Leadership Voyage

S4E7: Building Strong Relationships in the Workplace with William Davis

• Jason Wick • Season 4 • Episode 7

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Meet William Davis—a man who’s spent 38 years not just leading teams, but lifting them up. With a career that spans the heights of corporate America, William has become a trusted voice in leadership, blending decades of experience with a genuine passion for guiding others. He’s the kind of leader who doesn’t just talk about success—he builds it, one relationship, one project, one person at a time. Full biography here.

In this episode, Jason and William talk about:

  • Management v. Leadership
    • we're facing a leadership crisis across the corporate world
      • we have a disconnect between what followers and need and what leaders think they're giving
      • we've lost some of the interpersonal skill
    • management is "checking boxes" and managing checklists
    • leadership is when you help drive direction
      • your people can depend on you
      • connection with others
      • your team isn't your competition
      • nurturing and helping others
      • it stretches every component of who you are, blending your experiences and your team's cumulative experiences
  • Change management
    • "bad" version: say there's a directive from above, which leads to
      • stale 
      • lose traction
      • anxiety
    • "good" version: explain why we're doing this, which leads to 
      • understanding
      • "we're in this together"
      • imagination and efficiency
      • solutions mindset, energized by the path ahead
      • you end up leveraging the team's specialties
  • Building relationships
    • first know that you WANT to lead
      • be secure in your own skin
      • you're not competing with your team!
      • you want your people to grow and surpass you; take pride in it!
    • you're dealing with humans
      • work is not their be all end all
      • help them get through good and bad times every day
      • pick up slack if you have to
      • help them find balance and encourage them to take their PTO
    • build rapport out of the work zone
      • William's example was golfing with an employee
      • help your followers get to a comfort level with you

Leadership Voyage
email: StartYourVoyage@gmail.com
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music: by Napoleon (napbak)
https://www.fiverr.com/napbak
voice: by Ayanna Gallant
www.ayannagallantVO.com
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wherever you are on your leadership voyage it starts[Music] here hey everybody welcome back to another episode of Leadership Voyage i'm your host Jason Wick uh Leadership Voyage the podcast dedicated to your pursuit of becoming a great leader and thanks so much for um listening today and for tuning in we are on what are we on now i think it's episode 7 sorry I've had a bunch of them all recording in a short period of time i might have lost track here but by the time this one airs it should be the end of May uh and I am excited that season 4 is kind of full steam ahead which is great uh much different than season 3 in 2024 it's it's fun to be able to provide so much content so much information uh to the audience and to learn from all of these guests that I've been having this season and you'll hear more of them very very soon today I meet with William Davis uh William C davis who has written a book uh about leadership an ebook uh just finishing up the second of a six short ebook series six-part series and Williams had a long career uh in leadership he's been uh almost 40 years of of in the workforce and decided he wanted to give back was feeling a pull to give back and that's why he has uh written this book and is doing speaking engagements and things like this which is which is really nice to be a part of in this episode we talk about the difference between leadership and management we talk about uh what it takes for someone to really be a leader and what it means to build relationships with those who are following you how do you do that effectively what what's required so sit back relax and stay tuned for this next episode with William C davis on Leadership Voyage all[Music] right everybody welcome back to another episode of Leadership Voyage and it's my pleasure and honor to have with me today uh Mr william Davis william nice to see you again jason thanks for having me on so uh how's the weather in Dallas it's a little toasty here today they said it was going to get up to 98 so uh I need to be up in your part of the world we'll take Colorado today 98 in May that sounds a little nasty that does to me a precursor of what summer will be like I'm sure oh goodness we'll see yeah um but like I said thanks for sparing some time uh it's nice to see you now for the second time we met in April and talked for a little bit and I think everybody's going to get a lot out of our discussion today about leadership and management and building relationships and some important things that are in your first ebook which we'll get to all of that but something I want to call out for all the listeners here talking with William is that I I get the great honor to speak to a lot of folks on this show who are researchers academics they've they've worked with a whole bunch of uh folks over over their career and all that but what I really appreciate about talking with William today is William is someone who has done the work for almost 40 years and I'm sure you will all appreciate that as we talk about why he and I are having this discussion today and he's already done the job for a very long time so to start things off I want to read a quote from one of your colleagues that you've had along the way and this is for everyone to give a little glimpse behind the curtain of what you might have been like or might be like as a leader and here's the quote