Leadership as a Developable Skill

Transcript

Beth Almes:

Hi leaders, and welcome back to The Leadership 480 Podcast. I'm your host Beth Almes, and today, we're answering a question that sparks a range of very strong views, which is can leadership be learned or is it really a natural skill? And I'm honored to welcome my guest here today, Joe Fetzer. Joe is an organizational development expert and he's the owner of Innovative Organizational Development. He served in a range of corporate leadership roles over the years, including here at DDI for a time, but most notably, he had a long career in the US Marine Corps, which taught him a lot about leadership. And Joe, we are so happy to welcome you here today to The Leadership 480 Podcast.

Joseph Fetzer:

It's great to be here, Beth. Thank you so much and I'm really looking forward to today's conversation.

Beth Almes:

So, let's start, if you could just tell me a little bit about yourself. So, you've had a really varied career background. What brought you to the field of leadership development in the first place?

Joseph Fetzer:

I went from being a bomb tech in the Marine Corps to being a people tech in industry. And guess which one's more difficult?

Beth Almes:

I really want to say bomb tech to be honest, but I feel like you're tricking me with the question.

Joseph Fetzer:

Yeah, being the people tech is 100%. If bombs get irritated or frustrated, honestly, you might not be around to deal with the problem. So, the people tech has definitely been such a rewarding and challenging career for me. And post-military service, it's just interesting how things work out, I naturally gravitated towards the people operations space. And I can thank DDI as being such a large component of that journey at that time. But I love building, I love creating, I love collaborating, I love thinking, I love challenging people and organizations to grow both personally and professionally. And we get there through people operations and organizational developments. Leadership is always a component of that. And people development in my opinion, is now more than ever, the greatest competitive advantage that any organization can capitalize on this day and age. So, it's just where I was planted, and it's where I've been growing ever since.

Beth Almes:

So, interesting the way you are phrasing all of that around how you've been growing in this area and that experience over time. I think we've all heard the phrase over time that leaders are born, not made. And a lot of people take issue with that by the way. But I mean obviously we wouldn't have a company if we didn't believe that people could change. But I am curious, in your experience with leaders, do you notice that some people do have a much more natural tendency to lead? Or do you find that it's really more people just growing in what's handed to them?

Joseph Fetzer:

I believe that leadership is a developable skill. And there are of course tenets of both of those pillars that you just mentioned. People having the innate qualities and characteristics as leaders and being able to leverage those in the workplace and others building the capacity to develop those skills over time to be able to leverage in the workplace. And the idea of leaders being born not made is something that you hear a lot of, right? And really, what we're talking about here is that idea of leaders being born, not made, stems from what's called great man theory or referred to in more contemporary times as a leadership traits theory. 

And that's the idea—that us being able to function as effective leaders in the workplace is largely due to those inequalities, characteristics, and traits possessed by people who are naturally viewed as leaders. You were born with it, so you were meant to lead, you were meant to be in that capacity, in that position.

And there are a lot of figureheads out there that that can definitely be said for and true. Some examples of that would be somebody like Queen Elizabeth, or Elon Musk, or Martin Luther King Jr. or people who seem to naturally advance by being natural leaders, very influential figures. And I'd say that there are people that have much more natural leadership-like characteristics that display themselves just through their personalities, their mannerisms, who make them uniquely that type of person, if that makes sense. 

We're talking about being charismatic, outwardly influential, a connector, a people person. People that are largely viewed as extroverts, those are people that are viewed as those natural leaders or they were born with the skills and gift to lead. And again, I think that that circles back to the conversation today, leadership as a developable skill. Yes, there are those people that have those natural qualities and tendencies to lead in the workplace, but I think that that's just a very small fraction of people that we work with in any industry.

Beth Almes:

So, let's talk a little bit about those people who maybe don't have the natural tendency to lead. So, one of the examples you brought up is a lot of times we associate being extroverted with being a natural leader. The person who is talking the most in the room is the one who is de facto the leader. And I think there's been a lot of things coming out about the power of introverts leading, but sometimes it's really hard for us to think of those folks as the leaders. So, as you've worked with leaders and companies, how have you seen people who maybe don't fit the mold you think about really start to change as they get put in the situation of leadership?

Joseph Fetzer:

Great question. And again, on that same note, if we were to look at and prescribe to solely the idea of leaders being born not made, that would simply be silly and fail. And a lot of the times, where even taking somebody that might be more introverted as an example, we don't dedicate enough time to outwardly and overtly calling attention to leadership as a developable skill in the workplace. 

