John Whitfield on the Future of Sustainability, Success Drivers for Impactful Executives, and Leadership Lessons from the Netherlands
In Brief: John Whitfield (linkedin.com/in/john-whitfield-73b47515), Head of Sustainable Business Europe at Acre, joins host Dan Freehling to discuss his views on impactful leadership, both in the sustainability space and for all leaders. John and Dan discuss the lessons John has learned about leadership as an American living and working in the oldest still-functioning capitalist society in the world, the Netherlands. John reveals the three key competencies that drive success as a Chief Sustainability Officer, including effective organizational change management skills. John describes the central task of leader development as know thyself and explains that the principles of coaching and Conscious Leadership most resonate with him. John and Dan then discuss the underexplored concept of followership and conclude with John’s top recommendations from the 42 books he has read in the past year.
Recommended Reading: “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership” by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp, “Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps” by Jennifer Garvey Berger, “How to Be an Adult in Relationships” by David Richo, and “The Myth of Normal” by Gabor Mate.
Transcript
Dan Freehling:
Welcome to Forward-Looking Leadership, a podcast for visionary leaders building future ready organizations. I'm your host, Dan Freehling. I'm the founder of the coaching and consulting practice Contempus Leadership, developing the leaders and teams you want in charge through cutting edge approaches and common-sense solutions. I'm honored to be joined today by John Whitfield. John is the Head of Sustainable Business Europe at Acre, a top sustainability recruitment firm that enables aspirational organizations to create real change [00:00:30] by embedding impactful purpose-driven people in their teams, from sustainability practitioners to CEOs. John and I were classmates in our GW Master’s program and became fast friends. John brings serious expertise in talent acquisition and workforce development. He's also an amazing teammate and an insightful thinker on all things leadership and organizational development. Listeners, you're in for a great conversation with one of my favorite people to talk shop with. Thanks for joining me on Forward-Looking Leadership, John!
John Whitfield:
Thanks for having me, Dan. It's great to be here and it's always good to [00:01:00] have a nice conversation, talk shop about leadership with you.
Dan Freehling:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm excited to get into this.
John Whitfield:
Yeah, me too.
Dan Freehling:
John, you were in Oregon when we were in school together, and then you moved with your family to the Netherlands a few years ago. I'd love to hear how that move has impacted your views on leadership. How have they changed, if at all, in your time living and working in the Netherlands?
John Whitfield:
Yeah, thanks. It's a really good question. Really good place to start. I don't know if you've [00:01:30] heard the saying that's been floating around now, but they say that the new American dream is to live like a European. Have you heard this before?
Dan Freehling:
I have not. That's
John Whitfield:
Amazing. Yeah. There's just so much dissatisfaction and angst I think, and particularly in young people in the US with the standard of living and the turmoil that's coming through the us and so a lot of us are moving over to Europe, and so yeah, my wife and I, we have two small children moved over [00:02:00] about a year and a half ago, and it's been a great transition on every front. They have amazing programs here to support immigrant children, so my children were able to go to an immersive Dutch school and learn Dutch, and so they're both fluently speaking Dutch and in the neighborhood schools, and my wife and I have, we situated our careers here and we've both gotten to work in the industry that we love. We both work in leader development and have also a focus on talent acquisition, as you mentioned in the intro. [00:02:30] So that's just to set the stage about little, the context of moving to the Netherlands and the saying that this is the new American dream has been true for us in a lot of ways. It's been a really nice place to visit, and I'll talk about that in just a moment.
Dan Freehling:
That's really great to hear. Yeah,
John Whitfield:
Yeah. Did you know that the Netherlands is the oldest still functioning, surviving, capitalist society in the world?
Dan Freehling:
Seriously?
John Whitfield:
It is. Yeah. I think it started in the 17th century. There was this really [00:03:00] amazing tulip boom and bust that people were paying more for one bulb of a tulip than they were paying for an entire house. It's a really fascinating country, but because it's much older capitalist society than the United States, it's operating in many ways more maturely. And I'm not an economist or sociologist, so I'm just kind speaking from my experience as kind of an end user of both cultures or a consumer, both cultures. The Netherlands really has seemed to figure out a bit more about how to [00:03:30] create a well-functioning, a more well-functioning capitalist society, and one, I think one of the lessons that they've learned is that you have to have really strong employee and social protections stronger than we have in the United States typically. And I came from Oregon, which is a blue state, and there are quite a lot of worker protections there, but there's even more here in the Netherlands, and I do think the US is going to have to learn, has a lot to learn from places like the Netherlands, these older capitalist societies in terms of how to make it [00:04:00] in the long term.
I think the US sort of got capitalism but didn't get the social side of it, or at least not since the 1980s. I think it's when tax structures were radically changed, and I don't think that they've gotten the social side of it quite lined out yet. But here I'm often asked what's the difference between living in the Netherlands and in the US? And my typical answer is that Dutch people and Dutch society in general just seems a bit [00:04:30] healthier and probably a bit less anxious and erotic. That's not a slight on my American friends. I think our culture has just so much in it in the US that produces neurosis and anxiety. Just slip on any major news station, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. And so the Netherlands is doing a better job, I think, of balancing the distribution of resources and raising the quality of life for everyone. That's to [00:05:00] say there's a ton to love about the United States, but we are an anxious people. I often tell my friends back home that most Americans just don't know what it's like to really have a society that's so much further along in supporting health for its citizens. I'm not just talking about socialized healthcare, I mean just health in general, that
Dan Freehling:
Overall society, societal wellbeing.
John Whitfield:
Yeah, yeah, overall societal wellbeing. It just feels healthier, Dan. Yeah, I mean, part of it is we just move a lot. Biking infrastructure [00:05:30] is really advanced here, so we just take bikes everywhere and there's a stronger social net safety net here in the Netherlands and there is in the United States, and I'd like to see that advanced in the US and I think it's going to be a matter of existential prerogative for the US to figure out how to take care of its most vulnerable citizens in a way that the Netherlands is not saying the Netherlands is perfect, it's got a pretty gnarly colonial history.
