Leading from Within Series - Episode 1： What's Driving Your Leadership Actions？

Most leaders are chasing strategy when what they really need is clarity of identity. Because here's the truth, identity is the root, strategy is the fruit. If you don't know who you are, you're always going to lead with anxiety instead of alignment.

And the problem is, many leaders only realize they're performing for approval instead of creating from alignment. Let's talk through the strategy on how to become a better leader.

Welcome back to the Get Lit Podcast brought to you by the Leadership Ignition Team. I'm Shane Beckham.

And I'm Mike Hough. And today we're going to start a new three-part series called Lead from Within.

This series will consist of three episodes where we're cutting through the noise, regaining control of your inner world and leading from alignment, not anxiety.

Yeah, that's right, Shane. today's episode one, the identity shift leading from the inside out. So for the next 25 or 30 minutes, we're going to unpack why leadership does not start with what you do. It starts with who you are becoming. Well, Shane, let's start with who am I becoming? Because too often as leaders, we focus on what we're achieving, our numbers, our titles, our goals. But those things don't last if they're not rooted in our identity.

So that's exactly right, Mike. If your identity is fragile, your leadership will always be reactive. So two examples I want to give you here. If you're making decisions to please others, to avoid criticism or to keep control over situations or people, that's called performing. However, true leadership is from creating and you create that from alignment.

Well, so we start with who am I becoming? And I think the next question is, well, what truth about myself have I forgotten? Most of us started leading because, you know, we had passion, conviction. We love the energy of trying to, trying to get something accomplished, purpose, but then all those noises creep in, right? Pressure and expectations and comparison, self-comparison was one of the worst. So alignment means stripping that away and remembering the truth that grounds you.

So here's the kicker about that, Mike, when your identity is solid, your leadership will expand. So that just means you're not, you're not weighed down by trying to prove yourself constantly. You're leading from freedom, not fear. I love that statement. What we thought about that earlier is just, if you want to lead from freedom and not fear, what does that mean? So let's ask our listeners, right? So we've all asked ourselves our questions, you and I, where are you leading from? Are you leading from fear and not freedom? That's the time that you have to write stuff down, call yourself out, call it out. When you lead from freedom, your team will follow you. So, take that a step further, Mike, Can you kind of give me an example of this theory, right? And how that shaped you into who you were, who you are, and who you want to be.

Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I think this just for me boils down to the whole concept of authenticity and leadership. Early in my career, Shane, I was acting like what I thought a good leader was. I was always the first guy with the answer. I would make quick decisions often without all the information, and I would push my department's agenda out of respect, without respect for what other people were experiencing going through to make sure that my group looked the best. What's interesting is that's not the way I live my normal life, man. I mean, I'm not that way with anyone else in the world. Yeah. I'm always ensuring that I gather other people's opinions when I want to make a decision. I'm, I still am usually the first one to fire an answer, but man, if you want to correct me, I'm all ears. And I wasn't that way at work for whatever reason. I was performative. I was trying to act like something I wasn't. It wasn't until I recognized that being performative instead of authentic is when I started to change and frankly, it just it allowed me to gain more influence by doing that Shane. People do not want to follow somebody who's not authentic. They do. That's not who I really was, because you can just see it. It's not that they knew they lived with me in my home and they knew what I was at home, but you could just feel it when it doesn't feel like that's actually who that person is. And so I'm sure it was a combination of a few direct boss to mic conversations I had where I remember some of them quite plainly, where I was learning was not leading as I should be. Uh, and I'm sure, you know, the sting of some of the failures to see my team not be successful or to, to lose great people who are on my team that I thought, you know, they were excited about being on my team to find out later on they weren't because I wasn't an authentic leader for them. And so, you know, for me, it was all about this idea that I knew who I wanted to be as a person and who I wanted to be as a leader. And so I started to write down these things in terms of my core values, not the company's core values, the stuff on the wall that hopefully folks are aligned around, but who was I going to become and what did I want to be as a leader in that authentic self of myself? And so, you know, instead of trying to create a whole new person out of whole new cloth as a leader and to act a certain way, I was just taking who I was and injecting that in my leadership. And for me, Shane, that made all the difference in the world. And I'd love to hear from you, man. What ways have you ensured to remain authentic in your leadership style and what benefits has it generated for you and your teams?

