Episode 96

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Published on:

18th Jun 2025

How Bart McCollum Thinks About Consistent Behaviors for Enduring Success

In this episode of How Leaders Think, Kenny Lange sits down with Bart McCollum—business leader, operator, investor, and co-author of "You Before Me." Bart shares his insights on transforming teams through servant leadership and behavioral psychology, revealing how clarity and trust can unlock traction at every level of a business. Whether you’re a founder, executive, or aspiring entrepreneur, you’ll discover practical strategies for building great, enduring companies and empowering your team to thrive.

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Bart McCollum Resources:

Website: https://www.lime-media.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartmccollum/

Book: You Before Me – https://www.amazon.com/You-Before-Me-Behaviors-Organizations/dp/1944265686

Co-author & Mentor: https://geraldhannah.com/


Books Mentioned:

You Before Me by Bart McCollum & Gerald Hannah – https://www.amazon.com/You-Before-Me-Behaviors-Organizations/dp/1944265686


Hashtags

#HowLeadersThink #ServantLeadership #BusinessGrowth #TeamClarity

Transcript

How Bart McCollum Thinks About Consistent Behaviors for Enduring Success

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[:

Welcome & intro

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Bart Mccollum: It's kinda like physical therapy. Tom Brady is an incredible professional athlete. Tom Brady learned to do physical therapy and work with trainers that would like, literally have him take a a resistance band and go like this 50 times. LIke he had 100 of Those things Thoseare the fundamentals of him being able to play quarterback into his mid to late forties.

Behavioral competencies are those kinds of things, the kinds of things that most entrepreneurs will brush over and say, we don't need to do that. I can already run a marathon and, and in three and a half hours I don't need to like stretch my calves.

You do need to stretch your calves, and there's a specific way that you can do it. There's a specific way that you can hold your team accountable for doing the same thing

Kenny Lange: Welcome to the How Leaders Think Podcast, a show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think.

ness leader and operator and [:

Bart's leadership journey

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Kenny Lange: My wait hard's over here. I'm used to the right finger. We'll all we'll fix this in post. He helps high performing founders build great, scaled and enduring companies by unlocking clarity, trust, and traction at every level of the business. Welcome to the show Bart.

Bart Mccollum: It is an absolute pleasure to be here, Kenny. Thank you.

Kenny Lange: We are gonna have some fun. I, I do have to say I really do love your background. 'cause I feel like we're either, we are gonna talk about leadership is what I think, but you might also be streaming on Twitch right now through a different camera. Which I would be fine. I'll be.

Bart Mccollum: my shirt didn't clash with the background. And what we got was the absolute worst combination of colors that you could possibly have, so you.

oing for you. Um, so there's [:

Bart Mccollum: Still

Kenny Lange: don't wanna, I.

Bart Mccollum: did you like? Yeah.

Kenny Lange: I'm still reeling. I've sought therapy changed some medication just to really make it through this difficult season.

Mavericks fans are desirous of prayers and grace and, and understanding, but that's not what we're here to talk about. Bart, tell me what is on your mind.

Bart Mccollum: Well, since you went straight to sports and for everybody listening, we're both Dallas people. I guess I, I shouldn't ascribe you to Dallas. We are both North Texas to East Texas people. And so the Mavericks would probably be the ball club that we're talking about. But um, have you ever, maybe this is just me and maybe I'm telling on myself, have you ever been on YouTube and seen those street brawl videos that people have?

Kenny Lange: Yes.

this podcast with my so guy. [:

He was just enormous and he would just dispense with people on YouTube. Quickly, and he became such a thing that he eventually tried to make a career in MMA. So he tried to go from being an amateur kind of brawler to being a professional fighter. And in his first professional fight, he got KD in 14 seconds.

And

Kenny Lange: Geez.

The power of servant leadership

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ftentimes very unique, build [:

And a lot of times the way that you get there is. Because you have a great idea or because you just have a very strong will, or maybe it's because you charismatic and you're just a driver and you get yourself to a certain point and. Then the game changes. And so, a lot of people peak out at a certain point, but for certain leaders that wanna get beyond a certain point, they go from being essentially knife fighters to playing chess.

