From a podcast interview featuring Kyle Buckett, CSDO and Co-Founder of Stealth Energy Startup, Co-Founder of Culture Force, and author of “Leadership is Overrated.”
In the latest CEO Growth Talks episode, Pete Hayes interviews Kyle Buckett, CSDO and Co-Founder of Stealth Energy Startup, Co-Founder of Culture Force, and author of “Leadership is Overrated.” Kyle advocates for self-led teams and a culture of collaboration, drawing on his Navy SEAL experience. He emphasizes that empowering teams and improving culture are crucial for long-term success and employee satisfaction.
"Creating a self-led team begins with changing from inside out and ensuring that, as a leader, you are not creating an environment where you are relied on for every single decision." - Kyle Buckett
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[Episode Transcript]
[00:00:05] Pete Hayes: Hello everyone. Again, welcome to CEO Growth Talks. I'm Pete Hayes, principal at Chief Outsiders and it's my pleasure to introduce a friend of Chief Outsiders, Kyle Buckett, who's been with Chief Outsiders' other programs before. Welcome Kyle.
[00:00:24] Kyle Buckett: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:26] Pete Hayes: Yeah, and I'm cheating a little bit cause Kyle is also a growing friend. I'll say, good friend but we only met each other this year. But he's also a bud here in Austin, Texas. His title on his markup here says author and that's true and it's really important because he's written an awesome book that we're going to talk about today: Leadership is Overrated. I just love the big strike-through leadership on the cover. So, we're going to talk about that. But Kyle draws from incredible experience as a business leader.
[00:00:56] Pete Hayes: As a business leader in the classic sense, as he's been the CEO of a large number company, he's also in stealth mode in a startup company as the business leader, but he will tell you, being a Navy SEAL and a multi-decade veteran that running the business of the Navy SEAL is like running any large organization and a global organization with global operations and supply chain issues and everything else. So, Kyle can relate to the issues you're facing in your business and we're going to focus a lot today on business performance as it relates to leadership and even how that intersects with culture.
[00:01:33] Pete Hayes: One of the main things Kyle does these days is bring out Culture Force, his organization into both midsize and larger companies to help them tackle some of their toughest leadership challenges. So, welcome, Kyle. So, glad you're here.
[00:01:49] Kyle Buckett: This will be great. I'm happy to be here.
[00:01:52] Pete Hayes: Okay. So, first of all, we got to get the family stuff out of the way. You're married with?
[00:01:56] Kyle Buckett: I’m married with a beautiful wife. We actually just celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary by doing one of my favorite things, which is going to Mexico. I'm getting to surf my brain out being back at the hotel at 8:39 AM, and she's waking up from a beauty sleep, and then we get to spend the rest of the day. We got to celebrate 19 years of marriage bliss with our three beautiful children who are 6, 9, and 11. It goes girl, girl, boy, and there was grandma and grandpa right now so the house was pretty quiet which is also nice.
[00:02:31] Pete Hayes: You were having kids why you were still a SEAL.
[00:02:35] Kyle Buckett: I was, but, you know, Candace and I had actually waited almost a decade.
[00:02:40] Kyle Buckett: There was a period in my career where my life expectancy was about a two to three-month life expectancy due to the nature of the job and due to the zones that I was deploying to and the regions of the world that I was deploying to the work that I was undertaking. So, we made a conscious decision to actually hold off for quite some time.
[00:02:59] Kyle Buckett: That's why our kids are still pretty young. But, yeah, we did, My first daughter, first kid, I'll never forget. She was four months old on the day she turned four months old, I left, and I came back, and she was a year old.
[00:03:18] Pete Hayes: Well, good for you. How challenging that is. Thank you for your service and your leadership.
[00:03:23] Kyle Buckett: Like I always say, thanks for paying your taxes.
[00:03:27] Pete Hayes: Well, and it's not just you who led half a dozen teams through the desert and took the hill. I mean, you've led teams of what, 500, 600, 800 people?
[00:03:37] Kyle Buckett: Yeah. So, I got to do a lot of things.
[00:03:41] Kyle Buckett: Everything from lone man, single man operations all the way up to leading my largest operation, which was an 800-man Marine Tenement through a clearance operation in Southern Kalighaz, Afghanistan, Southern Helmand. We had 24 tanks, 24 helicopters on insertion, and an army corps of engineers with around 23 vehicles. We had seven fast-moving jets in a constant orbit over a week period, and the total assets under management or AUM of the operation far exceeded 1.6-1.7 billion dollars—probably one of the largest operations I've ever conducted so, and then everything in between.
