We have a jam-packed show this week!
Our guest has written 4 acclaimed books across an array of leadership topics, and she walks us through the key points of each.
Zoe Routh is one of Australia’s foremost experts on personnel and leadership. Since 1987 she has worked with individuals and teams across the globe to overcome silos and turf-wars and work better together. Her books are full of practical advice and steps you can take RIGHT NOW to become a more impactful leader, including:
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The 3 moments that confront all leaders (and which one we can learn the most from)
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The antidote to the power trap
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How to identify and cancel out toxic behaviors at work
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The new definition of loyalty and employee engagement
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And much, much more
Zoe also helps us create a Culture Compass, an easy exercise that can have every member of your team thriving in no time!
This is a high-level leadership course in just over 30 minutes. You can’t miss it!
Mentioned in this episode:
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Composure: How centered leaders make the biggest impact, Zoe Routh
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Loyalty: Stop unwanted staff turnover, boost engagement, and create lifelong advocates, Zoe Routh
Transcript
Zoe Routh: While leadership is not about you, it is also about you. It’s not about you because of your service and what you are contributing to the world. And it is about you because you need to put the self first principles in practice at play, which means you need to look after yourself.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Vibrant Leadership podcast with leadership speaker and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome to the Vibrant Leadership podcast. My name is Nicole Greer they call me the vibrant coach and I am here today with someone from down under. I’m so excited I got a little Australia connection now. Her name is Zoe Routh. Zoe Routh is one of Australia’s leading experts on people stuff in leadership. And that’s the name of her book, which we’re going to talk about. And she helps leaders and teams overcome silos and turf wars to work better together. She has worked with individuals and teams internationally and in Australia since 1987. Although she doesn’t look like she has, from the wild rivers of the Northern Ontario to the remote regions of Australia, Zoe has spent the last 30 years showing teams that are struggling with office politics and silos, how to work better together.
And I’m going to tell you, this is an epic problem we have out there. Zoe’s the author of four books. The first one is Composure: How Centered Leaders Make the Biggest Impact. Oh my goodness, we’re gonna talk about that. Moments: Leadership When it Matters Most and Loyalty: Stop Unwanted Staff Turnover, Boost Engagement and Build Lifelong Advocates. And finally, yes, all she does is write all the time. Her fourth book is People Stuff: Beyond Personality Problems, has won numerous awards. So a round of applause for the award and a round of applause for Zoe, I’m so glad you’re here.
Zoe: Thank you, Nicole. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Nicole: Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Okay. So let’s start with my question. I asked everybody, I’m making a collection of definitions, Zoe. So what is your definition of leadership? How do you see it?
Zoe: Or can I first share my I participant I had in the leadership program when I asked the same question. And I think it’s really the best answer I’ve ever heard. And then I’ll share my definition. So here’s, when I asked, you know, how do you define leadership? And he just without thinking too hard about it said, leadership is hard.
Nicole: Oh, my word. That’s right.
Zoe: I thought, okay, that’ll do. So as a starting point, I think leadership is hard. And how I define it, how I’ve come to think of it is working with others in pursuit of a better future. That’s it. And there’s so much sub context around that, but that’s really what we’re all about, you know, we’re about creating something different and better for, for us, the planet and each other.
Nicole: Hmm, I love it. Okay, so she’s, you know, she’s a global gal. Canada to Australia, she’s got going on. So of course, it’s a ginormous definition. Okay. So let’s start with the first book. Because if you’re going to need to go to ZoeRouth.com. And get you one of these books, or go on the Amazon, you know, they’re out there too. Hold up the picture for a hold up the book so they can see what they look like.
Zoe: All of them? We’ll see how we go. And a handful.
Nicole: Yeah. All right. There’s all her books. So then when you get to Amazon, you know, you got the right stuff. Okay. So the first book is called Composure, the blue one. Okay, so yeah, I gotta tell you, I do centering every single morning of my life, because I have this big boisterous personality. And so I have to do the centering to balance, the human that is Nicole Greer. So I’m assuming I haven’t read that one yet. But tell me about how centered leaders make the biggest impact.
Zoe: Well, this, this particular book, it’s, it’s got a big scope as well. So a lot of it is about getting to know yourself. And really identifying the deepest parts of yourself and talks about different archetypes that you can bring into your world to help balance. I love the fact that you center in balance, it’s this book is about centering and balancing as well. A lot of the idea of of being composed is knowing full bore, where you going, what’s important to you, and who you are and what matters to you. So it’s an exploration of those two aspects of self. So it’s really a self awareness kind of book. It looks at how you can really rewire beliefs, and how you can build practices that help you deal with adversity better. So it’s kind of it’s a wide ranging scope, and it talks about reflection. It talks about planning, it talks about principles. So it’s a nice little book. I like it.
