Called to Flourish Podcast: Developing Leadership Skills with Psychology

0:09Welcome to the call to flourish podcast sponsored by Divine Mercy University. My name is Thomas Cronquist. I'm your host with father Charles Sikorsky, the president of DMU. Father Charles, how are you today? Good day, Tom. All good. Looking forward to today's, show and topic and interview with doctor Ewing. It's gonna be very interesting. Our guest is, doctor Chris Ewing. He's a professor at DMU and an expert in the psychology of leadership. You'll talk with us about his work and his book, Living Your Leadership. Doctor Ewing, welcome to the Call to Flourish podcast. Please tell us about your work and how you became interested in the psychology of leadership. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for having me.

0:50It's a it's a great honor especially to talk to father Charles again. It's been a while. So, you know, my background is, initially air force. I joined in 2004. I was in ICBM operations, in lovely Minot, North Dakota. Spent, about eight years in the Air Force launching rockets and monitoring ICBMs before I transitioned over to, work in the medical field. I was in operations and call center, and I've done quite a bit of that over time. While I was in the Air Force, I did get my doctorate in educational psychology. I crossed over a little bit into the, the leadership field, which is typically reserved for our industrial organizational psychology folks, but, it really suited my interests, especially after my time in Iraq and the time that I've spent working in the civilian field watching great and poor leadership happen.

1:52I got my Lean Six Sigma black belt oil was out along with, PMP and a couple other certifications that are relevant to some of the jobs that I've had. And I've taught at a half dozen universities or more, in the last ten years. My favorite, and don't tell any of the other universities this, is DMU. DMU aligns with my my Catholic faith, and the ability to be able to teach leadership and psychology at the same time is almost unique, to DMU. So kind of that's that's, where my background is. Psychology and leadership, I I wrote a book several years ago. It's in its second edition now. It's been used to develop courses, both formally and informally. And, it's it's been it was a real work, you know, a labor of love to get that out there.

2:48Tell us a little bit about what you mean by so what is meant by psychology of leadership. So psychology of leadership. Leadership has a a lot of, kind of a lot of interdisciplinary folks looking at it. Leadership in particular is, I believe, rooted deeply in the experience of self, the understanding of self, and that has so much to do with awareness and authenticity, the sort of things that, Bass, Avolio, some of our other great thinkers have talked about. A leader really should understand themselves first. I was just explaining this to a group of of young men and women. But you it's your god given traits, virtues, and strengths that inform the type of leadership that you may or may not be best at.

3:43In psychology, you want to ensure that you have alignment interiorly and in your external leadership practice, that authenticity authenticity, the emotional intelligence, and then the ability to to to shift your focus from that self growth to caring for others. As Saint Augustine said, the, the measure of love, you know, is to will consciously will the good of the other. And that is the essence of servant leadership, which is what I tend to espouse as the greatest, or the pinnacle of leadership competencies. Yeah. You mentioned, something along the lines, you could be leader leaders in different situations or different kinds of leaders. Some people say, well, leaders leaders aren't made. They're born.

4:34And I'm wondering what you think about that and what you think about, like, could could someone be a good leader in one kind of activity or or one kind of, organization and not in another? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you make a couple good points there. So I completely disagree that leaders are are born. If that were true, then every Roman emperor would have been an excellent leader. Not almost none of them had any leadership training per se. Every that's one of the reasons that royalty, even though it was successful probably the longest in civilized human history, one of the reasons that it failed so often, our training, especially if you look at military, institutions, training is what builds good leaders.

5:24Training and education, self awareness, which is one of the reasons that military leadership doesn't necessarily translate perfectly into the civilian sphere because it's a lot more directive in nature. And I believe you asked also about whether somebody can be a good leader in one situation versus another. And the answer to that is basically the same, along the same vein as military leadership. There are different skills required in different scenarios. I know some outstanding bureaucrat leaders who could manage a spreadsheet better than anyone, who could also ensure that government employees had everything that they need. But if you put that person in a situation that requires a great deal of empathy, or if you put them in a training scenario where they have to lead a training group, or a professor who has never had any leadership experience, that person might or might not be able to lead in a in a classroom.

