The "Hero Leader" Delusion That's Secretly Destroying Your Team

Sean Weisbrot: Dr. Carla Fowler is a medical doctor with a PhD in immunology, and she is the managing director of Thaxa Executive Coaching, which helps companies using psychology and science and data to figure out how to perform better. In this conversation, we talked about psychology. In many different facets from personal to group to how the leader might possibly get in the way of change and how to handle all of the different aspects of individuals, uh, personalities, differences, and how they perform and how to get the best out of them. And it was a fantastic conversation for me to be able to talk with someone who understands psychology and. If you like these kinds of episodes, then you're gonna love this interview, so let's get to it. What's the importance of understanding the psychology of the individual and the psychology of the group in order to get people to perform the way you want them to?

Carla: We all, as human beings have a lot of potential. I think we all really. Generally want to do a good job. I think we want to perform at a high level and different people have different strengths. They have different places where they feel comfortable, and that's where I think understand the psychology becomes really helpful. So just as an example, like there are some people, I have clients and I know people personally who they always approach something from a strategic angle. They wanna figure it out and do a bunch of computational loops, they can figure out like what is the right strategic answer. I have other people who don't live there. Like in fact, for them they would be happier and feel more confident if they like got going, got into action, felt like they were like making some progress, building some momentum, and then they could shift to like. Is this thing I'm doing really moving the needle or could I improve upon it? Could I iterate a little more and make this a better set of actions that I'm stacking up towards this goal? And so I've just described two really different kinds of people, but you could imagine like if you thought everyone was the same and you're like going after them from a strategic angle that. You would lose half your people and they wouldn't feel like they were getting traction. They'd feel unmotivated and, and you'd probably be frustrated as a leader or like a piece of that team. So that's why I think the, like understanding the psychology and what makes people tick is super helpful 'cause it allows you to be successful with a number of different people.

Sean Weisbrot: If I were to describe myself, I would say that I am someone who. Likes to do some research in the beginning to see if something is viable. But then really quickly I wanna start testing because if I feel like I'm not, then I get bored and frustrated and I'll probably give up.

Carla: And I love that you brought this up because of course what I just described was a super binary like situation and it's, you know, when we're giving examples, we love examples that are like, you know, really clear. But what you described I think is much. Closer to reality, which is none of us are like all one thing or all another, but we might have preferences. And so your point of like, you wanna have enough confidence that you're not just going in with no idea about what, what's, what's a good thing to start doing. Like you build a little bit of confidence for yourself upfront, and then you're like, okay, but now I'm gonna start getting into action because. That's like, it's motivating. It makes me like, feel ready to go and I start making some progress. Um, and I think people often are a mix, as you point out.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. I find that I'm very capable of understanding high level concepts and struggling with the application of them. Uh, what about you in terms of these, these elements?

Carla: I love that you just asked that because, um, it, it's, it's very funny. My husband and I have different styles and I think we both benefit from the fact that this is the case. Um, but for me, I have always been a like, get into action, start moving. Like, and I can't, I can't tell you why that is. I just know that when I look at how I've approached everything from Scholastics to like high level athletics, to like, um, my profession, I like the feeling of being in motion and feeling like I am doing something and then I'm constantly learning. Like, I don't, I don't like doing something if it's not working. Um, but for me, it's. I definitely like to get into action and, um, and so for me, the thing I have to make sure I do and work at harder, like more deliberately think about is okay, how are you creating moments for yourself to step back and do some of that, like, um, more metalevel thinking. To say, how do these things you're doing stack up? Are they the most impactful things you could do? Um, you know, are you doing, are you using your time potently versus just like, oh, I'm doing a lot of stuff. It must be good. And I think this is a trap many people find themselves in, right? Like, you're busy, busy, busy. Maybe you're not like. Doing the most impactful things you could do with like your time or your resources.

