Dagmara Asbreuk (00:00.382)
Welcome to the Extraordinary Leadership Podcast. This is a place for you if you aspire extraordinary. Fueled with inspiration, meaningful conversations and valuable insights that are going to support your journey of becoming an extraordinary leader and making truly a difference in your organization and living a desired life. My name is Dagmar Asbrug and I am your host in this show and I'm also a founder and CEO of Extraordinary Leadership. I'm bringing you exceptional leaders.
exchange makers from different industries sharing their stories and above all, what made them more successful, impactful and happy. Also sharing my discoveries from navigating and leading 15 years in a corporate world, building my business and empowering senior and executive leaders to go to their next level with organizations and in their lives. I hope that you are excited and ready. So let us begin.
Welcome to another episode of External Leadership Podcast. Today I have with me, Denny Langlos, who is a very experienced leader, bringing over 30 years of experience from serving in a police department and as a mayor of the city of Dixon in USA. And he is extremely passionate about leadership and helping other leaders to become better leaders. is consultant, co -speaker, leadership coach. He is sharing how he transformed a toxic culture.
to a high performing culture. And above all, what he discovered is an X factor in creating a winning culture. And it is ownership. So we are going to dive into this topic and the seven elements that Danny has developed, phrase on his experiences. I can only invite you to this very passionate conversation we had despite technical challenges we encountered. I'm sure it will leave you with a lot of insights, book of thought and reflection. So let us start.
Welcome, Danny, to External Leadership Podcast. Thank you, Dagmara. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it is an honor, especially knowing that a couple of months ago, we've been having exactly opposite roles. You were interviewing me. Well, I was. And what an incredible conversation that was. We're talking about a little bit offline, but it is the highest performing podcast that I've released in the last five years. So, so much gold in that episode.
Dagmara Asbreuk (02:24.942)
Thank you. So I'm sure we're going to reproduce it now with a different conversation, this different topic that we're having about ownership. But before we go into this hot topic, which is so important for leaders, let us hear about you and your leadership story. What shaped your leadership story and who you are actually. Yeah, thank you. My leadership journey really began 27 years ago when I became a police officer with the city of Dixon. Ever since I was eight or nine years old, I knew that's what I wanted to do.
you know, it's crazy. I never dreamed honestly, that I would be in a leadership position. I just wanted to be out to serve, to protect, to help the community. Three years in, I got a tap on the shoulder, an opportunity that I didn't see coming to become a detective. And through some of those experiences and my ability to help people, it put me on a course. At five years, I became Sergeant. About 12 years in at 33 years old, I became the police chief. I served out of that role for 10 years.
And then about seven years ago, I made the transition to become the city manager of Dixon. And it has been an incredible journey. I often say that leadership is a journey without a destination. There's always room for us to grow. We're always learning. There's no such thing as an expert leader, just like there's no such thing as an expert parent. Just when you have it figured out, life throws you a curve ball and you're figuring it out and you're leaning into your values and leaning into your principles.
And just trying to do what's best for your team. So that's a little bit about my journey. It's amazing. Amazing. you know, a couple of points, you mentioned how fast you actually grew in that career path. So what do you think has contributed to that? What was this X factor? Wow. You know, just, I often say that one of my success formulas is preparation plus opportunity equals success. I don't feel like you ever work towards a specific title.
I think, you know, for me, I want to be in the position based on my current skillset that allows me to create the greatest impact. My dad taught me very early on that the only person who can stop you is you that only compete against yourself and always compete against yourself. And if you show up, if you pour into other people, if you're there to serve, if you're always learning and growing, good things will happen. And I could have never predicted that I'd become the police chief. I definitely would have never.
Dagmara Asbreuk (04:47.256)
predicted I'd become the city manager of Dixon. But it's really just been about working hard, being focused, always showing up, being purpose -driven, thinking about impact, serving others. And in that journey, just took on different ways and I'm very blessed and very fortunate the city's invested a lot in me. Wonderful. Yeah. can see this points of what led you, right? So it was a
purpose, was the desire to serve as well and all the other, is the most challenging in what you're doing, Danny. So there were a couple of things in my career that were really challenging. And I often say you can't have the experience until you have the experience. The first one, when I was promoted to police chief in 2008, we had a very divided culture. It was somewhat toxic. There was a lack of accountability. There was a lack of cohesion.
In leadership, there was a thought or an expectation that somebody else would actually receive the promotion. And so following the announcement of my promotion, the mayor actually came out against me. There was some public things that happened, the newspaper comments on the story. This was years ago, so people could post anonymously. And then the union actually took a vote of no confidence against me, which narrowly failed 13 to 12. And so I had to lean into that moment. It was a very difficult moment, you know, really shook me.
I didn't expect it would be easy because I knew, you know, where the culture had gotten, what the problems were within the organization, but we were able to do some things to turn that around really quickly. And the other thing and the other real challenge that we faced, four years in to being police chief, the FBI came into my office, met with me, let me know they just arrested our comptroller, Rita Cronwell, for the largest municipal embezzlement in the history of the country.
