Love-Based Servant Leadership: Making a Positive Impact

Summary
Jon Antonucci, the Director of Revenue at Optimize Career and founder of SML Consultive, shares his journey from a troubled past to becoming a successful leader and empowering others. He started his leadership journey at a young age and faced challenges along the way, including a 14-year prison sentence. During his time in prison, he focused on personal growth and rehabilitation, which led to his transformation. Now, he is passionate about empowering frontline leaders and believes that investing in their development is crucial for organizations to succeed. Jon's leadership style is rooted in love-based servant leadership, where he focuses on serving his team and making a positive impact on their lives. He emphasizes the importance of providing resources and tools to frontline leaders to help them succeed and create a positive work environment. Jon's ultimate goal is to change the world for the better through his leadership and empower others to do the same.

Keywords
leadership, empowerment, personal growth, rehabilitation, frontline leaders, servant leadership, positive impact, resources, tools, work environment

Takeaways

• Investing in the development of frontline leaders is crucial for organizations to succeed.
• Love-based servant leadership focuses on serving the team and making a positive impact on their lives.
• Providing resources and tools to frontline leaders helps them succeed and create a positive work environment.
• Empowering frontline leaders can change the world for the better.

Sound Bites

• "Love-based servant leadership focuses on serving the team and making a positive impact on their lives."
• "Investing in the development of frontline leaders is crucial for organizations to succeed."
• "Empowering frontline leaders can change the world for the better."