Sean Weisbrot: That's why AI is great. 'cause AI automatically knows what it needs to do because you tell it and then it says, okay, well let me plan. Okay, well based on what you want me to do, based on this plan, this is the right thing to do. I'm gonna do this step that I'm gonna do this step. So AI is like super efficient. I love working with it. Um, but it's kind of tangential to the conversation. Just something interesting of note, I. I feel like when I'm advising people or when I'm going to invest in people, I struggle with the fact that I want things to move, but most other people aren't like I have a DD, so my brain moves extremely fast, much faster than most people that I encounter. Not to say I'm smarter than them, but. That it's frustrating for me because other people can't catch up with the speed at which I'm able to process information because by the time I've said something I, and they're starting to think about it. I'm already on the next idea. So it's hard for me sometimes to work with other people because of this mismatch in the speed. Um, with that in mind, do you find it difficult based on the way you operate to. Figure out how to work with people and not get frustrated by their difference when starting to talk about implementing a plan to empower their team.

Carla: Certainly I have, uh, different people that I work with for my business. So let's say those are, that's like the team I actually work with, right? But then separately, I'm coaching 50 to 60 leaders at a time, and that is a. That is sort of a different kind of interaction that I'm having with people. So like when I think about coaching, which is what I spend the majority of my time doing, I, I am a person who thinks fast. I. And so what you're describing is you're like, sometimes I get frustrated or like I, it's clear like I haven't communicated like all the steps that I went through 'cause the other person isn't tracking. I think what I love about coaching is that, um, for me it's not about me solving the thing. Like coaching is very much like I'm not the athlete on the field. Uh, the leaders I'm working with have challenging goals they're, they're trying to work towards and um, they're the one who's going to have to be playing on the field. And what's really interesting for me and fascinating for me is. How do I talk with them and how do we talk together? It's not talking at, right. How do we have a dialogue that helps me understand how they're approaching something, how they're thinking about it and where there might be, whether it's a gap or um, or just an opportunity to help improve something. Help them either gain a new skill, try something in a different way that unlocks something, um, or. You know, get to a different mindset that makes things easier for them or help them sort of focus and be able to be more potent with what are they doing and what are they choosing not to do. So I think my brain can still move very fast, but because coaching by its nature, you have to dialogue, you have to ask questions 'cause you're not in their brain. You don't have like a mind meld. And, um, I think it helps. I look right. I know I. I think for me, my brain can still move very fast in that scenario, but it's like I'm discovering, I get to be really curious. I mean, my job is basically I get to be super curious about 60 individual people who are all different, who are all doing something cool and like amazing and impactful, and I get to try and query their brains. Talk with them and figure out how, how does it work? How do things work for them? And then I have a fun problem to solve, but the way it gets solved is not that I solve their problem, it's that I ask questions that help them figure out, help us together. Say, oh, this might be useful. And I think that is part of where, for me, um, 'cause I like. Don't work. You know, in my business I don't work with a huge team, but that's sort of how that goes for me and my brain and, and what I do.

