Many small business owners find themselves as "accidental leaders" burdened by the immense pressure to micromanage and have every solution ready for their team. In this episode, leadership expert Ben Morton reveals why flipping your organisational chart, letting your team speak first, and showing genuine care are the real secrets to empowering staff and driving business success.

1. [00:00] Intro: From the military and Tesco to local leadership expert.
2. [05:30] The crucial difference between business administration (MBAs) and true people leadership.
3. [10:15] The Accidental Leader: Why your duty of care directly impacts your employees' families at home.
4. [15:45] Flipping the Org Chart: Why leaders belong at the bottom of the hierarchy.
5. [19:20] Why leaders should always speak last in meetings and ditch the pressure to know everything.
6. [25:00] The "Two-Man Sniff Test": Building ultimate trust and connection under pressure.
7. [36:00] Finding community in Berko and the "Man Up and Talk" walking group.

Key Takeaways

1. Speak Last in Meetings: If you share your opinion first, you will unintentionally bias your team to simply agree with you. Ask for their input first to show you value their intelligence and to gather the best ideas.
2. Flip Your Org Chart: Instead of viewing yourself at the top of the pyramid delegating downwards, draw yourself at the bottom. A true leader's job is to support and enable the rest of the team so they can effectively execute the work.
3. Schedule "Leadership Time": Step away from the daily grind and allow your mind to wander; neuroscience shows this is exactly when you tap into the brain networks responsible for generating fresh ideas and problem-solving.

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Be a guest on the show: Drop us an email [email protected]

Guest Links:

Ben Morton LinkedIn Tiktok Instagram https://www.ben-morton.com/training/leadership-training/

Host Links:

Ben Baldwin LinkedIn Chuffed Productions LinkedIn | https://chuffed.video/

Leaders don't need to have all of the answers.

The moment I really got comfortable as a leader and started to have more impact was the moment I realized it's not my job to have all of the answers.

Hello and welcome to Burko and Beyond, the weekly local business podcast celebrating the people who live, work and do business in Burkhamsted and the surrounding area.

I'm your host, Ben Baldwin, and I run Chuff Productions, a B2B video production company that's been based here in Berco for the last six years or more.

Now, Berkhamsted and the surrounding towns and villages are full of brilliant people doing brilliant things, and this podcast was created to tell their stories.

The goal is for it to become a part of our fantastic local business community, supporting sole traders and local businesses of all sizes.

Now, as part of building that community, I actually have to ask you for a big favor straight off the bat.

Podcasts like this only thrive when you, like, follow and share them.

So please follow Berko and Beyond wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts.

And if you're watching right now on YouTube, hit the subscribe button.

It makes a massive difference to the show's reach.

And sharing is, of course, caring.

So please do tell your friends, colleagues and clients alike.

And if you'd like to be a guest on the show, then drop us an email.

The address is podcasturcoandbeyond.com.

Ben Morton, welcome to the Berco and Beyond podcast.

It's great to have you here.

We're mates, which we should say to start with, which is why I've been giggling for the last five minutes.

And this is our second attempt at recording the podcast.

Yes, it is.

Yes, we are.

Cool, because the first time around you didn't agree that we were mates, so that's nice.

Glad we've got that rehearsal out of the way.

You are indeed a local business person, some may say.

Personality recognised on the high street.

Ben Morton, leadership is your business.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how Ben Morton leadership came about.

Cool.

Thanks for having me.

Ben Baldwin.

I guess if I give you the shortened version.

So I often talk about.

Went into sort of the corporate world.

Did a few different jobs, sort of in ops and HR roles, but all of those roles were always around, really developing people, building teams, getting the best from people.

And my last role in that second career in the corporate world was working in the leadership academy at Tesco and I was only there for about 18 months.

And the thing that prompted me to then leave and set up my own business was, and I'll caveat this by saying at the time at Tesco, I very much saw that people were being taught to do leadership.

And what I mean by that, it was sort of here's a four step model for influencing people, here's a five step model for doing this.

And that sat really uneasily with me because a lot of it was starting to feel a little bit sort of inauthentic.

