In this purposeful episode, Mark Bateman, CEO of WeQual, shares how he has amassed over 3,000 hours of executive coaching experience with global CEOs, board members, C-suite executives, and VPs to achieve extraordinary success.
You will discover:
– Why the gender gap is more important than ever
– How to build the fire of success in your business (and the secret to sustaining it)
– How to turn your ” Visionary Arsonist” tendencies into a force for good
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 Mark Bateman who’s the CEO of WeQual. He’s a visionary disrupter, a corporate advisor and an executive coach focusing on leadership development, and WeQual is a firm devoted to driving gender equality and unleashing purposeful leadership within the top echelons of the world’s most influential companies. he partners with global leaders to spark impactful enduring change and offers unique real world insights and actionable strategies to foster authentic, influential leadership by boldly questioning the status quo. He helps leaders to shape purposeful legacies, and drive positive organizational Transformations is also the author of a fantastic book called disruptive leadership, using fire to drive purposeful change is here with us today. We’ll mark Welcome to the show. What an intro. I’m excited for this conversation. So much ground to cover. But I’d love to start off with for you at WeQual, what would you say some of the most important work that you do?
Mark Bateman
Gosh, well, welcome. Thank you so much that introduction. I think I have to borrow that introduction and use it for myself. It’s a real pleasure being here, Scott, in terms of WeQual, you know, I think so yeah, we’re driving equality with Bruce was a become sorry, with a very specific focus on women. Within the world’s largest companies, I think there’s kind of sometimes some pushback or some questions around why that even needs to be a focus. Yet. The truth is, there is a compelling business case, to increase equality at the top of the world’s largest companies. Why? Because it’s better for business revenues, profitability is better for people employee engagement, customer service. And actually, it’s also better for the planet in terms of focus on ESG, and CSR. So all the aspects relate to climate change, governance, they’re all social types of issues, etc. so
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. So I’d love to dive into this because it’s a topic I think most of us have are aware of. Right. But I don’t know most of us know how big an issue it still is. So how big is the gap today? And and you’ve kind of dabbled into this. But but maybe on a practical note, why is it so important?
Mark Bateman
Yeah, so it’s interesting. 95% of CEOs globally are men. 95%. That’s a really, really, really high percentage. And what does that actually mean? Well, it means we really have one idea of what successful leadership looks like. And it’s kind of defined by history. And I’m very aware that I’m saying this as a male CEO, myself, Scott, you’re a CEO, like, you know, these are, this is the field that we’re in. What I’ve been absolutely amazed by, over the last four years since I’ve been a seer we call is the number of incredible women that I have found at the top of big fortune 1000 companies, and the difference that they bring every single day in terms of their leadership style, as well as their leadership impact. And so it’s kind of it’s really hard for me, redefined what true successful leadership looks like. Because if the only thing that we have is some kind of historic model, which is primarily men with no idea really what then a female leadership style looks like, what does that actually look like? What does success look like? Or does that woman need to have more masculine traits? So I’ve learned so much working with these incredible men that really genuinely bring a greater empathy for people. Number one, they care, they seem to care far more about the world as a whole, rather than just about the numbers. And don’t mistake that for not being exceptional. On the numbers. These are, you know, top President’s top CEOs globally, who are women who are driving the numbers, but they’re doing so in a sustainable way that is actually better for the planet better for every single human being on the planet.
Scott Ritzheimer
And you mentioned this in your answer here, and it’s a question that I have but as as a male CEO, what role do I have to play in closing that gap?
