E77
Simon: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Trench Leadership, a podcast from the front. History is full of people who [00:01:00] have risen to the challenges of leadership, and the war in the Ukraine is no different time and time again.
Stories are emerging of average. People with finger quotations stepping into leadership roles because they saw a need, they felt a call to. In this episode, you'll hear from Dave Lindell, the Executive director of Hungry for Life Canada, or H F L as you'll hear us talk about, and Dave will talk about his personal and professional leadership experiences and how as the executive director for H F L, he has witnessed young people fill leadership roles simply because in their words, someone had to do it.
Now, with that, I'm gonna try and be quiet and introduce the guest. Hey Dave. How's. Good. Thanks for
Dave: making time today, Simon.
Simon: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time. You're very, very busy. We, this war is happening and it's still happening and things aren't so slowing down. If anything, things are probably gonna start picking up as, as we get closer and closer to the spring.
So that's what we, I really understand. Yeah, exactly. So I really appreciate [00:02:00] you taking the time for this, but listen, before we get into this, do, will you mind taking a moment and telling us a bit about yourself, your personal and professional journey, and ultimately how you got to the point of talking.
Yeah,
Dave: for sure. You know, I've always, ever since I was a kid, I remember being interested in and kind of a student of leadership. I kind of had that natural, un undeveloped, untrained, even from a really early age, desire to influence and lead. Didn't know what it was at the point at that time and, and sometimes people would call me bossy, but you know, the kid on the playground.
People who say that you're not born with leadership skills. I understand what they're getting at because I also believe leadership can be developed. But watch a playground every once in a while and see who's naturally influencing. And, uh, that was kind of me. And, and then, uh, you know, fast forward, I've always, I've always.
A desire to see things change, whether it be in society or the churches that I was a part [00:03:00] of in the world and broken situations in the world. I've loved to see things change and I, and I. and I know that the best place for us to focus is on the leaders of organizations. And so I've been a student of leadership for a lot of years and, uh, from a practical perspective, we, myself and a few others were the co-founders of Hungary for Life in 2003.
We just up to our 20th year still here, and also do some nonprofit leadership coaching and consulting on the side, which is the social enterprise of Hungry for Life. And teach at Trinity Western University here in BC in the School of Leadership. And, uh, yeah, so always been a, a student and a lover of leadership.
And because I, because I firmly believe that the world is the way that it is because of those that lead. And so I believe that's the best way for me to spend my time is on those that. Well,
Simon: well thanks for that. And I love how you talk about being a student of leadership [00:04:00] because it's one of those things that is always evolving.
If you look back through time, how people have led and the reasons why they led the way they did it. You know, time dependent really in that snapshot of time had a big factor in how they chose to do what they were doing. Yeah. And paying attention to that. It, it's huge.
Dave: Yeah. That's why I love being a student of leadership rather than, Being considered a leadership expert because I don't think that exists.
I think we're, we should be constant stewards or students of leadership and, and I think that position is, is a great place to start from and end.
Simon: Well, very, very much so. And I think it's, IM, it's easy for a lot of people to get to a certain point in their career, especially if they have a career goal and they get to it and they're like, oh, I've made it.
I am now a leader. I am now the leader I want to be. And I know for myself, I thought that, I thought, okay, I'm gonna get to become a sergeant in the Canadian Air Force and I'm gonna be the leader that I've always wanted to be. And I got there. And then everything just completely changed. And partly because I.[00:05:00]
Do anything other, any type of leadership training other than what the military had give me, which to be fair is very good training. Yeah. But very specific to what the military wanted me as a sergeant in the air force to be doing mm-hmm. . Uh, and, and it's because of that, that bias skews what I thought of what was going on.
It's challenging. Totally.
Dave: And with the organizations and leaders we work with, we're seeing a trend. This isn't, this is qualitative. Uh, research, not quantitative, but the thing we're seeing is that the, the higher a leader goes in the organization, the higher the position. The longer they're there, the less teachable, the less self-aware they are, the less introspective they are about their own leadership.
And, and when you're, when you're rising through the ranks, I would strongly argue that. That those leaders need to become more and more self-aware, more and more teachable, rather than thinking they've got it all together. So yeah, definitely wanna keep
Simon: learning. Oh, absolutely. [00:06:00] And one of the other things that I, I bring up often in podcast episodes is that the average leader doesn't get their first formalized leadership education until the age of 42, and when they're a middle manager.
Wow. To a senior manager level, really like that is far too late. Considering you c you factor in that most leaders are put into their pos, their first positions at the age of 29 to 32. That's the average. Wow. So really? Yeah, like we're talking about eight to 12. You know what? At least 10 years. Best case scenario.
Uh, that's a long time to be creating your own leadership principles and ideas and then all of a sudden being told you're wrong. Because more often than not, that's what happens. Right? You need to do it this way cuz this is what the flavor of the month is. Yeah. You know, uh, it's, it's an interesting, uh, the way to look at all these different things.
Cause I know when I was going through the military, when I started my. First, uh, leadership course as a master corporal, there was a lot of talk about transactional leadership versus transformational leader. In this weird world of transformational leadership where you work with [00:07:00] your team instead of have your team work for you was this crazy thing then.
And it, it was blowing people's minds away. And now it, transformational leadership is almost a thing that's kind of passe and, and quite often we hear talking about servant leadership and, and, and being a servant to your team. And that's the thing. And we'll see what happens in a few years from now. Um, But it's interesting at, at its core, ultimately what has to happen is people need to step into those leadership roles, which is why you and I are here.
