Unlocking Leadership Potential with Stephen Howard Top Leadership Tips for 2024-25

Martin Rowinski (00:01.39)
Join us for another insightful episode of Leadership Talks. I’m your host, Martin Rowinski CEO of Boardsi and this week we are thrilled to welcome Stephen Howard, a globally recognized leadership mentor, coach, and keynote speaker. Stephen is the creator of Humany Leadership and has been named one of the top 200 biggest voices in leadership for 2023.

With over 30 years of experience, Stephen has trained, mentored, and coached over 10 ,000 leaders worldwide. He is also an award -winning author of 22 books, challenging audiences and readers to think and act in new directions to achieve sustained results. Tune in as we delve into Steve’s unique approach to leadership, development, and his passion for turning good managers into great

leaders. Welcome Stephen.

Steven Howard (01:01.671)
Well, thank you, Martin. Thank you for that wonderful introduction.

Martin Rowinski (01:04.82)
Absolutely. You deserve it. So I’d love to just jump right into it. And that means into your book, Humanity Leadership Mindsets, Skills and Behaviors of Being a Successful People Centric Leader. Can you discuss one of the key points which is embracing a people centric mindset? I’d love to learn a little bit more about that.

Steven Howard (01:30.209)
Great, Martin. Well, the focus of book, if I had to sum the book up in a sentence or two, I would say leaders need to change their mindsets and that as leaders, we manage processes, policies, procedures, projects, things, but we lead humans and we lead human beings. And so,

Leaders have to have two hats on or sometimes three, you have to make that chain, that switch between when are you gonna be a manager and when are you gonna be a leader. And if you’re gonna be a leader, you need to focus on people, talent development, motivation, inspiration. And when you’re a manager, that’s when you’re focusing on the results, getting things done, having the status meetings and things of that nature. that in a nutshell is what my view on people -centered leadership is all about.

Martin Rowinski (02:24.354)
Got it. And I know the book emphasizes on the importance of developing key leadership skills, such as active listening, effective communication, and emotional intelligence. And these skills enable leaders to connect with their team members on a deeper level, understand their needs and motivations and provide the support and guidance necessary for their growth and development. Can you explain that a little bit more? I’ve written quite a few articles on it, so I’ve done

my own studies of it, I have not written 22 books, so I’d love to hear it from you.

Steven Howard (03:01.162)
Well, when I coach leaders, sometimes they’ll tell me, hey, I want to learn to be a better communicator. And I tell them, what do mean by that? It’s like, well, I want to be able to rally the truth. I want to give inspirational messages and good speeches. And I said, well, stop, stop talking because the two skills of communicating are listening and asking questions.

So if you wanna be a good leader, a good communicator, you’ve gotta ask good questions and great follow -up questions, which tells the person that you’re listening to them to begin with, and then show active listening, and then focus on your ability to communicate outwards. So that to me is what a good leader, good communicator’s all about. I’m not talking about the great orators of the world, the Martin Luther Kings and the Margaret Thatchers and Nelson Mandela’s and you know.

Obamas of the world, and Ronald Reagan, they’re great communicators, but they’re not communicating as the kind of leader that we need in an organization.

Martin Rowinski (04:04.728)
So you stand behind the fact that there’s a reason we have two years in one mouth.

Steven Howard (04:09.401)
I’ve used that phrase many, times.

Martin Rowinski (04:11.982)
So have I. Obviously. That’s funny. Can you share some of the key mythologies you use to transform good managers into exceptional leaders? What are the most critical steps in that transformation process?

Steven Howard (04:29.629)
One is what you just brought up, Martin, is the communication skills aspect. Probably the second and maybe most important one is about feedback. Most managers give terrible feedback because they never been taught. They do it the way people give them feedback. And we have this concept about positive and negative feedback. And so I tell people, drop the words positive and negative from your vocabulary, because if your intention…

of giving feedback is to help an individual perform better, to improve their skills, to improve their output, improve their attitude, whatever it is, then there’s nothing negative about it. And when we think of it as negative feedback, almost everyone hesitates. I’ll wait till tomorrow. Let’s see if they do better today. Or we wait till we get angry, which is the worst time to give any kind of feedback. So I focus on, I call it reinforcing feedback, which is telling people what they’ve done well.

specifically and the impact of what they’ve done well.