Whereas for me, in the work that I do now as well, let's start by getting really clear on like what does it mean to be a leader?

How do you show up, understand sort of, I guess to a degree, your values and then you can pick the tools and frameworks that are sort of authentic and congruent with who you are.

So it got to the point where I thought, you know what?

Corporate world isn't for me, this doesn't sit well.

So I took the leap and started kind of working for myself, albeit for the first four years or so.

I was a partner in another consultancy.

And it's probably about seven or eight years ago, yeah, I suddenly realized I was more business minded.

I don't particularly like using the word but entrepreneurial maybe than I thought.

I was so completely separated.

It's just kind of me doing sort of the training and coaching now, which is mostly what I do.

Training, coaching, bit of speaking at sort of big events with a small, small support team.

So it's leadership management training.

That's me, that's what I do.

And it's the thread that goes through entire life really.

What is it about the word entrepreneurship entrepreneurial?

I'm the same, but I can't always put my finger on it.

And weirdly putting this podcast together, I mean you'll know because you've done your own podcast as well.

So I'll have some advice on that in a bit, please.

Is putting keynote keywords and stuff into YouTube and everywhere else and it keeps throwing out entrepreneurship entrepreneurial.

Yeah, I don't want to, you know, for some people, but yeah.

Why don't you like it in that sense?

I don't know.

I'm not sure either.

I think it just feels a little too cliche of the moment.

The word that everyone seems to jump on board with and everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and there's not necessarily anything wrong with that.

But I don't know, it just sticks in my throat a little bit.

And yeah, for me, I think it's lost its.

It's lost its original sense of the word.

So entrepreneurs of a kind of old school Richard Branson maybe take as an example, who's all sorts of different things.

But it now seems like if you've got an idea, you're going to call yourself an entrepreneur.

And yeah, perhaps there's loads of people turning the podcast off now because.

Yeah, should we move on?

Maybe not.

Or business.

But actually it leads nicely into.

There's different people, different definitions of entrepreneurship, but also there's some very different styles and different interpretations of leadership as well.

Yeah.

So what's the kind of leadership that interests you and that your teachings are.

I guess so it's a really interesting question.

And this could be a whole two hour podcast.

Right.

For me, there's a real difference between leadership running a business, for example, I think there's.

I'm not anti them at all, but if you look at an mba, which is kind of the qualification that lots of people strive for.

Yeah, the title says it all right.

It's a master's in Business administration.

It teaches you to effectively administer and run a business which isn't necessarily the same as.

Same as leadership.

Yeah.

For me, leadership is about delivering some sort of objective or outcome and it's very much about looking after the people you've got the privilege and responsibility to lead.

It's combining those, those two.

And I might be wrong because I've never done an mba, but there's not that much leadership involved in an mba.

A lot of it is sales, marketing, product, product development.

So I'm very much focused on the leadership piece, which is, yes, it's set in direction and vision, but it's really getting the best out of people so they can deliver the results either you want in your business or that you're accountable for.

And I see, I think over the last 20, 30 years there's been a lot of very good business administrators, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're great leaders.

So do we need two things there?

Do we need a checklist for things that we're going to be saying we don't like in this episode?

So, yeah, I don't want to.

Entrepreneurship I could be coming across really badly and just talking about all the things that are wrong.

I mean, it's episode four of a podcast we're trying to grow, so perhaps we should be a bit more positive about some of these things.

But what I've always been positive, what I've always Been always noticed and been impressed with the way that you talk about leadership.

Is that whole piece about it being a privilege to lead people?

Because I think a lot of people out there, particularly small business owners, and this podcast isn't just named Owned small business owners, it's business owners and leaders in general and entrepreneurs.

But as a small business owner, you might be an accidental leader.

Yeah.

So how do you get around that?

I mean, I'm an accidental leader and you know, there are people in the room who I lead who probably be able to tell you a better job better about how I do that job.

Again, that's a whole other podcast episode.

Maybe we should do that, Fred.

Yeah.

So what about those accidental leaders?

And so can one square on the burqer and beyond.

We will probably bleep it out because there's a little, as you will know on these podcasts, you have to put a little market say if it's expletive.

