The human-centered leader: How to develop talent and build influence with Al Dea

Al Dea [00:00:00]:
I know that managers and leaders have a lot on their plate and I think that developing talent and investing in your people is one of the activities that if you prioritize, it will help you scale your impact. Even though it will take an investment of time, it will buy you a ton of time back because your people will rise to the level of their abilities.

Hannah Beaver [00:00:19]:
You’re listening to How to Make a Leader, a leadership development podcast from Big Think plus, where we take the biggest ideas from the best minds in learning and development and distill them into actionable insights. I’m your host, Hannah Beaver. Today’s guest is Al D. Al is a talent and leadership development consultant, keynote speaker and facilitator. He is founder of his own consulting firm, Edge of Work, where he spends his days working with organizations to design talent strategies and build leadership programs. He also hosts a podcast of the same name and so I definitely recommend checking out the Edge of Work podcast. Like many, Al believes that in order to create a better world of work, the key is human centric leadership. In this episode, we’ll be focusing in on the two key drivers that he believes are essential to achieve this.

Hannah Beaver [00:01:13]:
One, how we should be viewing leaders as developers of people, and two, the importance and how to that build social capital. Al breaks down what he’s observed to have changed the most in the world of leadership development, why we shouldn’t assume that HR&L and D alone own employee development, the most common mistakes that leaders make when trying to develop their teams and strategies that go beyond traditional learning programs. Al, welcome to How to Make a Leader.

Al Dea [00:01:44]:
It’s great to be here with you, Hannah.

Hannah Beaver [00:01:46]:
Very excited for our conversation today, especially as you’re quite uniquely positioned given that you spend your days speaking with many talent and learning leaders across multiple organizations and industries. So you’re hearing their pain points, their successes, what they’re working on. So I’m really excited to get your insight today, both from what you’ve seen over the last few years and then also what you’re hearing on the streets as well. So it’s safe to say that workplace learning dynamics have shifted as have kind of leadership development priorities and they’ve evolved dramatically in the past few years. So what would you say is the most notable shift that you’ve observed in.

Al Dea [00:02:26]:
Terms of the, you know, what’s the most pressing challenge or thing that’s top of mind for talent or learning leaders? It’s really about how do we continue to drive performance with the talent and people that we have. Many industries are going through transformation and change, as well as a lot of uncertainty. And so while there are some specific pockets where you might see some growth opportunities or hiring or headcount industries, in a lot of parts of the world, that pretty much is flat. And so then it kind of becomes a question around for the people that we have. How do we continue to drive performance to make sure that we can operate at a level that enables us to hit the specific business goals, and that has all sorts of downstream implications for many of the other traditional things that we do within talent and learning and onboarding and leadership development, you know, and the like. If I could add maybe, you know, another thing to it, I think it just, quite frankly, is navigating uncertainty piece. Many organizations are going through some kind of transformation or change, whether that’s because of the industry that they’re in or. Or because of the technology transformation that’s really hitting on every one of us.

Al Dea [00:03:40]:
But certainly now, due to macroeconomic conditions, there certainly is just a lot of uncertainty that I think is causing a lot of challenge for business leaders at large, and certainly, again, that has downstream implications for all of the talented learning leaders and all the people within it. So those are a couple things that come to mind.

Hannah Beaver [00:03:57]:
I’m curious to know what is something that was considered good leadership 10 years ago that you would now advise leaders against?

Al Dea [00:04:06]:
I would say it’s a couple things that come to mind. I think the first thing that I really think about is everything about leadership and how it’s evolved over the past couple maybe decades or so. I think the first thing is just that while leaders are still accountable for outcomes and for decisions, the process for which they come to those, I think, is slightly different. I think we have gone from a world where it was kind of expected that the leader was going to make all the decisions, have all of the analysis, have all the ideas, and kind of just tell everyone what we’re doing to one where that is a little bit more open, right? Where leaders, again, are still responsible for the answers or for the outcomes, but the process for how they get there is a little bit different. It might involve listening to your people. It might involve acknowledging that you don’t have all the answers and you need to go out and find them. I don’t necessarily think that was as common a couple decades ago. I think it was more common for people to kind of expect their leader to come up with the answers and just to tell people, this is what we’re doing.

