Why Care? #40: David McQueen - The Brave Leader

“I remember going to a client who had once told me about a value, then it changed. And I remember being in the room and saying, values can't be bought. And there was a hush in the room. And I was like, if that's something that you value, there's not a price you can actually put on it because it's something that's very dear to you. It's something that you hold. It's a respect that you have for other people and yourself. And that's the way that you operate with this honesty, integrity, reliability. These are the things that you hold on to. And so what I try to do when I'm having these conversations is to probe. I call myself the compassionate provocateur. So I go in with compassion and I really provoke people to think about what does it look like if you have an employee and that employee leaves for they have a child or they've gone for sickness or they've got somebody in their family sick and they've dedicated work to you and really worked for you.”

In Episode 40 of Why Care? I am joined by the brilliant and highly entertaining David McQueen to delve deeper into his brand-new book, The Brave Leader. David shares some life experiences, powerful insights and we touch on subjects such as the importance of followership, his BRAVE framework for good leadership, and how to take a systems approach to inclusive leadership. 

David’s dedication to DEI is apparent through his years of experience as an executive coach, international keynote speaker, and facilitator. David co-founded professional development company Q Squared Ltd. He also hosts The BRAVE Leader podcast and dubs himself the ‘compassionate provocateur’ as he offers ‘unapologetic insights’. In addition, he is also a blogger on all things leadership and cultural change. 

During our discussion, David reveals how he has always had a penchant for writing and the pandemic provided the perfect opportunity for him to finally let his creative juices flow. He was initially motivated to write a book that inspired people to think about their decision-making processes. David shares many relatable personal experiences that shaped his career journey. He has an eclectic professional background - initially studying law, and then accounting, before later realising his passion for public speaking.

Throughout the podcast, David offers BRAVE reflections, and we touch on a range of subjects. He highlights the importance of followership, challenging the traditional narrative that followers are passive. He then shines a light on his five pillars of good leadership, or the BRAVE framework: Bold, Resilience, Agility, Visionary, and Ethical. David goes on to caution us about the signs of poor leadership, and encourages leaders to go beyond their titles and be more functional.

David continues to explore how to embed DEI practices in the workplace, and focuses on the importance of aligning collective values and approaching sensitive topics rationally rather than out of fear. He then suggests how organisations should expand their board and consider the diverse majority to help to nurture an inclusive mindset, future-proof technology and integrate DEI policies. David offers some helpful decision-making models, and acknowledges his constant journey of navigating discomfort with humility.

David delves into the following key concepts in his book:

- The Power of Followership - When discussing the leader-follower power-dynamic, leaders are often portrayed as heroic and their ‘followership’ are passive. David challenges this narrative, since followers play an equally powerful role as they have to also ‘buy into their vision,’ and help bring that vision to life. He discusses how mutual cooperation is required, and advises how a good leader needs to go beyond title and instill trust that they are fully qualified, and a good follower needs to believe the leader will lead everyone in the right direction.

- B.R.A.V.E - The five main pillars of good leadership, including being Bold, Resilient, Agile, Visionary, and Ethical. He shares some pertinent examples, to illustrate the significance of each one.

-Function over Title - David warns against some of the pitfalls of poor leadership, such as inflated egos, and encourages how a good leader should be brave enough to go beyond their title and be functional. He distinguishes some qualities of good leadership, such as being able to take people on a journey, and nurture the next generation of leaders. He explains how a strong leader should also be open to challenges, constructive criticism, and be prepared to do things differently. These qualities can be the difference between the making of a leader or a bully.

-The Alignment of Collective Values - David offers powerful strategies to help embed inclusion into the workplace and ensure the collective values of the organisation are aligned. He encourages both organisations and leaders to express their values, but challenges leaders to go beyond their lens, be compassionate, and have a humanistic approach. He offers strategies to help a leader maintain boundaries, but become braver, understand what employees value, and align their actions with the team’s collective values and what is best for everyone and the organisation, especially during challenging situations.

-Rationality Over Fear - David outlines how organisations should be brave enough to embrace their discomfort, and confront their fears. He offers strategies to help create a system for rational dialogue and authentic conversations. There should be a ‘conversation system’ for internal discussions with staff and stakeholders. This can pave the way for leaders to be more authentic, transparent about their motives, and approach situations rationally, than out of fear.

-An Inclusive Mindset - David advises how instead of approaching DEI as a ‘tick-box’ exercise, organisations should establish an inclusive mindset, especially over sensitive topics like ethnicity or race. He challenges leaders to look beyond their small avatar on DEI, broaden their board, and think about how each decision shapes the ‘organisation’s cultural DNA.’ He invites leaders and decision-makers to broaden their lens, listen to the diverse needs of the community, consider topics such as gender, race, or accessibility, and ask the golden question: ‘How can we future-proof our products?’ 

Links:

David can be found on:

- LinkedIn. 

- Instagram

- Youtube

- Spotify

For more information about David, visit his website: https://davidmcqueen.co.uk/ 

Transcript

David McQueen 0:00

One of the things I always push for when I am talking about brave leadership is I say to people, look, I want you to expand your board and I don't want you to do it as a tick box exercise, but I want you to do it and go, look, do we have individuals sitting here in a position of decision-making and power and authority who understand the differences that we have across the board? If we are designing a car, do we have women who are in here who can represent that you cannot design a seatbelt to the size of an average man because you've got to be able to think of women as well? Do we have individuals who may at some point in their life have mobility issues? So we start to think of the way we design our buildings and the way we design our roads and the access to it. So when we start to think about that, we can go, right, not only are we kind of like in the main, in the present thinking about the majority, but knowing that a large proportion of the population could or will be disabled at some point in life, how are we future-proofing that?

