What does it take to create an impactful leader? Find out in this episode of the Sweet on Leadership podcast. Tim interviews the insightful Brent Yonk—Leadership Coach, Culture Change Agent, and Senior Leader at the FBI—about his extensive experience coaching diverse leaders from around the world. Their conversation will provide you with a wealth of wisdom, including why leadership titles don’t matter as much as we think they do, how to develop yourself as a leader first before seeking followers, plus the impact of technology on organizational leadership structures. You don't want to miss this episode if you want to grow your leadership skills and inspire others around you! 

Brent also shares stories from his experience working as a leader within the FBI and coaching leaders in law enforcement around the world. You’ll hear about the many misconceptions people have about leadership, the mistakes organizations make when searching for leaders, and how to cultivate those skills in yourself. For the aspiring leaders out there, you’ll learn why it’s so powerful to unlock your potential by believing in yourself and cultivating a culture of leadership in your environment. By the end, you’ll be inspired to make changes to the way you lead and the way you view leadership. 

About Brent Yonk

Brent Yonk is an Assistant Section Chief for the FBI Counterterrorism Division’s Technology and Data Innovation Section. In this role, he oversees the development of novel technology solutions supporting international and domestic terrorism investigations and other critical incidents around the world. Prior to his current role, Brent served as the FBI’s In-Q-Tel Interface Center Director leading the Bureau’s commercial scouting, testing, and evaluation of emerging technologies. Brent is also an Adjunct Faculty for the FBI Academy, instructing and facilitating courses in leadership, organizational change, and project management for law enforcement partners around the world. Prior to joining the FBI, he spent over 10 years working in the private sector with several Fortune 500 companies in the areas of organizational change management and workforce development.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Disney Institute
• Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek

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Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: 

• Website
• LinkedIn: Tim Sweet
• Instagram
• Linkedin: Team Work Excellence

Contact Brent Yonk: 

• Linkedin: Brent Yonk

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Transcript

Brent 00:01

And the beauty is usually when you're exercising leadership without titles, the competitive nature of it doesn't really ever come into play. Because there's really not an opportunity for you to one up anybody else, right? It's really about looking at each other, evaluating each other's strengths, understanding what each person on that team brings to the table, and then really just giving each other and empowering each other to bring their best selves, to support whatever the shared objective or goal is.

Tim 00:33

I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you consider yourself the kind of person that gets things done? Are you able to take a vision and transform that into action? Are you able to align others towards that vision and get them moving to create something truly remarkable? If any of these describe you, then you, my friend, are a leader, and this show is all about and all for you. I’m Tim Sweet. Welcome to the Sweet on Leadership Podcast. This is episode 33. Thanks for joining us.

Tim 01:08

Welcome back to the Sweet on Leadership podcast. Thank you very much for joining me today. This is a podcast that has been months in the making. I am absolutely electric with excitement for talking to my guest today. I'd like to introduce Brent Yonk. And Brent, I'm gonna let you tell people all about why I'm so jazzed today. Tell them about what you do. And what you find yourself doing day in day out. It's not my normal cup of tea.

Brent 01:39

Absolutely. Well. Hopefully, I don't underwhelm everybody. But, so my name is Brent Yonk. I'm an assistant section chief with the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI. Specifically, I'm in the FBI’s counterterrorism division. And so my role, I focus on leading a group of folks who develop kind of the next generation technology that supports our agents and our analysts who are both at our headquarters divisions, as well as out in the field actually doing the casework day in and day out. That's really what my day-to-day is comprised of, is ensuring that we understand what are the threats that our agents are facing? And what are some of the ways that we can both mitigate those, but we can also fill in the gaps and help them collect the information that they need to be able to make real-time decisions and catch the bad guys as quickly as we can.

Tim 02:29

And, I mean, this is something for me sitting here in Canada, pretty normal Joe, mostly only sees this stuff in the news and on the TV. And so, it's a world that I think most of us would, would say is pretty mysterious, or has a certain amount of intrigue around it. But let me back you up. Because on top of being involved in something that's so exciting, you also are what I would consider one of the thought leaders in the leadership space, you're definitely a person that I follow constantly. And so, I'd like you to tell us a little bit about, you know, what brings you into that sphere? And what drew you to leadership practice cultural transformation, these types of pursuits. Can you give us a little bit of background on that?

Brent 03:11

Yeah, absolutely. You know, leadership is something that really started to kind of pique my interest. Early on in my career, I had some interesting conceptions of what leadership was, what it wasn't at that time. And it's evolved over the course of my career. But really, there's always been kind of this internal desire that I've had to find ways to bring the best out of those that I work with, whether it's a pure coworker, direct report, somebody who I who I lead, or even somebody who, who leads me looking for those ways to ensure that we're all able to bring our best selves. And our best performance to whatever it is that we're doing is something that is a real driver for me. So I have spent a lot of time really kind of focused in on understanding what leadership really is, how anybody can start to utilize it and apply it in their lives, not even just in the professional sense, but also in their personal lives, to start to really kind of change the dynamic of the way that they think and view the world and ultimately the outcomes that they're able to achieve.

Tim 04:23

I share that sentiment. It's one of the reasons I'm involved in what I'm involved in. I remember years ago, I used to say, no one can promote you to leader. Like, that is a choice. That's something you make deep inside. Could you take us back a little bit further, maybe pre-FBI, what kicked you off being inspired to really think about this deeply. What were you seeing in your own roles or around your community that made you ask these questions?

