57. Jacob Morgan on The Future of Leadership

Speakers

Greg McKeown, Jacob Morgan

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Greg McKeown     

Yeah, I think I’m ready to go.

Jacob Morgan     

And I saw your book hit the New York Times bestseller list, congratulations.

Greg McKeown     

Hey listen, that’s what that’s why I hit record button right then. You cannot you can’t miss a compliment like that don’t interrupt a man when he’s paying you a compliment. That’s what? It’s very, very exciting. Well, it’s, it’s, let’s How shall we say it surprises my mother? Should we say?

Jacob Morgan     

Well come on, we all know how much work you put into it. I know it’s a lot of work.

Greg McKeown     

Well, speaking of work, you yourself are an author, including a book, the future leader, based on interviews with over 140 CEOs and a survey of 14,000 employees. So I just want to sort of back up to to, you know, why did you Why did you do the research for this book, why did you write this book?

Jacob Morgan     

Well, I was getting a lot of questions from people. And it’s funny, because the book came out right when COVID actually became declared a pandemic so the timing was a little off. But before that, I was speaking a lot of conferences and events, I’m sure just like you do. And I would give a lot of talks and employee experience leadership in the future of work. And I would get a lot of questions from people, not about the present, but about the future, and how leadership is changing, and what’s going to happen in the future. And I had my ideas on this, but I didn’t have any, any data, any research that I could use to support what I wanted to share. And so I decided to write a book that actually brings in together 140 CEO perspectives so that it’s applicable to pretty much any leader, any employee, to any organization anywhere in the world.

Greg McKeown     

So you wanted to gather the data, what question were you trying to answer?

Jacob Morgan   

Well, it started off with this idea of is leadership really changing? And originally, when I wrote the book, my aim was to look out around 510 years. And so I went into this with the idea of trying to answer the question of, if I had a time machine, and I could fast forward you 10 years, and you were a leader in today’s environment? Would you be just as effective as a leader in 2030, practicing the exact same skills and mindsets that you are now? And that’s really what I wanted to understand is, is leadership really changing or not?

Greg McKeown  

You’re trying to look around the corner, try to see if you can amplify the signal. And the sound right now to give us some advantage. Yeah, exactly. What is your basic premise on that answer? Now, having done all the research, is leadership changing? Would it be different, do you currently believe it will be different 10 years from now?

Jacob Morgan   

Yes, I mean, especially after the events of 2020. I mean, especially after COVID, especially after Black Lives Matter. And just I mean, 2020 was a crazy year. But when I interviewed these 140 CEOs, I do get a small handful of them who said, nope not changing, everything I do now is going to be just fine in the next 10 years. So there, you know, it’s not like everybody believed that. But I would say 90% if not more of the CEOs I interviewed said yes, leadership is changing, and not just changing a little bit. But it’s changing significantly. And that is because the world is changing. You know, we see things like COVID, we see things like purpose and meaning taking center stage, employee experience, AI and automation, globalization, the shift towards a more transparent organization. And so because the world is changing, our companies are changing. And if our companies are changing, the rationale is that we need a new type of leader to guide these organizations forward. Now, again, not everybody believed that, but the vast majority of the CEOs interview did

Greg McKeown     

And give me the headlines in terms of, from what to what, you know, what is the way people are leading today that you would now postulate needs to change over this next 10-year period?

Jacob Morgan   

Oh, man, there’s so many, so many things. I’d say if we were to start with the most obvious kind of core aspect of leadership, you know, if we were to look around and ask how most people get into their leadership roles today, you probably be able to identify a couple things. These are people who’ve brought in the most amount of money that accompany. These are people who are good at navigating, office politics and bureaucracy. These are people who are oftentimes well connected inside their organization. And these are oftentimes people who stayed at the company for a long time. And usually what happens, and I experienced this firsthand when I had corporate jobs, you know, almost 15 years ago, I remember I interned for a large financial institution. And I was working for the vice president there. And the Vice President got his role, not because he was good at leading people, but because he brought in a lot of money to the organization. And that’s how he got promoted. And I think that’s very much the mentality that we have inside of a lot of organizations around the world is that we take people who are good at operations, we take people who are good at growing a business, you know, revenue, p&l kind of, you know, the stereotypical managerial aspects. And we say, because you’re good at that, now we’re gonna give you the opportunity to lead other people  and that approach, I think is a little bit backwards. And so the general consensus from the CEO, as I’ve interviewed is that that’s not gonna get you to a leadership position anymore. What will get you to a leadership position is focusing on your people, it’s being able to motivate and engage and empower others, it’s being able to drive change, it’s being able to help make other people more successful than you are. It’s being able to lead diverse teams from different perspectives and cultures and backgrounds. It’s having humility and vulnerability. It’s these new types of skills and mindsets that go beyond our traditional idea of what it means to be a manager. And by the way, these are not new skills and mindsets. I mean, if I told you, you know, empathy is a crucial skill for a leader, nobody listening to this is saying, Oh, my God, I’ve never heard of empathy before. But the challenge is that it wasn’t a prerequisite to be a good leader inside of an organization. But now in going forward, it is, especially after what we’ve all experienced through 2020, and even to present day.

