Using Nature to Develop Great Leadership Skills with Julie Henry, President, Finish Line Leadership
About this episode:
Julie Henry, President of Finish Line Leadership and author of Wisdom from the Wild: The Nine Unbreakable Laws of Leadership from the Animal Kingdom, joins the podcast. As a former zoo and aquarium senior leader, she is dedicated to helping leaders deal with change, more effectively lead teams, and build resilience using insights from wildlife and wild places. Julie teaches leaders how observing nature can teach us how to better understand ourselves and the organizations around us.
Topics Discussed:
Julie’s thoughts on what nature can teach us about ourselves and our organizational lives
How she uses nature for inspiration and problem solving
What animals can teach us about building resilience
Why Julie believes it’s important for leaders to explore nature and the outdoors
About Julie:
Julie Henry is president of Finish Line Leadership and author of Wisdom from the Wild: The Nine Unbreakable Laws of Leadership from the Animal Kingdom. A former zoo and aquarium senior leader, Julie has worked with over fifty-five organizations across corporate, nonprofit, government, association, and community sectors. She is dedicated to helping leaders deal with change, more effectively lead teams, and build resilience using insights from wildlife and wild places.
Julie has presented to over one million people across thirty-two states and six countries in settings ranging from auditoriums and ballrooms to boats, beaches, forests, theaters, boardrooms, and even underwater while feeding sharks and moray eels. She lives in Sarasota, Florida, with her two children, whom she lovingly describes as her “zoo animal” and her “wild animal” due to each one’s natural inclination toward life.
Read a raw, unedited transcript of this episode:
Julie, thank you so much for joining us. You believe that nature is the perfect teacher for leadership development and can specifically help us to develop as leaders. I cannot wait to chat with you more about this. But first, tell us more about your early career and who you are. Yeah, thanks, Melanie. It's so great to be here and I love talking all things leadership and wildlife and wild places. I'm a kid from Chicago, grew up in Chicago and Cleveland along the shores of the Great Lakes, but I always dreamed of the sea. My mom was a teacher. My dad was in leadership development, so I just knew from an early age that I was destined to stitch them all together. My dad started his own business when I was 10, so I watched the entrepreneurial side of him. And as I got more interested in science, I went to work for zoos and aquariums. But at every facility I went to, I was always saying to the people I worked for. Hey, there's a lot of companies who would want to come here and do retreats because we can do leadership differently. And so let's reach out. And so every place I went, we were always reaching out to local companies. Even like here in Sarasota, the tax collectors office came to the aquarium I was working at, et cetera. And so after doing that for about 10 years at that, well, I'm ready to do it on my own. I love that. How do you believe that nature helps us learn to deal with change? Nature is always dealing with change. That's the very definition of nature, right? Every time you go outside. Things are different. The sunsets are different every night your favorite animal may not be there. We overthink change. We get afraid of it. We feel like it's constant and we feel like we have to control it. And if we look to nature and just take a breath and go, OK, yep. Change is constant. It's always happening. But nature has evolved to deal with it and not just survive but thrive. And so let's look at nature and apply them into our organizational lives. And that helps us relax and look at change in a very quantifiable way that seems doable and not overwhelming. So often you're right. We are reluctant to do something new and to do something different. And do you think being out in nature or studying animals in their environment, we can learn from that. Yeah, I wholeheartedly believe that. And, just because I have studied a lot of science, it doesn't mean I know everything when I walk outside, and that's restorative comforting as well because I can walk outside. And just the other day, my daughter and I were walking along and she saw a bug, some sort of moth. I have no idea what species it is. It was super cool with black and white, but it just, she said, I don't know what this is. I said, I don't either, but let's watch and observe it. We use nature for, resilience as far as, self-care and taking a breath. But I think we can just as well walk outside and go, I need a new way to look at old challenges or problems. And if I watch nature, maybe think about I wonder why this that question can also then apply to the problem we're trying to deal with in whatever aspect of our life. With COVID, we were all in the house so much, and I used to run outside and be outside and I still go outside during COVID, but it's not nearly as much. So just this year, every morning I'm going to get out and go for a walk or a run or a hike or something. And when I first went outside, it seemed odd and I thought, Okay, this is really strange that it seems odd to me to be outside so much every single day. But it really does change your perspective. When you come back to work for the workday after being out in the morning, you've taken in so many different things that you're more creative too. Yeah. I love that. I'm so glad that you made that commitment again to yourself. No matter where you live in the world, you know you can be downtown Tokyo and you can be out in the middle of Oklahoma and a huge farm and still see new things from nature. Mm-Hmm. How do you think the wild inspires us to more effectively lead our teams? Hmm. nature is built-in ecosystems, right? And to have a healthy ecosystem, to have animals surviving in a place you need, you need a healthy habitat. You need a healthy culture, if you will, and then you need animals working together who are, by definition, different. If you look at the ecosystem, whether it's a coral reef or whether it's an African savanna or just the backyard habitat or wherever you live, you know, the trees are different than the bugs, which are different than the squirrels and the chipmunks, and that's on purpose. And so when we get into organizations, you know, first, why are we even debating if we need people with different perspectives on teams? I mean, it has to be healthier that way. That's how nature's built. And then second, we make a lot of assumptions around. People just kind of know things, but they don't. Nature is based on foundations. And if we bring our teamwork back to, let's set the foundation first and make sure everybody is recognizing the diversity of this team building a healthy habitat, healthy culture around it and then setting foundations in place. Then you can go on and do what your team is uniquely designed to do. You're so right, because it really is those different perspectives that makes a company great and that makes a team great.
