35 - Building Trust and Inspiring Teams: Unveiling the Secrets of Effective Leadership

Greg Ballard: 09:10:49

Hello, and welcome to the adaptive executive. I am your host, Greg Ballard. And with me is a very special guest, Amber Blake from Amber Blake consulting. Amber, welcome today.

Amber: 09:10:59

Good morning, Greg, thank you, it's great to see you.

Greg Ballard: 09:11:02

So first of all, I have to start off. So we've been working together for several months on on a project. And we've had a chance to get to know we were introduced by a mutual friend. And we've just had a great opportunity to do some real work together in a space that we both have passionate about. So I'm really excited to have you here

Amber: 09:11:31

Absolutely. So I've been in the leadership and transportation focused Arena on the public sector side for about 20 years, I started out with a metropolitan planning organization, which really focused on broader transportation issues, you know, highways, bikes, peds transit, and really looking at the system and how we fit together and then

Amber: 09:12:21

of transit and rail for the state of Colorado most recently. And that's a three 4000 person organization. My transit and rail team at CDOT was only 17. I grew that team to 28, during the time that I was there. And that was really exciting because the state of Colorado has a huge focus on growing transit, and the role of transit in our transportation

Amber: 09:13:21

a culture, and all the whole while me managing a, you know, half a billion dollar budget, doing construction projects, as well as providing service and administering funds to all of the State Transit agencies in the state of Colorado. Another piece of my background that's kind of interesting was, I was in the municipal arena, I ran a transit agency

Amber: 09:14:08

And our customer base was every citizen and visitor that came to our time. So that's just a little bit of my background. So a little bit varied. Now today, I'm in the consulting business, focusing on leadership and organizational development.

Greg Ballard: 09:14:24

Yes, and you are fantastic at that I have to say. So before we break away from this transit industry, because this is still fairly new to me, I've kind of like about one year in transit, and you have 20 plus. And we've talked about like, what is the culture of the transit industry? Because there is a pretty unique culture about it.

Amber: 09:14:52

It's a really great question. So working in transit over the last few decades, I've definitely seen a big shift in the focus on transit. So 20 years ago, when I first started, transit was a mode of transportation, but the conversations were more frequently focused on cars. They were more frequently focused on, you know, depending on the

Amber: 09:15:35

do we integrate these modes? And I don't want to say transit was the stepchild. But transit was a mode that was necessary. Like, a lot of times it was maybe not for, like, if an individual was speaking, transits important, but I'm not gonna write it. It's, it's important, and we need it, but not for me. And we've started and you know, and I'm

Amber: 09:16:26

lived in Europe as a kid. And Europeans have a very different perspective of public transit. So I came at it my own personal cell phone, I'm like, Well, look at this great asset. And if we can provide it and short head times, and clean buses, and clean trains, and very reliable, safe service, it's not the answer for everyone. But we can make it

Amber: 09:17:12

increase on busing, which is the bus service of the state runs inner city across the state. And we're going to do our headways between Grand Junction and Denver. And we're going to take an inner city bus route that could potentially typically would run once or twice a day to our headways. All right now you're really moving people. And there may

Amber: 09:17:59

complex. So it's not just you get on a bus, you drive around in a circle, there's constant communication, you hit traffic, the drivers, who are, you know, you don't have transit without drivers. Without operators? How can we build cultures that really recognize and respect the drivers and dispatchers as well as the planners always focused on

Greg Ballard: 09:18:26

So that's a lead in is a lead into another question I have for you. Because we're shaping out transit and how it's shifted right over the last couple of decades. And now there really is a focus on how do we move more people to more places, you know, at a lower cost. And in really creating more accessibility, and creating an experience

Greg Ballard: 09:19:06

industry and some transit locations may have a very different culture, but from your

Amber: 09:19:18

you need to start with that question again, because you froze.

Amber: 09:19:39

What's the question? I can't hear you.

Amber: 09:19:54

I can't hear you. You can hear me. I can't hear you. Try now. Ah, now I can hear you. Okay, so what's the question?

Greg Ballard: 09:20:04

So given all this background and in transit, right, and this lead this need to or this drive, to bring people into the transit experience by adding Wi Fi more comfortable, clean, reliable experiences. So one of the key factors in making that a reality is going to be the leadership inside of the industry, the transit industry. And so

Greg Ballard: 09:20:43

vibe of transit, of leadership inside of the transit industry. Can you kind of share with our listeners a little bit about what you've seen so far?

