When Growth Outpaces Trust: How Scaling CEOs Can Navigate Team Conflict Before It Breaks the Business

Summary

00:00 - Navigating Business Obstacles

04:24 - Leah's Evolution from Lawyer to Mediator

15:12 - Understanding Team Dynamics and Communication

24:03 - Building Trust and Facilitating Action

35:54 - Practical Strategies for Scaling CEOs

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Full Transcript

Jeff Holman (00:01.302)

Welcome back friends. I'm Jeff Holman. This is the breakout CEO podcast and we're glad to have you listening in today about how to deal with and navigate the obstacles, the moments in your business that hopefully can turn into breakout moments in your business. And today I'm super excited to have a new guest with us from a little bit further away out in the UK, right? This is Leah Brown. She's with us and I've

I'll introduce her topic in just a minute, but first I wanna say, Leah, it's so great to have you here.

Leah Brown FRSA (00:35.151)

Thank you so much, Jeff. It's great to be here, of course.

Jeff Holman (00:38.85)

Wonderful. Well, so Leah, we were chatting just briefly before the recording started and I'm really excited because as I read what you do and we, you know, we, we chatted just for a moment. There are, you know, there are the operational issues in the business that everybody deals with, right? but then there's the team issues. And I've actually, I've been surprised at how many of our CEOs and other guests have talked about the, the team issues, but

The kind of a concept hit me as I was reading through your background and what you do. And, know, you're a, can share more in a minute, but you're, you're a recovering lawyer, perhaps if you want to say it that way. and doing this other aspect of your business where you're coming in, you're helping teams navigate maybe the situations where growth in the business is outpacing trust in the business, in the team, right? And how do you navigate those team issues when the team.

maybe isn't as robust as the business model is in the business. And so that's a tough situation to be in. I imagine your legal background will come in handy as we get going in there, but that's a topic that I think a lot of our audience needs to hear because teams, you know, I was just reading this morning on LinkedIn about how, you know, so many founder teams just, they don't last the length of the business, you know, they last for certain times. And so vesting becomes important. How do you set up vesting to navigate that? But

More important than investing, give me a flavor, if you will, just to introduce this topic. What are the types of issues that you've seen where teams just don't quite, they don't quite hold together when the obstacles come up in the businesses?

Leah Brown FRSA (02:23.941)

Thank you. think it's particularly in high growth companies, right? It's not just that growth is outpacing trust. It's that our relationships don't have time to keep pace or find space in what is going on around us. And, you know, one of the things I've always found really remarkable about fast growing teams is, you know, when you're a little bit smaller, you're really careful about who you select because...

It's like dropping food coloring into a jar of water, right? It totally changes the mix of what's in the jar. But as you grow and as you scale, you lose that sense of control or that sense of dilution because everything around you is changing all the time and so you don't feel that as acutely. But it also means that you don't invest as intensely. And so part of it comes from not being surrounded by like-minded minds.

Part of it comes from not having enough capacity to do things, maybe the way that you used to do things. Part of it comes from you need a flexible communication style. The way that you've always communicated probably isn't landing with everyone that you need to communicate with. And also it's really easy to underestimate where you're at within all of this and your own insecurities and your own fears and your own pressures that you're bringing to the table. And that's just the stuff at work, far less what's going on outside of work. And so when you put all of that stuff together, you know, it's kind of inevitable.

that you'd have some kind of breakdown in communication or some kind of conflict, irreconcilable differences or worst case scenario, a scandal.

Jeff Holman (03:55.064)

Yeah, no, that's, I feel like I should have been taking notes while you were saying that, but good thing we're recording this. I can go back and re-listen to that afterwards. That was packed full right there of several things that we're gonna have to unpack a little bit. But before we do that, I feel like what you're talking about is just the teams evolve as the business evolves and that evolution brings its own issues, different times, different issues. But I wanna talk about that.

