Unlocking Why Nobody Trusts Leadership Anymore With Keith Wyche

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Timestamps:
00:00:00 – Cold Start & Intro
00:04:28 – The Question That Sparked the Book
00:06:27 – The Trust Numbers Nobody Wants to See
00:07:58 – Private Equity and Culture Killers
00:10:24 – Confessions of a Bull in the China Shop
00:15:10 – What Integrity Actually Looks Like
00:21:53 – Why Leaders Train 5% and Perform 95%
00:26:42 – How Cultures Quietly Turn Toxic
00:34:24 – When Someone Believes in You
00:38:35 – The Uncommon Leader Mindset

Keith Wyche (00:02.00)
I was that bull in the China shop leader that said, “hey, we’re going to make this number no matter what.” You know, wasn’t really respectful of what I would call, you know, work life balance. And it really took, you know folks who were willing to have a courageous conversation with me and tell me the unvarnished truth that Keith, you’re getting the results.

82% of employers believe their employees trust leadership, but only 60% of employees agree. So that’s one data point. When we move toward what I would say the faith-based community, those expressing very high or high trust in clergy has fallen from 67% in 1985 to roughly 27% in 2025.

Skot Waldron (00:45.00)
When I’m not hosting Unlocked, I’m speaking at events all over the world. I’m helping leaders and I’m helping teams communicate better. I’m helping them build trust faster and actually enjoy working together. I’ve spoken for companies like The Home Depot. I’ve spoken at national architectural firms. I’ve spoken for pharmaceutical company offsites. I’ve spoken at associations, you name it.

With 99% of attendees of all those events, over 1800 people have reviewed me at this point. 99% of them saying they got some value. That’s pretty awesome. Even the caterers have thanked me. And if they are thanking me and they’ve heard a lot of talks and they’re busy doing their jobs, that’s saying something. If you’re an event planner looking for a speaker who’s really easy to work with, trust me, I want to be the last thing you’re worried about on event day. I’m going to take care of you. And who actually delivers value for your audience that they are going to use on Monday morning when they return to the office, then let’s talk.

We all have leaders in our lives that have been examples of who we want to become and who we want to do and who have impacted us and created some great thing in our lives that moved us to want to be better and improve us in our career. And then we have those leaders that we’ve worked for and worked with, where we say, “hmm, yeah, I don’t know.” I know exactly the person I don’t want to be now. I know the kind of leader I don’t want to be. I know the kind of company I don’t want to, you know, impact in a negative way because of this situation. I’ve seen the negative impacts. I don’t want to be that.

Keith Wyche is going to talk today about what he calls Uncommon Leadership. It’s actually the title of his new book, and you can check that out wherever you buy books. But we’re going to talk about that concept. And Keith, it’s a really easy conversation we had today. Really insightful, a lot of good stuff. He drops about Uncommon Leadership, talks about the idea of integrity and what that means and what it really means to him and how we can unpack that a little bit.

Keith Wyche is a seasoned executive and board director with over 30 years at companies like Walmart, IBM, and Pitney Bowes. He is currently a Fortune 500 board director, author, and sought-after corporate leadership speaker whose career spans some of the most respected companies in corporate America. Wyche’s leadership perspective has been shaped by decades of experience navigating complex organizations, large-scale change, and high-stakes decision making. His insights have been on NBC’s Today Show, Fox Business News, USA Today, and other national media outlets, including Unlocked with Skot Waldron. Here we come.

Keith, so good to have you on the show, man.

Keith Wyche (03:47.00)
Skot, so glad to be here with you. Thank you.

Skot Waldron (03:49.00)
Yeah, I feel like you’re a pretty easy guy to talk to. So, you know.

Keith Wyche (03:54.00)
I like to think so.

Skot Waldron (03:56.00)
Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let’s perpetuating that whole idea and just roll with this thing. I want to first of all, your book just launched, congratulations on that. We’re going to dive into that a little bit here in a bit. I just want to kind of talk about this whole concept of you know, we talk about leadership on the show. Okay, that’s my thing. But it’s a pretty broad topic, you know. But there’s endless things to talk about, you know, when it comes to leadership. Why did you pick this particular niche right now, like this topic for this broad idea of leadership?

Keith Wyche (04:37.00)
Yeah, that’s a great question, Skot. About 2 years ago, I was sitting with my fifteen-year-old grandson, and we were watching the news, and it happened to be a news day where, you know, there was scandal pretty much everywhere, and politics, and business, and faith-based organization. And he said, “Pops, you’re a leader. You don’t lead like that, do you?” And really what that sparked in me was in the last 10, 15 years or so, Skot, we have moved away from what a lot of us were taught as it pertains to servant leadership.

