Transcript: Leadership Tightrope: Embracing Paradoxes for Effective Leadership // Tim Elmore, Growing Leaders

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“Leadership Tightrope: Embracing Paradoxes for Effective Leadership“

January 8, 2023

Tim Elmore

Intro: What leadership qualities are most important for the next generation of leaders? How can you balance apparent paradoxes in leadership style? For example, should you be confident, humble, or both? Well, today on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, my guest is Tim Elmore, and we'll focus on some paradoxes that leaders face. Listen in and learn how you can build a flourishing culture in your organization through your own growth and the way you develop the next generation of leaders.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of the book Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being, which was a finalist in the Christian Book Awards. I'm passionate about helping leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

And today I’m delighted to welcome Tim Elmore to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast. Tim is a well-known speaker, author, and founder of Growing Leaders, a nonprofit organization that develops emerging leaders. He's also an expert on generational diversity and leadership in the workplace. He's the author of the book Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership.

In fact, throughout our conversation, you’ll hear Tim talk about three of the eight paradoxes. You'll hear an inspirational way of building trust in the workplace, keys to developing young leaders, and tips to lead Gen Z leaders, the new largest generation on Earth.

And I think you're going to love this interview with Tim. But before we dive in, this episode is brought to you by the Best Christian Workplaces Employee Engagement Survey. You can sign up today to discover the health of your organization's culture. This is a wonderful time to listen to your employees, with our easy-to-administer online Engagement Survey by going to workplaces.org. Being a certified best Christian workplace improves your ability to attract more talented employees and keep them longer.

And hello to our new listeners. Thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.

And let me tell you just a little bit more about Tim Elmore. Tim started his career as a youth pastor and later served 20 years on John Maxwell's leadership team. He founded a nonprofit called Growing Leaders in 2003 with a vision of empowering young people to become authentic leaders and who can positively influence their world. Tim’s the author of over 35 books, including his recent book, Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership. He’s committed to equipping the next generation of leaders to not only be ready for real life, but also to be life giving as they lead. Since 2003, Growing Leaders has equipped 2.7 million students with leadership qualities and skills to be emotionally intelligent leaders. He speaks to businesses, universities, sports teams, secondary schools, and nonprofits throughout the United States and also in 50 countries globally. His themes include leadership, serving on multi-generational teams, how to engage the emerging generation, and others. His elevating goal is to equip 1% of the world's youth population to serve as life-giving leaders in their communities.

So, here’s my conversation with Tim Elmore.

Tim, it's great to have you on the podcast today. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Tim Elmore: I am, too. This is going to be fun.

Al: So, Tim, you talk a lot and write about the complexities of leadership in our uncertain world, and you've given a lot of thought to what leaders need now and into the future. And your book Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership is framed around qualities or ideas that might seem a bit contradictory, and we're going to talk about some of those today. But let's start with a definition of paradox, just to help us get into the conversation and make sure we're on the same page. Why do you feel like the idea of paradoxes is important into the leadership conversation in today's world? Yeah.

Tim: Sure. Well, I'm guessing our listeners probably have used the word paradox, but it may have been a little while. To me, a paradox is simply a contradictory proposition that when investigated, may prove to be well-founded and true. But it seems very oxymoronic. It seems contradictory. How could this be that?

Al, I'll tell you a really great vivid illustration of this, just experientially. Remember 2020, when we were all sent home in a quarantine and a lockdown. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was reported weeks after the lockdown started that traffic was way down in the city of Atlanta, obviously, but traffic accidents went up. Now, that seems like a paradox. How can that be? But you know what we found out in the police reports? We found out that because there were fewer drivers on the road, the ones that were out there were driving pretty recklessly, and so they were bumping into each other. It was bumper cars out there. But see, that makes sense. Once you hear it explained, you go, “Of course. I see now.”

So I think that we are in a world right now where we are so polarized. I know it's been said a million times, but it's either/or. It's black or white. It's red or blue state. Which one? What are you? And I think so often the answer is in the middle. I think Jesus confounded people—Pharisees, to be specific—when He wasn't going to be pushed into a corner. So you love the sinner, but you hate that. “Well, how can you do that?”

