Leadership Starts with Self-Reflection

Leadership isn’t a title—it’s an inner journey. 

In this Relationships at Work episode, Kyle McDowell shares why self-reflection is the essential first step to leading with integrity and impact. We talk about ego, self-awareness, the “mirror of truth,” and how knowing your blind spots isn’t weakness—it’s leadership strength. If you want to lead others, you have to lead yourself first.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: Now I was gonna ask, and you kind of answered it, but I'm kind of curious to your thoughts of like, whose principles are these? You've, when you're talking about principle-based leadership, there is the 10 WEs, but there's also people may go, well, they're my principles and I'm imposing them on my team or my organization, or they pulling it from the organization themselves.

Or they just using the 10 WEs as a framework going, you know what? I'm gonna start with these 10 and I'll figure it out.

Kyle McDowell: So I, I'll give you the, the way I approached this. So when I created the principles, I shared them the next, the next morning, and I was really direct with the team. I, I don't care if you embrace all 10, you want to add to, but these are the 10 I. They don't have to be the 10 WEs. They, they can be, you could dream them up anytime, any place.

I would, I would encourage a lot of self-reflection when we come up with these, these principles. But my, my goal in spreading the message of principle-based leadership more specifically to 10 WEs is not, is not isolated to just those 10. It's what I've chosen. They work for me. But everybody's different.

Everybody's leadership style is different. My urging is to just create and document your principles and share them widely and be really overt in setting expectations about them and with them. So it can be, you don't, they don't have to be the WEs, they don't have to be 10, but they have to be established is my position.

Russel Lolacher: How is this different than, say, a values-based leadership or service-based leadership? Because I could Google style leadership styles and get 173 of them tomorrow. So how is this differentiating itself or is it just foundational to other styles.

Kyle McDowell: I, I think the, I think principle-based leadership or principle, principles in general augment and enable the value. So, and a lot of organizations, the values or sometimes even the mission statements are kind of like these aspirational sentences or groups of, or set of words that communicate who we are and what we do externally. The principles in my mind enable that communica, enable the delivery of those values. So, for example, my favorite example, actually, there's a, there's a firm that I used to work with whose mission statement was helping consumers on their paths to better health. Who's gonna, who's gonna disagree with that?

It's beautiful, but it doesn't compel me to work any harder, any more collaboratively. It doesn't place an emphasis on excellence. So what it, so what I have found, and I've had organizations and very senior people say, well, we can't have the WEs replace our values. And that's not the intention, they enable. So the principles are much more action-based oriented. They are they are actionable, they are quantifiable in many ways. So they just, they add a finer point and provide a little more direction and guidance than say just a value or mission statement.

Russel Lolacher: I, I love vision and missions. I think they're completely vital to any organization. I think most organizations are horrible at them, but I, I still believe that they're so integral to the forward movement. And can it be inspiring if done well, if communicated well, if connected to the... Do you see the, the principle based leadership or the principles, sort of that connective tissue because it's, it's not like these can go away, and that's why I always get bothered when teams will go, well, we have our own vision.

I'm like. But there is a vision already. Like I get that you need your own motivation because it's very personal to you and it what motivates you. And I get that, but you can't work in a vacuum either. You have to be part of the larger organization fixing the larger problems. Is that sort of the connective tissue piece that we're looking at?

Kyle McDowell: It should be. It should be. Yeah, and it's your, your comment and question is really, really a good one because I, as I mentioned, and I'll go, I'll go a little bit deeper, is I've worked with firms that they hold their mission statement so close and, and with so much affection. However, if you ask the masses of the people inside the organization, most of them can't recite it. They, they, they can't even recite a few words of it unless they're walking by the wall on which it is displayed. And when I get that kind of pushback, it's like, I am not here to test, to test or, or criticize or scrutinize your mission statement. I'm here to help drive the enabling of that mission.

I've had, I've had people kind of gimme the Heisman to say, we're not going deeper with these principles. We love to talk. We love the principle-based leadership, however they threaten our values, which I think is us being married to kind of leadership tactics or approaches of the past. I think you and I might disagree a bit.

I, I think mission statements are wonderful tools for explaining who we are externally, but again, behind the curtains, I don't think they do anything to motivate.

Russel Lolacher: Fair. I, I can't help but see the we of it all. And as you were talking, when you came with your epiphany in the middle of the night, which is always the time, these Jerry McGuire moments always seem to happen that way. For those that are the Gen Z Jerry McGuire was a movie with Tom Cruise that you should definitely check out.

So needless to say, us as me as a Gen Xer, I will say I see the WE-ness of it all, but that makes me go back to what problem were you trying to fix when you came up with this principle, based these principles? You talk about your own personal journey with apathy, but I immediately think of me, the me culture that may have been, and, and maybe I'm just jumping to that conclusion because we seems like a fix to a me culture.

Am I wrong?

Kyle McDowell: You are not wrong. You're not wrong that it wasn't the intention though. So when I, when I stepped into this role, and I'd been in the position maybe 60 days before creating the principles. And what I had, had, what I observed that I think compelled me. There were two driving factors that compelled me to document these principles.

