Episode 145 - Joshua P. Trout - Leaders On Leadership

A leader’s job is to serve their people. Being a servant leader brings out the best in people. Dr. Tracey Jones welcomes Joshua P. Trout, the Chief Executive Officer at Encompass Health. Joshua talks with Dr. Tracey about how leaders need to understand their followers on a personal level. When you know your followers’ goals and desires, retention increases, and turnovers decrease. Do you want to learn more about how servant leadership elevates the organization? You wouldn’t want to miss this episode. Tune in! 

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Joshua P. Trout - Leaders On Leadership

I am so excited to bring to you, Joshua P. Trout. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Greenville in South Carolina. Prior to his role, Joshua was the Chief Executive Officer of a Critical Illness Recovery Hospital in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, which is in our neck of the woods. He has years of experience in hospital operations and business development.

Joshua is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and has a seat on the Board of Directors for the American Heart Association of the Upstate and Down Syndrome Association of the Upstate. He was an honoree of the 2020 Forty Under 40 Award through Central Penn Business Journal and was named December 2021 recipient of South Carolina's iHeartRadio CEOs You Should Know. Joshua, thank you so much for being a guest.

Tracey, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to join you. I love the fact that we have that Central Pennsylvania connection.

For our readers out there, Josh and I first connected on LinkedIn. You know how I love LinkedIn. I saw he was right in my backyard. I'm like, “Excellent.” He took an opportunity, which we're happy for, in Greenville. He's in South Cackalacky, as I would say.

I love the weather in the South. I was in Central Pennsylvania. I miss it there, but I'll take the warmer weather.

I'm here to hear your experience on leadership and you have done quite a few things. We talked about your experiences and I know you're going to have a wealth of information for our readers. Let's dive into the price of leadership. My father gave this speech. This is the top speech he gave throughout his career.

He talks about the things that you're going to experience as a leader if you are truly going to be paying the price of leadership. The first one was loneliness. We have all heard that it's lonely at the top. Can you unpack for us what does loneliness means for you as a leader, maybe a time when you went through it? How do you combat it?

Servant Leader: Ask God to lead through you. 

Before we get in, I want to thank you for what you do. This is amazing and I love the fact that you're carrying on the legacy of your father and what he has done in his past. I can't thank you for doing that. This is something that is needed in the world of leadership. Thanks for this opportunity. Loneliness is something that I have talked about for years. As I grew in my leadership roles, I started to notice that there was a sense of loneliness.

I noticed that you put so much of your time and energy into leading throughout the day, being that counselor and support system for your employees. You put so much of yourself into them that I have noticed the loneliest portion of my day is the drive from the hospital to home. When you have that moment of being alone and you're exhausted from what you've done throughout the day, you have that moment to sit back and think about yourself, your needs and stressors, that has been my loneliest portion of the day.

You have that time to sit back and think about, “What about me? What about those struggles that I'm going through?” That's something that I have been working on, thinking through that process on how do I get to share my needs with even my people. We have taken the approach of leadership that we must be strong at all times. We are the ones to support all of those and chew what our problems are and swallow them.

What I have started to do with my leadership team is I have some amazing leaders on my team that I am extremely blessed to have. I have been able to build that trust factor with them. I talked to them about my struggles and things that I'm going through, not only at the workplace but at home sometimes. You want to be careful with that but sometimes it's good to get real and know each other on a personal level.

That has seemed to help me because not only do they listen to me and give me some great advice but we learn from one another. You also learn through these conversations that even though I'm the leader of them, they are the leaders of others in our hospital and have that struggle as well. For loneliness, anybody that says they have never had the experience of loneliness as a leader, I find that very surprising. If you haven't, kudos to you. The statement of being lonely at the top is spot on.

I love the fact that you brought in my whole thing about followers as leaders, coleaders and that inner sanctum. I think about Jesus. He had Peter, James and his inner circle. We've got a lot of other people and it can be in your workforce. Sometimes we're so dichotomous. In the military and fraternization, we have to have the rules.

You can only have that coleader and symbiosis where you can share the most personal things with people on your team that are professionally and emotionally mature enough to handle it. Hopefully, the goal as a leader is you're drawing that around you because at a moment's notice, we can get called away and may not be in that role anymore.