But your question was about more [00:06:00] focused on leadership. The EU is more egalitarian in general, and the Netherlands is no exception to that more egalitarian culture than we have in the United States. It's also more relational and the US, we tend to be a bit more rank and file a bit more individualistic. There are a lot of really progressive worker protections in the EU, which means that at-will employment, which many states in the United States have doesn't really exist here. So in the practice of leadership, it requires leaders to find much more [00:06:30] creative and informal ways to ensure performance and productivity, address performance deficiencies. You don't really have that specter of termination, and so there's a much stronger sense of the value of employees as people, not just as commodities. And so work-life balance here is remarkably better than the US When I got here that started working at Acre, I could not believe the vacation policy and the sick policy. [00:07:00] It's just wild. In my previous organization, you'd have to work for 10 or 15 years to get anything near the same vacation policy. So people, workers here tend to have this wild idea that they should be treated more like holistic people and less like commodities. I know it's really a strange revolutionary point, but yeah, that's part of the new American dream over here.
Dan Freehling:
Thanks for sharing that firsthand experience with this, and I think it's an [00:07:30] important thing for people to hear and think about, especially as we look forward to what's coming next in the states and what can we pull from this and in an ideal world and all of that. John, I'm interested, so I know that you probably had some of these inclinations before you moved there. This wasn't a new thing that you wanted to start treating people well and hopefully extending this more. Did it feel more like you found a home in this kind of a culture, or have you seen your own [00:08:00] views even shifting further into that overall holistic wellbeing kind of a lane?
John Whitfield:
I love this question. I think my wife and I both found a bit more of a cultural fit for us here. I worked in social services early in my career and just in terms of our personalities, I think that's a better fit here. We also love to travel and you're sort of at the foot of Western civilization. You can be anywhere [00:08:30] within a couple of hours.
Dan Freehling:
That must be incredible,
John Whitfield:
Leo, which is really nice. The scale of the United States is amazing and impressive and beautiful, but there are advantages to being in a more compact environment. You get to see so much more. So yeah, I think that's it. And we're swimming. We're fish swimming in the water now, so we've only been here a year and a half. It'll be interesting to see how we are shaped by this culture. I think to answer your question, I'm sure we already have been in some ways. I mean we're both learning Dutch and trying to integrate into the culture [00:09:00] and my leadership practice is changing a lot from the way that evolving very different leadership practice than in the United States. And so I feel those changes. I think our children are really going to, that's going to be interesting. There'll be third culture kids living between both cultures.
Dan Freehling:
What an amazing learning experience for you and your wife and your kids too. It's so cool to see and I'm glad to hear you're thriving with it.
John Whitfield:
Yeah, we're doing well. Thanks Dan.
Dan Freehling:
So [00:09:30] you're in the sustainability space now with Acre. I'm wondering what do you see as the future of the sustainability Space
John Whitfield:
Acre's a remarkable organization. I am speaking here for myself in terms of this conversation with you, but I'm happy to talk a little bit about Acre. They've been in the sustainability talent acquisition space for over 20 years, started by a marine biologist in the UK, now have offices in Amsterdam, New York City, [00:10:00] London and Singapore. Amazing group of professionals at the organization. We do interact with a lot of organizations that they themselves have missions that are centered around sustainability or with leaders in sustainability who are supporting functions within organizations. They themselves might not necessarily be air quote in the business of sustainability, and there are colleagues at Acre who could probably give you a way more sophisticated answer than me on this, but I can tell you [00:10:30] what I hope happens. I hope that corporations continue to integrate sustainability throughout their value chain as just a normal way of doing business rather than viewing it as sort of a separate silo or function within the organization.
And I think we're in the midst of that transition. Now, of course, we still have organizations, organizations still exist in the world where you get a sense that sustainability, they're earlier in their journey. They're still working on integration, maybe kind of checking that box, [00:11:00] but there are others that are taking it a lot more seriously. I have some clients and friends at a large chemical company who I'm working with who have a really ambitious sustainability agenda and remarkably strong leadership in their sustainability function. And so you see that organizations are starting to take it seriously. They're starting to integrate sustainability operations throughout the value chain. When I say value chain, I mean anything from design all the way through delivery of a service or a product [00:11:30] in two. I'm living again in the EU right now where the regulatory environment is much stronger here in terms of sustainability.
There's some sustainability related regulations that are kicking in here in 2024, and so that's driving a lot of change in the space. So I hope that corporations realize that sustainability isn't a fad, but there's really a strong commercial imperative to become greener as well. I mean, ultimately if corporations don't evolve and operate more sustainably, they're going to lose market share and they're going to threaten their [00:12:00] own ability to survive in an increasingly competitive market. For example, if you look at the automotive industry as it's moving toward electric vehicles there, there's such a sound financial strategic imperative to start electrifying their fleet and then that's driving an electrification of the grid. And so it's the same in the oil and gas industry who are a lot of big oil and gas companies are investing in wind and solar because they have to. They're [00:12:30] pedaling in a non-sustainable resource, and so they have to diversify from a financial perspective, and if they don't, they'll suffer.
Dan Freehling:
Yeah, I mean there's so much of this kind of the right thing to do in business, and it goes back to your first answer too, and in terms of how the Netherlands sees this too from their experience, but I feel like we're reaching a point societally where the business imperative and the right thing to do is starting to merge and [00:13:00] there's less of that room to just straight up exploit and take gains from these really low hanging fruit kind of areas. And it's really becoming, you have to get much more relational, much more creative in the way you go about innovating and doing business.
John Whitfield:
It's an absolute imperative. Yeah, really well said. It's about survival for all of us, and it's about survival of their fundamental economic models as well.
Dan Freehling:
What's the most [00:13:30] exciting work you get to do at Acre?
John Whitfield:
Wow, so much of what we get to do is exciting. I love we interact with people all, I'm a people person and I get to interact with people all day. And because you have a background in human development, so I'm really am obsessed with this question of how do people make sense of the world? And because I'm in the sphere of leadership, the question for me is how do leaders make sense of the world themselves and the relationship between the two? So my work at Acre, [00:14:00] I get to apply this lens to finding the best leaders in the sustainability sector and finding their dream jobs, right? Partnering them with organizations where they can make real and lasting change. And that feels really good, not just because it's driving real progress and sustainability. We're connecting the right people with the right functions, the right organizations to drive the right kind of change.
