In this episode of the Casey Cease Show, we dive deep into the topic of overcoming fear-based leadership with our guest, Rod Brace, the founder of Motivity Media. Rod shares his valuable insights and experiences, shedding light on the detrimental effects of fear-based leadership and offering practical strategies for leaders to cultivate a more positive and empowering approach. 

If you're looking to enhance your leadership skills and create a more inclusive and supportive work environment, this episode is a must-listen. 

Tune in now to gain valuable wisdom and inspiration from Rod Brace on The Casey Cease Show!

Ready to elevate your entrepreneurial journey? Let's dive in.

And so I wanted to share him with the world, with the people that are coming on the show and each week we're going to have episodes talking about life, faith, family, business, and Rod really encompasses all of those things. And so. rather than tell his whole story. I just want to provide some context of the depth of relationship.

And for those of you out there that are interested in maybe mentoring somebody or pouring into somebody, Rod has done that multiple times over, not only in church life, but in business and through friendships. And it's just a beautiful example of walking that tension of faith, family, business and doing that well.

Rod Brace: Thank you, Casey. It's a very kind of you and certainly you're highly investable. So, I appreciate all the opportunity to invest in your life and life for your family. And so, you've really taken the blessings and gifts that God's given you and used them in some very unique ways.

And so through that, we actually went through Illinois, Louisiana, and eventually ended up in Houston, Texas. And we had finished up one assignment there, and now they wanted us to move to San Diego.

And at the time, our oldest son was, two or three years old, and we said, one, San Diego is really expensive and two, this kid can't move every nine months. And so, let's do something different. And I put out a little bitty classified ad in a newspaper. This was back in the 80s in the Houston Chronicle.

And so, the 23, 24 year old man in me was like, bulletproof, I can do anything. And so, sure, I'll come and help you set up sales. And I've never done sales in my life. And so after about three months of selling up the sales program. I had sold one 50 pound box of shrimp to a local retail chain.

And I would say, Oh yes, ma'am. I've got, all these letters. And here's she said, she goes, it's yes or no, son. And, so you go through all this just to get your unemployment check to survive. And so, in the midst of that, I had my undergraduate degree, was marketing and so my brother was in health care at the time. And marketing was just starting to come in vogue and health care in the 80s.

And so I did and they found it interesting and they implemented a lot of things and I said, I thought maybe this is a good way to at least put some food on the table and do some consulting for a while. And so I sent out I blanked out the proposal or the plan that I did for him.

And I sent it out to 23 of the roughly 60 hospitals in Houston at the time. And saying, if you need some of this consulting work, let me know. I got two responses, one, was from a very large hospital in Houston where I don't know, for whatever reason, the marketing director at the time, she had an interview with me and basically it was to tell me I had no business being in healthcare, particularly healthcare marketing.

He has a director of a marketing position open. And so I did long story short, I got the job over there. Worked there for several years as a marketing director and then moved into administration. 10 years later, I found myself sitting in the very office of that hospital CEO that had called and told me about the job and I now was the CEO of that hospital.

And three years later, I was named a Regional President for the corporation of which one of the hospitals under my oversight was the hospital that the marketing director called me over and said, I'd never have a place in health care. And so, know, you look back at that and you say, you can't make that stuff up.

It says the kingdom of God is like this. And it tells the story of a vineyard owner who goes out and he basically hires all these day laborers. And so as a day laborer, you don't know exactly what you're going to do that day. You don't know exactly who you're going to work with. You just know that you just show up in the day labor line.

And so I adopted that as, my philosophy of just show up. And see what God has for you that day. See who God has for you to work with that day. Now I'll tell you, as I grew in my career to executive status, I would each year have lots of the new MBAs that would come out and they'd want to sit down with you and say, tell me, how your career track went, tell me how you developed your career.

But it's rare that we make that leap from what we hear on a Sunday to what we do on a Monday.

Casey Cease: That's helpful.

Rod Brace: Yeah, through that, there's a great deal of executive coaching that happens because you, as you can imagine, as a hospital CEO, you have to stand up in front of your board and say, Hey, ladies and gentlemen, we're killing people.

And I'd like for you to hold us accountable for that. And so, that's not easy. And there are days where you're punched in the gut after you do it and you wish you had never started that journey. And so through that, I did a lot of executive coaching with CEOs and other C-suite members of multi billion dollar health systems.

