How to Be a Positive Autocratic Leader | Rejeev Peshawaria

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How do you actually drive breakthrough results? And clearly, if you ask anybody, you know, "What kind of boss do you want?" Everybody would say, "I want a, a democratic, inclusive kind of boss." But we asked people in twenty-eight countries, sixteen thousand people. In every country, the majority chose the autocratic behaviors.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous episode for you today, a conversation with Rajiv Peichavaria. He is a two-decade-long executive in the Fortune one hundred. He's now the CEO of Stewardship Asia Center, and he's the bestselling author of four books, the most recent being Sustainable Sustainability. And what we talk about today is leadership.

So if you are interested in leadership, if leadership is a topic that you like to listen to, if you are developing as a leader, if you are trying to continually improve yourself and put yourself in the best position as a leader in order to grow a successful business in today's marketplace, this is an episode you wanna pull out your notebook. If you're listening while you're on the treadmill or you're driving, guys, you're gonna gonna go back and hit stop and rewind some of these sections because this idea of positive autocratic leadership that Rajiv talks about, in my opinion, I may not phrase it this way, but one hundred percent agree with where he aligns on this positive autocratic leadership. This is the way to get your business to where it needs to be while integrating into the current marketplace, the current societal pressures, et cetera, and you are going to learn a lot. This is a highly tactical, highly strategic, uh, in-depth episode on leadership. I know you're gonna enjoy it if that's a topic that gets you lit up.

If you are watching this show for the first time, subscribe. We would love for you to leave a comment on the show. If you're watching on YouTube, let us know what you think about this idea of positive autocratic leadership. What does it mean to be a steward leader? Where are we making mistakes?

What are you seeing in the marketplace from a leadership perspective that drives you crazy, and how do we start to solve these issues? How do we start to get more great leaders into the marketplace? Because there are plenty of people who have the ability and desire to be good leaders, yet so few actually hit their true potential, and I think the ideas outlined here can get them there. Would love your thoughts. If you're listening on iTunes or Spotify, leave your comment and a rating and review.

Let us know what you're thinking. It's a great place to do that. I appreciate you and love you for listening to this show. Let's get on to Rajiv Peichavaria. Rajiv, incredibly excited to have you on the show.

I have a ton of questions. Um, where I'd like to start, and, and I went all over the place when I was, when I was researching what I wanted to talk to you about, but there was one idea that, uh, you've talked a lot about recently, particularly on, uh, your X account, around autocratic leadership and the need for this. I think today, just that word autocratic, I think would at least throw people's antennas up. So I'm very interested in this concept, and I'd love to start here. Okay.

So this takes me back several years. Uh, back in twenty seventeen, I wrote a book called Open Source Leadership, but I was trying to understand that in a, in the high-speed world, which is highly interconnected, um, and, um, in, in the world of business, how do you actually drive breakthrough results through-- One of the questions we wanted to ask was, was it, was it gonna be through democratic inclusive leadership or through autocratic leadership? And clearly, if you ask anybody, you know, "What kind of boss do you want?" Everybody would say, "I want a, a democratic, inclusive kind of boss," not an autocratic boss, right? But we asked people in twenty-eight countries, sixteen thousand people.

Uh, we showed them pictures of leaders, of famous leaders like Mandela and Gandhi and Lee Kuan Yew and, uh, people like Tech-- uh, Steve Jobs, uh, you know, and asked them, "So what, what, what would, what did they do that made them great leaders?" And, uh, we gave them eleven attributes to choose from. Half of them were democratic, inclusive type of attributes. The other half were autocratic type, my way or the highway kinda attributes. Twenty-eight countries, sixteen or eighteen thousand people.

In every country, the majority chose the autocratic behaviors in terms of what made them great leaders. So we tested this several ways. Uh, we said, uh, "Is breakthrough leader-- uh, is autocratic leadership needed to drive breakthrough results?" And seventy-five percent of our database said, yes, agreed, strongly agreed. So a shocking results because, uh, you know, on the one hand, people are very empowered today because everybody's got a supercomputer in their pockets.

Uh, with connectivity, you can destroy anybody within seconds. Uh, why would anybody want you to be or let you be autocratic even if you wanted to be? But it was interesting data that came out, and with that, we came up with a, uh, with a way to resolve that dilemma. I'm happy to go there if you want me to. Yeah, I would love that.

Yes, please.So, the data said you need to be autocratic in today's high-speed, interconnected world. Uh, but nobody's gonna let you be autocratic because everybody is today, uh, holding a supercomputer in their pocket. So how do you resolve? What does this data mean anyway? And the answer was that you have to practice something called positive autocracy.

Uh, and there are certain keys to positive autocracy. The first one is you've gotta earn the right to be autocratic. How do you earn the right to be autocratic? By winning people's trust, by getting people to understand and believe that you will indeed create a better future, that you are a better future creator. Once they trust you that you're gonna take them to a better place, they will let you be a, a tad bit autocratic.

Second, you've gotta be super clear about your values that you believe in and your purpose in life, and consistently live those values every day. When people see you living those values every day, uh, consistently, and they feel that your purpose is a worthy purpose, they're gonna let you be autocratic. Because it turns out from the data that people, while they say, "I want inclusive type of people around me, I want democratic kind of people," people wanna sh- want somebody to show them the way. Uh, so those are some of the findings. Also, by the way, positive autocrats forgive more often.

