S4E11: Leading with Empathy with Jim Carlough

**GET A FREE BOOK** Be one of the first three to comment on this interview with Jim Carlough and get a signed copy of his book, "The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership," for free. No strings attached!

Leadership + Writing a Book

• even though there's a gene for some tendencies, leaders are made and not born
• he wrote a book because managers aren't given guidance when promoted
• he started mentoring others and common manager challenges were around dealing with people
• Jim stopped watching the news because he wasn't sure who was telling the truth anymore

Integrity

• it's the foundation of effective leadership
• "Did I do anything today for my benefit that was at the expense of someone else?"
• Integrity leads to trust, commitment, focus, and retention
• to build integrity, journal, listen to your people, and take notes
• CEOs aren't necessarily role models, but they are easy to find references to help us connect the dots

Empathy

• put yourself in the shoes of your employee, understand the problem, and help them solve it
• "What would I want?" when thinking situationally about others
• very challenging to develop empathy
• we're afraid to say the wrong thing; first, start by listening
• ask yourself where you've seen empathy being shown and then model it
• people right now need to hear "it's going to be okay"

About Jim Carlough in his own words: I am a graduate of Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey with a degree in Psychology.  I am an accomplished executive with experience in the C-suite and EVP/VP with over 30 years of expertise in driving explosive growth and profitability for healthcare and healthcare technology organizations ranging from start-ups to large scale enterprises. With a demonstrated history of success in building high-performance teams, revitalizing struggling portfolios, and leading successful M&A integrations.  A strategic leader capable of energizing and transforming any organization.

His 2024 book is "The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership."

