How to Realize You’re the Toxic Boss with Rob Kalwarowsky, Executive Coach & Author

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Today, we're talking to world-renowned executive coach Rob Kalwarowsky about how to know when you're the toxic boss. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:15) Well, I'm excited to talk with you today because I don't think we've ever covered this topic. We've talked about bosses, we've talked about management, we've talked about leadership, but we've never taken it from the frame of how to realize you are the toxic boss, right? And so that got me really curious. And so I guess that's my first question: How do you realize that you're a toxic boss?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:00:38) It's hard, right? And the big reason I say this is hard is, obviously, we have eyes that face outwards, and self-awareness is the only way we can start to realize this, as well as getting feedback. Now, if we are toxic in a way that makes our team afraid of us, then we don't get that feedback, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:01:04) So I just want to put this out there: it's hard. The other thing I want to put out there is, for me, when I talk about—you've watched the TED Talk, for folks out there, How to Handle a Bad Boss. It's on YouTube. But there's six types of destructive leaders.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:01:24) And I come from it at a lens of internal family systems, which basically is some version of, if you've seen the movie Inside Out, or you can think of Devil and Angel on Your Shoulder. And so we have many of these parts or voices in our minds. I believe that we actually have all six types of destructive leaders as parts of us, and it's in different moments that they activate. And you can even think about this: Imagine you're driving down the street, someone cuts you off, and maybe you don't say it out loud, but you're like, "Man, that guy's an asshole," right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:02:07) Or you're in a meeting, and someone says something that's completely stupid, and you're like, "Wow, you're stupid." But you don't say that, right? Because we know, we've learned enough to be like, "Don't say that." Some people, they do say that. Those are the folks that go into those categories of either arrogant and violent bosses or abusive narcissistic bosses. Other folks, you can be destructive in different ways, which I talk about, which is you can be destructive in a way that's like the George Costanza sleeping under the desk.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:02:47) Or if you remember, there was a Bud Light commercial where they were talking about getting a heated coffee mug, and so you see the steam rising, and then the guy walks by and he goes, "Oh, Johnson." But it's called a ghost manager, right? And it's like you're not making decisions for your team. You're deferring. You're saying, "Well, that's not my job. That's upper management." Or, you know, "I watched the Steve Jobs documentary, and he says, 'Hire the best people and let them run.'" And so you're not guiding, you're not leading, you're just sort of deferring everything. And so that's why the destructive leaders, there's so many different types and ways it can show up. But we all have those in different moments of our lives.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:33) Yeah, and we can work through them as well. And for example, there was a time in my life where if somebody cut me off while driving—that was your example—I would be upset. I don't know, as I got older, maybe having kids and just living more life, now I feel bad for them. I'm like, "Something's not going right in their life. They're late or they're upset." And same thing with angry people. When people are mad, you know, in public or something, it doesn't really bother me. I just kind of feel bad for them because I'm like, "You have to be inside of that thing all the time. That's how your mind works. It's just coming out audibly right now." And so you have to live with yourself all the time.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:04:17) Here's the first step, right, to actually identify those moments where you are being toxic: It's when you feel those moments of frustration, of anger, of "you said something that you shouldn't have," and maybe you're looking back at it and you're like, "Wow, that was not me." Then the investigation or the root cause analysis goes into, "Why did I say that? What was the thing that was—what's the belief or what's the part of me that was triggered, and what is it trying to help me with?" And so an example for this, which is very common for us as executives or as leaders, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:05:08) It's like, let's say someone on your team sent a proposal out to a client, and potentially they're a huge client, so it's a big deal, and there's a mistake in there. And that mistake, it's not just like, "Hey, they spelled 'ROI' wrong." It's a catastrophic mistake. And the client writes back and goes, "You know, this doesn't make sense. This is not great." And you just explode, right? Or even in your mind, you explode. You don't even have to necessarily yell at somebody on your team, but in your mind, you're exploding. There's a part of you that's looking for perfection, or it's looking for, "Hey, I'm not good enough," or it's looking for, "You know, I need to be the best." There's—when you start to tune in, you'll start to be able to talk to those parts of you, and that's when you can start uncovering why. And once you understand why, if you can lean in with curiosity and compassion, that's when you heal that. And then you become exactly what you said, Joel, which is, "I understand me. I feel bad for that part of me that's upset, but I can help it." And that in turn helps me be a better leader.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:36) Yeah. I struggle with perfectionism, and I also see it in my oldest child. I'm like, "Oof." But it's awesome because now that I've kind of figured out how to manage it, now I'm more intentional about teaching her how to cope with it from a young age versus figuring it out in your late twenties. So...

