Rob Kalwarowsky on the Secrets to Conquering Bad Bosses EP 494
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Coming up next on PassionStruck. There's a Stanford study from 2015 that said the way that companies manage attributes 120,000 deaths per year in the United States alone and 5% to 8% of the total annual healthcare cost.

That's crazy. It makes it the fifth leading cause of death in the United States is how we manage folks. Not to mention the fact that happier employees do better and more productive and you make more money. Toxic leadership is killing us and it almost killed me.

Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the

power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Episode 494 of PassionStruck. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week eager to listen, learn, and discover new ways to live better, be better, and most importantly, to make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member. We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize in a convenient playlist to give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.

especially now that we're almost 500 episodes in. Just go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starterpacks to get started. In case you missed it, earlier in the week, I interviewed Shalini Sharma, a leading math learning expert and CEO on a mission to prove that math is for everyone. Shalini's new book, Math Mind,

The Simple Path to Loving Math debunks myths about math and highlights its beauty and creativity. Join us as we explore how math can enhance problem-solving skills, create career opportunities, and engage us fully in the digital world. I also wanted to say thank you so much for your ratings and reviews. And if you loved today's episode or that one with Shalini, we would appreciate...

You giving it a far star review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Now let's get into today's episode where I'm thrilled to have my friend Rob Kavarovsky with us. Rob is a distinguished leadership coach who blends neuroscience mindset coaching, high performance leadership strategies and cutting edge technology to help high achieving leaders unlock their highest levels of performance. Rob was the co-captain of his water polo team at MIT.

a three-time academic All-American and played on the U18 Canadian National Water Polo Team. After graduating from MIT with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, Rob transitioned into leadership coaching, where he has made a significant impact. During our discussion, Rob delves into the profound insights gained from observing and understanding behavior

We talked about his recent experiences doing a TED Talk where he discusses the alarming trend of quiet talks, where 50% of people leave their jobs due to toxic leadership. Rob emphasizes that expressing our needs is something we haven't been brought up to do, often hiding behind a mask for social cohesion, creating an inauthentic version of ourselves and suppressing our true voice.

The main focus of our conversation today is the masks we wear to hide our authentic selves and the toxic leadership that perpetuates this culture. The core issue that needs to be fixed is the organizational culture and the person who makes or breaks that culture is the leader. Rob will delve deep into the model of leadership that is required to foster a healthy, high-performing environment.

They'll shed lights on the various forms of bad bosses, including power harassment and other toxic traits. He references a groundbreaking Swedish study which found that only 5.5% of bosses were arrogant and violent, 20% were abusive narcissists, 7% were cowardly, 13.7% were messy bosses, 8.2% were passive-aggressive, and 10% were passive-egocentric. Shockingly,

Only 35% were low in non-destructive traits. This data underscores the critical need for effective leadership as toxic behaviors in management not only create a hostile work environment, but also drastically hinder team performance morale. Join us as we dive deep into Rob's insights on the mask we wear, toxic leadership, and the first role leaders play in shaping organizational culture.

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Thank you.

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I am so excited today to have Rob Kavarowski on PassionStruck. Welcome, Rob. Thanks for having me, John. It's a pleasure to be here. And of course, we had you on the Leadership Launchpad Project a few months ago. And congratulations on the success of your book.

Thank you so much for that. And thank you for supporting it by having me on the podcast. I really enjoyed that conversation. And I think that was one of the more engaging conversations that I had on that podcast tour. So I really appreciate you doing that. Thank you. I always like to start these episodes out by giving the audience a chance to get to know you. You are from Canada. I was hoping you could discuss your upbringing. And as a kid, what were you packing out?

So I'm from Ottawa, Canada. I lived in Ottawa from basically, well, from birth till 18 years old. And as a kid, I was super into water polo. I started playing water polo at nine years old, got really competitive really quickly and

And around 13 years old, I was training every day. And then we won the national title at 16. And then I was on the Canadian junior national team at 17, 18. So that was really what dominated my life early on. And I love it. And I still like down in Costa Rica, there's no pools where I'm at, but I always miss it.

So how as a kid in Canada, how did you get introduced to water polo? Because it seems like one of those skills where you're typically a swimmer and then somehow you get pulled in that direction. But growing up, I was never exposed to water polo until I went to college where I had a company mate of mine who was on the team. And it really opened my eyes to a sport that many people don't know too much about.

