People First! with Morag Barrett

Here we go. Welcome to this week's episode of People First. And my guest this week is Susie Bishop. Susie is the Vice President of Product Development at the Centre for Leadership Studies. Susie has driven innovative and experiential learning solutions and established... You know what, I'm going to start again. Usman, I'm starting again. We're going to make this sound slick. All right, take two. Welcome to this week's episode of People First. And my guest this week is Susie Bishop. Susie is the vice president of product development at the Center for Leadership Studies. And we're going to be talking more about the work that the Center for Leadership Studies does in the world in just a moment. Susie has driven innovative experiential learning solutions. She's an established leader in the field of leadership development and has presented at several conferences, including the Learning Conference and the Association for Talent Development. Susie has been recognized as a thirty under thirty leader and is a member of the Marshall Goldsmith esteemed one hundred coaches community. Susie, welcome to People First. Thank you so much, Morag. I really appreciate you having me on today. This is really exciting. It's going to be a great conversation. But before we dive in, as you know, my shtick and my focus is all about relationships at work. The fact that we can't be successful in business without our relationships and we can't be successful in life without the connections that we make with others. So I'm curious, when it comes to relationships at work, who's somebody, and this may be more challenging, who's somebody outside of your family who's made an impact on how you got to where you are today? Absolutely. Yes, it is fun working with family that I have to go a little bit more outside of that, even within the workplace. But at my workplace, someone who has opened a number of doors for me is Chris McLean. He is our global master trainer. He was actually trained by our founder, Dr. Paul Hersey. And I remember my first day of work, I had several people say, oh, you already know all this stuff. You know the situational leadership model. You know the products. There's a lot of assumptions that that's just what your family is talking about all the time, which I have kind of unhidden throughout life, like recognize these little moments where, wow, this is what it's like to have parents and leadership development in this space. But I didn't recognize it at the time. But he was one of the people who didn't put a ton of that pressure on me and recognized where I was in my journey as a new employee and coming into the workforce. And he taught me situational leadership. He taught me how to see others and be people first. And so I've always really appreciated that in him. And I also think about Sarah MacArthur with that question. Outside of my own organization, I knew Marshall Goldsmith, but through the connection of Paul Hersey, not personally. He was always kind to me, just given that family relationship. But Sarah was his Chief Operating Officer. And she was the one who saw something in me where she introduced me to Frances Hesselbein. She introduced me into the community. She introduced me to Alan Mulally. And I've really seen her carry forward this notion of opening doors and creating opportunities for others. And so both of those people have done that to me inside of my organization and the greater leadership community. Oh, my God, I love hearing these stories. It gives me goosebumps. And I'm going to challenge you the same way as I do every week is make the implicit explicit. So once we're done here, send that message to let them know that, A, they're getting a shout out as part of People First, but also that you see and appreciate and value the impact that they've had for you. So thank you there. Absolutely. Now, while you were talking, we're going to dive into I know you've got two book projects underway, not one, two book projects underway. But you mentioned there the phrase situational leadership. And so I prepared I have an example of the situational leadership model here that I'll put on screen in just a moment. But for some people, where have you been all our lives? This may be a phrase and a new concept for them. So why don't you talk a little bit about the origin story and tell us about the situational leadership model and we'll go from there. Yeah. So our founder, Dr. Paul Hersey, he was a professor and he wanted to know what's the one best leadership style. And what drives people to develop? What motivates them? What kind of gets them going? And a lot of those studies were done separately. So a lot of people looked at human motivation in a vacuum and they looked at leadership or leadership styles in a vacuum. And he was the first to put these together. And now you see situational leadership in front of you on the screen. It's color coded. It's easy to use. But the backdrop of it is we are leading an individual for a specific task. So you would never say Morag overall is this high performer, which in a second we'll get to it, you know, R for, for all things. It depends on the task and it's how we show up to the task with our ability to do it. Are we able to complete it? And are we willing to do it? So after we identify the specific task, we actually then start at the bottom, which is called performance readiness. And leaders are to tune in to the behavior cues of the individual performing that task. And if they are unable to perform it, they're on the right side. So they have low performance. Maybe they have really