So anyway, I think today, especially for leaders, it's so complex to lead today—and we can talk more about that later—but I think part of the answer, not the only answer, but part of the answer is to lead with a “both/and” rather than an “either/or” mindset.

Al: I love that, you know, and I really want to get into these eight paradoxes, and we won't have time for all eight of them in our discussion. But here's one that just got my attention right off the bat because I love humility as a Christian characteristic of leadership. And you talk about confidence, and we've all seen people that are overconfident. So, okay, we got confidence; we got humility. That's a paradox. So flesh this idea out for us. Why do great leaders need both confidence and humility?

Tim: Well, would you not agree, oftentimes you get one or the other—

Al: Yeah, mm-hmm.

Tim: —in a leader? You get a very confident leader, you go, “Oh, my gosh, Bob. You’re not that good.” You know? But then sometimes you see a leader that's so humble, it's winsome, but you go, “I don't know if we're going to reach our goal, he's so humble. He's just always acquiescing and so forth.”

So for every one of these chapters in this book, I actually choose a case study. And for this one, I happened to pick Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney. So you know his story a little bit, I'm sure. But Bob was swept up into this gigantic job, leading this conglomerate named Disney. But he had been in network television, but that's all he does. So that's part of the Disney World. But, you know, he had never sold a plush toy or a movie ticket or a theme-park ticket or, you know, a T-shirt. So when Bob comes in, he realizes, “I got to run point on this, but I can't pretend I know what I'm doing. I'm learning.” So he meets with the very people he's leading and says, “Hey, coach me up here. What do I need to know?” And he won them over because he didn't pretend; he didn't fake cockiness or confidence.

So I want to quote Bob directly. Early in the book, I kind of use his words, where he talks about this oxymoronic dual characteristic of confident and humility. He says, “You have to be humble, and you can't pretend to be someone you're not or to know something you don't. You're also in a position of leadership, though. So you can't let humility prevent you from leading. It's a fine line and something I preach today. You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don't understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can.” And Bob did this brilliant. Not a perfect person, for sure, but he combined these two, and he won his people over with knowing which one to model at any given moment.

And you know what I found, Al? I would say to my young team members at Growing Leaders, the organization I started, they need to see my confidence. To the seasoned veterans who know my quirks and flaws, they need to see my humility. You follow me on that?

Al: I do, yeah.

Tim: They need to see Tim is not pretending to be something he's not.

Al: Right.

Tim: So I think that's how it works.

Al: And especially, they know you, right?

Tim: Yeah.

Al: And they’ve worked with you. Yeah.

Tim: It’s so true.

Al: And there’s not hiding that. Yeah.

I love that example, Tim. And I've read Bob Iger's book, and just a fantastic—what a high-capacity leader, no question about it. And great for us all to know and to have a sense of confidence, particularly where we're going and around vision, isn’t it, where we need to have confidence and humility as we're working with others.

Well, that's a great kick off: confidence and humility. Now, another pair of attributes you put together—again on the front end, it's like, “Really?”—stubbornness and open mindedness. Now, we all have pictures of somebody that's stubborn, in our mind, and how we've run up against them. And then we think are open-minded leaders who have taken our ideas and helped to champion them to be successful. So when I think of stubbornness, a little bit with a negative connotation, so how does a leader combine stubbornness and open mindedness?

Tim: Well, this is actually different, but it is a second cousin to confidence and humility. So think for just a minute. Confidence makes my leadership believable—and people look for a confident leader—but my humility makes my confidence believable. You follow that? So when I'm humble, it lets people know, okay, he doesn't think he can do it all himself; he knows he needs us, etc., etc. So the same is true with stubborn and open minded.

Now, my case study on this one was Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A. Truett’s no longer with us on the earth. But boy, what a crazy-great leader, the founder of Chick-fil-A. Well, his son, Dan Cathy, said to me, “My dad was a study in contrasts. He was the most stubborn man I've ever met and the most open-minded man I'd ever met.” Isn’t that interesting?

So early on, Truett went through a whole bunch of real tough years. I mean, his brothers died in a plane crash and restaurant burned down and Great Depression, World War II, just crazy stuff. But I think every struggle he went through, it taught him how he needed to adapt in order to keep going—that's the open mindedness—but it also taught him what he needed to cling to that he knew to be right, which is the stubbornness. So Truett, if I can just bottom line this real quick, Al, Truett realized, “I need to know what my core is. What are the timeless truths that I know will never change? And I don't care what year we're in, this is the truth.” Now, as Christ followers, we understand that. There are some timeless truths. But he was open minded on about everything else.

