welcome to new beginnings with care and i am pleased to have a wonderful returning guest anthony lopez who is president and managing director of azura group and the chairman of the board spawning which is the national society of hispanic m b a s formally known that's right yes so you were on my show before and i wanted to have you back because we were talking about leadership and the legacy of leadership which is the book that you have authored in a whole series and you've now started another book series on superheroes was it's the next stage a sinister next  books is coming out and as i as you and i spoken before that the whole legacy of leadership series of books was never intended to ever be a legacy lead a series of books right the first one came because mom said get it done and  and fortunately before she passed i was able to get it done that's right and i intended that to be the end of my writing career when i was busy you know running a company doing my job where i just you know being a family man and trying to raise a family and support a family and doing those things but the one book sort of evolve the next one came out and then the next one came out and all of a sudden i'm like there's a series in here buried in here somewhere and i got to thinking about what's next because in the series we talked about the mechanics of leadership and we talked about how to apply those in the second book about innovation breakthrough thinking and how to apply leadership principles and we talked about what principles not to forget absolutes you evolved in you leadership journey in then when we talked about you know evaluating yourself holding up that mirror holding up that mirror right and and saying what am i doing right and what am i doing wrong and what you can do three sixty's and myers and all sorts of other psychological profile test that help you to evaluate how well you're doing i think if you're if you're able to ask and answer a couple of very honest questions as you look in the mirror with the help of some close confidence spouses come to mind absolutely they can tell you better than understand how to apply the my understand how to use how not to forget them i value myself and that's what a full circle right and you're back to ok principles application and utilization drive performance y to make it fresh and different and i you know like most people i grew up watching superheroes batman and superman i mean the original survey yes we're talking about yes you know riginal marvel original idea and so then of course these days every day there's a new superhero movie or something else coming in so i decided well let me see if i can put together a leadership discussion and talk about the traits and characteristics most important in a leader using superheroes and so i started with an audience and i said let's talk about leadership and i said to the audience and it was a fairly large audience and i said what would you tell me what a leader is and what a leader is not so that worse start coming out visionary motivational inspirational or communicate youth and they just kept coming the worst kept coming the worst kept coming and i'm saying that's a good one and that's a good one and that's a good one and i said well apparently what we all want in our leaders and i hit click of the picture that comes up behind me is a picture superman and i go because apparently we think leaders can do it all and what we want is a superhero well i've got good news and i got ahead as the good news is you know we can have good leaders the bad news is that they're not superheroes and they cannot do it all but let's use superheroes to talk about leadership and i say let's start with superman and i said well tell me about superman and they start talking about well you know x ray vision can leap tall buildings in a single bound you know fast in a speeding bullet can stop a locomotive all the things right break your original superman could do could do and i said but what one thing that he half the superhero has and eventually somebody says it right x ray vision and i go right it's a leadership begins with having a vision and they go oh ok i get it and they put superman vision so now that the they're thinking this is a fun game right whether it's an audience and i've tried it with professional audiences who are more senior all the way to last year right here princeton university it has presenting it hissed but reading it through to young students in high school ially one super hero that i've chosen and linking that superhero to a trait to a character a leader that we must have the fundamental traits of leaders there are many but in my opinion this is a this is the fantastic four and each of those even aqua mine who's now coming out with his own movie right he's a louis in each of those i linked to a trait of a leader and so by the time we're done and the audiences have heard this a number of she's all right so although you and i do want to talk about how leaders approach leadership because i don't know if you think this and i'd like to get your opinion i think that there are different approaches to leadership based on gender sure you know men dominate both all sectors actually government private public in maybe in maybe women kind of trump  nonprofits i'm not one hundred percent sure i don't have the statistical data but you know it's probably fifty fifty probably worldwide yeah right do you think that there are traits that women bring in a leadership role that is different than a man brains because i agree with all the things that you talked about is it is it that women bring a different trait or is it the application of some of the same traits or what's your thought on that so i think so the traits of leadership that are fundamental character vision integrity yeah as as a two non negotiable right but then being a visionary leader being a loyal leader a courageous leader a good communicator being be in those types of traits right the ones that i describe in this in this next book and that i