In this episode of The SAFE Leader Podcast, Mark McBride-Wright sits down with leadership expert and author Jim Carlough to explore what truly defines effective leadership. With over 30 years of experience transforming teams and organisations, Jim shares powerful stories from his early life and career, from lessons in integrity and servant leadership to the hard truths of learning through failure. He reveals how leadership isn’t an inherited trait but a skill that can be developed through self-awareness, empathy, and an unwavering moral compass.
Listeners will gain insight into the principles behind Jim’s bestselling book The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership and hear why he believes integrity, humility, and accountability are non-negotiable for anyone guiding others. Packed with wisdom, relatable anecdotes, and honest reflection, this episode challenges traditional ideas about leadership and offers a grounded, inspiring roadmap for becoming a leader who truly makes a difference.
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:03
Are you? Is it recording your side? Yeah. Okay, cool. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride-Wright, and I’m delighted today to be joined by Jim Carlo, who is an author, professional speaker and leadership expert. So with over 30 years of leadership experience, Jim is an accomplished business strategist, speaker and author, having successfully driven explosive growth for healthcare organizations from startups to industry leaders, Jim is a trusted expert in building high performing teams, revitalizing underperforming businesses and guiding organizations through transformational change. Jim’s core philosophy, leaders aren’t born. They’re developed. Challenges the myth of innate leadership in his best selling book, the six pillars of effective leadership, a roadmap to success. Jim delivers a practical and inspiring guide for leaders at every stage of their journey. His approach focuses on six essential traits that empower individuals to embrace leadership. Is a skill that can be learned, honed and mastered through experience, mentorship and international and intentional growth, international growth, I’m sure helps as well. Jim, welcome to the show. Yeah, I’m just ask Jim to refresh then rejoin from a regular browser, not incognito.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:49
Okay, you’re here, right? You’re back. Says it’s recording. It said something about you joining incognito. Are you in a regular browser?
Jim Carlough 1:59
I’m in a regular I’m in Chrome, yeah, yeah, on a
Mark McBride-Wright 2:05
like, not an incognito tab, but a regular tab,
Jim Carlough 2:08
a regular tab, I don’t know, right?
Mark McBride-Wright 2:12
Well, I’ve got a podcast editor who can edit, edit that bit down. Anyway, Jim, welcome to the show.
Jim Carlough 2:24
Well, Mark, thank you for having me. I’m really excited to talk to you and to your audience.
Mark McBride-Wright 2:29
I’m really so full candid honesty for for the audience. We were usually very organized, the safe leader and equal engineers and send out you know, questions ahead of time. And so just so our guests have some structure about about what we’re going to cover, and but yes, I have been so busy that that has not happened for you Jim. So we are genuinely having a free flow conversation. So on the one of the ways we start off is, I love finding out about the person behind the camera, the person who we’re interviewing, but about the younger version of yourself. You know, are you doing today, what you thought you would be doing back then, if we, if we were to meet the young Jim now, what was his aspirations about what he wanted to be when he was older? What was he like
Jim Carlough 3:30
at five years old? I used to walk with the post office man on the route around the blocks that I lived, and that was in the 60s, right? So it was a lot safer then, and he was actually a family friend, and we would often talk about, what do I want to be when I grow up? Okay? And at five years old, nobody knows what they want to do. But in that discussion, we used to come back to the things that I thought I wanted. And for whatever reason, I told him, I want a big desk and a comfortable chair and, and I want to have money like right and. And he said to me, you want to be a lawyer, a lawyer, a lawyer, you have the personality you’re you’re conversational, you’re articulate at five years old, so I grew up from the time I was five years old thinking I was going to be an attorney.
Mark McBride-Wright 4:35
So that that that experience with the postman, the postal worker, had that much of an effect on your memory of careers and opportunities. And it really, it plant. And I think that early on, really helped.
Jim Carlough 4:50
Well it did. And then it also, we had a tragedy in the family when I was eight, which changed the. Direction of a lot of things. So in 1969 My brother was killed in the Vietnam War, and as tragic as that was, there were five kids in the family. Now, four, three of us were under the age of 10. My brother was 10. I was eight. My younger sister was six, and from that point forward, my father was steadfast and said, You are all going to college right now. My brother had gone into a trade, because that’s what the family did. My dad was a carpenter. Okay? His dad was a Mason. And my great grandfather was a chicken farmer.
Mark McBride-Wright 5:44
Okay, okay, so very manual and physical.
Jim Carlough 5:48
There’s no C suite in any of that. Yes, so genetically, I’m kind of proof that leadership is developed and you’re not born with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There may be a gene or a trait out there that scientists say points to the fact that you could be a good leader or whatever, but I’m a firm believer that leadership is developed Go ahead.
Mark McBride-Wright 6:13
Well, how then, over the years, from that young, five year old and that awful experience, I’m so sorry to hear about your brother. How did that then subsequently Take Shape for you, as you started to discover about occupations in the world, and you know, you had this bias, potentially, one could argue from quite a young age that you know you’re, you’re going to, you should be an attorney, but then that’s actually quite helpful when you’re when your father said you’re all going to college, because you have to sort of follow that track right to get to what you were suggested that you could be when you’re older. So, yeah, talk, talk us on from that line.
Jim Carlough 6:52
So, so when I got to college, my mindset was still on. I need a major that would allow me to go to graduate school to become a lawyer, and I ended up getting a degree in psychology, and I also took a lot of math and statistic classes, because the school, like the university I went to, did a lot of behavioral science type things in the psychology department, so you had to know statistics, so you had to know math, and you had to so while they didn’t, did give out minors. I tell people I had a minor in mathematics because I had so many garden math classes. But when graduation came, I realized that, you know, I had a lot of school loans because my parents were while we got financial aid, they were my dad was a factory worker at by that time, and my mom worked in a local department store. And I said, Well, I’m going to need money. So I started working. And one of the first jobs I got was a manager job working for a Blue Cross and Blue Shield entity in New Jersey, which is now called Horizon health, and coming out of college at the age of 23 and automatically becoming a a manager. And also did something else that very same year, I ran for a local political office in the town I grew up in, and so we had the structure was a town council and a mayor, and shortly after the election, the city administrator, who was a full time position these the rest of us were all part time people, yeah, and he called me, and he asked me to come in and visit with him. And I went in, and I sat down with him, we were talking, and he said, You know, I’m very happy that you won the election, because you’re a smart guy, and we need younger people getting involved, and this will be help. I ended up being the youngest person ever elected to public office in that community to this day, and I was reelected three years later. But when I sat in his office, he said to me, he said, you’re going to do well, but I’m going to ask you to do me a favor. And I thought, oh my gosh, my first political favor, and I’m not even sworn in yet, but it wasn’t a favor for him. It was life changing for me. And what he said was, when you go to bed at night and you put your head on the pillow, and before you close your eyes, I want you to ask yourself one question, and that question is, Have I done anything today for my own personal self benefit? That was at the expense of another individual, group of individuals or organization? And he went on to say. If you say yes, you did, you have to immediately do two things. You have to figure out how to unwind what you did, and you need to figure out how to never do it again. Do you know I’ve asked myself that question ever since November 1983 Wow. And I don’t think I’ve ever said yes, and that integrity, that foundation of integrity, has guided my life and my leadership, and is the number one pillar that holds up the center of the building’s roof, which is the most weight that any pillar can handle. Yeah, yeah. And so what? At 23 I left that office thinking, Oh, my God, you know I’ve got to follow this pathway. And I can honestly tell you that I have always followed that pathway.