Bringing up the biblical standpoint of things, I have been very fortunate to find a church down here. I have worked with some men's groups that had such a huge impact on my life in such a short period of time. One of the things that I was able to study was a man in his work and also leadership values. Something that was a new outlook on things when I was in these programs was that as a leader, God put us on this Earth to lead. We look for the good. When we lead, we want to have all the accolades and people to have great outcomes, love you and look up to you. While that's all true and exciting, God says that if you're being a true leader, you should be exhausted than them. If you're not exhausted, you're not being a leader.

That is a perfect segue to the next price of leadership, which is weariness. I'm all for letting people work smarter and not harder but there is going to be that element of weariness. How do you deal with that? Your team looks to you for that strength. How do you combat leadership weariness?

To be honest with you, how I am successful with that is that my faith in God. I start my day by asking God to lead through me. I want to provide my team with a sense of leadership that is with love, care and support. I know through these programs that I'm going to have those moments of weariness. I am going to be tired when I give 110% of myself to my staff.

Servant Leader: Your job as a leader is to serve others. 

Knowing that and praying through that when I have those moments where I feel like I'm being burned out, I put myself in my office, time out, have that moment of reflection and meditation and pray for additional strength, that works for me. When I know that I'm doing the work that God has put me on this Earth to do, those weary moments make it a lot easier to fight through.

The Sabbath or Shabbat, if you're watching The Chosen, is a very real thing that has been modeled for us. There are times where we have to go off. Speaking of The Chosen, Jesus would go off to be at peace and quiet. For weariness, you can be physically okay but spiritually weary. I have often found too if I'm putting my resources towards the wrong thing, it's almost like the Holy Spirit is telling me, “Tracey, this is pulling from you. Go someplace else.” Sometimes weariness can be a thing like watch it or stop spending your resources on that because you're not going to get the return that you need out of this.

In a lot of leaders, when they have those amendments of weariness, they withdraw. I'm a people person. I love to talk and work with people. When I feel myself going into my shell and start to quiet myself, I know that I'm reaching that line of my weariness. That's when I remove myself and focus on rest.

A lot of people make assumptions about rest as being something that you have to take a vacation. Resting is maybe taking 10 to 15 minutes in your office to meditate, pray and recollect. There are times that I will pull up the Scriptures or even listen to a Christian song to get gathered again mentally. That's my form of rest. The strength that I get out of that would go right back out even after fifteen minutes. It's extremely helpful.

Your weariness indicator may be different than somebody else. Most leaders at this stage can run at a pretty frenetic pace. Like you, when my little hermit hat starts coming out, I want to go back in my shell because it's not how we're coded to be. It's not necessarily taking a vacation. People are like, “I don't have the time or money to take a vacation.” In the military, we used to take a ten-minute power nap. That was all we needed to get right back in there. There are certain times during the day where I'm like, “I must close my eyes. I feel physical exhaustion.” I'll take a little nap and then get back up. I love that you brought that up.

It's a great tool to use on a day-to-day and not just in the workplace. That's in their everyday lives. The one thing I've learned too is that we have looked at work as something that you're doing at work but work consists of every portion of your life. You're working in your home place, your family and children. No matter where you're at, you can have weariness. Having a moment to reflect and find refuge in what God is doing in your life is going to make you refresh to go back out there and continue right where you left off.

The next thing my father talked about was abandonment. Abandonment tends to have a negative connotation like fear of abandonment. I'm in pet rescue, so abandonment is a definite no-no. My father's sense of abandonment was almost a hyper-focus that, “We need to abandon what we like and want to think about in favor of what we ought and need to think about.” It's this clarifying, “Stop wasting time doing things that you shouldn't be doing.” You've got so many plates you're juggling and I get this a lot with work-life balance. How do you stay focused on what needs to stay focused on?

It's not what I want. We have some leaders in the past and we're starting to see that transition into servant leadership. It's not just a fancy word to say anymore. It's happening. A lot of leaders are saying, “This works.” What does that mean? That means your job is to serve others. My job in this hospital is to serve my people. Bringing in everybody and knowing what our vision and mission is for the company and hospital but also understanding my leaders and employees what their vision and mission are from a personal level.

