Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
Leading with Empathy: Unpacking Leadership Lessons with Michael Morgan
Michael Morgan shares his leadership insights gained from working at major corporations including JP Morgan, Chevron, Amazon, and Walmart, revealing how effective leadership transcends titles and requires empathy, trust, and inclusion.
• Anyone can be a leader regardless of title or position
• Effective leaders show empathy rather than just pushing for metrics
• Leaders must trust their team and delegate appropriately
• Regular feedback is essential for employee growth and development
• Building relationships and trust requires personal connection and understanding individual goals
• Open door policies create cultures where people feel comfortable sharing challenges
• Mentors provide guidance while sponsors actively advocate for your advancement
• Mentees must be prepared, respectful of mentors' time, and follow through on advice
• Top leadership practices: empowering others, emotional intelligence, ensuring all voices are heard
Connect with Michael Morgan at michaelvmorgan.com or find him on LinkedIn as Michael Morgan, PMP to learn more about his speaking on networking, professional development, and leadership.
Connect with Ron
Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
Learn more about Global Core Strategies
.
.
.
.
.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...
Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host leadership consultant, ron Harvey of GlobalCore Strategies and Consulting. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, ron Harvey.
Speaker 2:Good morning. This is Ron Harvey. I'm the vice president and chief operating officer for Global Core Strategies and Consulting. I know that's a mouthful, but basically what I would like to narrow down to is we really work around professional services, leadership development, and we help our leaders be better connected to the people that actually get the job done for them. So how do we, as leaders, stay connected to the people that actually help us get stuff done? As leaders, stay connected to the people that actually help us get stuff done. We spend all of our time around there and we know if you're following everything we know. Today the world has changed drastically and leadership matters, and so we spend all of our time helping leaders be good at what they should be doing anyway every day.
Speaker 2:But I pause briefly to always do a podcast and we invite guests from around the globe with all different backgrounds to bring some of the best, I guess, things that best practices, exposure, things that they've gone through, to share with you in real time.
Speaker 2:And I always appreciate our guests because they're kind of bold and take some risk, like they don't know any of the questions, and neither do I, but we know we're going to talk leadership, so thank y'all for always tuning in to Unpacked with Ron Harvey. Every single Monday we drop an episode and it's exciting to have guests that just come on and share with you what sometimes you can't find the answer because people are so close to chess with information. This podcast we open it up. We give you enough to get you excited and curious to hopefully reach out to one of us and ask more questions. We're all in business together, so love it, and I'm excited to have the guests on today. Michael Morgan's going to come on off a mute. I'm going to hand him the microphone because I always ask our guests to introduce themselves. One. They know themselves better than I do and I don't mess up anything that they want to share.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it, ron. It's a pleasure to be on your show. I love Unpacked. I'll give a little bit of background on myself. So my name is Michael Morgan. I'm originally from New York. I've had the pleasure of having a pretty vast work experience. I've worked for JP Morgan in Delaware. I've worked for Chevron in Houston, texas. I've worked for Amazon in Seattle Washington Chevron in Houston, texas. I've worked for Amazon in Seattle Washington. I've worked for Walmart in the Bay Area of California and now I work for a cybersecurity startup. My role is fully remote. I live in Austin, texas, so I've lived a lot of places. I've worked for some great companies. I've worked across different industries financial services, oil and gas, tech, retail, cybersecurity. Today I'm still working in cybersecurity, but I'm also a published author. I published my first book last year called the Power of Networking, and I'm also a motivational speaker. So I speak at conferences, speak to universities, to organizations, to companies. So a lot on my plate, but that's just a little bit of background on myself.
