In this myth-busting episode, Jon Kidwell, Owner and Founder of Leadwell, shares how he helps equip mission-driven leaders to lead at their best, build impactful teams, and deliver the results their mission deserves.
You will discover:
– the biggest myth about servant leadership
– why you need to receive and not just give
– the 5 people you need in your life
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello, and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach. It is the one the only Jon Kidwell. for over 20 years, John has served in leadership roles as an employee or board member in private companies and nonprofits both locally and globally. He’s the leader of and founder of lead Well, a leadership development company. And they help mission driven leaders and organizations align their teams, develop their leaders and build a winning culture through executive and group coaching, custom leadership programs for mid level leaders and organizational wide trip training events. John and his team have coached or trained over 1500 leaders, and he’s here with us today. John, welcome to the show. Now, I wanted to tie these together for us a little bit, because there are a lot of folks who who experience a significant amount of success, either corporate nonprofit world, very few people that do both, and then even less people who do both and then get into coaching and build a successful practice. So how did you ultimately make the leap from working in organizations to working on them?
Jon Kidwell
It’s very simple. Two words get fired. And that’s not actually a but I did get laid off. And that’s what kind of launched me into it was knowing that leadership and business and being a part of helping people achieve something that they cared about deeply, that we might not get to all by ourselves. That was kind of core to me, wherever it was, and, and upon getting laid off, I was looking at, do I go work at this place? Do I go to this small nonprofit do, I kind of jump into a completely different industry and kind of medicine, not to be a doctor or anything like that, but to be in the field. And I just kept coming back to, I want to help leaders be the best leaders that they can. And that led me to starting kind of my own company lead well, and then dive in deeper and deeper into that, the more we keep going, that’s fantastic.
Scott Ritzheimer
And 1500 clients later, you’ve come up with, you’ve learned a thing or two, and I had an opportunity to kind of look through some of the concepts in your book. So tell us a little bit. You’re redefining servant leadership for us? What does it really mean to be a servant leader? I hear that word all the time. And I feel like it means so many things to so many people.
Jon Kidwell
100%. And that’s part of the reason why I wrote the book is because years ago, I got confronted with essentially that question, what does it mean to be a servant leader, and I thought I was doing it. And I was right, but I thought I was doing it perfectly. Which is, you know, doesn’t really exist. And and I got a heart piece of truth around my kind of inability to engage in conflict, to do disagreement to really be anything other than super nice people pleasing going around and being that that good, great guy like, oh, yeah, he’s a helper, right. And in what it did was it sent me into kind of all of figuring out that culturally, that kind of, by definition, and just how most of us come into servant leadership, it gets winnowed down to, I have a really big heart, and I want to help people. And and we say that it’s pretty much been servant leaders come in with the servant heart, this idea that they have a bleeding heart for something they care about, that they just want to make sure that people are good, that they’re happy that that they’re growing. And we miss out on some of the other aspects that make servant leadership, much more than when we bring into it and that servant leadership is mission driven. It’s for something bigger, greater than just me or even, frankly, for a lot of us for our organization, something more than just the bottom line. So it’s mission driven. Number two, it is servant hearted that there is this compassion, this care, this empathy, this absolute desire to see people grow and develop and progress into their potential, and to do it in a specific way. But the piece that we often leave out, even if we get both of those is that it also brings in this business mind that at you sky, you have specific gifts, talents, strengths, I have those in the marketplace, whether we are a not for profit, whether we are a for profit, whether this is you know, I’m taking over grandma and grandpa’s thing or whether this is a publicly traded company, there is a service in the marketplace, and we have to be able to bring the strategy and that is a high level service, that we need to be able to manage the resources and that is a service and that we need to be able to make great business decisions and and then hold all of those things together. Doing it for something big, making sure that the people are always kind of forwarded and focused on while also making sure that we’re bringing in great business decisions and that expertise, and making sure that we have a profitable performing results producing organization. That’s helping everybody.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so good. And and there’s, there’s so much inherent tension in that, right? It’s not easy if we do it right. And so how do you find? Is there kind of a spectrum on that? How do you find that folks tend to get this wrong?