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:07:00) Don't worry. It took me to mid-twenties. And I coach folks that are in their fifties, right? So it's not about when. But the question is, as we start to tune into that voice that's like, "You gotta be perfect," it's "What is it trying to help you do?" Because it's trying to protect you from pain and shame, which you experienced when you were a child, or potentially could be, you know, passed on by your parents or, you know, generally—

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:38) Is there a positive driver? Could it just be to want greatness? Or is it always from childhood and pain?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:07:46) It's always from that. Now, saying that, it can be positive for your life, right? So for me, I have that same perfectionist. I have that same high-achiever part. And for me, it was based on, you know, "I want acceptance. I want to be seen by the world as something." And that drove me to getting into MIT. That drove me to be great in my career. That drives me to do the TED Talk, to write a book, to go on and do these things.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:08:19) This is why the self-leadership part is so important. And when I say self-leadership, it's like you're managing a team of people in your own mind, right? So it's like you're deploying, "Hey, I need that perfectionist part when I'm writing my book because I need it to be good." Or, "Hey, I'm deploying this part of me that's high-achieving, so then I will hustle so that I can grow my business."

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:08:48) The problem is when it over-indexes, and this is what you see a lot, right? And I struggled with this too. Early in my career, I had a toxic boss, and I thought I was able to perform. I was saving the company tens of millions of dollars. And yet, because it wasn't recognized, because it wasn't accepted, it made me feel like I'm worse than anything.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:09:23) And that led down this path of depression and ultimately a suicide attempt. But that's really—most folks, you won't get there, right? And I really hope you don't. But that's when those parts over-index because they only know one way, right? And that one way for me was "work harder." But working harder wasn't working to get me what I thought I needed.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:56) And what is it that you needed?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:09:58) The recognition.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:00) And so what did your boss's role play in that?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:10:04) He was basically rejecting the work I was doing. He was micromanaging. He was—there were a lot of things that were unethical as part of that. But the reason was basically, when I was raised, it was like, "You get an A on a test. Your teacher says great. Your mom says great. When you score goals and win games, your coach says, 'Hey, great,' right?" This was an environment where I thought I was trying to do my best, but then the being seen and the acceptance and the belonging and the recognition was not there.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:10:48) And so that was very catastrophic to the part of me that thought that all I needed to do to get seen and accepted was work hard and perform.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:58) Oh, okay. And then you got into this mode of just working as hard as you could and then you just burned yourself out.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:11:06) Yeah. Mm-hmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:08) Have you ever—obviously, you've made a career out of this, and you've become popular with the TED Talk, and you're consulting and speaking all over the world on these topics. Have you ever had a conversation with that original bad boss, or did he ever reach back out to you or see your content or anything like that?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:11:24) No. I think he's long retired. I did actually have a boss who reached out and was asking if it was him, and it wasn't him. But yeah, not the original.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:39) I was surprised to learn how Microsoft Unified Support works. Apparently, Microsoft decides your support fee based on the amount of software that you buy instead of billing you for the actual support hours that you use. This means that you pay for support that you might never use. The pay-as-you-go model is a much better model, but Microsoft doesn't offer that. I did find a company that does offer this, and they're called US Cloud, and 50 of the Fortune 500 use them. Not only is it better, faster support with all US-based engineers, it's also cheaper. 94% of US Cloud clients report saving a third or more when switching from Microsoft Unified Support to US Cloud. Now you'll just have to figure out what to do with all of that extra money. If it were me, I'm responsible, so I'd reallocate that money to improve my team. What would you do, Josh?