By the way, the night before I'm in the hotel room, had no idea what I was gonna say. I was a bit terrified because I knew this was a kind of a gut check transitional moment for me. I had no idea it would take me to the places it's taken me since then. There was no muse on my shoulder. I, I, I sensed... the first factor. I sensed a, a fair amount of siloed paradigms. So if my, this is a 15,000 person organization, I had seven directs. Each of them had, at a minimum, a few hundred employees, and they viewed, and I love this group, so it's hard to be critical this many years later. This is back in 2017. They viewed their success almost exclusively by the performance of the group that they led.

Not more kind of programmatic macro level success. So there's some silos and a bit of sandboxes. Were, were needed to kind of traverse the, so that was probably the, the number one factor. And the second was, and you, you know this better than I do probably Russel is most organizations do a fair job, if not a really good job bringing new, new, new employees into the fold, telling them how to do their job. The, the SOPs, the, the nuts and bolts, the X's and O's of the role that they have assumed. I think by and large, most companies do an okay job at that, if not better than, okay. Where nearly every organization falls short is establishing similar expectations for the behavior.

So the how we know what we do, we train for that, but how we get there is an entirely different conversation. So my goal was to establish guardrails and they could serve as any type of defense for adversity that we're facing for tough decisions that we have to make. You know, essentially for every day, every interaction.

So those were the two driving factors. Now I'd, I'd be dishonest if I said it was met with a rousing response and people were on board. I would say half the group was, a quarter of the group was skeptical but optimistic, and then there was a quarter of the group, you know, classically classic bell that, that they were obstinate.

They just thought I was full of it. 'cause they'd seen guys like me come and go. And so I wanted to really focus on setting those expectations. And I've led with those expectations of, if you see me behave any way contrary to any one of these principles, I, I'd literally said, grab me by the ear. Nobody did, but I said that.

I said, just because know this, I will hold you accountable just as accountable, no leadership gap to these same expectations. And I think leveling the playing field right outta the gate had a, had an impact bigger than I'd probably understood at the time.

Russel Lolacher: I wanna talk about accountability in a minute. 'cause that's a huge blind spot I think in a lot of organizations. But first, I. Dial back a bit and go, as a leader, how do I know? Is there any canary in a coal mine? Is there any beige flags that we need to be looking for to go, you know what, this shift is necessary within my organization.

Where maybe we're not going in the, you know, the healthiest culture, or we're focusing way more on the ends justify the means as opposed to the journey to get there. How do we know?

Kyle McDowell: Well, the, the, the most straightforward and simple way is you just have to ask, I'm not naive in, in thinking that everyone's gonna be as open and, and share, you know exactly what they're thinking, especially to a brand new leader. But asking questions, you know, really open-ended questions, and not just listening, but hearing their responses and, and taking them to heart.

Taking them with a grain of salt in some cases, depending on the size of the organization, right? I'm a big fan of engagement surveys. I'm a big fan of anonymous feedback engines or loops, whatever that is. The, my, my bigger point is, or whatever technology works for you or approach. My bigger point though, is if you're gonna ask those questions, you must be prepared to take action on what you hear, even if that action is, hey.

I hear you. Not a bad idea. Maybe it is a bad idea, but now's not the time. We're gonna put this over here in a corner and check in with me, or I'll check in with you and, you know, let's set 30, 60, 90 days or whatever. It's a great idea and, and we're gonna put it in the queue, but we just can't take action.

And here's the why. Why are we not doing something or why are we doing something? So I think asking, having I'm a big fan of skip level meetings as well, so I just, I, I just believe in, you know, almost sometimes dangerous transparency, you know, unless it's something confidential, I can't share. I, I just believe in asking questions, hear, asking the awkward questions, and being open to hearing them.

What do you, what do you think? How do you assess it?

Russel Lolacher: I think, I think curiosity is by, so I think first off, I think so I always talk if you want great leadership, you need three things, self-awareness, situational awareness and great communication. You need to know yourself, know your team and organization, and know how to connect with them, and that's where the communication comes into it.

So I think if you have a deeper understanding of those three things, you'll know your organization well enough to know what it needs. If it is vacant of values, if it is, to your point, mission and visions are posters on walls and websites. And there's a disconnect between the words said and the actions taken, then those actions need to be better aligned.

Much like your WEs is okay, well we need to, we need to close that gap because that gap is where trust with between employees and leadership is lost. Because the bigger that gap is, the more employees aren't stupid. They see what you say and what you don't do. So to have a blueprint, or at least to your point ins inspiration to go, no, no, no, we need to show our leadership, not just say, we're leaders,

Kyle McDowell: Right.

Russel Lolacher: is what I think these, this is what these principles do for me.

But not everybody's from the same song sheet, Kyle. Like, I'm looking at these, you know, looking at these principles. We lead by example. We say what we're gonna do, then we do it. We take action. We admit mistakes. Love them. However, leadership is not in a great place. Leadership is not trained. Leadership is a bunch of people that applied for jobs just to get more money, not 'cause they were qualified, because they just want, they just wanna move up the ladder and people just want bum in seats.