Nadia Nagamootoo 0:54

Hi, my name is Nadia Nagamootoo, business psychologist, coach, speaker and founder of Avenir Consulting, which creates organisational growth and success via inclusion and diversity. We've been discussing the benefits that diversity brings to companies' bottom-line performance for decades with more and more evidence, but there are so many questions organisations still have about how to achieve it. How do you create a culture where people feel valued for their unique qualities they bring? I believe it's crucial to the future success and sustainability of every organisation that they find the answer to this question, to make sure that each employee is not only supported but also appreciated. With this podcast, I aim to get some of the key challenges to creating inclusive workplaces out in the open and start uncovering the solutions to embracing a culture that cares for everyone. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most inspiring people in different countries and across industries who are pushing the boundaries on inclusion and diversity in the workplace from topics such as parenting in the workplace, ethnicity, age, gender, mental health and all things inclusion. I want to create a movement to change society through sharing life experiences and creating more empathy and connection. Why care? I believe that once we have organisations and societies that accept and value everyone for who they are, we become healthier, happier and better in our roles both inside and outside work.

Hello and welcome to episode 40 of Why Care? My name is Nadia Nagamootoo and I am your host. And what an ending to season four, certainly going out with a bang with the brilliant David McQueen. David has founded and co-founded a number of businesses including QSquared, Black Founders Hub and Evermore. He's an executive coach, facilitator, board advisor, international speaker and author of The Brave Leader, released in January 2024. He's also an angel investor, mentor, host of the Brave Leader podcast and three times TEDx speaker.

In this episode, he unpacks the acronym BRAVE, bold, resilient, agile, visionary and ethical. David calls out poor leadership behaviour and the qualities that make exceptional leaders. We discuss how to create systemic inclusion in organisations and David emphasises the importance of alignment of organisational values and behaviour. He shares some great stories and anecdotes of inclusion fails and wins, which are both enlightening and, because it's David, incredibly entertaining. I laughed a lot in this episode, as you will discover. Enjoy.

David McQueen. Oh my goodness, David, David, it is such a pleasure to have you on Why Care. I have to say, after having met you a few years ago now, this is pre-pandemic, I'm pretty sure, and had a wonderful conversation with you, I've been a huge fan, stalking you on LinkedIn, watching everything that you do and everything that you say on socials and more and I'm incredibly excited to have you on Why Care.

Thank you for joining me.

David McQueen 04:03

No, I'm really happy to be here. Do you know what? Many years ago, if somebody had said to me that they were stalking me, I'd have a real issue with that, but since I've been on LinkedIn, it's become part of the language now and I'm like, okay, I'll have you. You can be my stalker, I'll be your stalker too. But no, it's a real pleasure, real pleasure to reconnect. I'm really glad to be on the show.

Nadia Nagamootoo 04:20

Now, you have done something incredible in this book that you've written, The Brave Leader, and I want to thank you initially for writing such an amazing book, which I highly recommend to anyone and everyone, whether you consider yourself a leader or not. Can you share with me, and for those who are listening who may not know of you, I'm surprised if that's the case, but there might be some people who may not know of you, just a little bit about your background and also how you came to write the book.

David McQueen 04:50

Very quick background check. So born and raised in London, my parents are from the Caribbean and my dad from Grenada, my mother from Barbados. They came here in the late sixties, always been encouraged by them to be quite ambitious and to be, they know I was very curious and they always encouraged to do that. Before I got to this journey, I, like so many of us who are parents, and I'm not going to call them migrants because if they came here with a British passport, they were expats, right? And we can be expats as well. So my expat parents came here and like so many others, we ended up having to do what I call either the expat or the migrant four in terms of our degrees, right? We had to do law, finance, engineering, or something that didn't mean medicine in hell. They, you know, telling my parents I wanted to be an artist, they say, okay, I'm happy for you, but do one of those degrees. I ended up doing a law degree, hated it, did it for a year, dropped out.

And then I was really curious about finance and I wanted to be an accountant and I didn't want to actually be an accountant. I just wanted to understand money. Did that for a number of years, went into IT, but in both of those careers, what I found and I've always found from quite young is that I'm a people person and I really love finding out how people think, how they tick and what have you. And so I fell into becoming a speaker and a trainer. And so for the last 15 years or so, iterations, that's what I've been doing. And I've always had in my heart that I'd love to write about some of this stuff, but I just didn't fancy because everybody who told me that they had written said it was like another job until I got doing it. And oh my God. And then the lockdown, obviously we had way more time on our hands than we normally thought we did. And I started to write people down some ideas. And my mentor, as I said to you off camera, my mentor said to me, that's just rubbish. Your book is crap. Like just go again, bring it with something more.

And again, as I said, I just wanted to create a book that got people to think about how they make decisions and under pressure and in different circumstances. I think one of the things that really hit me when I first started writing this as well, actually in the second iteration, it was that this book is going to be around longer than I am. So let me make sure that I write sense so that even when I'm gone, it still has some longevity and application to it as well. So that's kind of like the short story to get here.

Nadia Nagamootoo 06:49

Wonderful. And it absolutely makes sense. And it absolutely has longevity and value. What a wonderful story. So in the introduction to your book, what I was fascinated by, because you talk about leadership naturally, because the title of the book is The Brave Leader, but you also talk about followership. Now, as a psychologist myself, I know theories of leadership and I know the leader follower kind of theory. So that language was familiar to me. And you quite rightly stated, it actually made me reflect probably not to everyone. It's probably not a term, followership is probably not a term that everyone reflects on. And we certainly don't think what makes a good follower? What are the characteristics of a follower? So why did you think that it was important to bring that in particular to the conversation?

David McQueen 07:37

I thought it was important because very often when we talk about leadership and followers or as the point I use followership, followers always tend to be put as this kind of really passive group that will just listen to this hero, charismatic person who's going to take them to the promised land and everything's going to be brilliant. And I wanted to emphasize that the impact of those who are following the vision and the direction of somebody who's leading and whatever it is, is just as important. It's just as a way of being able to buy in.

