Episode 49 | Wayne Barringer | The Leader You Want To Become

Wayne Barringer: How do you look strategically, a week, two weeks out, and what you want to accomplish and then structure the yeses and the nose so that you accomplish what you want to.

Narrator: Well, welcome back to the Executive Leadership Podcast. I know it's been a while and I took a little break and now we are back in a new season of episodes for the Executive Leadership Podcast. Uh, thank you so much for tuning in today. And I know it's been a while since we had a, uh, an episode and on this episode we have an amazing guest, Wayne Barringer. He's an amazing, uh, leader, has helped, ah, a lot of different organizations in uh, with team building, um, providing more impact for leaders. Uh, he's worked for Boeing. And you are going to enjoy this conversation that Wayne and I have about the leader you want to become or the leader that you aspire to become and how do you get to that

Cameron Nathan Singh: or strive towards that.

Narrator: So you are going to enjoy a great episode here, uh, kicking off this new season here in 2025. Um, you're going to enjoy this episode and I really hope you enjoy, um, this conversation that I had with Wayne. So let's go right into it, into my podcast interview with Wayne Behringer on the leader that you want to become.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Enjoy. Well, Wayne, welcome to the podcast.

Wayne Barringer: Thank you, Cameron. Great to be here.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah, excited to have you on and, and chat a little bit about, uh, leadership. So um, you know, one of the things that we were talking about when we first met and um, is, is really that topic of what is the leader you want to become? Uh, why was this something that was so important to you and, and what are your thoughts on, on a topic such as this?

Wayne Barringer: Yeah, I think the, the leader you want to become has really become a cornerstone for myself and also the work that we do with clients and really it's all about my learning over my career. Um, and certainly as I've coached people that most people most of the time are just trying to get through the day.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah.

Wayne Barringer: And especially now since COVID that day is made of very little, uh, white space. So we get 150 emails a day. We've got Slack channels, team channels, text message channels. Uh, then we've got back to, back to back meetings. Then we've got employees meeting us and things like that. We go home. How many times have people gone home and said, I don't know what I did today.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah.

Wayne Barringer: Then we have dinner with our family and then maybe we check email again before we go to bed and we get up and we Groundhog Day Every day the same routine. As a result, the only things we can think about typically regarding our careers is am I going to get a promotion and am I going to get a raise? But there's fundamental skill, EQ and general professional development that we need to do to get us not just to that promotion and raise, but to that place that aligns with our values where we want to be. M like how many times have you gotten a raise or promotion? And after the euphoria of that wears off in three weeks, you're kind of right back to man this, I'm doing the Groundhog day thing again. So the leader you want to become is the notion that we can break that cycle and, and be able to have some purposeful aspiration for how we want to develop, not just ourselves in our career. And we work on a manifesto and we work on some things before that so we can create the time and the space to do that exercise in a really constructive and compelling way.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah, I mean the reality of leadership, it, you can get so caught up in the day to day busyness right from the moment you wake up. And I know leaders are relating to this. The moment you wake up and I'm in the uh, I'm in this coaching group that we meet on um, early Thursday mornings and uh, we're talking about the same thing is we wake up and our mind goes to what we do the work. You know, I have to respond to all these emails and then once the day is over you're like oh my goodness, what happened today? Like you, you know that the day just took over you and, and, and then you go home, your mind's still on work and then you, some might open the laptop again and, and do the phone late night and then you do it all over again and then years later you're like oh my goodness, what type of leader am I? And, and I, I think it, it, I'm, I'm learning a lot from this book, uh, John Maxwell's new book. It's called A High Road Leadership, um, towards the end of it and you know there's so much nuggets that I've learned about this is about the way, the way he lives on a day to day because he easily could get caught up in the busyness of the dayto day. But then what he does is he, he lives a life of uh, intentionality where he focuses on, you know, investing in people. You know, all the stuff that he does in the, this leadership stuff, it, it's, and it's uh, it's very challenging, I think as, as leaders to go in our day to day with intention. Because even I face this too. And I'm sure you do, Wayne. It's like some days you're like, oh my gosh, what happened? And this, your calendar drive drove your day. And I'm in a day like that today where I literally have no white space, no gaps, and barely, uh, have time for lunch.

Wayne Barringer: Yeah, I mean, let's talk about that because I mentioned we've got a couple of steps before the leader you want to become.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah.

