Adam Galinsky: The Inspiring Leadership Traits Every Boss Must Develop

Pre-order Marcel’s new book, “Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-ass Boss” → https://www.amazon.com/Humane-Leadership-Lead-Radical-Kick-Ass-ebook/dp/B0CWG3PTL4 

Episode recap:

In this episode, Adam Galinsky discusses strategies for improving organizational culture, motivating employees, and overcoming challenges, emphasizing empathy, empowerment, and values. Through his experience with FBI agents, he explores how inspiration is universally understood and how leaders exist on a continuum between inspiring and infuriating. He identifies three core dimensions of inspiring leadership: being visionary, serving as a role model, and mentoring others. Recognizing this continuum, he argues, helps leaders refine their strengths and become more inspiring.

Bio:

Adam Galinsky, a renowned social psychologist and a professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School, has integrated his quarter-century of scientific research to reveal what truly separates inspiring leaders from.... infuriating ones. In his latest book, INSPIRE: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others, Adam establishes three universal characteristics of truly inspiring leaders. Adam’s research, which consists of over 1,000 studies published in over 200 scientific articles, has been cited more than 64,000 times. His TED Talk, “How to Speak Up For Yourself,” has been viewed more than 7.5 million times, and his previous book Friend and Foe was an audible and eBook bestseller. 

Quotes:

• "Leaders change us inside—they inspire us or infuriate us, but neutrality is rarely an option."
• "The continuum always gives us a path backwards. If we recognize, 'I'm being anxious and cowardly here,' I know exactly what to do—calm myself down and take that courageous step forward." 

Takeaways:

• Spend 5 minutes recalling a time when you were at your best, which research shows physiologically calms you and makes your presence more positively contagious.
• Replace abstract concepts with concrete images and repeat consistently (e.g., change "make customers satisfied" to "make customers smile").

Timestamps:

[00:00] Introduction and the discovery of the inspiring-infuriating continuum

[12:30] Personal stories of inspiring leadership and the three universal dimensions

[17:20] The "leader amplification effect" and becoming an exemplary leader

[27:40] Visionary leadership and mentorship: the three E's approach

[37:00] Making better decisions and giving feedback that inspires growth

[47:05] Overcoming insecurity and shame to become a more inspiring leader

[52:55] Leading with love and spreading seeds of inspiration through small actions

Conclusion:

Inspiring leadership isn’t about perfection but continuous growth. Adam Galinsky’s continuum offers a framework for becoming visionary, exemplary, and mentoring. Overcoming insecurity through reflection and small acts of recognition spreads positivity, transforming leadership and fostering a culture of inspiration. 

Links/Resources:

Website: https://adamgalinsky.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-galinsky-05090a3/

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Inspire-Universal-Leading-Yourself-Others-ebook/dp/B0D3CCHW45

Are you an inspiring leader? Take Adam Galinsky’s “Am I Inspiring” Tool: https://adamgalinsky.com

Transcript

Marcel Schwantes  00:04

Hey folks, welcome back to the show. So as I often do, I'm going to start with a question, are you an inspiring leader? And then maybe even a better question. So how would you know? Right? Luckily, today's show is going to teach you a universal set of inspiring characteristics that everyone and I mean everyone, can learn and develop. Adam Galinsky, renowned social psychologist and a professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School, he's integrated his 25 years of scientific research to reveal what truly separates inspiring leaders from well, infuriating ones, and we're going to talk about that too. So in his latest book, inspire the universal path for leading yourself and others, Adam has basically well come up with three universal characteristics of truly inspiring leaders, and you're going to learn what they are if you keep listening. So Adam's research, which consists of over 1000 studies published in over 200 scientific articles, has been cited more than 64,000 times. You might have you might have seen his TED Talk. It's called How to speak up for yourself. Yeah, that's Adam. That TED talk has been viewed more than 7.5 million times. And his previous book, friend and foe was an audible and ebook best seller. Adam Galinsky now joins us. Welcome to the show, Adam. Thank

Adam Galinsky  01:47

you so much for having me. I'm so so excited for our conversation.

Marcel Schwantes  01:50

Me too. I'm geeked up about this. All right, here's how we start. You ready? Let's do it. What's your story?

Adam Galinsky  01:56

What's my story? Well, my you know what? Thinking about what my story is, knowing that's how we always start the podcast here. You know my story really starts around 2006 when I was teaching for the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And this also occurred about a month after my dad passed away. And so I was thinking, you know a lot about my dad and what he meant to me, but on this particular day, I was teaching for about 60 agents, and one of them started to tell a story about a leader of his that inspired him, and I was really struck by how this person just transformed In their nonverbal behavior, their demeanor as they described that this this leader that inspired them. Their eyes got big. They kind of like looked off into the distance that they smiled. They kind of sat up taller in their chair, and it was such a profound and important experience of seeing this person be transformed by the memory, or the person was still alive, but just, you know, thinking about about this leader that inspired them. And so I did something which I had never done before. I turned to the rest of the FBI agents, and I said, Can any of you tell me about a leader that inspired you? And it turned out, all of them could. Every single person in the room could think of a leader that inspired them. And even more, I think profound was they could pinpoint exactly what it was about that leader that inspired them. So I started to I fundamentally changed all of my teaching that day. I stopped like I literally the next time I taught a group of individuals, a group of participants, I started the entire thing by saying, Tell me about a leader that inspired you. And one of the things I discovered was two things which I think are really important. The first is that people could really talk about, what does that mean to feel inspired? What does that what does that experience like? And people really saw it as this transform them, but really created a type of sensation. People would describe it as like warmth or light or energy, and really, the way that I would summarize it was like, almost this oasis of hope and possibility, this Wellspring right, of hope and possibility. But about a year after this, almost exactly a year later, I was teaching another set of FBI agents, and one guy didn't want to have any of this. He's like, I don't want to talk about a leader that inspired me, like I'm going to tell you about someone else that really also changed them inside. But this time, instead of creating that, that well spring or that Oasis, they created what I call a seething cauldron of rage and resentment like that, this person I want to tell you about, someone that just just made my blood boil. And so I started realizing that there was this inspiring leader, but also this infuriating leader. 

