differ. That can be a problem because then you're trying to put out so many different fires. So from there, it's like, all right, you've got that, you have the definition. Now what are the actions you want to take? And then we map out an action plan from that, the value framework. They need to know that if the people align with their values, they're going to be very loyal. They're going to want to show up for work. They're going to want to create their actions for that. If they don't align with your values, you might have to let them go, and that might suck. And at the same time, if you want your team showing up for you, if you don't live by those values, the people who don't agree with them or don't care, they stay. And the people who do care about them and you're not living up to them, they leave, which is a strange dynamic that you don't want all the crappy people staying and all the ones you who live a values-based existence to leave.

Leanne ElliottSuch fantastic advice from, from PJ here. And I think this is a thing where sometimes the science and practice of, of people and culture, of business psychology, can sometimes get lost in translation. We don't have values because we put them on a poster or write them on our wall, and, and that gives people— that's what's going to give people that sense of purpose and reason in their world, is knowing what our values are.

Susan HobsonNo.

Leanne ElliottWhat those values, as PJ rightly said, need to be translated into behaviours, and there needs to be consensus around these behaviours. What are the things that look great, that define this value in terms of how we think, feel, and behave at work? What are the things that are completely unacceptable? And one of my favourite psychologists, John Amici, actually defines workplace culture as the worst behaviours tolerated within a company.

Susan HobsonMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottAnd I think that, that kinda just sums up everything PJ has said there, that, you know, having the values isn't enough. You have to live and breathe them. And again, as well, that ties into when people want to recruit for culture fit. We talked about this before. It's a bad idea unless you have the sophistication of values that PJ is talking about. I will leave a link to that episode in the show notes if you want to know what the hell I'm talking about.

Al ElliottSo this idea of being self-aware is something which Rob thinks is really, really important.

Rob KalwarowskyFirst off, if you're thinking that you're an asshole, it's a good sign. Yeah. I mean, not that I'm not saying Because you're an asshole. But it's like, literally, a lot of the folks who are thinking this are the folks that we're most worried about are not thinking this. They don't have the self-awareness to even see that it could potentially be them. And if they do actually think they are, they're shutting it down with their protection, right?

Susan HobsonYeah.

Rob KalwarowskyI cannot allow myself to feel like an asshole because I have these gaps in my mindset. Now, in terms of how to start, I mean, we have a coaching program, the Leadership Launchpad, to help folks get there. But it's very much this, and we talk about this on our podcast, is very much the difference between horizontal and vertical work. I love it. Thank you also to David Irvine for sharing that verbiage with us. But horizontal work is, hey, I'm watching the new TED Talk I'm listening to a new podcast. I'm reading a new book. I'm reading another article. These things are good. There is value to doing this. You can get new perspectives. You can learn a bunch of stuff. But there's also benefit to doing the deeper vertical work, which is starting to excavate your mindset, your psychology, understanding if, like, what is driving you?

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Rob KalwarowskyAre you trying to be like Reliable Rob? Are you trying to show up in this specific way to signal to other people that you're good enough or they should like you or that they'll accept you or that they'll love you or that you're powerful? Or what are these things that you are doing that are being driven in these unsustainable ways or maybe sustainable ways?

Al ElliottIt's funny because all of our guests talk about the reasons behind wanting to be a leader, both independently brought up Donald Trump. Let's hear what Rob says about him.

Rob KalwarowskyDonald Trump, you know, like, these folks are that way. Now, is it necessarily they're bad people? Probably not. They're probably just very highly traumatized folks that rose to the position that they have, or they could be sociopaths. But those are basic That's basically a lot of what I look at, right? And it could be even coaches on TV. Like, you know, like you often, you see coaches in sports yelling at their players or yelling at the referee, or like these are very much, you know, abusive narcissists for a lot of the part, right?

Susan HobsonYeah.

