You Unleashed with Femi Akinyemi
You Unleashed with Femi Akinyemi
Unlock Your Leadership Potential: Insights from Eddie Turner on Adaptive Leadership and Authenticity
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Unlock your leadership potential with insights from Eddie Turner, author of "140 Simple Messages to Guide Emerging Leaders." Can leadership be taught and developed? Eddie challenges the traditional notion that leaders are born, not made, and shares his passion for nurturing leadership potential in everyone. Drawing from his rich experiences and scholarly research, Eddie offers compelling analogies and practical advice on how each of us can tap into our inherent leadership capacities.
Navigate the complexities of today's workforce with our deep dive into adaptive leadership styles and managing multigenerational teams. As AI continues to rise in the workplace, discover the unique human qualities that leaders must cultivate to stay relevant. From the shift to more collaborative leadership approaches to the concept of adaptive authenticity, we provide real-life examples and actionable strategies to help you balance your personal style with team needs while staying true to your core values.
In our final segment, we examine the importance of authenticity and building effective managerial relationships. Learn practical strategies for managing up, aligning personal goals with organizational mandates, and leveraging feedback mechanisms to create a harmonious work environment. Eddie also returns to inspire aspiring leaders with his message of bold leadership, the significance of securing allies and sponsors, and the power of authentic communication across generations. Tune in to be inspired and equipped to unleash your leadership potential!
Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the you Unleash podcast with Femi Akiyemi, your host, and this week I've got a special special guest. Now, one of the big things we know is that leadership is everything, and the thing for a lot of us is, when we think about leadership, we think about, oh, it's the big boss, it's someone who's the CEO, but we don't think about the more nuanced parts of leadership, which is we ourselves are leaders, in our families, in our homes, in our team, but we play a role in the team and people look to us for direction sometimes. So we are all leaders, and sometimes it's transient, which is for a moment in time, and sometimes you are permanently the leader. But either way, there is a responsibility for all of us to see ourselves as leaders and embrace the moment and realize that it's all part of growth.
Femi:So this week I've got one of my favorite guests who had one of our highest viewings from our last time he was a guest here who is Eddie Turner. He is the author of of an amazing book called 140 Simple Messages to Guide Emerging Leaders. Boyd is also a leadership expert and he's taken part in loads of leadership conferences, which is where I met him and he does lots of consultancy, speaks in leadership, leadership is in his blood and he's here to share his thoughts on us. Hi, eddie, welcome to the Unleashed podcast. Thanks for having you.
Eddie:Femi, thank you for having me. What a pleasure to be here with you.
Femi:No, it's a pleasure as well. Thanks for coming. When I started to think about the guests I'm going to invite back, I thought about you. So leadership is close to your heart. Tell me. I know the answer, but tell our listeners. Why is leadership so such? Because I know it's everything you talk about.
Eddie:Why are you so passionate about leadership?
Eddie:I became passionate about leadership because I have suffered from being under so many poor leaders and so literally it became one of those things where we experience it at every level of our life, from the time we're young be it examples that we see in family or places of worship or in our community or people we looked up to as heroes to the point of later when we're in the workplace.
Eddie:There's just been so many bad examples of leadership and it has a real impact on us and sometimes people might think, oh, people are too young or they're a kid, they don't know, they don't understand. But it really does, both in a positive and a negative way, and so I have my own opinions about what things should look like, what good leadership is, but my opinion doesn't mean anything. So I started to, through research, through school, going to university and such, really get scholastic, scholarly definitions of what leadership is, and in many ways it reaffirmed my opinions. And in other ways there were new concepts, certainly, that I never knew anything about. That I did learn about, and the more I learned, I just devoured it because I felt like, wow, when we make better leaders in the world, we make a better world because we make better people, and those people impact so many individuals and the impact is exponential.
Femi:No, I agree with you. I think one of my things with leadership and that a lot of people say, and I think that holds a lot of us back is because you've studied it, which tells me it's something that can be studied, and if it can be studied it means it can be taught. But what a lot of us have grown to believe is that leadership is you're either a born leader or you're not. Is that what your studies kind of told you? Because you see some people, you go somewhere and some people are certainly charismatic, they just have that glow and everyone follows. But for a lot of people, we go in and we go. He's got it. I haven't, so I'm not a leader. What are you finding when it comes to leadership? Is it taught or is it caught? Or are leaders born? Why are you finding them in leadership? The?
