Discussing the Simplicity of Leadership with the CEO of Leadership Surge, Alex Willis

1Huddle Podcast Episode #17

On this Bring It In podcast episode, 1Huddle’s CEO and Founder Sam Caucci sat down with Alex Willis, CEO of Leadership Surge, Entrepreneur, and Leadership Coach. He is also a former Pro Football player who played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Alex has two decades of experience working with companies in several fields, ranging from financial services to pharmaceutical sales and business development. For 15 years, he has been helping companies improve their leadership culture and cultivating the next generation of leaders. 

On this episode of Bring It In season one, Alex sat down with 1Huddle’s CEO Sam Caucci, and discussed the simplicity of leadership, layers of diversity, and his experiences with growing new leaders.

Audio available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. 

TOP 3 HIGHLIGHTS

Below are some of the insights Alex shared during our chat, edited for length and clarity. You can find more Bring It In podcast episodes here.

• “The bigger the challenge, the bigger the platform for somebody to step up and say, This is a great time to be a leader.”
• “A true leader is someone who says, let me take this cape off and let me put a cape on as many people as I can to make them heroes and to give them a challenge to go make other people heroes.”
• “We go nowhere as a country, we go nowhere as individuals, we go nowhere as families, without somebody stepping up saying, put it on my back.”

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Sam: So talk to me, Alex, what’s it like leading a business and a brand like yours, it works with so many organizations and groups and leaders during a global pandemic. What’s that like? 

Alex: Well, Sam, I’ll tell you man, just being a former athlete, for me it’s exciting. Right? It’s exciting because the one thing that it comes down to is it’s all about perspective and great leaders rise because of challenging times, right? The bigger the challenge, the bigger the platform for somebody to step up and say, Hey man, this is a great time to be a leader right now. Right? And so for me, I’ve always looked at it like that. And so when a lot of these different companies began to panic, it’s like, hey, wait a minute. No, this is where true leadership stands up. And so for one, it gives me an opportunity to encourage and motivate leaders, at the senior level. Because as you know, man, it’s tough at the top and a lot of times you’re isolated by yourself, right? So, one thing that came out of this world, having a safe spot for leaders to really be able to vent, to be able to get encouragement, to build themselves back up, right? Because the pandemic does rattle us. Secondly, it allowed me to see a lot of commonalities that a lot of businesses are struggling with, Sam. One of those big things being communication. Being able to communicate because businesses are large, because they have multilayers. We do a poor job of communicating our vision, our message, our values, what we expect, and accountability to each other. And now when you have this global pandemic, and people can’t interact I can’t see you on a daily basis. I don’t know what you’re doing, how you’re doing it. It can really begin to rock the boat. So on one on one side, it was very encouraging to be able to lift leaders up, on the other side, it was almost like bringing a flashlight into a lot of these companies saying how we need to communicate and have better ways of communicating that via technology ways to reach people, ways to check balances, you don’t have checks and balances to make sure we’re successful. Where do you think that communication breakdown happens? Because you know, one of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve watched just being a part of a bunch of different teams like you have, I think that leaders have an outcome in mind, but how you get people to understand the steps to get there is always a challenge.

Sam: So, I guess, where does the communication breakdown happen? 

Alex: Well, I’ll tell you Sam, what I’m learning more and more with myself even is the importance of being simplistic and really just really being very clear in what I expect and what I want, Right. So, the problem is like you’re saying most of us as leaders, we are visionary, we have this grand vision in our head. This is a billion-dollar company. Don’t you guys see it, you know? And so we’re living there so much. And then the challenge is we have to now, pack up our stuff, come back to the present and now lead our men and women to tell them how to get to where we are already really mentally living. So now the problem is sometimes we do a poor job of explaining it because we’re so close to the vision, Sam. 

I do this exercise with a lot of companies, which senior leaders, you know, they chuckle at it, but it shows how poor we are at communicating. And that exercise man is, it’s just the shape of seven dominoes and it’s some kind of weird shape and their job is to describe what they see on screen to their staff. Now the staff doesn’t know if it’s domino, they don’t know what it is. They’re just trying to describe it. Man, it’s eye opening for them, no one has ever gotten the picture right. And it’s a simple domino that you can see that you’re trying to describe to someone who can’t see it. And so we share with them saying, listen, if you can’t describe simple dominoes, imagine how difficult it is for you to describe the vision and what you’re trying to go after. And so we have to really do a couple things that we see work really well. Number one, be simplistic in that. Right. And check for understanding quite frequently, and then do what we like to call the hero making model, which is the five step process that we’re learning to implement internally, as well as challenging other people. 

