The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff

#38 From Being Liked to Being Respected: The Leadership Shift That Changes Everything with Paul B. Thornton

• Mark Cundiff

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Make sure to download 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.

In this episode of The Learning to Lead Show, Mark sits down with Paul B. Thornton to explore how trust is built through credibility and consistency—and why it’s the foundation of effective leadership.

Drawing from decades of experience, Paul breaks down his practical framework of three leadership styles: directing, discussing, and delegating, and explains how great leaders adapt their approach based on the situation and the person they’re leading.

They also unpack common leadership pitfalls—like micromanaging, poor communication, over-delegating, and avoiding accountability—and how these behaviors quietly erode trust.

If you want to lead with greater clarity, build stronger relationships, and develop your people more effectively, this episode gives you a simple, actionable roadmap.

Key Topics

  • Why trust depends on credibility and consistency
  • The 3 leadership styles: Directing, Discussing, Delegating
  • Situational leadership and adapting your approach
  • Common leadership mistakes that weaken trust
  • How to balance accountability without micromanaging
  • Why great leaders develop people—not just results

Key Takeaways

  • Consistency builds trust. Inconsistency breaks it.
  • There is no one-size-fits-all leadership style.
  • Clear communication and deadlines drive accountability.
  • Delegation requires trust and follow-up—not abandonment.
  • Great leaders focus on developing people, not just managing tasks.

Connect with Paul Thornton:

Paul's Books:

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.


Contact Mark at: mark@markjcundiff.com

Audio Only - All Participants

I think trust is very important and I think it comes about by gaining or having credibility. If I have credibility as a leader, my employees will trust me. Credibility, comes about from, knowing what you're talking about, knowing what your core beliefs and values are. Operating in a very consistent way living by your values. So if you're competent and consistent, people begin to trust you. They trust that what you say is what you're gonna do. If you say this is a new standard, you're gonna hold people accountable so that trust develops. It gets reinforced as you work with them day to day, week to week, lack of trust, I think is lack of credibility or being inconsistent. Sometimes you enforce the rules, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you hold people accountable, sometimes you don't, and that certainly weakens and diminishes the trust. That should be there.

Hello, welcome to the Learning to Lead Show. I'm your host, mark Cundiff, and I am so glad that you have joined us today. That was my guest for today, Paul Thornton. He is the author of Leadership Styles, which we will discuss here momentarily, he's had a 20 year corporate career working in various leadership teams, gaining experience in strategic planning, organizational change, succession planning, employee development, and performance management. He's also been a college professor for 20 years, teaching management and leadership courses and leading seminars. Workshops. One of the things that stands out with him is that he actually studied under Ken Blanchard,. who wrote the One Minute Manager, one of my all time favorite leadership books. He's had articles in many different publications, including Smart Brief on Leadership, the New York Daily News. The leader to leader journal management, review, leadership excellence, Toastmasters, USA today, and the CEO refresher, he's authored 30 books? Yes, that's correct. 30 books and he is also spoken at 35 leadership conferences and appeared on numerous podcasts like today. Also download our leader notes. They will give you a great summary of the key topics, discuss. A list of any books that we mention here today or podcast, other leadership resources, and it will give you some exercises or applications where you can put what you've learned here today into place. I want to thank all of you for helping us spread the word about the Learning to Lead Show. It is absolutely amazing to me that this podcast has been heard. Actually around the world. I did not know that that was possible when I started this a few months ago. But we are now listened to in 25 different countries and over 240 cities around the world. One of the most interesting one that I saw on here was that it's been downloaded in Prague. It's been downloaded in, council Bluffs, Iowa. I've never heard of that. And then there's a town called Hockley, Texas, just wanted to thank you for spreading the word and helping us. This is a six month in a row that we have grown our downloads, and that is because if you out there faithfully listening and spreading the word, if you would make sure, if you haven't already, go and subscribe. So this automatically hits in your. Podcast app when we publish a new episode. Then also, if you would go and give us a rating. Those help us spread the word about the conversations that we're having here on the Learning to Lead show. Now get ready for my conversation with Paul Thornton.

