What if creating championship-level performance has far less to do with the team you inherit and everything to do with your own mindset and how you lead, design systems, and set standards from day one? That question came up again and again in my conversation with Donzel Leggett, a leadership strategist, executive coach, and the award-winning author of Make Your Destiny Happen.
We dive into what leaders can learn from one of the most talked-about leadership turnarounds in sports this season: Curt Cignetti and the remarkable transformation of Indiana Hoosiers football. We unpack why turnaround success isn’t about inheriting the “right” team, it’s about setting expectations, creating belief, and installing systems that allow people to perform at their best.
With more than three decades of leadership experience at Fortune 200 companies, Donzel helps leaders and organizations build clarity, capacity, and intentional leadership. He’s also a former Academic All-America football player, which makes his perspective on leadership, discipline, and performance especially powerful.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- What leaders need now to stay grounded, adaptable, and effective amid rapid change and disruption.
- How to translate big ideas into repeatable behaviors that actually create change over time.
- Helping individuals take control of their lives and make their destiny happen through life planning and consistent action.
“In most cases, the majority of people have the talent and have the capability. They just need to believe, and they need some tools and some processes to go along with that to allow them to win.” — Donzel Leggett
About Donzel Leggett, Founder, Destiny Development Delta, LLC, and Author, Make Your Destiny Happen:
With more than three decades of leadership experience at Fortune 200 companies, Donzel is the Principal of Destiny Development Delta, LLC, where he focuses on executive leadership development. He is also the award-winning author of Make Your Destiny Happen: Take Control of Your Life with the Destiny Development Delta Model for Transformational Success.
Recognized for his strategic vision and commitment to mentorship, Donzel is passionate about coaching and developing leaders worldwide. His purpose is clear: to help people unlock their full potential and become the best leaders they can be. A proud Purdue graduate and former Academic All-America football player, Donzel now splits his time between Florida and Chicagoland with his wife, Tracy.
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Book: Make Your Destiny Happen
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:04
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. What if creating championship level performance has far less to do with the team you inherit, and everything to do with your own mindset and how you lead design systems and set standards from day one, that question came up again and again in my conversation with donzel leggett, a leadership strategist, executive coach and the award winning author of make your destiny happen. With more than three decades of leadership experience at Fortune 200 companies, donzel is the founder of Destiny development delta, where he helps leaders and organizations build clarity, capacity and intentional leadership, especially in uncertain and high pressure times. He’s also a former academic all America football player, which makes his perspective on leadership, discipline and performance, especially powerful. In our conversation, we dive into what leaders can learn from one of the most talked about leadership turnarounds in sports this season, the remarkable transformation of Indiana Hoosiers football, we unpack why turn around success isn’t about inheriting the right team. It’s about setting expectations, creating belief and installing systems that allow people to perform at their best. We also explore what leaders need right now to stay grounded, adaptable and effective amid rapid change. He shares how to turn inspiration into sustainable action, not just motivational moments, and we talk about why great leadership is about moving from reacting to intentionally designing your life and leadership. Donzel shares his destiny development Delta model that helps leaders take ownership of their decisions, direction and impact. This episode is a master class in intentional leadership, where empathy, discipline, clarity and accountability come together to create real results. Take a listen. Welcome. Donzel Leggett to the empathy edge podcast. We’ve been just talking pre recording about your amazing career, talking about winning coaches, talking about leadership philosophy. This is going to be a great conversation for people to dive into, especially around the topic of how to lead teams through times of change and times of disruption, which is what we’re in right now. So welcome to the show.
Donzel Leggett 03:09
Thank you for having me, Maria. It’s awesome to be here. I love this podcast. I’ve listened to a couple of episodes, and I just love your energy and the way that you bring such meaningful content
Maria Ross 03:20
to people that need it. Thank you so much. That means a lot. You know, we’re going to be talking a little bit about your book, make your destiny happen, which came out last August. Very exciting, but before we dive into all the tips, I love it. I love it, showing the book, before we dive into the tips and the wisdom you have to share with us today, tell us your story. How did you get here? How did you get into this whole leadership development world?
