Lessons - Can Leadership Be Taught? Transform Your Executive Presence | Marshall Goldsmith - Executive Coach & Leadership Expert

Today's success story podcast is brought to you by Van to now listen up this matters for your business and today's digital landscape security isn't optional it's essential without it deal stall sales cycle stretch out and scaling becomes really difficult why because investors customers partners they all expect businesses to demonstrate strong security practices before they commit to anything and if you can't prove trust you lose opportunity so whether you're a startup founder trying to lend that first big client or an established company scaling your security program vanta helps businesses of all sizes prove they're trustworthy by automating compliance across 35 frameworks like sock to ISO 2701 and hipa the exact certifications your prospects your customers are demanding and here's why you need to pay attention vanta gives you back precious time you're currently wasting on compliance their platform automates up to 90% of the tedious compliance work and it helps you respond to those endless security questionnaires up to five times faster and they also connect you with experts to get your security program running immediately in the results they speak for themselves a recent IDC report found that vanta customers achieve over 535 thousand dollars per year in benefits and the platform pays for itself in just three months so join over 10,000 global companies like Atlassian, Kora and factory who use vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time and don't miss this for a limited time only my listeners can get a thousand dollars off vanta that's real money back in your pocket visit vanta.com slash scott now before this offer expires that's vant.com slash scott for a thousand dollars off in this lessons episode explore whether leadership can be taught when academic theories fall short of real world challenges learn how stakeholder centered coaching drives change through accountability and continuous improvement and understand the unique hurdles faced by entrepreneurs versus corporate leaders when you were teaching students were you teaching you were teaching the same material you were teaching to and coaching entrepreneurs on do you ever find that there's a disconnect between what academia thinks the versus hotel disconnect right there's a tubeless you have very few people in the academic world have any idea about business at all anymore so there's often just a chronic disconnect because they're not reinforced for that the reinforced from basically doing research and and what they do is good it's just not practical real world kind of stuff so when people do go back to school I always tell never never can she's getting in degree in wisdom you acquire wisdom to acquire wisdom get degrees to get degrees they're not the same thing and you know if if you get you get them confused just get in trouble so be you know the real world is quite a different place than academia especially for entrepreneurs look they're not used to it I relate to entrepreneurs for two reasons one is sad work with people the real world every day my clients are very real world a pride and step or five people as CEO of the area in the United States that's the real world that's the real world and also you know my guaranteed base salary has been for 47 years zero absolutely zero I can't understand what it's like to wake up in the morning and you know and you know in 47 years I'm in this four weeks of work mom died dead died and ruptured appendix and got COVID that was it other net guess what how about addicts how about addicts nah how about me foot hurts not so much have a cold high and stuff no no no no you just show up so I like entrepreneurs have the highest amount of respect for entrepreneurs you know why I know what it feels like do you think that as yet I mean you are you are one you you you you gave up that fifteen thousand dollar fifteen thousand dollars salad by the way we're laughing at fifteen thousand dollars but I mean when you were when your professor I'm sure that it was not nothing so oh no I was eating yeah it was still it was still so it was rolling at eighty thousand dollars today or some bright yeah so you still have people that want to make the jump to entrepreneurship and they're making a hundred K or 150 K sometimes they're making even more than that they're making two hundred two fifty whatever it doesn't matter and then they want everyone wants to be an entrepreneur I don't know if entrepreneurship was sexy when you were becoming an entrepreneur because you said like coaching wasn't a thing I mean I think it seems like everyone and their mother is a coat but that's besides the point but by the way one exploit people used to all say they were real now they all say they're like purchasing but I think people don't understand how difficult it actually is to build something from scratch and I think that's actually is a it is nothing to do with well maybe there's a little bit to do with leadership but just on a total aside I feel like entrepreneurship is is maybe overhyped a little bit and I think that I think that you know more real conversations about entrepreneurship have to happen so people understand like what they're getting into because now you work with you work with large like you know fortune five hundred I'm sure you work with very early stage as well so you see it all I spent and I'm actually curious you know from somebody who who is a leadership coach what is what is the difference when you speak to somebody who's a fortune five hundred CEO or see sweeter executive versus somebody who is just starting out and started their first side hustle um what are the attributes that are the same like leadership attributes entrepreneurship attributes what are the ones that are different well I think usually when I'm coaching a corporate CEO they are pretty good at delegating they're pretty good at scaling they're running billions of dollars worth of stuff right so they may they get problems typically but that's not their problem when I coaching an entrepreneur an entrepreneur is quite different especially a founder if you're the founder and it's your idea and it's your baby it is hard to let go it's hard not to be right it's hard to let others do it and it's hard to live with I don't know 80 percent is good but it's getting bigger than everything I so for an entrepreneur I find that is a big big job also a lot of entrepreneurs don't have people background so most of the corporate CEOs more than more like NBA types you know they usually have some business where people oriented educational background or some things entrepreneurs are often engineers scientists people like that and it's zero background in terms of leading people so you know working with entrepreneurs that fund is really you know it's interesting and challenging to get them to focus on the people dimension the people I coach need to focus on it at the higher levels yet a little bit different a huge shout out to federated computer for supporting today's episode let me explain why I love federated computer why they are friends of success story they are changing the way businesses buy software because we all need software to run our businesses I don't care what kind of business you're building but the best business software doesn't have to cost thousands of dollars each month so federated computer replaces a lot of the software that you're using right now let me explain the average typical federated computer customers they've 75 percent or more on their software bill and gets great software top notch customer service and support and a software solution that is uniquely installed for your