Radical Humility: How to be Good Human and a Badass Leader with Urs Koenig
Urs Koenig - Leadership Expert, Bestselling Author, UN Peacekeeper, Ultra
Endurance Champion, Widely Published Professor
When companies need to inspire, engage, and develop their people while at the same time delivering stellar results in today’s hyper-competitive and complex business environment, they call Urs Koenig.
Urs is a bestselling author and one of the world’s top thought leaders on humble leadership. His message of Radical Humility in leadership draws on his world-spanning career growing leaders on four continents. Urs’ research-backed Radical Humility Framework is packed with tangible tools and practical takeaways, leaving audience members with the ultimate actionable blueprint for a new type of leader for a new type of world.
Humility often gets a bad rap in leadership. Our guest in this episode unpacks how humble leadership leads to incredible outcomes for teams and organizations, and in fact complements your confidence, decisiveness and ambition as a leader.
Bestselling Author, Ultra Endurance Champion, Widely Published Professor Urs Koenig has identified a new leadership framework – Radical Humility – that replaces the top-down, “heroic” leadership of the past with a more human-centered approach, viewing humility as a strength and key to achieving goals in today’s complex world.
Urs’ latest best selling book, Radical Humility: Be a Badass Leader and a Good Human, centers on five Shifts that will help you elevate your leadership from the old Heroic narrative to the modern, dynamic of radical humility.
This conversation is packed with insight, tools and practical takeaways, giving you an actionable blueprint for your own journey of radical humility. Urs’ message draws on his world-spanning career growing leaders on four continents including as a UN peacekeeper, top consultant and a sought after executive coach. Learning from Urs left us delighted, smiling, inspired and invigorated to tap deeper into our own radical humility as humans and as leaders.
Learn more about Urs Koenig
Urs is a bestselling author, one of the world’s leading experts on humble leadership, a former UN peacekeeper and NATO peacekeeping commander, a highly accomplished ultraendurance champion, a widely published professor, and a seasoned executive coach and keynote speaker with more than three decades of experience helping hundreds of leaders and dozens of executive teams unlock new levels of achievement across four continents.
He is the founder of the Radical Humility Leadership Institute and speaks frequently on the topic of leadership to corporations and associations across the globe. His message of Radical Humility in leadership has inspired teams from across the spectrum, including Amazon, Starbucks, the Society of Human Resource Management, Vistage, the University of Melbourne, and Microsoft. He holds a PhD in geography and a Master of Science from the University of Zürich, Switzerland, and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management.
Urs is the loving father of two teenage boys who make commanding soldiers look easy. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Learn more about Urs Koenig and find his new book here:
Connect with Urs Koenig on LinkedIn here.
Get your copy of Urs’ book Radical Humility: Be a Badass Leader and a Good Human here.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Sally Clarke: Welcome to We Are Human Leaders. Humility often gets a bad rap in leadership. Our guest today unpacks how humble leadership leads to incredible outcomes for teams and organizations, and in fact complements your confidence, decisiveness, and ambition as a leader. Best selling author, ultra endurance champion, and widely published professor, Urs Koenig, has identified a new leadership framework.
[00:00:33] Sally Clarke: Radical Humility that replaces the top down heroic leadership of the past with a more human centered approach, viewing humility as a strength and a key to achieving goals in today's complex world. Ursa's latest best selling book, Radical Humility, Be a Badass Leader and a Good Human. Centres on five shifts that will help you elevate your leadership from the old heroic narrative to the modern dynamic of radical humility.
[00:01:00] Sally Clarke: This conversation is packed with insight, tools and practical takeaways, giving you an actionable blueprint for your own journey of radical humility. Urs's message draws on his world spanning career growing leaders on four continents, Including as a UN peacekeeper, top consultant, and a sought after executive coach.
[00:01:18] Sally Clarke: Learning from Urs's left, Alexis and I delighted, smiling, inspired, and invigorated to tap deeper into our own radical humility as humans and as leaders. Let's delve in.
[00:01:31] Alexis Zahner: Welcome to We Are Human Leaders, Urs. It's an absolute pleasure to have you here with us today. And before we dive into your important work, we'd love to get to know you a little bit more first and the journey that's brought you to where you are now.
[00:01:44] Urs Koenig: Absolutely. Well, thanks for having me, Alexis and Sally. It's really appreciated. Great to be here. Well, I have a very eclectic background. I was a collegiate level cross country skier. We just talked about the fact in the green room that I. Raised and trained in Australia quite a bit, actually. And then was an academic for most of my twenties in geography.
