Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: What if I told you the secrets to conquering life's toughest battles, hidden, and military strategies? Have you ever imagined how a high stakes war zone mentally can transform your everyday challenges? I'm thrilled to introduce to you a guest whose extraordinary life is like something out of an action movie.
Major General Retired Scott Clancy. isn't just a military hero. a master of turning crisis into victories, both in the battlefield and in everyday life. From piloting helicopters in the Royal Canadian Air Force to orchestrating critical missions in Afghanistan and responding to global crisis, Scott's experiences are not just about military strategy, They're about the human spirit's capacity to rise above challenges.
In this episode, we're delving into the riveting questions, how can the tactics of a helicopter pilot under fire help you in your daily struggles, and can the principles of leading soldiers through chaos and uncertainty apply to your personal and professional life?
Scott, I'm thrilled to have you on the podcast today. We share some similarities and some differences. You spent 37 years in the military serving your country in Canada. You're a helicopter pilot, which we share. My husband's a Black Hawk pilot as well. But I'm happy to have you on the podcast because I believe that there are a lot of perceptions of the military and there's a lot that we can learn.
from the experiences that you endured while in the military. So before we dive into any questions, let's first kind of hear a little bit about your background. 37 years is a long time to spend in the military.
Scott Clancy: All right. Thanks a lot, Daniel. I was really happy to be on the podcast with you. I'm really enamored with the stuff that you do and the idea around grit and resilience and what that can do for people.
I joined the military when I was 18. I went to our version of your academies down in the United States. We have joint academies, so it's not divided Army, Navy, Air Force. got my degree there, went on and became a helicopter pilot, served on, three different helicopter squadrons. Now I'm a helicopter pilot.
Your husband's an army helicopter pilot. If I was in your service, I'd be in the army. We call army aviation TAC HEL, tactical helicopters. And the phrase is there's no hell like TAC HEL. and so I did that for a bunch of decades. I was responsible for planning and preparing forces to go to Afghanistan, using as a matter of fact, American Chinooks, that we borrowed from you guys and leased to be able to do that operation.
And I. Commanded in various places, including down in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. I had some experience and moved up through the ranks, was a wing commander and, ultimately went to Alaska as the deputy commander of the Alaskan NORAD region, and then finished off my career as a two star general down in Colorado Springs, where I was the director of operations
Danielle Cobo: for all of NORAD.
Quite the journey. I also read in your bio that you also helped with Haiti after the tsunami.
Scott Clancy: Uh, wasn't the tsunami. It was the earthquake of 2010. Yep. That's right. The earthquake 2010. Interesting piece. I was, just working in my office on a day and we were sending forces out. The earthquake had happened the day before, so we were already preparing helicopter forces to go.
And, I was on a video teleconference with my boss and the general on the other end, started speaking to me directly. Kind of looking around wondering what was going on because he said, Scott, you have to take personal interest in this because you're now going to go, you're promoted and you're going down to Haiti and you're going to start commanding that force.
You need to leave as soon as possible. And I went home and talked to my wife and said, I'm leaving. And she said, when? And I said, well, and she wasn't actually my wife at that point in time. She was my fiance. So, and I left. in five hours and commanded the forces in Haiti, the air forces in Haiti as part of our joint task force.
And it was pretty catastrophic. So a lot of devastation while I was down there, but, very rewarding for me and the team to be able to give back in that kind of an environment and help.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah, I would imagine when you spend a lot of your career in war zones to be able to be put in a position where you actually feel like you're, contributing back and rebuilding versus some of the war zones, it's like taking things down.
But when you're in Haiti, you're, helping rebuilding probably be a very different experience.
Scott Clancy: I think that there is really something there as we compare some of the operations that we've conducted, whether it's American or Canadian joint operations that are, peacekeeping, peacemaking, or, you know, recovery operations, or even those operations where we see a very solid goal, a very solid mission, and then we can accomplish that versus those operations that are muddied.
We got involved in operations in, Rwanda and in Bosnia where the missions were not clear, where the mandates and the tools that we gave to the troops were not necessarily clear. And the incidents of mental illness on the tail end, on the back end of those operations were significantly higher. And I think there's a schism there the psyche, that has more of a problem dealing with it than it does.
