In this amenable episode, Michael Brenner, CEO of Right Chord Leadership, shares leadership strategies via music metaphors. If you struggle with team disillusionment or leadership transition, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why blending passions builds authentic leadership in stage 4

- How to apply CHORDS model for team harmony

- What trusting bold visions creates sustainable success

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 4 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Dr. Michael Brenner is a leadership coach, keynote speaker, and author of “Strike The Right Chord”. With a background that blends corporate leadership and professional musicianship, he helps founders, executives, and leadership teams build high-performing cultures grounded in trust, accountability, and creativity. Michael’s clients range from early-stage entrepreneurs to global enterprise leaders. Whether coaching one-on-one or speaking from the stage, his mission is simple: help leaders show up fully, lead more effectively, and create a rhythm of success that’s both strategic and sustainable.

Want to learn more about Michael Brenner's work at Right Chord Leadership? Check out his website at https://rightchordleadership.com/ and get a copy of his book Strike the Right Chord: The Emerging Leader’s Guide to Exceptional Performance on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Strike-Right-Chord-Exceptional-Performance-ebook/dp/B0DVDGZQTZ

Mentioned in this episode:

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Founder's Quiz

Take the Founder's Evolution Quiz Today

If you’re a Founder, business owner, or CEO who feels overworked by the business you lead and underwhelmed by the results, you’re doing it wrong. Succeeding as a founder all comes down to doing the right one or two things right now. Take the quiz today at foundersquiz.com, and in just ten questions, you can figure out what stage you are in, so you can focus on what is going to work and say goodbye to everything else.

Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again

to the Start scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that

grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a

founder, and I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and today

we're going to talk about a subtle but important truth that

I think very many founders miss, and that is that leadership and

entrepreneurship are not the same thing. See, there's a lot

of great entrepreneurs out there who haven't quite yet figured

out how to be great leaders. So if becoming a leader has felt

hard, please know you're not alone. The journey from

entrepreneur to leader can be one of the most disillusioning

journeys we face. But it doesn't have to be that way. I believe

leaders are built and not born, and so leadership is a skill

that any one of us can learn, if we choose to, and so long as we

have someone to help show us the way. And that's exactly why Dr

Michael Brenner is here with us today. Mike's a leadership

coach, keynote speaker and author of strike the right chord

with a background that blends corporate leadership and

professional musicianship. He helps founders, executives and

leadership teams build high performing cultures grounded in

trust, accountability and creativity. Mike's clients range

from early stage entrepreneurs to global enterprise leaders,

and whether it's coaching one on one or speaking from the stage,

his mission is simple, to help leaders show up fully, lead more

effectively, and create a rhythm of success that both that's both

strategic and sustainable. And he's also, like we mentioned

before, the author of strike the right chord, the emerging

leader's guide to exceptional performance. We're going to walk

through this really cool model here today. So Michael, welcome

to the show. Scott, so excited to have you here. A question out

of the gate is, in your opinion, your experience, why is it that

so many entrepreneurs and other new leaders struggle to really

develop these leadership skills?

Well, I think, as we talked about in our pre,

pre interview here, Scott, I think it's because the skills

required to be an effective entrepreneur are not identical

to the skills required to be an effective leader. And as you

mentioned, you know, you know some great entrepreneurs. I know

some great entrepreneurs, and that's a body of skills and

competencies that are associated with, you know, starting and

building and cultivating and nurturing a business, and that

those are very important skills, the skills of leadership, while

not wholly different, are a little different because now

you're talking about building a team, cultivating a team of

disparate, different personalities and temperaments

and and communicating with your team members in an effective way

and honoring the differences that may appear on your team. So

I think about it like two sides of the same coin. They're

they're related, but they are, they are distinct. And so we

often find entrepreneurs who are really good at the starting the

business, growing the business, you know, getting the seed money

and and have that bold vision, can sometimes struggle leading a

team because they are they are not identical skills.