Eddie:idea is something that many of us feel, because we look at some people and they look so natural, so effortless. When we see them in motion and how they comport themselves, how they move about, we think that person just has always had it kind of like you know some other quality. But it is something that can be taught. It is something that some people perhaps gravitate to more naturally than others, but it is something that is within the auspice of almost everyone. I say almost everyone because Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner in their landmark book, the Leadership Circle, rather the Leadership Challenge I always get confused because there's an assessment. The Leadership Circle is the assessment, leadership Challenge is the book, and that book is in its seventh edition now. And in their research what they say is only one in a million people has no leadership capacity whatsoever, only one in a million.
Femi:So think about that. So virtually nobody, almost nobody, everybody has leadership.
Eddie:Well, in the United States I know you're broadcasting from London, so I don't know the population of London, but in the United States we have about 350 million people and so by using their statistic we're saying that maybe only 350 people in the country have zero capacity whatsoever. Right, but everyone else they have some capacity. Now we might like to get to a beverage.
Eddie:Many of us may enjoy a bottle of soda or pop, depending on which part of the country you're in, what phrase you use. But if we get a can of Coke, a cola or Sprite, sometimes it's a I like the little seven ounces because a little bit less sugar. Some friends are like the 12 ounce, some want a big 20 ounce, but when we no matter what size, it's still that amount of soda. So we think about everybody, almost everybody, having the ability to lead. It is that not that everybody's going to be a 20 ounce, but some will be that 12, some will be that seven, but there's some capacity to lead. And so, whatever our capacity is, the challenge is that we all use and develop ourselves to whatever our capacity is, and a great number of us will find that we can actually grow the capacity far beyond what we thought we could.
Femi:So it sounds to me like we've all got leadership capacity, but it's also. It's a muscle, it's like an elastic. When you lead up to your present capacity, all of a sudden you discover you have capacity to do just a bit more. But then you grow and then you grow. So it's leadership capacity can grow as well. We've all got it and we can grow it as well, right, we can, and that's the key word we can.
Eddie:For some people they don't, because what happens is Dr Ron Heifetz at the Harvard Kennedy School defines this we hit the frontier of our capacity and for some people, when they hit that, it's like a brick wall and then they crumble, whereas others say I need to develop, I can't get past this layer. And so they bring in a coach, an executive coach, and they develop one-on-one so they can break down that wall and get to the next level. Others decide, hey, I need to go for some more training, so I'm going to enroll in some kind of a program, I'm going to go back to the university and get a new degree. But they realize that they need to go beyond their current level of competency.
Eddie:Now Dr Carol Dweck defines that as having the growth mindset. So in her landmark, work right. Because some people will say well, I am what I am, hey, this is just all I can do. Fixed, I got something for you, you got it Excellent, that's the key. So not having a fixed mindset will allow us to grow and develop our leadership capacity. But those who have the fixed mindset, they kind of stop. But the growth mindset says I can do more, I will do more.
Femi:And to add to that, the mindset is, as a leader, is that always see that there is room to grow and see yourself as not the finished article. And as long as you do that, even if you're low capacity, high capacity, you can always grow for leadership. Yes, I'm sorry, no, no, no, that was it. Yeah, you go.
Eddie:Go yeah, and that requires humility.
Eddie:I was talking to one of my clients and I love the way she explained it. When we're talking about the accomplishments that she has, and she's this incredible senior leader who's run a billion-dollar portfolio across continents, and she does not approach anything with the attitude that I'm an expert, I don't need to ask questions. She approaches it with what we call the childlike mind, that of curiosity, always asking questions. And so the quote is and I forget who says it in the child's mind, the childlike mind, that of curiosity, always asking questions. And so the quote is and I forget who says it in the child's mind, the childlike mind, there are many options. In the expert's mind, there are few, because the expert comes in, I have all the answers and if it's not in my head, I'm not going to consult anybody outside of my head, right? Whereas that person that approaches it with a childlike mind, that growth mindset, they're going to remain humble, and humility leads to learning and that's how, as leaders, we continue to grow in ways it's not always about our knowledge, it's about our questions.
Femi:And I love those leaders, but I hate those leaders because they're the ones who always ask. When you're in a meeting, they always ask that question where you think, dang, they got me, because they're so humble and they ask even the silly questions. The ones who are experts come in and they don't ask anything because they think they know it all. But the best leaders, you're right, they'll just ask oh so what happens if we do that, what happens if we do this? And they're just curious and you end up thinking they're geniuses. But they kind of are, but they're kind of not. What they're doing is they're just being humble and they're exploring. So the best leaders are always exploring, checking everything and trying to find out more and find out more.