It's funny. So actually my grandfather played water polo, which is weird, but also my parents were early on the head trauma train, just thinking it was not a good idea. So that took out hockey and football and I'm a terrible runner. And so it ended up being something in the pool. And then there was actually like a free polo

They had a free class when I was nine at the local pool. And so I went and I was like, I love this. I'm a huge ball sport guy swimming. I mean, I do swim obviously for training, but I always wanted to play sports. And so I needed some balls to throw around and some goals to score. So that was where water polo became the thing.

That's funny. And I have only been to Ottawa one time and I absolutely loved it. We were there right at the change of winter into spring. I think that was the time because they were doing the Tulip Festival and there was this huge crowd of people.

hundreds of thousands of people who came in to see this. It was really eye-opening for me as a young guy in my mid-20s to see this, but it was still cold enough to see people ice skating on the river that goes through town, and we got to go to some of the museums. I guess it's your equivalent in Canada, kind of Washington, D.C.,

That's right. It's the capital city. The Tulip Festival, interestingly enough, I believe it's World War I. Could be World War II. I forget the history exactly. But it was part of the Canadian forces freeing the Dutch as part of one of those world wars. And the Dutch sent a bunch of tulips over to Canada as like a thank you. And then that's been going on ever since. Wow. Interesting backstory. Yeah.

Rob, I always think it's interesting when you're an athlete like you were and you have to go on this path of deciding where you're going to go to college because I went through this myself and the recruiting visits. You ended up going to not only just a college, but to MIT. What was that like? Because I'm sure there were many Canadian colleges that probably wanted you to as well. But why did you pick that as the destination?

Because it's MIT. What's the short answer? I mean, ultimately in Canada, the sports recruiting is not as big, or at least when I was graduating in 2006, it wasn't that big. Of course, I had a few folks from the local colleges in Ontario that were trying to get me to go to their programs. But I was thinking, like, I always wanted to play in the NCAA and I was looking for

Yeah. For scholarships to go down to us. And I started reaching out to different coaches and it was funny because the one from MIT actually wrote me back. And so there's no like athletic scholarships at MIT because it's a, it's a,

kind of, it's one of those like prestigious institutions. And so they don't have athletics, but I had the grades to get in. And I mean, it was an incredible experience. Absolutely incredible. Everyone I met was like a genius and it's really,

interesting because what I learned there in just in terms of the environment is very much similar to the folks I deal with now as a coach. Well, and we're going to get into your coaching here in a second. I had one additional question I wanted to ask you about water polo in your time at MIT. You ended up being a three-time All-American, which is really impressive regardless of what sport you

you play, knowing how myself being a Division One athlete, how competitive it is. What was surprising to me when I talked to my friend about water polo is as an observer, you're seeing what's happening above the water. And he was telling me that there's a whole world that happens when you're in the pool

that most people don't see and how physical the game is, how there's even kicking and pushing and shoving and a lot of things going on. And so he was talking about how powerful your legs have to be because to get yourself out of the water for a shot or to handle what other people are trying to do to you physically,

You almost have to learn how to do it without the use of your hands. Oftentimes. Did you find the same thing that he's explaining? Oh, totally. For folks out there, go to YouTube and Google.

water polo underwater you can there's videos out there that you can see but though a huge portion of the game is and is wrestling you grab you grab speedos you grab arms legs other things right and it's a very much some of the positions are literally like wrestling and then

They're going to give you the ball and you're trying to score. And so, yeah, it's very physical game. It's something that I think, especially like the North American demographic, like we didn't really, we don't watch it too much, but I know the Olympics are coming around the corner. So definitely take a, take a look in the U S men's team is really good. The U S women's team is probably going to win the gold medal. So watch some of those games and you'll have some fun because you'll see how physical it can be. Yeah.

It almost reminds me in some ways of a cross between hockey and lacrosse because you're still subbing in and out because you're sprinting or exerting yourself all the time. So you have to go in and out. It really is an interesting sport. I'm always interested in how people make pivots from where they were in college to what they're doing today. You graduated with a mechanical engineering degree.

