Leadership is one of the most popular, challenging, important and essential elements for working professionals and their organizations. Are leaders born or taught? Can we create systems to teach and foster leadership? Do most companies have well developed leadership? Are there lessons we can draw from the military to apply to organizations and leadership? Tune in to Professor Harvard Business School Professor Hise Gibson and Samhita Jayanti as they discuss these important questions.
Episode Transcript:
Sam Jayanti [00:00:03] Welcome to ideamix. Performance and Wellness, where world leading coaches and scientists explain how their research can help you achieve your personal and professional goals. Faster. Hi, it’s Sam Jayanti. , co-founder and CEO of ideamix coaching. Coaching has played an important role in my life. It’s helped me through my journey to become a powerful leader, mother and wife. I, ideamix coaches, help you increase your self-awareness, improve your problem solving skills, and evolve your habits to achieve your goals. All things I’m grateful to have learned and done through my own coaching journey are easy. One minute assessment matches you with an ideal mix coach that best fits your needs and values. Each idea makes coaches vetted and experienced. It helps clients map and achieve their wellness, professional, and business goals. If you or someone you know could benefit from coaching, visit our website at the Idea mix.com. We also know that not everyone can invest in coaching right now, and that’s why we provide free coaching in our Coach Shorts episodes. If you think someone you know would benefit from it, please share our podcast with them. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Welcome. Today we’re excited to have Professor Hise Gibson join us on the show. Heiss is a senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard Business School. He’s a West Point graduate and Army aviator, retired U.S. Army colonel, having served with distinction for over 25 years, earning the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star, among other accolades. Hise research interest is in leadership, technology, and crisis management. Hise first, thank you for your service and welcome to ideamix.
Hise Gibson [00:01:47] Thank you for the invitation. Really appreciate it.
Sam Jayanti [00:01:50] So I want to just start with some really quick questions. So there are going to be five quick short answers. Here we go. Our leaders born or made.
Hise Gibson [00:02:02] Both.
Sam Jayanti [00:02:03] Okay. Is it possible to develop a system of leadership?
Hise Gibson [00:02:08] Absolutely.
Sam Jayanti [00:02:10] Do you think most companies have a well-functioning system of leadership or not?
Hise Gibson [00:02:15] Not at all.
Sam Jayanti [00:02:18] Is it possible to draw some lessons on leadership from the military to apply in a corporate context?
Hise Gibson [00:02:24] Yes.
Sam Jayanti [00:02:25] And if you had to pick a piece of sports equipment to be, what would that be?
Hise Gibson [00:02:31] Wow, that’s a good one. Was it top of mind right now? It was a lacrosse stick.
Sam Jayanti [00:02:39] Okay. That was not the answer I was expecting, but we’ll come back to that. So leadership, technology, crisis management, it’s perhaps the single most important triad of topics, right, that every business and every leader needs to confront when they ask questions like, how do I create sustainable leadership in the organization? How will technology affect my customers and business model? And, people? How resilient is the organization and cannot withstand crises, right, which arise on a more than regular basis nowadays? You spent the first part of your working life in the military, and I imagine you aren’t surrounded by people who are ex-military at Harvard Business School. So what is it that made you want to become an academic thinking about these issues?
Hise Gibson [00:03:35] First, I think, I really appreciate the, the the question around. The reason why I wanted to become, academic, I think, is because of the flexibility and the opportunity to continue the arc of service. So if, you think about just my background, the thread that goes through it that’s not really present is the word service, right? And I think taking all that I’ve learned in an academic space by studying and researching, even when I was in the military, and all the actual practical lessons that I’ve learned through serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and leading large, large, helicopter organizations, I think there’s an opportunity to marry those things and then put it out into the world. And what better place to put, tangible, real, actionable information out into the world? But at the Harvard Business School.