And what I have by accident come upon in my career is helping people who have that grit and have that capability, make that transition point so they can kind of scale to the next level if they so choose in doing.

the initial questioning what [:

But he has another, another great book just 'cause he's a, a phenomenal author called Turning Pro.

Bart Mccollum: Yep.

Kenny Lange: and just that difference between amateur and a professional. And so I love, I love your illustration from, you know, fighting amateur to pro, like what a difference there is. 'cause you would think like, oh yeah, he is gonna hold his own.

ut this. Why number one, I'm [:

They're willing, but only if they're willing to choose that route. It's not easy, and it's not for the faint of hard, but what really is the difference in the entrepreneurial world? Of someone who has maybe that raw skill as an amateur and someone who's really honed it, uh, as a craft, as a professional.

Building trust in teams

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o create something and build [:

And the types of things that you have to be good at in order to be able to get to quote unquote the next level. Whatever that level is, once you've peaked out, are very different skills. So that's why I like to say this versus match. I don't know if you've ever heard the, the terminology of success versus significance. And so, I happened to work with a a visionary at LY Media, Heath Hill, who realized he is the quintessential entrepreneur. He created something that frankly doesn't have a, an analog anywhere else out of really sheer will and, and brilliance.

And he got to a point where he was like I know that there are things that, uh, there, there are holes in my swing, so to speak, that I'm going to need to fill in order to be able to, first of all take the company to the next level, but also build the culture that I'm telling the world that I want to have.

ssarily the are. So you have [:

Most people choose not to do that're happy. They've achieved a level of success with an organization and with something. Shifting gears and kind of going into orbit requires them to, at some level become different people, or at the very least, bring in people around them that are very, very different, and at least have enough of presence of mind to know that I have these three weapons over here that are kind of my natural go-tos.

Behavioral psychology in business

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Bart Mccollum: But there are other things that are going to have to. Come to the forefront that my weapons can't dominate in order for us collectively to go from, let's just say 20 million to a hundred million or a hundred million to 500 million things that founder led companies rarely do by themselves. So there are some exceptions to that.

hey have to sell the company [:

Kenny Lange: Right. It's probably just a, a, a. A little bit of a recency bias, but you know, before we hit record, I was telling about the new certification I got with scale architects and, and one of those key elements or frameworks as part of that training is the predictable success model, which deals with those lifecycle stages.

And you get outta early struggle and you get into fun and you're growing and just like, like you said, sheer force of will and brilliance, intellect, networking, connecting, like all these things happen and you're selling and you're having fun, and then you hit this patch. Which in the model is called Whitewater, and you have a choice.

e, which is why I, I've been [:

You have to choose, I'm gonna go through this tough season where I'm gonna feel like a beginner all over again, which for a lot of people they wanna run from that as much as possible. And I'm, I'm curious, what do you see most often? When people start butting up against that, that whitewater, and they say, I don't, I don't really know if I wanna, maybe I wanna stay as a really skilled knife fighter, I don't want to play chess.

I don't know that I can learn to play chess. Or if I want to appear stupid, basically, you know, it makes me think, uh, Alex or Moeys posts lately he'd been talking about the, the people who are the most successful are the will ones who are willing to look foolish for the longest period of time.

Bart Mccollum: Yeah.

Kenny Lange: I'm curious what, what do you encounter in those conversations?

What are they like? Because that's gotta be sobering.

Unlocking clarity for growth

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f entrepreneurs are, they're [:

What's different about this is. It's foreign to them. So building the type of competencies, and that's kind of the framework that I'll talk about behavioral competencies in order to lead an organization and do all of the things that you need to do at scale, it's. It's just so far out of most people's wheelhouse who are, of the type, who got the startup energy in the first place.

And so you hear about this classic trade off of kind of professional managers versus entrepreneurs. And again, there's opinions and there's morality ascribed to, uh, both of those at different things. There's this thing called founder mode that has been trending lately. You've probably seen it.

tise himself as the ultimate [:

But that said, like Elon Musk is the exception that proves the rule. Most of us are not Elon Musk and Elon Musk. Is he's got, there's a whole Walter Isaacson biography about Elon Musk and founder mode and how he just can lock in and focus. Well, the reason he's able to do that is because he has something like 140,000 employees across like six different companies, and these are big companies.

