The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:17 - 00:00:47:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Surrender doesn't sound like a word for leaders. I mean, why surrender? And what are we surrendering? It's counterintuitive, at least. And maybe it's even sacrilegious. Yet I think your perspective will be different in 30 or so minutes. And when you do, you'll be glad you were here. Welcome to an important conversation, and welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders like you grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for your team, your organization, and the world.

00:00:47:14 - 00:01:18:02
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast in the future, you could join us for live streaming opportunities. Yes, these are live streamed before they get to the podcast. And in many cases like today a couple of months earlier, you can find out when they're happening and how you can get connected by being involved in one of the groups that we have on two of the platforms where these live stream, those being Facebook and LinkedIn, you can just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to learn more.

00:01:18:05 - 00:01:40:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Get the inside scoop and know when you can join us live! We'd love to have you do those things now, if you like what you're hearing today and you want help in developing the leaders in your organization, we should talk. Reach out to us by going to info at Kevin I can B.Com and we'll schedule a time to learn about your needs and share how we might be able to help.

00:01:40:14 - 00:02:00:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And with that, let me bring in my guest. Her name is Jessica Kriegel. She is our guest today. I'm so glad that she's here. And somehow her description or her bio didn't make it where it's supposed to be, so I'm going to do it this way. Jessica is a workplace culture expert, a keynote speaker, and a researcher.

00:02:00:22 - 00:02:29:01
Kevin Eikenberry
As a chief strategy officer at Culture Partners. She leads research that challenges outdated ideas about control, power, and performance, offering new, bold frameworks that drive real business results. She's the host of the CEO Daily Brief and Culture Leader's podcast, is a frequent guest on CNN, Fox business and others. She has an MBA and a doctorate in leadership with a specialization in Human Resources Development.

00:02:29:03 - 00:02:53:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Her first book, Unfairly Labeled, breaks down generational myths in the workplace. I'm all in for that. Her new book, which is the focus of our conversation today, is Surrender to Lead. It comes out in January of 2026, and, she lives in Sacramento. She drives a motorcycle, and, her daughter rides in a sidecar. I think that's how that all goes.

00:02:53:23 - 00:02:56:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Jessica, welcome. Glad you're here.

00:02:56:14 - 00:03:01:07
Jessica Kriegel
Hi. Thanks for having me. It looks like the bio was right where you needed it. You nailed it.

00:03:01:09 - 00:03:04:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Did you get. Did I get anything wrong there?

00:03:04:06 - 00:03:06:03
Jessica Kriegel
No. Perfect.

00:03:06:05 - 00:03:26:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay. Awesome. All right, so I teased it with that word. It's the first word in the title of the book, surrender. So why don't we start there? What are you actually talking about? When we talk about the word surrender? Why are we putting that word in a book about leadership?

00:03:26:14 - 00:03:49:14
Jessica Kriegel
It's such a good question. I I. Let me tell you where I got the idea to write the book. I like to listen to a lot of different podcasts. And sometimes when I'm listening to podcasts, I'll fall asleep, and then I'll wake up after my nap. And the podcast is still going in my ear. And one day, I woke up from my nap and I don't even know what I was listening to anymore.

00:03:49:14 - 00:04:26:14
Jessica Kriegel
But the first thing I heard upon awakening was. And that's the difference between management and surrender. And it felt like I had this sudden revelation of all the things I had been studying and trying to figure out in my work life and my research and my personal life. It all came together. So what we mean by surrender and why we would talk about it in a leadership context, is that I think a lot of leaders suffer from a delusion, a delusion that they have much more control over the world, around them than they actually do.

00:04:26:16 - 00:04:49:23
Jessica Kriegel
Especially it can be confusing and a hierarchical structure in corporations. There's, you know, a pyramid and there's a power point somewhere with your name at the top and other people's names that are underneath you in that little pyramid. And so it seems like you're in control of them, and your job is to tell them what to do, manage the activity, keep track of what progress is made through dashboards and KPIs.

