In this high performance episode, David Kitchen, Founder of Edge Leadership Academy, shares the compelling genesis of his coaching firm and how he has spent the last 10 years coaching teams and developing culture in his role as a strength and conditioning coach.
You will discover:
– The difference between high-performers and leaders
– How to spot future leaders with the raw skills to become great
– How performance in sports and business compare and contrast
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 David Kitchen. He’s the founder and president of edge Leadership Academy. And Coach kitch is a former division one coach with a decade of experience building leaders culture and mindset at the highest level. He’s also an author, a speaker, a consultant, and a coach trusted by over 100, CEOs, coaches and high performers to help individuals and their teams lead and win in business, athletics, and in life. He’s the author of the pyramid, a system for building tomorrow’s leaders today, and the scoreboard a self audit system to help you build the life you want. Well, Coach kitch I’m so excited to have you here. Do you know if we can get each other laughing in the first couple of minutes of a pre show call? I know it’s gonna be a good episode. And I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling since we started talking. Welcome to the show. So glad to have you here. I was wondering if you could share with us what inspired you to start edge and all the work that you guys are doing over there?
David Kitchen
No. Yeah, you know, first off, thanks for having me. And, and it’s, you know, where edge came from. It’s something that that sits really close to my heart. And I grew up in a in a single parent household. And so I’ve always kind of had that in the back of my mind when I was dealing with kids. And when I was dealing with coaching athletes and student athletes, etc. And during the last season, during my division one time, I had a young man come to me, who was the best player on the team, by a mile was also the best leader on the team. I mean, you want to talk about somebody that was a room tilter. Everybody just just gravitated towards this young man. And he came to my office during his senior season, and he knocked on my door and we had a great relationship. And he came in he said, Coach, can I talk to you for a minute, said Absolutely, man, what’s going on. And he just started just almost verbal vomiting, right? It all just came out. And he said, all my entire life, I’ve been the best player on every team I’ve ever been on. And everybody’s always telling me to lead. But nobody ever taught me how. Right and for me, that was the lightbulb moment. That was oh, wow, if this young man feels this way, how many other people feel this way? Right. And again, coming from a single parent household, I never had a male example of leadership or a male example of being a role model. And so I had always had that background in me. And now hearing this out loud from this show, man infirmed it that it wasn’t just one person, right? It’s usually indicative of a larger population. And so for me, that was the start of edge Leadership Academy. My mom always said, don’t complain about a problem unless you’re going to solve it. And so for me, it was time to be the solution. So that meant going back to school, working on my PhD, I already had a master’s in sports psych, but poring through leadership studies and trying to connect the dots, and ultimately build a curriculum, which is what we have now to help people not just in athletics, but in life, how do we lean?
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. So I want to dive into that, because it’s captured so well in this story, but I feel like so many people use high performer and leader synonymously. And those are, there’s a lot of things to share in common, but they’re different things. And one does not inherently make the other one successful. So tell me, how do you slice between leaders and high performers? Is there a difference in your mind?
David Kitchen
There absolutely is man, and I think it’s it’s exemplified when you look at some of the leadership failures, right? If you look at some people that we put in leadership roles that don’t do well. So for example, it’s quite common in corporate America, right? If Joe the salesman is a top performing sales rep for six months in a row, then all of a sudden Joe’s on the fast track to become a sales manager. Well, that’s the difference between being a high performer and a leader. And sometimes high performers. Are they struggle in leadership roles, because you’re asking someone who is who is successful from an induced individualistic nature, to now kill off part of that individualism that made them special, and now sacrifice for the good of a group? Now, can some people do it? Absolutely. And there and those are the special leaders that are high performers that then transcend and step into that leadership role. But not everybody succeeds in that, and that’s okay. And I think a big part of it is self awareness and understanding, right? When we look at leadership, we have to ask the question, is this person motivated to lead? does this person want to be a leader? Because again, we’re asking them to shed some of that individualistic nature that may have made them great, that might be what makes them special. And so sometimes you have to let an A player just be an A player, and let your superstars be superstars. It doesn’t mean they have to be leaders. And I think you see that all the time. Right. If you look at it was a great example of it in the last dance documentary with Mike Michael Jordan. Mike was always a role roleplay or I’m sorry, not a role player. Mike was always a superstar right? He was always a high performer, he had to learn how to be a leader. And to me that difference is the emotional intelligence. And that difference is some of those soft skills that come along with it and the learning agility and being able to communicate to different people. And part of it as well as self regulatory skills. If you look at some of those high performers, we’re not always the most balanced people are not always the most, you know, emotionally regulated people. And part of that is what makes us great. So you have to ask yourself, you know, if I took those things away from this high performer, would it help? Or would it hurt? And I think that’s the big question that we miss a lot.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah, that’s so good. I’ve actually found that the greater you are, and I love your this language around the individualist and killing off the individuals, because it’s that severe, right? The greater you are as the star player, many times the harder it is to be the captain right to step into that we not iral. And so the the flip side of that, then is is who who are the leaders, right? How do we know who’s got what it takes to be there either born a leader built? How does that work?