And now we have a lot of self-serving leaders across you know, again, every spectrum. And so, my plan was and my thought was in my heart was let me create a book that talks about what leadership should be, that’s now Uncommon, so that that next generation of leaders doesn’t emulate that. You know, right now there are people, and as a leader, everything you do gives off a signal. There are young leaders, young folks who are looking at us saying, “okay, this is what it takes to be successful, then that’ll be that.” And that I don’t think is good for anybody.

Skot Waldron (05:39.00)
Well, I also see the stats out there that are saying, I forgot what the stats were. It was crazy. They did some poll with 10,000 people that have been in their jobs for a year to up to five years. And I think about 73% of them said, “I don’t want to achieve a higher-level role in my career. Like I want to get to this and I’m good with that.”

They look at those upper tier leaders, and they look at the burnout, they look at the stress, they look at all the things that accompany that. And some of the younger generations they don’t want that. They’re just kind of like, no thanks.

Keith Wyche (06:23.00)
Not at all. In fact, let me give you some more statistics here. There was a Gallup study in the Global Workplace that said 82% of employers believe their employees trust leadership, but only 60% of employees agree. So that’s one data point. When we move toward what I would say the faith-based community, those expressing very high or high trust in clergy has fallen from 67% in 1985 to roughly 27% in 2025.

And then last but not least, a Pew Research study says in 1958, 73% of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing. By 2007, that number was 30%. Today, it sits at 17%.

Skot Waldron (07:04.00)
What is that telling you?

Keith Wyche (07:07.00)
That tells me that again, we have moved away from being servant leaders and servants of the people. And it’s everything from the pressure that CEOs are under to satisfy shareholders every quarter. It’s the rise of what I would call the celebrity leader, where this person may have celebrity but may not have competence. The fact that if you are performing as a leader and the numbers are there and the stock price is there, people are willing to overlook certain behaviors and so I think that you know characters not held as accountable as long as results arrive.

Skot Waldron (07:43.00)
Do you think, and I’m going to pick this fight because I hear about it. I’ve seen a lot of it happen, and I don’t know if I’m picking it with you, but, and I don’t know if you want to throw anybody under the bus here.

Anything. We’ve seen a huge explosion in private equity culture. Buying up businesses like crazy. And you almost see the government stepping in as far as the real estate market is concerned, like limiting how much private equity can go in and purchase homes just to preserve house prices in our areas and our investment that we make. But you know, I’ve seen private equity and, I’m not going to say all private equity is bad. I’m not going to say that man. Okay. Because that’s wrong. I wouldn’t say that at all.

But I will say that some of the experiences I’ve had with private equity coming into businesses I’ve been working with are culture killers. They demand the results. They put the pressure on the CEOs, who I find are wonderful, amazing people that want to lead and be great leaders, but then they have to answer to a board of accountants. No pressure of accountants, my dad’s one, but all these financial people that demand a number and then they fall victim to that. But I mean, are they?

Keith Wyche (09:07.00)
Yeah, I mean it’s not limited to private equity. You know, private equity is the sum equals private interest. But I will tell you that there is a misnomer that performance and being respectful of people are two different things, and two things can be true. You can get the performance while at the same time respecting the individual and having respect for the people. And so again, I think it’s just mostly this selfish, self-serving attitude that transcends all aspects of life, you know, again, political faith based in in the business world that we’ve really just got to stop and address and call a thing a thing. We’ve kind of gotten away from what we said leadership was.

Skot Waldron (09:42.00)
So why do we tolerate the CEO who you know performs? Hey, we got some killer numbers, and but they’ve left a wake of you know turnover behind them, toxic culture, all types of things behind them. And we look and we go, nah, but they’re producing, like I’m not going to say that’s just with the CEO, I’m saying it’s with any kind of manager, and by anyone.

Keith Wyche (10:10.00)
No, it’s with anyone. And I will tell you that that’s not sustainable. Because what happens is that over time, you wear the people out, you stress the people out who are really doing the work, and you can’t maintain that. You know, and I can say that because I was one of those leaders at one point in my career. I was that bull in the China shop leader that said, “hey, we’re going to make this number no matter what.” You know, wasn’t really respectful of what I would call, you know, work-life balance. And it really took, you know, folks who were willing to have a courageous conversation with me and tell me the unvarnished truth that Keith, you’re getting the results, but you’re not creating followership and it’s just not sustainable.

