Cult of Personality

*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 to the Get Emergent podcast. This is the space where we discuss leadership, team and organizational topics and better practices. We like to provide concepts and ideas that you can turn into pragmatic experiments to help you develop your higher potential in your work and in your leadership. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone: And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel: Ralph today I want to talk about, well, the song The Cult of Personality by Living Color kind of influenced me.

This topic today of the cult of personality of leadership.

Ralph Simone: I’m glad we had a little bit of rehearsal before this, because, as you know, I don’t know much about music. And so as soon as you said the title, I was clueless as to what we’re going to be talking about. But I do. Now that I know some of the lyrics, I think this is a great topic for us to share with our leaders who are listening.

Bill Berthel: Oh, it was a sticky song. I mean, I don’t know if everyone knows it out there, but I bet if you look it up quickly and give it a listen, you’re like, oh, I know that song. I absolutely know that song. The lyrics mention several leaders in, I think, creative pairings. To make the point of the song, leaders like Stalin and Gandhi are paired, Kennedy and Mussolini. I think of them as different types of leaders, different styles in those pairings. They even go as far as one of the continuing or repeating lines in the chorus is this idea of Nobel prizes and neon lights. Nobel prizes and neon lights. Right. These are, like, unlikely leadership pairings. The song really inspired me to think about this topic of our culture of leadership. Right. We can’t have culture without that cult word, right. And then, what it really means to be a leader in embracing different dichotomies. Different dichotomies in our personality. Right. I think we’ve each taken many different types of personality assessments, and over the years, we might see some of those even shift. Right. The results of those assessments.

Ralph Simone: Actually, hopefully. Because I think as a leader evolves and as a leader demonstrates agility, he or she is going to learn new behaviors or let go of, some old preferences that may no longer be serving them. And I think the both and. Or serving them in the moment, too. Right. Which I think is an interesting thing. I’m going to have to listen to the song because I am intrigued by it, because I think we’re often set up to look at leadership very incompletely in, you know, very, narrowly as a set of these behaviors only.

Bill Berthel: I totally agree, and I love that you said, hopefully it has shifted.

Right. Because I think that’s one of the paradoxes or one of the dichotomies I’d like us to talk about a little bit is this idea of being authentically ourselves, yet agile and flexible. I sometimes get a little feedback saying, well, how do you want me to flex or be agile? I’m going to be compromising who I really am.

Ralph Simone: Right, yeah. I’m a level headed, logical, organized, value driven leader. And, we almost leave everything else out as if there aren’t other things in there. And almost we have to declare this, then we can’t be that. And I think how limiting that is. My wife would refer to sometimes when I was so declarative about my style and the limits of my style as an example of weaponized incompetence. And I think we have to really widen the aperture here because we are directive and supportive. And being agile or adaptable doesn’t mean being inauthentic. And I think that’s a, huge distinction. I think that needs to be made for people that are in leadership roles.

Bill Berthel: I love the image of widening the aperture because that keeps my preferences in the picture, but offers other ways of looking at or doing things. Right. So your example is, I’m a very logical person, and that’s the way I like to approach things. Great. That’s still in the picture. But how can we widen the aperture and include perhaps other ways of approaching. Right. How can I get more, not less?

Ralph Simone: Exactly.

Bill Berthel: How can I increase. Right. The possibilities and the tools? Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t sometimes go back to our preferences because they’ve served us, but this is really about widening that aperture. Love that picture.

Ralph Simone: Having more choices. I mean, I was thinking about my early experience with Myers Briggs and having very clear, strong preferences in all four scales. and then as I got older and as my role changed, and as I became a leader of an organization, as I became a parent, I saw that there were sometimes limitations in playing those strengths too often. And there was benefits to developing my more intuitive nature. There were benefits to not closing conversations out too quickly, being more open to possibilities. And I wasn’t changing my preference for closure and for moving forward, but I was not closing too quickly and hopefully landing on a better answer. And I don’t think I’m any less authentic. I just think I’m more versatile. I think hopefully, I like to think I have more effectiveness because I’ve got more choices at my disposal.

Bill Berthel: Yeah, I love that. So that versatility, it sounds like that started with a, noticing that was your word, right. A noticing. It’s a form of awareness and probably some curiosity to lean into. Oh, what other styles? What other possibilities are there in this? Right. And then some experimentation with that.

Ralph Simone: And I think a vulnerability to not be really effective with the new behavior or a vulnerability to ask for feedback around how people are experiencing you to find out that perhaps you do need to have more adaptability in your bag of tricks.

Bill Berthel: Absolutely.

Another dichotomy or a, set of different styles when, while not a personality assessment, we sometimes use the Ken Blanchard SLII leadership model and assessment that plots leadership style on a directive and supportive behavior diagram. And that’s an interesting two sets of behaviors that could seem opposite. That being highly directive, very clear, giving direction. One, two, three. ABC. Compared to highly supportive, more checking in, being attentive to someone’s commitment and perhaps emotional state. This is not an either or model.

Ralph Simone: No. And I think that’s probably the biggest Achilles heel for most people, is they look as one being better than the other.