And at that time it was $54 million. You know, there was community outrage and outcry. The council, which was an incredible group of people were just didn't know what to do. They were rocked. They had completely trusted her. Our city team was rocked and lost faith in the council. you know, we were really the, the, focus of a lot of the scrutiny as a city team. And so I was asked to step in and help lead us back and create a team, professionalize every aspect of our city government. And in the process.
Dagmara Asbreuk (07:08.843)
You know, we did those things and we recovered nearly all of our money and it put us on a course to be where we're at today. Just a thriving community here in Northern Illinois. Perfect. Perfect. So I know that you are also apart from your pretty demanding and important role that you're having, wearing another hat and it comes from the place of passion. So also tell us about what you do because you have more roles than what.
Yeah, so I believe that leaderships are superpower. And as I talked about earlier, being in a position to create an impact for the most amount of people based on my current skill set. And so my new role as a leadership coach, consultant, speaker has to do with developing other leaders, helping other leaders accelerate their path and their journey, helping them really
look inward first, starting with self leadership, figuring out what they're about, why do they want to lead, and then helping leverage their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses to help them create success and impact that they desire. So I'm super passionate about that. I love the work I'm doing there. think great leaders are great multipliers. And for me at this point in my career, it is about giving back and helping develop those future leaders because we see the impact of leadership. Yeah.
Why are you a leader or why you passionate of doing what you're But you know, told you earlier, was ever since eight or nine years old, I was drawn to being a police officer. But what I found in my journey is that what I was really drawn to was leadership, the ability to help other people, the ability to the things that you become passionate about and in your career, the areas that you want to make impact to make a bigger difference. know, when I became a police chief,
That wasn't a destination, that was a new beginning. That gave me a stage and a platform to make incredible impact and something I was really passionate about. For eight or nine years, I was highly focused and specialized in investigations and crimes against children, specifically child sexual abuse. And so when I became the police chief, I was able to use that platform to raise awareness, to help create prevention activities instead of just responding.
Dagmara Asbreuk (09:27.415)
to that, to be involved and help an amazing young woman named Erin Marin bring this law to life, Erin's Law, where we're actually equipping through education in the schools to help prevent abuse, to help give kids a voice if they have been abused so we can stop the abuse. And so for me, being a leader is all about impact. It's all about the people we serve. It's helping other people reach their potential.
taking them from where they are to where they want to be. You notice I didn't say taking them from where they are to where we want them to be to where they want to be. And then identifying the areas we're most passionate about that we want to create an impact in and being able to, to use the positions that we achieve, for good. Right. It's not about we've arrived when we, when we get to the position, it's how do we leverage that position for the good? And that's just really why I'm so passionate about leadership.
Yeah, it's such a beautiful expression of a servant leadership and the narrative of your leadership, right? And also what you mentioned before, this turning opportunity or challenge into opportunity with an example that you gave. also an act of, well, resilience, agility, and of course, courage that you have. Anything else to describe your leadership today? think it's so important for the 21st century leader to lead the whole person.
people don't want to be a means to our ends. And early in my career, I was actually taught that people's personal lives are none of our business. Stay away from getting to know people too well, focused on work, their personal, or their correction, on their professional goals, and make it all about work. And I just think, and what I've learned through my journey is that's getting it all wrong, right? The 21st century leader leads the whole person. They get to know people personally.
and professionally. And I always start by getting to know people on a personal level, by finding areas of common ground, getting to know them as a mom or a dad or a son or a daughter or a husband or a wife, getting to know what's important to them away from work. Because let's face it, there's some of us that would work even if we didn't have to. But most people work because they want to support their family.
Dagmara Asbreuk (11:43.873)
They wanna have nice things. They wanna have a certain quality of life. Now, they also work, and it's so important today more than ever. They want to be in a place where they find purpose, where they find meaning from their work, and they feel connected to the people around them. Well, I think that all begins with getting to know them on a personal level. So I think that's so important today in 21st century leadership. Yeah, I think that is very nice around it because there's a sense of connection.
built trust, isn't it? That aspect that this glue that is bonding us and definitely helping others to unleash and all of these nice things that you mentioned before, it actually starts there. And that brings me to another question about the topic that we talk about, ownership. So what's the place of ownership in this whole construct, Yeah. So, you know, I'm never a, I'm not a person that really looks backwards a lot, right? But as I wanted to become a multiplier,
is I wanted to help other leaders outside of my organization grow. I had to really reflect at what made the Dixon Police Department one of the top departments in the country, the most innovative, creative. What created this high performing culture? What was the differences between where we were when I became the chief and this toxic divided culture with a lot of jealousy, backstabbing, competition, envy? You know, and taking those things as I look back and I reflected on my own.
The X factor of winning cultures and championship teams is ownership. Ownership is this extreme emotional and psychological connection to the mission, the vision, the goals of the organization, where people feel highly connected to the people that they're working with, because they're working towards a common cause. And where they're doing things, it's because it's important to them, not because they're told to do it.
