Chris Lesner
Liz, thank you so much for joining us today.

Liz Wiseman
I am so happy to be here. Chris, you know I really admire your mission and the work you're doing. So I'm just delighted to be part of it and support it.

Chris Lesner
Thank you so much. I first bumped into your content when I heard you were going to speak at a big conference and started reading very quickly about you. Tell our audience a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you're at today.

Liz Wiseman
Well, know, it's funny, the work I do now is the work that I wanted to do when I came out of college. And, you know, I came out of college and for whatever reason, I have no idea what possessed me, that I wanted to like teach leadership. And so I am coming out of grad school and I find an organization, sort of the premier leadership development firm at the time. And I somehow finagle.
an interview and I make my case about how they should hire me to teach leadership. And I'm like the ripe old age of 23, I think. And the president of the company, this was Zenger Miller, he's like, yeah, you seem great, but maybe you should like go manage people for a little bit. Like maybe you should go learn a little bit about leadership before you aspire to teach.
And I thought he was so narrow -minded, like, no, you don't understand. This is what I'm passionate about. and so I went and took a job at a tech company and, you know, sort of finagle my way into the learning function. then, you know, ended up getting thrown into management. And I spent the first, because I was like looking for a chance to like manage so I could learn.
how to do this so that I could go teach people. And I ended up spending 17 years at that company managing bigger and bigger and more important, more visible, harder kind of functions. And I was managing the education business and the internal education function for this company. So I'm managing the learning process and the teaching process. And today I'm like, I flipped that and now I'm teaching.
about managing and leading, which is what I wanted to do. But, oh, I think there's like a TS Eliot quote somewhere like, and the end of all of our wanderings is to like find ourselves where we began and know the place for the first time. It's something like that. And I feel like, I feel so grateful that Ed Musselwhite, the president of that company rejected me.

Liz Wiseman
because I had no business trying to teach something I didn't understand and I hadn't been beat up and like I hadn't been through the refiner's fire. I hadn't walked through the valley of death, you know, and learned how hard that job is and learned the right way to think about leading. And so I find myself doing what I wanted to do as an entry -level job. So I have a great entry -level job.

Chris Lesner
So.

Chris Lesner
That's a big jump to make that switch, especially after all those years. And you do so much research. How does it come about that somebody starts to think, gosh, I really want to research this? What's the emphasis?

Liz Wiseman
Well, it was a combination of curiosity and and chutzpah. And, you know, I got thrown into this company called Oracle that, you know, like we talked about a year at Oracle was like seven, you know, dog year kinds of things. It was a crazy place. And I joined at 23 years old and I just keep getting these jobs handed to me. None of them did I know how to do every one of them.
was this huge stretch assignment. And I thought, my gosh, do they not have adults to give these jobs to? Like, do we lack for adult supervision? Because why am I getting all these big hard jobs? And so I had had almost two decades of doing things I didn't know how to do and figuring them out and finding that actually I didn't hate that. I loved that kind of work. And when I finally left Oracle, it wasn't because I didn't love
what I was doing, it was because I finally knew what I was doing and it was honestly no fun. And so I left really in search of something interesting to go do that I didn't really know how to do yet. Like I knew the adjacencies, but so I'm out doing some executive coaching and I stumble into a situation that I have seen play out over and over again. And it is
a really, really smart leader who's just killing the energy and intelligence and capability of others. They were like talent, like diminishers rather than talent multipliers. And I had seen this play out at Oracle and I'm working with this executive and I'm explaining to him how my observation was that people's own intelligence
could be either this amplifying force or it could be this kind of dampening, dampering force. And he's like, yeah, and I explained it that like a lot of smart people end up killing the insights and ideas and innovation around them because everyone defers to them and their intelligence is like, you know, on a pedestal. and he, think he like understood it and he could see it. And so,

Liz Wiseman
I, just trying to be a good executive coach, went looking for, I don't know, a Harvard Business Review article that would, like, surely somebody has researched this phenomenon that I had seen play out at Oracle and with other executives I had coached. Turns out no one had done this research. And I just found myself in a situation where, hmm, someone needs to figure this out and why not me? And I had had
the great blessing of having worked with lot of academics while I was running Oracle University. I had hired Clay Christensen from Harvard and Jim Collins and Sihit Prahalad from Michigan. I'd worked with all these really incredible academics and I'm like, they're smart, I they're really no smarter than anyone else. I don't know, I feel like God gave intelligence sort of broadly.
to humanity and I'm like, I could probably figure out how to do that. And I had really been quite familiar with how they did their research and how they taught. So it didn't seem out of reach.

