Marcus is the founder of Mammoth Leadership & Organizational Development, where he combines clear strategy, advanced leadership skills, and adaptive technology to help leaders and organizations achieve lasting results. His diverse career spans multiple leadership arenas, including serving as a former non-profit CEO, President and GM of two semi-professional athletic teams, entrepreneur, college professor, and U.S. Air Force veteran. With an MA in Management and Leadership, MS in Organizational Development, and multiple AI certifications, Marcus brings both theoretical depth and real-world application to his work as a certified executive coach, helping leaders navigate complex challenges and drive transformational change.

Coaching isn’t just for those who are struggling; it’s a game changer, and we’re diving into that today. Our guest, Marcus Dudley, shares the lightbulb moment he had when he finally got a coach himself and realized just how invaluable that support can be. We chat about the importance of having a safe space to reflect, vent, and get challenged—all crucial for leaders looking to step up their game. Plus, we tackle the concept of "performance drag," which is all about those sneaky little distractions that slow us down and how to kick them to the curb. If you’re ready to elevate your leadership journey and get some practical insights, stick around, because we've got a lot to uncover!

Coaching isn't just for leaders who need to polish their skills; it's become a vital lifeline for anyone navigating the choppy waters of leadership. Marcus Dudley, a seasoned coach, shares his journey from the military to the corporate world, underlining how coaching can transform a leader's approach. He emphasizes the importance of having a safe space where leaders can vent, reflect, and be held accountable without the fear of judgment. This episode dives deep into the concept of 'performance drag', which Marcus defines as the invisible forces that slow leaders down and prevent them from reaching their goals. He discusses how leaders can identify these forces, whether they stem from time mismanagement, lack of strategic clarity, or insufficient technological support. The conversation is rich with insights about personal growth, the need for ongoing leadership development, and the importance of learning from mistakes. Furthermore, Marcus's experience provides a relatable backdrop for understanding how leadership challenges are universal, regardless of the industry, making this episode essential listening for anyone in a leadership role.

Takeaways:

• Coaching isn't just for those struggling; it offers a judgment-free space for leaders to vent and reflect.
• Leadership development requires a trifecta: knowledge, a supportive environment, and effective coaching to thrive.
• Understanding performance drag is crucial; it's about identifying hidden forces that hinder leaders from achieving their goals.
• Strategic clarity is key for leaders; aligning their time with their goals can significantly boost team effectiveness.
• The corporate world often lacks the supportive culture found in military leadership, leading to increased performance drag for leaders.
• Developing leaders is an ongoing journey; setting aside time for personal growth is essential, even when things get hectic.

Links for today's show:

• Marcus' Linked In Page
• Mammoth Development's Website
• Mammoth Success Book
• Kent's Linked In Page
• Promoted Leader Playbook

**Music for this podcast comes from the song Needle & Thread and is provided with permission by Pert' Near Sandstone. Check them out on PertNeaerSandstone.com and on all major streaming platforms.**

*Editing by Fynn Gentle / www.fynngentle.com

If you asked me five or six years ago what the value of a coach was, I probably would have told you that coaches were for people that needed, you know, to work on their leadership skills. I had no idea how valuable a coach was until I got a coach.

I think that there absolutely is value in having a safe, confidential, judgment, free space to vent, to reflect, to think through, to be challenged, to be held accountable in a way that is extremely freeing.

Hi there and welcome to the Step up expert Voices for Leadership Growth. I'm your host, Kent Knievel. Every week I talk to experts who focus on helping leaders step up their leadership game.

If you're new to the show, then on whatever platform you're using, I encourage you to subscribe so you never, never miss an episode. One last thing.

As a leadership development consultant and executive coach, I have a particular interest in supporting recent internally promoted leaders.

If that's you, or if you support a leader who has been recently promoted, I encourage you to visit my website at Kent Coach Playbook and download a free copy of my 90 day blueprint filled with practical advice for you or the leader you support in hitting the ground running and truly stepping up to their new leadership level. Without further ado, on with the show. Welcome, everybody. Today we are here to talk about performance drag.

And with me for this conversation is Marcus Dudley, author of recently released book Mammoth Success. Marcus, thanks for coming on today.

Thank you so much for having me, Ken. It's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, well, I'd love to hear about your background, like, walk me through, you know, that your career arc to the recent release of your. Your book.

Yeah, great. You know, I have kind of an eclectic background, so, you know, it's.

Maybe since we're talking about leadership development, I'll look at it kind of through that lens a little bit and maybe that'll help kind of articulate how I got here.

So I grew up in Kansas and, you know, after high school, ran off to college and didn't excel at school, so spent about a year and a half at school majoring in everything but, but academics, which led me to the United States Air Force, which was fantastic for me. It was great.

And, you know, as someone who has adhd, you know, that kind of structure and accountability and discipline and purpose was excellent for me.