Did did you wanna talk about that a bit? About people just stepping into the roles? Cuz someone's gotta do it. Yeah.
Dave: Yeah. And kind of goes back to the intro a little bit. Is, is I, I think, uh, George Barner has a great book called Fish Outta Water, and he talks about the difference between being in a, a habitual leader and a situational leader.
And I think that being a, well, what he, what he talks about the concept is a habitual leader is someone who can't not lead. It's just, it comes out of them. And, [00:08:00] and, uh, you know, that kind of a leader needs training as well because being a habitual leader without having their leadership skills trained, can become dangerous.
And, and then, and then there's situational leadership, not situational leadership as the theory, but situational leadership in the sense. When, when someone's called on to lead, they can, but they would be typically happy to step back and let somebody else take that role. And so one of the really great principles of leadership development, one of your first questions on how do we develop leaders is to say, who's naturally influencing without a title?
So sort of getting to what you're, what you're saying here, those are the people who, when they see a vacuum, when they see ambiguity, when they see lack of momentum, they, they, they can't help themselves but to start to provide clarity or direction for a group of people. And that's the best place to start.
And, and typically when there's something major going on, those leaders come to the surface pretty quickly.
Simon: And, and a [00:09:00] lot of the times it's the people that most people. , most other people rather wouldn't expect that we're gonna step into those roles. It's, it's the, the quiet person or the, the person that might've been too funny or whatever, you know what I mean?
Not that stereotypical looking leader. If we wanna look at it from that perspective, it's these people that you have no idea that you, that are gonna fall
Dave: into those roles. Right? Yeah. Difference between charismatic. Charismatic leadership versus a theory you talked about earlier, being transformational leadership, but not to look for necessarily a person with the most charisma, but who, who is leading naturally that if you were to take them out of the context, things would be worse if you took them away.
Oh
Simon: e exactly, and, and conflicts like, like the Ukraine war right now, people are stepping into those roles and we're seeing apparently, uh, a lot of younger, younger people stepping into these roles because someone has to do it. Did you, did you have any examples of that at all or? I. more than we have time for
Dave: today,
Uh, but yeah, [00:10:00] one of the amazing things about our involvement in Ukraine has been to see local leaders rise up and, and just some background to that. One of the, one of the phenomena we're seeing is, and again, I, I say these things really carefully because I. I'm not living in that situation. I don't what it's like on a day-to-day basis.
And so I'm really slow to criticize people who are living in a war and, and their various responses to that. So with that though, We are seeing some really interesting things because there are leaders in our orbit in Ukraine who first opportunity they got, they, these are positional leaders, church leaders, community leaders, business leaders that the first opportunity they got, they, they got outta the country with their family and they're happy to live in Germany, Poland, US or Canada.
Uh, and, and again, I'm, I'm slow to criticize refugee. But it is interesting that, and particularly our world, [00:11:00] because our, our network, our, our infrastructural network of doing our work in Ukraine is through local churches. And we saw, we've seen many local church leaders leave the country, leave their congregation, um, because they had a contact somewhere or, you know, looking for opportunities to leave the country.
And what we're seeing is it's. Some of the people in those churches that are sitting in the back pews every Sunday, not, not really in any positions of leadership in the country, but they're kinda the quiet people in the back row that have said, I'm Stan and I'm fighting with the delivery of humanitarian aid.
But yet they're formal leaders. The positional leaders have, many of them have left the country and it's the, it's the natural leaders that are left that are staying risking their own lives to. To be a part of the big picture of what's going on there, but focus on humanitarian aid. Uh, we, we've had some of the people that we've worked with, [00:12:00] they're 20, they're 20, 23, 24 year olds that, that, um, not only are they.
Not trying to leave, they're specifically saying, I've got a van, so give me as much food as possible and, and I'll drive it into the hot areas and get food to people. And they come out and they're not even spending a night out of the, out of the zone. They're like, fill the van as po fast as possible and we're gonna drive back to Ariv, like for an example, and, and risk thorough knives.
And they've been close to some pretty big hits and they can't, it's, it's those people who can't not. They are the habitual leaders that when there's an absence of leadership will naturally step in, step into it. Many of them, and I would say most of them not having a title or a position or a leadership role, but who are just stepping up and saying, I'm gonna stay and risk my own life to help other people.
Um, and you know, one family we know about big family, uh, a bunch of the men looked [00:13:00] for opportunities to hightail it out of there partially because. The fact that they were worried about conscription, but, but, um, staying outta the country, being being safe in some other country. But yet all of the sisters from this family are staying in the country and continuing to help and risking their own lives.
So there's even, there's even an interesting conversation there around gender. In leadership and crisis experience and seeing who rises up. But the Ukraine, our experience in Ukraine, it's been quite amazing to see people with positions of leadership are not necessarily the leaders.
Simon: And, and that's the thing is a lot of times we don't really know who's gonna step into those stressful moments until you've experienced Yeah.
Those truly stressful moments. And, and it's all fine and dandy to say you're in charge of something when at the times are easy. But it's when the times get tough and really, really tough. That will be a medal. And again, I'm also not. Uh, judging anyone, why they may have left. I,
Dave: I don't have their [00:14:00] background stories.
I don't know exactly, but we're just
Simon: having, trying to have a critical conversation about these, the facts, the reality is of leadership
Dave: positions. Yeah, just observation. And I certainly wouldn't wanna, you know, make broad, sweeping statements about. People's motives. Yeah,
Simon: exactly. That's exactly it. I, I am curious though, when we're talking about not knowing when these people are gonna step into these roles.