Chris Lesner
the process from you just starting to research for clients really and just for your own interest and turning that then into a book that now has done amazing.

Liz Wiseman
I know, and no one was more surprised than me by this. when I, after I had done the research and it was time to go write a book, I remember like talking to my publisher and thinking, do they really understand that I don't know how to write a book? Like, should I tell them that? Like that I've never written anything longer than a verbose email or like a Christmas letter. But it's one of the things you just figure it out. And
The research, I really modeled the research process after what I had learned from Jim Collins and Jim Collins who wrote Good to Great and a number of other books. But Jim is a master of the contrast study. Like why is it that some companies like Excel and others stagnate and he did these contrast studies holding variables constant and looking at the delta between those two and.
He had laid all that out in the appendix of his books and I had read that. And so I just kind of did something similarly. And I looked at what I held constant was the individual contributor or worker or leader. And I compared what they were like and what their work experience was like under someone who was having a diminishing effect versus someone who was having a multiplying effect. Like that person didn't change.
still had all the same like intellect and talents and capabilities, but you know, was with a change of command comes a change in capability. And that's what I was trying to understand. And so, you know, I went out and interviewed people and asked them not to describe how they led. I asked them to describe how their previous bosses had led and the impact it had on them.
and the outcomes and you interview enough people and gather enough survey data, you start to see patterns and the patterns were so clear and the patterns have played out.

Liz Wiseman
across different industries and across different national cultures and organizational cultures.

Chris Lesner
So with Jim Collins talking about level five leadership and all of the great content that he has throughout his books, obviously this podcast talking about servant leadership. How do you see servant leadership playing into being a great leader and being a multiplier for those that you lead and those around you?

Liz Wiseman
know, wasn't, servant leadership wasn't necessarily the filter I was looking at this through. I really wanted to understand how the intelligence and capability of a leader affected the intelligence and capability of others. And I think what I found has everything to do with servant leadership, everything, because it's about how you're using your intelligence.
You know, what I've seen is that the best leaders aren't necessarily like...
approaching leadership kind of with the golly shucks version of servant leadership, which is golly shucks. I don't know what we should do. What do you think? You know, they're not playing small. It's not like, well, gee, I'm just here to serve and I'm not bringing anything. It's a way of leading that says, you know what, I come to this conversation with insights and ideas and skills and knowledge and
and God -given talents. But instead of using those in a way that elevates me and sort of subordinates the people around me, I'm gonna use those in service to the capability of the team. Like I'm gonna use my own knowledge. Let's say someone's a expert engineer or scientist or has deep subject matter expertise, like I'm gonna use that.
not to provide the answers, but I'm going to use that to ask good questions that get other people thinking. I'm used, has everything to do with where we point our talent and capability. It's not about like denying or, you know, sort of denigrating ourselves. It's about using what we have in service to the team.

Chris Lesner
Mm.

Liz Wiseman
And it's a fundamentally different orientation, like, gee, my team is here to work for me versus I'm here not just to work for the team, but to work for the collective intelligence and capability and wisdom of the group.

Chris Lesner
That's good. I think from afar, when people look at you and hear your story, a lot of people probably think you had it easy. You became an executive at Oracle, and you're a world famous speaker and author, and you've done so much stuff, and people just love your work. I know it hasn't been easy. I know you've had challenges. What are a couple of challenges that you faced, or how do you deal with challenges when they come up?

Liz Wiseman
Well, Oracle gave me a pretty steady stream of challenges. And I've had life challenges, maybe starting at the beginning. I was raised by goodly parents, but I had very much sort of a multiplier mom and a diminisher dad. And I had a dad who was kind of rough on people, and he wasn't abusive. And I certainly don't want to portray that. But he was very much
a bossy, know -it -all kind of dad. It wasn't the most nurturing of fathers. Now should be careful describing this because I'm probably gonna get mailed from people who are like, we were raised by the same father. Like I have had that same kind of father figure in my life. And I think one of my early challenges in life was to learn to love my father, but to not take him too seriously and to not crumble.
under criticism and to not like shut down around him. And I watched how other people did, know, other people cowered around him and, kind of just stayed out of his way. And I think it was this challenge that taught me to love people who sometimes behavior is not super lovable. And it taught me to separate.
the difference between people's intention and the impact that they're having. And I think it taught me to stand up to people who've got some bully kind of behavior. I remember once when I was working at Oracle, someone was like, you work for Oracle. You work with Larry Ellison. What is he like? I've heard he's like a monster. And I'm like, Larry Ellison? No, he's a sweetheart. You should meet my dad.
He's scary. My dad was scary. But Larry, you know, Larry was was great. You know, he wasn't the kind of put his arm around you and tell you you were awesome. I don't sure he saw himself as a servant leader, that's for sure. But like that was a challenge that built, I don't know, some backbone and like toughened me in a way. I don't know that it hardened me, but it. Yeah, I had to learn to stick up for myself.

