Leaders are Levers with BJ Kraemers

You're listening to Leadership Blueprints, the podcast where we explore the art and science of leading yourself, inspiring and empowering your team, and project leadership in the architectural, engineering, construction, and development industries, and beyond. I'm your host, Vijay Kraemer, president and CEO of MCFA. I hope you enjoy today's show. Welcome back, everybody. Excited to dig into a topic.

Today's gonna be a solo episode. I was recently asked by by one of our employees, hey, why'd you rebrand the podcast from Inspiring People and Places to Leadership Blueprints? So for those of you who are new to the podcast, we've done about a 180 episodes to date, and 95% of those were under the brand inspiring people in places. And we started inspiring people in places because that was really the the why or the heart behind our business. Our primary business or my primary business is MCFA.

We're a project development project leadership company, delivering advisory services in the engineering construction industry to a number of different verticals, public sector, Department of Defense, healthcare, hospitality, sports and entertainment, transportation, infrastructure, utilities. So many companies or small businesses start out in a vertical, and then they go own that vertical. We were really agnostic to the vertical, and maybe even agnostic to the services outside of the fact that we we deliver professional services to our clients. And I think the one thread that goes through all of that is is leadership. So we shift it from our why of inspiring people in places to our how, which is project leadership.

And I've talked plenty about, I think my philosophies on leadership, or my ideas on leadership, and I think this is, we went to Leadership Blueprints because one, we want people to understand that there is a blueprint to becoming a leader, and developing yourself as a leader. And we hope to be a critical resource to not just the built environment, but anybody because I think outside perspectives and leadership perspectives apply whether you're in a classroom, on a sports field, running a business, running an agency, running a project, and that leadership happens at all levels, but that that platform, the leadership platform is one to be taken serious and requires constant self reflection, self development, testing, reevaluating, reapplying, and this whole process of continuous improvement. So that's why we rebranded. Selfishly, or I guess from our marketing team, inspiring people in places was not a topic that was searched, so there's also a desire to increase our reach and our impact, and get the word out there. We get a lot of positive feedback from those who listen, but we're also trying to increase our distribution.

So if you find our content valuable, please share it to leaders in and around your your world or your orbit. Leadership Blueprints, I think, dictates two things. One, that we're talking about leadership. Two, that there are blueprints, and I I use that word plural because I don't think there's any one... There's no one blueprint.

There's no one book. A lot of this is nuanced in art and science, and figuring out how to how to genuinely be your true self as you take on leadership responsibility. So we're going to talk leadership, we're going to talk about different tips, tricks, tactics, strategies for becoming a better leader for being a better leader. And then, obviously, the nod to the to the construction industry or the engineering construction industry with Blueprints as well. So the theme I want to do for for kind of these solos, we're we're intending to mix in a solo episode every every two, three episodes.

We're gonna keep the interviews, and I think the interviews are the heart of of who we are as a podcast. I think that multiple perspectives, hearing about career paths and trajectories and challenges go a lot further than just hearing it in my voice. But I think we've gotten a lot of feedback that getting my perspective, maybe distilling down some of the various topics that come up in our interviews, and then talking about them maybe in a, what I hope to be informational, educational, inspirational method. So that's the plan, And I like having a macro theme. And as I was...

As I took some time off over the holidays, my brother-in-law was in from from Alaska, and we started talking about impact, and that led to this this idea of leverage. So I came up with this theme of leadership is leverage, and leaders are levers. And I wanna talk about that today, and I think everything will tie back to that, or I hope everything ties back to that over the year. But the army methodology of communication is tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them. So leadership, if you take anything away from this, leadership is leverage.

And therefore, wherever you are sitting in an organization on a project team, there's some version of leadership that you you have. And with that leadership, there's leverage. And leadership is not about us. Leadership is about two things. The mission that we've been handed from whoever, from the owner, the...

From our boss, from... In the military, was from our higher headquarters. So leadership is about understanding and executing the mission that you've been empowered to lead, and taking care of the people and empowering them to help you accomplish that mission. So leadership is leverage, and leverage is this topic in today's day and age. I'm a...

