188. From Mr. Beast to Djokovic: Unpacking Leadership and Performance with Mick Spiers

💭 Can the lessons learned from battling a family illness make you a better leader? 

This week on The Leadership Project, we promise transformative insights as we break down real-life experiences and current events to uncover the core of effective leadership. 

Our special guest Molly McGrath, author of "Fix My Boss," sheds light on the importance of compassion and empathy, while we reflect on the resilience and teamwork needed when my family faced influenza A. 

Discover how these personal challenges translate into actionable workplace leadership principles and why the strategic value of Mr. Beast's charitable acts goes beyond the criticism.

From Arisa Trew’s gold medal-winning mindset at just 14 to Novak Djokovic’s adaptability in high-stakes matches, we pull leadership gems from the world of sports. 

Learn how emotional decision-making plays a critical role in the US election and how understanding this can sharpen your leadership skills. 

As we prepare for next week’s discussion with Lisa Tromba, author of "Mind Knots," join us in weekly reflections on high performance and leadership. 

Stay connected for more insights and empower your journey by following us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Chapters

• 0:00 Lessons in Leadership From Life
• 9:50 Leadership Insights From Resilient Athletes
• 19:55 Weekly High Performance Reflections

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

There is something powerful in self-reflection. Today we're going to reflect on Mr Beast getting cancelled, what we can learn from the Olympics, what the connection is between in sickness and in health and leadership, the US election and our guest this week, molly McGrath. Welcome back to the Leadership Project. This is our first in our series of weekly self-reflections where we reflect on events in the world, what we learn from leadership around us and the takeaways from our weekly guest on the Leadership Project podcast. Sit back and enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Leadership Project. This is the first in our new format. Each week now we'll be bringing you our international thought-leading guest on topics of leadership and then, once a week, we'll bring you this self-reflection show. This is the ability to stop and reflect and think about what we're learning about leadership. We'll be reflecting on things that we learn from our guest and we'll be reflecting on things that we're learning from our lives and from international events around us. In today's show, we're going to be unpacking some really interesting lessons learned. I'm going to be uncovering what's going on with Mr Beast getting cancelled. Is that a good thing or is that a bad thing? What are we learning from the Olympics? What are we learning from the US election. I'm also going to be covering what we learned from our guest this week, molly McGrath, the author of Fix my Boss, and I'm going to be covering the connection between the statement in sickness and in health and leadership. Stay tuned to the end of the show, where I'll be sharing with you the five self-reflection questions that I've asked myself every single day for 11 years, and I'm going to be doing it live in front of you with some of my self-reflection questions from this week.

Mick Spiers: 2:05

Let's start with in sickness and in health. This week has been a horrible week for me and my family. My wife, our three-year-old son and myself have all been sick. We have influenza A. Our little boy, thomas, has been hospitalized for multiple nights. It took an incredible amount of teamwork between Say and I to get through this week and to be there with each other, taking turns to sleep, taking turns to look after Thomas, making sure that Thomas was getting the best possible care that he could. It just so happens that today is also our wedding anniversary, so what a timely reminder of our wedding vows of in sickness and in health that Say and I are always there for each other. We might argue from time to time we're like any other couple, but when it comes down to it, we are always there for each other and we always want the best for each other. My wife Say, always proves to be stronger than you can ever imagine. Her resilience is incredible and these things are sent to test us and one of the benefits that comes is that we do build our immune system and we do build our resilience. We learn to let go of the things that we can't control and focus on the things that we can control.

Mick Spiers: 3:18

So what are the leadership lessons here? Can we apply this in sickness and in health, into the workplace? Whenever we have a key team member sick in the workplace, it's a test of our team's resilience. The first thing can the team cope with a key player being out for a week? Do people know what to do? Do they know how to rally around each other? Do they know how to share the workload? Can they prioritize and let go of things that really aren't that important so they can focus on the things that are important? It's a test of the leader. How is the leader going to be there for the team that are coping with a team member that is out, and are they going to show compassion, empathy and support for that team member that might be very sick themselves or might be suffering with a sick family member at home.

Mick Spiers: 4:12

This is a great test of their leadership, and I can tell you from my personal experience that it builds great loyalty when the leader does the right thing. That has been my experience this week. Leader does the right thing. That has been my experience this week. My leader and my team in my day job have been incredible. My boss has been always there for me, showing compassion, empathy and support, showing me that everything at work was in hand, that I shouldn't worry about work, that my focus needs to be on my family, and showing me that she cares. My team did the same. They all showed compassion, empathy and support to me, asking me what they need to do and how they need to help me, and for me to not worry about work so that I can focus my energies where they needed to be.

Mick Spiers: 5:00

I can tell you that the opposite is also very true. Be I can tell you that the opposite is also very true. If there's a leader out there who doesn't show compassion, empathy and support when a team member is going through times of trouble, it's going to destroy loyalty. When someone is going through these difficult times, they often start asking questions about life itself Are they in the right job and what caused this? And they're in an emotional state and they may make an emotional decision that sticks. So if you've been less than compassionate, less than empathetic and not supportive of that team member that's going through some tough times, there's a good chance that at some time in the near future they might start looking for the exit door. So, yes, we can learn from this in sickness and in health concept all the way into the workplace.