Liz Wiseman
and that has served me really well. As I've kind of beat up doing hard things. I think that was one challenge. I think another challenge I've had is like learning to get over myself and learning to not...
That sounds so harsh. it sounds harsh. But kind of figuring out early on that nobody really cares about me. I'm not as important to other people as maybe my own thoughts are important to me. let me give you an example of that. I mentioned I was like, want to teach leadership. Someone's like, hey, why don't you learn something first? Oh, OK. And then I was like,
gunning to like want to do this kind of work I was passionate about. And I had to learn to get over that and to get over what I cared about.
to go be of service to what was really needed. probably the sharpest memory I have of this is, it was about a year into my work at Oracle and I had done some good things and I had a pretty good reputation as someone who worked hard, got things done, could figure things out. And there was a reorganization and there was this job opening up in this group that ran these
boot camps, these technical boot camps where we were hiring programmers by the thousands, like Oracle's this rapidly growing company. And we're hiring all the top grads out of all the top universities, all these true, true smarty pants were joining the company. And this group was responsible for the training of all these new college hires. Well, I'm like, hmm, I want to go work for that group, not to like...

Liz Wiseman
do any technical training, but like the company is growing really fast and their charter is going to expand and include management training and leadership training. And that's what I want to do. So like, let me go join this group. So I interviewed for this job and I'm, you know, I've interviewed with the manager and the director. I'm now interviewing with the vice president and he asked me a bunch of questions. I answer them. And then it's like my chance to kind of make my pitch like, Hey, here's what I can do for you.
And so I knew like, this was my moment to kind of like lay out this pitch, which was, Hey, Oracle's growing really rapidly. We've got a lot of young technologists who are being thrown into leadership roles. They've never managed people before they're struggling and they're, you know, they're kind of like sucking the life out of their teams. Like put me in coach. Like I can help with this. Like I want to do this. And, you know, it's very much of a film and of what I feel like was my.
passion, maybe even a little bit of what I felt like was a little bit of a spiritual mission. And he listens to me, he agrees, we got a bunch of young managers who don't know what they're doing. And he said, but Liz, your boss has a different problem. She's got to figure out like my would be boss, he said, she's got to figure out how to get
like 2 ,000 new college graduates up to speed in Oracle technology over the next year. And what would be great is if you could help her figure that out.

Liz Wiseman
I didn't want to help her figure that out. I knew they needed technology instructors. I knew that, I wanted to teach leadership. And he now wants me to go teach programming to a bunch of nerds. I don't want to do that. And I don't have any skill to do that. I came out of business school and...
But I could hear it was like, it was this very, very like it's seared in my memory, this moment and this experience. Because like essentially what he was saying, he wasn't polite, but he was saying like, hey, Liz, look around you. See what's important here, see what's needed, see what's like mission critical on the critical path for this organization. And why don't you like make yourself useful here?

Liz Wiseman
And it wasn't what I wanted, but it was what was needed. And I remember feeling this tension. And I'm like, but maybe I should just convince him that I can do something different, which is going to be more valuable. I'm like, no, if that's what is needed, that's what I'm going to go do. And I had to like figure out, A, how to program, and then how to teach programming to a bunch of hotshot programmers, which...
was traumatic in that learning process, but it out I was pretty good at it. But it was, think this first, this came early, early in my career, Chris. I think it was where I first learned like, you know what, don't care so much about what you want. Don't care so much about what you're good at. Like find out what people need and go do that and like go be helpful, like go serve.

Chris Lesner
I mean, you've written so many books, right? And Multiplier is just a lot about how do you multiply those around you and those that you lead. On the flip side, there's this whole engage, engaging yourself and activating yourself. And you wrote about Rookie Smarts. And this kind of gets into a little bit of Rookie Smarts and just what it takes. Keep going. Share with our audience about Rookie Smarts as well, just that book. Because that was really, I love that book.

