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Feb. 16, 2023

238 How to Lead From the Heart and Deliver Results with Mark C Crowley | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader

238 How to Lead From the Heart and Deliver Results with Mark C Crowley | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader

In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli speaks with Mark C Crowley, author of Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century. In the conversation, Mark C Crowley shared how his tough childhood contributed to his leadership practice of leading from the heart. Mark also shared why the heart is more than just a muscle and how leaders can balance mind and heart in their leadership. Mark C Crowley finally shared how leaders can encourage leading from the heart in their teams and organizations as well as practices to help make a more balanced leadership, including leading from the heart of the organization's culture.  



Some highlights:

- How Mark C Crowley's upbringing shaped his view of leadership

- The results of leading from the heart in the financial services sector

- The science behind the heart's role in leadership

- Mark C Crowley on the need for balance between the brain and the heart

- How leaders can nurture an organizational culture that encourages leading from the heart



Connect with Mark C Crowley:

Mark C Crowley Website 

Mark C Crowley on LinkedIn 

Mark C Crowley on Twitter 

Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century on Amazon 



Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:

Mahan Tavakoli Website

Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn

Partnering Leadership Website


Transcript

***DISCLAIMER: Please note that the following AI-generated transcript may not be 100% accurate and could contain misspellings or errors.***

Mahan Tavakoli: Mark Crowley, welcome to Partnering Leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with me.

Mark Crowley: Thank you, Mahan. It's a great pleasure.

Mahan Tavakoli: Can't wait to talk about Lead From the Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21st century. One of the first questions, Mark, I ask every one of my guests is about their upbringing and how it impacted them. I fell in love with your authenticity in describing your upbringing.

Where best did you grow up and how did your upbringing impact who you've become, Mark? 

Mark Crowley: So it's a really big question, And it doesn't stop when childhood ended, it actually had a ripple that late in life. I put all the pieces together. But I will say I grew up in Garden City, Long Island, a beautiful community. And for the first early years of my life was very good. But my mom suddenly got cancer and she died. 

My family didn't tell me that she was dying, I came home from school and found out that she had died. And it was obviously a massive distressing shock. And this is not in the book, I don't think, but my father was actually having an affair with a woman that he ended up marrying after, oh wow. 

My mom died and we knew about the affair, so it added to the trauma of my mom dying. And then my stepmother moved in, and that point forward, it was about a year and a half from the time my mom died to the time that they married, but they were already together. And the neither one of them had any interest in supporting my wellbeing.

In fact, my father explicitly tried very strongly to destroy my self-esteem. He  emotionally and psychologically abused me for the rest of my childhood. Fundamentally pulling a rug out from any stability that I would have any belief in myself. And even to this day, my wife. Just this morning said, you've gotta stop being so self-critical and criticism is not a natural thing.

It's the last remnant, if you will, from how I grew up. I mentioned that only because he had a lasting impact on me. And then right at the time that I had just graduated from high school a couple days after graduation thinking that my dad, who was at point, wealthy person and easily could have provided for me to go to college.

Instead, he kicked me out of the house with no advanced notice. Like literally go, it's time for you to go. And there was no, let's go find a clean, safe home for you. Lemme give you money for tuition. I'm certainly gonna pay for your college. You're gonna be safe and supported. None of it Mahan. It was over in an instant. And so what ended up happening was I went into five of the most difficult years of my life, no question. 

Like it started with how do I survive? How do I just put one forward when you don't have a job and you have no money and you've just been kicked out and you know you can't go back. Fast forward, I will say that I figured that out. So I got a job and started to do well in that. 

So my father fundamentally told me that I would never amount to anything. And so I had this binary equation in my mind. I graduated from college by hooker, by crook, and I prove 'em wrong. If I don't graduate from college, I'm the abject failure. He always told me I was gonna be well, when you cut your legs out from under you and you don't have any financial support and all of that, and just every morning you're getting up, wondering how you're gonna eat and all that kind stuff, and pay the rent.

The first, probably two years of school, they probably should have kicked me out really, because I was just not equipped to do it. But I went and they did enough and somehow managed and I got into a rhythm and I ended up doing very well. Like I did very well in my job. And it just became this routine. I did Rowan school. 

So now I've graduated and I'm looking around at the people that I've graduated with, like in the weeks leading up to graduation, I'm asking people what they're going to do. Oh, I'm going to med school. Oh, I'm going to law school. Oh, I'm going to grad school. I'm going to Harvard. And I'm thinking, I'm just lucky to have survived this. More importantly, I didn't feel worthy of going further. 

I thought that I was lucky to have graduated, not that I had worked to earn the graduation that I easily could have gone off to graduate. So I still had this self-doubt, but now I go off to manage people, and this is where my life really changed in a positive way. 

I unconsciously decided when I'm looking at these people that are going off to Harvard and Yale and Columbia and I'm just thinking I better go get a job. I started to think about what was the difference between them and me? Like, why did they feel confident to go out and do these things?

And I'm feeling so unconfident and I realized that I lacked a whole lot of things after my mom died. I had no one who really fundamentally loved me, but certainly no one who cared about me. Encouraged me, gave me appreciation when I did well, hey, great job on your exam. Oh, you got an A on your paper. Great job. Oh, you're well at work and you're doing all this magnificent. I had none of that, and I never felt safe. 