[00:02:03] Urs Koenig: And, um, after that transitioned into management consulting briefly before I started my journey in executive development, uh, leadership development as a coach for the last almost 24 years, and then. I deployed, uh, in 2017 to my first peacekeeping mission in my 50s, and we can chat more about that. That was a humbling experience going back into the military after having been out for 22 years.
[00:02:27] Urs Koenig: I was in the Balkans in Kosovo for nine months, and then two years ago, I was here for the UN in the Middle East as a peacekeeper as well. And so now, I mean, I love leadership. Because I love people. So that's where I'm at. I just enjoy getting difficult projects done with people who I care about. So, and I've always been drawn to that sort of intersection between hard problems, whatever that might be, an ultra cycling race or a hard athletic adventure or a business challenge and doing it with people who I care about.
[00:02:56] Urs Koenig: So that's a little bit about my journey.
[00:02:58] Alexis Zahner: Thank you. And it's interesting because it does sound that, you know, you started in geography, you mentioned, and then went into management consulting. Then into leadership development and then back into military service was leadership and solving these hard problems with through line or what was the jump from geography into management consultancy specifically?
[00:03:16] Alexis Zahner: That's an interesting one.
[00:03:17] Urs Koenig: Oh yeah. Plenty of interesting jobs in my career. Absolutely. I think honestly the coaching aspect. I enjoyed in all the different lines of my work. So as an academic, you know, I coached, I mentored post grad students and also undergrad. So that was, and then in management consulting, there is a coaching element there as well.
[00:03:36] Urs Koenig: And then actually I had a bit of a career crisis after my management consulting work in Sydney where, you know, all the money and all the accolades and all the rest of it. And I did not like the work at all. So I actually looked back then over the course of my career and sort of identified this coaching element that was sort of the through line and then went into a full time coaching after that.
[00:03:56] Sally Clarke: I love that you really took that moment and that opportunity to kind of be very thoughtful and mindful about the next choice that you made. It sounds or she looked back and really evaluated. What stands out for me and what sort of makes me come alive and then shaped the next steps around that. And we love the evolution that's been going on since, and particularly your incredible new book, Radical Humility, Be a Badass Leader and a Good Human.
[00:04:19] Sally Clarke: Fantastic title. And we're going to unpack that a little bit with you today, but we'd love to start by hearing your personal definition of humble leadership and in particular, it's four dimensions.
[00:04:29] Urs Koenig: Absolutely. So I do think of. Humble leadership as standing on three legs, and then there's an undergirding theme.
[00:04:35] Urs Koenig: So the first leg is deep self awareness. And that's what people often think of when they think of humility. I see myself accurately. You know, not too low, not too high. I see myself accurately. So having good self awareness, seeing myself in line without others seeing me. An aspect there as well is this notion of focus, having the humility to know that I can't do everything, but I can do almost anything if I put my heart into it, and then the skill to fail successfully.
[00:05:04] Urs Koenig: And I write about it in my book, like my biggest athletic failure that almost cost me my life. So how do I come back from failures and setbacks without shame, without embarrassment, but actually learning from the experience? So that's sort of the first leg of the school, the self awareness. The second leg is leading relationally.
[00:05:20] Urs Koenig: So that's on a one on one basis, building meaningful and collaborative relationships with our team members. And, you know, that's heavily leaning on Ed and Peter Schein's work, who actually wrote the first book on humble leadership, other than Jim Collins, who wrote about it as well, but, you know, as a side note in his book.
[00:05:38] Urs Koenig: And they really emphasize this notion of strong collaborative relationships. So seeing my people as All human beings versus just cocks in the wheel who get stuff done for us. So that's one on one. And then the third leg of the school stool is leading relationally on organizational level. I know you had a great mentor and colleague of mine on your podcast, Amy Edmondson, so leading heavily.
[00:05:58] Urs Koenig: On her work on how do I build a fearless culture a psychologically safe culture Where it's safe for anybody to speak up without risk of being shamed or worse risk in their career So these are the three legs of the stool and then underneath all of that is the famous growth mindset So how do I look at mistakes and failures as an opportunity for learning and growing versus something to be ashamed of or worse?
[00:06:20] Urs Koenig: You know, sweep under the carpet. So that's how I define leading with humility or leading with radical humility.
[00:06:26] Sally Clarke: Brilliant Urs. What an incredible framework. It's almost hard to know where to start sort of unpicking that. I think I love that there's this sort of underlying layer of growth mindset. And can you explain to us a little bit about why that is so foundational to the other three pillars or legs of the framework?