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Transcript

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Wherever you are on your leadership voyage, it starts here.[Music] Hey everybody, welcome back to Leadership Voyage, the podcast dedicated to your pursuit of becoming a great leader. My name is Jason Wick and I have a question for you today. Would you like a free book? That's the question. Now, you might say maybe. Depends on the book. So, my guest today is Jim Carlo, a seasoned leader who wrote a book called The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership. I read the book myself. It's uh it's a good read. It's got some very pragmatic information uh as far as tips are concerned for developing your skills specifically around integrity and empathy which is what we talk about today. But there are six pillars and so I ask you if you'd like a free copy of this book, a hard copy signed by the author. If you would, it's not going to be that difficult to get one. Listen to the interview today and comment on the episode. Let us know what you thought. Don't tell me your address yet. Just in the comment that's public, just say something you thought about the episode. Honest feedback, uh, good, bad, or otherwise. We appreciate all of it. And then I will reach out to you individually, get your mailing address, and Jim will sign a copy of his book and send it to you for free. That's it. There's no catch. Just giving you a free book. Everybody loves to stack their bookshelf with leadership books, right? The more leadership books on your bookshelf, the smarter your friends think you are. Isn't this a truism? So, let's do it. Let's get Jim to give away three books. Okay, so now you know what we're talking about today. If you want to get in touch with me about any other topic, you can email me at startyouvoyaggmail.com. Otherwise, I want to hear from you about this episode in the comments of wherever you are listening, whether it's Apple, Spotify, Buzzsprout, whatever it happens to be, let me know. Or you can hit me with a message on LinkedIn, that works too. So, today we talk about integrity and empathy, most specifically, but there's a whole bunch of great storytelling weaved in and out of this episode, and I think you're going to enjoy it. Jim's an engaging guy. He's been in the workforce for a long time. He's led a lot of people and he was compelled to write this book, The Six Pillars of Effective Leadership. He's considering writing a second, which is part of why he wants to hear from you. So, have a listen, enjoy, learn a little bit, get a free book.[Music] Okay, everybody. Thanks for joining us again for another episode of Leadership Voyage. I am thrilled to be with Jim Carlo today. Jim, it is nice to meet you. Uh, well, not in person, but you know what I mean. Jason, it's nice to meet you as well. I'm glad to be here today. It's a beautiful day in Dallas and I see sunshine out your window, so it can't be all that bad. No, it's looking good here in Colorado as well. And we got caught up and and acquainted a little bit here before we started. So, thanks for coming in today again. Really appreciate it. And I'm excited about the topic we've got, which is about your book, Six Pillars of Effective Leadership. And we're going to dig into that a little bit. But I want to jump in right away with a question that has been uh debated for centuries. Is a leader born or made? A leader is made. So, and and I'm probably I'll have a scientist someday start to argue with me because they have identified a gene that a lot of people who end up in leadership have. However, I'm a perfect example of someone who wasn't born a leader. I didn't have a father or mother and I had a father and mother. I didn't have anyone in my family that was a CEO of an organization or uh governor or a senator or anything of that nature. But not that governors and senators all have leadership skill, but we but we won't go there. Um so I'm a perfect example of that. In fact, I was having a conversation a few weeks ago and we and in the conversation, we were talking about, you know, where in the various spark parts of my journey I picked up each of my pillars or or trait or characteristics and I started to think about my first management job and I realized how bad of a manager I truly was. Nobody most companies do the following. you're a great employee. You show up. You do a great job. We're going to make you a manager. They throw you into that position. They don't give you any guidance. You have a business degree. It they didn't teach you about people and behaviors. And then you struggle. And and I struggled. And I actually sat in this discussion and said, I think I need to find all of those people and apologize to them because the way I lead today is different than it was 15 years ago and different than it was 30 years ago. And so, and you also have to evolve your leadership skill as the environment changes and as generations change and the world that we live in change. Um, so I I I I'm emphatic with the fact that your father may have been a CEO, your mother may have been chairman of the board, but you learned from them and others the way you manage. Thanks for that description, Jim. No, that's a great one. And I also appreciate you sharing some of your personal experiences. It's funny you bring up your early management cuz uh I post something on LinkedIn a couple months ago uh about my first management experience which