Eddie:Indeed.
Femi:Yeah, so we spoke about three years ago, so I was curious to know since then, have your views on leadership changed, or do you, or are you even more? Have your thoughts on leadership evolved, or are you even more sure about what you had there? Or were you a young author who was naive and you know so much more about leadership now? Or what have you learned in the last three years? I guess the question.
Eddie:Well, I think I would say I try to take my own medicine and have a growth mindset, stay curious and keep growing, and so, absolutely, I've learned more about leadership in the time since we've talked and I continue to do my own research and continue, obviously, working with clients, learning from my great clients.
Eddie:When I'm coaching them and helping them have those aha moments and generate insights and generate solutions, I end up going through the same process with them and I think that also, obviously, our world has changed. We weren't challenged with AI, for example. Last time you and I talked. It was around, but it wasn't as dominant as it is today, and what that is doing is it's an immediate opportunity for leaders. Some might say it's an immediate threat, but it's an immediate opportunity, I believe, for leaders to understand the need, all the more so, to develop their leadership capacity, because are you going to allow artificial intelligence to dominate you in your workplace or are you going to allow what some might call real intelligence, one of my guests said, to dominate? Well, to do that and we need it, we don't want to run from it. It is certainly a tool of the future, but we have to, all the more so, develop ourselves as leaders, to distinguish ourselves from a machine.
Femi:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and that's a big challenge for leaders to overcome. That's coming, and for all of us actually in our different fields who are aspiring leaders. So one of the questions I had for you because I was looking through your book and you said leadership starts in the youth and more and more you read everywhere. You hear about quiet, quitting, you hear about just generational wars in the workplace and, from a leadership perspective, what are you finding are the challenges leaders are facing Having five generations. You have the boomers, you have Gen Zs, you have millennials and very soon the Gen Afas in the workplace. What is the big sort of learning or challenge that we're finding in leadership in the workplace? And I ask because as you talk I want you to sort of touch on a lot of our listeners are like millennials or Gen Zs or Gen Xs is what are the things we can learn that can help us lead better in the workplace, considering the difference generationally in the workplace?
Eddie:Interesting. So, with the different generations in the workplace, the idea of how we show up matters, and it is a need for us to, number one, respect all levels of the generations. The younger ones want to respect the older ones and not feel like, hey, what does this person know? Or I'm a lot faster with technology, what can they tell me? And then the older ones don't want to be dismissive of the younger generation from the standpoint of, oh, these young people have so much to learn. Each group can learn from the others mutually. That said, it creates a different set of expectations of what does good work look like and what does good leadership look like. You know, one came from a command and control generation. I've been here longer, I'm older, therefore you should do what I say, whereas now sometimes an older person might find the person that's very young as their boss. That's tough to digest, and so there's different norms that we have to deal with from that standpoint and creating the workplace culture that celebrates that and creates the proper expectations. Then we look at, when we're talking about how that makes us a leader, in a different way. How do I show up? You know, there's this one concept of as you develop as a leader, it really means developing, means you're changing, and sometimes, as you change, other people might assault the new you. For example, we all are familiar, perhaps growing up, when you had that smart kid in class who sometimes didn't want to show up as smart as they really were. They tried to play it down so they could fit in. They didn't want kids to call them the nerd or some of these other phrases they call them. Well, that doesn't just apply in school. Sometimes that applies in the workplace. And so some people might want to say, hey, I want to keep it real. So well, they know they should be doing better, acting better. They don't that person who gets. They were cool with everybody on the team. Now they get promoted, they still want to be cool with everybody on the team. Don't realize that, hey, no, I'm now the leader of this team. I need to show up a little differently. And they're afraid that people say, oh, now you sold out. Now you got the new promotion, now you want to be different. Well, I am different because now, hey, when they got that promotion, they sent them to a management program, they sent them to a leadership program, and now they learned hey, I need to comport myself in this way. I'm no longer an individual contributor, I am now leading and managing. I must therefore comport myself differently. And so Herminia Ibarra I was thinking of her name, noted professor, and I believe she's based in London, like you, she, I forget.