[00:06:43] Urs Koenig: Well, it sort of ties in why I call it radical. By the way, it's a great book title. So that's where we start That's my flip answer, but this stuff is hard I mean, you know, but you know better than anybody the soft stuff is not soft The soft stuff is tough and anybody who claims otherwise is full of you know, what so there's no question about that So what that means is that when something is tough We're going to fail.
[00:07:05] Urs Koenig: We're going to make mistakes. You know, I'm going to increase my self awareness by asking for feedback. I'm going to mess up how I do it. I'm going to build relationships. I'm going to go too far. I'm not going to go too far enough. So the whole notion, we need to lean into this comfort and we need to really embrace the discomfort.
[00:07:22] Urs Koenig: and learn from whatever mistakes we make and course correct. So that's why it's foundational.
[00:07:26] Alexis Zahner: It's a brilliant insight Urs. And you know, Sally and I always say in our work that the soft stuff is increasingly being recognized as core competencies in leadership. And we're really grateful that work like yours actually allows us to have this conversation as them not being in addition to expertise and knowledge and technical skill, but.
[00:07:43] Alexis Zahner: Foundational in leadership. Sure, you might make a great engineering employee or a software developer when you have a really deep knowledge of Python programming or whatever it is, but then to step into the dimension of actually caring for and leading other people forward, that technical skill will only get us so far.
[00:07:59] Alexis Zahner: So we're really grateful to have this exploration of these as core competencies. And I'd love to know you. In your research and in your work, how does this specific type of leadership, humble leadership differ from other types of leadership we might've heard of, such as servant or transactional leadership or transformational rather, and obviously very much different from transactional.
[00:08:20] Urs Koenig: Absolutely. By the way, I just read an article yesterday, to your point, Alexis, which talked about the fact that investment bankers now increasingly look for those soft skills and train those soft skills, right? And not just to your point as an additional, but as a must have. And you know, you and I know the higher we rise in an organization, the more important those skills become.
[00:08:40] Urs Koenig: So, you know, I often get asked that very question, how's it different from servant leadership, transformational leadership? And it's not. It's foundational. So I don't see it as a competing leadership model at all. If you think about it, I can only serve my people if I truly know and understand them. What are their strengths?
[00:08:57] Urs Koenig: What are their weaknesses? Where do they want to go? I mean, I talk about this notion of a leadership factor, which we can touch on later, but taking pride in my people's success. You know, making it my explicit goal to help them go to the next level. So that's how it's undergirding servant leadership. And in transformational leadership, you know, my folks won't achieve that transformation we all seek if we haven't empowered them, if we aren't able to step out of the spotlight and let them shine.
[00:09:23] Urs Koenig: So it's not a competing model, but it's sort of under Pins, these, uh, other leadership models.
[00:09:29] Sally Clarke: It's such a fabulous way of framing it, because I think, you know, we have this idea that it's all kind of competing products, if you will, these kinds of different types of leadership, when you just, you know, elucidated so clearly how there's almost, you know, all may be heading in the same direction, just in perhaps a different way of looking at it and different way of describing it.
[00:09:45] Sally Clarke: But a really beautiful delineation there between. Humble leadership in other forms, and I'd like to get a little bit devil's advocate, former lawyer. It's just what I do, but I'm curious because this word humility, we hear it a lot these days in the context of leadership. How would you say to someone who's perhaps a little bit curious or a bit hesitant about using the term?
[00:10:04] Sally Clarke: How does humility sit alongside concepts such as confidence and ambition and decisiveness for a leader?
[00:10:12] Urs Koenig: So the lawyer, lawyer in me says I'm disagreeing with everything you just said, you know, just on principle. Just because. Yeah. So that's another sort of pushback I get quite often. How can I be confident and also be humble?
[00:10:24] Urs Koenig: And so that's actually the most frequent one I hear. And I'm very clear, you know, humility, leading with humility does not mean I'm weak. It doesn't mean I'm a pushover. I'm not an emotional doormat at all. And, you know, I'll answer your question in a second, but as a humble leader, sometimes the most loving thing I can do is, you know, Is actually let somebody go.
[00:10:42] Urs Koenig: We can do it with compassion. We can do it with heart, but if it's the right thing to do, we let them go. So I actually would argue that confidence and humility go hand in hand. If you think about it, I need to have a fundamentally strong sense of self to, for example, invite feedback on my performance as a leader.
[00:10:59] Urs Koenig: So Alexis, I ask you every week, what am I doing well as a manager? What can I do better as a manager? I need to be fundamentally having a strong sense of self to ask these humble questions. So, uh, you know, rather than be a contradiction, it's really compliment or goes hand in hand, I need to be confident to actually ask the hard questions and show up with humility.
