Episode 224: The Liminal Space with Dr. Chris Fuzie

Darrin Peppard (00:00.878)

All right, everybody, welcome into episode 224 of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. What if everything we believed about leadership was only half the story? My guest today challenges traditional views of leadership as a solo act and introduces us to the essential and often overlooked partner in the process, the follower. From a 28 year career in law enforcement to doctoral research and authorship, Dr. Chris Fusey,

brings a unique perspective to what it means to lead, to follow, and to operate in the in-between space where both happen at once. This is a really thought-provoking episode that you don't want to miss, so let's get right to it with Dr. Chris Fusey.

Darrin Peppard (00:00.91)

All right, friends, welcome back into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. My guest on today's show is Dr. Chris Fusey. I'm really intrigued by this conversation because as those of you who are regular listeners and watchers of the program, those of you who watch us over on YouTube, thank you for that. A lot of our recent guests have been in that education space. And while Dr. Fusey certainly

has some feet in the education space, he actually comes to us with a much different background. And we're going to talk a lot today about behavior based leadership. We're going to talk about leading. We're going to talk about following and we'll see where else we might go. But before we get to all of that, Dr. Chris Fusey, welcome into Leaning Into Leadership.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (00:50.317)

Thank you, Darren. I appreciate being here. This is going to be fun.

Darrin Peppard (00:53.294)

Absolutely. We've, we've had an interesting journey to get us to this place where you and I finally get to sit down and record. folks, I'll, I'll tell you that, Chris and I have been in communication for probably nine or 10 months about getting this podcast together and a variety of things in each of our personal lives led to a number of cancellations. And finally we're sitting down and recording together. So, this is going to be great.

Chris, let's do this first. Let's kind of maybe zoom out a little bit, jump up on the balcony, let people maybe kind of see some of Chris Fusey's journey that has led you to where you are and what you do now. So go back as far as you'd like and just maybe share a little bit of your background and who you are and what you're really all about.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (01:45.723)

Okay, well, I won't start with I was born as a baby. That's a little too far. So I'll start with what what actually, right. I'll start with what actually gets things interesting is that being in the police department for about 28 years at Modesto PD and starting as one of the most dangerous positions, the parking enforcement officer

Darrin Peppard (01:52.014)

We appreciate that.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (02:12.733)

You know in a downtown area And I started with doing that and then I worked my way up through the ranks to patrol field training officer Sergeant lieutenant and I was in charge of different units like the traffic unit the training unit the school resource officer school police officer unit Hostage negotiation team and then homicide gangs

street level drug team so a very interesting career and that's that's Spanned you know 28 29 years halfway through that is where the education part and that's where it gets interesting is that I never really Considered doing anything about police work. mean that was it was fun. I was enjoying it and so about halfway through I kept seeing all my friends getting hurt and I

wait a minute, what am I going to do if I get hurt? I got to have a backup plan. Good cop has a backup plan. So I got to have a backup plan. So I said, Well, let me go back to school. So I back to school, and I can't get a degree in in criminal justice because I'm in it. So I said, Okay, how about something else? So or leadership, I saw founded degree, bachelor's degree in or leadership. So I finished my, I like to say I was, I just

had a PhD before going back to school, that's a public high school diploma. you know that that didn't really help me too much. You can be very successful as a cop, but it doesn't help you get any other kind of job. So I went back to school for this or leadership stuff and finished the bachelor program. And while I was doing the bachelor program, I started taking some of those leadership concepts, the theories that we're learning in the classroom.

Darrin Peppard (03:43.799)

You

Dr. Chris Fuzie (04:06.621)

and seeing how they play out in this little Petri dish of a police department that I was in. And I say little, but you 400 employees. So you have a lot of dynamics going on. And I was starting to see how these these leadership, you know, scientific leadership theories actually worked. And so I after doing that, I graduated with the bachelor's that is like, well, they offered me to

go to the master's program. said, okay, I'll do the master's program too. So I went to the master's program. In the meantime, I was promoted to sergeant and then and then to lieutenant. And, know, throughout all the stuff that happens as a cop, doing this education thing, and applying some of these concepts to what happened in the police world. So, you know, and then, then I retired.