Mark McBride-Wright 10:59
It’s so refreshing, I guess, to because when you step in that world of public service, it’s servant leadership, isn’t it? It’s doing things for the community, for for, yeah, upholding what it represents. And that’s just a really clear question, isn’t it? And really great advice that you got a young age. Because, as you say, it’s, it’s a was the youngest ever in that community, person age.
Jim Carlough 11:26
It’s black and white, right? There’s a line in the road, and you got to stay on that line and and trust me, there were times when I was challenged in my professional career, and I stayed on that line. And, you know, at one point it did cost me a little bit of a reputation issue, because I refused to do something that I knew was both ethically and legally wrong,
Mark McBride-Wright 11:54
yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe some politicians nowadays should be asking a question when they go to bed. I’m not sure they do. I know they don’t. With so you got that advice early on How then did it? Did it shape your because, you know, brick, I want to, like, sort of go on the journey to come up to where you’re at now, with, with, with actually having, like a book on effective leadership, so we can come on to that in a moment, but fill in the gaps then in the rest of your career and and also what you said you did that alongside when you became that manager, so in your 23 in the first job outside of after college and grad school. So how did you find managing, managing that I can imagine that’d be quite, quite difficult.
Jim Carlough 12:49
So someone asked me the following question on another podcast, how does your leadership compare today to that first job outside of college? And my response, I think, shocked them, when I said I was horrible and I knew nothing and no one gave me a road map, and I said, I probably need to find those people and apologize,
Mark McBride-Wright 13:13
who just do what you could with what your natural instincts were correcting to you
Jim Carlough 13:19
and nobody. Nobody has we have a terrible, critical problem. But around the world, I’ve noticed that we, in many cases, we find someone who did a very, very good job at being an individual contributor and said to them, Jim or mark, we’re going to make you a manager. Yes, and we get excited, we’re going to get a pay raise, we’re going to get a title, but we don’t think about what we don’t know, yes and what I’ve learned over the years, and I’ve worked for some great leaders, and I’ve been very blessed. I’ve worked for some crappy ones too. They exist, but I there’s been more good ones than than bad ones. And I have learned and evolved over 30 plus years. And I started about 2520 about 25 years ago, I worked for an organization that was created by Ross Perot. And Ross Perot was probably the greatest leader I’ve ever met, and he cared about every single one of his employees, and those were assets that he would not trade for anybody.
Mark McBride-Wright 14:40
I don’t know who Ross Perot is. Is that so he was
Jim Carlough 14:43
a bit he was a billionaire. He created a company in the 60s called EDS, electronic data systems. Okay? He sold it to General Motors when his non compete and had a board seat on General Motors eventually left the board position. And when his non compete ran out, he basically started another technology company called perot systems, okay? And the principles that he instilled in everybody was that we are going to take care of our people, and he went out of his way to ensure that. I’ll give you an example. If we had an employee, if I had an employee on my team, who themselves, their spouse or their children, had a serious medical issue, we had to notify his office, and we had to ensure that they were getting the best care in the country, and if not, he would fly the family to wherever that best care was, and would, wow, that’s amazing. Who does that today? Yeah, nobody does that today, but I learned a lot from some of those principles. And then they also had a unique thing as well. They had a mentoring program where they asked many of us leaders to volunteer to be mentors of other people. And as I started to mentor people, I realized that a large majority of them were never given a roadmap, right and they struggled. So two years ago, I sat down and I said, I’m getting old. I’m going to retire. What can I give back? And I said, I can give back by helping people be better leaders. So I sat down and I made a list of all of the characteristics I thought were important in leadership, and that list had about 18 items on it. And I said, I can’t write a book and teach people 18 characteristics of things they had to do. It’s too many. I needed to condense it. And I kept condensing it and condensing it and condensing it and condensing it until I ended up with the six that I use in the book. There wasn’t a seventh that I was really married to, that I really felt was had to be there. You weren’t able to go in and dive was too short, too short, or too least. And the one thing about the book that has gotten the most praise is it’s not a lot of theory. And so you’ll pick up somebody’s book and it’s about yo thick, and there’s a bunch of mumbo jumbo in there. You’re not going to find that in this book, you’re going to find the pillar. We define the pillar. Tell you how to implement the pillar. And we do one other thing in the book, we give you other references to people around the world who use that trait in leadership. Ah, interesting. So you can then go and don’t listen to me, but find these people,
Mark McBride-Wright 17:57
yeah, listen to their TED talks or their speeches that have been recorded, that they’ve given and seen how, how that pillar shows up,
Jim Carlough 18:06
correct, correct. And so that’s and so that’s been very, very helpful to people. Okay, the other thing I wanted to do is, I wanted to make sure that if somebody read the book who knew me, that they knew that those were my words. And one thing I didn’t like about the writing process was the editors, right? Editors, want to change your words,
Mark McBride-Wright 18:31
yeah? Chop it up, move it around. Developmental edits, copy edits. Still must make sense. Yeah, I’ve been through that. I’ve been through that, yeah,
Jim Carlough 18:40
and it was very, very hard for me to get people to understand it needs to be my voice. But I’ve been successful because people who read it, who know me, have said the following, I can picture you standing in front of me reading those very words that are on that page that, to me, means I accomplish what I set out to do.
Mark McBride-Wright 19:10
Talk us through the six critical attributes, then the pillars that you put forward in the in the book.
Jim Carlough 19:17
So the first one is we already talked about, is integrity and it being non negotiable. The next two are different, but I talk about them together, because people blur the lines in them, and that’s compassion and empathy. Okay, with compassion, in my view, I have the ability to help you in empathy, I need to put myself in your shoes to try to figure out how to resolve something, yeah, yeah. And so I’ll tell you a story about empathy that also crosses the line a little and shows compassion you. Which, when I worked for a technology company back in the early 2000s we made claim systems for health insurance companies, and we had a claim system. You may be too young to remember this. That was just green screen technology. Yeah, we’re talking developed in the 90s, right? Nope, no mouse, no nothing. And we had also come out with Windows based technology. We had 36 customers who were on this old technology, and I had to tell this team of 25 people that their jobs were going away, right? But I couldn’t afford for them to all walk out the door, because we had to support 36 customers. The implementation time to convert somebody to the new platform would be eight to 12 months, and I did not know how to handle the discussion with the team to keep them from running out the door. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wrestled, and I wrestled with it, and I finally said, if this was me, what would I want my boss to tell me? Yeah, you’d want the truth, no, but so you’ve got a runway to plan and no surprises. Exactly. So I’d made three promises. My only goal was to have enough people on board at any point in time to support the customers we still had to support. Yeah, first commitment I made to them is I would give them as much lead time as I had to tell them when potentially their job would go away. Yeah. So some people had six months. Some people had 12 months notice, which is plenty of time to find a new job. Yeah. So number one, you’ll get the transparency of that. Second thing I did was I said to them, if you want to learn the new technologies, if you were a programmer as an example, right, or if you’re an account manager, and how we’re going to handle account management on these new products, if you wanted to stay and support those new products, I would make the training available to you during the work day, during the period of time between now and when that job would be potentially eliminated,
Mark McBride-Wright 22:30
yep. So they cannot skill re skill on the job, literally on
Jim Carlough 22:35
the job. Not do it at lunchtime, not do it after work, not making him come in early and and so I would make, I would make the time to make that happen. But I didn’t stop there. I made a third promise. I said, if, if you decide you don’t want to stay with the company, I will personally help you find a job on the outside that fits your skill set and fits the financial requirements that you need for your family. Yeah, I hit my goal. Nobody left before it was time, but something else happened that I never expected. About two years into this initiative, I get a call from human resources, and they want to come and visit me. I don’t like it when HR calls and says they want to come and visit
Mark McBride-Wright 23:26
me. Yeah, so dominance.