Well, let you.

I'd rather not.

But you know, give us an idea.

It's only a little one so you can beep it out.

Like for those accidental leaders or small business owners, I mean, one of the things is to give a.

If you put the beep in.

Right.

So I touched on this later and you've just kindly mentioned it's one of the things that stands out about me for you.

But the reason I have always said privilege and responsibility to lead and this goes back for me to my time in the military.

Right.

But every single person we lead and manage or who works for us in our small business is the most important person in someone else's life.

Right.

Everyone we lead is someone's mum, dad, husband, wife, partner, son, daughter.

If none of those apply, like everyone's got a best friend.

So everyone we lead is the most important person in someone else's life.

And therefore what we do as leaders, managers, business owners, business administrators, it doesn't just affect the people that work for us 9 to 5, Monday to Friday or whatever the working hours are like.

It has an impact on what they're like when they go home.

And then that has a knock on effect to their family.

Right.

I'm experiencing this firsthand now.

My wife is working in a, in a business.

Her boss, let's say, isn't the best leader.

Putting it very politely.

And the amount of days my wife Jo will come home in a really kind of bad mood, kind of upset, agitated or whatever, that spills over to me and my daughter.

Yeah.

And that changes the dynamic in, in our house.

Yeah.

And that's her boss directly impacting me, me and my daughter.

So that's why I say it's privilege and responsibility and just understand we're leading other human beings and how we behave like matters.

If we treat people well, if we give a about them.

Well, you can replace that word with care, actually, can't you?

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Not only is it care, but is it a duty of care?

Right.

Yeah, yeah, like duty of care.

We tend to think of more from health and safety.

Right.

I mean, this podcast studio, your duty of care is make sure the lights don't fall down on me.

But to your point, care, yeah, absolutely.

Care.

And some people might go, well, that's soft, but it's not right.

If you work for me, you know, I care about you.

You're going to come to work more motivated, more inspired, do a better job if you get a sense I couldn't give it about you or I don't care.

And how invested are you going to be in kind of my business?

You're not going to be that invested in growing like profit or the bottom line for me if I don't treat you nicely?

No, definitely not.

And I guess that then leads to the building of the team as well and how that cascades down or as I was talking to someone about the other day, the bottom up.

So we were talking about org charts and in those organizational charts how one of these business owners had just redone theirs and because they'd changed some of the roles, actually that was then being put up all around the building so.

So that everybody could see where the responsibilities were, who was part of what team.

And then people were like, why am I down on the bottom?

Why is this down on the bottom?

And actually one of the first things we said was actually flip it.

Put the leaders at the bottom.

Totally.

And then it's a bottom up.

Yeah, that's how I draw them all the time.

I draw a little cartoon stick man at the bottom or stick person at the bottom, like that they are there to support everybody else and enable them to.

To do whatever they need to do for your customers or whatever.

A leader's job is to support and enable so people can do the work.

It's not to be at the top dumping on everybody.

So where do you think people get it wrong when you go into organizations and when you work with individuals, Is there one.

Obviously there's the givinger care side of things.

Is there anywhere else where you kind of see repetitive mistakes, shall we say?

I think one of the biggest ones Which I was really fortunate because at 15, I think when I decided I wanted to join the Army, a major from the army recruiting team came in.

It was kind of partly interview, partly preparing me to go off and do a two day assessment to decide whether I had leadership potential or not.

And he taught me this then.

But also you mentioned the podcast I used to host.

I probably interviewed, I'm going to say around 150 to 200 MD CEOs.

So you start to notice themes, right.

Like you were with this.

And the theme I noticed was the same as this piece of advice that I got given at 15, which is basically, leaders don't need to have all of the answers.

And so many of the guests on my show said the moment I really got comfortable as a leader and started to have more impact as a leader was the moment I realized it's not my job to have all of the answers.

And to your point, around building the team.

Right.

Why would you go through all that effort of bringing in brilliant, amazing people and then micromanage the hell out of them?

Don't listen to their ideas because you think I know best.

Employ bright people and then like listen to them, like, what are your ideas?