Uh, so it sounds a little bit contradictory, but, uh, there are five keys in the book of positive autocracy. I've just mentioned some of them. So would this be synonymous with, like, a benevolent dictator to a certain extent? A lot of people say that, yes. Um, I, I, I choose the words po- positive autocracy.

Similar. Similar idea. Uh, but the point here is- I, I like your terminology better, but, but I... Yeah, but the, but the difference is that, you know, a, a dictator has absolute power. A positive autocrat in my view does not have a- absolute power.

You are earning that right every day. Uh, and really what you're autocratic about is values and purpose. Everything else, you provide freedom within that framework. Yeah. So this...

So okay, I, I, I love this concept because it's exactly, uh, my value structure as a leader aligns with this, uh, 100%. And I've always struggled with this idea because I don't love, or I, I shouldn't say I don't love. That's the wrong way to position this. I struggle with, um, with DEI as, as a leader, right? And, and embracing it because one, I 100% agree with diversity and inclusion, and we need the right people in the right positions, and there should never be something that has to do with the way we look or, or where we're from, et cetera, that keeps us from a position that we've earned, and, and kind of merit-based.

But at the same time, there's so much pressure today on leaders to look... You know, their company has to look like what people want them to look like and sound like what people wanna sound like. And I think you, you've addressed this in some of your work, and I'd love for you to dig in here. Um, h- how do leaders today manage that? Manage that- Mm ... that, that desire for to have the right person in the right spot who wanna do the right things, who don't have a, a, a, a discriminatory or a racist bone in their body, but maybe their company today doesn't look from the outside the way that it should.

How do they start to address these things, and just kinda how do you marry those two concepts in your head? Well, so you're getting into the realm of ESG now, uh, environment and social. And DEI is big in, on the S side of ESG, right? And so we see five kind of players. This is the subject of my latest book called Sustainable Sustainability- Yes ...

Why ESG Is Not Enough. So we see five kind, kinds of corporate players, uh, in that space. Okay? Those who are greenwashing, they are willfully deceiving the market to say what's not true and actually profiting from today's existential challenges like climate change, socioeconomic inequality, et cetera. Then you Are you tired of endless follow-ups and missed opportunities in your sales process?

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Visit masteroftheclose.com to learn how. You have, uh, the, uh, window dressers. "Oh, let me, uh, let me look good," the point that you're making, right? Uh, let me do a little bit to, to, to, to, to dress up the window. I don't, I don't really believe in this stuff, but, uh, since everybody's talking about sustainability, let's do something about it.

Let's look good. Then you have the in denial. "What climate change? What socioeconomic inequality? And even if these things exist, they're not my problem.

I don't break the law. I pay my taxes. I'm okay." Right? Then you have the box checkers because now there's a lot of laws in many countries on these things.

"I'll do exactly what the law says and no more because I don't wanna get trouble, into trouble with the law." And then there are the steward leaders. These people take it upon themselves to drive profitable shareholder returns by addressing the very challenges that are threatening humanity today, which are again, climate change, socioeconomic inequality, and cyber vulnerability as the biggest ones. So they create profitable solutions to today's challenges, and they do so proactively. They see themselves as stewards of planet Earth and humanity, hence we call them steward leaders.

And there's only about one or two out of 10 That actually are steward leaders Maybe you could break down that topic a little further and describe exactly what a steward leader is. So steward leadership is, uh, aims to create a-- steward leaders aim to create a collective better future for stakeholders, society, future generations, and the environment. A typical business leader is only concerned about himself and his company and his shareholder. A steward leader tries to create a collective better future for much ver-- a, a much broader variety, including society at large and the environment, right? How do you practice steward leadership?

We looked at a hundred companies that have been doing well by doing good, meaning they've been making superior shareholder returns by addressing environmental or social concerns. And we asked them two questions: Why do you do it? How do they do it? Turns out they do it because they want to, because they believe they are steward leaders. How do they do it?

Three simple steps. One, you incorporate four specific values in your, uh, organization's value system. The first is interdependence, the belief that the more I give, the more I will get. Second is long-term view. If I do the right thing by environment and society, my business is gonna live longer and gonna be more, uh, successful.

Third is ownership mentality. I take ownership for today's existential challenges and will get my business to solve them, and I will make money doing that rather than doing-- uh, making money with other ways. And the fourth most important is creative resilience, that we will not give up on innovation. Doing business this way is harder. We will continue to look for innovation, not give up.

So step one, incorporate those four values within your value system. Step two, give yourself a stewardship purpose, that collective better future that you wanna create. And third step, now apply those values and that purpose to every decision you make. That's steward leadership for you in a nutshell. I love it.

I think-- So here in the States, one of the things that I've seen- ... that makes me sad is a lack of your third bullet, ownership. It feels to me like so many ascend to leadership positions and whatever that looks like, and then, ha-- they, they, they play on one of the, um... You know, they're either checking a box or they're passing the buck, and while they wanna make the decisions, they don't wanna take the responsibility. H- uh, if we're inside an organization and, say, we see a, a leader below us or in our organization who is operating that way, how do we start to address that? If, say, we're the CEO or in the C-suite and we see maybe a, a vice president or a director kinda not taking ownership for their part of the business.