Al Dea [00:05:06]:
Second, you know, piece to that. I think there is kind of this notion of Letting go of control a little bit. You know, I think in this world of work that we’re in today, while again, leaders are still responsible for the outcomes, great ideas can come from anywhere in the organization. And in many ways, people, even if they aren’t formal people, leaders have to demonstrate leadership in order to get things done based off of the nature of how we work. It is very hard for many of us in an organization to solely work on something just by ourself. We fundamentally need other people to be able to support us, our ideas, to be able to solve problems, come up with solutions and actually run the business. And so what that often means is that some of the leadership that’s actually going on in your organization today isn’t necessarily being done by former leaders. But what that also means is that if you are a formal leader, it means acknowledging that and there are some cases where you won’t be the one to lead and that you’ll actually be elevating other people in some kind of way.

Al Dea [00:06:04]:
And then I would say that the last layer of this, which I think was happening before the pandemic, but I think it certainly was something that was brought on and kind of ratcheted up a couple levels as a result of the pandemic. I think we’re at a point now where we are kind of finally acknowledging that we are multidimensional human beings and that that sometimes just because you have a personal life and just because you have a work life, that some of those things kind of bleed into one another. And as a result of that, I think it’s requiring leaders to do two things. Number one, I think it’s requiring them to kind of show up in that way in some respects. Right. And that it’s okay to be human. Right. To a certain degree.

Al Dea [00:06:39]:
But it’s also requiring them to kind of model that and act and, and lead in, in that kind of way for other people in terms of being a little bit more empathetic, being a little bit more intentional about, you know, checking in on people, making sure that they’re operating at a, at a level from a well being, you know, perspective. Right. And so I would say again, that isn’t necessarily something that happened just because of the COVID 19 pandemic. I think it was slightly shifting that way, but I think it’s definitely brought on a whole new meaning, particularly over the last few years.

Hannah Beaver [00:07:10]:
And that segues perfectly actually into kind of how I wanted to frame the conversation today. And that’s based around, you know, what you speak about a lot, which is creating a better world of work through human centric leadership. And I know this can be achieved in many ways, but can you unpack a little bit what that means to you? What is human centric leadership? I know we hear it a lot now, it’s definitely a buzzword, but what does that mean to you?

Al Dea [00:07:35]:
No, I appreciate the question and I. Because I think definitions matter and yes, it does feel a little buzz, buzzwordy or a really nice slogan, but you’re right, you know, what does it actually mean? And so I think for me, what human centric leadership means is that we are leading in ways that intentionally put people at the center. And that it’s not that we don’t acknowledge other things that are important, such as processes or programs or protocols or certainly profits, but that we’re intentionally designing for people first and intentionally leading with people first while thinking about all the other things that matter. When it comes to trying to achieve some kind of outcome, I think that’s important because, you know, at the end of the day, if we actually just fundamentally, philosophically think about what is commerce or what is business, it basically is you have something and I have something, and we exchange value for it because that’s how we need to kind of associate with one another in order to kind of thrive or survive. That is a fundamentally human endeavor. Business is a fundamentally human endeavor. And so for me at least, human centric leadership is just acknowledging that, yes, we are in a world where technology continues to play an increasing role in what we do. Yes, we are in a world where it is important for businesses to have processes, structures, protocols, etc.

Al Dea [00:08:46]:
And the whole point of business is about connecting people together. And so my view of human centric leadership is just that we acknowledge and design for humans when we lead first before we think about all of the other implications. And again, implementation, it’s not putting any of those things at odds. It’s more of just about the intentionality and the structure of how we support it.

Hannah Beaver [00:09:07]:
I appreciate that definition. I think you’re right. Definitions always do matter. And they’re nice to set the context of a conversation because obviously it can mean different things to different people. So as we talk about this human centered leadership, the two topic areas that we’ll be mostly focusing on today will be around one, leaders as developers of people, and then two, as leaders building social capital within their organizations. So why don’t we start out with leaders as developers of people?

Al Dea [00:09:41]:
I think that we have gotten to a point where we have thrown so many responsibilities, tasks Activities, actions, deliverables, processes at leaders. It is a lot. It really, really is. And I don’t necessarily think it’s fair, but I think it’s just the reality that we live in today. And out of all those things that a leader can do, I think that being a developer of people or a developer of talent is something that is incredibly critical. And I would argue at one of the higher rungs in that list of priorities that a leader should have. And the idea kind of behind this and why I think it’s so important really stems back to the, to what we talked about with human centered leadership, right? In terms of if we are trying to design work and kind of lead in a way that puts people first, well, let’s make sure that we’re actually putting them in places and conditions where they can actually be successful. When we hire new employees to an organization, we spend a ton of time trying to make sure that we’re attracting the right people to come in the door, that they have the right skills and abilities and aptitude to be able to do the job.