describe before you know the books i would say and gender neutral and write the traits themselves agenda mix i would agree however how warren brings those into play and how men might bring those into the play are clearly going to be in some cases very different and how they're perceived are going to be very different right and so you know i've been fortunate to have worked with some amazing very powerful strong women outstanding leaders right but depending on how they communicate they might be perceived a particular way different than if the man communicated convincing the absolute that's just the reality absolutely and the betting on how they carry themselves and so clearly there are differences and clearly women successful women have figured out how to use their personal style in order to be effective as leaders so i don't have the perfect answer i don't know exactly what i would say if how women bring these traits out and how they can demonstrate them but certainly they need to be able to demonstrate loyalty like any good leader that they're credible like any good leader that they have a good vision and a good mission that they're passionate that they have the anticipat skills that we need of a leader to to look at whatever environment they have to be leading in and be able to understand that environment whether they have emotional intelligence which is one of the most important  that men and women think about things differently we process information differently at times and so how they bring that out there empathy the level of empathy that they can have in their ex being inclusive yes right their ability to to maybe be nurturing and and coaching and mentoring those are the things we need of leaders men and women and somebody has asked me recently says you should think about writing a book on women as leaders and i said what qualifies me to write a book on women as leaders i don't know what i have to call for i can write about leaders and then only now i think people are starting to think more about well so how how are women going to be able to exhibit those same traits that we say are leadership traits fundamentals non negotiable leadership traits and how do they use their position and fact that they're women versus a man to be most effective right but we both know that the world looks at and perceives people based on some biases that they may have to whatever reason right whether it's a color of our skin the way we speak whether we speak with an accent of them speak with an accent or whether we're men and women were women they're going to have a certain filter yes right and so as a leader i think perhaps particularly women although many to do the same thing is be aware of those filters absolutely right so if you're aware of the filters and how i'm going to be perceived and how people might hear what i say and see what i do and then act accordingly say i hope atlee the right the right things but it's a fabulous question to say how does a woman demonstrate leadership traits different than a man i would say let's agree on what the right do they know when to pound on the table and when to not pound the table to they know how to nurture somebody versus pampering somebody i do they know how to motivate a organization align them as opposed to beating them up and  whole you know flogging will continue until more of them proves right i said that's what i want yes and again they're luckily at hand so the company i was with before and to jane jane and many other companies fabulous you know examples of strong women leading and being good role models for that for the next generation of leaders yeah yeah and i think women i agree with all that you're saying i think women learn how to be a situational leader based on the you know the set up in the room and kind of the tone at the top and if they're at the top then they set the tone with some of the concerned that women often get is are you tough enough and i think that's a little bit more unique to women then it is to be so tough that you get identified it with the b word and you don't want to be you know so soft that people don't perceive you as tough as well in any even how you speak i will tell you yeah absolutely right and i've had those conversation specifically with some women that i've had the pleasure of mentoring in coaching white where and i back and have had extremes where where one particular case i'm thinking of incredible leader strong determined courageous passionate all the things you go amazing right but she was really soften the tone right i don't want you to be whimsical which are or you know wimpy which are i just want you to soften the tone and over time if she did that i mean it was amazing and then i see the other extreme where there was one woman that i'm thinking of again her skills incredible her her energy level unmatched her potential dwarfs anything that i've seen in many many other people myself i listened right so my my coaching with her was i want you to own the room lean into the conversation be stronger in your conversation don't ask the question make the statement because you are d it's it's just a matter of fine tuning yeah i remember when i was a young lieutenant in the air force somebody said to me you know when the general says please when given an order he's just being polite but it's still an order the general might say would you please you know go fetch my car right you don't you don't sit there and go i generally kind of kind of feel like doing that no right you know so he's just being polite a leader doesn't have to be overbearing you know they don't have to pound on tables they can use a motion for effect yeah i like to do that from time to time yeah but but that doesn't mean you can't be polite you can be pleasant  you can be direct you can be honest all those things without being but see the scariest sort of rate so i think your point about women is went on but is same thing for men oh absolutely absolutely i think that there are lessons to be learned across gender and i agree with