75 Unlocking Leadership Potential: Building High-Performing Teams with Stuart Andrews

In this episode of the Knowing Self Knowing Others podcast, host Nia Thomas sits down with Stuart Andrews, an expert in executive leadership coaching with over 20 years of experience in global corporations. 

Stuart Andrews is a leadership coach and trusted advisor to CEOs and executives, specializing in leadership development, team coaching, and corporate retreats. His passion lies in empowering business leaders to unlock their full potential and drive transformational change. Stuart shares his journey from computer science to leadership coaching, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness in effective leadership.

Together, they explore the role of character in leadership, discuss Stuart’s 5D’s Transcending Leadership Framework, and delve into the concept of confident humility. Stuart also provides valuable insights into building best-in-class workplace cultures, balancing people and profit, and recognizing warning signs of poor leadership.

Whether you’re a seasoned leader or just beginning your leadership journey, this episode offers practical advice on transforming challenges into opportunities and creating a positive impact within your organization.

Link to Stuart's website here

Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Nia: Hello and welcome to the Knowing Self, Knowing Others podcast, where we discuss self aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join me as we talk to today's guest.

A very big welcome to today's show to Stuart Andrews. Stuart is passionate about empowering business leaders to unlock their full potential and build high performing teams. With over 20 years of experience in leading global companies, including Fortune 500 firms, Stuart understands the challenges of fostering growth and team cohesion.

As a trusted advisor to CEOs and executive leaders, Stuart offers tailored coaching and leadership development programs that drive transformational change. . His 5D's transcending leadership framework effectively removes roadblocks and boosts employee engagement.

Specializing in [00:01:00] executive leadership coaching, individual and team coaching, speaking, corporate retreats and workshops, Stuart helps leaders turn challenges into opportunities. So join us as we explore Stuart's journey and insights on achieving leadership excellence. Stuart, very glad you could join me today.

So tell us about your journey so far. 

Stuart: Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's great to be here. The journey started off in the world of computer science as a developer, and , it didn't take me too long before I discovered that I love working with people more than computers. I tend to say that a lot now.

You know, that that journey took me through business analysis, project management, program management, large scale global transformations and throughout that process. , I started to see a lot of interesting behaviors from executive leaders, and that really motivated me to work in , the, the leadership coaching space to see how I could help motivate employees.

And that's through obviously effective [00:02:00] leadership programs that, that ultimately start with self awareness where, you know, executive leaders learn. how their actions, their behaviors, the words that come out of their mouth on any given day can have a huge impact on employee engagement and yeah, I love what I'm doing.

Nia: That's definitely a bonus. You mentioned interesting behaviors there. Tell us a bit more about what kind of interesting behaviors were you seeing? 

Stuart: Probably , interesting is, is not the right word. It's more around toxic behaviors. Oh, okay. So, yeah, it's yeah, it's, it's, and, and, and a lot of that, it comes from, you Just the experiences that people have had, and maybe even the, the leadership teams that they've been part of in a prior life, right.

Thinking that that's the normal and that's the way to get results. And so it's, how do you break down some of that understanding and, and really help leaders understand that it's all about the customer. And and ultimately it's about the employees cause your employees are like your customer.

So you know, we've [00:03:00] gone from. , a lot of conversations around how do we create the best customer experience many years ago to now, actually, it's all about employee experience. And so those behaviors tailored or adjusted, I should say, to ensuring that you're you know, you're having the best employee experience.

Nia: Something you say that I've read that you've said is that Leadership starts with character. What do you mean by that? 

Stuart: I think we can control our character. I think we can control how we show up. And I think that's very important. How do we show up to a meeting? How do we show up on a phone call? How do we show up on a virtual conversation?

And that all comes down to a place of integrity. Authenticity. And that's, that's, that's really our character, right? It's, how do we want to be known what do we want to be known for? Do I want to be seen as someone who's constantly angry, fiery Quick to quick to action or do I want to be seen as someone who is quite well [00:04:00] resolved in the time of crisis and I think, you know, employees will look to those leaders who can create a character that is quite , puts that employee at the heart and center of everything that they do.

Nia: When you're referring to character, there is something about reputation, there is something about self awareness, and also making informed choices about those things. 

Stuart: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, , the situations that we're placed in on any given day Help reinforce who we are and they're always an opportunity for us to think about, , what, what do I do and how, how do I want to show up and I'll come back to that.

