Episode 31 - Embracing Leadership as a Moral Imperative
Did you know parents are the best leaders?
In this episode, Dr. Jim Salvucci shares his transformative journey from an English professor to a corporate leader, emphasizing the universal essence of leadership rooted in integrity and soft skills. Jim reflects on how early leadership roles in Boy Scouts and his father's servant leadership model shaped his values-driven approach.
Whether you’re a parent looking to embrace personal growth, self-awareness, or the moral philosophy of leadership, this episode is for you! Also, don’t forget to follow Jim’s blog and podcast, On Leading with Greatness, on Substack.
Important Clips
(01:07) Parenting and Leadership
(10:05) Lessons in Leadership and Integrity
(17:06) Benefits of Liberal Arts Education
(24:37) Leaders Are Teachers in Disguise
(27:51) Compassionate Leadership in Parenting
Connect with Deb Meyer
Website: WorthyNest.com/podcast
Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:01.513)
Sometimes not knowing what you are doing can be the best way to learn. Today's guest, Dr. Jim Salvici, was an English professor and faculty leader when he was asked to become Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at his university. There was just one hitch though. The School of Humanities and Social Sciences didn't exist.
Jim had no training, he had no models and very little guidance. So he looked to fellow deans for help. And he quickly learned that many peers were failing just as much as he was. Now, Jim’s primary discipline or first discipline of study was English literature, but he soon realized that leadership could and must be his second discipline. And he taught leadership, he served as a VP and a provost at two more universities.
Then he left higher education to serve the corporate arena. I recently stumbled upon Jim's weekly newsletter On Leading with Greatness, and I'm a big fan. So even if you're not in the corporate world, I think you'll learn something valuable from this lesson because you're a parent. And Beyond Budgets, we're all about parenting. think all parents are leading their children. So any of us can learn from his leadership knowledge. All right, Jim, thank you so much for being on Beyond Budgets.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (01:22.03)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Deb.
Deb Meyer (01:23.483)
Why do you believe everyone should aspire to be a great leader?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (01:29.188)
Well, you know, we are all leaders at some point in our life, right? There's even just moments of leadership. I often use the example of like, you know, the little girl in the cafeteria of her school who stands up to protect her friends from bullies. You know, that's a moment of leadership and it may be fleeting. It may never happen again, but we all have these times and there's, you know, parents are leaders to their children. I talk a lot about the fact that teachers are leaders.
And in fact, I don't see a difference between teachers and leaders in other fields in terms of what they do, just in terms of the skills and whatnot. understanding that would make teachers better teachers, would make leaders better teachers. I mean, to make leaders better leaders. so this comes up again and again and again, and we don't really think about.
Deb Meyer (02:21.397)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (02:21.444)
And the dirty little secret about all this talking about leadership is that it's about everything. Leadership is really a proxy for moral philosophy.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (02:48.858)
And I'm really a moral philosopher as much as I'm a leadership thinker and coach and writer and whatever. And when we realize that, I mean, it's about morality. It's about being decent. It's about how to behave in the world and how to get other people to behave well in the world. That's what leaders do.
Deb Meyer (03:08.701)
Yeah, so I'm interested by that moral philosophy idea. So can you expand on that a little bit? Like, I mean, what does it mean to be a moral lead? Like, obviously, for any of us that grew up in any kind of religious upbringing, it's all about like, hey, make sure you follow the Ten Commandments or do as you're told, you know, follow and respect authority. But for a lot of people in the business world, especially as you climb the corporate ladder, as you get in more of a leadership role, it can be more difficult challenges you're facing. How does morality really intertwine into that?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (03:48.984)
Yeah, that's a massive question. First off, let me start with this. The basic leadership principles are ridiculously easy, right? It's easy to comprehend this. You start with being decent. Don't be a jerk. That's where you start. The problem is, and you just gestured at that, the problem is putting that in place and keeping it in place, keeping it going, right?
That's what's really hard. That's what the challenge is. So you read all this stuff about leadership and what not, it's giving you all this advice, but really the hard thing is putting that advice in place. So my goal is always to give advice that people can use in really fundamental ways and really get them to think about who they are as a person, because that's key. Self -awareness, right? So, you know, but in terms of leadership, one of the things that people talk about is integrity. All right.