And, you know, it was one of those things that I don't think I realized how much it would change my life at the time and how much of my career, you know, has been impacted from that experience. And it really happened in a couple different ways. I think. First off, because I was. I was.

I was a couple years older, so I went in at 20, so a lot of kids going at like, 17 or 18. And so I got kind of thrown into leadership positions right away.

And, you know, even in basic training, like element leader and then a flight chief and then into tech school, I was trained as a. As a medic.

So I, you know, they kept kind of throwing responsibilities on me, which was great, you know, from a training perspective and a responsibility perspective. But all of that really, you know, kind of formed a foundation for me.

And, you know, and I know we talked a little bit off air about some of my unique backgrounds, but one of the other things that happened to me in that experience that I think really kind of, I don't know, created a passion for leadership was I started playing rugby for the United States Air Force and the United States Combined Service Team. And so I spent about three or four months of the year not really working as a medic, just traveling around the country and playing rugby.

And a lot of the makeup of those teams were of they were officers, they weren't enlisted guys.

And so I was really fortunate to be around a lot of guys from the military academy, so West Point and Air Force Academy and Naval academy and VMI and the Citadel.

And, you know, for someone who hadn't done so well in school, that was a fantastic environment for me to be around for the, you know, the next four years. And because my position required, you know, kind of a.

It was kind of a leadership role, you know, I really had to kind of pick up on some skills and learn some traits pretty early on in order to kind of even survive. And. And so that was an incredible experience for me.

And really, I think kind of got me on the track of, you know, on the leadership track, so to speak.

Then I got out of the military and went back to college, and within a couple of years, I jumped into the pharmaceutical and biotech industry and then spent about seven years in that and that, you know, business world. So start off in pharma, then went to biopharm and then biotech.

And that's where I got my toes kind of dipped in, you know, business and marketing and sales and kind of the cutthroat world that that is.

And then I kind of got, I don't want to say disenfranchised, but I think I was really kind of shocked that just the differences in culture between the Air Force and what I thought was just corporate America. I think now it may have just kind of been a sales background that I didn't really, you know, understand some of the nuances of that.

And I think a lot of that was around leadership, like just the difference in quality of leadership, you know, the lack of accountability, the, you know, in the military, everybody kind of has everybody's back. And here it was kind of cutthroat, you know, you make a mistake, everybody, you know, is ready to tell you about it or. Yeah, right.

So, yeah, hide their head.

That's right. And you know, or. Or blame, you know, he's, you know, I remember one thing I said, oh, that was my fault.

And you know, I heard someone say, you heard Marcus? You said it was his fault. That is not how this is supposed to work. Yeah, it was not my training.

So I got back, I got out and went back to school and got my first graduate degree in management and leadership with kind of a concentration in conflict management, dispute or dispute resolution, which is kind of a weird mix. You know, I had looked at a bunch of business, you know, kind of programs and most of them had a ton of finance classes.

And I was like, I don't need finance, I just need to have a good accountant. You know, I wanted to focus on kind of the leadership topics is really where I was, you know, really kind of focused.

And so at the same time thought at 32 years old that I'd try to start consulting, you know, thinking, hey, this, this will be a good idea. You know, I've got worldly experience and that didn't go so hot.

So, you know, so as I was kind of trying to make ends meet and building a coaching practice at a pretty young age and had this new degree, I started working at this college. It was called the Tucker Leadership Lab. And they had this giant ropes course, like three story ropes course thing was huge.

And so I started kind of volunteering and then I started getting paid to kind of work as a facilitator and started noticing that all of these, you know, teams are coming through for like team building events. And so it was a lot of corporate groups.

And so, you know, I learned how to facilitate and debrief a lot of these, you know, kind of the behaviors that you're seeing on the ropes course and where does that kind of intersect in your professional world and, you know, all those types of things.

Who's belaying you at?

Right, that's right. Yeah. All of us have trust factors and all that stuff. So they had kind of low ropes and, you know, high ropes horses.

And so, you know, I kind of made A pivot in my business. And I started thinking, you know, maybe I need to start providing team building activities.

So I started doing, you know, scavenger hunts and corporate Olympics and portable challenges and the bikes for tikes and amazing races and all these different things. And business just started flooding in and I was, you know, almost didn't know what to do.

I was doing a lot of work with groups like Sprint and, you know, there'd be 20 groups that would contact me and oh my God, okay. So I'd start building staff and trying to build these team building events.

And what I started noticing was that usually when teams would call me or leaders would call me, it was usually because they were in the storming stage, there's some kind of poop storm going on, and they're trying to fix it. And so that really kind of got me, got me thinking, right?

So I started having more deeper conversations about what's going on and what's worked, what hasn't worked, you know, what are your objectives with this team building event? And then I started kind of changing them and modifying them in a way that would be a little more diagnostic, if that makes sense.