But as somebody who's a bit of a human development and leadership theory geek, I think the type it gets me into practice with my passion, which is working with organizations to determine [00:14:30] both the technical and the adaptive skills that their leaders need, and then finding those skills and the real movers and the shakers within the sustainability talent space and connecting the two. In addition to the talent acquisition stuff or the recruitment or executive search, I also spend quite a bit of my time, which I love doing executive coaching and working with teams and leaders to helping them to connect with their innovation and creativity and their perseverance, [00:15:00] which it really does take a lot of perseverance to survive as a leader in sustainability. That's probably one of the core competencies.
Dan Freehling:
What do you mean by that?
John Whitfield:
I recently read a quote that said, at every organization with a frustrated CSO, that's a chief sustainability officer, there's at least one other person at the organization who gets paid more to create the opposite result. And so when you think about it, leaders [00:15:30] in sustainability, they're charged with driving progressive really disruptive agendas. Often this can be within organizations that have been around for decades and who are deeply entrenched in conventional ways of working. So that takes a lot of grit. And on top of that, the sustainability fight feels sort of universally overwhelming a lot of the time. It often feels like it's three steps forward or it's three steps back for every one step forward. So the headwinds that sustainability leaders have [00:16:00] to face both internally and externally or strong, sometimes internally, they're just as if not stronger than externally. So I have a lot of empathy for people who are leading in the sustainability space and really passionate about doing what I can in my practice to support them. So that's extremely meaningful for me because it gives me a sense of purpose in my work, and it's a wonderful way to apply what I've learned in my study of leadership in my two decades of practice and leadership to play just a small part [00:16:30] in creating the kind of change that I think the world really needs right now.
Dan Freehling:
That's so well said, and I'm so glad you're able to apply that and make this difference, John.
John Whitfield:
Yeah, I'm at the point in my life where you start thinking about what's my legacy? What's my impact going to be? And it's really wonderful to be in some way, and I know my piece is just a tiny little piece, but it does feel important to me that I get to support people through the lens of my passion, leadership [00:17:00] in driving real change that kind of change the world needs. It just really feels good.
Dan Freehling:
That's beautiful. Thanks. On the note of the kind of frustrated CSOs where there's somebody else who's tasked with driving the opposite result of getting paid more for it, what do you think the difference of organizations where that's not the case where there's not somebody else who they're paying more to fight against sustainability?
John Whitfield:
[00:17:30] When I see commitment in the c-suite, that's the difference. That's the game changer that can think of organizations as we're talking now where the organizations we're supporting, where the commitment is coming from the top and it's sincere. I mean, here's one question to ask, is the lead sustainability person in the organization, are they in the c-suite? That's a really great indicator [00:18:00] on how deeply integrated sustainability and how seriously sustainability is going to be taken within an organization. So when time and time again, when we're partnering with organizations, we're getting to know organizations. We are hearing about CEOs who are walking the walk, not just talking the talk about sustainability and when you have that kind of leadership coming from the very top, then we really see people [00:18:30] putting their shoulders behind it and we see real change within organizations when it's not sincere. When the highest pay person working in sustainability is buried several layers deep in an organization and you don't hear the sustainability agenda being driven from the top, that's where you start to wonder what the commitment really is and from a place of empathy, and maybe it's just that the organization is earlier in their sustainability journey than some of the others, but where it's really important [00:19:00] in industry to have a sustainability change maker at the top and to have complete buy-in from the top.
Dan Freehling:
That makes a lot of sense. I'm wondering, on the sustainability change makers who you match with organizations, I know there's probably some typical qualities or backgrounds that's important for that. I'm wondering what you look for in terms of non-obvious qualities [00:19:30] in executives who are really suited for this work.
John Whitfield:
This reminds me of a question that I've been asking a lot of leaders in sustainability lately because I interact with a lot of them and I'm fascinated by, again, looking at the world through this lens of human and leader development. My big question lately has been anecdotally asking leaders in sustainability, what do you think are the top three competencies that drive your success? And some of the leaders that I've had this [00:20:00] very informal chat with, we're not talking about very rigorous scientific research here, but have been people who are really leading in sustainability. Some of them have been nominated for awards, CSO of the year, chief Sustainability Officer of the year and that kind of thing. And after asking a couple dozen sustainability leaders, that question where I've landed is the three critical competencies are perseverance, innovation, and communication. [00:20:30] Those are the things I think that CSOs really need in terms of the adaptive skillset. I'm going to answer that from the lens that both you and I look at the world through.
That's through the lens of adaptive skills. When I say adaptive skills, that's what people used to call soft or people skills just to be contracted with technical skills. And I say adaptive because it's all of the non-technical skills that someone needs to adapt to complex environments, [00:21:00] complex and dynamic leadership contexts and includes things like relational skills, the ability to manage change, those kinds of things. Of those three, I think the need for perseverance can't be overstated for the reasons that I mentioned before, just the particular challenges that leaders in sustainability face. The other one in this is around communication. Maybe it's like a subset of the big three is communication is change management. I [00:21:30] am very surprised as I look at job descriptions and job profiles for people who are leading sustainability functions, how rarely I see the term change management or OCM organizational change management.
I feel like that's the skillset that I think every leader is going to be improved by learning good change management. But I think particularly in the sustainability space, because you are driving such dramatic change within an organization and people have a really intense reaction [00:22:00] to change, if it's the same cycle, the response to change is the same cycle as the grief cycle. It's a Kubler-Ross change curve is denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance. It's the same people experience that whether they're grieving the loss of a loved one or they're grieving the loss of an old way of doing things, it's the exact same psychological experience. And so anybody who wants to be an effective leader in the sustainability space, or I would argue in any space, is learn as much [00:22:30] organizational change management as you can. Read John Kotter, connect with the organization Prosci. When we don't have the OCM frameworks, the human response to change can be so overwhelming, so frustrating, so demoralizing and leaders are supposed to be driving change agendas. And so the frameworks you can learn from good OCM helps us to realize how humans relate to change and helps shepherd them through that with empathy.
Dan Freehling:
It's so important. That just applies across the [00:23:00] board to leaders in general too of this organizational change management is not this separate thing that HR does in a workshop or something. It's like this is central to your role as a leader.