Nicole: I like the idea of totally you know, because here’s what we know about leadership also is like I don’t want to follow somebody who’s freaking out. I don’t want to follow somebody who is not under control who doesn’t have this self awareness. Right? So it’s so imperative that leaders have the self awareness. So I love that it talks about the beliefs, building practices, know your why all those things. It sounds sounds great. All right. So tell me a little bit about your second book. And that one is Moments: Leadership When it Matters. And and then maybe you might have a little story in that one, you know, when it when it matters most.
Zoe: So yeah, this book is really about when the brown stuff hits the twirly things.
Nicole: And we’re talking about the shit hitting the fan. Oh, I’m sorry.
Zoe: That’s right. I’m not sure what this is a family show or what this what the protocol was. So there’s really three different types of moments that we can confront as leaders. Like there’s rock bottom moments. It’s you as a leader, when you feel we face your darkest days. And so that’s one of the moments you can face. Another one is when you’re caught between a rock and a hard place, so an ethical dilemma, you know, and that’s a pretty tough piece. And then there’s the tough moments when you come face to face with somebody who you have confrontation with. So there’s three, those are three different types of moments that you can, that you can contend with in terms of story. The deepest, darkest moments, I think, are the ones that we can learn from the most. And it’s part of the whole idea of the hero’s journey that we get to this into the belly of the whale, we need to sort out, you know, who we are, and how we can make it through.
One of the stories I tell in there is about my own cancer journey in 2005. And there isn’t one of us that doesn’t know somebody who’s had cancer or has had it ourselves. Or has lost loved ones to the disease. And I was only 35 at the time, so quite young, and I got cervical cancer. And there was like a shock to the system. I’d just gotten engaged, I was about to be married. And then he was being told man, you got to deal with this first. And so that was an epic, long process. And through that, I started to question who am I as a human? Who am I as a leader? What am I doing with my life, I let go of all these obligations I had constructed around me, and started to live a little bit more intentionally. And I started to look at life and opportunities a little bit differently. So that’s what Moments was, for me. I think these moments of challenge are catalysts for growth, whether it’s you on your own or confronting an ethical issue or dealing with somebody who disagrees with you vehemently.
Nicole: Yes, yes. Okay. So I love what you said. So, this particular book Moments can help you kind of figure out how to navigate a rock bottom, a rock and a hard place. And then when you’re up against a rock hard attitude from somebody who is confrontational, right. I love that. Yeah. And you know, I think I’m using the hero’s journey, which is a very traditional storytelling model that that’s out there, using that to kind of figure out how you can be a hero to others. I bet you, even though you went through this horrible thing called cancer. Now you can speak to it, maybe it help somebody, right? Be the hero to somebody that might find themselves in the same situation.
Zoe: Absolutely. I mean, I think that’s why we love to read novels. And that’s why we love stories is because not they take us out of our own lives into another world where we can learn from other people’s experiences. And so if my story can do that, for others, fantastic. And I’m always learning from my clients and all their leadership journeys, as well. So we learn from each other. It’s a collaborative, collaborative journey, I think, which is fabulous. One of the thing about the hero’s journey. In research from my later book, I came across the heroine’s journey. So Joseph Campbell had a student her name is Maureen Murdock. And she actually tracked the heroine’s journey, which is a little bit different to the hero’s journey. And the heroine’s journey is, well, I guess we can contrast as the hero’s journey is more about learning humility.
So you go through all these trials and tribulations and you confront all your inner demons, and then you come with new self awareness. And the heroines journey is really about self empowerment, which is learning about your inner resilience and your inner power. So they’re correlated, but they’re quite a little bit different. The hero tends to be about conquest in the external world, and gaining humility through that. And the heroine is about discovering inner fire and inner power through the experiences in the outer world. So I think those two journeys are quite an interesting thing that we can play with as leaders for our own personal reflection and also with the people around us and how we can help them to explore them being the hero and heroines in their own in their own leadership experience.