Yeah. And so one of the things that I think

makes this hard for entrepreneurs to recognize is

that many times they are talked about as leaders, right? And

throughout their history, may have had leadership roles going

all the way back to sports and school, and so there's this

sense of like, well, no, I am the leader. I am the

entrepreneur. So how is that different from the leadership

that you're talking about now?

Yeah, so you can sort of be thought of as the

leader because you're the CEO or, you know, head of your

company, and I suppose you are a leader in that respect. But the

kind of leader that I'm talking about is not necessarily a

position, it's it's a way of being, it's a it's a mindset.

It's a way of showing up every day with your team. I know

people who do not have positions of formal authority, who I would

identify as leaders, and I know people who are in positions of

formal authority who are thought of every day as leaders that I

don't necessarily consider leaders. In other words,

leadership is more than just, you know, a title, and I've

always believed that. And so I think one of the things that I

talk about in terms of what it takes to be an effective leader,

in my eyes, comes down to what I call the chords model you

mentioned in the introduction. I also happen to be a professional

musician, and a few years ago, I was really thinking about the

similarities between what is required to be an effective

performer or a successful musician, and what's required.

To be an effective or successful leader, and I realized there's a

lot of lot of interdependencies, or a lot of commonalities among

those those two worlds. And so I came up with the chords model

based on my own experience and the research that I've done over

the years, which I think is a good place for entrepreneurs who

also want to be effective leaders to start, and I can

share what the courts model is, if, if.

Yeah, yeah. Let's dive into that. And I

really appreciate it. And you walk through this in great

detail in the book, I'd highly recommend it for anyone who's

listening that this strikes a chord with them. Pun intended,

but yeah, let's start at the beginning of this. So it's a

it's an acrostic, just going back to the English class here,

and not sure if I got that right. But let's start. So C,

what's the C stand for? And why is it important for a leader?

Yeah, so each letter in the word chords, think

of it as a note, right? So you're going to hear a lot of

musical language baked into the branding and the concepts and

the principles of the work that I do, Scott, but so the six

notes of the chords model, if you will, are C for

communication, H for harmony, O for ownership. So that's not

owning the company. That is the sense of accountability, owning

the outcomes of your behaviors and your decisions, right? That

kind of ownership. R is for respect, D for direction and S

for support. And in my experience, leaders or teams or

organizations that are playing all six notes are typically

experiencing a high level of success. Yeah, those that are

playing maybe say five of the six notes, you know, not awful,

but maybe an opportunity to strengthen one of the notes. In

my experience, when you start playing four of the six notes or

fewer, you start to experience some dysfunction in the team, in

the organization, that, if left to, if that continues, you'll

almost certainly start to, you know, experience some, some,

some, some negative results from that. You're going to want to

get your hands around that sooner rather than later. Yeah,

Yeah. Do Before we dive into each one,

just briefly to introduce the model for folks. Is there? Do

they happen in a certain order? Are some harder than others?

What have you found in the actual implementation of the

model,

Yeah. So they don't necessarily happen in

order. They're happening simultaneously, just like the

notes of the chord. Hence, the chords model, right? So a chord

is a series of notes played at the same time. So one of the

things that makes the six notes, or the six competencies of the

chords model tricky, is that as a leader, as a entrepreneur,

leader. In this context, you're playing all six at the same

time. Ideally, you're communicating at the same time

you're trying to build harmony among a team. At the same time

you're trying to cultivate a sense of ownership among your

team members. At the same time you're trying to show, exhibit

and display respect with people that you don't necessarily agree

with. At the same time you're trying to forge a bold vision,

that's the direction piece, at the same time that you're trying

to provide constructive feedback and coaching for people. So

you're playing all six of these notes, and that can be, you

know, that can be challenging as far as the most challenging note

that differs with every leader and with every organization. And

I've often asked that of my clients, I say, Hey, I'm just

curious which of the six notes in the chords model is the

trickiest one. And often it's the communication piece, which I

find ironic, given that we all have these incredible devices

that are supposed to facilitate communication in 2025 but often

that seems to be, continue to be sticking point for a lot of us.