[00:11:19] Urs Koenig: And then not only hear the feedback, but act on it. So that would be my comeback to that. And in terms of ambition, what does ambition look, looks like? It looks like asking hard questions. Why are we failing? What business are we really in? And what's my part in us not being as successful as we can be? And asking those questions, that's the definition of being ambitious.
[00:11:40] Urs Koenig: But they're humble questions. They're questions that dig deep, that, you know, look deep in, within myself and within my team members. So again, this ambition and humility go hand in hand in my book.
[00:11:51] Alexis Zahner: Thank you for that, Urs. And tell me, is there a difference between being humble and this step towards radical humility?
[00:11:57] Alexis Zahner: What takes it into this radical dimension?
[00:12:00] Urs Koenig: Well, I think it's a great book title. That's my flip answer, right? So radical humility. It is. It actually really is. I humbly say so. But on a serious note, you can't half ass humility. You can't just do it because you, one day you feel like you want to be nice or you want to be liked.
[00:12:16] Urs Koenig: It's an all in game. You can't half ass it. And so that's why it's radical. We do it and it's hard. The soft stuff is hard. And so that's why it's radical. We don't just do it on the nice days when everything is hunky dory. We need to do it when things are tough, when we have insecurities, when we don't know exactly which direction we're going as well.
[00:12:35] Alexis Zahner: That's a great point Oz. And to that point, interestingly, you know, Sally and I in, in the work we do, we get asked questions around things like empathy training, vulnerability training, trust, these sort of concepts one off. And I see that there is a bit of a trend in leadership development and management consultancy right now to Want to develop these things in people so that they drive a means to an end in business, which they do.
[00:12:56] Alexis Zahner: However, my point is often that people have a really good bullshit detector. So if we are sort of in a place of pseudo empathy or pseudo humility, people are going to call us out. And I wonder, has that been your experience in, you know, trying to conceptually get people to understand this, but then to do it in a way that's genuine and really felt by the people in their teams as well?
[00:13:17] Urs Koenig: That's a really great point. Absolutely. Sort of what is the humble brag, right? They call it. So yeah. So yes, I think that is absolutely like with anything, you know, when we're changing, I mean, you see this in your work with clients when we're changing, it can feel at first like I'm like not myself. I'm a phony, somebody who's a you know, hard nosed, Business driver doesn't really care about people.
[00:13:38] Urs Koenig: When they for the first time display even a tiny bit of vulnerability, it might feel to them like they're a bit of a phony. So you need to lean into that and see how it lands and ask for feedback and then course correct. Absolutely. But you know, I, I, you know that I write about vulnerability quite a bit in the book and it is, I feel so strong about this.
[00:13:57] Urs Koenig: It is. When done, to your point, when done right, when done sincerely is the word I'm looking for. When done sincerely, it is the quickest way to build trust. I have a great study I quote in a book where pairs of complete strangers are brought into a lab and they're tasked with asking and responding to meaningful questions like, what does love and friendship mean to you?
[00:14:16] Urs Koenig: Or if you only had one year to live, what would you change? And after 45 minutes, these complete strangers were asked to rate the level of trust they developed with the other partner. And they rated the level of trust about as high as the average level of trust they have with people in their lives. Some even rated it as high as with their significant other.
[00:14:36] Urs Koenig: And one parent, I love this, even got married. So the research is crystal clear. Vulnerability, even for short periods of time, is the quickest and most powerful way to build trust. And just one last thing to close the loop on vulnerability. I like to talk about vulnerability in three acts. The first act is me.
[00:14:51] Urs Koenig: The second act is my little insecurity or a goal I'm working on. And the third act is what am I going to do about it? So let's cover all three acts and not stop at the first or second.
[00:15:02] Sally Clarke: So beautifully put, Urs. You have to think in some level of this, both humility and vulnerability. require a level of authenticity.
[00:15:09] Sally Clarke: And I think for a lot of us, when we've been taught that we have to behave in a particular way or perform in a particular way, in a work context, that that does require a level of radical action to sort of cross a threshold towards being, you know, present in the moment and having that, that moment of candor, which can feel very, Scary as you alluded to for leaders who aren't used to it.
[00:15:28] Sally Clarke: And yet that transformative impact that it has then, when you see that that translates into deeper connection, into building trust and respect and deeper relationships within our team. So I'm really love the title of the book, but I also really appreciate that you've used specifically that word radical, because it is that, you know, take a deep breath and cross a threshold.
