4. You are getting it wrong if you are not doing this one leadership essential !

Speaker A: This episode is like an audio summer holiday smash hit mega novel. It centers around a leader's need for thinking time. So come on, be honest. Do you value yourself and others by how much time you put in at your desk or equivalent? Do you spend your working week jumping from meeting to meeting and feeling like you've done loads, but oddly, nothing at all? Well, in this episode, we're going to be quite honest and tell you that as a leader, you, you've probably got it wrong. But don't worry, we do uncover how you can carve out more time to think, create, and importantly, look after yourself. We also talk about grief walking, books and aging now, albeit that we talk about the negative impacts of social media in this episode. Have you discovered our YouTube channel yet? It is an amazing source of leadership wisdom, including our famous six, six minute guide to everything that you need to know about leadership. You can also find our previous podcast episodes on there too. Simply search for Leader Connect. Welcome to episode four of the Leader Connect podcast. I'm Sarah McEntee. I nearly gave away my old name. For some reason I forgot my surname. And also joining me, as ever in Series 2, is founder of Leader Connect, author of the leadership book, Neil Jerd. I have a question for you. It's a big one. It's, it's possibly the sort of question that, that we would have around, uh, a nice table in the sunshine with a few glasses of wine. But I'm going to ask it you anyway because it's quite philosophical. What has been one of the most defining moments that has helped shape your life?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a huge question that as you, as you, as you well know, see, I think for me it's, it's probably a massive negative one. Uh, and, and yet it was a, uh, it has been a pivot on which the second part of my life has been built. And, and it was, and I'm being very honest with this, I lost my wife in 2009 and my children were very young at the time. And I, I just left the army and was head of logistics for British Sugar at the time. And uh, it certainly wasn't a, you know, there was, there was nothing positive in it at all at the time. Um, uh, however, off the back of that, and as a way of working around having two very young children, because Elsa was two at the time, I started finding work I could do from home or close to home. And an HR director friend of mine invited me to work with some senior leaders at a, um, local university. So I did. And then that kind of just started to spread. And I worked with more and more and more leaders and, um, so I suppose that's the practical side of it. And then in terms of my thinking, I think just going through. And I know lots of listeners will have gone through their own traumas and tragedies, um, but. But going through that awful grief curve, the horrible impact of losing, um, my wife, who I loved, gave me a lot of time to. Well, I think I grew to understand myself much better as a result of it. Um, I felt some extremes of loss. Uh, but I think I came out of it knowing myself much better. Um, and I think the version of me that's here today was certainly very much shaped. Shaped by that experience.

Speaker A: You know, we might be thinking of a positive thing in our lives that has had that impact more often than not. For most of us, it is a negative experience that causes us to completely change ourselves, either for the better or, or, or not for the better, or a bit of both, to be honest. And it's. It's really interesting you talk about that because, um, I had a bit of a feeling that that was what you would probably say. And that allowed me, when I was planning for the podcast, to think about my, um, experience of, of grief. And, and actually recently, um, I've been tapping into that a lot more because I lost my mum five years ago. My mum had been, um. Well, she had Parkinson's. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's when she was just a few years older than I am now. And I'm 45, so she was diag. And what has occurred to me is actually it is at that point that we lost Mum. It wasn't when she passed away that we lost her, and we just kind of cracked on with, with life. And I think it's now in the last few weeks because I've been unwell myself, and I've been starting to think about things. I think I've observed actually that grief curve that you talk about can be spread out over a number of years. And I'm now starting to realize, perhaps in the same way as you did, um, that, um, there are changes that I need to make and how, um, those moments, you know, um, sort of 15, 20 years ago defined a lot of the choices that I made in my life and that I need to acknowledge those and now start to kind of move on and, and, and change a little bit. My, My attitude to a lot of things. So, you know, having these moments that are really, really difficult do make a big impact. But what was interesting for me, I found, is that the impact hasn't hit me until a long time afterwards. So uh, maybe this kind of follows on neatly. I don't know. One of the things that I'm now starting to realize off the back of those thoughts, um, and perhaps you realized as well, is this concept of time and giving yourself a space. And we've spoken about it over a lot of podcasts, so it would seem right to devote an entire episode to thinking space. Can you just remind us why as leaders we need to have thinking space? Because it's a brave thing to do.

Speaker B: Any organization or team has to be clear where it's going, what it is it's trying to achieve and also how it's doing. And if as a lead, well, as a leader, you, you kind of, you own that actually you, you, if you're responsible for, for anything as a leader, uh, it's that clarity of direction, what you're trying to achieve and then ultimately bringing it to life, making sure the organization achieves its um, purpose. And a lot of leaders will get very stuck in, to the detriment of the big picture. They'll want to be really hands on the task. There's different reasons for this. One is that they've come through um, a technical area of expertise that they're really familiar with so they'll want to go back into what they used to do, um, and have a very hands on approach to the task. And um, I think a lot of leaders feel guilty about being in leadership positions so they mitigate their guilt by again being exceptionally busy and hands on with the task. But for me these are the wrong places for a leader to be. Not, not to say you should never, never be involved or never help. I'm not advocating lazy leadership, but actually you've got to be able to see the whole picture and you've got to have time to reflect on the whole picture. The people, the problem, the environment, to kind of really understand what's going on. To do that you've got to carve out the, the time and the space for it. It's got to be okay to shut the office door or go for a walk or take people off site and uh, to actively. And thinking just to be clear doesn't have to be done alone, but some of it probably should be done alone. But equally you can bring other people in. It's just any organization that doesn't think, any leader that doesn't think. You'll find your activity is mindless. It is the very definition of mindless. No Mind is being applied to shape activity.