Deb Meyer (04:36.5)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (04:45.826)
And what is integrity? Well, people have these different definitions, but really there's three elements to integrity that need to be present. And I give the example of a chair. Think of a wooden chair. A wooden chair, to have physical integrity, needs three elements. It needs to be solid. You wouldn't sit on a balsa wood chair. It needs to be whole. It can't be missing a leg. It can't be having its screws falling on the floor.
and it needs to be reliable. You need to trust the chair. So if somebody says to you, here's a chair, it doesn't have integrity, you're probably not gonna sit down. It's not reliable. Without getting hurt, you might resist. But it's exactly the same thing with what we may call human or moral integrity. You need the same three elements. So to have integrity as a person, you need to be
Deb Meyer (05:17.493)
Mm
Deb Meyer (05:26.113)
without getting hurt.
Deb Meyer (05:37.653)
Mm
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (05:44.34)
solid in your integrity. needs to be, it can't be melting and falling away at the slightest little provocation or challenge. It needs to be whole. And this is the one people really miss. You can't have integrity in one aspect of your life and not another. You can't have integrity in your job and treat your family like dirt. And you can't treat your family really well and be a jerk on the job. You don't have integrity. You can't have integrity when you're, you know,
creating schedules for people but not have any integrity when you're handling the budget. If you don't have it everywhere, you don't have it. It's as simple as that, just like that chair. It can't be missing a screw. It all falls apart. And then you have to be reliable. People have to trust you, which means you have to be trustworthy. You have to earn that trust. So that's where integrity comes in. So a lot of morality is built around that sense of integrity. And then it leads to
Deb Meyer (06:16.383)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (06:32.277)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (06:41.344)
what I call the four C's of leadership, which in the first of these is character. You need to have character. That's where morality comes in. It's not just who you think you are or who you want to be or who you pretend to be or even who other people think you are. It's how you behave. I don't care how you are. When someone says, well, he means well, yeah, but he's acting like he's acting horrible.
Deb Meyer (07:00.01)
Mm
Deb Meyer (07:06.943)
Right.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (07:08.96)
she's a really good person deep down inside. I don't care how she is deep down inside. She's doing bad things. Right. Exactly. It's your behavior that matters. Nothing else really matters in the end. And so, you know, you need to show up and you need to act certain ways. And that's where your character comes in. And then that builds on to your ability to communicate, because part of communication is people have to be able to trust you. You have to have
Deb Meyer (07:14.837)
She needs to show it through her actions, yeah.
Alright.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (07:35.416)
you have to have a valuable message and you can only have a valuable message to deliver if you have values, character, right? And then that leads to the third C, which is compromise, where you give and take what you need communication for. And then once you start compromising, you can collaborate. And that's the ultimate thing that leaders do. They build cultures of collaboration.
Deb Meyer (07:41.141)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (07:56.245)
Mm -hmm. Well, I also love how you brought up the word values in there because we're big fans of values beyond budgets and worthiness, my registered investment advisory firm. And I think for a lot of people just wrapping their head around what values driven leadership is, could you go into that concept a little bit more and explain it? What are some of the benefits of values driven leadership?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (08:20.728)
Yeah, I mean, I kind of described what it is, you know, be decent, right? Start with your values, live your values. Don't just say I'm a person of integrity, have integrity. Don't say I'm honest, act honest, be honest. So, you know, so that's kind of clear. And there's different ways of exploring what your values are and whatnot. But what the benefits are, it comes back to that trust and collaboration.
Deb Meyer (08:33.715)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (08:48.654)
When you're a values driven leader, people want to follow you. They want to be inspired by you. They want to do what needs to be done. My favorite definition of leadership comes from Dwight Eisenhower. And he said that leadership is when you get people to do what needs to be done because they want to do it. Right, so there's that combination of what needs to be done and people wanting to do it. They buy into it.
Deb Meyer (09:11.305)
Mmm.
