Loree:

I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. And I’m really excited to hear more about your book because I always ask my guests about their own leadership journey. And, you know, especially about when during their childhood, did they realize that they could influence people… and that leadership might be something that they’d be interested in? And you’ve written a book about this for children. So I’d love to hear more about what inspired you to do that.

MK:

Leadership for Youngsters, it was a project long in the making. So my leadership journey started at a very, very early age, which is why I have always been attached to the concept that you could introduce leadership to kids at a fairly young age, and have some of those things stick as they grow and progress through their life. So for me, and I’ve actually written about this, I think in a blog piece, originally, you know, the concept of leadership was introduced fairly early on, in a conversation framed around sports, I was, you know, and still am to this day, a little bit of a sports nut, specifically the NFL, I just love it from, you know, top to bottom. And when I was a little guy, I was very enamored with NFL running backs. And I thought to myself that one day, I’m going to be an NFL running back. And I will never forget my dad, who was also a sports fan turning to me and saying, that’s great, but why not be the quarterback? Why not be the team leader? And he expressed just like that, using those words. And it stuck with me. And from that point on, I always sort of this question that’s been burning for me like, why not be the leader? Why shouldn’t I be the one who is you know, helping to create the vision, helping to drive the success of an operation or helping and contributing in a way that allows my decisions to have a huge impact on the outcomes? And it’s just always been a part of who I am, and hopefully it will continue to be. So I took that and reframed it around, and you know, as I had my own kids begin to reframe that around, how am I going to introduce this topic to them? And naturally, in addition to the day to day interactions we have with my kids, I thought a book might be a good way to do that, because I think it can be introduced fairly early on.

 

Loree:

And how do you introduce that topic to a child?

MK:

My method, what I did in the book is you take circumstances from their lives, and you look for those opportunities to create teaching moments. You know, what I did for the book is, it’s completely fictionalized, you know, I took a young character, young kid in middle school, who was going through what might be the normal things that any kid in middle school goes through. And I basically wrap the context of leadership around those events that they experience that the kid experiences. And I used the Marine Corps 14 leadership characteristics as the framework from which to look at those experiences. And while you know, the framework wasn’t perfect, I mean, some of the concepts like tact and things like that aren’t necessarily something that a kid’s really going to be able to digest. But I figured out a way to relate it, you know, in a story that might be a plausible one for a kid to experience. And, again, I’ve always felt that even introducing the topic, plant a seed of some kind, and, you know, in my entire adult life, anytime I go to hear someone speak, or, you know, even formal leadership training and sessions that I’ve been in, I take away something from every one of those sessions. It may not be, you know, the whole kit and caboodle. But I take points, and I try and digest them, and hopefully it makes me a better leader every time I reengage. So that was a concept and that’s why I thought it might be helpful for kids.

 

Loree:

Oh, it’s wonderful. I mean, I can’t think of any books that are about leadership for kids. You know, it’s just something that typically is viewed as, you know, maybe in high school or in not even middle school, middle school is just like a whole nother… BLAH. I don’t know what the right adjective is….

 

MK:

I think that was fairly accurate.

 

Loree:

I have two teenagers. So I’m so happy they’re done with middle school. But yeah, you know, it’s just not normally a topic that you would associate with kids. And yet, those seeds can be planted early, probably, but you know, much earlier than we realize. So I’m so excited that you wrote that; I can’t wait to read it.

 

MK:

Yeah, thank you, thank you; it was a passion project, it went through many different types of iterations. You know, there was a challenge, I started writing it when I was in my 40s. And you know, as an adult male. And I wanted the book to resonate with young boys and girls, and I had to, you know, completely sort of change my voice in writing. I made sure that my teenagers read it and could understand it, and then had to go through all kinds of changes in terms of rewrites, to make sure that the voice in the book was at least one that could convey the message, but also wasn’t too, too much of an adult, like tone to it.

 

Loree:

Right, right. Very cool. Did you have any role models growing up for leadership?

