TRP 307: Mission Critical Leadership with Jon Lokhorst

[00:00:10] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by high stakes headhunter, author, and professional speaker, Scott Love. You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, and my name is Scott Love. Thank you for joining me on the show. Our guest today is Jon Lokhorst. Jon is a consultant, an author, a trainer, and a coach who partners with organizations to develop leaders everyone wants to follow,

[00:00:40] to build teams that nobody wants to leave, and to deliver exceptional results. Also, Jon's latest book is one that I'd highly recommend. I read it. I dug into it. I'd highly recommend you get that. We put all of Jon's contact information on the show notes as well as how you can order his book. It's called Mission Critical Leadership, How Smart Managers Lead Well in All Directions. It's an innovative and simple approach that's highly effective.

[00:01:05] Also, on May 14th and 15th in New York City, SharePoint is hosting the Managing Partner Lab. This is a collaborative two-day in-person workshop designed exclusively for managing partners and executive directors of law firms. If you attend, say hello to me. I'll be speaking there, and I'd love to meet you. As always, this show is sponsored by SharePoint Legal Insights, formerly known as Leopard Solutions, turning legal intelligence into opportunity.

[00:01:33] And also, the show is hosted by The Rainmaking Magazine. Don't lose business to the competition. Read this publication and keep business development top of mind. Visit therainmakingmagazine.com today to chart your course to greater rainmaking success. I hope you get some great ideas from my conversation with Jon today. Thanks for listening. Hey, this is Scott Love with The Rainmaking Podcast.

[00:01:59] Our guest today is Jon Lokhorst, and our topic title is Mission Critical Leadership. Jon, thanks for joining me on the show. Great to be with you today, Scott. Thanks so much for the opportunity to have this conversation. Absolutely right. And I'm a fan of your work. I've read your book. I'd highly recommend it. I found it to be enlightening, insightful, with clear steps.

[00:02:22] I liked at the very end of each chapter, you give three action steps for people to summarize that, similar to how our show is. And I like the fact that you gave a framework that's effective but really simple. You can read the book and get your arms around something that makes a difference. So good job on the book. And I want to start with this. You talk about leading in all directions. What does that mean exactly, Jon?

[00:02:46] Where it comes from, Scott, is the fact that a lot of leadership development is focused in a singular direction on the typical organizational chart. And it's focused downstream in terms of being a good boss. It's about your direct reports, the people that you supervise. And while that's certainly important, you can't be an effective leader if you're not a good boss.

[00:03:09] But there's so much more to leadership than that, because if you think about it, everyone has to lead from wherever they sit within any organization, large or small. And so this concept of mission critical leadership is not just leading down. It's also leading up to your boss and your superiors, leading across among your peers and colleagues. Also recognizes the fact that all leadership starts with self-leadership. You've got to lead yourself first before you can effectively lead others.

[00:03:39] That's great. I'm going to kind of go into some of those a little bit deeper. But I will tell you this, that in professional services, because most of our listeners are in professional services, it's peer leadership. Where you've got, let's say, a thousand attorneys, maybe 500 of them are associates and 500 of them are partners. And they all have the same title. They're partners. Some are equity, some non-equity. But they're peers. They're equals. So I found that your book is really helpful in that regard.

[00:04:05] But before we go into those different focus areas of leadership, let's talk about how various styles of leadership have evolved to where they are in the present day. You talk a little bit about that in the book, but kind of give us an historical context of that. Yeah, I think over time, what we've seen is there's certainly a flattening of organizations. There's not as many layers. Obviously, you've got those huge companies like Amazon and companies like that that have a multitude of layers.

[00:04:34] But to your point, the last comment that you made about that, that leading across is a huge part of it. And that's one of the most complex forms of leadership because there's no role power in that. A lot of leadership over the years historically has come from that role power. I have a title. I have a position. I am the managing partner. I am the director of this department. And so that gives me that authority to lead down. Certainly, that's a part of leadership. There is role power.

[00:05:02] There's the I refer to it as the boss card that you can play. And sometimes you have to do that. You know, there's a decision that needs to be made or there's some directive and it's time to move past dialogue and conversation and say, OK, somebody's got to call the shot here. So let's let's let's move ahead on this. But the best leaders reserve that boss card.

[00:05:23] In fact, some of the best leaders that I know have never really had to play that boss card because they rely so much on influence and trust and respect and things like that that cause people to want to follow them. So moving from what historically had been to some extent a command and control structure of leadership. I'm the boss. You're my direct report.