Mahan, that was big. For five years, I felt five tires gonna keep me from going to school, and how am I gonna pay for it? So it's always under this level of fear. So the pivot that I made unconsciously was to give people who worked for me. Everything that I always wanted, believed I needed, could have influenced me to have thrived in my life and to have been infinitely more successful.

So without having any conscious awareness, I just blindly went out there and managed people by giving 'em all these things. And every team that I'm managing is like killing it. So I keep getting all these promotions, my company just goes, you're doing great. We want to give you this. And after a while they me such a big job. I was like, are you crazy? Do you know who you're dealing with? And they were like, no, he's your potential.

And so, my early forties, somebody who for me told me, and this is the punchline, She goes, you realize you manage people very differently than anybody else know, right? Particularly your peers. And I said what do you mean? And I think I was just beginning to realize this, and she started to get me a list of things that I was doing.

And it was at that point that I realized, I did all of this in response to childhood. Like the fantasy was I didn't get it, believe that it would've made me infinitely more successful. What if I give it to people and we'll see what happens to them? So of course, people just completely thrived under my leadership, like really and beat a path and outperformed everyone. 

It was like win, win. And it was only then, I think I was like 43 years old when I started to realize wait a minute, like all of this actually had a payoff for me. All this pain and suffering that I went through, yield did an understanding how to manage people you couldn't get any other way.

And so that's my childhood story. 

Mahan Tavakoli: What an incredible story mark and the fact that you used that hurt and that pain to put more good out into the world. Sometimes people get stuck in a cycle that is a negative one. You put out more good in the world. 

But the surprising thing is you were in the financial services industry. The managers and others around you must have thought you were crazy. 

Mark Crowley: You know what? It's interesting because I'll tell you what happened. So, I go away. So I'm working at this point, my last position was national sales manager for investments. So these are brokers, stockbrokers, investment brokers.

These people, they make money off of sales. They don't get a salary, so they're meat eaters, that's what I was taught. And so I ended up managing these people very successfully. My first year we had record revenue, record profit. I was named leader of the year. But that is that no one ever looked under the hood. Like they didn't know what I was doing. It’s a feeling. 

My thesis is all about feelings, right? So no one knew what I was doing, they just knew that I was getting good results. So I came out with a book two years later. After I leave, from the time that it took me to conceive it, write it, and get it published and out there. And I think people were like, what happened to him?

Did he have a breakdown or a religious experience around the time. This woman, her name was Cecilia, she's one who had worked for me for about 20 years and then just casually said, you manage people very differently. Around the time that she made this statement to me, the CEO of the company said, I wanna pick the future leaders of this company. 

So I want 30 people from 50,000 people. I'm gonna take 'em to Hawaii and spend time with them. So we do this, I'm one of the 30 people, this is a huge honor. So I go, my wife and I are there. It happens to be that Tuesday, so what's going on here? We're in Hawaii, but we're having a Mardi Gras theme and there's guys on stilts. 

And so we all get a drink and we're walking around and we're all going to these different little sections. And two of the sections, the first one that I went to was a palm reader, and she said the long line parties, music's going. It's a very festive thing. This is just like a fun thing to do, so I gave her my pump. 

She looks at it and she goes, what do you do for a living? And I'm like, isn't that obvious? Don't you know who we're like, we're all bankers, right? We're all financial services people. So she goes, tell me what you do. I go, I'm a banker. And that's how I define myself at this point, which was not really true, but I think I'm more of a leader and I could have taken that anywhere, but that's just happened where I grew up.

So she looks at my palm and she goes, No, this is not for you. You're not a banker. She goes, you're going to have a big change. You're not a banker. You never were a banker. And now this is provocative, right? Because I'm understanding my power at this point. And I found that very interesting. 

So we go on, we see the guys on the stilts and the jugglers, and we're talking to other people and we find our way to the tarot card reader. She does the tarot cards. She throws out three cards. And she says what do you do for a living? And I said I'm a banker. I still had that answer and she's giving me the no, no answer. 

And so now I'm looking at her like looking to see if I got like a walkie talkie to the palm reader. Cause I think they're in cahoots giving everybody the same answer. I was very cynical. I said are you talking to the reader? And she's like looking at me like, are you outta your mind is 25 people lined up waiting for her. 

You think I'm having a with her. She goes, they're your cards. She goes, all I'm telling you is this isn't your life. You were never meant to have this life. You're gonna have a totally different life. And of course, my life fundamentally changed about two years later. 

And so I found that really interesting that I got the tip off from these two people that were hired to entertain us to the party in Hawaii.

Mahan Tavakoli: You were able to focus on giving back through sharing your thoughts on leading from the heart. Now, one of the things in reading your bookmark and listening to some of conversations, I wonder is it the fact that you went through the experience, that upbringing and the success in financial services leading from the heart that enabled you to lead from the heart? Or can people learn it? 

Sometimes we end up becoming capable of doing things based on the life experiences and perspectives we got from those life experiences. Can this be taught?

Mark Crowley: Absolutely can be taught. I think we have to start with the premise that it feels foreign to people. So let's say for example that you and I, we're in the pizza business, we own pizza restaurants and you're a pizza manager and you're the guy who can take the dough and throw it up in the air and you make magnificent pizzas and you can make a million of 'em in an hour.

