STAT Leadership Episode 10: Succession and Letting Go

Navigating Leadership Transition: Strategies for Effective Succession Planning

In this episode of the STAT Leadership Podcast, hosts Phil Moy, JR Pickett, and Chet Kharod dive into the complexities of leadership transition and successful succession planning. The conversation covers identifying and mentoring potential successors, the role of continuity in leadership, and strategies for navigating the transfer of responsibilities. Key insights include the importance of preparing mentally for the transition, supporting new leaders while stepping back, and creating processes to ensure organizational stability. They also provide practical examples from various fields including healthcare, military, and popular culture, underscoring the necessity of both personality and process in effective leadership handovers.

00:00 Introduction to STAT Leadership
00:29 Leadership Transition: Challenges and Strategies
08:49 Mentoring and Developing Future Leaders
11:25 Succession Planning in Different Contexts
15:53 Leadership Styles and Continuity
23:01 Historical and Cultural Examples of Leadership
27:05 Washington's Successor and Leadership Qualities
27:19 Movie Metaphors and Leadership
28:12 Shakespeare and Leadership Traits
28:44 Understanding Team Dynamics
29:30 Communicating Leadership Strategies
32:25 Assessing Leadership Skills
33:46 Succession Planning and Introspection
36:31 Navigating Leadership Transitions
39:09 The Importance of a Clean Break
43:59 Supporting New Leadership
45:23 Book and Movie Recommendations
51:07 Podcast Reflections and Future Plans

Referenced in this episode:
Star Trek: The Next Generation S6e10 and S6e11 “Chain of Command”, parts I and II  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708686/?ref_=ttep_ep_10   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708687/?ref_=ttep_ep_11

The West Wing S4e23 “Twenty Five”  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0745720/?ref_=ttep_ep_23

The Last Samurai  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325710/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_last%2520sam

Star Trek: The Next Generation S7e5 “Gambit, Part II” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708722/?ref_=ttep_ep_5

Hamilton   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8503618/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_6_tt_1_nm_7_in_0_q_hamilton

The Terminal List: A Thriller, by Jack Carr   https://a.co/d/1QaxW1S

Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs, by Steve Cuss  https://a.co/d/eXFTo7n

Dan Campbell press conference https://youtu.be/oTmtPa8Uj1A?si=iXNjCw_EAlbyeX2h

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When the call comes in, leadership is everything. We analyze the data in real time, making the tough decisions under pressure. Welcome to Stat Leadership. We are on the podcast episode 10: Leadership Transition Successful Succession Planning. Don't fumble the baton. I'm Phil Moy from St. Louis. And J.R. Pickett from Salt Lake City.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Yep, and I'm Chetin Carrod from New Braun Folks, Texas.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Got it. And Dr. Carood, why don't you bring us in? What's this episode going to be about?

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Yeah, this is one of those that is exciting for those who are leaders in transition and probably are going to is going to be missed by many others. So after you've successfully completed your leadership tour, one of the keys is not tripping on the way out the door. And there's actually a process. And we're going to talk about that today and kind of figure out throughout your leadership term what are the things you can be doing and thinking about so that when you hand off that thing to the uh the next person, you can make it as smooth a handoff as possible. And that'll be part of your successful leadership legacy.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

It's always hard because relinquishing the role sometimes is always a harder thing to do than people say, but it is a very important part if you care for the organization more so than your leadership.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I had this conversation with a resident the other day, and she was a bit hesitant in writing her orders and being decisive about what she wanted to do with patients because she was trying to figure out what it was that I would do, what I would want to do with a patient, and I'm going to present it that way. And I told her, look, you're a the a conglomeration of all of the mentors and all the teachers that you've had. And I am one of them, but I have no expectation that you will practice exactly as I do because you've had these other teachers and these other experiences, and that is who you are as a provider. So can you defend what you're doing? And if the answer is yes, then great, then that that's good enough for me. I recognize it's not going to happen maybe the way that I would have done it if I was working today without you, but that doesn't mean that the approach is wrong. And I think where you're saying here with the identifying the successor and letting go of the reins is realizing that the people that follow us are not going to do things exactly the same way. They're going to have perhaps a slightly different vision for the organization that is not exactly how you would do them, and that may be just fine. That's all right. But it is hard to step back and then see this organization under a different leader pushing in a different direction than what we do. And that, oh man, I should re-engage and I should do this. No, make sure that the organization's on a good pathway. And the leader, if you have that opportunity left seat, right seat, which we often don't, but if you have that opportunity to do that, to mentor them in such a way that they understand what you're doing and why, and can carry that there with their leadership as you leave the organization.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Yeah, and depending on the role in some organizations, like if you're a medical director of an EMS agency, many of the tasks that you did are going to need to be done continuously by the next person and the next. So there may not be a lot of personality-driven, customized behaviors that you've been engaging in. It may simply be tasks that the person in that position must do. And yet at the same time, part of your success may very well have been your way, right? And there's no way to really either translate that or really even expect the next person to do it all your way. So a big part of this is hopefully along the way, we've gotten part of it done by our personality and part of it by developing process. And a lot of the handoff for successful handoffs is going to be making sure there's a process that goes, and then the person can bring their own personality as they step into your shoes. But I would say it's probably top two, top three leadership failures is creating a process for successful transition. Virtually every leader who succeeds probably leaves a gap in execution because they were busy getting it done by force of personality and their personal charisma, charm, ability, and maybe didn't have a process for it. And when they left, that kind of was a vacuum. So the first time I encountered that was as a trainee, and the program director left. And all of a sudden, lots of things that used to happen were not happening anymore. And we realized our program director just did a lot of stuff that maybe was not built into the process.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yeah, let's pull that thread a little bit. JR, your example you provided is somebody in training, and so this kind of successor was already given to you. But I think Chet's example is a little bit different in the fact that this is a process that we should have in mind as future leaders or as current leaders. And so, Chet and JR, could you pull on that thread and be like, what would the process be to say, hey, I gotta start thinking now of what comes after me?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