Wayne Barringer: The number one fundamental first step that we always work with people on is, uh, I call it own your calendar or it will own you. And the whole notion is, and particularly with people in corporate scenarios, guys like us, we have a little bit more, uh, sort of built in ownership of our calendars because we can kind of pick and choose those things. But even then, like you said, we get caught in it too. And the whole notion is if you don't work with intentionality, with the most valuable resource that we all have. Right. The most valuable resource on earth is time. That's the thing that's clicking away, knowing you can't save it, like it's going away. So especially in a workday perspective. And your career is limited as well. So the, the notion of how do you look strategically, a week, two weeks out, and what you want to accomplish, and then structure the yeses and the no's so that you accomplish what you want to and that you can create a scenario for yourself where you can show up every single time the way you want to show up, as opposed to showing up this way, which we all often do. Right. Like, I'm just so hurt. Uh, yeah, it's a big, big thing. The owning a calendar is the, in my view, the fundamental piece. It's the fundamental unlock to all the rest of it.

Narrator: Yeah, I want to take that a

Cameron Nathan Singh: little bit further too, because I think that's so important because one of the things that I wasn't prepared for in leadership is all these people that would want my time. Right. Hey, can I meet with you for 10 minutes or can we chat for 15 minutes?

Narrator: Next thing you know, like two, three

Cameron Nathan Singh: hours later, you're still giving people your time. And I, I think I still still work in progress in that area, but being careful about, uh, who you give your time to. Uh, and because in leadership, Right. Even like in the office. Right. How many people come at your door? You know, we talk about open policy, open door policy. Right. And that open door policy reality Is it could get annoying sometimes because you know, you got people popping in. Some have questions, legitimate stuff. Some, you know, might be bringing an issue to you. Um, but I think setting some boundaries. I'm talking about the same book, uh, where Maxwell talks about, um, you know, like he talks about how, you know, people earn my time. And I think, uh, you know, I've had to put a lot of intentionality behind who is it that I want to give my time to? Who is it that I want to schedule time with? Who is it that I want to consistently meet with? Uh, you know, we all have those people that you know, are really valuable to us that we want to continue to meet. But there's also a lot of people that you know, necessarily they just want our time just because we have that leadership role or that, you know, the couple letters after the name.

Wayne Barringer: Well, here's the beauty of all that. I think, um, what I've learned and I've been that leader as well, I also am vp, SVP level, even C level leaders as clients who practice that I have an open door policy. Everybody can come to me. I don't have hierarchy and levels. And that's great if you have a team of three.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah.

Wayne Barringer: But uh, when you wake up one day and you have a team of 85 and you've created those habits for yourself, the feeling of value for yourself that you're the smartest person or you're the, you're the always available helper and you've trained your team to use you that way. Of course that's uh, what you created that reality for yourself. And a lot of us feel like, uh, I've certainly been there too where that's been thrust upon us. Like I can't do anything about this. Here's the great news. You absolutely can get your time in order. The second step I always talk about is understand your superpowers and your kryptonite. What are those traits that when you're on your game are your superpowers. But when you over express or you leave those traits unchecked, they become your kryptonite. Understand that. So then that you can articulate the leader, leader you want to become and create a system for yourself and habits for your team so that you, you train them how to be great leaders themselves so they don't need you all the time.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah.

Wayne Barringer: And feel confident that just because people aren't knocking on your door every three minutes, you have even more value as opposed to what it feels like less value.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Mhm.

Narrator: Yeah.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Make a good point. Because uh, you know, empowering and equipping your team will decrease the amount of time that people take. Right. If you give freedom and you're equipping your team, that's how you grow as leader. And I think what, what often happens in leadership is we get so inundated with the day to day and you know, people are relying on us, calling us, emailing us, you know, just filling up our calendars. And it's because we, we're not taking that time to grow, uh, in our leadership, but also help equip and grow your team. And that's, that's truly what leadership is all about. It's, it's not just being a manager. Right. We can talk for days on that leadership versus manager, but, but it's, it's truly becoming a, a leader and empowering your people, developing them, um, empowering them, giving uh, them the autonomy so, so that you're able to grow as, as well. And, and it goes back to, you know, what is it, what is the leader you want to become?

Wayne Barringer: Totally. I think the odds are really stacked against us too, by the way. Right?