Al Dea [00:10:45]:
So we spend all this time hiring this really great person. We hope that they have not just the skills to do the job, but also that they could probably even do more than that. But then we never make space or conditions to actually tap into that potential skill or ability. And so part of why I think becoming a people developer or developer of talent is really critical for a leader is because when you actually take the time and do activities that help develop your people, that allows them to make good on the potential you had when you first hired and brought them in the door to be able to not just do the job, but also to find other ways to contribute that drive impact for your team and for the organization. If you are a leader and part of your job is to be able to deliver and drive results, part of being able to do that is by working through and with your people. If you want your people to do that, you’ve got to make sure that you’re actively developing them. And so to me, at least, and I recognize that I think a lot about this, and I do a lot of this each and every day, there is a clear distinction to me in terms of the ability to drive results and outcomes and how much and to what degree that you’re actively developing your people to make sure that they have the skills, the abilities and the conditions to actually do the thing that you’re trying to make good on.

Hannah Beaver [00:11:56]:
What are some of the specific strategies that you’ve seen most effective leaders Perhaps that you’ve worked with or a case study that you’ve observed that they use to develop their people beyond those traditional training programs.

Al Dea [00:12:09]:
Yeah. I think the very first thing is in terms of do you actually see and acknowledge and understand that this is a action or responsibility that you can take and that you are kind of adding it to your list of responsibilities or making it a priority amongst the responsibilities that you have? Right. I think that to your point, oftentimes in many organizations, L and D&HR kind of get brought to the table to do a lot of the development activities, whether it’s traditional talent and leadership development programs, onboarding, all those types of things. And let me be the first to say, as someone who participates in these and who designs these, these things absolutely matter. Right. We, we do not want to take those away. If anything, we would, we want to make sure that there is the appropriate space for them and doing those alone will, I don’t think will ever be enough. Right.

Al Dea [00:12:56]:
There are far more people in an organization that don’t work in HR and talent development than those that do. And so if we want to actually make talent development happen and make developing people happen, it needs to happen by people actually going out and doing the darn thing. It starts with just acknowledging that I can play a role in this and that I’m going to take action to do this. I think the second piece which kind of ties to that is that it is something that is continuous and not necessarily episodic. Right. You know, similarly to how we often talk about in learning and development in hr around how learning isn’t something that happens when you go, just when you go away to a formal experience or an in person training or workshop or formal leadership development person. It happens through small practices and actions. Right.

Al Dea [00:13:41]:
That’s how we learn. And not just in those things, but in other areas. The same is true for developing people. It’s not about just about having a developmental conversation a couple times a year, but rather about the small actions and practices that you incorporate into the day to day work, into your weekly workflow, into things that you do on a quarterly basis, stuff like that. The analogy that I often give is, you know, very similar to how, uh, you or I, if we, you know, perhaps wanted to run a marathon, but had never run a marathon before. If we wanted to run a marathon, we’d never run a marathon before. We wouldn’t just show up on the day of the marathon and expect to be able to run 26.2 miles. Right.

Al Dea [00:14:15]:
We would go, you know, in six to eight months in advance, we’d start a training program, right? And we would do consistent and repeatable training and at practice in order to actually build up to get there. The same is true for developing talent. We’re not going to just do it one time a year. We’re going to do it deliberately, intentionally, through small practices and actions. And over time, that will help your employees kind of develop themselves. Right. And so I would say that, like, is the second thing. And then I would say, like the last thing is that they model it themselves.

Al Dea [00:14:45]:
Right? And so they share with their people how they are developing, the things that they’re doing on their own to kind of learn, grow, you know, in some cases, maybe perhaps their successes, but also maybe perhaps their missteps and things like that. One of the best things I think a leader can always do is model things that they want to be able to see in others. Not only are they doing it, but also they’re talking about what they are doing themselves in terms of their own development and growth. There is a responsibility for HR and learning and development in an organization in terms of kind of really driving the strategy and direction of what employee development should look like. And certainly with input from stakeholders, business leaders, et cetera. But you know, they’re the really the point people that are working towards those goals, and they alone cannot be responsible for it, all of it. Right. Because ultimately the development and growth of the employee, the leaders are going to be the closest to actually seeing that happen on a consistent basis.