I graduated from that. I retired in 2010 and I started my own company, my own leadership training company. I should say before that, you know, while I was with the police department, I started training with International Association of Chiefs of Police and then flying all over the country and training police departments and leadership. And then especially throughout California. And then I started working in California doing our

training here for California Peace Officer standards and training. I did a leadership class. did a weird I was helping with the supervisory classes, training the super new supervisors in California. And then while I was doing that, I found this doctoral program, again, an organizational leadership. So it's like, I gotta do that. That mean it was calling me.

And so I went and did the the doctorate in organizational leadership and that got me to to thinking about a lot of the things that happen. And even though I've been training in leadership and followership, I really never really concerned myself with followership until about probably six or seven years ago now. And that followership is I mean, it's the whole leadership, I used to think of leadership and I think we all still do this. Think of leadership as a person as character traits as

Dr. Chris Fuzie (06:30.927)

a position as something like that, but it's actually more of a process than anything else involving the leader, the follower, and whatever the context is. And so I started focusing on that and that's when I started writing the books. All about behavior. Because everything you learn as a police officer is about behavior. And if you think about it, anytime you do something,

behavior and whether you're doing it as a leader or you're doing it as a follower as behavior you know so so that's kind of where I got to you today and that's that's what you know the huge overview and I probably gave you too much but that's where we're at okay

Darrin Peppard (07:12.224)

No, not at all. No, not at all. I really, I really appreciate that. And there's, there's a few things there that maybe I'd like to dig into a little bit more, but I think I really just want to go right at what, what you just talked about and have you maybe expand for us on that, that concept of leadership, followership and, how leadership truly is more than

Dr. Chris Fuzie (07:29.062)

Okay.

Darrin Peppard (07:39.976)

just simply having a certain set of traits, having a title, that type of thing. Let's, I just want you to build on.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (07:48.615)

So the mental schema that we've learned or that we've been given, I should say, or that's been the major schema that we have is that leaders and followers are separate. Leaders and followers are opposite. You know, you ask, and I actually did this with chat GPT. I said, hey, what does it mean to be opposite? They told me what it means to be opposite.

I said, so what is the opposite of a leader? And it said follower. So then I asked it the question, well, if this means opposite, and you're saying leader or followers the opposite of leader, but they go the same direction, they're trying to achieve the same goals are there. And, and I thought I broke it because it stopped for a second. And when it stopped, you know, it stopped and I said, thank you for the clarification. In this context, followership is not

the opposite of leadership. Followership is actually complimentary. And that's right. That that that discussion is right in that book. I just I just took it word for word copy paste right in the book, you know. But that's the thing. A lot of us think still think of those things as being separate and being certain traits. One of the things I did throughout my, you know, 10 plus years, actually more than that of consulting is every time we would do a class,

I would ask people four questions. Who is the greatest leader in all of human history? And we'd go over all sorts of things. Who is your favorite leader that you've actually interacted and why? So they would explain that. And then I did the easy question, who is your worst leader and why? And then they would talk about that. And then I'd ask the last question, give me two traits or behaviors of great leadership.

And you know, like every good consultant, you write those on a board or you write those on a sticky note plaster it all over. And, and then later on, we're talking about followership. And I went back to that list. I said, Okay, this is the list that this class made of great leadership traits, great leadership behaviors. How many of these things do you not want in your followers? And when you think about those behaviors of the behavior based

Dr. Chris Fuzie (10:12.445)

way of doing things. Everybody said, no, I, yeah, we want all of those, even risk taker. You know, they want people to be risk takers. want you know, there was. And so what I found over these 10 years, I would, I would save these lists. And I didn't save the whole big board, but I'd saved the list. And, and then I boiled them down to 86 different behaviors.

of great leaders and exemplary followers. And that's also in the book. And so you think about this leading and following, and then there was one of the parts about leadership is that we talk about it as just behaviors, but it's actually more of a process. You can't have leadership, so you have the three factors, leaders, followers,

and a context. Imagine how many leaders were born who never had a context or never had followers, right? Imagine how many followers were born never had good leaders or never had leaders never had a contact or leaders and followers get together but they don't have anything to do. There's no problems to solve. There's no right. So you have to have all three to have good leadership and followership and the context and the situation to deal with. So it's more of a process you take one of those things out, you don't have it anymore.

