This article is adapted from Ted's Smart Thinking podcast Episode 393: Interview: Jonathan Reynolds - Talent Man & Author.
Okay, friends, I have to tell you about the day I met my bald, redheaded spirit animal.
I was at the EOS Conference in Kansas City when Jonathan Reynolds walked onto the stage. He spoke with so much passion about the impact of people, the importance of relationships, and how to truly support people once they’re on your team. I reached out right away, because I knew every smart thinker needed to hear him.
Jonathan has nearly 20 years of experience in talent acquisition, leadership coaching, and organizational culture. He leads Titus Talent, a company known for data driven hiring practices, and he’s the author of Right Seats, Right People: A Leader's Guide to Hiring and Developing Top Talent and a new work called The Inner Ceiling. But what I loved most about our conversation wasn’t his résumé. It was how his life experiences shaped the man and the leader he has become.
Jonathan grew up in Bath, England, the youngest of five kids. And here’s something I connected with immediately: school wasn’t built for kids like us. His report cards said things like, “Jonathan tries very hard, but achieves very little.” He remembers getting in trouble for leaping across the classroom because a classmate’s pencil fell on the floor. He wasn’t misbehaving. He was helping!
Now, when Jonathan mentioned ADHD, I had to jump in. I’ve been on a life journey with this one. Let’s drop the D and add a G: attention deficit hyperactivity gift. That energy, that ability to move quickly through ideas and figure things out without every detail? That’s what makes visionaries. When I was a kid, I’d get lost during popcorn reading, staring at my friend while he read, until the teacher said, “All right, Teddy, next paragraph.” And I didn’t even know what page we were on.
Jonathan’s dad gave him advice that stuck: find one thing you find fascinating, one thing you do understand, and focus on that instead of the 99 things you don’t. And before he graduated, his parents told him something that became his life’s compass:
One of the greatest things you can do in life is help other people become who they’re supposed to be. Live in the service of others, and you’ll find fulfillment.
He admits his first reaction was, “Wait, you didn’t even help me.” But they were right. Today, he spends his days helping leaders remove the roadblocks that keep their people from thriving.
Jonathan’s parents lived that advice in a way few people ever will. After raising five kids in England, they moved to Afghanistan, where for nearly two decades they trained leaders and worked with schools to move from rote learning toward systems thinking and participatory learning.
When the embassies pulled out in 2021, they were told to leave immediately. Their answer? They didn’t come for a comfy retirement. They came to help, and they weren’t going to abandon people in their darkest hour. That choice came at an enormous personal cost, and they eventually lost nearly everything they owned. Today they’re back in England, still asking, “What are we supposed to do with the rest of our lives?”
Jonathan summed up his family’s lesson in three words that I can’t stop thinking about: conviction, not convenience. It reminded me of one of my five favorite books, From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks. No purpose, no point. When we stop seeing purpose in our life and work, a momentary funk can become permanent.
I’ve always said an unspoken expectation can never be met. New team members don’t know the unwritten rules or the inside jokes, so it’s hard for them to be authentic. In my own organization, I meet with every group of new employees each quarter, and I share a lot of those unwritten expectations. One day, our HR specialist said, “Ted, I need you to write all of this down.” So we did. Part of me thought, do we really have to write this all out? Yes. If you don’t speak it, it can’t be met.
Jonathan shared a powerful twist on this. Within their first 30 days, he meets every new hire and tells them, “There’s no earning your stripes here. Bring your full self. Bring your ideas.” It’s incredibly empowering. But he recently realized something uncomfortable. He never closed the gap with his managers.
So the new hire shows up with a great idea, and a longtime manager gives them that look: “Settle down, rookie.” Jonathan calls it the electric fence zap, like an invisible dog fence. The new team member gets confused, the manager gets frustrated, and nobody did anything wrong. As Jonathan put it, he sounded like a super empowering CEO while sweeping the legs out from his own leaders.
His fix? Go to his managers, name the behavior, take responsibility, and ask for their forgiveness. I love that, and I’d add one more piece: thank them for their grace. And here’s the leadership chain reaction Jonathan described. When the person at the top owns a mistake and invites accountability, it ripples through the culture, just like paying for the car behind you in the drive through. If you think your organization doesn’t have a culture of accountability, look in the mirror. It starts at the top.
This connects to a tool I use all the time: name it, claim it, tame it. Name the behavior you see. Claim your responsibility to help. Then tame it together by asking, “What do I need to do differently to help you, and what do you need from me?”
Here’s where Jonathan really lit up. He jumped out of his seat (the listeners couldn’t see it, but trust me) to share the four pillars behind his work on The Inner Ceiling. Picture a ceiling that protects everyone you lead from the elements. Four pillars hold it up, and your lowest pillar is the most limiting factor in your leadership. The acronym is HOLD.
Now, I know “love” carries a lot of weight, especially here in the Midwest. About six years ago, my executive team and I locked ourselves in a cabin in Door County to review our values. One of them was “our people.” And it bugged me. Who doesn’t value their people? That statement says nothing.
So, sitting on couches in pajama pants (a whole other story), I put a new value on the screen: We love our people. We wrestled with it for 90 minutes. And now, when we discuss things like health care benefits, it comes up: if we really love our people, what decision would we make?
I’ll never forget the boss who came to a party at my house. My little girl came running around the corner in her nightgown, and my boss asked, “Who’s this?” I worked with this person 50 to 70 hours a week and told stories about my daughter every single day. That’s when I knew it was time to find a new job. It’s human nature to reject people who don’t care about us.
Jonathan offered a powerful reflection here. Twenty years after someone stops working with you, would they come to your funeral because of the relationship you built? I’d flip it: write down whose funeral you would never miss, then reflect on why. As my brother told me during a time of loss, funerals are for the living. Those names will show you what love in leadership really looks like.
Jonathan also shared a simple tool he uses to make people feel known. It’s called FORD:
Here’s the challenge. Write down the names of everyone on your team. Could you tell me the F, O, R, and D for all of them? Some? None? Don’t be embarrassed. Go fill in the blanks. Educators, I guarantee you’ll be using FORD with your students within two weeks.
Oh, and my favorite trick when I can’t remember someone’s spouse’s name? “Hey, does your wife have a nickname?” “No, we just call her Julie.” Back in it. Busted.
I walked away from this conversation with two things. First, if you live your life in the service of others, you’ll find fulfillment. Second, choose conviction over convenience. Jonathan speaks like a real life Ted Lasso. There are possibilities, and there are things we can do. (Plus, his accent sounds way cooler over here than Ted Lasso’s Kansas accent sounds over there.)
If you want to go deeper, visit innerceiling.com to download The Inner Ceiling and take the free HOLD self assessment. The bravest part? Sending it to five to seven people who will tell you, anonymously, how they experience you. That gap between what you think you do and how others experience you is your roadmap.
Each day, we as Buffalo leaders know we’re going to face storms. Surround yourself with people who bring light, sunshine, energy, and warmth, and be that for others. Because the stronger we grow, the longer we can go into those storms, through them, and come out the other side at our best.