essentially involved I think screaming at somebody. So you know we all can look back and and find the humility. So I do appreciate you sharing that. I want to ask you about uh kind of the the the catalyst for you choosing to write a book. I think it was 2024, right? you wrote the book and is it basically what you just said in your explanation that that inspired you to write the book or is there more to it? I think there's a little bit more to it. It started out of the fact that for the last 25 years I 25 years ago I worked for a company that had a internal mentor program and I started mentoring younger younger individuals who wanted to get into management and then just continued doing that. And um in that process I learned that a lot of things that I was doing as a leader they had never heard of in terms of understanding empathy or compassion and and I could see that in their face they were struggling with when an employee had a problem how to handle it and how to have that conversation. And so over the years I kept I kept evolving this as I mentored more and more people. And about two years ago I finally said well it was actually during co I stopped watching the news and I stopped watching the news because I I lost faith in whether people were giving me the truth or not. And and I'll go back to my college days. There was a class I had in college. It was called contemporary moral values. And you there was no textbook, but you had to bring either the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or the Washington Post to class. And if you were called upon, you had to take an article from the main section and present to the class the religious and political background of the writer. H and what were they trying to convince you to believe in? Now you're if you think in today's terms, you're probably saying, "Okay, I can understand that, but I graduated college in 1983. There was no internet." No, you couldn't go and Google Jim Carlo. Is he a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent? Exactly. You know, and now you can do that today. But what I found was I found that I couldn't I couldn't really understand why someone who I thought was a certain type of political background person was trying to convince me of something that was the polar opposite. and I literally stopped watching the news. And then as we came out of CO, I really started to get the sense of the lack of integrity, not just in this country, but around the world of some of our leaders. And and I said, you know, I think it's time I put my stuff on paper. And that's really what started the process because when I looked at it, I said, "Hell, I do a lot of writing. I can write a book, it was a lot harder than I ever imagined, but I enjoyed it. It was very enjoyable to go through." And I I had a list of about 15 to 18 actually pillars. And I said, "You can't give that to somebody and say, "Here, implement that." they'd look at that and go, "No." So, I wanted to get something down that was implementable, reasonable, and would have the biggest impact on a leader. That's perfect. And and first of all, beautiful response, Jim. So, thank you. There's a lot in there. I I look forward to myself to listening to this interview again so I can kind of unpack a lot of that. I mean the um I I don't want to put words in your mouth, but in a way it almost sounds like the f first part of writing this book is is almost a little bit of catharsis and like you're you're kind of reconciling what you've seen and then you have to put it down what you believe in. This is really important to like state what matters to you, right? And I mean I have to respect that. I also respect the editing process of going from 15 to six. So nice job on that. It makes it a digestible book, which for everyone out there, I have read it. It's a very good book, digestible. I read it in a couple of days off and on. So, definitely want to recommend it. Um, you touched on something that's pretty powerful there, which is kind of the trust and reliability of the sources and the leaders and the people that we hear from. And in the book, you have these six pillars. And as you and I were emailing back and forth, um, you were pretty passionate about empathy. And that's what we want to dive into today. However, you said nothing exists without integrity. And we're going to dive into integrity first here. So, you say integrity is the foundation. Um, and you share an anecdote about uh when you were elected to the city council, I think it is, and you had a con and uh was that in New Jersey? That was in New Jersey. That was in New Jersey. and you had a conversation with the borrow administrator. And real quick, I want to zoom out. Two very quick things for listeners. For those of you in the Northeast, you'll be like, why is he even bothering saying this? But a borrow, like the five burrows of New York City, right? Uh it's like a local government thing, which a lot of people not in that part of the country probably don't hear the term very often. So that's what we're talking about the context. You're on the city council talking to a bureau administrator. And then secondly, I just can't resist this because when I read the book, I thought of it. Uh, you said you went to Satan Hall in South Orange. My family comes from Hazburg Heights, New Jersey, which is just within a couple hours. And my great aunt was actually, I believe, the first female uh burrow administrator for in Bergen County in