I think you had a minor in management, but how did you get into the world of coaching and especially focusing on leadership as a discipline? I mean, this is where the passion comes through. And so obviously graduated mechanical engineering. I actually got a job in mining, in coal mining and British Columbia. And when I started working there, like MIT and sports had trained me my whole life to be

a high achiever, right? If you score lots of goals in the pool, people like your coach likes you, you win games, the team likes you, good things happen for you, right? You go on all-star teams, you get awards. Same thing with school, right? As if you get A's in school, my parents were very much obviously invested in that. And they had this idea of going, getting A's in school, get you in the best college, which gets you a job, which gets you the white picket fence,

a wife, one and a half kids and a golden retriever, right? And then you're happy. And so I went on that track. Like I got into the best school I could. I got a great job. They paid me fairly well for a new graduate. And I thought the way to success was, hey, like my whole college was, hey, deliver results, financial results. Companies want to make more money.

And so I went down that path and I started finding things and I saved my company tens of millions of dollars in the first year. And that's when the pushback started happening. My boss was toxic. It was passive aggressive. Things were very much like looking at it now from someone who spends a lot of time doing psychology. It's he was threatened and he wanted to look good to his manager so he could get promoted.

And he felt like the way I was doing was disrupting the things he had in place before, which made him look bad. Now we can set aside whether that's true or not, but that's what was happening. And it came down on me. And as somebody who had this in mind is like, basically my performance is who I am. And if I can't perform, I am nothing. That's what I believed. It took me down the slippery slope of depression and,

And then ultimately I had a suicide attempt in 2013. And I don't want to focus on that because that part's like, it is what it is. And I don't wish that upon anyone. And that's why I do a lot on toxic leadership and toxic bosses. But the part that that's the crazy part. And you would, I assume, John, you would assume I'm a, I'm a smart guy. I went to MIT. I'm like, right. But it's like, I knew my job was killing me. And yet,

I woke up the next morning and I went to work because I was trapped in this mindset of if I don't perform, if I don't do, I'm nothing. If I don't make money, I'm nothing. And that's the part where I want folks to really understand. And it's, you have a choice and it's incredibly hard. And we learn often to listen to people who are more powerful than us or quasi more powerful, right? Like your parents or a teacher or whatever.

your boss or whatever. And it's ultimately growing up entails self-authorization. You can choose. And it wasn't that I couldn't afford to just quit my job and dry. I probably would have just driven home. Right. But it's like, you can choose to do that. And that's the magic. And that's where, you know, John, like you're going, you went right. You were in a similar position, uh,

And it was like, well, I'm going to do something different now because it's going to make me feel more passionate, more happy. And that's when I started. Well, I didn't make the pivot then, of course. It took me a lot longer. But that's those moments where we can choose to solve our own problems. You and I, when I was on your podcast, were talking about this phenomenon that I've been really trying to showcase of quiet desperation that I think so many people

people worldwide are feeling. I think it's one of the major reasons that we have somewhere between 75 to 85% of the global workforce who feels unfulfilled in what they're doing. And I believe that a huge part of this is we end up going to work, and you describe this in your TED Talk, where we wear a mask, I call it the mask of pretense, trying to pretend we're someone who we're not. And

It's really the opposite of being authentic. Why do you think this phenomenon is so widespread? And how often are you seeing it with the clients that you're coaching? Everyone. This is the part where we'll go a little bit into psychology. And in the coaching I do, I like to use the internal family systems framework. And basically the internal family systems framework, actually it's great timing because Inside Out 2 just came out.

And so folks check that movie out, but it's a very similar idea. And so in inside out, there's a control panel in this girl's mind. And then her emotions at different times of day, they take over and they drive her to do different things. And when other movies we've seen the devil on your shoulder and the angel on your shoulder, and they compete to try to get you to do something right. That's actually what we learn throughout our lives. So we have moments in childhood where we're hurt, right?

We feel shame, we feel rejection, we feel unloved, we feel these things. And then what happens is basically a mask, they call them protectors, but a mask comes in and we learn a behavior that's going to prevent us from being hurt again. For me, it was like, if I perform, people are going to accept me, they're going to like me, they're going to be my friend.

And that's where I over-indexed on high achievement because that was the way for me to get my quote unquote needs met of being accepted. Now, these strategies and these masks, they always fail at a certain point, right? And it's for me, it was my first boss. For other folks, it takes longer, but they also, there's life happens, right? And so it's not that we can't.