And we have all these hero stories in business and in politics and sports and what have you. And I just felt it was quite stifling. I don't know if I do it in the book or not. You'll have to forgive me because I've only read it three once. One of the exams I always talk about when I speak, can you imagine, right? I just don't want to touch it myself. I don't want to read it too much and I don't want to look at any of the reviews online, but we'll come back to that. But one of the examples I always give or the least obvious examples I give around leadership is I think of a fire warden. And if there's a fire in the building, it doesn't matter what your title is in an organization. When that fire warden puts on their jacket and says, everybody, I need you to leave the building, needs to stop whatever you're doing and excavate the building now because the building's on fire or we've got a practice. The truth is, is in that moment, that person's the leader, the whistle, the visor, the clipboard and the direction to go and stand outside is all important. And we will all go, right, I'm going to listen to that fire warden because they've been trained as to how I need to leave this space. And yes, it might be inconvenient, but I'm going to follow them and I'm going to buy into them. And that really made me think about what really good leadership looks like. Okay, there are going to be some stubborn ones who are going to want to stay and not go outside. But really good leadership for me is going like, I trust this person in this moment, contextually, that they're going to take me in the right direction. But I have to be able to be as I have to comply and show that trust and show that belief in their leadership as well. So for me, that's why I believe fellowship is important because it's a symbiosis, right?

It's not just one person with power telling you what to do, but rather, okay, how can we make this really happen? And I don't think enough books talk about that because they just focus on that one great leader or what have you. And I thought, I just wanted to do something different.

Nadia Nagamootoo 09:41

By the way, that is in your book, just so you know. And it's great to hear it brought to life, actually. So BRAVE is an acronym and it stands obviously for five words. So I'm going to let you just offer a high level summary of BRAVE, please.

David McQueen 09:56

So before I get to the acronym, it's actually a verb, right? To be brave means to be courageous. It means to go out on a limb. It means to take a chance. But I like the idea of the acronym because it just got people not to follow it slavishly, but to think about when I am in a position of leadership, am I doing these things? So B, am I being bold? Am I making decisions? Am I taking people on a journey that is bold, that allows me to go, right, you know what, I may make a mistake. I may get it wrong or, you know, on the good side, I may get it really right, but I'm going to make a really bold leap in being able to do this. And for me, leadership is not passive. It is about being bold. It is about being able to have these big visions and taking people on this journey with you. The second one is around resilience. Now we are going through a flux, business-wise, but it's not the first. I'm 54 and I've been through probably three stock market crashes. I've been through a three-day working week. I remember when interest rates on mortgages were 13.5%. And all these things have happened through my lifetime, right? It's just absolute craziness. But the thing that I always recognize in communities, whether they're working, whether they're civic or religious or whatever, is what gets people through this space is resilience. And so, you know, there's a real, I want interdependency on the individuals in that position of leadership to realize that people will be looking to them to guide them as to what can make them resilient. And so you need to be fully aware of this so other people can be resilient with you. It's not just about one person, but how do you lead the way to do that? The third one is agile. The world is always changing. So how can we, you know, recognize that just what was tried and tested and true a few days before may not necessarily be what's available now. I was with my dad yesterday and I was setting up his new laptop and, you know, he wanted to make sure he can get into his browser and use Google. And he said to me, I've heard of this new thing. It's like a AI something or the other. I said, you mean chat GBT Dad? He said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was talking to his brother. He couldn't verbalize it. But then he said, just show me. And then I got him to type in this query. And I just saw his eyes just open up wide. He said, well, like Google just takes you to the site, but this gives you all the information. I said, you've got the best of both worlds. And I remember saying to him, that's agility, being able to recognize that technology is moving in such a way, but how can we adapt? How can we make sure that we are in that space? The fourth one is visionary. And again, it's just around being able to not always do the same thing. How can we do things different? Learning for me is a constant journey. We don't learn and stay static. We are always going to like testing theories, but thinking about how we can do better. And visionary for me is always about taking that learning and taking those experiences and going, how can we do better? How can we do this thing in technology? How can we make sure that people are working better in their environments, whether it be work or living? And I don't think enough people are visionary. I mean, we've got enough money in the world that no one should be poor. No one should be hungry.

We have enough money in the world for that to happen. But for a lack of vision and for lack of commitment, it's not shared out in that way, which leads me to my last pillar, which is E, which is ethical. And I believe that morality is an individual choice, but ethical is when we come together as a group. And it's what we, when we're in a position of leadership, it's harnessing that goodness about doing no harm and thinking about the values and the beliefs and the rituals and the behaviors that we share and making ethical decisions based on that.

Nadia Nagamootoo 13:07

That last E is so important, isn't it? Because actually, when you're talking about that vision, right? We do have enough money for everyone not to be poor or live in poverty and have a happy home and a roof over their head. But without the ethical element, people will hang on to their power. They're going to hold on to what they have and think very selfishly about, well, this is what I have. This is what I've earned. Why should I give? Why should we share this when those people haven't earned what I have? So there's a real knotty complexity, I think, in your model where you do have to show courage. You do have to be bold, stand out sometimes, even when actually there's a risk that what you're standing up for or against isn't going to be positively received. And to be able to hold that vision and move based on what's happening in this unbelievably crazy world that we're living in. And I think what you unpack in the book really helps us as readers to really understand how to use the brave model in various different contexts. Let's go back to the hero leader. I also actually talk about this in my book and how so many leaders want to hold on to this kind of, well, I need to have the answer, right? It's me that's leading them. They're looking to me to take them on a journey. And so it's all on me. And they almost like to hold that kind of chalice. That's their responsibility. And you say, it should be easy for those who follow you to be able to challenge you fairly, bravely, and without fear of retribution. And then you say that this throws a spanner in the works for some leaders. So can you expand a little bit on why do you think that's the case?

