The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff

"Leadership, Trust, and Integrity" My Conversation with Quentin Hodge Part 1

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Leadership, Trust, and Integrity: A Conversation with Quentin Hodge

This episode is sponsored by The Fear Trap,a book designed to help leaders navigate fear and lead with confidence.

In this episode of the Learning to Lead Show, host Mark Cundiff is joined by Quentin Hodge, a seasoned safety professional with over 20 years of experience in the field. Quentin shares his journey from being an industrial hygienist to becoming a senior health and safety professional. He discusses the importance of integrity, trust, and empathy in leadership, especially in high-risk industrial environments. Quentin emphasizes the significance of relationship-building and offers insights into leading without positional authority. The episode also covers the challenges of overcoming fear and the value of continuous learning and humility in leadership roles.


00:00 Introduction to Integrity in Leadership

01:00 Welcome to the Learning to Lead Show

01:25 Introducing Quentin Hodge

04:32 Quentin's Leadership Journey

06:47 Building Trust and Relationships

16:11 Overcoming Fear in Leadership

20:17 Leading with and without Authority

24:40 Conclusion and Call to Action

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Integrity is what makes you a leader. That comes back to being a core internal characteristic and being aligned inside. Before you step into that leadership role, because I was scared for a long time. Scared I'm gonna tell people to do the wrong thing or I'm gonna lead'em down the wrong path. It took me till I got gray hair on my head. So when I get calls from clients now, they call me I don't have that fear of not having the confidence or not having the answer to that question. I know how to deal with situations and how to go find the answer. It took me a long time to get the confidence enough to fill where I can lead this group and I can get'em in the right direction, or we can accomplish great things through leading this group. It took me a long time to get that confidence built up. if they're following you and you're not true person, or if they see something you posted on Facebook or social media, that's doesn't follow your normal character, then that starts creating questions and doubt in your, the group that's following you. Hello, welcome to the Learning to Lead Show. My name is Mark Cundiff, and I'm your host and we're glad that you have joined today. This is where we help leaders grow on the go. Grab some leadership insights from our conversations with today's emerging leaders who are on the front lines. It's great that you have joined us today. Got a great guest ahead for you today and just want to introduce you to him. Quentin Hodge has been a long time friend of mine for about 16 years. We've been friends. We started out working in a very difficult industrial site where safety was a critical aspect of everything we were doing. I was the the manager for this group of about 200 people working inside of a facility, about a hundred acres under roof with a lot of dangerous, heavy equipment that we were working on. Quentin was my safety manager. We went into this situation needing to provide some leadership to turn the safety around. I am very proud to share that during the time that we worked together, we were able to see some great success at this site. We set numerous safety records. We went one whole year without a recordable and went two years without a lost time incident. For those of you working in an industrial manufacturing, you could understand the significance of that accomplishment in a difficult safety situation where the safety had been very poor prior to us coming. In this particular facility, 10 people had suffered fatalities over the course of its history, so it was a very. Challenging place to work and the culture was very difficult. I have to say that Quentin has been the best safety professional that I've ever worked with, and I've worked with him in a number of different companies and seen his career grow and his leadership grow. So I'm excited for what you're going to learn today from him.'cause he's really going to share with you about leadership on the front lines in an industrial. Manufacturing situation, and he will give you some insights to how to lead change, how to lead an organization, and how to lead when you have no actual positional authority. You just have to rely on your relationships and building trust and developing influence. Quentin is currently the senior health and safety professional for Nsaf, a very large safety consulting firm with offices across the United States. Quentin has been in the safety business for more than 20 years now, working in different roles from consulting to actually running safety organizations, and he's even run his own business a few times as well. Before we get started today, I just want to introduce you to my new ebook, the Fear Trap. It's all about how fear can hinder us as a leader, it is available for a free download. Just check out the show notes and you can get a link to go there and download that. And then also make sure you download our leader notes. That gives you a summary of everything discussed today. That will also