Donzel Leggett 03:43
Yeah, well, let me start off by telling you where I’m from. I’m from Key West, Florida, originally, and most people, when they when I told them that they’re like, We didn’t know people were actually from there. Yeah, there are people who are from there. Yeah, we’re called conks. So I am a native conch. My family actually immigrated from the Bahamas in the mid 1800s so we’ve been there a long time. Yeah. And growing up there, you know, it’s a very unique environment, very unique. Not just the weather is so different from most of the rest of the country, but the culture there is very, very different, lot of different people. So I grew up around a lot of diversity, like real diversity, seeing people from all over the world, all over the country, different lifestyles, and that helped shape me. My family was a big role in my life. I’m someone who never went to a babysitter. My family was always around. My great grandmother basically babysit me since I was born, and she was in her 80s at the time, and took care of me. And if she wasn’t available, my cousins would or I had always family around, but I had a lot of people instilling in me, especially my great grandmother, that, look, you know, we believe in you, and no one’s better than you. You have a lot of talent, and you can do whatever you want, but you’re not better than anyone else, unless you work hard and treat people the right way, right? So I heard that a lot and saw that, and so from there, I ended up. Leaving Key West and going to Purdue University, where I played college football in the late 80s. Loved my time there. We did not win a lot of games. And why it’s relevant to tell this story, you not only gain a lot of knowledge when you play team sports around how to work together, but the experience I had was there was a missed opportunity for me that I didn’t really do what I could have done, and I didn’t really realize it till a couple of years later. And what I realized is that I had a chance to lead, and I didn’t take that chance. A lot of my teammates told me later that they looked up to me because I was a good student. I was an academic all America. I was Academic All big 10, and I was a good player, so they would have listened to me. They would have, you know, if I told them some gave them advice, yeah, or took the leadership role. But I didn’t do that. I thought my role was simply to do my job, be the best I could be, and lead, you know, by example, right? So, you know, hey, if I’m a good student athlete, I should lead by example. What I could have done, though, is, when we were losing, I could have got our team, my teammates, together and said, Hey guys, instead of Friday and Saturday nights going to parties about if we go to the football complex and watch film. Now maybe I couldn’t have gotten to do a both of those nights, 81 so there’s a lot of instances like that where I could have taken a role to change the culture, and I didn’t do that and and so once I graduated and left and started working, and I started reflecting back on that, I said, I’m never going to let that happen again. I have a gift, and that gift is I can touch people because I care about people. I really do. It was part again, growing up in my family, seeing my grandmother, my great grandmother, my mother, always outreaching, bringing people in. I felt like that. My style was all about being accessible to people and giving love freely to people. Now I do hold the count. I hold people accountable, but I start off by respect. So when you talk about empathy, is all about. Are you there? Are you present? And do you go to the people who need the most help, versus waiting for them to come to you? And when you do that, are you presenting yourself in a way in which they feel welcome and open and can trust you, because you give them trust freely. And I started doing that in my work career, and almost immediately, the impact that I saw in people’s lives was pretty stark, and it just kept feeding itself for me to do that more and more and more. But my whole career has been going into situations in which people had not great leaders before, or the culture wasn’t that great. Results weren’t that great, immediately, turning it around, getting people to believe in themselves, and then if they believe in themselves, be willing to then help the organization get better. You have to start with yourself. First, empathy for yourself, belief in yourself, then you can help turn things around and give more to the organization. If there’s something in it for you. In every one of my stops? I started off in Iowa. I’d only been there, like twice. It was only to play a football game before I moved there and started working in the book I talk about I was actually an engineer. I got promoted to be the manager after one year being there because the union employees felt like I was the only person that ever listened to them. They went to the union president, told them to go to the plant manager and say, Make manager and say, make this guy a manager. He’s the only person we’ve ever had here who listens. They actually got me promoted. I didn’t even want to be a manager. I want to be an engineer. But talk about that job. Ever since that promotion, every place I’ve been, I’ve worked across the United States, I’ve worked across North America, and I’ve led globally in organizations and everywhere I’ve gone. My style of caring for people, being accessible to people, showing them that I love and care about them, has not only allowed us to change the culture, generate tremendous results, but navigate tremendous complexity, chaos that we felt in the world, and allow people to feel good and feel better about not only what they’re doing at work, but about their own personal situation. So my Hey, I had a life plan that I developed in my 20s. And part of that life plan was I wanted, at some point, if I continue to demonstrate this kind of differential leadership, write a book about my experiences, about the model I use. I developed this leadership model, so I had this plan to write this book, basically for the last 30 years, and I’ve been taking notes and making thoughts. And my thought was, once I finished with my corporate career, I’d write the book and I would launch a company to start helping people be the best leaders of their lives that they could be. That’s the story. Wow.
