The Privilege of Leadership: Why Genuine Care is Your Best Strategy with Ben Morton

Ben Morton: Leaders don’t need to have all of the answers. The moment I really got comfortable as a leader and started to have more impact was the moment I realized it’s not my job to have all of the answers. 

Ben Baldwin: Hello and welcome to Berko and Beyond, the weekly local business podcast, celebrating the people who live, work, and do business in Berkhamsted and the surrounding area.

I’m your host Ben Baldwin, and I run Chuffed Productions, a B2B video production company that’s been based here in Berko for the last six years or more. Now Berkhamsted and the surrounding towns of villages are full of brilliant people doing brilliant things, and this podcast was created to tell their stories.

The goal is for it to become a part of our fantastic local business community, supporting sole traders and local businesses of all sizes. Now, as part of building that community, I actually have to ask you for a big favor straight off the bat. Podcasts like this only thrive when you like, follow and share them. So please follow Berko and Beyond wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts. And if you’re watching right now on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. It makes a massive difference to the show’s reach. And sharing is of course, caring, so please do tell your friends, colleagues, and clients alike.

And if you’d like to be a guest on the show, then drop us an email. The address is podcast@berkoandbeyond.com.

Ben Morton, welcome to the Berko and Beyond podcast. It’s great to have you here. We’re mates, which we should say to start with, which is why I’ve been giggling for the last five minutes. And this is our second attempt at recording the podcast. 

Ben Morton: Yeah. Yes it is. Yes we are. 

Ben Baldwin: Cool. Because the first time around you didn’t agree that we were mates, so that’s nice.

Glad we got that rehearsal out the way. You are indeed a local business person. Some may say personality, recognized on the High Street. Ben Morton, leadership is your business. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how Ben Morton Leadership came about. 

Ben Morton: Cool. Thanks for having me, Ben Baldwin.

I guess if I give you the shortened version, which I often talk about now, this is my third career. So, first one straight from school was 10 years in the military. Then left the Army back in 2006, I think. Went into sort of the corporate world. Did a few different jobs in ops and HR roles, but all of those roles were always around really developing people, building teams, getting the best from people.

And my last role in that second career in the corporate world was working in the leadership academy at Tesco, and I was only there for about 18 months, and the thing that prompted me to then leave and set up my own business was, and I’ll caveat this by saying, at the time at Tesco, I very much saw that people were being taught to ‘do’ leadership. And what I mean by that, it was, here’s a four step model for influencing people. Here’s a five step model for doing this. And that sat really uneasily with me because a lot of it was starting to feel a little bit inauthentic.

Whereas for me, in the work that I do now, it’s, let’s start by getting really clear on what does it mean to be a leader? How do you show up, understand, I guess to a degree, your values and then you can pick the tools and frameworks that are authentic and congruent with who you are. So it got to the point where I thought, do you know what, corporate world isn’t for me, this doesn’t sit well. So I took the leap and started working for myself, albeit for the first four years or so, like it was a partner in another consultancy, and it’s probably about seven or eight years ago, I suddenly realized I was more business minded. I don’t particularly like using the word, but entrepreneurial maybe, than I thought I was so completely separated. It’s just kind of me doing sort of the training and coaching now, which is mostly what I do. Training, coaching, bit of speaking at sort of big events with a small support team.

So it’s leadership management training, that’s me. That’s what I do, and it’s the thread that goes through my entire life really. 

Ben Baldwin: What is it about the word entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurial? I’m the same, but I can’t always put my finger on it. I’m weirdly putting this podcast together, you’ll know because you’ve done your own podcast as well, so I’ll have some advice on that in a bit please, is putting keywords and stuff into YouTube and everywhere else and it keeps throwing out entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial,

I don’t want to, for some people.

Yeah, why don’t you like it in that sense? 

Ben Morton: I don’t know, I’m not sure either. I think it just feels a little too cliche, of the moment, the word that everyone seems to jump on board with and everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. But I don’t know, it just sticks in my throat a little bit.