So if I can nutshell this, I would probably say it this way. This paradox probably is the toughest one of all of them in the book to practice. Leaders will never reach a goal without being a little bit strong willed, okay? Without a stubborn will, obstacles are going to stop them. But at the same time, they'd be naive to think that they have all the answers at the beginning of a venture. They must be open to voices of counsel, to flex, to adapt, to changing realities.

So Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said it best, and I'm going to quote Coach K right now. He said, “The most incredibly interesting thing about being a leader is what adjustments you make while keeping your core principles alive and well.” Isn’t that brilliant?

So I believe, when people ask me about this in a Q&A session when I'm speaking on this, I always say, “Find out from the very beginning what your core is, and you be as stubborn as you could possibly be.” Well, think about Truett. “We’re closed on Sunday. I don't care who you are running a Chick-fil-A. We're closed on Sunday.” But then, oh, my gosh. He’s so open to new products, new sandwiches, new—I mean, at 92, he starts his own new restaurant. Truett’s Luau, south of Atlanta. And he picked the menu and the colors and the music, and oh, my gosh. So I love how he modeled this. Know your core, and it's not big, but then be open on so many other things as you grow older and find it hard to change.

Al: You know, I oftentimes think as I work with leaders, you know, how their values, their organizational values, their personal values, are kind of that core that they cling to. And then how they do their work might be where they adapt in that process. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Stubbornness and open mindedness, they work together.

Well, one of the things that leaders often deal with is anxiety and maybe even fear. And I think I'm an Enneagram three—

Tim: I am, too. Yeah.

Al: —and the biggest fear we have is the fear of failure. I was just talking to my wife about that last night. But okay, so this may be true when working with emerging leaders as well. So talk a little bit about your high standards versus gracious forgiveness. How do these two attributes work together? You talk about those, but how do you embrace high standards and grace? I mean, it seems like you’d need—if you've got high standards, you need to be tough, but then grace is not the same. So talk about that, the paradox.

Tim: Yeah. This was so, so important to me. My case study on this one is rather unusual. I picked Harriet Tubman. Remember the lady that launched the Underground Railroad and freed hundreds of slaves during the Civil War days? But Harriet Tubman was a brilliant case study in this in that in order to pull off this escape from slavery, she had to have some very high standards. Like, you had to be utter silent, absolutely silent, during certain parts. And if you had a baby, you had put your hand over that baby's mouth, and blah, blah, blah. You know, she had tough rules. But here's what we found as you study the story. If there was a person that thought, “I can't do this. I'm going back. I'm going back to the South,” she would stop them and say, “You're not leaving.” I mean, there was a high standard. When the person said, “Okay, I'm sorry. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'll go,” she would just graciously forgive them without a second thought and welcome them back.

So I got to be honest with you. Since you and I and our listeners are probably mostly Christ followers, Jesus did this brilliantly. I mean, think about that. Okay. Let me give you one case study from Jesus’s leadership.

By the way, listeners, I dare you to reread the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—not only seeing Jesus as a Savior—He’s a brilliant Savior—watch Him as a leader. He's brilliant.

So we all remember the story of the woman who was caught in adultery, brought to Jesus, and the people that brought her had rocks in their hands, and they're ready to stone her to death. Well, you remember what happened. Jesus looks at them and scribbles in the dirt, and then He says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Well, one by one, they drop the rocks, and they walk away. I love the rest of the story, which we rarely talk about. Jesus looks at the woman and says, “Where are your condemners?” And she says, “Lord, they've left.” His next sentence is high-standard gracious. He said, “Neither do I condemn you.” There's gracious forgiveness. “Go and sin no more.” There's a high standard.