So one question on that is, you know, when did you see that you needed to make that shift?

You know, late 20s was kind of the timeline that I figured it out, right? Always a little more hot-headed than I needed to be, a little more, again, just perform it. I was acting the role of a leader instead of trying to really become a leader. And I think mainly, I think the biggest change was when I went to the executive MBA program at Kellogg and I was a, you know, late 20s, early bloomer in that program. The vast majority of folks in there were in their 40s and 50s and they were long-term executives in their industry, Shane, and they were killing it. And what I learned around them, it was easy to be humble in that group. It was easy to learn and to just be quiet and to listen for once. And what I learned wasn't all the stuff they knew. What I learned was all the ways that they performed around that stuff. And so for me, that was the greatest lessons I could have pulled out of that.

Well, I love that. One, that you recall that specific moment that you felt the need to change. But two, you know, type A personalities are very driven people. And whether we like it or not, we constantly feel like we need to be pushing the path forward. And you know, oftentimes we just have the initiative or our brain processes, our way is the best way. And that's not always the case.

It's almost never the case. I mean, we, you only have one brain. do you have a collective team of 10 or 20 or 50 if we're going to use just one brand?

So, you know, defining that leadership within from the inside out, one, you have to recognize that and many leaders do not. They, they perform their entire career through vast macro management, micromanagement, and they lose key people on their teams because they never could figure out that my way or the highway is simply a flawed way of thinking. So in your case, it sounds like you took some practical analogies from people that have been doing this much longer than you. You relied on others' wisdoms, but you made a key point there. You were more like the owl instead of the eagle when you went to that meeting. That's right. Speaker 3 That's exactly right.

You listened more and talked less. That is very difficult for some leaders to digest because you talk about this, and we talk about this in some of the future episodes, if you constantly feel like you're the smartest man in the room, you're in the wrong room. You know, so you realized your place in that setting, you took notation and then you had application of that. So I love that part of your story. I just got some, some nuggets that I picked out of that. And it was kind of curious, you know, when you, when you moved in that direction, I guess, last question to follow up to that is, did it stick? Or did you have to constantly remind yourself?

Not totally immediately at the beginning, Shane, you know, like, like all things we're trying to change behaviors. I, it was conscious that I wanted to get better. I wanted to be a better leader because I had this desire where I ultimately wanted to go with, with my career. And so to me, it was, uh, it was an imperative that I figured out how to get there, but I wasn't perfect at it, man. I mean, I would still slip back and do the same old stuff, but at least this time I became reflective. I would think about it. One of the ways that I still reflect every day is I write down at the end of the day, what are all the things I said it was going to do today and did I get them done and not only did I get them done, but how did I get them done? How did it feel today? What did I think about how my performance today? How can I be better tomorrow? Who did I upset today that I didn't intend to upset and how I'm going to fix that tomorrow. Right. So try to do that in real time, but sometimes you don't get it always right. But yeah, it's not perfect today, man. I'm sure I screwed up today on an item that I haven't reviewed yet.

So you're saying you're giving yourself an after action report every single day. And when you say that, what are you limiting to? Is it unlimited? Are you writing down until you get everything dumped or are you, Are you just saying, okay, this was my core list of things that we're going to do today. This is an ABCD grading scale, and then this is some ancillary things. So is that, is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah. So, uh, one of the great, uh, uh, topics of, uh, can't remember the book. So I'm gonna scratch that. What's the name of the book? Where you're caught in the whirlwind. God, what's the name of that book? We read it two years ago. Anyway, I'm just going to use the phrase here. Okay. Let me mark this. Yeah, it's, no, it's too easy to get caught in the noise of all the things that go on in the day. It's, it's being caught in the whirlwind is a great phrase. It's that's used about that Shane. And I, it's funny, my entire team uses that phrase. Now we talk about the things that suck you in versus the things that you're, that you had on the agenda to be conscious about going back to the things that are on the agenda. So no, I don't go through every little detail of what happened in the day. But if I had three primary priorities, how would we get them done? Uh, did we get them done? what's left to go tackle tomorrow to ensure we close the loop on those items.

