Paul Thornton is a seasoned author, leadership coach, and speaker dedicated to helping individuals lead with clarity, purpose, and performance under pressure. With decades of experience teaching and consulting on leadership development, Paul has trained countless professionals to better understand their leadership styles and elevate their effectiveness in both personal and organizational settings.
He is the author of several well-regarded books, including Leadership Styles, Add Value—Improve the Status Quo, and The Leadership Process, each offering actionable tools and frameworks for today’s leaders. His signature stress management formula—D > CS = SR (Demands > Coping Skills = Stress Response)—and his widely used “Three Leadership Styles” model are just a few of the accessible concepts that have helped leaders build stronger teams and achieve sustainable results.
Paul’s approach to leadership is rooted in responsibility, communication, and self-awareness. His work continues to influence emerging and seasoned leaders alike, empowering them to not only perform at their best but also inspire meaningful impact in the people and organizations they serve.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-thornton-5061216/
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.
Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to introduce my guest today, Paul Thornton, a seasoned author, speaker and leadership coach who spent his career helping people lead with purpose and perform under pressure. Paul is the author of several books, including Leadership Styles and the Leadership Process. His practical frameworks like this three leadership Styles model, and his simple stress management formula, which we’re going to talk about D is greater than CS equals. Sr helps leaders boost performance while maintaining balance with decades of teaching and coaching experience, Paul brings a clear, actionable approach to leadership, one rooted in communication, self-awareness, and responsibility. Today, we’ll talk about how to lead effectively, manage stress, and bring out the best in yourself and others. Paul, welcome to the show.
Paul Thornton: Trisha, thank you for having me on. Um, I’m pleased to be part of your podcast.
Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. It’s so exciting to have you on today. And we’ve got some really interesting topics that we’re going to cover. But before we get there, I’d love for you to tell us a little bit more about Paul.
Paul Thornton: Okay. I spent 20 years in corporate America, and I was primarily in the human resources department in a variety of roles. I spent a lot of time in training and development. Uh, the company I worked at was a big company. We had about 300 managers, and I spent a lot of time helping them become better leaders. Uh, we had a training staff of about six people that reported to me. And basically we put on seminars and workshops and gave feedback and coaching and what have you. Uh, secondly, I spent about 20 years as a college professor. I taught leadership and management type courses and, um, dealt with students and helped them become more effective managers and leaders as much as I can if they were in that role currently. Um. I’m married. I’ve been married for a long time, 50 years. And, uh, to the same person, I might add. And, um, we have, uh, two children, and I have five grandsons, so that keeps me busy watching them play sports. And, uh, you know, seeing them as much as we can.
Trisha Stetzel: That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And congratulations. It takes work to be with the same person for 50 years. It’s it’s yes, it is beautiful and it is amazing. But it also takes work. And we all have.
Paul Thornton: Yes.
Trisha Stetzel: That. Yep. And five beautiful grandsons. That’s so exciting. Paul. Um, the last we spoke just a few weeks back when we were talking about you coming on the show, you brought up the 3DS, which I think is very interesting. So can you explain how well one what they are and then how each works when and when leaders should use them?
Paul Thornton: Okay. Yeah. I um one thing I try to do, Trisha, is really simplify things. And in studying leadership, I found that a lot of experts and researchers and what have you come up with, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten different styles of leading. And I don’t think it’s that complicated. So I boiled it down to three basic styles. Leaders use directing, discussing and delegating. So the three D’s directing, you tell the person what to do, how to do it, when to have it done. By discussing you ask questions like you’re doing today. Questions about what should the goal be? What should the plan be? What obstacles do you see? Things like that. Delegating is empowering the person to take action. Do what they need to do to get the task done. I think every day parents, teachers, coaches, managers, leaders use each of these styles. Matter of fact, I think in the same meeting, you know a leader will use all three styles? Um, the big point is you need to use the right style at the right time. If a person has no experience on something, on a task you have assigned them, you know they’ve never done it before. They’re clueless. They don’t know what to do. They want and need direction. They want the steps to take. They want to know you know what’s expected, how to do it. They need help. They need structure.