So, I’m telling you, the best leaders, including the one I worked with the first 20 years of my career—I don't know if you know this, but I worked for John Maxwell the first 20 years of my career, right out of college. And I saw this man not only model great leadership, but as a 20-something, I’d made mistake after mistake. I didn't know what I was doing. But he thought big, and he gave me huge tasks, and I would attempt them. Once in a while I thought, “Uh-oh, I flopped,” And I’d tell my wife, “Honey, I may not have a job tonight when I come home.” And John would sit down and so graciously say, “All right. Let's talk about what we learned, and let's try it again.” And I’d think to myself, “Oh, my gosh, this is exactly—" In fact, let me summarize it for the listeners, if they go, “Yeah, that sounds good, but why?” Here's what I would say. To get anywhere new, we've got to have high standards. Leaders, by definition, are not just managing protocol, but they're setting new standards. But if we set standards without forgiveness, people are going to be too afraid to do anything. They're going, “I'm not going to do that. I might get fired if I fail.” If they know that leader is going to forgive them, if they've tried to meet the standard, oh, my gosh; now we've got an equation that's brilliantly leading us to new levels. So I'll stop there, but that’s why I think this is so critical and so essential we learn.

Al: Yeah. And that's, I mean, then innovation happens when you're at that point, right, Tim? I mean, so if you have high standards, and your boss, your leader, your supervisor, gives you room to make mistakes, you're learning, and the organization's learning, and yeah, the grace to forgive and to learn from it. I used to say, if you're skiing, and your pants don't have any snow on them at the end of the day, you haven't learned. You haven’t learned—

Tim: I love that. I love that.

Al: —how to ski better. But yeah.

Tim: Yeah. It's so true. Yeah.

Well, you know what? If I can insert one more thought real quick here. So, the leader that models this one, high standards and gracious forgiveness, they are sticklers for excellence, demanding more than team members feel they can even offer at first. We've all been under a leader, where, oh, my gosh; that's too much. So in this sense, they're almost inhuman. I felt like John Maxwell was a little bit inhuman. How could he ask us to do that? But their high standards separate their organization from others who can only emulate their great products or services or their great ministry or whatever. So they have over-the-top benchmarks that put them in a league of their own. Think about Amazon, Apple, Zappos, Google. But here's the other side of the coin. At the same time, these leaders balance their standards with this grace to forgive errors made by team members, to offer mercy to those who fall short, empowering them to recover and later rise to the occasion. So that makes them human. So there's this inhuman and human thing going on at the very same time.

Al: Yeah. Great stuff, Tim. Thanks. And again, for our listeners, to be thinking about this, and where do you fall on this, and are you able to hold the paradox in your hands as you're doing this? One of our values at the Best Christian Workplaces is quality. So that's a high standard. Yeah. We've got to emulate the quality of the Creator in the universe. That's the way we look at it. Yeah.

So, Tim, in our work in employee engagement at the Best Christian Workplaces, we found that trust, the trust between leaders and staff, the trust between coworkers, is a key factor in inspirational leadership and flourishing workplaces. And it's also an area that you talk about in your leadership qualities. So give us some practical ways that leaders can build trust on their team and throughout their organizations. I'm thinking of one organization specifically that said, “Yeah. Our Engagement Survey said our trust isn't as high as we'd like it.” Yeah, give us some ideas.

Tim: Well, I think this is a behavioral-science principle as well as a biblical principle. Trust is all through the New Testament. But I think when we offer a bit more autonomy than average, that communicates to team members, “Oh, you trust me.” So at our workplace, we have unlimited PTO. We're able to do that. Now, we have a big mission, but that could be—you can imagine, unlimited personal time off, that really communicates, “Okay. You trust me to get the job done even if I'm not there on Wednesday at noon.” So we wanted to communicate that. But at the same time, we only hire people who have responsibility among their top five strengths. So I know when you come on this team, you're going to own it, you’re going to care about your teammates, and you’re going to care about the mission, and you’re not going to take four weeks in Hawaii and let your teammates down, who are counting on you to get the job done. So there's this tender balance of winning people at the heart level.

So I'm going to get really practical now with an acronym that I actually started practicing this year that has been a game changer. You know how for years we've used the term, “This is a leg you got to stand on,” that little phrase? So I take the acronym A LEG, A L-E-G, and I try to follow these four steps, especially when I talk to a team member that I might be struggling a little bit with what they just did. They may have kind of done some knucklehead thing. I cannot figure out why they just did that.