And so again, you can do that, but over time it will catch up with you. And I can’t think of one organization that’s had a leader who was more that theory X do as I say command and control leader that was successful over the long term.

Skot Waldron (11:03.00)
So, tell me, can we dive into your story a little bit? I’m curious. I want to ask you a few questions with this. What was the story you were telling yourself as you were that bull in the China shop and you did have people maybe turn over, or maybe you had some people that weren’t too happy, or whatever at that point in your career. What was the story you were telling yourself as a leader?

Keith Wyche (11:24.00)
Yeah, well fortunately I was in my early 30s, so you got to give me a little credit for being young. But in my mind, I had confused performance with leadership. That if you are a top performer, that that makes you a great leader, A. B, I was under the impression that anyone who wasn’t working as hard as me, as fast as me, it was their problem, not mine. So, I didn’t think about, hey, how can I level them up? It was performer be gone.

And, you know, again, coming from someone who played sports, you know, it was like the best people are on the field, next man, next woman up. And again, it wasn’t until, you know, a wiser, older gentleman sat me down and said, “hey, you know, that’ll work in the short term. You will never really experience the leadership and the career growth you expect.” And actually, it was a situation, Skot, where I had been there 6 years, the company was IBM, and I saw people with lesser results getting promoted. And what I realized is that they understood things like teamwork. They understood respect for the individual. They understood things like I’ll give you a crazy example of how bad I was.

My nine o’clock meeting, if you weren’t in the room by nine o’clock, Skot, I’d lock the door, put a chair outside, and you’d have to get the notes from somebody else. That’s how bad I was in that space. But why was I that way? Because I had leaders before me who were that way. And I saw them be successful. And so, I mirrored and imitated that behavior. But again, thank goodness, you know, someone sat down with me and had the courage to tell me the unvarnished truth.

Skot Waldron (12:50.00)
Wow. That is big, man. I mean, I can imagine. But that that’s also what I’ll tell the leaders I work with. It’s like, what are you teaching the next generation? Like you work 70 hours a week, you send emails at 2 a.m. And you also answer emails at 6 a.m. Is that what you’re teaching that productivity mindset, whatever you think that is, to everybody, that when they get to your role, they think that’s what’s expected of them. And so, you’re just perpetuating the burnout culture that you’re already living and complaining about to me every day. And so, I think that that’s part of it.

Now, one thing you said was really interesting to me too. And then this just hits, it strikes a nerve with me because this is what my current book is on that I’m writing, is this mindset that we have about what I call productivity bias, that my way of working is better than your way of working. That if you’re not working my way, then something’s wrong with you. And then we move into productivity shaming to the point of like it must be a character judgment. It must be you’re not invested. You must not be totally in line with what the organization needs right now. And I need people that are aligned. And so, we start judging.

Keith Wyche (14:06.00)
Yeah, I mean you know, there was again, I was young, you had you got to work with me. But there were times when I would say things like, “hey, we got to finish this project. I know it’s lunchtime, but lunch is for the week. Let’s muscle through.” There was a time I’d say, “hey, either you’re on this bus or you’re off the bus. One or the other, but you got to commit.”

But what I learned later, I just retired a couple of years ago, and my kids are all the millennials, so they’re in their 40s now. But I spent time with each one of them after, Skot. And each one of them had a story about something that was important and significant in their childhood that I missed because I was on a work trip or something that I missed because I had to get a project or proposal out. Be it the father, daughter dance, be it my son’s, you know, senior night at his football team where I wasn’t there to walk him on the field. And it really helped me realize that, you know, it cost me something. Now we have a great relationship now, but I missed out on so much of their childhood that I can’t get back. Now that makes me a great grandfather now to my grandkids. But again, it’s something looking back, if I had the chance to do it over, I would do it differently.

Skot Waldron (15:08.00)
I bet. I bet. Can we hit on this integrity word? I love this word. It’s so fun to me. Now, I think there is an honest element of integrity and when we talk about it and what it means and what we do with that. I will say it’s on more values, boards, and lunchrooms than I’ve ever seen. You know, this word integrity.

When I talk about, you know, personality dynamics, there’s certain personalities that integrity is a core element of who they are and that really is embedded in kind of their DNA. And then everybody’s like, why care about integrity. Why care about integrity. It’s like we all kind of care about it. But tell me about tell me about your integrity thing. And I want your viewpoint on this because I want to hear it.