I, I know myself, I've had moderately stressful moments throughout my military career and stuff like that, and, uh, , there's, there's always the doubt, there's always the fear, uh, the concern, the stress, all of those different things. Have you spoken with any of these leaders that are, uh, these, these people have fallen into these leadership roles in the Ukraine?
Like are they still experiencing these sensations of self-doubt and concern and whatnot?
Dave: Yeah. I was there this last summer and there was a group of leaders that we met with. They're young adults, you know, be, I would say between the [00:15:00] ages, Twenties to mid thirties sort of thing. I would say a group of about 10, 10 of them who came up from Nikola to where we were in the West.
And Nikola has been constantly, it's just, it's, it's been a regular place to. For hostilities and these, these people are there, are giving out food and caring for people. Many of them are church leaders that, again, not, not positions of leadership in the church, but who have taken up the role of leadership.
And so what we did is we had them come out of that area for a while to the west. To kind of get just some rest, just to Lilo for a few days. And we, we brought them all together for an evening. And I talked about, I talked about, uh, vicarious trauma, trauma burnout, and they're just so. They're just so exhausted.
They're so tired. They're so, you know, they're, they're, they're [00:16:00] so on edge from a trauma response perspective because a bomb's going off around them. And we had to even be careful in the home because any loud noise will, will automatically trigger a trauma response or a stress response. And so we just created an environment where I talked about.
Stuff that we would typically associate with burnout, kind of common leader language here in the west, what burnout looks like, what you need to do for self-care, even in the midst of a situation where you're not thinking about yourself, you're thinking about others. If you don't put on your own oxygen mask first, you're not gonna be able to help other people.
What does this look like for them, even though they're living in the middle of a war? and afterwards we really got some great feedback saying, uh, some, like you've just described our experience that they didn't have language for and you validated what we're going through. It's great to sit around and talk about this to, to validate each other's concerns and to just be cared for.
So they had the energy to go back to Nikola and [00:17:00] continue to, we call it fight with. , but do the humanitarian stuff. And so in the future we're really looking at that and saying there's all these situational leaders who have risen up in that situation that we want to care for because they're under more stress than they've ever been, and we wanna care for them so that they have the ability to go back and continue to do what they're doing.
Simon: Well, it's an interesting point you bring up, is that in that in a war zone, There is still those need to take care of each other and take care of ourselves. Uh, I, I've been in conflicts where things have been happening and it's something that maybe some people might not realize. Just because it's a war zone doesn't mean that things are happening 24 7.
And there are generally, right. There's more often than not, there are opportunities to. Take a step back, and I'm not suggesting, I'm not trying to downplay anything, please understand that, but I hear you. But there generally tend to be those opportunities to take those moments and step back. There's a reason [00:18:00] why the allies and professional militaries rotate soldiers in and out of battlefield to take that time and settle down.
Interesting. In the Canadian military, and I don't, I can't, I can't speak for other militaries, but in the Canadian military, when the Afghanistan campaign was going on, and, and when I was in Bosnia, we had what was called a 96 or so. It was four days that they, we would, they would take us from the front lines to go do, to just de decompress.
And when I was in Bosnia, uh, it wasn't, it was not, uh, As active as it had been in, in the earlier, uh, timeframe of that war campaign. Right. So even then, they still gave us these 96 ERs to go away and just decompress and, and you know, have some drinks or do whatever it is everyone needed to do to Yep. To take a moment, take a breath, and then reinvigorate it, go back and do our job, and do what we had to do.
And it sounds like you're talking about the exact same. Yeah,
Dave: in fact, that's a great way to put it. And that's what we're working on right now as a way to create some space to get peop to get some of [00:19:00] these humanitarian leaders out of the front lines, out of active conflict zones. And because they're like, some of them are there, some of the men who are responding and doing this, their wives and children left a long time ago and they're in Poland or Hungary or Germany.
And so they're there essentially by the. Many, so many people have left, they feel compelled to stay, to help. They don't have their wives there for support. Uh, and they feel exhausted, alone, and scared. And so we're n now starting to have some intentional conversations about how do we either go to where they are or get them out of that place for a 96 er to get some rest and.
And, uh, care for them and have some conversations that will help validate some of the things they're experiencing so that they have the energy to go back into that situation and continue to do what they're doing. So I appreciate your illustration of a 96 er, cuz that's, that supports exactly what we're talking [00:20:00] about doing with our overall involvement in
Simon: Ukraine.
and it's understanding that the ability to get away to do those things, the value act, especially when you're in the moment, and it's one of my favorite, saying that in the moment, it's very difficult to see the importance of doing these things, of taking that break. Yep. Especially when, and, and you tell me like you've been there.
So I, it seems to me from my experiences, like say it's in those moments, it's easier to forget that it's important to step away. And the second you're out of that zone, it's like, oh yeah, there is a normal life. Eventually, someday I will. C, quiet and calm or whatever a person chooses. Does that make any sense at all?
Dave: Totally. And it's re a lot of sense. And it's really hard to convince them that they, that they need that. I mean, they would say that they're tired, but if you really push, we push some of our leaders and even some of our own staff to say, okay, you gotta get out of that space for a while. And they feel guilty for leaving.
Other people don't have a chance to leave. Why am I leaving? Uh, you [00:21:00] know, they need me. People are gonna go hungry without what I'm doing, or people aren't gonna have X, Y, and Z that they need. Like, it, it feels selfish to care for yourself as a leader often. And whether you're talking about in a conflict like that, or, and, and, and purpose and crisis makes it very acute.
