Operating Out of Greatness, with Lolly Daskal – Episode 189 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Speaker, author, and Founder/CEO of Lead From Within, Lolly Daskal, digs into filling in your gaps, standing in your greatness, owning who you are, the need to R.E.T.H.I.N.K., how capabilities + competence = confidence, the need to give up control to lead more effectively, and realizing that greatness is not a destiny only granted to a few.

About Lolly:

Lolly Daskal is one of the most sought-after executive leadership coaches in the world. Her extensive cross-cultural expertise spans 14 countries, six languages and hundreds of companies.

As founder and CEO of Lead From Within, her proprietary leadership program is engineered to be a catalyst for leaders who want to enhance performance and make a meaningful difference in their companies, their lives, and the world. Based on a mix of modern philosophy, science, and nearly thirty years coaching top executives, Lolly’s perspective on leadership continues to break new ground and produce exceptional results.

Of her many awards and accolades, Lolly was designated a Top-50 Leadership and Management Expert by Inc.com, and a 100 Great Leadership Speakers for Your Next by Inc. magazine. Huffington Post honored Lolly with the title of The Most Inspiring Woman in the World. Her writing has appeared in HBR, Inc.com, Fast Company (Ask The Expert), Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, and others.

Lolly has published the Wall Street Journal bestseller The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness, as well as her previous bestseller, Thoughts Spoken From the Heart.

Learn more at LollyDaskal.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host
Lolly Daskal, she’s an amazing woman. First of all, she is one of the most popular writers for Inc, and she has over 1.2 million Twitter followers. It’s probably more than that even by now. She’s written for HBr, Fast Company, Huffington Post Psychology Today. And she writes almost exclusively pretty much exclusively on leadership, and she is the CEO of Lead From Within. And her first book, it’s called The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness. She’s here with me today by special invite. So Lolly, welcome to the show.

Lolly Daskal
I have been looking forward to this. And thank you for inviting me. I’m looking forward to our conversation.

Host
Yeah, well, and I know you’ve had some pretty big honors, I mean, being in the top 50 leadership and management expert by Inc. I saw it one point that Huffington Post called you the most inspiring woman in the world, which is pretty cool. So I was curious about who inspires you.

Lolly Daskal
So I’ve been inspired by three particular people. And guess what never met them. The first one is Viktor Frankl. I read his book, The Man’s Search for Meaning. And it changed my life. I read another book by Joseph Campbell. And it changed my life. I read a book by Carl Gustav Jung, and it changed my life. Now these three mentors have shaped who I am, and what I do in the world, how I coach how I do business consulting. And actually, because of them, I’ve taken their three teachings and implemented into, you know, the service that I do for others. And this was what inspired my system. And now I write about my system in the leadership gap.

Host
In terms of the leadership gap, what would you say is different or new, or what’s sort of the unique slant or the angle or the what’s the what is the part that forwards the thinking of what’s been written already on leadership?

Lolly Daskal
So there are two parts very particular parts, what makes this book different number one is most of you don’t know, maybe none of you know, but I read a book a day, and I read about leadership, and I read about business, and most of the books will talk to you about how most of the books will tell you when, and where. And recently, we had a book will tell you even why. And what I found is, especially in philosophy, most of the writings about how to take us to greatness and how to succeed, talks about who you are being. And so I decided that I was going to write my book about who you are being while you are living and while you are living. So that’s one difference. Number two is is that I have found that there are also books about archetypes and personas and traits and skills about leadership. Or what I haven’t found anywhere in a leadership book or in a business book, that will teach you that you’re very seen strengths can have a weakness, and instead of saying, let’s not concentrate on the weakness, I teach you how to leverage that weakness. I call those weaknesses, the gaps. And so this book teaches you that you are a whole person in order to succeed in order to stand in your greatness in order to do the things you want to do in the world. You need to own all of who you are, in order to be a whole person. And that’s what this book is about. It teaches you that you have both a light in the dark, the shadows and the greatness. And once you learn how to leverage it and own it, and you take responsibility for it, you can get what you want in life.