Audio Only - All Participants

Hello Paul. Welcome to the Learning Lead Show. Hey Mark, thanks for having me on. It's great to have you with us today, can you tell us when you first saw yourself as a leader? It goes back to when I was age 27, I was hired to be a college teacher and also the varsity hockey coach. I felt that my job was to influence and inspire both the students and the athletes to excel and perform and learn and that type of thing. I think maybe that's the first time let's bridge that to talking about your leadership journey. Started out there at 27 Coaching and teaching. Tell us where you progressed and how you got to where you are today. It goes back again to hockey. I was elected to be my co-captain of my hockey team in high school, and I turned out not to be a very good captain or co-captain, and part of the reason was I was more concerned with being liked by my fellow. Players, I wanted them to accept me. I wanted to be part of the group. I wanted to be, accepted. And so I didn't do the things I should have done. I didn't hold the players accountable when they broke team rules. I didn't say anything. I didn't speak up. I didn't set a very good example sometimes, so I was not very good. In thinking about it, I knew I wasn't doing what I should be doing, and that bothered me. Later on when I became a coach, I said, I'm going to follow my principles, my core beliefs. I'm going to hold people accountable, so I was much better as a coach and I learned a big lesson, like I said, failing my first time, trying to be a leader. And that taught me that you got to, being liked is not the key thing about being a leader is that you're following your values, your beliefs, but you're helping people perform at their best, which requires discipline and holding them accountable and having consequences when rules are broken. Things like that. It all goes back to hockey Mark. I saw where at one time you studied under Ken Blanchard. Share a little bit about what you learned from studying from him because he's written. Many books. I don't, I've lost count how many he's written. I was fortunate. I studied under both Paul Sy and Ken Blanchard while I was in college. And Paul Sy taught a course that was great. And he really followed the situational leadership model. Taught us the four styles and he used those as a teacher. He actually practiced each one of those styles with us, and it was just a great course. Paul EY was more focused on the task side of things. Whereas Ken Blanchard was much more on the relationship side. He was very good at connecting with people, connecting with the students motivating them, getting to understand them. So he was high in the relationship side. So I got to see both sides of the coin. The task side and the relationship side but both were great teachers and I learned so much from them and really they inspired me to, pursue my interest in leadership and that got me going. What was your favorite Kim Blanchard book? The one minute manager stood out, but he, I know he is run a, he's written a ton of books. But that was the first one that stood out and. Is the simplicity of it and the clarity of it was great. So that was a good one. I think that you got inspired because you started writing some books, and we're gonna discuss one of those today. About the leadership styles, introduce us into this book and what led you to write this book? The book is on leadership styles, and as I said earlier, I had Paul Sy, who taught the situational leadership model, which highlights four styles. One thing I tried to do as a teacher and also as a coach, I tried to simplify things as much as I could, looking at Hersey and Blanchard's model I felt that really I could simplify that and I really felt that there were really just three styles that leaders, parents, teachers, coaches use all the time. So I boil it down to the three Ds directing, discussing, and delegating. I think, we use these styles. When I say we, parents, teachers, coaches, as I mentioned, we use these styles all the time to set goals, to give feedback, to coach people. So it's something that's very common used throughout people's business and family and whatever they're into. You've spent 35 years or so in the leadership space, either being a leader, teaching leadership, being a student of leadership. What is a common theme of problems that you see with leaders executing these styles and using these correctly? What's a common problem or two that you see? Good question Mark. I think that with directing, I think some people, they leave out important details or points that they want the person to do, so their directions are incomplete. That can be a problem. Sometimes people are too direct, too in their face and too almost condescending and arrogant. That's not good. With discussing. I've seen, and I'm sure you've seen some leaders over discuss, the meeting goes on and on, and no decisions are made that's a problem. With delegating. I find some people under delegate and others over delegate. Some leaders over delegate to their superstars 'cause they know they're gonna do a great job. So they keep giving them more and more to do and they get overwhelmed and they under delegate to some other people that they should be giving a chance to and should be developing them. Those are some of the common problems I've seen. You mentioned situational leadership and maybe some of our audience is not familiar with that. Can you break that down and then tell us how that's used and where leaders struggle with this situational leadership? Yeah