Transcript: Leadership Under Pressure: Rob McKenna's Guide to Thriving in the Hot Seat // Dr. Rob McKenna, WiLD Leaders

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“Leadership Under Pressure: Rob McKenna's Guide to Thriving in the Hot Seat"

December 18, 2023

Dr. Rob McKenna

Intro: Are you intentionally developing leaders who are ready to take on new roles and responsibilities in your organization? Well, what are some of the key practices and attitudes that will enable you to lead in pressured situations, like when you're in the leadership hot seat? Well, today on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we'll focus on whole intentional leader development. Yes, listen in and learn how to continue to grow in your effectiveness as a leader.

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 Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being, which was a finalist in the Christian Book Awards. And I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

I’m delighted to welcome Dr. Rob McKenna to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast today. Rob’s the CEO of WiLD Leaders, which is Whole Intentional Leadership Development. He's devoted his life to developing leaders and transforming the way we see people in our organizations. We're also grateful for his board service at the Best Christian Workplaces.

Throughout our conversation, you'll hear Rob McKenna talk about his vision for leadership development, working with the tension between being present versus progress in your organization, a unique toolkit designed to help leaders develop on the job, why it's more important to focus on leadership readiness than high-potential leaders, and what's ahead in the future for leadership development.

I think you're going to love this interview with Rob McKenna. But before we dive in, this episode is brought to you by the Best Christian Workplaces Leadership 360, individual and group coaching. We help you transform your leadership effectiveness with our stakeholder-based coaching process. Learn more by going to workplaces.org/coaching. Check it out today.

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

So let me tell you a little bit more about Dr. Rob McKenna. Rob was named among the top 30 most influential industrial/organizational psychologists and was featured in Forbes magazine. He's the CEO of WiLD Leaders, Inc., which focuses on whole intentional leader development. And he's the creator of the Whole and Intentional Leader Development Toolkit. Rob has also presented several TEDx Talks on whole-leadership topics. His clients include leaders in industry, government, health care. Rob has also served in the academic community as a department chair and professor of industrial/organizational psychology at a Christian university. He's written extensively on developing leaders. His latest book is Composed: The Heart and Science of Leading Under Pressure. It is a rigorous and practical guide to maintaining our composure and presence when it matters most.

So, here’s my conversation with Dr. Rob McKenna.

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

Dr. Rob McKenna: Me, too, Al. It is always a pleasure.

Al: So, Rob, let's get started on our conversation by going deeper into the mission of your organization, WiLD Leaders. And WiLD Leaders—that’s such a catchy phrase, and it makes you think about different things—but you emphasize, and it's an acronym for Whole Intentional Leader Development. And who doesn't believe in that? I think that's just a fantastic acronym. But share with us the mission behind WiLD Leaders, and why did you build this organization, and what gap in leader development do you see and are you trying to fill?

Rob: Yeah. So, Al, what I love about our mission is that it has remained the same for a long time. And that mission is to intentionally prepare a generation of courageous and sacrificial leaders who we will lead the way in reflecting light into a world where darkness is often the default. And I go on to say, like, the extension of that mission is that that would be a generation of leaders who will bring thoughtfulness, conviction, hope, resourcing, strategic thinking, and even deeply rooted care to the institutions and people they serve. And I'm quite literally reading that as I talk to you now, and I read it because it's still really important to me that that idea that we would build up and invest in a generation of people would bring both courage, a spirit and a character of courage, and conviction and also a spirit of sacrifice. And that's been really critical for me. And it was informed, you know, originally by my reading of Philippians 2, that what the attitude that we are expected to have of Jesus Christ, who was in very nature God, it was and is, and at the same time, didn't hold that so closely that He made it all about that. It's such a fascinating little piece of Scripture. And so this idea—but I don't think—not just because it's in Scripture, but because it's true, that we need leaders who will bring that level of a sense of their own identity and their own purpose and their own reason for being and their own self-value, but at the same time, a willingness to sacrifice that self if necessary. And so that's why that mission is still really important to me today.

And, you know this Al, because we've known each other quite a long time, and that my background is an industrial/organizational psychologist, on top of that kind of philosophical, in some ways, mission or that deeply rooted thing I believe in. So I'm also part mad scientist and part very practical business leader. And if I'm honest, like, the DNA of my work and mission was formed in a generation that understood and started to realize that so much of leader development was happening on the job and in what I would describe as real time. And so my aspiration is that we would bring the context of a leader’s development, like, this is what we work on every day as an organization. And when I say context, I just mean the things they're trying to do alongside the development of their leader capacity, of their personal capacity, across the boundaries of their life.