Maria Ross 09:42
I mean, so much in there, so much good stuff. And we’re we, we’re going to get to the sports relevance here in a second, because we’re going to talk about this. You went to Purdue. I went to Indiana University. And as of this recording in early January, I use football team is doing phenomenally well. And so we’re going to talk about. Leadership Lessons from that, but you said a few things in here. You talked about really working to turn around cultures and turn around teams that for whatever reason we’re in, maybe negative environments, they’re in a negative place, the results are bad, and oftentimes it’s harder to turn things around than it is to start from scratch. And so let’s talk a little bit about capacity for leaders in uncertain times when they might be called in to be in a turnaround situation, or not even a turnaround situation, but to your point, a chaotic situation. What do they need to know? How did what? What should they practice to stay grounded and stay focused and bring their teams along with them. What are some of the key elements there that you find with your own experiences and with your clients?
Donzel Leggett 10:51
Yeah, first off, this is me just telling you my story and what how I see it and what’s in the book, but I developed a leadership model that I talk about, and to me, it always starts with you got to be the best leader for you, and you have to really understand who you are as a leader, and you’ve got to be willing to bring your authentic leadership to the table. Now that that’s just my opinion, how you how I brought things forward. I wanted people to feel my authenticity as soon as they met me. To do that, that meant I had to confront myself, right and learn to be authentic myself, and learn and deal with the things that maybe aren’t so great about me, and the things that maybe are good about me, but they may be okay. You know that really true? Or is it not right? I had to deal with the mistakes that I’ve made and go back and really say I’m comfortable with that I believe in that I know who I am, you know what I like who I am, right? And I’m willing and admit
Maria Ross 11:46
that you’re imperfect like that’s, you know, the first two pillars of my five pillar strategy for being an effective and an empathetic leader is self awareness and self care, and it’s being able to admit you are not perfect. It’s the leaders that try to pretend they’re perfect that you know, sorry to tell you, guys or gals, but people know you are imperfect. The minute you try to pretend that you’re perfect, they already know there must be flaws there, and more importantly, they can see that you’re not willing to see those flaws and grow and develop. So you create a model for your team that growth and development is a bad thing, and that’s not what you want to be doing for your team. You want them to constantly be striving and growing and learning and having that growth mindset to always be better. And if you don’t show that in terms of just even trying to improve your leadership capacity, I talk about this a lot, like if you’re going through leadership development, if you have a coach like yourself, tell your team, don’t hide it. Tell them like, Hey, I’m doing this work. I encourage you to do this work too. Absolutely.
Donzel Leggett 12:47
I always say authenticity helps you stand, helps you stand tall. But because you’ve done the work or truly know yourself and be authentic and believe in knowing yourself, then you can actually be assured and have self confidence. And self confidence and self assuredness helps you stand when turmoil comes, when chaos comes, when the winds blow hard in your face. It helps you stand strong and walk through it. If you’re pretending all the time, putting on an act. When things get tough, the first thing that happens is you start losing your confidence, because you never really believed in the first place. And the number one thing a leader has to do when things get tough, if people look to you for strength, they look to you for their own confidence. And so you have to be authentic, and you have to be assured in yourself so that when the turmoil comes, you’re a pillar of strength. So go ahead.