I think the big idea there is that the situation is critically important to decide what. Can I do to help the person or group, or team improve? There's no one best style of leading. You have to diagnose the environment or the situation you're in and figure out does this person need some direction? Do they need to be told what to do and how to do it? Do they need some discussion? Do we need to have a talk and get me, if I'm the leader, to understand how they're thinking about the problem or the opportunity they're faced with or delegating. If the person's got a lot of experience, they've done the task. 28 times, they don't need me telling them one more time. Just delegate, empower them and give 'em a deadline and have 'em go at it. The big idea is the situation. Every situation is different. We're good at some things we need help with. Sometimes is a time constraint to the situation. Emergencies create a whole different set of circumstances. So diagnose the situation first and then decide what can I do to help the individual get the job done and grow and develop in the process. You mentioned the three different styles, let's dive down to each one of 'em a little bit more. The directing style and today's leadership culture, this type of. Style gets criticized a lot as a command and control. Yeah. And I, on the bad end of that, in my career Yeah. As I'm sure many of our listeners have as well. Can you tell us the pros and cons for the directing style and how that can be implemented in an effective way and negative way, even a toxic way sometimes. I think that's a great question, mark. I think the directing style has gotten a bad rap. When people have no idea what to do, they want and need direction. If they're clueless, they've never done it before. They have no idea what to do. They want the leader to tell 'em, these are the steps you have to take. This is how you should proceed. Be aware of this and that, they need instruction. For example, my grandson, 12, 13 years old last summer was out in my boat and I wanted him to dock the boat at the gas pier. He had never done it before. He had no idea what to do, so I had to walk him through exactly step by step what he had to do to successfully dock the boat. And of course, the first time he tried it, he didn't do too well and I had to give him some feedback and, tell him to do this and that. After maybe the eighth time doing it, he finally got it. So that's what's needed at times. There's nothing wrong with giving people directions when that's gonna help them succeed. And also they learn they understand the steps now. They understand the issues to watch out for and things like that. The problem occurs when people overuse the directing style. If my grandson is now 25 years old and he's docked the boat a hundred times and I'm still directing him on what to do, obviously that's inappropriate. So overusing a directing style, micromanaging, if you will, is not helpful. Matter of fact, it demotivates the person, so that's a problem. What's some warning signs? If I'm a leader and I'm maybe struggling with balancing the directing versus micromanaging, what's some warning signs that maybe I've went one way or the other too far? Sometimes even asking the person, are my directions helpful? Am I giving you too many directions? Is it confusing? Observing the person to see if they're, doing what they need to do. One of the things typically when you use the directing style is you monitor the person's performance, fairly closely. Like I say, my grandson docking the boat. I was monitoring him. I'm standing there in the boat watching what he's doing and how he's doing and that type of thing. And that's what leaders typically do. They monitor. But over monitoring or micromanaging, as we said, is not good. So you gotta be mindful, am I overdoing it? Am I providing too much direction? Do I need to back off? Do I need to let him, give it a try and don't say a word and see what he does and, that type of thing. Just being more aware of are your directions and your comments. Overdoing it or is it too much? Is it confusing the person? That type of thing. When you're coaching leaders and training leaders, where do you see them struggle with the clarity issue, with clear communication? Because that often it is the breakdown at the very beginning. I agree. When you are using a directing style you all the styles, you have to be a good communicator. One thing with directions is you have to provide the relevant details. The person needs to do the assignment, and some leaders provide too many details. They want to tell 'em everything they know about the issue or the task or whatever, and they overdo it and they provide so much detail. It's confusing. And it makes the person not know exactly what they need to do. That's a problem. Too much detail. Sometimes incomplete details, they leave off an important point or so. One thing you gotta do when you're using a directing style is you have to give the person a deadline. This is how you do it. I want it done this way. These are the steps you gotta take. And oh, by the way, it needs to be done by Friday at 10 o'clock. Sometimes leaders don't give a deadline and they, for whatever reason, the person doesn't know what priority it is and things don't get done when they should be done. I think that was a great segue into what my next follow up question. How do you create a culture of accountability with this? And part of that is going to be the deadline. How do you do the accountability without micromanaging? How do you bounce that? I think giving them clear goals and deadlines and monitoring where you need to. And then holding them accountable. If you're clear upfront and they know exactly what they need to do and there's a clear deadline, then I don't think holding them accountable is that difficult. 