00:04:49:23 - 00:05:20:02
Jessica Kriegel
Have meetings, pep talk them you know, have riffs when you need to have riffs and manage all of it. And I think that leaders overreach in their effort to drive results into areas of control that they don't actually have. So what I'm suggesting in Surrender to Lead is that we start with accepting reality on realities, terms, and we surrender to what's actually going on.

00:05:20:04 - 00:05:46:04
Jessica Kriegel
And what's actually going on is you may be the director of a team, and you got 4000 people reporting into you, and your paycheck is bigger than theirs. But every single person on that team has free will, and they are going to opt into the collective work of this organization or not. And when leaders are trying to get their team to to do something, I think the definition of leadership is to create movement.

00:05:46:04 - 00:06:05:09
Jessica Kriegel
When leaders try to create movement, they usually get stuck in the action trap. The action trap is this endless cycle of activity that feels like progress, but really doesn't move the needle of doing things. We know results come from action and so we got to focus on action. Did you have the call? Did you track the call? Did you have the meeting?

00:06:05:09 - 00:06:26:21
Jessica Kriegel
Did you you know all of that action focus is the the delusion that you can control what they do. And instead to surrender. To lead is to realize that all you can really control is yourself. And the way that you show up and the experiences you're creating for people and the experiences you create for people will drive the beliefs that they have.

00:06:26:21 - 00:06:47:00
Jessica Kriegel
And people take action based on the beliefs that they hold. It's not the processes and procedures that create change, it is the people will act in alignment with what they believe. So we have to surrender that. We can't control people, places or things. We have to take accountability for what we can control, which is the experiences we create for people.

00:06:47:02 - 00:07:05:06
Jessica Kriegel
And when you think of leadership that way, it actually becomes a lot less stressful and a lot more powerful because you're empowering people to show up and surprise you with the discretionary effort that you couldn't got out of them. If you lead with that command and control approach.

00:07:05:08 - 00:07:23:13
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, I've been talking about this for a long time. And I told you before we started how much I like this book. And, and I've been talking about some of these same ideas, not necessarily with all of the same language issue for a long time. And one of the things I've come to. So let me just make an observation.

00:07:23:14 - 00:07:43:21
Kevin Eikenberry
You can tell me what you think. Like, I think human beings have challenges with control. First of all, yeah, but as leaders, we have another layer of that. And I think part of it comes by how we promote people. Like we pick people who have gotten good results. We promote people that are the subject matter experts that had the answers.

00:07:43:23 - 00:07:50:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And so why wouldn't they think that's what they're supposed to keep doing, right?

00:07:50:06 - 00:08:16:16
Jessica Kriegel
Yeah. And and it it actually does work to lean into that skill set when you're in individual contributor and trying to create success for yourself. I did it for the first 20 years of my career. So did my coauthor, Joe Terry. I mean, we are taught that we can manifest reality by putting our head down and doing hard work, and the more we try, the better we will be and the more success we will create.

00:08:16:18 - 00:08:40:00
Jessica Kriegel
And so that works to a point. But control has a ceiling, right? That ceiling. We are past that ceiling. When you've got hundreds or thousands of people reporting into you, and the pace of change is so fast that technology is changing, the competitive landscape is changing, political dynamics are changing. Everything is changing so fast, and you can't control all of that.

00:08:40:02 - 00:09:04:02
Jessica Kriegel
So it actually is quite a relief. And I wrote this book right now because I think that this is a message that people are yearning for right now is the ability to let go, let go of the expectations, let go of your need to have things the way that you want them to be, which is, you know, you made the point that this is all humans struggle with control.

00:09:04:03 - 00:09:24:00
Jessica Kriegel
It is a fear response. When we are afraid, we try and manage things to make the fear go away. And, corporations are a fear based institution. We're afraid we're going to get left behind. We're afraid we're going to get replaced. We're afraid we're going to become irrelevant. So fear is driving a lot of that micromanagement that happens.

