Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Bryan Deptula. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Bryan, appreciate you joining us today. What’s something you believe that most people in your industry (or in general) disagree with?

The greatest challenge organizations face today is that less employees are willing to work—they want to work less, come into the office less, and be held less accountable for results. Plus, they are less committed to staying with an employer. In return, today’s worker wants more money, vacation, work-life balance, and promotions. In an age of an ever-escalating war for better employees, it has never been more important for a business to invest in developing leaders.

Organizations face these leadership problems (a) leaders are neither trained nor prepared to lead and (b) because leaders don’t know how to lead, employees quit their bosses, causing organizations to hemorrhage money, knowledge, and productivity.

A company’s ability to win the ongoing talent war hinges on the ability of your most important asset—your leaders—to get work done with and through people to create value, motivate their team to perform, keep employees engaged, attract and retain top talent, and make the company money.

In particular, it’s imperative for CEOs of companies in the $5 million to $100 million revenue range and division heads of global organizations to train managers and aspiring executives who will someday lead the company.

Here’s what everyone gets wrong: Executives and managers fail to accept and recognize that within every human is a leader capable of leading other humans. The more leaders we have—and the better those leaders perform—the greater return on investment we receive from our leader assets. The right leaders make it easier for the organization to fill jobs with the correct people, retain top talent, and keep employees fully engaged. Today, this is no easy feat, and paying higher wages isn’t the answer. When it comes to attracting and retaining better employees, it comes down to leaders fostering positive relationships at work.

Most managers weren’t born to lead and don’t know how to build positive and productive leader-follower relationships.
Organizations suffer while weak leaders learn by trial and error. That’s why I have spend my life helping others build leader M.U.S.C.L.E. that delivers research-based, scientifically proven, low-risk, high-reward ways to make better leaders.

People agree that if organizations are to attract and retain top talent, their leaders must be at the forefront of the battle. It’s their responsibility to do two things well to attract top talent:
• Deliver training and development that helps employees learn to lead
• Motivate your employees to lead better while doing work that keeps them engaged and challenged

However, they disagree that they need to spend money on such project because they erroneously believe that leaders are born, not made.

Bryan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Dr. Bryan Deptula is a Leadership Authority, Author,
Speaker, CEO of BKD Leaders (a strategic Leadership
Development and Training company), and owner of
Canalside Inn. His mission is to improve the life and
leadership of all people.
Dr. Deptula achieves his mission by delivering dynamic
keynotes, engaging workshops, and life-changing
retreats. His leadership development programs build
Leader Identity and Brand, Leader Intelligence, and
Leader M.U.S.C.L.E.
Dr. Deptula’s remarkable journey started in New Castle,
DE, where he rose from the depths of childhood poverty
to climb the Ivory Tower to become a PhD, MBA,
University Associate Professor and Department Chair.
Bryan’s journey has taken him to over 30 countries
spanning five continents, where he is a Trusted Advisor
to Executives, and has given hundreds of keynotes,
retreats, and workshops at conferences, Govt.
agencies, small businesses, and Fortune 100 global
companies.
Bryan’s genius is his ability to solve organizational
challenges and inspire change through being one’s
best self, leading from within, and living with purpose.

Interesting Facts: 2018 Ted Talk “Leaders Are Born To Be Made”
CO-authored 20+ Academic journal articles & conference presentations
Keynotes at 100+ Companies
Owner of Award Winning Boutique Hotel – Canalside Inn
Education: BA in Economics from University of Delaware in 1998. MBA at Suffolk University in 2008. PHD in Leadership at Florida Atlantic University in 2013
Trained Thousands of leaders: first-time managers to CEOs
Enjoys playing Soccer and coaching his children’s teams.
Fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese
Spends weekends mastering recipes from Cook Illustrated
Loves family ski adventures