Maybe they wanna make the decisions, they want the title, but they don't wanna have to deal with the, uh, blowback or, or the responsibility to actually own each decision that they make. Yeah, look, I mean, leadership cannot be... Uh, th-there's no pill, as you know very well. Like, you know, you can't- Yeah, yeah ... you can't hold... There's no bullet, there's no pill.

So for steward leadership, which is a higher form of leadership, which is making money in business by addressing challenges like climate change, socioeconomic inequality, et cetera, is a much higher form of leadership, and that can only come from within. Now, what can, what can the board do if the CEO is not a steward leader? Very simple. If you believe that your company should address, uh, environmental and social sustainability and your CEO is not doing it, well, after talking to him multiple times or heard, if he's still not doing it, then you gotta change the CEO. Now, if the CEO is in-- uh, believes it and the people below him are not believing it, again, he has to be ready to make tough decisions because, you know, one or two bad eggs will spoil the whole culture.

So I'll give you an example. Uh, you know, Paul Polman, the former CEO of Unilever, okay? In his 10 years tenure as CEO provided two hundred and ninety percent return to shareholders as CEO, and he did that by creating a sustainability-based business plan. Got out of business units, uh, and, and products that were harmful to the environment, replaced them with, uh, environmentally friendly stuff, uh, so on, so on, so forth. For the first two years, share price tanked, um, um, market share tanked, profitability tanked.

Seventy-five percent of his top leadership team quit. "This guy is gonna take this, uh, company to the ground." But the board supported his strategy because he told them, he showed them a long-term strategy that this is gonna make more money if we listen to the pain points of our people. Sure enough, after the second year, it started turning around, and by the end of 10 years, shareholder got a two hundred and ninety percent gain. Uh, the board supported him.

The same playbook, uh, the CEO of Danone tried around the same time, and the board fired him after two years. So the board has a role to play. The CEO has a role to play. It has to be top-down. And you gotta create a culture where then the rank and file starts believing in it.

And so the key that I've heard you say multiple times now is taking that long-term view. When we're judged so much by a quarterly report and whatever is being said on CNBC, and our board members are watching that, and they're getting pressure from whoever their influences are or, or other invest-- large investors in the company, how do we manage both the short-term nature of needing to produce results for, you know, realistic reasons versus taking a long-term view? Like, how was, uh, Paul Polman, how was he able to navigate that? Like, what... Is that just the skill of, of leadership?

That's just the skill he has that he's developed over his career, or is there a methodology to managing both to the short term and to the long term? So let me give you a, another example, and then I'll answer your question. Yeah. Do you know there is a company, uh, if you were a shareholder, you would be a very rich person by now for the last twenty years. But for twenty years, for the first twenty years, they did not provide a cent of dividend.

And it's one of the largest companies in the world today. Uh, they did not provide a cent of dividend for the first twenty, but no shareholder, no investor deserted them. Uh, and today, if you still own them, you are sitting pretty. Do you know who I'm talking about?No Amazon. Amazon Mm.

Yeah Okay? Now, Jeff Bezos, how did he not pay dividend for 20 years and still held on to the shareholders and said, "Investors, stay with me"? Because he showed them a strategy that would make them 60X returns if they stuck with him. "I'm not gonna pay you anything for now because we're gonna keep putting money back, but then once we get to a certain size, I mean, nobody will be able to touch us," and investors bought into that strategy. Now, a investor buying Amazon was as short-term as anybody who wants, you know, quick returns on their money.

They stuck by it because they saw the strategy. Similarly, Paul Polman showed them a sustainability-based long-term strategy, and I can give you examples of hundreds of companies. In fact, companies like the Tata Group in India, uh, Patagonia in the United States, Faber-Castell in, uh, Germany, these are companies that have lived for hundreds of years, not decades, and providing profitable returns because they've always thought sustain- uh, environment first and society first. So point is, you don't... I'm not a...

Steward leadership is not just about a good heart. It's also about a good head, meaning good strategy. Show investors a strategy that, look, if you don't take... You can take one marshmallow now, and you can have two if you take it tomorrow. You know, rational people, at least many of them, will buy into that strategy.

That's how you, you balance it. Um, don't... It's not, doesn't mean that you don't take advantages of short-term, uh, opportunities, but you don't pursue short-term oppor- opportunities that actually hinder long-term growth. Yeah, I read a story the other day breaking down Amazon that I thought was really interesting. Uh, their stock price rose to over $100 during the dot-com bubble, and post dropped to five.

Mm-hmm. And they only, they lost less than 10% of their investors when it dropped to $5. Yeah. And so I guess when I think about that and we, we think about Jeff Bezos and, you know, today, uh, he, he's held up on a pedestal, is that his force of will, the power of his character? Is that his storytelling ability?

I mean, he obviously had a long-term vision, so that, that was there. Um, like, the actual leadership skills that I see lacking most often, and, and a lot of times I deal with, uh, early stage startups and stuff, it tends to be more the place that I play in, is they know the mission, they know the vision, but they do not share it often enough, or at least in my opinion, they don't share it often enough, and often they don't share it broadly enough either. It stays in the C-suite, or it stays with the, the founding team. Um, what, what are the mix of skills that allow you to n- to navigate this type of... You know, w- I, I think I call this the gray space, right?