Owners are solutions focused. They're always looking to make themselves and the organizations better each and every day. They're always looking to contribute to the team, to be a better team member, to help their team members accomplish their goals. And when you have an organization that's full of purpose driven owners, there's absolutely nothing that you cannot accomplish. And that's why I'm so passionate about ownership. So I can hear so many things. First of all, can hear.
Dagmara Asbreuk (14:09.101)
how this construct came into place. So out of reflection of success stories. So congratulations first of all on those success stories and turning around the culture, right? And I love the definition, the expanded definition you put into the ownership, the emotional connection. I think that landed for me when you were saying. And this commitment, this drive, not because somebody actually tells you, but
because you want to, it is definitely coming out of a place of a purpose, common direction, or shared direction, and yeah, acting together as an union. That brings me to another question around ownership. And in fact, you created seven pillars of ownership. What made you choose those seven aspects as a component of ownership? No, that's a great question. So for about a year, I was messing with the pillars.
and the seven pillars and really trying to dial that in as a time that I was posting a lot on LinkedIn. This was three or four years ago. And finally, all the different pieces that are floating around finally settled on to the board, right? And it just, to me, it was just perfect. It really fit and drove home. So the seven pillars are pillar one, psychological safety, pillar two, belonging, pillar three, purpose, pillar four, confidence.
Pillar five, empowerment, pillar six, innovation, pillar seven, commitment, and very high levels of commitment transition to ownership. And it's important because these pillars build on each other. You're not going to have belonging if you don't have psychological safety. You might be able to tap into purpose, but it's never going to be the level of the ownership. If you don't have psychological safety, if you don't have belonging, if we don't have confidence,
then it's gonna be very hard for us to show up as our full selves with all our gifts. But even at times where we have confidence and hierarchical organizations where there's different power structures, we need to empower our people to action. We need to see more in them than they see in themselves. And when people feel empowered, that's when they become innovative. People support what they create, they become committed, they these high levels of commitment and we have ownership. So from a very high level, that's the structure and framework.
Dagmara Asbreuk (16:27.997)
of the seven pillars of ownership. Yeah. I like you blended this building up. So it's like building blocks and it's, it resembles the strong foundation of trust, safety, which is again, impacting the human connection so that at the end it is about commitment and ownership, right? Which of these seven pillars you see leaders most struggle with?
You know, I think, I think it's a combination of things that leaders struggle with that impact so many of the pillars, right? For, for most leaders, we got promoted into leadership because we were really good at doing the job, doing the task. And for most of us, including me, when I got into my first leadership role, they kind of threw you the keys. They gave me a new badge and they put it on my chest and they thought that would just fill me up with all the things that I needed to know. But.
The problem is that isn't the case at all, right? Because leadership's about taking care of people. You're no longer, your job is no longer to do what you were really, really good at. Your job is to take care of all these very complex human beings. And to be a leader is, I believe, abnormal human behavior because to be a leader, you've got to put everyone else and the organization first.
in front of you at times you've got to take the loss and you should be able to take the win at times. You know, you got to say you're sorry when maybe it wasn't your fault because you're looking at the greater good. You're looking at what it is you're trying to create. And you know, as leaders, we felt like we always got to have the answers as leaders. You know, we always want to be right. But unfortunately, that's not what leadership is. That's what being a boss is, I guess.
And so this idea of making the transition in our mindset between having to be right versus being effective, the change to having to know all the answers, to realizing we've surrounded ourselves with these incredibly talented people. And we did that because we don't have to know all the answers. We can utilize our team to get all the answers. It's the shift when somebody comes in and they're facing a challenge and instead of solving that for them, being a coach.
Dagmara Asbreuk (18:49.953)
and asking questions and help bringing that out in them. So you're not only solving, you know, one small thing, now you're helping them solve a piece of the pie. And so as we look at these different skills that we need as a leader, they come out through all the seven pillars, the ability to ask great questions, active listening, right? Understanding, you get to know the whole person, understanding how people
want feedback, positive and negative, how they want recognition, how they want praise. You know, so I think there isn't, I think a couple pillars are more important than other pillars, but I think the skills that we need to lead effectively and to bring these pillars to life and to have them synergized to ownership are some of the things we just talked about. And I think quite a lot of leaders challenge with this letting go. So there's a lot of mindset shit that you mentioned that needs to happen.
And then building all those different skills and then fighting with your ego or transferring your ego, Trying to be more listener than talker in the meetings, right? Changing the 80 -20 percentage ratio. So yeah, quite a lot of things and I can see how those seven elements support this whole construct. So let's walk through them briefly. Then you're focusing on.
You know, some tangible examples for leaders that are listening to the podcast that they can, you know, take away. How do I do this? How do I build psychological safety? How do I maybe build more confidence? So what would you say to the first one, the psychological safety that is the fundament of this? So I think the most, one of the things for us to understand as leaders is we start with why, why is this important for me as a leader? know, Google ran Project Aristotle several years ago.