[00:04:22] Kyle Buckett: As I said, I got to be a plank owner, that's what we call it at a military startup where we started a new SEAL team back in 2006. I think there were eight of us when we started that command with a very small budget, and now that command has around 512 people.
[00:04:38] Pete Hayes: All right. Kyle, you've established yourself. You know how to run large organizations and multibillion-dollar enterprises that are just literally an operation rather than something that goes on forever.
[00:04:53] Pete Hayes: But I'm going to take you right to the beginning of your book 'cause it was a heart-pounding moment when your book opens up literally with the message that leadership is overrated and you described yourself on an overlook of some sort. I want to take us through that story because it's just incredible.
[00:05:14] Kyle Buckett: So, that was the big operation that I was just referencing. We're clearing through a 4x7 mile stretch of land. As we were about to embed, in the weeks to come, a footprint of Navy SEALs there to continue our operations of village stability operations.
[00:05:35] Kyle Buckett: What we were doing as we're clearing through 4x7 mile stretch of land is the Marines were doing court on and search throughout the days and using the daylight hours to move through the valley and myself and a small contingent of Navy SEALs, were often based on intelligence, based on analysis, threat assessments, et cetera, we would follow along on a ridgeline very close to them, maybe a click and a half away but we could see them through our goggles or our optics, et cetera. We would shadow them on a ridgeline.
[00:06:09] Kyle Buckett: In this particular instance, this particular day, we were shadowing them, and we saw a small contingent of Taliban maneuvering to set up an ambush on the Marines out in the valley. So, quickly, my JTAC and I said, ‘Hey, let's hold on. Let's get to a better vantage point.’ We can call in an airstrike or a HIMAR in this sense, which is an artillery weapon on the back of a vehicle, maybe 20 to 30 miles away.
[00:06:36] Kyle Buckett: In this sense, we actually got up, we scurried up a hill to get a better vantage point before we started to call in a strike to prevent our Marines from getting wounded or killed. As soon as we get up there, I'm on my radio, my joint terminal air control man is on his radio, we have our backs to each other, and, all of a sudden, he just elbows me in the rib really quickly. I look at him like, “Hey dude, what are you doing? We don't have time for shenanigans.”
[00:07:05] Kyle Buckett: We got to get down, we got to get up here. We have to check the target, confirm all the friendly positions, and confirm air positions. I give him that look like, “Hey, now's not the time for horseplay. We have seconds to be up here.” We've worked extremely exposed at any moment in RPG, artillery fire, whatever could come towards us. We're extremely exposed. It's the middle of the day. We don't operate in the day. For the most part, we operate at night. So, I give him that look, and he just looks back at me, and he's pointing his finger straight to the ground. I just looked down at the ground, and I'll never forget it. I looked down at the ground, and it was clear as day that we were standing on an IED. Clear as day.
[00:07:51] Kyle Buckett: I'm like, “You've got to be kidding me. This is how I'm going to go out. This is it. This is how I'm going to go out. This is ridiculous”.
[00:07:58] Pete Hayes: Now, you don't set something like this off by standing on it, right?
[00:08:02] Kyle Buckett: I can. There are multiple variations. But for the listener, this particular variation of an improvised explosive device, meaning what an IED is, it's a third-world booby trap, and this particular one, what we call a pressure release as opposed to a pressure plate in the sense that when we stepped on it, it engaged the mechanism so that the second that we stepped off and removed our weight from the mechanism, it was supposed to detonate.
[00:08:36] Kyle Buckett: We realize that because the moment we step on it, we're already on it and it hadn't gone off, right? So, we know that the moment we step off, this thing will blow. So, now, what do you do? We're extremely exposed to RPG at any point, AK at any moment, everyone can see us, we're only supposed to be there for a second or two. We just need to look one, two, three. We're good. Get down.