be in our show notes. Now we're gonna dive in and learn from our conversation. With Quentin Hodge. Hello Quentin. Good to have you with us today. Good day, mark. Nice to see you again. Thanks for having me on today. So we wanna just dive into our conversation today and try to encourage leaders that are out there listening and watching us today. Just start with your leadership journey. Tell us a little bit about how you got into the safety arena, a little bit about your history, the types of organizations that you've been a part of, and how your leadership journey's progressed. Okay, so I guess start off, I'm from a small town I always had the dreams and aspirations of doing bigger things and being involved and so there's a local college in my area. They had an industrial hygiene and chemistry program. My father was a veteran, safety professional. My uncle was an industrial hygienist, so I followed in their footsteps and early on, I tell people this all the time. I was telling somebody today about this, so I never, I. This wasn't the path I was going to go down. So I ended up going down this path anyway. So I got enrolled, went through the program, got my degree, and then when I got out into the, in the real world, in the working world I started out as just an industrial hygienist on site. So through that you end up in a safety arena.'cause typically there's not just a job that hires you just. To perform industrial hygiene. So it usually leads into, you're the safety manager, safety director. You get promoted into those positions. So early on I started out consulting and then I ended up, went going to work for one of our clients. And then real quickly, I was entered into a leadership role. Never had anybody reporting to me, nothing in place. This company I was working at, there was not a lot of accountability on the employee owner side of the fence. There was just not a lot of accountability. So I had to learn really quickly if I wanted to get things in place and get people to follow'em. I was gonna have to lead by example and develop relationships with those people to get them to follow me and to do the things like we were talking about it's life or death. This safety industrial hygiene, you can't get it wrong. It's gotta be right the first time. There's very minimal. Margin for error. So early on I just tried to figure out, okay how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna get this done with no authority? Very little expenditures in my expense. And I didn't have a budget to work from, so I was working with no budget. So I started there and I learned really quickly, it's all about relationship. This whole job is about relationships. So you gotta build a relationship with the people at the top, the entry level people. So that's the only way you get anything done, and that was through trust, just building trust and relationships with those. So I'll never forget the, my first company, I learned really quickly if I could get things that they needed on the floor, then most of the time in turn, they would do things that I needed. So I figured out really quickly how to start negotiating and getting things done. And then from there it took off from there. So I was an infant. I worked there for several years and then I worked for several different companies. And then through the years I got to go through to a school in Atlanta. I don't know if we wanna name names, but the, it's a leadership school in Aubrey Daniels Institute. So I got to attend that class on two different 40 hour week sessions. And that right there opened my eyes to, there's a process to this. You gotta have a lot of it. Just internally, I think a lot of people do have leadership skills internally. They just don't know how to formalize'em. So through the formalized training I got through that course and then following some mentors through. You were one of those you were instrumental in making me the leader I am today.'Cause that was really the first time somebody invested that much time in me to develop my leadership skills. So from there, that kind of just set me on fire. So I've always been passionate about leadership. I wanted to learn more. I started reading books and watching podcasts and videos. So through just that was my. Natural appetite was just, I want to learn more and more about leadership. So through the years I've just started refining things, what worked, what didn't work. But I will say through everything I've done, you gotta have, these are the most important to me is the empathy for the people you're leading. So I don't, I would never ask anybody to do anything that I wouldn't do. Most all the people that have led know that or everybody knows that, i've got a lot of compliments through the years. He's doing it while we can do the same thing. So I'm a firm believer in making sure that. I'll never ask anybody to do anything I wouldn't do. So empathy is one. Empathy and trust. You gotta have that level of trust because if you don't, the people don't trust you or you, if you're in it for the wrong reason, that will surface to the top really fast. So if you're not, how do you build that trust, Quentin? What are some things you do? Because I mean it, I agree. That's a pivotal. Part of any leadership ability what are some things you think are critical for leaders to do to try to build that trust? One