And that model is number one, Sam, first, Hey, I’m going to do it, you’re going to watch, we’re going to talk about, right. So as much as possible, if I can do that, if I can show what I’m trying to get here, you watch, then we talk about it. Step two: I’m going to do it. You’re going to help me do it. And then we’re going to talk, right. And then step three: you’re going to do it now, I’m going to help. And then we’re going to come back and talk again, right? Step four: You’re going to do it, I’m going to watch you do it, and then we’ll talk about it. Right. And then step five: the way we kind of get that vision from top to bottom, Sam is, Hey, you’re going to do it, you’re going to bring somebody else in to watch you, then y’all are going to talk about it. Right? So now if we can implement this model over and over and over again, as the leader, I’ve shown them what I expect, I shown them what this looks like. And then everybody’s kind of mimicking this model all throughout the organization, as we kind of go through that. And this could take place over a week, a day, six months, a year, three years, just depending on what the process is, we can really begin to show them that. So I think the problem is we’re oftentimes so quick to just jump into action, Sam, that we don’t take time to make sure we’ve really done a great job of explaining that well, man. 

Sam: What should be a leadership strategy today to try to get workers of different generations, to be most productive every day?

Alex: Well, Sam, I think this is where great coaches come to play, man. Right? So, here’s the one thing that my coaches never did well in my era of playing. My coaches, never, were never able to adjust really well, right. For example, on every team I’ve ever played for Sam, we came in the following year knowing exactly what offense and what defense we were going to run. Right? But great coaches now, today, just from a sports angle, Sam, they say, wait a minute, maybe I want to run the spread, but man, listen, if I don’t have the pieces to run that, I can’t just stick with it. Maybe we have five, six great wide receivers. Hey dude, we have to just throw them all up and down the field because this is what we need to do in order to be successful. So I say that sports analogy to say, as a leader, my job is to say, who do I have on my team? What do they need? Somebody needs a kick in the ass. So, some people don’t move without you chewing their ass out. No other way to do it Sam. To support them, saying, yeah, man, this coach loves me. Right. Or for some people it has to be that, put your arm around their back. Right. Put your arm on their shoulder to say, Hey, listen, here’s what we need you to do, calm down, you’re okay, you’re in the game. And so I think what we’ve done poorly, in my opinion, Alex included, is that I’ve tried to get people to adjust to me, as a leader versus saying, wait a minute, it’s 300,000 gallons of milk. It’s much easier for me to adjust to them, right? And say, who am I dealing with on an individual basis versus making everyone kind of come to my way. And so great leadership, I think we have to redefine. It is understanding that it’s not me sitting at the top being king or queen, just on a throne making everyone bow down to me. It’s saying, okay, wait a minute, how do I serve my people really, really well? And in the process of doing that, you get two things that happen to Sam. Number one, they understand the vision, they buy into it. Number two, they realize that you care about them, right? And when they begin to do that and you get the head and the heart, the hands automatically come, man, it’s easy.

Sam: Being a great leader is hard. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of thinking, you know, I’d love to know just from you, like what do you do with your organization, that makes it feel like so central to your work is producing better leaders and paying it forward in a lot of ways under the cover. Like why do you do what you do? 

Alex: Well, I’ll tell you Sam. Because to me, leadership is the highest calling and I tell the people that I work with that, right. We go nowhere as a country, we go nowhere as individuals, we go nowhere as families, without somebody stepping up saying, put it on my back. I’m going to lead it, right? Oh, I’m going to lead this team, lead this family, lead this organization. And so we need people who are willing to put that on their back because ultimately we lead people to success, right? As well as we help people blossom into who I believe God has created them to be, it takes a leader to look into someone like you and I, Sam. We had coaches who looked into us as young athletes and said, listen, yeah maybe he’s not as fast as he can be, maybe he’s not as big. But man, I see something in this kid and I’m going to pull it out. Right. And so therefore I’m trying to get as many people to do that, Sam, and to be what we call hero makers. Right. A true leader isn’t necessarily someone who puts a cape around their back. A true leader is someone who says, let me take this cape off and let me put a cape on as many people as I can to make them heroes and to give them a challenge to go make other people heroes. And so therefore my job is to really make heroes, show them the power that they have, and ultimately give them an excitement to go make other heroes so that we can pull the greatness out of people and have a great society, a great government, great families.

And that’s where I think the ball is dropping Sam, honestly. Because, people are shying away from leadership because of what we made it out to be and how difficult we’ve discussed it and we haven’t really done a great job of saying the power and the benefit of being a leader and what you get as a result of doing that. And so that’s my ultimate calling and why I go after it so hard, man.

Sam: On your point, on community, I think it’s never been a more important and an equally tough time to be a leader, you know, throw a global pandemic over the top of it. Social justice issues, starting to boil over. What do you say to folks out there that are trying to be a leader and be aware of diversity and equity and different experiences? What needs to happen? 