That helps me to abandon my wants and desires and keep my focus on them. What's the overall goal? What is the why behind my employees? When they walk through these doors, I want to be able to provide them with a safe and loving culture that they can't wait to get up and come through these doors. That's my piece. I also want to know more about what their why is. Why do you come in here? What do you want to achieve when you walk into work?

Taking those pieces takes extra time. A lot of leaders have a lot on their plate. If you're going to be a successful leader, you've got to put your stressful schedule to the side at times, sit down with your people, get to know them, and understand who they are, what makes them tick or why did they choose to come work for me. I collectively meet with our teams, write notes and talk about, “Susan and Brian like this. Here's what they want to do.”

When you put that in and talk about those things, not just once a year or in your leadership once a month but in daily conversation, we can learn from our people. Sometimes we can get out of our own way and learn from our people. Part of that is putting your desires aside. That's how I have handled that piece.

Here's a quick story. I remember there was a life-changing moment for me in my career. I hate the fact that I can't remember her name but she was a manager that came in when I was working as an account executive for a hospice agency. She was only there for about two months. When she came in, she sat with me. After about 30 days of working with me, she said, “Here's where your strengths and weaknesses are. You're going to be an amazing leader.”

I was all excited. I'm like, “I can't wait. That's what I want to do. I want to be a leader.” She goes, “You're never going to do it.” I said, “I'm confused.” She says, “You're too black and white.” I remember sitting there and I was mad. She was talking to me and I wasn't listening to it all. I'm like, “How dare you?” As I sat there and humbled myself, I said, “She's right. I am too black and white.” I made changes immediately. She changed who I am. I believe that I am where I am because of her and those fighting words, I call them. I humbled myself and learned from it. When you're talking about abandonment, you have to remember that it's not about you. It's about your people.

Servant Leader: Learning who your employees are and their vision helps with retention and lowers turnover. 

I never heard it said like that. Usually, it's abandoning bad habits, negative and self-deprecating thoughts and putting down the baggage but you abandoned your ego. You were open. I love the fact that she said something to you. The other part I love even more is you were open to receive it. That's the thing. Maybe people had said that to you before but you weren't in a position where you could hear it. That's the other thing with abandoning. Dad would say that you need to surround yourself with people that will tell it to you straight and abandon, “Joshua, you're the greatest thing.” We all are works in progress.

You have to humble yourself. Who doesn't like praise? Who doesn't like being told, “You're the best?” “Thank you.” That's not what I strive off of. I strive off of, “Tell me where I could do better and what my failures are.” I do believe that the best of you comes out through your failures. That's what I strive for. That's abandoning your way of wanting to hear all the great things. Are people looking up to you as the man or the big guy? That's not what I want. I want to be at the same level as you. I want you to respect me for my role but other than that, you and I are the same. We're here to do the same thing.

Somebody told me that in a show. They said, “Pain is a portal.” The best of you comes out through your failures. There's something about it. We can't read our label from the inside out. It takes somebody and how awesome that she did say that to you. I had a couple of people that Glock me up once was when I was a cadet as a young officer and a couple of times throughout my career where they said something like, “I see what you're trying to do. You have great potential but.” I was like, “Who are you? How dare you?” It made an incredible change in my life and I'm so thankful for it. It hurt but if I had gone on in my continued leadership style, it would have caused so much harm. I was so thankful for that.

I hope leaders can make that change. I would say the God complex. I'm sure you've heard that before. Some people who have power will say, “I have the God complex.” That might work for some but the fact that if you listen to your people, they will tell you where you can get better. Believe it or not, if you listen, make those changes and humble yourself, then you're vulnerable. A lot of leaders are afraid of being vulnerable but vulnerability is the best thing that you could have as a leader to grow, change and get buy-in from those that work under you.

The last one was vision. Vision sounds very esoteric like Nostradamus and Warren Buffett, so my father would say, “Vision is seeing what needs to be done and doing it.” My dad was always pragmatic and real. He came from humble beginnings. His thing was, “That's what vision is. Most people will see it. They're able but they're not willing or don't like talking about it.” What does vision mean for you? How do you craft that vision? You have been in a lot of big organizations with a lot of different people. You're in a new role. They brought you on for your ability to move the mission forward. Share with me your thoughts on that.

