Serving up servant leadership | Kathy Fava | Ep. 88

[Rob] (0:00 - 0:19)

I embarrassed my way into this path of servant leadership, where I even had a CEO once tell me, he's like, you're the worst person in the company at this principle. I was like, wow, that hurts. But it was helpful, right?

Because then what I learned to do is I started studying this concept. I started studying what does it mean to be a servant leader?

[Dillon] (0:25 - 0:37)

What's up lifers and welcome to The Daily Standup with lifetime value where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I've got my man Rob with us. Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:38 - 0:38)

What's up people?

[Dillon] (0:39 - 0:43)

And we've got Kathy with us. Kathy, do you want to say hi?

[Kathy] (0:44 - 0:45)

Hey, thanks for having me.

[Dillon] (0:46 - 0:52)

And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Kathy, would you please introduce yourself?

[Kathy] (0:53 - 1:03)

Yes. Hey, I'm Kathy Fava. I am a customer support, customer success person.

And I'm here to talk about servant leadership.

[Dillon] (1:04 - 1:23)

First of all, Kathy, I want to say, how did we meet? Let's give a shout out to Jan Young's wonderful community, CX Exchange. You and I have chatted quite a bit over Slack over there.

And here we are today. You want to talk about servant leadership. Tell us exactly what that means to you.

[Kathy] (1:25 - 1:53)

That means if you're leading a team, you want to work for them rather than having them work for you. Give them what they need to do their best work. Listen to their ideas rather than sort of pushing your own agenda.

And basically working with the team to get done what you all decide together needs to happen. It's a very supportive and kind of inspiring way to lead. And it's very successful.

[Dillon] (1:54 - 2:11)

Have you always been of that mind? Or when you started managing folks, did you have a more top-down approach? Do this, do that?

Or have you always thought the way to get the best out of my folks is to stand beside them instead of standing over them?

[Kathy] (2:12 - 2:36)

I've always thought that. When I had my first team leadership assignment, I was really thrown into it without having much experience. So I knew the team knew more about the job than I did.

And I relied upon them to teach me what to do. And they did. And I had my own ideas and ways I thought would help.

But mostly I learned from the team.

[Dillon] (2:37 - 3:09)

Rob, you've had quite a few leadership experiences. Maybe tell me about servant leadership. I feel like we all just kind of agree that's the right approach nowadays.

It just sounds so much friendlier, efficient, and inclusive. It's hard to have this conversation and create like a debate around like, is this the best? Or is it better to rule with an iron fist?

But with that in mind, Rob, maybe talk to us about where you first came across servant leadership and what role it's played in your evolution as a leader.

[Rob] (3:10 - 3:48)

Yeah, it's a good question. I feel like I have stumbled my way into a degree of servant leadership. I'm not too confident to say that I've embraced it fully, but I embrace a lot of the principles.

At least I try to. I think it's one of those things you keep aspiring to. It's not somewhere you fully get to.

But I think the really funny thing is for me, I learned most of what I know about managing people from working in restaurants and managing a kitchen. So you throw a 22-year-old guy in charge of 22 people managing a restaurant across a couple locations. Have you guys worked in restaurants before?

[Dillon] (3:50 - 3:56)

Your people, Rob. Have I told you about Fruity?

[Rob] (3:56 - 4:07)

So in restaurants, feedback is completely different. Feedback is nasty and brutish and short. And that's for a couple of reasons, right?

[Dillon] (4:07 - 4:08)

Right then and there too.

[Rob] (4:08 - 6:09)

Exactly. It's mostly because of speed. If you have a plate of sizzling hot fajitas, you cannot let that sizzle stop.

You have a 30-second window to get those fajitas to the table, and you don't have time for niceties. You don't have time to pull someone aside, sit them down, validate their experience of making the fajitas, express empathy. You've just got to be quick.

And curse words are actually very efficient in a restaurant setting because they convey a level of severity. I had to unlearn all of what I thought I knew about leadership when I got into SaaS and more office-type environments. I embarrassed my way into this path of servant leadership where I even had a CEO once tell me, he was like, you're the worst person in the company at this principle.

I was like, wow, that hurts. But it was helpful, right? Because then what I learned to do is I started studying this concept.

I started studying, what does it mean to be a servant leader? And how do you actually validate the experiences of the people who report to you as being experts? How do you also take into account their background, their setting, their experience, their place in overall society that informs who they are and how they behave in the workplace?

And ultimately ended up sort of, JP said this last time, too bad he couldn't be here, RIP. But- He's not dead. He's not dead.

He's just busy today. Was he on a cruise or something? I forget.

He's on a cruise. Something way cooler than us. That's what it is.

He said he learned to invert the pyramid. And I think that was a great example, where if you can see yourself as your primary function is to kind of treat your direct reports, like, you know, I phrase it this way, like you're their CSM. You're responsible for building their success plan, for coaching them toward their goals, for giving them strategic advice to grow in their careers.

It changes the paradigm entirely for how to go about leadership. So, I'm still a work in progress like most people, but those are just a few thoughts I have.

[Dillon] (6:10 - 6:24)

Kathy, let's juxtapose your experience with Rob's in that it sounds like you didn't need to go and research how to have empathy and compassion for the people who reported to you.

[Rob] (6:24 - 6:24)

How messed up does that sound?

[Dillon] (6:26 - 6:27)

Dude, I'm the same as you.

[Rob] (6:27 - 6:28)

I know your type. I read about you in a book.

[Dillon] (6:30 - 6:36)

How does it come to you? Tell me about how it is you think about your relationship with your employees.