And you are like the star pizza store manager. So I'm the CEO and I'm looking at our revenues and I'm like, people are eating less pizza and they're eating more chicken. So we're gonna become a chicken store. We're gonna start selling fried chicken. Barbecued chicken. You're the star pizza. And now I'm gonna say, You need to learn how to make chicken and need to get good at it. How do you feel? 

You feel vulnerable, right? You're like, wait a minute. Giving away all of my expertise. I'm giving away all the talent, all the mastery that I've achieved, and now I'm gonna look vulnerable because I'm being asked to do chicken and maybe somebody's better at it than me. 

All of these fantasies that go through our mind. So what we do is, a guy comes in and he goes, Hey, what's good here? And you go, pizza. You don't even talk about the chicken, so we're gonna do everything we can to just keep going with the old. And I don't know when it's gonna happen when companies are basically gonna say, look, stop introducing the pizza and start introducing the chicken. 

But until that happens, we have to do it ourselves. So what I'm really saying is that, we've never really encouraged these behaviors.So anybody who's saying this feels uncomfortable, or I don't know if I'm gonna blow it. You're in the same world everybody else is. What I'm saying is that we now know through science, that it works more effectively than squeezing people and paying 'em as little as possible, which is traditional leadership theory.

So be willing to let that go and just naturally care about people. Find ways to care about people and let your own heart take you there. But be willing to experiment it, knowing that the more you demonstrate to the people that you authentically care about them, that they can feel that and they'll reciprocate. That's the way it works. 

So a good manager would say, Hey, we're not getting out of the pizza business. We're just getting into the chicken business. So we're not taking anything away from you that you have already gotten good at. You might be good at budgets or you might be great at running meetings.We're not saying throw all that away. We're saying add chicken to the menu. 

Become more of a balance between heart and mind. So the answer is yes, but you have to be open to it. You can't resist it, and you can't wait and look around and go, he's not doing it. She's not doing it, so I'm not doing it. You have to say, I don't really care whether they're doing it. I know this is the right and I'm going to do it within my team and hope the rest of the world catches up with me. 

And by the way, that's what I did my entire career. So Cecilia's point was, no one around you manages like this, and that's fine. I had my very first person that I ever worked for manage me that way, and I never saw it again. But that didn't keep me from managing that way. Like I'm getting the whips and the bruises and I'm taking that.

So I'll take all those hits and I'm gonna manage people the way I want to. And my whole career and the success that I got is defined by managing people in the very way that I'm prescribing.

Mahan Tavakoli: I love that point Mark, because I hear a lot of times people say, in my organization, It's not possible in my industry, it's not possible. The CEO doesn't lead this way. Your point is, whatever level you are at, you do have control over your own behaviors, and you can lead this way. 

Now, one of the things I wonder about Mark, is that I wonder if we also need to change the types of people we celebrate. And with all due respect to some of the outlier entrepreneurs, the Elon Musks of the world, or receive jobs of the world that I really think are outliers, some of the people that are being celebrated at least don't seem to be very heart-centered leaders.

Mark Crowley: No, it's a great observation. Let's go back 20 years ago and you went up and you asked managers what are some of the worst things you could do to limit your success as a manager? They would almost have chapter and verse layout, everything that I'm saying is actually the right thing to do. 

So, first thing is don't get close to your people. They'll abuse you. They'll take advantage of you. The more that you care about people they're gonna come in and ask for a raise, or they're gonna demand something that you can't give them, they're gonna punish you for being carrie and not only that, but you know what the more you spend with people coaching and developing 'em, the risk is they're gonna try to take your job. 

You've now taught them everything. So now we're saying no, it's actually the opposite. The more you care, the more you know. The more you understand, the more you support the greater. Actually, interestingly, the more demanding you can be, the higher expectations you can make. So you're get your results, but it just feels so uncomfortable for people. 

And we're also in a world that has to shift in the sense that companies, corporations, publicly traded companies are principally driven by shareholders. So if you're a sales manager, let's say you manage 30 salespeople and you're halfway through the and you're nowhere near hitting your goals, and then you start going up down the aisles and you start going, Hey, bill, you wanna have a job at the end of the month?

Make your goal. Hey Jill, you wanna stay working here? I need a little more from you because isn't gonna cut it, and I'll find somebody better for you. And then you get your numbers. You come in 110%, you go into a meeting and they're like, what? They go, and you've just brutalized your entire team, they hate your guts and they wanna leave. And the fear motives that you use definitely worked, but ultimately they do harm. 

It's unsustainable. So the other thing that you've hinted at is that if we know that caring is the common denominator of the leader that I'm describing, then we need to start hiring people who have demonstrated an interest in growing people, supporting people actually thriving in the success of other people.

So the interesting thing that happened to me was, I'm managing people in this instinctive way and I'm getting routine success. I just keep getting promoted. So I'm never, never questioning what other people are doing. I took not even a 32nd glance to see what other people were doing. I just assumed the way I was managing was successful.

And that's probably what everybody else was doing. Naive, but that's what I was thinking. And as I started to look at what I was doing, In retrospect I realized that every time somebody who worked for me, let's say somebody said, I've gotta take an exam. I don't think I can do it.

I don't think I can learn this. This is too hard. So I said, okay, so let me help you. Give me some of the information that you're struggling with. So I'm helping them with that and I'm encouraging it. I'm saying, look, I've been working with you for two years. You're very smart. You're gonna pass this exam. I know you are. And so take the day off, go study and go take the exam. 

