What Do You Do When Your Boss Becomes the Problem?

Lawrence Scott:00:00

Do I even belong here? All I know is excellence. That's all. That's it. And then I'm in this classroom and I'm pursuing excellence.

Lawrence Scott:00:07

He, through his words, broke a confidence. And then another man, through his words, helped to restore a confidence. Sometimes because people don't have the strength of their own identity, they'll try to diminish people who do.

Terry Baylor:00:40

Man, I'm happy to be here today.

Ralph Owens:00:43

Yes, sir, yes sir, yes sir. We got a good one for you today folks. I hope you got your pens and your

Terry Baylor:00:49

paper. Look, You gotta take some I remember where I was when Mark McGuire hit 70, right? This is one of those moments. You're gonna remember where you were when you chimed in here because I believe this is a life changing moment. I just wanna introduce our guests, Scott, and we have a really deep history and we'll dig into some of that as this conversation unravels.

Terry Baylor:01:19

But Lawrence, I'm not gonna take any more time, man, introduce yourself to the folks and just kinda share a little bit about your story.

Lawrence Scott:01:29

Awesome, man. Well, first of all, it's great to be with y'all. I'm excited about this conversation myself. Terry, I'm in agreement with you. This will this will be a life changing moment in history and conversation for sure.

Lawrence Scott:01:41

So I'm excited about that. My name is Lawrence Scott. I played football at West Point. And while I was there, one of my coaches combined both my first and last name and called me Losco. It has it has stuck ever since.

Lawrence Scott:01:54

So I'm Lawrence Scott or Losco. Either one works for me. I am a fifth generation pastor's kid and grew up in the Midwest in Saint Louis, Missouri. And as I mentioned, I I went to West Point after leaving Saint Louis and went to the army as an officer, served there for a couple years before leaving the military and going back to West Point as the director player development for the football team there, where I served the athletes and the coaches by doing leadership development and personal development for for the athletes. So it was great time there to be back at my alma mater and to continue serving in a different capacity.

Lawrence Scott:02:35

So it was, great time there. And after having developed a program there, a leisure development program, it was

Terry Baylor:02:42

a Mhmm.

Lawrence Scott:02:43

Four year development program that we created there. After having developed it and kinda cultivating it for a little bit, it was time for me to take my next step, which was going to graduate school. And I went to Princeton Theological Seminary and got my master's in theological studies. It was a great time. Well, it was a great time for me.

Lawrence Scott:03:02

I went during COVID. So it wasn't it wasn't necessarily a break. What a world. Yeah. But I was there and learned a lot and connected with some amazing folks.

Lawrence Scott:03:12

And after that, I've had an opportunity to serve different organizations, whether they were church organizations or athletic organizations, doing what I essentially have been doing my whole life, which is observing and learning from leaders, but then also helping to develop, coach, and consult leaders on strategy, culture, and really how to not just lead their best team, but also how to live their best life. So all of my world kinda collided with with what I was doing. Even while I was at West Point, that's when I started my own coaching and consulting company. And now I'm still doing that. I'm out in California, the Los Angeles area and still going, man.

Lawrence Scott:03:51

Still going. Still serving churches.

Terry Baylor:03:53

Awesome.

Lawrence Scott:03:53

Still serving organizations and leaders and high performers in all these different areas.

Terry Baylor:03:57

So what I what I love about that guys, I just wanna share a little bit, right? So I've known Lawrence since he was a little guy. Man, this this relationship is so rich in that Lawrence's dad is actually a mentor of mine. I'm not sitting in this seat right now. I don't meet Ralph if it's not for Lawrence's dad, Right?

Terry Baylor:04:14

I was maybe 30, maybe I guess. I just got married trying to make a decision about my career and I'll never forget it. I'm like, you know what? This is the last resume I'm putting out here. Not I'm just And gonna stay where I'm I remember getting a call and I remember getting an interview and I'm like, you're gonna meet this guy, Lee Scott.

