The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff

Trust, Integrity, and Frontline Leadership Insights: Reflections on my Conversation with Quentin Hodge

• Mark Cundiff

Share episode

Trust, Integrity, and Frontline Leadership Insights: Reflections on my Conversation with Quenton Hodge

In this episode of the Learning to Lead Show, host Mark Cundiff discusses key takeaways from Quentin Hodges' interview on effective leadership. Quentin emphasizes the importance of integrity, which he views as the core of leadership, and how it must align with one's actions both in public and private. 

He discusses gaining confidence through experience and taking action, rather than letting fear cripple decision-making. 

Building trust and relationships within a team is stressed, even when positional power is limited. Quentin highlights how empathy enhances influence and loyalty among team members, and advises on clear communication to avoid the 'curse of knowledge.' 

Emotional intelligence is paired with integrity to maintain effective relationships and navigate heated discussions. Lastly, the episode highlights the importance of small habits in fostering lifelong growth. For further insights, listeners are encouraged to check out Quentin's episodes and related resources.


00:00 Introduction to the Learning the Lead Show

00:06 Key Takeaways from Quentin Hodges Interview

00:28 The Importance of Integrity in Leadership

01:44 Building Confidence Through Experience

03:16 Trust and Relationships in Leadership

04:40 Empathy and Influence

05:41 The Curse of Knowledge and Emotional Intelligence

07:02 Small Habits for Lifelong Growth

07:17 Conclusion and Resources


Free Learning To Lead Resources

🔎 About LeaderNotes

LeaderNotes is a quick-hit companion to each episode of The Learning to Lead Show. In just 5–10 minutes, Mark Cundiff recaps the top leadership insights, frameworks, and action steps from each interview, designed for busy, growth-minded leaders who want to review and apply the episode’s biggest takeaways on the go.

It’s like the highlight reel + playbook—all in one.