I think you have to recognize how the leader in your organization is named, how they come into is somebody who is going to be selected from within the organization or naturally rise to that level, or is it, as is often the case with municipal agencies or state agencies, that person is not internal to the organization. Or they may have been there at one point, but they've gone somewhere else to gain additional experience and more training and so forth and come back to it. So first we have to recognize are we going to have the opportunity to mentor that successor or not?

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Yeah, I would agree. And then even if it's say it's not an EMS agency, say it's a residency or fellowship and you're the director, or in another case, I was the wing surgeon for a special operations wing. It was odd handing that off because there had been no wing surgeons before me. I was the first one. So I wrote the book on it. Uh, the commander gave me a lot of latitude to do things. His exact quote was, I'm gonna assume you're gonna be where you need to be and doing the things you need to do to take care of our unit and their families. This is your communication device. I expect to hear from you, preferably at least twice a week. Otherwise, if your comms silent, I'm assuming you're busy for our people. Any questions for me? It was the most latitude I've ever been given. When the next person was chosen to replace me, he, the commander, did not get to recruit them directly like he did with me. It ended up being a decision by committee, people outside the organization with higher rank weighed in on him. He didn't really get the personality he wanted, and then he struggled getting the kind of effectiveness that he wanted. So that's one of those where I didn't have much time to engage, and I ended up just leaving what might be considered a dry handoff, which was really just a list of tasks and responsibilities. These are the meetings you need to go to. This is the actions you're expected to take. And then under each one, it said talk to this person for more boots on the ground level details, talk to this person for more granular information. And it ended up really just being a checklist of tasks and meetings, which was not ideal.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

It was a good start. It was sorry, it was a good start though, because my previous assignment, when I assumed command, the person I was taking command from or relieving in command, they were simply like word on the street as you're a pretty smart guy. I'm sure you'll figure it all out. So there was no list of meetings or responsibilities handed off. So I I literally did spend the first two weeks not knowing exactly where I was supposed to be or go. So a little different handoff there.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I think you have to understand the succession process in your organization, but and you may or may not get the person who you think should be there. But I think it's an important aspect to think about because you, as the current leader, do have influence over who you would recommend to take your place. So why don't we talk about identifying and mentoring potential successors or how do we scout talent? What are you guys' thoughts on that? And what's the best way to start thinking longevity long term in that regard?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

So there's leaders who'll say that the number one job of any leader is to build future leaders. And it took me a long time to get my head around that. And I'm not sure I 100% agree with it all the time because I feel like executing a current mission, taking care of your current people is also a huge part of a leader's job, right? But this idea of building leaders, as we lead an organization, we can see what the needs of it are. We have to make some time so we can take a step back and go, what are all the things I do that are required of me? And what are all the things I do that maybe are not required, but I think my organization and people need those things. And it helps to just make that list. And then the other thing I like to do, I'll look at the people that are on my team and see how they view themselves. Uh, and there's a great feedback sheet that I'll share that that lets them say on a scale of one to 10, here's where I am on leadership, on vision, on proficiency, whatever. And then part of my feedback with them is I'll assess them for six months, and then in a different color or pencil, I'll write where I think they are. So they have a self-view and then my kind of objective view, and then we kind of work together to try and grow that. But that way, if it's coming within the organization, I'm able to scout that talent, see who's a self-starter, but maybe often wrong, never in doubt. But there are people who are extremely competent but super quiet. So I might have to find a way to bring them out of their shell and give them some room to swing. These are all ways in which, having seen a spark of talent somewhere, we can bring it out, set them up. And you'll see this in the police chiefs and the fire chiefs of the United States. So many of them know each other. So the City of Houston chief may have mentored and fostered five other major metropolitan fire chiefs over their career, and those people always do it the chief penal way. So that's another option we have. They may not stay in our organization, but we might be launching people into success elsewhere.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, I'm with you, Chad, that I don't think a primary job is succession planning. A primary job is make sure the organization continues to function, right? The main job is not landing the plane, my main job right now is to keep it flying. And it's I think that if you're able to identify successors, if they're coming from within your organization, the easy thing is to give them opportunities to embrace leadership, to give them projects and see how they lead those projects and how they take ownership of some particular area, and then they show what their what their potential is with that, and then that that graduated responsibility that they get through their time with you. If you've got somebody coming from outside of the organization, and hopefully you have some role in selecting them, even if they're not coming from internal candidates, then you at least can advise on the selection of that candidate, looking for how they handled their previous job, how they how have they done, do they embrace culture that you want to see in the organization and that others want to see? And this is presuming that you've been successful as the leader in that organization in terms of driving the culture and bringing success and so forth. But that may you somebody may do really well in one role and then they rise to another role. We always say that you get promoted to the level of your incompetence and then you're out there. So that that next step up may be one step too far for them. So that's hard to tell. But look at how they've done before. And if they're within your organization, you probably hopefully have a good bit of ground knowledge and people that come to you to talk about this stuff and you get some idea of how they function within that. If not, then reach out to the other organization where they were and reach out to those informal authorities there, to those folks that have more of a ground-side view and say, what was it like working under this person?

