Paige Buan
Thank you again to our listeners for joining us. This is part two of our discussion with Jeff.
Jeff, thank you for being on the Leader: Unlocked podcast.
Jeff Manhilot
Thank you as well for inviting me and having me again over.
Paige Buan
All right. So let's get started.
This is a bit of a funny story. So my daughter, she's young, and we're trying to teach her to speak her mind, express herself. Of course, she's trying to express everything that she's saying - she's probably going to kill me if this gets out there when she's older. But she -- when she was younger, she would tell us if she farts, because it's normal, right? And then the reaction is like, "Don't say that out loud." If you think about it, there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody does that. You're teaching somebody, a child, shame. When in fact it's something that's normal? And I'm...
Jeff Manhilot
No, no, it's okay. No, no, that's related to that one. Good thing that you mentioned about shame. Shame and guilt go side-by-side. And I think this is very important as well, especially you mentioned parenting.
About five years, six years ago, I was asked this question. So we were doing a leadership talk, and one of the managers asked me, "Jeff, how do I manage millennials? How do I lead millennials? Millennials are usually the ones who were born 1981 to 2000, or 1999.
So I told the manager this, "If at this point in time," that was about five years ago, six years ago, "If at this point in time, you're still talking about how to lead millennials, I think you should resign." And he was shocked. Jeff, what are you saying? "Because in a matter of about four years, three years from now, the Gen Zs are coming in." And now, the Gen Zs are the 2000 to 2020. But the Gen Zs, why? Because the problem is that leadership or leading people starts at home, and it starts with parenting.
Paige Buan
That's true.
Jeff Manhilot
Now, a lot of young kids weren't parented well. And that's the reason why when they enter the workforce, the managers become parents. Now you're parenting. When you should be leading mature individuals, you're now parenting people.
Now going back to the thing about shame and guilt. To a certain point, shame and guilt has its purpose. And the purpose, just like any other tool, it has to be used appropriately and accordingly. Shame and guilt has to stay with us when it comes to evil and bad things.
For example, I would show myself naked in front of the people, you know, flashing myself? I should feel shame and guilt for doing that, right? Or if I hit someone in the office, physically, I should feel shame and guilt.
However, when it comes to developing yourself, becoming better than you were yesterday, regardless of what transpired in between? For example, that person tried something new and failed, and it's embarrassing, it's awkward? Shame shouldn't be there. In fact, it has to be encouraged because that person is trying to...
Paige Buan
Trying to learn. Trying to...
Jeff Manhilot
Exactly. So I would say that uh, shame and guilt has to be put in its place. And you're right. Unless the child farted in somebody else's face, I think that's a different story altogether.
Paige Buan
Yeah, that’s a different story. Yes, exactly.
Jeff Manhilot
So -- but, but, that's part of life. Now probably you want to develop how can you fart a little more, you know, subtle, right? So that's okay.
I mean that -- so, so -- and again, I got asked this question, "Jeff, why are you doing what you're doing?" I mean, I usually give free talks to younger people, to schools, to students. I have a vested interest. I told one of the participants who asked this question. "I have two young children. I have a 15-year-old son right now and a 10-year-old daughter, and I don't know who among you would eventually become their manager in the future. So I try to train as much leaders to be better at leading because, hey, one of you can become their manager in the future. And it pays off to eventually make sure some of you would learn leadership principles that would help my child here when the time comes that they get under your guidance and your team.”
Paige Buan
That's awesome. It's all tied together. No, yes, you're right. Wow, I still have to accept the fact that the oldest millennial is now 40.
Jeff Manhilot
Yes.
Paige Buan
It's hard. But speaking of the children, at first, it was the EQ versus IQ.
Jeff Manhilot
Right. Right.
Paige Buan
And now we have the adversity quotient, right. So can you tell us a little bit more about that? I'm curious to hear your thoughts about that one.
Jeff Manhilot
The younger generation cannot be blamed altogether for what's happening also with their ability to take on challenges. You know, the nature and nurture type of development. We have our nature vis-à-vis our nurturing or the environment that we're growing up with. See, the younger kids that are growing today, they're no longer experiencing the same challenges as the older generation experienced, and it's not their fault. Of course, we built a better future or we keep on building a better place to live in. And as a result, an easy life is a result to that one. Now, there are two things I would like to encourage: one is for the younger generation, one is for the young parents right now.
So I've always heard this phrase in Tagalog, and I'll translate in English, "Hindi ko papadanas sa mga anak ko ang dinanas ko noong araw." Or in English, "I would not let them go through what I went through before." Boom, you get these kids. See, there are certain components in life that when they went through those components brought them to where they are today. So that means taking out those components or those ingredients will also not result to a better version of them. In fact, what we should be doing is that we try to understand what are those ingredients that allowed us to be the persons we are today and take out those things that prevented us from being even better. And I would say some of those things are the hardships that we had to go through.