I'll call it hobbyist real estate investor, and leverage is a big topic in in real estate from ROI, and how do you invest and it's it's a, an investment that allows you to have leverage. And then you might get into this whole thought process of hacks and tips and tricks. But I don't want this topic of leadership as leverage to make you think that this is easy. Becoming a great leader is a a constant work in progress. But we are levers to those who are relying on us.

So when our higher headquarters, whoever that may be, hands us a mission, they're expecting us to make an impact. We are their lever. And that's that's what I want you to take away from this episode is that you have a platform as a leader, and I want you to understand it. So by the end of this episode, my hope is that the takeaway, you'll understand the dual nature of leadership is leverage, how to ensure your impact lifts both your team and your mission, and I think we'll we'll have a couple of practical ways to maximize your leadership leverage this year. Kind of a precursor, every couple weeks, like I said, intermixed in in these episodes will be different topics related back to leadership as leverage.

So let me let me take you back in time. I grew up, and leadership was a word that was talked about in my house. So from an early age, the idea of leadership was in front of me. And I think I may be romanticizing it, I may be revising history, I may just be remembering some brief instances. I don't remember kind of philosophically thinking about how I was being a leader.

I would be encouraged by my parents to to run for student council, or hey, make sure you're stepping up and being a leader, or you get like the people you go with, so make sure you're surrounding yourself with good people, and make sure you're you're somebody people want to surround you with, or want to be around. But I always thought... I I think at the time, I thought leadership was about me, and I I talk about lead yourself first, and and maybe when you're first starting out, leadership is about you. And I don't think it was like in the ego sense. It was just like, hey, you're the...

You are the person that volunteers. You're the person that steps up. You're the one that that does it right. And I thought of it as it's about me. And leadership is completely not about us.

Leadership is about everybody else. It's about the people relying on you when they they ask you to take on the project, when they ask you to lead the team, when they ask you whatever. When a mission is handed to you, it's about you serving the team, the organization, the the mission, or the person that handed you that mission, and then it's about serving the people that are helping you accomplish that mission. So leadership is all about service, and leadership came into full view to me that leadership is not about me, probably when I got to West Point. And we go through beast barracks at West Point.

So I went to the United States Military Academy, and your first summer there is referred to as Beast Barracks. It's West Point's indoctrination to to both the life of a cadet and becoming a cadet and the introduction to the field army and learning to assemble disassemble weapons and fire at the range and all of the tasks related to being a a soldier. And during Beast Barracks, it is hit right in your face that leadership is not about you. Shirts untucked, the entire squad is doing push ups. Talking in the hallway, maybe the whole platoon is doing push ups.

There's even... I wanna bring this up, but I'm I'm sensitive to it. Everywhere I went there through Beast Barracks in 2000, it was almost... There was not a day that went by that you didn't hear somebody scream at somebody for messing up, and messing up is, again, some little nit nat thing that bosses new cadets did wrong, where an upperclassman would scream, you just killed your platoon. So while hearing, Kraemer, you just got your platoon killed, was this perspective shift.

At first, you kinda blow it off like, God, you're being dramatic. But over time, you realize like, oh, leadership's not about me. I'm not here to I'm not here to become a better me. For me, I'm here to become a better me for everybody that's going to be relying on me. And who are the people relying on you?

Let's go back to where I started. The people relying on you are the 30 people that are entrusted to your charge as a platoon leader. But it's also the higher headquarters, you know, from the president down to the secretary of defense down to the the division commanders, to the brigade commander, to battalion commander, to company commander, to platoon leader. It's a whole lot of people entrusting a portion of of some greater mission in your hands. So we've been handed 30 men and women, 30 sons and daughters of America to take care of, and we've been handed some portion of some really important mission, whether that's war fighting or peacekeeping or disaster response, there are a lot of people counting on us to deliver.

And wherever you are in your life, again, I go back to whether you're a youth coach that ten, fifteen, 20 kids are learning to play a sport, their parents are entrusting in you that you're gonna you're gonna teach them some level of technical understanding of the sport, some level of skill development, some level of teamwork, some level of toughness, some level of sportsmanship. That's a big responsibility you have. So the mission may be, you may think the mission is to go win games, but the mission is actually to develop these kids. Go on to a a construction site. Our our business every day, there are agencies and organizations and real estate developers and CFOs and CEOs that are handing us their capital projects, and expecting us to steward that project for them.