Keith Wyche (15:57.00)
It’s really simple. It’s a few things. One, it’s your word matters. You say what you mean, you mean what you say. And you don’t twist the truth, you don’t bend the truth, you’re honest and upright. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is, and this is where a lot of leaders struggle, is the ability to say, “hey, I was wrong. Hey, I made a mistake.” Too often, you know, we kind of gloss over that. And so, keeping your word being able to admit when you’ve dropped the ball are two of the things I found that creates trust in the workforce because they say this is somebody who is honest enough to say, hey, I blew it. And those two things are to me the cornerstones.

There was a third leg on that stool of integrity, I would also say, again, I hate to go back to this phrase, but respect for people. You know, when I ran stores for Walmart, had 100 stores, I had 30,000 people, and I treated the guy sweeping the lot with the same respect I did the store manager with the same respect my CEO. And those are kind of the three legs of the integrity stool for me.

Skot Waldron (17:08.00)
But here’s the thing that I think is interesting for me is that you argue that it’s not a “soft skill,” you know, that it’s actually measurable. Talk to me about that.

Keith Wyche (17:24.00)
Well, it’s measurable, in ways, you know, I’m real big at employee engagement surveys and those types of things because the people will tell you if you have integrity or not. And so, something I’ve always measured by 360 evaluation, again measured by employee surveys to say, “am I the leader I think I am, or am I not?” and those have been a couple of the tools that I’ve used to kind of keep me in line relative to the metrics of, am I who I say I am?

Skot Waldron (17:53.00)
Okay. Am I who I say I am? And I think that that resembles some of the work that I’ve done in the past, where I’ve done a lot of brand strategy work and I’ve incorporated that into a lot of the leadership context I do now. And back when I was doing corporate brand strategy work, it was always the measurement of the perception gap. It was the who do we think we are internally at as a company? And then who are we really when we interview customers or partners or vendors or whoever is outside of working with us. Is there alignment? Is there a gap there in our brand perception? And that’s huge, man, because oftentimes it’s like, we know you say you have this like integrity thing and that you’re “innovative,” but are you really? You know?

Keith Wyche (18:45.00)
And I will give you a great example of that. Again, a lesson I learned. I thought I was a very approachable leader for a lot of years. And I thought I was a very personable leader. Well, it turns out that, you know, I had one on one meetings with my leadership team every month. And I got some feedback that, you know, Keith’s not really focused on me because at one of these meetings, he’s always looking at his cell phone, he’s checking his pager, he’s you know, looking for text messages, and I was not realizing I was sending a signal that, oh, you’re not that important to me.

Another thing I used to do early in the morning, I get to work at seven o’clock in the morning. I would, you know, read notes from the day before, results from the day before. But I always wanted my door closed because there were typically conversations with HR and finance that were confidential that I didn’t want people hearing. Well, I realized later that some people that made me seem unapproachable. His doors closed in the morning. He doesn’t want to be bothered. And so, you know, everything about you as a leader sends off a signal whether you realize it or not. And I think a leader with integrity is also has what I call emotional intelligence to understand how they show up and the willingness to modify that for the betterment of the team and the business.

Skot Waldron (19:51.00)
Well, I think you’ll have, I’ve heard it. I don’t know if you’ve heard it, but you have some leaders that’ll walk up to you and be like, you know, Keith, dude, they don’t pay me, you know, to be have integrity or to be approachable or to be nice. They pay me for results. What do you say?

Keith Wyche (20:11.00)
And I say that you know what, they pay you for results, but it’s not so much of what. It’s the how you get those results. Results in and of themselves, again, aren’t sustainable if the how isn’t there. If you’re a bull in the China shop, if you’re abusing people, if you’re not respecting people in their life and their balance and what’s going on, then one of two things either we’re not paying you or you’re not a leader. And there’s a difference between being a manager and a leader.

Skot Waldron (20:36.00)
What’s the difference?

Keith Wyche (20:38.00)
A leader creates followership. A manager gives orders. There’s a chapter in my book. I say that people follow leaders, not instructions. Right. You know, at the end of the day, people want to feel valued, appreciated, and respected for what they bring to the table. And we have to understand not everybody runs as fast as we do. And so, you know, my job as a leader is two things. One to get the best out of the team that I have, and then to create future leaders.

