Steve Cockram: the Voice-Driven Leader

Episode Summary

In this episode, Nicola Hunt speaks with Steve Cockram, co-founder of Giants Worldwide, about his latest book The Voice-Driven Leader. Together, they explore why leadership must evolve for the digital age, how diverse voices unlock team performance, and why self-awareness is the foundation of relationally intelligent leadership. Steve introduces the Five Voices framework and explains how leaders can create environments where every voice is heard, valued, and effectively deployed.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Why leadership skills must change in the digital, complex world of work
• The shift from individual performance to agile, collaborative teams
• The Five Voices framework and how each voice contributes to team success
• How leaders unintentionally silence voices—and how to prevent it
• The role of self-awareness in becoming a voice-driven leader
• Generational differences, resilience, and their impact on workplace dynamics
• Balancing high support and high challenge to develop people effectively

Featured Guest:

• Steve Cockram – Co-founder of Giants Worldwide, leadership coach, speaker, and co-author of The Voice-Driven Leader

Resources Mentioned:

• The Voice-Driven Leader: How to Hear, Value and Maximise Every Voice on Your Team by Steve Cockram and Jeremy Kubitschek
• Five Voices website and resources
• The Five Voices app and AI coaching tools

[00:00 - 00:37]

Nicola Hunt: Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Steve Cockram, co-founder of Giants Worldwide. Steve has dedicated his career to helping executive teams and organisations unlock their full potential. He's a sought-after speaker and teacher who works with leaders around the world, and today we're diving into his latest book, The Voice-Driven Leader, how to hear, value and maximise every voice on your team, which he co-authored with Jeremy Kubitschek.

Steve, welcome to the show.

[00:38 - 00:39]

Steve Cockram: Thank you, Nicola. What a wonderful introduction.

[00:40 - 00:44]

Nicola Hunt: What is The Voice-Driven Leader - and why now?

[00:45 - 02:15]

Steve Cockram: Well, 12 years ago, Jeremy, my co-founder of Giant, we basically set out with a challenge to equip leaders with a toolkit for the digital world. The reality is we'd lived in the industrial world for 250 years, and the belief we always had was when the world of work changes, the skills of leadership have to change with it. And one of the ones which was a big differential, I think, between leadership in the industrial world, which people like me in middle age grew up in, and the digital world, is that you could cope with having a very, very clever individual who wasn't particularly relationally or emotionally intelligent.

In the digital world, the challenges that we face today are so much more complex. And therefore, the agile collaborative team became the primary unit of performance, not the talented individual. Then the primary task for any manager or leader is to go, how do I create an environment where all of the voices are heard, they're valued, appreciated, and how can I deploy them in a way that creates the greatest degree of engagement for them as individuals, but also ultimately the highest performance for the organisation or the clients we're working for?

So a long answer to a short question, but voices was basically a way of taking my jedi mindset tricks in Jungian typology, and creating a vocabulary and language which would scale without expensive consultants. So I can explain more about voices, but that's at least where it came from.

[02:15 - 02:30]

Nicola Hunt: Yes, and you have, in fact, identified five voices who can, metaphorically speaking, sit around that table. Can you explain more about this and how this approach can help to transform communication?

[02:31 - 06:33]

Steve Cockram: Yes, of course. So I think the first thing to say is everybody I've ever met has been abused by a personality inventory at some point. So please hear this as an aid memoir rather than something to be definitive of.

But what I'd say is this, is every single person has a voice with a capital V, but we all speak all five of the voices I'm going to explain. So it's not one, which one are you and which four are you not? It's actually each of us have a voice order, but there's usually one which is more us, what we call our foundational voice, and that often shapes how the other four are heard.

So I'm a pioneer connector, creative guardian nurturer. It doesn't mean I don't speak nurture, it just means the superpowers of a nurturer are much harder for me to access than the superpowers of a pioneer. So that's the first thing I'd say is, which hopefully prevents people getting put in a box or being told I'm this when you don't feel you are, each voice of the small five voices have a unique superpower.

So a nurturer, nurturer's superpower is basically they are geniuses at relationships, relational harmony, protecting values. They are the most incredibly loyal team players. They are always thinking about other people's needs before their own.

And they usually have a little bit of imposter syndrome because when everyone else looks at a nurturer, we see consummate professional, loyal team players, selfless, always thinking of others, and willing to do whatever work is required to help the team win. The nurturer often looks in the mirror and see something very different. And they see the 1% they can't do and they magnify it.

