Have you ever questioned why your boss may have handled a situation the way he or she did?? Maybe they acted out in a completely different way than you would have?? Or maybe it could have been avoided if someone had the courage to have that tough conversation.

On the podcast today, we have organizational leadership expert, Paul Carpenter, talking about what type of leaders we naturally are and how to have those confrontational conversations to create a better outcome. One leadership type isn’t necessarily better than the other, however, once you understand which type you are, it can help you lead better to the people around you.

Watch now to learn about how to be a better leader in your life, how to manage others’ leadership types, and why having those tough conversations are so transformational in effectuating change.

The NO GREY AREAS platform is about the power, importance, and complexity of choices. We host motivating and informative interviews with captivating guests from all walks of life about learning and growing through our good and bad choices.

The purpose behind it all derives from the cautionary tale of Joseph N. Gagliano and one of sports’ greatest scandals.

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Today's guest, Paul

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Carpenter, talks a lot about leadership and all of us lead up, lead across and lead down. If you're a parent, you lead across to your spouse, you lead down to your kids, or you lead up to your elderly parents in the workplace, you do the same.

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So listen in now and catch some practical advice about how you and I can lead up, lead across and lead down better.

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Well, Paul, thank you so much for being on the No Gray Areas podcast. We were just talking before we turn on the mics here, we go back over a decade,

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right?

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Least Yeah. Yeah. And we,

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We did have a good season where we were meeting almost weekly, almost weekly.

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You were a

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huge help to me. So big thanks to you on that. That was a tough season for me and you help me walk through that. So I appreciate that a lot.

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But we're going to do this podcast is really built around that, the power of choice and the complexity of human choice. And you're going to unpack.

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We're going to get to that in a moment. I'm going to back up, talk about something else. But

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you talk a lot about the the difference between confronting and encourager. So they use that, right. Is that the

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terminology used? Yeah. Yeah. And

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now. Yeah. You naturally go one way or the other and we

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There's no problem to it. Yeah. Okay. We definitely definitely don't. So

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But

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one of the things that you and I talked

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a number of times about is leading from the second chair, which you you're an executive pastor.

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You've been executive

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pastor for a long time. Great leader for people that don't know the church world very well or big church world. An executive pastor,

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I'm going to say this. This isn't you saying

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so.

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You're not going to get

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I'm not going to argue with you. Okay. Okay. A fair share of the weight. Yeah. Leading the church? Yep. For sure. The

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execution, making it happen. Like there may be some great plans and we can go in this direction, but you're the one that's responsible for making that all happen.

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So you're dealing with personalities a lot. You do.

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You're leading up, you're leading cross, you're leading down, which is where you and I have talked about this before. So

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I want to

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unpack this a little bit. I'm going to ask

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you in a moment to answer this question,

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So we all lead up, lead across and lead down. What's the most difficult for you and what's the most the one that you're most natural at now let me connect with the audience. Some of them may be going, Well, I'm in a leadership position. If you're a child, you lead up and lead a cross and lead down it.

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Sometimes if you're on a sports team, you lead up, you lead across, you lead down sometimes. So all of us at some points, we're doing that

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you're having a lead up. Lead across and lead down. So

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what would you say?

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I'm going to cop out a little bit. I'm going to say it depends. Okay, I'll try to unpack it. But yeah, there's times when I think it's natural and easy to lead up, and there's times when it's a real challenge to lead up. There's there's times that it just makes sense peer to peer and it's just, yeah, I'm gonna go do this and there's, there's no, you know, psyching yourself up.

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Write down your notes for the conversation. You just go do it. And there's times that it's like, Oh, gosh, I think when I think about the common denominator is, you know, when you're leading something that you know for sure is going to have opposition or it's something they don't want to hear or those kind of leadership conversations,

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it doesn't matter what direction you go.

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That's that's the way that it's the most. So when they're most difficult, when there's

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something heavy, when there's a lot of conflict, it really doesn't matter if you're going up across or down, it's going to be difficult. That's great. That's a good point.

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So I think I think each each element has its its own difficulties and then each element has its own.

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This is this is this is gives me energy instead of I got to go do this.

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So let me that because you answered that. Well, let me ask it to maybe a different way. Which one was more natural for you when you began? Because what's interesting for you is you and Cal, who you have to lead up to.

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You've been working together for a long time

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now, 28 years, 28 years. So

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Oh, gosh, yeah. Yeah. A lot of trust. Oh, for sure. For sure. I know his heart. Yeah. I tend to know the way he would think about something,

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you know, leading someone who you've been in a game with for a long time, like leading up with that is is is really easy where I'm guessing like if you were the first year in a job and you had to lead up to your boss, you

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didn't know very figured out, you know, you don't know, are they going to be open to this? Are they not going to be open? You know, do I come with 25 bullet points that that lay this out or is it just a conversation that we have? So, yeah, so I really very blessed to have been a central for 28 years and yeah, you know, just very thankful to spend my career such a healthy place and and yeah I think a majority of that for sure majority.

