In this powerful episode, Schuyler Williamson shares how you can lead steadily through chaos using proven models. If you’re struggling with overwhelm, or if you feel chaos derails your leadership, you won’t want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why steady leadership ensures clarity in chaotic growth stages (and how he learned it from a direct hit by an IED)

- How to use combat readiness to lead yourself amidst uncertainty

- What clear vision communication does to align your growing team

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stages 2,3,4 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

Schuyler Williamson is a leadership expert, entrepreneur, and decorated military veteran who has consistently achieved the highest business and service levels. As the author of The Steady Leader: Leadership Models That Bring Clarity to Chaos, Schuyler provides actionable strategies for leading through uncertainty, drawing from his experience as a Bronze Star Medal recipient and combat officer with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. A top West Point and McCombs MBA graduate, Schuyler ranks in the top 1 percent of real estate agents nationwide, with hundreds of millions in sales and ownership of over fifty-five investment properties.

Want to learn more about Schuyler Williamson's work at Williamson Group Real Estate? Check out his website at thesteadyleader.com or https://www.schuylerwilliamson.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

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 secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And

here with us today is the one and only, Schuyler Williamson,

who's a leadership expert, entrepreneur and decorated

military veteran who has consistently achieved the

highest business and service levels as author of the steady

leader leadership models that bring clarity to chaos.

Schuyler provides actionable strategies for leading through

uncertainty, drawing from his experience as a Bronze Star

Medal recipient and combat officer with deployments to

both Iraq and Afghanistan, he's also a top West Point and

McCombs MBA graduate. Schuyler ranks in the top 1% of real

estate agents nationwide, with hundreds of millions in sales

and ownership of over 55 investment properties. And

he's here with us today. So if there's anyone, I just have to

set this up. If there's anyone listening who thinks there's

anything soft about the conversation you're about to

hear about being a steady leader or all that entails,

you're in for a real treat. So Schuyler, I'm wondering if we

could first off, welcome to the show. But I'm wondering if

we could just put that myth to bed right out of the gate,

because you opened your book with a very compelling and

powerful story that really led you to this kind of journey of

being a steady leader. Could you tell us a little bit about

that experience, what happened and how it got you to where

you are today.

Yeah, thanks, Scott. Well, I'm

grateful to be here and for the listeners and and look,

I'm just grateful to be an American, first and foremost.

Yeah. So I was in Baghdad, Iraq, and, you know, I was an

officer leading an infantry platoon in an area of Baghdad

that was controlled by al Qaeda. Yeah. In fact, al Qaeda

was very public about it that this would be the last place

that they would lose in Baghdad if they were going to

be driven out. And so it was. It was a very difficult area.

There was lots of contact. And you know, al Qaeda is weapon

of choice at the time, was the improvised explosive device,

or the IED, and we were on a normal patrol. It was a

security patrol, so we were just in the streets making

sure that, essentially, the local populace could live

their lives without the influence of the terrorists.

And my sister platoon, just about, you know, five miles

away was attacked, and the attack was successful. So they

had casualties, multiple vehicles disabled. The

soldiers were fighting. And, you know, I wish I could say

that that was rare, but, you know, every day we kind of had

these encounters. I mean, most of the time you're fighting

your own fights, but in this scenario, when a friendly

force is pinned down and needs support, you really don't wait

for someone to tell you to move. You know, you move, and

that's what that's what the US soldiers do. And so we, I gave

the command for our unit to move that way. And, you know,

as a leader, maybe our first kind of topic here is you have

a choice, and both choices can take you to the completing the

vision. And one choice might be the faster way, but there's

more risk, right? So the return is getting there faster

and but there, you know, there's more risk of getting

hurt along the way. And then there's the safer way, where,

you know, you'll get there, but it'll just take longer.