Deb Meyer (09:19.071)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (09:19.86)
You can't get there without values. People have to share your values. People have to know where you're coming from. And again, you have to live those values. I've worked for plenty of people who talked about their values. I never saw them.
Deb Meyer (09:24.287)
Mm
Deb Meyer (09:32.563)
Hmm. On the surface, they were saying, Hey, yeah, I am a honest, ethical person. But in reality, once you got to know them on a more personal level, you would see that that wasn't, that wasn't the case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, let's turn back the clocks for a little bit. So, I always love hearing about like childhood and kind of how you use your childhood experiences to really.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (09:38.873)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (09:44.578)
or even at a distance as a boss, were, you know, they were just all over the place. You know, they did whatever they wanted.
Deb Meyer (10:01.941)
partly that into what you're doing today, but little Jim, when you were growing up, what was it that attracted you to leadership or was that even something that you had considered that you would eventually be doing and speaking in this leadership capacity now?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (10:17.914)
Yeah, by the way, they called me Jimmy back then. I ended that when I was 12, I think. So yeah, and that's something that's interesting. I've been thrust into leadership positions, not necessarily willfully, since I was about that age, since I was a kid. I was a young boy scout and I didn't really have a very high rank and I wasn't old enough, but they made me like the top.
Deb Meyer (10:20.945)
Deb Meyer (10:24.536)
Okay.
Deb Meyer (10:33.438)
Okay.
Deb Meyer (10:37.705)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (10:46.714)
Boy Scout of the troop. And I was like the leader of the troop. And we only, had a very small troop in our, we only had one Scout Master, we didn't have any other adults. And so I was like number two to the Scout Master, which was very messed up because I was really little. And you know, I wanted to have fun and I'm sitting there planning our camping trips and all, and that kind of got a little old really fast. But I was kind of thrust into this and I was pretty good at it. You know, I learned some tough lessons. I did some bonehead things.
Deb Meyer (10:49.365)
Wow, okay.
Deb Meyer (11:13.695)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (11:16.474)
But I learned how to get people to do things. By the time I was 18, I was actually a boss. I had employees. again, I was sort of a gut, what I call gut leader. Like I had good instincts, right? And I wasn't, I don't think I damaged that many people in the process, but I hope not. There's a trail of detritus behind me somewhere. what I did was,
Deb Meyer (11:23.69)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (11:30.748)
Okay, sure.
Deb Meyer (11:37.471)
Hopefully not.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (11:46.01)
I learned later on when I became a dean that I had to study leadership, right? The stakes were way higher. And like you said before, I made it a discipline. I started thinking about it, reading about it, writing about it, going to conferences, going to trainings, talking to people, applying things, learning, learning, learning, right? Learning from my mistakes. And that was, you know, that was a very different take on leadership, but it was, it all stemmed from that childhood gut leadership. And part of the reason I think I had some really good instincts is because
Deb Meyer (11:51.013)
Mmm.
Deb Meyer (12:02.579)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (12:15.886)
Both my parents were good leaders. My father in particular was a tremendous leader. And he wasn't a great man in that he didn't have a big title. At one point, he was a blue collar worker, he was a union worker. And at one point he led a rather large union local in Philadelphia. And was involved in all kinds of things, meet with the mayor and all this other stuff. But he was never like a big muckety muck type. He didn't care about that. He didn't care about the title, he didn't care about the prestige.
Deb Meyer (12:26.91)
Okay.
Deb Meyer (12:41.915)
Okay. The title.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (12:46.426)
All he cared about was doing the right thing. And he would sacrifice himself to do the right thing. And he did this many times. He did this when he was in the army in Korea in early 50s, when he was like 20 years old, 18 years old, whatever he was. He went toe to toe with a sergeant who was abusing his people because he was a corporal and got himself in all kinds of trouble. That's leadership. He had guts.
Deb Meyer (12:49.011)
Mm
Deb Meyer (13:12.124)
Yeah, yeah, right.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (13:13.262)
You know, he didn't back down to bullies. didn't, you know, and that's what I learned. That's what I imbibe. Don't put up with this stuff. Being a leader sometimes means having to put yourself out there and be a shield for other people. You know, and so I learned that at a very, very young age and it wasn't until my father died last year that I really, really thought about that. And I started writing about that and it actually became his eulogy. And...