[00:09:05] Kyle Buckett: I remember looking at my buddy, again, this is not a hero’s act; he was significantly lighter than me at the time. With all my gear on and my kit, I was pushing around 300 pounds. He was probably pushing 215 pounds. I've got them by 85 pounds, give or take, and so it wasn't a hero's act. I just said, “Hey man, you first. Maybe one of us lives,” and as I'm saying that to him, he's about to argue, and I hear, audibly, I believe God or an angel or the Holy Spirit, one of the three. It was the voice of pure authority, pure, pure authority, unlike anything I've ever heard before, and pure autonomy. It just said, “I've got you.” I'll never forget. I'm like, “Whoa,did you hear that?” He's like, “What are you talking about?” He's like, “Did I hear what you said?” And I'm like, “Yeah, sure. You hear what I said?” And he goes, “Yeah. Are you sure?” I'm like, “Yeah, dude, I think God's got us on this but if I'm going crazy up here, you first.”
[00:10:16] Kyle Buckett: He's like about to argue, and I'm like, “Hey, tell Candace, I love her. Tell her,” and he goes, “If I live, of course, I'm going to tell her that.”
[00:10:31] Kyle Buckett: So, he gets off, and he runs down the hill, and as soon as he gets down to within a minimum safe distance, we call it MSD. As soon as he's an MSD, I hear him on the radio call out, “Hey, Buck me. Buck's on an IED. This is our grid. This is our coordinates. Can we get explosive ordnance disposal guys, EOD, can we get the EOD guys over here to deal with this situation?”
[00:10:58] Kyle Buckett: They're like, “Yeah, Roger, that's going to be 90 minutes.” So, you don't have 90 minutes. In fact, I'm only supposed to be there for a couple of seconds, and I'm looking around waiting for an RPG to hit me. I'm waiting for a mortar to come, and start come flying in. I'm waiting for me to be lit up with AK fire cause again, I'm standing. I'm not crunched down and I'm not moving anything either because now I'm like a frozen statue just sitting there because I don’t want to set that thing off. I remember I was like, “All right, back to the situation.”
[00:11:33] Kyle Buckett: I'm like, “Hey God, I just think I heard you. He's now safe. My buddy's safe. He's down at the bottom of the hill. He's safe. He's good. Lord, did I just hear you? Because if I didn't hear, I'm going crazy. What's going on?” and I hear it again, “I've got you.” I'm like, “Oh my gosh. Lord, this is amazing. I believe this is you. I'm not denying this as you, but if it's not you again, right?” All the things are going through your head.
[00:12:06] Kyle Buckett: |Please forgive me of all my sins. Please take care of my wife, right?” All the sins start going because now you're like, all right, I'm about to die if this isn't God and I'm just going crazy. I'd better make sure I'm good. I'm like, “Lord, please forgive me. I've been a bad boy, right?” Then, I heard it again a third time, “ I've got you.” At that moment, I go, “Okay, I know that's you, Lord.” So, I step off, I run down the hill, and I'm safe. I'm fine.
[00:12:33] Kyle Buckett: EOD guys get over there three hours later, and two and a half hours later, we had marked it and everything. They unearthed what was the equivalent of 10 pounds of TNT. Nine inches under the surface of the dirt, and if that thing had gone off, both myself and my JTAC, if we had even lived if we had lived, we would not have our low extremities. We would not have reproductive organs. My three children that I was just talking about would not be here today, and neither would his two beautiful daughters who we love dearly.
[00:13:05] Kyle Buckett: The EOD guy, after he does his forensics, he's like, ‘Wow, you know that plate? You guys definitely set it in motion, but when you guys stepped off, something just held it, and it never went off. Something was just holding it.” He goes, “Thank God, huh?” and slaps me on the back and scurries away. I'm like, you have no idea. You have no idea.
[00:13:26] Pete Hayes: All right. That's my favorite story, and it sets up the whole book because the question becomes, well, what if you'd been taken out?
[00:13:33] Kyle Buckett: Well, I said, if I hadn't done my job, then the guys would begin to fizzle away and fail, but I had done my job at that point. The guys would have had mission success without me. They would have been just fine. They would have crushed it. They would have continued to be as successful and productive as we were for the remainder of the deployment and the remainder of the mission.
[00:13:55] Kyle Buckett: But you were the group's leader. What does that mean?
[00:13:58] Kyle Buckett: It means leadership is overrated. It means that we can do what we need to do, and we can actually kill the leader, as I say. What we do in the Navy SEAL teams is we’ll run training scenarios so that should I die, should I meet my fate or even just get injured and pull off the battlefield, how do we go from there and how do we progress, right? How does the team step up? How does the next guy in charge rise to the level of what the leader was doing? How do you create a self-led team? I talk about it in the book on how you do that, how you define it, how you develop it, and how you sustain it. Still, it starts at the very beginning with change from the inside out and making sure that you, as a leader, are not creating this environment where you have to be leaned on for every single decision. We see that time and time in organizations all over the world, as you know.