as a former direct report of Williams I can't emphasize enough how great of a leader William is as a new manager William believed in me and gave me a chance he coached and mentored me supporting me in my development and helped me work through challenging situations william also has a wonderful ability to foster high-erforming cohesive team environments where team members feel safe inspired have autonomy and are content to come into work each day all with having clear direction on company mission vision and values when you hear someone you worked with say something like that about you how does it make you feel it makes everything I went through for 40 years worth it you know that that's exactly what you want you want everybody that works for you to work with you that's you want that's the way you want them to feel at the end of the day that they felt supported they felt encouraged they felt um uh energized to succeed and that you were there for them and so and she she's such a great lady i I worked with her for a number of years and just uh I remember when we first had the conversation about moving her into managerial role she was like I don't know and I'm like you can do it trust me you know I've seen I've seen how you perform in other functions you can handle this and and she did I mean once she got over the hump of of uh you know the initial shock of managing people boy she just excelled and still does today i love that extra detail you're adding too where this person wasn't didn't feel in their own eyes they were quite ready to be a manager and you helped with the pushing and stretched them to something in their capabilities but was still challenging love to hear that extra bit that's wonderful uh to hear william um when we spoke for the first time last month April of 2025 uh you were saying that you felt compelled I believe it was to write about leadership and you've just recently released your first ebook uh about becoming a leader uh not just a manager and if I understand I think you're going to have about six books in this in this series the leadership blueprint which as I was practicing today I have a heck of a time saying leadership blueprint leadership blueprint leadership blueprint i should get my kids saying that tongue twister um tell us why were you compelled or what compelled you to start all this work well as you and I talked I my leadership background goes back to college uh and and just the area of focus that I was in and in and various organizations that I was in and my first one of my first leaders or managers out of out of college um he instilled in me in the the fact that look you've got the ability to be a manager or you can be a leader you know leaders need to be ones that people will look to people will follow people can learn from and and you really take charge and help drive direction uh as a manager you may not necessarily be in that role you be you know more of a you know check the box type thing as we go down the uh list and and uh what I watched him do was interact with people in such a way where he pulled them in and and they were drawn to him respected him and I thought you know that's that's how I want my professional career to be i want to be somebody that folks know they can count on that they can depend on that uh is going to be there for them and and nurture them and help them and what I saw throughout my career unfortunately was that mentality doesn't hold uh you saw so many people be promoted into quote unquote leadership roles because they couldn't handle the job that they were in and it's like how how does that work i don't I don't quite understand that so you know as I have gotten older and you failed to mention when we started that I actually had started my 40-year career when I was five so I'm in you know mid40s my mistake there no not a problem that's all right um I I I've noticed that this newer generation of of folks that are coming out of college in the last 20 25 years they're missing something uh and when we talk about leadership they they don't understand that connection right that that you have to have with your people if you're going to be a a true leader you've got to help them understand you're there for them they're not your competition you're not their competition you complement each other and you know one of the unique things about leadership is it gives you the ability to stretch every component of who you are because I I often compare it to marriage where you've got two people who have they got 20 30 40 years of uh background in each of their lives now coming together and trying to blend and make it work together well you're doing the same thing as as a leader though you may have more than two or three four five people you may have had you know 15 20 25 people so how do I not only make my relationship with them work but then how do I make their relationship with each other work so leadership is really the job right it's it's not the managing the checklist that's what my folks do my job is actually making that machine if you will run you know well yeah i like the distinction if I if I'm characterizing it and capturing it uh closely enough where management is getting the work done and the leadership is as you said driving the whole machine through the connections relationships between you and the people doing it and the people doing it themselves and I really I really think that that will land with probably most people right and I think hopefully we can agree that people can be managers and leaders right there's not necessarily really a mutually exclusive relationship between these two things but you bring up um something about we've lost something in leadership uh in the maybe the past couple of decades can you tell us a little bit about what you've heard when it comes to the leadership crisis that we are facing yeah you know and it goes back to probably a lot earlier than 