Perfect. I just wanted to kind of give the lead, the listeners, some examples of your application of leading from the inside out based off when you discovered what you needed to do and how still today, you know, some 25 years later, you're still applying things that you learned then in a practical manner, which I love. So that's, that's qualities of a good leader is having that application factor. So for me personally, you know, a couple of things that I, I talk about having a chip on my shoulder, which unfortunately I still do. Um, you know, that's one of the biggest flaws that I've had is I've always felt like I've been owed something, like I'm owed something, like I did this better. I deserve this accolade. I deserve this title. And I feel like when I get that, it made me feel better for all the hard work I've done, all the sacrifices that I made, you know, give me the glory, the fame and attention, all the things. Reality is just because you may be the first one in the parking lot in the morning and the last one to leave, or you may be the one that never misses the deadlines or goes above and beyond without being asked. When we strip that down, none of that really matters. You're giving a job and how you interpret that job is how hard you work and apply yourself. Now the trick for me was I was obsessed with no one could do it as good as I could. And that's not a good leader. That's poor leadership. One, you'll work yourself in a grave because you're constantly trying to do everything. And when you try to do everything great, guess what, you're not doing anything good. And that's the difference between being a good and great leader is learning how to delegate. So to me, it was, you know, go way back. You know, I was in the generation and I don't lean on things that happened in my past, but it did trigger some things like I was constantly told, you know, by my dad is, you know, well, that was a good running back play, but you should have tried to be the quarterback of the team, you know, so, you know, hey, that's a that's a good grade or that was a good job at work, but you should have. When you do that, you start to develop this little bit of a chip that you have to be the best at everything. But unfortunately, I have the type of personality that lended to that. The Marines probably amplified that. But once I had that chip on my shoulder that I had to be the best at everything that I did, that also created a massive problem of a product in my leadership, which was I became a massive bottleneck. I didn't realize I was a micromanager, but I actually was. And I was the bottleneck. I was the reason that things coming down, it finally hit that choke point. And then when I had all of the puppet strings, it became a problem. So to me, what I've had to take a hard look in the mirror, because I didn't feel like this was me. And I was, I also realized I was a bit of a narcissist. I didn't realize how bad I was until I took a step back and someone pointed out some things to me. And I was like, man, this is reality check. You're not nearly as good as you think you are. You need to learn how to let go of the vine. So now, Mike, to me is being vulnerable and being humble enough to know that if I want to take myself and my businesses to the next level, I have to be willing to be more like that owl and listen to others and take that and look at them and smile and do this while it's coming out the other side of my head, right? I can't be that person anymore. So what I have done is I met, had a fortunate experience the other day. We were at the FitBody conference and I had a small moment of time to where it was just Bedros, Kilian and I, and I asked him one question. I said, what's one piece of advice you would give to a business owner in today's world that is currently growing or trying to grow at a rapid pace? He had one, one word answer, systems. And I looked at him and he said, young man, without the right systems, Doesn't matter how good you are, you will fail. And that's exactly right. Because when I dove off into the current world, I'm in, I didn't have the right systems in place. We have to learn like you're going to have those stumbling blocks. But if you don't realize Mike, that you can only be so many things to so many people, you eventually will sink the ship. You have to give out those, those delegations and authorities, because last point I'll make on this is, you know, when I first opened, I thought, And there there's never going to be another coach that's as good as me on the mic. I am the standard, right? Nobody will be as good as me. That's flawed. That is a flawed way to think. And now I sit back and I think, man, I really don't want to coach a whole lot anymore because these coaches are better than I am. I love that. I've recognized it. So to me, it was trying to find ways to continually chip away at this chip on my shoulder that I'm owed something and I am the best and give me all the glory to where this is all relative. And I tell my team this all the time. I said, the clients are not coming to this gym to see me. They're coming to the gym to see you. And I wouldn't have it any other way. So inner me, Mike was flawed in thinking that I was better than everyone else at what I did. Now, sure. That is a mindset you want to have to a degree to be the best at what you do. But however, isn't it special when you can teach your team to do things better than you next man up, right? If the next man up from you is better than you at what you do, you have succeeded in your job. So that's kind of my, um, recollection of what I've wanted to change as a leader.

