[Perspective Series] The Bold Leadership Blueprint With Amy Riley

Amy Riley is an international speaker, coach, author, and leader of The Courage of a Leader, with over two decades of experience developing leaders across various levels. Amy is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA), a certified Tiara International LLC Coach, and certified in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® instruments. Her work with esteemed clients, which includes Cisco Systems, Deloitte, and Google Drive, focuses on helping leaders inspire and engage their teams toward extraordinary results. She holds a master’s degree in training and development with an emphasis in organizational development from Loyola University Chicago. Amy’s latest book, The Courage of a Leader, is a #1 international bestseller.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [02:39] Amy Riley shares the role of leadership in inspiring teams and achieving outstanding outcomes

• [04:18] How addressing disempowering thoughts can transform a leader's effectiveness

• [06:54] The value of uncovering and challenging hidden limiting beliefs in leadership

• [10:57] Amy explains how the concept of leadership extends beyond formal titles

• [14:35] The importance of defining one's personal leadership legacy

• [18:17] What are the different facets of leadership courage?

• [24:52] The significance of setting intentions to enhance communication and leadership

• [32:04] Amy’s perspective on being bold in leadership and creating visionary outcomes
  

In this episode…

Have you ever wondered why some teams flourish under pressure while others crumble? What's the difference between a good leader and a great one? Could courage be the elusive key to unlocking potential and driving results that are nothing short of extraordinary?

Amy Riley, an expert on cultivating courageous leaders, offers insightful solutions to these questions. She delves into her unique perspective on leadership, discussing the four pillars of courage she believes are essential for anyone looking to make a marked impact. With over two decades of experience, Amy clarifies how leaders can inspire and engage teams to meet and exceed their goals. By focusing on authenticity, intentional communication, and embracing a culture of continuous learning, she presents a pathway for leaders at all levels to redefine their approach to leadership and achieve incredible outcomes.

In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Amy Riley, coach and leader of The Courage of a Leader, about the courage inherent to effective leadership. Amy shares the role of leadership in inspiring teams and achieving outstanding outcomes, the value of uncovering and challenging hidden limiting beliefs in leadership, the importance of defining one's personal leadership legacy, and the different facets of leadership courage.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Quik! 

• Richard Walker on LinkedIn  

• Amy Riley on LinkedIn 

• The Courage of a Leader 

• The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results by Amy L. Riley

• "Building Resilience for Customer Success with Chrissy Myers" on The Customer Wins 

• "Improving Customer Experience and Growth Through Operations With Jen Goldman" on The Customer Wins 

• "The Value of Creating Personalized Financial Services Experiences With Valarie Vest" on The Customer Wins 

• "How To Thrive Through Customer Experience With Shelli Taylor of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema" on The Customer Wins 

• "Becoming an Olympic-Level Leader Through Coaching With Sherry Winn" on The Customer Wins 
  

Quotable Moments:

• "Leadership is empowering folks and moving towards those extraordinary results."

• "We're all making it up along the way."

• "If we're practicing taking those big swings, or the big rocks, sometimes they're not that big of a swing, but, reach out to that person."

• "Every time I was impressed or inspired by a leader, they were demonstrating true courage."

• "Leadership shows up in many different ways, and it's about empowering folks and moving towards those extraordinary results." 

• "I think one of the practices to be bold is to always know what is most important."
  

Action Steps:

1. Define your leadership legacy and be intentional about living into it daily: This fosters a sense of purpose and direction in your leadership journey, helping you to navigate and inspire others effectively.

2. Reassess and challenge your ingrained assumptions and disempowering thoughts: By confronting and reevaluating these barriers, you create space for growth and innovative solutions.

3. Embrace continuous learning and seek growth opportunities outside of your comfort zone: Constant learning keeps you agile and adaptive, which is essential for navigating the fast-paced demands of leadership.

4. Communicate with clear intentions, especially in tough conversations: This ensures transparency and builds trust, making difficult messages easier to deliver and receive.

5. Prioritize 'big rocks' or key goals every week, marking progress visually: By identifying and focusing on these impactful tasks, you can avoid getting caught up in daily minutiae and drive meaningful progress.
   

Sponsor for this episode...

This is brought to you by Quik!

At Quik!, we provide forms automation and management solutions for companies seeking to maximize their potential productivity.

Using our FormXtract API, you can submit your completed forms and get clean, context-rich data that is 99.9% accurate.

