Season 2, Ep. 20 | Radical Humility as a Leadership Imperative Transcript

[00:00:08] Jason Rudman: Today's guest is former United Nations peacekeeper, leadership coach, mountaineer, and author Urs Koenig. In his book, Radical Humility, he argues that the leaders best equipped for today's world aren't the loudest or most dominant, but the most self-aware, curious, and humble. We're going to explore what conflict zones taught him about human nature, why ego quietly destroys leadership, and how humility can become a source of strength rather than weakness.

I'm Jason Rudman. This is More Elephant, and Urs, welcome to the conversation

​[00:00:44] Urs Koenig: Thanks for having me, Jason. I'm looking forward to this.

​[00:00:46] Jason Rudman: Me too. Me too. As I shared with you, this is the last episode of this season of More Elephant, and you sent me a copy of your book. I read the book. Full confession, I both read parts of the book and I also Audibled part of the book, So I'm excited to get into lots of the themes that you and I talked about when we first met.

We always start our conversations with what I like to call origins and formation. So for the audience who is Urs? Where were you born? And what originally drew you toward military service and international peacekeeping?

​[00:01:22] Urs Koenig: Yeah. So I'll try to make this less than thirty minutes, the answer to that one, right?

So, I was born in Switzerland, as you can tell from my South Texas accent. I'm a Swiss originally, and I went to school there, went through university, studied geography, and then moved to Australia to pursue my PhD in geography, and ended up living and working in Australia for seven years before I moved to the States twenty-five years ago, where I transitioned from academia, management consulting later on in Australia, to leadership development, executive coaching, speaking.

And then, as you mentioned, I went back into the service at the tender age of fifty, which was, as people who have read the book or will read the book will read, it was a humbling experience. I didn't even know how to dress myself anymore.

I served in the Balkans in twenty seventeen through the Swiss Armed Forces for the NATO peacekeeping mission there, and then for the UN in twenty twenty-one for a year in the Middle East, Lebanon, short- briefly Syria, and then Egypt. And, I'm actually on the docket to go on another mission next year. In January, I'm planning to deploy again to the Balkans. So that's me in a nutshell. 

While I'm here in Seattle, I do things like we do now. I speak and write, stand on stages and talk about humble leadership. But to your question, so every male Swiss citizen has to serve in the armed forces, and so that was not a choice, right? At twenty, I did that, and then I did a bit more unlike most of my friends who didn't want to serve at all,

I became a regular officer and then I moved abroad and then when the Swiss move abroad, they de-enlist you. So I was de-enlisted, as I mentioned earlier, having been out for twenty two years when I rejoined. 

The motivation for me really came originally from my dad, and as you know from having read the book, my dad was an incredibly important person in my life. He volunteered when I was fourteen in the nineteen eighties. He was a corporate executive. He volunteered to work in a refugee camp in Mogadishu in Somalia, and that—I was a impressionable teenager—that really inspired me. My dad going and serving in a refugee camp when I was fourteen for three months and that led me to wanting to study geography.

I wanted to learn more about how the ecosystem interacts with the human systems. And so, I actually studied geography because I wanted to get into international aid, or well, back then was called overseas aid. But I never did. I never did.

So then, a couple of things happened. I turned fifty—some people might call it a bit of a midlife crisis—but I really had a good look hard at my life; and my dad also passed away shortly beforehand, so he was a very important person, as I mentioned. 

I had a good hard look at my life and I asked myself, "What are the things I don't want to look back on and regret?" And doing meaningful international work was one of those things.

And so that's when I went, okay, my boys are...it wasn't easy. They were still relatively young, but they were out of diapers, and so I started to really look seriously, NGOs, GOs here in the States and in Switzerland, and then found peacekeeping. I'm like, okay, it's paid. I'm happy to volunteer, but not for a whole year. I also wanted some responsibility. It's just for a week, but not for a full year. 

So, I found peacekeeping and went and applied and did the whole assessment back in Switzerland, and that's how I ended up doing peacekeeping, which is a very long answer but less than thirty minutes, Jason, right?

​[00:05:03] Jason Rudman: It’s great. So this legacy there, you do talk in the book about this admiration for your dad and from one geography major to another, I get it. I studied geography as part of undergraduate with a desire to do things that I actually never did with it. So, maybe you're going to conjure up some UN peacekeeping in my history. I'm over fifty as well, so maybe you're telling me what to do. But look, not a long answer at all. 