How do I show up? Because I think that's very important. We all, we all have difficulty and, and our own personal challenges. Right. And I think it's important to acknowledge that in the workforce as well to, , to allow for that space. Where someone can come up and say, are you okay? You know, are you doing all right?

It doesn't matter what role, what position you hold, but that comes down to character in [00:05:00] terms of being able to allow yourself to express your feelings like that. And and I guess a big part of that is vulnerability. 

Nia: In my brief intro, I mentioned that you have a five D's transcending leadership framework.

And I also know that you've got a five C's of effective leadership, but tell us a little bit more about the five D's to start with. 

Stuart: I think it all starts with discovery that's the first D and it's about understanding who you are, how you behave, how you act what are the things that you do and looking at being open to adjusting again, back to our earlier point, which is our behaviors.

And , what are the things that I can improve on that will have a game changing employee experience in, in my own team, in my own development, but then in the broader organization setting they're the things that we look at when we, we come to defining and, and going through that discovery process, we then move [00:06:00] into actually, what are the things that we can work on?

And that's the next 'D', which is the definition part. And then we move into driving. driving those actions through real life experiences and use cases in the organization and taking feedback to then continuously improve on it. I'll give a bit of a summary of that, but that's the essence of it. 

Nia: Your five C's of effective leadership really does support that.

And I was, I was, checking out your website before coming together on this interview. And your five Cs of effective leadership is made up of creativity, courage, curiosity, confident humility, and collaboration. And the humility for me, it's the second direction of my self awareness compass. So I'm really interested in hearing more about confident humility.

Stuart: Well, I think the confidence pace for me is about , getting getting your hands dirty, getting really involved in what are the lessons learned and how do I improve? I think being humble is one aspect of it, but being confident [00:07:00] in being able to open up and express your views and express why we've made a mistake or how I made a mistake.

And then what are the lessons that I learned from it? And being able to share that with the team, with others is very important. And that's really what confident humility is for me , we talk about what are the biggest challenges? What are the most common mistakes? And what are the things that could be improved?

And that requires a level of confidence in, yes, I may have made a mistake. Yes, , we made an error, but I'm very confident now from the learnings that I have, this is how we can actually do better. 

Nia: I like that. So it's, it's more of an active humility rather than a passive humility.

Stuart: Absolutely. 

Nia: Oh, that's really helpful. You also talk about a best in class workplace culture. What does that mean or what might that look like in, in my organization or somebody else's organization? What, what does best in class mean? 

Stuart: I think I've seen a lot where, , Organizations talk about culture and , you walk into a meeting [00:08:00] room and you've got it on on the wall on some sort of flip chart and, , it might be even laminated, whatever it may be.

And you, you look through it and it's a set of behaviors or, you know values that we're looking to aspire to achieve, but yet no one looks at it. One of the things that, , you might observe would be something like, , Well, we're not going to yell at each other.

Right. And that may be framed up in, in whatever sentence structure or, you know, keyword , but yet people are in a meeting and they maybe do still raise their voices or maybe they are quite passive aggressive or , they do something, , behind someone's back and they continue to , have things fester and continue to involve themselves in backbiting and all sorts of things like this.

And you go, well, how's that? How's that the culture of the organization? Because that's not what we signed up to. And I, and I think a big part of it is because some of this stuff is just set and forget. And so it's not there in the,, top of mind when I rock up in, , whether I go into the office or I'm in a hybrid environment or completely remote, whatever it may be, [00:09:00] how do we turn that into active Set of values and behaviors that are monitored and there's a second part of that when we talk about best in class cultures It's how do we hold each other accountable to that as well?

So even when someone does make the mistake Someone else should be courageous enough to be able to say hey, hang on a second That's not the right way to talk to that particular individual or that's not you know, that's not acceptable That's not in line with our cultural values Everyone needs to, I guess, be held accountable to making sure that the cultural values that are set in place are adhered to and they're not just a set and forget.

Nia: I think from your description there is definitely alignment with what I refer to as behavior or modeling behavior. I think it's that description that you gave of that, it's not a one and done, and I think that's right that we have to model the behavior we expect to see. In the organizations you worked with, what kind of lightbulb moment are you seeing when you're going into these organizations and [00:10:00] they aren't necessarily living the values that are laminated on the wall as you walk in?