Liz Wiseman
Well, I'm glad to hear that book was an accident. I was going to meet my publisher. had written multipliers and another book called The Multiplier Effect. And I was going to go talk to my publisher about what I might do next. And I got on a rant about how it seems like. Like, I don't know about others, but it seems like we actually, for me, that I was always at my best when I was at the bottom of a learning curve, not at the top of it, like somehow being
new and naive puts us in the right headspace to do really important and hard things that actually, you know, being experienced can be a liability. You know, we start acting like know -it -alls, we get stuck in our, you know, our ways, you know, we feel like we don't need feedback anymore. And, and so I'm ranting about this. And she said, that's the book you need to write. I'm like, oh, no, no, that's just like,
I got a B in my bonnet about that. And I decided to go do the research. I find that of course there's a number of situations where you want an expert. Like you don't want a rookie surgeon. You don't want to be the first time on that. You don't want like a rookie skydive partner. Like if you're going tandem, it's nice to know someone's done that a few times, but for so much.
of our work that's like knowledge work and innovation, like being new and naive turns out to be a tremendous advantage. And particularly, you know, now when the world is changing really fast, that, you know, it's not really how much we know that matters as much as how fast we can learn. Like, I feel like I'm new to my work constantly.
as the world is constantly changing. The world of work is changing.

Chris Lesner
How do you recommend people take the first steps in flexing some of those muscles?

Liz Wiseman
and
You know, we find that when someone is new to something, they don't bring a lot of expertise, but they bring a lot of questions and a lot of asks. And that we find that people who are new to something tend to ask five experts, like, what should I do? Have you ever done this before? Like if, you know, I were going to start a podcast, I might say, Chris, I don't know a thing about doing a podcast. Like, how do I think about this?
And there's this like 5X expertise, you know, differential. You can either hire an expert or put a smart new person on it and you can get five times the amount of expertise gathered in. you know, as far as getting started, like think like a hunter gatherer, you know, like you don't have what you need with you, but like go out and gather expertise and you can gather like experience really, really fast.
through the wisdom of others who've made the mistakes.

Chris Lesner
Yeah, that's so good. mean, with your work at Oracle professional, you've also worked with lots of big brands. I mean, I know you've worked with many Fortune 500s and been helping train their teams, consult with their teams on becoming multipliers, becoming better leaders, becoming better servant leaders, all these different things. What's it like to walk into some of these organizations and work with their key leaders knowing they're already changing the world and thinking, how can I just add to that?
What's that like for you?

Liz Wiseman
Well, it's kind of a privilege and I just feel lucky all the time that I get to work with amazing companies, but all of them are just full of people just trying to figure things out. I had this fun little experience. I'm a mom, I have four children and my two youngest would like technically be in the Gen Z.
generation. So I'm worried that they're never going to figure out how to work. you know, I'm worried about failure to launch. I'm worried that they're never going to like get a real job and all those kinds of things that seem a little bit endemic with the rising generation. And my son did this internship this summer and it was in an organization. I knew someone there and my friend there, he called me up at the end of the summer and he's like, Liz, your son.
Josh has done a really good job and he's kind of like holding his own in meetings and he's working with all these like really senior people and he's like saying smart things and he participates and of course my mother heart just swells. I'm like, okay, like he did something useful, that's okay, I feel good. And I went to talk to him about it and he said, know, mom, I think I learned that watching you.
He says, you go work with all these different companies and with all of these like senior executives. And I think what he's thinking is like, mommy, you're not very bright. You know, like you're just my mom, but like you, you participate in those conversations and you can like teach them stuff. And he's like, you don't know anything. And so like, if you can hang out with those people, like how hard can it be? You know, I think that's what he's thinking. didn't quite say it that way, but I think.
what he learned was you don't need to have expertise in somebody's industry or to be at their level or to have done that job, to be able to share observations and like to bring a complimentary point of view. And I think that's what I've learned is that, know, leaders, even at the most senior levels in organizations,

Liz Wiseman
are struggling to figure things out. Like they're all trying to fly a plane while figuring out how to build a plane. that, you know, actually the people at the top are on a journey too. And they're just trying to like serve and they need help. And I think it's, you know, it's fun to come in and help them.
figure things out, particularly when they're leading a pretty big organization or have got like big ambitions in the world.