Jim Carlough 23:30
I knew the moment that they got there, it wasn’t bad news, because they didn’t have an empty box and my boss wasn’t with them. But we we sat down, and I said, How can I help you? And they said, do you remember about 45 days ago we did an employee survey? I said, Yes. And they said, We want to talk to you about the team in California that you have. And I said, the team that’s downsizing. They said, Yes. I said, How bad are the scores? They looked at me, and they said, that’s the problem. What we that we are trying to figure out they’re not bad. They are the happiest people in the company. Why? And they said, why? What did you do? And and so we walked through what I did that’s great. And they the one said to me, Oh, my God, you took everything and put it on your shoulders. They didn’t have to worry. Yeah, yeah. So you know, if you got told your job was going home away, you’re going to go home. First thing you do is tell your spouse that you’re going to update your resume, then you’re going to start reaching out to recruiters. And then nobody did that. And so out of 20,000 people in the company, this group of 20 some people were the happiest in. Employees in the whole organization,
Mark McBride-Wright 25:02
despite the fact that their jobs were coming to an end, on how their current employment was
Jim Carlough 25:08
so HR documented everything so that they could teach other leaders how to do the same thing, which in essence, compassion and empathy. There’s no book on compassion and empathy, and they don’t teach that in business school, and you can only do it by getting into situations where it’s unchartered waters. And I know the leaders are uncomfortable with that, yes, yes. So I want to take that. I want to take that stress away. Because if you have integrity and you show empathy and compassion, they’ll know it’s real, yeah, if you lack integrity as a leader and you try to show compassion or empathy, they won’t believe
Mark McBride-Wright 25:55
you, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that’s a great story to illustrate those, those those three components, and then your other three in the book, the other three pillars,
Jim Carlough 26:11
the next two, are stability and focus. So when I think about focus, I think about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Both are brilliant men. Musk is singularly focused on getting people in space and getting people in carbon efficient vehicles to drive. That’s his sole focus. Yeah, I won’t pick on his design of his cars or his trucks or whatever, because the truck I think is ugly, but that’s my own personal opinion, and there’s a lot of them around. But his focus isn’t changing. And in Jeff’s case, Jeff started selling books over the internet in the mid 90s, and then slowly got into what now is Amazon with where you can buy groceries online and everything else known to mankind. But, but Amazon had a problem earlier in their career, in the early days as they started to expand, before they were national, before they were national, and before the pandemic. And then they grew up everywhere and with warehouses all over the world. He they were known for having horrible customer service, right? And instead of Jeff saying to the guy who the person that ran customer service, you have a problem, you need to fix it, Jeff basically said, If I don’t fix this, my company is dead. And so he took a desk and put it in the center of the customer service department, and sat at that desk day in and day out, listening, watching, documenting and then re establishing what the manager then Need to go implement to give best in class service. Now, some will say their service is terrible because you can never talk to anybody. That is true, but you don’t really need to talk to anybody, because you can even return things online with no questions asked, print out the code and just take it back to them. And so they have figured out a model to make it work and be efficient with less people, but that focus is what made a difference in those two organizations, and still does to this day. Now package that with stability, and when somebody says to me, Jim stability, who do you think of? And I think of Warren Buffett. And Warren Buffett, even though he’s retiring, and I’ll have to come up with another leader for stability. He performs the same way every day and and I think even to your audience and safe leadership, you have to be consistent. And consistent and stable are intertwined. And I’ll give you an example. I was sitting in my office one day and I heard the two women that worked for me on my team. One was a manager that reported to me, and one was a subordinate that reported to the manager, and they were they were account management people, and they’ve gotten to a heated, escalated discussion about how to solve a customer problem, and I heard the voices getting louder and loud. Louder. So I went out, and I asked them to please come into my office. I’d like to help them get through whatever it is they’re dealing with. And I they sat down, and I asked what the problem was, and then they both wanted to tell me that their solution was better than the other person’s solution, and they were and their personalities, I loved both of them. They’re hard, harder workers, but their personalities were like, it’s got to be my way, because I can’t believe I can’t do what you want to do, and you can’t do what I want. But when I listen to them, I gave them an alternative. I said, Have you thought about putting the two together? Because I think you’re not seeing the forest through the trees, and if we do both of these things, does that not solve, not just the short term issue, but the long term issue that only one of you could solve, and you’re because you’re not looking at it in totality, yeah, yeah, yeah. With that, you could see the the anger like exit their face and and the one individual started to get emotional, and so I I apologized for for the reaction she was having. And I said, I’m sorry that this is this is upsetting you. Here are some tissues. And she says, that’s not it. You’re not upsetting me. She said, I’m crying because you’re always right. You always do the right thing. And she said, we were smart enough. We should have been able to figure this out. You didn’t need to intercede, but you did, but you always operate the same way. And so whether my message to leaders is everybody needs to be treated the same, you can’t, you can’t, directly or indirectly, treat somebody differently. Yeah, you’ve got to be consistent and and that is what she was upset about, was I was consistent, and they had worked for me for a few years, so they knew they were going to get consistency, and that creates stability in the team. Yeah, and when you combine these things, that’s when you start producing high producing very focused, very efficient teams that will operate in unison and will follow your vision. How do you
Mark McBride-Wright 32:41
just on the point of treating everyone the same? How? How do you reconcile that against I just want to dig deeper into that a bit with them. When we talk about equity and where we recognize that not everyone starts at the same starting point. Some groups need additional support to achieve equal outcomes, or the starting line for them as so much they have to put in more to achieve the same type thing, you know, because of bias and because of recruitment from preferential Ivy League universities versus other universities or whatever. So when that then manifests in the workplace, can you can do you think you can truly say that you have to join everyone the same
Jim Carlough 33:26
treating them with respect and treating people the same is not the same as educating them in what they need to do? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. So you individual a may need more developmental time to get to where individual B is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And in point, you have to be able to map that out so that you so that you can see that A and B are going to be in the same place at some point in time,
Mark McBride-Wright 34:00
and you’re perceptive to that as the leader, and that kind of feeds into your earlier point about how no one really gets a roadmap, which you’ve now created, like no one really gets a guide on how to be a great leader or a great manager. You’re just and in engineering and STEM careers in particular, you see it all the time. You get these you get people who are excellent technical leaders. They ascend up to a certain level in their organogram, and then all of a sudden, they’re expected to take on expanded responsibility that involves people leadership. And they just don’t have that, that muscle that’s been developed over years, you know? And then guess what? They end up being not the best leader. And then we just either don’t address it, or don’t give them the support that they need to become better leaders, or, at worst, they just stay where they are, and we get this acidic environment.
