#001 – Emotional Intelligence and Leadership with Mike Hayes

Ardent Development Podcast

Mike Hayes is a certified coach, teacher, and speaker with the John Maxwell Team and the president of Changing Leaf, a leadership development company dedicated to developing better leaders. He’s also the co-author of Dreaming Big Being Bold 2: Inspiring Stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers.
In this episode, Derek Hatchard and Ron Smith chat with Mike about emotional intelligence, leadership, and ways to make positive changes in your career.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Dreaming Big Being Bold 2: Inspiring Stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers
• Michael Hyatt
• Patrick Lencioni
• Liz Wiseman

Enjoy the show and be sure to follow Ardent Development on Twitter.

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Transcript

Derek: Today on the Ardent Development Podcast, we are speaking with Mike Hayes. Mike is a certified coach, teacher, and speaker with the John Maxwell Team and the president of Changing Leaf, a leadership development company dedicated to developing better leaders. He’s also the co-author of volume 2 of the book Dreaming Big and Being Bold: Inspiring Stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries, and Change Makers. Recently, Ron sat down with Mike to interview him for his ManagingProjects.ca website and we thought that Mike would be an ideal first guest for the Ardent Development Podcast. And with that, I’ll turn it over to you, Ron.

Ron: Welcome, everybody. This is the first episode of the Ardent Development Podcast. We have Mike Hayes from Changing Leaf from Moncton, New Brunswick. So, welcome, Mike.

Mike Hayes: Thanks for having me. Good to hear you guys.

Ron: Good to hear you.

Derek: Welcome, Mike.

Mike Hayes: Thank you.

Ron: So, listen, we were chatting last week about this whole concept of you’re working with people who are going through a transition, coaching them, and they’re in a new role and we had talked a little bit about what you would say to them, how you would coach them, and after this conversation I started thinking well what about those people who are in a role and they’re just passed up for these opportunities.

Ron: They can’t figure out why. Can you unlock that mystery to some degree of, cause you see this. You see this with people that say why does Billy get this promotion. You know I’m working hard. In fact in some cases I may think I’m working harder. I don’t get it. Can you unlock that for us for a little bit.

Mike Hayes: Yeah it’s a fantastic question and it’s one that I think many people and different organizations are struggling with right. Like how do I know I make that leap from the position I currently have to go up to the next rung of a ladder.

Mike Hayes: And I guess I’ll just speak from my personal experience working in a larger organization for over 20 years. I was that person who was moving up in the organization and having the opportunity to contribute at higher levels. And I was doing that while my peers were observing this happening and I remember them asking me like how come you’re getting selected to go and be part of these initiatives.

Mike Hayes: And I’m like, well, one of the things that I’m doing is taking control of my own development. I’m not waiting for the organization to say well here’s how we plan to develop you and here’s a training session that you can attend. I didn’t wait for any of that. I started reading books on leadership I started attending conferences I started to watch TED talks and what I was learning I was sharing and bringing that into conversations with leaders and organizations and they could see that I was bringing more value to the conversation. And I think that was part of the reason why I was able to have the opportunities that I had is because it took control of my own my own development and I think…

Ron: You didn’t worry about you didn’t worry about you know who’s going to pay for my books. Who’s going to pay for my subscription to. You know you just did it.

Mike Hayes: Yeah. Yeah absolutely because I saw the value in it. I am also like a lifelong learner. I have a what I call an AOL which is an attitude of a learner. And when you have the attitude of a learner you can just gain so much knowledge from from everybody that’s around you. I think sometimes when people look at opportunities to learn they think well that only happens if I go to a classroom that only happens if I attend a webinar. And those are great great things to go to. By all means. But sometimes they’re not the most convenient for people and there’s learning opportunities in books and you can select mentors that are famous people and learn from them like John Maxwell and Patrick Lencioni and Liz Wiseman like these people are available for us to learn from. But the question becomes Will you invest in yourself and add more value to yourself so that you can add more value to the organizations and the people that you’re you’re working and leading in. And if the answer is yes then I think people are going to make that leap because they’re taking the initiative themselves.

Ron: So what I’m wondering is what stops people though from from doing that because there’s you know like when I was younger I think I had that view I had that I had I had the sense of I should go to my manager and I and you know I was interested in Oracle certification one time and I went to my manager and I said you know what I’ll do all this study I’ll do all I’m really interested in this field there’s a DBA who is willing to mentor me.

Ron: Would you pay for my books or would you pay for a test. When I go to write it and you know the manager said Write me a business case. Why that’s important. And I mean I thought oh my. And so that hit a bit of a brick wall or I felt that, I never wrote a business case. I just went and bought the book.

Ron: And you know I’ve never got certified in Oracle but it was it was early in my career and I think that was one of those moments when I said like you phrased it very well are you going to take control of your own destiny to some degree and not not let the answer be a no because your manager said Oh we don’t have budget for that this term.

Mike Hayes: You know what no stands for, eh, Ron? It’s an acronym N-O stands for next opportunity. OK. So when you get a No it just means OK well you know the next opportunity I’ve got to find another way around this. It is when people experience a barrier or an obstacle, you have a choice there you either accept it and stay where you are and do nothing or you find a way through it, over it, under it, around it. But if you really want what’s on the other side of that barrier you’re going to find a way.

Mike Hayes: I often tell people as well that you know if what you are facing and what you’re dealing with in your organization is not more complicated than space travel then there must be a solution there just has to be right because we’ve figured out how to do space travel. So if it’s not more complicated...