Books, Leadership, and the Expectations We Carry

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel

Welcome. I’m Bill Berthel, and this is the Get Emergent podcast. Our team at Emergent has worked with leaders from all different industries at all different levels. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the 20 plus years of our business, it’s that leadership is a continued conversation. We’re glad you’re here. All right, we’re back to Get Emergent with Jeremiah M. All right, so today. So we were talking about. So what topic do we want to either discuss or share? And you have this great idea of what if we picked a passage in a book for one another and respond, converse about it?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. Because we’re always. We’re kind of always talking about the books we’re reading, and we talk to leaders. People will say, man, you guys read a lot of books. And so, I thought, I wonder what book Bill would come up with.

Bill Berthel

So, quick confession. I listen to probably more books than I actually read. Good point. So I’m listening to a lot, but I’m reading as well. But, yeah, agreed, agreed.

Jeremiah Poulsen

What are you listening to right now?

Bill Berthel

Oh, I’m listening to several things.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Well, besides the voices in your head.

Bill Berthel

The voices in my head are loud. I’m working to finish listening to David Brooks, The Second Mountain.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Okay.

Bill Berthel

It’s a phenomenal listen or read. David Brooks, very famous author. This book is mistaken as a midlife crisis book. It is not that at all, but it has been somehow thrown into that genre. I know it’s a little funny. I don’t know why it’s funny. I’m not having a midlife crisis.

Jeremiah Poulsen

I’m not having a midlife crisis.

Bill Berthel

I had that a while ago. Nothing against midlife crises, but it’s resonating really well. So it’s interesting how we can find the books we read. I think we trust one another a lot, or we trust people around us to make book suggestions.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

But this was a really unique way for me to find what I’m currently listening to. How about yourself? What are you reading or currently listening to?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Actually not making this up. I’m reading To Slow Down to Go Faster.

Bill Berthel

Oh, awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

One and only Rolf Simone. Listen to that. Which is strange. Sometimes I’m listening to it, and then I come in the office, and he’s sitting there, and I’m like, whoa. It feels like I’m just continuing the book listen right now.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

I’m listening to that. I’m also, I love listening to, like, fantasy books. It just takes me.

Bill Berthel

I knew that about you. I don’t think about that about you, but I knew that about you.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, that’s. I like the imagery, the vision, the poet. That’s cool. The creativity of that really blows me away.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. So how do you want to choose? You want to do paper, rock, scissors? What? How you want. Who goes first here?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Oh, yeah. All right, first shot.

Bill Berthel

All right, ready?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Rock, paper, scissors. Wait. You shoot, you shoot. Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot. Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot. There we go. All right, I’ll go first. So we’ll do this. I’m gonna read this. I’ll read it, and then I want to hear what you think about the reading. This is The Outward Mindset, and it’s

Bill Berthel

been a while since I read that.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Well, good. All right, good. Refresh. Love this read. I won’t say too much about it because I kind of want to get your raw, unfiltered thoughts.

Bill Berthel

All right.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Little passage I read, but it’s part of our Emergent Leader recommended reading.

Bill Berthel

Yeah, yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

And it, it comes up for me a lot because there’s this. Well, I don’t, I don’t want to say too. I’ll read, I’ll do the reading and

Bill Berthel

then we’ll bias me too much. Yeah, yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

We’ll bounce back and forth.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. All right, sounds good.

Jeremiah Poulsen

It’s from chapter four, titled Seeing Truthfully.

Bill Berthel

Oh, no. Already. Go ahead.

Jeremiah Poulsen

With an outward mindset, I am alive to and interested in others’ needs, others’ objectives, and others’ challenges. I see others as people. With an inward mindset, on the other hand, I become self focused and see others not as people with their own needs, objectives, and challenges, but as objects to help me with mine. Those that can help me, I see as vehicles. Those that can make things more difficult for me, I see as obstacles. Those whose help wouldn’t matter become irrelevant to me. Don’t confuse introspection with an inward mindset. One can introspect in a self centered way, which would indicate an inward mindset. However, a person also can introspect about one’s connections with others, which is the very essence of what we are calling outwardness. Sometimes it is helpful to look inside to see how one is connected with what is outside. What do you think about that, Bill?

Bill Berthel

There’s a lot in there.

Jeremiah Poulsen

There is. That’s, that’s a lot there.