And when I'm, when I'm coaching someone, especially a early stage leader, I talk about we have to live in that gray. We- y- we're, we're, we're, we're given stories, we're given stats that put us either in black or white, but there's all this gray in the middle, and that's where success comes out, of being able to navigate that space that's kinda cloudy and gray and sometimes skews one way or the other. Um, when you're in that space, which is what I'm hearing you describe, is this ability to manage multiple directives at once, w- what are, like, the core, what are the core tenets- Yeah ... of that leader that, that they may need to develop? So someone's listening to this and they're going, "Geez, you know, I, I'm, I'm right with, I'm right with what Rajiv's saying." W- what are some of the core tenets they need to look into themselves for in order to be able to navigate situations of this nature?

I lost you a little bit in between, but anyway, I think I got the gist of your question. Look, I mean, when it comes to l- uh, the kind of leaders that we are talking about, these are people that are constantly challenging conventional wisdom. Uh, you know, this old Steve Jobs, uh, thing about think different, they are the personification of that. These are people who are looking to create a different future, the collective better future, and they are innovators. They are always asking the question, "So what's conventional wisdom?

Why is that not correct, and what can I turn upside down and give people a better, uh, situation and also make money with it?" Now, they have seen a picture of a better future that most people haven't seen in their minds yet, so communication is hugely important. You have to continuously keep people on their, uh, uh, on the same page in terms of, okay, this is the future we are building. Guys, this is the belief. This is the strategy.

This is gonna get us there. The thing with, with communication is you tell people once and you think you've told them. After one week or two weeks, they lo- they lose it again, and you gotta keep telling them again and again. So number one, be an innovator. Strategy, strategy, strategy.

Number two, uh, you... Sorry, actually, number one is the intentionality, that I wanna be a steward leader. Number two, I am a outs- out-of-the-box thinker. And number three, communicate, communicate, communicate, again and again. Because people get confused when...

And, and to create a, a better future the way I'm talking about is very difficult. Innovation fails 8 out of 10 times. So when people below you fail, they feel that the strategy is wrong, and you gotta be there for them. You gotta be there and keep telling them as to why it's still working. Um, and, and, and, and, you know, take them along.

That's- there's no easy way there, I, I think. Yeah. Well, I think, I think that's the, the crux of leadership in general that I think most people who fail in the position have, is this idea that somehow they're gonna move from maybe a day-to-day tactical or, you know, stamping TPS reports to go very, very, very lowbrow. Um, and then all of a sudden they're gonna ascend to this position and life becomes easier, right? They get their cup of coffee, and they meander to their desk, and they make a couple decisions, and that's the day.

And, um, you know, when they get hit in the face with, with, with that sack, they're, they're usually, you know, it's usually an eye-opening experience. So I, I'm, I'm interested in managing... So, uh, having founded my own company and exited from that, like, right? Like, you, you start with this vision, as you described, right? You have this clear vision for a new way of doing business, and you bring it to market, and you start adding team members, and if you're, I, I believe hiring in the right way, you're hiring for both your weaknesses and people that are smarter than you in, in areas.

And, and now you have your vision, and it starts to get poked at by new ideas. W- w- how do we manage this, this vision that we have with what could be, you know, very positive, uh, very growth-focused iterations or, or, uh, customer satisfaction iterations, whatever, product improvements that maybe take us a little away from that original vision? How do we, how do we navigate those waters of, you know, sticking to what we believe the change that we need to make and new pieces of information, new ideas from, say, team members or just experience over time? That is the biggest dilemma of innovative leaders. Because when you say, "I wanna do this," most people tell you why it cannot be done.

And if you l- and they tell you feedback is a gift, listen to feedback, and things like that, but if you listen to every piece of feedback, you'll never be inno- able to innovate anything. Many of the things that we take for granted today, uh, the innovators were told this will never work, right? So on the one hand, you gotta stick to your vision and say, "I believe in this, and the reason I am a innova- I, I am the kind of leader is because others haven't seen that future." On the other hand, if compelling information says that your vision is wrong, it could be wrong, you gotta be open to it. So that balance, that sweet spot of staying firm with your idea, uh, versus listening is, is, is, is, is really a matter of judgment.

So, uh, you gotta keep your eyes and your ears open. You've gotta, uh, you've gotta be able to analyze every situation, the every p- new piece of information that's coming out, which is, which is where, where people are challenging your vision and your strategy. Don't react immediately. Go home, think about it carefully, then come back and react. Uh, because what a lot of visionary leaders end up doing is they're saying, "Oh, no, you're wrong.

Let me tell you why I'm right. I've done this before, blah, blah, blah." No, no, no. My advice to them is just, just, just take it in, go home, come back and talk tomorrow. J- maybe they m- might be right, and they might be strengthening your idea, if anything.

So, um, uh, that, that's a problem that, uh, that visionary leaders have, and they're not very good at it. Yeah. I, the number of companies that I've seen either fail or have large downturns for a period of time is often related to this is the way it's always been done, right? Yeah. We-- I've done, I had three startups in the past, and here's how we got there, blah, blah, blah, which is great, but if your first startup was in the early '90s and now it's 2024, the marketplace is a little different than what you did then.

Yeah, yeah. There may be core- Yeah ... tenets of what you did then that apply today, but to think that you're gonna run that same game plan, to me, feels like ego taking over and not being this type of student le- or student leader that you, uh, that you talk about. Um, you know, one of the things, and, and I know we're just getting to know each other, but one of the things from my own career that, that I had was, uh, my, my vision for, for the company that I had was actually in the insurance industry, and, uh, we were gonna be a fully remote, fully digital, no physical location. You know, my core tenet was insurance consumers do not have a need to sh- to share the same air as you. They don't have to look across a table in order to do business with you, that you can deliver the same amount of service.

