Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Picture this: the corner office, the accolades, the results that speak for themselves. But at home? Silence. Distance. Maybe even tension. Today we’re addressing a hard truth. Many leaders turn on their leadership superpowers at work and unknowingly turn them off at home. Some leaders chase validation in the workplace while quietly leaking energy where it matters most, which— which is at home. My guest today is Joe LaRussa.
Bernie Borges [00:00:35]:
Joe thought he was succeeding until the people that he loved most needed a different kind of leadership. And Joe’s stories about how leadership shouldn’t stay at the workplace, it should follow you home. So here’s the promise for this episode. You’re gonna learn how leadership is not confined to job titles or professional roles. It’s a way of being that can and should flow through every domain of your life. This conversation will show you how to transfer leadership skills from the workplace into the heart of your home, create systems at home without becoming a family CEO, and embrace the leadership trifecta— leading at work, at home, and in your community, all anchored not in hustle or productivity, but in fulfillment and legacy. Jela Risa, welcome to the Life Fulfilled Podcast. Let’s get right to it.
Bernie Borges [00:01:28]:
You are in fact experiencing the leadership trifecta at work, at home, and in the community as the mayor of the town that you live in. But Joe, I know that you didn’t get there overnight. You’ve got a backstory. You had a wake-up call, in fact, and I’d like to start our conversation there. Tell us about that wake-up call.
Joe LaRussa [00:01:45]:
No, no problem, Bernie. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on the podcast. Thank you for letting me talk to you and your audience today. It’s a privilege. And yeah, we can get right into it. I mean, for myself, you know, You know, I spent 25 years in automotive manufacturing here in Detroit area where I live. That’s a big industry and a lot of us end up in, in leadership roles in that industry. But being in the shop floor, you know, it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of attention away from some other spheres sometimes.
Joe LaRussa [00:02:11]:
And, and although I had a very high functioning team and people who trusted me and folks who sought me out and industry recognition coming at me from, from different directions, Uh, it was really seductive. It, it was really easy to gravitate toward that area where I was experiencing this validation, this encouragement. Uh, and one night when I was, I was driving home, it, it hit me, you know, for all my leadership skill and ability at work, it wasn’t materializing at home. And I thought to myself, how could I possibly be so successful in one sphere and be struggling so much in another? And when I got home that night,, I brought it up to my wife after dinner and, and she actually was, she, this wave of relief just came over her face because she’s like, I’ve been meaning to discuss this. I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I didn’t know how to bring it up, but, but you’ve hit something. And that, that’s kind of when it started was right there. That point in time, I remember it very vividly.
Bernie Borges [00:03:11]:
Oh yeah. I can imagine remembering that, uh, like it was yesterday. So you, you, you talk about how you sort of blended your leadership practices and, and methodologies. How did you do that? How did you blend leadership in the workplace with leadership at home?
Joe LaRussa [00:03:31]:
Yeah, the, the big, the big idea or the approach that we took was taking what was making both of us, quite frankly, successful in the workplace and transferring those skills, knowledge, and abilities to our household and really focusing on our household —like a values-based organization, like a small business that requires you to have alignment among the leaders on what the values are, what the mission is, you know, what the vision is for our household, but then transforming and translating those values into actionable things that actually move toward what we’ve cast as the vision for our organization and how to enable our household team with the tools and the resources that are necessary to reach those goals and objectives.
Bernie Borges [00:04:16]:
Okay, Joe, so that sounds a little abstract. So what does that look like in real life? You know, when you come home, uh, I forget the ages of your kids, you come home and your kids are just dealing with life. What does that look like?
Joe LaRussa [00:04:33]:
Yeah, at the time my children were, were relatively young. Uh, they were about 9 and, and 5. So, uh, that was what was kind of creating some of the pressure, I’ll call it, in the system. The, the needs when it was just me or just me and my wife, like we could kind of make it work, right? We could maintain the status quo with minimal effort because we were very connected. We were, we spent time as a couple very intentionally, but when it came time to organizing a family unit, a larger team, we had to take some of the tools and skills that we had acquired in the workplace. A, a, a good example of that and, and was aligning on values and how do you do that? Well, we, we started just writing words on a whiteboard and trying to hone in on the key words that encapsulated the values for our household. Because just like at work, you need alignment among all of the senior leaders, right? In the C-suite, it’s the C-suite, the chief marketing officer, the chief information officer, the chief operating officer, the chief executive officer. That team has to be aligned because those values are what allow you to filter your decision-making.