Sam Jayanti [00:04:41] Yeah, I agree with you there. I think that intersection of the experience you have, having been in the military, having run teams, but also having done this step back through your academic work in the military and just thinking about teams operations leadership is fascinating, right? Because not a lot of academics have that experience to to sort of bring to the table in the corporate context.
Hise Gibson [00:05:14] I think, absolutely. And I believe that the there’s a unique opportunity, especially when you have a chance to sit back, reflect on what you’ve done and realize that there’s been amazing academics who have studied the theory behind it. And I’ve had conversations with folks across, many industries, many senior leaders, and realized that the same challenges that I faced as an army officer are very similar to challenges that most CEOs in any industry face every single day. And I think there’s, space and necessary space for, individuals who can go deep and try to really unpack the mechanisms behind things versus many leaders believing it’s just you. Serendipity. I just know how to do this. Right. Well, actually, you just don’t know how to do it. You don’t remember when you were, like, seven years old and you fell off a bike and you learned something there. That translates to how you engage with your employees today. There’s a that might be a stretch, but there’s a connection.
Sam Jayanti [00:06:26] That but it’s but it’s a system. Yeah. And do you feel that obviously missions are so different, right. Between the military and a corporation. And I think increasingly we have a set of generations or a set of people across generations who are quite skeptical, like the trust in corporations has really eroded over the last kind of 15 to 20 year period. That trust hasn’t eroded in a military context. Tell us a little bit about your. Thoughts on alignment around mission and the contrast you see between organizations in the military.
Hise Gibson [00:07:09] The most important thing in order for any organization to accomplish its desired mission or desired end state is, I’ll say, is to figure out a way to communicate some leaders awesome goal which is around what is that your value set? And from that value set well and operationalize that. You need to have some kind of mission to something tangible and which we do.
Sam Jayanti [00:07:37] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:07:38] Unfortunately, a lot of times in, in corporate settings, it kind of stops there at that. Here’s our here’s our values, here’s our mission. But there’s a lack of communicating how that mission is operationalized. So when you get down to the brass tacks, the individuals in the organization who are getting the work done, especially in in current day, people want to know where does my contribution matter in the larger organization?
Sam Jayanti [00:08:10] So it’s sort of like the so what? Like what happened with my contribution and how did it make an impact.
Hise Gibson [00:08:15] And I will say because of what you highlighted, the generational differences we think about organizations have been about five generations ish now, which means those who are older really don’t need that, right? Don’t really care as much. Yeah, just going to get it done. Whereas our colleagues who may be on the, on a, young who have just entered the workforce really do want to know what their value is and needs to be communicated, which for the leader is kind of exhausting. Now, if I jump to military context, this, alignment around mission is just a part of the culture. So the culture requires us to communicate. Here’s our mission, and this is how you’re going to do this mission. And this is where your contribution, sub organization exist. And then the leaders are trained and developed in such a way to be to translate that without saying something like my boss said. So they’re able to take it, understand it, and then figure out how to morph it into the relevance for what they have to do and where they fit, which is communicate all the way down. Yeah. Which create the alignment necessary to accomplish a mission, which is why, you can drop any, US military organization group anywhere on the planet and something will get done.
Sam Jayanti [00:09:43] Right? Right. And they’ll align around that mission. Yeah. Makes total sense. I want to show our listeners a short clip, from a presentation that you made which talks about what’s required of leaders. So let’s take a quick look and listen.
Hise Gibson [00:10:01] But the most important part about leadership is actually the, 12in between our ears. Because leadership is really easy, really simple. I got to do a few things in order to be a decevnt leader. Just these six things, that’s all. No problem. So you need to understand what’s going on. You need to be to visualize what you just understood. Describe it in a way that everyone understands. In order for you to direct resources, the necessary resources, you direct. And then voila you’re leading. So why isn’t your what? Wasn’t everyone doing it? And why are there over a thousand books on Amazon right now that have leadership, in the title. And but if you’re able to do these sort of. Okay. Then it’s very infectious. You’re going to be able to power down to your team in a way in which you develop them, which gives you the trade space necessary in order to manage risk and do the things only you can do. Because when you’re a leader, I’ll say at the top of the pyramid, so to speak, there’s a handful of things only you can do, and you have metastatic teammates that you can leverage that can help you be a better person, enable your organization, and then power all the way down and create the flat organization we all wish we had. But it’s challenging to maintain and manage.