He's trillion dollar market cap companies. Elon is not micromanaging 140,000 employees. Elon has professional management and he has an amazing culture that's very, very dedicated to whatever that mission is in all of these organizations. And that means he can go and find the biggest problem in a given day and just focus on that.

nd founder mode. What is our [:

Supporting high-performing founders

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Kenny Lange: Yeah, that, no, that makes a a lot of sense. Um. Uh, the, the phrase it's used a lot. Uh, I don't think people always appreciate the weightiness of it. The what got you here won't get you there. Um, which I, I think is a Marshall Goldsmith book. But we'll look that up or my editor will be like, that was the dumbest thing you've ever said.

That's never been a book. And that's okay too. That's me showing vulnerability, but I. Part of it, I also wonder is, you know, when you first start and you're hustling, you expect it to be hard, maybe not as hard as it actually is, but you're willing to grind. You have a vision, you have a passion.

use you want your freedom of [:

Bart Mccollum: Yeah, for

Kenny Lange: that really, it took something outta me or it's just I'm really co I like I got to the place I wanted to get

Bart Mccollum: Yeah, and that's, and that's perfectly fine. Like that is an admirable place to be if you've gotten to that level of success. I. Most, there's a reason why, you know, there are a lot of little tiny companies and there are very few extremely large companies, and then it looks like a pyramid, like all the way up the chain.

ly in your comfort zone with [:

Like some people are great, have extremely high tolerance for physical pain, and if you get 'em into a cold plunge, they can't stand it for more than 30 seconds. It's a different kind of hard. It's a different kind of an experience, and so you can choose to say, I, I wanna per persevere and deal with that, or I'm gonna be very comfortable in the realm in which I'm an expert, continuing to be very successful.

Lessons from "You Before Me"

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g new people for the journey.[:

Like to balance where, where, how do I start to figure out if I'm a leader listening to this? I'm in a tough season. Uh, I've had some success. I'm listening to you and I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah, that's right. What, what got me here won't get me there. And, and, and this is a new season and I have to choose it and maybe I want to, but.

How much of this is me developing me differently and how much is it me finding new leaders, partners, strategists to, to come along? And I just sort of like incrementally keep going along and I don't have to substantively change. Like what's the ratio or breakdown there?

Bart Mccollum: That is a fantastic question. The way that we look at behavioral competencies is around, it's always around other people. And so there's a competency called organizational partnership. There's a competency called talent management. I. If you're a manager or a leader you have to build those, those are behaviors.

d we can teach you what they [:

Like that's what it is. So it's not necessarily an either or. The competencies that you would develop if you've chosen to scale are all around you Fostering an environment that allows for other people to pick up the torch and do more together than you could have done by yourself.

Kenny Lange: Gotcha. If you would go through, um, some of those, some more of those traits, just kinda line out so that we have a sense of this framework that you operate under.

Bart Mccollum: Yeah. And I'll give you a, a 32nd kind of history of this. So one of the things that I really like about this is there's again I love personality tests and I love all kinds of other vetting tools that

Scaling companies with purpose

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mpetencies are like, there's [:

It was pioneered back in the fifties and the sixties by a guy named Dr. Robert McClelland at Harvard, and it was then used in organizations for 30 or 40 years and documented there was a group called the Hey Group that was later required by KornFerry, which is a huge talent. Job out of law school was at a bank and I was brought in as part of a talent program. And the guy that ran the talent program was this behavioral psychologist named Dr. Gerald h and he's my co-author on this book. And he comes from that school of behavioral psychology. So he is not a shrink and he is not a therapist.

in, when I was put into that [:

I hadn't even managed a project. I, I was on a, a bond desk at the bank before that, trading municipal bonds. And so we retained Dr. Hannah, who again, he was still running the talent program at this bank as kind of, our executive coach and kind of person to help us with this. And then I retained him as my coach, and I've been working with him for the last 15 years.

And so he brought this methodology to us. It's something that we've used in multiple organizations and it is to go back to Stephen Pressfield and.

Kenny Lange: Mm-hmm.