So we perpetuate this under qualification in leadership roles. So to embrace something like this, this principle base, these principles. Where does a leader need to be? What, how do they qualify to be ready to put these principles into place? Where's their mindset need to be?

Kyle McDowell: Man. There's a lot to unpack there. Yeah. Right. No, no. It's a, it's a really great question and, and framed so well. The I do, I do, I wanna push back on one component of the question, though.

Russel Lolacher: Sure.

Kyle McDowell: There's nobody named leadership.

Russel Lolacher: Hmm.

Kyle McDowell: You know what I mean? I could not agree more with you. There's this cycle that happens.

Let's pretend you and I are on the same team. Our boss just got a promotion. That role is now opened and I think, man, I wanna make some more money. I want to tell people what to do. I want, I want to be a leader. So I throw my hand up well. Our former boss is now the, the fellow or, or, or or woman in charge of hiring into the role that they just left 'cause they got promoted.

We've loathed the approach that this man, you and I, we, we lo we have loathed the, the, the approach, the way this person treats us, how they behave, how they prioritize their communication. We're inclined to mirror that behavior. We want to endear ourselves, right? This is the perpetuation you talk about. So I, I, I couldn't, I couldn't respond with a disagreement without telling you how much I completely agree with this thing.

And until somebody steps up inside of a team, inside of an organization inside the world to say, this is no longer how we do things. It's a new day. As you said, leadership is in a, I think you said dark place or a bad place. Couldn't agree more. So how do you know you're ready to make that transition? I'll go back to what you said, man.

It, it's, it is, it is probably the most important aspect of an impactful leader. I mean, we could argue about a couple of other kind of approaches, you know, empathy, communication's, important, self-reflection. That's where it's at, dude, self-reflection. Am I, am I comfortable in the shoes that I wear? Am I okay sharing the things that I'm not good at? Being transparent about my, my blind spots? Because as you said, dude, it's so true. The blind spots I'm trying to hide from my team, they could describe them intimately. They know those blind spots that I'm trying to, they know what I'm not good at already. So hiding them creates this lack of relatability and inauthenticity.

And then it's impossible to establish trust. So if you, if you're questioning if you're ready for it or not. We have to first understand where we sit individually on this spectrum and the spectrum is, I, I would say on one end of the spectrum is everything's about me. I only care about me, my raise, my promotion, it's all about me.

The other end of the spectrum is completely selfless and focused on, you know, those around you. I think most people sit in the middle, if not towards the left side of that spectrum. So having that self-reflection or that moment, I, I call it the mirror of truth. And it's a metaphor just for saying either a confidant that I can really rely on to tell me the stuff that I may not want to hear.

Or have I evolved enough where I can do it quietly in a, in a place where I'm not gonna be interrupted. You know, it's not meditation, it's not just kinda like staring at my navel. It's thinking through things. And that's, that's the process I went through when I created the principles. It's like, what did I, what have I disliked the previous two decades?

Where do I want to go and what impact do I wanna have? What leadership legacy do I wanna establish? It's two words A lot of people don't use together leadership and legacy. So once you, once you reach a point where the self-reflection is something that you're comfortable with, and I have to tip a cap to i'm a, I'm such a fanboy and of a guy named Harry Kramer. He's the former CEO of Baxter International. He's a professor at Kellogg School of Management now. He wrote a book called From Values to Action, and one, he has four values that he opines on in the, and I think it might be the first, but it's regardless.

It's, it's true self-confidence. And self-reflection is another one. So if I can have the self-reflection and really be comfortable in the things that I'm good at, not be an asshole or arrogant about it, but just, you know, check the tape. These are the things that I'm, I'm pretty good at. And augment those things that I'm not so good at with a really great team around me.

That's the recipe for success. If you have that moment of self-reflection or multiple moments, 'cause it's an ongoing process of self-reflection and you recognize that there might be a way, a better way. That provides more fulfillment and greater impact than you, than you are having at the moment. So how do I get there? And it's, it's, it's a mistake to read a book, to go to a seminar, to watch a, a podcast, to come back in the next day and say, here's who we are. I'm gonna lead differently today. I. Because it's not a light switch decision. What I have done and what I encourage those that I work with today is establish the principles. 10 WEs. Great. If not, don't care, but establish what they are and share them widely. Set the expectation and then back away. And live it, every single day, not just every day, every interaction, because they're watching, as you said, Russel, they're watching to see if your actions and your words align. So long story short, do the self-reflection.

Find the gaps of, of where you are and what you want to be and the impact you want to have and create the expectations that will, that will essentially be the bridge between those two places. And don't walk away from 'em. Be open to pushback. Be open to maybe someone saying, those aren't the right, that's not the right list of principles.

And then we talk about it and we communicate and come back and forth and we land on what's perfect for us. That, that's the approach I would recommend.