[00:14:58] Pete Hayes: So, you take all that plus your COO experience, and now you have this organization called Culture Force.
[00:15:05] Kyle Buckett: That's right.
[00:15:05] Pete Hayes: Then, you can help companies navigate their way through that. If I'm running a business, what are the warning signs that I might need your services?
[00:15:14] Kyle Buckett: Oh, that's a great question. Well, first things first is, are you dealing with an attrition issue? Your employees nonstop complaining, and you're like, “Man, we feel like all we are dealing with is complaints or attrition issues.” This is one that I love. We feel like we have to micromanage to achieve productivity or success or mission success. If we don't micromanage the teams, then the job just doesn't get done. The jobs aren't meeting milestones if we don't have constant check-ins with project managers.
[00:15:47] Kyle Buckett: A lot of those issues obviously can be improved, changed, or even removed with our focus and how we help organizations to do that. But it depends. Every organization is different, but for the most part, guess what? We all know this. We all say it.
[00:16:05] Kyle Buckett: We all believe, to a degree, that technology is amazing. The rise of AI is amazing. There's nothing wrong with any of it, but none happens without people. It just doesn't. So, why is 85% of America frustrated or literally hates their boss?
[00:16:25] Kyle Buckett: 85 percent of America, Pete, hates their boss. But, when we talk with leaders and organizations, there is often a hesitation to run an analysis and say, “Well, that's not my organization. That's not my group. That's not us.”
[00:16:39] Pete Hayes: If I'm thinking we have attrition problems in my company, and I'm thinking, “Well, that is a problem.” I think I need to step up my leadership. Your message is, “Yeah, the leader needs to step up.” But I think your book is really about making sure everybody knows their jobs and you empower them; that's the essence of the book, right? It's not about you, the leader, but how you lead them to lead themselves.
[00:17:01] Kyle Buckett: That's right. I believe we did a great job dissecting the mythos surrounding the archetypal literature, arguing that a team's collective efforts often eclipse any individual's contributions. We believe that this contrarian stance is timely.
[00:17:21] Kyle Buckett: It's timely in an era where leadership seminars and these self-help groups or tomes reign supreme. Self-help is the number one book type out there. It is the number one type of genre book out there, right? Great. Nothing wrong with furthering yourself and getting better. There is nothing wrong with that at all.
[00:17:42] Kyle Buckett: When you're good and when you've achieved goodness, come read book number two cause you can't help others be better individuals if you're not centered. But when you're good and when you've gotten yourself centered, come on over. Let's focus on the team. Let's get to book two. Let's help others be good leaders. Let's help others have self-leadership within their jobs, their projects, and their missions. But this is quite a challenge a lot of times because what is all of the social media, what is all of the marketing, and all of the nonsense that's out there right now is just saying, “You can never stop. You can never stop.” We always need to achieve better. I mean, it's nonstop.
[00:18:24] Pete Hayes: It seems like, as a SEAL, that's kind of almost in your mantra. But why do we have that wrong?
[00:18:30] Kyle Buckett: Because there's no I in SEAL, right? It's a team. There's a SEAL team, right? We operate as teams now. We have to be proficient and efficient at the individual level, at the individual shooter level, and there's no denying that, and that's why it takes three and a half years to make an entry-level Navy SEAL. Arguments have been set on how long it will take to make a really, truly solid quality sales individual, and every industry is different, but my point is that it can take time.
[00:19:06] Kyle Buckett: The same with obviously a doctor, it takes eight years for just basic medicine to get through med school and then another two to three years as a residency and then another two to three years in your practice, and you know the deal. My point is that it takes time, but once you're through that, it's time to refine everything.
[00:19:24] Kyle Buckett: In the Navy SEALs, just to reiterate, that initial three and a half years of training and qualification is just to get you out the door. If you were to join the SEAL team and you're in my troop, and you're right out of the basic and the qualification period. It's like, “Hey man, thank you. Hey, John Doe, thank you so much for joining and becoming one of the world's elite. I'm so grateful that you went through this. I'm so grateful that you're here, but now it's time for you to sit down and learn from all the other guys who have been around a little while,” and guess what their job is? Their job is to elevate him, so once you get past that point, then, like I said, their job is to elevate that brand new individual, but all of the marketing and social media just wants us to live in that first three-year period.
