You Can't Hire a Heart: James Robbins on Authentic Leadership

What if the secret to unlocking extraordinary business performance isn't found in complex strategies, but in your approach to leadership? That's the compelling premise James Robbins, mountain climber turned leadership expert, explores in this thought-provoking conversation.

Robbins takes us on a journey that begins in the Rocky Mountain foothills where he grew up and traces his unexpected path through ministry to business leadership consulting. Along the way, he reveals a fundamental truth many leaders miss: the skills that make someone excel as an individual contributor are rarely the same skills needed to lead others effectively.

"You can always hire a hand, but you can't hire a heart," Robbins explains, highlighting the critical distinction between compliance and commitment. True leadership happens when you trust people with meaningful work while providing both challenge and support. It's this delicate balance that creates cultures where people willingly contribute parts of themselves they've never given any previous employer.

The conversation tackles the leadership challenges facing today's multi-generational workforce, with Robbins offering a refreshing perspective on Gen Z workers. Rather than viewing them as difficult, he suggests their demand for authentic leadership actually raises standards for everyone. "The problem isn't with Gen Z, the problem is with leaders," he observes, suggesting that approaching younger generations as volunteers rather than subordinates can transform engagement.

Perhaps most powerfully, Robbins s

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Chapters

• 11:24 [Ad] Real Talk About Marketing
• 12:12 (Cont.) You Can't Hire a Heart: James Robbins on Authentic Leadership

Transcript

Erin Manning: 0:09

Pegeau Society podcast. Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your Gary Pageau, and today we're joined by James Robbins, who's a mountain climber, best-selling author, and award-winning speaker. He's going to talk to us today about motivation and leadership, and James is coming to us from Denver, Colorado. Hi James, how are you today?

James Robbins: 0:38

Gary, fantastic Thanks for having me on the show and I love the name Dead Pixels Society.

Gary Pageau: 0:43

Well, thank you, and well, I appreciate that. Let's talk first about how you started. I mean, I mean, I've never had a mountain climber that I'm aware of, that that's the first thing on their bio.

James Robbins: 0:55

Tell us that story about mountain climbing as a passion yeah, I would put myself in the amateur category for sure, but you've been to the Andes, I've seen that.

James Robbins: 1:06

Yeah, I've got to do some cool things. I actually grew up on a small cattle ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and my father always had us outdoors and in the mountains and so it just was part of my life growing up and also it just affected the lens through which I saw life. You know, life is simple but also there's a lot of mountains to climb, and that's really where that began.

Gary Pageau: 1:31

Let's talk, then, about the business career, because you've been doing the business consulting. You've written several books over quite a few years. What's your story there? How did you get started with that?

James Robbins: 1:45

So I'm the small-town kid who decided I wanted to become a movie director. I wanted to make movies with my life. So I went to college to go to film school and then sort of ended up taking a right turn I didn't expect and I went into ministry and I became a preacher, which was totally shocked my family Like we didn't grow up in church or anything like that. But I started working in this church because I enjoyed it. I enjoyed helping people. It was there that you know. Eventually you got to get up front and say something and I was just this shy, introverted kid. But that's where it began and that career over those years. You know, eventually you have to start teaching other people how to be leaders and that ended up turning into helping business. People turn into leaders. So a little bit I'd like to say I sort of followed in John Maxwell's path and how he started.

Gary Pageau: 2:39

So when you say you had to teach people leadership from the pulpit right, you had to teach people leadership from the pulpit right. What were some of those leadership skills you saw that you had to pass on, that were transferable, if you will, from that environment to the business world?

James Robbins: 2:56

Yeah for sure, in those early days, I think for me a lot of it was the blind leading the blind. I didn't know if I knew what I was talking about, but it passed on what was passed on to me. But here's the thing about leadership, gary, is that all of us go through the same door, and that is that anyone here who's listening, who's a leader or you're a business owner, you probably worked somewhere. You had a job, you were good at it, people trusted you, you worked hard and eventually someone said, hey, now you're going to be responsible for some other people.