Alex: Well, I miss the challenge and I tell people, this number one: it’s a marathon, not a sprint, right? It’s definitely a marathon, not a sprint. You have to be ready for the long haul in this. And number two, you have to go far beyond race and gender. Right? So, we’ve limited diversity to gender and race. And we really, in my opinion, cheapened it right, by doing that. So as what, what, we like to do, Sam, when we talk about this, we like to take the five-dimensional approach to diversity. And so number one, the most diverse thing about each and every one of us that we overlook a lot of times, is that personality. Right. Sam, listen. You have a way that you communicate, you have a way that you lead. You have a way that you like to be led, how you talk, how you operate via fast-paced, slow-paced, high energy, low energy. Sam, when you think about that, it’s 8 billion different diverse ways in which we think to operate, the combinations are endless. And so therefore we overlook that. And so that’s really the core number one thing that I attack and listen to, understand this first. If we can understand this. We can begin to put all the other layers. Right. And so that’s the number one layer from there. Sam, we go to the next layer, which we like to call the internal. Right. And so the internal, this is what I like to say, this is what people can see Sam, and they judge us on. This is my skin color, my gender, my age, those kinds of things. They’re other levels of diversity, but truth be told that’s just added on top of this personality. So this personality is really who I am and black, white, Hispanic, Asian, old, young, this personality is going to be who I am, right at my core. It’s going to rock you one way or another. You’re just going to add this other layer on here of skin, color, gender, age, and all these other things that may, you know, dictate how I operate. And then Sam, another layer that we add on to that is what we like to call the external. And Sam, the external is things that I can’t change, but people still judge me on, and this is things like, where I grew up. Sam, you’re in Newark, I grew up in the South, right, Sam. So you know what, that’s different, Sam you grew up in the South, you know how it’s a different southernness than me, and that’s a whole nother level of diversity. 

Sam: Yeah, I know. No good barbecue up here.

Alex: Or sweet tea, you know? Or sweet tea man. So, that’s another level. And so when you look at my external. These are my views, my political beliefs, my religious beliefs, my geographical location, you know, those kinds of things bring another level of diversity to them. Right. And those are things that we overlook, that we don’t think about. And then Sam, will you take it one notch up, organizational dimension. So now Sam, depending on, if I am the janitor at an organization, or if I’m the CEO. Sam, that’s a whole nother level of diversity in how I’m treated, how people look at me, how they operate, regardless of my skin color, we can have two white females. If one is the janitor and one is the CEO, they’re going to get treated totally differently, right? Same skin color, same eye color, the same haircut doesn’t matter. And so that’s another level that we overlook. And so at that organizational level, my position, how long I’ve been there, what department I’m in, my geographical location, does my part of the company bring in more money than the other. That’s a whole nother level of things we’ve got to think about that we tend to not think about. And then the ultimate layer that we throw on that sandwich, we hit on a little bit is the era. The era in which we live brings another whole level of diversity to us. So think about the great generation who went through the Great Depression, went through World Wars, their mentality, and how they look at life, how they operate, Sam, is totally different than my 11 and seven-year-old man who will lose their mind if wifi is off for five minutes. Right? So the level of diversity there is totally different. So now when you bring all of these things together, it brings some challenges that we often don’t address, we only look at one or two things and not all of these things together.

And so I challenge leaders to do number one, look at all of them together, but look at them from a perspective of saying, let me start with the personality first. Let me start with that first, because anytime you start with race, it’s always going to be a great divide, right? And so let’s get people on the same page. The challenge is, leaders are tackling this thing from a different standpoint versus a similarity standpoint. Sam, there’s a cool project, man, called The Human Genome Project, right? The Human Genome Project, 13 years study, they studied the DNA of people all over the world, brother. And here’s what they found after 13 years, there is no such thing as race. There’s one race and that’s the human race and we are 99.99% alike. Right, Sam. And so that 0.1% difference is the things that make your skin different than mine, your eyes different than mine, your hair texture, my lack thereof different. Right? And so what we tend to do is we focus on that 0.1%, which creates the divide versus saying, wait a minute, yeah yeah, we have all of those differences, but let’s look at the similarities and what we have in common and let’s build on these commonalities first. And then as we build on these commonalities, we can know each other better. And then we can now begin to have respect for each other as we talk about our differences.

Saying, hey, listen, my perspective may be a little different. Yeah, Sam, because you and I, over the years, man had built a great relationship. We can have great hard, honest conversations and still respect each other. Well, because yeah, you know me and I know you and you know, I’m not trying to hurt you in any way, and you’re not trying to harm me in any way. If we only started the differences, there’s never a trust built. There’s no foundation to have hard conversations, and therefore we can’t have those challenging conversations because we’ve never created this bond at first. Your company, you know, and I’m not, it’s the same with the look, right? Your company has made it easier to do some of that stuff, right? Because the challenge with leadership is this: we have limited hours in a day, as much as we may want to add something, you know, we’ve got so many hours, so I can only repeat things so many times, right. You need to be able to use technology and software that can repeat that message over and over again, to be able to hear it right, as well as to be able to check it and say, did you get it? Did you understand it? Right. So that’s where you bring in the personality, the style of the leader, the one-on-one communication. You pair that with other things like your product, your company, to be able to mess these things together, to ultimately get wide coverage frequency going over and over and over again, checks and balances with accountability and ultimately you can be successful with using that brother. 

Sam: Love it, Alex. Thanks for spending time with us, man. Appreciate it. 

Alex: Hey, thank you brother. It was awesome, man. You have a good one, keep up the good work, man.

Topics Discussed: Future Leaders, Diversity, Teamwork, Communication, Coaching