And by that I mean, you know, early on, you know, whenever, I don't know if you came from the corporate world, you know, when everyone's anybody says team building, everybody holds hands and sings kumbaya and puts on their team building mask. So I really got good at figuring out ways to catch people being themselves. Right.

So how could I create certain triggers or certain, you know, challenges that I would, you know, provoke reflexive behaviors, and you'd be shocked at what you can find, you know, in a group on, you know, trying to earn $3 and 45 cents legally in downtown Kansas City.

Like, yeah, I mean, you see who dominates the conversation with the brainstorming is how they handle conflict, what the personalities are, how much does the leader get involved, how much does the leader allow others to get involved? You know, and you set up several challenges like that.

You get a pretty in depth analysis of what's going on in that team and, you know, within a couple hours. And so then that really became part of the process, right.

Was, was here's some of the things that we saw and we talk about them, and then I'd have a deeper debrief with the leader afterwards.

And that led to a bunch of other, a bunch of other services, you know, strategic planning and leadership Development and assessments and social styles and conflict management training and just, you know, you know, a buffet of different, of different things.

And then my business started growing kind of around the country and started working with a lot of different types of groups from federal to nonprofit to, you know, telecom to construction there was just all over the board. So I really got, really got exposed to a lot of different environments. Yeah, you act like you're going to ask me a question.

Well, no, I was just, I was just going to say it sounds like, like a smattering of industries because even in my experience it's interesting the premium some clients can put on. Do you have telecom experience or experience consulting with telecom? And so it's great that you're collecting all these experiences.

But then my guess is like most people that do what we do, there's like leadership's pretty common across, like I always joke, having having entered into enough organizations. Like one of the first things I hear on the first day is we're a relationship based company and I'm always like, yep, the only one.

And I hear it everywhere.

Yeah, what's that like? Right?

What's that like?

Yeah, you know, so I did that for like five or six years and we had three kids that kind of in the elementary, middle school age and it was taking its toll, you know. So, you know.

Yeah, yeah, just a lot of travel and the grind of, you know, owning your own business and you know, you have things stacked up and then you wouldn't. And so there's just, you know, how it is with, with these types of, you know, this type of business.

And so then one of my clients just approached me about that I'd had for a while that I was really kind of volunteering for locally that said, hey, would you be interested in becoming, you know, our, our executive directors for a nonprofit, the non profit CEO. And you know, I thought about for a little while, I was like, yeah, you know, this would decrease travel. I'd be home a lot more.

Let's see what this is like. And so did that for about 12 years.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so I, you know, we kind.

Of opened a minor departure.

What's that?

It's a minor departure.

Yeah, minor departure. And it was kind of, it was, you know, I got, I got, I, you know, I was teaching at the same time.

I went back and got a second graduate degree in organizational development.

And it really allowed me to kind of play a lot with my own leadership styles and some organizational development frameworks and really had a lot of success.

And was going to start consulting and coaching again, and then was approached about becoming a fractional COO for a little while. So I did that for about seven months, which wasn't expected at all.

And then while that was going on, my wife got recruited for a job in Georgia, kind of her dream job. And we'd been in Kansas for 20 some years, so our kids had all graduated high school and were out in college or not in college anymore. And.

And so about two years ago, we packed up and moved to north of Atlanta, which has been a shock.

And so since that time period, I've really just been kind of focusing on growing my own practice and really working as kind of a leadership and organizational coach, consultant, continue teaching, and now an author. So here today.

So there's a couple of things I wanted to ask about as we. As you were talking here, and I'm wondering if I'm gonna.

Well, so first of all, and I think you maybe you'll laugh at this question, and anybody who knows folks in the military might understand where my question's coming from. Did you meet your wife in tech school?

I met my wife. I met her in tech school, but we didn't really. We just knew of each other.

Okay.

We actually spent time, interestingly enough, so we had stationed at the same base. I didn't really know her very much, but she was wearing a Kansas Jayhawk T shirt.

And so I saw her coming back from the gym, and I was like, hey, like.

Because I grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, which is where the University of Kansas is, and then it was a national championship T shirt, and we had won the national championship a couple years ago. I was like, hey, wait a second. Where did you get that? And that started a conversation.

And then, you know, here we are 29 years later, because I. I think.

I think the joke was, like, you can't really. You know, there's only so much socializing you can do in basic. And so people start to couple up and get married in tech school right away.

No, it's.

It's surprising how many do and how many end up married, you know, and it's also surprising, you know, we have a number of friends who, you know, that didn't Last very long. And we have a number of friends who are looking at 30 years now. Like, it's really.

You know, I don't know of any other group that really has that kind of success either. You know, it's a pretty. It's pretty odd, but it's. But yes and no to your question.

Yeah. All right, so here's my other question, which might be our segue into talking about performance drag somewhat unintentionally, as I. As I.

As I'm remembering the question. You had talked about just the stark difference between leadership that you saw in the Air Force.

