Ep. 002 Embracing People-First Approach for Thriving Workplaces

Welcome back to Bread to Lead, the podcast where we explore what it means to be a leader who puts people first. I'm your host, Dr.
Jake Taylor Jacobs, and I'm thrilled to have you join me for another deep dive into the art and science of people first leadership. In our last episode, I shared my personal story and my journey of discovering the power of people first leadership and how it transformed my approach to business in life.

I also invited you to join me on the quest to redefine what leadership means in the 21st century and to explore how we can create workplaces where everyone can thrive and make their unique contribution. Today, today, we're going to take the exploration a step further by delving into the first key principle of people first leadership, redefining leadership itself.
Because the truth is, the way we've traditionally thought about leadership is no longer serving us in today's fast paced, ever changing world. For too long, leadership has been associated with authority, control, and individual heroics.
We've celebrated leaders who

are decisive, assertive, and charismatic. I ain't gonna lie, y'all.
I got a little bit of charisma.

I got a little bit of drip in my dip, a little walk in my talk. Dr.
Jake just got it, y'all. And the thought is that as a leader, you have all the answers and can single handedly steer the organization to success.
But as the world has become more complex, interconnected and unpredictable, this model of leadership has started to break down. In a world where change is the only constant, where problems are too big for any one person to solve, and where the most valuable assets are knowledge and creativity, we need a new kind of leader.
We need leaders who are adaptable, collaborative, and emotionally intelligent. Leaders who can inspire and empower others rather than just directing and controlling them.
Leaders who are more focused on asking the right questions than having all of the answers themselves. And most importantly, leaders who put their people first, recognizing that the key to success lies in unleashing the full potential of every individual.
Y'all, I sounded like Martin Luther King or something right there, didn't I? I sounded good right there. But in fact, that's the absolute truth.
We need people that are willing to change the way that we see leadership as a whole. Matter of fact, if I were to be honest with you, if you were to think about the biggest organizations all over the world, one thing that you're going to have to see is how bad their collapse were.
I'm talking about, and they're bad. Usually people like to stay inside of organizations

as long as everything is thriving.

But what happens to the organizations

when, excuse my French, hit the fan?

Now, if you know what shh mean,

you know exactly what I'm talking about.

When stuff hits the fan,

you can tell the type of leader that that person is

based on what people do when crap hits the wall. I'm gonna be honest with you.
Unfortunately, I dealt with some moments in my life where I thought I was a great leader. And then when crap hit the wall, everybody left with the crap and not a lot of people stayed.
And so I had to adapt in a bunch of different ways to be able to see leadership in a different way, more in a human way, like a servanthood type of way, servanthood, God-like to where I looked at people for the heart and the humans that they were. And the more I realized, the more that I poured into people's heart, more that I saw their potential.
I was emotionally connected to them.

Now, one thing I will tell you is to never get too involved in people's personal situations, because all of a sudden you're going to be the answer to all the issues. And unless you want to be a pastor, step out of that, send them to a counselor or pastor, because that ain't what you are you're not.
But this shift in leadership is backed up by a growing body of research and evidence. Studies have shown that companies with more diverse and inclusive leadership teams are more innovative and financially successful.
The employees who feel value, supported and empowered are more engaged, productive and loyal. There's an emphasis on loyalty and that leaders and those leaders who prioritize trust, transparency and psychological safety, create cultures where people can take risks, learn from failures and achieve breakthrough results.
Yeah, I'm about to tell you a little secret that you don't know. Depending on who I talk to, my name is not Dr.
Jake. I'm Dr.
Jakisha. Now, I know it sounds a little funny.
Like, how can this upright, strong, masculine man that calls himself a great leader call himself jakesha it just depends on who i'm talking to i may be jakesha to the ladies in my organization and i may be a that man to the fellas it just depends on who i need to be to make them feel safe mentally emotionally and spiritually to be able to open up their hearts to me and whatever I can do to add value to their life. I will be that as long as it doesn't supersede my time and my energy to be who I am.
And as long as it doesn't deter or take away from the value or my leadership capability within an organization, these are the things that you have to imagine to understand. You have to be more than just your position in order to lead people to transformation.
And this is the key when it comes to leadership at its core. When people leave you, are they better when they leave you as a whole or are they just better skill set wise? Because if they're just better skill set wise, they're always going to be trying to look for an opportunity to make more money somewhere else or look for the next best thing because your opportunity has ran out.
But when you open up and you lead now, I did not say tell them that you're family or that we're we're together or we're best friends. We're going to go to the end of the earth.
That's not your job as a leader to decide if they're going to be here to the end. It is your job to assess where they are as a holistic human being and be there to give some give them support or invest in their support.
You don't have to be the end all be all. But as a leader leading organization, you need to find resources, finances, money or opportunities that your team can get access to information and people that are much larger than you or that can bring a different type of capability or different type of value to your team so they can grow as a holistic person.
There's nothing worse than dealing with somebody that's extremely skilled, but they suck with emotions or they suck with common sense or they suck with spiritual connection.