James Robbins: 3:32

And here's the thing about that transition when you go from an individual contributor to, all of a sudden, now you're leading people, everything changes, because now, in a sense, what got you there is not going to get you to the next level, because now, great point. Yeah, because now success is not linked to how well you can do a job. Success is now linked to can you move people? And if you can't like, if you can't get the best out of people, you are going to be limited in your success as a leader, as a business owner, you are going to be limited in your success as a leader, as a business owner, any of those things you know.

Gary Pageau: 4:11

That's a great point, because you know, I've worked in various size companies and you always saw that point where someone's really doing good at their job, they're excelling at a certain role maybe customer service or something and then there's always this desire that we're going to put that person in charge because they're good at what they do, so they're clearly going to be good at helping other people do that thing. And that's not always the case, right, because the thing that got them in that position isn't the skill that's going to keep them there.

James Robbins: 4:38

Exactly, and so you think about it. Somebody gets in a corporate environment, they get promoted, and now they've got this extra responsibility to move people, but where their security lies is in producing results through their talent, right, and so now there's this war inside, right, it's like, well, I just want time to do what I'm good at, but I've got to go and meet the needs of these employees, and that's when you get managers that you know have those days where they're I hope my staff can't find me so I can just get stuff done Right, right, and so that in a sense, that's the default. So so much of what I do in companies is getting leaders to get more intentional about the people side of leadership. Right, right, because there's the people side there. Then there's, of course, the process side.

Gary Pageau: 5:24

Well, I mean, and then they also may have a challenge delegating Right, Because if you've got someone who's really good at doing their skill and then you make them in charge of other people who are doing their skill, you know they have to be trust the people enough to let the people do the job they were formerly doing formerly doing 100%.

James Robbins: 5:43

And for those of you who are listening, who are actual business owners, you just always have to remember almost no one will do the job as good as you or as with the same passion, right? And so you just have to understand that, like, there's a little bit of letting go of control and even letting go of sometimes quality in certain areas, because you know what you weren't good at it overnight either. So it's a process, for sure of letting go of control and even letting go of sometimes quality in certain areas, because you know what you weren't good at it overnight either. So it's a process, for sure, of letting go trusting people. But, gary, here's the thing If you don't let go and give people stuff, then they'll do what you ask them to do, but they won't engage on a deeper level.

James Robbins: 6:23

Right, you can always hire a hand. Like you can always hire a hand, but you can't hire a heart. You got to win the heart, and that's one of the ways you do it by trusting them with work because I find that people who have a tendency to micromanagement you know, towards micromanagement may have trust issues.

James Robbins: 6:40

Actually, that's really the problem it totally can be trust issues. Uh, also, let's say, uh, you've got a small business owner who you know you're hustling, grinding and just trying to make payroll every month. Then that fear creates more control. Right, you want to exert more control, and so it's a natural thing to do, but it's not the right thing. But I totally understand the feeling.

Gary Pageau: 7:05

So let's talk about, you know, building a culture of performance within a business, because that's really what it's about right? If you don't have a business that has a culture where the owner or the leader can even step away and allow the people to do the work, then it's not healthy, it's not sustainable, if that's the right word. So what are your definitional points of like, what our performance culture is?

James Robbins: 7:35

Yeah, gary, and you're so right that if we don't have a culture that is like that current in the river, if that's not flowing and a healthy one, then you can never leave your business, you can never step out. So when you think about high performance cultures, they are first of all driven around some sort of vision point. So you know, we hear this all the time about leaders have to have vision. And of course it's true, but not just the big vision. But you know, breaking this down quarter by quarter hey, what are we doing this quarter? Where are we going? Why are we going there? What are we all about? That has to be front and center all the time because that's how we're going to tap into purpose. But that's just one piece of the culture.

James Robbins: 8:19

To distill this like in as simple as I can, it would be that in the context of that vision and where we're going, there are clear targets that have high expectations, that are challenging for people. So think about that. Our goal when we're trying to get the best out of people, create a high performance culture. You don't get that by just having a nice laissez-faire workplace. No, you have a workplace where people have targets and they're going after them and they're held accountable.