And in order to do that, we had to have a f- very flexible work environment, and what I found was the standard industry professional could not, could not adequately address the veritable needs of a, a fully digital business. And what ended up happening was, uh, I pivoted and started hiring, uh, single moms and moms with young kids because they needed a dynamic schedule and were able to say, "Hey, I can give you two hours in the morning, then I need an hour to go pick my kid up, then I, I can give you three hours in the afternoon, then I gotta..." Or, you know, "Drop my kid off, pick my kid up in the afternoon, and then I can give you two more hours at night," which then, once adequately s- you know, properly scheduled, ended up giving us the coverage that we needed over a course of a few different people. And what's wild is that idea didn't come from me, right? I was banging my head against the wall going, "You know, we need pros, we need pros," you know, and a lot of these women had never sold before.

They were simply... I, I shouldn't say simply. They were account, they were account managers. They had always been on the service side of the business, and we taught them how to sell and brought them in, and that actually came from, um, uh, one of the women that I had hired very early on, and, you know, she basically said, "Here's my situation," and, and I hadn't hired her for that reason. And then we went out and found those people and ended up being highly, highly successful with this model, and that idea was not my own.

And that was a huge awakening to me as a leader to say, "I, I don't have all the answers in this situation," and, and that, that feels like a struggle for m- for many of our driven... You know, I'm not good with all the personality charts, but those up and to the right, you know, the D's- Mm-hmm ... on the classic model, right? Like, it's very difficult to say, like, we feel like we need to have all the answers. So if I'm sitting here and I'm listening to you and I'm saying, "You know, I, I... Man, I've made a bunch of mistakes and there's friction in my business, X or Y.

This s- steward leadership sounds like a, a good path," um, obviously you have books on it. We're gonna have links, guys, in the, in the show notes to, uh, Rajiv's work and everything he's done because I think a lot, this is really good stuff. I'm still, I would still love for you to, uh, maybe marry, because I think I understand it and, and feel very comfortable with it, but I wanna make sure the audience is 'cause this is a really powerful concept, marrying this idea of the autocratic leader with the steward leader together. Mm-hmm. Just, just so they're clear 'cause I, I, I see- Yeah ... what you're saying and I believe it, but I, I want the audience to really grab this idea.

So again, what is a steward leader? A steward leader is going against convention and saying, "I wanna create a collective better future much beyond shareholders. I wanna make money by addressing climate change, by socioeconomic inequality, or cyber vulnerability or any other existential challenge today." But that itself is very, very unconventional, right? Uh, and then the steward leader comes up with a strategy with which they're going to address these challenges and make money.

The market doesn't believe him or her So, A, he has to be autocratic, but a positive autocrat, as I said, builds a culture. Builds first communication and gets the strategy clarified, then builds a culture where everybody acts according to those values that I mentioned. But there is one more, one more key of, uh, autocratic leadership that I didn't mention, which is listen, learn, and reflect continuously, and forgive more often, which I mentioned earlier. So you combine that, and there is really no conflict between steward leadership and positive autocracy. In fact, if anything, steward leaders need to be positive autocrats because if you, if you don't stick to your vision, nothing's gonna happen.

Yeah, the CFO's gonna come in and yell at you a bunch because they don't think, feel like the, the widgets are being sold at the right profit margin, et cetera. Um- Exactly, but you have to show them, like Jeff Bezos did, that, "Look, if you stay with me, you're gonna get not 10X but 60X." Uh, and again, to your point earlier, when people challenge you, the tendency of a steward leader, an, uh, in- innovative, visionary leader is, "No, I am right." Just don't react for 24 hours, please. Use that trick, and it will work more, more often than not.

I like that you address the idea of reflection because on this show, not only do you talk, you know, business topics, entrepreneurial topics, we also will talk about personal development. And I think in all aspects of our life, both our business life and our personal life, reflection in some way and having a process for that is very important. Do you recommend, advocate, or just have your own best practice for reflecting on what we've done either daily, weekly, monthly, whatever, whatever your recommendation is, so that, so that leaders can start to build that into their process and make sure that they're making that part of their leadership style? For me, what works is silent pauses. So I'm, I'm one of those people, I'm one of the only people in the gym that does not have headphones when I'm on the treadmill.

Mm. Uh, or you just go for a walk, or you just close your eyes and just hear yourself breathing for 15 minutes every day. Any which way. You wanna go for a run, you wanna do that. Don't do it with headphones.

Just give those silent pauses, and what happens is they'll... tho- that is the time when the best ideas come to you, not when you're actively seeking the innovative solution. It comes to you when you're not thinking about it. And so regular meditation, if that's what's for you, or, uh, do something that you like doing like walking, running, whatever, but, uh, do one thing. And, and, and that really helps, for me at least. I, I, I couldn't agree, I couldn't agree more.

I actually, uh, about six months ago, and I shared this on the podcast a few episodes ago, I started doing exactly what you said. I had always been, you know, AirPods in. I'd always... You know, on a walk, I got a podcast going. Or, or even if you're listening to music, I find that your, your brain doesn't truly open up.

