In this episode of Executive Connect, Kevin Eikenberry, leadership expert, best-selling author, and Co-Founder of the Remote Leadership Institute, joins Melissa Aarskaug to unpack what flexible leadership looks like in 2025 and why it’s the key to success in today’s work environment. With experience coaching leaders in 53 countries, Kevin shares the mindset shifts, communication strategies, and human-centered habits every leader needs to thrive, whether managing from a distance or in person.

Chapters:
00:00 What Tractors Have to Do with Leadership
01:10 Kevin’s Farm-Grown Leadership Roots
02:46 Why Flexibility Is a Leadership Superpower
05:12 Building Remarkable Remote and Hybrid Teams
08:05 Skills Every Modern Leader Needs
12:33 Burnout, Boundaries, and the Human Side of Leadership
23:29 Supporting Teams Without Micromanaging
29:03 You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader
30:00 How to Succeed After Being Promoted Into Leadership
32:49 Final Thoughts: Rooted Values, Flexible Approach

Kevin

(0:00) Challenges is having crystal clear expectations about the future. I believe that 95% of people (0:06) want to do great work 95% of the time. Not everybody, not every day, right? Great work (0:13) is defined by what is expected of them and I can tell you that there are millions of people working (0:21) across the U.S. and around the world that don’t really know what’s expected of them.

Melissa

(0:26) What do antique tractors, remote teams, and remarkable leaders have in common? Kevin Eikenberry, (0:35) he’s not just a leadership expert, he’s a farm-grown future-focused powerhouse who’s helped (0:41) leaders in 53 countries figure out how to lead from anywhere. Today on the Executive Connect (0:49) podcast, we’re diving into why flexibility isn’t just a perk, it’s a leadership superpower. Whether (0:56) you’re managing a hybrid team or just try not to micromanage your cat during your Zoom calls, (1:02) Kevin’s got insights that’ll help you lead with purpose, presence, and a whole lot of impact.

Melissa

(1:07) Welcome, Kevin. First, thank you for having me. First thing to say, I don’t have a cat, (1:13) but other than that, everything I think that applies, including antique tractors, (1:18) yeah, I have a collection of them.

Anyway, yeah. I love it. Other people managing their cat, Kevin, (1:24) while they’re leading people.

Now, I know you talk a lot about learning your leadership lessons (1:32) on the farm. Everything you’ve learned was from the farm. Can you walk us back to those early (1:37) days and how that shapes your leadership journey and your career in teaching leadership? (1:45) I’m not sure it’s everything, but certainly a lot of really valuable.

I’d like to hope I’m still (1:49) learning stuff every day, Melissa, but there certainly are some core things I learned as a (1:54) kid on the farm and we had a farm-related business. I learned an awful lot about customers. (2:00) I learned an awful lot about how to prioritize work.

I learned a lot about how to prioritize (2:05) customer needs. I mean, there’s lots of stuff that I learned growing up. I was just 20 years (2:11) younger than my dad, and so I went everywhere with him.

I had a really great opportunity to (2:17) interact with other business owners in our community and treated like an equal, even when I (2:25) was in high school. That really was a great thing in my career as well, in terms of being able to (2:31) communicate with a wide variety of people, but I think early in my career not to be (2:36) intimidated in any way by folks. So lots of great things.

The value of there’s a time (2:42) for everything and a purpose and all of those things. I grew up learning how to grow animals (2:50) and plants, and now I spend my time growing people. I love it.

I know you’ve worked with (2:56) some of the Fortune 500 companies to startups. What does flexible leadership really mean today, (3:04) and why is it so critical in the world where the office could be anywhere around the world? (3:12) It’s not just where the office is. It certainly could be that.

There’s lots of things that are (3:16) more uncertain now than ever. Certainly, we could put a pin in the early days of the pandemic when (3:24) all of that stuff about where we worked changed and how we worked changed, but there’s so many (3:29) other things that are having an impact on that make work different and therefore make leading (3:34) different than it’s ever been before. I think the big idea that I’d like to share, Melissa, (3:38) with you and with the audience is this, that if you’re leading the same way you led five years ago, (3:45) which most people are, but if you are, then necessarily in a world that’s changing, (3:51) then you can’t be leading as effectively as you were then.