Brent 04:51

Yeah, absolutely. So, if we go to one of my first jobs, I joined an organization called Quest Communications and I stepped into a sales role at the time. And so went through a very rigorous program, learning how to effectively sell. And, you know, in that role I aspired to be the best salesman that I could be. And of course, you're exposed to a lot of other people and a lot of different perspectives and views. So, in that early role, the way I viewed leadership, which is probably similar to how a lot of people may view leadership is, to me, it was almost synonymous with management, right? So, when you would talk about a leader, my mind would almost instantly just go to, oh, you're talking about a supervisor or manager, an executive, somebody who has a title. And I kind of thought that way. And I really kind of heard that echoed in many of my peers as well. I had somebody who reached out to me from our Training Department at the time, and they asked me, I was one of our top salesmen in the location I was at, they asked me if I would be willing to step in, and lead some training programs for a period of time. And so I had the opportunity to, to transition. And it was, it was a great opportunity, I had a wonderful opportunity to get exposed to a portion of Disney that I don't think many people are aware of, called Disney Institute. And Disney Institute is focused on providing trainings, for businesses on how to take their, their game performance and take their business to the next level. So I had an opportunity to attend this training, which was focused on how do you take your customer service essentially, to the next level, and then kind of bring that curriculum and that content back, package it into our own kind of internal content, and then provide that out to our workforce? Going through that process? And really starting to think about human development? I started to question some of my own fundamentally held views and perspectives of what leadership is and isn't. And I very quickly started to recognize that, well, yes, there are aspects of management that do kind of overlap very nicely with leadership. There's elements of it that don't. And then in fact, you'll see, and most people can share experiences where they've, in fact, encountered people in management roles, people with fancy titles, who, if you were to ask them, Would you follow that person? They would probably say, Not if I didn't have to, right? And so I really started to have this kind of divergent moment where, okay, leadership and management are two different concepts. They can absolutely coexist. And in fact, they're most effective when they coexist. But you can 100% be a leader without having any form of formal authority. And I think this is something that, you know, Simon Sinek, did a great job of bringing into the kind of the public conversation, as he was talking with his book Leaders Eat Last, that authority can absolutely kind of give a bigger impact to your leadership. But it doesn't define your ability to be a leader or not. At that point, I really started to dive into Okay, so leadership is something that can absolutely be done outside of any type of management or supervisory role, and starting to explore okay, how do we unlock that? How do we enable people to effectively step into that leader role? And then of course, the question becomes, if you've got multiple people that are stepping into that leadership role on the same team, how do you effectively kind of co-lead and bring the whole team together versus turning it into more of a competitive type situation? And the beauty is usually when you're exercising leadership without titles, the competitive nature of it doesn't really ever come into play. Because there's really not an opportunity for you to one-up anybody else, right? It's really about looking at each other, evaluating each other's strengths, and expanding what each person on that team brings to the table. And then really just giving each other and empowering each other to bring their best selves, to support whatever the shared objective or goal is.

Tim 09:07

I like that sentiment. And myself, we say, lead without titles, but lead with your strengths, lead with your geniuses, lead with lead with what people are best at. And think of them in those terms when you bring them to the table. So we can become this cohort that's got all sorts of potential. But titles alone don't mean anything in the same way other than it's just an organizational label. And the other part that you said there, which I think is really important to pull out, make sure we highlight is leaders have followers. And if you don't have people that would follow you somewhere, if you don't stand up for something and people are willing to stand with you, then you can manage. You could be an authority figure. But you're not leading someone by the brain and the heart. You know, it's not the same thing. It's not the same thing as leading somebody because they have contracted with you to do something in a transactional sort of way. I think that's a really important point that you brought up. I mean, and again, that other piece around look, leaders in general, are managers, but not all managers are leaders. If you're a lead something, it doesn't mean you're a formal manager, but you're managing, you're managing thought, you're usually helping people gather around some, there's an element of manager there.

Brent 10:27

And sometimes, you know, sometimes I even, I struggle with just the semantics of how we talk about leaderships in the broader public sphere. This has kind of been a developing conversation around just emotions in general. But they'll say that, you know, if the only labels that you're aware of when you talk about emotions are happy, sad, and upset, or angry, like, you're always going to be struggling to really understand what's going on inside of yourself. And I think very similarly, if the only labels that you have to describe people in, in these management roles as leader, then you're always going to struggle to like, you can have a very ineffective manager who has very poor behaviors, and that you would still refer to them, even if you refer to them as a poor leader, you're still kind of giving them that title, right?

Tim 11:25

You're in a leadership position.

Brent 11:27

Yeah. And so it, and the way the human brain works is kind of fascinating. Like, even though we're saying, Oh, you're a bad leader, there's still like, it seems like the human psychology has this, this fascination with leadership. And I think it's rightly so, we're looking to people to help us come together on something. But if we're following that thought, and we're still thinking of these four leaders, as leaders, we're still giving them, I think, a sense of, we're giving them some of our support almost. And so it's almost like, we need to start broadening our dictionary to say, Okay, you're either a leader or you're not. You may be a manager, but you're not a leader, right now. You may be a dictator, you may be and there's, there's a whole bunch of other words that we can, we can use as a label, as you know, the behaviors that are going on without ceding that, well, you are a leader.

