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[00:00:57] Jason S. Bradshaw: This isn't your typical leadership conversation. This is about legacy, resilience, and the unseen power of grace in action.

[00:01:18] Jason S. Bradshaw: So let's get ready to take notes because leadership just got a whole lot deeper.

[00:01:27] Jason S. Bradshaw: Hey John, it's great to have you on the show today.

[00:01:43] Jason S. Bradshaw: I'm sure you're just being very humble. I'm confident that we're about to go on a great conversation.

[00:01:55] John Baldoni: Well, lead with grace, I define grace as the catalyst for the good. The greater good. So it's doing what needs to be done with a spirit of openness, and hope, and respect for others. I think treating people with dignity. Dignity may be an old fashioned word, but it's certainly something that we all want to be. And think of the leaders that you have known, who have when they connect with people - say they're a senior leader, could be a President, could be a CEO - and when they make that one-on-one connection with people, maybe in a reception line or just walking the floor of a factory, or encountering constituents wherever. They make each person feel very, very special.

[00:03:39] John Baldoni: Grace can be transformational that changes lives. As you know, I've done a show called Grace Under Pressure for five years now, and I've heard stories of life changing events, but also transactional things.

[00:04:30] Jason S. Bradshaw: Makes so much sense. So I'm wondering, John, was there ever a moment in your life where you felt you weren't enough as a leader? What happened and how did you rise up from it? And how has that influenced your teaching and your coaching?

[00:05:11] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. It's important to remember that it's not about being perfect. It's about giving ourselves permission to learn and to grow.

[00:05:34] John Baldoni: It's a very good question and I probably can't give you a straight answer, but I know that acting with spirit of composure works. I have seen leaders in moments of extremists. I've talked to combat veterans and when things get really tense and tight, those who act the calmest are those who can bring people together.

[00:06:58] Jason S. Bradshaw: So I'm wondering what's one mindset shift that separates an average leader from a truly great one in your opinion?

[00:07:52] Jason S. Bradshaw: Makes a lot of sense absolutely.

[00:08:03] John Baldoni: Respect. And kids know this. I've got two grandsons. And respect others. And they know that respect in your voice.

[00:08:24] John Baldoni: So I say respect others and how you do it, is to share with them, listen to them, not do everything you wanna do, but how about you can do things together.

[00:08:36] Jason S. Bradshaw: Now, when I speak to leaders, and I'm sure you too, I see that quite often they struggle to balance empathy with performance. There's this perhaps incorrect assumption that I can't be empathetic and I get the level of performance that I need.

[00:08:59] John Baldoni: Well, there's two different things right there.

[00:09:08] John Baldoni: Compassion is acting on it.

[00:09:30] John Baldoni: So understanding that there's a human value there. But it is sort of a bifurcation. As a person in charge, as a manager and as a leader, you have every right to the job done and provide for people so they have the resources and tools to do it. And if they lack that, and you need to make a course correction with them, provide them more training, or if it's just not gonna work, then you need to do something different. That can be an act of compassion. I'm putting you in a position, not on our team, but setting you up for another role. And so often I've worked with so many people that best thing that ever happened to them was getting fired or getting terminated from one particular position because it enabled them to do what they really love doing and they succeeded at it.

[00:10:42] John Baldoni: What makes us human is a degree of empathy. What makes us great managers? Sometimes is the distancing ourselves from that, but for the right reason. And explaining to people... hey, we are going through some tough times and this is what I'm asking for you. And you do the same thing. You are there for them too.

[00:11:20] Jason S. Bradshaw: So a phrase that I've heard a lot, and I'm sure many of our listeners have and perhaps yourself as well, is that leaders are born or leaders are made. Based on your experience, what's the real truth behind that statement? Are leaders born, are they made, or is it something else?

[00:11:58] John Baldoni: I think leaders are made in the holistic sense where they see examples of leaders they respect as well as bad bosses. Bad bosses are great instructors. They're hell to live with or be managed by, but you can certainly learn a lot from them. It's a great exercise in early leadership development, is to ask people in a group, to talk about the worst boss you ever had and what that person did, and it leads to a lively discussion and some humor as well. But what you learn from that experience is basically, I'm not gonna do anything that person did. So that's a good thing.

[00:12:49] John Baldoni: Well, all of my nonfiction work has all been focused on the topic of leadership, and I began exploring communication because my original career was in corporate communications as a speech writer and other things. So that evolved into purpose. I wrote a couple of books on purpose. And then guts and gumption, grit if you will, called Moxie. But probably my work I am most fond of, is what I've been doing recently, and that's the topic of grace. As I said, the catalyst for the greater good. So I've written books on that topic because I think it's a different thing. It's the way I was educated. I learned this of course from my parents who were both acted with grace, I would say. But also my education. I'm Jesuit educated - high school and university. And not that, I acted with any grace, but the lessons rubbed off on me, so I'm kind of going full circle to things like that. Acting with grace is setting the right example and living that example, not just words, but living it. And I have been blessed, as I mentioned by my parents who lived that. They're now passed on, but also i've had inspiring teachers as well as colleagues, as well as people I've worked for who really know how to set that example and make things better for others.