Amber: 09:20:50

Absolutely. I think first and foremost, passion. Folks in transit are so passionate about what they do. So, so passion is one piece. But passion can only take you so far. I think overall, we're of course, it's going to be very diverse, like you mentioned. But we do have, like many industries, our executives are either young, and many have

Amber: 09:21:47

building in leadership development. And then I've also worked with and have seen organizations where the resources really aren't there, or the drive, the desire isn't really there or the awareness, but that focus on leadership development, organizational development, focus on culture hasn't been first and foremost. And part of that is because

Amber: 09:22:31

focus on culture. And it's still same goal, safe, reliable service customer is number one. Same goal as the other one, when you have that leadership plan in place, and you implement it, those organizations arrive, while the others are surviving. Hmm. So I've also seen as we go through, it's hard. Public public service is hard, just like any

Amber: 09:23:30

their organization and develop new leaders, that void could be significantly detrimental, not only to the customers in transit, but in many other ways as well.

Greg Ballard: 09:23:45

Yeah, so. So let's talk about this. Because obviously, you and I both agree, leadership is a critical component to any organization. And, and, you know, leadership has quality, you know, there's a quality level of leadership, you can have four, you can have ineffective, poor, mediocre, you know, strong and amazing. I mean,

Greg Ballard: 09:24:24

should look like?

Amber: 09:24:26

Absolutely. So I'm not going to use any names, too. However, so I'll start out so I had a really interesting experience when I had mentioned earlier that I went from being the assistant city manager, and I was appointed by our city council as interim city manager. So the the manager had resigned for the city. And basically, for those of

Amber: 09:25:05

manager. So the the manager resigns, and the council needs to appoint a new city manager and I stepped in as interim. It was during budget season, did the council budget present the presentation of the Council on the budget, and within less than a week on the job? I was sitting in my office and I had a member of our finance team coming to me

Amber: 09:25:48

the previous city manager and signed a conflict of interest form for our finance director? I said, No. Called the old manager. He's like, why? I have no idea what you're talking about. No, she never asked for any of that. I went through all the old files in case you know, he'd forgotten. He had not. Long story short, we started digging into it

Amber: 09:26:33

her on administrative leave saying you no longer are employed, the whole nine yards that goes along with that, because the

Greg Ballard: 09:26:39

manager had left you were filling in an interim role for the manager, but

Amber: 09:26:42

I am now in charge. I hope I am. Yeah.

Greg Ballard: 09:26:46

I'm the finance director was still on your team.

Amber: 09:26:49

The finance director was still on my team. Wow. And from there, so that's in October, the pandemic hit in March. So we're taught and I bring this in because it was changed on top of change on top of change? Well, I like to know all the answers to the questions. And I'm a very hands on person with every level of the organization. And, to

Amber: 09:27:48

mean, there was no empowering of the staff, it was an staff didn't even know how to do the full role of their jobs, because they weren't able to be trained. Because of course, if you're embezzling money, you need to have all of these gates in and the staff was amazing. So what I want to what I want to point out here, is it was because of trust, I

Amber: 09:28:36

something's funny.

Greg Ballard: 09:28:39

Yeah. And you showed up, so what I'm hearing it like the distinction, right, is you came in interim role you found somebody brought something to you, right? You didn't find? Somebody said, Hey, I'm gonna go in, I'm going to talk to this new person who's an interim. And I'm going to ask a really kind of question like, Hey, did you ever

Amber: 09:29:12

Right, exactly. So saw the situation, they couldn't go to her, right, I mean, doing something wrong. And we had also seen some attrition in that department. So previous to the manager, leaving there were some other folks that left the organization that were within there. And so for me, in looking back at it, and like people wanted to say

Greg Ballard: 09:29:47

So what strikes me about this and just to kind of case, study this for a second one, you knew management when a manager or leader is putting a lot of controls, and and really, kind of putting a moat around power and authority like that can one that could be a, an insecure manager or an insecure leader, that could be just somebody

Greg Ballard: 09:30:33

component in any organization if you want to be successful and and really create a strong leadership culture. True Post is kind of foundational. And so I find it really intriguing that study that case. You know how, how it worked out there? What might be an alternative, you know, I'm sure you've experienced some, some really strong leaders in

Amber: 09:30:58

I have, I've been really, really fortunate to have some extraordinary leaders that I've worked with and for and mentors as well. So I would also like to just put a plug in for the value of mentorship. Both the mentee and the mentor, as a leadership development, and just personal development piece. So there's my plug for mentorship. I'm

Amber: 09:31:59

he was invested in his team members. And what he would do is he had this this open door policy, and a lot of times folks was oh, yeah, I have an open door policy. I mean, his door, we had a pocket door between our offices. And he would say it does ask me any question you have, because I want to make sure that you have everything that you need. And

Amber: 09:32:47

what that did is really helped me train my brain to think both strategically and tactically at the same time. And, you know, some people have this skill more innately than others. But I have taken the time to think back of like, where did I hone this, I've always been able to do this in a way where they really hone this skill. And it was, it was

Amber: 09:33:36

take this big leave of absence. And because of those conversations, and the way that he led his team, when he got sick, we were able to take on the work and jump in and lead that section of the organization. So that there was no impact or minimal impact, reduce the negative impacts to the community, but work together. And that team really

Greg Ballard: 09:34:29

You know, it's interesting, I'm looking at these two stories and kind of comparison a little bit. You know, in one hand, you have somebody that controlling information controlling condensing power, really, I'm going to put this into the space, maybe you didn't say this, but you know, maybe not being transparent or authentic.