2023 but in 2023 the World Economic Forum came out and and said "Hey we've got a leadership crisis across you know the corporate world." And in that same year I think it was November of 23 uh US News World Report Harris poll came out and 78% of the respondents says "We have a leadership crisis in corporate America." Now think about that that's 78% but then you listen to CEOs who will talk about these um uh ranking systems or or whatever they use to see the performance of their company from their internal folks and you know how happy are you with leadership always is in the 50 60 70 percentile range right it's never up there in the 80 90% so we have a disconnect um between what people are looking for in a leader and what we are offering them as leaders and I and I go back to you were asking me a little bit earlier about what got me into this i go back to you know a number of the organizations I've worked with through the years will offer leadership training but what the leadership training is is no more than management training right here's how you give a performance appraisal here's how you deal one-on-one meetings here's how you you know it's not that interpersonal skill of building the relationship nurturing the relationship and making it work and and to the benefit of everybody and I think we've got to get back to that because if you think about it in the last 25 or 30 years we have gone from you know when I was a kid growing up everything I learned working with my dad on the farm how did I learn it it was working together right he showed me well in today's world and for the last 25 or 30 years we have become such a technology world that you know you've got uh kids right wrong or indifferent been raised by technology right um you know how do you how do you communicate with people anymore you don't get together with them as much as you what text email you know chat over Zoom or whatever and and so that interpersonal skill has been lost on at least a generation and then you think when 2020 when we had the uh pandemic you know there's a whole group of individuals that have come up in the last five years or so to you know who are going to be our future leaders who have lost five years of that interpersonal relationship building that you desire them to have if they're going to be really successful in in leading teams yeah that's a that's an interesting point i mean we do have um the obvious parts of COVID there with that you just mentioned at the end but regardless generally generationally uh I'm 46 kind of an interesting age in that when I was a teenager was when I got a computer in my house and I don't think everybody was fortunate enough to have that opportunity even right but and when I was in college I had a cell phone and things like this so kind of in my formative years becoming an adult is when the technology was introduced but we have a whole new set of social norms in the past 20 years by the use of technology not just to augment what we do but as you're suggesting replacing some of the things we do and so it is interesting as we think about what does it take to be a leader and what are the skills involved and what are perhaps the uphill battles that this next generation of folks who aspire to lead are facing as a result of some of these things let's drill down a little bit more into this leading versus managing piece um through an example and if you have an example for us about how the two versions would look manager versus leader uh when it comes to handling a change we're in a world right now we speaking of technology right with uh with AI uh at everyone's fingertips we are hearing companies go AI first we're not adding headcount until we have a reason to not be able to achieve it via AI um we have uh companies who've been acquired by private equity firms and the growth goals for these companies are unbelievably um hugely aspirational right and my point with all of this is on an annual basis if not quarterly companies are going through significant strategic changes and there are people who need to lead the doers through this so what does it look like leading someone through change if you're managing maybe in your words just managing right versus if you're leading someone through change as a leader well perfect example I've seen several times is the manager you know why are we doing this because that's the direction we've been given right you know it's it's just that's why it's just because of why we do things or how we do things leader helps understand or helps the team or or whoever they're leading understand the why right and and I see a lot of advantages in that uh and and people will probably say "Well yeah duh." Um there's a lot of advantages in that in the fact that when I help people understand the why they are a lot more uh efficient they're a lot more imaginative they're a lot more solutionoriented because all right here's the why but how do we get there is still the adventure is is is still the traveling right that that we do and you know as a manager when I can't explain the why and I just say this is you know this is just the direction we begin or this is just the way we do things you become very stale you lose traction you know particularly from a technology perspective right uh and I think the biggest thing and and to your point you know we have got so many things to our advantage these days in and the ability to to do things techn in a technology fashion that we ought to be encouraging our folks that here's the why of what we're doing what we're doing you help us figure out the best way to do it right and so it gives them a uh investment in what we're doing and when you give somebody an investment in what you're doing boy you know that they're going to excel to the best of their abilities in making it happen whereas if it's just uh okay it's the same old same old people lose interest people lose focus people