Episode 305
In this episode of the Unscripted podcast, host Sarah Nicastro welcomes Rob Kalwarowsky, an executive coach, author, and TEDx speaker, to discuss breaking the cycle of toxic leadership. Together, they:
- Define six distinct types of destructive leadership, including arrogant/violent, abusive narcissist, ghost manager, messy boss, passive-aggressive, and passive egocentric
- Discuss how modern leadership needs are evolving, particularly with younger generations demanding more empathetic and inclusive management styles
- Examine the importance of self-leadership and mindset work in becoming a better leader
- Highlight the significant gap in leadership training, with 85% of promoted managers receiving no formal training
The conversation emphasizes that while toxic leadership remains prevalent, there are proven paths to creating healthier workplace environments that benefit both employees and organizational performance. Rob shares practical insights for leaders looking to improve their management style and break free from destructive patterns.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Also, subscribe to our newsletter right here.
Watch the episode here:
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Rob: I'm not super happy with my job. I saw some of the bullying and the toxicity, and then I've also, you know, worked in and also been a part of, like, hey. You're another consultant. We hired one last week. It was the flavor of the month. Nothing's ever gonna change. And these are the things I saw for ten years, and I started learning well, actually, there's a better way.
[00:01:05] Sarah: Hello. Welcome to the Unscripted podcast where you'll find discussions on what matters most in service, leadership, and business transformation. I'm your host, Sara Nicastro. Let's jump in. Welcome to the Unscripted podcast. I'm your host, Sara Nicastro. Today's conversation is going to be around the idea of breaking the cycle of toxic leadership. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today Rob Kalwarowsky, who is an executive coach, author, as well as a TEDx and keynote speaker. Rob, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:41] Rob: Thanks Thanks for having me, Sarah. I'm excited to chop it up with you and with all your leaders out there.
[00:01:47] Sarah: Yeah. Thanks for being here. So toxic leaders, I've encountered a number of them myself, and there's just really no room for them in businesses today. So before we get into to some of our questions, go ahead and share anything you would like about yourself with our listeners. Just give them a bit of background information on you.
[00:02:08] Rob: Yeah. So I'm an MIT mechanical engineer by training. I spent ten years in heavy industry. I started out my career in mining, then I moved into consulting across heavy industries. So I've been to mines, power plants, manufacturing, like across the board there, and then I finished my, at least my engineering career in working in pipelines. And that was actually the reason why I started going into leadership was, one, was I had an experience with a toxic boss in mining immediately out of college. But then when I was doing consulting, I probably went to 50 to 60 different facilities across North America, and I started seeing the same things.
[00:02:58] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:02:59] Rob: And it was this culture well, often it was just the folks that I was going out with. I was going on planned tours. I was looking at equipment. I was doing that kind of work, but I was out there with mechanics, millwrights, technicians, operators, and often, I heard the same stuff. Nobody listens to me before, so I stopped sharing what's going on. I'm not super happy with my job. I saw some of the bullying and the toxicity, and then I've also, you know, worked in and also been a part of, like, hey. You're another consultant. We hired one last week. It was the flavor of the month. Nothing's ever gonna change. And these are the things I saw for ten years, um, I started learning, well, actually there's a better way. And people don't actually have to feel the way I did when I felt had a bad boss, I was depressed. It lasted a long time and I had to really work my way out of it. Mhmm. But people don't have to feel that way and we can, on the other side, which is amazing, so people can feel happier and engaged and we get better work, we get more productive, more profitable, less safety instances, and lower turnover so we can retain great people, get better results, and people are happier and healthier.
[00:04:20] Sarah: Yeah. So when we think about what the leadership, I guess, trends or evolution styles are today and then where we're at within the talent landscape, like, what are some of the forces that have kind of collectively brought us to this point where we're talking so much about how leadership needs to evolve and what effective leadership looks like today?