Other than operations
Danielle Cobo: like Katie now, I'm curious. What do you see on the psyche when you're seeing somebody that's coming from different? deployments or different missions that they're coming back and what are the are you seeing on the psyche end? So,
Scott Clancy: you know, I think the most important thing about mental health and especially in resilience from a military that a lot of people can learn from is when you have to prepare for this, two, everybody is susceptible and There's a role for leaders in this.
So, you know, if I go back to those 1, 2, 3 things, start with, you have to prepare, you have to talk about it in advance. These things are going to happen. You're going to have feelings, you're going to have reactions. People are going to, deal with these things various degrees. And it starts with inoculating people to those kinds of things because then they can develop their own resilience.
They can prepare for them mentally in their heads. They can project themselves forward as to what's going to happen. You're going to have to have frank conversations. One about how people are going to feel, two about how they're going to react, and three about how the organization's going to react to try and support them.
A second one is, and I think it's underlying, Everybody's going to have a reaction, just not sure where that reaction is going to be on a scale. Those of us who've been through conduct after capture, which is training you only do once, right? Everybody has a breaking point. So once you know that in the human psyche, then the idea is then we're all in this together.
Okay. So this is me helping you. This is us in this together. Okay, good. that removes at least some of the stigma surrounding that piece. And I think military organizations and, you know, law enforcement have come to grips with more of that, you know, removing that stigma because everybody's dealing with it on, some sort of a scale more than anybody else in society.
And then the last thing is the role for leaders. Leaders really are going to set the stage and have a role to set the standards, set the example, but as well, provide that purpose, provide that vision, reinforce why people are there. And I think those things anchor people's psyche and help them. if you have a leader as well, that is going to be pragmatic so that when something happens, hey, this is okay, this is normal, you're okay, we're going to deal with you.
At least to have a. and when I first got in, the way in which we dealt with, you know, operational stress reactions was under an acronym that was I, proximity, immediacy, and expectancy. And I'm not, simplification, but the idea is you immediately deal withas close to where the individual is working as possible, you know, pull them out, you
immediately, you deal with it immediately and you talk to them about it immediately. And then there's an expectancy that they're going to turn back to work that removes that element of guilt. You're still a benefit to the organization I'm not saying that that's the best way deal with things.
But what I am saying is that at least we're thinking about and talking about how we are going to deal with it as an organization.
Danielle Cobo: As you're talking through this, I'm jotting down some notes because it's reminding me of a situation, because a lot of people might be listening, well how is this, what Scott's talking about and going through war or missions or any type of adversity overseas, how does that translate to me?
I'm not in those particular situations. Well, I want to share a particular situation, specifically on what you had applied and talked about. I was working for an organization and it was, we were going through a hostile takeover from a competitor, was trying to take over our organization, and we ended up going through layoffs where we lost 20 percent of our sales force.
My particular team lost half of my team in one day. And the uncertainty that went around that particular situation, and we're talking about the kind of three approaches that took place after that. One was support. Support those that were laid off and helping them with their resume, their LinkedIn profile, helping them get, you know, set up for success for as best as I possibly could.
Support the survivors that remained who had the survivor guilt of, I'm grateful I have a job, and at the same time, the fear of, are we going to go through layoffs again? Then there's Being clear about what the vision of the future is and what's going to come and why are we making these changes and providing the perspective and then something that you really mentioned is preparation because there it could happen again.
It could not happen again, but preparing a plan for the future is what's setting us up for success. So it's taking what you were talking about and applying it into our everyday lives. Well,
Scott Clancy: see, and I think it does apply in terms of business, in terms of, when you think about people on the high end of any kind of field, doctors, nurses, lawyers, business people, CEO, you're at this extraordinarily high tempo of operations.
We call this tempo of operations, you think of the physical nature of military deployed operations. But I finished as a general officer. To be clear, I was not running out and starting helicopters and launching jets, and I was ordering people into, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't working 20, 22 hour days on shifts on call around the clock, the kind of stress and, things that you're going to deal with to be able to maintain your mental resilience and capacity is identical.
and by preparing forces. to go overseas, at least I had a background of things that could rely back on. and to me, I think you bring up, some really great things. These can apply directly into business. So if you're thinking about your team, you want your team to be resilient. You want your team, not just to be good for you.