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I can't remember how many years it wasn't true but the caliber of my direct report. So like I report directly to him for like I start as a youth intern and he was the youth pastor. And so like kind of every step kind of moved up with him and yes, yeah, I've worked with him. So,

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yeah.

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I mean, there's definitely conversations I don't want to have. Yeah. You know, but they have to be had.

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is part of leadership. Do the tough part of leadership. Yeah. That's interesting because

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I've asked that question of a lot of people and you answered a little differently than, than most most will immediately go like, oh, this one's hard and this one's easy for me, or this one comes natural.

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That's because they're better leaders than I am. No, I think I'd have hard things up across and now you know the good leaders. No, I think I think you make a good

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point that if it's a really difficult conversation, it doesn't matter what direction that's going to be difficult. And that's I hadn't thought about it like that.

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when people ask me, I would always say, like, it's always come really natural for me to lead a cross or lead down.

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Leading up is the one

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that's

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that's that's difficult. Like

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what you said makes sense now that I think about it. Really, if I'm going to have to have a really hard conversation, I don't care what direction. That's not easy. That's not fun.

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Yeah, but I would I would lean into what you're saying as far as like,

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there is a certain amount of ease that comes when positionally you're above somebody, I think, and you have to have our conversation.

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Like that's probably just from a positional standpoint. It's not fun. Yeah, you know, but it is a little bit easier because

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if we were to pull out an org chart, which by the way, a good leader would never do that with somebody, Hey, look at this. Before he left. Yeah,

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before we have this conversation, let me just

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let me point our mind.

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You, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So, no, I would lean into what you're saying. I would. I do think there are sometimes positionally. It makes it harder or makes it easier. So what have you learned

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about having hard conversations? Usually you bring up a good point.

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If it's a hard conversation, doesn't matter. Leading up, leading cross leading down. And again, this goes for our listeners.

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If you're a parent, you have to have a hard conversation sometimes with a kid. If you're if you're a child, especially an adult child, you may have to have a tough conversation with mom and dad, especially as they start getting older. I'm like, We are just laughing with our kids the other day. It's like, you guys someday are going to have to be the ones that tell us, like, you shouldn't be driving any more.

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Dad by Tom, You better not tell me that

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too early.

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So let's, let's jump into the and this is we've talked about this several times and I was really excited you actually wrote it. You just got done doing your thesis or you're in the process.

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Come on, Pat. I wish I was done here in the process. I mean, I've got

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all my coursework done.

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I have to write my dissertation. Yeah, working on my doctorate in organizational leadership. So. And we go way to be at that point is like saying you're going to run a marathon and you only have ten miles left. Yeah. Okay. So it's not I'm not like, I'm getting ready. You can see that. Interesting. You know? Yes, I guess I have a lot of hard work.

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Well, when we met

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for lunch, I was like, What are you writing your thesis on? Let's let's talk about that. And but we some for some reason, almost

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every. So what? I told you to circle back to this one. Yeah. What I told you was I want to do my thesis on psychological safety. Yeah. And then I was going to do something on this topic, and then that's when you start asking me a bunch of questions about this one.

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And you said I'd love to talk more about. Yeah. So.

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explain what that is a little bit. So everybody, listeners, me included, we naturally either confront or and encourage or so tell us what that looks like and help us understand which one we would be.

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Okay. So the way that I stumbled on this was just kind of observing leadership and looking at some things that I struggled with, some things I didn't struggle with and comparing that to others and just trying to be a learner about leadership.

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And and so I've heard leadership passed a million different ways on different types of leaders, and I'd never heard it pass this way, but it made sense to me in my experience and I think resonate with you when I started watching this with you for sure. So I think leaders fall in one or two camps. You're either an encouraging leader or you're a confrontational leader.

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the thing I hate about the terms, which I would have figured out different terms if this was my job, because one sounds good and one sound the encourager sound like, Oh, that's the great leader in a confrontational that's not you know, I don't mean the terms have to be in a pejorative either way or in the positive either way.

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Yeah. So

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the easy way to explain it is I think some leaders very naturally encourage you and I think some leaders very naturally confront.

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Yeah. And and then the flip side of it would be the leaders who naturally encourage have a harder time confronting and the leaders who naturally confront have a harder time with encouragement and so you have these two almost polar opposite leaders. And so the thing that I would that when I'm talking to someone about this, that I challenge him as I say, okay, can you think in your life of a leader that's a natural confront her?

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And everyone's like, Yes, Mm hmm. And then I say, Can you think in your life of someone who's a natural encourager and they're always like, yes. So people like, I think the concept makes sense when you you think about leaders you've had in your life. And then maybe when you think about yourself, I think most people right away know which one they are.

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I think. I

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I would think so.

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I would think so. If you've lived very much life for sure, I could go back when you when we talked about this at lunch that time, I could go back to every leader that I've ever worked for and I could go confront or encourage or encourage or confront or confront or encourage, or I could just go down the list and just boom, boom, boom.

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Now, there were some of them. Or I'd go like, okay, they were really gifted at doing both, but they were. But I could still go. They were naturally inclined to be an encourager, but they learned the skill of confronting.