low willingness. And then that increases and you get to the left side. And when you become able to perform it, and then all the way to R four, where you're willing to do it, you're really motivated. That's kind of the spectrum that leaders are looking at behaviors for that specific task. So once we've diagnosed those two pieces, a leader then uses the top part of the model and you match your leadership style. So if someone is unable or unwilling, That isn't a bad thing. I think we all show up to different tasks with that. And for a leader, they should be meeting that with a telling style or more direction. They need the who, what, where, when, why. They have to have all of the parameters for the task. And that's just to make the individual successful. So if I've never done it before and I'm kind of feeling like a little shaky, It's not considered micromanagement for someone to tell me exactly what to do. It's actually really accepted and highly beneficial to get that so that I can feel secure and start making movement. And then as we get over into that left side of the model, if I have done a task before, I love it. I perform it all the time. It gets me like really jazzed and enthusiastic. That's when we want our leader to delegate that to us. We don't want them to be telling us all those details that feels punitive, that feels like the micromanagement. So situational leadership is all about getting to that task level and then having the common language where you can talk about behaviors and then you can match your leadership style. So we want this also to be a dialogue between the two parties. the individual who's performing the task and also the leader who's giving the leadership style. I love it. I love the flexibility. I mean, the clue is in the title, situational leadership. And it is about flexing and turning that dial up or down on the hands-on, hands-off, the coaching and mentoring that can help us all set up for success. So I'm curious, you mentioned there that situational leadership, it's not new. It's been around for years. So what is it that makes it so compelling and sticky? Yeah. So for us, there's always going to be the task. There's always going to be the work. There's always going to be people behaving in certain ways in response to that work. And there's always something a leader is going to be able to do to make that better. Because there's always the movement. Things are getting better. Things are getting worse. And so there's always the opportunity for leaders to show up in the situation and meet the individual where they're at. So situational leadership, I think, has withstood the test of time because it is a simple framework. It is practical. You can learn that language quite quickly. I think the aha moment in a lot of our classes is people do have a natural leadership style. Some people tend to be more on the right side of the model. Some people tend to be more on the left and delegate and say, I just never want to be associated with that micromanagement word. But the aha moment is understanding your leadership style where you naturally fit, but knowing that sometimes you have to adapt and that your natural leadership style isn't what people need all the time. It's what they need in a particular situation. And so that's when people start shifting their minds to learning, well, how might, how might I adapt to those other styles to give people what they need? So what's your default style? I am a right side of the model. I'm very particular. I like control. I always want to make sure that things are to a particular standard and I can be found to be over leading. and I do I get great cues from my team you know you're just because I know this model like I create content around this model all the time you catch yourself and you have you know team members who understand that common language as well and they say susie you're over directing I I've got this and you're like thank you like it's this little feedback loop but yes I'm I'm a right side of the modeler Yeah, as I looked at that model, I think I'm at the bottom half if it is. I'm either all in, i.e. maybe a bit too telling and directive, or I'm all out because I trust you and hands off. And sometimes there's a happy medium, to your point, in between, which is staying engaged and clarifying expectations so that nobody, you or me, is blindsided or disappointed by the end result. Yeah. So situational leadership, it's a powerful model. I encourage anybody who's curious now to go onto the interwebs and start exploring it. But I know that you have one of the books is about reintroducing the model to a broader audience. So tell me, what are you most excited for and what's happening? Yeah, so I guess we're crazy enough to be working on two book projects at the same time. So working with my executive vice president, Sam Shriver, and he has been working with this model for forty years. He was in the Coast Guard Academy and went to leadership school, got his MBA, and he saw Dr. Paul Hersey himself and was certified, worked at the Center for Leadership Studies, and has known this model for years and years and years. And so I'm really excited to be working with him on the situational leadership model book. And it is funny, we've done it a little bit backwards. Most organizations publish and get the book out there and then create training materials off of it. But we've been training this model for over fifty years and want to make sure that there's a concise version that we can get in front of as many people as possible to know and understand this framework. So what's going to