Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Dave Altman, welcome to the Midlife Fulfill Podcast Day Maximum episode.
Dave Altman [00:00:05]:
Pleasure to be with you today, Bernie.
Bernie Borges [00:00:07]:
It’s a pleasure to have you, Dave. Dave, you are the chief research and innovation officer at the Center For Creative Leadership. And I have to say that the name of the organization is so powerful. And I’m just I’m gonna give a shout out to the website because when you look at the website and you just look above the fold, there’s one big powerful message there, Dave. For all things humanly possible. That’s the main message. And then below that, a brighter future begins with the people who lead us there. And you’ve been with CCO for, what, over 20 years now.
Bernie Borges [00:00:48]:
Right?
Dave Altman [00:00:48]:
That’s right.
Bernie Borges [00:00:50]:
And, you currently oversee several global groups, including leadership analytics and leadership research as well as others. You were previously the chief operating officer for, I think, 5 years. So career, again, more than 20 years with the organization. You’ve got an area of expertise around leadership development, community development, evaluation research, health promotion and disease prevention, and public health. And then prior to joining CCO, you were a tenured professor of Public Health Sciences and Pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and also senior research scientist at the Stanford Prevention Research Center at Stanford University School of Medicine. And currently, you’re an adjunct professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at Wake Forest University. And, Dave, you achieved your PhD and master’s in social ecology from the University of California, UC Irvine, and you’ve published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters as well as 5 books, including Discovering the Leader in You. So, Dave, it is that impressive body of work, which is an understatement, that motivated me to invite you on the podcast.
Bernie Borges [00:02:06]:
So first, thank you for accepting the invitation. And if you would, I’d like to begin our conversation with why. Why leadership? What is it about leadership that has inspired you to motivate to, devote your whole career to it?
Dave Altman [00:02:20]:
Yeah. When I listen to that introduction, I’m reminded of the, quote from Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish theologian, who said that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. So when I look back on my career, there’s a red thread. When I listen to you describe the elements, it’s like, what is this? How does this all connect? So maybe the way I would describe it is, I’ve been to 50 countries, a lot to do work. And I’ve met with leaders from all sectors of society and at all levels. And when I think about that, and it’s one of the reasons why I love to travel, juxtaposed to all the significant challenges that we face in the world. I’m uplifted by the people that I meet, the leaders that I meet, and their aspirations and their positivity and the, desire to exert all of their human agency to do good for the world. As juxtaposed to when I listen to the news or read news where, you know, I can be discouraged.
Dave Altman [00:03:28]:
So part of what inspires me is that there are amazing people in the world. I’ll tell you just a short little story. A couple years ago, I was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and we were working, with street kids. These were kids who were sent from the villages to the big city of Addis to make money to send back to their families. And they tended to be shoeshiners and, cleaning up garbage, that sort of thing. So we did a we did a week long program, and I met with the, one of the kids, 16 years old and, in in a mixture of English and asked, So what was it about this week? What did you learn? And in just a couple of words, he captured the essence of part of what we do. He said, I learned that before I can lead others, I have to learn to lead myself. And so, so much of, leadership development starts there even for the most senior leaders, even the admirals and generals and CEOs.
Dave Altman [00:04:32]:
It is always about leading yourself as a foundational element and that’s why everyone is a leader. Everyone is a leader. This is not about a position, a title, a span, a control, it’s around you being a human being and making choices second by second about what you do, how you interact with other people, how you exert your skills and abilities, how you put into action and pursue aspirations. And so doing this day in and day out, it’s a very important thing fulfilled do is to make sure that we’re going to have a very important thing to do
Bernie Borges [00:05:07]:
is to make sure that we’re going
Dave Altman [00:05:11]:
fulfillment and happiness. And so happy fulfillment is really it’s not about short term positive feelings, though it’s part of that, but it’s around pursuing deep goals and about doing meaningful work. It’s about feeding one’s purpose. And at CCL, I mean, I get that. I get, investments and fulfillment day in and day out. And for that, I’m very grateful.
Bernie Borges [00:05:37]:
Well, you’re speaking my language when you talk about fulfillment like that, Dave. You I think you know that. I wanna remark on the experience, the story you just shared about that young man, the 16 year old man. Was that Ethiopia, you said?
Dave Altman [00:05:50]:
Right.
Bernie Borges [00:05:50]:
Yeah. So a couple things come to mind. 1 is, first of all, that is not a geographic phenomenon. Clearly, that’s a human reaction without regard for geographic location. So it’s inherently in all of us. But you also said something really interesting that I want to unpack a little bit, and that is you said we’re all leaders. We all lead at some level. Do you think people think that way? And I ask because I’ve encountered many people, particularly in a work environment, and I certainly get your point.