We can never prevent ourselves from being from these moments that we're going to feel unhappy. But it's getting back to our true self, our authentic self is how we can navigate the world in a more fulfilled, safer, and you're going to be less variance on how you feel. And so these are the elements of the work that I do.

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And in that TED Talk, you started out by discussing the concept of managing your dog. And I was out with my two dogs just before you and I jumped on for this interview. And I think managing a dog is a very difficult task at times. Oh, totally. How does this metaphor of managing your dog relate to leadership and the management of teams?

So the story for folks out there. So this was a few years ago, but I was out with Winston, who's my dog. He's so cute. And he we were out for a walk and he bolted into the bush and started pulling on a branch.

He loved, I mean, obviously like every dog, he loves sticks. And when I caught up to him, I saw obviously the branch was attached to a tree. And so he was trying to take down this 30 foot tree. And there was this moment of me going, I started pulling his leash. I started going, stop doing this, getting frustrated. And

It's not about Winston, right? This is always about us. Because Winston, he loves branches, he loves trees, he loves chewing things. That's what he does. He's a dog. And this is where this comes into work, right? Is

the folks around us at work, whether it's our manager, our boss, our subordinates, our colleagues, they're going to do things that'll make us frustrated or that'll make us angry or that'll make us even happy, right? There's going to be very moments in life, but it's learning to choose how you feel. And this is part of emotional intelligence. It's

Learning in that moment is for me, it was stepping back from I'm angry or frustrated at Winston to, oh, this is what dogs do. And actually it's funny. And maybe I could get a picture of this, right? And it's the same thing is what often turns us into bad bosses and 65% of the workforce has a bad boss is these moments where it's like we delivered a mistake to the client.

And someone gets mad because you feel that was your, well, you don't feel it was your fault, but you feel like it was somebody else's fault. And so you yell at them. Right. And that's the part where we can learn just a little bit of emotional intelligence and just be like, yes, this person made a mistake.

How can we move forward in a strategic way to fix this or to minimize it happening again? And so instead of yelling at the person, it's more like, how do we enter problem solving mode? And that's how you become a better leader. Rob, that was a really interesting story and correlation of how that metaphor does apply to real life.

Another thing that I found really interesting during this TED talk is you discussed a Swedish study that I had never heard of before about how different bosses perform. I was hoping you might be able to share a little bit about that study and why it really brings out some shocking results. The biggest part is, and this is something I know everybody's listening has had a bad boss.

And the study came out in 2021 and it's called Appetite for Destruction. And so it talks about bad bosses as destructive leaders. I call them asshole bosses. And it's funny because when we talk about that word, and if I ask you, John, hey, have you ever had an asshole boss? I'm sure at least one, if not multiple people come to your mind, right? Now that-

So John, if I said to you, describe me like what is an asshole boss look like to you or what are the behaviors they do? I'll just give you a scenario that I had with two bosses that I worked for at Lowe's. One who I thought was one of the best bosses and the other was someone who came in to become my direct supervisor. I worked for this gentleman named Steve Szilagyi who went on to become the EVP of all supply chain.

When I was there, he was the SVP of all the distribution centers, which at Lowe's is a big time job. You have over 30,000 employees. These facilities are about a million and a half square foot. And what was so remarkable is I went on a number of different visits with him to these facilities and he would walk around and there are thousands of people in them.

And not only did he know the people's name, he knew their wives names, their kids names, what activities they were interested in. I couldn't believe how interpersonal he was. And he wasn't like that just at the distribution center. He was like this with everyone, really just this huge people person. And he told me this story one time.

That people used to ask him, how is your day going? And he used to give responses. It's okay. I've had better days. And he realized that what he was saying was how he was living out his work life. And he decided to start saying anytime anyone asked him that it's going amazing.

And just by projecting all the time how amazing things were, his life changed and things became more amazing. Well, anyway, he was this great boss everyone loved. And then I had this other boss, and I remember she was hired. She spent the first two weeks in her office with the door closed, never came out unless she had to use the bathroom or had to go to a meeting or something else. And I finally...

somewhere in these two weeks, the tail end of it, get my opportunity to meet her for the first time. And I had come prior to this from leading the largest group in technology. We had 2,500 employees who were doing software development and this function got broken up into three, which she was now leading, but all of them were sitting outside my office.