SPEAKER_02 13:13

It's a great Star Trek the Next Generation episode. I had to go there. Where Picard gets recruited for a special mission and within a couple of hours he's gone, and Captain Jellico rolls in and takes over the enterprise, right? That entire episode is such a clinic on leadership transition and the potential pitfalls of a completely different leadership style, even though it could be very effective for that situation or for that era in the organization. But there's some highlights in there that are key. And one of them is communication and situational awareness. I think the followers a lot of times will be a lot more, and teammates will be a lot more on board if they can just get a little more insight into what's going on. And then they may or may not necessarily be able to be given that. But anyway, this idea of leadership styles changing, but essential missions have to go on. And JR, you were referring to the informal points of contact. And in any organization, there is that, right? So when we are director of something, hopefully we're not a single point of failure. Hopefully there are other people throughout the organization that do essential tasks so that even if the face of the organization changes, the essential tasks still get done.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah, and I'll chime in here about recruiting or finding the right people for succession, is it's all intertwined with our previous episodes in that if you've created a culture where everybody is a leader or a leader without a title, which is an excellent book recommended by Dr. Carote or Chet over there, is those people who really demonstrate that leadership without a title, they're there. You just have to find that and weed that out with when you're a leader and you're developing that culture within your organization, be like, wow, this person is someone that I can lean on who's shown dependability, responsibility, integrity, and a character that I would not have a problem following. And that's I'm a very simple caveman doctor as an era doctor, so I like to dumb things down a lot. And I look at the person like, would this be someone that I would follow? That I would say, if it would this be someone who, if they called me at 2 a.m. and say, Phil, I can't tell you what's going on. I can't tell you the details, but I need you to come in. I'd be like, okay, I'm coming in. And to dumb it down, that's how I could look at somebody who would be a potential successor. And that sh is intertwined with you developing that culture within your organization with that leaders without a title kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yeah, I think if you if you're leading an organization, there's if you're doing it well, sometimes there is a bit of a cult of personality that goes with that. That when you're a well-known, well-respected leader, that a lot of your personality is in that leadership role. And if the organization collapses right after you leave, then you probably didn't do a great job of making that into process. And it was really more just driven by the individual. And that is the hard thing, too. With that transition to leadership, different styles, uh, etc. How do you set your successor up for success to be accepted and realizing that they're going to do things different than you did? I thought that the episode that you mentioned of Next Generation with Captain Jellico is a really good one because he's a controversial figure among those who do watch it. And look, if you're if you didn't watch Next Generation, you're listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, like, who are you here to do? What am I doing? But in that, like, he is he's a different style, and we've all been used to Captain Picard, and so Riker kind of grates against Jericho because he it's a di he just not sure quite how to deal with this different style. So that is that Picard didn't prepare him for that, and that creates conflict in the in the episode. But Jericho's very he's very effective at what he does, and as far as military leaders go, this is a guy who's really seeing the coming storm with the Cardassians, and he is acting in such a manner to to be prepared for that, and dr running drills in a ship and making sure everybody's prepared, and telling the counselor that you I want to see you in a regular uniform. We're uh saying this is a military ship, we are that we need a certain level of professionalism. And so that is most folks like, oh, I hate this character and so glad that Picard comes back and so forth. But we realize he's actually a really effective captain, and it was just drawing. I think that's such a great lesson for so many organizations that find themselves under a different leader that has that different style. How can we prepare our organizations, our subordinates, to be able to get on board with that different style?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

The Cardassians are all just fascists. We don't like them anyways. We don't like the majority, we don't like the Cardassian. That's how it works.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