Well, lives were at stake. I took the route that was the

fastest one there, knowing that there was a lot of risk

in doing that. You know the enemy would have it that they

detonated a very accurate and very effective IED on my

platoon as we were moving to go support them. Now we were

blessed in a way that they didn't follow up that attack

with more like the other sister platoon. They were

still under attack at the moment, but the bomb that they

blew up on us was very effective, and it hit my truck

direct. It hit the the door of my personal vehicle. And I

just, you know, just to share a little bit of the

ingredients here, I I remember kind of coming to my truck was

full of dust, which means that shrapnel was actually able to

get into the vehicle right? Because those those vehicles

were pretty airtight with the the armor that we'd put in

there at the time. So shrapnel got into the vehicle. It was

full of dust. I had. I had two guys behind me screaming. My

gunner in the turret was completely knocked out, and my

driver was actually conscious. I could see blood coming from

his ears because he didn't have earplugs in and, and he

was trying to crank the vehicle. The vehicle had

stalled. And when I realized what was going on, you know, I

had the ringing and the fog of war at the moment, but when I

realized what was going on, you know, everybody was

yelling over the radio and, and I. Pause the story right

there in the book. And yeah, we were we were extraordinary

as a unit. My team was very they were trained very well. I

had great leadership. I had great soldiers, smart,

capable, athletic soldiers, and we were lethal. But it

doesn't matter how good you are, chaos is going to find

you, and chaos found me dead on with that, with the impact

of that bomb. And my main point is, is that just because

it's a chaotic moment, or just because you're hurt now, I

fractured my shin, and that just because you're hurt

doesn't mean that you don't get the lead right. It's

assess the situation, put together a plan, and then make

a make a command and move out. And so I, you know, I, what I

tried to do in this book was kind of take people through

the process that I lead myself through, so that even when

it's the most chaotic time, you could still be a steady

leader, because you still got to lead it just just because

it's chaotic doesn't mean you have to. You can just kind of

hit at my house, we call it T but like, timeout, right? You

don't get to call time out, none. You got to keep making

great decisions.

Such a phenomenal story and really

highlights, in a dramatic sense, the value of being a

steady leader and the cost to that, right? It doesn't come

easy, doesn't come cheap, but it has the bigger the risk,

right? The bigger the challenge, the greater the

chaos, the bigger the reward. And there's a bit of a leap

over the beginning of the book that doesn't seem obvious at

first, but is the obvious answer. And we move from like

this, this high drama, high impact, to this discussion of

models, right? And the book in general is kind of built on

this idea that models are really the way forward. So

it's one of those things that can mean a lot of things to a

lot of people. Someone just what is a model and and, more

specifically, what is the relationship of model to

innovation?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I think about

it kind of starts back at the definition of leadership, you

know. And I subscribe to two, you know, mega leaders out

there, and their definitions. One is John Maxwell, and he

says it simply, leadership is influence. And then, you know,

Gary Keller writes in his book that leadership is teaching

people how to think so that they can get what they want,

and then you get what you want because of that. And so if

you're if you're boiling leadership down to being

influential in thinking and thinking well and teaching

people how to think, then you're gonna, you're gonna

come back to this concept of models. The second thing is

just, I believe that the solution to chaos is clarity,

which comes back again to thinking. And so Tony Robbins

said it well, that, you know, you should stand on the

shoulders of giants. And I think, he got it from someone

else, but, you know, again, he deploys models, right when he

teaches. And so when you stand on the shoulders of giants to

accomplish what you're trying to accomplish, really, what

he's saying is start with something that you already

know is successful, yeah, and then innovate on top of that

based on what makes you unique, right? Your unique

abilities, your products, Unique Selling aspects, or

your services, unique value proposition. But start with

you know what works, and then go from there. And models are

a much more solid foundation to build on top of than

innovation. Innovations unproven. It's risky. You

know, you don't have a lot of data. You don't know if it's

gonna so if you start to build a company on top of

innovation, that's a that's a real risky kind of foundation,

right? So I just assume, start with something that you know

works, and then innovate on top of that. And so this idea

of a model mindset as a leader, everywhere I go, I'm

thinking, what's the model here? Like, I go to the

grocery store, and I'm like, man, not only how did they get

me in this grocery store, but look at all these people in

here. How do they get them in here? I know they have an

advertising model. I know they have a marketing model. Like,

what is their model? And I start to think about and then

I go, Oh, well, can I apply that to my business? You know?

And I'm just doing that all everywhere I go now.