And so they can replicate it or repeat it in the future because that’s what you want. And then on the opposite side, it’s enhancement feedback. How can you enhance the skills that a person currently has? Because that’s what feedback should be about is how are you improving that person? And actually, let me rephrase it. We aren’t really improving them that much. They have to make the decision to improve themselves. We can’t change people. I I can’t change you. I can motivate you. I can inspire you. I could coerce you. could threaten

you, but you at the end of the day, Martin, have to decide to make a change. And that comes from intrinsic motivations, not the extrinsic of me as your boss, me telling you what you need to change or even why you need to change. That’s why the impact of feedback is so important, that they understand the impact of what they’re doing and the potential upside of the impact if they change or the probable downside if they don’t change, which could be

Steven Howard (06:29.09)
being written up or put on performance improvement plan. As long as they understand that, then we’ve done their job. It’s up to them to make that decision to change.

Martin Rowinski (06:39.02)
Yeah, definitely. I always say it takes two, right? You can’t make somebody do something, but you can definitely take the steps to help them. But at the end of the day, it’s up to them.

Steven Howard (06:49.567)
It is. And that’s why I tell people, feedback discussions, you should be using the word we, not the word you and words you and I, it’s we. What can we do to fix this situation? What can we do to have better output or to change something? And then, you what do you need? You can use the word you, but it’s more what do you need from from me and support rather than you need to do this? You need to go do this. You need to go this. That’s that feedback doesn’t work. It’s ineffective.

Martin Rowinski (07:15.982)
Yeah, agreed. Given your extensive experience with Fortune 500 companies, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered when leading diverse cross -cultural teams and how have you successfully navigated these challenges?

Steven Howard (07:33.357)
Well, I’ve navigated because I lived in Asia for 21 years and then I lived in Australia for 13 years. I’ve got a great deal of experience and background in dealing with all kinds of cultures. And then plus I just recently spent three years living in Mexico. So overcoming is to show that how we need to communicate with people in different, different cultures, different backgrounds. The challenge, going back to the first part of your question, the challenge very often is people get promoted into positions.

I’ve worked with people, for instance, in Texas in the oil and gas industry. I’ve actually worked with couple of people who have hardly ever left the state of Texas, much less the United States. And one of them, only time they ever left the United States, they went to Cancun on holiday, you know, they went to the beach. So they have no experience, and yet they’re leading people who are in Brazil or Poland or Czechoslovakia or India or Japan, and they get frustrated. In fact, my most recent book,

Martin Rowinski (08:12.206)
You

Steven Howard (08:31.177)
which is not aimed at Americans, it’s aimed at non -Americans. It’s called partnering successfully with American firms. And it tells non -Americans to understand the American business culture because as Americans, for us, time is money.

You know, we want to get in a meeting and start. There’s no chit chat. We better have a 20 minute meeting without learning a single thing about the other person than a 30 minute meeting where we get to know something about the other person, a little bit about their culture, a little bit about their frustrations, a little bit about what makes them happy and still have 20 minutes of business. But those 10 minutes are so precious to us as Americans because we have emails to go to.

Martin Rowinski (09:07.182)
Yeah, busy, busy, busy, right?

Steven Howard (09:11.251)
Absolutely.

Martin Rowinski (09:12.974)
In the context of remote management, how does mindful leadership play a role in making better decisions and turning conflict into collaboration? And can you provide an example or a case study where this approach has been particularly effective?

Steven Howard (09:29.805)
Yeah, and it came up with the pandemic. think one of the things a lot of people learn in the pandemic is a little bit of mindfulness, a little bit of empathy for other people. I was one of people I was coaching. We had an early morning, nine o ‘clock or 930 session, and he was very frustrated when he got on the phone. I said, what’s happening? What’s going on? He says, I can’t get a hold of so -and -so, their internet’s down. I said, okay.

How are going to deal with that? can you understand that? And then in the middle of our conversation, his internet went down at his house. And I swear I didn’t pull the plug. didn’t have that much clout.

Martin Rowinski (10:02.232)
Ha ha ha!

Martin Rowinski (10:06.915)
Yeah

Steven Howard (10:08.553)
I talked to him later that day, he called back when he finally got online and said, hey, I apologize, my internet went out. I said, well, now you can empathize with your employees. You now you can, you literally in their shoes, you understand what they were going through, you know, two spouses or partners in a house, both working from home during the pandemic, know, kids are home, they’re doing school, you know, people don’t have 5G internet, you know, they don’t have, you know, big, big pipes going into their house. so they had to understand, leaders had to understand

understand that, then when you’re remote people, the people are remotely from you.