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Background of Jon Antonucci

08:13
Discovering a Passion for Empowering Frontline Leaders

22:04
The Importance of Empowering Frontline and Middle Management Leaders

27:05
Key Messages and Lessons in Jon's Talks

29:28
Fun Questions and Wrapping Up

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to another exciting episode of Boardsi Leadership Talks. I'm your host, Martin Rowinski CEO of Boardsi Today, we have a very special guest who has made significant contributions across multiple industries through his leadership and expertise. Please join me in welcoming Jon Antonucci. And when I say your last name, I want to do this, just FYI. Antonucci. the Director of Revenue at Optimize Career, founder of SML Consultive, internationally recognized keynote speaker and author. John has over 20 years of leadership experience and is passionate about empowering frontline leaders to effectively engage with their teams, resulting in increased employee retention and customer satisfaction. John, it's an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much, Martin. It's a pleasure to be here. I am pretty excited. I got some pretty good questions for you and we'll definitely get into your journey, which your background is incredibly diverse, covering leadership roles in numerous settings. Can you start by telling us a bit about your journey and what led you to SML Consultive? Absolutely, absolutely. I think, well, I officially stepped into leadership at 12, but being the oldest of five, I guess I kind of was born that way, at least once my first little brother was born and kind of just taking on that mantle. But at 12 years old, I had begun martial arts the year before and the instructor was waylaid by traffic and some of the parents came up to me and said, we think you should teach. And... the oldest, I'm not the highest ranking. There's literally just no reason that I should be the one that teaches. And they said, well, we're paying for the class and we think you should teach. And so I did, I got up there and taught and, I guess it went okay. Cause by the time I was 15, I was an assistant instructor. And by the time I was 19, I had moved to Phoenix, Arizona and was teaching over 500 students across the Phoenix metro area. as one of the more successful instructors with that organization. And so the leadership opportunity really blossomed in that time. But despite that success, as well as some other roles that I had with a variety of entrepreneurial pursuits, I wasn't nearly as mature inwardly as I was outwardly. I had a lot of success outwardly, but inside I wasn't a person of integrity. You couldn't trust a word I said. You knew I was lying if my mouth was open. And that became visible to everyone else when at 19 years old, I made the very, very foolish decision to go with three of my friends and we decided to light a building on fire. And that horrible decision resulted in a tragic outcome with my best friend who physically lit the match, not making it out of that building alive. And so not only did I lose my best friend in that moment, but obviously there are consequences for decisions that you make like that. And the consequences for me was a 14 year prison sentence, which kind of knocks you over the head when you're 19 years old facing seemingly your life, just kind of being, being, I say taken, but ultimately, you know, my decision gave it. And so that was a huge wake up call. And so in that context, it caused me to really relook at everything I thought that I knew. Who I was at my core being revealed and who I was as an outward shell being shattered. It was humbling to say the least, obviously. But it was a... perfect opportunity for me to evaluate my character, recognize the problems that I had, and then start to address them. And so thankfully, during the 14 years that I was under the supervision of the Arizona Department of Corrections, I was able to do that. I was able to look at my own character, address those faults. I took every class I could get my hands on. I read every book I could get my hands on. I was involved in every rehabilitative program that I could be. And by the time I walked out, my legacy was being a huge part of something we called IPP, which was Inmate Peer Programming, where we, as inmates, both developed and facilitated rehabilitative opportunities to try to give tools to people that wanted to step away from crime and become contributing members of the community. And that's the legacy that I left is that in fact, just recently I was talking to a mentee of mine who recently got out of prison. He's a part of the Arizona Small Business Association program that tries to help people that have a past start businesses and do well. And so I'm mentoring this man and we get halfway through one of our, I think it was our second call and he goes, wait, you're John? Hehehehe about you for years. And that was very meaningful to know that that legacy was there. So I got out of prison after 12 of those years, had to serve the last two under community supervision. And thankfully all of that work I put in was rewarded. I was able to step into a training manager role where I was helping at the same company where I'm a director. helping to empower the operational staff to do their job with excellence. And so in that form of leadership, providing leadership training there, it was also, I should mention also in the prison context, I was, there was an entire team of people that I got to lead and be the train, the trainer and empower them to lead others. And I'm a firm believer that you're not a real leader until you've empowered another leader who has the capacity to pass that on and empower yet another one. So I was able to do that in that context as well. And yes, training manager then became director of revenue and had the, have had the opportunity to lead several different teams across several continents. And it's been, it's been a