There's nothing worse than finding and working with somebody that's extremely talented,

that's disconnected from the world. Those are the things that we have to really focus on.

And we have to actually, hold on, Michael Jackson said, go on and make a change. What he said,

for once in my life. Yeah.
Hold on real good gotta make a difference gonna make it right he said because i turn up the corner on my favorite minute dude and world is changing my mind he said you gotta look in. Okay, my voice may not be that good.
However, you do get the point, don't you? You got to look in the mirror and look at you first and ask yourself, am I everything that I should be? Matter of fact, ask yourself this. If I were in the shoes of the people I want to look up to me, am I the best example that I could be or am I just the better, the best example that they can see? Oh, are you the best example that you could be? Are you just the best example that they can see? Because depending upon the perspective or the lens of the person looking up to you will determine that your real value.
And these are the things that we have to understand as we continue to grow. Studies have shown that companies that have more diverse and inclusive leadership teams are more innovative.
I already said this in financially successful studies have proven this. And so we have to do a better job at understanding that we have to create a world and a culture where people can actually learn from failures.
And we appreciate breaking through ceilings so that we have to create a world and a culture where people can actually learn from failures.

And we appreciate breaking through ceilings so that we can get to better results, seeing life from a different lens. One of the most compelling pieces of research on this topic come from Google's famous project, the Aristotle study.
For those who aren't familiar, back in 2012, Google embarked on a quest to discover the secrets of effective teamwork. They analyzed data from about 180 teams across the company, looking at everything from personality traits to skill sets to social habits any emotional norms.
What they found was extremely surprising.

Guess what? personality traits to skill sets to social habits and emotional norms.

What they found was extremely surprising.

Guess what they found?

Let me see.

Let me see.

Let me see.

Let me see.

Let me see.

Let me see.

Let me see.

Let me see. Let me see.

You know what they found?

They found that the most successful teams weren't necessarily the ones with the smartest

people or the most harmonious relationships.

Instead, the key factor was psychological safety. The belief that you could take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other without fear of punishment or embarrassment.
Think about this. Think about the classes when you were in school that you participated the most in.
W't those teachers open to anyone's ideas no matter how crazy it was No matter how crazy your answer was they were like That ain't quite it and you went absolutely the opposite way, but I can see where you're going It didn't destroy the thought that you felt man, I added value. They embrace the fact that you said something.
They just kind of told you it was wrong in a different way. Most of the companies that we think about.
Now, let me take a little communion break. Most of the companies that we think about or even the organizations that we create, We think that we have to be.
It's about business. It's about order.
We can't let people know we drink liquor. We can't let people know that we indulge.
We have to be straight about the paper. No gray areas, only black and white.
I used to be that way. But guess what happens when you're in an environment that is like that? You create an environment that's not safe for people to create an innovation and change within any industry is open to creativity and creation.
Some of the most beautiful things that we enjoy today first started with an idea with joy, with laughter, with passion. It started with things that came from this place of of imagination.
Imagine the plane that we ride in that came from somebody's idea that we could fly. Well, I wanted to sing a song, but I don't know if it's right for me to sing it.
And I don't know if I can even say his name, but it started with, I believe I can fly. Think about the mic that I'm talking on right now.
Somebody in their mind thought about it, dared to be different. And if I were to be quite honest, it is kind of sad to see people with so much potential that want to be creative that just wants to live they get caught up in this cog of a machine they're a cog in a machine stuck in this loop of being like what they see that sucks the people that create change are the people that look at what they see and they dare to think of a different world, a different organization, a different way of living.
now order is required so everything is with reason but think about the last time you stopped dreaming and why was But think about the last time you stopped dreaming.