Sam Jayanti [00:11:30] As you highlight. Leadership is something both leaders and organizations really struggle with. And here we are discussing leadership because of that existential struggle. You laid out this idea of these are the things that a leader needs to do. Tell us a little bit more about how you develop that framework.
Hise Gibson [00:11:55] Well, I would take complete you know, what it is all of my it’s all my credit. I did all of this.
Sam Jayanti [00:12:01] Claim it.
Hise Gibson [00:12:02] But, I can’t I can’t do that. I learned it from being in the military because it’s part of, how we generally communicate what is required of leaders. So leaders have to be able to lead. Yeah, that’s pretty basic, right? But they also have to be able to understand what they need to do. Right. And once they understand what they need to do, they have to be able to describe this, describe what they need to do to others because there’s not really what they are doing. It’s how do they translate what’s required to someone else, then have to do solid assessments not only of people, but assessment of missions. And what do what can we do? What can we not do in order to understand where to ask for help?
Sam Jayanti [00:12:45] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:12:46] Then they have to be able to direct resources. And I think as we as leader become more senior, sometimes it’s forgotten that the higher you elevate in an organization, the more you become a resource manager where you have to allocate things, which means you’re actually giving your power away because you’re you’ve been elevated to such a level to where you need to focus on, like, you know, strategy and looking forward and engage with shareholders and boards, not the day to day. Yeah, but what many people do and we’re all we all have done this once we get promoted to the next job, what do we care about? Well, we were really good at what we were just doing.
Sam Jayanti [00:13:31] Right.
Hise Gibson [00:13:32] And so we and Pete, our our teammates who have our jobs because we do it better. And so those are like some of those, those elements that, are needed in order for you to be a good leader. And if you can do all of them well, and I’m missing a couple, you’re you’re going to be a good leader. The challenge is it’s hard to do all of those. Well. You know, depending on what season you’re in as a leader will really dictate which one of these you’re strong or weak at. Because it’s hard to be strong at all at the same time.
Sam Jayanti [00:14:11] That makes a lot of sense. I mean, in our business, we come across this a lot, right? It’s this idea of the skills that got you here to this whatever level you’re now at are not the skills that you need to hone to take you forward. And, you know, people get stuck very often working in the business, and now they’re being expected to work on the business and manage teams. And a lot of the coaching work that we do revolves around this topic. You said leaders have different seasons. Talk a little bit more about that. Well.
Hise Gibson [00:14:49] Well, when we think about the arc of our leadership journeys. Yeah. There’s like early stage, mid stage and late stage and in our early stages. We’re pretty vigorous. We just want to get it done. We really think we know what we’re doing, but if we’re honest, we’re just gaining tools. We’re getting tactical talents.
Sam Jayanti [00:15:13] Skills.
Hise Gibson [00:15:14] Acquisition. We’re understanding that, you know, we need to be really good at, doing Excel building models or some other very tactical thing, which is really, really important. And then at some point, as we move from that tactical state to that middle state into management, more than like two people, managing two people is important. But when you get to about 10 or 15 or a very large P&L where you managing a budget, profit and loss and you mentioned a budget, then you need a little bit different skills and you’re practice in there and you start to realize the importance of relationships. But business and leadership is still a deeply human endeavor. And can you become massively, rich on not being relational? Sure. We we we have examples of that. But at the, at the in in a in a later season, that’s when you realize how important your life is as a leader by the relationships you still have over that time. Because I think. What I learned in the military from, one of my bosses. He said, you’ll never know how good you are while you’re sitting in the seat. The seat of leadership, whatever that that is.
