The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:16 - 00:00:44:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Today's title suggests two part to this conversation. It's inside virtual leader and building leaders across your organization. The outcome? Building leaders across your organization and the way to do it. Virtual leader con. Welcome to a special Kevin only episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we will unpack all of that for you. And this is the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we're helping leaders and organizations grow and lead more effectively, make a bigger difference across their teams, communities, and the world.

00:00:44:08 - 00:01:09:18
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast in the future, you can join us live, on your favorite social media platform where we multi live stream these events several weeks or even sometimes longer, before they make it to the podcast. You can find out when they're happening and how they're happening and how you can join us. By going to join either our Facebook or LinkedIn groups, two of the places where these are live streamed.

00:01:09:20 - 00:01:36:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or mark Apple podcast.com/linkedin to get all that info. And if you want to get more out of any podcast, you listen to, not just this one, but any one, you should download my free short Practical guide. Just go to Kevin. I can pre-comp get more. Since you're listening to this, you can hit the pause button and go to Kevin.

00:01:36:07 - 00:02:04:22
Kevin Eikenberry
I can pre-comp get more and use those insights as you listen to this episode. This is a special episode. It is a Kevin only episode. I'm going to talk about how we can develop leaders across our organization, because that's one of the founding principles of this show. We've been doing this for ten years, and one of our two guiding lights is, how do we help organizations develop their leaders so they can get better results?

00:02:05:00 - 00:02:38:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And the other guiding light is how do we help leaders themselves, work on those things. So today's episode is about both of those things. Even though I promised one of the two in the title, and what guided us to that decision, to make the podcast about this is about what our mission is. And you might remember that in 2020, some sort of cataclysmic stuff was happening and people couldn't leave their houses and they weren't working with each other, at least not in person.

00:02:38:05 - 00:03:00:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Many of them. And so in May of 2020, I using that same sort of touchstone of how do we help leaders and their organizations get more effective? In the middle of a pandemic, I created an idea and my team thankfully went along with me that we called Virtual Leader Con. And then we've been doing virtual Leader Con.

00:03:00:15 - 00:03:25:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Excuse me for this will be the seventh year and we've done some special versions and the, the framework of it, and the length of it has changed a little. But fundamentally, virtual leader con has remained constant ever since then. Our goal hasn't changed, even though the context of the need for virtual leader con isn't what it was during a pandemic.

00:03:25:03 - 00:03:43:06
Kevin Eikenberry
But I want to take a couple of minutes to tell you what Virtual Leader Con is. Then I'm going to tell you a little bit about some of the big lessons from last year. And then I'm going to talk about this year's event. And lastly, and probably most importantly, how you can use this event to help you drive the promise I gave you, which has developed leaders across your organization.

00:03:43:06 - 00:04:09:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So let me tell you a little bit about what virtual leader con or what we often call VLC actually is. Well, first of all, well, first of all, it is virtual. Shocking, I know, but it's not a webinar. It's virtual, somewhat like a podcast because, we bring on thought leaders like we do every week here. But it's not just a podcast either.

00:04:09:23 - 00:04:33:14
Kevin Eikenberry
It's an interactive and engaged community that has the chance in real time to interact with thought leaders to get the very most they possibly can from that time. And here's what I can tell you is the thought leaders, the guests that have joined us over the years and there have been many, have consistently told us that they've never experienced an online event like it.

00:04:33:16 - 00:05:02:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Many of them, attend part of it as a participant, which is an another additional benefit because they're interacting and learning along with you. But they continue to say we've never experienced anything like this in terms of the way people interact. The level of engagement and the types of questions and all of that. And the other thing is that we've had people been have been coming to this every year since the beginning, and in some cases, we've done a second, shorter session during the year.

00:05:02:02 - 00:05:23:12
Kevin Eikenberry
So I think this is the 10th time we've done something, in the VLC brand, if you will, and we've had people that have attended every single one. So we got people on both sides telling you, that there's something really special and unique here. Oh, and the thing I didn't tell you yet is you can attend all of it for free.

00:05:23:14 - 00:05:42:04
Kevin Eikenberry
So now that I've told you kind of what it is, or at least giving you a hint at what it is, and by the way, more about this later. But this year's event starts on September the 21st, and it runs part of the days on Monday and Tuesday and Thursday and Friday of that week. It's the only time we've split it up.

