full
Your Team Might Fear You More Than Respect You - Ep 35, Kyle McDowell, Begin With WE
Your Team Might Fear You More Than Respect You. What happens when you're executive leadership delivering exceptional results but discover that the people around you fear you more than they respect you? What's the career advice that you would give then?
Kyle McDowell spent nearly three decades in corporate America, leading tens of thousands of people and carrying responsibility for multi-billion-dollar operations. On paper, his career looked remarkably successful. Behind it, Kyle increasingly felt disconnected from the environments he was helping to create.
A combination of personal events and some brutally honest feedback forced him to rethink what leadership actually meant.
In this episode, Kyle explains how that experience eventually led to the principles behind Begin With WE, why leaders so often confuse authority with leadership and what happened when he returned to corporate life to lead an organisation of around 15,000 people differently.
We discuss why company values frequently fail to influence behaviour, the danger of rewarding activity rather than outcomes, why leaders say they want to be challenged until somebody actually challenges them, and how cultural change spreads through a large organisation.
Kyle also explains why companies cannot outsource cultural transformation to a keynote speaker, consultant or HR initiative — and why senior leaders have to demonstrate the behaviour themselves.
In this episode
- Why Kyle's successful corporate career stopped feeling successful
- Discovering that colleagues feared rather than respected him
- The conversation with his mother that changed his perspective on work
- Why Kyle created the 10 WEs
- Being asked to change numbers on a corporate spreadsheet
- Why leaders struggle to accept challenge
- Measuring outcomes rather than activity
- Turning a difficult employee into a trusted confidant
- Creating culture across 15,000 employees
- Why corporate values don't automatically change behaviour
- The organisations that try to outsource cultural change
- Moving principles from belief into everyday behaviour
- Kyle's forthcoming book Win With WE
- Why good leadership still starts with treating people like human beings
Key Business Takeaway
Good results do not automatically mean good leadership.
The real test is whether people understand the standards expected of them, see those same standards demonstrated by their leaders and feel able to challenge decisions without fearing the consequences.
Chapters
00:00 Kyle McDowell's corporate journey
02:29 When success stopped feeling successful
03:49 “They feared me more than they respected me”
04:46 The moment Kyle's mother changed his perspective
06:54 Leaving and starting again
08:14 Creating the 10 WEs
11:30 The experiences behind the principles
15:35 Why leaders struggle to be challenged
17:39 Outcomes versus activity
19:00 Could Kyle live by his own principles?
23:19 Getting an organisation to buy into change
26:46 Creating culture across 15,000 people
32:57 Collaboration, accountability and leadership
38:58 Why company values fail
41:59 Can organisations outsource culture change?
44:12 Who responds best to this type of leadership?
46:45 Would Kyle change the book today?
49:54 How to begin transforming a dysfunctional company
53:48 Kyle's next book, Win With WE
55:27 Kyle's ultimate leadership rule
58:06 Rapid-fire questions
Guest Links
Kyle's current is a bestselling author, leadership expert and speaker and centres his work around the 10 WEs.
Kyle McDowell — Official Website
His LinkedIn profile confirms the Begin With WE bestseller recognition and his Fortune 10 leadership background.
For the book, I'd link to the official/retailer page you decide to monetise or track rather than an uncertain Amazon search result. Scribe's official book page also describes Begin With WE and Kyle's 10 WEs framework.
Complementary BTA Episodes
Dave Coull — How to Build a Strong Business Culture That Actually Works
Dave tackles company culture, values and trust from the perspective of actually running an organisation; Kyle approaches the same territory through leadership behaviours and the 10 WEs.
Listen to Dave Coull on Spotify
Joshua Lifrak — They Didn't Win for 108 Years… Then Everything Changed
Joshua discusses organisational identity, culture, mindset and leadership through elite sport. It gives listeners a different setting for many of the same questions.
Listen to Joshua Lifrak on Spotify
Sam Tamplin — How to Scale a Business to 100 Staff
Maintaining behaviour and leadership standards as an organisation becomes too large for the founder/leader to personally touch everyone.
