Live For Yourself with Dr. Benjamin Ritter

angela_r_howard (00:05.204)

Dr. Ritter, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you on. I feel like this has been a long time coming. I'm gonna bounce it to you to do an introduction. Who are you, what do you do, and what is the impact you're looking to make on the world?

dr__benjamin_ritter (00:19.318)

Well, thank you, Angela. So I'm a coach first. So I've been coaching for a decade now. I'm in all facets of human beings, leadership, personal development, et cetera. And more recently, over the past six years, I've mainly been focused on leadership development. And so I am a coach for senior leaders.

to develop as leaders, as well as to really own their own careers, create a career that they can love. And because I care so much about helping people own their careers, I got my doctorate in organizational leadership. And so I also help organizations become places people can fall in love with. So right now I'm a talent development executive building a talent development department for a life sciences manufacturing company.

That has involved everything from the candidate experience, so hiring practices, orientation, onboarding, new hire training to completely building from scratch a performance development process, quarterly reviews, one-on-ones, feedback, coaching, delegation, et cetera.

This all came to be because I was pretty unhappy at work myself. I had pretty terrible leaders to the point where people were coming to me crying on a daily basis and that forced me to become a pretty disengaged employee. So high achiever was promoted into an executive role, but really working not to work. So going in and looking for ways to escape the job, putting my head down, leaving for a couple of hours to go to the gym. Um, not really seeing a future where I was at, but happy to have a paycheck.

That to me from for someone at that time, who was just like very fulfilled in every other area of his life was strange. It was a warning sign. It was like this shouldn't be. Why is it this way? And that helped me do a career audit and really figure out where I wanted to take My next steps and make a difference, honestly, because you know my unhappiness in my career bled into my personal life bled into my

dr__benjamin_ritter (02:28.214)

personal identity, you know, how I define myself as a human being and destroyed any sort of vision that I had for my life. And so I didn't, it wasn't really intentional anymore either in how I was living on a day to day basis. And I found out that I was being really reactive to my career for a variety of reasons. We can get into that if we want, but luckily I woke up, decided to be proactive and steered the ship in this direction. Lo and behold, you know, ways later.

I have a pretty lovely business and career in leadership and talent development.

angela_r_howard (03:02.736)

I love that. I love your story and kind of how you came to this, you know, this place of, you know, self-realization. And I think a lot of people who are listening can relate to your story. And so I want to dig into a few things because before we pressed record, we were starting to have some really good discussion about the responsibility of leadership. And you mentioned kind of this ripple effect, right, of.

you were impacted by the work you were doing and that rippled into other facets of your life. So if you're a leader listening, what are some of the things that you would position as key responsibilities of a leader other than managing the work?

dr__benjamin_ritter (03:44.086)

So first and foremost, you are the most important leader in your life. And that goes for everyone, even for the people that are your direct reports and your peers and even your leader. And so you need to take care of yourself. And then when you're leading, you need to figure out how to do that for others. So you need to create an environment that empowers others and helps them see that they are accountable for leading themselves.

You can do that by being a role model of self leadership and then giving the tools and the resources and the time to the people that work for you.

angela_r_howard (04:23.476)

Yeah, and it's interesting because, I mean, you and I come from a similar background, organizational leadership. My background's in organizational psychology, so we see this in very similar lenses, but from a psychological standpoint, I believe leadership is so tough because our brain is kind of a processing machine, right? And it's really kind of, it can be selfish a lot of the times when we're under chaos or stress.

we tend to look inwards and go into that kind of primal survival mode, right? And leadership is selfless. It requires us to look outside of ourselves and have empathy and to serve others. So I guess what, um, what are your thoughts on leading in times of crisis? Because we talked about that earlier and really, really that's kind of where leadership shows up or, you know, chaos or crisis, I guess would be the two factors.

dr__benjamin_ritter (05:18.538)

Yeah. And I'd like to, at least my personal belief is that leadership stays consistent no matter if it's crisis or if it's day to day. And so I coined the team model of managing to motivate. So this is kind of what leaders are responsible for. The first piece is psychological safety. So trust, have you built trust in your team? And there's a variety of ways to do that, but that's the foundational pillar.