Tim 12:28

Just as a small aside, I mean, when I'm in my circle, trying to find things to read and be inspired by in the rest of it, I'll often type into a search bar or a news site or LinkedIn, I'll look for articles associated with leadership. Inevitably, it takes me to political leaders, and we use that term their political leaders. Well, not all of them are political leaders in the way we're talking about it. I mean, we're talking about people that are able to be inspiring, and, and gather people that may be peers, and maybe leading co-leading with them. But you're, you're forming a would you say, a gravitational center for some thoughts, some cause some, some purpose, and you're giving people a place to gather and even in the intro of the show, it's like, Are you a person that, you know, brings people together to do amazing things that they couldn't do by themselves? It really becomes that finding one plus one equals four or whatnot, but you're bringing people together to do something meaningful. And that doesn't mean that you're just in a position of power. Leadership as a word has been incredibly cheapened. And maybe we should spend a moment and think about what would be the word that would be even closer than leadership to what we mean a person that's inspiring a person that's going to support people and value them and align them to a purpose.

Brent 14:04

I feel like the rightful name there is leader, I think, really the, it should be on the opposite side of that spectrum that we're kind of discussing. When you're exhibiting non-leader-like behaviors. Like, let's, let's be honest about that. And let's call it what it is. You're not a leader right now.

Tim 14:24

When people say, Oh, that's toxic leadership, even that's sort of a weird thing, because it's like, you don't choose to toxically lead or maybe you do, but if you're if you're being toxic as a manager or as an authority figure, you've kind of taken yourself out of the pure leadership sphere. And it's like you, you don't get it. You are vacuous in this area. Good luck. Right?

Brent 14:49

Obviously, it's that's that is something that is very ingrained, I think, in just our culture. And I think it's almost universally across cultures. The way that we kind of refer to leadership and how we have it, so synonymous with the concept of those authority figures. But I think that by promoting that discussion, and by having that, that clarity to say you may be in an authority role right now, but you are not being a leader gives us that opportunity to 1—help those individuals start to maybe capture a little self-awareness, or recognize maybe there are some behaviors right now that I am exhibiting, that are absolutely taking me away from being a leader? And how can I start to reform those? How can I start to adopt other behaviors, more positive behaviors, that can really help me to step into that leadership, role and title.

Tim 15:51

And it's funny too, because when we think about leaders, they may not always have structures underneath them, they may not always have rafts of people underneath them, they can be thought leaders, they can be people that are representing an idea. And some very inspiring people may have no will to actually lead people, but they do it by sheer force of intellect or sheer force of brilliance of their ideas. They open people up and it doesn't mean they desperately want to be the guru. They're just the source.

Brent 16:24

Yeah, that's another thing that I started to see, especially earlier in my career, is when people have that kind of assumption of leadership and management being the same. And when they witnessed people in management begin to behave poorly. It's almost like that disgust or that disenfranchisement that they feel towards those managers leads over to the whole concept of leadership for them. And so when you even try to have a conversation about what is leadership, how do we exhibit leadership? If they have a real strong connection between leadership and management in their heads, and they've experienced real toxic management, they may not want to have any conversation around leadership at all, they may shut down completely, just because when you say leadership, they immediately start thinking, Oh, it's those people that treat you poorly, that leverage their power and use it abusively. And so, they almost run away from the entire conversation of leadership, because they just don't want to get exposed to those behaviors.

Tim 17:23

Yea, they've been burned. And I've been doing a facilitation and in the first quarter of this year, I've been working with industry, I've been working with higher ed, executives in both fields. So I read provosts, deans, presidents, those types of industry, you're up in the C suite, the rest of it, and, you know, one of the conversations that was going around that is, how do we support and how do we enrich and embolden and encourage our, our staff? How do we increase their potential? How do we develop them? I counterpoint to that, that I brought up these folks. And I said, you know, when we look at some of the data, it says that the satisfaction with employees, and the employees own sense of potential and growth is never higher than when they first get hired. And so, is the challenge to just rebuild what's missing? Or is there a side challenge, which is, what do we do to not erode that person's sense of self and potential and growth? And if we can protect that and leverage it, and perhaps build on it? Great! But those toxic leadership behaviors when we talk about these people that are turned off of the idea of having to be that or another person may have experienced that erosion, that destruction of himself and psyche. And, you know, that is something where, oh, I've had no shortage of clients where it's organizational trauma that we're up against. Yeah.