Bill Berthel

There’s a lot in there. And so my, my somewhat hopefully jovial response when you, when you share the idea about truth is in my head. I tend to subscribe to the scientific method when truth is mentioned, and the scientific method asks us to think about three different types of truth: self truth, social truth, and objective truth. And they’re all important. One’s not better than the other. Self truths. All they need is self to say that’s true. It could be rooted in belief, it could be rooted in knowledge. No one else might subscribe to that truth. All you need is it that for you, self truth. Right? So there’s a little bit of, I think, too deep of an inward introspection that could go all the way to a very deep self truth that could be serving. Maybe it’s not sometimes. Right. Let’s not judge it yet, but. Right. That could be a deep, deep dive into self truth. Social truth requires a shared truth with some group of other people, right? So that might be, might be a team, right? At the workplace, might be an organization. In your house of worship, it might be your congregation. There’s a social truth that we share. If we shared a social truth, someone else could interview us both and we would provide very similar, same answers right towards that truth. It does require others. Right? So to me, that starts to go to the outward. I need to get past my introspection. I need to get out and socialize my truths with others and see where they match up or where they don’t.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Like, that would be like a cultural norm.

Bill Berthel

Could be a culture. It could be in a culture. It could be as small as it could be just in a partnership or any type of relationship, one or more. I can have a social truth with one other person or a team or an organization or community. There might be a social truth that the whole globe shares, the whole world shares. An objective truth is absolutely measurable, objectively proven. Right. So the scientific method likes to get towards more objective truth. Right. So can we measure this thing? It doesn’t discard personal or self truths or social truths. It needs to investigate those too. But it’s looking for objective truth. So can we measure it? And to what degree of reliability can we measure that thing? What I got from the reading was an important reminder. Thank you for sharing that. I need this reminder right now: is that if I do too deep of introspection, I am missing the opportunity to look outwardly. And there’s such richness in that too, isn’t there?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, yeah. And to. So the way I hear the, the personal truth, the social truth, and the truth is I would frame that as perspective, preference, and priority in some ways, like the or the principle, the priority, or the principle is the objective, measurable, true thing. That is kind of we, we can run up against it all we want, but it’s still going to be true. It’s still a principle. It’s the law of gravity. It’s those things that are steady and stable.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

And to that point of like my truth or my, my own inner dialogue, the perspective or preference that I have, if I dive, if I spend too much time perseverating over that, prioritizing that as if it’s a principle for everybody. Yeah. Then I can start making that a weapon against other people rather than a bridge to build connections with others.

Bill Berthel

Sure.

Jeremiah Poulsen

And I think what, at times, is kind of what provoked me to go back to this is many times I’ll be working with leaders or talking with folks, and they’ll say, like, I got time for that. I got time to do that introspective work. They might not use that language, but I just got to do the work. I’m just going to do work. And I think, as much as there is a danger in the over navel gazing or whatever people want to call it, there’s a power in recognizing what that inner world is, what that truth is for you, or what that perspective and preference is for you, so that you can pave the way to better connections with others.

Bill Berthel

Yes.

Jeremiah Poulsen

And serve them. And that’s kind of the overall theme of the book is how do we keep an eye on the pains, compassions, goals, ideals of others and then build a bridge to help them get there with the outward mindset.

Bill Berthel

I love it. Thanks for picking that.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, welcome. I’m gonna, I’m probably gonna go back and reread the whole thing now. Feel like it’s a. Ah, I gotta

Bill Berthel

check to see if I still have that in my library to listen to.

Jeremiah Poulsen

So what do you got?

Bill Berthel

All right, so I chose the book Mastering Leadership. It’s by Robert Anderson and William Adams. So, they wrote this book. They wrote Scaling Leadership, which is an excellent read as well. They’re the founders of the Full Circle Group that we do our Leadership Circle Profile 360 Assessment. I know you’ve taken that, but that’s not the reason I chose this. I chose this for the passage because I think you’re gonna do a better job expanding this topic and explaining it than these guys did.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Don’t set it up too much.

Bill Berthel

That’s why I chose it for you. So I was torn between two different passages for this. So we might get to do this again maybe in a future podcast as well, because I think it’s a neat idea. So it’s actually very early in the book, and it’s called, I’m just going to read a small. The beginning passage of what’s called The Promise of Leadership, and it’s meeting the high bar of expectations.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Okay.

Bill Berthel

All right, so it’s The Promise of Leadership, Meeting the High Bar of Expectations.

Jeremiah Poulsen

All right, I’m just going to close my eyes. Yeah, listen to this.

Bill Berthel

Don’t fall asleep.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Beautiful voice.

Bill Berthel

Yeah, that’s right. All right. So when we step into positions of leadership, we make a whole set of promises we may not know we’re making. These promises are profound and come in the form of high, often unspoken expectations. Understanding, managing, and living up to these promises defines our leadership. We all expect great things from our leaders, and these expectations constitute the promise of leadership. Leadership expectations come in two forms. One, explicit expressed expectations for certain outcomes that come with the role and that show up in the leader’s job description. Things like fiscal responsibility, accountability, strategy, execution. Number two is implicit, unspoken expectations that stakeholders have of their leaders. Things like competencies, fair treatment, commitment, engagement, listening, acting on suggestions, providing inspiration, meaning, and direction. Leaders rarely understand the impact these implicit expectations have on their perceived effectiveness.