David Kitchen
To me, it’s always built, to me, it is always built, I think there’s people that are born with natural tendencies or natural traits that can you know, lend themselves to leadership. But to me, those are just raw skills, right? It’s like, it’s like having, you know, raw materials for a house, you know, a box of nails and a bunch of two by fours, don’t do you much good until you put them together. And so to me, what I look for leaders, the first thing I look for is character, I want somebody who knows exactly who they are and exactly who they’re not. Right, and then that displays itself in a lot of different ways, from habits to social interactions, you know, across the spectrum of behaviors, right, then from there, we start to get into similar to what I talked about before, right, their ability to be consistent their ability to be committed to the organization that they’re a part of, above their own needs, right, their ability to communicate their ability to be creative. So those five C’s really encapsulate who’s going to be those leaders. And ultimately, to me, I’m looking for somebody who can see the process, somebody who understands that there’s always work to be done, right? What do we scored or didn’t score, whether we had a great quarter or a bad quarter, and they not get emotionally attached to data points and results. I want somebody who’s obsessed with improvement. To me, those are people that can step into that leadership role and thrive. And again, so much of it comes down to your experiences, your values, and what you want, right and your ability to be, you know, I say all the time, and it’s so oversimplify, but it’s so true. To be a leader is very simple. It’s about being somebody worth following, going somewhere worth going for a reason that matters. That’s it. That’s all it comes down to. And so I look for people that have those traits.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And you really, again, bring out a great point. And that is this idea of leadership as a process, right? We tend to think of it as a position, we tend to think of it as a skill set, we tend to think of it as anything but a process. Where does that go wrong? If we don’t understand the process of leadership? Where does that leave us?
David Kitchen
It leaves us exactly where we are right now, as a society, where we’re asking people to step into leadership roles that don’t have the prerequisite skill sets. We’re asking them to make high level complex decisions, right, that open up and when I say complex, I want to clarify, most people in their daily work and in their in their daily responsibilities make what I call complicated decisions. So they’re looking to solve a plus b equals c. And I call it complicated because I was not good at math. So anytime there’s letters involved, it’s complicated to me. But essentially, what they’re doing is they’re matching a problem with a solution. And then they move to the next problem. They match it with a solution, right? But 99% of the times those problems, no solutions don’t change, and they don’t open up new variables, leaders solve complex problems, where every time you make a decision, it opens up a new decision tree that influences other aspects of the business, other aspects of the community, other aspects of the organization. And those decisions are the ones that drive if we’re thinking in the 8020 perspective, those decisions are the ones that drive 80% of your results, those complex decisions. And so if we don’t think about leadership as a process, and teaching our people how to build the skills to make these types of decisions with vision, mission and values in mind, with character with consistency with creativity in mind, if we don’t do that, then we get people who are trying to solve a type of problem that they don’t even understand. And when you don’t understand the ramifications, how many times in recent years have we heard people say unintended consequences, right. So many decisions have quote unquote, unintended consequences. Leaders who have followed the process It’s their job to see those potential consequences, and then be able to pivot within that. Right. And that’s why people, some people are wartime general, sometimes sometimes they’re peacetime generals. But people that have built the process and have followed the steps and have built those skills can manage their way through both.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, that’s so true. So the, because you’ve been able to spend so much time coaching in both the business and the sports world, I’d love to kind of compare and contrast them for a little bit, I think there’s that an advantage that the sports world has that’s very distinct over particularly the founders, right, or owners, and that is sidelines. And what I mean by that is, when your role transitions, or if you know, as coach on the field, you know, your responsibility is not to jump in and save the day on the field, right coach on the sideline versus being a player on the field. And many founders need to get to the stage where they are coaching from the sideline, not jumping in and saving the day on the field. But because in business, there’s no, there’s no sideline, there’s no big white line that says do not cross right. And who in your organization is going to tell you not to? I see folks jumping over that. And then they’re wondering why they’re so exhausted, why their teams frustrated and and why this thing’s not working the way it’s supposed to. Would you agree with that? And what other ways do you see sports and business? Both comparing and contrasting?
