Momentum is Not Clarity with Greg Steely

Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, Executive Vice President with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. Before we get started today, I just want to remind you real quick, I’d love for you to go to MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast. There you’ll see a form on that landing page. We would love to hear from you. I know Perry would love to hear from you. We need content for our next episodes. We were just talking, we’re going to introduce this guy in just a minute, but he’s like 400+ episodes.

Chris Goede:
We’re like, yep, we’re running out of content. So that’s why he’s here. Okay? So we just figured we’d find somebody to be able to do that. But we would love to hear from you. And then more importantly, maybe you have a team that you’re looking to just lift the lid on their leadership. Maybe you have some individuals you’d like to get some coaching. We would love to go on that journey with you. If you’ll fill out that form, our team will follow back up with you.

Chris Goede:
Well, today’s topic is Momentum Is Not Clarity.

Perry Holley:
I’ll read the subtitle.

Chris Goede:
And then the subtitle is, and I learned that the hard way. I love it. Well, what we want you to know is not Perry and I, but our guest, has learned that the hard way. Many leaders, we’re created to create energy. We’re created to rally people and cast vision and get ’em excited and send ’em out of the locker room.

Perry Holley:
Get ’em moving.

Chris Goede:
And get ’em moving. But then oftentimes there are organizations that are moving in the wrong direction because there wasn’t great clarity on the front end. And so we have a special guest today in studio with us. So this is a dear friend of ours, And he’s a peer of ours here at Maxwell Leadership. I’ve known Greg for, I don’t know, well, maybe 20-plus years. A long time. We’re old. And he’s a dear friend of ours.

Chris Goede:
But here’s what I love. He’s got his doctorate in strategic leadership. He also is leading our nonprofit here at Maxwell Leadership, doing a phenomenal job with that. And man, there are people that want you to come speak and they want you to coach.

Greg Steely:
It’s amazing. It is amazing.

Chris Goede:
It’s amazing.

Greg Steely:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
Even though it took us 400 episodes to get him on our podcast.

Perry Holley:
406.

Greg Steely:
406 episodes. Let’s be clear. Took 406 episodes to get me here.

Chris Goede:
I do want to, I do, he’s a, we’re going to have a lot of fun. We told Perry, walked in, we’re like, there’s going to be no short of words. Now, most of you that listen, you go, man, I love this podcast. It’s 20 minutes or under. I don’t know about that. You may have to go 2, 2.5 speed up, but man, thanks for joining us. That’s some real leadership. This guy right here, Loves organizational leadership, loves strategic leadership.

Chris Goede:
And there’s sometimes to where I just call him up or we’ll connect and I’ll be like, hey, what are your thoughts about this? Hey, how would you do that? And so he is a student of it and applies it and does a really good job here leading our nonprofit team. So Greg, thanks for being a friend. Thanks for being here. I’m excited to talk about this topic today.

Greg Steely:
Yeah, me too.

Chris Goede:
Well, I gotta know.

Perry Holley:
So the subtitle’s what captured me. Momentum is clarity. I learned it the hard way. What happened?

Greg Steely:
Oh man, what did—

Chris Goede:
what didn’t happen? What didn’t happen?

Greg Steely:
My goodness. Yeah, well, first of all, I’m very happy to be here. You guys are, are 2 great friends and 2 great leaders.

Perry Holley:
Tried to have you here for number 200, but—

Greg Steely:
I know, but we pushed it. I know you— I’ve listened to all 406 episodes, and man, they’re spectacular, right? They’re really spectacular. Um, so yeah, what— so what happened? Well, you know, it’s a funny thing. Perry and I were talking earlier about momentum. Momentum is one of those words that’s thrown around a lot, right? People People will say, hey, how’s everything going? You’ll say, man, we’ve got a lot of momentum. In sports, you guys are sports guys, so it’s really thrown out, right? The change of momentum in a game. And I started to really think about that and think about times in my life where I was like, man, I’m such a galvanizer. I’m such a, let’s go, let’s charge the hill.

Greg Steely:
And how many times I charged the hill and getting up to the top of the hill, I went, where the heck is everybody?

Chris Goede:
Right?