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My MBA program included an educational trip to Vietnam, where we would tour capitalistic businesses and industries in a communist country. Our itinerary would take us across Vietnam to cities of Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), Da Nang, Hoi An, and Hanoi.
As I looked down from atop of Marble Mountain, I tried to envision the previous carnage of bodies and blood that covered the same beach that was now, in contrast, dotted with bikinis and sunbathers caressing pebbles of sand in front of crashing ocean waves. How different the world is now from when the forbearers of present-day Monks carried up dead and wounded soldiers from sea level up 165 stone stairs to the Monastery where medical stations were hidden deep within caves. With herculean strength Monks carried soldiers up the sides of mountains on handmade gurneys that made the trek to the top both treacherous and almost humanly impossible. I looked down at those steps and the impossible feat that the Monks accomplished and thought to myself about the challenges that I would face getting into and completing a Ph.D. program.
To become a Doctor was a destiny that I had no idea where to begin or how it would end, but somehow in that moment seemed as impossible as carrying dead weight up the side of a mountain. There I was atop Thuy Son Mountain, having an epiphany while surrounded by uncomplicated people (Monks) who lived a simple life with purpose. The Monks’ ambition was to serve humanity and yet my ambition was to serve my ambition of perpetual climb. I acknowledged my admiration of people who choose to live uncomplicated lives while simultaneously pontificated on ways to further complicate my own life during an already complicated MBA program—and trying to further complicate my life by pursuing a PhD—all the while trying to figure out my life’s purpose.
At the bottom of a perilous descent is a gift shop, and in that gift shop are the works of Monks who spend their days and nights carving away on marble so that people with less virtuous lives can leave with souvenirs. A beautiful marble chess board with handcrafted pieces sat gorgeously on a white counter. I thought to myself, what a complicated gift to get back to America and yet I feel compelled to purchase it. Kristen will love it. All trip long you’ve been looking for something meaningful to bring back, to memorialize that you were thinking of her on this trip.
Years before, Kristen had taught me how to play chess, mentoring me on the rules and strategies. Kristen said, “In chess, you must plan many moves ahead; sometimes, you must plan to make small sacrifices to make big gains.” As I learned the game of chess at her side, we pontificated on life. Chess is a metaphor for life, and life is a game of chess. It dawned on me that the entire strategy of getting into a PhD program should be played like a game of chess.

The next step that I had to take in the application process was to find a needle in a haystack – the afore mentioned ‘advisor’. Applicants need someone to be their champion, a unique individual who will guide them at each step of the doctoral program. The worst mistake an applicant can make is submitting their application and saying that they would like to work with a professor with whom they’ve never actually been in contact with. The key here is to find someone that you have a common interest with, where both your interests align and you can provide mutual benefit to one another. Having figured out what it was that I wanted to research, the next step was to search the entire planet for the singular professor who did research in the tiny area of leadership that got my motor running. I had to leverage my unabashed willingness to generate connections with strangers, put myself in conversations with professors who were the gatekeepers to my future. Through charm, intellect, courage, character, and wit I could win them over to consider working with me as a doctoral student. I mailed letters, sent emails, and made phone calls to targeted professors that met my criteria. Many of my advances were entirely avoided, others discarded, and others rebuffed with “thanks but no thanks.” Rejection after rejection. Determined, I kept dialing, just as I had done all those years ago as a telemarketer. Funny how skills you pick up along the way in life have a way of resurfacing when you need them the most. My fingers were bleeding when a sliver of hope appeared.
The phone rang. “Hello, this is Dr. Williams,” said a female voice with a thick Jamaican accent. Greetings, Dr. Williams, my name is Bryan Deptula. I want to study leadership under your mentorships at FAU’s PhD program. My research questions are:
• Are leaders born or made?
• How do we make leaders of all people?
You study presidential elections and leadership during crisis. I’d like to help you with any research projects you have at present. Basically, I’ll do whatever you ask to earn a spot in this upcoming cohort of doctoral students.
Dr. Williams said, “Your timing could not be better with the upcoming 2008
Presidential Election. Each election cycle we research leadership using the Presidential Election as a time for data collection. Are you willing to collect 300 responses in a paper survey?” Yes, absolutely. Whatever you need, I will do. Send me the survey via email. I will print them out and get them back to you. How much time do I have? “Three months.
Good luck,” said Dr. Williams.
The next day I printed off over five hundred surveys at my own expense. To collect data, I had to ask my MBA professors at Suffolk University if they would allow me to access their classes, distribute the surveys to undergraduate and Masters’ students during class time, and collect the surveys in person. In my mind, and my future depended on it, there was no other way to ensure that I hit the 300 surveys goal. With an average class size of 15 to 20 people, I approached at least 30 different professors by making unannounced surprise visits during office hours, emailed them, called, and poked my head into faculty break rooms. A month it took to coordinate a schedule of classes that would give me access to the number of students required. Inconvenient is not a strong enough word to describe the quagmire of class schedules, morning, noon, and night classes for weeks on end. All in I spent over three hundred hours collecting over three hundred surveys.
The only way that I was going to get into a Ph.D. program was to demonstrate my value. Once I had those 300 surveys in hand, I suddenly became paranoid about shipping them in a box. GOD forbid they would get lost or destroyed, and with that destruction would come the destruction of my chance at acceptance. I knew those surveys were my golden tickets. So I protected that box of surveys with my life, purchased a plane ticket to Florida, and hand delivered those golden tickets.
Without knowing the Chair (i.e., the boss) of the Management Department was also in Dr. Williams’ office, I walked in with my golden tickets, looked these powerful women in the eyes, and said, I’m Bryan Deptula. I want to get into the PhD program. I need you to know I’m the person who’s going to deliver, and here I am delivering to you these three hundred research surveys for the research project I want to be on. I’ll succeed. I won’t fail. I’m an investment worth making. I flew these surveys down here just to prove how reliable, hardworking, and determined I am to achieve my goals. With that, I triumphantly let the box thud on the desk and allowed silence to fill the air. This moment was very dramatic.
Dr. Williams and I spent the next four hours reviewing the surveys and discussing a plan to turn raw data into new knowledge.
Three weeks later my phone rings with a Boca Raton, FL area code. Hello.
“Congratulations. You have been accepted into the upcoming cohort of Florida Atlantic University’s Ph.D. program in Leadership.” Woo hoo!