Nicole: I love that and you have just taught me something I’ve never heard of, and I am so grateful. I’ve never heard of Maureen Murdock in the heroine’s journey. But I am going to Google and learn about that. So thank you very much. All right. So here’s what I double dog dare everybody who’s listening. It’s go Google the hero’s journey. This is this is something you need to read up on and understand. And I love the fact that you talk about the hero has to learn humility. And I think Isn’t that like the best leader who has humility?
Zoe: I think it’s an essential attribute and essential attitude, actually. And in the research for, for my latest book, People Stuff, I did a whole bunch of work on power. And there’s this great book by Dacher Keltner, called the Power Paradox, which is fantastic. And he talks about the traps of power, and that we get gifted power by the people that we serve. So in exchange for being of service to the group, or the community or the world, people give us power, which comes with traps of authority and privilege, etc. And that’s an incredibly energizing experience. And this is a problem because as soon as we start to feel that energy of excitement, by having all this newfound power and status, we drop the ball or we can anyway or drop our gaze, our gaze should be on who we’re serving. And this energizing the aspect of power tends to swivel our gaze back on ourselves. So we tend to get more preoccupied with how do we keep and maintain and get more power.
And we are all susceptible to that. And the antidote to this hubris, this trap of hubris is humility. And if we remind ourselves like I’m, I’m in service to the other people around me, and I went, as soon as I think, as I know everything, then I’m sure to know that I don’t know anything. There’s many different several speakers and knowledge workers from the past, including, I think it was Plato or Aristotle, I can never remember which, as I’ve gotten quoted in my book, who said something along the lines, you know, the smartest man knows that they know nothing. And it’s a good thing to remember. Because that keeps us curious. And I think that’s the other attitude that we need us as leaders in order to, to stay out of the power trap and losing.
Because the other thing about this power trap is that we, we swivel our gaze onto ourselves, we become self obsessed, and we lose the capacity for connection and empathy. We can also default to having really impulsive behaviors, inappropriate sexual innuendo, relationships, like, oh, automatically, we go to some of the high public figures who have a great fall from grace because of this power trap thing. And we’re all susceptible to that. So humility, and curiosity are big antidotes. And the third one is about being caring. And when we’re caring that stops us from stops that swivel of perspective on ourselves, and back to the people that we want to serve.
Nicole: Yeah. And so I’m having all this stuff run through my mind, Robert Greenleaf’s work on servant leadership, right? So that the ultimate humility is to do that. So if you’ve never heard of servant leadership, please go look that up that will serve you greatly to kind of understand that. It’s the whole idea of you know, instead of you being at the top of the pyramid and you bossing everybody else around, it’s, you know, flipping the pyramid, and you’re on the bottom, and you’re serving all the way up to the to the frontline, folks. So, love what you’re talking about. Absolutely. Love it. Okay, so now I want to talk about your third book, your third book, absolutely amazing. This book is called Loyalty. And I think this is what keeps leaders up at night, right? There, he’s got it up on the screen. Pretty purple.
Zoe: I know, I have this conversation all the time. Like, I think this top is blue, and other people say it’s purple. And I think this book is purple, others say it’s blue, so I’m like, oh, my God, I don’t know. I’ve got color blindness when it comes to blue slash purple.
Nicole: Looking good, because you match. That’s what I know. Alright, so I think that loyalty is something that keeps leaders up at night, you know, is like, you know, tomorrow morning, am I going to get up? Are they all going to show up? Or are they going to help me do this whole thing I’ve gotten cooking? So tell us a little bit about Loyalty and when it matters, or excuse me in the unwanted stuff.
Zoe: Staff. That’s a typo. Unwanted staff turnover.
Nicole: Oh, well, unwanted staff turnover, boost engagement and build lifelong advocates. Okay, so employee engagement is also a big term that we’re talking about right here. Okay, all right. What what what do leaders need to do to get loyalty?
Zoe: So loyalty, I’ve redefined loyalty. So loyalty has often been construed as longevity. You need to stay with me forever and ever. And that’s loyalty. And that’s one aspect of traditional aspect of loyalty. And I think for leaders today, it’s a misnomer to think that we need to get people to stay with us as long as possible. First of all, some people we don’t want to stay as long as possible. And the reality is, there’s so much versatility in work availability people have portfolio careers, they don’t just have one, one track of careers anymore. It’s unrealistic to expect people to stick around forever. And so I define loyalty as advocacy and that you want to have a such a great experience with your team members, that no matter how long they stay with you, and where they go afterwards that they are advocates for you and your business. And that’s really as leaders what we should be aspiring to create in terms of loyalty.