'cause it's laid out what they need to get done and by when. Some people don't wanna hold people accountable, they want to be friends. As I said earlier, my problem was I wanted to be friends with my team, so I didn't hold them accountable, so we let people off the hook. We don't, confront problem employees when we should. So that becomes a problem. Let's transition over to the discussing style where you talk about the use of questions and it's a lot more of a conversation. What are some powerful questions and how is that questioning style used in a powerful way? The discussing style, the leader basically is asking good questions. To help understand how the person is thinking about a problem or opportunity, or how they're gonna approach a task. I think the better your questions, the better the discussion and the more clarity you're gonna have in helping the person or seeing is the person clear on what they're gonna do. So just general questions like, what steps are you gonna take to pursue this or achieve this goal? Or what would be the first two or three things you do to get this done, or what obstacles do you see that might pop up as you pursue this goal? Also a little bit about have you ever done anything like this before or similar to it, and how did it go? What did you learn from it? I think it's always wise also after events to ask questions that get at learning. From this experience you had or this project you did, what were your key learnings? What did you learn about yourself? What obstacles came up that you didn't anticipate? But in a general discussion, certainly the why question is important. Why do you think that way? What's the underlying assumptions? Why do you think this may not go as it should? Blah, blah, blah. So why and what if they often are good questions to consider when you're having a discussion with someone. So how should the leader react when they ask a question? What should a leader's posture be and how should their tone and tenor be during that session? I think as you're modeling, mark, I think you need to be a good listener. I think after you ask the question, you need to sit back and listen and fully understand what is the. Person's point of view, what are they saying? What's their idea? I've seen some leaders, they ask a question, they wait a second, and then they answer the question, and that, that doesn't help them understand the person's how they're thinking about the issue. So being a good listener is part of being good at the discussing style. And also as you're listening. And fully understanding what they're saying. Then thinking about what's the, what's a good follow up question, what will help you probe this a little bit deeper if needed, and get a little bit more understanding from what the person is gonna do or what they're thinking or that type of thing. How do you coach that, that a type of personality that you're talking about there that maybe interrupts or answers the question for 'em and they're not very good at listening, and that can be a learned skill. How do you coach somebody to develop that skill as a listener? In my training classes and courses we used to do a lot of role playing and we would videotape people in different role situations and give them feedback. Sometimes people didn't even realize how much they were cutting people off or not giving the person a chance to respond. So seeing themselves, live on video helped but also sometimes getting feedback from the person after a role play, asking the employee, so to speak, how did you feel when the leader asks you a question, but then answered his own question, so that could be a teachable moment or a learning moment for. People in my classes and training programs and things like that. I think it goes back maybe to the bigger idea that the leader needs to value his or her people. Want to understand what they're thinking and feeling about situations and problems and issues. So really giving them a chance to express their ideas is really important. So that's probably a key learning point, and I think that would help anyone become a more effective leader when they become a better listener with their employees. I love what you're saying there about the valuing the people, having that as a key aspect. I love the actual tool of video and sometimes the most powerful thing is to see ourselves in real life. And that can be a big coaching moment for us. I agree. One other end of the spectrum, if you go with this sometime the discussing style, you can get into the paralysis of analysis just running down rabbit holes of trying to answer every question under the sun. How do you guard against going down that end of the spectrum? You're right. As I said earlier, some people, some leaders go on and on and they over discuss the topic. They want more data, they want more information analysis, paralysis, as you mentioned. As a leader, you also have deadlines and due dates and things you gotta get done. So you gotta keep the ball moving down the field and you got to make decisions in a timely fashion. Now, I think it's a judgment call when the decision needs to be made. But I think in general, if everyone's had a chance to say, give their point of view, if it's a team setting they've all had a chance to make their comments and give