[00:05:46] You do what I tell you to much more of an influence process where at the end of the day, we're working together to accomplish the business results that the organization needs. And it's not so much of a telling as it is in a collaborative process. And hopefully, as I'm your superior, I'm serving as a coaching style of leader as opposed to a directing or telling style of leader. I like that. And kind of go over those framework components again, please.

[00:06:15] You talk about self leadership. Is that right? Yeah. Self leadership is really at the heart of all leadership. And that's why I say leadership is for everybody, because no matter you can be a team of one. And I've been in small organizations where essentially I was a team of one. And certainly now in the role that I play, I'm an independent consultant and coach. And so I'm a team of one. So it takes a lot of self leadership.

[00:06:40] It's there's no boss telling me that I need to show up for work or that I need to get my projects done on time. I need to get my contracts out. It's really all driven with self leadership. And so it's it really starts with that. And a big part of that, Scott, is just knowing where you want to go as a leader. This is true whether you work on your own or you're part of an organization. If you're part of an organization, the organization likely has a mission, vision, values and all of that in place.

[00:07:10] And certainly whatever you're trying to accomplish, it has to be congruent with that. But you need to have an idea for yourself. You know, where are you going? What is that vision? What are you after? What's the greater good that you're trying to do?

[00:07:23] And so I think a lot of self leadership starts with having a clear understanding of what I refer to as your personal foundation, all of those different elements that are there and the ability to articulate that, because that that ends up serving as a guiding light or a north star that that helps you to stay focused in the work that you're doing. Yeah, that's great. And in that chapter on the book of self leadership, you talk about vision, purpose, mission and values. How would you define those?

[00:07:52] Kind of give us a working format on what are those and how can we get clarity on that in our in our lives as a personally in terms of the self leadership? Yeah, I think of the those each of those four components as answering questions that correlate with them. So vision, vision answers the question, where are you going? Purpose answers the question, why is that important mission? What are you doing to get there?

[00:08:19] And then the values, how are you going to act along the way or how are you going to be along the way? And so that's kind of a basic starting point. Of course, you can build that out from there. Going back to that concept of vision, oftentimes I think of that vision, especially for an individual who does not consider themselves to be a visionary. You know, I'm not a Bill Gates. I'm not an Elon Musk. I'm not somebody that has this big, grandiose vision out there. And so I just not me.

[00:08:48] I'm not Steve Jobs. And it's really as simple as saying, OK, if you look out into the future, whether that's a few years or many years down the road, what do you see? Because vision is about sight. And so what do you see when you look out into the future? What do you want your life to be? What do you want to be doing at that point in time? And in having that clear understanding. And I love the the famous baseball player and manager, Hall of Famer Yogi Berra.

[00:09:15] And he's somebody that was not not only famous for his baseball career, but his use or misuse of the English language. And he had this quote or this yogi ism that I love. If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up someplace else. And I think that speaks really well to the concept of vision, you know, having that sense of direction of where you're going, because in a sense, once you have that established now, that's one of your primary filters for the decisions that you're making.

[00:09:45] Even from day to day, you know, that that ability to ask yourself every day, what is my vision require of me today? It gives you that sense of getting out of that whirlwind, that gerbil wheel of just the day to day tactical things. And am I really moving forward to the thing that I consider to be most important? Right. Have you coached executives on this, on that self-leadership?

[00:10:07] I have. Yeah, absolutely. I can think of one CFO in a health care practice where the individual was on this fast track to burnout. And a big part of it was just not having some of that clarity, that personal foundation, that guiding light. And when he stepped back and took the time, it was a lot of it came over a coffee date with himself on a Saturday morning. And he just built out some very basic answers to those questions.

[00:10:36] And he said at the end, it was almost like a sigh of relief because he realized that he was trying to conquer the world before he got to 35. And he realized that he had a long runway ahead of him and he needed to pace himself better, that he had plenty of time to accomplish the things that were important to him. And it just enabled him to slow down, to relax a little bit, take a different pace. And he said that was a game changer in terms of slowing down that pace toward burnout.

[00:11:04] So let me ask you this then, and I appreciate that anecdote. That makes a lot of sense. How can we replicate that? Are there any coaching questions you can give our listeners to really help them get clarity on their vision, purpose, mission, and values? Yeah, I think, you know, I go back to an example, somebody that I worked with who was really struggling with that vision concept and had a hard time nailing that down. And so I boiled it down to this.