00:05:42:06 - 00:06:02:18
Kevin Eikenberry
With the day off in the middle. But that's what it is. It's in later in September. And so but before we get more about this year, let me tell you about last year. And so last year we had 12 guests and I went back and spent some time thinking about what were the big ideas from last year's event.

00:06:02:20 - 00:06:24:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Now, I could certainly say, what are some big ideas from each speaker? And we created all of that. And, there's a way to get access to all of that. But what I really wanted to do is what were the common themes across multiple experts, because you can listen to a podcast or you can go to a workshop with one expert.

00:06:25:01 - 00:06:50:17
Kevin Eikenberry
But if you can get lessons and ideas across multiple people independently in a short period of time, then you can say with confidence that those ideas are really useful. And I collected several of them. I just want to share a couple of them with you. And the reason I want to do that is it gives you an insight into the quality and depth of what you get when you attend Virtual Leader Con.

00:06:50:18 - 00:07:21:09
Kevin Eikenberry
So the first one of the biggest things that came out of last year's event was this is that multiple of our guests talked about this idea of, as leaders, we can't do it all. And we don't need to worry about knowing it all. And so they framed it as, I don't know, is a leadership competency like we need to as leaders get able to and willing to say, I don't know because think about it.

00:07:21:09 - 00:07:42:15
Kevin Eikenberry
If you have a if you ever had a boss that was kind of a no at all. They probably weren't the boss that you most liked working with. That doesn't mean we can't have a leader who's very knowledgeable and knows a lot of stuff, but there's no way they can know everything. And often as leaders, we wear this mantle or this yoke that says we're supposed to have all the answers.

00:07:42:17 - 00:07:59:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And so being able and willing to say, I don't know, which means that we can go find it, I, I'm reminded that my dad used to say this. He said, Kevin, I don't know, but let's make it our job to go find out. And I think if we as leaders can have that ability and willingness, it makes us more effective leaders.

00:07:59:11 - 00:08:27:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And last year during the event, several of our guests in again independently talked about that as a big idea and important thing. Another thing that we know for sure as leaders. And if you're regardless of whether you're here right now thinking about leadership for yourself or you're thinking about it developmentally for leaders across your organization, we know that leaders get promoted because they're really good at stuff, which is one of the reasons why they have trouble saying, I don't know.

00:08:27:06 - 00:08:44:18
Kevin Eikenberry
But they also, are used to and able to and willing to get their hands on things and get things done. But many of our guests last year said, you know, one of the best things that leaders can do is get out of the way. Yeah, we need to be supportive. Yeah, we need to break barriers. Yeah, we need to help people move forward.

00:08:44:18 - 00:09:03:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And we need to let them go do it. Our job is to stay out of the way. And I think when things are as complex as they are today, that's an important insight for us to consider and keep in mind. And I hope that that you think about that for yourself and again, for the leaders in your organization.

00:09:03:09 - 00:09:31:19
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, there's there's there's been a ton of work done by folks like us, by experts of all, ilcs, to try to help understand what people's styles are. Tendencies are, personalities are. And and I'm a proponent of those things. And yet, a lot of the conversations I had during virtual leader kind of last year with my guests led to this idea that, at the end of the day, it's not about our personality.

00:09:32:00 - 00:09:59:09
Kevin Eikenberry
It's not about our it's not about our approach. It's not about, how who we are or how we were born. It's about the practices that we actually implement. It's not about, it's not as much about who we are exactly as it is about how we actually do the work, the practice, not the personality that habits set as we would talk about it, not just the skill set.

00:09:59:11 - 00:10:26:22
Kevin Eikenberry
And so a lot of our conversations last year had a lot to do with this idea of as well. Another thing that came through last year and maybe, just maybe, this is the most useful thing that I could share with you today from last year's event. Although any one of the things I've shared may it may be a worthy, thought for you and may really hit home and be relevant for you, but here's here's one.

00:10:27:00 - 00:10:47:18
Kevin Eikenberry
We need to have fewer priorities. A lot of us as individuals, a lot of us as leaders, have. Well, I've had all these things I want to accomplish. It's one thing to have a bunch of stuff. But the fewer priorities we have, the better. Several of our guests last year said, in one way or other, the same thing that I often say, which is that if you've got seven priorities, you don't have any.