When people hear UN peacekeeper, in my head, I've got this notion that it's diplomacy, idealism on some level. If we think about where we currently are in the world and the pressures and the role that the UN has played post-World War II— that is being challenged fundamentally at its core these days. 

At the age of fifty, you joined the UN peacekeeping force. What did reality feel like day-to-day? Is it as idealistic and as diplomatic as one might think?

​[00:05:56]Urs Koenig: No, it's not. And that's not surprising. And I have to say, I'm going to preface it by saying I do, despite all its problems, believe in the value of peacekeeping. It's politicized. It's sometimes abused. There's lots of issues. The UN has lots of challenges, regardless of Trump defunding it, basically. But I still fundamentally believe that it does make a difference. So that is true.

Now, how does it look day-to-day? I'll give you the lawyerly answer, Jason. It depends on the mission, right?

So the first one is in Kosovo; in Kosovo, I'm commanding what's called a liaison and monitoring team. So we are the ears and eyes of the commander of the force on the ground. We live not in a military camp, in a house, in a town, and we shop, we go to the barber, we go for coffees. We basically are living in that town as the ears and eyes of the commander, so we can pick up on any potential ethnic tensions early.

So that's our job in a sort of very simplified way. We're armed, we're in uniform, but we're walking around with a sidearm, which is actually concealed. We're sort of low-key. Lots of meetings with the mayor, with the police commander and whatnot. So, that's the liaison monitoring job.

The job I had in Egypt was very similar. It was more of a diplomatic mission there, actually. I wore my uniform once in six months; everything else was meeting with ambassadors and military attachés. Actually, that's when I wore the uniform.

Now, Lebanon, totally different. In Lebanon, the task is to observe, monitor, and report on the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, which of course now is not in place anymore. And, this is patrolling the ceasefire line in uniform, understanding exactly how many troops, how many rocket system, how many artillery systems, how many tanks can be how close to the ceasefire line, and then reporting on any potential violations.

So, the work in Lebanon is the most military work, if you wanna call it that. And, you know, as it's been famously said, "Peacekeeping is not a soldier's job, but only a soldier can do it." Meaning you need to have the training as an officer, as a peacekeeping officer, you need to understand weapon system, you need to understand strategy, so you can properly observe and monitor that ceasefire.

And, it's not glamorous. I'm happy to talk about this, in Lebanon, officer-only mission, captains and majors, twice a week, you clean the bathroom. You're on your hands and knees with the rubber gloves, excuse my French, clean the shitter. That's how it is, right? And so that's how the…

​[00:08:39] Jason Rudman: Urs, you're not selling this to me. You're not. At this stage in my life, you're not selling it to me. 

​[00:08:44] Urs Koenig: It is and I'm not trying to sell…

​[00:08:45] Jason Rudman: But it is humbling. I've got to believe, right?

​[00:08:47] Urs Koenig: It's actually interesting. I think you have a question of, people know I get these questions in advance, and so I thought about this.

I had a few moments in Lebanon where I went—you know what… at home I have a cleaner, and I don't have an issue. Somebody comes and cleans my house, and I have a wonderful relationship with them, and they've been working for me for fifteen years. I clean my house around the edges.

But in Lebanon, twice a week on your knees with the rubber gloves and everything else. It's humbling. And so the other piece that I, of course, I didn't love that, but it's healthy. It's healthy for all of us. I actually believe that. Another aspect that I did love was the multinational force. So you're working in a conflict zone, which in itself is interesting because I'm not from there. Obviously, there's a conflict going on, and you're working in a multinational force. We had Chinese officers, we had Russian officers, we had Ukrainian officers, from the UK, from all over the place, and you make it work together, and I just love that.

Was it always easy? Absolutely not. And as a Swiss reserve officer, everybody else is a professional soldier. I'm a citizen soldier, right? So the conversations that were always the funniest around the dinner table was when all the professional officers were going on how painful civilians are.

"It's just impossible to work with civilians." And I'm like sitting there going, "Hey guys, I'm a civilian. I just happen to do this service." Anyway, so... 

​[00:10:12] Jason Rudman: So many directions that we could go. In your opening, you talked about pre-UN peacekeeping, leadership roles, consulting roles. So, this is a two-parter.

The first part is before the UN, how would you describe strong leadership—what did that look like to you? And then how did that evolve post your experience in the UN?

