The show’s guest in this episode is Todd Long. He is a business owner, leadership strategists, facilitator, executive coach, author, and team energizer. He is passionate about helping people become more confident and mindful leaders.

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Building Confident Leaders and Healthy Teams with Todd Long

Hey, it’s really great to be here live with you today. I’m Melanie Parish and I have been thinking about my own life, my own leadership. And I had a conversation with a really great coach today who asked me the question, Who do you want to become? Or what do you want to become? And I’m enamored with this question, because the first things that I was like, really, that popped into my head were like, all the things I didn’t want to become like, I didn’t want to be boring, I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to be unfit. I didn’t want to be mean, I didn’t want to be. So there were all these didn’t want to BS. And then I, as I started to think about it a little longer, I started to think of the things that I really like about myself, and I want to continue. So, you know, I feel like I’m pretty generous. And I want to be that I want to be abundant. I want to be kind and compassionate. And then I started to realize I want to become somebody who’s better at having hard conversations with collaborators like to not resolve conflict, like one layer down from that when you just don’t know, you know how to do it with somebody. And instead of getting scared, I want to be just really skilled. And so I want to become more of that. But then there were these overarching, like, Legacy kind of questions that came up. And I realized, I get nihilistic really fast, like, life has no meaning. And it all comes down to joy. For me. It’s all about like, joy in the moment, and then how can I help other people have more joy in the moment? And like, I felt like I had a really big canvas when that was there. And I think I might need more challenge in there. But I thought I would share that question with you. Who or what do you want to become? And why? And so that’s sort of my question for the week for you. And I am super excited about our guests today.

Today, I am welcoming business owner, leadership, strategist, facilitator, executive coach, author and team Energizer, Todd Long, Todd is passionate about helping people become more confident and mindful leaders. And he has a brand new book just coming out, which I am so excited about, called performance leadership, inspiring growth in others. And I am so excited to have him on our show today.

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So welcome, Todd.

Thank you, Melanie, I appreciate the introduction. And I love your question that you pose to the audience I was processing that I was I was waiting to come on and, and thinking about what my response to that would be. And what I loved is at the very end of it, you said joy, and that’s really been stirring in me lately, like this whole notion of how do we live a life of joy and everything that we’re doing and everything that who we are and the people we get to interact with? And and so when you said that joy really resonated with me, because that’s something I’ve been focusing on lately and thinking about and processing, and how does that manifest itself in our in our lives? So very cool question. Let’s, let’s explore there.

That’s nice. And you’re like becoming an author. I don’t know if you have another book out already. But like, as your book comes out, you become, you know, sort of a published author, which is a cool becoming as one. So congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah, no, it’s it’s quite the journey to write a book, which you I know, You’ve we’ve been talking about, you’ve written a book as well, and got through that process. And, and so yes, this is number one, the first book, hopefully, there’ll be another one at some point, we’ll see. We’ll walk through this process, but it’s been. Yeah, I think the process of writing a book is something that stirs in you, at least for me, it stirred in me and probably 20 years ago, the notion and ideas and thoughts that kind of accumulated over the years to then get themselves to a point where I felt compelled to put them on paper, and then felt compelled to then kind of edit that and work through that process and put it out there to the world. And my hope is that it’s valuable, right. That’s the, I think that was kind of my underlying motivation finding and writing this is can I write something that will be worthwhile for people? And will they find value in it, and help them particularly in the area of leadership development?

And if you distill it down, you know, to the essence, like, what’s the thing if there was like one sentence? I know, you probably have, you know, more than a few pages about this topic, but like, what’s the thing you want people to leave with at the end? Like the couple of sentences, that’s the most important people thing that people would walk away with from your book?

Yeah, great. would say, I, as a leader, have more confidence and helping people grow through the learning go through the learning process. And I’d say that’s that probably puts it in a nutshell, I can have the confidence help people move through those, the phases of learning the growth phases, as I call them, and feel better about myself, and be able to do that well, because that’s an area, in every business, every walk of life, every every role, we have almost, that we have the opportunity to help people grow and develop and get better if we’re willing to do that. And then I know that a lot of particularly young managers, they get this responsibility of like, I got this team, and now it’s my responsibility, make sure that people on my team actually know how to do their jobs really well. And yet, I, I know how to do the job really well. But do I know how to transfer those skills or help somebody else do the job really well. And they find themselves lost and trying to figure that out and navigating that. So? So yeah, so that’s, that’s the bottom line is help people get the skills to be able to do that.