Mark Bateman
By every role, right, those that are in power always have greater responsibility always right, it’s incumbent upon the position of leadership so what I within the book, which I know we’re going to come on to, but the very so let me just touch on the book right so within my book, I use the analogy of fire or using fire as an analogy for leadership and or for organization. So how do we start a fire is much akin to starting a business how do we grow a business grow our fire, how do we maintain it, protect it from our competitors, whilst ensuring that we don’t burn out ourselves? Now in the third stage of growing a business, a fire needs three things heat fuel, oxygen, heat is is a leadership purpose inaction. So it’s that moment want to set about making a difference? We start expending energy in pursuit of that difference. We start generating heat, where they need fuel fuel is amazing people, as well as resources, things like cash to grow our business. And finally, we need oxygen which She’s our customers or market those that we seek to impact. Once we have a business up and running, it’s like we have a fire. Now what we have to do is make sure that that fire stays burning something second law of thermodynamics, we’re going to take you back to your physics classes at school here. The second law of thermodynamics states that when an enclosed system, entropy increases over time, what does that mean? Well, it means that there is a general slight was chaos and disorder, you only have to look at very well known examples like blockbusters were, or even Kodak where they had strong positions in the marketplace. But he got so fixated on what they knew that actually what happened is they slid into a state of chaos and disorder, an init filing for Chapter 11. I think what busters has one, one store still still open in the US? So how does it How does it computers operating protect itself? How does it ensure it keeps its heat its fuel and its oxygen? Well, for that to happen, a company is primarily to things in His external energy. And it needs time, it’s known as the learning organization, it’s a company that is able to continuously disrupt itself. Now from that, that external energy piece, that’s all about diversity. How do you know that your product is right, your services? Or how do you know that you’re, you’re meeting your customers needs? One of my favorite stories is, I believe was p&g but I could be wrong. So don’t see me. But there was a major manufacturer of nappies. And the whole marketing team was men. Think about that for a second. How could that be? So by bringing in diverse input A those that sound different to us that think differently to us, and especially if we’re in that senior leadership position of a CEO or other senior leadership positions, making sure that we don’t have what I call psycho frantic followers, right? Those who say yes, those who just wait to carry out our bidding. Now they challenge us, they bring fresh perspective, they generate heat, because they think differently, their experience is different. And it’s painful, and it’s difficult. And it can it can make decision making that little bit longer. But once you get to a decision point, you’ve gone to a better process.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I think it was Adam Grant, I could be wrong on that. But said, you want to hire folks for cultural contribution, not cultural fit. And I hear a lot of that and what you’re saying. But that’s intimidating, right? Because if we’re hiring folks who are like us, we can kind of use the like us as a litmus test for whether or not they’ll fit in. So how do we go about finding people who aren’t like us, but are the right kind of not like us, if that makes sense?
Mark Bateman
I think this comes back to classic leadership stroke coaching, right? So focusing on vision, mission and values. So we’re really clear as a business as we’re growing week. Well, so we’re pretty much doubling every year at the moment. Well, we have a very, very clear vision, we have a very clear why our purpose, our mission, and we have a very clear set of values. When we were first started hiring, we brought in our very first head of people who was also responsible for recruitment. And you will know if you come inside, I can’t give too much information away because this is this is still live, you know, but the shortlist that we get for candidates, we’d all be very similar looking. I mean, number one, a lot of women come want to come and work with us, which you can understand. They’ll say no, no, we need to push that diversity internally. And it takes extra effort is it’s harder. And then when you’re interviewing somebody, it’s harder because they’re not. They’re not the same. Right? If you call or gone to the same college together, yeah, you can talk you can share about whatever stories happened and whatever happened in that local area. But what does different look like? Where is the challenge? I was interviewing somebody who didn’t fit our current ethnic and gender mold, if you like? And she says, No, you don’t you don’t hire for culture fit you hire for culture stretch. I really liked that. Thank you, Cara. Jessica, by the way for that one. Yeah, culture stretch. So how are you stretching your thinking? What what does that actually look like? Because if you just do more of the same, you’re gonna get more of the same.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so true. I do want to shift gears back to the book, because he is really an interesting metaphor, this idea of fire the whole way through. And as I was doing some research for the episode, it kept coming back to this idea that fire can build it can propel, right, but it can also burn down and destroyed. And yeah, how do how do we know whether we’re harnessing it for the right things about whether we’re ultimately acting against our own interests?
Mark Bateman
Yeah, so for me this is again, it comes back to very clear sense of purpose. Why are you doing this? And is it ultimately is it for ego? Or is it for personal status? personal power? Is it’s empowering me in some way? Or is it actually gonna leave a legacy that is churched through the lens of time, right? So that impactful legacy, and you’re right, a fire, you know, I use the example of different types of fire. If you have a wildfire that burns outside your house, that’s never a good thing. If you have a flash fire in your kitchen, not a good thing. But if you have a spark inside a fuel engine or gas engine, or petrol engine, that one spark propels your car for another few feet, right. So depending on the context, So as leaders being really, really clear about why we are building the fire that we’re building, is it just a burn indiscriminate? Is it to grow at all costs? Is it to meet some deeper internal need, where we need to feel that the world thinks we’re amazing? A is kind of all about our ego? Or is this will be more purposeful than that. And, and staying true to purpose, I believe is that is one of the biggest constraints on how your fire will burn along with your values. Right? The values are a, what I mean by that is what are the behaviors that you as a leader, and those in your company will follow, such that when you have to make a decision? Hey, here’s some quick money, we can make some quick money here and gosh, right, especially as entrepreneurs, we know we need money, but actually that money comes with a cost is impacting our ethics or morals or values in some way? No, we’re not going to do that. Because the moment you start going down that route, your fire starts burning how to control.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, you keep coming back to purpose, and just that the depth of that honest assessment behind it. I have for you, is that something you can do alone? Is that do you? Do you need a team around you to do that? Do you need someone from the outside to come in? Or is that something that you can really do consistently on your own?
Mark Bateman
In terms of what in terms of making an impact? Or?
