Lara Schmoisman (00:11)

Hi everyone, welcome back to coffee number five, ⁓ coffee ready. And I’m ready for another great conversation today. ⁓ So we talk a lot about these things. We talk about leadership, we talk about how to build teams. And this is something in my conversation that every day I build this, we’re leaders in so many ways. I mean, we can be leaders in our family. I’m the CEO of my house, of course.

 

And I’m the leader of my dog. I’m the leader of the company. we’re leaders in so, not necessarily, that’s only right. But also there is another type of leadership and it’s a brand leadership. I don’t think, we have a special guest for you today. So we have Mr.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (00:44)

Not necessarily in that order, right? Not necessarily.

 

Lara Schmoisman (01:02)

So I’m going to let himself, ⁓ and probably I did wrong because I always pronounce last names wrong, but I want to bring you today an expert in leadership. And I don’t know if he ever talked about leadership in branding and brands, but because I know that he specialized in teams and he has an amazing trajectory and books that he wrote, but I found that leadership expands in so many territories.

 

So welcome. Thank you so much for being here today.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (01:33)

I’m so

 

glad to be here, Laura. you know, ⁓ when, like you and me, when you own a company, have to be, you have to think about a lot of things. And one of the things that you have to think about is marketing and branding. And so while I’ve never written a book about branding leadership, I certainly have thoughts about branding ⁓ and have spent a lot of time thinking about that for our business and observing that in others. And so we can take this conversation wherever you want to go. And I’m super, super glad to be here.

 

Lara Schmoisman (02:01)

Well, let’s talk about your story a little bit. How did you become a leader in leadership?

 

Kevin Eikenberry (02:09)

Well, ⁓ I grew up on a farm and we had an agriculture related business as well. so I great ⁓ examples of leadership around me. And I had the chance to lead within that, those businesses ⁓ in that most people don’t at the age that I had those chances.

 

And I had chances to and took opportunities to lead both in ⁓ high school and in college in significant ways. And all of that, I think was preparation for the work that I do now. ⁓ And ultimately, without going into all of the details, after a period of time working in a Fortune 10 company, I found myself ⁓ ready to go start my own company and it ended up being trading and development.

 

Lara Schmoisman (02:46)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (03:03)

And soon after I started doing training and development work, I found myself sort of continuing to be closer and closer attracted to leadership development. And so we are in the learning business. That’s how I would brand us. We’re in the learning business. But the thing that we do the most and we help the people the most with is being a more effective leader, helping teams and organizations be more effective through more effective leadership.

 

Lara Schmoisman (03:17)

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s amazing. ⁓ Leadership is such an important conversation to have ⁓ externally and internally. It’s a conversation that I found myself having all the time and how to be a better leader. I always say I’m an accidental founder. I wasn’t prepared to be a leader of a company. So it’s something that I had to learn by myself as my company grew. And one of the things that I had to really separate myself is that

 

We are not ruthless, but we are rigorous as a leader. And it’s something that you need to understand. And it’s a very gray area. And because when, a leader, you still have many responsibilities. As a leader, I have the responsibility with my clients, but I do have a responsibility with my team. And I have a responsibility with myself.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (04:20)

You know, many founders, I wrote a book a number of years ago, co-wrote a book a number of years ago called From Bud to Boss about the transition from being a member of the team to being the leader of the team and founder, and that is the hardest transition we can ever make. And founders make that same transition, although they may be building the team on the fly as opposed to having been a part of it. And yet in many ways it’s that same transition.

 

And so I just want to start by sort of tipping my hat to you because not every founder figures out what you said earlier. Not every founder figures out that I’m going to have to I’m going to have to dig in to myself and to being a better leader and not just focus on customers and not just focus on marketing and branding and selling and all of that other stuff. All those other hats we have to wear. so, you know, founders that succeed. Ultimately or or

 

founders who are able to have a life as they build their business have to figure out how to lead others because otherwise we’ll be so buried in the work ourselves because we’re not leading, we’re not delegating, we’re not sharing. And so it’s critical. So for so many who are listening, you’ve got this list of skills you want to learn. I’m sorry, I interrupted you. You’ve got this list of skills you want to learn and this one, it really needs to move near the top of the list.