6:27You hear a lot about, leaders and leadership today. Who's a good leader, who isn't? Are there any theories of leadership that are really antithetical to our understanding, your understanding of good leadership? No. Absolutely. I would say that any authoritarian style leadership, any bureaucratic style leadership, is antithetical to the Catholic Christian worldview and, the psychological worldview. So if we're talking about, the the value of authenticity, of, of emotional intelligence, of understanding and serving others, then that's not something you see in authoritarian leadership styles. Also, laissez faire leadership, where it's essentially management by exception or, just completely laid back and letting things happen.

7:23We can't allow that sort of lackluster or dictatorial leadership to stand. So, yes, there are certainly leadership styles that I would say more closely align with, the negative aspects of humanity. What so what are the what is a good leader? And what are the what are the essential characteristics to be a good leader? You know, a good leader, a good leader establishes trust. First of all, trust is foundational. They demonstrate that they care about their people in a tangible way. And they practice, in in my estimation, servant leadership, where there are self sacrificial behaviors, where humility and authenticity are at the forefront. They're practiced daily by that leader. In addition to exhibiting self leadership where you have excellent emotional control and, the ability to use your own strengths and weaknesses use your strengths and improve your weaknesses on a daily basis is something that we're looking for.

8:34Obviously, integrity is incredibly important, which aligns both with Judeo Christian morals and with good leadership practice. And we also like to see people inspire and empower their followers. There there's nothing wrong with transformational leadership, for example, but I believe that it lacks in that self sacrificial behavior and in the emphasis in leader humility. K. So sacrifice, humility, trust, inspiration. Could you give a few examples that may we may be familiar with, who you think is is a really good leader from business or world or, you know, history? No. Absolutely. And I I would point to the leaders that Jim Collins points out in his book. If you're talking about business, for example.

9:20But one of the one of the first ones that immediately comes to mind for me is general Colin Powell. Rarely in the last thirty years have we seen a a leader who is so universally liked and respected. He was always willing to go to the front line to ask for advice, to incorporate that that feedback into his daily practice. Mother Teresa. Obviously, Saint Mother Teresa is a is a fabulous example of someone who was, always willing to to lead from the front, to lead authentically, to tell people, sometimes in very blunt but always very true way, what she meant and what God intends. So there's there's two examples off the top of my head for sure. You've touched on humility, and I think about our Lord as being a great leader, obviously.

10:14But he said, I am meek and humble of heart. And I'm wondering, does that work today? Do those, characteristics work today? Can you be meek and humble of heart and be a good leader? You must be. You must be meek and humble to be a good leader. So I believe it was Saint John Klinakis, one of the fathers of the church, who said, humility is the only virtue a devil cannot imitate. Pride made demons out of angels. And I'm missing a little bit of text. I apologize, but memory is doesn't necessarily serve. But humility could make angels out of demons. That is more true than anything else. And if we look at Philippians, one of my favorite overall verses, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, ensure that others are more significant, more important than yourself.

11:13Christ is the perfect example, in all things. And his his example of self self sacrifice and suffering for our sins, washing of the apostles' feet even when he had to kick Peter a little bit to make sure he did it, that that sort of example is something that we as Christians can't overlook. You know, we talk about leadership here and, sometimes I get confused. You know, there's leader what what what are the, like, the behaviors of a leader as opposed to, say, a manager. Right? Some some things are more sort of practical. Other things are more inspirational. How would you distinguish between a leader and a manager? And and to what degree does a leader need to be a manager and so forth? That's a great question and one that I get in every class that I teach, because management you can be a manager and not be a leader all the time.

12:06You know, our favorite our favorite Venn diagram. Not all managers are leaders, but all leaders should be equipped in management skills. The the real difference between a leader and a manager is that leaders define vision. They inspire. They guide. They they typically, hopefully, are humble and self sacrificing. They care about their people first. Whereas managers, they design. They execute processes and procedures. They, they focus on efficiency, which is, of course, fantastic and something that is necessary. They control complexity through process and procedure, whereas while managers are focused on execution in fact, Ram Charan and Larry Boss if you wrote a fantastic book called execution, and it's one of the things that Jack Welch was was known for.