E is the environment. So have, do you know what environment your direct reports need to succeed? And so in times of crisis, that might be different. They might mean they might need different resources to solve clients or their own problems. So that can change. So how are you keeping your ear to the ground and figuring out, um, what is it that really can help them do their jobs as well as to feel fulfilled in their work that can even relate to the people that they work with. So environment can also be.

your appear in social relationships during the day to day to everything from, do they have a stapler to be able to staple the documents that you're asking them to print? Which I was just at an event yesterday and the key speaker didn't have a clicker and couldn't do a presentation. And so you ask that person what they think, even if they could still do the presentation, but you ask that person, how does that affect their day to day? So if you have a trainer, does that trainer have the tools that they need? And so you are responsible for that as their leader.

angela_r_howard (06:34.304)

Oh boy.

dr__benjamin_ritter (06:47.626)

Now A is the actual work that they're doing. So that relates to, do they like their work? Do they feel connected to their work? Is this work developing them? Is it a challenge to them? Does it leverage their strengths? Or is it work that they really dislike doing that makes them feel like they are, you know, underutilized, which is huge. It's a huge aspect on why people leave their jobs. So the actual work and how you, are you getting that information? And then M is meaning, do they understand the importance?

of the work, do they understand how it connects with their career goals? Do they understand how it relates in alliance with their values? And you want people that understand these things themselves. It is not the case. There are many people that think of much smaller percentages than we think are able to do this for themselves. And that's really, if a leader can keep in mind the team model of managing to motivate throughout any day to day or crisis that's happening in an organization.

then I promise you, your people will feel connected to you and they will show up and be engaged with their work. And more importantly, if you have this information, you'll know when they disengage. You will know when something's wrong. And then you have to call out the elephant in the room and say, hey, something's up, what's going on?

angela_r_howard (08:05.572)

Yeah, I know, I love that's such a focused model of some really, really important elements. There may be some listeners who are listening in today and saying, look, I get shit done, right? Like I come in, I'm a leader, I do the work, I get my teams to get the work done. All this other stuff sounds like fluff to me. Why?

Why should we be doing these four things in this model that you mentioned around motivation?

dr__benjamin_ritter (08:39.778)

people aren't gonna stay. And I mean, yeah, people, not just that, you're gonna get people that stay and don't do their work, which is even worse. I have conversations with people all the time that are working and you know, there are some people I know that have like four jobs. I know some, I mean, there's a really great story online about someone that hired, they basically built a code to do his job for him.

angela_r_howard (08:43.386)

The simple answer, yes.

dr__benjamin_ritter (09:08.798)

You know, data, it was like a data entry position. Uh, and then went to his boss with, Hey, I have this code. We should, we should do this. You should promote me. We can consolidate. And the boss just said, just go to your job. And, and so if you don't pay attention to these components, you will, you will basically under utilize the people that work for you and you won't get to your goals and people will leave. So it's.

angela_r_howard (09:21.019)

Mm-hmm.

dr__benjamin_ritter (09:35.766)

as well as, I mean, this is the true definition of leadership in my mind. And if you don't want to talk and have one-on-ones with your employees or care about, you know, what the meaning is they feel behind their work, I'm sure you will succeed in some organizations. But to me, then you probably shouldn't be a leader.

angela_r_howard (09:56.144)

Yeah, that just the point around waste of untapped potential is enough for me to just be like, yeah, that in and of itself and people leaving and the fact that research tells us that this type of leadership produces results and produces a different kind of performance response from people. And

dr__benjamin_ritter (10:19.658)

Yeah, to build on that for a second. So getting into the research, right? Increased absenteeism. So people aren't showing up to work. Decrease in productivity. So people aren't getting as much done. Decrease in engagement. So the dynamics of your teams and your departments are gonna be less. So then people are going to not be motivated. And again, decrease in productivity. It's all mainly, it's just like, hey, people aren't gonna do their work. And it's not gonna be a very

fun place to work and people are not going to show up to work. So.