Our vision is to become the leading forms automation company by making paperwork the easiest part of every transaction.

Meanwhile, our mission is to help the top firms in the financial industry raise their bottom line by streamlining the customer experience with automated, convenient solutions.

Go to www.quickforms.com to learn more, or contact us with questions at support@quikforms.com.

Episode Transcript:

Intro 0:02 

Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn grow their business.

Richard Walker 0:16 

Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win, and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Today is a special episode in my perspective series where I talk to people who bring a completely different perspective to our show. Also, I'd love to highlight some of the amazing women I've had on my show, including Chrissy Myers of AUI, Jen Goldman of My Virtual COO, Val Vest from Cambridge Investment Research, and Shelli Taylor, former CEO of Alamo Drafthouse cinemas.

Today I'm really excited to speak with Amy Riley, an international speaker, coach, author and leader of The Courage of a Leader. And today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing. When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms. Instead, get Quik!, using our form extract API, simply submit your completed forms and get back clean context-rich data that is 99.9% accurate. Visit quikforms.com to get started. Then Before I introduce today's guest, I want to give a huge thank you to Sherry Winn, of The Winning Leadership Company and a prior guest on my show. Go check out Sherry's website, at thewinningleadershipcompany.com to learn more about Sherry's incredible leadership strategies to create Olympic-level teams.

All right. Amy Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over two decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Google Drive. Amy earned a Masters of Science in training and development with an emphasis in organizational development from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois. She is a certified professional behavior analyst, a certified TR International Coach and certified in the Myers Briggs Type instrument. Her latest book is a number one international bestseller and is titled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results. Amy, welcome to The Customer Wins.

Amy Riley 2:16 

Thank you. I'm honored to be here. Rich. So glad Sherry got us introduced.

Richard Walker 2:21 

Me too. I'm so excited for today's conversation. So for those of you who haven't heard this podcast before, I talk with business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they built and deliver a great customer experience, and the challenges to growing their own company. Amy, I want to understand your business a little better. How does your company help people?

Amy Riley 2:39 

Yes, we work particularly with leaders, helping them to inspire and engage the people around them and to get extraordinary results.

Richard Walker 2:50 

So that seems like huge, because everybody wants extraordinary results. How is that getting defined as being extraordinary? Like, are you pushing them beyond their comfort zone?

Amy Riley 3:01 

Yes, yes. Often encouraging leaders to consider like, if there was a blank slate, if there weren't the assumptions in your head, what would you want? What would you go for? It's so easy rich to just kind of get into responding to our various inboxes and to kind of get cynical about things like, oh, they're never gonna get it. They're never gonna understand, it's never gonna quite happen the way that I want it to happen. Well, if we took some of those constraints in our thinking out of the picture, what would you really want. And, yeah, I'm often working with leaders, teams of leaders, executive teams, to carve out where do we really want to get to?

Richard Walker 3:01 

I love that you're really pushing for a fresh perspective, because oftentimes in innovation, you have to think a lot differently than what you have been thinking, you have to ask your customers questions you've never asked them before, but you're actually talking to the leader and saying, what are you not asking yourself? What are you not asking of yourself? Right? Yeah. So how do you go about that? How do you get somebody to take those constraints off? Because some of those have to be limiting beliefs that they don't know about, right?

Amy Riley 4:18 

Absolutely. Rich, start asking them about what do they think about this situation or this relationship or this goal or this project, whatever it might be, and I'll have them categorize their thoughts into disempowering, empowering and seemingly neutral thoughts, right? We might have empowering thoughts, like we can do more than we are doing today, and we might have disempowering thoughts, like a project launch has to take nine months, yeah, right. This is a complex project.

Richard Walker 4:55 

My favorite one is, this is how we've always done it.

Amy Riley 4:58 

Yes, this is how we've always done it. We've tried that before, and, gosh, nothing has changed in the dynamics since we've tried it before. And then there's seemingly neutral ones, and maybe, though, like, one of them I've already mentioned, like, like, a process takes X number of weeks, that might just seem like a fact now, if that's an assumption we've been operating under for some time. Just to take some time work on some of this together. Often it's homework. What are these thoughts that are running through our heads? Because we have a bajillion of them running through our heads every day. And then how do we double down on the empowering ones?