In just a moment, let's talk about your evolution. How did you, because your background, I'm sure plays a really important role in how well you're able to do this with your clients. How did you evolve from the corporate &A attorney that you have been into seeing a need that teams have? Are these your clients you were working with and they just kind of said, hey, Leah, come and help us with this issue. Or was it a different path? What was your path to mesh from the lawyer?

practicing lawyer into this role.

Leah Brown FRSA (04:57.817)

It's a great question. mean, the umbrella theme is that our professional lives always mirror our personal lives and stuff that we don't deal with in our personal lives eventually surfaces in our professional lives. So just to set the tone, I think I always wanted to be a diplomat. And I was very passionate about international travel, politics, debating, communication. I was always very into all of those things.

Jeff Holman (05:15.703)

Mm-hmm.

Leah Brown FRSA (05:27.855)

But I went into law because I just loved to solve problems. And as my career kind of evolved, and you know, I was doing more of the kind of front page on the FT kind of deals, and then I went in house after a few years, and my whole in house career was just careening from crisis to crisis to crisis. you know, if I didn't know better, I would have thought that I was the common denominator.

But it is really clear by the journalistic prowess of the Wall Street Journal and the FT that it had nothing to do with me. But I was in these environments where leaders were just getting things wrong and totally avoidable things wrong. And part of it was because they surrounded themselves with people who wouldn't tell them no. Part of it was that they didn't insulate themselves against their blind spots. Part of it was that kind of very...

sinister, ego driven, I'm the boss and I call the shots and you do what you're told and I was in that situation over and over and over again and I was talking to my team today. I was like, I've forgotten of even three instances out of the five that I've just relayed in my career where that was the case and so over a period of I think probably about 10 years.

I started to see that the way that leaders were relating to each other in the boardroom was a little bit problematic. And when I was at the helm of leading on a strategic exit, we had problems within my leadership team. We also had problems within the buyer's leadership team. And somehow I became privy to both of those and was, I suppose, the contact point for kind of what do we do next. And I delivered the exit.

Jeff Holman (06:53.774)

Mm-hmm.

Leah Brown FRSA (07:15.487)

And I had a long time of reflection. I was working to prepare myself for self-employment at part time. And it became really clear to me that we need to do relationships differently. And the reason that we don't isn't because we don't want to, it's because we don't know how. And I don't know, most leaders aren't going to fall on their sword and say, hey, here's my weakness, help me with this, right? So.

Jeff Holman (07:39.264)

No, no.

Leah Brown FRSA (07:40.401)

You either have to meet them where they're at or you have to find some other way of exposing the delta between them where they are and becoming the best version of themselves. And I trained as a mediator. I had always been somebody who had the desire to sit and listen and hold space for diametrically opposed ideas, conflicting wills and not be affected by that.

And so I said, okay, there's something in this. My legal background helps me understand what's going on and what they're allowed to do, what they can't do and what are the constraints. But the mediation is very much the heart of what do you need? What if it was possible? How can I help you get there? What does it look like for you to be three years on from this situation? You know, that dreaming into the art of the possible. And for me, I say recovering lawyer because it is such a privilege.

Jeff Holman (08:26.83)

Mm-hmm.

Leah Brown FRSA (08:38.684)

have a career as a lawyer. It's definitely a privilege to have worked in some of the places that I've been and trained in the ways that I've been trained but I felt like it only used half of me and I think when you're stepping into an opportunity to have a purpose-driven impactful career you have to do something that uses all of you and so I could bring both kind of psychological insight, empathy, practical conflict resolution, transactional awareness and understanding of what it means to

Jeff Holman (08:57.517)

Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (09:07.952)

to live in and work in and run a business. And that is how we ended up with the Wayfinders Group.

Jeff Holman (09:13.646)

I love that. And something strikes me. I mean, I've been in law firms. I've been in in-house counsel. I work as outside general counsel for several companies now. In the law, I understand that there's this role. And as you're describing kind of your experience in those roles, I gather that you are doing something a little different than other attorneys might be doing. There's maybe a sense of assertiveness.

that you're taking. I mean, I think a lot of attorneys in those situations, things get tense in the boardroom. You'd be like, let me just shift off to the side and watch how this goes. Let these guys duke it out or, you know, let these people figure out their problems. And then I'll, I'll document it later. A lot of attorneys wouldn't be, wouldn't be saying, well, maybe I should step in and I can be the diplomat. can take that role that

probably a lot of these situations need, but I'm not sure a lot of attorneys or lawyers would be doing that. Am I characterizing that in a way that might be accurate or is it inaccurate? What is it about your role that's a little different than how other attorneys have done it?