 

Lara Schmoisman (05:31)

Then why you have a team? Yeah. Why you have a team?

 

No.

 

Yeah, absolutely. It’s one of the things that even I always tell this, whoever I talk to, my company grew fast and I wasn’t prepared for that growth. So I had to restructure and restructure as I was going. But then at some point I had to take a step back and say, okay, now we need to have a real restructure and see and remove myself. I was doing a little bit of everything still.

 

I was like, that’s a waste of my time. That I was driving everyone crazy because they were depending on my time. And on top of that, we weren’t being productive. So when we took that step back and we are more efficient, it was, my God, moment. This is what we really needed. And even going further today, I found out that we weren’t using a platform. And that’s something I want to talk to you a little more because now we have…

 

so many integrations with platforms that evolve all the time. So I found out that, my God, we’re not using these platforms correctly and we’re not being efficient. So I find that all the time we need to be adapting and the teams need to be open-minded to adapt.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (06:55)

And you know, here’s the thing, and we don’t think about this a lot as leaders either, but it’s true. if you want your team to be adapting, people will say, so Kevin, adapting would be one example. So Kevin, I want my team to be more adaptable. What do I need to do first? I’m like, look in the mirror. You have to be more adaptable. Or people will say, well, I want my team to be more accountable. I said, well, look in the mirror. Do they see an example of accountability in you?

 

Lara Schmoisman (07:06)

Yeah.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (07:20)

And so whether it’s accountability, whether it’s adaptability, whether it’s creativity, wherever it is, that one of the things that we have to remember as leaders is they’re always watching us. And by the way, many of you listening are founders. realize that, but even if you’re, if you’re, even when I say just, I don’t mean it in a negative way. You may be a frontline leader in an organization. know, this isn’t just a founder conversation. This is any, what I would call capital L leader. In other words, leader by position.

 

Lara Schmoisman (07:34)

Yeah.

 

or even a team leader.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (07:48)

⁓ or because of position. so they are watching us more than we realize. And what we see in our team is in a bigger way than we often think as a reflection of us.

 

Lara Schmoisman (08:01)

Yeah. I mean, I always tell my team that, or the skills that I want, I want them to act like future leaders. They need to have that skill. They need to want to be a leader because everyone should be a lead in what they do. At least in my team. I want them to think of us as entrepreneurs. I want to think about like…

 

give me proposals, then I will have to make an executive decision because I’m looking at the big picture if we’re going to be doing it or not. And nobody needs to take it personal because what might, we might not be ready today and not because of them, because of other circumstances, it’s there and someone putting it out there is really valuable to me.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (08:41)

No, I completely agree. And what you’ve just described is a big part of the culture that you’re trying to create in your organization. And others might not describe things in the way that you did. But what that’s saying, Lara, is that that’s what it means to work here. I mean, for you and or with you. And that’s important for us as leaders to be clear about what is, what are those skills that we’re looking for, but what are the behaviors that we’re trying to.

 

Lara Schmoisman (08:55)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (09:09)

cultivate together, right? And figure that that’s a huge part of our job as a leader as well.

 

Lara Schmoisman (09:11)

Mm-hmm.

 

It’s absolutely a good part of the job, but I think a lot of people confuse leadership for being a boss or leadership to being able to say, ⁓ I’m a team player. And no, leadership doesn’t mean that you need to be doing the same work as your team. Being a leader, you have to do your own job. And also to me, a keyword is work responsibility. And as I’m not perfect, I make mistakes all the time.

 

And I make myself accountable for the mistakes and I take responsibility for my mistakes.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (09:42)

No.

 

Yeah. And when your team sees you doing that, it improves the likelihood that they will do the same. And there’s where we’re trying to go. So I love that. This is really important conversation. I hope those of you that are listening are listening to what Laura is telling you, because her example is worth following.