And then one day, I literally just walked out of the house without my AirPods by accident before I went on my walk. Uh, 'cause I do, uh, ruck walks, where you wear the weight- Mm-hmm ... the weighted vest. Yeah. And, you know, and I did my standard. It takes me about 45 minutes.

I do this loop, whatever. And I came back, and it was like my mind was on fire in, in the most positive way, right? It was. It was- Yeah, yeah ... you know, this idea here, and I need to get back. Man, I forgot I need to get back to this person, and man, this article that I'm working on, here's, here's kinda the, the, the hook I wanna put on the front that I'd been struggling with.

And it... We're so inundated with inputs. Removing them for a per- Like, you know, I, I was having this discussion with my kids the other day, uh, 'cause I have a 10 and an 8-year-old, and I, I tend to talk to them like they're adults because I want... I think that's the proper way to raise children, not like they're morons. So I talk like very fairly heady topics.

Like, when I'm listening to a podcast, I have it on, and they listen to it, and they ask me questions. Um, but we were talking about... I said, I said, "Guys, think about the fact that when we look up at the stars at our house," 'cause we live near, uh, Albany, New York in, in, in upstate, uh, we see, you know, maybe a couple dozen stars, right? 'Cause there's a lot of light pollution. And then remember that vacation we took up in Lake George, which is about, uh, two hours north of us, uh, hour and a half north of us? And I said, "Remember when we saw 10..."

It was, it was more stars than we could count, right? They were everywhere. We literally had to download an app and hold it to the sky just to understand what we were looking at because here I can show them, you know, if, if Venus, if we can see Venus or we can see Mars. There I, I... it was so many stars we couldn't tell what was what, right? And you could, you could barely even, uh, delineate the, the, the constellations.

I said, you know, I s- I said, "You know, you guys, when you come home, you immediately wanna jump on the TV, or you wanna jump on the, the, a video game or, you know, chat with your friends or whatever." I was like, "So, you know, my opinion is so much of the, the, the innovation and the ability to survive and get things done and, and make choices and, and be so, uh, direct in the way that we had to live, we were forced to live there, was because we weren't constantly... I mean, it might take a month to get the news, and I can have every news story that's ever existed in, in two button clicks today." So I guess w- what is your recommendation for leaders on inputs? How much?

Where? How do we take in the right inputs? And, and by right, I don't mean necessarily politically or whatever. I mean, h- how do we, how do we manage all the information at our fingertips versus the, the time and isolation necessary for the creativity to come up with these, uh, convention challenging ideas and decisions? Very simple.

I do... Uh, uh, what I always recommend, uh, is two things. One, try to get 15 minutes in your day, preferably in the morning, of closing your eyes and just following your breath. Now, that doesn't mean that your mind should be thoughtless. You will see your mind wandering within the first 30 seconds.

No problem. As you see yourself wandering, bring your attention back to the breath. You'll wander again. Keep doing it, and, uh, put an alarm on the phone for 15 minutes. Do that 15 minutes of silent pause.

It doesn't matter how much, how many times you wander. You will find... So it's... The, the, uh, the, the analogy is that, you know, if all the phone, all the apps on your phone are com- are always open, your phone's gonna slow down. 15 minutes of meditation, um, the way I just talked about, focusing on your breath with your eyes closed, actually is better than a whole night's sleep in many ways in terms of it closes more apps.

Uh, so that's one thing. Okay? Uh, the other is, i-i-is, is, is to find ways where you are not, or rather, train yourself that you don't have to respond to everything instantaneously. Emails can wait. Uh, you don't have to have your phone buzzing all the time.

Uh, there are times when the phone can be away. So these, again, these silent pauses, uh, and everything falls into place. We have become slaves of technology. We feel the urgent need to receive and send messages constantly. "If I don't get 10 likes in the next 10 minutes, my God, I must be so unpopular."

Uh, these things we have to re-revire our brain on. Yeah. The other one that I advocate people on, and I'm very interested in your take on this, is making sure that you're taking inputs from the contradictory idea. So if it's- Mm-hmm ... politics and you're right or left, it's also taking inputs from the other side. If it's a business philosophy, it's understanding, you know, if you're super pro, 100% everything about ESG or DEI or right, it's, it's re- who are the, who are the critics of these philosophies, and what are they saying?

And, um, a- or vice versa. And, you know, I was reading an- another piece of research that came out of, I think it's Stanford, or it may have been... Actually, it was Berkeley, that- Oh ... uh, when they did a study on, um, uh, uh, politically motivated students came in, and they showed them graphics, charts, articles, images from the opposite party. And what, what they found, and they, they were wearing, uh, one of those Neuralink-ish thing, mesh things on their head, and what they found is that when they were shown, uh, opposite images, their amygdala fired. And for those of you listening at home that don't know what that part of the brain is, that's like when a tiger jumps out of the woods and we run for our life or we turn and fight it, that's the part of your brain that fires.

It's like the base, base, base of our brain, right? This is like the first piece that was created, um, the, the live or die, fight or flight. Uh, I mean, where do... I guess I, I, I have a feeling on where you stand on this, but I mean, do you have any advice around how we are able to take in conflicting ideas in a way that doesn't polarize us more? Because as c- you know, as we've kind of, as you've mentioned and, and I kind of verbalized, this gray area is where we're successful, and sometimes your best ideas can come from or come out of understanding what a critic may say about what you believe.