David Warner was so great in that episode, too, those two episodes. Just so menacing and powerful, just fantastic character.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Pardon leaders code, audience while we nerd out and Star Trek the next generation right now. Yeah, no, I agree. And then you guys are touching on a very important point, which is the role of continuity in leadership, and that's a wonderful example. And I think if I were to use another TV example, I don't know if you guys are big fans of it, but I know our good friend Dr. Jeff Jarvis's The West Wing, where President Bartlett has to step back when his daughter Zoe is kidnapped, I believe, and there's something going on with the vice president. So I think the next in line is Kirk of Rom, the head of the house. Is that right? I forget. The Speaker of the House. I forget.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yeah, President, Vice President, Speaker of the House.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Speaker of the House. Yeah, the Speaker of the House is just played by John Goodman, a Republican. Ooh, but it's a fun, it's a fun episode to watch because John Goodman, uh, he plays the Republican, he leads in a very different manner than the intellectual Jed Bartlett does. But I remember this very poignant scene where he's addressing the press in the press room, and the staff is looking at Goodman and they're like, we don't like how he's leading, but man, he's awfully presidential. He could stand it just lets you know that leading is just completely different, but you could still be effective in that. And so that's kind of the importance of the role of continuity in leadership to make sure because people do need that continuity. Otherwise, as you said, Chet, things just stall or fall apart.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Yeah, in continuity, it's funny because there's the individual, the person in charge, uh, and that's a huge part of it. And then there's all the leadership processes that we have to go out of our way as leaders to make sure those are in play. And for me, coming up in leadership positions, that was always challenging. Like when we're early in our career, we are spotted by or recruited because of our exceptional performance, right? So we don't really look at for a brand new intern, say, or an early career medic, or in the military, a lieutenant. They haven't really done a whole lot yet. So your their performance is their potential. So you just assume that if they're good at their job, they're gonna be good at pretty much everything else you give them to do. By mid-career or later, we can start sorting out and say, yeah, great clinician, not so much a people person, probably not gonna put them in a leadership position. And because we have more data points. So performance and potential start uh differentiating a little bit further along the career. So we as leaders can spot for the continuity. We can go, yeah, this person's personality will be well suited to this, or hey, maybe not so much, but they are still qualified. So I need to come up with a process here to secure the organization along the way. And the easiest way, and it's a little bit ironic, your first 30 days in leadership are probably where you're going to identify all the things that would be useful for a good handoff, also. Except you're drinking from the fire hose, just trying to stay afloat. So you're really not optimized to write all that down or log all the things that a good transition would need. But almost always, for me at least, the transition was wow, I wish I could have had blank and then I try to leave that to the person I'm handing off to. I wish I could have had this setup or this pile of documents, I try to leave that for the next person. Sometimes our own experience is the most useful.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah, how do you find a way to not lose that institutional knowledge of somebody who's been Been in that position for some time. And that's no, okay, here's an idea that I have, and then somebody in the organization says, Oh, yeah, we tried that before under such and such. Okay, how'd it go? It didn't work. Okay, why didn't it work? And maybe they can't tell you, maybe they don't have the same perspective as the leader who's there before that can tell you, Oh, we tried that this is why it didn't work, and this is why we abandoned it, or maybe with some tweaks it would work, but this is what we ran into. Very hard to do when you've got somebody coming external to the organization that's that's coming in to be the leader. That makes that even more important for that new leader to really just sit back and listen for a long period of time and not really try to implement a whole bunch of stuff right away, but to understand the groundwork better, which we've talked about that before, that it's so important for a leader to do, but maybe less important for somebody who's been there for a period of time that has already been involved in a lot of those discussions and a lot of those initiatives and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

If you look at football, when Steve Young took over after Joe Montana on the San Francisco 49ers, I'm not a huge 49er fan, but Yeah, I'll forgive you for mentioning them in the podcast. I couldn't resist because of two things. One is Montana was not the classic superhero style quarterback, but man, that guy was effective. Like obnoxiously so, for those of us that were not 49er fans. And then we look at Steve Young, who sat the bench behind that guy. How do you take up the leadership of the team that was led by this legend? So he did two things. One, he totally schooled himself in everything, all aspects of the job, getting as much from every source that he could. He also happened to get a law degree because he's sitting on the bench. So he's, I'm not gonna waste my time. I'm gonna continue to prepare myself here. But when he took over, he did not run the Montana-style offense. But man, they won some Super Bowls, right? So sometimes you have to fill big shoes when you step up, but that doesn't mean you're not gonna get it done. You just want to make sure that if you're the one coming up, that you're taking the continuity as well as you can, observing and learning. And there's another just related example that in the Union Army, at just before the Battle of Antietam, the Union Surgeon General got fired by the commanding general. And there was a major that was sitting there, and the general turned around to him and said, Okay, Dr. Letterman, you're in charge. So I hope you have a good battle plan for Antietam. It's in two days or whatever. He gave him like less than a week to get ready. So Major Jonathan Letterman, though, had been to every meeting, was thinking, he was a clinician, he had a plan. He executed the first field ambulance program that the U.S. military ever had on Antietam. And that was just an example of a guy who didn't have the rank, he didn't have the title, but he had some vision and he was putting in and grinding to be ready. He was asking himself, if I'm in charge, what would I do? So that's another thing we can teach our people. Hey, here's how I do it. What would you do? And that's that's one way we can ensure continuity is by cultivating that independent and informed mindset in our team.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure whenever the succession hands off in your personal world out there, is you're gonna have the paperwork, you're gonna have the kind of administrative stuff there, but that's very important just because you can't mention everything in there. But I think the most important thing is what Chet said is you have to have that kind of person who thinks who thinks ahead, who is ready to take over at that point, who's like, what would I do in this situation? Because that's so important. Um, as you you either know a leadership position is coming your way, or you're going after it and applying for it, or you want to get it and know that there's going to be five, ten years before your current leader steps down. But prepare yourself for that as you take the active role and number one, being the best you can, and number two, just thinking yourself and do your own individual case studies in your head, and maybe even dissecting your leader's brain, like, why did you decide to do it X way instead of this way?