Al Dea [00:15:40]:
Right. Because HR&L and D is not able to kind of have the span of control as well as just the hours in the day or the time in the week to actually see and see all this going on. There are far more people that don’t work in L and D and HR in an organization that people that do. And so if it’s just HR and lmd, I think it’s going to really severely limit the scope and impact. The reason why I think they need to be involved and why it can’t just be HR lod alone is because the leader is ultimately responsible for driving results. Right? And so if a leader does want to drive results, I think this is something that they would want to take at least partial ownership of in some kind of way or at least play a role in. Because once you can participate in it, you can have a hand in shaping the direction of it and influencing the outcome of it versus leaving it up to chance, perhaps to someone else. And so I think that, to me, is why a leader should be involved.

Al Dea [00:16:34]:
And also why, hopefully for the L and D&HR folks that are out there, that you’re also engaging with leaders and managers on a consistent basis to better understand how you all can partner together. Because on the HR and L and D side, you know, again, and I’ve said this before, in any organization, there are far more people that don’t work in HR&L and D than the people that do. And so if you’re someone that works in HR&L and D and is really trying to drive and trying to put a strategy together for employee growth and development, one of the best things I think you can do is to go out and find other people who are just as passionate about that as you are. Because ultimately you and HR and L D are not going to be able to do all of that on your own anyway. And so the more that you can kind of find other leaders out there, or anyone for that matter who really cares about this, I think the more likely you are to get uptick or support for whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve.

Hannah Beaver [00:17:23]:
And to touch on the point that you made around establishing these norms and practicing leadership kind of every day, like you mentioned, as with L and D, the concept of learning and the flow of work and bringing it into everyday workflows, what pushback would you have if you went to work with a leader and they said, you know, I think this is all great, but I feel strapped for time. I don’t know how I’m going to incorporate this into. I have so much already on my plate. I don’t know how to kind of initiate this type of thinking and process building within my organization. What’s one small high impact change that you would suggest that they begin with to implement within their organization to achieve this?

Al Dea [00:18:02]:
It’s a great question. And it’s definitely pushback that I get all the time. So there’s a couple angles to take this. I think the first angle always is through this concept and idea of perspective taking. Right. And so practicing empathy. But one idea for perspective taking is to kind of put yourself in their shoes. Right? And if you can kind of take the perspective of an employee, how would it feel if you want it to be actively developed and your manager told you that you didn’t have time to do that? Right.

Al Dea [00:18:28]:
I would say that most reasonable people would probably say, oh, that doesn’t feel so great. Right. Or even better, because every manager in theory also has a manager or leader. Imagine that was you. Imagine that is you. And that is the beauty of it. And oftentimes that’s always a good starting place of just, hey, like, let’s, let’s try this on for size. And again, understand our choices and decisions have implications on others.

Al Dea [00:18:49]:
Right? And so that is often a grounding piece. One of the biggest pushbacks that I often get is the time piece. We have given leaders so many responsibilities and tasks. Part of this is just part of the job in terms of the expectation. But I think to a certain degree, oftentimes we have not been as great about prioritizing for them or being reasonable about expectations. And it’s really hard when something gets put on someone’s plate, particularly at the leader level, for it ever to be removed. That’s just the reality of it. And so oftentimes, kind of the argument that I make to them and kind of the mindset and perspective shift that I try to make to them is that doing this actually gives you back time.

Al Dea [00:19:24]:
Actively taking and investing time to develop your people frees you up because it helps them over time develop skills and abilities that they can then use those skills and abilities to take on either tasks or jobs or responsibilities so that you don’t have to. Or in some cases, if you do this in the right way, what it actually helps you do is it helps you build a sense of self sustaining capability in that individual so that they may not ask for your help every time. Because since you’ve gone out of their way to show them the ropes a little bit, they start to get to a point where they start to be able to tackle things themselves or at least get to a point where they’re at least going to try to do that because you have created an environment for them to feel compelled and having intrinsic motivation and in some cases the trust and safety that they need to go tackle and take something on. And so in those cases, like you’re actually freeing up time. Once they see what the time commitment actually is, they’re like, this actually does make a lot of sense. And I can see this kind of working for me.

Hannah Beaver [00:20:23]:
What are some of the most common mistakes that you see from leaders when it comes to developing their teams?