Darrin Peppard (11:26.765)

Yeah.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (11:40.699)

So when you think about leadership, to me it's... and then when you think about the leaders and followers, if they're actually not opposites and they're working towards the same goal, then it's more about the behavior, the do part, it's more about the behavior than anything else. So that's why I focus on the behavior-based leadership plus...

the 86 behaviors that are boiled down from 10 years of consulting work that that says this is what good leaders have, or do, or are. And then you can pick out of that list. And you know, you can have more than 86, you can have 100, 210,000, I don't care. But you pick those behaviors out of that, out of that that you want in your organization. But keep in mind that this isn't just for

benevolent purposes, gangs do the same thing. Criminal street gangs do the same thing. Criminals, organizations, mafias, whatever, they do the same thing because the concepts work. Just that they have a different purpose than, you know, what we might desire, right? So that's kind of what I think of that leadership stuff and why behavior is so important.

Darrin Peppard (13:08.834)

find that extremely fascinating. you know, obviously, you know, like you, you know, somebody who works a lot in leadership, consult, coach, support, that type of thing, understanding context, followers, leaders. But I had not thought really about followership in that in that same way. And I'm curious.

When, when you let's maybe even go back to like during your law enforcement career, when you know, when you were in those leadership roles and you were just some of this work was coming out of the courses you were taking and then that type of thing. What were some of the things that you started to notice or that maybe you notice now in the work that you do that leaders and followers do that gets in the way of this type of

great leadership and followership.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (14:10.567)

So, I just recently, I'd say in the last five years, realized how much we did both leading and following throughout my entire police career. From the time you're in the academy, they teach you to either be the, you're either the contact officer or you're the backup officer or the cover, whatever you call it. So if you're the contact, then you're in the lead for what happens with that situation.

If you're the cover, you're more of the follower and your job is different, but yet it's still to find a successful solution to that kind of call. I didn't really even realize that till maybe five years ago that the whole career was that thing. And then to answer your question about what gets in the way, I think the idea that the leader has to do certain things, the follower has to do certain things.

The idea of liminal space is that you may have to lead and follow at the same time. And so that's when, you know, that's when the behavior becomes most important. And we tend to get away from that. Well, I'm, I'm the leader, I can't, you know, I kind of freak people out here when I started working here, I work at a district attorney's office, I'm the business manager. So

I want number three in command of 160 some odd people, $32 million budget. And, you know, but I have to follow what our district attorney says. I report directly to him if he says this is the way we're going to go. say, okay, this way we're going to have to turn around and get 160 other people to follow, right. But I'm following. I'm following but I'm also leading all at the same time.

And I think what happens is a lot of people think, well, I'm in charge. I can't do it. So what freaked people out was, you know, we'd have light bulbs go out in this building. And you put in a request for the light bulb and it would take a month for somebody to, you know, get to fixing the light bulb. And I thought, well, how long do we need to stay in the dark, really? I mean, and then it's almost metaphorical about, you know, how long are you going to wait for somebody else to

Dr. Chris Fuzie (16:34.855)

turn the lights on for you. And so I just went and I got a ladder and I got the light bulbs. found where they were. I got a ladder and I went up and I started changing light bulbs. And they're looking at me like, why are you changing light bulbs? And as a matter of fact, this is a different district attorney. We have a new one now. But the one that hired me, she says, she goes, why are you up changing light bulbs? I said, well, because I don't want to sit here and wait for a month and a half for GSA to come change the light bulbs.

