Power of Authenticity and Archetypes in Leadership with Richard Newman -70

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Richard Newman [: 00:00:04

I think the biggest piece that throws people off is stillness. I experienced this as a speaker last week where I was out in the Middle east and I just had this sea of faces looking at me and they were just not moving. And part of my brain was thinking, everything I'm saying is trash. They don't like anything. I've got the wrong content or something. And then I thought, oh, hang on. Remember, stillness is a good thing. So sometimes people are like, looking for smiles and laughter or rapidly nodding heads, and those things can be good.

Richard Newman [: 00:00:34

But stillness often means people are paying extreme attention. So much so they almost forget to breathe.

Marli Williams [: 00:00:44

Hey, everyone, what's happening? I am super stoked to welcome you to the Marli Williams Podcast, where we will explore authentic leadership, transformational facilitation, and, and how to create epic experiences for your audiences every single time. I am your host, Marli Williams, bringing you thought provoking insights, expert interviews, and actionable strategies to unlock your potential as a leader, facilitator and speaker. Thank you for joining me on this journey of growth, transformation and impact. Let's lead together. The Marli Williams Podcast begins now. Let's dive in. Well, hey everybody, what is happening? I would love to welcome you to the Marli Williams Podcast, where this week you're in for a treat, as always. And I would love to welcome Richard Newman to the show, who is an incredible keynote speaker, author, and today we're going to get to dive into talking about influential leadership, which I'm really excited about.

Marli Williams [: 00:01:50

So thank you for being here.

Richard Newman [: 00:01:51

You're very welcome. Yeah, I'm really pleased to be here with you, Marli. I just, I admire your energy and your spirit and everything that you bring to the table for an audience. So lovely to talk to you.

Marli Williams [: 00:02:01

Thank you so much. I love, I just love kind of like swimming in the sea of all of the different speakers that I've gotten to meet over the years. And I actually watched your TED Talk, which was amazing. And as someone who's a speaker, I'm always just so curious, like, how do we influence an audience? Right? How do we. I think that that is, that is why we do what we do. And for people listening to this podcast, it's like, whether you're a coach or a leader or a speaker, an entrepreneur, it's like, how do I be more influential in my, in my leadership and my communication and my presence and how I'm showing up in the world, whether it's in person or online, especially in a world that feels really noisy, right? And there's a lot of information, there's A lot of ideas, perspectives coming at people. And so we're like, well, how do we. How do we stand out in the service of our audience? Right.

Marli Williams [: 00:02:56

Like, it can. It's like, we want to be influential for a purpose. So I know that you have a big background in how to tell compelling stories, and I'd love for you to just share a little bit from your perspective of, like, what brings you to doing this work in the world. And, you know, just a little bit of context and. And background for the folks out there listening.

Richard Newman [: 00:03:16

Sure. Yeah. Well, this is an area that I've really cared about and been fascinated with initially since I was about 4 or 5 years old. So what happened for me is I was growing up in a certain house in the neighborhood, and then my parents moved house, went to a new school. And as I went into this school, I remember it was like, you know, a little kindergarten classroom. I remember going in there first of all, feeling really excited, like, wow, I've got new teachers and this can be new kids. It's going to be exciting. And then my next memory of that day is much later in the day.

Richard Newman [: 00:03:44

I'm sitting at one of the tables and I'm trying to speak to the kids on one side of me, and they just laughed and turned away, and I felt kind of rejected. So I turned to the other side and was trying to speak to other people, and they were laughing and sort of giggling at me and turning away. I tried to speak across the table. Nobody was engaging with me. And in that moment, I just had this crushing feeling of feeling absolutely alone, feeling like I was in this. This goldfish bowl and nobody else could hear me on the other side of the glass. And I just burst into tears, which is, you know, it's always the worst moment where you're at school, it's a new day, and you're the one who's in tears. And I remember, though, thinking in that moment, is there something different about me? Like, is there something wrong with me? Why can't I connect? Other people can have a conversation and I can't.

Richard Newman [: 00:04:32

And that question really stayed with me through my school years as I started to watch other people build friendships and be really good at sort of speaking at the front of the class or getting on stage and being confident. And I really struggled with those things. Eventually I was able to realize, many years later, getting sort of the full diagnosis of the situation. So, firstly, I'm an introvert, which people often are surprised to hear these days because I get up on stage and I speak in front of thousands of people and bring confidence to it and so on. But you know, being an introvert, it's just a different method of communication. But besides that, I'm also autistic. And this was sort of a surprising diagnosis I got later on in life. But it suddenly made sense of everything that had come before it.

Richard Newman [: 00:05:11

And it's important to point out for people that there's a huge spectrum of what that means. In my case, it just means I was born with a different rule book around communication. And so I'd watch other people communicate and I think I don't know how to do that. How did everybody else learn this stuff? I wasn't given the rulebook on this. And so I was trying to figure it out. And it was really in my late teenage years where I thought, if I can't figure this out, then nobody's ever going to care about my point of view, my ideas are never going to matter, I'm never going to be able to influence anybody, I'm going to get stuck. And so I started to read books on the topic. I was reading dozens and dozens of books as I went through my late teenage years, early 20s, looking at things like body language, tone of voice, storytelling, conflict resolution, influencing skills to get to the point of being able to understand theoretically what communication and influence was all about.