Jim Carlough 35:01
Or the leader that this one that I’ve seen several times in my career, where the leader consistently, every two to three years, replaces the people immediately reporting to them to hide their own inefficiencies. Oh, interesting. And I call that changing the chairs on the Titanic, because the Titanic eventually hits the iceberg and falls apart, and eventually that leader will not be in that position, but it will take longer for the board or other people to figure that out, because of the fact that they’ve just not done a good job, and they constantly have new people to blame for their for the failures of the department,
Mark McBride-Wright 35:51
no accountability. So humor. Tell us about humor. So this is
Jim Carlough 35:56
save it for last. Because people, people, when they think of humor, they think of Kevin Hart or somebody getting on stage. And it is not that at all Indian, yeah, it is not being the comedian at the water cooler at 10am telling jokes definitely. And in society today, whether it’s where you live or where I live, is hyper sensitive, and so, you know, talking about somebody’s ethnic background, or where they grew up, or whatever you can’t do in the workplace. So humor, to me, is more self deprecating humor, where I point out something stupid or funny that I did, but I only use it in certain situations. Okay, I’ll explain to kick off a meeting, to get everybody focused and to get that their attention, I’ll usually start off with something humorous that does two things. Number one, it gets their attention, but if they know that I can laugh at myself, it humanizes me to them, and they can, and I they can relate to me on their level and say he’s just like us. I did something stupid like that, and, you know, or whatever. So to kick off a meeting, if in a meeting, people are getting too tense and we want to redirect the discussion, I’ll use humor. I’ll use humor in other places, but it’s very selectively used, but it has to be used. It can’t be used inappropriately, because it could create a sense of discriminatory things, if you’re picking on certain people, yeah, humorous way. So it’s none of those things, but finding the right way to do it. I mean, I’ll tell you an example. One of the, I think one of our best presidents we ever had was Ronald Reagan. And President Reagan started every speech he ever made with a joke, and it was usually about a farmer, and it was your something funny or political about the Democrats or the Republicans. But he always had a way of attracting attention and calmness with both sides of the aisle, right? And it was interesting because Ronald Reagan, initially in his earlier days, was a Democrat, and then he converted to becoming a Republican. So I don’t want to get into politics, but he had a unique ability to unite people, right? And humor was a big part of that,
Mark McBride-Wright 38:25
and I think also it’s makes you more accessible, doesn’t it? And relatable and linked to show insides of yourself, there is an element of vulnerability that leaders I find when I work with leaders, they forget about the impact that they have on they forget about the the effect that they have on workplace culture at scale, you know, and for fear of saying the wrong thing, of course, or cause an offense, they they shy away from Engaging on certain topics, and therefore we get this perpetual never actually talking about certain things. But actually, if a leader leans into something, maybe lowers the metaphorical veil a little bit, share something about themselves that you can’t see from looking at them, humanizes them themselves on a vulnerability level that then gives permission for that thing, that topic, whatever that root cause might be to then be be spoken about or shared, or it might encourage others to come forward. And so when leaders do that, they are there, they cast that, you know that leadership shadow across the organization, and I always say to people, you know it’s, it’s you create an emotional reaction in your in your direct reports and across the organization. You know your your signature in an email, your face on the front reception welcome desk, or your your email, email. Address. When someone gets a communication from you or your voice on a town hall, you know it’s you cast a wide shadow in terms of what you stand for and the values you uphold. And so if we can get more leaders being open about the shit that goes on in their life, basically, you know, you know it just, it just makes it all more real accessible. And, yeah, I just, I just think there’s that is still such an untapped resource potential for effective leadership. I feel, I still feel see leaders being, ah, I’m going to do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing, or that’s not appropriate for the workplace. I am this person when I come into work, and what it unfortunately does is just doesn’t unlock the boat. It generally doesn’t tap into what’s actually going on in other people’s lives in the organization. So you get this binary sort of, I come into work, I do my job, and then I go home, and you get people being physically present but potentially mentally absent because they’re preoccupied with the stuff that’s going on in their life. But if they hear that a leader is going through something that I’m also going through, I’m like, oh my goodness, right. Well, let’s, let’s have that conversation. Let maybe I can get some help and support here about the thing.
Jim Carlough 41:17
You’re right, and in fact, I take it as my responsibility to know when you’re having a bad day, if I can sense when you’re having an off day, whether it’s via video conference call or on the telephone or in person. It’s an opportunity for for me to see if there’s something I can do to help you. Yeah, if I see somebody who’s always smiling with their chin a little low, I’m going to intercede and say, hey, I’ll pick on you, Mark. What’s going on today? You look a little off. How can I help you? And you know, if it’s something that you know with their meet, their spouse is ill, okay, well, guess what? Mark is not going to be mentally present because his wife isn’t well. So guess what, Mark, take the day. Don’t take it as a vacation day. Go home and spend it with your wife. Yeah? And those, those things, those little things that you do, add up, yeah, I had a woman not long ago work for me, single mom. Son was a teenager, early teenager, and it was around the end of July, beginning of August, and she had been working extremely hard, extremely hard, and I realized she hadn’t taken any time off, and school is going to go back. And yeah, so I said to her, it’s Wednesday, I’d like you to turn off your computer, and I’d like you to go spend the next two days with your son before he goes back to school. Oh, nice. And I said, don’t take it as PTO, you’ve been working your butt off. I recognize it. So this is my gift. And she argued with me, but and she won partially. She loved the fact that I I recognized it, but she had so much she wanted to finish that week, she asked if she could do that the next week. I said, Absolutely, but you’re going to do it, yeah. And we made sure that she did it.
Mark McBride-Wright 43:18
Excellent, excellent. So how do people get your book? If they want to?
Jim Carlough 43:24
It is available on Amazon. Okay, it’s available on Barnes and Noble. So anybody, I mean, the world operates on Amazon. So it’s available across the world on Amazon. They also can. There’s a site called books period by b, y, and if you do slash and then my name, they will actually ship it worldwide for a flat $5 rate. Oh, right, wow. So books by books, period by b, y, slash. Jim Carlo, no spaces, and they they were offering flat rate $5 shipping anywhere.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:00
Look. Up. Perfect, perfect. Okay, gonna do some quick fire questions. Now, are you good for that?
Jim Carlough 44:08
I hope so. Yes.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:11
I’m going to ask these at pace, you know. So it’s It is that kind of quick fire feeling? Okay? What’s your favorite book or podcast at the moment?
Jim Carlough 44:21
My favorite book is Extreme Ownership, and it was written by a couple of Navy SEALs, because you can’t probably see it slightly off camera here, but it is about, if you were to grow up in the military, you own what your responsibilities are. And they wrote a book about in leadership, you have to own your responsibilities. And it’s very disciplined, and I don’t want to say hardcore, but it’s it, and it sold millions and millions of copies, and they were just coming out with. Another book, but, but Extreme Ownership is my favorite book at the moment.
Mark McBride-Wright 45:05
Okay, are you a morning person or a night owl?
Jim Carlough 45:10
I’m a little bit of both. I’m an early riser, and then I get a second wind after dinner,
Mark McBride-Wright 45:17
you could have dinner with any person. Who would it be?
Jim Carlough 45:22
Oh, that is a tough one. One person I would, and I know this is going to sound terrible, but I would choose Bruce Springsteen. Now from a political ideology. We’re not the same, but from a music and I’m a New Jersey boy growing up and to and we grew up not at the same time. I’m younger than he is, but the experiences that we have had, I think, are somewhat similar, and they resonate in some of his songs, and I would just like to have a conversation with him about some of those songs and the meanings behind them. Interesting.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:09
What’s one app that you cannot live without email? What’s your favorite spot in the world your favorite location? Baseball favorite so a baseball field, okay, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Jim Carlough 46:33
Ask yourself that one question every night,
Mark McBride-Wright 46:37
of course, and if you hadn’t been told about being an attorney, and if you weren’t in your current career, what would you be doing?
Jim Carlough 46:49
I my second choice after being an attorney would have been to be a doctor, and I probably would have tried to go down that path, but I don’t know that I’d be smart enough to achieve it.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:02
What’s a fun fact most people do not know about you?
Jim Carlough 47:08
That most people don’t know that I was elected to public office at the age of 22
Mark McBride-Wright 47:13
and what’s the one word finally that you’d use to define your legacy you’re working
Jim Carlough 47:18
towards integrity? Integrity,
Mark McBride-Wright 47:22
wonderful. Well, thank you very much, Jim. I enjoyed, I enjoyed this our discussion. If people so we’ve covered your book, but if they actually want to get in touch with yourself, so I think you do keynote speaking offers as well and stuff. So how do people get in touch with
Jim Carlough 47:44
you? They can connect with me on LinkedIn. They can connect with me on my website, which is just jimcarlo.com so no periods, no capitals, just www.jimcarlo.com and there’s a Contact Me form there, and I return every call.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:01
Fabulous. Well, we will be sure to add that to the show notes. Thanks so much. Jim. Really enjoyed it.