And this was, you know, the element of the book that I wrote developing coaching leaders, that the reason why I got into trying to meld coaching and leading is that I want to elevate the relationship that we have, the people we're working with. In our teams above that binary transaction based performance driven things that we have every day.
Once you do that, once you elevate that relationship. You're going to be about developing them, whether it's developing their resilience to be able to deal with maybe a change or something that's happening in their life or whatever else. Developing them means that you establish that care. It's the first thing that if I was a leader, you're going to have to demonstrate care as a primary indicator of trust.
Once you develop trust amongst teams. Wow, then next thing you're going to do is you're going to take that vision and all leaders are going to develop visions. You got all sorts of, love your vision board analysis and your, COBO goals for the year. I mean, I think that's really, no, but I think it's really, really good.
but I see a lot of people doing exactly those things, but what they don't follow through is they don't translate as what that means to the people on their team. You know, I can say I was up in Alaska and we're going to put jets, up on the North slope, thousands of miles away, and they're going to intercept Russian bombers.
But what does that mean to the clerk that's working in an orderly room back in Anchorage or Fairbanks? My ability to explain why it's essential and this work and how that applies, and then walking that goal as to how they're an essential cog in that team. And that's what that means to me. And that's why I need you to be doing this.
That's important. And if you have a problem and each leader on the in between has those responsibilities. This creates resilience because people understand, Hey, this is why I'm here. Okay. This is what they can deal with That sense of purpose anchors them and then you can explain why it's important for them perhaps to be away from their families, but then it's also about you setting that example of it's not always a hundred percent, right?
Because if I'm developing someone, I don't want them to be on. All the time. They can't be around the clock every instant, 20 hours a day. So I have to set that balance for myself and I have to show them and mentor them so they can, you can see how this all blends into the same things that business leaders need to be able to develop within their teams to sustain that activity.
And then when they have to surge. They know that they can call on the people to be able to do those things. You send the military out the door, whether it's the 101st, whether it's, you know, all these great units, the special operations units that the Americans send overseas or our soft units, they're ready because they don't spend all their time at the highest of tempos.
They can't because if they do, they're going to burn themselves out. These concepts apply directly to business as well.
Danielle Cobo: Absolutely, they do. you talked about providing the why, and I think that is so important to really emphasize because when we went through all of those changes, the last thing my team needed to hear at that moment was we need to hit sales targets, we need to hit our numbers, we need to hit revenue, we need to make sure that we're bringing enough revenue where we can sustain our business where this hostile takeover isn't gonna happen.
That's the last thing they needed to hear because They don't care. They just want to know, are they going to have a job? What is their future going to look like? So it's important, like you were talking about, which is to have a team be part of the vision and part of the plan and part of the future is how are the changes going to impact them?
Less about me, how is it going to impact them? And I'm so glad that you had touched on that point.
Scott Clancy: Translation, like that, creates a connection. always used to say you want to connect with people two ways as leaders. You want to connect them to that vision, but you also want to connect to them personally so you can connect them to how their development is going to be executed inside of that vision.
That's what's really going to, you're going to inspire them with take that hill. Get that sales goal. and we say, get that sales goal. don't want to say that that's a bad thing because, you know, when you get to small business, especially entrepreneurial in nature, the ability to achieve those goals means that you're going to set your family up for success.
That's what really resonates with a lot of people. Okay. Well, that's not necessarily going to be enough if I don't see how I'm going to develop, in here. So that when you can connect people, that's why I say connect two ways. Man, it means everything to people.
Danielle Cobo: Well, you talk about connection and you talk about vulnerability in leadership.
Let's dive into this because a lot of times, and I know I'm guilty of this when I was a newer manager. I had a hard time being vulnerable because I didn't want to be perceived as weak. But what I've learned through experiences, the vulnerability is. the key to connection and authenticity and building trust with your team.
But I want to hear from your perspective, why and how is vulnerability, so important in a leadership role?
Scott Clancy: Yeah, I think you're bang on. And I was the same, we talk about as a younger leader. I'm not sure I knew. I don't think I could verbalize what vulnerability meant, and I was a military leader, so the idea was you had to be decisive, you're going to have to be decisive in very short periods of time.