Paul Thornton: They need the step by step formula to follow. So directing is appropriate. Directing is also appropriate in emergencies. You know, in an emergency situation you got to have someone who’s going to step up and make decisions quickly and efficiently and tell people what to do and where to go and that type of thing. Um, discussion is more appropriate when the person has had some experience and some know how. And you want to understand how they’re thinking about something, you know. So you’re asking them questions. How do you see the goal? What would your plan be? Or how would you proceed? What steps would you take? What obstacles do you see? So you’re getting a sense of how do they think about it? How would they approach it? And maybe they’re on course. Maybe they do it exactly the way you’d like. Or maybe their approach sounds better than what you even thought of. Or maybe they’re off a bit. So as a leader, you’re coaching them a little bit, you know? Okay, that’s a good point you made. But remember you know this and that and giving them some advice and guidance. Um, if you’re using a delegating style, if a person has lots of experience, you know, they’ve done the task multiple times, they know what to do, or they can figure it out very quickly. You want to empower them and just say, okay, here’s the deadline.
Paul Thornton: This is what you get done. You figure out how to do it. You take the steps you need to take. You just get it done. Hit the deadline. You know, if you need any help from me, come and ask a question or whatever. But you’re empowered. You get it done. So each style is appropriate in certain situations and helps the person. I think that’s what a leader does, helps the person achieve the goal, uh, that they need to achieve. The problems occur when people when leaders use the wrong style. You know, uh, some leaders micromanage. You know, the person’s done the task a whole bunch of times, but the leader’s still telling them what to do, you know, and they’re watching over and giving feedback and and all that. So that’s not good. It demotivates the person. On the other hand, some leaders delegate things to people that have no idea what to do, and they walk around aimlessly thinking, I have no idea what to do. So that’s not good either. So using the appropriate style is important. And again what I said before. Parents, teachers, coaches you know managers, they use these all the time. There’s nothing big and magical about this. But they’re very useful. And it’s good that the better you get at you using each style, the more effective I think you are as a leader.
Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Absolutely. Uh, so good. I’ll call them exceptional experience leaders know how to use all three of these directing, discussing and delegating. So for new leaders out there who are leaders who want to get better, how can they improve in these areas. Because I see a lot of leaders who find one they’re really good at, and then they just stick to it. We can just take the micromanager. Not that that’s a good skill, but sometimes we see them stick to the thing that’s most comfortable. So how, as a new leader, do I get better in all of these areas so that I can be an exceptional leader?
Paul Thornton: Mhm. Well I think with directing you need to think about being a better communicator and you need to think about what context of what background information does the person need. Secondly, you got to think about how much detail does the person need. And sometimes writing it down you the manager or parent or teacher writing it down. So it’s really clear in your head before you sit down and communicate with that person. I think those types of things help us when you’re directing. Of course, asking questions at the end of it, are you clear on what you need to do and maybe even having the person feed feedback to you, the steps they’re going to take or what they’re going to do for a second and third. Um, with discussion, I found, um, for myself, uh, if I was, you know, I was if I was running a meeting, I would in advance of the meeting, write down the questions that I was going to ask. Actually, I get to the point when I was setting up, setting up an agenda for the meeting, I would often put the agenda item in a question like we need to do. Make a decision of who’s going to lead the Christmas party or who’s going to do this or that. Um, so writing your questions down in advance is a good way to make sure you’re covering the points that you want to cover with delegating.
Paul Thornton: Um, it’s thinking about who to delegate to, who has the appropriate background and skills and can take on the task. Um, Um, it’s also, you know, doing the delegating and learning as you go, getting feedback. Did I select the right person? Did they do the task as I had hoped? Um, what can I learn about myself in terms of the way I delegated? Did I select the right person? Uh, did I clarify exactly the end target of of what I wanted them to get done by a date? Or did I even let them figure out the what part of it, you know, let them figure out what to do? Um, so, like, with anything, you know, we need to reflect on what we’re doing, how we did it, ask for feedback. Uh, periodically ask the person you know, was that clear, the directions I gave you or that meeting we had? We had a good discussion. I thought, what did you think? You know, how could I improve? What could I do differently next time? So getting feedback, Self-reflection, asking colleagues, even, you know, uh, in that meeting that I ran today. Did I do an effective job of, you know, communicating my message, directing, discussing, delegating. What could I have done better? You know, so feedback is always something that is valuable and will help us improve. So that’s what I would suggest.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. I love how you bring things so simple to us. The three D’s directly discussing and delegating and what that looks like and how how we can improve in them as we get better at leading because we all want to do that. I’m I’m pushing that out to the world, into the universe. We all want to be great leaders. Sometimes stress will seep in. So can we talk a little bit about how we continue to thrive in this professional space, yet make sure that we’re still taking care of ourselves.