You need to take a lot of things in consideration. mean, yeah, you might have a phone call somebody, maybe it’s only seven o ‘clock in the evening. It’s not an outrageous time, know, across time zones. You need to talk with somebody. But then you also have to understand what’s happening in their life at seven o ‘clock. Is it bedtime for the kids? It’s a story for the kids. Is it the family dinner? Does that person usually work out of the gym at that time? So I have to understand what is their routine and how can we manage and lead without upsetting that routine.

too much or too often or at least be cognizant of it if we are doing so. And so those are the kinds of things that being mindful and adding emotional intelligence to the equation, just understanding what other people are experiencing makes a much better leader today. So that again goes back to the very first question you asked, that’s being people -centric. That’s not focusing on the results, that’s focusing on the person that you are interacting with.

Martin Rowinski (11:44.462)
So I’m curious just to take it a little bit a step back. I’m curious about Steven and what was Steven like young days growing up that led you to writing book number one and obviously now you’re on 22 books unless I’m off on my count. But what led in your, guess, bringing up to being who you are today? I’m just curious.

Steven Howard (12:12.557)
Well, I grew up in Las Vegas, which I understand is where you’re currently based. by growing up, I mean, I moved to Las Vegas when I was like in third grade and went right to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for my bachelor’s degree. right, right until I was 20 years old when I graduated from college. literally grew up in Las Vegas. My father was a short story writer and a fiction, a novelist writer. So we had a big library. had a den with lots and lots of books. I was always surrounded by books.

Martin Rowinski (12:16.942)
Yes.

Steven Howard (12:42.463)
And dad was spending a lot of time writing and I admired his writing. Now, a little sidebar for you here, Martin. Dad wrote 20 books. And when I got up to like 15 or 16, I saw that number 20 in my radar and I I’m gonna surpass him. So that’s reason 22 is out there now, in all honesty.

Martin Rowinski (12:59.0)
Yeah.

Martin Rowinski (13:04.696)
Congratulations.

Steven Howard (13:06.037)
Yeah, but I can’t write fiction. I mean, I have no idea about characterization and plotting and dialog and all that. I only write nonfiction books. So, so, so yeah, that’s what that motivated me. And then when the first book I was living in Singapore, a publisher from the UK approached me was visiting Singapore, he got a friend of mine had recommended me. I had just

gone into my own business, so I had some time on my hands. I was out of the corporate world and was giving some speeches on a topic about corporate branding.

And so she recommended he talked to me, we had lunch and I said, yeah, I could write a book about corporate branding. and, and so it got published by Butterworth Heinem in out of the UK and went through three print runs. And it’s nice to know it’s in the Library of Congress and it’s, it’s in many universities still there. There’s a website where you can look up your book to see what universities have it. it’s like UCLA library has it, USC library has it, UNLV doesn’t, I need to do something about that someday, but, but.

Martin Rowinski (14:01.774)
You’re an alumni. Hello.

Steven Howard (14:05.266)
I know, I really should just send a copy. You’ve prompted me to do that. I’ll do that next month.

Martin Rowinski (14:11.758)
There you go. Awesome. So you went on to writing books, leadership books. What working with the different, I mean, you worked with Fortune 500, you worked with over 10 ,000 executives, leaders from working in Fortune 500. I’m going to guess you’ve worked with entrepreneurs as well. Who are the best, easiest to work with and who are the toughest?

Steven Howard (14:40.107)
The toughest are the C -suite because I think they know everything and they think that they can’t learn anything.

a quick story for you. There was a guy in the oil and gas industry who had a bad reputation. He was always yelling at his people. He’s one of these really hardcore type bosses, the bully bosses, some people call him. This is before the pandemic. And I sat down with him on our second meeting and I just had seen him yell at somebody and throw something at them, some papers, threw them on the floor and discuss. We sat down and said, why do you do that?

And he says, well, that’s who I am. They have to understand that’s who I am. get angry and if they can’t handle it, you know, it’s my way or the highway. I said, is that really how you are? And he says, yeah, yep. said, do you do that when you go to your child’s school for a parent teacher conference? Do you shout at the teacher if you’re not happy with what he or she says? of course not. I knew he was a church going man. I said, when you go to church, do you, somebody upset you in the church or the pastor, the preacher, whatever, you, do you scream and yell at them?