John Whitfield:
Every leader has to be a change manager. Yeah, I think John Kotter calls managers like the rocks in the middle. I don’t know if you remember that from reading. Yeah. But he calls 'em the rocks in the middle. It's where great changes go to die if they're not on board. But it's also, I mean, it's both meanings of the word rock, right? Rock can be an obstacle [00:23:30] or a rock can be like a stalwart support, like a staple structure, a foundation, and the managers can be either one. And so it's really your frontline leaders that need to be on board with driving a change agenda. And just understanding changes is a human discipline. Change management is a human discipline. Just understanding what a sensitive topic it really can be.
Dan Freehling:
It's such a great analogy. That's going to stick in my mind for sure in thinking of this because you do see that [00:24:00] it can be resistance, but it also can be your greatest source of support in leading that kind of an effort.
John Whitfield:
Exactly.
Dan Freehling:
John, what do you see as the central task of leader development?
John Whitfield:
It really is, I think, know thyself. That's what I would say. Socrates said that the unexamined life isn't worth living. I probably rephrase it in a bit more of a positive slant, something to the effect of the more we examine our lives, or in this [00:24:30] case our leadership practice, the more we add depth and value to our practice. I know from my experience in the practice of leadership, my biggest mistakes were made in a place of disconnection or misunderstanding of myself and others. And some of my proudest moments in leadership have come from a practice of understanding what makes me tick as a human being and as a leader. And then I think the more we get to know ourselves and understand ourselves, the inner workings of who we are, [00:25:00] the easier it is or the more likely we are to show up in a leadership environment in a way that meets the needs of the moment. And for me, I think the more I try to figure out what's going on in my mind and figuring out what makes me tick, the more I can build empathy and bridges into how other people make sense of the world and how other people tick. The more I understand my experience as a human, the more I can understand the experience of others as human beings. And so I really [00:25:30] do think it's great. Leader development is about connecting people with what's their skin in the game in terms of a leader, why are they here?
What makes them tick? What makes them stop ticking as a leader or break down or get stuck or get triggered? What are the ways that we are getting in our own way as leaders and limiting our effectiveness? Those are the questions that I find most exciting [00:26:00] in the context of leader development. And a lot of my favorite frameworks, my favorite models are really more inward facing models and models that help us to figure out what's going on in ourselves and getting right by our internal game because that's really what drives our results ultimately is understanding ourselves
Dan Freehling:
That the kind of who you're being that's so prevalent in coaching I think is also [00:26:30] so key to leadership development and leader development. Focusing on that, knowing yourself, as you said on the frameworks that you said, the ones that are more inward, internally facing, I'd love to hear which of those you tend to go to or which ones resonate with you the most.
John Whitfield:
Yeah, I've spent my entire academic career studying leadership. My undergraduate was in leadership. My grad degree, [00:27:00] as you well know, is in leadership. And then since 20 years of practicing as a leader and then countless trainings, several certifications, tons of books. I mean, I geek in on this stuff and read about it constantly.
Dan Freehling:
Same here. I feel you.
John Whitfield:
I mean, you and I have the same disease, right? We can't stop. That's right. Can't stop, can't stop. We'll talk a little bit later about some of the books that I read in the last year and it's just like, wow, it's so hard to put some of these books down. [00:27:30] So like most things, the better you understand something, the more you realize how little you understand. It's like maybe the opposite of Dunning Kruger, in effect. I know a little bit about leadership just enough to know that I don't know anything about it and I'm not maybe a theory of everything kind of guy, meaning I don't think that there's one particular model that I ascribe to that I think is the perfect theory. My personal approach to leadership, both as a practitioner [00:28:00] of leader development, helping to develop other leaders and as a leader myself, is probably most deeply influenced by theories like the humanistic leadership, situational leadership.
But when I say that, I mean and Blanchard, the work of Daniel Goldman and emotional intelligence, the work of Mary Uhl-Bien and complexity leadership theory, and a big one for me is Kegan and Lahey and human development theory. That's [00:28:30] a really, really big driver. So I've taken a little bit from so many theories, but if I had to narrow it down, if somebody said, John life or death situation, you need to tell me where am I going to get the most bang for my buck. In terms of where to focus, I would say first my training and practice as a coach, that has dramatically affected my leadership practice because it really helped clarify the concept of responsibility and issue ownership. [00:29:00] So in the coaching practice, we're taught that everyone is creative, resourceful, and whole. We as leaders don't just solve problems, but we actually thought partner with them with people to help them solve their own problems.
And as you know, as a coach yourself, this is the essence of the coaching exchange. We don't have to be the one that has all the answers. So that really flies in the face of the traditional idea that leaders have to be the sages on a stage who have all the answers and people come to them to get their wisdom. It's [00:29:30] liberating in a way to discover the coaching influenced or informed leadership because it really does. It's about the other person. It's about connecting them with their own genius, their own creativity, their own resourcefulness, their own wholeness, and then just helping to create a container in an exchange with them where they can solve their own problems. The second one would be the work of the Conscious Leadership Group. And I don't say that lightly because like I said, I'm not a [00:30:00] theory of everything guy, and I don't like to put all my eggs in one basket.
But the Conscious Leadership Group and specifically the work of Diana Chapman and Jim Dethmer, they wrote this remarkable book called The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. I'm not sure if you've read it, but I highly recommend it to anyone, period. Specifically people who are leading and any practitioners of leader development, it's a must read. Most of their concepts and frameworks are borrowed [00:30:30] from other people like Steven Karpman who's responsible for developing the Karpman Drama Triangle, the Hendricks Institute, David Emerald, who developed the empowerment dynamic. And I even get some hints of Eric Byrne and his work on transactional analysis and some of their stuff, which again, that in and of itself is fascinating to read about for anybody who's interested and in the topic. But they packaged the conscious leadership group who's packaged some of these ideas in really, really [00:31:00] compelling ways that are super easy to understand, really powerful, and they're actually open source.
All of their materials, they offer 'em free to the world on their website, which is conscious.is, the word conscious is I don't work for them, I don't represent them in any way. I'm just a huge, huge, huge fan of their work. And I think it's been a massive game changer for me. And really one of the great things that the conscious leadership theories, what the frameworks [00:31:30] teach us is to really separate fact from story and understand the stories that we tend to tell ourselves, the ways that we get in our heads as leaders. They also do a lot of really amazing stuff around responsibility with this notion of radical responsibility and stepping into the space where we're taking responsibility for creating outcomes that matter rather than living in this place of just being at the effect of everything kind of in this place of victimhood [00:32:00] where the world just happens to us and we're constantly at the whims of the gods.