But many of us think that's a sign of weakness.

Right.

If you go, I don't know and oh God, I've failed.

But no, actually if you say, look guys, this is the challenge, this is what we need to achieve right now, I'm not entirely sure, like, what do you think that shows?

Like, actually I'm comfortable with my skin.

I value you because I want to hear your input.

Then you get the ideas and you carry on and lead and execute.

But that is one of the things, things where individual leaders get it, get it really wrong.

And I think for leaders, a lot of the time it is just keep quiet at that, you know, at that table.

We were talking about this the other day again with some people as with about just being quiet at the table because you, the whole thing, leaders eat last.

It's leaders speak last.

Yeah.

So then that way you the quiet, you'll get the quietest people at the table who often have the better ideas, the best ideas, but just don't feel, feel as if they can share them in those kind of forums.

Because the other thing with that as well is if leaders speak first, if I say what I think and I've got my team around the table, a lot of my team will be sitting there going, well, Ben said this is what he thinks.

So clearly that's what he thinks.

And that's what he wants us to do.

So I'm not going to suggest another way.

Whereas if you let other people go first before you've sort of biased their opinion, they're going to speak more freely.

So, yeah, I think you're right.

Leaders speak last and eat last.

So in those scenarios, go back to being in the Army.

And so you were at Sandhurst, so you kind of in there to be a leader from quite a young age.

Yeah.

What did you learn there?

What were the most difficult things?

And what still do you carry with you every day, like the guy that came to recruit, the major that came to recruit you?

So that's a really interesting point, Ben.

And again, I am really grateful for this.

And I consider myself lucky that my journey, I guess even into the workplace and into leadership, the first step was becoming a leader.

And that's quite rare and unique.

Right.

Because most of us, if we're running a business or if we're employed, we enter the workplace doing a job and then we get promoted normally if we're good at doing the job, to being a leader.

So there's always this slight bias towards doing the job.

Whereas for me, from day one, the job was to be a leader, and that is quite unique.

I think some of the things that stayed with me, certainly from military Sanders, that I carry through linked to caring is really understanding and knowing the people that work for you.

Not formally, but this was one of the things I remember at Sanders had been drilled into us again and again and again.

Just get to know your people.

This is linked to one of the keynote speeches I often give, which is about connection being the true currency of leadership.

And certainly in the military.

Right.

If we were going to ask people to make the ultimate sacrifice, they wouldn't.

They wouldn't really do that because of military discipline and because I told them to.

That's not why soldiers follow anyone.

It's generally because the connection, the strength of the bond, knowing people care, translate that into the workplace.

The more you know the people who work for you, the more you understand their emotions, what drives them, their behaviors.

Just had to communicate with them effectively.

So the more you get to know your people, the better.

So that's.

That's a big one, I think, for.

For me, just know the.

Know the people, and knowing those people, there's then in.

In that line of work, there's difficult decisions that do have to be made.

And you've got one of your keynote speeches is that's.

That was a big part of it,

wasn't It, Yeah, it was, yeah.

So in the military when I was serving, I think it still exists.

There's something called the two man sniff test, which to give you, the shortened version is basically when there has been a chemical or biological attack after you suspect the air is clear and safe and you've got various devices and tests you do to check that.

But to finally give the all clear and order all troops in the area to take off their gas mask or respirator, to use the final version, you do something called the two man sniff test.

It's one of these things that actually when I was taught it at Sandhurst, it was quite a nice activity because we ended up, we were doing the lesson sometime in the summer, sitting on a patch of grass.

We weren't like being told to run up hills.

We weren't getting screamed and shouted at.

So you're like, actually this isn't a bad like hours training at Sandhurst.

And it's partly, I think because it's so archaic is one of those where you go, never going to have to do this.

So, so great, crack on.

And yeah, means I'm not, as I say, getting beasted up and down hills, but fast forward.

Probably only 18 months since I learned about the two man sniff test at Sandurst, I find myself in kind of northern Kuwait, just about to cross the border into Iraq, like 24 hours behind the US Marines suspected chemical biological attack had taken place.

And I was basically told to go and do the two man sniff test, which was like, oh, really?