Terry Baylor:04:33

I'm like, I know Lee Scott. I didn't super super know him, but our families are so connected and we'll dig Anyway, into I walk into the door and I see this gentleman walking down. I'm like, oh, this is a done deal. Little did I know that experience with your dad for the next three or four years transformed my life, right? And put me on a trajectory because I didn't expect to still be an IT today, to be honest.

Terry Baylor:04:58

But because of what your dad did and what he exposed me to and some of the responsibilities because your dad was a big deal at the university and he led a pretty big organization. And he put reliance on me to cover certain things because there was a trust there and it just allowed me to grow. So this is a great moment for me because of course at that time you're like nine.

Lawrence Scott:05:20

Yeah, I know.

Terry Baylor:05:21

Was Yeah.

Lawrence Scott:05:22

Yeah. Yeah. Beauty is Those days. I remember those Yeah.

Terry Baylor:05:27

But the beauty in this is seeing the man that you've developed and grown and charted your own path. Right? You said something the other day, I was looking at something that you put out there and you said, look, principles are non negotiable. This dude is good.

Lawrence Scott:05:44

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Terry Baylor:05:47

So I say that to say this, right? So in that journey though, there are challenges and obstacles that we have to overcome, ideologies and frameworks. And so what led us here today on the show is you actually told a story and you can treat topic, you can go as deep into it as you want or as you know, how much depth you wanna share about it. But it had to do with understanding who you were in a moment of challenge and reflection and, you know, being able to handle this new information. So share that because as you're on your path, right, there are gonna be these intersections in life that we have to navigate.

Terry Baylor:06:26

And those persons who are supposed to be there to guide us sometimes can honestly, they can derail us.

Lawrence Scott:06:33

Yeah, Absolutely. And that's, you know, thankfully, that's not what happened ultimately for me, but it could have. So as I mentioned in my introduction, I went to the United States Military Academy at West Point, and I did not know much about it, to be honest with you gentlemen. When I was in high school, I was was into my studies. But when you think Ivy League schools, I wasn't thinking an academy.

Lawrence Scott:07:00

I was thinking Harvard, Princeton, like those sorts of schools, But I I didn't think about the academies at all until a a football coach came to recruit me to play football. I I was I was an athlete. So I was either gonna do one of two things. I was either gonna go to an Ivy League school and continue my education, or I was gonna go to a power five school to play football. So once I learned about West Point, actually, after the coach came, visited with my family, there was a rumor around the school that I was going to West Point.

Lawrence Scott:07:33

And I still gentlemen, I did not still did not know what West Point was. But I recognized something happened. People started treating me differently when they heard that I was going to West Point. So then I said, well, let me actually look into this a little bit. So I did a little research, then I discovered Dwight Eisenhower, General Patton.

Lawrence Scott:07:49

These these these history makers have all gone to West Point. These presidents have gone to West Point. And I'm like, well, if that's a course that I'm gonna go down anyway, then maybe maybe it's a better thing for me not to go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton. Maybe it's actually a better thing for me to go to West Point. And I get to play football at d one level?

Lawrence Scott:08:10

Come on now. That's amazing. Right. Right. By the time I got there, I knew that this was a big deal and that I'd gone through the process of getting there.

Lawrence Scott:08:17

I had known everybody doesn't make it in. Well, now with this backdrop of knowing this is a special place, most people who are in they're not shy about letting you know when you get there that everybody there is like you from where they're from.

Terry Baylor:08:30

Right.

Lawrence Scott:08:31

So you I mean, I graduated with a 4.2 GPA. There were other people who had probably higher GPAs, right, on a AP scale. So, you know Mhmm. I'm not I'm not the smartest person in the room anymore by any means. And you know this.