Leah Brown FRSA (10:28.31)

So I think it is worth saying that it was incredibly difficult to play the role that I have now whilst being in house counsel, because you're challenging your boss. You know, there is this kind of inherent respect of the hierarchy and boundaries that you don't cross. I was always willing to be fired. I didn't get fired, but like I was always I was always willing to because I was like if the businesses

Jeff Holman (10:42.776)

Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (10:58.138)

success and longevity depends on us navigating the situation and we have no money as was often the case. Somebody's got to do something and I'm here so I'll be bold and I'll do that and I've always had that kind of conviction that if I can do something I want to do something but I really do take your points.

Jeff Holman (11:16.002)

Did you see that as advocacy for the, I mean, as attorneys, our client is the business, right? Did you see that as advocacy for the client itself, or was it more of just this, like as a character, you are a diplomat and it's like you're drawn to that role? I think those are two different things.

Leah Brown FRSA (11:34.485)

I'm very pragmatic. And I think, I think the boldness is not people often, people often second guess me. And I don't mean that in a boastful way. But but when you are relatively junior in your career, and you start at a new organization, let's call it a sovereign wealth fund. And within three weeks of starting, you have

to run an investigation into suspected embezzlement and fraud by everyone who is more senior than you in the business. You have to figure out where to do that.

Jeff Holman (12:15.159)

This sounds like an oddly specific hypothetical here.

Leah Brown FRSA (12:18.224)

You have to, right, but you have to, you have to do this in the public domain. You have to do that.

with integrity, you have to do that with conviction, you have to back your training, and you have to be flexible enough to recognise that nobody wants you to be doing what you're doing and everyone has a view on what you're doing and what you're going to find. And there was something about being out of my depth in a situation like that and having to figure it out as I go that has just enabled me to be more circumspect in other situations. And I think part of it is

Jeff Holman (12:26.903)

Mm-hmm.

Leah Brown FRSA (12:54.448)

So many lawyers have the privilege of going through their career without really having to confront challenging situations like that, where the job is the job that's on the job description, where you get paid to stay within very clear boundaries. And I think the first thing is the Commercial General Counsel of 2025 turns that on its head, right? You're a business partner, you're a business leader. Like you're in the trenches with the CEO, you're making the different court calls, you are a trusted advisor. It's not the same as it used to be.

Jeff Holman (13:21.036)

Yep.

Leah Brown FRSA (13:24.112)

Same with the chief legal officer, if that's what the business has instead. The wallflower is dead. But I think the thing about being an in-house general counsel is you have your speciality. And if you're in a situation where you're a litigator and the challenge that you're facing is an employment related crisis, how are you going to navigate that? That's not what you've been trained to do.

And so I think there's something about being in-house counsel that is really different than being a private practice lawyer. And it really does take a different type of person, I think, than a traditional private practice lawyer to really be commercial enough to say, okay, I'm out of my comfort zone, but what do we do here? And I think a lot of GCs love that part of the role. I certainly loved that part of the role. But I think for me,

Jeff Holman (13:48.685)

Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (14:17.199)

I really love being a mediator.