And why was that? Think about the last time you stopped believing. And why was that? Think about the last time you believed in yourself.
And why was that? The true art of leadership. is to first lead yourself.

The second piece of leadership

is to decide lead yourself.

The second piece of leadership is to decide where you are leading you. These are the things that matter most.
And when this study was done, this is what they saw. the best teams were the ones where people felt safe to speak up, to challenge ideas, to admit mistakes and to ask for help.
Where there was a shared sense of trust, respect and belonging. Where the leader's role was not to have all of the answers, but to create the conditions for everyone to contribute their best thinking and work.
This finding was echoed by other studies and experts in the field. Amy Edmanson, a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of The Fearless Organization, has spent decades research in psychological safety and its impact on learning, innovation, and performance.
Matter of fact, in her work, she found that psychological safety or psychological safe places, workplaces, are not just happier and healthier, but it's also more adaptable and successful. When people feel safe to take risks and speak up, they're more likely to identify and solve problems, to come up with creative ideas and learn from their failures.
When leaders prioritize psychological safety, they create a virtuous cycle of trust, engagement, and continuous improvement. But creating psychological safety is easier said than done, isn't it? It requires a fundamental shift in how we think about leadership and power.
It means letting go of the ego and the need to be right all the time it means being willing to be vulnerable i know y'all don't like to be showing people do y'all remember on the wizz you can't win and you can't break even and you can't get out the game what were the what if the Wiz just

told people he didn't have all the answers, right? He wouldn't have felt so naked when they exposed them. Being vulnerable is true strength.
It shows people that you're willing to say what you don't know and what you don't have so they can see the human side of you.

So the things that you do know that you're confident in, they can back you one thousand percent.

It's OK to admit when we don't have all the answers.

It means creating a culture where everyone feels valued, respected and heard.

This is something I've had to learn the hard way in my own leadership journey. Early on, I thought being a leader meant projecting an image of strength and confidence and infallibility.
Matter of fact, I would never smile. I didn't laugh.
I didn't chuckle. I was just like, whatever face you just imagine, you wrong for that.
But that's how I was. I was quick to shut down.
Opinions and take credit for successes while blaming others for our failures. But as I started to study, I told you, I don't mean for this to be a biblical podcast, but I can't help the God that I serve.
When I started to study Christ, I started to study people in Scripture that embodied what true servant leadership looked like. I started to see the people who practice people first leadership.
I realized how short sighted in damaging this approach was of being aggressive, always having the answers, looking for results only first. I wanted to know how can we get to the results now, right now, bring me the paper right now.
And I didn't think about the damage that it was bringing to the people that were involved in my organization. and the mentality of what was being created that results mattered more than integrity and doing right by the people that we served.
I remember one pivotal moment when I was leading a high stakes project with a major road block. Instead of trying to fix it myself or assign blame, I called a team meeting and simply asked, what are we missing? What do we need to do differently to get back on track? And at first there was this uncomfortable silence because people were starting to be like, okay, he trying to set us up.
He trying to fire us and I won't say nothing. But then one by one, guess what happened? People started to speak and they started to speak up.

They shared ideas I never considered.

They pointed out flaws in our approach and offered to take on new responsibilities.

By the end of this meeting, we had a brand new plan in a renewed sense of commitment and excitement.