Bernie Borges [00:06:23]:
This is not about a title or a role in work, limited to that. But I’ve encountered many people in my life in general who are, like, individual contributors, whether it’s in a work environment or outside of work environment, and not in a role where they have responsibilities. So they don’t necessarily think of themselves as leaders. So how do you respond to that thought?
Dave Altman [00:06:43]:
I think that’s a fair statement and true. And so we have the benefit of working with children as young as 6 and 7, for example. We do leadership development in schools and in community settings. So I think the way to get at that is to ask powerful questions. So yeah, most people think of leadership as having a title, having direct reports, having a budget, whatever it is. It’s more formal leadership. But if you ask somebody, what about at home? Do you, do you do anything that you might characterize as leadership when you’re in at at home? And people say, well, yeah. Obviously, I do.
Dave Altman [00:07:24]:
I mean, we have to organize our household. We have responsibilities that we share whatever it is. Oh, okay. So so you’re saying that you do you are involved in, leadership, and you are a leader in home. What about in community settings? Do you volunteer? Do you help other people? What about as you’re thinking about when you want to make a change in your own life, whether it’s around health or whether it’s around learning something new, how you spend your time controlling your social media, utilization, whatever it is. Does that require you to exert some leadership skills on yourself? Well, yeah. Obviously, it does. Okay.
Dave Altman [00:08:02]:
So, really, we’re talking about the same thing. It’s not either or. It’s like, yes, there are leaders with positional titles that the people that we typically think are leaders, but you are too. And you are using and deploying the same assets as a human being to do those things with family and community on yourself that are required in part when you have a formal leadership title. So can we just sort of expand our view about leadership and include all that. Okay. Yeah. We can do that.
Dave Altman [00:08:34]:
Okay. All right. I’m a leader, but I’m not leading a group of people and trying to make a profit. Okay. Yeah. That’s fine. I agree with that.
Bernie Borges [00:08:42]:
So it’s expand it’s about the mindset then, expanding the mindset so that people understand that somewhere in their life, they are a leader. And to you know, I’m very big on self awareness, Dave. Right? So that’s one of the things that I talk about here on the podcast, and I try to just through the content that I’m delivering on the podcast, I’m I’m hoping that people increase self awareness on whatever aspect that really resonates with them. And that’s kinda what I hear you saying. Right? It’s it’s this self awareness that I am a leader in this corner of my life or these particular places within my life. Right?
Dave Altman [00:09:19]:
Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting because self awareness is a foundational element to leader development. We do a lot of it and so does everybody else who does leadership development. And I’ve never met a leader in the 1,000, maybe tens of thousands of leaders that I’ve, worked with and interacted with that ever had pristine, perfect self awareness. There is always a gap. Even the most iconic leaders, the titans of organizations, whether it’s NGOs, nonprofits, military, government, corporate, There is always a gap. And that gap is fuel for growth and development. And the best leaders welcome receiving a having a disconnect between who they think they are and what their behaviors are and how effective they are and what others how others are perceiving them because that’s an opportunity to get even better.
Dave Altman [00:10:21]:
And, that’s also really inspiring to see, you know, literally, CEOs of big organizations, 4 star admirals and generals who thrive when they see opportunities for growth. And those who are narcissistic and, ego focused and resistant to feedback and thinking that they’re, God’s gift to, the field of leadership, they’ve plateaued and and frankly, they’re not that effective anymore.
Bernie Borges [00:10:53]:
Yeah. Now, Dave, you’ve you’ve mentioned here, different types of organizations. Right? NGOs, nonprofits, for profits, military, other forms of government. Are there any common threads among those? Because they’re very different. Right? Those are very different institutions. But are are there any common threads for just good leadership practices?
Dave Altman [00:11:19]:
Yeah. So they’re very different and they’re very similar. So I’ll give you an example. We have at CCL this open enrollment program called Leadership at the Peak, and, it’s for the senior most leaders. And we run it around the world. And it’s 4 and a half day program. So when they come on Monday morning early, all they have is basically name, title, and organization that they work for. And they look around the rooms, typically 12 to 14 people.