Paul Thornton: Mhm. Yeah. My my thoughts on stress I have a simple formula Trisha that you mentioned earlier. Um and it boils down to thinking about our demands. Our demands are really anything that we need to get done on a given day, the task that we have to get done. But it also includes the worries or concerns that we have. So that’s kind of our demands. Now, on a given day, you and I could each write a list of the things we need to get done today. And that list might, you know, buy milk on the way home from my job. Uh, finish a report, write a paper, um, conduct a podcast, whatever it might be. We each have a list of tasks and concerns and worries that we have. And some days our list is quite long, and other days it might be more brief. So that’s one part of the equation. The next part is our coping skills. How well do we deal with our demands and our coping skills. Not only well they include our self management skills. You know, how well do we set goals, make decisions, prioritize. Um, delegate. You know, how well do we manage ourselves day to day? It also includes what do we do to keep our mind and body in a position to deal with our demands.
Paul Thornton: So, like our diet, uh, sleep, uh, our relaxation or exercise, you know, what do we do there? Um, I meditate twice a day. I try to work out every day. So we need we each have a certain set of skills we use to deal with our demands. Now. If your demands exceed your ability to cope, you have a stress reaction. You know, when we feel overwhelmed, it means our demands have exceeded our ability to cope. And then we have some sort of stress reaction and stress can manifest itself in psychological things like worry and fear and things like that, or even physical reactions like high blood pressure, migraine headaches, ulcers, things like that, or behavioral, you know, yelling, screaming, arguing, nonproductive behaviors. Now, the thing I find is that when people are faced with a high level of demands, they typically let up on their coping skills. You know, they stop working out, they stop meditating. They stop taking time to relax and go for a walk because they want to use that time to deal with the demands. And because they’re not using their coping skills, they get more stressed out.
Paul Thornton: You know, it aggravates the level of stress. And we know that as stress increases, people’s productivity goes down. We become less effective. Our emotions and the demands that we face and all that type of stuff, you know, affect our ability to be productive and effective in doing our day to day work. So as a a leader, as a parent, teacher, whatever we need to think about, what can we do to reduce our demands? You know, can I delegate some things? Can I eliminate some things on my to do list? Can I, um, cut my meeting time in half rather than meeting for an hour? Let’s meet for 30 minutes. Or can I eliminate, um, some reports or paperwork or whatever it could be. Uh, I also want to improve my coping skills. I want to get better at communicating so I don’t have communication breakdowns. I want to get better at prioritizing my top 1 to 3 things that I need to get done each day or each month, whatever. Um, so I need to improve or keep improving my skills so I don’t get stressed out and become less effective and less productive. That’s kind of a long answer, but that’s no. It’s fantastic.
Trisha Stetzel: And there are some areas I want to take a deeper dive in. But but but before we go there, I would love for you to tell folks how they can connect with you. I’m sure just based on the first part of our conversation, they’re very interested. So where can they find you? Paul.
Paul Thornton: Uh, probably the best way is on LinkedIn. If they just put my name in LinkedIn, they’ll see my site. I, I do try to post something on LinkedIn, uh, almost every day. Um, I have a lot of, um, articles also on LinkedIn. Uh, I also would recommend, if you don’t subscribe to Smartbrief on leadership, you should. I publish an article there once a month. But there’s many, many, many great articles on there. Um, so you can see one of mine per month. Uh, but LinkedIn is probably the best way.
Trisha Stetzel: Okay, fantastic. You guys know, I’ll put the link to Paul’s profile in the show notes. His last name is spelled t h o r n t o n Paul Thornton. All right, Paul, I’d like to come back to this whole idea of being a great leader, not getting stressed out. How do we keep from letting these pressures really build up based on the things that we know we have to do? So. What are some just practical tips that you would give to people to stay in this space where we don’t forget our coping skills, or we don’t get so busy trying to take care of all of the I’m going to use the D as a distraction, but all of the things that are getting, how do we stay focused on those coping skills that we need so much to keep that stress reaction from happening?
Paul Thornton: Well, I think it’s almost you need to create some habits that you do every day. You know, habits are are can be very effective at, um, keeping you on track. As I mentioned before, I meditate twice a day and I do it religiously in the morning and evening. I work out for 30 to 45 minutes every day on the treadmill and stuff like that. So if you can create some habits like creating your to do list or identifying your top three priorities and do it at the same time every day. Make it a ritual or a habit that you get in the practice of, you know, doing it all the time. I think helps keep you grounded and focused on what you need to do. Uh, so I would strongly suggest that think about habits. I think two, we talked about reflection a little bit, and I think that’s a good habit that you need to build into your daily routine. Even taking five minutes to think about, you know, that meeting I had with this employee, did it go well? Could I have done it differently? What can I learn? What can I do better? But spending some time in reflection about meetings and interactions and things you’re doing to reflect on, are you focused on the right things? Are you being effective or what do you need to change?