(Intro Narrator at 00:12:26) I think I'd just try and buy a ticket to space.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:29) Alright, Astronaut Josh. For out-of-this-world savings, visit uscloud.com to book a call and find out how much your team can save. So I am kind of curious because I've got friends all over the world, and there's very different cultures. There's different work cultures. If you talk to my friends coming out of the Navy, that's one situation. If you talk to my friends in Israel, coming out of the IDF, that's a different situation to the point where they've got classes where they'll teach you how to communicate softer for interacting and doing business with Americans. So my question to you is, is this context culture-specific?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:13:09) Everyone's mindset is different. Now, the beliefs and the parts are very similar, right? So you have a perfectionist. I have a perfectionist. I'm sure probably over 50% of the folks listening to this have a perfectionist. And if you're thinking to yourself right now, "Well, I'm not a perfectionist because I let these mistakes go here, here, and here," you're also a perfectionist.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:13:43) Right? Because every perfectionist doesn't believe they're a perfectionist. But what you're saying is, what contributes to your mindset and parts, right, is how you were raised. And that can be—that's definitely cultural, right? And so in North America, we're raised, "Hey, you gotta perform. You gotta make lots of money. You gotta be successful," right? In other countries, they're raised differently.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:14:15) I coach, or I used to coach some folks in India as part of a big project with a Fortune 500 company, and they would not speak or give real feedback to their manager.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:29) Mm-hmm.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:14:30) Because in India, there's very much a divide, or a—they have a very defined power structure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:38) Mm-hmm.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:14:39) And so we had to work with their mindset to overcome that so then they could give real feedback. Not that their boss is bad, but just real feedback. Like, "Hey, this project, we need to do this." Or, "Hey, we need to make this adjustment so that it works better," right? Or truly brainstorm on activities, because otherwise, it was like they were thinking it themselves. They're like, "Oh, I have this brilliant idea," and it goes nowhere because they didn't tell anyone.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:11) One of the things that helped me with the perfectionism was, one, just getting angry at things not always being perfect to even realize I have a problem with perfectionism. That was step one. Then it's like, "Okay, now I accept it." And then in my endeavors, I came across—and I would love to give credit to this person, but I can't remember who it was—but they explained this concept of "good enough."

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:15:35) Mm-hmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:36) And I was like, "Oh, okay." And whatever, however they explained it, caused this permanent change in me where I'll ask myself, "Is this good enough?" And that'll almost always—if it's 80% there, I'm like, "I'm just gonna let it roll. I'm not gonna get upset about it. I'm not gonna..." I feel like I did good, because that's the spectrum. It's hard because if you go, "Oh, everything's cool. Just ship it. Feel like it. You know, let's go," then you can get sloppy work and that's a whole other type of issue, not putting enough effort into something. So the "good enough" concept was the thing that helped me the most in this journey of perfectionism. What's the thing—you said you had the perfectionist quite a bit. What's the thing that's helped you the most?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:16:20) The internal work. And it's really getting in touch with that perfectionist part and giving it compassion and empathy and really asking it, "What is it trying to help you with?" And then once you find out the answer to that, which for me, it was about belonging, then it's, "You know, this actually doesn't have anything to do with belonging." And then also, "Hey, you can trust me. I'm an adult now. I'm not—you're thinking I'm five, but I'm not." And then that's part of the updating process.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:17:01) And I think it's a great concept, Joel, that you talked about, right? Is, especially for tech folks, we have MVPs. If you're a perfectionist, your MVP is—you know, you're gonna spend so much money developing it that it's gonna be crazy. You'll run out of funding. You just won't get there, right? But your MVP needs to be good enough so then you can start getting clients so you can start looking at the idea and going, "Is it working?" And then for me, when I think about continuous improvement, it's just science. I make a hypothesis. I check whether or not it's right or wrong. I tweak it, and then I feed it back, and I enter that continuous improvement loop, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:18:04) And that's ultimately, if we can start thinking in that way where I start thinking about basically that, it's like, "Okay, I'm running an experiment. I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna try that. Oh, it didn't work? Okay. Well, can I iterate it to make it work? Or is it just an idea that's not gonna work ever?"

