160. Special Announcement with Mick Spiers

In this episode our founder and host, Mick Spiers, makes a special announcement.

Due to popular demand, The Leadership Project podcast will now be broadcast twice per week.

Initially, this will be to get through a backlog of guest interviews.  These are interviews we have recorded over an extended period of time.  Our guest share their time, wisdom, and insights on leadership with us and we owe it to them to share their episodes in a more timely manner.

In the near future we will switch to having one guest interview per week and one solocast where Mick Spiers will share his leadership insights of the week.  These will be reflections from the guest interview together with leadership insights from current world events.

We would like to thank you all for your support of The Leadership Project podcast.  This includes our guest and our committed audience that tune in every week.

You have helped us to be in the Top 20 of all leadership podcasts worldwide and for that we are eternally grateful.

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favorite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organization here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

www.mickspiers.com

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/9811824568

If you would like a signed copy, please reach to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too.

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Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

In today's episode of the Leadership Project. It's going to be a solo cast. It's going to be with me and I'm going to make a special announcement about changes to the structure and the frequency of the show, so stay tuned for that. I'm also going to be unpacking some of the lessons that we took from the amazing interview with Hasan Soreles, talking about how we can take leadership lessons from great literature and how we can put those leadership lessons into practice. Lifelong leaders are lifelong learners and we need to be paying attention to the world around us and working on our craft every day. So sit back and enjoy the show and working on our craft every day. So sit back and enjoy the show. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Leadership Project.

Mick Spiers: 0:49

Today we have a special announcement we are deep into season four and this is episode 160. I want to pay a huge thanks to all of our guests and you, our dear audience, for your support, as you have made us in the top 20 of all leadership podcasts on the planet. With your support and encouragement, we're going to be moving to two episodes per week. Initially. This is going to be to get through the backlog of the many episodes and interviews that we've already got recorded. Amazing guests have shared their time, their wisdom and their insights with us, and sometimes it's taking a long time from the date of the recording until the episode goes to air, which is not particularly fair on them when they want to get their message out there. It will also help us to make sure that the show's content is more timely, where we can build upon world events. There might be something happening in the world and we can be more reactive and get shows out there in a more timely manner. Then in the future we'll flip to a model where we'll have one guest per week and then one solo cast. So we'll have a guest who's a thought leader in their subject from somewhere around the world that will share their wisdom and insights with us on one episode, and then the solo cast will be myself sharing leadership reflections with you, will be myself sharing leadership reflections with you. Those leadership reflections will include what I've personally reflected on from the guest. So what were my takeaways? What were the things that I'm going to put into action from the things that I learned from the guest? And other leadership reflections will be about things that are happening in the world. There could be something to do with the US election, or it could be some other event that we're all aware of and we all want to reflect on and see what leadership lessons that we can take from it. In today's episode I'm going to give an example of that, where I'm going to unpack the things that I took away from the amazing interview with Hasan Sorelle's. That will be the example of the future format. So, coming very soon, two episodes per week. Initially, two amazing guests, thought leaders in their world, sharing their leadership insights with us, twice a week on the Leadership Project podcast. Then in the future, one guest and then one solo cast reflection. So we look forward to bringing you these two episodes per week in the very near future, in fact, starting from today.

Mick Spiers: 3:42

Earlier in the week on the Leadership Project, we were joined by Jesan Sorrells. Jesan is the founder of HSCT Publishing and the host of a podcast called Leadership Lessons from the Great Books. Jesan shared with us that leaders are readers and leaders are always learning. Lifelong leaders are lifelong learners and we must always be looking to sharpen the saw. If we want to become the leader that we always wish we had, or to become the leader that our team deserves, we need to be experimenting and applying a learning cycle every single day, reflecting on what's working, what's not working, what we need to do differently so that we become a better leader every single day. Part of that can be through readership, so getting out there and reading the great books. If we are paying attention, there are leadership lessons everywhere we look, whether that be in classic books, things from ancient literature or even modern classics like Good to Great. There are so many leadership lessons out there for us to take and pay attention to. It could be things that are happening in your life, could be world events, but if we're not taking the time to stop, reflect and think about what they mean, we aren't necessarily learning from it. So leadership and readership go together. Some of the examples that Heisan shared with us were things like the application of emotional intelligence from Jane Austen or leadership lessons from war and peace. They're all in there, but are we paying attention?

