Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Vice Admiral Carol Pottenger

I recently interviewed Vice Admiral Carol Pottenger on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today spent more than 35 years serving in the United States Navy, leading at all levels, and breaking many barriers along the way. Vice Admiral Carol Pottenger is a member of a select group of women to become three-star admirals and is the first female three-star admiral to lead in a combat branch. Admiral Pottenger, thank you for joining us.

Admiral Pottenger: Thank you, Adam. I'm really delighted to be here and honored to share some thoughts with you.

Adam: The honor is mine, the highest-ranking officer in the United States Navy today is a woman, but that was unthinkable when you were growing up. Can you take listeners back to those early days? What attracted you to the Navy, and what early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Admiral Pottenger: Yeah, I'd love to. I always wanted to serve my country. I was a very patriotic young woman. And even as a teenager, I remember writing this DAR essay that was quite passionate. I think I was a little too intense. Maybe I'm still intense, but I softened a little bit at the edges over the years, so I knew that my future lay in service, whatever form that took. As a senior in high school, I met a cousin that I hadn't met before, a third cousin who was in the Navy, a naval kind of a graduate Submariner. And he really pointed me towards the Navy. And I had the very good fortune to be in a time when the Navy, the ROTC units, were just starting to open up to women. So that started my journey of firsts, and hopefully, we'll get a chance to talk about why firsts are important, but why they're not important, because I think that's something that might be of interest to your listeners. But that started my journey, and I found, as my journey continued, that more positions were open for women. I had lots of wonderful mentors who helped me along the way, a very important component of my success, and eventually worked out that I had all of the opportunities I had to rise to a very senior position. You mentioned Admiral Franchetti, our first female Chief of Naval Operations. There's also a female chief of the Coast Guard, and we're just so proud of both of them. But they are leaders, and they are incredibly capable, competent, and passionate, and they happen to be women, and that's kind of been the tagline of my life. It's about talent. It's about kicking butt. It's about, you know, busting through doors and being offered the opportunity, but you're the one that's got to go make it happen, and hopefully, it's also about people who see your potential and help you along the way.

Adam: Why are firsts important? Why are firsts not important?

Admiral Pottenger: I think firsts are important to help open up lenses. So there are a lot of programs out there in the DEI world that say you can't just look at people who look like you. You need to look for talent in other quadrants, other areas, and other places that you might not normally be comfortable with because what we want is the best talent to help this organization, this military, whatever the recruiting purpose is. So I think first it's important to prove that that talent exists across the board, race, gender, any category that you like to use to describe this particular discussion and to educate the leadership of the time, which, when I was coming in the military, it was mostly old white males. And I always tell people, that if it hadn't been for all those old white males who mentored me, I wouldn't have had the opportunities I had to succeed. So as we learn that women and minorities are very capable, very competent, and bring different perspectives to the table, then first, they'll become so important... first become the door openers, and then it's just about, let's get to work. Let's get the job done. Let's accomplish the mission, and let's keep refreshing our talent pool from any avenue where someone's passionate and wants to contribute.

Adam: I want to dive more into this topic, and I will over the course of this conversation, but before we do, I want to ask you more about your journey to the top. What were the keys to rising within your career, and how can anyone rise within their career?

Admiral Pottenger: I think the ingredients are very similar across any walk of life. It's the understanding that you must work really hard. It's learning to believe in yourself, which I have found through the decades, can be a challenge for women, sometimes more than men. I think there is some truth to a lot of the books that you might read that say women are less outspoken and less confident. We can talk more about that too. I'd like to if we get the opportunity, but I think you have to listen and learn from those you work for, and you have to be willing to be very reflective. You have to look in the mirror and assess your own capabilities, shortfalls, and ways that you can improve. So a lot of my growth came from that type of reflection, even doubt, even understanding that I wasn't as good as I wanted to be, and continuing to strive every day to figure out how to improve myself, improve my team, and bring more value to whatever position I was in, whatever the mission was for the organization. So those are some of the attributes, I'd say.