Greg McKeown     

So how does somebody listening to this he says, Okay, I want to future proof my job, I want to catch up with the kind of leadership that’s required in this new environment. What are they to do? How should they be thinking differently?

Jacob Morgan     

The cover of the book that for the future leaders is an image of a lighthouse, and I always tell people when I’m speaking at conferences and events that the very first thing to understand is to visualize how leadership is changing. And the visual that I like to use for leaders is the image of a lighthouse. And the reason why I like the image of a lighthouse even though lighthouse has been around for 1000s of years, is because the whole purpose of a lighthouse is not just to guide mariners and explorers to their destinations, but it’s also to make sure they get there in a safe way. And leaders very much need to view themselves as lighthouses meaning they need to learn the new skills and mindset so that they can build themselves up so that they can shine their light onto the sea of uncertainty that we’re all a part of.

But it’s also to realize that without ships in the water, a lighthouse is useless. Meaning that the leadership is not just about you as a person, it’s about those around you. And there’s no point in you being the biggest and brightest lighthouse in the world if you don’t have any ships in the water to guide. So that’s the first I think important thing for people to realize is that leaders are lighthouses.

Greg McKeown   

Let’s just talk about that for a second. My wife Anna sent me a clip of a conversation that starts this way, it said, talking is the most dangerous thing people do. And I love that. I love that one liner as well. And I think there’s something in what you’re saying there that you’re saying the new leader must make it safe to talk, must make it safe to have a conversation that this isn’t a nice to have. It’s not peripheral. It’s not just even a best practice. It’s at the core of the leader in today’s world and going forward.

Jacob Morgan     

Yeah, look, I mean, I just interviewed Jeff Immelt, the former CEO of GE. And I was talking to him and I said what is one of the greatest mistakes that you have made during your leadership career? And he said, one of the biggest mistakes that I’ve made is I didn’t say I don’t know enough. Meaning as a leader, as the CEO of this multi-billion dollar conglomerate, I mean, one of the, you know, America’s and the world’s greatest companies, he constantly felt like he needed to have the answers, he needed to have a solution he needed to talk, so to speak, he need to be able to have all the answers for everybody. And after he retired, he realized that was actually one of the biggest mistakes that he made, is he needed to give opportunity for other people’s ideas, to say, I don’t know, to be vulnerable, to admit that he didn’t have the answer and to give space for those around him, to come forward with their ideas with their suggestions. And I thought that was a very, very powerful story. And it’s actually been echoed from quite a few leaders that I’ve been interviewing. And several of them have been saying that the ability to say, I don’t know, the ability to give space for other people’s ideas, to be able to surround yourself with people who are more talented, more capable than you is actually a very important leadership asset. But it’s also a very hard thing to do. Because as leaders, and this kind of ties into another point that a lot of CEOs interviewed made, is they said, the most dangerous quality or characteristic that you can possess is ego. You climb in your organization, you become more senior, more powerful, you get more money, people look up to you. And naturally, you start to get a little bit of an ego. But the big challenge for a lot of leaders is to realize it’s to kind of keep that ego in check, to not let it get to your head, so to speak. In other words, you can’t believe that as a leader, you are the smartest, you are the most capable, you are the best, only your ideas matter. That’s something that a lot of leaders need to be very, very conscientious of, because as you grow in your career, you know, you’re kind of having to fight against that a little bit. And that’s another important thing for a lot of leaders to pay attention to.