We're actually doing this.

And basically you take two, two private soldiers, two young soldiers.

And people often ask me, like, how did I pick them?

It was the two private soldiers closest to me, so could have been unlucky for them.

Yeah.

But basically we walked about 200 meters towards the site of a Scud missile that had come down.

And then sort of you, as me, as the commander stands sort of in the middle.

I've got a soldier either side of me kind of looking at each other and looking at me.

Basically they take, with a respirator or gas mask on, they take a massive breath of air through their mask to almost completely fill their lungs.

And they basically take two fingers of each hand to break the seal on their mask and then just take a tiny sniff of air.

So it's like.

And then they put their mask back down and then basically they're looking at each other.

I'm looking through the little kind of eyepieces on the respirator into their eyes, watching for signs of nerve agent Poisoning, basically.

And we was really lucky.

It turned out to be an entire false alarm.

But in that moment, I, we.

They thought we were doing a real two man sniff test.

And the consequences of nerve agent poisoning are pretty horrendous.

But they just did it.

They just did it.

How do you feel at the time and how.

And how do you feel about it looking back at it now?

Because that to me is.

Yeah, it's like the Ben more than I know.

Yeah, I know that's what you did, but it seems kind of alien.

So it still gives me, literally, when you asked me that question, I got that like, cold shiver that goes down, down your back.

And people often ask that, how did you feel at the moment?

In the moment.

I think part of the answer is in the moment.

I don't think I was thinking too much about all of the.

The what ifs, because it's.

It's a drill, right?

Something you practice so many times.

So I'm almost.

I was focusing on the steps, the part of parts of the steps that I had to do in, in the process, which is like what military training is like.

Everything is trained and trained and trained.

So when things like that come, I know what I need to do.

The soldiers know what they need to

do, which is what you grab the nearest to.

Yeah, part of that.

Yeah.

So part of that was again.

Okay, lads, deep breath.

Okay, now fingers on some.

Talking them through the test.

And then as they're doing that, I'm then running through again, which is very much a military thing.

I'm running through all of the what ifs.

Okay?

So if I look at them and I see nerve agent poison, then what do I do?

Which is basically grab like an EpiPen out of the pouch on their hip, jab one in both of their legs, sprint 200 meters back, get the medic.

And then.

So I was going through all of that without getting into details.

I was going into all of the next steps.

So I wasn't overthinking what I'm asking them to do.

It was more the practicalities of what needs to be done.

What do I think about it now?

I still reflect on it.

It still comes into my head.

And I think this is really where my whole thing about connection comes from.

I've asked myself so many times, like, why do I really think they just did it?

Yes, part of it is training.

Yes, part of it is, to a degree, military discipline.

But I think a big part is one of the things I really did always try and do as a leader in the military was look after my blokes and let them know that I cared about them.

Whether that was when they was on sentry duty in Iraq in the middle of the night, just me getting up out of my bed and going, having a chat with them, maybe it was making sure I was getting them booked on the courses for their career progression, making sure I wrote a really good annual report for them.

I like to show the, show them that I cared and I think that's, that's why because they knew I cared.

Hopefully they trusted me, that if it went wrong they knew I'd do my best to, to look after them.

So I think it is that and I don't think they necessarily, this isn't saying anything about me, but I mean they necessarily would have done it for any leader because there was another leader within our regiment who I heard soldiers saying, if Captain X gets in front of us, I'll shoot him myself.

Let alone, let alone the, the Iraqis.

So if Captain X.

Yes.

Was asking them what was asking them,

would the response have been the same?

I, I don't know.

But it does come back to this connection and care piece and also speaks

to your leadership, even back then has been the one picked to go and do, do that task.

To be fair, I'd like to agree with you, but again, it was more because I was the closest one to the regimental hq.

It was literally just so, so yeah, it was, it was.

And the regimental HQ is gonna expect anyone to do it anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

So how do you take all that experience and then turn it into the corporate world and what's the response to that?

So interestingly, I think it's interesting I've now been out of the military a lot longer than I was in, in the military.

And when I left I was leading teams in the corporate world, doing a little bit of training in the corporate world.

