284. From Good Leaders to Great Leaders with William Davis

Think about the best leader you’ve ever had – someone who trusted you, empowered your growth, and celebrated your successes. Now contrast that with the worst leader – the micromanager who left lasting scars. This gap defines William Davis’ leadership philosophy, shaped by nearly four decades in corporate America. He reminds us that “leadership is deceptively simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy.”

Davis shares stories that bring this to life – from helping a young professional recover from toxic leadership to creating opportunities for team members to shine by presenting their own work. His message is clear: true leadership isn’t about personal achievements but about building trust, creating safe environments, and lifting others to succeed.

Leadership carries a profound responsibility, influencing not just work but mental health, family life, and society. With 78% of Americans believing corporate leadership is failing, the call is not for more leaders but better ones. This episode challenges you to reflect: are you creating a culture where people thrive, or just survive?

🌐 Connect with William:
• Website: https://www.williamcdavis.net/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamcharlesdavis/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamcharlesdavis64/

📚 You can purchase William's books on Amazon:
• How to Lead Without Just Managing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F7G8WNXF/
• Building Genuine Relationships: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD7QF55B/

Chapters

• 0:00 Leadership That Builds Trust
• 9:03 Early Career Leadership Lessons
• 16:40 Trust as Leadership Currency
• 24:32 Building Genuine Connections
• 32:25 Simple Leadership Isn't Easy
• 34:40 Managing Through Good and Bad Times

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

Have you ever had a leader who truly had your back, who trusted you, empowered you, and gave you space to grow? Or have you had the opposite, someone who micro managed you, held you back, or even left scars that took years to heal when you think about your own leadership, are you building trust through your actions or unintentionally eroding it? Today we're joined by William C Davis, a leadership keynote speaker, coach and author of the leadership blueprint. William believes that leadership is simple, but simple doesn't mean easy, and in our conversation, you'll hear his stories from nearly four decades in corporate America, where he experienced both nurturing leaders who lifted others up and toxic leaders who tore people down. This episode will inspire you to stop and think about the way you lead and to ask yourself, what kind of leader do I want to be remembered as. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm joined today by William Davis. William is an expert in leadership, a leadership keynote speaker, a coach, and he does workshops for organizations, but he's also the author of a series of a book called The leadership blueprint, and the premise of this book is that leadership is simple, but simple doesn't mean easy, and that's what we're going to unpack today. How can we break down leadership into more simple terms, but then take action to match that? And it doesn't mean it's easy. So I'm really keen to hear this today. It's something that we all struggle with every day. So let's put our thinking caps back on. Let's stop and rethink the simple art of leadership and what we can do to be better leaders in today's world. So William, without any further ado, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background and tell us what inspired you to go into this world of leadership and what inspired you to write the leadership blueprint?

William Davis: 2:09

Well, thanks for having me on Mick. I really appreciate it. You know, I got involved in leadership very early in my career, back in high school and in college, I was in an organization called Future Business Leaders of America, and I enjoyed it a great deal because we talked about, you know, free enterprise system and leadership. And it was something that just intrigued me, because, you know, it was interesting that if you had ideas and if you had the ability to connect with people, then folks tended to move towards you and work with you and really decide that they wanted to do something with you. So once I got out of college and moved into my secular career, I had some really good leaders early on, one was a lady that I had for probably two or three years as a leader. And she was very warm, very caring, very teaching and nurturing mentoring. And then I moved on to another position, and the gentleman that I had at that time, you know, he was very laid back. He was very Hey, I trust you do the work. You know, if you have questions, I'm here, but I'm not going to micromanage you. And we had a great relationship, not just in the office, but outside the office also. And what I started seeing were contradictions between how he led and how other people thought they were leading, and they would be very micromanaging, and in some places, cases, very tyrannical, in that you had to pass everything past them, and they never were happy anything you did. And so what I really tried to do is, as I moved up in my career and started having people report to me, I wanted to be the type of person that folks looked at and said, Hey, I trust him. You know, he's got my back. He's here to help me. He's, you know, nurturing my career as much as he is his. And so that was really the path that I, I've tried to follow, you know, on the whole 38 years that I was working in corporate America, but what I've seen in the last, oh, I'd say 15 plus years, is a change in mentality, at least in my opinion, of how people lead. And it's gone away from the very genuine relationship building that I always grew up with, and I always try to maintain more to a kind of a standoffish and it's really up to the person that that I'm managing, or, quote, unquote, leading, to be the initiator of interaction and so forth. And so what I told my wife, and it really got frustrated the last couple of years, I told my wife, I said, you know, how do. Feel about me, you know, leaving corporate America and start my own business, and let's just give back the last few years that I'm willing to work before retirement. And, you know, see, if we can't help at least the younger generation, maybe understand that leadership that they see today is not leadership that is helpful. And see if we can change the dynamic of how people look at leadership.

