103: The Happy Leader, with Dr. Calvin Lawrence

How are the leaders at all levels of management tackling the toughest challenges each day? That's the question, and this podcast is the answer. I'm Rob Fonte and I'm bringing on the brightest minds in management to share practical solutions to those challenges you're facing. Let's get ready to jam. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Leadership Jam Session podcast. Today's guest is a guest who has previously been on this podcast, Dr. Calvin Lawrence, who is a motivational speaker and leadership consultant. Dr. Lawrence has over 40 years of experience teaching and leading in the educational system.

He also has a doctorate in educational leadership and administration and an author of his newly released book called the Happy Leader. Kelvin, welcome back to the Leadership Jam Session.

Hey. Thank you, Rob. I'm glad to be here.

Well, it is great to have you back and I'm excited to talk about your new book, the Happy Leader. So you ready to jam on it?

Yes, sir, I am.

All right. Again, congratulations. I know the last time you were on the podcast you were talking to me about this project that you were. So it's really great to see it published. So why don't you give me a few central themes about this book.

Sounds good. So, Rob, if I had to boil it down into one, one word or one phrase, it would be relationships matter. And I know that we'll get into it as we start talking about some things, but I really wanted to do this book because of the relationships that I've had over period of 41 plus years in education, in life, I guess you could say. And so some of the things are, I think in terms of leadership as a process, very simple, simplistic, but very true to form. Mentorship we talked about before. But mentorship comes out in this book in a very, at a very high level and it's a two way street. I always say that and that we learn a lot from our failures. There are so many times I even have a chapter devoted to it.

I don't know if we'll get into that, but there's so many times when you think, well, just because something didn't go right, there's nothing good that can come out of this. And I will flip that and say, not at all. Most of the times when you learn, maybe the most, when you're most impacted, it's when there's some, some issues in life. I have one in particular story about how I got to Texas, but it's these failures, if you're willing to learn. And I always use that old Yoda Star wars quote Because Yoda does things in the reverse. So failure. The best teacher is. The best teacher is failure.

And then you are what you do. And I always have this thing about. And I have a couple of chapters related to stereotyping. If you stereotype stereotypes are really limiting beliefs, so you don't want to limit yourself. And that's another way of not. Not being happy. In order to be happy or be a happy leader, you've got to make sure you bust up those stereotypes, get off of them and get away, and believe in yourself and help believe in the people who believe in you. Because I'm sure that you don't get anywhere.

Well, you don't get anywhere in life without people who are believing in you helping you along the way.

Yeah. Well, I got to ask. So what's the story about getting to Texas?

So the story about getting to Texas. Somebody asked me this the other day, and it's so special my mind. And I had. I had a session where this leader told us as a group that we were a dime a dozen. And there's a failure in that. There's a huge piece in that. There's a whole thing in terms of a leadership lesson in that. But the guy who was supposed to be one of those guys you should look up to and admire just.

Just flat out from the stage told us they could replace us anytime they wanted to. So that was how much they valued us. And so I really. That was. Put me on a little bit of a downward spiral, because I'm thinking, I'm five years in. Is this what I have to look forward to? And they could replace. And I'm valued at that level.

Right.

And so a long story short on this, it caused me to start looking at some options, but eventually the best option was to get my master's degree and come to Texas. And you. You've got my backstory on Texas. I'm married, a Texan.

You don't leave Texas, Go back to the stereotypes. So maybe maybe just. Just talk a little bit more about that. Because. Because that's.

Yeah, yeah. So there are a lot of stereotypes just in general. So the guys like me, black males are not great leaders. So you have to do a lot to get them into a leadership role. And so I really wanted to break that one. And especially later in my life, as I started climbing up the ladder, I thought, I can do some things. I'll give you another one that's real simple. And it was that black guys don't run or they don't do long distance or they don't do all this stuff.

And so this is, I'm giving you something way back in the late 70s, early 80s when the running boom had just kind of started, right. And there were not a lot of African American runners. I had a role model though. It was a guy who I didn't even like his team, but I liked what he was doing. If you remember, Alan Page was a big defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings, a team I hated because they were a team that always stopped my team, the Rams, from getting to the Super Bowl. And so. But Allen, who went on to become a lawyer, then a judge, then a Supreme Court judge in Minnesota, was a runner, an avid runner. Broke the stereotypes, broke the mouse.