Bill Berthel

So they’re suggesting explicit and implicit expectations of leadership.

Jeremiah Poulsen

What do you think?

Bill Berthel

Make it better. I know you will.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Well, honestly, I was just having a conversation with a group and, without getting into any of the specifics, we were talking about how at times it’s so much easier to lead at work than it is at home. And the insight was everything’s so clear and explicit in the workspace and everything’s so complex and vague in the home space.

Jeremiah Poulsen

And so, I think when we start to practice a little bit of too much severance as leaders, we, we separate ourselves mentally and even skill and competency wise in different environments. And where we have explicit expectations, we function at a higher level of competency. Then when we don’t, we actually function at a lower level of competency, almost forgetting what is expected of us without it having been communicated to us. So when it comes to explicit or implicit, I think just if we stay on the explicit side, whether or not the expectations have been made explicit to us, most leaders have been around the block enough where they know what their own kind of clear expectations would be explicitly upon another leader in their same situation.

Bill Berthel

Yeah, yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

But if it’s not communicated extrinsically to them.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

They almost throw up their hands and say, I don’t know what to do here. I’m frustrated. I don’t. I don’t know how to function, instead of taking the initiative, the agency, and saying, no, I know what to do here. I know what the explicit expectation would be on myself if I weren’t myself. If I can say it that way. And why don’t I just do that in this space?

Jeremiah Poulsen

This ambiguous space where it’s not been clarified.

Bill Berthel

So m. I think there is, you

Jeremiah Poulsen

know, the first few lines there got me. When you step in, as soon as you step into leadership, there’s this weight of expectations, either clear or unclear, that’s placed, you know, and clearly

Bill Berthel

spoken or written and, and not.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yes, yes. And it’s so vast. It’s across every business sector or home sector, personal sector. Like when you start a family, when you join a community committee, nonprofit organization, there’s like, some of what holds us back is just the idea that there will be expectation. So I won’t even do it because I don’t want the extra weight without asking for what would that be?

Bill Berthel

So we are so, at the time of recording this podcast, our family is eagerly anticipating the next season of Ted Lasso to come out, which I think is in August. And so my son made the request to start over, you know, because we hadn’t watched in a while so we could be really ready. And we’re like, yeah, that’s a great idea. So as a family, we’re watching Ted Lasso again from the beginning.

Jeremiah Poulsen

That’s cool.

Bill Berthel

And it’s in the first season, maybe just the second or third episode, we really learn about. I hope this isn’t spoiling it for anybody, but it’s been out there long enough, so I think we’re past the statute of limitations of spoiling something. Hopefully. Ted and his wife are kind of. They’re separating. And in therapy they learn together that sharing the inward perspective with each other is really important because they’re both over filtering or not sharing. And they come up with a safe word if they sense the other person. Right. Yeah, it’s Oklahoma. Yeah, right. If the other person is holding back, the other. The individual who senses that their spouse is holding back can call it, can say Oklahoma, and that they agree that would compel for them to share their truth in that moment. Yeah, I wonder how we do that in our teams. I wonder how, you know, maybe a safe word, silly. Maybe it’ll work for some cultures. But how do we. I think we sense when, you know, hey, Bill, you’re. You’re over there ruminating in that. I want to hear.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Right?

Bill Berthel

I want to hear what’s going on.

Jeremiah Poulsen

There’s a weird heavy in the room. I’ve got a friend that calls that moment the weird heavy.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. So how can we safely call one another to share the weird heavy or to have that Oklahoma moment?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

Right.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. So, great choice, Bill, man.

Bill Berthel

I love same.

Jeremiah Poulsen

I’m gonna. I haven’t read Mastering Leadership, but now it’s going to be on my list. I’ll probably listen to it.

Bill Berthel

It’s a good read or a good listen.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bill Berthel

I think it. Oh, I should find. I can’t remember if it came before or after Scaling Leadership. I feel like it came after. But. Okay, we need to fact check that one. But both are. Yeah, both are excellent reads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool.

Jeremiah Poulsen

You mentioned you’re rewatching Ted Lasso. You know what I’m rewatching.

Bill Berthel

What are you rewatching?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Naruto.

Bill Berthel

What is that?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Oh, what is that? Oh, Bill. I’m sorry, folks. There are so many leadership lessons in the anime Naruto.

Bill Berthel

Oh, it’s anime. Okay, cool.

Jeremiah Poulsen

So maybe we can do a comparison of.

Bill Berthel

All right. I don’t know the anime world, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would totally be in there.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Check it out. Really good storyline.

Bill Berthel

All right. Fun. Awesome.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Thanks, man.

Bill Berthel

Thank you.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, always.

Bill Berthel

Thank you for being here today, and we hope you picked something up from this episode that you can apply, and we hope you’re looking forward to more. Thanks for being here.