So I've never met an arrogant nurturer. I've never met a nurturer who people didn't deeply care for and love. But I also have never met a nurturer inherently believes that they deserve to be in a leadership position, or that at some point, someone's going to discover they weren't quite as good as they thought they were on their resume.

So 43% of people, by the way, Nicola speak nurture as their first voice or foundational voice. So you don't have to be a genius to realise there's not an equal distribution, which is why I'm probably so passionate campaigner on behalf of nurturers in leadership because they're amazing at it. But they never normally promote themselves without sponsorship from someone who chooses to believe in them.

Because for a nurturer to say, I think I'm better than you, which is usually what happens when you have to apply for promotion. Most nurturers inherently believe that that's not the right way to do things. So okay, so next one is creative.

So creatives are very different to nurturers in the sense their superpower is the ability to see the future. They stand on tiptoes looking out into the world for trends in new ideas, technology, what's really happening out there, and they are the most incredible early warning radar systems. I always say to my creatives, okay, what commercial opportunities can you see that I've missed?

Or I haven't seen yet? Or where are the threats to the business that you can see that I haven't seen yet? They love that because they're always, always out into the future.

Every creative has a genius spark in them. They are people of integrity and usually have a very strong social conscience. They always struggle to communicate as clearly as they think they have.

So they usually need the team to help them get out what's really in them. Because what most creatives say first isn't usually what they mean. Ask a few clarifying questions and the gold comes out.

And everyone goes, that's amazing, creative. Why didn't you say that first time? And they said, well, I thought I did.

And they always struggle to celebrate because every creative is an internal perfectionist who holds themselves and others to impossibly high standards. So even when we think we've achieved something, it's never quite as perfect as what they saw. So communication, celebration, and often completion as well.

Creatives are really good at conceptually envisioning the future. They almost always need help to bring that into land in a kind of concrete, right down to the tarmac level.

[06:34 - 06:47]

Nicola Hunt: So can people with all these different voices, these five voices, have the equal opportunity to become voice driven leaders? And if so, how?

[06:47 - 10:57]

Steve Cockram: Absolutely. I think that's probably the thing I'm most passionate about. If you look at the distribution in the world of these foundational voices, they're not represented equally in management leadership roles.

So I passionately believe that each of the foundational voices make great leaders if they are self-aware and they have the ability to understand the superpowers they bring, and the ability to create an environment where other people can bring their superpowers to the table as well. So maybe come back to that. I'll probably also complete the five.

The third one is guardian. Guardians guard what we already have. So in a sense, they are stewards of capital.

They make sure we spend money very, very carefully. They build incredible systems, processes, disciplined ways of operating that allow communities to be healthy, to be safe. Guardians are the best project managers.

When a guardian says they'll deliver something for you, they would rather die than let the team down. Amazing ability to ask difficult questions. The champions of due diligence.

And sometimes their great favourite is, I think it looks a really interesting idea, but before we go all in, can we run a pilot project? Guardians love data. They love to know things are safe before they commit multiple resources.

So the guardians love to run pilot projects and they love to make sure that things are going to work before they go into production. I love guardians. 30% of people speak guardians as their first voice.

And they are, I think, one of the hardest roles to play in an organisation because they're often asking the unglamorous, difficult, concrete database decisions of going, hey, it looks great on a spreadsheet, Steve, but what happens if we don't grow at 40% a year? What happens if? Do we have a contingency?

So guardian is invaluable. Connectors, number four. Connectors are the champions of relationships, messaging.

They're the champions, basically, of marketing and positioning. They're incredibly good at knowing what people need to hear. And they have this incredible superpower of translating the things they believe in into things that people actually want to connect with.

So very inspirational communicators and essential if a business or organisation is going to connect their product or service with the marketplace. Connectors love to sit at the intersection between those two things, testing what works, what doesn't work. Does this connect?

Does this not connect with an audience? And they're bringing back this R&D live, as it were, as to what's happening in that place. So lovers of people, incredibly good at maintaining relational networks, usually have at least 150 close, dear, very best friends, and utterly essential at connecting your product to the marketplace.

So I have a lot of love for my connectors. And then lastly comes loving, cuddly Pioneer. Only 7% of the population speak Pioneer first, but they are the champions of strategic vision, taking on things that people think are impossible, and a deep love of winning.

So Pioneers, they like taking on big challenges where they get to align people, capital, and systems to deliver strategic outcomes over an extended period of time. Every Pioneer wants to scale things. They want to know that if they build it locally, they can go regionally, globally, intergalactically.

