A Conversation with John Baldoni on the 12th of October 2019

Introduction: John Baldoni is an internationally recognised leadership consultant, coach, keynote speaker and author of 14 books on leadership. In 2018 Inc.com named John a Top 100 Speaker and in 2019 Global Gurus ranked John # 9 on its list of the top 30 Gurus in the world. John is a highly acclaimed executive coach and is in much demand as a leadership educator. I had the pleasure of interviewing John about his new book Grace, A Leaders Guide to a better us.

Podcast episode summary: John Baldoni has a lot to say about Leadership and his latest book is really a call for more Grace in Leadership. He explores this topic with me on this podcast and really makes the case for humanising the workforce by applying the virtues inherent in GRACE. Grace as a Leadership Mindset is a catalyst for positive change to enable the greater good. It is an antidote to the disconnected way a lot of us live and work today. Baldoni helps us distinguish the attributes of grace in Generosity, Respect, Action, Compassion and Energy. Put simply this podcast reminds us what wonders we can accomplish when we work together for the greater good.

Points made through the episode:

• Leadership has not changed radically over the Millenia, two noteworthy changes however include Velocity of change and global scope of Leadership with Leaders on call 24/7 which erodes boundaries, downtime and family time and two the introduction of women in Leadership
• 40,000 plus definitions of Leadership but for John, Leaders do what is needed to be done for the greater good of the whole.
• Some problematic assumptions are when Leaders conflate management and leadership -an effective Leader needs to be both
• Baldoni has written extensively about Purpose, our why for doing things which leads to the creation or co-creation of a vision and mission. Values then create our sense of belonging.
• GRACE is the facilitative lubricant that brings it all together
• We live in contentious times Grace cuts through all of that and builds connection, Grace is critical to our time, a time where we are divided by separateness and contempt.
• Grace dissolves contempt and is catalyst for greater good
• GRACE as an anacronym means:

• Generosity- open hearted sharing of authority
• Respect – non -judgemental acceptance of others
• Action- Staying a stand and doing good
• Compassion- understanding humanity of another
• Energy – keeping fit and mobilised for action

• Why is it missing- all of us suffer shortcomings, many of us are too busy, metric focused and short-sighted, some of us are afraid to be vulnerable
• Scott Moorhead of a company featured in Johns book talks about giving people permission to care
• Part of caring is insisting on responsibility it is not mushy.
• Grace is a mindset shift-more deeply we have an altruism gene so we have to let-go some misconceptions we have about Leading.
• As a leader ask yourself if you are generous in spirit, are you genuinely respectful of others, do you act for the benefit of others, do you go out of your way to show compassion and do you work to bring people together for the better good
• As a manager and leader you do care about getting results but there is a lubricant that could get there in a more engaging manner- GRACE

Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation

1. John Baldoni: Grace, A Leaders Guide to a Better Us
2. John Mattone: Intelligent Leadership
3. Markus Buckingham's latest book Nine lies about work