[00:15:47] Sally Clarke: This is not half assing it. This is something deeper. Now you've identified in the book really beautifully these then to now shifts around in the context of leadership that form part of the journey to radical humility from then to now. So could you walk us through And I know this is a lot and we're not going to share the whole book conversation, but could you briefly walk us through each of these five shifts that form part of this journey to radical humility?
[00:16:12] Urs Koenig: Absolutely. So, and this is going to overlay the definition I gave you, of course, earlier. So the first shift is what I call dig deep. So that's the self awareness piece, right? I think I covered that. So understanding myself in line without a see me, the notion of focus, stop doing lists, it's like all that good stuff that we so often struggle with not.
[00:16:31] Urs Koenig: Celebrating business as a badge of honor, like many of us do. And this notion of failing successfully. The second shift, which goes into leading relationally on a team basis, is what I call tough on results and tender on people. Holding my people to the highest standards while building meaningful and collaborative relationships with them.
[00:16:49] Urs Koenig: So the thesis here is that the notion that we either have to be a team, Nice person or a tough leader is a false dichotomy. We actually can all courageously do hard things in a human way. And as I shared earlier, sometimes, you know, we need to make hard calls. We need to let somebody go. And it can be the most loving thing we do.
[00:17:05] Urs Koenig: I have a story in the book where I share how my commander in my peacekeeping mission in Kosovo opened a meeting with me with these words. He said, I love you Urs. You know, I do. And your work is not even close to being good enough. Like that is tough on results, tender on people. And it made me shrink in my chair, of course.
[00:17:23] Urs Koenig: And it made me turn myself inside out to then deliver, you know, the best possible work. Now, if he would have yelled at me, if he would have belittled me, I would have just tuned him out. That's the power of tough on results, tender on people. The third shift, which is also leading relationally on a one on one basis, is this notion of leading like a coach.
[00:17:40] Urs Koenig: Compass, and I think we're going to go in a bit more depth later. So I'm going to skip that one if that's okay. The fourth one is full transparency. So this is, you know, if we want our frontline people to really be empowered, to make good, smart decisions independently, like we all want this leaders and they need to know more.
[00:17:56] Urs Koenig: They need to know more about management's intentions, rationales, and goals. And the only way they'll know more is if we share more. So that's the sort of full transparency around our business objectives. And there, and we just talked about vulnerability. It's also. You know, sharing, as I put it, where I suck.
[00:18:12] Urs Koenig: So being very transparent and open about what I'm working on and what happens when we demonstrate to our team members that we're having goals of our own. It makes us relatable. Everybody admires perfection from a distance. Nobody can relate to it. And, you know, Brene Brown says famously, of course, vulnerability is the last thing I want to show you and it's the first thing I'm looking for in you.
[00:18:32] Urs Koenig: So that's the full transparency. And then lastly, the fifth shift is the leading relationally on an organization level, that's psychological safety. How do I build a fearless team? And I have a little framework in there from reframing failure, encouraging, speaking up, acknowledging, and thanking. And then the notion that experientially learning together with my team members, where I'm too as the boss, a beginner, that is an incredibly powerful way to build a fearless and psychologically safe culture.
[00:19:00] Urs Koenig: So that's the book in. Two and a half minutes.
[00:19:03] Alexis Zahner: Quite an incredible elevator pitch, I must say.
[00:19:06] Urs Koenig: I've never done it before. You heard it here first.
[00:19:13] Alexis Zahner: We like to put their pressure on, yeah. Well, we do want to dive into the Like a Compass, but before I do, I just want to backtrack for a moment to the section on Tough on Results.
[00:19:22] Alexis Zahner: tender on people because as someone who's been a leader of people myself and something that we also get asked quite commonly is what does this look like? How do I do this? And one word that I heard you mention that is a word that I dislike so immensely is the word nice. And nice is a word that gives me the ick.
[00:19:39] Alexis Zahner: I hope I never get called nice, but I hope I get called kind. And I would love. To just throw another sort of question into the mix, if you will, can you help us understand the difference between nice and kind and why kind leaders are tough on results and tender on people? And perhaps unpack that little difference for us there.
[00:19:58] Urs Koenig: Hmm. Now you're putting me on the spot. That's not nice, Alexis.
[00:20:04] Alexis Zahner: Sorry. I knew you could handle it. That's why I'm doing it, Oz.
[00:20:08] Urs Koenig: So I want to really answer your question. So you don't like nice, but you like kind.
[00:20:13] Alexis Zahner: Agreed. Yes, that's right.
[00:20:15] Urs Koenig: Yes. Yeah. And can you tell me more why that is?