Adam: Growth mindset, self-awareness, listening, key characteristics of not only the most successful people but the most successful leaders, core leadership principles.

Admiral Pottenger: Yes, absolutely, all of those are, in my view, core leadership principles. And I think you've probably heard many of your guests say that we learn as much from those who are not good leaders as those who are. And I've heard a phrase in the past. There's a learn-it-all all leader and a know-it-all all leader. And I definitely put myself in the first category. And I think anyone who comes into the room, whether as a new CEO, or a new military leader, and thinks they know it all well, then they're in trouble from the start. If I were to offer advice, it's to just shut up and listen to your people for a while and get to know the culture and get to know what your people bring to the table. Your job is really to energize and empower your team to give them the tools to be successful and to do it together in a way that everyone understands how they can contribute and how they can bring their best to the game.

Adam: You brought up a topic that isn't talked about enough, toxic leadership. Can you go back to that experience that you're referring to being around a really bad leader? What did you learn specifically from that experience, and what should everyone understand about how to deal with toxic leaders and how to avoid being a toxic leader?

Admiral Pottenger: It can be different between the military and the corporate world. Of course, I spent my decades in the military, and now I've spent about a decade plus in the corporate world, mostly as a director on different boards. And the reason it can be different is in the military, you always know somebody's going to move on. So either you're going to move on because you're only there for a year or two assignment, or the toxic leader is going to move on. So the mindset can be just people low*9: the profile, but I think that's not really useful to your listeners because, in most of their life experiences, they're not going to be able to do that. So I guess that you would have to really reflect on where that person's coming from. Take the time to understand their motivations and maybe why they're acting out in the way that they are, if you're in a circumstance or a position of enough authority to give them some feedback in a respectful way, assuming you're not too subordinate. Yeah, then that they might actually not realize how they're coming across. That happens a lot, and I have seen that in my circumstances, my particular situation, that wasn't possible for me because I was a very duty officer, and my leaders were quite senior. So in my corporate circumstances, very recently, there was an example of a very toxic leader, and he honestly didn't realize how he was being perceived, and he was open to that feedback and willing to kind of revise his leadership approaches. So it depends on where you are how much influence you have, and whether you have an ability to maybe help them learn a little bit about themselves. In most cases, you won't. And so if it's really bad, honestly, you may just have to move on, if it's just not going to change and you're just not able to thrive in that environment, in that culture.

Adam: One of the things that you brought up, which is interesting, is the difference between working in the military versus working in corporate America, very different environments in a lot of ways, but a lot of similarities when it comes down to the core principles of effective leadership. Great leaders lead effectively period, regardless of the environment they're leading in. Bad leaders are toxic regardless of the environment they're leading in. And I want to know if you could break down for listeners in your experience, of what makes a great leader, what makes a bad leader, and what can anyone do to become a great leader.