Greg McKeown     

I think that’s interesting, the conversation with Jeff Immelt about, about what he wishes he’d done differently. That is a valuable set of feedback. What other things do we need to do? What other shifts Do we need to make right now to prepare for this future world or even, as I say, to play catch up, because the world has already moved and changed so fast in the last 16 months? What are the other shifts that we need to make immediately to be able to thrive and do well, now?

Jacob Morgan     

Well, a crucial one is to understand the mindsets and skills so that there was a very specific set of four mindsets and five skills that CEOs identified when I interviewed them. I mean, if you want, I can go through each one quickly and give you a sentence about each Yeah, let’s do it.  Okay, so there were four mindsets, and five skills, as I mentioned. So the first mindset is that of the global citizen, simply put, that means thinking big picture, surrounding yourself by people who are not like you. Next mindset is the mindset of the servant, which is understanding that there are four groups that you serve, you serve your customers, you serve your team, you serve your leaders, if you have them. And you also serve yourself, meaning you practice self-care. And you also need to have a little bit of humility and vulnerability, like we talked about. The next mindset is the mindset of the chef, which is really about balancing two ingredients, humanity and technology, these two are oftentimes in a lot of organizations at odds with each other because you want to have the human aspect of work, doing good purpose and meaning. But at the other end, you also want to have the technology to be able to move quickly make decisions to scale to be productive and efficient. So that’s the mindset you need to have balancing those two ingredients. And the last mindset is the mindset of the Explorer. This is about curiosity. This is where things like a growth mindset come into play being agile, and nimble. So these are the four mindsets and the way that you think about a mindset is kind of like the operating system. You know, when you turn on your computer, your phone, all these things have operating systems that boot up, which tell them how they should operate. And these mindsets are the operating system for leaders. And then we have five skills. The first is the skill of the coach. And the skill of the coach isn’t about helping make other people more successful. it’s about helping make other people more successful than you. So make other people more successful than you. The reason why that is an important differentiating factor is because when you add those two words to the end of it, then you you put a lot more time, attention and resources and focus into the success of others. But it’s actually very easy to make somebody more successful, you could spend five minutes with them 10 minutes with them and say, Oh, look, you know, that person is now more successful. But if you say make someone else more successful everyone you. Now as a leader, you can imagine how much time and energy and resources you’re going to need to put into that. So that’s what being a coach is all about.

Next is the skill of a futurist, which is about thinking in terms of different scenarios and possibilities, kind of the way a chess player does when they’re playing a chess game. Then the one after that we have is the technology teenager, which is exactly what it sounds like it is if you’ve ever had any issues with technology, and I know you have a couple young kids in your house. Whenever there’s a problem with technology, who do most of us turn to we turn to the kids, somehow they know how to get the TV to work, how to, you know, get our iPads or iPhones, somehow they got all this stuff figured out. And it’s not because they built these technologies, but they are okay embracing them. They’re not scared to fail. If they test something out. Kids don’t have IT departments. So they figure it out, they Tinker they play around with it. And that’s an important skill for future leaders to have. Because every company is a technology driven company, which means every leader needs to be familiar with technology.  And then the last two are the skill of the translator, which is about listening and communication. Two things that have been around for 1000s and 1000s of years, but also to things that have changed the most over the years listening and communication, just the platforms, the tools, the resources we have at our disposal. I mean, it’s a completely different thing. Were pulled in so many different directions. We’re distracted all the time. But believe it or not listening is a really, really, really hard thing for us to do. And there’s a great quote I don’t know who the original author is. But it says there’s no greater form of love and respect that you can show someone and then by listening to them. And I also want to stress that listening and hearing are different things. Hearing is this unconscious act of letting sound enter your ear. But listening is the purposeful, giving someone your attention. And the very last skill we have is the skill of Yoda, which is really about emotional intelligence, specifically empathy and self-awareness. And empathy is about putting yourself into somebody else’s shoes and understanding their perspective. And self-awareness is understanding your strengths, your weaknesses, and also if other people understand those things about you, as well. So being able to understand these four mindsets and five skills, I think is going to be a crucial step for anybody to be able to future proof themselves.

Greg McKeown     

How well are we doing the skills today?