Mick Spiers: 5:55

Be there, build your team's resilience, making sure that when one team member is out, that everyone can rally around them and that business goes on so that the person can focus on their family as a leader. Show that compassion, show that empathy, give that support and you'll build incredible loyalty from that team member. To everyone that shared their best wishes to Say and I, and to Thomas over the past week Thank you so much. It really meant the world to us, that, all of the messages of support and questions about how we are. It really meant something to us. So thank you so much. And to say my beautiful wife, happy anniversary, but also wow you just every day, every week, every month. You prove to be the most amazing mama to Thomas and the most amazing wife to me. Thank you, I love you so much.

Mick Spiers: 6:51

Our next topic for reflection this week is our interview with Molly McGrath. Molly is the author of the book Fix my Boss. Molly joined us on the Leadership Project podcast earlier this week for a discussion about the disconnect between bosses and their team members. Both bosses and team members want the same thing, but we allow communication barriers to get in the way. Leaders are looking for their team members to step up and step in and take accountability for their work. Team members generally want to step up and step in, but don't always feel that their boss is letting them do so. The secret lies in our ability to enable our teams for success and create the environment where they can do their very best work. Leaders should be creating the vision of where we are headed and what makes that important, so that they can inspire the journey that the team is about to go on. Then we look to engage the team in an open discussion on the best way to get there, enabling the team with the right tools in the environment so they can go about doing their thing With empowerment and trust. We should then sit back and get out of their way. This is where accountability lives. When we're able to enable, engage, empower and entrust our teams, they will take accountability. When there's a lack of clarity about expectations or a lack of empowerment and enablement, that's where people resist accountability and resist stepping in. So it's clear that bosses and team members all want the same thing, but it's a lack of clarity in our communication and a lack of empowerment that is sometimes getting in the way. There's a lot of lessons learned in all of the episode with Molly McGrath, so if you haven't caught that episode yet, please do go back and check episode 187 with Molly McGrath, the author of Fix my Boss.

Mick Spiers: 8:50

Our next topic is about the Olympics, and what can we learn about high performance from these incredible athletes that are on the world stage? Right now, the world is completely gripped with Olympic fever and following the fortunes of athletes like Yusuf Dikek. Yusuf is the now world famous shooter from Turkey, who won a silver medal in the 10 meter air pistol. What was interesting about Yusuf is his casual style sitting there in a t-shirt with his normal eyeglasses on, none of the fancy equipment of any of the other athletes, having his hand in his pocket, completely relaxed. The lesson here is high performance is sometimes exactly that. Mastery is when you can avoid distractions around you, when you can remove that interference and just relax, settle in and do your thing.

Mick Spiers: 9:50

A similar lesson comes from Arisa True, the gold medalist in the skateboarding park event. Arisa became the youngest gold medalist in Australian Olympic history. When she won the event, arisa was just 14 years old and she was able to put aside all of the pressure of this pressure cooker event of the Olympics, of you have to get your run right, you have to be perfect. And she just had this mindset that she was skating in the park with her friends and there just happened to be some people watching on and cheering. That was it. She just had a good time and the result spoke for itself. If she had let the pressure of the event get to her, I'm sure she would have made a mistake somewhere along the way, but instead she just had fun. It was just like she was skating after school with her friends.

Mick Spiers: 10:43

Similar lessons can come from Olympic sprinters. You're watching the 100 meters and the 200 meters and you're watching the style of the sprinters as they're coming down that final straight, that when they tense up, they actually slow down. And the ones that are able to relax their body and do what they do in practice are the ones that tend to maintain their speed and get across that finish line, usually in a meddling position. So think to yourself use of die kick, the ability to avoid distractions Arisa, true, I'm just skating with my friends at the park. And the sprinters that don't tense up, that just relax and let know that the work that they've done in the training is going to come through if they relax their muscles and allow their muscles to do their thing. There's many things that we can learn about high performance there.

Mick Spiers: 11:40

And the final note for the Olympics I want to give to is Novak Djokovic. So Novak goes through to win his first gold medal. It's the only tournament in all of world tennis that he hadn't won. So there's a lot of people out there saying that Novak has completed tennis because he's ticked now every single event on the tennis circuit as being a tournament that he's ticked now every single event on the tennis circuit as being a tournament that he's won. Now, what was interesting about Djokovic's victory is that he was up against a very young Carlos Alcaraz, who was also at the top of his game, and you could watch key moments in the match where Djokovic realized they had to find another gear, that shots that would have been winners against other competitors were no longer working, so he had to hit the ball that 10% harder. He had to hit the ball 10% closer to the lines. He had to think through the points to work out how do I find a way to win. And that's what champions do. They adapt. They adapt in real time. They look at what's happening with their opponent on the other side of the net and they work out well, what do I need to do differently to get past this guy? And that's what Djokovic did. So enjoy the rest of the Olympics. We've got another week to go.