Lawrence Scott:08:45

You're consciously aware of this. But it didn't deter me until I sat down in an English class my freshman year with a professor who for lack of a of a better word was dismissive of my presence in his classroom. He did not acknowledge me. He did not speak to me whenever I would we had rules in my freshman year. Well, all years that I was there at the football team, we had rules about the way that we had to engage.

Lawrence Scott:09:09

We had to sit in the front. We had to speak up in class because they would they would ask our teachers how are we performing. So I had rules of engagement that I had I had to speak in class. It wasn't that I could just hide. So even when I would speak up in class, it was almost as if it pained him to even hear my voice in the classroom.

Lawrence Scott:09:26

Wow. And one of my teammates was in that class classroom with me and he'll tell you, it was it was rough. So every paper I would write in his class, I would also get pretty poor grades. And I didn't understand that because as I mentioned before, I'm not only what did I have a high GPA, but I especially excelled in areas of writing and in all areas of communication. So I didn't understand that.

Lawrence Scott:09:49

And I kept trying to get answers from him, but again, he was very dismissive of me and did not give those to me. That's something at West Point called additional instruction, where you could schedule time to go in with the professor, sit down, and then learn what you need to learn to perform better. I would schedule additional instruction with him. He would not show up during our scheduled times. When I noticed he wouldn't show up for our scheduled times, I knew that the relationship was a little contentious.

Lawrence Scott:10:13

So rather than confronting him about not showing up, I would have to find different ways to try to communicate with him. So I kinda cornered him after one of our class classes and just to ask him about the grade that I got on this paper that had no notes to tell me what happened. And all he was able to say to me in that moment, all he was willing to say to me in that moment was it just wasn't what I was looking for. So I knew that I was dealing with something else. And it's also important to know that the population of cadets at West Point is predominantly white at the time, about between 15 to 18% African American.

Lawrence Scott:10:54

20% minority, about 15 to, 15 to 18%, black. So not very many of us in the grand scheme of things Right. In terms of the population there. So the the natural thing is, hey, this professor is a is a white man from Texas. You know?

Lawrence Scott:11:11

Old school guy. And he probably doesn't appreciate my presence at the academy. And he and he hadn't even been a professor at the academy long, to be honest with you. So I knew that I was dealing with something else. And by the time we got to our finals, we had to write two essays in in a three hour block.

Lawrence Scott:11:27

And I did the best work I'd ever done in my life. I did the best work I had I did the best work I had ever to that point, I did the best work I'd ever done in my life. And you don't get your grades right away. So fast forward to when our grades came back and I recognized in the course, I don't I don't see my final grade yet, the grade I got on the final. But I see all of my grades for that semester.

Lawrence Scott:11:52

Right? You get your final grade and then you go back and try to find the grade on the final. Right? And I recognized that I had a d in freshman English. What?

Lawrence Scott:12:02

Now now going into the final, I had a c or a c minus, which meant that in order to get that final grade, I would have had to either get a really low d or an f on my on my final. And I was livid, gentlemen. I tried to go track him down. I was I said, there is no way on God's green earth Right. Right.

Lawrence Scott:12:21

That this has happened. And I tried to find him. I emailed him. He would not respond to me. I tried to call the office.

Lawrence Scott:12:28

I could not get an answer. I went to sit in the office to find him. He was not there. But when I showed up, I showed up carrying my final and the final grade that I got on it. He was not there, but the course director was.

Lawrence Scott:12:41

Course director tells me, hey, I can't do very much about this. He's not here to defend himself. To be honest with you, we've had other complaints, but I can't go into that. Wow. But what I can do is offer you the opportunity to retake the course.

Lawrence Scott:12:54

I did. I learned that that professor was no longer at the academy, so they did the right thing. But my my confidence in this area of communication through writing had been crushed because I have this man who's responsible for helping me to get even better at one of the best and most prestigious places in the country. And he's telling me I can't write, it's not what I'm looking for. And then his dismissive nature made me as though I'm just not smart enough to get it.