And so, I saw that time and time again. And so after several years of the consulting company and higher liability, I decided to start a company that really try to bridge that gap between God and work . And relate to people that God really does care about your work. And God does have a plan. And that plan may be to show up in the line of people looking for day labor. But there's a plan and he's with you throughout that.

And so leadership is my Christlike. Behavior as a leader is my passion. I think leaders have a moral obligation to those that they lead and that the Bible has a lot to say about that. So that's been my journey so far. Who knows where it'll go from here?

As you transitioned, you have two beautiful boys. They both have beautiful wives. You have grandbabies. There were so many lessons that Steph and I learned from you and Diana over the years over generosity. I remember your first book Simplify Came Out and you were talking about, just living a more simplistic life.

And this was as your career was on an upward trajectory. And I remember you just simplifying things and being very intentional along the way. As you work with younger executives and other business leaders. As you're moving into motivity, both on outside of, people who are not yet in the Christian faith and those who are, as you've been coaching a slew of executives over the year, what are some of the common challenges that you're noticing they're facing in this day and age in leadership and just overall work and business and all that?

And so if revenues are down, or even, if the stock price is down based upon some fluke in the market of some activity in some foreign country, I have to now lay off employees. I have to put in a place of prominence, the shareholder value. And so I think that was a really a turning point where it rightly so, a lot of employees entered into the workplace with some sort of fear that I could be easily laid off this Friday if the stock market goes down.

And there's a polarity to it that's intriguing that says, I will always diminish what I see of messages and cues to me that I am safe. I'll pay less attention to those, but I'll pay more attention to those cues and messages that I'm unsafe. And so this priority exists that one of the obligations of a leader is to make sure that we convey to the employee as great a level of safety as possible.

Where they know I can go ask my leader this question. I can go run this rumor by them. I can have all these opportunities to at least have better judgment of that.

I was a hospital CEO, I used to routinely do town hall meetings. And as part of those town hall meetings, you'd have some things that you want to share with the employees, but there was also question and answer.

Yeah, I'm hearing a rumor that we're gonna close down or here a rumor or it could be layoffs. And it was a safe way for them to bring those out. And so I always encourage leaders to get out, be very transparent, very honest. Adult conversations. But I think you have a moral obligation as a leader, to address that point of security.

And so to your question what do we see right now? Tremendous fear based cultures in a lot of organizations. It takes a lot of years to unwind. Because people in the absence of information will depend on historical things that happen, and then they'll sort of inflate that with their own twist on it.

But do you remember a season where there was that kind of non fear based motivation in the workplace?

Rod Brace: Yeah, I mean, it largely depends on the leaders at the time. And so, I think, any organization create a trusting and honest and open relationship. I think, it largely has to do with the leader. And in fact, even if you are a leader that work in a large organization that is fear based, you and your area of influence can create that you have to serve a little bit as a buffer between what's going on elsewhere, but you can create that on your own little subculture within a culture. So, I think that the problem that we have right now is communication tactics aren't necessarily tied to the value of the communication.

And that time is spent on making sure that what they're doing and what they plan to do next week is aligned with the purpose of the organization. Because there's a tremendous amount of unaligned work in most organizations. And so, if I don't know what's expected of me as an employee, if I don't have a conversation with you, my boss, to make sure that I'm aligned with that, then insecurity will set in.

I'm wondering if that's aligned with what I should be doing. What's your expectations of me and so on. Now, having said that most leaders do an absolutely terrible job of setting expectations for their employees. It's here's the job description and it's got that line in there, whatever else I tell you to do, that's not expectation setting.

And I tell employees, if you don't clearly understand what your boss wants of you, then that's going to cause confusion and insecurity. And eventually you're going to suboptimize your performance. And so you have to go ask them and I warned them that you're probably not going to be approaching clarity on what's expected of you.

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Casey Cease: so with motivity, when you're building that out, tell me a little bit more about the vision of how, because I know you, you don't just randomly think Oh, this might be a good idea. You're free to try stuff. I know over the years you've tried a lot of things. But what led to the birthing of motivity at this time in your life and everything else? And what are you hoping that it contributes?

Cause you've always been contributing towards that idea. I still, it haunts me, Rod. Sometimes, when you say, "Every leader has a moral obligation to provide meaningful work for their people.". And I would add, you know, especially as a Christian man, the way we treat our employees and want the best for them.

But as you've gotten to this point in your life where you've retired from your quote unquote day job, and you've been busy doing a lot of consulting and helping your son start businesses and grow businesses, but as you move into this life, like why now for motivity and what are you hoping that it's going to accomplish and do?