It's a place of moving into a place of creativity and saying whatever situation comes into my consciousness, into my reality, whether that's pleasant or painful or challenging, it's all there to teach us something. And the thing that's there to teach us about mostly is ourselves. And that is so powerful. [00:32:30] And also one of the reasons I really love their model is one of the core tenets is acceptance of just whatever feeling you're having. So it's sort of antithetical shame. And I think there's so many connections between parenting and leadership, and sometimes as leaders we make mistakes or we don't handle things as graceful as we want, just like with parents, and we kind of beat ourselves up. But this conscious leadership, it teaches you that leadership is a practice and I'm constantly getting better at it, and [00:33:00] I will make mistakes. And as I make mistakes, those are there to teach me something. People who are challenging or challenge me in a moment that's there to teach me something, it's the universe inviting me into deeper understanding of self, deeper understanding of other. So yeah, I would highly recommend conscious leadership. I think
Dan Freehling:
Those are both such great recommendations. I think they're especially important as we shift away from this kind of what I was alluding to earlier in our conversation [00:33:30] of away from this kind of industrial management kind of an approach where the heads of the company kind of know everything, and it's not that complicated, and it's all about just outmaneuvering other companies to do something they already know how to do. And into this we don't really know what's next, and we need people to be innovative and be creative and creative. That's right. And I think both of these are really great media for getting at that of how do you unleash the [00:34:00] power of people to be coming up with their own innovative solutions to these issues that we don't know all the answers to.
John Whitfield:
That's exactly right. We spend, most people spend 95 to 98% of their time, and that's not an official statistic, that's a little bit of a hyper really. But we spend so much of our time kind of below the line in the space of victimhood and being upset about things that are happening to us and blaming other people, blaming ourselves, [00:34:30] shaming other people, shaming ourselves, talking about what should be in so little time in a space of real creativity, of real, honest, just radical creativity, really embodying this idea that no matter what happens to us, it's there for us to learn. It's there for us to learn something about the world and about ourselves. And in that state of just radical creativity and radical acceptance of whatever comes your way, you're just fully empowered [00:35:00] to look at any situation as just a way to become better and a way to do your work. Really a liberating idea.
Dan Freehling:
It really is. So well said. So let's get into the blame and shame space here.
John Whitfield:
Good. I spent a lot of time there. We can talk about the chasm between understanding ideas and being able to apply them. Yes,
Dan Freehling:
Exactly. [00:35:30] I'm partially joking, but what do you think is off base or overlooked in the leadership space?
John Whitfield:
Yeah, I think you alluded to this earlier when you said something about being rather than doing, I think we spent a lot of time in leadership space talking about doing leadership and remarkably comparably less time talking about our ways of being as leaders. And I know that sounds maybe a little esoteric. So if you take a model like situational leadership, when I say that, I mean the official situational [00:36:00] leadership model. I'm a fan of the model. I like it. This is absolutely not a criticism. I'm a huge, huge fan of the model for people who might not be super familiar with it. It's a simple framework for assessing where I'll use the term follower. I know that's a controversial term, but the opposite of a leader. Somebody who's being led, not to say follower for this conversation, but assessing where a follower is, and then you follow this kind of prescribed intervention on the spectrum of task direction or [00:36:30] relational support.
So if this person shows up this way, you give them a bit more tasks direction. If they show up this way, you give 'em a bit more relational support. It really is about what you do as a leader. And again, love the model. I think it's definitely worth studying, going to a class on reading the book, especially if you're new into leadership or if you're leading and more complex technical environments. I think it's a really great model for that environment. But if you contrast that model with what I described with the Conscious [00:37:00] Leadership group, this is one of the reasons that the CLG Conscious Leadership group and the coaching practice resonates so much with me because it's about the inner game, the inner work of what it takes to understand yourself and by extension others. So as I said earlier, I'm a bit obsessed with this question of how does this person make sense of the world to me when I meet people?
That's usually the thing that's going on in the back of my head when I meet 'em for the first time is just figuring out like, Hey, you know, how does this person make sense of the world and what are their ways of making sense of themselves, [00:37:30] how they operate in the world, how they relate to other people. So in my coach, in my work as a coach and a leader developer and doing executive search, it's a really critical question because it helps us to understand the boundaries of a leader's operating system, if you want to think of it that way, like an operating system on a phone or something like that. Our ways of making meaning our developmental level is really, it's the way it influences everything, [00:38:00] how we perceive and interact with the world. And of course we ourselves are I think, the most fascinating focus of this kind of reflection.
So I'm constantly thinking about the limitations of my own ways of making sense of the world, the stories that I tell myself, my deepest triggers, my deepest motivations. And I think that's where I think we need to spend more time on that in the leadership space. And I think that the models and frameworks that give us that are the ones [00:38:30] I want to see elevated. And usually when I do leader development work, it's at that level. So I'll do a lot of values work with teams, figuring out what are the values that are driving their decision making that are driving their behaviors, that are driving their choices in relationship with other people. I like to get kind of under the hood and figure out what makes people tick. And when we can start messing with what makes people tick and refining and gaining understanding, then that just influences [00:39:00] every single action that they take as leaders. So it's this, when we work in the arena of the way of being, we're dramatically leveling up the ways of doing. So
Dan Freehling:
I think that's spot on, and I tend to look at it through the paradigm lens, which is very similar to the way you're describing it here. And that's just once you start seeing that of exactly as you're saying how people make sense of the world and themselves and others, and it's just so, it's so powerful.
John Whitfield:
[00:39:30] It really is. And it starts with us. It's so important to know our own ways of making a sense of the world and our own limitations. We're all looking at the world through our own eyes, and our own eyes have been affected by so much that happens in our life. I'm blessed to have a really amazing life partner. My wife, Laurelin Whitfield also works in the space of human development and coaching, and she's such a great thought partner. She knows me better than I know myself. And we over I think 18 [00:40:00] years now of being together have built this sort of container of safety and acceptance with one another that has allowed us to gently push one another within our limits of meaning making. Just last night I was talking through a leadership challenge and she was really basically coaching and helping me through it, which is wonderful. I mean, it's great. So working with someone in the coaching space can be a really invaluable tool. My advice to anyone who wants to get really serious about their leadership is get a good coach who pushes you, challenges you, and invites you to understand yourself better. [00:40:30] And if you can, you should probably marry them. Then you can save some money.