Leadership you saw in, you know, the quote unquote, corporate world. And there was. There was a online conversation I took part in somewhat today around. And I'm curious. I call it.

I don't know if everybody calls it this, but I call it the player coach model.

It's kind of what happens in corporate America, I'm sure, at least the C suite level that starts to die off and maybe a layer below, but less likely, in my experience of the leader has their own book of work that they have to do and lead the team.

My curiosity is, in the military, at least in your experience with the Air Force, did the Air Force use that player coach model, or were leaders set out to lead? Your job was to strategize and lead, not do the work that your team is doing.

Also, I think it really depends on what level, you know, I'm talking about. You know, early on, for sure, you know, it was kind of the player coach, you know, situation.

You know, so I was in basic training and still in a leadership position. I was in tech school and had to go through all that.

Yeah.

Still had to be in.

Yeah. Okay.

You know, even when I was assigned, you know, kind of a. A leadership role with, you know, within the hospital, I still had my own work and then had to mentor and, you know, help lead and, you know, other.

Other airmen. Yeah. But as you kind of, you know, you know, grow in your capacity, in your role, then that starts changing a little bit and. Yeah.

And usually around E5, you start seeing, you know, in the Air Force anyway, that you start kind of seeing that you still have leadership, your roles, your technical role starts decreasing, and you're kind of leading. Leadership role starts increasing.

Yeah. Like leadership as the profession.

That's right. I think it's similar on the officer side, too, but I think they get into the leadership roles much faster in terms of rank. Yeah.

So this might be what pushes us into performance drag, because I think in my Own experience. And this was even when I was working for a leadership consultancy, right.

And I was managing a team, I was still accountable to spend 30% of my time doing client work. You know, I did get the, the luxury quote unquote of being able to spend 70% of my time on like process and my team.

Right.

But I would say like one of my biggest observations both from consulting and being inside is, is how distracting the player coach model is from leadership, from being able to effectively lead the team. Focus on your own development, focus on strategy, focus on coaching. There's, there's just 10.

It brings about this tension between one's own productivity and leading the team, which I'd imagine is somewhat at the heart of, you know, as we were talking before we hit record, around this concept of performance drag that you've been playing around with.

Yeah. You know, I think, I think you mentioned a couple of things that are interesting. I think from an, you know, an ideal situation, right.

We'd love just to focus on kind of execution and helping our, the members of our team, you know, execute and give them the resources they need and be there for support.

I think in this day and age and with how so many organizations, I don't want to say abuse their leaders, you know, I think it's really easy for leaders to get down in the weeds in part not because we want to be, but because we know how overburdened our own staff is already. Right. And so we start taking at least.

I see this a lot and I know I had, you know, some, I struggled with this at times, you know, something else would pop up and you, you know, like, well, I gotta go be a firefighter because I need to fight that fire so they can do their job or I'm gonna take this because they're already overburdened. I'll just throw that on my sled. Right. And that leads to 60 and 70 and 80 hour weeks and you know, burnout and you know, so some of it's self imposed.

I don't know that it's the, necessarily the organization doing it. I think some leaders do it because they feel like it's alleviating some of the pressure and work on their team.

But I also think that, that some organizations know that already and you know, and if they can get work out of you and leadership out of you, you know, why hire someone else if they.

Two for one, right?

You know, so I think there's a little abuse that goes on with that. Sure.

Yeah.

But you know, to your point about performance Drag, I think both either scenario, you know, it pulls, you know, performance. Drag is really the idea that there are hidden forces or reasons that slow leaders down. Right.

That, that either or sometimes even prevents them from achieving their goals.

And it's identifying where those sources of friction are, where those forces are, and then being aware of them in a way that helps a leader be more mindful or learn to eliminate or, you know, minimize those that drag so that they can focus more on, you know, the strategic piece or, you know, the execution piece or helping others execute. And so that's kind of the concepts that I've been playing around with is where are these sources of drag and how much is it impacting leaders?

And then how do I create awareness around that so that we can help leaders do more of, you know, spend their time where they really need to be spending their time?

Yeah, well, let's dive in, because I know you said there was the three main factors. I'd love to hear what those are. And like, how have you been, you know, working with leaders? How's that going?

Yeah, you know, I think. Well, first of all, kind of the concept came from my own. My own kind of issues, you know.

You know, I noticed several years ago, just as a leader and running an organization that, you know, and a lot of this, I think, came from my organizational development background. You know, because it's so much system based that I.

Whenever I started feeling like I was overburdened or I was kind of getting bogged down in things, I started kind of really trying to be conscious of taking a step back and saying, okay, what am I spending my time on? And so early on I noticed that it was me getting away from kind of the strategic elements. Right. It's like, I'm not.

Here's the things I'm supposed to be focusing my time on. Here's the thing I am spending my time on. There's a disconnect here.