 

MK:

I did, you know, my dad was a natural role model for leadership, again, introducing the concept to me at a very, very early age, although my parents ended up divorcing. He planted the seed, and I can firmly say to this day that, you know, many of the beginning ideas I had about my own leadership and the way of presence, and again, my thoughts around, you know, volunteering; remember, in the military, so this idea of sort of taking that step forward and say, hey, I’ll be in charge of that if someone asked, that was imbued upon me at a very, very early age. And I know that every time that I’ve done that, you know, I’m the kid who was in class who was like, you know, who wants to read their assignment first, or who wants to present first, I’m the guy that raises my hand, and steps forward every time because I’m like, I learned something from those types of experiences.

 

So, of course, you know, my dad. And then I went, you know, through my dad, my stepdad who also served. Almost every male figure, I honestly, you know, looking back on almost every male figure who leadership examples to me, spent some time in the service. And so those were natural examples. And of course, I can’t leave out my mom, who I think the lesson that I think she taught me was one about just responsibility, just adhering to, you know, the things that you were required to do for yourself and others, and sort of putting your head down and just getting those things done no matter what. So lots of influences, starting with my parents, but then extending out into others, who made an impression on me, definitely growing up.

 

Loree:

Nice. I like what you said about, you know, being the one to always step forward and volunteer yourself in, you know, because you realize that you can learn something from it. And it just made me giggle a little bit, because we used to always joke that Navy stood for Navy never volunteer.

 

MK:

I learned that at the Naval Academy.

You know, and, you know, places like the service academies, or, you know, a while that we make a lot of jokes about sometimes about some of the strenuous environment that were put in and things like, you know, that that acronym that you just mentioned, it’s still, I mean, it was wrapped in this idea of character leadership. And that taking chances and learning from your failures are all that stuff matters. And you need to be doing it constantly in order to constantly develop and evolve as a leader, constantly in motion.

 

Loree:

Fantastic. So now you’ve been a civilian, what do you think about civilian leadership versus military leadership? What do you see as the differences?

 

MK:

Interesting, so I was suspicious, like most longtime government people going into the private sector, I thought I was just going to see horrible examples of leadership. And I have been pleasantly surprised that, especially at the high executive levels, I’ve seen some very, very good forward-leaning decision making. So again, I, you know, as a student of leadership, I took away some morsels about sort of leaning into problems, and being compassionate in a way that’s helpful to get people through those problems. I think, you know, not being critical of leadership in government, but you, I’m sure can attest to you know, leadership in the government is not a very empathetic process. It is very much a mission-oriented sort of… here’s the task at hand, here’s what we’re asking you to do, now go out and do it. And we know there’s going to be some difficulties in you accomplishing this, but just get it done. Right, not really, not really worried about the individual. It’s sort of the collective. Let’s all point in this direction and go get it done. And for the most part, you do that. And then the private sector, yeah, you can do that. You can talk about bottom-line business revenue, and you know how people are going to achieve a particular task or goal, but you can’t forget about the people along the way. You really have to spend almost an equal amount of time nurturing people and bringing them along, and it’s been good at least in the current situation I’m in, it’s been good to see leadership at very, very high levels where that empathetic piece is part of the decision making. And quite honestly, I think it makes us all better.

 

Loree:

Yeah. How about now, you know, during the time of COVID-19, as a leader, what are some of the challenges that you’re facing that might be a little bit different? And how are you overcoming this?

 

MK:

Yeah, so communication jumps to mind immediately, like, there’s no strategy, there’s no productivity without communication. Yeah, you can throw a strategy up on the board, you can proselytize about it as much as you want. If you aren’t communicating it constantly, and you aren’t making those constant touchpoints with the people who are responsible for executing, I think it doesn’t happen. And actually, you know that I can’t say that that’s just a lesson I’ve learned on COVID-19. I learned that throughout my you know that the funny thing about leadership, right, we learn more through failure than we do from success any day of the week, I’ve learned through my own leadership failures, that piece about strategy, which, you know, I thought, at a point in my career, that I could just sort of create this vision and strategy, throw it up on the board. And I think everyone read that, and here’s what it is. That’s where we’re headed, right? Roger that, lets go. That’s all well and good. But if you aren’t constantly reiterating, and infusing that strategy into the decision making and reframing it, so that people understand that we’re still on the same course, they can get off course, pretty easily. And so you need to be communicating that. And so I think communication has been the challenge there for all of us, and COVID, these virtual engagements are helpful. But in while I understand that they will absolutely play a part in the future moving forward, there has to be some kind of face to face, way for us to engage, at least nominally moving forward. And I can’t wait to return to that, because that face to face communication and interaction, I think is what creates that hardcore tissue connectivity between teams. And we’re missing that right now.