Ben Baldwin: Yeah for me, I think it’s lost itself. It’s lost its original sense of the word. So entrepreneurs of a kind of old school, Richard Branson, maybe, take as an example who’s all sorts of different things, but it now seems if you’ve got an idea, you’re gonna call yourself an entrepreneur and 

Ben Morton: Yeah.

Ben Baldwin: Perhaps there’s loads of people turning the podcast off now because they’re, because yeah. Should we move on? Maybe not. But actually it leads nicely into, there’s different people, different definitions of entrepreneurship, but also there’s some very different styles and different interpretations of leadership as well.

Ben Morton: Yeah. 

Ben Baldwin: So what’s the kind of leadership that, that interests you and that your teachings are I guess, 

Ben Morton: So that’s a really interesting question. And this could be a whole two hour podcast, right? For me, there’s a real difference between leadership and running a business for example. I think there’s, I’m not anti them at all, but if you look at an MBA, which is the qualification that lots of people strive for.

Ben Baldwin: Yeah. 

Ben Morton: The title says it all right. It’s a Master’s in Business Administration. It teaches you to effectively administer and run a business, which isn’t necessarily the same as leadership. For me, leadership is about delivering some sort of objective or outcome, and it’s very much about looking after the people you’ve got the privilege and responsibility to lead. It’s combining those two. And I might be wrong because I’ve never done an MBA, but there’s not that much leadership involved in an MBA. A lot of it is sales, marketing, product development. So I’m very much focused on the leadership piece, which is, yes, it’s setting direction and vision, which is really getting the best out of people so they can deliver the results either you want in your business or that you’re accountable for. And I see, I think over the last 20, 30 years. There’s been a lot of very good business administrators, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re great leaders. 

Ben Baldwin: So do we need a, for two things there. Do we need a checklist for things that we’re going to be saying we don’t like in this episode?

Ben Morton: I could be coming across really badly and just talking about all the things that are wrong. 

Ben Baldwin: It’s episode four of a podcast we’re trying to grow, so perhaps we should be a bit more positive about some of these things. But actually, what I’ve always, being positive, what I’ve always been, always noticed and being impressed with the way that you talk about leadership, is that whole piece about it being a privilege to lead people. Because I think a lot of people out there, particularly small business owners, and this podcast isn’t just aimed at small business owners, it’s business owners and leaders in general, and entrepreneurs, but as a small business owner, you might be an accidental leader. 

Ben Morton: Yeah. 

Ben Baldwin: So how do you get around that? I’m an accidental leader and there are people in the room who I lead who will probably be able to tell you a better job, better about how I do that job. Yeah. But that again, that’s a whole other podcast episode.

Yeah. Maybe we should do that, Fred. Yeah. So what about those accidental leaders? 

Ben Morton: Can one swear on the Berko and Beyond podcast?

Ben Baldwin: We’ll probably bleep it out because there’s a little as you will know on these podcasts, you have to put a little mark, say, if it’s expletive I’d rather not, give us an idea.

Ben Morton: It’s only a little one so you can bleep it out. Like for those accidental leaders or small business owners, one of the things is to give a s * * * , If you put the bleep in. So I’ll touch on this later, and you’ve just kindly mentioned it’s one of the things that stands out about me for you, but the reason I have always said privilege and responsibility to lead, and this goes back for me, to my time in the military, right?

But every single person we lead and manage or who works for us in our small business is the most important person in someone else’s life, right? Everyone we lead is someone’s mum, dad, husband, wife, partner, son, daughter. If none of those apply, like everyone’s got a best friend. So everyone we lead is the most important person in someone else’s life, and therefore, what we do as leaders, managers, business owners, business administrators, it doesn’t just affect the people that work for us nine to five, Monday to Friday, or whatever the working hours are like. It has an impact on what they’re like when they go home and then that has a knock on effect to their family, right? I’m experiencing this firsthand now.

My wife is working in a business. Her boss, let’s say, isn’t the best leader, putting it very politely, and the amount of days my wife Jo, will come home in a really bad mood, upset, agitated, or whatever, that spills over to me and my daughter. 

Ben Baldwin: Yeah. 