The world has not changed in a way (3:54) to make your style and your approach absolutely better than it was then. The odds of that are (3:59) not high, so the idea of being a flexible leader, and everyone thinks, oh, that sounds like a good (4:04) idea, and yet everyone says, but this is how I lead. The biggest challenge that we have to be (4:12) more flexible as a leader is that we have an identity and a style, and we’ve said to ourselves, (4:17) this is how I lead, and if we’re locked into that, we all know how hard it is to change a habit.

(4:24) It’s almost impossible to change our identity because we’ve locked it in psychologically, (4:30) and to the degree that we’ve locked that in in terms of how we lead, (4:34) it’s going to make it more challenging for us to be successful. (4:38) Yeah, and I think we have to be so adaptable these days. I think going between hybrid work (4:44) and remote work and in the office, out of the office, technology, AI, various different age (4:51) groups working in the workforce with very different needs, how we think, what our beliefs are, (4:59) politics, all of it plays a huge part of the world we’re leading today.

(5:06) I think one of the things I love, and I love this word, is the word remarkable. I love that word, (5:13) and I think the word that you talk about, remarkable teams, I think is a really special (5:19) word because there’s teams and there can be remarkable teams. In my opinion, and I’m sure (5:25) your opinion, they’re drastically different on what’s remarkable and what’s not remarkable.

(5:31) I know you co-founded the Remote Leadership Institute way before it was a trendy thing, (5:38) and so I want to talk a little bit about what are the biggest mindset shifts leaders need to make (5:44) today to make a truly empowered remote and in-office work environment when building and (5:52) running teams? I think the thing that we have to remember is what it means to lead and what (5:59) leadership ultimately is, and here’s how I would define it. There are lots of people who have a (6:03) my definition of leadership. Leadership is reaching valuable outcomes with and through (6:08) others, so outcomes and others, and there’s a tension between those things.

(6:14) We’ve seen that tension play out in the business press and in our workplaces over the last several (6:20) years where the pendulum swung towards, well, it’s got to be about our folks, and then at some (6:26) point we said, but we got to get the work done, and some people said we have to come back to the (6:29) because that’s about the outcomes, so there’s this tension, and for us to be most effective (6:36) as leaders, we have to understand that tension. There isn’t a right answer, but the best answers (6:45) are not at the ends of that spectrum, what we would call a flexor between outcomes and others, (6:49) but somewhere in the middle, and so the most effective leaders are able to adjust or flex (6:54) where they need to be on that continuum at any time based on what’s going on in the situation, (6:59) so here’s a simple example. If you’ve got a team of folks, and they’re mostly remote, (7:09) but you have a need to have them together for some purpose, and that purpose is clearly understood by (7:15) all of them, then it’s important coming upon you to make that clear to them and not just say, (7:20) I need you to come to the office today, because once they understand it, even if they don’t love (7:25) it, once they understand it, you get a much better chance of success of them being there (7:29) than if you just sort of edict it or demand it, and that may not be your natural tendency.

(7:36) Your natural tendency might be say, I need you in the office today, (7:41) and there might be unintended consequences of you taking that natural inclination approach, (7:47) and so to be flexible means to think not just what would I normally do, but what will get me (7:53) the best or help us get the best results in this moment. Yeah, I love that. I think there’s so much (8:00) there.

I want to unpack a little, like I believe in the tools that every leader needs these days, (8:07) so let’s talk about, I’m going to use the word modern leader. I don’t know if that’s the right (8:11) word, but let’s talk about… We’re talking about a bunch of gray hair, so that may, I don’t know, (8:16) you may have to help me with that. No, go ahead and see.

But let’s talk about how to build them, (8:21) how to build this new leader, like what you were saying at the beginning, how you were leading (8:28) five years ago, it’s not the right way to lead. You’ve developed hundreds of learning experiences (8:35) and written multiple books. What are a few of those must-have skills every modern leader needs (8:42) to have right now, and if they don’t have them, what can they do to start building them today? (8:48) Number one thing that leaders need to be to be more effective is they have to be continual (8:53) learners.

You laid out all the things, the technologies and the politics and the (8:58) geopolitical stuff and the generations and the locations. To think that we can do what we’ve (9:07) always done and know we’re going to get good results, it’s just folly. So the number one thing (9:12) that, I’ll use your word, a modern leader needs to do is they need to be a continual learner, (9:17) because if they’re not, there’s no way that they can be as successful as they’re capable (9:22) of becoming, as their organization wants them to become, as their team needs them to become.