Greg Ballard: 09:35:08

just a you know, it's kind of light and dark comparison there on the level of trust and authenticity between those two. So that's fantastic Amber and I and I want to ask you a couple of other questions before we round out our interview today. So I'm curious, what practices have you learned or you have you've kind of incorporated into yourself so

Amber: 09:35:48

Absolutely. That's a great question. Um, well, for me, I kind of have four four sort of foundational pillars. One trust is number one, right? And, and trust is complex, and it incorporates like, competence and competence, but, but really the ability to have integrity, to demonstrate integrity, and to relay that with your team so that they

Amber: 09:36:37

what, what are they passionate about, because having that information, helps me to one communicate with them, to connect with them and to inspire them.

Greg Ballard: 09:36:48

So I want to jump on that one, because most people are curious about how to solve a problem. And you just talked about being curious about the people on your team. And that's a there's a distinct difference there. Right? And, and getting to know the people on your team and how they're, how they're designed, what they're motivated

Amber: 09:37:11

I love that. Absolutely. And that, then it's fun. People are so cool. Um, so yeah, that's, that's a big one, creating a vision, and not creating a vision in a vacuum. But But creating a vision with the team. When I came on, in my in the role at CDOT. My team was like, Okay, what's your vision? What's your vision? What's our vision? And I

Amber: 09:37:58

state. But what does that look like? What does it feel like? How does it impact the customer? What is What do you feel like is the team that helped implement this integrated system? And so when we do when I do visioning with my team, and what I think is important as a leader is that vision has to connect. And so building it together, and it's so

Greg Ballard: 09:38:46

I'm a big stickler on the word agreements, I am huge on agreements. If we can eliminate expectations in the work world, and just replace that with agreements, I think we would have a much better work environment. Absolutely. So the four pillars trust, curiosity, creating a vision being committed.

Amber: 09:39:05

Absolutely. And then there's the frosting that goes on that cake. Yeah. Fun.

Greg Ballard: 09:39:10

Fun. Fun. That doesn't surprise me, Amber, that does not surprise me at all.

Amber: 09:39:18

Right, we work so I was I was oh, hard. Let's gotta be fun. So we don't burn out. Oh,

Greg Ballard: 09:39:25

yes. I love it. So those are yours. So a quick question from an individual level, right? So we see this from a, I think this is kind of organizational team wide. You know, creating trust, curiosity, vision being committed, what might be if somebody's listening to this today, and they're thinking, well, what are some personal skills I

Amber: 09:40:01

Absolute emotional intelligence, self awareness. And I think just this skill, of being able to take a step back, and when, when I do when I say take a step back, I literally take a step back and go, Okay, how do I feel? How am I looking at the situation? How am I showing up? And sometimes I feel like really electric inside and I'm like,

Amber: 09:40:52

internally and externally. So I think, and that has to do that has to do with, with EQ, so your emotional intelligence, self awareness. Some other skills just. So there's all kinds of time management principles out there for everyone. And it's not a one size fits all. So giving yourself the grace to create your own system.

Greg Ballard: 09:41:21

So a frame around that is instead of trying to manage time manage energy, because your energy and your energy is different than mine, and my strengths, right, what I love to do what I'm passionate about, and what I can do with little effort is very different than you. And that's not right or wrong. But if I tried to take your

Amber: 09:41:58

And that's really big, because especially if you're trying to mirror people, that person in my organization is a great leader, I want to be a great leader like them, what do they do? Oh, this is what they're there. This is how they organize their tasks. And this is how they organize their time. Just that awareness of like, Sure, try it on

Greg Ballard: 09:42:21

figure it out.

Amber: 09:42:22

So that one, that's a big one and then exercise for me. I mean, maybe it's knitting, maybe it's playing the piano, maybe it's painting, but that creative outlet, your brain needs a break. Your soul needs to be fed. Whatever that is for you that recipe, so I know what my recipe is. Spending time with my kids and my husband and cooking and

Greg Ballard: 09:43:01

Alright, so Amber, thank you so much for joining us today. A couple questions before you exit one, what is your favorite leadership book? And if anybody wants to learn more about you, where can they find you?

Amber: 09:43:11

Absolutely. Okay. So my leaders favorite leadership book will change by the week because I like reading. But my favorite leadership book of the day, is the Speed of Trust by Steven Covey of trust. That's a great one. And it's so quick and the audiobook is only like an hour and 15 minutes to write. So we'll go with the Speed of Trust this