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But I could I can go through

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every one of them and immediately tell you, and I bet most people can

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do

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that.

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But you found. Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think you can.

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the point is not to say, Hey, these are the best or These are the best. Yeah, okay, that's not the point. The point is to oh, first off, I think if you, if you recognize what you are like, you have to have an understanding of that.

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And, and then you have to appreciate what the strengths and weaknesses are of what the type of leader you are, and make sure that you bring in, you know, maximize your strengths. You know, make your weaknesses so they don't hurt you. Yep. Yep. So. Yep.

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that someone can figure out whether to encourage or confront her? Or have you found most people don't like? You just know.

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Well, I think that would have been, you know, when I was playing around with this is my topic for my dissertation.

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I would have had a way to put that on a scale and figure it out. But I think most of the time it's just intuitive. Yeah, people just they just leave. They understand like encouragement is a basic enough concept. They understand. Is that come easy to me or is that something I have to really focus on? And, you know, is having a hard conversation something that just naturally happens or is that's something I got to really get myself excited for.

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So what are some of the strengths and weaknesses of both

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Let me pass it this way first, let's compare and contrast the two. Okay? That's kind of, I think, helpful for me. So the first thing would be if you were thinking about trust versus mistrust.

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Okay, so you come to a fork in the road and you could either say, Oh, you know what, I think they were going to do this, or I would think there was no plan at all to do that. Okay. And that happens how many times in a week for a leader? When you see one data point, you've got to make an initial judgment.

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Okay. Do you

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so you're saying would you would you air on the side of I'm going to trust.

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So if you're encourager you more easily trust. Yeah. Yeah. Okay so you're more easily think you know

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I'm going to choose to believe the best yeah in this situation okay. If you're a confront her you're more likely to think you know, I'm not.

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I'm not sure I don't. I don't think and it's not like mistrusting, but it's just

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you're not given the benefit. These would be the two

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people that one would say like I'm a glass half full and the other one say, I'm not a I'm not the pessimist, I'm the realist.

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That's what they confront. Or I would say exactly.

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I've seen

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Totally. Yeah,

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So it's not a matter of, you know, a confront her is a despicable person that doesn't trust anybody. That's that's not the thing. They just look at it and they think, you know what, this experience would tell me? Maybe this and and maybe that.

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So so what what happens with this for an encourager is the strength. If an encourager is leading you, and whenever they come to a fork in the road, they choose to trust. Yeah. Okay. Then you feel like you get the benefit of the doubt and you're trusted. Yeah. Okay. Now, what's the weakness of this for an encourager?

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Probably trusting too much. Like.

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Exactly. Not recognizing,

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dropped the ball or they lied to me or they you're on to it. So if,

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if you always hit hit that and you always trust now that the the strength that is the your staff's going to feel like they're trusted. Yeah. Okay. The, the disadvantage to that is sometimes problems will go unchallenged in a timely manner.

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And if you're going to get

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taken advantage of more often than the other

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one. Totally, totally. So it's not all roses, you know, for them for this this thing in and that's that's the negative. So you think of a of a confront her

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problems never go unnoticed. Yeah. Okay. So if you think about you know a little problem gets sniffed out right away and it doesn't get into a big problem.

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Yeah. Okay. And that's a strength. Yeah, you know, that's a strength if that happens. And then the the weakness for that is simply, gosh, every time there's something, it's a it's thought

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on my case.

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Yeah. It's like

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So the idea would be a confront her needs to trust more and encourage her needs to inspect more.

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let's say you're parenting and then you're naturally an encourager, it means you probably want to inspect and dig into your kids story a little bit more

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because you're going to naturally just

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this is what when I thought about this that is is so golden of of when you wrestle with this concept. Okay

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what kind of parent do you need to be? You need to be a parent that encourages any to be a parent that confronts if you're a parent who only encourages, you're probably going to have an entitled kid who has all kinds of things go unchecked.

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Okay? If you're a parent that all you ever do is confront. Yeah, you know, you're going to have a kid who doesn't feel trusted and just feels beat down and discouraged. Yes, you got to do both. Yeah, there's problems if you just you just think about if you're a spouse. Yeah.

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If all you would ever do is encourage your spouse, you know, there's things that need to be confronted that would go, yeah, yeah.

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Without being confronted the same way. If you were a spouse that only confronted, you know, the other spouse would feel like, golly, yeah, why did we get married?

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Yeah,

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great example. Because you're totally right, my

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friend, too. Yeah.

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you know, of course, who want friends, who are going encourages. Yeah, but, man, I really value my friends who say, hey, yeah, I saw this or I heard this and yeah, what are you doing?

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So I think it's, it's not just for leadership. I think this concept, it's a it's a healthy truth to think about. I think in every area. Yeah.

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Absolutely. So, so you gave us then what how did you phrase that again.

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So okay so there

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trust more on her needs to trust more

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needs inspect.

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Okay so that's that's the first we think strengths and weaknesses. Okay. The next one is this is so funny. I feel so bad. I can't remember his name, but I just need to tell you this so I don't get credit for it. You know, it's not me. We had a guy come speak to our staff.