[00:11:31] I drilled down a little bit further than some of those high-level questions that I mentioned earlier. And I just said, you know, how far out can you see? As you think about where you're at in life, where you're at in your career, where you're at in your personal life, and you look down the road, how far can you see with some clarity of what you want, of what you hope for? What are your dreams and your expectations? And she came back and she said, well, you know, when I think about it,

[00:11:57] I can see about as far out as when my youngest child graduates from high school. After that, the future gets pretty murky. But up to that point, I can see at least something in terms of a path that I'm wanting to take or that I'm hoping to see. And so she really pegged her vision to that point in time when her youngest child was going to graduate from high school and then built it out from that, okay, this is what I see. This is what I want.

[00:12:25] This is what I'm hoping for in terms of my professional life, my personal life, our family. And she was able to create this compelling picture of where she was going, where she wanted to land at that point in time. And then from that, stepping back and, all right, so purpose. Why is that important? Well, she was able to come back to, it was really important to her

[00:12:48] to not only have a career, a professional life that had some meaning and had some growth and advancement to it, but all of that in the context of the bigger picture of life. Her family was really important to her. She didn't want to shortchange that. And so that played into some of the work-life tensions and how she would navigate those and creating some good values around that. So it was really helpful for her to just have, you know, if you want to call it a mile post down the road a little further

[00:13:17] where she could still see it. It was a ways out there on the horizon, but it's like, okay, I still see that mile post out there and I can still drive toward that. After that, yeah, we might have to recalibrate at some point in time. I like that a lot. You also talk about self-talk. What does that mean? Why is, what does that mean and why is that important? And how can we even monitor that? Yeah, Scott, I have a lot of fun with that concept of self-talk, whether I'm doing this in an individual coaching session,

[00:13:45] if I'm doing it at a great group training, even sometimes on these big webinars with tons of people where you can get people to type in the channel. I'll just ask the question, do you ever talk to yourself? And of course, people will chuckle and laugh. And the reality is everyone talks to themselves. You talk to yourself. I talk to myself. The bigger question is, what's the quality of that self-talk? Because your self-talk can either help to move you forward toward your vision, your purpose, your values, and all of that,

[00:14:14] or it can actually be a barrier to you accomplishing some of those things. And I use a couple of examples from well-known characters in children's stories as a great way to contrast the quality of self-talk. On the one hand, you've got somebody like Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh stories, where it's like, it could be worse, might be. It's always like that. He just has this downtrodden kind of perspective on life.

[00:14:43] And all he sees are the obstacles. And then you contrast that. There's this story that I think it's about 100 years old now, the little blue engine that could. And it's this engine that's got to carry these toys over the course of this mountain into the past below and bring these toys to these children. And it's really an undersized engine in comparison to a lot of the other ones. But the famous words going up that hill, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

[00:15:10] And you contrast those two forms of self-talk. And it's not too hard to see how taking the little blue engines approach is going to propel you. It's not pie in the sky, the little blue engine. I love the illustrations and some of those older versions of the book. You can see the wheels of that locomotive are misshapen because of the exertion that it's taking to climb that hill. And yet you realize that, yeah, I can talk myself.

[00:15:38] That self-pep talk can get me over the hump. I like that. And so you've coached people where they've had a negative self-talk. What advice have you given to people like that, where their internal self-talk just isn't going to help them reach their vision? Yeah, a lot of it is, it's taking some time for self-reflection. And there's this concept called metacognition.

[00:16:02] It's one of the unique qualities of being a human being that the animal kingdom doesn't have. We have that ability to think about what we're thinking about, where we can step back. It doesn't happen without some self-reflection because we're usually going, going, going. And we're talking about high caliber professionals here. We're talking about people who are at the top of their game. They're high in demand. They're experts. They've got a lot of questions coming at them and a lot of great work that they're doing.

[00:16:30] And again, you can get caught in that whirlwind. But if you step back and you go, okay, what really is going on in my head? Even in those moments where it's very reactive and it's almost instinctive. And what's the quality of that? So stepping back to think about what is that self-talk? Because a lot of that self-talk is up in our heads. That's not as much our talking it out loud. Although if you're in the car driving somewhere, you might talk to yourself out loud.

[00:17:00] I do that when I'm mowing the lawn. I talk to myself out loud. But the ability to step back and to go, okay, wait a second now. Am I talking like Eeyore or am I more like the little blue engine? Am I getting caught up on the obstacles? Or do I see realistically that there are some barriers along the way, but I see it as opportunity that I can move forward through? That's great, Sean. Let's talk about leading across.