Not only was he African American, but he was a big heavyweight runner. And so those two things in particular, really, if I had to tell anybody who that was my role model. And he got me going in terms of running and fitness and staying in shape and then also later running marathons because I saw Allen run a marathon at 250 some pounds and I'm thinking if Alan can do it, I mean I can train. I did and I did it. I did four of them and, and completed all four. And so yeah. Breaking stereotypes. There are a lot of stereotypes that are limiting.

They keep you from doing some, having some, having some real fun and being happy. And I just love to bust them up and just say, hey, go for it. Female, older people, whatever they, they tell you can't do this and you gotta tell it, show em that you can. It's all a mindset.

Ah, all right. So, so talking about your, how your failures. Right. Can you can learn from them, their opportunities, breaking through stereotypes. Right. And, and so how did you come up with the title the Happy Leader?

Oh wow, that's. Yeah, that's a really good one. Really good one. So I had, I probably, I had no idea if I can remember some of the goofy ones. I had It's a Wonderful Life, something like that. I'm taking off the movie, the old.

Movie, my wife's favorite movie.

Yeah, yeah. And then I had a. Yeah, because it is, it's a powerful movie when you really think about it. And then, and then I had a friend of mine who said she's a communications major and she said just boil it down to who you are. I think you're a happy person. Why don't. And you're trying to talk about leadership. The Happy Leader.

That was the first piece of it. And then I added later the relatable stories of influence and Hope, because a lot of these stories are influenced. I'm influenced by these people, and they give me hope, or they give you hope. Hope makes you happy, right? So. But the Happy Leader just. It evolved through a lot of conversations, which I keep saying they're important to have these conversations with people. And then because this was something I would not have done myself without having those conversations, it just kind of. It dawned on me after thinking about it.

Happy Leader. That's it. That's the one. Just like that lighthouse that you see in the back. The lighthouse came from something that Amanda, my wife, did for me when I first came to Texas. If you got my background story, you know it. But I tell the audience I'm originally from Virginia. I'm a coastal boy, grew up near the shoreline where we are in Texas.

We're pretty much landlocked. So Amanda wanted to make me feel at home when we first got married back in 91. And she had all these. She had even pillows with lighthouses on them. She had a lighthouse replica in the house. I don't know what she was trying to do, but I guess she was really trying to make me feel feel like I was at home so I wouldn't want to go back to mom and Daddy back in Virginia. And it worked. And so.

But then when I started thinking about my graphic illustrator said, what do you need to do for your cover? And it's got to be something in the essence of you. And I said, you know what? I'm a. I'm a water boy. I grew up near the water in the lighthouse. And then I didn't even think about it at the time, Rob. But lighthouse has so many different image images, imagery in the lighthouse, you see the welcome in the lighthouse, you see the safety in the lighthouse. I. If you can't, you can't hardly see.

But they're those rocks. The reason they have, they want to keep ships from running ashore, whatever. And. And the people who come into my life have been like those lighthouse. Lighthouses. They have come in, they have lighted the imagery. They kind of. They don't.

They don't force you to do anything. The lighthouse is just there, right? But if you use it or if you let it guide you, or if you let it assist you in the right way. I haven't even said, Talked about it like this to anybody else but you. I think you bring out the best of me, Rob. But if you do it the right way, hey, those lighthouses can get you to safety. They can get you to the right place. They can Redirect your direction. Then they do the compass down at the bottom.

That was an afterthought. But yeah, those lighthouses can redirect where you're going to go and put you on a safe path. And, and they have. And those people have. In my life.

Yeah. And love the analogy. Love the COVID of the book too. And I mean that's what great leaders do. They serve as lighthouses, right? Yeah, they really do.

Yeah. Yeah.

By the way, just to go back to the Star wars analogy you were talking about, Yoda, seems like your wife was using some Jedi mind tricks on you just by placing lighthouses everywhere. When you got to, you're right this.