Joe LaRussa [00:05:42]:
Making, not just what you’re going to do, but what you’re not going to do. Right? Many of us have been in that situation at work where there’s a great idea and it’s something that could be awesome, but it just doesn’t fit with our values. So we’re not gonna pursue it at this time. And later, if some changes come down, maybe we think about it or reconsider it. But right now, according to what we’re focused on and what we value the most, we have to put it aside or put it on the shelf. So we started just by making a list of words that encapsulated the values of our household, and that really brought a lot of clarity about the decision-making model that we would use then in our household, and it was easier to explain to our children that way.
Bernie Borges [00:06:20]:
Well, boy, you read my mind. That, I, I, that’s where I wanna go next, Joe. Like, how did you explain it to your children? What was that conversation like? Did they get it? I mean, share that conversation a little bit.
Joe LaRussa [00:06:32]:
Yeah. The, the conversation with, with younger kids is always fascinating because their minds are really unencumbered, right? They haven’t been told they can’t do something yet. Or they haven’t been exposed to the kind of criticism that sometimes we would get at work. So they tend to be unencumbered in their thinking. And it was really interesting one time, uh, you know, we talked about serving others was one of our big values. And I remember taking my children into the city of Detroit. I took them down there and, uh, we were in Hart Plaza, which is on the riverfront. And my daughter, who was about 9 years old at the time, she saw a pair of feet sticking out from behind a wall in this— tucked behind this wall in Hart Plaza is kind of where some homeless would, would camp out for the night.
Joe LaRussa [00:07:15]:
And my daughter immediately said, you know, we, we value serving others, you know, can we help that person? Can we find a way for them to get shelter? And it, it really told me that the conversation that we had not only stuck, but her mind was already working on solutions. And it was funny, her suggestion was my, my brother was doing housing rehab at the time. He was flipping houses in the Detroit area. And she said, well, you know, uncle ha— uncle Tony has 6 houses. Maybe he can use one of his houses to help this person. And I was very proud of her for actually connecting the dots. But you know, then we had to have a different conversation about it’s not, not that simple.
Bernie Borges [00:07:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. No, I, and I love the fact that, uh, as you say, you know, their, their minds are unencumbered, so they immediately go to a solution like that. And that, so that’s a great example, but I, I have to ask, Do you have a CEO? Do you have a CFO? Have you— you and your family actually define your roles in that way?
Joe LaRussa [00:08:12]:
We actually have. Roles and responsibilities are one of the most important things for effective team building and team management. And it’s no different in— at home. Um, I wouldn’t say we have badges or job titles in our signature blocks. You know, it’s not as formal as all of that, but recognizing which team members in your home team have the skills that are necessary for all of the team to benefit. So for example, my wife is very visionary. She sees the future very, very clearly. She’s more creative.
Joe LaRussa [00:08:44]:
So I rely on, on her skills in that area to help crystallize the future. If you wanna call it that, I’m more of an operations mindset. I’m a process-oriented engineer. Uh, I’m, I’m, I’m a resourceful person. I’m able to think about different areas where I can pull so I don’t overburden a particular resource pool. So once the CEO identifies the future vision, the COO can identify the resources, and the CFO says, we can do that, but these are the priorities we have to have. So the CFO, COO roles tend to be more my wheelhouse. My wife tends to be more of the visionary chief executive officer style.
Joe LaRussa [00:09:23]:
And, and my children are really the innovation hub of the household. Like I said, they, they tend to be very good at coming up with ideas because, right, I’ve kind of got this mental model about how things should be and what the process should look like. Uh, and they challenge me a lot to say, well, why does it have to be done that way? Why can’t it be done a different way? And that kind of refreshes my own creative spirit to look at things differently and say, well, maybe there is another alternative here.