00:10:47:20 - 00:11:12:22
Kevin Eikenberry
If you have seven goals, you have any, you have five goals. You may not have any. And you think about how often leaders are providing too many choices is too many things, too many things that are important to our folks, which leaves them not knowing what to focus on truly at all. And as leaders, if we can help our our leaders have focus and hone in on, be clear about fewer priorities.

00:11:13:00 - 00:11:41:18
Kevin Eikenberry
They will be able to get more accomplished, more implemented, with greater success and accuracy as well. And there was one other thing that we talked about last year a lot. And it kind of relates to the, I don't know, thing. And that is, if I don't know, we need to recognize that someone in the organization probably knows and that we probably don't actually have a knowledge problem in our organization.

00:11:41:20 - 00:12:10:09
Kevin Eikenberry
We have a listening problem in our organizations. Like, are we searching out and finding the people that do have the knowledge, the information, that can solve the problem, that have the insight that we need? We don't probably have a knowledge problem nearly as much, as having a leadership leadership problem. We have an expertise gap, but it's because we're not surfacing it, finding it, valuing it, and that sort of thing.

00:12:10:11 - 00:12:34:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay, so there's several things that I shared that were big ideas that came out of last year's event that would apply for us both as individual leaders and as things we could be thinking about and how we develop leaders across our organization or organizations or enterprises. But as you might also realize that if I bring 12 smart people together, they might not all agree on everything.

00:12:34:18 - 00:13:03:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And while I'm not going to dive into into specifics here, I want you to know that one of the great things that comes from Virtual Leader Con is that there will be tensions. There will be things that one person says that maybe isn't quite exactly like what someone else says. And there's wisdom that comes from understanding that tension, seeing both sides of the coin, figuring out how those both could both apply or might apply better in your specific situation.

00:13:03:02 - 00:13:46:21
Kevin Eikenberry
I think one of the great values that comes from having the chance to hear from, interact with, ask questions of multiple experts in a short period of time is that you start to see those tensions and begin to find the wisdom in those tensions. So those are a few insights, observations from last year's event, which are which I share with you to to hopefully say that, hey, this has already been a useful episode of the podcast because you've got some clear ideas and I hope that that's true, but it's also meant, in all honesty, to show you or to prove to you how valuable this event is and can be for you.

00:13:47:03 - 00:14:12:19
Kevin Eikenberry
I want you to tell you a little bit about this year's event. We're going to have 11 guests, and I'm going to do a session as well, actually. I will do a what we call a mini keynote each at the start of each day. We'll do some opening stuff. And then I will do a short session about things I'm learning have learned in the last few months that apply to us across our organizations and for us as individual leaders.

00:14:12:21 - 00:14:35:05
Kevin Eikenberry
I will do that each day, and then we will bring in our guests. And there's actually one of those guest slots that's also going to be me. And we're going to be demo demonstrating a brand new product that I think you're going to find to be incredibly valuable for you and your organization. But each day, then, if you count me three thought leaders, I just want to give you an idea like this represents the folks that are coming.

00:14:35:05 - 00:15:01:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And joining me this year. There's incredible stuff here. And you might think, well, man, it would be cool to get the insight from all of those books and you're going to get all that you can get. You get some of that when when you join us as a yes. I was looking down through here, one of the folks who will be joining us, as has been on the podcast already, Phil Jameson, and we talked about change, and he's coming back because I thought he was so fabulous.

00:15:01:08 - 00:15:17:23
Kevin Eikenberry
We have him back, but everybody else here is is not on the show because we have one of the person who's been on the show before, but not with this topic. We're talking about. And I'm not going to go through a whole agenda. You can go to virtual Leader Con, to see the exact agenda of each day and who those people all are.

00:15:18:00 - 00:15:39:23
Kevin Eikenberry
But just think about that. Think about what's the situation that you would find yourself in, that you could personally interact with that amount of insight, that amount of wisdom that amount of content, not just to hear it like you can do it with the podcast, but like to interact with it, be a part of it, live in real, and really be a part of the conversation.

00:15:39:23 - 00:16:10:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Like a third of the conversation will be the questions and insights from the group, not just what Kevin brings or what the guests bring, but what you bring as a participant. Think about the value of that. Now, one of the things that we've done this year, and I sort of framed this up for you already, is that when we think about this show, you you already come thinking, I'm thinking about this, about leaders in my organization, for us, from an enterprise perspective, or I'm thinking about this for me as a leader, for myself.