Deb Meyer (13:19.785)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (13:25.737)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (13:38.24)
Aww.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (13:39.532)
I wrote an essay about that that I called, sometimes good can be greater than great. And that's actually the title of my book, Greater Than Great, that I'm working on.
Deb Meyer (13:46.954)
what a great way to remember him. Sorry for your loss.
I lost my mom a few years ago and it's, yeah, it's, well, anyway, it is hard. It is hard, but you take the pieces that you love from that person and you really try to parlay it into, into the work you're doing now. And that's phenomenal. That's same way with me and my mom. She was a CPA. anyway, so.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (13:55.854)
Mm.
It's harder than you think.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (14:14.778)
That's great. OK, that's great.
Deb Meyer (14:19.633)
Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that idea, especially because for you, seeing your dad in this leadership role, even though it wasn't like a formal title prestige thing, but just he was functioning as a great leader for the union. How did that really form an impression for you and kind of equip you as you started studying more leadership principles, becoming more familiar with what it takes to be a great leader?
How did you really use that experience that you personally had as you kind of sorted it with the academia perspective?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (14:58.19)
You know, I'm sure my dad never thought of it this way, but he was a servant leader, right? He served people. That's what he did. and you know, so he, he, he became the head of his union local because he thought the people before him were messing up the pension and doing some really ugly things. And so he ran for it to oppose them and ended up winning, the election, but, and he, and he won another time after that and then he, then he was done.
Deb Meyer (15:02.2)
Mm. Yeah.
Deb Meyer (15:14.623)
Mmm.
Deb Meyer (15:21.481)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (15:27.534)
But he did it not, it wasn't for him. In fact, not long after he took office, he got a phone call from this gentleman, we'll say. Now, my last name is Salvucci, that is Italian American, and his name was Salvucci. And this gentleman, he realized very quickly,
was from the mafia, calling him up and had been dealing with my dad's predecessor.
And my dad realized that this guy is trying to muscle in on the union. And he told the guy in no uncertain terms, never call back. And he never did. That took some guts. that took some, well, he, fortunately his predecessor wasn't too deep into it. So it wasn't something he had to extricate himself from. But apparently like the guy called up and he knew all about what was going on and what, you know, he.
Deb Meyer (16:08.413)
Wow, that would be scary.
Deb Meyer (16:18.385)
wow, he respected it, yeah. To tell a member of the...
Well, yeah.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (16:32.718)
He'd been talking to his predecessor. So my dad's instincts were right that if they were getting sold out by his predecessor. Who was not Italian American, by the way.
Deb Meyer (16:34.932)
Wow.
Mm -hmm. Wow. Well, I guess the Italian American thing worked for you or worked in his favor. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (16:49.292)
It might have, it might have been more dangerous actually. I think it might have, you know, they think they've got it, you know, they've got an in, but yeah, it didn't work. That's guts again. That's, know, leaders have guts. They're the opposite of bullies. Bullies don't have guts.
Deb Meyer (16:59.931)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. All right. So let's talk a little bit about hard and soft skills. I know a lot of educational institutions really focus, you know, hard skills that can be measured, their job specific abilities, their knowledge, but soft skills like communication, teamwork, time management, leadership, all of those can sometimes get overlooked in the process of educating the next gen.
Which set of skills do you think can be more easily learned and why?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (17:34.906)
All of them really, you know are not easily learned None of them could be easily learned because soft skills are the hardest skills of all I don't know why we call them soft skills. They are not easy. They're the most challenging ones The the other stuff's easy, you know reading a book and taking a test is relatively easy to Learning how to work in a team Right. That's a very different thing, but they can all be taught and they should be taught at the university level I was actually when I was a dean
Deb Meyer (17:37.321)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (17:55.683)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (18:05.15)
I was an English professor and one of the departments I oversaw was English and the school that was very career oriented. We were a liberal arts based but we were very career oriented. And we actually created an English program. This is English majors, right? An English program that was career oriented. So what we did was we focused on the skills the students were learning because English majors, despite what everybody says about all the jokes, are preeminent readers, writers, communicators, thinkers, right?