​[00:10:35] Urs Koenig: I wouldn't say that my definition of strong leadership fundamentally shifted but it got certainly fine-tuned. I think I always believed in a human-centered leadership approach. I talk about tough on results and tender on people, high touch and high standards. That has always been true. 

But what was really driven home to me during my two missions, both the NATO mission in the Balkans and the UN mission in the Middle East, is the importance of meaningful, trusting relationships with your people before the stuff hits the fan.

I talk about this now in my keynotes, building strong relationships with others is a preemptive move because you know what, in a crisis—and you've experienced this in business, and I have too, and in the military—in a crisis, flow charts, processes, orders are great, but what really makes a difference is I can pick up the phone, I call Jason and say, "Hey, Jason, we need to cut through red tape. We need to get this done." And because you and I know each other, we have a relationship, we get it done.

And that was the core piece that was driven home to me. And of course, strong relationships is a core element of humble leadership. So if I have to describe radical humility in leadership in two words, it's leading relationally versus just by content expertise. 

​[00:12:08] Jason Rudman: So my follow-up to that; if you talk about military conflict, your role as a UN peacekeeper, leadership there, you can go through the annals of history. We talk about British heroes, American heroes, Swiss heroes... Leadership is often associated with decisiveness and command so how did you then arrive at radical humility from experience in that world which is, as you said, not this entire evolution of what you believe leadership was, but certainly a reframing of how leadership should show up.

​[00:12:39] Urs Koenig: Yeah, so counterintuitively, going back into military actually elevated the more human element of leadership. 

And so, a couple of anecdotes. The best commanders I had in the military in these missions were deeply humble leaders. They had great self-awareness. They built meaningful relationships. They knew their soldiers, their troops, on a personal level. They cared for them. 

As Colin Powell famously said, " The day your soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stop leading them." And by the way, he also said, "Sometimes leadership means pissing people off."

So that's the tough result, right? And that element, they built psychological safety. Nobody would use that term in the military, but that it was safe for everybody to speak up. 

I write about this in the book: my commander sat me down for a meeting, and we've been working together for about seven months at that point, and he said, "Urs, you know I love you. You know I do. And the work you produced is not even close to being good enough." His words made me shrink in my chair. If he would've yelled at me, if he would've chewed me out, I would've just tune them out. But because he showed me that he cared for me, I was really able to hear his tough feedback.

Another anecdote was my commanding officer who opened an after action review with these words. She said, "I screwed that up and I know it." Going first. So then it was safe for all of us to own our own mess-ups. So these are some of the examples. Another one was where we had a life-threatening emergency in our contingent and the decision had to be made because one of the soldiers had a heart condition, either surgery in a local hospital in Kosovo we didn't know or we knew the quality was poor, or transport the patient back to Switzerland, a transfer that he might not survive.

So I talked to my commander afterwards how he handled that situation: so how would you decide? Try a local hospital at two A.M. You don't know anything. The hospitals you visited, you have to bring your own scalpel. You have to bring your own IV bags. You literally walk in with your own supplies. Or you ship him back to Switzerland.

And so, he was able, at two A.M., because he's built meaningful relationships, called the Swiss ambassador, who then himself at three A.M. mobilized the best surgical team in Kosovo.

He called the Italian contingent commander who he has regular espressos with—meaningful relationship. The guy puts a plane on standby so we can fly the patient home. He did the same with the Swiss commander back home and so, because these pre-existing relationships were strong, he was able to rely on his network to solve for the issue, and the patient was transported back to Switzerland and made a full recovery. 

So that's some of the examples that really drove home this importance of leading relationship versus just background and expertise. And by the way, because we watch movies where people in the military just bark orders and then the privates run, it's not like that at all. It's not that much different than in business.

You can't just tell your team members to do X, Y, Z. If they don't want to do it, they'll find a million reasons not to do it, and it's exactly the same in the military. And by the way, if you're then, unlike in credit unions or in financial services, in the military, you get shot in the back if you do it too many times, so...

[00:16:07] Jason Rudman: Thankfully that doesn't happen in credit unions. Or financial services. 

What I'd love to do is use that as a springboard to get into the core ideals of Radical Humility, if we can. The first area I want to explore is this notion of humble, not weak. Throughout the book, there's this dichotomy that I think many people hear humility and they think passivity, right?