Richard Newman [: 00:06:01

And then I studied it more from a non verbal perspective. When I went to live When I was 18 years old, my friends went off to university and I went off to live in the foothills of the Himalayas where I was living in a little Tibetan monastery where I was working with monks who didn't speak a word of English. And we had to completely communicate non verbally. And it was this fascinating experience of trying to understand each other beyond the use of words. And then I came back to the uk, I studied acting for a few years, learning how to sit, stand, move and breathe in a way that would bring an idea and a story to life and capture the attention of an audience. And then eventually I put all of this into a piece of scientific research that got published in the journal Psychology, where I just asked the question, is there a system every leader can use that would increase their influence, no matter who you are, no matter what background you come from, to make sure that people truly listen to, care about, respect your ideas and take action on them. And the results we got from that were really outstanding, way beyond what we thought. And this is the path that I now teach when I work with clients.

Richard Newman [: 00:07:04

It's really all around that concept of influential Leadership, how do you make sure that when you've got great ideas, experience, products, strategies, how do you make sure that people listen, they care about it, they take action on it, and you are driving things forward and creating the future that you really want to make happen. So that's kind of the whistle stop tour of where this has come from for me.

Marli Williams [: 00:07:24

Yeah, I think it's beautiful, right? Sometimes we're like, as speakers, we're like, what's my thing? What's my topic? And even going back to that childhood moment of not feeling heard, not feeling seen in that moment, and being like, how do I do this thing? And this kind of inquiry in this process and every step along the way of learning, asking that question, is there something that these leaders are doing that other people aren't? And how can we create and almost like systematize and help people understand these things? Because, you know, to the degree of what you said about how did everyone learn this? How did we learn communication? And I think to be able to break it down and help anybody who is out there wanting to influence people in a positive way, like, how do we do this? And so I appreciate you guys just kind of like sharing your. Your background and your story. And I'm excited to hear about this because it's like, this is something that I'm really, really care about too. I'm curious, maybe we can start in this place. Like, the. The question that came up for me was, what gets in the way of people being able to be the influential leader that they really want? Like, have you seen anything? Just some kind of, like, roadblocks, whether it's mindset or perspectives, like kind of what stops or blocks people from being influential? Or maybe what are some of the things that you've seen people try that kind of don't tend to not work? And then we can shift into, all right, how do we do this? Because I think it's important to understand, I think people that are listening to this, like, this is what I'm here for. I'm here to make a difference. What tends to block people and stop people from doing that? And then what's the roadmap to support people on that journey to be more influential?

Richard Newman [: 00:09:11

What I found over the years, I've had the privilege of working with people worldwide around this. And there's two major pieces that come up from your question. First of all, a lot of people have habits that are really holding them back, and some people have armor that's holding them back. And what I mean by that is when you Meet somebody, no matter who you're communicating with. They're coming into that room, they're coming into that moment with everything that's ever happened to them by way of experience that has led them to certain habits that they have with communication that they think will keep them safe or get them heard. And also elements of armor. If we've been in situations in the past where we got rejected or we were ignored, or where we had a very difficult or painful clash, then in our memory we think, okay, make sure that doesn't happen again, which is like driving a car looking in the rearview mirror. It's not very effective.

Richard Newman [: 00:09:59

But we then carry around this weight of armor on us that we're taking into all of the new situations that don't necessarily require it. On top of that, we then have habits that we're bringing into this where as we're kids and we navigate conversations at school and then we go into the workplace, maybe we have interviews or presentations. If we don't get any guidance around what is the most effective strategy, we just gradually develop habits where we think, okay, I did this last time. Nobody said it was bad, and I survived the situation, so I'm going to keep doing that. I'm going to double down on it.

Richard Newman [: 00:10:31

And we get to the point where people will come onto a workshop with me where they'll say, Richard, just so you know, with all this communication stuff, I don't think I can learn anything here, because this is who I am. I just am who I am. And none of that is going to change. And what I like to open up for people is to say, okay, who you are right now is not really your identity. It's just a collection of habits. And if you look at, like, imagine a huge circle for anyone who's listening on the audio, imagine the huge circle. And we've chosen a tiny pinprick within that circle to be the selection of habits that we are going to use. But the wider circle is all of your actual, true potential.

Richard Newman [: 00:11:08

And so when I'm working with people, I always say, where you are right now is not who you will be for the rest of your life. And it's not who you've been for your entire life either. It's just your current collection of habits. So don't let that be a prison. Also, when people get things like they're going through personality profiling and so on, it's been proven very well that that is not who you are. It's just where you currently are. And you can move beyond that. So it was shown that people who get Myers Briggs profiling about six weeks later, 50% of people get a different profile if they answer the same questions because it's a moment in time which is very useful for self awareness, but it's not who you're going to be long term.

Richard Newman [: 00:11:44

So when people are open to this, they realize, okay, the way I'm currently communicating, it's habitual, not natural. It's habitual and therefore if I develop new habits then suddenly I can increase my influence, I can improve my impact. And the last piece I'll add to that is that sometimes you can go into one room, speak to people and they love it. They're like, this is fantastic, this is amazing. You and I get this when we go on stage sometimes you can go in, you go, I'm absolutely crushing it. You can do exactly the same talk the next day to a different group of people and you suddenly realize nothing's landing. And what we tend to do is we go, there's something wrong with them. This audience is terrible.

Richard Newman [: 00:12:21

Or this colleague of mine doesn't get it, somebody else did. But what we need to be able to realize is that our preference for how we communicate isn't always the right choice. We need to make sure we've got variation in our style so that we can change the way we're interacting for each different message, different situation, different people that we go to so we can truly influence a wider group, not just the people who instinctively just relate to the way that we prefer to an analogy I give people on this is imagine a tennis player, like there's a lot of people who play tennis who, they have one preferred move, like they prefer their forehand or they prefer their backhand, they're really good at serve and everybody knows that's their preference. But you can't walk around playing tennis where you just do that, where you say, I'm just really good at forehand, I don't do anything else, that's all I do. You'd lose every game. Even if you get into a doubles and you say to the other person, look, I'm good at forehand, can you do everything else? You're still going to lose because you've got to be an all rounded player. The same thing goes with communication. If you're going to influence people, there might be something you're already really good at, but that's not going to work every time.