They are critical thinkers like no one else. They can problem solve, they can do all these things, right? All these forms of analysis, research, they do all this stuff really well. And so those are skills that are going to waste because people are like, you're an English major. What can you do? Well, they can do everything better. So they create the department with my help created this program that was career based. They even had a course called Design Your Career.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (19:04.39)
and they had to take it as a junior. They had to go for an internship as required internship, which is unheard of in an English major. And they had to they had to interview. They had a practice interview and all this other stuff. They had resume building. All this stuff was in there. And I say all that because that's a perfect example of of a source of soft skills. Right. English majors learn soft skills. And what we know, you know, I was a university.
Deb Meyer (19:04.447)
Okay.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (19:31.93)
I mean, I was a vice president, so I know what goes on. We do teach a lot of stuff, like in a business program, they might be doing great stuff, but a lot of what they're teaching is the technical stuff. And survey after survey after survey shows that businesses don't want that. When they're hiring, they're like, hey, you taught them all this technical stuff, but that's actually not how we do it. We have our own methodology, right? And what they don't know how to do is write a damn email.
Deb Meyer (19:33.055)
Mm -hmm, the hard skills.
Right.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (20:01.754)
Right? What they don't know how to do is work in a team. don't know time management. That's what they don't know. And that's really hard to teach in the college level for a variety of reasons. Now, a lot of business programs are moving more toward that and a lot of other programs are moving toward that sort of thing. But this is this is a real problem because people are leaving their educational institutions and they really can't handle those so -called soft skills at all, even though they might have gone like gangbusters on the on the more technical skills.
Deb Meyer (20:02.463)
Yeah.
Deb Meyer (20:12.041)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (20:31.182)
But that's not what people want. That's not what the business, the employers want.
Deb Meyer (20:31.305)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (20:35.123)
Yeah. Well, and even in this day and age, especially with things being so remote, right? There's a lot of people working remotely, even in entry level positions. I'm sure it's even harder to have those skills cultivated on the job because, you know, if you're not sitting across the desk from someone else in your same cohort or you have questions, it can be a lot harder to get ahold of someone if you're working remotely and not in that team environment.
It is, it's a daunting challenge. Do you see, I'm just curious, like given all your experience at the university level, do you see any kind of real case for, if a student that is considering college, that they should focus on a liberal arts school because the liberal arts is going to teach some of softer skills, or is that even a consideration when people are thinking about college selection?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (21:31.406)
Yes, in a word. mean, I'm very biased here because the liberal arts are near and dear to my heart. I went to a liberal arts school and I think that that's the way to go. You can get a liberal arts in a variety of ways. you know, and it is actually fairly unique to this country. Americans don't realize that. But that's, you know, they talk about, you can go to Germany and get a degree in three years. And it's like, yeah, because you're not really doing the liberal arts. The liberal arts, for those who don't understand, you know, you're studying a wide range of
Deb Meyer (21:32.499)
Okay.
Deb Meyer (21:36.681)
Right.
Deb Meyer (21:47.24)
Okay.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (22:00.57)
programs and disciplines, right? So you're getting a full array that, you know, sometimes it's called general education at an institution. That's why if you were a science major, you still had to take a history course and vice versa. So you got this wide range. So you had this base of knowledge and having that base of knowledge makes you more well -rounded as a person. There's no doubt about that. If you go into a highly specialized program, you're not going to get that range. And
Deb Meyer (22:12.821)
Sure.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (22:30.682)
One of the things that happens in this world, and it's been true for decades, is that people change their career, not their job, their career multiple times throughout their life. And what's even crazier is the way things are going right now, things are moving so rapidly, there are people in college right now who will be working in careers 10 years from now in fields that do not currently exist.
Deb Meyer (22:40.917)
Mm -hmm. Right?
