Stifled Leadership

Justin Recla:

Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today we are talking about leadership seems to be one of the big topics of 2023. Folks and I can’t tell you this is one of those times where we look for we look out into the world. And we realize that you know, the rules that are in place for leaders don’t always, you know, they’re always worked out. It’s they were looking out, and we see that, whether it be politics or work and the great resignation that ultimately what it’s coming down to is that we’re realizing as individuals that we deserve better in leadership. And this is a theme that seems across the border, so many people that are talking about this, and my guest today is no different he is I love this as my guest is James, Jim “Big Red” Wetrich, Jim you’re gonna really enjoy this conversation. He’s written a book called Stifled: Where Good Leaders Go Wrong. And the big thing that caught my attention here is one of the points that he makes in this book is the fact of how to enact tangible steps to become a more self-aware leader. And I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun in this conversation. Jim, welcome to the show.

Jim Wetrich:

Yeah, Justin, thank you, I’ve had the privilege of my 40 years of working, or having worked for some of the greatest leaders ever, and, and they had a huge impact on me. Every one of the people I’ve worked for my entire career, except the first guy who was a manager in a grocery store, all ended up becoming CEOs, presidents, or officers, corporate officers, and public or private companies. And I’ve just been really blessed. At the same time, I’ve seen a lot of leaders spin around a lot of leaders been around a lot of people, and a lot of managers who weren’t so good, and have made a lot of mistakes. And it’s easy to make mistakes. And one of the things we’re not doing very well, Justin and I talked about it in the book is training, right? So many times, we have a two-day, three-day, half-day, one-day, you know how to become an effective leader training program. Jim’s a new leader, we put him through the program and you know, put a note in my HR piles. And Jim has been trained to be a leader now, and will you know, go lead. And we just leave people out there without any kind of support or ongoing mentoring or development. And we also just in don’t do a good job of managing the managers, right, who’s managing the managers? And I talked a lot about this in the performance review process, right? I get judged based on how well I did on my sales or how well I did on my expenses, or how well I did on my budget. But nobody’s judging me or ranking me or rating me based on how I’m leading and, what may be, the employee satisfaction scores are how poorly I treat my people. No one sits in on my staff meetings to see how I interact with my staff or goes out in the field with me to see customers, maybe I’m a real sob who just happens to hit my numbers. So there are just so many gaps. And that’s what motivated me, to write the book.

Justin Recla:

Now, this can be a lot of fun. I’m actually going to stop us a little short before the break because there’s so much to this that I want to dive into with you that I want to make sure we have uninterrupted time to continue talking about because this one is gonna be big folks because I have so many questions for Jim and the observations that he’s made throughout the years. But before we go on break, where can people go find more information about you?

Jim Wetrich:

Yeah, just thank you, Justin, the easiest places to go the JimWetrich.com. I’ve got information about the book and ways to get a hold of me there. I’m also very active on LinkedIn, James G. Wetrich, those are the two best places for people to go. 

Justin Recla:

Just fantastic folks, go take a look at the copy of a good copy of the book Stifled, you’re gonna want to dive into it because the stuff that we’re going to just highlight and talk about here and the back end of this conversation is is so in-depth that it, it has to be discussed, you have to start examining these things, and looking at them for yourself, if you want to continue to be successful, moving forward, stay with this, we’ll be right back.

For the best listening experience, download the Superpower Network App