Subtle Leadership | S1E3

recap . Why are you winding them up ?

Nate has an idea to use Jamie as a decoy , but Ted decides they will try it on . Keely shows Ted the picture that was going to run in the paper and while she's cute as a button , she knows this could be a catastrophe . So Ted takes her to see Rebecca , who says she will talk to the owner of the sun .

Rebecca's original plan is ruined but she quickly comes up with another one . Trent Crimm from the Independent is going to join Ted for the day to write an article . At practice , everyone but Jamie seems to like Nate's play and Roy is fed up with Jamie encouraging the bullying of Nate .

Ted and Beard gift everyone with a book and Ted has Roy wound up , turns out Keely is pretty good at impressions . Keely brings Rebecca a present and Roy and Ted bring Trent Crimm to Roy's niece's school . Trent explains the plot of a wrinkle in time . Then Ted and Trent have a hot dinner at Olly's restaurant .

Roy reads Phoebe a bedtime story , then heads to the club to put an end to the bullying . Trent writes his article and surprises everyone with his conclusion . And that is the lasso way in the book .

I absolutely love this episode and , as I kind of revisited , the one thing that I really hang on to is really the end of the episode where we're hearing what Trent is writing about Ted and AFC Richmond . From the article it starts with Higgins starting to communicate it and then it ends with Trent speaking In a business that celebrates ego .

reigns his in . His coaching style is subtle .

So I guess my question to you is when I say the phrase subtle leadership , is there anything that comes to mind ?

So my first day I walked in , slammed the door and said the bell rang , what are you doing ? Talking ? And those were the first words anybody heard .

But my last year of teaching , you know I had I learned to be a little more subtle and what I found was that if I could get the students to want to learn pre-calculus , that everybody was a lot happier to be there , right , I didn't have to force it down their throat .

One day in particular comes to mind I had a complicated system for solving polynomials you know solving equations , and there's a shortcut to it , and I could have just gone in and said I'm gonna give you a shortcut for this .

But instead I sort of appealed to the average high school mentality and I asked them if they wanted to race me and I said you all can use a calculator and I'll do it manually . So I can remember like three of the kids in class stood up Like they were in game face . They were in the ready position .

I said I'm good , you know , I normally wasn't super arrogant in class , but I was really playing it up that day and so I said you all better be ready , you know , get your calculators turned on , make sure those batteries are warmed up . You know cause ? I knew I had a shortcut . I let them pick the equation .

It was super complicated , like one of those gross ones , and I let them decide what number to plug in . And I can remember going down the chalkboard and I said it's 286 , right , and I knew for a fact they'd pushed like six or seven button , you're like what you know .

So I made them repeat this a few times and I was like how many of you wish you knew how to do that ? And they were like yeah , yeah . And I said I pointed to my objective sign in the class and I said , well , today's objective is to learn how to do that . And they literally said Ms Stockman , I hate it when you make me want to learn this stuff .

So I kind of felt like maybe that Roy Keely you know like , ah , his tricks and gifts aren't gonna work . But they were just as angry . They're like , darn it , you've tricked me into wanting me to learn math . So that was . I got a little more subtle than just slamming doors . Maybe I was a bit of a Roy Kent in my early teaching days . How about ?

So the best way I think I can answer what subtle leadership is about is , I think , of every time that I blindly issued a mandate , even if I was completely right to do it . I feel like I've always ended up regretting it . You know , and I think from being a parent , it's the most evident right Don't do X , y , z . You know why , dad ? Because I said so .

Yeah , does that ever work out for you ? No , no , it doesn't . So on a daily basis , I seem to get reminded that just issuing a mandate to a child rarely ever works . The one that comes to mind in a business setting was , I don't know if you remember when we worked together a while ago for them .

We've worked together for quite a bit , but at one point we worked for an ed tech company that had got acquired and we ended up merging two companies together and I was put in a position that oversaw our professional services team teams and they were merged together , and one of the first things that I was told was that this team that was merging into my current

team had some stability issues with their platform , and one of the reasons it was well known was that the professional services team had direct access to a database and would go in and would update things all the time and it wasn't the most stable of outcomes . You know , they were from time to time messing things up .

So I was given the full support of the executive team to change and fix that and I already had a solution that worked for that . We had done it with the team that I was currently working under and I knew it was the right thing to do .

I mean , you don't wanna just open up the wild west to have people start updating data in a non-change control environment . But that didn't . But the end result was I basically mandated a solution , a solution that I knew would work , and I knew it was the right thing to do .

But I will say to this day it's one of the biggest regrets I have in business because for six months after that I had inherited a team that now worked underneath me that thought that I didn't listen to them , that didn't think I appreciated their advice right and threw roadblocks up against me for an entire six months until I finally figured out hey really ,

mandating this solution was really not a good idea , considering the fact that I did not let them in on how to pass this issue that we had .