their input at that point, then the leader can say, okay, I appreciate all the input and the ideas you've thrown out. I like that. I'm now gonna think about it for a day and I'm gonna make a decision. Or you might say to the group, good discussion. Now it's time to make a decision. What do you collectively think we should do? Is there a consensus around some approach we should take or delegating? Sometimes the leader will say to the group, okay, great discussion. I'm gonna step out of the meeting now. I want you as a small group to decide what action you're gonna take. I'm empowering you or delegating the decision to you to make. That's a good transition into lifestyle, the delegating side, and it is often one of the most difficult for a leader to do well. Sometimes you'll have a leader go out and say, I'm an empowering leader, delegating. But when you go and look behind them, the wake, there's a lot of confusion and chaos behind them because they really haven't delegated in an effective way. Yeah. Can you kinda lay out the portrait there of what it looks like to be a good delegator? I think a good delegator, you're delegating to people who have the, they're able and willing to do what needs to be done, so they're competent. You're giving them appropriate deadlines to get things done still, but how they do it is up to them. You're giving them what needs to be done or a role that needs to be performed and giving them a deadline, but as I say, how to do it, leaving that up to them. Some leaders don't like to let go or don't like to empower or delegate. Because they, they're afraid the person won't do it the right way or do it the way they would do it. Sometimes they don't trust the employee. Sometimes leaders like doing certain things, so they don't like to delegate those things. All of those can be problems and it limits the growth of that employee if you don't keep, giving them assignments that expand their horizons and challenges them in new ways and helps them grow and develop. So yeah, there's lots of people wanna hold on or hold back and not delegate when they should be. That control issue is often a key. Yeah. Challenge for many leaders. But there's also leaders who go out there and they consider themselves an empowering leader. But they, in some cases, they abandon the, person that they're delegating to, right? What is, what's the balance there between becoming an empowering leader and just totally abandoning leaving the person out on the island by themselves? That's a good question. If you're delegating a task or a project to someone, you, the leader probably want to have some check-in points along the way. So you want to get some feedback periodically. How are things going? Are you on track? Are you gonna hit the deadline? That type of thing. People that abandon the employee, give them a project and say, here, it's due on this date and that's it. They have no interaction after that. And the person's off doing something and the leader has no idea if they're on track or behind or what's happening, or, so they've abandoned them and that's not good. Delegating doesn't mean you just, throw the task over the wall and say, go do it. It means you. Figure out how much, when do I need to check in? How often am I gonna check in? And what do I, what feedback do I need and how do I want to get that feedback? And how often to make sure the person does get the test done on schedule. How did great leaders handle delegating with really high performers? Is there some distinctive behaviors that they should. With them? I think one problem they have with high performers is over delegating to them, they give them too much to do. High performers they want the opportunity to show what they can do. You gotta be mindful again, though, even with high performers, there may be some things that they've never done before. So they have low expertise in that area. Even though they're a high performer, they may have never done a particular task or a particular thing. So they might need some direction or some discussion to see how they're gonna proceed. Just because they're a high performer doesn't mean you, you just delegate everything to them. Sometimes you gotta use a different style because the thing you're delegating to them, or the task you're assigning to them really is something they have low experience with and maybe they don't have the right skillset, that type of thing. So you gotta be careful there. You take these three styles that you have, and one of the things you talk about is great leaders don't create followers. They create leaders. Yeah. And you talk about leadership development. So how do you blend these three styles and create a team of leaders instead of followers? I think if you use the appropriate style, you'll help the person develop the skills. And knowledge they need. So if I'm using a directing style, the person is learning to listen, to, ask questions, to then take action, get the job done, meet the deadline. They're learning to follow directions. When I use a discussing style, the person is learning to think, 'cause I'm asking them questions. What are you gonna do here? What, how would you handle this? They have to think, they have to problem solve. They have to formulate opinions or ideas and communicate those back to me as the leader. They also learn to collaborate. And work with others in a group setting. And then when I use a delegating style, the person is learning to work independently, look at issues and problems and figure out how to get it done. They're learning how to influence