From Top Gun Dreams to Ignited Leadership: Leon Purton on Unlocking Potential in People and Teams

From Top Gun Dreams to Ignited leadership, Leon Purton on Unlocking Potential in people and teams. Welcome back to Biz Bites for Thought Leaders. I’m your host Anthony Pearl, and today we’re sitting down with Leon Purton. He’s a former Royal Australian Air Force engineer turned award-winning leadership expert and author of The Ignited Leader, which just won the Gold Medal for Leadership and Management in the Axiom Book Awards 2025.

Leon’s about to share some valuable information about why leading yourself is the foundation of all great leadership and how to see the shape of potential and fit them to problems and why we are not logical beings influenced by emotion, where emotional beings influenced by logic. We’ll explore all three dimensions of leadership, the power of creating vacuums for growth, and how one book read over a weekend in Canberra changed his entire career trajectory.

So looking forward to unpacking this and so much more. It’s gonna shift your mindset. It’s going to give you some one percenters that will guarantee to change the way you think and the way you do business and the way you lead. So let’s get into it.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Biz Bytes and I am delighted to have joining me today ’cause we’re gonna talk all things leadership, but firstly, welcome to the program. Thanks so much Anthony. Looking forward to it. I think firstly the thing I like to do with all my guests is allow them to introduce themselves.

Why don’t you tell everyone a little bit about you. Fantastic, Anthony. Yeah, I I grew up in a small town on the northwest coast of Tasmania. We had about 10 cows, 20 sheep and 40 chickens with my two younger brothers. And we lived a pretty low drag life down there. But one thing I recognized about Tasmania is it’s, it is quite a relaxed community and I didn’t think that was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

In year nine I had a sleepover at a friend’s house and we watched the movie Top Gun Together and become. He became inspired. He goes, all right, I’m gonna be maverick and you can be Goose and we’re gonna go flying around in the skies together. Now, that never actually played out in year 11. He dropped outta high school and joined the Navy and I left a bit listless, didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I didn’t have an interest in electronics.

And this idea of being in the Air Force was still somewhat appealing to me. So I joined the Air Force at 18 as an avionics technician, so I worked on the electronics on. On the aircraft in the Air Force. I did that for a few years, but I knew I wanted a little bit more. So I ended up going to university and getting electronic engineering degree.

And then after that sort of did, 20 years in this Royal Australian Air Force mostly on fighter aircraft and strike aircraft. I moved around a over the place. But over that time I learned a lot, got exposed to a lot of different leaders and teams and saw a lot of different things that, that really inspired me and some things that didn’t.

And during that period I started to think a bit more deeply about what gave me energy at work, and I realized it was seeing a potential in people and helping them reach that. So in 2015 I started writing a leadership blog. And over the last. Five to 10 years of continued writing and culminating in release of a book in May this year called The Ignited Leader, which tries to summarize that handbook that I wish I could go back to 2015 and give to myself and go, here’s some really important information that, that should help you out.

Now live on the Gold Coast. Got two teenage kids. An ex-wife and a new wife. And so there was some trials and tribulations that I had to go through as part of my own personal journey there as well. Still like to stay fit, but I generally get a lot of energy and enthusiasm about that, seeing the potential of people and try to help them unlock it.

So that’s that’s the area I try and focus on now. Wow. That’s a lot. I love that. It’s such a great story. Now, before we get into your details, I’ve gotta ask a question that I don’t think I’ve asked anyone before, but you mentioned your mate who went into the Navy. Yeah. You are in the Air Force, you’re in the Navy.

What’s the relationship between the Air Force and the Navy? And have you still caught up with him since those days? Yeah we try and keep in contact, although the last couple of years it’s been a little bit more challenging. But it weirdly might. My two best friends from high school, one joined the Navy and one joined the Army and I joined the Air Force.

So it’s I grew up in a household where I was the oldest of two younger brothers. It’s like having brothers. There’s this rivalry that exists between you and you’re always trying to one up each other. But at the end of the day, you’ve always got a lot of love and appreciation for each other, and that’s what the Air Force and the Army and the Navy are like.