Mick Spiers: 5:27

Really good, William, I'm going to unpack a little bit of what you just said, and there's a call to action already in what I'm hearing. So I'm going to say that you were quite lucky. You had two very good leaders early in your career, not everyone has that privilege, and one of the problems that I see in the world, William, is when someone starts their career with a tyrannical leader, they start thinking, that's what leadership looks like, whereas you are able to see the dichotomy between the two good leaders that you had, and then you started looking around and noticing and naming the differences, going, Oh, okay, that's what good leadership looks like. That's what poor leadership looks like. My call to action listening to that for the audience. Do that yourself. Have a look around you, and have a look at the leaders that inspire you, the leaders that trust you, and then compare and contrast that to the ones that treat you poorly and the ones that you don't like following, and you can start building your model of leadership going based on the behaviors that see from the inspiring leader that trusted you versus the that leader that didn't necessarily give you the same Time of day, we have an exercise in the leadership project called the amalgam leader, where we do that we categorize all those behaviors. What did we like, what didn't we like? So that we can start building our own model of leadership. How does that sit with you, in terms of this looking at that difference?

William Davis: 6:57

No, absolutely. I think that's a great thing to do, because, to your point, you know, sometimes you assume what you see is the right way, and it's not right. It's, it's, you know, there's a lot of and that's why, you know, you mentioned it earlier on. You know, to me, leadership is deceptively simple. It looks simple, and to some degree it is, but it takes work, and it takes the ability to be dynamic and changing how you lead based upon, you know, where you're at in history and the people that you're dealing with and the circumstances you're still dealing with. So you know, there's never a one size fits all model. And to your point, what you guys do is absolutely the best approach to helping people understand, hey, this is, this is how we need to move forward.

Mick Spiers: 7:46

Yeah, really good. So, so now we're also building in some situational leadership and some adaptive leadership. Coming back to your first description the other threads that I picked up, you use the word Trust at least four or five times. Well, you might have to replay the recording to hear it, and you heard and what I heard from you was this, I want them to trust me, but to get them to trust me, I give trust so trust becomes reciprocal. And then the second word was relationship. Relationship and connection were threads that you're using consistently. Let's talk about trust, let's talk about trust as the oil that makes leadership work. What does trust look like for you?

William Davis: 8:26

Well, the challenge that I was seeing from a trust perspective is it was all talk and no action, right? And so when we talk about trust, you know, obviously I trust individuals to do their job and do it the way it needs to be done, or for us to be successful. You know, that's one of the first things I've always instilled in my folks, is we win together, we lose together. We you know, we never allow anybody to be thrown under the bus to the benefit of someone else. We win together, we lose together. That's why, you know, I always had the kind of dynamic as far as meetings go, where we discuss together things that are going on, even if it's out some site outside somebody's specific responsibility to still be able to hear what's going on and be able to provide input based on experiences and so forth. So they trust that they're hearing everything, that they know what's going on and why it's going on, and I think that's really important from a leadership perspective, is that we need to make sure people understand the why of what we're doing. Because when they understand the why, it thus it creates a ability for them to think more wide open and more creatively and more thoroughly to get the best solution. So that, you know, the trust is I'm giving him all the tools, I'm giving him all the information. And then on the flip side of it, they also understand that I am not viewing them as the competition, right? I saw so. Many times in my career where, you know, a leader would say, Oh, I'm out there for you. I'm promoting you. I'm, you know, trying to get you seen and heard and so forth. But yet, behind the scenes, they were working in a fashion where they were holding the person back. So, you know, I always made sure my people understood, hey, look, your success is my greatest accomplishment. You succeeding is my greatest accomplishment, because that means I'm allowing you to do the work that you need to do. So they feel like I've got their back. I'm looking out for them. I'm not going to throw them under the bus, and then for me, it's they're going to do the best job possible to help us win as a team, I have yet to ever see anyone who tries, you know, to do a bad job. You know, sometimes people do do a bad job because there's some parameter or something there they don't understand or they need help with. But I've never seen anybody intentionally. So I always give people the benefit of the doubt. Hey, it went wrong. Let's see what we can learn from it, and let's move forward. Everything's fixable. Mick, you know, that's the thing. Now, I said that one day, and somebody came up to me afterwards and said, I'm a surgeon. That's not necessarily true. So okay, I'll give you that. You know, there may be some situations, you know, surgically, where that problem but you know, 99% of the world, everything's fixable. Don't overreact. And let's you know, help the people that that have the challenges learn and move forward and succeed.