Middle, you, you, you picked that up really quick. Yeah, I think she did a Jedi mind trick on me. I probably was very weak minded. You know how those, the mind tricks don't work on those guys that are really secure. But I was kind of in a young, a young husband probably. A lot of women have used Jedi man tricks over, over the years, I'm sure. Yeah.

Oh yeah, I'm sure my wife does it every day to me. I don't even realize it. Right.

So yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

I'm looking for the lighthouse. She's just doing all kinds of stuff behind the scenes. I'm not even know. I don't even know where I'm going anymore. So I love the concept of the book. Right. The happy leader. So, so let me ask you this, right.

Cause you talk a lot about choosing happiness in the book. Right. And, and so how can leaders make, make that choice consistently, especially in facing pressure and setback? I mean, you get it right? As being a leader as long as you have. You get a lot of pressure that comes down. And, and it's, it's a fine balance of, of how you show up with your people. So how can you do it consistently in light of all that?

I'll tell you. And you said something that made, that triggered me to, to think I need to lead out with this. You do it because these people are depending on you. Like that lighthouse. Again, going back to the analogy. So they're depending on you to bring calm and peace in the midst of a storm kind of situation or chaos or chaotic instances which you're going to. I don't care if you live long enough, as my mom and my grandma used to say, you're going to have some chaos in your life.

Yeah.

And so if you're really in tune to being a leader, you know that it's gonna serve not just you, but really More so the people that you're serving, the people that you're working with, the people that are working with you and for you and. And you've got to be intentional because there are days when you don't want to like days you don't want to get up, days you don't want to go to work, days you don't want all that stuff, but you just get up because you do it, because you got, because you know you got to do it and somebody's counting on you. I guess that's why when I think about something that's close to this is like in their leaders, parents, a father or mother. So I'll use the father example. A father's got to get up and get to work and go and do all this stuff and might not feel like it, but he's got to do it. And I think about my dad who's in the book and I don't ever remember him, not to me, not to my sister, but maybe to mom, probably complaining about having to go. But he got up and went and he went for more than 40 years. He worked in the same place, same job, same situation.

Probably there was some mundaneness to that, but he knew what he needed to do in order to take care of his family. And it's kind of like the same thing with a leader. So why do leaders need to be happy? They need to, they need to be happy because there are people that are counting on them. Now, although this, although this other piece in there too, I think there's a there, I always have to do this. There's a faith piece in there. If you're grounded and you've got a faith based foundation, then you really have a lot to draw from. If you don't, then you've got to find something. You've got to find something again.

There are other things like values that you have and then your belief system and the core of your beliefs and all of that. And if you can pull from those things, you can stay in tune to what you need to be. And happy is the word I'm using or we're using in order to inspire the courageousness in your staff and the people you working with. And for, because it needs to happen in order for you to move forward. And if you don't, then it, then it all. And I like the one quote that I have in that book is about leadership trickles down to everything. And if you're depressed and bemoaning a whole lot of stuff that goes on because there's A lot of stuff going on in the world, especially today, then your, your culture will become that way because everything trickles down from the leader. But if leaders upbeat, and the leader is, oh, I'll go back to Amanda again.

She had a leader one time RA years ago, and I forget the name of the company, but he was such an upbeat guy. Anytime they and I. And I've tried to do a little bit of. You try to take little bits and pieces from all the great leaders that you learn.

Sure.

And you take some from the. You take from the bag, you got to do from the people. Yeah. So I learned from him that whenever you can celebrate something celebrated and he was really, really good at, oh, so and so's having a baby. Let's celebrate. Let's go out the red carpet, let's do whatever. So and so is going to get another certification or degree. Let's celebrate.

And he would do that across the board in the company. And it was like, yeah, this guy really knows something about leadership. And the people who were there with him, they loved him. They didn't want to leave that guy because he was so good at making sure that everybody was taken care of. And to celebrate those little wins, it wasn't just the company he was celebrating most of the times. It wasn't the company, it was the his people that he celebrated. So I learned a lot about meeting those needs of the people. And then you're going to be happy, because if you make your people happy and they take care of your business and they take care of the folks there, so be servant, have.