Admiral Pottenger: Lots of perspectives and opinions, I'm sure what makes a great leader, is passion, and belief in the I use word mission, I understand that's not necessarily a corporate word, but serves the same purpose and an understanding of the strengths that the team brings to the table. So we've touched on a couple of those already, and I think that a CEO can definitely influence the future of a company's bottom line, their culture, their ability to produce whatever widget or intellectual property they're out to deliver. I definitely think that they have a huge influence. It depends on the team they bring around them, and that's part of being a good leader. Can you understand who your first line below you are? Do you understand what their strengths and weaknesses are? How do you help them be better? That's so important. And to my boards, we recently went through bringing new CEOs on, and in both cases, the best advice I could give them was to pick the right team. Don't just pick people who will agree with everything you say and support every idea you have. Pick people who will challenge you. Pick people who will be an honest sounding board. Pick people who come again from that different perspective, whether it's different experiences, different genders, or just different that really can bring more and complement you, not just be your reflection in the mirror. I think that's so important, and who will be completely candid with you behind closed doors? So a lot of those pieces aren't just about the leader, but it's about his team, how he or she treats that team, how they build that team, how they empowers that team, and keep your eye. I think this is really important. Adam, whether military or corporate, you are often the only one looking out over the horizon. You are often the only one thinking, okay, where do I want to take this company in two years, five years, 10 years? What am I aiming for? What's my strategy that I don't just develop and put on the shelf? What's my strategy that I can implement, that I can execute, and how am I going to get there? Because most of your PNL leaders, or most of your other folks are head down and really thinking about tomorrow and next week, and what am I going to tell the investors when they want to know what's going on with my returns? So really focus on that part of your job as well. So that's kind of a two-part. Build your team. Get the right people, and empower them, but also remember you're the only one truly looking out over the horizon for the bad leaders to throw another saying out there. A good leader might say it's all about us. The bad leader will say it's all about me. And so they really believe that they have too much ego. Maybe that's a bad word to use. They have too much pride. They can't ever be wrong again. It's the Lord it-all versus the know-it-all all. And they think they're always right, and they just can't listen to any opinion that might diverge from their preconceived beliefs. It's the perfect example of a toxic leader. If they come in and they pretend to listen and people know instantly who you are, they realize a lot more than someone might think in terms of the honesty of a leader, in terms of the integrity of a leader, and what their real belief is in the company and the team. And so even in the military, if you've got someone who comes in as a junior officer and says, "I'm going to be an admiral someday," that's exactly the person that probably should never be an admiral. Not always, but you think about that, someone comes in and says, I want to be a CEO someday, that's maybe a different discussion because that's about ambition, but also purpose and setting goals in life. But it's never about me. It's always about the team, about working together, about collaboration, about learning and growing yourself along with that team.

Adam: A bad leader is all about me. A good leader is all about us and a key theme of this conversation, and a key theme of so many of my conversations with so many of the most successful leaders, is the power of listening. Great leaders are great listeners. Something that you shared, is not about going in and pretending to listen, but about genuinely, authentically listening. What can anyone do to develop as a listener,

Admiral Pottenger: Especially when you're new in a job as a CEO, or you've been a CFO, a COO, you want to prove yourself, and so you're very anxious to usurp the conversation and to prove that you deserve the job, that you're good enough, that you're smart enough, you're capable enough, and everyone should understand those attributes that you bring. I think it can be a bit of a lack of confidence in the beginning, but I always advise anyone who is coming into an opportunity like that at whatever level, to just really learn to listen. You have to restrain your composition to jump in and give an answer before someone gets to finish the question. You have to restrain your compulsion to be the smartest person at the table or the smartest person in the room. You don't have to prove yourself to your board. The board selected you to be the CEO. Have some faith and confidence that they know what they are doing, and take some time to settle in. This is more directed towards someone coming into a CEO job as a new person. Just take that time to really learn how to listen. It's an acquired skill. I work at it all the time. I'll tell you a short story. In the military, most of my jobs were mostly command and control. You give an order and they go do it. Hopefully, it's a valid order, hopefully, it's a legal order, hopefully, it's an order that you've given your team the tools to be able to achieve. But my last three years with NATO, as I like to describe, it wasn't really command and control. It was more informative and persuasive. So in my view, the corporate world is really informed and persuasive. As a CEO, yes, you can order things, and you may have to sometimes, and you give directions and you expect them to be carried out. But in a way, it's your responsibility to get everyone to that level playing field. They understand where you're trying to take the company. They see the desired outcome that you envision, and they again, know what their role is. How do they bring their best to that desired outcome, and then you bring all of them together and go forth and do good?

Adam: Shared a lot of great insights for listeners. There's one line there that jumped out to me among everything else you shared, which I love, you don't have to prove yourself, and that is so true. Period. When you think about the times when you're speaking when you should be listening, what are you trying to do? You're probably trying to prove yourself. Who are you trying to prove yourself to? Are you trying to prove yourself to the people around you? Or are you trying to prove yourself to yourself? Maybe it's a little bit of both. One of the key characteristics of the most successful leaders, is self-confidence, if you believe in yourself, other people are going to believe in you, and it all comes back to not needing to have to prove yourself. To yourself, to others. Having that confidence allows you to be an effective listener.