(9:29) And so that’s, I think, the number one thing. And then the next set of things is, again, (9:33) I think it really is around this word of being able to flex knowing the situation. And so that (9:40) means being able to adapt, being able to be able to flex and help my team flex with me.

That, to (9:48) me, is certainly one of those things. And I think, again, modern leader means more effective (9:54) communicator, because we’ve got more ways or modes of communication now than we’ve literally ever had. (10:05) And we need to think about the ones that are synchronous and the ones that are asynchronous (10:09) and which tools are best to use at a given time.

Let me give you a quick example. Like everybody (10:14) who’s listening, Melissa, and I know this is true of you, even though we’ve only chatted for a few (10:19) minutes before you hit the record button, all of us have been on an email string thread that’s three (10:26) or four messages in that’s going sideways. At best, right, we’ve all been on that email string, (10:32) right? And what do we do to solve it? Typically, get on the phone, or maybe today we get on a (10:39) Zoom call, a Teams call, or whatever.

Like we sort of know that at some point, the only way we’re (10:43) going to solve this is to get in real time communication. Now, that doesn’t mean that (10:48) email is a bad tool. It means it was the wrong tool for that kind of communication.

So as leaders, (10:54) we can know what our favorites are. That’s fine. We have to be conversant and willing and able to (10:59) use all of the tools that are at our fingertips and be willing to go to the ones that will get us (11:08) the best results, not just the ones that we like the most.

And so I like to say that on our farm, (11:14) I probably have 10 hammers. And I even have a hammer that’s my favorite hammer. My favorite (11:19) hammer is a sledgehammer I swung with my dad when I was a kid.

It’s my favorite hammer at the farm. (11:25) But if I need to put a nail in the wall, is that the best hammer to use for that job? (11:30) Probably not. So there’s some tools for which email might be the best tool and others where (11:36) we need to pick a different tool.

So obviously, I’m talking there, I’m combining two things in (11:41) terms of our modern leader, that is both communication skills and the complexity of that (11:45) today, along with this idea of flexibility. So we could go on that topic for a long time, (11:49) but I’m guessing you’ve got other stuff you’d like me to talk about. (11:52) Yeah, and no, but I think you’re spot on.

I think you got to put the right tool (11:56) in the right place at the right time. And I think that’s part of intuition, learning, (12:05) time in business, experience, all those words, I think. And I have been on those email strings (12:12) where people don’t want to get on a call and we continue on the email thread.

And over time, (12:20) things tend to escalate. And then people make assumptions in the email, or I’ve read many (12:26) emails where people have said, oh my gosh, that’s such an aggressive email. And I read the email, (12:30) I’m like, I don’t see any aggression in the email.

It’s just a pretty direct one sentence email. (12:36) And so we start making these stories up on what the email is supposed to mean, or does mean, (12:41) or doesn’t mean. So to your point, getting on the phone and having the human discussion (12:49) versus the technology discussion is where you can really suss out and solve much quicker (12:56) and so I absolutely agree.

And I want to kind of pivot to that place, the human side of leadership. (13:02) And there’s things we learn in business just through experience. And there’s things that (13:09) we learn by actually showing up authentically as a human.

And I’m really loving that word lately. (13:16) And I don’t know if it’s because of technology, but the human side of leadership, like family (13:22) and burnout and balance and difficult and death and all the kind of messy stuff that we all kind (13:29) of go through. So talk to me a little bit about what and how you stay grounded and what advice (13:36) you would give to leaders today that are showing up as their whole self at work.

(13:44) So the first thing I would say is that in my book, Remarkable Leadership, which came out (13:47) 17 years ago, I wrote something along the lines of, to become a better leader is to become a (13:52) better human and vice versa. In other words, to be a highly effective leader means that we’re (13:59) learning skills that we can apply in the rest of our lives and vice versa. And so I think your (14:06) question is exceptionally relevant.

And I will say this, that if you as a leader want to show up (14:16) at your best for your team, you have to take care of yourself. You can’t give something you don’t (14:23) have. You can’t be empathetic if your brain is locked in on your own stuff.

You can’t listen (14:31) if you can’t get past your own messages in your own head. You can’t see other people’s burnout (14:37) if you’re the one that’s burned out. So self-care isn’t selfish.

We have to take care of ourselves. (14:42) So for me, as a business owner, my name’s on the company, my name’s on the business, (14:48) my name’s in a lot of the stuff that we do. You could say, well, how do you decouple those things? (14:54) Because they may be even more blended for me than they are for a lot of other people.