Richard Newman [: 00:13:21

You've got to build out the skill set so that you can be more dynamic to the needs of the different situations. That you're in.

Marli Williams [: 00:13:28

I think that that's so important for people to recognize. Like, the habits that we have may or may not be serving us, and they aren't, you know, who you are. It's just how you've done it. And a lot of people, I find, don't get feedback on their presentations, on their delivery either. They're not asking for it. People don't give it to them. And so, again, we just do things over and over, and it's like, yeah, we did it. We didn't die.

Marli Williams [: 00:13:56

Moving on, you know, and seeing that as habits that can shift and change and evolve and letting go of, like, this is just who I am, or that's just what I do with my hands, or I'm just a fast talker or whatever it is. And it's like, okay, if the goal is to impact and influence, like, I think being. Having a little bit of a beginner's mind here even, it's like, oh, I've learned this stuff before. But it's like, how can we adapt and adjust to meet the needs of our audience? That's the other piece that I was hearing you say is like, every audience is different. And am I taking the time to really understand their perspective or their worldview or one of the phrases that I heard speak the language of the listener? Yeah, it's like, who is in the room? And like, that. That's part of being influential instead of just like, this is just who I am, and this is just what I deliver and how I deliver it kind of like, no matter what, really trying to meet people in that moment. And then the third piece was, like, around this armor idea where what walls have we put up to just protect ourselves? And I think right now more than ever, people are craving a level of authenticity and vulnerability. And they don't want necessarily even, like, the perfection, but they want some sort of, like, realness and rawness and authenticity.

Marli Williams [: 00:15:20

But that feels really grounded and centered and anchored and not, like, not protective, because I think that that can block people. Because I've seen a speaker who's like, oh, on paper, it might look like the perfect keynote or the perfect talk, but I'm like, I didn't feel your heart or your energy because it just felt like, oh, this is again, it felt maybe, like, robotic in a way. So I think that there's a piece of. There's this dance of, like, I think that authority and that authenticity that comes into play of, like, how do we build that rapport when we walk on stage or when we're interacting with clients so that they trust you, they like you, and they want to hear what you have to say. So I think it's important to acknowledge, like, okay, what gets in people's way and then what can we do about it? Right? Like, what's the roadmap to being more influential?

Richard Newman [: 00:16:17

One version of being a leader, I found, is being a parent. So I've got two young boys, and one of them is now very much in the midst of being a teenager. And I was learning a while back about, well, if things are not working out, if you need to address something, how do you do it? And a phrase that always stayed with me is called connect before you. Correct. And I found that this is so important, particularly because I travel with work, that I might not be around all the time. And if I come in and I see something's happening, like a really important rule is being broken or something, like a behavior is not right. If I come in and I haven't seen my kids for a few days or a week, and then I'm like, this thing needs to be changed. It's not going to happen.

Richard Newman [: 00:16:57

They're going to think, hang on a second, you don't know the context of this situation. You haven't read the room. I haven't even seen you for a while. I don't even know if you care about me. That's not the right way. But hopefully all leaders can think about this too. Where these days we work virtually so much more than we used to. And that means that you might not see your team from week to week, maybe month to month.

Richard Newman [: 00:17:18

So then when you see them, if you go in straight away with, this isn't working, I need you to change this. There again, can be that disconnect. So we've got to have that connection with people before we can move towards a correction. And the same goes, I find, with an audience. So if a leader is going to be influential on a stage, one of my big encouragements is sit at the back of the room. Often what I find when I go to a conference, if there's a thousand people in the room, the front row is the C suite, the leaders are up there, they've all got the nicest seats. And, you know, people, other people, junior people at the back. And I would always encourage leaders, go and sit at the back and feel the room, because every different room you go to can feel very different.

Richard Newman [: 00:17:57

So, you know, when I go on the road a lot and I'm going from one audience to the next, there are different audiences that require different things. For example, I was doing a talk in. I was in Alicante in Spain, and I knew it was a sales audience. It was for a travel company. I was thinking, okay, I'm going to go in there. Probably fairly high energy, but we'll see what happens. And I remember my taxi pulled up outside the hotel, and I could hear this noise inside. I thought, oh, no, my hotel's like a nightclub or something.

Richard Newman [: 00:18:25

This is. I'm not going to get any sleep before my big day. And then I got out of the taxi, the noise got louder. I walked through the front door, the noise get even louder. And I suddenly realized, this is not a nightclub. This is the audience I'm speaking to tomorrow. And they are so loud, their voice is bouncing off the wall. They're drinking hard, they're partying hard.

Richard Newman [: 00:18:44

And I thought, oh, I'm going to need to bring it tomorrow. And so I got into the. I was sitting in the back audience for a while, listening to how they interacted with other people. And the energy was crazy, huge energy. And I thought, okay, that's what I need to do. That's the wave I need to ride. So the way I language this is, imagine that you're going to go and surf, and you might have the idea that you're going to go and rip up the waves and it's going to be a really exciting day. But if the ocean is dead calm, there's nothing you can do about it.