From your vantage point, what are we misunderstanding in trying to align humility with this thought that by being humble, you're passive?

[00:16:39] Urs Koenig: I'll answer the question super briefly. Humble leadership, three legs.

Deep self-awareness: I understand myself in line with how others see me. And by the way, that's not too modest. It's not too low either. It's accurate and certainly not arrogant. So deep self-awareness. The leading relationally I just talked about. And then, growth mindset: seeing mistakes and failures as an opportunity for learning and growing versus stuff I sweep under the carpet or I need to feel ashamed.

So now, let's talk about passive. Developing deep self-awareness, that's not passive at all because what I'm going to do after this podcast is I'm gonna say, "Hey, Jason, how did that go for you? What can I do better during the next podcast?" 

So, constantly asking for feedback and developing that self-awareness, absolutely not passive. And similarly, relationship building is a very active act.

So then, often people also say, "Hey how can I be confident and humble?" I believe they go hand in hand because in order for me to ask the humble questions like, "Hey Jason, what can I do better during the next podcast? Or as your manager, what do I do well as your manager? What can I do better?", I need to have a fundamentally strong sense of self. I need to be fundamentally confident for me to ask those hard, humble questions.

We all know people who cover up their insecurity with arrogance, right? So that's the opposite; True humility and confidence actually go hand in hand.

Similarly, people push back and say, "What about ambition?" So, what does ambition look like? Ambition looks like asking the hard questions. "Why are you and I failing, Jason? Why are we not achieving what we need to and what is my part in it?" 

Asking those hard questions will make me achieve in the end, but I need to have the humility to ask those hard questions. So that's how I think about humility. And we can go back, I think I have him here, actually, Jim Collins somewhere, maybe you can see it there. Jim Collins, of course, Good to Great, and some of these companies ended up not being that great, but his fundamental thesis around humble leadership still stands. 

The best leaders are those, they have a sort of workhorse-like work ethic, deeply humble and, he talks about level five leadership.

When there is failure, they look in the mirror. When there is success, they look out the window. So that's how I think about humility, confidence, ambition and being passive. It's not like the most effective leaders are always the loudest or those who just love the sound of their own voice. And I know you and I are not like that.

[00:19:39] Jason Rudman: Yeah. I think passion... it's interesting because I think sometimes we misconstrue passion for ego and self-centeredness, right? Passion for the team, passion for moving forward. I've talked a lot about that with my team. An interesting thread to pull, we are both non-American… I wonder if, from your seat, there is a different worldview you have being a European. The reason I want to pull that thread is because of the way that Americans view the role of work, ambition and high achievement.

And I do get the sense, even more so today than probably at any point in my career, that there's a different worldview outside of America as it relates to ambition, how that drives people, how high achievers show up in the workplace or working with teams. Thoughts on that?

And I'm throwing you a curveball, but I get the sense that it's different.

[00:20:38] Urs Koenig: It's really interesting, Jason. I struggle with that one because I often think that the difference between the culture in—I live in Seattle, in the city of Seattle, the city of London, the city of Zurich, the city of Sydney—the difference between these is smaller than the difference between Seattle and Wenatchee, which is a small town outside.. 

[00:21:09] Jason Rudman: That's It. That's it. I love that. Oh my goodness. So I experience Seattle frequently, right? BECU is headquartered in Seattle. I think you've just given voice to the biggest kinda head fake that has been my experience in the Pacific Northwest. So please talk on it a little bit more, but I think you just nailed it for me, that the difference is actually within the borders, but not across the borders. Right?.

[00:21:32] Urs Koenig: Yes. So I think there is the, to simplify it and it is totally, it's a model of the world, right?

It's not the actual world, but the difference between the urban centers and the rural communities; that is where I experience a bigger gap than between the cities.

Now, when you asked the question, what immediately came up for me is, you know what, I'm probably more shaped by my family of origin when it comes to ambition, the role of work, than the Swiss culture, if there's such a thing anyway. So that's another thing that came to mind. And then, I think the last thing I would say is that in my experience speaking and working across the globe, absolutely there are differences, cultural differences. This is very generalized, but in a lot of the Asian countries, there's pretty strict hierarchies, and it's very clear who bows, how deep and who presents the business card first.

And I know this is changing too, I get it. But humility in Japan looks differently. Humble leadership looks different than humble leadership in the States or in Australia or in Switzerland. There's no question about that. So yes to all of it with a lot of shades of gray, if that makes sense.

