6/6/23 - Mark Vincent: Leveling Up Your Leadership

Intro: Welcome to the iWork4Him podcast. I'm Todd T. Reilly, producer of the iWork4Him radio program, the voice of the faith and work movement. Our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: This episode of iWork4Him was previously recorded for the Christian Leadership Alliance's Outcomes Conference podcast, where leaders come to invest the best of what they know into other leaders.

Martha: Remember, if you have influence over just one person, you are a leader. Together, let's listen to this podcast and learn more about leading God's way. Enjoy!

Jim: We have an incredible conversation coming up today with Mark Vincent with Maestro Level Leaders who'll be focusing on how they lead and strive to create a culture of belonging at Maestro Level Leaders.

Dr. Mark Vincent, welcome.

Mark Vincent: Thank you. I'm glad to be with you.

Jim: Before we start talking about your leadership role and your perspective How God is using you to create a culture of belonging at Maestro Level Leaders and with the leaders that you influence Talk to us about how you keep your faith strong and your leadership Christ centered.

Mark Vincent: That's just a real softball question You threw me so thank you for that. You know, I guess because I've lived a while and was introduced to Christ as a, basically as a kindergartner I think over time, habits, if you're really developing yourself spiritually, start to land. For me the rhythm of personal time in prayer and in reading and reading devotional literature, sometimes reading things that really expand my spirit.

And then also a weekly rhythm of worship have begun to matter more than ever before. So I Really have been using for a number of years now the book of common prayer. It's a way to just stay centered in scripture reading in a rhythmic way and to make it prayerful and reflective and For the weekly worship as I've moved to a couple different locations and you end up saying, you know, where will we make our church home?

I've ended up in a liturgical tradition where a gospel reading each week Is the centerpiece of the worship service, where you are again, hearing the words and actions of Jesus, the Christ and have opportunity to kneel and confess my sins and to restate my faith and gather around the Lord's table as a centerpiece of worship.

Each time has become a part of the rhythm. And I think of it as like inhaling and exhaling. of resets to go into the week. And it's also a spot to come back to and celebrate what I've experienced as I've tried to follow Christ during the week. So that's really where it lands for me.

Jim: You know what's beautiful is that, you know, as many believers as there are on the planet, we all worship God differently.

And we all enjoy different parts of that worship and the different styles of that worship, but that doesn't make it any of it wrong. It just makes it different. But God created us different on purpose. So I love that the liturgy really speaks to you and impacts your soul. Love that.

Martha: So good. So Mark , I want to talk about the theme for the outcomes conference podcast and for the conference for 2022 It is, I belong.

So as a leader, how are you, what are some key ways that you create a culture of belonging for your team, whether that's the people that work with you or that you work with at Maestro Level Leaders?

Mark Vincent: So Maestro Level Leaders is a service offering. It's a program that people can join and these are peer based cohorts and many people participate in some kind of forum group or monthly group of people.

We're in the same kind of work or field that they're in. So they join and they, they kind of have a confidential conversation and they help each other out. And Maestro Level Leaders is one expression of that, primarily working with people who are longer in their career and are facing succession planning.

And I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go in this conversation. But what we've learned about peer based advising, and I've been a part of it for many years, is that people who stay in them stay because they have a community, they belong. And there's this interesting paradox as people grow as leaders.

They get ever more isolated and also a little bit more insulated and they need community more than ever. So it's really hard to have that level of community in your workplace in spite of what you may say. You know what a person may say about their board, Oh, I get along well with my board or their colleagues.

Oh, I get along with my colleagues. But every one of those conversations has a bit of an exchange element in it, what you will do for me, what we need from you. It's really hard for it to be centered in belonging to something where you are there because of who you are, you're embraced for who you are, not for what you can do.

So the whole piece of peer based advising and what we want to have in Maestro level leaders in those cohorts is a spot where someone says, these are people who I can have as companions. I will get companions. I can be a companion. And this is what keeps people in these programs for a long time.