David McQueen 15:02

Let me use a term that I know you'd be very familiar with. Ego. Ego, ego, and the pride. Egos are good. We all need an ego in order to be able to get us to a space. I think it's when it's inflated and it becomes very self-important and self-indulgent, that's when the problem starts. And I think of individuals who have sat at the helm of organizations for many years, countries, political parties. And I often ask myself, what is it about you that you can't do something in a specific term and build other people up in order to be able to follow them after you? And whether you look in religious contexts, community contexts, sporting contexts, whatever it is, there's always often a time limit as to when you can do something. And then the best part of that leadership is you learn all this experience and wisdom, and you nurture the next generation. And you learn as much when you're teaching, because you learn so much about yourself, about the mistakes, around how people see it differently. People think that leader is a title rather than a function. And I think that when that happens, you're in real problems. Leadership is a function. It's about taking people on a journey and bringing them on a vision and getting by.

But it also is about nurturing the next generation of leaders to be able to do that, whether it's in that context of that organization or community, or whether it's somewhere else. But so many people, for a number of reasons, be they neglecting childhood, be they being the playground politics that made them want to stand out even more. I'm thinking of certain industrial leaders at this point in time. All these things all pile up, and you see it manifest in adulthood, where they're trying to right that wrong or correct that imbalance that happened in the past, as opposed to going right in the present. What do I do and do really well? And so often, when I speak to leaders across the board, I do challenge them of that.

I say, can your staff come and challenge you? Yes, depending on the hierarchy in an organization, there's a certain power and authority that's implicit in the way that we work. But can somebody come and challenge you really strong and make you sit down there and go, you know, oh, yeah, maybe we could do this differently? And if it's not, are you a leader or are you just a bully? Which always goes down well with leaders.

Nadia Nagamootoo 17:03

Are you a leader or are you a bully? I love that. That's such a point well made. It's not just about carrying the title of leader and then just hoping everyone's going to follow you just because you've got the title. You need to be a leader and really own everything that comes with it. And that actually beautifully kind of comes on to this connection that you make with brave leadership and inclusive leadership, which are one and the same thing, I believe. But I think it was you do very well in the book that kind of hold the reader's hand through how it connects and what an inclusive leadership system is. And you say that in order to create an inclusive leadership system, so organizationally, they need to analyze how leadership works at three different levels, the individual level, the team level and the organizational level. So how do organizations go about doing this?

David McQueen 17:59

I think first and foremost, it's understanding the context, the context within that organization works in. Very often, I love going into organizations when they tell me about their values. And I tend to laugh and smile because I'm like, OK, is this really shit? Is it honestly a value that you have? And I remember going to a client who had once told me about a value, then it changed. And I remember being in the room and saying, values can't be bought. And there was a hush in the room. And I was like, if that's something that you value, there's not a price you can actually put on it because it's something that's very dear to you. It's something that you hold. It's a respect that you have for other people and yourself. And that's the way that you operate with this honesty, integrity, reliability. These are the things that you hold on to. And so what I try to do when I'm having these conversations is to probe. I call myself the compassionate provocateur. So I go in with compassion and I really provoke people to think about what does it look like if you have an employee and that employee leaves for they have a child or they've gone for sickness or they've got somebody in their family sick and they've dedicated work to you and really worked for you.

How do you demonstrate to that individual the value that they've given you and the compassion that they've given you that you can revert it back? And very often there are so many instances where they haven't. And look, let's be honest, the way that the economic system is set up in the world, people are going to get hired and people are going to get fired. My thing is, is are you brave enough to have the compassion when you're doing that? Are you brave enough to be able to make sure that people have some clarity around that? And even some of the clients that I work for at the moment, they're shedding lots of stuff, like really shedding lots of stuff. And it's horrible to see individuals who have, in some instances, been the first of their family to go into these organizations. And depending on where you are regionally, you try to log into your email after 19 years of service and they'll say to you, you're not here anymore. Or you're, as in two cases that I've known of organizations I was working with, where two people were going through chemotherapy and they were fired.

And so for me, the bigger conversation I always go to is like, what do you really value? Because if your value or if what you prioritize is just around making money and making the profit and what have you, I'm not your guy. I can come in there and teach you what strategy, but I'm not your guy. I take a really humanistic approach to what it is that I do. But then I say to individuals, in order for this to work on an organizational level, the teams need to have shared values wherever they are. And then when you break it down from teams, you as an individual, you need to know. So a very, very quick example, if I can give you is one of the things I really emphasize to a number of leaders is how much control do they have over their time and their energy. And, you know, there are people who will work seven days a week, be on call, who can have stuff inserted into their calendar without the pressure. And I'm like, are you a surgeon? Because if you're not a surgeon, it's not that deep and no one needs you that urgently. So what boundaries or stuff? And even if you are a surgeon, you still need rest, right? Even if you are certain, and even if you're doing life critical surgery, you still need to have time to rest and recuperate. The body needs to have time to rest and recuperate. So at that individual level, when you start to understand what people value and if it aligns with the team, and then ultimately if it aligns with the organization, it's that symbiosis. And it's not easy, right? Because we're humans, we're messy. We have so many things going on, but the intent, and that's the thing for me around bravery, it's the intent to go when what I'm doing, I want to make sure that I have boundaries, I have the right intent and understand the context to make sure that I'm operating bravely at an individual level.

So then we can collectively come together bravely at a team level. And then as an organization, like I love Ben and Jerry's, for example, they make ice cream. What I love about them is that they have a really strong social position. And if you go and work in that, well, not everybody has to right, but they're very clear. We are an organization making the best ice cream, but we are social activists and this is where we're going. And you can't go there and pretend that people are woke there, right? This is what they're saying. We are social activists and this is what we're doing. And so if you don't like that, then we're not your company. And I think that's important to be able, for anybody who goes to an organization, to understand where does that alignment come between where the organization's going and how does it align with you as an individual.