And I was thinking about this, Al, when I got up this morning, because when I wake up in the morning and I'm excited about going into my day and my work, my own work, it's pretty easy to already realize that it's already happening, that where I'm going and why is connected into the things I'm trying to do today. You know what I mean? You know, every little piece of the work, just daily, literally, my schedule or being on this podcast with you. And so my aspirations are more and more people would be invited into that way of thinking about what whole-leader development is all about.

Al: Well, let's talk a little bit about that, Rob, because as you consider current trends and the state of leadership today, you know, why is whole-leader development so important right now at this point in our history? You know, why is this approach to leader development such a personal manifesto, as you just explained it? You know, why is that?

Rob: Yeah. So, thank you for asking. And it is, I do describe it sometimes as my manifesto. And so first off, let me describe very quickly what whole-leader development is, and then I'll tell you why that's important to me, is that whole-leader development is all of it. And so what's fascinating about even looking at the research and even our own lived experience on how leader capacity, and people capacity in organizations has actually grown and developed, what it affirmed was that most, a lot of that, was happening on the job. But not only that, but it involved lots of working parts. It wasn't going to be just simply personality, or it wasn't simply going to be about the way that they're interacting with others or their behavioral style, as some would call it, or even simply an assessment of what they're good at. But it was going to include those things and probably a lot more. And so when I think about whole-leader development, I think about it that way, about taking all of it, all these different variables in the life of a person and saying, “How can we think about that more intentionally in terms of what it means for their development?”

The second thing I would say is this, is that it oftentimes involves the embracing of a lot of what I describe as paradoxical things. So in other words, in the life of a leader, they're so often drawn into tensions that are just realities of the job. Like, it involves a tension between empowering people and providing systems, you know, and structure. It involves both a focus on individuals and also a focus on the needs of the many. And even the concept of vulnerability, it involves, like, a necessary invitation to be a little bit more vulnerable and what people might describe as a little bit more authentic, but at the same time, the reality that we don't share everything all the time. And so I think that's one of the pieces of this puzzle, that it involves so much nuance into the story of an individual.

And if you think about what I just described in relationship to what's happening in our world today, there's a couple of things that I think about. One is this, that every major movement of change in our world begins with two things: that it begins with a need for something different—we've got to do something different—but it also begins with a leader. I'm so hard pressed to think about a movement of change where we identified the need where there wasn't someone. And even in situations where we don't know the name of the person, there was someone who stepped out courageously to do something. And so we know that if we want to bring about transformation in our world, it's going to require a certain kind of person.

And what's fascinating today, Al, is that I think very few of us would deny that our world is in the midst of what sometimes I describe as a reformation. There's a radical change in values, in dividing polarities, whether it's the tension between something like relativism and fundamentalism; the tension between liberty and security; the tension between justice and mercy, love and truth, diversity and unity. Like, you name it, these are the paradoxes of our time. And I do get—and I’m getting a little bit preachy, but these things matter to me. And these tensions are not only political and ideological, they're also really practical in the lives of every one of us. And I would say this, that while these big global and organizational shifts and cultural assumptions are important, I think just as important is the impact of those shifts on leaders and people within organizations that you and I serve. I do believe that change has to start with our investment. We talk, we complain about leaders, we complain about culture, but it has to start with our investment in whole people, the people that would bring discernment and thoughtfulness and conviction and clarity and courage, people that would bring a spirit of understanding what they're not good at and where they have let other people down and their own brokenness.

So you can tell, like, I'm on a mission with a lot of other people. And you and I have been together in a lot of this for a while. It's, like, we've got to invest in a generation of leaders and not just complain about them, because its responsibility lies with us.

Al: Right. Yeah. And how do we encourage and develop leaders that are going to take us? And you’re right. I’ve heard a lot about, “We're in the middle of a reformation,” and every 500 years or so, and it's been 500 years since the Great Reformation. So, yeah, I love what you said. We're in the middle of change, and when you're in the middle of change, you see there needs to be a difference in something, and there's always a courageous leader. And I love your use of the term courageous. You need a courageous leader with conviction. And as we all know, that takes sacrifice in the process. Yeah.

So, you talk about transformational experiences that leaders face, and we've talked about in the past—you know, leadership is developed kind of in the cauldron of experience—and especially in these times where leaders are often in a hot seat, where there's tremendous pressure on them and they feel it. So what do you say to a leader listening today who's right in the middle of this pressure, where they feel a lot of pressure? They’re in the hot seat. You know, how can a leader not only survive the pressure but also the process, the experiences, and learn from them? That's oftentimes, in this cauldron of pressure, we survive and then learn and grow as a leader, isn't it?