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yes. Name said French.

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I remember that. So he. He comes, came, spoke to our staff. He's a member of our church, but he oversaw like a network of, like 80 hospitals. Wow. So big dog leader. Yeah. Okay huge. And he said leaders need to give ulcers.

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Okay. And I heard that. And that doesn't sound like

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a that's not a typical leadership

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mantra, you know.

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Have you ever heard that before? No. Me neither. So I sit there and I hear that leaders need to give ulcers. What the heck? So I listen to him talk and he explained it and it actually like, you know, go figure. A guy that leads a network of 80 hospitals knows what he's talking about. And so the idea was there's things going on in your organization as a leader that you're worried about and hypothetically are giving you ulcers.

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And if you're the only one who has the ulcer, you're not leaving. Well, it's like you have to make sure there's a shared ownership, weight, responsibility with issues. Yeah.

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makes sense then. It does.

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It does. It didn't at first. Like when you first hear it,

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now we confront or I hate the actually the statement, don't you.

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Just to give ulcers but a

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Yeah. So so here's, here's the strengths and weaknesses when you think about that, giving ulcers. Okay. And again,

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I think it's obvious we're not talking about physically giving your people ulcers. You know, it's hypothetical. So an encourager, because they may not lean into confrontation, they may get the ulcer.

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Never give the ulcer. Mm hmm. Okay. So that's that's a weakness of being an encourager. Yeah. They're a strength of being a confront or as you're going to, it's no problem for you to pass it down. You have to to make it happen. So. Yeah, Yeah. Thinking about that, about that one. So I would say the best leaders make sure their people are faithfully handling their responsibilities.

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Faith. I don't lie. I don't want to say the best leaders give their people ulcers. Yeah, the best leaders. Make sure their people are faithful. Human are responsibilities, which means you can't be the only one who's worried about stuff. You know, you got to pass Deal. Do you resonate at all with that personally, with thinking about times being courage or that you kept all of the weight for that and you didn't let other people carry?

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I think the lie that you can tell yourself

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is and if you're naturally bent toward encouragement is that

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you're being a good servant leader by carrying that like, I'm going to carry this load for my team when the reality is as like, no, your team should be part of carrying that load. That's why you're called a team.

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So no, I absolutely resonate with

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too. Don't. Don't just keep the altar to yourself. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. That's good. It's a horrible sounding leadership. It is. But you. You. I like how you changed it, though, that they're faithfully handling or handling their responsibilities. Yeah. Yeah. Another, when you think about strengths and weaknesses, is he inspire versus threaten

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and I think encourages more naturally inspire confront or is more naturally threat.

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Mm hmm. Okay. You're smiling this well because again, I'll smiling because

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I can just tell which one I'm

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naturally at. Because

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I've had I've had coaches like

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that or and I just don't like working for ones like that. But

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this is why this resonated with me because if you're an encourager, you're probably too far this way and you have to come over that way.

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And if you're

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which we'll talk about that in a minute because there's an interesting

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truth to when you look at the other side. So when I think about like I feel like you should live the majority of your time as a leader with inspiring your people.

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Mm hmm. I, I don't think it's healthy to only always inspire, and there's never a threat. Yeah. Okay. So, like, sometimes someone really needs to hear, Hey, if if we don't get more revenue, we're going to have to.

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you know, do a staff reduction. You know, if we departments, I'm going to stick around to cut budgets 15%.

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You know the and again, it's not a threaten for threatened sake it's just a you're sharing the ulcer. Yeah. Yeah. Here it is. Here it is. You know so

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definitely. I believe you should live like the majority of your leadership should be inspiring your people. It should. But there's a time

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that it's important to bring the other side of it

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And if. If, if all you would ever be in and I've had a friend or two who's been in this situation, thankfully, I never have. But if you're the leader lives in the threaten only Oh my gosh. Yeah. You ever been in that situation. Yeah. It's really discouraging. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's worse than discouraging. It's life stealing.

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It

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sucks life out of

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you. Yes. Yeah,

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it does. But I like how you put that. So we

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probably the healthiest way to lead or parent or is, is you're going to spend most of your time in inspiring but if that's where you stay and spend all your time then then you're missing you're not balanced because there's got to be some some threats.

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There's got to be some sharing. Elsa's good. Okay.

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Yeah. So when I think about,

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like, cultural impact case, when you think about an encouraging leader, the the cultural impact of that strength would be trust, employee morale, inspiration, celebration, fun. Okay. That strengths weaknesses are accountability can be low key. So if you don't ever have the hard conversation, you know there's there's zero accountability which that impacts achievement and excellence.

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You have to have accountability to get things done. It has to happen. And the weakness of a culture could be an absence of accountability if you don't have the hard conversations. Another weakness would be unresolved Issues can grow. Cases like we talked about to confront her. There's never a chance to really get big. Get them here. Yeah, right.