You know, I got a comment about some of my, my background and another question for you based on yours. So once I figured out that the mission was to make people around me as good, as good as they could possibly be, and hopefully that means they beat me, uh, I made a personal goal to have a significant role in the development of at least five other CEOs in my lifetime. That was a key dream of mine. Right now there's three of them out in the marketplace and they're all better than me in a lot of ways, in almost every way, and it's so much fun to see what they're doing now and how they're growing and so that's, that's the best part about leadership is the ability to reach behind and pull up and then hopefully pull through. I mean, that's what you just said is so profoundly important. So how'd you figure it out, man? What happened in your life? What, where did you, where did, where did it start to turn for you? I, and before you answer that question, yeah, I was thinking about another partial answer to what you asked me. And I don't know if this is part of your answers, just maturity. You know, some of us take a long time to get our shit together around who we truly are as people to be comfortable enough in our own skin, and I think that was a big part of my problem was I w I was, I was acting because I wasn't sure exactly who I was and it wasn't until I became a little bit more sure

and a little bit more sure that it made a difference for me. Was that similar for you? To a degree, um, you know, I still struggle with this. Like I still struggle with what I just talked through because I just, it's still so hard for me to let go of some things, but to me, it was, leaving the corporate world, the last two corporate jobs that I had, both were in the paving industry and I worked my way up nicely and the feedback that I received, I couldn't continue to brush off, you know, and basically it was you, you, you, you're not so much a micromanager, but you won't let go of anything. We would have given you more help. We saw you drowning. We offered to throw the life vest and you wouldn't take it. While in my mind, I was helping the company by not adding extra payroll or these other things. I had a flawed way of looking at that. And finally I started noticing that they weren't wrong and I didn't notice it fully until I dove off into my own world. And I'm like, I don't have anybody else to give this to and I'm dying to give it away. And that's kind of when the maturity and everything you're talking about took over to say, if this gym is going to survive, I have to have a team of warriors that line up behind me and hold the high standards. And I teach to where if I get hit by the bus tomorrow, they are able to step in and this gym runs because that's the reason we opened it. So I don't know if I'm really given a great answer here, but it's just been from the realization of the past year and a half of hard knocks, collectively take that back and I'll look back at my life, at the years I wasted to where I could have brought up and did what you did and brought people up, but that's just it, Mike, I didn't want people to get too close to me. That became a threat. Now I no longer see anybody I employ or work with as a threat. I see it as an opportunity. I want you to succeed and I want to give you all the tools in my toolbox to help you get there because eventually I want you to be better than I am. And I don't know where that flips that switch flipped. It did actually start to flip when I started working on myself. You know, you, you fast forward back or rewind back to the time, right? when we started really putting ourselves in check physically, mentally, emotionally, writing down the to Bs. So all of that was a, was a combination of how I recognized I needed to be, find the different person inside me and take the time to teach instead of do.

Well, I, I think that's excellent. I, you know, what I'd like to do now is just kind of talk a little bit about with, with the audience. you know, how do you do some of the things that you and I are doing to try to, try to improve? And again, we're not, this is not perfection. This is a everyday opportunity to try to get a little bit better. And let's tell folks about one of the tools that we use. We talked about it a little bit in this, this, uh, section so far, but, uh, it's, it's called the voice check. It's, you, you have voices in your head all day long. You talked about, uh, being concerned about those that you brought up. What if they got better than you? So now you're listening to the voice of fear as you're, as you're making that decision, right? Maybe your boss, you think your boss wants you to, like you said, wants you to be there first in the morning and last in the day and crank out the most stuff and maybe so, but that's a tactical job. What your boss really wants is somebody that's going to help them look better and to help drive their team and to be the outcome. But if you think that that's what your supervisor is looking for, then you're listening to the voice of approval. About that, you know, I think one of the things that a lot of new leaders get stuck on is this idea that I'm trying to get somebody to notice me. And so I do all the extras. And you know, when you think about entry, entry-level workers, the best customer service agents, the best grocery store clerks, whatever, become the supervisor. What training do they ever get to actually lead somebody else as a supervisor? Zero. And so if they're not listening to the other voices, not the voice of fear, not the voice of, of, uh, making somebody happy, you got to listen to the voice of alignment to be a leader, that's, no one's going to teach you how to do that. that's going to have to come down to you. Hopefully you've come across a podcast like this or read a great book that makes you understand. The voice check is the most important thing you've got to do. Listen to the voice of alignment with your to be list, with your objectives about who you want to be seen as a leader, your truest self, your values, your purpose. That's the only voice you can listen to.

