Episode 23: Hamza Khan – What Makes a Leader?

Today’s leaders are being tested.

From emerging technology and shifting employee values to uncertainty introduced by the pandemic, the workplace is changing. And leaders are changing with it.

So, what does it mean to be a leader today? And how do we prepare for tomorrow?

On Episode 23 of REAL TIME, global speaker and author Hamza Khan shares his unique perspective on the future of work. Learn how leaders can take care of their teams, businesses, and themselves – and how REALTORS® can be seen as leaders in their field.

Transcript

Erin Davis: Welcome to REAL TIME, the podcast for and about Canadian REALTORS® brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association, one of this country's largest single industry associations. I'm your host, Erin Davis.

Today it's my pleasure to share with you an amazing chat with Hamza Khan, about what makes a leader. Hamza, as you'll soon hear, knows where of he speaks. He's a bestselling author, a teacher, an avid learner, and of course, a sought-after public speaker. Mr. Khan has two TEDx talks that I know you're going to want to look for, especially after hearing our discussion. I can't stop thinking about some of the things we talk about today. Active inertia, you stress, and how your social media are all about, give, give, give, and then ask.

Hamza Khan joins REAL TIME to talk about what it means to be a great leader as the workplace and workforce continue to evolve. What do employees look for in leadership? How can those in charge pivot to thrive in the future of work? What does that even look like? How can employees thrive to be seen as a leader in real estate? We've got a lot to cover. Buckle in and get set to take some mental notes from episode 23 of REAL TIME.

Thank you so much for joining us here, Hamza. We are so excited to be listening to you and chatting with you. You're a celebrated thought leader who has spoken to hundreds of audiences globally about the future of work, and of course, you've written books on business resilience, even delivered a TEDx talk about the differences between management and leadership. Whew. All right. How did you get here? Tell us a bit about your journey.

Hamza Khan: Wow, wow, wow. First of all, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm really, really excited. A little bit about my journey, I began my career working in the education space, specifically within student affairs, both at the University of Toronto and at Ryerson University. Those experiences then set me down the path of entrepreneurship. I created a boutique digital marketing agency that worked primarily in the education space as well. I got to work with institutions outside of those two that I just named. Then that put the wind in my sales to start my current company, which is a soft skills training company known as SkillsCamp.

Throughout that journey I've been very fortunate to do a lot of public speaking, to write two books, and to do considerable research on the future of work where I'm now studying at Ryerson University. I've come full circle in a sense. I'm studying the future of work, specifically the relationship between organizational leadership and occupational burnout, really interesting stuff.

Erin: It is, it is, and you've never stopped learning, which it's a great message right off the top too.

Hamza: Yes. Thank you, Erin. I would describe myself as a lifelong learner.

Erin: How about the time you were an intern at Sony? That is a fascinating little beginning as it were, and something that you saw that a lot of people didn't.

Hamza: Yes, that was a really, really formative experience in my career. One of first jobs that I had while I was at university, studying at the University of Toronto, Scarborough in my fourth year, I got an internship at Sony Music that was supposed to only span three months. Now mind you, this was in 2007 at a very interesting time in our history. This was right before the 2008 financial crisis, and then at the same time, the music industry was going through considerable disruption.

I watched from the inside out as an intern, as a fly on the wall, as somebody who had access to all of the different conversations, as many as I could at the time, just hopping into meeting and talking to this person and that person, I got to watch from the inside as active inertia, the tendency to repeat tried and tested behaviors, even in response to dramatic environmental shifts. I watched how active inertia collapsed Sony Music entertainment.

This is a company that had to engage in layoff after layoff during the time that I was there, and what should have been a three-month internship ended up spanning for more than a year, Erin. Actually, my boss pulled me a set and said, "Hamza, I know you're only here for three months, but you might want to stick around. This is going to be like a compressed MBA for you."

It truly was because I got to see again how Sony music, but not just only Sony Music, the entire industry responded to these external forces of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, and it was a compressed MBA, an unforgettable rehearsal of the four stages of an organization's evolution. Every organization is introduced, it grows, it matures, but then it has to decide, is it going to renew or decline? Unfortunately, and I hate to say it, Sony didn't renew itself in time. They eventually did, but it was quite a turbulent journey. I consider myself very fortunate to have seen that from the inside and then taken those lessons with me throughout my career.

I think often about this quote from Jack Welch, the ex-CEO and chairman of General Electric, which interesting fact about them, they're the only company from the 1917 Fortune list, which remains on the Fortune list today, the Fortune 500 list specifically. I think it's because they've embodied the ethos that Jack put forward, which is, change before you have to. That's rooted in another one of his quotes that I think about often. He said that if the rate of change on the outside of the organization exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is nearer.

Erin: As Jack Welch himself would say, prepare for when your leadership is challenged, and that really brings home the message that we're talking about today. You've been quoted as saying that you sink to the level of training, preparation, and character with belief that another crisis will happen and more things will test you throughout your career. Can you explain what that means, sinking to the level of training, Hamza?

Hamza: That's really interesting. I had a very vivid experience at the start of the pandemic. Like many people, I was afraid, I was spending time with my family, not sure how all of this was going to play out. My father, God bless him, a very hard worker, a very resilient man, but he was terrified at the start of the pandemic. Anxiety got the best of him and one night he suffered a panic attack, and thank God I was at home. I was able to see it and get him the necessary help. In that split second where I saw him fall on the ground and have a panic attack, which then led to a seizure, my mind went to a really dark place. It was an out of body experience. In the flash of a second I rehearsed my entire life experience with my father, every memory, good, bad that I've had with him just in the blink of an eye.

When I reflected on that experience afterwards, because suddenly in that moment, I remembered how to deal with somebody who was going through this, I remembered how to administer CPR, all of this training that I picked up throughout my life within the Canadian Armed Forces and courses that I've taken with the Red Cross just came back. I booted up a dormant program, if you will.

When I reflected on that experience, Erin, it reminded me of something that I talk about quite often, especially when I'm talking about burnout and stress. There's something known as the amygdala hijack that happens to people when they're overwhelmed by sudden and unexpected stress. A part of their brain known as the amygdala, a primitive part, overrides their prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that you and I are using right now. It's used for high cognitive functions. It's used for complex planning, creativity, so on and so forth.

When we are stressed in a sudden and unexpected way, like I was, when my father suffered his panics attack, the amygdala took over, it overrode, and in effect hijacked the prefrontal cortex and sent blood away from my brain, away from my prefrontal cortex towards my extremities. It got me prepared for fight, flight, or freeze. I learned in that moment something that I had been theorizing up until that point, which is when faced with a crisis like COVID or anything for that matter, a new competitor entering into the space, a conflict at work, whatever the case may be, a leader doesn't actually rise to the occasion. That's an optical illusion caused by other leaders falling back, and you sink to the level of your training and preparation, and your preparedness for that leadership moment depends on what happens in the moment, it depends on the days, weeks and years of planning and preparation that go into that.

Erin: Hamza Khan polishes his crystal ball and focuses on soft skills and what we can expect the next decade to bring. One thing that's hard to predict is style, but you can stay on top of what's new and now in everything from housing trends to design tutorials at REALTOR.ca/Living Room. Check it out for inspiring and entertaining articles always at REALTOR.ca. Now, back to Hamza Khan.

Hamza, your keynotes are gro