Terry Baylor:13:24

Mhmm.

Lawrence Scott:13:25

Because I'm trying. I'm trying to understand. Like, if I'm getting a bad grade, I don't know if I'd ever dealt with any particular prejudice, I didn't necessarily know it. So I'm going into it with with a with a with a belief that he's actually here to help me.

Terry Baylor:13:41

Right. Right? That's a great point though there, Lawrence, because there's some gray areas there where that that attitude, I'll say, can present itself in a multiplicity of ways. We don't know. And I think that's a great point to just call out, to have the sensitivity and understanding to parse it the appropriate way because some it could have just been a personality thing, right?

Terry Baylor:14:06

It could have been sometimes people just don't get along sometimes. But why is that? And if get along with like 99.9% of the people and you're the only person that's having a problem with me and it's seemingly nothing to do with how I interact with you, then what is it?

Lawrence Scott:14:26

Then what is it? And and the inability to get an answer. Yeah. Right? It's it's you have these questions in your mind, but it wasn't like I was in a position where I couldn't ask the question, but I can't get an answer.

Lawrence Scott:14:38

Yeah. So it it leaves and then then it left me thinking, well, maybe I am getting an answer, but I'm not understanding it. Maybe I'm not. It's like, now I'm questioning everything. Do I even belong here?

Lawrence Scott:14:51

Am I like, you know now mind you, right, coming out of my high school, I was I was not a guy. I was the guy. You know? Like, GPA was up. Like, I wasn't like the valedictorian or salutatorian, but like, I was up there with them.

Lawrence Scott:15:04

You know? I was we were in the same classes. I was and not only that, but I was the best athlete on you know what I'm saying? So like Right. These areas, all I know is excellence.

Lawrence Scott:15:15

That's all. That's it. And then I'm in this classroom and I'm pursuing excellence. And the person who's responsible for helping me to attain excellence is only like just pushing me down without giving me anything to help me climb back up. And so in a sense, you know, I was I was pretty crushed in that area.

Lawrence Scott:15:34

And and what was even more crushing was the class that I had to retake because you don't retake the same class. What they do is they put you in a remedial class.

Terry Baylor:15:43

You in the class or all of those guys over there?

Lawrence Scott:15:46

Know why they're Right. Right. Yeah. I was I was in the class, man. It was only me and a few other people.

Lawrence Scott:15:52

We're in there talking about periods and commas. We in the I mean, you wanna talk Why? At West the United States Military Academy at West Point, and we talking about punctuation. We talking about now now granted, right, I appreciated the class. Right?

Lawrence Scott:16:08

I mean, I I got an a in it. And it helped to re replace the grade that I had on my my grade point average to help increase my rank in the in the class as well, which much appreciated. But you got to imagine someone who's excelled in all of these areas, particularly areas of communication and writing and recitation. Like, I was doing poetry. I'd won awards for writing and all that kind of stuff in high school.

Lawrence Scott:16:31

Now I'm at the United States Military Academy at West Point, having to go into a room with people and talk about capitalization. And it's like it's like, man, are really this remedial? Mhmm. You know? Like, all of all of these thoughts are flowing in my head about, like, my my competence in this area.

Lawrence Scott:16:50

And I was in my philosophy course. Everybody has to take freshman English. Everybody has to take philosophy. Especially at West Point, they wanna teach you just war theory and how leaders have to make complex situations. So you learn from all of these philosophical lenses and whatnot.

Lawrence Scott:17:04

So everybody has to take philosophy. The philosophy and structure structure that I had set everyone in that room down who had trouble in English, like a a certain grade or lower the previous year. And he said, this is a heavy writing course. You will have to write a lot. If you have trouble, come and find me.

Lawrence Scott:17:25

We can help you. Right? So it was very kind of him to do. Well, midway through the course, he comes up to me and he kinda pulls me to the side, like, right before class has started. And he said, hey, we gotta we gotta talk.