angela_r_howard (10:54.836)

Yeah, no, I thank you for dropping those stats. I think that's important because it kind of gets us back to the ultimate why. And there's another ultimate why, which is kind of, it's the right thing to do. I can't put stats behind that. But I think about that as, if you're building an organization, if you have a platform where you're employing people and it's a container for people for eight to 10 hours a day, like I also think that's a responsibility that you're treating people.

in a human-centered way. You're creating an environment to your model, an environment where people can thrive and not only do the work and do their best work, but also that they then go home and they're happier, healthier, more fulfilled.

angela_r_howard (11:41.736)

So my next, oh go ahead.

dr__benjamin_ritter (11:42.654)

You bring up a good point by the way though, because some people may be listening and saying, why can't people just do their jobs? Why are people so soft that they need to feel these types of things from their work? And you will find people still that will come in and just do their job. There are people out there that can do that. You ask yourself though, okay, so what is gonna inspire this person to do more?

angela_r_howard (11:49.256)

Right?

dr__benjamin_ritter (12:09.194)

What is going to inspire this person to want to make this an enjoyable place to work? And what is going to keep this person? Because it, I don't know if this resonates at all. I'd be curious what your thoughts are, but I was working with an executive not too long ago who lost some pretty important talent. And despite needing that person, they decided to prolong the interview process and hiring because it was a lot more work to onboard and train someone.

than it was for that person just to do the job for a little bit and push out some of the projects.

It is so much work to replace somebody. I don't know if that...

angela_r_howard (12:48.42)

Oh my gosh, yes, it's so much work and it's so much money. And I mean, there is a cost to finding new people and onboarding them. Monetary but also think about the learning curve and what I like to call, it comes from the book 90 Days, which is focused on time to impact, right? So from the time you hire someone to the time they are no longer consuming and they're actually contributing.

It should be about 90 days, but that's three months. And that means for three months, they are only consuming resources for the most part versus contributing. So yes, I totally agree with you. And that's, I think, another part of leadership, if you think about onboarding an employee, using that same framework that you talked about, psychological safety, environment, the actual work, the meaning behind the work. How are you creating? How are you?

instituting those into the experience. Right, because if I'm on board and I'm just left in the middle of an island with no resources or support, nobody's reaffirming the reason why I joined in the first place, because I believe there's a lot of cognitive dissonance between what happens when we lose people because there is cognitive dissonance between what I was told during the interview process and what I actually experience. So now I'm in the environment and you told me

We're a team, we're cohesive, we're inclusive, and then everyone's behaving the opposite. Now you've already created a sense of dissatisfaction and worry whether or not I will have buyer's remorse and made the wrong choice at that point.

dr__benjamin_ritter (14:34.302)

Ooh, we're dealing with that actually. And you get this amazing introduction to the company and you're really excited about a role and then you get in there and nobody's there to greet you. So it's a very different experience, but you've kind of married, so you married into the wrong family and. Now you have to say, okay, so how long do I have to put up with this to not, you know, it's a.

angela_r_howard (14:52.965)

Right.

dr__benjamin_ritter (15:01.734)

to, and how can I put up with this? So how do I protect myself? And when people are unhappy with the situation, a lot of them will not raise their hands and say they were unhappy. They'll withdraw and protect themselves. And so going back to, you know, what a leader is really, what a leader's really need to do is communication. And that's listening and asking questions and prodding. Cause there's a lot, especially in the remote environment today, there's a lot of things that leaders will not know.

unless they ask the three or four or five layer deep questions. And you keep asking those questions. If you notice something doesn't seem right and also have more touch points because there's a lot going on throughout the week that you are just not aware of. Cause you're not walking by that person's desk or you don't see them randomly. And so that really depends on what works for the team is it may not be an hour long one-on-one each week, which still surprised the amount of people that don't have that.