Adam Galinsky  04:44

So I turned to the FBI agent, said, can anyone tell me about a leader than for them? And everyone could, and even faster, right? Everyone's like, oh, I can tell you, you know, they you know, the inspiring leaders were rare, the infuriating leaders were many. And so I had this realization. In that day. This is the 2007 two things. The first thing that I realized is that leaders change us inside, right? They they inspire us, or they infuriate us, but neutrality is almost rarely an option. I'll come back to why that is in a second. The second thing is that I quickly discovered, as people started to describe their inferring leaders, that the inspiring leader and the inferring leader were kind of mirror images of each other, and they existed on this sort of continuum. And so I'll just say one more thing, you know, before I prattle on and on. But so I started asking people all over the world, every concert in the world, you know, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia, South America, North America. I didn't ask Antarctica, but I should. I've been to Antarctica, but, but I've quickly discovered that there wasn't a single characteristic mentioned in one country that wasn't mentioned in every country in the world. So this continuum between this inspiring for any leaders were really universal. So

Marcel Schwantes  06:06

you're saying that this mirror image of inspiring versus in infuriating on a continuum is reflected elsewhere, not just the United States. I mean, pretty much you're saying that it these are shared what characteristics all over the world.

Adam Galinsky  06:24

It's almost something that you might say is sort of like, you know, ingrained in the in the architecture of the human mind, right? We are, in some ways, biologically conditioned, or preconditioned to to really sort of dichotomize our leaders into these sort of one or two buckets, right? And so the other thing that I started to discover, which you mentioned in the in the intro, was that these inspiring for any leaders, this universal continuum is also made up of really, sort of what I would call three core dimensions, or factors that you can sort of scientifically, you know, code and collect. And what I realized is they really represent, sort of how we see the world, how we stand or are in the world, and how we interact in the world. So the first one is, you know about being visionary, right? And sort of how we see the world. And if we go back to that continuum, we can see like the inspiring leader has sees the optimistic big picture, whereas inferring leader is kind of pessimistic and pedantic, right? You know, narrow minded. 

Adam Galinsky  07:30

The second one how we are in the world, is being an exemplar desired behavior. And then inspiring leader is courageous and passionate, right? But the infertility leader is, you know, anxious and lifeless and cowardly, and then finally, how we interact with others in the world. I call that being a great mentor, and that really sort of represents the inspiring leader. They empower others. They elevate others right. They're generous towards others, whereas the inferring leader right diminishes others, micromanages. And, you know, really, just, you know, doesn't pay attention or care about others. And just, I'll say one quick thing, you know, there's, I've studied this, and I've done lots of research on cultural differences that exist in the world and how that affects the way that people interact. And so you might think, Oh, well, a country that's, you know, less independent, probably wouldn't be as infuriated by a micromanager. It's just not the case, right? And so the final, and this is the final, I think the cooted Goss of it all. You know that this final, like cherry on top, that really sort of brings it all together. Is the reason why these are the three universal factors, is because each one satisfies a fundamental human need, so and we look to leaders to satisfy our needs. So being visionary satisfies this need for a sense of meaning and purpose, but also a sense of understanding and coherence. Right? The Exemplar satisfies the need for safety and protection, but also passion and energy. And the mentor satisfies fundamental need for feeling like I belong, I'm included, but also valued, and I'm respected, that I have that status in other eyes. And so we can see is that there's this real tight conceptual web, that there is these, you know this universal continuum of inspiring, universal leaders that is made up of these three universal factors, and they exist because they satisfy these core, fundamental human needs. Okay? So you,

Adam Galinsky  09:35

I give you a lot of information.

Marcel Schwantes  09:36

Well, no, no, no, that's great, but you let the whole cat out of the bag. Yeah, I'm sorry, no, but what I want to do is I want to back up to since there are three universal principles, dimensions, and we just uncovered them, visionaries, exemplars, mentors, is there so the flip side, or is either? I remember Superman had the opposite of him. Self, which is bizarro.

Adam Galinsky  10:03

You got to get the goatee,

Marcel Schwantes  10:04

right? So, are there labels for the the opposite of those dimensions? 

Adam Galinsky  10:15

I mean, I think I just sort of call them, you know, you're infuriating. You know, on the visionary dimension. You're, you know, we have words like coward, right? Instead of, you know, courageous protector. You know, demeanor rather than elevator. You know, I think in some ways, but you're also bringing up something I think that's really important, which is, you know, we have names for these people, but this person is us. So one of the things that I've discovered in my research is that none of us are perfect, none of us inspiring all the time, and all of us have our moments of infuriation. And so I think one of the things that this continuum teaches us is two things which are really important. The first is that it's really easy, like life slants us towards the infuriating side of the continuum, when we're hungry and tired, when we're feeling pressure, when we have infuriating bosses, right? 

Adam Galinsky  11:12

We all go and so that continuum is really important, because you could be amazing today. You could be a visionary protector that elevated other people, and tomorrow you could say a comment that just tear someone down, and you become this infuriating person in their mind. And so that's that's to recognize, but, but there's a really positive component of it, which is that the continuum always gives us a path backwards. So if we recognize, wow, I'm being really, you know, anxious and cowardly here, okay, I know exactly what to do. Can calm myself down and take that courageous step forward, right? Oh, I took too much credit there. I know what I can do next time is I can share credit. And so it really gives us a path, and that's why I call it the universal path to leading yourself and others, because it provides, some ways, a guidepost for for where to go.