Hey, you're gonna be in a good. All the. You talking about results and the end of the road and all that stuff, those things are going to come. But you, because you take care of.

Your people, I, I love the way you explain that. First of all, a couple things. As corporate America, we don't spend enough time celebrating even the small wins. Right. We're just ready to move off to the next thing. So I love how you brought that in. And then secondly, I loved how you just really explained how do we maintain. How do you be a happy leader when times are tough? But as you were explaining it, it was very clear to me that whenever I've been in challenging situations or I was getting pushback from senior leaders I didn't agree with, or we were going in a different direction, the thing that grounded me the most was I'm not going to focus on that as much.

I'm going to turn all my focus onto my people.

Up to your People.

Right. Because. Because that's what they need and how we show up.

Right.

They often will mirror our behavior and it was something that you said that really was, I think, pretty powerful.

Yeah.

I think a lot of leaders fail to realize this. When we inspire our people, it goes both ways. They in turn inspire us too. Right. They keep us happy.

Right.

When we're giving them the attention they need. And I don't think I really clearly saw it that way until you just said it and made me think about my past too.

Awesome. That's great. That's great. Helps me in a roundabout way. You reiterated what I said, but then there were things that I may have said I missed and you kind of brought it back to home with me. So. Yeah, yeah. It's a two way street.

I love the two way street pieces because when you give, you can't give without getting back and if you do it the right way, you, it just kind of keeps building on itself. So talking about a happy leader, you got a happy environment, got happy people, going to have happy clients, you're going to have happy results, hopefully. Yeah. All. All the way through. So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I know there's going to be challenging times. Right. I mean you have to be realistic. And I think you talk about this, about the concept of being authentic.

Yes.

Right. And again.

Yeah. I got something the other day I want to share with you. This one rock. And I was watching something and just ran across. I don't watch TV that, that much. My wife said, probably would say I watch too much, but I watch every once in a while and I watch certain things. And when I was watching something, it was a whole playback of a John Madden deal. John Matt in the old coach, but he, he became more famous as a commentator and a, and a VR sports kind of guy, the game stuff and whatnot.

And, and one of the things that just hit me really strongly and just goes with this authenticity is he said you cannot, as a leader, you can't be a phony. He said, you can't. And I, he liked the word phony. I, and I grabbed a hold of it. You can't be phony because. And I can see it from several different lights. But he, he played it like this because the players, the coaches, they will see right through it. And I thought, yeah, and when you working with kids and students and teachers and maybe other constituencies, they'll see right through you.

If they're around you long enough, they'll see through and know that you're not who you say you are.

That's right.

And so you got to be yourself. And authenticity is about being yourself. I learned from great leaders. I learned from people like we talked about, Patrick Lencioni, whatnot. But you cannot be that person. You've got to be who you are. You learn from these other people. You take those bits and pieces, but then you incorporate them into who you are.

And I think then people kind of warm up to you to be yourself. Because if I can shut myself down and I can try to be more like the leader that I have. Have. Have witnessed, but I can't be that person. I can never be exactly like that person. And somebody will see through me to know that that's not who you really are. But the people who know me know that's Calvin. That's where.

Who he is, no matter what, before he got his degree. That's Calvin. That's the same guy. He's the same guy. And if I. If I show up that way every day, all the time, I think people have a tendency to more. And we. We always talk about that trust piece.

Yeah.

The old Lindsay only thing. People going to trust you. They'll trust you because they know that you are who you say you are. And you got to do it on a consistent basis. And. And so that it just resonated with me a little bit more about the concept of authenticity that you got to be who you say you are every day as much as you can, because that. It shows. It counts.

Counts.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Love how you just explained that. So talking about being authentic. Right. And. And being vulnerable.

So you talk about failures. What would you say was your biggest mistake as a leader? Biggest mistake you. You made.

