Ep.9: Mission First, People Always
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About this episode. Leadership is a recurring theme on the pod. So, as they’re wont to do, Hui and Zach sought out an important voice to dive deep into leadership and leadership development: Dr. Tom Kolditz, a retired Brigadier General (U.S. Army), psychologist, author, educator, and leadership coach.
In this episode of The Better Way?, General Kolditz shares insights on trust and leadership in times of crisis—from combat zones to corporate boardrooms. He also challenges us to rethink traditional assumptions about authority and leadership, and makes a compelling case for follower-focused, adaptable leadership. From the ethics of diversity and inclusion (including a detour into current events, like recent plans to rename certain DOD installations) to the importance of listening and managing dissent, this conversation is all about what it means to lead with purpose and integrity in any context.
Who? Zach Coseglia + Hui Chen, CDE Advisors; Tom Kolditz, Brigadier General (Ret.), PhD
Full Transcript:
ZACH: Welcome back to the Better Way Podcast brought to you by CDE advisors culture data ethics. This is a curiosity podcast for those who ask, “There has to be a better way right? There just has to be. I'm Zach Coseglia and I am joined as always by the one and only Hui Chen. Hi Hui.
HUI: Hi, Zach. Hello everyone. Welcome back, and I have to say—I cannot tell you—how excited and honored we are to have the special guest that we have today. So you're going to meet him in just a minute but let me give a little bit of a background to our guest today who is general and doctor, as he has a PhD in psychology, Kolditz. He is a retired Brigadier General from the United States Army. He headed the Department of Behavioral Science and Leadership at West Point for 12 years. He also taught as a professor in the practice of leadership and management at Yale, and in 2012 he founded the Leadership Development Program at the Yale School of Management. He also founded the Anne and John Doerr Institute for new leaders at Rice University—and led that for seven years. Dr. Kotz—or I should say General Kolditz—has published two books and more than 75 book chapters and articles on leadership.
He's currently working on a third book. His first book, Extremis Leadership: Leading As If Your Life Depended On It, currently helps train leaders in more than eight service academies worldwide, as well as in hospitals, investment banks and other elite and high-risk businesses. His second book, Leadership Reckoning: Can Higher Education Develop the Leaders We Need?, launched the national movement to improve the quality and quantity of leader development across higher education. General/Doctor Kotz is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal, the Army's highest award for service and of the prestigious Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership. Thank you so much for joining us, General Kolditz. Welcome to our podcast.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate this and I'm anxious to speak with you all.
ZACH: Thank you so much for joining us on The Better Way? That was quite the introduction. But we want to hear you in your words. So, I’m gonna you what I ask everyone when they're a first-time guest in The Better Way?, and that is: who is Geneal Kolditz? Who are you? Tell us more about yourself.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Well, I grew up in a town of 1800 people and consequently I'm pretty familiar with all levels in the United States: lower class, middle class, upper class. I often call myself a soldier-scholar-mutt because, you know, I a fair amount of time leading in the military. But I also spent a long time on my PhD; got it in 1982 from the University of Missouri. And I like to use both my experience as a leader and my education as a leader developer to come up with answers for people. And if there's a third aspect of who I am, I've been trained as a leadership coach by the International Coaching Federation—and so I have training, experience and education focused on leadership and leader development, in particular.
ZACH: Hui, I wonder if we should start with some word definitions, as we often do. What words that you just heard do you want definitions to?
HUI: I want to hear how General Kolditz defines leadership.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Okay. My approach to defining leadership is different than most of the people who I know. I do not define leadership. When I, in fact, when I started building the enterprise at Rice University, the first thing that everyone asked me, you know, when I got there is well, you know, how do you define leadership? And in my experience, all that does is create an academic food fight. The purpose of defining leadership doesn't help with leader development per se, and so consequently, I built the Doerr Institute, which is the . . . probably the largest and most effective leadership program in any college or university—40% of the students receive an executive coach for a semester. But I defined leader development.
HUI: Ah.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: I never take the time to worry about leadership. Just because honestly, there are 1000 definitions for leadership. And so, when you get into that with people, it takes you to a place that doesn't do any good. So, the short answer is, I don't. I don't define leadership.