Mick Spiers: 11:30

There was an element of situational leadership in what you were saying there about the surgeon. But I would still say that those people in the operating room, they all trust each other. They all still trust each other. Okay, so let me hear what I took away from that is that trust is not a set of words, it's a set of actions. So it's very easy to say, I trust you, and I'm not saying don't say that, because it is a important thing to tell your people that you do trust them, but the trust is built through your actions. It's not not through your words. And to demonstrate that trust, the inclusive leadership that you spoke about, that we win together, we lose together, the open and transparent communication that people are pretty smart. They have a sense if things are not Wine and Roses right now, if things are not going great and the leader is hiding information, it erodes trust. And then the element of the game playing, like if you if you think there's politics going on, where there's a bit of game playing going on in the background, that erodes trust. And what's builds trust is the magic words that you use when the leader, when people feel like the leader has got their back, then you're on your way. And then trust can become something that you continue to build a reciprocal they'll trust you and you'll trust them, and then you can go on to do great things together.

William Davis: 12:47

Yeah, and perfect example, you know, when I worked for a financial institution through the majority of my career, you know, we did a lot of mergers and acquisitions, and during the course of those we would have to give you know periodic report outs to both the executives at our financial institution and then whoever we had purchased. And I always made sure that my team was the one doing the report out why? Because they did the work. They did the work they knew. They knew the information. They knew the ins and outs, and they needed to be able to be seen and be heard and people to understand the value that they bring to the table. And I had some executives from other groups that would come up to me and say, You can't do that. And I'm like, why can't I do that? Well, if you do that, then I have to do that. Well, they didn't want to do that because they wanted the spotlight, right? I wanted the spotlight. And, you know, that's not what we're here for. When, when I become a leader, I've already earned that position, because I've done something right in my career, and I'm respected, and people feel like I can do the job right. So it's now my turn to start giving that back to the people that are with me and work for me and give them the same opportunity I was given.

Mick Spiers: 14:08

Yeah, really good. Let me tell you what that sounds like to me. That sounds like trust, that sounds like empowerment, that sounds like respect, that sounds like gratitude. It also sounds like opportunities to learn and grow. If you're a leader that does the presentation for your team every time you're robbing the opportunity for other people in your team to have this moment in the spotlight for a moment so everyone can thank them for the work that they did, the gratitude, but it's also they might be looking to build that skill they want to be off to present. And if you do the presentation every time they're not learning and they're not growing, and that's one of the things people want in the workplace as well.

William Davis: 14:47

Yeah, oh, absolutely. I mean, that's, you know, and again, that's to me, that's what leadership is. You give your people the opportunity to succeed. And you know, sometimes succeeding is a little uncomfortable for them, but, you know, like you. Said that's how they grow. That's how they grow. Get the experience and desire to do more

Mick Spiers: 15:06

Very good. Circling back to our original set of words from your first opening introduction, William, we said the word relationships, and you use the word connection. And in fact, even your college days, where you started to emerge as a leader. You said that it was the connection that brought something to you. Tell us about the importance of this connection and relationships and leadership.