Bill Berthel: Yeah. Right.

Ralph Simone: Yes. Yes.

Bill Berthel: Doesn’t mean every situation calls for high directive, low supportive.

Ralph Simone: We can’t net it out because all situations are different. And so we want to be able to have the command of both those behaviors and use the mix of both of those behaviors appropriate to the situation at hand. I think our biggest role in coaching leaders is to put more arrows in their quiver.

Bill Berthel: Absolutely.

Ralph Simone: And that is being directive and ways to be supportive.

Bill Berthel: Right.

Ralph Simone: That’s being, you know, if you look at organizational structure, that’s being centralized and decentralized, that’s being decisive, that’s being open. Right. You need those combinations of things to make the most effective decision in the situations that pop up.

Bill Berthel: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Another kind of set of opposites or compliments, I think, of them as is. Leaders need to be assertive. They need to have a high level of confidence and assert themselves or direction, but that’s complemented by really leaving space for others and admitting our vulnerability. So there is this level of confidence, whether it’s founded or unfounded confidence. We talk about unfounded confidence in another podcast, but it’s balanced with this leaving space for others and admitting we can’t do it all. We don’t know it all.

Ralph Simone: And I think, Bill, what you bringing up for me is this, assertive and accommodative. We can be assertive around where we’re going, but accommodate space for others to share their feelings of where we’re going or to accommodate others ideas as to how we’re going to get there. And I think when you start to feel like you’re in trouble, you’re not probably looking at it as both, and you’re probably looking at it as one way or the other. And when you even say it that way, it sounds pretty limiting. Pretty limiting.

Bill Berthel: Sounds limiting. But I think when we are aligned with our preferences, it feels normal to us. Right. It doesnt feel limiting in that moment because we are operating in that space of preference and maybe even what were really good at. And weve been successful with. One of the areas, I dont know if youre going to resonate with this or not, but I find a large number of folks that I have been coaching and currently coaching really challenged with the balance of doing and delegating as an, individual contributor, getting work done and then either delegating not just necessarily get more done, but building the strengths of their team or starting to relinquish or let go of some of the work with and for others. This delegating and doing,

Ralph Simone: I think it’s a huge challenge. I think it’s a challenge for me. I mean, I think we get rewarded, we get recognized. We get a charge out of getting stuff done. And now we’re saying, well, now we want you to get stuff done through others. And how do we make that adjustment? Doesn’t mean, though, that it’s one or the other. And I think one of the things that can allow people to lean into it a little more is that we’re going to continue to do both. It’s just recognizing, when is it that you need to delegate and when is it that you need to do. What’s the sweet spot in that conversation?

Bill Berthel: Absolutely. Absolutely. Here’s where we get this space of personality kind of most wrong, in my opinion. It can tell us about our preferences, but we often allow ourselves to be just defined and limited by that idea or that preference. Right. We think that we’re wired. We even use that kind of phrase like, it’s just the way I’m wired. Right. You know, I kind of, you know, I default to this. We may have natural traits that’s been absolutely shown, but, and traditionally, psychologists believe personality to be more or less fixed over lifespan. Right. So there was this, there was information out there that even supported that. But contemporary research shows that our personality is not fixed. Several studies actually suggest that it’s not only possible to transform personality, but we can do it purposely.

Ralph Simone: Absolutely.

Bill Berthel: We can do it intentionally.

Ralph Simone: I’ll actually be less kind than this. I think those declarative statements around being wired are excuses that take you off the hook for being accountable. And I feel pretty strongly about that because that’s easy to hide behind. Well, that’s the way I am. I remember this in parenting as a child. My parents, they would say, well, we’re consistent. Sometimes. They were consistently wrong. And to me, consistency wasn’t a strength if it didn’t yield an outcome. That was working for most of the people. And I think that’s the other dichotomy, consistency and flexibility, that needs to be balanced because people think, well, if you’re consistent, I can’t change my mind. Are you kidding me? With new data, you need to change your mind.

Bill Berthel: Love that, right? If there’s new information, let’s fully consider it. I think there’s huge potential in this space. That’s why I wanted to talk about it today in all aspects of our lives, but especially in our leadership. You know, imagine not being constrained by these limiting ways. We’re defining ourselves in personality, and we do it onto others as well. I think. I think we say, oh, that, you know, that person’s a, pick your model. That person’s a strong D on the DiSC and that’s how they’re always going to show up. We can give people permission to show up differently. We can encourage their growth and development. Right. By broadening the aperture, as you called it earlier. I think there’s huge potential in this space.

Ralph Simone: Bill, you’re hitting a real key spot in development. I mean, we never step into the same river twice. Let’s not limit ourselves or others by pieces of historic information that may have and may continue to be useful, but certainly do not define the totality of who we are as a human being.

Bill Berthel: Yeah, I love it. I love it, Ralph thank you.

Ralph Simone: Thanks, Bill,

Bill Berthel: And thanks for listening. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at Get Emergent or wherever you listen to your podcasts. This is where we bring you leadership topics and better practices that you can apply directly to your work and your leadership. Thanks for listening.