Bernie Borges [00:09:48]:
Okay. Joe, just like the workplace, things don’t always go as planned, right? Business is not always just running smoothly and perfectly, you know, without hiccups. So the home is no different. So how do you— resolve conflicts and challenges and overcome, you know, issues just like the workplace, but in the home under your model?
Joe LaRussa [00:10:13]:
Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s a tricky thing because, you know, in the workplace, accountability and, and discipline look, uh, a certain way. And discipline in the, in the marketplace sometimes has a result, uh, that it, it call it what it is, it’s separation. Right? We separate that resource from the organization, and that’s really not an option. I, I can’t fire my wife, I can’t fire my kids. What I can do is refresh on expectations, align on those expectations, identify where there may be resource gaps. You know, maybe I’ve asked for something and— or my wife and I have asked for something or set an expectation that’s not attainable without the proper resources, or we have failed to provide the right support. You know, my daughter, right around that same age, 9, 10 years old, she was struggling with her math homework. And my wife and I were having a lot of miscommunication about who was going to check her homework when.
Joe LaRussa [00:11:10]:
So the system we came up with was we told her, okay, finish your homework before you go to bed. Your mother and I, one of us will check it. And when you wake up in the morning, you’ll have an opportunity to correct it before we go to school. Expectations very clear. Make sure your homework’s done. Get up early enough to correct it if there are corrections. If not, you can have extra breakfast. You can watch a cartoon.
Joe LaRussa [00:11:29]:
You can have an extra privilege. This was very clear. Well, then my wife and I, as the leaders in this scenario, we failed to communicate about who was gonna correct that homework. I thought she was gonna do it. She thought I was gonna do it. And this was a complete communication breakdown, not unlike what you see in the workplace. I thought you were gonna take care of that. No, I thought you were gonna take care of that.
Joe LaRussa [00:11:49]:
And then you both have to go in and explain that neither of you did it because nobody was the owner of the task. Mm-hmm. So, The result was my, my daughter got very frustrated because morning after morning she would get up wanting to make corrections to her homework, but it wasn’t corrected. And then we were crunching the time that was there in order to get ready to go to school. And finally she just had enough and she held us accountable and said, you told me that if I did this, you would give me time to correct it in the morning and you haven’t done what you said. And in that moment, Did I want to take my parental authority for a spin and kind of swat her down and for good measure tell her it was her fault? Because if she’d do her homework right the first time, we wouldn’t have to check it. That wouldn’t have been good leadership. So instead, we took the accountability.
Joe LaRussa [00:12:38]:
My wife and I ended up having a conversation saying she would check it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I would check it Thursday, Friday, or whichever way we wanted to split the week up based on our, our own commitments. And then we got a lot better and actually we got the result we wanted. We put a system in place that worked. Her homework got better, she got better at doing it. We had to check it less and we ended up able to just release that process entirely because we got the result we wanted, which was better performance on her homework.
Bernie Borges [00:13:07]:
And did you actually have conversation about that? The fact that just like in the workplace about the, the fact that you, you learned from the experience and then you took action from that. Did you have conversation about that with your daughter? Cuz I know you said you and your wife discussed it, but Do you actually discuss it with your daughter as well?
Joe LaRussa [00:13:22]:
We did close the loop and we, we did. And on the back end of the conversation, after the apology and the commitment to recommit to the process and do it right the next time, we kind of said, hey, is that— we did the check-ins, right? Just like at work. Is this working better? Are you feeling like you have enough time in the morning? And she validated and said, yes, absolutely. This is way easier now than it was before when we were— I felt a lot of— she didn’t say the words, I felt a lot of pressure, but it was clear she was feeling a lot of pressure and she was expressing that in, in a 9-year-old the old way, uh, but she did validate that the change we made, uh, did give her a, a higher probability of success in doing the task.