Skot Waldron (21:06.00)
That’s a good thing. Future leaders are a good thing because, here’s the thing: we’ve been talking about future leaders for a long time, but it seems like you’ve said and I don’t know which leadership group we’re going to talk about, but I mean there’s a leadership problem. You even talked about it, right? We have a leadership problem right now.

And there was something really interesting that I heard today, a sports analogy that was that was put out there. Adam Grant and Brené Brown have his podcast now, right? And it’s fantastic. And Adam Grant, a behavioral scientist, talks, he was saying this thing, and they were talking about sports, sports analogies and leadership. Because you see them all the time, right? Sports is, it’s like a peach tree dish of leadership principles, right? Like sports is leadership. But it was really interesting how they were talking about how athletes will spend 95% of their time training for 5% of what they’ll do in their life.

You know, like their sports careers are so short. And they will spend all this time training and developing exercises and developing themselves and their mindset and their bodies and their nutrition to perform for this 5% of the time that they’ll actually be in their career.

But in leadership in the corporate world, we do the opposite. It’s almost like we perform 95%, we invest 5% maybe of our time in our training, and we go and we wonder what the problem is.

Keith Wyche (22:43.00)
It’s funny you mentioned that. There’s a Gardner study right now and they asked a bunch of CHROs what’s the biggest challenge for 2026. And leadership and management development was number one. And so, you’re spot on that that’s really the issue. And again, we have to understand and the challenge is there’s so much change and transformation.

M of the companies I’ve worked for were going through change and transformation. In fact, all of them have been, from Walmart to going from a brick-and-mortar retailer to an omnichannel retailer to my first job at AT&T. And this may predate you, Skot, but you know, there was a time there was no MCI, there was no Sprint, you had to go to my Bell to get everything. And so, you know, I think the stress is on leaders to know we’re in an ever-changing world. How do you adapt to that? There’s a chapter where I talk about the speed of trust and times of change, leading through change without losing trust.

You have to find a way to connect the people to the vision of where you’re trying to go or the change. You know, right now AI has everyone up in arms, but AI is a tool. And yeah, I think, you know, if we harness that tool correctly, it will just be advantageous to the business and take the mundane tasks that are repeatable and definable and allow leaders to spend more time with people, with their customers, with their stakeholders, moving the business forward and creating value.

Skot Waldron (24:01.00)
Exactly. And I ran a design agency for a long time. And in the design creative worlds, there is an advertising, things like that. You have what we call art directors or creative directors in those departments and in your marketing departments, other things, right? And when we’re talking about those, those individuals are the ones directing the work. They’re the ones conceptualizing, making sure everything’s aligned and bringing the big picture together and telling the designers and the art directors at a lower level, like what are those things that you need to execute in order to make sure this is all done, right? And given feedback and whatnot.

And I almost think of ourselves in the AI world now as art directors and creative directors. And that’s the role I’ve taken, right? I use my AI as the producer and the jammer of my creative direction ideas. And that’s what we all need to take on is that persona and stop worrying about AI taking our jobs. There was this research study that was just done, a feedback study. And this was in the medical world, and done with patient care and whatnot. And they found that the actual perception gap of if AI is going to take over patient care was bigger with doctors than it was with patients, and what they think is really going to happen and what they really want.

And they also found that companies, and this is non-medical, that are investing in AI are the ones who are also hiring the most. The ones that invest the most in AI are also hiring the most. And so, I think we need to get past this whole AI’s taking my job thing. Because the printing press took somebody’s job too, and the cell phone also took somebody’s job, but I don’t think we’d go back to payphones. I don’t know.

Keith Wyche (25:49.00)
It’s funny you mention that. I worked at Bell and the Bell system, and it was in the mid-90s, and I was up for my first VP promotion. And I was interviewed for three jobs and didn’t get the two I wanted. And I got a consolation prize, which wasn’t a VP, but it was senior director of this little thing called cellular and paging. But the two jobs I didn’t get were VP of payphones and VP of Yellow Pages.

Lucky me. And so that was one of those moments that catapulted my career as well because cell phones were starting to take off and those things. So, you’re right. And it’s a tool. Technology is a tool. And I often joke to say, AI can tell you that a tomato is a fruit, but it takes wisdom and understanding to know it doesn’t go into a fruit salad.

Skot Waldron (26:36.00)
Amen. Well said. I don’t know how we got on that, but that was really good. I liked all that. But I want to come back to this whole thing of leadership and toxicity in our culture. Because cultures don’t become toxic overnight. It’s not like today our culture is fantastic and tomorrow I walk in and it’s like; this is the worst place I’ve ever worked. You know, it doesn’t generally happen that way.

