Episode summary
Randall Stutman – Giving Feedback, Followership, and Admired Leadership (EP.497)
Investment Management Operations
· · 1 hr · Hosts: Ted Seides · Guests: Randall Stutman
Summary
Randall Stutman argues that leadership improvement starts with specific behaviors, not vague traits. His coaching method studies admired leaders who produce results and followership, then extracts repeatable practices from interviews, stories, emails, and other artifacts. He says the goal is not to change dozens of things, but to change a handful of behaviors that materially alter how leaders give feedback, build teams, and create commitment.
A central theme is that feedback is usually too high in power, which creates resistance. Randall recommends lowering status by reframing feedback as advice, recommendation, suggestion, or even observation. He also says leaders should use open-ended and third-party questions so people generate their own feedback internally. In his view, admired leaders reduce defensiveness by embedding feedback in “how” questions and using “echo questions” that let the message resonate before the next conversation.
He also emphasizes counterintuitive ways to build followership and team performance. High standards do not have to come with warmth, but they do require deep understanding of the other person. Randall says strong leaders invest in knowing people’s context, preferences, and families, and he urges investment leaders to separate decision process from decision outcome and reward good process even when the result is bad.
Key takeaways
- Randall says admired leaders are defined by results plus followership, not results alone, and he studies them by triangulating stories, artifacts, and reports from others.
- He argues leaders should get out of the “feedback business” and into the recommendation-and-suggestion business because lower-power language creates less resistance.
- Randall says the strongest feedback often comes from “how” questions, because they embed the critique inside the question and reduce argument.
- He believes high-performing leaders can create relational closeness without warmth by deeply understanding people’s lives, judgments, and motivations.
- For chief investment officers, Randall says the key discipline is separating decision process from decision outcome and rewarding rigor even when luck drives the result.
Notable quotes
“The really special people are able to get those results and then create followership where people would do anything for them”
“I tell leaders all the time Ted is they need to get out of the feedback business and get in the recommendation and suggestion business”
“The truth is people can take it that way anyway. They don't have to yield to what you say because you come from power”
“Internalized feedback is feedback that's going to get acted on, remembered, has real duration to it, and has a longer term impact”
“Good leaders always celebrate and reward process even when outcomes are not great”
How the episode opens
Why do we call something feedback to begin with? The reason we do it comes from a place of power, comes from expertise, comes from experience, comes from knowledge, comes from legitimate status. In other words, I have the position, the right, the role to give you information that will improve your performance and or change your behavior.
When I give you feedback, I call it feedback. The expectation that both of us have, especially that I have as a leader, is you're supposed to take it seriously and you're supposed to yield to it. In other words, at least pretend you're going to engage this.
Why? Because of power. That power has a consequence.
It creates resistance. People naturally become a little bit reluctant, if not totally defensive, to things that come at them from power. So, if I say to you, listen, you've been late to meetings a lot.
Team really needs you to be here on time because they want to hear what you have to say. I can say, I have some feedback for you. As soon as I say, I have some feedback for you.
You may not dig in, but you're going to get a little bit defensive. That's the nature of power. All power produces that.
Well, what happens if I take the same message, but I lower its power. The next piece below feedback is called advice. I could say the same thing.
I could say, can I offer you some advice? Person says, "Well, what's your advice? And say, "Well, you need to get to the team meetings on time.
People want to hear your opinion. My advice is, you're missing a big opportunity. Same message.
The only difference is I lowered my power.
I'm Ted Sides and this is Capital Allocators.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- executive coaching
- leadership feedback
- followership development
- behavioral best practices
- ai coaching tool
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Admired Leadership
- ALEX
- OWL
Watch the episode
Watch “Randall Stutman – Giving Feedback, Followership, and Admired Leadership (EP.497)” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from Investment Management Operations
-
Charlie Rose: Real Estate Credit Over Yield at Invesco's $85B Platform -
Daylian Cain on the Theory of the Pie -
Pat Dorsey on Assessing Management and Avoiding Blow-Ups -
Michelle Knudsen, NYU – How Decision Rights Are Split Between Committee and Team -
Luis Laboy: Why Every Market Is Now an Emerging Market | Hewlett Foundation -
Frank Danieli – Roadmap for Private Credit from Australia
Investment Management Operations, this episode and its artwork belong to Ted Seides – Allocator and Asset Management Expert. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