Maria Ross 13:40
No, I was gonna say. And to the end, I don’t think you have to be Pollyanna about it. I think people get that confused. Like, in order for me to show strength to my team, I have to pretend I have all the answers. And you can be confidently empathetic. You can be confidently vulnerable. And there’s a difference between, you know, ringing in your hands and going, I don’t know what to do, versus being a leader who says, like, we’re not really sure what the next steps are, but here’s what we’re doing to try to figure it out, and I welcome your ideas and your input as well. Here’s what we’re going to do to make sure things are okay for as much as we can control, but here’s all the factors we can’t control, and to be able to say that with confidence. Yes, I think there’s a lot of leaders who hear that advice and they take it as I’ve got to pretend everything’s going well with my team, and that’s the insecurity talking. And what they don’t
Donzel Leggett 14:30
understand is people can tell they can see through whether you totally authentic or not, yeah, and if you really want people to believe in what you’re saying again, that my whole thing is, be yourself, be authentic, and people can tell and if you don’t know the answers, but you believe, believe as a team, we’re going to work through this together. Yeah, people will say, hey, we’ll figure this out. We’ll figure this out together. But if you just say, Oh, we got all the answers, they’ll understand we’re. Trouble. No idea, right? Won’t admit it. And back to your point around you know, knowing yourself, have the confidence to be vulnerable with your team. You know, there again, I’ve got several examples in the book I talk about that, but I every, every when I first started as manager, I was very young, and most of the people around me were 1020, even 30 years older than me, and they knew a lot more than I did. So every week, I would ask them, hey, what can I do better? What are just two things that you know I haven’t done yet that I should be doing right, couple things that you like, that I’m doing, that you’d like to see me keep doing right, and I would relentlessly just continue to ask for that feedback and listen, take the feedback and make adjustments. Yeah, and there were some people at first that were not sure, can I really tell this guy, but certain things he’s not doing well, right? Right? But because I was continuously asking for that feedback and building the relationship with them and showing them that I was authentically honest and humble, right? I started getting feedback from everyone, and here’s the thing that again, leaders who just don’t feel like they are at the point where they can do something like this, they don’t understand that that doesn’t only give them a chance to give you feedback and show that you’re humble. What it actually does is it builds their confidence in you, and it builds their commitment to you and the organization as a leader, and that’s what I saw in the organization. I took over immediately. We started seeing results very, very quickly. Results turn around almost immediately. I didn’t even develop a plan yet to get things turned around. Yeah, the reason why it turned around was because I was involving the people, asking their opinion and and showing them that I cared, right? And because of that, they decided to step up, because they did not want me to fail, right? Just the, just my action of continuing to go to them for feedback, yeah, asking, how could I get better? Made their commitment increase, like, right?
Maria Ross 16:56
Well, they know they’re in good hands. At that point, they know you’re a realist and you’re also, you’re not going to sugarcoat things. You’re not going to pretend there’s not a problem when there’s a problem, and when you ask for feedback, being able to take action on that feedback and take it in. And that’s why, kind of, getting back to your first point again, why self awareness and self care is so important is because you need to be in a place where you can take that feedback in without defensiveness or fear. If you’re running at low capacity, you know, just like physically, if you’re tired or you’re hungry, everything’s going to be seen as a threat. So make sure you’re shoring up your confidence, your your self assuredness. You make sure you’re taking care of yourself, physically, emotionally, mentally, so that when you can get that feedback, you can take it from a place of positivity. You can take it from a place of this person’s trying to help us as a team get better by giving me this feedback, they’re not trying to attack me, they’re not trying to show me up. It’s just what’s best for the team. And I think this is a great point to segue to what we were talking about before we started recording, which is the phenomenon, and again, as of this recording, we don’t know how things are going to end up, so it’s a little bit of a mystery. But with the Indiana University football team, because having gone there, that is not a school that is known for its football program, right? And there’s a coach that came in and turned things around to where they are now vying for the national championship. And can you talk a little bit about that, and the lessons you take away from coach’s style, from what he’s done with that team, from what you’ve seen from the outside? I know you’re not privy to what’s going on in the inside, but you’ve been in that world of college sports and so yeah, talk a little bit about the phenomenon that you’re seeing and what leaders can learn from that. Yeah, and let’s explain it for folks that are not familiar. So if you’d explain the situation a little bit for folks, yeah.
Donzel Leggett 18:53
So I would, again, I told you earlier, I think it’s the greatest coaching turnaround that I’ve seen in my lifetime, and I know that’s a powerful statement. And to say that as a Purdue grad,
Maria Ross 19:08
it’s don’t know IU and Purdue are big rivals. So yeah, for him to say that
Donzel Leggett 19:12
it’s bitter rivals. So for me to say that is hard, but it’s true. And if you just take a step back and really look at it objectively. It’s undeniable. Indiana is the second losingest football program in Division One history. History, only Northwestern has lost more games over the course of the history of their program. Indiana is the second losingest program. So let’s start with that and put that in perspective.