Scott Ritzheimer
Of assessing whether or not you’re
Mark Bateman
like, oh, gosh, okay, well, so most, most, most people that find themselves leading something, especially of note, right, so those that we would call a leader are typically driven by some kind of purpose, they may actually be unaware of what their purpose is, to ensure that we stay on the straight and narrow in to make sure that our fire doesn’t burn out of control. I think that’s where leaders, we have to hold ourselves accountable. So we absolutely have to surround ourselves not only within our leadership team, but actually those outside the company as well holding us account to our vision, our mission and our values. Because it can be too easy, either intentionally, or maybe subconsciously, get pulled off to the side, buy something that’s not helpful, that will, at the end of the day cause destruction or harm.
Scott Ritzheimer
I work with a lot of folks in the entrepreneurial world. So a lot of my clients are founders, and they’re going through this transition of I am the company, right. And in that case, there’s not a whole lot to be held accountable to right because you and it are the same thing, too. I have built a company, and I’m willing to be held accountable to what we’re doing together. Alright, so powerful trait.
Mark Bateman
Right. But there’s two parts to that, though, I think there’s the first part, which is accountable to the vision, the reason that you’re doing what you’re doing. And the second one is being accountable in the way that you do it. And actually, in a sense, I’m more focused on the way that you do it. Because we’re not we can’t tell anybody that the what they’re doing is right or wrong, but the way that they’re doing is most likely not helpful. You know, much of coaching is about leadership development. Why? Because want to be more effective in terms of driving the results that we want, because the results we want drive us more towards our purpose and our vision, right? So I would actually argue, even if you’re starting out, it could even be more essential. They have a degree of accountability, because accountability is two way anyway. Right? But there’s lots of decisions you’re having to make. How do I spend my time? What do I prioritize? It got I don’t have a work life balance anymore. You know, I’m working 80 100 120 hour weeks my relationship, my wife and my partner is falling on the rocks. Well, where does accountability come in, in that situation? And at what point is the cost to great so accountability don’t see as a negative thing. Absolutely see as a positive thing, almost like, you know, when you’re learning to ride a bike, and you have the would you call them that the trainer wheels? I don’t even what you call them on that the two that wheels on the back wheel stabilizes, right? It’s almost like that, you know, accountability can can just help keep you upright, rather than fearing often hurting yourself badly or hurting somebody else paddling.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s awesome. All right. So Mark has a question. I like to ask all my guests and it is this what what is the biggest secret you wish just wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everyone knew?
Mark Bateman
I think I think that so many of us are waiting for permission. I think that we have this impression that the world is going to give us something we’re waiting for us to be ready. We’re waiting for somebody to say, hey, yes, go and do this. We’re always waiting for somehow for somebody to give us permission to do something. Stop waiting. Like, what would it look if you took up all of your space? If you if you allowed yourself to be fully who you are without fear of failure without fear of somebody saying no? What would that look like? So giving yourself permission, I have a really simple exercise. I do this. Imagine you have a magic piece of paper with a magic pen. Whatever you write on that magic piece of paper with your magic pen is possible. And as you’re writing down, whatever it is you want to do, stop all of the critical thinking self limiting beliefs. The critical voice that’s always there, the thing that tells you why you can’t remove all of that and write it magic pen magic piece of paper, exactly what you’d love to do, and then figure out how to do it. Just go and do it because life is so short.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so true and so good. Well, Mark, I know that there’s some folks listening to this. And they’ve got to have more, right? They want to know where to get a copy of book or connect with you guys that week. Well, how can they do that? How can we get a copy of the book?
Mark Bateman
Thank you. It’s available on Amazon. And in all the major countries around the world in case you wanna look at it. It’s right here. So, Disruptive Leadership, using fire to drive purposeful change by me Mark Bateman on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. You can get ahold of me at mark-bateman.com. And if you’re interested in we call so as a company, we’re focused on driving equality within the world’s largest companies, we typically will be blue chip companies right now companies, unfortunately probably made for most of the listeners here over a billion dollars in size, and really helping to unlock leadership regardless of gender and regardless of ethnicity.
Scott Ritzheimer
Well, Mark, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s an honor and privilege having you here and for those of you watching and listening today, 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 Mark Bateman
Mark Bateman, CEO of WeQual, is a visionary disruptor, corporate adviser, and executive coach focusing on leadership development. WeQual is a firm devoted to driving gender equality and unleashing purposeful leadership within the top echelons of the world’s most influential companies. He partners with global leaders to spark impactful, enduring change and offers unique, real-world insights and actionable strategies to foster authentic, influential leadership. By boldly questioning the status quo, he helps leaders shape purposeful legacies and drive positive organizational transformations.
Want to learn more about Mark Bateman’s work at WeQual? Check out his website at https://wequal.com/ and https://mark-bateman.com/
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