So they come back and they go, I did it. I passed the exam. The joy that I had, because I knew that I had influence in their success, was no less than theirs cuz it healed me. It was on some level, deep down it's you were right. You were right. You missed it. You didn't get it. But if you give it to other people, look at what happens to them.

So it was just joyful for me. Not everybody's like that now. I was like that for my whole life experience, and who knows if that's my purpose or what have you. There are plenty of people who get into management roles for the money, the prestige, the power, or the. And they don't really care about others. In fact, they end up competing with their people. Like all of a sudden, Han's getting a little recognition here, I'm gonna be on his toes a little bit because he's getting too big for his shoes. He is gonna try to get my job. I'm not gonna let that bastard do this to me.

So that's a totally different orientation. So in an interview. So you're interviewing and I say to you, Mahan, tell me have you ever helped somebody specifically who worked for you, grow from the position you hired them into and saw them either promoted into a bigger and better role?

More challenge, more responsibility, either because you gave it to them or because someone else did. Can you say you did this? Everybody's gonna go off the course. Of course, Mark. That's what I do. And then you say, okay, so great Mahan, give me a couple of examples. Tell me their names. What was their jobs?

And tell me what you did specifically. And now it's oh there was Mary, and it's game over because they don't have the story to tell. And if I really, truly believe if companies would just do that, and because you're gonna look for, do you have the competency? Do you have the knowledge? Whatever else you're gonna be looking for, you're gonna ask those questions. 

This question just happens to isolate the people who it's all about them from the people, that it's all about other people. And if you're gonna manage people, you have to make it about them like a coach. Coaches don't jump in the fourth quarter and go, I'm quarterbacking the team here for the next three minutes here cuz we're down by three points. 

I'm gonna score a touchdown. They teach the quarterback and they teach the players how to and they rely on them. That's a totally different orientation. And they thrive when they succeed. And that's the migration I think we ought to be making.

Mahan Tavakoli: Mark, the interesting thing is people could have gotten away and did get away with treating their people like robots in the industrial age without caring for them. Just looking for what this robot can produce.

As things have shifted in organizations and the value of collaboration, the creativity of the individuals has become a lot more important. It's even more essential for leaders to be heart-centered leaders and be able to connect with their teams in leading them forward

Part of it is the right thing to do, but also as the world of work has shifted. It's the only way to be able to tap into that collaborative power of individuals in teams moving forward.

Mark Crowley: I agree with you. But here's the thing, none of this comes easy, to be a mensch. You will, I dunno what the feminine version of mensch is, but feminine mensch kidding. But, to really be an effective manager, you gotta be awfully securing yourself, you've gotta have that ability to understand how to form collaboration, and teams look out for others, it takes a while. 

You know that I wrote this book originally 11 years ago and the new book is twice as long and it's filled with more validation for the original book. I didn't write the second book and go, here are the things I got wrong. Everything I wrote 11 years ago is true, but here's more validation for why it's true, cuz apparently you need it. 

So what I really believed was that CEOs were gonna read this, they were gonna see the science, they were gonna see how compelling it was and realize that we've actually been mismanaging human resources people for a hundred years. So let's teach, teach everybody how to do this instead. They were like, Oh, I got to the top by managing like Machiavelli, why do I have to change? 

And then by the way, it sounds soft and I don't want people managing in a soft way cuz I'm afraid I'm not gonna hit my numbers.So they just basically said, leading from the heart, that's total bullshit. Even if they didn't express it, that's what they said. So that was a big surprise to me cuz I thought, what's your job as the CEO to be looking for any information that would lead you to managing better.

So you get a new book, you get new research. You go, let's use this. Microsoft is using the growth mindset, Carolyn Dweck's work. Like they took that and they said, we're gonna use it to leverage our success in our company. I thought this was gonna happen and it didn't happen. And it didn't happen because of fear. So now what's happening is that over the last 70, 80, 1 million since January of 2021, 81 million people in America have quit and why would that happen?

So people are like, if I'm not happy here, I'm not sticking around. Money isn't gonna be the reason to keep me in a lot of cases. So I think what's happened is rather than CEOs seeing the science and saying I'm gonna lead us across the river here, into a new, more successful world, they pushed back and said no. But now they're saying, what are we gonna do to stop people from quitting?

Because we're not finding 'em fast enough to replace them. And when we replace them, they don't come in with any of the knowledge that they had. So you work for a company for three or four years. You know how to get things done, the culture brings in somebody else, and all of a sudden another person and another person, they may be hardworking, talented, motivated people, but if they don't know what they're doing, they have an understanding you're gonna slow things down.

And I think that's what's happening in organizations. So people are looking at this, not for the reasons that I thought, but for reasons that are basically forcing them into it, so resistance has definitely been a part of it.

Mahan Tavakoli: Mark, people have succeeded and they want to keep with the practices that help them succeed and move up into organizations rather than change their approach and take on a heart-centered approach. One of the other challenges that I see oftentimes is that many of the executives that at least I have worked with and coached, believe they are more heart-centered than they actually might be. 

So there are very big blind spots. So I can imagine, and one of my challenges to everyone on the podcast is yes my podcast listeners are very heart-centered. That's why they listen to the podcast that said, challenge it and don't go with that assumption. So my question to you is, I wonder how we can reduce our blind spots and not assume that we are the heart-centered leaders and it's the others that need to change their leadership approach?