Eddie:I believe she's based in London, like you, I forget what she said, but she says in her work you want to have adaptive authenticity. Adaptive authenticity meaning that I can still be me, but I learned how to adapt. And because I've changed, because I've grown as a result of this leadership development, it doesn't mean that I am not being authentic. I'm still me, but here's the new me. And now, as I show up, I'm showing up as a person who knows better. Therefore, I'm doing better.
Femi:You make a good point because I've had a personal experience, and this is one I like. This is where you can almost coach me. Real time is. So. I was leading the team and my personality is quite collaborative, but I found that, even being collaborative, collaborative and non-confrontational I struggled to get them to buy in and it went against my personality, which is it felt like they needed a command and control, but that's not my personality and that. But it was also a generational thing, which is a generation, which is is probably they were really young millennials, if you want to put it that way, really young millennials, or yeah, and I am, and I'm an older millennial, if you want to call it that, and getting that. That clash was there. I was trying to be collaborative, but it felt like that's not what they wanted, and so how would you have suggested I overcome that?
Eddie:That's a great question. One of the concepts that Dr Barra mentions is this idea that when you're talking about adaptive authenticity is that you experiment with different leadership styles. So not only are you going to be growing and developing as a leader, but you're not going to stick with one style. Daniel Goldman, in his landmark work in Harvard Business Review, when he introduced the idea of emotional intelligence, he used the illustration of a golf bag and I love that article because in that golf bag he talks about that.
Eddie:You use different clubs. Now, I'm not a golfer, but I do know this. I know the difference between a driver and a putter. When you start off on the golf course, you don't pull out a putter at the smallest club. You pull out that big driver and you reach back and you swing that as hard as you can so you can sail that ball onto the green. And if you end up in the sand, you pull out a little sand wedge, dig it out a little bit Different parts of the course, there's different clubs and finally at the end you pull out that putter for a nice soft tap.
Eddie:And when it comes to leadership styles, he defines seven styles we should use as leaders and that you don't use one all the time but depending on circumstances, you need to pull out the appropriate club or the appropriate leadership style for that circumstance. So in the case that you just mentioned, you would be pulling out the club. That means that you have to be a little bit more. I don't want to say dictatorial, I forget the phrase that he used but essentially you are, because you're more demanding, you're more driving. In this case you use this in a situation usually of great urgency mergers and acquisitions or when there are disruptive employees, rebellious employees you pull out that club.
Eddie:But if you use that club all the time, with everybody just swinging on people, you won't be an effective leader club. But if you use that club all the time, with everybody just swinging on people, you won't be an effective leader. You'll be a miserable leader who's reviled. So you use that when you need to. But your more dominant club might be the one that he calls affiliative, that friendly leader, that leader who's emotionally intelligent. But then you might also use the democratic one, where you allow people to weigh in, sometimes on decision making. But there are other times when you can't do that too much, because then people say well, hey, you're the leader. You make the decision, you make the call Right. So it's a matter of adopting a dominant style that you might prefer, but knowing when you need to reach in your golf bag and pull out the necessary club for the circumstance or for the individual, because sometimes it's at an individual level and not necessarily a team level no, that makes a lot of sense.
Femi:Thanks for that. That makes a lot of sense. So you've got to read, read your team and adapt to the goals and objectives and the personalities of your team to achieve what you want as well. Absolutely so many and the deadlines and and so many things. That makes a lot of sense. So, which brings us to my next, next question, which is one of the things a lot of people I've spoken to struggle with, is managing upwards managing, managing your managers, and you can get tyrannical bosses, all kinds of bosses and a lot of us struggle to manage our managers. How can we manage our managers to make sure we get what we want and they get what they want as well?
Eddie:I think that you just gave the answer in that question. You make sure they get what they want and usually when you do that, you get what you want. I say usually because you have some people that it's all about them and they never have a concept of reciprocity, where they're going to then give you what you want. And when you have those kind of managers and I've had a couple there's not a whole lot you can do. In those cases it's their next slot and it's time to go.
Femi:I mean and you're right, I mean as simplistically, that's the goal. The goal is I help you get what you want. You have me get what I want and that's why they have their objectives and they pass it down to me and when I run my objectives I tie it into their objectives. But in the daily dynamics, the daily working together, how do we, especially when you've got different personalities, how do you work together to make sure we both get what we want and the relationship works?