Sam Jayanti [00:16:39] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:16:40] You only know how well you did after you leave. And what we’ll show you, that is when someone calls you, sends you a note and asks you for help. You realize at that moment you had an impact. But while you’re in the seat, you’re just trying to get things done. Yeah. And the same thing happens to leaders in a corporate setting. They’re trying to get things done, but they never really know how well they’re doing. Because even though there’s feedback and there’s performance reviews, you know, you’re not really getting the direct feedback on how are you doing unless you’re probably in a private equity firm or VC firm where you’re is it much smaller and tighter, and you’re probably getting far more direct feedback from your peers than you would in a standard, large fortune 100 company?
Sam Jayanti [00:17:31] Makes sense. I want to shift gears a little bit. One of the other things that you talk a lot about in your research is this concept of T-shaped leadership. Big T leaders, little T leaders. Would you explain that for our listeners?
Hise Gibson [00:17:46] I know from a I think, again, I’ll, I’ll give full credit where credit is due. The idea of a T-shaped leader is about a 30 year old concept. But what caused me to really want to dig into it, was a talk I had with our former Dean Noria, who wrote about T-shaped leadership. In around 2006, and, shared with him that this sounds interesting. You know, you have folks who are deep, and that’s when you’re early in a, in your early stages, a leader. You’re deep at some thing, and then you’re placed in organization and then you’re, you’re getting a bunch of experiences and then you broaden your perspective. To me, that came across as if all T’s are the same. And an example of that is that, in the U.S. Army, we send, officers and people around the world do a lot of different things. Yeah. And at the time that I’m at Harvard Business School getting my doctorate. That’s my job. I’m an Army lieutenant colonel. Getting a doctorate. Bebop in around Cambridge with a backpack. It’s a very old graduate student. Whereas I have another colleague who’s camping, in Louisiana or doing extreme things in, California, but they’re also are not in a unit. But it’s as if we’re getting the same experience, but we’re not.
Sam Jayanti [00:19:20] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:19:21] And so when I did the research, I realized that not all experiences are the same. They can contribute to our broadening, but there’s only certain, experiences that really extend you and in others that you really get at your current job. And that’s where the little T versus big T came into play. Not to say that little is worse than big.
Sam Jayanti [00:19:41] No, they’re just different.
Hise Gibson [00:19:42] They’re just different. And and it’s the acknowledgment of the difference. And that organizations don’t just do the good of their heart, provide opportunities to their employees. I’m going to give you an experience that either a I want to take advantage of right now in the near term, or b, I’m going to make a strategic investment in you as a person in order to leverage that experience that I gave you 3 to 5 years from now, if I keep you right. And so those experiences are more of the big T level versus those, tactical experiences or the little T, and then we can’t forget the I’s. You need to have eyes. If we think about a guy’s eyes or just. I need you to push the red button. I need you to come to work. Provide value by doing a very singular thing. And there’s many organizations that have a lot of eyes. Yeah. I have a little brother who’s, works at chemical plant. And you need a lot of eyes in a chemical plant. The only the only t you need is, like, the guy running the plant. Everyone else or groups of eyes doing a very specific function to create a process to make a product.
Sam Jayanti [00:20:54] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:20:55] That is extremely valuable. Yeah. Different than a McKinsey consulting firm, right. Or Bain or BCG or any consulting firm. You need a lot of Big T’s because you’re expecting people to do, cognitive gymnastics. They go from this industry to that in industry of this industry and be able to tie how they can add value and make them better. Yeah. Quickly.
Sam Jayanti [00:21:18] Yeah. That’s a lot of sense. I like that. I like the little i’s. You’ve talked in some. Do your work about how uncertainty is a given right? And probably every generation feels this, but it certainly feels like a time in the world where uncertainty is on the increase rather than rather than the decrease. It’s a framework that you’ve called Vuca, which I want you to explain to our audience. And then talk a little bit about the link between that framework of Vuca and the role that coaching plays in helping leaders navigate the uncertainties.
