Leadership Lessons
Where can you start taking your leadership lessons? In this episode of Incorporating Superpowers, host Justin Recla welcomes guest Jim Rafferty to the show. Jim is the author of the book called Leader by Accident. The two talk about the importance of evolving leadership styles. They talk about the great resignation and other leadership lessons that are highlighted in his book. Tune in today to learn all about Leadership Lessons!
Justin Recla:
Welcome back to the Incorporating Superpowers. This is another edition where we are going to have a lot of explained fun exploring the conversations of just what business looks like moving forward. And my guest today is somebody that I consider a friend, he’s been on the show before. We’ve had some amazing conversations. Today’s gonna be no different because what we’re going to be talking about today is Leadership Lessons and leadership and what that looks like, for us moving forward, not 2023. But not just sort of grade three, but 2023 and beyond, because the leadership styles that we’ve had, that we have that we’ve looked at that we’ve experienced, that we’ve modeled ourselves after, haven’t necessarily worked and a lot of us are feeling that a lot of us are starting to realize that you know what, perhaps there’s, there are other ways of leading other ways of being other ways of communicating. And my guest today is, is an expert in this industry. He’s written the book called A Leader by Accident. He’s been on the show before we talked about this before, and it just seemed so pertinent to bring him back as we start up this new year, we look forward because there’s so much of this, that the world is ready for my guest is Jim Rafferty, our book Leader by Accident. Jim, welcome back to the show.
Jim Rafferty:
Thanks, Justin. So good to see you. Again. Good to be here. Appreciate it.
Justin Recla:
Yeah, this is gonna be a lot of fun. Now, this book is the relevant one, I can never see a time when it won’t ever be irrelevant. Because no matter where we’re at in society, I mean, even if the apocalypse slips and we go back to tribal living, there’s going to have to be leaders in place in order to keep things going. So now while we’re still hearing flourishing, what are some of the things that you’re seeing after this last, especially after this last year 2022 is done 2023 moving forward? What are some of the things that you’re seeing that that is really coming to the forefront in terms of leadership in the world today,
Jim Rafferty:
it’s really been an interesting ride, I’ll tell you because the book Leader by Accident was pretty much complete. And it was complete and ready to go to the publisher three, just about three years ago. And then you know, what happened on a Friday, we were all in the office happy with each other. And on a Monday, we couldn’t be anywhere near another human, you know, outside of our house. And so at that point, I just kind of sat on it too, for a few months, because none of us knew what things were going to look like coming out of this. And I thought, Wow, am I going to be you know, releasing a book that’s just completely irrelevant before it hits the presses or what next, and I waited. And eventually, it became clear that things would come back to, you know, some version of normal. And I went ahead and make any changes to the book doesn’t mention the pandemic, I just went ahead, and the publisher republished it, and off we went. And then shortly after it came out, one of the first interviews I did was a radio interview, and it was very brief for them, unfortunately, because the news had broken that day that this was right after November of 2021. So the news had broken that day, that 4.3 million, I think it was Americans had quit their jobs in November, thus beginning what we now know, quite familiarly as the great resignation.Â
Well, this particular host who was interviewing me, this was all she wanted to talk about, for those 10 minutes. And you know, to myself, I’m thinking, Oh, okay, there’s actually nothing in my book about this, but I’ll I’m game, right. And I sort of tapped it my way through the interview, and we made it and it went, Okay. And then, you know, having the time to reflect and think about it, after we were done, I thought, well, you know, 4.3 million people quit their jobs there. There are a lot of reasons why they did that it turned out right, some of them decided that they just really needed to go pursue their passion, the pandemic was a wake-up call, and others figured out, they can make a living off of what they were selling on Etsy, and didn’t need the job. But I think a whole lot of them. You know, I’ve always been a fan of that saying that people join companies and they quit bosses. And I think a lot of people quit their bosses and continuing and we’ve seen the whole great resignation now sort of morphed itself into the quiet quitting, which I think is even worse to, you know, stay on the job and collect, check and do the bare minimum, I understand some of what’s behind it. But, you know, some of that comes back to leadership failure, either in terms of a specific leader that you know, the manager or the supervisor or in terms of an overall company, organizational culture, and those two, of course, is, you know, inextricably linked. So it’s been interesting as this whole year plus has wound down, and in some of these interviews to talk about that and to address that, and to see how relevant it has been.
Justin Recla:
It quite seems to be part of the theme of my interviews today. You’re my third interview today and it’s been the theme of authenticity, right? People are just tired of the fakeness. And the fact that you’ve got that many people that are that quit that they realize that you know, what their own well being is worth more to them than a job where they’re, they feel stuck in a position in a relationship and in a boss-employee relationship that is not serving to their greater good, and I think that can’t be ignored.Â
Jim Rafferty:
Absolutely true. And again, if we flashback, you know, not quite three years now to March of 2020, when everything locked down, you know, as I said, Friday, we’re all in the office happily working and Monday, all of a sudden, we can’t be. So now everybody’s scrambling every company is trying to come up with a technological solution that allows two participant people to participate in the work they need to get done. Alright, so we all learned about Zoom and MS Teams and all the other ways to do this. But more than that, you know, every single benefit manager had to figure out a way to manage people remotely via Zoom. So in the absence of the nonverbal cues, they might be getting, if you and I were sitting across my desk from each other, or the magical little things that happen when we just bumped into each other in the hallway or the break room and, and all the unexpected things that come out of that now we’re managing in the app, not only in the absence of all of that, but we’re working also having to allow for the fact that the person we’re working is suddenly also trying to homeschool their kids or care for an aging parent who they’re not allowed to see in person at the moment, right. So I think leaders all of a sudden, discovered a need for these huge much larger reservoirs of empathy than they needed before. And I think not everybody lived up to the task.
Justin Recla:
No, I absolutely agree. And we’re gonna dive more into this on the backside of the break but before we go on the break where can people go find more information about you in the book?
Jim Rafferty:
Thanks, it’s a leaderbyaccident.com and you can buy the book there learn about me there the books available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and wherever you get books but yeah, leaderbyaccident.com.
Justin Recla:
Fantastic, folks, go take a look at the book and pick up a copy for yourself. It’s got some amazing stories and some just amazing, amazing information in it for you regarding this, this topic of what what what it means to be a leader today. Stay with us, we’ll be right back.
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