Greg Steely:
I’m standing at the top of the hill by myself. And I thought I had this just inertia momentum to get going. And I realized what the problem was is I wasn’t being very clear on the front end about where we were going. And so many times I found in my leadership that my galvanizing tenacity part of who I am can really build that kind of what you said, Chris, kind of that motivated momentum.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
And here’s a good way to look at it. When you talk about catch the wave of momentum, I’ve always thought that I’ve seen that picture, right? But if you go look at waves, waves eventually crash, right? They eventually hit something and crash.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Greg Steely:
So for us, at least in my leadership and the people I get the pleasure of leading and the organization I get to be a part of, I’ve really had to hone in on less, really focus more on clarity than really building momentum.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I love that. So as you think about this momentum, you mentioned getting to the top of the hill. And then there being no one there. Are there times in your leadership, are there moments that even as leaders that we ought to be aware of to where we create the momentum and maybe some are with us, but not all of the team? Have you seen that, experienced that in your leadership? And if so, what would you tell our listeners to be sure that the whole team is moving as a unit?

Greg Steely:
Yeah, that’s good. Well, in my experience, what I find is sometimes if they do make it to the top of the hill, I’ll look around and go, I’m not sure these are the ones I wanted to make it to the top of the hill.

Chris Goede:
The ones you want in the crowd.

Greg Steely:
The smart ones are at the bottom of the hill because they’re seeking clarity, right? They’re seeking clarity of mission and purpose and vision and that. And, um, and that’s good. I learned, I learned a few years ago, and, and I’m gonna give Chick-fil-A some credit on this because I, I’ve spent a lot of time at Chick-fil-A in a previous job that I had and, uh, and talking to them. And, and I love the way that they go about their organizational structure and business. I’m an organizational guy. And I kind of studied them and became— I got this thing from them to realize, I mean, they sell chicken sandwiches, right? Right. I mean, right.

Chris Goede:
That’s it.

Greg Steely:
They sell chicken sandwiches. But let’s be honest, most of us don’t go to Chick-fil-A because of the chicken sandwich. We go to Chick-fil-A because of everything else around Chick-fil-A. In fact, if Chick-fil-A tomorrow said we’re going to sell hamburgers, you know where I’d go buy a hamburger from? Chick-fil-A.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Greg Steely:
Because I know it’s going to be efficient. It’s going to be excellent. The experience is going to be fantastic, right? So I began to create this model of how we drive clarity in an organization. And the model that I try to fit everything in to be very clear on is kind of starting with, first of all, who we are, right? Being very clear as an organization about who you are. You have to build clarity about who you are. In the nonprofit world, for us, we’re a leadership nonprofit.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Greg Steely:
Now, what’s interesting about that statement is that we’re not just a nonprofit. There’s lots of nonprofits. We’re a leadership nonprofit. That’s a distinctive for us.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
In every level of clarity, you need to have a distinctive for your organization.

Chris Goede:
It’s a decision-making filter for you.

Perry Holley:
It is.

Chris Goede:
In real time.

Greg Steely:
It is.

Chris Goede:
Right?

Greg Steely:
Yeah. We’re a leadership nonprofit, which then we go from who we are to what we do.

Perry Holley:
Right?

Greg Steely:
We add value. Right? How do we do it? We do it through resources. And then finally we go, why do we do it? I call it the clarity sandwich, Perry. It’s a clarity sandwich.

Chris Goede:
Right?

Greg Steely:
It’s the who and the why on the bread of that. The meat inside is the how and the what. And I think what happens with organizations that just for me, I spent so much time in my leadership focused on the middle of that sandwich and just driving the how and the what, driving the how and the what. And we were losing clarity about who we are and why we do it.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Well, so when you find out that there’s other symptoms that people aren’t clear, I mean, how did you notice that you’re rushing that mountain? I love that visual. You think people are behind you, but if you think back on that, is there something you could tell the leaders that are listening here? How do I know clarity is not clear?

Greg Steely:
Yeah, that’s good. Because what I could say, you could still have progress without clarity. You could still generate revenue without clarity. You can do all these things. The word that I’ve settled on is funny. I said settled. It’s unsettled. When your team feels unsettled, which means they’re never comfortable in any situation of movement or leadership.

Greg Steely:
Right? Not stillness. Stillness is not moving, right? I’m talking about an unsettled.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
What I’ve learned that people in an organization really want is they want to have a trust of settlement. Like, my role is clear, my responsibility is clear, my distinctive of how I will get to where we’re going to get is very clear. When they don’t have those things, they become very unsettled. And when unsettlement— the symptom of unsettleness is You begin to see people take more PTOs than they usually do.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Okay.

Greg Steely:
Right? You begin to see that they have a lot more questions than they usually have.

Perry Holley:
Hey, wait a minute.