Or even whether you're talking about leadership outside of a conflict just day-to-day, it's often, it's often hard to get those empathetic servant leaders to. To validate the need for self-care along the way.
Simon: Well, absolutely, and, and it's like you said, it, it's that sense of selfishness, the guilt that I'm taking a break when others aren't.
But everyone has to take those breaks cuz eventually you, you just can't keep doing it. That's just a fact of life. It just, you just can't keep going. You can't keep pushing. You know, there's this just a. Physiological reaction, it cannot keep happening forever. .
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. And if you, I mean, that's, that's the case in the, I would say the [00:22:00] quote unquote, normal world of day-to-day leadership.
But then when you add, when you add war into that, It heightens the need even more so. So if, like you're saying in the military, it was four days in and four days out sort of thing? Is that what you were talking about? Oh, no,
Simon: no. I, it was, it would be like two months and then you'd go stay at there and then go away for the four days and then come back and do that.
And depending on the length of the duration of the, the, the, the time you were there, you'd usually get two or three of those plus another trip or whatnot, so,
Dave: yeah. Yeah. So two months in. And, and if they're prioritizing and mandating, then it's important to come out for four days. You know, how much more should we be?
Just because you add the context of conflict, heightened fear, trauma response all the time. Uh, you're in your, the part of your brain that's reptilian, fight, flight, or freeze all the time. And, and you, you've gotta come out of that and decompress a bit. So, so that, um, [00:23:00] you have the ability to stay there and go back.
So I really appreciate that illustration that you gave me. It's all, I'm gonna use
Simon: it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm happy to do, we could talk some more about it afterwards if you'd like. Sure. Yeah. Uh, and, and I, I think in the conflicts that we're experiencing there right now, the interesting thing is that. , this tends to be average people, you know, and I'm using average in the, with finger quotations, uh, that weren't in those roles like you had mentioned earlier.
And yet they're stepping up and getting that call to action cuz someone's gotta fill those roles. Uh, I'm wondering, you know, if, if we were to take that from into a critical thinking aspect and talk about three different leadership skill sets or whatnot, you and I had spoken before, before about the technical, the human and the conceptual leadership skill sets.
Did you wanna talk about that? A. Yeah, for sure.
Dave: Yeah, for sure. Because I think in the, in the world of leadership development as, as you were talking about earlier, the, the, the, the process that naturally happens, this, [00:24:00] this comes from. What's called the skills theory of leadership. It's one of the earliest theories of leadership that spoke, that speaks to what are the, what are the qualities and the competencies that leaders need to have in order to be a successful leader?
And the proponents of this theory in particular talked about there's three skills that a leader needs. Uh, and, and it's, these aren't, these aren't character qualities, these aren. These aren't traits. That's the trait theories leadership, but the skills theory of leadership, say every leader needs a a different combination of three skills.
One is the technical skills, second is the human skills, and third is the conceptual skills and and technical skills. Let's use the, let's use an electrician for example. You've got a new electrician, comes onto the job, ticketed gets going. His head's full of technical skills, and he's probably gonna work.
What, five, 10 years being an electrician using, using his technical skills and doesn't need a lot of human and [00:25:00] conceptual skills at that stage of the game. Maybe more human skills because he is interacting with people he or she. , but mostly your job's technical. And then, and then what happens is managers start to notice after five or 10 years, hey, that that person, uh, is great.
They're faithful, we've gotta promote them. Maybe they're gonna become the foreman of a group of electricians. And they're, they're really good at their jobs, so they get promoted. And most organizations, when they promote someone with strong technical skills, don't develop the other two skills. They don't develop.
conceptual skills or their human skills. And so, you know, they liked wrenching, they liked all of the technical stuff they did when they were an electrician, and now they've got a group of
Simon: people who are reporting to them
Dave: and you know, this person has got this problem, this person's got another issue. And, and now they're faced with people issues when what they were dealing with for 10 years was elec, electrical issues, technical issues, and most companies, don't [00:26:00] develop leaders when they promote them with the other two skills that actually become more important than the, than the technical skills.
Uh, that's, and so I would say frontline worker needs primarily technical skills and some human skills. Middle manager is actually the hardest place to be cuz you need lots of technical skills, lots of human skills, lots of conceptual. and then upper management, they need the less, they need less technical skill and mostly human and conceptual.
And, and so I think a really, a really important thing for leaders as they're hearing this when they're wanting to develop people and promote them to, into more significant layers of the organization is what are we doing to specifically develop that person as we promote them, the more responsibility, particularly leadership respons.
Simon: So, uh, people can't see me, but I have been rigorous, vigorously shaking or nodding my head with you in total agreement. Often I use the example, I use welders as my example. Okay? So you're, you're the greatest welder in your team of three to five, and then all of [00:27:00] a sudden they say, Hey, Simon. Yeah, that's a really great welder.
You must be able to lead three welders. Not necessarily, I haven't been trained to do that. Like I've been working my butt off to become a really good welder. That doesn't mean I'm able to step into that leadership mantle and, and do that. Now, I'm not saying that doesn't mean that's also not the case. But certainly if you've been thinking weld, weld, weld for 10 years or lay wires, whatever electricians do, I, I have no idea.
right? Yeah. Uh, that's the skillset. It, it's more. technical mindset versus that leadership mindset. And the shift is difficult for a lot of times. I, I know myself, when I became a new master corporal, uh, it was, it was challenging because I was used to painting and welding and metal fabrication, and now all of a sudden I'm in charge of two guys.