[00:22:52] Jason Rudman: To pull on that thread, let's pivot to ego and leadership, another area of your book, and the way that you guide the reader through how to improve who they are as a leader, continue to be a badass boss and still be a good human.

So where I want to go with that is there is a premium, there's a reward, I believe in today's culture tied to personal branding and this level of certainty perfection. I think sometimes, I feel like you've got to be perfect or else. And you mentioned when you fail, look in the mirror, and when you're successful, look outside, which I also love.

But does modern leadership, we'll call it modern, right? This modern focus on leadership—does that, in your mind, actively discourage humility?

If the reward structure rewards a level of personal branding, does modern leadership then actively discourage humility?

[00:23:43] Urs Koenig: I think it can. So when you talk about personal branding, I think you can actually build a strong, humble, personal brand; personal brand doesn't need to be arrogant at all. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft—strong personal brand curious, growth mindset, humble, so very confident as well, always learning. So I think that's true. M

At the same time, I agree with you, and this sort of gets us into the macro world of politics. We are suffering from strongman leadership. And so this is a little bit of a pivot here, but take this—a third of today's countries are governed by democratically elected leaders who slowly start to chip away at democracy and position themselves as strongman leaders.

This is not a political podcast, but we see the playbook play out in the States, Hungary, like we have in Poland, like we have in different places around the globe. 

And so, we do suffer from this, if the world is scary and complex and complicated, I want simple answers, and I want it in three words. And so that is certainly a big concern I personally have for the state of our world. So yeah. That is absolutely true. So the charisma part, despite all the research, including my small little contribution towards the leadership research, we know what good leadership looks like. It's psychological safety, high standards, high touch, meaningful relationships, all that stuff.

Why do we continue to promote and elect the wrong leaders? Because we overvalue charisma over competence. Charisma is one of the worst predictors of... it's great at getting the job, not such a great predictor at actually getting stuff done.

Also we love confidence. Lots of confidence. People throw up their hands and say, "I can do it. I can do it," versus humility. And a lot of it goes back to our Stone Age brain. There's actual peer-reviewed research that shows that tall people and whatever the society considers as good-looking people earn more money, are more likely to get promoted. So, we fall back into the Stone Ages when we were looking for leaders, strong men, who could protect us, and we're still falling into these same traps. There's a lot of work we have to do to undo some of our instincts that are really pointing us into the wrong direction.

[00:26:28] Jason Rudman: We may need a part two of this conversation because I have a feeling we're not going to run out of things that we want to talk about.

Charisma, confidence, that whole sense around personal branding is connected on some level to ego, right? You talked a little bit about democratic countries going down an authoritarian path. I think there's a little bit or a lot of ego connected to that. So then, what do you see are the warning signs that ego is driving leadership?

[00:26:53] Urs Koenig: Couple of things. When it becomes all about me versus we. If I look at a leader and he or she talks a lot about what he or she did versus what the team did, that's one warning sign. Another warning sign is nobody's telling you the truth.

I talk about red monkeys. And by the way, this is true for both of us. Jason, you're in a leadership position. I'm not right now, I run my own little show when I'm in the States, but when I'm on a mission or in a leadership position, in a community, people don't tell you the truth anymore because they're afraid.

So when you don't have red monkeys, like I call them, who tell you how it really is, when you lose touch with what's really going on, that's another warning sign.

And then a third thing I often think about is—Simon Sinek talks about this a little bit—when you start to confuse your person and the position, because people don't laugh at your jokes, Jason, they laugh at the jokes that your position makes. They only laugh because of ... you're not that funny. They laugh because of you're the CEO or whatever, right? And we forget that.

Simon, and I don't always love Simon Sinek, but he has a great line there. He goes, "You achieve stuff, you go higher in the hierarchy, people will be nice to you. They give you gifts, they bring you coffee, and you will always just deserve the styrofoam cup. You will always just deserve the styrofoam."

But it's not for you, it's for the position you hold. When we lose our awareness as leaders about the reaction of our environment to our position versus us, when we start to lose that awareness, that's another warning sign that we sort of go into the ego-driven leadership.

[00:28:45] Jason Rudman: The tagline of More Elephant is listen, learn, live, better. 

And so, in order to not lose sight of what you just described, you and I would argue that listening is foundational to leadership, right? So why do you believe genuine listening is so rare?