How do we say those more? How do we get more people around us to believe those? How do those become our mantras and just those things that are running through our heads more frequently? Those disempowering ones, let's look at them. Yeah, because what we resist persists, right? Is there something empowering we could believe instead? Is it true if I really look or if I really dig in, is that the case? Is it that nobody in the marketing group will listen to us really, like, what can we try and sometimes it's just looking at our beliefs, and sometimes it's taking some actions and poking at it right? Could this look a different way? Could I believe something different here?

Yeah, those ones that are seemingly neutral, and then really look at them and go, okay, does that go into the empowering list, or does that go into the disempowering list? And, gosh, that doesn't need to be a fact, right? What if we challenged that? What if that could look different and just begin to pick these apart so that we don't have these thoughts running through our head that are impacting our how we're operating without our full consciousness.

Richard Walker 6:54 

Yeah, so I have to imagine that prior decisions fall into that neutrality category quite often, because I'm looking at I'm just use my own example. Yesterday, my team and I were looking at a problem where we're trying to resolve, and we realized the code, the actual software, code, that's running that process, has not been touched since 2016 so that's a long time ago, and it's operating fine, but we started asking ourselves, is this how it should still be done today? Right? The assumption of the past does not necessarily carry forward into the future.

So I want to ask you a slightly different question here, because as you're talking, we introduced you, and you've worked with really highbrow companies, right? I imagine you've worked with companies of all types, and partly people at all different levels. So what kind of person naturally does what you're asking, naturally, just innately, is part of who their behavior set, or their belief set? What kind of person is that that just naturally says, oh, yeah, I get this, let's challenge everything and change it all, or whatever.

Amy Riley 7:58 

Yeah. There's probably two main camps, Rich and of course, there's always a continuum here. But those continuous learners, right? People who want to keep striving, they have that intrinsic motivation to, and they know some of about who they are and what they're up to in the world. I call it a leadership legacy. What's the purpose of my leadership? What am I here to do, to bring to the world, to bring to every interaction, so folks that are interested in increasing their influence, in knowing that they can do more. And those just kind of those lifelong learners, right?

They're ready for it, yeah, say, unfortunately, there's another camp where I've had some leaders recently in in the tech industry, in your world Rich, that are just like, there's such a fast pace of growth, they're just overwhelmed, right? And they need it like, they just like, please, I need something to change here. This isn't working. I'm open to ideas.

Richard Walker 9:10 

Got it so, one is the pressure cooker, the second one and the other one, but the other one, I think, really important for listeners. If they want to be better at change, they have to be focused on wanting to change. That's kind of what I'm hearing. Right? Because they have to be lifelong learners. They have to be seeking out ways to do things differently. What about the contrary, or the people who are very resistant to your coaching and your help? What are they like, and what would you categorize them in?

Amy Riley 9:38 

Yes. Well, if they come into my world Rich, then I always hope that they're part of a group program, right? Because then they see those around them taking a look. Oh, I'm seeing I could think about this differently. Oh, and then they're hearing a variety of perspectives from other people, and that can often be most powerful when they're hearing that from their colleagues, people who they know, stand in pretty similar shoes to them.

Then I hope that they, they get that awareness and see new perspectives and rich. I mean, I want to know if I'm going to work with someone, one on one, with coaching, I'm curious about, you know, how did this idea to coach this leader come to be? Is this person interested? Are they coachable? What's at stake in their minds? What are they willing to do? Because I'm going to challenge them, and I'm going to call it if it's not working.

Richard Walker 10:47 

Yeah. So I have a whole bunch of other questions that come to mind, but let's take a step back. How do you define leadership?

Amy Riley 10:57 

Yeah, first of all, I think everyone is a leader. I think the purpose of our leadership comes from our strengths and our passions, our interest. Where those intersect, we have something to contribute to the world, and we can do that through our leadership. Leadership shows up in so many different forms. Sometimes it's simply looking at what's needed here and putting it in. You might be a participant in a meeting and see no one's checking in with the customer service folks.

They haven't said a word as we've been talking about this new initiative or this new process or this new way of doing things, we need to know. We need to know what they think. And you speak up and you say that, that's a leadership moment to me. Yeah, often, we think about the person setting the vision, the person that's holding folks accountable, the person that's doing the talking in the meetings. Leadership shows up in many different ways, and it's empowering folks, and it's moving towards those extraordinary results.