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yeah, so true.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

That's what I think. I'm trying to relate, uh well, edit this out, but I'm trying to relate to having just watched Hamilton again and how Hamilton's interaction with George Washington and how Hamilton was kind of like stretching his wanna wanting to do things. Fuck's sake. And uh Washington said, No, I need you in this role. And but where I yeah, I think Washington felt he could have been a successor to him. I'm trying to figure out how to word that.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

If I because I'm trying to remember my I read that Behemoth of a book about George Watson's biography, which is a phenomenal book, it just will take you forever to read. Is yeah, he saw an insane amount of talent in Hamilton, but Hamilton had that character flaw of his where he just couldn't back down from a fight and had to puff out his chest and was a little obtuse. And so I'm not sure that Washington thought him as a successor, but knew that he had good qualities in him that would make him a valuable ally in leadership. I'm trying to I'm thinking of the movie Last Samurai, pardon pardon our movie references, Galore audience members, but Last Samurai, Ken Watanabe, he's the leader of the samurai, and he's got his second in command. I for who he's the guy in the movie Shogun, or the show Shogun now, what's his name? I forget. But his second in command is a phenomenal, truly badass warrior, right? Gets shot in the chest, keeps on fighting, and kills a dozen more men before he goes down, kind of guy, right? But he knew that his second in command probably wasn't the best leader just because he was bombastic and out there and very stringent and didn't have the flexibility that a leader should have. I don't know. That's just my general thoughts and just pontificating.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

You can recognize that somebody has traits that are very useful, even leadership traits that are very useful within your organization, but may not be the right the right person to lead the organization overall. I think of Shakespeare's play Coriolanus, oh yeah, where he's a battlefield commander that of some great success, but really does not have the right personality to lead to be the political leader of the state.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

You had to trump my movie metaphor with a very elegant metaphor. Oh, there, JR.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

I mean, I I spent a lot of time at the Shakespeare theater of the Folders.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Nice. That's true, but that's also part of both the point you're both making, this idea that we have to know our kind of role, meaning what the job requires. And then we also have it's cold to say, but the leader needs to be able to see all aspects of their team as instruments of power, not necessarily just as people. So you want to treat them as people, but also know that they all bring individual strengths and have weaknesses that take away from the team too. So you want to align them. Really, the hard part is expressing this in some meaningful way so that people, when they take over for you, can do the same thing, right? They there's almost a mythic proportions that a good leader can take on. And if they don't actually communicate the fact that, one, they had indecision, two, they were leveraging the team, the actual team they had a certain way, it wasn't perfect, but they were playing to the strengths of their team. Though those are things that good leaders do, but maybe don't get doesn't get communicated to the ascending leader, so they don't realize they're supposed to do that.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