Brent 19:02

Yeah, and so in this, this is I think we're that principle of everybody can be a leader. And if we give them that ability to think that way, and if we start to empower them, and we start to think through, how do we get them to leverage more leadership, behaviors, and abilities in whatever role they're in? They not only are conditioning and kind of protecting themselves against those, maybe climate aspects that may demotivate them. Yeah, but they're also acting as a buffer between the rest of the population and negative environmental impacts. And so, the more leaders that you have, at every level of your organization, I think, the more protected you're going to see that employee population be against some of those very pervasive, just, elements of business and just any organization, are those dysfunctional elements that will erode the trust and the engagement. It's really important that people, they do feel that sense of empowerment. And one of the things that you had mentioned, right is the concept of followers. And there may be people out there that think, well, I don't have anybody following me, like, you may have a single person that, like, nobody follows me, well, that's probably not true. There are people that are following you, in the sense that they are watching you, they are taking cues from you, they may even be modeling some of their behaviors after what you're doing. You just may not be aware of that. But even if all of that were taken away, there is still one person that you can absolutely, have follow you. And that's you. And that may sound really funny. But I have seen so many people, that you can clearly see that they don't have that confidence in themselves, to lead themselves effectively. And if you're already struggling to recognize yourself as your own leader, like what hope do we have for you to be able to effectively lead others? So I think that developing that internal compass, that internal sense that the power to make decisions, the power to guide your fate, as it were, is in your hands, right, you get to choose the actions that you're going to take, you get to choose whether or not you're going to try to broaden your awareness of what is influencing and impacting you. Or you can just shut down and you can just put your head down. And you can just focus on doing the easy thing, right, follow that the downward path, that choice is there. And when you recognize that I can lead, even if it's just myself, I can be a leader, you start to unlock that potential, you start to broaden your horizon, you start to open that aperture, and see more possibility for yourself. And then that will continue to broaden. And you'll start to see people around you. And you'll start to recognize in them the skills, the abilities, the knowledge, the potential that's there, and then you can start to encourage them to join you on this journey. And now you're starting to see exponential impact happen from that.

Tim 22:17

Really, people can get beyond that scarcity mindset into that abundance mindset that starts with the self, it's like, do I appreciate myself for the potential that I've got, so that I don't have to be selfish with it, or I don't have to be jealous of someone else's potential. And that the there's two points that I'd like to mention about that. One is the kindness that you have to approach yourself with, to find that first foothold is important. But also that in my career, I've seen many people who have been very, very successful leaders in one sphere. And I mean, leaders in the proper sense of the word. They moved them over into a different environmental situation, a different job, different industry, different team, different leader, or different, I should say, director, manager, whatever, direct line management figure, and suddenly they start to struggle. And suddenly, they start to doubt themselves. And so, although you can find this, I think there are periods where people go through times of doubt, and times of uncertainty, and they have to reinvigorate that because you can't give away what you don't have. And so if you find it's feeling synthetic, or it's feeling artificial, you better you better stop and say hey, wait a minute, are my roots still hydrated? Am I still, am I still gripping the earth, because you may be going through the motions, but have lost some sort of confidence about yourself. And, and you can see this with some of the biggest names in business, they can be torn down. And, and it can happen and it can happen for very simple reasons. It does not have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be salacious, it doesn't have to be dramatic, and they can lose faith in themselves. And that's something that's, that's a very real thing. But I love that, that statement. I want to move us towards one of the reasons why I think you're such a force in this area. And why I really like you this time talking to you without trying to butter you up too much. But anyway, there's a very real reason why I'm fascinated with your perspective and your background. And that as we got to know each other, you told me about what it's like in the FBI and what the different experiences that you've had. And I see it as this tremendous laboratory to test these ideas. Because of how dynamic it is, because of how far-reaching it is. So can you just paint a picture for us about what's life like for leaders within your organization and also just how far that reach goes. And for you as an expert in this space, this is time to share just why I'm enamored with the, the scope that you've been exposed to, because I think that's such an important thing for people to know about Brent.

Brent 25:21

Yeah, absolutely. You know, so the FBI is probably one of the most well-known, well, it's perhaps one of the most well,

Tim 25:32

Everybody knows the three-letter acronym. You know, no one asks how to spell FBI, right?

Brent 25:37

Maybe, maybe the right word… it is one of the most well-covered organizations in the world. There are absolutely elements, you know, of what you see in Hollywood, or what you even see on the news, which may not actually be the reality of what the actual FBI is like. But one of the elements of the FBI that is 100% true, whether you know, you see view it in, in the movies, the TV shows, whatever it is, is there is an incredibly committed workforce of people. And they're all brought together by this singular mission. Right? You know, as you walk into the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, you'll see a Starbucks on your left, nice Starbucks. But right in front of you on the wall is the mission statement of the FBI, which is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. And everybody walks in. And everybody sees that, and everybody feels that every day when they come to work. And so, you know, the FBI is like any other large organization, it comes with this dysfunctions, bureaucracy is in our name. So of course, we have that. But the commitment of the people in that organization, I mean, when, when something happens when you have one of these black swan events, one of these unexpected crises that arise there, there are a few places I think that will pull together as quickly and work together as effectively as the people in the FBI. And so it's, it's a fascinating place to work. I grew up with, with two parents who are in law enforcement, my dad was a deputy sheriff, and my mom was an adult probation officer. So I kind of got to experience the law enforcement perspective, you know, as a very young child all the way growing up, I didn't get away with hardly anything, right, I got to see the full cycle of justice in my house. And so, you know, even growing up, the FBI was this kind of vaunted place where the best of the best strive to get. And so to be able to step into this organization, you know, as I've been going through my career, and to be able to see behind the scenes and actually encounter the people and work with them. It's been, it's been fascinating. And, you know, it's in this is one of the things that I tell everybody is, the FBI has a reputation that draws the very best people from society to come and join our mission, right? Private sector companies would pay boatloads of money to try to attract and bring in the quality of people that just naturally are attracted the FBI, because we stand for.

Tim 28:26

Self selection and self-alignment. They're already led by an idea, in a sense.