00:09:24:02 - 00:09:41:20
Jessica Kriegel
And it's not just micromanagement, because I think micromanagement is almost a term of the 90s at this point, but just simply thinking, you know better and just simply telling people what to do and expecting that's enough to get them to do it. If it were that easy, we wouldn't need all these leadership books right?

00:09:41:22 - 00:10:02:11
Kevin Eikenberry
I want to I want to whisper into the ear of everyone who's listening, or to many of the people who are listening, because Jessica said a few minutes ago, that, you know, if you're leading, an organization of a thousand or 4000 or 5000, and I would just say everything she said applies if you're leading five, not just yeah, maybe it's big, it's bigger, or it seems like a bigger stretch.

00:10:02:13 - 00:10:32:01
Kevin Eikenberry
It's a group is bigger. But once you make that move from individual contributor to leader, whatever the size of the group, it's everything that we're talking about today is absolutely 100% relevant. And quite honestly, the earlier you figure out how to manage what we're talking about and or let go of the things we're talking about today, the more success for you will be, however many are in your span of.

00:10:32:03 - 00:10:55:09
Kevin Eikenberry
I can't even use the word span of control in this conversation. In in your organization. Right. So, you talk, you and Joe in the book talk about what's called the surrender, what you guys call the surrender shift. And this puts, this puts some, some process and some behavior behind the sort of the mindset that you've led, out with here.

00:10:55:14 - 00:11:06:23
Kevin Eikenberry
So let's talk about those five things I've got, I can show them on the screen as you talk about them. Let's just talk about them at a high level. So people have a sense about what you mean. And I'm going to ask questions about a couple of them.

00:11:07:01 - 00:11:35:08
Jessica Kriegel
Yeah. So I mean, leaders do have jobs, right. And your job is to create clarity, alignment and accountability. And the book walks through how to do those things very practically with specific tools to allow you to do that. But before you can start doing that, you have to come from a surrendered mindset. And the shift model is how you get your head right so that you can then lead with clarity, alignment, and accountability.

00:11:35:10 - 00:11:58:12
Jessica Kriegel
So the shift model is, it's a simple acronym to get you to shift from being in the control mindset to the surrendered mindset. The book also has an assessment that you can take to see how much of a surrendered leader you are. I'm 80% surrendered leader, so I still got work to do. Okay? We're not we're all on a spectrum and probably on my bad days, I drop below 80%.

00:11:58:12 - 00:12:02:13
Jessica Kriegel
Right? But let's start with shifts. So the good news is for on.

00:12:02:13 - 00:12:05:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Your good days, you're above 80.

00:12:05:20 - 00:12:26:22
Jessica Kriegel
Yeah, maybe I haven't got I haven't cracked the code on the assessment yet, but yeah, I think it is. I feel proud of myself. We're all a work in progress, right. So the shift mindset is the tool I use every day to help me get closer to 90 and then closer to 100, and to make sure that I'm not I'm coming from the right place.

00:12:27:00 - 00:12:53:17
Jessica Kriegel
So stands for Stop Fighting Reality. And this, I think, is one of the hardest ones in leadership in business today, because there are so many things that we wish were different, that we wish were not the way that they are. And so even within one organization, for example, let's say you're not meeting a revenue growth goal and everyone has got a person or a team that they would like to blame, a reason why that's not working out well.

00:12:53:17 - 00:13:15:11
Jessica Kriegel
The marketing team didn't give me enough sales enablement assets. Well, the sales team isn't doing enough cold calls. Well, Salesforce is not data. The data quality in Salesforce is bad. Well, the CEO is a bad attitude and no one likes him anyway. He's not creating an engagement workforce. The you know, the administration has created a difficult regulation for us to adapt to.