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah.

Wayne Barringer: All of the externalities that come into us every day, all of the conditioning that social and email and all those things have created with so many of us and what people don't talk about as much is that when we all start working the first jobs in our career, Whether it's at McDonald's at 16 or in a marketing organization at 24, many of us start those roles with the mindset that our jobs are to be responsive to the requests to the externalities and please everybody else. And the people that do that the best get promoted and then they get promoted and suddenly they're a vp and all of this is against them and all of that conditioning is against them and they've got to completely rethink how they show up for work.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah.

Wayne Barringer: Most people, when they realize that they're well, changing who I am, like I'm, I'm fine. And I just keep going with all of that conditioning. And the, ah, the real benefit, the real jewel in all of it I think is being open to a series of shifts in your mindset in your life based on circumstances changing and not feeling like when you allow yourself to make that shift, not feel like, oh, ah, I was doing something wrong before, but just allowing yourself to realize that what got me here is not going to get me there.

Cameron Nathan Singh: So true.

Wayne Barringer: And that's okay. Like that's great. Because what got me here is great. I'm great. Right? Now and I just need to make that shift. So yeah, it's a lot of it stacked against us. We just have to give ourselves that space and maybe self forgiveness to be able to go, oh, I can make this shift and everything's going to be okay. Mhm.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that because I think what happens is when people get promoted into these leadership roles, they start climbing up the ladder. They think, oh, what they used to do before, you can still do. But reality is, no, it's like, yeah, you're, you're pushing that lid of your leadership, right? Uh, you have to take it to the next level, start making those shifts, whatever you need to make, whatever that looks like for you in order to grow yourself and in leadership. And if you're not growing, um, then you're not, you're not elevating your team, you're not, you're not, uh, you're not doing a great job in terms of your growth as, as a leader.

Wayne Barringer: Yeah, totally agree. I think in order to do that, that's what I've learned. Uh, I used to be the guy that thought that the value of my leadership was my ability to judge and scrutinize and, and make binary choices on good and not good. That is freaking stressful, man. It's stressful on, it was stressful on me, but it is debilitating on everybody else. Not exaggerating because, you know, had good leadership successes, but to make the point that now what I've learned and what we help people do and people just really excel with this concept. If you can eliminate judgment of others or at least bring it way down, the real magic of what that does is it not only empowers them like you're saying, but it also allows you to not judge yourself so much. Because if you have the judgment switch when it's on, you're judging everything, including yourself. And I don't know about you and everybody else out there, but 90% of what bounces around between my ears, not always real positive. So if you can take that judgment piece away, it really brings that down as well and it allows you to see the world, I think, a little bit more clearly of what you can do versus what you can't. And that's a big unlock too.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Hm. Yeah. So going back to the question, uh, why is it important to know the leader that you want to become? And like, how do you stay focused on that?

Wayne Barringer: I think it's important to aspire to the leader you want to become. And I think it's okay. If that changes or evolves. In fact, it's ideal, like we were just talking about that. You have the openness that you can change and evolve that. So I update, uh, my manifesto twice a year and I might have three years where it's pretty similar. And then there's a big shift and I don't always know when those shifts are coming. So the aspiration matters so that you can align where you want to go with your values. How many times do we feel like, oh, uh, I'm doing this thing and I don't want to do this thing. Yeah, uh, I've got this open door policy and I don't, I don't want to be in it, whatever it is. We've all had that thought or feeling, having the aspiration and doing the, the journaling work and the self reflection to take steps toward fulfilling that aspiration. To me, that's really what matters. The more you do that, the more clarity you'll have about knowing the leader you want to become. And then taking the steps is a lot smoother. The blockages aren't there like they were before.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah. I think it's so important to take that time for yourself to uh, do that reflection, that self reflection.

Narrator: And the reality is the, as you

Cameron Nathan Singh: mentioned, Wayne, the, your aspirations of the leader you want to become, it's going to evolve over time. I think what happens, um, and I've experienced this too, is we all have that, that one road that we're focused on, that this is the way it is and this is the way it's always going to be.

Narrator: But not really.