Oh, a big one was years ago, as I was. As I was a fairly new leader, I had a situation with a person, and they tell you to never dress down a particular person. And when I say dress down, I mean correct an individual in public or with people around you always go behind closed doors and you have that conversation. And I did not monitor myself well enough because it didn't start out that way. We were going to have this conversation, or she kind of came in and we had this conversation in the hall, and it didn't really go the way I wanted it to go. And. And it. And it happened in the hallway.

So it was something that happened with people around me, and it was one of those times. I don't have a lot of regrets, Rob, but it's one of those. If I could get that one back, if I could go back in time and just Kind of instead of having her engage me out there, I say, hey, let's go back to my office. We didn't talk about this back there. When I didn't. I was probably a second year guy in terms of the leadership piece, and I'm still learning and I'm still growing and taking classes and figuring stuff out, but I, I blew it. I blew it on that one. And I lost some people, not just her, but I lost some people around me who kind of trusted me to do the right thing.

And I, I didn't get that back and I moved on to some other things, but I never got that back. So it's that, that trust is real hard. Going back to trust, it's real hard to build, but you can lose it in the instant that's like that.

Yeah.

Yes. And I lost it in that instance. And so that's one of those ones that I will, I will certainly say it was a, it was a loss for me, but I learned from it and it's never happened again. And even when people have tried to engage me, I say no, I remember that. That was enough for me to know it doesn't work that way. You've got to get them back. We got to. Well, if we can't talk right now, we'll talk at a later time to schedule an appointment.

Let's do it and then we'll do it. Then we'll hash it out and we'll get it straight. But yeah, that was it.

Now I appreciate sharing that. Yeah, yeah. Now you weren't able to repair that relationship?

I wasn't to the degree that I wanted to share. Because I don't think we ever got back to. We were able to talk, but I don't think we ever got back to the point where she. Because she was a new teacher as well. And so I think she really trusted me up until that point. And then boom, it was like, then it was like, okay, I got to be a little guarded, cuz. And so it really set me on a course where I knew that that's one piece where you don't want to lose trust and you don't have to if you monitor it. Right.

You got to make sure that those conversations happen behind closed doors and they happen in the right way. And if you do it that way, you know you're going to be able to keep their trust.

Yeah, yeah. But it's such an important point, right, that, yeah, it takes, I mean, sometimes you build trust quicker with people, but sometimes it takes a long time. Yeah, you can Lose it in an instant. And then to try to lose it in the instant.

You can lose it. You can lose it with your wife if you went out with another girl or whatnot. And so you can lose it in the instant. But you're working, constantly working on that trust thing. Constantly working on it. You never get to where you can get real comfortable with that. You got really. I had a little card on the back of my.

I had a nameplate on my desk and I had a little car say, relationships are constantly changing. And it was a reminder, a reminder to me to, to say, you gotta always work on a relationship. Oh, this is probably marriage. One on one. Because you got. If the husbands are listening, you gotta keep working on that thing. You just can't say you got her because you got her. It's like the relationship is changing.

She's growing, you're growing, you're changing. So you gotta keep monitoring it and you gotta keep working on it, because if you don't, you. You could. And it's been proven true. Right.

Which goes back to your book, right. One of the main concepts is relationships. Relationships matter.

Yes.

Is that right?

Relationships matter. And relationships are so, so key. It sounds like such a. What we call soft skills, the people skills, but they translate over to so much of the other things that are great or productive or give us the bottom line results. Bottom line is what you're looking for. But you don't get to that bottom line the way you should unless you do the relationship piece. Right. And if you do, if we do relationships, well, the rest will take care of itself in.

Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree with you. So just on that note, right? And just, Just kind of. I think it's a great way to maybe even just wrap up and by highlighting the book is what are like one or two practical tools or. Or habits for leaders that you would recommend for leaders to stay grounded in relation to your book. Right. If there was like one or two like, tools that you can say, yeah, this is what leaders need to focus on.

I'll give you. I got. I got one or two. I might even throw in a half, a half of one in there, if I can make. Call it a half of one. But they're real simplistic. Rob and I know you, sometimes your readers, your listeners are looking for these major dynamic points. But the first one is just, it's a, It's a start to the relationship thing.