David Kitchen
Yeah, I think 100% I would agree with what you said I it’s why leaders that delegate really well seem like superheroes. And that’s, that’s a really unique trait, right? To be able to know not only what to delegate, but who to delegate to. And the analogy that I always use for founders who do struggle with that, and leaders who do struggle is trust me, we see it in our corporate clients, all the time that we’ve seen in athletics as well. But the the analogy that I always use for them is you don’t buy a dog and then bark for it. So why do you hire an expert or subject matter expert, and then not let them do their job? Right, that that’s not your job. And so I think it’s, it’s, it is unique between sports and business, because in sports, your role is clearly defined, right? And you understand that and you understand that your success and failure is predicated not just on your own performance, but by your performance by the performance of the team, right. And you understand that your role within the system is what matters. And so I think a lot of athletes are system thinkers. And I think that that’s why you see a lot of high performers come out of the athletic space, because they understand all those, all those things along with the ability to be creative, right? Sports is problem solving, on a on a macro level. I mean, that’s really what it is. And so you have all these people that are coming out of the athletics field, that are great problem solvers. They’re already system thinkers, they’re already people that have understood time management and how to prioritize, right, they understand this is a really important one that I think is different as well, that they have been in a situation where they literally sit in a room with 150 inch screen in front of them in front of 50 of their peers and their supervisors. And they watch their worst mistakes. And they get narrated by a subject matter expert, who happens to be the coach in this scenario, right. And they have to learn to live with that and be able to learn from and pull. And so I think that there’s some distinct advantages to coming from a sports background. I also think, though, that when you transition from athletics into the business side, and this could be an advantage for somebody who has no athletic background, is athletes have to change their relationship with competition. Because it’s no longer an external competition. When you’re in business. I’m not comparing my business to your business. I’m not comparing my business to Google or to Amazon or to any of those unicorns or anything like that. I’m comparing it to how good we were yesterday, and how much or how much better we were a week ago, right. And so I think that changes. And I also think business minds sometimes have the ability to think in a much longer time horizon, that athletes, right, because athletics is such a time based and situational based event. So I think there’s there’s pros and cons on both. But again, I think a leader is a leader, I think those things carry over across the board. It’s just knowing, in my opinion, it’s picturing a DJ board with a bunch of knobs. And it’s knowing which traits to turn up in which traits, it turned out that work for you in your environment. Right. There’s some highly competitive leaders that can really turn that volume up and live in that space and their teams will follow. And that’s okay. Right. There’s also leaders that really thrive on that empathy piece, and they really turn that up and their leader and their people follow. And so I think it’s figuring out what traits do I have from my past experiences, whether they are athletics or not athletics, and then how do I apply them to the context that I have now, which, oddly enough translates to learning agility? Right? which is the number one predictor of leadership success, according to the psychology research. So it all comes full circle if you really look at it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s fantastic. So, there’s a question I asked all my guests, and I’d love to hear what you have to say to it. But it’s this. What is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody watching listening today knew?
David Kitchen
You know, it’s it’s interesting, you asked this because I’ve been asked similar questions before, and I used to have an answer for him. But my interchange after a recent conversation with one of my close friends, and my answer now is, I wish it wasn’t a secret that everything in your life is a choice, you are choosing that you are choosing to be whether you’re a slave to your emotions, or you’re a slave to validation, or external, you know, external metrics, or whatever that is, you’re choosing. And the beautiful thing about that means if you’re choosing you can take a sledgehammer to that decision at any time. And you can choose to go a different direction. So that will be the thing that I wish people really knew, right? That you can choose to be the leader that you need it, you can choose to be the friend, the employee, the brother, the sister, etc, that you need it. Everything in your life is a choice, and you are the author of the story. It’s your decision, whether you become the hero or the villain.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah, powerful, absolutely powerful. I love that. Now, there’s some folks listening today who it just everyone’s resonating with that right that just like I had someone who gets it finally someone who gets it, how can they find out more about you and the work that you that you do?
David Kitchen
Absolutely, yeah, it’s it’s we’re online, obviously, edgeleadershipacademy.com. And then on social media, I keep it super simple. I’m @CoachDKitch, on every single platform, and a little inside scoop for you for your listeners, because I know they’re their high performing individuals or people that want to be great. If you want to skip the line, it gets straight to me. I run my own LinkedIn, and I run my own Instagram. So those two platforms, if you DM me on there, that is actually me. That’s not my team. That’s the fastest way to to get in touch with me.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. Well, Coach Kitch thanks so much for being on today. Just a privilege. Oh, what an awesome conversation. I loved every minute of it. So thanks so much for being on and for those of you watching, listening, you know that 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 David Kitchen
David Kitchen is the Founder and President of Edge Leadership Academy. Coach Kitch is a former Division 1 Coach with a decade of experience building leaders, culture, and mindset at the highest level. He is also an author, speaker, consultant, and coach trusted by 100+ CEOs, coaches, and high performers to help individuals and teams lead and win in business, athletics, and life. He is the author of The Pyramid: A System for Building Tomorrow’s Leaders Today and The Scoreboard: A Self-Audit System to Help You Build the Life You Want.
Want to learn more about David Kitchen’s work at Edge Leadership Academy? Check out his website at https://www.edgeleadershipacademy.com/ or connect with him on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachdkitch/ or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/CoachDKitch/?hl=en
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