ZACH: And I'm curious is it because there are lots of different definitions or is it because—I mean, where my mind went immediately is—that there's no one way to be a leader.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Well, that's true. And you know, many of the leader leadership definitions are legitimate on their own, but when compared to other leadership definitions, they'll be deficiencies and problems and things like that. And you know, about 20 years ago, I was sitting around thinking, which is one of my favorite things to do, is to just think. And I thought, what exactly is the purpose of defining leadership? What does that accomplish? What does that do and what I came up with is it doesn't do anything but start an academic argument.
ZACH: Nothing.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: And you know, honestly, I have found that the academic environment is really one of the toughest for leader development. Academic culture is an individual performer culture, whether you're talking about the individual performance of students or you’re talking about the research and teaching that's done by the faculty. It's an individual performance culture. They have very little experience with leadership, honestly, and very little respect for it and so, you know, the less the less I can get involved with arguments and that kind of culture, then the better.
ZACH: The last thing we want to do is have an argument with you today!
HUI: About leadership, so . . .
ZACH: About leadership! We know we will lose, but I mean, Hui, we want to hear the definition of leadership development, right? So, unpack that for us General Kolditz.
HUI: Yes, that you do define!
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Sure. Sure. Leader Development is a form of training that improves the ability of a person in a leadership role to influence others. That's it, you know. And it does focus on their abilities, the leaders abilities but the approach that's taken—the best approach—is how does the leader satisfy the needs of the person that he or she is leading? The focus is really more on followers than it is on any particular leader, personality or style. I absolutely despise the term leadership style.
ZACH: Hmm.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Because leaders have to be quite flexible. And at some point, you know, leaders have to be really empathetic and kind and understanding of their people—and in other situations, people need a boot in the behind. And so, leaders have to, rather than having a style which suggests they act the same way in different circumstances, which causes them always to be wrong you know, 80% of the time—they have to be adaptive and the way to be adaptive is to focus on what the people need and then respond to that. And if they need you to be quiet and understanding, that's one thing. If they need you to be tough and demanding, that's another. But the idea of a leadership style is not good. It tends to make leaders think too much about themselves and not enough about the people who they're leading.
HUI: I love what this definition has brought out. It's not just the definition itself, but that focus not just on the leaders’ abilities, but with the emphasis on the people being influenced. And with a very clear focus on the influencing; and so, I don't know if I heard all that right, but I'm appreciating what you have just brought us. I also want to dig into a little bit about the title of your first book, the In Extremis Leadership. What do you mean by that?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: So, what kicked off my work on that book was 911; and the knowledge that virtually every West Point graduate was either going to go to Iraq or Afghanistan the first six months they were in the military. And it was apparent to me that we were not teaching any kind of research-validated leadership in crisis. Or leadership in dangerous contexts. And, you know, my, my faculty said, “well, we don't teach it because there is no research on it.” And so, I said, okay, well, we're going to Iraq and we're going to do some research on it. And so, I took, over the over the course of about a year and a half, I sent nine people to Iraq. We pulled together a lot of information, but the definitional aspect of in extremis leadership is leading in in conditions or circumstances where followers believe that leader behavior will impact their life physically. And I was looking to see how different that might be. You know, what was unique about it that we needed to teach cadets before they took 40 of other people's children into a war zone?
And so, you know, I guess I hadn't thought about it before, but in that definition, the followers’ needs are prominent. If the followers believe they're being led in a dangerous context, well, that's what in extremis leadership winds up being, or the behavior of in extremis leader. And, you know, in writing that book and doing the research, I realized that there are no, really—very few, if any—situations that are dangerous in and of themselves. So, for example, someone who is sleeping on the side of a mountain, hanging with a mountain climber, might not even be able to go to sleep. They're going to be so nervous and afraid and consider themselves in a dangerous spot. The climbing guide? That's every day to him. I mean, it's not dangerous to him. So ,you know, what applies in terms of leader in extremis leadership would apply to that person. But not to the not to the guide, you know, not to the person who's there all the time. I was a parachute instructor for many years, and I'd take people on tandem parachute jumps.
They were extremely anxious when we would get to the door of the airplane. And for me? Just another jump. Just another. You know, just another jump. It was the equivalent, if I was a ski instructor, would be like taking a person in front of you and slowly skiing down the mountain with them. And so, for them, it's quite an exciting and (potentially) perceived as a dangerous thing. For the tandem instructor, no. You know, so it's how people perceive what's happening, not the circumstances themselves.