Yeah, you know, you made me remember what my wife and I do all the time. We watch both a little bit of CNN and Fox News every night- Yeah, yeah ... just to keep the balance, you know? A lot of this side, all that side. Uh, but yeah, I mean, you know, here's what I have found. People who have difficulty in, in, in accepting a view that is other than their own, these are people who I have found have no clarity about their own values and their own purpose in life.

Mm. Once you are clear about your own values and your own purpose, w- who am I and why I am in this world for, then you are secure in your skin because you get happiness not by... Success is never guaranteed, but the fact that you're walking down a path that is worth walking on, that gives you happiness already. You feel good about yourself. And now you are in a much better position to accept challenging ideas and thoughts.

And if, uh, if somebody, uh, you disagree with somebody or somebody disagrees, you say, "Okay, hey, it's all right. It's not personal. It, it's okay to disagree." Or if they're giving you input, you actually go back and think about it for 24 hours and say, "Yeah, actually, you know what? Uh, he's right, and I'm gonna make my, my thinking better."

But for that, you have to be comfortable in your skin. People who are insecure, and insecurity comes from not knowing your values and your purpose, right, uh, find it harder to deal with challenging information. My experience anyway. So, I mean, yeah, I, and I, I completely and utterly agree. I'm reading a book on, um, the first four presidents.

It's called First Principles. It's actually a wonderful book. I always forget the author's first name. His last name's Ricks. And I think if you haven't delved into the revolution, uh, for those listening at home, if you haven't, that, that time period and the, the, the quote-unquote founding fathers of the country, um, there is an...

It's easy to believe that they all were perfectly aligned in their vision for what this country was gonna be. And when you actually dig into what was going on in the Continental Congress and the discussions they were having, even though they were, for the most part, cordial with each other, the, the range of ideas in that time period and the arguments and the conflict that happened between some of the people that we, that we now all see their names on the same document was incredible. And to think that we could have come up with, you know, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence without that conflict, right? I mean, and that's the part that I try to advise people on is, like, that conflict is good. I- if done in the way that you expressed it, in which we're not looking at that person as evil because they disagree with us, they just have a different vantage point on the world, that conflict is actually where some of the absolute best and most innovative ideas comes out of.

Uh, couldn't agree more. And coming back to positive autocracy, like I said, uh, you have to be, uh, autocratic about the values and the purpose. And within that freedom within the framework, within there the debate comes, within there the challenges come. As long as the values and the purpose we stand for is not violated, if you want innovation, you're gonna have to allow that freedom, you're gonna allow that challenge. Yeah.

There's, uh, this is incredible. Guys, this, in my opinion, and, and I've never verbalized it in this way, and it's why, it's why I love doing what I do. I love this podcast because I get to, I just get to hear people frame things in ways, and sometimes I'm like God, that's... I, I love this idea of a positive autocratic leader because, you know, I think we joke, oh, you know, the best leader's a benevolent dictator or whatever. But th- that terminology, and, and, and words matter, right?

I think that terminology has a highly negative connotation, where what you're describing and, and the fact that after every mention that I've ever seen you, when you're leading an article or in any of your videos, you talk about positive autocratic leadership. You also talk about earning the right, which to me- Mm-hmm ... is exactly what it has to be. You earn the right to be a leader. You don't just get, you don't get crowned that. So I wanna finish with an idea that, uh, I found highly intriguing, but I, I just couldn't wrap my head around, or at least not yet, was, uh, you did a video again on X, uh, uh, choices versus sacrifice, and in there you say, "Emotional integrity must come before emotional intelligence."

I would love for you to break that concept down. Great. Uh, so, you know, we, we all know what emotional intelligence is. You, you take those tests, you take those training courses and all that. So emotional intelligence is basically two things, right?

I understand my emotions, and I regulate them intelligently. I understand your emotions, and I respond intelligently. That, in a nutshell, self-awareness, social awareness, is emotional intelligence. Emotional integrity must come before emotional intelligence. What I mean by that is em- emotional integrity is looking in the mirror and at least admitting to yourself what you truly want for yourself without putting on the societal lens.

Even if what you want for yourself truly, truly is totally self-centered and selfish, first admit it to yourself. If I didn't care a word about what society might think and what other people might think or my family might think, this is what I want for myself. First, get down and dirty and admit it to yourself. Then calibrate from there. Do I really wanna do this?

Is... What will be the repercussions? But first admit it, that if I could, that's what I would have wanted for myself. And then calibrate as to where do you wanna go with it. Without that deep personal honesty, self-integrity, emotional integrity, uh, you, what, to what use is emotional intelligence?

Because emotional intelligence is a on-the-surface skill, you know, whereas emotional integrity is really getting honest with you. And, and by the way, the person that we're usually the most dishonest with is ourselves. Would you say that emotional intelligence without emotional integrity essentially just becomes a power game? Because- That's exactly right ... you are just- Indeed. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I- I'll give you my, a personal- I- I'll give you a personal example, okay?

Yeah, please. When I, when I did the exercises on what is really important to me in terms of my values and purpose, I used to be a currency trader on Wall Street and I... a long time ago. I gave that up because I, I, I wanted to study human behavior, redefine leadership, et cetera, et cetera. When I just realized that my work is the most important thing to me, even above family and everything else, initially I hated myself. What kind of person does that make me?

You know, very selfish. But guess what? That honest admitting to myself that my work comes first over everything else made me a better father and a better spouse, uh, and a better person and a better leader. You're wondering how- I agree- ... I thought that impossible ... but how so?