Nadia Nagamootoo 21:53

And I think sometimes where organizations become a little bit unstuck here is when they lay their cards out and up on the table and they say, yeah, we are social activists. I'm not saying this is Ben and Jerry's. I'm just giving that as, you know, we're social activists. We strongly believe in X, Y, and Z. And then they put something out in the world, a clear line in the sand where they oppose something or against something, you know, and they get a ton of backlash. And then they panic. And then they're in a position where they have to make a decision. Do they recall this message because it's created so much unwanted attention, turmoil, and bad press, let's put it that way, or do they stand by? And I've seen organizations become quite undone, actually, in those moments. So if you were to offer words of advice using Brave, using your expertise and experience in this area, what would you say to those organizations when they come to that moment of, what do we do?

David McQueen 22:53

I think a big thing is understanding their why. Why do they do what they do and why do they have the kind of people working there in order to be able to pursue that specific goal? And I can give you two quick examples around how this has worked for me. So I remember in 2020, after George Floyd, and my phone wouldn't stop ringing because people wanted me to come in and talk about race and ethnicity. And it was so funny because people would call me and they'd go, like, we want you to come in. And I go, okay, why are you calling me? And they'd be like, what do you mean? I'm like, why are you calling me to come in?

Nadia Nagamootoo 23:23

I love your questions.

David McQueen 23:25

Or what do you mean? I'm like, I'm just curious as to why you're calling me to come in because I'm a leadership expert, not a DEI expert. I'm a leadership expert. Why are you calling me in? And obviously, we were all on Zoom those times. And I could just see people with this awkward silence. And I said to them, I said, listen, if you're having a problem with me as a coach and a consultant to come in and you can't say to me, one of the reasons why we're calling you is not only because you're a leadership expert, but because you're a black guy, you'll be able to understand this. How the heck are you going to go and say this to anybody else? And I said, you can't approach this stuff out of fear.

You have to approach it out of thinking about it rationally. And I remember there were people who kept on calling me because they wanted to put out the black squares and the promise. And I said, my favorite phrase that year was don't write checks with your mouth that your body can't cash. All right, just don't do it. You don't make promises that you can't keep. Don't do it because it will come back to haunt you. No, we're going to do this. We're going to have this amount of black and brown people on the board. And I remember turning around and saying to a lot of friends who got excited about this, I said, I'm going to tell you by September, October, this is going to be done. And this was in July. I said, by September, October, this is going to be done. And they were like, come on, David, this is a moment in time. You're pessimistic. I said, I'm going to tell you now it's going to be done. And some four years later, we're seeing even more of a backlash around politically how they're doing in America. They've went after affirmative action. They've gone after funds that are specifically targeted at people who are underrepresented. Yes. Gone after leaders, specifically women who were leading organizations. And I'm like, I told you this before, because this is how power works. But if you get me to come in, what I will do is I'll sit down on how I have the conversation with you around how you can start to create systems for conversations. And this comes out to the second example that I wanted to give you. Quite recently, well twice, this last year and a couple of years back, a lot of senior leaders wanted me to make commentary around Israel and Palestine. And I said, I'm not going to do it. I said, I have my strong personal beliefs. And I said, because I've been studying this, I'm a student of political history for years. So I know exactly where my stance is on this. I said, but unless you are committed to having staff there who will be affected by it, and unless part of the way that you work is being able to make a stance and being able to make those statements, I said, don't get involved. Do not get involved. I remember one of my clients, they made a statement that was more pro-Palestinian.

And then they had to reel it all back in because a lot of their Jewish clients said, what is this? And then they had to make a pro-Jewish one. And I'm like, or pro-Israeli, well, but pro-Jewish, pro-Israeli, I'm going to use them synonymously here. And I was like, which one is it? And I said, and I had said to you before, what you need to do is have a conversation with your staff, talk to your staff about it. And if you have a conversation with your staff, what's more important? Is it about serving the staff within or making this bold statement for PR purposes that doesn't really mean anything? So for me, it's more about being really determined around why you want to do this stuff in the first place. And then having a conversation with those stakeholders as to if you are going to make a statement, if you are going to do something, what's the point and how is it going to be aligned with what you believe as an organization as a whole?

Nadia Nagamootoo 26:28

What's really interesting here is the use of bold, and the interpretation of bold. Because bold doesn't always mean, and this is what I've just gathered from your examples, making this huge gesture outwardly, externally of the organization to say, this is what we stand for. It might be, but it doesn't have to be. Bold can be having those conversations internally to understand how your organization, the people in your organization are feeling, thinking, and be bold to listen and hear the different stories and perspectives. Is that right?

David McQueen 27:06

A hundred percent. It takes as much boldness to keep quiet as it does to talk.

Nadia Nagamootoo 27:10

Yeah.

David McQueen 27:11

And very often, you know, people want you to respond on the moment to something. And I understand in some organizations, they'll say something because, you know, the share price, the PR, the stakeholders, what have you. But I say, sometimes you just say, look, we just need to sit down and think about this before we respond rather than react. Let's respond and let's take some time. And that does take boldness. But what does it look like to make a rash statement or decision that you're going to have to spend time unraveling when you can spend some time to actually go, actually, let me just sit down and listen to what people have to say. And that'll be fine.

Nadia Nagamootoo 27:43

Yeah. And in a way that connects with the mindset of the leader, are they playing hero? In which case they'll make the, well, I need to own this and this is our stance as an organization. Or are they willing to listen to the followers and bring the follower perspective in? So I think that really connects nicely with what you said earlier. Also connected is a story that you offer in your book, which is an individual who you met at a conference, who I imagine was a bit frustrated in their role because they'd been given a remit to, and I was like, quote, unquote, figure out how to handle gender diversity. Then everything else would fall into place. Okay. What do you think organizations think or approach diversity, inclusion in that way? Why do they take that stance?