Marcel Schwantes  12:03

Okay, hold us both accountable to coming back to how to, how to bring us back, if we start to go down that continuum to infuriating, like, how do we come back to inspiring? But I wanted to ask you this. I want this to be personal to you, right? Because you've, you've done 25 years of research, yeah, what about I mean, who would somebody that you personally have seen and experienced that inspires you or has inspired you?

Adam Galinsky  12:30

Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I can think of two different people right now, but I'll just talk about I could describe both. The first is my dad. My dad was just he, you know, when I described to people, I remember I was asked in my 20s, like, What's the moment in your life where you felt like the most loved or the happiest, one of the happiest moments of your life? You know? And I remember saying, it just came to me instantly. It's like my dad holding me in his arms in the ocean. And when my dad passed away, I remember mentioning that to my siblings, and they're both like, that's my favorite memory too. Like we all remembered, and there's something about that moment, like you're in the ocean, it's a little risky, it's a little scary. The waves are coming, but you feel that this person you know is wholly protecting you and that you're completely safe. And so it was exhilarating, but, but without, you know, too much risk at the same time. But I tell a story in the book, which, which I want to share with you, because I just love it so much. And I've actually never shared on any podcast before, but, but it's such a great story. Is my dad was just he was so creative. And there's this moment in 1992 my sister is getting married. I was also going to be visiting my girlfriend at the time in California, all these things were happening, and Northwest had a half price ticket sale. They don't really do this anymore, but back then, they would have this, like, half price ticket sale, and it was like, for like, you know, 24 hours only, or maybe a week, or whatever it was, but my dad was going to buy 22 tickets that day. 

Adam Galinsky  13:59

And so back then, this was before the internet. This was even before, like, call waiting, essentially, like, you would have to call the airline and you wouldn't put on hold. It would just be busy if you couldn't get through at that moment, and you'd hang up after call back. So it's getting closer to the midnight deadline. My dad is starting to stress out. You know, it's 10 o'clock, it's 1030 he's hanging up dialing, hanging up dialing, and he's just looking at the Northwest pamphlet, and he notices something at the bottom. It says, you know, for Espanol, call this number. So he called that number, and the guy answers, you know. And he says, like, you know, buenos no Chase. And he's like, oblin glaze, my dad said. And the guy just burst out laughing. He's like, no one has ever asked me this before, but yes, I speak English. And he's like, can you take reservations from an English speaker? He's like, I guess I can. So my 22 tickets in the nick of time. And I just love that story, because it actually tells us something really, really important about inspiring leaders. Um, which is that they don't give up, right? They, they, he persisted. And that's one of my former students, Brian Lucas has done this tremendous research. Is we think of creativity as divine inspiration, but most of creativity is the end result of hard work and effort and persistence and so, you know, like that. 

Adam Galinsky  15:19

But the reason why I also love telling this story about my dad is my dad was was brilliant, he was empathic, he was creative, he was protective, but he had a very serious inferring flaw. And didn't happen often, but occasionally he would just explode in volcanic anger and like, and, you know, there's a, there's the famous phrase, you know, don't cry over spilled milk. I do remember, maybe I was 10 years old at the time, but, like, I spilled milk at the table, my dad exploded with such rage. I literally, like, ran out of the house, right? I was so scared, you know, just because I just spilled some milk. And, you know, his anger was so abrupt that it like infiltrated my nightmares. You know, sometimes where, like I was trying to get away from the house. And this, this, this, this anger. And but the thing that made my dad really inspiring is eventually I could talk to him about it, and I could say, your anger really affects me, and he really listened. And he wasn't perfect, but he tried to be, trying to control his I think over time, he got pretty good at it. So I really like the story, because it shows my dad's inspiring traits, his inferning flaw. But one of the things that also made him inspiring is that he tried to get better.

Marcel Schwantes  16:35

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I want to, should we drill down on each of those, those three, I'm curious if we can kind of just build a little more more of a profile around exemplar mentors and visionaries. So what let's start with? Let's start with exemplars. How does one get into an exemplar state of mind, because I'm thinking the way that you described it, you know, and I wrote down some things here, courageous, calm protectors. They they're authentic people. I'm thinking as somebody with character and integrity.