Of course not. So it’s not who you are, it’s who you are in this office.

And I give him credit. I I worked with him for the next eight months just on this issue, but he made the change. And eight months later, he had really done almost a 180 change. He would still get angry, but he wouldn’t express his anger in that manner. Well, we all have right to get angry. mean, somebody does something silly, can get upset about it. But you don’t throw a coffee cup across the room. You say to the person, what you did upsets me or what you did was wrong, and we need to talk about it.

Steven Howard (16:16.671)
So, yeah, so they’re the ones that are hardest to The best ones are the dry sponges. And this is where I really love to work with, are the first time managers, the first time supervisors, the first time team leader, because the problem in American business is they get thrown in the dump in. Hi, Martin, it’s Thursday. On Monday, I’m going to make an announcement and you are now in charge of the department and you’re going to do a really good job. But if you ever have any questions, give me a call. But I know you’ll do a good job.

walk away and that’s it. You’re throwing the deep end. You don’t get any training, you don’t get any mentoring, you don’t get any coaches unless you bring somebody like me in. And so they love it because everyone makes the same mistakes. I have a document about the 12 common mistakes people make when they transition from an individual contributor to their first manager, supervisor, job, whatever the title happens to be. An interesting

Martin Rowinski (16:48.909)
haha

Steven Howard (17:13.837)
Even experienced managers make these same mistakes when they move from one company to another. So because it’s a new environment and they but they go in there and think they have to prove themselves. And you know that this is that they make the same 12 mistakes when they move from one company to another. So it’s not just because they’re new managers, but they’re in a new environment.

Martin Rowinski (17:34.978)
Got it. Yeah, the green people, sponges, are definitely the easiest to work with. I found that over many years.

Steven Howard (17:44.205)
Yeah, and they’re the most appreciative and they’re the ones actually put things in action. mean, you know, the and the nice thing is, you know, the you know, I’ve got a guy I’m coaching now when I first started coaching him. He’s actually been promoted, but he runs the department. He has like a 15, 15 people directly and another seven people indirectly. So.

Martin Rowinski (17:45.442)
Yeah.

Steven Howard (18:06.401)
Whereas other people, maybe only have one or two people reporting to them. So these younger people, these more junior people, you have a great, better impact on the organization. Because they’re really the ones who are implementing things.

Martin Rowinski (18:18.722)
Yeah, absolutely. Now you talked about your book, Corporate Branding. How would you differentiate corporate branding down to executive or personal branding?

Steven Howard (18:33.535)
Ooh, that’s wonderful question. There are some similarities, there’s some overlaps. Corporate branding to me is not about the logo, it’s not about the slogan or the tagline that people have. It’s not about the Nike Swoosh or the Just Do It campaign. It’s about the environment and understanding that the people who interact with your customers are the face of the organization.

But also leaders have to understand you can have a corporate culture like I worked at Citibank We had a great corporate culture back then But you also have a climate My climate is the VP of marketing was very different than the person who was VP of finance for instance the VP of HR the VP of technology they we all

went by the Citibank Corporate Culture, which at that time was really customer first. were very, this was in Singapore. We were a very customer centric organization. But my marketing climate was very different than many other parts of organization. And that was because I’m different as a human being from the head of IT or the head of human resources, the head of finance. So we have to understand that we have a greater impact by the climate that we create.

pulling all that together, it accumulates into the corporate culture, which is the corporate image of the organization. the marketing impacts customers, whereas corporate image, the corporate culture will impact your recruiting process. My philosophy was if it touches the customer, it’s a marketing issue. making sure that your invoices are accurate is part of your corporate culture. may not be part of your marketing department, but it’s certainly part of your corporate culture because it’s impacting your customers.

I hope that makes sense.

Martin Rowinski (20:20.888)
No, that does. That does. And obviously executive branding, you’re focused on, you know, establishing authority. Yeah.

Steven Howard (20:26.871)
Focus on yourself. Yeah. And credibility and authenticity. And one of the worst phrases we’ve ever had in the corporate world is this concept of fake it till you make it. Because people can tell it when you’re faking it and you lose credibility and you lose trust. And so part of that, goes back to the human book. I tell people in that book and people I coach, don’t walk into an organization or into a team and tell people, this is how you earn my trust.