You don't know the situation that I'm in, and so it goes back to this disconnect. And so, while we can take time on a coaching call to maybe talk through some of those things. there's not enough time. Just d o it continually. And two, in some cases, the companies are paying me to advance their leadership skills and why I think it's pertinent and the basis of how we lead.

And I got a lot of people contacting me directly to say, this is so refreshing. This is out there on LinkedIn. This is so refreshing, a way of thinking about things. And I decided that I would leave the company that I started for high reliability practices primarily because that's not the target messaging for that company and I would start a new company.

And motivity just means the power to move forward. So, it's a word that we don't use a lot. So it was something that was unique to people. And so, out of that was born Motivity Media, which started to put out there these leadership articles that also had a biblical application to them. And I was pretty prepared that, yeah, there may be an interest in this topic. But I'm probably not going to hear of people's interest on LinkedIn, because they're fearful that you know, boss may see them aspiring to some of these Christian principles or whatever it might be.

And then, it's got a text messaging element to it as well, where 3 times a week, I send out just a 40, 455 character message that gives a Bible verse and then has a leadership application on Monday and Wednesday. And then Friday is a leadership tip. That's usually based on some academic research that they can use.

And so, that list has been growing very fast as well. And so, all that to say, I think that people are now interested. I think that people have perhaps hit a place in their career where burnout is a real, choices have to be made about careers, and trying to better understand what it is that engages people.

Casey Cease: That's how you have to be, right?

Rod Brace: Yeah. And I've had many conversations with people about, yeah, but is that who you want to be? No, but to be successful. Maybe you can be successful someplace else. And then we get into the notion of what a, career change. And one of the, it's a very fearful time for anybody that's made a career change.

And so, there's some practical sides of this that help people. But there's some biblical applications for all those.

Casey Cease: No that's, so important to be able to remind people that like, Hey, you don't stop being who you are just because you clock in. And in order to get successful, I mean, okay, let's say you become someone else to get success, then there's a massive disconnect on who you are, who you're meant to be, and then how you're actually leading other people.

And going back to the fear based leadership, while it might get some immediate results, it's going to cause long term damage. Not only to the souls that you're leading, but to the organization that you're running. So, if you were to say, Hey, here's three magic things that an organization can do to stop being a fear based organization.

Do you have that off the top of your head? Or is that something like there we're going to have to come to motivity and sign up and

Rod Brace: No, no,

Casey Cease: join one of your coaching programs?

And as a result, out of a sense, I'm more important, or I can have a greater sense of security if I do all these things, they're ineffective. They're not doing the things that are their talents to do that.

And, you know, I think the last thing is just be move in down into the organization so that you know what's really going on.

Most leaders of most, senior leaders of organizations, they don't know what's going on. They don't know what people are thinking. They don't know of the 10,000 policies that they've put in place that make work difficult, not able to make daily progress towards meaningful work. They don't know what people don't know.

Senior leaders don't know if they're doing a good job or not. And that brings fear where that employee knows I'm not, I don't know what I'm doing. So, that's a fear based environment that they bring up on themselves. The second was autonomy. All employees know, and I don't get to call all the shots here, but I at least like to see my fingerprints on some things here.

That's what ties people to an organization. And so, you don't see those things being misaligned unless as a senior leader, you're out walking around talking to people. You're asking him, what frustrates you? What can I do to make your path towards meaningful work? Oh, fewer speed bumps.

That's the work of the leader not sitting in office. I always say offices are the least profitable square footage of any business. It isolates us. It gives us a false sense of security that we know what's going on when we don't. We've got to get out. We've got to develop transparent, honest relationships with people so that they tell us what's going on, and that's the whole psychological safety.

Casey Cease: Rod, is there anything I haven't asked you for this episode? I know I'm going to bring you on plenty of times, but is there anything I haven't asked you this episode that I should have asked you?

Casey Cease: So where can people find you online? How can they connect with you?

Rod Brace: Rod Brace, you can find Motivity Media at MotivityMedia.com. That's M O T I V I T Y. com. You can, on there, you can find the text based messages that I sent out, some links for that

Casey Cease: And we'll put that in the show notes as well. So, people can sign up for the text message everything

Casey Cease: Awesome. Well, Rod, thanks so much for today. I can't wait to have you back on the show again.

Rod Brace: Appreciate it. Thanks Casey.

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