And I think in leadership, you know, I had a client who was in finance, and she was like, okay, so I spent four years in undergrad. And then I spent two years getting my MBA, and then I worked as an accountant for three years. And then I got promoted into leadership with no learning, no skill, no way to get those things. And all of a sudden, I was supposed to be successful, and I wasn’t. And so I think this happens all the time and leadership that we, you know, somebody’s a subject matter expert, and all of a sudden, they’re supposed to be an expert in leadership, and they don’t know how.

Yeah, no, I find Yeah, I find that as as well. People get promoted up, because they’re really good performers. And they do a great job. And, and they’re valuable. And then they see some potential and they spend, they see the opportunity to take on this responsibility. There’s maybe a little ego in that as to as far as Oh, wow, I get to be in this role. And then it’s like, wait a minute, how do I actually do this? Do this? Well, and there’s so many scars, you know, I mean, there’s so many sets of skills that it takes to be able to, to lead a group of people. Well…

What do some of those skills are like, I love hearing? I love these.

Yeah, no, I think I think that’s great. Oh, my gosh, I think well, let me let me I’ll give you the VI I’ll call it the VIPs. So the VIPs is my little acronym for this. So what I mean, I think probably every leadership book you read, there’s about vision, and how do we how do we create and craft a narrative that says, here’s the future state that we’re going towards, and the skill set to be able to think about that one, and then to be able to craft that and the message that people are like, Yeah, that sounds that sounds compelling. And it can’t be too far reaching? Right? The vision can be too big, that’s like, that’s ridiculous. We’re not going to get there. But it can’t be too small that people are like, that’s, that’s too easy. And so being able to find that, right, the skill sets of being able to craft that vision, so that’s the V, I would say, then, then the then the I as the involve, how do you draw people in and connect with them in terms of the relational connection, and also understanding what their strengths and gifts and talents are, and then what their motivations are, and drawing them in to the team into the experience into the work. So they said, they’re seen as valuable, and you see them as valuable, and then you can engage them in what’s happening. So so that’s the I sense, the V, there’s the eye, and then the P is the people development. Like that’s, that’s the book right performance leadership is really are fully around having inspired growth and others, and how do you grow and develop the people around you both on the technical skills they have to do but there’s also skills in terms of soft skills and interpersonal skills and, and skills that just navigating companies and or relationships and all those things that take place. So the vision involve people development, you got to have the acrostic. Right, as your as a leadership development person. And then the last thing I’d say, just think about strategy. As you think about how do we strategically arrange things and think about things and put them in order so that we can actually get to that vision, as well. And all that, I would say, is not like it’s not independent. I think that’s the mistake many leaders make is like, Well, I gotta be the one that has division. I got to be the one that does all the involving I got to be the one that does everything. Well, that’s not true. You actually, I would say, as a leader, we have to engage the interests of others and how to draw them in and get their voice. So I don’t have to craft the vision by myself. I can invite other people into that crafting process and think about that, and creating the that I can involve people in the people development side, it’s like, Hey, I have to have a relationship with you, to help you understand where you’re trying to go over to help you develop the skills that comes to mind. Yeah. those are on top of my head.

Well, I’m really curious, like, I, I know, we all talk about growth, we want to, you know, the the title, the words that are in your title, like, everybody wants performance. Everybody wants leadership. Everybody wants to be inspiring, everybody wants. If I’m a new leader, how do I how do I start to make sense of all those?