[00:04:49] Rob: Yes. The biggest thing here, right, is we've seen this shift. One is from Gen Zs, also from some millennials. Like I know you're a millennial, I'm a millennial, right? But it's especially was accelerated during COVID was this element of, I am not working for the paycheck necessarily. I also want other things. Mhmm. And so when Gallup talks about how what five behaviors to engage their people, their five top behaviors are having constant feedback conversations with your manager, focusing on your strengths, which as a manager, it's like you're focusing on your people's strengths.
[00:05:35] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:05:35] Rob: Developing their career and, like, helping them achieve their career goals. Basically being a coach versus being a manager. And, like, that's the way I like to think of it now, which is very different than the classic what we saw in heavy industry or what we still see in some spaces in heavy industry, which is this command and control, very much fear driven space where maybe the boomers didn't mind this. Maybe it came from their parents, which were part of the war, and so the culture kinda sits a little bit differently. Mhmm. But especially now with young younger generations is there's, uh, we're we're just not doing this anymore. Like we'll leave. And that's where we talk a lot about in the manufacturing and in these types of spaces is there's a talent gap and we can actually solve part of that with being a better leader because we'll retain and attract the best talent. Yeah.
[00:06:41] Sarah: Alright. What I wanna talk about next is research has made clear that when leaders focus on emotional intelligence, empathy, inclusion, as you mentioned earlier, people are happier and they thrive in their roles, and it has been evidenced to have a positive impact on company performance as well as retention. So that being said, there are still pockets, whether that's organizations as a whole or individual leaders, who have resistance to the idea of embracing some of these traits? Why do you think that is?
[00:07:19] Rob: With all of my work, I focus a lot with my leaders on psychology. Mhmm. Because, ultimately, if we change our minds, that's how we change our behavior. Mhmm. And what keeps us stuck in these behaviors where we are toxic, often, it's not because we wanna be necessarily. It's because there's a part of us that was created when we were younger that is behaving in these ways. Mhmm. Like, I've done this work for five years. Right? And I've been digging into this for a long time, and I've written a book. I did a TED talk. Like, I have moments where I have, like, yelled at somebody. Mhmm. And I'm not proud of it. I'm not saying it's good. It's definitely not good leadership. Right? We've all had these moments. Right? We've been under a ton of pressure. We're trying to get this worked on. Somebody on our team is like, Rob, I can't come in today, or, like, Rob, like, you're wrong, and you're just like and it hits like this thing. Right? Those are moments where we can learn from that and grow. Mhmm. The other side of it is toxic leadership is more than just that.
[00:08:38] Sarah: I was also thinking, you know, it's good to reinforce that we're all human. Right? And so there are going to be those moments that do occur regardless of how good of a leader you are and how hard you're working on your continual self improvement. When those things happen, it's also an opportunity for repair. Right? This is And so that's it's something that have two young children. Right? So rupture and repair is, like, a thing I commonly remind myself of. Because as a parent, especially, I came from a lot of childhood trauma. So I'm very hard on myself. I'm, like, diligently focused on breaking the cycle, but sometimes that's, like, a lot of pressure and that can cause the opposite. Right? So in those times where I do lose my shit and yell, right, I own it and I apologize. And I tell them that was me not being able to handle my emotions well, not their fault. And I make sure we have that repair. Obviously, that's a a very personal example because I'm talking about parenthood. But my point is when those moments arise in leadership, rather than being frustrated with yourself or embarrassed or fearful of breaching your seniority, there's actually an opportunity there to own the behavior and apologize that can bring you closer to that employee than just letting it go or pretending it didn't happen, etcetera. That's just what came to mind.
[00:10:19] Rob: You're absolutely right. And also for folks out there, like, you will feel frustrated. You will feel shame. This is totally normal. It's nothing like, it's not like when I yelled at somebody, I felt shame or, Sarah, when you yell your kids, like, you're just like, oh, fine, whatever. Right? Like, of course we feel them, right. But it's having the courage to take that and then repair. I mean, you don't have to do it immediately. You could, or you could say something like immediately, well, or like thirty minutes later, hey, Sarah, I'm sorry. Can we talk about it tomorrow or the next day? Right? To give you that time. Right? Right. But it's very much like, I don't want you to think, like, oh, I'll just move on. Right? Like Mhmm. You're human. It's all normal. It's part of the process.