Eddie:Yeah. So once you know what your manager's mandate is, which is hopefully tied to the organizational mandate and hopefully you're hearing that because the ceo is doing an all employees meeting, where you're hearing it directly from the ceo or you're seeing it in the company literature there's those should all match and then someone, be it your immediate manager, which is where it should come from is helping you understand your unique role in making that all come to fruition. So you are doing what you're asked to do by your manager, by the organization, and then typically the reward for that obviously is simply just a paycheck, but then other leaders recognize that this is more than a number. I'm going to give this employee more than just a paycheck, but then other leaders recognize that this is more than a number. I'm going to give this employee more than just a paycheck. I'm going to give this employee the training that they need, the development that they need. Or, in some cases, as you have parents aging, this employee may need a little bit more time to deal with the aging parent or to deal with the newborn. There should be a handshaking and a collective awareness that we both need to help and support each other.
Eddie:One of my friends, uh, who I just had a call with earlier? Uh, greg williams. Uh, he calls himself the mass negotiator. His catchphrase is you're always negotiating, and that is really what it is whenever you're doing anything at work. All, all day, every day, we are negotiating, and in a negotiation except an employer-employee relationship the employer always gets what they want. But as an employee, your hope would be that somebody does not get everything they want. In negotiations, by definition, people kind of meet in the middle, and so I didn't get all of what I wanted, you didn't get all of what you wanted, and usually that means it was a great negotiated outcome.
Femi:No, I agree. So between you and your line manager, which we call here, it's that constant negotiation and it's constantly moving. But I guess, if I put you on the spot, if I drill down on this, is you could have a manager who's just their way of managing this. They micromanage, they micromanage, they're all over you. I won't say they don't trust you, but they just have to be all over you and you don't work that way and you've got to find a way to work together. You and you don't work that way and you've got to find a way to work together. And how do you?
Eddie:are there tools you can use to help you manage your manager? Yes, so if negotiation doesn't work, the other option is simply asking for feedback, and when I say asking for feedback, using a specific feedback mechanism, one I like to use is SBI situation behavior impact. You know, feming, when you give me a set of tasks and you tell me exactly what you want done, but then you follow up with me literally 30 minutes afterwards before I've even had a chance to properly execute, or you describe the behaviors, and the behaviors you describe are not an opinion. It's what can be seen on a video recorder or we can hear, right, so these are facts. So situation behavior the impact on me is it makes me feel like you don't trust me. So I'm never wrong for my feelings, right? So situation behavior impact yes, because they're my feelings. Yes, so I'm never wrong for my feelings, right. So situation behavior that's my feeling. Yes, so I would. I would use that. You let them, let your manager know, and perhaps they'll make an adjustment.
Eddie:When that doesn't work, sometimes your HR department may have some options and sometimes it might be a 360 feedback mechanism where maybe, if you're feeling this way, other people are feeling that way, and when the manager is assessed and they get that 360 feedback and this is oftentimes when I get called in. It's amazing how they see that, and one of my leaders ended up saying this I've been a real blank blank. Insert the expletive Right. The witness hit her because of that instrument. Before that, she thought she was just amazing and doing great work as a leader. It took seeing that information from everybody around her because it wasn't just her employees, it was also peers in management that she really needed to make some adjustments. So I would say those are three options that I would share with someone who's having that challenge when it comes to managing your manager.
Eddie:In all cases, the goal should be, however, that we do the best that we can to not let someone else's behavior change us Right, and that's hard. Yes, that's really hard. You know one of my previous lines of work I was very much into scripture. One of my previous lines of work I was very much into scripture and one of my favorite scriptures said even a mere oppression makes even a wise man act like a fool. So when we're being oppressed or we feel like we're being oppressed by our leader, our manager yeah, now I'm going to come out my bag. That's hard, right, because now it's like I know I shouldn't, but I just got to. You know, stand up for myself, or whatever right you start to act crazy.
Femi:You start to think you're losing it. No, that's yeah, yeah, okay, so we're coming to the end, but I want to talk about this one as well. So a lot of our listeners are black, black minorities, a lot of our listeners. And we've got women, we've got black, we've got young people, people who see themselves as in the minority in the workplace, and for a lot of them, for a lot of us, it is ascending into leadership. There's so many challenges. So what unique challenge in your experience coaching, mentoring what unique challenges do we all face and how can we turn these into opportunities or how can we grow in these areas?
Eddie:Thank you for sharing that demographic there, so that's very helpful. One of the challenges I think we face as minorities is especially along this ideal of being authentic is being too authentic. So there's a there's such a thing as maybe I want to come across as one of the fellas, I want to come across as one of the ladies and one of the team players. So we share too much information and if we share too much about ourselves, that's not always helpful. But in other the other side of that, the antithesis is also not helpful. We're too guarded, so we don't let anybody in and know anything about us. So we have to find what's the proper balance.