Jon Kidwell
Oh, well, I can tell you, because I’ve done that. It’s where you have the tension of those three or frequent I mean, any any other aspect that any of us have that tension, kind of like a rubber band that’s just pulling as leaders. And if you don’t consider yourself a leader, one you are, but to Sure, just our team members that come you are leading in a space, you got that tension, right, it’s people, it’s performance, it’s work, it’s, well, I got life outside of work. It’s the fact that, hey, we want to produce a profit, because that’s how we pay people more money. That’s how we reinvest in the business. But I also want to be super generous, right? I want to give to causes that I care about, I want to be able to, to do things that aren’t just totally wildly surprising to bless the team or other people. Those are all tensions that any single one of us get to hold on to, and and how do we mess it up? From experience, we let go. And we decide instead of sitting, you’re holding on to these massively heavy, heavy pillars? Well, I’m just going to let go of the generosity one, or I’m just going to let go of the results. One, or I’m just going to let go of the work or life one, whichever it is, and I’m going to grab on to the other one. Well, it’s heavy, and it is immediately going to fling you to the ground. And anybody that is underneath, they’re just going to get absolutely squashed. Right. Yeah. And and so then I think that’s number one is accepting and kind of leaning into that tension, just like when we strength train, that actually through the tension through the working of our muscles, we grow stronger, we create something new. The other piece that a lot of us as leaders kind of fall into is, we think we have to hold that all by ourselves. We think that because of the responsibility we hold, we don’t actually get people to help us hold that. And so I’d say those as two of the kind of predominant thinks we let go, or we think it’s just us, we got to carry the weight of this on our shoulders for eternity. Nobody else gets to help.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, wow there. There’s a number of myths that kind of capture this right now there’s a number of things that we you know, we learn from all over the place, what would you say is maybe one of the biggest myths about servant leadership.
Jon Kidwell
So I think the biggest one, although, in working with everyone, as we were testing it out, there’s the myths that are in the book, and we outline 10 of them, different people resonate with different ones. But the one that just kind of keeps coming back keeps coming back is the one that you know, tongue in cheek, Greenleaf missed in the characteristics of servant leadership that he did in 1970 is thou shalt be nice, that the idea that as a servant leader, you have to be nice, that one, whether you start there and it stems into people pleasing, or just this idea of like, no, like, I’m not going to tell somebody, no, I’m just gonna let them do whatever they want. Or this idea that I always have to be available always on because the minute that I’m not available that I choose to serve somewhere else, maybe it’s my family, maybe it’s a community group, maybe it’s a church, but not at work or not in this place. Well, obviously, I don’t care about you. And that obviously is not obvious, right? I’m being superlative. But I think it starts with this, I gotta be nice. And honestly, for me, I was there, I’m recovering people pleaser. And I got to the point where I realized that me being nice, really was more about what you Scott or anybody else thought about me, and not actually how helpful I was being to somebody else. And once that hit me, I realized, Oh, this is serving me more than it’s serving my team more than it’s serving the organization. And I had to start working towards what does it look like to deliver the kind hard truth with care? And that perhaps that is actually the characteristic of a servant leader that I want to go towards?
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, wow, it’s it’s so interesting, because it’s so subtle. It looks so good. You know it love you know, it’s like you who couldn’t say you should be meaner to people, right? Which is not what you’re saying. But it’s what it feels like Right? At net. And about woven underneath that it really is a pride, right? It really is an ego thing that we’re trying to protect something about ourselves and in the process. I think you’re right. I think we’re settling for less than And ultimately, if we keep it going, we let our team down. Now you you note in your book that there’s kind of three main pillars of a servant leadership, character skills and relationships. And one of the interesting ones to me was relationships. And so I was wondering if you could unpack that for us just a little bit? What are some of the things that we need to be thinking about as leaders in terms of our relationships, and the ability that those relationships give us to be a servant leader?
Jon Kidwell
It goes back to what I said earlier that there’s this moniker, right? It’s lonely at the top. And we’ve probably heard it, we’ve socialized it, I’ve said it right in passing of like, oh, you know, is lonely at the top. And that’s basically me saying, I need help. I’m all by myself. I’m carrying too much at this time. But it kind of gets blown off just like when we say like, Hey, Scott, how are you? And you’re like, good, right? Probably you’re not right duckling, and your feet are going. And so I say all of that to say there came a time where I was in an absolute crisis. And I said something like that, hey, my mentor. Now pressing comes in, offers me this tremendous thing, being able to go and live with his family, after my home had flooded, and standing in water in that house, when he offered me to come live with him, you know what I said, I’m good. I was not good. And so many of us say those things. And for certain leaders, as I figured out and kind of, again, talked with folks to figure out for them to is, there’s this idea that we’re the one who serves, we’re the one who gives, we don’t ever actually get served, we don’t receive, because it starts to conflict with that identity of me being the one who goes and does all the help. And so for all of us, as there’s, we need, that this is a two way street, there is a giving and receiving and relationships are there to give us what we need. Physically, yes, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually, so that we are able to kind of withstand to grow through this tension. Yeah, and not mine. But Dr. Townsend and Dr. Cloud, to people that I’ve kind of followed, as I’ve come up, they wrote a book called boundaries. And in one of the trainings that I went to with them, they put forward that you actually do not grow outside of relationship. You cannot grow in isolation, it has to happen in the context of relationship. And so outside of guiding leaders into making sure that they are in winwin, truth filled, encouraging, challenging relationship, we say what you need five people, as a leader, you need your personal leadership team, you need to have a coach, you need to have a mentor, you need to have a partner in the work, you need to have a cheerleader, someone that’s just gonna tell you to keep going. And then you need a friend that you don’t work with that you need somebody completely away from that context, that you can also get that level of relationship where you are known where you are supported where you are loved. And, frankly, regardless of whatever it is that you do for work, you need that person.