Maria Ross 19:45
All right, things a little, I gotta admit, and so you
Donzel Leggett 19:49
have to look start with that. So this is a program that has never been anywhere near close to competitive. They’ve had some good years here or there, but in terms of over. Overall, they’ve got more losses than every other school except one in the history of division one football. All right, in the in the three years prior to Kurt signetti Coming in as the head coach, I think they won a total of 10 games, an average of three games per year, they lost, I think, like 60 or something like that, something along those lines, right? Yeah, maybe not that many, but they were like something like 10, and in 40, or something along those lines, or 10, and if something like that, so not, not a great you know, long term history in short term history, right? The guy comes in and in one year with the same players. This is important in the era we’re in right now where you’re paying players with n, i, L, and the transfer port allows players to move. So a lot of coaches come in and they they they rattle the cages for more money to pay more players, and they get a lot of transfers to come in. Purdue is a good example, right? Their coach came in this year, new coach, he turned over 80% of the roster, right? 80% new players. And all the coaches this guy same, basically the same players. There were some new transfers, like a bar back transferred in. But last year, they pretty much the same players. They went 11 and one and basically, you know, lost in the big 10 championship game, made the playoffs, lost all right, this year they’re 14 and Oh, as time of this recording, and get this, in the big 10 championship game, they beat Ohio State. Ohio State is, I think, the third winningest program in the history of college football, and last year’s defending national champion. Yeah. They then, in their first playoff game, beat Alabama, blew them out like 30 730 yeah. Alabama has won more national championships than any other school, certainly in the last 10 or 20 years. Yeah. And they also in the top 10 of winningest programs in the history of college football. Yeah. So to put in perspective, this guy comes in in two years, takes the same players, goes from a team that’s historically one of the worst in history, makes them the best, and to do it so far as beating now, we don’t know what’s gonna happen in the next in the championship run. Not yet. They beat Ohio State, beat Alabama, two of the teams in the top 10 in all time, wins and national championships. All right, their roster, Indiana’s roster they’ve done. They do rankings on talent. Their talent is like 76 anywhere between 72nd 76 out of the 130 programs. So mid tier. Compared to Ohio State and Alabama, they get the top five recruits every year, and their rosters are always in the top 10. I think Ohio State’s roster was rated number one this year. So again, perspective, yeah, to put that in perspective as to what, why I say it’s the greatest coaching turn around I’ve ever seen history, yeah. Now here’s the thing that I think everybody’s gonna understand. I’m not at his practices. I don’t know a lot about this guy. All I know is life. When he got hired, he said, I’m here to challenge for national championships. He didn’t just say, we’re going to be better. We’re going to win some games. He said, We’re challenging for national championships. We’re going to win the big 10 Championship. Yeah.
Maria Ross 23:14
He put the moonshot. He put the moonshot goal out there like he, you know,
Donzel Leggett 23:18
changed his players mindset and inspired them, then they could achieve something that not only they didn’t think they could do, no one thought they could do, but he believed in them. Now, again, he’s got a good scheme. He brought good assistance. But it all starts with, can you convince players and people in general that they are great and that they can be the best that there is. And if you read my book, I’ve got several examples where I did something very similar, but, but to me, this story of Indiana and what curse signetti has done, yeah, it’s unbelievable, and I don’t think the guys get enough credit for it.
Maria Ross 23:55
Well, I mean, I think he’s getting a lot of credit. And I also think that there’s a couple points here that are really important to take away for those of us not in sports right. Number one is it’s not always the team. He inherited this team to your point, he didn’t completely change over the roster. So how do you explain the ability to take a group of, you know, let’s just say, underperforming team members, and make them one of the greatest teams of the season, right? I’ll correct you.
Donzel Leggett 24:25
I wouldn’t say they were underperforming. I said he took a team that was performing at a level in which their stars, the recruitment star, said they were their mid tier talent. What he got them to do is step up and level up to a performance level that they did not believe they could achieve. Interesting, and that, to me, is a big is a big difference. It’s not that they were underperforming. He said they’re performing at what people expected them to, right? He took them to a level that no one, including themselves, expected they could perform at, right?
Maria Ross 24:57
And so I’d love to just ask the question on that. So. Someone listening is a VP or C suite leader, and they’ve got an under currently there. Maybe they’ve stepped into a new role, and the team is just a hot mess, right? Yes, now, there does come a point where it’s like, I’ve got to evaluate these people, and can they step up, even if I believe in them, even if I paint a vision for them, right? So where, where do you help leaders find the line of like, how much of it is, helping them believe in their, in themselves, but then also being able to assess if they actually are capable?