Richard Walker 12:16 

I read an article back in the late 90s, I think, from Fast Company, and it really made a mark on my view of leadership, which was a little L leader and a big L leader. Okay, because those with the title CEO COO president, they have the big L leader, and they're expected to have certain attributes or qualities. But to get there, you have to master the little L leader, which is you, you have to be a personal leader first. You have to do the things that make you better. You have to, like, become a lifelong learners. I think one of the key attributes to becoming a great leader. But yeah, you have to do take those small moments to become the leader before you get the big letter L in front of the leadership title that you may want.

Amy Riley 13:01 

Yeah. I like this Rich. I already referenced the idea of a leadership legacy. I encourage. Legacy can sound like something that we're supposed to think of. Starting in our 70s, right? What do we want to leave behind? I want leaders from day one, that's everybody, that's day one, that's today for all of us thinking about, what is my leadership legacy? What's my aspiration? What's my leadership trait? What do I bring to my work, to my relationships? And it ends up being to all parts of our lives, right? Because we're leaders in all areas of our life, and I love working with emerging leaders on their leadership legacies.

And some folks have asked me, Rich, well, they don't have enough experience. They haven't had exposure to things like, how do they know what that leadership legacy would be? What if they get it wrong? I'm like, that's fantastic, now they're declaring something, and they're saying, I'm fully committed to this. And if they start living fully into that, and they don't have it quite right, they're gonna figure that out really quickly. Rather than playing this, I'm smattering paint around. I don't know what I'm about. And taking the scenic route to getting there. And I think once we declare that, and we have that growth mindset, I think those are some key pieces to that little L that you're talking about.

Richard Walker 14:35 

So, yeah, I agree. There's a couple things that came to mind for me was, one is I have this internal quote or belief, which it just escaped me now, just lost that thought. Shoot, I'll have to come back to that. I'll think about that. The other thing I was thinking about was a lot of people get thrust into leadership before they think they're ready, yeah, and they're reluctant to take it on, and you'll see this in movies like the person who's most reluctant is the best leader. I don't necessarily think that's true. I do think the humility is a huge factor, and I think when they truly care about what's going on and not their own ego, that does make them a better leader.

But I was talking to a friend recently who was pushed into a role, or being asked to be pushed into a role. And I said, man, you just got to jump in. So here's the quote I was gonna say. On a personal level, I have this idea that I have to live up to my own standards first, because nobody's gonna do that for me. And to me, that's a form of leadership, because I'm saying this is who I am, this is how I am, this is what I believe, this is what I'm willing to do and not willing to do in my life, the standards, in other words, but I think that creates a foundation, then to go out and put a stake in a bigger hill and say, this is where we're going, and this is where we're headed.

And the last thing I want to say about this, and I'll get your reaction to it, which is, a lot of people that are put into leadership, they suddenly realize, wow. Number one, there are no rules. And two, it's just you saying I'm going to do this, and getting people to follow. Yes, being bold and having the courage to go laugh, I'm going to do it.

Amy Riley 16:15 

We're all making it up along the way. Yeah, that was all great, Rich. A couple reactions to what you said. I think folks that get thrust into leadership. That was probably that second category of leaders that I was talking about, who come to coaching and development, right? They feel overwhelmed. I haven't done this people leadership thing before. I haven't been a leader of leaders, or I haven't been a business leader. I haven't been an enterprise leader, right? It's like, oh, that next step is coming a little bit sooner than I feel ready for. Those folks are overwhelmed. They're ready for ideas and bringing that humility, like you say, And gosh, I think if I mean, we can all be learning. I went to a networking and development luncheon yesterday, and it was about leadership and impact. And then when I was shared what I would do, they're like, why are you here? Because there's always something more to see, to learn to make sure I'm drinking my own Kool-Aid and doing my own work.

Richard Walker 17:28 

And I saw that somebody else had actually remarked about it. The keynote speaker at a conference was out in the audience taking copious notes of the next speaker, like, why? Because he's still learning. There's still so much.

Amy Riley 17:41 

Yes, yes, yeah. And people look at things in different ways, and then you're starting that to tie that into what's stored in your brain. And yeah, and even the same content, it meets us in a new place at a different time, yeah.

Richard Walker 18:00 

So let's pick up on the word behind you, courage, which I love is on your wall and the name of your company, Courage of a Leader. Let's get into the definition of that. How do you help somebody find courage or have the belief to move forward in these scary steps of being a leader?