(15:00) And yet to me, it’s just making decisions to say, so I just came back from being on vacation (15:07) and I chose to check my email once a day. And I chose to do some writing that I committed to do (15:15) for people over time that happens regularly. So I did some writing while I was gone early (15:20) in the morning, didn’t impact anybody else in the family, but not every day, (15:23) a little bit that I knew I needed to do.

And I can be very clear that I’m going to compartmentalize (15:27) that and I’m going to bond with my day. And I’m going to be completely present with those that (15:32) I was with and in the situations that I was in. And I think that people would say that I succeeded.

(15:38) So the thing is that we have to decide upfront, that’s what we’re going to do. And we have to (15:43) decide what balance looks like for us, because you might say, I can’t do that, Kevin. And I don’t (15:49) ask anyone on my team to check their email when they’re on vacation.

I don’t ask them to. (15:55) Now, I don’t think I sent any emails when I was on vacation, but I checked. I just said, hey, (16:01) is there something that’s on fire? Is there something I want to be aware of? I have a member (16:04) of my team that fell down the stairs and broke a tip and tore a tendon in his knee.

He reached (16:09) out and told me that. I was able to reach back out to him and say, hey, what do you need? (16:15) How can I help? Et cetera. And he said, I got this.

I just wanted you to know. So the point is, (16:20) if we can be clear for ourselves about what that balance needs to look like for us, (16:25) manage that tension, if you will, between work and life, we have a better chance of success. (16:31) But the biggest message is where I started, which is you have to figure out what that looks like (16:36) for you, because you can’t show up for your team if you’re not in a good space for yourself.

(16:43) Yeah, I love that. I think I absolutely agree with that. And I know in my career, (16:48) earlier in my career, I was told that’s very selfish.

So I pivoted away from that for (16:54) several years, and then I pivoted back to that when I left that manager, because I was told it (17:02) was selfish to focus on yourself first. And so it’s funny, now looking back at that, it was some (17:10) of the time in my career that I wasn’t the best manager, I would say, because I wasn’t focused (17:16) on my health. And so when I arrived, I was probably stressed out, short-tempered, impatient, (17:25) and so I- More likely to micromanage because you’re (17:28) stressed with the situation.

We could go, all of the chain reaction that falls from that, (17:32) and that’s what I’m talking about. And so it’s about being aware, right? So I mentioned earlier (17:37) that leadership’s about reaching valuable outcomes with and through others, two Os. (17:40) Our model of leadership is actually three Os, outcomes, others, ourselves.

Leadership isn’t (17:46) about us, and yet we can’t take us out of the equation. (17:52) Yeah, and I think it’s interesting. So all advice isn’t great advice.

This was advice given to me (18:00) by somebody that I reported to about me being selfish, leaving the office earlier. (18:07) So I stayed later and came in earlier. So the point is, is I was experiencing burnout, (18:14) because this person wanted me to work maximum hours, I wasn’t getting the right sleep and (18:20) so the message is, is all advice isn’t good advice.

And the human side of things is showing (18:30) up. I should have, at that point, taken the reins and said, hey, I need to get home. I’ve worked (18:37) 50 hours and it’s Wednesday.

I need to get some rest and tend to some of the stuff at XYZ. (18:44) I did it and I continued to burn out. And then it wasn’t until I got a new manager, (18:50) Kevin, that I realized exactly what you said.

I have to start with taking care of me. (18:58) Me that’s rested and relaxed and had my vacations and tended to my family shows up empathetic and (19:06) supportive and listening to my staff, understanding what’s going on in their life, supporting it and (19:12) building them up. And so I think what you’re saying is so, so important.

And the balance, (19:19) the scale that you’re talking about, right? Like you were on vacation with your family, (19:24) you still had to take care of some work stuff. So you organized your day so you could do both (19:30) things. It didn’t compromise anything on either side.

So finding that- (19:35) Except my sleep, that’s the only thing it compromised in those days. But let me just (19:38) say something really important about what you’ve just been saying. So if I ask people, (19:45) and I’ve done this in workshops and in keynotes many times, I’ve asked people, (19:49) think of someone you think of as a highly effective leader and then write down all the (19:54) reasons why, and then we’ll make a long list of all the things that make those people great (19:58) leaders.

Guess what never shows up on that list? Micromanagement. Guess what always shows up on that (20:05) list? Great leaders are great role models. Awesome.