you the principles are gender neutral but i think women often because there is generally at the top you know i mean this the moved much in the past twenty years you know it hasn't it hasn't in more can be done in that regard that's enough to be in part why i chose to title the book legacy woman no i loved i love that i love that because i think you know legacy women people didn't pick it up so you really have written a book about leadership with women in mind but the principles principles are set in your new yes oh yes my my my my small contribution is to say you know in the title to absolutely and i think that when more leaders start to recognize that it's not a sort of nice to have it's a business imperative it is and there is data the data are now plentiful about  about you know the whole women experience what we talked about some of the challenges personally for you what are some of the key learnings that you've had as a superhero well hea because because i'm not sure i qualify as a superhero i don't have those it was i guess what i discovered in the journey instead it's it's hard to stay consistent all the time with those with those traits and think and skills and competencies and criteria that we expect of our leaders and that you will fall that you'll make a mistake or that you have a misstep but what i have found  they to use a famous well known sort of event in our history that they shake their finger at the audience and then say you know what they said oh or try to define the meaning of the word is or th just sort of go up there no you know what yeah i i didn't you know i screwed up and i learn from this and this is what i'm going to do going forward so i think that for me the lessons are first and foremost most fundamentally stay true to your character and your integrity second put the organization first if you do that and i learned that as again as a young  captain in the air force and even before that you learn very quickly that if you put the troops first if you put the people and not not just people who are necessarily on your team or what unquote subordinate to you in terms of the organizational structure but your team your colleagues your mates if people around you perceive you to be more about the organization and others rather than yourself and that hasn't always been the case for me often times our style can get in limelight it's it can be a pretty difficult place to be because they say oh he's just interested in the limelight and for me that's been a harsh lesson to learn to say how do you make sure that the limelight is not about you but it's about the message you want to put out there it's about the organization and using that limelight to shine it on to the organization and onto others so i've learned to modify my style in my so that i can use that limelight and then  appropriately to take four digit that i want to take like i'm doing with you today we're absolutely talking about leadership we're talking about legacy women we're talking about the agenda forward i'm using the limelight to do that but as a leader soon as you forget but it's not about you and you forget that whole servant leadership concept and flipping things around and making sure that you're about them and you can be cooked right so it's a constant reminder and that's why i like the situation leadership model that we talked about earlier or mentioned earlier because it's a simple four quadrant model and where i little brain doesn't do things much more complicated right ray and for me it's  k what's the situation right and where is karen in this in this situation so what do i need to do to moderate and and what i had just my approach so that i can best influence her and how do i meet her where she's at so i can bring her along too we're at like her to go that's fundamentally the essence of the situation leadership i thought we would but it requires you to be aware of a couple of things where  are where they were and meeting them and a leader who can sort of get out of their own way can do that and that's right so for me it's the things that i've learned is that to be an effective leader  constant i think correct course correction yeah it's evolution it's an evolution yes an evolution you're you're navigating as you go and as long as you stay true to the course and the direction you want to go and there's going to be a number of course corrections  do but but stay true to those fundamentals on leadership right and the rest kind of comes along with the journey yeah i would agree and i would say that you know what i do when i'm not doing this is i do executive coaching and so they help a coat can help increase your awareness undoubtedly help you set the goals and then chart a course to make a strategy yet so so that's that's something that's also available if either people or the organization or might enough people probably take advantage of it but i would agree and i think executive coaches life coaches are writing of ways we can refer to them and and i like to think of myself as a coach and as a mentor as well particularly as we get a little older it's easier to coach right absolutely more life experience yes but but it requires on the other side somebody who is coachable coach of oh yeah and they're there emotionally intelligent and mature and willing to sort of get the feedback and then respond to the feedback that's majority people are able to do that lucky to have a few coaches and mentors in my in my life i wish i had a few more yeah but a few who have always kept man the now oh yeah and i think that's the key is to find people who can help keep you grounded who you have a trusted adviser who can tell you straight kind of where you are right but tony we're out of time with so it is amazing isn't it it is amazing but i have loved ha you thank you as a guest and we're going to pick up in the next show when i have you back third time i third time i said we've touched on diversity and i want to go deeper into that subject so i look forward to doing that wonderful i love to