Deb Meyer (22:57.683)
I believe it. Yeah. Well, especially with all the technology changes and right.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (22:59.054)
You know, absolutely. All kinds of changes, right? And so you wanna be in a program that will benefit you, that will help you adapt as things go along. The more specialized the program is, the less likely you are to get that kind of help. So liberal arts, a broader base is always better. The other thing is, and a lot of people don't realize this, is unless you're going to something that's licensed, right? Something like nursing.
Deb Meyer (23:11.615)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (23:27.458)
or engineering or something very, very specialized that has a licensing program or there's really only one way to go through it, your major doesn't matter.
Deb Meyer (23:31.989)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (23:35.775)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (23:37.134)
You know, people think, well, if I do this major, I've gotta go into this field, or if I wanna go into this field, I must do this major. And that's true in certain cases, but not in most, not in most. You could be an English major and get into med school if you took the right science courses, right? There's nothing to stop that. In fact, they like that. Well, yeah, but that's graduate, that's different. Yeah, I'm talking about undergrad. Yeah, that's different. That's a professional school, yeah.
Deb Meyer (23:47.859)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (23:53.333)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
But you have to go to med school. I mean, you're still getting the medical education after. Undergrad though. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (24:05.658)
But you but you you know being you know, you don't want to so you want to try to get as well -rounded as possible And this is true in life. It's not just college. This is the way life is you the more you know about everything the better off you are about Understanding how the world works and the better off you'll be the happier you'll be
Deb Meyer (24:25.781)
Alright, let's switch gears a little bit because I know I'm a fan of Tiny Habits. It's a book by BJ Fogg and then his sister Linda Fogg Phillips, she has a supporting kind of framework, Tiny Habits Academy. I'm curious and I think you are familiar with Tiny Habits as well. How do think parents who are trying to be better leaders develop positive behaviors using that Tiny Habits methodology?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (24:44.068)
very much though.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (24:50.986)
Mmm. Wow. That's that's a that's a good question. So I'm a certified tiny habits coach, so I'm very familiar with tiny habits. And so. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is you want to model the best behaviors, right? So I've had clients recently and I often work with them, I give them what we call tiny habits recipes. So I had a client who was not getting a lot of exercise.
She was working, working, working. She worked at home. Almost, it's funny, almost all my clients work at home, at least most of the week. But they work away, they work away. And this young woman had three kids, her oldest was 15 and the other two are much younger. Her husband was pretty active and participatory, but she tended to have to do most of the housework and all this. Not so much because he didn't want to, but just because she just did it.
And I created some tiny habits for her to help her focus more on getting exercise, helping herself. And I also got her to kind of change her behavior in front of her kids and her husband, right? She, she created sort of, we use tiny habits to help her create sort of me time, which cause she liked to read. And so she would sit down at a certain point in the day and that was her reading time and everybody knew that was her reading time and they respected that. And then next thing you know, they're reading.
Deb Meyer (26:05.439)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (26:10.719)
Okay.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (26:19.48)
Right? So, you know, it was really kind of cool. And it's funny because she started doing a little exercise. Next thing I know, she signed up for a triathlon. I was like, are you you out of your mind? said she was like she could barely ride a bike and she and she never swam. She lived on the West Coast and she had to swim in the Pacific Ocean for this. And she she did the training and she did it. And that started with a tiny habit.
Deb Meyer (26:19.647)
That's interesting.
Deb Meyer (26:27.241)
Wow, okay. That's phenomenal.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (26:48.122)
I don't remember what the habit was, but it was, we developed something to get her to get a little more active. And she got so excited by that, she went nuts.
Deb Meyer (26:48.852)
That's cool.
Deb Meyer (26:55.856)
I love that you're using her as an example because most people, if they know me at all, I have a 15 year old son. He's my oldest. I was like, is he talking about me? No, we...
Dr. Jim Salvucci (27:02.69)
Dr. Jim Salvucci (27:05.978)
Well, hers was a 15 year old daughter, but yeah.
Deb Meyer (27:09.321)
Okay, but it was just funny hearing some of the similarities. I'm like, I like reading But I have not done a triathlon yet, maybe maybe I need to do tiny habits coaching with you or do the Academy and get into a trap
Dr. Jim Salvucci (27:15.556)
Hahaha
Dr. Jim Salvucci (27:23.608)
I wasn't aiming for a triathlon, let me tell you. I mean, I've never done that, but when she came out, I wanna do a triathlon. I'm like, okay, go for it.