Download This Episode's Leadernotes Here: LeaderNotes

Welcome to the Learning the Lead Show. I'm your host, mark Cundiff. We're so glad you joined us today. Today we're going to discuss some of the key points from Quentin Hodges interview, if you haven't listened to those two episodes, there's a previous two episodes to this one. I would encourage you to go back and hear the content that Quentin shared with us about leading on the front lines. I wanna highlight today is some of the key aspects that I got out of that interview. And he really spent a lot of time talking about number one, integrity. He talked about how integrity is the core of leadership. Leadership begins within, it's who you are. It's the person. That you are day in and day out, whether you're in front of people or alone. Quentin emphasized that integrity isn't something you switch on when leading. It's who you are when no one is watching. If your actions at work don't align with your character in private. Then trust crumbles. He talked about the essential need to have your core integrity in place or else your trust with your people is going to erode. When trust erodes, then that is a problem with you being effective as a leader. I discussed this some in my book, the Trust Gap, and I'll put a link in the notes. It's a ebook that I've put together just to give you some insights into some of the things that sometimes as leaders that we're blinded by and not having the trust of your teammates and the trust of your team is going to erode the effectiveness of your leadership. Here's one of the quotes that he said. Integrity is what makes you a leader. It's being aligned inside before you ever step into that role. The second thing that I really got outta what he talked about was how confidence grows through experience and action. A lot of times we allow fear to cripple us and we allow fear to slow us down as leaders. One of the things that he talks about early in his career, the way he gained confidence is twofold. One is he spent a lot of time studying, working to become competent and qualified in the field that he was in. Most importantly is that he took action, he went out. And got experience. He took action, he experimented, he learned, and he grew along the way. He would encourage us to make sure that we go and we take action. Don't just let fear cripple us. He says sometimes the best answer is no answer until you have done the research to steal people in the right direction. And what he was referring to there was. That sometimes we think as leaders, we have to have all the answers that we have to have everything sewed up and know everything and be able to answer every question. A really mature leader, a leader who is thoughtful, realizes that they don't have all the answers that sometimes they have to go to someone else, maybe somebody else on the team. To get that answer, or maybe they have to do some research and get back with them. Sometimes it's best not to give an answer right away to say, I don't really know the answer to your question, but I will get back to you. You build trust with your team when you actually uphold your word and you get back to them with an answer. So that grows your leadership and it grows the trust with your team. Number three is trust and relationships. He goes on to talk about how that you have to build the relationships with your team and how those Trump positional power. He talks about how you have to build those relationships with your team even when you don't have authority or a budget or any other type of positional influence over those people. You have to build the relationships for it first. He was set in some difficult situations earlier in his career where he had to try to make changes. He learned from those experiences that he had to build relationships with the people that he was working with. He moved to developing trust, doing what he said he was going to do and getting back with people when he. Needed to follow up with him. He built trust through those relationships. And when he kept doing that over and showing up and doing things that he said he was gonna do, sometimes it meant getting on the front lines with him and doing the things that they were doing in order to learn what they were doing and showed them that he was a part. Their community and a part of what they were doing, and he had empathy and understanding for the issues and the struggles that they would have. He says, this whole job of leadership is about relationships. You build them from the top down and trust will follow that. You have to build that trust. So again, he comes back to that same. Theme and then he moves the next thing, the fourth thing, he talks about how empathy drives influence. That as a leader, you have to have empathy for the teammates that you're leading, the people that you're working with in order to build that trust and in order to build that influence. Quentin's philosophy is never ask someone to do something you wouldn't do yourself. Walking alongside his teams, even in long shifts or harsh conditions, built credibility early in his career. It built loyalty and it built influence. If you remember, we had a podcast number of months ago with Robert Owens and he talked about the same thing about how when he got out and was. Slinging concrete to help meet a deadline of a customer with his frontline workers. His wife was actually out there. This is early in his career, and some of those people are still loyal to him and still working with him here 30 years later. So that work of having empathy and being a part of the team and showing them that you're willing to do whatever it takes. Then he also talks about the curse of knowledge and how this can derail communication and what the curse of knowledge is that. Understanding that you may understand a topic or a conversation that you're having with your people. You have a knowledge at a higher level than they do, and many times. We don't take it down and put you, some speakers would talk about, put the cookies on the bottom shelf. That's something that John Maxwell talks about. Make sure that you're making the topic the communication that you're trying to get across. Make sure it's understandable. If you confuse, you lose. Always check to make sure that your people have a good understanding of what it is that you're talking about. Then he goes on and talks about. He still uses this theme of in integrity, but he also talks about emotional intelligence and how those two are paired together. Making sure that as a leader, that you have good balance emotionally, that your emotions are intact, and that you're able to communicate and have a good relationship with your people even in heated times if you get too emotional. The book, crucial Conversations, talks about this if you get emotional in a conversation. Then you've lost that conversation. You've lost that confrontation. But if you keep your emotions in check and you have good balance, then that emotional intelligence will help you build trust and build a relationship with your people. Then he talks about how small habits drive lifelong growth. He talks about how just 15 minutes a day can make a big difference, how you can read 10 to 12 books a year if you just spend 15 minutes a day. Reading and then developing your growth mindset. These are just some of the key takeaways from my conversation with Quentin Hodge. If you haven't listened to the two episodes, I'd encourage you to listen to that conversation get some really great insights from a frontline leader. Quentin is leading on the front lines. Quentin is working in the heart of industrial manufacturing across the country right now, and he is seeing a lot of things. That are necessary to lead an organization well, and I think you can learn a lot from him. He's a consultant who goes into companies that are struggling with their health and safety. Maybe they need to audit to figure out what their gaps are, and he goes in and brings in an outside set of eyes and helps them find the solutions that they need to make sure that their people are safe, that they're healthy, and they're working in an environment. That is going to move the company forward in a safe way. If you need his help, I'll put his contact information in the show notes. If you have a business like that where you need someone to come in from the outside and give you some guidance from that. But the one thing I want you to take away from him is that he talks about how if you're gonna be an effective leader, it starts from within. It starts about being who you are as a leader. A great book for that one that I would highly recommend is Developing the Leader Within by John Maxwell. He talks about how you develop yourself as a leader before you worry about leading others. If you have that growth mindset and you continue to grow throughout your life and throughout your career, you'll be a more effective, more influential leader. That wraps up for today. Download the leader notes. The leader notes give you summaries of each podcast, and they give you a study guide if you want to share some of these thoughts that you get from these podcasts with your team. It also is a good way to reflect. Learn from the principles that we've learned from these great leaders. Until next time. Thank you for joining the Learning to Lead Show. If you would, go to your favorite podcast directory and give us a rating of five and comment on what you got outta this episode. Make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcast directory. We would also love it if you would share with a friend, we're thankful that you came and joined us today. Also as a free gift, I'm offering you an opportunity to get my free ebook, the trust cap that will be in the show notes as well.