Adam Galinsky  17:15

Yeah. yeah. Well, let me say a couple things. First of all, about, you know, being, being this exemplar. I want to, I want to take a step back, if you don't mind, I just want to give one other concept, which I think is really crucial for understanding this, which is the first chapter of the book, and it's a phrase that I coined called the leader amplification effect. And I kind of touched on this already, where I said that leaders will inspire and fury. You know, you don't have a choice to impact people, but you have a choice of how you impact them. And the leader amplification effect basically says that, because when we're leaders, whenever someone looks up to us. So parents are leaders also right? Like my dad was a leader to me, in some ways, we are giving them our attention. We're watching them. We're paying attention to them, we're observing them. And we know from cognitive psychology that anything that we orient our attention to, the signals from that thing are going to get amplified, as I call it, the leader amplification effect, and our reactions to it are going to get intensified. And the reason why I bring that up is you mentioned, you know, being calm, for example, as you know, a really important part of being an exemplar. Another is passion, and I'll go deeper into what passion is in a second. So we are evolved the social beats. That means that as humans, our emotions are generally a little contagious, right? But here's the thing, when we're a leader, our emotions become infectious. And so the reason why it's so important for a leader to be calm in a crisis is because, if they're anxious, that anxiety is going to spread. But if that calmness, it can calm everyone down. And same thing, if you're passionate, you're going to percolate passionate other people. But if you're you know, if you yourself, aren't inspired, if you will, it's really hard to inspire other people. So as a starting point, we need to understand that our emotional states, the way we are in the world, right, are really matter for other people, because it starts to infect them when we're leaders and really they take on so our calmness becomes their calmness, but our anxiety can become their anxiety. So so one of the things I think that's really important is, how do we get ourselves us? How do I get into exemplar state of mind? How do I get myself into a psychological state where I can be that calm protector, right, where I can be authentically passionate, where I can lead with, you know, integrity, as you will. And one of the things that I pioneered, I created something in the in the scientific literature in I created 99 it got published in 2003 but it has been such an impact, it's led to hundreds of studies. Around the world, like not ones that I've published, but other people published that have been motivated by my discovery. And my discovery was basically that we can change people's psychological states by having them think about a time when they were powerful, in control their best self. And so one of the things that really helps in that situation is that when we call a time, we are powerful, we're in control. You know, we knew exactly what we were doing. That is tapping into our own authentic experience. So you probably heard, you know, some people have talked about the power pose, and, you know, and there's not a lot of scientific data to support the power pose. And part of it is it works for some people, but other people feel awkward. But everyone has an experience where they were their best self, when they were doing the right thing, when they were, you know, powerful and control. And, you know, we've shown in our studies, and other people around the world have shown the studies that when you ask people to think about that time of being powerful and control, it literally, physiologically calms you down. We can measure their physiology. We've shown that when people have recalled time, when they fall power from control, they do better in job interviews, they give better speeches. Their voice changes. We've documented their vocal changes, where the voices become both steady but dynamic. At the same time, we've shown that it makes people see the big picture, which allows them to be more visionary, which we'll talk about in a minute. It makes them feel more authentic, right? It just makes them feel so their presence, right, becomes more exemplary and more positively contagious to other people in that. So the, I guess the key thing is, like, how do you get into an exemplar state of mind is really tap into your own experiences of being a great exemplar and or being that powerful in control best self person.

Marcel Schwantes  21:54

Yeah, because we've all been there. And so, yeah, it's being able to introspectively go back to that and maybe recreate that for you. Okay, yeah.

Adam Galinsky  22:04

And I think another thing is that we talked about the inspiring fearing continuum is so I'm going to tell you one story that goes back to, you know, my dad, which is when my sons were younger, like, let's say my my older son was, let's say two and a half, and he started a tantrum, my own volcanic rage would come out. And in my mind, I'm thinking, Okay, this guy, you know, this little boy is acting inappropriately. I will overcome his force with my own force. And that was a disaster, right? You know, it just spiraled into more and more force and, you know, and frustration on each side. And then I realized, if I can remain calm and what like people like Tova Klein call being a container for their emotions, I can help calm them down. But here's where it really took off is I realized the first time I did that, I said, Okay, I'm going to be calm in this situation, intentionally do it. And then I did it, and I felt so proud of myself. Then the next time, I was like, Okay, I've already done it once. I can do it again, and so we can build off our inspiring successes, and I'll come back to that later on. But this idea of making some intentional commitments to being more inspiring under dimension, and then reflecting on those allows us to leverage them more in the future.

Marcel Schwantes  23:21

Okay, let's, let's talk about visionaries. So research validates that inspiring leaders are visionaries. So talk a little bit about about that and how, how can people become more visionary?

Adam Galinsky  23:33

Yeah, so visionary has, I call it the what, the how and the when. So what is the what, the what is basically, and I kind of mentioned earlier, kind of a big picture, media, an optimistic, meaningful big picture. So it's got, like, there's the optimism, it's positive, it's, you know, there's a sense of purpose and meaning in it. And it like sees the larger big picture. That's the what. Now, the how is, how do we communicate that? And the two most important things is we want to simplify it. I call this the inception rule. After the movie Inception, where they he says, you know, to plan an idea in someone's head during the dreams. You don't want to go deep. You want to go simple, right? So it grows naturally in someone's mind. And then the second component is being visual, making it come to life in someone's mind. So the example I love to give is the difference between our goal, our mission is to make our customers satisfied, versus our goal, our mission is to make our customers smile. Now you can see that smile. And so that's more motivating and more engaging. And then The when is always, always, always, repeat, repeat, repeat. So you got to take that big picture, meaningful, optimistic view of the future, simplify it, visualize it, and then say it again, again and again and again. Now, how do we get into that visionary state of mind? And there's a single word that's really, really important, and this word is also important for being an. Exemplar too, and it's the word values. And so what research has shown is that when we take time to reflect on our values, it helps us generate meaning. It helps us see the big picture. It fills us with optimism, and it also helps us be more courageous, right? 

Adam Galinsky  25:23

It helps us not be a hypocrite like that's the most infuriating exemplar is the hypocrite, right? The person who says one thing but does something else, but reflecting on our values ties us to those values. And let me just talk about one study we did, which I'm so proud of. One of the worst things that can happen to anyone in the world is they get fired or to lose your job. That happened to me once in my life, and I just remember sobbing, feeling humiliated, feeling desperate, you know, etc. And so we worked with the Switzerland Swiss government. We worked with the Swiss employment agency, where every Swiss citizen must go in person to register to get unemployment benefits, and when people arrived over a period of time, we randomly assigned them to a control condition or a values reflection condition, and we just said, Hey, think about your most important values. Why are they important to you? But also think about a time when you've demonstrated those values recently. Again, that gets back to remember I said, think about time when you were powerful and control. Think about time when you were act consistently with your values, when you demonstrated your values in your life. Two months later, they were twice as likely to have found a job, and the effect was so strong, we essentially had to cancel the experiment and give everyone this values intervention, reflection task. And so, you know what's going on there. When we reflect on our values, we really tap into a sense of meaning and purpose. It helps us see the bigger picture. Again, it gives us that sense of optimism, right, and then allows us then to persist right in the face of daunting. You know, we get rejected so much when we're looking for a job, right? But you got to keep going. You got to keep going. You got to keep going. And our values help us keep going.