Greg Steely:
Where are we? Exactly.

Chris Goede:
Exactly.

Greg Steely:
So you begin to see that there’s a lot less head nodding. Head nodding in organizations is great. If people are doing this right here, you got it. If people are doing this, be worried. Be worried because that’s an unsettledness in their heart.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. So what I love about that is you’re talking about the settlement of the people will drive the team to almost alignment, right? We talk a lot about how do we communicate in a way to our team that we don’t all have to agree, right? But we gotta be in alignment and move forward with that.

Chris Goede:
So as we think about this, clarity creates that alignment. Why do we as leaders, we love activity, right? I love to check off lists, right? And I think other people too. Why do we allow as leaders, what have you learned and seen from your leadership and all the work that you’ve studied? Why do we allow us leaders to think activity is progress versus actually having the right results, which is driving the progress? Because I think we get caught. We see people that are busy, we want the rah-rah, we want the energy, and we’re like, come on. Why do we allow that to happen?

Greg Steely:
Well, I think some of it is it’s a lot easier to hold accountability around energy than execution.

Perry Holley:
Say that again.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
That’s really good.

Chris Goede:
That’s really good. I was going to say, wait a minute, stop right there, because it’s right. It’s easier on us. So say that again.

Greg Steely:
It’s a lot easier to hold accountability around energy than execution.

Chris Goede:
Wow.

Greg Steely:
Because listen, when you go have a one-on-one with somebody, what do you talk to them about?

Perry Holley:
Well, we should have had him on number 1.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, exactly.

Greg Steely:
I should have been on all 400 by this, at this rate.

Chris Goede:
This will be the last time he’s with you, Dad. The next show will be Perry and Greg stealing from here on out. But our job as leaders— That’s no good because leaders don’t like to give feedback either and hold people accountable.

Greg Steely:
And that’s almost our primary responsibility. I always say our 3 primary responsibilities as leaders most of the time is awareness, accountability, and action. Those are the 3 A’s, right? Awareness, accountability, and action. You bring awareness of what the goals are and where you’re going, right? Clarity. You bring accountability to who’s responsible for what. You hold them accountable. And then there’s got to be some sort of action or your company’s going to die.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Greg Steely:
And so what we as leaders, sometimes we have a hard time holding people accountable to execution. It’s much easier for me to hold you accountable to your attitude. You have a really bad attitude, or, man, your energy in the office is fantastic. But when we start to talk about execution, it’s harder. And that’s usually, I will tell you this, I’m the chief sinner in this. That’s my role as the leader to provide clarity around Yeah.

Chris Goede:
The other thing, before I throw it back to you, is I was even thinking about this, is even making sure the behaviors are what we are holding people accountable to. To go a little bit deeper on what you said is, yes, energy’s great, but how do we not only understand what the KPIs are that we’re holding and clarity around that, but the clarity around the behaviors that are going to drive those results? We often, miss it. We don’t go to that level. I was with a leader yesterday and we were talking about changing the culture and he’s got a vision and he’s excited about it and this, that. And I just, they have values, they got 10 of them. I was like, okay, well maybe too many. However, I was like, hey, so tell me, what are the behaviors behind that that drives that, that allows you to hold people accountable to your team? So you just got my wheels spinning on thinking about that. So I have to—

Perry Holley:
You said kind of throwaway a little while ago, I’m a galvanizer.

Greg Steely:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. So I recognize working genius and we all have a little where we do work. Is this tied to a personality and temperament? Do you need to be— I’m thinking a lot of leaders say, well, I’m just not that galvanizer. I’m not that charge the hill guy or girl. Is it tied to your personality and temperament or how do you hold people when you’re not the galvanizer?

Greg Steely:
Well, I think what you’ve got to do is it’s got to become more important to build the system within the organization than in the person. In the meter, right? So I’m a galvanizer, but I’m not trying to make my organization a galvanizer.

Perry Holley:
Okay. Right?

Greg Steely:
I’m trying to build the organization. So it’s more the wiring of the organization and the wiring of the team you’ve built and understanding how your team operates than it is really—

Perry Holley:
Not your wiring.

Greg Steely:
Not— I mean, my wiring dictates a lot of that, right? But what I’ve had to learn about myself is my galvanizing, as we said a minute ago, can come in a room and take over the room, suck the air out of a room almost, right? And everybody will say, well, yeah, That sounds exciting. Let’s go do it. But I’ve just created energy.

Chris Goede:
Right, right, right, right.