And this case happened to be two guys, and both of them had many, many more years in the military and many, many more years in my, in the, the trade I was in. Wow. And all of of a sudden I have to be in charge of them. And I. I don't even know. I can barely do what you do. Yeah. Uh, just [00:28:00] from a skillset perspective.
So it's tough. It's a tough balance. And I would love to say I didn't stumble, but that would be a dirty lie. I stumbled. We all do. Oh yeah. .
Dave: We all do. We all do. And, and part of that stumble is just life and learning from experience. And some of it is stuff that's avoidable. organizations saw that part of just as important as anything else in the organization.
Developing an internal leadership pipeline is vital to avoid some of the, the, the mistakes that are avoidable with better leadership, better training, and, and people who are decision makers to see the need to develop their people. For the positions that they, that they call for, because that electrician is excited by a promotion, more money, more responsibility.
They're probably bored with the technical stuff and they want that, but then they get into that role and not prepared for it. It would be like, it would be like asking me to become an electrician and putting me [00:29:00] in front of a whatever electricians do. I'd be, I, I'd be dangerous without the technical skills.
And so reverse that. And what about, what about people who are promoted to positions because of their technical skills, but not given the human skills that are needed in order to be a leader? They're also dangerous.
Simon: It Well. Exactly. And now imagine you're, you're in a war and someone's gotta step up Yeah.
To fill that van full of, of stuff, vitally lifesaving items. How can people who are stepping into these roles, are they just doing it without question? Cuz someone's gotta do it. Are they, are they questioning themselves? Like what, what have your experiences have been speaking with these?
Dave: Yeah. And that's a good, that's a good segue back to that conflict and the experience of leading in a crisis.
Um, because in when, when there's a crisis, when time is really, when time is really [00:30:00] important, you, you often, you often don't feel, or you actually don't have the time. To put into leadership development because I gotta get back there with food, you know, times of the essence. And, and so you're not gonna send someone to, you're not gonna identify someone who's 22 year old and needs to get a bigger group together and send 'em off to school for a seminar for three weeks, and then they come back and join the effort.
That's, that's just not practical. Uh, so I think in this stage of the game, it's seeing who's ri rising to the surface and then doing those four day things that help. Decompress and feed them to give them energy to go back. But, but you know, beyond the war, when you, when you can then look at what are we gonna do with the opportunities that have come outta this conflict, identifying those people who were leaders in the conflict, natural n natural leaders to identify them and then, and then to give them the human and technical skills.
Because, because how much more important in the Ukraine, who, [00:31:00] uh, estimates are over a hundred. Soldiers in Ukraine alone have died, nevermind civilians and then, and so what's, what's the leadership vacuum gonna be in Ukraine at the end of this? And so there's an incredibly great opportunity to, to look at the people who have been natural leaders during the conflict and develop them into national leaders, really because of the absence of so many people At the end of
Simon: this,
Well, uh, thinking about it a little bit as you were talking about, you know, having, what type of leadership strains are, are available to people when this conflict is happening? And, and I was thinking about it a little bit and, and one of the thoughts that I had to mind is the, a lot of western countries candidate included, has set up.
Safe areas in in, in England and Germany and different places where soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers can be brought out of the country to train for five weeks, I think it is. I'm not exactly sure, but long enough anyways, to get [00:32:00] them in a significant amount of training in an environment that is safe so that they, they can learn how to be more effective soldiers.
It seems to me that another advantageous way to help. , these civilian leaders would be to set up something similar to that to get them out and have those moments and, and get some. Training and how to do whatever it is they need to do there. Does that, does that make any sense at
Dave: all? Yeah. Yeah. Perfect.
That's perfect. And in the crisis, I, I would imagine, and this is outside of my ex expertise and in yours, but these safe areas for the military, you know, when they're coming out, I'm sure it's. It's obviously restful for them because they're not on the front line, but they're also, they're also jamming in as many technical skills as possible to use these systems and know how to be better technical know, knowing how to be better soldiers technically.
Uh, and so that's the priority, their time out of there. And, and same with the volunteers we're working with in the humanitarian responses. They come out and they're wanting to fill their truck, they're wanting to gas up, they're wanting to figure out [00:33:00] where else they can go because the acute nature of a conflict, But still the need to focus on how are they doing and, and soul care, self-care, giving them the validating their emotions because that's really all you can do in a really short amount of time.
It's because again, as I said, in acute situations, you're not, you're not on a leadership development track. And so, um, as I said to you earlier, I'm really thankful for this conversation cuz it's validating from your experience what we really. The leaders we're working with need going forward. I mean, this is pushing onto a year.
It'll be, uh, that's actually 11 months old conflict today, and these people are tired. Many of them haven't had a rest rather than two months in and four days out. It's been 11 months in.
Simon: Yeah. And and that constant stress, that constant pressure is, yeah. It, it's just, it, it can't last, it, it's every [00:34:00] major conflict.
Every minor conflict has, has many, many people who have cracked under the significant pressure. Cause we just can't maintain that. We're just not mean meant,
Dave: we're not built to do that. Right. Yeah. And so from a skills theory of going back to skills theory, you're mainly focused on technical skills at this point because of.
The acute response. But beyond that, the opportunity is, okay, what, when we, when we get to a place where, you know, hopefully that the, the war is quote unquote over in terms of whatever that looks like, what are we gonna do to capitalize on the opportunity to rebuild this country by focusing on the people who led during the conflict and developed them into leaders?
Leaders of, you know, businesses, societies, churches, communities, and even the
Simon: nation. Well, and as you said, there will be a leadership power vacuum and someone's gonna have to fill those vacancies. And who's gonna do that? We'll have to see. Yeah. Time will tell for sure. [00:35:00] But it's, it's different. And inside these crises, these people will tend to stand up and use these moments to say, Hey, maybe I can lead, maybe I do need to do whatever it is that makes the most.