 

Loree:e:

Definitely. And it’s all the, you know, the little hallway conversations and you know, proverbial water cooler chats that just aren’t happening now, because of the isolation.

 

MK:

I mean, could you imagine it from your military time, I mean, you know, in any training format, you know, my experience in the Marines was that they break you down. And that that common experience of being broken down together, you know, physically, is what laid the foundation for how you build on teamwork moving forward. And you don’t have that ability to do that in virtual environments, you know, the company that I’m glad to be working for now. We’re doing virtual onboards for new employees. So there are people coming into the company out who are only getting the company culture and feeling from these virtual interactions. And I’m just wondering what kind of impact that’s going to have on us long term?

 

Loree:

Yeah, yeah, challenging for sure. I also, like what you said about communication, and that, as a leader communicating strategy, you know, you can come up with this brilliant strategy. And it makes sense, and it’s well and good. But then everyone goes on with their lives and their work. And they’re not living it and eating it and breathing it like you are as the leader unless you’re making sure that they do and I think we forget a lot that people have lives, and other responsibilities and things like that. And so like being able to communicate that consistently is really challenging for leaders normally, and even in probably even more so now.

 

MK:

And it’s so challenging that you recognize when the ones who do get it, when they do that, when they make the effort to to make that conductivity, that outreach, they are communicating in a way that lets you know, they’re still there. They want to know that you’re there and that you’re doing okay, and that you understand, you know, the pathways that we’re still on when you recognize that you’re like, wow, that person has figured something out and emulate that in the future.

 

Loree:

Yeah. Nice. How about leadership advice? Is there any advice that you’ve received that has really stood out to you or any advice that you’d like to give to your teams?

 

MK:

Yeah, so I do a lot of reading, on leadership, mostly in the way of biographies on folks for whom I’ve, you know, personally determined, have leadership qualities that I either want to better understand or replicate, you know, everybody’s got sort of their way of digesting information. For me, I like to read about other people’s pathways and sort of what they encountered, even if it just gives me more questions than it does answers, you know, for instance, the life and accomplishments of a guy like Steve Jobs, right? There is probably no one who will who study leadership that will tell you that Steve Jobs was this exemplary leader, but somehow, that person, this guy was able to change the world by his vision and his execution. That’s an anomaly to me. Like I couldn’t put down I think it was the Isaacson book on I wanted to understand how this person could accomplish so much. Whilst you know by all counts, I never knew Mr. Jobs. I love his products. But you know, by all accounts was not a great leader, right by any measure of the but just capable of accomplishing great things, I would kind of put Elon Musk in that same category, because these are folks who are out there changing the world by their technology and their developments. And I think creating pathways, but aren’t viewed as the most empathetic, you know, folks on the planet and that, that kind of thing. I learned from that because I want to digest it. And I want to understand how it was they were able to accomplish this.

 

And of course, then you have the what I would call sort of the easy leadership digests which would be you know, historical military figures, or presidents or people who have, you know, lead through difficult times. I picked up and re read books on the civil rights leaders in the past couple years, because I was enamored by this idea that young men and women knew to stand up for themselves at a particular point in history, and like, how did they know that was the right time to assume this leadership role on a global scale? Yeah, you know, to this day, I think it’s been reiterated from time and we seem to forget how young folks like Dr. King was, while he was the leader of the civil rights movement for the United States. I mean, in his late 20s. I remember what I was doing in my late 20s, and I was not ready to lead a global movement related to civil war, you know, that kind of stuff fascinates me.

 

So reading is one of the ways that I do it. And I certainly, I probably cross a spectrum, and one of my favorite writers on leadership is a guy named James Maxwell. And he’s a former pastor, you know, so I don’t know, I don’t think it matters where the folks get the experience. It’s do they take away from those experiences things that might be helpful to others? And Maxwell is one of the folks I think who’s done that superbly, probably. He’s a prolific writer, I think I’ve probably read at least a quarter or half of his leadership books that he’s put out. And I just, I’m constantly in learning mode. And understanding that there’s probably no no, I don’t think anyone I someone asked me the other day I was on an interview, what’s been my greatest leadership accomplishment? My answer is I don’t think I’ve done it yet.