That we want to create fans, fans of ourselves fans of our business and fans of our purpose. And because you never know, people do circle back and come back to work with you. And that releases a whole bunch of tension around like, I’m the employer, I’m giving you a job, why aren’t you you know, I did all this stuff for you. Why don’t you pay me back and like, who needs that? Who needs that sense of obligation and, and so on. So I think there is there is a contract, a contract between employer and staff that needs to be honored and our our job as leaders is to, to shape a work experience that is a value to the people that work with us, as well as to the people that we serve. That’s our role, that’s our contribution.
And the the contribution of the employee is to step up and do the best that they can in the role they’ve been given and content and contribute for as long as they want to and can and are able to that to that purpose. So this book is about how you do that, as a leader. How do you create that work environment, that work experience for people that helps them really thrive in that environment, and so that they become advocates for you as well as contributing on a long term basis.
So it’s got things like creating a culture compass as a team, which is about what’s our purpose? What are our results? Who do we serve? And how do we like to behave and operate together as the ground rules for the team engagement piece? We’ve talked about this cadence of engagement too. About how we actually build these regular touch points as teams to build positive interactions. So it’s about reshaping the common practices of leaders and teams so that they can build this great place to work that is contributing and enjoyable at the same time.
Nicole: Okay, I love it. Absolutely. Fabulous. So I want to hear more about the culture compass. I think that sounds fantastic. So I’m a leader, I sit down with my team, what is happening when I do my culture compass? Talk a little bit more about that. So I think this is a cool tool that people can put in their toolbox right now.
Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. So the the North Star, the North Point of the compass is your purpose, you know, who is it? What is it that you intend to do? What is the change you want to make it the world? What is the contribution to a better future that you’re creating? And so you get the team to get really clear about that. So one of the exercises is to get everybody first of all, on their own, to write a paragraph in sensory rich detail, which means what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? What do you taste and touch in this future reality that we’re creating. And with that, you then share the paragraphs and come for the common themes, and identify what’s most important in in all of that. Ideally, you filter it down into one, one catch all phrase that captures the picture.
So I’ve got one, one client, that their North Star was a place where everyone belongs. And that’s what they create they’re hospitality business. And they, they run a restaurant and, and a club. And that’s, that’s what they’re creating a place where everyone belongs. So it’s a beautiful summary, after all this work about what is the picture that they’re creating. The east part of the compass is about who you serve. So you get really clear about who your stakeholders are, who is it that you are in service to, and that’s often quite, it can be concentric circles, where if you know, there’s the individual client that pays you dollars. And then there there might be the other stakeholders around that. There might be their staff, on their teams. They might be your board members, it might be the community, etc. But getting really clear about who we are in service to and who we are not in service to is a really important part of that.
The South point of the compass is about the team. So how do we behave towards one another? What we do want and what we don’t want on our team engagement and being very clear and articulate about the behaviors that are acceptable, not acceptable. So it’s no, it’s no good to actually this is a good point, not to say we want respect in our teams, because like, what does respect mean? It means so many different things to different people. So you have to get granular with that. It means like, show up early for meetings. You know, if that’s your team rule. It might be no no go no mobile phones while we’re in a meeting, that could be signs of respect. It could be simple as saying thank you when you do a job for someone, that kind of stuff. So that’s the South point of the compass. And with that, you might also want to develop a manifesto which are like statements of intent about who you are and how you operate as a team.
There’s some great examples of manifestos from the All Blacks which is the New Zealand rugby team. So you’ve been to New Zealand you know, the All Blacks are a big thing there and one of their, one of their manifesto principles is no dickheads. Which I love. It’s a summary point for, as having a summary point for a manifesto, James Kerr’s book on called Legacy is a great, great book that summarizes all the ethos of the All Blacks. That’s a great example of a manifesto. And the West point of the compass are the results, and what results are we producing? So we have an intent, we know who we serve, we know how we’re going to do it. And it’s like, what exactly are we producing? And we need to get very tangible around that, you know, to make that visible and measurable and trackable is the key point about the West point of the compass. There you have it. Culture compass.
Nicole: Oh, my gosh, total genius. So you need to kind of rewind, listen to that, again, is rewinding a thing. I think we just moved the cursor. But anyways, so you have to listen to that, okay, you got it, you got to get this figured out. And what was going through my mind when you were talking about it is I sit down as a leader, I do this with my team. So now that’s like true employee engagement. Hello. That’s the picture of employee engagement. And then, if everybody agrees, right, then we’re kind of like in the clubhouse, we’re gonna pinky swear, you know, maybe prick our fingers, you know, and do that thing in the clubhouse. And then it’s like, later on, when somebody does not follow, the North Star.