And it's just learning names. You learn your names to get to know your people. And if you had to do one thing right off the bat, because I think culture is one of those things that you can change or build and it will permeate the building, permeate everything, and get it that. But the starter to that is learning names. And so if I can get to learn the names of my people, it does a lot of different things. And I always. I. I think I.

We've had maybe this conversation before, but I even practice that skill when I go to the restaurants. And we're gonna go to a restaurant this evening, and one of the first things I'll do is I'll ask, because sometimes they don't do it much anymore. The waiter or waitress will not give you their name. They don't have a name tag. I got to get your name. And I. If I can't understand it or sometimes this is my ploy to learn the name better, I make them say it more than once. So I get it.

Then I. Then they say it and they say it again. Then I say it back to them. If. If I really have a hard time with it, I'll write it down and I'll make. I'll write it down on a napkin. But I got to get the name because it does a lot of things. It does.

It gives the person value and worth. And you start beginning. And even that's a short engagement. But it's funny how you get better service when they. You call them by name as opposed to, hey, you. And it's the same thing in the business world, the corporate world, this, the education world. You name. You know the name of the person, and that's the first entry point.

That is not the last thing you do, but it's the most important first thing. And if you can get that down, then you can grow from there and get those relationships. The other thing I will say is remember that once the one size doesn't fit all. So whatever you're doing, whatever you're doing with your people, just remember that people are different. And my best analogy is even twins are different. Identical twins are different. They are not the same, even though they look the same. I used to have a couple of buddies, and Harry and Harold, that was the name.

And I knew Harry from Harold, but not because I could see him right off the bat, because the moms back in the day always dressed everybody the same, right? But what I would do with, I would get in real close and I would observe what they did. Now, Harry was very different than Harold with a lot of things he did. So I could pick her out real quick. And I knew the other guy had to be Harold. Right. So, yeah, you got to do different things with different people. And so that means whatever you set up, if it's a one size fits all, you know, you're going to have some problems with it. You're going to need to make sure you kind of do the things you need to do to make it work.

Those are the two things. And that I think the last half thing I was going to add was enjoy great conversations. Because just like me getting the name of that book, if you don't enjoy having conversations with your people, you're going to have a hard time with your people. Enjoy the conversations. They might be talking about something you don't care anything about. But I had. I had a leader one time, Rock. He was so good at.

He made you feel like your conversation was the best conversation in the world. You could have been talking about Dooley, squat, nothing. But he just made you feel very at ease when he. We had. You had the conversation with him and from him. I took that and I've worked on my conversations with people. And you don't just get in there to just get to where you. What you're going to say.

In fact, you probably need to listen more.

That's right.

This is good. You probably to listen more than you talk. So listen and glean and listen and enjoy that conversation while you have. Because you can get a whole lot of stuff. I got the name of my book out of a conversation.

So well said. You know, it's funny how you started off by saying. Yeah, a lot of. A lot of managers out there and leaders want the most dynamic concept. And the reality is we may. We make leading people much more complicated than what it really needs to be. Not to say that there are some complications, but. Yeah, you know, the, the simple things work, right?

Yes.

Which is like knowing that. That two employees are not going to be the same. And most importantly is that the key is making your people, like if I'm talking to my employee, to try to make them feel like they're the most important employee I have. Right in that isolated conversation right now.

Right now in that conversation. Yeah.

Right. So well said. Well, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy. I always enjoy talking with you because you always. You bring the best out of me.

Oh, please. Maybe. Maybe you can share that with my wife too.

So, you know, and vice versa. Yeah.

Try to earn me some points.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I love the conversation. I'm so glad that we're able to connect, bring you back on especially to talk about your book, the Happy Leader.

Yes.

And we will leave a link with all your information because I know you're out there speaking as well. So anybody out there, as you can hear, Calvin is a very dynamic leader presenter, and he's got a lot of. He had a lot of stories in the book, too.

A lot of stories.

Fantastic. So appreciate you coming on, and I wish you all the best with your book.

Thank you so much, Rob. I enjoy every time I come on.

Thanks so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to share it with a friend or colleague who you think might also get some value from it. I'm Rob Fonte, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Leadership Jam Session podcast.