So I need to get better at delegating or I need to get better at staying focused or not getting distracted. And so a lot of it was around myself. That was kind of the first element was strategic clarity, and the next was kind of leadership effectiveness.

And I think as we start growing as leaders, you know, it's not just about our own execution. It's about helping others execute. And there's just so many challenges that I think leaders face. It's never ending.

Our leadership journey is continual. You know, it's a lifelong journey.

And so, of course, no, we'll get around to it when things Slow down.

Right.

Of course, when things slow down, I'll attend to my development.

Right.

But of course, you know, we have gaps in our knowledge and gaps in our experience experience and, and, you know, difficulties applying new things that we've learned. And so I've spent a lot of time kind of, you know, identifying my own, you know, kind of gaps in that.

And then, you know, that's, you know, kind of expanded into other people. And then the last was just, how am I using technology? You know, now that, you know, it's about AI.

But even, you know, 10 years ago, it was like, what software is out there, what platforms are out there?

You know, how do I, you know, how, what, how much of our processes could be more efficient so that we could, you know, create, you know, more productivity from the members of our team or myself so that I can focus on, on, you know, on really the execution piece of the strategy piece.

So it kind of started with myself and then I started noticing that as I started developing leaders, you know, within my own organization, I started saying, okay, well what are your priorities right now? You know, you start having those kind of coaching conversations.

And then, well, let's talk about some of your, you know, your leadership opportunities, you know, to, to, to, you know, with execution. And then it was like, well, how are you leveraging technology?

So that kind of evolved into, you know, coaching with organizations outside of, of myself and then to individuals themselves.

And so now it's really where I focus all of my time is, is how do we identify these, these areas of drag and then, you know, how do we build a developmental plan around helping them get greater, you know, clarity, you know, be more effective as a leader and then leverage whatever technology they have to be more, you know, efficient and productive. And then it's just kind of a cycle. So it's a continual evaluation of. Right, Those things are. Yeah, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I like it. It's a very logical model, you know, with my experience as well.

I think the thing that you said that really I've seen time and time again, especially as you were saying, like, hey, I noticed this in myself and then I started coaching my people around like the very same thing is like, yes, there are some unique aspects of what the executive director or CEO of the non profit is accountable for and the ways that they need to lead that are different from say the director level or the manager level. But interestingly enough, there's common problems that happen at every level. Right, right.

One of which is, and it's the very first one you mentioned, which is like, basically, how are you spending your time? Right? And I've had this experience of basically coaching a CEO and a director, you know, multiple.

Not same company, but multiple layers apart around the same challenge of.

It's like scope creep, you know, for sure, from a project perspective, it's like suddenly, if you're not attending to it, if you're not stepping back and saying, how am I spe spending my time?

You're, you know, before you know it, three, six months down the road, you're spending your time in ways that have nothing to do with how you intended to be spending your time. Right. And so I always love that as a. It's an interesting exercise to coach leaders through, which is, what are you accountable for?

What are the big rocks that, like, only you really can help push? And does your calendar, like, match up with that, you know?

Well, and I'm shocked at how many people don't really know, right? Or it hasn't been clearly communicated from the level above them.

And so they're just kind of left like, well, I have this outcome that I'm supposed to hit, but there's been no real conversation around how important is that outcome. And so people kind of, you know, they're. They start drifting in their own direction.

And so even in their own minds, they may think that they're on track, but that may not be in alignment with what the, you know, the, you know, the people above them or the organization as a whole is really focused on. So I, you know, and I think. I think you talked about something else. All of these things are relevant on a macro and micro level, right?

I mean, if you're a leader, you. You always have things that you're accountable for. You always have people, you know, ways of getting better as a leader, learning to communicate.

You know, some of the skill sets may be more advanced, but, you know, or. Or at a higher level, so to speak. But, you know, you know, sometimes it's. It's even. You don't have to.

I don't think it has to necessarily be leadership growth. It can almost be employee growth. Like, what do your employees need? Right? So you can even take it down even further, right. Are they on track?

How do we help them become better at execution, whether they're in a leadership role or not? You know, are they leveraging tech in a way that would help them be more efficient?

So I don't think it necessarily has to be directly, you know, pointed at leaders. I think leaders just tend to be more sensitive of, where am I Spending my time, you know, and, and you know, and.

Because they're more accountable for that than.

Yeah.

Than maybe some others.

Yeah. Yeah, I think one. And then the, the second thing that you were mentioning is, you know, are you learning?

Are you attending to your own development too? Right.

Which I jokingly said, you know, well, I'll attend to that when things slow down, which is my, my favorite corporate saying and myth ever, which is, you know, things don't ever actually really slow down. What are you going to do instead?

But around leadership development, I know you've had some, we had a brief conversation around your thoughts on sort of academia and the leadership development industry. I'd love to just dive into that really quick.

Yeah.