Richard Newman [: 00:19:10

You just need to sit on your board and maybe meditate on the water. You can't make the energy happen. But. But if there's big waves, you need to be ready to respond to those big waves. That's the same goes with an audience. So with that audience, I had to really up my game. I was like, if they are already supercharged, I need to meet them there. And let's see if we can go even higher.

Richard Newman [: 00:19:27

And we had this fantastic time. But then I can go to another event where I can be told, look, you're the motivational speaker. We want you to come in and really charge the audience up. And then if I'm sitting there and I hear, like, the CEO gets up and says, look, it's bad news. There is going to be a restructure next year. And the CFO says, yep, last year, Porter's results were not very good. And people are really challenged at the break. And you can see them sitting there really thoughtfully.

Richard Newman [: 00:19:50

If I come bouncing onto stage with, like, rock star intro music and so on, then they're going to think like, you don't know where we are. And so I would always rather, like, let me read the space and let me come in. And the first few minutes, I'm really reading the energy. So I'm bouncing my energy into the room and just thinking, am I getting the right sort of energy back? Am I getting something else? Do I need to change and tailor who I am and how I'm being? And so out of this, I've developed six paths. I call it six paths to Influential leadership, where you need to choose and determine which of these styles do I need to be today for this audience, for this person, for this challenging conversation, for this inspiring talk? Which part of that do I need to be? And much like, you know, forehand, backhand, in tennis, there's always one that you go, oh, that's. That's the one I like when I get to do that one, that's my favorite. But there'll be others within there that if you're not able to do them, then suddenly you're going to get stuck. You know, a bit like in tennis, somebody passes a ball to your backhand, if you can't do it, you drop the ball, you know, to use that business term.

Richard Newman [: 00:20:45

So you've got to make sure that you're reading the situation. Which one of these. Which part of me needs to show up today and lean into that and be prepared to give that to the people around you?

Marli Williams [: 00:20:54

Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, people ask me for speaking tips all the time, and one of mine is like, I try to get to the event the night before, at least, you know, if not the day before, just to, like, feel into the energy of, like, who is in the room? What's the vibe? It's like there's a conversation that's already happening and I'm entering into that conversation. But it's kind of like if you enter into a conversation and you have no idea what people are talking about and you're just like, ah, you know, sharing whatever. It's like, yeah, read the room, bro. Like, we're talking about this and you're bringing that, or like, it's not. It feels out of place or out of context. And what always blows my mind is like, you know, we know a lot of speakers who, like, they bounce from, like, one event to the other. And like, I've seen it before where they, like, they come in, they deliver their talk, and they're gone.

Marli Williams [: 00:21:46

And they, they have spent zero time kind of like with the audience or with like, that, that energetic, like, attunement, that's what I'm, like, feeling. It's like, am I tuning in to the vibe, to the energy, to the context of this conversation? And it always, like, shocks me sometimes that I'm like, you have no idea, like, what's. But they come in and they, like, kind of do their thing and then they're. They're out. But I think it's, again, this question of how do we be more influential? I think it's just such an important piece of the puzzle is there's a phrase that I like. It's like sensory acuity, really, where you're like, you're sensing into. And I love going up and, like, meeting a handful of people and having some conversations and getting to know, like, what brings you here, or what are you excited about right now, or what's challenging you, or what are you working on? What are some big goals? Right? You're just kind of like. And then when you get up there, you're like, okay, I have some context for how this message can land for this particular audience on this particular day, in this particular moment in time.

Richard Newman [: 00:22:46

And so I think also for Day to Day, this is true, too. So for anybody listening who doesn't get to get up on the big stage, sometimes they say, but how do I read the room? I've only got like, four people. And how do I prepare and how do I remove objections and so on? And I, and I say to them, you know, similar to how you and I might prepare before a big keynote, we might speak to whoever's organizing the event, the meeting planner, and just get a sense of, like, what's happening for the organization, what's happening for them this year? Any big plans for next year? Where are they at? Who are they? As a team, let me learn about the culture. And you can do this in a smaller way where if as a business leader, you're dealing with different stakeholders, you've got a big meeting coming up, people often say, how do I avoid objections in advance? And so what I say to them is, what's key is before the meeting, don't just go in blind and say, all right, I've got my pitch ready and I'm just going to go for it. Because I've seen that fall apart. In fact, a client of mine once said they had like a 50 slide presentation their team had prepared. They delivered it for the. The branch in Ireland, and everyone said, yeah, this is great.

Richard Newman [: 00:23:40

They brought it to do in a branch in London. And as soon as they got to slide one, you could see people saying, this is. This is not right. This is not what we need. And they thought, well, we got 50 slides. Let's just go for it. And they did the entire rest of the deck, and it just didn't read the room. And so the way that you can get through this is by having these little off to the side conversations before that big event.

Richard Newman [: 00:24:02

I often say to people, if you've got a big stakeholder, somebody you want to influence, they like having their voice heard. So hear their voice before you get to the room, say to them, I'd just like to grab five minutes with you. We're going to speak next week. I'd love to know from you what's the biggest challenge in this area, and if I was to suggest a solution, what's most likely going to be your biggest resistance to that and just let them talk to you. And so if you do that with a couple of people, you then you can go into a boardroom and you can say, you know, in preparation for this, I really appreciate. I was speaking to Dave and Margaret about these different pieces, and it really helped me understand the issue from your perspective and the challenges you're facing. And I know that you might feel resistant in this area. Well, actually, this is how we can then look at this.