Cameron Nathan Singh: As you grow in leadership, those aspirations change. Even myself, I thought I wanted to achieve, like become a C suite executive with the organization that I was with. But the reality was I came to a point in my leadership where I realized that's not where I want to be because that's not where I, uh, guess my, that's not the values that I have. That's not what I aspire to be. I see the people in those spaces, how limited time they have. Uh, you know, I see the, the destruction is done to their families and aspirations change. And um, we have to embrace that time. And I think creating that space, like for me it's, it's in the afternoons after a good day's work. It's usually, uh, you know, an hour or two where I spend in personal growth. And a part of that time is reflecting on how the day went, how am I doing, uh, what is it that, what are the shifts that I need to make tomorrow, uh, where maybe I didn't. I missed the mark in a few areas. And I think making that time is, is critical.

Wayne Barringer: Yeah, I love that, man. I think that's so important. You know, there's a lot of things that I can do, my clients do that we can all do that fall under kind of professional development. Um, one of them is take a walk. Yeah, like, literally just go take a walk and like, clear out, get some fresh air. I read a stat a couple weeks ago that we spend like 93% of our time indoors these days. Like, what are we missing? Just in the nature of walking down the street. Um, so it doesn't have to be. Although it's great to read books and listen to podcasts and like, do some self reflection. All of that's awesome. But it can also be and should be as simple as, you know, being outside or taking 15 minutes and reading a novel or meditation and journaling are huge sort of down regulators to allow yourself to get some clarity.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah, um, I wanted to go back to talking about boundaries. Um, what are some of the things that you think in, in your opinion, that you've seen work where, um, leaders can put in place to have those proper boundaries? Because I think that's, that's the most challenging to, to, to start having those proper boundaries in place, especially for new leaders or if you're in a new leadership role or new leadership promotion. Um, how do you set up those, those proper boundaries?

Wayne Barringer: At the risk of sounding like a broker record, the boundary setting is arbitrary. If you don't know where you're going. Right. If you don't know how you want to show up as a leader, where you want to get to as a leader, and where you want your team and how you want your team to grow. If you don't know that, then it's pretty challenging. The bar. The boundary setting is arbitrary. But if you know that, uh, I think Elon says that, you know, the best leaders say, are Warren Buffett or all these great leaders. The best leaders say no 98% of the time. And the best leaders know where they're going. Warren Buffett knew that he wanted to buy, uh, you know, wonderful, enduring companies. That was his focus. And he carved out a lot of other things as a result. So his boundaries were based on his aspiration. And for me, um, my, my aspiration of what I want to do with myself with my emotion, with my time and my business today are way more clear than they used to be. And so I'm able to say yes, and no, with great ease and uh, with a, I think a much more measured, uh, sort of yes and no like it used to be. Yes. Want to get new business. Well, that's helpful, right? Or no, you don't mean anything to me. Well, that's not helpful either. So, uh, knowing where you're going helps make that boundary setting even easier as well.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah, that, that's so true. And I, um, think going back to the, the, the calendar thing, uh, something just came to mind on that. Uh, one of my good friends that I co host, um, another podcast with, um, one of the things. And I always thought this was weird because I had visibility on his personal calendar and his work calendar. And um, I always saw he blocked out time for like everything that he did, like including work. So he had like in his morning he had time for reflection and then he would schedule out like family time. You know, like after five it would be family time, dinner.

Narrator: I always thought that was really weird.

Cameron Nathan Singh: But then it wasn't until like this year where I learned from someone else that same thing of, uh, blocking out your, your, your days, you know, because

Narrator: we all have our schedules, right?

Cameron Nathan Singh: But blocking out like big chunks of time, okay, like, you know, in the morning when I wake up, you know, that's whatever time for you. For me it's writing and reflection and then the evenings are more of like personal growth. But I think it's very intentional to specifically, like practically to do this is like start blocking out your calendar and ah. And so that you start protecting your own time. Uh, because like for me, for me it's like if it's not on the calendar, it's not happening.

Wayne Barringer: Well, why do we think schools have, you know, schedules every day? Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think that, you know, if you wake up in the morning and your intention is to spend six hours scrolling on Instagram, you want to write that down. M. And then you can come face to face with it and again with self forgiveness, decide, is that what I want to do with those six hours? If you have intentionality, you can be in a very forgiving way, accountable and create an intention. But if you don't want to spend six hours scrolling now, what are you going to do with those six hours? I find a lot of times the clients that we work with, I, I am still a part of this at times. That certainly was worse before. We think we don't have any time for anything. People who think that do not catalog their time and, and so they can't see how much time they're wasting on, um, things that are not a part of their true intention. There's a part of a momentary sort of bite of the donut, if you will, in an analogy sense. So yeah, time blocking and having a discipline to keep it. We, we obviously, we teach time blocking too. We have a whole system around owning a calendar and what we see is people time block and they come back and they say I. Those time blocks blew up. Somebody took that time for me.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yep.