And if you can't marry them like I did, and you just pay 'em really well, I guess, I dunno,
Dan Freehling:
I like to do both too, but save my wife some of that work. And also put,
John Whitfield:
We have all these ground rules. We're not allowed to coach without a license. So if I sense that I want to put the coaching head on, I'll say, Hey babe, do you mind if I am starting to feel like she, no, no, not today. I just listen. I like, that's great. [00:41:00] Or is the coach in the house? Can I have a coaching session? And then sometimes it's like, yeah. And because we both work in this, and this is something that I alluded to earlier, just because we understand the coaching practice or understand leader development theory does not mean that we fully embodiment the exact kind of person that we want to be the chasm. That is so true.
The chasm between theory and embodiment is so vast. And I think that's the other thing that having really nice, wonderful support in your life, whether that's through your life partner or a great coach [00:41:30] or a leadership community of practice, I recommend all those is that you got to have the people in your life who you can just really be yourself around. As leaders, we spend so much of our day, so turned on, so engaged in our work that at home, one of the greatest things my wife does for me is just gives me a space to allow me to be myself, to let my hair down and be grumpy when I need to be grumpy or process when I need to process. And [00:42:00] wherever we get that, as leaders, we all need it. So if we're lucky enough to have a life partner or if we're lucky enough to find a really amazing coach, we have to develop a community of practice in some way.
Dan Freehling:
It's a wonderful thing and it's really nice to hear that you have that in your life. And I would totally second all of your recommendations there of surrounding yourself with people you can really have these conversations with and you can really be yourself [00:42:30] with and all that is so key. I'm glad you brought up situational leadership. So I just did a course design where I included situational leadership concepts in it. And what I'm realizing is that it was really, it's kind of a management course and it's like a management skills course. And I was like for all of my gripes with that kind of thinking, this is a really valuable thing for first time managers [00:43:00] or for managers who are looking to incorporate more of these skills into it. It's almost like kind a transitional model into the deeper and higher level forms of true leadership. But I think you're right, it is something that is helpful to really get a sense that you can shift your style and should shift your style depending on the situation, depending on the development level. As much as that, [00:43:30] it's kind of like, I don't love the development level terminology that where your team members are and you shouldn't just apply a blanket approach to leading. So I think it does have its place. I agree with you on that. At the same time, it's definitely not the true essence of real leadership.
John Whitfield:
Yeah, those are great observations. I tend to agree with a lot of what you said. I think that, yeah, when you said that it's a management approach [00:44:00] that resonated with me, it does feel very focused on this. How are people performing? And I think sometimes too, I don't want to over index the argument for internal leadership work because sometimes I think we can get the finger pointing at the moon. And what we have to remember is that leading people is about creating positive change and creating good outcomes. And so sometimes I think that's something I have to be mindful of in my practice is not getting too focused on [00:44:30] the inner experience of leadership and just like, okay, so what's the commercial impact of this leader development that we're doing here? We're not just here to talk about theory or we're actually here to drive change and to drive, whether that's profitability, whether that's driving a sustainability agenda.
When the rubber hits the road, we really have to drive change. It's not just about trying to figure ourselves out. And I think situational leadership and models like that are really focused on how are people performing and what's the work that they're doing. I think you talked about this hierarchy [00:45:00] of models, and I think to me it's a really great entry level model because it's easy to understand. You can learn it pretty quickly. And what it does is, especially earlier in your leadership journey, it helps us start developing that ability to change our style depending on the situation. Now as we learn more models and more frameworks and we kind of take the transition from subject to object and we get into some deeper leadership work that learning what you can learn from situational [00:45:30] leadership early in your leadership journey, that's a really great habit to start building because adaptable leadership, which I'll contrast with situational leadership, but adaptable leadership, which I think somebody you and I both appreciate Mary Old Ben talks about is being able to change your approach based on whatever the situation that you're facing in is.
And with that strong foundation of learning that practice and situational leadership, as your leadership levels up in complexity, your ability to adapt [00:46:00] to more complex situation gets stronger. So really, really good way to kind of get your training wheels on for realizing that you need to change your approach based on what's going on out there. And I will say there are situations, I've been doing this for a long time, but there are situations where I pull right back into situational leadership. It's got, I still find some value in that model. And it really is just that argument that it's really nice to have a toolkit and thinking at any time, what's the best toolkit here? If I'm doing something where somebody [00:46:30] needs to make a widget and I need to make sure they make a lot of widgets, situational leadership is perfect. But if I'm talking about training, doing executive coaching with a CEO, situational leadership's probably not going to be the first framework that I pull on. It'll be a different model that's probably way more focused on the adaptive domains or the human development domain of leadership.
Dan Freehling:
I think that's so right. We mentioned followers, and I know [00:47:00] that followership is, it was something that the got brought up in our masters. I know some of the resources and we'd always talked about it as we have our friends from that program really who keep in touch, and that's a really valuable for and forum and resource too. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on followership and what that means to you, how we can better articulate that. I just feel like, and I imagine you feel the same way, that it's just something that's really well done right [00:47:30] now,
John Whitfield:
If you remember it from our master's. I don't, and I don't remember it from my undergrad at all. And I read constantly. I'm constantly learning it and I just feel like it's just missing from the conversation. Maybe there's some stuff I don't remember much of about it in our master's program. Maybe there was some stuff there, but I'm telling you, it's just missing from the body of work related to, yeah,
Dan Freehling:
It was like one lesson,
John Whitfield:
Was it really, I probably, it
Dan Freehling:
Was just even the way it was presented, it's like this isn't that good. [00:48:00] It's afforded,
John Whitfield:
It's forgettable because I forgot it. And this is a pet subject for me. I think we spent so much time talking about leadership and focusing on good leaders and so little time talking about good followership or what makes a good follower. And I see so many dynamics that I think would be improved if there were maybe a program or courses or something. We could just spend some time on [00:48:30] what it means to be a good leader. Because I found that generally, and I'm interested in your perspective on this as well, but generally people are pretty tough on their leaders. That's my experience based on my experience. I think that's a generally true that people have pretty high expectations of their leaders and they're pretty tough on 'em. And the fundamental mistake I see a lot of followers make is they underestimate the complexity of the leader's operating environment.