Lawrence Scott:17:37

Why did you fail freshman English? Now mind you, I didn't fail freshman English. I got the d. Right. You put it in as incomplete.

Lawrence Scott:17:44

Right? Mhmm. So he's like, why did you fail freshman English? Like, essentially, it's failing. So he's like, what what happened?

Lawrence Scott:17:50

I need to know what happened. And I I said, well, sir, I dealt with a particular professor who, you know, I can't say much about what all of his motivations were, but he didn't appreciate my presence in his classroom and my grades reflected that. And he said, okay, say no more. I don't know. Maybe he already knew the story.

Lawrence Scott:18:05

I don't know. But he just said, okay, I got it. You don't have to say anything else. And he said, it was so great. And I and I don't even know what prompted him to say this.

Lawrence Scott:18:14

Because he didn't have to say this. But he said, never let anybody tell you that you can't write because I'm reading these papers and these are some of the best papers I've ever Wow. Now I don't know if I went in that class with something to prove because he sat us all down and said, listen, if you have trouble, I don't know. I mean, but again, I really did enjoy writing. I enjoyed communication.

Lawrence Scott:18:36

I enjoyed the articulation of ideas. And the ability to do that is particularly in a philosophy course where I'm writing about people that I'd already gotten introduced to in high school, like Emmanuel Kahn. It's like, man, this is amazing. I love writing. So I'm exercising this gift, this skill, and I'm doing it, but I'm also doing it with this backdrop in my head and in my heart that maybe I'm not good at this.

Lawrence Scott:19:02

So him saying that to me helped to restore a confidence that another man broke. Like, he he, through his words, broke a confidence. And then another man, through his words, helped to restore a confidence. And and I know you you mentioned wanting to have a con conversation about identity, but I think sometimes because people don't have the strength of their own identity Mhmm. They'll they'll they'll try to diminish people who do.

Lawrence Scott:19:29

And they'll and they'll use their words, they'll use their action, they'll use their influence and power. Try to diminish your sense of identity and confidence and it almost worked. For me, it almost worked until I said, now mind you, he's telling me these are some of the best papers that he's ever read. But wouldn't you know after he said that to me, my papers got even better. Because I'm still writing with this internal, like, thing in the back of my mind, like, maybe I'm still not good at this.

Lawrence Scott:19:56

Right.

Terry Baylor:19:56

Mhmm. Right.

Lawrence Scott:19:57

But now that my confidence has been restored, I go to a whole new level. And I think for me, I hadn't necessarily and we could talk about this. Like, growing up in the environment I grew up in, it wasn't necessarily an environment where you got a whole lot in the way of affirmation about, like, you it was always like a, you gotta do better. You know what mean? Right.

Lawrence Scott:20:16

Yeah.

Terry Baylor:20:16

It was

Lawrence Scott:20:17

always Yes. Right? It was always So I think what that moment showed me was the power of, like, of a leader's ability to affirm those that they lead in such a way that increased productivity. Mhmm. So it's like, I'm not gonna lie to you and say you're good at something you're not.

Lawrence Scott:20:35

But I am going to affirm those things you are good at so you get even better at that. It's it's this idea that if I only point out your weakness, you're only focused on your weakness. But if I point out your strength, you can get even stronger in that area. Yeah. If if I'm in an organization where I have the resources or the avail I I call it the resource of availability.

Lawrence Scott:20:58

Where you have people, right? You just have personnel. I might not have everybody that I'm paying whatever. But if I can like move things around, move tasks around, I can delegate your weakness to somebody else. That's right.

Lawrence Scott:21:09

That's right. But I want you to get even better at the thing that you're strong at. Because you become even more of an asset. Mhmm. Right?