Guess what? All leaders are role models. (20:12) One of the reasons that you did what you did when you worked all those hours was because I’m (20:17) guessing the boss did that too, right? So what was good about what he did was he wasn’t asking (20:24) you to do something he wasn’t willing to do. We could argue whether that was healthy for all of (20:28) you.

But my point is this, is that you followed not just because of what he said, but because of (20:33) what he did. And then you said later on, I was more empathetic to my team. I listened to my team.

(20:39) I did all these other things. And aren’t those the things that you want from your team? And if so, (20:44) you doing them is the single best thing you can do to improve those behaviors in them. (20:51) Like when I had, when my children were young, if I wanted my kids to be readers, (20:56) what’s the best thing I could do besides reading to them? Have them see me reading.

(21:01) If they see me reading, then that’s, that’s, that doesn’t automatically mean there’ll be (21:07) readers, but it’s the best single thing I can do to improve the likelihood that they will. (21:12) Just because you are, you then became a more empathetic leader doesn’t automatically mean (21:18) that your team members will be more empathetic. But guess what? It’s the best chance you had to (21:22) change the odds.

Best chance you got. We are all, we are all leading by example. (21:29) The only question is, is the example you set the one you want them to follow? (21:35) 100%.

And I find it interesting. That same person probably knew nothing about my life. (21:42) Probably knew nothing besides what was in my resume and on my resume that they reviewed or (21:49) anything about my background in the HR system.

The manager that came after knew everything, (21:58) you know, where I went to school and my family and I had a younger brother and all this specifics. (22:04) So the other side of the coin is if you’re managing people, understand what’s going on (22:09) in their life and, you know, somebody like me that, that came in and was stressed out, (22:14) understand why I was stressed out, why I was burnt out, why I was behaving or acting the way. (22:22) Don’t just assume that it’s my personality or it’s, you know, try to uncover why, pull them aside and (22:29) get to the bottom of what’s going on in their life.

Because heck, you know, I had this happen (22:34) one time when I was managing people. I’d like to get your perspective on this. So, I had a woman (22:40) that I pulled aside once.

She was similar, burnt out, stressed out, short temper. And what I found (22:47) out in asking her what’s going on in her life, she was having a hard time getting her kids dropped (22:53) off at school and getting into work by the time that she needed. We’re talking about like 15 (23:00) minutes and not an hour, not two hours.

So I’m like, Hey, no problem. Come 15 minutes later, (23:06) get your kid to school, get organized and then come. (23:10) How about 8.15 instead of 8 o’clock? No problem.

(23:13) That woman works, is still working at the company I hired her for because I allowed her to come in (23:20) 15 minutes later. And she has been a very long time employee of that company years ago. (23:27) And so I want to talk a little bit about, I’d get your perspective about knowing your (23:32) employees and understanding maybe the line between understanding your employee and making (23:39) sure employee is doing what the employee needs to do.

So what’s the line? How do you still (23:46) support your employee in what’s going on with their life, like dropping their kids off to school, (23:51) but also get the job done? I’ll say two things. The first thing I’ll say is the overriding (23:58) important point here, and it will help solve so many challenges that you might otherwise face, (24:03) including this one, is having crystal clear expectations about the job. (24:08) If the expectations of the job are mutually understood and clear, here’s what I believe.

(24:13) I believe that 95% of people want to do great work 95% of the time. Not everybody, not every day, (24:21) right? But most of us, overwhelming majority of people want to do great work. Great work is (24:27) defined by what is expected of them.

And I can tell you that there are millions of people working (24:35) across the US and around the world that don’t really know what’s expected of them. They’re (24:40) guessing, they’re making it up, they’re making a bunch of assumptions, and we all know what that (24:46) can do for us. And all of that lack of clarity is massively impacting productivity and results.

(24:55) And so I would say that, and so once we get focused on expectations, it solves another problem, (25:01) because it suddenly shifts us from focusing on activity and focusing on accomplishment. So like (25:09) your person that came to work now at 815, let’s just say, probably got as much or more done at a (25:16) higher quality, even if she left at the same time. It’s not about how long we work, it’s about are we (25:23) getting the work done? If you’ve got someone working remotely, for example, and you’re like, (25:29) I don’t know what they’re doing.

My first question is, are they achieving the things that need to be (25:33) achieved at the quality level that you need? And too many leaders can’t answer that question. That (25:39) should be your job one. But assuming you can answer that and the answer is yes, then why are (25:43) you worried about the time? Now it’s different if they’re on a clock.