[00:11:07] Sarah: Yeah.
[00:11:08] Rob: Right?
[00:11:09] Sarah: Yeah. So I believe where you were going next when I interrupted you with that thought is to talk about and this is good because this is something I thought of when you were going through your introduction, different types of toxicity. So can we talk about that for a moment?
[00:11:24] Rob: Yes. So the research that I used talks about six different types of destructive leaders, and I like to think of them as archetypes. And when I do psychology or some of the mindset work I do with leaders, I use internal family systems, which is very much, like, you can think of it like you have the devil and the angel on your shoulder or if you've seen Inside Out. Right? It's like these little characters that sit at the control panel of people's minds. Mhmm. And I like to think about these six bad boss types as, like, we have all six of them in our brain. Of course, some will be bigger than others or more vocal than others or they'll lead more often than others, but, ultimately, we need to lead ourselves and them so then we can be the best leader.
[00:12:12] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:12:13] Rob: Right? Now let's talk about, like, what are these six destructive types. So we kinda started off with the two that we think about. When we say, like, what's an asshole boss Mhmm. We think about basically two types. One is the what's known as the arrogant and violent boss, which is your classic like, I like to think of it as like Gordon Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen and someone gives him raw chicken. Mhmm. Right? And it's like he throws it on the ground. He calls them a doughnut. Like, he swears, like, all this stuff. Right? It's actually not super common. So roughly 5.5% of the workforce has a boss like that. What's more common, and you see this a lot in heavy industry as well as you see this a lot. I mean, you're seeing it in politics in The United States and also around the world, is called the abusive narcissist. This is basically very similar. It's all about me. I take credit. I deflect blame. I can make threats against my people, these kind of behaviors. And you can think of this as like Leonardo DiCaprio's role on Wolf of Wall Street, like the Jordan Belfort character, right? Actually, wildly pretty common about, was it 19 something percent, like roughly 20 of folks have a boss like this. Mhmm. What we see, and the research backs this part up, is these type of folks actually are very good at getting up into the higher echelons of organizations. Mhmm. Those are the classic types. So let's start moving into what we see. Actually, some I see this a lot, actually, and they're roughly 15 to 20% of folks experience these on the opposite side. They're called the passive leaders. Mhmm. One is your ghost manager. This is George Costanza sleeping under his desk in Seinfeld. Right? And you see that I see this a lot in heavy industry and I've seen it a lot recently is people don't wanna make decisions. Mhmm. So they defer. Hey. That's upper management's job, or, hey. You're the expert. Why don't you decide? Mhmm. Right? And so I don't have to take accountability. I don't have to take responsibility. I just get to, like, not do. Mhmm. That's the ghost manager.
[00:14:38] Sarah: Okay.