Sometimes it's ownership. It's very easy to point fingers and

place blame when things go astray. How do you cultivate a

culture of ownership? So the short answer is, it really

depends on the on the culture that we're talking.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to me that you

you highlighted communication there, because as I was reading

through the book, there was that sense of like, we know this, but

we don't do it. And so how can we bridge that gap? What does

good communication look like for a leader, and how do we bridge

the gap from where we are to where we need to be?

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I go

back to the to the fundamentals, you know, what we would call the

blocking and tackling, if you will, of good communication. Not

to mix metaphors here, but yeah, I do an exercise in my workshops

on communication where I play a piece of music and I ask the

participants if they were to come up with a title for that

piece of music, what would it be? And it's a nice piece of,

sort of neoclassical. There's no words to it's just a just a

piano playing. It's a nice piece of music. And I get all kinds of

titles, like walking through snow in winter, and, you know,

Ray. Bow rainbows. And you know, you can imagine all the titles.

And I go, those are very, very creative titles, but talk to me

about what was required to come up with that title, what what

level of listening was required. And the answers are, well, I had

a I had to listen very intently, right? I had to sort of block

out any distractions, any chatter in my mind, and really

focus on the emotions and what the music was expressing in

order for me to come up with a title. And I'm like, Yeah, well,

how often do we reach that level of acute listening during the

course of the day? And obviously the answer is to that is hardly

ever. So I go, let's Okay. So let's practice experiencing that

level of listening. Now, not every conversation we have

during the course of the day might require that level of

listening, but that's that's sort of a muscle that can

atrophy if we don't use it. So let's just practice, in five

minutes, having a conversation in which we're focused. We're

really paying attention to the other person. We're not forming

a response while they're talking. Maybe we're asking some

good questions to elicit more information. And it's such a

simple exercise, but it's really, it's really profoundly

moving, I guess, for lack of a better word, because I go, how

did that feel to be listened to by someone, you know, that that

intently, and they go like, wow, that was so cool, like they were

focused on me and asking good questions and really paying

attention. So, you know, to answer your question, we could

try to reach that level of focused listening more often

every moment of every day. But at least if someone is sharing

something with us that's obviously important to them, try

to block out the distractions tied up. Try to block out when

their lips stop moving. Here's what I'm going to jump in and

say this just just listen, you know, and and absorb and process

and empathize, you know, try to put yourself in the shoes of the

person that's talking to you, yeah? And then when you feel

like you have the full picture of what's being shared then and

only then, say, Well, I have some thoughts. Can I share them

with you? Yeah, simple thing to do. But we, hardly ever do that.

You know, we're always trying to, you know, running off to our

next meeting or running off to our next obligation, and just,

you know, just showering the other person with with our

opinion or our perspective or our point of view, and rarely

stepping back and adopting a pose of openness and receptivity

to what they're saying. And I think if we did that more often,

it would make a huge difference in the workplace. So one thing

we can do.

So true, the next one here is harmony, which

I thought beyond the fact that you know, the obvious musical

metaphors, very, very interesting word. And so my

question for you is, how does harmony from a leadership

concept differ from other concepts like consensus or buy

in? What does harmony look like for you?

So the way that I sort of frame up the notion of

harmony, Scott in the book and in the chords model, and again,

I use a musical analogy, which I think might be helpful here to

your listeners. If you think about different types of

instruments you have, like an electric guitar. And I actually

do a piece of this in my program, so I'll play an

electric guitar, you know, just like shredding electric guitar.

And that's represents the personality of someone who is a

little, you know, dominant, a little, you know, very

confident, maybe a little rough around the edges. We know people

like that. They're not bad people. They just have a very

big personality, right? Sort of represented by this electric

guitar. And then we have the next instrument. You might have

people on your team who's a trumpet and I play a piece of

trumpet music. It's very joyful and very buoyant and very it's

like, and I'm like, do you know people like that on your team

who are just like, hey, come in on a Monday morning, hey, let me

tell you all about my weekend. You're like, whoa. Slow down,

man, right? I haven't even had my coffee yet. We know people

like that. And then there's, like, the saxophone, and I play

a piece of, like, very warm and, like, just lush saxophone, jazz

saxophone, like, you know, people like that, right? They're

just the people you go to when you just need a shoulder to cry

on, right? They're just good listeners, and they're empathic

and and, you know, the saxophones in your life. And

then the fourth example is like a cello and I play a piece of a

Cello Sonata. I think it's a Bach Cello Sonata, and it's very

sort of rhythmically consistent, and every note is in the right

place. I'm like, you know, people like that, you know,

they're just very meticulous. And logical and rational, right?