They often join because they think I'll benefit. I'll get smarter. I'll have wise counsel. They stay because they have a community.

Jim: It's church.

Mark Vincent: in many ways it really is or what a church should be. You know, the idea of of one another- ing is so important. And if you don't feel like you've got another that you can one another, literally, it's tough. You end up just being an exchange types of relationships.

Jim: But Mark, with all the great stuff, sometimes there's challenges in creating cultures of belonging. What do you see as some of the challenges you face as creating a culture of belonging in those cohorts that you guys create? Those roundtables?

Mark Vincent: Well, because of that isolation and insulation, people start to think that they are different and unique. And then that's a half truth. If they're an accomplished leader, they are different. They have differentiated. They differentiated their business. That's why their business is succeeding or their organization is growing.

And so there's a uniqueness and they've really integrated themselves. They're really applying their gifts. So all of that is true, but only in part. What is true also is that people who are really working to grow as leaders have some common experiences, and they have some common needs because they're human. Like they still only have 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, and they still need some sleep, and they should have a good body budget, they should have good breathing, they should take care of their health. All those things matter and they also face similar organizational development problems.

 And when a person is saying I'm unique or I really want to be special or this is about me and they're not coming to it as a lifelong learner, those become the obstacles you have to work to overcome. Those are usually the key points of resistance and blocks to being able to get past the things that are emerging because somebody has been successful.

Martha: Such a great perspective. I've never really heard it that way and yet it's so good because, you know, the last thing somebody wants to hear is, well, yeah, you're not really that special compared to everybody else. But we all have those similar limits , and those similar things that we deal with, and that is such a great perspective. Thanks for sharing that.

Jim: You're listening to the Outcomes Conference podcast. We'll be back in a moment with more from Mark Vincent from Maestro Level leaders.

Break: Do you want to make an impact for the kingdom of God without quitting your day job? Then here's some great news. God is calling you into full time ministry right where you are.

The job that you hold, the work that you do, and the people you work with, none of that is by accident. Your workplace is your mission field. Change the way you think about faith and work by picking up a copy of our new book, iWork4Him, by going to iworkforhim. com / bookstore. And remember, you aren't just working for yourself, you're working for the Lord.

Jim: Hey, welcome back to the Outcomes Conference Podcast as we talk today with Mark Vincent. I promised him that if you mess up on the podcast, you just keep going. I seem to be proving that to Mark today. Check out Mark online on his website at Maestro Level Leaders. Hang on. So I was trying to find, all of a sudden I lost your website.

There it is, Maestro Level Leaders.com. Maestro Level Leaders.com. Mark Vincent. A lot of us, when we lead, we've got core principles that guide us. What are the top two core principles that guide you as a leader? And as you influence leaders?

Mark Vincent: Well, there are two that come readily to mind among many, you might call on the kind of the ones that are always at the front.

So one of them is much more philosophical more directional, let's say, and that is that for me, I want to love leaders who love leaders. So that sounds like a mission statement, and yes it is, but I would also say it's a principle that there is a people centeredness to leading, not just a thing centeredness or a goal centeredness.

It's about getting people done through the things we're doing much more than getting things done through people. And that's a little bit trite. That could go on a nice leadership poster, but that's something I think about a lot. And also on the heels of that is something that's a lot more operational, which is I want to be very firm on process and very gentle with people.

And by firm, I don't mean legalistic and hard. I mean, not letting go of it, a bull, a bulldog, and it's a determinedness that this is about moving things forward, that together we've agreed that need to be done. And sometimes, yes, you have to make a tough leadership call and decide this is where we're going even if other people aren't ready.

But that doesn't mean you mistreat people, doesn't mean you yell at them. It doesn't mean that you harm them in some way or that you treat them as a commodity that you use up and throw away in order to get things done. So when we're doing this work together, we want to face into the process, which actually gets us, you know, picture it happening.