Admiral Pottenger: Yes, I agree with everything you said, Adam. I will add one nuance, though. I think it's easy for other people to give advice and have self-confidence. It's not so easy to have self-confidence. And I think all of us at some level, except those really toxic leaders who think they're the smartest person in the room, I think all of us lack a little bit of self-confidence. We grow in experience, we grow in our professions, and we develop self-confidence. But I would say even for myself today when I go into a boardroom and I want to always bring value, they brought me on the board to bring value, to have good suggestions and insights and listen and help them reach their strategic objectives, I think about what I want to say and try to judge it maybe a little bit too much. Maybe I'm still too harsh after all these years of having to build my own self-confidence. And I'm being very candid here with you and your listeners, something that my husband gave me this advice many years ago, and it might be considered quaint. He said, "Never let them see you sweat." So project self-confidence, but that doesn't mean on the inside that you're gonna always have it. But if you project it and you're mindful of the things that you are saying in a proper constructive context, then I think you're good, but you can always go back afterward and reflect and think, what could I have done differently? How could I have done better? So this is a way that we build our skill sets and we build our professional value, and I think it's a journey that every successful leader never stops being on.

Adam: You're bringing up a really interesting point. And there's a distinction between projecting self-confidence and possessing self-confidence, and each has its importance. Projecting self-confidence is very powerful from the perspective of being able to effectively communicate. Possessing self-confidence is extremely important for all the reasons we've talked about. I want to go into each one of those. Let's go back to possessing self-confidence. How can anyone develop and improve their self-confidence?

Admiral Pottenger: Experience is going to help do that on its own. So I think the way that you accelerate your experience journey is to look for jobs that challenge you. And I know I keep throwing these little memes out there, but another boss once said, "If the job you're in isn't challenging you, you're in the wrong job." And I've always taken that to heart. I think it's really true. So in order to possess that self-confidence, you have to grow yourself. You have to gain the confidence that you are well-developed professionally, that you can understand the complexities of the job, the organization, and the mission, and that you carry within yourself the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be effective. So those are a few pieces of how you can develop that self-confidence.

Adam: And on the topic of projecting self-confidence, which speaks to the importance of being able to communicate powerfully, and effectively, another essential element of successful leadership. What advice do you have for anyone listening to this conversation on how to become a more effective communicator?

Admiral Pottenger: Some people are very natural at it, and I've known many charismatic military leaders among and charismatic CEOs that are just very natural at it, and I envy the heck out of them because I am not one of those people that are natural at it. So for those fortunate few, they just don't have to work at it. They can just be off the cuff, and they're so sincere, and they absolutely come across as an incredibly powerful, impressive, and highly motivated individual. So good for them, rah, rah. For someone like me...

Adam: I've had a lot of the people who you're referring to on my podcast, so I know what you're talking about.

Admiral Pottenger: Yeah, no, I envy the heck out of them. I find for myself, part of my journey, I've learned to be better, but it's preparation. For me, honestly, it's about preparation, about polish, about really thinking, about what my audience is, what my message is, and how to convey it. And to be honest, I can give a darn good talk, but it doesn't come naturally. Comes through hard work, through truly trying to gauge what my delivery needs to be and what I want it to be. What is it that I want people to walk away with? So those are the two paths. I'm not sure there's an in-between path at all. It's either you're good at it or you have to work at it. But you can do it. You can get there.

Adam: We started off the conversation by talking about diversity, something that you brought up the importance of women, in particular, understanding that there is a path in male-dominated industries like the military. What advice do you have for women on how to excel in male-dominated industries, and what advice do you have for men in those industries on how to become great allies?