Doesn’t do all the things around the compass, then you you have a great opportunity to pull them in and say, hey, we said this was part of respect, and you’ve been late, three times in a row. You agreed to this? I’m confused, you know. So I think what she just shared was a gem. Okay, so everybody, go back, listen again, write it down, make it happen on your team. Really important stuff. All right. The other thing you said that I thought was genius was declaring or setting down a cadence for regular interactions. Like you can count on us having a convo like this, right? Or some kind of interaction going on. When you think about interactions in a cadence, give us an idea of what that looks like. What are the interactions?
Zoe: So they the there’s a different frequency. So cadence means frequency or rhythm. There you might have depends on the context of your business, you might have a daily meeting, which is a short, snappy thing, which is where is your focus for today? What are the any anything that needs to be decided on or cleared up in order for you to get moving on that? So it’s kind of like a friction releaser you know, clean up the messes so people can get on with their work. And you might have that as a daily piece or weekly piece? So with my team, we meet weekly to do that. You have might have quarterly meetings, which are have a different purpose. They’re about reflection. So last 90 days, how did we go? Did we meet our objectives? What worked well? What can we learn from this? What can we repeat and grow and develop?
And what didn’t work out? What were our failures? What can we learn and grow and develop from that? So it’s a reflection kind of meeting, as well as then a word focusing meeting as well. So next 90 days, what are we, what’s our intentions for that? We do a mini vision piece for that. So what are we going to see here, touch, feel, taste, I think that’s all the senses, visual picture of what you’re aiming for over the next 90 days. Some specific objectives of projects, no more than three, three big I like to work in the rule of threes. This is advice from Peter Cook, one of my mentors, so no more than three important things for the day, three important things for the week, three important things for the quarter, three important things for the year. And it’s amazing how like that just makes you focus really, in a crystal clear way on a daily, weekly basis.
So that’s the quarterly meeting. And then annually, it’s this is about celebration. So we’ve gone from like friction, removal to reflection and planning to celebration. What has the year been about and here in Australia, I’m not sure what it is, in the United States, things a little bit different. We have our financial year calendar goes from July to June. So we just did end of financial year review. So we looked at the financials, but we also looked at the other aspects of our business that are going well and how we’ve developed as a team. And what we’re individually proud of. So this celebration and reflection piece is a really important part and it’s where we can, you know, kick our heels up. I went out for lunch with my business manager, and you know, just reflect just take stock and, you know, be heart do some heart to heart stuff. It’s also the place where you can do some official recognition for people, which is you know, Nicole did a fantastic job in her project is this year.
I want to celebrate her and her contribution to the to the business and also the impact it’s had on our clients. You should be doing that recognition piece throughout the year. This makes it a more gala like informal kind of thing. So those are those are the kind of examples of the types of touch points that you can have throughout a year. A lot of leaders get out of the habit of doing it on a regular basis. Like everything else just becomes way more important. So having a structure like an agenda and there’s, there’s sample agendas in the book for each of those kinds of meetings that and the focus for each one, so that you know how to just set that thing up and go for it.
Nicole: Absolutely love it. Yeah. Okay. And so you got a couple of extras right there, everybody. So everything in threes, no more than three things today, three things a week, three things a quarter, three things a year helps you get focused. So Zoe, thank you. Okay, so that was good. And then I don’t want you to gloss over she said it earlier. And then she just said it again, when you sit down to talk about the future, it has to be sensory. She rattled off the five senses. And so I think that’s so important. People don’t want to do that either. They don’t because it takes great creativity to sit there and say, 90 days from now, you know, we have a roomful of people, you know, and this is what we’re seeing, smelling tasting. Right? So it gives you what I like with Nicole Greer calls a memory of the future. Right? Yeah. So it becomes much more tangible, instead of saying we’re going to increase revenue by 10 grand.
Okay, that sounds fun. You know, just put the pressure on. But if you tell me, the fun activities we do, and what it’s like to be in that room, making the money. It’s exciting. Instead of just making 10 grand. So I think that the really advanced leader is very good at that sensory, future storytelling thing. So I think that that was really, really awesome. Okay, so that was that book. Now we have a brand new book that’s won all sorts of awards. I don’t want to miss this everybody. Here it is People Stuff. This one is not blue. It’s white. Okay. And beyond personality problems.