Now, I agree totally with that, Mike. And like you said earlier, you know, it's not uncommon, you know, in fact, if we were to take a poll, people that lead out of fear are greatly higher than people that lead out of freedom, if they're being honest. How many leaders do you know lead with freedom and feel like they have that freedom?

Well, and I would change that question slightly differently. Of all the leaders you do know, who are your favorite leaders and what did they lead with? Was it freedom or was it fear?

And that's a small list, right? Small list. You can sit and think real quick and say, OK, this, this, this. then you start running out of names. Can you're like, man, but you know, to your point, the voice check is a valuable tool and you're exactly right. You have to find the alignment and move away from some of those other, other things. So some of the things that you can do when you get, feel like you're getting pulled in different directions, pause and ask yourself these three questions. A, whose voice is this? Am I doing this to impress somebody or am I doing this to move the needle of my business? Right. You can also find yourself in that situation quite often. Like, is this a move that makes me look good on social media? Or is this a move that makes my bank account grow? Because we both know which one's the most important, but how often do we go for that shiny object syndrome? You know, so ask yourself, whose voice is this? Is it moving me in the right direction? Second thing, is it noise or is it truth? Man, get on social media. It's hard to just, it's hard to discern what's what anymore, isn't it? It's just, you know, you've got the, you got AI every, you know, you've got a whole lot now, you know, you know if the video is real or not. So now not only do we have to discern if this noise, is it even real or is it truth? So what I say to people all the time is if you really want to know the answer to the question that you're struggling with most, you're probably not going to like it, but sit somewhere in silence and no longer than probably 10 seconds, it will come to you. The answer will come to you about what you need to do. However, most of us won't act on it because it's not the answer we want. Find the silence, listen to yourself, and it will guide you through that. What aligns with who you want to become? I said, you know, my thought on this was the power of no. If you're constantly feeling like you're being moved in directions you don't want to go simply because you're too nervous or feel like you always have to say yes, start saying the word no and see how that feels. Because most people will respect a no, then they will a yes and you not show up. either A, physically or B, mentally you're just checked out. I tell my employees this all the time. I will overload you with work because my mind is working 24 hours a day. My expectation to you is to tell me when to stop or to shut it down or do what you need to do because if you don't, I'm going to assume that you are welcoming this. And that's not on me. You have to tell me no because if you don't, like if I continue to ask you, "Can you I'm to this meeting. Can you get on this? Can you do this? If the answer is always yes, but the first time, you know, show me the first time you show up and you're not there. Guess what, Mike, the chances of me asking you again or moving you into a leadership position, just lost some steam. Now that could be interpreted a different way. I'm pushing too hard, but whatever. But if I, if I tell you that's my expectation. So all that to say with that voice check is when your boss or anyone, may your wife, anybody asks you something, have to learn the power of no. They write books about that. I recommend you read them. So if it's not, if it's noise, you got to let it go. If it's truth, then I, we ask that you act on it.

Yeah. Today, Shane, you know, we talked about identity shift and the whole idea of identity shift is difficult. It's changing outward identity to inward identity. So moving from performance to gain somebody's approval to alignment with your own goals, your own strategies, your own objectives, because until you lead yourself from the inside out, you're always going to be chasing instead of creating.

So with that, Mike, you know, talking about last point here, you're talking about leading from the inside out, you know, in your, in your line of work, Do you feel like it's commonplace for people just to go through the motions, even at the highest level of leadership to where they are scared to show their true identity of a leader because it's not the norm or afraid of what someone else might say, do you see that in your culture?