be, I mean, again, I don't know what is going to be most surprising. What is a nugget that people are going to glean from the book? Help me understand what you hope to gain from helping to breathe more life into this model. Yeah, I see us leaning really into change and talking about how the situational leadership model can help us navigate change. Why change? Communication, why looking at behavior, not leaning into just your natural leadership style is really important. Why you have to tailor that through change for the needs of others. Also recognizing that you and how your approach to change may not be the same as others on your team and how you can use the model in that language to navigate that better. But I also think relationship and something that's really important right now is human connection and relationship. And to use the situational leadership model, you do need that foundation of trust. What makes it work is the open dialogue and to be really transparent about your behaviors. We've been talking more and more with organizations and individuals about company culture and how Can you really say that you are one unable, unwilling and insecure to approach a task? You know, I can't really see that working in my organization and how you get to that place of building that foundation and having that dialogue so that you can even use the model effectively. So I think just talking a little bit of history in the book, but also the relevancy of today's global workforce challenges and how the model helps you navigate that. I'm sure with fifty years of research behind this, there must be a wealth of data then That again, I'm just going to pop that model up here. And if you're listening to the podcast, I encourage you to go over to our YouTube channel and you'll be able to see the graphic there. But I'm just curious as to the data and what are some of the key themes that you're seeing emerging that show situational leadership at its best, but also where people may be struggling to apply it? Yeah, some of the data that we're seeing right now is that The model or the natural leadership styles in the last five years. So from the pandemic has shifted more to the right side of the model. And we think that that may be because of the pace of change in organizations that because the change is new, it means that the task has not been performed before, which means there's no ability there. So leaders will have to use more of a right side of the model style to lead their team members effectively through it. So that's been a trend that we've been looking at of people's natural leadership style and how that trend is kind of swinging. I also think that that goes very well with success and engagement in organizations. You see trends swing in that regard. We know that effective leadership comes when those things are in balance or if anything, leaning more into relationships engagement. But sometimes we see the trends in the workforce, how that kind of impacts the leadership styles going from one side of the model to the other. So that's been really interesting as well. We can see little key indicators in some of the data where if your natural leadership style is a style one, which I already honestly shared that that was more of me too. So I'm not calling out anyone without calling out myself. But if your natural leadership style is a style one, you have a little bit more trouble adapting into the three other styles versus someone who maybe their natural style is participative. They can more easily adapt into some of the others. So really interested in sharing that data and some of those things in the book as well. So I'm curious there, in terms of the adapting of the style, what are some of the warning signs that might indicate to somebody you're either over or under leading? We have an assessment. We have a lead assessment, which tells your natural leadership style. And we do that before our training courses so that we can then teach them in the course how to adapt to the different styles, what behaviors to pick up in others, and then how to deliver a proper style. But learning how to adapt, I think comes over time and comes with the awareness and the feedback loops and the conversations of your team members and those around you, giving you those cues as well. Or that's why the other piece of the model, the individual who's actually completing the task, So we have a lot of courseware and dialogue around personal accountability at work and speaking up and advocating for a leadership style as well, because it is that relationship and partnership. So how do you advocate or resolve the tension between flexing? and I'm picturing a leader that I'm coaching right now, flexing your style and somebody who may be a little set in their ways and saying, well, essentially this is who I am. What you see is what you get. It's inauthentic for me to change my approach. How do you resolve that? So you're trying to influence the other individual? Yes. Who doesn't see that they need to change that. In fact, by changing, they become inauthentic as a leader. I mean, how we would approach that, and we usually work in the reverse. We're like the leader for the individual for a task. So if his task is just overall to change his behavior, to be like more accommodating to others, I think that is a little bit more difficult of a task. But it is great to be using that at the executive coaching lens. That is some of the project that I'm working on with Marshall of how does this leadership framework also work in that coaching environment. But I think the framework is meant to be objective