Greg Steely:
I’ve just created energy. Well, that’s not gonna get us anywhere.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Chris Goede:
Once you leave, right, the room, uh, it’s not gonna progress.

Greg Steely:
Great. If I’ve not created the—

Chris Goede:
yeah.

Greg Steely:
Like a perfect example of this would be kind of a sports analogy. When you think about a team, when they talk about, hey, the, the momentum changed in a game, right? Well, the momentum didn’t really change. What happened is the other team just started to execute on the game plan that was already there because The coaches had done such a great job of creating the game plan. So it’s not about me creating momentum.

5 Levels of Leadership:
Do—

Greg Steely:
have I created the right game plan for my team so that when I come in and say, we’re gonna charge that hill, they go, okay, here’s how we’re gonna charge that hill? Yeah.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And I love that you talked about it’s an organizational system is what you’re talking about in regards to this clarity, creating momentum because people come and go. Yep. And so Perry often talks about There’s a lot of leaders that want to see organizations fail once they leave. That’s not leadership. No. Let’s stay for just a minute on the working the genius, kind of the galvanizing moment. Now, I know you don’t think you have any blind spots, so we’re going to start right there.

Greg Steely:
Nothing I figured out yet.

Chris Goede:
I know Monica’s now going to listen to the first time ever, episode 406.

Greg Steely:
That’s my wife. She’s probably watching live, right?

Chris Goede:
Yeah, probably. That’s right.

Perry Holley:
We’re live.

Chris Goede:
Come on. Yeah, we just upped the level right there. So when Perry was talking about personality traits, so obviously in the 6 of the Working Genius, galvanizer for you, and each working genius, each can create clarity in their own way. So it’s not just creating it the way that galvanizers do, but I want to use that for today’s example. Because you’re very aware of what your strengths are in doing that, right? You talked about, I come into a room, I can rally people. On the other side of that, what have you learned that you’ve had to be aware of? What are the blind spots that maybe your team has brought to your attention that you go, man, because I’m wired this way, I want to lead this way, but I got to be very careful when I’m creating clarity or trying to create momentum because of what, as a galvanizer?

Greg Steely:
Well, discernment is usually the opposite of galvanizing, right? Because a I’m a galvanizer tenacity. If you know The Working Genius, that’s like a powder keg of dynamite.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I was going to say.

Greg Steely:
Comes into a room, right?

Perry Holley:
Yeah. Let’s go and let’s go now.

Chris Goede:
Exactly.

Greg Steely:
What are we waiting on? My gosh, we should have been there yesterday. But discernment, what my team has helped me understand is let’s understand who’s in the room, right? Let’s understand who’s in the room and who do you not have in the room that needs to be in the room?

Chris Goede:
Oh, that’s good.

Greg Steely:
Because you haven’t discerned that enough. Early on, I’m learning this through my team, is I would just get a bunch of galvanizers in the room.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Greg Steely:
Just like-minded people. I mean, we’re the ones that are going to charge the hill. But then what I learned today is I need somebody that’s a discerner. I need somebody that’s really a plotter. I need a— We all— yeah. And you all need that malcontent in the room, right? That one person that’s going to challenge everything you do. Right. And so my team has helped me really begin to surround myself with those people.

Chris Goede:
That’s good.

Greg Steely:
That brings the galvanizing down. Does it change the passion?

Chris Goede:
Sure.

Greg Steely:
But it makes the energy more efficient.

Chris Goede:
That’s good. I like that.

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Perry Holley:
So you mentioned a little bit, right, the cost of— if you’re not aware of this and seeing the symptoms and knowing that Momentum is outrunning clarity. What does that cost an organization if you don’t— I’m thinking this has got to be expensive somehow. You don’t get a lot of activity going on, but maybe we’re not doing the right things. Where do the costs pop up?

Greg Steely:
Well, I call it the rees. It’s going to cause you to redo a lot.

Chris Goede:
The rees.

Greg Steely:
It’s going to cause you to redo a lot.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Greg Steely:
It’s going to cause you to recalibrate a lot. So recalibrate, you’re going to have to either come down on your speed or speed up or move.

Chris Goede:
It makes me think about rehiring. We talk about it a lot with turnover and engagement with leaders and the cost of poor leadership is the rehiring. It’s the same thing what you’re talking about here is the redoing.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
With leadership, when you hear anything that starts with R-E, re, that’s not good. That’s not good for your organization because that means something has to be redone. Something has to—

Chris Goede:
Hey, that’s a podcast that could be one in the future right there, Perry, right there.