Marcel Schwantes  27:10

Okay? And then the third dimension is mentor. And I'm one like, Okay, that sounds like a natural thing to do, right? We're all of us listening. Who are parents we I would imagine we mentor our kids. It should be a natural strength of a parent, but when you talk about leadership in the workplace, it doesn't always come natural for somebody to have a mentor mindset. Yeah? So how do we Yeah? How do we get on that track? 

Adam Galinsky  27:38

Well, let me say a couple things. First of all, as parents, we should be good mentors. But I'm going to give you the three core attributes that I really focus on as being an aspiring mentor. And this is not like the formal role, but metaphorically, like what it means. And it means that you empower other people, you elevate other people and not diminish them, and you also empathize with them. And I can just tell you, I think I'm a pretty good dad, but, like, there's times where I seize control, right? And I don't empower my kids because they're doing it too slowly, and I get frustrated, right? There's times in which I say, you get this wrong, you know, and really sort of, in some ways, diminish them. And, you know, there's lots of times where I'm not really taking, you know, the world from their perspective, right? And so it's hard as a parent, it's hard as a leader, and because we like control, that makes us become micromanagers. So there's a great quote from Confucius that I really love. It's, tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, but it's only when you involve me that I truly understand. And so one of the things I told, you know, a way that you can be an inspiring leader to people is look for opportunities to give people that extra dose of responsibility. So maybe it's like you're going to do the presentation to a client, but you let someone else do it that day, you know, to give them that opportunity, or you're going to a really important meeting, and you invite them to join you, even if that person is going to speak, they get to be in the room. You know, as Hamilton says, in the room when it happens, you know, like you get to observe what's going on. And so I think that's one, one of the really important things. 

Adam Galinsky  29:18

The second thing is about elevating versus diminishing people. And I think this is actually maybe the most understudied and most important thing. I just published a paper with 17 studies and experiments in it on a phenomenon that I call the vicious cycle of status and security. And what we show in this paper is first thing, if you take a take a step back and you ask people in the workforce like, what's something that infuriated you? It doesn't have to be about a boss. It could be anything, right? You know? And one of the number one things that comes up is someone stole my idea. Someone took credit for a project that I worked on, right? We're really it just makes our blood boil when we think. Someone is trying to, like, you know, get into our game, right, you know, and not acknowledge our contributions. And so we show in this research is that when people are feeling insecure, they are less likely to acknowledge the contributions of others. And part of it is insecurity warps the mind. You think, Oh, my God, status is zero sum. If I say to Marcel, what a great interviewer, will that take away me as an interviewee? Will not people see me as being as having status? So people think I gotta claim credit in order to get credit. But it turns out the exact opposite is true. So we've shown our research is that when I give credit to someone else or acknowledge the contribution someone else, they gain in status, so do I? 

Adam Galinsky  30:46

So these insecure people are making the exact counterproductive mistake, which is they're actually losing a chance to be seen in a respectful light. And so this is really a powerful thing. And so, you know, I know at the end, we'll talk about some, you know, final takeaways. I'm going to save this for my final takeaway, but, but the thing I'll just say is that, like, you know, you gain status by elevating others, not just by claiming credit. And I think that's really important. And then the the empathy, one is really important. And part of empathy is just understanding where people are coming from, right? You know, for example, there's a good example, like the leader amplification effect. So all of our beginning of the third year in the doctoral program, have to do a presentation before the entire department faculty and the grad students. It's very stressful situation for them, and they work really hard on it. And historically, I have this tendency to be like, Oh yeah, I really love this part. Oh, and here's three things you could do differently next time. And you could just see the people get deflated, you know? And then I realized, by taking their perspective, they work so hard on this thing, they just they feel relief when it's over, and they just want to feel good about what their accomplishment is. So what I started to do is I started to be only say positives. After a talk, you were really poised, or I love this example, or you did this really well, and then two or three days later, I'll say, Hey, I've been thinking about your talk. Here's three things that you could potentially do differently. And so part of that's empathy, right? What does it mean to be in this high stakes situation, and when is the right time to give them the feedback that's going to help them without deflating them? And so I think all those things like their three E's right, empower, elevate and empathize with others allows us to help bring people forward to a better tomorrow. Yeah.

Marcel Schwantes  32:40

Wow. So good. Okay, I know you mentioned your dad. Is there anybody that you would say personifies all three dimensions, maybe in business or in history?

Adam Galinsky  32:52

Yeah. So let me come back to a broader point. You know, brought this up earlier, about inspiring continuum, and I talked about, oh, you can be inspiring today and you can be inferring tomorrow. So here's the other thing is that some of us are higher in some dimensions than others, right? And, and, you know, I think a classic leader is high in vision, high in exemplar. And sorry to use this language, a pretty shitty mentor. And so I'll just give you this three that jump into mind, you know, Steve Jobs, right? Visionary thinker, you know, just so creative in his mind, but he had a reputation for treating people badly. Yeah, you know another person would be Elon Musk, right? You know, he's certainly not treating people well as he's firing half the federal government and Donald Trump too, right? Make America Great is visionary. He presents himself as a he calls himself a creative genius, right? And he also says, I'm so strong only I can protect you, right? But he's notorious for throwing subordinates under the bus, right? It's me, me, me for successes. It's you, you, you when things go wrong. And so I think that's one archetype of a leader, high on vision exemplar, and, you know, lower on mentor. And but sometimes we're high on mentor, but, you know, we're not good at articulating a vision, you know. And so, you know, part of it as I think I've created a self assessment tool for our Am I inspiring? You can find it AdamGalinsky.com and allows you to see where you stand in these different dimensions. 