[00:14:39] Rob: One that's kinda similar is called the messy boss. And again, the ghost manager is not out to get you. He's not bullying you. He's not doing these things. It's just like, hey, I'm trying to, like, avoid responsibility. And often that is a psychological thing where it's like either they feel like they don't deserve to be the manager or they feel like if they make a decision and it's wrong, they could get fired or like someone will be upset with them. Right? The messy boss, I think it's just purely they don't have management training. Mhmm. And this is they don't set expectations clearly. They don't set deadlines clearly. They don't give you basically a project plan. It's, hey, Sarah. Can you do this project for me? And then I walk away. Right? This can be folks like, some of it's they don't know how to be good managers. Some of it's just like, I'm wildly busy, and, like, I just go, Sarah, figure this out. Like, I don't have time to think about. Super common, I think, or I've seen it. Right? But it's not like it's again, this is, like, fixable stuff. Mhmm. Right? And, ultimately, if you're a leader and you notice, like, you kinda do these things, it's like just having, like, a structured way, like, literally, like, a project plan template. Mhmm. Or, like, doesn't even have to be that detailed, but sort of like, hey, Sarah. I need this thing done by next Friday. It needs to be in this sort of format. I'm expecting two pages. Just giving some more clarity on it, and that'll fix it really easily. The last two types are they're the combination types. So there's the passive aggressive boss, which, again, it's like I'm nice to your face, but behind your back, I'm being mean to you or I'll say things that are like, yeah, Sarah, that was great. Like, I always talk about Bill Lundberg from Office Space as like your classic passive aggressive boss. Mhmm. And then the final one is your passive egocentric, and this is it's all about Rob, but I'll never tell that to your face. Mhmm. And so I had a boss that literally took a report of mine, took my name off of it, put his name on it, and then sent it up the chain. Mhmm. Right? That's a classic passive egocentric. So those are the six types. And actually, 65% of the workforce experiences a boss that fits into those archetypes.
[00:17:12] Sarah: Yeah. What's interesting so it's interesting to hear all of those. And the thought that came to my mind when we started the conversation is you mentioned some of what you have heard by spending time with frontline employees, which is, like, no one ever listens to me. And that just made me think there's degrees of toxicity that come to mind as someone losing their temper, someone taking credit for work they didn't do. So, you know, something people that are discriminatory toward certain groups of individuals, things that are are pretty significant that, like, I'm not saying that they're always caught and addressed in workplaces today. But there is a degree where, like, you would hope that some of the more flagrant things would get addressed or flagged. But there's a lot of degrees of toxicity below that, some of which can be more malicious or extreme and some that maybe are almost accidental. Right? But, like, someone not feeling heard, I guess my point is, can happen for a number of different reasons. But the outcome of that is not good. Right? I mean, not only are you not getting what could be very valuable feedback from that employee, but they start to just feel disconnected. They start to become frustrated, etcetera, etcetera. So think it's helpful to understand those archetypes and also helpful to remember that, like, when we say toxic, that can take a lot of different shapes, and it can also be at a lot of varying degrees. Right? So can you talk a bit, Rob, about how these different types of toxicity are sort of perpetuated in organizations and sort of how they can persist, if you will?
[00:19:10] Rob: Yeah. So the first thing I just wanna say to folks, right, is it can feel overwhelming. Right? Is like now you're like, oh, I have all these things I have to think about. So where I want you to land, if you're listening to this, is likely somewhere inside of you, you have all six of those leaders or those bad bosses. Right? For you, likely, maybe one to two to three are the ones that really kinda dominate your experience or that you notice that you may come out with. You're not gonna have like, all six of them are not gonna be in your experience. Right? And so it's more about understanding when are the moments where like, for me, I definitely have an element where I'm a ghost manager. And part of that now is I run my own business, So it's like, I'm hiring a, a marketing company. I'm like, do marketing, go away. Right? But it's like, I also need to be more into that. Right? And part of it's my interest, part of it's like what I like to do. Right? But it's like, you can't just do that. Mhmm. I also have moments where I'm on that kind of abusive narcissist side because I have that inside myself against myself. Mhmm. And so it's not always that's an external thing. It's like, Rob, you didn't get more clients. You didn't book a speaking gig this month. What's wrong with you? Like, these type of things, which we all have, a lot of it's just inside our own heads. And so I don't want folks to feel overwhelmed. What I want folks to feel is, like, this is a moment for me to start tuning in to what's going on inside my mind, the voices that I hear, and understand that one is they're not you. It's a part that was created because of a hard time that you had. Mhmm. And as you listen to them and be curious, that's where you can learn to lead them. Mhmm. And so then it's, well, that will switch. That's the first thing I just wanna tell everyone.