So, there’s a behavior that almost I would say every culture normalizes and kind of boils in the background before it really becomes a problem. What do you think that is?

Keith Wyche (27:17.00)
You know, I think a lot of it is fear. It’s based in fear. And it’s fear at every level. Fear at the senior level that, again, we won’t hear our quarterly reports and shareholders will be upset with us, our stock price will go down. Fear at the middle management level of, you know, hey, I got to do what I got to do to get to the top. And if I have to step on Skot and Keith to get there, I’ll do it. Fear at the lower level is will I have a job? Is this thing going to take away my career?

Going back to my Walmart example. I remember there was conversation when we went to what was called the e-commerce model where you could order online and pick up and store, we’ll deliver. That was a brick-and-mortar culture who resisted that. In their world, you had to come to the store for everything. And what they realized was that opened up a plethora of jobs that didn’t exist before. From picking orders to delivery to, so it wasn’t that your job went away, it was that you pivoted and transitioned to something else.

And so, we saw the same thing with cashiers when we started doing self-checkout. You know, those cashiers didn’t lose their job. They got repurposed in other ways. And so, I think that, you know, fear is what drives a lot of that. And then at some point, the lust for power is also in there. But those are the things I think that we struggle with.

Skot Waldron (28:30.00)
I agree. I mean, fear, you know, there’s healthy fear and non-healthy fear, there’s healthy stress, not healthy stress. I mean I’m going back to the sports analogy. How many of you have a little stress when you’re about to perform? Whether it’s performing a musical instrument at a concert, whether it’s going up and giving a speech or something, whether it’s before that big match, you’re about to play and that game, like you have a healthy dose of stress, and you should have that healthy dose of stress. It is the performance thing that helps you want to perform and do the thing.

Now you’ll see teams though, when they start playing out of fear, you will notice how the mindset changes, how their play changes, and how eventually it happens, they’ll end up losing, you know, because they’re so defensive.

Keith Wyche (29:27.00)
Yeah, I saw that play out recently in the NBA finals or championship where my Cleveland Cavaliers had this tremendous lead in the fourth quarter, thirty something points, and fear set in and the Knicks came back and won the game. And so, I do think that that’s a real thing.

And let’s talk about again that healthy fear, healthy stress. I think we need to channel that. When I present to a board or, there is a little trepidation in fear, but I compensate by over planning because I find out when I’m really prepared, when I know my stuff, when I walk into that room with the confidence that I got this, that fear soon dissipates the minute I start talking because I’m prepared. If I’m not prepared, that fear exacerbates and it’s a different problem.

But again, I think that you can harness that. That makes you work harder, that makes you, you know. So, fear to your point, it can be bad or good, but you should never let it get to the point where it just stifles you and has you frozen.

Skot Waldron (30:28.00)
Exactly. And it’s important to understand how to move through fear well and what and how to manage that well. We all experience it. I don’t believe in having no fear. I think that the T-shirts of the 80s don’t really apply in this context. But I think it’s the mindset that we have around fear and what it means and what we’re using it for. When we find that it puts us in a box and we are using it to shield ourselves from all the other stuff and we protect ourselves and we end up, you know, the fire can’t get to us, the fear can’t get to us, but we also don’t push anything out. Everything stays contained and then it ends up, it’s like, well, I’m safe.

But then eventually people are like, yeah, but you’re useless too. Like you’re not doing anything. You’re just sitting over there in the corner because you’re scared to do anything. And that’s a problem. I think we need to recognize when that happens.

Keith Wyche (31:24.00)
We need to recognize it and as a leader, what I’ve learned is through transformation or through layoff of whatever’s happening in your business, the more transparent and open and honest you can be with people, the better they are. Because what I’ve learned, Skot, is when you don’t tell people the truth and you allow them to form what they think the reality is, it’s almost always worse than what true reality is.

And you need to have the courage to say, “hey, you know, we’re going through a tough period right now. But here’s the vision. Here’s where we’re going to go. Here’s the role I need you to play in that. And here’s what’s in it for you when we get to the other side.”

They would much rather hear the truth in a way that they can understand it because of lack of communication, they create their own myth and truth in their mind, which is almost always worse than reality.

Skot Waldron (32:14.00)
What do you hear and I mean we talked about the profitability as excuse, right? It’s like, hey, I produce, you know, but is there any other excuses that you would hear unethical leaders make?