Chris Lesner
So often you're helping those people learn to lead better, learn to develop their teams, learn to empower people around them, become multipliers. What are a couple steps that you think people listening to this who are thinking about servant leadership, thinking about becoming better leaders, what are some next steps they could take to really lean into a lot of the stuff that you've learned over the years and that you teach people?

Liz Wiseman
Well, I think in terms of next step, maybe what I could offer is a first step. And here's what I have found to be so universally true is the best leaders don't necessarily have the best toolkit. They don't have all of the best leadership skills. I think the best leaders have awareness of the damage that they can do to other people.
And very particularly, I think the best leaders and those who are multiplier leaders, multiplier -esque leaders, they understand that there's a gap between their intention and the impact that they have on others. And that it's really easy with the best of intentions, with noble intentions, with righteous intentions, to end up having a diminishing effect on others.
I find that like the most powerful step is a conceptual step and it's realizing that we all have accidental diminisher tendencies. Even those that are running non -profits and running church -based organizations can be having a deeply diminishing effect. So it's realizing like, oh, maybe my intent isn't...
Like it's getting lost in translation. And like maybe the most powerful step someone could take is to just have a conversation with your team. Like here is my accidental diminisher tendency. Like for me, I'm an idea fountain. I'm constantly like, hey, what about this? We should do that. We should think about this. Maybe we should try that. And I saw this at Oracle. Like people were overwhelmed by me. They would pop into my office to like,
you know, let me know, hey, we just ran that program. It was great. You know, hey, this task, like it came together. I'd be like, oh, that's fantastic. Maybe you should try this. What about this? Have you considered this? And people would leave like with their eyes glazed over. And, you know, I had to write on my door, like in big block letters. was like a whiteboard kind of door. like, I had the priorities listed up there. And I just said, ignore me as needed to get your job done.

Liz Wiseman
Like people are taking me way too seriously. I'm like, oh no, I didn't mean for you to go do that. I just thought maybe you would want to consider that. And so I've had to like tell people like, no, this is part of like who I am. I'm a fountain of ideas. Feel free to shut me down, shut me off. Like don't take me seriously. Or like, hey, you know what? I'm a bit of an optimist. And like the more...
leaders talk about it, the less the pressures on them to be perfect leaders, amazing leaders, and more the onus now sits with their teams to do smart things to defend themselves against accidental diminishing tendencies. It might be as simple as like, hey, Liz, did you want us to stop what we're working on and go start that? Or are you just having an idea party? I'm like, no, it's just an idea party.
like ignore me as needed to get your job done. Or if you've got, if you've got rescuer tendencies and everyone knows that people can say like, Hey Chris, like I feel loved. I appreciate the help, but you know what? I've got this and I'm going to get this thing done. And you know what? I'm going to have this done by Friday at 10. I'm good.
And like, you know, I think this is what I've learned, Chris, is that nobody likes working for diminishers. And nobody likes working for accidental diminishers, even if they have like big hearts and good intentions. And the people who are most motivated for you to be a great leader and a servant leader are the people who are served by your leadership. And they will help you. Like they are
deeply motivated for you to get it right as a leader and they'll help you.

Chris Lesner
Do you find most people have the self -awareness to know where they're weak and where they diminish? Or are there ways that people can find out from others that are at least first steps people can take?

Liz Wiseman
Well, I don't think we move through life hyper aware. I think we're busy. We're trying to get it done. Our intentions are good and we don't see it. But as soon as somebody raises it to our level of awareness, just with even terms like the idea found always on, rescuer, rapid responder, pace setter, optimist, strategist, perfectionist. I mean, those are some of the big accidental diminisher like
archetypes. Just those words people go, oh.

Liz Wiseman
think I'm a perfectionist and I can see how that has diminishing effect or like, oh, I've got rescue tendencies for sure. And people can make huge progress just by hearing the term. If that's not jumping out at you, we've got a fun little 360 assessment. It's, are you an accidental diminisher? You can just Google that and you'd find it. But the more we have that open conversation,
the more people who work with us can stop our accidental diminisher tendencies in real time. I've seen that play out over and over.

Chris Lesner (34:32.290)
Yeah, we'll make sure to link to that in our description when we post that, because I think that that would be super valuable. As you look at all the stuff that you're doing now, what are you focused on, and what gets you excited now? Is it still, obviously, some multipliers and some rookie smarts and still a bunch of other stuff? What are you focused on?