HUI: How interesting. You had . . . yeah . . . you're really provoking some thoughts that definitely had never occurred before, which is what we love!
ZACH: Definitely.
HUI: But I want to react to what you said. Take the example of your parachuting: what makes it normal and not dangerous and not scary for you is because you have the experience and the skill set, and you do it every day. So, you have experience, you have practice, lots of practice—and this is now a habit rather than an adventure for you. Same with the mountain climber. Now, how much leadership is about the comfort level that comes from the experience and the skill?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: People who are experienced in leading in in those kinds of circumstances know that the biggest challenge is uncertainty.
HUI: Mmm.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: So, when you have a lot of experience, you can predict what's going to happen better than someone who doesn't. And so, uncertainty is what drives fear; it's what drives anxiety . . . and so on and so forth. And the principal influence in conditions of uncertainty where you can't guarantee things is trust. The leader has to be trusted because the leader can't provide pure certainty. They can't provide, you know, an accurate prediction of everything. And so, if they're going to influence people, whether they're on the side of a mountain or in a military circumstance or in a, you know, a high-level banking industry, they have to be trusted. Trust is the coin of the realm in uncertain circumstances. And so much of, you know, training people to be leaders in those circumstances is showing them how they can establish trust and why that is so important.
HUI: Can we talk about that? I know this is now like years’ worth of training here that we're asking you to reduce into three minutes, but what are some of the high-level principles that you build your trust around?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah. Well, the first thing to remember are to understand about trust is that you can't suddenly earn trust. If you're not already trusted when the crisis occurs is too late.
HUI: Mmm.
ZACH: Yeah.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: You need . . . and I always referred to it when I was working with people as “money in the bank.” You need money in the bank because the crisis is gonna happen tomorrow and you don’t know about it yet.
HUI: Right.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: So, trust has to be established early on and that has to do with being honest, operating with integrity . . . predictable integrity. It has to do with authentic concern for people—in addition to competence. And you know, a lot of times when people talk about trust and, you know, building relationships they talk about empathy and influence and things. But when we did research for the Extremis book, what we found was the number one leader characteristic that was more important than any of the others, by far, was competence. Competence has more to do with trust than most people are willing to talk about, but . . .
ZACH: And is that something that you have seen translate also into the work that you do in the business world or is that unique to the military environment where gosh, you asked me, I want someone who's competent out there leading me for sure!
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah, no, you know, I find it to be exactly the same.
ZACH: Interesting.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: While we're talking about in extremis leadership, you can take any element of leading in dangerous contexts and apply it to more ordinary circumstances. And it works great. The opposite is not true. There's much you can do to influence people in non-threatening circumstances that frankly lets you get away with it as a leader—you know you can use force, you can use fear, you can use, you know, other things that make people do things. But if you try to do that in a dangerous context, people will not put up with it. And one of the one of the most fundamental examples of that was our leadership in Vietnam. Military leadership. It was very authoritarian. They expected to give orders and have them followed. Period. In the last four years of the Vietnam War, there were over 900 officers who were attacked—with almost 200 of them being killed because they were ordering people into combat without influencing them. They were just using their power. And they got shot in the back or they had a grenade tossed at them in the outhouse. And so, I think one of the reasons why banks and hospitals and other groups like that have focused on in extremis leadership is that it always works. The principles of having trust and influencing people in dangerous context, they always work. But if you try to view crisis as different; and you think, “well, I'll be a crisis leader when it's time to be a crisis leader, you know, now I'm just going to order people around”— doesn't happen, doesn't work.
ZACH: It's fascinating. I think for a lot of us there are . . . we probably have all kinds of misconceptions about military leadership; and about how decisions are made and actions taken in the context of military. I think of it as a very—I mean it is right?—at least on paper, a very hierarchical system. And yet what I'm hearing from you is that the title, the jewelry on your uniform, isn't enough to get people to do what they need to do. I would intuitively think that it would be, but it sounds like it's not. That’s an overly simplistic view, I guess, on my part, of what military leadership looks like.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah, you know, I interviewed 175 soldiers in Iraq, soldiers and marines. And you know, one of the things that that came about was that, in combat, when they when they were in danger, sometimes the person that they listened to was their Lieutenant—you know, an officer who had the authority. But if there were questions about the lieutenant's ability, they just put him in a truck. And they'd listen to a Sergeant who they thought had more competence to lead them. And when we interviewed them, when they started talking about their leader, we had to ask who that was. And we ask them often. Well, what about the Lieutenant? And they just shake their head and say, you know, he was not doing what we need him to do. So, he stays on the radio in the vehicle. And . . .