Keith Wyche (32:27.00)
Yeah, you know, well, you have to push the envelope. Sometimes you have to break a little glass, you know, all these tropes and metaphors that you hear. Hey, you know, you have got to take a risk. And that’s true, but there’s what I call calculated risk and uncalculated risk. Yeah, there have to be a certain amount of risk you’re willing to take, but you have to have all the information, you have to have well thought out plans.

So even if you take that risk and you fail, people can understand, hey, you took a risk, you identified the factors, you mitigated as much as you could, it just didn’t work, let’s fail fast and move forward, versus the one who takes no risk at all or just kind of lets the wind blow as it may.

Skot Waldron (33:06.00)
Is there a phrase or a word that leaders use that you think should be eliminated from our whole repertoire? Come on, man, I notice something.

Keith Wyche (33:17.00)
There’s so many. You know, one of the ones I can’t stand is, hey, we’re all one team, one goal and we’re a family here. Well, I worked for Walmart and I’m not a Walton and so I’m not a family member there. I’m there and as long as I provide value and served as a leader, that was my place. And so, one, we’re not a family, it’s you know, you’re here because you add value.

And the other one is just, hey, it is what it is. It is what you make it to be. And so those are just a couple that I hear sometimes from some of my team that say, “okay, really?” No, there’s a better way to say that. There’s a better way to put that.

Skot Waldron (33:58.00)
I like those. Those are good. Some of mine, and these are just top of mind for me right now, just because of the book I’m right. It’s like we got to tighten that leash. We got a lot of fire under those people. You know, got a lot of fire under them. And I’m like, really? Like, I think you probably have the wrong people. If you keep having to light fires under your people, like maybe you got a problem, you know?

Keith Wyche (34:19.00)
You burn them up. Burn them up, burn them up.

Skot Waldron (34:23.00)
Yeah. What do people do when you light a fire in them? They move over so that you don’t get burned, right? And then you have to light another fire under those people. I always say, let’s light fires in people. Like let’s motivate them. Let’s find that thing that inspires them and then help them want to move forward, not like you know, always extrinsically motivate them. I’m not poo-pooing extrinsic motivation. I think there’s something there, but I think that when you’re constantly extrinsically motivating somebody, there’s a problem.

Keith Wyche (34:50.00)
It is and you know, I have found in my career, Skot, and I’m a beneficiary of it, is that if someone believes in you and lets you know they believe in you, you will go out of your way to make that person right. You will go out of your way to be the best that you can be. Early in my career, my first job at AT&T, I was outside salesperson. Skot, I was terrible. And after about two months, my boss had the option to either fire me, put me on a performance improvement plan. Or try and elevate my performance. Her name was Lana Porter. I write about her. I talk about her. And what this lady did was for two weeks, stayed after work for me for about an hour, to go through my presentation skills, to help me, you know, answer questions, overcome objections. And then she partnered me with a senior salesperson so I could see what good looks like.

She had every right to fire me. She had every right to put a performance plan on me. But because she believed in me and invested in me, I outperformed what I even thought was possible and had the blessing about 4 years ago meeting her, running to her again in Atlanta of all places, and shared that story with her about how she impacted my life and my career.

Skot Waldron (36:00.00)
Very cool. Those people you’ll never forget.

Keith Wyche (36:03.00)
Never.

Skot Waldron (36:04.00)
Ever. And those are the people that I always ask leaders, who’s going to tell that story about you one day on my podcast? And I want you to think about that. Is anybody ever going to tell a story like that on a podcast when some guest asked, “Who impacted you in your life?”

Keith Wyche (36:25.00)
That’s a great question. And actually, the last chapter of my book is called Planting Trees You’ll Never Sit Under. Designing a legacy that outlives your tenure. And what success looks like for me in this season of my life, Skot, is people who I’ve mentored, coached, managed, moving up themselves professionally, and saying, “hey Keith, you know, thank you for that time you believed in me. Thank you for that stretch assignment you gave me, thanks for that pep talk.” That means more than any awards or plaques or platitudes that I’ve ever gotten.

It’s about the people. And that’s what I want my legacy to be, is that you know, here’s a guy who tried to uplift everyone around him, motivate them to be the best that they could be, whatever that meant.

Skot Waldron (37:06.00)
That’s amazing. I’m going to read. That just sparked something. I’m a huge Johnny Cash fan. Johnny Cash is one of my favorite artists of all time. I don’t like any other country music, but Johnny Cash, that’s it.