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:14) And this isn't something for everybody. I learned that in marriage counseling. So this is just how my mind happens to work in years, but it's not how everybody works, you know? Now, question about communication. I'm using myself as, I guess, the basis of this because it's what I know and things that I've worked through to kind of get your perspective on it. I grew up in a pretty direct communication style. Dad was Air Force. He wasn't mean. It was just he would say it, and it would just be specific. And it would just be direct.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:54) And for me, that was really clear. It was really easy. And then when I started working with some of the business clients, like in the larger companies, I found out everybody's super ambiguous, and they will soften the language, and they won't necessarily tell you directly. They'll be like, I think you should look into this area. And so what I learned when starting my own business about ten years ago was that you have to read the room for the culture.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:23) You have to understand what level of directness is appropriate in this culture, and then also what level of directness is appropriate per individual. Because I'll have some individuals on my team that prefer direct communication, and I'll have some where, if I just give them that direct communication, it will ruin their night. I'll be the conversation at the dinner table that night. And it'll just hurt them. They might cry in the bathroom or something like that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:48) And so I've learned to be really delicate and build relationships and then try my best, and I am not perfect, but try my best to deliver people communication in the way that will be most useful.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:20:01) 100%. Right? And I think Kim Scott says this in Radical Candor. Feedback is not about what you say. It's about how it lands in the other person's experience.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:20:15) And that's anything. It's not even just feedback. That's instructions as well. Right? And so my wife says to me, when I get an idea and I start giving people instructions, I get very focused and I get very direct, and I'm like, do this, do this, do this, do this.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:20:33) Right? For me, what helps is if I write it in an email, because then I can make it, yes, prescriptive enough, but not ambiguous in a sense that the other person reading it is gonna be like, well, I'm not sure what Rob wants. Right? And that's the thing, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:20:57) Another type of destructive leader is what's called a messy boss. And so this would be somebody who's bad at structuring and planning. They're bad at processes. They're bad at giving instructions. And so it'd be like, hey, Josh, or hey, Joel, can you go and create me a plan for 6G internet?

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:24) Mhmm. Yeah. I'll call Kyle. Kyle's my buddy. He worked on 3G, and we'll get it going.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:21:32) Yeah. And so it's like, that's super unclear. I didn't give you a deadline. I didn't give you resources. I didn't—

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:38) Tell you my love language. That is, yeah. If you just tell me outcome, like, here's outcome, I'll come back to you and ask those more specific questions. But, yeah, I've found out real early on in my career that I am outcome oriented.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:21:53) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it works for you, right? Other folks, they would go, oh, no. Right? And maybe they wouldn't feel comfortable asking those questions. And I know you watched the TED. That's literally what I recommend.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:22:07) It's like, if you get an instruction like that, you know, put together some version of what questions you need answered, and then go ask your boss these questions, right? Now if I said to you, Joel, can you do a podcast by next—like, can you do a podcast for me? You're already an expert. Yeah.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:22:31) So it's not like I need to tell you much more than that. Maybe I need to give you a deadline. Maybe it's like, hey, I would like it on this kind of topic, but it's like, you can run. And so that's where when you're a leader, if the person's already an expert in a field and you're asking them to do something in that field, you can be less prescriptive because you know—I mean, you have to give them an outcome that's clear and probably a date, but you can be less prescriptive because you know they're an expert. Versus if you have a new grad and you're telling them to do something, you have to give them more detail.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:23:07) Hey, or, you know, you should talk to Joe or you should talk to Sally, those kind of things so then they can understand better how to get to where they need to go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:22) Here's the thing I wanna touch on a little bit about the toxic boss. I noticed, I would say, the majority of my toxicity early on in my management and leadership could have been improved or reduced greatly if I were taking better care of my own health. Yes. If I were working out, if I had a proper diet, if I was getting the right amount of sleep, if I was doing those core things to take care of myself versus being just a workaholic trying to rack up the hours, I would have mitigated north of 50% of just the stuff. When you coach people, do you coach them on their health as well?