00:16:10:11 - 00:16:31:11
Kevin Eikenberry
And so this year, for the first time, we've we've labeled every session as being, hey, this is a personal or an individually focused, session conversation. Or these are enterprise focused. Now, again, just like if you've watched this show, listen to this show for any length of time. You say, hey, I see both of those things happening and I get value in both cases.

00:16:31:15 - 00:16:56:11
Kevin Eikenberry
But we wanted to say, hey, there's a there's a lead focus in each of these sessions, half of them individual, half of an enterprise. And I think that's a great that we hope will make this even more useful for you moving forward. And now, one more thing about, the guests when I bring them here, we're going to lean into their latest work, but I'm going to ask them questions very specifically.

00:16:56:12 - 00:17:20:04
Kevin Eikenberry
I think about these as being podcast like in that there's this interact in that is Kevin and a guest, but it's different because of the platform that allows for the interaction with, with the folks and for the folks to be, the participants to be interacting with each other in real time. That's true. I mean, there's this learning community that's happening in real time that makes it different than a podcast.

00:17:20:06 - 00:17:39:18
Kevin Eikenberry
The other thing is I, I come at it a little more personally, and I can promise you that, not only will we and will I pose your questions to our guests, but I'll also be pointing them to their very latest thinking, not just what's in their book, even if their book, in some cases, is brand new.

00:17:39:20 - 00:18:03:01
Kevin Eikenberry
But I'm going to point them to their latest thinking. I'm also going to press them for for wisdom and application, because we don't just want to get the key ideas from people, but like, what's the deeper underlying wisdom that's there? And I'm going to be pressing each of our guests for that, because as I've recently written, information is everywhere, wisdom is not.

00:18:03:03 - 00:18:25:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And so I'm going to push these really smart, well connected, well-researched folks, for their deepest wisdom. And you're going to get all that, as a part of the, of the, the virtual reader con experience. And again, virtual leader contact comm. You get all the info. So let me just say to you that you can think about this for yourself.

00:18:25:09 - 00:18:43:19
Kevin Eikenberry
You can think about this for your enterprise. And the and the agenda tells you which sessions are which. And we have a lot of people that come and stay for the whole thing. And as I've said, you can go and sign up right now for free to attend as much or as little as you want, which is great.

00:18:43:21 - 00:19:08:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Now you may say, well, I won't be able to attend all of it. Kevin, what about the sessions I missed? There's a way that you can get that information and a whole lot more, that I'll share with you in a second. But I want to do one other thing. Before I do that, I want to help you think about how you can use this virtual event and the insights from it in your organization.

00:19:08:07 - 00:19:23:06
Kevin Eikenberry
I just got a couple of ways that you might be able to use this, in your organization, just as a brainstorm to help you think about how you can do it. So think about maybe I want to invite a bunch of leaders from my organization, or I have a cohort of leaders that are certain a certain process in our company.

00:19:23:10 - 00:19:45:08
Kevin Eikenberry
I'd like to invite them, but they're not all going to come to the whole thing. So how could we do it? Well, maybe you could find one session that really matches up with something that's going on in your organization, one session that connects with some training. You're already delivering a one session that addresses a key competency that your organization is trying to work on.

00:19:45:10 - 00:20:09:22
Kevin Eikenberry
And so you might bring everybody together for that one, either together in a room to watch or individually to watch and have a lunch and learn and you all watch that session, and then you even do almost like, a book club where you come back for a second lunch and learn, to have everybody sort of share what they got, almost like a book club scenario for one of these conversations.

00:20:10:00 - 00:20:30:05
Kevin Eikenberry
So sometimes people say, we love the idea of Book Club seven. We can't get our people to read, but can you get them to come to a 45 minute conversation between, me and a really smart person that then you could dive deeper as a group on afterwards, and that's worth considering. You can also do divide and conquer.

00:20:30:07 - 00:20:42:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Maybe you can say, hey, I got a bunch of leaders. We're gonna have all of them pick a session and they're going to come back, and they're going to give short summaries or key lessons they learn from each one. So we can sort of divide it up. Different people go to the things, maybe the things they want to go to.