Dave Altman [00:11:52]:
And when we ask them later, we say, What’s your initial reaction to this? Like, Why am I here? Like, I have nothing to do with these people. And by the end of the week, actually by Tuesday, by day 2, they understand that the meta level issues that they’re dealing with, the challenges that they face, people, culture, change, uncertainty, innovation, efficiency, impact, those meta level issues that all leaders say, it’s the same. Okay. The particulars are different and it’s literally it’s it’s like a, it’s like a synchronized swimming or dancing when this comes together and they’re able to put aside their title and their organization in the sector of the economy that they’re in and come to understand that there is so much to learn from and be inspired by and to get feedback from others who come from different parts of the globe and in the economy and through that, we’re spanning boundaries, we’re building connections, we’re we’re going against the tribalism that we all carry around in our heads as a cognitive bias.
Bernie Borges [00:13:08]:
Yeah. No. I I love the diversity of in an environment where there’s diversity of people and backgrounds and to your point, you know, different types of organizations they come from. I can I can sort of picture that in my head, Dave, how the dynamics fulfilled? Like you said, maybe in that first morning, they’re thinking that. And by day 2, they’ve connected some dots, and they probably built some good relationships by the end of the week that are long lasting beyond that event. So that’s great. I’m wondering, what have you seen in the way of sort of the evolution of leadership, if that’s the right way to characterize it as it relates to things that we’ve seen sort of in society, you know, there’s the DEI movement, you know, in the last 10 years. You go back 10, maybe 12 years, social media didn’t exist.
Bernie Borges [00:13:55]:
Right? It kinda came on around 2004, 2005. Right? And here now, it’s it’s everywhere. So just those 2 alone and as well as any other factors, how has that impacted leadership?
Dave Altman [00:14:08]:
Yeah. So I think you, this is a good question because you stated some of the, key elements. We are human beings. So regardless of what’s happening in the larger world, we’re still human. And as human beings and as people who do leadership development, there are consistent issues and it’s around human relations. What we say, part of our philosophy is that leadership is a social process that helps people work together as a cohesive group to produce collective results. So it’s social. It involves interactions and relationship and individuals working together as a as a unit in a cohesive way to produce collective results.
Dave Altman [00:14:58]:
That’s our definition of leadership. So what does that require? That requires feeding deep human needs of belonging. We as humans have a basic need to connect with each other, to be seen, to be heard, to be included, to belong, to be supported. And it’s been that way for millennia. It still plays out. Okay, yeah, we have social media in 20 years we didn’t. But what’s underlying that? A sense of belonging and of mattering. And what does it mean to matter? Well, this is also a core universal need.
Dave Altman [00:15:30]:
This is around and it’s key to flourishing. It’s, for example, being missed by people when you aren’t there. It’s about having feelings of being valued, of being heard, being appreciated, and being cared for. And if you are uncertain about whether you belong and if you are uncertain about whether you matter, bad things happen. Energy is wasted, you’re not going to persist in the face of challenges, you’re going to leave organizations, Your resilience, the requirements for resilience outpace your ability to, respond, etcetera. And then that leads to other outcomes like trust in other people and psychological safety in a culture. Psychological safety being willing to put yourself out there to take interpersonal risk to bring all that you have. If you’re not feeling like you belong or you matter, you keep your mouth shut, you’re gonna fly under the radar, and you’re gonna be disengaged.
Dave Altman [00:16:27]:
So those and other factors like that are consistent. Now, of course, in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, VUCA, all right, there there are things that that are going to be different. We are dealing with a world filled with dualities and contradictions and dilemmas and tensions And we see that in, in war. We see that in politics. We see that in community fabric being torn apart. Okay. Those issues have come up in the past and we human beings are tribal. We have what’s called the in group bias.
Dave Altman [00:17:06]:
This is where we favor members of our own group, however we define our own group, the in group over members of out groups. And we’re seeing this split, this ripping apart of this common sense, let’s say, of being an American or being a global citizen. And so to me, while that’s always been there, I think where it’s been heightened And this then requires leaders to span boundaries, to find commonality. And again, when we work with leaders who on the surface seem very different, very diverse, there are core underlying parts of their identity that are similar. And that’s what leaders need to be focusing their attention on. Amidst all of the chaos and anger and misunderstanding, there is the opportunity to connect and that’s, what we need to work on.
Bernie Borges [00:17:57]:
So despite what the current trends are, be it DEI or social media which you reminded me has been around 20 years, not a dozen years. It still comes back to that the humanity of it. That’s that’s kinda what I hear as a main message there. Follow on question to that, Dave. You know, one of my favorite f words is fulfillment, but another favorite f word of mine is family. And I’m wondering if, you know, I’ve just anecdotally, I’ve witnessed leaders who treat the people that they lead as family. In some cases, they you they use the word family, in other cases they don’t. But what’s your observation around that concept?