00:13:15:13 - 00:13:39:04
Jessica Kriegel
The clients don't understand what our product is. The product team created something that doesn't work. So we like to blame others, right? And that's just the reality. If that is your reality, that's your reality. So let's relieve ourselves of the energy that we currently spend focusing on all the things that we can't control, which is everything outside of yourself.

00:13:39:06 - 00:14:04:23
Jessica Kriegel
Just stop fighting reality. The complaints. We did research on this with our clients and we're working with, you know, fortune 500 companies all the way down to credit unions with 100 employees and 50 to 75% of teams in meetings are spending their time in that mindset of the blame game mindset, like, here's why this isn't working. It's not my fault.

00:14:05:01 - 00:14:34:12
Jessica Kriegel
So we have to stop fighting reality because it's just wasted energy. That's us. H is to have faith. And what this is, is understanding that perhaps you are not the only and smartest person in the room, that there is something bigger than you. Whether it be for me, it's my actual faith in a higher power, or if you're not spiritual, it can be the collective intelligence of the people on your team that you have faith in.

00:14:34:14 - 00:14:53:00
Jessica Kriegel
And if you think you've hired a bunch of people that you can't have faith in, then let me ask you this question. Ask yourself, what is the source of all good? What is the source of all good? And then have faith in that, whatever that is. I asked my mom that question and she said, rhythm. And I'm like, then have faith in rhythm, mom.

00:14:53:02 - 00:15:14:23
Jessica Kriegel
Whatever it is, have faith. Because that begins to unlock the fear response that we have in the workplace that, oh, everything's going wrong. I have to blame these people and I'm afraid I'm going to get blamed. So we have to have faith to start to unclench and get out of that fight or flight. Then the eye is identify what's yours.

00:15:15:01 - 00:15:34:11
Jessica Kriegel
And this is where we start to channel our energy productively. So you've let go of the blame game. You've started to ground yourself in a place that isn't fear. You have faith in something. And now what can you do? I mean, the question is, as a leader, you do have a job here. After all, what is yours? What is within your control?

00:15:34:13 - 00:15:59:23
Jessica Kriegel
So ask yourself that question with regards to these bad results that we're getting. And then the example I gave bad revenue growth goals. What can I control about that. And just focus on you. Because that is the only thing that you actually can control. Once you've done that, you have to revisit the fear approach because you will have some ideas about what you can control.

00:15:59:23 - 00:16:24:16
Jessica Kriegel
But that fear will continue to creep up and you have to free yourself from fear. Now, how do you for yourself, from fear? It is through. Is is the touchy feely part coming from a place of love? If you come from a place of love, even in the workplace, it completely shifts the way you problem solve. So excuse me, I obviously I've lost my voice, so my voice is a little crackly today.

00:16:24:18 - 00:16:46:17
Jessica Kriegel
But to free yourself from fear when we talk about love in the workplace, it's not romantic love. Obviously, we're talking about agape love. And agape love is, you know, the way Saint Thomas Aquinas defined it, which is to will the good of another. If you were to put your mindset into how you can will the good of another, instead of the ego mindset of how do I get what's mine?

00:16:46:21 - 00:17:12:17
Jessica Kriegel
How do I take and put yourself in a mindset of give will? Then you have set yourself up for T, which is the last letter in the shift framework, which is to take the next right action. Putting yourself in that mindset, having focused on what you can control, freeing yourself from fear. Now you can make a decision. A grounded, centered decision about what the next right action is.

00:17:12:19 - 00:17:31:09
Jessica Kriegel
And that is the opposite of the action trap which most leaders go to, which is we got to get a result. What action do we need to get a result? Let's start taking that action. More action, more hustle. And that wears people out. And it does actually move the needle. We did research on this was Stanford graduate Business School Company.