So on finding those leadership traits, if you've got the successor, can you bump them back to to where you need them versus just using them as using them as a tool of what you're doing? But can you get them closer to where you think they need to be in their leadership skills to be successful in the role? But also not make a clone of yourself. Because I think if we try to do that, I think ultimately we'll be it'll be a hollow victory. And I think that it will be it won't be as successful as we think. Even if we walk away from the organization with the incoming leader who I raised them from the and they think the same way that I do, and they they talk the same way that I do, and all of this, they're still not going to be successful because they aren't you. And the at the same time, you don't want the organization like to pine away for the leadership that you provided, and okay, this person's okay, but we really miss her, and she was great, and that was that was when the organization was greatest. You don't want that to happen. You realize too that it is going to happen if you have a very successful leader leaving that position for whatever reason that is on good terms, and that the coming after that, if they were popular, if they were successful, if they were really effective, that people were going to say things like that at least for a little while. And until that new leader is able to really settle in and their leadership style becomes better known and accepted. And referring back to the Star Trek episode that you with Captain Jerko, you have he's very effective, and he's got a very logical thought process as to why he's doing things a certain way. Had he communicated some of those better, I think then it would have led to less conflict amongst the amongst the staff. There's a similar experience when they're doing a war game and Data is in charge of the enterprise and makes Wharf his second in command. And I know I've talked about this scene before where he gives them some mentorship about it, but again, it's a different style. And one of the problems that the data needs to own is the fact that he wasn't communicating very well to his second-in-command of what his intent was and what his thought process was, which was a thought process that Worf could get behind.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Yeah, and there's some things that are you can assess once you've done some leadership, you can assess a person's stage of leadership by the way they either initially communicate, the way they handle conflict, the way they deal with being questioned or not. Because I see this in youth groups where, like in Boy Scouting or in our organizations like that, you'll see a young leader for the first time barking out orders, not really wanting to get sweaty and do the hard work, but they want everybody else to do it. And it's a classic novice leader move because in their mind, a leader is somebody who bosses people around. And it takes them a while. You see them learn that leading from the front is powerful and you don't always have to bark at everybody. Sometimes asking the question, hey, can somebody help me is even more effective. So some of that behavior is style, some of it is skill. And our job is hopefully as we lead, and this is what makes it so challenging, right? Anybody can have a leadership title, but to be really effective, you need to be good at your kind of organizational tasks, and then you really need to get into the uh developing the your team individually and as a group. And there's it's a pretty complex job, leadership.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

I think that one way that you can start with that succession planning, if you expect that your successor will come from your own organization, is to get them first off to recognize and talk about, maybe examine, maybe give them a an a a bit of homework to say, okay, what are your strengths as a leader, you personally? And what are your weaknesses as a leader? And so to get very introspective on that, and then you can start to work on all right, what do you think your leadership is going to look like for this organization? Where have you been unsuccessful in leading this organization? Because we're all going to have successes and failure. If you don't have any failures or you don't recognize them, then you've either done nothing or you're not very self-aware. And then so as a starting project for that incipient leader is all right, what do you what do you think you really bring to this to this role? How do you see your leadership? And okay, if you're going to run it this way, what sort of resistance do you think you're going to run into? And now let me as your mentor tell you where, okay, this is where I think you're going to run into some resistance, or this is a trait that you have that's very positive that you should lean on in your leadership role that will help you be more effective. And I had this conversation with someone that I was leading who had gotten some advice from another uh very accomplished physician leader who had told them to, well, you need to be this certain way, uh, you need to be aloof, you need to have distance between you and the medics. And this person I was leading was like, I'm not so sure about that. And my advice was look, I'm not discounting this advice that you've been given by somebody else who's very successful in this field. However, when you look at your strengths and what is making you successful, then it's not being aloof, it's not being having distance, it's actually leaning in and being very personable because that gives you a lot more a lot more leeway from the people that you are leading and a lot more personal adherence and personal admiration from them. So that was as they were trying to reconcile that advice from somebody else versus what they what they felt. My advice was no lean lean into your strengths. And then we can also talk about here's some other areas that that you need to that you need to develop.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Yeah, so so let's pivot a little bit here. We've talked about identifying the mentoring and mentoring potential successors, the role of continuity in leadership, how it doesn't fall apart. Let's now let's get to the point where like, all right, it's gonna happen. You're gonna hand over the keys. How do you navigate that as a leader or immediate past leader to the new leader?

SPEAKER_02 36:54

So I think part of it is knowing from day one that it's gonna happen and starting to make some emotional peace with that because if you're really enjoying it and have really given yourself into that role, it's gonna be hard to let go of it. I when I relinquished squadron command, I had emotional and mental connections with that squadron that I couldn't stop thinking about, oh, they have an inspection coming up, they're gonna need to do this, they're gonna need to do that, and then I'd catch myself and go, I'm not even in that unit anymore. I'm on vacation before I take my new job. Why am I thinking about this? To those of us that are personally invested, that's gonna happen. So it's important to know from day one that there is gonna be a day where you're gonna hand it off. So it we don't need to like live for that day, but we can start at least normalizing it in our minds so that it's not nearly as traumatic. And then the other is most of us have pride of workmanship. I want to lead well. And so we need to understand that the transition is a part of leading. It's like the follow-through in baseball swing, golf swing, whatever. The jump shot that you're gonna shoot. You need to make sure the follow-through is tight so that the whole shot is tight. It's realizing that the transition is an organic part of it. It's not a separate or distinct thing. And then there's a zen side to this too. You don't want to hold on so tight that it is your grip has to be broken before you let go. You need to be able to gently set it down and go, that was exceptional, and now I'm moving on. But a lot of this is mental preparation, and then what follows from that is the organizational and administrative stuff that you have to do to perform this leadership task well, because that's what it is. It's a leadership task. Or if you're an emergency person, it's a procedure. So we do pre-intubation, we do intubation, and then we have post-intubation things we have to do. So we pre-lead, we lead, and then there's post-leadership things we have to do.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