Bart Mccollum: It is very, very basic stuff like training, behavioral competencies is very basic stuff and that's why nobody does it. They don't think to do it.

of [:

Behavioral competencies are those kinds of things, the kinds of things that most entrepreneurs will brush over and say, we don't need to do that. I don't need to do physical therapy. I already have, I can already run a marathon and, and in three and a half hours I don't need to like stretch my calves.

You do need to stretch your calves, and there's a specific way that you can do it. There's a specific way that you can hold your team accountable for doing the same thing.

Overcoming leadership challenges

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Bart Mccollum: That's really what this is. And so there's something like 200 different competencies that were mapped as part of this research project.

And the Hay group, I don't know, they might have a million people, a million managers and entrepreneurs that have been. Through and research through meta-analyses over the, over the decades on this. And they identified, I think about 26 competencies that actually lead to higher performance. So out of the 226 roughly.

n and then at Line Media was [:

You already heard me mention talent management and uh, holding people accountable, building trust, like these are all, like when you hear them, like, what do you mean building trust? Like of course I built trust. If I built an organization, if I built a marketing agency, which I know you did, of course I had to build trust.

Like my clients had to trust me or they wouldn't have paid me. Right. Well, it's.

Among your team and decrease trust among your team. Taking an intentional, uh, approach to that and having a program around that for you and your leadership team, again, is that basic kind of like balls and strikes training that you have to be able to do in order to be able to get to the next level.

I've been listening to with [:

They could take your job, they could fire you, you could lose a client, you can do whatever, but you still have your skills. But the way that you're breaking it down, I, I think if I'm, if I'm listening to this, and this is the first time I'm encountering this sort of thought process, and I'm not saying I've gone deep on this.

Mentorship and co-author insights

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Kenny Lange: I like to think I've somewhat into it just because of my profession. I have a bachelor's in psychology, which by the way, you can't do Jack with but but I got it. But it should give hope to a lot of people is that I think that there's a a mythology that emerges and I think some certain high profile leaders perpetuate it.

rust upon them. And I think, [:

And some are just, they're thrown into the fire and then they prove themselves like. So many people think, ah, I'm never gonna be that like huge leader. I'm never gonna be this person who commands a room or, or the loyalty of, of an entire division or company or something like that. But when the way you're breaking it down, it sounds like, well, actually, I.

I've got a set of things that if I focus on and I do repetitiously and I love, um, you're talking about physical therapy. I had to go through physical therapy because training for a, uh, triathlon, uh, iron, uh, one of the half Ironmans I ran I actually tore my hamstring in several places, right where it goes into my calf muscle and I didn't do jack about it or see a doctor until two days before the race, which is stupid.

do damage, just do physical [:

And, and so I love that example or that analogy because. That would give me hope if I feel like I'm falling behind or not doing anything, is that, oh, I, I could just do these small movements. Right? I can do the, the equivalent of this and actually I could lead a high performance team. 'cause I don't think anybody who would, who daress to be a leader or calls themselves a leader, thinks I really just wanna be the poor, poorest performer that ever lived.

Practical tips for leaders

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Kenny Lange: Right.

re's the ability to sort of. [:

If you think there's a person that's at 20, those not thing. We're not talking about a random sample, so to speak. So if you are an entrepreneur, if you've created something, or let's just say you're in thrust into some kind of a leadership position inside an organization, which is kind of what happened with me.

Um, and the book talks about that. It's a, it's a novelization based loosely upon a number of different experiences, um, experiences. You have probably some basic level of talent and some basic level ability in these things, but you are correct. There are, these are. Super trainable things that everybody can remarkably increase their competence on.

s what? We're gonna set some [:

So we're gonna be very measurable about those things. It's the same thing with this stuff. So it is that basic. So if I had, uh, a competency where I needed to develop my critical thinking because let's just say it was really, really good at. Selling stuff and that built me, let's just say I had a marketing agency but I'm not really good at, at, at strategy.

Guess what? You can, IM improve your strategic and critical thinking and there are some basic behaviors that you can do and you can literally practice these things every day, just like you're gonna practice a golf swing and you can have your peers, yourself. And if you have access to a good, a good coach or a good advisor who can literally grade you on these things, just like you're being graded on.