Mm-Hmm. I totally agree. Why do animals in their environments teach us to build our resilience muscles? Maybe this is something that happens as we get older, quite honestly. You know, I watch my kids and they'll go, I'm tired. I just I just need to take a break or I'm mentally overloaded. I need to walk outside. I mean, they're they're built like that. Maybe because they're my kids, but just because they know they need a break. And so as we get older, somehow we just feel like or the pressures increase in our job responsibilities or family responsibilities increase and we just ignore those built in limits. We have built-in limits, but we just do more. More is expected of us, more is needed of us. I mean, I understand I'm there as well, but we cannot outsmart nature. We cannot run forever and expect to keep running. Either we take ourselves out of the game or nature, does. It's why I have this lovely picture of the cheetah behind me because she reminds me that cheetahs are built to run at top speed. For what a minute? Maybe. And then they rest. And so it's my permission in one way to give myself the people around me. And then it's also the, you know, a hard knock on my head. Like, Hang on, hang on. Why do you think you can outsmart nature? And look how successful nature is dealing with change because they're resilient. I love that analogy, and you're right today with technology and social media. And, you know, we're all so busy and going at this pace. sometimes I have to schedule it in to make myself slowed. I have eight year old twins, so my day starts really early and usually goes pretty late. But I have had to schedule in that time for myself to make sure because I also love what I do, and I know you love what you do too. So it's so easy to be consumed by that and not take that time to rest, like you said. Yeah. And then what a great role model you're being for your twins, right? Because you're modeling for other people and then you're teaching people how to treat you. So resilience is threefold. It's for you. It's for the people around you who are watching you, and it's the people who are around. You need to know your boundaries. So true. And when they're little, you don't have a choice because they can't care for themselves. And then when they get to a certain age, you like, Wait a minute, I need to take time for myself, too. I need to make sure that I am scheduling that self time so that I can, be the best they can be. Yep, mine are 12 and 14 at this point, and they know that we can say it's your cheetah moment.