I can remember during summer, my father would usually not let us just go out and take a vacation. He would usually ask us to go on the roof and fix the roof, and that's during summer. Can you imagine summer vacation and most of the time I will be there, you know, trying to paint the roof or take out the rest of the roof and so on and so forth. So now what we're trying also to do with our children today is that, number one, we're trying to also simulate. Back then, you don't have a choice. We don't have internet in the '80s, so what can we do? We just go out and play out so our bodies are being exercised. That's how life was before. We no longer see that today. So for the parents, we have to simulate it. So that's number one.
We have to simulate hardship and challenges. Yes, your children will hate you for it. My children doesn't like what we're doing to them. But here's what I improved on what was lacking back then, which is communication. My parents didn't explain to me why they're doing what they're doing to me back then. The discipline they're doing, you know, the things that they were taking away from me and so on. They weren't verbalizing it.
Because in their generation as well, all they have to do is sit and stay quiet, nothing is explained. “Just do what I'm telling you. I don't have to explain it to you.” So my Lolos and Lolas, when they were disciplining my parents, or my uncles and aunts, they were just told what to do, and they had no explanation, so probably, they also carried it on with them.
Now we know that we have to be better at communicating why we're doing this one. So rules without relationship will always equate to rebellion. So we have to grow our relationship and tell them, talk about it with them.
Again, controversial, we discipline our children at a very young age. We have two rules in our house: disobedience, respect. If you violate those two, you get disciplined. And there's no, "One, two." We don't count. So when you don't respect: discipline. When you don't obey: discipline. And then we explain afterwards. And we don't use our hands to do it. Our hands are for carrying them, for hugging them. But we were very strict. And my 15-year-old son can attest to that one, even up to now.
Today, the discipline changes as well. Now, it's more about the gadgets.
Paige Buan
Yes.
Jeff Manhilot
So the gadgets, last year, my daughter and my son got grounded for five months, and one of my friends said, "What? You were able to ground your children for five months? Gadgets? How were you able to do that?"
Well, there's a saying in our house, it's communism. We're the dictators. My wife and I are the dictators. So they don't own anything. There will be a time that they would be able to own something, but that's when they earn their own keep. That's okay. But it will only work if you have a good relationship with your children.
You have to have that certain balance. Because if you don't have a deposit, and you keep on just withdrawing, then rebellion will happen. Because they wouldn't understand why you're doing what they're doing. They wouldn't have that trust bank account, so to speak. Whenever you're doing something that they can't understand, because there's no trust, they would just assume you hate them. But when there's trust, "I can't understand why this is happening, but I trust my father, or I trust my mother that he or she has my best interest." So the trust bank account is very important.
Paige Buan
Yeah. I love how it's very much blended together, parenting and leading. Because if you just take out the names, you're actually talking about issues in an organization.
Jeff Manhilot
Yes.
Paige Buan
There's trust, with communication, with understanding the challenges of this generation versus this generation, and how do you simulate so that they become the best of their potential.
What do you think the leaders of tomorrow look like?
Jeff Manhilot
I pity them actually. No, I'm scared for them! Seriously, on that note, it's going to be harder for future leaders. Now, I think it's because of not just the things I mentioned, but because leaders are younger and younger, without proper guidance backing them as well. See, the leaders today are the millennials of yesterday, all right?
Paige Buan
Yes.
Jeff Manhilot
And they have their ideals still intact, but now they're assuming certain roles, and there's a clash between what they thought and what's in reality. It's going to be hard because you have to now reconcile those two: "This is what I believe in the past. Now I'm the one who's going to be implementing it."
And this is what I'm experiencing with some of the leaders that I'm coaching nowadays. Because they're now figuring out, they would tell us, "Jeff, you were right. Before, I didn't believe what you were telling us when we were under you, when you were explaining to us why it's important then, but now it's hard." And they're the ones leading the Gen Zs.
And the Gen Zs are, let's just say, they're the generation who wants to change the world, but don't even want to fix their own bed. And that's a hard thing. How would you now lead someone who tells you “this is how the world should work” but in their own little sphere, they can't even fix themselves? So that's a huge gap that a leader has to fill in.
One thing that I can offer right now, I think this is something that most of the leaders will have to understand now. This generation, they have these doubts of who people are. You know why? Because this generation grew up where catfishing is, is a thing, catfishing, gaslighting. These are concepts that are ingrained in them, and they're very doubtful with people because of that, doubtful of people in authority to be particular. They're the ones, and in these cases, they would usually say, "Do you even believe in this one? Do you even stand by this" they said, and so on and so forth.