Ben Morton: And that changes the dynamic in our house. And that’s her boss directly impacting me and my daughter. So that’s why I say it’s privilege and responsibility and just understand that we are leading other human beings and how we behave matters. If we treat people well, if we give a bleep about them. 

Ben Baldwin: You can replace that word with care actually, can’t you? 

Ben Morton: Yeah.

Yeah, if. Totally. 

Ben Baldwin: and not only is it care, but it is a duty of care, right?

Ben Morton: Yeah. Yeah. Like duty of care we tend to think of more from health and safety, right? This podcast studio, your duty of care is make sure the lights don’t fall down on me. But to your point, care, yeah, absolutely care. And some people might go that’s soft, but it’s not right. If you work for me and you know I care about you, you’re gonna come to work more motivated, more inspired, and do a better job.

If you get a sense, I couldn’t give a bleep about you or I don’t care, then how invested are you gonna be in my business? You’re not gonna be that invested in growing profit or the bottom line for me if I don’t treat you nicely.

Ben Baldwin: No, definitely not. And I guess that then leads to the building of the team as well and how that cascades down or as I was talking to someone about the other day that the bottom up. We were talking about org charts and that in those organizational charts, how one of these business owners had just redone theirs and because they’d changed some of the roles, actually, that was then being put up all around the building so that everybody could see, where the responsibilities were, who was part of what team. And then people were like “why am I down on the bottom? Why is this down on the bottom?” And actually, one of the first things we said was actually flip it. Put the leaders at the bottom 

Ben Morton: Totally. 

Ben Baldwin: And then it’s, a bottom up. 

Ben Morton: Yeah. That’s how I draw them all the time. I draw a little cartoon stickman at the bottom, or stick person at the bottom like that. They are there to support everybody else and enable them to do whatever they need to do for your customers or whatever. A leader’s job is to support and enable so people can do the work. It’s not to be at the top dumping on everybody. 

Ben Baldwin: So where do you think people get it wrong? Is there a, when you go into organizations and when you work with individuals is there one, obviously there’s the giving a care side of things. Is there anywhere else where you see repetitive mistakes, shall we say? 

Ben Morton: I think one of the biggest ones which I was really fortunate because at 15, I think, when I decided I wanted to join the Army, a major from the Army recruiting team came in. It was partly interview, partly preparing me to go off and do a two day assessment to decide whether I had leadership potential or not, and he taught me this then. But also you mentioned the podcast I used to host. I probably interviewed, I’m gonna say, around 150 to 200 MD, CEOs. Yeah. So you start to notice themes, right, like you, you were with this, and the theme I noticed was the same as this piece of advice that I got given at 15, which is basically, leaders don’t need to have all of the answers.

So many of the guests on my show said “the moment I really got comfortable as a leader and started to have more impact as a leader was the moment I realized it’s not my job to have all of the answers.” And to your point around building the team, why would you go to all that effort of bringing in brilliant, amazing people and then micromanage the hell out of them? Don’t listen to their ideas because you think I know best? Why employ bright people and then don’t listen to ’em. What are your ideas?

But many of us think that’s a sign of weakness, right? If you go, “I don’t know. Oh God, I’ve failed.” But no, actually, if you say, “look guys, this is the challenge. This is what we need to achieve right now. I’m not entirely sure. What? What do you think? What do you think?” That shows actually I’m comfortable with my skin. I value you because I want to hear your input. And then you get the ideas and you carry on and lead and execute. But that is one of the things where individual leaders get it really wrong. 

Ben Baldwin: And I think for leaders, a lot of the time it is just keep quiet at that table. We were talking about this the other day again with some people I was with about just being quiet at the table, because, the whole thing of ‘leaders eat last.’ It’s leaders who speak last.

So then that way you’ll get the quietest people at the table who often have the better ideas, the best ideas, but just don’t feel as if they can share them in those kind of forums.

Ben Morton: Because the other thing with that as well is if leaders speak first, if I say what I think, and I’ve got my team around the table, a lot of my team will be sitting there going “Ben said this is what he thinks so clearly that’s what he thinks and that’s what he wants us to do, so I’m not gonna suggest another way.” Whereas if you let other people go first before you’ve biased their opinion. They’re gonna speak more, more freely.