[00:21:21] Sarah: Yeah. So there's a lot of power and curiosity when you're doing this work, and I'm familiar with this in my personal life. So there can be this tendency when you notice these different patterns or behaviors to be hard on yourself. And just like I said in the parenting example that I shared earlier, that actually not only is it not helpful, but it just makes things worse. Right? So you really have to break the habit of being your self critic and get more curious about okay. Interesting. So, like, I just had this exchange with someone on my team, and I found myself wanting to yell at them. And, I mean, hopefully, you stop it. Right?
[00:22:04] Rob: Yes. It's
[00:22:04] Sarah: still an opportunity to think, like, what about that interaction made me so angry that I almost became that aggressive, toxic boss. Right? So it's not about being mad at yourself for that or being critical of yourself for that. It's about just understanding when those tendencies come up, which to your point then helps you be in better control of them.
[00:22:30] Rob: Yeah. And so it's really just doing, like, root cause analysis on your own mind. Mhmm. And these parts of us, we all have everybody has them. And so it's not that it's like failure modes, right, on a piece of equipment. It's like when the equipment breaks and you're right, Sarah. It's not that we're always going to allow that part to yell at our people. Maybe it's yelling in our mind, and then we're, like, kinda frustrated, so we're just like, yeah, but we know we shouldn't do it, so we're like, yeah. Okay. And then we kinda disconnect. It's like when we dig into where is it coming from, what's it trying to do for us, they're all of these parts are trying to help us in some way. Mhmm. Then that's the switch is as we get curious and we start going down that rabbit hole, and I would totally recommend you get help with this, whether that's you can reach out to me, you can get help in therapy, like whatever that is, it will transform you as a leader as well as you as a parent, as well as you outside of work because this follows us this I'm pointing to my head Mhmm. Follows us everywhere.
[00:23:41] Sarah: Right. Yeah. So you mentioned you don't want people to feel overwhelmed. So what you refer to this as is self leadership. Okay. So what else would you want to share with people about step one, don't get overwhelmed, and work on, I guess, the curiosity piece? But what else is sort of involved in this idea of self leadership?
[00:24:07] Rob: Yeah. The first piece, Sarah, is stepping off this treadmill or this hamster wheel of work. And we get caught up with this because everybody, especially in these industries, it's like produce more with less. Mhmm. Because we gotta deliver higher returns than we did last quarter, so we gotta produce more stuff for less cost. And, like, your pew we while we wanna lay off people or we wanna cut cost or we wanted this or we wanted that. Right? It's this constant demand of I need you to do more, but I'm not even gonna give you the same amount I did last year to do it. If we can take that time and step off, and I'm not even saying like you need to step off and take two weeks off, right? I'm not even saying that. It's like literally take like an hour at lunchtime and just like or go on the weekend to like a park or a river or go for a run or go for a walk or swim or like whatever, go for a bike, whatever you like to do. Right? It's just giving yourself that time to let your brain process what's going on.
[00:25:28] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:25:30] Rob: And that those moments are where you're going to one is you'll get better ideas. So if you need creativity to solve problems, this can help you. Right? But also it's gonna give you time where you'll, you will start to understand and listen in on what's going on in here, in my mind. That's it. Mhmm. I don't like for my clients, when I start working with them, I give them one six minute exercise every day. Mhmm. Six minutes. Mhmm. Everybody listening, you have six minutes, and that's all it takes.
[00:26:05] Sarah: Mhmm. So what do you see as the biggest barriers to people doing this work?
[00:26:13] Rob: It's all the stuff in our own minds. Mhmm. It takes courage to look inwards, and most people, they're caught in the constant doing.
[00:26:24] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:26:25] Rob: And so they don't even realize that there's stuff to be done. And so Doctor. Tasha York has a book called Insight, and in her research, ninety five percent of people think they're self aware when only 12 to 15% of people actually are.
[00:26:41] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:26:42] Rob: Right? And so 80% of folks, they think they know what's going on in their minds as well as in their interactions with others, but they're like mister Bean in the world.