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:03) 100%.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:24:05) Almost all of my executives, I get them to improve their health from some sense of either are you working out, whether that's—doesn't even have to be a workout, but can you take a walk every day? Are you making sure that you're shutting it down at an appropriate time? I had one person. He was a CEO, and he brought his phone with him on vacation and responded to emails. And eventually, we worked through the part of him that was like, I need to do everything.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:24:43) And it was also perfectionist based, and he was able to eventually take a vacation and not check his email. And so that's part of it, right? And I wanna say it this way. Right? It's like, I used to be an athlete, and it's like, we for some reason in business, we have this perception that everyone should be performing 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:25:24) If we look at an Olympic athlete, they train for four years to be at their best for one event, which is a maximum of what? A couple hours? And some of them, the events are—oh, to run that 100 meters, it's ten seconds. And so you have to also, as leaders, take that time. Because here's the other thing. When you're stressed out, you will not have creative ideas. You don't have access to that part of your brain. And so when you're stressed out, when you're not sleeping, you will lose your performance.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:25:52) And so if you're sleeping well, you're eating well, you take holidays, you know, maybe you do some meditation if you like that, or you can do that on the move, whether you're running or walking or swimming or biking or whatever that is, that's when you actually get creative, and you have great ideas. And so it's not even just about, oh, my health. It's you will be a better, more productive CTO if you take some time for yourself to take care of yourself, because you know just as well as I do. I always get brilliant ideas when I'm running in the morning, or when I'm in the shower, or, you know, those things.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:26:35) And that's the truth.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:37) Yeah. I also found out, and I'd say we're similar in that. So mine is walking on the treadmill in the morning. So first thing I do when I get up is I go for a walk or I—I tried to do the meditation thing, and I just found out really quickly it's not my thing. Totally. My thing is if I wanna access that flow state, I just need to get walking. And I also need to make sure there's no social media or email checking. So I've put all of my checking other outside stuff to after the walk. And on the walk, I'm typically—I have my notepad open, my Evernote or whatnot. And I'll jot down ideas.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:17) I'll write some things. I'll have, you know, kind of try to think through some things. And then after I feel like I've thought through some stuff or I've connected and did my thing, had my moment, then I'll open it up to the rest of the world. But yeah, for right when I get up, it's kids. I've got three small kids under the age of ten. Do you have kids?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:27:37) No, I don't, or just the dogs.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:38) Yeah. So I've got—you talk about not getting sleep. Now I've optimized everything I can possibly optimize in my life, Rob, but there's one thing that you can't optimize and it's them waking you up at 5 a.m. to tell you that they love you.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:27:52) It's like—

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:52) I'm so glad, but I wanna sleep.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:27:56) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:58) So, but back to that, I wanna touch on that health thing again. Now when you coach people, and that's what you do, right? That's how you earn a living is you coach people.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:28:07) Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:08) So when you started out, you were an employee, then you went to coaching, and now you're a small business owner. Is that correct? That's right. Okay. Now all the leadership lessons you've had to learn, leading yourself through the process of a small business owner—don't you wish you could just transfer some of that to the employees sometimes?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:28:29) Sometimes, yes. Actually, the most part that I'd like to transfer is to the scaling entrepreneurs that I coach. Because many of them have gotten a business from zero to five to 50 people. You know, even one, I was coaching last year, there were around $5 million in revenue. And it was some of the stuff I had learned working in corporate.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:29:00) Right? It's like you need processes. You need procedures. You need ways for when you're hiring people—you need skills matrices and their development plans. Okay. This person is a project coordinator. How do we turn them into a project manager? How do we turn them into the manager of project managers? Right? And they didn't have any of that.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:29:21) They had never heard of any of this. And so it's like, in order for them to scale, they need those things. And we worked on the mindset first, but then that was when we had a moment where it was like, oh, the reason I haven't been able to scale is because of me. And then that was the switch where then we were able to take that business and turn it. It was seven x in six months because he was able to start hiring people who were better in certain areas and give them control and empower them to go out and do without him being the guy who needs to hold on to it all.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:07) Do you still train like an athlete?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:30:09) Me?