And Pioneers are incredibly competitive, and they hate to lose, which, when they're mature, can be a really good thing for a team. When they're immature, they often are in such a hurry to get to the future, they don't often listen to all the other voices in that process. So Pioneers are probably the loudest of the voices in terms of both force of opinion and volume, and often are the ones who have to be careful how they treat others.

Nurture is the quietest voice, Creative, then Guardian, then Connector, then Pioneer. So those are your five voices. Usually one of those is more naturally you, but as I said at the beginning, you speak all five, and everyone around your team table will also speak all five, just some in different superpowers.

[10:58 - 11:21]

Nicola Hunt: Thank you very much for really bringing those five voices to life there. Something you mentioned around self-awareness, and I was wondering, given the differences between the five voices, is self-awareness something which transcends these differences?

[11:22 - 12:28]

Steve Cockram: I think self-awareness is the foundation of others' awareness. So you can't be a good manager or leader if you're not self-aware. We'll often ask people, do you know what it's like to be on the other side of your leadership?

Do you have the ability to look in the mirror and understand the impact you by nature have on those around you? So voices is one of those ones, Nicola, which once people grasp it, oh my goodness, that's me. And then they begin to understand, you mean you're not like me?

And sometimes you connect easily with people who are made the way you are, because you just get away with it. But in most cases, if you are accidental in your leadership, you will usually get it wrong, even when your intent is a good one. So I would say, but the reality is self-awareness means my tendencies don't have to be my actions.

Maturity as a leader is being able to choose what you think is the best way of creating the environment where those you lead get to bring their superpowers to the collective team effort.

[12:28 - 12:41]

Nicola Hunt: I'm the sort of voice that it would be quite easy to silence. Can we discuss ways in which leaders unintentionally silence voices on their teams?

[12:42 - 12:48]

Steve Cockram: Nurturers are so aware of other people's needs, they very rarely silence anyone. If anything, they silence themselves.

[12:48 - 12:49]

Nicola Hunt: Yes, exactly.

[12:50 - 14:04]

Steve Cockram: Now for a nurturer, by the way, you have a care package. You have this incredible pack of all the things that make relationships work well, and all the things you've noticed about the individuals in your life. And I, as a pioneer, come with Kevlar body armour and a grenade launcher.

So it's not a huge surprise that when you and I, as a nurturer and pioneer, if we were to disagree strongly in a room, you would throw your care package at me and I would throw an indoor grenade launcher. When a nurturer feels they've been taken advantage of, or somebody is not treating the way they should, you would draw the care package. The immature pioneer assumes silence is agreement.

It's not. It's just people going, I don't really want to die under the grenade launch of your critique for when I challenge what I think is legitimate. I suspect, you'll have seen it happen to people.

It may have even happened to you. And in a sense, being able to decode how leaders undermine their influence by shutting down discussion, the stronger your voice, the greater the duty of care you have to create the environment where everyone feels safe around you.

[14:05 - 14:37]

Nicola Hunt: I've read a few pieces recently about generational differences. And the discussion was around how younger members of the workforce feel they're getting bashed around a bit and having quite a difficult time with it, actually experiencing high levels of anxiety, which is not a good thing. How do generational differences affect the way voices are heard and valued, in your view?

[14:38 - 17:07]

Steve Cockram: That's a great question, actually. I always say that whenever you meet somebody, you can describe the behaviours that they exhibit, which are a complex mix of nature, nurture and choice. So I do believe we have a personality that's hardwired, like our DNA, as our nature.

But nurture probably influences why people behave the way they do, more strongly than even nature or choice. And by nurture, I mean the external environments that shape us. So in the beginning, it might be your upbringing, your school, your gender, and this is the opportunity, successes, failures.

But fundamentally, there is also a generational piece in there, where I think there is a generation growing up at the moment who is digitally native, i.e. they've never known the late industrial world that I grew up and was trained in. But also, they've had to deal with a lot of complexity, everything from COVID to also being told they're very, very special, and probably a little bit overprotected at times. And so therefore, you've got, I think, this buzzword, I guess, is resilience, isn't it?

How do we help human beings, young professionals be resilient, when the question is, they probably haven't developed the same level of resilience that my generation did, because we've just went out and played all day and no one knew where we were. The thought that my children would be out and I didn't know where they were is terrifying. So I think there's a sense in which the nurture that they have grown up in has been more protected.