But throughout that I've just always been insanely curious and an avid, avid learner.

So throughout all of that time, I've now got to the stage where for me, I'm quite clear around there are some bits of military type leadership that work in the civilian world.

There's some bits that work with a little bit of tweaking, there's a load of other stuff that just doesn't, doesn't work at all.

So I think because of that, back to sort of what I said at the opening, because of those three different careers I've had now, I can quite nicely blend all of that, that together.

So I'm not just some like ex army captain who's done a few years and teaches people what he learned in the military.

Like I've, I've learned a lot myself.

I kind of run a business myself.

So nearly everything I share and teach is stuff like I live and breathe and use.

Use myself.

Right.

Guess if we were on some sort of talent show, I'd be saying you've made it your own, but you really.

Well, you, you do the Leaders Kit bag.

Yeah.

It's essentially you've got all those different bits of experience to pull.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Tell us about leaders kit bag.

LinkedIn.

So leaders kit bag is in like multiple different, different guises but essentially It's a like 6 to 10 minute depending on where you listen, set of leadership tips.

Normally on a different, different theme or, or topic you can have.

It's either a video or it's the.

An audio only.

So just filmed one yesterday which touches on like work, life, balance.

Kind of filmed one actually when I was walking in the, in the Lake District, it was very relevant to the content which was around as leaders and managers, business owners, finding the time to actually step back from the work.

Allow your mind to wander because from a neuroscience perspective, that's when we tap into a whole different brain network that's really good for coming up with new ideas and solutions to problems.

Thinking time.

Right.

Thinking time or leadership time.

Brilliant.

How did you end up in Burkhamstead?

At the time I was based in Abingdon, my wife was working in Radlet, so she had like horrendous like 4 hour total commute a day.

I didn't really know for certain what I was going to do work wise, but assumed I'd end up in London.

I kind of was targeting getting a job with, with World Challenge who were based in North.

North Acton.

So basically my wife said to people she worked with, where's nice to work, where's nice to live around this sort of area?

And they gave us a few places and Albans they said was nice, Kings Langley, kind of Burkhoe.

Yeah.

And we ended up renting in the wrecks for a year and then bought a house on the high street.

So.

Yeah, excellent.

And obviously got lots of mates around here now in Burko.

Yeah.

It's a nice little bubble, right?

Yeah, it is, it is.

So you and I do A. I've not been on it for a bit, actually, I should do once a month we have a little walk, there's a few blokes together and on a Friday morning and have a wander around.

Tell us a little bit about that walk and how that came about, because that all comes down to caring.

It does, yeah.

So we again, was having a little giggle about this before we hit record.

Right.

So.

Although why the walk started isn't particularly what caused the giggle.

Right.

But so going back, what was it about four years ago, probably I had a 18 months, which was pretty rough, to be honest.

Mum had a really long journey with dementia and that was getting worse and worse, which is hard.

Anyone who's kind of experienced a family member with dementia will know exactly what I'm talking about.

So I had that going on really suddenly and unexpectedly, I kind of lost my dad to a massive cardiac arrest.

My very best mate from 16 would have been his birthday to date, took his own life.

And then amongst all of that, my wife lost one of her good friends from uni to breast cancer.

And I really struggled and I'd got quite sort of isolated in some ways, which is ironic.

The guy that talks about connection.

Yeah.

And I really, really struggled.

Luckily, me and my wife spotted it and I got some.

Some help from the doctor and some counseling.

Yeah.

But kind of, as I was starting to come out the other side of that, chatting to a few other people.

One guy, Rich Hillier, who I suspect you'll probably have as a guest at some stage in the space, he will

be sat in that chair.

Well, once he's heard you've been sat there, I don't think I'll be able to stop him.

Yeah.

So Richard had some challenges as well and it coincided with, I'd heard, seen a documentary with Roman Kemp, the dj, and he was talking about similar, similar things.

And basically he'd said how with his friendship group, now they do this thing where when you say, you're right, mate, how are you?

You go, yeah, I'm good, thanks.

They go, no, how are you really, Ben?

Yeah.