privilege to serve. And really it was during that training manager gig, if I can call it that, that I recognized we had a problem internally. We were doing something that I think a lot of companies do. In fact, now I know, I know a lot of companies do and that is, you know, people we hire them. And statistically, I want to say it's like 10 to 15 % of people do exceptionally well in their position. And so what do you do with that? You promote them, right? You just, you know, give them their next opportunity. And a lot of companies like us, we weren't doing anything to really empower these new leaders. We just kind of expected that because they were good at their job, they would probably be a good team lead or a good manager or whatever. And so recognizing this as a major problem with not just... disempowering them as individuals, but obviously the ripple effect onto their team and to the overall culture of the organization I set about to change it. And it was through a series of conversations where I was finally given the opportunity to put out a leadership training program. And as a part of putting that all together, really kind of pulling from everything that I'd already done in life as I was helping to train instructors and helping to train rehabilitation experts and things like that. I realized, you know, There's not a lot out here for this. Most of the leadership training is geared for executives. There's, there's a ton of stuff out there for executives, but the frontline leader, the new manager, there's just not a lot out there. And I thought, you know what? I think I can add value. I think this is really what I'm meant to do. All of my experience working with different age groups and different demographics and different life journeys has brought me to a place where. I have something I can offer to the world. And so we started SML Consultive and we say that we serve the forgotten leaders, the ones that often people are not even thinking about because, that's just a team lead. You know, when they get up to, when they become a director, that's when we send them for training. And in the meantime, unfortunately, they've got staff that are hurting and they are hurting because they don't know really how to best serve. Yeah, no, it's definitely never too early. And just because you're a good worker does not automatically mean you're going to be a good leader. Two totally different traits. So before I get into that next question and not to focus or put a spotlight on it, just out of curiosity, coming out of prison, how difficult was it to get a job, to get a position and then Also along the way, I mean, are you still in Arizona right now? I am not, we moved, that's what it's been, four months ago now, so I'm actually out on the East Coast, I'm in South Carolina now. Yes. was there actually last year then. I just curious, like, what was that transition like? And I mean, you Google your name right now. You know, I don't think, you know, that brand branding is not going to go away. You've done a lot of good things. You've, you know, you've turned a bad thing into a positive thing in your life and your journey. But how... and this is the power of branding, right? It can work negatively and positively, but how difficult is that? Does it come up at your job situation? Do people ever ask that or what's the situation like? I'm just curious. I guess there's probably two or three different things to kind of capture with that. So first I'll just say that there's so much power in just speaking something out loud. And I think so many people that are in a situation similar to mine, they or we are all inclined to spend so much energy trying to hide what's there, which just gives it the power. Because now when it gets exposed, it's this big revelation and you didn't tell me. So I bring it up. I mean, when I was in the dating world, There was not a first date that finished without me saying, by the way, here's my past. Here's what I've experienced. Here's where I'm headed in life. And if you don't want to deal with that, I get it. I'm not going to put you on blast for that, but I'm going to be honest about it. So I've engaged very, very conscientiously, even with my current clients, with SML Consultive. I don't engage a contract without making sure that they're aware because I don't want there to be something, a ripple effect down the road where it's like, Dude, we hired you to do this and you didn't tell us. Now we've got our managers in the HR office going, Hey man, why'd you bring this felon in here? Why am I going to listen to it? So that's, that's half of it. Just, Hey, embrace what happened. Obviously I wish I could undo it. There's no part of me that loves what I did, but I can't undo it. All I can do is acknowledge it, learn from it and move forward. So that's, that's a big part of it. Getting out of prison. I was ready for an uphill climb. I had spent so much time working toward a good exit strategy and so half of that was asking other people, hey, what was it like for you? Because I don't know if you're aware of this, but the recidivism rate's pretty high. So it's not hard to find someone in prison that was in prison before and got out and then came back. And so everyone kind of had the same story. Dude, it's a nightmare. and it's little things that you won't even think about. It's a toothbrush, because in prison you don't have a real toothbrush. You got this little brush on top of a little nub that you're trying to brush with because they don't want you to have anything that you could turn into a weapon. And so I had these story after story after story of how hard it was going to be going to the grocery store and having an aisle full of cereal instead of the two or three choices we had on the commissary. So I walked out ready, I guess in one sense, to do battle with myself. Like I wasn't here to fight the world. I was here to fight the battles that I had to deal with. And there wasn't any. I walked out. We went