Yeah, I think you’re right. Leaders speak last and eat last. 

Ben Baldwin: So in those scenarios, going back to being in the army. So you were at Sandhurst, so you were in there to be a leader from quite a young age. 

Ben Morton: Yeah. 

Ben Baldwin: What did you learn there? What were the most difficult things and what still do you carry with you every day? Like the major that came to recruit you. 

Ben Morton: So that’s a really interesting point, Ben, and again, I’m really grateful for this and I consider myself lucky that my journey, I guess even into the workplace and into leadership, the first step was becoming a leader. And that’s quite rare and unique, right?

Because most of us, if we’re running a business or if we are employed, we enter the workplace doing a job. Then we get promoted normally if we’re good at doing the job to being a leader. So there’s always this slight bias towards doing the job. Whereas for me, from day one, the job was to be a leader.

That is quite unique. I think some of the things that stayed with me, certainly from military Sandhurst that I carry through, linked to caring is really understanding and knowing the people that work for you. 

Ben Baldwin: Yeah. 

Ben Morton: Not formally, but this was one of the things I remember at Sandhurst being drilled into us again and again, just get to know your people. This is linked to one of the keynote speeches I often give, which is about connection being the true currency of leadership. And it, certainly in the military, right? If we were gonna ask people to make the ultimate sacrifice, they wouldn’t really do that because of military discipline and because I told them to, that’s not why soldiers follow anyone. It’s generally because the connection, the strength of the bond. Knowing people care.

Translate that into the workplace. The more you know the people who work for you, the more you understand their emotions, what drives them, their behaviors, just how to communicate with them effectively. So the more you get to know your people, the better. So that’s a big one I think for me, know the people 

Ben Baldwin: and knowing those people, there’s then, in that line of work, there’s difficult decisions that do have to be made. And one of your keynote speeches is that’s, that was a big part of it, wasn’t it?

Ben Morton: Yeah, it was. In the military when I was serving, I think it still exists, there’s something called the two man sniff test, which to give you the shortened version is basically when there has been a chemical or biological attack, after you suspect the air is clear and safe and you’ve got various devices and tests you do to check that, but to finally give the all clear and order all troops in the area to take off their gas mask, or respirator, to use the finer version, you do something called the two man sniff test. It’s one of these things that actually when you, when I was taught it at Sandhurst, it was quite a nice activity because we ended up, we were doing the lesson sometime in the summer sitting on a patch of grass. We weren’t being told to run up hills. We weren’t getting screamed and shouted at, so actually this isn’t a bad like hours training at Sandhurst. And it’s partly, I think because it’s so archaic, is one of those where you go, I’m never gonna have to do this. So great. Crack on and it means I’m not, as I say, getting beasted up and down hills.

But fast forward probably only 18 months since I learned about the two man sniff test at Sandhurst. I find myself in northern Kuwait, just about to cross the border into Iraq, like 24 hours behind the US Marines, A suspected chemical, biological attack had taken place. And I was basically told to go and do the two man sniff test, which was like, oh, really? We’re actually doing this. And basically you take two private soldiers, two young soldiers, and people often ask me like, how did I pick them? It was the two private soldiers closest to me, so unlucky for them.

But basically we walked about 200 meters towards the site of a Scud missile that had come down. And then you and me as the commander stands in the middle, I’ve got a soldier either side of me looking at each other and looking at me, and basically they take, with a respirator or gas mask on, they take a massive breath of air through their mask to almost completely fill their lungs, and they basically take two fingers of each hand to break the seal on their mask and then just take a tiny sniff of air, and then they put their mask back down and then basically they’re looking at each other, I’m looking through the little, kind of, eye pieces on the respirator into their eyes, watching for signs of nerve agent poisoning, basically.

We were really lucky. It turned out to be an entire false alarm, but in that moment, I, we, they, thought we were doing a real two man sniff test and the consequences of nerve agent poison is pretty horrendous but they just did it.

They just did it. 