[Kathy] (6:36 - 7:16)

Well, I have a lot of background being a frontline worker, and I have a lot of empathy for anyone who's working directly with customers and dealing with their complaints and often not getting recognized for the difficulty of the work they do and what it takes to do that well. So, right away, when I was dealing with a team like that, I knew where they were coming from. It sort of came naturally to me.

Don't really know why that is, but when I listen to people, I kind of get into their minds and feel things from their point of view. So that's how I came about it.

[Dillon] (7:17 - 8:27)

I just know how to empathize with people, which for some people is just a thing they're born with or I've been in their shoes before, so I understand what they're going through. And I certainly don't lean on this often, but I think there is a gender factor to it. I think women are often more empathetic because my next statement was going to be, I totally understand where Rob's coming from.

If I just deliver the message, isn't that good enough? But it is not, and I have come to learn that. It sounds like Rob has after reading many a book and a website.

What I'd love to understand from you, Kathy, is what's your experience been like working for others who lack an understanding of that methodology, who maybe are a little bit more hardscrabble about it, and take that more top-down approach? They aren't as empathetic. They don't see their job as serving you.

It really is like, Kathy, get the work done. I'm expecting you to get the work done. I don't care what it takes.

Don't tell me how you feel. How has that made you feel, and maybe how have you managed that relationship?

[Kathy] (8:28 - 9:14)

Well, the first thing is I get the work done. But that's a good point. I'm going to speak to that in a second.

Generally, managers who aren't that open to my managing the relationship just don't want to hear that they're like, just do this and go away, and don't bother me. It's really difficult. That's not my favorite way of working.

It's not my best way of working because I feel like it's a robot, and somebody's poking me with a stick and saying, do this. It's not very satisfying, and just kind of lonely work. Just the function, not anything around it.

So not a fan.

[Rob] (9:15 - 10:25)

I think you bring up a good point, Kathy. For anyone listening to this, if you have a manager who doesn't embody servant leadership, the question arises, what do you do with that? How do you deliver that feedback?

How do you manage it up? That's been a challenging thing that I've seen as well, because usually those managers, they will get you to do, like you said, you'll get the job done in the short term. But what they're not realizing is that they're burning a long-term relationship.

They're not really coaching in the right direction. I've learned some strategies to both as someone who reports up and someone who manages down, or whatever direction you want to call this, up, down, whatever. My point is to say, ways to deliver feedback to your manager is a really interesting and challenging topic.

I've learned to ask permission to give feedback. And I think on the manager side, I've asked myself periodically, how often have I asked my direct reports for advice? And I actually say advice rather than feedback, because usually feedback feels kind of icky.

People don't like giving feedback, and sometimes it feels complainy. So I've often found if you're a manager, you can often ask. I love that.

Yeah.

[Dillon] (10:26 - 11:27)

But I love that, Rob. And I want you to finish that thought if there's anything left. What's interesting is, thinking about the directionality of that conversation, you as the manager in the position of power, despite everything we're talking about here, asking for advice is very empowering to an employee.

I learned that psychological trick a long time ago of, can I give you some feedback? Getting them to say yes puts them in the headspace to take feedback. They psychologically feel like they're not allowed to be offended then, because it's like, well, I said I would.

It also makes them gut check whether they're in the right headspace to take it in the first place. But if you were an employee, and you said, hey, Rob, Mr. Boss, can I give you some advice? I don't think that works.

In that situation, I think it has to be, can I provide some feedback about how I'm feeling in this relationship? There is still a power dynamic there. But I love being in the manager's position and saying, will you give me some advice, please?

[Rob] (11:29 - 11:46)

That is great. Actually, you're making me think of something I learned from a co-worker once as a manager. What he did, he's like, I know I'm not easy to work with.

So what I'm going to do is put together a user guide. And I'm going to give that to people on my team.

[Kathy] (11:46 - 11:46)

Great idea.

[Rob] (11:47 - 12:31)

And I tried this too, where it's like, hey, just so you know, here's some things about working with me. And that was good for me as a manager, because I could even freely put like, hey, listen, I don't like when people are eating and chewing in my ear next to me. So if you're sitting next to me, I might seem irritable.

When I hear people chewing and eating, I want to punch through a wall. But I could put other nuanced elements of my leadership style other than just my tendencies, things around how I like to deliver feedback, receive feedback, how often I like to have one on ones, that I like phone calls instead of video calls, because I feel like it's an easier interaction for me. I like taking walking meetings, stuff like that was so liberating for me just to put that on the table in front of people who reported to me, for all parties involved.

[Kathy] (12:31 - 13:01)

And I want to backtrack for just a second about advice. It's a tricky thing. I'm agreeing with what you guys have been saying.

But asking for advice can open you up to appearing as you don't know what you're doing, especially with people who aren't used to servant leadership. They're like, well, why is she asking us? Does she not know what to do here?

So I think you have to frame it carefully. But I do think it's a good idea.

[Dillon] (13:01 - 13:55)

I want to wrap things up. But here's what I'll say. I think it is all about the way you word it.

I wouldn't say can I get your advice on how to run a QBR when you're the person who should be dictating how that is done or what the outcome should be, but getting advice on how to best approach a meeting with the team, especially when you're early if you're inheriting a team, if you're a new leader coming into an organization. I think that's different, right? Because there's no real right or wrong answer.

I love where this conversation went. I think this is fantastic. And I love that you brought this to our attention, Kathy, because you hear about servant leadership over and over again.

But talking about the nuance and how it's different and how it makes people feel, we haven't done that before. So thank you so much, Kathy. We are out of time.

But I would love to have you back and talk more about this a second time. But until that time, we do have to say goodbye.

[Kathy] (13:56 - 13:58)

Love to be back. Nice to be here.

[Voiceover] (14:24 - 14:33)

Find us on YouTube at lifetime value and find us on the socials at lifetime value media. Until next time.