James Robbins: 8:52

So all this sounds very mean and scary in some ways if you look at it like that, but that has to be balanced with the other side of that, and that other side of it is caring about your staff having their back, creating a place for them that's psychologically safe, and the leaders that can do that, create this safety and create a place of high expectations and then supporting people to get there. That's where you really begin to unlock the magic in your staff right. That's when people begin bringing. They begin unlocking parts of themselves to throw into your company that they haven't given. Anyone else Does that make?

Gary Pageau: 9:31

sense? Yeah, absolutely so. The question is is who sets those goals, who sets those standards? Because if the leadership is out of touch, they may set either unrealistic goals or goals that aren't really suitable or appropriate. Let's put it that way and if you let the staff set the goals, they may not align those goals with the direction of the business. It just says, hey, this is the stuff I'm good at and this is what I'm going to do.

James Robbins: 10:01

Yeah. So here's how I view it, here's how I teach. It is that, at the end of the day, who's ever the top leader? You're responsible for decisions. Right, you should include people. If you want them to buy into the vision, they've got to be part of the process. But at the end of the day, they're not being paid to make the final decision, because the final decision, if it's a victory, of course it's the team's. If it doesn't go well, the person who made the decision has to own that, and that's going to be the business owner. You've got to be able to own that. So of course, you want to bring people in.

James Robbins: 10:37

Sometimes, things I used to do where I would have a pretty good idea where we need to go, and it might even be something that was a different direction, and I wouldn't tell my staff. I would first say, hey, let's talk a little bit about some ideas for the future, and I would get them all to weigh in. Of course I'm listening because maybe something that they would say would change my thinking. But if it didn't, and whoever was kind of the closest to what I was already thinking, I would say I love what Sarah said. I've been thinking something similar and this is what we're going to do. So in that way, you're bringing your staff in, getting their input, but at the end of the day, they want you to make a final choice.

Gary Pageau: 11:23

They want you to make a final choice. So a lot of my listenership right are people who either grew up in their business or they started their business, so they may not have a lot of professional leadership training per se right, or even the business they're in. I know several large companies they don't do. You know, in today's environment they're not doing a lot of great leadership training because, you know, cost cutting or pressures in the market or something like that. So where are some places people can get some good information about everyday resources? Not, you know, we're going to talk about your book specifically later on, but right now it's sort of non James Robbins resources.

James Robbins: 12:41

For sure. Well, I've read a lot of them, them. So here's the thing about leadership. The biggest thing about leadership is that you just have to lead with intention. You have to be intentional. The things that drive human motivation and engagement are not mysterious, right, right and why is it so hard then?

James Robbins: 13:01

it's so hard because we have the we're're juggling priorities right. So in a big corporate environment, someone's breathing down your neck to produce some results. So you feel you know your hair's on fire. Then you think, well, we just got to keep shoving that at your staff instead of taking the 30 seconds to say to Mary hey Mary, how was your son Joey's soccer tournament on the weekend? Like that's leadership, because you're creating those bonds and those connections. So when it comes down to it, leadership at the end of the day again, it's going to be some simple things and all of those things can be learned.

James Robbins: 13:35

But to my point was we're not going to discover something three years from now that we're like oh my goodness, this is a new discovery. It's a little bit like six pack abs, like if you are waiting for some new research to come out on how to get a six pack, I'm sorry to tell you it's not going to come out. We all know how to get six pack abs. I don't have them. Gary, if you punch me in the stomach, you will not hurt your hand right so.

James Robbins: 13:59

I do not have six pack abs, but it's not a knowledge problem, it's an execution problem. Leadership's the same, and the challenge for most people is it's actually twofold. A lot of leaders are like, well, can I really have an impact on staff motivation? And the answer is yes. And the second one is, well, yeah, but where do I focus? Because I just don't have time. So that's what we're fighting against. It's really it's the time pressure, and the great thing about leadership is leadership. Great leadership is actually the little things that are done consistently. And, Gary, I don't know if you played sports when you're growing up or if you had some great bosses that you can look back to, but I bet any of the positive examples they're going to be they did these small things just consistently. Yeah.