aren't as uh succinct and what they're doing and how they're doing it and there just can really hurt the efficiencies thanks for that explanation and you know I'm sure that people listening have heard it many times in many different places it's important to help those who follow you understand why they're doing what they're doing or why we're doing what we're doing and let's just pause for a second and rather than just saying the words think about the way you just presented that right uh what's happening next manager and then I just tell you what's happening next and that's what the uh you know the folks from above have told us we're doing and that does lead to lack of engagement um as you said maybe things are stale i also would add to it anxiety because there's not a really strong understanding right of the reason all this stuff is happening around us just just go that direction right and what you've added here with the leadership angle if you're going to lead people through the change you have to help them understand the reason and I will say as someone who spent many years as a middle manager um that means that when we want to lead others we have to get clarity on why from those above us as well if we don't right right right you know and and I think you bring up a great point you know I have to understand the why myself but I don't have to be the smartest person in the room right n you know when when I can understand the why when I can communicate it to my team I then turn it over and say okay guys what's your initial thoughts because you know in today's world you have got so many avenues whether they be white papers whether there be forums trainings whatever that people from particularly from a technology perspective are are you know that's kind of their thing right they enjoy doing that and they'll read different things and when you bring up the why they'll say "Oh you know what i read this over here or I saw this over here doing this." And and that that's when you start getting all of the um you know brainstorming that that makes you know teams great is is when you get that going and those juices flowing right and people understanding hey this is and and so the the the other piece of that is you then set the standard of okay we're in it together we win together we lose together right and so and and and the way I've always tried to approach that is and I think we've talked about this before i always look at it from a team perspective a football team perspective you know you as a team have a goal and it's to win but the other goal is you want everybody on that team to succeed and and that's the same mentality you've got to build in the corporate world when you're leading folks we want to win and we want everybody to succeed and and again that's that starts with the person who's leading the group if you can't set that tone you can't expect anybody else there to follow it yeah it's great and thanks for bringing in all those parts about the team uh yeah I think if I hear you right you're really leveraging this the collective co the co-intelligence of all these brilliant individuals that you've hired or inherited on your team or however you want to think about this that you've been developing throughout the uh one-on-one process and feedback and all these things and now rather than it's a change being pushed on to you that you should worry about it's a change that we're going through together we understand why then we're going to leverage everybody's unique perspectives and skills in order to contribute to getting through this successfully and I think that's wonderful yeah and you have and it helps you see what is the path ahead and hopefully energizes you to want to be a part of that solution right and be a part of that uh end result uh you know going back to the the young lady whose quote that you mentioned at the very beginning you know one of the things I said to her is look I if I didn't believe you could do the job you wouldn't be on the team in the role you're in now right I you know I was always very careful about who I hired to not only can they do the job now but what fit could they have going forward on this team and she was obviously somebody that from very early on uh I felt was a managerial uh candidate yeah so let's talk a little bit about something that I know that you're passionate about which is building relationships it's it it probably I shouldn't say it goes without saying but it's going to be more difficult to get those exceptional results that we're talking about unless you have strong relationships with all the important people you need to in your organization and right now let's focus more on a leader uh maybe leading a team or leading a couple of teams or whatever that looks like what does someone do in the context of the work environment to start building those strong relationships with their people well I think the very first thing is when you you know want to be a leader or or or you you're pursuing being a leader you've got to make the decision that I want to be a leader right um because there there are certain things in my opinion that you have to have as fundamentals when you decide you want to be a leader first of all I have to be um very secure in my own skin if you will right i I am in a position for a reason i'm not competing with people i am doing what has been asked of me and as a leader I am going to be secure in what I'm doing because here's the approach that I'm going to take part of that then is understanding that the people that are part of my team are not my competition right if I have somebody on my team that at some point excels and surpasses me that is you know like one of those awards you put on the on the shelf right that's what I'm there for that's what I want to have happen uh because hey look at the end of the day I'm not going to be around forever and and uh there are going to be