Speaker 2:Hey, yeah, when I was looking at the bio, you know and all the places you know I'm a veteran. People know that you know, and so my travel comes from being in the service. But you know, with your travel, like you lived in a lot of places, almost a little like military personnel, service members, like you've lived in a lot of places. So I'm sure you're going to have a lot to share about your exposure and experiences that work across the broad spectrum of what you've done and who you are now and what you're doing. So, michael, when you think about your journey over this time, are there some things that stood out the most to you over the different organizations you've worked for, the different industries and spaces that you've worked in? How does leadership? Is there a common thread between those that you've seen as leaders that were the most effective on that journey? As you made those transitions, what did you see that was pretty common, regardless of what organization you were in, when it comes to leadership.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say two things. One, I think there's a big misconception where people assume you need to have a certain title or you need to be a people manager to be a leader. What I've noticed at every company everyone is empowered to be a leader. You can display leadership capabilities regardless of your title, regardless if you're an individual contributor, if you're a people manager, you can lead by example, you can take on responsibilities in employee resource groups, you can lead projects, you can influence people without directly managing them. So I think a lot of people just assume you have to have a certain level within a company in order to be a leader, and that, to me, I do not agree with that. I think anyone can be a leader. Secondly, me personally, what I've seen that's been effective for leaders is that leaders that have empathy.
Speaker 3:I've seen both sides of the spectrum. I've seen some leaders that will work their employees to the ground and they'll get the job done and they'll hit their metrics, but their entire team is burnt out and their team is either transitioning to another group within the company or leaving the company altogether, and now they're in a constant scramble where they're trying to fill roles. They never have enough people to fill the roles within their group and their group is always overworked. So if there's a organization let's take an example, an organization of 400 people and it's always at 250 or 300 people that are filled, so there's always 100, 150 open roles. So now you have 250 people doing the work of 400 people and they're never getting it filled to 400 because they're just continuing to just grind people into the ground. To me, a good leader is empathetic understanding. They want to make sure that their employees feel appreciated. They want to make sure their employees feel valued. They want to celebrate their success and their understanding what employees are going through and how can I better assist you? How can I add value?
Speaker 3:I've seen leaders their employees will say, hey, I'm burnt out, I'm this, I'm that. They're like all right, here's a free t-shirt. I've received so many free T-shirts at all the companies I've worked at. It's nice, but they're not listening to what their employees are saying. Let me give a one-year subscription to Headspace. Or a one-year subscription to Calm, which is a meditation app to help relieve stress and do different things to help reduce that burnout. Or hey, let me give out some gift cards. Let me tell everyone to take this day off or do something to reinvigorate your team and understand where they're coming from. So I think there's something to say about that emotional intelligence, that empathy, understanding everyone on your team is different. So if you just try to appease everyone the same way, you're going to fail. If you understand what each person's individual needs and what they're striving for, that's going to go such a long way. But I think those leaders that display that emotional intelligence and empathy go a lot further.
Speaker 2:Wow, I mean great nuggets man. A lot to unpack too. So as I'm listening, it sounds as though like the leader's doing a lot of work If they have to really understand everybody's personality, everything that motivates people. And I agree with you, Most of us got more T-shirts than we can ever probably wear. So I totally agree with that and people are not looking for more T-shirts, but it sounds like a lot of work for the leader. How does the leader get their job done if they got to do all of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say the big thing they have to trust other people. So the leaders that I've seen fail. They try to do everything and at a certain point you have to trust your employees to be able to get the job done. So when you empower others, it helps you get a lot further, as opposed to I've seen leaders that they try to get involved in every single project, every single initiative, and they're so far into the details that it's almost impossible for them to get anything done. So I mean there's a reason that you're hiring people, there's a reason you're bringing them in. Obviously, you have to regularly touch base with them and understand what's going on and get status updates, provide your thoughts, your feedback, any concerns that you may have. But a good leader is able to delegate and give work to employees and put them in a situation where they can be successful and that will get you to go very far away.
Speaker 2:How did you I mean as you climb the ladder of success? Because delegating and empowering and trusting easy to say, hard to do, because your name is on the bottom line, you're held responsible and accountable at the end of the day, your career, you work hard to get to where you are, so easier to say. So how did you manage to be more effective at delegating, empowering and trusting? What did you really do as you climb the ladder of success?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'd say it's really on a case by case basis. Okay. So I mean there's some people who've reported to me and it might be their first job out of college. Like, at that point I may want to I don't want to say like hold their hand a little bit more and just make sure that that things are being processed the right way and they're they're understanding what the deliverables are, what the goals are. Um, but some people people, if someone's been in the industry for years or been at the company for years, they understand processes.