You turn and become side by side as you face toward this thing that you're going to be working at and take your next step. So, those are two principles I really think of quickly, easily, and often they probably have a bit of a neural pathway in me because this is the stuff I've lived for quite a while now.

Martha: That's so great. So, in that maybe related, maybe not, but what role does listening play in your living out your role as a leader at Maestro level leaders?

Mark Vincent: It's really funny. I just came into this podcast after a lunch with someone where we were talking about communication and how communication is so important.

And we ended up thinking and discussing how probably about 80% of good communication is the listening side, not just stating it again and then again and finding a hundred ways to try and force people to understand something. And so when you're helping other people develop, they need to be able to identify what they need to do.

And then even more so what they're willing to do. And that's true at an organizational level. Well, that comes from asking questions and showing up curious. That's the stuff that we talk about all the time. But listening is at the heart of it and listening, especially when you're leading. And you're not just listening to say, okay. I'm turning off other things that I might be thinking about. And I'm just trying to focus on you, whatever it is you want to tell me.

And it's much more a matter of if we're working on something together, we're listening for where you are and what comes next and what we can do next together. So you're listening at a variety of levels. You're not just listening for what we would say is the comprehension part of it, and you're not just listening for the context or the concepts, the definitions of what somebody means.

You're actually listening for the architectural elements for what can then be built. And then there's one more level, that's listening adaptively, where like we're going to learn as we go. Who has all the answers right now? I don't have the answers or we wouldn't be having this conversation. You don't have the answers or we wouldn't be solving together.

So out of what we're trying, some things won't work and some things will. So we're listening for what can be adapted, what's emerging as well. And so that's a very deep level of listening, which means I can't be too quick to tell you what I'm thinking about. And I can't be thinking about what I'm going to respond to your words if I'm actually trying to get it all.

So I have to trust the fact that a good question or a good thought is going to come later. But I want to make sure I understand. So I think of the prayer of St. Francis all the time, you know, that I would seek first to understand. And this is one way that that really gets practiced.

Martha: You know, it's so funny that you say that because it's something that Jim and I have to undo all the time because in our podcasting, we are always thinking about what's next.

What do we need to cover? And it's very easy to sometimes lose the context and go deeper in the conversation. So in our personal life, we have to step back, you know, and we're like, no, it's not about what question is next. It's not about where are we going to go. It's like, let's listen to all that's happening now and really embrace it.

And so you know, we have to fight those tendencies a lot. So I love the way you explained it. Thank you.

Jim: So Mark, tell us about Maestro Level Leaders. Tell us about its mission and its work.

Mark Vincent: Maestro Level Leaders is an expression of peer based advising, as we were talking about, that is primarily built for people who, when they're looking into the future, trying to build a future value of the organization - what do we have to adjust? What's the next mix of services or products or whatever it is that defines us being able to be an enduring organization that can continue fulfilling its mission next year also? So they're looking into that. It's like, oh my goodness whatever we arrive at somebody else is going to be leading this. It's not going to be me.

My primary role now is to get us ready for that kind of succession and that kind of leadership transfer. And that is a whole different order of business. It's a very different job description. If you're at the helm of an organization. And you start realizing that what you're preparing and building is going to be under somebody else's care, almost like, you know, a Moses saying, Joshua, here you go, you've got the promised land, you've got the people.

I'm not going to be there. Everything I've lived brings us up to this moment, but I'm not crossing that river. It's like that. And the job changes at that moment because now it's not so much about building. It's about setting down in such a way that others can build. There, that is fraught with all kinds of peril and difficulty and jockeying for position and getting the timing right.

And so we've created a peer based advising experience for people at that moment that lasts four years where they're journeying through that kind of transition planning together, timing it, thinking about it, working on the current case study of the business. Having some coaching beside that and working with people who have practiced this for a while and helped a variety of organizations to do that.

And that's really what that mission is. I should add that we're, we formed this partnership with Christian Leadership Alliance where we are doing an expression. We're building it now, an expression of Maestro Level Leaders for the Christian Leadership Alliance. members. So that it is a CLA expression of this.