Rob KalwarowskySo that's where, I mean, we see it in TV. Now the opposite is starting to become more true. Like, we're seeing, you know, like, I think Ted Lasso— I've never watched it, but I hear from everyone that he's a very interesting character as a leader. We're seeing stuff like from Brené Brown and Simon Sinek around, you know, bringing this, you know, courageous leadership to the workplace and vulnerability and love.

Leanne ElliottPJ also agrees that Donald Trump makes an interesting case study in the world of leadership.

Rob KalwarowskyYou can look at a load of leaders throughout history who have been ambitious, and I could throw it to you and say, was Nelson Mandela ambitious? Damn right he was, right? Donald Trump ambitious? Damn right he is. How do you go about— how do you live that value? And that's why we say some people succeed by it and some people fail by it, is can you stay in the positive space? So if ambition is one of your Your values, great. How do you act from that ambition? And from Nelson Mandela, he put a point of, I'm going to respect people no matter where they come from, what their background is, right? If it's someone like Donald Trump, he doesn't respect people. So, it's kind of like where he lives those values and the actions that you come from them. So, if someone's building their company and say, I want to sell this to Google, well, guess what Google's also interested in, right?

Susan HobsonYeah.

Rob Kalwarowskyis they're also interested in hiring teams that get along together. So if you have a bunch of a-holes who are working for the company just to sell it and they don't give an F about the rest of the world, let it burn. Well, that might not come with very good publicity. Maybe Google doesn't want them. Maybe they look at that leadership team, because I know that's something investors look at, and say, tell me about your investor team or your leadership team. And if it's backstabbing to make a buck, People don't want to buy that company.

Leanne ElliottWe learned a few weeks ago what investors are— what VC investors are looking for in 2023. All comes down to investing in people, not investing in businesses. So brilliant there to hear PJ echo that sentiment.

Al ElliottAbsolutely, absolutely. Susan agrees as well. It's down to the reason and motivation behind wanting to be seen as a leader.

Susan HobsonLeaders who rise to positions of power, you often think like, what was that motive? You know, like there's a difference between the leader that has Been very passionate about something, and then that took them places in their credibility and their expertise. Right. But the leaders who wanted that position of power, that's a very different motivation oftentimes that comes from the deficits, right, of needing that sense of safety outside of them in the form of the validation. So the more power, the more validation.

Leanne ElliottSusan pointed out probably one of the The most frequent routes to leadership there is actually progressing well in your own realms of your own job and role and getting promoted into a management position. That's how I got promoted into my first management position. But it does mean that if we're promoted in position because we're passionate about the job, it might not necessarily be that we're passionate about people leadership. And on that level, it really is something we need to consider. Going back to that neuroscience study I mentioned earlier and the traits That they found an effective leader that fosters this trust. There's a whole list, and I'll leave the link to the article in the show notes, but the main ones they talked about really was giving people, translating these values into purpose, or translating purpose into values. They probably work both ways. What is the mission of the organization? How does it fit in with our values? How does it enable us to live and breathe our values? And what's the wider impact that we have on our customers, on our community, and potentially, you know, on the world as well. And with that reason, making sure it's tangible for people within the roles that they have, and within those roles that they have some form of discretion in terms of how they go about that work. They have some form of control because you trust them to have that autonomy in their role. Secondly is really being very intentional about developing great relationships, and, you know, developing empathy. And I think intent is the key there. Some of the, kind of the backlash we saw with hybrid working, remote working, working during the pandemic and even now is that leaders are finding it harder to communicate with their teams and build these authentic relationships because it feels— these interactions feel forced. And that for me just kind of stems from, I think, leaders who— the majority of leaders have been lazy in how they structure these interactions, that they're passive, that they happen whenever, that they're around the water cooler, around the kettle. Um, the point is that great leaders are intentional about developing great relationships, and that's why often these great leaders don't seem to struggle with remote work as much as others. And finally, and actually the one that came up number one in terms of what you can do as a leader to build this trust, which then translates into high levels of performance, is recognition. Celebrating success, selling people's— celebrating people's achievements, but importantly, helping them understand why you were particularly impressed with the behaviors, those value-driven behaviors that they enacted to achieve the result they did. And it's that positive reinforcement enforcement that is really gonna embed those values in your leadership and help you reap all the performance benefits?