Amy Riley 18:17 

Yeah. I'd love to tell you the impetus for me, like, why this focus on courage. I was realizing Rich that every time I was impressed or inspired by a leader, they were demonstrating true courage. I started cataloging that in my mind, like, right? Like, what kind of courage am I seeing here? What kind of courage am I seeing here, did some research, interviewed executives for the book, and developed the courage of a leader four pillars. So courage is about the courage to be authentically you, the courage to say what needs to be said. And when I say that in front of a room of people, I see the nods, or we can all think of a time where the leader didn't say what needed to be said, or they did, right?

And it inspired us, and we got on board. The courage to trust the legacy, which is each person's own unique leadership legacy, right, and use that as true guidance day to day. That has us being bold, which leads us to the fourth, which is the courage to be bold and create the extraordinary one who's going for it, right?

Richard Walker 19:35 

Okay, so let's go back to step number two here. All these steps are important, but I'm really curious about this, saying what needs to be said can be so challenging, because, I mean, I'm a leader. I've been doing this a long time, and I am willing to say what needs to be said, but I always ask, is it the right time? Is it the right way? Is it the right audience, etc. And I'm kind of curious, from your perspective, how do you coach somebody into that role? And into that moment where they know they need to say it, to actually say it, and how to bring it.

Amy Riley 20:05 

Yeah, yeah. I think the linchpin Rich is intention. What is my, the person's intention in that moment, for themselves, for the other person, for the other person's, for the situation, for whatever is at stake, what are all of the intentions? And once we do that work, and we're clear on it, first of all, that often gives us the commitment and the courage to move forward, I think there's a bunch of good reasons here why I need to share this message or say this thing to this group or this person, and then often, those intentions can become the context, the opener for the conversation, right? It's because I know you care about your relationship with the marketing group, right?

And I want to have a conversation about some information for you about how I think something that you're doing is unintentionally having a negative impact on that relationship. Can we talk about that? Or sales are down, we're going to need to change our direction. I know a lot of you have put a lot of work into direction A, and I feel for that we're going in direction B, right? Like, once we get clear the intentions, I think it becomes much easier to move forward in the conversation. Not that times we have butterflies in our stomach and we're really worried about how it's going to land with other people, and that just means that we care, but I think also when we're clear on the intentions, it can help us know when and where are the best circumstances to share this message in order to have the best chance of meeting my intentions.

Richard Walker 20:28 

Do you think that is transformative for the people who have a six-year-old's mouth and just say it the way they see it, without thinking.

Amy Riley 22:05 

I hope so, yes. And okay, and something that I encourage for everyone is to be overt about what we're saying and why we're saying it right. So you might have the six-year-old, I'm just gonna blurt it out, pattern going.

Richard Walker 22:29 

Yeah, maybe it's your style. Maybe that's how you've always dealt with the world, right?

Amy Riley 22:33 

Let people know why is that your style. Let them know why you wanted to share this thing. Ideally, before you do the blurt, but it can help afterwards as well, right? I'm saying this because it's my passion. It's saying me because I want to be efficient, and I want you and I to cut through the BS and get where we need to go. And if we share some of the context or some of the process going on for us that can really help others.

Richard Walker 23:05 

So I did this with my wife when we first met. And I said to her, I have an opinion, and I'm not afraid to change it. But the reason I have to say that, and it was brought to me by my friends, I tend to speak with an absolute conviction in my voice, yeah, and so I tend to speak with authority and like, drive and vision and like, this is where we're going, and this is why. I have 100% conviction, and tomorrow I can change it 180 degrees.

Amy Riley 23:33 

Good for people to know, right?

Richard Walker 23:35 

So I tell them that I'm like, Hey, this is just how I am sometimes. The other thing I think about as a leader is I love to have a good conversation with rationale, logic, information, insight, gut feeling, intuition, etc, around why we should make a decision. And I don't like to have a conversation with let's just do this. I want to know why. Why did you come up with that. I love to have that kind of debate with people. I don't love to debate. I love to have a healthy conversation around why we're making these decisions. So I try to tell people that upfront. So if you put those two together, I speak with conviction and I want to debate. It sounds like I'm going to tell you what to do.

Amy Riley 24:19 

Yeah, yeah, yes. But you're letting people know where that's coming from. Yeah, very helpful. Yeah, it's always great to explain why.