Richard Newman [: 00:24:42

So it makes them feel like, oh, you're not just coming in with an idea, like, you understand us, much like you. Or I might do this as keynote speakers where we want to be able to reference people on the team or elements within their business that we understand that then comes into our language to make it as personalized for them as possible. So being able to read things in advance and in the moment is key. A couple of things that I would say to people on reading in the situation. I think the biggest piece that throws people off is stillness. I experienced this as a speaker last week where I was out in the Middle east and I just had this sea of faces looking at me and they were just not moving. And part of my brain was thinking, everything I'm saying is trash. They don't like anything.

Richard Newman [: 00:25:25

I've got the wrong content or something. And then I thought, oh, hang on. Remember, stillness is a good thing. So sometimes people are, like, looking for smiles and laughter or rapidly nodding heads, and those things can be good. But stillness often means people are paying attention, extreme attention. So much so they almost forget to breathe, and they're just soaking up what you have to say. It can be a lesson that you're maybe going A little bit quick, which was the lesson that I had to pick up from this audience I was speaking to. So they had English as a second language.

Richard Newman [: 00:25:56

So I just needed to slow my pace down a little bit until I got a gentle nod of, okay, this is coming in. We understand what you're saying. But that stillness often can put people off in their. If they're in a boardroom, if they're in an interview, if they're doing a pitch, if they're on stage. Stillness can be a great gift. So I'd say to people, don't worry too much about it. Allow that stillness to be there. Sometimes it might mean that you need to slow your energy down and have a quieter presence in the room before you can.

Richard Newman [: 00:26:23

Then lead them forward and get them bouncing off the walls with energy. But do make sure that you're not panicked by that situation.

Marli Williams [: 00:26:30

Yeah, I think it's so important. And, like, that's just how people listen. Right. You know, one of the things that I think about, too, as a speaker is like, no matter what you do or say, 5% of audience is going to love you and be the smile nodding, the head people. And I'm like, lean in. Like, lean into those people. If it's like two people in the front row, and then 5%, no matter what you do or say, are like, I don't want to be here. You know, you can't change my mind.

Marli Williams [: 00:26:54

And then, like, 90% is like, that's the place that we get to play with. And I think sometimes there's a balance of, like, I want to read the energy, and I want to set the tone of the energy. And I'm not going to go from, like, you know, 0 to 60. But if they're at like, a 5, I might bring like, a 6 or a 7. I want to bring them from where they are to, like, maybe a more elevated or inspired place. But I'm also not going to jump from a 5 to a 10. Right. There's a little bit of, like, how do I both, like, meet them where they're at and take them to a new space? Because I think that, you know, we're to be influential, like, planting a seed of possibility.

Marli Williams [: 00:27:36

Like, there's another way, there's another path. It's like, I think that there's an element of bringing a sense of, like, grounded energy to inspire and influence a new way of being and a new way of doing something. And sometimes if there is a flat vibe and flat tone and flat energy, and then we bring that flat energy and flat tone, it, like, might not serve the audience right. So it's like, can I be with what it. Like what's happening? And also create a new possibility, as it were. But I'm excited to hear about it.

Richard Newman [: 00:28:09

Exactly. And this is. I love this. I love watching this. If I get to be at a conference and watch every speaker, I love to see by the end of that person speaking, is the energy in the room different in some way? And this is a good way to judge, you know, if you're an influential leader or not. There was some experiments done on this where they would put people into groups of three, and at the end of that, they were having sort of discussions or debates and so on. And at the end of that, they would look at not only whose thoughts had they been most influenced by, but also what was the energy like between them. Had they become more sad, more thoughtful, more energetic as a group? And what they noticed is that the person who is the most influential is the person who is being matched by the end of that conversation.

Richard Newman [: 00:28:51

So their opinion was being matched and their energy was being matched. And you can see this easily at conferences where some people go on the stage, and at the end people go, right, who's next? Because it really didn't make much of an impact. But other people, you can feel the shift. Like when people are having a coffee break at the conference, that that's all they can talk about is that person. And the energy has shifted in that conversation. So being able to move people a couple of different notches from where they are is critical. It can also be important to go, if you like, in the other direction, where you sometimes get people who are coming into a room where with, like a 7 or 8 energy, and you know you're about to have a really serious conversation, and you're gonna need to bring them slowly down to that. My wife is a doctor, and she talks to me about the warning shot in a conversation.

Richard Newman [: 00:29:37

So if she's having to break really bad news to somebody about a difficult diagnosis and they're maybe not expecting it, if they come in and it's a bright day outside and they've been having a wonderful walk in the park and so on, there's a moment of needing to gradually shift the tone. So this is something where you need to mindfully not look too distressed in the moment. I've had to do this with leaders who are leading restructures where there might be redundancies and so on, and letting them know, how do you bring people into that conversation? Not make people feel scared or stressed in the room, but just allow them to feel like you're gonna be a rock in the storm and you're gonna lead them through this moment. And so as a doctor eases a patient into a chair and lets them know, I've got some news that I need to share with you. And this is going to be a challenging conversation. They're able to take them down with care to that place where they need to be. And leaders sometimes need to do that as well. It could be like an important discussion with your team.

Richard Newman [: 00:30:34

It could be on stage sometimes, often it might be in a one to one of ably moving that person down to that place. And so you can just sort of sit with stillness and a lot of presence with each other just to sort of hold the space for that moment. So I love the way that you phrased that sort of going, you know, going a couple of notches from where they are. Great leaders are clearly able to do that. And we look forward to maybe, you know, watching a video of leaders we admire or watch them on stage because partly it's because of what they say, but it's also how we feel moved and how our state is different by the end of that conversation based on how they have been with us, what they've said, how they've said it, the intention behind it, the values behind it makes us feel good, makes us feel different. And you can also see this in, I see this in great stories like books that people read time and time again, or movies that we watch time and time again. Why are we doing that is because at the end of that, we know that our state will feel shifted in some way, we'll feel something. And there are values that are in those stories that we care about.