Hise Gibson [00:22:07] I think, that’s a great, great question. And I appreciate it because in the in the military generally, we assume that the world is volatile but uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Yeah, that’s the going in assumption, right. By having that going in assumption, that means when you go into an ambiguous situation, not doing anything is not an option, right? You have to do something. You have to move forward because sitting still, could be detrimental. And so that that going in, idea allows for constant movement, and even certainty in ambiguity and to be able to create an opportunity to be comfortable operating in the gray, many might believe that. Well, the military organization in, in a militaristic organization, people will just do it. They they’re told there’s absolutely no innovation. People will just run into a wall. Maybe in a movie, but but because, the military is a people central organization. People are people. Yes, there are rules, but you have to be motivated to get things done. And so they expect their leaders to be able to bring order to chaos. And by having this going in assumption around about being volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, okay, we we put that on the table. Got it. We have no idea what we’re doing, but we’re told we have to do something. We have a mission, and we have other framework to help us bring order to chaos to move forward.
Sam Jayanti [00:24:04] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:24:05] And I think that’s where coaching helps leaders manage their anxiety, during uncertain times. The challenge today is that the uncertainty is, like, all the time, right? Those, thousand year floods.
Sam Jayanti [00:24:23] Narrator. Similarly to the military, in a way.
Hise Gibson [00:24:25] Yeah. Every day. And so I think leaders, unfortunately, haven’t had enough reps, in bad times. So if we really start to unpack it, we think about 2009. We can pick dates. So 2009.
Sam Jayanti [00:24:43] 2002 crisis moments.
Hise Gibson [00:24:45] Those are those are moments. But between 2009 and 2020, it was pretty good, at least in the US generally for markets and business.
Sam Jayanti [00:24:54] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:24:55] Innovation really good. So you have a whole crop of leaders. You’ve grown up in really good times.
Sam Jayanti [00:25:02] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:25:03] And you have some of the more seasoned, seasoned leaders in their organizations who remember, right, the 90s, the 2000, some even the 80s. Yeah. So we’ve been here before.
Sam Jayanti [00:25:16] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:25:17] And are less anxious.
Sam Jayanti [00:25:19] Right.
Hise Gibson [00:25:19] And they have, they have the scabs to remember and they have pattern recognition, whereas the leaders who have come up post 2009 to now don’t, which means their anxiety is really, really high, which causes the need for coaching to be really important. There was a time where coaching was looked at as a bad thing. Oh, what’s wrong with you? Right? Yeah, there’s a problem. Whereas I think every leader I know has an amazing coach to help them think about how to maneuver and how to manage not only themselves, but provide them an outlet to really reflect on how to manage their organizations. And without that outlet, they might be in a very different state.
Sam Jayanti [00:26:09] Yeah. So that totally makes sense. I mean, we couldn’t have said it better. It’s, you know, leaders are a lot like high performance athletes, right? And most high performance athletes don’t not have a coach, for a reason. It’s made me think about what you just said has made me think. About the culture of organizations and this idea of whether culturally, organizations are equipped to deal with uncertainty or not equipped to deal with uncertainty in the military. Clearly, the whole organization and the ethos of it is equipped to deal with uncertainty. You know, in my experience, I spent some time working at what I’ll call old economy companies, and then I spent some time working at a Silicon Valley company. And the cultures of those two sets of organizations are deeply, deeply different. Right. The the old economy companies, the culture generally is one of risk aversion. And the sort of overall messaging is don’t screw it up. Right. And in the Valley, the culture is of risk, friendliness. It’s like make mistakes, you know, it’s fine. We’ll figure it out. And no mistake is sort of insurmountable. And those are two really different perspectives to the world from. Tell me about your observations with respect to culture and how sort of culture enables or hampers an organization from confronting uncertainty and navigating it. Well.