Speaker A: It's interesting, isn't it? And I heard somebody use this quote the other day. I won't ask my team to do anything that I wouldn't do myself. Which sounds great, but the bit that I was like to tack onto the end of that is I wouldn't ask my team to do anything that I wouldn't do myself, therefore I'm going to do it myself. Tends to be the thing that happens, doesn't it? And it's in interesting because it had never occurred to me that some of that might come from guilt. That um, you know, I remember when I worked in radio, I was a radio presenter and then I was promoted into a position of responsibility and the thing that I found the hardest I think was that I felt quite guilty because there was someone else in the team that wanted that role and then I sort of stepped out of that team and it was all a little bit difficult for a while. But again, I think, you know, as you always advocate, it's, it's entirely personality driven and, but there is that, there is that guilt there definitely of feeling, well, you know, I'm, I'm in this position and then they're not. And, and then there's also that element of course of oh, I've just run out of time. I may as well just do it myself because I haven't got to. I've run out of time to delegate, which then also feeds back into that and making sure that you've given yourself time. How do you find, how does this manifest itself on the ground? How do you find time for thinking? What do you actually do?

Speaker B: I walk a lot. Uh, and uh, I think you know this Sarah. A lot of my work is done on, on foot. So I'll, you know, I, I walk about 10 miles a day at the moment. I use that time. I mean I, I could, I can read my emails while I'm walking and I can have phone conversations while I'm walking and I can leave messages while I'm walking and I can, I can research things. Um, I don't necessarily know where I, where I' but uh, so, so, but I'm quite ruthless about making sure that I look after myself. You know, that's like a condition of, of my work, of running the business and delivering my work is that I, I do it on terms that create space for me to think and create, but also that keep me healthy. I think that really is my, for me my big thing is walking. It used to be running but um, still Recovering from, from an operation at the moment. So walking is the big one.

Speaker A: So which I love and I completely relate to because at least three or four times a week, if, and yoga is my big thing at the moment as part of my recovery, I um, completely get the walking thing. Totally get it. You and I are quite lucky in that. So you run your own business. I work from home and I have some of that flexible, you know, that ability to do flexible working. I appreciate there are also other people in that situation. How do we do that if we are uh, in that very definitely 9 to 5 environment where you know, you've got to get in at a certain time, you probably have got some time for a lunch plate, blah, blah, blah. How do we do that for those people that perhaps don't have the, the amount of freedom that perhaps we have?

Speaker B: I think firstly a lot of people's lack of freedom is, is self imposed. So whilst the reality of the structure is there, I would say most people that, that I've had in a work environment where I've had coaching conversations, most people will make the decision themselves that they can't possibly leave the computer for an hour to take some lunch or even half an hour to take some lunch and they will restrict themselves to only drinking coffee at the desk or whatever. So ah, a lot of the conditions that keep people limited come from themselves and that's usually linked to an environment where being busy is prized above all things. Process comes ahead of purpose. But the reality is most organizations and teams actually want to have an impact. The purpose, the having those big impacts is what people really want. They just think that the way to it is by doing more of the same, having more meetings, working, working longer hours, not almost never achieving more, but working longer hours. And I talk about bravery sometimes in my work and I think this is important. Um, there is a bravery in leadership, a courage in choosing to do leadership things and thinking is a leadership thing. So it takes a certain amount of courage to say, right, I'm, I am going to stop, I'm going to, I'm going to take half an hour. Because it is in the greater uh, interests of my boss, of my organization, of our purpose that I just sit down, clear my head and have a think about how we can improve things. You can, a lot of work can be done in a different way. I mean when I was, when I was an army officer, I used to do pretty much all of my interviews with people on foot. We'd go for a walk, we'd go for a walk for half an hour or 40 minutes rather than choosing to be, to be sat down. I know I'm not necessarily talking about thinking there, but uh, it's more about breaking the version of convention that you've made up for yourself.

