The False Choice In Leadership

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Dear listeners, you know, like there is a story we tell ourselves about leadership in high pressure environments. That caring is a luxury, that when these stakes are high, when technology is moving faster than anyone can track, when decisions have real consequences, you have to choose. You take care of your people. Build something that lasts. But what if that story is wrong? What if the choice itself is the problem, not the solution? So welcome to Mind Meets Machine. I'm your host, Avik, and this is the podcast where we slow down long enough to ask better questions about how we lead, how we learn, how we stay human when everything around us is moving at machine speed. And today I'm joined by a lovely guest. Please welcome Heather McLean. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Thanks. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us here. And dear listeners, like before we get into the discussion, I'd quickly love to introduce with Heather. So Heather is an Air Force veteran who spent 25 years leading people and technology to the kind of environments where hesitation costs and clarity saves. So she is the CEO of MacLean Forester, and she's built her work on a simple, stubborn belief. You don't have to choose between taking care of your people and building a successful business. So I do not want to take much of your time. Let's get started.

Why People Break First

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Heather, like, I mean, there's this assumption which is floating around, like, especially in the high-stakes fields, that care and performance are somehow opposing forces. That if you are too focused on people, the mission suffers. You have led in environments where both mattered deeply. Where so where do you think that false trade-off comes from? So what do you have to say?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Where does I'm sorry, where does what come from?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

This false trade-off.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

You know, the the philosophy is for me, it just comes from experience, you know, from seeing what happens when people are not put first in an organization or people are not thought of when you're making decisions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

So and when you are, I mean, when you have that scene that leaders try to hold both, then what tends to break first, like the structure or the belief that it's even possible?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I think the people break first, right? Because we're we're human and there's only so much you can perform. But you know, what I have learned and researched is that when you invest in your people, they perform better. And there's been lots of research around this. You know, companies who are great, great companies to work for and take care of their people well, they actually make more money. That's been shown in in research. So so for me, you know, investing in your people is an investment in your business, is an investment in that performance and outcome that you're gonna get later.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Got it, got it. I mean, it's really interesting, like how often we mistake speed for the strength. Like the faster we move, the less we can afford to care. But maybe like what you were pointing to is that care is not the thing that slows us down. It's what keeps us from burning out the engine entirely. So yeah,

Trust And Communication Failures

SPEAKER_01 3:31

yeah. So and you have also worked in the military environments, in tech, and leadership across the decades. So when you look beneath the surface of teams that struggle, not with the skills, but with trust or I'd say cohesion, what patterns do you see? Like what's usually going on underneath?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah, I think you you're hitting a good point because a lot of the problems that I see on teams are not technology problems, they're people problems, right? So if it's a trust problem, you need to figure out is it a trust in the leader problem? Is it a trust within the team problem? And there are exercises you can go through to figure out what is what is hurting your team, what is, you know, what is getting in the way of a high being a high performing team. And so a lot of times it, you know, it's it comes down to trust and communication. Um, and that those are things that you can, you know, at least the communication piece you can fix, and then you can start addressing the trust piece as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Exactly. So, like, is that something leaders can sense early or does it only become visible once the damage is already done?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

I mean, I think if you're integrated with a team and you know your team, you can see the signs. I think if you're distracted from your team and you're not really working with them close enough, you're not gonna see the signs. And if you can't work that closely with your team, then you need to have a trusted person who is, who can bring you in at the right moment and tell you when things are going wrong. So you need to have an open sort of a way to get feedback for people to tell you when things aren't going right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Obviously. Yeah.

Early Signals And One On Ones

SPEAKER_01 5:11

So if if you talk about our daily life, right? I mean, for someone who's listening, who's in the middle of it right now, leading a team through something hard, maybe a transition or a technology shift they don't fully understand. How does this show up day to day? Like, what are the small signals that they are losing people even if no one's leaving at?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

You can see it, I think, in like communications. You can see it in how what what people are getting frustrated about. I mean, and I think this just comes down to listening and and having conversations. You should be having one-on-one meetings with your team members, listening to them and really taking that to heart and not really get you know, try not to get defensive when they bring up things. You you really just want to listen. And I think if you hear, you know, you'll hear the same thing from multiple people if there really is a problem. And so uh, you know, I think it again just comes back to listening and communication with those team members.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