Richard Newman [: 00:31:32

We see them come to fruition. And so, you know, influential leaders need to be mindful of that. What state am I bringing into the room? What state do I want to leave this room in afterwards? Or what values do I have that are going to guide my intentions all the way through this conversation? What values do the other people have that I care about, that I can connect with so that we can move this towards a positive conclusion? So it's challenging. We were chatting about this earlier, that the life of a leader can be lonely. You're sort of sometimes looking at things from the outside and being able to do all of these things. It's a science and it's an art and it's something you have to be highly dedicated to. But it is worthwhile. And I Think it's a worthwhile challenge for people to lean into because it helps you grow as a human being.

Marli Williams [: 00:32:15

It's so true. And you know, I think the phrase that keeps coming up for me as you're sharing a lot of this is connection before content. And you shared something similar with your son. It was connect before.

Richard Newman [: 00:32:29

Before you correct.

Marli Williams [: 00:32:30

Before you correct. Right. And so it's like that connection piece before the content piece is like I'm connected to myself, my content, my message. Like I'm building a connection with them. Sometimes I help them connect to each other in a moment or connect to why are they here? What do they want to get out of this? And then here's the content and here's why it matters. Because it's like I'm connected to it, you're connected to it, you're connected to each other. And now you can connect to the content and maybe a more, a more intentional and more meaningful way. And I think that this is the art a bit.

Marli Williams [: 00:33:05

It's like, you know, it's an art, it's a science, it's a dance, and it's so, so, so important. And I'm curious, you shared a little bit of like the six paths or the six kind of like elements of influential leadership. And I'd love for you to share some of those ideas and thoughts and perspectives of like, in order to help us. You know, I think it's like, how do I meet this moment?

Richard Newman [: 00:33:26

Yeah. So this is something that I started to explore going back a few years where I've been leading my business now for 25 years. And I'm sort of an accidental leader. It was a hobby that just got bigger. And then I found myself with more people and systems and HR and legal issues and all this sort of stuff that goes on in being a leader. And as I sort of fell into this role of leadership, I found myself really aligning with the idea of being a servant leader. About 10 years ago I thought, yeah, that really suits me. I would associate myself along the lines of being like a golden retriever sort of character that loves to make people feel good and like people pleaser mentality.

Richard Newman [: 00:34:03

And are you okay? What can I do for you? So I'd heard about servant leadership and I thought, this is great. And then I reached a point where it just wasn't working for me. There were challenges that were coming up. And what can happen is that if you get stuck in one version of leadership that has worked, there's a well known phrase of what got you here won't get you there. If you want to move on, if you want to grow, you've got to be able to evolve yourself and your thinking. And so I was starting to run into problems of and many people, as servant leadership archetypes can find is I was starting to feel like I was a bit of a doormat. Like I was being treated like nothing I ever did for people was enough. And I was also like sort of self flagellating, thinking I must do more, I must give people more and so on in crazy ways.

Richard Newman [: 00:34:45

And I thought there must be more to this, there must be more opportunities. And so I really looked at ancient wisdom sort of on east and west philosophies around what are the different archetypes that we can tap into as leaders that would help us on this journey of life? I'm fascinated by the hero's journey because I teach storytelling and so on, but I wanted to find something beyond this. And having realized that, you know, personality profiles tell us a moment in time, I thought, well, what if there's a journey of different options that we might need to go through? And so I started to develop these archetypes of being a leader that that would give you then six choices. And I settled on six because there's some archetype systems out there that have 50 archetypes. I mean, there's based on Carl Jung's work in this. He popularized the term archetypes, but it was something that's been used for thousands of years. And he said anything, any set of behaviors can be defined as an archetype if you see it repeated throughout history and throughout different civilizations. And I've seen some versions where there's like four archetypes, which I didn't feel was enough.

Richard Newman [: 00:35:43

So I settled on six. And it's really three pairs that work together that are opposing forces. And what you often find is if where I am right now isn't working, I need to look at the opposite archetype because that's probably where the answers are. Joseph Campbell with the hero's journey. He would say that the path that you seek, the treasure that you seek, involves going into the darkest cave, which often means, like, going to the reverse of who you are and how you identify to find another part of yourself. And that's really the treasure at the end of the journey. So there I was being the servant leader, and I thought, what do I actually need to do? I was in a really challenging situation where my team was being threatened by multiple forces. So running this events business, the pandemic came and suddenly everything was canceled.

Richard Newman [: 00:36:27

There was no flights available. There was no rooms to work with people. And suddenly we had the economical challenge. We also had other people who had sort of set up in direct competition with my business, who are aiming to steal clients, steal ideas, and threatening the business on the outside. And I thought, like, this servant leadership isn't working. What do I need to do? I need to protect people. I need to provide for people. And I was searching through these archetypes to figure out what would I need.

Richard Newman [: 00:36:52

And I developed this concept around the shield archetype. And the shield is the version of ourselves we step into when we need to protect and provide for others. So I talk about this where sometimes if I get a sort of a timid or a quiet leader, aiming to get them to project on stage, and they say, oh, I can't project. My voice doesn't get loud. And I say, okay, well, what if someone who you really cared about was about to be hit by a truck across the road? Would you say, oh, you should probably get out the way of the truck, or would you suddenly find this sound within yourself you didn't know you were capable of? Which I won't do into the microphone because I'll blow it up. But this sense of, like, raw suddenly comes out of yourself, and you sort of blow up this voice that's going to get that person out of the way of the truck that's 100 meters away. And so we have this strength, this power within us to protect others, to provide for others, this force that comes up if somebody that we care about is being threatened or something, an idea that we care about is being threatened, we can lean into the shield mentality. And I found my way into that archetype realizing that's who I needed to be for my team.