Richard Walker 24:30 

Yeah, yeah. And then I try to step back when they have a better idea, acknowledge their better idea, say, let's run with that idea instead, and not make it about me. I think ego is a big challenge with leadership, and in my own company, our culture is leave the ego at the door. It doesn't matter who had the best idea, or who's right or who's wrong, or any of that stuff I don't even like blame.

Amy Riley 24:52 

What idea should win here? Right? What idea should get?

Richard Walker 24:55 

The customer wins. That's it. Honestly, that's where we come from. Like, is this the best idea for our customer. Can we give it to them in this manner that makes sense? And you know, we have to balance it with cost and time and effort all those things too. So do you work with all-size companies?

Amy Riley 25:12 

I do. I do. I am the one employee of The Courage of a Leader. I do have a contract team of folks working with me, and so I work with some companies directly, and I have business partnerships that have tapped me into a global network of associates. So sometimes I'm tapping into them, sometimes business partners bringing me in. But given those different arrangements, it has allowed me to work with smaller companies to Fortune 100 companies.

Richard Walker 25:45 

And what do you think the primary catalyst is that people say, I need to get Amy, or somebody like Amy to help us. You mentioned somebody being stuck. They're growing too fast. I get that. What are some of the other ones that you see that they're like, let's get this help?

Amy Riley 25:59 

Yeah. There definitely is the growth. There's the overwhelm. Sometimes it's just we've promoted folks and we haven't given them any oh my gosh, yeah, right, in their roles. Sometimes it's this feeling like, oh, we have great people working here. Why are we not getting more done, right? Just doesn't seem like the leadership is catapulting us as much as we would expect. Or there's misalignment. We hear it. People are moving in different directions, or leaders are coming with questions, or team members are coming with complaints. This isn't working.

Richard Walker 26:46 

Yeah? All right, so I want to go back to the fourth pillar. Okay, if you'll repeat it for me, it's about being bold, right? Is it the courage to be bold? Is that what you said, courage to be bold and create the extraordinary and create the extraordinary. So what is bold like? How much more out of your comfort zone do you have to be to say I am bold? I'm doing the bold thing?

Amy Riley 27:06 

Yes, yes. So I think looking to our leadership legacy is a great place, right? What is our leadership legacy? Mine is empowering others to live into their leadership legacies, right? So if I'm playing full out with that, am I getting myself in front of people? Am I encouraging all the leaders that I work with to fully step into their leadership legacies? If we're working in our leadership legacy, it'll keep pulling us to the next level, to the next level, to the next level.

Richard Walker 27:39 

So can I ask for something real quick? So the legacy is not, I built a company with 1500 employees, or something like that. The legacy is my intention for how I serve people. That's what I'm hearing.

Amy Riley 27:50 

Yes, it most often is there are some folks that have leadership legacies around, like, I come in, I implement ERP systems, sure, right? So that company, everybody has real-time access to good data, anywhere in the organization, there are some folks that have found their niche and like, I come in, I'm a temporary CFO. I get these things handled right, but there's the things that they care about that they're getting set up in those circumstances. Most leadership legacies that I hear are things like, I get things done with global teams. I solve big, hairy, complex problems, right? I love digging in and handling those problems that no one else in the organization wants to touch. Or I bring care and compassion to all interactions. Or I streamline and I simplify, or I'm a visionary, or, yeah...

Richard Walker 28:45 

I want to put this in a little bit more context. I personally my reason for living is to empower others to be their best version of themselves. You asked me to do something contrary to that, and I don't want to do it. In my company, we're empowering others to do their best work, including my team, our vendors, our partners, and, of course, our customers. But what I'm also thinking is my personal intention to empower people to do their best work, which stems from me. I wanted to do my best work. That's why we built the software in the first place. It seems that that is now the purpose of the whole company too, that my leadership legacy is actually the company's leadership legacy, in a way.

Amy Riley 29:22 

Often happens with entrepreneurs, that there's tight alignment there.

Richard Walker 29:27 

Okay, fair so go back to being bold. We're gonna run out of time here. Go back to being taking the extraordinary start with your legacy, what you're trying to achieve, and then what set a 10x goal on it, or?

Amy Riley 29:39 

You might, yeah, I mean, it's like, what is pulling us forward? I mean, I can feel it, and I imagine that you do too Rich, right? Like, I mean, I can feel like when I haven't been I mean, I'll call it the business development process. But like knowing that there's folks that I want to reach out to, right, and get my messaging to or there's possible partnerships to create there, because together, we can impact more. I can feel it when I'm not taking those steps, and instead, I'm just reacting to my inboxes and doing the busy work. I think one of the practices to be bold from Dr. Stephen Covey is, what are our big rocks, right? What is most important?