And they're very much, I gotta tell you, they're very much more responsive now. They do a great job. But that's the political side there. So I told her, said, you know, I just want to get it done. And she says, well, you're the business manager. go, yeah, that's okay. I know how to change light bulbs. I do it in my own house. So and she goes, well, okay, well, what if you fall off the ladder? I said, well,

Darrin Peppard (17:09.87)

Ha

Darrin Peppard (17:26.83)

Ha

Dr. Chris Fuzie (17:32.817)

Burger, here's the thing, if I fall off the ladder, you should fire me for being incompetent. But it's that kind of thing. People are afraid. My position, I shouldn't do this or I shouldn't do that. I'm the leader. I showed up as a lieutenant one day to an accident. I was first on scene at this accident. It's just kind of your average accident. Maybe some minor injuries, nothing.

CPR or squirting blood anywhere or anything like that. So I started taking down the accident report, moved the cars out of the street, started taking the accident report. And one of the cops shows up and he goes, hey, what are you doing? I said, well, I got this. I'll just finish the accident report. And he goes, you can't do that. I said, well, I can because I've already got the information or we just have to do it all over again because, you know, he goes, well,

but you're the lieutenant. go, yeah, but I was also a motor cop, so I know how to do one of these. know, okay, I said, you know, what's wrong? He goes, well, just, lieutenants don't do that. Yeah, they do. They should. You know, and that's the kind of thing. That's why I say we get in our own way sometimes, just focusing on our position and what that position should be.

Whereas if something needs to get done, like as a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, you have to be the CEO and the garbage taker out. That's the fact. You do it all. So it shouldn't be any different in other organizations. Even in the army. And I've heard some army and military people say,

Darrin Peppard (19:05.868)

Yeah, you do it all.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (19:22.525)

It doesn't matter what your rank is. As a matter of fact, this is in my book. It doesn't matter what your rank is. The mission is the most important. you know, and one of the examples I have in the book is from a helicopter crewman who's in the back of the thing. He's a... What is he? He's like an E5, right? He's enlisted. He's like an E5. And then you have two officers in the front flying the chopper. Well, the person in the back...

is he's enlisted i.e. a follower the person the two in the front are officers i.e. leaders but that person in the back is the one with the situational awareness for what's going on with the mission and they're the ones telling the the pilots you know go left go right go up go down whatever they need to do in order to accomplish the mission depending on what it is and so

And I said, well, how does that, how is that taken? You know, he goes, it doesn't matter. He says, if I'm the one with situational awareness, I'm the one that has to tell them what to do. Otherwise, the mission fails. So whether I fail, if I fail, it's we all fail. And then, you know, if the pilots fail, then we crash, we all fail, you know, so and that kind of thinking is what we should get to and focus more on the behavior.

than on the position, positional requirements or status, that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (20:58.946)

Yeah, for sure. A couple of things that come to mind there. You know, I was a high school principal for a long time. And, you know, there were many a times where there was a spill in the hallway. And I mean, yeah, I could get on the radio and call a custodian or, you know, the janitor closet was right around the corner. I can just go grab a mop. I know how to run a mop, right? I mean, I've been on the business end of a mop a lot when I was the building principal. And I know sometimes people would say, you know, why are you doing that? That's not your role.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (21:20.188)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (21:28.872)

And it's like, yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (21:30.769)

Right, yeah, and that's the thing, yeah. But you're brave to be a high school principal, in my opinion. I go work with bad guys, you're brave to be a high school principal.

Darrin Peppard (21:36.751)

Love that job so very much. Love that job so very much. So I want you to go a little bit further. You said it, but and I know you were talking about it, but I'd like you to just go a little bit further with a little bit more definition around the liminal space because listeners I'm sure caught you, you know, they heard you say it, but we didn't really go like super deep. And I know your most recent book is titled.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (22:02.257)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (22:05.248)

liminal space. so, so I want to give you that opportunity to go a little bit further with that specific definition.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (22:06.781)

Correct.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (22:11.675)