where you can name the behaviors and name the behaviors and how those behaviors are having an impact on others and showing them how behaviors that align to a different style would actually be meeting those who are on the receiving end of his leadership. So if that individual is, you know, unwilling to get out of the directive style and, you know, coming down on individuals, telling them exactly what to do, but how that's landing on them is, you know, they already have the ability of coming off as punitive, maybe outlining the behaviors on both sides between what he's doing and what they're doing and why it's a mismatch. You mentioned earlier, obviously, the books that you're involved in writing, and I'm in awe that you've got two on the go. So we've got one that's going to expand and introduce the situational leadership model to a broader audience, focusing on change. And you mentioned Marshall's name there. So our friend and mentor, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. So tell me about that project and that collaboration. What's the focus for that book? Yeah, really excited about that. And I'm getting that a lot more, because I'm like, I think I'm just so naive and everyone's kind of like waiting, waiting to kind of see how this all unfolds, but yes, two, two bucks at once, which is, which is exciting. Um, but working with Marshall and he actually, he started at the center for leadership studies as well, knew our founder and, um, no situational leadership and has applied that to his executive coaching success and his practice. So we've been exploring how to use situational leadership, as we know from a management and leadership point of view, but then how he's also used that in an executive coaching capacity. I think one of the fun things that we're looking at is, well, how does a style one in particular, since we've talked a lot about that today, how does that look different when you're managing someone in an organization and leading them versus executive coaching? Both are appropriate if the individual needs direction, but there's a difference in power dynamics. If I, as a leader in an organization, give someone on my team a style one and outline the directions for them to complete a task and be successful, the expectation is that they meet that and they do that to standard. That's the agreement that they have with me and the organization. As an executive coach, he says, I often give direction, which is appropriate, but they have the opportunity to take it or leave it. They have no obligation to complete that. Even if I know, and they know that it will make them more successful. So we've talked a lot about why trust is important between for a leader and an executive coach to have with the individual that they're influencing. Why expertise or we call it expert power is important for a leader and a coach to have with an individual. But this idea of legitimate power is a little bit different when it's the manager to individual relationship versus the coach to individual relationship. Because at the end of the day, the leader is the one who can fire the individual. but the individual is the one that can fire the coach. Interesting. And so we've just been talking about how those leadership styles or meeting individuals where they're at making a match is important and a proper tool for both scenarios, but how some of those dynamics do shift. So one could say that trust is important in both of them, but legitimate power looks very different. expertise I would want my leader and my executive coach to have really high levels of expertise so it's been fun to explore you've piqued my curiosity I can't wait to see how that unfolds over the next few months and of course when I see the cover and it's out on the market we'll make sure to share it with our network so what's one thing one piece of advice one observation that you would give your younger self related to situational leadership I think even knowing overall the goal of the company, the goal of situational leadership, when you're in it, it is hard to have that mirror up. And I think asking for feedback, asking how your leadership is landing on others so that you can increase your awareness of how your behavior is and your leadership style lands on others is really important and something that even though I understood it in training, it is very different in practice in managing your own people. And I think leaning into that earlier, I would have seen greater benefit. And those feedback loops have been really important to me in my career and my success in leading people. Cool, cool. Well, thank you so much, Susie, for sharing a little bit about what's coming ahead for you, the two books, for reintroducing us and reminding us of the power of the situational leadership model. And as we come to the end of our time together, how can people learn more about you, the books, and of course, the Center for Leadership Studies? Yes. So you can follow me on LinkedIn. I would love to connect. So just Susie Bishop, you'll be able to find me. For our company, the Center for Leadership Studies, and to learn more about situational leadership, go to situational.com. And for more on the books, we will be posting lots of things from our company account and personal account on LinkedIn, Marshall's account as well. So just really appreciate that and would love to connect with everyone. Okay, well, I wish you a ton of fun in the writing process and obviously ongoing success with the whole team at the Centre for Leadership Studies. Thank you again for joining me today on People First. Thank you, Morag.