Host
So I want to come back to that one here in a second. But what are some of the things in terms of a leader and who they are and how they are living? What are some of those kind of key things you think who you should be being when you’re being a great leader?

Lolly Daskal
Great question. I’m so happy you asked that. But one of the things that I want to talk about is let’s go back a little deeper than that before I answer that question, great leaders in order for them to change the world around them, right? They that’s what we call them great leaders, they must start by changing from within. That’s where it starts. I think that great leaders have the ability to rethink, and I’m using that word in particular because we think is an acronym, the seven archetypes of my book because it’s all about the WHO YOU JUST and who you need to be. And because they’re able to rethink util lies that system, there are constantly learning, changing and growing as leaders. So Vaughn is the secret sauce, the ability to rethink because this is what it is, in my system the rethink system, you can be. So take seven archetypes, right. And if you take the first archetype, you can either stand in your greatness, or you can lead from your gaps. My archetypes are different. Because it’s situational, we don’t lean into one part of who we are, we lean into all parts of who we are. And so if you learn the rethink system and the seven archetypes, let’s start with the first one. And people will recognize themselves in the first one. So the first one is the rebel in the reefing system. It’s someone who wants to make an impact on the world, but someone who wants to do something significant, they don’t want to follow the status quo. In order to make that happen, they have to have the characteristic of having confidence. Now, when I talk about confidence, I’m not talking about standing in front of the mirror and saying, I’m the best, I’m the greatest. This is not about ego. This is not even about affirmations. When I talk about confidence, I’m talking about capabilities plus competence, equal confidence. Confidence, is believing you’re able, right, we believe we’re able, but competence is knowing your angle. And that is a game changing. When you know you’re able to do something you feel confident. But every leader, every person that isn’t a rebel, who has confidence, there is what we call a gap. And the gap is of someone who feels like an imposter who has self doubt. It’s the person that wants to do amazing things, who wants to take themselves to the next level. But there were six negative messages in their mind that say, I don’t deserve both. I’m not the smartest if they only knew, maybe I don’t, you know, I want to do that. But I didn’t know how to do that. And I’ll never learn how to do that I’m too scared. It’s often these little things that we say to ourselves, that keeps us from standing in our greatness. And so when you find that this happens to us, we have the choice in the moment to say, Where do I stand in my greatness? Or will I allow my gaps to lead? And that’s why this is so important to know this system, because it’s a game changer. When in the moment, you can ask yourself the question, because sometimes if you lead from being an imposter and having self doubt, you don’t do the things you want to do in life. It’s the rebel that actually experiences the imposter. Now, this system created after coaching 1000s and 1000s of people every time I talked about confidence, this whole thing about self doubt and feeling like an imposter kept emerging and did happen with the same with all the other archetypes. Every time I mentioned a certain characteristic that they needed to be as great leaders, he would say what if only I didn’t feel self doubt, if only I didn’t have this gap that own and that’s how the system emerged. It was from the feedback of those that I coached and those that I was working with, that they kept telling me about what they were struggling with. In my research, I have found that 99.9% high achieving individuals suffer from the imposter syndrome. So that’s the are so what about the E. So the next one in the rethink is the Explorer. The Explorer is someone who wants to go into uncharted waters, who wants to do something different. But in order to be able to do that they need to be fueled by intuition. Because intuition and science talks about allowing things to flow. In order to allow things to flow, you have to let go of something in order to let something new come in. But for every single explorer who uses their intuition, there is a gap of the exploiter who manipulates and you might be sending Wally that’s a very harsh shadow. That’s very harsh GAAP, but I’d like to explain how it plays out. And see when you use your intuition, you let go of control. And people have a hard time letting go of control. If you need to control everything you need to have it your way and only your way. You might not realize it but you might be exploiting people or weaknesses or just to get your way you might manipulate someone nobody wants to call themselves an exploiter or a manipulator. But if people are honest with themselves, when they need to have control, they might stand in this gap. And this gap can end up costing partnerships, relationships and business and especially leadership. So we have to be very mindful to see can we learn to let go of control and allow ourselves to let things come in? Or do we need to control things and end up maybe sounding like an exploiter for manipulates so that’s a very important archetype to be aware of. Be excited All leaders are ones that need to manipulate in order to get what they want. But the Explorer doesn’t do that in order to get what they want. They let go of what they think they need to have, and allow what they want to come in. Let me just explain something about intuition that I want to share. I have found over the years, that intuition I know people talk about intuition as being like a sixth sense, it’s about your gut feeling. But what we found about intuition is is that in our brains, we have like chips in our brains, where we store nemaline, your own store experiences. And intuition means that all those chips are coming together when we need an answer. And then all the sudden, we’re saying, Wow, that makes sense. And it’s not because all of a sudden, we got it out of the thin air. No, it’s all of the experiences and all the challenges and all the habits and all the actions that we’ve taken is in our mind, and when we need an answer, the computer in our brain goes through all the chips and says do it this way. Anybody ever notices that? When you have intuition? It’s usually five words or less, it sounds like follow it to it. Now, the moment you add, because or thick the word, it’s not your intuition, it stops being intuition. So for me, I know when someone is really speaking from intuition is when it’s short, a short sentence, and they don’t use the word because.