Richard Newman [: 00:37:52

That's why I needed to be for my clients. That's who I needed to be for my. My family. At that point, leaning fully into the shield, which meant thinking about things in a very different way than the servant archetype. And so what I've also noticed in opposition is some people are really stuck in SHIELD they are stuck in that sense of, I'm here to provide, I'm here to protect. This is who I'm going to be. And sometimes you actually need to back off for that because it can become too much if you go into a negative side of it. It can become aggressive, it can become overly dominant.

Richard Newman [: 00:38:20

And sometimes what people really need from you is to be the wind underneath their wings. Let them move forward, let them Elevate to the next stage. Let them be the protectors in the group. So those two go really nicely, sort of back and forth. And you can see this over and over again in storytelling. The reason it's sort of. It's these ancient archetypes that are repeated that everyone has access to is so many stories are somebody who's in sort of a servant mentality, who has to become the shield mentality. Sometimes I reference Linda Hamilton's role in the movie the Terminator movies.

Richard Newman [: 00:38:50

Initially, she's literally a servant. She's serving in a bar. She serves, like, food and snacks in a bar. And then she has to become this ultimate warrior that's gonna protect the entire universe from destruction. She goes on that journey, which we love watching, then to go into the other four that are available, there's others that are opposing too. So you have the sprite and the sovereign. Now you often actually see this. It's fun if people think about this, if they're listening.

Richard Newman [: 00:39:13

In relationships, you often have someone who's more sprite like and someone who's more sovereign like, someone. The sprite is somebody who is playful, who loves to push the boundaries, loves to make fun of all sorts of situations, isn't really concerned with sort of timings and rules and regulations, just likes to play and mix things up. The sovereign, on the other side, the person who is making clear, decisive, strategic decisions, likes rules, likes regulations, will impose those rules in situations where it's necessary to drive things forward on behalf of others. And so the sprite can be very useful if you want to diffuse tension, if you want to bring people into a situation where things have been tense, things have been tough, and you need to build that bond, that rapport with people. That can be a very useful one to have. The sovereign is the one that we need to step into where we need to be clear what the boundaries are. If people are pushing on you as a leader and saying, give me more, do more for me, sometimes we need to be clear of, no, that is not acceptable. And so, you know, just like kids and teenagers like to push the boundaries, sometimes employees and team members and clients and suppliers like to push the boundaries.

Richard Newman [: 00:40:18

And we have to be firm in our sovereign of these are the decisions, these are the boundaries. That's the way it's going to be. So if you get stuck, though, if you get stuck in sovereign, you could be seen as too black and white and, like, unable to connect with people. If you get stuck in sprite, then you can be seen as a bit of a Clown character who never seems to take things seriously. So we need to have both those archetypes and to finish it up, the last two, actually, maybe I'll give you a reference point. The sprite and the sovereign. You can see this very clearly in Robin Williams portrayal in Hook where he's playing the grown up version of Peter Pan who's become a lawyer or an accountant or something. He takes everything too seriously.

Richard Newman [: 00:40:52

Then he needs to refine his sprite as Peter Pan and then be able to bring that back in his day to day life where he can be fun and he can also be decisive. Where he needs to. The last two to talk about is the Sage and the Showtime. Again, these are opposing forces as archetypes. So for me, this was a big journey where I love being Showtime mode on stage. This is like, go for it with high energy and being highly expressive and bouncing around the stage and energizing people with fun activities. And I realized that, you know, many times that's going to work. And it's very useful if people want to, as a leader, you know, shine a light on an idea, shine a light on their team, shine a light on a vision of something.

Richard Newman [: 00:41:32

It can be very useful to step into Showtime, but it's not always appropriate. And I found the more that I spoke on stage, the more I was aiming to lead groups, that sometimes what they needed was the opposite. They needed the Sage. And I saw this really clearly when I was working with a colleague of mine and I'd been brought into, you know, energizer group and so on. And they were just looking at me like, I don't really resonate with this. And I was thinking, but the audience I spoke to yesterday loved it. Why don't you guys love it? And then I handed over partway through to my colleague who got up and he was very much embodying the sage like energy, sharing the same concepts and ideas, but from a place of settled wisdom, very grounded. And you could see the whole room just suddenly leaned in.

Richard Newman [: 00:42:13

And I thought, oh, there's something in this. There's something that I need to work hard on. And so when I am talking to audiences who need to communicate difficult messages, I often will come in as the Sage and get down to that more grounded element. Now, importantly, if you stay in Sage too much, people can think, well, you're kind of no fun. You're just sort of dealing with wisdom from the past. What about the vision of the future? Whereas if you stick in Showtime, people can think, well, you've got a big Ego, you never seem to settle down and just listen to things peacefully. So we've got to make sure that we've got all six of these elements. They can all have positive sides, they can all have negative sides.

Richard Newman [: 00:42:48

But when you're going for an important situation, a conversation meeting, and you want to influence, it's worthwhile thinking of these six options, which one am I going to need for this person, for this message, this situation? And lean into it. And you may also find in the meeting you need a couple of different ones. You didn't realize. So having access to all can be hugely important. To be the most influential leader.