William Davis: 15:30

Well, you know, humans, by nature, are relationship type people. You know, for for the most part, nobody wants to be alone. You know, you think about a child when they're when they're born, what do they look for? They look for the comfort of a relationship, mother, dad, siblings, whatever. And it doesn't change just because we get older. And so what I have, you know, have found throughout my career, is not everybody wants to come into your office and sit down, or go into a boardroom and sit down and have you say, Okay, let's get to know each other, you know, because that to them still puts you in a position up here and them in a position down here. There's so there's still a disconnect right in the relationship. They still view you as someone it's hard to talk to and hard to be open up, you know, open up to and so forth. So what I always did is, you know, you have to meet people in relationship building where there's a comfort for them. And what I always did with my folks is, hey, what do you like to do outside of work, outside of the office, I had a young man, very smart kid, and just, he was just a joy to be around. And but he was nervous all the time. He's always afraid he was doing something wrong, always afraid he was going to be fired. And so I said, Okay, what do you want to do? Or what do you like to do outside the office? He says, Well, I like to golf. Well, so this was 30 years ago, so I still golfed back then. And I said, Okay, we're gonna go take an afternoon off, and we're just gonna go play golf. And when we got out there, I had him drive the car, and the first, you know, three, four holes, it was still very stiff, very uncomfortable. And so I got up to drive, and I shanked a shot out in the woods. I don't think they've still found that ball. And, you know, he got real, you know, kind of tense, like, how is he going to react to this? Right? Because some people take themselves so seriously, they start cursing and, you know, screaming or whatever. I just started making a joke of it, you know, started laughing with him. I said, you know, I did that because I wanted to take it easy on you. I didn't want you to feel him fresh or, you know, you're just having fun with him. And so once he saw that was the way I dealt with situations, man, you would have thought by the time we were done, we'd known each other all our lives, you know, he was able to open up. We were able to talk about things he liked, didn't like, things he was concerned about, things he, you know, learned so forth, and I've never had as close a relationship with people, working relationship with people when I've tried to do that same thing in an office, because there's just still something that keeps them from letting loose and being very open and very honest with you. Another example I give you, I had a young lady that, when she interviewed with me, you know, very, very good and knew exactly what needed to be done. And I was so impressed with her, I hired her. But when I, you know, brought her on board and she started working, she started every time she did something. She would message me or email me and say, Is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay? And I'm like, Yeah, it's fine. Don't, don't worry about it. You know? Do you know? I trust you? And so I quizzed her as to what was going on. She never would open up. Well, she liked to walk at lunch. And so just one day, I went up to her, and I said, Hey, can I go with you? And she said, Sure. So we walked around, and about third or fourth time we walked around the lake that was on the campus, I got her to open up. And it was because she had had such a horrendous micromanager in her first job that nothing she did ever satisfied him. Nothing she did was ever write, she always had to redo it. And so it was a, to your point, it was a learned response because of a bad situation that she'd had. And so I had to, you know, be very careful and help her understand. Look, that's not the way I am. I trust you. I want you to succeed. You know, I'm very impressed with the work you do. You know, if you have an issue or concern, we'll talk about it and we'll, you know, we'll get it to where it needs to be, but I'm looking at you to be the one to carry forward. And you know, it took three or four months, she'd had a lot of psychological damage. Image you know, from that first relationship, but we, you know, she's an executive with the bake bank today. I'm so proud of her, and she's just done such a marvelous job in her career.

Mick Spiers: 20:11

I love to see the beaming smile on your face when you talk about that. There's two words that are screaming in my head when you say that, I'm going to say them. Then I'm going to unpack it, environment and human. And I'm going to work backwards on both of those examples, whether it's shanking the ball into the woods and letting out an expletive, or being approachable as you walk around the lake, you showed yourself as human, not as the boss. And once you once you showed yourself as human, you were approachable and the person. It would have been tough for her to admit that, by the way, the the traumatic experience that she had that's probably been burning inside her for a long time, and you finally gave her the ritual that allowed her to let it out. And the second one was the environment you've got me thinking here, this is going to be one of my takeaways today. My go to William is coffee, and I'm going to work back to that for a second. A lot of people do team building and go, Yeah, I got to know my team because I got them around the boardroom, and we played some games, and we spoke about what we like, what we dislike, and all this kind of stuff that's still a bit artificial, but taking it out into a natural environment where they feel comfortable, is the answer. This is what you've got me thinking my go to is the coffee, coffee chat. Because guess what? I love coffee. But did I ask the other people, hey, what do you like? No, I didn't. I said, Hey, let's go for a coffee and we did what I liked. So my, my call to action is to look at some of my team members and go, Hey, what do you like to do at lunchtime? And it could be the walk around the lake, or that's really good, William, I really quite like this. So that's one of my calls to action. I encourage the audience do the same. Don't just go to your comfort zone. Go to their comfort zone, and then show yourself as human. And then let's see where the trust builds. Let's see where the connection builds. How does that sit with you?