other people make decisions, manage their time, those types of things. Let me use this example. Raising a child, early in life the child is inexperienced, they know little or nothing. So you're directing them, you're telling them what to wear, when to eat, where to go. You're very much directing style. As they get a little bit older, you do more discussion. What do you think about this? What would you do here? What did you learn from this situation? And then when they get a little bit older, you're delegating. You're empowering them. You need to make the decision. You need to decide what you're gonna major in college, or what you're gonna do here or there. What you're gonna do in this social setting or in this team. So you're empowering them delegating more and more. They're now running their own life, right? So if you use the appropriate styles, you're helping the person achieve and develop and grow. Eventually, hopefully we're developing people who are leading themselves right? They now are capable of managing their lives, making their own decisions, getting things done. And in the work world, the more we. Promote that and do that. We have more and more people who are competent and capable. It's freeing up our time that now we can spend more time on strategic issues or aligning the organization or things like that. So ideally, that's what should happen. Now. It's never quite that nice and neat and simple. There's always, problems that occur. And like I said, people are different levels of. Experience and skill sets and what have you. So you gotta diagnose what's gonna help them perform at a higher level or improve and that type of thing. A point of clarification for me, you used that parenting example and that's almost like a progression going from directing to discussing, to delegating. Do you see that as. Directly tied to the maturity of the leader that you're leading, or can you use all three of those styles no matter what the maturity of the leader? I think you probably, there's some mixture of those in general. So you know, most, like I said earlier, most people are. They're good at some things and have a lot of experience with some things, but not so much with other things. So how much direction you're giving and how much time you're spending discussing with them. And or delegating varies. So yeah, I think it's I think sometimes there's some situations where it's very simple and clear. You want to direct them or discuss or delegate, but there's other times when it's maybe a little bit grayer and, you may start out discussing, but then you might conclude this person needs more direction. So I do, I move back to that style. Or you might find they're really competent and really know what they're doing. They're very capable. You might move more towards the delegating style. So as we said earlier, you got to be flexible. You got to be able to diagnose the situation, what's gonna help the person perform, what's gonna help them perform at their best and improve and grow. So it's dynamic situation and one of the problems, I didn't really hit on this, we all have a preferred style. Some people like to always be directing, we all know people like that. They want to be the one giving the orders and do it this way, and, blah, blah, blah. Some people go the other extreme, the delegating, and then they delegate. They're good at it, but they, maybe do too much delegation. When people need some direction and instruction, they're delegating and that's not good. It's not helping the person. That's good. You've done a lot of research, done a lot of training, working with different teams and different leaders. What are some of the key characteristics, maybe even like an avatar, those leaders who are really great at growing leaders, growing people versus those that more lend themselves to more just managing people. What are some of the distinctives there? Good question. I think the really good leaders that I've seen, first of all, are focused on the person. They want to help the person not only get the task done or the project done successfully, but they want to help them grow and develop as well. So they're thinking about and approaching the situation, or diagnosing, I should say, diagnosing what's needed to help this person succeed and grow. Then they're using, as I say, the right or appropriate style, but they're also mindful of when do they need to move to a different style. So it's a judgment call. When do I move from discussing to delegating or when do I move from discussing to directing? It's a fluid dynamic situation. On a project. A person might be very competent in general, but there might be one area, maybe they are an issue dealing with. People that aren't getting the work done, and they're not holding people accountable, so they really need some direction and some instruction on how to do that. It's complex from that point of view, that it's multifaceted or you gotta see the big picture and all the little pieces. They'd make up the big picture and use the appropriate style, depending on what's happening that day, that week in that meeting, what are some maybe. Key blind spots that you observe, whether it has to do with these leadership styles or just the leadership in general that are really prevalent in leadership today? That's a good question, mark. We all have blind spots, right? I think, things like we all think we're great listeners. That's one thing I hear a lot, and yet employees will often report that my manager leader is not a very good listener. That's one thing. Sometimes we think