Brent 28:31

Yes, absolutely. So it is, it's a fascinating as you, as you said, a laboratory from a leadership perspective, because not only do I have these very motivated and very engaged and very willing participants, but they are completely bought into what we are here for. And if developing and becoming a better leader is going to make them more effective, at the furtherance of our mission, they're all for it. Right. And so, so yeah, so it's, it's, it's incredible, being able to work with these committed individuals, to see the willingness and the desire that they have to try to get better at what they do every day. And to try to empower the people around them to do that as well. The other benefit that comes along with this is, you know, the FBI is known as the premier law enforcement agency in the world. Right. Very lofty title, in many ways, very well deserved. You know, in some ways, we may be resting on some of the Hollywood mythos, but the FBI has this opportunity to share our knowledge and share our expertise, not only with local law enforcement that we work with across the United States, but we also get to share it with our international partners. And prior to the, I think there was the CBS television series FBI International that came out a couple of years ago. I think prior to that show coming out, most people probably didn't realize that the FBI had an international presence. In most embassies around the world. There are FBI, special agents and employees that are also attached. Their focus is to investigate any crimes that happened to American citizens abroad. And so we have this global footprint. And so we're always engaging and interacting with international partners, whether it's federal or local law enforcement agencies in these different countries. And you know, one of the benefits that I have had the opportunity to take advantage of, being a adjunct faculty member for the FBI, is I've been able to actually go out to these countries and meet with these international partners, and sit down with their, their frontline leaders with their executives, and really start to talk in depth about what is the power of leadership in their organizations, and again, to share some of these concepts that, hey, leadership extends to much more than just your people with titles, your frontline workers, the peoples that are out protecting the communities that you serve, like you can empower them to be leaders too. So having the ability to share and kind of take that message out to these groups has been a real privilege. For me. It's a fascinating realization, I think to, to see that regardless of what boundaries may divide us, from a nation-state perspective, or even from a political perspective or any other, we all share many of the same fundamental concerns, issues, challenges. And in many cases, the answer to resolving or getting closer to a resolution on those comes through effective leadership.

Tim 31:51

Each of those exposures is likely to have I mean, I have been in business in Southeast Asia or in Africa and whatnot. And there are cultural barriers, there are socio-economic barriers, there are gender roles that are different than we might assume there are, how you view elders and things like this. And the and the authority networks are can be very, either formal, but perhaps very different than we would see in Canada. So you're seeing all of this, and yet through it, there's this throughline of what humans want, or want to be, they want something to follow, or they, they want to be able to express themselves and collect people around them so that they can lead the charge on something is an important realization, but then also to experience what are the barriers that different people feel? And can we get? Can we get a fluency around? What are the tensions that people can feel when they're dealing with this, and as you've said, those tensions don't have to be from people outside our country. Everybody can have hangups, of one ilk or another. Could you share with us maybe an anecdote of something that was surprising to you, when you had brought an idea to a group or a team or witnessed a type of realization or transformation.

Brent 33:10

This would have been last year I was out in East Africa, we were in Nairobi, and we were meeting with a cohort of Law Enforcement Executives, across several different countries, they had all come to Nairobi to for this training. And, you know, my role I was responsible for really kicking the event off and kind of getting this, this week long training conference through the first day and a half. So I was introducing many of these concepts that are very common knowledge here in the United States, things like emotional intelligence, and you know, unconscious bias, how to cultivate a healthy culture. And it was fascinating talking with these leaders in these different international organizations. And seeing that, while they may not recognize all of the labels, and all of the names, they may not know what emotional intelligence is, the underlying concepts of it, they were able to actually very quickly make connection to, through their own experiences, right. And so really, for them, it was just kind of translating, oh, well, we may not label it as emotional intelligence here, we may call it something else. But that's what these principles are, and watching them make those connections and then start to relate and see how those connections could support their efforts in the work that they were doing was fascinating. One of the concepts that I tend to talk with a lot of executives and especially in law enforcement communities around is a acronym, it's called VUCA. And for those that have never come across the acronym VUCA it stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Essentially, it's kind of the four broad elements that we encounter in our modern world, right? And it makes making decisions effectively, very difficult. Because things are constantly changing. There's all sorts of different things that you can't necessarily track, right? Everything is complex, everything is kind of interconnected. And you may try to tug on this thread and not realize that it's going to have all of these secondary and tertiary ramifications. And so how do you effectively help an organization achieve its objectives in this very shifting and constantly, you know, fluid environment. And for the East Africans, this was a completely new concept to them, they had not heard of the acronym VUCA. And it stuck. It was incredible how well it stuck with them. So the program that I was supporting is a year-long program that we offer to many of our international law enforcement partners, where they end up spending a week in each of the host countries. And then they'll do a capstone week back in the US and DC. And so I had the opportunity of reuniting with this cohort, when they made the journey back over to DC a year later at the end of their program, and walking into the room and seeing them after several months, it was incredible to watch their faces light up when they saw me. And the first words that leave their mouth weren't brands, it was VUCA. Right? They were so excited about that concept, and how it helped them frame their discussions that it just it, it stuck with them. And so that was, that was a really gratifying moment for me to realize, okay, you know, some of these other concepts, like we have these fancy names for them, but they may already be concepts that they get they understand. But it's great to be able to bring something that's new, that's genuine, something that expands the way that you know, these different folks can have conversations, and to watch them kind of embrace that and, and really retain that information. To me, that was really exciting. Especially

Tim 37:04

Especially, if you're especially if your lifestyle. And where you find yourself in the world is filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. I absolutely think that maybe that's getting closer to the definition of leaders, somebody who provides an antidote to that. And…

Brent 37:21

100%, or at least gives you the ability to feel safe and confident making decisions.