Host
If you realize that you are in need of too much control, how do you get yourself to come to that place of letting go?

Lolly Daskal
Great question. I love that question. The thing about it is, it’s almost like when you have a bad habit, like how do you break a bad habit? Right, you have to introduce something new, that you normally wouldn’t try. So for a leader, who’s in needs control, I’ve seen this hundreds of times, I’ve seen this in organizations where a leader is always telling people what to do. My coaching is Have you tried maybe listening instead, where leader always thinks they know the answer. And they’re always like, this is how it needs to be, I suggest to a leader, maybe saying out loud, I don’t know, can you teach me. So it’s kind of opening up the path for trying something new, in order to see if you get the same return, right? Because a leader that’s always constantly when I’ve seen this exploiting and manipulating employees to numb out after a while, they stopped working as hard as they should. And they tune them out. And most likely, they’re looking for other jobs. Because these days people don’t you know, in my days, people stay 25 years, 30 days in a job these days. If you have a boss, if you have a leader who’s constantly manipulating and exploiting you, you’re leaving that job. And so the greatest leaders, as I said earlier, have the ability to rethink right? To go into find out which kind of archetype they are. And they’re open to learning and growing and changing. That’s how you let go of control. nellen Say something not everybody wants to do that. The knee has to come within the leader, the leader has to be able to recognize that the need for control is not getting them the results that they want. And that’s when a leader says can you tweak it? Can you change it? How can I leverage this? What do I need to do?

Host
So basically, the leader has to take the first step of admitting, hey, there’s a there’s a shadow here or there’s a darkness that I have to sort of work through?

Lolly Daskal
Or a leader will never say that out loud. A leader will say to me more. You know what, I’m not making the kind of revenue I want. Our business is losing money. Pete my best people are leaving the top performers are not staying. What’s usually what a leader will come to me and say, it is only then then I asked them, What responsibility do you play in that? Most of them will say nothing, it’s not my fault. And then I say leadership starts going work, boom, it starts with you, you need to set the example. Now let’s find out are you standing in your greatness or your gaps in which one of these gaps is costing you in the kind of business that you really want?

Host
Does every person have these gaps?

Lolly Daskal
So we have all of these within us. These are the patterns that I’ve seen over three decades of working with leaders around the world. So we have all of them. Do we tend to lean towards one or another? We tend to but these archetypes are not about like Myers Briggs or like Strength Finders or the discs. These archetypes are situational. So if you’re having a meeting with someone, the archetype of the truth teller, or the archetype of the deceiver, you know comes up and you could ask yourself, will I be the truth teller in this me Meanwhile, I tell them the whole truth that maybe things aren’t going okay? Or will I tell them half lies, and they’ll catch on that part parts of me are deceiving them, which will create suspicion. Or you could be in, you know, you could have a conversation with someone, and maybe you need to be the hero instead of the bystander. So they’re more situational than they are, okay? I’m only one archetype. And that’s, that’s what I lean into.

Host
So is that the, that’s the third, the third archetype is the truth teller.