[00:20:18] Alexis Zahner: I think people confuse the two words and I think there's a distinct reason why we use two words and they're not the same thing.
[00:20:24] Alexis Zahner: So for me, nice is someone who perhaps is people pleasing on a superficial level. They want to appear a certain way to others. Whereas I believe. Kindness is about honesty, transparency, truth, and that element of vulnerability that you mentioned. So, for me, nice is how we want to appear on the surface. Kind is actually leaning into this idea that the relationship is more important than how I present.
[00:20:48] Urs Koenig: So, with that definition, I 100 percent subscribe to your point that, and I said nice before, the notion that we either have to be a kind person or a tough leader is a false dichotomy. So let me be crystal clear, you know, I think I have a little two by two in there. So the conflict averse leaders, that's not humility.
[00:21:07] Urs Koenig: So this is people who, you know, nothing ever gets corrected. They don't speak the truth, not theirs or others. And what happens to nice leaders? They, you know, either are just pretending or the standards continue to slide. And by the way, if you're then, by your definition, I believe, if you're leading as a nice leader, you burn out because you do your team members work, right?
[00:21:25] Urs Koenig: And so I absolutely agree with you that with your definition, kind is the way to go, not nice.
[00:21:30] Sally Clarke: Yeah, I have to say I align myself with that definition and my, the way I differentiate it sometimes is that kindness comes from courage, which comes from that heart energy and that means there is, it doesn't necessarily look nice, but it's the kind, the kind action.
[00:21:43] Sally Clarke: Really appreciate you also underscoring that the nice behavior can very quickly lead to burnout because it's a very one directional giving from just from the wrong place. Absolutely.
[00:21:53] Alexis Zahner: Now it was to jump back into the question we did prepare for you. And that is looking specifically at the lead like a compass section of your book, which is really the shift from the then, which is micromanagement into the now, which is empowering our people.
[00:22:07] Alexis Zahner: Can you help us understand what some of the key strategies leaders who are listening can use to empower their team and become what you call in the book, a talent magnet?
[00:22:16] Urs Koenig: Yeah, thank you. I love that question. So let's actually first. quickly talk about why we tend to not lead like a compass. So if we're honest, many of us, most of us, if we're honest as leaders, we love to be asked for advice.
[00:22:30] Urs Koenig: We love to make decisions. We love to give input. Why? We love to be in the weeds because it makes us feel important. It makes us feel needed. It makes us feel like we matter and we add value. Right? And so that's, I think, where we have to start in recognizing that's true for most of us, if we're honest. And so we really have to fight that urge to, you know, as I put it, lead like a compass.
[00:22:50] Urs Koenig: And so the overarching idea is how do I empower my people at the front lines to make good independent decisions on their own? And so you ask for specific strategies. One I absolutely love is clarify with your team which decisions you expect them to make by themselves and which you expect them to come to you with For advice.
[00:23:11] Urs Koenig: So when's the last time you clarified all your listeners out there to your team? These are decisions I expect you to make on your own These are the things I expect you to solve on your own and this is where you need to bring me in So, you know Classic examples for things I need. I want my people to come to me are in a resource scarcity.
[00:23:29] Urs Koenig: If there is a conflict in a overall purpose. And so that's a great way to start empowering my team members. And then very simple. A lot of things go through your to do list and ask yourself for every single item, who else can and should do this? What's the lowest level in your organization that can actually lowest level in order, even in word of commas, closer to the front lines that can actually do this same for decisions.
[00:23:52] Urs Koenig: It's. Every decision you're making, you know, I sometimes do this with executive coaching clients. I actually have a list of to dos and a list of decisions and then have a conversation about each of these items. Who else can and should do this? So that's two strategies I like to work on with my clients.
[00:24:09] Urs Koenig: Oh, and then you asked about Leadership Factory. Yeah, so the leadership factory is this notion that I might have mentioned earlier, I believe I make it the explicit goal for each of my team members to go to the next level, whatever that might look like, you know, some shouldn't and don't want to become managers and that's fine, make them gurus or, you know, subject expertise experts or whatever, but really making it this explicit goal for each of my team members to go to the next level and hold the regular What I call career path meetings with my team members and having a clear understanding of where they want to go next.
[00:24:42] Urs Koenig: And, you know, I often ask my clients, why do we not have these conversations, these career path conversations? Because we're afraid of the answers. They all think of going somewhere else. And so, you know, and we too are thinking about potentially moving on. Let's be honest. We all think about what might be next.