The immediate financial consequences of resigning from my job to pursue a PhD merited thoughtful consideration. I could continue to make $120K annual salary, plus commissions, bonuses and other earnout opportunities…and don’t forget tuition reimbursement which would eliminate $80K in student debt from my MBA program. Over the course of the six years it would take me from application to graduation of a Ph.D. program, I would have earned somewhere close to $1M. Or, I might make $18K a year as a doctoral student and research assistant, earning a grand total of $72K over four years as a student in the program. Let’s see, what else to consider…relocating and associated costs; there’s the 80% drop out rate of Ph.D. students. The uncertainty of finding a professor’s job post-graduation coupled with the certainty, if fortunate to find a job, of relocating yet again. And, the real estate market and entire economy just collapsed, meaning that my real estate holdings are now worth about 1/3 of their former value. I’ll be without a job, in a rental market where my student stipend does not cover half the monthly rent costs. I did the math.

Before we left Boston, I had one more commitment to honor. A while back Jacques and the producers of the Real World Cancun television show had tried to convince me to be the ‘boss’ on the show; a request I had denied. My loyalty to the company, and to Jacques specifically, led me to offer myself in a role that would limit my exposure as a cast member and also train the cast members who would work as Spring Break Staff in Cancun for the 2009 season. Jacques had given me an opportunity to start my career in Leadership and now was my turn to repay her with a minor personal sacrifice that would create a huge win for her and my former company. To this day, if you watch the first episode of the twenty second season of the Real World, you will see me in the front of a conference room at the ME resort in Cancun, training over fifty American and Mexican Staff.

With that commitment honored, Kristen and I packed our entire lives and drove Boca Raton, FL to get that Doctorate!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

To become an authority and expert, I decided to enter an MBA and PhD program. Much of what is written in popular literature is based on the author’s gut instinct, or designed to attract clients. That type of nonsense isn’t what leader need to inform themselves of how to better run their organizations. To me, the path to wisdom and knowledge was to conduct my own research and publish is top-rate peer reviewed journals. Along the way are the readings of scholarly journals and practitioner journals that help form the foundation of understanding how human organize themselves and others, and how to influence behavior to achieve shared goals. My advice is to really understand the information from the original source!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bryandeptula.com
• Instagram: @bryandeptulaphd
• Facebook: @bryandeptulaphd
• Linkedin: @bryandeptulaphd
• Youtube: @bryandeptulaphd