We're really, really excited about that.

Jim: We're talking today with Mark Vincent right here on the Outcomes Conference Podcast. We'll be right back.

Break: You know the kind of person that always tells you about the latest trends or the special deals around town? Well, lean in, because here's a message from that kind of person.

The Awaken Podcast Network is the place to be. Go to awakenpodcastnetwork. com and unlock God's purpose for your work with help from some friends. You will find a gathering place of podcasts that provide simple tools, faith stories, and conversations that will inspire and equip you to vibrantly live out your faith in your work today. Go ahead, check out AwakenPodcastNetwork. com, and then be that kind of person and tell a friend.

Jim: Hey, welcome back to the Outcomes Conference podcast as we talk with Mark Vincent from Maestro Level Leaders. And Mark, I want to ask you about the three turns of a leader, but before we do... You've been working on a project, a book that's gonna come out sometime this year called Listening, Helping, and Learning: the core competencies of process and consulting kind of a heady title, honestly. But i'm sure it's more exciting than that. What's this book about that you got coming out?

Mark Vincent: Well, i'll take that back to the marketers that we have a heady title. We need to change it before it sees the light of day. Thank you for the the marketing information. I say with the big smile on my face. Just so anybody who's listening can hear that I have.

The ideas of listening, helping and learning are categorical descriptions of competencies that mark what process consulting is. Process consulting is a form of listening, which we've been talking about.

It's a form of coming alongside a client rather than saying this is what you should do. And you're learning together because you're working at issues that nobody's seen before because it's this problem in this context with this organization. So the way that that's done: there's an organization called the Society for Process Consulting. They've published what the core competencies are. I wrote the curriculum for them. The people who've gone through that training said, this needs to be in a book. We need this as an ongoing reference. We need it, not just as consultants, but the clients that we have need to be looking at this, because this applies to project managers and for boards, as we listen deeply, as we then turn that toward the steps we take, and as we learn from it. So we put together about 25 case studies from around the world, everything from how do you run a construction company in the middle of a civil war in Africa to how do you manage the fourth generation transfer of a family that manages luxury castle properties to somebody who's a wedding planner and has a shop that's selling wedding dresses.

And now you're in COVID. So, you know, it is those kinds of things where how do you figure this out? How do you get the people around it to make it happen? And the book's out in June. We'll be using it, yes, for the training, but it's ongoing discussion for people who have to lead these kinds of processes.

Martha: Excellent. So I am sure there are a lot of listeners that that can probably apply to and hopefully they will check out your book.

So one of the things that we want to kind of focus on here for just a minute is the three turns of a leader. And that is a, that is something that you use in Maestro Level Leaders.

And how does a leader sense that he or she's in that third turn? So explain what the three turns are. And then let's talk about the third turn.

Mark Vincent: You know, it's really funny when we started talking about Maestro Level Leaders. We're describing what is it and where does that show up and how do you know that you're ready?

And so I began using this description out of human development. I didn't invent this stuff, right? But out of human development, talking about these are three major turns someone has in their leadership journey. And what was interesting is how that language got picked up everywhere. I'm having people come to me that don't know that three turns of a leader kind of started with this work and they're talking about how during their second turn or third turn and it just feels like wow, somehow we tripped over something that just is, you know, it's like all tissue facial tissue we call Kleenex, you know, even though that's the brand. It's like that.

So very quickly, the three turns are turn one: I'm learning to lead myself usually the first, you know, decade or so of a career. I figured out my emotional wake. I figured out what it means to lead a project, to see what done is on a project, find out if people actually want to follow me. You know, there's so many things that can happen there and I'm getting more and more competent in my lane.

Turn two. Turn two is often when a person is invited to run a company or something that might have the PNL, the balance sheet of this organization. They succeeded so well in turn one. Can you take on the whole thing? We'd like you to run the organization. The problem here is now I have to learn to lead the organization and people.