Ben Baldwin: How did you feel at the time, and how do you feel about it looking back at it now? because that to me is, like, the Ben Morton I know, I know that’s what you did. But it seems alien. 

Ben Morton: So it still gives me, literally when you ask me that question, I’ve got that cold shiver that goes down your back. And people often ask that. How did you feel at the moment?

I think part of the answer is, in the moment, I don’t think I was thinking too much about all of the ‘what ifs’ because it’s a drill, right? Something you’ve practiced so many times. So I’m almost, I was focusing on the steps, the parts of the steps that I had to do in the process, which is what military training is like. Everything is trained and trained. So when things like that come, I know what I need to do, the soldiers know what they need to do. 

Ben Baldwin: And which is what you grabbed the nearest two to you, part of that. 

Ben Morton: Yeah. So part of that was again, okay, lads, deep breath. Okay, now fingers on. So I’m talking them through the test and then as they’re doing that I’m then running through again, which is very much a military thing, I’m running through all of the what ifs. So if I look at them and I see nerve agent poison then what do I do? Which is basically grab like an EpiPen out of the pouch on their hip, jab one in both of their legs, sprint 200 meters back, get the medic. So I was going through all of the next, I won’t get into detail, but I was going into all of the next steps. So I wasn’t overthinking what I’m asking them to do, it’s more the practicalities of what needs to be done.

What do I think about it now? I still reflect on it. It still comes into my head and I think this is really where my whole thing about connection comes from. I’ve asked myself so many times like, why do I really think they just did it? I think, yes, part of it is training. I think yes, part of it is to a degree military discipline, but I think a big part is one of the things I really did always try and do as a leader in the military was look after my blokes and let them know that I cared about them.

Whether that was when they were on Sentry duty in Iraq, in the middle of the night, just me getting up out of my bed and going and having a chat with them. Maybe it was making sure I was getting them booked on the courses for their career progression, making sure I wrote a really good annual report for them. I like to show them that I cared. And I think that’s why, because they knew I cared. Hopefully they trusted me that if it went wrong, they knew I’d do my best to look after them. So I think it is that, and I don’t think they necessarily, this isn’t saying anything about me. I don’t think they necessarily would’ve done it for any leader because there was another leader within our regiment who I heard soldiers saying, “if Captain X gets in front of us, I’ll shoot him myself. Let alone the Iraqis.” So if Captain X was asking them, would the response have been the same? I don’t know. But it does come back to this connection and care piece. 

Ben Baldwin: And also speaks to your leadership even back then as being the one picked to go and do that task. 

Ben Morton: To be fair I’d like to agree with you, but again, it was more because I was the closest one to the regimental HQ, so yeah.

Ben Baldwin: And the regimental HQ’s gonna expect anyone to do it anyway. 

Ben Morton: Yeah.

Ben Baldwin: So how do you take all that experience and then turn it into the corporate world and what’s the response to that? 

Ben Morton: So interestingly, I think it’s interesting, I’ve now been out of the military a lot longer than I was in the military. And when I left, I was leading teams in the corporate world, doing a little bit of training in the corporate world. But throughout that, I’ve just always been insanely curious and an avid learner. So throughout all of that time, I’ve now got to the stage where, for me, I’m quite clear around, there are some bits of military type leadership that work in the civilian world. There’s some bits that work with a little bit of tweaking. There’s a load of other stuff that just doesn’t work at all.

So I think because of that, back to what I said at the opening, because of those three different careers I’ve had now, I can quite nicely blend all of that together. So I’m not just some ex army captain who’s done a few years and teaches people what he learned in the military. I’ve learned a lot myself. I run a business myself, so nearly everything I share and teach is stuff I live and breathe and use, use myself, right?

Ben Baldwin: I guess if we were on some sort of talent show, I’d be saying, you’ve made it your own, but you have, and you do the leader’s kitbag. That’s essentially, you’ve got all those different bits of experience to pull from, right? 

Ben Morton: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. 

Ben Baldwin: Tell us about the leader’s kitbag. 

