What are the the needs of staff and what do they think of these things? Do they feel like these are um just mandates that are pushed down and they they don't believe in? Like how do I feel about that? So, truly understanding your your viewpoints, um your, you know, at times even your your your biases, and your positioning around what you're actually doing, and then being able to quell those and um take a a viewpoint of, "Okay, this is why council's doing this. So, this is why I need to get my staff behind this." Or I know my staff doesn't feel supported um on this, but this is something that I know uh we need to do. So, how am I going to push that away to uh get us through? All right. >> Yep. He's a hundred percent right about that. I think it's That awareness of how you're doing is uh man, I I had somebody text me the other day cuz we're talking more and more we're presenting about some new ideas, and we're talking about these four different levels of leadership.
And I had a guy text me and he said, "Is it possible for a leader to think they're a heroic leader, but actually they're average or unhealthy?" And I'm like, "Dude, all the freaking time. Like, I cannot tell you the last time I met a leader who didn't have some of that going on, you know?" And I think there's so often we think we're showing up and it's funny cuz you can look at at city council reviews and man, "Oh, I got great reviews. Yeah, we got the the new target in town and we did this and the council loves me." And meanwhile, staff is stressed out because they're not showing up as a great leader. And I think that happens a lot and self-awareness is the only thing that's going to help us understand that we are not being experienced the way we want to be.
Yeah. >> And you start to see signals of that. You start to see moments and I work really hard on self-awareness and I had somebody ask me about this yesterday and I said, "You know, one of the things I'm most proud of." And usually if a person walks in the room, they're like, "I'm the most self-aware person in the room." They're usually the least self-aware person in the room. But they were asking about like my own growth journey and I said, "You know, one of the things I am proud about is I'm seeing my self-awareness increase and what I'm seeing is I'll still do a dumb thing. I'll say something. I'll be in inconsiderate of others, whatever it is. But I'm seeing it like in real time as it as it's happening and go, "Ooh, that's not what I wanted." And I'm able to spot that and fix it right there in the moment.
Say, "You know what? Here's what you probably heard. I'm so sorry, it's not what I meant." I've I've seen it in my my relationship with my wife where where that that gap between dumb thing is said and dumb thing is fixed is closing and getting tighter. Right. >> Uh and that is helping so much. I see it with my team. I see it with my clients and and I think that's a sign of of self-awareness increasing, but it takes so much intentional work to actually make that a reality. Uh and so I think self-awareness is the whole ballgame if you're leading. If you are not working on your self-awareness, you're leaving so much on the table and doing so much unintentional damage that you're not even aware of. And I think that's the the other piece of this is we we have to know that how we show up matters.
And that self-awareness is going to help us figure that out. Yeah, it and it's you talk about that gap between, you know, catching it and knowing it. I mean, I still find myself now catching it after the fact. You know, sometimes you know, I've got a couple decisions I've made recently and it's just like that you know, hindsight's always 20/20, but you see the pattern that started running. And it's like, "Oh, why didn't I catch that before?" But you do have that awareness now moving forward. Um Yeah, does that does that um bring to mind any other points from any of our other guests? I know Jonathan is got um was having some technical issues. Hopefully, he'll he can jump back on. There Oh, there he is. Um Yeah, it it does, you know, we talk about self-awareness. What what's another probably trait ubiquitous trait, I guess you could say that uh town managers and city managers have from your experience.
I was just going to say before before maybe we exit the self-awareness thing because I think it flows in. Yeah. >> Self-awareness. I think we the issue is we start with self-awareness and we just think about strengths. Like, "What are my strengths? I need to know my I take the enneagram and I'm this [laughter] and this and I take this and this and this and this." And I take every test and I find out who I am. Again, we're looking for validation, right? The issue the thing that's level one self-awareness. There's nothing wrong with that. It's good. But have we taken level two, which is you take the strength and then you look at the shadow weakness. Every strength has a shadow, right? Oh, I'm great at this. Great. You will push into that and it will become your detriment. Mhm. I'm great like and so I think that again, are we taking self-awareness to the point where I know my strengths, but I also know their shadows?