Or the entire floor practically was my people. And I asked her, hey, would you like to go and I can walk you around and you can meet the directors that are under me plus all the managers and the independent contributors and you can get a sense. So when you walk out, it won't be foreign to you. And she goes, I want you to understand something right here, right now. My job isn't about leading your people. I lead you.

your people are up to you. She goes, I am more interested in leading up and leading to my peer group. And really, I'm not going to spend any time with the rank and file or any of that. And I use those two examples because here you have this person in Steve Szilagyi that people just gravitated towards. He was such a great leader. You might think of general patent type. And here you have this other person who

basically saw herself as better than anyone else. And it's interesting to me because these types of leadership styles are all around us. And I ended up leaving Lowe's. And I will tell you, had I worked for Steve directly, I probably would have never left the company. But because I worked for this other individual, I hated

my job so much because she represented every bad attribute that I'd ever heard of going to the Naval Academy, being trained to be an officer of the leadership styles that we despise. And there was nothing I could do about it. And I think when it comes to the end of the day, people leave employees almost every single time, not because of the company, but because of who they're working for.

And I'm sorry you went through that. And that's the other side of it, right? Is exactly what you're saying. And I, it's the research bears this out as well as the military does incredible job leading or creating leaders. And part of this is actually because all the leaders in the military have also been at the front lines, right? They've done all the things that the folks that they're leading have done. And, and,

by converse is a lot of what makes people successful in gaining positions of authority at work are these sort of self-centered narcissistic behaviors and ones where they're taking credit for other people's work and they're deflecting blame onto other folks. And so one is

Those are folks that it's tough to work with if they're taking credit for your work, right? I've had that happen a few times. And one is you don't feel recognized. The other is, you know, these elements of you're not getting recognition. However, they're taking it from you. And then if something makes a mistake, it's your fault, right? And nobody wants to work in an environment like that. And that's the part of it. So 65% of folks have a bad boss right now today.

And they vary from, I like the abusive, sorry, arrogant and violent boss, which for folks out there, you can think of this as the role that Gordon Ramsay plays on Hell's Kitchen. I know it's not him in real life, but when he yells at folks, he throws plates at them. He calls them names. It's something similar to that, all the way to folks that

Maybe they don't care about the company. They don't really make any decisions. They avoid accountability. They avoid responsibility. So there's a huge spectra in there. But the big thing here, right, is how does this impact you?

And that's what really matters, right? Some folks I work with actually like having a boss that doesn't care or doesn't give them a lot of handholding or management because they just, they're great at their job and they just want to run, right? That's totally fair. On the other side, if they're yelling at you, nobody really likes that, right? But this is where that self-choice and that self-authorization come back in because the impact's

of a toxic boss are huge. Folks who work in a toxic workplace, there's increased risk of physical disease. So heart attacks, stroke, also major disease like cancer, diabetes, basically stress-related disease, which is almost everything. And then you also have the mental illness side, which I suffered through, but it's like anxiety, depression, burnout, those types of things.

And so there's a Stanford study out from 2015 that said the way that companies manage attributes 120,000 deaths per year in the United States alone and 5% to 8% of the total annual health care cost. That's crazy. It makes it the fifth leading cause of death in the United States is how we manage folks.

There's a lot of, not to mention the fact that happier employees do better and are more productive and you make more money. But it's like toxic leadership is killing us. And it almost killed me. As I look back upon my few decades that I spent in the business world, I guess what was surprising to me is I had come out

of an institution in the Naval Academy that when you think of what degree you have, I don't care what it is, they basically train you on being a leader. That's what the whole institution is about, is to train you to go out and to perform. Yet, if you talk to most people who are not Academy grads, they basically say Academy grads come in two forms. There's the form that's like Steve Szilagyi,

who's out there, a person who's willing to roll up their sleeves, who bonds, who tries to be a servant leader, which is what I tried to do to their people. And then you commonly find someone who's more aloof, who feels that they're above the common person. They're above doing remedial jobs. And this is for the rest of the people. And as I got into the workforce, I found that there were those two

but there were even worse. There were the narcissistic bosses. There were the bosses who were just inept at leading because they were in a position that just necessitated that they needed a leader and no one had ever trained them to do anything. So they were a poor leader because they had never experienced any training at all in it. What do you think are the biggest

causes why we have so many bad leaders and why it's so rampant. And maybe also why even coming from an institution like mine, there's such a high predominance of leaders who people still think are poor leaders. It's the mindset of the leaders. And so I never work with a client on team leadership until I work with them with self-leadership. And