You know, and before we jump into that too, you know, you know, when I talk about performance drag, it's almost become a framework for me, a personal framework. Right. So, you know, I think it's, it's.

If you're constantly as a leader, you know, asking yourself, right, what, what are my, what are my strategic objectives? What are the, what are my biggest priorities? You know, you know, what are my smart goals or my smart tactics?

You know, what is it that I need to be focusing my time on? And you're also saying, what am I doing to grow as a leader this year? Right. What are the two or three things that I really need to be focused on?

And you know, what are the things my team needs to be focused on?

And you're saying, what do I need to do as a leader to get more aware of AI, for example, and you know, how much time do I need to invest then you're really conscious of growing in all three of those areas and it really amplifies each other. I mean, these things aren't in isolation.

They, you know, the, the more clear you are, you know, the more focused you are, the more, the better leader you are, the more execution you're going to have, you know, the more time you can free up, the more time you can spend on the other two areas. And so I really do think it's, it's a cyclical process. Yeah. That, that's constant.

And as a leader, if you're constantly aware of those and you're asking yourself the same questions of yourself as, as your team, it just, it's kind of a three pronged attack that you're always focused on. And so I found it to be really. Yeah.

Really impactful and it kind of accelerates growth and in a lot of different ways, both in your business and yourself personally.

And, you know, I Don't think you get bored either because you're constantly learning something which I think is, you know, sometimes a challenge for leaders. So now it's built into your own, you know, developmental process. Yeah.

I find that coaching often, like, at least in my experience with coaching and the people that I've been coaching, life is so busy, frenetic, that oftentimes I've found coaching to be the permission structure that people have to just not attend to, work for an hour, and even be able to attend to these kinds of questions.

And I think, you know, what I hear you talking about is would love to see more leaders create their own permission structure to carve out that time for themselves without a coach. Not that I'm trying to put you or I out of.

Well, yeah, there's something magical about coaching in the permission that it gives people to focus on themselves for a minute.

Yeah, I 100% agree. We talked a little bit about, you mentioned kind of our conversation about what I kind of consider to be the leadership development myth. And I do.

I found it both in academia and I found it both in corporations. I think that there's this fallacy that somehow the transfer of information, you know, leads to transformation. Right. And it's. It just doesn't. Right.

And, and I think, take that a step further, that even though you're in a specific role, a leadership role, you know, and you have the opportunity to apply this information, that that also leads to development.

And I, and I felt the same way for a long time, you know, like if I give these leaders this new information, these new frameworks, they're naturally going to use it. But over time, what I've, what I've really found is that there's really three really, really important ingredients for, for leadership development.

One is, is knowledge and training and skills and having a good library of. Of information to pull from. Right. Tools.

The second part of that, which I think needs to be talked about a lot more is, is around the environment that you have to. To apply that information. You know, it's.

And sometimes it's that you have the opportunity to do it, but the climate or the culture is not one that is forgiving enough that you can afford to make a mistake. And if you are so fearful of making a mistake, you're not going to use it, you're not going to play with it, you're not going to learn from it.

And, and I think that that has become a real issue, whether it's perceived or real, that people are just afraid to really start applying it or they don't really dive all in and use the information or the new skills and knowledge that they have because of that. And then the third element is around what you talked about, which, which is coaching.

You know, if you asked me five or six years ago what the value of a coach was, I probably would have told you that coaches were for people that needed, you know, to work on their leadership skills.

I had no idea how valuable a coach was until I got a coach and, and then eventually went and got my own, you know, became a certified executive coach myself.

But, you know, I think that there absolutely is value in having a safe, confidential, judgment free space to vent, to reflect, to think through, to be challenged, you know, to be held accountable in a way that is extremely freeing.

And you know, I think people miss, maybe understand how lonely leadership can be, especially in some environments, and how valuable that space and time is to kind of reset and to talk through some things. And yeah, I, I really, you know, since having those experiences, I really don't think that you can develop without those three things.

I think you really, you know, some organizations have one and sometimes, you know, that's, there's problems with even what they're teaching.

A lot of organizations, I would say more than I really thought initially, don't have an environment that's conducive to learning and applying and you know, to, to developing those skills. And third, very few of them provide coaching. And that combination of things is just, you know, it, it doesn't lead to leadership development.

That's why I kind of call it this illusion, right? They're spending tons of money on once a year training or, you know, right.

When you get this role and, and then there's no real follow up on how much you're growing and, or whether the information you just received is relevant to the challenges that you're facing right now. So then you don't even have the ability to apply it because you're not, you're not facing that challenge. Well, so many people there.

Yeah, yeah, we, when I worked for PDI and Korn Ferry, we, and I still to this day use Peterson's development pipeline, which if you're at all familiar, interestingly enough, it all goes back to what I only learned recently was smoking cessation research, which also the Prosci organization uses. They have their, their ad car model.