, you're up , let's talk about subtle leadership and what you believe the primary elements of subtle leadership are and that we should be discussing .

So first , there's the whole notion of storytelling being more powerful than telling , telling right . Second and Trent mentioned this specifically in his letter how to turn followers into leaders . Third , giving voice to others . That might have been unheard before . So how do you empower others ? Great way to find hidden talent .

Obspect is actually a bit of subtle leadership , especially the way that Ted lets that play out . Making connections within your network and for other people is actually a key to subtle leadership , and you mentioned this and it's really the biggie taking ego out of it .

So I'd love to chat through each of those , because Ted's given great examples that we can show , but also talk about what that looks like out in the wild If you're not in a television show where everything works the way you want it to .

list was storytelling . Right , and I think we could all acknowledge that the whole notion of storytelling outweighs the notion of telling just telling somebody what to do , but to tie it into the show , I think . I think what we loved about it was when the players all came back to the locker room after the practice .

They all ended up having some gifts at the top of their lockers .

put , without a spoiler , since we're doing a rewatch we might put the summary of Ender's Game and how that might apply to Sam as the episode because , what was the book that ?

But , more specifically , we have the whole notion of Nick getting bullied in a show , and one of the things that we quickly come to realize is that Roy is observing this and he pretty much feels like something needs to be done about it .

Hey , yeah , just so you should know that your boy , nathan's been harassed every single day by Jamie and his little side pricks Right .

And I think what's genius about this show is Ted is actually taking action on it .

, which is followers into leaders .

Right , and this kind of goes back to my story at the outset when I was talking about mandating a change control process with a new team , and one of the big sticking points that I didn't get into was the primary offender of updating production data was probably one of the most skilled consultants that I ended up ever working with .

He was very strong , very savvy and as such he was recognized as a leader with the other team members that are out there , and the fact that I did not get him on board and I didn't listen to his perspective really did me no good in terms of getting the rest of the team on board and with the same mindset .

But I think , as you said earlier , you know when Ted said he's the one Coach we're going to make an impact here .

So there's a guy dancing crazy on the hill and if it had just been him dancing crazy it would have been one thing . But instead another guy comes and joins him and the whole video is part of a TED Talk that talks about the importance of the first follower , because it justifies and gives relevance to the leader .

So the first follower is a leader in their own regard . So what happens after the first person follows is other people that were thinking , hey , I want to go dance down the hill , knew it was okay , and so then , next thing you know , you've got a swarm of people dancing down the hill and that's exactly what TED's setting him up for . I love that .

Ted realizes that Roy is a is is a leader in the locker room and he , he recognizes that same point with Jamie saying Do you even understand the influence you have on this team ? I'm the shit . No , you're a bellend , but because your right foot was kissed by God , the boys look up to you . It's made me question my own faith .

the whole notion of Giving a voice to empower others to find hidden talent . Is that right ? Yeah , and on point again , is Ted lasso in this episode ? Because they demonstrate exactly that with our favorite kitman , nate the great I'm officially on the prowl for any new ideas .

Yeah , but it brings out one of the real good scenes of this episode where Nate is Forced to be a little bit confident in his opinion .

But but the bottom line here is you know , as a leader , what Ted did is , he is , he's empowering all of those around him , including the low-level kit man and Nate , just to try to find out if he has hidden talent buried within the Within the weeds of the organization , which is important .

So I'm curious Do you , do you have any examples in real life , barney , where you know you have ?

And I actually had a CSM , a customer success manager who worked for me , who would in their one-on-ones , would regularly ask me okay , this is the situation , what should I do ? And I realized that basically he was just a conduit for whatever you know .

I was just answering all the questions for him , but he had good ideas , but he didn't have the confidence to implement them , and so I would no longer answer him what he should do and I would ask what , what are you thinking needs to happen ?

And did this for a couple of scenarios , and I would then and and I agreed with him every time great , implement that . And then Let me know how that goes . And then , after a couple of times of this , I actually said have you recognized the fact that you always come with the right idea ? He's like huh , and I said so .

So you just need to have the confidence that I have in you . So next time I want you to go ahead and implement whatever it is and even if it's wrong , I will have your back . If somebody chews you out , I'll take it and take the blame right .

Because that was what the anxiety was and I said but you absolutely know what you're doing , have the confidence and and use some expressions .

I wouldn't have used to say how he needed to just take accountability for it himself , but he really grew in learning to own his accounts , instead of me feeling like he was just a you know , a translator between me and the and the school district . So I think it's very powerful .

Okay

, next on the list was respect , and when Trentley reading his article , he talked about the fact that Ted is slowly winning him over and he specifically mentioned respect . And I think it was the dinner when he was at Ollie's restaurant .