I'm writing a book now called Antidote for an Asshole Boss. And yes, it sounds very future centric and it's about your manager and duh. But at the core of the book is you can be your own biggest asshole boss. And this is like when we talk about wearing masks at work, when we talk about showing up,

For me, I had this voice inside me saying, Rob, if you don't deliver results, you're nothing. You're not, you don't even deserve a place on this planet. And everybody that's listening has some voice like that, that's judging you, that's calling you an imposter, that's saying you're not good enough. Like maybe you shouldn't date this person. Maybe you shouldn't ask for this raise. Maybe you shouldn't go out and try to live the life you want to live.

And it's as we start to decouple our true self from those voices, that's when we can start to do incredible things. And it's just what you've done, John, with your life. And like for folks who maybe are just listening, I'm living in Costa Rica now and it's amazing. And I never thought I could do this, but because I,

learned the strategies and I did a lot of therapy and did a lot of coaching and I healed a lot of the things that made me this person who was a crazy high achiever. Now I can bring in passion and fulfillment and enjoy life in a different way. And if you get anything from this interview, it's start your journey, go find a coach, go find a therapist, go

start working on yourself because that's going to lead you to a place that you don't even know exists yet. And speaking of getting a coach or a mentor or something like that, I really believe that a lot of the traditional leadership coaching methods aren't really sufficient anymore for the work environment that people are in. And I think you feel the same way. What needs to change in your opinion?

So there's actually a great book out there, Leadership BS by Jeffrey Pfeffer, and he's a Stanford professor. But a lot of the things that one leadership companies and coaching sells you are not actually things that work.

So that's a big point. And the data backs this up. So Harvard Business Review published a paper that said that $356 billion was spent on leadership development each year, and only 25% of it was effective because it affected the leader's mindset. So that's where I always start is the mindset. The second piece of this is context and metrics matter.

And so this is where we're bringing in some quote unquote real stuff, right? It's like, how are we measuring the behaviors that we want to see as companies? Because if we want folks to be like John's great boss, we want them to go and talk to folks, know their names. Then we need to ask those folks, how often is John's boss going to talk to them? How do they feel about this interaction?

Those are the behaviors we can literally measure and make those part of what we're doing. And so I saw a few months ago, the CEO of Novo Nordisk, the folks who manufacture Ozempic, he said that his leaders have to create teams where they get a mark of low stress. So he said if more than 10% of the team is in the high stress area,

then basically the leadership, the leader is going to be considered not hitting their KPIs. And this is where we need to go as a business, as businesses and business leaders, right? Is you measure to get behaviors and that's, and we're not doing that in the right ways now. Something I found both in the military and outside of the military is in these more sophisticated environments, so much of what you are graded on

comes out of some type of score sheet that you're given. And those score sheets are typically looking at efficiency, top line growth, metrics that don't measure the impact that you're having on the team that you're leading or how fulfilled they feel in life, how much they're producing creatively, the innovation that you're driving. None of those things get

to be measured. Maybe it's changing now, but I really felt that we're often rewarding a certain series of traits and that the quality of the leader really doesn't get measured. What's getting measured is the output. And so in a lot of these environments, a person who's outputting a lot keeps getting promoted pretty quickly.

But what I have found is often cases that they leave a trail of just broken dreams and dysfunction behind. Do you think that this is still happening and happening as much as I feel it does in environments?

100%. Another great stat, right, is Gallup does their annual employee or state of the workforce report, which Gallup has done this report for many years. They're the most expert in this field of employee engagement. And the last one I saw would have been from the 2023 report. It had

the quote unquote highest employee engagement in the history of this report at 23%. So that means basically one in four, one in five people are actually engaged at their job in a way that they show up, they do their job, they're happy about it, they're pushing and they're doing great work.