Speaker A: It's the same thing as people saying, I haven't got time to go to the gym or do a workout. The way that I find it works for me is, well, I get up early, I always have got up early, but I'll always get up an hour before the rest of the house. So that gives me some of my own personal thinking time. And you, uh, know, when I do my kind of meditation stuff on all of those bits and pieces, it's the win the morning, win the day concept, I suppose. And then the other thing that I found works is by putting workouts in my diary. But I guess there would be no reason why you couldn't put in your diary. And if like I do, you know, you share a diary with the rest of the world. Your diary is visible to the, to the world. Um, you know, putting time in there that, that says thinking time. I also put in deep work time. So that time where I'll probably put my phone on um, flight mode and that's when I do my deep work. I've done that for a while and nobody's moaned about it yet. So maybe it's that first step, isn't it, of saying, right, this is what I'm going to do. Diarizing it makes a big difference because you diarize meetings, you turn up to them, you diarize something else, you will turn up to it. I think it's when it's in our head as a potential negotiable thing. That's probably when it doesn't work.

Speaker B: You've touched on the, the danger of devices there, which I think is something quite, quite important. I mean I don't allow anyone to book my time.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I, uh, I, and I know some organizations absolutely work on the, on the idea that your, your day can be filled up by other people and that's it. You know, you can. And literally I know people who'll have an eight hour series of back to back meetings, none of which they, they booked. It's incredibly hard to lead if you, if you don't make space to, to think and act. You know, if you're constantly attending, you become less effective as a leader. My working world started, my first job was in 1992 when um, we used to send memos. There were no, there were no mobile phones and we didn't have computers and we used to send memos and a memo from one of the, part, one part of my squadron as it was. We were in Belize actually at the time. But one, a memo from me to somebody 100 meters away could, could take a day, sometimes even two days to move between us. But the organization ran perfectly well. And from that I've taken the, uh, the fact that we don't need to be on call all the time. We don't need. Our phones are deliberately designed to pull us in and addict us as, as we all know now, but still go along with, I think people look at their phones. I mean this could be out of date. It could be, they could be even worse now. But it was once every six minutes is the average time.

Speaker A: I'm sure it's double, I'm sure it's double that now.

Speaker B: But you don't get any headspace if you're, if you're constantly, um, breaking your thought process by checking messages or being on call for other people. Of course it's a nonsense. So I, I think my phone is down in the house at the moment. I very, I routinely don't, don't carry it. It doesn't, it never comes into the bedroom. People laugh at me for my lack of use of the laptop, but I try to keep it very structured. I, I work in my main office on my desktop or, or not at all pretty much other than using my phone when I'm, uh, when I, when

Speaker A: I'm out walking, talking about phones and, and stuff. And I 100% agree with you. Do you remember when we used to send letters? How joyful that was? And I went to boarding school. My parents lived abroad because they were military. And the joy of getting a letter was, was brilliant and exactly what you said. It took longer and, and it was less stressful. Relaxation, the intervention of phones and all of those kind of things. A lot of us, uh, it comes to the evening time, it's time to relax. And our way of relaxing is to scroll stuff on our phones, be engaged with, with some kind of electronic device. I mean, telly is included in that. Is that the way to relax?

Speaker B: If I said yes, you'd be really disappointed.

Speaker A: I'd, I'd stop recording the show.

Speaker B: Yes, but it somehow doesn't for me and I, but I think for the vast majority of people is probably the equivalent of a, a diet of Pop Tarts or something.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Sort of put something in without adding any substance or, or value. I mean, I, I, I, I get nothing from scrolling really genuinely nothing. And I very rarely do it. Now. I've kind of found myself fairly disinterested in social media lately just, just because I, I realize it doesn't, um, although people would justify it by saying, oh, I know what people are doing, but somehow it doesn't fill the soul in any way, does it? And it manages to distract from the people you're actually with. And I love reading. I mean I absolutely love, I love reading. Uh, if I've got nothing to do, I'd much rather pick up a book than uh, go on LinkedIn and see who's got a certificate or a prize for something or, or who's feeling, who's feeling thankful for whatever this this week. So yeah, I think it sucks up time without adding any value or very little value.

Speaker A: I do the 3:00am um, wake up thing. I might go on Instagram and scroll because I know it's slightly soporific, but I'm not taking anything in at all. And I too love reading and I have returned to the reading book. I've got lots of electronic ways of reading books, but yeah, there's nothing better than a pile of books and the actual feel of a. And reading. And also what you're not doing is getting all of that blue light energy that is, that is not good for us at all anyway. I've subsequently also found out that it's not good for your skin either. It's a very quick way of aging, you know, you might or might not be interested in. I think we might leave it there on that. On that bombshell, read more books. Don't look at your phone because it's aging you. It's as simple as that. Neil, thank you so much. I'm going off now for a walk to school to watch a play. What joy. Okay. We would love to work with you and your business and we've a number of different ways that we can do that. Why not sign yourself and your team up for Leader Connect membership Access to our platform where you can develop your leadership skills at your own pace, in your own time. The platform contains ready packaged up leadership courses that you can pick and choose from depending on what area of leadership you need support with at that time. We also offer virtual and face to face live courses with our team of outstanding leadership coaches and trainers. Or you might simply want to engage personally in one to one coaching with us. Investing in leadership training is probably one of the best investments you can make for yourself and your organization. So please head over to www.leader-connect.co.uk to find out more.