Scott Ritzheimer
It is so true. It’s so true. So as you mentioned, in your bio, to kind of the top of this, you’ve done some work both in for profits and nonprofits. And I want to look particularly at the role of the CEO. How do you see that role being the same? And how do you see it being different in those two environments?
Jon Kidwell
Hmm, great question. I would start with if if we went on kind of that spectrum, like we talked about before, more different, more the same, I would say that it is much more the same, that regardless of whether I report to a board, or whether I’m CEO of my own business, or CEO of publicly traded business, every single one of us has bosses. Right? And, and whether I’m a privately held company, I have bosses and shareholders or stakeholders kind of in the business, because they’re our clients and, and then in the in the CEO in the not for profit space, particularly, you you are operating and running that on behalf of typically a volunteer non fiduciary board, right? They don’t they’re not getting anything from this. They might be responsible for it, but they’re not getting paid out. And so I think that’s where the nuance of the context starts to come in. Yeah. But something to consider is, regardless whether you are a sole business owner, kind of a a shareholder board or a stakeholder board and a not for profit, that actually putting yourself under the accountability of others can be a wonderful thing. It can be mutually beneficial, as long as we continue to keep talking about focus on what’s the bigger one What is the mission that we are on? What is this? And now how do I engage in this more like a partnership? More like a? How do we help each other achieve the same end? And not a kind of who’s in charge of whom scenario?
Scott Ritzheimer
Right? Yeah, that’s so good. And so there’s a question, I like to ask all my guests and want to make sure folks know how they can get a copy of your book and get in touch with you. Because I know that this is resonating with some folks. But before we get there, what would you say is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Jon Kidwell
That what they bring is needed. I think sometimes we second guess, our ability, we second guess the fact that we have something that we can offer. We second guess our idea, if we are sitting at the table, we’re in a meeting. And and I would say that what you have that ability, that idea that service, it’s needed, we do in fact need it. And so the big secret is, is that you need to bring it because it’s just yours, and somebody else isn’t going to have the same one that you do. So make sure that you offer it and bring it and use it to help benefit those around you.
Scott Ritzheimer
So good. I want to I just want to double that. And one particular context that you brought up, but that that that meeting, right? What I see this all the time, I think you see it too, but the loudest people’s opinions when right. And they’re seldom the right one. And and I just want to encourage anyone listening to this has been listening to this. And a lot of servant leaders do tend to be quieter in meetings, right? And I would just say, speak up. Every if you’re in that meeting, they want you there, they want you to be her just like everybody else. And so I wanted to double on it, because I think you’re so true. And there’s so much that we lose because of folks just being a little too quiet in meetings. So John, we can we have this conversation for a couple of hours. But I want to keep it short for our listeners. But there’s folks listening who who want to hear more they want to know what like one of the other nine myths. Oh, how do we leave all this together? How can we successfully navigate being servant leaders and leading mission driven purpose filled organizations? So how can they find more out about you and get a copy of your book?
Jon Kidwell
Awesome, thanks, Scott. The best place for the book is the title of the book, redefineyourservantleadership.com If you go there, it’ll give you everything for that. And then it is Jon Kidwell. And and you can find me on most socials, and I would love to engage and we try to share stuff that’s going to help leaders where they are on all of those. So that would be a great way to connect as well.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. Well, brilliant, brilliant conversation. Jon, I just loved having you on the show. I couldn’t agree more with what you brought to the table here today. learned quite a bit in the process as well. So thank you, for everyone watching you listening you know your time and attention means the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Jon Kidwell
For over twenty years, Jon Kidwell has served in leadership roles as an employee or a Board Member in private companies and nonprofits located locally and globally. He is the leader and founder of Leadwell, a leadership development company. They help mission-driven leaders and organizations align their teams, develop leaders, and build a winning culture through executive and group coaching, custom leadership programs for mid-level leaders, and organization-wide training events. Jon and his team have coached or trained over 1,500 leaders.
Want to learn more about Jon Kidwell’s work at Leadwell? Check out his website at https://leadwell.com/ and order a copy of his book at https://redefineyourservantleadership.com to get over $70 of additional resources for free.
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