 

Lara Schmoisman (10:05)

Yeah, well, but I want to listen from the expert. I’m no expert. I’m just learning as I go. ⁓ My question to you is what are the qualities of the leader? And leadership is something that you can learn or is something that you were born with?

 

Kevin Eikenberry (10:22)

Well, I’ll start with the second part. ⁓ I’ve been asked that question hundreds of times. And, you know, are leaders made or are they born? Right? It’s fundamentally the question. And here’s my answer. Are you ready? Yes. The answer is yes. They are both made and born. Like, here’s the thing. No one was no one ever read a birth announcement that said today we announced the birth of a leader. And yet when you read obituaries,

 

Lara Schmoisman (10:24)

Okay.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah, I’m ready.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (10:49)

You see a whole lot of stuff about people who led in companies and in communities and in churches and in families. And so something’s happening between birth and death. And here’s how I would frame that. That human beings of sound mind and body that make the choices that it takes to become effective leaders can become effective leaders. I do not believe that solely leaders are born.

 

And the second part of your question is, well, what are the traits or what are the skills? And I’ve asked thousands of people that question. And usually the way I do it is I say, okay, everybody think of someone, and you can do this as you listen. Think of someone you think of as a really great leader and then write down five reasons why or three reasons why. And I can get people to do that. And then we start making a list. And it ends up being a very long list, which…

 

Which leads to a very important point, that leadership is complex. There’s a lot to it. There’s not one single right or best answer. And yet everything that ends up on those lists are skills. And if they’re skills, we can learn them, right? So are leaders made? Yes, because we have to, know, are we born, we’re born with the raw DNA that can start that process.

 

Lara Schmoisman (11:56)

But are they hard?

 

Kevin Eikenberry (12:07)

But no one has what it takes to lead at birth or even as a young person. It takes us building skills, honing skills along the way. And really it’s a process that never ends.

 

Lara Schmoisman (12:17)

can say this also for personal experience. I could not be the leader that I am today 20 years ago because I didn’t have the experience. So how important is experience if being a leader?

 

Kevin Eikenberry (12:26)

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

 

Well, it depends on how we use that experience because here’s the thing everyone has experience the question is what do they do with it and

 

You may have heard the joke or even if you haven’t, this will probably make sense to you. There’s a difference between someone who has five years of experience and one year of experience five times. And the difference is reflection.

 

Lara Schmoisman (12:47)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (12:50)

Right? So you said I’ve got 20 years experience. So it’s how you use that experience as the seeds of your future growth. Like if I just keep leading meetings and I never think about whether they worked or whether they didn’t or how I could have made them better, then I’m just going to keep leading meetings. The experience only becomes valuable if I adjust and shift and change and learn from how I did that meeting before I do the next meeting.

 

And so experience by itself just comes from age. The value of the experience comes from reflecting on it and acting on what you’re.

 

Lara Schmoisman (13:22)

Mm-hmm.

 

Absolutely. I cannot agree more on that. But also I think, and let’s go back what we were mentioning before, and that I found that it is a challenge for a lot of leaders, which is adaptability, that they found that something works. But now we work in space. mean, we’ve both been around for a while. I just say the 20 years, so I gave myself away. I, well, mine too. I was just…

 

Kevin Eikenberry (13:50)

Well, my number is bigger than that, so we’ll just stop there.

 

Lara Schmoisman (13:55)

making me look good there. But anyway, I was, my question is, I seen when I started my work working experience, we didn’t have internet, basically, luckily, if we had an email, no, not even that. ⁓ Anyway, and I didn’t even have a cell phone. So my world, I had to learn so many skills as I was going and I’m maybe I’m a little

 

I’m always bringing new technologies, ⁓ but I feel like as a leader, I need to be in the front row and I’m the one who needs to be bringing the change. I think I’m going to keep using this word over and over, that is responsibility. The responsibility of lead by example. Like for example, on weekends, I take certifications on software because I feel like I cannot expect that from my team if I’m not doing it.