William Davis: 22:01

Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, goes back to what I was talking about earlier, that there's not a one size fits all right. And building those relationships you have to get to know. And what I tried to do was get to know each individual member on my team individually, and then I got to know the team dynamic together. So knowing them individually, I then was able to understand what the team dynamic was and how I had to adjust, or, you know, deal with it. My wife laughs at me, but, you know, I always have explained this as I look at this as like a marriage. You know, you've got two people, you know, whatever age they are when they come together, but they've all got differing experiences, you know, backgrounds, upbringings, whatever you want to say. And now they're coming together and trying to mesh, right? And when, when you're trying to mesh, there's going to be bumps in the road. And hopefully, in a marriage, you've got 2030, 4050, years to really get everything smooth and ironed out and work well in, you know, work relationships, you don't have that, you know, generally, you have two, 510, 20 or more people, right? That you're trying to blend that relationship, working relationship with, and you have a very short time in which to build it.

Mick Spiers: 23:18

Yeah, you're really good, William, so I'm hearing now the individual connections and then building up to the team dynamics. And you were saying something similar to this before, it's then your job to create the environment where those team dynamics can work for you, right? Not, not against you, if you, if you take it by chance, team dynamics can sometimes drive you into the ground, but if you've curated the right environment, the team dynamics will work for you, not against you.

William Davis: 23:44

Absolutely. And you know, for about a 10 year period, there we were traveling probably 75 80% of the time. And what we would do at night was we would make sure that we all ate dinner together, right? And we to the best of our ability, we wouldn't talk shop. We just talked, you know, family, we talked activities, we talked things, you know, everybody liked to do, and we would laugh and we would joke. And, you know, there were really stressful days, and that really kind of helped people decompress. And when we came back in the next morning, we were all in pretty good moods and ready to hit the day, you know, fresh.

Mick Spiers: 24:20

Yeah, good one, William, and I'm going to add something here now and say it's the same ingredient. So we spoke before the leader to the team member. We were looking for trust. We're looking for a connection. Guess what? They need to do that with each other too. They need to trust each other. They need to connect with each other. So create the ritual, create the environment where they can do that as well.

William Davis: 24:40

Yeah. And that was why I was always so emphatic, we don't, we don't throw anybody under the bus, right? If something goes wrong, I'm not worried about who did it. Let's get it fixed, and then we'll figure out how we don't have it happen again, right? And that's an approach that we all need to talk about, because, you know, somebody else may be. In that role down the road, and they need to know, you know, the challenges that that occurred.

Mick Spiers: 25:05

Yeah, really good work. All right, so I want to explore one more thing, and that is something we said early days as well, which was, you're you're saying that leadership is simple, but simple doesn't mean easy. Unpack that statement for us.

William Davis: 25:18

Well, again, because you're dealing with human right? You're dealing with humans and and everybody has good days, everybody has bad days, and managing or leading people through good days is is pretty easy, but when you have bad days, and the bad days you could be talking about at work, but more often than not, it's something personal for them that is causing them challenges. Could be marital, could be children. Could be, you know, family, you know, any other kind of family dynamic. As a leader, you have to be able to help manage them, or lead them through those days where they can still be successful and come out on the other side, good. You can't, you know, you need to, and obviously I understand. You have to be very careful about, you know, to what level you get involved in personal challenges that somebody has, but you have to be able to help them get through whatever the bad dynamics that they're dealing with are, and not let it ruin their career. And that that's sometimes very difficult to do. And what I've always encouraged people to do is look, you know, think outside the box. You know, my teams have worked from home for the last 25 years. I was way ahead of the curve with with, you know, working at home, because just the type of job that we did, it was just easier. You know, they get chance to spend more time with their family when they were home. Mean, you know, because they were on the roof so much. But, you know, sometimes that's the simple answer. Hey, why don't you work at home today, I don't come in the office. You don't need the noise and all the frustrations that go with it. Just work at home. Or, you know, hey, take a few days off. We'll cover for you. Don't Don't worry about it. Just relax. Do what you need to do. You know, if you need me to do something, help you, whatever, let me know. You know, sometimes those are the easiest answers, and they do the most good. But I also think you have the responsibility when someone is having those challenging times, to make sure that you're aware of the resources that your organization offers to help them, right? Just, you know, easy examples, if it's financial, you know, you as their leader, should have some ability to help their raises and bonuses and so forth. But you know, most companies have resources that can help the people you know. So just, you know, help them understand they're not alone. They have, you know, backing one with you to do whatever you can to help them. But then there are other elements out there that help them so they don't feel like they're approaching life alone.