How do they get to that point of that light bulb and seeing the difference and I suppose being able to step back and observe their organization for what it really is. 

Stuart: Well, I think that's a part of what I love to call pause and reflect opportunities, which is how are we operating right now.

And I think, , as organizations scale. they have to take the time out to look at how are they actually operating? How are they, how are they interacting with one another? How I, is work getting done in the organization ultimately? Right? And it's only through those pause and reflect moments where the light bulb actually, you know, comes through and they go, right, I can see that now.

I could see how , we have certain meetings that exist and this is the way we, , we run them at the moment. And a great example of that was. During,, the pandemic COVID days, right? You see, people were just stuck to their chairs and a lot of organizations that I worked with during that time, they're just stuck to their chairs [00:11:00] from, you know, eight o'clock in the morning till 6 PM at night, just going from one meeting to the next.

And then when you look at, is that really the culture of the organization? Especially if you were an organization and you had one of your key cultural values, which is we're going to make it fun. It was definitely not fun. It was, it was quite mundane. There was You know, people had lost that personal touch.

It was just completely about work. And, and so it's, , the only way to stop that is to say, okay, well, we're now going to pause and reflect and look at how things have been done and how organizations do that is, , it's up to them, but I mean, , is that something that you do on a monthly basis, a quarterly basis?

Is that where we talk about? You know, taking the leadership team outside of work in an offsite environment where we're able to unpack these challenges and then come back with a strategic response to it. Or are we just constantly deploying some sort of tactical solutions and then wondering why they never work?

Nia: So there is something about. making reflection a part of the way you [00:12:00] work making those choices so that not only as individuals, you're reflecting on your individual behavior, but you're taking that time to reflect on the whole organization's behavior. 

Stuart: Yeah, absolutely. I don't think it's, it's not a one, one man or one person show, right?

You have to look at it and my leadership development programs and they all encompass two parts is working on the individual level, but also working at the team level, the organization level. 

Nia: Are you a chief executive or a senior leader within your organisation? If so, it would be great to have you join me on the podcast to share your journey, experiences and light bulb moments along the way. Drop me an email at info at knowingselfknowingothers. co. uk if you'd be interested in having a conversation.

So as you know, this podcast is all about self awareness and self aware leadership. How do you define or describe self awareness?

Stuart: I think it's the ability to be aware of how I [00:13:00] am behaving how I'm acting in a situation how am I responding, , and then , a good example of that is, , I, I learned through in my early life that I was quite impatient and it took me a while to be able to see that in certain situations where, right, I just wanted results and, and, , you had to work at it quite hard to be able to almost take yourself out of your body to then look at yourself and go, oh, okay.

Yeah. I'm now exhibiting signs of impatience, and so now maybe it's just about trusting the process trusting that I've got the right people around me, the right team and, and letting them work through the. You know, to get to the outcomes that we're looking for. 

Nia: You've already mentioned that self awareness is something that you, you work on as part of your leadership programs.

But , what's your view on , self awareness and leader effectiveness, how they link 

together? 

Stuart: I think one key direct link is about if I'm quite self aware, then I'm, I'm pretty confident that the decision making process, for example, is going to be a lot more robust, right? I'm going to make sure that, , [00:14:00] if I take that example earlier where I shared, if I'm impatient, then I might find it that, , I just want a quick win, for example, and it could be whether it's on an individual personal level, or even if I'm working in a team environment and I take a decision, that's just going to get me a short term outcome may not be in the best interest of everyone else might be in the best interest of me, but not for everyone else.

And so therefore, if I just , slow down a little bit, make sure that I have all the right data points. Both at an individual level, but in a team environment, still same concept. Then I'm going to make sure that my decision making process is a lot more robust. 

Nia: You talk about self awareness as part of your program and you also are very heavily focused on the commercial sector.

One thing that I often talk to guests about is that you often see that the more ruthless leaders within the commercial sector who are more focused on pounds than people or the money rather than the people. Yeah. Is that something that [00:15:00] you, you are observing? And if so, how, how does it play out in organizations?

And how do you shift those organizations to say, You know, you need to be looking at balance. 

Stuart: Yeah, great question. Because I think, I think it's quite simple. , the pressures that are coming from above. And as you said, from a commercial side, right? Shareholders bring pressure on, executives to just drive revenue and, and profit targets and what have you.