That really was the tipping point for Trent here and , if you'll recall , he was eating that food that was , in essence , causing a fire in his stomach , but he kept on eating it because he wanted to show respect to Ollie and his father-in-law , to Lendo , that he loved the food so much .

But when we start talking about respect from a subtle standpoint , I think Trent proves the point exactly right , which is Trent is slowly becoming more and more a fan of Ted in this whole process and I'm not sure he understands and is connecting the dots exactly why , which is the exact point of subtle leadership , ted is influencing what Trent is writing .

call . You mentioned the introductions , hey .

So not everyone thinks of the way that they can influence others to make things happen as leadership , but I am a firm believer in the power of connections . I can quote Jim Collins and Malcolm Gladwell all day on their books and the power of connection .

It's obvious he was criticized out of the gate and his press conference anywhere he walked within the streets of Rich Bang or the buff , but to his credit , he's absolutely working to develop those relationships which may come in handy down the line . And the point number

six that was raised was all about the notion of a couple competing notions ego and humility . And I think Trent again .

That's not something that he does not lead with ego . So what's that you about ?

You might want to push back , versus a question of okay , we're working on this project . Nick , what do we need to do to ensure that this project will be done by Friday ? Is there anything you need to support that ? That is much more putting you in control , in charge of it .

To say to a salesperson all right , the goal is we're going to increase sales by 10% versus okay , what are some strategies that we could use to achieve 10% increase in sales ? It's a subtle difference , but it really does change who has the power to enter the conversation as a parent , fill out that application for college tonight , versus .

Is there anything that you're going to need help with or are there any blockers in the way to keep you from getting the college application filled out tonight ? Right , you've already made it's very clear the deadline for that , but it puts them in charge of it . I think humility is subtle .

Jim Collins , in good degree , talked a lot about the surprising thing that they found is that level five leaders , the top leaders , were humble , and it was the humility that really was a differentiator , because I knew we were talking about subtle leadership .

I read the book the Subtle Art of Not Giving an F and Manson's Rule so that's the author made this statement the more something threatens your identity , the more you avoid it . I thought , oh , that's interesting . If you can keep your ego out of it , you can learn , grow and become the best version of yourself .

I think that sentence really wrapped all that in a bow .

it at the offset and you just mentioned it again when you spoke specifically of intrinsic motivators . I think we've both worked in a scenario , in scenarios , many scenarios , where the carrot has been hung external motivators of some sort . There's this whole notion and thought process that external motivators are thought to be more short-term , biased .

They read short-term benefits but aren't necessarily good for long-term applications , whereas intrinsic motivation is much more in it for the long haul . When you studied your doprinit leadership , is that something that has been covered , discussed much in your previous studies ?

It aligns with your why it is motivating you because you see the purpose in it . So I think absolutely there has been a shift in leadership from transactional , authoritarian , etc . To the more servant and transformational leadership that is really about empowering folks to be intrinsically motivated .

how are we going to tie this in a bow ? How would you wrap up this episode ?

So I'm curious , if the listeners of this podcast were responding to comments , how Ted might be able to execute on a mandate if he was working for a company that decided that people needed to return back to the office after working for home for a couple of years .

Today we will take a look at Rebecca , ted and Trent Crem along the characteristics of adaptability , honesty and reliability . In terms of adaptability , john Wooden talks about being able to adjust to any situation . Honesty , not just in thought but in action as well . And reliability in terms of creative respect .

So if we take a look at adaptability , we find all of them to be a 10 . Rebecca's thrown a curveball when Ted and Keely walk in and ask her to have the picture removed you know from going out in the sun and she does . And she adapts and decides to have Trent write an article .

Mind you , we're not saying it's honorable intentions , but she adapts well , ted goes with the flow when Trent shows up , takes him all the places out to dinner , to Phoebe's school , etc .

And Trent also is adaptable to whatever Ted throws at him and really needs to reflect on what his expectations were based on what the reality is that he sees , and that takes us into honesty . So I'm going to rebate them . In reverse , trent gets a 10 there because he is honest in his response in the paper .

He expected to really slam Ted and he has to give a much more humbling account of what he sees happening to AFC Richmond . Ted we feel like he's shooting straight the whole time with a 10 , and we're going to give Rebecca a 3 because she knows , you know , she's up to shenanigans In terms of reliability . We gave Rebecca a 6 for the same reason .

She's not reliable . People may believe that she is , but we know that she's got ulterior motives and Ted and Trent each get a 10 on that as well . They do their jobs well and you can count on them for that . We'd like to point out at this point that people maybe wouldn't initially call Trent Cremout as a leader because he's not managing others .

But again , we believe that leadership is all about how you lead yourself and Trent really shows leadership characteristics in the way that he performs his job , as well as Ted , as usual . We hope you have a great day . We hope you have enjoyed the podcast . See you next week on Lens of Leadership Lead it .