Jeff Holman (14:19.533)

I love it. I love it. It shows through. And I think it stands out. I don't know if I've articulated it well, but I think it stands out that you have a different nature to you than a lot of in-house attorneys that I've talked with. So I'll leave it at that for now, because I want to hear about some of your experiences, some of your stories, some of the ways you've, the issues that you've seen come up in teams.

where those come up, why those come up, how to react, how should, and I'd love to hear from your perspective, from that kind of mediation, know, middle of the road, unbiased, onlooker and solution, maybe finder. I'd love to hear also how you approach this so that it's a win.

for the CEOs, because our audience is scaling CEOs. And if we can get anything out of this conversation, which I know we can, then we're going to have scaling CEOs say to themselves, okay, number one, how do I spot these problems? Number two, how do I avoid these problems or head these off? What can I do to be proactive with my team? And I think we're going to touch on a few of those things. So that's a whole lot, maybe just...

revealing my excitement to hear all these things in such a short time. Let's start with a couple, know, give me one or two examples of the types of situations you've stepped into when there are issues and they've, you know, either reached out to you or you've been present already and said, hey, listen, we've got to take this to resolution, not just escalating the problem further.

Leah Brown FRSA (16:05.851)

Yes, so there are varying degrees of severity. And I think the first thing that I want to say is, when it comes to mediation, a lot of people's minds default to divorce. And when they're there, they're thinking about how awful it was to be going through a mediation process with their spouse. I want you to dispense with everything that you know, think and feel about mediation.

And I want you to think about this when you hear mediation, a difficult conversation you don't want to have. A member of your organization who has said something negative about you or who's complained and you don't know how to deal with it. You need to choose a replacement CFO or find a new chair and you can't reach consensus on how to do that. Or you need to make a decision as to where you're going to open a new office and

The opportunity cost is the same for five different sites and you're to have to disappoint somebody. How do you make that decision? When I talk about the types of things that I'm brought in for, it is not because there is litigation at hand. It is not because somebody is going to be exited and it is not because there is a lawsuit on your desk. It is much more uncomfortable and much more relational. It is nothing transactional about my involvement in what I'm about to describe.

Leah Brown FRSA (17:34.759)

Somebody will pick up the phone when they've tried everything and they're not the only ones banging their head against the wall, but they're the ones who have power to influence the purse strings. So for example, my favourite, succession.

Something has happened and maybe the chair has fulfilled their time. In the UK, we have governance codes that mandate that chairs shouldn't be in situ for longer than nine years, three successive terms of three years. Same for senior independent non-executive directors. If you've been here too long, you need to move along, which is great. But what happens if you don't have a replacement? Or what happens if the replacement process does not follow?

due process. So that's the kind of thing that I would get brought in to resolve and part of the challenge here is that as soon as you're involving boards or leadership teams you're dealing with a handful of people you might be dealing with 10 to 15 people. Disparate views, opinions, frustrations, concerns, priorities. And so the first thing that I like to do is to separate the person from the problem. You know, why are you working here?

Jeff Holman (18:22.637)

Hmm.

Leah Brown FRSA (18:51.166)

What's your favourite thing about being here? How have you found this experience of being on the board? What are you most looking forward to in the next six months? And eventually you're to come onto questions like, so what happens for you if nothing changes here? And who at home is most concerned about the stress that this is putting on you? And what difference would it make to you if you could go home today and never have to think about this issue again? Anyway.

What I do is I help leaders work out what's going on for them and really get to the root of their feelings. And the reason this is relevant is because in the UK we have a problem feeling our feelings. We have feelings, we do not know how to express them and we definitely are not very literate at naming them. And so when you're working with executives who...

don't know how to say what they feel because they've never been allowed to express what they feel, or they have expressed what they felt and they've been rejected or they've been silenced or they've been outcast. It is cathartic to them to participate in the process where they, in a private way, have their views challenged. In a private way, can come away with a greater understanding of what people actually think and feel about them and can privately fall on their sword.

say I got that wrong. Okay yeah I would like an opportunity to say I'm sorry or to see what I can do to fix that. So to your point about what makes working with me different and what we do is we're very into restorative approaches and so we want to as part of this process help people take accountability and in practice that might mean acknowledging what has happened. My favourite phrase is call a spade a spade.

Jeff Holman (20:40.961)

Mm-hmm.

Leah Brown FRSA (20:41.414)

And we might need to help them understand what an apology might look like if requested from the other party. We live in a like love island world where, you know, I'm really sorry if I hurt your feelings about this because I might have done this and I might have done that. That's not that's not an apology. Right, I didn't Yeah, I didn't mean for that to happen. So I apologize if that happens.