Alright, so we need to call out what that looks like, what skills we're actually talking about, what we're going to develop. So, then instead for those individuals, we can teach leadership as a developable skill, where it's more of this multifactorial model because, again, introverts also have innate qualities and characteristics that can most certainly be leveraged as positive leadership attributes in the workplace.

We can take those inequalities, we can build self-awareness around them. We can build the capacity to develop more of an EQ, or emotional intelligence, in the workplace along with training and development along with practical application, along with that experience. So, taking what we're teaching, we're teaching it, and then there has to be some type of learning transfer. So, we're putting it into play, we're putting it into practice, we're teaching these leadership skills, and leaders are applying them to the workplace setting, all while we're getting feedback, we're engaging in some type of personal and professional reflection. There's... What's the word I'm looking for here? Situationalism, is that a word?

Beth Almes:

Sure. Absolutely

Joseph Fetzer:

Situationalism that goes into developing this skill or capacity to lead. So, now we're talking about resilience, adaptability, flexibility, which, again, when we take a look at holistically, all revolves around a leader's drive to succeed, accomplish, and create organizational alignment and success with the people that they work with on a daily basis. 

And that's why I contextualize leadership as a developable skill, where even the things that I just said we can focus on as in-demand skills in the workplace, like communication, like decision-making, coaching as a process, as a skill. We break it down as the skill, we break it down as the behaviors that shape that skill, and then we model it as to how it's put into practice.

That is leadership as a developable skill. That's what we're talking about. And there's also a distinction between, even as we opened up today talking about that great man theory, those people that are just built with those innate qualities and characteristics. 

We all have our behavioral attributes that we're able to, through tools like assessments, awareness, coaching, being able to call out our innate qualities and become aware of how we leverage them in the workplace, but then taking that a step further to define some more of these leadership competencies and skills and how we develop them over time to be more effective and efficient leaders in the workplace. I don't know if that makes sense.

Beth Almes:

It absolutely does.

Joseph Fetzer:

I have some examples, too, if we can...

Beth Almes:

Yeah, absolutely. Please share.

Joseph Fetzer:

Especially in this day and age, I believe, and I think the majority of industry experts would agree with me, even if you listen to a lot of thought leaders out there, even in the artificial intelligence arena, I've listened to a couple of notes of tech leaders talking about what the most in-demand skills are going to be in the future in the wake of this very rapid technological advancement in the workplace using AI and things like that. And you'll hear them talk about communication skills, decision-making skills, relationship building skills, resilience, adaptability, those are all very people-centric skills. We have a lot of the answers that we need transactionally on a daily basis just through the tech advancements that we made in the past decades. Getting those things is easy.

But being able to lead or rally people behind a mission, vision and values that drives them towards organizational success is the much more difficult and challenging thing to do today. And communication is something that's always just risen to the top of that. Everything kind of starts with communication. And we all know that leaders need strong communication skills. 

So, the real question is if I'm saying, "Hey, in order to be a good leader, we need to develop good communication practices," what does that look like and how do I put that into play, into practice at the company? And that's why we treat communication as a leadership skill, as a developable skill.

And here, I'll give a huge shout-out to DDI because I think this is something that's done very well at the practice. Again, we all know we need to communicate effectively and efficiently in the workplace. We define what communication should look like. And I define communication simply as information exchange. That's what we're doing, we're exchanging information back and forth. 

There are different modes and mediums of exchange, from email to Teams chat, to Zoom, to text message, but it's all information exchange to create understanding, and people crave that. People want to understand. People need to understand what's going on in their workplace, their roles and responsibilities, those expectations, problems, solutions.

People are just looking for that communication channel to exist to share that information and create that understanding. And again, the shout-out to DDI here we communicate to do what? Satisfy personal and practical needs, and we treat communication as a process. We call out behaviors like support, esteem, empathy, involvement, sharing. We recognize we need to do that. 

So, there's the behavioral piece, those key principles, if you will. And then there's the process piece to it. So, when we communicate, when we teach communication as a leadership skill, as a developable skill, there's a model behind that, which is when you start a conversation, you open. So, what does opening the conversation look like? Then we clarify, then we develop the context to that, then we agree, then we close.

