61. Simplifying Leadership Development with Matt Gjertsen

Today's episode, super fun for me because we threw back to one of my very first loves in this profession, leadership development.

And we talked about simplification, the basics, the foundational skills that leaders need to be good at their jobs.

really no matter the environment that we're in.

And I'm talking about that with the one and only Matt Jertson.

Matt is someone I have admired for many years.

Not only does he have a super cool past, he was an Air Force fighter pilot and then a trainer there.

And then he led learning at SpaceX.

Wow.

I mean, the guy literally worked with rocket scientists because it turns out rocket scientists need leadership skills too.

But Matt is also really great at just boiling down concepts in a way that make them easy to understand and grasp.

And as we point out towards the end of our conversation, getting to the place where something complex becomes simple enough to be easily grasped and used by others is actually really difficult.

Often more difficult than over-engineering or adding more and more detail.

Simple is awesome, but it isn't easy.

In this episode, Matt and I are diving in to simplify leadership by defining three foundational skills that leaders need to master.

And I just want to say thank you, Matt.

Thank you for helping us simplify something complex like leadership and to use your words, get back to the basics a little bit.

Leadership, more specifically doing leadership well or being a good leader, I believe is one of the most difficult jobs out there.

Now, I know there's a lot of difficult and complex roles.

I am not throwing shade at any of those.

But leadership in particular is difficult simply because of the responsibility that comes along with the role and the amount of ambiguity that accompanies it.

Leading people isn't easy.

Humans are tricky creatures.

All of us think differently, bring our challenges to work.

We want different things.

I mean, I could go on.