Speaker 3:I may oversee a little bit initially just to gain that trust, but once I'm able to see the work product that an employee can do and we've earned each other's trust, we've had conversations, we're aligned on what the expectations are, what they're looking for, what I'm looking for, at a certain point I want to.
Speaker 3:To me, the best way for someone to grow is to empower them to do things their own way. So I'd say it's just kind of been trial and error a little bit. It was just me learning as a manager being thrown into the fire. But also I've been an individual contributor. I've had managers who were micromanagers and I know how it felt to have someone in every aspect of my job and me spending half my time explaining to my boss what I'm doing as opposed to just doing my job, and it wasn't good for me. So I knew that when the tables turned and I was in that position of power where I'm managing other people, that I didn't want to micromanage them either, and I wanted to take those, the lessons that I learned as an individual contributor, and I wanted to make sure that I was a better manager to other people when I was in that position.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when you think about it, michael, I mean I love the answer. And the response is knowing each person at different levels, where they are, and there's a different level of how engaged you need to be or how much you need to be hands on with those individuals. How do you get to the place of giving feedback on a regular basis? What does that look like? Because some people don't like to check in as often and they like to be, you know, hands off, not in the car. Then some people like to be right next to you so they can grab the steering wheel just in case it goes sideways. How important is it for leaders to always offer feedback, not constructive criticism? I'm not a fan of that word, but I do believe everybody deserves feedback. That's healthy for them to get better. How often should we be giving feedback as leaders?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you. I say every week. So I try to meet with my direct reports on a weekly basis and always try to help provide feedback whenever possible, just to help them grow, develop.
Speaker 3:What I've seen in my career is a lot of managers try to avoid feedback. They don't want the difficult conversations. There's a great quote that I read where it was as a manager, trying to avoid difficult conversations is like someone trying to swim and not get wet. You can't avoid that. As a manager, you are expected to give them feedback to help them grow, to help them develop.
Speaker 3:What I see is a manager will avoid feedback and then months down the road or a year down the road, they're like oh, I'm going to try to terminate this person If you haven't provided them with any feedback for a year and then all of a sudden you tell them you're putting them on a performance improvement plan and you're trying to fire them for bad performance. That's on you as a leader. Legally, you can't even fire them. You can't just blindside someone. If someone was performing bad and they're at the point where they're getting put on a performance improvement plan and potentially being pushed out of the company, they should have known that for months because you were providing them with regular feedback.
Speaker 3:So that's where I see a lot of managers failing, where they're not providing feedback. And because they're not providing feedback, employees aren't growing or they're not aware of where their performance is or where the evaluation is. So I think it's critical that you're having that constant communication, that constant feedback. Like to your point, I don't think it always has to be constructive and it has to be negative all the time. You can say things that they're doing well, but it has to be open communication where you're speaking with each other every week, if not every two weeks at a minimum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. So, michael, can you go back to a time when you were brought in externally because you've gone from company to company and you can probably speak to this really, really well and you were brought in as a leader? How did you extend trust and how did you build trust? So how did you automatically trust a team that you did not know, which can be difficult, but how did you gain the trust of the people that were now your?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'll say, to gain trust, I like to be personable, so I mean, obviously I can come in, I can give credentials of all the places I've worked and all the products I've worked on and the fact that I already have management experience to show that I have the experience to manage this team. Just get to know people as individuals it's something small that I do, but I feel like it makes a big impact where I'll take the team out for lunch or for dinner and just to get to know them on a personal basis, ask them questions, what are they looking for in their career, what are their aspirations, how can I help them get there? And the fact that I'm trying to get to know them as individuals and understand their goals and trying to help them get to their goals. To me that helps build trust, where they know that I genuinely care about them and I'm not just focused on my job, I'm focused on how can I help them in their career. So I think these are like small things that a lot of managers don't do.