but it might be, you know, three 15 minute check-ins or two 30 minute check-ins, or, you know, make sure that you're on project, you know, you're on project meetings with that individual because how are you creating those connectivity opportunities between your direct reports and with your team to find out that information?

angela_r_howard (16:17.352)

Yeah, and the only way you're gonna be able to find that information candidly and truthfully is if you build that psychological safety and trust upfront. I also am a firm believer that you should give people opportunity to opt out, which a lot of people are not a fan of because it's like, why would I do that? I've just invested in this person. But companies like Zappos, for example, offer, they'll pay you to leave because they would rather kind of have that open.

dialogue and communication and give you an incentive to provide that versus wait six months until you're unhappy. So I think there's ways that we can do that, but we have to change the paradigm a little bit to more open, fluid communication between employees and employers.

dr__benjamin_ritter (17:05.47)

Yeah, very true.

angela_r_howard (17:06.14)

And the other thing I'll mention is, and tell me what you think about this, but I don't, I think we have too many leaders. I think we have too many leaders who are promoted into leadership positions who don't have the willingness or the capability to do the things you mentioned. But I think from a societal perspective, we've learned to climb the ladder, right? Like leadership, bigger title, more money.

That's my career path. When in reality, I think we need everybody. We need the pros in place who are really great technical experts. But I don't think everyone is built or, you know, not built, because I don't necessarily think it's like inherent, but I don't think everyone has the willingness or the capability to be a leader. And we should be structuring our organization so there's multiple career paths and opportunities.

to fulfill our purpose and the work. What do you think?

dr__benjamin_ritter (18:09.43)

Leadership isn't easy. I know a lot of people that would prefer to be an individual contributor than a leader and the really modern organizations have career paths that allow individual contributors to grow and to make more money and to get higher titles. Because they understand that if you take an individual contributor that's good at their job and you move them to a leadership position because they want more money.

they want to grow in their career, then not only do you, and they weren't right for it. Not only do you lose their amazingness as an individual contributor, but now you have a person that's really poor at leadership and doesn't actually care to talk to people and to connect with people and individuals. So yeah, it's, there's a good Simon Sinek TED talk or presentation and it goes, leadership is like parenting, right? There's, there's like, uh, I think it goes, not everyone, uh,

angela_r_howard (18:53.332)

You bright.

angela_r_howard (19:01.92)

Hmm.

dr__benjamin_ritter (19:06.758)

should be apparent, and that everybody wants to be apparent. And it's like, and I forgot it was, and like, it's, that's okay. I'm trying to remember what the exact quote was, but it's just that, you know, sometimes we can learn to love leadership. You know, we have to get, you have to kind of come to terms with the fact that we don't have control over the output of our job anymore.

angela_r_howard (19:08.718)

Mm-hmm.

dr__benjamin_ritter (19:29.446)

And so we are, our control now is not even on the people, because we can't control people, but we can try to create an environment that helps them be more productive at the output of the job. But we're usually, we're really good at doing the job. So we have a hard time letting other people do it and taking a step back from it. We can get people comfortable with that. That is a learning curve. That takes time. That takes training, you know, leadership training, it takes coaching, it takes them having a good leader. So it's not to say that if you love

being the digital contributor that you can't be a good leader. It just means that you have to relearn how to find validation from your work. I was working with a client not too long ago who just was having the hardest time feeling like they were successful at their job, even though they were doing their job really well, but because the, the indicator, the metrics that they were using to be successful were now completely different. And, and so that's part of onboarding, right? That's part of when someone moves into a leadership role, are you having those conversations?

angela_r_howard (20:17.416)

Yes.

dr__benjamin_ritter (20:23.786)

Are leaders that are aware that this can be a downfall for someone to make them doubt their abilities to be a successful professional? Are they speaking with them? Are they having conversations around them? Do they have an initial one-on-one just to discuss it?

angela_r_howard (20:39.208)

Yeah, 100%. And I'd be curious to know too, because you're doing all this coaching and discovery work with these leaders. Have you ever had a leader who had the realization that they don't wanna be a leader and you helped them kind of get out of path of an individual contributor? Is that ever happened?

dr__benjamin_ritter (20:59.442)

More so, so yes, but like longer story was a yes. And the person moves into more of like a strategic operational role and decrease their direct reports. So they moved away from having a very large team to that being more kind of behind the scenes.

