294: Create Cohesion with Dr. Chris Fuzie

Dr. Chris Fuzie, President of the National Leaderology Association and Founder of CMF Leadership Consulting, is on a mission to elevate leadership into a respected science—and to develop better leaders by grounding them in theory and behavior. We dive into the emerging field of Leaderology and how Dr. Fuzie is working to verify and certify leadership practitioners as “Leaderologists.” He introduces the STICKUM Framework for building team cohesion through Sacrifice, Teamwork, Interaction, Communication, Keeping people focused, Unique norms and symbols, and Mission. Chris also explores the concept of Liminal Leadership—where leaders must seamlessly transition between leading and following—and explains how followership is as critical as leadership itself. --- Create Cohesion with Dr. Chris Fuzie Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Dr. Chris Fuzie, president of the National Leaderology Association, a non-profit organization that establishes and promotes leaderology, the study of leadership as a respected discipline in science. He is also the owner of CMF Leadership Consulting. So without further ado, welcome to the show, Chris. Thank you, Steve. I'm very happy to be here. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this. Well, I have to tell you that we are 300 episodes in and you're the first leaderologist that we ever had on this podcast. So it's kind of a big day for us. Oh, good. So, what is leaderology? I've never heard this before, but it sure sounds interesting. Well, okay, so you have psychology, you have psychologists. You have biology, you have biologists. You have all of these other ologies, which is the scientific study of or the study of whatever the discipline is. So leaderology is nothing more than the scientific study of leadership. So as a leaderologist, there's different levels within leaderology. And as a leaderologist, that means that you are formally educated in leadership theory and leadership practice.Share on X And the different levels, if you have one degree, two degrees, like I have three degrees, so three formal degrees in leadership. And so that's what a leaderologist is. It's just somebody who studies just like a biologist studies biology. So, is this a trademark designation or anyone can call themselves a leaderologist who are expert in leadership? Yeah, that's the thing is that we actually verify that the person is a leaderologist. And so through the National Leaderology Association, what we do is in order to join, you have to submit your transcripts to show that you've actually studied leadership, not management, but leadership. I know you know the difference between management and leadership, but that's why we look at the type of classes that people have taken, what is their dissertation on that kind of stuff. So we look at all that kind of stuff before we designate somebody. That's why they're called verified leaderologists, because they have been vetted, they have been verified as a leaderologist before we will say, yes, this person knows what they're talking about. Okay. That makes sense. So in terms of definition, my favorite definition is that you manage things and you lead people. What is your definition? What is the official designated definition of a leaderologist and the leader? I say the same thing. Manage things, you lead people. But a leaderologist understands the theories behind the concepts of leading people. As an example, let's use cohesion as an example. There's different ways of building cohesion. I use the acronym STICKUM. Personal sacrifice, teamwork, getting people to interact. C is communication. K is keeping people focused on the mission. U is unique norms and symbols. And then the M is the mission focus.Share on X If you think about all those things, when you look at cohesion, then it's important that you use all of those things. Plus cohesion,