I think that [00:49:00] happens all the time. Interesting. They don't see the world through the eyes of the leader. We myself, I'm a follower. As much as I'm a leader, I might tell myself a very, very simple story about my leader. I might believe that story. I might spread that story among my peer group. I might make misguided or ill-informed assumptions and decisions based on just a very simple story about our leader, about my leader. And oftentimes that's the fundamental attribution error, [00:49:30] which I think we did study in our master's program, which is this tendency in human nature to ascribe people people's shortcomings or mistakes to some sort of character flaw. Does this ring a bell for you? It
Dan Freehling:
Does. Yep.
John Whitfield:
Definitely. Yeah. Okay. And tell me if I'm mischaracterizing it, I welcome it, but I think that's basically right. So if you do something I don't like, it's not because Dan made a mistake or it's not because Dan has a really had [00:50:00] a bad day, or Dan is operating in a really tough time or environment. It's because Dan's just a jerk, right? Malice. Yeah. Yeah. It's malice. We always judge people by their actions, but ourselves by our intent. And I see people followers making that mistake all the time, and I make it myself as a follower. That's just one of the mind traps that we fall into. And when I say mind trap, I'll just quickly put a plug in for a really fantastic book by Jennifer Garvey Berger, [00:50:30] who's sort of one of the thought leaders in the human development space, sort of an intellectual heir to Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey.
But she wrote a really remarkable book called Leadership Mind Traps, and it's these, I think it's five or so, five or six maybe mind traps that we as leaders get caught in. And I think they apply to followers. I think they apply to everybody, to be honest. I recommend anyone reading that book whether they're a leader or not. But one of them is the allure of a simple story. We really do [00:51:00] believe very simple stories, and the reality of reality is usually much more complex than we can determine just based on our perspective. And so I think what that means is that a lot of times when we're following others or when we are followers, we're sort of disconnected from our empathy for our leaders. It's kind of like being a parent before you're a parent. It's so easy to be critical of the parenting of other people.
You never [00:51:30] met a room of better parents than when you have a room of people who don't have children. They all think they know exactly how to do it. I was that way before I had kids. And then once you become a parent, you realize just how astonishingly difficult parenting is. It's the hardest thing in the world. And you let go of the judgment. And so you see parents maybe making an ungraceful decision in public with their kids, and it's like, well, I've been there. I get it. And I think in some ways it's sort of [00:52:00] followers.
We don't understand how complex the practice of leadership is until we really do it. It's just sort of like you can sit there in a chair where you're not leading and be pretty tough on your leaders. But even saying this, I think people are very intolerant of this notion that leadership is hard. There was a politician who I don't want to mention by name in this context, [00:52:30] who I think was elected president of the United States, and then soon after he was elected said something like, this is really hard and this is not a politician I have anything in common with, but I thought people responded really intensely to that comment. He's whining about how difficult leading is and how dare he whine. It's like, well, I don't like this guy, but I'm pretty sure that being president of the United States is a really hard job. I think it is no matter what. [00:53:00] And the other thing I'll just say is I'm not trying to say that there aren't terrible leaders out there. I think all of us have had our awful experiences with leaders. Leaders who might've made us miserable at one point or another. Sometimes we might've inadvertently made other people's lives miserable as leaders. I'm just saying there are also really, really terrible followers out there who can make their leaders' lives miserable. And oftentimes there are power struggles, there's territoriality, there's this simple storytelling.
[00:53:30] I think that's something that I spend a lot of time thinking about that I wish there was just more out there. I just see followership missing from the conversation.
Dan Freehling:
I think you're onto something there, and I think I've never thought about it in this way, but as you were talking, there's an element of discernment or judgment that's needed from followers. I like to name it as when you're a team member. [00:54:00] I think I've mentioned this before because it's just followers, so
John Whitfield:
Yeah, I'm not crazy about the word
Dan Freehling:
Pejorative, right?
John Whitfield:
Yeah, it sounds really pejorative, but it's clunky. Team members a little clunky. There's just no perfect.
Dan Freehling:
It is. There's no perfect. One
John Whitfield:
Individual contributor sounds too sterile.
Dan Freehling:
Everything's two words. But yeah, I think there's an element of looking at it and being like, no organization is perfect. No leader is perfect. No leader is perfect for everyone [00:54:30] either. And overall, is this person operating from good faith? Are they trying to do the right thing to balance all of the competing priorities they're facing? And even in my work with teams, I think that's a big part of helping people see that there are some leaders who are genuinely bad actors.
John Whitfield:
Oh yeah, for sure. Undoubtedly, they're
Dan Freehling:
Just out there to get their piece of it and [00:55:00] kind of lord their power or get their money out of it and forget the organization, forget the team, forget the people. And then I think there are a lot of people who are exactly as you said, in really difficult complex roles who are really trying to do their best and manage multiple stakeholders and competing priorities and make the best decision they can. And I think the trick as a follower is to make your best call [00:55:30] on is this person trying their best? And if so, I'm going to really be there and help them and do my part. And if they're not, and if they're actively malicious and you feel like that's something that you've, it's not just like a feeling you have, but it's something you've seen and you have your
John Whitfield:
Own incontrovertible
Dan Freehling:
Evidence person,
John Whitfield:
A terrible person,
Dan Freehling:
Then it's like either I have to advocate for organizational change or I have to bring myself somewhere where I can [00:56:00] bring my full potential to the table. And I think that's something that's helpful for people. I feel like it's even, I think a lot about the generational kind of shifts and a lot of my fellow millennial clients and friends and stuff, they're starting to complain about the Gen Z mentalities now. And I think a lot of it's overblow, and I think there's something to kind of generational, but I think part of it is this [00:56:30] idea of, I think there's so much of a reaction to being exploited by workplaces that has led to these really silly things like quiet quitting and these kinds of trends that really make no sense. So they're ridiculous, but they come from a place of an overcorrection almost to negative workplaces.