Well, so the letter A reminds me, I need to ask. Instead of tell, which I want to do, I need to ask questions. And when I ask them—and I mean genuine qu—not like, “What were you thinking?” But I'm talking about asking, “Now, Kim, tell me what was going through your head as you made that decision. You must have had some really good logic. What was it?” That lets them—when I ask instead of tell, it communicates value. I'm actually asking questions of their thought process.

The letter L, listen. It does very little good to ask a question if you're not going to listen. I actually believe what David Augsburger once said, “Being heard is so close to feeling loved that for the average person, it's indistinguishable.” Just hearing people. You know the crying heart of Gen Z at the workplace is, “I want to have a voice. I want to be heard.”

So, ask and they feel valued. Listen, they feel heard. The letter E and A LEG, empathize. And that's something I had to learn as a male who is a three on the Enneagram.

Al: Mm-hmm, yeah. Right.

Tim: I just want to forge ahead. Please go with me, would you? So when I empathize, I'm learning skill sets like responding back when they share something, with, “Oh, my gosh. I had no idea,” or “Wow, I bet that made you feel horrible,” or something like that. You know what I'm saying. But it's verbal, paraverbal, and nonverbal communication that through your tone, your silence, or your words, you're saying, “He gets me. He really understands.” And that's, when you empathize, they feel understood.

Now, my theory that I’ve proven to be true here where I am is, if I ask, listen, and empathize, now I can do the letter G, which I've wanted to do from the beginning, which is guide, but I've earned my right to guide them, not with my badge, but with a relationship. Can I just remind every listener? You're all believers. Relationships are everything. And I'm thinking, Jesus modeled this. I think great leaders modeled this. So I am now no longer using my title or my position. I'm saying, “Let me ask. Let me listen. Let me empathize.” And now I think that you're good because I leaned in, you're going to lean back into me. So I would suggest maybe that's a homework assignment for people listening.

Al: I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: Welcome back to Tim Elmore.

I love the acronym, yeah. Tim, thanks. A LEG. Let’s get “a leg” up, right? Yeah.

Tim: That’s right. And be a best practice, a best workplace.

Al: Yeah. Absolutely. That’s get “a leg” up. I love it. So, yeah, we’ll come back to that, I’m sure.

Tim, our listeners are leaders in churches, schools, Christian nonprofits, Christian-led businesses. We have the pleasure of working with all these kinds of organizations. And they're investing in the next generation of leaders in their organization. And I know this is a particularly passion for you. So give some practical steps on equipping and empowering younger leaders. What are younger leaders looking for in terms of their own development, growth, and growth opportunities? Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. Good question, and one that deserves an hour. I'm going to try to give it quickly and do it justice here. So the first thing I would say, if that's on your mind, listeners, “What about this Gen Z thing? What about these new freshly minted graduates? What do I do?” well, first, let me just say, you probably should look for two realities that exist in these young adults that perhaps are more so than any other generation you've hired on your team. Generation Z, these young adults now that are entering the workplace, often bring a high sense of agency and a high sense of anxiety at the same time. High agency, high anxiety. So you know what agency means. It's a sense of, “Ooh, I got this. I'm in control.” You know, when my kids show some agency, I’m, “Oh, my gosh. I better get out of their way. They got a smartphone in their hand. They can look this up.” So you're going to notice that. In fact, as you interview them for a job, just know they might bring some audacity that you think is arrogant or cocky. And it may be, but just know this is a trait. Because this group of kids grew up with a smartphone, not just a cell phone, they have a sense of agency, okay? I had one high school senior recently say, “My teachers are obsolete.” And what he meant by that was not unkindness. It was, “I could look up anything that's being said in the classroom. Tell me something I don't know.” So, listen, they don't need us for information; they need us for interpretation. “Let me help you make sense of all that you know. I realize you've looked up stuff your whole life. Now let me give context to the content.” So high agency.

But high anxiety. You referenced this earlier, Al. They are struggling with mental-health issues, even as people of faith, even as people who have read the verse, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, through prayer and supplication, make your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” They know that verse, and yet I think it's that same smartphone that did this.

The average young person that’s on social media, when you combine the messages on social media with all the other messages any given day, do you know how many messages they’re taking it? Ten thousand messages a day. I don't think my brain was hard wired to take in 10,000 messages a day.