Bernie Borges [00:14:01]:
What I would add to your story, Joe, is something that I talk about a lot. I’ve, I’ve got several videos on it, and that is the importance of authentic leadership. And you and your wife were demonstrating in that example you shared authentic leadership because you were both accountable and then you had a conversation about how to address it. So that is authentic leadership. So, so terrific. That’s, uh, thank you for sharing that story. Now, we spoke earlier briefly. Let’s unpack now the trifecta, the leadership trifecta, where you’ve got leadership in your career, you’ve got leadership at home, but you also have leadership in the community.
Bernie Borges [00:14:39]:
And that leadership at, at a minimum, maybe there’s more to it than I know, is you are the mayor of the town that you live in. So unpack that for us.
Joe LaRussa [00:14:48]:
Sure. I, I think that when, Households are healthy, communities can be healthier, and if communities are healthier, cities can be healthier, states can be healthier, and so on. So really the, the starting point in that household, those four walls where your leadership matters the most, you know, 80% of us people in the United States spend at least 2 hours a day managing household task. And that time is the time that we have to be the most effective with the leadership in our home. And if you can get those couple of hours humming, then it creates the opportunity to extend your leadership beyond the four walls of your household. And that’s exactly what happened. Our team was functioning well. The flywheel effect was setting in and things were humming along using the systems and protocols and processes that we had put in place.
Joe LaRussa [00:15:41]:
The team spirit was high. So one day I took my kids to a neighborhood park. Playtime was part of our plan, right? Fun is something that’s part of our plan. It’s not what’s left over after we get everything done. We plan our fun. So I took the kids to the park and the park that’s closest to my house, it’s walking distance, but it was not very well equipped. It, it had a couple of small swing sets, one single slide, not a lot of gear for, you know, younger kids to play on. And one day I took my kids there and they asked me to take them somewhere else.
Joe LaRussa [00:16:11]:
And the next closest place to recreate was a school, but it was across a four-lane county road. It would require us to drive there. It wasn’t really walkable. I certainly wasn’t going to let my kids walk or ride their bikes there. So this was creating an unnecessary— I wouldn’t say burden, but I would say a challenge for our household to allow them to recreate close to home. So I went down to City Hall, wanted to talk about Flanders Park, and after about a year of meetings where I really got no, no, no substantial progress, again, being process-oriented, I said, oh, I wonder what the process is to get on the, on the city council here and you know, use my skills to prioritize resources to get some help in this park. Well, I found out that the process required 50 signatures on a petition. We’re a very small town, 2 square miles, 11,000 people.
Joe LaRussa [00:17:00]:
And, uh, I got those 50 signatures. I ran a campaign and was able to get on the city council. And 2 years later, we had a playscape in Flanders Park. And a year after that, we paved the walking path in Flanders Park. And the momentum started to build from there. And the community started seeing positive action nearby to their homes. And they started asking, well, what can we do for Flanders Park? We have small kids. We want some of the rockers, you know, that the little kids can go on.
Joe LaRussa [00:17:28]:
I gave them a catalog for the park equipment place that we use for the playscape. And, you know, they said, well, yeah, we’ll write a check for that. Uh, there was a bike— they wanted bike racks, you know, again, just positive action begat more positive action and more community engagement came as a result. And that success translated then into my kind of growth as a leader in the community, from a council member to the mayor pro tem, the deputy mayor, and then eventually the mayor of the city. So, you know, it was a, it was a natural consequence of doing good things, much like at work, right? When you do good things, it gets recognized and you get more opportunity. And that’s the same thing in the public sphere.
Bernie Borges [00:18:09]:
That’s a great story. Thank you for sharing that, Joe. And so maybe you can share a little bit about the impact of that role What, what’s been that impact on you? I would imagine not having ever walked in your shoes as a mayor of a town, but I would imagine that there’s a ripple effect in, in some way that it has to somehow impact other areas of your life at work, at home, et cetera. Maybe you can, uh, comment on that.