Adam Galinsky  34:25

And so you can say, Oh, look, you know, I I'm not good at being optimistic or presenting the big picture. I can. I can work on that, you know. Or, you know, I realize I don't elevate others as much as I could. Or, you know, I'm not calm in a crisis. I can. I can work on that. But this, the other really important point is, and this goes back a little bit to jobs, Musk and Trump, if it's just those three examples, is that part of, part of whether we're inspiring furidy depends on something I said earlier, these universal needs that we have. And so the reason why CEOs. Sometimes come across right as being inspiring when they're visionary and when they're exemplars, is because most people aren't interacting with them one on one, and so the mentor characteristic becomes somehow less important, that need isn't being met, but the leader is fulfilling that need for meaning, purpose and coherence on the one hand, but also that sense of protection and passion and energy on the other but other times, like we have the need to really feel that we're we're respected, that we're valued, in some ways, that's what Trump tapped to in 2016 with the surprise victory, there is a forgotten group of Americans that felt seen by him. And so I think It partly depends on on two things. 

Adam Galinsky  35:43

One is where you are on each of these three dimensions, but also, what are the needs of the person? If you're high on vision and low on mentor, but the person needs vision, you're going to be inspiring, but if they need you to empathize with them, then they're going to find you infuriating. And so I think part of it really depends on that. And so my dad, right? You know, as I get older, his anger didn't bother me as much anymore, right? So he became even more inspiring in some ways, in my mind, right? Because I could deal with his his anger, but I still got all the benefit of his, you know, his empathy or his protection, or his creativity or his vision. 

Marcel Schwantes  36:21

Yeah, that's great, and there's that continuum at play again. Okay, so inspiring leadership also plays a plays a factor in other areas of leadership. So I want to throw out a few things that leaders are faced with every day. One of them, one of them is decision making. Talk about how, and I mean leaders make good choices sometimes, and then say sometimes they make some horrific choices in hindsight. How do we inspire good ethical decision making?

Adam Galinsky  36:56

Yeah, so I'll say a couple things about that. The first one is, you know, you said good ethical decision making. And so we'll go with the word ethical there too. This is why values matter so much, is that when we really pay attention to our values, we act in more ethical ways, and that's why values become such a critical component. But you know, another thing that really matters for making great decisions is one is intuition. And I'm going to go back to Steve Jobs, for example, like Steve Jobs could make great decisions about technology because he just had that, that experience, that expertise that allowed him to he made some of the dumbest decisions about his own health, that led him to prematurely die because He trusted his own intuition. But he's not a doctor. He's not a health specialist. So one of the things I think what a leader does is they recognize what, like the inferiority leader is one that thinks they're an expert in everything you know, just because they're a leader, right? Rather than recognizing, no, you're an expert in this area, but not in this one. So another way to make wise decisions, and this is probably the single most important thing, even if you have good intuition, is to collect all the relevant data. And so you got to get the key. 

Adam Galinsky  38:08

This is what I call it. You got to get all the information on the table right, or on the board, whatever, however you want to say it. And there's a lot of things that leaders can do that can increase that probability and lead to these inspiring outcome. So here's just, like, a simple one, like, when do you talk in the meeting? You know, like, as leaders, we tend to, like, say, here's what I think. Tell me what you think. Well, people are not just going to give you back what you just said, and it's going to be really hard to people to challenge you versus, I want to hear what you all think, and then, you know, so I can learn from you, and then I'll be able to share my own perspective afterwards. And so you're going to get much wider range of information on the table if you don't speak first, if you speak last. So, like, that's like, a good sort of simple example. You know, we go back to leader amplification effect, right? If someone says something and they cross their arms and they shake their head, and like, what did you just say? It's going to shut everyone else up in the room. But if they say that is a great idea, and I'm going to build off it this way, then more people are going to feel comfortable speaking up. And so then, you know, our behavior, our exemplar, really, really matters, right? When we value and talk about our values of everyone speaking freely, right? That really makes, you know, a big difference. And so one of the ways that we can make better decisions is rely only on our intuition when it's in our direct area of expertise, but acknowledge and you know, our humility and fallibility and the way that we can really make the best decision to get all the information on the table and our behavior as a leader can help determine that.

Marcel Schwantes  39:40

This might actually segue to the next one, because I'm thinking about how leaders struggle so much with giving the right feedback in a way that is more inspiring than infuriating, but sometimes you are on that side of the continuum where you know you're giving feedback. Say on. The performance review. And it's like, you know, the person hearing it is just getting pounded. And so how do we give feedback in an inspiring way? Yeah, it's,

Adam Galinsky  40:11

you know, what's the point of giving someone feedback, right? You want them to get better and be motivated to get better, better when they leave that room. And so when you pummel them, you can really just tear apart their motivation, right? That, that sense of energy. There's a couple of things that I think are really important, you know? The first one is, you got to be very clear what your standards are, you know, you could call this sort of the values version of that. And so there's a lot of research. This was done in educational institutions. So Stanford, School of Education, they really showed that like one of the best ways for teachers to motivate students is to say, here are my expectations. Here's where I don't think you've met the expectations, but I believe you can meet them, so that shows that that elevate them. And here's some ways that I think I can help you meet them, you know, so you're giving them that so. So one of the, I think the important things with any performance evaluation is you want to start with standards and values, right? Like what it is. You also want to start with the positive. You know, people call this the crap sandwich, you know, start with the positive, give the negatives and the positives, but it works. And the reason why is because I'm going to go back to a term I used earlier, insecurity, right? 