And the funny thing is that, I don't know if you're familiar with virtue signaling. So a lot of people are now virtue signaling, and they get caught as well. So a lot of people would say, "I believe in this one." But then in the confine of private spaces, they eventually expose themselves. Unfortunately, within the team members that see them post online, and then they see them in person, or they experience them in real scenarios, and there's that disconnect, right?
So authenticity and consistency are two things that are now lacking with leaders. Authenticity, consistency. So I would like to believe that authentic leadership is something that a lot of us would have to eventually develop. Because, again, a lot of us are trying to project an image online that are not really us. Okay?
The reality versus persona. Persona is now becoming the in-thing as opposed to reality. That’s why if you ask me about personal branding, sometimes, I would say, "I am not that much of a fan of personal branding, I would rather that you work on yourself so that the reality is there, and the persona comes after." So how do you do that? A lot of leaders would say, "This is my calling." Have you ever heard about this
Paige Buan
Yes.
Jeff Manhilot
This is my calling. I asked this question, "Who called you?"
Paige Buan
That's true.
Jeff Manhilot
So if you don't even know who called you, you don't know what your calling is. Because who called you would eventually determine what your calling is. So in an organization, anyone can lead an organization, but not everyone is called to a leadership position. Okay. So if you're called to a leadership position, you have to ask yourself, "Who called me here?" So my boss or the organization called me to be the leader in this particular team. So if I was called, what was I called for? You have to figure that out.
So usually, it's because of an organizational goal or the mission of the organization and the vision of the organization, you have to embrace that. It can never go wrong. As a leader, if you embrace the organization's mission, vision, goals, you're not being inauthentic, you're just following your orders, right? So that's number one.
Number two, your character. Your character eventually determines how you do things, your personal values, and so on and so forth. And also the core values of the organization.
Last but not least, the competence. Here's where a lot of us fail in a lot of times, and especially nowadays, because information is easily available.
Tell you what, my 15-year-old son right now can cook authentic pasta, carbonara, bucatini, all these I've never even heard of, because of YouTube. So if a 15-year-old person can learn a lot of these things, which usually someone who goes through a culinary art training or course, that's how that person will learn from it, can you imagine if you're a leader leading a group of Gen Zs who can easily Google a lot of stuff, and you don't even develop your competence?
Paige Buan
Right.
Jeff Manhilot
In communication, in critical thinking, in strategic thinking and so on, so forth, you'll be doomed. And what happens is that, again, this famous line, "Fake it 'til you make it." Please don't. Okay? Be true. You tell them you don't know, but I'll learn it, I'll eventually do it.
Paige Buan
I like the power of the word "yet." I don't know it yet.
Jeff Manhilot
I don't know it yet.
Paige Buan
Yeah.
Jeff Manhilot
I don't know why people are afraid to say “I don't know that one.” You know, that's an interesting thing. “I don't know that one. I'll find out.”
But you know, what I usually do as a challenge for myself, also for those who are leading right now, this my challenge to you. If you don't want to eventually say "I don't know," then get ahead of the curve. Meaning to say, learn more than your team members are learning. So one of my challenges I put on myself is that when I was leading a team, I would never let the team know more than I do, not because I want to be a know-it-all person, no. But it also builds that kind of camaraderie or relationship. I would usually challenge if my kung fu is still better than your kung fu, so then they get excited about it. They would always say no, "I'll beat my boss, I’ll beat my manager." And then I would also challenge myself, "No, no, no, no, I'll train you to replace me but let's see if you can ever replace me." So this is something that we usually do in the past. That also makes it exciting, right?
Paige Buan
Yeah, it does.
Jeff Manhilot
Even my son would usually smile because when he goes online Discord, I will also talk to him about, you know, what's happening this week. I read about these things so that I wouldn't be out of the loop. I can't be out of the loop, especially if you have younger kids, if they talk about these things, I can have a conversation with them. I know who's the number one, uh, YouTuber right now in terms of followers. It's no longer PewDiePie. It's MrBeast.
Paige Buan
It’s MrBeast, yes.
Jeff Manhilot
These things I also know. Why? Because I can't be obsolete. So those are the three Cs of authenticity that I would usually suggest: Your calling, you have to be true to your calling, you know, you have to know who called you; your character; and competence. Then that makes you authentic. Nobody can question that one. Because they know that you were called, and you know your calling. They would know your character. You're not going against your personal values and the company's core values.
Last but not the least, your competency's always being honed. And we would tell them if you don't know. But my challenge, and this is just a personal thing on myself, I don't want to be out of the loop, so to speak. So I'll usually read a lot. When I go online, it's because I want to educate myself.
Paige Buan
That way, you don't get sucked into the whole loop.