certain things I don't want to continue to learn right and and things are going to bypass me somebody's got to be there to take the the place so you you always want to um feel good about the success that your people have so be you know secured in your own skin feel comfortable about the success your people have take pride in it and I think then also understand that everybody that you're dealing with is a human being and work is not their end all be all they've got family they've got financial issues they've got personal issues they've got all sorts of things that make up what they deal with on a day-to-day basis and you have to be able to help get them through the good and the bad every day in order to be able to to continue moving forward and if that means that there are times I have to to step in and pick up some slack because you know somebody has to be off or they need to handle some things then do it you know it's it's it's it's again the the support of a person who's dealing with real life issues and I think this is one of the the challenges that I've really gotten into with with corporate America in the last 5 years or so you know it used to be that depending on how many years you had been in service you had three weeks four weeks five weeks of of vacation time they call it vacation time and then you had sick time on top of that well now we've gone to this you know PTO is what they call it and oh you just take time as you need it but what I have seen and you may have seen the same thing is people are kind of gunshy about taking it because they feel guilty it's like oh gosh I'm taking time off of work i don't can I do that well yeah it's your time off right don't abuse it right and if there's situations that come up that you would end up having to take more time than normal then obviously talk it over with your manager talk it over with HR whoever is appropriate but I think we have put people in a position to where they have now been made to feel like it's an imposition for them to take time off or it's an imposition for them to handle personal things during the course of a day and and that I I I hate to say this Jason because I don't want to sound negative but I think that has I think that's a purposeful mentality that that corporations have had and and I hate to say that but it's just um it's abused way too often and we we need to get back to helping our people understand look you've got to have a work life balance and it's just not you know a work life balance during the course of a day that you go home and take care of your family at some point during the year you've got to have times for breaks you've got to get away from this place and you got to be able to recharge and recharging doesn't mean taking your laptop with you to be at the beck and call of your manager right it doesn't mean taking your laptop home to be at the beck and call of somebody at night when you're gone you're gone if something is uh still waiting for you when you leave at the end of the day guess what it's still going to be there tomorrow morning and if it's and if it's so critical and so urgent that it can't wait until tomorrow morning then there needs to be more than just you involved in getting the resolution done yeah you're bringing up some interesting points um I mean thanks for that that kind of broad discussion about you know how do you show that you care for people start the foundation of having a strong relationship with people um getting on that the last parts you're talking about you know work life balance PTO I hadn't even realized kind of the disappearance of the term vacation uh it just kind of PTO uh kind of is just a normalized term I didn't even realize that It it was it did used to be called vacation and is not anymore so that's a very interesting point um and then we're talking about work life balance and um perhaps it's incumbent upon the leader to insist that the uh folks in their charge are taking care of themselves and having balance and creating those opportunities to be with the ones that they love or to recharge uh in a in a way that is necessary for them to stay mentally well I suppose right now I will share a really I mean it's kind of funny but it's not funny in the way that we are talking right now i have a friend who lives in California um they're they're an engineer and will send me a screenshot here and there of a job opening and there are many jobs that they have seen where it says in the job description the expectations uh 50 hours a week in the office and 20 hours a week at home and now here's the thing i'll say real quick at least you can't walk into the job not knowing what these expectations were so that's the good news however however with what we're talking about it's going to take a very particular archetype I think to to fit into this environment and I I don't know that that is the uh the bell curve of American employees right that's right so interesting stuff you're touching on here about a leader first knowing they want to be a leader being secure in their own skin being proud of the successes of their people um recognizing that you're dealing with other human beings who have lives who have challenges you know I think it's a common thing to say uh you know oh your uh your outside problems are not for work or whatever but we bring our whole selves to work right bring that so I'm curious do you have any specific uh you know a tactic or two that people can uh use to try to build stronger relationships with uh the people in their charge while in the workplace oh absolutely uh the first thing is don't try to build it in the workplace you know don't don't bring somebody in my office don't bring somebody in my you know in the conference room and say "Oh let's get a let's let's sit down and have a chat let's get to know each other better." you know get out of that work zone if you will and and and find a comfort for