 

But when it’s enough, it’s enough for a leader. And when is it, is there a time that it can say, okay, I just lead and let my time, my, are you gonna be lacking as a leader if you stop doing those things?

 

Kevin Eikenberry (15:06)

Well, I think that we have to be judicious about that. there’s two things that you’re modeling for your team when you do what you said on the weekend, right? One thing is you’re working to get a certification so that you have the knowledge and you want to model that they are doing the same. That’s useful. But the other thing you’re modeling for them is working on the weekend. And the question then is, and it’s only a question that you can answer is,

 

Is that what you want to be modeling for them too? So only you can answer. I’m not even asking you to answer here, but that’s the question we have to ask because they’re watching everything, not just the parts we want them to notice. Right? Like I want to shine the light on the fact that I got the certification. I may not want to shine the light on it and do anything else we can take the certification course. So, so here’s what I would say. I think.

 

as leaders and as we grow our businesses or grow our sphere of influence as a leader, whatever that would be for you, there comes a time when we can’t know all of the details of the team. And if we try, we likely won’t succeed. Or even if we do succeed, then our focus is probably not always in the right place. Right? Because we have to be thinking bigger, further, farther.

 

Lara Schmoisman (16:17)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (16:23)

And the more we go into the depth, the harder it is for us to look further, farther, and forward. So we have to be judicious about that. You made the comment earlier, I have to lead by example in terms of ⁓ being able and willing to do the work. I agree. But if we’re doing the work every day, then we’re missing something we could or should be doing as a leader that otherwise won’t get done.

 

Lara Schmoisman (16:46)

Well, no,

 

of course, of course. Maybe I’m giving the example, this was something important. That was a certification that I felt like if I didn’t do it as a leader, I wouldn’t be lacking of helping my team. And I feel like you need to be a support system for your team. If you’re not there for them and you cannot answer questions, you are disturbing your team.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (16:54)

Sure.

 

Yeah.

 

This is true. And if you’ve got 20 people on your team, you can’t know everything. And if you try, you’re, then you, so, so I’m not, I’m not, I’m not at all saying you shouldn’t have taken the certification. I’m asking the broader question for everyone who’s listening, which is we have to be careful about that.

 

Lara Schmoisman (17:13)

No, absolutely no.

 

No.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (17:27)

There are certain things in our businesses that we need to make sure we know. sounds like this was one of those things. Awesome. But that can, that can creep into, need to take every certification. I need to know everything. And there’s a point at which we’ve got to be careful as a leader about that. So I’m commenting for the listener, Laura, more than I am for you in that regard, because it’s, because it’s complicated how we think about all of that. And our intention doesn’t always get seen in the way we.

 

Lara Schmoisman (17:38)

no no no, that would be-

 

No.

 

No, absolutely. But this is my question. When you have a team and I’m thinking from a leader point of view, in one hand, you want to be a supportive leader and understanding. mean, in my case, each department talks their own dialect or language. So you need to be able to understand what each department is working on. Otherwise you are not being able to lead them.

 

However, there are things that every day, I’m not in the everyday things. So I need to trust my team that they will be on top of those things.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (18:32)

100%. So I would think of this using this as an example, this really, this real life example, an example of what I would call a flexor. And the flexor is, I supposed to focus on the big picture or am I supposed to focus on the details? And that’s the wrong question. The reason it’s the wrong question is because as you’ve just described, I have to do a little bit of both. And so the challenge for us as leaders is that most of us,

 

have a preference or have a habit that I’m more big picture or I’m more detail focused. And the reality is as leaders, given the moment, given the situation, given the context, I might need to lean one direction or the other toward big picture or toward details. And we’ve got to be willing and able to flex along that continuum rather than just doing what we’re most comfortable with, what we’re used to, or what we’ve seen past leaders.

 

1. And right. So what you’re you’re describing is I have to you have to find that that you have to deal with that tension for yourself. And you do. All of us have to.