Sean Weisbrot: What you described is exactly why I didn't get a master's in psychology because they specifically wanted to train you how to listen to people's problems and guide them without telling them. So that they could figure out for themself what the solution is. I was like, what's the point? I could see their problem in five seconds. Like I could tell them what the problem is and they're like, yeah, but you know, first of all, some people don't wanna solve their problems. They just want someone to listen because they're, they're happy being stuck in the problem that they're facing. They just, they don't wanna deal with it. The ones that do wanna deal with it, they will learn if you don't tell them, or even if you point it out to them. You've already come to this solution or you, you've already come to understand the problem and you've, you've expressed it, but then it takes them time to accept that that's the reality. If they ever do. Once they accept it, then to determine what is the course of action to remedy the situation, if they actually then go and implement it. When I was 21, I was like, I, I'm gonna pay you like a hundred thousand dollars to learn how to do that. Why would I want to pay you to do that? Like, why would I wanna listen to people's problems all day? It doesn't make any sense. But now having run businesses, having been on the other side where I'm dealing with my team and. Investors and advisors and, and other people where they're like, I, I told you this three months ago. Right? They get frustrated with me where even though my brain moves fast and I can understand things, and when I, when I recognize that something is a problem and I, I'll instantly think, try to think of solutions and when I find the right solution, I will instantly try to put them into action. So I think in that regard, I'm a lot better than a lot of. Other people who may sit on it for a very long time, where for me, you might tell me, and I may not accept that in the moment. It may take me three months or six months to go. I, I may have to hear someone else talk about it. Um, so this actually happened with my c, with my COO and I in my previous business where he, I would say I had an idea or he'll say, Hey, what about this? And I'll. Listen to it and do nothing with it. And then like a few months later, someone else says something about it. And at the time I'm like, yeah, actually that makes sense. Let's, you know. And then I'll go back to my Co o or I, I would go back to him and I would say, he's like, when I told you about this months ago, why is it that someone else you don't know who's telling you about this now suddenly has the impact that like I, you could have had if you just listened to me the first time? And it's like, well, hearing it from you is important, but hearing another person say it that helps to validate it for me. Right when these are people's opinions or they're facts that I'm not aware of. And so, um, so now I feel like I've, I've earned that, uh, I've earned that Master's in life in psychology by being on the other side so that when I can, when I do talk to people, when I do mentor people. Or when I do advise people, I am able to be more curious, as you said, and ask questions. And that, I think that's really helped me with doing the podcast to be like, Hey, why? Just, what's up? Why, why are you doing this? Why do you think this? Why do you feel this way? Why do you believe this? What has happened to you that's caused you to say this thing or do this thing? It's different for me. Why? Uh, just I, I need to know why, because that will give me more information about the world and the more information I have, the better decisions I can make

Carla: as a business leader. Yeah, you're getting data, you're, you're getting data from the market, you're getting data from your team. You're just, everything is inputs. And sometimes those come from your team members like, Hey, there's this issue or this thing. But part of the game, and I don't think we always acknowledge this in business, is it's not about just. Being able to like uncover every problem and then you solve it. And that is how you be successful in performance. Because actually the world, like, and let's just, let's confine it a little bit. Your business. There are any number of things. Like that could be dealing with, or that are issues or imperfect, right? Like that's just the nature of things. It's noisy. And so part of the game is, um, you have to figure out what you're gonna pay attention to at any one point in time. And, and I don't mean that you're disregarding the person, but more just that you could chase down any number of small issues or different things. And we don't always know if something is big or small at the moment. We first hear about it. And so this idea of sometimes we have to like sit on something, gather some more data, is part of the skill of strategically leading a business. And certainly, um, I. There are ways we can help people on our teams understand that they've been heard, even if we're not gonna take action on something immediately. But if you take action on everything immediately, it's actually generally not the best strategic use of your time. And so the game sometimes is to say, how do we, how do we like thank people when they're communicating with us? Because again, some of the most important people are the people on our team who are willing to raise their hand and say, Hey, I noticed something that I think is not quite right, or something that could be better. Um, but also it it, we can't always just be like, oh, I see a issue I solve that I see an issue, I solve it because, um, that's a treadmill that just doesn't always allow you to get to sometimes the more important things

Sean Weisbrot: I remember. When I was working for the last company as an employee, before I started doing business for myself, the owner had this idea that he was Spider-Man and he was constantly shooting webs out of his fingers to, to put out the fires. And this was 2013. So it was a long time ago. I was much younger. I didn't have any of the business knowledge I have now. What I would say to him now is, man, you're gonna burn out if you keep thinking that. But at the time I didn't, I didn't have the sense to say that to him, but I, I knew that hearing him say that just made me feel weird. But I didn't know why there was something about it, and I was just like. Why do you think you're Spider-Man, first of all, and why do you think your job is to put out fires? Like you have like 20 employees, right? Isn't that like our job to like help you to take care of the things so that you can do something more important? Like how do we make more money so that we can pay our staff more money or whatever, whatever. So