Hazburg Heights, New Jersey. So, I have to say that she's long departed now, but I had to say that out loud. So now that I've set the backdrop of kind of like the environment we're talking about, could you please share the story for us and uh and it illustrates integrity. So Don asked me to come and sit down and and and as we were chatting he said I have I have a favor to ask of you and being new to politics I and somebody saying favor I'm thinking what what am I getting myself into? And it was not that at all. and and it and what he said really hit me like a 2x4 to the side of the head. And he said, "What I would like for you to do for me is every night when you go to bed and you put your head on the pillow, I want you I want you to ask yourself one question." And that question is, did I do anything today for my own personal benefit that was at the expense of another person, group of people or organization? If you can say no to that question, you have had a successful day and you can rest peacefully. But then he said, "If you say yes to that question, you need to think and re-evaluate what you did so you don't repeat it." Ever since that day in 1984, I have asked myself that question every night. I don't ever believe I answered that question yes. And and and I think the result of that is the ability for me to build teams that believe in me and trust in me, know that I have their back, and that they know that the compassion and the empathy is real. If you don't have integrity with your team, you won't have trust. You won't have commitment. They'll not stay focused. And those leaders are more likely to have t higher turnover than those who lead with integrity. So in my book as since you read it, I'm not I don't profess myself to be an expert, but what I give people is an outline of the pillar, a story, but then I also give them references to people in real life that they may know or recognize their name who exemplify that characteristic in their leadership style. And then I also give people ideas for ways of how to implement it in their own life. Um, so that's kind of a I kind of snuck that in there and I apologize for that, but I think it's important for people to understand they're not going to get a book with just Jim Carlo pontificating, right? They're going to get a book that they're going to have other references. So for example, in the book I have a couple of references for integrity, but one in which is Satia Nadala, the the CEO of Microsoft. And when he went into Microsoft or was hired in 2014, he made it very very clear that the number one thing that they were all going to be held accountable for was their integrity. And he has led that way ever since then. Yeah, great story with uh with Don, right? That was the name of the administrator. Um, and I love the the idea here that by asking yourself a question every night, you're implementing a repeatable system that gives you the opportunity of holding yourself accountable, staying on track, and just kind of uh cementing this integrity value, this pillar for you as a leader into your daily routine. I think that's a fantastic thing to to hear about and for people to model. I also wanted to touch on um you sharing the examples of folks um uh out in the world that that we've all heard of. And this is this is one where I think it can get a a really real life discussion about this. I like this because I talked to Robert Harrove last year, the co-director of the Harvard Leadership um uh group uh project, excuse me, Harvard Leadership Project, and he told me that he tends to only use historical figures as leadership examples because CEOs fall from grace so quickly, right? So, in your book, it's great. We have those references to others. It's not just Jim pontificating, which is is wonderful. But I was wondering, right, it doesn't mean there's not integrity at Microsoft, but we're recording this in May. Just I think a week or two ago, they have this big layoff. It doesn't mean that there's not integrity, but it's interesting data points. And I'm curious because I had the really interesting fortune of looking through your ebook version, right, where the editors, you and editor kind of talking, which is just really cool to see. It's like, should we talk about this or that? And so I'm wondering if you had any thoughts on using CEOs in the current world as models. It wasn't that I wanted them to be role models, but I wanted people to be able to connect with real life people that are doing those things today so that they're common in the press and easy to find. Great point. Right. Um, I also have Nelson Mandela referenced in the book. Yes. Um, and and a few others. But I truly wanted to make it easy for people to understand and connect the dots. And I don't know if Satia Nadala has ever written a book, but there's enough out on the internet and about his leading with integrity that people could go to the internet and make that connection. So, it was a deliberate, it wasn't to highlight the CEOs, but it really was more to to make it easy for people to connect to who these people are. Yeah. Great. No, I love that. That's a great response. And um and yeah, I love it. And and I think people are people, right? We're we're all fallible to the point. So, there is no perfect role model for us to follow. And I love you making that distinction of reference points that people can look at. That's wonderful. So, if we're looking to build our integrity muscle, what are uh