Joe LaRussa [00:18:37]:
Yeah. One thing I would say to anybody who is, uh, you know, considering or would ever in the future consider a role in public office or as a public service, uh, uh, person, the biggest thing that I’ve learned is that the decision-making model in the public sphere is very consensus-driven and it’s very stakeholder-driven. And that is something that I think in the workplace and at home, that is a good lesson to take and to transfer from the public sphere. I, you know, at the office you’ve, you’re given authority over a certain amount of resources, a certain area, a certain portion of the organization. You have authority and you can utilize that authority. And sometimes that’s necessary. You know, I can think of a number of times in the manufacturing shop floor, particularly, hey, there’s a truck over there, we got to get parts on it or we’re going to shut, you know, XYZ company down and that’s not going to be good for us. So sometimes it’s just command and control, need to get something done.
Joe LaRussa [00:19:31]:
We’re driving to a result, you know, damn the torpedoes, we’re going for it. But I would say in a, in a strategy setting where we have the opportunity to consider alternatives, evaluate our options. I would say the public sector does that very well, and sometimes that’s what gives the perception of slowness. You know, the, uh, uh, a very valid criticism of the public sector is that it moves very slow. But I think a symptom of that is because the decision-making model is a consensus-driven one, not unanimity, but consensus. And having consensus allows the execution stage to go much smoother because everybody’s on board, everybody’s made their commitments to the, to the outcome. And in the execution phase, you tend to see a more compressed timeframe as opposed to the private sector where decisions might get made very quickly, but then in the execution phase, it elongates cuz you find the errors or the oversights or the mistakes in execution, and then you have to unravel activity that’s been done and redo things. So yes, quick decision making sounds great and it sometimes it works, but sometimes it has negative consequences that sometimes I would say I don’t see as much in the public sector.
Bernie Borges [00:20:44]:
Okay. And so in your role as mayor, uh, do you— what kind of demands are you, are you dealing with? I mean, are you called upon frequently to fix problems or answer questions or what, what does that look like?
Joe LaRussa [00:20:58]:
Yes, I, I think it’s a signal, signal or a symptom of the trust that I have as a leader. With the community, just like at work. You know, when I would walk around the shop floor, I was a plant manager running a manufacturing facility. You know, everybody wants to talk to the plant manager. Everybody has something they wanna share with the plant manager. Everybody has some issue or item they wanna point out to the plant manager. And it’s very similar in my role as a mayor. You know, that the title or the leadership position that I occupy gives that sense of this is a person who can recognize the same thing, the same issue that I’m seeing and maybe be able to do something about it.
Joe LaRussa [00:21:38]:
So it’s very translatable between the two spheres to have folks knocking on my door or sending me a text or dropping an email or sending in something to city hall saying, hey, you know, I think there’s an issue over here. And just like in the private sector, I have to be disciplined about routing that topic to the right area for correction, right? It’s not— It’s not normal for a shop floor leader, a plant manager to diagnose something that maintenance should be able to fix. So I would send those topics to maintenance or I would talk to HR if it was an HR-related topic or send it over to engineering if we needed to do better on the next line we’re installing. Um, and so it is here, right? If there’s a flag of sidewalk that’s heaved or a crack in the road or water main break, a lot of those have to get routed to the right departments at city hall. Where the people that can actually put their hands on it and do the work can get the work done. Uh, I see it as a symptom of the trust that I have as a leader with the people who, you know, are following, um, or that are actually engaged in the community. Uh, but it’s not that different from being in the workplace when, when an executive or some senior leader walks into a room to do a town hall or a, a skip-level meeting. Um, it’s very similar, and I found that to be a very, uh, translatable —set of skills.
Bernie Borges [00:22:59]:
Gotcha. Okay. So one of the things that I think gives me a sort of a unique perspective, Joe, on these podcast conversations is because I’m the host of the Life-Fulfill Podcast and I’ve done north of 270 episodes, most of which have been conversations like this. I’m doing more solo episodes these days, but, but most of them have been conversations. So it gives me a lens into how you as My guests in this conversation are doing your integration of all the aspects of leadership we’re discussing across the 5 life pillars: health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. So I kind of see that a little bit, even though I don’t know a lot about you. We haven’t known each other very long for me— for me to know that at a deeply personal level. But I would love for you to respond to, to that.