Yeah, I love that. I love that mindset,

principles, a similar, similar approach. There are patterns

that are playing out over and over again. So I want to walk

through because there's three kind of big parts of this book

that you've put together, leading yourself, leading your

team and leading your company. And interestingly, they kind

of align with this journey that founders face of working

by themself, leading themselves, working with a

small team, leading their team, and ultimately growing a

successful company. And so I kind of want to walk through

these both in terms of kind of leveling up your leadership

and building onto. Of the foundations and models you

have early on, and then also what that looks like over

time. So we'll start at the beginning. Early on, founders

are often wearing every hat. They probably have very big

dreams, but if they're honest, they're barely keeping it

together. So what's, what's one of the models from the the

leading yourself that can help them to do that, to lead

themselves and study the ship when everything else feels

like it's like moving all over the place and they're

wondering, What have I gotten myself into? Yeah,

Yeah. Well, the model that I like

the most is what we used to call combat ready in the

military. And combat ready means, when given a mission,

you're ready to step off immediately. So you're

trained, you're equipped, you're motivated, you know

you're ready to go now, applying that to yourself,

leading yourself, the way that I think about is, Are you

healthy, right? Are you healthy to the max potential

so that you can go be the best leader you can be for your

team every single day. And I like to break it down into

three components. Are you mentally healthy? Are you

physically healthy? Are you in? Are you spiritually

healthy? And I think of it like a four legged stool with

mental and physical being one leg each, and then spiritual

being two legs and so on. The on the mental piece. I'm not

talking about it in like the clinical sense of it, to me,

mental health is you have a growth mindset, right? That

you're hungry to be more today than you were yesterday, and

that not all of you hungry, but you feed yourself. You

know you're actively looking to plus yourself up. And so it

takes a little bit of humility, but it certainly

takes motivation, and you're positive too, right? You're

growing the physical health that's literal your body. Is

your body capable? And I love the way that the stoics write

about this, right? When you wake up in the morning, does

your body tell you, Oh, you're tired, get you another 10

minutes of sleep, or don't work out today you're sore,

or, Hey, you're tired today. So you can go take it halfway

at work. You don't have to give 100% or are you

physically healthy in that you tell your body, get up, it's

time to work out. It's time to exercise, go to work. And not

only are you going to work for eight hours, but this is a day

where you got to double down a little bit so you're gonna

stay a little bit longer. I mean, are you, is your body an

asset, or is it a liability? In for you as a leader? And

then the last one would just be spiritual in, you know, in

the whole game of endurance, right? And you need endurance

as an entrepreneur to get from I do it to we do it spiritual,

health really can give you the most endurance and and I'll

just give you a good measure of spiritual health. When you

wake up in the morning, do you think about what you're going

to get, or do you think about what you're going to give to

the world? To the extent that you wake up and are excited

about giving to the world. That's how health, that you're

more healthy spiritually. And so the second that you learn

that this life isn't about you, it's about you know all

God's children, that that's when you're starting down the

journey of spiritual health. And leader. Leaders can't be

influenced by the world. Leaders have to be able to

make great decisions outside of the world's influence. And

again, that's all spiritual health there.

Yeah, it's so true. You talk about the

distinction I do it versus we do it. And I think there's

this interesting, subtle difference early on, when it's

just you, or maybe a couple people around you, where,

especially because of Jim Collins and Peter Drucker and

so many folks, there's this idea every company needs to

have values, right? And I love values. I think they're

awesome, but I think there's a subtle difference early on

between your values and company values. And I think we

oftentimes, like, we try to play a big company game, to

look like we're a big company, right, or to pretend we're a

big company, and we actually lose the advantage that we

have of they are your values. Like, let them be your values.

Don't try and separate those two. So in that pursuit of

values, would you? Would you agree? Would you say that

those personal values do matter? And if so, how do you

start to unpack that?

Oh, man, I I love the conversation of

values. You know, for me and for our crew around here, when

we talk about company culture, we say culture is nothing but

just the accumulation of values and beliefs. That's

what it is. And so you're right, when it's I do it,

well, I am the company. My values are the company values,

but the second that I hire someone who has different

values, then the values come together, and the ones that

are stronger actually become the company's values. You

don't go out and create values with. With an aspirational

sense, like you don't create values. You come with values.

They are who you are. And so if you want a culture that

looks and acts a certain way, and you need to recruit people

with those values, they already have them, because

you're not going to bring someone along and just create

values inside of them that you know, you're not their maker.

And so I, I think that, you know it starts. It starts with

having an idea of what you want your company to act like,

what you want the culture to be. And then during the hiring

practice, making sure that you're you're looking for

that, and you have questions that bring that to you. And

then, and then you're going to be gold. Now, I'll just say

one more time. I think everybody knows why values are

important, but just my definition of values are, they

drive the way that you operate when no one's looking right.