Carla: yeah. Well, in, in some ways, I mean. You could imagine if, you know the leader thinks they're Spider-Man or you know, is like the hero or the person who needs to save the team, I always like to flip things and say, well, what does that then mean about the team? Right? Like, what is the psychological takeaway that the team has? Like is it that they're incapable, right? Like, or is it that like they're not kind of empowered to go solve something and so. Your point about like, something felt weird about that. You couldn't totally verbalize it at the time, but I get that, you know, if, um, because I think there's a lot of team momentum and confidence and empowerment that comes from. Hey, we have, we have work we gotta do, and we have, yeah, there are challenges we need to solve, but also we're all really capable and we trust each other. And yeah, you wanna match appropriate challenges with the appropriate person. You don't wanna set someone up to fail if it's well beyond their capability. But the, the thought of, um. Having the leader both be looking out for the company strategically as you pointed out. Like, yeah, how are we gonna grow the business or how are we going to do better next year? But then also knowing that the team, that you see the team as capable. So that totally makes sense to me. While you were like, that's kind of weird.

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of work. And every week we bring you a new guest and a new story. And what we do requires so much love so that we can bring you something amazing. And every week we're trying really hard to get better guests. That have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time, have you ever found that there's people that come to you that want to have their team become better? But then they were the bottleneck to the growth that their team was capable of, and so they were preventing you from doing your job.

Carla: I think even the word kind of like self-sabotage o often is like that's, that is one framing. One could put it that way. Um, but. Rather than like put a diagnosis on something, which I know is funny. I'm like my, as my background as a doctor, like obviously I come from a world of diagnosis, but I really like to stay much more in the space of like, I. Curiosity about what could be getting in the way or, um, what would be helpful. And I find that the nice thing about curiosity is curiosity is non-judgmental. And one of the basic pieces of coaching that's really important is if someone doesn't feel safe, like they can come to you, uh, like free of judgment, and that there isn't space to explore and to potentially be wrong. Right. Like we're all wrong about stuff, um, all the time. And you really have to protect that space because, um, again, there aren't, there aren't a lot of like truth meters in life where you could say, well, this is fully correct, or this is fully wrong. Like, there's second order effects to everything, right? And the way I always approach this is if someone wants their team to be doing more, there may be any number of reasons why the team. Isn't doing more. Some of those have to do with like, are they getting the opportunity? Do they have the capability to do it? And so I just always try to lay out and explore lots of the options. And then we can say, so usually it's a combo, like where we started our conversation today, right, is it's usually not all one thing or another thing, but we start to look at, well, what are all the reasons that maybe they aren't doing more? And within that mix, like. Often leaders do come to realize that there's a piece where they're holding onto something and they have to let it go. And that knowing that as they let it go, the other person may not do it exactly how they will do it. In fact, almost certainly they will not do it exactly. But part of what we look at is to say, well, is it important that they do it exactly how you would do it? And what is the cost of you holding onto it? And so we, when we can get into the ROI of the thing that's really helpful PE for people. 'cause it's not about like, is the leader I'm working with, right? Are they wrong? Are they self-sabotaging? Whatever. It's not about any of that, which is all very charged and like judgmental, right? It's much more about factually what do you want and what's gonna be most important for us to help you get that thing? And what are all the things standing in the way. And then we can start to just really talk about it much more in terms of like costs and benefits as opposed to right and wrong. And I think when we can move that conversation, it just really frees people up to be more open to consider change and even to self-assess. So I, I don't know if that answered your question, but that's really like the psychology for me as a coach, as I'm thinking about how do you approach this with people.