So the idea of, what vulnerability meant to teams, but, it's interesting because, and I find this with a lot of military leaders. Or even people in the military and, ask your husband about this. We say, I love you an awful lot. I say to my peers and my friends, I love you, brother. And I mean it.
I mean, I would die for you. I would risk my life even more than country and. Constitution and all those other things, you serve in many instances, know, you're working with that person that's beside you, man, woman, whomever, I would die for you. That vulnerability always existed. I'm just not sure that we verbalized it.
Now what that means for me later on as a senior leader is I started doing, I think you have to have vulnerability. There's got to be a certain amount of self awareness. The only advice, it's not the only advice, that's not true. The best advice I give to young leaders, you want to do one thing, you want to do one thing that's going to help your leadership.
Journal, journaling about how you lead, start journaling about how you feel, start journaling about the more that you're self aware about yourself, the more that you're willing to ask questions about whether you're doing the right thing, developing the right skills, the more that you're going to be not self assure, but more confident that you can move into those situations and ask.
Tough questions. Critique yourself. Be open and transparent about themselves. Funny enough, this is vulnerability. Yeah. And that vulnerability, people immediately gravitate towards it. wrote this book after I retired as a two star general and the feedback, the biggest feedback that I've got from everybody was, wow, you're not telling us what you did, right?
All these things that you got wrong. And then we're trying to learn from it. And he goes, And people say, that's what attracts us to this. that's what catches our eye. That's what's very interesting because I can see it more. That's why I think vulnerability is so essential. It connects people because it's authentic.
And once you do that, once you show that, when I was a general officer later on, I was much more reflective. I'm going to throw stuff out there. And I would say that I'm going to throw things out there and I'm not really sure it's going to stick. And I'm like, I'm sure I'm not right. And I'm definitely not the smartest person in the room, but I want to see, and let's get.
By being vulnerable that way, by willing to say things that maybe were not right and then going, Hey, yeah, that was wrong. Let's walk that back. Let's do something different. People, when I said, okay, now we're going to do this. Now I have to be decisive. We don't have time. People honored that as well. So it, to me, it just enabled all the elements of my leadership.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah, it releases the guard and creates this connection, but I agree with you, when I was writing my book, I actually tell more of the stories of what I did wrong as a leader, but what I learned from it, because those were the most impactful of the learning lessons were from some of the mistakes that we make early on as a leader, even as we've been a leader for a long time and as we evolve, but I agree with you, journaling is extremely impactful developing
As an individual, as a leader, and there's direct research that's out there that says the higher level of self awareness is a direct correlation to some of the top most successful CEOs that are out there, and part of self awareness is being able and journaling is identifying your emotions when you're making certain decisions and how they correlate to each other and processing those emotions.
Scott Clancy: So, kind of question for you then, you know, when we think about journaling and being that self awareness kind of thing, do you think that in the leading realm that people are just born with this? Are they born with that self awareness? Are these skills or talents, behaviors that have to be developed?
Danielle Cobo: I think it's a combination of both.
When I look at my, I have six year old twins, and I can see already one of my boys is just, I call him the silent leader. He just has this way about him that he can get all the other kids to follow him. I don't know what it is, but he's just got that innate ability. But I also think about Even some of those people that have that just innate characteristic within them, you still have got to develop those skills over time.
For me, self awareness, I took Emotional Intelligence 2. 0, I took that course, read the book, and self awareness was not high initially when I first took the assessment. And I started doing the exercises in the book, nice part is I was able to re take that assessment and watch my score increase.
But I also see that if I were to take it again, it'd be probably a lot higher after writing the book because of the journaling that takes place in writing a book. So believe it's a combination of, there's some people that are just born a little bit more with that innate self awareness and then That still needs to be developed, no matter whether you're born with it or not.
Scott Clancy: See, I think, so I'm of the camp, I'm not kind of in between. I think that the majority of leadership skills are taught. That everybody's maybe, it's like music, you could be born with maybe a certain affinity for, or, but if you don't develop that, it, just really isn't going to move anywhere.
But I think the interesting piece with this, when we think about leaders and resilience is that don't know anybody who goes, I'm just a resilient person. Nothing's going to affect me. And if they do. We all know now that's just fiction, right? so that reinforces the idea that whether it's self awareness through journaling or whether it's resilience and doing all the right things to make sure you and your team resilient, these are learned skills that you have to work on.