Gary Pageau: 14:48

Yeah, and that's, I think, part of it is. You know, the consistency thing I think is is the piece right, Because sometimes it's like you know, business runs into trouble. They're having a challenge and leadership says, oh, we have to be leaders now, so and they really haven't built up the equity right, they haven't deposited in the bank or whatever phrase you want to talk about, where they built the leadership over time. They can quickly solve the problem with some attention, and it takes time is the challenge.

James Robbins: 15:18

It does. And all this to come back to the question you asked that I didn't answer yet.

James Robbins: 15:25

But that has to do with good resources. So here's the thing it's not even so much whether the resource is good, it's just that you have a constant immersion in leadership. So when I was a young preacher, I was just devouring books on leadership. Now, if I were to go back in time and now look at them, I would probably look at them differently. But at the time I was just soaking everything up and you know, my wife at one time was like you bought another leadership book and the whole point was because I just need it consistently in my life. Right, and that's the most important thing I think for leaders is look, just some new leadership book comes out, great, buy it and just start working through it. You're reading two or three at the same time. There's so many resources.

James Robbins: 16:11

Today, of course, we've got AI, can tell you things, but I think also you can read great biographies. You know, I was just reading one about the guy who turned around Best Buy. I forget his name now, but he talked about joy at work. I love reading how they come in and think about that, and then you can go. How does this apply to my company? What does what doesn't right? It's just like eating fish eat the meat and spit the bones out, but a constant diet of education is important.

Gary Pageau: 16:43

Because I think that's where some people may even avoid management, because it's almost like you know, if I get too close to the employees, they might ask me for something, and you know what I mean. Have you ever encountered that kind of idea?

James Robbins: 16:58

for sure. So one of the things that when we're training leaders in a company, one of our foundational points is you just need to care about your staff, you just care about them. You don't have to be their friend, but you need to care about them. You need to have a genuine interest in them as people. And some people are like, ah, but that's not professional. I'm like, well, I'm not sure where you got that definition of professional. I get what you're saying, of course, of professional. I get what you're saying, of course, be professional, but you can be genuinely interested in them as people, because that creates that reciprocity. That's as basic as it gets, but it's so powerful.

Gary Pageau: 17:35

I still think, even though it's 2025, we start kind of grappling with sort of the still tail end of like 50s management styles of you know hierarchies and divisions and things like that. Was there anything to learn from that sort of you know corporate culture? Was it me, was it the rest? Because I hear some people all you know that was dead, you got to be totally horizontal and you know different kind of business structures. But but I tend to think maybe there was some value there 100%.

James Robbins: 18:06

So think of it from this perspective. Like, at the end of the day, what you most want with your employees is for them to give their best, and a big piece of them giving their best is feeling a sense of ownership. So the idea where people came out and said, hey, let's just flatten the organization Well, okay, you can do that. You gain some strengths from that, but you also lose some things from that. What you lose is when you have a great leader who's over five or six or seven people, that leader is able to have an incredible impact on those five, six or seven or so. Then just this flat organization, right. If you got a flat organization, who's? Who's caring about you? Who's coaching you? Right? Who's sitting down with you and saying, hey, I want to talk with you about what you did last week was amazing, because no one's eyes going to be on you. It's a little bit like a hospital. You got a charge nurse and they're over, you know, 40 nurses. From an organizational point, it works. But here's the thing If you have leaders that are trained, then it's okay to have a hierarchy.

James Robbins: 19:20

And, to the point about 1950s, you know, I think the problem then was you know, I'm a Gen Xer, so I grew up with bosses that you know A they weren't going to care about me. No one recognized me, no one coached me. You know, I'm going to talk to you when you've screwed up. But part of it was also that was the culture at the time, so you didn't know what you're missing. Culture at the time, so you didn't know what you're missing. The strength was. The strength in that was you as an employee showed up and we're like all right, I better, I better focus. You know I got to do my thing. I don't want to yell that?

James Robbins: 19:55

Yeah, exactly, and. But you know again, it comes back to my point about ownership. You want people to take ownership and to do that, we've got to give them something to own, but we've got to give them something to strive for. Because, if you think about, there's the psychological process that you know we call striving right. When somebody has a clear goal that's challenging and they're going after, well, the leader has to be part of that process. Right, helping set a goal for someone. A lot of times people will set a goal but it won't be that challenging and so the leader is going to bump it up going. No, I think you can do more. I think you can do this. We all need that push from time to time.