They're kind of the same, but it talks about, you know, insight, motivation capabilities, practice and accountability. And you know, most leadership development programs, if there's an assessment involved, there's some focus on Insight.

Right.

Mo most try to be experiential in such a way that's exciting and motivating to be there.

So you're hitting motivation and we're pouring some level, trying to pour some level of knowledge into your brain around the knowledge and capability piece. But where most programs fall is on the practice and accountability part. Right.

And you know, so I've always said, even when I was in HR and we were looking at or evaluating programs, I would just say, oh, it's a three day off site. Are we comfortable with the only real outcome being engagement coming out of that?

Because that's no time to build in actual, on the ground practice in any way.

Right.

So even, even when I build a program, I'm much more comfortable chunking it out into an hour or two at a time across months where we can build in the, like, cool. You're gonna now go give, you know, if we're teaching feedback.

Your, your assignment before the next meeting is to go use this model and give someone feedback. And let's come and talk about how that, you know, how that worked.

Okay.

I want to be mindful of time, but I wholeheartedly agree. Right. You have to have the knowledge pieces. You have to have practice in some level of safe environment.

My other reflection that I was thinking about when you were saying that is, I've seen it. I wish it weren't the case, but sometimes your peers and your manager and your HR are maybe not the right people to reflect with.

Depending on your corporate culture and your environment. It depends on how much posturing there might be or what are the conversations that are happening when you're not.

I would argue they're never. To be honest with you. I mean, I, I know that's a, that's.

I was holding on hope.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and I think, I think there's such the freedom of having when it's a third party, you know, that they have no ability to impact, you know, really your, your career trajectory or there's no judgment to it. And you've, you know, there's a difference between a mentor and a coach.

And I think, you know, and there's a difference between someone following up on you doing something versus creating an atmosphere where you can really work through things and reflect and feel open enough to talk about things that may be bothering you or, or that you have, you know, some concerns about.

And so I know that's not what some people want to hear, but, you know, I do think that it's something that, that more organizations should be Providing, if not, I think coaches, I think people ought to be. This isn't just because we want more jobs.

I really think that there is a benefit to having someone, even if you hire them yourself, say, okay, let's do some sort of assessment. For me, it's to look at these three areas and then to build a developmental plan around all three of those areas. Right.

And you don't have to tackle it all at once. But how do you help that person? Because they're coming to you to become a better leader. That's it.

So how do you help them do that and have more of an impact? And so, yeah, I agree. I wish we could get more organizations to invest the right dollars and the right, I think, kind of approach.

But if we keep talking about, maybe, maybe someone will see this podcast and say, that's the one.

There you go.

Yeah.

Well, I want to get us into our advice column quick, and then I want to hear a little bit about your book before we wrap. So I always ask everybody to come with two pieces of advice, one for leaders and one for those who support leaders.

So what's your big piece of advice today for any leader out there who's listening?

Yeah, you know, I think. I think we've been talking about it. I think as a leader, you don't need to wait for someone else to give you this information.

I think all leaders need to really be asking themselves, how clear are we on strategy? Am I spending my time where I need to be spending my time?

You know, what am I doing to develop my own leadership skills every year or every quarter, whatever it is? And I think the third piece, again, is around, what am I doing to keep up with technology?

And is me investing a little bit of time in that gonna free up more time for me to help my team? And I think most of the time you're gonna say, yes, it will, especially with AI right now.

And I think just that piece for leaders, I think, can really help them just be much more mindful of their own development and how it's going to impact their team and the success of their team by investing that in themselves.

So that would be my advice for leaders for, you know, I think people in the leadership, you know, coaching hr, you know, OD realm, I guess, so to speak. I think it kind of goes back to what we're talking about, about this leadership development myth. You know, what are we really doing?

Are the programs that were providing really giving us the return on investment and developing the type of leaders who can really manage the day to day challenges that they face. I know most people don't want the answer to that, but as you and I know as coaches, we see where a lot of those deficiencies are.

And part of it is just, it's about time, part of it's about, you know, you know, how much money and resources are invested in those things. And, you know, I mean, there's a lot of different limitations to that. So it's not to say that some L and D people aren't doing their job.

That's, that's not, you know, there's a lot of other issues involved there. But I think that's the constant conversation we need to be having is what are the needs of our leaders?

How do we make them as effective and impactful as possible? And are we giving them the real tools that they need to be as effective and impactful as they can?

Yeah. Yes.

And I would circle back to, you know, I think for a long time L and D said, you know, one of the keys to people implementing learning or transfer of learning is manager support, which I don't disagree with. I think going upstream it's like. But what did, how much are we expecting someone to learn at one time?

Right.

And be able to implement at one time? Right.

Yeah.

Like I, I curl every winter. I'm now learning how to skip, but I had to spend a number of years learning how to just throw the rock and sweep.

Right, Right.

Like if I would have tried to learn from the get go, throwing the rock, sweeping and strategic strategy and skipping, like, I would have been a nightmare.