Rob: Yeah. I think this is true, by the way, Al, sometimes when we talk of leaders, people think we're only talking about people who are in a CEO position or some sort of executive-director role. And I think that your question is relevant from parents to presidents, sometimes. I would almost go farther and say from parents to plumbers to pastors to presidents, that, you know, we work in a lot of trades organizations where you've got people who have come up through the trades, who are now transitioning into a leadership role, a management role, and they've never done that before. Or, you know, we work with tech firms, where you've got that happening all the time, person coming from a technical area and moving into a leadership role. And so I think your question is relevant.

A couple of things, first of all, is that there is some interesting research about that. And the second thing is this, and I always hope that people who are listening value this about me, is I'm a leader myself. So when you ask that question, you know that my lived experiences, I do have principles that I've seen from our research and the research of others that work, but also that I've seen how it works itself out in my own life. And even in these moments, like, I've been in a high-pressure moment for the last six months, a moment that's lasted six months.

And I think a couple of things I would say to your question, one is this, and you know some of this work was documented in my book Composed, but is this, is that, gosh, I always come back to this. When we found this in our research, we found that the number one predictor of a person's capacity to remain composed and be their best self in these high-pressure moments was a sense of purpose. And so if I were to offer one piece—like, just that it was supported, but it also has been true in my experience and the experience of thousands of leaders we've worked with—is that the necessity for thinking about why you are in it. And so many people just start executing, and they just keep executing. And what we found, it was interesting, is when a person was rooted in something that was, they understood why they specifically were in this moment with those other players in the situation, there was much specificity of purpose as possible, was tremendously helpful.

I would say in my own experience, Al, just one thing I would encourage people, because I have lived through this and I know I will again, is that the tensions that we experience, that I experience, that you experience, in those high-pressure moments, I guess we need not run away from them, but embrace them as a reality of the work and our own development. So one of the tensions that I feel so deeply is that tension between being present and making progress. I wrote a chapter in my new book called that, “Presence versus Progress,” and it was like this reality that yeah, the urgency is there. But also, we have to be attentive to and intentional about the necessity for us to be present in the moments, in the midst of that urgency.

I talk to my team about this all the time, that if I burn them up, some of them are parents of young kids. I've lost the battle already. And so it's that preparation for those moments of pressure, but also realizing, like, that tension you feel, it doesn't make you weird, it doesn't make you broken. It's, like, lean into it and try to figure out, “How can I do both? How can I do both?”

Al: Yeah. Rob, I love the book Composed. I love the writing that you’ve had for people that are in the middle of this hot seat. And, you know, to really, as you say, reflect on the purpose: why are you there? And I'm sure for a lot of our audience, a sense of calling is also part of that, wouldn't you say?

Rob: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think one of the things that is so important from our shared-faith perspective is when it comes to calling is I always ask people—I ask weird questions about calling, and I always ask people, I don't really want to know what kind of—I don't know. Sometimes I'm interested in whatever a person says to the question of, what are you being called to? But one of the more specific questions I love to ask people is, what is God saying to you lately? Because I'm really interested in sort of that conversation. I'm actually really interested if someone says, “Nothing.” Like, it says, “I've not been in a very good communication,” because that's one of the things that's awkward about that conversation, because my intent, of course, is someone who comes from a Christ-centric worldview is I'm really interested in, what does that relationship look like right now? And how can, from a leadership perspective, I think that's probably the most important formation that goes into that sense of purpose, like, is understanding not what you want to do and what you're wired for, but saying, “Lord, what are You saying to me lately?” You know? And so I think it's absolutely a critical component of that, for sure.

Al: Yeah. Your advice has helped me, as I think back of trying times, and, you know, what is the purpose, you know? And I believe that God doesn't want toxic organizations in His Kingdom; He wants flourishing ones. And yeah, there's a role for that.

Well, Rob, also, I know you spent your career fine tuning components of a leader-development process, your WiLD Toolkit. And I've worked with you and seen generations of this, and I know you're working on the next generation. But that Toolkit is used as a system of developing whole leaders and used by thousands of leaders around the world. And I'll just say they're fortunate, and congratulations. So tell us about this approach that's so impactful for leaders that you've developed this Toolkit, the WiLD Toolkit. Give us an example or two of how a leader grows through this WiLD Toolkit approach.