And journaling is only good enough. especially at the later stages of a career when you get senior and you're leading and mentoring large teams, you have to do the work. So it's one thing to identify, something that's a default or something you're doing wrong. It's something else to say, okay, now this is where I want to get to.
And here's the path that I need, to go through. I have to get a coach. I'm going to have to work on this. I'm going to have to demonstrate that I've actually changed the things and be honest with myself.
Danielle Cobo: So it sounds like you're a big component of personal development. Transcribed and taking the steps to develop the skills that you want, not only for yourself, but modeling it for the other people to follow as well, as you're helping them develop the skills.
Scott Clancy: So I think I used to say to my teams, if I'm not spending 20 to 25 percent of my time, just developing you. Nope. Not defending the continent, not making sure the jets are set, not making sure the next campaign plan for the next two years is done. And all of the detailed things we have to do to make sure complex military operations happen.
20 percent of this time I'm spending on just developing you ultimately to replace me. then I'm not spending enough time. And that's why I think individual development is so key. And that's why, the whole blending of coaching and leading skills. To me, when I looked at that dichotomy of leaders, so I was a military leader, but I also coached basketball right up to the university level.
And as I saw these, two roles or positions or whatever, however you want to call it. I think they're paradigms. I think they're perspectives or approaches. I saw that the good leaders that I had in the military, they're all coaching their teams really, really well. And the good coaches I saw, you know, in the basketball realm, They were leading their teams very, very well.
I was going, okay, there's a, crossover of things here. That's really important. And that's where individual development, I think coaches focus on individual development. And I think that individual development, if you take the time and you mentor, you talk about that experience. And a question I have for you on that experience where you're a lot of your team got decimated, how were you mentoring the people?
How were you coaching the people that were leaving the organization? One thing to prepare resumes, not the tactile stuff. How are you mentoring and coaching them personally? Like what techniques were you using with them?
Danielle Cobo: For them it was, I use kind of that, it's a framework that I've used, it's kind of always helped me, but it's LEAR, it's Listen, Acknowledge, Explore, Respond.
So first it was listening to how they were feeling, because that helped me identify, were they angry, were they frustrated, were they sad, where were they within the grief cycle of what had just taken place? So listen, acknowledge their feelings. A lot of times people want to feel heard, they want to feel validated that their feelings are, you know, you just got laid off and you're frustrated and you're angry and you just dedicated five years to this organization.
Your feelings are valid to feel that way. And frustrated that you got let go versus the person who's only been here for two years. Absolutely. And then exploring, really exploring what's going to be the best way to support them. Sometimes it's just being, it was a listening ear. Sometimes they wanted a pep talk.
Sometimes it was a little bit more tactical on things. Sometimes it wasn't even tactical. It was just, they wanted to hear that they're going to be okay. so it really just depended on the person, but that's always a framework that I've used when it helps to addressing any challenging situation in conversations with my team.
Scott Clancy: really like that. a couple of things that I would mirror back to you. The first thing is I think there's so many organizations out there that the instant an individual and you're dealing with a massive layoffs and it's not necessarily the people that work in HR, but as soon as an individual is leaving an organization for whatever.
perspective, they're moving on to the next thing. And the great resignation has affected a lot of, things as people are using movement to climb, business ladders. We stopped mentoring. We stopped coaching them. Everything's, you're leaving. Okay. And that's where things go. and my message to senior military leaders, and I've been saying this in the Canadian Armed Forces for quite a while, who are your best recruiters?
I mean, you're going to be looking for talent here. So who are your best recruiters and your best recruiters are the people who have left your organization and you imagine this, you have to imagine your perfect goal. You know, Danielle comes to Scott on the street. Oh, you were friends and say, Oh, Scott, I heard you just left that organization.
And you know, I'm just a young leader. got a job interview with them. I go, you have to work there. Like, Oh my goodness. Yeah, but you just left. Yeah, I just left. That's because they gave me all the opportunities and all the training and all the rest of the stuff. And they were happy to see me go.