And organizations are open to that if they value you as an employee. So a lot of times all it is, is having a career development conversation with someone being like, look, leadership is not for me. And that leadership it's, you know, uh, I actually prefer this, you know, working behind the scenes on the operations and strategy of the, of the organization. Like my talents would be best fit in this area. It's having an open conversation around that. And.

If you're in the right organization, that would be a very welcomed, very welcome meeting.

angela_r_howard (21:49.2)

Yeah, and that's why this idea of self-awareness is so key. And understanding what it is you're looking for, kind of going back to your story, right? Of you were unhappy and you went through this exploration of what do I really want. So I'm sure someone like it's like you and with your services of leadership development can help with that exploration. And sometimes we need an objective view to.

move those barriers out of the way or identify those barriers because you're so deep in it that it's really tough to do it alone. You need kind of a community around you to help as well.

dr__benjamin_ritter (22:27.43)

A lot of what we're discussing is like fear. What are your fears? So anyone that's listening to this, write down what are your fears as a professional today, as a leader? What do you really want and how are your fears holding yourself back from that? Fear of having a conversation to say that I don't want to be a leader or fear to having a conversation that you want to be a leader or fear to have a conversation around that you really don't like doing this aspect of your job or fear saying that you need to have more time with your

It's amazing the types of things that people hold back because they're afraid of maybe losing their job or saying the wrong thing. You, if you are, if you are focused on yourself and you're not blaming anybody or being negative, then you really can't say the wrong thing ever when it comes to your career.

dr__benjamin_ritter (23:23.99)

But so often fear directs people, even for something as simple as, hey, you wanna build a professional brand in this space. You wanna look at other job opportunities that are in the market. You want to just build thought leadership. Well, yeah, go send a message to someone that is maybe a director or a little bit above you or a peer of you at another organization that's doing a similar role. Just go talk to them. And so often for people that have never done that, it's the scariest thing they've done in over a decade. It's like...

more scary than jumping out of an airplane, scarier than swimming with sharks. Because it's like they don't think that that's something they're allowed to do. They don't think that it's something that is normal, quote unquote. And I'm here to say, hey, look, nothing's normal. Yeah, there is no normal. It's what you want and what you need to create for yourself for your career, going back to this idea of accountability and empowerment.

angela_r_howard (24:16.224)

I love it. Well, that was like the perfect, I think, bow to tie in this conversation. Because we talked about a lot today. We talked about what is leadership? What's the responsibility of leadership? I think we talked a little bit about giving yourself permission to have that self-awareness and to maybe think about different career paths, but only you can really make that choice, right? And leadership is a choice. And leadership is just one path.

for people, there are other paths. So last question is where can people find you if they wanted to lean on you for some help, for some community or guidance around leadership development?

dr__benjamin_ritter (25:00.898)

So you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Dr. Benjamin Ritter, send me a message, say that you heard me here and let me know if there's something that you want some help with. You can find out more about my work at liveforyourselfconsulting.com. It's liveforyourselfconsulting.com. I have two podcasts that are up there, the executive which interviews leaders and the Live for Yourself revolution, which is entrepreneurs as well as little tidbits on personal and professional development. So make sure you check that out. And if you're ever in Austin, Texas, send me a message,

home base despite I coach globally. I always like to see faces.

angela_r_howard (25:36.372)

wonderful Dr. Benjamin Ritter. Thank you so much for your time, your insights, and Austin, Texas happens to be one of my favorite places, so I will have to hit you up next time I'm there. Thank you.

dr__benjamin_ritter (25:46.126)

Please do.