Greg Steely:
Yeah, I can come back to that. So you think about it, Perry. The res are what cost you money. They cost you people to rehire. They cost you momentum or— Slow everything down. It does. It slows everything down. And that’s what I’ve seen is we’ve had to redo, I mean, so many things because we got way too out.

Greg Steely:
We’re riding the wave of momentum and it crashed.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, that’s good. Well, I think if you get out too fast and— yeah, this is good. So keep going.

Chris Goede:
Hey, so, okay. You seem like a wise old soul right now.

Greg Steely:
I think I’m younger than— no, I’m not younger than you.

Chris Goede:
No, you’re not. And you’ve learned a lot. Oftentimes people will say, man, if I could go back and know what I know now as a leader and start over again, or as an athlete, we’ve heard it tons of times, right? When you think about this, looking back and what you know now about organizational leadership, your strategic focus as a leader, and creating this whole clarity, what would you do different in the beginning as a leader? So there may be a leader that’s listening right now that’s beginning their journey, that’s trying to drive momentum on a small team or a small organization. What would you say, man, I wish I would’ve done this differently from early on?

Greg Steely:
That’s good. I go back to that sandwich I kind of talked about, that clarity sandwich. I really wish I would’ve focused on the the ends of that sandwich.

Chris Goede:
That’s good.

Greg Steely:
And I’m a strategist at heart, so I really, I really spent a lot of time around kind of the product and the process, you know, right, instead of the people and then the ultimate goal and performance. And so I would’ve done that. And I think that’s where we get, especially in times of crisis. I just listened to a podcast you and Mark did on, you know, leading in times of crisis. And I think sometimes in times of crisis, we focus a lot more on the How do we get out of this and what do we need to do to make that happen? Instead of just going back and going, you know what? Here’s who we are and here’s why we do it. And those will guide us to the answer.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, that’s good.

Perry Holley:
That’s good. So the obvious, the goal here is to have clarity up front that leads to momentum so that we’re moving on the right way, on the right things at speed. So what changes did you make to get clarity up front? Is it your communication style? How do we encourage leaders today to Make sure clarity’s in place before you galvanize and take everybody. I love what you— it’s not just clarity of what we’re doing, it’s clarity of the vision and my role in the vision, what you expect of me. Lots of things, personal and organizationally, I need to be clear about so that I can freely run. But how do we get that early in the process? And what changes when you get that clarity early?

Greg Steely:
Yeah, that’s good. So I’ve started this habit about, I don’t know, about 7 years ago, I worked for an organization and I was trying to grow it, and I’d have these meetings and have all these people in the room. It was really probably around COVID, so it might have been a little longer than that. We were doing a lot of Zooms, and I learned in that, I was like, man, I got a lot of people on this call. I need, I need to— I started writing down their names, and I wrote, I wrote their name in one column, and I wrote clarity at the top, and I wrote next to each one, what do I need to be clear about in this meeting so that they understand it?

Chris Goede:
Wow. Right?

Greg Steely:
Because I think the responsibility of the leader is I have to communicate. That’s what— why leadership is tough.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
Because I’ve got to be able to communicate it so each person on that call personally identifies with the clarity. And I can’t call that person out, but I’ve got to be able to communicate it. So to your point, I’ve really had to hone in on my communication, but know my team, right? Know how do I take what I need to get across here and communicate it so everybody on this list understands it?

Perry Holley:
Do you think we as leaders, we say it and we think they got it? I thought, sure, I was clear. Clarity should not be a problem. Is that just what we’re doing?

5 Levels of Leadership:
We’re kidding ourselves.

Perry Holley:
personal aspect of looking at a name and thinking, does Chris Goede have it?

Greg Steely:
Does he get it?

Chris Goede:
Yeah. Right.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. Right.

Greg Steely:
He’s not going to get it, period. So I wouldn’t use him as an example. But this is—

Chris Goede:
you just popped right into that one. Yeah.

Greg Steely:
This is what I— to that point, this is a great point. This is me as a leader.

Perry Holley:
Okay?

Greg Steely:
Every meeting I walk away from, I go, I wasn’t clear enough.

Perry Holley:
Oh yeah.