Mark Crowley: Oh man, it's such a big question and it's a big challenge. An employee of a company came to me and said crying, basically, you've gotta help us. And so she went to her boss and said, from my point of view, I talked to enough people in this company that we're unhappy. People are really unhappy, and so could we just do like a climate survey?

So the guy called me and said, I'm really concerned about this, and I think she's right. What would you do? And I said, first thing I wanna do is just take the pulse, give me 25 people to talk to randomly at all the levels of the  organization. And I've never seen, other than perhaps Walmart in maybe the last five or six years ago, never seen a culture this bad. Seriously, they were intentionally underpaying people, cutting benefits and then demanding that they do very challenging work, emotionally draining work and doing nothing from an appreciation standpoint. 

So I came away by you need to accept that the way you're managing this unless that's who you are, like if that's who you intend to be, where you're just exploiting people. And you don't care and just find somebody else when they leave. If you really wanna fix this, you've gotta have to change your approach.And so they were very leery about me. I dunno what we're gonna do and I dunno how we're gonna share this with the CEO. 

And I said I'll share it with them. So we sent it to him, he read it and I ended up having an hour long conversation and he goes, you know what Mark? He goes, I don't buy it. I don't buy it at all. I couldn't believe what he said. He goes, I send them an email on their birthday every single year. I have it on my computer. So I'll send out, Hey Bill, happy birthday from CEO XYZ. 

And he goes, and I think that changes people's lives. And I knew the game was over. I just said, has your life ever been changed by a birthday card? Even a birthday gift? If somebody got you exactly what you wanted, did that change your life? And he wasn't getting it. It was crazy, and so I predicted I would end up leaving, and of course I did.

And I think they were bummed that I wasn't able to come in and be the savior, but there was just no saving this company. But I think the answer to your question is to ask people, go up to people and say, Hey, if I become more effective as your manager, is there one thing that you can point to?

I wrote about this in my book. I used to do this. So I'd say, Mahan, You've been working for me for a year. What's something that I do really well as a manager? You're gonna go, oh, Mark, you're the greatest. They should write a book about you, maybe even a movie. You're such a great manager. I go, oh great, thank you. But is there something that I do? Oh, there's so many things. 

And I go, just gimme one. So they go, you appreciate people. And I go, okay, great, thank you. And then I wait and then I go, Hey Mahan, I'm trying to grow and develop, and what I really appreciate is if you could tell me one thing that I don't do well or could do better. Like what's something that I need to learn to become more effective at it? 

Oh, no, Mark, remember I told you that you're the greatest. And I go, I know, but you've given me one good thing. So now, with my permission, just gimme something, one thing that I might wanna work on. And then it turns out they have a dagger in their pocket and they jab it into you. You never do this and you never do this. 

And it's like I said, I just wanted fun. And the point is, they know your flaws. They're watching you all the time. And not only that, but they're like talking to their side buddies and going, Mark never does this. Does he do this for you? I hate that he doesn't do this. And so you can have this fester over here with people being miserable because you never do it.

Or you find out what it is that they don't like and fix it. So I remember the first time they did this, it was very painful. Cause it feels good to go. They're gonna make a movie about you. I'm, I go really great. I think that's me. Yeah. You never do this. And you could feel the pain. Like they were bummed that I, they were upset, they were hurt, that I wasn't doing these things. 

So I wrote them all down. I had 30 people working for me, and I went back to my meeting with them and I said, Hey, I've met with you all. I process a little, I got a lot of nice compliments, but I also got 30 things I need to work on. And I read 'em all off and they were that I would display that I don't show them enough attention that they don't get enough time with me. 

So if you're open to it, it's the greatest growth you can possibly get because people are basically giving you a prescription. If you fix this, you'll be someone that I am grateful to. You'll be happy in my mind basically is what they're saying. So I've done my whole career. I still do it, even I'll get an article and I'll go, if I could have done anything better on this, what would it have been? 

And sadly people have feedback for you.

Mahan Tavakoli: Mark, what an outstanding practice and a practical way for us to reduce our blind spots. We all have blind spots, you and me included. For us to reduce our blind spots and with transparency, show people that it's okay to be flawed and to be working on ourselves as they are working on themselves.

So I would really encourage my listeners this week, this is not something to put off this week. Ask for that feedback. What am I doing so great? And you gave a perfect example where people tend to give these generalities and how wonderful you are a specific and what can I improve on, which they tend to say, you are outstanding, but get a specific thing that you can work on your reaction to.

It shows people whether you are genuinely open or not. What I loved about your example is your transparency in sharing with a team. This is what I heard from you, makes them more likely on an ongoing basis. First of all, open up to you and reduce your blind spots, but also solicit it themselves. 

Leadership is an example. You set the kind of example that others need to also set for their in the organization, and that's what culture is all about. 

Mark Crowley: I completely agree with you. And the thing is that if you don't do this exercise, then you're going to continue with the blind spots and they're going to become bigger blind or bigger limitations, and then you're gonna apply for a promotion and you're not gonna get it.

And then they're gonna go. Everybody knows that you have this problem and you haven't fixed it, and until you fix it, we're not giving you to go further. And you're like, oh man. Had I known I could have fixed it. So I think you just have to look at leadership as a journey.I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned from those mistakes, and then I went on and made different mistakes, and so you learn from those.