It was a, it was a four year study over 50 ,000 people, several teams. And from this, and they took all these different factors of high performance, high performing teams, and the number one driver of high performance in organizations with psychological safety, this feeling that you can speak up, you can share your ideas, you can, you can disagree when, when you disagree, you can come from another perspective without fear of being punished, humiliated, shamed, excluded from the group. Right. And so as we look at it, psychological safety,
Dagmara Asbreuk (21:14.485)
I actually, I'll just kind of touch on a few of them and maybe use a couple of stories and examples if that's okay. There's seven critical components to psychological safety. I'll share each of them and then I'll kind of just use a story to bring a couple to life. First one is one voice leadership. The leadership team is on the same team. The second is create inclusive cultures, right? Create inclusive cultures and the more diverse our organization, the more intentional we have to be about that.
embrace a fail forward mindset. When we shift from blaming and failure to learning, when we understand if you're not failing, you're not trying, that's a very powerful shift. We've got to master active listening. Active listening, know, only 7 % of the words we use account for communication. What is their energy? What is their body language? What's their tone of voice? What's their cadence? What's their facial expressions? All these different things are so, so important.
As we sit and we master active listening, we've got to command our emotions as leaders. Our microphone is always on. set the tone. We set the energy for our organization. So we've got to have high levels of emotional intelligence. We got to understand how our emotions are impacting the emotions of others. We got to be willing to communicate courageously. Brene Brown talks about choosing courage over comfort, having those conversations that matter. You got to choose between being liked and being respected. You got to choose respected every time.
Again, abnormal behavior. And then the last thing is recognition and appreciation. let me, let me tell a story. It in 2008, when I became the police chief, psychological safety did not exist. We had a fractured and divided leadership team. had people hire in the organization, undermining the chief, going against the chief's wishes, actively speaking out against the chief. And what happened was people didn't know who to follow. They knew the chief.
was short term. They knew he was two or three years and they felt like this one specific leader in the administration was the next apparent police chief, right? So here they had a lot of conflict and an emotion about if I follow the current chief, I'm going to be in trouble if this person gets this position. And so one of the first things we had to do when I became police chief was to understand we were going to speak with one voice.
Dagmara Asbreuk (23:37.497)
And so we had a meeting as an administration. There were five sergeants, two lieutenants and myself. And we talked about this concept of one voice leadership. And we said, we're going to be very inclusive. You're going to have a voice. You're say whatever it is on your mind. If you think I'm making a bad decision, come in, tell me I'm making a bad decision. Let's have a conversation. But as a group, we make a decision and we move forward. We're going to speak with one voice. It's not going to be, well, dog Mara said we had to do this. No, it's going to be, we have decided.
that this is what we're doing. This is the direction that we are going. And one voice leadership really begins to change everything. The second thing, and this was the most important thing for the reset and the culture, was to create an inclusive culture. And there's a lot of different ways we can do this, but I decided to do one -on -one listening sessions with every single member of the apartment. So I did 28 one -on -one listening sessions where I asked questions and all I did was listen, right?
And this is really, really hard for people because you're going to hear things during these listening sessions that aren't flattering, that may trigger you, that maybe you don't want to hear. You're going to feel the need to share your perspective to maybe hijack the conversation. We can't do any of those things. And they were very simple questions. And I'd hope to get 20 or 30 minutes with everybody. Doug Murrah, I was blown away. There wasn't a conversation that lasted less than two and a half hours.
And most lasted three or three and a half hours. People didn't feel seen. They didn't feel like they had a voice. They didn't feel like their voice mattered. They didn't feel valued. And so what I did was these were confidential conversations. I took common themes, right? And after all the conversations, we took these common themes to the leadership team. We set some new goals and priorities. We had a department meeting where we brought everybody together. We shared these things and we, we put it upon all of us.
to step forward and to lead at times and to follow at times to bring this new direction to life. And in doing so, and by making this investment in these listening sessions, within nine months, we completely turned the culture around. We united the leadership team. We got everybody moving in the same direction. We fixed some hard feelings. We gave people a voice. We made them feel part of it and just began to soar from there.
Dagmara Asbreuk (26:00.171)
Wonderful. So it's really bottom up, bottom up leadership and such a great story of building inclusion and actually nurturing the psychological safety of giving people space and express what they were most likely not able to express and keeping with themselves. So there's also a lot of emotions letting out at the end, building this union and well, breaking through the ice and building the psychological safety so that they don't need to be.
afraid of sharing that voice. And what was the reaction that time from leadership when you brought all the voices? You know, there were several people that were excited about that. There were a few people that were skeptical, there were relationships still being built. But you know, people respect what's hard. It's leadership excellence, law number 11. And, you know, this one voice leadership and this changed.
As leaders, we got to know what our gun lines are. We got to know what are the lines that cannot be crossed. And for me, one voice leadership was a line that couldn't be crossed. And so everybody actually signed an agreement that said two things. One, they would speak with one voice and it was spelled out. And the second is that the information in our leadership meetings was confidential and that it would not be taken out and weaponized because what was happening is one of the leaders from these meetings was going out and weaponizing the information.