I understand that if they’re (25:49) punching a time clock. I understand that. But hopefully everyone gets my point.

(25:55) Productivity isn’t about activity. It’s about accomplishment per unit time. I’ll tell you a (26:01) quick story.

Early in the pandemic, because as you mentioned, we’d been doing a lot of stuff (26:06) about remote work and remote leadership long before the world shut down. During the pandemic, (26:10) I started asking groups virtually this question all the time. I said, so the average American (26:15) pre-pandemic had a 27-minute commute to work each way.

So the average American was commuting an hour (26:22) in round numbers. So I started asking people, what are you doing with the time, with that hour? (26:27) Over 60% of the people said, what? Working. And so then I said, okay, so you’re getting more done (26:33) then, right? Nope.

They weren’t being more productive. They were being less productive (26:37) per unit time, which is the only thing that actually matters, right? I’m getting the same (26:42) amount of work done. Yeah, I put in more time.

I was working. I have no problem with people making (26:46) that choice. But let’s make sure we’re not just throwing hours at something, but rather (26:52) accomplishing more.

All it makes all the difference. Yeah. And I want to unpack that more because I (26:58) think there’s a lot in that.

Leadership, like a lot of times I’ll hear from people that are like, (27:02) I don’t manage people. I’m not a leader. And I always, my response to that is you’re leading (27:08) yourself, aren’t you, through your day? And so it’s funny because I think about what you just (27:14) said and I think we’re all leading something or someone or some process.

We just don’t realize. (27:21) And so that person that’s not getting more done, they’re distracted and they maybe don’t have the (27:29) tools from pivoting from somebody who’s watching me. I’ve got big brother over the shoulder watching (27:35) me.

I got to make sure I get my work done. Now they’re in an environment where it’s all trust (27:39) because nobody is standing over their shoulder. They’re a remote worker.

So in that kind of (27:45) situation, I would say it’s up to the manager to do exactly what you just said is like by the (27:50) end of the week, these are the things I need you to get done. This is the level of effort. This is (27:56) my expectation because I think about me when I went from working in an office to working home, (28:03) my productivity went through the roof because nobody was bothering me and I could just work (28:09) all day and I wasn’t getting interrupted in my office.

Somebody walk in my office, (28:14) talk to me for 10 minutes. They walk back out. I’d have to get reorganized.

(28:18) My productivity tripled in an eight hour period. I was getting 16 hours of work done because I (28:27) wasn’t being interrupted. So is it a tool issue? Is it a communication issue? Talk to me a little (28:34) bit more about that.

Yeah, it’s a communication issue. It’s a clarity issue. And then it could (28:38) be a skill issue, right? People need some tools.

They need some help. They need to understand that (28:42) thing. I want to go back to something you said a couple of minutes ago about, well, I’m not a (28:45) leader.

Here’s the way I look at it, that some people are what I call a capital L leader. (28:51) Positionally, they’re leading. But there are lots of other folks who are leading, (28:57) right? Reaching valuable outcomes with and through others that isn’t about position, right? And so (29:01) all of us, because at the end of the day, leadership is influence as we really admit.

(29:06) Most of what we’ve talked about has been about influence, even though I haven’t used that word. (29:11) And so if leadership is influence, all of us have the chance to influence others. So (29:17) I usually think about it that way.

You may not be a capital L leader by position, (29:23) but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have the chance or have the opportunity to lead others. (29:29) I love that. I want to get your perspective on something else.

I think it would be helpful. So I (29:35) very young was dumped into a capital L leadership position, very young. I was a technical person.

(29:42) I was an engineer. I had been doing doer tasks my whole career. And then I was put in the L (29:50) capital lead.

So talk to me a little bit about, for me, I was just kind of dumped into that, (29:55) okay, now you’re managing people role. And I figured it out, but I do know, I do see (30:01) right now a lot of technical people that have been doing doer roles, engineering roles, (30:09) moving into leadership roles. If you’re somebody that’s in that situation that (30:13) you haven’t managed people or come to manage people and you’re becoming a manager, what’s (30:19) the best way for them to learn how to be that capital L leader if they don’t have any formal (30:25) training? Buy my book, From Bud to Boss.

That’s the logical answer to that question. You can go to (30:31) frombudtoboss.com or go to our website and we have all sorts of tools and resources to help (30:36) with that. But that having been said, that’s a very common thing, not just for engineers, (30:41) but for people anywhere.