And so therefore, I think the work world, which is by its very nature, certainly commercially, very competitive right now. And in a sense, you're dealing with a whole degree of politics. And a lot of the time, a lot of leaders are different generations.

And they really do see the world differently. So I think voices still plays. But I do think, for example, there is a element of which self-awareness for leaders is to ask the question, well, which generation do I represent?

So for me, in Harry Potter speak, I'm a mudblood with muggle tendencies rather than a pureblood, which most of my children are. I have to be aware that when I just bring the level of challenge that I would normally, and then I multiply it by me being a pioneer, I have to be being very sensitive. So really, what I'd say is, how do you calibrate high support and high challenge for those you lead?

And what does that look like?

[17:08 - 17:21]

Nicola Hunt: What advice might you give to a manager who has to deal with one or several people reporting into them who are in this age bracket?

[17:22 - 19:26]

Steve Cockram: I think the first thing I would say is, you have to do the work yourself, first of all, to go, who am I? So if I know my voice, and I know what my tendencies are, a self-awareness allows me to at least ask the question, what is likely to happen in the way I engage with people? So I'm naturally very challenging.

I have to learn how to bring support. So that's stage one. The second stage is to go, okay, what do I know about the people I'm leading?

Do I know their voice? Do I know anything about their story? If you ask the people you lead, how can I create a culture of empowerment for you?

What does high support look like for you? If I was going to be a highly supportive leader, and if I was also going to bring high challenge, how would I do that well? And here's the thing you'll find is, you don't have to be a Jedi master like me in voices and personalities.

If you are genuine, and they experience you asking the question, because you want to be the best manager you can and leader you can, then most people will share with you quite honestly, well, see, if you were going to be highly supportive of me, here's some of the things that I would really appreciate. If I was going to bring challenge, because I want the best for you, how would I do that in a helpful way? But to the generational piece, that is like another lens.

The basic personality of voices is the first couple of lenses. And then you go, well, what generation am I dealing with? You know, what gender am I dealing with?

What ethnicity am I dealing with? Where have they grown up? Who shaped them?

Because in the end, all of those add, in many ways, the greater ability to be able to say, I want to create an environment of high support, high challenge, where you get to be the best you can be. A lot of managers are unconsciously incompetent. My encouragement is you can learn how to do this.

That's part of the reason why we wrote the Voice Driven Leader, because it's literally a hand guide to say, look, based on how you're wired, how they're wired, here's how you develop people in the most practical way that we were able to do.

[19:26 - 19:52]

Nicola Hunt: The Voice Driven Leader would be a brilliant book for a book club, if you had a better awareness of the different voices. Why so-and-so said what they said, or why X had a certain reaction, and that will make your life easier, your relationship with them easier, therefore their life easier. So it does strike me as a book that is one, not just for a manager to read, but truly one to be shared.

[19:53 - 21:36]

Steve Cockram: You should be in marketing for us, Nicola. That's a great way to describe it. I mean, don't forget as well, this is the fifth book we've written in the series.

And 12 years ago, there was none of this. Now there's everything from video series, there's a Five Voices app, there's a Five Voices AI coach that you can literally have your team in. And you just go in and go, I'm about to have a one-to-one with Nicola.

Give me three things I should remember. This is the final piece of the suite that we wanted to give leaders. That was it.

We basically could say now, Trevor and I, there is no excuse for being relationally unintelligent. So our obligation and what we committed to do has been done. If you want to be a liberating leader, if you want to be a relationally intelligent leader who learns how to manage your people better, we really have completed the suite.

Go to fivevoices.com. You'll find that there's a whole load of free resources there as well. And you can play around, even if you use the app and everything for a month, I think it's like 10 bucks or something.

But the book is really the Everest moment, I would say. Self-awareness is foundational. But if you want to do the thing which most people find almost impossible, which is become a relationally intelligent leader, or a voice-driven leader, you're absolutely right.

It won't happen because you wake up one day and go, I think I'd like to be more relationally intelligent as a manager. But all I would promise you is we've spent a long time building a pathway for you that if you want to grow in this stuff, you can. And the book is literally the field guide that goes with it all.

So whether it's a book club, or whether it's with my children, or whether it's in my team, a number of the organisations I work with, everyone gets this book, they get an app, they get the course, they get everything that goes with it.

[21:37 - 21:40]

Nicola Hunt: Steve, thanks so much for joining me here today.

[21:40 - 21:40]

Steve Cockram: Pleasure.