Rob: Yeah. What a great question. So, one of the pieces of it, Al, that you are so, so aware of in your experience of it, is that it's something I mentioned before, that unfortunately sometimes—I should say unfortunately oftentimes or all the time, as opposed to I think there's value in leadership training. Absolutely. There is value in single assessments that give you insight. And so but so often what we ask ourselves is, what's next? You know what I mean? So I know my personality, but what's next? So as I said before, I was so deeply formed, like, the DNA of my work and identity in this area was formed out of this research that emerged that, like you said, so much of development, in fact, 80 to 90% of development is happening within the work itself. And so it would make sense that developmental processes, like the learning and growth of people on the job, that it would connect to the actual job. So I built this system of tools and assessments that would provide people with what I describe as a scaffolding for their learning and growth.

And so one example is coming back to calling and purpose, this concept of, like, why am I here? We know that's important for even just these high-pressure moments, but we also know it's important most of the time, right? We're, like, where we're asking this question, like, why am I here? What is my purpose in this? What am I being called? Who am I being called to serve? So that process of understanding that and discerning that is typically more than a one-off moment. It's not a moment where—and it's also something where it's a little oversimplified for me as a developer of a tool to say, “Al, this is your calling.” You know what I mean? And so the calling and purpose are things that are discerned over time through multiple other variables in a person's life.

So, for example, understanding my strengths, my skills, and my competencies plays a role in that discernment of why I'm here. And so we have a tool that's called the Calling and Purpose Inventory that serves that kind of beginning of what I described, this excavation process of understanding and hearing that which I'm called to. But there's also a tool in the Toolkit called the Skills and Knowledge Inventory, which gets straight at, what am I really good at, and where are my areas that are either I'm going to have to develop or I'm going to have to delegate? You know what I mean?

And so there's this—so I developed this system of tools that could live inside the rhythms of an organization, that would create direct connections into things like performance. Imagine how does performance relate to things of the heart? And it does, right? Because I mean, when you and I talk together, we're both preaching to the choir, right, because it's like my ability to make progress and get things done relates to my feelings about myself and my own value. And I don't want to put it all on that, but it does have relatedness.

And so I just believe so deeply in that because what we do and we work with, you know this, is organizations across all kinds of different contexts, focusing on the development of the individual through the use of these tools, that quite literally an individual uses one of the tools, gets feedback, and then shares that with a team. And we've seen tremendous, just, impact of this system of development living right alongside the rhythms of the work, as I said before, for everybody from plumbers to presidents, I never wanted, Al, I never wanted to be the guy who just got up and sort of spoke the manifesto. I always, I wanted to start with, could I build based on my own expertise and the things that I have understood as a scientist and as a practitioner and build a tool that could actually provide people an intentional pathway for development so that leaders could develop capacity across their organizations?

Al: And Rob, so this is a set of tools, and so you've got, what, 10 tools in this entire set?

Rob: Yeah. There’s 10 tools there.

Al: Ten tools. And so, you know, for a leader to think about embracing this, or an organization to think about this for their leadership team, this is often a, you can't do all these 10 tools at one time, do you? You kind of do it over a year’s period of time. Is that it? Yeah.

Rob: Yeah. And they’re designed, so quite literally what we do each month is teams that are using the process, every individual uses the tool, gets their feedback report, and then once a month they come together for a development conversation. It's not a side conversation. It's a part of their management or leadership rhythm. Once a month they have that conversation, and then it rinses and repeats because what's cool about the Toolkit is it's not just prescriptions. So it does give you things. Like, there's a personality assessment. There's assessment on your skills and competencies. There's an assessment on the experiences and the things that you want to do next. There's an assessment on your network of support. But those things also, within the tool, we built the narrative, so every one of our developmental story’s changing every year. So organizations are using this process as their development system. It’s also connected into their performance system that then they repeat year after year because the developmental story of their teams and the people is changing every year. And so I get pretty excited about this, as you know.

Al: Yeah. And you mentioned a couple of the names of these tools, like the Calling and Purpose Inventory. Rattle off a couple other. I find these to be fascinating. As you say, they're used to really help individuals grow in their leadership as they're doing the work that they're involved in. Yeah. What are some of the other?