Yeah, yeah, well, I’ll use it from this framework. Alright, so from a performance leadership framework, the way I make sense of that is, first of all, we have to recognize where people are in a company’s growth phases. And so I’ve put laying We’ll reach to where people might be whatever skill they’re learning and developing. So there’s these four phases. One is the consideration phase. And number two is the practice phase. And number three is the self sufficient phase. And then we get to the Excel phase. So there’s these phases, we go through anything and everything that we want to learn. And so just having language to help someone understand what phase you’re in, can help also then set expectations and begin to think about, okay, what do you need now to take that next step, and through this through these growth phases, and, and so whether it’s, you know, I picked up the ukulele a few years ago with my oldest daughter, and we started playing the playing around with the ukulele. And so we considered, we sat around, we thought about do I want to learn how to play the ukulele. So we considered that right, then I wouldn’t bought the $80 ukulele, because I wasn’t gonna buy the $15 one, because that wasn’t going to work for it, well, I was gonna get something that was decent. And then we started practicing watching YouTube videos and talking to the people and strumming along and figuring out techniques. And finally get to the point where we can actually play, play the ukulele a little bit and sing a little song around it. I’m not the Excel phase in the ukulele world yet, or ukulele if you want to pronounce it properly clerk correctly in that room, so but you take that whether it’s the ukulele, or you take that in terms of creating the database, or computer programming, or running a new software system that does does your finances, for your business, whatever, whatever you’re trying to learn. We’re all in different phases of our growth process. So what is just giving language to where we’re at in that process with a given task? Right, and we have to be careful, be careful, because no person is great at everything. Or our goal in our job is to be really efficient, and really good, good at each of these tasks. But it’s not great. Everything’s we have to recognize where we’re, where we’re continuing to grow in that specific task.

And I mean, this was an interesting question, I think from a point of view of, you know, people have strengths and weaknesses, should you be, are you focused on your strengths are effective focus on your weaknesses are focused on? Like, where do you fall in all that?

Yeah, I’ll lean into the strengths side of things. That’s where I would, I would lean into that, in terms of recognizing what are your natural talents and gifts that you have, where your natural kind of draw would be drawn towards and want to do and can be most productive. And that’s I would lean into that, that side and try to help people develop it. Now, I also get there’s a realistic aspect in certain people’s lives is like, I need a job, they need to make money, and I need to provide for my family. And it’s understood to do the job, right. So I may not be fully manifesting everything I love to do right now. But I just got to go do the job.

Well, I noticed that there’s a whole set of strengths that every leader needs, like, you can’t think I’m not very good with people. So I just don’t do that. Like there’s, there’s actually more in the leadership than in the technical skill. Like there’s literally skills like you just I don’t think you can walk away from empathy, because you’re not good at it. Like I think you have to, even if it’s not your strength, I think you have to double down and figure it out. Like how, how will you appear empathetic? If you don’t feel it? will need that.

Yeah, well, then, and then think about that. Because I love I love you said that because I think about effort you for leadership talks about what are the derailleur? What are the things in your skill set, if you don’t have oh, man, you’re just gonna go off the tracks and it’s not going to be worth, you’re not going to be as effective that might be one of them empathy, or even the ability to communicate a clear message as a leader, like if I don’t have that skill set to communicate a clear message to my team, then I’m going to flounder and it’s going to be really difficult, whether it’s a written message or a verbal message, and I need to work on that. Now, what I’m curious about is, and this is where I’ve tried to reframe sometimes strengths is like, what are your strengths that might help you be more empathetic? Alright, so if I can look around me, and maybe I’m curious, maybe have a strength of curiosity? Well, if I can take that strength of curiosity, and then weave it into this idea of empathy, or maybe that I can start moving myself a little bit towards empathy, as well, you know.

And it’s interesting, like some of the, the rules in HR give you guidelines for empathy, like I was, I had a conversation with somebody, and they had an employee on short term disability. And they were like, I need to reach out and find out what the plan is. And I was like, they’re on short term disability, what do you, you know, maybe you want to wait till they get to long term disability, and then you can naturally reach out to them, but maybe they don’t know the plan on short term disability. And it was interesting to just sort of think about sort of the I think we have a lot of people out right now in the world on disability of some kind, because I think people got really burned out during COVID. And I’m just really noticing this with my clients and I think we want certainty so we want to know when they will return, but the fact that they’re out on some kind of mental health or disability of some kind, they may not know I mean, and and so pressing them for certainty because it’s uncomfortable. That’s sort of the that’s part of the job of the leader to grapple with. She was like, you know, my client was like, but I’m stressed.

Yeah. So what I heard in that what I heard of that is like, they’ve got an employee that we she wants to be empathetic with, but she can’t, because the barriers that HR law says, I can’t reach out, have that conversation to be empathetic. But also what I hear in that situation is this strain of like, I’m down a person, and I need to make plans and figure out when that person is coming back, or how to how to how do I navigate my workforce here, with with one person gone? And I don’t know when they’re coming back?