So what does that mean about the other 77%, right? Those folks are not happy. They're doing the minimum or even in a fair amount, it's roughly 10% of the case, they're actually working against the corporate goals. Those folks are called actively disengaged. And so those are folks who

typically that have a bad boss who's basically turned them off of work completely. And now they're trying to sabotage the team's result or they're being,

They're creating that toxic environment. Now, it's not necessarily their fault, right? But 70% of the variance in employee engagement is directly related to the boss of those folks, not senior management, not how much money they get paid, not these things, but the actual manager and the behaviors that drive that engagement.

It's basically like showing up, showing like you care, trying to grow people, trying to talk to them and give them feedback and coach them to become better, giving them purpose and meaning. These behaviors really make that difference. And those behaviors, again, you can measure those and it directly ties to employee engagement, which is directly tied to profitability, productivity, happiness, well-being, all these good things.

And right now we're just, we're incredibly falling short. And I wanted to ask a follow on to that, which is, can you elaborate on the role of self-awareness and empathy in effective leadership? Because I think that these are two of the defining traits that not enough leaders are really practicing. So self-awareness is the term I love the most, right? And I always liken this to everyone thinks they're a good driver, right?

And on average, we're all average drivers, right? Everybody thinks they're self-aware. Actually, the stat is 95% of people think they're self-aware when only 12 to 15% of people actually are. There's about 80% of us who walk through life

We don't really know anything about ourselves. We don't really know about anything in terms of how we show up and how we impact other folks because there's internal self-awareness. I know who I am. I know my values. I know my goals. I know who my internal emotions, these type of things. And then there's external self-awareness, which is I know how I am impacting John or the folks I lead at work. Most people don't have either. Yeah.

So that's really where we start. That's turning on the lights, emotional awareness, emotional intelligence, what's going on in your psychology that is affecting your performance as well as affecting how you live day to day. These are incredible. What are those voices in your head that are being your bad boss?

How can we make supportive voices? How can you connect to your strengths, your values, who you truly are, what you truly are here to do in the world? That's the first step. And those folks make incredible leaders. And then the second piece, right, about empathy is this is the next step. And you can't develop empathy without first developing empathy.

your emotional intelligence, and also your self-awareness because it's a similar skill, right? Empathy is I know how you feel because I've been able to understand that feeling because I felt it before myself, right? These are these moments where other people feel stressed, where something's going on in their life, where, you know,

They made a mistake, right? But it's not that you're going to let them get away, quote unquote, get away with these mistakes. It's not that you're going to hold them accountable to getting great results. It's just being able to understand that.

and show folks that you get it, you care, and you want everyone to grow together and succeed. And that's the big piece is it's an incredible skill for leaders to have, but you have to develop that self-awareness first because you can't get from nothing to empathy. What advice would you give a listener who's dealing with a toxic boss or a toxic work environment?

Absolutely. So first off, go watch my TED Talk. It'll go through the six different types of bosses as well as give you some strategies for each. You can also go to howtodealboss.com. I have a free ebook there that will help you with some of these things. Now, the big thing is how is it impacting you? This is always the first step for me. Then it's mapping this to

what type of boss you have, because obviously the Gordon Ramsay throw the dish on the floor, how you deal with that is different than the person who doesn't accept responsibility or accountability, which is also different than the passive aggressive or somebody who just doesn't know how to manage, right? So there are different strategies for your different types of bosses. But the first and the most important thing is how does it make you feel? What is your situation?

And then what are you willing to choose, right? If your boss was like for me, where it's literally killing you, get out, right? Of course, if you can't afford that, then it's how do I get my financial plan in place? How can I start looking for other jobs? How can I speed up this process of me getting out, right? On the other side, if it's something like your boss just doesn't know how to manage, how can you manage up?

and guide them to giving you the plan that you need to succeed. So, hey, can we work on a project plan together? When's the deadline? What does this deliverable look like? What does the client want here? Like these things are possible. Of course, that's not going to work on a Gordon Ramsay type, but that's going to work on somebody who just hasn't done management training.

