0:00:01 – Announcer

You are listening to the National University Podcast.

0:00:10 – Kimberly King

Hello, I’m Kimberly King. Welcome to the National University Podcast, where we offer a holistic approach to student support, well-being and success- the whole human education. We put passion into practice by offering accessible, achievable higher education to lifelong learners. Today we are discussing what makes a great leader and, according to an article in the MIT Press, leadership is an influence process that centers on group members being motivated to reach collective goals. As such, it is ultimately proven by followership. More on today’s podcast, stay with us. On today’s episode we’re talking about the psychology of leadership, and joining us is Dr. Craig Chalquist. He’s the program director of consciousness psychology and transformation at National University and a former associate provost and several other administrative roles. He presents and teaches at the intersection of psych story, nature, re-enchantment, and imagination, through courses on depth psychology, applied folklore, ecotherapy and terra psychology- the study of how the things of the world get into our hearts and live there. His mantra converse with everything and we welcome you to the podcast, Dr. Chalquist. How are you?

0:01:28 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

I’m great. Thank you so much. I appreciate being here.

0:01:32 – Kimberly King

Great Well, I can’t wait to hear all about this. It sounds enchanting. Why don’t you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today’s show topic?

0:01:41 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Sure, I’m currently the academic program director of consciousness psychology and transformation at National University, and for the past 20 years or so I’ve held different academic positions, many leadership positions at different levels. My background is psychology and psychotherapy originally, and I also have a PhD in philosophy and religion, so my interests vary. It’s fun to be able to study lots of different things and present on them. So that’s a little bit about me.

0:02:14 – Kimberly King

Well, it’s so interesting and I guess- Well, today we’re talking about what makes a great leader and, you know, not oftentimes people think about the psychology of leadership. And so what makes a good leader? What’s a good or effective leader?

0:02:27 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

So you know, when you do a little research on this and look it up, there’s always certain things that come up over and over again. So you know, one of them is confidence, one of them is being able to listen to people well, and deeply caring about who reports to you. And you know, certain things come up over and over again.

But in my own leadership practice, as well as in what I present at leadership conferences, there’s a dimension that I emphasize a lot, that doesn’t get talked about too much, which is the pursuit of wisdom, trying to be a wise leader, and there’s many different ways of defining that, but a lot of people in the business community will define it as knowledge plus practice, plus sometimes intuition or insight. There was a study done a couple of years ago that brought humaneness into it, which I think belongs there. So all of those qualities. And then, with my psychology background, I know it helps to have things like empathy and some knowledge of human nature, knowing what consequences will result from certain decision making, and one that I’ve talked a lot about lately too, is collaboration, instead of the old top down model, where the guy on top makes all the decisions and then everybody just goes along with it.

0:03:48 – Kimberly King

And that’s so, you know. It’s very relevant now in this day and age, isn’t it?

0:03:50 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Absolutely.

0:03:52 – Kimberly King

In your presentations, you mentioned the heroic model of leader. What is that?

0:03:58 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Yeah, it’s that top-down model of you know, the hero on top in charge, right the lone gun who rides into town and tells everybody what to do to defeat the bad guys and rides out again, and that image has kind of leaked into our leadership styles. I’ve known a number of leaders and reported to a number who- they may not watch bunches of Westerns- but nevertheless they’ve got that top down style. Like I’m in charge, I make the decisions and it’s the old patriarchal model, to mention the historical piece to it, and it’s really not what we need today. I’m not actually convinced it ever worked well. I guess it does in battle, but aside from that, day to day leadership doesn’t seem to work well in that frame.

0:04:44 – Kimberly King

I keep thinking of Yosemite Sam, you know, [laughter] but right that it is- It has changed and I think if we don’t look around and look at what year it is, you know we can get stuck in that psyche. What’s usually, well, what are some of the psychological qualities and skills for a good leader? What should they have, those skills?