Together. There’s this. The Air Force is better, know the Army’s better, know the Navy’s better. But at the end of the day, we’re all trying to do it and achieve the same things. And so there’s just a genuine love and appreciation for each of the services. But it’s a funny little place to live.

And what a crazy situation that you’ve I don’t know how many people would end up in that situation where. Where you’ve got three mates and all take a different course in the military that’s, I think that’d be fairly unusual. You mean I, I suspect there’s a number where they’ve gone to the same, but to go to three different ones that’s a little bit different.

It was all, it was unusual. I think one thing I did hear though, when I was going through my recruitment process, I mentioned I grew up on the northwest coast of Tasmania. Very small. Part of Australia. But what I’ve discovered through the recruitment process is that the recruitment population into the Australian Defense Force, the northwest coast of Tasmania, so a tiny little bit and a tiny little island made up 6% of the Australian defense force.

So there was a lot of people that ended up joining the military from outta that little, I dunno if their recruitment was really good or something in the water down there. But it was a little bit unusual that three, three friends all joined the military. But like you say, that. That, that we hit all three arms is a little bit unusual.

I hear the water’s good for the whiskey as well down there. So yeah. Whiskey and wine and apples. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Look let’s fast forward from all of that journey because you’ve definitely been through a fair amount and how do you transform from working in the military, in the electronics area to leadership?

How does that process come about for you? Yeah, it’s one, it’s a really good question, Anthony. The a lot of people who are, heavily technical in their backgrounds and their roles at work really take that on as part of their identity. You don’t. Say you’re a project manager or something, you don’t take on project manager as a core part of your identity.

It’s a job that you do. But engineers and technicians tend to take that on as part of a core part of their identity. And what’s often hard to let go of is that core, ability to reach down and touch and influence the technical solution as you start to move through the different levels within the organization.

And what I learned was that the military itself doesn’t do a fantastic job at preparing people for those different levels. So I started to get into those positions of influence inside the military. And realize that the people behind me weren’t perhaps being exposed to the same information and the same, mindset shifts that are really important as you transition through those levels in the military.

So for me whilst I’m a, I’m an engineer I feel like I’m a bit of a different flavor and engineer where I’m heavily people focused, not technical and solution focused, which is often a distinguisher. With the really hardcore engineers and technical people versus those that, that make their way through into leadership.

Now, both paths three are valuable, but what I realized was that we weren’t doing a very good job of supporting people as they move from one role to the next. I wanted to try and unlock that. It was a moment vividly remember it, I was on a promotion course in the military, so they take. All of the people, all the high achievers that are promoted, and they put them on a course together for two weeks in Canberra.

And we learn about military MA management and the historical military campaigns and the administrative processes that you need to understand within the military. But it didn’t, I didn’t feel like it prepared me for the next role. But a fellow attendee on that course, an air traffic controller.

Gave me a book. He goes, I hear you Leon speaking about leadership, and you’re like, really passionate about it. I’ve been reading this book and I think you really like it. And he gave me that book. And on the Thursday afternoon and all my spare time on Friday, my Saturday and Sunday in military accommodation down in Canberra was spent just reading this book across the whole weekend.

And I gave it back to him on Monday. And I said, I think that’s the most succinct. Message that’s ever reached me about what we need to change for leadership, and it was a book called turn the Ship Around by David Marque, who was a US Navy submarine commander. And still influential to me to this day, so much so that when I wrote my book, I reached out to David Marque and asked him to write the forward to my book to which he agreed, which is a fantastic privilege.

But instrumental to my journey was that choice from an air traffic controller. At a room in Canberra just going here. I think you’d like this book. And it really, it just un unlock this spark in my mind about how to think about things differently. I’m like, if I can think differently about leadership in this way, then perhaps I can help other people also start to think about things differently.

It felt like a really long-winded answer, but I feel no. And I think, but I think it’s a really fascinating combination of the engineering and the military that, on the face of it would think that, okay, it’s gotta be about precision and getting things done. And there is an element of that.

