How to Lead Well, with Josh Elledge

Unlock the transformative power of effective leadership with me, Jon Kidwell, Founder and CEO of Leadwell.  In this episode, Josh interviews me on his show, Up My Influence, as he and I dive in to dissecting the vital role of leadership development in today's mission-driven organizations. Prepare to discover how nurturing great leaders can curtail the alarming rise in job turnover and mend the frayed edges of employee engagement. We'll examine the often-missed growth dimensions within a company that extend beyond financial success, diving into the essence of relational bonds and product distinction. For leaders at the forefront, our conversation tackles their ambition for advancement against the ever-present constraints of time and budget, while also navigating the operational quagmires of delegation and managing expectations.

Experience a fresh perspective on Servant Leadership tailored for the business realm, illuminated by my own journey over the past decade and the evolution that unfolds within my book. John and I explore how being mission-aligned, servant-hearted, and business-astute can converge to foster confidence, finesse in delivering constructive feedback, and an organic melding of personal and organizational growth. We'll share some client success anecdotes that showcase tangible enhancements in retention and productivity, and outline Leadwell's resources, encouraging a deeper engagement with our redefined Servant Leadership model through our book and podcast.

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Order your copy of Jon's book at RedefineYourServantLeadership.com, and don't forget to utilize the additional resources, or purchase access to the Workbook and Coaching Videos.

Send your Leadership and Business questions to Jon at podcast@leadwell.com.

For more information visit https://leadwell.com

The Leadwell Podcast gives mission-driven leaders principled and practical advice to do just that, lead well.

In each episode, your host Jon Kidwell, interviews leaders with great stories, to share strategies that help leaders navigate complex, confusing, and often down-right challenging leadership, personal growth, business, and workplace culture situations.

Jon is a nonprofit executive turned coach, speaker, author, and CEO of a leadership development company. In working with nonprofits and businesses, big and small, he realized the unique challenges leaders face when they are committed to keeping the mission and people the top priority. Those leaders’ commitment to their principles and the people they lead, plus seeing the need for more leaders who strive to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons, is what inspired Jon to start a leadership development company dedicated to the success of mission-driven leaders and their organiza...

Transcript

Leadership Development and Organizational Impact

Josh Elledge 0:00

With us right now. It's Jon Kidwell. Jon, you're the founder and CEO of Leadwell. You are found on the web at leadwellcom. I also want to point out that you are the host of the Leadwell podcast. So, to our podcast listening friend, just do a quick search right now for Leadwell. One word and you'll find your podcast. Jon, thank you so much for joining us.

Jon Kidwell 0:35

Thanks, Josh. Thanks for that wonderful introduction. That was wonderful. I loved it. Well, thank you, thank you.

Josh Elledge 0:41

Give us an overview of what you do with Leadwell, who you work with and kind of the impact you have in the world.

Jon Kidwell 0:45

Oh, that's awesome. So at Leadwell we're a leadership development company. We focus mainly on training and coaching, but we do content as well. And then the leaders and the organizations that we work with are mission driven, and so we say and they say it as well that they do business for something more than just the bottom line. They have a greater purpose, mission that they are on to help people bring good into the world, whether they're a not for profit, a B Corp, a small business, a church, whatever that might be. And we get to help them align their teams, develop leaders inside their organizations and build and cascade winning cultures.

Josh Elledge 1:23

What are the consequences of not doing this work, of not investing in our leaders or not investing in ourselves and our leadership skills?

Jon Kidwell 1:34

I think we're seeing the repercussions of not doing that for two years. Well, honestly not doing that for quite some time, but it got magnified in two years where leadership development, training, kind of pouring in to the next gen, thinking about succession planning, whatever that might be, just went away earlier in this decade. And now we see the fallout of that, with people switching jobs, with everybody kind of moving out of corporate and figuring out that they can go do something for themselves, that folks, when they are with an organization some of the top reasons that they are there always, always, always do I have growth opportunity and is this place willing to pour into me, Are they going to train me? And if those aren't true, if those aren't found either in the higher or while they are there with the organization, they're going to start looking elsewhere. And so I think all the, all the stats that you and I could pull on retention, employee engagement, how hard it is to recruit folks these are the byproducts of not focusing on it for some time.

Josh Elledge 2:41

Yeah, why is growth so important and what would you? So that's part one of the question one. Part two would be what would you say to upper level leaders who are skeptical of that, that they say we don't really get that much feedback for that.