So again, I'm using the musical analogy to shine a light on the

different personalities that exist in the workplace. And then

we talk about, all right, how do you get the electric guitars

playing nicely with the trumpets, playing nicely with

the saxophones, playing nicely with the cellos? And we have a

nice conversation about the preferences and the tendencies

of each of those four styles and how we can best work with styles

that are a little different from us, or maybe vastly different

from us. And you know, there's a lot there to talk about, more

than we have time for on this podcast, but yeah, there's

plenty of literature and plenty of research on on how to work

best with people who may have, you know, a different

perspective than us, or different work style than us.

And really, what it comes down to is just honoring the

strengths and the gifts of each style and being showing grace

and patience with, you know, the the characteristics of a style

that might not align with ours, and instead of getting

frustrated with people, recognize that they're just

different. So let's recognize that difference, and let's talk

about how we can work together?

Yeah, I love that, because there's, there's a

couple of mistakes that folks make. Founders in particular,

they look for other people can match their melody right as

they're looking for other people who are like them that are

singing the same song in the same way. And you lose so much

color in that. And then the other side of this is just

because it's different doesn't mean it's good, you know, and

you can have different that's wrong and that's not in harmony

and not in sync with the team. And so, excellent metaphor. I

really I fell in love with it as you shared it, and then again,

as you shared it here on the episode. So for the sake of

time, we like to keep this short for our folks, I'm gonna give

you the author's license to pick which one of the remaining four,

and then again, we'll make sure folks know how they can get a

copy of the book and go through each of these in detail. But of

the remainder, which do you think is the one that most

entrepreneurs miss?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think that

probably respect can be an issue, especially with an

entrepreneur with, let's face it, you know, a big ego. Maybe,

you know, not an unwarranted one, because entrepreneurs tend

to be very smart and very savvy. Sometimes they have big ego. So,

you know, sometimes that can, that can be tricky direction.

Maybe not so much an issue with entrepreneurs, because they

typically have a bold vision for what they want to accomplish. I

think maybe, I think maybe ownership, and not so much that

they don't exhibit ownership themselves, but it's kind of

cultivating ownership among a team. And for me, just for the

sake of time, Scott, I think that really comes down to this

notion of psychological safety. One of the things that I think

entrepreneurs can do to cultivate a sense of ownership

in a in a team is to create a sense of psychological safety,

which is a space where people feel comfortable speaking up,

speaking out, telling the truth, being themselves, maybe even

pushing back a little bit on the entrepreneur, not in a

disrespectful way, but offering a different point of view or

different perspective, I think in a culture of psychological

safety, people feel free and confident to to do the things

that I think are really important to a burgeoning

business, which is like point out things that you know maybe

going off the rails, or things we need to be careful about

when, When there isn't that sense of psychological safety,

people tend to just right. Just buckle down. Don't see no evil,

speak no evil. See no evil. And because there's a sense of fear

in terms of of expressing those things. And I think that can be

very deleterious to to an entrepreneur. And we want to

make sure that we create a space where, hey, even if it's bad

news, I want to hear it. I'm not going to hold it against you.

I'm not going to humiliate you. That's really important, but

we're going to talk through it. And I think that's the one

takeaway from ownership that I would share today.

It's so good. It's so good. I love the

language you use right at the top of that answer, which was

cultivating an environment of ownership. I think that's

because a lot of us will hear that and think it's licensed to

demand ownership. But if you look at if you look at it, it's

it has. Be discretionary, right? Like it's impossible to demand

ownership. You can only receive it and, and so, yeah, I love

that point on cultivating the environment.