Wayne Barringer: That's the person that hasn't figured out they want to be at mhm. That's why we work these things together. So again, it comes back to that intentionality. And then it's much easier to have the discipline to keep those time blocks and have them, have them be able to show you an account so that you can measure against your intent and then you can tweak it when you need to. Mhm.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah. That's. That's awesome. One of the last things that I wanted to talk about, Wayne, is you mentioned this before. Ah, earlier in the episode is talking about aligning values to the way you lead. And I think especially in leadership, there can be a lot of temptation to compromise our values or even sometimes you might be pressured to compromise your values. Um, how do you stay as a leader truly aligned with your core values in the way that, that you lead?

Wayne Barringer: Yeah, I think, uh, that's an amazing question. I think it's a, it's a really deep question. I don't think, at least for me, there's not a snap simple answer. I think the generalities are like we were talking about before. As you elevate, as your perspective changes. You know, our core values of who we are probably don't shift that much. But the awareness of what the situation requires and how that connects to our values probably shifts. Here's an example. I'm the same person if I'm an employee or if I'm a vp. But if there's a layoff pending and I'm an employee, how I'm going to show up in that situation is probably different. Fear, worry that I'm going to get laid off. Gossip, all those things. Right. If I'm a vp, also as an employee, I'm going to think, you know, those monkeys up there don't know what they're doing. How can they lay people off before a holiday? Like all the things. Uh-huh. And all those things are natural. As a vp, I still have the same values as a person, but my perspective connected to those values is different. The company's in trouble. Maybe the company made some mistakes, we've got to get our financials back, whatever. So I want to be thoughtful and human, but performance based about how we make those decisions. So again, always keeping connected to your aspiration and having alignment with who you are at your core, who you want to be and what you need to do to get the job done the way it should be done. Some people at the VP level, uh, in the kind of a, in the throes of a layoff will say, hey, I'm not going to architect this. This is not who I am. And I've seen people leave a company because they didn't want to be the architect of a, of a layoff or whatever. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. That's, that's even more powerful. So that connectivity, I think is huge.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Awesome. Well, uh, Wayne, I really enjoyed this discussion. I hope those listening and watching, um, really help them really understand or even put this at the forefront is, you know, what is the leader or who is the leader that, that you want to become. So really thank you for your insights and your time and uh, yeah, thank you, Cameron.

Wayne Barringer: This is great fun, great questions, great dialogue, great, great person to talk to. Thanks a lot.

Cameron Nathan Singh: Yeah, for sure. And for those listening, stay after and, uh, you'll find more info on how to connect with Wayne and find out more, more of some of the work that he does. And so thank you again, Wayne.

Wayne Barringer: Thank you. Take care. Thank you.

Narrator: Well, thank you so much for tuning in on today's episode. I really hope that you enjoyed today's podcast. It's great to be back on the pod. And thank you again for tuning in. Uh, if you found this episode valuable to you, send this to someone. Send this to your leader, aspiring leader, send this to your boss or a colleague of yours that might need to hear this episode. Um, feel free to subscribe if this is your first time tuning in. And if you want to connect with Wayne and find out more about the work he does, just go in the description, uh, of the podcast on whichever platform you're listening on and you can find that information there. Uh, if you want to find out more about me and some of the things I do, you can go my website. The information is down there in the description as well. Cameron Singh.com and you can find all there is. Um, and you can also find details on how to connect with me. I'm always looking for feedback, looking for guests, and trying to make this content more valuable to you as we go forth. Thank you again for tuning in. And we'll catch you again, yes, again, next Wednesday. Sorry, next Monday for episode 50. Episode 50. Uh, yes. This episode is going to be amazing. I'm gonna bring you another amazing guest and looking forward to, uh, the journey we go on with this podcast in this, uh, year 2025. Well, have a great rest of your week, and thank you again, and we'll catch you next Monday.