Tim 37:30

You’re the foothold. I remember being hired for a role. And I love this role. And when, when I was, was being scouted for it, and when it was being sold to me, the guy leaned over the table, and he said, Look, I want you to know something about this role. I said, What? He goes: maximum exposure zero safety net. And I was like, awesome, like, sign me up, you know. And it's, you know, if you're comfortable with high levels of ambiguity, can still find the through line, then, then that's what we need. I'm like, awesome, my job. So, as you're training these other people, and as I think about, I'm thinking about your job, but want to bring us back there, technology and data innovation, counterterrorism division. Like, whoa, man, so much better than what I've got on my business card. Anyway, we talked a little bit about, we're going to change gears just a little bit here. Because as we're talking about these leaders, finding their feet, being this foothold, and expressing, for lack of a better word, pure leadership, your role within the FBI, also is heavily technology-focused, right? You're dealing with data and all of these things. In conversation before this. We were talking about what the role of technology can be in the leadership experience. And I'd like you to dive into that. Your view on that I found really compelling.

Brent 38:55

It is a really fascinating environment to be in to be developing technology solutions that are addressing real-world threats, and supporting, like really serious investigations, right? Counterterrorism became a really big known thing after 9/11. And even though most of the people that are now joining the workforce are actually born after the events of 9/11. And they don't have that, that kind of same connection that some of the others do. There's this sense of importance to that mission, still, because of the impact that it had on not just the United States, but on countries around the world. We all went through very turbulent time after those events. And so to be able to support our agents, our analysts and our partners in this space is something that I have found to be extremely, both exciting, but just gratifying. And so you know, working with my team and leadership in this respect is really about empowering my people to have not just the physical resources, they need to do their jobs, but to also have that connection with the mission, to really understand how the work they do ties back to that purpose, have the psychological safety to be able to feel like it's okay for us to, to try and to make mistakes, which saying, make mistakes, and counterterrorism in the same sentence can be a very difficult thing. But the reality is like, if we are not striving, if we are not pushing ourselves to the point where you know, we are occasionally hitting that failure barrier, then we're not going to be developing the solutions that are ultimately going to help us achieve our vision in the FBI, which is to stay ahead of the threat, right. So if you look at all of the different threat actors that exist in the world, right, you'll see that they are iterating, at a pace that is incredibly difficult to match, especially when you factor in just the general bureaucracy that tends to go with large government agencies. And so we have the benefit of because we are a smaller team within the FBI, focused on a specific mission set, we can iterate a little bit faster than if we were trying to do this at scale at the level of the entire organization, we have this ability to experiment to test hypotheses to you know, really try to find where is the value add. And I think sometimes that can be a challenge for those that are in the technology development space. Because oftentimes, you may have this great idea. And you may go, kind of gangbusters trying to develop it, build it out. But if you never actually validate it, if you never actually get that feedback from the end users to say that, yes, that actually is a really useful thing, you may end up developing the most useless, the most beautiful, useless piece of technology that's out there.

Tim 42:03

And then it can be even worse, it might not even just be useless. It might feed the wrong data, or overemphasize something, or cloud the judgment of others.

Brent 42:12

It's part of our mantra, we partner very closely, and when in fact, we try to recruit some of the more technically minded people from our workforce, to come from the field directly into our shop, because then they're bringing that real-world experience and insight directly into the development discussions. So we're able to solve some of the most pressing issues that our folks in those counterterrorism seats are experiencing.

Tim 42:37

On the other side of, of your job description. And in a very general sense, what are the are some of the big risks of an over-reliance or, you know, what, what can be the ugly things that happened when we, if we don't properly control how we enable leaders and teams with data and technology. I'm a big data guy, I always say I would rather, you know, know than hope. And so the flow of information and the flow of data is really important. And the use of technology and the adoption of it is appropriately important, when it's when it's useful when it's the right answer, when it's not a faster pencil.

Brent 43:21

Absolutely well, and so there's the phrase, if you can't measure it, you can't improve it right. And so to your point, data is essential. And so we're on the operational side, of course, data is what empowers our agents to move their investigations forward. When you think through the concept of it in a leadership perspective, and especially in more of a broad organizational context, if you don't have the ability to collect the data to kind of understand your current state, then how do you plan? And how do you put in place any type of initiative to move from that state to your desired future state? And so you may be throwing in all sorts of different solutions, whether they're human resources, solutions, or technical solutions. But if you don't have the data underlying to help you understand where you're actually at, you may be trying to navigate from, say, Washington, DC to New York, when in fact, you're actually out in, you know, Salt Lake City, Utah, right? Maybe anything slightly different part of the country, and so you're just not going to get where you need to go. So yeah, so data is huge. And so from technology perspective, I mean, technology has given us the ability to not only collect data at a scale that we've never been able to before, but it enables to connect the dots in a way that makes it so much more impactful and meaningful if we do it the right way. Now, I think where, you know, a lot of organizations tend to struggle is they tend to bring or they tend to struggle bringing the right players to the table to ensure that we are connecting all of those relevant dots, it's really easy, especially the bigger organizations get, it's really easy for these silos to start developing within the organizations. And they may be building this great technical solution or this great development tool or whatever it is. But it's not being informed by all of the relevant data points. And so it's going to miss the mark, it's not going to deliver the desired results, because it's not factoring in some of those other underlying issues that may be out there.