Al Dea [00:20:29]:
Number one is around kind of the episodic nature of it or once and done kind of element of it, right? Whether that is the yearly developmental conversation or like the time when the leader goes to like some leadership development program, feels like their world has been transformed and comes back and says, okay, I want to do this now, and then forgets about it. That’s followed, you know, closely, I guess, tied up with just like not acknowledging that like it is a responsibility or role or part of their job. Right. So I would say that those two are the kind of the top ones that take the place. I think the other one certainly is, is just kind of not necessarily be making it a two way dialogue, right. Or a two way kind of conversation and look like you have a role in this, but this is not for you to solve alone. Your people need to participate and come along on the journey with you. And in many cases you both need to do this together.

Al Dea [00:21:20]:
And so I think the way to think about this is that I think in these cases that leader is more of a facilitator than a doer themselves, right? They’re helping this person develop and grow, become more than what they are. But they, they can’t develop for that individual, right? Like, because at the end of the day, that individual is going to be the one taking on that new extra project or stepping into this new role, not the leader. And so there are some cases where I think sometimes the leader thinks that they can kind of drive it all by themselves and it. And it really has to be kind of bi directional. And on that bidirectional notion, I think there also. Sometimes I wouldn’t say this is a mistake, but maybe just an oversight. There is a richness to that as a leader where you can learn a lot of stuff from that too, right? When you actually take the time to develop your people or coach them or sit with them to show them how to do something, the questions that they ask, the observations that they make, the input that they give you, those are all fertile ground for insights that could help you in terms of you leading the team. They may ask you questions that you never thought of.

Al Dea [00:22:19]:
They may ask you questions that make you realize, wait, why are we doing this in the first place? It’s not so much a mistake as it is an oversight of. You can learn so much from those experiences that actually might cause you to realize, like, wait, why are we doing this thing? Or wait, why are we doing this thing? We should be doing that thing. And I think it really isn’t just that. Not understanding that that developmental opportunity is just another moment where you can get an interaction that can help you be a better leader.

Hannah Beaver [00:22:47]:
Can you walk us through a real world example of a leader or an organization that excels at developing talent internally and perhaps touch on the measurable results that they’ve achieved?

Al Dea [00:22:58]:
I was able to kind of talk with a few leaders who have been working in trying to implement some of these Things. And there’s one leader in particular I’m thinking of who I think even before coming to some of the interventions we put in place, I think first and foremost they definitely believed in the power of developing talent and they saw of their job as being a developer of talent. During every single one on one, one of the things they would do with their employees is that there was always a specific section in their one on one document related to career development and growth. This starts to build that safety and trust that my manager actually cares about my career development growth from an organizational perspective from the organization that one of their core values really was around this idea of the learner’s mindset or the beginner’s mindset. Just being open and curious to growth, being open to the learnings that you may have and acknowledging that you may not necessarily know everything, but there is always something that you can learn. We wanted to really bring this to life amongst people leaders. So one of the things we did was we were going to try to build in some lightweight interventions and tools that we could give to managers so that they could start to practice development into the flow of their day to day or their weekly workflow during specific quarters. We built these templates.

Al Dea [00:24:06]:
They were just like Google Doc templates, but they were structured tools that a manager could use with their employee in like a 5 or 10 minute session to talk about their career or just to get them to reflect on their work or anything that they had been doing related to their development. And we pushed these out to managers at large. And so after running and implementing some of these tools, we then would measure those questions. And because we were intentional about who we rolled these tools out to, we were, we could sort of draw some light correlations between the improvement in the scores and what managers we had rolled these tools out to hopefully see. Oh, okay. When we roll out this tool and the manager uses it, we can start to over time see some of these numbers go up. It’s not causation per se, but we felt pretty good knowing that the trend line was going in a positive direction based off of something that had happened. And so that’s one example of where we really brought this to life and trying to do it in a way that we did some workshops.

Al Dea [00:25:02]:
We also used some things outside of just bringing people to the formal classroom experience.

Hannah Beaver [00:25:12]:
Let’s move on to building social capital.

Al Dea [00:25:15]:
Yeah.

Hannah Beaver [00:25:16]:
What does this mean? And why should leaders care about developing the social capital of their teams?