00:17:31:09 - 00:17:53:03
Jessica Kriegel
Second the action trap can grow, but the companies that unlocked themselves out of the action trap and shifted their mindset to the surrender mindset, they were able to outperform the action trap companies by four times revenue growth in the course of three years. So it unlocks potential you didn't even know was there.

00:17:53:05 - 00:18:18:13
Kevin Eikenberry
How do you help us understand? I mean, I've read the book, so I mean, an advantage over those who are listening. Help us help everyone understand the difference between just the action trap and what you actually hear. Calling the right next action. Both. I've been talking about the action, so help people see the difference here, because those words in this step are critical.

00:18:18:13 - 00:18:20:13
Kevin Eikenberry
I think to your point.

00:18:20:15 - 00:18:21:11
Jessica Kriegel
Absolutely.

00:18:21:11 - 00:18:22:23
Kevin Eikenberry
So,

00:18:23:01 - 00:18:44:23
Jessica Kriegel
Change is everywhere right now and leaders are struggling with how to change. Change their people, change the results, change the company in response to what's going on. And so what do people usually do? Well, if they want to get change activated within their company, they start with a plan. They create a strategy or a roadmap. Then they communicate that plan.

00:18:44:23 - 00:19:08:05
Jessica Kriegel
They tell everyone, here's the plan. Then they realize it's not working. We got to check in with people and figure out why isn't it working? So they set up a bunch of meetings, and they have conversations with people about why aren't you implementing our plan? And then they need to track progress on the plan. So they do KPIs and dashboards, and then when it's still not working, people blame culture.

00:19:08:05 - 00:19:36:16
Jessica Kriegel
And they say, the problem is we've got these entitled Gen Zers and they just don't know how to operate. And all of these things that they're doing are just throwing more action at the solution because they're they're short sighted. They're thinking, well, my plan should work. Let's just get everyone to do the plan. But that's the control mindset, where you think you can control people into showing up the way you need them to show up, but people will act in alignment with what they believe.

00:19:36:18 - 00:20:03:13
Jessica Kriegel
And so if you want to create that movement, you have to operate at the belief level. Ask yourself this simple question what are the currently held beliefs that are getting in the way of us achieving our results at this company? The shared beliefs that are preventing us from being successful. And ask your team that question and you're going to learn something about why the actions haven't been working.

00:20:03:15 - 00:20:25:01
Jessica Kriegel
And when you ask that question, there's the next follow up question is, what do we need those beliefs to be? And when you understand the current beliefs that are blocking you from progress and the beliefs that are required for people to hold in their hearts, well, then you can take the next right action. So it's about filtering all of the action.

00:20:25:01 - 00:20:52:02
Jessica Kriegel
We could take the technology. You could implement the new shiny person that you could hire that's got experience in this. And, you know, more meetings on the calendar and figuring out what will actually work to change the hearts and minds of the people here so that they will not only take the action I think they should take, but they might surprise me with ideas I didn't come up with that will help us achieve our goal that align with our mission.

00:20:52:02 - 00:20:54:09
Jessica Kriegel
That's the difference.

00:20:54:11 - 00:21:21:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I love that. I think it's really there's really good stuff there. Jessica, I want to make an observation because you mentioned that four letter word that starts with L called love, which is all through this book, by the way. So we're talking with Jessica Kriegel, the coauthor of Surrender to Lead and, as it turns out, if you're listening to this podcast, last week's episode, we talked about love as a change strategy.

00:21:21:16 - 00:21:50:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And if you're watching this, it was just yesterday live. And in that conversation, Jessica, one of the things that we talked about, I talked with Mohamed about was the idea to embrace discomfort. And I think there's so much of what you've said here that requires us to do that. So I'm just curious how what your reflections are on those on that comment from him of embracing discomfort.

00:21:50:07 - 00:21:55:16
Kevin Eikenberry
How does that connect with what you've been saying? What we've been talking about?