I think that when you make that transition, that the we have this idea of cool, I'm gonna promote this person to that leadership position, and I'll stay on as the CEO or the C O O or whatever. I really think you gotta make that a clean break in that once you're relinquishing your formal authority to somebody else, you have to relinquish it completely. And at that point, like still be an advisor to them. Have your you know answer the phone when they call, when they've got questions about stuff, but you need to step back completely from the organization because otherwise, people that are in that organization are still gonna look to you for decisions and opinions and how they should do things. And so you're gonna end up getting pulled into that, and the new leader is gonna be in a tough position because then they're the ones that are in charge of this. They have to they have to mitigate these issues, and they have to have the opportunity to do that. And if people are still calling the old leader all the time, okay, we want to do this, is it okay, we do that, and so forth, if they're in a position of formal authority, then there's gonna be some conflict there. So you need to give the new leader the opportunity to truly lead the organization, which means, hey, I'm out, I'm happy to give my opinion. But at this point, these decisions rest with the new leader.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Yeah, and as somebody who's actually currently going through that, I'm relinquishing my medical director of an emergency department, but taking over a bunch of VMS systems as an exchange. It happened much earlier than I anticipated, but I had planned ahead, and so right now I'm in the midst of succession, not planning, but succession action per se, of letting this person take over as I scale back. And I love what you said, Chet, which is so important for current leaders relinquishing their role, is it's a lot of mental preparation and a lot of kind of biting your tongue, but I equate that to letting you watching your kid grow and letting them make the mistakes that they have to make mistakes to become a better person, athlete, scholar, etc. etc. And it's always a little difficult to sit in your hands and just watch them struggle when you're like, this is what blah blah blah, this is what you would do. And it's very much like when way back when I was younger, I was a teaching resident, your first shift, you're so used to as a resident having so much detail and control over your patient, and then letting a rookie take over, and you want to guide them, but you're like, I can't take over, I have to let them do that. So that's so important to get that mental preparation and be like, no, I have to let this person feel how it is, and basically show your organization or the people who they lead, this is the person now that you're turning to. And I agree with you so much, JR, as well, that you know, when the transition finally happens November 1st, right? I am going to very purposely take a very strong step back and be very much absent from that emergency department deliberately and also just because I have to get used to my new role. But I agree that the immediate past leader, they're always there for the current leader to put things in context. And that's what the new leader has to recognize is listen, just because the old leader has left, they're never out of reach. They're always there to be like, why is cardiology so mean to us? Blah, blah, blah. So this is because X, Y, and Z happened and blah, blah, blah. So this is how I would navigate or how I've been navigating it when I was there. So the leader, the new leader put things in context because they don't necessarily have that institutional memory.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Yeah. And for our listeners, I think it's important to realize if you're on the outbound end of that, that there's lessons to be learned, say, from the military. The reason we have change of command or change of responsibility for senior enlisted, the reason we do these things is it's a visible public transition that shows that Carot is out and is in or Moy is in, that kind of thing. So now we all see it and we all know that's the commander now. That one is no longer the commander. So it's they would hear about it anyway, but doing it visibly is a good way of sending that message and making it a finite breakpoint. And then if we are the incoming person, then we have to be aware also that it's important to be humble about it. If I have some questions, assuming the person who left on good terms, you know, I shouldn't be prideful about reaching out and go, yeah, we got this inspection coming up. I've got a couple questions for you. A lot of times we, as we ascend into those positions, feel obligated to know everything and be everything. And then we it's a disservice to the organization if we do that too much. Equally, it's a disservice if we don't take charge when we are in charge. That's a problem too. You don't want to be too hesitant. But I think in our career, we're gonna be on both sides of that at some point. So you just want to see it from both perspectives.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Part of the service that you provide to the new leader is is supporting their leadership. As supporting their leadership is when people reach out to you and it's assuming that you've been a successful leader and people trust you and ask stuff, and the new leader comes in and they'll reach back out to you. And it is important for you to emphasize that authority that they have and say, this is their this part's their decision, or this may be what they're thinking, or you need to bring this up with them and give them an opportunity to talk about it, but to better understand what their thought process is. So if you're in that spot, I again it feels really good when people reach out to us to talk to us, but it's it is so important for us to put that back to say, yeah, this is a good question for you to ask this leader. And also speaking well of them, like not saying, I don't know what they're thinking. Like obviously they're thinking something. Don't undermine that that leader, but instead say, Okay, we're there, I've got some ideas as to what they're thinking with this decision, but you really need to ask them what's what's on their mind.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Yeah, I think we've we've hit all the major points of leadership transition, successful succession planning, a big alliteration there. Identifying and mentoring potential successors, the role of continuity in leadership and navigating leadership handovers. So I guess we take it to our next section of our podcast. What do we want to do? Do we want to do books, want to do movies, persons? What are we thinking?