They enabled my departure. They knew that I couldn't grow anymore inside of the organization, but I learned so much being there. Done. What if everybody inside your organizations leaves with that mentality? Those are your best recruiters. And that's where mentoring has to kick in hard. That's not where it ends.
It's not what your career is. Transitions are the best place for mentors. And that's what a lot of leaders inside of organizations. look at. They're just looking at their down and in the team that they're leading. That's it. And I don't see those higher goals. And that's why I say elevate your relationship where it's a personal connected relationship with the individual.
You're going to care about them long after they leave the organization. This is where the fabric of real trust is going to happen.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah. My hope is that anybody that's worked for me at any given point of my career. still feels comfortable in being able to call me and say, Hey, I've got a question. Even though that I don't work for the company anymore, even though we don't work together anymore.
To me, they're always a part of a friendship, a colleague, somebody that you care about goes far beyond that immediate time that they worked for you.
Scott Clancy: And that's hard for a lot of young leaders and middle managers, especially with the speed that people are asking them to do things. This is why I say leaders have a role in setting that example.
And it's not just the example of, you know, I'm a good person or, the kind of work that you do. We're telling first. time supervisors do the same job you were just doing 60 hours a week and lead this team with no change in the KPIs that you had, you know, from a week before, but now lead this team of five.
Where are they going to get the time to actually supervise and do it? And the answer is, well, here's a little bit extra money. Our expectation is. you're just going to work harder. so then we, get into this cycle where it's all about the performance. It's all about doing those things. And then what we're ending up promoting is the people that can manage that, amount of gargantuan things.
And we're not promoting real leaders. We're not looking for real leadership skills. We're just looking for someone that we think can manage the timelines that are going to be required for all that stuff. And this is, Just wrong as far as I'm concerned and the reality is if we can get after that development piece where I'm going to say, Hey, listen, I'm going to take a 20 percent chunk out of my time, but I'm going to help you with that and I'm going to enable you and how can all of a sudden that balance.
Becomes something that people say actually want to do that job because I think what we're also going to face is We're gonna be in a bit of a crisis for leadership I believe because a lot of people they don't want to assume those responsibilities They see what it takes the failed marriages the Time away from their families.
All of the sacrifices they have to make, they don't wanna make those things. The reality is it doesn't have to be that way. Leaders are, making it that way and, I think that's where first time leaders and middle managers are in the key positions to be able to change that culture. I
Danielle Cobo: remember my manager, my VP of sales said that middle management, I'd be interesting on your perspective, that middle management is the hardest position in the job, in the, realm of, I guess, a hierarchy within an organization.
But he said middle managers tend to have it the hardest. So
Scott Clancy: I have an analogy and you'd asked me, before we came on recording saying, how could I take my tactical expertise and things that I've seen in the military, going to give you the exact example. As a middle manager, a helicopter pilot, So I'm a senior pilot, senior officer on a helicopter squadron, but because I have, a couple thousand hours behind me, I'm crawling into the cockpit with younger and younger and younger and more and more inexperienced co pilots.
I'm expected to be at the top of my game with the least amount of experience as a first officer. Co pilot in my aircraft at the same time, the amount of leadership work that is piled on top of me fills my entire schedule so that I have less and less time to actually fly. So the expectation is that I'm going to have to perform higher and higher and higher with less and less and less actual exposure to those things.
That are going to keep the people in the back of my aircraft safe. And I think this is exactly where we are at with middle managers, where we're piling all this performance related business planning, integration, AI, see the logistics, the supply chain, and understand not just your job, your peers jobs, the other departments all, and we're grooming you for the next thing.
So there's a developmental piece that you have to go do, and then there's your MBA, and we're piling all this on top of supervise and what gets lost. supervise. we don't do the leading. We don't do the down and in, we don't take care of the people. and in the end, this just becomes a rat race chain that we're on.
And who loses is the people, the bottom end, the people in business that I talk to, they're disenfranchised with their leadership. They don't think that they have their best interests at heart. They think businesses cease to see, employees as assets. They see them as expenses and in so doing, then the first time that bottom line margin is being seen as being compromised at the board or executive level.
The first thing that they're looking at is the workforce. And these are the things that are going to compromise the trust that people have in their leaders and teams. And you have to build good leaders that are going to be able to change that paradigm.