Jeff Holman (21:03.265)

I didn't mean for you to get offended at the stuff that I said. Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (21:08.784)

No, no, it did happen. And they are hurt. so what? So so so there is something about we often think we're communicating something. And it's not being received as that because that's not what's being communicated. But the intention of what's being communicated is also lost. And so bridging that gap can be really helpful. And then obviously helping from the accountability process, take amends. So what is it?

that could happen or you could do or somebody might ask for you to do to help you make amends for what has happened so that you can close the responsibility loop. Now, that's not just relevant in a succession situation, that's relevant in a grievance situation, that's relevant in a there was a scandal and we have an opportunity to to blame the problem or to to pass the buck. Well, actually, we did that. And we shouldn't have done that. And our values tell us that we shouldn't have done that. So now what are we going to do about it?

to say that that was wrong and to say how we're going to do it differently. So that's one of many ways that I work with larger groups. But I also work to rebuild trust between a leader and their team. And it's really interesting to me how different it is, the posture of a leader having a broken relationship with their team.

versus a team member looking up because that team member hasn't been in leadership and therefore they don't understand what the upward pressures are of that individual or how they're squeezed or what challenges they might have in managing 14 people rather than just themselves and really helping them understand, know, what would it be like if you were in their shoes or why do think they responded to you in that way or

What think you could do differently to help them lead you well? Or if you could change one thing about the way that they're relating to you, what might that be? So I think to answer your question, for me curiosity and like encouraging and fostering that sense of curiosity is really important. But also like getting people to really listen. You know, yeah, you've got stuff to get off your chest. Great. Get it off with me. But but then can we now make space to listen to what it is that's saying?

Leah Brown FRSA (23:28.612)

does that make you feel? does that surprise you? what's going on with you for that? and how different was that experience to the way that you usually relate to each other? and it's funny because in the lore it's go go go quick quick quick get it done move on to the next thing. in my work now it's go slow to go fast create space we are not in a rush you are not going to tick this box and it be solved and move on to the next thing this is a process

We are engaging in a process. You've committed to this process. Let's see this process through.

Jeff Holman (24:03.051)

That makes sense. it seems to me that, I mean, the ultimate goal here is, I mean, it's building trust, but building trust or facilitating communication, reopening those pathways so that people can share, speak openly, whatever it is. But the ultimate goal here is to get the company to...

to overcome whatever's keeping it from taking action, right? Ultimately, we're talking about these growth companies and everybody there, from the employees to the leadership to the stakeholders, the directors, and eventually you in the picture, everyone shows up because action stops happening at the pace that we expect it to. This dispute or this issue kind of side lies, side.

What's the word? I want to say side rails. I don't know that's the word or not, but kind of sidelines the focus on growth and takes the attention and puts it onto this other issue where action is probably not happening or, hey, I'll step back in when they apologize or we'll make a decision when everybody can finally see that I'm right and get on the same page or whatever. Action really is the goal, right?

Leah Brown FRSA (25:02.654)

Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (25:26.843)

Yeah, but I think we need to be more realistic about why people don't take action, right? So I was speaking to a leader a few weeks ago, I was speaking at a conference. They came up to me afterwards. And fantastic leader, very experienced, worked in a range of environments and said, Leah, I've got somebody on my team who's underperforming. And I was like, great, what's the problem? It was like,

Jeff Holman (25:55.309)

Sounds normal.

Leah Brown FRSA (25:56.608)

I don't know what to do about it. And I was like, yes you do. And the long and short of it was he knows that he wants this person out. He isn't willing to engage in the difficult sequence of steps to get this person out. And I said, well, isn't the answer here to get your person to self-select their way out? You know, like they might not be enjoying it here or they might know that they're underperforming compared to their peers or they might be woefully unaware.