[00:29:04] Urs Koenig: I've never been taught how to listen throughout my whole education. That's where I start. Not at home, not in school, from kindergarten, nowhere. You know what's the old joke? When the kids are young, they want them to stand up and speak, and then they're sixteen, they're shut up and sit down, right? 

[00:29:27] Jason Rudman: Hey, we've got a soon-to-be 13-year-old that I may have brought that forward three years and been like, "Look, that's cute you have an opinion. I need you to take it down a level." Yes.

[00:29:35] Urs Koenig: Yeah. So no, I'm actually serious about we don't teach listening unless, like you and I, we go to coaching workshops, we go to leadership development that teach you about the different levels of listening. So, I think that is part of it. 

And then yes, I don't really like to chime into bashing social media where it's all about doing this versus listening, so that doesn't help, but I do fundamentally believe that we don't get taught how to listen well.

I do a very simple little framework. So the level one listening is the listening we do when we listen to a waiter telling us what is on the menu because my only listening is me focused. Like, what will I order? I don't care about the waiter at all. I just want to get the information out. So, that's the level one listening.

Then it goes to meaningful listening and listening beyond the words and the context and the body language. And then, the highest level of listening, as you and I know, is listening for what is not being said.

I think we, as a society, we suck at listening. All of us do. You just need to go to a restaurant and look around and observe how people are listening or not. And so, what that means as leaders is we need to really learn to listen and build awareness around our inability to listen and how we can get better at that.

And it's very basic stuff. This is almost too obvious to state, but you put your phone away, you put your screen away, you focus on the person, and then, there's mindfulness you can do, deep breathing, really centering yourself, like all that good stuff that we can do to truly listen. Not listen to respond and show off how smart we are, but actually listen to what the person is saying and not saying with the only agenda of getting what you're trying to tell me without needing to respond.

[00:31:29] Jason Rudman: I love the prompt, and I don't do enough of this, to your point. the follow-up that says, "And what have you not told me that you actually still need to give voice to?" I think you just colored for us.

I was going to follow up with what's one behavior that listeners could engage in tomorrow that would instantly make them better leaders? 

And I think, just to reaffirm, put down the phone, shut down the screen and listen with intent as opposed to just listening to respond.

[00:31:55] Urs Koenig: Yep. 

[00:31:55] Jason Rudman: When we started this conversation you mentioned it, the relationship connection that enables impact to happen is also, I think, fundamentally built on a level of psychological safety and trust.

So why do teams often hide problems from leaders? And I don't want to assume it's an easy answer, because one could say because there's not trust and there's not psychological safety, but my sense is it's deeper than that.

[00:32:28] Urs Koenig: Let's think back, you and I and our listeners, to a time that I didn't bring the information or the problem. A time I didn't bring the problem to the leader. Why didn't I do it?

More likely than not, I was afraid. I was afraid. And so I think that is a fundamental... I'm afraid to shoot—we talk about shooting the messenger versus hugging the messenger, right? I'm afraid to be the messenger of bad news and then I get the axe even though I'm only the messenger.

So, I think fear is the prime driver. That's why people hide problems. And I mean this—there's an individual issue. Do I personally embrace a growth mindset? How do I personally look at mistakes and failures?

And by the way, this is a huge learning still for me. I was brought up in an environment—my grandfather told me, "A Koenig boy," my last name is Koenig, "doesn't get Bs, only As. Koenig boys only get As."

So, I was very much brought up in this environment, and I had two super smart sisters who kicked my butt with all the grades. Younger, made it even worse. I needed to be perfect. So, a lot of energy was wasted on my part to protect the perfect facade versus owning my shortcomings and actually getting better at them. My energy was wasted on protecting the perfect facade. So that's becoming clear, and there was a lot of work, and it's ongoing for me.

I want to be very clear about that. I am very much pro-, work in progress in that department. Embracing a growth mindset and saying, "You know what? We all mess up. I do too, and I messed up. How can I learn from that, and how can I overcome my feeling of embarrassment, my feeling of shame, my feeling of failure and learn from my failures?" So that's the personal piece, and we all can get better at that. Most of us can anyway.

And then there's the cultural piece— what psychologically safe or not safe culture has the leader created. And this is too obvious to state. If it's a fear-based culture, I will not speak up, no man no way, even if I have a huge personal growth mindset.