Bart's favorite leadership books

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Bart Mccollum: How much did I increase engagement for my clients and my marketing agency? And would this particular change to the SEOA.

buy the book, which we will [:

But it's a lot of. And I hate this term because I think it's stupid. But soft skills.

Bart Mccollum: Yeah, exactly right. Which is why they get mapped to eh and I, and I'm as guilty as any other person. You know, it's like soft. That's what a lot of this stuff is. Soft skills, but it's soft skills. When people hear the term soft skills, they usually think it's not really measurable.

It's not metrical. I, if I am, again, if I'm selling widgets, like I know how many widgets I sold, I know I can go and I can close that deal and I know it's gonna bring X amount of revenue or x amount of margin to. For a certain kind of person, that is a very satisfying thing. Whereas the soft skills, I don't know the exact ROI on this, I don't know if it's gonna pay off.

at, how, how far away is the [:

Final thoughts & takeaways

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Kenny Lange: Yeah, the ROI isn't transactional. And it's really I think you had it enduring. You have enduring co enduring companies, right? There's that endur, there's been tons of transactional companies that they sold a bunch of stuff and then they went outta business, right? How does this play into the endurance?

Because I don't know, again, I don't know any leader, entrepreneur, or founder who says, I man, I'm hoping to be like a bottle rocket. I'm hoping to get oohs and ahs and then just be out on my butt in three months time. Three years time. So what is it about these behaviors, these traits that most people think you can't measure but you apparently you can.

Which it just fascinates me 'cause I want to dive into that. What part does that play in the endurance of a company that that lasts,

Where to connect with Bart

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ah. So two things. So if you [:

So it's fractal and scalable in that, that's component to. Be doing this tomorrow and be improving immediately. So let's just say for instance, you're an entrepreneur and you're very, very successful. But let's say that you are not necessarily a great team player all the time. I'm sure this is shocking.

I'm sure nobody suffers from this problem. But let's just say you're not great at teamwork all the time. Or you know what, how about this, let's just, let's, let's take the spotlight. You're an entrepreneur and you've got an organization. Let's say you have 25 people working for you and you have an amazing, let's just say seller, and that seller isn't necessarily a great team player.

team and that, that sort of [:

You're gonna journal on it, we're gonna actually measure it. And within doing that a couple of weeks, you will see a measured improvement in those things. So you can see immediate results for someone who is committed to actually doing. Let's call it the physical therapy. You'll see immediate results of these things.

Now, of course, that those things will compound over time. And again, you'll have a much more valuable organization or a much more significant organization depending on what your, on, what your ultimate goals are, but to, but you can build immediate momentum on these things and feel that fairly quickly.

t for. Progress. I heard the [:

.:

Bart Mccollum: Yeah,

Kenny Lange: which is if

Bart Mccollum: the power of

Kenny Lange: mean there's really like right

Bart Mccollum: think he probably got that from James Clear. So like you have this, you know, logarithmic scale of anything that you get a little 1% improvement on every single day or even every single week. I. This is exactly that. This is one of the things that absolutely apply that that law absolutely applies.

people say, yeah, we, uh, we [:

I guess technically you're correct. It's like, you know, if it's a leadership skill, you're like I guess now I don't totally suck, but I, I'm still pretty bad at it, but at least I'm not as bad as I used to be.

Bart Mccollum: Oh, the ultimate measuring stick is yourself. So if you go from 10 to 20, like the triviality of that improvement should not be lost. You should absolutely celebrate that.

Kenny Lange: And that's where, for a lot of high performers, they're always looking at the delta between where they are and where they think they could be or should be. And, and this is where I don't remember if you and I have talked about this book, but the gap in the gain is a phenomenal book.

ion myself being right? Like [:

Bart Mccollum: yeah, I mean there's lots of research that shows this and I think it's probably biblical as well. Like you want the measuring stick to be self-improvement. You, you are the ultimate measuring stick, and that is what, what is truly motivating for people in the long term people is generally, I. Set your sights on other things, but largely to stay motivated for the long run and do that 1% improvement thing and get the compounding you wanna be.

You wanna be competing against yourself.