Jon Kidwell 2:56

So let's go to the second one. First, I don't think that upper level leaders are skeptical. I I engaged so many of them that there is a desire and that their stories are often about an individual or a place that did that for them. And where many of them find themselves is what do I do? I want it to happen, but I might not have the money to invest in it. So if I can't do, the elite level like, what do I do? Just a little bit, and I need it done in less time than it's gonna take. And so they're really coming up against these constraints. I don't think it's a lack of desire or a skepticism, it's just can I get it done and is it going to happen in the time that I would like it to, and can I afford it? And so figuring those problems out with them, because what they know, what all of us know, is like change is inevitable.

Jon Kidwell 3:58

Growth is and we don't say optional, we say essential, because if we're not growing then we're going backwards. And there's so many different facets of how we could grow right Inside a business. We often think about finances. We got to grow up into the right, we've been trained up into the right and make that thing look like it's in the black. But there's growing in relationship, there's growing in depth and quality of our product. There are so many areas of growth. It's just completely essential if we're gonna continue to stay in the game, to be able to serve people, to be able to keep our folks engaged and so connecting those leaders with solutions so that they can find ways to develop their folks and continue growing, continue growing their people, continue growing their performance. All of those things are really key.

Josh Elledge 4:47

Yeah, thinking about operational concerns or things that leaders may be frustrated with today. What are some of the problems that they may be reporting? That they may not connect the dots, that, yeah, you're concerned about that, be it turned over, disengagement, that sort of thing, and they may not understand just how truly that is a leadership issue, not a fill in the blank issue. Anything come to mind.

Jon Kidwell 5:25

So we work with what we would say are mid-size organizations. They usually have three to five levels of leadership. So there's an executive team, there's some key kind of mid-level leaders. They're usually between 50 and 150 million in gross revenue. That's like our sweet spot and one of the things that is one of those operational concerns that isn't always apparent in the mirror right that's what I heard you say is noise that like hey, I might be part of this problem. It really comes down to what gets delegated and what gets held on to and what are the expectations when it gets delegated.

Jon Kidwell 6:05

A lot of these leaders in this space they have grown it, it being the organization, it being their business, it being whatever it is that they started and brought to this level or brought it from the previous CEO executive to now, and they did that by doing a lot of things.

Jon Kidwell 6:24

And the delegation as the team has grown around them hasn't always happened, and if it has, sometimes it's what you and I probably experience in a whole lot of places is okay, josh, you're wonderful here, this is now yours. Turn around. And why aren't you doing that Like I'm doing that? Why aren't you doing that Like I have an internal expectation in my head that I've never told you about. Well, like, how come you can't just read my mind and do that? That is one of the most kind of in the face concerning because it's so challenging to always be doing and teaching, doing and teaching right. And so, especially at that place in the organization where you're starting to put in more systems, more processes, the work has really now expanded outside of anything that any of us could know individually. That one is one of the key concerns and kind of operational why isn't this working? It comes back to delegation.

Josh Elledge 7:21

Yeah, what is something that say a leader is listening to our conversation right now. What is it practice or exercise or some sort of like? Maybe internal audit, investigation or maybe some really good probing questions that maybe we could ask as we think about our own organization or how we are showing up as a leader. That might foster some really good conversation or activity in our role of effective leadership.

Jon Kidwell 7:53

So that is a fantastic question and one of the things we like to check in with the executive team. So if we're talking to an executive leader and we're checking in with them, what are your big picture priorities? You may have heard that phrase right Like I want big picture thinkers, I want people who are focused on the big picture, and so we want to help folks clarify and align teams on their big picture priorities. So, what are your big picture priorities? If we want our entire team going in that direction, then we need to know what they are and we need to be able to communicate them out. Oftentimes and what we would tell you is those are things like what is the mission of the organization? Why do we do what we do and what exactly do we do in this business? What's the vision for this organization? How do we act inside of this business? What are our values? Right those things. And then what's most important right now and what is our strategy to win? If we can get those abundantly clear, almost like a big old light that shines through the fog, then we just have to turn around and start talking to folks about those.

Jon Kidwell 9:02

And if I'm a mid-level leader in the organization and I'm sitting there thinking, great, I don't get to determine these big picture priorities, but I need to figure out how to lead my team. Who's asking me for one thing while working with an executive who's asking me for another thing. Then what I would be looking at is what are the key results, what are the things that my leaders are looking for from me and my team? And oftentimes you've got to read between the lines, you've got to ask probing questions of your leader, you've got to look at what are your leader's goals. But if I can figure out what are my key results and my key priorities, then, regardless of all the noise that comes in an organization, I can align myself and I can align my team. And so, really trying to figure out what's most important on either level executive level or in the middle of the organization what's most important, and then what do I need to do and how can I get everybody else working towards that same thing?