of the things that I always stick with, which is the age old rule, is, do what you say. So if you tell somebody, I'm gonna be here at two o'clock today, I'm there. Or if I'm, I've got a meeting scheduled with them, I wanna try, I'm gonna be there unless something happens. So basically do what you say and that to me, that starts the trust. So when I had my first job and there was no accountability and safety, first safety professional job, there was no accountability. It was all trust. They just had to trust me that I was gonna do what I said and get things put in order. And so empathy to me is a big one. And then trust just getting'em to trusting and then do what you say you're gonna do and be that person. If you're going into something maliciously or you having a hidden agenda, like I said earlier, that will come out really quickly. My empathy and trust are the two big ones to me. In your early years, is there a mistake or some type of pivotal learning moment that you had when you were coming up through the ranks that kind of turned the light on for you? May maybe there was a, something you said, oh, I'll never do that again. Some kind of pivotal learning moment that, that you had early in your career. So being in environmental health and safety, industrial hygiene world, there's a lot of training. You have to do a lot of training. So you're in front of people training, teaching. So early on I realized probably about five or six years into my career, I was like, I know this, but they don't know this. This is a, what we call therm. The book, the StoryBrand Methods, Donald Miller's book the curse of knowledge. So I'm guilty, very guilty of that. I struggle with that today in my career and my home life. My kids are growing up. I'm gonna teach'em how to drive and my son things around the house. So the curse of knowledge is. They don't know. So you gotta be careful when you're leading and talking to people that you gotta make sure that they understand and they're grasping what you're feeding them and what you're putting out into the universe. So one of the things I've learned to do now is I like to do evaluations when I do training or I ask a lot of questions. I stop if I'm talking to somebody, I make sure they feedback to me, okay, this is what we talked about. Okay, now repeat back to me or feedback to me what we just discussed. So getting that feedback will tell you a lot of things about your leadership and you can do that many different ways. You can do one-on-one My. Experience with one-on-one. Most people are nervous and they're scared of fear of there's gonna be retaliation. So that works. If they trust you enough, you can get honest feedback. But a lot of times people, they're gonna tell you what you want to hear if you're, especially if you're in a leadership or management position. I like to do like anonymous feedbacks surveys. And then just go out on the floor. Like when I do training, I like to go back to my clients maybe a week or two later if I'm there for other things and just go out and see did they really get this? And then my first years of training and teaching, that wasn't happening. I was up here and needed to be down here to get it. So the curse of knowledge, I constantly work on that all the time. So I've got training presentations I've built, I've had'em for 20 years, but every week, every time I go to a new client, every time I teach a class, I always go back through those PowerPoints to make sure I'm not interjecting that cursing knowledge and just assuming something. So assumptions will get you in trouble. So that was my, early on, one of my aha moments is I know this, I've been to school for this, I was professionally trained on this, but they're not getting what I'm speaking and what I'm dishing out. So that was one of my early aha moments. So when you're talking about that personal knowledge and getting that information, it's more than just presenting information to people and expecting them to get it. It's making the connection and it's what, when we're talking about with Donald Miller there, he says, it's gotta be clear. If you confuse your lose, and a lot of times as leaders. We think just because we say something, people understand it. We ha it's our responsibility as a leader to make sure that they understand. And that's a great point that you're put putting out there. What skills and behaviors do you think are really critical for a leader to develop, in order to be successful in all types of different situations? I think the one word that would summarize all to me and is branding. So branding can mean different things. It could be your company brand, but your branding as a person, your core, who you are. To me, that's very important. So your brand, if I'm a,'cause I live in a small town area then, and then I just know a lot of people and we have a, I have a lot of clients, so I could be anywhere. I could be in an airport, I could be. In my hometown at the hardware anywhere. So people, you're constantly being watched. It goes back to do what you say you're gonna do. So you can't act one way at home or in, in your home life and then come to work and act another way. So it's gotta come from your core and within. So to me, your branding.'Cause people will see through that. And if they're following you and you're not true person, or if they see something