And when we teach that, when we call out that process of communication as a best practice, doing it effectively and efficiently in the workplace, we're then able to put that into play. We're then able to demonstrate the fact that, alright, as a leader, I can open, clarify, develop, agree, and close a conversation with the people that I talk to. And the more I do that, the more repetition that I get in that communications process, the more I develop that skill, the better I become at it. The more transfer of learning there is in that workplace environment.

And then, you're actually teaching the other people that you're working with as well by doing that. The same thing with decision making. Leaders are expected to be decision-makers. What does that mean, and what does that look like? Well, if decision making is a leadership skill, decision making is a developable skill, we define the behaviors, the qualities and characteristics that we know are needed to go into good decision making, and we define a process to produce the best outcome of that decision. And one that I do teach and comes to mind is the OODA loop. Have you ever heard of the OODA loop?

Beth Almes:

I have not, and I do need to know what it is now.

Joseph Fetzer:

It's quick, it's simple, and it's fun to say, the OODA loop. Observe, orient, decide and act. Alright, I notice something, I observe the situation, I orient my mind and body to it. I make a decision to produce the best possible outcome, and then I take action. It's a quick model, but it's taught, learned, and developed in the workplace. Again, along those lines of leadership being a developable skill and recognizing it as such. 

Even in the context of what I just kind of rambled on for about five minutes there, if we don't call those out and teach those very real workplace mechanisms as developable skills, then what are we doing? We're just kind of doing things off the cuff. We think we know what it takes to be a good communicator. We think we know what it takes to be a good decision maker, a good relationship builder, a good strategic planner. But until we define those as the skill itself and the process that we're putting in play to develop those skills, I just think it falls short.

Beth Almes:

I'm curious, one of the things you mentioned was about some self-awareness moments and things like that. And one of the barriers I've often run into and felt on my own by the way too, sometimes when people say things are a developable skill, the natural reaction, especially from people who are busy is sometimes, "You know what? I'm already pretty good at it. I wouldn't be here. And I don't really think I'm bad at communication." 

And it doesn't mean you're bad, but I'm curious how you have seen... I've had moments of self-awareness and sometimes it has come from something like, oh, I did a personality assessment or a skills assessment, or you get some feedback, you're like, "Oh, you're right, I do do that, or I could do that better." But I'm curious how you have seen some self-awareness maybe help people flip that switch to I actually really need to work on this and get better.

Joseph Fetzer:

100%. And I think a lot of the professional training and development aspects that are often overlooked, revolve around that reflective practice or creating more of that self-awareness as an individual, personally and professionally. And again, treating it as a little bit of a process or a model, when we talk about creating more self-awareness and doing something with that information, we're doing three things. We're taking an inventory of where you're at now. Alright, so we're asking those hows, whats, wheres and whys, thinking back to maybe a time place or certain situation, we're thinking about.

Now, that we've taken that initial inventory, what are we doing with it? Where are we going into the future? How is this going to serve me? How's it going to help me be more effective and efficient leader?

And then, we're filling that gap to kind of change that mindset or think about doing things differently. I know that maybe in this one circumstance, this one situation, my behaviors might've been off-putting in a sense that they derailed the situation. Yeah, in hindsight, looking back, how can I... And really once again what we're talking about is emotional intelligence or EQ. 

So, that reflective practice is building capacity and awareness around those behaviors to be more adaptable, flexible, mindful of how you're using them in the future. Leaders a lot of the times, don't take enough time to engage in that reflective practice as a way to shape future success.

Beth Almes:

So, I have a couple of questions for you too about, I'm curious about how your military background has translated as you've worked more with companies in the corporate world. And one of the questions I'm curious about, and I have a family member who's in the military and we talk a lot about leadership. And he's often jogged by thinking about some preconceived notions. 

And one of the things that has struck me as we've talked, and I'm noticing it as we're talking here today, is how practically you're talking about, of course these are all developable skills. Your job is to always be learning and training.

And I often feel that in the corporate world, it feels like, man, we feel so much eagerness that I've got to be good at this right away or I'm going to get fired. I've got to be good today. And as I've chatted with my brother about a lot of the military-style mindset, everything is training. You're never sent into situations without training. 

And it's a much more practical way, just like you're talking of like course you're going to systematically grow and it feels much more expected than sometimes what I have experienced in regular corporations. So, I'm curious if you've noticed that, if you feel like there's a shift in mindset that can be helpful?

Joseph Fetzer:

And the start of your question there, I believe that even feeling like we just have to be really good at the things we do, and I think that that could be categorized as the burden of expectation, which I don't necessarily view as a bad thing. I think that there are healthy stressors out there that help us perform in the workplace, that push us to maybe do a little bit more, think a little bit differently, and perform well. 