to breakfast. I had no problem engaging with the wait staff, reading the menu, ordering. Went to the store, got some clothes, was able to deal with that. My brother, about day and a half later, paid me what, to date, has probably been the biggest compliment I've gotten since getting out of prison, when he said, it was really interesting watching you yesterday. It was almost like you never left. And what I realized in that moment was, see, the only real trouble that I got into in prison was, whenever people would think I didn't know my place. I told you all the things I was doing and it's not easy. You're kind of toeing the fence of working with administration, which the inmates don't trust, which you're also trying to empower the inmates and administration doesn't trust you. No one really trusts you in that scenario. And so there was a lot of times, it was like, John, you need to remember what color you're wearing. You remember your place. You're not a staff member. You know, you use blah, blah, blah. And with someone like myself who's actively trying to address character flaws, specifically ego being one of my major flaws, there was points, Martin, where I was like, man, am I the problem? Is this really on me? Like, I'm trying to do good things. I'm trying to serve this community. I'm trying to prepare for the next community. And it was after I got out when my brother made that comment to me that it clicked. It wasn't that I didn't know my place. It's that my place wasn't there. Hmm. A couple of weeks after that comment, somebody who, a friend of mine who had somebody else they knew in prison who was getting out soon said, how are you adjusting so easily? My boyfriend tells me that, you know, when this has been your life for so long, it's a very hard transition. And I don't know where I got this wisdom, because honestly, I hadn't rehearsed this at all. It just came to me in that moment. I said, well, he's right. If you've made that your life, it's really hard. I was there for 12 years, but I never made prison my life. I got up at 430 every morning. I had a schedule. I tried to redeem every minute I could. And not just for my own purposes, but for the benefit of others. So that has really led to a transition that is remarkably different than I think some other people experience. I have certainly had people that just said, nope, I'm not dealing with that. I think of one face in particular that we were going to be collaborating. on some leadership materials. And we, I mean, we were, I wouldn't say super far along in the process, but we had engaged online for quite a while. We were having meetings and I said, Hey, just like I told you a minute ago, I said, Hey, before we do anything, before we sign a contract, just want to make sure you're aware. This is part of my story. It's actually helped me to learn more about leadership because it's very different to be a leader in a scenario where nobody respects you for being a leader. You're actually looked down on really. And I never forget her face just completely changed. And it went to just this like stone face and she kind of nodded and went through the rest of the conversation. And we had action steps that we were supposed to take after that, the conclusion of that meeting. And I never heard from her again. And, you know, just you can look at that moment. I knew she was like, okay, I'm not, I don't have the time or the energy to deal with that. And she's not the only one, but that's just, that's the face that sticks in my mind when I think of that question. so there are certainly people that, in their journey, they just don't have the capacity to bring on my journey and that's totally okay. I don't, I don't want to try to force that onto someone. but for those that are like yourself, Hey, you got a story, John. I'd love to, love to bring in, it's a joy to collaborate. And I think I've got a lot of value to offer to those that I have the opportunity to offer it to. Awesome. So, you know, you, you had some early success, obviously, in the dojo. You literally didn't only set the dojo on fire, but you set your life on fire, apparently. and did your time coming out after some education, reading a lot of books, your now approach to leadership is rooted in love based servant leadership. Can you explain what this means and how it has influenced your leadership style? Yeah, absolutely. So, there's a lot out there about servant leadership. And I think it's a great concept. The book that I'm actively working to get finished, thought it was done and then turns out I needed to rewrite a couple sections. But the title of the book is, How Mindfulness Changes Servant Leadership. Because what I've found is that a lot of people when they talk about servant leadership, what they're doing, not intentionally, but they're making it a quid pro quo arrangement. It's if you will serve your team, then you will receive X, Y, and Z from them. They will do better. They blah, blah. And I come at this more from the perspective of the servant minded leader, the one that's willing to be present and authentic and really serve the team recognizes that they have as a leader, the unique capacity to impact the life in front of them. There's some studies that would suggest that one's immediate supervisor has as much impact on the mental health of their team as those team members' spouses do. That's a remarkable thought that as a director, as a manager, I have as much impact on a person's life as the person that they are married to or very closely intimate with. And so to me, when I say love -based servant -minded leadership, I define love as doing what is best with a heart to serve the team as a whole and of course the team members individually. That doesn't mean that I'm lovey -dovey necessarily, although I think compassion and kindness and those things go a long way in leadership. But what it does mean is when I have a scenario presented, how can I best serve this individual and the