Rob: So I’m going to give you the—most of them remain the same. You know, we're working on version three right now. It's coming out soon. One of them is called the Success and Significance Inventory. One of them is the Leading Under Pressure Inventory, which you're familiar with, which is all about that, how do we lead better under pressure? There's the Transformational Experiences Audit, which gives a person an audit on the experiences they've had and the experiences they need to have next in order to develop that next level of capacity. There's a Skills and Knowledge Inventory. There is a Strategic Support Assessment that gives a person—we know that if you and I and all the leaders who are listening right now, we know if we are surrounded by a strategic network, that actually affects all kinds of other variables in our lives and work. And so we built a way for them to build that network of support. We also, the last one I'll mention, because they're bookended by what's called the WiLD Profile and the WiLD Plan. Those are the beginning and the end of the year, where it kind of is a culmination of those things. But the other one that I am so, I get really excited about, is one of them is called the People Investment Plan. And this is, I knew that if I was going to build a whole-leader-development system, I had no business making it all about the leader. So the Toolkit itself has that outward-looking perspective all the time on others. But it also, this is one moment where I take the time to assess my investment in the important people that are around me. And so we created this way for a leader to see the people around them and to communicate that more effectively. And so that's probably one of the ones that is most, it's a little revolutionary, and sometimes people are like, “Wait a minute. I’m going to take a moment to reflect on them. Do I even feel like I'm capable of doing that?” And so it's giving not only people permission, but a way to do that.

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 as we talk more with Rob.

Well, let's talk about that a little bit, because, you know, an important part of ongoing leadership is developing people under our care, just as you're saying, the People Investment Plan is part of this. So, you know, it's really kind of a leader's role to bring up the next generation, to have a mentor, to have networks, as you say, but also to be developing that next generation of leaders. So sometimes in leadership-development literature, we hear about high-potential people. But you say it's that readiness beats potential. And I'll have to say, you know, there's been a lot of discussion in organizations about high-potential people, but you're saying readiness really beats potential as we look at this. So explain that idea. I'm interested in hearing. So what is it about readiness that beats potential?

Rob: My goodness, Al, thank you for asking.

Al: I’m interested in this. Yeah.

Rob: Because I think this speaks to both of us in so many ways because I'm not saying that there aren't people that potential is an important thing. However, I think we have over pivoted over decades to this concept that people either have potential or they don't. And one of the places that it just doesn't make sense is when you think about even the concept of a growth mindset, because we have to be really cautious. If you look at Carol Dweck’s research, in the original research, of putting people in boxes, and then as soon as we give them a fixed mindset, we tell them that there are either those who have potential or don't, that we tell them that's true. And then what happens is if I'm sitting in a room of 100 people, I heard someone once say that, you know, that, “About 10 to 15% of the people in our organizations are our high potentials.” And I thought to myself, “Well, what are the chances I'm in one of those groups? It's pretty high that I'm probably in the 85%,” you know what I mean? And so it kind of gives you a sense of that.

And so what we realized, and this is not just from my thinking, but from all kinds of amazing folks who have studied this and put this into practice, is that we shouldn’t be thinking about readiness as opposed to whether someone is high potential or not. Are they ready or not? I love it that when we were kids we played, you know, hide and seek. And at the end of it we said, “Ready or not, here I come.” And so when we begin to even change our mindset on people, instead of thinking about the 15 to 25% of people who are high potentials, we start thinking about who are the 15 to 25% who are ready right now? because it keeps our minds open to this reality, that other larger percentage may be ready at some point or may be at that next level. And so we do assess on personality and things that are stable traits as well. Inside the Toolkit, we give people feedback on, how do you rate on extroversion? for example. Those stable things matter. But most of what we do, and there's a whole assessment simply on readiness.

And I think of it this way. Like, if I'm going on a trip, and my wife and I are going on a vacation soon—we haven't been on one in a little bit, as I told you. I've told you other times—and it helps me to be able to take an audit of my packing. So if I don't, you know what I mean? Like, if I know there's going to be a pool, it might be important for me to make a list and say, “I probably should bring my swim trunks,” you know what I mean? And so in the same way, when it comes to our development, there are certain areas in our readiness that if we were to assess those things, could be the beginning of our journey and understanding what would be ready in a more whole kind of way.

And so my encouragement to people is to start to think about and see your people as ready or not, and not good or bad and not high potential or not, because I think the reality that when you live long enough, you realize that people surprise you. But sometimes they haven't been invited to see their own capacity to get ready. All they've been told is that I'm this way or I'm not. And so I think as leaders, we have this opportunity to just expand people's horizons as we increase their own agility and adaptability.

Al: So, help the people that we're working with to be ready for the next thing, whatever that is, is kind of what you're saying.

