Randy Wilburn - Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship and Leadership

Episode 19: Randy Wilburn - Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship and Leadership

Welcome to Authentic Leadership for Everyday People, the podcast that investigates the connection between effective leadership and authenticity. Our guest today is Randy Wilburn. Over the course of his career, Randy developed deep expertise in multiple disciplines. In a world that pushes people to specialize, Randy has followed his entrepreneurial passion to create a firm where he can integrate all the facets of his personality. He is the founder of Encourage, Build, Grow, a leadership consulting, coaching and training firm that serves the construction, design and architecture industries. Randy is also the host and producer of I Am Northwest Arkansas, a podcast with over 130 episodes.

During our conversation Randy tapped into his experience as an intrapreneur first, and entrepreneur later, to discuss what qualities make a great leader. We also talked about building trust with your team and within your community. At the core of Randy’s leadership is the idea of character, and the importance of keeping one’s word.

We dove into Randy’s long journey, started at a young age, when he was delivering newspapers. We cover his years working at a firm where he was greatly empowered, becoming essentially an intrapreneur, and we follow with the years when he started his own business. Randy shares the lessons he learned throughout, and how his understanding of what it means to be a leader, and an authentic leader evolved as he navigated these different experiences.

An important part of Randy’s ability is his full awareness of all the parties involved at any point in time, whether it is clients or the internal teams. He also stresses the importance of giving back, and the importance of keeping an open mind.

This is a special multi-part episode. Here, I am interviewing Randy. In the next, he will interview me.

Key Takeaways

[02:06] - Today’s guest is Randy Wilburn.

[03:26] - Randy, welcome. It is great to have you on the show and why don’t we start and give our listeners your background.

[05:48] - Randy always understood how to get out and hustle and do some things. Randy also fully embraced working for other people.

[06:33] - You graduated from college, took your first job, and then there was a point I believe when you started your own firm for the first time. And, and that’s probably a different perspective when you are doing that after having been in the workplace and deciding, “okay no, now I want to go on my own”, tell me about that moment.

[09:45] - Randy explains what an intrapreneur is and how it is different from an entrepreneur

[10:52] - When did you start thinking about who you wanted to be as a leader?

[12:39] - What were some of the moments, when you started formulating: this is who I am as a leader, I am in this position, and these are like the key 3 or 4 things that I’m going to try and do and communicate.

[15:33] - When Randy did leadership training years ago, he would tell people, tell leaders, “your job as a leader is to work yourself out of a job”.

[16:23] - Was there any leader that you worked with that did that for you?

[17:50] - Randy shares the moniker he lives by, “if you’re the smartest person in the room you need to find a different room”.

[19:31] - How do you measure success and has that definition changed over time?

[22:35] - You mention the need to ask yourself, what you need to do better and that you’re fallible. Is there a moment of crisis or something that you know went wrong, that you think of as a point where you actually got a lot of learning?

[25:36] - How do you build trust?

[27:04] - Tell our listeners a little bit about what you’re doing with encourage, build, grow.

[29:50] - We learn from Randy that he encourages firms to tell their story through voice.

[32:21] - Why don’t you tell our listeners about your podcast.

[35:07] - Somebody who’s listening right now is thinking about launching a podcast. What are the first 2 or 3 things that they should be thinking about?

[38:10] - You mentioned that you cannot separate personal from work. What is one outside interest that is really important to you? And how does that impact your work?

[41:20] - Is there a business expression, a cliche that drives you crazy?

[42:46] - I ask my final question: food for the body or food for the soul.

Randy Wilburn

Randy on Linkedin: LinkedIn.com/in/randywilburn

Randy on Twitter: @randywilburn

Randy on Instagram: @randywilburn

Podcast: I Am Northwest Arkansas

On Facebook: facebook.com/iamnorthwestarkansas/

On Twitter: @iamnorthwestar1

Authentic Leadership For Everyday People / Dino Cattaneo

Website: al4ep.com or authenticleadershipforeverydaypeople.com

Dino’s Email – dino@al4ep.com

Dino on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dinocattaneo

Podcast Instagram – @al4edp

Podcast Twitter – @al4edp

Mentioned in the Episode:

Programs/Events

Podcast Movement Conference

Special Mentions

Mark Zweig, Zweig Group

Brené Brown

Crystal Bridges Museum

Susan Cattaneo

Website: susancattaneo.com

Song: Little Big Sky