[00:14:33] John Baldoni: I'm glad you asked me that question because I always try to answer it by saying something that leadership as we know it today is actually a fad. It really started in the eighties. Some with management literature. My interest in it too, because I was asked to write speeches for senior leaders on the topic of leadership, and I said, hey, I'd rather be saying these things than putting them words in the mouths of the speaker. So I crossed the Rubicon, if you will.

[00:15:26] John Baldoni: One is the elevation, shall we say, of women in leadership positions that wasn't allowed before and now is, and I believe our society is better for it. The other thing is globalism and the velocity of change. The COVID virus is an example. What happened Wuhan, if it had happened 40 years ago, it might have been a page 10 story in the New York Times, and it was an outbreak of this. But with international travel, and commerce and all that, the virus spread very quickly and it became global. So that's one example. That's a negative. A positive is this global trade and exchange of ideas and all of those things. But they put pressures on different communities.

[00:16:29] John Baldoni: Now the other thing is happening is generative AI, and I got no idea where that's going, but it's gonna change us and it's here. I have dabbled myself in it because I have the the Baldoni chatbot, which all your listeners are welcome to try. And it's free. You can ask it leadership questions. I call it leadership answers to management questions.

[00:17:15] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, oh, that's great stuff. We'll definitely have to check it out. And a great way for people, I think, to access the breadth of your work 'cause they'd have to devote quite a number of days to read every book that you've written and be able to assimilate all that information quickly.

[00:17:52] John Baldoni: Well, I'll steal this. It's self-awareness. My colleague of mine Tasha Eurich has studied this extensively, and she said that something like only 20% of managers are actually self aware. And I think that's a couple of things. They don't spend enough time on themselves - developing themselves, because they're under time pressure. They're other-directed. Leadership is other-directed. The other thing is I think they just don't think enough and reflect enough, and I don't mean that's not a form of being ignorant, but they don't take the time to reflect.

[00:18:49] John Baldoni: And also looking at yourself critically that takes an executive coach can help you with this, but a peer can help you with it... a spouse can help you with this. Looking at yourself candidly and being able to accept feedback. We all want feedback that says, boy, Jason, you are just terrific. But when I say, Jason, there are things we need to talk about, and I don't think that you're quite with us on this particular thing, that's gonna sting. So you have to sit back and say thank you, as our friend Marshall Goldsmith has taught us to do. Thank people for their feedback but then listen and see if you can do it better. If you can be more effective that way.

[00:19:51] John Baldoni: It's a very good question. I have the saying, and it was in one of my books, called square the circle. Know what you can do within the parameters of your job. You can also look outside your job and how does my function, my department, help the other departments work. If I'm in marketing, how do I help sales? How do I help delivery? How am I helping HR? Whatever it is.

[00:20:56] John Baldoni: In a sense, as I said, squaring the circle, stay in your lane as it matters. Don't get outside of your lane. So if you're in marketing, don't tell logistics how to do a job. Now, if they have a problem with delivery or something, just have this conversation like, hey we have this new product out and it's not reaching the stores. Is there something I can do? That our team can do to help you? Don't meddle. Seek to collaborate, seek to coordinate.

[00:21:28] Jason S. Bradshaw: What do you think the role of storytelling has when it comes to leadership? Does it have a place? Does it help leaders be more effective?

[00:22:00] John Baldoni: Storytelling is how we explain the world. And so that is very fundamental to us. So I encourage leaders to develop their own story. I do work with veterans here in the States and they're part of the program, not developed by me, i'm just facilitator here, but is storytelling. Know what you can offer. Knowing your own story. What are your strengths and benefits? Where did you come from? Those kinds of things and learning to tell that. From a leadership standpoint, sharing the stories of your own career with others, celebrating the stories of people in the organization. Stories are how we learn.

[00:23:10] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, makes great sense there and definitely more impactful when you can have a story or a meaning behind numbers.

[00:23:25] John Baldoni: I have my website, www.johnbaldoni.com, and there's a little bubble on there, the question bubble. They can access the chatbot from there. I also do a show called Grace Under Pressure. It's a LinkedIn Live. It's also on YouTube and all the major audio channels, where we've got 280 episodes so far. And I learned from that. And of course, all my books are on Amazon. Where I'm headed now is poetry. And I've published three collections of poetry. And that's where my heart is, how I express myself now. I also write for Forbes as well as SmartBrief. But I'm more interested in poetry and why I am interested in poetry is because poetry has that inability to cut to the quick, when you get to the message and it's a form of storytelling, of course. And all of us are pressed for time but I think we have more time for poetry, or can make time for poetry.

[00:24:28] Jason S. Bradshaw: John, as we come to wrap up this episode, I have one last question for you. If this was your final keynote or podcast interview and you had just 60 seconds to share one message with the world on leadership, what would you say?

[00:25:17] Jason S. Bradshaw: Great message to end the show on, John. Thanks for being a guest with us today.

[00:25:26] Jason S. Bradshaw: Fantastic. I really appreciate that feedback.

[00:25:41] Jason S. Bradshaw: If you are walking away today, feeling more inspired, more centered, and more ready to lead, not just from the front, but from within, then this episode did its job.

[00:26:15] Jason S. Bradshaw: Thank you for joining me on this journey. If this conversation resonated, be sure to share it with someone who leads, loves or serves others.

[00:26:32] Jason S. Bradshaw: I'm Jason S. Bradshaw, and this has been Chats with Jason, where better experiences begin with better conversations.