[00:26:57] Sarah: Yeah. I think the other thing that comes into play here, right, is when you think about the pressure that leaders today are under, you know, you talked about the importance of making the time to step away from that. Like, because it's also about regulating your nervous system. Right? If you don't do that, then those toxic parts are far more likely to come out to play. Right? Because you don't have the resilience to recognize those feelings in time to stop them. You can tell I'm speaking from experience. And so it's interesting though because also speaking from experience, it's very easy to confuse reasons and excuses because we're all busy. Right? And some of the leaders in these organizations, to your point, it's not just about being busy. It's also about the pressure. It's also about the profits. It's also about the do more with less. It's also about the constant influx of doom headlines. It's also all of these different things. And you have to give your body and your brain a break from that. Like, it's super, super important. And it's funny because even on this podcast I've been doing this podcast for six years, and I've interviewed leaders before that were like, my whole life changed when I started meditating. And I'd be like, oh, yeah. I need to do that. But I never did. Do you know what I mean? And it was just last year, I attended a retreat in August. And it, like, it really helped me understand the value of doing that and shutting off all of the noise. And to your point, there's value in your role, but there's more importantly value, like, as a human being. Like, we are not on this Earth to just execute, hustle, drive. It's like a toxic system, really, in so many ways.
[00:29:03] Rob: That's the piece, right? There's a Stanford study that it says that the way that companies manage their people accounts for a hundred and twenty thousand deaths per year in The United States and five to eight percent of The US annual health care cost, which makes it the fifth leading cause of death. And it is not just I don't wanna say, like, this was all liters. Right? It's like stress. And then, obviously, high levels of stress lead to cardiovascular, strokes, heart attacks. It leads to major disease like cancer, diabetes, like these things. Mhmm. It also leads to, of course, mental health problems, anxiety, depression, like burnout, these type of things. Right? Right. And so for me, that's part of it. The other part of it is the other side of this. Like, yes, you should do it for your health, your physical and mental health, which will, of course, help you be there for your kids and your family and your friends and all these things. The other side is also, do you want to get promoted? Do you want to work in a job that you like? Do you want to take charge of your career and guide it in the way that you want to? Not how HR wants it, not how you were told that like, I was told, like, my parents, they were like, hey, go to the best college you can, get a stable job, and then, like, basically just, like, ride that out for forty five years. Mhmm. And it's like both of these, the good and the bad, you can have by starting that journey inwards
[00:30:47] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:30:48] Rob: Because you'll find out what you like, or you'll learn strategies on, okay, how do I get promoted? Secret, it's not about working harder. And you all know this because you've seen someone get promoted because they were friends with the boss. Mhmm.
[00:31:05] Sarah: So there's I came across a point in your content that was about a Harvard University research or study on the gap in leadership training. So I'm also curious how this plays a role. Right? Because what we've talked about really so far is, like, a lot of what is within all of us that can cause these toxic archetypes or just toxic behaviors to arise. But how does the gap in leadership training factor in or sort of exacerbate things?
[00:31:42] Rob: Totally. So the Harvard Business Review study says that organizations spend $356,000,000,000 per year, and only 25% of it is effective because it addresses the leader's mindset, which is what we've been talking about this whole episode.
[00:32:02] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:32:02] Rob: If we don't change our minds, we don't change our behaviors. That's fact. Mhmm. I mean, yeah. Okay. I can go to a course, and they can say, Rob, I want you to have a thirty minute meeting with all your staff once every two weeks, and I want you to ask them these five questions, great. But ultimately, in these moments of high pressure, in these moments of you gotta deliver more, which you're always under it, it's you're gonna either forget about that or what usually happens is, yeah, the next week that you leave that seminar, you're gonna do this, and then two, three weeks from now, you're back to what you did before. Mhmm. Because you didn't one is you didn't build the habit or change your mind. The other side of it is this. There's a study from Gartner that says that eighty five percent of people who get promoted into management positions don't get training at all.