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Because they're going to they're going to get it, you know, an encourager. If they don't get it here, then it becomes this. And if you don't get it there, yeah, you're dealing with the problem that's

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this big, but it's because you didn't take care of it back here.

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Totally. Totally. And I do think,

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you know, complacency could exist, you know, for that.

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So so that's the encouraging culture, the confrontational culture. The strengths are accountability. I mean, the conversation. I mean, there's not going to go anything unchecked, you know, it's it's going to be confronted. Issues are dealt with quickly. People always know where they stand. Like that's a real strength

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with the confrontational. Yes. It's like you have to wonder what they think.

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Yeah. Yeah. You know. Yeah. You know, I told you that. Yes. It's a it's a blessing. And it often does produce excellence.

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now the weaknesses of a culture with the confrontational culture would be a lack of celebration. Like you could spend time focusing on the 1% that didn't go well.

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So the 99% that did fear could be a part of that culture because of the mistrust and, you know, confronting things, you know, that are small in a strong way. You

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avoid walking down that hallway.

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There you go, because you're

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Yeah. And I

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that.

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That's where it

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totally. If it's

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totally. So, So yeah. So when I think strengths and weaknesses I know that was probably more than you wanted, but like that's kind of Oh yeah. The different areas that

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you know, it seems like one of the things that can help with either one of these is you were describing that and I look back on my life like systems.

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You get a good system in place and it can help. So like if an if you're an encourager, an accountability is something that doesn't come naturally for you, but you have a system in place that's forcing them to be accountable that can really help, probably could do the same. I'm don't know how a confront or would do that, but there's probably a system that they could put in place that's going to help.

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Yeah.

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systems can help with this.

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have to have to be intentional. Yeah,

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the point I would make is of you, you know, you're shortchanging your leadership if you don't bring some of the strengths from the opposite style.

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Yeah. In yeah so there's things in courageous need to do that come from to confront or to make their leadership all it could be and are things that confront our needs to do that the encouragement actually does to make that so you have to be intentional. And the thing is, if you're a confront her, you don't have to put on your checklist.

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Make sure I can find what needs to be confronted today. That's just going to happen. If you're an encourager, you don't have to say, Gosh, I need to make sure, I need to make sure I encourage thing. So you have to be intentional with yeah, with what's the opposite. That's a great point of your I

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like what you're saying that if

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whatever you have on your to do list, if you're an encourager, you probably need to be writing down every once in a while, like something about accountability or dealing with an issue.

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If you're the other one, you probably need to like literally write down, I need to go encourage, I need to send a note or I need to send a text thanking them.

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totally. Okay. Blind spots. Okay. So. So blind

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spots of encouragement and confront

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her. Yep. These are the things that I think for an encourager

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sometimes you don't see or realize the depth of a problem that can be a blind spot, you know, like because you want to believe the best because maybe you didn't inspect what you should have, you're not going to realize how serious something is.

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You know, sometimes an encourager won't engage with the proper urgency or strength that they need to with with a problem issue.

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I laugh about this because sometimes an encourager can have a meeting with somebody where they're supposed to, like, have a hard conversation. Hammer in the person leaves going, Oh, you know what? I think things are going, okay,

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Yeah, there's just dropped the hammer.

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They threw a

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tissue. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Yeah, totally. And then to confront her, I think

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they don't realize the volume of their voice. So, like, the way I'll say that is. So if you're in ministry and and you would work for a confront or sometimes after a confrontation, you'd have to leave that and go, okay, am I single handedly responsible for the fall of Christianity in North America?

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Or, you know, did we not on top of our deadlines like we should have? Yeah. You know, you got to you got to weigh it. You ran out of graham crackers in the children's ministry, right? I didn't just

Unknown

dissolve Christianity. Yeah,

Unknown

Yeah. Because a confront, it just feels natural, you know? They don't know how loud

Unknown

the confrontation comes across or the, you know, how it's heard.

Unknown

And so that can be a blind spot.

Unknown

Another one can be,

Unknown

you know, oftentimes if and again, I'm talking extremes here. Yes. Not every because that's the other part I thought about it is there's for sure waits to this. Yeah. You know so on a scale of a natural encouraging leader there's and there's leaders who are way over here.

Unknown

Yeah. And or some that are just barely Yeah. Same thing with confounders and and

Unknown

that's what you're I think that's why this is such a good thing to to capture because again whether you're parenting, whether it's in friendships, whether it's in a leadership situation or at work, you may be over here. But what you need to learn is to figure out how to come over here.

Unknown

You're going to be a better leader. You can be a better parent if you do that or if you're over here, you're going to to figure out how to come over here a little bit. Right?

Unknown

Which that was the part when we

Unknown

Okay. Yeah. You're talking about you have the courage or how you have to. Yeah.

Unknown

so for me what I have to do for confrontation is so this is, this is just a specific arc on you got to build systems for whichever one you are.

Unknown

So if I come to something and I go, that is a major. Okay. So like if I'm looking at that and right away, I'm like, that's a major issue. I got to have a conversation next 5 minutes with the person. Okay? If I look at something and I say, wow, that's that's a that's a decent issue, you know, that I need to have that conversation next 24 hours.

