Blue Collar Culture

Business Results the Old Fashioned Way

Gary Varnell | I’m My Team’s Problem

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On this week’s episode of the Blue Collar Culture Podcast, we speak with leadership expert Gary Varnell. Gary has over 35 years of corporate business and business ownership experience across five different industries, has worked in sales, sales management, training, and has even been a COO for a national company. Today, he is very passionate about helping people develop their leadership, sales, goal setting, and planning skills. We hope that by the end of this episode, you’ll walk away with the inspiration to take immediate action.

“To me, the biggest myth about leadership is that because someone runs a company, or someone is promoted to a position of authority, they automatically think they’re a leader. That is the furthest thing from the truth out there. People will follow someone who actually they look up to, admire, and respect, so it’s who we become that they follow, not our position,” says Gary.

We chat about more myths around leadership, as well as:

  • Becoming a better leader through personal growth
  • Cleaning up baggage and being able to admit mistakes
  • Developing leaders and building trust within your team
  • The importance of incremental goals and successes
  • And more

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Transcript

Ryan Englin: Hi, my name is Ryan Englin. I am the co-host of the Blue Collar Culture Podcast. Welcome to another episode. I'm here with Jeremy Macliver.

Jeremy Macliver; Welcome back, everybody.

Ryan: I'm really excited about today's guest because he is an expert in leadership. And leadership is something that I am very passionate about. There are a lot of different ways to think about leadership. And leadership is something that we all have to do, whether we're leading somebody else or leading ourselves. He actually has over 35 years of corporate business and business ownership experience. He's been in five different industries. He's done sales management training. He's even been a CEO for a national company. And today he is very passionate about helping people develop their leadership sales goal setting and planning skills. And no matter what, by the end of today's episode, you will walk away with the inspiration to take immediate action. I want to welcome Gary Varnell, to the show.

Gary Varnell: Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, Jeremy. I'm really excited to be here today.

Ryan: So Gary, leadership is one of those topics that everybody has an opinion on but there are some things about leadership that just simply aren't true. There are the myths about being a good leader. Can you break one of those down for us right now?

A Person in a Position of Leadership isn’t Necessarily a Leader

Gary: Absolutely. That's one of my passions too. And to me, the biggest myth, this is a huge myth, is that because someone runs a company or someone is promoted to a position of authority, they automatically think you're a leader. That is the furthest thing from the truth out there. If people will follow someone who actually, they look up to, admire and respect, so it's who we become that they follow, not our position.

Ryan: Hmm. So what I hear you saying is there are actually levels to leadership?

Gary: Absolutely. There are levels.

Ryan: Okay. And so for a lot of the business owners out there, if they're struggling with getting their team to buy in, if they're struggling, getting their team to follow them, what are some things, what are some challenges that you see, some things they might be able to do to overcome those challenges that you can share with us?

Gary: Well, some of the challenges are what I just said, if they think there is a leader but they're just the boss and they're just telling people what to do and they're not getting people to buy into the vision, to the goals that they've set, that's one of the problems that people find is they don't have people buy in if they don't develop a culture that these people want to be involved with, then people will do the minimum. They'll just do what they have to do to get by and that's it.

Ryan: Hmm. So before we jump into how to get them to buy in, what do we need to do as individuals to determine where we're at and what kind of effort we need to put into becoming the leader like you're talking about?

Gary: Well, I think the first thing we have to do is to look at ourselves in the mirror and who we are because people follow that person. They follow who you are internally, that person that has integrity. They have to look up to, admire and respect you. If you're that individual, Ryan, I'll tell you right now, people will follow you anywhere, they will do extra for you, and they will buy into your vision and your plan.

Jeremy: I love that, how you describe that. So it almost sounds surreal, though. How do we jump into that? So I'm a leader I said, so I say, Wow, I don't have that. Or my employees currently don't possess that. What is something that I should start doing? Where would we start?

Work on Yourself Before Your Team

Gary: I think you have to work on yourself first. Personal growth. Here's What I, when I'm speaking on this subject in a large group of executives or a company, I ask them to throw out a word that describes someone that they look up to, admire, respect and that they follow. And some of those words are things like honesty, integrity, ethics, moral, sincere, caring, all these words. It's kind of funny, people think it's all about the skills of the leader and that's about 20% of it. It's about 80%, who that person is that they follow. So we have to work on ourselves, we do have to have the skills in the position or you lose respect. However, they're going to follow you. You're the person that they follow. So it's all about developing who you are. And that's where it all starts.