Jim Carlough 48:08
You have a great day. I had a blast. Thank you for having me. Mark pleasure, all right. Have a good day.
E046: The Making of a True Leader
Podcast Description
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:03
Are you? Is it recording your side? Yeah. Okay, cool. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride-Wright, and I’m delighted today to be joined by Jim Carlo, who is an author, professional speaker and leadership expert. So with over 30 years of leadership experience, Jim is an accomplished business strategist, speaker and author, having successfully driven explosive growth for healthcare organizations from startups to industry leaders, Jim is a trusted expert in building high performing teams, revitalizing underperforming businesses and guiding organizations through transformational change. Jim’s core philosophy, leaders aren’t born. They’re developed. Challenges the myth of innate leadership in his best selling book, the six pillars of effective leadership, a roadmap to success. Jim delivers a practical and inspiring guide for leaders at every stage of their journey. His approach focuses on six essential traits that empower individuals to embrace leadership. Is a skill that can be learned, honed and mastered through experience, mentorship and international and intentional growth, international growth, I’m sure helps as well. Jim, welcome to the show. Yeah, I’m just ask Jim to refresh then rejoin from a regular browser, not incognito.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:49
Okay, you’re here, right? You’re back. Says it’s recording. It said something about you joining incognito. Are you in a regular browser?
Jim Carlough 1:59
I’m in a regular I’m in Chrome, yeah, yeah, on a
Mark McBride-Wright 2:05
like, not an incognito tab, but a regular tab,
Jim Carlough 2:08
a regular tab, I don’t know, right?
Mark McBride-Wright 2:12
Well, I’ve got a podcast editor who can edit, edit that bit down. Anyway, Jim, welcome to the show.
Jim Carlough 2:24
Well, Mark, thank you for having me. I’m really excited to talk to you and to your audience.
Mark McBride-Wright 2:29
I’m really so full candid honesty for for the audience. We were usually very organized, the safe leader and equal engineers and send out you know, questions ahead of time. And so just so our guests have some structure about about what we’re going to cover, and but yes, I have been so busy that that has not happened for you Jim. So we are genuinely having a free flow conversation. So on the one of the ways we start off is, I love finding out about the person behind the camera, the person who we’re interviewing, but about the younger version of yourself. You know, are you doing today, what you thought you would be doing back then, if we, if we were to meet the young Jim now, what was his aspirations about what he wanted to be when he was older? What was he like
Jim Carlough 3:30
at five years old? I used to walk with the post office man on the route around the blocks that I lived, and that was in the 60s, right? So it was a lot safer then, and he was actually a family friend, and we would often talk about, what do I want to be when I grow up? Okay? And at five years old, nobody knows what they want to do. But in that discussion, we used to come back to the things that I thought I wanted. And for whatever reason, I told him, I want a big desk and a comfortable chair and, and I want to have money like right and. And he said to me, you want to be a lawyer, a lawyer, a lawyer, you have the personality you’re you’re conversational, you’re articulate at five years old, so I grew up from the time I was five years old thinking I was going to be an attorney.
Mark McBride-Wright 4:35
So that that that experience with the postman, the postal worker, had that much of an effect on your memory of careers and opportunities. And it really, it plant. And I think that early on, really helped.
Jim Carlough 4:50
Well it did. And then it also, we had a tragedy in the family when I was eight, which changed the. Direction of a lot of things. So in 1969 My brother was killed in the Vietnam War, and as tragic as that was, there were five kids in the family. Now, four, three of us were under the age of 10. My brother was 10. I was eight. My younger sister was six, and from that point forward, my father was steadfast and said, You are all going to college right now. My brother had gone into a trade, because that’s what the family did. My dad was a carpenter. Okay? His dad was a Mason. And my great grandfather was a chicken farmer.
Mark McBride-Wright 5:44
Okay, okay, so very manual and physical.
Jim Carlough 5:48
There’s no C suite in any of that. Yes, so genetically, I’m kind of proof that leadership is developed and you’re not born with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There may be a gene or a trait out there that scientists say points to the fact that you could be a good leader or whatever, but I’m a firm believer that leadership is developed Go ahead.
Mark McBride-Wright 6:13
Well, how then, over the years, from that young, five year old and that awful experience, I’m so sorry to hear about your brother. How did that then subsequently Take Shape for you, as you started to discover about occupations in the world, and you know, you had this bias, potentially, one could argue from quite a young age that you know you’re, you’re going to, you should be an attorney, but then that’s actually quite helpful when you’re when your father said you’re all going to college, because you have to sort of follow that track right to get to what you were suggested that you could be when you’re older. So, yeah, talk, talk us on from that line.
Jim Carlough 6:52
So, so when I got to college, my mindset was still on. I need a major that would allow me to go to graduate school to become a lawyer, and I ended up getting a degree in psychology, and I also took a lot of math and statistic classes, because the school, like the university I went to, did a lot of behavioral science type things in the psychology department, so you had to know statistics, so you had to know math, and you had to so while they didn’t, did give out minors. I tell people I had a minor in mathematics because I had so many garden math classes. But when graduation came, I realized that, you know, I had a lot of school loans because my parents were while we got financial aid, they were my dad was a factory worker at by that time, and my mom worked in a local department store. And I said, Well, I’m going to need money. So I started working. And one of the first jobs I got was a manager job working for a Blue Cross and Blue Shield entity in New Jersey, which is now called Horizon health, and coming out of college at the age of 23 and automatically becoming a a manager. And also did something else that very same year, I ran for a local political office in the town I grew up in, and so we had the structure was a town council and a mayor, and shortly after the election, the city administrator, who was a full time position these the rest of us were all part time people, yeah, and he called me, and he asked me to come in and visit with him. And I went in, and I sat down with him, we were talking, and he said, You know, I’m very happy that you won the election, because you’re a smart guy, and we need younger people getting involved, and this will be help. I ended up being the youngest person ever elected to public office in that community to this day, and I was reelected three years later. But when I sat in his office, he said to me, he said, you’re going to do well, but I’m going to ask you to do me a favor. And I thought, oh my gosh, my first political favor, and I’m not even sworn in yet, but it wasn’t a favor for him. It was life changing for me. And what he said was, when you go to bed at night and you put your head on the pillow, and before you close your eyes, I want you to ask yourself one question, and that question is, Have I done anything today for my own personal self benefit? That was at the expense of another individual, group of individuals or organization? And he went on to say. If you say yes, you did, you have to immediately do two things. You have to figure out how to unwind what you did, and you need to figure out how to never do it again. Do you know I’ve asked myself that question ever since November 1983 Wow. And I don’t think I’ve ever said yes, and that integrity, that foundation of integrity, has guided my life and my leadership, and is the number one pillar that holds up the center of the building’s roof, which is the most weight that any pillar can handle. Yeah, yeah. And so what? At 23 I left that office thinking, Oh, my God, you know I’ve got to follow this pathway. And I can honestly tell you that I have always followed that pathway.
Mark McBride-Wright 10:59
It’s so refreshing, I guess, to because when you step in that world of public service, it’s servant leadership, isn’t it? It’s doing things for the community, for for, yeah, upholding what it represents. And that’s just a really clear question, isn’t it? And really great advice that you got a young age. Because, as you say, it’s, it’s a was the youngest ever in that community, person age.