Al Dea [00:25:22]:
Just from a light textbook definition, I would say that social capital kind of refers to the collective value of the social networks. So the relationships, connections, etc. And kind of what arises from those kind of connections that enable people to kind of help and support one another inside of an organization. Another way to think about it is kind of like the network of trust, relationships and collaboration that can drive work forward in an organization today. In some cases, I kind of tend to think about this almost as like the invisible glue that sometimes can drive shared outcomes and shared kind of initiatives together. And also like other forms of capital that we might have, whether it’s financial capital, reputational capital, things like that, it is something that can be kind of developed and invested in over time.

Hannah Beaver [00:26:11]:
What does building social capital look like.

Al Dea [00:26:13]:
In practice before we go into building? And I think, you know what I would say in terms of like, why does that matter? Or why should we even be building it in the first place? I mean, at the end of the day, an organization is just a bunch of people that are working towards shared goals. Traditionally, we as human beings tend to work with people that we know like and trust in an organization. Today it is very hard to work on something solely by yourself. You are often relying on others to support you with their skills, their resources, or their buy in. And conversely, other people are relying on you to do the same. Social capital in terms of those relationships as well as the connections you have and the goodwill that you have from those really matters, because that often can make or really grease those kids to make it so that people do work together and that people do collaborate. At a very simplistic level, if you are working on something inside of an organization or you’re running into an issue or a challenge, if you don’t have any social capital, it’s going to be really hard for you to kind of work through that. If you do have social capital, it might make it a little bit easier.

Al Dea [00:27:17]:
We’ve all been in a situation, I think, where we had to get something done and we couldn’t do it ourselves and we needed help. But many of us also have been in situations where we’ve got a really great idea for a project, or we have this amazing idea about a new initiative or program that we want to launch, but we can’t do it alone. That’s really where social capital can really come into play. So in terms of what building social capital kind of looks like in practice, I think again, I’m really big on deliberate practice and habits and practices built over time. Not necessarily these big episodic things, although certainly those things can be helpful in matter. But I think more than anything, it’s being attuned and aware to the interpersonal dynamics and relationships that exist within your organization, or even in some cases, outside of your organization, and intentionally and actively trying to cultivate relationships in ways in which that can help you and in some cases can also help other people as well. You know, I think at the end of the day, what it all really stems back to is this general idea that none of us exists in a vacuum just by ourself. We all exist and coexist with others.

Al Dea [00:28:20]:
And I think what it means to kind of build this, or at least try to actively be aware of it, is just acknowledging that and going out of your way to be in relation to others so that when it comes time to kind of think about again that problem that you’re trying to solve, that initiative that you’re trying to start, the thing you need in order to get something done that you’re predisposed to thinking about, not just how do I do this thing, but also how do I bring the right people, relationships, experiences to bear so that I can actually achieve this objective.

Hannah Beaver [00:28:50]:
And I want to dig into that a little bit further because I think when we think about social capital, it’s impossible to kind of separate the notion of social influence. And I think many would assume that influence and the power to influence other people is a skill that people kind of naturally possess. I think we all know that one person that has just always had the power to walk into a room and have the natural ability to command that room or control a dynamic in a situation. So why would you argue that this is a skill that can be learned? And practically speaking, how can this be built into a leadership development program, for example?

Al Dea [00:29:30]:
A lot of times with influence, it can be a lot about us in the context of others. And I think what social capital really makes you do and think about is others in the context of us. It’s kind of thinking outward in versus inward out. Both are important for various reasons. I think speaking to something else, though, that you said in terms of something that is kind of predisposed or something that can be built, I think the value and opportunity, I would say, with social capital is that by the time we have gotten into the professional workplace, we’ve all had to build relationships before. And so everyone has a starting place for where they can start with continuing to kind of build social capital from where they are today. But, you know, for the short term to medium, to hopefully long term again, business is still very much a human endeavor. And so even as we continue to rely more on technology in the workplace, those human to human relationships still really matter.

Al Dea [00:30:26]:
And so if we kind of take that knowing that everyone at least has a starting place for knowing, having, and had experience with having built a relationship before, we can extrapolate that out to kind of then say, well, how can we either do more of this? How can we do it differently? How can we use it in better ways? But because I think business is a fundamentally human kind of endeavor, the ability to kind of have that both kind of the awareness that I need to do this as well as the practical kind of actions for going about it, I think really make this really, really something that you not only have at least a starting point with, but that you can develop and get better at if you choose to, or at least get good enough at so that you can be more effective in achieving whatever goals you have for yourself in the workplace.