HUI: Fascinating.
ZACH: Really is.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah. Yeah, it's . . . you have to earn it in the military and the more dangerous the circumstances, the less your rank matters. You can order someone to do something in a parade, like we're gonna have tomorrow. But, you know, you can't, force someone who is concerned with their life because they don't, you know, they don't care. They don't care if you're gonna threaten to, you know, put them in handcuffs or, you know, get them in trouble. They'd much rather be in trouble and go back to where the lawyers are—where you can get a shower and [get] hot food, then you know, then listening to somebody who's incompetent, you know, risk their lives. So you have to earn it in combat, you really do. And soldiers will figure out a way to work around you, if they don't trust you.
HUI: That's so true, I think. I think that misconception about the military being like “you can just order people to do things” becomes an excuse, where a lot of people in the business world, or at least people who are not familiar with how military leaders earn their trust, they say, “well, you know it’s easy for them to do it in the military because they have the rank and they have to do what the officers say (the officers who outrank them).” But I think, recognizing that it is about influence is such a critical lesson for people to hear. Now I also want to ask in in that context, as you, as a leader, as you earn trust, how do you deal with dissent?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Well, you know, dissent is one of the really best ways to earn trust. So if someone dissents, there's a couple things a leader needs to think about. First of all, if that person is bringing it up, chances are many other people are thinking the same thing. And so consequently, it's very important to respond to dissent with gratitude; by listening to it; conversing with the individual. And if you can't solve the problem immediately, at least saying, “look, I'm gonna go back and start working through this and I'll get back with you later. And you know, tell you where we can go with it.” If you try to crush dissent in, especially in the military, you're doomed. I mean, you know, people will, they may do what you order them to do in circumstances where, you know, they have little choice. But if it was in combat, your life would be at risk.
ZACH: Hmm.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: And when you show someone that they can offer dissent, and you accept it. And even if they offer it in a way, that is sort of disruptive and rude, you can absorb that as a leader. You don't have to play with that. You know, fight against it or anything like that. But it builds trust when leaders listen. Listening is one of the things that I teach my coaching clients the most—it’s listening because when I interview their subordinates, most of them don't listen. And you know, it winds up not only do they not listen to dissent, but they don't listen to good ideas. They don't listen to other things as well.
ZACH: Right, right.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah, that, I think, dissent’s really important. I think you have to allow it and encourage it in your—in all—organizations, military and nonmilitary.
ZACH: We couldn't agree more. I mean, one of the things that we talk about a lot in the ethics and compliance space, in the organizational culture space—is speaking up. This is like the term that our clients—and a lot of companies— use to train their people about the importance of bringing issues to leaders’ attention / of fulfilling their responsibility when there may be misconduct or maybe even something illegal. And Hui and I always sort of try to flip the script on a conversation by saying well, instead of training people how to speak up, maybe we should train people how to listen. And so, we couldn't agree with you more.
HUI: Yeah, I've often said that listening is one of the least used tools in the corporate space. Everybody's busy pushing out messages and nobody's listening. So, really, really glad to hear you say that.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah, it's pretty critical. And one of the things that I teach listeners is to just be quiet, you know. Let there be a silent pause, because that's when the authentic true things are gonna come out. They may not come out right away when someone's giving you some dissent; but if you nod your head and say, okay, I understand; and then you say nothing. Just wait. They'll come out again and you'll see even more accuracy in that.
HUI: I want to bring up a topic that today has become more controversial, which is diversity, equity and inclusion. And I'm curious as to your view in terms of—from a leadership perspective—how do you view these issues?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Well, you know, I think it's important that an organization have a deep feeling of respect for everyone in it, regardless of their backgrounds or their race or their religion or their sexual orientation, or what have you. It's really important that people are respected and given dignity. In some circumstances, that means being deliberate about hiring. When I was at West Point, I hired more women and minorities into the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership than any other department in the in the school. And I was deliberate about it. If I had two people who were excellent and I could offer one of them a faculty position, I would be more likely to select a woman or minority that was equal in competence to a more common, you know, white guy. I would, and it made for . . .