I myself, personally, have come to learn through training and development, reflective practice and coaching, that when I'm putting a stressful situation and I have a little bit too much on my plate, I just tend to function best. But that's that burden of expectation and individually how we develop the capacity to recognize that and lead through it. 

Beth Almes:

It's complex, by the way. So, there's more than that, but just the mindset around a training approach, really.

Joseph Fetzer:

A lot of the times people automatically, that mindset reverts back to what they've trained to. Their training kicks in, and they kind of fall back on that automatically because there's so much repetition through that training. Again, even talking about communication. As you just continue to use some type of communication model in the workplace, you don't even realize it that you're just on autopilot where you're opening and moving through that arc, all the way to closing a conversation. 

And the corporate environment and the military environment are, of course, different, but there's a lot of cross-functional leadership skills and organizational design and systems overlap that really complement each other very well. And I do leverage a lot of my military experience in my consulting and my leadership practice just because there's definitely a place for that. But a lot of the times in an office setting, many of which is the remote workplace now, it's just not as much of a high stakes situation, a life or death situation

Beth Almes:

Ideally, right? We try to not do that at the office.

Joseph Fetzer:

Exactly. Hey, people get upset when they get cheese on their cheeseburger and they ask for no cheese, they start throwing plates across the room. But I say that with a point and I say that with a purpose, in the sense that we have, linking this back to training and development, we have the luxury of being able to take our time, strategically solve problems, and come to the best possible solution. 

Sometimes in more harsh and critical environments, we don't have that luxury, like military operations where decisions are made by understanding the expectation of that circumstance, if you will, where you have to do it. And linking this back to my prior profession as a bomb tech, explosive ordinance disposal technician. The job's highly selective, it's inherently dangerous, it's one of the most demanding occupations on Earth. It's physically and mentally challenging in that environment, those situations called for a different type of leadership, a different type of style if you will, a different type of skill.

And I don't work the same way I did five years ago than I do now, right? Because it's a different call to action. There's a different way for me to leverage these skill sets in the workplace. And a lot of leadership itself, it's really not telling people what to do, which that military model is very hierarchical, it's very command and control oriented. 

The definition of discipline itself is instant willingness and obedience to all orders. The civilian workplace isn't like that. People like a sense of comfort in being able to think through things, work collaboratively, build relationships, bounce ideas off of one another.

And we get there through building synergistic relationships in the workplace. And a lot of that starts from the C-suite in the sense that you're setting the tone, the attitude, the atmosphere of the company for people to be able to work in that type of supportive environment, if you will, where leadership is again that rallying cry to come together to achieve organizational success. 

We're setting the goals, we're putting the resources in play to make our people be able to help achieve those goals, and we're providing support along that journey. I think that's a large part of what leadership is and kind of the difference between that rigid command and control hierarchical structure in the military and how it just looks different applied to that civilian context.

And I'm not saying there's not a time and place for that. And a lot of the times that does get called out when I'm working with a group of either seasoned leaders or new leaders. Yeah, well, sometimes I just have to tell people what to do, and I don't disagree with that. Alright? Again, a lot of that can be very situationally dependent. But we don't want to live in a space where 95% of the time, you're just walking around telling people what to do. That's antithetical to what we should be trying to accomplish as leaders in the workplace.

Beth Almes:

It's interesting when you say that. As I've had some discussions on that line, I made a flippant comment about that to my brother around, "Oh yeah, the leaders in the military, you can just tell people what to do, and it's very command and control." And he said, "It is, but you'd actually be surprised how much of it actually is you still have to do..." What he described to me was, "You've still got to do so much work around it to build trust."

That, in those moments when you do have to say, "I've just got to tell people what to do." They're like, "Well, he wouldn't tell me to do that if there wasn't... I'm not going to question you, I trust that you are going to tell me the right thing to do in the right moment." But you had to do all that work before you got to the moment versus from day one, just do whatever I say. And I was kind of shocked by that. I was like, "I didn't really think about that." I said, "You should write a book about it." He's like, "Yeah, a lot of people have."

Joseph Fetzer:

It's totally true. At the end of the day, as leaders, our responsibility is to build faith, trust, and confidence in the people that we work with. It's not about that simple transactional task that we're doing on a daily basis. It's not just about that technical skill. Alright? Yeah, that's where we see a lot more of the robustness and this holistic picture of what it means to be a leader and develop leadership skill in the workplace. 