what are one or two different things you could say we could do to work on that? I think the first thing to do, the the first mistake most new leaders make is the first time they're introduced to their team, they start talking. And that's the worst thing to do. The first thing you need to do is go in and say hello and listen. The first thing if you come in and just start saying, "Okay, here's how we're going to do things starting tomorrow," you're going to lose them all because they're the first thing they want to understand is who you are, what you're about, and that's going to come from active listening first. And I also talk about in the book um journaling. It's also important for your team to to to not just hear what you're saying, but see that you're listening by taking notes and writing. I literally worked for a person at one point in my career who we had a weekly one- on-one and during that one-on-one meeting, he would read the Wall Street Journal. What? I am not kidding. He would have it in front of him. I would be in a chair. I would be talking. He would be responding. And he was dual tasking. It was the most painful exercise I ever endured because I felt like I wasn't important. Yeah. Invisible. Geez. And and and and I don't do that. If in fact I have two types of meetings. Once a week I have a team meeting with all my leaders and then once a week I get a one-on-one meeting with each of those leaders. Mhm. That one-on-one meeting is their meeting. Mhm. It is their opportunity to come and bring me questions, tr things they're struggling with, areas I can help them with. um we talk about how their kids are doing or whatever, but it's their meeting and their agenda and their opportunity to get from me what they not what they're not getting, but what they need at that moment to help move the ball forward. Yeah, I love those tips. Um first of all, sorry to hear about that experience. My goodness, that sounds horrible. And I it's just struck me as you're talking about that that in in remote environments or hybrid environments, I mean gosh, you can't even necessar well you probably can tell, but you can't know for sure what people are doing when they're in a meeting anyway, right? They're looking at another monitor reading the Wall Street Journal digitally. But I will say those are really nice tips. So as a leader, you're going to go in uh if you want to build your integrity muscle, start from saying hello and listening rather than just going off and talking. Second, journaling. And I like journaling as it also relates back to to what you said about the nightly question forces that reflection and your own handwriting. You can see what what's going on with with what you've been experiencing. Uh, and taking notes, using these one-on- ons, they're for your employee. We've talked about that a lot on this show. That fits in beautifully, the one-on-one. What do you need from you if you are the leader? Three great things there to mention. Jim, um I want to shift to one of your other pillars and this one is empathy. Um I'm going to pull up the manuscript here. Okay. Yes. Chapter six, empathy. This quote from Oprah I wanted to to read to everybody. Leadership is about empathy. It's about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives. I love this quote. So, thank you for including it. I think it fits perfectly into your response to the uh including things from visible folks out there in the world today. And as I think about it, I also think about some of the realities that have been emerging around people centric things in businesses specifically here in like the Q1 Q2 time frame of 2025 where 92% of HR leaders are saying that their people centric initiatives are facing push back and I think about empathy and I think about your thesis of leaders are are made and they need to be able to invest in building their mil their skills, right? And and I think about this and I go, "Okay, Jim, what's your business case for empathy?" If I can't So there one of the other pillars is also compassion, but I separate the two of them. They are different. To me, empathy is the ability of me for me to put myself in the shoes of that employee and not just understand what they're going through, but to be able to help them solve that compassion. You can't always solve something, but you can give direction. And so, um, and I like to tell stories. So I had a situation and it's in the book. You've read the book where I was faced with downsizing a department of 25 over a period of 3 years. They were this was back in the late 90s is green screen technology and we were suns setting it because we're replacing it with two different versions of a Windows-based product. The implementations would typically take 8 to 12 or 14 months. So, some length of time. But my challenge was I needed those people to not walk out the door because we had customers to support. And I said, "What am I going to do to let them know that I've got their back? I need them. And that we're in this together." And I didn't have an answer. I truly didn't have an answer. And I wrestled with this and I finally came up with three things. So I met with the group as a team. I told them that we would be downsizing the product or or sunsetting the product and that in that process their jobs would be going away. But I said I'm going to make three commitments to you. Commitment number one, you will have as much notice as I have or as we feasibly have together to know