HUI: Why?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: A greater understanding of, you know, what leadership and management was all about, and you know, we had at that time.
HUI: You got more perspectives.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yes. And you know, it's not just about making students think . . . it's about making other people / other faculty think. And so, consequently, if they tend to be all the same that is the basis for group thinking, which you know, is very well known and still happens. And you know I just thought it was really important that we do that particularly since, at West Point, there were only 17% women; and the reason there was that percentage is that's the percentage of women in the officer corps in the Army. And so, they felt like they should be graduating the same amount so that all that would match. But, you know, I think it's important. I mean, I think it makes for better organizations.
When I built The Doerr Institute at Rice University, 80% of my employees were women. And I didn't have to, you know, hire anybody that was not, you know, a top pick. That institute was known for is the quality of individuals. That's what became famous about the Doerr Institute at Rice. And so, you know, I found too, that it was, it was really a very natural thing. I mean, I wasn't doing that because I had some sort of political worldview. I mean I'm an independent. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican; and I was never doing it for some sort of, you know, progressive act. You know, it was natural. It just sort of came to me and I think when things like that come to you as a leader, you need to, you need to hang on to them and respect them. And you know, every organization I ever built was successful. Every one of them I built five different leader development enterprises. They're all still running. So, I do think it's important.
ZACH: I have a couple follow up questions . . . because I'm really curious, based on current events and your very unique perspective on some of this stuff. So, last week we saw that the Department of Defense said that it planned to rename the US Naval ship Harvey Milk; and there were a lot of things about that that stood out to me, but I want to talk about the stated reason in the context of this discussion about leadership and about inclusion. The stated reason was that they wanted “to ensure that all DoD installations and assets were reflective of the commander in chief's priorities, our nation's history, and the warrior ethos.” So, this term, “the warrior ethos” was not something that I'd ever heard before. And frankly, as a queer person, I thought it was immediately homophobic and sexist. But I wanted to check that and find out, is this a term of art in the military? Is this something that is used in the military, and if so, what does it mean?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Well, yes, the term “warrior ethos” is used in the military, particularly in the Army and Marine Corps. And it is important that all soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines understand that the fundamental purpose is to fight and win wars. I mean, there are many, many other things that you do when you're in the military, but the bottom line is that's what you're there for. But the warrior ethos does not exclude anyone? You know, the warrior ethos is about putting the mission before yourself. You know, that's what the warrior ethos is about. It's about putting the mission before yourself. I will say that, in the past, ships and, you know, bases and things were named or were renamed in reasons that were political—and that mostly, I thought, was fine. You know, I thought it was great that we weren't going to have Confederate generals, you know, as our as our people in in our posts. But, but now what we're seeing is the opposite political action—trying to pull those out; and I don't think the Army, I can't speak for the whole military, but I don't think the army would really care that much one way or the other. You know, it's kind of funny, they're talking about the warrior ethos, when the Harvey Milk ship is just an oiler.
ZACH: Right.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: You know, it's obviously not true. When it comes to that and some of the diversity stuff, I do feel that people need to pick their fights . . .
ZACH: Hmm.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: So, for example, I have always been an ally both of LGB people, and especially, transgender people, because as a psychologist, I understand what it means to have a mind that is different than some quality of your body. And I'm very respectful of that.
ZACH: I'd like to talk about what the science tells us about inclusion in the military context. I think there's quite a bit of research talking about how inclusive policies actually have no significant impact on cohesion and readiness or morale within the military.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah, I would say that most of the time they don't. I was the person who wrote—or who edited—the Service Academy response to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
ZACH: Hmm.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: And so, I was very familiar with the science and everything else. And that repeal was accepted by the military and even encouraged by the military because without it we couldn't have recruited sufficient troops. You know, when 10% or more of the people in the military were gay or lesbian, to reject that would have been a readiness disaster for the military. And so, you know, my advice, as I wrote, the document, which was then picked up by the Naval Academy in the Air Force Academy, and they used it: minimize management. Just stop it. Just stop doing what you're doing. Don't record who's gay and who's not. Don't build separate bathrooms. Just stop it. And you know that that worked out well. Now, after Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed, I was visited by two transgender activists who knew that I was sympathetic to them; and they asked me, you know, what about transgender people now being, you know; and what I told them was this. I said, well, in principle, it's fine; and you know, you all can do as well as any other soldiers anywhere else. But I said the military is not going to fight hard for you. And the reason they're not is because your numbers are so low that there is no impact on readiness, whether you're here or not. That was not true about gays and lesbians. You know, we needed those citizens.