Greg Steely:
I wasn’t clear enough. I’ve got to take a step back. I’ve got to redo. I’ve got to— I take— my assistant takes notes on all the meetings that I’m in. I take a step back, I read through those really quickly, and I go, missed it there. I’ve got to go back to the team. I would say this, I don’t know of anybody, any leader that’s worth their weight in salt could step away from a meeting and go, it’s perfectly clear. When you’re doing that, you’re in a dangerous situation.

Chris Goede:
You’re missing it. You are missing it. You’re not clear.

Greg Steely:
Because you’re not. There’s no way that you’re perfectly clear. There’s something in that that you missed, because as leaders, we love to verbally process. And when you verbally process, you over-verbally process, overwhelm people.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. Especially to the team. Let me come back to this. I wanna talk about to get your mind. So you’re an innovator, you’re a builder, right? You love to change things. And so you’re getting ready to communicate this clarity. How collaborative are you beforehand so that you’re able to communicate what you’re thinking, what you want to start, the initiative does land on everybody on the team? Or has this been just a developed, learn-develop skillset that you have where you’re like, no, I got it. I know this is where we’re going and I’m going to communicate that.

Chris Goede:
Because I think sometimes leaders, what the question for me is thinking, sometimes leaders get a little bit too collaborative, And sometimes they get a little bit too siloed. Siloed.

Greg Steely:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
But we gotta be somewhere in the middle in order for us to really create clarity for the entire team. How do you go about that? And maybe even have you done it both ways?

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
And it stretched you out ’cause there’s too much input. And over here, maybe you completely missed it because you didn’t get any input.

Greg Steely:
Yeah, that’s good. I’m a bit controlling. I don’t know if you knew that or not. So I’m a bit controlling. So I like to control the narrative many times. But my team has helped me with this, and one of my team members actually came up with this. What’s the point I’m trying to make of clarity? What’s the point I need you to make as my teammate, whoever that might be? And what’s our collective point that we’re trying to make as the inner circle of the team, the leadership team? I like leadership teams. I don’t like operating just by myself because I can be dangerous just by myself.

Greg Steely:
I’m a disruptor. I’m a galvanizer, whatever.

Chris Goede:
Yes.

Greg Steely:
So we clarify that before we go into a meeting. Greg, what’s the point of clarity you’re trying to bring as the leader, the umbrella leader? What’s the clarity that whatever this meeting is about, marketing or whatever, I have my director. And then collectively, how are we coming around each other to make very clear to everybody that knows that we’re in alignment as a team, as a leadership team? And that brings them in.

Perry Holley:
So it’s that accountability for clarity you get with each other.

Greg Steely:
It is.

Chris Goede:
Yes.

Perry Holley:
I was thinking when I’m listening to someone, and one of the things I’ve tried to practice is the art of the rephrase. So Chris, what you were saying was, to make sure that I’m clear on what you said, said. Where I struggle, and I think this topic, I need to hear your answer on this because when I’m talking, I find it, what did you hear me say? That sounds a little aggressive.

Greg Steely:
A little aggressive.

Perry Holley:
So is there a clarity test that as a leader you’ve learned to, how do I know that they are clear? Is there something you’ve seen? Is it something you experienced? Or do you just keep saying it till they can’t possibly not be clear?

Greg Steely:
Yeah, I wish I figured this out. I wish I have this figured out. I don’t really have it figured out in today’s world Because I think there’s so many people that are so fearful about their position in the organization that when the leader comes in and says something, especially if it’s a strong leader like the 3 of us that comes into an organization, they just agree. Right? Because disagreement could be disarray.

Chris Goede:
Perry will say it’s salute and stay mute.

Greg Steely:
That’s right.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
And that’s not what I don’t invite that in, but I think my personality invites that in. My leadership tries not to invite that in. So I haven’t really figured that out except to give them, I just want to give them the openness To gain more clarity, right? I don’t like to say, are you very— all right, are you guys clear on what I’m saying? Because most people are going to do what you said. Yes, sir.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
Yes, sir. I’m afraid if we’re not, but I do have to repeat it over and over and over again. We have a thing, we divide everything up into quarters. So each quarter we have a theme. So every quarterly meeting and every meeting that we have, whether it’s marketing teams meeting, that quarterly theme is talking about That sandwich I’ll talk about, this is what we’re talking about in every meeting, and we’re getting clarity around that. So it’s just repeatable all the time, and we’re hoping that it sticks like Velcro.