Yeah, I, you know, I there are, there are

folks out there, maybe, who demand ownership. And, you know,

we could speak to iconic leaders over the years who have had sort

of that, that temperament, and there are people out there that

say, yeah, they were very effective in doing that. So

okay, that may be the case, but that's that's not what that's

not how I define a great leader, you know? And that's why I very

purposely use the word cultivate your like, like you're

nourishing, just like you would in a jazz band, right? That

you're not, you're not demanding things of your fellow bandmates.

You're working together in harmony and collaboration, yeah,

to create something that you think is going to be meaningful

to your audience. So that's, you know, as a musician, that's,

that's kind of the paradigm where I come from, and I it's a

hallmark of the very best leaders that I've ever worked

with.

So Mike, there's one question that I like

to ask all my guests. I'm very interested to hear what you have

to say, and then we'll make sure folks know how they can get in

touch with you and and go from there. But the question is this,

what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish

wasn't a secret at all. What's that one thing you wish

everybody watching and listening today knew?

You know, I would say that, you know, maybe

it's a little hackneyed, but it was really true in my case, and

that's is, you know, follow your inner voice. And why I say that

was really palpable for me is because about 10 years ago, I

had a conversation with a colleague of mine, a successful

speaker coach, and I said to him, I'm really struggling to

carve out a unique identity for my business. And he said, Well,

you know, what do you think makes you different from all the

other consultants and coaches running around out there? And I

said, Well, I have this lifelong passion for music, and, and,

and, you know, I played music since I was a teenager. I listen

to a lot of music. I talk about music with my friends. It's more

than just, you know, just a hobby. It's really a part of me.

And he stopped me, and he said, If you could see your face right

now, you would see how joyful you are talking about music. So

I think you answered your own question in terms of blending

your expertise in leadership and team building, and you have all

the academic credentials and all that, and blend that with your

love and passion and background and music and create some create

a brand out of that. And I said, Well, that's interesting, but

what if people find like that kind of frivolous or or or

superficial, you know, I was full of doubt. And he said,

Well, there's always going to be people out there that you know,

don't align with whatever it is you're doing, but if you come to

the marketplace with a sense of authenticity and passion and joy

for whatever it is, you will find people that connect. So I

took that leap of faith. And I'm like, All right, sounds weird,

but I'm gonna, I'm gonna totally rebrand and come up with right

chord leadership and the chords model and notes and harmony and

and jazz. And I was like, I'm going all in. I'm not gonna just

half, you know, half, baked, and it's been good. I mean, it has

definitely allowed me to create an identity in a crowded market.

People say, Oh, you're that saxophone guy, you're that,

you're the you're the music guy, right? And and it allowed me to

write this book. So I would say, even if that little voice in

your head says it'll never work, people are going to find it

silly. You know, what are you? Who are you kidding? Follow that

little voice and don't be dissuaded. If you have a bold

vision and you just feel in your gut that it's the right

direction for you, pursue it, pursue it, and don't give up

and, and I think that is the biggest quote secret that I wish

more entrepreneurs that I would share with entrepreneurs that I

would share with your audience today.

Yeah, remarkable, remarkable. Mike,

where can folks get a copy of the book? Where can they find

more out about the work that you do in the workshops you host?

Yeah, I opportunity. Scott So

rightchordleadership.com. That's chord with an H, like musical

chord, right chord, C, H, O, R, D, leadership.com. The book is

available on Amazon. It's called strike the right chord. The

emerging leader's guide to exceptional performance. My

Email is michael@rightcordleadership.com

I would be delighted to connect with any of your listeners who

are interested in what I do in the any musicians out there that

want to talk music and how it relates to entrepreneurship and

leadership, happy to do that. So yeah, I encourage anyone who's

interested to reach out, be happy to chat with you.

Yeah. Dr. Michael Brenner, thank you so

much for being on the show. Just a privilege and honor having you

here today, and for those of you watching and listening, you know

your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as

much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait

to see you next time. Take care.

Appreciate it. Thank you.