Jeremy: So when you say this about personal growth and starting with that, I definitely can buy into that. What would I do first, or right at the very beginning of starting that personal growth journey? Like, how do I assess myself? What do I, how do I change my team up? What do I do?

Gary: Well, I think, some of the things I've done, let me start there, is I ask people close to me who would give me an honest answer to evaluate me. I mean, there's tests. I have a leadership test that I can share. But it shows who you are, how you do things, and how people will respond. And it kind of rates you want to level up where you are. And like, was mentioned earlier, is there are levels of leadership. You know, there's all kinds of things that we have to do to get from one level to the other. But it's all about working on ourselves And knowing that direction. And there's a lot of books out there that people can read that can actually help them move into leadership from management. And then it can help them move through those levels once they know what they are.

Ryan: I want to dig into this leadership test and just being able to assess, to understand where we're at. I know for me personally, there have been growth periods in my leadership ability and to what you brought up earlier, a lot of times it comes down to the things we value like integrity and honesty, what I call more of the soft skills. But if I'm looking at myself for a second, and I say, you know what, I want to know where I'm at, so I can know how to get to the next level. There's this leadership test. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Like, what are some of the things that I'm gonna learn by taking a leadership test?

Gary: It's kind of, I would say that it's more of an internal look at yourself. It does discuss your skill levels, but it is more geared towards the characteristics that you have that are going to make you a good leader or an average leader. Some of those, like to me, service is to me huge. Leaders think that they're up there telling people what to do. Leaders are there to serve those people that are working with them that are following them to help them develop into the point where they could be leaders, or they could do the job on their own. So to me, we have to look inwardly, and that's what this test does. It asks you questions that when you answer them from the scale that's on there, it will show if that's a strong trait in you. Maybe you have to develop if it's not. So to me, that's what you have to do. That's where you have to start.

Ryan: Okay. So with your definition, and I know there's going to be a lot of varying opinions out there, but with your definition of leadership, what we're talking about today, leaders can be made. They're not necessarily born, is that correct?

Gary: I think you can develop leadership. You can develop the skills in your industry that you're in. You can also develop as an individual. I think a lot of people think that they have to be the loudest person in the room or the most gregarious person in the room to be a leader. That is not true. There are people that I followed that were very quiet but when they, because they were listening, and listening is a huge skill for a leader. But they listened a lot. But when they said something, it was so astute and so important and so right on point. So, you know, that's another myth about leadership too.

Jeremy: You know, Gary, as well as when you say that about that quiet person in the room, it makes me think, one of the things that we coach our clients on is they're getting clear on their vision and creating accountability. First of all, we work only at the leadership level for a little while. Because if the leaders aren't accountable and the leaders aren't clear, the rest of the organization, there's nothing to do down there.

Gary: Absolutely.

Jeremy: But one of the things that we've found is, while the leadership team is quote-unquote, the leaders, there are a few people within the organization, sometimes we call them the naysayers, the ones that are gonna give us the biggest kickback or whatever, but there's a few people out there in the organization that we know that if they become on our side, their a little whisper, their little action is going to monumentally change our organization. And so getting a hold of those people, those are the leaders. Those are the people that have had very thoughtful decisions, thoughtful ways that they've communicated, whether positively or negatively towards the company, that's really irrelevant to that because if they've led, if they bought into the people's voice negatively, they still own that. And so I just think about that, when you say it that those are whatever, the quiet leaders in the organization.

Gary: Absolutely. And you know what, those quiet leaders if they're given the opportunity to share their voice, you have to give them confidence to share their voice because they sometimes don't feel that what they have to say is valuable. And that comes down to culture. You know, if you have a culture where you share ideas, you want others to share ideas and get involved, that quiet person, once you get them started and involved, they can get on a roll and they can really enhance the organization as you just mentioned.

Jeremy: Absolutely. And I've actually found that a lot of times the ones that are those naysayer ones, we stepped on them somewhere along the way and they're extremely passionate people. They're just a little quieter. And so they've, unfortunately, looked at other sources to share their ideas. They've built a base out of it, and we're suffering from it. But if we can turn that, and you're exactly right, listen to what they have to say, wow, we can make some big changes.