Eddie:Sometimes, when it comes to promotions not sometimes all the time when it comes to promotions we promote who we like and we like who we know. And so, as the minorities, oftentimes we aren't known by the senior leaders, and we aren't known for a lot of reasons, but in some cases it's simply because they don't know enough about us. Yeah, I didn't know that that's. That's, that's Eddie over there in the mailing room. But we don't know that Eddie has other skills that we could probably start to let Eddie do this type of work.
Femi:But if we knew that we might, but we're not good at building relationships, so they know us.
Eddie:Yes. So start to be able to reveal things about yourself in the right amount, to the right doses, to where you build relationships with people and they know you as more than just a number. They can build a rapport with you and then that can lead to growth. The second piece I'd say related to that is get a mentor as soon as you can. That's one thing I didn't know and I wish I knew sooner. You need a mentor, somebody who can guide you along and teach you what you don't know, and remembering that we don't know what we don't know. So stay humble, get a mentor as soon as possible.
Eddie:And last but not least, carla Harris, the most powerful black woman on Wall Street in America. She says you can go very far in your career without having a mentor, but you won't go anywhere without having a sponsor. So having a mentor is important, if you can get one, but you absolutely need a sponsor. So having a mentor is important if you can get one, but you absolutely need a sponsor. And the sponsor is the person who's in that room when you aren't there, when your name is coming up or when your name doesn't come up, is able to bring your name to the table and start to tell others about you, so that that is how you get the opportunities you need. When somebody spends their institutional capital on you, well, to do that they have to know about you.
Femi:Yeah, yes, no, this is some really good stuff. You're dropping some nuggets here. So the other thing you mentioned is authentic leadership, right? So are you spoken about? So how important is authenticity for minority leaders and especially, how can we maintain it in environments where there's a pressure to conform? So, for a lot of us, we have to wear masks in the workplace. Maybe it's with our hair, maybe it's with where we walk, with the way we dress, the way we talk, and then we end up blending in and losing ourselves. How can we find that balance of making sure we and you spoke about this earlier be authentic and yet blend in.
Eddie:Well, we have far more options for that. Today. We were talking about being authentic, it's being real who we are, but then also does that grow, does that develop? So, for example, who we are, but then also does that girl, does that develop? So, for example, many years ago, you know, we all had to wear suits to work. That's no longer a requirement that you have to wear a suit or a dress to work. Now you have far more flexibility in how you come to work, so that allows you to be authentically who you are. If you want to wear a shirt and a tie, you wear a shirt and a tie. You want to just wear open collar open collar. You want to wear a dress? No dress. Dress shoes no dress shoes. Loud colors no colors. Right, I have no hair, so we won't even talk about hairstyles. But, right, we have more options that were not available before, things that are more socially acceptable.
Eddie:There was a time that if you showed up, one of my female clients was talking about if you showed up at work, you could have a nice business suit on.
Eddie:If you didn't have my stockings, you were sent home. That just wouldn't happen today. So I think it's a little easier for people to show up authentically who they are. Because you're not going to be sent home because you have dreadlocks. You're not going to be sent home because you want to openly put the picture of your lover who is not a heterosexual on your desk.
Eddie:You know there was a time that everybody else would have their lover and family on the desk, but you couldn't because you're gay right, and so you couldn't put your lover on the desk. So people have a lot more ability to show up as who they really are at work, and if they can bring more of themselves to work right now, they can really be more comfortable at work and be more productive at work. So that balance of being authentically who you are, being able to show my richness of my color, the richness of my heritage, the beauty of my family on display that means a lot to people and that is one of the things that allows you to truly still be authentic in the right way as you lead.
Femi:It's interesting you say that because, conversely, people don't like a fake and people can spot a fake and if you're a fake, they know it. So the people I know who are minorities and leaders the best of them they have a way of actually being themselves and people know who they are and people just trust them because people know they're real. And there's a lot who just try to blend in. They change their accents, they change the way they dress and they end up coming up as fake and people just don't trust them.
Eddie:Yeah, I mean, it's like in the United States. I would use a different denomination. I don't know the denominations in pounds, but you know a fake coin and not only do we reject it, we resent it. It's like they tried to get me this, Like I wouldn't know what was real.