Sean Weisbrot: What are some of the things that get in people's way from allowing you to, to like let them open up

Carla: one of the. Benefits I have as a coach, just the way I structured my practice. Um, there are a lot of coaches who are like in the workplace, like, I don't know, doing a bunch of interviews or, or different things and are communicating like within that structure for the most part. Um, unless someone asks me to do that, like I just keep a really confidential, protected space. So again, they know nothing we're talking about is getting out to anyone else. Um, so I think that is very helpful. That's one of the things that can get in the way is if someone doesn't feel like safe being vulnerable. Um, and I think again, keeping it out of right and wrong and, and instead saying, well, what are the trade-offs? Right? Everything has trade-offs. Lots of things have second order effects. Um, so I think that's helpful. You know, I think another thing that can get in the way is just when people feel. Really stuck and different things can create stuckness. Like perfectionism is one, like when we feel like we have no room to try something new, to be a beginner, um, that can get people stuck. And so some of the work we might then do is to help them kind of see more clearly like. Actually, if you look around you like, are people being successful? Are they perfect? Like, oh, like, no they're not. And also to look at some of the costs of like, what is it costing them? Um, so perfectionism is, is a thing. Um, another thing can simply be time. So I think a lot of leaders are so pressed for time right now that like, um. Time and energy that they can feel caught in a, I can't do anything different because I'm like trying to fly the plane and build the plane and like, and like help everyone who's on the plane all at the same time.

Sean Weisbrot: That's Reid Hoffman's, uh, phrase. Yeah. I don't know if you know who Reid Hoffman is. For people who don't know is the founder, one of the co-founder, one of the co-founders, I don't know of LinkedIn and is, is he, I guess it was him that coined this a long time ago. It's like building a startup is like building a plane while it's plummeting off the cliff towards the ground and hoping that you get, get it flying before you hit the ground.

Carla: There's a lot of truth to that. Um, and, and I like, I like adding the piece about like. You're like caring for all the passengers on board too, because you're not just in the plane by yourself. And I think this is another thing for like startup founders, they care a lot about their teams, right? Like the people who are willing to go into the trenches with them and get on the plane. And so I, I, there's a lot of, a lot of pressures there. And so sometimes, um. One of the things I help people with is get some clarity. And again, I'm not telling them what their answers should be, although there often are some, uh, there are some principles about what are the things you probably need to be paying attention to that are the most important, but I can sometimes help people free up the difference between like the really big level important things versus Yeah, there's a lot of other stuff that's kind of important. But can't be as important as these other things. So just as an example, a framework I often use is like, um, in business there is like making stuff. So you're producing something generally and there's a level of quality that that needs to have, right? There's selling stuff, you have to be out, like marketing it, selling it. Um, generally it's hard to create something so compelling that people just show up at your door. I mean it has happened, but it's tough. Uh, and then the third piece is visibility. It's sort of the influence and the visibility. 'cause you can be producing great stuff, um, and you can even be maybe selling it directly to your customers. But a lot of that next level of performance has to come from being like known and seen. Um, and so again, that's just a framework I often will use as a starting place for conversation with people to say, let's try and separate out what might be. Most important, so we can free up some time to get you a little bit unstuck, to improve some other things, and then we can kind of cycle through that.

Sean Weisbrot: I, I don't remember where I heard this, but if someone is stuck to say to them, what's the cost of like, just not doing that thing? Like if, like, for example, if you feel the need to knock on the door three times before you enter, like if there's some sort of OCD as an example, it's like. What's the cost of like, not doing that? What's the cost of just trying, uh, maybe ooc d is the wrong ex example, but you know, if someone has a habit or they have a, a thought process that they're, they're dug into, it's like, what, what's the opposite of that? Right? What's the opposite of this behavior or this thought pattern? What's the, the, the cost of, you know, trying it another way? What Have you tried it the other way? Like just try it, see what happens.