Gary: Well, think about it. If they've been stepped on, if they've been told that they are of little value, you know, they've been crushed, their ego, their, who they are as an individual, their value of themselves, that means that they don't believe in themselves. And in my mind, everything starts in your belief system. Everything starts in your mindset. So if you can help them change that by the recognition you give them for the successes they have and for, you know, encouraging them and encouraging them to speak, encouraging them to share ideas. Say hey, I want to hear your ideas. Those are the things that bring not just life to that person, but life to the whole group.

Jeremy: So Gary, let me ask you this. So I'm a leader, I'm listening to this and I'm thinking, wow, I could think of a couple people that I've maybe stepped on. There's some baggage out there with my leadership. I'm ready to turn the quarter, I'm ready to do positive, you know, work on myself, I'm ready to internally grow. How do I clean up that baggage? Because that's out there and that's what people see and they're not going to see this change I'm doing internally.

Gary: You know, that's a great question. And I feel it's really important because you are the leader to admit mistakes. People do not, and I'll say that loud, people do not expect the leader to be perfect, but they do expect a leader to, you know, when they make a mistake, admit it, fix it, move forward, apologize for it. When you do those kinds of things, that integrity, that respect that people give you is just enhanced and we have to move to where we have influence with people. Leadership is influence, nothing more. That means that they follow you voluntarily because you do those types of things and that changes everything.

Ryan: Wow, I think that's great. Being able to put yourself out there and heal those broken relationships with people on your team. So one of the things that I see happen a lot is I work with a lot of visionary leaders. These are the ones that have this shiny object syndrome. They're pulling people in 100 different directions because they're the ones that have 100 ideas by breakfast, Jeremy and I always joke, maybe one or two of them's actually good, but they're always telling their team, we're going to go left. No, we're going to go right. We're going to do this, we're going to do that. But then they get frustrated when their team is always turning to them and saying, Hey, boss, where do we go next? Where's the next turn in the road? And their team is not stepping up and being leaders. And earlier you'd mentioned growing leaders, or maybe that wasn't the term you used but that's what I heard, was developing other leaders. So what practical tips could you give someone, maybe some things to work on for these leaders that are frustrated because their team is not stepping up? How do they get started in developing new leaders?

Don’t Just Give Out Answers

Gary: One mistake that a lot of leaders make is they give people all the answers. And if you continue to just feed people you spoon, feed them answers, they're going to stay right where they are. But when you start asking them questions, they ask you Well, how do we do this? Well, how would you do this? When you start having them explain it to you, what happens now is they start thinking for themselves. Until you get them to think for themselves, there is no growth towards leadership. There is no development towards leadership because that's what a leader is. And you talked about the confusion part of this. I just want to just touch on that a bit. It's confusing for people. People follow a leader and look up to a leader. You have influence when they have a clear vision of where they want to go. They have clear goals of where they want to go and they put that into a plan of action, that's when people feel comfortable, feel confident, and that leader has more influence with his team.

Ryan: Hmm. So let me just repeat back what I heard make sure I got this right. So if I'm a leader who's struggling to get my team to lead, it's less about my team and more about me and my actions with my team if I want to develop them into good leaders. Is that right?

Gary: Absolutely. It's all about you. It's I mean, it starts, leadership starts and ends with you. That's it. It doesn't, it's nothing else. And until we can fit that into our mindset and until we figure out how to work with that, like I mentioned, you know, ask people questions. Okay, you have a question about this, how would you do this? What would you expect out of this? Then they start thinking for themselves, they start being the leaders and they can actually emulate that down the line to people that might work with them or for them.

Ryan: Wow. So leadership starts and ends with me.

Gary: Exactly.

Ryan: Wait a minute. I feel all this pressure all of a sudden. So when things start going the way I want, it's my fault. So what are some other things that we can do? So I love that letting them answer the question, giving them ownership over the things, the problems that they're dealing with. What are some other things we can do to, for ourselves, I guess, what are some of the things you could do for me so that I can become a little better leader and start developing better leaders? Gary: Well, when I said about asking the questions is, we have to start holding, setting goals not just for them, but with them. So we have them part of the goal-setting process for their group or for their project, whatever that happens to be.

But then we have to let them do it. Most leaders are not really leaders, they're managers and they keep looking over the shoulder and they're not letting that person step up to do it. When you let them step up and do it and they start having successes, you're gonna have some failures. That's when we train. That's when we help them. That's when we come in, not for the rescue, but come to help them out of that situation. But when you allow them to do that, that's when they start building confidence. That's when they start saying, Wow, I can do more than I thought. And, you know, people can do way more than they think they can do. They just don't have that confidence because the leader has not instilled that in them.