Deb Meyer (27:30.759)
My sister's done a triathlon. She started with a mini though, like one of those moderate. I'm like, I could handle a mini, but I don't know full-fledged triathlon. Yeah.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (27:39.642)
Now this one, she literally had it like, she had never really ridden a bike. She kind of knew, but she had to train herself on a bike. And then she hates swimming. She's scared of the water, dives into the Pacific Ocean and goes swimming. But imagine what that did for her kids. Imagine the impact on her kids. All of a sudden, mom's doing a triathlon.
Deb Meyer (27:47.432)
Yeah.
Deb Meyer (27:54.167)
my gosh. Well at she was close to the ocean to be able to train there.
Yes. Yeah.
Deb Meyer (28:06.301)
And they can see that someone who is willing to take risks, they're willing to just adopt this different methodology. That's, that's the possibility, right? Like if she can do something crazy like that, or not crazy, but just something bold like that, they can do something bold like that down the road. That's awesome.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (28:18.692)
Yeah. Just out there. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And her husband got on board. He was totally into it. know, it was a wonderful thing for their family.
Deb Meyer (28:33.237)
Awesome. All right, so I'm curious too, we talked a little bit about leaders and teachers and the correlation there. just for listeners that didn't quite catch that correlation, why is every leadership problem essentially a teaching problem?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (28:45.902)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (28:50.36)
Yeah, because they're identical. They're absolutely identical. So as an experiment, that was one of my first insights when I was a dean. When I was thinking about leadership, I just realized that the problems I was dealing with, the skills I was using were exactly the same skills I would use in a classroom. Exactly the same skills. Listening, being empathetic, not making assumptions.
Deb Meyer (28:53.384)
Hehehehe
Deb Meyer (28:59.871)
Mm.
Deb Meyer (29:10.196)
Mm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (29:16.1)
communicating clearly, breaking problems down into constituent parts so people can handle all these things. Exactly the same. And so about a year ago, I was consulting with a school and I was talking to administrators, it was actually a preschool. I was like preschool through, actually it was infants through kindergarten. And the administrators there were in my group and
Deb Meyer (29:22.943)
Mm
Deb Meyer (29:31.957)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (29:44.258)
I asked them to make a list of what they thought were the qualities of a great teacher. So I asked them to picture a great teacher. I gave them a whole prompt about picturing a great teacher and what made that person great. And we started making a list. And then I said, okay, now I want you, again, a different prompt. I said, I want you to think of a great leader, not somebody famous or something, but like if somebody you've worked with you just know is a great leader. What were their qualities? And we started listing them. And about halfway through they went, my God, they're identical.
And that was the point. There's no difference. The difference, well, there is a difference. The difference is circumstance, right? Title and mindset. I think it's a crying shame that our teachers don't realize that they are leaders. Fundamentally leaders, not leaders of the kids in the classroom. They're actual leaders. And leaders don't realize they're teachers. If you're a great leader, you need to be teaching. You don't need to be in front of a classroom teaching.
Deb Meyer (30:22.41)
Mm
Deb Meyer (30:33.385)
Mm.
Deb Meyer (30:38.416)
Mm
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (30:43.438)
but you're constantly conveying, you're conveying information, you're conveying attitudes, mindset, ways of behaving, how to do things, right? These are the things you're conveying. And I'm not talking about here's how you fill out this form, but this is how you act in this situation, right? This is how you run a meeting. This is how you confront a problem, right? So every leadership challenge is a teaching challenge in disguise.
Deb Meyer (30:54.291)
Mm
Deb Meyer (31:11.871)
Mm.