team? perfect example. Someone came to me recently with a, we'll call it a drama problem, and they wanted me to solve the drama problem. And the first thing I did is I didn't solve it. Not that I couldn't have solved it, but that wasn't gonna serve them well because they also have an opportunity to lead in this scenario. And so instead of just saying, well, here's the answer, I said, well, how do you recommend we fix it? Now you'd say, all right, John, you're really claiming that that's... love -based or servant leader. It sounds like you're just trying to pawn off the problem onto your manager. No, because I've invested a great deal of time into that individual. We've coached, we've mentored, we've taken steps, and there's an empowerment where it's, okay, there's a challenge in your department. In fact, there's a challenge between your department and another department. I can give you the answer, but now you still need me, and now I haven't given you the capacity to lead. and therefore the ability to pass that on to others. And so we talked through it. And then after we talked through it and he gave his side and some thoughts that he had, I said, okay, you know, those are some good thoughts. Have you considered this other side of it? And then I spoke to the big picture. He was really good. He had done really well to get out of his own department and expand it into the bigger division. But then I said, well, what about their lives? How can we serve our people better so we're not just fixing this at work, but we're helping them move forward as individuals. And so we talked about how there's an expectation that we want to foster in our division that promotes maturity, that promotes the idea that says my value is not contingent on somebody else's perception. Those are not things necessarily talked about a lot in the work environment, but how powerful is it if I can say, yeah, yeah, absolutely. The other team is absolutely talking crap about me. Doesn't make it true. I've done some self -reflection. I've looked within. I've identified what could and should change in my life. And I can't help what they're doing on their journey. That's on them. And so helping them navigate things like that, truly loving the individual enough to not just give them the quick answer to get them out of your hair and to say, hey, yes, I want you to succeed in this job, but more importantly, I want you to succeed as an individual and truly serving that or serving in that. So obviously, I mean, you just mentioned manager and stuff. You focus on empowering frontline and middle management leaders. Why do you believe this is crucial for organizations looking to rescission prove their businesses? The statistics are, depending on who you talk to, they're different, but the average amount that it supposedly costs to replace an employee is like $28 ,000 by the time you include recruiting charges and training and everything that goes into that. And so when you start looking from a business perspective, strictly business, the ROI side of things, it makes sense to say, okay, why are we losing our people and what's the linchpin? Now you don't have to spend more than about 10 minutes on LinkedIn to see somebody posting something that says something similar to people don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. A recent survey said that 25 % of people right now are suggesting they're working for the worst boss they've ever worked for in their life. And so I don't think personally that that's because bosses want to be bad. I don't think that you or I have ever gone into our job at any point in our career, no matter how young or old and said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm gonna be in a jerk today. My people are gonna hate me by the end of the day and I'm okay with it. We don't do that. No human being wants to be hated or disliked. We go in trying to do the best we can with what we have. But what I find is that those frontline leaders don't have much. They've been expected to produce a result without being provided any real resources. And so they feel stuck. They're trapped between a rock and a hard place. They've got a team that they don't know exactly how to manage well, because they're bringing them the drama and they're always trying to get off early and whatever. And they've got bosses that don't know how to manage them well half the time. And they're just, they're stuck. They're stressed out, they're burned out, they're freaked out. And I really believe that if we can take the time to say, hey, I'm going to invest in that frontline leader. And I'm going to make sure they have some basic tools like recognizing how their attitude impacts the entire team and recognizing that their example goes further than just how they do the job. But do they do things with excellence in general? Are they quick to make an excuse or are they quick to take ownership? And if we can touch on these things, how to run a successful meeting. No one likes meetings, but most managers have never been trained on any tools of a successful meeting. Let alone, I just recently did a webinar on how to do that when you're dealing with remote workers or intra remote, where you got some there and some not there. And how do you manage all of that? How do you keep everybody engaged? And so trying to provide those resources, I think it does three things. Number one, it gives the manager what they need to find purpose in their position. You obviously believe that they're doing a good job. You probably wouldn't have promoted them unless you did. Why don't you give them the tools so that they can feel like they're doing a good job and they can remain passionate and purposeful in their position. Number two, it's going to give the employees someone to look up to and someone to be inspired by and somebody to draw out from them everything that they're capable of. But number three, and this is the one that's probably less business, but more my heart, I