Dave Altman [00:18:36]:
Yeah. So, when we work with senior leaders, so this could be in that leadership at the peak program, the chief, the top of organizations or with other senior teams, We take and this goes back to, all things humanly possible humanly. So, we treat leaders as human beings not as instruments to achieve key performance indicators and outcomes. And you know, pretty much everyone who comes to CCL is there because an organization sent them to us to improve their organizational business performance. And what we find by the end of the week with exercises we do that are treating these leaders as full human beings that when they set goals, that when they reflect with each other about the lessons that they’ve learned, about the connections they’ve made, about their new aspirations as leaders. They rarely, dirty little secret, talk about, well, here are these KPIs, these key performance indicators, I want to increase my, margin to from 6% to 6.2% and stuff like that. What do they talk about? They talk about family. I have focused so much attention on my career and I’ve had to sacrifice being with my family, immediate and extended.
Dave Altman [00:20:01]:
And I realize that I’ve missed out on an important part of life. I need to build that back in. I don’t give back to my community and I want to give back. I have privilege, and I’m not using it. There is some higher purpose, I don’t quite understand it and whether it’s religion, spirituality, energy, nature, whatever it is, so many people also mention that. So this is what we’re hearing every day, every week from leaders, is they want more meaning in life. And this is around fulfillment, and this is around legacy, and this is around giving back. That’s not to the exclusion of being a better leader in the organizations that they’re leading in.
Dave Altman [00:20:46]:
They’re still doing that, but they tend to do that well and neglect these other parts of their lives. So there’s this massive imbalance. And often when I watch a new group of leaders come in to a classroom or to a building, part of my mindset is these people who are all armored up literally and figuratively are in pain. And so be empathetic and try to build a connection so that the real issues, the most meaningful issues will come out. And then we try and work really hard at creating a space for that to come out. And in almost all cases, not every case, some of that comes out. Sometimes in spectacular ways where everybody’s crying including the facilitators. And not that we’re trying to elicit that kind of emotion but you know that we’re now talking about the real issues that face leaders.
Bernie Borges [00:21:47]:
Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you for that. Can we take that to another level, Dave? And and here’s what I mean. We are in a world now where we have as many as 5 generations within an organization. I’m I’m speaking about age generations. Right? So what are the dynamics there from a leadership standpoint? Leaders that are leading groups of people, in this context, leading groups of people that might span multiple generations?
Dave Altman [00:22:18]:
Yeah. Okay. Let me start by saying, of course, there are gonna be some generational differences across those 5 generations because they’re born into a different world. My former colleague, Doctor. Jennifer Diehl is one of the world’s experts on generation gaps and she wrote a book a couple of years ago called Retiring the Generation Gap, How Employees, Young and Old Can Find Common Ground. She challenges the street wisdom or lack thereof about all these differences. And what she points out is that individuals from different generations actually share many common values like their desire for respect, their need for work life integration, the importance of being on a team that’s successful. And we often overlook these values, similarity in values, by emphasizing the differences.
Dave Altman [00:23:19]:
It’s a bit of a confirmation bias. We look for the differences but we don’t look for the similarities. And in hardcore data that she’s done with 25,000 people across the globe, there are many more similarities. For example, communication styles. While there are difference, you know, older workers like in my generation, your generation, but maybe we’re more comfortable with face to face and we prefer that while younger workers like digital communication. All generations want clear and effective communication and honest communication which results in connection. We all want that. The tactical ways that we do it, okay, there’s some differences there.
Dave Altman [00:23:57]:
What about in workplace expectations? All right. There may be differences, small differences in the expectations that people have and motivations, but all employees across generations, they seek meaningful work and fair treatment and the opportunity to grow and learn. We all want that. A couple more things. What about leadership and development? Well, all generations want to develop. They want to be more effective. They want to be able to respond to the challenges that they face. Now, how you convey that development, okay, there’s going to be differences there.
Dave Altman [00:24:40]:
But if you go to underlying core needs, there’s more similarities. So there’s a lot of myths about generational differences that need to be debunked like younger workers are less loyal than older career. Younger workers don’t like change. Younger workers want to be paid more. Well, it’s confounded by the fact that younger workers tend to be lower in the organization, tend to have different roles and different experiences simply because of their age than do older workers. So you’re saying, well, there’s a generational difference where it might simply be an age difference or a role in the organization, more junior positions. So let me end by saying there are some generational differences. We have to pay attention to it.
Dave Altman [00:25:24]:
This is part of a diversity, equity and inclusion, play and there are myths that need to be debunked with real data. And if we can debunk those myths, then we can provide an inclusive, welcoming, diverse workplace that that, embraces all the diversity that exists including generations.