Well, when I work with teams, or any, you know, group of more than one, we look at the system, and that we I call it a third entity inside of my organization and relationship systems coaching, but we call it a third entity, and that third entity has a need. But as soon as you remove a person, your third entity is different. And so everybody has to get their feet for a minute, which I’m saying exactly what you’re saying just with different language, but it is interesting that the entity itself changes. So when we feel that whiplash of, you know, hey, it feels like a whole new team today, we got to start, why are we starting from scratch, we’ve been doing this for years, what we’re doing from scratch, because that person filled roles, they filled gaps, they, they did things naturally on the team, like, you know, they may have been the one that ordered the coffee or something like, you know, things can just follow up. And so can be really a little, it can be a little bit crazy making when we lose a team member. And if we lose, you know, and if we lose them sequentially, then it can really throw a team for a much longer time period than 100%.

Well, there’s the emotional state of that, too, that, that we I think oftentimes back to your point of empathy, like, there’s an emotional condition that’s happening here, whatever took that team member away, there’s an emotional responsible from the leader and the other team members in that moment, and recognizing and being able to process those emotions a little bit. So we can kind of settle those down, and then be able to move forward. Because if we’re just stuck in this emotional state of like, Oh, I’ve lost the team member. And this is really horrible and terrible. And all I’m thinking about is how horrible and terrible it is, and my I have all these restraining emotions, then I won’t be able to move past that and get to the point where, okay, wait a minute, let’s, let’s find a way to move through this anyway, and settle ourselves down and figure this out. So but I think we have to acknowledge that emotional condition, which is important. That’s an important aspect of learning. We don’t acknowledge the emotional condition. And we’re missing a key point in terms of our own team development or individual development.

Well, and what I’m noticing is the way that you use language is you’re talking about learning in any emergent thing that is happening rather than, hey, I’m going to take a course and I’m going to skill up and I’m, I’m identifying something, but you’re actually talking about learning and growth happening sort of in real time. And I think that’s really interesting. Yeah.

And I think that’s, I think that’s where we probably get our most valuable learning is in the mental experience. Now, the class, the workshop, the podcast, these kinds of experiences, where we learn, we get some knowledge, we’re thinking about it and processing prepares us a little bit for the moment, but nothing prepares us more than, you know, the moment that happens. And you’re like, wait a minute, now I have to I have to really change our leader to do something differently.

I did here once that from Well, I heard it more than once. I need somebody who used to say education is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. That just popped into my brain right now.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. compels me to think of a kind of a huge moment in my career. This several years ago, I ran an outdoor ropes course or challenge course, if you’re familiar that industry, but basically we bring youth and adults out, we take them through different experiences to help them grow as a team leader. Well, the the location, we had this huge giant course with high core structures and low core structured Well, a tornado happened to come through and destroy the course. I mean, literally an f4 tornado came right through the middle of our campus location we were at having to be in at the time, I won’t go into that, that details, but it literally like there’s the business I’m running, gets destroyed. And I’m like, Okay, what do I do now? Oh, and then the emotional strain of that. And he was like, wow, this is it rocked my world in so many ways, then then I had to kind of settled in and reassess what it what are the what are the resources we have? Are the people we have? Who are what our clients need that kind of readjust to keep this thing going and make it even better than it was before. And, and but it’s still, you know, those those those tornadoes come through? Whether they’re literal tornadoes, or whether they’re other tornadoes, they will come through, and they’re going to happen in your business.

And what do you think so important when a tornado comes through? Metaphorically or real?