If communication wasn't a large part of being a leader, why even call it out? Why develop it? If you just want to tell people what to do and get things done, I guess it doesn't matter. But we know that not to be true. And that's why, again, especially now more than ever, we're seeing the increased demand in developing these leadership competencies in the workplace.

People want to work at an organization where they feel heard, valued, understood, where they feel part of the team and that their contributions to that daily workflow are contributing to the overall success of the organization. They want to share in that, they want to be part of that. And they're expecting and they're demanding from their company leadership to help get them there, to invest in them from the entry level employee all the way up to the C-suite executive to invest in leadership development at the company. 

Again, back to what I was saying, opening up, I really do believe that it is the number one competitive advantage that organizations are beginning to leverage in this day and age.

The workplace is portable, people are portable. They throw up the peace sign, and they move on to find something else. And we can really curb a lot of that by just fostering these leadership best practices in an organization. Having an organizational culture that speaks to these qualities that you're talking about, trust, relationships, support, and then that being a place where people want to come to stay, work and invest their time, effort, and energy. And, of course, it's not as simple as that. 

We need to develop this leadership skill. We need to build a strong organizational culture and climate. We need to have the right systems and structures in place to support that. So, it's very multidimensional, it's very multifactorial, but it's necessary.

Beth Almes:

I'm curious about something you said though around having the luxury of time. And I'm wondering if in your work you've actually seen that work against leaders. So, granted, compared to disarming a bomb, yes, we have a luxury of time most of the time. But we hear a really common objection among leaders when it comes to development that, "I'm honestly too busy for it. I'm going to get through this next thing. I have all this stuff on my plate, and then I will pay attention to my learning and development." There's a project, or there's a thing that becomes more important because, to some degree, no one's forcing you to do it most of the time that it becomes this back burner thing. So, I'm curious as you've worked with leaders to develop their skills, shifting that mindset around how much time do you really have to do this? How much do you need to prioritize and about development over? Yes, you still have stuff that you've got to get done every day.

Joseph Fetzer:

Great question. A lot of the times in the workplace we get promoted why? Because we're really good at doing something, right? We're really good at that skill, that technical expertise, and that's what got us to that next level in that point in time. And a person talking about mindset shift that change in work capacity, we tend to continue to prioritize what got us there in the first place, doing that job on a daily basis. And now not recognizing that instead of me doing this technical thing on a daily basis, I'm now a people leader. I'm now in charge of people. And that's what needs to be prioritized, especially as a person takes on more of a people management and operations role, like you said, being a people leader, much more of their success is now contingent on being that effective people leader. Leveraging those leadership skills on a daily basis and not focusing on the technical demands that once were a large part of their position.

Now, you're leveraging a different skill set. Your ability to lead people on a daily basis, the ability to manage workflows, the ability to delegate, the ability to coach, the ability to communicate the skills. And as you said, many people may perceive leadership development as secondary to their primary responsibilities or may not have fully recognized its importance in now driving not only your success as a people leader, but organizational success at large. Now, you're mobilizing, alright, now you're influencing. You're not doing just the technical work on a daily basis. And I also think that people tend to not prioritize that or not recognize how important it is to prioritize that because, again, leadership's a developable skill, so it's a different skillset that can be a little bit intimidating.

Developing leadership skills is hard. It takes time. It pushes people out of their comfort zone. There's a lot of unknown that comes with that. A lot of the times when people, like I said, enter a leadership role, it's because they've done a job pretty well in the past, and maybe naturally, you feel like that's what you need to continue to do. But success in a leadership role now is more focused on leading people, like I said, accomplishing through delegation, time management, task prioritization. It's a different skill and it's a different mindset. And that's how we develop the capacity to lead by recognizing that I need to leverage these different leadership skills, I need to develop these leadership skills and now I need to leverage these leadership skills in the workplace to be successful.

Beth Almes:

Joe, I'm curious how you coach people as they start shifting that mindset of leadership is the skill I need to develop, that I am responsible for this. One of the things that can be really hard to switch is your idea of what success looks like for you. And so, as you're talking about leaders getting promoted on doing a good job, you think, "Okay, at the end of the day, I feel good about my work. I got X, Y, and Z done. They were done to a good degree. Somebody said, 'Hey Joe, that was a really good job on that.'"