Speaker 3:Honestly, I've worked on teams for years where the managers never took the team out together or the team never physically met, because it's a work that global organizations.
Speaker 3:Sometimes team can be spread out in different cities, different states, different countries. I could work on a team for two, three years and never even meet some of my colleagues. You know that's a small gesture. I've been at other companies where the team is spread out in different cities, different states and at least once a year, once every six months, we all get together for one week in the same city so we can collaborate and build relationships. It's a small gesture but it makes a huge difference to build trust and build those relationships. So that's something that I do to earn trust. That's something that I've seen other managers do for me that I felt like made a huge difference, and something that I do when I'm brought in as an external hire and now have to build trust with a new team. But I think it's really about just taking the time to understand what they're looking for and make sure that they know I'm an advocate for them and I'm working to help them get to that next level.
Speaker 2:Wow, I mean phenomenal, I mean as you think about how do you do that? Because we talk about trust a lot you know, but it is it's not explained very well how to do it. You know, people say you just got to trust your team and that's really easy to say. But if you're a new hire and you're on probation and you're worried about the results and people do use you know results and metrics or what does the data look like? You know, and sometimes if the scoreboard doesn't reflect what it should be, it's hard to delegate and power or trust because you're still on probation.
Speaker 2:There's some, there's some things that make you uncomfortable and you can tend to be more hands on than you should and that's probably where you're going to fail that because you're trying to do too much versus leveraging your entire team. How do you hold people accountable if you're conflict-averse and you have this thing that's, I don't want to deal with conflict but I need to hold people accountable, but I don't want to be mean about it. How do you hold people accountable and still be very respectful and kind, because some people think it's like you got to be this really mean person to do it effectively?
Speaker 3:I don't think you have to be a mean person at all. I think you brought up a big point that I like to leverage. Data speaks volumes. So, generally, generally, if I have people who are reporting to me, there's certain metrics that they're being held accountable to, where either they're like we're expected to bring in a certain amount of revenue, we're expected to reduce certain amount of costs, we're supposed to reduce a certain amount of cycle time, and I can show them the data like hey, this is where we were performing last year. I was expecting to see improvement. This is where we are this year. We're actually getting worse.
Speaker 3:So we need to figure out a path forward because this is not sustainable for the business. So I think I can have an open and honest conversation without getting angry, without being mean and just showing the facts. This is where we were, this is where we are today. Do you feel like this is acceptable? These are the goals that we set for the team, for the organization, and we're not hitting those numbers. What steps? How can I better assist you and put you in a situation where you can thrive and hit the goals that we've set? So I think data speaks volumes and you can show the data points and that way you can have a logical conversation without anyone getting angry, upset or being mean.
Speaker 2:I appreciate one thing I noticed as you were speaking. Every time you were talking about the individual, you said, hey, what do we? We're not meeting, and it wasn't almost like it wasn't an attack. So so what got you? We're not meeting, and it wasn't almost like it wasn't an attack. So so what got you? Because I noticed that language. Where did that language come from when you're having that kind of conversation where it's about we versus them?
Speaker 3:So I like to think big picture. I'm always thinking on behalf of the team, the organization, one of the things that I've just my personal perspective. I feel as though, if I'm able to show the success of my team and my direct reports, that reflects on me as a leader. We are one team, we are one organization. We're striving towards the same goals. So where I've seen leaders fail is they focus on themselves and if something goes wrong, I'm going to throw this person under the bus. That's not my fault. This person was managing that.