[00:17:26] We mentioned that a little bit earlier about how it's really important in professional services. You mentioned just now and even in your book that we need to rely on influence because there is no role, pal. What do you think are the impediments that keep people from really being more effective in leading across? I think one of the challenges really starts at the top of any given organization.

[00:17:52] There's got to be a tone at the top that says that this is not about our individual goals and gains. And while those are good and those have value, it's really about the good of the whole. And I share a concept in the book called enterprise thinking. And it's the ability that any person has at whatever level, whatever role that you might play in that firm,

[00:18:16] even if you're working in a supporting role and an admin role, to think as if you were the organization, to think if you were the enterprise. Because if you were the organization, if you were the enterprise personified, you would be acting in the best interest of the whole, as opposed to your own department, your own role, your own team, to get to the greater good that your organization is trying to do in the world.

[00:18:42] So there's got to be this tone at the top that helps to create this collaborative environment. Because unfortunately, there are a lot of firms where there's more internal competition than there is collaboration. And one of the best ways to break through that is to get people thinking about, okay, how do we work together? Unfortunately, and this is true in professional services as well as in any given industry,

[00:19:08] there's a lot of energy and there are a lot of resources that get burned up internally, whether it's internal competition or infighting or even just some of the normal dysfunction that comes in human relationships that can go awry from time to time. And so more of that energy that you can preserve to focus on the external challenges that are coming your way. You know, all the changes in the marketplace and technology and just the regulatory environment,

[00:19:37] all of those things require so much attention, so much energy. If you're out of gas because of all the battles you're fighting internally, it's going to be pretty hard for you to accomplish that greater mission that you're trying to do in the world. Absolutely right. And let's talk a little bit about the section on leading down in the book. You discuss things like this, active listening, powerful questions, delivering feedback, goal setting and action planning, and supportive accountability.

[00:20:07] I mean, that's a whole day seminar in itself, right? And so which of those do you think are the biggest or the most difficult for people to really be effective at? Great question, Scott. And all of those elements that you referred to, it really is part of that coaching style of leadership. And, you know, I think of all of those, accountability can be a real challenge.

[00:20:31] And I think it starts with the fact that most of us have had a bad experience with accountability at some way, somewhere along the way. You know, it's a boss or even a coworker that says, you know, I'm going to hold you accountable. And so it's one of those things where a lot of people feel like accountability is something that's being done to them, as opposed to something that's being done for them or with them.

[00:20:59] And accountability really needs to have a dual purpose to it. Yes, it's about the results that you need in your business, in your firm, and making sure that those results are happening, whether it's projects getting done on time or budgets being met, any of those kinds of challenges. But at the same time, you've got to have a mindset. This is part of having a leadership mindset that it's also for the good of the individual. It's inspiring that individual to take ownership and responsibility.

[00:21:27] And really what that is, is it's self-accountability. If in any given organization you could raise up a team of people who are self-accountable, well, think about how much of the pressure that takes off of leadership, otherwise having to hold people accountable. And the reason I like that term supportive accountability is because it really does express that twofold purpose.

[00:21:51] Because on the one hand, if you're my direct report and there's some things that are going a little bit haywire and we need to have some of those difficult conversations, some corrective feedback and things like that that bring accountability, I can essentially walk alongside. Hey, Scott, I'm here to walk alongside you through all this. But I'm not letting you off the hook for your responsibility. You still own it.

[00:22:14] And I think sometimes, you know, people might have a tendency to lean too much to the supportive side, where if you go that direction, you can end up being an enabler. And of course, on the flip side, it can otherwise come across as a really heavy-handed approach to accountability. So that's why I love that idea of supportive accountability, because that's ultimately going to accomplish that dual purpose. I do too. I like that a lot.

[00:22:40] But I think in the context of professional services especially, because younger attorneys, at least from my experience, they want to be mentored. And holding people accountable is part of that. And I like the way you frame it, supportive accountability. I think that's just a great model, especially for people in professional services. One final question I wanted to ask you was, you talk about conducting one-on-one check-in meetings. What's the framework for that? What's their frequency? What are some tips about that that you can share with our audience, John?

