Episode 35 · 14 Sept 2026 · 1h 3m
Your Team Might Fear You More Than Respect You - Kyle McDowell
Show notes
In this episode
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What happens when you’re getting results, but your team is afraid to challenge you? Kyle McDowell found out that the people around him feared him more than they respected him.
Kyle had spent nearly three decades in corporate leadership. Honest feedback made him question the kind of leader he had become. He went on to develop the principles behind Begin With WE , then put them to the test while leading an organisation of around 15,000 people.
In this conversation, Ben and Kyle talk about the gap between achieving results and leading people well. They get into why company values often fail to change behaviour, what happens when someone challenges a senior leader, and how you build a culture that can hold together as an organisation grows.
In this episode:
The feedback that changed Kyle’s approach to leadership
Why people can fear a successful leader
What the 10 WEs mean in practice
Why leaders say they welcome challenge, then struggle to accept it
The difference between measuring activity and measuring outcomes
Why culture change has to start with senior leaders
The business takeaway
Good results do not automatically mean good leadership. People need to see their leaders live by the standards they expect from everyone else, and feel able to speak up when something is wrong.
Chapters
00:00 Kyle’s corporate career
03:49 “They feared me more than they respected me”
08:14 Creating the 10 WEs
15:35 Why leaders struggle to be challenged
17:39 Outcomes versus activity
23:19 Getting an organisation to buy into change
26:46 Creating culture across 15,000 people
38:58 Why company values fail
41:59 Can you outsource culture change?
49:54 Where to start with a dysfunctional company
55:27 Kyle’s ultimate leadership rule
Guest Links
Kyle's current is a bestselling author, leadership expert and speaker and centres his work around the 10 WEs.
Kyle McDowell — Official Website
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Sam Tamplin — How to Scale a Business to 100 Staff
Maintaining behaviour and leadership standards as an organisation becomes too large for the founder/leader to personally touch everyone.