I love it, cheetah moment. Share with us more about your book and what inspired you to write Wisdom from the Wild. I was in college and I was a senior in college, studying science, studying education, and I got an assignment which was teach kids about coral reefs. And I thought, Well, not everybody's is going to be interested in coral reefs. But if I relate a coral reef to a business and how the different organizational structures and pressures and how they withstand competition, et cetera, relates directly to the coral reef ecosystem. Now I can hook to different kids who have two different interests,and that was the hook. And so when I thought, OK, I want to keep building these animal analogies because I think it helps little leaders understand how to grow and develop. And so every place I went, I would tell them animal stories. I've been underground in a mine in Virginia, almost 20 feet underground in basically the middle of the night, working with shift workers, telling them stories about animals. And so it catches their attention differently. I wanted to put that down on paper so that I could share it more broadly with audiences and they could refer back to it. But also because it's, I believe, so deeply in it that there's something unique about the animals I picked, like sea cucumbers and naked mole rats and pelicans that are not always equated with leadership. And I think there are leaders out there that are may not feel like they're the leaders they can be. Yet, because they don't, they don't display the typical leadership qualities and my heart goes out to them because like, wait a minute, there's something unique about you just because you're not the loudest in the room or something, something when people, you know, typical leadership qualities, you are a leader as well. And so for all of those reasons, I wanted to put it down on paper and share it more broadly. And can you tell us how one of those animals or the coral reef specifically relates to leadership? The coral reef, I use it in the book about teamwork. But as I started that analogy if I were to show you a picture. Right now, the coral reef, chances are you would tell me about all the animals that are familiar, like sharks and barracuda and really pretty angel fish. And if I ask you what the most prevalent animal on the reef is, you may not know that the coral is actually an animal and the foundation of that ecosystem. And without the coral, everything else disappears. So the very direct analogy from me from the beginning was. Who are the people in your organization that are literally the foundation, but don't always get either the attention or accolades that the sharks do in the barracudas do, and we need sharks and barracudas. But the thing about coral is if you don't respect those animals, it's systemic one corals literally connected to the other. So as one coral gets sick, they all get sick, and that's how corals die off, and that's how coral reefs die off. So I when I've talked to organizations about this, it's, the frontline staff who are overworked and don't always get their due or it's the people who are quiet or the people who put in 20 years was my coral reef tie, and I built it into teams from there, but it's one of my favorites. Through your path as an author, what did that journey teach you? And do you have any tips for current authors or new authors that you learned going through the writing and publishing process? This is a whole subject in itself, and I'm so happy you asked me this. I learned so much. I thought when I got my proposal accepted and I started working with my company and they asked me, OK, what do you think? How long do you think It's going to take you to write the manuscript so we can start scheduling all the edits? And I said, Oh, like four months. It's like, I've been doing this for a long time. Oh my gosh, it took a year to write the book, and then it took a year to go through the five rounds of editing, the cover design, the titling process, everything. So I learned a huge I have such high respect for editors and also trusting their gut because they understand readability. You know, they said to me, we can tell you're a speaker because you write these stories like really long, long form. It's yeah, like a lot of pages. It's also your story. You want to tell it, it's meaningful. And, I'm sure you want the book to come out the way you want it to come out, right? And it's hard to let go of. But like, how about if we like just chunk it up and put some information in between so it'll get people to read? I'm like, Well, that's a really good idea because they know how people read, right? And I know people hear the information. So yeah, I would say,work with the company. For me, it was really important that I could work with a company that I could retain my intellectual property, that I could retain the final rights over how my book came out. But but if you're going to write a book, trust the people who know how to edit and title and do the cover design that they know their stuff too. And I think it's been really fruitful. And on the back end, that's really good advice. And I really like the cover of your book it's great. Thank you. You are always exploring the outdoors. Why do you think this is important, especially for business leaders? It's important because. Two things: the outdoors is always changing, and it will remind us, but also you don't have to be anybody other than who you are outside. And so you can let go of all of the layers you may be putting on for other people or the title you might be hiding behind that day. But on the other side, nature doesn't let you pose you can't outsmart nature, you can't go paddleboarding in the ocean without any experience. You can't jump in a kayak without a life jacket and expect to be safe in our situations. So it's bookended for me. And I love the fact that nature just wants us to be who we are and will call us out if we're not and if we're not prepared. I ask this question at the end of every episode because I believe finding joy in what we do is so important in our everyday lives. Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business. That brings us joy. What is one tip you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy?
I love that you asked this question because when I started looking at my company this year coming out of COVID or coming to whatever point where I discovered, I thought I need to lead with my values more strongly than I have been. And it's joy that comes up for me. And so my tip is to lean in strongly that instinctual boldness that you have and lead with what makes you, you, in every situation. we've been putting all these layers on was with the virtual side, with interacting with our teams differently, with leaving our jobs. And we're trying on all these hats and trying to figure out who we are. So for me, every time I go outside, it's my reminder that that brings me joy because like we just talked about, I am who I am uniquely outside. And so when I go back into that meeting, I speak the way I speak. I am who I am. I don't put it on as many layers as I would have. If I'm trying to be someone I'm not or someone who I think that client needs me to be. They mean me to be me, and that's how I find my joy
Thank you so much for joining us. Today is such an interesting perspective and really fun to think about, and I'm going to think about it on my next walk in the next time I step outside. Can you please tell our listeners how and where they can find you?
Yeah, to find me. Julie S. Henry is across all social platforms. So on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Julie S. Henry. It's also the name of my website - reach out there and my email. Julie@JulieSHenry.com.