But transgender folks, you know, for the military; and you may hear this from me again: mission first. people, always. And so, the first thing the Army does when it comes to something like that is they look, does it impact our mission? Does it impact our ability? And what you have are political people, probably on both sides of the aisle, who make absurd claims about what it does to readiness—when most of the time it has no, no real effect. It's being made-up for political reasons.
ZACH: Yeah, I mean, it would be amazing if, oh gosh, if science, evidence, research—if these were all things that we used to guide our decision making more than political ideology, but that's perhaps a lot to ask. That's a that's a big better way for any of us to solve right now.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: I agree. I used to think that science mattered, and now we have now we have, you know, the return of the measles.
HUI: We live in very contentious times now. So, my question is about how does a leader deal with the internal ethical differences in the organizations that they're leading; and, then externally there is expectation that they take a stand on this and that thing. What advice would you give to leaders in this very contentious world that we live in?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: So, you heard it just before: , people always. So, the first thing the leader has to do when it comes to either internal or external issues is ask, “how is this going to impact our organization's ability to perform its mission.” If I do X, how will that impact it? If I do Y, how will that impact? The focus needs to be on the mission. On the organization. And then once a determination is made about what the organization needs, you have to satisfy the people—whether it's the stakeholders or the employees or whoever. But it should be less about the leader's own beliefs or attitudes or political, you know, circumstances—should be far less about that; and much more about what the organization needs in order to stay healthy and perform its job. And I've coached a lot of lot of leaders who were things other than focused on mission. I've coached some of them who thought they were comedians, and everybody would laugh at their jokes and 2/3 of the people hated them. You know, I have coached, you know, leaders who instead of being comedians, they were religious people. And they would sort of extend their religion into what they were doing. One of them was having a weekly Bible study with his with his direct reports and things. And it's always part of my teaching them to lead, to tell them you are not being paid to be a comedian. You know you are not the CEO of this company to be a pastor in a religious circumstance. You're paid to make sure that this company is as effective as it possibly can be. And when you inject personal things, whether it's political, religious, you know, personality, things like. being funny—when you inject that. It's always a problem. You know, I have spent a lot of time in the past year begging companies or wishing that companies would take a stronger stance in social matters. But despite my feelings, I know that as leaders, you know, the focus needs to be on the organization and not the greater broader position or perspective.
HUI: Wow, I feel like the title of this episode needs to be something like “mission first, people always.” I learned that.
ZACH: Indeed.
HUI: I guess it's time for our questionnaire.
ZACH: Yes, all right General Kolditz, we have a standard questionnaire that we ask all of our guests the first time they're on the podcast. It's sort of in the style of Proust, Inside the Actors Studio, Bernard Pivot; and I will take the odd questions and ask you question #1. You have a choice of two questions to answer. You can either answer: if you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be; is there a quality about yourself that you're currently working to improve? And if so, what?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah, I'll tell you what I'm currently working to improve in myself is anger management. You know, I am . . .
ZACH: You and me both general.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah, I am. I'm really upset about many of the things that I see ongoing, particularly when our Constitution is threatened, which is what my oath of office was to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. And so, you know, I need to understand that, you know, I can't fix everything; and so, for me to walk around being really angry and upset and everything that just takes, it just takes time off my life and I want to be a little bit more accepting—a little bit more realistic that I can't fix it. And to remind myself, I may be seeing things that are that I think are really bad, but you can't stop the clock. The clock's running. And over time, it will be much improved, but in the short term I want to, I want to manage my anger and just relax a little bit more.
HUI: We all struggle with that general, so we hear you. So, I'm gonna ask you the next question, which is also you can choose one of two. Who is your favorite mentor or who do you wish you could be mentored by?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Well, I've had. I've had many really great mentors in in my life, probably the top one was Eric Shinseki, who was Obama's VA secretary, four star general. But if I had to say who my favorite—favorite mentor would be, it would be me. I am my favorite mentor.