Unknown

It's like I need to move up the urgency for what my natural read of an issue is. I have to push it to the right, you know? And if something is like, I don't know if I should say something about that or not, I always say something about it. It's like I got to move. I've got to move this way.

Unknown

And if I look at something like, Oh, you know what, I think that's pretty good. I need to question, Is it really good? Yeah. So, so if you put it to move it absolutely to the right. Yeah, absolutely No issue to you know I think it's good to minor issue to major issue. I always whatever my natural read on it is I move it to the right so it's almost like if they could

Unknown

picture there's like there's you know number one number two number three, number four.

Unknown

Number five. If you fall in number three and you're an encourager, move to a four.

Unknown

Right? Okay.

Unknown

It's going the other way. It is the only the only problem with going the other way is there really could be times of confront her. She's number five. Okay. That it shouldn't be moved to avoid is a five.

Unknown

But I think you're now at least to be aware to go. I might want to be aware

Unknown

because I might need to confront this, but but I might

Unknown

want to instead of going into with this is a problem and ask a couple of questions to find out if it is. Yeah. That that adjustment. Yeah. So.

Unknown

Wow. So

Unknown

a team really need both of these right?

Unknown

Because you're not a help

Unknown

or if you're off in front or you have some issues which goes back to again

Unknown

yeah. I would never say the best teams are made up of all and herders are the best teams are made up of all good runners. I think you need both dynamics and you need to be open to one another, which is both. And all those dynamics

Unknown

have to be learning how to get a little better at because where you have a really healthy team and a healthy culture is when those confront those encourages are figuring out how to go to the click, to a click to the right or click to the left, Right?

Unknown

Totally. Yeah, totally

Unknown

Because here's the thing. And we had we had fun with this at lunch. There's really there's not a natural respect towards each other so when a confront her, a natural confront her, thinks of a natural encourager. Yeah. Okay. It's. It's not. Yeah. Oh, aren't they a great leader? Yeah, it's. It can be. You know, I think they're kind of weak.

Unknown

They're weak, you know? And then when you take an encourager, an encourager looks at a confront or it's not. Oh, man, I need to be more like they're like, Yeah, that's a person kind of jerk.

Unknown

Yeah, I was going to use a different

Unknown

words. Yeah. So

Unknown

I had weak for encourager and then a different

Unknown

for that concern.

Unknown

But no, again,

Unknown

right. So you have a problem. What do you agree with that?

Unknown

Absolutely

Unknown

absolute. So you have a problem with

Unknown

your going to whatever camp you land in. You have a natural disdain for the way the other camp does things. So hesitant to like utilize any of the tools either to give any ground to them or.

Unknown

Yeah, right, right. And so here, then you're missing out. Totally. And then here's the thing. Okay? This is what stinks. Encourager. I'm a tell you what stinks about being encourager. You know what people do. Okay, Mr. Years, you tell me what stinks about being an encourager. I'm just talking to you. That stink for me. It just stinks for.

Unknown

It stinks for both of you. This is a mere of it. So

Unknown

if you're an encourager, you naturally encourage. Guess what? Wait. Your encouragement holds over time with those you lead. Mm. It gets turned down

Unknown

less and less because they hear it all the time,

Unknown

right?

Unknown

So when I tell somebody, Hey, you did a really good job with that, you know, the first year they worked for me, it's like, Oh man, Yeah.

Unknown

But when you hear, like, I preach regularly, notice when you do something right and try to firm you on it after a while, it doesn't carry. They've been working for four

Unknown

years and you send the text and they're like, Oh it's Paul.

Unknown

Mm hmm. So it gets the volume turned out right.

Unknown

you're confronted, if you're naturally a confronted, okay, what happens?

Unknown

You're one, you know, you, you lead the way. You lead versus you're five or somebody. They tone it down. I saw it.

Unknown

There was a coach there was a coach one time. So careful that that

Unknown

the friend walked into the locker

Unknown

room, he'd yell and, you know, at first it was like he quit. You know, he's got to be his attention.

Unknown

But then it was like every halftime and pretty soon it's just noise. It's just noise. So the volume gets turned down.

Unknown

The first time that coach ever yelled at somebody. Yeah, it's it shook him. Right. And gave it gave them adrenaline in their veins. Yeah. The hundredth time. Yeah.

Unknown

And again confront doesn't mean you're yeller. Yeah. Let's just just you're saying the same thing so your strength actually over time becomes not that great of a strength.

Unknown

I still think it's a strength. Yeah, but it's not like it was at first. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay, so get this. Where are you going with this? I love it when a confront her encourages those words mean a lot. Oh, yeah? You

Unknown

frame them and put them on the wall.

Unknown

It's huge. You save the email? Yeah. You put the note away.

Unknown

Yeah. Desk. Yeah. I mean, it carries. Yeah. You know, one word of encouragement from confront her is like a 100 words of encouragement from a natural encourager. Yeah.