Matter of fact, when I became the police chief, three of the five sergeants didn't want this person in the room anymore. And so everybody signed this agreement. And it said that the very first violation of this is a three day suspension. Then the second one's termination. This is something we weren't going to mess with, not in the area we were at. And I don't lead through authority. I've terminated and disciplined very few people in my career. When we set clear expectations, when we share the vision, when we give people a voice,
great psychological safety, when they feel connected, when they feel like they belong and what they're doing matters, you don't have problems. That's the beauty. You don't have attendance problems, you don't have turnover, you don't have discipline issues. There's times that you've got to course correct, there's times you've got to be courageous and have those courageous conversations, certainly. But when we do those things and we start with these foundational pieces of psychological safety and belonging,
Dagmara Asbreuk (28:24.405)
and we're clear on our purpose and why what we do matters and we can connect our purpose to their purpose. And this begins just to take off and take off. becomes unstoppable. Absolutely. This alignment between, of course, there is a connection through purpose, right? There is a vision, which is the direction. So there is a North star of where we want to get our goal, right? And on the other side of the string is psychological safety and belonging.
right? Which brings that union first together and that's much more efficient, much more effective, much more productive. And we reach wonderful things, but justice alignment came to me when you were actually explaining it. is. And so think about this, think about this, right? Because I knew, see, I was blessed because in spite of the challenges I faced, I knew we had an amazing group of people on this department. Right? Because
We talked about this over about nine months. We completely shifted to this very healthy collaborative teamwork environment where everybody was working together towards a common cause. These were the same people that were involved in this toxic divided culture. Lots of jealousy, envy, competition, the same exact people. there is no greater impact than the impact of leadership.
And the leader has to set the tone for the organization. think there's five critical components and there's one we were missing. And our police chief was a phenomenal, phenomenal guy. Those components are vision, culture, strategy, execution, and accountability. But we can't miss this. If we don't have accountability, the whole place will fall. Accountability is like the foundational component. If you don't have a great foundation, if you don't have accountability, it leads to this
lack of fairness and consistency, it leads to all these different issues that came to life in nine months. The same, the same people now is this high performing organization. and so as leaders, that's part of the great responsibility of leadership. When, whenever there's a problem, most leaders I know, and really bosses always look to point to what the problems are. They rarely
Dagmara Asbreuk (30:47.817)
hold up the mirror and say, what part of the problem am I? And that is that whenever there's a problem, whatever there's a problem, Doug, we got to say, what part of the problem am I? And if we don't have that kind of humility, and if we can't first eliminate ourself from the problem, then what business do we have at identifying somebody else as a problem? And I think when we do that, and when we communicate that and we share that as we sit and work through things,
The level of trust and respect we earn from our people just is exponential. Absolutely. And actually that's also psychological safety. So this is one of my 10, recently I have defined 10 principles of extraordinary leaders built on my frame. The first is about ownership. So taking ownership for your growth. And I think this question, how am I part of the problem? All I like to...
use an alternative to that. have I contributed to the situation? What does it say about me? Right? Just different ways of asking the same question. It's such a powerful reflection that the leader and conversation that the leader needs to have with him or herself. And that's a birthplace also of ownership because that's role modernity ownership actually for own growth as well as psychological safety because you are showing unfunded. Yeah.
talking about what you might need to actually improve. And that is again, another, another sparkle of psychological safety. Being human, right? Just being human. Yeah. Show that you're human. Give everybody permission to be human. as you say, we are human beings, right? so we do make mistakes. Like my daughter would say, because she sometimes hijacked this, this podcasting studio. And the last time she was sitting there and she's like selling her own story.
So I had fun, I had fun to watch her. And one of the first sentences she said, I was feeling like a proud mom standing next to her. was like, you know, making mistakes is totally fine. And she kept on going. So okay, she's six and a half. Good. If she starts with that narrative now, perfect. Growth mindset at an early age. love it. Yes, nurtured, right? So was like, okay, okay. Although I'm not really much talking about this one with her.
Dagmara Asbreuk (33:14.559)
I have a feeling we talked about psychological safety, belonging and purpose in your story sharing, actually. Is there anything else that you would like to add on this once before we move to the confidence part? You know, the only thing I would share is I believe there's seven drivers of belonging. There's seven things that every person needs. And as a leader, the earlier we figure that out and the more intentional we are at giving these things to people, the more successful we're going to be, the more trust, the better connection. Everybody needs to feel seen.
There's nothing worse than feeling invisible. Number two, heard. Number three, valued. Number four, supported. Number five, the feeling of being accepted for who they are and the gifts they bring. Number six, they need to feel cared for. Sometimes we'll talk about just feel loved. And number seven, they need to feel appreciated. And as leaders, if we're checking the box and if we're driving these emotions in our people, they feel seen, heard, valued, supported, accepted, cared for and appreciated,
We are, we are on the way. are absolutely on the way. Yeah. And I think from all of them, what hits me, I notice is accepted because I think that's one actually can unconsciously sleep so fast. And the moment of not accepting other person in your team can be just labeling them as, I don't know, lazy. All day long care, right? That's already not accepted. And of course say something about our limiting beliefs to work on.