Well, Rob, another aspect of leadership is embracing lifelong learning—and that's something that I know both of us really embrace—and to keep growing as a leader. I mean, we've heard all about the law of the lid, and if we're not growing as a leader, the organization's not growing as a leader. But on your path, what are you learning about yourself in this season related to God's calling on your life? Let's just bring it right down to you. Where is it that you feel like is your own identity as an organizational leader? And what hopes do you have for leaders and people who are served by WiLD Leaders, for example?

Rob: Yeah. So your first question about my own development is it's been really important for me, and I am a leader in process. Nothing makes me happier than when my own team describes me that way. I used to feel, you know, a little bit like I should have it all together, and I never will have it all together. To get personal about it is that it's been so important for me to develop my own understanding of what it means for me to be the founder and, at this point, CEO of WiLD Leaders. You know that I spent so many years as both an organizational leader outside of academics, but also a leader inside of academics. And so I was a department chair for 25 years. And I think one of the things I realized over these last several years since I moved to the next transition in my career, where it was going to be outside of that area, I didn't realize how powerful the context within which I was formed, how much it had affected me in really positive ways, but also in ways that I would need to peel off pieces of that in order to move into my next level, for me to develop into the leader that my team needed me to be. I hope people can translate that to their own experience of the context within which we were formed is a powerful thing, but it's not the only thing.

And so one of the challenges for me has been to even the transition in my identity from maintaining my connection into my previous researcher, scientist, or even consultant self, but also saying there's pieces of that that I need to leave behind and just build upon in a new way so that I can lead this part of what I'm responsible for effectively into the future. I hope that for other folks they would say, like, “Yeah. Let me think about the context within which I was formed that's shaping me,” because it has been a radical journey for me, Al. I mean, even switching from—I worked with corporations for a long time, you and I both did. And when you start to realize and you start to work with smaller to midsize businesses and ministries, even those two things, by the way, putting them together, I shouldn’t do that. But let me just take small to midsize businesses. It is a gigantic world that I wasn't all that aware of 15 years ago. And so understanding what it is that people in small to midsize businesses or they're thinking about, there are some commonalities, but there are some differences. So developmentally for me, I've had to open up my brain to understand, how do I communicate with different contexts? How do I communicate with a leader who's in a formal church ministry versus a nonprofit ministry? You know, it's just there's differences. And so I've been in many ways just been a continuing student of my own development to try to understand, how do I understand my own competencies, what things I need to delegate, what things I need to grow, what things I need to let go of and figure out has been an awesome challenge.

Al: Yeah, that’s an awesome challenge for all of us. I think we're all smiling, thinking about that. And you know, there's an old saying, you know, what got us here isn't going to get us there as we go forward. You know, I mean, that's kind of what you're saying, you know, Rob, as you look at the, as you say, the context where you were formed. I mean, as we all think about, as our listeners are thinking about the context in which we are formed and where we are now and where we see the world going, because the world is changing so much, what got us here isn't going to get us there. And so what do we do? How do we grow? And that's kind of the point of our own development. No matter how experienced we are, no matter how smart we are, no matter how much research we've read on leadership, right, Rob? Yeah.

Rob: And one thing I would say, back to your comment about readiness and we were talking about that, is that one thing that I do find that leaders really resonate with as something that they—not resonate because they figured it out, but resonate with because they understand it—is that the importance of questions and that readiness is opened up. The conversation regarding readiness in our people is typically not opened up through answers. And it’s one of the reasons that I think that books that give us the five steps to becoming a better leader are important, but they don't address all of it. And to open ourselves up to questions, these questions open up the possibility that I could change. And so I would just encourage leaders out there, as they want to increase the readiness of their people, they want to start to see people different, is to work on avoiding answering your way out of things all the time and beginning to really work on your capacity to ask questions of other people on your team that you don't know the answer to, and neither do they. And it requires us to also be a little bit comfortable with silence and giving people a moment to think, to process, to say, “The wrestling I'm doing is not only important, it is absolutely critical for my development as a whole person and a whole leader,” that the questions are not to be run from. And I love it that even in Scripture that Jesus asked so many questions, and I think He asked questions because He was interested in the person's response. And sometimes maybe it was leading the witness. But I think oftentimes He was very interested in seeing someone through His questions. So that's one piece of advice I would have that's been true for me.

Al: Yeah. On this readiness, Rob, I’ll have to say, so, you know, are there some characteristics that lead us to readiness, you know, like some definitions that lead us to high potential? I mean, a lot of people have tried to define high potential. And, you know, it's emotional intelligence. It's all of these things that are kind of included in high-potential leaders. So what are some of the characteristics? Can I just dig down on this a little bit lower and deeper for readiness leaders or how leaders get people ready? Is there…?