Yeah, so the book is is liminal space and the subtitle is reshaping leadership and followership. So there's two different concepts going on here. So the first is the liminal space. And and if you look at biology or the sciences, when is when something is in a liminal space, it's in transition. It's like a

caterpillar transitioning to a butterfly, right? And when it's in the cocoon, it's in that liminal space and it's transitioning. Well, if you think about most leaders, most mid manager, even even elected officials, they have to follow somebody, they follow somebody, the elected officials follow the populace. And so we talk about

any mid-manager where they have to lead and follow at the same time they transition one they're transitioning all the time whether they're leading or following they're still in that same position and so they still have to do with that context and so like i just said before my position where i follow the DA but then i have to turn around and get a hundred

sixty-some odd people to do what we need done. That's a liminal space. That's where I'm leading and following simultaneously and I'm doing the behavior that is required to get the job done. And so that's where when you talk about liminal space, it's less about the position and more about the behavior. That's where the second part of the book comes in is reshaping behavior.

And I use tessellations of behavior. Similar, I take the concept out of math, which I learned in 10th grade in high school. And you talk about tessellations, where you can cover the surface of a plane with geometric shapes, right? And they're all around us in nature and everything. Well, if we can create behaviors that we can repeat those behaviors.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (24:30.435)

over and over again to cover an entire organization, teamwork, cohesion, honesty, know, the ability to learn any of those kind of behaviors. That's where we can reshape leadership and followership, because you can lead and follow in that liminal space. And, and all you have to do is those behaviors that the organization requires.

But the liminal space itself is kind of interesting to think about because we all do it, we all do it naturally, but when you break it down into am I leading right now or am I following or am I doing both simultaneously, the liminal space and my use of it is that we do it simultaneously without, sometimes without even thinking about it.

I hope that helps. I know I may have confused people. Okay, good.

Darrin Peppard (25:26.838)

Yeah, absolutely. No, not at all. I think that's fantastic. I think that's, I think that's a really, really clear and concise definition of that. mean, and I appreciate the examples in there too, because I think probably all of us, you know, especially after listening to that can say, okay, yeah, I know exactly what Chris is talking about because I have found myself in that. mean, as

As I was listening to you talk, I found myself thinking about as a superintendent, how I had to follow a board as a high school principal. had to follow multiple, you know, layers above me, superintendent, district level board, all of those types of things and how, yet at the same time, then you have to, you know, turn and lead the people that, you know, that, that ultimately, whether they're direct report or they're

Dr. Chris Fuzie (26:14.673)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (26:20.75)

part of the organization that you're charged with leading. I really appreciate that and I really appreciate the information. Go ahead.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (26:25.266)

What a

Well, one of the things that we also think about is, you like you're talking about being the superintendent and the principal, we sometimes tend to think about just leadership in those kind of positions. Take a McDonald's worker who was hired four months ago, and they've learned how to make fries and they've learned how to make shakes and they've learned how to make the burgers and everything. Well, then they hire another person today.

and they're given to this four month experienced McDonald's worker. And I'm just using McDonald's. I mean, we could use any hamburger place or any fast food place where now that person is in a leadership position because they have to train the new person and that one-on-one training. And now they're a liminal leader because they're in that liminal space.

they're also a liminal follower because they have to follow what their manager or the person who was hired eight months ago says, right. And so everybody gets put in that and we do it so naturally, that we don't even think about it. We just anticipate that it's up in these lofty kind of jobs, you know, the superintendent, that's, that's pretty high up there. You know, I mean, wow. And

Darrin Peppard (27:29.443)

Yeah.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (27:51.185)

But that's what we think about when we think about leadership. We don't think about, you know, the person who's training somebody else how to make the fries. The person who's teaching the other person how to, you know, I was telling my son this last week, I said, Hey, I was watching him mop a floor and he's in the Navy. I said, Do you need you need some help with that? He goes, he goes, No, I I've swabbed quite a few decks, dad. And I go, No, you're an airman. You haven't swabbed nothing.

Darrin Peppard (28:01.496)

Yeah.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (28:22.413)

And I said, wait, before you do this anymore, let me show you the right way to wring out your mop before. And so I showed him, you put it in and you twist it. I said, this only comes from years as a janitor. I know how to do this, right? And I learned how to do that. It was one of the second jobs I had as a cop, being a janitor. And you learn how to do that. spin the mop and then squish it out. It's much better.