So if you tell me I'm on a journey to become a great leader, I haven't arrived. In fact, there's no arrival. There's no permanent destination. I'm always evolving. Then people give you the benefit of a doubt. If they think that you're open to learning and open to feedback. We all have our styles, we all have our personalities. Some of that good, some of that not so good.

But if people can get beyond our styles and our personalities, but see us change our practices in response to feedback, they'll put up with any idiosyncrasies that we have, whatever it is.

Mahan Tavakoli: Beautifully stated. Now, the other thing that I didn't know before reading your bookmark, is that you looked into the science of heart. I always used it as a metaphor. 

Mark Crowley: Yeah, people have this fantasy that what I'm saying is it's all heart and so get rid of the mind and go all heart. And I'm saying no. The thing is that we have two forms of intelligence leading into your question. One is the heart, one is the mind. 

And I'm not saying get rid of the mind, brain. I'm not saying that. I'm saying bring the heart into it because the heart informs you in a different way. So right now you're flying with one propeller and I'm giving you another propeller. That's a better way of looking at it. So when people say heart-centered, I think people conflate that with weakness and softness, then it's dead on arrival.

All I'm saying is get the two imbalances. You gotta do data, you've gotta do your work, you have to write up performance reviews. You've got to hold people accountable for deadlines. That's all brain stuff. The hard stuff is supporting people as human beings and all the things that I wrote about.

Mahan Tavakoli: I love that you highlighted that because actually one of the challenges that I'm seeing in some of the organizations that I work with, some of the CEOs that I'm coaching, is they have a hard time withholding people accountable. In some instances, they do well on the heart fronts, but they need to do better on the mind front. 

So I like the fact that you framed it as two propellers in that it's a balance not only going with the mind, adding the heart and the heart center to that mind center, that has been such a big focus for so many years.

Mark Crowley: So go back 11, 12 years ago before the first book came out, so this was 12 years ago, I had begun the process of organizing what was gonna become the first book. And I had my piles. And that actually, now that you've read it, you know that there are four leadership practices and that was gonna be the book.

Like literally, if you do all these four things, aggregate them, do them all consistently, you're gonna get great performance out of people consistently. That was the book. So I'm having a conversation with a friend who is checking in on me, a guy that I used to work with, and a former senior vice president that was my peer at the last company that I worked at.

And so he is asking me where I am and I go, just stop. Ready to write, ready to start doing it. And he goes, you're gonna explain why it works, right? And I said, what do you mean? And he goes I know you can see where this is going. And I go, do you mean. He goes people are gonna think you needed a really shitty childhood in order to lead this way.

You gotta have to explain why it would work for other people. It's obvious it worked for you, but maybe people are gonna think it worked for you because you just had a weird life and that's how it worked. But how is it universal? So I started thinking okay. I know he is right.

Pissed me off. I'm like, ok, I hadn't even given that any thought. And so I started thinking about what I was doing. What was the impact of this? Why did people scale mountains for me? And sitting exactly where I am looking out, thinking this. All of a sudden it hit me that I was affecting the hearts of people. That's what I was doing. So at the end of the day, I went in and told my wife, I go, I've wasted 10 months of my life because that I used to work with, they're gonna hear heart leadership or whatever I was gonna call it.

And they were gonna, What happened to him? This is ridiculous. Nobody does that. And so I'm thinking he's triggered me into quitting, is kind what my mindset was at the moment. So I told my wife and she goes, didn't you already prove it? Like you already know it's true. So I can't you go find something that would support it? 

So it was that combination, those two conversations that forced me into 14, 15 months of additional research, all for the purpose of addressing the cynic going, this is bullshit. This isn't right. So I had to go back and say, see, look at this. Look at this piece of information. Look at this. So I was really trying to prove my case and I'm doubling down on it in the new book.

There's just so much compelling, interesting information that validates this. But the big piece was how do I validate the heart? Like how do I validate? So the long and short of it is that I found a world-class cardiologist, cardios surgeon, and wrote her a letter and this is my thesis.I think I've been affecting the hearts, and that's what motivated them to do great for me. 

Is there any truth in this? And she happened to be in my hometown and scheduled an appointment. I walked into her office she said, Mr. Crowley, you're figuring out something. We're just beginning to figure out medicine. And I had tears coming down my eyes. I didn't know what she was gonna tell me. I knew she was gonna validate my whole life. 

And she went on to tell me that what you've figured out is we're figuring out. We've always believed the heart was just a pump, but now we're finding that intelligence is distributed through the body. That the heart and the mind are in constant communication with one another. That feelings and emotions affecting human behavior much more than we realize. 

I've subsequently learned up to 95% of our decisions and choices are made by feelings and emotions. Not by rational thinking. And so I'm the only person, as far as I know, at least that's not a disciple, if you will. Someone has read the book and go, wow, that's interesting. I'm on board. I'm saying, anybody who's suddenly saying heart led leadership. 

Nobody is saying that this is real, they're saying it's a metaphor and so that's why the word heart is in the title, not to take punches or people or delay embracement, which I had paid woman $10,000 as when she told me I was gonna fail if continue to use this, but I get it because I'm trying to make a point. It's science, it's human nature. It's not mythology and it's not a metaphor. It's real. 

So if you care about people and it's authentic, they feel that and they reciprocate. And when they reciprocate, it's in the spirit of Mahan who cares about me so much that I want to do something great for him, and that inherently motivates their to do something really. 