So, there’s a I have this book of poems and lyrics and things that he wrote. And there’s one that’s one of my favorites. He says, but in the last line of this the stanza that he says, “the trees I planted still are young, the songs I sang will still be sung.” And talking about that legacy of what it means to be that, right? Talking about, he says, “nothing remaining of my name, nothing remember of my fame.” Talking about those seeds, those trees that were planted. The impact that he had on his life or others and for good or for bad, what that became for him.

And so, I think that’s a lesson for all of us in leadership is to think about. And as people in general and whether we lead ourselves, lead our families, lead our communities, lead our church group, lead our corporation, lead our team, whatever it is, we’re all leaders and we have to make a decision to be what kind of leader.

Keith Wyche (38:20.00)
Well said, Skot. Well said.

Skot Waldron (38:22.00)
I’m trying to steal your thunder, Keith.

Keith Wyche (38:24.00)
No, no, no. That was great.

Skot Waldron (38:28.00)
Hey, tell me about if we all want to become an Uncommon Leader, what is the mindset shift we need to make?

Keith Wyche (38:41.00)
I think first you have to be big picture focused. And what I mean by that is you don’t make short-term decisions at the expense of the long-term. And so, I think the uncommon leaders understand that, you know, hey, it’s not about making this quarter, it’s not about hitting this number for this period of time. It’s am I building something that’s sustainable and where are we taking the organization?

Secondly, I think personal integrity is paramount. What whatever that means to you, I know we live in a value-based system where you know our values may be different and integrity may mean different things to different people. But whatever it means to you, I think you need to wrap your head around that.

Third is what I call empowering others. I learned very early as a sales leader, I can either teach these salespeople how to fish, or I can fish for them. But if I fish for them, they’ll never learn, they’ll never grow. And so, empowering them, which also educates and manages and lifts them up is another thing.

The fourth thing would be people centric. I don’t care what job you are as a leader; you don’t win unless the people are winning and unless the people are performing at their level.

And then last but not least we touched on it, embracing disruption and change. Those are I think the five big traits of an Uncommon Leader.

Skot Waldron (39:52.00)
Very cool. And that book, people want to get a hold of it, where do they go?

Keith Wyche (39:57.00)
Hey, you can go over Amazon.com, walmart.com, barnesandnoble.com and many bookstores will be carrying as well.

Skot Waldron (40:04.00)
Yeah. Uncommon Leadership. I’m looking forward to it, man. That’s fantastic. I think there’s a definite impact we can all make. And when we think about the type of leader we want to be, we have examples of who we want to be and who we don’t want to be. And those lessons that we learn in life are truly important. And I hope that we are all examples for others of who they want to be one day that type of leader.

Keith, it’s been awesome having you on the show, man. If people want to get in touch with you, what do they do?

Keith Wyche (40:41.00)
Hey, go visit keithwyche.com. You can find me on LinkedIn as well.

Great conversation, Skot. I really enjoyed it and appreciate you for having me on.

Skot Waldron (40:55.00)
I hope this episode in general just helped you determine or just rethink or reset your mindset and expectations about the type of leader you want to be, the type of leader you want to become, the type of leader you want to be for the next generation, and how you want to be seen and perceived in your career as you move forward.

It was just a really good conversation. And you know, sometimes leadership stuff can be pretty generic. And we talk about these ideas and what’s going on here. But when you get to the heart of what leadership is all about, I think there’s elements of it missing right now. And I think we all feel it. And I wonder why we don’t do more to try to fix it.

And I think it all comes down to time scarcity. I think that in the age of productivity culture and hustle culture and AI and all these other things, we worry so much about productivity that we put these like long-term goals on the back burner because the short-term pain is so present. And that’s what we talked about on this interview.

Keith talks a lot about, like how we’re all trying to solve the short-term, but we are not paying attention to the long-term damage that could be doing. And I think that’s the culture we’ve gotten caught up in. I think that’s what’s the problem with corporate America and leadership today is we got into this age of fixing the moment in lieu of the long-term. And now we’re paying the price for all of that.

Uncommon Leadership is out now. Please go out and get a copy. Support Keith and all the things that he’s doing. And I am so grateful always for you being here today.

If you want to find out more information about me or check out the show notes where there’s going to be more information and links to the things referenced in this episode, visit skotwaldron.com. And lastly, I’m asking for a little bit of love, just a little bit. So please take a moment, follow, rate the show. The algorithm is like that; it helps me get the word out. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And until next time, stay Unlocked.