[00:20:14] Pete Hayes: So, when you work with clients, do you map that to hiring profiles? Like, yes, hire rock stars, but you want rock stars who work well with others. Is that just central?
[00:20:24] Kyle Buckett: One of my favorite questions. So, there's this buzzword in the CHRO world these days; I'm sure you've heard of it: we hire for culture fit. We don't say that. In fact, we disagree with it.
[00:20:34] Kyle Buckett: We hire for culture improvement. Improvement is much different than we need you to fit this box of what we're trying to put out there. Well, will you be what we are, what we are? I don't care. Who cares? Why wouldn't we want to bring people in who will help us elevate and help us improve this culture that we have?
[00:20:54] Pete Hayes: Does this make you controversial with some CEOs?
[00:20:57] Kyle Buckett: Oh, yeah. Big time. Big time. Because it's challenging, Then, they go, “How do we do that, Kyle? How do we put those identifiers in place to help us recruit and attract talent to do just that?” Then, we go, “Okay, well, let's go through the motivators. Let's go through the frustrators, right?”
[00:21:19] Kyle Buckett: Everyone is very different in what motivates them. Hiring practices have come a long way, but we've joked because everyone thinks money is the number one motivator. Well, it's not. Competitive compensation, albeit a lot of us want it, we all say we want it, but if we're going to truly look inside of ourselves on what makes a positive work environment for all of us, everyone's a little different. Often, when no one's looking, when you're taking that survey in the quiet of your house late at night or early in the morning, money usually comes in as number eight. What comes in higher is challenging work, recognition and appreciation, career growth and advancement, and a work-life balance.
[00:22:10] Kyle Buckett: Some people who have kids are focused right now on being able to provide flexible work arrangements with paid time off so they can go and enjoy and do a great vacation. Some people want autonomy and empowerment to make decisions, take ownership of projects, and have a sense of control over their work. Some people desire just a positive work environment.
[00:22:33] Kyle Buckett: I talk about this quite a bit with the team guys because I help mentor and encourage transitioning veterans as they come out of service. I tell them time and time again, “Hey guys, what you're going to find is you're not going to recreate the Navy SEAL community, but what you're going to find very unique is the culture that's going to attract you.” What do I mean by that?
[00:22:55] Kyle Buckett: You might think you want to go into high tech. You might want to go into marketing. You might want to go into AI. You might want to go into manufacturing or you might want to think you want to go to private equity or investment banking. Remove the industry, and in fact, if you guys start looking for the desired environment, the desired culture that's going to attract you, I guarantee that you’ll find it in every industry, even industries you didn't even know existed.
[00:23:25] Kyle Buckett: I have seen it repeatedly, where I've gone to a manufacturing facility, and you're like, “Whoa, this is incredible, guys. You guys are nailing this out of the park.” Then they say, “What is that? Oh, we're focused on our organizational culture here. We're focused on the teams. We're focusing on self-led teams.” We're focused on giving back to our teams, and when you feel that vibe that you want to be a part of, that attracts. That creates a magnet culture that attracts talent who want to be a part of it.
[00:23:53] Pete Hayes: So, we will start to wrap up now. Leadership is overrated because…
[00:24:00] Kyle Buckett: Leadership is overrated because how can you and how can we lose a liter in one of the world's most elite organizations in the world, the Navy SEAL community, and we still thrive, we improve, we get better, we innovate> How can Christianity lose Jesus and it grows? Jesus's message grows because he developed 12 disciples, right? When we have this premise of, “Hey, it's gotta be me,” What I really tell people is, “Are you sure? Are you sure that it has to be you?”
[00:24:40] Pete Hayes: I'm going to leave it right there, and the folks will bring up a picture of your book here, and you can see what an excellent cover it is, and where to get it. Also, Culture Force is who you want to talk to have these difficult discussions to get your companies on a better track. It's not necessarily simple or easy, even though some of the concepts are. But anyway, thank you, Kyle, for being with us. We really appreciate you. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in to CEO Growth Talks at Chief Outsiders. Take care.
[00:25:10] Kyle Buckett: Thanks for having me.