Danielle Cobo: Well, I'll be sharing this episode with my husband, because if there's anybody that can relate to that particular situation, he's a captain pilot, and right now, he's got a civilian job during the day, and in the evening, one night a week, he flies, and he's one of the pilots in command that is training some of the newer pilots, but also having that expectation of having all the administrative work that's on top, being a leader, plus a civilian job, it's exhausting, and I think there's a misconception that's out there Around leadership, a lot of times, a couple misconceptions, and I'd be interested in your take, one of them being, believe that the higher you go, the more around the clock on call you are, as much as you can put some boundaries in place, but the more around the clock you are, you don't necessarily get the opportunity to succeed.
clock in and clock out and leave your work at the office. A lot of times I was getting calls on weekends and in the evenings, depending on what was going on with my team. The second one is tenure within a particular role or within an organization does not constitute someone getting promoted into a leadership role.
really is a skill set that is developed. And I agree with you that right now I'm seeing the more and more I'm talking to people that are looking for jobs, they're looking to get promoted. Even though they're looking to get promoted, they're looking for growth within their organization.
They're not pursuing leadership roles. They don't want to manage people because of what some of these organizations are putting on their managers and what the managers are responding with. It's a less desirable
Scott Clancy: role. I think you're absolutely bang on. Most military and large organizations have struggled with the concept of talent management.
sister's an HR professional. She's the chief HR person for the Canadian Red Cross. When I was in charge of personnel for the entire Royal Canadian Air Force as a Brigadier General, she used to come to me and say, how's that 1950s bureaucracy working out for you? Because modern HR systems have moved into these talent management systems, but I think we're losing some of the premises behind these is that in a talent management system, you're really worried and concerned about how you have a solid evolution in there.
You should be always developing your people into those next leadership roles. And in a really good talent management system, you're also saying to people, I'm not going to move faster. Then I can develop talent that moves into those spots. just can't. Now in military organizations, you always have the mission that you have to, aspire people to develop into.
But the reality here is, is that if you have leaders that are willing to take the time personally to be able to show one, the example of balance. So when I was a brigadier general, and then when I was a two star general, especially inside the NORAD enterprise, there's phones. in your house that have ringers throughout the entire house that wake you up.
And when you hear that ringer go off, you're running for a secure phone so that, you know, within 90 seconds, you can make decisions on and you can start imagining all the bad things that could happen when you're defending a continent. Well, yeah, you're on call all the time. But I, don't mind being on that kind of a call all the time when I have the mental and physical capacities to be able to say, I'm not going to force that on my people.
I don't want someone sitting in the jet for, six months for that alert thing to go off. No, he's going to do a 12 hour here. She's going to do a 12 hour shift and then they're going to go on the expectation as you move up. I still think it needs to be there. I think what we have to do is tailor this so that people know and understand what those limitations are, as opposed to keeping it a secret.
We think that CEOs are working, 80 hour work weeks. Are they? Or have they missed some of their socialization in there? And there's a transparency here. Right. Like as a general officer, I used to mentor young lieutenant colonels and colonels, and I would tell them exactly what it was like. Here's what my lifestyle is like.
Here's what this is like. Here's this portfolio. Here's this one. These are the things. How's it going? Wow. Nobody talks to us about this stuff. I go, yeah, well, they should. This is what real mentoring is about. Is if you're a CEO telling people what this is like and telling them some other really good things, look, I'm in a position to make change.
Let me tell you what I did last week that I think is really good. And you want, well, I'd stay up late for a month. If I think I could solve this problem on, you know, childcare for military families, I, how much of my extra energy would I burn if I really. Thought I could make that goes back to that sense of purpose, right?
But it's more than setting that example for you. It's more than coaching. It's more than all of that. You have to be able to do all of those things all at the same time so that people want to progress into that organization and want to progress through those skills. And that's when we say middle managers are the key.
They are. First level managers get stuck in because it's a little bit more of a bonus and you're moving up and it's, almost just, Hey, I know what I'm supposed to be doing. I'll just do it. And that's over. So when you get to that middle management, you're going to make a decision of whether or not you want to progress.
And if you want good CEOs and good executives, if you want good organizations, you better be paying a lot of attention to those people who are making those choices. Cause the people that self select out might be the exact people you need. In.