 

Lara Schmoisman (19:37)

⁓ Yeah. But also I seen

 

it out there because I work with multiple companies all the time at any given time that sometimes leaders can create noise. And this noise is created by bringing too much to the table at the same time. And one thing that I always say is me as a leader, I’m trying to remind myself this, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I cannot expect.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (19:54)

For sure.

 

Lara Schmoisman (20:02)

my team to have all the knowledge that I have in order to make those decisions. So I need to make sure that I’m only putting on them without creating confusion. Because also it’s about information. They don’t have all the information that I have, including my experience.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (20:19)

That’s correct. So we have a, so I will state it a different way for everybody that we have a, as leaders, we have a different perspective than our teams have. And sometimes, and so I’m using the word perspective rather than knowledge, because knowledge feels like it’s just like a big old list of stuff. Right. And so I, I often will say to leaders that we have a different perspective than our team. need to understand their perspective. And sometimes we have to lift their eyes.

 

Lara Schmoisman (20:28)

Mm-hmm.

 

Okay.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (20:47)

to see ours, that future forward bigger picture than they see. And yet we need to understand what they see as well. That comes with the job and that’s often really hard for leaders to navigate.

 

Lara Schmoisman (21:00)

Okay, something important that they brought to my attention a while ago is that companies or employees in many cases, they believe that in order to grow professionally, they need to get a leadership role, which I completely disagree with. I think that if you’re an expert in something and you’re really good at the skill, you should be having the opportunity of growing because you are…

 

such a good individual with a skill.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (21:32)

Well, that’s a big societal question, right? So perhaps in your company or in the company that any of you are working in, you have the ability to build your career along a technical track, if you will, right? ⁓ But you know what? We’ve all grown up in a world that says at some level, success looks like climbing the ladder. That ⁓ I really…

 

haven’t been successful until I’m leading others. Or in some cases, the only way I can make more money or have more prestige is to lead other people. And so I’m not saying that that’s always correct, but what I’m saying is that that’s the narrative in nearly everyone’s head. And so that’s the challenge for us as owners, as founders, is to think about how do we value

 

Lara Schmoisman (22:13)

It is.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (22:22)

the various skills and things that people bring to our organization and can we and will we and are we able to compensate people in ways, in a variety of ways that might not mean only from becoming, moving into a leadership management sort of role. And so you ask a really big question and it’s easy to say, well, people shouldn’t have to. And yet there’s an awful lot of things that even subconsciously to sort of push people in that direction.

 

And sometimes in organizations, we push people in that direction because very often across.

 

Lara Schmoisman (22:54)

Yeah, I

 

think that not everyone need to have the skills or want to have those skills or want to be just have it. Let’s put that’s an example, a designer. Someone could be a really great designer and didn’t have the desire of managing people. Why they will stop the growth. so I think that’s a…

 

bigger conversation, of course, and it’s not about leadership. But one of the things that I learned, and probably you did too, as teaching, and you are doing it all the time to me, which is fantastic. You’re putting my ideas in professional words, which it’s great, and I appreciate it because I’m not a specialist in leadership. I noticed that when I started teaching, I had to reframe how I was explaining things, or how even I was understanding things.

 

Because I did things because I did, because I understand the concept. When you have to explain things to others, it’s completely different. And that’s one of the skills that also leadership requires.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (23:57)

I’ll just say one thing about, first of all, 100 % that’s true. And the one thing I’ll say about that is…

 

The first thing that you should do if you find yourself in that situation is ask yourself this question. ⁓ What was it like when I was learning it?

 

Because if you’ve been doing something, whatever it is, designing, leading, selling, no matter what it is, for a long time, then you have all this profound knowledge that’s just sitting in your head, stuff that you don’t even, that you just think everybody knows. And they don’t. And so we, it doesn’t mean, we end up feeling like we’re dumbing it down for them. No, we’re not. We’re just bringing it down to where they’re at. And it’s not that they’re not smart.