Mick Spiers: 5:29

A key question was in a ever-changing world and the world now changes at a pace that's unprecedented in history how is it that these leadership lessons still apply today, centuries later? In some examples, the answer lies in human behavior and human psychology. The principles of leadership do not change over time, because leadership is about human beings and human beings have human needs, whether it's our need for survival, our need for love and belonging, our need to matter, our need to have fun, our need for freedom, the freedom of choice, the freedom from oppression. These are all fundamental human needs and they're at the heart of leadership. All leadership is about how we relate to other human beings and in these great works of literature, people have studied for centuries about human psychology and human needs, about human psychology and human needs. As Jesan eloquently put it in the interview, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, the famous quote from Shakespeare. So leadership, regardless of what we call it, these principles have stood the test of time.

Mick Spiers: 6:46

It also applies to the dark parts of humanity. We're all humans and humans are all fallible. So we have our issues that we're going through, and in the great literature we can unpack the dark parts of humanity, the things that don't always go well, the battle between good and evil that runs through every human heart, this battle that we have about what's the right thing to do versus the wrong thing to do, being able to take lessons from someone else's struggles because, let's face it, none of us have got a perfect life. We all have our battles. When we're able to read in literature that other people have been through the same things that we're going through and take those lessons from that, it can really help us to advance in life. It also helps us in the search of fulfillment. Many of the great works of literature help us find the meaning of life in that search for true fulfillment and true purpose. Another key question is why does it work? Why is it that these amazing works of literature are able to share leadership lessons over centuries of time? Well, it's because emotional storytelling makes it stick. When the literature is able to bring a leadership lesson into storytelling that makes us feel something, we're always going to remember it for a longer period of time, particularly if that storytelling is something that is relatable to the experience of what we are feeling, we can then connect to the literature and take away the lesson.

Mick Spiers: 8:28

Jesan also shared with us his tips on how he takes away these lessons. As mentioned, there's leadership lessons all around us if we're paying attention. But we need to pay attention and be able to sort through it to make sure that we're finding that meaning. So, as Jesan put it from the famous Carnegie quote we're not looking for the dirt, we're looking for the gold. So it's our ability to filter through and sift through the content to find the substance. The next step is reflection to be able to take that lesson and reflect on what does it mean to me? And unless we do that reflection, we will find no meaning in the lesson that's right in front of our eyes. And after this we can start putting that reflection into applied learning. It's not learning and knowledge that changes the world, it's applied learning that changes the world. We need to be able to put what we learn into meaningful action.

Mick Spiers: 9:33

Jesan broke down some of these concepts in his three Cs that we need to be able to look at these lessons with clarity, candor and courage. Clarity is that ability to sift through and find the true meaning of the lesson that's right in front of us. Candor is to unpack the truth, and courage is to be able to speak about that truth and put something into action. We also discussed that our own human psychology may work against us, so some of our own needs are competing in this regard. We need to be open to new ideas, and this is not always easy If we're going to be candorous and have the courage to speak up and reflect on leadership lessons or other lessons in our life. It may battle against our need for love and belonging, and our need for love and belonging may outweigh our need to be right, or our fear of loss may be greater than our appreciation of gain from having that candorous and courageous conversation. So sometimes we'll be battling against ourselves, but great things happen just the other side of our comfort zone.