That we take the best accountant and make them the accounting manager. (30:46) We take the best engineer, make them the engineering manager. We take the best mechanic (30:50) and make them the lead of the mechanics.

It doesn’t matter. That happens everywhere. (30:56) And it is the hardest transition of our career, because as you said, Melissa, it’s the shift (31:03) from doing the work to leading the work.

And that’s actually one of the reasons (31:08) that people end up micromanaging, because in their mind, they were really good at doing the work. (31:16) And so their goal is to try to get other people to do the work, not do the work well, do the work (31:22) the way they did it. And so the psychology of that is, why would I want to let go of that stuff that (31:30) I know that I was good at, that I got recognized for, that I got rewarded for? And so that’s why (31:36) people don’t delegate.

One of the major reasons why they don’t delegate and why they do micromanage, (31:42) because those two things go together, is because they haven’t been taught or seen the mental shift, (31:50) the mindset shift of what it takes to be an effective leader isn’t to be the technical (31:57) expert anymore. It doesn’t mean that you can’t know a lot about the process. It doesn’t mean (32:02) that you can’t be willing to roll up your sleeves and go do the work if needed, but that’s not your (32:06) job anymore.

And so if I can just whisper in the ear of people and help them see that (32:12) the mindset shift has to come first, because until that mindset shift happens, (32:17) it’s extraordinarily difficult to change behavior. Yeah. And I found for me, I had to organize (32:24) myself better.

I know that I would focus on helping all my employees all the time and making (32:30) sure everybody, and then I get to the end of the day and I hadn’t done any of my work. And so I was (32:35) working and then trying, I was in perpetual catch-up mode all the time. And so one of the best (32:42) piece of advice I’ve received was organizing myself and orienting myself in a way that I could (32:51) support them yet get my leadership work done as well.

It was very helpful when somebody explained (32:58) it to me that way. This has been great. I want to get kind of any final thoughts or anything that (33:06) you want to leave with our listeners about flexible leadership or anything that we didn’t (33:11) cover today before we close up.

So first of all, thanks for having me, Melissa. It’s been a (33:17) to spend time with you and chat about important things. I will say this to all of you.

And that (33:21) is that leadership isn’t about us. And to be a flexible leader doesn’t mean that we need to (33:27) become something we’re not. We can be rooted in our values, in our principles, in the goals that (33:35) we have and the organizational goals.

We can be rooted in that like a tree, but a true tree, (33:39) while rooted is also flexible. And so we can be rooted in those important things and yet flexible (33:46) on the how, flexible on the approach. And if we can understand that difference between what we (33:54) need to stand firm on and is important for us to stand firm on and yet be flexible in approach (33:59) based on the context of the situation, we have a far better chance of succeeding.

(34:05) Yeah, I love that. I think it’s so well said. Hire the smart people and let them do their job.

(34:10) Just keep them on the yellow brick road. So I love that. Where’s the best place for our (34:17) listeners that connect with you, learn more about the good work you’re doing? Is it online? (34:23) Yeah, let me give you a couple of places.

First of all, if you can spell my name, (34:27) you can find me. So if you’re watching this, you can see my name right down there on the bottom. (34:32) But you can go to kevinikenberry.com, K-E-V-I-N-E-I-K-E-N-B-E-R-R-Y.com. You can find (34:39) information about all of our books, all of our learning resources, all of our workshops that (34:45) cover a lot of the kinds of things we’ve talked about today.

If you’re a person on LinkedIn, (34:48) you can certainly follow me and connect with me on LinkedIn. I’d love to have you do that. Let me (34:51) know why you connected that because you heard me and saw me on Executive Connect.

And the last (34:56) thing is, if you go to kevinikenberry.com, I’ll give you two places very specifically to go, (35:03) all for free. kevinikenberry.com slash gift. There’s a free gift of a chapter from the book (35:09) Flexible Leadership and some other stuff there.

And if you go to kevinikenberry.com slash newsletters, (35:14) you can sign up for our newsletters, learn about our podcast, a lot of other stuff there. (35:18) Love to have you join us and be connected with us because it’s been my pleasure to be connected (35:23) with you, Melissa, today. Thanks for having me.

I love you. I love everything that you’re (35:28) talking about today. Thank you so much for being here, for sharing your knowledge and (35:33) time with our listeners.

That’s the Executive Connect podcast.