At the end of the day. If your employees and the people that you work with are super happy, super excited, waking up in the morning to get in and actually work together, then the rest actually comes quite naturally. But when we're focused on the numbers, and that's the only thing we talk about, and the decision making process throughout My organization is just purely on numbers.

That's where we end up with all these problems because we take the employee out of the heart and center of the conversation and I treat them as potentially an object, right? And so when you invest [00:16:00] the time in building What we said earlier, world class cultures, which is looking at how we get things done and creating those environments where we pause and reflect.

Then we're able to ensure that our employees are front and center and making sure that our decision making process revolves around them. And they will be super engaged, super excited about what we're doing and generate some amazing results from, you know, The profit targets that we're looking for. So it's, it's not that difficult.

I think it's just, again, breaking down the traditional way of how maybe. People have looked at upon, what they think is the way to those results. And it's actually a change in mindset. And I think that's very crucial. 

Nia: Something that I've seen you writing about is warning signs of poor leadership.

So if you are in organizations where you do have leaders who are really not quite balancing their people and profit, [00:17:00] what does that look like? What are those warning signs? 

Stuart: I think I mean, you see that through the statistics that come through, right? And , if you're, if your leaders are micromanaging if you're struggling with accountability, if you're, , seeing initiatives that are constantly delayed and over budget and, you know , people lacking empathy and, , People are avoiding conflict and, and, having those types of healthy discussions and, , and getting the diversity of opinion at the table, et cetera, et cetera, then they're clear warning signs about, Hey, we need to do something different because this is not sustainable.

Nia: Tell us more about customer centric leadership, and I guess that that was something that I was thinking about before we started this conversation that your work is very much focused on the commercial sector. And unless you have somebody like yourselves helping organizations to have that balance , there is this challenge.

So what does customer centric [00:18:00] leadership look like? In terms of making sure that you're balancing that with your people. 

Stuart: Yeah, I think, I think it's about, , at the end of the day, who is your end customer? And then aligning that to a set of principles that you. Operate within and you're always constantly going back to how is this particular initiative or project or whatever it is that I'm working on?

How does this actually make things better for my customer? Not make it worse. And a good example of that is we've seen through the use of technology over time. Organizations who consistently. Embrace the latest technology, but in the aim of actually increasing and then masking it with saying, Hey, this is better for the customer.

And I'll just use, I'll just use chat for example. Right. So when chat was introduced organizations were all about, okay, well, we think this is a better experience for our customers. Now, [00:19:00] some organizations. Really embraced it to see how it could actually benefit their customers, but they would still allow for certain customers and for certain issue types.

And for certain customer experience, we would then allow them to still contact us via phone, right? Now, the organizations that completely removed. The the phone type of conversation, it was all in the name of profits, right? It was just all about, okay, well, now we've got a customer service agent that can handle 20 chats at the same time.

And, you know, can't do that with 20 phone calls at the same time. And so you can start to see through making these decisions that you. , employee and employees can see straight through that, right? They can see, actually, that's not in the best interest of the customer. That's just, , you trying to make more and more profit, right?

And not realizing actually with the complication of doing so, you're actually creating more work for us internally, because then customer is going to find another avenue to complain about the issue not being resolved. And then that's [00:20:00] going to create more bottlenecks More pressure points, et cetera.

So that's how, you know, when we're talking about customer centric leadership, it's just, how do you align what's best for the customer while also making sure that your employees are, , , completely on board with the strategy and the vision that you have so that, , they're not burnt out throughout the process.

So balance is really important. 

Yeah, absolutely. 

Nia: You lead corporate retreats, something I've never done, but I'd really love to hear your views on, on corporate retreats. What is the benefit? How do you ensure that you structure them in such a way that they are constructive, that they are positive and, and that we don't end up having people falling out or, , the, the socialization element of a corporate retreat doesn't actually take us in the opposite direction to the one that we need to go.

Stuart: Yeah, I think you actually mentioned the right words. It's just a, it's a structured approach, right? It's not a, it's not a, it's not a free for all. So there's a, there's a [00:21:00] clear agenda that's put forward. There is you know, there's material that is covered that, , allows for the light bulb moments to, to come through because that's in the setting where it's a relaxed setting and the corporate retreat is, , the feedback that I always get from is it's, it's an amazing experience because.