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:10) Yeah.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:30:10) Yeah. I mean, I run every morning for about an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes, and then I lift as well. But, I mean, I'm a water polo player, so it was—it's a lot different here. We don't—there's literally no pools in Costa Rica.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:27) They just go in the ocean and do it?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:30:29) Yeah. Not here. We're an hour and twenty minute drive from the ocean. So unfortunately, no. And it's crazy. So we were talking to a neighbor the other day and he was like, most people here don't know how to swim. And I'm like, you go to the beach, but they don't—they don't like water and they don't like swimming.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:52) I wanna talk about power dynamics a little bit. Because, man, that phrase caught on in my mind in a negative way as if they were bad. And I'm like, they're not bad. It's like, it's something that exists no matter what. You can't escape a power dynamic.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:10) And I learned that really quick being a boss because before I had peers, and they were just my peers, and I had that relationship. But once you control someone's paycheck, you can't—that can't not exist. It's just a different relationship. And so when you were talking about power dynamics, I was like, okay. You came to it with what I thought was an even keeled, nice perspective.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:34) Can you share a little bit about power dynamics and your experience?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:31:38) Yes. So the first thing is this. Power gap changes, and this is where we went when we were talking about different countries. Power gaps change based on countries and cultures. And literally, there's a report. I forget where I have it from. I think it was BCG or McKinsey or somebody put it out. But they have a list of all the countries, and they've measured the power gap. And so, you know, when I work with folks that are Canadian or American, it's like, the power gap is a little bit smaller.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:32:18) We were willing to talk to each other. You know, I've worked with folks from Brazil or from Italy. Those folks, they say whatever. Right? That's just the way they are. And, you know, but on the other side, when I did my TED talk in Japan or when I was working with folks in India, they have a huge gap. And so depending on what your culture is, and not even you necessarily, but as we're leaders now, we're, for the most part, running global teams, you have to be aware of your folks, where they're from, what their gap is, right? And then if you have a gap, and let's say you're working with someone in Japan, and they're naturally prone to having—well, they don't really wanna speak up.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:33:17) You need to change how you approach them in order to get the information that you need as a leader. And so this is asking more directive questions instead of saying, oh, can you give me any feedback or how's that project going? Because they're always just gonna be like, it's good. Right? It's like, can you tell me about the project? What's going on with it?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:33:38) Right? So it's a little bit of a different frame, but it makes the difference. And this is—I mean, here's an incredible tip from professional—this is a professional facilitator tip. Instead of asking, do you have any—does anyone have any questions? Ask, what questions do you have?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:34:08) Why does that matter? "What questions do you have" gives the person, in their mind, a presupposition that you're—well, one is you're expecting questions. So, of course, you would ask a question and it's not asking you yes or no. It's what questions you have. So you're immediately thinking, oh, okay. I need to know about this. Right? When you ask, do you have any questions? Most people default to no. And so it's just a little tweak of language, but it makes a huge difference on the other side.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:46) It's like prompting we do in ChatGPT. Gotta ask the right question to get the right result.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:34:53) The other thing, Joel, I just wanna mention here, right, is when I coach leaders, some of them wanna know, how do I navigate corporate politics? How do I get raises? How do I get promotions? How do I get the jobs that I want? Whether that's internally or externally to companies.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:35:16) Or even things like, how do I run a digital transformation? Or I have this great idea to implement this new system. How do I do that? And there are steps to building power and influence. And I teach people a five-step system on how to do that. And, really, power and influence, it's not a bad thing.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:35:42) Yes. You can use it in bad ways. But if you have lots of power, you can also use it to get things done, to make your company more effective, to make your team more effective, and to make you as a leader more effective. And that also helps you get promotions and see the career success that you wanna see. So I just wanna give that lens to folks—power is not this amorphous thing.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:36:08) It's like if you're speaking to the right people in the right way, if you're building a personal brand that's—it doesn't have to—I don't mean go on LinkedIn. You have to do this. You can literally build your own personal brand within a company. If you're strategically bringing in stakeholders, these are kind of the activities that you wanna be doing in order to make things happen more easily and more effectively for you as a leader and drive things through.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:43) Yeah. No. I agree. I don't have any big corporate experience other than them being my customers and me working with them. But as far as having a full-time employee job, I don't.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:54) But I have found that—I heard this story about mycelium, which is this stuff in the soil that helps broker nutrients, and it'll go gather things. And when I heard that, it just stuck with me. And I was like, you know what? That's one of the things that I enjoy doing. I enjoy pulling different people together and trying to figure out how to solve a problem.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:37:15) Yeah. My biggest career tip for folks is, who are the 10 people that by building a relationship with them can help you achieve your goal? And that goal can be anything: starting your own business, getting promoted, finding a partner, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:37:40) It doesn't even have to be a work goal, right? Buying a house, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:45) Getting in shape.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:37:46) Yeah, yeah, right. Once you identify those 10 people, that's when you can build relationships with them, and they will help you. That's true.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:59) And you're actually surprised by how willing people are to help you. I mean, there's the numbers game—you have to ask. Some people are gonna say no. But I used to—I grew up fairly poor, poor middle class-ish, and I had this idea that the rich people were too busy. The successful people were too busy. I would be annoying to them. But then what I found out as I started to grow and make more relationships is they're almost starving for another hungry person to come along that wants to take what they've done and take it to the next level. And if you put in the work—if you ask one-on-one questions, maybe not. But if you're asking the right questions that show that you put in the work and you've acted, they're more than willing to lend you a hand.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:38:43) A hundred percent. And that's actually the second tip, is strategically asking for help. Don't ask for help from everyone, right? Because then you'll just look like you're incompetent.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:38:57) But if you go to those right folks and you've done enough work to understand their perspective, maybe you've built a relationship with them. If you go and you say, "Hey Joel, I know you're an executive. I'd love to be an executive. Can you share with me some advice on how do I get to where you are?" There's two outcomes of this.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:39:22) First is you're gonna get great advice. Second is, subconsciously, Joel wants to be right. And so when there's an opportunity to go, "Hey, there's a new role there. You know, who would be eligible?"