[00:24:57] Urs Koenig: And so by making it an explicit conversation, we bring it into the open. Let's be real. Our people move on. And we should be proud of that. I'd like to really flip it around and I get it look in the real world You lose people even when they go on to greener pastures It sucks because you have to train you have to hire like all that stuff and yet all the leaders I work with who are in the later stages of their career Their biggest pride their biggest joy is seeing the people who they mentored and had along the way Go on and have amazing success and there is actually also bottom line benefits to that.
[00:25:29] Urs Koenig: So I talk about the ambassador effect when my people get promoted, you know, within my organization, in a large organization or outside of the organization, they become ambassadors for our brand, for me personally, potentially even. And then boomerang, right? What's the recent study? 30 percent of employees are boomerang employees.
[00:25:45] Urs Koenig: If you treated them well until the very end, they might actually consider coming back. to you and you want to be the first person they think of when they're looking at coming back to your organization. So that's this concept of leadership factory, really making it my pride to help my people go to the next level.
[00:26:00] Sally Clarke: I love that for a couple of reasons, Urs, and one is I think we can really define the next level in so many ways. It might be growing through an organization's hierarchy, but it might also be their own sort of personal growth or their own career development that is the next level for them. And so I think it's really important that we can see that broadly.
[00:26:17] Sally Clarke: They're not everyone necessarily needs to be. To sort of grow through a managerial structure. But what you also mentioned that really means a lot to me is this idea that we shouldn't talk about these things as if we, if we don't talk about it, it won't happen. And ironically, when we don't talk about what people's goals and desires are, or we micromanaging control in the meantime.
[00:26:37] Sally Clarke: They end up leaving anyway, and what we've done is they missed an opportunity to connect with them and to build a relationship that lasts. And I think, you know, it's such an important point, I think, and an opportunity for leaders to be able to build a deeper relationship again with their team to understand what their path might be and to help them along the way.
[00:26:55] Sally Clarke: And the great thing is, of course, when you have that ongoing relationship with your people that might be, you know, six months in, it's this, two years later, it's that. this and then maybe you catch up for coffee with them 10 years down the track and wild things have happened in the meantime. And I think that's such a beautifully, you know, a
[00:27:08] Urs Koenig: courageous approach for leaders to take.
[00:27:10] Urs Koenig: Yeah, no, I tend to 100 percent agree and you know, let's, you know, sometimes it's actually, I want to help my team member to be able to take a year of paternity leave. Like literally, I mean, I'm talking even at that level. And so, you know, taking care of your people in that way, you know, it always pays in the long run.
[00:27:26] Urs Koenig: There isn't, there's no question about it.
[00:27:28] Alexis Zahner: Or as, as someone who's led a team in the past myself, this is really hard. And when you were speaking then, one of the things that struck me that I now have the recognition and the acknowledgement I did that really badly, but one thing that I feel a lot of leaders get stuck in and certainly was my case is the more we do for people, the more people rely and expect us to do that.
[00:27:48] Alexis Zahner: And it took me a really long time and a long time of externalizing the blame saying, Oh, my team just cannot competently do these tasks. They cannot make decisions. They cannot do that. Before eventually I realized. And it was through an employee coming to me and saying, Hey, I just want you to know, we know that you have our best interests at heart, but what you say and what you do aren't aligned.
[00:28:10] Alexis Zahner: And often you say, Hey guys, I need you to come to me with feedback, or I need you to make this decision, but your tone and your body language is almost like, I dare you to challenge me. And so it took me a really candid conversation and a rude awakening to realize I'm actually getting in my own way. And why I wanted to, to share that is because Your very first point around having that transparent conversation with your team to understand what decisions should sit with whom and when your team should feel empowered and know that not only are they empowered to make decisions, but there's actually an implicit trust behind you allowing that.
[00:28:44] Alexis Zahner: And there won't be a repercussion if the decision goes awry. I just wanted to pause on that. It's seemingly such a big deal. straightforward thing to do, have that conversation and actually shift that power elsewhere. But in my experience as a leader, when I was able to actually start doing that and then standing behind that decision to empower people, I have never seen anything radically shift my relationship with my people faster.
[00:29:05] Alexis Zahner: And I think it is one of the most potent tools we can do as a leader.
[00:29:09] Urs Koenig: I love your share. Thanks. That's amazing. Like I love that you described your own sort of transformation there, right? And so and you need to have the right people in the room I mean, that's the other piece like let's be real like you need to have the right people exactly, right?
[00:29:21] Urs Koenig: And so you need to stretch them. You need to be Always feeling a little bit uncomfortable as a leader. That's the good spot to be. Like, I think it's a bit of a stretch for Sally, but I think she can do it. Like, that's a good place to be. And by the way, your people will hang around longer. Your good people will hang around longer the more you do this.