00:21:55:18 - 00:22:23:03
Jessica Kriegel
I love that question. And surrender is very uncomfortable. And, certainly bringing love to the workplace as a concept is also very uncomfortable. But why is it uncomfortable? Because we are coping with the fear that we have about not making the results, about not being relevant, about not getting what we want, or about losing something that we have to drive our momentum forward.

00:22:23:05 - 00:22:47:00
Jessica Kriegel
And so to surrender is to say maybe, I don't know, best. Maybe there's another way that I haven't thought of that I can't control that I'm going to create room for. And I may be surprised. And that's its own level of discomfort and its own level of fear. And so I completely agree. There's a story in the book about a CEO of Service Express.

00:22:47:02 - 00:23:23:22
Jessica Kriegel
His name is Ron Alva staffer, and he took that company from $3 million to $300 million by embracing the power of love. He was a guy that was completely caught up in telling people what to do driving action, you know, discipline, execution results, results. Results were performance driven, which you hear a lot of CEOs talk about today. But to declare the culture in a pep talk like that does not translate to people embracing it, because there's a big difference between assigning responsibility and people taking accountability.

00:23:24:00 - 00:23:46:21
Jessica Kriegel
Responsibility can be assigned by someone else to you, but accountability is something that you have to take. You have to pick up that responsibility and own it. And it's a personal choice. So what Ron said in the book was love is accountability. It's saying, I love you enough to hold you accountable to what I think your full potential is.

00:23:46:23 - 00:24:03:12
Jessica Kriegel
And he even his team had t shirts made that said, Ron loves me with the intensity of a thousand suns. It doesn't mean that it's touchy feely and kumbaya circles. It means that he's willing to have hard conversations to get you where you need to be.

00:24:03:14 - 00:24:26:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And I love that. So, you're you're making another point that you talk about in the book, and you say that a lot of times, and and I certainly heard this as well, that, people will say, well, love is a soft hat, is a soft, touchy feely thing. And your point and I think you've just described it, is that love is actually a harder approach.

00:24:26:06 - 00:24:43:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. We think about it as something that is soft, and that's in fact why people say they don't want they don't buy that idea, in the workplace. And yet it's actually harder to do, and the good news is that oftentimes the things that are harder get us the best results.

00:24:43:15 - 00:24:45:06
Jessica Kriegel
Can I give you an example.

00:24:45:08 - 00:24:46:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Please?

00:24:46:20 - 00:25:08:05
Jessica Kriegel
So, years ago, I was the CRO, the head of HR for a technology company, and in my first week we went to a board meeting and I was told that we had to layoff 20% of the workforce and I was in charge. So how do layoffs typically happen in corporate America? A small group of executives are aware that it's going to happen months before it's announced.

00:25:08:05 - 00:25:24:07
Jessica Kriegel
And they control the narrative. They control the process. They decide, who are we going to lay off? When are we going to lay them off? How are we going to lay them off? How does that affect the budget? What are we going to do with the fallout? And then as they spend months preparing, it's kept very hush hush.

00:25:24:07 - 00:25:51:04
Jessica Kriegel
And then when they finally drop the ax, you know, everyone's laid off and they deal with the fallout. So when I was told I had just had a personal moment of transformation in my own life, where I was embracing surrender, and so I got this job and I felt like I couldn't do it that way, because to do it that way is to control or to overly control, and it is a fear based approach, ultimately.

00:25:51:05 - 00:26:10:15
Jessica Kriegel
So I went back and I got back from the board meeting and I told everyone on the team, I've just been informed that we need to lay off 20% of the company, and I don't know when and I don't know how and I don't know when or who, but I will keep you updated. That was love in the workplace.

00:26:10:15 - 00:26:26:19
Jessica Kriegel
It was honoring the people with the truth. And it was extremely scary because why do we not do that every time? Because we're afraid we're going to lose people we don't want to lose. We're afraid that it'll create chaos. It'll be a distraction that.