Jacob Morgan   

Unfortunately, not well, both when we look at the skills, and when we look at the mindset. So I surveyed, as you mentioned earlier, nearly 14,000 employees around the world, which was done in partnership with LinkedIn. And it’s interesting, because when I asked mid and senior level leaders, how well do you think you’re doing? When it comes to practicing these skills and mindsets? A lot of the leaders said, Oh, you know, we’re doing pretty good. You know, we’re, we’re not amazing. But we’re doing pretty good. In fact, I think the number was near 70%, of leaders around the world self-identified as practicing these skills and mindsets very well. And then we ask the people who work for these leaders, how well do you think your senior and mid-level leaders are practicing these mindsets and skills, and there was a 30% gap. Then we wonder why we have such high levels of disengagement around organizations, you know, all over the world. It’s because most of us work for leaders, where we feel like they don’t have our back, where they’re not listening to us, where they are not taking our feedback and doing anything with it, where they’re not surrounding themselves with people who are not like them. We’re leaders who are not, they’re not saying I don’t know, they’re not giving the opportunity for other people to speak up. That’s why our engagement numbers are so low, because leaders around the world are not practicing these skills and mindsets.

Greg McKeown     

What you’re saying is that there’s a knowing doing gap, because for, you know, I would say for confidently the last 20 years, and maybe even we’d have to take 30 years, there has been the language of emotional intelligence, there’s been the language of, you know, this new era of leadership. But you’re saying that, what I hear you saying is that’s almost been just enough to make people dangerous, where they can regurgitate that language, but that fundamentally, they’re still operating out of a different mindset and out of a different skill set. Is that fair?

Jacob Morgan     

Yeah. Because to be honest, there hasn’t been a lot of accountability to require them to change. You know, a lot of leaders out there are in that mentality of well, well, why? I mean, why do I need to do all this stuff? I’m successful, you know, my team isn’t doing amazing, they’re doing okay. But, you know, why do I care? I don’t need to do any of this stuff. And, you know, this is the mentality that I think a lot of leaders and organizations have is because they assume that the way things are going is the way things they will the way things always will be going. And this is why what has happened in 2020. What has happened with COVID has really dramatically disrupted that. You know, I’ve talked about this for many years, and now as a result of something like this pandemic, like Black Lives Matter, I mean, we’re seeing enormous change to top executives at global companies that I’ve interviewed have lost their job. In the past few months, I interviewed both of them two years ago, one of them was running a multi-billion-dollar organization. And what happened to her is a lot of employees rose up. And they said, this executive is not taking the issue of diversity and inclusion seriously enough. And they went to the board, and they said, either these executive leaves, or we leave, and it was, I think, two or 300 employees. And the executive board said, Sorry, you got to go and they kick this executive out. A second executive I interviewed, when I had him on the show, he was telling me that his business is going great, nothing is going to disrupt them. And they got ton of cash, they got customers for many, many years, pandemic hit his business filed for bankruptcy. And I think the important message is that change happens quickly. And it doesn’t matter how bulletproof you think you are, how bulletproof you think your industry or your company is. But change happens, and it happens quickly. So don’t assume that just because things are going well now that they’re not going to change. In fact, the best time to evolve and adapt is when things are going well.

Greg McKeown     

What does someone do out of all of these things, there’s the mindsets, this skill set changes. There’s only 30% of people that are actually have have reasonably well implemented these mindsets and skill sets. I assume the rest of the two thirds of the leaders interviewed are aware of these ideas that they’re not brand-new ideas. So what does someone listening to this right now who wants to avoid these catastrophic costs of not changing now? Where do they start?