Josh Elledge 10:01

Yeah, Jon, I wanted to mention this too, because I failed to bring this up is, you are the author of a book, the bestselling book. It's called Redefine your Servant Leadership. Before I ask you about what Leadwell does and how you work with your clients, how you produce greater outcomes within organizations, can you tell me about again, the book Redefine your Servant Leadership? Who is it for and what's the transformation that you would expect Someone would have when reading it?

Reorienting Servant Leadership for Business

Jon Kidwell 10:30

Yeah, well, it is for those individuals that see Servant Leadership as a path that they are on or that they even identify. Right? And that interview question tell me about your leadership style, josh? You would say, well, I'm a Servant Leader and here's what this means. If you say that and you often feel as though that comes with additional pressure, really kind of boxing in and saying, oh no, you don't get to talk about the business, performance stuff.

Jon Kidwell 10:58

As a Servant Leader, you're focused on the people. If you feel that and if you feel a little bit of the like, bless your heart, pat on the head of like. When you want to talk about real business, then come on, but right now you're Servant Leadership. If any of that is where someone is, this book is really for them. It's a bit of the process that I went through for 10 years doing this, and the transformation that they would receive through the book is a reorientation around.

Jon Kidwell 11:27

Servant Leadership is really this combination of being mission driven, servant-hearted and business-minded. And what I found, and what other people are telling me, is that through that process I gained the confidence, the passion, the commitment to be able to lead and love people well enough to do things like stay on mission, tell people the kind truth, bring together my Servant Heart and my business mind, kind of we're going to get down and do everything that it takes to help people, but we're also going to be strategic about it so that when you show up in your organization you're able to bring together people and performance and deliver a tremendous impact, creating kind of a more sustainable holistic approach to doing well in life and at work.

Josh Elledge 12:17

Yeah, by the way, to our friends who are listening, if you hurry, you can get the special Mop Trek edition.

Jon Kidwell 12:25

That's an answer to your joke. Yes, go on social and figure out Mop Trek. We were in wonderful company. There were 137 of us that decided we're going on the Mop Trek edition from from us to a CS Lewis book, to a baby's first tractor, or Mop Trek editions.

Josh Elledge 12:44

Hello, Jon Kidwell on LinkedIn, so you can see what we're talking about. This was back in beginning of February that you posted this.

Jon Kidwell 12:53

Hey.

Josh Elledge 12:53

John, so, getting to leadwellcom, tell me a bit about who you're working with and what that engagement looks like.

Jon Kidwell 13:00

Yeah, so we typically work with organizations that are somewhere between 50 and 450 employees. They have an executive team, they have leaders in the middle of the organization, usually a couple levels of those, and they are higher education institutes, credit unions, not for profits, churches, small businesses that have grown to be much more than small businesses. Those are the type of individuals that we work with and what an engagement looks like. My team and I try to be a partner. We focus really really closely on getting extremely close and intimate with our clients, with our customers coming alongside them.

Jon Kidwell 13:42

We work with the executive team to align on big picture priorities. Kind of the meat of what we do is we train and we group coach leaders in the middle of the organization so that we can give them the skills that they need, while also doing group coaching, building in peer support networks and collaboration inside of an organization, and then we help that entire organization cascade the culture, the training, the communication they want through big all team events, and so that's really what it looks like when we come along and work with our folks, and what our clients experience most often is increased retention, increased productivity, and many of them report back to us that they've had wonderful changes in their financial output. One so much, as their industry usually grows 3 to 5 percent and in 18 months they had 25 percent growth, which for them was millions of dollars, while also keeping more of their people than they had before. So it's just, it's wonderful. It was a great story from not for profit up in Ohio.

Josh Elledge 14:47

Yeah Well, what's not to love about that? John Kidwell, your website leadwellcom. To our friend that's been listening to us, I know you've got some really good resources on your website. Certainly they can get to the book and your podcast from your website. What would you recommend they do when they go to leadwellcom?

Jon Kidwell 15:08

Yeah, I would encourage them to type into their search queue redefine your servant leadership. Redefineyourservenleadershipcom will take you in there. It'll give you more information on the book. That's a wonderful entry into what we do. There's some book resources that are there, but if you are like, no, I don't want a book, I actually want to talk to you about this organizational thing or, frankly, I just need a coach. There are two buttons on top one for developing leaders and one for getting coaching, and those are wonderful places to go. On leadwellcom.

Josh Elledge 15:39

John Kidwell, founder CEO of Leadwell, found on the web at leadwellcom. The book is redefine your servant leadership and the podcast is the Leadwell podcast, and so you could just search for that in your podcast player. John Kidwell, thank you so much for joining us.

Jon Kidwell 15:58

Thank you for this, Josh.