00:26:26:21 - 00:26:30:02
Kevin Eikenberry
You got to this. You got the chaos later anyway. So.

00:26:30:04 - 00:27:04:18
Jessica Kriegel
Right. Exactly. You're just delaying the inevitable. So I decided to lean into surrender. I surrendered, and I told the truth. And guess what happened? There were some people who were like, I'm out of here. And they started applying for jobs, and they got those jobs and they left. There were other people who had never had such a powerful experience with a leader, where they saw how much we were willing to trust them and be transparent with them, that it led them to hold the belief that they were safer here than out there, and they stayed.

00:27:04:20 - 00:27:26:18
Jessica Kriegel
And you know what? The company ended up right sizing itself. Enough people left of their own accord on their own terms that we didn't actually have to do layoffs. And the team that was left was so strong that we actually built the skill of adaptability, because we knew we could lean into people and say, we need to pivot.

00:27:26:18 - 00:27:34:04
Jessica Kriegel
This is happening. They were with us because they knew we were with them, you know? I mean, that's why it works.

00:27:34:06 - 00:27:35:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And they had chosen.

00:27:35:22 - 00:27:38:03
Jessica Kriegel
Yeah, they opted in.

00:27:38:05 - 00:28:07:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And the other piece of the other fear pieces underneath that is that those executives or that executives in this moment are afraid of losing person X, Y, and Z. And in the case of your situation, they may have lost person or persons. Z, but that doesn't mean that the organization still isn't stronger because of what we got from an experience and belief perspective.

00:28:07:08 - 00:28:29:06
Jessica Kriegel
Yeah. And you know, people X, Y, and Z, we did leave. We did lose some X, Y and z people that I probably wouldn't have gotten rid of. But ultimately when you zoom out and in the shift model, have faith. I had faith that it would work out the way that it needed to work out because I get to have a higher power, which is a really good gift for B in leadership.

00:28:29:08 - 00:28:51:16
Jessica Kriegel
And I think the way we show up every day is a spiritual practice, even if you don't believe in God, right? This isn't a God. Come on. But it's the practice of developing yourself and the way that you want to create meaning in the world and your integrity. And that's that is the the practice of leadership, the daily practice.

00:28:51:18 - 00:29:13:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Before I shift, Jessica, and ask you a final couple of questions, is there anything that you wish I would have asked, or you wish we would have talked about that? We did. I mean, there's plenty more in the book that we didn't talk about. I acknowledge that wholeheartedly. But is there anything specifically, as this conversation has unfolded that you'd still like to say?

00:29:13:02 - 00:29:36:12
Jessica Kriegel
I'd like to make a quick point about accountability because it takes up, you know, 12 chapters in the book or something. I don't know exactly, but it's a big chunk. And I want to give your audience a really simple tool that they can use to help drive accountability. And by accountability, I mean spreading this, this mindset of surrender so that people can drive results.

00:29:36:14 - 00:29:59:22
Jessica Kriegel
Now, a lot of the times as a leader, people will come into your office or call you on zoom or whatever, and they have a problem and they want to tell you all of the reasons this problem exists and why you need to solve their problem and to surrender is to not insert yourself into that problem, but as rather to empower the person who's come into your room to find their own solution.

00:29:59:22 - 00:30:30:07
Jessica Kriegel
Surrender the problem and surrender the solution. So here's four questions that you can ask that will allow you to do that. And the first question is what is going on? It's a great question. Let them talk. Then the second question is what about that? Can you control. And what you've done there is you've gotten them to think about how they can surrender everything that they wish was different, and to just focus on the one thing they can control, which is how they react.

00:30:30:07 - 00:30:51:11
Jessica Kriegel
And they show up. Once they are focused on themselves and what they can control, then you can say, well, what else could you try and get them to brainstorm? Because they probably spent a lot of energy thinking about others. Now they're thinking about themself. Get them to brainstorm about how they can show up differently. And the last question is, what are you going to do by when?