Marli Williams [: 00:43:09

I love archetypes and I love it just like it brings like a new awareness around. Again, like we all might have a natural inclination towards one or two, or like, okay, like I might generally be like more sprite showtime vibes, you know, and it's like bringing in like that sage and that depth and that was, you know, it's like I think having that awareness, I can see how that could help someone be more influential. Instead of like again, kind of just like, this is just the way that I do it. This is just how I am. I'm just that, this type of leader or person. And again, how can we meet people where they're at? How can we meet a moment? How can we read the energy and that room again to be in service of that audience? Right. One of my big mantras as a speaker, as a leader is like, show up and serve. That is like my number one job.

Marli Williams [: 00:44:04

And so I think like that bringing in this question of like, how can I be of greatest service to this particular group of people at this particular moment in time, you know, given my message, my idea, my product, my service, my topic, and how do I really like meet people where they're at? With emotional agility and with awareness. I just think that leadership comes down to like, how aware am I of myself and the impact that I'm having on the people around me. I think without being aware of it, we can bulldoze people, we can let people walk all over us. It's like, so I think that these archetypes can create a new way of looking at how am I leading this particular group, this particular room. And again, whether it's a one on one conversation with someone, like, what's the most appropriate kind of archetype to bring to this moment in time, given the context of that dynamic or that conversation. Right. So I love that. Yeah.

Richard Newman [: 00:45:09

And I like you inspired me to think about that. You know, this sense of awareness. We've got to have that awareness of ourselves. We've got to have awareness of others. And sometimes there's such an important, important moment as a leader to be able just to be still and read the moment, read the situation, not just going to reaction, not just going to response, not just sort of follow. This is what my instincts telling me. This is what my gut's telling me. Just be able to read it and think.

Richard Newman [: 00:45:33

If I can read a 360 take on what is happening right now and then choose what I'm going to do next, choose what archetype I lean into, choose what sort of words I'm going to use, and then you're gonna be much more impactful rather than. Cause sometimes as leaders, you know, there's a lot of pressure on us and there's a lot of things to deal with, and we got things to think about financially and strategically, and there can be pressures and goals that haven't been met and demands from clients, and then we can sort of bulldoze into a room and go, right, I'm just gonna do this with instinct. But actually, if we can just take that moment to be really clear, really settled, then that allows us to have, you know, all the wisdom that we need coming into us thinking, okay, this is the next path forwards. And off we go.

Marli Williams [: 00:46:15

Yeah, this. The power of a pause to take a moment, to take a beat. I think that we live in a world that feels at times, overreactive. And I think that that can come from this. This pressure that we put on ourselves as leaders or like these. These expectations that we have or that we think other people have of us, where if we really stop and assess and take in what's going on, we can be way more powerful and way more effective and way more influential than if we just come in kind of, you know, bulldozing people, so to speak. So I really appreciate, like, just this perspective, these insights, the archetypes, like a new way of looking at leadership and how to be more impactful and more influential. So I would love for you, as we kind of wrap up for today, of maybe sharing any final, final thoughts or words of wisdom for those out there listening and where people can find you and learn more about you and your work in the world and maybe dive into the archetypes too.

Richard Newman [: 00:47:21

Great, thanks. I think the key message I would leave leaders with is just for people to hear that your voice really matters. You've got great ideas that you want to share with the world, but they're never going to speak for themselves. And so you have to make sure that you dedicate yourself to the craft of how am I going to make sure that this, this wisdom, this knowledge, the strategies, all the things that I build up in my team, my company, are actually going to be heard. They're going to resonate with people and never take it that a message gets ignored. To think that, well, that must be a bad message. Just consider that actually it could be the way you're conveying it. And if you dedicate yourself to the craft of communication, if I can do it, if I can go on the journey I've gone on, everybody listening can absolutely go on this journey, have their voice heard and tilt the world in a more positive direction.

Richard Newman [: 00:48:09

And we need more leaders to do this, to step up to the craft of how do I lead? How do I get my ideas heard? Because there's plenty of people out there sharing ideas that are not great, actually, that are not having a good influence on the world. Doesn't mean they're the best ideas, but those are the ones being conveyed in the most influence, influential fashion. So we need everybody listening to this podcast to step up to the plate, to decide I'm going to be more influential with positive ideas, and together we can tilt the future in a more positive direction. If people want to find me, then they can find my website, richardnewmanspeaks.com and from there you can find all the links for my LinkedIn and so on. So I'll be happy to help and serve people in any way that I can.

Marli Williams [: 00:48:46

Brilliant. I love that so much. And just that reminder for those of you listening to this, that like, that your message matters and there's a way to powerfully communicate that, you know, out there in the world and really, you know, it's like, take responsibility as a leader to be more influential, you know, for those of you out there, like, with really great messages, with really great ideas. And I hope that this, this podcast today and this idea really inspires you to go out there and make a bigger impact and, and have more influence, influence on those that you serve and those that you lead. And I'm so grateful to have you here and sharing your knowledge and your wisdom with all of us here on the podcast. And you know, as always, if this, if you like this, you loved it, it resonated with you, feel free to rate it, review it, share it with a friend. Who else needs to hear this? And Richard, again, thank you so much for being here with us. And until next time, take.

Marli Williams [: 00:49:45

Thank you for joining us on another inspiring episode of the Marli Williams Podcast. We hope you're leaving here with renewed energy and valuable insights to fuel your leadership, coaching and speaking endeavors. I'd love to invite you to subscribe, rate and review this podcast to help us reach more aspiring leaders and speakers like you. We have more exciting episodes and remarkable guests lined up, so make sure to tune in next time. Until then, keep leading with purpose, coaching with heart, and speaking with conviction. This is Marli Williams signing off. See you next week.