We did
Dave: lead some leadership training in the Ukraine before the conflict twice actually, where we did a week long intensive for, for humanitarian workers and, and social workers. And their, their leadership model was very much that old Soviet style of one person at the top who's got all the responsibility telling all the people what to do.
And when we talked about servant leadership and, and gone through, you know, trait theory and when we, when we just talked about leader. It was incredible to see what happened because so many people who were naturally leaders after the training realized, oh, I don't need a position to lead. I am a leader because I'm an influencer.
And, and then it was amazing to see all of these projects and initiatives start without having the senior leaders stamp of approval on things because [00:36:00] people just started to use their skills. And that's the kind of thing I'm excited about, especially in the, in the developing world. where they haven't had the ad advantage of that you and I have had of a hundred years.
Of a hundred years really, of leadership development. When we think about the evolution out of our country and through our school systems and training and societal values have built the kind of leaders that you and I are and many, many of these countries don't. They're still functioning from. Autocratic hegemonic leadership style of command and control, uh, whether it's government, church, society, businesses, it's, it's still that same generally it's that same model.
And, and so we've seen in the Ukraine, what happens when we teach better leadership is more stuff happens, more great stuff happens. Oh, well, very
Simon: much so in, in any type of conflict. When. How do I word this without rambling too badly? Overwhelming force of personnel of people [00:37:00] doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win a conflict.
And from my perspective, that it seems to me that that's Russia was kind of very much banking on, okay, we're gonna send in hundreds of thousands of conscripts for the most part with some really well-trained units, and we're just gonna roll over the Ukraine. But what had been happen. In the background and very, very clear on the news was that the Ukrainian forces had been getting trained by professional soldiers turning these men and women into professional soldiers.
So while a significantly smaller force, it goes to show that training qualifi, quantified, ex excellent training is carry so much more weight and power if you wanna look at that way. Great
Dave: observation. Great observation. I appreciate that illustration.
[00:38:00]
Dave: I was watching a, a news piece and it was somebody in Russia interviewing a Russian, uh, Western News media in Russia interviewing a Russian and. It was like a, somebody who was just walking down the street and the journalist asked this lady about the conflict and she, it struck me from a leadership perspective what her response was.
And she said, we have a president who thinks for us, so we don't need to think about these things. And she specifically used the word
Simon: think and, and
Dave: saying, you know, we leave it up to that person to think [00:39:00] we do, and what he's told us to do is this. And because he thinks for us it's gotta be the right thing and, and therefore so many people aren't questioning it.
Simon: which is wild considering the, the po the size of the population there, .
Dave: Right, right. And, and that's, that's how the world can get into these kinds of situations is with leaders who have charisma, vision, who, who, we obviously don't agree with their vision and what they're trying to accomplish, but they, they can influence and motivate.
They keep, they, they keep their people in a situation where they accept the power differential between. The masses in the few, and they expect it and accept that there's people who are paid to think, and I'm, I'm a doer and they don't challenge that. But with the development of, of a middle class in the western world, the middle class, as they grew in more power and influence, started to say, wait a minute, I'm gonna challenge my leader on that question.
I'm gonna ask that. That's [00:40:00] not cool. And it was the emergence of a middle class that. Prevented some western countries from turning into dictatorships and, and, and the reason that that many countries keep that power differential is because then they can keep the power over the masses. This lady's response was a really great illustration of that.
Oh,
Simon: oh, very much so. I, I, I loved, like you said, what? He's, he's gonna tell me what I'm gonna think and I'm o a Okay. Uh oh. Okay. All right. , what do you say to that? You know,
Dave: exactly, it's, it's, it's hard to, and you, you can't change that by beaming western media into the country and or, or trying to tell people how to think differently because they accept the tenant.
I'm not a thinker. The president's the thinker. I'm the doer, and if they accept that tenant, no amount of information, uh, will, will change
Simon: their opinion quickly. Oh, very much so. And we see that E, even a Western society, look at, [00:41:00] uh, Donald Trump in the United States and, and his very strong, very, very loyal following.
If he says something, yeah, it can be proven facts that it, they're just blatant, blatant lies. Nope, he said it. I don't care what it was. And again, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm anti-Trump or, or anything like that. I'm just trying to have a conversation. Uh, you's see where I'm going with that. A
Dave: leadership observation.
We'll call leader leadership obs leadership. Exactly
Simon: a leadership observation, although I, yeah, I'll, I'll move on from there. , but absolutely a leadership observation. Um, you know, and I think about, you know, when we're talking about leading in a crisis, I've, I've spoken about it in the past where I like to use, uh, sometimes aviation examples and, and I think about the South Korean Airlines crash that happened a number of years back, and there was.
Crisis, something was going on inside the cockpit, and ultimately what ended up happening was the, uh, the plane crashed and unfortunately everyone perished. But when they had listened to the voice cockpit recorder, it actually [00:42:00] turned out that the, the captain, the aircraft captain had been focused on some other problems inside the aircraft, and the co-pilot knew what was going on.
He knew what the problem was, and he tried to tell the captain, What was happening to save everyone. But because of the hierarchy in in that culture, uh, the, the, the senior person was regarded as more senior, therefore a better leader. And so the junior co co-pilot didn't, wasn't as forceful as he needed to be, and that was ul.