So first of all, look for this, and don't be flabbergasted, or don't gasp, in the interview when they bring the high agency, high anxiety.

All right. So how do we develop them? I think they're looking for a lot of check ins. So in the most recent nationwide data, Generation Z wants multiple check ins with their direct supervisor multiple times a day, and they think something's wrong if they don't get it. So I know all through the years, you're going to say, “I can't do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to micromanage.” But at the beginning, if you'll check in a bunch, it will speak volumes. And then you can say, “Well, Josh, looks like you got this. You're on your own. Let me know if you need me, but I'm going to let you do your job.” But I just find this too often. We need to do that.

Secondly, I would say if you can create an internal gig economy, almost like an intrapreneurship, not entrepreneurship. What I mean by this is this: you have an established ministry or church or school or whatever, so it's hard for you to imitate an entrepreneurial thing that's been around for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. But what they're looking for is an entrepreneurial feel. I don't know if you know this, but 72% of high school students in America right now want to be an entrepreneur, meaning they want to start something, not join something. So if you want them to join what you're doing, if you can create zones that seem like entrepreneurial zones, where there's some funding, and there's a team that's working on this strategically to make change and start new things, they're going to love it because you are established. That's helpful. You got some funding. But yet you're still letting them be a part of ideation and start up and creativity and innovation. So I know that's tough, but if you can do it, you're going to win them at the heart level.

Let me share one more thought to this question. The research shows—I won't go into it unless, Al, you want to go deeper into this—but the research shows these young team members that just graduated and starting their careers need both high expectations and high belief. And those are two different cousins, okay? They're not twins; they're cousins. So high expectations mean, well, it's high standards. You know, what we talked about just a minute ago. So you say, “This is an extraordinary workplace. We expect this and this.” High expectation. So much so that they go, “Oh, my gosh. I hope I can do that.” But if you bring with that high expectation the phrase, “And Josh, I know you. I know you can do this. I so believe in the skill set I've already seen. You got this, buddy,” can you see how that just speaks to their heart, not just their head? So high expectation without high belief feels harsh. High belief without a high expectation feels hollow. “You keep saying you believe in me. You don't really expect anything of me.” So if we can combine these two, I'm telling you—which I know that's not a good word—it's almost magical to them. Yeah.

Al: High expectations and high belief. Yeah. For our new Gen Z people. That's great, Tim. I've been a proponent of check ins, and, of course, especially during the pandemic, and everybody's remote, and we've recommended check ins, you know, once a week for at least a half an hour.

Tim: Yeah, yeah.

Al: Now you're taking it a step further, especially with the new Gen Z employees, to check in on a regular basis, more than once a week, but multiple times a day. That's helpful. And kind of a new paradigm, I know, for many.

Tim: Yeah. Can I add one quick thing?

Al: Absolutely.

Tim: I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I just thought that this would be horrible if I missed out. So you're thinking, listeners, “I don't know how many check ins I can do each day. I'm already busy as a one-arm coat hanger here, and I don't know if I got that.” I would say clarify expectations at the beginning. So conflict expands at a workplace based on the distance between expectations and reality. Let me say that again. Conflict expands based on the distance between expectations and reality.

So a good illustration is if you all listening told your spouse today, “I'll be home by 7:00 for dinner,” and you get home at 7:10, it's probably not a big deal. You get home at 9:30? That’s a big deal. You’re going to have a little conversation with the sweetheart. And it's not because he or she couldn't live without you for two and half hours; it’s that you established an expectation.

So please, with Gen Z team members, establish a clear expect—tell them, “I can do three check ins. I can't do 30. I can do three. But just know, I'll check with you three times. I'll let you know if you're doing a good job, and you'll be on your way.” But see, that's going to avoid some conflict later when they're expecting seven of them, and you only did three. So that’s huge.

Al: Yeah. Communicate and clarify expectations. Yeah. Great, Tim. Yeah.

So one of the things I love about your background is the wide spectrum of leaders that you've worked with, including corporate executives, students, young professionals, and world-class athletes. And I'm curious. I've actually thought about, as you've hired people with responsibility in their top five strengths, I've really been attracted to people that have been successful athletes. And so I'm curious about the leadership qualities you focus on with the sports leaders and athletes. What challenges do they face that are common maybe to all leaders, you know, those that are listening, and what might be unique about leading in a sports setting?