It's the time where the leadership team actually come together and don't necessarily have to be worried so much about how they're being, , on the, on the stage. Yeah. It's about how do we relax together as a leadership team so that we are able to get to the heart and the crux of the issues that we're facing throughout, , the, this last period, whether it's a quarter or half year or full year, whatever it may be.

And I think they're very beneficial because it gives them that time of reflection. And then obviously through the structured material and the way we, , we tailor it, there are a clear set of actions and implementation steps that, you know, you take away from that. But in saying that it's not all just work, there is this, , substantial element of [00:22:00] making sure that it is an enjoyable process.

a fun experience and also a good focus on well being. 

Nia: So for listeners and watchers, Stuart's is in Southeast Australia. So what kind of environments do you take your, your leaders to when you're going to these kind of retreat? There's, 

Stuart: There's been some quite interesting ones. And there was one in New Zealand last year.

And if I shared the photos with you, I think you, Some people might be quite jealous. You know, it was just a magical, yeah, magical experience with the weather being so good. And so it really depends, right, on location and where they're, where they're held, but they are good opportunities to to relax, but also, Reflect on , what could be done better.

Nia: So, your leadership retreats, if anybody wanted to join you in one of your retreats., is that something that they could do or do they need to do it as part of their organization? How does, how might that work? 

Stuart: Yeah, so there's two approaches. There's one [00:23:00] which is organized in consultation with an organization that is going through a leadership directory.

And then there's of course individual ones that can be organized based on interests and, and sort of relevant parties. So it depends on the interest. So it'd be more through a discovery type of phone call to understand what, you know, what are they interested in who would benefit from it.

Do you want sort of cross functional engagement? Do you want the same type of people from different organizations? Yeah, so it, it, there's a few factors in it and that's why we'll go through some sort of discovery to understand what's, what's, what's going to give them the best value. 

Nia: Well, we'll make sure that there is a link to Stuart's website in the show notes just in case you want to join him on one of those retreats.

Stuart, you've written a book called The Leadership Shift. What are you supporting leaders to shift in your book? 

Stuart: It's all about, , the mindset change it's, it's helping really leaders understand the components of driving high performing teams.

And I think if we can get if we can get leaders to really [00:24:00] understand what drives high performing teams and what my role is in it, you know, am I asking the right questions? Am I making the am I making the best strategic use of my team? And that's what the book aims to help Leaders, actually leaders unpack and, , understand it's, it's there to it's not a prescriptive model by any stretch, but more around trying to touch a variety of different areas in an organization, if, if not all areas, to help them underst understand and, and I.

Thought provoking content so that, you know, there might be something that they read in there that then triggers. Oh, okay. I can relate to this This situation that happens in our organization Maybe if I applied, this type of solution or this type of insight then I'd get a different result and a better result.

Nia: So if people want to buy your book, where can they find it? 

Stuart: It's available on Amazon, Apple Books, and now there's a a a Spotify version. So if people want to listen to it as well. So, 

Nia: yeah. [00:25:00] Amazing. We will make sure, again, the link will be in the show notes. Stuart, I've really enjoyed our conversation today.

Any thoughts that you would like to leave with our listeners and watchers before you head off? 

Stuart: I, I think. The key one is that this is a gradual and a , it's not a, it's a, it's not a one time thing. So when we're looking at trying to, back to your point about self awareness and, , what is it that we're trying to improve, this is a key.

You know, we, we all need to constantly evaluate and if we are serious about improving, then this is a lifelong journey, right, to, to constantly be on a growth mindset. 

Nia: Yes. And that leads me very nicely into the title of my book, which is the self awareness superhighway, which is all about the lifelong journey of, of self awareness and becoming the best self aware leader you can be.

Stuart, thank you so much for joining me. I really enjoyed our conversation today. And I hope that you in Southeast Australia are enjoying living in the future. And I will be there [00:26:00] soon. 

Stuart: Yeah. Thank you for having me, doctor. 

Nia: Thank you. 

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Nia: Thank you for joining me on today's episode where we aim to develop self aware leaders around the globe to generate kinder, more respectful, and creative working relationships through reflection, recognition, and regulation. Head over to my website at knowingselfknowingothers. co. uk to sign up to my newsletter to keep up to date with my blog, podcast, and book.

Looking forward to having you on my learning journey.

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