And when you become a leader, it becomes a lot more nebulous, right? It's less like, I checked off 10 things on my task list today and I feel great about my productivity and the quality of the work, and it's a lot harder to kind of grasp, "Am I doing a good job? Am I developing this?" So when you work with leaders to start thinking differently about what they're responsible for and how they are growing and developing and measuring that, how do you help them to see that shift of how I got to start thinking differently about, I did a good job at this?

Joseph Fetzer:

Leadership is, and I'll talk about coaching here a little bit too, but leadership is much less focused on the task at hand and much more focused on the strategic or future implications of their daily decisions, alright? What I mean by that is that a leader now not only has to be aware of the work that's taking place on a daily basis, but understand what that work and the company and people and organization are going to look like six to eight months down the road, alright? Part of being a leader is being able to think strategically. Thinking strategically means that you're able to be that kind of future-focused visionary and see the implications that your decisions are having now, but also six months down the road. And a lot of that is simply through when we talk about coaching, alright, filling that gap, where we're at now, where we're going into the future, is simply having that conversation.

And you don't even need to do this with a professional coach. Leaders should be doing this with their teams where you're having a conversation, you're breaking down these workflows, these systems, the decisions, and you're simply asking the hows, whats, wheres, whens and whys. You're collecting as much information as you can now to make the best possible decision in that situation to have the best possible outcome six to eight months down the road. And that's one of the major mindset shifts as people evolve into leadership positions in the sense that, again, you're not focused on that transactional work on a daily basis. You're now leading the team to be able to function and have the same, if not increased, capabilities a year down the road. And again, that's thinking strategically as a strategic leader and that's working with your team to have those conversations, to have that relationship, to be able to get that information that you need to make sure that you're just as effective and efficient a year from now, if that makes sense.

Beth Almes:

Absolutely. It's just what we talked about, all that prep work that goes into the moment when it actually all matters that you had to have been building that all that time. That's what the leader does in advance. And I could ask you a lot more questions, Joe, but as we're running short on time, I want to ask you a question that I ask all of our guests on the show. Can you share with me a moment of leadership that changed your life, whether it was for good, it inspired you or for bad where you said, "Alright, I'm going to never let that happen again and be different?

Joseph Fetzer:

Hey, I've had the opportunity to work with so many great people and organizations throughout my very limited experiences that I've been exposed to so much. And me, as a person, as a leadership practitioner, as a consultant, I really am rooted in my time spent in the Marine Corps because that's where I learned how to lead. That's was my first exposure to leadership, in that environment. And there's one example that will just always stand out to me, and I will continue to carry it with me wherever I go. We were working on a problem. It was a sensitive situation. A lot could go wrong. The team itself, which I was working on a small team at the time, we were just going down a rabbit hole of thinking, getting nowhere, just coming up with these grand ideas that were just nonsense garbage.

And our boss pulled us back and these words, if anybody takes anything from the conversation today, take this because I think it's great, it's spot on. The boss pulled us back and said, "Being advanced is brilliance in the basics. You have the tools, you have the resources, you're smart enough, you can figure this out. Stop trying to just bring in a bunch of nonsense, right? Stop trying to think that we need all these other things to figure this out or make it happen. Being advanced is simply brilliance in the basics."

Leadership itself, these fundamentals that we talked about today, communication, coaching, delegation, it's not rocket science, it's administrative science, which is just as cool, but these are all very rudimentary skills that a lot of us do have the innate qualities and characteristics to call out and leverage in the workplace. So, that person as a leader at that time imparted those words of wisdom, "Being advanced is brilliance in the basics," and I think that's very true and can be adopted as a mindset and a way of thinking in a lot of places that I work.

Beth Almes:

That might be one of my favorite quotes we've ever had on the podcast. And I'll tell you, I work a lot with our executive coaches as well. And one of the things I have heard so many times from them is that sometimes at the senior leadership level, they don't realize they've missed the basics, or they've forgotten how to do it, or not advanced. So, when you take a simple concept of something like coaching, or communicating, or showing empathy, actually people have gotten to these amazingly high levels and they either forget and stop doing it or realize that they never mastered it in the first place and it's something they really need to go back to. So, that is maybe just one of the best wrap-up quotes I could think of is that advanced as brilliance in the basics. We'll use that all the time. So, thank you, Joe.

Joseph Fetzer:

You're welcome.

Beth Almes:

Thank you so much for being here today on The Leadership 480 Podcast. I really enjoyed our conversation. And thank you to our listeners who took part of their 480 minutes to be with us today. And remember to make every moment of leadership count.