[00:29:39] Urs Koenig: The more you empower and challenge them, because you know, guess what? And then you become a talent incubator, right? It work gets around. Oh, and Alexis team, we get stretched. We learn new stuff and the good people will line up to work for you. And that's actually closing the loop. You ask about the talent magnet.
[00:29:53] Urs Koenig: So that's what happens, right? Work gets around on Alexis teams, you go far. So people will line up to want to work for you. Absolutely.
[00:30:00] Sally Clarke: Amazing. I think it's a powerful insight for all of our listeners now to sort of take on. I think I love what you shared as well, Alex, that there is that kind of, it can feel almost counterintuitive at the time, but then when he, once you start to.
[00:30:12] Sally Clarke: Build those experiences and really build your capabilities in humble leadership that you really see those results and see the relationships change. And of course, the output as well. It was for leaders who are listening right now, who are really interested in this concept of building their humility in a radical way.
[00:30:29] Sally Clarke: In addition to reading your amazing book, what would you advise as sort of First steps, where can we start when we want to begin our journey towards radical humility?
[00:30:37] Urs Koenig: So this is going to be super tactical and super simple, and we might have touched on it already. So hopefully as a listener, if you're a manager, you have a regular one on ones with your team members.
[00:30:48] Urs Koenig: I sure hope so. And if you do, and you are, then at the end of each one on one, ask for this feedback. What do I do well as your manager and what can I do better? And if you're a bit reluctant of doing that, then Announce it maybe in a department meeting that you will be asking for feedback going forward in your one on one so they're not blindsided.
[00:31:05] Urs Koenig: And then if you're maybe unsure if they're going to be honest, because they might not feel quite safe to give you honest feedback, identify something that you're working on already. Say, you know, Hey Sally, I'm working on big delegating better. How have I been doing? What can I do better? And so that way you actually help them achieve your goal versus just, you know, giving you any sort of feedback.
[00:31:26] Urs Koenig: So it makes it safer for your team members to give you feedback. So that's it. And then do it regularly every week, build that muscle. So it doesn't become that scary one off thing you do every six or 12 months. I know this sounds super simple. Some of your listeners already do this, and many don't. I know from experience.
[00:31:43] Urs Koenig: So that's number one. The second thing, which is about, unsurprisingly, relationship building. This is borrowing from Ed Shein's work. Draw your relationship map. Grab a piece of paper. Put yourself in the middle, around the circle. And then all the people you're connected to around you. Your friends, your family, of course, then it's your boss, your peers, your direct reports, finance, ops, HR, whatever, and then identify the level of relationship you have with each of these people on a scale from one to five, how trusting and meaningful is that relationship?
[00:32:12] Urs Koenig: And then ask yourself, how trusting and meaningful should it be for me to Get my job done more effectively and efficiently. And then identify the one or two relationships with the biggest gap and actually schedule a relationship building meeting. And I have some pointers in the book on how to go about this, but relationship building, you know, it's simple, but it's not easy.
[00:32:31] Urs Koenig: It's just a conversation, right? Lean a little bit into a more vulnerable place than you normally would. See what comes back and then if it's mirrored, you can go a bit deeper. So that's two things, simple things I would advise listeners to do to become more radically humble.
[00:32:46] Alexis Zahner: Thank you, Urs. I think that level of intentionality around our relationships, as you've mentioned, seemingly simplistic, but so often overlooked for more complex solutions that we're actually not even getting the basics right first.
[00:32:57] Alexis Zahner: Urs, we could quite literally go on. With thousands more questions for you and on your book, radical humility. There are so many brilliant case studies in that book as well, that we absolutely loved, but we do have to leave it here. And to do that, I just love to ask you, do you have any final words for our listeners before we close out our conversation today?
[00:33:16] Urs Koenig: Being a radically humble leader doesn't mean that you're weak or meek. You can be tough, results driven, confident, ambitious, and lead with radical humility.
[00:33:26] Sally Clarke: Brilliant, Urs. An incredible, yeah, powerful message. Thank you so much for being with us today, Urs. Thanks so much for having me. I had a lot of fun.
[00:33:40] Sally Clarke: Thank you for being with us at We Are Human Leaders. We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Urs as much as we did. His radical humility really shone through. If you'd like to learn more about his work, you can find more information in the show notes. And of course, you can learn more about human leadership at www.
[00:33:58] Sally Clarke: wearehumanleaders. com. See you next time.