David McQueen 28:37

I think it's a quick win. It's a quick win or so they see it. And I also think that a lot of organizations see diversity through the lens of compliance, rather than what does it mean to have a difference of understanding in our cultural DNA. So the gender pay gap, maternity leave, all those things will be prioritized for an organization much more than the difficult conversation around social mobility or race and ethnicity, or even sexual orientation. Those things are really thorny. It's a lot easier to be able to go, okay, let's sort out women's pay than figure out why somebody may have been really upset because you didn't use the right pronouns. And so individuals, what they will do is, in my experience, what they have done is they've gone down the route of gender because it's compliant, but also what they are trying to do as well, especially in the global organizations, they're trying to see what can be rolled out across the board. So for example, in Europe, they won't do race and ethnicity, which is a hangover, but even though in Europe they have issues around race and ethnicity, all right, but they won't do it because they can hide behind the veil of, look, since the World Wars, which started off with this ethnicity, we don't want to do it anymore. But then you go into the data and it's taken Europe, the way that people who are of a Roma or Roma Gypsy ethnic heritage are treated is absolutely terrible. And you cannot tell me that's not some kind of ethnic prejudice, that they won't have that in their constitution at all because you can't collect that data, so to speak. And my thing is, is it's easy to then hide behind it because you haven't looked at it in the wider sense. Now me, I'm like, where are you recruiting from?

Where are you recruiting your talent from? What does it mean like to be in an organization and be respectful of the people who you are targeting, whether in terms of sales or in terms of recruitment or the people who you're working with? So, because then that shows me without having to kind of like go out there and define any protected characteristic, whether it's around disability, orientation, race, any one of those, it's going, how as a human do I make sure that that stakeholder, I treat them as fairly as I can do? And how can I be aware of them? Like I give the example in the book, it's actually scary in 2024, that we still have so many things that are designed without women in mind, so many things. And yet people will talk about gender diversity and it's because it's lazy and it's because it's easy for individuals to get a quick win rather than do the heavy lifting that requires you to think, right, how is this really going to affect somebody?

I had a client a number of years ago, she was, I don't know what the diagnosis was, but basically fit and healthy woman. And then she became wheelchair bound and lost a lot of her ability. And I was asked to go in as executive, she was speaking in a conference. And she said to me, though, between the ages of 16 to 80, something like 60% of the population become disabled in some form or another. And whether that's a loss of mobility, whether it's, you know, and I was like, flipping hell, I didn't even really think about it that way. And then I took a step back and I went, given that that figure is so high, why is it so still so damn difficult for people who have disabilities, whether they're ones that we can see or not to navigate London? Like I have a friend, Suleiman, he's in wheelchair.

Nadia Nagamootoo 31:48

I know Suleiman.

David McQueen 31:48

I'm a good friend. And every now and then we go to concerts and stuff together and, you know, and it's really cool, but I'm so consciously aware that when I'm with him, I'm like, I'm taking this for granted, but he has to think about the ramps and the access and what have you, and most tubes he can't go on. Some buses are a problem. The Elizabeth line is supposed to be the absolute saviour in London. It's terrible.

Nadia Nagamootoo 32:07

Is it?

David McQueen 32:08

Really terrible. Honestly, don't fall into the lure of this being, because a lot of people actually go into the carriage that's specifically designated for people in wheelchairs and they don't make enough space. So to come back to the point you were making, a lot of individuals don't see it as a priority of looking at things holistically in terms of their snake vaults, and they just look at this small avatar, this small space, and they focus on that. And then that's one of the reasons why it's so easy to dismiss any other kind of an area. And as I said, the gentleman I spoke about in the book, you know, he was in a wheelchair.

Nadia Nagamootoo 32:38

And they've asked him to focus on gender.

David McQueen 32:41

And there were two intersections. LGBT plus disability, part those two, and let's just focus on gender. And you're like, and you've hired him as the head of diversity. I was like, nah, something's wrong here. Something's wrong. But again, those individuals who are in positions of power aren't seeing it in the lens that we do. They're seeing it as in compliance, as opposed to how does this shape our whole cultural DNA?

Nadia Nagamootoo 33:04

Yes. I'm really interested. And we wouldn't mind going a little bit more deeper into product development. Because for me, and I've heard you speaking as well. I think you gave a really good example, which is stuck with me, which is a soap dispenser, a product development, which only recognised the colour of white skin when the hand was placed under it, and it would automatically then dispense the soap, compared to darker skin where it just didn't register, because it wasn't designed to register diverse skin types. Caroline Criado Perez has done a brilliant job in her book, as you've just said, around thinking about road safety, driving in cars, and how certain things like a seatbelt just isn't positioned for women. So it's less safe for a woman to drive than it is for a man, not because of anything to do with the driving capability, but simply to do with the safety of the car. And you mentioned a few more in the book, organisations that have benefited some great examples of really thinking about inclusion, diversity within product development. And you mentioned Rihanna's brand Fenty Beauty. You mentioned Dove. You mentioned Apple. You mentioned Bumble. Why is it then that organisations still are making these fatal errors in new products and the design of them?

David McQueen 34:20

Sometimes you look at their board of directors and you realise that many of them have gone to the same schools, same groupthink, in the same MBA, doing the same kind of learning, and there's no one in there going, have you thought about X? Or even if they have done, they don't think it's that important. So, you know, you imagine brown-skinned people form the global majority, and yet you design a soap dispenser and it doesn't cater for individuals who are darker. Or, I'll give you an example the other day. Just again, from a healthcare point of view, I had an injury, the NHS line or whatever it was, and I was asked to describe my symptoms. And they were asking me around where the injury was, whether my skin was blue or not.

And I said, okay, let me just explain to you. I am, well, skinned. Before you ask me any other questions around this thing, I'm going to give you, I said, I'm like, Pantone 440. Think of pecan brown cocoa, right? Just visualize that in your head as best as you can. And when you start to ask me these questions, bear in mind what I said. And the person was, there was a script.