[00:33:06] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:33:07] Rob: Yay. Right. But it's like, I don't know about you. I thought about this for a long time. I was like, is there any job that I can think of that hire somebody but doesn't either require them to be trained before or give them training after?
[00:33:30] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:33:31] Rob: Right? Like, my sister worked at a fast food restaurant when she was like in high school and they trained her. This is how you cook a burger and do fries and like this. Right? And it's like as an engineer, it's like I needed to go to college for engineering as well as like spend four years working as an engineer in training before I'm now qualified as a professional engineer. Right? And it's like, oh, well, Sarah, you were doing good as an engineer. Mhmm. Like, you're now managing engineers.
[00:34:01] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We kinda just throw people into it without equipping them for the job. And I think often without really even attempting to understand if it's a job that they want or will be good at. Yes. Right? And that certainly needs to change. But I think there's there's a lot of value, in my opinion, in both of these things. Right? Like, doing the mindset work because that's so much about better understanding yourself, but also having training to talk about, like like you said, what are the best practices? How often should you be having meetings? How should you be running those meetings? How should you be setting objectives and clear targets and all of these different things? Because there are a lot of individuals that get promoted into these positions that don't have that knowledge or the mindset approach. But all that does is is ramp up the stress level. Right? Because all of a sudden, they're in a job that they feel like they need to know how to do because they've been given the job, but they haven't been given the information on how to do the job well. Right? So that is certainly tough.
[00:35:13] Rob: You're a % right. So leadership is not all just mindset. Right? Of course, you have to do the other stuff. Right? Like, you're a % right, and that's where kind of the combination of both is most effective because one is, okay, now we're unlearning some of the bad boss behaviors that that have been with us for a long time, and we're replacing those with what are the best strategies, how do we build trust, how do we build psychological safety, how do we have meetings, how do we give feedback, How do we how do we how do we? And we're building those habits Mhmm. Which then stay with us.
[00:35:52] Sarah: Right. Yeah. That makes sense. So what happens when a leader is a toxic
[00:36:09] Rob: narcissists, and most of them do not or not open to change. Mhmm. So if anyone out there is listening, you are not one of them because or at least your most dominant archetype is not that because if it was, you wouldn't be listening to this show. So first off, great. Right? But often those folks, the reason or somehow how they end up in front of me is there's a moment where something doesn't work. And so for me, it actually happened with one of my leaders was he was running this massive digital transformation project, and something happened with the team he managed where they were working with another department. He wasn't even in the room. But, basically, there was, like, a disagreement and something happened, and it went up the chain, around, and down onto his head. And then that was the moment where he's like, I need help, and that's when he called me. That's what often happens, right, is the toxic manager well, the arrogant, violent, abusive narcissist types, they don't change until they're forced to change.
[00:37:25] Sarah: Mhmm. Yeah. Which is where it comes back to a conversation about organizations having more ownership over how leaders are contributing or not to the culture that they want to create because there's plenty of examples of where some of these toxic leaders that are very capable of delivering results are just sort of coddled and allowed to do their thing over time, and that's that's a whole separate problem and conversation. But to your point, the company's role can be that catalyst for people realizing they need to dig in and do some of the work. It's
[00:38:11] Rob: both, right? And so the CEO of Novo Nordisk, like, and folks know them, Ozempic, that kind of stuff, he actually came out, I don't know, this might have been six months ago and he said, I am now measuring my leaders on how stressed their teams are. And if more than 10% of their teams are stressed or high stress, like whatever high stress and above, I am now going to, that's the KPI I'm looking at, which is incredible. You also have a great example for folks out there. So Jason Lippert, he's the CEO of Lippert Components, which is, like, $5,000,000,000 in revenue. They're based in Indiana. They make everything from RVs to boats, all these things. He has a whole department of leadership coaches in his company. They do stuff like the dream achievers program, which they put 3,000 of their employees through. Everyone from folks who work on the shop floor to managers and executives.