Danielle Cobo: Okay. Let's say this again. The people that self select out are the people that you need in.
Elaborate on
Scott Clancy: that. If you think about organizations that are willing to compromise the people in order to achieve that bottom line. At no end, keep down the bonuses, keep down the pay, work the longer hours, layer more work on top of middle managers and, and, and, and all based upon you have to perform more and you have to get more and going to put you in all of the bad situations and we're the ones that are going to earn the top end salaries and the board everything else.
People are going to be when they get, they're going to make a choice. do I really want to climb that ladder and get to that point where I might be able to get. Better security for my family, more financial, all of those things that are going to be the positive outputs of climbing that, ladder.
What am I going to have to sacrifice to get there? And if they're opting out, many of the people who are opting out are the ones that care so deeply about some of those foundational values that you want within your organization, family, people. The values of the company and organization, I'm not willing to compromise, you know, the companies that have solid values that understand who they are, they live those values through the behaviors of their leaders.
And when they do, ultimately I'm not a business person, but from what I've read. Profit actually follows those organizations because they resonate with people and people are going to go to them, for the products that they want. But the leaders that you want are the ones that carry those values and live in those values all the time.
If they're self selecting out because they see what that rat race looks like, you're going to have a talent management problem at the top end. I think there's a lot of organizations that are like this. When I say talent management. The best accountant doesn't make the best CFO or CEO. They just don't.
I'm sorry. There's leadership in here. And if what distinguishes good from excellent is the leadership and coaching ability of those. People in those executive positions, then I want to pull that strain and tell me what that looks like for you inside of your company and what are the behaviors around that.
And then tell me how you're rewarding those behaviors that look right. So when I come to my team and it's. January. So we're January right now. I used to come to my team in January and say, right, I want my plan. I want the plan for the summer leave period for all your divisions. And I want it, in about two months.
So start telling people now, let me tell you when I'm going to be away, what my expectation is. And people go, well, why is he doing that now? The summer's not for. No, I want to set an expectation. So your families are setting an expectation. So we're going now, the next conversation I'm going to have is, Oh, when everybody comes back and says, Hey, these weeks in August and here in July, we're going to be down right now, how are we going to change our workflows to adjust to this?
Everybody goes. isn't that back ass words boss? Aren't you, aren't you putting one? No, I'm not. This is where our people need their time off. we can manage and maneuver this. And that's what we're going to do. You set those tones and everybody goes, Oh, okay. This is a different way of looking at the organization.
We didn't change the tempo. We didn't change anything else. we changes our workflow so that we can get through things at the right time. By setting those examples and having the people that are going to do those things, you're rewarding the behavior. Now you get someone below you that just, you know, is a division leader that says, I'm not going to do this.
You're going to be on all the time, take your leave. But when you get back, your inboxes are full and all. Stop. this doesn't work and you see, watch the character and you watch the behaviors of the people that you're going to promote from those middle management and lower management jobs because it's about leadership that you really need to bridge the distance, not those competencies over here.
Charles Feltman, who wrote the thin book of trust. I like small books because Like your husband, I'm a helicopter pilot. My lips still move when I read, right? that's a joke. I hope it takes that away. the idea here though, is Charles Feltman came with four distinctions of trust. Care, sincerity, competence, and, reliability.
Air is the first thing that people are going to resonate on. They're not going to care what you say. They're going to care about how you care about them. And by demonstrating care to the individuals that are on your team for their development, that kind of establish those core pieces of trust. So to me, I think this is where this all blends together with talent management.
Danielle Cobo: so many profound statements that you said in just a short amount of time. I mean, this is such a great episode and I appreciate everything that you have, shared. And if there's anything that's underlying through all of this that I hear is a resonating message, Care about the people develop your people and that's how you care is through developing your people and developing yourself as well It's important to develop the future leaders that are within your organization and also looking at ways that you're developing yourself and evolving as a leader as well and preparing for the change And modeling the values for your organization Yeah, absolutely.
Well, thank you so much for joining, Scott. I really appreciate it. it's such a great conversation. So much takeaway probably could go on for hours in our conversation. maybe we'll have you on again, but, for those of you listening, thanks for tuning in and until next week, be unstoppable.