you posted on Facebook or social media, that's doesn't follow your normal character, then that starts creating questions and doubt in your, the group that's following you. So to me branding is a very key element and very important in element in leadership. So it's not just your outer appearance, it's. Your integrity, what are you, what's going on when nobody's around? What, how do you act? How do you deal with things when the, you're not in the spotlight, you're not in front of the crowd, you're not on the plant floor when you're driving home on the way from work or you're in the buying groceries. So that integrity is what makes you a leader. So that comes back to being a core internal characteristic and being aligned inside. Before you step into that leadership role, because I was scared for a long time. I was like I'm scared I'm gonna tell people to do the wrong thing or I'm gonna lead'em down the wrong path. It took me till I got gray hair on my head. And so when I get calls from clients now, they call me and I don't have that fear of not having the confidence or not having the answer to that question. I know how to deal with situations and how to go find the answer. So it took me a long time to get the confidence enough to fill where I can lead this group and I can get'em in the right direction, or we can accomplish great things through leading this group. It took me a long time to get that confidence built up. What would you say to the, I really appreciate y'all authenticity talking about the fear because I think all of us have that. Even when we get in later in life in or leading organizations, there are certain situations that we come into that were uncertain. So how did you deal with that? How did you overcome that? Obviously. You've got past that and you're to the point of your career now where you've led organizations in a lot of different avenues. So what did you do to bust through that fear and how do you deal with it even when it maybe occurs today? My response to questions or to situations is I'm an analytical person at heart. So what I started doing early on, I'll go back to one of my first safety career was we had 1200 people at this facility. We had multiple facilities in different states. So I was the point person for environmental issues, for safety issues. I got all the questions directed to me, and mind you, I'm. Three years out of school. And I have very little, I've had experience watching my dad grow up through the business, but I had very little experience. So for me to go back and answer that question, my caveat was always Let me go research it and I'll give back to you. So through that, I'll just started research. I researched stuff. Down the rabbit hole through infinite detail. And I don't just take people's opinions, I don't Google stuff. With all the new ai, that's all based off of what's surfaced on the internet. There is some factual to it, but I try to stay away from that and go back to, from a regulatory standpoint, let's talk about osha. So if there's a OSHA regulation, those are constantly changing and evolving. So I would go research that and make sure I knew. This is the right path and this is the right answer. So if it was a different issue, if it was a HR issue, if it was a medical question that I got from people I was leading or. If we had a new initiative, I would go research everything. I could research about that topic or that issue before I would give an answer. Because sometimes not answering is the best thing to do. So if you answer too fast and you just get the answer out there because you want to get that checked off your to-do list today, and then you send somebody down the wrong path, you didn't do them. Due diligence and justice and leading that person. So sometimes no answer is the best answer. So for me it was just research and. Making sure I was on point. I have people that I mentor me. I have people I called, asked questions, run this by them. What do you think about this situation? So I think young leaders need to build that network pretty quickly. You need to build somebody outside of your workplace. You need those mentors that have been there, done it, and I was just. Thankful and grateful. I had those people in my life I could go ask questions to. So just research and then mentoring and having people mentor me and having a group I could ask questions to or run things by. That's what helped me steer people in the right direction to make sure we were on the right path. That's a great answer there. There's few. Key things I'd like to pull out there. One is you had a humility, like you said, so many times when we get in a leadership position, especially what you did, you got promoted into something where you were a leader like almost overnight. Sometimes we think we have to have all the answers, but we need to have enough humility to know that. We don't have to have all the answers that we can rely on others or go do research. The second thing that I liked what you talked about there is that you took action. You had fear and you had apprehension, but you took action. When equipped yourself to handle the situation, so when you take action that. Helps us eradicate the fear that we're facing. So you took action. Yeah. Equipped yourself and made yourself competent in this area so that eventually you became an expert because of the