Speaker 3:If something goes well, oh, I take credit for it. I don't think that's how a successful leader should navigate. I think you should look at it as we're one team, one organization. If things go well, I'm giving an acknowledgement to my team and I want them to have success and I want them to move up, and if everyone notices how well my team is performing, it's a good reflection on me. If something goes bad, I'm going to take responsibility and I'm going to take that off of my team, and I think that's another part of building trust with the team, where they know that I'm protecting them in bad situations. If we fall short, I'm taking the heat, and in good situations. I'll make sure they get the acknowledgement and recognition to get the visibility so they can move up and get promoted and get the opportunities that they're looking for. So I try to have that we mentality and I think of it as a team and I talk to my direct reports that same way as well.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow. How did you? You know when you you think I love the process that you're walking through? Should a leader have an open door policy? And what does that look like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and that's that's one of the things that I push for the most. I always try to build a culture of inclusion where people feel comfortable talking to me about anything, whether it's whether it's work, whether it's life. Uh, one of the things that I've noticed and I'm sure you've seen this in your career as well Life happens Like people. People lose loved ones, people go through divorces, people have sick family members, and if I don't have an open door policy or if I haven't built a culture where people feel comfortable talking to me and let me know what's going on in their lives, I can't help them in different situations. So you know, I try to have an open door policy where people should feel comfortable coming up to me. If they're facing issues at work, if they're facing obstacles, reach out to me and I can escalate things and I can remove those obstacles.
Speaker 3:If you're dealing with things outside of work, let me figure out how to better delegate the deliverables across the team, because you're planning your wedding and you're taking graduate school classes and you're doing this. It's almost impossible for you to take on this level of work If we don't have that communication and if we don't have that open door policy. We can come and talk to me about this. I don't know. So I think an open door policy is really critical, like I said, and that's that's more than just work. Obviously, I want to understand what are their strengths, where there is opportunity, how we can come close those gaps, what are their goals. But I want to understand what's going on outside of work, too, because you can't bring your best self to work If you have things going outside of work that I'm not aware about.
Speaker 2:So when you, when you think about it Michael you mentioned earlier you know you, you like to get the team together, you like to get to know your team. Where is the how do? How do you feel? How would you explain? Because getting, because getting to know your team is great, but some leaders don't want the team to know them and the world, like today, society is so different where it's hard for a leader. When I grew up, it was keep your personal and your professional separate, Like never let your team see you sweat, Never let your team really get to know you, Like they only get to know you professionally. I've noticed a shift, a swing of the pendulum, Like people want to know their leader as well as leaders want to know their team. How do you help leaders that are coming in to make that adjustment that you can't be totally unknown to your workforce and expect to know everything about them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say it's OK to be vulnerable, it's OK to be authentic. I've I've shared a lot of things with some of my direct reports colleagues. I've been shared with my personal family and friends. I mean these. You spend a lot of teeth, a lot of time with your colleagues. Uh, like you said, people want to get to know you and you're naturally you're going to want to get to know them as well. So, so, don't be afraid to let down those walls. Um, obviously, keep it. Keep it for professionals. There's some levels of your personal life that you don't need to share with everybody, but there are aspects of your personal life that you can open up and share, and I think it's that's going to bring you and your team closer together. That's going to create that bond. It's going to create that trust that we talked about. So it makes a huge difference and there's nothing wrong with with sharing your personal life with others.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, love it. Transparency and being vulnerable is huge. I'm glad that you brought that up because that's a trust building factor as well. So when you think about your growth and trajectory to where you are, sometimes you think your resume got you there, your technical skills and all that stuff. What role did with having a mentor or someone that you just look at, that you can go talk to whether you call it a mentor or just informal or not formal what role did someone play in your life for you becoming who you are, from a mentor to a sponsor, to someone that just was a couple of steps ahead of you, that was pouring into you? How important was that for you? Who you are today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Um, mentors and sponsors are absolutely critical. Um, so I'm. I don't claim to know everything. I don't think anyone's perfect. No one knows everything.
Speaker 3:Uh, one of the one of the reasons I leverage, like so, mentors specifically, you can have someone who's been at the company longer than you, you can have someone who's been in the industry longer than you, longer than you so they may have just a certain level of knowledge, expertise, where I can try to figure things out on my own and I could spin my wheels for weeks, months, trying to figure it out. Or if I have the right mentor who's already been in that situation or already understands the background because they've already worked on it, it can save me so much time, so much effort. They can make sure I avoid the same mistakes that they may have already made. So it's just a world of difference when you have someone that you can reach out to and ask specific questions and get that guidance. You have those years of knowledge, experience, more than you, that to assist you.