Rob: Yes. I’ll be pretty specific on some things. So I think the beginning process of readiness is to begin to assess where you are on certain things. And I'll give you a couple of examples. But before that, let me give you a quick analogy. I think about going to the mall, and I want to find a certain store. And so if I go typically—and I've still done this. I haven’t been to a mall lately, but I actually went yesterday. And I went to find the directory. And if I know where the store I'm going to, what am I looking for? And I looked for it yesterday, Al. I'm looking for that little symbol that says, “You are here,” because that “You are”—there's so much that's inside that little symbol that says, where am I today, and assessing yourself on certain things. So I think readiness, again, is not a process of saying, “Here's the five ways to get ready.” It's an assessment process of where I am on certain things. It’s like saying, “Not only did I pack my swim trunks; did I pack the ones I want to bring?” You know what I mean? And so you know what I mean, when you pack the wrong ones? And so things like assessing my ability to compose myself; assessing my service to others; assessing things like, do I have a network in place right now of support? Assessing my level of conviction. Do I really believe what I'm saying? Assessing the extent to which I feel I'm being called right now, and to what? I'll give you one last example. Assessing my level of competence for what's coming next. So it's this connection between what's coming next and I might be facing and then giving myself a chance. And this is my main point, is that readiness—and this is back to—it’s questions I have. So in order for me to understand would begin, and so I built, what I built inside of the WiLD Profile that actually comes up. We do a pre-post on this for people is what's called the Developmental Readiness Index. And so what it is, quite simply, it's like that, “I'm going on a trip. What's in my bag?” I've got to assess, like, not only, “Do I have the right things?” but “To what extent do I have the right things?” You know? It's not just I need to take a pair of pants. Do I need to take three? You know? Is it raining where I'm going? And so I think those are some of the examples of what it means to begin to assess our readiness. And here's the trick: assessment of it begins to develop it, because now I'm aware of the pieces of the packing that need to take place so that I could get ready.

Al: Yeah. That's fantastic, Rob. And I love previous conversation. You're going to a wedding, and you've assessed whether you can tie a bow tie or not. And how are you going to do that? Yeah. So just, again—

Rob: It’s intimidating you bring that up with the master of the bow tie. Love that about you.

Al: All right. Well, Rob, you know, gosh, you've shared so many insights today. I really appreciate it. And as you look ahead, you know, what's on the horizon for WiLD Leaders? And I appreciate your description of the Toolkit and all of these tools and how, you know, the development of readiness and the importance of readiness versus potential. But what's ahead for WiLD Leaders? And I know you're still in the early stages, you know. So are there some new projects that you're working on to help adapt a whole and intentional leader development for the future?

Rob: Oh, my goodness, Al. It's been an incredible few months for me because it's an amazing thing when you see the impact of a system of tools in an organization, and I would say even a broader ecosystem and community of people who have been a part of this. And so what's next is we are launching version three of the WiLD Toolkit in early 2024, which is really exciting for us as that's coming down the line. And it is tremendous: 2.0 is unbelievable, and 3.0 is going to be—it's got pieces of this puzzle that connect a person's performance into their learning and growth in ways that are just excellent. So I'm really excited about that. It's been, as you know, on the development side of that, it's a tremendous amount of work because it's not one assessment and not one feedback report, but it's a process and a system of tools.

And then the other thing that's in parallel with that is I've been working on a book that is really my manifesto about all this, that would provide practical ways for people to understand what whole-leader development’s about and, also, ways to think about these different topics, even as we were talking about readiness. And so my book regarding whole-leader development will be coming out of it in a parallel way with a version 3.0. It is a really exciting time for us. And my hope for the future is that even as people are listening right now, people that say, like, “This makes sense to me. This is something I didn't know existed,” that they would contact us and to realize there's people who get what you're experiencing and have worked really hard at creating a system for you, not only doing that for yourself, but for everyone across your organization. And you and I are so aligned in this. Like, the assessment of culture and what's going on in the organization, and that—even the work that BCW does is that assessment process is where it all has to begin. We have to know where we are. And so the parallels in our work is are so important to me as well.