Yeah, yeah, no, I think most, I think most important is, and this is probably where I’ve had to learn as a leader is I have a tendency to just kind of bypass the emotional condition, I have to pause. But you know what, this is hard. This is difficult. I’m upset and angry about this, I might be sad about this, I might I have to, I have to be able to process that a little bit in a safe place with the right people. And I might then have to help the other people around me process that a little bit as well. And think that I think there’s always this place, you gotta be careful with that emotional brokenness, emotional conditions, you know, go into rabbit hole, and then you’re just stuck down in the pit, right. But there’s some healthy processing that so that, to me is important that also I think, just to pause and assess, what are the actual resources I have to fix this problem? And then begin to go, okay. Like in the challenge group, Mike world with the ropes course getting blown over was like, Well, I have insurance money. Okay, that’s cool. I have a huge, I have a great staff. Yeah, that’s gonna help I have a great staff at the company that built the channels course original. So I started looking around, you start to go, what are the resources I have? When the when the tornado comes through? And then how can I use those resources. And then third thing comes to my mind as I think about what’s actually in my control what’s outside of my control. So if we can just do an assessment, okay, these are the things I can actually have influence on. And all this stuff out here. I got to, I got to let go of it. Even though I want something to change out there. I gotta be able to let go of all that and be able to go okay, what can I actually influence at this time in this moment with the resources I have? Recognizing the condition that we’re in?

You know, it’s it’s so interesting. I mean, we’re talking about a tornado. But my, my husband’s aunt and uncle actually had their house burned down. Oh, man in in Oregon in the wildfires a couple of years ago. Yeah. And they have rebuilt on the same land. And they’re almost done. And their house is really beautiful. And they’ve been posting pictures of the old house, and the new house. And the new house looks stunning. It’s like because the other house they’d add did additions and things like that. The new house is planned and, you know, beautiful, but my question was, are they okay? Like, I don’t know if they’re okay. And they did so many cool things like they, they took the China that was the pieces of China, they found and made, like stones for the garden out of them, like just these amazing things. And I think they’re okay. But it’s like that emotional piece in this moment. I’m just absorbing how important that are we okay, what do we need process P is, is because you can rebuild almost everything. It’s just what the losses on that journey. And I just am curious about what that is for every organization about every, you know, big change that comes, you know, how do we be okay. At the end of it?

Well, it’s interesting, too, when I heard that stories, they they use pieces from the old to build into the new as a memorial like we can’t, we can’t forget, like all the memories of that house, all the things that happened in that in that environment with those things. And yet, sometimes it takes the loose kinds of things that happen in our lives to create something new push us forward and have something out there. Yeah, I’m sure everybody responds differently in how they manage that. But yeah, that’s the and that’s that sounds similar to the story with the challenge course, like we got this brand new challenge where like, the end of the end of the rainbow story is like, Wow, we got to practice I got to practice with one course for three years it got destroyed. What can I do differently to make this even better, so we actually built a much more robust course and actually drove the business that made And even better. And so that was that was that was part of that experience. I think there’s oftentimes even in our worlds when things get kind of destroyed or knocked down, it’s like, Hey, how can we rebuild, relearn, regrow and see what the beautiful thing is the other end of it? And hope for that, right?

Yeah. Where can people find you, Todd?

Oh, great question. So, lead. So www.leadkc.com is my website. So you can check that out. There’s also the so I have a separate website from the books, that’s p for leader. So P number four leader.com is the website for that you can find out information about the performance leadership book there, and workshops and other things that are connected to that performance leadership, LinkedIn and on LinkedIn. And we feel free to reach out there as well happy to connect with people in that that environmental.

So that’s great. And it’s been such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, thank you, Melanie.

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Well, that was a really fun conversation. And one of the biggest takeaways for me for this conversation is that such it’s such an interesting idea. To think about the fact that the vision doesn’t have to come just from the leader, we can have these conversations that develop our vision. Vision can come from everywhere in the organization. We can throw out drafts and we can get feedback or we can actually engage people in a preliminary conversation about vision. We don’t have to decide on our own. I hope that you have some really interesting vision conversations as you include the people in your organization’s into the visions that you’re creating. And go experiment.

Important Links: 

• Lead Innovations – website
• Todd Long –  LinkedIn

Todd Long

President / Owner, Leadership Innovations

Todd…
• Is passionate about helping people lead with confidence.
• Loves dynamic facilitated interaction.
• Believes in the power of collaboration.
• Holds tightly to his faith and values.
• Inspires with a steady confidence.

He has served tens of thousands of people around the world over the past 25 years, building confident leaders and healthy teams. Todd believes in experiential interactive learning that challenges people to think deeper and discover application.

Professionally – Todd is a leadership adviser, facilitator, speaker, author (Performance Leadership – Inspiring Growth in Others – Book), and executive coach.

Personally – Todd is a husband, father of five, piano player, ukulele enthusiast, song writer, motorcyclist, exerciser, and faith builder.

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