[00:39:15] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:39:15] Rob: And that program focuses on not, hey, Rob. What do you want as, like, your corporate goal, but, like, what do you want as a person? And he said he came on my leadership show a few years ago, and he said the most common thing he gets from folks that go through that program are they wanna learn how they can buy their first house. And so he gets his finance team to help coach them and teach them personal finance, mortgages, like, all these things Mhmm. So then they can buy their first home. There are leaders that are incredible that are out there. And it you know, it's great when you see it at the CEO level, but you can also find them within a company. Yeah. For sure. And if you're not working for one of them, but you know, hey. There's one in another department, Try to transfer over. Mhmm. Because even for me, like, I was doing a ton of therapy and a ton of internal deep work, but there's a limit when you're in a toxic culture.
[00:40:19] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:40:20] Rob: Because you still gotta armor up to go to work to protect yourself from feeling these ways.
[00:40:25] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:40:26] Rob: And so what that's one thing. Right? Yeah. And if it's really bad, like for me, I attempted suicide once, It's like you gotta choose to get out.
[00:40:37] Sarah: Mhmm.
[00:40:38] Rob: But those are really intense situations. Right? But the biggest thing for folks out there, look, I want you to just is take control of your life and your career. Mhmm. And we've told we've been told all these stories. You should get promoted. You should be a manager. You should be this. You should be that. You said it, Sarah. Some folks like, I've been in leadership programs that I've coached, and some of the folks that in there, they, like, get to the end of the program. They're like, you know what, Rob? I just wanna go back to being an individual contributor. Mhmm. Because you know what? I don't really like, you know, all this that takes to be a good leader. Look. I just wanna, like, I wanna nerd out on this specific piece of technology or this specific piece of equipment or, like, whatever. And it's like, that is an incredibly great outcome. Mhmm.
[00:41:25] Sarah: Yeah. For sure. I mean, that's a very important piece of doing the internal work is, why am I even doing this? Is it because it's what I really want? Or is it because my parents put pressure on me? Or is it because I've told myself that if I don't achieve x, I'm doing something wrong, etcetera? At the end of the day, it can be like you said, it it takes courage, but it but it can also be incredibly powerful to start asking yourself those questions and really understanding the answers because life's too short. Right? If you're not gonna feel fulfilled once you climb the ladder, then why are you doing it? Right? I mean, it's yeah. That's really good really good point. And I like too the examples of the leaders out there that are really thinking about this, in my opinion, in the right way because I think that I love seeing examples of people that are reinforcing the fact that you can treat people well and have a really high performing organization at the same time. I would like to see more of those examples, and I think we will. I mean, I think going back to your point about what happened with COVID and some of the generational shifts, there are just less and less people that are willing to tolerate an environment in which they are treated in a way they know they don't deserve, and that is forcing organizations to make their leaders level up, which I think is a win win. So that's really good stuff. So, Rob, thank you for coming to join and share. Folks can find you on LinkedIn. Correct?
[00:43:01] Rob: You can find me on LinkedIn. Just my name, Rob Kowarowski. Sarah, I'll put it in the podcast notes because I'm sure it's hard to spell.
[00:43:08] Sarah: Yeah. Rob kindly gave me a very nice phonetical type out of here's how to say it, but we will. We'll make sure it'll be in the podcast information. So, yeah, check Rob out on LinkedIn and have a look at his book and the work that he does. And yeah.
[00:43:24] Rob: Yeah. So for the book and for my like, if you wanna check out my coaching or my speaking, like, if you host internal corporate events or you go to conferences, like, I do keynote speaking, you can check out my website. Just robcalvariski.com. So that'll be in podcast notes. And then on my website, if you click on the book tab, you can put in your email to get the first two chapters of my upcoming book for free. So check that out.
[00:43:55] Sarah: Alright. Well, thanks for coming and spending some time with us today, Rob.
[00:43:58] Rob: Thanks for having me, Sarah.
[00:43:59] Sarah: You can find more by visiting The Home of the Unscripted podcast at futureoffieldservice.com. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.