Yeah. I agree, but how so? I'll tell you. Because with that admission that that's what is most important to me, I will make decisions to, uh, uh, prioritize work over everything else, made me feel like, oh, so that means that I, I, I really don't... It's not that I don't care about other people.

I do. They're very, very important to me. So I started making a more conscious effort that when I'm with them, my quality of time was much, much better. Uh, I was much more empathetic. I was much more, uh, patient.

Uh, I wanted to give more, do more, uh, knowing full well that I am, uh, uh, um, that my work is my priority. So the quality of my relationships became better. What I did and what I did for them became better. Earlier I used to say family is the most important thing, but did I actually follow that up with my actions? I'm not so sure.

So guys, this is one of those moments in the podcast I want you to pause and rewind and, and, and listen to Rajiv again and, and think through this concept, because this is... I do not believe that we can be successful in business if we don't have this concept dialed in. Or I shouldn't say we can't be successful. We will find massive friction in our pursuit of success if we do not have this concept dialed in. Right.

And, and in my own life, I'll tell you, um, about four or five years ago, I made being present in the moment a high priority for my life, for the exact same reason that you just described. That I'm a... Left to my own devices, I'm a workaholic, right? And about three years ago, I got divorced, and now, um, you know, I only have my kids 50% of the time. So I had 50% of my days, you know, I wasn't seeing anybody.

I'm alone. What was I doing? 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, I'm working. I'm literally working the entire day, making breaks to just shove some food in my face and go to the gym, and then I'm right back to work again, and I'm working, work. And, and I realized I'm a...

I let... I love working. I love what I do. I love, I love producing results and the, and the things that are important to me in that space. And when I, when I focused on being...

A- and that forced me to say to myself, "Okay, well, in the moments when I do have my kids, I will now be fully present," because I know in these other moments, work is gonna be the... I'm not thinking about what my kids are doing at camp. I'm thinking about work, right? That's what I care about. I, my...

Essentially, at certain times I feel guilty 'cause I forget they even exist as I'm working, right? Until, until it's time to go pick them up. I go pick them up, and then whack, I'm present again. But if I hadn't... You know, it's just funny that we, we, we share this experience 100%.

If I had never said to myself, looked in the mirror and said, "You are..." You know, I, I, I use the term workaholic, but I think that has a negative connotation. Again, right, I prioritize work. I love it. I don't...

I would rather work than go golfing, and I love golfing. But I choose- To work, and my buddies are like, "Hey, we, what are you doing on Friday afternoon?" I'm like, "I got work to do. Like I got things I wanna do. Like you guys go play golf.

I love it. I'll try to catch you some time in the future, but like this is what's most important to me." And, and I think to that point as well, it's, it's establishing expectations with the peoples whose opinions you actually care about, right? Once I was able to say to my kids, "Hey, work is really important to me, right? So up until the time that I'm done, I need you to take care of your own stuff.

I need you to understand that I really don't wanna be interrupted, et cetera. But once I'm done, I will be there 100% with you." They recalibrated everything. They stopped bothering me. Uh, you know, if they were home and I was working from home, like because now they understood the expectations of our relationship and everything got better.

And if you, like you said, if you don't have that emotional integrity, then you can't set expectations for people, and really that's all they want. They just wanna know, what can I expect from you? And that misalignment causes so many problems in our business life and in our personal life. You got it. You got it.

Absolutely. Yeah. Rajiv, this has been phenomenal, my friend. I, I... This idea of positive autocratic leadership I'm gonna dig into even more.

I, I feel so blessed that we're able to share it with the audience. Um, you know, I, I like to end every conversation with a question that you can take whatever direction that you want, right? I believe everyone is extraordinary. You certainly are. How do you defy ordinary in your own life?

How do I defy ordinary in my own life? I, um- Yeah ... so I, I, again, go back to my work. I saw hundreds and thousands of books and literature on leadership, um, you know, so much advice a- around it everywhere, $80 billion spent on leadership training every year around the world, and yet hardly any good leaders around. So I started questioning, what is missing in the literature? Um, and that's for me, uh, that became for me an obsession, and I continue to do that till today.

And today I believe that, you know, leaders need to step up to be, uh, uh, be, uh, stewards of planet Earth and humanity because if not, we will not s- we will not, uh, uh, save the planet because the challenges are very real and they are right here, right and now. And again, we are challenging conventional wisdom because, uh, most people think that, you know, we're gonna solve the sustainability and climate change problem with regulations, with incentives, and with capital, green finance, and I'm saying, "No, you're gonna solve it with leadership and innovation." Uh, so we'll keep fighting this fight. We, we'll keep waking as many people as we can to this idea that, uh, you know, you can. I love it.

I'm so glad that we had a chance to have, to, to meet and, and have this conversation and, and share, uh, your ideas with the audience. If they wanna dive deeper into these topics, besides your books which we'll have linked up in the show notes and everything, where else can they learn more about you and follow along with your work? Um, I guess LinkedIn, X, uh, Instagram. Um, um, I'm always available if anybody wants to engage. Um, email.

I appreciate you, my friend. You have a great day. Thank you very much. Excellent. Let's go.

Yeah. Make it look, make it look, make it look easy. Hey. Stand up Thank you for listening to The Ryan Hanley Show. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts.

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