Mick Spiers: 27:58

Yeah, really good, William. So what I'm hearing there is you need to be their leader in the good times, and the bad times, including the bad times, may not even be in the workplace, and this is not about invading their privacy or anything. It's just being being there for them. And you are right. Most organizations have some version of an EAP program, an employee assistance program, and then the problem that the person's going through may be beyond your skill set and you and your qualifications. They might need to talk to someone that's got expertise in the problem that they're having so you can reach out to programs like an EAP program to help them. That's really good.

William Davis: 28:36

You know, essentially, Mick, you mentioned that I was talking to a lady the other day who was a therapist, and she said the second most, or the second highest, reason for people coming to visit her, behind, you know, family issues was work related issues, and, you know, could have been any a number of things, but it was the second highest Reason of people coming to see her. So it's something that, you know, I think we need to be more aware of that people and just, I'm going to get on my soap box here for just second, you know, in the States, and I'm not sure how it is there, you know, during the pandemic, everybody started working from home. And so we asked people to, you know, work from home. And, you know, figure out how to work with your children at home, etc, etc. Well, now, five years later, we've determined, for some reason, we have to now go back to the office. But what I think corporations and businesses as a whole fail to understand is people have now adapted their lives to work at home, and now, when you're asking them to come back into the office if they have kids, now you're asking them to find childcare, have to get involved in a car pool you know, any number of things that you know. Just look at the news. It's not that easy to just trust. Anybody in the world with your kids anymore, right? But on top of that, you know, expenses have gone up 1015, 20% in the last five years or so, and so many organizations are just, you know, eye dropping out raises at one or 2% Well, now you've got a you've got an inequity between now what my expenses are going to be, because you're asking me to have childcare and all these other expenses with my kid not being at home, and what I'm actually bringing home. So what are you forcing them to do? You're either forcing them to, you know, find another job on top of the one they're doing, find a better job that pays more, or the worst case scenario is you're asking them to start cutting out something from their necessities, to pay for something that is being pushed upon them.

Mick Spiers: 30:51

Yeah. Really good, William. And there's a lot there around listening and understanding the person their needs, etc. Coming back to the therapist, I want to share that I was instantly surprised and then not surprised, and I'll explain why people spend up to 1/3 of their life in the workplace. Will you? So, yes, they're with their family two thirds, and they're in the workplace 1/3 of the time. And I want that to sink in for the leaders listening to this, that means that your role as leader, you're curating the environment where someone is choosing to spend 1/3 of their life with you. And I can tell you if they're going home, the difference between whether they had a very good day or a very bad day often rests with you as a leader. If they go home and they've had a bad day, they're not screaming at their family going, Oh, you're not going to believe what that spreadsheet did to me. They're saying you're not going to believe what that jerk did today, right? So it's a responsibility, and you don't want your people to end up having to go to therapy because of your leadership. Sorry, to bring it to stark realization for some people, it's a responsibility take it seriously. How does that sit with you? It's been harsh, but it's true, right?

William Davis: 32:09

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And again, I think you know, when we talk about leadership, I think that is one of the things that we miss when we are choosing leaders, that ability to be empathetic, that ability to have the emotional intelligence that's needed to be responsible for people, and because that's what you are, right? And to your point, 1/3 of the time you're responsible for those people. And you know, we are in a totally different time than we were even five years ago. And so how I lead today is different than how I would have led five years ago or 20 years ago. And so you've got to be able to adapt. And if you don't have the emotional intelligence to understand how the decisions that you make and the actions that you carry through with affect other people, you're not going to be successful.

Mick Spiers: 33:01

Yeah, well said, William, I can't add anything more there you've you've absolutely nailed it. So I'm going to summarize a few things that we've covered today, William, and then take us to our final set of questions. So listening to the show today, think about this concept of looking at the leaders around you, and learning from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and learning, what was it about that inspiring leader that inspired you? What was it about that demoralizing leader that demoralized you? And you can start building your own model of leadership, then we're looking to build trust and but trust is built through actions, not not through words, and making sure that you do have that open and transparent communication that you demonstrate trust, not just say the words that you build a connection with your team. My homework here is to choose a better environment for when I'm trying to build a relationship and connection with my with my people. So I'm going to be more deliberate and more intentional. With that, the team dynamics are also built on trust and relationships. And then the final part is this situational, adaptive leadership that, yes, leadership is simple, but it doesn't make it easy. And what works for you today may not work for you tomorrow. What works for one person doesn't work for the next person, what works for this one person today might may not work for them three months from now, because they're growing and learning and they're having other impacts in their life that you need to be conscious of as as you lean into this responsibility of leadership.