From a vision standpoint, it's important as a leader to understand the company's mission and vision. That is the core of it all. We need to stay aligned with what the company's vision and mission is. I have always started off with that being the driving force. Going back into my conversations about abandonment, it's about talking to your people. “Here's the company's vision. As the leader of this new hospital, here’s what my vision is and where I would love to see us go. What's your vision?”

When I talk about core values, some people might not like my approach but it has worked for me. When I do my piece, I open up orientation for all my employees and talk about our vision, mission and core values. At the end of the conversation, I say to them, “I want you all to take this time to think about what I talked to you about, our core values, mission and vision and try to connect that to your personal core values, vision and mission. If it doesn't align well with who we are, this might not be the best place for you.”

It's going to come out sooner or later. I tell people, “Pay me now or pay me later.” In leadership literature, it's called value incongruence. Values are intrinsic like your convictions. You don't change them. They may be presenting that they're okay with it but sooner or later, it's going to come out. That's a great insight that you let everybody know this is serious. We want to make sure there's a value congruence.

I have had two people in my lifetime walk out. I have also talked to them afterward and helped them find a new job because you still care about them. If you don't align with what we want to do here, then this is not the best place for you. That's going to lead to disaster for us and you. Our goal to be able to meet our vision and mission is we all have to be on the same page and love what we do. Once I get past that, that's where I get to talk to all my employees on a one-to-one basis.

I do that with every employee. I have 175 employees and have met with every single one of them. “Who are you? What do you want to see happen in this hospital?” I take those notes, go back to my leadership team and say, “Here's what our people are saying.” Some of those things might not align with what we want to do in this hospital but what can we learn from that? Maybe there are a couple of things we never thought of or we physically can't do.

I would let them know that. I will always take their ideas. “I might not be able to do it but I can promise you that I will look into it. We will talk about it and see what we can pull out of that to make our hospital better.” That's my take on vision. It goes way more above the vision of the company and myself. Who is doing the work? They are. I'm leading them but I'm not successful. The company is not successful unless they're successful.

We have to get some type of buy-in from them to be able to be successful. One of the things that I found most valuable was learning who they are and what their vision is while they're going to be employed with us. That helps with retention and lowering turnover when they feel like they have buy-in. They're saying, “These people listened to me. I said a couple of things and have seen those changes. That makes me feel great. I'm not going anywhere else.”

We covered loneliness, weariness and abandonment. I love what you talked about for vision. I love that you first unpacked Robert Kelley's followership, “Are they all in?” If they're not there, you can't work with them on capability and hear them. It's like saying, “Somebody is married but they're not committed to the marriage.” No amount of counseling, reading books or going on retreats is going to help because one person is not all in.

The one thing I could tell my 30-year-old leadership self would be, “If they're not all in, we got to identify that right away.” Somebody told me, “Embrace then integrate.” They cannot integrate the culture and the mission or be poured into rapport to you as a leader, which they're there to do too, unless they embrace what the company is doing.

That takes a great deal of authenticity, truth and monitoring because some people will think, “I'm there,” but then they find out they're not. It's incumbent I tell leaders, “Get followers who will be honest with you and say, ‘I thought I was but I'm not.’” That's okay. There are millions of jobs out there. This is America. We'll get you in a good fit.

Otherwise, the shoe is going to pinch you. It's not a pleasant experience for you or anybody else. Joshua, you have an extensive and wonderful leadership experience. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our readers that are building and working with teams and are in a big organization? Give it to us. Give us more of your pearls of wisdom. We can't get enough.

I have been working on with you and talked about writing a book in the near future, getting into coaching and trying to talk about a new way of leadership. I do believe in servant leadership. You find that better than anybody. There are a lot of leaders out there that say that because it makes them sound good but they don't live it. We need to live servant leadership and serve our people.

Servant Leader: We have to give our people grace and mercy.

What I have done with trying to write a book and doing things differently is come up with some presentations that I present to my team on a monthly basis about leading through grace. We have to give our people some grace. Grace and mercy are not something that's earned necessarily. It's something that is given to them because it is something that I choose to give them. People don't work for that but it's what I can give them.

