This week on our podcast we have Kevin Suboski. Kevin talks about how to create a true leadership team, and it is not what you might think a leadership team looks like. Kevin goes in depth on why a group of managers aren’t just a leadership team, and that there are more traits that we often overlook. Kevin shares how groups of managers often struggle to work together simply because they often have similar personalities. When we create leadership teams that look different through personalities, we find that these teams are more creative, communicate better, and bring more ideas to the table. Click here to hear more about what diverse leadership teams look like from Kevin.

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Full transcription below (may contain typos...):
Kevin: [00:00:00] [00:00:00] So I think it's more effective to think about. Rather than being one or the other, that you have roles where in those roles you have management moves and leadership moves. There's typically any role where you have authority where you're specific, you're taking accountability for some piece of the organization.

Keerstyn: [00:00:25] Okay. Welcome to the podcast, Kevin. We are so excited to have you here today. Do you want to give us a brief intro of how you got involved in your work and what you do now?

Kevin: [00:00:35] Brief intro. Sure. I'll try to keep it brief. So I started my career in it and I met in my twenties, a venture capitalist. And heard what he did, helping businesses strategically. And I just really fell in love with that idea, really being flying it 50,000 feet with business owners and helping them design their business.

And. [00:01:00] Strategy. And so I began my lifelong push to get to be so that I could do that kind of work. And took me through lots of twists and turns. I started a business in 1994 to, to do it. And so I really. I really took that on as an opportunity to learn, to be a CEO my best. And so I studied in California with an organization called about entrepreneurship innovation and leadership and had coaches for nine years and just really studied on how to be a great CEO and just found that I.

Was less excited about it than I was about business. And so about 14 years ago, I left that business and started focusing on helping entrepreneurs. And so that's the brief answer. I was a brief [00:02:00] enough, 

Keerstyn: [00:02:00] that's brief enough. That works. So I guess what were some of those things that led you to want to become a CEO and then where were some of those?

I guess. Expectations that weren't met when you were in that position, but what did that mean when I 

was 

Kevin: [00:02:16] in the position with my company? Yes. Yeah. So what are some of the things? I think people who are entrepreneurs, there's a certain kind of personality type and. I, creative, visionary a little add, I think get bored easily, all these sorts of characteristics.

I think if you meet an entrepreneur, there's a certain kind of person. And I just found that I loved that kind of person and love being around them. And I couldn't say the same thing about mid-level it managers, I just. And, why do people like one kind of person over another? I don't know.

I just found [00:03:00] that the work that they were doing, the authenticity of entrepreneurs, the raw passion, the dedication to, in my experience, generally, entrepreneurs are really trying to solve some problem in the world. And I love that and I love the integrity of that and authenticity. And so for me, it was much more about designing my life and my work to be more satisfying.

And and so I think the thing that I discovered along the way was just people I want to hang out with and be of service to 

Keerstyn: [00:03:36] yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So now you're an EOS implementer. Do you want to explain EOS a bit and just give a brief background and understand what that. 

Kevin: [00:03:48] Yeah.

So I want to explain that in the context of how I got involved with EOS, because I have always been much more interested in fundamental distinctions ways of [00:04:00] thinking about, I was always curious, when you look at one leader compared to another, and one of them is more successful, it's  how did they think?

What did they what's going on in their mind? And I was always interested in the mental models. Great leaders had. And so how they think. And so that's why I went down the path that I did in terms of studying biology, especially in neurology philosophy and Linda linguistics, studying the fundamentals of human behavior and innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership.

And so in studying that, it became really potent for me and my business. And that's the kind of, that's the stuff that to this day makes the difference in. And the stuff that I love and what I found was a lot of people. When I would go and talk to them about the things that I'd learned, they'd say that's great, Kevin, those are great ideas, but right.

My hair's on fire. I got stuff to do. Tell me what to do tomorrow. And so what I found was people really struggling with the fundamental blocking and tackling of [00:05:00] business. And  that, that's what they really needed help with today. And then as soon as they put the fires out, then we can talk about being great.

But for now we've got to get things going. So EOS entrepreneurial operating system is a set of tools and practices to help people. Who are maybe great at the work that they do, but aren't great at business. Don't have the background, the training, the expertise to run a business, and EOS does a set of principles, tools, and tactics.

It says, just do these things and you'll run your business. Okay. 

Keerstyn: [00:05:31] Yeah. So I heard you say that you use science and philosophy and you studied all of those things, but clients were coming to you saying we need to fight these fires now.

Not necessarily. Yeah. In the future. How do you now fight those fires in the moment, but then also apply these higher level things of EOS in the 

Kevin: [00:05:51] process. Gotcha. Okay. I know that to be successful as a leader you have to know where you're going. And so I know that [00:06:00] from a sort of fundamental being human kind of perspective, where we are meaning machines we think about the future, what we want to accomplish, and we do that through language. And so the way this shows up in businesses, you have to have a vision for where you're going.

And the problem is people don't necessarily know what that means or how to do it. So with EOS, there's a very specific tool called the vision traction organizer that says just let's break this down for. So forget about these, talking about narrative and linguistics, all that. Thanks, Kevin.

That's really cool. And all, what is my core values? What am I? What's my core focus. What's my ten-year target. Break it down into very understandable set of questions that if you answer those questions, then you will have a vision and you will create an image of the future that will at a very fundamental level mobilize you and to create a future.

And so when I work with people, a lot of what I'm looking at [00:07:00] is if they're if they're trying to succeed in business, I'm going to pay attention to. W why it isn't working for them. And so they're going to look at it and say, it might be I'm I don't have finance, I can't hire a person, whatever.

And I'm going to look at what are they thinking are missing? And so if somebody does, isn't passio...