So I don't know if I'm answering the question here, but it's on an individual level, and then it's culturally as well. No question.

[00:34:53] Jason Rudman: You are serving up the pivots wonderfully, even though you just said, "I'm not too sure that I..." You are.

So in the context of you're still a work in progress, we're all works in progress, right? If any of us claim that we've figured this out, we're fooling ourselves. What leadership mistake then taught you the most?

[00:35:11] Urs Koenig: Oh, two come to mind. One is actually military. Years back, national service, I was a very good sergeant, got excellent feedback, top of class, yada yada, and then started officer school very cocky.

I'm twenty-one at that age because at that time I was an excellent sergeant. So I go into officer school and I'm being pretty arrogant. I don't do the homework. I act out, I'll be great, and I mess up pretty badly, and they almost kicked me out actually.

And so, the cockiness, overconfidence backfired big time, and so maybe it's not a leadership mistake, it's more of a, like a attitude or, maybe character flaw at this point that I have. So, that's number one.

Number two, in my early forties during my executive coaching career, I was hired by one of my clients in-house as a marketing director, and I didn't really have any meaningful marketing experience, and I didn't know when to shut up, and I got myself fired. 

Financial crisis two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight. We're a financial investment management firm. We get paid by a percentage of assets under management. Revenue tanks. We need to do one layoff after another, and the three C-level executives asked me to their office to discuss what we should cut in the next round of layoffs, and I know nothing better but to say that for a company of our size, we don't really need three C levels. We only need one. The next day I was out the door.

So, I wasn't wrong per se, but I didn't read the room. And though that's one of the things also when I went back into the military, I was keenly aware, sometimes as an executive coach, it's very valuable to bring up the elephant in the room, to be the outsider who can speak the truth, in inverted commas. I can totally overdo that. 

And I was keenly aware going back into the military, as the oldest guy, I might have a colonel my boss, who's thirty-five, has a quarter of my life experience and is going to drive me nuts, and I have to be okay with it. I have to suck it up and I have to keep my mouth shut and just do as I'm told for the time.

[00:37:44] Jason Rudman: I identify and I love the challenge that if you're identifying the elephant in the room, sometimes you have to keep it in your head and not give voice to because it's all about timing, to your point. It's all about timing.

We mentioned earlier this authoritarian streak. The last segment that I want to talk about is what I'm going to term ‘modern leadership crisis.’ 

Trust in institutions and leaders is eroding, has been eroding. You think about the challenges that the U.K. is going through at this moment in terms of Starmer and the leadership challenge. You think about globally how people are, Carney is suggesting that Canada can no longer rely on the United States after fifty plus years of an alliance.

Why do you think trust has eroded globally? Is it tied to the strongman, moment that you talked about earlier? Is it more than that from your seat?

[00:38:40] Urs Koenig: It's only connected to the strongman issues. There's also a sort of a positive spin on this.

We all have a more, in many ways, a more democratic and in many ways we should have a better-informed public because information is available to anybody, right? And unlike our parents, who just needed to keep their mouth shut and do as they were told, I can speak up against almost anybody, right? And so, I think a bit of that is responsible for having less trust in institutions because I don't have to. I simply don't have to.

This is a really tough one for me. I think it's multifaceted, and I do think the more globalized world, more flatter world in many ways, to speak with Thomas Friedman, and then now the rise of these strongmens, those are the contributing factors. 

[00:39:44] Jason Rudman: You mentioned everybody has a megaphone, my words, right? So is there a thread here that would suggest that social media is rewarding anti-humility?

Since everybody has a megaphone and can ultimately not only create their own channel, but can find like-minded individuals that can finally express in a way that they may not have been able to before. I'm thinking particularly in a post-World War II Europe and Western civilization, where there was a reckoning in terms of what was acceptable.

[00:40:19] Urs Koenig: I think that's right. Although I struggle to blame social media and I'm not saying you do that but you can also use it as a megaphone, like I'm trying to some extent, for the message of humility. So it all comes down to how it's been used.

But we all know this, it's obvious to state, it simplifies everything. It's down to the snippets that don't actually go in depth and, one of the concerns I have for the future as I just spoke to, I'm looking at my calendar here, I spoke at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland, Penn State tomorrow, the high school of my kids here in Seattle—when I think about the next generation of leaders, what I really hope and wish is that they continue to think critically and actually go deep into issues.