when your last day would be knowing that these implementations take 6 to 12 months. You might have 6 to 12 months of a runway to find your next job. So that was commitment number one. Commitment number two, since the Windows technology was different than the green screen technology, if you wanted to stay in your position but work with the new products, I during the workday would provide the expertise to you by bringing in smarter people than me to learn how to work within that environment of those Windows capabilities that we were developing. Wouldn't be on overtime or it wouldn't be after hours. It would be during the workday. I also said if you don't want to stay in that position but you want to stay in the company I will help you find a job commensurate with what you get paid today in a role in a department where you can excel at and I will make sure that I'm involved in in getting you an introduction to the leaders in that area. And I went one step further. I then said, "If you've decided you don't want to stay with the company, I will not try to talk you out of it, but I will offer to help you find a job external to our organization that you can be successful at and succeed at, and I will try my best to talk to any influencer I can at that organization to help get you hired." My sole goal was to not have people leave and leave me left holding the bag trying to support customers with nobody left. I succeeded. Nobody quit before their time. Yeah, that's crazy. And greater than 90% of the people stayed with the company. But something else happened that I never expected. A few months into this process, we had an annual employee satisfaction survey. And a couple weeks after the survey, I get a call from an HR leader who asked to come and speak with me. And um I said, "Okay." And so she came to my office and she had stack of papers and she said, "I want to talk about the employee satisfaction review of your people." I said, "Of all my people?" And she said, "No, just the people that are in Oakland." And that most of these people were in Oakland, California. And I went, "Oh, I I'm thinking, this is bad, right? This is this is just bad." I I said, "Well, you understand those people are are losing their jobs, right?" And she said, "Yes, but that's not what I want to talk about." I said, "Well, what do you want to talk about?" She said, "I really want to know what you're doing because they have the highest employee satisfaction rating in the entire company." Yeah, that's insane considering the circumstances you're talking about. Correct. But what it showed was I demonstrated that I could put myself in their shoes. And I felt if somebody told me my job was going away, what would I want? Time to think of something else to do, assistance, and then also support in helping me get that job or education or whatever. And I gave that to them in that commitment. and and and that gave me not just what I needed to succeed, but it also was a reflection in the organization that said, "Hey, I'm I've got my boss's back. He's taking care of me. Yeah, he understands my job's going away. He wants to educate me so I can stay with the company or help me get a job." And and you know what? They were motivated. They were motivated. It's a fantastic story, Jim. And I know that from from from some of the stuff I had been looking up before, I I I really get the vibe that you like to tell this story, right? And you should, you know, it's it's really cool to hear someone handle something that's so challenging, so thoughtfully, and I do think this is an example of using, you know, kind of sounds like you're saying the golden rule in a way, right? like what would I want somebody to do to to do for me in this situation and then you are identifying the best you can for a large group of 25 people how you can make this situation work for them and amazing that I think you just said 90% of the people stuck around either through the new technology or finding a similar role and that makes me think about you got to that point somehow once Once again, beating a dead horse, leaders are made. So, how do people develop empathy? That sounds like a sounds like a challenging thing. It is very challenging. Um, and I think also understanding compassion and how to react. I think what we're most afraid of as humans is to say the wrong thing. And in both of those situations, the important thing is again to listen and then, you know, potentially to think before you respond. Um, but it it's also helps build that bridge and and I think it humanizes the manager. You know, someone asked me one time, um, so when does leadership start? is doesn't it start once you get your cup of coffee and sit down at your desk? And I said, "No, it starts when your feet hit the floor in the morning. And it doesn't end until you go to sleep at night. It's 24/7." And you know, whether you socialize with your people or not, you're not going to ignore them if you pass them in the mall. Right. Right. You're going to greet them. You're going to talk to them. and they're going to look up to you and they're going to introduce you as hey this is my leader or this is my this is who I work with or this is what you know whoever and and and to me that is so important I you know when I first started in 1983 in management right out of school management was very authoritarian this is what you're going to do these three things are on your task list for tomorrow and um and then I want to see