00:30:51:13 - 00:31:11:13
Jessica Kriegel
And they set themselves up with their own next right action. So you don't have to say the word surrender or love or even have them read this book. You can ask those four questions and it will allow you to to be from a loving space and create more results than you imagined.

00:31:11:15 - 00:31:30:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And you're modeling what you're trying to do for yourself. A couple of things, Jessica, before we finish, I actually have one answer to this question from the way I introduced you, which was the motor cycle. But I'm curious, what else you do for fun?

00:31:30:05 - 00:31:37:08
Jessica Kriegel
I dance and I read, and my favorite thing in the world to do is take my dogs for a walk.

00:31:37:10 - 00:31:39:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And we have more than one.

00:31:39:17 - 00:31:44:22
Jessica Kriegel
We have two, and they're big, so they need a lot of exercise. I walk them three times a day.

00:31:45:00 - 00:31:50:18
Kevin Eikenberry
There you go. Speaking of reading, you didn't know I was going to ask you. What are you reading now?

00:31:50:20 - 00:31:55:16
Jessica Kriegel
I'm reading, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

00:31:55:18 - 00:32:21:05
Kevin Eikenberry
All right. Awesome. We will have that in the show. Notes. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, as well as Jessica and Jo Terry's book Surrender to Lead. Both of those will be in the show notes. But beyond that, Jessica, where can we learn more? Where do you want to point people? In relationship to connecting with you and or the the stuff we've talked about in this conversation where you want to point people?

00:32:21:07 - 00:32:40:17
Jessica Kriegel
Well, if you're on LinkedIn, then please connect with me. I have a weekly newsletter they're called This Week in Culture that comes out every Wednesday and otherwise, check out the book. It's at Surrender Telecom if you're listening live. It's available for preorder now. But if it's, if you're listening to it on the pod, it's already out there.

00:32:40:17 - 00:33:08:15
Kevin Eikenberry
You go surrender to lead.com. And I can attest personally that if you reach out to her in LinkedIn, she will respond. We had a little conversation about a couple things, including something Kevin screwed up before we actually got to this point. But so, listen, before I say goodbye to Jessica and before I say goodbye to all of you, I have to ask you a question, actually, is a question of love and accountability, as it turns out.

00:33:08:19 - 00:33:29:22
Kevin Eikenberry
And the question is this now what? What action will you take now as a result of what you heard today? It's one thing to say that was a great conversation and that that that thing could be I'm going to order a book, which Jessica would love. It's not really what I asked you. You should do that. But that's not really what I'm asking.

00:33:29:22 - 00:33:50:14
Kevin Eikenberry
What I'm really asking is, what idea did you get here? That now you need to go act, And because if you leave it with with that was interesting or that was good, that's not nearly as useful as I'm going to go try that. I'm going to ask those four questions or I'm going to think about this in a new way.

00:33:50:14 - 00:34:09:20
Kevin Eikenberry
All right. I have this situation where I want to use the surrender shift. I don't know what your thing is, but what I do know is that until you act, nothing's going to change. And so it's my hope that you will do that, because my hope is that this podcast is a podcast that leads you to action and Jessica, not to napping, as it turns out.

00:34:09:22 - 00:34:15:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Jessica, thank you so much for being here. It was a pleasure to have you. Thanks again.

00:34:15:03 - 00:34:17:10
Jessica Kriegel
Thank you so much for having me.

00:34:17:12 - 00:34:36:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And with that, everybody, I promised you at the beginning that you might leave this conversation with a new perspective. I hope you did. And I also hope that if you did that, you'll come back. And if you're not subscribed, that you will subscribe. You know how to do that wherever you're watching or listening to do that. And if you've been subscribed, the other thing you could do is tell someone else to join us.

00:34:36:16 - 00:34:43:00
Kevin Eikenberry
I hope you'll do those things, and I do hope you'll be back next week with us for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.