Donzel Leggett 25:33
Yeah, you have to assess first. Yeah. I gotta guess several stories in my book where I’ve made tremendous turnarounds, right? And every time it starts off with me, when I first go in, you got to get to understand the situation, right? You know, understand the business, understand the technology, understand the capability, and then, most importantly, you got to know the people. And this is usually where a lot of leaders fall off, because it takes work, right? It takes time, especially if you have a broad sort of geographic team, which I did, spread across the world. I had to go, I had to give up some personal life and go travel to these locations and not just meet with the boss or the people who are at the top. They’ll tell you what you want to hear. You got to talk to the people at the bottom, because they’ll tell you what you need to hear. But to do that, you got to go to them, and you got to be authentic, show them you willing to listen. And if you can do that, you can start pretty quickly assessing whether you have the talent or you don’t. In most cases, in most cases, the majority of the people have the talent and have the capability. They just need to believe and they need some tools and some processes to go along with that, to allow them to win, right? Like Kirsten, has to have a scheme. You can’t just, hey, you
Maria Ross 26:45
got, you can’t just believe everybody to a championship. Yeah, exactly. There are some
Donzel Leggett 26:49
key things. So he understands you got to have a quarterback. One of the things he did, he did bring in a quarterback in 2024, and this year he brought in another guy, and the guy won the Heisman, right? So you got to have, there are some play people. You got to upgrade talent, but the first thing you have to do is understand, what’s the situation? Who are we competing against? Who do we have? What is our capability? Then you start figuring out, okay, what’s our culture, what is our talent, right? What is this the situation in terms of our people, right? And one of the things about not all leaders, but a lot of leaders I’ve worked with, the difference between me and them. Very simple, I would ask people authentically, what are you doing today? Maria, and I wait for you to respond. Do you know? Oh, I’d say 80% of the leaders I work with would not ask that question. Do you know why? Because they’re afraid of the answer, yeah. They don’t want to have to solve a problem. They don’t want to hear any bad news, right? So they don’t ask that question. They should say, Hey, how you doing? And keep walking, right? I stop. I look you in the eye. I might put my hand on your shoulder to really calm. What are you doing? Yeah, what’s going on? How are you feeling? And I’m willing to hear. I’m not doing that well today. I’m some problems with my with my spouse at home, my parents are sick. I’m willing to hear, listen and see what I can do to help. Yeah, because I know that if I listen and help them, just by the first of all, just by me listening sends a message to them that I care
Maria Ross 28:20
exactly, and
Donzel Leggett 28:21
I think I care, and then they’re going to care for what I’m talking about. But go ahead, that’s
Maria Ross 28:25
the I think that’s the key, you know, I wrote in the empathy edge about some leaders that, you know, they take that time at the beginning of the week, at the beginning of meetings, and there’s too many leaders that think it’s a waste of time to check in or find out how somebody’s weekend went. But with the, you know the leaders I interviewed for the book, and this is over and over again, the common thread of all of these effective leaders who are empathetic and high performing is when you take that time, it’s an investment and so and it makes the rest of the meet the business part of it work better, right? So if someone’s saying I had a really bad weekend because I spent it potty training my three year old, right? Yes, now you know what that person’s coming in with. So you can give them some grace. You can give them some Okay, they’re a little short with me today, but I understand where they’re coming from, right? They haven’t. They got four hours of sleep this whole weekend, right? Being able to do that and having an honest answer, it doesn’t just happen overnight. You know? I’ve had really toxic bosses who, if they came in one day and just decided, how are you today? Maria, I’d be like, Okay, this is a trap. This is a trap. Like, what’s going on, right? So you have to build up that trust over time. But the investment is so important. It’s that all that stuff, all that nonsense quote, I’m saying it with air quotes, right? Yes, it’s not a waste of time, because it sets the table for how you can interact with each other to the optimal degree, right? Versus us, everybody trying to hide it and posture and, oh, read into things. Or, you know, donzell is being really annoying today. I don’t know why. If I don’t know what’s going on with you, then. And I can’t react and I can’t interact with you in a different way, and that is more of a waste of time than doing what you’re suggesting.