Unknown

And then what happens when a natural encourager confronts somebody? How to hold a lot of weight? Yeah. So that's what's crazy, is, like, there's a disrespect or what's the word? Yeah, yeah,

Unknown

I would say disrespect.

Unknown

There can

Unknown

be. There's a lack of appreciation. Lack of a bit stronger than that though. Yeah, it's stronger because you look at it like. Yeah, no, I think it's disrespect.

Unknown

Okay, there's a disrespect, but there's really powerful stuff over there. Well, and here's

Unknown

why it's disrespect, because again, when we were at lunch, you had me fill in the blanks like you, if you're a confront or you think an encourager is and I use the word,

Unknown

we won't use it.

Unknown

But you're Ms..

Unknown

100%. And to think

Unknown

to think that your style is the best style really is prideful, you know, a little arrogant.

Unknown

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the I think the best leaders know who they are and make sure that they don't miss out on the other side. Yeah.

Unknown

Well, it goes back to like, the strength finder. I love that one so

Unknown

much. In their little

Unknown

So this one,

Unknown

problems. You're going to make sure that

Unknown

Totally, totally in the

Unknown

the thing I think is the worst mistake you can make as a leader is to try to be somebody else that you're not like all too often. You know, if you're apprentice under somebody or something else and you think I have to be like them, but it's it's not who you are now, takes, takes courage.

Unknown

You're trying to be confronted like someone who's a really extreme encourager.

Unknown

They're just coming in, like,

Unknown

totally dropping

Unknown

Totally. I think everybody

Unknown

Yeah, that's. And that's your point

Unknown

No, no. Yeah, you have to.

Unknown

You have to be who you are, but try to bring in the other side, you know, or mitigate what could be the weaknesses for who you are.

Unknown

Yeah. And don't, don't look past the other things. I mean, and the thing that I would say is I also think if you're aware of this, you can make ground in it. It's not like this is a, you know, impossible thing to do. Yeah, Yeah. Like I do think I've gotten better at confrontation because I have I've been intentional with it.

Unknown

Yeah. You know, still not easy, I'll tell you that. I mean I've been I've thought about this 20 years maybe, and it's still easy, but it's always okay. I got to go have that conversation. Yeah. And I know other things you learn as

Unknown

an encourager.

Unknown

We I think we all learned this. If you've been leading, you learn that this is going to keep me up three nights,

Unknown

or it can just keep me

Unknown

Totally. But

Unknown

because it's got

Unknown

But that's

Unknown

you just you're springing a leadership axiom that someone shares me A long time ago.

Unknown

half of any hard situation is showing up. So if you have to have the conversation set in the appointment on your calendar and getting yourself in that office or across from that coffee table or on the couch in the living room, just showing up is like, Yeah, you're 51% done.

Unknown

Yeah. You know, if you just make yourself do it. Yeah. And I think that's where. And then another thing I think about for you asked me this earlier and then I said, Hey, hold on, we're not there yet. Yeah. So for me, for the hard conversation, I make notes and then I read through the notes and make sure, is this hard enough?

Unknown

Like, am I giving them the full truth? And so I will have bullet points for like, the really hard conversations I have to have because it forces me to say it the way that I thought and prayed through ahead of time. Oh,

Unknown

so you have those in front of you and you're reading because, you know, if you're going to air on any side, you're going to soften your words.

Unknown

But that gives me no doubt this is what needs to be said. It gives me no good advice. And so that's that's probably been the biggest help I've had. Like personally, something I put. And the two things are I always move it to the right. Yeah. When I

Unknown

am assessing a problem and then depending on the severity of it, like the really hard ones, I think through and right now how hard does this need to be said?

Unknown

And then I don't let myself off the hook. Yeah. Like it's, it's written there. This exactly how I want to say it and then I'll often when I start to mean I go, I just want you to know I'm going to be looking at my notes because this means enough to me. I've thought through exactly how I want to tell this to you.

Unknown

Yeah,

Unknown

because I know that can feel inauthentic. In a hard meeting of somebody like then you

Unknown

don't have to make eye contact either. You can read it like, No,

Unknown

no. Which. Yeah. Yeah. I thought about that. Very, very practical.

Unknown

But I think lose losing the disrespect for those different than you. Another huge, you know, is is something I think probably everybody. Yes. Wrestles with. Yep,

Unknown

For sure. Well, Paul, one of the fun things we do on these is the two truths in life. It's ironic because we call it no gray areas.

Unknown

I'm going to ask you to lie to me, but

Unknown

See if you can stump the audience

Unknown

Okay.

Unknown

I was a last second dive away from being hit by golf cart driven by Jack Nicklaus at the Phenix Open. Oh, okay. That's number one.

Unknown

Number two is I ran track in high school. I know my current bill doesn't lead you to believe that, but I actually ran 800.

Unknown

I was going to try to set you up and say distance or sprint because I know you look at me now, you like a shot put right? Go ahead, Pat. Say, if you set me up to I'm

Unknown

Okay.

Unknown

So ran track in high school from 800. Okay. And I was hit by javelin

Unknown

while you were running.

Unknown

Okay.