 

It’s they don’t have all, they can’t connect all of the dots that we connect automatically yet. So the question to ask is, what was it like when I was a beginner? Remember when I was a beginner in this thing and how would I need to learn it or want to learn it or what did I need to learn next when I was there? We want, when we are the expert, we want to go fast because we want to get them to where we are, but you didn’t go from zero to 60.

 

Lara Schmoisman (24:50)

I get it.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (25:04)

And so we can’t take them from zero to 16.

 

Lara Schmoisman (25:06)

Absolutely. So if someone wants to become, start their leadership career, say, okay, I’m ready. I know now that I want to be a leader that maybe I believe I could be a leader or I’m not sure I can be a leader. But I feel like that’s the next step in my career for growth, for personal growth, money, whatever reason it is.

 

Where do you start? Because you cannot go to your boss and say, want to be a leader. You need to demonstrate leadership.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (25:40)

Well, you can certainly let people know that you believe that that’s what you aspire to, right? ⁓ But then you need to go to work, right? To your point. And so I do think that it’s in your best interest to let people know that that’s the path you’d like to take. And I think you can certainly ask them for feedback about what they see as your strengths and areas for growth in the area of leadership. can do that. But what I will tell you is that our world

 

Lara Schmoisman (25:48)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (26:06)

gives us more opportunities to start to learn those skills now than ever before. But before we get to all that stuff, I would simply say this. If we want to start to be a more effective leader, we want to learn what it means to be a leader, start observing leaders and start observing what they’re doing. ⁓ Find a mentor that you can say, well, I saw you doing this. Why did you do it that way? What were you thinking? What was the process that you used to think that through? So start.

 

Lara Schmoisman (26:32)

And

 

I will add one more thing. I will add one more thing to that. See what you don’t like about leaders.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (26:33)

Start seeing the world through a leadership lens is what I’m saying.

 

Absolutely. That’s where I was going to go next. So you can, we can observe any leader, including those that we don’t want to emulate because we can say, yeah, I don’t want to do that. Or, and you know what? There are a lot of people, there are very few leaders that are trying to mess it up. Right? They’re doing what they believe ⁓ is the best approach.

 

Lara Schmoisman (26:57)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (27:03)

And so we may say, well, I don’t want to do it that way. But then the question you’ve got to ask is, why don’t I want to do it that way? What is it that they’re doing that’s about that that’s not helpful or isn’t working in this situation? So yes, we can learn from leaders who we want to look up to, and we can learn from leaders who we don’t want to emulate as well. When we start to look at the world through a leadership lens, that’s the first step. Then we got resources everywhere. We got books by people like me.

 

We’ve got YouTube, mean, like literally the options. They are more than ever.

 

Lara Schmoisman (27:36)

No, Anna, I just want to say

 

something. When you become a leader, ⁓ be kind to yourself. Don’t everything is black or white. There is a lot of grace.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (27:48)

There’s

 

very little that’s actually black and white. Almost everything. When you were a technical expert, a designer, an accountant, whatever, much more of, there were many more right answers and more things were black and white. As you move into the role of leading others, reaching valuable outcomes with and through other people, the world becomes less either or and more both and. Just like we said earlier about details and big picture.

 

Lara Schmoisman (27:51)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. you’re

 

yes, but you’re leading people. There is a whole part about you are talking to other human beings, even though you have to get work ready and done, you need to be human first.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (28:27)

Well, because the people that you are leading are human, right? And they’re both amazing and messy, and so are we. And so we have to be, we have to realize that if we want to become more effective leaders, it’s a lifelong complex journey. And it certainly is in part because there are human beings involved, including ourselves.

 

Lara Schmoisman (28:32)

Mm-hmm.

 

Absolutely. Well, that’s a great, beautiful way to finish this conversation. Thank you so much, Kevin. It was wonderful to having coffee or tea in your case with you today.

 

Kevin Eikenberry (28:58)

It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

 

Lara Schmoisman (29:00)

And to you guys, I will see you next week with coffee number five.