Trisha Stetzel: A full calendar does not make you a good leader.
Paul Thornton: No, no, it does not.
Trisha Stetzel: We definitely need that time to reflect. And it does get out of control sometimes. You know, I look at my calendar and I’m like, what’s happening? I have no time to reflect on the conversation that I just had. So I appreciate you bringing that up. You’ve worked with and taught countless leaders over the years. So what patterns are you seeing with those who are sustaining both performance and well-being?
Paul Thornton: Um, they have balance in their lives. I think that’s important. Also, um, you know, they have a good mix of work and relaxation or proper mix of the two. Um, they step away from the day to day grind periodically. They, um, you know, can put things compartmentalized, things to an extent. And, and they find some things that they enjoy doing that take them totally away from their day to day demands. You know, it could be an athletic event. It could be, you know, going for a walk. It could be something. But they find something that takes their mind and kind of frees them up for, you know, some part of the day or week or whatever, whatever routine they’re in, whatever habit they have incorporated into their day to day life.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I hear a lot of people using the word integration versus balance, because we can’t always find that. Right. Yeah, but being able to step away and take a deep breath and enjoy the things that you used to enjoy before your calendar got full. Mhm mhm. Yeah.
Paul Thornton: Right.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Um, I’d like to. You talked about communication, and it made me think around, um, emotional intelligence. Right. The way we act and react not only to ourselves, but outwardly, to others. What role do you think self-awareness plays with managing both stress and being a good leader, or using the right leadership styles?
Paul Thornton: I think it’s very, very, very important. The more self-aware you are of your thoughts and feelings, the more capable you are of making the right decisions, saying the right things, asking the right questions. Um, I think self-awareness, you know, we talk about you need to lead yourself first before you lead others and to lead yourself, you need to be self aware And again, I think that’s a great habit. Like I said, I meditate, but doing something to become more self aware. Each day we all have blind spots. We all have things we do we’re not quite sure of, you know, the approach or how we come across. Um, my wife tells me at times I’m harsh. I don’t think I am, but she says I am, so I need to think about that, you know? So, um, yeah. So self-awareness is huge. It’s one of those things we need to keep working on all the time and get better at it. And the more self-aware we become, the more effective we are, I think, at our whole life managing our stress, managing other people, managing ourselves, you know, all of that I think gets better the more self-aware we are.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And the good news is when it comes to emotional quotient or emotional intelligence. Whichever words we’re using now is that we can get better in each of those five areas that we measure, right?
Paul Thornton: Yeah. Yeah.
Trisha Stetzel: Really important. Okay. Uh, as we approach the back end of our conversation, I have one last question for you. If you could leave the listeners with one insight about leading others while staying grounded, what would it be?
Paul Thornton: I think the important thing is to think about, as a leader, what can you do to help the other person succeed? Um, giving them direction, giving them, you know, feedback, uh, asking them the right questions, empowering them. Your job as a leader is to make change happen, improve the status quo, make things better. And the question is, what can you do to help the person achieve that? You know, don’t focus so much on yourself, but focus on what do they need. What’s going to help them to be the best that they can be?
Trisha Stetzel: I love that, that’s fantastic. So, Paul, I mentioned at the top of the conversation that you had written some books. So tell us the names of those books and where we can find them.
Paul Thornton: Um, yeah, I’ve written quite a few books actually. Um, just finishing up my 30th book, which, uh, is a lot. I know, um, all of them are available on Amazon. Um, I think the ones that are seem to be most popular are leadership styles, which we’ve talked about today. The three D’s. Uh, I have a book on the leadership process, which also is a good one. Um, I also am a big believer in alignment, so I wrote a book about organizational alignment to achieve peak performance. That’s the name of it. I think that’s a great one. And that’s a topic that doesn’t get a lot of attention. But alignment in organizations is very important. And I also have one on managing your stress that we talked about today. All of my books are short to the point. Uh, they’re like 70, 80 pages. They’re very inexpensive, and I think they’re worthwhile to give you, you know, additional insights and additional examples and, uh, skills that you will need to be will help you be more effective. So thank you for asking.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So you guys, you should go on to Amazon right now. And you should look up Paul Thornton as an author and add him to your favorite list. So in his 30th book comes out you get a notification. And just remember it’s Paul. Paul. Last name? Thornton. Thornton. T h o r n t o n. And you can also connect with him on LinkedIn. Paul, thank you so much for being on with me today. This has been such an inspiring conversation.
Paul Thornton: Thank you, Trisha, for having me.
Trisha Stetzel: All right, you guys, that’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that I had with Paul, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. And as always, be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours. And your business, your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.