Speaker 3:And then, from the standpoint of a sponsor a sponsor is important as well I look at them a little bit differently from a mentor, because a mentor to me, is just providing you with guidance and knowledge and tutelage. A sponsor is multiple levels above you that is actively trying to get you to that next level. They're trying to get you promoted. You need an advocate, you need someone. It's more than just guidance and tips and advice. You need someone. It's it's it's not always what you know, it's who you know this is where sponsors become really critical.
Speaker 3:So every company I've worked for, I've I've made the effort to identify sponsors, even like during my educational journey while I was an undergrad, while I was in grad school, I identified different mentors and even when I leave a company, I still keep in touch with those mentors to this day. Some of my mentors have been in my network for 15, 20 years. Just because I transitioned from one company to another doesn't mean there still isn't knowledge that I can obtain and advice that I could reach out to someone for. So I'd say it's so important for you to have both and it's it's been tremendous for me and my growth in my career.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So so you think about it, michael. A couple of questions. What's the role of if I'm looking for you to be my mentor? There's some, there's a responsibility I got to be prepared for. What's the role that I have when I'm, when I'm looking for a mentor? What's my responsibility role?
Speaker 3:that I have when I'm looking for a mentor. What's my responsibility? Okay, so I'd say, first and foremost, you have some responsibility to finding a mentor. It's not always just provided to you. So some companies do have a formal mentorship program where you may fill out a profile. You'll list what your strengths are, what your areas for opportunity, what you're looking for in a mentor, and based off your profile, it doesn't actually just match you. So it's very easy. You can't assume every company has that, or you can't assume every organization or school offers that.
Speaker 3:So sometimes you just have to organically find somebody, whether that's attending meetings or joining an employee resource group or whatever. Have you find someone organically and reach out to them. It can be uncomfortable conversations, but you have to put yourself out there, reach out to them, ask them if they're willing to be your mentor. Nine times out of 10, when I ask someone if they're willing to be my mentor, they're flattered and they offer and they're excited to be my mentor. The only time I've had someone push back, they already had, I think, three or four mentees and they just didn't have the capacity. But even then they didn't just say, hey, I can't be your mentor. They recommended I reach out to someone else and connect me with someone else to be my mentor. So, first and foremost, you kind of have to put yourself out there in order to identify a mentor and then, secondly, if you do identify a mentor, you have to take it seriously. You have to be respectful of their time.
Speaker 3:What I've seen a lot of people will get paired up with a, with a mentor they're they're not setting up meetings, they're not following up. If the mentor tells them specific actions that they should take, a couple weeks passes by, a month passes by. They come back. They haven't taken any of those steps. If someone's willing to be your mentor, they're taking time out of their day. They don't have to do this. So you have to be respectful of their time. You have to.
Speaker 3:The onus is on the mentee to set up meetings and to take follow actions If your mentor tells you certain things to do. Make sure the next time you meet with your mentor, you've taken those actions and you've told them based on your feedback. These are the steps that I've taken. So do your due diligence. Be appreciative of someone taking the time and effort to help you in their your career, because they don't have to. So there's a lot of responsibility as a mentee to make sure that you're you're, you're utilizing the knowledge that they're willing to share with you and using it to help you in your career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it, michael, when you talk about the person, the role of the mentee. You know, oftentimes you go and you just, like the person that you're there with, don't want to feel like they're wasting their time. So have an agenda, have some very specific and direct questions and all and ask. But it's not just a lunch, it's not just like let me catch up, like make it very productive and intentional about those 15, 20 or 30 minutes, whatever the time is like. But don't come in and just like it's a casual conversation, like put that mentor to work. They want to work, they want to help. You know I don't want to do 30 minutes and we're just going to catch up on on what the football game was like or the baseball game or how's your family those are nice. But those 30 minutes, like get get to the meat of it and make it work and come totally prepared. That mentor will be a mentor forever if you come prepared. If you don't come prepared, they probably won't be around long because they feel like they're wasting their time.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So, as you as you step back, here's the here's the final question what, what pointers would you give leaders that that's work, for you still use every day? That's that's making you effective as a leader.