Eddie:Right, it's an insult, and that's how it is. When someone comes into our presence and they are being counterfeit, we reject it, and then it's an insult to us, right. And so when we talk about I used the phrase be real earlier it wasn't the sense of I'm going to put on airs, right, or I'm not going to show up as I really can because I want to fit in, and in other cases it's the opposite I try to put on airs to show up and be somebody who I'm not. That gets exhausting, and for a long time black people have had to deal with that. For example, there was an article in the New York Times that talked about the allostatic load, and it was this pressure. It was a measurement for the pressure that black people have to bear when they go to work, because there's different expectations on them that are not on others, and so the measurement was the allostatic load, and it was basically, at the end of the day, here's all the pressure they're on, and it talks about the weathering that takes place on them over time, prematurely wearing them out because of it, and so that desire to try to fit in and try to show up in a certain way yeah, we still have to do that to a degree, but to the degree we can take some of that pressure off ourself and just say I'm going to show up as I am.
Eddie:Yeah, we still grow and develop as a leader, but I'm not going to try to be somebody that I'm not. I'm not going to try to change my accent to your point Right Now. That doesn't mean that, hey, you know, I don't go to the barbershop anymore, but in the days where I used to go out to the barbershop, yeah, I might use a little bit of lingo that I don't use in the office, right. Yeah. Yeah, some people might say, hey, you're not being authentic, right, but I think authentic is I am who I am in my environment and I'm still the same person. But I realize I have to step it up a little bit more. Much like when we go to our place of worship. Right, we're going to go into our place of worship a certain way and then we're going to go to the grocery store.
Femi:All right, god, we want to try a place of worship a certain way, and then we're going to go to the grocery store. I think the word is you can be authentic and yet be professional.
Eddie:Yes, and we're going back to Dr Abera's word adaptively authentic.
Femi:Yeah, I love that because you're still yourself, but you're adapted. Yeah, I love that because you're still yourself, but you're adapted. So a couple more questions I have for you is building allies. So, as black people, as minorities as well, we've got to learn to build allies, and have you got any tips for how we can build allies in the workplace, among the different cultures and everyone in the workplace?
Eddie:It's interesting. You ask that I actually give a speech, a keynote, and the title is the Power of being an Ally. And when I talk about the power of being an ally, in answer to your question, it is literally that the people that have helped me most in my life, in my professional career, don't look like me. They've been white people, they've been white men, they've been white women. So allies can come from, and should come from, all walks of life, right. And then, with the power that has been invested in us, it's incumbent on us to then pay it forward to others. Invested in us, it's incumbent on us to then pay it forward to others, and so that's been my mission to help women, to help those who are lesbian, gay, straight, whatever it may be Less represented, right, those with disabilities, and so in my speech you're going to hear me talk about all those different groups.
Femi:Now Is that speech available anywhere? Can the listeners go find the speech anywhere, or People can?
Eddie:find it by booking me to come and speak to the organization here.
Femi:Okay, you'll share that.
Eddie:You'll share where people can find you after this, but yeah, so askatetourcom is where they can find out more about me, but I don't have that speech online, but that is a speech that I've given you know. For that reason, because I think that oftentimes we overlook those people when we're building a leadership pipeline. Right, for example, someone who has a disability? Maybe they're.
Eddie:I interviewed Haben Girma, the deafblind woman who conquered Harvard Law School. Right, because you know, here's a Harvard trained attorney who many people might look over at first glance and not know who she is, or that she's an educated, brilliant attorney, and that's what we do far too often. Right, so she is, she is a minority, but she's also a person with disabilities. You know, how do we then move these people into leadership? So that's, that's part of what I look at. We're talking about getting allies, so getting allies also speaks back to what I was saying earlier about your mentors, because your mentor will be your ally and your uh, your sponsor, and, of course, these people, um, historically, are the ones, the ones who have the seat of power in an organization, so, by definition, they're not going to look like you.
Femi:No, that's right, and I think another way to build our lives I don't know if you find this is true is you've got to get involved outside of your job. You've got to try to get involved in committees and lots of other things going on in the workplace or in your community. You've got to get involved outside your sphere of influence. You've got to step outside your comfort zone to meet more people that are different to you, who have different interests, different values or different things, to increase your network and even if they can't help you, you help them Indeed, Because you never know when it's going to be the other way around and they can help you up.