Jeff Holman (26:12.076)

Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (26:22.931)

that they're underperforming, you know, there's a whole range of things that we can get to before we go to you need to go on a performance improvement plan or, you know, where I'm going to terminate your contract. Why don't we just start with trying to figure out what's going on for them. And I think we don't give ourselves enough space as leaders to show up as ourselves in these experiences, because we've got other priorities. And the reality is when you join a company,

you have a specific skill or a specific role that you are hired for and usually that's not management right the majority of people in the company are not hired to be managers in the company otherwise nothing would get done and so there's something about as people progress in their career they stop doing the specialism that they're really really good at and they also have to divide their time with both leading and managing which are also not the same thing and I think sometimes people don't make that

Jeff Holman (27:04.023)

Right.

Leah Brown FRSA (27:20.989)

that transition very effectively. Or they've been promoted so much that they haven't had chance to kind of catch up. And maybe they're just promoted because they're the ones that's been there from the beginning. So they've got the institutional knowledge, but not necessarily the skill set to lead the team. And so I think part of it is that we need to make sure that we keep the people at the centre of our business. And that is a line manager responsibility.

to check in with them, what's going on with you? How are you finding this transition? Yes, we've just opened five new offices this month, that's great. But actually, the revenue pressure then means that the person who was responsible for leading team X is now also leading team Y. And that means that the engagement from the team and the participation and the deliverables for that team, there's an opportunity cost somewhere in that. And I think part of it is being conscious about what is going to happen.

as each step in growth is made and not making a monetary decision, not reducing our decisions to monetary, this is going to improve profitability, so we must do that without recognising the people related cost of the speed of decisions and the nature of the decisions that are being taken.

Jeff Holman (28:26.509)

Yeah.

Jeff Holman (28:34.733)

Well, so what does a CEO do to increase that skill set? Because, you know, we were talking a little earlier, you know, I've got an engineering background, a law background, you've got a law background, other people have a business background, other people are, you know, have their own own styles. A lot of people come into these, these managerial roles or even CEO roles. And if you tell them, you know, we need to focus on the people, they'll be like, yeah, of course we do people, culture, that's super important to us.

but they don't always grasp it. What's the one layer down where we say, okay, here are the two or three things that you need to focus on or that need to be present if you're actually focusing on the people aspect or the communication aspect in your business.

Leah Brown FRSA (29:21.599)

mean, I'm not sure that I would say that that is the best way to look at it. I think the way that I look at it is...

Jeff Holman (29:29.941)

Okay.

Leah Brown FRSA (29:35.105)

You have an organization and you've got a mission. The blind spot that you need to be aware of as the CEO is what is the shadow self of your mission? You've got this amazing mission to, I don't know, remove all the plastic from all the oceans and by 2035.

Jeff Holman (29:39.308)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Holman (30:00.856)

Sure.

Leah Brown FRSA (30:02.214)

And you're going to do that in accordance with your values. So it's going to be super sustainable. It's going to be carbon neutral. It's going to be all those things. Okay, great. What's going on in your organization with your people that is potentially making you a hypocrite in your mission because you're not giving them the same, okay, what does it look like for you to be a sustainable workforce? What does it look like for you to be engaged in the how? What does it look like to feed this through our supply chain?

What does it look like for us to ensure that every decision that we make in pursuit of the mission with respect to our people is in alignment with our values? So I think part of it is

When you're choosing the way that you're running the company, you've got to be open to feedback. And I don't just mean generic, like, if you have a problem, like, just let me know, drop into my office, my door's open anytime. Most organizations that have challenges, the people who are experiencing the challenges have been complaining for a while. So you need an early warning detection system, and or you need a really, effective people team.

So that when the people team report to the executive committee, here's what we're hearing, you we've got four complaints of this, this month, or, you know, this person's experiencing this from outside the organisation, how can we support them? How can we help them? Instead of saying, well, actually that let's de-prioritise that because we've got these five offices to open. It's like, well, do we really understand that? What else do we need to know to be sure that we've addressed that properly before we shut that down? And I think again, it's that curiosity, it's that, that listening, that humility.

