SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Leader, you have uh developed 32 rules of superhero hero leadership, we'll talk about 28, 28, 28.

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

I'm sorry, because I just wrote uh uh wrote a book and it's will be out in February February 3rd called Superhero Leadership and um a little bit of play of my time at Marvel. And um, you know, but you you basically you um you know I'm just I'm just thinking that you well you're you're very good to me. I want to thank you. You know, really very good to me. So Peter, I might not charge a fee for this, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 0:42

That's right. That's right. Thank you for that. So look, look, look, you know what? It's about leadership is, you know, we've talked a lot about peering around the corners. It's about working with good people. How about that one? You like that one?

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

Well, it's pretty generic, but sure.

SPEAKER_00: 0:59

Okay. That's a generic rule. That's my rule. Work with good people. And so your new book, superhero leadership, lays about 28 ways to lead with ready coverage, strength, and compassion. That's what we're talking about here. Peter, which one of those traits do you believe are most lacking in today's leaders? And how how do you see emerging leaders being able to cultivate them?

SPEAKER_01: 1:36

Well, first of all, uh if I could just backtrack a little bit. So what what I do, um I'm still in business, I'm chairman of three companies, one in Luxembourg nanotechnology company. Um one is a uh, which I'm just going off of now, but uh a med tech company on the Nasdaq, and one is an AI company in San Francisco. So that is in a sense one side of my life. The other side is that many years ago I became very concerned about the lack of leadership in the world. And I like to say we have less good leadership in the world than maybe ever in human history. I know, big statement. But um, and that was years ago, and it's only worse now. And uh so the theme of what uh what I do, which I'll run through very quickly, is that, but it's also a very strong sub-theme is young people are not learning leadership. And I'm defining young as age five to age 30. Why aren't they learning leadership? We need them desperately for the future. What can they do? What can their parents do? What can anybody do to encourage young people to learn leadership? And we, if we have time, we can talk about why and some of the things I recommend. So, around that theme, I've been doing speeches around the world for over 20 years. Uh, and actually, the now 28 Essentials started that uh my third year as CEO of Marvel Entertainment, and I was asked to uh make a speech to a large group on leadership, and shockingly now, when I think back, I really had thought very little consciously about my own leadership, my style, what I had learned. I had a lot of adventures. I have the adventure of Jean, I guess. And um I had a I had a nonstop flight to China 11 hours before the speech. And I was nervous and got on the plane, what am I gonna say? And I sort of went into a trance for about nine hours writing, going through my entire life practically. What did I learn? When did I learn it? And that's when the most of the 28 essentials, I might in 20 years I might have added three or four, that's all. And um, they are what I I what I think are instincts, habits, attitudes. They take various forms, and uh, and so on. So that really started me off. And then we have a podcast, superhero leadership with Peter Cunningham. We just finished the second season. We're very happy with how that's going. We have the book coming out called Superhero Leadership in right now, February 3rd. It's written, so I think we're gonna make the date. Um, I'm also working with a company called Summer Discovery, which runs summer programs at the best universities in the world for high ability high school students. I want to get to them, help them think about leadership. We're talking Oxford, Cambridge, five Ivy League schools, UCLA, MIT, University of Madrid, and on and on. And they uh students come from 80 different countries, and um, they have about 10,000 students in the summer. So I'm working on a pilot program on leadership, which will be out next summer. And then uh working again with another group uh called Studio.com. Some of you may be aware of it. It's a little a bit like masterclass, but really more for a younger audience. And uh they saw me give a talk and said, We need you to, we don't have a we need a leader, we don't have a leader, you know, we need a program. So a lot going on on the on the uh the question of leadership and so on. And so um I'm um still, you know, people still want to talk about leadership, which makes sense. It's even if you don't aspire to leadership, it's a subject every human being is interested in. So um the toughest of the 28 essentials, we call them essentials for superhero leadership. Um, and that is basically says you have to make the emotional leap to understand that as a leader, and particularly when I've done seven turnarounds, so it's particularly uh uh you know difficult, challenging situations. But in any leadership position, business, non-business, public, private, it doesn't matter what you're in, you have to be comfortable emotionally. That as a leader, you're gonna have to make some change at some point, and you're gonna make people unhappy. And some of them will never see you any other way but a problem. And that is very hard for most human beings to do. That is the mantle of leadership. It's the thing you really need to accept. Yeah, you can make more money, yes, you there are some nice things about being an effective leader, but in the end, you can't be effective unless you are okay with, okay, I don't want to abuse people, of course not. But this change is going to be needed, and unfortunately, there's no way around it. Because if we don't, we may have everybody else with out of a job that hasn't lost it already. So very, very tough. I can't look at all of you and determine which of you can make that leap, which can't. Some can make the leap when they're 10, 20, 30, some need to be 50. Yeah, everyone is different. But that is the key because leadership, the key word I always associate with leadership is courage. If you ask me one word, what is it? It's courage, courage to make change. Try not to make people unhappy, but accept that no matter what you do, even positive change upsets human beings because it's change. I'm not gonna be in that same cubicle anymore. You're moving me to a corner office, I'm upset. I want to stay in my cubicle. I've had that happen as an example. So um it's it's it's not easy and there's a lot of stress associated with it. You have to accept that too. Most human beings just don't want to be leaders because they don't want the responsibility of having to deal with other people. We all fundamentally, most of us, unless we're nuts, we all want to be loved by everybody, right? It's natural for human beings. But if you're gonna be an effective leader, it's impossible. And that is the you asked me what the biggest mistake was that I think you know, leaders poor certainly poor leaders make, it's that. They never make that leap. They put off problems, they don't want to deal. Maybe it'll go away if I'm lucky.