And so, Zoe, I am certified in a lots of personality assessments. My bet is you’ve had a few in your toolbox. This personality thing? It’s a thing. I mean, people have to understand a very important question. If you’ve listened to my podcast before, you know, my favorite question to ask somebody is, what is it like to experience you? And most people are like, oh, I’ve never thought of that. It’s like, bingo, you need to think about what it’s like to experience you. So personality problems. It’s a thing. Okay, so tell us about people stuff, and how do we get beyond personality problems?
Zoe: Alright, so this book is essentially about perspective. And that is one of the most critical things that we need as leaders is the ability to develop and expand our perspective. So how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we see the bigger picture will make or break our leadership legacy. So perspective is an important piece. And the first part of the book talks about how do we actually develop perspective, what do you mean, and in which capacities, so we need to be able to see, far, deep and wide. Far meaning that the our time horizon scale, how much of the context of the past and the future we take into consideration. So the bigger our scope of time, the more nuanced our leadership planning perspective is going to be. So we take into account generations of factors affecting us and we consider our, our decisions in terms of multiple generations into the future.
So it’s a it’s a big scope horizons, that’s the far piece. The deep, the deep part of looking for deep and wide, is looking under the surface. And this is where we get beyond personality problems. So when we start to unpack the visible problems of what we see in a team or an organization, we tend to, we tend to discover that sometimes it’s not personality problems alone. It’s sometimes it’s about the systems that we have in the organization that are creating the friction points between people. It might be your remuneration system. It might be your promotion system. It might be the way that you delegate authority. It might be as simple transactional experience that causes people to to get entangled with one another. It might be the way that you run your teams, your team meetings that’s causing the friction.
So often, there’s the systems at play, that are creating the problems. The other way that we can look below the surface is looking at what are the values in place in the organization? And are they creating dysfunction? You know, do we say that we have honesty, but some of our systems don’t lend ourselves to that. And one of the systems say, for example, that often causes problems is how we track and reward KPIs. Key performance indicators. And if we measure the wrong thing, it can create behaviors that are unethical. So if people get rewarded for meeting their score, chances are they’re going to do everything they can to make sure there’s scorecard looks really amazing, even if it means like fudging the numbers a little bit, even if it means stealing clients from their colleague just to hit their numbers. So KPIs is one of the really scary ones that can derail productive teamwork, it can also derail ethical behavior.
So that’s what I mean by beyond personality problems is like, we need to go below the surface and see what else is happening there. And the far the deep and wide, the wide pieces about our scope of circle of concern, our scope of concern. Who is it that we actually care about in in the work that we’re doing? How far do we see and perceive our ripples? Is it just about ourselves? Is it just about our team or organization? Or can we expand it to include our community, our nation, the globe, and all sentient beings? So there’s in leadership development, we learn how to expand our scope of care and concern into the cosmos. Now not everybody’s ready for that, if you’re just starting your business to like, I’m not thinking about the frickin cosmos, I’m thinking about how do I pay my bills.
So the work of the leader is to be able to do both things. It’s to consider the cosmos and to be practically competent at the same time. And so this book is about how do you do that? How do you work with that into the future and deal with the now how do you do with team responsibilities as well as task responsibilities? It’s learning to work in those polarities. That’s all about this book. So that’s the big piece of intellectual work horsemanship in the book. And then there’s a whole chapter on what I call the four devils of people stuff. So what are the drivers? What are the conditions that are creating unhelpful behaviors that I call the four devils? So we unpack some of that interpersonal stuff that drives difficult behaviors.
Nicole: Okay, so you kind of tell us the four devils, you don’t have to get into the weeds on it. But I would like to know what they are. Can you share with us the four devils because we’re all going of my God, devils.
Zoe: I’ve called them the firebug. So the firebug is when we get argumentative and angry and like, oh, alive with fire, you know, something has pushed our buttons, it’s usually loss of power and autonomy that drives us into being angry and, and furious. And so when decisions are made to us without our consultation, that can trigger the Firebug. That’s an example there. Another one that’s similar to the firebug in terms of its expressiveness is the storm driver. The storm driver is equally vocal, and yet they’re more emotional. And they might have had some fairness issues, or they might have had some status, been demeaned in terms of their status, or passed over for promotion, so they’re emotionally triggered.