Nadia Nagamootoo 35:19

I couldn't understand. Yes, the agility wasn't there.

David McQueen 35:23

A lot of the medical books that we have in the UK do not take into consideration things like skin tone and our responses to pain for individuals who are from Black and Asian backgrounds. And so, you go into a point of service working with individuals, and individuals who are leaders, who are responsible for both the education and the maintenance of their services, haven't considered their stakeholders. And so, one of the things I always push for when I am talking about brave leadership is I say to people, look, I want you to expand your board. And I don't want you to do it as a tick box exercise. But I want you to do it and go, look, do we have individuals sitting here in a position of decision making and power and authority who understand the differences that we have across the board? If we are designing a car, do we have women who are in here who can represent that you cannot design a seatbelt to the size of an average man because you've got to be able to think of women as well?

Do we have individuals who may, at some point in their life, have mobility issues? So we start to think of the way we design our buildings and the way we design our roads and the access to it. So when we start to think about that, we can go, right, not only are we kind of like in the main, in the present thinking about the majority, but knowing that a large proportion of the population could or will be disabled at some point in life, how are we future-proofing that? I mean, I'm tempted to actually write a book called The Brave Board, but I've just gone over this one.

Nadia Nagamootoo 36:42

Yeah, one step at a time.

David McQueen 36:44

I've just gone over this for a little bit. There is something around the conversations that I have with a lot of these senior leaders going, okay, what does that pipeline look like? For your people who are going to go into the leadership, into your senior executive roles for leadership, what does that actually look like? And even if you don't want to do that because you're kind of afraid that, you know, you're ticking a box, who are you bringing in your non-executive space to be an advisor who can talk about these things for you? And so, yeah, it's a constant campaign to get people to see that through a different lens. But to answer your question, a lot of it is laziness and groupthink.

Nadia Nagamootoo 37:17

Yes. And or the data hasn't never been looked into. They never actually thought about it, to collect different data or to segment the data in different ways to be able to. Given your story, I thought of one personal one when I was pregnant. You go to your GP and they do your BMI basically. And then they look, they looked at my details, you know, my height, weight and all of that and then looked at a chart. And based on that, they were very concerned about, you know, my BMI, my health. It was too low. And of course, as a pregnant person, then they're wanting to put me on special monitoring and all of that.

Firstly, I feel absolutely healthy and fine. This is who I am because I knew I'm this is just me. This is my body type. But they were almost 100% certain that they would look at the chart that they were comparing me against had a norm group of probably white women. And so that's the way I left feeling really frustrated. But yes, there's something about data not being available and some form of laziness and just not thinking.

David McQueen 38:24

Lack of bravery.

Nadia Nagamootoo 38:25

Exactly. What is the difference between acting on impulse and being decisive? Because I loved reading this and it really made me think in your book as you sort of discuss the two. I'm wanting to hear it from you. Just a little bit of a breakdown. How do we distinguish between someone who's just being impulsive and someone who's just being very decisive?

David McQueen 38:47

There's a really interesting discussion that's happening in the leadership space now. And it's around people following their intuition or following their gut. And so many times that thing happens. It's laden with biases right around. Let me follow my gut. One of the things I wanted to make a distinction about here, and it's still a work in progress for me, still something I'm learning is that very often that the impulse control is more around an emotional response to something as opposed to I have three or four decision making models that I can draw down on to look at the data to make sense of it, to understand the context and then think about what tools am I going to use and then what action am I going to take based on that. Whereas for me, the impulsive one is a reaction. It's an emotional response to something more than for me, impulses like I'll go into the shop and I've had an argument with my wife and I see some flowers and I'm like, okay, I'm buying. I hate flowers. I'm buying. I only like them in the ground. I'm going to go and buy her some flowers because it's going to soothe the disagreement that we had. Do I want to buy the flowers? Absolutely no. But the choices I make are a response. If I had my way, I'm going to go and buy some seeds so that I can plant it. One time she's pissed off, go and look in the garden. I’ve But impulse controls, it's more of that reaction. Whereas for me, the decision making tools are thinking about what are the schemas or what are the mental models or what are the things that you're using to think about, right?

I've got a situation in front of me. What do I pull down? Do I pull down on the Eisenhower matrix? Do I pull down on first principles? Do I pull down on any one of those decision maker models that you may have in front of and then go, right, based on this kind of rationale that I have. And even if it's done in a short space of time, because it doesn't have to take long, but even if it's done in a short space of time, you at least reasoned it out. And then you've gone, right, this is the action that I need to take as opposed to, ooh, I'm just reacting. And that's the difference for me.

Nadia Nagamootoo 40:34

And I love that. I love the thought that you've put in because it really made me stop and think, because sometimes we look at these amazing leaders who we, well, who we deem amazing, because they're constantly just kind of making decisions and they seem to be very assertive and clear minded and very sort of, they're easier to follow in many ways. Those leaders who can just make a decision because there's something compelling about them, the confidence that they have. And yet, when it comes to being a brave leader, I think there's something about challenging their natural default style. And you offer some really great models in the book, I do have to say, that makes it easy. If a leader is inclined to make the bold decision to stop and analyze a little bit longer and think, you make it easy for them with the models that you offer. We're rapidly coming to the end of our conversation, which I'm gussied about, because I have more questions for you, but it's okay. We can have another call after your second book.

David McQueen 41:28

We can have another call, we can.

Nadia Nagamootoo 41:31

So I'm asking all of my guests in season four, based on my book, my upcoming book, as you know, is out in March, it's called Beyond Discomfort. And so I'm curious, what has been the most uncomfortable thing that you've had to manage in yourself as an inclusive leader to date?