Ultimately, a string of things led to the crash, but ultimately everyone perished because the captain refused to listen and the co-pilot ref was refused to speak. For, yeah, various reasons. And we see that a lot of times in crises, and I'm wondering if you've experienced any of that, those types of things in the Ukraine or has haven't spoken to anyone where people aren't listening to these young leaders just because of their age or their lack of experience.
Dave: Definitely have experienced leaders. [00:43:00] Who, and it's not just a developing world phenomena, but, but in terms of my leadership context, definitely definitely experienced and seen leaders in other countries who, who ex even unknowingly exploit the power of differential. They enjoy the power differential. It's usually people who maybe grew up powerless, who now have some.
And who like that and, and think they've arrived and they wanna hold onto that power. And it's often even accentuated in countries that were had, had colonial history. And then the, the, the colonist pulled out, leadership vacuum happens and then it re and it just automatically defaults to trait theory leadership or tribal leadership or what's called the Great Man Theory of leadership.
It, it resembles. Colonial leadership, and that's what they've come to understand leadership to be. And so some of the people that we've worked with [00:44:00] where we've tried to, we've, we've been able to do small relief and development projects with them. They don't develop leaders under them, and they become the bottleneck to more community develop happening because.
Because they're not empowering and involving and they're not de other leaders. They're not democratic. They're not practicing shared leadership. So we've seen that a lot. And leaders that we work with who practice democratic or shared leadership, who understand servant leadership and try to live by it, they have more successful projects and bigger projects because, because that kind of leadership style chokes.
You know, capacity and great things from happening. Uh, there's a book that just resembles very much along the line of your Korean Airlines illustration, and it's, you've maybe heard of it, l David Marquette's book Languages Leadership or Leadership is Language Can't remember it's called. Yeah, I've heard of the book.
Yep, I have heard of that. Yeah. And he, he uses his example. Uh, well, first of all, [00:45:00] he, he was a US submarine commander and he took the. The submarine that was rated the worst and took it to the place where it was rated the best. And then he also used throughout the book an illustration of a of a, of a, a cargo ship that was sailing from the US somewhere in South America.
And same sort of thing as your. Your illustration with Korean Airways is the, the captain made a decision about which way the ship was gonna go. Everybody else had bad feelings about it, didn't voice it because of a power differential. And as a result, the ship sank. Everybody perished, and he goes back and looks at what if, what if this leader created an environment where it was normal?
That people would bring up objections or challenge the leader or are, are able to speak from their perspective. We probably would've avoided that. We, we probably would've avoided the career in airline situation. And how many other situations do we not? I mean, if that kind of leadership is in place in an [00:46:00] organization, then it performs better.
Simon: Oh, oh, very much so in the case for the Korean Airlines that, and there was, there were a couple of other accidents that had happened in North America. And so the, the F faa, or the, sorry, the n t SB came up with something, uh, called Crew Resource Management. And it has revolutionized how aircrew will, will operate.
inside the, uh, when, as soon as the aircraft is, is going, if you wanna word it that way. Yeah. And it, it, it changed overnight how it, it, I'll word that better. It drastically improved the safety ratios and saved many, many, many lives just by people making sure that they are in a position to feel free to talk with each other.
And, and actually the Canadian Air Force is regarded as one of the, the strong. Uh, military air forces for having an a, a robust airworthiness program because the program is centered on making sure that everyone from the down, from the private, who's brand new to the n [00:47:00] airframe, to the most senior person there, they all have an equal voice.
To sh to speak up and share their thoughts and opinions on something. Doesn't mean it's gonna be accepted, but at least someone has had that opportunity to speak because that is the thing that they've found more often than not will prevent, uh, accidents. A loss of life or material.
Dave: Right. And we've got, that's another great illustration and, and realizing that Canada has, you know, again, a hundred years of what we would call human development or people development, or call it leadership development, where that kind of, what did you call it?
Human resource management, crew Resource management, tree resource management. Same idea. Where it becomes acceptable, it becomes expected that in certain situations, power, differe. Is flattened and people are expected to speak up. Right? But in, in nations and in, and there's still a generation of leadership even in North America that operates from that command [00:48:00] and control perspective, where it's not, it's not acceptable to do that.
And again, even if you look at it from the perspective of avoiding tragedies, that's one thing. And you add that to the potential. Seeing increased performance and creativity and innovation in an organization, it just makes result sense, not just touchy-feely human
Simon: sense. Oh, a absolutely. And I'm thinking about in, in the war in Ukraine, you have all these young people stepping up into these roles that people were traditionally maybe a little bit older, a little more, yeah.
Formally trained for them. I'm wondering if these new people are being taken seriously, like are they being, are their voices actually being heard? . I'm curious what, what were your experiences with that?
Dave: Yeah, I was there once this last year, but we've had lots of staff go lots of times, and so it'll be tough for me to be real accurate there.
I think fr from just our perspective, and I'll speak from our perspective, we've, we, we know leaders in Ukraine who [00:49:00] have, for whatever reason left and, and the leaders who have stayed. And the younger leaders who have, who have said, I'm gonna risk my life to help other people. Um, we respect them a whole lot more, uh, than those that have left.
Uh, and again, for lots of reasons as people leave, and I'm not gonna criticize that, but it's caused us to, to when, when I was there in the summer at the place we were staying, this, uh, RA , this just average truck, Ukrainian truck driver. Walks into the place where we were staying, and he was, he drives huge trucks, semis.
And then he, he also volunteered for our, in our effort to drive supplies into conflict areas. And just him telling a story, um, has no position of leadership, sat in the back pew of a church. His leader [00:50:00] left and he stepped up to lead. and he, you know, became a hero to me just in that very moment, rather than somebody who had the position that didn't make the decisions that he made.