13:10But would we call those folks leaders per se? I'm really not sure. I think the, we're it's not something that I'd be willing to comment on. Whereas leaders empower people, and they create change. That's that's what leaders do. Empowering people, creating change, painting a vision or leading with a vision. Absolutely. Is that what we mean by leader? Whereas manager is sort of, yeah, efficiencies and both important roles, but very different roles. Yeah. They are. They certainly are. And there there are certain positions and organizations that require both. Some that require only one of the two. I'd like to ask, how does one improve one's leadership skills? Let's say, you know you need to be a better leader in overall or in particular areas.

14:04How do you how do you improve your leadership skills? Do do we read your book or are there other ways? What suggestions might you have? So reading is always, always a great place to start. I think that actually that's a great place to improve. I'd say a great place to start is finding out more information about yourself. Jordan Peterson is famous for saying that you don't know yourself, that you have to watch what you do in order to know who you are. I would recommend that people start with well validated, psychometric assessments or personality assessments, to see where their strengths and weaknesses may lie. There there are wonderful ones out there. DISC is one of them. I think that's very powerful.

14:48Jordan Peterson has one out there as well. It's more about your personality and proclivities. But there are a lot of tips that a couple of which I I wrote down in preparation for this particular podcast that I could recommend, and engagement and self reflection that I've already talked about is one of them. Seeking mentorship. I think that, it was Einstein who said something along the lines of the only way that people learn is by example. Mentors are invaluable. You can really practice servant leadership, focusing on others first. Being other centered is super important. And, learning from your failures, which is part of engagement and self reflection, that builds resilience, something Carol Dweck talked about a lot, in her, in her growth mindset, work.

15:39And then talking about improving communication skills, and that can be both written and oral, taking class, attending Toastmasters, that sort of thing. And, you know, self awareness you mentioned in, seems like we all have blind spots. But I'm wondering, it seems how rare is it to find a person who has a really or common has a really, really good amount of self awareness. Is this something that you see? Are there obstacles to that that that we we need to to think about, in our own lives, but also when, you know, working with others? Like, what what are sort of impediments to self awareness? And you mentioned you could do the, you know, take one of the the diagnostic tests, which is helpful, but to just comment on that, is it is it what are what are the main obstacles to it and and maybe some other ways outside of those tests that we could could work on?

16:36Absolutely. So you can tell a self aware person pretty pretty quickly. I think most people can see through people who are inauthentic. It's pretty well known that that that facade is easily easy to penetrate. They're they're unwilling to talk about others, and focus on others, as opposed to and when you when you ask them questions about themselves, it's typically fairly surface level. The arriving at a better understanding of yourself, developing self awareness is something that people who have time or make time for self reflection, that's that's a necessary step. One of the reasons that we see, for instance, priests and religious, even deacons as people who are often very self aware is because they're forced through their education, training, and schedules in a lot of ways to have developed that level of self awareness.

17:39They're in a profession, in a calling, in a vocation that values self awareness. The way to develop that outside of taking classes at DMU, for example, in counseling, in psychology, to develop better self understanding is to do things like, empathy exercises. They're they're online. You can look those up. Any of them really would do. Reflective journaling. A gratitude journal is a great way to get yourself started, or a journal on reflections on leadership. You know, writing things down is a great way to externalize some of those internal feelings. Engaging with a spiritual director is also a great way to to get that done. I know the spiritual direction certificate program is invaluable, but, you know, I'm not here to That's great.

18:32Yeah. Yeah. And, Ian, you we we're we're we're yes. We're very happy to help whoever, wants to come and study with their self awareness. Seems also like humility would have to be you mentioned it before, but, like, that's how it would tie in here. I think if if you're not humble, you might not wanna really reflect deeply on, you know, who you are and how you impact people and, you know, what are your weaknesses. You know, it takes humility to to even encourage, really, to do that exercise. Absolutely. You know, humility is something that it's actually, I think, fairly difficult to build because it has to be practiced on a daily, almost constant basis. If I'm not totally mistaken, it was Leary and Banker.

19:19They talked about hypoechoic nonentitlement, which is of course, the, I needed to get published fancy way of saying that, despite any success a person has, the the most important thing is that they're no more inherently valuable than anyone else. And then practicing leaders practicing humility in leadership really is not about devaluing yourself, but having, authentic confidence in yourself, in your abilities. And that is pretty rare to see. Yeah. People there there is a misguided notion of what humility is. Humility does I mean, if it's, you know so certainly, it involves recognizing our weaknesses, but it's also a humble person who can recognize his own strengths. Like, hey. I do have I can do this.