Jeremy: Gary, I love that. You know, when we're working with teams and helping them, we call it rocks or goal setting, right? And so often, the leaders like well, just go do this, go do that. I'm like, if you give a rock, you have to carry the rock. You own it because it's yours. You just tried to handing it off to someone. And so one of the things I've noticed a really handing this off and I'd love to hear your expertise on how you see to get these goals set, one thing I've really been coaching is the first round of this, your only goal as a leader is for them to set a goal and achieve it. Now that does not mean that the goal is good.

It doesn't mean it moves the company forward as far as you think it should. It doesn't mean anything else other than we're just trying to get that person that we're leading to buy into a goal and move it forward. And a lot of times, they're going to play it safe the first round. And once we hit that, where they've actually are moving stuff forward, they start taking bigger and bigger things and their confidence grows. They start at some point, I see the leaders come back, oh, you won't believe what my team's decided they're going to do this quarter. And this is going to change us. But they had to ease into it. They were nervous. They are scared. What are some other ways, maybe, that we can work on that?

Building Your Team’s Confidence

Gary: Well, what you just said, the incremental successes, are a huge part of building that confidence. So when you take any part of the process of success, which is what you just said, goal setting, it's always nice to have them involved. If you want to develop a leader they have to be involved in everything from creating a vision, helping you with ideas on the vision, to ideas on the plan to the goal setting, and then the daily activities that are necessary to accomplish that goal. It doesn't matter to me what industry it is. There's three to five things that matter most, to create success or to bring in the revenue from that organization. And those are the three to five things that those people need to understand, be involved in helping develop, so that they can see the what and the why. so that they understand the process of how it works. Because to be a true leader, you need to understand the whole process, not just one part of the process.

Ryan: Yeah, I think that's great. And I love that the idea of, would you call it the incremental goals, giving them the little wins, and then they get a little more confident and as their confidence grows, they turn into a stronger leader.

Gary: Absolutely. The world is at their fingertips once they have that confidence.

Ryan: Yeah, and I absolutely agree. And I've seen it before. As human beings, we are capable of so much more than we think we can do. And I think sometimes we just need someone to have a little bit of belief in us so that we can create belief in ourselves.

Gary: You know, that's a fact, Ryan. That's so true.

Ryan: So let's say that I'm one of those leaders and I started asking these questions. What would you do? How would you handle it? You made a comment that they might not always get it right. And I always share, especially with business owners, you can never expect your people to do it as fast as you would. You can never have that expectation. It only takes me 30 minutes. It takes them an hour. So I might as well just do it. It'll get done faster. That sends the wrong message. So what do you, what should I do as a leader if my team doesn't perform if they don't deliver, they aren't able to accomplish as quickly as I think they should?

Gary: Well, there's usually two reasons why someone doesn't do the job. They either can't, or they won't. If they can't, it's a training issue. That means we need to discuss with them where they are, why they're there, what do you think we should do next type of a thing, that's a training issue. If they won't, there's not much you can do about it other than to replace that individual because here's the deal. There's nothing in between. You either can't do it so you need help training, or you won't do it, which means they're not going to do it anyway. So in my mind, you have to evaluate your organization and where they need training, they need training and leaders have to make tough decisions sometimes, gentlemen.

And sometimes those tough decisions is replacing people who aren't doing the job. And when you have, when you're putting a team together, who you hire, who you bring onto your team has a huge impact on your organization. You know, they fit the culture. Did you interview for the skills you're looking for? I know so many leaders who interview for skills that aren't even necessary for the position they're hiring for. They're just general questions. And I tell people if you want the great people and you want to build a great team, and you want to be a leader that can make things happen, you know, you got to be real specific with who you're hiring as well.

Ryan: Absolutely. And a lot of the work that I do with clients, we talk about that. Let's hire for culture fit, let's hire for the things we can't train and then we'll polish up the things that aren't perfect.

Gary: If I could share one quick example, this is huge, and this is a guy who's a senior vice president of a national corporation, I was discussing this with, and he said, I would like to hire 100 of this individual. And I knew this individual personally. And I said, Do you interview for attributes? You know, this person was competitive, they had a drive, they had all these different attributes. I said, do you ask questions regarding those things? You know, if you want someone who's competitive, well, maybe they played competitive sports, or maybe they were in a competitive thing where they were in the debate team or, you know, if you can find those questions to fit those skills, you can hire that person over and over and over again in different individuals.