0:05:07 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

So I mentioned empathy and of course, that’s much more than reflecting back to somebody what they’ve said, which is kind of parroting rather than empathy, but being able to imagine and feel where other people are coming from, and knowing that you often have a diverse lot of people working under you at different levels and they all have different needs and different backgrounds and strengths. And so being able to understand that. When I’ve become a new leader in different organizations, I will often make sure to talk to everybody personally as well as doing all the group and team stuff, so that I can actually get to know people and know something about their story.

So that would be a quality I would emphasize a lot- knowing kind of the dynamics of story and people’s stories and your own story and seeing where they all fit together. Also, there’s a lot of recent corporate research, business research, on what are being called soft skills, which is kind of a funny term, but it refers to things like creativity, empathy, problem solving, intuition, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, things like that, and I think those are absolutely essential to leadership.

0:06:23 – Kimberly King

I totally agree. I think you know it’s. I don’t know that they should call them soft skills. I think they’re just- they are skills that maybe have been missing through the years and just really meeting people where they’re at. So I love that that’s what you’re focusing on now. What is usually missing from the list of leadership qualities? What’s missing from there?

0:06:45 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

In addition to wisdom, there’s a word I’ve been using a lot lately, and it came up at the Teton Leadership Center conference I presented at last year, and it’s the term inspiration. Being an inspiring leader, and for me, that involves a number of ingredients, like being able to have a vision of where the group should go, whether it’s a business unit or a department or the school itself, but having a sense not only of what is, which of course is important, but what could be. And I think that’s often neglected. And also being in touch with what your team fantasizes their future could be, not only individually, but in terms of the whole group. Where do you think we could go with all this?

So right now, as a department chair, every now and then we have among faculty, we have some discussion about that. What’s your hope for the department? Where would you like to see us go? What do you think our potential is for the department? Where would you like to see us go? What do you think our potential is? So, being able to hold that space of what if, which is probably two of my favorite words in the whole language. I think that’s really important. Without that, people tend not to be engaged.

0:07:58 – Kimberly King

I believe that’s true too, and I think you know people’s passion. You can be passionate and work at the same time, but find out, you know what’s driving you. And it’s funny, I’m in a new position and I’m the leader of my unit, and tomorrow we’re actually talking about team building, and so this is really relevant to exactly what we’re talking about. But again, probably really meeting people where they’re at and finding what they’re passionate about.

0:08:24 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Absolutely.

0:08:25 – Kimberly King

Why is it important to put together a conscious philosophy of leadership?

0:08:31 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

As a former psychotherapist and as a current psychology teacher, I see all the time what happens when we have a philosophy that’s unconscious and we get our values kind of by default without ever really examining them. I think if you ask most top-down leaders, you know most hero leaders, right? Hero in the negative sense. I’m in charge. I say what to do. If you ask them about their leadership philosophy, they would probably give you a conscious version of it that at one level, you know, sounds collaborative, sounds really cool and yeah, I’d like to work for this person and all that.

But their unconscious leadership philosophy is authoritarian. It’s I make the decisions and you follow them, right. So it’s really important to be honest about that and to catch oneself in moments of doing that. I’ve done it occasionally. It’s, you know, we get reinforced that way by how we grow up and in certain leadership arenas, and there have been times when I get impatient and I feel like just do it, just do it and trust me, you know, and then I step back and go. You know, that’s the old model. That’s a little bit of that old unconscious hierarchical model that still lives in my psyche somewhere, right.

0:09:43 – Kimberly King

Yeah, and you know, it probably depends on what generation we are too, from that view of leadership right.

0:09:50 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Yeah, absolutely. There was a school I worked at where I reported to the president. I was the person right underneath him and he had this- I think there was a generational piece to this where he was very secretive about things. He kept a lot to himself, and the faculty at that school were constantly complaining because he would make decisions that would affect everybody, faculty and staff.

And they would get blindsided by this. And I don’t know how many times he came to me for advice on something and I said, just tell them!

0:10:26 – Kimberly King

Right.

0:10:26 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

What’s your fear about not collaborating? I mean, you know so-

0:10:31 – Kimberly King

That is old school too, though I you know about everything really. I mean it’s just being more open, and I think you know, of course, now that we all have cell phones, it’s just like the information gets there quickly. But yeah, I like that you just said just tell them, because it is kind of an old school thought process, isn’t it?