Donzel Leggett 30:08
Absolutely, absolutely. And I always had the mentality, especially as a vice president, and I’ve got an organization of 10,000 people spread out all over the world, that if I go to visit a location and meet with the team. This might be the only chance that they’re going to have to be in around me and hear from me right in a year or so, right? Right? And I always would think about, you know, kind of, you know, in Michael Jordan, those people may know who he is. Some people may not, but, you know, a lot of people consider him the greatest basketball player ever. But the thing that the key thing that I like about what Michael one of the things he said, they asked him, Why do you play every game as if it’s your last? You play no matter who the team is, you never take rest. And he said, because I know that that game, there could be a mom or a dad who brought their daughter or son to that game to watch me play, and they barely had enough money to buy that ticket. They may be way up in the news nose bleed seconds section, and it’s the only time that they could bring their little kid to watch me play, right? I have to be my best for them, yeah, and that’s always the way I thought about it, yeah, is I always have to be my best, right? Because I have people who are counting on me and and I need to be consistent for them, yeah, yeah, the same love and attention I showed them two years ago, yeah, last time I was at their location, I’ve got to show that same love and compassion 100% every time, everywhere that I go, Yeah, because it’s their one chance, maybe, where they’re seeing me, where I’m seeing all these people all the time, and that re again, it’s a reinforcement, yeah, that I care, yeah, and I’m here for you, right? And I know a lot of leaders out there is like, Yeah, but I have bad yeah, I have bad days. I know you have a bad day, right? And I get it. But if you are really authentic with yourself, and if you’re pursuing like, why are you in this job? That’s the other thing I always want to add. Like, I was in this job not only because I had dreams where I wanted my career to go, but I was in this job because I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. Yeah, and I felt like, if someone else was in this job, would they really care about a guy working third shift in in postal Allegro Brazil, and whether that guy is is being safe, and whether that guy’s getting paid an adequate wage, and whether that guy, you know, being able to take care of his family. I don’t know if they would, but I’m here and I can right?
Maria Ross 32:37
And that’s the legacy you’re going to leave, anzel, you’re making me think of two examples here. One is, and this is kind of crazy, but I just recently started watching the Taylor Swift documentary, end of an era about her tour. Yeah, and that was her leadership philosophy for she said all all of these people, from the truck drivers bringing the gear Yes, to the dancers, to the mom who spent a lot of money on this ticket to bring she’s like, I don’t I don’t have time to have the stomach flu. I don’t have time to be less than perfect on that stage. It doesn’t matter what I’m going through. This experience is about them, and that was the philosophy, and that’s why she gained so much loyalty from her dancers, from singers, from her musicians, from the backup crew, and she shared the wealth with them. She gave them bonuses beyond anything that’s ever been seen from from tour headliners before, she gave bonuses to the truck drivers who said, this never happens, right? Yes. So she set that tone, and not that she was going to say, okay, you know, if you’re ill or you have an emergency, you have to show up this way. She’s like, but I’m I’m captaining the ship, yes, like, I have to show up for people. Because we may have done this tour in 100 other cities, but this is the first time that person is seeing this tour, and they saved up their money to come to this event, and that’s why she made it a three and a half hour concert, which was unheard of, right? So it just reminds me of that, of like, people don’t find success accidentally, leaders don’t find success accidentally. Or build that kind of loyalty and that kind of precision performance, whether it’s a concert or a company or a sports team. It’s an intention of the leader to create an experience and create an environment for people, as you said, and they have to feel good in their own skin in order to do that. So I love that. I want there’s so many other questions I want to ask you, and I know we’re running out of time. I do want to talk a little bit, because you talk about your book, make your destiny happen. And I just briefly want to touch on this idea of designing your life and leadership versus letting it just happen to you, because I do, I do coaching circles and intensives and workshops with leaders, where I talk to them a lot about you get to decide what kind of leader you want to be. Mm. And just because there’s leaders out there that are acting horribly to people and still succeeding, it doesn’t mean that’s the path you have to go. I can show you all the data that show you why actually the other path is the better way and the more sustainable way, but at some point you just have to make a decision of what kind of leader you want to be. So can you talk a little bit about helping leaders take control of their narrative and their leadership style, versus going well, you know? Well, this is how things have always been done, or this is what’s always worked for me. Or I’m looking at all the examples in the headlines, and don’t I have to act like that? How do you help them take ownership of their own leadership legacy? Yeah. I mean, you a lot of big question,
Donzel Leggett 35:42