HUI: I like that.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: I love helping people. I love helping to advance people professionally. One of the people I'm most concerned about right now is a colleague that I have that's from Ukraine; and she's there doing her leader development work and everything else. And you know, I've asked her to be a second author on my next book. I've probably mentored, I would say, for sure 200 people in my in my life. I've probably gotten 50 people jobs. Probably 60% of people that I've mentored have been women. I have really enjoyed mentoring people and that's . . . I think maybe part of that is why I enjoy coaching now, which of course is quite different from mentoring; but it's also helping people, you know, achieve what they can as leaders and . . . I really do enjoy that.
ZACH: That's great.
HUI: Love that answer.
ZACH: Indeed, I suspect it might tie into the next question, which is what is the best job, paid or unpaid, that you've ever had?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: I would say the best job I ever had was being hired by Anne and John Doerr and Rice University to build the door Institute. You know, one of the things that an innovator needs, an entrepreneur needs, is funding and independence.
ZACH: Amen.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: I had. I had $50 million to build this from the Doerrs. And I worked, you know, for the Provost and President of the university. But they had no knowledge of what I was doing—or any time really to mess with me—so I could spend anything in the budget that we had without asking anyone permission; and I was able to do things that no one else had accomplished before because of that. I told the Doerrs that I'd be there six years, I wound up staying for seven because of COVID. But by the time I left, you know, we were working with 40% of the student body and we had created a Carnegie classification that all 5,200 colleges and universities in the country could use to assess where they are with leadership and leader development in their universities And you know, before that I was at the Yale School of Management and I loved it there. I love the faculty. I loved my friends, my sister-in-law actually worked there also, so you know, my wife was happy there, but to be able to build an institute-level, university level, program where part of the challenge was impacting nationally, it was really the most important thing I've ever done, and I loved every day of it.
ZACH: Hmm.
HUI: What a wonderful feeling.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah. The first person I hired was a West Point graduate who was working at one of the hospitals in Houston, managing the plastic surgeons. Nineteen plastic surgeons there; and she contacted me and basically asked for a job. And had I not hired her, I think I'd have failed. She was so important because she was the opposite of me, you know. I was the theoretical entrepreneur, with big ideas; and she was like, “okay buddy, how are we gonna get that done?” You know, what Is that gonna cost? How are we gonna do this? And so, the two of us together were the perfect combination.
HUI: That's awesome. All right. Next question is what is your favorite thing to do?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: My attitude is that every day is worth it. So, I mean, my first response would be waking up is my favorite thing to do.
HUI: I like that.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: I now live close to where I grew up in a small-town environment in southern Illinois. And I told my wife coming here I want three things: a truck, a dog, and a boat. And I enjoy being with all three of those. But you know, I enjoy every day. I really do. Sometimes I'm frustrated, but I've got a great wife. I've got a great dog. You know. I've got a great life; and so, I don't like to spend a lot of time complaining about it. You know, I'd rather just enjoy it and move on.
ZACH: That's great. I'm gonna try to take some of that advice. I could work on that. All right. What's your favorite place? And you can define place however you want.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah. My favorite place is wherever my children are. You know, I have two daughters. Each of them has a son and a daughter. And my wife visits them a lot. I don't get to visit them as much as she does just because of things I have going on, but that, I think is really my favorite place. My second favorite place, probably, is in my boat. You know, because it's quiet. I tend to fish by myself so . . .
you know, I've really studied lately and checked in on how important it is for really smart people to have periods of time where you don't really try to think, you know? You just . . . it's almost like, you know, meditation.
HUI: Yeah, you just let it happen.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: And so I, yeah. So, one of my favorite times or things to do is to just be alone and kind of let my brain wander a little bit.
ZACH: It's nice.
HUI: Love it. What makes you proud?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Things that my daughters accomplish make me proud. You know, one daughter is a is a lawyer. She works in Boston. Works as a clerk for judges, and she's doing really, really well. My other daughter has a master's degree in special ed. And she's also s certified behavioral analyst. And so, she's just started her own job as an independent consultant to people who have kids with special needs in schools. And so. they really make me proud, you know.
HUI: That's awesome.
ZACH: That's great.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: And. Yeah, I . . . That's what I think is most important.