we're good communicators and again, asking the employees, they'll say no my, my manager leader. Sometimes isn't clear on what he or she expects or wants or that type of thing. So communications, both sending messages and receiving them is really an important skill. And it's an area that we tend to have blind spots and think maybe we're better than we, we are, so that's one. Motivation maybe is another one. We think some leaders think that what motivates me is what motivates everybody on my team, and they use the same approach with every person. And we know that's not true. Some people are motivated by recognition and others by money. And some want to be just involved in the team process. Each person's got a different thing that motivates them. Some leaders have a blind spot that they're great motivators and inspire people and they really don't, so those are some things that I see. Those are really good. Especially I love what you're saying about the communication. A lot of times both the actual delivering of information and receiving information, A lot of times we're not near as good as we think we are and even one of those. What about the role of trust across all of these styles? If you don't have trust in the relationship, then it really doesn't matter what style you use. Can you elaborate what you found in your research on that? I think trust is very important and I think it comes about by gaining or having credibility. If I have credibility as a leader, my employees will trust me. Credibility, I think, comes about from, knowing what you're talking about, knowing what your core beliefs and values are. Operating in a very consistent way living by your values. So if you're competent and consistent, people begin to trust you. They trust that what you say is what you're gonna do. And if you say this is a new standard, you're gonna hold people accountable so that trust develops. It gets reinforced as you work with them day to day, week to week, I think that's really a good thing. Lack of trust, I think is lack of credibility or being inconsistent. Sometimes you enforce the rules, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you hold people accountable, sometimes you don't, and that certainly weakens and diminishes the trust. That should be there. I love how you used the word consistency. 'cause I think a lot of leaders erode their own trust with their people be because of inconsistency. Yes. And I think that can be a blind spot that many times it's an unintended consequences that our inconsistency erodes our trust and then really inhibits us being a great leader. I agree. You've done a lot of research written books, and you mentioned a couple of your mentors earlier. What are some other books maybe you would recommend to our listeners to read podcasts that you're tuned into that we haven't heard about that would help us grow as a leader? I'm a big fan smart brief on leadership. Is a daily, newsletter that comes out with good articles and interviews and things like that. But it comes out daily smart brief on leadership. I happen to publish an article in that once a month, I think that's a great resource. There's always some valuable information in there. The Harvard Business Review, of course, is a great resource. Many of the books you have behind your mark are certainly great ones good to great and make it stick. I was a big fan of Tom Peters for a number of years. I read a lot of his books. Ken Blanchard, as we mentioned earlier. I'm also a big fan of on YouTube watching the Ted Talk presentations. I think there's a wealth of information there too. Get some up-to-date ideas on really any skill you wanna think about from delegating to communicating, to problem solving. You name it. There's some TED Talk speakers that have done a nice job talking about that topic. YouTube is a great resource for a lot of good stuff, I think. Is there one or two parting shots that you would like to leave with our listeners as they ponder what they do to take the next steps to becoming a great leader? I think number one, there's no one best style of leadership. Number two, use a style that's going to help the person get the task done or get the project done. And also it's gonna help them grow and develop in the process. So use a style that's appropriate or needed for the situation. I think that's really important. And start by diagnosing or focusing on the person what's going on with them. What motivates them? What do they need to be successful? How can I help them? So that, that's important. Paul, it's been great having you on the Learning to Lead Show today, and we really appreciate your time. I appreciate you having me on Mark, and I hope some of the points will be helpful for the listeners. So thank you.

Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me on the Learning to Lead Show and my guest, Paul Thornton. Make sure that you download the leader notes so that you can get a good comprehensive summary and outline of today's topics, the books discussed, and links to connect with Paul. If you haven't subscribed, make sure you go to your favorite podcast app and subscribe so that our new episodes come into your feed automatically. Also, make sure that you go and give us a rating if you've got value out of this. And if you would do me one favor. Share this with one friend, one coworker, one person in your life that you think might benefit from listening to the Learning to Lead Show today. Now, make sure you go out and learn. Grow and lead. Taking your organization, your team, to the next level.