them right that that they're going to relax and be more open to you know sharing a little bit more of who they are w with you and you I've shared this example before you know I had a young man uh very young you know mid20s and when he first came to work for me and he was very nervous i mean he was you know always worried about being let go and and it's like you just got hired i mean yeah but you know I decided that you know let's let's get him out of that confines of the office to where he can relax and we was talking one day i said "Well what do you like to do when you're not here?" He said "Oh I like to golf." Well back then I golfed and so we went back on the we went out on the golf course during during the day and what was funny was one of the things like "Do we do that in the middle of the day?" I'm like "Well yeah we can go." And so we went out and played golf and you know where where I was perceived as the boss right and and you know he was watching everything he did you know the first shot I shanked which didn't take long you know hey boy everything no holes barred at that point right everything was on the table and and you know by the fourth fifth sixth hole I mean we were just you would have thought we were buddies for you know 20 years that's good and and he would he relaxed and and understood that I was invested in his success and he felt like that uh you know he could share with me you know whatever he needed to that was important um and you know he asked for advice and you know so at that point forward the relationship dynamic changed because he he again knew that I had investment in his success Right and I think that's that's what we're talking about help people get to a comfort level where they feel like this person is all in on me being successful it's not going to do something to um hold me down now I personally have had you know quote unquote leaders who you know their their purpose was to you know get as much out of me as as can but then the first time I did something that they didn't agree with you know oh well you're doing it wrong well you know no I'm doing it my way i'm not doing it the way you would do it but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong so I I never you know when I deal with somebody I never go to them and say "Well you're doing this wrong." You know my question is what what did you do or how did you do or why did you do again wanting to hear the reasoning for what their decisionmaking went through right how they got there and then you can work through the nuances of okay have you thought about this or have you know again leading them through the process of you're trying to help them not condemn them yeah like that two great examples uh of of when you see someone take an action that maybe isn't what you would have done uh you know the the sent the line seek first to understand comes to mind love that and then um maybe using it as a as a coaching moment as well but also who knows what they might come up with maybe they have a fantastic approach that's entirely better than everything we all know right now right so Right exactly and I mean you know that goes again goes back to you know these days you just don't know what some people are going to learn and where they're going to learn it from and so don't ever dismiss it until you you know are able to sit there and and really have the conversation yeah no absolutely uh thanks for the great example about golf um you know again build some relationships outside of the work zone and help them get to a comfort level and I think those are really important things to keep in mind for leaders so thanks for mentioning those William um of course the time goes extremely fast here but I want to make sure to mention I don't want to leave it out that in your ebook uh in the first book you've written here you have a 7-day transformation for people to work out how they can uh work towards becoming a more inspiring leader and I think that is probably what people would be the most excited about is what is this thing I can do and so rather than getting into that today we'll use that as the uh as the hook to let people go go check more of it out um and we'll let you uh pitch where you uh want folks to check you out uh check your things out in the end of this episode real quick here but before we get to how people can learn more about your ebook and um about the 7-day transformation uh to becoming an inspiring leader uh I ask everyone the same question uh at the end of this show which is what is something that you've learned recently i I have learned that my desire to give back in in regards to leadership training and so forth is much higher than it's ever been and the reason why is just you know I turned 60 last year and um just the more and more people that I interact with I hear the frustration that they have with who they work for or who they work with and I I want to I've learned so much through my career and I've had so many great people that I've worked with that have taught me something that if I can package it and and help others learn even just a little bit you know that's what I want to do in the in the final years of my career love that yeah thank you for saying that um the the the pull to give back that's a wonderful thing to hear about something you've learned about yourself recently and and you know I think it should be said just as someone objective here from a distance you know thank you for giving to those who you've uh who followed you throughout your career it sounds like many have been touched as well so that's wonderful wonderful to hear about also um so the ebook right um the ultimate leadership blueprint uh if folks want to read it and start to learn about this 7-day uh leadership transformation guide that you've got uh where should they go so since you you and I last talked I did a a deal with Amazon so that's actually on Amazon all