Carla: Flipping things is often really interesting because also the opposite of something, or, or, or let's say, sorry, the not doing of something doesn't actually guarantee the opposite of something happening. Right. And that's what's really interesting is that sometimes we can stop doing something and we realize like, oh, there was like basically no impact of that. It wasn't that, oh, whatever was that area now is going terribly. It's just like, oh, I removed that thing and it's as though it never, it didn't matter, right? Like, um, but I like what I liked about what you said is because I, this is a framing I often use with clients. It's the idea of run an experiment. So again, like my, my science background coming back in because. I think there's so much about science. The time I spent, like the five years getting my PhD in the lab like that were so valuable for a lot of life and I'm still practicing. So even having had that experience, the ability to say, well just try it. Like you could just go do things right, like that, that concept of you can just go do things. Go do it. Try it, see what happens. Sure. If it's something that's got some high stakes, you could do a little bit of thought about how you wanna do it in a way that wouldn't be, you know, catastrophic if the worst case happened, but run an experiment and be curious about what happens and give yourself those freedom to do that.

Sean Weisbrot: A, a lot of people I talk to say how shocked they are that I moved across the world when I was 21. Like, oh, I could never do that. Like, you're so brave. You're so this. Like, they're like, I, I, I wish that I could travel more. It's like, why aren't you? If you want it, you've identified it's a part of who you'd like to be, just do it. Like, oh, no, I couldn't. I have this, I have that. Are, do you need those things? Are those things holding you back? Right? You don't have to look up to me in this matter. You could just go do it and you could be me, but without being me, you could be you in another way. And it's just shocking to me how many people are stuck inside of their own like head about life.

Carla: I think sometimes we have commitments or things that make us feel like we can't go do something. And maybe what's important that's not being said at that moment is, oh, I want, I, I wish I could be you. I, I want to go travel. I wanna go do all these things. And you asked the question rightly, why not? Like, maybe you've gotta sort some things, right? Maybe you need to figure some things out or rearrange your life a little bit differently. But maybe actually there are some concrete reasons why you couldn't go do that. But some of those reasons might actually be really good. And so rather than saying, oh, I can't go do this thing, maybe what we need to be doing is saying, well, how do I appreciate, um, and be able to say. For example, uh, my husband and I have been digital nomads for the past five years, and we do not have kids. We don't have pets, we don't have plants. Nothing that, you know, takes a lot of responsibility beyond ourselves. And um, and I recognize that like if we had kids, that would be way harder to do. Like probably homeschooling would be involved in various things, right? And, and one could choose to do that. But on the other hand, like I know lots of people who have kids and it's like. Enjoy the heck out of your kids. They're having an experience. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna have that experience. And they might not be digital nomad ing around, but like, you know, they've got this kind of other special thing. And so maybe the point is, uh, I, I apologize if that like went into sort of like a, a preachy land. That is definitely not where, I mean to be. I think it's that there's something super empowering about, think about what you want. We don't get everything we want, but if we're not thinking about it and then trying to make some choices to choose it, like, well then we're probably not gonna get it. Um, and there's no guarantees. We do get it. But thinking about it, I love that you asked that question back.

Sean Weisbrot: What's something I haven't asked you that you think would be really important for people to be thinking about?

Carla: Well, it's, it's interesting that you say that now because. One of the most important things I, I start with people on is to ask the question, what is it you want to have happen? That's starting with that question is the first place, and, and it's the core of strategy too. It's like, well, what is it you want to have happened? And then you can start to move towards what's actually gonna be most important for that. Um, or what does that look like when I've actually done it? Um, so I think. That would be probably the, the first thing that comes to mind. Um, I think the second thing that comes to mind, so that's for people who like to start in that more strategic space, but I think for all the people who start more in like the action oriented get into action place, I often say don't wait until you have the perfect idea or the perfect like, uh, hack or silver bullet like. If you think something should change and you have a, a reasonable enough idea, like you don't have to go do a bunch of research, like start doing that thing and learn how to make time for that thing. And if you've learned how to make time to do that thing and start a new habit or a new, um, like, uh, element that you want in your life. Then if you figure out you gotta change that, that's okay. It's easy to switch time you've devoted towards that to something slightly different or iterate it. But like don't get bogged down looking for the perfect idea before you like get into action. Because action can be like very motivating.