Kenny Lange: Yeah I'd be curious in, in whatever research I've done, if, if you found like people who endeavor to do this, um, improve these behaviors solo versus those that might do so in a cohort like you, you are a part of a cohort. Like is there a difference in success? If like I, I mean, technically I don't really have a cohort.

of one. I have an executive [:

This sounds like a leading question, but my experience has, uh, makes it not so much so what's, what's been the research or your experience on that?

Bart Mccollum: Yeah, I mean, like there's, there's tons of research and I'm sure this wouldn't surprise people around, like making something public. So if I'm gonna be accountable something, can we make it public? And again, I think for those out there who use some kind of a, a methodology, whether it's a scaling up or an EOS or a an S two, there's a reason why your KPIs and your goals are visible to everybody.

and failure. Founder or the [:

So that's the first thing is again, is their buy-in inside an organization. If you're a solopreneur or an entrepreneur and you want to get better, you probably, I'm guessing people like you, Kenny, you probably naturally are looking for ways to self-improve you. You certified in a bunch of frameworks, you help other people.

You're probably not gonna have a problem if somebody important to you comes to you and says, you know what? Your self-confidence, self confidence is a bad example. You got plenty of self confidence, but let's just say emotional

Kenny Lange: too much.

Bart Mccollum: Maybe in your house, you know, emotional intelligence is a competency.

esearch. Maybe let's go to a [:

Guess what?

Kenny Lange: Has my wife been talking to you?

Bart Mccollum: Not at all. It's, it goes both ways. But you know, again, these are we are all the same, the creature. So like, this is all about being better with people, lifting people up, pouring into them and developing them and getting greatness out of teams of people. So again, it doesn't exclusively apply inside an organization.

Um, it works again inside your home. It works inside your community. It works inside a nonprofit or your church or whatever. Again, we all have the same software. So if a person like you has decided, you know what, I really need to focus on certain kinds of emotional intelligence, self-awareness around my kids.

o this every single day, and [:

You know, Has little a DD and you're like, I've got this and I'm gonna do this for a while, and then I'm gonna kind of fall off of it. Having some peers that will hold you accountable for that sort of a thing is always valuable. It's, there's nothing special about this from that perspective.

Yeah, you need accountability and wherever you can find it increases the odds that you're gonna stick with something like this.

Kenny Lange: Gotcha. Just so long as you're

Bart Mccollum: Did I touch some there? I saw some expressions.

Kenny Lange: Dude, I'm, I'm really starting to wonder, I'm, I'm about to go eat lunch with my wife. I'm gonna ask her. I was like, Hey, have you been talking to a guy named Bart, by chance?

Bart Mccollum: Well, I said these things because everybody has these things, right?

Kenny Lange: But it sounds like so long as you. Can have enough self-awareness or at least a, a trusted individual in your life who can sort of like, hold up a mirror, ref, reflect some reality with kindness to you.

Then you can figure out [:

Bart Mccollum: Yep. You want these things to become habits, and I know you're probably an expert on habit formation. This is no different than anything else. And so if you can have outside accountability, that increases your odds of success, just like anything else.

Kenny Lange: Sometimes you need a kick in the butt. Sometimes you need a hug, and it's great if you have somebody who can do both.

Bart Mccollum: Now, I will say with these things, let's just say you're focusing on something. Once you do this for 60 days. And I mean, let's figure out what the exact behavior is for the, each of these competencies has different levels and they're all distinguishable from the from each other. So we use these to recruit people as well.

and then you can give them a [:

So this is the, it's the same principle. You're going to pick something, you're going to do it, you might journal on it, you might get feedback from your boss, or you might get feedback from your business partner or from your spouse, or from a friend, or from a. You do that for 60 days, it will be a habit.

So it doesn't require willpower after X amount of time. It just becomes a thing that you do, and that's kind of what we want, where we want this to go. This does rewire your brain, so if you aren't doing a specific behavior or you're bad at something, if you do some focused training and practice at it for a couple of months every single day with feedback.

Training your golf or anything rewire. And it a, that's the purpose of this. The purpose of this is you nature.