0:10:48 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Yep, absolutely.

0:10:49 – Kimberly King

Where do diversity and inclusion come in?

0:10:53 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

So important. A couple of times now I’ve worked in departments where I came in and there wasn’t much of either, and you know, all white faculty, usually male, mostly male, all male sometimes. And I think, wow, this is so problematic for a number of reasons. One is- especially when we have a diverse student body. So 40% of the students in my program, for instance, are students of color, which is one aspect of diversity, and so am I really going to want them to show up to class taught with nothing but white instructors, you know?

Representation matters, and so I’ve been working to change that. I’ve hired on a part-time basis so far- I’m waiting for permission to do this full-time but I’ve hired instructors of color from many different backgrounds to come in and teach our students and their responses have been very positive. So I’m a huge believer. I get involved in diversity, equity and inclusion wherever I go and I’m always listening to what’s happening, and how can I contribute to this? Because it just makes magic when it happens. When you make more of it, things just get better.

0:12:04 – Kimberly King

You know, and that’s just, I think it just went so unnoticed for so long. So just you know, adding that element of it, I think, really does kind of go to the next level and making sure we’re all communicating in an arena that we can understand. So I think that’s great. How should a psychologically effective leader deal with their weaknesses as a leader?

0:12:30 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

First of all, let’s not pretend we don’t have some

0:12:32 – Kimberly King

Right, right, I guess it’s knowing where your weaknesses are, not being blind to that right.

0:12:35 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Yeah, and not being rigid and fearful. And you know, talking about old leadership styles, there’s that old macho style where you know you never question the leader and they can’t do anything wrong, and they won’t apologize when they make mistakes, and things like that. So I think mental flexibility is hugely important for good leadership. You have to be willing to say you made mistakes. You have to commit to learning from them, to receiving honest feedback from people. I always worry when I go into a new position and the people are just telling me what they think I want to hear, and so when that happens, I go OK, it’s time for a frank conversation about the nature of feedback and my ability to tolerate it. They need to know I need some disagreement going on, right?

0:13:21 – Kimberly King

Right.

0:13:22 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

So I think that’s important, and then being reflective enough to do a self inventory you know, where am I weak, what are the things that keep coming up that get in my way in different leadership positions? And really going deeply into why that is, not being satisfied with easy answers like, oh I just have a temper, or something like that. Well, but why do you have a temper and why does it get triggered in these situations?

0:13:45 – Kimberly King

A good point and just, I guess, understanding what yeah, your style is and where those trigger points are. You talked about inspiration. Why is that important to leadership?

0:13:58 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

I think it keeps our soul alive as leaders. It’s hard for me personally to do anything that I don’t have some kind of inspiration for, that’s above the level of brushing my teeth at the end of the day. I guess I can do that with no inspiration. [Laughter.]

0:14:12 – Kimberly King

You can be the best toothbrusher that you can ever be right.

0:14:17 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

There’s the motivation of not having my teeth fall out, but that’s not really inspiration. But you know, it’s the whole piece of what’s the future going to look like. How can we improve, where are we going? That’s, I think, why a lot of people come to work happy instead of depressed or anxious, you know. So I think it’s really important.

0:14:37 – Kimberly King

I think so too, and it kind of goes back again to the inspiration, but also just what is driving you, what you know, what do you wake up for. And it kind of goes back again to the inspiration, but also just what, what is driving you, what you know, what do you wake up for, what? What kind of a difference can you make? I think? That and uh, emotional maturity. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Where does that come in?

0:14:55 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Oh, that’s so important. Um, so often- I think we’ve all had this experience where, um where you’re talking to somebody and they’re walking around in a body that’s maybe 40, 50, 80 years old, something like that, and you can tell by their emotional reactions that on the inside that they’re about six.