Tim: Yeah, yeah. Good question. Well, believe it or not, athletes struggle with some of the same issues that maybe civilians do that aren't so good on the field or the court. Anxiety is huge. And believe it or not, Al, sometimes I'll talk to Division I athletes, maybe NCAA, and they're suffering from imposter syndrome. Remember that term? “I feel like, well, I was really good in high school, but now I'm at Alabama, or I'm at UCLA, or whatever, and I don't know if I really belong here.” I think that’s where we as leaders, particularly Christ-follower leaders, can really say, “You got this.”

In fact, we begin to work with some of these elite colleges, and that was the phrase we said, “Say this right before you go on the court or the field. ‘I got this.’ Or if you're a believer, ‘I can do all things through Christ.’” I mean, that's a cliche, but Philippians 4:13, that's truth. So believe it or not, imposter syndrome is big. I would say if you're a leader listening and you're wondering about your young people, they struggle more than they might let on with imposter syndrome. “Do I really belong here? Do I really? Should I be here? Do I really belong?” And you know this, but can I say it? Sometimes belonging comes before believing. We want them to believe everything we have on the wall there, but make them feel like they belong. Make them feel loved and taken in and included and they've got a voice. I think you're going to win them over. But belonging comes before belief.

So I'll stop there for now, but those are some observations we have.

Al: Yeah. Great. Employees in the workplace, do they feel like they actually belong? That does make such a big difference. And then they can believe. Yeah. So yeah, understanding that anxiety is huge, imposter syndrome. They're probably feeling like, “Okay. Well, I'll try to fake it till I make it.”

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, right. Exactly.

Al: Yeah, yeah.

Tim: No doubt.

Al: Well, Tim, you've got a finger on the pulse of next-generation leaders. And as you consider the needs of communities and organizations in the future, what gives you hope? As I talk with older people, they're saying, “Oh, this next generation, the world we're coming into, I don't have any hope.” But I don’t believe that because every generation has said that, right, and we’ve all done well. So what hope can you give for some of us when it comes to the next-generation leaders? You know, what challenges will they face? What are we going to see?

Tim: Well, we've already mentioned the mental-health problem, so just know that's been normalized. I hate it, but it's been normalized. So we can either get mad or get busy. I say we get busy. However, I am very hopeful.

First of all, let me just say this. Every single generation dating back to Socrates, before Christ, said, “Kids are disrespectful in my day. They don't pay attention.” I mean, Socrates said that, and I'm going, “That could have been written last week in the newspaper.” So you're right. Everybody’s said it. They said it about us, listeners, and now we're okay. And so let me talk about Gen Z’s future and give you some great hope.

First of all, in a Universum survey of nations around the globe, they found that Generation Z, first of all, is the largest generation in the world—maybe not the largest in America, but around the world—and they have the keenest interest in leadership of the past three generations at their age. Did you catch that? The keenest interest. Now, my theory on why is, they've got access to the whole world on their phone, and they're going, “We're in a mess. We need leaders.”

And by the way, if I could just get really candid—please forgive me if it's too candid, everybody—but we look at Washington, D.C., and they're nearly 79, 80, 81 years old there, both parties. And I'm thinking, “When did we not get them ready? Why did we not get them ready? Shame on us for still holding office when we should have been passing the baton to Joshua.” So that’s just my opinion, but I’m thinking, “We’ve got to do this.” The Psalms, all through the Psalms, it calls it, “So the next generation may know, so the next generation may know.”

So here's another cool thing. Generation Z's very keenly passionate about social justice. And while that may feel off putting some days at the workplace because we're trying to preach the Gospel and they’re wanting to take blankets out to poor people, I'm telling you, Jesus did both, folks. So social justice is exactly how Jesus acted when He fed the 5,000; when He raised Lazarus from the dead; when He wasn't just preaching, He was doing. And I'm telling you, you start with that with Gen Z and then you're going to have their heart because they are so much caring for the marginalized. And I'm just saying, read your Gospels. Jesus cared about the marginalized.