What is going to get us to those results that we care about? And of course, first we have to know, what are those results that we care about? What are we looking to impact? And Rich, I would say they should be out there. They should be far enough out there that we couldn't say, oh, I got to do step A, B, C, D, and then I'll be there. If we're playing big, we can't fully see how to get there. We might see the next couple of steps, but then there's kind of a squiggly line, and the thing is out there, and that's okay, right? We'll take those next steps, and then opportunities, new people will show up, like things will emerge from what we're doing. And then all we ever have to know is the next step. I know that gets overwhelming, right? Like, how do you want me to play towards that?

I have no idea how to get there. Do you know a next step that you could take? That's all you need to know. And then from there, you'll see what's the next step? And if we're practicing taking those big swings, or the big rocks, sometimes they're not that big of a swing, but, like, reach out to that person. Prioritizing those, I have a little whiteboard here, and I put the big rocks for the week on the whiteboard, and there's little boxes next to them, Rich, marker and I check them off.

Richard Walker 32:04 

I love it. You're measuring whether you're doing it. And that's another really important part to this, too. Oh man, Amy, we could talk all day. I know it, because I really like you. I love this topic, leadership's one of my favorite, favorite things. But we're gonna have to wrap this up. And I have another question for you. And before we get there, what's the best way for people to find and connect with you?

Amy Riley 32:24 

Ah, terrific. You can look for The Courage of a Leader on LinkedIn.

Richard Walker 32:29 

Perfect, awesome. Yeah, you're actually pretty easy to find. All right, so here's my last question, talking about leadership, who's had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role?

Amy Riley 32:41 

Yes, so I'll say two people. The first person that comes to mind, there is a boss that I had early in my career. Her name is Connie Coker, and she taught me about complementary strengths and really leaning into our own strengths and relying on other people for their strengths. She was the head of OD. I was building the talent development function in the organization, and we had very different strengths. We were aligned in a lot of our thinking, but we intentionally talked through. This is your strength. You handle this. This is your strength. Okay? Now you're taking me out of my strength zone, right? You're going into too much detail, or you're too high level. It was so great to have those overt conversations and intentionally have everybody playing in their strengths. So I have been a proponent of strengths-based leadership ever since.

Richard Walker 33:47 

Yeah, if you don't have that conversation, you'll just butt heads with the other person, because they are thinking high level, you're thinking details or vice versa, and you're just missing each other. That is so important to be direct and upfront about who you are, who you're not, and then finding that with others.

Amy Riley 34:04 

Being overt, our style, our process, what we're doing. And then I will mention my dad. He is no longer with us. He came from intention. He was a plumber and a pipe fitter. He didn't know my world. He knew very little about my world. But Rich, we could always talk about my work, because he would show up with his intention to learn more about Amy and how is she doing, right? So we'd always ask those questions like, what was great about your day? What were you most proud of this week. Tell me about this work that you're doing. How does that work? How many people are in the room? What's happening? Sometimes we feel like we can't get somebody else's world and who they are unless we understand the nuts and the bolts. But he didn't, and I always felt heard and understood.

Richard Walker 35:01 

I love this story because you're highlighting something that I think is really important in leadership, and that's communication. And it's not just that you try, it's that you actually find ways to communicate that opens the other person up. How often do we just say to a friend, hey, how's it going? How's life, how's work? Yeah, right, if you ask your kid, how was school today, you're gonna same answer every day, what was the best part of your day? What was the hardest part of your day? What was exciting that you saw for the first time? Etc. I love that because I think more people need to practice that skill of finding great questions to ask others to open them up.

Amy Riley 35:34 

And sometimes when we don't know or act like we don't know, we ask the best questions, elicit great information.

Richard Walker 35:43 

Oh, this has been so great. I hate to stop this, but we have to. So I want to give a huge thank you to Amy Riley, The Courage of a Leader, for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Amy's website at courageofaleader.com and don't forget to check out Quik! at quikforms.com, where we make processing forms easy. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did, will click the like button, share this with someone and subscribe to our channels for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Amy, thanks so much for joining me today.

Amy Riley 36:14 

Thank you Rich. I had a great time.

Outro 36:17 

Thanks for listening to The Customer Wins podcast. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.