it by 4: 33:06

00 you that's Not today. That is absolutely not today. And I I hope to think I'd never behave that way even in 1983. But it's that's why it's really a learned thing because you're not you're not born to be compassionate. You're not born to have empathy. You do learn that in your fa in most families or you'll learn that through experiences. Um, but it you have to really think about what is empathy and where have I seen it? When you can start to realize where you've seen that be being shown, you can start to catch on to say, "Ah, okay, that's empathy. That's what that's what they were telling me in that book. Okay, I get that." Or, "That was compassion." And and so it's very hard There I there were actually when I worked at pro systems we all took this class called oh it was I think it was pro systems crucial conversations and there's you know a book and the woman who wrote the book came and lectured to all the management people and it's you know you have to be prepared for those difficult or crucial discussions whether it's about talking about the employees performance or the employee talking about the fact that Aunt Ethel just got cancer and she's your favorite aunt and you're you're an emotional wreck sitting there in the office and and what do you do and many people just struggle with that? Yeah, it's a it's a nuanced topic and thank you for getting into that in a uh I would say in a in a gentle and realistic way as far as the way you're talking about empathy and and learning from seeing and things like this. And um we're going to get uh into this in just a second. Um because everybody out there, you you you may have a chance to get this book for free. We'll see if Jim is okay with that. Haha. But there is more in this book about developing empathy that you can you can read about and uh some other activities that you can try out. So sit tight for that. Um, but before we do that, Jim, we we will let people know about the book and and maybe an opportunity to get a signed version for free if you're okay with that. I ask everybody on this show the same question at the end. And that question is, uh, what is something that you've learned recently? Something that I learned recently is something that I've started to tell people and it's more because of the environment that we're in. People need to hear it's going to be okay. There's a lot of noise everywhere within the United States, outside of the United States. A lot of things are confusing for people. You hear one thing said on Monday that's changed on Tuesday. I My message is it's going to be okay. It's It's just going to be okay. We're going to be able to get up tomorrow. We're going to be able to get up next Monday. It's going to be okay. And I've said this to my kids recently as well, and they're all grown adults, and I'm like, it's going to be okay. Yeah, I appreciate that. Uh, some days are harder than others, some days are easier than others, but you're right. We'll be there at the end still kicking, right? I do appreciate that. That's great. That's a great insight. Um, okay. So, you when we before the call, you said you had a pretty cool offer uh for about this book. You want to let people know about that? Yes. I would love to get feedback on what you liked or what you didn't like about this conversation. And I want to give away three signed copies of my book to the first three people that comment on Jason's podcast on either his podcast forum or his website. So, you're going to be just logging a comment. how you feel about it. You listen to the episode and then Jason's going to reach out to you to get your mailing address. Do not put your mailing address in social media. Please don't do that. That's not what we're trying to get at. But what we do want to do is get feedback. Um I am considering the next book. I am considering what's, you know, next on the journey. But if I'm not resonating with people, I do want to know that. Um so I'm thick skinned and I can handle it. I handled three editors for the course of a year in writing a book. And if you haven't written a book, they like to change every word. So anyway, there you go. But for the first three people, uh, I will gladly offer you a signed copy of of my book, which I happen to have right here. And if you're not one of the lucky ones, it is available at Barnes & Noble online as well as on Amazon. Or you can also get it directly from me through my website, which is www.jim jimcarlo.com. So Carlo is cou and um Jim put in front of that and then.com. You can read a little bit more about me on my website. There's other material there and there'll also be a link to this uh broadcast as well. Perfect. Yeah, thanks Jim. And uh for all you listeners out there, a great opportunity to get a free signed book. Um and fivestar rated I have heard from uh through the grapevine just recently. So, Jim, wonderful news. Uh, yeah, thank you so much for joining me today, Jim. I think everybody's going to get a lot of helpful information and a few book few folks are going to get a free book out of the deal. So, thanks so much for sparing some time. It's really nice to meet you and talk to you today. Well, thank you for having me here. I This was this was a lot of fun. Thank you very much, Jason.[Music] All right, everybody. All right, everybody. Does anybody want a free book as I asked in the beginning? Uh, comment on the episode wherever you've been listening and let us know what you thought about some of the material, something you agreed with, something you disagreed with, a question that you wish was asked, something like that. We'd love to hear you engage and then I will reach out to you directly and give you or get your address, send it on to Jim and you can get a free copy of the six pillars of effective leadership, a free signed copy. But let's get to the episode recap. So leadership uh we can just kind of talked more generally to start things off and writing the book. Um, even though there's a gene apparently that some researchers have found with where people have a tendency to become leaders, Jim is very adamant that leaders are made, not born. He wrote a book because managers aren't given guidance when they're promoted and he started mentoring others at some point and was seeing some of the common issues managers were facing were related to dealing with their people. Uh he also shared during co he stopped watching the news because he wasn't sure who was telling the truth anymore. That led us to a discussion on integrity. The foundation of effective leadership is integrity. And Jim shared the story of the burough administrator who gave him the advice asks yourself every night did I do anything today for my benefit that was at the expense of someone else. Integrity leads to trust, commitment, focus, and retention. To build integrity, you can journal, listen to your people, and take notes. CEOs aren't necessarily role models, but they are easy to find references to help us connect the dots in some of these topics. Then we switched over to empathy. And empathy is a good topic, right? we uh we we kind of acknowledge it's a little enigmatic but it it's a great thing to be discussing. So in essence it's putting yourself in the shoes of your employee understanding and then helping them solve a problem. Ask yourself uh what would I want to have in this situ happen in this situation? It's a challenging skill to develop. People are generally afraid to say the wrong thing. first listen. Uh you can ask yourself where have you seen empathy being shown in action and then model that. And the very last thing Jim Jim talked about as far as what he'd learned recently was people right now need to hear it's going to be okay. So there you have it folks. There's your episode recap. Uh Jim Carlo talking about empathy and other topics. Thanks for sticking around. Remember to comment if you want that free book. Until next time everybody, take care.[Music][Music]