Well, absolutely. think the very best leaders are intentional and they're strategic and they do it from a place of love, from a place of genuine care and concern because leadership is abnormal human behavior. And there is strategy on how to create these high performing cultures and how to put people in a position to reach their full potential and to accomplish their goals and to really find fulfillment and peace and happiness from the work that they do. And that's so important because think about
disproportionately, we're work more than we are anywhere else. Yeah. And that speaks to the point of purpose, isn't it? Is creating the shared purpose. That's number one. you said, as I said before, connecting that organization or team purpose to an individual purpose. That's next one, right? Which is so important because that's a part of fulfillment. Absolutely. So Danny, confidence.
Dagmara Asbreuk (35:38.943)
Whose confidence are we talking about? Yeah, we're talking about our people's confidence, right? We're talking, know, and, know, it is always best if confidence comes from within. It is always best. But as leaders, we can create environments that optimize a person's confidence, right? Seeing more in them than they see in themselves, believing in them, asking them,
for help, those types of things. And confidence and empowerment have some similar components to it, but this recognition that a person's level of confidence is gonna directly translate into how they're appearing. You know, somebody said this word, I used to hate this, know. One of our leaders always said, well, they're just lazy, they don't care. Maybe, maybe, or maybe not.
Maybe they're lacking confidence. Maybe they haven't had the right training. Maybe they haven't had mentoring. Maybe they haven't had coaching. Maybe they have low levels of psychological safety. So I think once we have psychological safety, belonging, purpose, this whole idea of confidence is just our recognition through our interactions, through how we treat our people, through how we see them, through how we believe in them, through how we inspire hope has a significant impact on their confidence.
And if we're intentional about creating environments where our people can be their most confident, now when we empower them, now they can be innovative, right? Now they can share all of their gifts. They're willing to take risks. They're not afraid to fail. And so, so that's why I think confidence is an important bridge. once we connect and align purpose, that confidence level, we get people's confidence level up. And then when we empower them, they just.
shoot out of a rocket. Absolutely. yes, it's so much a confidence of people we lead depends on how, our beliefs, as you mentioned, yeah? This is, think, what many leaders don't realize, is how you view another person or you think about the other person already subconsciously will influence the level of performance or even, know, believing, well, believing in themselves means performance and going after taking risks or growing skills or whatever it is.
Dagmara Asbreuk (38:04.831)
And that's a privilege to be a leader. that's at the same time such a power. Leadership's a choice, right? The choice, it's a privilege. And I always, when I'm working with people and talking about leadership, I remind people of that. Leadership's a choice. If at any point we don't want to do these things, at any point we decide we want to put ourselves before our people, ourselves before the organization, at any point when we're not willing to take the loss at times,
You don't have to, you can step down. You know what I mean? Like nobody's forcing you to leave. But this part of the great responsibility of leadership, because we have such an impact on our people. I mean, think about the culture, the work environment, how we treat our people has a significant impact on their health. has a significant impact. When people walk out of the doors of our organization, all the negative, if it's happening, doesn't fall off of them. It turns in...
and impacts the quality of a mom or dad they are, the husband or a wife, right? It impacts their whole quality of life. And that's part of the great responsibility of leadership. And as a leader, if you don't want to do the things that it takes to be a great leader, then don't lead. That's fine. There's plenty of people who don't want to lead because it comes at personal sacrifice and you got to be willing to pay it. Yeah. And I think what is helping is to see what's your role. That's why your own journey.
and defining what's your purpose, why you are actually a leader and what's the impact that you want to make is shifting the gear because it brings the intentionality in anything that you do, including confidence, right? Or how you view people, what you say, what you not say and how you deliver the message, how you deliver the feedback, right? In those conversations where also confidence is at stake. that probably is very much connected to empowerment because you nicely already kind of build up that.
This confidence is like, it's not a foundation to something else, which is this thriving, right? This empowerment. Empowerment is like really lighten the match and just setting in that passion and just allowing people to go. Right. And it is about the tide of confidence, the seeing more in people than they see in themselves. But it's more than that. Empowerment is about
Dagmara Asbreuk (40:25.143)
delegating, right? Authority, delegating authority to take on these new tasks. And I think a huge thing about empowerment is leaders that are really good at empowering their teams, they do see more in their people than they see in themselves, but they create these stretched moments. They're very good at ensuring that they're giving people challenges, that people are involved in things that matter.
We want to push them outside of their comfort zone. And as we do that, we've got to very intentionally communicate. We want to start with why. Why is this important? Why are they the person that we chose to give this task to? Why is this the team we brought together to give these tasks to? And then make sure we give them the resources. And then make sure you cut that cord a little bit and let them know this is yours.
and you establish an empowerment, it's so important to establish the parameters of what check -ins will be or follow -up will be, or if you run into something and need help. But I trust you, I believe in you, and so this is yours. This is yours to own. And when we do that with our people, and then a huge part of empowerment for me is recognition and appreciation. It's understanding how people receive that, what motivates them.