Eddie:Indeed, your network is your net worth, right? Yeah, that's what it boils down to, and so we have to. I use the illustration at times that a close hand doesn't get fed right. I can't receive anything when my fist is closed, if I'm close-fisted. But when I open my hand, not only can somebody put something in it right but the important thing is I can give away. And so the more we give away, the more open-handed we are with our knowledge, with our time, with our resources, the more people can then also help us.
Eddie:So, being active, having a network, number one, but then active with that network, you don't just call when you need something, but you're actively trying to help people, support people because it's the right thing to do, and then that the law of reciprocity kicks in Something sells to the universe. You will then receive the help that you need. I'm a firm believer in that. So, nurturing your network, being active with that, and then being known for something, being known as a person who has a good reputation, for a character, but then you have a skill that when people think of this thing, you're the only person they think about, or you're the first or second person that they think about. So be known for your talent. Be known for your skill and if you're lacking that, figure out how you can develop it.
Femi:Become the best at what you do and then you automatically start to rise to the top. Yeah, so I think what I've taken from that last point as well is at some point, capability is important in leadership. You can get away with inspiring people, but at some point you've got to be able to do stuff. You've got to be able to add value and solve problems, and then that turbocharges your leadership, because a leader who could solve problems and get people to follow, it's like gold dust in the marketplace, right?
Eddie:Absolutely. There's an attorney here in the States who was quoted on the news. She's a beautiful woman and she said that her friends asked her would you rather be beautiful or smart? She said oh, that's easy Beautiful, I can fake being smart, and so that's the attitude that some might take. But the point is, no matter how beautiful you are, how well packaged you are, at some point they will figure out that you're lacking the substance. And so, in the perfect scenario, boy, we would love to have that beauty. But to have the intelligence is far more important, because A beauty fades. We all get old, right, you and I didn't always lack hair, we had hair right. But to have the intelligence is far more important, because a beauty fades. We all get old, right, you and I didn't always like hair.
Eddie:We had here right we were the man back in our day, right, but yeah, but our intelligence, our intellect, that's not gonna fade. Fact that gets better and stronger the older we get right, and at a certain age, I guess atomic habits says I forget the number, but that starts to recede. But that will certainly last longer than our beauty will.
Femi:Yeah, it is. So last question before I let you go Any advice for aspiring leaders. So what advice would you give to aspiring leaders from people who, ethnic, minorities, people who are just trying to make it as leaders and are coming up, who are trying to break make it as leaders and are coming up, who are trying to break through that glass ceiling and just get there? What advice? If you give them three things or whatever, or if less than three, however many, what would you advise?
Eddie:them. I would say what I basically said in my book, as the last quote is that number one believe that you are a leader. You are a leader. You don't have to wait to lead. You don't have to wait for a title. You lead by what you do. Every time you take the initiative to do something, you are leading. Every time you speak up and change a conversation or start a conversation in class, school work, in your congregation, in a place of worship, you are leading. So don't wait, lead. Don't sit back and be complacent. And that doesn't mean, by by the way, you have to be loud and boisterous. You can be a quiet, silent, introvert. Right then, lead by your actions, but by all means lead fantastic, amazing stuff.
Femi:Thank you so much, eddie. It's been a pleasure having you. Where can the listeners who want to know more about leadership or want to follow you, where can they find you? Where can they get more from you If you want to know more about leadership?
Eddie:if you're looking for an executive coach or a keynote speaker or a leadership consultant to help your organization with a product, no matter where you are in the world, visit AskEddieTurnercom. Look for me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. I welcome you to connect with me. I welcome you to ask me for help. I'll give free 20-minute consultations to anybody anywhere. Outside of that, certainly we can work together and I look forward to it. And, Femi, thank you again for having me. What a pleasure to be with you a second time and I always love our interactions. You're doing great work out there. I love it.
Femi:And I love what you're doing. No, thank you so much, and I think you've got a podcast as well that you can listen to as well.
Eddie:I do Keep Leading is the name of my show and the archive is still available about 140 episodes Right now.
Femi:I've just recently started back over the last three months doing the live stream on LinkedIn. So it's all available, Eddie, thank you. So everyone, you heard it aspiring leaders just lead wherever you are. Lead, be bold and, even if you're an introvert, take actions but lead and build allies. Get a sponsor, learn to communicate openly with people of different generations but, above all, just lead and do it well and it'll make all the difference and you can unleash the leader within you. Thank you for listening and thanks, Eddie, for coming. Get unleashed and stay unleashed. You, Thank you.