Mick Spiers: 10:53

So to be able to take these leadership lessons that we observe in life or in the great works of literature, to sift through and find the clarity of the message, and to have candorous and courageous conversation about what it might mean, this also means challenging ourselves to be able to let go of things that we thought were true and hold space for new information and new truths, to avoid confirmation bias, where we might be only reading or hearing the things that we want to know or want to be true. We need to put those biases aside and, as Otto Scharmer would put it, we need to listen with an open mind, an open heart and an open will. And, of course, when I say listen, I mean listen, read, absorb, however you're taking in your information. We need to be putting aside our previous biases and holding space for new information. We also need to be ready to challenge our own thinking. When we have these thoughts that cross our mind, our interpretation or our perception of events, and making assumptions about what other people are thinking and what their intentions were, we need to challenge ourselves with questions like do we know that to be true? Do we know that to be true? So, when we make an assumption about someone else's thought pattern, their intentions, the way they're going about the world, we need to challenge our own thinking every single day as well if we want to be a better leader From here.

Mick Spiers: 12:29

It's about putting rubber on the road. How do we put it into action, and this is where experimentation comes in. So we take these leadership lessons from our world, from the great books, from wherever you're consuming media and literature, or even your observations of human behavior around you, and now it's time to put our own experiments in place. So we try something, have the courage to try something new, something that you may not have seen other leaders do, and give it a go. Go and then observe and stop, reflect and think about the results. Did it work? What about it worked? Did it not work? What about it didn't work? What would you do differently next time? What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about others? And this is how we become a better leader over time by learning every day, then trying something new and observing the results.

Mick Spiers: 13:30

Leadership is like having your own personal petrie dish. I know that probably sounds a little crass, but it's true, and what works today may not work tomorrow, so you need to keep on evolving over time. It's also true that what works for one person in your team may not work for another person in your team, so you need to be practicing adaptive or situational leadership so that you can adjust your leadership to different people and different situations. Through all of this, we become a better leader. The bonus in all of this is that we also then go on a path which is our own pursuit of happiness and fulfillment. There's a lot of literature out there I really prescribe to the work of Martin Seligman around the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment and the thought about the differences between the pleasant life, the good life and the meaningful life. And the meaningful life is one where it is about each other, about how we support each other, how we serve each other, that true fulfillment comes in the service of others. And when we're able to do this, when we're able to learn from books, put the learning into practice and then experiment and become a better leader over time.

Mick Spiers: 14:51

The funny thing happens is we become happier and more fulfilled in our own life because we start seeing that meaning. We start seeing that we do matter as leaders. We matter to the people that we lead and we can be the huge difference between whether someone has a great day at work or a really bad day at work. People spend up to one third of their life in the workplace. That's a huge responsibility that we all take upon ourselves as leaders to make sure that that experience is the best possible experience for them. Everyone deserves to work in a workplace where they feel seen, where they feel heard and when they feel that they matter. And through your leadership, you then start to develop your own feeling that you matter because you do. You do matter to the people that you lead. You matter to the people around you. So that were the lessons from hey San Sorrel's To be able to take leadership lessons around you, to be able to filter out the substance from the content, to be paying attention, to have that clarity, canter and courage to stop, reflect and think about what you're observing and then to put those learnings into practice through applied learning, your own experimentation of what works, what doesn't work, and to become a better leader. Every single day You've been listening to the Leadership Project.

Mick Spiers: 16:24

Today's episode was a first example of us going to two episodes per week. So keep an eye out in your preferred podcast player. Make sure that you're subscribing to the show so you get those notifications when we do publish new episodes. Initially, there'll be two guests per week. In the future, there'll be more shows like this, where there'll be personal reflections on leadership from the guests and from world events around us. In the next episode, we're going to be joined by Fleur Heazlewood. Fleur Heazlewood is a crusader for mental health and for work-life harmony.

Mick Spiers: 17:02

Join us as we dismantle this badge of being a workaholic where some people wear that badge with pride only to realize that it's weighing them down and we reveal how true high performance is inextricably linked to well-being and that when we focus on our well-being, we actually achieve a higher level of performance. So stay tuned for that and in the meantime, please do look out for each other as we learn together and lead together. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Project at mickspiers. com . A huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers. I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to the Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.