Unknown

And what's hilarious is I can't remember the third one.

Unknown

Unknown

you don't remember, you're like, do

Unknown

life? What do you think? Let's make this interesting.

Unknown

Yeah, let's make this a true. Hold on. Give me a second. You edit this week? Can you edit this to make it to make it smooth? Is that it? If I should try. Otherwise we're going to leave the said because it's just funny. Because you just told me you do. True. Hold on, hold on. And then I said, Oh, here you go.

Unknown

Okay. Okay. I remembered it. Okay. You're looking at my notes. Number three. Yeah,

Unknown

I led worship acapella for a group of 20 Arizona Diamondbacks in the golf cart garage at the Raven Golf Course.

Unknown

the running was true.

Unknown

The javelin? Yeah, the javelin. Okay.

Unknown

okay, I did lead worship a cappella for a group of 20 Arizona Diamondbacks. No, listen to this man. I am negatively gifted musically.

Unknown

Oh, we're going to sing right now.

Unknown

You and I are going to sing right now. No, no, no. You know, what do you want to tell me? That amazing Grace. Let's go. No, I will listen to you and I will hum along off key.

Unknown

Okay, So no, like, listen, like, whatever the normal person is musically, I'm so far this way.

Unknown

I mean, I can't, like, clap in rhythm, you know? I'm horrendous. Okay, So actually, you may know him. Do you know Bryan Humble? No, No. Okay. So he's the chaplain for the D-backs. Okay. He and I were roommates. Did he set you up? So he asked me, Hey, we had someone cancel. You want to come play golf with this group of damn of baseball players?

Unknown

And this was. That's an easy answer. Yeah. Oh, gosh. I was like, Yeah, course. And in the real small print. And so we showed up and it was a frost delay. Okay? So we had to wait and we're sitting down. He goes, Well, let's let's do a quick devotion thing down into the garage. So we go down and we're sitting in a circle.

Unknown

And I tell you, my worst nightmare would be what you're trying to get me to do, to sing in any way, especially was captured forever edited out. I'm horrible. Yeah, I know you well enough to know. So anyway, so we're senior. He goes, Hey, before I. I take a look at this, this song I want to. Hey, Paul, would you lead us in a song?

Unknown

Okay. Was he messing with you or did see, like, I'm like, I look at him and I go, good one, good one, you know, And he has. No, I'm seriously to sing a song. I'm like, Brian, I'm not I'm not like a musical guy at all. He's like, No, no, seriously, You remember what song? Yes, I do. Yeah, What song?

Unknown

Forgive. You're asking me what? This is a point of trauma. And you want. I do. I want to dig this up. So I did create a me a clean heart. Okay.

Unknown

In front of 20 Diamondback players with no one else joining me, it was a solo. And you Can you imagine the acoustics of an underground golf cart? Yeah.

Unknown

Yeah. It was catching every cracked voice and oh, it was literally like, yeah,

Unknown

I mean, I'm starting to shake. Yeah, just thinking of it. Okay, so that's true story. The lie, the Nicklaus thing. Totally true. I was coming up a car path at the Phenix Open

Unknown

and it was like lined with people, you know, But I was walking in a car path and I he he was driving way too fast.

Unknown

Right now, Jack Nicklaus is a reckless, crazy driver. He came around the corner and I was like, I saw was Jack Nicklaus. And then I was like, I'm about ready to get hit. And I dove and like, barely missed me, barely missed me. And so I was like, I, I think I would be a rich person. I blame hit me.

Unknown

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not sure. So the lie is I did run track in high school. You do not get hit by javelin. I got hit by discus.

Unknown

Oh, yeah. Nice. Really, though that had to hurt.

Unknown

You don't even know. Yeah, you know. Oh, I know, I know. That's a metal disc. Yeah. And they. Yeah. Okay. Well, Javelin, you can edit, you can edit this Right.

Unknown

You got to do anything. Okay. So. So what happened

Unknown

you know how it's. It's a V. Yeah, right. And you have your, your concrete thing you spent here, then they have a backstop. Yeah. Okay. So what we do is we'd all line up next to the backstop, like in order. When is your turn to throw. So I was like, right outside the edge of the fence in line, and I was holding the discus against my chest.

Unknown

Yeah, this waiting for my turn. And I was talking to a guy and that's the last thing I remember. What happened was the guy slipped on his third turn and it came out of the back of his hand. It hit the disc that was against my chest. And I know that because I had an imprint of my disc.

Unknown

And then it hit me up, Oh, my goodness. And I woke up, like, on the way to the hospital. Yeah. And like, that story.

Unknown

Well, Paul, thanks, man. Appreciate it. Very practical advice for us. So thank

Unknown

you.

Unknown

Thanks for having me. Yeah.

Unknown

incredible interview with Paul Carpenter today. And

Unknown

the question we want to leave you with is, are you an encourager or are you a confrontation? And how can you manage your weaknesses and excel at your strengths,

Unknown

So we'd love to hear from you.

Unknown

Comment below or you can email us at info at no gray areas dot com and remember like follow subscribe. No gray areas.