But it’s at the end of the day, you’re dealing with people and I think that’s the interesting, cross section that you have there, that pillar. People are so intrinsic to what happens in the military because they’re the variable, right? Yeah. And and understanding them is really important.

And I can see how that has been a huge influence on where you’ve taken things. Yeah, since I I was in the military for, I took over 20 years, which is a long period of life. All your formative years and in the last six years since I’ve left the military, but I’m still near it in the work that I do.

I’ve noticed even more that the, the people are the capability. People talk about the military for the hardware and the things that it can do, but the people really are the capability, the thinking, feeling doing humans, that, that make up and comprise the armed forces. And in fact, any of your workforces out there, they’re the real capability.

And if you can reach. Each individual person and unlock just an extra small percentage of their potential, then your ability to achieve more, do more and be more happy and productive at the end of the day is magnified. I noticed that in the military, and it’s still true for the work that I do now with organizations and how frustrating.

Did you get, or do you still get perhaps in the comparison between where you’ve got elec in the electronic engineering space, you’ve got things that you can find a solution for, right? If it’s at, if the solution will either exist or you can in. Develop something that can exist, but that’s not so easy in people you can see potentially.

Okay, there are the, this is where the issues are, but change is a difficult thing to implement in people. So there’s a, there is, on the other hand to what we were saying before, there is a vast difference between those 200%. Anthony, you’ve nailed it. The, a couple of threads that I’ll pull on there.

The first is that oftentimes technical minded people or solution focused people always try and step into the, to the gap, right? There’s a problem and there’s a gap of understanding to get to the resolution and the solution focused people always try and fill that gap. And it helps you move from problem to resolution.

So it streamlines the process, but in that gap, that, that gap that exists between problem and resolution is the growth opportunity for the people around you. And often to times those technical focus people can rush to fill that gap and not leave space for the other people around them to potentially grow and evolve and work out what needs to be done to fill that gap themselves.

So that there is the magic, in leadership is that transition from technical or tactical expert to, to growing people who can be technical or tactical experts is allowing other people to work out how they might fill that gap themselves. The second thing Anthony, you may have heard this before, is that, I forget who said it, but we.

Believe that we are logical beings influenced by emotion. The truth of the matter is that we are emotional beings influenced by logic. And so too often engineers think we are the former. We are logical. Everyone’s logical, everyone believes and sees the same things. Emotions sometimes get in the way, but that’s not the truth.

So if you can make that pivot from understanding that you don’t need to be the answer to every problem and. That emotions are real and people are influenced by them, and you need to acknowledge them and work out where they are and where they need to move to. Then you can be a little bit more successful in growing teams that can achieve outcomes or changing things that were in one way and need to be in another.

I’m interested as well that, having come from a military background means that you are effectively employed. You are, and you’re following orders as you do even in business. How does that transition to then becoming business owner and then in a, in what you do day to day in overseeing people who in themselves own businesses?

How do you build that? Space of understanding and relatability. I think the thought that goes through my mind, Anthony, when you start to talk about that, is what I call the, I guess the cornerstone or the foundation of the if you get this right, then you can achieve in whatever. Area that you try and set out to achieve in and too often what happens in the, in parts of the military or certain parts of the workforce is that you’re often always, like you mentioned, told what to do.

You need to. Do this thing by this time, and you go and do the thing and then you come back to them and they go, okay, now you gotta do this thing by this time. And that keeps going on and on again. And that, you achieve outcomes, you’re productive. But the pivot comes when you start to acknowledge that you are leading yourself, so you’re not taking.

You’re not just taking the information and the guidance and doing the thing you’re thinking about, why am I doing the thing? Why is it important? Why is this timeline important? How does my contribution assist the other people in the organization? You start to scale your thinking from doing to leading in achieving your own personal outcomes.

And if you can get that foundation right, you can lead yourself. That’s like the you throw a rock into a pond. And there’s a big impact point in the pond, but then everything ripples out from there. But if you get that leading yourself done, you can learn how to get stuff done by yourself under your own motivation without being told.