right uh you can get to the link through my website williamcdav.net williamcdavis.net and I have a uh tab for books and you can go there and click and and purchase it either ebook or uh paperback uh and then um I will be done hopefully by next Friday with the second book which will deal specifically with relationship building all right and how do how do you do it and and why and the goods and the bad of it so fantastic uh that will hopefully be um up on Amazon by the end of the month that's a great teaser because by the time this episode airs it'll be late May and that'll mean should mean that for the listeners it might just about be out so williamcdavis.net they can find out about your books and you're also do speaking engagements as far as I understand right so it's all there for folks to check out yep i do i do and uh uh have one coming up at the end of the month I'm looking forward to so fantastic that sounds great well William Davis my pleasure to spend some time with you today thank you for sharing some of your experience and some of your wisdom and I'm sure that folks will get a little bit out of it and and that's the reason we're both doing this right you bet you Jason appreciate you very much thank you for having me on thanks William[Music] so there you have it my conversation with William Davis uh remember you can go to williamcdavis.net and check out what he's up to he has decided to give back at this point in his career spend the last few years of his career uh helping others become better leaders and develop leadership skills so um yeah I was 98 degrees in Dallas with uh with William when I had that conversation kind of hard to believe it was just the middle of May during that time uh but yeah I was sitting at home in a nice 70°ree Colorado day no complaints from me at that point so what did we talk about um we talked about his ebook and really some of the pieces inside of that book uh and what he really believes from his own experiences so first off we uh talked about a little bit about uh him and his experience uh leading others and a really nice little testimonial from someone who used to be um someone that he used to manage but the first thing we really the first distinction we made is the difference between a manager and a leader and these are not mutually exclusive okay you can be both most of the time on this podcast I think I use the word management when we're talking about a lot of the studies that come out from Gallup and other things or the actual strategies or tactics that a manager can use with their team or their employees but those are roles we're talking about the act of leading and managing in William's mind um managing is when you're checking the boxes getting the work done and leading is when you're helping to drive what's getting done uh you are seeing that others depend on you and um the mentality of what you bring to that dynamic is I think the key distinction here we are building connection and seeing how the people we work with and who work for us complement us and that I think is the nuance that William is bringing to this conversation about the difference between management and leadership we talked about uh change and an example of how this might be handled differently and I think we can all relate to it whether we call it management or leadership we know what these two different examples look like one is where the manager says the company's going through this change that's the directive from above here we go this is what we have to do and that leads to uh a stale work environment um it leads to anxiety right and other things where when we're in these uh dynamics it's really not feeling like the employees are coming along for the ride it feels like something's being pushed onto them and there's really not an explanation for it and again I think we can all relate we've been through some version of both of these uh well hopefully you've all been through some version of the leading version of change as opposed to what William calls the management version of it so if we're doing a good job through this change uh as a leader we're explaining why this change is happening and if we don't know why it's incumbent on us to ask those above us for more information dig deeper right manage up and that's not always easy to do but if you don't understand you can't lead others through the change and help them understand why sounds so simple but we all know it is very difficult when you bring others along when you help them understand why through this change you're able to leverage their imagination take advantage of the wisdom and co-intelligence of your group they start become sol becoming solutionsoriented there's positivity and action as opposed to this staleness and anxiety we then talked a little bit about strong relationships and what William was quick to say is first you need to know that you want to be a leader you need to be secure in your skin and know that you aren't competing against your people you should be happy when your people succeed know that you're dealing with humans you want to help them get through the good and bad they need to know that they're there for that you are there for them for example picking up slack if they have something come up or encourage them to take time off and help them find balance and how do you do that the example that William gave was build it outside of the work zone and I think this is a fantastic thing to remember he used the example of golfing with someone and I thought that was really cool because you're doing something that you're both interested in and you're building rapport and the point he made was helping them helping your employees your followers helping them get to a comfort level with you that is how you start to build the relationship i hope you enjoyed this discussion with William i enjoyed having it until next time everybody take care[Music][Music]