I'm not saying that the CEO has to be the person to do this. In many cases it's inappropriate because they might be the person that is whistleblown to or they might be the person who's brought in to hear an appeal. It's not necessarily appropriate for them to burden themselves with that. Their responsibility is ensure that somebody is burdened with that. And so I think it's creating, coming back to what I said earlier, about a top team. It's also about surrounding yourself with people who are different than you.

Jeff Holman (31:54.699)

Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (32:05.342)

because many people in the organisation, if they feel like everyone is a cultural carbon copy of one another, they're not going to raise their concerns because they're just going to feel like they're going to be silenced or not taken seriously. So having a diverse team can help with that. Having a range of personalities can help with that. Having a range of ways in which people can give feedback. Anonymous is always a good way.

And the software that can can do that to alleviate or lay concerns. But also I think from a CEO's perspective, you got to have somebody walking with you in the journey who doesn't report to you. That might be a coach, that might be a therapist, that might be a mentor, that might be a sponsor. I don't know. But there's something about having somebody who has no stake in the game and doesn't report to you.

Jeff Holman (32:53.26)

Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (33:03.21)

who can work through what's making you feel uncomfortable or what you're not doing or what you might like to consider or what you did last time that didn't work and how could we do it differently this time to support you in that challenge.

Jeff Holman (33:17.707)

And I've seen a lot of CEOs who will have these regular check-ins with other stakeholders in the business, whether that's a director or an informal advisor. But you're saying that these people, you need to have somebody who doesn't have a stake in the business, somebody with a more objective view on that. Do they also need to be a skilled communicator to bring that perspective? what would somebody look at or look for in one of these advisors that can...

come in and be that objective, neutral person helping them along the way.

Leah Brown FRSA (33:55.625)

say two things that probably most people wouldn't respond to that question with as an answer. The first one is...

I think they need life experience, right? Because if you're a CEO in the trenches, you're probably not gonna take heed of somebody who has not been in the trenches in any part of their life. And then the second thing, when I was in trauma counseling, I had a brilliant counselor and she taught me that one of the reasons that I'd struggled so much up until that point was that because I hadn't been able to find somebody as intelligent.

Jeff Holman (34:17.453)

Yeah.

Leah Brown FRSA (34:35.361)

as I am to challenge me and put me in my place, right? If you're trained in a particular way to intellectualise or to let yourself off the hook or to, you know, for me I tend towards complexity, right? So it was quite easy for me to run circles around the person whose role it was.

Jeff Holman (34:45.9)

Mm-hmm.

Leah Brown FRSA (35:02.593)

to shine a light on my bad behaviors. And so you need somebody who is superior to you or is where you want to get to, to help you get to where you want to go. And I don't think that we tend to screen for that because the number one ways in which people find their coaches and their therapists and their mentors is through referrals.

Jeff Holman (35:06.08)

Yeah.

Jeff Holman (35:28.065)

Yeah, just whoever they say to you. Same way they find their attorneys a lot of times. Well, so what are the things that, and we're coming up on time here, and I appreciate the conversation very much. What's one of the things that we can leave scaling CEOs with? Because this is a lot, right? They're dealing with many issues growing the business. They've got perhaps a lot of these...

Leah Brown FRSA (35:33.065)

Exactly.

Jeff Holman (35:54.462)

little disputes or little communication issues throughout their team. We've seen it in our clients. The CEO has people who are just yes people to them. They just say, yes, yes, yes, but maybe behind the scenes, they're not in agreement. Or maybe there are open disputes with employees or maybe some philosophical alignment differences with the directors on the board. These things can surround them. How do they...

What are the things they should be looking to do to maintain balance while also maybe prioritizing and addressing these issues?

Leah Brown FRSA (36:34.879)

Yeah, so I think you've got to address conflict early before it becomes a thing. And the best way to do that, it's like in Mean Girls, separate the pack, right? Like if there's a bunch of people who are creating a rising rebellion, pick them off one by one. If you have a mutiny from a leadership team, kill them with curiosity.