So when people are trying to become better teachers, especially again, because this is an audience of parents and I think for any parent, regardless of whether they're in a corporate role or entrepreneurship, stay at home parent, whatever it is, they're in a position where, yeah, I mean, the whole job of a parent is to teach and guide our children so that when they're adults, they're gonna hopefully be responsible, respectful.
independent, self -sufficient, right? What are some principles you think people could be putting into place now while their kids are still at home, they're still in the thick of things, have an opportunity to really form an impression for their kids? Is it truly just practicing these soft skills as much as possible? And kind of where does that correlation go with discipline too? Because I think for a lot of parents,
You know, sometimes, and not even parents, just leaders in general, you can lead a horse to water, but they won't always drink, right? You can give them the foundations, the skills, the tools, you think you're doing a good job, but they're not always there saying, yes, I'm gonna follow this blueprint set out before me. Is there ever something where...
You just as a leader need to like reframe things and just go back to square one or I guess where do you help people that feel stuck when it comes to leadership and leading their families or team well?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (32:49.166)
Yeah, that's a good question. And you kind of nailed it there. By the way, I used to have a colleague who was a professor who used to say, can lead a student to knowledge, but you can't make them think. But yeah, the soft skills are important, All practicing those, modeling those, that notion of integrity, that wholeness of integrity, that's what people forget, right? You can't go, again, you can't go home to your family and act like a nice person.
Deb Meyer (33:00.295)
Right.
Deb Meyer (33:06.59)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (33:19.652)
but then go to work and act like a totally different person. You're bringing something home. If you've ever seen Breaking Bad, that's a perfect example of that. Walter White is this family man and he's a major meth cook and dealer. And eventually it affects his family. Okay, well.
Deb Meyer (33:23.849)
Mm.
Deb Meyer (33:34.421)
Great.
I stopped watching it after one episode because I couldn't, I was just like, this guy is so, no.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (33:42.938)
It's a crazy show, it's a very good show, but there's a lot of morality, there's a lot of moral philosophy in that show. And I'm thinking about it because I was just writing about it. But that's a great example of you can't compartmentalize. And you can't say, well I'm doing this bad thing, but I'm a good person deep down inside. If you're doing a bad thing, you're doing a bad thing. Aristotle said, you wanna be a
Deb Meyer (33:48.093)
Mm -hmm. Yep.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (34:11.85)
a brave person act with bravery. If you want to be a just person, act with justice. And it works both ways. So it's the same thing, I think, with any form of leadership, including parenting. Now, in terms of discipline, there's no reason you can't be both compassionate and spot on. There's no reason you can't call something out.
Deb Meyer (34:15.135)
Mmm.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (34:41.144)
but do so with empathy.
Deb Meyer (34:43.401)
Hmm. Yep.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (34:44.408)
Right, those are not inseparable things, or those are not separate things I should say. Those are things that really can go together. We tend in our society to think that these are separate things. If I'm compassionate, I can't be direct. If I'm compassionate, I have to act a certain way. But no, sometimes there's a compassion to calling things out in real time, not putting them off. Building up, for instance, and this goes for the workplace, the family, whatever,
Deb Meyer (34:48.511)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (34:52.745)
Mm -hmm.
Deb Meyer (34:59.039)
Mm
Deb Meyer (35:08.969)
Mm
Dr. Jim Salvucci (35:14.436)
Building up resentments and then blasting someone with them is not compassion and it's not productive, right? A more compassionate way is say, look, I've got an issue with this, let's talk this out now. Because it's happening now in real time, we can talk about it. Saying, two weeks ago you did this thing and I'm really ticked, know, doesn't cut it. And bosses do that and parents do that, right?
Deb Meyer (35:39.241)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (35:40.38)
And that's a perfect example of where leadership comes into play in parenting.
Deb Meyer (35:45.565)
Mm -hmm. Okay. Well, thank you. That's really helpful. So for listeners that enjoyed this episode and want to find out a little bit more about leadership or some of the works you've created with podcasts and newsletter and the book coming out soon, where can people best find you?
Dr. Jim Salvucci (36:05.922)
Yeah, I mean, there's my website, but a good place to start, though, really is my blog and podcast, which you mentioned On Leading with Greatness, which is Jim salvucci dot sub stack dot com.
Deb Meyer (36:16.917)
Okay, great. I'll link to that in the show notes for sure. Well, thanks so much for joining us, Jim.
Dr. Jim Salvucci (36:21.835)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Deb. This has been great.