Chris Goede:
I love that. One of the things that Perry and I base this entire content off of is the 5 Levels of Leadership. What Greg’s talking about right here fall in the level 3 bucket of producing, not only individually as a leader, but also in and through your team, but also developing people. And even just in some of the conversations, you can see we’re driving for results as a team, but also we are making sure that our team is— we’re learning how they think, how they communicate. You’re holding each other accountable to that communication, and you’re helping develop those that are going into meetings with you. That example you just talked about, if it’s a marketing meeting, right? You’re director of marketing, you get on the same page before the meeting.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
Make sure we circle up at the end of the meeting. Those things are developing that person As a leader. And so I would say that as individual contributors and/or teams, right, it’s beneficial for us to help them learn how to think.

Greg Steely:
Yep.

Chris Goede:
To help them learn how to execute. And this is a great way.

Greg Steely:
I was in a meeting the other day, it was like so awesome for me to hear is that we were dialoguing about some new ideas and doing some things. And one of our, one of the teammates, Popped up and said, hey, that’s, that’s not who we are.

Perry Holley:
Ooh.

Greg Steely:
Right? And I thought, my gosh. That’s what you want. Oh my gosh. I wrote him a note. You know, I, I, I do this water buffalo thing that Chris knows about, and I sent him a little water buffalo thing and just said, man, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re making us bad by that statement. That, that’s the— if you can get that right there, that’s a good indicator.

Chris Goede:
That’s the win. Yeah.

Greg Steely:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. It does kind of feel like a level 3 conversation, this clarity Where results are your key. I’ve got the good relationship with you, but I really want to make sure that we’re all moving aggressively in the right direction. From a 5-level, this must have changed your leadership as you figure this out. I think any leader that’s figured it out, it really changes your leadership. You do level 2 really well, you’ve got good relationship. I’m helping you, I care about you, you can trust me. But at level 3, I’m going to ask hard things of you.

Greg Steely:
That’s right.

Perry Holley:
But I want to, that they more want to go there and they’re more apt to be there. And this example you said, somebody stand up, that’s not who we are. That’s a level 3 moment.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, it is.

Perry Holley:
Right there.

Chris Goede:
Well, one of our favorite things when we have guests is we take ’em through a rapid fire.

Perry Holley:
Oh.

Chris Goede:
And, uh, so I’d love for you to put him on the hot seat. Uh, he’s, he’s already caused us to go longer than 20 minutes, so we, we apologize. We should be wrapping up pretty soon. Hang with us, but let’s give him some rapid fire leadership questions and then I’ll wrap us up.

Perry Holley:
Is there a leadership habit you’ve added because of this lesson?

Greg Steely:
Yeah, I would say yes. I spend a lot more time post-meetings reviewing.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, that little— I like that.

Perry Holley:
That’s a good takeaway.

Chris Goede:
I’ve never reviewed a transcript of how I communicated something in a meeting. That was one of my big takeaways was—

Perry Holley:
Can I ask you, our habit, and most of us is we go to a meeting and then we rush to another meeting and then to another. Are you leaving time? When do you do this?

Greg Steely:
7 minutes. So I don’t know why. I don’t know why it’s 7 minutes.

Perry Holley:
But you shorten meetings or you leave it?

Greg Steely:
I just got a gap of 7 minutes. My assistant knows it’s, we call it the 7-minute rule. So after every meeting, you get 7 minutes. It’s just a buffer of 7 minutes. I don’t know why it’s 7. I think maybe it took me 7 minutes one time to do it. I don’t always use the whole 7. It’s better than 5.

Greg Steely:
It screws up the calendar, which I like.

Chris Goede:
That’s great.

Greg Steely:
Makes the timing weird.

Chris Goede:
I have a meeting with Greg at 10:16.

Greg Steely:
Yeah. The meetings are on the 15s, right? But the 7-minute, and it’s just read the transcript. What did I miss? Sometimes I know what I’m— I’ve gotten to the point now, Perry, where I know where I missed it and I just review that.

Chris Goede:
So that’s great.

Greg Steely:
Yeah, I know I have an explanation. I wish it was some—

Chris Goede:
that’s great. I love that.

Greg Steely:
Great answer.

Perry Holley:
But is there a question you ask more frequently now than you did before because of this?

Greg Steely:
Yeah, I think I just ask, it’s really about me. It is, Do I have the right people in the room?