So one more quick thing. Empathy levels are high in kids today. And again, I go back probably to the smartphone where they've seen video footage of this horrible Hamas versus Israel thing or the Ukraine-Russia war or the last mass shooting in Maine. I don't know. But they’ve seen it. So just know you may be hiring someone that deep down—maybe they don't voice it well, maybe they're posting some silly TikTok video, but inside you probably have a heart that's very empathetic. And I'm telling you, that sounds like Jesus to me. So let's go after that.

Al: Yeah. It gives us all hope for the next generation, Tim.

Tim: Yes, it does. That’s right.

Al: That's fantastic.

Tim: Yeah.

Al: Well, Tim, we've learned so much from the conversation. It's just been great. Just, it’s like drinking from a firehose. And I appreciate the paradoxes that you started off with: confidence versus humility and how good leaders have both; how stubbornness and what we stick with, what’s our core, versus open mindedness; having high standards with grace. Just really great, great stuff. And then, what you shared with us about trust and how there's the acronym, five strengths or five ways to build trust, the A LEG, get “a leg” up: ask, listen, empathize, and guide. Just great stuff. Really great keys on Gen Z leaders and how they have the sense of agency, how they have high anxiety, and we've talked about that. Thanks so much. And that's even true with athletes, as you were describing, the anxiety. And then, of course, we've all heard about the mental-health issues and this next generation and how we have to be cognizant of that in the workplace. But yeah, this next generation, Gen Z, is the largest generation. That's really interesting to think about. They know about leadership, and they're interested in it. And I think about growing up, that wasn't the top thing that we talked about. I remember people would say leadership is a small part of management. I mean, that's how the language has changed. And being very social justice focused, which for a lot of our Christian nonprofits should be really encouraging.

Well, but Tim, considering all that we've talked about, was there anything else that you'd like to add that would put a bow on the topic?

Tim: Yeah. I don't think anybody listening would disagree that worldwide and even nationwide, we're living in uncertain times. We're living in maybe difficult times. The volatile economy, which affects giving and everything else. We're living in tough times. But I want to give you a picture verbally that will encourage you. Down through history, we have noticed that hard times almost always cultivate strong generations. Think about the generation that grew up during the Great Depression, World War II. That was my parents. I’m telling you, the hard times produced a strong generation. Now, keep going. Strong generations often produce good times. They're resilient and resourceful. Good times, however, unfortunately, often cultivate weak generations, which in turn go back to the circle, lead to hard times.

But here's why I'm saying this. When I look at the first two generations of the 20th century and compare them to the first two generations of the 21st—so that'd be the senior generation and the builder generation—compared to the Generation Zers and then the Gen Alphas, which are children today, I see these are tough times. What if they could emulate those first two of the 20th century? Both of them grew up during a pandemic, the Spanish Flu, COVID 19; both went through the Roaring Twenties. We always heard about the Roaring Twenties back 100 years ago. We have our own version of it right now. And then there was this economic depression, and now we're in a weird economic time. What if the younger generations turn up stronger because this was treated like a spiritual fitness center? We just lifted heavier weights, and now in 20 years, these kids that are 21, they're going to be 41, and we go, “You guys are stronger than we were.” That's what I'm praying for. That's what I'm hoping for. And I think we can produce not PTSD at the end, but PTG, post-traumatic growth. So that would be my final thought. Let's build growth out of these tough times.

Al: We're in a spiritual fitness center, right? Yeah.

Tim: Yeah, yeah.

Al: Yeah. All right.

Tim, thanks for your contributions today. Most of all, I really appreciate your commitment to developing emerging leaders. And I've just heard and observed so much of your great work over time and how you're supporting their growth. So thanks for taking your time out today and speaking into the lives of so many listeners.

Tim: Sure. It was my pleasure. Great to be with you.

Al: Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Tim Elmore. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

And you can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we talked about in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on creating a flourishing workplace, please email me, al@workplaces.org.

And leaders, if you want to improve your leadership, expand your organization's impact for good, and see greater faithfulness in our broader culture, help us achieve our goal to see more flourishing Christian-led workplaces. To help, please share this podcast with another leader or launch a project in your organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. If you're interested in learning more, go to workplaces.org and request a sample report.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al: Next week, you'll really want to hear my interview and discussion with David Bailey, with Arrabon. We've talked with David before on this podcast and appreciate his wisdom on racial reconciliation in the Christian workplace.