Hannah Beaver [00:31:11]:
And then, practically speaking, can you share an example of an L and D team or a leadership development team that you’ve worked with who have helped their team members build strategic connections that have directly improved business outcomes?

Al Dea [00:31:26]:
Sure. Well, I think sometimes when you’re identifying kind of the objectives of whatever leadership development program you’re doing, even just thinking about the selection process or designing who’s in the room can often be a great way to design for social capital or at least, you know, for collaboration and connection. Right. In terms of bringing in leaders from different parts of the business to kind of come together to be able to meet and connect and design for one another. Certainly when you’re kind of designing leadership development programs, you know, a big portion of a leadership development program oftentimes is the social learning component, Right. In terms of how are you finding ways to kind of integrate people together so that they can learn from one another and learn from their experiences so you can create space for them to share experiences for one another, you know that learning is going to be helpful for a number of reasons, right. In terms of hopefully helping them build the skill or behavior they need to kind of practice once they leave kind of the program, but hopefully also expanding the network in social capital of the leaders who are in the room so that, you know, next time one of those leaders has a challenge, they might reach out to one of the other participants who’s in the program. I think more specifically around kind of like a behavior or way in which leadership development or someone building a leadership development program could focus around the skill of either building relationships or building social capital.

Al Dea [00:32:39]:
It’s a couple things. One of the Most basic, I think, places a lot of folks start with, you know, kind of thinking about this is just through a general kind of stakeholder map, right. In terms of helping leaders kind of map out who are kind of the key stakeholders that you have today. Right. And even just having them reflect on how often do you engage with them, how do you support them, how do they support you? Are there any opportunities for room for improvement, really getting them to think about not just who are you engaged with today, but like, who are the people that you should, you should know, right. That you haven’t engaged with. There’s a lot of Rebo, great body research, you know, really on this concept of weak ties, right. Where sometimes, you know, in this case the research was done with respect to the job search, but we can extrapolate that out a little bit.

Al Dea [00:33:22]:
Where sometimes it’s not the people who are closest to you that can often help you with opportunities, it’s the people who maybe are a second degree connection or a little bit farther away, a little bit more diverse from what you typically see every day. Right. And so continuing on this notion, you know, helping, you know, with that stakeholder map of who are those people that maybe you’re not engaging with, who you might be able to engage with. Right. So that, that might be one kind of way, you know, another kind of way is like actually getting leaders to think about not only how you do this for yourself, but how you do this for your people. Right. Leaders, they can’t do everything, right? They need to do things at scale. If we all need the support of others to do our jobs effectively, well then helping your people build their own social capital, that could be a really valuable lever to pull so that your people can become more impactful in their work and in some cases build their own social capital, but also in some cases become more influential in the organization for that matter.

Al Dea [00:34:11]:
So I think there’s starting with a stakeholder map, but certainly also helping them think about, you know, maybe where they don’t have relationships, where they should be building them, helping them think about how they can actually help their people build social capital. All sorts of different ways in which I think you can approach this, but I think those are a few that come to mind.

Hannah Beaver [00:34:26]:
What about when it comes to measurement, how can we effectively measure whether efforts to build social capital and develop talent are actually working?

Al Dea [00:34:35]:
I’ll take this at the individual level first, because I have a much clearer answer for that. So at the individual level, there are some, I would say qualitative things and then maybe Some quantitative things from a qualitative thing. It’s for yourself as a leader, how does your reputation improve over time? Are the stakeholders you have like saying, giving you more and more positive feedback? Are they helping you out more? Are they coming to you unprompted with new opportunities or ideas? Are they supporting the ideas that you throw their way? Certainly it could come in the form of your initiatives, right? In terms of are you getting asked to lead more things that maybe you didn’t previously get asked to lead? Do people know who your people are? Is your team getting out into more of the organization? Are they supporting the work that your team members are participating in? And in some cases you can make the even make the argument. Let’s say there is a project or skill that like you weren’t able to do before, but now all of a sudden your team is able to do that. Like, I would argue that like qualitatively or quantitatively, like, you’re kind of improving the scope of skill either because you couldn’t get that project greenlighted in the past and now you can. There’s some more advanced ways from a quantitative perspective. For those of you who are listening, who are familiar with organizational network analysis, or ona, where you can actually use software to actually measure kind of the connectedness and connections, kind of like within an organization. Dr.