Kenny Lange: You, you're progressing, you're, you're intentionally progressing through the four stages of learning to where it becomes

Bart Mccollum: That's right.

t might be exhausting and it [:

'cause I think a lot of people skip that. They just do something. They have no feedback for how they did either to themselves or, or from someone else. So that they can't like, continue to improve that. I, there's a lot here, a lot more. My brain is on fire now, so, thank you. I'll be distracted the rest of the day with my a DD like, Hey, I don't wanna think about this.

But mark if somebody's listening and they're like, okay, I'm bought in on this. This sounds doable. This gives me hope that I can improve my leadership. I'm not a lost cause, or I could be better faster than I thought. It's not some way, some far off. Never, never land. What's something somebody could do in the next 24 hours?

Spending little to no money to make progress towards leveling up their leadership behaviors and, and skills.

can Google this stuff and a [:

Robert McClellan's research. I feel like I'm weak in this particular area. Identify a competency for me and give me, uh, a daily journaling exercise that I'm going to share with a person. And they're going to hold me accountable for this and I'm going to do it five minutes a day every day for the next 60 days.

Like that is little, as little a commitment as you need for this. It difficult, one of those things. Have to do. It's kind of tedious, but it's not difficult. That would be the cheapest way. The second cheapest way would be you could buy our book, you can get a. So that would be the second cheapest way we wrote this book, because there's lots of books on this topic.

f a Team or any of the other [:

This is written in Story is a novel.

We had a lot of help with that from our publisher on how to get it that way. So you could be reading that and then at the end of each chapter there is an exercise or there's a co that goes with, would be the second thing I would.

Kenny Lange: Gotcha. I think those are two great options. Buy buying books and, and using ai. I mean, you've got my attention. So, if somebody wanted to know more about you and Dr. Hanna's work, uh, or the McClellan research or anything, like if they wanna connect with you, ask some more questions. Where do they go?

o, you can MCC gmail um, I'm [:

Kenny Lange: Okay. Excellent. We'll link all of that up, uh, in the show notes. So whatever your preferred method, you can get ahold of Bart a, ask him some follow up or even share with him if you picked one of the competencies or something like that. Just I'm sure you'd love to have his inbox flooded with people saying, Hey, I took action on this and, and I'm growing as a leader.

Bart Mccollum: I wouldn't mind it actually, I, I like it when people take steps to improve themselves,

urage you like rate, review, [:

I would deeply appreciate it. Plus, this gets this out into the algorithm so that more people like you can discover this content. You never know what conversation may unlock someone's next step in their leadership. That's a free and easy way to pay it forward and just be a good human. And it's an easy way to be a leader too.

There you go. You're helping people make progress. But until next time, change the way you think. You'll change the way you lead. We'll see you.

Show artwork for How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

About the Podcast

How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange
Discover the secrets to impactful leadership with How Leaders Think, hosted by Kenny Lange.
Discover the secrets to impactful leadership with How Leaders Think, hosted by Kenny Lange. This podcast is your go-to resource for insights from top leaders across various industries. Each episode delves into the minds of successful entrepreneurs, CEOs, and thought leaders to uncover strategies for personal and professional growth.

Key Topics Covered:
- Emotional goals and effective leadership
- Coaching and employee retention
- Innovation and AI in business
- Escaping hustle culture
- Building strong organizational values
- Adaptability in nonprofit leadership
- The intersection of personal growth and spirituality

Join us every Wednesday to transform your leadership approach and unlock your potential.

Subscribe now and never miss an episode!

Subscribe, leave a review, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Visit our website at kennylange.com for more resources and updates.

About your host

Profile picture for Kenny Lange

Kenny Lange

Kenny Lange helps faith-forward founders scale organizations without losing their soul, their people, or their mission.

After selling his first company and helping an agency nearly double revenue, Kenny discovered that scaling success can be just as hard as finding it. He's the creator of Lead to Scale™—a proven approach that guides leaders from chaos to Predictable Success.

Kenny hosts How Leaders Think, a globally top 10% podcast named a 2025 "must-listen" by MSN. His clients say he "cuts through the noise" and helps teams move from status meetings to strategic conversations.

Beyond business, Kenny and his wife Rebekah are on a mission to positively impact 10,000 kids by 2033.