And you know, you’re with a storm driver, when they’re ranting and raving, and you can’t you’ve you can hear their words, but you’re just blown over by their emotion. So you know, that’s the storm driver. The storm driver is hurt and harried. And the firebug is righteous and wronged. There sort of a little bit different there. And then the two others are not as expressive verbally, and they express their pain and discomfort through behaviors. So the next one is the water bomber. And the water bomber is similar to storm driver in terms of emotionally distressed, and usually triggered by things like feeling ostracized from the group, or like, they don’t belong. And so they feel this huge sense of lack of safety. And so they can show up in a couple of different ways.
One is the clam where it’s like, how are you? Fine! You know, you can feel they’re so tense and bent out of shape, like you’re, you’re not fine. Or you can have the, you know, the drama queen, but they don’t really tell you what’s going on. But you just there’s this wake of emotional gunk around them abd that’s the water bomber. Difficult to deal with both of those because you’re trying to get to understand what’s going on, but they won’t necessarily speak up and it comes out in their behavior. And the last one is similar to the firebug in terms of being peeved about stuff, but not really willing or able or feeling comfortable to express it verbally. So all that anger and resentment comes out in things like white anting, or backbiting, or undermining.
And I call them to ground splitter because they’re working underneath to split the ground underneath people. And also not very helpful behavior to deal with as a leader. You know, they could you could speak to them, and they say, yeah, I’ll do that. And then behind your back, they’re like mouthing off about you and they just don’t do the work, all that kind of stuff. And so what triggers the ground splitter is often overworked. So they get and they really want to perform but they just feel burdened with all this overwork, and so they just put their head down and try and get it done and grumble about it behind the scenes or try and bring you down. So yeah, there you go. That’s the four devils.
Nicole: Okay. And so everybody’s going I’ve got one of those. Okay, I got one of those. So I love how, again, it was very sensory how you talked about that. Like, don’t miss that. Everybody how she kind of made the explanation and use like, I kind of heard, which is really cool because I, one of my assessments I work with has Earth water, wind and fire and you kind of had fire. Right? Then you had storm wind, then you had water, I mean, so it matched right up with some of the stuff I use.
Zoe: The whole model is actually out. It’s it’s elemental. So that have those four elements. And that’s what when I was thinking about how do these things combine, that’s exactly what happened, you know, fire and air comes together and creates the firebug. Earth and fire is the ground splitter and so on. So yeah, it is very elemental.
Nicole: Yes. Oh, which, we should have a whole show about that. You’re gonna be back on the show. You don’t know that yet. But I’ll be playing. Okay. So let’s do that. Alright, so, um, I got, I’ve got just two more questions for you. Because I, we’ve covered the books, and I think that you have fabulous content, and tools inside your book. So I’m not you know, she’s got theories, y’all. But everybody says, I’m tired of theory. Give me something practical. I’ve heard tons of practical stuff so far. So you need to check her out. ZoeRouth.com.
Alright, so um, what do you think? Okay, we’re post COVID. I’m over COVID. So I think it’s over. So COVID. You know, what, what are the struggles? What are the things leaders need to work on moving forward? And what what advice do you have for our leaders who are trying to get everybody back to work here in the States? We’re not sure what we’re doing. Some are still at home stem. Some are coming back. You know, what’s your philosophy on all this? How should leaders navigate it? Yeah,
Zoe: So the challenges that leaders are facing are quite different, I think, having to deal with the exponential world has been coming for a while now. And you know, COVID is the one that showcased it, most of you know all those graphs of exponential graphs. This is the doubling of cases of COVID cases, examples, exponential graph. So the exponentiality of our world, aside from COVID, in terms of technology, developments, climate change, response, all that kind of thing. And our brains aren’t necessarily wired to handle exponentiality.
So being able to become comfortable, or at least aware to respond to that and to be able to flex responsively, to changing circumstances and to make the assumptions that things are not going to be linear and stay the same, is going to be a critical skill for leaders moving forward. I think the next really important thing that has showcased through through this pandemic, is the skills that leaders need as a facilitator. So this is quite different. You know, we don’t need hero leaders. We need leaders to be centered, we need leaders to be clear and staid, we don’t need them to come up with the solutions on their own. And indeed, if they try and do that they’re going to fail. And a lot of leaders that have failed to the pandemic is because they’re they’re working through old models of leadership where the leader makes all the decisions and carries the load.