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
Sometimes we call meetings and we got all these people in the room and we’ve got the wrong— we don’t have every— we don’t have the right people in the room. All right, we need less people, more people, different people. So the question I ask before every meeting is I look at the meeting that’s been set up and I go, okay, look at the list. All right, are those the right people? Do we need to add— I just did that yesterday. I said to my assistant, Annie, let’s add this person, take this person out. And move that forward. Because that’s about clarity, right? You’re not going to get clear if you got the wrong people in the room.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. You talk about the 7-minute rule afterwards, but is there a warning sign in the moment that you’ve noticed that would tell you, I have a clarity problem?

Greg Steely:
Yeah, because I have the honor, the distinct honor of my team being 90% female. You know exactly when you’ve said something That was not clear. And I can— that’s the, that’s the, the benefit of— I, I don’t— I usually don’t have a lot of notes when I’m pretty prepared. My memory is good. So I’ll just come in and I can see their faces and I’ll know. I just know based on the look on their face. I know them enough to know that.

Perry Holley:
But that’s a good point about— go back to 5 levels. If you do a really good job of getting level 2 so that they want to be on your team and you know who they are, you know what, how, and you can sense things, something’s off here, something’s wrong. I saw your face, you twitched. And having the courage to say, you seem like you didn’t get that, or you seem like I said something.

Greg Steely:
Not to belabor this answer, but just to say, I’ve got a couple of my great team members who are moms and they have kids, and I can see if I’ve communicated something that wasn’t clear, it was very overwhelming to them, and they’re going to 1,000 different other places of how this impacts them and their time. But I know them well enough to know I need to make this clear for them and where their stage is.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. That’s good.

Perry Holley:
Last one. Is there a piece of advice you’d give your younger self now that you know this lesson?

Greg Steely:
Married my wife a lot sooner. I would’ve done that a lot sooner.

Chris Goede:
So that you assure clarity in the rest of your life.

Greg Steely:
Clarity in the rest of my life. I just think the piece of advice would be, man, just slow down a little bit. Just slow down. Settle into your leadership. You’re in the position for a reason, right?

Chris Goede:
That’s good.

Greg Steely:
And just settle into it.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I love that. Again, even slowing down to be able to read the transcripts. And I love the question because Perry’s seen me leaving meetings and running the meetings. And then when do you have time to remember back to that?

Perry Holley:
Yeah. Go back and you don’t take time to reflect, after-action review, none of that.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
No, but he, we’ll play golf together and he’ll get in his car so quick and I’m like, you need to review that golf game. That thing was so ugly. Like you need to really, you need to really take a pause. We’re not doing this again. There’s got to be a plan.

Chris Goede:
All right, listen, Wade, who’s running our board, he wants you back every— Perry, I’m out. Okay? The reason I’m doing that is because I got to get as far away from that game as possible to forget it. Well, as I wrap up, many of us leaders, and Greg, man, thank you for just great content, right? Man, when we have confusion, it’s going to lead to failure. And so even if you have momentum, As we talked about, you still may have some confusion. And then the whole re— another lesson I learned today, the whole re is going to show back up if we have that. And so, man, some of the most effective, strongest leaders, you just don’t create momentum. You got the clarity on the front end so there’s not confusion that creates the momentum headed in the right direction. When you figure that out, to Greg’s points today, some systems that he uses and has built, when you figure that out, Man, they know where they’re going.

Chris Goede:
They know why it matters. It’s his sandwich, right? What success looks like. That’s what we gotta strive for. And do it in your own way. We’re all wired a little bit differently.

Perry Holley:
Okay?

Chris Goede:
And so you may not be a galvanizer. I’m not a galvanizer, but how do I strive for clarity using what I love about what you shared was the principles work no matter what type of leader you are. Perry and I are often with teams and We’ll do some team development training. They’re like, what’s the best profile? Working genius, this, that, more leaders you’ve worked with. And we just simply look at ’em and go, it’s yours.

Greg Steely:
That’s right.

Chris Goede:
Learn how to authentically lead and strive for clarity through authenticity of where the why and where the team’s going.

Greg Steely:
Good stuff.

Perry Holley:
Fantastic. Well, thank you, Greg.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Greg Steely:
Thank you guys.

Perry Holley:
This has been very enlightening. I hope that you all enjoyed it. I highly recommend that you go download the learner guide for this episode and collect those notes. Review those. I think there’s a lot of great nuggets that are here. You can do that as well as learn about our other offerings, the 5 Levels of Leadership, as well as our other podcast offerings. You do all that at MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast. As Chris mentioned earlier, you can also leave us a comment or a question there.

Perry Holley:
We love hearing from you. Very grateful you’d spend this time with us. That’s all today from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

Transcript created by Castmagic.