Jim Carlough 11:26
It’s black and white, right? There’s a line in the road, and you got to stay on that line and and trust me, there were times when I was challenged in my professional career, and I stayed on that line. And, you know, at one point it did cost me a little bit of a reputation issue, because I refused to do something that I knew was both ethically and legally wrong,
Mark McBride-Wright 11:54
yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe some politicians nowadays should be asking a question when they go to bed. I’m not sure they do. I know they don’t. With so you got that advice early on How then did it? Did it shape your because, you know, brick, I want to, like, sort of go on the journey to come up to where you’re at now, with, with, with actually having, like a book on effective leadership, so we can come on to that in a moment, but fill in the gaps then in the rest of your career and and also what you said you did that alongside when you became that manager, so in your 23 in the first job outside of after college and grad school. So how did you find managing, managing that I can imagine that’d be quite, quite difficult.
Jim Carlough 12:49
So someone asked me the following question on another podcast, how does your leadership compare today to that first job outside of college? And my response, I think, shocked them, when I said I was horrible and I knew nothing and no one gave me a road map, and I said, I probably need to find those people and apologize,
Mark McBride-Wright 13:13
who just do what you could with what your natural instincts were correcting to you
Jim Carlough 13:19
and nobody. Nobody has we have a terrible, critical problem. But around the world, I’ve noticed that we, in many cases, we find someone who did a very, very good job at being an individual contributor and said to them, Jim or mark, we’re going to make you a manager. Yes, and we get excited, we’re going to get a pay raise, we’re going to get a title, but we don’t think about what we don’t know, yes and what I’ve learned over the years, and I’ve worked for some great leaders, and I’ve been very blessed. I’ve worked for some crappy ones too. They exist, but I there’s been more good ones than than bad ones. And I have learned and evolved over 30 plus years. And I started about 2520 about 25 years ago, I worked for an organization that was created by Ross Perot. And Ross Perot was probably the greatest leader I’ve ever met, and he cared about every single one of his employees, and those were assets that he would not trade for anybody.
Mark McBride-Wright 14:40
I don’t know who Ross Perot is. Is that so he was
Jim Carlough 14:43
a bit he was a billionaire. He created a company in the 60s called EDS, electronic data systems. Okay? He sold it to General Motors when his non compete and had a board seat on General Motors eventually left the board position. And when his non compete ran out, he basically started another technology company called perot systems, okay? And the principles that he instilled in everybody was that we are going to take care of our people, and he went out of his way to ensure that. I’ll give you an example. If we had an employee, if I had an employee on my team, who themselves, their spouse or their children, had a serious medical issue, we had to notify his office, and we had to ensure that they were getting the best care in the country, and if not, he would fly the family to wherever that best care was, and would, wow, that’s amazing. Who does that today? Yeah, nobody does that today, but I learned a lot from some of those principles. And then they also had a unique thing as well. They had a mentoring program where they asked many of us leaders to volunteer to be mentors of other people. And as I started to mentor people, I realized that a large majority of them were never given a roadmap, right and they struggled. So two years ago, I sat down and I said, I’m getting old. I’m going to retire. What can I give back? And I said, I can give back by helping people be better leaders. So I sat down and I made a list of all of the characteristics I thought were important in leadership, and that list had about 18 items on it. And I said, I can’t write a book and teach people 18 characteristics of things they had to do. It’s too many. I needed to condense it. And I kept condensing it and condensing it and condensing it and condensing it until I ended up with the six that I use in the book. There wasn’t a seventh that I was really married to, that I really felt was had to be there. You weren’t able to go in and dive was too short, too short, or too least. And the one thing about the book that has gotten the most praise is it’s not a lot of theory. And so you’ll pick up somebody’s book and it’s about yo thick, and there’s a bunch of mumbo jumbo in there. You’re not going to find that in this book, you’re going to find the pillar. We define the pillar. Tell you how to implement the pillar. And we do one other thing in the book, we give you other references to people around the world who use that trait in leadership. Ah, interesting. So you can then go and don’t listen to me, but find these people,
Mark McBride-Wright 17:57
yeah, listen to their TED talks or their speeches that have been recorded, that they’ve given and seen how, how that pillar shows up,
Jim Carlough 18:06
correct, correct. And so that’s and so that’s been very, very helpful to people. Okay, the other thing I wanted to do is, I wanted to make sure that if somebody read the book who knew me, that they knew that those were my words. And one thing I didn’t like about the writing process was the editors, right? Editors, want to change your words,
Mark McBride-Wright 18:31
yeah? Chop it up, move it around. Developmental edits, copy edits. Still must make sense. Yeah, I’ve been through that. I’ve been through that, yeah,
Jim Carlough 18:40
and it was very, very hard for me to get people to understand it needs to be my voice. But I’ve been successful because people who read it, who know me, have said the following, I can picture you standing in front of me reading those very words that are on that page that, to me, means I accomplish what I set out to do.
Mark McBride-Wright 19:10
Talk us through the six critical attributes, then the pillars that you put forward in the in the book.
Jim Carlough 19:17
So the first one is we already talked about, is integrity and it being non negotiable. The next two are different, but I talk about them together, because people blur the lines in them, and that’s compassion and empathy. Okay, with compassion, in my view, I have the ability to help you in empathy, I need to put myself in your shoes to try to figure out how to resolve something, yeah, yeah. And so I’ll tell you a story about empathy that also crosses the line a little and shows compassion you. Which, when I worked for a technology company back in the early 2000s we made claim systems for health insurance companies, and we had a claim system. You may be too young to remember this. That was just green screen technology. Yeah, we’re talking developed in the 90s, right? Nope, no mouse, no nothing. And we had also come out with Windows based technology. We had 36 customers who were on this old technology, and I had to tell this team of 25 people that their jobs were going away, right? But I couldn’t afford for them to all walk out the door, because we had to support 36 customers. The implementation time to convert somebody to the new platform would be eight to 12 months, and I did not know how to handle the discussion with the team to keep them from running out the door. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wrestled, and I wrestled with it, and I finally said, if this was me, what would I want my boss to tell me? Yeah, you’d want the truth, no, but so you’ve got a runway to plan and no surprises. Exactly. So I’d made three promises. My only goal was to have enough people on board at any point in time to support the customers we still had to support. Yeah, first commitment I made to them is I would give them as much lead time as I had to tell them when potentially their job would go away. Yeah. So some people had six months. Some people had 12 months notice, which is plenty of time to find a new job. Yeah. So number one, you’ll get the transparency of that. Second thing I did was I said to them, if you want to learn the new technologies, if you were a programmer as an example, right, or if you’re an account manager, and how we’re going to handle account management on these new products, if you wanted to stay and support those new products, I would make the training available to you during the work day, during the period of time between now and when that job would be potentially eliminated,
Mark McBride-Wright 22:30
yep. So they cannot skill re skill on the job, literally on
Jim Carlough 22:35
the job. Not do it at lunchtime, not do it after work, not making him come in early and and so I would make, I would make the time to make that happen. But I didn’t stop there. I made a third promise. I said, if, if you decide you don’t want to stay with the company, I will personally help you find a job on the outside that fits your skill set and fits the financial requirements that you need for your family. Yeah, I hit my goal. Nobody left before it was time, but something else happened that I never expected. About two years into this initiative, I get a call from human resources, and they want to come and visit me. I don’t like it when HR calls and says they want to come and visit
Mark McBride-Wright 23:26
me. Yeah, so dominance.