Right? I think there's something about the defensiveness of a leader that causes the most problems. So you've got to make sure that you're a leader that's not going to be triggered if you're challenged, and who's not going to be in a situation of mirroring if somebody confronts you and tells you that they've got a problem with you. You've got to figure out a way to just take it and then deal with it having had some reflection from it. And I think part of that is

If you feel out of your depth, bring somebody else in, not somebody else, ideally from your team, somebody external in. I had somebody call me the other day, who basically had some challenges with their staff. And for them, the peace of mind that having me mediate between all of them to solve the problem saved months of agony because it just meant they didn't need to spend the time thinking about it. They knew it was going to get resolved.

They could maintain their relationships with the people who reported to them and everybody could move on without, you know, referring to this as the hiccup in the room. They could move on with a greater awareness and understanding of what was going on for the other people in that situation. actually grew empathy for them in that situation. Now, personally, I will always advocate for do that work yourself because there's so much to be gained for it. But in a high growth environment, you'd probably don't have capacity and you don't have time. So the thing I would say to a Scaling CEO is

Recognise your limits. Try to become the best version of yourself. Don't let yourself off the hook just because you're busy. And deal with stuff as early as you can. And that's a prioritisation question because the stuff that festers will inevitably be the stuff that brings you down.

Jeff Holman (38:49.619)

All right. That's wonderful. Let me ask maybe a simpler question too, because I think you maybe got a couple of really tactical things to tell our CEOs. It seems to me when you're talking this idea of being open, being curious, trying to facilitate communication instead of mirroring or reacting in some other negative way or shutting down or whatever it might be. With curiosity, what are some of your favorite phrases to suggest to CEOs that they might respond with?

as prompts to avoid some of those other behaviors that would shut down communication. You mentioned a couple before, think, like, tell me more about that. But what are some of your favorite phrases that you would recommend?

Leah Brown FRSA (39:32.501)

Who, what, why, where, when? I'm big on open questions. Yeah, I think...

Jeff Holman (39:35.357)

Leah Brown FRSA (39:43.957)

It's really difficult to articulate something in a situation where somebody is saying something that you don't know how you feel about. So if tell me more, you're not in the space where you want them to tell you more, why not ask them if there's anything else that they want to share so that you can take it away and think about it and come back to them? Because

We put so much pressure on ourselves to respond in the moment, but nobody's requiring that of us. And we're always better off when we've taken it away. Make a commitment to your people. It's not shutting it down. I want to take, I want to ponder this. I want to make sure that I've understood what you're sharing with me. Let me come back to you and we can have another conversation about this. And you can then prepare yourself for that curiosity. You've percolated on a dog walk or in the shower or at the gym.

which takes the reactivity out of it and gives you the space to get on with your day.

Jeff Holman (40:42.357)

Yeah, I love that. That's probably a good advice for workplace and maybe sometimes home life, right? So many of these things carry over, because you're really talking about relationships. How do we maintain good relationships that allow us to the focus on the actions we're trying to implement, the growth we're trying to achieve that's in everyone's hopefully financial benefit and maybe other world impact.

Leah Brown FRSA (40:48.662)

I know.

Jeff Holman (41:10.925)

larger goals that you mentioned before. Well, Leah, it's been a fantastic having you on here. I feel like there are other layers of depth that we could get into if we had more time and maybe we'll do that on a future episode. But for now, for people who would want to follow you, get in touch with you, learn more about Wayfinders, tell us where they can do that.

Leah Brown FRSA (41:35.59)

I am findable on all social media platforms at leartalks underscore. And you can find out more about the Wayfinders group at thewayfindersgroup.com. We're an organisational repair consultancy that helps leaders navigate change, conflict and chaos. So if something there piques your interest, or if you'd like me to come and talk to your people about how they can move forward in challenging times, very happy to do that always.

Jeff Holman (42:04.791)

Fantastic, Leo. It's been a real pleasure having you on the show and for all of our audience out there, thank you for joining us this week on the Breakout CEO Podcast. I'm Jeff Holman and it's been a pleasure having you here.

Jeff Holman (42:18.519)

All right, I'll get this stopped.

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