Now, that doesn’t work that way anymore. We need complexity, we need diversity of perspective and experiences. So becoming a skillful facilitator, which means that you’re able to harness everybody’s perspective and worldviews, and synthesize something different is going to be a really important nuanced leadership skill that not everybody is familiar with. The third aspect is that, and this is what leaders have been founding really difficult, like, all of a sudden, I need to care about people’s mental health and well being. Hasn’t existed in the workplace.
Nicole: Why don’t they just work? Several times, people just need to get back to work.
Zoe: Yeah, that’s right. I’m paying them, why don’t they just do their job? Because they are collaborators and co creators alongside with you. So I think the contract of it like the not the legal contract, but the engagement contract of how we operate as leaders with our people is quite a bit different now. We’re co creators. And I think if we see our teams as co creators, we as autonomous human beings who have lives that are just as important as yours, and yeah, you pay the money, but it doesn’t mean they are your slaves. I think this whole idea of being integrated work becoming again, integrated into well being and concerns for mental health is going to be the next level of leadership that’s required.
So those three things I think, are, are important. So being an exponential thinker, being a facilitator, and also being concerned for mental health and well being is going to be pretty important. I think it’s less about being a dictator and the role of leaders more about steward. How is your stewardship. And it’s not quite servant leadership, which has in terms of its ethos, a little bit of self sacrifice in it, which I don’t necessarily advocate. I’d rather see circles than triangles in my leadership of model in my leadership model. So I think having that as a concept is working with circles, as opposed to triangles is probably a good metaphor to explore in all the aspects of leadership. All right. Ah, last piece of advice is at your next question.
Nicole: Well, my yeah, so if we had a single special listener who’s like, whoa, this Zoe lady really knows what she’s talking about. I wish I could get one on one with her. But she can’t get one on one with everybody, what would be that single special piece of advice you would give to that special listener.
Zoe: Ahh, single piece of advice. So I only got one shot at this, then I probably say
Nicole: If you need two. If you you need two shots, I’ll give you two. Two pieces of advice. We don’t want you leaving anything on the table. So okay.
Zoe: Nothing left on tables. So after all the conversations that I had with hundreds of leaders, there’s this, there’s a lot of self effacement, that happens that I think is unnecessary. And it’s, I think humility is important. And at the same time, self appreciation is important. So I’d say the message overarching is you’re not as crap as you think you are. So be kind to yourself, as well as to others. And to be able to take stock of your contributions in a sensible and sensitive way is important. And along with that, I think it’s while leadership is not about you, it is also about you, it’s not about you, because of your service, and what you are contributing to the world. And it is about you because you need to put the self first principles in practice at play. Which means you need to look after yourself. And so to support that, you know, in terms of looking after yourself, practical things are read more. I think reading is the gateway to all knowledge and experience.
Get outside. Because nature is such a huge tonic, and it connects us to the cosmos, and to our bodies, and the leadership is in the body thing as well. I think we forget that we have bodies. We just imagine we’re just big heads walking around all the time. And the third one, which I’ve been playing with more especially is to practice joy. We get so caught up in how serious leadership is that we need to actually learn how to experience joy and pleasure, and enthusiasm, and not just stress and worry and doubt and all that kind of stuff. So you need to practice joy. That’s my last tip.
Nicole: Oh, I think we left it on a beautiful note. I have great joy just hanging out with you. This has been fantastic. So I know people want to get ahold of these books and they want to get a hold of you. Will you please tell us where we can find the books and how we can get ahold of you? What is your contact information?
Zoe: Alright, so all the books are available on online bookstores, and I have some available on my website. It’s zoerouth.com. If you want to personally autographed copy. And you can also find me on LinkedIn I hang out there quite a lot. So just look up Zoe Routh z o e r o u t h.
Nicole: Zoe don’t have a podcast as well that we can all listen to?
Zoe: Yes I do, Nicole, thank you so much for asking. It’s called get this, the Zoe Routh Leadership podcast. It’s on all the podcast platforms.
Nicole: Fantastic. All right. Zoe I am grateful that you were on the show with us today. It is about six o’clock in the evening here. What time is it in Australia? What time did you get up this morning?
Zoe: Oh, I got up. Yeah, so I’m always up early, but it’s eight o’clock in the morning here on Thursday.
Nicole: Okay, well, listen, have a beautiful Thursday. We’re gonna have a great Wednesday night. It’s been so great to be with you. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Vibrant Leadership podcast. Thanks, Zoe.
Zoe: Thanks, Nicole. It’s been great.
Voiceover: Ready to up your leadership game? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her unique SHINE method to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Email speaking@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com/TEDTalk.