You wouldn't have been good at any of them. Instead of being good at one or two and then building on it. Right.

So yeah, it's, it's that scaffolding or however you want.

Right. Well, and I think that's the other thing too. I think oftentimes we organizations approach this and academia is the same thing.

You have a class, you have a, you know, here's your class, you just got promoted, here's your, you know, now you're expected to have all this and maybe you have a three day or a one day, you know, workshop a couple times a year if that kind of renew or review or you know, the skills and it's really, it's just not enough.

And you know, I know that there's better systems and processes out there that, you know, I'm sure we all have examples of things that we can share from best practices, but it's not working. And right now you're seeing generations of people that don't want leadership positions like you're seeing a pushback, right?

Because they're like, I don't want that accountability, I don't want that responsibility. And so now it's becoming even harder to find people, you know, to fill those roles.

And now if you're not training them, you know, who's going to want that? Let me just do my job, you know, I don't want that responsibility.

And so I think it's going to catch up with organizations quickly if they don't want to change the way that I'm facing this. So.

Yeah, yeah, so tell us, I want to hear a little bit about your book and then how can people get a hold of you?

So tell us a little bit more about Mammoth Success and then how if, you know, people want a little more Marcus Dudley in their lives, what should they do about that?

Yeah, great.

So for the first, the first question about the book, it's called Mammoth Success A Practical Guide to Strategic Clarity, Leadership Growth and AI Driven Productivity. So, yeah, go figure, right? All the things you've been talking about.

You know, I think there's really three things that are really pretty different about this book.

I mean, I've read a ton of leadership books and so I want to kind of talk about them because it's, it's been, it's only been out five weeks and it's doing very, very well. I've actually been kind of shocked by how well it's been doing, but let me kind of run by that down that a little bit.

The first is because it covers these three topics which I think are very unique in and of itself. Most books kind of focus on strategic clarity or leadership or AI that you don't get kind of all three of those things.

So I think that's the first thing that's pretty unique. The second is, you know, most books on leadership talk about their successes and their stars. This one doesn't.

It is some of my biggest leadership lessons have been learned the hard way in this, this book. You know, every chapter starts as kind of a no moment, like, what, what happened? What did I not do well?

And, you know, here's the scars that I bared from that and here's what I've learned from that, and here's what you can learn from that too, which I think is, is a much more realistic for a lot of people. And I think it makes it easier to see yourself in some of those mistakes.

And, and quite frankly, I think that's where I've grown the most, is when I've had those types of moments.

And then the third piece that I think is really different about it is, you know, we're, as leaders, we're exposed to so many different models and so many different frameworks, but they're never in one place unless you're in some kind of textbook. And so if you're like me, I could run to the Internet and say, what was that model? And try to remember the name and how to use it.

You know, I really tried to create a Swiss army knife, right. Of like, this is a book that has about 25 different frameworks that have been simplified. Cut out all the fluff.

No, Theo, you know, theoretical nonsense. Just how do you make it as usable and applicable and as accessible as possible?

And then even in the end, it's like a quick, like, here's these models, like, you know, it's meant to be used, not read and thrown on a shelf. So those are really the three things that I've really tried to attempt with this book. And I think it's been. It's been helpful. So.

Awesome.

So you can get it on Amazon. You know, it's, It's. That's where. That's where it's at. So, you know, go get it. I think everyone will benefit from it.

In terms of contacting me, there's a couple things. Probably the two or three best ways is, is LinkedIn. I'm always available on LinkedIn. You can go to my website and schedule time with me.

I'm always available. Free consultation, discovery call, whatever you want to call it. Complain session, I don't care. You know, I know, I know. I know where you are.

I've been there. So, you know, feel free to do that. And the last thing that I'll mention, I'll put it a little plug in, is because this is 100% free.

It's called, you know, the Modern Leadership Scorecard. And it's, it's. It's the tool that I developed to assess performance drag. It's 21 questions. They shift three minutes.

It gives you instant feedback and feedback you can use. It's not generic.

It's like, here's what you can do, or here's these three things in these categories that you can do as a leader, you know, to kind of minimizing drag. So I'd say those would be the three things that I'd kind of share with you guys. Cool.

And that assessment's right on your website.

It's on my website, just at the very top. It'll say free or Leaders Modern Leadership scorecard and I can give you the link if you want to drop it in the.

Cool. Yeah, put it in the show notes for sure. Awesome. Well, Marcus, it was great having you on today.

I appreciate talking you for a while, but I'm sure someone eventually is going to want us somewhere else. So I appreciate, appreciate much.

It was great.

All right.

All right.

Take care of that brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks for listening.

I'd encourage you to head on over to my website, Kent Coach and start a conversation with me there or check out my promotion playbook at Kent Coach Playbook. Before you go on with your day, I ask that you please take a moment to leave a rating and a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Five stars.

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