SPEAKER_00: 8:56

So it's isn't that human nature though? Isn't it human nature to take the path of least resistance? So the courage, the courage to take that leap is what you're talking about, right?

SPEAKER_01: 9:08

Sure, is if you do a study. I'm on the board of the National Archives Foundation in Washington. The archives keeps all the records of the United States government from day one. We have 22 billion documents. The largest collection of antique maps, the largest collection of film, the largest collection of photographs in the world. And being on the board, this I'm in my 15th year, is you learn a lot about leadership. And if you go to my website, petercuneo.com, I do have a list of 15 things that I recommend for people to learn leadership. And one of most of them are all about face-to-face experiences because I believe 90% of learning leadership is your personal experiences with a diversity of people, professionally, personally, internationally, talking about the UN. All of that, you learn the instincts of how to convince people to go your way, but it takes time. So I just think that it's um it's a challenge, particularly for young people, but I do have that list which I recommend. One of the things on the list is, which doesn't require face-to-face, is study history. And there's a lot of ways to do that. You can get a book, you can go online, you can go to museums, you can travel and go around the world. Whatever it takes. There's a lot of the past is prologue.

SPEAKER_00: 10:40

It's so so so incredible to hear, Peter, because you are that leader. Um, on your superhero leadership podcast, which I encourage all of you uh to listen to, uh, because it's Peter at his best, uh, like today. Um, you know, you'll hear Peter talking, you know, a range of global leaders, CEOs and others that are just have been there, have done that, or are doing it. And I'd like you, I'd like to ask you, Peter, for the global audience, for the millions of people that will see, watch, hear this interview, um, what are some of the threads that you have found in these leaders? Like what what what is that? I know you said courage, and that's important because without courage, as they say, someone wiser than maybe we said, all of the other virtues are not possible.

SPEAKER_01: 11:38

I think you're probably right on that. Um again, if you study past successful leaders, you see a number of things that in their behaviors that they all have. And um one of them is they run at problems. They do not shy away from problems, they actually run at problems. Another thing you see is that they are very comfortable being thrown into or making a decision to go into an alien environment. Now, an alien in this case, I'm I'm I'm talking about different, not necessarily bad, but different. Alien environments come up in your life. Sometimes it could be business. And my first turnaround, my boss walked into my office and said, Peter, you're gonna take over the international division tomorrow. You're gonna fly to London with me. I was like, What? And yeah, it's a big turnaround. I had no idea, I knew anything, I had any skills in turnarounds. I was thrown into an alien environment. And I was depressed for six months until we started getting results, and I realized it was all about leadership and so on. So, or you you work in New York, guess what? You just took a job in London. Well, you're gonna go to an alien environment. It was your decision, not a bad thing, but good leaders are very good coping with alien environments. And so, one of the things that I see with our guests, and I will say that we have, if you go online, uh we we did um film uh season two, so you can actually sit there for 40 minutes and watch two people talking to each other. I don't know who wants to do that, but apparently it's very popular. And um season one was just audio. But our guests are some names you would know, but many don't really know. But when you hear what they accomplished, it's pretty unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And that's the uh the idea behind it. But one of the things that I always ask is about their childhood. Tell me about your childhood. What was it like? I almost know what I'm gonna hear. I mean, one guest said, I grew up in a trailer with five brothers. Another one said, um, you know, I basically my father had a lot of physical problems. I became a uh, I I delivered newspapers when I was 10 years old. Um but I realized my first it was first my first business because I realized that if I actually didn't just throw the paper on the front step, but I actually rang the bell and said, Is there anything else I can do for you? People loved it. Kind of 10 years old. Incredible. So what you what you see though when you hear these people talk is they had very unique experiences. They were challenged by life in many cases. They were not overparented, the opposite in most cases. We have a terrible problem with overparenting. This is one of the reasons young people are not learning leadership. So, oh, you um oh you didn't make that elite soccer team? Oh, it's the coach's fault. I'm gonna call the coach and tell him off or her off. Oh, you got a bad grade in school? Oh, it's the teacher's fault. It's not your fault. And kids never learn to cope. A lot of kids today, I hear stories from C-suite people all the time. I almost can't believe my ears sometimes on the problems with young people. First job, very well educated, and uh just amazing stories about that. They have no skin. And they can't handle handle the simplest setback because they were never faced with a setback growing up. So um, you know, but I long, long-winded answer to your question.