And so, you know, risking his truck, risking his life, risking, you know, putting his family into a horrible situation because of his willingness to stay and, and risk in order to help people. So, So hopefully these people, they're, we're taking them more seriously and hopefully as a country they can capitalize on the opportunity to, to develop
Simon: these leaders after.
Well, I hope so too. And, and maybe there'll be, well, not maybe there will most certainly be analyses after this war ends and it will end someday. They. Uh, but most certainly people's leadership styles and skills will be analyzed in great detail, especially in this information rich world that we live in right
Dave: now.
[00:51:00] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's true.
Simon: Well, Dave, we, we have been chatting a lot, and this seems like a really great segue to move us into the lightning round. What do you think about that? Sounds great. All right. Gimme one second here. I'm gonna pull that up. All right. So question number. Who in your opinion, is the leader best suited to take us into the future?
And this can be a person or your creation of whoever you feel might be the best person, whatever you choose. There's no wrong answer
Dave: when you say us. Who's the
Simon: S? Us? Humankind.
Dave: Oh, wow. You know, the, the, the two philosophies or theories of leadership that I love the most is, is combining transformational leadership theory with servant leadership theory, and both relatively new theories compared to much older ones.
And I think transformational leadership theory, transformational leadership, can easily become, become a power differential. It could easily become misused, and people can [00:52:00] become little dictators with pure transformational leadership. yet servant leadership can be, can, can also become misused in that.
Leaders are, are, become servitude. They, they become an unhealthy way servants to their people and then don't end up le leading. And so combining transformational leadership with servant leadership as a theory, as a praxis, I think. Is the best combination to, for any, for any leader of an organization, nevermind a country or humankind.
So I think when you see leaders who combine transformational leadership and servant leadership, I think that that's what's gonna best serve humanity in the future.
Simon: Fantastic. Question number two. Cup half full or cup half empty.
Dave: For sure a cuff, a cup half full kind of person. I'm a visionary. I see potential always thinking into the future, and so always see the [00:53:00] cup as half full and also know that we need people around us to see the cuff cup as half empty so that we
Simon: can, uh, be better rounded as leaders. Question number three.
Who do you look to for leadership? Inspir.
Dave: Uh, to be honest, uh, without, without over spiritualizing, I think Jesus is the best model of transformational servant leadership. And so he ultimately is, he ultimately is the, I think he is my best model for
Simon: for leadership. Question number four, what would you like to improve about your leadership?
Yeah, I think
Dave: more authentic leadership is an area that I'm trying to improve. Um, more inner inner leadership development and then being more real about what's going on inside with the people who are around us. And so that's another leadership theory called authentic leadership and, and so that's an area for my personal leadership development.
Simon: And [00:54:00] the last question, what do you think is your leadership strength?
Dave: It's best asked to the people who I lead, but I, I would say, I would say it's probably the manifestation of servant leadership is a strength. Combined with actually, uh, some transformational leadership tendencies. And so again, only leadership geeks have, we maybe used that language to describe it , but if you look up those two theories, uh, I think people would resonate that.
Those are some, some of my strengths.
Simon: Okay. That's it. That's the lightning round. That wasn't so bad. Cool. That was easy. Oh yeah. No trouble at all. Thought you're gonna ask my favorite color. . I'm not getting into the hard, deep stuff here. No, no. . I appreciate that. That's fantastic. Well, you know, you [00:55:00] know I am throwing it at you at the last moment.
I
Dave: just believe in what you're doing so much. I think these conversations are so important for the world and for leaders and organizations, and what you're doing is just, uh, an incredible thing. So
Simon: keep it up. Well, thank you so much for that. I, I, I do love doing this and I, I hope that it's making a difference in some way to, to some people.
That's all I can ask, so,
Dave: well, you've made a difference in me today causing me to think about things I wasn't thinking before. That's gonna become something I'm gonna use right away, so thanks for that. Thanks for that influence on my life.
Simon: Well, thank you. I'm, I'm, I'm blushing a little bit here, so thanks a lot for that
Of course. So, le listen, before we sign off, if people wanna reach out to you or if they want to help out with Hungry For Life Canada, how can they do that? How, how can they make, make those connections?
Dave: Yeah. Probably the easiest and most direct way without spitting out a lot of numbers that people aren't gonna remember is they can email.
At dbl Hungry for Life do org. That's dbl first name. First initial last [00:56:00] name at Hungry for Life. Do org. Org. And then I'll. Put you in the touch with people who know way more than I do about how to specifically respond.
Simon: Okay, that's perfect. Of course, I'll have that contact information inside the show notes so that people can just click on the hyperlink and make their way to you.
Great. Dave, thanks so much for this time today. This has been fantastic. I've really enjoyed this conversation and I'm, I'm confident that people have not forgotten about this Ukraine war. But also remember that the leadership there is happening as we speak and is being taken up by people from all
Dave: ages, all levels,
Simon: and it's, it's still happening.
Pretty exciting. Thanks Simon. Thanks so much. Take care. . Well, that's a wrap from the front. In this episode, we learned that we don't really know who's gonna step into the roles when someone has to fill them, because the reality of it is someone has to fill the roles and in a war zone, they really need to be put into place.
And so remember, the next time [00:57:00] you are follower or you're a leader and someone has stepped into that role and they're younger than you, or less junior or more junior or whatever, it doesn't matter. Remember that someone had to step into that role and someone has to be the. Thanks for tuning in and remember, leadership without passion
Dave: limits the depth of your vision.