Jim Carlough 23:30
I knew the moment that they got there, it wasn’t bad news, because they didn’t have an empty box and my boss wasn’t with them. But we we sat down, and I said, How can I help you? And they said, do you remember about 45 days ago we did an employee survey? I said, Yes. And they said, We want to talk to you about the team in California that you have. And I said, the team that’s downsizing. They said, Yes. I said, How bad are the scores? They looked at me, and they said, that’s the problem. What we that we are trying to figure out they’re not bad. They are the happiest people in the company. Why? And they said, why? What did you do? And and so we walked through what I did that’s great. And they the one said to me, Oh, my God, you took everything and put it on your shoulders. They didn’t have to worry. Yeah, yeah. So you know, if you got told your job was going home away, you’re going to go home. First thing you do is tell your spouse that you’re going to update your resume, then you’re going to start reaching out to recruiters. And then nobody did that. And so out of 20,000 people in the company, this group of 20 some people were the happiest in. Employees in the whole organization,
Mark McBride-Wright 25:02
despite the fact that their jobs were coming to an end, on how their current employment was
Jim Carlough 25:08
so HR documented everything so that they could teach other leaders how to do the same thing, which in essence, compassion and empathy. There’s no book on compassion and empathy, and they don’t teach that in business school, and you can only do it by getting into situations where it’s unchartered waters. And I know the leaders are uncomfortable with that, yes, yes. So I want to take that. I want to take that stress away. Because if you have integrity and you show empathy and compassion, they’ll know it’s real, yeah, if you lack integrity as a leader and you try to show compassion or empathy, they won’t believe
Mark McBride-Wright 25:55
you, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that’s a great story to illustrate those, those those three components, and then your other three in the book, the other three pillars,
Jim Carlough 26:11
the next two, are stability and focus. So when I think about focus, I think about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Both are brilliant men. Musk is singularly focused on getting people in space and getting people in carbon efficient vehicles to drive. That’s his sole focus. Yeah, I won’t pick on his design of his cars or his trucks or whatever, because the truck I think is ugly, but that’s my own personal opinion, and there’s a lot of them around. But his focus isn’t changing. And in Jeff’s case, Jeff started selling books over the internet in the mid 90s, and then slowly got into what now is Amazon with where you can buy groceries online and everything else known to mankind. But, but Amazon had a problem earlier in their career, in the early days as they started to expand, before they were national, before they were national, and before the pandemic. And then they grew up everywhere and with warehouses all over the world. He they were known for having horrible customer service, right? And instead of Jeff saying to the guy who the person that ran customer service, you have a problem, you need to fix it, Jeff basically said, If I don’t fix this, my company is dead. And so he took a desk and put it in the center of the customer service department, and sat at that desk day in and day out, listening, watching, documenting and then re establishing what the manager then Need to go implement to give best in class service. Now, some will say their service is terrible because you can never talk to anybody. That is true, but you don’t really need to talk to anybody, because you can even return things online with no questions asked, print out the code and just take it back to them. And so they have figured out a model to make it work and be efficient with less people, but that focus is what made a difference in those two organizations, and still does to this day. Now package that with stability, and when somebody says to me, Jim stability, who do you think of? And I think of Warren Buffett. And Warren Buffett, even though he’s retiring, and I’ll have to come up with another leader for stability. He performs the same way every day and and I think even to your audience and safe leadership, you have to be consistent. And consistent and stable are intertwined. And I’ll give you an example. I was sitting in my office one day and I heard the two women that worked for me on my team. One was a manager that reported to me, and one was a subordinate that reported to the manager, and they were they were account management people, and they’ve gotten to a heated, escalated discussion about how to solve a customer problem, and I heard the voices getting louder and loud. Louder. So I went out, and I asked them to please come into my office. I’d like to help them get through whatever it is they’re dealing with. And I they sat down, and I asked what the problem was, and then they both wanted to tell me that their solution was better than the other person’s solution, and they were and their personalities, I loved both of them. They’re hard, harder workers, but their personalities were like, it’s got to be my way, because I can’t believe I can’t do what you want to do, and you can’t do what I want. But when I listen to them, I gave them an alternative. I said, Have you thought about putting the two together? Because I think you’re not seeing the forest through the trees, and if we do both of these things, does that not solve, not just the short term issue, but the long term issue that only one of you could solve, and you’re because you’re not looking at it in totality, yeah, yeah, yeah. With that, you could see the the anger like exit their face and and the one individual started to get emotional, and so I I apologized for for the reaction she was having. And I said, I’m sorry that this is this is upsetting you. Here are some tissues. And she says, that’s not it. You’re not upsetting me. She said, I’m crying because you’re always right. You always do the right thing. And she said, we were smart enough. We should have been able to figure this out. You didn’t need to intercede, but you did, but you always operate the same way. And so whether my message to leaders is everybody needs to be treated the same, you can’t, you can’t, directly or indirectly, treat somebody differently. Yeah, you’ve got to be consistent and and that is what she was upset about, was I was consistent, and they had worked for me for a few years, so they knew they were going to get consistency, and that creates stability in the team. Yeah, and when you combine these things, that’s when you start producing high producing very focused, very efficient teams that will operate in unison and will follow your vision. How do you
Mark McBride-Wright 32:41
just on the point of treating everyone the same? How? How do you reconcile that against I just want to dig deeper into that a bit with them. When we talk about equity and where we recognize that not everyone starts at the same starting point. Some groups need additional support to achieve equal outcomes, or the starting line for them as so much they have to put in more to achieve the same type thing, you know, because of bias and because of recruitment from preferential Ivy League universities versus other universities or whatever. So when that then manifests in the workplace, can you can do you think you can truly say that you have to join everyone the same
Jim Carlough 33:26
treating them with respect and treating people the same is not the same as educating them in what they need to do? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. So you individual a may need more developmental time to get to where individual B is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And in point, you have to be able to map that out so that you so that you can see that A and B are going to be in the same place at some point in time,
Mark McBride-Wright 34:00
and you’re perceptive to that as the leader, and that kind of feeds into your earlier point about how no one really gets a roadmap, which you’ve now created, like no one really gets a guide on how to be a great leader or a great manager. You’re just and in engineering and STEM careers in particular, you see it all the time. You get these you get people who are excellent technical leaders. They ascend up to a certain level in their organogram, and then all of a sudden, they’re expected to take on expanded responsibility that involves people leadership. And they just don’t have that, that muscle that’s been developed over years, you know? And then guess what? They end up being not the best leader. And then we just either don’t address it, or don’t give them the support that they need to become better leaders, or, at worst, they just stay where they are, and we get this acidic environment.