And now that I know my strengths, now that I'm practicing self-awareness, guess what I can do? Now, I become people aware, and I go, "Oh, those are your strengths. Those are your shadows. How can I be a help? How can we be a dream team where we know our strengths, but we're also holding each other accountable to where they become shadows?" And then as we become people aware, we become organizational aware, and so we build dream teams where we go, "I'm not Superman or Superwoman. I can't do everything. I need different strengths. I need different viewpoints." Then you build a city council dream team because it it it appreciates the different ways we think and the different way we see the world, so that we actually build something whole. And again, you know, the perspective of a community where made up of different people, different viewpoints, different values.
How can we appreciate some of these things? And I think the only way we do that is with true self-awareness. True self-awareness creates humility. It does not create pride. And I think that's the issue why I see with a lot of self-awareness, we're doing it to puff ourselves up because again, we want worth and value. Instead of going, "Let me know myself so that I can also understand some of the things that lead to my detriment, burnout, etc., the things we've talked about." Yeah. >> Yep. Yeah, Seth, I you know, you're talking about um those shadow those edges, right? On some of your strengths. And we we think about a a um in more the modality kind of I'm familiar with, we think of them in terms of polarities, you know, you know, you know, you have the person who can who naturally can just go in and dominate a room, dominate a conversation.
But can they actually go in there and listen and take the energy of the room and kind of get the sense of what all's happening. You know, can you develop both of those polarity ends of the polarity to where and have the range to choose which one you want to fall on. Um, that's been a critical like insight. Just uh the the concept of polarities at least for me and and and my >> the idea of choosing where you want to land on that because it is the the shadow side when you see it, you're like, okay, I I want to make sure I'm not veering into that, you know? Uh it's you talk about dominating a room. We do a ton of work with the Enneagram and so Enneagram eights are known for being direct, right? What their average level it describes them as dominate uh dominating and egocentric.
And they're always like, I'm not dominating and egocentric. And everyone around them is like, really, bro? Like, yeah, you are. And all they're doing is presenting it very directly. They think they're being the best version of themselves. And they don't understand the best version of themselves looks wildly different than what they would just naturally do by instinct, right? And so it's it's modulating and choosing how do I would need to be in this room cuz there's times like, man, if you're in an emergency situation, I want an Enneagram eight in charge. I want them barking orders and taking command and here's what we're doing and there's clarity to how they communicate. If we're trying to solve a deep problem about maybe an internal challenge we're having and it's a relational thing, I don't need that dominant. I need that person who creates space for conversation and leads with vulnerability.
And it is finding that that middle kind of ground of you are choosing the best version of you and it's not going to look like your default. And that is that's that level two, level three, level four self-awareness Seth is talking about. It's funny we always do these workshops and we give everybody their profiles and I'm like, guys, if you never look at your profile again, this was a waste of time. Like, I got paid, I'm happy, my kids are fed, nothing else happened here. You guys have got to start using this daily to understand how to lead yourself and lead your your teams. And I think that that I love that reference to the different levels of self-awareness cuz there's nothing wrong with level one, but there's also not a lot practical and effective about level one. That's where you have to dig in to get there.
So I really like that. Yeah, you can you can also let it become the obsession itself. You know, like trying to get to those deeper levels of awareness and self-awareness and um that well that's another that's one of my shadow edges I guess you could say. You know, the intellectualization you know, that can lead to vision that can lead to um you know, futuristic type thinking. At the same time, it doesn't lead to getting a lot done. Um and but to all your points, I think that's when you know that about yourself and it goes back to self-awareness, you can build the team around you that helps support you. >> And um that is that's one of the I can say for myself that's one of the more fun jobs or parts of the job. Yeah, Jonathan, anything you I know you're you're back with us.
I'm glad to see that. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I didn't know if you were going to >> like uh I feel like I'm back from the the the the the shadows. Uh and that actually um comes ties perfectly with what I wanted to say. Uh Seth, you hit the nail on the head, man. Um and Michael, where your head went is exactly where my my head went. Uh polarity. Everything uh is just a a degree of the other end of the the spectrum. They're they're they're no different. So if you're like Lou Lou said, if you're confident and assertive, uh you can the the the the negative pole, the opposite pole can be uh combative. Uh and in in certain lights, you may come off as combative. And I think understanding where your your blind spots are uh is is so important as a leader.