Susan HobsonI just think it, it really does depend on how strong the leader is in terms of being able to engage their people. And that to me is where all the Leadership 2.0 soft skills, that's where that lies, right? Like in terms of seeing your people, hearing your people, celebrating your people, giving your people feedback, like If you're showing up like that already as the leader, you've got that strong baseline of trust and psychological safety. Your people are going to work with you, especially if your people want to work from home and have the capability to work from home excellently.

Rob KalwarowskyOh, totally. I mean, Gallup has, for the top 5 drivers for employee engagement, one is giving your people purpose. 2 is developing your people. 3 is being a caring manager or them feeling like you're a caring manager, having ongoing conversations about the person and their development and purpose and all these things. And then finally is the focus on strength. None of these need you to be next to the person or across the table from the person.

Leanne ElliottAnd just to connect those dots there, what Rob was saying about Gallup's meta-analysis, And it is an interesting dataset to look at. But in terms of the benefits for the individual, much, much higher levels of fulfilment in our work, and that translates directly into our wellbeing and our physical health outcomes as well. And for a business, the rewards include higher productivity, better quality products, and increased profitability, to name a few. The list is very long on the commercial benefits of high employee engagement.

Al ElliottSo, this idea of not knowing yourself, not knowing your values, not being very self-aware, you know, it can lead to you being an asshole boss. But it can also lead to actually something a bit worse, as Rob explains.

Rob KalwarowskyThe World Health Organization has a paper from 2016 that says that work killed 1.88 million people. It's not from just suicide. It's, it's overwork. It's stress. It's complications from all these things. And often what it is, is one, it's the workplaces that we're in, the 65.1% of bosses who are destructive to our health, and then also just our own beliefs about who we need to be in these workplaces. Like, you can have a great boss, but if you don't know how to shut yourself off, if you have to be the guy who delivers or Reliable Rob, you're going to go all the time.

Leanne ElliottIt's quite unbelievable, is it? As a psychologist, I think that people Some people still question the relationship between our work environment and our working experiences and our physical and mental health. There is so much data and research and literature going back decades and decades of these relationships. And one that I actually read recently, which was a study published this year in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and it's the first to establish a clear link between management style and employee heart health.

Susan HobsonWow.

Leanne ElliottSo employees who said their managers were passive, inconsiderate, and incommunicative were more likely to suffer from heart attacks, according to this Swedish study that looked at more than 3,000 people. So yeah, having an asshole boss can literally give us a heart attack.

Al ElliottSo that's what can happen when you get it wrong. But when you get it right, when everyone feels like they're playing for the same team, if everyone feels like there's energy in the room, we're all trying to do the same thing, then it just works. PJ used this analogy of playing blackjack, which he's very good at, to explain the whole idea of everyone being on board.

Rob KalwarowskyAnd so when I would go and play those tables where everybody's rooting for each other and everyone's playing in the same way, fighting the same cause, we know we're all against the dealer. In blackjack, you're against the dealer, not against each other. You can all win all the time. Play by the rules and you come together and you win. The sales teams that I've worked for, when they've got the right culture, when they pump each other up in the morning, when they high-five for a good sales when they give someone else a lead because they know they're having a hard day. How are you kind? Well, we pick each other up. Great. How are you smart? We go through the research. We take the time to learn. How are you brave? Well, one of the ways that we're brave is we're persistent. We keep going at it. And so, it— because that balances with the kind value of when we're a team, if someone else gets down, we're picking them up too.

Susan HobsonYeah.

Rob KalwarowskyThen they do better. They have motivation to show up for your work. And you know this, either if you're a good salesperson, you're either a great actor or you've got a team who picks you up and you're just an enthusiastic person. You know, find ways to, to establish how you treat each other, how you want to think, and how you're going to overcome your challenges. Do that as a team, and those are the ones that succeed.