That's the way I look at it. So values are so important, so

that I can be here with you today and we can have this

conversation. I know my team is operating in the

background, and I'm not around to answer questions or pay

attention to them, but because I know what their values are,

I know why they're, you know, they know the vision of the

company, they know the plan, and they have the values that

are in drive behavior while I'm not around. You know,

managing them, I'm not a great manager, all right, I don't, I

don't care for it. It doesn't, doesn't excite me, and it

doesn't excite my team when they're being managed. So I

want great value, so that they just run on their own. It's

unbelievable when you have a great set of values in place.

Yeah, so good. And it brings me

directly to my next question here, because what happens

when when you have success in that early stage is thrust you

into the next one, and now you've got a team running

around you. Everyone's running 100 miles an hour, you're

exhausted, maybe they're exhausted, and it can feel

really, really hard when you don't feel like you're a great

manager. It's not how you're naturally wired. It can feel

hard to keep all those plates spinning, and can really lead

to a pretty significant resentment of your team if

you're not careful. So what have you found to be effective

in in leading a team like that and allowing you to balance

your job while still studying the team that's looking to win

as well?

Yeah, well, I'll just say we're real

quick to violate one of the things that's most basic in

the infantry in the army, which we call it in the

military, the span of control. So every fire team is three

people and a team leader. And so we don't expect that team

leader to do anything other than manage those three

soldiers ever. It's never more than three. And that's so that

that soldier can be a leader and a soldier, right? Any more

men under his control, he wouldn't be able to be a

soldier too. He would just be a leader, and that's it. And

so I think the first thing is just knowing, based on what

you have to do as a producer in your business, how many

people you actually can lead, and it still be okay, right?

So don't violate that span of control, which is three to

five people. Now, I believe when people are frustrated as

a leader of a team more times than not, it comes down to

likely the leader is not communicating well, but

they're just in general. On the team, there's poor

communication, because nothing can frustrate humans faster

than poor communication, especially when you're trying

to accomplish something big. And so I would just as a

leader, I'd go back and say, Okay, well, am I clear on my

vision, not only the vision of what I want my team to do in

the future, but do I am I clear on my vision for each

player on the team? Right? So if we're just thinking about

football, my vision for what that quarterback looks like is

going to be very different than that left tackle, right,

right? They're both on offense. They're both trying

to score a touchdown, but the vision for each position is

different. And so as a leader, you can't just have one

blanket vision and assign it to everybody. You got to have

many visions for each player on the team. And and I would

just say, like, Am I clear and am I communicating that to the

team often enough so that they know where we're going?

Because if Shame on them if they're getting frustrated on

going where we're moving and not bringing up, hey, there's

big issues with this. You know, they need to voice that

now. They're going out and trying to do a great job, and

they do it way out in left field, and you're frustrated

as a leader, like, why are you working so hard going out in

left field, and they want to be patted on the back because

they just gave it all this effort. Look how far I've

gotten us. Well, man, they don't We don't know where

we're going, and so yeah, we're going to be frustrated.

The Vision's not clear. So I usually come back to

communication and specifically vision, because if you got

great people on your team, and they've got a clear vision,

even without a plan, sometimes they'll still get you there,

it'll be a mess on the way. Lord, but they know where

they're going, so they'll get you there. That's what a

players do.

Yeah, it's so, so true, especially at the

team level. So I want to fast forward again. We're a little

further down the road. Your small team has become a bigger

team. It's not just you leading everybody. It's you

leading leaders and who might. Even be leading leaders

themselves. And one of the things that was most

surprising and disheartening to me when I was going through

this as an entrepreneur myself, was I found that

businesses get bigger. They don't actually get better. You

know, just inherently. It's just, there's more chaos,

there's more complexity. Like you said, chaos finds you, and

in your book, you talk and you've mentioned it earlier,

this idea of combat readiness, what does that look like at

the company level? Like, how do you use something like that

to study an entire company, not just your team?