Lolly Daskal
The third archetype is the truth teller. And I think for people that are running businesses and want to take themselves to the next level, is very important to tell the truth and to be a truth teller. I’m sure we have recognize the truth tellers in our lives, because it’s almost like they have a duty to always tell us the truth. They always love to speak with candor. But as we know that a truth teller has a gap, when they’re scared to tell you the truth. They tend to tell you hoc truths, and they become deceivers because they withholding information. And when people withhold information, people become very suspicious, they become very paranoid. We know that when you don’t tell the whole truth, people are busy making up stories, oh, I know what’s really going on. And then it gets out of control. So we have to be very mindful, are we going to tell people the whole truth and tell them the bad news that we need to tell them and maybe ask them to be part of the solution, or will be end up deceiving them and maybe cause suspicion among our teams and our businesses? And it ends up costing us on what we really want to create.

Host
Okay, so what’s the H?

Lolly Daskal
H is the hero. And I believe that within each of us, there is a hero, because what is the hero, the hero is someone who feels fearful, right? Who’s scared, who’s frightened, but they’re courageous. Anyway, as we know, there’s a great book that says, feel the fear and do it anyway. So that’s the hero. But for every hero that exists, there is a gap. And the gap is of the bystander, who is fearful. When you’re a bystander, you see something, but you do nothing. You hear something, and you say nothing. How many times in our lives? And have we been been standards? How many times in our lives? Could could we have said something or done something and we don’t do it? So question that I asked everyone is then when they need to do the hero? Are they courageous? Or are they allowing their fear to lead them? And then they end up being the bystander in their lives?

Host
OK, so what’s after hero? What’s the I?

Lolly Daskal
I is the Inventor. It’s about their craft, how do they create the craft? What do they do with their craft? They do it with integrity, that means that everything that they do they do with excellence. That means that if you expect something from them, it’s going to be quality, then inventor has a bar, and the gap is of a destroyer, who’s corrupt? And you might be saying, Oh, that’s very harsh. But I want to explain what I mean. But a mean by man, is it someone that says, let’s do this faster? Let’s do this cheaper, let’s cut corners, nobody will ever know. And the truth is, it does come out, you end up paying a price, and we come across as a destroyer who is pull up. So you will always have a choice to ask yourself if I am going to do anything in the world. Will I do it from integrity? Or will I do it from the parts of being corrupt? Or will I do it on the parts of being a destroyer? And we don’t want that. But when we are stressed out when we are challenged, we tend to live in our gaps. We want to just do things to get them done. People end up costing us in our success and in our greatness. It’s very important to always be mindful at everything that you do to ask yourself the greatness or the gaps.

Host
Well, that is five of them, my friends, which if you want the other two, the last two, you’re gonna have to buy the book because we are out of time. The leadership gap is the name of the book. Lolly I do have one other question for you. Before we do that, where should people go if they want to connect with you and learn more?

Lolly Daskal
So as of now, theleadershipgapbook.com And you can always find me at lollydaskal.com. And I really like to connect people so you can find me on Twitter at Lolly Daskal blocked me tweet me retweet me and I will do the same.

Host
So my last thing for you Lolly is I mean you you literally write like 100 articles a month. You’re reading a book a day you got this book coming out. If I’m listening for the first time, what is the first action that you would encourage people to take if they’re realizing I haven’t been leading from a place of greatness?

Lolly Daskal
Well, the first thing I would like to share with people that if you are truly looking for the some of your greatness, stop asking ourselves, what do I want to do? And instead we should ask ourselves, who do I want to be? That’s number one. Greatness is not only a destiny that is only granted for you, but it’s a choice that’s available to everyone. And this is what I need. A choice is action that we do. It’s a decision that we make. And if we know greatness is within us, then in every given moment, when we are challenged, when we have difficulty when we have stress, or how we show up, we can always be mindful to ask ourselves, are we standing in our greatness? Or are we leading from our gaps?

Host
Lolly, thank you for your continuous stream of inspiration and education and gosh, we just wish you the best of luck and good good things for you in the leadership gap.

Lolly Daskal
Amen.