Authority Optional: Leadership Beyond the Rulebook

Max and Josh get a call from our audience and have a hybrid interview/Q&A session. We talk Servant-based and Situational Leadership, the value of connection, and how to navigate the impacts of a rough economy.

Are there required activities in your job that don't make sense or produce results? Do people tend to say the same things in every email? Max reveals some of his favorites (said extremely sarcastically), Josh is politely quiet through some rants, then they both discuss some options for what do to with things big companies do that don't matter.

We are ready for you to call! In case you've been waiting because we mentioned we were still setting up the tech capability, we are officially good to go. Reach out to us at authorityoptionalpodcast@gmail.com and please follow us on Instagram @authorityoptional.

Max and Josh start this series off with 2 things so common they are almost universally made fun of in pop culture: Team Building exercises and Icebreaker activities. They talk a lot of trash about how these things are often abused but, of course, offer up some ideas on how to ACTUALLY bond your team.

Authority Optional gets its first caller! Max and Josh hear out the challenge of having two teams of ideologically and geographically disparate positions, posing some ideas to create a common culture and bridge the gap between a headquarters and the field team.

After listening to a recent Adam Grant podcast: Why meetings suck and how to fix them, Max and Josh go head to head on their different takes of it because even though they both listened to it, they heard two different podcasts. Later they discuss meetings they used to conduct and their own versions of how to make them suck less.

Through thoughtful discourse, Max and Josh talk about the spectrum of Team Focus to Individual Focus, where they land on that spectrum (spoiler alert: they skew different directions), and even go into a case study in which they would have handled things differently. Neither direction is bad, this show was about exploring where you might land on the spectrum and how you can leverage that informatio...

If you're crushing it, sometimes other leaders will come to you in an attempt to find out what you're doing so well. Beware the search for "the cheat," as is all too common in these cases. Max and Josh talk about how to separate the real advice-seekers from the "cheat" divers and how to handle peer-to-peer mentor relationships.

Max and Josh discuss the realities of being and utilizing a mentor. Just because you're a leader doesn't necessarily mean you're the right fit to mentor those reporting to you. They discuss why that's okay and how you can lead yourself by always having mentors yourself, you may need more than one.

Max and Josh talk shop about the importance of Psychological Safety, a phrase coined by Amy Edmondson, about what it is and isn't, and why it's critical to a high functioning and creative team. Epic Fails are also explored and why they are invaluable to share with the team. Appropriately, we published the wrong episode initially, so some of you go to see our first public Epic Fail!

Now we're getting somewhere! Getting that team to like each other isn't always easy (maybe it's never easy), so Max and Josh discuss some methods that have shown effective like being a realist (instead of a corporate shill), how people tend to prefer to work, and start to touch on creating a common language (super important).

We're shifting gears. Instead of two guys agreeing with each other all the time, and risk boring the s*** out of you, we're going to take calls and try to help you, our listeners, solve your team, leader, or coworker challenges! We're still working out the bugs (after all, we're still new to this), but if you'd like to be on the show please reach out. We can't promise the advice will be what you w...

You may hear, especially in corporate "culture," that you should keep your team at arm's length; don't get close because it compromises your ability to lead. This is total crap. We talk about the benefits of genuinely getting to know your team, methods for doing so, and the leader's responsibilities in this kind of effort. We even talk about what happens when you feel you've tried everything. We'r...

When working to build trust, it's imperative to know and illustrate your own intent because it informs your actions. Do you know why you're a leader and what caused you to become one (because those can be 2 different things)? Be prepared for some strong opinions on why some people put themselves in positions to lead. We move on to discovering the intents of your teammates and embracing them where...

Max and Josh make their wobbly start into actually recording their thoughts on leadership and how it can be better. It's not pretty but it's honest, if you like that kind of thing. If you're a front-line manager that is new to your role or taking over a new team, or even just getting a new person on your team, this episode goes over some great first steps to take toward building a team that takes...