And you can identify why it’s important and how it fits into the bigger picture. You start to lead yourself. Then you can start to lead teams, and you can start to lead organizations, and then you can start to lead business outcomes. And so that shift from, extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation is essential in unlocking that ability to lead yourself.

So don’t just be carrot or stick somebody telling you to do something or you get punished or do something well and you get rewarded. If you can shift to that intrinsic mo motivation that I’m doing this because this is important and I want to do a good job that’s the foundational pit, that’s the rock as it hits the pond.

It’s an interesting visual. Yeah. And which, which also brings me to that idea as well. Is that, how much of an influence is the visual in teaching people for you? Because I imagine particularly it from an engineering background that is very visual. Yeah. I have a lot of, the people I work with have started calling them Leon Iss Anthony. They’re little anana analogies or metaphors that I try and use all the time to try and make a point. And people have picked up on the fact that I use them a lot. And I think you’re a hundred percent right, Anthony. Words don’t often connect with ideas.

In fact, let me just step back a little bit. The most important skill I think you can have in today’s workforce, Anthony, is the ability to quickly take new data. Turn it into information and turn it into knowledge, and then turn it into wisdom. And the quicker you can get new data through to wisdom, the more effective you can be in the workplace.

Because the work is changing so much, there’s so much rapid change in the world. Every new data point is an opportunity for you to work out how it impacts you and what you are trying to achieve, or how it impacts the people you care about and what they’re trying to achieve. So that transition from data to information to knowledge to wisdom is the most important part to get through.

And what I found is if you can couple data and information with a visual, it makes it easier for people connected into their own knowledge and wisdom databases in their heads. So one of the reasons I always try and use those visual metaphors. Even in spoken word, if you’re not drawing it on a board or whatever it might be, but even in, just in spoken word is because it helps people better connect this new information with the wisdom they already know and understand, because it gives them a foundation to couple it onto.

Again, I’ve used another little metaphor in my explanation of metaphors, Anthony, that might be a bit meta, but the I think it’s really important to acknowledge that humans, store information in a very structured and coherent way, and everything couples to something else.

That’s how it’s stored in there. And so if you can help paint the picture of why it’s important and how it fits together, it helps them store it away. I agree. I think it’s often that people get caught up in their own way of learning and forget that others may be different. And here we are largely on a on a mostly audio.

Medium. Yeah. And most people listening to most people will be listening to the podcast. Those of you that are watching on YouTube, fantastic. ’cause you are watching. Yeah. And, there’s also then we produce other materials out of it in the written format, et cetera, because people learn and take things in a different way.

But is there a commonality in terms of leadership where you find that there’s a particular way that works better than others? Or is it really just different for different people? I think it’s one of those, it depends answers, Anthony, which isn’t exceptionally useful, but let me give a small piece of information that might help you.

I think the call it the art of leadership is that, in fact, my own personal leadership philosophy, Anthony, is to try and see the shape of people and the space in problems and then fit the people to the problems. And if the space you leave is too big. That, that person has got too much of a gap, too much of a stretch to fill that space then you fail them.

And if the gap is too small, then you’ve also failed them. And so what I found, Anthony, is that if you get better at recognizing the shape of people, so what are their competence, character, attitude, aptitudes, all those different things, elements that make up the human. Sometimes you need to reach each individual person in a slightly different way so you can help them understand what they need to sh how they need to grow.

To answer your question it, that, it depends. Answer is really around. You need to know your people, and you need to know what, what motivates them, what their aspirations are why are they working in your team? What, how do they like to get shown appreciation? What are all these different facets of the human that you’re interacting with?

And then from that, you can start to better understand, okay, things or facets are part of a leader’s role in starting to learn about the people in their team and starting to unlock the individual brilliance that each of those people have and how to best access it. So you talk about. Different strikes for different folks for want of a, for want of a better term.

Perfect. And but I’m interested then in terms of leadership, right? Because I imagine this is a bit of a double barreled thing where on one hand, do people have to be ready and say, and put their hands up to say, I want to step into leadership, or, I am a leader, but I need to get better. And then on the other side of things is how willing are they to.