And it’s very common actually, especially in the United States. I travel and I talk to Europeans and Asian people and everybody about this, and it comes up a lot right, how come you never grow up in your country? And you know well, some of us do, you know to get there. But it’s really very common and it’s a blind spot culturally for us. We tend not to get that it’s right in front of us and so you know. When you’re emotionally immature, you don’t know how to do things like regulate your feelings, you don’t know how to have difficult conversations with people. All sorts of things. You don’t know how to hold your temper. There’s so many. There’s a whole suite of skills that comes with being emotionally mature. So without that, I think it’s impossible to be a good leader.

0:16:03 – Kimberly King

So without that I think it’s impossible to be a good leader. You know, and that also brings up a point, like these poor students during COVID right and then just especially the younger ones, where it’s so interesting to have a conversation with them now because they’re just really seems like the computer was their way of communicating. So when you go to them in person it’s I just I feel so bad. You know, we still need to learn to communicate in all levels.

0:16:27 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Absolutely we do. I don’t know how many times, you know, often with younger men actually, who I think have more trouble getting socialized.

So, many times I’ll watch them in class or they’ll respond to somebody with kind of a stilted, you know fixed way of looking at a situation and they’ll be kind of intolerant and I’ll pull them aside and go why don’t you step into my office for a minute, you know, or let’s take a walk, or whatever, and then I’ll kind of teach them a little bit like OK, here’s what I’m seeing, right and no judgment, just why don’t you grow a little bit here, you know?

0:17:00 – Kimberly King

Right, and I love that you do that. I think not enough people- we all seem to walk on eggshells, but I know personally, I want to be told. You know, like if there’s something I did to offend you or whatever, whatever the way I’m communicating, I want to know. So I think that you’re doing much of a service in that. What do you imagine as the future of leadership studies?

0:17:22 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Hmm. I think we’re going to be more and more diverse, more and more collaborative, more and more- this has been said for a while getting used to change. But the pace of change has accelerated, even since I first started hearing about this way back in the 90s and corporate workshops where people said get used to change, and I think what they were euphemizing was get used to being laid off, right. That’s the real message they were giving us, you know, and we all kind of knew it. But change now has gone far beyond that. Things change all the time.

It’s hard to keep up with tech, it’s hard to keep up with the news, and so I think, not only trying to stay up, but also being kind to oneself. I think that would be a leadership skill too that doesn’t get mentioned enough. It usually goes under self-care, but being able to just say I can’t keep up with everything, and this is another reason that I need to collaborate and be open.

0:18:15 – Kimberly King

You know what, and that is so important there too, I mean, again, it’s just a whole different world and the world is going by a lot quicker than we ever imagined, with everything. So I think that’s just incredible and I love that. You, you know, you meet with your students and you find out, you know where they are and, again, it’s relevant. We really appreciate you joining us. I don’t know if you have any other tidbits that you’d like to share. This is great information.

0:18:45 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Yeah, thank you, just one that popped into my head recently. So I know a number of people who I think would make splendid leaders, but they don’t think that about themselves, for whatever reason. They had a bad experience with somebody in charge or you know, they’re suspicious of authority or whatever it is, and so what I would invite them to do is really explore what that’s about, because, if anything, we need good leaders more than ever. The best leaders are reluctant leaders. They have some doubt. Martin Luther King Jr. was like that. When they asked him to step up, he was like I’m not sure I can do this. I have no experience with this stuff. Fortunately, he said yes. So I often keep in mind when I get invited to do stepping up kinds of things I’m like well, you know, that’s my role model, right? I can. You know, if he is humble enough to take on something that he thought he might not be able to do, then people at my level certainly can at least consider doing that and see what happens.

0:19:47 – Kimberly King

And that’s a really good point too, just making sure that, yes, and people, we learn as we go and we make mistakes, but it’s okay to do that too, isn’t it?

0:19:59 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Absolutely.

0:20:01 – Kimberly King

Well, thank you so very much. We appreciate your time and you can visit National University’s website at nu.edu. And again, thank you so much for all your time today.

0:20:12 – Doctor Craig Chalquist

Thank you too. I appreciate being on.

0:20:14 – Kimberly King

Thank you. You’ve been listening to the National University Podcast. For updates on future or past guests, visit us at nu.edu. You can also follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.