Jeff Manhilot
Yes.
Paige Buan
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Carl Gayanelo
Do you have any advice for anyone who is currently going through a change in career?
Jeff Manhilot
I would ask that person what makes you want to change career, or what's prompting you to think of a change in career? Or what are the things that happened that brought you to a place where you need to change your career? And then from there, I would ask, so what's your aspiration? What is it that you want to eventually achieve for yourself? What is it that you're trying to accomplish for yourself? And then I would probably then say, what are the options you have that you would want to take so that it will get you closer to what you want to achieve? And then from there, I would lastly say what's stopping you from eventually taking that? And what would help you eventually to make that happen?
I know it's not an answer, because in most cases, I know the person knows the answer.
Paige Buan
Yeah.
Jeff Manhilot
The only thing is that nobody's asking those hard questions. So this is what coaching taught me. When I do that, two things happen. One is that the person gets challenged of the assumptions that he or she has, that I may not know of. Sometimes when I give an advice, I may not know the assumptions, or where the person is coming from, and I'm coming from another place as well. And when I give that advice, that may not match. Then that person gets that advice, hook line and sinker, applies it there, and then it messes up that person's life. And then that person goes to me and say, "I just did what you said you did. Look what happened to me." And it becomes my fault, right?
Paige Buan
Yeah, right?
Jeff Manhilot
So I don't want that. So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that because the answers comes out from that person and didn't come out from anyone else, two things happen as well. The person eventually realized, "Hold on, I have all the answers." And second is that, "I have to eventually follow through. I have no more excuse. So if I don't do it, it's now my fault."
Carl Gayanelo
I have another one actually. With the advent of AI, what's the number one skill that people should be focusing on in order to prevent themselves from becoming obsolete? Number one, or a series of skills?
Jeff Manhilot
Well, critical thinking, I would say, and problem solving. So those are the two things, apart from of course, being human. I mean, empathy is something that's still going to be our realm. They say, empathy, it's being able to relate to each other, right? Not necessarily agreeing with each other as commonly thought of that when I empathize with you, I'm agreeing with you. No, no, that's not the case. I can empathize with you without agreeing with you. Meaning to say, "I understand where you're coming from, but I don't agree with it." Okay, I think that's a human thing. AI can't do that.
So but those two parts. Critical thinking, when you say critical thinking, when you're dealing with humans, we're unique. One person is unique. Paige is unique. Carl is unique. We're all unique, right? And one size cannot fit all. I don't think AI can eventually do that. Because if you look at it, AI is -- I don't think it's to a point where they can already think for themselves. They still process the data that has been given them. So they just have this faster way of eventually finding the right data that came from us as well, right, from humans.
They just gathered all these data that came from human beings and tried to process it, but it's still doesn't analyze this person has a different personality, this person has a different personality. When we're talking, it's different. When I'm listening to the person, I'm seeing their reaction, I'm hearing, I'm feeling, I'm hearing their voice intonation, I'm seeing the -- you know, and so on and so forth. And then I can empathize and relate to that person, eventually have that kind of conversation and make that critical thinking in terms of how do I manage the situation? I think that's number one.
The number two is solving complex problems. What if, for example, in a marriage situation, when you're counseling your marriage, it's not as easy as just saying "Okay, this should be done then this." No, it doesn't because situation varies. Even in a coaching situation, when I coach someone, this is on a per-session basis, I would have a coaching session. So the next session is usually not the same as that of the previous session. Why? Because a lot of things happen in between. And people are not as predictable as they seem sometimes. You know, a lot of situations would prompt them to do different things, and different decisions will be done in the middle. And these things are not as easy as they look.
So I think that complex problem solving and critical thinking skills are two things that we have to continue honing ourselves. Of course, apart from empathy. Empathy is not being agreeable to others and just agreeing. No, no. Empathy is more than that. Empathy is, "Yes. Okay. I understand. Not necessarily that I agree with what you're doing what you believe in." I don't think AI can do that yet.
Paige Buan
This has been a fantastic discussion. Thank you so much, Jeff, for coming and being on the Leader: Unlocked podcast. Any last words to our listeners or anything that you want to plug before we wrap up?
Jeff Manhilot
They can all follow me in my LinkedIn account. I've been in LinkedIn since 2011. But I've been very much active in 2016 and '17. Add me, follow me on LinkedIn. You can also follow our company page Inspire Leadership Consultancy, Inc. We're both on Facebook and also on LinkedIn. So you can follow us on that one. This year, I will post every day so you can get to see my posts as well.
Paige Buan
Looking forward to that. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today and for sharing your wisdom with us. Thanks, everybody for listening. See you again in the next episode.
Jeff Manhilot
Thank you.
Paige Buan
Awesome.