James Robbins: 20:36

I do not believe that everyone's just going to be so self-motivated. You know who's self-motivated the business owners. They. You know who's self-motivated. The business owners. Right, they're motivated because there's so much on the line. Sure, you know we don't make more sales. How am I going to make payroll? You take that pressure with you to bed. Yeah, you're engaged, but your employee who comes in?

James Robbins: 21:02

who's running the cash?

James Robbins: 21:03

register, they're going to leave at five and clock out mentally. But when you can get them more engaged and feel some ownership for the store, they might leave at five. But then they're thinking, they go over to another camera store and all of a sudden they're like, wow, they do this, that's a good idea, we should do this. And now they're also thinking right, like an owner.

Gary Pageau: 21:21

Because I think that is one of the challenges with, especially in today's workplace Right, you mentioned Gen Xers, right? So you got the Gen Z people now where there is sort of this disengagement in a lot to a degree in the workplace. Do you think leadership is the way to solve that problem, or do you think there's too much cynicism out there now?

James Robbins: 21:44

Leadership is how you solve the problem, and what I've learned is that the things that drive Gen Xers also drive millennials, also drive Gen Zers. It just has to be presented in a bit different way. But who doesn't want to be cared about at work? Baby boomers not so much, but for everyone on down like it makes a bigger difference. Who doesn't want to accomplish something great, who doesn't want to be part of something great? I think what Gen Z has done millennials a little bit as well, but I think what Gen Z has done is has raised the bar for the type of leadership needed. The problem is not with Gen Z, the problem is with leaders, and if you want to lead a very engaged group of Gen Z, you got to raise the level of your leadership. And I've seen organizations that have, you know, scores of Gen Z, millennials and Gen Xers all working together and everyone was called back to work. They all came back to work. They were motivated and engaged. Their boss was a boomer, so they had every generation there.

Gary Pageau: 22:52

It's not about the generation, it's about how they're led well, the thing about gen z, I will say and I'm not necessarily negative on that demographic is they can smell inauthenticity a mile away. I mean more you know, in the sense that you know if the leadership is not carrying through or living up to what they're professing they're doing. They're going to know, probably before anyone else.

James Robbins: 23:22

Yeah, exactly Gary. And I think another strength of Gen Z is they're not afraid of you. And what I mean this is that, you know, in the old days it's like your boss, you know, yelled at you. You were just, you know, kind of cowered in a corner and like, okay, I'll do it differently next time, even though I did it right. A Gen Zer is going to listen to you. Let's say, you yell at them. They're just going to stand there and look at you, at them. They're just going to stand there and look at you and then, when you're done, they're going to say, well, you know what? You told me this, I did this, I stand by my decision. And then it's going to take you to to up your leadership, whether that's you realizing you were wrong, or how do you help direct their thinking? Because that's just what that generation is. I think it's a great strength.

Gary Pageau: 24:08

That's a great way to put it, because you know again from people of a different generation. Let's say you know there is sort of a generational interpretation that gets there. You know you always read some very positive things about you know Gen Z in terms of you know empathy, and they do work hard if they do believe in what they're doing right. So the challenge from leadership is to inspire them to do that, whereas I think you know older generations well. Your inspiration is you get paid every two weeks. That should be your inspiration.

James Robbins: 24:38

Yeah, like when I was graduating from Gary high school, like back then it was like you must go to college or you have failed. That was the first thing, right. Or go work in the oil patch, get a job with the postal service. And now you've got these Gen Z's coming to work and in the back of their mind they're like well, I got a friend making $40,000 a month, you know, making content, I can always go do that, but I figure I'll try work this job Like they are in a world that we didn't get to experience Right, and they've got more options than ever. And so you know.