Yeah. I mean, you know, the for

better, or for worse, the lifeblood of them of a

company, is money in the bank, right? I mean, I it'll it

allows you to take advantage of opportunities. It also

allows you to withstand an attack from a competitor, or,

you know, if you lose a key person, you know, it allows

you to kind of take a step back and be able to work

through that and go hire another key player there. But

I think one of the most basic things that we can do as a

leader of a company is just manage the financial aspect of

the company well, and you have a responsibility to do that as

a leader. Now, you may be big enough that you can afford

someone that vets their expertise, and that's your

partner in the business to help you do that, but as a

leader, you don't get to just hand that part of the business

off completely. No. I mean, you know, and again, I'm a

small business owner, so I work off a cash flow

statement. So I need to understand what a cash flow

statement is, and I understand why it matters for my

business. I need to understand what my expenses are, so that,

if I had to operate with no revenue, like we did in COVID,

you know, how long can I survive, and what's, what's

the next couple of steps that I'm going to do if something

like that were to happen. But, yeah, I mean, we look at

things like cash or cash on hand, you know, what's, what's

are in our economic model. How profitable are we on a per

sale basis? And then, and then I look at my people, right?

Because usually business gets complicated because of the

people, not not because you wake up and you can't sell

your your service anymore. You can't sell your product. I

mean that more times than not, that's not the problem. The

problem is the people or poor decisions financially. But

let's assume that you've done really well financially, and

you make great decisions Well, now we come back to people.

And for people, you know, I'm always organizing the org

chart of today and the org chart of tomorrow. I always

know the succession of my people. If someone were to

leave, what am I going to do? You know, who's going to step

in there? You know, I've contingency plan that way. I

know who my rising stars are that, you know, no matter

what, they're going to get more of my time than anyone

else, right? And I'm going to feed them opportunity. If they

want to build something brand new, I'm going to give them a

shot, and then I'm building the bench too. People that I

know want to be a part of our company, but we're not ready

for them yet. But like, you know, they're on the bench,

and I'm nurturing them as well. I mean, those two

pieces. I can't tell you enough. I mean, they sold 90%

of the problem. You know that he's paying attention to your

financial situation and the paying attention to your

people leading the company, if you're doing those well, more

times than not, the rest kind of falls into place.

So good. So true. Scott. I've got one more

question for you here, and then we'll make sure folks

know how they can how they can get a copy of the book and

learn more about the work that you do. But before we get

there, 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 or listening today knew?

That no matter who you think, no

matter who you think you are or what you you know how

controlled you are, that your decisions are always being

influenced. And so to the extent that you can be aware

of that, I think that in a chaotic moment, if you can

slow things down and be in a position where you can respond

and not react, I think your chances of making a great

decision just go through the roof, and then the step kind

of next to that is paying attention to what you put in

front of you. And so by that, I mean, what are the books

that you're reading, what are the shows that you're

listening to, the people on your team that you spend the

most time with? You know, your your partner, or your spouse

at home, you know, like, what's their mindset? Who your

friends, who they are. You're if you're in a moment where

you don't have a lot of time and you actually have to

react, all of those inputs are going to drive your reaction,

how you how you react things I'm saying, do everything you

can to respond, to put yourself in a position where

you can actually leverage one of your models and bring

clarity and then respond. But you know, there'll be moments

where you don't have time and you have to make a quick

decision. Well, all of that time. That you've been put

doing your due diligence and making sure who you're hanging

out with, the books you're putting in front of you, the

things you're listening to, like this podcast, like those

things all matter in that moment more than than ever.

And so your your your influence. Every decision that

you you make, every decision that you make, is being

influenced. So you know you need to you need to pay

attention to the to what's influencing you and just

control that.

So good, so good. Where can folks get a

copy of the book and learn more about what you do?

Yeah, well, you can always go to

thesteadyleader.com, it's just the title of the book. You

could buy it there or interact with all of the things that we

have on that website. You can also go to

Schuylerwilliamson.com you can see all the businesses that we

have there and what we're doing. Got some free resources

there and follow me on LinkedIn. I read every

morning, and my accountability for my reading every morning

is that I post my journal post from that reading session. And

so if you're not a big book reader, you just want the

cliff notes. You can follow me on LinkedIn and just get my

click notes every morning.

I love it. That's awesome. All right.

Well, Schuyler, thanks for being on the show. Love the

book. Highly recommend it for anyone listening. Really is

fantastic. Some really epic stories along the way as well.

And yeah, so thanks for being on today. Just a privilege and

honor having you here, 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 you.