Hise Gibson [00:27:55] That’s a big one around culture. And so I think, if I, I’ll use a recent example, if we over, over the good years that we’ve established 2009 and 2020, some may say, depending on who you are or where you sit, right will determine determine your level of goodness. But, if we think about companies that grew really fast, they grew with a culture, of we’re a family. We’re we’re going to support each other, you know, come as you are, do what you want. No big deal. But then those organizations grew.
Sam Jayanti [00:28:35] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:28:37] And grew and grew. And then post-pandemic, there’s a recalibration that’s happened to those organizations that were families had, I mean, there’s an old, an old analogy. You can’t, like, fire your family. You can’t, you know, you you know, you.
Sam Jayanti [00:28:58] Don’t pick your.
Hise Gibson [00:28:59] Family, you don’t pick your family, which means you can’t fire your family, you know? Period.
Sam Jayanti [00:29:03] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:29:04] But in corporations, you can you can let people go.
Sam Jayanti [00:29:07] Yep.
Hise Gibson [00:29:08] So are you a family?
Sam Jayanti [00:29:09] Right.
Hise Gibson [00:29:10] And so, so just those actions completely, cut at the culture of the organization and causes employees to, to be concerned.
Sam Jayanti [00:29:24] Right.
Hise Gibson [00:29:25] But if, as you highlighted, all economy, all economy companies, that wasn’t a big deal. That was just part of how the corporation, the corporation operated. Yeah. And so, I think, many organizations now are grappling with what their culture is going to be, how their culture is going to operate, and how do they really want to define it to ensure that they, highlight their values, hire talent that is aligned with their values, but also can do what they need to do for the shareholders, which are very opposing things. Yeah. Because, the most expensive part of any organization are going to be the people.
Sam Jayanti [00:30:13] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:30:13] So I think double clicking on culture is going to be far more important today and in the future than it has ever been, not because of, anything a leader’s doing. It’s because of what the employees who are come to the workforce expect.
Sam Jayanti [00:30:31] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:30:32] And that expectation is that you as a leader care about me. You as an organization will support me.
Sam Jayanti [00:30:41] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:30:42] Or I will leave.
Sam Jayanti [00:30:43] Right.
Hise Gibson [00:30:45] And if we look at the, like, highly, talented technical field, that’s where that’s more present. Yeah. Far less present that idea. And in other organizations where you’re just kind of getting things done or even. But we’re starting it starting to bleed over, even into manufacturing.
Sam Jayanti [00:31:04] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:31:04] People still want to feel valued. So so I think organizations, we’ll continue to do fight around what is our culture all we aligned and how we communicate it in a way to at least hit the middle.
Sam Jayanti [00:31:21] Yeah. I mean, that communication piece is so important in in. My view, a lot of times, you know, the organizations that we work with, we find that what you’ll call the big T leaders are thinking about and are preoccupied about what is the culture that we’re creating in the organization. How do I change it? How do I evolve it? But many times, the thinking about culture when it stops there but doesn’t go the next step, which is okay. Having thought about the culture that I want to have as a leader, how am I going to push that through the organization? It’s going to be by ensuring that those little T leaders become the carriers of that culture, so that it filters down top to bottom, right. And that requires time and investment and coaching, among other things. But so often companies don’t focus on this. And so that culture sort of is there at the few top levels, but then never actually gets down into the organization. Then you see all the problems around retention and this kind of constant revolving door of recruitment that then ultimately turns into a very high cost model for the company.
Hise Gibson [00:32:44] And I think the reason why the that it stops at the top is because if we think about those who made it to the top, right, they’re really, really good.
Sam Jayanti [00:32:55] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:32:57] But they may not have had any actual development.