William Davis: 34:36

Yep, absolutely, absolutely, you nailed it.

Mick Spiers: 34:39

All right. William, so let's, let's go to our final four questions. These are the same four questions we ask all of I guess, what's the one thing you know now? William Davis that you wish you knew when you were 20?

William Davis: 34:50

How I deal with people affects them. It's so easy now to see it, but back then, I was so worried about making an impression myself that. That, you know you often are, you know, don't think about who or how you trample on somebody to get to where you want to be, or where you got to be. And that's something that I you know, I regret decisions that I made, you know, when I was younger. It's just it was not worth it, because again, at the end of the day, what have I really proved? What if I really want I've not won anything by doing that.

Mick Spiers: 35:23

Thank you for sharing that I want to share with you back that we're all human. We all make mistakes. I've got a I've got a long list of mistakes I've made in in my leadership career as well. But the thing that I'm taking away from that is that we succeed through our people, not at the expense of our people, right? Exactly. Yep, absolutely. William, what's your favorite book? The Bible? Ah, okay, all right, very good. You know, in all the we're up, we're getting close to 300 episodes. That's only the second time that's come up. But I bet if we asked all of our guests, it would be more common than that, what's your favorite quote?

William Davis: 35:59

It's out of the scriptures, Matthew seven, do unto others as you would do have them do unto you. I mean, that's, that's the, that's the way I try to live my life, right? Because I don't want to succeed at the expense of someone else.

Mick Spiers: 36:14

Yeah, good one. Okay. And finally, William, people are going to be interested in your leadership blueprint and the work that you do. How do people find you?

William Davis: 36:22

I do have a website. It's williamcdavis.net, williamcdavis.net and it's got subjects for the various speeches that I give. I have a link to Amazon for both of the books that I have written are available for purchase. Their Kindle and paperback both, and then at the bottom of every page has my whatsapp and my Instagram and so forth. So anybody that wants to get a hold of me, they can.

Mick Spiers: 36:53

Wonderful William, and we'll, we'll put those links in the show notes as as well to make it easier for people to find it. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience. You've certainly got us to stop and rethink some of the basics of leadership and turn it into some more intentional actions where we too can be better leaders. There's a quote that I've read from you, William, and I want to finish on this as I hand over to you, is the world doesn't need more leaders. It needs better leaders, and I fully agree with you. So thank you so much.

William Davis: 37:25

Yeah, Mick, I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity. I so appreciate the work that you guys do, because it's so important. It's something I don't think people think enough about. You asked me earlier, what really, you know, started driving me toward this? Well, 2023, the World Economic Forum came out and said we had a worldwide leadership crisis. That's a pretty that's a pretty emphatic statement. And then November the same year, the US News and war report Harris poll here in the United States came out and said 78% of the respondents said that we had a leadership crisis in corporate America. So it's a subject that is obviously very near and dear to people's hearts, something that they deal with, and we need to do a better job of helping them succeed.

Mick Spiers: 38:16

Fully agree, William and the answer, if everyone's thinking, Well, what can I do? Well you can do you can be the catalyst that starts a change in your organization by leaning in and taking actions to be a better leader, not more leaders, better leaders.

William Davis: 38:32

Yeah, make a difference in your hemisphere, right?

Mick Spiers: 38:34

That's it. All right. All right. Thanks, William, that's brilliant. Thanks, Mick. A huge thank you for William C Davis for sharing so much with us today. As you reflect on William's wisdom, I invite you to ask yourself, do my actions truly show my people that I trust them, or am I only saying the words? Am I creating an environment where my people feel safe, to connect, open up and thrive, or one where they hold back when things go wrong. Do I throw people under the bus, or do I live by we win together, we lose together. And most importantly, am I helping my people succeed through me or in spite of me? Leadership may be simple, but it's never easy. The challenge is delivered every day through trust, connection, empowerment and care. In the next episode, we're going to be joined by the world renowned Julian treasure, who's going to share with us the Forgotten leadership skill. Why listening changes everything. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project, mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo And my amazing wife Sei Spiers and. I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.