It's not just leading myself. So if I go into that turn thinking, look at me, watch what I can do. I'm the man. I'm the woman. Give me the promotion. I'm outperforming all my peers. We're going to fail in turn two. Because now we're leading the organization. We're learning people. So rather than this vertical rise, you don't have to spread out horizontally, and rather than functioning out of our competence, we actually have to admit that I don't know stuff.

And that's why I have someone who heads up, you know, human resources and somebody heads up marketing, somebody heads up fundraising, or whatever those other lanes are. And I have to draw out their gifts as one who doesn't know half of what they do.

The third turn is if we have really led this organization well and it's operating with a high degree of excellence and we've got leaders over those areas and over the operations as a maestro level or a third turn leader, I'm able to give more attention to the future and to the unknowns and this is stuff that's developing.

More to the stakeholders, more with the board, more around what is emerging and how are we going to be in place to run this and the big capital that might be needed to still have an enterprise as I hand it off to the people who are coming behind me that I've been privileged to develop and to do it in a way that they're slingshotted forward into the future, rather than the organization going into languish mode for a number of years and just like Startups, most of them don't succeed.

Most of them don't get to five years. And just like moving some kind of a merger or an acquisition together and achieving that value, which most don't. Going through the succession planning, most organizations don't do it. Well, the adventure of doing it well comes from being very planful, very specific, very transparent, very forthright. And those are the three turns.

Jim: Wow. Love that. Thanks for that description. It was really fun. That was fun and educational. I loved it.

All right, Mark. We're going to close out the podcast with this question: This is a podcast for leaders pouring their hearts into the hearts of other leaders. What leadership idea or thought would you love to share as an investment in those listening to today's outcomes conference podcast?

Mark Vincent: I'm probably just repeating something that has become very important to me that we've been talking about. You cannot do this by yourself, and you can't do it out of your competence. We need other people. We need to approach this from not knowing and from learning in order to be able to say, help is a good thing.

Who can help us? Not just help me. Who can help us? And helping people get to that earlier in their career so they can keep growing. And so that they can actually as they develop as a human being begin to see wisdom grow up and out, rather than just knowledge and skill, so that they can then in turn invest into others who are in their first or second turns, helping them come to a place of wisdom that has come to mean a great deal to me. And I consider myself very fortunate that I had an abundance of mentors in my life that modeled that, and I am deeply aware of how many people have never had that experience, not know what it's like, have no picture of it.

So helping to create that for others and to call it out of people who've never had that experience. It's like a holy calling, and I am privileged to be a part of that.

Jim: I believe you do have a holy calling right there. Maestro Leaders. I love that you're doing maestrolevelleaders. com. Love what you're doing, and it is a holy calling, just pouring into leaders and helping them to pour into others.

Any final questions, Martha?

Martha: No, I think you've given us a lot to think about and I believe that there will be a lot of people checking out your book. We'll put it in the show links.

Jim: All right. Thank you, Mark Vincent from Maestro Level Leadership today.

Mark Vincent: Thank you.

Outro: Did you know that God has a calling on your life? It's true. He's called you to bring Jesus to the world. For some that may look like a pulpit or a foreign mission field, but for most of us it looks like a construction site, a cubicle, a hospital, or a classroom. Wherever it is that you work, live, volunteer, and invest, that is your mission field. To learn more about integrating your faith into your work and retirement, check out our books. iWork4Him, sheWorks4HIm, and iRetire4Him by going to iworkforhim. com. / bookstore.

Thanks for listening to the iWork4Him Podcast with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Please visit iWork4Him.com to learn more about connecting your faith and work. To join the iWork4Him Nation or subscribe to our weekly blog.

You can also follow us on social media at iWork4Him to stay up to date and meet our guests. If today's message spoke to you, please subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. Your review will launch more workplace missionaries across America. That's at iWork4Him and online at iWork4Him. com. I work the number 4 him. com.