And along the way, after we empower our people and after they're stepping outside their comfort zone, they're stepping into things that matter, providing consistent feedback and feedback not being like negative, whatever, Feedback being recognition, being appreciation, cheering them on as they go and as they move forward is so, so important. And when we do that, when we do that and we put these challenges there,
It is amazing the solutions that they'll come up with, things that we never thought of, that we never dreamed of, and they become innovative. And something, this is really important, and people can't miss this. Early on in my journey, Sergeant Terry Mattis, he was one of the best leaders that I worked for. He wasn't recognized for how good he was. He said, Danny, there's a hundred ways to do things right, and generally only a few to do them wrong. And as long as you're doing it right, I've got to let you do it your way, even though I might do it differently.
Dagmara Asbreuk (42:49.079)
And I might give you some guidance or some feedback or give you some options along the way. But in the end, if you're doing it right, I got to let you do that. And boy, was that, was that empowering. Absolutely. We had this absolute trust, letting you experience and experiment sometimes, right? Make mistakes and learn. Absolutely. What's the worst that can happen? You know, if we're going out on a SWAT situation, we're not going to put somebody in a position where
where they don't have the experience, right? We're not talking about failing in situations that are high risk for personal injury or liability, or that'll make the company feel right. We're not, but there are so few things that are in there. And I think one thing that's empowering for leaders, trust first. This whole, you've got to earn my trust stuff. Come on, who are you? You know what I mean? Like I get it, I understand it. And yeah.
If again, if we're sending somebody out to be the point on a SWAT situation, if it's life or death, high liability, I get it. But trust first. When we trust first, when we believe in others, when we ask them for help, when we give them a voice, when we include them in important conversations. Wow. Watch out. Just absolutely watch out for what's to come. So again, mirror, mirroring the situation mirrors here. If you don't trust.
It's actually, first of all, who do you first of all trust is yourself. Because if you trust yourself, there is no issue with trusting gooders and vice versa. So they love it. And I think that also for empowerment, it's so important. You mentioned keyword coaching because the whole empowerment start with delegations. How do we support them along the journey when they own? As an ad -hospital ownership, when they own, right? That's pure ownership actually,
project that are we at whatever it is that they are taking responsibility and ownership for. So yeah, that's beautiful. And I can only agree to every word you said. Now we have innovation and commitment. So what is about innovation? So with innovation, I think one of the most important things is we're sending a message that we always want to challenge the status quo. The status quo was yesterday. That's not where we're going. How do even when we're performing in an incredible way,
Dagmara Asbreuk (45:03.959)
How do we continue to add layers of greatness to our great organization, to our great team, to the great service we provide? And I think one thing that's really important with innovation is this mindset of start with yes. Because I don't know about you, but I've worked under a lot of leaders where everything started with no, everything was a battle. It had to be the leader's idea for it to be implemented. And we've got to break that down. When we create cultures where we start with yes, when we champion innovation, when we celebrate innovation,
where our mindset is challenged to status quo, where we're not afraid to fail. We see that only as learning as a step on our pathway to success. Everything changes. And when you promote innovation, you're intentional about using the word. There's so much power in individual words and you do the things we've talked about. It does tie into that commitment because people support what they create. It's one of our leadership walls. People support what they create. And when people
they'll see it and they have a voice, they feel valued when they're doing work that matters, when they're creating impact, all those things we've talked about lead to this commitment. And the more that we wash, rinse and repeat this, and this is every day consistently, it's just who we are as a leadership team, as a culture, you become very high levels of commitment, you get that ownership, and that's where people have this extreme emotional and psychological connection to the vision, the mission, the goals, their team.
their customers where they're doing it because they love it. sets them on fire. It's important to them, not because anybody's telling them to do it. And when you get a team like that, you get to actually shift as a leader because I talked about this with a group I was working with a few weeks ago. When I first became the police chief, when I first became the city manager, I was leading 75 or 80 % of the time and I was following the rest of the time. Now,
Now I lead 10 to 15 % of the time and I follow the rest of the time. And to me, that is what happens when we create these cultures fueled by the X factor of ownership. I am there to cheer them on, to support, to be a coach, not to answer their questions, but to ask them questions, to listen and to bring it out of them and to be there for them, right? Very few times now do I actually have to be the one leading.
Dagmara Asbreuk (47:24.535)
I have to be there. I have to help set the tone and set the energy. We've got to have lots of contact, all those different things, but not contact on, Dagmar, how's that project going? Just, hey, Dagmar, how's your day going? Hey, last weekend you had that dance recital with your daughter. How'd that go, right? Those are the types of conversations that I'm having most of the time now as our team just performs and performs and performs and our leaders are driving, driving, driving that bus.
Wonderful. mean, it feels like really feasible when you're explaining about it. It's like talking about really a wonderful place to work in. So I could sense this emotional connection that you are talking about in terms of defining on the ship. And yeah, wow, amazing, amazing to shift. And that is another example of not only servant leadership, but I like to call it coachy type of leadership where we actually move into the role of coaches and mentors.