Leanne ElliottI'm not sure there is any better feeling as a leader, as a manager, as an employee when everything just seems to be working and everything's in sync and you just feel like you're invincible. It's such an empowering feeling and has brought me so much joy and fulfillment, both as an employee— I experienced it as an employee and as a leader. It is the most— I'm feeling— I can feel my heart rate accelerating now just remembering it because it's such an incredible high to be in that environment where you've got each other's backs, you're working towards something incredible. And performance-wise, you're absolutely smashing it.

Al ElliottI totally agree. I used to be in a sales environment where we used to sell advertising, um, over the phone. And there was this one girl in the corner, one lady in the corner, um, who would always kill her targets very quietly by about Thursday and then spend all of Friday just getting us deals. And then she'd put them on, on the board under our name, and then we'd all have to work out Monday morning. We'd have to ring up and try and get those deals back to pay her back. But yeah, it was just that feeling of she could have gone home But she didn't. She stayed there. We all worked together. We're all in it together.

Rob KalwarowskySo yes.

Leanne ElliottI love it. And I think, I think one of the things, you know, as a leader, you can get very reminiscent for times like this. I myself am very reminiscent and, and look back at those as being great times. And I think maybe there can be a danger that we try and recreate those if it's lost, either because we've, you know, some people have left or natural attrition or growth. And we can sometimes feel that we need to get back to where we were because that's when it was working. But, you know, it's an evolution of what's gonna Work now, you know, as of, as of today, as of, you know, March 2023, what does it, what does it look like to be brave, smart, and kind? And I'm sure PJ would, would agree that what that looks like today is probably very different to what it looked like 5 years ago. We've talked a lot about values. We've talked a lot about incongruence. We've talked a lot about how our values and behaviors affect others. And we've also talked about how, as leaders, this, this incongruence in values, or not knowing how to apply these values in a way that is sustainable in the environments that we're in, can have significant impacts on our mental health. So I asked Duncan, what can leaders do better to invest in themselves and in their own wellbeing?

Rob KalwarowskyYeah, so I'll start off with, uh, and this comes from literature or the work in systems change leadership, right? So if you look at people who are profoundly, they, they change the world in profound ways. There's a really famous, loosely paraphrased, uh, saying that Gandhi would say, right? Be the change you wanna see in the world. Be the change you wanna see in the world. So change starts from within. All change starts from within. We have fancy change management processes that we want to control the change on the outside, but the reality is we want to change us first. And there is a concept that we call congruency, right? So maybe the flip side of it is true, and people will be familiar with this. There's a notion of imposter syndrome. I know it's a really popular buzzword right now, but the idea of imposter syndrome is we have these different parts in us, these different identities. A part of me is a mom, part of me wants to be a director, an executive, or a professional, and part of me wants, you know, be an athlete, a part of us to be super healthy. And all these different parts have different values and all have different belief systems and they conflict with each other, right? And so when it comes to wellbeing is we have to solve that, right? And so in order for us, for we to solve that, when I say is you gotta solve that within yourself. So if you're a leader, you wanna be a successful leader, then you have to go through life with congruence. And from a more of a metaphysical lens or a spiritual lens, you always hear the notion of Beingness, right? Being present that we're human beings, right? But language has— language is practical, right? Language has a practical expression to it. And so we're learning how to be. And so part of beingness, by the way, is wellbeing, right? So the word's in there, right? It's not wellness. There's wellness if you do these activities, right? Let's do a yoga class. Let's do some breathing exercises. Let's journal. Let's walk. Let's, let's, you know, let's wellness. It's like an activity outside of us.

Susan HobsonYeah.