was a question. You actually answered the question. You did a great job answering it. How do you a lot of what you said is right on it’s the model that I laid, that I developed, is called the Destiny development Delta model for transformational success. And that’s really what the book, the center of the book, is about. And it starts off with the model called the A attitudes of leadership, which is a set of leadership values that help values that help people transform their leadership to be the leader of their life. And I first start off by making sure people understand that when we talk leader, many people right away go to, oh, the head basketball coach, right? Oh, the one with the title, yeah, or the Vice President, no. A leader is everyone. Because you’re the leader of your life. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a podcast host who’s getting tremendous success, like Maria, or you’re a cashier, or you’re a stay at home mom or dad, or you a student you know, or you’re a professor, or if you’re a carpenter you know, or a truck driver, you are the leader of your life. And here’s the difference, there’s no team working on strategic plan for you. There’s no team working on executing your business plan. It’s you. You got to decide whether you’re going to step up and take the agency that’s been giving you and make your life happen. And so these set of leadership values provides the baseline, the foundation for doing that. Then I have an operating model. So once you got that have transformed my leadership, then there’s an operating model that I call I lead change that develops a roadmap for you, identifying what you want your destiny to be, what you want your legacy to be, and then a process to follow to actually make it happen. So that’s what’s really different about my book, and so it’s about transforming and then an operating model actually do it. I’ve been through a lot of leadership trainings. A lot of them work on be a better leader, this or that. But number one, they’re all focused being a better leader at work, not for your whole life, right? And they don’t give you, okay, what do I do now to operationalize this? Yeah. And the third thing that’s different is it’s basically always based on some subset of leaders who’ve been successful. They take what they’ve done, they boil it down. Here are the three things. This model that I have is very specific to each person, because it actually asks you to find what do you want out of life and what makes you happy. Here’s what people lose when they look at all these leaders who are doing bad things, and they say, well, they’re being successful. We don’t know what their personal life is. We don’t know how they’re feeling about what things how things are going. I can tell you, I’m happy. I feel great about the path I’m on, and people around me can feel that, yeah, right, because I’m doing what I want to do, right, and I’ve got not only the success that I want, but I’m happy. What good good to have a great job and be miserable? What good is it to be a billionaire and be miserable? Yeah, I would rather have a life in which I’m achieving what I want and I’m happy and I’ve got balance in my life. And our model starts off with again, this the set of leadership values lead you to a point where you then identify what are you looking for and what truly will make you happy, then building a plan to make that happen. And that’s what I encourage people. Don’t look at others and try to define your life on what they’re doing. You’ll always be disappointed if you do that. Decide what you want, focus on what you want. Have a plan and start working your plan. You know what that plan can change as the environment changes, it doesn’t lock you into one little, one thing that you feel like. I don’t want to be locked in, but it’s better to have a plan in which your auto, you know, calling adjustment, yeah, as the environment changes, right? Not having a plan at all and just letting life happened to you, right? Take control of your life. Make things happen for you. Don’t let life happen to you.
Maria Ross 39:29
Mic drop. I love it. I could talk to you for another hour, but we’re going to wrap up. I’m going to leave people with, go ahead and buy the book. Make your destiny happen. It’s It’s available in all the usual places. And donzelle, we’re going to have donzel, we’re going to have all of your links in the show notes so people can find out more about you. Get in touch, connect with you on social but for anyone listening to us on the go, where’s the one best place they can find out more about you and your work?
Donzel Leggett 39:59
Sure? Out my website. It’s either make your destiny happen.com. The name of the book. So if you can’t remember any, remember anything, make your destiny happen. God.com. The other thing you can do if you really don’t remember any of the show notes, I’m literally the only don’t leg it in the world, except for my son. So if you, if you put my name in your search, that’s going to come up, you’re going to find information about me, but make your destiny happen.com. They put that in, they’re going to, they’re going to find, you know, my website, and get there really quickly.
Maria Ross 40:29
I love it. Don’t. Thank you so much for your time and your insights. This is such a great conversation. I’m glad we kind of went all over the place, but really the main theme is about, you know, putting the investment into your leadership legacy and into making those connections with people if you want to see an impact on performance. So thank you again for being part of the show.
Donzel Leggett 40:50
Thank you so much, Maria. Again, what you’re doing with this podcast is needed, especially right now. Thank you for what you’re doing and the energy that you bring. It’s so contagious. Keep doing it.
Maria Ross 41:03 Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review and share it with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge calm. There. You can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events, please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