Absolutely. full embodiment of empowerment actually, that then happens and yeah, beautiful. Thank you very much for sharing that. No, thank you. think coaching is a huge part of empowerment. You you look at the difference. Training, I'm teaching somebody how to do something. Mentoring, I'm giving advice. Coaching, I'm asking questions, I'm listening. Maybe I'm reframing, maybe I'm presenting options, but I'm putting it back to that person. And I often look, you know, and
And these conversations take a lot longer than training or giving advice. They just do. But in the long run, it's a huge investment and it saves us so much time. Because if somebody comes in, think about a piece of pizza. If somebody comes in, they're trying to solve whatever it is with the pepperoni. If we just answer their question, we've taught them how to solve whatever is around that one pepperoni. But if we ask questions and we listen and we ask more questions, we create this thought process of how they come about this. And now they can't only solve the problem with the pepperoni.
Now they can solve the whole slice. And the more slices we help people solve, right, the more independent they become, the more they grow, we become a multiplier, right? And then we're able to shift from this leading 75, 80, 90 % of the time to leading 15, 20 % of the time. And this, but it's important for people to understand what coaching and the way we're talking about it actually is. It's not giving advice and it's not teaching. It's asking questions, it's listening. And boy is that empowering for people.
Dagmara Asbreuk (49:46.583)
Thanks for adding that. And for me, coaching is the absolute fuel to growth and ownership actually. Because when you ask this question, you've triggered thinking. Yeah. But it's so abnormal. Yeah. And you actually activate different part of the brain and creativity and innovation, all of those things that you talked about. And you actually move somebody from, you know, close mindset most of the time or survival brain in some stages even to the more thriving and open. So there's so much possibilities that they can.
can create that. Yeah. So it's, an important function. I think it's a special skill that every leader needs to develop because it's not something that comes by nature. We never taught because that's what other components about listening activity, presence, emotional intelligence, all of that's a component of effective coaching, Apart from struggling with questions. So that's an effort, but again, it goes back to intentionality, which you mentioned. And I loved how.
I think the one sentence that I take away from this conversation that really like, love that perspective is I'm a multiplier. And you're demonstrating, you're that by what you were sharing about how you walking the talk, right? Implementing all those seven pillars of ownership and other examples that you gave for alongside. It's just, yeah, it all comes to being the multiplier. you love and care about your organization, if what you do really matters, you want it to continue at a high level when you're gone, right?
And the only way it's going to continue at that high level when you're gone is if you're a multiplier. You create an environment. You know, when I retire from the city, I will know that the city is in incredible hands with all these incredible leaders, these men and women who are so passionate about Dixon. I'll be very proud of what it is that we've created. Cause the truth is they don't need me near as much as when they think they need me or they used to need me. And that's awesome to me. That is success.
as a leader. I'm still an important and valuable part of the team. And that's why leaders have to have confidence. They also have to have humility, right? The humility to accept that, to not be threatened by that, or to be threatened by other stars within their team. I want to pull those people as close to me as I can, right? They make us better. They make the organization, they make me better. So that shift in mindset is just...
Dagmara Asbreuk (52:08.705)
It's just really, really important. I think it does tie back to what my dad drilled into me and I shared early in the conversation. Only compete with yourself and always compete with yourself. That's it. That's what we control. then surround yourself with amazing people. And if you've done that and if you're the least skilled or intelligent person in the room, then you've done a really good job. Wow. That's a powerful message to close this very rich.
conversation that we had, Danny, did you realize? Because we could really go on as our passion enjoyed, but I know that there is a time that we need to stop. I absolutely loved, you know, obviously the energy and passion that you bring around this topic. You are one of the example of what I define, extraordinary leaders. Thank you. Yeah. Being intentional, focusing on multiplying, opaving this beautiful culture in your organization that make a difference and not only to results that you achieved together.
but also the vibes, right, in the team and the personal lives. So really wonderful. Is there any final message that you would like to pass to leaders listening to the show today? You know, I think just be human, allow yourself to be vulnerable and really strive to connect with your people on a personal and professional level. And just recognize and start with the fact that we're going to be misunderstood.
We're gonna be judged at times. At times it can feel lonely. That's all part of the journey. It won't be that way forever, but it's all worth it because there's nothing more impactful than leadership.
wonderful. I can like just up close, you know, hearing this beautiful sound to the D. And Danny, before I let you go, what's the best way to connect to you for listeners? Yeah. So I'm fairly active on LinkedIn. I've just started to roll on TikTok at Danny Langlost and then my website, danielanglost .com has speaker video, ways to contact me, the Leadership Excellence podcast, which I host that you were on, which is the most popular episode that we have ever had. So kudos to you.
Dagmara Asbreuk (54:19.821)
And you're just amazing. Thank you so much, Dagmar. Thank you very much. Thank you. It was really a pleasurable conversation. And I think so many nuggets that I can imagine that listeners would like to re -listen to that at least twice. thanks a lot, Danny. All the best to sending you from Dubai to Dixson and see you soon. See you soon, my friend. Thank you for listening and watching today's episode of Expert on Leadership podcast. I hope
you'll find inspiration, insights and ideas that can help you be more impactful and successful in leading your organization or team to the next level. Do subscribe to this channel to follow this podcast and share it with other leaders who might benefit from it too. I wish you a fantastic day and please remember, be the change that you want to see. Until next time.
Dagmara Asbreuk (55:16.919)
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