00:20:42:14 - 00:21:04:14
Kevin Eikenberry
They come back together and share those lessons. Maybe you've got leaders with development plans or maybe you as an individual, like I have a development plan for myself as a leader. So I'm going to pick sessions that tie to my development plan. It seems like a logical thing to do, and because it's in a structured time, it gives you the ability to put it on a calendar.

00:21:04:18 - 00:21:22:10
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to tie it to my development goals. I'm going to work on that. You can also do something with learning pairs. Have two people come together, watch something together, talk about it after. It's kind of like the lunch and learn thing, but it's just for a pair of people. And there's a couple other things here.

00:21:22:12 - 00:21:47:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Everything I've said so far is about watching it in real time. And of course, that gives us the benefit of that learning community component. But a lot of the things I describe to you are learning, community stuff post the live event as well. And these examples I've just given you, but I want to share one of the thing and that there is a way to get access to the content after it being live.

00:21:47:10 - 00:22:15:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Right? So like I said, it's all 100% live free, but if you want to have access to it afterwards in terms of audio, in terms of video, in terms of transcripts, in terms of summarized and highlighted content, then you can actually make a purchase of it. You can make a purchase of it for yourself and say, hey, I want all of it for myself.

00:22:15:05 - 00:22:31:14
Kevin Eikenberry
I just want the six sessions that are personally focused. I just want the six sessions that are enterprise focus. You can get it all or you can pull out those pieces. You can do that. And when you go to virtual leader, contact com to get your free registration, you can get all the information about how to get that greater value.

00:22:31:17 - 00:23:10:09
Kevin Eikenberry
That comes from being able to either see the sessions you missed or, to review those sessions later, or to get the extra benefit of transcripts and summaries and other key takeaways that come from with the paid package. The other thing that you can do is think about how you could use that across your organization. Right? We can have a conversation with you about how you could license that content to put in your LMS, to use specific sessions, to use with your within your organization and other sorts of development activities that you're doing.

00:23:10:11 - 00:23:25:15
Kevin Eikenberry
We talk with organizations about or enterprises about doing that. We'd certainly happy to have that conversation with you. And that can come after you can say, hey, that might be interesting to us, but we need to see what you're really talking about. Kevin. We don't have to. That decision doesn't have to be made before the live event either.

00:23:25:17 - 00:23:42:19
Kevin Eikenberry
I think there's only one more thing I want to say about the live event. And because I think if there were people, who were with me, if I were interviewing, participants that have been here, they'd say, Kevin, there's two things probably about virtual leader time that you haven't mentioned. And one is that it's all the things you said, Kevin.

00:23:43:00 - 00:24:04:12
Kevin Eikenberry
It's also a lot of fun. And one of the reasons that it's fun is that, over the course of the four days, over the course of the 12 guests, over the course of the sessions with me in the morning and the sessions to debrief in the afternoon, we give a lot of free stuff away. We give away some of our books.

00:24:04:14 - 00:24:24:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Most of our our guests will have donated books to give away or have other opportunities to things that they're going to give away. I give away other books from my library like, we give away a lot of free stuff. And so it's a chance to learn. It's a chance to grow. It's a chance to have some fun, and it's a chance to get some free stuff.

00:24:24:16 - 00:24:48:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Seems like a pretty good combination to me. It's all at virtual leader contact. Com I hope you will, go learn more. Check out the agenda, sign up for yourself. And, you know that I always end these shows with the episodes with the now what question. And so the only now what right now is what will you do that is to go and sign up for Virtual Leader Con because you're out.

00:24:48:21 - 00:25:08:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Nothing to sign up. It's completely free. Find at least one slot from there that you find valuable. You think you will find valuable and put it on your calendar. And I will be willing to nearly guarantee if you do that early in the week, you're going to try to find time for at least one more later in the week.

00:25:08:02 - 00:25:24:11
Kevin Eikenberry
I hope you'll join us for a virtual virtual leader con. Hope you'll invite other leaders in your organization, whether that sort of in a formal sort of way, like we sort of talked about or just informally saying, hey, here's an opportunity, here's a resource that's available to you that we want to give you, that you have access to.

00:25:24:13 - 00:25:39:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Virtual leader contact. Com. I hope to see you there. And I hope to see you back here next week for another episode. Back to our normal process of me having a guest next week on the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. We'll see you then.