Adam Galinsky  41:32

When we're insecure, we're defensive. And so you start with the positives by saying you did these three things great this year. And you want to be specific, right? You want to be as specific about the positives as you are about the negatives, right? And then you want to say, Okay, here's some areas improvement, boom, boom, boom. And then at the end, you say, I believe in you. I know you can meet my standards. I said at the beginning, here's two ways I'm going to help coach you to meet those standards, you know. And then let's check back in, you know, in a little bit. And so I think, though there's really, you know, it's a formula, but it's a formula that works for a reason, because so much research supports it. But I want to come back to one thing that I've discovered, which I didn't think about a lot, but I realize, is the most inspiring leaders, but they do after a feedback session. Let's say you're performing, performance review happens on a Thursday, five days later on Tuesday. Say, Hey, I just want to touch base see if you had any more questions. You know, check in to make sure that you're on the right track. It shows empathy. It shows care. And a lot of times, we can't process all the information when it's coming at us, and so giving that couple days to digest it. And so I actually tell leaders, you should do that with all your direct reports, you know, meet with them one week and set up a second, you know, just 15 minute meeting the following week to say, you know, now that we've both had a chance to digest, you know, our conversation, I just want to make sure, you know, we're on the same page, and make sure going forward, 

Marcel Schwantes  43:00

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So we got all these Gen Zers entering the workforce in great numbers. Give us an understanding of how best to inspire and motivate these young people.

Adam Galinsky  43:12

I think two things. One is young people today, and if you look at the surveys, it's very clear really care about belonging and status, right, being respected and being valued. And so one of the things that that idea of elevating people versus diminishing people becomes really important. Positive feedback becomes really, really important for them. And but at the same time, right? We really need to challenge people to be the best, the best version. And so I think it requires more coaching than in the past. So helping people, you know, succeed in those ways. But also comes back to why values matter so much the other you know, Gen Zers want a sense of meaning and purpose, right? And so the values and the vision become a really important component of that. So I say really important to let them understand how they're getting value and be needing a purpose out of let's say this job. Also know that they really want to be elevated, but build in ways that you can demonstrate when their behavior hasn't met those values and standards, but help them see and envision how they can do so, yeah,

Marcel Schwantes  44:23

which goes right back to the kind of feedback that you were talking about, absolutely. All right, bring this conversation up to the 30,000 foot level and speak to the CEO, who is, I don't know, maybe you know, turnover is bad. They're bleeding money and they they're like, Oh, we got to change our culture so and maybe inspiring leadership is the way to go about fixing those problems. So what is a good starting point for changing or shaping your culture to become one of inspiring Yeah.

Adam Galinsky  45:00

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think the first thing you know, we're going to go back to the ones we already talked about. The first is being visionary, right? And really, like, really being very, very clear about what is the vision that you have for this organization, you know, again, this optimistic, meaningful, you know, positive, energizing vision that gets people on board. You got to be able to simplify it and communicate in a way that that other people understand. And then I think you really got to think about how you yourself demonstrate those values. That gets to being the exemplar. You got to set the vision, but then you got to act consistent with that vision. And so if you want to change a culture, this is one thing that we know from research over and over and over again, is a key ingredient is consistency. So if you want to have a certain cultural element take place, you've got to demonstrate it again and again and again, and you got to get the people around you to demonstrate it, and then people are going to start seeing everyone's doing this thing. I need to do it also. Norms work much more powerful than, you know, punishments in many different cases. You know, you know, you go to Germany, I, you know, there's just like, seven in the morning, no one's on the street, and I, I walk against the light, and someone starts yelling at me, like, you know, like, you know, because the norm is you don't cross the street unless the tight turn screen, even if no one's around, you know. And so, you know, it's a good example of just norms controlling people's behavior. And so I think that consistency. And then, you know, when you evaluate people, you evaluate them in terms of those of those values and that vision, right? And you say, Look, this is, if this is what our vision is, I'm going to evaluate you in terms of that. And so it's all about this consistency and consensus.

Marcel Schwantes  46:51

That's great. Okay, so before we go into our speed round, yep. Is there anything that you absolutely have to get out before we transition, something that we did not cover, that our listeners have to know.

Adam Galinsky  47:05

It's a great question. I mean, one thing that yeah, here's something I think is really important. I mentioned this multiple times already, the word insecurity. And when we feel insecure, we claim credit, we're not generous towards others, and we hurt our own status when we're insecure, if we go back to being visionary, I've shown in my research that when people are feeling insecure, they're much more likely to use jargon to try to sound smart, and that actually makes them annoying rather than sound smart, you know. And so we do a lot of behaviors when we're feeling secure to try to make ourselves look good, but in the process, we often make ourselves look bad or come across as as infuriating. So one of the things that I tell people is, tame your insecurities, right? Really think about what you're insecure about and try to tame that. The second thing, which is related insecurity, is that we're not perfect. We're all going to make mistakes. I'm going to lose my temper with my kids sometime. I'm going to criticize someone right after their talk when I know that I should wait a couple of days and we need to forgive ourselves. Because here's one thing that's really important is shame is a destructive emotion when we feel shame, like, Ah, I'm such a bad person. I'm a Furin eat asshole, right? We either become an ostrich and put our heads in the sand and try to avoid everything, or we become a defensive monster and try to push everything away. And so if we can let go of shame, if we can figure forgive ourselves, we can, you know, we think I gotta beat myself up so I don't do this again. It's the exact opposite. Say I did this thing wrong. I know it's wrong. I know I can do it better the next time. I'm going to forgive myself, but I'm going to commit to doing this better the next time. So insecurity, shame, these are really destructive emotions, and so you're going to be a much more inspiring leader, if you can, I guess, say, tame your demons.