Y'all, I was behooved. Because the people that started to speak up were the people I was like, if I only had a brain, like on the Wiz, I didn't know if they actually had a brain.
I didn't know if they had a brain. I thought they were just a scarecrow.
But that also showed my short-sightedness as a leader. Y'all, for the first time, I saw some of our most pessimistic staff light up with joy.
When I finally just considered their perspective, that experience taught me the power of leading with questions instead of answers, of creating a space where everyone feels safe to contribute their thoughts and ideas and of trusting in the collective wisdom and the creativity of the team. Since then, it's been my priority.
To make psychological safety a top priority in my leadership practice. I start every team meeting by reminding people that there are no stupid questions or bad ideas.
Matter of fact, we start our meetings talking about gratitude. What are you most grateful for? I regularly share my own failures and vulnerabilities, and I encourage others to do the same.
I make it a point of publicly acknowledging and appreciating people's contributions, even when they challenge my own thinking. And can I tell y'all something as a leader? Nothing boils your behind more than somebody boiling your behind, telling you you was wrong what they saw what they see and you immediately want to justify yourself but the moment that you try to justify will be the moment that they clam up because at the end of the day you control their fate of having a job or not having a job and I didn't want an environment where people were scared to speak up.
I needed to find a way to help them be psychologically safe, but at the same time, start steering them in the right way of providing me data and information that I needed for them to support their opinions. But the first step is psychological safety.
And what it did was it forced me to say, if I'm going to bring an idea before my team, let me be the most research and data driven when I bring it. So if they have ideas and they poke holes in it, I can provide solutions and reasons why it's going to work despite what they say or despite what their pushback is.
And you would be surprised how much more stronger our offers became, how much more stronger our position in the market became when we thought of things that way. The results have been transformative.
I've seen my teams become more innovative, adaptable, and resilient. I saw individuals blossom in ways I've never could have imagined.
People who were once shy and reserved have become confident and vocal leaders. Shan Harris is one of them.
She was quiet, reserved, didn't want to talk to anybody.

And I promise you today, there's not a day that goes by.

She don't get on my behind about something.

And I get mad like, damn, I gave her a little bit too much power.

But seeing her develop and grow and get confident in her abilities.

That's what you're here to do.

Leaders, true leaders, create leaders leaders True millionaires create millionaires People who are truly impactful Create people who are truly impactful If you are one of one Within your mixing of your world You're not doing what you're supposed to do As a leader to grow and develop people Therefore Therefore, you're going to have an organization that lives and dies with your decisions.

And can I tell you something?

God has got a loan to do that.

You can't carry people's burdens.

You can help the load.

You can help them carry it just a little bit, but they have to be able to have the skill sets and the power and the strength to carry it on their own. People who are stuck in their ways have embraced new skill sets and approaches.
Now, what I will tell you, people are stuck in their ways. They're going to find every way to stay stuck.
But it's your resilience of collaboration, praising when they step out their shell and they're going to look at you crazy like, what he got up his sleeve, what she trying to do. But you have to be patient enough to understand that most people are not used to having leaders that actually care about their disposition, that care about their changes, and that sees the little things that they do to try to buy into the full system.
And you as a leader have to be so people focused that you see every even even the smallest changes. Because isn't that what God does with you? He embraces you and gives you blessings and gives you anointing just for the small things that you do.
It's not even the biggest things. These are the smallest things.
And it's absolutely amazing. And the people who were disengaged and apathetic have become passionate advocates for our mission and our values.
Of course, creating a psychologically safe workplace is not a one time event. It's an ongoing an ongoing process.
You have to think about it every day. Now, I'm not telling you just to take people's dumb ideas.
Now, we can't do that. But what we can do, we can teach them how to bring ideas to the table.
Train them on how to get data to back their feelings and emotions. So when they come to the table with a feeling or an emotion, it's systematically shown to them how to bring their emotions and back.
And here's the thing. Here's the thing.
Here's the thing. Here's the thing.
Here's the thing. Once you show people how to take their emotions and try to find data that backs it, you're actually going to find out that a lot of people are going to realize they're more emotional than data driven.
And you're not even going to deal with a lot of the issues that you used to deal with. It's an ongoing thing.
It requires consistent effort, attention and leadership. it's not always easy especially especially in the face of stress, conflict, external pressures, and financial loss.
But the payoff is more than worth it. When we create workplaces where people feel safe, valued, and empowered, we unleash a wave of human potential that can transform organizations and communities past our imagination.
We build trust, foster innovation, and inspire a sense of meaning and purpose that goes beyond just making a profit. What good is being a profitable company if everyone hates each other and is looking to undermine each other and take advantage of each other and trying to find what's next or what's the next up how can I circumvent the system to make myself look better but honestly caring about people isn't that what leadership is really about not just achieving short-term goals and metrics but making a positive and lasting impact on lives of others not just being a boss or a manager but being a positive and lasting impact on lives of others.
Not just being a boss or a manager, but being a mentor, a coach, and a servant to those we lead. Not just wielding power and authority, but empowering and uplifting others to reach their full potential.
That's the kind of leadership I aspire to practice and promote through this podcast, even through my companies.