Rob KalwarowskyWell-being, right? Leveraging the word being is a self-encompassing notion. You take them straight from the language. I didn't invent it, right? Straight from the language of what it means is it takes well and puts being together. And so leaders will have to learn what it takes. So one, burnout's a little bit of extreme. Obviously not everyone's gonna be burning out, but burnout does offer some really useful lessons, right? So if you ask anybody that's gone through burnout successfully, the other side, They go through not just a transformation, but what I like to call like a very transcendental moment of their life, right? Because, you know, when we learn about consciousness patterns, like you'll learn like there's, you know, there are groups of people in the beginning, they're like, oh, I wanna break the status quo, be very disruptive. And you'll introduce things like agility and want things now. And I want the gold watch now. Like things that we've both experienced, right? And then one of the sort of offshoots of that, the lessons in sort of that paradigm of go, go, go, everything now. fast and agile and lean and flat and all those words, right, is what's the point?

Al ElliottI don't like—

Rob Kalwarowskywhat is— I think the keyword that came, came out for Gen X that's popular today in leadership is, what if I feel unsuccessful even though I'm successful?

Leanne ElliottDuncan mentioned there how we can have different identities and different senses of self depending on, on the environment that we're in. And that's absolutely True. And it's not to say that for positive wellbeing, we need to completely amalgamate all of these identities into one. We are different people with our friends and our family than we may be with our work colleagues or our kids. But the thread that runs through those identities are our values. And as Duncan says, when we're not living our values, or when we think we're living our values, and then that success comes and we don't feel the joy from it or the fulfilment from it, that's because our values are misaligned. There's a really great exercise, um, called VITALS, which helps you to explore what your, your values are, your interests, your, your personality, and your temperament. So you can have something on paper. So when you're experiencing some kind of emotional or cognitive dissonance or, or some kind of psychological discomfort, you can reflect back on it and think, what environments am I currently in that maybe— Well, not forcing me, but I, I am in a place where I need to compromise what my values are? And there will be times where we do, um, but if we do that for too long, that's where it's really going to start to impact our, our well-being. So I will leave that exercise in the show notes, uh, for you to, for you to try and use it and reflect on. We've talked a lot in this episode about reflection, introspection, understanding our own behaviors. There are various different ways to, to go about that. We've mentioned a few in this episode, including the Um, the emotional intelligence psychometric you can do, uh, the Hogan assessments you can do, and also the 360. So if you're looking for a practical tool, we will leave all of those in the show notes. So a big thank you to our guests today. First of all, Duncan So, the founder of Transcend the Hustle. Um, if you want to hear more from Duncan, you can check him out over on LinkedIn and you can go to his website transcendthehustle.com. For more information on Susan, the founder and CEO of Elite High Performance, and Rob, who is a leadership coach at the same company, Do again, check them out on LinkedIn and connect with them. We will leave the links to both of their profiles in the show notes. You can also check out their website, elitehighperformance.com. And of course, their podcast, Leadership Launchpad Project, which Al and I have been on actually.

Al ElliottWe have, really good.

Leanne ElliottYeah, really, really great podcast and a really great resource for leaders. So do check that out. And finally, thank you to PJ Brady from Brave Smart Kind Company. Um, I think he gave us so many practical tips there and really brought to life what it means to, to live and, and work our values. For more information on PJ, again, we will leave a link to his LinkedIn profile in the show notes. You can also check out bravesmartkind.com.

Al ElliottSo hopefully now you know what an asshole boss looks like, whether you are gonna be an asshole boss and what you can do about it.

Leanne ElliottIf you do find yourself being an asshole boss, chances are you are an asshole boss from time to time. I think we all are.

Al ElliottI think we all are.

Leanne ElliottI think that, and as Rob said, the fact that you're going, Oh God, am I? Means that you're not a narcissist because that wouldn't even cross your mind if you were. You're in a position where you can absolutely reflect and learn and adopt the behaviours that are going to make you more effective. So get in touch for more advice on how you can, you can approach that. We'll be back next week with another episode where we are talking about teams, how to build high-performing teams, and the funny, the funny and interesting phenomenon that is called the Superstar Effect.

Al ElliottLooking forward to it. See you next week. Bye-bye.

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