ZACH: Well, the next question is deeply unimportant, and Hui actually hates it. And that is what e-mail sign off. Do you use most frequently?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Yeah, most. Most frequently I just say “best.” Something that characterizes it, though, that's related to what we talked about earlier, is when people say how are you? And I always tell them “I am fabulous.” And when I do that, they laugh just like kind of like that. You know, they kind of laugh. And they're like, “really well, you know, why would you say that?” I say “because it's a choice.”
HUI: Love that. Love that.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: I mean, if I told them what was exactly going on in my life, or maybe that would be kind of negative. But to just say fabulous, I think puts me in the right perspective in the right orientation.
HUI: OK. The next question is what trend in your field is most overrated?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: I'll tell you what I've what I've seen in the past few years that's come out is people using memes to put a single leadership, you know, out of context statement in . . . it is the most incompetent. Just I . . . just can't even believe that people do that. It's so petty and almost always wrong. Leadership memes are the worst. That's the thing that I just really despise. You can't take single statements out of context and have that improve people's leadership. It just doesn't work. So yeah, that's what's come up lately that I'm really not pleased with.
HUI: I'm with you.
ZACH: I like. I like that. Hui, I have a side question, a sub question to this which is one of the things that we've seen recently in the behavioral sciences is a lot more . . . I feel like it's just getting a lot more attention in maybe unexpected places. We see folks in ethics and compliance, which is a space we spend a lot of time in; we see folks in law, which is a place we spend a lot of time, talking about and being interested in behavioral science; and obviously in business. I love the curiosity, but we've also seen, for example, people who definitely aren't behavioral scientists sort of putting themselves out as experts in behavioral science. We even saw recently someone who isn't a psychologist put themselves out as a psychologist. I'm wondering if you've observed that and if you have any thoughts about that.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Overall, I haven't really seen that, but I'll tell you the part of my profession—where I am right now—that concerns me. So, the International Coaching Federation has training for people to become coaches who have never led anything in their lives. And I do recognize that coaching is a skill.
ZACH: Yes.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: But you may remember when I described myself and I said I had experience, I had training, and education. It is unimaginable to me that I could coach CEO's and other leaders without having some experience myself. And right now, the coaching field is loaded with people who just . . . they have the skill set trained, but they are so inexperienced at what being a leader means that I am a little concerned, you know. I'm a little concerned that if that's how the coaching profession is built, you know, it's going to be problematic. And I understand what the ICF is trying to do. They want the solutions to come out of the leaders themselves. But I've probably made almost every leader mistake in the book, and when I see one of my clients headed down that road, I'm not gonna fiddle around. I'm gonna tell them here's what happened to me when I did that, and I advise you to not do it.
ZACH: The last question is what word would you use to describe your day so far?
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Oh, the word to describe my day so far. Adaptive.
HUI: Interesting.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: You know, I three or four months ago I had two coaching clients. I was working four days a month. Well, now I've got more than that going on; and I've got a book going on and, you know, all this other stuff. So now, I'm working a lot more. When you leave your job in an organization and you become completely independent, that's challenging. I mean, you really do have to recreate your own identity. You know, there's a military saying, actually came from the Napoleonic era, and it's called “move to the sound of the guns.” And what that means is, you know, you don't know everything that's happening, but if you hear, you know, you see something happening and it's connected to your mission go, you know, go there. And that's kind of what I'm doing now as a person. I'm moving to the sound of the guns, and if that's a catfishing trip on the Mississippi River, well, that's something I can go to. But if it's, you know, coaching a CEO of a climate company, well, that's also it. There's a lot of diversity in my life right now in terms of things that are happening and opportunities, which are fun things that a retiree might do, and which are serious business things that make a difference in people's lives.
HUI: Well, we, we are so grateful that you have made the time to talk with us. I learned a whole lot and I am sure everyone will benefit so much from this conversation, which I hope is the first of many conversations that we have.
ZACH: So much.
HUI: Thank you so much, General Kolditz.
GENERAL KOLDITZ: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. I enjoyed this.
ZACH: And thank you all for tuning in to The Better Way? Podcast. For more information about this or anything else that’s happening with CDE Advisors, visit our website at www.CDEAdvisors.com, where you can also check out the Better Way blog. And please like and subscribe to this series on Apply or Spotify. And, finally, if you have thoughts about what we talked about today, the work we do here at CDE, or just have ideas for Better Ways we should explore, please don’t hesitate to reach out—we’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for listening.