SPEAKER_02 45:31

So I'll tell you, I had some fiction and nonfiction recommendations, if that's interesting. If it's movies, I haven't really seen any new ones recently, so I'll probably dredge up something something older.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

I'm trying to think of movies, huh?

SPEAKER_00 45:47

I just took my 12-year-old to see Demon Slayer, but I honestly don't have any good examples. And I don't think there's a whole lot of people in the audience that would get it if I did.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

That's funny. I mean, my my my daughter's four years old, I could talk about K-pop Demon Hunters. And the music is awesome. And Chet, I know you have two sons, but if if they if you have to have a chance, you just want to watch something that doesn't require much thinking, check out K-pop Demon Hunters. And you might like the music a lot, but they're the main character, Rumi, is a good job with just leadership. She has this goal that she's willing to sacrifice everything for, but it bites her in the butt in the long term, and it's about how she has to swallow her pride and say, No, I'm imperfect, but I need my team to be with me to help me support and get to the new goal. If we're gonna do movies, that's what I would say. Cool. But we can do books too.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

I'll do uh fiction and nonfiction. I'll mention Hamilton and the relationship between George Washington and Alexander Hamilton in as depicted in the play, the musical, is and how Washington was navigating with this subordinate who was very effective, a very effective communicator, and how he Washington saw that Hamilton would could communicate effectively on his behalf, but it wasn't consistent with what Hamilton wanted to be doing, what Hamilton's career goals were, and the he's gotta he's dealing with a bit of an upstart here with Hamilton who's pushing back on him, and then at one point Washington has to really reel him in and say that you're not conveying what I want you to with this.

SPEAKER_02 47:39

All right. For you two, if you like thrillers or mystery who done it type stuff, then I'd say there's an author named Mark Cameron who used to be a U.S. Marshal stationed in Alaska. So he's written these books, they're sequential mysteries and thrillers, about a U.S. marshal named Arles Cutter who's stationed out there in Alaska. So there's a good deal of kind of wilderness kind of backdrop to everything that happens. So it's a law enforcement kind of story, but Arles Cutter is an old school guy who grew up, was raised by his grandfather, and finds himself in all these crazy situations. He's a former like straight out of high school army and then army ranger, 3rd battalion guy who leaves the army and then joins the U.S. Marshals because he likes hunting down bad guys. So really interesting, cool character arc for Arlus Cutter. He's a pretty likable dude anyway, but then he's growing as a person as he goes through these stories. So it's cool. Another one you've probably heard of, it's quite a bit more famous, written by former Navy SEAL Jack Carr. He wrote The Terminal List and then, which has I think become an Amazon Prime Video series. Uh, and then there's a prequel on there now called A Dark Wolf. But if you read the books, Jack Carr's Terminal List books, there, those are those are pretty good too. So two fiction thriller series. For non-fiction, I'd say I'm reading a book called Managing Leadership Anxiety by a guy named, what did I write down here? By a guy named Steve Cuss. Worth taking a look at. It's called Managing Leadership Anxiety Yours and Theirs. And he breaks down the uh various aspects of leadership that might cause friction points within us and between us and the people we lead. So really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

So from non-fishing example, seeing the Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell talking about this end-of-game fight between Brian Branch and Juju Smith Schuster. And Campbell really just says very clearly, apologizes on behalf of the apologizes to the coach and and to the to the Chiefs and on behalf of the organization, very clearly said, this is not what we do here. It's just it's unacceptable. And I think that is a I thought it was a great example of taking ownership for the actions of a player, but at the same time not really throwing him under the bus of saying what an idiot or anything like that, but just saying, yeah, we're taking responsibility for this and we're going to be working through this. And I just I just appreciated that so much in how he set that tone, and that's obviously going to be clear within the Lions organization, but I think others will look at that uh example positively as well. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Trying to think another movie I saw was Superman. Yeah, see that movie? Yeah. Oh yeah, the new one. The new one, it's very good. It's uh it's a nice character study. But, anyways, we want to talk about it here and everything. I was just trying to think of recent movies I've seen.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

How can we not think of an example? We're just trying to think of a last time we got out of the house.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Sinners the movie I've seen then. I'm watching that. I guess it's yeah. Anyways, all right, cool. I think that's it for this episode.

unknown 51:09

Sweet.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

That was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

Before we sign off on something, you guys are amazing. And this podcast thing was bouncing around my head for so long, but uh my interaction with you has made it more than words. It became real. I'm so excited that we actually did this and that there's more coming. So I appreciate both of you very much.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Oh, ditto, man. And we're inching towards that finish line. It's always, if you guys ever run an endurance race, you're like two miles out from the finish line, it's like the longest two miles of your line. Right?

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Only 110 miles to go on this bike ride.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Only 110. Yeah, that's true. But no, I really appreciated this. And the cool thing is that when I mention that we're working on this to other folks, just how excited other people are like, dude, you gotta send me the link to it. I'm like, I know we haven't published it yet, but you know there there's a lot of excitement around it, and so I can't wait to uh to publish this.