And oftentimes, we are the go between between them, the owner, and a team of consultants and engineers and architects and planners and professionals and lawyers and accountants and builders and contractors and subcontractors. We've gotta be balancing the mission, and all of the people and teammates that come together to accomplish that mission. So the takeaway here is leadership is leverage, you are a lever, whoever is relying on you, they are entrusting something to you, and the people that are going to support you in accomplishing that, they are relying on you, so I go back to mission first, people always, how do we break this down, and how do we convert this some takeaways? Well, I think it starts with lifting your team first. Bring that team together, again, they might be your employees, they might be your students or your players, they might be a bunch of disparate consultants and contractors and engineers like us.

Those people are your greatest asset. Figure out how to empower them, figure out how to communicate with them, how to coach them, how do you remove obstacles, how do you bring them together to make them strong? And again, in our world, bringing a project team together is no easy feat. They are oftentimes serving multiple masters, but when they're on your project, they can be a part of your team, and when they feel like they're a part of team, you're gonna be that much better at accomplishing the mission. Two, clarify the mission.

Great leaders don't just bring the team together, but they they take the responsibility to ensure their teams understand the why of the mission, and why, and oftentimes in the built environment, the mission is maybe obvious, it may not be, but I think it's our job as leaders to communicate that why to make the tasks, whether it's daily tasks, weekly tasks, or project meetings, or deadlines, to make it very clear why we are there, and why that mission matters, so that what we do to contribute to that mission has clarity, creates alignment, and brings momentum. And then the last I think is, this is a reminder to myself and all of you, you can't measure success by one or the other, you have to measure success by both. And I think there's a lot of people that said, if I had to choose, would I take care of the people? Would I rather be a leader that was known as taking care of the people, or as a leader known by accomplishing the mission? Everybody's going to say taking care of people.

Dot.dot. You can't take care of people if you can't accomplish the mission. And again, I don't really care about wins and losses, but in business, if I can't build a sustainable, profitable business, I can't take care of people. I don't have I don't have the revenue or the profits to reinvest in them. And if I don't accomplish the mission, I failed as a leader.

So as much as I want to say, you have to error on the side of taking people, taking care of people, I think everybody errs on the side of taking care of people, because when you take care of the people, the mission gets accomplished. But make no mistake, you have to do both, and I think I go back to the making it easy and cozy for the people. If you do that, if you spend your time trying to protect and make it safe and easy for all the people, you are going to fail in the mission. So what's an action you can take right now? I like giving a reflection action.

So as you turn this off, maybe you have five minutes left in the car, maybe over your coffee tomorrow morning. Here's my challenge. Reflect on your leadership of 2024. Did you lean more toward focusing on your team or focusing on the mission? I think in the business world, we may get caught up focusing too much on the mission and losing track of the people.

In other worlds, we may get too focused on the people and lose track of the mission. Identify one way you can bring more balance to that dual sided equation. So whether that's spending more time coaching your people, or sharpening your focus on delivering results. One or the other, I think can help you counterbalance maybe maybe where your natural tendencies are. And I think it's important to lean into our natural tendencies, our natural instincts, natural gifts, but we can't lose track of one side or the other.

And I know we're we're here wrapping up the end of January. Resolutions went out the went out the window two weeks ago. Use this to to have one one resolution for 2025. About what part of your leadership are you leaning into this year. Stay tuned with us, we're gonna we're gonna explore all kinds of both mission side and people side, tips, tricks, strategies, tactics, and hope that we we become a reliable tool in your leadership development toolbox as we continue to explore the world of leadership.

Till next time, have a great week, have a great weekend, and remember, leaders are levers. Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for tuning into Leadership Blueprints. I hope today's episode gave you some valuable insights, a chance to reflect, and some practical tools you can start using right away. If you enjoy the show, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave us a review.

Your feedback helps us reach more leaders like you and keep bringing you the content that matters most. And if you know someone else who'd benefit from today's episode, go ahead and share it with them. Let's grow this community of leaders in the built environment together.