So one other thing, Al, that I'm excited about is with the launch of the new toolkit and the publication of my next book is also, you know, of course, is getting out and evangelizing that and getting a chance to speak in different places. And you know this, that we a few years ago started something called the WiLD Conversation. It's been every Friday for one hour. There's no cost. It has become one of the most important parts of our work. It's just a moment where we thought, what if we could provide a rich developmental moment for leaders around the world who are a part of our ecosystem or might be invited into it, for them to actually come together to hear some deeper content on something, research or some practical steps on some topic related to anything, from succession planning to vulnerability to things like performance and even things like calling and purpose, and then have them crowdsource wisdom together. So we started this, and it's become this incredible community, Al, of a couple thousand people. And so what I'm excited about that I wanted to mention also is that—and by the way, anyone can come to that WiLD Conversation every Friday. It’s at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. You just register and jump in. And there's, I don't know, every week we have somewhere between 40 and 80 leaders to jump in. But what was really cool was that people started to say, “Hey, instead of doing a normal keynote, would you do a live WiLD Conversation at the conference?” And so one of the examples is we're going to—and it's actually going to happen multiple times in the new year—we're going to do a live version of the WiLD Conversation, with a larger live audience connected into an online audience. And so one of the places we'll do that is at CLA, at the Christian Leadership Alliance conference coming up in spring. And I was just so excited. It was incredible affirmation of that community and what we've been able to do through that WiLD Conversation, that someone would say, “This is really important. Let's do this live.” I mean, it's always live each week, but this will be in front of an actual live audience, face to face.

Al: I'll be there. Yeah. I’ll be there. I'm looking forward to it, Rob. Absolutely. Yeah. Great.

This has been just such a great conversation, Rob. Thanks so much. We've learned so much. You know, starting with kind of your manifesto that you want to help prepare a generation of leaders who are courageous and have conviction and are willing to sacrifice, which, you know, I fully appreciate the core of Philippians 2, as you think about that. And also, you know, how we're in a time of change, and in this time of change, maybe a new reformation, as we say, we need leaders who can really make a difference, who can lead courageously. And I think we have leaders like that who are listening to our podcast. And so how do we as leaders become ready to really face up to those kinds of challenges? And yes, I love that you've developed a Toolkit. And it's something, again, how do leaders develop? Well, it starts with assessment, and that's just become so clear. And how, yes, 80 to 90% of our leadership development is in the work that we're actually doing. And so having this Toolkit to come alongside the work that we're doing, to take the research of what successful leaders are, how to be an effective leader, a capable leader, and then studying that and assessing our own leadership helps us become ready, is your point. And yes, readiness, not high potential, not focused on the top 15% in the upper-right box, as oftentimes is used. Yeah. And also, the importance of questions. I just reinforce for our listeners the importance of questions. But I'll challenge our listeners. Are you ready? Are you ready for the challenges that are ahead of you? And I encourage you to assess where you are, to know your ability to compose yourself in difficult situations so that you can be effective to be a service of others, to have a network of people that can speak into your lives, to speak with a level of conviction, to have that feeling of calling, to know what your level of confidence is. I mean, those are things that you just described that are part of the Toolkit. I just, I think that's great.

So, Rob, thanks so much for all you've shared with us today, and God bless you on your journey. Let me just ask you, do you have a bottom line? Is there anything you'd like to add now that we've had this conversation?

Rob: My bottom line and my aspiration for someone that's listening is that if you feel yourself in a moment of like we described, of pressure, of that tension between urgency and being present, of even between patience and making moves, that you would feel encouraged in the midst of that tension, and as opposed to feeling like it's a test you're supposed to take and solve and get the right score on, that you would say, “That tension is real, and there are people who understand that and that it's a part of my whole-person-development journey.” And whether it's between a tension with someone else, a tension in your business, a tension to a new product you're developing or new service that's coming up, a tension where you're not sure what your team is feeling, those are realities that other leaders face as well. You are not alone in that. I promise you that. I promise you that there are lots and lots of leaders out there who relate to that experience, and there are people who are in this with you, who are working hard to provide you with ways to be more ready for that next moment when it comes and even to provide you some anchoring in the moments you're in right now. So that would be my final thought is I hope people hear that.

Al: Rob, I thank you for your contributions today, and most of all, I appreciate your commitment to equipping whole leaders to exhibit strong character and values. So thanks for taking your time out today and speaking into the lives of so many listeners.

Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Dr. Rob McKenna. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

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

And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast and have any questions on flourishing cultures, 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 own 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, I'll be talking with one of my favorites, Elisa Morgan. I got to know Elisa when she was the president of MOPS International, where she did a fabulous job. This time we'll be talking about her book, Christmas Changes Everything: How the Birth of Jesus Brings Hope to the World; including your leadership and your workplace. Be sure to join me next week.