So anyway, linking a couple of things together, me and Rich set up this group walking group once a month, just for blokes to get out, go for a walk.

And it's not you have to turn up and like bare your soul, but actually it's just forcing that connection chance to disconnect.

And actually you just spot if anyone's kind of struggling or if you've got things on your mind, you can, you can just chat and some People don't.

This is what we was giggling about.

Some people don't quite get.

Get the title, like the, the working title of the.

Of the group on the WhatsApp is called man up and talk.

Right.

But the idea being blokes traditionally have gone, oh, just man up.

Which actually is really, really unhelpful.

Yeah.

So instead of just man up and crack on, it's actually like, man up, don't keep all your feelings bottled up.

And it's not manly to talk, like, have a conversation with somebody.

So it's meant to be, is it really tongue in cheek?

Probably not.

Actually, no.

It's probably meant to be quite serious.

But some people misinterpret the title.

The other thing we're giggling about as well is if we talked about in the podcast, we might all of a sudden have hundreds of blokes in Burko wandering around on a Friday morning.

But it's early days of the podcast so there's not that many people following it currently.

But if anyone does want to come, you can find me online easily.

Like find me drop, drop me a line and I'll give you the.

Give you the details.

Yeah.

In all seriousness, if you want to join that walk.

Yeah.

Get hold of any of us and we'll tell you when it is.

Come and have a little walk around.

We're coming towards the end of our conversation, really.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Has flown by.

So what.

What's the one piece of advice you would give about leadership other than the giving a care?

Oh God, you've put me on the.

On the spot.

That's the whole idea.

A really big question.

I'm going to repeat what I said to buy me some thinking time.

Okay.

So care.

Yes.

Remember you don't need to have all the answers.

Do remember it's linked to care.

Right.

Do remember everyone you lead is the most important person in the world and I think probably actually linked to that.

So hard.

Like what is the most important thing?

I think there's a big thing around sort of curiosity and having an open mind with it all.

I think.

And this isn't just so much in the leadership of people piece, but around like running and leading and ministering a business.

I think the day you think you sort of done learning or the day you think you know it all is probably the day you're done, done leading.

Right.

Because like I've been reading about leadership and learning about leadership since I was probably 14 years old as an army cadet.

Like I'm still kind of learning loads.

There's still things I'm personally trying to improve on and do differently and things I've not considered something that read that curiosity, that hungriness, that openness and realizing that there's always different ways to do things.

I think if I critique my own question there as the, you know, the big hard question is probably part of it because there isn't one thing as a leader.

Right.

It's about bringing all those, the experience and the curiosity and the caring and bringing it all together at once.

And like you say, just keep learning.

Yeah.

And I think I'd link to that actually, which is really key point.

I often say leadership is much more art than science.

So often there or rarely is there a black and white answer in leadership.

Leaders were always operating in the gray, like this could be the right thing to do.

That could be the right thing to do.

This could be the approach.

That could be the approach.

So it's never or very rarely is it black and white.

So it is much more art than science, I think.

I think also going back to what you said earlier and it goes, I won't get the quote right.

So I will.

But I read it this morning, so I will paraphrase it, but it was about you don't go on the journey knowing all the answers.

The whole point, the journey is to find out the answers.

And also that ties in nicely with you as a leader.

You don't need to know the answers because you're gonna find it out from other people as well.

Totally, Ben.

Thanks mate, that's been really interesting.

Thank you for being so vulnerable on the podcast as well.

And we will put in a link in the show notes to all your bits and bobs.

Because you're doing some online training, aren't you?

I have, yeah.

So last year I launched the first, what I call an open program.

So it's a leadership management program for those who are probably new to leadership or find themselves in a leadership position that never really had any training.

So it's kind of live online, four half day sessions.

So yeah, people are in interested.

I'm sure you'll share the details.

It's not an mba.

It's not an mba, which I'm not against by the way.

Just to caveat one more time or entrepreneurship.

No, we're in for both of those.

We are indeed.

Ben, thanks a lot, mate.

My pleasure.

It's been good fun.

Cheers.

Thank you for watching and listening to this episode of Berco and Beyond.

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