20:12I am good at this. You know, you go to the extreme. You know, Babe Ruth supposedly once said, you know, he ain't bragging if you can do it. But I think too often we think of humility as sort of beating up on ourselves and just kinda look, oh, I'm no good and I could do this wrong and that wrong. And, you know, certainly, we we shouldn't be afraid to talk about our weaknesses and failures, but at the same time, you know, in a healthy way, understand what we're good at and what what gifts we do have and what things we we could we could do. And you have and you say much more confidence and especially when you're talking about leadership to somebody who wants to follow the person who, I don't know what I'm doing.

20:52I'm no good. At DMU, some people do that a lot because of me, but anyway, it's it's interesting. You know, you mentioned some different theories out there and you like servant leadership. My guess is there's a lot of good in the different theories as well. There's probably some, you know, continuity among the different ones. What are what are some of the biggest ones that are out there? I see. So a lot of people have heard of some of them. I know the the one that I was trained on in the military was the full range leadership model, f FLRD, I think, or FRLD. So that that essentially just was a a a grab bag. They actually referred to it as a toolkit, which included several different styles of leadership in it.

21:41The most famous ones that are still in vogue are transformational leadership, servant leadership, transactional leadership, laissez faire leadership, autocratic leadership, participative leadership, which is also called democratic leadership, situational leadership, which is the full range model, and then, of course, charismatic leadership, which is probably one of the most dangerous of of the ones out there. So Yeah. What makes that dangerous? Father, come on. We can just look at our politicians. Charisma is the dark side of narcissistic tendencies. It it has that potential. Charisma is also a very beautiful thing and something that, we respect a lot of people for their charisma. Oh my goodness.

22:33I'm I'm losing the name. It'll come back to me. But there there are a lot of people that were fantastically charismatic that that, that we still look up to. Nelson Mandela, Flannery O'Connor, you know, but there are also people who have vast amounts of charisma that were exceptionally dangerous and used that kind of authoritarian charismatic leadership style to throw the world into chaos. I have a question. We, in our lives, we deal with all kinds of people, good leaders and bad leaders. And, how do you deal with somebody who, is maybe not a very good leader? I know people who actually lose their jobs because they can't deal with a superior in a workplace because that person is not a good leader.

23:24Do you have any recommendations for people to to deal with somebody who might not be the be the best leader? It's all very situational. You know, there there are times in your life where you do have to knuckle under to take what you can, do the best with it. But there are also times where you have to take a step back and ask yourself, is this person my direct supervisor? Are they actually toxic? Am I going to value the the amount of energy that this pulls from my life more than I am my, my family and my and my mental, health. You know? Because I had left a position based on a a a manager. And I can tell you right now that that is, according to most research, the main reason that people do leave jobs.

24:14It's not it's not because there aren't enough pizza parties or the pay is too low. It's because of their leadership. Yeah. I've also stuck with it through bad leaders. I tried to influence them and their decisions and the impact that they could have. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Well, fortunately, we have a wonderful leader in father Charles at Divine Mercy University, so we don't have that problem. But I've heard oftentimes about people who, who struggle with, in their jobs and and, it's hard to give advice. As you say, I guess you have to it's on a case by case basis. What's the best thing to do in in a situation like that? Absolutely. I mean and and really, it is about prioritizing what you what you have in your life.

25:00Sometimes sometimes it just isn't worth it. Two part question here. So I think this can happen sometimes in in businesses, even in the church. We wanna give you a promotion and put you in a job in a position right now that was gonna require much more leadership from you. You know, you're you identify with the mission of the organization. You're doing great work. Let's say the person feels like, well, I that's just I've never done this before. This is this is something new for me and I'm I'm afraid I don't know what to do. I guess the two parts would be like, what should they think about to discern whether or not they would accept such a position? And then secondly, what could they do to develop their leadership skills?

25:37Discernment is a, you know, it's a it's an important process. I know I just I read a book by, Gallagher on the discernment of spirits, and it was a great read. But it's also a continuous kind of process, a conversation between you and the holy spirit. And there are a lot of different factors that come into play when you're talking about something as potentially life changing as going from an individual contributor to a leader. The leader's role is very different, than an individual contributor. You have people that look up to you as as mentor, as leader, as someone who's making decisions that affect their daily lives. One of the things that I would I would definitely consider is what what's my time commitment going to look like?