Admiral Pottenger: I think I'll start with the second question about the advice to men, because I told you, when we first started a conversation that without the men in my military life, I would never have had any of the opportunities I had. In fact, I've never worked for a woman in my entire life, whether in the military or in the corporate world. So I celebrate all of those men, and I deeply admire them, and am very grateful, because they truly believed in this whole talent equation, and that continues in the corporate world. All of my CEOs are men, and in most cases, the boards that I'm on, part of the reason that I'm on those boards was their desire to have that diversity element. Again, diversity means many things. It doesn't just mean gender, it's diversity of thought, diversity of experience, as well as the more normal definitions of diversity. So if you have a gentleman who maybe doesn't quite believe in that diversity of thought, experience, and other elements, you might just say 50% of the population is female. Why would you want to exclude that talent pool from your organization? Why would you want to not bring in the very best talent and the very best performers that you can recruit to your company? And the same thing for the military. It's nonsensical. If they want their company to succeed, then they need to go recruit the best people they can, whatever they look like, and whatever walk of life they come from for a woman who wants to succeed in a male-dominated environment, you're right. It's still mostly male-dominated in the military and in corporate America, the elements are the same as what we began our conversation with. Hard work. Buckle down. If someone doesn't open a door for you, go find a mentor and they'll help you kick down that door. I think that mentoring is incredibly important. Male, female. The female doesn't matter. Every opportunity I have, I still mentor young women who want to go into the military. I mentor executives on my different boards. The power of mentoring can really matter to women, I think it's still a really important element of the success, of the success factor for women in today's corporate world. And so the advice I've given in my corporate existence is to young women who say, How do I succeed? How do I promote is really, among other things, to go find a mentor who is willing to champion them and that will help them to understand the environment they're operating in, what are the ingredients of success and how they come across, gives them that honest feedback that we talked about earlier in a CEO relationship, a mentor can be that sounding board for you and help you understand how others see you and where you might want to improve or just keep on being who you are.

Adam: The through line through this conversation, the through line through your career, inclusive leadership. How can leaders bring the word diversity to life? And how can anyone be a truly inclusive leader?

Admiral Pottenger: To me, I turn the phrase equal opportunity around, and I say it's the opportunity to be equal. So what's the difference you say? If a leader gives everyone, regardless of background, the opportunity and then they go prove their stuff, then that's the successful way. That's the path for me. So as a woman coming up in a male-dominated world, I feel like the mentors I had, the leaders I had, except for those couple of toxic circumstances, gave me opportunities, but then it was up to me to go make them successful, and certainly I did that with a lot of support and a lot of help along the way. But that really, I think, is the way to think about it. If you're a junior or a more subordinate female in a male-dominated organization, and you want to climb the career ladder, you want to be successful, to look for those opportunities to excel. You find and ask for assignments, positions, and jobs that will challenge you and showcase you. You obtain the right mentors who will champion you give you honest feedback and be that sounding board. And you reflect on your journey and have some very clear goals in mind, and then just be yourself. Be positive, be passionate, be pleasant. Maybe these are the Pottenger peas. There's no reason to become a toxic leader as you grow on your own journey. So I think all of those things have been my experience and would be the advice I would offer to those coming up behind and I feel so fortunate when young women reach out to me and ask to have a journey together with that. Just means so much to me to get on the phone, get on Zoom, have a conversation about where they want to go, and why they want to go there, and what is it that they think they can do and be and bring and then to maybe just help them, think about how to make it happen. I get more than they get from those types of relationships.

Adam: What can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful, personally and professionally?

Admiral Pottenger: I don't think as a young person, and so this is maybe to your younger audience, you don't necessarily know where your journey will take you. So you don't necessarily have to know where your journey will take you. If you are in an organization that you enjoy, you believe in the work, and you like the culture, then do the things we've talked about. You look for those hard jobs. Look for ways to prove yourself. Look for opportunities to come to the notice of the next boss and the next boss and the next boss and be a team player and bring others along with you. If you're a little further along on your journey, then it starts to be more about how you influence the overall goals of the company, and how you bring your particular stamp of passion and purpose and pay it forward to that company. And if you're at the top, then you really think about the web and not the me.

Adam: Admiral Pottenger, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

 Admiral Pottenger: Thank you, Adam. It's been a pleasure to meet you, and I wish you all the success and all of your listeners to have some fun along the way. Don't forget that part too.

 Adam: Thanks again.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one-on-one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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