Ben Morton: So, the leader’s kit bag is in multiple different guises, but essentially it’s a six to 10 minute, depending on where you listen, set of leadership tips normally on a different theme or topic, either have a video or it’s an audio only. I just filmed one yesterday, which touches on work-life balance. I filmed one actually when I was walking in the Lake District because it was very relevant to the content, which was around as leaders and managers, business owners, finding the time to actually step back from the work. Allow your mind to wander. Because from a neuroscience perspective, that’s when we tap into a whole different brain network that’s really good for coming up with new ideas and solutions to problems 

Ben Baldwin: Thinking time right?

Ben Morton: Thinking time, or leadership time. 

Ben Baldwin: Brilliant.

How did you end up in Berkhamsted? 

Ben Morton: So ended up in Berkhamsted because, it was 2006 when I left the army. At the time I was based in Abingdon. My wife was working in Radlett, so she had a horrendous, like four hour total commute a day.

I didn’t really know for certain what I was gonna do work-wise, but assumed I’d end up in London. I was targeting getting a job with World Challenge, who were based in North Acton. So basically my wife said to people she worked with, where’s nice to work, where’s nice to live around this sort of area.

And they gave us a few places, St Albans they said was nice, Kings Langley, Berko, and we spent a day driving around a few different places on my birthday, actually, I think it was, in 2005. And we ended up renting in The Rex for a year, and then bought a house on the High Street. So yeah.

Ben Baldwin: Excellent. And obviously got lots of mates around here now in Berko. 

Ben Morton: Yeah. It’s a nice little bubble, right?

Ben Baldwin: Yeah, it is. So you and I do, I’ve not been on it for a bit actually, I should do, but once a month we have a little walk as a few blokes together on a Friday morning and have a wander around.

Tell us a little bit about that walk and how that came about, because that all comes down to caring. 

Ben Morton: It does. Yeah. Again, we were having a little giggle about this before we hit record, although why the walk started isn’t particularly what caused the giggle. But going back, what was it about four years ago, I had 18 months, which was pretty rough to be honest. Mum had a really long journey with dementia, and that was getting worse and worse. Which was hard. Anyone who’s experienced a family member with dementia will know exactly what I’m talking about. So had that going on. Really suddenly and unexpectedly lost my dad to a massive cardiac arrest. My very best mate from 16, would’ve been his birthday today, took his own life. And then amongst all of that my wife lost one of her good friends from uni to breast cancer. And I really struggled and I’d got quite isolated in some ways, which is ironic, the guy that talks about connection and I really struggled. Luckily me and my wife spotted it and I got some help from the doctor and some counseling.

But, kind of, as I was starting to come out the other side of that, chatting to a few other people. One guy, Rich Hillier, I suspect you’ll probably have as a guest at some stage in the future.

Ben Baldwin: I suspect he’ll be sat in that chain. Well, once he’s heard, you’ve been sat there, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop him. 

Ben Morton: Yeah. So Richard had some challenges as well. And it coincided with, I’d heard, I’d seen a documentary with Roman Kemp, the DJ, and he was talking about similar things. Basically he’d said how with his friendship group now, they do this thing where when you say, you right mate, how are you? You go, yeah, I’m good, thanks. But they go, no, how are you really, Ben?

So anyway, linking a couple of things together, me and Rich set up this group, a walking group, once a month just for blokes to get out, go for a walk. And it’s not, you have to turn up and bear your soul, but actually it’s just forcing that connection, chance to disconnect. And actually you just spot if anyone’s struggling or if you’ve got things on your mind, you can just chat.

And some people don’t, this is what we were giggling about, some people don’t quite get the title, the working title of the group on the WhatsApp is called ‘Man Up and Talk.’ The idea being blokes traditionally have gone, ah, just man, man up. Which actually is really unhelpful. 

Ben Baldwin: Yeah, massively

Ben Morton: So instead of just man up and crack on, it’s actually man up, don’t keep all your feelings bottled up and it’s not manly to talk, like, have a conversation with somebody. So it’s meant to be, is it really tongue in cheek? Probably not actually. It’s probably meant to be quite serious, but yeah. Some people misinterpret the title.