Tim 45:31

There's a depolarization that I see in teams when they get a certain size and a certain complexity when teams are, especially when they're, they're young and entrepreneurial, where they tend to network people, and they classify information and systems and tools, right? They, when things start to get really, really hairy, and we start to slip into those silos. And sometimes when we adopt these, these systems of organization that that really don't fit with an organizational mission, or what we're trying to do or the nimbleness that exists there already. You can see this inflection point, this switch flip. That happens. And you'll see this often when businesses get to a point where the leaders don't feel like they can reach enough people. And what ends up happening is we go from networking people and classifying tools and information to classifying people and networking tools and information. And the problem is the data and systems at least, you know, not in the last, maybe it's changing, but they don't do the thinking. And they don't do the connecting and then people feel isolated. And so there is this potential hazard when it comes to technological systems and data that it can be ignored, that it can be misapplied. Or it could even be misused if a person is of a certain mind or of a certain motivation. All of those things I would say are probably of paramount importance to you. Do you see that as part of the toxic or lack of leadership expression where they can have certain attitudes towards information, data, and technology?

Brent 47:11

So especially when I talk about this kind of toxicity that sometimes creeps up into cultures within organizations, you know I think a lot of times we tend to view it nefariously right, like, there are these people that are vicious in nature. And the reality is, in many cases, it's not. It's what's happened is it's organically spread. And nobody's been tracking it. And nobody's been pulling out the weeds. And so those weeds have just started to engulf the rose bed, as it were, and they're starting to strangle the plants. It's not that there was any nefarious intent in it, it was just it was allowed to occur. And in some cases, a lot of it, I think, is due to just general ignorance, especially when we're talking at the at the management level. One of the issues that I have seen over the course of my career, is there's a propensity for organizations to promote, not based on your competency to fulfill the role, but based on your prior performance, right? As an example, in my first career as a top salesman, right, whenever a new supervisory position would open up, they would come to the top salespeople, and they would say, Hey, are you interested in this job we would like you to put in for this role. And the assumption was, if you're a great salesperson, and we put you into a supervisor role, then you will just automatically shed your brilliance onto all of the people you supervise, and they will magically become great salespeople as well. Right? It sounds great in theory, but in practice, it doesn't work at all. Because what happens is you put that person into that role. And it's completely different from what their previous role was. Now they've got to have different types of conversations. Now they've got to start leveraging different skills that they were never developed to utilize. And so, in the instance, where you get stuck in that position, what do you do? Right? You try to tell people how to do their jobs, because that's how I did it. That's how I was successful. So you start to see micromanagers just flourish because that's, that's all they know, I was put in this role to get everybody else to be as good as I was. This is the formula I used to get there. And I think that's another important element that, you know, sometimes we miss when we talk about leadership. There isn't a standard methodology to this.

Tim 49:37

No, in fact, there shouldn't be. Because of how unique people in situations are, there’s guideposts, but there's got to be a lot of tailoring.

Brent 49:45

So, when you get stuck with somebody telling you exactly how you're supposed to do your job? What do you do? You shut down.

Tim 49:51

Yeah, especially if you've got an internal tension or conflict with that something.,

Brent 49:51

Yes.  So, you'll either shut down, or you'll fight back. Right?

Tim 50:00

I think there's one other option, if I may. Sure. And that is it can set up a really, we have harmony and teams. But we can also set up a very negative harmonic. And I think of the example I show this with is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on Puget Sound in 1940, if you've ever seen this, there was only a 30 mile an hour wind, long suspension bridge, and the thing started to move just a little bit, just like a leader bugs his people little bit, little bit more, until the thing starts to swing and eventually tears itself apart. It didn't take a very strong wind, if you have the wrong type of advice applied in light, well-meaning doses frequently enough, you can see an employee tear themselves apart. Right? And absolutely, maybe that organizational trauma sets in.

Brent 50:51

So obviously, there's a, there's a, I think, a huge gap there. Where if organizations focus their time and attention on Okay, as we're developing people, we need to start having conversations about how to manage effectively, and how to lead effectively, because those are two different disciplines. And those conversations and that development needs to happen well in advance of putting that person in that management role. Right? Like, you're not going to put your 10-year-old child behind the wheel of a car and say, go ahead and learn by doing. Right? Like it's just it's not going to have a happy ending. But that's essentially what we're doing. In many cases, when we promote people into these supervisory or management roles.

Tim 51:35

Maybe leadership should be called people craft.

Brent 51:38

Yeah, absolutely. But how do we bring people together. But to tie it back to the, to the data and the technology aspect of it. So I think in many cases, you've got all of these different systems that tend to grow as an organization is evolving. And you start to, to your point, you start to lose some of those connections. And pretty soon the data starts skewing in certain directions. And if you are not, if you are not prepared, or if you are not knowledgeable enough to be aware of how that can occur, then you can take the data that you're given, and just trust it. And in fact, it may be painting a very drastically different picture from what the objective reality is. And so you may be thinking that you are making data-informed decisions that are in the best interest of your organization, when in fact, at the ground level, these are, these decisions that you're making, are having some truly challenging, and sometimes even, you know, like debilitating effects on your, on your workforce, and ultimately on the performance of your organization.