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:39:39) Joel's gonna be like, "Woah, Rob. Rob would be a good fit for that." And then you, Joel, make it happen for me. So then in your subconscious, you're like, "Wow, I gave him great advice. I mean, look, he's an executive, right?" And then we all feel good.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:39:58) But, you know, you have to do this in the right way, of course. But it works from both ends of the spectrum, is people wanna give you good advice, and they want their advice to work. And so you can leverage those things to help you along the way and accelerate your career.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:17) Can you—I know this is asking a lot, unprepped—but can you give the thirty-second overview of the five-step system to build power and influence?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:40:30) Yes. So I call it the GOLD method. G, set a goal. Obviously, you need to know what you're going after. O, overhaul outdated beliefs.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:40:44) So we have—sometimes it's like the perfectionist thing, right? We have beliefs that were programmed into us when we were kids, and that could be something like, "Well, I don't deserve that job," or "I'm an imposter," or "Who am I? I shouldn't ask for help," whatever those are. You can learn how to change those beliefs, which will change your behavior.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:41:10) And so if you want help with that, of course, I'm here. But, of course, you can work on that many different ways, right? L, leverage relationships. It's exactly what we just talked about.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:41:23) Who are the 10 people that you need to know that can help you, right? And this is power and influence. Often, those people will be—they could be internal. They could be executives. They could be board members. They could be other folks in your company. They could be external. If you wanted to start your own business, maybe it's meeting somebody who's an entrepreneur coach or a famous entrepreneur who scaled in this category that you're going after, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:41:56) Step D, discuss your goals endlessly. Tell everybody that you meet what your goal is. Why? Because people will help you.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:42:14) When I say, "Hey, I wanna do 15 keynotes this year," I get a lot of folks who say, "Hey, I book—or I know someone in my company who books those," or, "Hey, I was at this conference. Do you want me to introduce you to the conference organizer?" Of course.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:35) Right.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:42:36) And then the last one is the S, which is turning GOLD into GOLDS, and that's strategically asking for advice or for help. And I do do that keynote, so if folks want that at your company or at your conference, let me know. I'm here, and I'll be happy to serve you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:55) What's the best way to reach out to you?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:42:58) Yeah, LinkedIn, Rob Kalwarowsky, or you can go on my website, robkalwarowsky.com. I know that's hard to spell, but I'm sure you'll put it in the podcast notes so everyone can find it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:08) Yeah, we'll put the—you have a strong last name, sir. But we'll put the link in the notes so people can grab it. Is there anything that we didn't get out there to the world that we need to get out there before we wrap up?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:43:21) Yeah, I would love to say—so, I have a book coming out in the fall. It's called Capitalizing on Chaos. And—

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:43:30) As folks know, chaos is ruling the day: politically, economically, technologically, and especially for CTOs, what's happening, right, is AI is replacing people, also for a lot of tech executives, right? You've seen what the big tech in Silicon Valley has done, and they've cut a lot of middle management positions. And so now you need—you, specifically, as a tech leader—you need to know, "Okay, how do I navigate this disruption and this chaos so then we can take advantage of it?"

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:44:10) Because there's opportunity. Because when people are pulling back, your company and you could be expanding into what they leave. The other side of it is, how do I lead so then I get my frontline people who don't have middle management anymore to all row in the same direction? Because, ultimately, you can't have people doing their own pet projects. You can't have people doing whatever or not knowing what to do. They need to be self-leaders as well.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:44:41) So then your team all shoots in the right direction, and you really succeed during this time. Amazing.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:49) You can get with Josh after this, and we can get another episode lined up for coordination with your book release in the fall.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:44:57) That'd be amazing. I'd love it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:59) Awesome. We did it. Rob, we made a podcast. I feel good.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:45:02) Thank you so much.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:03) Thank you.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:45:03) It was fun.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:05) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email: [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.