No, flip that 180 degrees, walk in the organization and say, I trust you. Now here’s how you can lose my trust. You lie, you hide something, you sweep something under the rug, you don’t share data with your colleagues, you backstab people, you talk bad about other individuals. Then you can lose my trust. But you have to walk in and build your relationships on the foundation of trust. And too many people don’t do that. They still walk in and say, all right, I’m in charge now and here’s what you need to do to earn my trust.

who the heck wants to work for somebody like that. And that’s why one of the factors that led to the great resignation and the quiet quitting trends because people saying, you know what, life’s too short. I don’t wanna work for that person. Let’s just stick it out here because I’ll get a paycheck. I have a couple of people I like, but soon as something better comes along, then I’m out the door.

Martin Rowinski (21:47.406)
So obviously you’re still doing coaching these days. Are you working on book number 23?

Steven Howard (21:54.461)
23 and 24 simultaneously because I’m creating a new series. I’m creating a series for those that younger generation that the and these will be smaller books. These are going to be 80, 90 pages. So one’s going to be on effective feedback. Basically some of the things we just talked about and effective delegation. And it’s going to be a series. It’s called the Art of Great Leadership series. And I’ve got 15 titles in mind and I’ll publish two.

here in the next couple of months, maybe less, because they’re almost finished. And then I plan on publishing two to four every year for next several years. So it’ll be a series called The Art of Great Leadership. And then I am working on another book, which is going to be Outside the Business Realm, and that will come out in October. I’ve just actually just finished it. Still some editing to do, but pretty much it’s 90 % finished. And that will come out in mid -October.

Martin Rowinski (22:50.058)
Also, definitely your mission to outdo your dad. You’re definitely surpassing that number.

Steven Howard (22:55.189)
Yeah, I want to make sure he doesn’t have any that he can publish posthumously.

Martin Rowinski (23:02.264)
That’s awesome. Well, congratulations on everything. And before I wrap this up, is there anything else you’d like to drop to the audience and let them know anything about leadership or where they can find you? Any of that information?

Steven Howard (23:17.325)
Sure, and particularly now for your C -suite executives and your entrepreneurs, go to YouTube. Look up Stephen Howard on leadership. I put a lot of free content there. And one of the most important ones I did was a series about brain health. My father passed away from Alzheimer’s, early Alzheimer’s disease.

Martin Rowinski (23:37.358)
I’m sorry.

Steven Howard (23:37.965)
So I did a lot of research in that area and the importance of brain health and taking care of our brains at any age, whatever it is, but understanding also that as leaders of organizations, we’re putting people under tremendous stress and tremendous anxiety. And we are going to have a societal issue 10 to 15 years from now, because the stress that people are having now in 2024 is going to contribute to their risk of Alzheimer’s in 20.

39, 15 years from now, 2040, 2050. So as human beings, as leaders, take that into consideration. So I’ve got a series of, I think it’s eight videos, they’re all five to eight minutes in length on brain health and what you can do to start building and then maintaining your brain health. So yeah, otherwise you can find me on LinkedIn. There’s several Stephen Howard, but I think I’m the only one that is in Phoenix. So Stephen Howard in Phoenix, Arizona, reach me there or…

Drop me an email, steven at humaneleadership .com. That’s Steven with a V, N and N. Humany, H -U -O -N -Y, leadership .com. And Humany Martin is a word I created, combining human, humanity, and harmony. And talking about the need for leaders to create workplaces of wellbeing and harmony, which will help get the results that they’re looking for. So thanks for that opportunity.

Martin Rowinski (25:02.018)
That’s awesome, human -y, love it. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Leadership Talks. It has been an absolute pleasure to have Stephen Howard with us today, sharing his invaluable insights on transforming good managers into exceptional leaders, navigating the complexities of cross -culture leadership and the importance of mindful leadership in today’s remote work environment. Stephen’s wealth of experience and passion for people -centric leadership.

truly shines through. And we hope you found this discussion as enlightening and inspiring as we did, definitely as I did. And thank you again, Stephen, for being with us today. And for our listeners, stay tuned for more episodes of Leadership Talks, where we continue to bring you conversations with some of the most influential voices in leadership. Until next time, keep leading with purpose and passion. Thank you, Stephen.

Steven Howard (25:59.361)
Thank you, Martin. Great discussion.

Martin Rowinski (26:01.528)
Awesome.