I don't see it in my organization's culture, but I do think that that's the direct result of the kind of culture we've created, which is, you know, fail fast, fail hard, go take chances, be yourself. We, we don't want robots. We want people who are going to think and drive and lead outcomes. And frankly, it's necessary in my business, Shane, there's not a lot of overhead. There's not a lot of people that are, that can sit back. And we talk about all the time. If not 100% of all the boats are rowing in the right direction, it's very obvious when someone's sticking out and not, not pushing and taking chances, but for the businesses that we serve and for the businesses that we're around, we do see it a lot. We see, you know, specifically where there's a lot of places to hide, where it's easy to bury yourself a little bit and not have to stick your neck out a little bit. And, you know, look, I'm in the world of private equity. I've just taken a personal belief that I'm going to do absolutely what I believe is right. And hell, my private equity firm may not like it and they might fire me for it. Whether it be a decision around a strategy or a decision around a customer engagement, I do, whatever. I, I have all, I gather as much information as humanly possible where I think it makes sense. I ask their feedback and guidance, but sometimes I just make decisions, man. And if they don't like it, they don't like it because we're, I'm built and we're building an organization around the idea that in order for us to be successful, you got to take risks.

You know, one of the, one of the things I know I say, and I'm sure you say as well to, to employees or teammates, wives, friends, I'm not going to get onto you for making the decision. Speaker 3 Make a decision.

And if it's wrong, we will, we will readjust, reframe, refocus, and we'll, we'll move towards the right direction. I'll get onto you for not making the decision and constantly asking me to make it for you. That's the difference. Be that leader from the inside to where you don't lead with that fear. Because leadership begins at the bottom floor. To your point earlier about the supermarket, the leadership is anybody that's on your team. They are leading at some avenue in their life. We have to learn as leaders to empower that, embrace it, and then teach how to lead at each level of it, because that's the missing ingredient in a lot of entities in corporate worlds and any entity is leaders are unwilling or just don't make the time to teach leadership, leadership practices. And then when they promote someone, they're frustrated because they're not good leaders. What it, who the hell ever taught him how to lead? Some of it's self-induced, but you can make someone into such a great leader. if you put a little time into them. So my last point to that is shameless plug here. People ask me all the time, how did you do this? That I had a coach or I asked advice or I had a team come and consult me just like you and I are willing to do to anybody is you have to learn the practical principles that you may not think about because you're in it. And when you're in something, you're blind to a lot of things. We know that to be true. That's why you always want to come and get that third set of eyes. Why do you think you have a CPA? Why do you have other things outside of your business line? That's somebody that's not in it. So leadership has to be developed. It has to be nurtured even at the highest levels, which is what you and I are setting out to do to help people is we're not the best at this. However, we have both been in the game long enough and realize a lot of mistakes to where we can help teach leadership at practical levels that you can quickly implement to your teams. All right, shameless plug over there. So let's talk a little bit about the next episode, Mike, because this is part of a three part series. The next episode is one of my favorite topics and it's how to regulate the room. Won't get too deep into that. We want to be a little teaser there, but once your identity is rooted, the next challenge is your emotional discipline, which we talked a little bit about the red, green, and blue. We won't be going in those lanes again, but you have to own the state of your motion so you can set the tone for everyone you lead.

I can't, I'm excited for that. I think that's one of my favorite topics is why we started on that very topic very early in our podcast series. But if today hits you, share it with another leader who's stuck in performance mode. Take the voice check this week as well. We encourage you to use the tools that we talk about in the show and see how much noise you can cut out.

So Mike, this has been the first episode of our three-part series from Lead Within. And remember, identity is the root strategy is the fruit. My friend, this was a great first episode. I know I learned a lot. So what do you say? We close this episode out. All right, Mike, great episode. And remember as always, get lit, baby. Bye everybody. See y'all. Speaker 4 Thank you for listening to the leadership ignition team podcast. Go to our website at www.leadershipignitionteam.com to subscribe to our weekly newsletter, engage with us and find again favorite podcast networks, Spotify, Apple podcasts and YouTube.