Um we all no matter what we're uh what we're what we're leading or what we're doing, we all have blind spots. And to to understand uh what the the the the other pole in the shadow can be uh and and know where how you can show up um is so important. I think especially as leaders when you're you're talking to staff, uh sometimes you can create, not due to any fault of yourself, you can create an echo chamber uh or you can create uh people that are are going along to get along uh and that dominating uh personality which uh is so important in in an emergency like it was said can sometimes create risk that you don't even know are happening because you're not understanding what the the shadow side or the other side of the the positive trait that you that you hold.
So, uh Seth and um you you you've clearly done this work with other people, Chad, as as as as well, but I just wanted to double-click cuz it is so important um what is uh perfect and great in one scenario uh can be to your detriment as a leader in another scenario. Yeah, and it's it's a amazing the the range of different styles and different people that are in this profession. You know, and you talk about, you know, those those eights and um the town manager who hired me in Ashland, um he had no municipal experience, but he ran a military base. He was a general. He was uh in the Air Force, F-15 pilot, you know, shot MIGs down in Desert Shield or Desert Storm, I forgot which one. And I mean I I learned just as much from him um in terms of like leadership as I did from, you know, very experienced city managers that I worked for, just different things.
Um so cool. Well, gentlemen, we are at the point where we can uh get to some lightning questions. These These should be a little bit more fun, although, you know, it's me, so they're a little bit heavy, too, as well. So, um Michael, you and I have the same personality type, by the way, just so we're clear. Like I We'll the heavy. Let's go. >> Yeah, you you know, we we we can we can go we can go deep there. So >> [laughter] >> Well, I'm going to Oh, let me see. I didn't put these in any order. But um we're going to start off with this one. So, what's the smallest thing that tells you a city is well-run? And Jonathan, we'll start with you. Wow, it's it's crazy being on the other side of this the last change. >> that's why I wanted you to go first, man.
Wow, what's the the the the smallest thing? Um how every rung of the quote-unquote totem pole, cuz I don't want to talk about unnecessary hierarchy, um how they speak about leadership. So, if you go to the the newest person in the room that just, you know, just got their MPA, what do they say about the leader? If you go to the maybe 20 or 30, 40 year, maybe a little bit ornery, stuck in their ways, how do they talk about the leader? Uh so, anybody up and down the the the rung, how they speak about the leader, you'll see if it's positive, that's a well-run machine, cuz that is not easy to do. Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. Seth? I think when I have toured kind of, you know, when I go to a city hall, and then the city manager will come down and greet me usually in the lobby, and will walk me all the way to their office.
Mhm. What we experience from that lobby to that office tells me everything I need to know. >> [laughter] >> It usually like it's the ones who they can't stop, but there's laughter, there's you know, there's little check-ins, and you just get the it's the it's that energy, it's that pulse versus the ones where it's like the walk of like, am I going to my death? >> [laughter] >> That might be the smallest, like when you said the smallest thing but it is always interesting the walk back to the office and it will tell you a lot about what's what's happening and just kind of what the vibe is in in in the That that is that's another brilliant one. Chad, how are you going to top this? So my smallest thing is actually it starts before Seth's smallest thing. My smallest thing is when I first walk in I'm very intentional about how I greet people and so I will walk in and say hey how are you today?
Big smile on my face and what I get back tells me a lot because the person greeting me at the front window has a pretty like mundane job. >> [snorts] >> And they see a lot of citizens that come in unhappy they deal with a lot of things they probably shouldn't have to quite frankly and if I walk in and say hey how are you today? If I get back a big smile that's usually proof to me that there's something going well there because what that tells me is there's a leader above them that is coming in regularly and encouraging them that cheerleader role that's remind them hey I know we had those citizen complaints you handled that so well I'm so proud of you. So when I get a smile back as soon as I walk in the door I'm like okay there's good stuff happening here I think it really is that simple.
Now could that person have just had a bad morning and their coffee was made wrong maybe but usually it is a sign of good things when there's a smile that's reflected back and so I think it's the the moment before Seth's moment is usually what I'm seeing and if that's going well and all that's stacking up Jonathan's moment's working as well cuz you're hearing good things about the leaders I think it all really does tie together. Yeah so so Jonathan could be talking to the workers as he's going into town hall and then you'll then you when you meet the city manager you'll get the full trifecta of these these ideas right here of uh of how you can sense something's going well. >> [snorts] >> Um what's something a guest taught you that had nothing to do with local government? Seth I'll I'll start with you.