Mick Spiers: 13:04

Keep on looking out for leadership lessons that you can take and high performance lessons that you can take from these amazing athletes. We now turn our attention to the US election, and what can we learn about leadership from what's going on over there? I feel that over the coming weeks and months, there may be many leadership lessons that we take from this election. What I'm going to share with you today is proof positive that people make emotional decisions and they justify them rationally. I've been watching the election closely as an outsider who has literally no horse in the race, and I'm seeing people use exactly the same information to justify and rationalize which side they're on. Jordan Kloppo does this really well, where he gives facts to people in a way that it sounds like it's from the other side and watches them get frustrated and infuriated, going yes, this is not right, it cannot be right, until they find out that the person that Jordan was talking about is actually on their side of politics, and then they immediately flip and go no, that's okay. It's absolutely clear that these people are making emotional decisions. Many of them have already decided who they're going to vote on and they just take the facts of whatever they can consume in media or social media to help them support their case for why their decision is the right decision. Any kind of rational and clear thinking seems to have completely escaped people that are emotionally invested in this upcoming election. We'll keep on watching the US election to see if there are other things that highlight the way that we lead, the way that we make decisions and the way that we live our lives.

Mick Spiers: 14:54

Our final highlight for this week is around Mr Beast. For those that haven't heard, there's a movement out there to cancel MrBeast. Mrbeast has become, I think, the first or second biggest YouTuber on the planet and recent times he's changed his videos to be around doing good in the world. There's videos where he's out building a hundred wells for people in African countries, where he's doing things for charities, and people are accusing him of making money from these videos and that he's taking advantage of people's poor situation. The thing that I want to say here is that money fuels the impact. Money fuels the impact that he makes in the world. So of course, he's going to make money from these videos and he's then converting that money into the impact that he's creating by creating these wells. So in my view, what he's doing is incredibly smart. He's worked out a way to unlock value that can then be converted into good in the world. So I absolutely do not see what's wrong on the surface with what he's doing. He also gets. He also gets.

Mick Spiers: 16:19

He also gets accused of what we call the white savior complex, and this is where a person of privilege comes in to save the world. And if that is the case. Well then, there is a lesson in this, and that is if you want to be a better ally, the most important thing that you do is to start by asking better questions. Seek first to understand the problem, to understand what the person needs, before you offer that support. Now, I don't know if Mr Beast did this or not, so when he's building these wells, did he ask the people, you know, what would be most impactful for you before he started the work? I'm hoping he did. I don't know one way or another Around this saviour complex. If we do want to do charitable work, if we want to do impactful work in the world for people that need support, the first thing that we must do is ask them hey, tell us more about your situation and tell me how I can best help you. And it's a conversation and a dialogue before any action is taken. So that may be the one lesson to take around what's happening with Mr Beast, but I certainly do not see any issue in him making money from these videos and then pouring that money back into the next project if he's helping civilizations, if he's helping societies and he's helping people out there.

Mick Spiers: 17:43

So what are my reflections on high performance and leadership this week. For those that are not aware, I've practiced a self-reflection regime every single day for the past 11 years. I asked myself the same five questions what went well? What didn't go well? What would I do differently next time? What did I learn about myself and what did I learn about others? I ask myself these questions every day to help me become a better leader, a better father, a better person, a better husband, and I encourage you to do the same in your life. What I'm going to share with you at the end of each of these weekly high performance and leadership reflections is some sampling of the self-reflection questions from this week.

Mick Spiers: 18:33

So here we go. What went well this week? Resilience my family and I proved to be more resilient than we'd given ourselves credit for. What else went well? Compassion, empathy and support. We received that from my team at Siemens, my leader, my boss, my team that supported me throughout all of this. That's a great lesson to remember how that felt when people were there for you, so that when you see others going through the same thing, that you're there for them as well. What didn't go well? Well, clearly, the whole family being sick at the same time was not in our plan for this week. What would I do differently next time? Take the flu vaccination earlier. We absolutely missed the boat on this one.

Mick Spiers: 19:24

What did I learn about myself? I am stronger than I think. What did I learn about others? My wife? She is stronger than she thinks and always puts others before her own interests. What did I learn about Olympians? Learn about the power of releasing tension or stress for high performance, about avoiding distractions and interference, and about being adaptive and finding an extra gear when you need it. So that's it.

Mick Spiers: 19:55

This is our first weekly reflection together.

Mick Spiers: 19:58

Next week, I'll be joined by the amazing Lisa Tromba, author of Mind Knots, where we discuss the deep topic of psychological bias and how to best work with your own bias for greater results.

Mick Spiers: 20:13

This will be followed by our second installment of weekly high performance and leadership reflections. If you are finding this content valuable, please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast service. You can also subscribe to the Leadership Project YouTube channel to get our weekly videos, video podcasts and live streams designed to help you become the leader you wish you always had, to help you become the leader you wish you always had. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Project at mickspearscom. A huge call out to Faris Sadek for his video editing of all of our video content, and to all of the team at TLP Joanne Goes On, gerald Calabo and my amazing wife, say Spears. 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.