And then my last question for you is we started this whole conversation out about the masks that we often wear because we don't feel like we can be authentic at work. How can listeners start to express their needs openly and authentically, especially if they have a leader who they feel suppresses their unique capabilities? This is where

It always starts with what's going on in your psychology. I have many clients who come to me and they say, hey, Rob, I don't talk about how good I am at work. I don't talk about the things I've done well. I don't get promoted. I don't get the jobs I want. First is, what are your unique skills? What value do you bring that somebody else doesn't bring? How are you showing up in your unique skill set?

These are things that you can develop and learn how to do. What are your values? What future do you want to have? These are important questions. And if you haven't done some of the self work where you know what those are, that's another call to going on this journey. Right. And it, I can help you. There's other coaches out there that can help you. There's books you can read that can help you. Right. But it's starting small,

Learning your intrinsic value and the other side of it is learning those voices that tell you that you're not good enough or that you don't deserve something. Or, hey, maybe I shouldn't ask my boss for a raise because X, Y, Z, starting to decouple those from you. They're not you. Something you learned in childhood and you can choose how you want to believe about yourself and you can choose the life you want to live.

Rob, I so appreciate you joining us today. If there was one last thing that you would like to leave listeners with, can you share that and also where they might be able to find you? Absolutely. I want folks to make those choices for you. I didn't have the capacity or the ability to do it when I was 25. I've learned how to do it. You can learn too.

Start to tune into yourself. And I'll get John to a link for a three-minute check-in emotional breathing exercise that you can just start to bring in some moments of mindfulness in.

Use that. Start cultivating what are your values. Start cultivating yourself because that may lead you to quitting your job. It may lead you to what John and I both did, which is like we transitioned careers. It may even just lead you to being a better person at your job, a better leader, a better colleague, a better worker. The outcome, nobody can know what that is.

but you can choose how you want to live your life and you can choose to show up at your best. So get out and do that. For me first, I would love to, for you to go to YouTube and to check out my TEDx talk, how to deal with an a-hole boss. And then also if you want the free ebook, howtodealboss.com, you can get it there. And then just for all of you listening,

You can get a $50 coupon on the How to Deal with an AOL Boss program on howtodealboss.com. If you use the promo code PASSIONSTRUCK, just all caps, you'll get 50 bucks off there. And connect with me on LinkedIn. That's the best place to get me. And you're welcome to connect, shoot me a DM, anything I can do for you. And you can also send me an email, rob at elitehighperformance.com. Happy to chat, happy to connect.

Rob, it was so great seeing you again and having you on the show. Thank you so much and congratulations on your TED Talk. Thanks for having me, John. It was a pleasure to chat with you and it was a pleasure to have you on my show and I'm sure we'll do it again soon.

what an incredible interview that was with my friend rob kalvarosky and i wanted to thank rob for the honor and privilege of joining us today on the show links to all things rob will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com please use our web links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show all proceeds go to supporting the show advertiser deals and discount codes are in one community place at passionstruck.com deals please consider supporting those who support the show if you're interested in watching these interviews then

then subscribe to our YouTube channels at both John R. Miles, which is our main channel that has the long form interviews and passion struck clips where we take shorter segments, two to eight minutes long from these interviews and post them. You can join over a quarter million other subscribers. If you want daily doses of inspiration, then join me on all the social platforms at John R. Miles. If you want to expand your courage muscles, then sign up for my weekly newsletter, Live Intentionally, where I post

a weekly challenge that's based on the previous week's episodes. Join the courage movement today. Are you curious to find out where you stand on the PassionStruck continuum? Then take the PassionStruck quiz. It consists of only 20 questions, takes about 10 minutes of your time, and it will show you where you sit on the PassionStruck continuum, and you can find it at passionstruck.com.

You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck podcast, where I'm joined by the unstoppable Hala Taha, host of the Young and Profiting podcast, as well as being a powerhouse entrepreneur. Tune in as we dive into her journey from corporate ladder climber to media model and discover the secrets behind her success. Get ready for an episode packed with insights on hustling with purpose, building your brand, the secrets to LinkedIn and living life on your own terms. If I could come up with one synonym for branding, it would be consistency.

So you need to be consistent in your messaging. So that means coming up with four or five points that you repeat over and over again, that people know that's what you represent. That's how you get auto engagement where people will just share your picture because they already know what you represent.

The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or inspirational. If you know someone who's really into what Rob shared today, then definitely share this episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. Until next time, go out there and become Passion Scrubbed.

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