Ryan: Absolutely. And sometimes even, we turn it a little bit into a game because if you're looking for that person with the drive and the competitive spirit, if you can make the interview process somewhat competitive, you can actually have people shine versus just giving you lip service.

Gary: Great advice. Show me. Don't just tell me. Show me, baby. Show me.

Ryan: Absolutely. And that's what it comes down to when we want to clone these good people. But I want to go back to something you said about making these tough decisions. As leaders, sometimes we have to let people go, sometimes we have to bring new people on, but we got to make tough decisions sometimes. How do I know if I have a won't do it or a can't do it issue? How do I tell the difference?

Gary: Well, as a leader, we watch our people, we watch the group that we work with. And we're working with them. Hopefully, we're working with them. So we can, we have a good indication of what their skills are, what their knowledge is of where they're going and what they're doing. And if they have, if we know that that person does have the skills to do it, we know that they have what it takes to do it, but they don't want to do it. They don't have the drive to do it. That actually is pretty exposed. That's the person who is just barely making their goals every month. You know, is it that they can't or is it that they won't?

Because some people sandbag. They feel that if they do too much, if they show too much success, then that's going to be expected over and over and over again. Well, there's someone who just won't do it. They're just sandbagging. They're just doing the minimum possible which, you know, you can get any, you can get a lot of average people. And when we have that average person, I want to either train you to be more successful, I want to coach you and encourage you to be more successful, or I've got to find someone who will or wants to.

Ryan: So that got me thinking about something, about these people that are sandbagging. Because there is this perception they'll be expected to perform over and over and over again at that level. And something that I've run into is that a lot of time, that comes from either an interaction with or reporting to a bad leader that put these false perceptions into their head. Because that might not be my take. I would love it if you'd overperform and, you know, do more, do what you're capable of, and there are no negative consequences, but they had that experience in the past with someone who did treat them that way. What do I need to do as the leader to help them overcome that and be able to trust me, and that I won't treat them the way they were treated in the past?

Earning Your Team’s Trust

Gary: That's an excellent, to me, that's an excellent question because trust is earned. It's gained over time. A lot of people say one thing and do another and that's in the leadership area as well. They say one thing and they don't live up to it. So when we, as a leader, emulate what we expect, when we lead by example, when we say what we are going to do and then we do it, and I'm talking about consistently over time, those people will come around and say, You know what, this guy is not like the other people that I've worked for, the other leaders that I've followed.

And over time, you gain that respect through showing them that you care about them as an individual, showing that you are going to do what you say you're going to do, back them up when it's necessary. As the leader, you know, sometimes we have to take the blame. We're the leader. If we let something go and we blame them, I'm sorry, it all starts and ends with you. So, you know, when you do those kinds of things, those folks will, that one that's negative will follow you anywhere once they know that you're the real deal.

Ryan: That's great, but it does take some time to heal that. And so as the leader, the part that I can do, what I heard was I can invest that time. That's fantastic. Hey, Gary, this has been an amazing conversation about leadership. And big takeaway for me is that if there's any problems with people on my team or things aren't getting done or I don't feel like my team is developing as a leader, the easiest thing for me to do is take a look in the mirror and say what can I do differently? So I just want to thank you for being here today. It's been great. For our listeners, I understand that you have something to give them to help them on this leadership journey. Maybe even to help them find some greater success in the stuff that they're already doing. Can you share that with us?

Gary: I do have, one of the keynote speeches that I do is on success and successes of success as a leader success in your industry. And I do have something that's a free download and it's 12 keys to success. And it's on my website, it's just free. It's www.garyvarnell.com/12keys. And this actually explains the key to success. And then it gives you action items to implement it because if we don't take action, if we don't implement it, it's just a waste of time. So, and if you and Jeremy would like a copy of that leadership test, I'd be happy to hear email that to you and you could share that as well.

Ryan: Oh, that's fantastic. Thanks again, Gary. This has been great. I love talking about how we can grow as leaders and how we can get more out of our team by being better leaders for them. Thanks for joining us on the Blue Collar Culture Podcast. I've really enjoyed it.

Jeremy: Thanks, Gary.

Gary: I enjoyed it as well. Thank you for inviting me. Thanks, Jeremy. I really had fun so thanks a lot.

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