Speaker 3:What are the top three things that you still practice, you know in your own leadership journey? Yeah, so number one, like I said, empower others. I think a great leader is able to effectively delegate. When you try to do take on too much and do too much and get into all the details, I think that's where you fail. So, being able to effectively delegate and empower other people you hire them for a reason. Give them the freedom to do the work, give them the autonomy to thrive, to grow. So I think number one is just being able to delegate.
Speaker 3:I would say number two emotional intelligence is really big, you know. Being able to understand your emotions, understand the emotions of other people Like I said, life happens, Things happen outside of work and being able to understand what other people are going through and be able to accommodate them in their different situations, I think that goes a long way. And I would say number three make sure that everyone's like. Their voice is heard. So I'm a big advocate of diversity of thought and you know I can have a team of five people, 10 people, 20 people, 100 people.
Speaker 3:I want to make sure, in order to get to the best decision, everyone, I want everyone to voice their opinions and, like a trick that I like to use I know everyone's not the same. Some people are more intrinsic, some people are more extrinsic. I may be in a meeting and I'll say hey, everybody write down an idea on the whiteboard. Or everyone write down an idea on a post-it note, and let's put these post-it notes up on the walls and that way I'm making sure everyone's voice is included, even if you're not the most outspoken person. But I feel once everyone's voice is included, you can get to the best decisions and the best strategies and fully think through all the different scenarios. So I'm big on diversity of thought and I think, as a leader, it's important that you make sure that everyone feels included and evolved. So I'd say those are the top three Awesome, awesome, I mean.
Speaker 2:I think they're solid too. So you know, especially in the department, because it's tough A lot of times you're just doing way too much. As you said throughout the podcast is leaders tend to do too much. You know versus use a team of talented people. So I know you're into you're into keynoting and you're traveling and you're working full time, but you love to speak. At this point, what are the things that you speak on? So, as people are listening and they're looking for a speaker, what are the spaces and places that you want to be able to speak on and add value to any conference? Can you share some of that information and then share your contact information?
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, absolutely. So. Some of the main speaking points that I talk on, obviously, relationship building. I wrote a book called the Power of Networking, so I'll get into tips on how to build and maintain relationships. I also speak heavily on professional development. Learning is a continuous journey, so there's always ways that you can grow and develop. So I speak on professional development and professional development. I provide interviewing tips to make sure that people are successful, whether it's interviewing on site at a company or interviewing at career conferences. I speak on both. So those are some of the key areas. And I speak on leadership as well. Obviously, I'm on this podcast speaking on leadership for Unpacked, so leadership is a big topic.
Speaker 3:I have my own website. It's michaelvmorgancom. So V is in Victor michaelvmorgancom. Uh, if you want to reach out to me, they can go through my website and there's a contact me form. Uh, you can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm Michael Morgan, pmp. I have my project management professional certification, so I have PMP at the end of my name. Uh, that makes it easy to find me. So, whether you reach out to me through my website or reach out to me through LinkedIn, I'd love to connect with anybody. I enjoy helping people and I want to see everyone succeed and excel in their roles, excel in their careers. So there's any way that I can assist you, just feel free to reach out and I'd love to connect.
Speaker 2:Awesome, michael, phenomenal guest man. Thank you for sharing so much information and insight and allow me to unpack it with you. You know, for everyone that follows us every week, you know we're going to bring someone on that's adding a lot of value to you, and so you shared a lot about leadership. You shared a lot about how to really empower, build trust and not work so hard where people feel appreciated versus tolerated. So we've enjoyed the opportunity to add value and make a difference in your lives. You know, unpacked with Ron Harvey and Michael Morgan Michael V Morgan, as y'all are looking for him, reach out to us, contact us. We'll be happy to add more value to you. Until next time, michael and I will sign off and we wish you the greatest and the best day that you can have. Thanks again for joining us for our brief broadcast, unpacked with Ron Harvey. Until next time. We're going to say see you later and have a wonderful week.
Speaker 1:Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpacked Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron unpacks sound advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are, for the people you serve, because people always matter.