A leadership that puts people first, that creates psychologically safe environments and that redefines success in terms of well-being and growth of every individual holistically.

I truly believe that this kind of leadership is needed now more than ever in a world that is becoming increasingly divided, disconnected, and uncertain. We need leaders who can bring us together, who can help us navigate complexity, and who can inspire us to be our best selves.
We need leaders who are willing to challenge the status quo, to stand up for what's right, and to create a much more just, equitable, and sustainable future for all. Leaders who are not afraid to be vulnerable, to admit their mistakes, and to keep learning and growing.
And most importantly, leaders who put their people first, who measure their success by the positive impact they have on others. This is the leadership revolution, and I believe we are in the midst of it.
I'm committed to being a part of it, and I hope that by listening to this podcast, you will be inspired to join me in this revolution and to become the type of leader and the kind of leader our world so desperately needs. So as we wrap up this episode, I want to leave you with a few key takeaways and action steps.
One, reflect on your own leadership style and mindset. Are you more focused on having the answers or asking the right question? On projecting strength or being vulnerable? On achieving results or empowering others? Take an honest assessment of where you are and where you want to be.
Number two, start practicing psychological safety in your own team and organizations. Begin by sharing your own failures and vulnerabilities.
Remember, you ain't got to be Jesus. He already died for our sins.
Encourage others to do the same. Make it clear that there is no shame in making mistakes or asking for help and that everyone's voice and perspective is valued and weighed.
Some may be weighed a little bit more heavily than others, but we will take the opinion box. Create a regular space for people to give and receive feedback and to challenge ideas in a constructive way.
Number three, educate yourself and others about the importance of psychological safety and people first leadership. Share this podcast with your colleagues and friends and start a conversation about what it means to be a leader in the 21st century.
Read books like mine, people first was a second, and articles on the topic. Attend workshops and conferences like scrub ball.
If you're in the healthcare and seek out mentors in role models who embody these principles. And lastly, look for opportunities to be a people first leader in your own life and work.
Whether you're leading a team, a project, or just your own career, make a commitment to putting people first and creating psychological safety. Stand up for what you believe in.
Don't be soft, even when it's difficult. And most importantly, never stop learning, growing, and pushing yourself to be the best leader that you can be.

I know that this kind of leadership isn't always easy.

It requires confidence, courage, humility, and perseverance.

But I also know that it is deeply fulfilling and that it has the power to change lives and transform this world.

So I invite you to join me on this journey of redefining leadership for the 21st century to put your people first, create psychological safety and to unleash the full potential of every individual. to be the leader who inspires, empowers, and uplifts others,

and who leaves a legacy of positive impact and change. Thank you for listening to this episode of Bread to Lead.
I hope you found it valuable and inspiring. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you.
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback,

please do not hesitate to reach out to me through our website or social media channels. And if you haven't already, subscribe, like, follow, and share this to somebody that really needs this information.
Until next time, remember that leadership is not about perfection, but about progress.

It's about having the courage to be vulnerable,

to admit your mistakes and to keep learning and growing. And most importantly, it's about putting your people first and creating a world where everyone can thrive and make their unique contribution.
So go out there, lead with your heart,

your mind and your soul.

The world needs more people first leaders like you.

And if you don't have it already,

go on and go get people first resort second.

And I'll see you on the next episode of Bread to Lead.