26:18Am I capable of dedicating the time that I need to get my job done as well as lead effectively? Do I have do I believe internally that I'm capable of doing, what's necessary to be a good leader? If you feel that you can grow into the role, that's one thing. But if you feel like you're going to stumble and fall on your face and you you have serious dread about it, then that's probably, something to consider. I know that we talk a lot about imposter syndrome, and that's that's also something that we should consider. But in the in the in the short term and in the long term, if you feel that you you aren't capable of or or desirous, if you if you have a decent level of self knowledge, and you think that that's not a strong suit or something that you desire to develop, then it's probably something you should avoid.

27:14But I always tell my my my people, my my my subordinates that I think that anyone can be a leader if that's something that they desire. And if if they're interested in doing that, to answer the second part of your question, there are a lot of great ways to positive, easy, ways that they can they can kind of broach the topic. We've already talked about, authentic self assessment and so forth, leadership reflection journals. That's a it's a practical practice. Just the the basic writing of things. If you can just put a a pro and con list, a list together of the types of duties that you expect to be doing and compare that, hopefully, in dialogue with the person that would be hiring you, that would be a a great start.

28:04I forgot to mention that you should also assess who you're working for. If you're being promoted, are you still gonna be working for the same person? Do you will you be working with someone new? Do you know them well enough to know if you're going to mesh well with them if your leadership priorities align? I know that I have been promoted and worked in in areas where my leadership didn't align with the other person's leadership. Our mission certainly did, but the way that I lead is much more participative and, and self sacrificial. And I tend to model a lot, which is it took a lot more time, and it was not as, authoritative and directive directive as that person expected. So I would also recommend, looking up so when you practice for an interview, for instance, you look up behavioral interview questions.

28:58If you're practicing to be a leader, you can look up scenario based decision making. You can, any any PHR, HR site will have very great very good questions. Say, in this scenario, this is what's happening, and then you can answer it and see what the appropriate response would be. And then, of course, public speaking, always useful for leaders. Getting in front of even two or three people and having a conversation where they ask you some difficult questions. But Going back to the, the virtue of humility, I think that must be one of the one one of the most difficult virtues to develop all virtues, you know, need effort. But, how important is prayer in developing that virtue? And and have you seen it seems to me that would be essential.

29:48How how, have you seen people who have grown in their spiritual life also grow in, virtue, the virtue of humility and their leadership skills? I don't think that you can grow in your spiritual life and not grow in virtue. I I hope that that's true. I do know that prayer is is integral to developing any of your any of the the Catholic Christian virtues. And I know that doctor Gross would be, hopefully applauding me at this point because I did read his very difficult book that he's he assigned me, about developing, virtue. Humility in it in itself is very difficult. Among the virtues, I would say that because of the amount of sustained cognitive effort it takes to not only know yourself, but know your your strengths and weaknesses, to be able to work on those and to be able to put others first in a on a daily basis, minute to minute, is very draining.

30:55And I already mentioned Flannery O'Connor as someone who was charismatic, but she also had a a really good quote. It's lengthier than this, but I remember the the the back half, and it's the first product of self knowledge is humility. And so knowing yourself, understanding your strengths and weaknesses, working on those is is absolutely crucial to the development of humility. But how can you know yourself without exploring, we'll say, the inner the, the the interior castle, if you will, going back to Saint Teresa of Avila. God is at the center of any Christian. We've invited him in. We're made in his image, understanding where he sees our greatest weaknesses and our greatest strengths, I think, is crucial as well to developing humility.

31:48So we're looking at leadership here in, you were teaching a master's of psychology program. And, so someone's out there wondering, man, you know, I I usually, these leadership or many times leadership programs are in in business schools and so forth. What what did what, from your point of view, what what does psychology or taking in in conjunction with other psychology courses to what degree is that an advantage, over, say, doing it in a in a business school, and then doing it with DMU with our with our Catholic anthropology? How does that make a difference? Great question. And I, you know, I wasn't being facetious earlier when I said that teaching in the psychology program in in leadership is my favorite course to teach.