SPEAKER_00: 15:48

Oh, that it's incredibly insightful, and I think that it goes back to courage, right? And it and you develop that courage through adversity, through experience, through all of these things that you know. I don't think you can be taught courage, is what I'm trying to say. Can you?

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

I I don't know. I I don't know. You know, I think one of the things you also see is most of these leaders were encouraged to take risks, even at a very young age. Or they had experiences uh with the family or friends where they went into alien environments. A five-year-old can learn leadership. Now, I used to say that to the audience, and all of you would be going like this. No way. My five-year-old doesn't even know what leadership means. And what I explain is this for your next summer vacation, go to Europe to a country that does not speak English. Take your five-year-old, and here's what happens. Of course, the five-year-old doesn't know anything about leadership. But the emotional reaction, assuming it went well, and chances are it will go well, is you know, we went to this place, I forgot the name. Um, I didn't understand anything anyone said. This is if you're an American, but I would apply this to anybody going out of their culture. And uh the food was different, but I liked it. Mom and dad, where are we going next year? If you can't afford to go to Europe, okay, not everyone can, go to Quebec. If you can't afford to go to Quebec, you don't have to leave the U.S., go to West Virginia and let your kids see poverty. That's another another important um, I think, I think for all young kids to know that there is poverty in the world and what that really means without having a you know a terrible experience. Of course not. It's not what I'm saying. But these the parents, very often of these leaders, provided those kinds of experiences just naturally. In my case, I often say I had the adventurer gene, and it's really not uh it's not anything organic. My parents were adventurers, and my grandparents, three of whom over four, were were um, you know, immigrants, they were all adventurers. They couldn't sit at a desk. My mother was an EMT for 30 years. The last 10, because she couldn't do it physically, she was a dispatcher for the EMTs. She would come when I was in high school, she worked the 4-12 shift. She would come to my house and put me in the back with her. Now we're going way back. This is before this was unregulated, this is before regulations, could never get away with this. And I would go on calls, and it wasn't that I did anything because I wasn't qualified, but I saw my mother in action. I grew up with a working woman who had courage. And I'm not going to get into some of the graphic details of what I happened to see because I was doing that. My father was a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department. Canal on Allen Street here in Manhattan was his firehouse. Some of the worst fires in New York City, Chinatown. And he uh he was, his men often told me he was one of the few officers that actually ran in the buildings to fight the fires with them, as opposed to standing out in the street and directing. My father was also in the U.S. Navy as an officer in World War II and Korea. My grandparents uh immigrated from Italy, Sweden, and Scotland via Nova Scotia and Canada. They survived, they got through the depression, they were middle-class families. But they worked all jobs. They got out there. My grandfather and grandmother met in a fancy apartment house uh on Park Avenue, 903 Park Avenue, which is 79th and Park. And how'd they meet? He was the handyman, and she was running the elevator. Because back then you actually had to have someone in the elevator to run it. And that's how they met. Incredible. They were downstairs in a sense.

SPEAKER_00: 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:26

Okay, but this is what I grew up with. So it was um, I went in the Navy to Vietnam. I'm uh I'm a Vietnam uh uh uh veteran of two tours, a guided missile destroyer of the Navy. I really went because my father's service. And I just thought it would be a big adventure, admittedly, I was very naive when I think back. But when I was when I really started to learn leadership was in the US Navy in combat. And I was privileged to have experiences under some great Navy officers and senior enlisted men, Navy chiefs. And I learned leadership just by being with them, asking them questions, watching them in action.

SPEAKER_00: 21:12

So Peter, you what a thank you for that journey because it's so important to understand who you are. And I think for our global audience to understand, you know, your first of all, thank you for your service to the United States without a doubt. Um I think it it's important to note that. Peter, you emphasize the importance of being human and being honest and accessible as a leader. How do you balance that openness with the need, the courage, to make such tough and perhaps unpopular decisions?

SPEAKER_01: 21:59

I actually think it comes down to communications. And the art of community, it's an art form. Communications is an art. And a lot of people have, in in in in my world at least, um, have never mastered the art or realized how important it is. So I'm looking at you three ladies right now, only because you're in the front row. 50% of what I'm learning about you right now is your body language. 50%. I haven't spoken to you yet, of course. So and if we were speaking, of the remaining 50%, 25% would be what you say, the other 25% would be how you save it, say it. So I could probably tell if you really liked me or not up here if we have a conversation, regardless of what you say. Um it's so communications, and if you're a leader, you have to communicate honestly with people. People know there are problems. My experience with human beings is they they feel better being told the truth, even if it's negative, than than being in an atmosphere of total uncertainty. It's human nature. Okay, at least I know. You know, I know what we're thinking, I know what we're trying to do. And so regular communications to as many, I like to be face to face as we are today, but if you're in a big organization, that's not always possible. But regular communications, consistent communications, saying the same thing to everybody. How many, how many bad leaders have you met where what they said was whoever talked to them five minutes ago, that was their story. It could be different from the day before. It happens. Poor leadership, poor communication. Uh Peter Cunio, thank you so very much. Thank you, George, very much.