David McQueen 41:54

Do you know, it's a constant thing. There's a constant discomfort in that you realize the more you know, the more you don't know. So true. And there can be a certain sense of certainty. Like I was talking to somebody today about some of the rules that I believe have been quite critical to my success. And at this point in time, there were three, there are three things. So my visionary, I love to have the vision about what I want to do. I'm paranoid because I, you know, I've lost the house and lost the business. And I never want to be in that position ever again.

But I've got this blinding focus of what it is I want to do and the impact that I want to make in the world. I like to write, put my content out. All those things have kind of like contributed to what it is. But then again, some of that taps into a confirmation bias, right? It's like people who say, you know, if you work hard, you'll never be poor. And you're like, come on, man, there's so many other integral circumstances that allowed you to be in that space or chance or luck or your postcode or wherever you are. You know, there are people who live in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the world and they work twice as hard as anybody else. You're going to tell me it's just hard work. But a lot of it is my position around inclusion is just around thinking about the impact of the work that I do and the stakeholders who are brought into it. That's what it is. And for me, it's that decision making that really then all those other kind of characteristics that come afterwards, they have to come after the kind of thinking and the process that I use. Well, let me give you a very quick example.

In 2021, working for a bank and this conversation was still going on around race and my name had been put forward because this bank had had some global outreach. There was one office in Hong Kong or one office in India where they wanted me to just talk about having these brave conversations about race and ethnicity. The Hong Kong office were all over it. They were like, yep, let me come in. I want to have the conversation. It'll be, yeah, this would be brilliant. It'd be really good to have it. I dug a little bit beneath the surface and I found out that what it was is predominantly white men were in positions of leadership. So a lot of the Chinese Hong community in Hong Kong were like, yeah, let's come and have this conversation because why aren't we in those positions? That's the kind of find out. And then I went to go to have a conversation around doing something similar in India. And the majority of the officers there pushed really pushed back really hard. And I was like, why are they pushing back so hard? And there were all these biases in my head. Like they don't want me to come in because I'm English or because I'm black and I don't understand the process and all that. And all these things started coming through my head. And I remember sitting down and having a conversation with a friend and they said, have you ever thought that you just don't understand the scenario enough? And I went, you're absolutely right.

Who am I basically go into a space, even as a coach, who has an experience to really start challenging conversations in Hong Kong, in India, in Australia, what have you, I do that, but I need the buying of individuals to have a sense that they know that I know what's going on on the ground. And just because you can shift the culture in the workplace doesn't mean you understand what it looks like outside of it. And that was so humbling for me because I was like, I'm not going to lie to you. I was like, who the hell do they know who I am? I'm Dave McQueen, I'm a coach, like are you mad? I'm international speaker. I'm about to go, I'm writing a book and you actually don't understand. And so there's a big part of the journey where I realized there are things that I don't understand and I'm so okay with the fact that going, right, this is not for me. And so, yeah, I'm constantly learning and I think there's so much, it's so complex.

You know, when you look at these, there's so many complex things and I just go, right, what do I know now that's going to help me? And then what are the things that I can start to search and learn? So, yeah, it's constant. It's never ending and I don't beat myself up about it, but I'm consciously aware that to be present is to be very aware, not only of what you're really good at, but the things that you should leave alone.

Nadia Nagamootoo 45:34

I love that. And you're very, very, makes absolute sense. And you've nicely articulated what it means to lead beyond discomfort. So it's a wonderful, wonderful way to finish an amazing conversation with you, David. If people want to get hold of you, I know you're incredibly active on socials, but where's the best place? Is it LinkedIn? Is it Insta? Or is it another platform?

David McQueen 45:57

I always do this just to test people. I'm going to test your listeners. If you type in David McQueen, it should come in the top three results. That's my thing. I'm hoping all the work I've been doing on SEO better work. But yeah, if you go to davidmcqueen.co.uk or mrdavidmcqueen on LinkedIn or Instagram, then you should be able to find me on either one of those. And I share my little gems.

Nadia Nagamootoo 46:15

Oh, you really do. There's some great photos as well that you share of you. I just love it. It's so compelling. I genuinely appreciate your posts. Everything that David and I spoke about today is going to be on the usual page on the avidaconsultingservices.com website under podcasts. David, David, a pleasure. Thank you for joining me. It's been a wonderful, wonderful hour spending time with you and hearing your insights from your book. Thank you for writing it. Thank you for joining me.

David McQueen 46:50

Thank you. We'll have the conversation again, because we're going to talk about discomfort when I come back. All right. That's what we're going to do.

Nadia Nagamootoo 46:56

Let's do that.

David McQueen 46:57

I'll flip it. I'll pretend like you're interviewing me and then I'll flip it back over. I'll pull out my...

Nadia Nagamootoo 47:03

Maybe I could join you on yours.

David McQueen 47:04

Actually, to be fair, yes, that's what I was going to say. But we will have the conversation again. I'm not a believer that you just have to do one podcast with the person. I think we've got more than an hour's worth of content that we're going to talk about. So a real pleasure. And really thank you for the feedback on the book as well. And so really appreciate you. Thank you.

Nadia Nagamootoo 47:19

That concludes Episode 40 of Why Care? What a way to end the season. David calls himself a compassionate provocateur, and that is evident from this conversation. He says it how he sees it, and this no doubt represents all aspects of his brave framework. I highly recommend his book for any leader wanting to meet the demands of today's complex and changing business landscape. Please do let David and I know what you thought of today's show.

You can find me on LinkedIn and Insta with the handle at Nadia Nagamootoo. If you're a fan of Why Care? Then you've probably picked up by now that I have written a book. It's called Beyond Discomfort, Why Inclusive Leadership is So Hard and What You Can Do About It. And it's out on the 26th of March, 2024. You can pre-order your copy on Amazon.

As always, I really appreciate your support of this podcast through leaving a review on whatever platform you're listening and spreading the word by sharing it with your friends and family. Huge thanks to Mauro at Kenji Productions for editing this podcast and Jenny Lynton for supporting with the show notes and getting it out there on social media.