believe ultimately it changes the world for good. When that manager is empowered to touch that life in a positive way, I believe every manager is going to make an impact. The only question is, is it positive or is it negative? So when that manager touches that life in a positive way, there's a ripple effect. And who knows, that staff member that's a little less stressed just might come home in a little bit of a better mood. And maybe they'll treat their child or their spouse a little bit better. And maybe that helps that spouse navigate a particularly stressful health situation or other relationship situation. In the end, you could be saving a life. You could be, you could be bringing families together all because something as simple as understanding how important people's names are to them and app taking the moment to ask a question and walk or lead by walking about simple strategies, almost transferable skills. But no one's teaching the leaders how to do this. And I think the opposite is just as cataclysmic. They don't know what they're doing. They treat their lead, their employees the best way they know how. but obviously statistically ineffectively. And those employees now spread that because they're being treated poorly. They're more likely to treat others poorly, especially if they are themselves promoted in the future because the model that they had was negative. They go home in a bad mood. They kick the dog. They, you know, domestic violence, you know, whatever it is. And the world has changed in a negative way. Set a doge on fire. yeah. It's, it's, it's an opportunity to change the world for good. Yeah. As a speaker and coach, what are some key messages or lessons that you strive to convey to your talk at your talks? It really depends on the audience who I'm talking to. If I'm talking to a general group and it's more of inspiration, I just want to let them know that, look, if I can go out and make a difference, anybody can. Like there are people that believe I shouldn't have the opportunity to do anything more than mop floors for the rest of my life. In fact, there are people that I have received messages from since I got out that I deserve to burn in hell and all sorts of very hateful things. And so if someone like me with the poor choices that I made, no excuse for them, can say, hey, you know what, I'm not gonna let that define me. Anybody can go out and make a difference if they're willing to do the work to do it. So from a general perspective, I just want people to know that you can make a difference. There is nothing standing in your way but you, and there's so many ways to do that. If I'm speaking specifically to leaders, I really focus on the difference they're gonna make in the lives of their people. It's gonna be a difference. Good? or bad. That's the choice. Some fun questions to wrap it up since we're running out of time because your journey story, we could discuss that for hours. But outside of Googling your name, figuring out who you are and what happened and how you've arrived or you're at now, what's one fact that most people wouldn't know about you? let me think here. Something that you, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm a sucker for romantic comedies. Okay? Yeah, that's my wife knows that and she thinks I'm crazy. So. do you like romantic comedies more than she does? Yes, yeah, she's more into the Avengers type stuff and I've never been into the comic based stuff. So yeah, she's, yeah. Yeah, it is. Well, it's a reverse in our relationship in a lot of ways. She's a beautiful woman, but she's a structural welder by trade. And so I'm the white collar to her blue collar and she likes the DC comics and I like the rom -coms. I joke and would tell her all the time, I'm the chick in the relationship. She doesn't like it when I say that, but. That's funny. If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would you go and why? I would love to go to Japan because of my martial arts background, the beauty, the just, I mean, there's so much cool stuff. It's history. So much cool stuff in Japan. I, it's going to be some time before they'll probably, sign those papers and allow me to do that, but it would, it would be super meaningful for me to be able to go to Japan. Have you watched the show, Showgun? Yes, yes, yeah, it's remarkable. That was good. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? my goodness, I've gotten so much good advice. I think the best advice I ever got was when, well, at least if it's not the best, it's up there. 12 years old. I'm riding on the bus with my then 14 year old girlfriend who to this day, I don't remember her name, but I remember this advice. That's how good it was. And I was in my 12 year old wisdom mocking somebody who had just gotten on the bus. Don't remember what I was mocking, but I remember her looking over at me and she said, John, just cause you talk bad about them doesn't make you any better. And, I still remember that. Man, over 20 years later now. Yeah. Talking bad about others doesn't make us any better. No, it doesn't. John, it's been great having you on here. Your journey is definitely an inspiration and good to see you making a comeback and making a difference, positive difference. But before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners? thanks for having me. If you want to connect with me, I'm all over LinkedIn. You can look, look me up there or my business website, servantmindedleadership.com. If there's anything I can do to serve in your leadership journey or just be of encouragement to you. Maybe you, maybe they've got somebody they know that's going through something similar. I'd be happy to try to serve them. Awesome. Thank you again, John, for joining us. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning into Boardsi Leadership Talks. Be sure to subscribe for more insightful conversations with industry leaders who are making a difference. And until next time, we're out. Awesome.