Jim Carlough 35:01
Or the leader that this one that I’ve seen several times in my career, where the leader consistently, every two to three years, replaces the people immediately reporting to them to hide their own inefficiencies. Oh, interesting. And I call that changing the chairs on the Titanic, because the Titanic eventually hits the iceberg and falls apart, and eventually that leader will not be in that position, but it will take longer for the board or other people to figure that out, because of the fact that they’ve just not done a good job, and they constantly have new people to blame for their for the failures of the department,
Mark McBride-Wright 35:51
no accountability. So humor. Tell us about humor. So this is
Jim Carlough 35:56
save it for last. Because people, people, when they think of humor, they think of Kevin Hart or somebody getting on stage. And it is not that at all Indian, yeah, it is not being the comedian at the water cooler at 10am telling jokes definitely. And in society today, whether it’s where you live or where I live, is hyper sensitive, and so, you know, talking about somebody’s ethnic background, or where they grew up, or whatever you can’t do in the workplace. So humor, to me, is more self deprecating humor, where I point out something stupid or funny that I did, but I only use it in certain situations. Okay, I’ll explain to kick off a meeting, to get everybody focused and to get that their attention, I’ll usually start off with something humorous that does two things. Number one, it gets their attention, but if they know that I can laugh at myself, it humanizes me to them, and they can, and I they can relate to me on their level and say he’s just like us. I did something stupid like that, and, you know, or whatever. So to kick off a meeting, if in a meeting, people are getting too tense and we want to redirect the discussion, I’ll use humor. I’ll use humor in other places, but it’s very selectively used, but it has to be used. It can’t be used inappropriately, because it could create a sense of discriminatory things, if you’re picking on certain people, yeah, humorous way. So it’s none of those things, but finding the right way to do it. I mean, I’ll tell you an example. One of the, I think one of our best presidents we ever had was Ronald Reagan. And President Reagan started every speech he ever made with a joke, and it was usually about a farmer, and it was your something funny or political about the Democrats or the Republicans. But he always had a way of attracting attention and calmness with both sides of the aisle, right? And it was interesting because Ronald Reagan, initially in his earlier days, was a Democrat, and then he converted to becoming a Republican. So I don’t want to get into politics, but he had a unique ability to unite people, right? And humor was a big part of that,
Mark McBride-Wright 38:25
and I think also it’s makes you more accessible, doesn’t it? And relatable and linked to show insides of yourself, there is an element of vulnerability that leaders I find when I work with leaders, they forget about the impact that they have on they forget about the the effect that they have on workplace culture at scale, you know, and for fear of saying the wrong thing, of course, or cause an offense, they they shy away from Engaging on certain topics, and therefore we get this perpetual never actually talking about certain things. But actually, if a leader leans into something, maybe lowers the metaphorical veil a little bit, share something about themselves that you can’t see from looking at them, humanizes them themselves on a vulnerability level that then gives permission for that thing, that topic, whatever that root cause might be to then be be spoken about or shared, or it might encourage others to come forward. And so when leaders do that, they are there, they cast that, you know that leadership shadow across the organization, and I always say to people, you know it’s, it’s you create an emotional reaction in your in your direct reports and across the organization. You know your your signature in an email, your face on the front reception welcome desk, or your your email, email. Address. When someone gets a communication from you or your voice on a town hall, you know it’s you cast a wide shadow in terms of what you stand for and the values you uphold. And so if we can get more leaders being open about the shit that goes on in their life, basically, you know, you know it just, it just makes it all more real accessible. And, yeah, I just, I just think there’s that is still such an untapped resource potential for effective leadership. I feel, I still feel see leaders being, ah, I’m going to do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing, or that’s not appropriate for the workplace. I am this person when I come into work, and what it unfortunately does is just doesn’t unlock the boat. It generally doesn’t tap into what’s actually going on in other people’s lives in the organization. So you get this binary sort of, I come into work, I do my job, and then I go home, and you get people being physically present but potentially mentally absent because they’re preoccupied with the stuff that’s going on in their life. But if they hear that a leader is going through something that I’m also going through, I’m like, oh my goodness, right. Well, let’s, let’s have that conversation. Let maybe I can get some help and support here about the thing.
Jim Carlough 41:17
You’re right, and in fact, I take it as my responsibility to know when you’re having a bad day, if I can sense when you’re having an off day, whether it’s via video conference call or on the telephone or in person. It’s an opportunity for for me to see if there’s something I can do to help you. Yeah, if I see somebody who’s always smiling with their chin a little low, I’m going to intercede and say, hey, I’ll pick on you, Mark. What’s going on today? You look a little off. How can I help you? And you know, if it’s something that you know with their meet, their spouse is ill, okay, well, guess what? Mark is not going to be mentally present because his wife isn’t well. So guess what, Mark, take the day. Don’t take it as a vacation day. Go home and spend it with your wife. Yeah? And those, those things, those little things that you do, add up, yeah, I had a woman not long ago work for me, single mom. Son was a teenager, early teenager, and it was around the end of July, beginning of August, and she had been working extremely hard, extremely hard, and I realized she hadn’t taken any time off, and school is going to go back. And yeah, so I said to her, it’s Wednesday, I’d like you to turn off your computer, and I’d like you to go spend the next two days with your son before he goes back to school. Oh, nice. And I said, don’t take it as PTO, you’ve been working your butt off. I recognize it. So this is my gift. And she argued with me, but and she won partially. She loved the fact that I I recognized it, but she had so much she wanted to finish that week, she asked if she could do that the next week. I said, Absolutely, but you’re going to do it, yeah. And we made sure that she did it.
Mark McBride-Wright 43:18
Excellent, excellent. So how do people get your book? If they want to?
Jim Carlough 43:24
It is available on Amazon. Okay, it’s available on Barnes and Noble. So anybody, I mean, the world operates on Amazon. So it’s available across the world on Amazon. They also can. There’s a site called books period by b, y, and if you do slash and then my name, they will actually ship it worldwide for a flat $5 rate. Oh, right, wow. So books by books, period by b, y, slash. Jim Carlo, no spaces, and they they were offering flat rate $5 shipping anywhere.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:00
Look. Up. Perfect, perfect. Okay, gonna do some quick fire questions. Now, are you good for that?
Jim Carlough 44:08
I hope so. Yes.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:11
I’m going to ask these at pace, you know. So it’s It is that kind of quick fire feeling? Okay? What’s your favorite book or podcast at the moment?
Jim Carlough 44:21
My favorite book is Extreme Ownership, and it was written by a couple of Navy SEALs, because you can’t probably see it slightly off camera here, but it is about, if you were to grow up in the military, you own what your responsibilities are. And they wrote a book about in leadership, you have to own your responsibilities. And it’s very disciplined, and I don’t want to say hardcore, but it’s it, and it sold millions and millions of copies, and they were just coming out with. Another book, but, but Extreme Ownership is my favorite book at the moment.
Mark McBride-Wright 45:05
Okay, are you a morning person or a night owl?
Jim Carlough 45:10
I’m a little bit of both. I’m an early riser, and then I get a second wind after dinner,
Mark McBride-Wright 45:17
you could have dinner with any person. Who would it be?
Jim Carlough 45:22
Oh, that is a tough one. One person I would, and I know this is going to sound terrible, but I would choose Bruce Springsteen. Now from a political ideology. We’re not the same, but from a music and I’m a New Jersey boy growing up and to and we grew up not at the same time. I’m younger than he is, but the experiences that we have had, I think, are somewhat similar, and they resonate in some of his songs, and I would just like to have a conversation with him about some of those songs and the meanings behind them. Interesting.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:09
What’s one app that you cannot live without email? What’s your favorite spot in the world your favorite location? Baseball favorite so a baseball field, okay, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Jim Carlough 46:33
Ask yourself that one question every night,
Mark McBride-Wright 46:37
of course, and if you hadn’t been told about being an attorney, and if you weren’t in your current career, what would you be doing?
Jim Carlough 46:49
I my second choice after being an attorney would have been to be a doctor, and I probably would have tried to go down that path, but I don’t know that I’d be smart enough to achieve it.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:02
What’s a fun fact most people do not know about you?
Jim Carlough 47:08
That most people don’t know that I was elected to public office at the age of 22
Mark McBride-Wright 47:13
and what’s the one word finally that you’d use to define your legacy you’re working
Jim Carlough 47:18
towards integrity? Integrity,
Mark McBride-Wright 47:22
wonderful. Well, thank you very much, Jim. I enjoyed, I enjoyed this our discussion. If people so we’ve covered your book, but if they actually want to get in touch with yourself, so I think you do keynote speaking offers as well and stuff. So how do people get in touch with
Jim Carlough 47:44
you? They can connect with me on LinkedIn. They can connect with me on my website, which is just jimcarlo.com so no periods, no capitals, just www.jimcarlo.com and there’s a Contact Me form there, and I return every call.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:01
Fabulous. Well, we will be sure to add that to the show notes. Thanks so much. Jim. Really enjoyed it.
Jim Carlough 48:08
You have a great day. I had a blast. Thank you for having me. Mark pleasure, all right. Have a good day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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