And this is, again, almost too obvious to state, but a lot of these kids just consume their news on social media, don't actually go to the source, right? That is a true concern I do have. I see outstanding young leaders who are very thoughtful, who go deep, who want to understand, and actually then use social media to promote their in-depth and foundational message, which is wonderful to see. And of course, unfortunately, there's plenty of counterexamples to that as well. 

[00:41:37] Jason Rudman: Critical thinking and reading books. We'll put a premium on those.

I've got a little bit of a lightning round for you, but I got one more question before the lightning round. So radical humility, your thesis and what I think is now your new life's work, right, if that became a leadership norm globally, what do you think would change?

[00:41:57] Urs Koenig: We would still deal with the same big problems we have today. We would still have global conflict. We would deal with geopolitical tensions or we would address these problems with a tough on results and tender on people lens. We would make our coworkers, our team members, our community members, our family members, make them feel seen and heard as whole human beings while still getting the hard stuff done.

And so I do, and that sounds maybe a bit too American, but I do think that radical humanity leadership can actually make better leaders, better humans, better family members, better community members, and it can, at the end of the day, make for a better world. I truly believe that.

[00:42:52] Jason Rudman: So, tough on results, tender on people. All right. A lightning round, my friend. A true lightning round.

And, you can't think too much, and I don't believe I sent you these ahead of time, so I'm really asking you to think on your feet.

A leader you admire?

[00:43:05] Urs Koenig: Zelensky.

[00:43:07] Jason Rudman: A leadership trait that's overrated?

[00:43:09] Urs Koenig: Ah, easy. Charisma

[00:43:12] Jason Rudman: Most underrated trait.

[00:43:14] Urs Koenig: What do you think? Humility.

[00:43:18] Jason Rudman: Some of these are layups, right? Best advice you ever received?

[00:43:22] Urs Koenig: Oh, that is from my dad, and that's a bit of a longer answer just to... So he always told us, my two sisters and I, "What feels right to you?"

Not what do your parents think? What feels right to you? Because at the end of the day, you die on your own, you need to feel good about it. So it's up to you. So he really drove that home

[00:43:43] Jason Rudman: Other than Radical Humility, every leader should read?

[00:43:48] Urs Koenig: So Hubert Joly, the Heart of Business, former Best Buy CEO. It's actually right... Yeah. H- here it is. Yeah. This guy. Wow. And then, okay, that's three. Sorry.

[00:43:59] Jason Rudman: All right. So for those of you who are listening, Urs has turned round and he's picking books off of his bookshelf.

[00:44:04] Urs Koenig: So, Hubert Joly, The Heart of Business, if you can have a snippet. And so that's former Best Buy CEO. General McChrystal, Team of Teams, outstanding book on the power of relationship building. And then I love Daniel Coyle, has a new book out, but The Culture Code is outstanding. There's these three books. 

[00:44:21] Jason Rudman: One more for you. What's harder, leading others or leading yourself?

[00:44:25] Urs Koenig: It's much harder to lead yourself. And you know why? Because nobody's watching. You need to do the right thing because nobody's watching when you lead yourself.

[00:44:35] Jason Rudman: I agree with that. And I think the further up the food chain you go, the less feedback you get. So there's that as well. You're actually in a much more of an echo chamber. Thank you. This has been amazing.

How do people learn more about Radical Humility and the amazing Urs Koenig?

[00:44:54] Urs Koenig: The amazing/radically humble Urs Koenig, right?

[00:44:57] Jason Rudman: Radically humble. Got it. We've got you.

[00:45:00] Urs Koenig: You can find me on the web obviously under urskoenig.com, U-R-S K-O-E-N-I-G.com. I'm very active on LinkedIn, not so much on IG, but on LinkedIn if you want to engage with my posts and send me a message, I love to interact. So those are the two places where you can find me.

And sometimes if you're into ski mountaineering, like last weekend, you can find me up scaling a mountain in the Cascades, so come and join me.

[00:45:22] Jason Rudman: As I said, the tagline of More Elephant is listen, learn, live, better. Couldn't think of a better way to end season two, Urs, than to be in conversation with you and learn from you this concept of radical humility and ultimately how it can have a positive impact on the world. So appreciate your time. 

[00:45:41] Urs Koenig: Absolutely, and thank you for all the great work you're doing, Jason. I appreciate it as well.

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