32:37You know, not selfishly because I wrote the course, but because this course from a psychological perspective is probably the best way to learn about servant style leadership. I've taught leadership at other universities, in masters, in doctoral settings, and they're always in the school of business. One time, I taught in IO psychology, and it was a leadership course, but it was focused solely on transformational leadership, which is also useful. But the great thing about teaching from psych from a psychological perspective, especially a Catholic Christian psychological perspective, is that leadership is integrally tied to self knowledge, to emotional intelligence, and positive psychology. It's tied to coaching, helping people develop self awareness, resilience, and the ability to lead.

33:35So emotional regulation is not something that you're taught in business schools. You're not taught EQ. And I know that there's a lot of literature out there, about the effectiveness and so forth and measurement of EQ, but, essentially, emotional intelligence is even in its component structure is exceptionally valuable. Authenticity is talked about elsewhere, but understanding what psychological masks are, and how that how those look in in yourself and in others, understanding what narcissism is and how that ties to things like, self confidence and charisma. That's not something that you're going to get in a business program. And, of course, there there there's the aspect of ethical decision making that you can get in a business program, and you probably do, but not in the leadership program, and not something that's informed by Catholic Christian values.

34:42Can you tell us a little bit about your book? What prompted you to write your book? And, I'm sure there are a lot of books out there about leadership, things of that that sort. What what distinguishes your book? What brought you to to to write it? Tell us a little bit about Living Your Leadership. When I started writing that book, it was an article. I thought to myself, you know, I've read a lot of leadership books now. A lot of starting in in about the seventies, with servant leadership when Robert Greenleaf started that theory, and then moving on, and I realized there was such a thing as self leadership, which isn't really taught very, very many places. And it really struck me that the development of self, the self knowledge and the ability to move internally to externally, and kind of the social cognitive theory that Albert Bandura embraced, was one of the main problems with leadership theory in general because we we hop right into in in just about every theory, including servant leadership, you should just start leading.

35:49Well, no. No. You shouldn't. You should know yourself first. You should lead yourself first. And there are very few books out there, I think, that that delve deeply into self leadership as as a a structural piece, that underlies the transformational and servant leadership style. Kevin Cashman wrote a great book about it, Leadership from the Inside Out, but it's more of a textbook. It doesn't include a lot of anecdotes. So when I when I wrote my book, I thought to myself, you know what? This this is going to be useful for teaching, for explaining my my particular theory. And, you know, my my best friend and I, both both Catholic Christians, and we we kind of run a little company together where we we enjoy meeting with, local government and private companies, and we we talk to them about why why is our HR department so universally despised?

36:51Let me tell you. And that that that was the impetus behind writing the book, and I have not since found very many books that are much like it. I I believe that one of the things that many books lack is an interdisciplinary focus, bringing in psychology, business, the study of leadership, and in, you know, in the second edition, especially, a lot of the Catholic Christian values, quotes from Augustine in the Bible, have really do open it up to a broader audience and make it more relevant, I think, in day people's daily lives. Well, this has been a very interesting podcast and a topic that I think is, is very, very important today. We're coming down the home stretch regarding time for this particular podcast.

37:43I was wondering, is there a particular website that people can go to for more information about your work, or maybe, an email you might have that people could send you questions? You know, I don't I don't maintain a website anymore. That was, it was just too much effort, but you can feel free to use my DMU email. It's cewing@divinemercy.edu, and I'm always happy to, to discuss. You can find my author profile on Amazon. There are a lot of Chris Ewings out there, but it's Chris j Ewing. And I'm also available on social media, LinkedIn, especially for things that are professional related. Well, doctor Ewing, I'd like to thank you so much for this, very interesting podcast. I don't know if, father, you have any final questions or comments you'd like to make.

38:35I think it was really interesting conversation, doctor Ewing, and learned a lot. And, you know, putting in self knowledge is so important. I think that's one of the big takeaways. And then just a need for virtues, humility, and and the ability to inspire. So thank you. Thank you. And, you know, sucking up to the boss, I have really appreciated your version your style of leadership over the years. My main interactions are with doctor Clousey, and Julia is a fantastic leader as well. So I see what you're what you're doing at TMU, and it's always a pleasure. Thank you. I appreciate that coming from you. That that means a lot. Thank you. Thank you for being with us, doctor Ewing.