Sam Jayanti [00:33:02] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:33:03] Or been forced to really drive ideas all the way down there. Just they moved up. It’s great. Or they were placed in a position. That’s amazing. Yeah. But basic things like, leveraging what I’ve talked about, leaders intent where as a leader, you communicate the why, what are we trying to do and how you want to end. That’s a very basic framing that, if done well, can then be translated from the top to the middle to the bottom. And what that does is provides accountability on both sides. But the end state telling you how I want it to end as a leader, make that leader accountable. So it’s almost like a pack that I just made with my team.
Sam Jayanti [00:33:54] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:33:55] But in doing making that pack, I also told the team why we’re doing something and what needs to happen, which means I just set the expectations right. So it almost kind of gets away from all the fluff around, you know, you know, choose your own adventure, right? And get back to the brass tacks of, why are we here? What are we trying to add value? Or how are we trying to add value to our customers, to our shareholders, and to ourselves in a very strict way? That’s a very basic framework. But there’s a lot of, long emails, company statements that are made that don’t even do those things. Right. Which continues what how we began the idea of, well, what’s my role? How do I do things? Because it’s never truly communicated, at a tactical level.
Sam Jayanti [00:34:50] Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. So as we wrap up here, heist, what role has coaching played in your life? Who have been the individuals that you consider most influential, who have mentored you, coached you through the years?
Hise Gibson [00:35:11] I’ve had a lot of coaches.
Sam Jayanti [00:35:15] I have to, so I’m happy to hear you say that.
Hise Gibson [00:35:18] And so, when I think about it, I was told this, when I was a young officer that all of us, are someone’s mentee mentor. And if we hit a certain level, somebody sponsor.
Sam Jayanti [00:35:36] Right.
Hise Gibson [00:35:37] At every level. And so when I think about, amazing coaches, I think about guys like, Brigadier General Bernie Banks, who retired long ago and is director of Leadership Center at rice. I think about, a guy named Steve Dwyer was from class of 80. He was my first aviation battalion commander, and I taught his son mathematics at West Point. Wow. I think, Lieutenant General Ron Clark, who’s the current senior military aid to the secretary of defense. I think about guys like Kevin Lofton, former CEO of, Common Spirit Health Care, or, I think of folks like Francis Fry, my amazing colleague at the Harvard Business School, or Sedol Neely, another amazing colleague, or in North Ramon. I can go down a list of faculty. So. And what the what those different coaches do is really help help me navigate seasons, at certain points in my life. How do I how do I get past this? What do I need to do? What I need to think about. And you need someone who’s not going to tell you it’s just going to be okay. You need someone to tell you. Well, these are your options. This is what I would recommend, but it’s really up to you. The best, coach I ever had. And still. Have you got any major general? Price? He was, he was a HR leader in the Army for all the forces command when he retired, which is a whole lot of people. And now as an executive. But he’s known me since I was a sophomore in college.
Sam Jayanti [00:37:22] Wow.
Hise Gibson [00:37:23] And has walked with me through my basically my entire life.
Sam Jayanti [00:37:27] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:37:29] And he would always give me advice. He’s a great coach. And most times, I would always balk at his advice, like, like, all the time. But he still talk to me. So that’s also something that as a mentor or coach. Yeah. You can give your best advice, but don’t get upset when someone does the opposite. What you just said. Right. And so that’s also.
Sam Jayanti [00:38:00] It’s a little bit like being a parent.
Hise Gibson [00:38:03] And supporting people through things. So I think, for me, because I have a, a lot of coaches.
Sam Jayanti [00:38:09] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:38:10] All the people I name, I actually still talk to you. Yeah. But I’ve known them or came in contact with them at very specific points.
Sam Jayanti [00:38:18] Yeah. And and they’ve been thought partners to you. Objective thought partners. Right. That have helped steer you in different ways.
Hise Gibson [00:38:25] And role models. Yeah. And sponsors and mentors and, a great mentor. Sponsor coach is Jim Cash. Professor Jim Cash is the first, African-American to be tenured at the Harvard Business School. And I’m probably one of, like, a thousand people call him a mentor. Right. He has a building named after him at the Harvard Business School now. And at that naming, you’d be amazed at the 800 people who showed up.