James Robbins: 25:12

A great way actually to look at leading Gen Z. It's almost like you are running a not-for-profit and they are volunteers, and I think that's actually what helped me with leadership was working so many years in the ministry is that you have a paid staff but then you have this bulk of volunteers. You can't kick them out, you can't fire them. You've got to find a way to work with them. That's a little bit what Gen Z is like and it takes a lot more learning. Things like the relational influence, influence about purpose, not just show up and do your job.

Gary Pageau: 25:46

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So if someone were to look at leadership now, obviously you're a leadership coach and a speaker, so you think it's pretty important. Where does it rank on other skills in the plateau? Do you think business leaders should be spending all this time leading and motivating, or what do you think the percentage is there in terms of time and attention? Obviously, for someone like you, you're gonna say it's pretty high, but you know there are other things that need to get done sometimes.

James Robbins: 26:16

Yeah, it's really going to depend, gary, on the industry and what's going on. You got some leaders who are, you know, in the trenches with their team, and they're having to get stuff done. You got some a business owner in a larger company Okay, that's going to look differently. It's all just going to come back, though, is am I getting the best out of my people? Right? So, as a leader, there's a certain piece of the processes and systems you have to have in place, right, and you got to have you know what's our OKRs for the next quarter and how are we going to measure? What are our KPIs? And, of course, there's all of that holding people accountable. But, on the other side, yeah, how do I extract potential? Because, think of it in this way, gary, like you and I can come to work, and on our worst day versus our best day, at least for me, that's a pretty big gulf, right. The gulf between me at my best and me at my half slacking it, that's a lot. Now, multiply that by the amount of employees you have, right?

James Robbins: 27:18

I was speaking to a big mining company in Canada. They had 3,000 employees, and I'm just with all the leaders, and I told them. I said what if I could give you 300 more employees that you didn't have to pay for and were already trained? Would you want them? Of course the answer is yes and I said well then all we have to do is get 3,000 people 10% more engaged, and there's your 300 employees.

James Robbins: 27:45

It's like when the government wants to save energy, they tell everyone just drop your thermostat in your house by one degree. If everyone just does it by one, we save millions of dollars. The same thing there how can I get my people just a little bit more engaged? So again, without your people, unless you've got AI employees to take their place, without your people, you don't have a business. So back to the question where does that rank? I'm going to put it at the very top, because you might have a great product, but if your culture is not strong and people keep quitting and you're just having to replace new employees, and now you've got a new person and you've got to retrain them, and then they quit. Now you've got a new person, you've got to retrain them, and then they quit.

Gary Pageau: 28:30

You can't serve the customer, right? Yeah, I always think that when you have people leaving a business frequently, they have trouble retaining people, right, it's like, well, they don't pay enough, or whatever. No, it's a leadership problem, because most people leave because of bad leadership.

James Robbins: 28:48

You are 100% right, 100 right. There's the. Of course, there's odd situations where someone I lost an employee, um because a crypto company came in and offered her three times more than when I was paying her like 300 more. jamesrobbins.

James Robbins: 29:03

Yeah but even then she was a crypto so well even then he was like I don't know if I should take it, and I was like of course you have to take it, it's a great opportunity for you. But you know, even then I mean I was 300%. Imagine if someone wants to triple your salary but you're still thinking of maybe I shouldn't leave the company that I'm in. Well, that's what you want to build, right? Awesome?

Gary Pageau: 29:28

Well, speaking of building, where can people go for more information Because you do have a new book coming out, so tell us a little bit about that and where people can find more information on that.

James Robbins: 29:37

I have a new book coming out yes, thanks for bringing that up and it's more of personal leadership than it is about leading your teams. Like my other book, the name is the Call to Climb. It's actually a fable and it's all about when your life gets a little bit out of alignment. It's time to have a conversation with your inner life and get things right. So that book comes out in August. I'm excited about that, but, of course, anyone here who would love to connect I'm at jamesrobbinscom or find me on LinkedIn James Robbins, two Bs, and just let me know that you heard me through Gary.

Gary Pageau: 30:16

All right, listen, james. It's been great talking to you. I've learned a lot, and that's always a good sign of a good podcast when I've learned a couple of things, because I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

James Robbins: 30:27

Gary, thanks for having me on the show.

Erin Manning: 30:29

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