Great. And this is how leaders can create results.

Mahan Tavakoli: That really resonated with me. There are two things that connected the message and made it a lot more memorable and valuable for me. Part of it was your own origin story, and of it was the science that is behind the heart and the value of leading from the heart.

Now, I wonder, mark most of our conversation has been about the individual's role. How can organizations have the kind of culture that promotes leading from the heart? More so than most cultures have done, at least in behavior. Our language has evolved a lot in leadership over the past 10, 15 years.

Almost everyone that stands up in front of the room, every CEO executive says the right things. The behaviors and the culture in the organization don't always match the language. So how can the culture of the organization be shaped in a way where it promotes more leading from the heart?

Mark Crowley: So this is a really good question, and I didn't come from an HR background. I know I've a large Twitter following in podcasts, obviously has a big audience, so I have to believe that there are HR people listening. But I'm on any day now. The Gartner. I was on their podcast, and this is like a classic HR organization. So, I answered these questions. This is such a great question. 

And I think what happens is that what I have to do is you have to say, we're going in a different direction. That's first thing, just directionally we're changing and the kind of management that we are going to aspire to. You're not gonna change the company overnight. You can't mandate, okay, start caring for your people. That would be a stupid move and backfire. 

No one would think it was real, it would actually propel the company backwards by 20 years if you did that. If you said, this is where we want to go. So true North is the managers that we believe are effective are ones who know how to drive performance without harming their people. In fact, they get performance by caring about people. That's true North. That's who we want you to be. So then you start to give them information, give them books. You're bringing speakers, people who can talk to this.

And then you start recognizing. So once a quarter, you start to say, here are the managers who are embodying the new way, the two North Awards, right? So Mahan, you've picked it up, you're doing great. People love you. So now Mahan gets the award. I don't get the award and I don't like not getting the award. So I'm gonna try to become more like Mahan. 

So you do it with carrots, you don't do it with sticks, the very same way you try to drive performance is you don't do it with fear. You just say, this is where we wanna go. And then you start recognizing people and you, and then you start making recognition meaningful.

So Mahan gets promoted over Mark because three times in a quarter. He has been recognized. Everybody knows he is managing this way. Mahan gets the promotion. So now I'm like, if I don't evolve and if I don't adapt, then I'm not gonna succeed here. The other is, we talked about this, which is starting to hire people who embody this. 

So if I'm in a company, and I don't have anybody managing like this, but I hire you and you've demonstrated to me that your whole career, you've managed your way now you're coming in and you're demonstrating a couple things. One is the company that hired you. 

So you have a style that we like. So this is the model that we're looking at. And the other is that every time somebody leaves, you're replacing them with somebody who has the new way. So you're accelerating that process. And the final thing that I would do, and no one's ever taken me up on this, but I would start to do two things.

One is to measure turnover by the manager. Not turnover because they got promoted, although that would be a cool thing to measure cuz some people develop people more and you'd be great to recognize them. But the people that are losing people, who is it? And how consistent is it? 

Because I really believe that turnover is a reflection of the manager.And if people are leaving is because they don't like that person. The other thing that I would do is once a quarter, do a quick survey. You get an email. Hello Mahan. This is Human Resources. We have one question for you. It's totally anonymous. Would you recommend your manager, Mark Crowley, to other employees in our company? Yes or no? 

And then you track those and you start to look at this and the first thing you do is you start to go, okay, we need to figure out what's going on with the no right. Why not? So then you go back to those same employees and say, if you don't mind. There were a high percentage of people that said, no, we wanna understand. 

So could you share some of your opinions, and then you can start coaching people or you help them move out. You do these things and you can change your culture really quickly.

Mahan Tavakoli: I love the examples that you shared, Mark. The people and behaviors that we celebrate indicate a lot of what the values for the organization are.

If we just celebrate the people that bring in the most amount of money, regardless of how they behave, then people see that's what's important regardless.

Mark Crowley: And values don't matter exactly.

Mahan Tavakoli: And just the quick check that you're talking about makes a big difference in looking at where the issues are and how we can support leaders on their journey.

Now there is a lot more we can talk about. We just touched briefly on the surface of some of your thoughts, but would love to know, are there any other resources in addition to your book, Mark, that you typically find yourself recommending. 

Mark Crowley: It's funny, but one of my pet peeves, which I'm gonna violate here in a minute. So I'll post an article that I've just written on LinkedIn taken hours and hours to put this out there. And then someone will post, oh, I wrote something about this. Self-promoting in a way that's really not for 'em, it's a little tacky. 

But honestly, in response to your question. I get a lot of people asking to be on my podcast, and when I tell them no they stop following me or  you can tell they like, hate me now. So it's heartbreaking, right? But part of the reason that I have to turn down a lot of people is because I hand curate, if you will, I'm handpicking the people that I've had on my podcast.

And the reason I'm recommending this is because the reason that I'm picking them is because their work in some meaningful, important way, validates the thesis. You don't have time to read a hundred books. I've read all hundred guest books, every single one of them. And like you, I'm thoroughly prepared and have great questions. 

And so if you are wondering how to do this, you can marinate in it by listening to these conversations because A, I'm a master of it, like I've done it my whole life, so I know it and I've researched it. So it comes naturally to me. But the people that I'm having on are Harvard Business School, Wharton Business School, Bill George, who's a former CEO of a major technology firm, who’s a fellow at the Harvard Business School. 80 years old is one of the best selling leadership books of all time. True North. 