Jacob Morgan   

I think there are a few things that people can do. First, and I think this is an important step for everybody to take is to define leader in leadership. When I asked the 140 CEOs this question, this was one of the most challenging questions for them to answer. And we talked about trends and challenges and skills and mindset. And they had no problem answering that, you know, without missing a beat. But then I asked them, explain to me what it means to be a leader, if I’ve never heard of that concept before. I’m an alien. I came here from another planet, I have no idea what leadership is, or who a leader is, how are you going to explain it to me? And this is where how the leaders had to take a step back and they all took a pause. And they said, you know, nobody’s ever asked me that before. And it’s because leadership is ubiquitous. It’s sort of like water. You know, I have a four-and-a-half-year-old, she’s going to be turning five soon, she has never once asked me Daddy, what is water? Because it’s every I mean, she it’s sort of like an intuitive thing. Nobody ever has to explain or define water. And because leadership is all around us, and we experience it all the time. Whether you check in for a flight, or go to your kids soccer games, or watch TV or listen to the news. It’s everywhere. And because of that, we never actually take a step back to define it. And this is why one of the things that I always find so fascinating is that if I go into an organization, I always find that in that same company, there are leaders who everybody loves and admires and respects and wants to work with. And then there are other leaders who everybody hates, and everybody runs away from them. But it’s the same company with the same values. It’s the company that has the same corporate culture. How are both of these people in leadership roles? It’s because the people who promoted them have different definitions of leadership. So everyone needs to take some time. and define leadership for themselves and put down some people who you emulate when it comes to leadership, people who you admire and respect. And you can do this exercise maybe every six months or once a year. And you can see that as your experiences change, as you as a human being change, your definition will start to change over time as well. Another crucial thing for people to do is to look at your present state, you know, look at these skills and mindsets. Have conversation with your teams, your friends, your family members about these things, and get honest feedback around how you’re doing. Another important aspect is avoid having a typical day. When I interviewed all these CEOs, I said what does a typical day look like for you. And the most common response I would get is, we don’t have a typical day. We’re constantly talking to different people, we’re doing different things. When you have every day looking like a carbon copy of the day before it and the day after it, you start to get disengaged, you stop learning, you stop growing, and eventually you check out. So if you can avoid having a typical day, you keep yourself engaged and learning and growing and inherently practicing these mindsets and skills. And maybe one more thing that I’ll mention is, sometimes change can be daunting. You know, people might hear these mindsets and skills and say it’s, it’s too much, you know, I don’t have time to do this. And whenever I’m speaking or working with executives, I asked them to commit to improving by 1% a day. And if you can improve by 1% a day, then by the end of the year, you’re going to be 37 times better. And so 1% today is small. And the I’m going to give you examples of these are like actual 1% a day things that people have given me. One of them was, I’m going to drink a liter of water every day, to practice a little bit more self-care. I’m going to make sure that I find one new employee on my team or in my company every day, and just go up to them and say thank you, I’m going to take 10 minutes a day to learn something new. Whether it’s watching a YouTube video or listening to a podcast about a different topic, I’m just going to take 10 minutes a day. The next time somebody comes into my office, and they have a question for me, instead of immediately responding, I’m going to take a couple of seconds. And I’m going to try to put myself in their shoes and understand where they’re coming from to practice empathy before I give them a response.  Right? I mean, these are simple things that you can do on a regular basis. And if you can build on these every day, then you’re going to find that by the end of the year, you’re going to be a different type of person. And you’re going to be a different type of leader, it doesn’t need to be overwhelming, or daunting or crazy. Just think of improving by 1% a day.

Greg McKeown     

Jacob, this has been a pleasure to be with you. The future leader nine skills and mindsets to succeed in the next decade. Lots of interviews, lots of data gathered to be able to help us to see around the corner.

And in some ways, I think, to catch up with the new normal that’s come fast, faster than the decade, we could say, what what would the leaders you spoke to assumed might be a decade from now, thought experiment has really come not in 10 years, but in 10 months.

And suddenly we’re faced with, with upgrading our skills, our mindsets and our skills to be able to be not even great leaders, but just not bad once does seem like an essential use of our time and investment. Jacob Morgan, tell us where can we find the right resources in addition to buying the future leader? What other resources can people tap into to be able to accelerate this transformation they need to be able to create a great culture and be able to maintain and develop the talent that is so critical in this new world.

Jacob Morgan     

So there are a few resources which I think can be helpful. One is if people just want to get a PDF that summarizes the skills and mindsets and actually gives quotes in there from the CEOs that I interviewed. You can easily find that at the leadershipdigest.com, that’s leadershipdigest.com.  And then if you want to take the assessment that a lot of these other people have taken around the world, you can go to future leader survey.com. And then you’ll be able to answer these exact same questions that I’ve been asking a lot of these other business leaders. And I can also get my email if people want to reach out to me if they have any questions or feedback or even if you want to challenge me on anything. My email is Jacob@futureorganization.com

Greg McKeown     

That’s fantastic, Jacob and then for everybody else listening. I am going to send a copy of the future leader to one of you who reviews this podcast on the What’s Essential podcast on iTunes. Write a review there then send me an email of your review. And one of the people that does that will receive a copy of The Future Leader by Jacob Morgan. My email address is Greg@GregMcKeown.com

Jacob Morgan, thank you so much for being on the What’s Essential podcast.