Liz Wiseman
Well, I've also, I split my time between those books and my more recent book, Impact Players, which is kind of, it's about people who are not just position holders in organizations, but like the difference makers. And I spent a couple of years studying what do they do differently than other really smart, hardworking, capable people. And so I've spent, spending a fair bit of my time sharing those ideas, teaching organizations.
how to develop leaders who are multipliers and a workforce that are impact players is kind of a nice combo. Kind of what did someone say to me recently? They said, we expect amazing things to happen when those two kind of like schools of thought collide. So I'm spending a lot of time there and then I'm in the cave researching a new piece of work. And what I'm spending my time trying to do is understanding.
how our early work experiences imprint us. Just like our early life experiences can really shape our identity, our mindsets, our habits, I'm looking at how our early work experiences, our early bosses end up shaping the way that we lead and how we essentially get made as leaders. And so I've been trying to understand that.
imprinting process and like what happens, you know, what is like the long -term consequence of somebody's first boss? Like what does that do to us? Good boss, bad boss, absent boss, and how does it affect the way we show? Not all of us are blessed with servant leader bosses early on.

Chris Lesner
be very exciting to see the research on and to read about that. I'm excited for that. Can I ask you 10 rapid fire questions and you just say the first thing that comes to your mind? Who's the first person you think of when I say servant leadership?

Liz Wiseman
Mm

Liz Wiseman
Oh, I maybe think of Ken Blanchard.

Chris Lesner
That's good. Five words that most describe yourself.

Liz Wiseman
energetic.
um, funny.
Oh, this is so hard. Old, old school.

Liz Wiseman
Nice. Is that four? Can I count five with old and old school?

Chris Lesner
Old school. Yeah, that's great. I would have added multiplier, encourager, other things like that, but that's good. Favorite author or book.

Liz Wiseman
Well, Jim Collins had a huge influence on me, C .K. Prahalad, both incredible researchers and authors. Those are two.

Chris Lesner
Favorite movie.

Liz Wiseman
Apollo 13.

Chris Lesner
So good. Favorite food.

Liz Wiseman
ice cream.

Chris Lesner
What do you like to do in your free time?

Liz Wiseman
hike.

Chris Lesner
Anywhere specific, just out of curiosity. Okay. Love it. Surprising fact about you.

Liz Wiseman
Tar Mountains.

Liz Wiseman
I don't know, let me see. I'm the daughter of a donut maker. So I grew up helping to make donuts, sell donuts, eat donuts. Another surprising fact about me.
That I'm a mom. Like, I don't know. I think some people think that maybe to have like a full career you couldn't have a big family. I've got a reasonable brood, four kids, two son -in -laws, two grandchildren. I'm a grandma.

Chris Lesner
Love that. Favorite place you've been.

Liz Wiseman
Just got back from Iceland and it's amazing. My favorite place to travel is India. And if I couldn't live in the U .S., I'd live in the Swiss Alps.

Chris Lesner
Or somewhere, oh.

Chris Lesner
Love that. Where somewhere you want to go that you haven't been.

Liz Wiseman
I've been to a lot of places but I want to go to New Zealand. I haven't been there.

Chris Lesner
That would be fun. And finally, what's the best advice you've ever gotten?

Liz Wiseman
Make yourself useful. I think this was one of the best pieces of guidance when they're like, hey, you know what? Figure out what your boss needs and maybe help them with that. Be of service.

Chris Lesner
Well as thanks, thanks so much for being on the podcast I'm excited for people to get to know you who don't know you excited for people to see you who know you well and excited for people to go through some of the 360 assessment and read the books and and just start being multipliers

Liz Wiseman
Well, Chris, thanks for the invitation and truly thank you for the work you do. I see what happens when people lead in a way where their teams serve them and it doesn't work out well for anyone.

Chris Lesner
Can I ask you one more question? On that note, why do you think a podcast on servant leadership is important?

Liz Wiseman
Absolutely.

Liz Wiseman
Well, because like we, you know, particularly for those of you who are living in the United States, but I think in a lot of countries around the world, like we've got leaders across the board who like aspire to leadership to be served by their constituency. And this is across the political spectrum. This is no one party. Like we are getting it wrong at a very high level.
in many, parts of the world and it's of concern. Like, this is part of me that feels old school. I'm like, we need leaders who are there and assume the mantle of leadership to serve a community. Whether that's a national community, a community of faith and an organization, but we seem to be getting it wrong a lot.

Chris Lesner
That's good. Well, thank you so much. Excited to have you on and look forward to having you back on maybe in the future.

Liz Wiseman
would love to. Thanks, Chris.

Chris Lesner
Thanks, Liz.