And I mean, so what is the one thing they could do tomorrow, not as a kind of big initiative, but as a small recalibration that might start to shift

Quick Team Survey To Recalibrate

SPEAKER_01 6:16

that.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

I mean, I'd say in order to recalibrate, you kind of need to know where the problem is. But uh there's a great book called The Ideal Team Player, and in the back of that book, there's like a seven to ten question survey that you can have your team fill out in five minutes. And it basically has them just kind of rate where they think the team is on different aspects of communication and trust. And after you do that really quick, you'll have a really good idea of where the problems are. So you could start with that tomorrow. Another thing you can do is just start talking to people, do some one-on-ones, get to understand how people are feeling and you know what is going on in their lives and what's going on in the team for them. So those are two quick wins.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Go ahead, all right.

A Practical Way To Think AI

SPEAKER_01 7:00

So and also like you talk about helping leaders cut through the noise, especially around AI and emerging tech. So there's so much hype, like so much pressure to have an answer. So what's a practical or reflective approach you would recommend for the leaders who feel like they are supposed to know more than they do? What to say?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Right. You know, there is a lot of pressure, you know, go get some AI, go do AI. Well, what does that even mean? Right. So I think I ask three questions when I start to talk to a new client. I say, where are you at now? So are you zero or are you maybe using some AI or you're building software with it, perhaps? Number two, where do you want to go? So what do you hope this technology will will do for you? So when you know where you are, where you want to go, right? That helps you put together a strategy, a way to get there. And then I ask about, you know, is your leadership supportive? Is your team supportive? Because there's always a people aspect to implementing technology, right? So so those are questions you can ask yourself. Another thing is like, go get help. Don't, don't feel bad that you don't know what to do because this is new technology. So go find someone, and that's something we can do. Go find someone who can help you figure out what that strategy is. I think the worst thing you can do is probably do nothing because your competitors are already doing something and you're just gonna fall further behind. So, you know, even getting getting a basic enterprise license for Chat GPT or Claude, putting some rules and training in place, that's a great kind of first step to gaining that AI literacy across the board. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Exactly true. So, and if you talk about a very important segment, I feel like let's say someone takes this to a heart and they start leading differently, building trust, making a space for care alongside performance, and something goes wrong, a project fails, a person leaves

Leading Through Failure And Recovery

SPEAKER_01 9:02

anyway. So, how do you sustain this approach when the outcome does not match the effort? What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Well, I think you have to realize that there's always gonna be some failure, right? You're never gonna do everything perfect. So, one, these things are gonna happen. I think it's about what happens, what do you do when these things happen that really matters, right? So if there's a project that's in trouble, how are you gonna jump in and help that team recover? How are you gonna help them put a plan together to get that project back on track? So it you know, recognize that these things are gonna happen and then you build continue to build trust with the team by helping them recover and get on the right path. That's what I would do.

unknown 9:42

Yeah.

Final Advice And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 9:43

So if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, what that'll be.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Gosh, about anything or anything in specific. I mean in general, yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess when it comes to leadership and and trust, I think those are, you know, trust is probably the most important quality you can build in your team. So, you know, investing in building trust with your team is is never gonna be a bad idea. Uh, it's only gonna improve, you know, how your team works together and and how you perform. But if it comes to AI, you know, my advice is do something, get started, go find someone who can help if you don't know what to do, because just it's the longer you wait, the the worse off things are gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Got it. Got it. So and and if uh listeners wants to connect, how can they connect?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

You can visit my website, McLeanforester.com or LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there. Uh you can look me up there, Heather McLean, or you can send an email to info at McLeanforster.com and we'll be happy to chat. We always say chats are free, you know, and I love to network and meet new people, so go ahead and reach out.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Amazing. Amazing. So dear listeners, like what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for you. Easy to find so that you can easily, easily reach out to Heather. And I'd say, like, you don't uh have to choose between taking care of your people and building something that lasts. So that's not the idealism, that's the structure, I'd say. So thank you so much, Heather, for being here, sharing your perspective. It's really, really important. And uh thank you everyone for being here with us. And I'd say, like, of I hope you carry this with you that the choices we think are the binaries, here or result, speed or depth, or are often just the stories that we have inherited. So yet to write a different one. So with this, this is your host, Awake and this is Mind Meets Machine. I'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Thanks.