These are people that are offering insights. So I would say to start there and then. If you're reading about them, read their books and what they have to say this is a shameless plug from my podcast, but that's on your podcast. So I'm violating all kinds of rules, but that's my answer.

Mahan Tavakoli: Not at all. Mark. I mentioned at the very beginning that I love your podcast and you do a great job with it. In that, I also appreciate the fact that you read the books. One of the first things when I was launching a podcast, I said, I will never ever have an author and ask them, so what is your book about? Which I, right? 

It's curated by people whose work, whose book you really appreciate and you want to have a conversation with them, based on the full understanding. The point is not to do a book summary. As people are interested, they go read the book. The point is to get the insights from this human being who has put their life effort into writing the book.

And I think you do an outstanding job with that. So it's a great recommendation. Mark, how can the audience connect with you and find out about your book and your work?

Mark Crowley: So when I first came out with the book, I wanted to have a lead from heart.com, and then somebody somebody had that. So then I wanted to have markcrowley.com and somebody had that. So then I became ccrowley.com with my middle name is Christopher. So I became MarkC.Crowley.com. And right after I established that and put it out there, I got a notice that lead from heart.com was available. So I bought that. So either way, markccrowley.com. 

And if you forget my name lead, from heart.com takes you to the place. I'm on Twitter at Mark C. Crowley. I'm on LinkedIn, Mark C. Crowley. So you can reach me. And of course the book is sold on Amazon. I think the cheapest price and the fastest delivery is Amazon.

But any bookstore, any online bookstore too. Thank you for asking. 

Mahan Tavakoli: It's an outstanding book. However, as a fan of your podcast, I let you go Mark without a little nod to your podcast: Heartbeat Round. It's not exactly aligned with the type of questions you ask, but I do want to ask a series of short questions. Who keeps you honest? So you lead from the heart, Mark. 

Mark Crowley: My wife. She literally will say to me, that's not very Lee from the heart. And I would love to tell you that's once a year. I hear that but it's more like once a day. She definitely keeps me honest. That's what a good partner does. My wife does the thing. They keep us grounded and focused. 

Mahan Tavakoli: That's wonderful. So what's your biggest challenge in leading from the heart?

Mark Crowley: I think we talked about that too. It's getting people to suspend their disbelief and ask questions about what I mean, as opposed to just dismissing it because it's easy to do that. 

Mahan Tavakoli: Mark, what is something about leadership you've changed your mind about recently? 

Mark Crowley: It's interesting because the answer is complicated. So I believed when companies started opening up offices after two years of Covid and a lot of were like, Hey, I like having breakfast with my kids and I like spending extra time with my spouse, and I like walking around in my pajamas and working whenever I want to. 

I liked all that. I don't wanna give that up. So I had the opinion that wasn't gonna be good for us. That working from home permanently full-time was a bad thing. And I wrote an article about it and I suffered. It was a fast company article and I got a lot of people calling me a corporate shill.

Like I was advocating for CEOs who wanted people back. I was basically saying the heart needs connection, like human beings need connection. And so I said it with a firm belief in it. But what's interesting is that there's just been so much more that's come out that's maybe even more convincing, like the worst thing that we can do. 

I just had a gentleman  named Jeff Colony is a psychologist or Stanford University, and he wrote a book about belonging and one of his conclusions, it's not his conclusion, but he's aggregated research that shows that like one of the single worst thing you can do, like smoking, two packs a day of cigarettes, the equivalent of that is being lonely.

Is not having connections. And people come back to me and go. I'm with my family and I'm with my, I'll be my friends. And I'm like, no, you're 40 hours alone on Zoom calls. You can't make up the interactions you have with the guy in the hall, the guy in the cafeteria, or the people that come into your meetings.

Those are many connections and they add up to human thriving. So I've become more convinced that the idea of remote work might be an idea that sounds good, but just because it sounds good doesn't mean we should do it.

Mahan Tavakoli: It's interesting, Mark, because I think part of what has happened over the past 20 plus years, especially in the US, is that we have lost our connection to other organizations and groups that give us a sense of belonging, whether religious institutions or associations. 

Work for many of us became that place where we could interact with the humanity of other people. So I agree with you that there is a need for that, that we all have. 

Now, the final one, Mark C. Crowley, what do you do for fun?

Mark Crowley: I haven't had as much fun as I'd like to. And I think a lot of it has to do with just the fact that over the last year I spent a lot of it writing the book. Getting it published and then promoting it and all. 

So I've been working really hard. But I walk on the beach. I live near the beach and so I get up every morning at four 30, at five o'clock, I'm on the beach and I walk for at least an hour by myself in the dark.

And I cannot tell you how satisfying that is. I very rarely see people. I do, it's on the way back, there's a quick handshake, no talking, and it's like a walking meditation. So it does, may not sound like having a party and a laugh, but it's been a real gift for me to have that. And when I can, I play golf with my son.

But that's nowhere near as often as I'd like to.

Mahan Tavakoli: Mark C. Crowley, you have been a gift to the people who have had the chance to read your book, listen to your podcast, and follow your work. Thank you so much for joining me in this conversation for partnering leadership. 

Thank you, Mark.

Mark Crowley: I said at the beginning, Mahan, it was a pleasure and was indeed a great pleasure. So thank you very much for doing this.