Marcel Schwantes  49:00

Yeah. Yeah. In coaching leaders myself, I have seen how shame plays a role in really keeping you from, from becoming your best self, hiding behind your saying shame. You're putting up all kinds of false walls pride, you know? And then you try to overcome your shame by by being so like overbearing, right? Try to become this person that you're not interesting, that we need to get over the shame, yeah, and sometimes that might come from things of our childhood, family of origin issues, right? Yeah. Okay, all right. Speed Round. Here we go do it best book you've ever read,

Adam Galinsky  49:44

I would say, I mean, the best book that I ever read was Sound and the Fury that by, you know, I just Faulkner like, I just love that book. But I would say the book that really changed everything about the way I thought about the world and research for. The Tipping Point, you know. And I know that's been a controversial book, but I just remember, like, reading the tipping point and just feeling like, you know, a puppy in snow for the first time. There's like, so and, you know, really inspired me to become, you know, writing for a popular audience, because this person could take this unbelievably strong scientific research and translate it to, you know, general principles,

Marcel Schwantes  50:22

yeah. Greatest paradigm shift for you, well,

Adam Galinsky  50:29

probably greatest paradigm shift for me was, I got a PhD in psychology, and then I started teaching in a business school. And so psychology is so theoretically oriented, and I'm still very theoretically oriented, but really just understanding that, you know the there's nothing more practical than a good theory, but there's also a good theory is one that leads directly into practice, right? And so how we can leverage ideas and turn them into implementable goals.

Marcel Schwantes  50:54

Okay, love that. What are you most thankful for?

Adam Galinsky  51:02

Well, probably now my family, you know, my wife and my kids and just, you know, being with them just gives me such joy. You know, thankful that I had two parents that really invested in me and wanted me to be the best person I could be.

Marcel Schwantes  51:16

Fantastic. Name a person dead or alive that you would like to have dinner with

Adam Galinsky  51:23

Martin Luther King Jr. Is such a great speaker, such a great thinker, visionary setting up a set of values that really were, you know, critical for non violent peace. Just amazing.

Marcel Schwantes  51:39

Yeah, yeah, totally, All right, last one your biggest hope for the rest of 2025,

Adam Galinsky  51:48

my biggest hope for the rest of 2025 is that people get more empathy, right? You know, seeing people cheering federal workers losing their job, like losing your job is the hardest, most difficult thing that anyone you know, obviously it's one of the top five stressors in the world, and like, cheering for someone losing their livelihood like that just makes me feel just that you're not a good human. And so being government efficiency is important. We don't want to waste but like, at the same time, be humane and empathic towards other people.

Marcel Schwantes  52:20

Yeah, yeah. Well, you've survived the existential questions of the speed round. All right, Adam, we bring it home with two questions. Okay, that's tradition with on the show here, the first one is the love question. And since we're a couple of guys, couple of dudes, and I gotta say, like this the love question, flex my muscles. So sticking with themes of inspiring nature. How do we lead as business leaders in the workplace with more actionable, practical love?

Adam Galinsky  52:55

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's really seeing people for who they are, and seeing, you know, like I said, like, really elevating everyone has good qualities, right? Everyone has inspiriting qualities. But like, but really doing two things. One is when you see those inspiring qualities in others, you know, encourage them to keep going down that road, and when you see inferior characteristics, again, taking a step back and saying, Where's that coming from? Like, could it be coming from a source of insecurity, and could I solve that insecurity for them? You know, what pressure Are they under? You know that Ted lasso? There's a great line in the third season where Roy Kent is like, you never know what's going on with another person? You know? He tells a story about he, he made a joke to a person who, another soccer player, who his wife was pregnant, and I think of the joke was like, you know, I could be the father. And then, you know, he beat him up so badly he was out of the league, and he's like, he had lost the child. I didn't know it, you know. And so just being, you know, a little bit more understanding of where people are coming from.

Marcel Schwantes  54:03

Yeah. Okay, here's that question you've been you've been waiting for. What's that one thing that you want people to take away from your book?

Adam Galinsky  54:12

The one thing that I want to give people is a little thing that they can give to people. So there's a president of a bank, 1200 employees, and he sends a birthday message to every employee, birthday email or text to every employee that he has. He does it that's like, five or six a day, every day of the year. And he says he does it over his cup of coffee. And he showed me his message that he sent to one person. It was like, you know, hey, Marcel, hope you have a great birthday. How was bowling this weekend? You know, the person sends back a novel back. Bowling was amazing, you know. And I was telling this to someone else, you know, to a CEO, and he said, I'm going to do this. He said, Every morning, over cup of coffee, I'm just going to reach out to one person. Say, last week, when you did. Presentation. I was just thinking about how great it was, or, you know, I want to thank you so much for your effort on that report. It made my job a lot easier. And he said, you know, he would send the message, and it feels so good about himself, sorry. It felt, you know, so good that he had done this thing for this other person. I made their day better, you know. But then he realized, by sending it in written form, like, If you'd said that to him personally, I might be like, Oh, thanks. You know, a little embarrassed, but he said he realized they would send these gushing replies back. Oh, my God, like you made my morning. Thank you so much. And he said, You know, I did it to put a skip in their step, to actually put a skip in my step. And, you know, and then here's what I want people to remember. We can spread the seeds of inspiration through little acts that we take. And so this little act of when you see someone do something good, let them know that you notice that that's going to reinforce that when we give someone else credit, they're more likely to give someone else credit, right? So pay it forward. So it starts with you. You can be more inspiring. You just have to make some daily commitments, and you're going to spread the seeds of inspiration.

Marcel Schwantes  56:10

It's a great way to end folks, get this book again. It's called Inspire, the universal path for leading yourself and others. Hey, Adam, if people want to connect with you, find out more about you. Where can they go? 

Adam Galinsky  56:24

AdamGalinsky.com

Marcel Schwantes  56:25

Perfect. 

Adam Galinsky  56:26

It's got, you know, all of it's got some talk, some media. It's got the am I inspiring assessment and lots of other stuff.

Marcel Schwantes  56:35

Very good. Hey, it's been fun. I'm glad we did this. Me too. Awesome. Hey, you can keep the conversation going on social media with hashtag love and action podcast, and look for my show notes as well as a YouTube link to watch this show on my website, everything's there. MarcelSchwantes.com for Adam Galinsky, I'm Marcel schwantes, remember in the end, love wins. We'll see you next time.