And I think a lot of the challenge is like, how do you figure out is this a generally [00:57:00] good place to be and I should really commit and bring my all to it, or this is a place I have to just really either change or get out from. And as you were saying, all of this, I'm like, wow, this is actually clicking in for me in a way that I hadn't really pulled it together before. So question of books. So it's funny, I think a lot of people are kind of reflexively either pro or against leadership books, business [00:57:30] books, that kind of a thing. And I can definitely see there are some that are just garbage. Oh my.
John Whitfield:
I've read some real stinkers. I'm not afraid to name names too. So I've read some really real stinkers.
Dan Freehling:
It's so funny. It's so funny. But you read 42 books last year you mentioned, and I'm wondering which of those you find yourself thinking about coming back to the most often.
John Whitfield:
Yeah, I'd love to talk about [00:58:00] that. I'll just say first reading 42 books, I set out to read 36, and then I got really into it and I thought over achieving. Yeah, that's right. I thought that sounded like a big number. Then I was watching a video a couple nights ago, and this woman had read 200 in 2023.
Dan Freehling:
Yeah,
John Whitfield:
Wow. You have time for me. You do not have young children. I know that you do not have young children if you're reading 200.
Dan Freehling:
This is like a fantasy for you to be just sitting in a cabin somewhere reading,
John Whitfield:
Just sitting somewhere reading books again and again and again. That said, when you cut things like television or [00:58:30] doom scrolling, you can find, it's amazing the amount of time that you can find. I will say two, Netherlands has great transportation system and it takes me about an hour to get into work on the train. And so audio books are great or my Kindle, so that really helped me
Dan Freehling:
To reach, that's what I've shifted over to too, is I love the audio books and I've definitely, I'm only on, I think LinkedIn, which is a very, very limited time commitment social media platform.
John Whitfield:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've cut out some of that stuff too. Not [00:59:00] on Facebook anymore. I think I have an Instagram, but I don't really pay much attention to it. But yeah, I read of the 42 books I read, I think all but maybe four or five were nonfiction, and most of 'em were related to self-development, leadership, that kind of thing. I read some remarkable fiction books that I highly recommend, One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle, Lessons in Chemistry by, what was her name? You might remember [00:59:30] this. Garmus, I think was her last name.
Dan Freehling:
I don't remember the name. I think my wife definitely read that. And I have it on. I've seen it on our shelf.
John Whitfield:
Must read. Must read. Really, really well done. Okay, cool. I'll check out. Remarkably Bright Creatures was really good too. I love Cephalopods Octopuses and that's about a really smart octopus. That was a good one. But what I find myself thinking about most often, I think it's probably the work of David Richo. He's a psychotherapist. [01:00:00] He's probably in his eighties now. I did not encounter him until probably I think a year or so ago, maybe at the beginning of my quest to read 36 books in 2023. And I just wish I had discovered him earlier in life because he's been, actually, he's written over 20 books and he's been writing for, I think his big, big work. He published in 2001, it was called How to Be An Adult In Relationships. That is a powerful, powerful piece of work. It's primarily [01:00:30] focused on your primary life partnerships, so romantic relationships, your wife's spouse, husband, whatever.
But it's really so much more for that. So much of what he covers is germane to any significant relationship. I mean, even in leadership, you have deep relationships with the people who you lead and with your supervisor and with the people around you. And there's so much there that I found that sort of works in any relationship. He has this really kind of [01:01:00] beautiful way of describing it. He says he's talking about the context of a life partnership, but I think that this applies kind of outside of that context as well. He says a relationship is two children tugging at each other's sleeve, shouting in unison, look what happened to me when I was a kid. Make it stop and make it better for me. And yeah, very powerful stuff. And I can certainly see how that's true in a romantic life, partner relationship, a marriage [01:01:30] or whatever.
But I see that Dan, so much in the context of leadership as well. Human beings, we are so complex and we have such deep wounds. And sometimes in the relationship of leader, individual, contributor, follower, whatever we want to call it, team member, we get triggered and it's issues of authority come up and issues of value [01:02:00] and respect and honor, and all of these weighty relational social dimensions come up in those relationships and people bring all their stuff with them to work. They bring their deepest wounds with them to work, and when they're triggered or when things aren't going well, you're going to see those wounds surface. And when we as leaders are triggered, we're going to see those wounds surface those really, really old wounds. So David Richo really does get [01:02:30] kind of deep into that work around, he wrote a book called Triggered, I think, Triggered or Triggers, I can't remember which. That was remarkable as well, just around the deep stuff. I read a couple of his books, maybe three and in 2023, and then I read Gabor Maté as well.
He's that physician out of Canada. I think he's Hungarian Canadian, survived World War II when he was just a baby. [01:03:00] I think his big part of his family was murdered in the Holocaust. And he wrote the book called The Myth of Normal. I recommend that one as well. And that's basically just sort of talking about how the world itself is the experience of growing up in the world. The way that it is, is a trauma inducing experience, and it really helps you build empathy for yourself and for other people. So yeah, that's probably [01:03:30] what I spend most of my time thinking about.
Dan Freehling:
John, this has been such a great conversation. Thanks for going there. Thank
John Whitfield:
You. It's been, thanks
Dan Freehling:
For taking the time. So where can listen listeners learn more about Acre Your Work, what you're up to and get in touch?
John Whitfield:
Yeah, if you want to learn more about Acre, it's at acre.com and then you, I'm most active, the social media I'm most active on is LinkedIn. And so you can find me on LinkedIn. Well, if they're friends with you on LinkedIn, they probably [01:04:00] can find me through your network or John Whitfield. Yeah,
Dan Freehling:
We'll definitely throw the LinkedIn too, so
John Whitfield:
That'd be great. Yeah, so LinkedIn is typically the best way to get ahold of me and occasionally publish an article or two about something that I'm ruminating on there. And I'm fairly active in the space, so very eager to meet with anybody who has similar interests and wants to have a quick conversation, very eager to connect.
Dan Freehling:
Awesome. I appreciate that offer and would definitely encourage anyone interested to reach out [01:04:30] and connect with John there. And listeners, thanks so much as always for joining us. If you've got something out of the show, if you can share it with a colleague and just leave a quick review on whatever podcast app you're using that goes a long way and helping to spread the word so others can find it. And John, thank you so much again for joining me.
John Whitfield:
Thanks for having me, Dan. It's been a great conversation.