What I have learned is so many times throughout the history of leadership, “You have problems at home. I get it. Can you leave it at the door? Come into work, put a smile on your face, do all these amazing things that we want you to do and then pick up yourself at the door on the way out.” That's not, to me, the right approach.

I tell that to every one of my employees in orientation that there are HR policies. Our HR thinks we got to be careful with how we do certain things but I don't want you to leave your stuff at the door. If you're going to come into my workplace and I'm asking you to do all these things and you're struggling, come talk to me. My door is always open. I have had grown men and women that have had full-blown meltdowns, lying on the floor in my office crying. I have gone on my knees with them and talked through with them.

Sometimes people need to listen. They're not going to go out there, do these amazing things or have these great outcomes if they're not feeling it, don't believe in themselves and are struggling. What we need to do as leaders is provide servant leadership. Let's also focus on giving people grace. Everybody has a story. It's not a one-size-fits-all.

As a leader, you have to go out there, get on a one-to-one level with people and talk to them. Mentor, coach, counsel them and ultimately let them know that you care about them. They're not just a number or an employee. They're part and an extension of you. I tell my employees that, “I'm not the only CEO in this hospital. Each of you is CEO of yourself. I need you to have ownership. If you have ownership, we're going to be successful.”

“When you're having those struggles, weariness or abandonment issues, whether inside the hospital or outside, I'm here for you. I hope that you're here for me.” Being vulnerable, I let them know, “I have problems out of these doors too.” That's the approach I have taken. Servant leadership works. If people can cultivate a culture of giving our people some grace at times, it works. I feel like I'm living proof of it. My turnover is low. I have had great retention and people want to work for me. It's because I love them. Sometimes it's okay to do that in the workplace.

Joshua, thank you so much for sharing that. What's the best way for people to connect with you? I know you and I connected with LinkedIn but I'm sure our leaders are going to want to have you as an ear, a sounding board or maybe even a possible coach coming up. Can you share with them the best way to get in touch with you?

I love to mentor and coach. I have had to work myself from the bottom to the top. I love to share those methods with others. If anybody would like to reach out to me, LinkedIn is one of the best ways. I'm very active on LinkedIn. Please feel free to reach out to me as well. I'll also provide Tracey with an email. If anybody wants to go ahead and access that, feel free to email me as well.

Thank you. For our leaders out there, this is a leader you need to be in touch with. Connect with me. A rope with three chords is not easily broken. We need to be there for one another. He has been there. You're not going to share anything with Joshua that he hasn't heard before. It's wonderful what you've poured into me, Joshua. Thank you so much for being our guest.

Thank you, Tracey. This has been an awesome experience. You made it very comfortable for my first show, so thank you for that. I want to end it with this. Thank you for your service. You have done amazing things for this country and I don't think you're told that enough. Thank you for what you have done for us.

It's an honor. Thank you so much. To our tremendous readers out there, if you like what you read, be sure and hit the subscribe button, so you don't miss a new episode. Also, we would love it if you would give us the honor of a five-star rating and send us a comment. We answer all of them. Please be sure also to connect with Joshua on LinkedIn and go over to TremendousLeadership.com.

Sign up not only to stay on the list for our show but also our newsletters. You can also sign up and get two weeks of free eBooks. What could be more tremendous than that? To our leaders out there, thanks so much for paying the price leadership. We're right there with you and here to support you. Thank you for being a part of our Tremendous Tribe.

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About Joshua P. Trout

Joshua P. Trout is the Chief Executive Officer of the Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Greenville in Greenville, South Carolina. Prior to his current role, Joshua was the Chief Executive Officer of a Critical Illness Recovery Hospital in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Joshua has more than 10 years of experience in hospital operations and business development. Joshua is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and currently has a seat on the board of directors for the American Heart Association of the Upstate and Down Syndrome Association of the Upstate. Joshua was an honoree of the 2020 “Forty Under 40” Award through Central Penn Business Journal and most recently named December 2021 recipient of South Carolina’s iHeart Radio “CEOs You Should Know” recognition.