Fran Racioppi

Leaders are made, not born. Building these qualities requires education and assessment of leaders around you, defining your values, and investing in yourself, those around you, and the organization. It takes hard work and time to build great organizations.
 
Transcript: "So the question is, can you explain how leaders are made? What does it take to build those qualities? Okay, first off, I love this question because it states the answer in the question. Leaders are made, right? They're not born, they don't just show up, you don't wake up one day and say, oh, I'm a good leader, right? You have to work, we have to work, as leaders every single day to improve. So how do we do that? Education, right? So, so critical. We have to learn from others, both good and bad. We always say that we learn a lot from good leaders. I would argue that we often learn a lot from bad leaders that we serve in and around. So start with education, assessing those around you. What organizations have you been in where people have executed well? There's been good results. And where has it gone wrong? Where have you looked at someone and been like, that doesn't seem right? Why did they act like that? Second, define your values. Leaders are effective when they have a defined set of values that people can align to. Why do we lose faith and trust in leaders? Because leadership is about trust. Leadership is about, do we trust those above and around us and leaders exist below us to make the right decisions when the time counts? Trust comes from knowing each other, experience, but those critical factors that develop trust help create great organizations. So it takes time, it takes investment, it takes investment in ourselves, those around us, the entire organization. We could answer this question in hours and hours. I do it every week on my podcast, but succinctly, they're made, put in the hard work. You started by asking this question, now go out and seek answers. More to follow on this. Thanks a lot."

I think the future of podcasting is going towards video, and we at the Jedburgh podcast have evolved our content to include professional video with four cameras. We're capturing people's attention by being ahead of the curve, but it's hard to stay there, so we'll continue to keep an eye on how this medium evolves.
 
Transcript: "This is a great question. What do you think the future of podcasting looks like and how do you plan to evolve with the media? I think podcasting is going to video. I think that it's a tremendously competitive space. It's so easy to start a podcast and it's everything from multimillion dollar productions like you see with Joe Rogan and some of the most famous who've been around for a long time all the way to anybody can grab an iPhone record some audio notes upload them into a podcasting distribution platform with an RSS feed and boom there you go you have a podcast and can be you sitting in the closet talking to yourself about whatever it is you want. So it's super competitive but video is the name of the game. Videos where it's going you've seen that in Instagram you've seen that in TikTok that's who sparked it. We're seeing that on YouTube for the Jedberg podcast we didn't put a lot of focus on YouTube for the first year of the podcast over the last year we've evolved tremendously in the use of our video we've put a lot of effort on it we started with like one GoPro we went to two GoPros then we went to an iPhone and two GoPros then we went to professional video with a fourth camera. It's added a huge component to what we're doing because people are visual by nature and audio captures them but there's so many things that you're doing you're talking about that people want to see. We see tremendous engagement on YouTube. I'd like to think we're a little bit ahead of the curve but it's hard to stay there. I think video is the future of podcasting. It'll still live on the platforms but I got to keep it in mind. Great question."

My military experience has been fundamental in shaping my leadership style. It taught me to lead from the front and to prioritize accountability, responsibility, and ownership. This allows for trust to be built up within an organization which leads to better results.
 
Transcript: "Great question and thanks for asking it. How has your military experience shaped your leadership style? I think for me, it's a foundational element of my leadership style. The military never sits you down and says, today we're gonna teach you how to be a follower. It doesn't happen. From day one of entering the military, I think even before that, when you go down to the recruiting station, they start talking about leadership. They start talking about what you're gonna learn in the experiences that you're gonna get put in as a leader. So whether you're the entry level, junior enlisted private, you're a young lieutenant in the officer corps, or you're a sergeant major or a general, it's all about leadership from day one. And what the military does is they're constantly putting you in different situations in different parts of the world to solve complex challenges as leaders. Because every person in an organization is a leader and that is so important to understand. Anyone who builds an organization and doesn't treat their people like that is doing a disservice to the organization and their people. Everyone is a leader first and foremost. So that's the number one thing that the military teaches you about leadership. Lead from the front, always. The other thing is accountability, responsibility, and ownership. We have to understand, number one, our responsibility. What do we do here? What do we bring to the table? What's our job? What's our role? What's our contributing factor? That allows us to then take accountability, meaning that we understand the results of our action, good, bad, and different, because our action is based on our responsibility, what we're there and defined to do. When we know what we have to do and we assume our accountability for our actions, good, bad, or indifferent, then we have what's called ownership. And ownership is what allows us to look around the table, build trust in each other, and build great organizations. That's what I learned."

To motivate and inspire my team, I first focus on finding what motivates them. Then, I make sure that they are in the right role for their skills and that they align with our organization's mission and goals. I also make sure they have the resources they need to be successful.
 
Transcript: "So the question is, how have you personally been able to motivate and inspire your team? Well, this is the definition of leadership. How do we motivate and inspire others to do things that they otherwise may or may not be interested or willing to do? That's what our job is. So how do you do it? Number one, you've got to find what motivates them. What I have found time and time again is if we don't figure out what motivates people, what drives them, what gets them excited and put them in the right role, so we call it the right place, right person, right time. That's critical. We need people who want to do what they're doing with the right set of skills at the right time for our organization to maximize effectiveness. The other piece, we have to have mission alignment. We have to have people who want to be there to achieve the overall vision and goals of our organization. We have to clearly lay that out. If we don't, what are we driving them towards? They don't know. We don't know. We don't know what to motivate them towards and why. So we've got to find first mission alignment, define it, understand where we're going and why, get people who generally agree to that, and then put them in roles with the right skills at the right time where they're going to be successful and excited about what they're doing every day. Then give them the resources to do so. That's how I personally motivate and inspire my teams. Thanks for the question."

In order to stay ahead of the curve in podcasting, it is important to focus on video, content quality, distribution, marketing, and having an engaged audience. Don't worry about size, but rather focus on engagement, and keep pushing for growth.
 
Transcript: "The question is how have you been able to stay ahead of the curve in podcasting? Well, first of all, I don't even know if I'm ahead of the curve because I have no idea where the curve is when we talk about podcasting. There's so much discussion about that right now. What's the future? Are we past its prime? Is the market too saturated? Here's what I know. Video matters. Okay, people will argue this all day long, but video just got launched on Spotify. We've put a lot of effort into our YouTube channel. We record almost exclusively everything on video and we have all of our audio too on 30 plus platforms, but video matters because people want to see the conversations that you're having. Number two, content. The quality of your content matters more than anything else, even video. Then you got to have distribution. You got to have a little bit of marketing. You got to have a good plan to highlight the best parts of your conversations and have a loyal and engaged audience. Don't worry about size of the audience. Worry about engagement. Stick with it. Keep pushing. It will grow. That's my plan."

Airborne School is the worst course I've ever taken because the training is crammed into a three-week period with only five days of actual instruction. The repetition required to ensure safety slows down the learning process, leading to a lot of waiting and standing around.
 
Transcript: "The question is what's the worst course you've ever been to and why? Hands down 100% airborne school. Don't get me wrong, airborne operations are a critical part of our national defense strategy and enjoyed and loved by very many operators out there. However, the school itself we're talking about probably four to five days of training tops and that includes the jumps that you have to do packed into three weeks. Yep, four or five days of training over three weeks. Why? Because you have to wait in line, there's like 300 people in the class, everything requires repetition over and over again which is critical important to safety. But with that many people nothing moves quickly. It's a lot of waiting, it's a lot of standing around, and it's not a whole lot of jumping and the concepts are super simple. But very valuable course important to our defense strategy."