Bernie Borges [00:25:48]:
So your response, your explanation, Dave, is very compelling to me, and here’s how I’d summarize it in just a few words. And that is that, while there are generational differences, there were also many generational similarities, and we need to put as much attention and focus on those than the differences and really harness the similarities. That’s kind of my takeaway from that.
Dave Altman [00:26:13]:
That’s beautifully stated. And I would add a footnote to that. We have all these bi cognitive biases that we carry around in our heads. It’s how we survive as human beings. There’s at least a 180 documented. One of them is called the similarity bias. And the similarity bias is we prefer what is like us over what’s different than us. And so this crops up when we make when we have make attributions about what’s underlying someone’s behavior that who to hire, who to promote, who to assign to projects.
Dave Altman [00:26:42]:
And so by by wanting to be with people who are similar because it’s safe, this is how we survive threats from saber tooth tigers, you know, you had your tribe. Well, this plays out in the generational different. Oh, they’re different. They have different values. Those young people, they’re on their phone all the time. They’re on social media. What are they doing? They’re connecting with each other. Do they waste time? Sure, they waste time, but so do older people.
Dave Altman [00:27:07]:
They waste time doing other activities.
Bernie Borges [00:27:09]:
Mhmm. Yeah. That’s a great point. Dave, final question because I can just talk with you all day. So final question before we wrap up. You know that on the Midlife Fulfill podcast, I really base it on what I call the 5 pillars. Right? Health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. You’ve kind of already spoken to it, but I’m I’m gonna ask you to maybe, look at those 5 pillars and put the leadership theme in the context of those 5 pillars, is it more prevalent in 1 or 2 of those pillars or do you think it spans across all 5 of them?
Dave Altman [00:27:45]:
All 5 of them. I mean, I think it’s 1 pillar with 5 pieces to it. I mean, they’re interconnected and interdependent. And if you, you know, if you are excel or if you focus a lot of attention on one pillar to the neglect of another pillar, you’re you’re not gonna be, flourishing as a human being. So I really like the fact that you are focusing on all of these. And through the lens of leadership, and this I’m completely biased here. This is part of my own personal philosophy, but I I love the, quote from Lao Tzu, Dallas philosophy which goes as follows, A leader is best when people barely know that they exist. And when their work is done, their aim fulfilled, they will say, We did it ourselves.
Dave Altman [00:28:32]:
And so that’s to me the essence of leadership. It’s subtle, there’s a lot of humility in there but it is around getting impact and improving the human condition. And that requires you to be mentally and physically fit to have had the experience in your career and the deep trusting relationships with a lot of people. When you have that and you take yourself out of it and people are saying, you know what? We accomplished something great. Yeah. Dave over there, he he had some positional. He was the leader. He was a chief research and innovation officer, but we did it.
Dave Altman [00:29:12]:
And that that’s what legacy is all about. And so, anyway
Bernie Borges [00:29:17]:
I’m gonna cheat and go one more question. Alright. Because I just I love talking to you, Dave. So if someone said to me, Bernie, what makes you an effective leader? I have a pretty short answer. I would say, with humility, I’m a good listener. That’s what makes me a good leader. Your reaction?
Dave Altman [00:29:37]:
Yes. Listening is critically important combined with empathy and some research by one of my colleagues which is available at ccl.organdcclinovation.org, our microsite on research. If you listen but don’t take action or you listen but don’t take action but you explain why you didn’t take action, you’re more effective. Listening alone without taking action is potentially problematic. So yes, and we teach listening. We teach empathy. We have measures of it. Critically important, and put it into put it into action.
Bernie Borges [00:30:16]:
Terrific. Thank you for the the commentary and the clarification on that. So I totally agree. Well, Dave, we will wrap it here. But, of course, first, I wanna invite you to, let my listener know where they can connect with you and just get into your world.
Dave Altman [00:30:31]:
Sure. So as I mentioned, ccl.org, you can reach me through there, cclinnovation.org, on a LinkedIn. And my email, which is on our website, is altmand, altmand, for David, altmand@ccl.org.
Bernie Borges [00:30:47]:
Fantastic. Well, my listener knows that, all that would be linked up in the show notes for this episode. And, Dave, I just wanna, again, thank you for joining me on this episode of the Midlife Fulfill podcast, a maximum episode. I meant what I said. I’m gonna say it again while we’re still recording. I can talk to you all day. I just think, you’re a wealth of insight and wisdom, and experience, and thank you for sharing some of that with, with us here today.
Dave Altman [00:31:12]:
Really appreciate you inviting me in. Love your podcast.
Bernie Borges [00:31:16]:
Thank you.