Sam Jayanti [00:38:56] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:38:58] For a building being named after him. Yeah. And so that impact.
Sam Jayanti [00:39:03] Totally.
Hise Gibson [00:39:04] And so I think, again, if, if I, as a coach or mentor or sponsor, others can make 0.2% of an impact that, individual like Jim Cashes has made on a body of people. Yeah, I think I’ll call that a success.
Sam Jayanti [00:39:22] Absolutely. It’s, it’s a great standard to set for yourself. So I want to go back quickly to the last of the quick questions that we discussed at the beginning. You mentioned lacrosse stick. I was expecting you to say football. Tell us a little about that.
Hise Gibson [00:39:42] Well, my oldest daughter plays the cross.
Sam Jayanti [00:39:44] Okay. And did you ever play lacrosse?
Hise Gibson [00:39:47] I’m from Texas. We don’t. We don’t do it proud.
Sam Jayanti [00:39:49] Cross.
Hise Gibson [00:39:50] Yeah. And I grew up in Texas in the 80s and early 90, so.
Sam Jayanti [00:39:53] Definitely didn’t do lacrosse.
Hise Gibson [00:39:55] When I went to West Point. We, when I learned about lacrosse, all of our lacrosse team were from Long Island or Virginia or New Jersey, but mostly Long Island, right? So not a thing, but my oldest daughter, plays lacrosse. Yeah. And, there’s a there’s a level of finesse, agility and fearlessness that comes with playing the sport. Yeah. And so, I mean, trying to catch a ball and a little net that’s a little too complicated for me. And so I think, but it it it resin, it translates to leadership because in the current day, you have to be massively resilient. Yeah, because everything’s coming at you 24 seven. A lot of pressure.
Sam Jayanti [00:40:48] That’s for sure.
Hise Gibson [00:40:49] You have to be agile to maneuver up, down and sideways. And for leaders at the highest level. Yes, they have to think about inward, but they really have to manage outward in order to protect the operations inward. And that required a level of agility that I don’t think we we give credit where credit is due to those leaders who do it well by being able to manage their digital footprint, by being able to manage their board, maybe, and manage, how they market and how their brands are defined.
Sam Jayanti [00:41:26] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:41:27] The leader asked me to do that. And then also that sport requires a lot of stamina.
Sam Jayanti [00:41:33] That it does.
Hise Gibson [00:41:35] And if we’re honest, leadership is a contact sport.
Sam Jayanti [00:41:39] Yeah.
Hise Gibson [00:41:40] You can’t you can’t do it from behind your iPad. Yeah. You know, via email, tough guy or tough person? You got to have stamina. And with stamina means you have to have a lot of reps. And I think that’s the part that is massively necessary. Practice the practice of leadership and getting the reps. And when you trip and when you fall, you get up and do it again and again and again. And I think that’s the part where being at HBS is great to see on one end. MBAs who are massively amazing trip for the first time in some of their life. Yeah. And then on the other end, engage with amazing executives who are really trying to ponder how to make their best better and increase their stamina to increase their their business, to do even better. So at the same time. So it’s great to be able to move between those two worlds at the same time. Yeah. In a in a lacrosse stick, I think kind of defines that.
Sam Jayanti [00:42:45] I like that analogy. Hise it’s been really great chatting about your research and, your insights on leadership and technology and crisis management topics, which, as I was saying at the beginning, is the triad that every organization has to grapple with. In a sense, you’re the Uber coach, right? Working with organizations on how to develop their leaders. And, thank you for joining us today.
Hise Gibson [00:43:14] Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening.
Narrator [00:43:18] Please subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. Find your ideal coach at WW. That the idea x.com. Special thanks to our producer, Martin Milewski and singer songwriter Doug Allen.