Bernie Borges [00:23:54]:
Like the, how are you seeing your own integration of leadership across the 5 Life Pillars: health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy.
Joe LaRussa [00:24:03]:
Sure, Bernie. Uh, it’s pretty natural. I mean, when I first was exposed to the pillars, I immediately saw the horizontal integration between multiple pillars, not in just an abstract sense, but actually the blending of my spheres mimics the blending of leadership across the different pillars. So all of the things that you touch on in the 5 Life Pillars are— leadership pillars are things that I’ve seen in my own evolution. You know, as a younger engineer, somebody who was very process-oriented, I always compartmentalized, right? There’s my life at home, there’s my life at work, and now it— there’s my life at work, there’s my life at home, there’s my life in public service, but they all now blend a little bit more and I’m able to harmonize a lot more of the skill sets that I’ve deployed in different spheres and to be able to blend them more. It’s made me a more fulfilled leader. Because I’m not just using work skills at work and I’m not just using public service skills in public service. I’m deploying the best of what I’ve learned in all of those spheres and putting them into practice in all of my spheres.
Joe LaRussa [00:25:12]:
And that’s what I think has enabled me to grow as a leader, to evolve as a leader, and to live out, you know, that overlap between— and to combine the pillars in a way that makes me— you know, grateful, number one, that, you know, ’cause with— even without a framework, it’s just something that’s enabled me to be better. And, and, um, you know, I see opportunities for people to also not just learn from my story, but to experience it for themselves. You know, I would say to any household leader, it doesn’t matter what your 8 to 5, 8 to 8, whatever shift you’re working, you have an opportunity to be a fulfilled leader in your household. And it— that’s a choice. That’s something you can choose to do. And it’s very rare in any of the other spheres for you to have that kind of, you know, agency and control. But we all have that opportunity at home. And so my encouragement to, to folks is, you know, don’t compartmentalize, try to find a way to blend because it’s gonna make you better everywhere.
Joe LaRussa [00:26:16]:
You’re gonna be able to take the best of and, and deploy it everywhere. And that is going to make you a more fulfilled leader everywhere.
Bernie Borges [00:26:24]:
That is beautifully said, Joe. It’s like you’ve done a commercial for everything that I stand for on the podcast and even at Fulfill the Work Academy, because it really is that blending of, as you say, the horizontal integration of our leadership across the 5 life pillars. And you use the word framework. And so what, what I’m hoping that you and, and hopefully hoping that the, the, the listener or the, the viewer, those watching on video, will consider that as a framework. Consider that as actually a way to actually look at their life across these 5 life pillars. And then, uh, your story, Joe, can be an inspiration for how to blend leadership at home, at work, and in the community because it’s a, it’s a terrific story and a, a wonderful living, breathing example of, uh, success. And as you say, leading well everywhere. So I think it’s a great place for us to wrap other than Where can someone connect with you and just learn more about you and get into your world, Joe?
Joe LaRussa [00:27:26]:
Well, Bernie, thanks again for letting me share some of my experience and stories with, with you and with your audience. It’s such a privilege to speak to people who are passionate about leadership and could glean some small something from my, my own story. For those of your listeners and viewers who are interested to start their own homegrown leadership journey, you can go to homegrownleadership.net. /fvw, that’s Foxtrot Victor Whiskey, for a family values worksheet that I’ve offered for free. You can start with that worksheet, sit down at your table by yourself or with your family and find the words that encapsulate what’s most important to your household. And there are blanks in there too. You know, it’s a thought starter. If you don’t see words that, that work for you, fill in words that do work for you and get that journey started.
Joe LaRussa [00:28:13]:
But my encouragement is for everybody to download that free resource and get started on your journey because leadership at home is where it all begins.
Bernie Borges [00:28:21]:
Fantastic. Well, thank you, Joe. My, my audience knows that that will be linked up in the show notes below. So once again, Joe, thank you so much for sharing your story, your journey. Very inspirational. I really appreciate our time together here today on this episode of the Life Fulfilled Podcast.
Joe LaRussa [00:28:36]:
Likewise, Bernie. Thanks so much.
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