business without any sort of surveillance or breaches of privacy for example if you use google for email sales force for CRM slack for team chat list monkey for customer acquisitions and air table for data management with a team of ten you'd save nine thousand dollars per year on software costs by switching the federated computer they replace all of those and what's wild is that the cost of federated computer doesn't grow as your team grows you can use federated computer savings to grow your business rather than feed the woke silicon valley software companies the federated computer team literally invented cloud software they actually have the patents to prove it and they are taking a hammer to the ridiculously high prices of business software that all entrepreneurs are suffering from federated computer they've been a long time supporter of success story they're offering 30 percent off they're already low prices when you use a coupon code freelance so go to www.federated.computer to begin saving 75 percent or more on your monthly software costs that's www.federated.computer these folks are going to do you a big favor check them out very then do you feel like you feel like this like leadership skill set do you feel like it can be taught to anybody because you feel like a can't look at the reason why I ask is because I've heard many times and this is also something that I believe as well to a degree the person to build a business to ten million dollars may not be the person to build a business to 50 million or a hundred million who may not be the person to build a business to IPO now is that a leadership problem or is that like almost like a technical aptitude experience problem so maybe leadership can be taught it's a little bit but one number one leaders can get better I'm often asked if ridiculous question or they're born or they made all this stuff all leaders are born one hundred percent of every leader I met has been born so they're all born the thing is leaders can get better yes but the question is can you make this transition yes is it easy no well everyone do it no so obviously it can be done that does mean it's easy to do it can be very difficult to do it's a different challenge it's a different world I've got to a lot of companies just going to ready to get ready for IPO you know and these are typically engineers that started the company and right guys created work their butts off and they've just made it happen over time it's not an easy transition though it's just it is a different job I like the way you phrase the whole thing it's not the same job but this job now it's this version of this job it's like you're doing a whole different job I'm assuming part part of your job as a leadership coach executive coach is probably more like psychologist than anything else I feel like people just get in their own head maybe you speak to all some of the some of the more common issues people have but I'm assuming I'm assuming you're you're probably reinforcing things that people already know you're holding them accountable I mean you're getting them over their imposter syndrome I I don't know you tell me what's what's your framework but that I feel like that's a variant of it my whole area of expertise is behavioral change I'm not an expert on technology I'm an honorary PhD in engineering but I'm not a real engineer here yeah I'm a pretend to be engineer so yeah I'm my undergraduate degrees in mathematical economics I got a PhD in order of social behavior my whole area is behavioral change so I am not an expert on corporate strategy or anything like that my area is I help great people to positive change in their behavior so that's that's what I do and that means that you have to change some some some minds that have it's that are that are massively blocking them right yeah but the way they're all perfect it wouldn't mean me would they so you have you have a feedback and follow-up system and that that's it you'd go to system they and I'm I'm also always curious because I see you can you mentioned back back when you were still a dean if people were out of a job they say they're real tourists now they say they're coaches so you have a system everyone has a system your system is built to you obviously an incredible career and you have 1.5 million on LinkedIn you have massive following you've written books on it you have you have you have accolades you have credentials you have experience you you know you've proven out that you know your shit what makes your system so successful also double-park question which is bad but whatever you'll get you have to handle it what makes your system so successful but also how can somebody who's looking to sort of upskill themselves understand out of all the different systems out there that accomplish different things who to look for in a coach and a person like how do you how do you gauge who's full of it versus who's not well first let me answer the first question I may or not remember after that the second question so I'll get back to it it's my nori so the first questions how did my system work my system is aimed at helping successful leaders achieve positive change and behave that's it so number one that's not what you want though you use my system that's what the system is for the system that I'm very proud of it's called stakeholder centered coach and otherwise you don't need to be a PhD to do this because he just died a couple of about a year ago Chris coffee was the best coach we had he got better results than me in terms of a coach he was amazing getting results in zero background in psychology zero background in business he was a failed actor who barely graduated from college you know what he got though he got results I didn't get results because the system the system is pretty simple in my job I interview everyone around my clients I developed a confidential profile here's what you're doing well here's what you're not doing well they don't know who said what they pick important behavior of truth then we have us only wing follow-up system they talk to people what they learn they actually apologize for their mistakes they ask for input about how they can do better they call it feed forward I call feed forward process yes for ideas you listen you shut up you take notes you say thank you and you do it over and over again they follow up with the clients I follow up with them over and over and for 47 years I didn't get paid if my class didn't get better and better it's not judged by me or them it judged by where around them I mean how do you know some police what they're saying they ask you question you want to bet on it let's say I believe it but it wouldn't bet on guess what they don't believe it as there's the money they believe it I bet on this every time or even which always got paid why it's the system works so in my basic coaching it's a very transferable process so that part of it quite transfer on the other yet it doesn't fit what it doesn't fit let me tell you when it doesn't work what I don't work with people it's all care done frequently ask how do I motivate people that don't want to change in the answer is I don't motivate people don't want to change if they don't want to change I don't care I say fine don't change if they say prove to me this is worth it you know what I'd say probably not worth it a terrible idea don't do it I think it's stupid you're right it's stupid don't do it it's okay so I never try to motivate anyone number one number two this doesn't solve integrity problems it doesn't solve strategy problems yeah it basically it's helping people achieve positive change in their behavior who want to change that's what it's good for thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode see you in the next one