Ben Baldwin: The other thing we’re giggling about as well is if we talked about it in the podcast, we might all of a sudden have hundreds of blokes of Berko wandering around on a Friday morning. But it’s early days of the podcast, so there’s not that many people following it currently. 

Ben Morton: But if anyone does want to come you can find me online easy. Find me, drop me a line and I’ll give you the details. 

Ben Baldwin: Yeah. In all seriousness, if you want to join that walk, get a hold of any of us and we’ll tell you when it is, to come and have a little walk round.

We’re coming towards the end of our conversation. 

Ben Morton: Really? Flown by. 

Ben Baldwin: Yeah. Has flown by. So what’s the one piece of advice you would give about leadership other than the giving a care? 

Ben Morton: Oh, God. You’ve put me on the spot.

Ben Baldwin:  That’s the whole idea. 

Ben Morton: A really big question. I’m gonna repeat what I said to buy me some thinking time. 

Ben Baldwin: Okay. 

Ben Morton: Care. 

Ben Baldwin: Yes.

Ben Morton: Remember, you don’t need to have all the answers. Do remember, it’s linked to care, right? Do remember everyone you lead is the most important person in the world, and I think probably, actually, linked to that. It’s so hard. What is the most important thing?

I think there’s a big thing around curiosity and having an open mind with it all I think. And this isn’t just so much in the leadership of people piece, but around running and leading and ministering a business. I think the day you think you’re done learning, or the day you think you know it all, is probably the day you’re done leading, right? Because I’ve been reading about leadership and learning about leadership since I was probably 14 years old as an army cadet, and I’m still learning loads. There’s still things I’m personally trying to improve on and do differently and things I’ve not considered. So I think that curiosity, that hungriness, that openness and realizing that there’s always different ways to do things.

Ben Baldwin: I think if I critique my own questioning there, the big hard question is probably part of it, because there isn’t one thing as a leader, right? It’s about bringing all those, the experience and the curiosity and the caring and bringing it all together at once. And like you say, just keep learning.

Ben Morton: Yeah. And I think I’d link to that actually, which is a really key point. I often say leadership is much more art than science. So often they’re, or rarely is there a black and white answer. In leadership, leaders were always operating in what I call ‘ in the gray’. This could be the right thing to do. That could be the right thing to do. This could be the approach. That could be the approach. So it’s never, or very rarely is it black and white. So it is much more art than science, I think. 

Ben Baldwin: I think also going back to what you said earlier, and it goes, I won’t get the quote right but I read it this morning so I will paraphrase it, but it was about how you don’t go on the journey knowing all the answers. The journey is to find out the answers. And also that ties in nicely with you as a leader. You don’t need to know the answers because you’re gonna find it out from other people as well. 

Ben Morton: Totally. 

Ben Baldwin: Ben. Thanks mate. That’s been really interesting.

Thank you for being so vulnerable on the podcast as well.

Ben Morton: Pleasure.

Ben Baldwin: And we will put in a link in the show notes to all your bits and bobs, because you are doing some online training, aren’t you?

Ben Morton: I have, yeah. Last year I launched the first, what I call an Open program. So it’s a leadership management program for those who are probably new to leadership or find themselves in a leadership position that never really had any training. So it’s live online, four half day sessions. So yeah, if people are interested. I’m sure you’ll share the details. 

Ben Baldwin: It’s not an MBA.

Ben Morton: It’s not an MBA, which I’m not against by the way. Just to caveat one more time 

Ben Baldwin: or entrepreneurship. 

Ben Morton: No

Ben Baldwin: We’re in for both of those.

Ben Morton: We are indeed.

Ben Baldwin: Ben. Thanks a lot mate. 

Ben Morton: My pleasure. It’s been good fun. Cheers. 

Ben Baldwin: Thank you for watching and listening to this episode of Berko and Beyond. The links to everything we’ve talked about or mentioned today are in the show notes or in the summary below this video, along with the links to all our social media channels where we’d really appreciate a follow and a share.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. It really does make a massive difference to us. And if you’d like to be a guest on the show, then send us an email to podcast@berkoandbeyond.com. Thanks again for watching, and I’ll see you next week.