Tim 52:53

This has been really rich, and I appreciate you going on this journey with me. And I hope it's not the last time we do it, I really want to have you back. And I know you've got some things, which we won't mention on the go, which may, which may bring that up as an opportunity. But as we wrap up, Brent, I'm gonna ask you a series of questions real quick. One is what's got you most excited right now? What's got you really fired up?

Brent 53:18

Yeah, so over the past, you know, year or so I've been really getting kind of deep into organizational culture, like what makes organizations tick, understanding some of those group dynamics and trying to pick apart essentially, where are some of the just common flaws that are impacting organizations, whether they're public sector, organizations, like the FBI, or they’re private sector, companies. You know, in a lot of ways, we share a lot of these issues and similarities. And so understanding how you can cultivate a culture so that it promotes healthy behaviors, and encourages people to come together instead of to divide. I think that's been something that occupied a lot of my attention over the last year.

Tim 54:09

It's such a polarized world. And we're seeing that in Canada, we see it in the States, finding that rational middle in that that area for discourse and cooperation in the middle is such an important thing for us to protect. Yeah, I'm with you.

Brent 54:24

Just keeping that perspective that it is okay to disagree. But there is nothing wrong with differing perspectives. That's, that's what makes us both, you know, as nations but, but as a species. That's what makes us so strong is the ability to have different viewpoints and still be able to work together.

Tim 54:47

It's where creativity lives. Creativity does not work on the edges in the periphery. That's just dogma. So that's great. You are writing on LinkedIn, I follow you, it's great. You are speaking you are out there and and present. If a person wants to get in touch with you to, you know, consider you speaking at their organization or just to say, hi, where can they do that? What's the best way to get in touch with you?

Brent 55:16

Yeah, absolutely. So, the easiest way right now to engage with me, I think is through LinkedIn. If you go on there you search Brent Yonk, I'm the only one. In fact, I think, if you Google Brent Yonk, I'm the only one in the world. But, but yeah, so LinkedIn is an easy way to follow me, you'll be able to see some of my thoughts that I've tried to put out on a relatively frequent basis. But you can always direct message me there. And we can start to have a deeper conversation or if you're interested in, in having me bring some of these thoughts and ideas to your organization or to a conference, I'm always happy to have a conversation and see if it fits.

Tim 55:53

Right. We'll put links in the show notes. Last couple of questions. After we've had this conversation, thinking of the people that are listening, leaders that may be in a leadership or management position for several years, or they might be burgeoning brand new to the practice. What would be your hope for them to take away? Or to feel generally What's your wish? For leaders out there?

Brent 56:20

Yeah, absolutely. I think well, for those that are not in a formal role of management, or that don't have that, that title, the first thing that I would want them to walk away from is leadership is not exclusive. It's not something that comes with a title. It's something that you choose to be that you choose to adopt. And by doing so you're going to realize incredible benefits. And again, it's not just a professional skill set, or a professional mindset. Leadership permeates every aspect of our lives, whether it's at your home, whether it's your social circles, it permeates all of it. And so, by developing your leadership abilities, you are going to holistically improve the quality of your life across the board. For those that are in formal management roles, the thing that I really would want them to take away from is how can they as organizations, how can they in their teams, really start to have meaningful conversations with their people about adopting a leadership mindset and stepping into a leadership role, even if it's within their individual roles, because if they can encourage their people to do that, the quality and the breadth of outcomes and results that they're going to realize, will be well beyond anything that they could do through, you know, the traditional business practices.

Tim 57:45

So, the end of every show, we'd like to ask a couple of questions. So, this comes from Jagroop Chhina. And he wanted to ask you, what's the most meaningful thing that you've learned in the last year?

Brent 57:59

Yeah. So you know, it, surprisingly, it ties back to what we were just talking about, that. I think that that, that pulling apart that we are seeing in society, that inability to recognize the middle ground, helping people to reconnect, and to realize that whatever your political ideologies are, whatever your religious philosophies may be, they're these narratives that we have. But they don't impact our ability to relate to one another as human beings. And as individuals. In order to have that connection, it starts with curiosity. And it starts with just having the courage to approach somebody who you don't know, and strike up that conversation. And what I found is by doing that, and by encouraging that, you start to watch all of these other walls and labels just kind of start lowering. And so, fostering those human connections, is the most impactful way that we can address some of the divisiveness that we have seen in our modern world.

Tim 59:11

Your turn. The next guest, what would be the question you would like to challenge them with?

Brent 59:19

Well, so I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna play it off of what we've talked about, how do you inspire the individual contributors especially, but even those that are in management or supervisory ranks? How do you inspire them to really adopt their, that leadership mindset and perspective? How do you encourage them to be leaders and what does that look like?

Tim 59:45

I will carry that forward. Brent Yonk, thank you very much for joining me. It was a real pleasure. Thanks for being so generous with your time.

Brent 59:53

No, not at all. And I appreciate the opportunity to come and to be on the show. Really enjoyed it.

Tim 59:58

Okay, well, can't wait till the next time. You have a great one. And we'll see you soon.

Brent 1:00:06

You as well. Thank you.

1:00:10

Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable, consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter. You can find the link in the show notes. If like us, you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership. Please give us a positive rating and review on Apple podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders. And you can spread the word too, by sharing this with your friends, teams, and colleagues. Thanks again for listening. And be sure to tune in in two weeks time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host, Tim Sweet, encouraging you to keep on leading.