[00:23:10] Scott, I love that concept of the one-on-one. I actually refer to it as your best leadership tool, because it can accomplish so many different purposes. It's really the Swiss Army knife of leadership, because of all the things that you can use that one-on-one check-in for. And it's interesting, because the Blanchard Organization and Training Magazine did a study, and they found that about half of U.S. workers say that they would like to have a one-on-one conversation

[00:23:39] weekly with their boss. Now, of course, that's across a whole bunch of different industries and all that, but I have found that to be true in professional services as well. Does it have to be every week? I think that's where the leader needs to have some discernment, because not everybody that they supervise might need to have it every week. But certainly no less than once a month where there's a more structured approach to that one-on-one check-in.

[00:24:04] And it's a way to not only deal with some of the tactical challenges and the questions and issues, it's just a really good clearinghouse to make sure that there aren't some, you know, there's baggage that's accumulating some way, somewhere along the way, you know, frustrations or concerns, you know, things that might be questions about policies within the firm. So I really like that concept. It's a recurring appointment on the calendar, so it's already there.

[00:24:32] Otherwise, it gets crowded out with everything else and it's really hard to get that on the schedule. So whether it's weekly or monthly, you know, the person's experience, their maturity, how much change they're encountering, the level of complexity in current projects that they might be working on, you know, might drive that. So it's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all, but one of the key factors that I recommend in my approach to one-on-ones

[00:24:58] is that you encourage that team member to have their talking points, their agenda points, even to accumulate those. The people that I supervised, I would have, they even came up with this on their own. They came up with their John list. It was like, I know I'm going to have this one-on-one check-in with John. I'm going to keep my list. I like them to go first because I want that to be their time. And I think when you make that your team member's time, it does give them that sense of ownership and responsibility.

[00:25:28] It also shows that you're putting value in them. I think what you just said right there, that's a significant idea. We've got several that came out of our conversation. One thing I'd like to do, John, I'd like to invite you back on the show and let's have our topic, that one-on-one check-in meeting. I think we can spend this whole show just talking about that. And I think that'll help it a lot. That sounds great. Thank you for being here today. Before we leave, what are three action steps?

[00:25:54] If a leader, and a leader could be professional services provider, even with a small team, what are three action steps they should take to really make changes that you discussed today? I would start where we actually started around that personal foundation. So getting clarity around your personal vision, purpose, values, mission, all of those different components. And don't feel like it has to be this overwhelming process to do it. It's not necessarily going to be a plaque on the wall.

[00:26:23] You know, you might have those components on your website for your firm. This is really for your own good. And so even if it's a back of the napkin exercise, starting there with establishing that strong personal foundation. I think when it comes to leadership, having a clear leadership development plan for yourself and for anyone that you lead. And again, even if they don't have a leadership title or a leadership position per se, having

[00:26:51] that leadership development plan, what are the skills? What are the habits? What are the mindsets that you're trying to develop? And what is it going to take to get there? So some clarity around that. And then it would be the one-on-one check-in. And don't feel like, you know, you have to have this all dialed in and perfected. Just start somewhere where even 15 to 30 minutes. You know, these don't have to be long meetings.

[00:27:16] You know, what I found as I got into a groove was that oftentimes 15 to 20 minutes on a regular basis would go a long way. Now, of course, you know, the less frequently, the longer you might need on that. But certainly using that as a tool to build engagement and then to bring that coaching style of leadership to your team. That's great, John. This is insightful. I like it. Number one, get clear on the vision, purpose, values, mission. Number two, have a clear leadership game plan, a development plan for yourself and those

[00:27:46] you lead. And then number three, the one-on-one check-in. So tell us about what you do. What do you have, the services that you offer that you'd like our listeners to know about, John? Yeah, my work is really fun. Fun and interesting, Scott. It's something I get excited about every day, the opportunity to serve leaders in a variety of different roles and places. And that comes through a combination of one-on-one coaching that I do. And that's at different levels within any given organization. The team facilitation.

[00:28:15] Sometimes it's bringing people together. It's partners in that firm coming together, helping them to play better together in the sandbox and maybe helping them to work together on mission, vision and components like that in firm or corporate training. And then I do a lot of speaking for association events on these topics of leadership. That's great, John. Thank you so much for being here on the show. We're going to have you back on the show next time. And I really appreciate your wisdom today. Great. Thanks, Scott. Really appreciate it. Enjoy the conversation.

[00:28:48] Thank you for listening to The Rainmaking Podcast. For more information about our recruiting services for international law firms, visit our website at attorneysearchgroup.com. To inquire about having Scott speak at your next convention, conference, sales meeting or executive retreat, visit therainmakingpodcast.com. Thank you.