Lawrence Scott:21:14

That's right. So it really spoke to me about, like, our abilities to as leaders, especially in positions of influence because again, I looked at that freshman English professor as someone who's a subject matter expert, someone who is looking at this raw material that I'm bringing into the room to help cultivate it into an even better communicator through writing reading and writing. I'm thinking that that's what he's going to do for me. And he's looking at me saying, I will not do that for him. But I don't know what's in his heart.

Lawrence Scott:21:41

So I go into it trusting that that's what that's what he's gonna do. And then just grateful to God for this, that the next the next year, I had a professor who was actually willing to do that and to point out those things. So it's like the way that somebody sees you determines the way that they receive from you. If I see you as someone who's supposed to help make me better, then I'm going to receive everything you say Yeah. As if it's supposed to help me get better.

Lawrence Scott:22:07

That's good. But if you wield that influence in a way that that degrades me, that puts me down, I internalize that just as or if or even more strongly. So our words as leaders in these spaces are so important to those that we lead. That's why a a simple thank you is always is important. It's not suggested.

Lawrence Scott:22:29

It's necessary. A simple good job. And I remember I took an assessment and I and I scored very low in enablement. I'm just not like, my brain is always thinking about the task at hand. Like, what do we have to get done?

Lawrence Scott:22:40

What's where are the gaps? I'm always problem solving.

Terry Baylor:22:43

Right.

Lawrence Scott:22:44

Right. But that wasn't a that was an awareness thing for me where I had to learn, oh, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't just something that's nice, it's necessary. I have I have to be intentional about that. When I go and I look at my teams, whatever spaces I'm leading, I have to go and make sure that I let them know that I trust them.

Lawrence Scott:23:01

Have to let them know that they're good enough. I have to let them you know what mean? Like I have to use that because they're looking at me for that.

Terry Baylor:23:07

Right. You know what's funny? I just had that conversation with Raph the other day and you were helping unravel that ball of yarn for me or peel that onion because I told Ralph just this week, man, I have to be very conscious because I'm so looking at what I gotta get done or what we have to do. And I think that goes back to that background of you always have to be getting better or doing more to either show your value or prove to yourself that you're worthy of what it is you're doing. So in essence, everyone around you is now working at a 110 like you.

Terry Baylor:23:45

And then that self awareness is very critical. So Lawrence, let me ask you this. And I got some ideas about it, but the person who is in that role of being influenced, what are some tools and methodologies and just some points of awareness that they can exercise or some kind of checklist or anything to help evaluate, okay, what type of leader is this? Because again, we're in vulnerable situations where we're trying to navigate how much And I'm gonna say this, right? Your dad would tell me this all the time.

Terry Baylor:24:22

And you know what he told me? He said, your great grand I'm a get into this. He said, your great grandfather would say this, you gotta take the meat. I'm sure you've heard this, right? And throw away the bones.

Terry Baylor:24:33

Right. How do we do that in a situation like that? What are some methodologies now that you've been there, right? Because again, the environments that we came out of, here's the other difference too. The environments, although they were very regimented, I'll say, that's probably one word we can use.

Terry Baylor:24:49

They meant well. The idea wasn't to tear you down to leave you down, it was to try to build you, you know, get some calluses on your hands, so to speak. Right? You know what I'm saying? Ultimately to make you stronger.

Terry Baylor:25:03

But in this scenario, right, it's feeling like the same thing because it's challenging, challenging, challenging, but there's never a, hey, I see you, I see it, it's coming. You're doing better. So how did yeah. Anyway, that's so how do you well, how do you answer that?

Ralph Owens:25:16

That's a wrap on this episode of the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. If today's conversation added value, I want you to do three things right now. Number one, subscribe so you never miss an episode. Number two, leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It only takes sixty seconds, but it really helps more leaders find the show.

Ralph Owens:25:36

And number three, share this episode with someone who's on the rise in their career. Don't forget to connect with us on LinkedIn and visit leadershipsovereignty.com for show notes and the full episode back catalog. Until the next time, continue to lead boldly, lead with purpose, and walk in sovereignty. Take care.