And he goes, oh, well, that's that kind of whether you're a custodian or whatever it is, teaching somebody how to do the fries, you teach him those techniques. You are a leader, you're a liminal leader, you're you're taking care of that business. And it doesn't have to be these lofty kind of positions. It almost everybody is a liminal leader in some some way.

Darrin Peppard (29:11.736)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (29:15.266)

Yeah, no, that's an awesome concept. I love that so much. you know, there are lot of times where I get the opportunity to work with, you know, with school districts and with leadership teams in all facets and that type of thing. And a lot of times, I'm asked to to lean into specifically that where everybody is a leader and to share some of that. And certainly, you've you've certainly helped sharpen the sword for me today with with that liminal space.

I can't thank you enough for that. And as as I'm not overly surprised, our time has absolutely flown by in this conversation. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna no, that's great. I think it's wonderful. But but I'm going to transition us to the last question that I asked everybody here on the leaning into leadership podcast. You shared so much, but I'm curious, what might be something Chris that you're doing to lean into leadership right now?

Dr. Chris Fuzie (29:54.279)

Sorry about that.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (30:12.541)

So it is the followership stuff. The followership is kind of exploding in leadership because we've kind of beaten leadership into submission now. And so now what's the next step? Well, people are starting to realize that it isn't the same. And leadership, the practice and concepts of leadership are evolving.

And they're evolving to where they're saying, hey, let's look at followership because it's not opposite. It's not just a focus on the leader. We have to think about the followers. And so that's where that's what I'm looking at. That's kind of what my focus is. even this week, next week, I'll be going to the Global Followership Conference. This is starting to become a big deal. This will be our fourth year with the Global Followership Conference.

Darrin Peppard (31:05.602)

Wow, yeah.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (31:10.413)

and people from all over the world are going, hey, wait a minute, that's right. This followership stuff is huge. So that's where I'm headed.

Darrin Peppard (31:21.698)

Yeah, that's outstanding stuff. And I love that. And I'm going to have to check that out. I did not realize there was a global followership conference. got to definitely have to look into that. So, man, this was awesome. I'm so glad we finally got a chance to sit down and have this conversation and do it with the recording actually going. People are going to want to check out your books. They're going to want to learn more about you. How do they get in touch with you? How do they grab a copy of the book?

Dr. Chris Fuzie (31:30.471)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (31:49.693)

So all of my books are on Amazon. Score Performance Counseling has its own website, which is www.scorperformancecounseling.com. You can get a hold of me by going to my website, cmfleadership.com, and then there's a contact page. Or my email is just chris at cmfleadership.com. I just have to remember who I am and where I work, so yeah.

Darrin Peppard (32:17.048)

There you go. Outstanding. Okay, perfect. We'll put all that stuff in the show notes so people can check that out. Man, this was awesome. Dr. Chris Fusey, thank you so much for joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (32:18.715)

So that's the way to do it.

Dr. Chris Fuzie (32:29.991)

Thank you, Darren. I'm glad we finally got this together.

Darrin Peppard (00:45.834)

Outstanding episode there. appreciate Dr. Fusey joining me here on the podcast. And now it is time for a pep talk. Today on the pep talk, I just want to reference something that earlier in the week, one of my clients said to me, we were talking about one of his work partners, somebody that is a part of the leadership team that he is a part of. And he mentioned how he had told them, you know, sometimes you just got to turn on your blinker and merge into your lane.

What he meant by that was specifically that individual had been kind of holding back, not moving forward, not taking the reins in the leadership role that they had. I would challenge you this week to think about that. Are you hesitating to merge? Are you really fully getting into your lane and stepping on the gas as a leader? Or are you sitting back and being hesitant? My advice, turn on that turn signal, merge into your lane and get traveling down the road to awesome.

Thanks so much for joining me this week on the podcast folks get out there have a road to awesome week