Al Dea [00:35:53]:
Michael arena, one of the kind of leading experts of social capital, actually shared with me where he worked with an organization that wanted to really try to find ways to improve social capital and connectedness inside of the organization. They had a hypothesis in terms of their movement to kind of return to office, that people were kind of disconnected. And so one of the things that they were able to do is that the company used kind of this connection platform, if you will, that helped facilitate relationships between workers inside of the organization. They wanted to use this as a way to kind of boost knowledge sharing and communication and just general relationship building across the team. So they measured this over like the span of a year. And what they found was that those people who reported they had formed friendships by using this platform experienced 20% less separation rate from those who didn’t use it at all. Basically the fact that they had engaged with this, they were drawing the correlation that they were less likely to separate. And not only that, but they also kind of reported higher levels of like, well being, et cetera and things like that.

Al Dea [00:36:54]:
And so that’s just like one example of what like a company organization has done. I’m sure there are many others, but yeah, those are a couple Thoughts and.

Hannah Beaver [00:37:03]:
To the point that we were discussing earlier, a common pushback that you’ve had from leaders or from teams around the constraints of time or resources. For example, if our listeners could implement just one 15 minute daily practice to help build their social capital, what would you recommend?

Al Dea [00:37:22]:
One thing they can do is every week just kind of find a couple people that they want to check in with, either because they’re a key stakeholder or because they’ve identified them as someone that they want to build a relationship with. Just send them a quick note and just say, hey, just checking in, you know, would love to hear how things are going or there’s anything I could support you with or what’s top of mind. You can even make it so that if you have time, like happy to chat. If not, like just shoot me like a quick sock message or teams message of like what’s going on. Right? It’s something like that. Another thing they can do for their team members is that they can go to their team members and just say, hey, I want to help you kind of strengthen your network this quarter. Share with me one or two interests that you have and I’m going to introduce you to at least two other people inside of this organization who also share that same interest that you do. Right.

Al Dea [00:38:05]:
Shouldn’t take too long to do that, but that seems like something that’s pretty kind of reasonable to do. The last thing that you can kind of maybe do is once a quarter or something like that, host kind of a lunch and learn for your team where you invite other stakeholders or other people to come and you can kind of share kind of hey, like, here’s our team, here’s what we do, here’s what we’ve been working on, almost kind of like a roadshow, if you will. But that’s also a great way to kind of get your team members a little bit of visibility. But also we all forget what our colleagues do all the time because we have so much stuff that’s going on. So at the very minimum, it’s a good way to just kind of make your others a little bit more aware of what your team does.

Hannah Beaver [00:38:39]:
Al really enlightening conversation today. I really appreciate your time and thanks so much on helping us learn How to Make a Leader.

Al Dea [00:38:47]:
Hannah, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you. I really enjoyed it.

Hannah Beaver [00:38:51]:
Thanks for listening. For more from Al, check out the Show Notes where we’ve linked his website, podcast and LinkedIn. For more from How to Make a Leader. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. We’ll be back next month and every month with more insights from another L and D expert. We’ll catch you next time as we learn How to Make a Leader.

In this episode of How to Make a Leader, we’re joined by Al Dea, founder of Edge of Work consulting and a respected voice in talent and leadership development. Al breaks down why true leadership success hinges on a human-centric approach focused on two essential drivers: viewing leaders as developers of people and building social capital within organizations.

Drawing from his extensive experience as a consultant, keynote speaker, and podcast host, Al shares practical insights on how day-to-day leadership actions directly impact talent development. He challenges the notion that employee growth belongs solely to HR and L&D departments, revealing the common mistakes leaders make when developing their teams and offering actionable strategies that extend beyond traditional training programs.

You’ll discover:
– Why developing your people is the highest-impact leadership investment
– Practical ways to implement human-centric leadership principles
– How to build and leverage social capital to enhance team performance
– Effective development strategies that don’t require formal training programs

Things to listen for:
(00:00) Introducing Al Dea
(01:13) The evolution of workplace dynamics
(07:10) Defining human-centric leadership in real terms
(09:41) Leaders as developers of people
(12:09) Building growth into your weekly workflow
(15:28) How HR and L&D scale development
(18:02) Why investing in people ultimately saves time
(20:23) Common mistakes leaders make when developing others
(25:02) How to build social capital (and why it matters)
(31:26) A leadership development program that built real connections
(34:35) How to measure development and social capital

To learn more about Al and his work, check out his Linkedin profile, his website, and his podcast.