action that you took. You didn't let the fear power you in a corner, but you took good, you had humility, you cur curiosity, and you took some action. You've led in organizations as. A safety professional, but you've also led organizations where you've been the leader, and you've had direct reports like you do today. Tell the difference and the similarities and what you've learned from having to learn from. Lead from a position of not being a positional leader, but you having to lead with influence, whereas you're also in a position where you do have positional leadership. What have you learned to make you a better leader when you do have positional leadership that you learned when you didn't have that? Okay, so I, my, in my career I started out with no authority. So most of my positions I was the. Encyclopedia on the shelf. If there was a safety question or environmental issue I made sure the company was in environmental or regulatory compliance. They were doing the things they were supposed to do. The people were being safe. So through that, having those careers first I. Helped me for the later career. So having those careers, first of all, there was no authority. I had to lean on relationships. Like we were starting a conversation. There was no accountability. I was just the safety person. I couldn't really terminate anybody, write people up, and I didn't want to do that anyway.'cause that to me, that wasn't. There was, there's a, you can almost 95% of the time fix a behavior issue if it wants to be fixed. So through that, I wanted to. Just influence as much as I could. So that meant staying out on the plant floor, talking to people, go out on the jobs when they were doing it. So through that, building a relationship with those people that, that was trust. He stayed out here with us until we finished and we were, it was a 16 hour day or 10 hour day or whatever the shift length was, or it was 105 degrees and we're in the middle of the desert and we're working on this project. He stayed with us. So through that I learned, like you said, humility and. Being part of the group and being part of the team and everybody pulling their weight. So through that learning that when I got into a role where I did have complete authority over the process and the group I was leading that humility was always in my mind. To me, I didn't, I never liked those. There's leaders and managers. So a leader is somebody I wanted to follow. And I've had managers, people I didn't want to follow, they were just managers. So that's a big difference that needs to be established later on. So I didn't want to be a manager. I wanted to be somebody that I res that respected me, people respected me, and they wanted to follow me'cause they knew I was gonna lead them. Down the right path, and there was a goal that we were trying to achieve. So when I got into the role where I did have authority. I was constantly presenting the goals. I took over a contract at a huge brand name company. I won't name the name. And at the time the company I went to lead had a major safety incident. A guy lost a, a limb due to a rail car incident. So during that timeframe I had left the company before this happened and I got called to. Requested to come back and lead the company. So through that process, I didn't want to be a manager. I wanted to have a goal. So I go in the first few weeks and I basically put all the cards on the table. I was very transparent with everybody. I was like, look, I'm here. My job was at Jeopardy just like yours. If we're not successful. The whole ship sinks and we all go down. Or if you'll, listen to me and follow me. I'm gonna steer you in the right direction. But it's gonna take all of us in that, in this boat, rowing in the same direction to get to where we need to go. So through that, I just. Kept on, stayed on that track and the humility and integrity comes out over time. By the end of the eighth or ninth month, we were on that site we landed a three year contract with that client. They're still there today working at that client site. So just learning how to navigate without any authority. Then you're thrown into the position where you do have authority to me. It is the same thing. I'm still gonna treat people the way I'm gonna treat'em. But I do, I have worked for people where that did not happen. That it seems like they just changed overnight when they got some level of authority. So that changed their, so to me, their integrity was never in the right place to begin with. Wow. That was some great content and information on leadership from my friend Quentin Hodge. Make sure that you come back and join us for part two of our conversation would you do me a favor? If you've got value out of today's content, would you go to your favorite podcast player, write us a review, give us a rating of five, and help us spread the word about the learning the lead show so that we can help more leaders learn, grow, and impact their organizations, communities, in a more effective way. We appreciate you being here. Make sure to subscribe, make sure that you share with a friend. Let others know about what we're doing here on the Learning to Lead Show. Then also make sure you download the leader notes. This gives you a summary of everything that we've discussed today and gives you an opportunity to review what you've learned.