The Key to Leadership

Count money, man.

Money, man.

That gritches.

I'm trying to talk, trying to talk to my mom and bees, bud.

What's up gang?

Welcome back to another episode of The Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

And the key to leadership.

A leader's success isn't measured by their personal accomplishments.

However, it's the success and the growth of the people that they lead.

As a leader, developing your people is your primary responsibility, developing the people

around you.

Now listen, you can't control everything, everybody around you does that you're trying to develop.

Everybody is given free will.

Everybody is given free choice.

There is a person on this earth that is walking without sin, who has never sinned.

But I'm talking about developing the people around you.

That is your primary responsibility.

If you're a leader and you look around you, are you proud of the team that you have developed

around you so far?

How are they doing?

Because I don't show you a little bit of how well you're doing.

And then you got to look at, if I'm not, if I don't have leaders that I've developed

around me, am I blaming the people or have I looked internally?

Because leadership first goes inward and starts with us and then it goes outward.

And I'll come back to that in a minute.

Leadership, we got to serve people.

Leadership is about serving others.

You see, I don't want to get too much into my faith but a lot of you guys know I'm not perfect.

Never said I ain't.

Never said I'm perfect.

Don't think because I say I'm a Christian and it means I'm perfect.

And it's also not a cop out for me to wildlife.

It's not what I'm saying.

Just keeping it real.

And so Jesus washed the feet of the disciples.

So I think a lot of leaders think that the disciples should wash their feet.

And leadership is about, can I wash the feet of my disciples as often as I can.

Now there comes a time where you got to hold people accountable.

Definitely got to be in charge.

But just think about times.

And opportunities on how you could serve your people because when you can understand that

then you start to get away from thinking that the title that you have for you that everybody

should just bow down to you.

I think also in leadership, the greatest leaders can adapt to different personalities.

They don't, it's not a one size fits all approach in leadership because what works for

a one person that you're leading may not work for the other person that you're leading.

And I think sometimes leaders that fail lead everybody the same.

We want to be fair to people, but it doesn't mean that you treat everybody the same because

not everybody responds to the same type of leadership.

And so what one person responds to, one person may respond very well to a lot of adaboisse

or addagirls or we appreciate you.

Another leader may respond to a kick in the butt and you got to be able to adapt to these

personalities around you.

So if I'm not good at adapting to other personalities around me, what can I do?

First thing you got to do is get your ego in check.

Ego where it got to be your way or the highway all the time.

I don't think I can learn anything.

These people need to adapt to me.

You got to get that addressed because it's going to be hard if you can't get past that.

So then once you get past that, I think there's books that you could read.

I think experience comes with it.

I think you can learn about that person asking them questions about their upbringing, how

they were raised, no, like if you know the person, you start to figure out what they're

passionate about, what makes them tick.

And through your experience of dealing with them, you'll start to learn what makes them

tick, what they're passionate about, how they respond the best.

And then that's why I think everybody should always have a mentor.

If you are at a point in your life where you think you got it all figured out, man,

you are really in a dangerous zone.

There got to be, there should always be people in leadership.

When you're a leadership, you should have people that are pouring into you and then you

should have people that you're pouring into.

But I don't care if you're 60 years old, you should have somebody that's pouring into

you.

You got to find somebody that can mentor you at a higher level than what you're currently

on in the area that you want to be mentored in.

So for example, if I'm trying to lead a business and I'm leading people in a business,

I don't want to find somebody that has done well in a business, but all they did was

invent a sweeper and they hit it big.

They never really needed leadership skills for that.

It's not, it's not the same.

Just like me finding a soccer coach for a football game, you got to go try to find a mentor

for whatever it is in your life that that person truly would have an experience and expertise

in leading people and learn from them and bring them questions and be their best student.

Y'all didn't hear me.

Be their best student.

One of the biggest influences I've had in my life in business and I'm an entrepreneur

in an entrepreneurial type business.

This person has never been in an entrepreneurial type business, but they've led people at

a high level.

And a similar demographic and I have benefited from that greater than most people that have,

so that's what I mean by like find somebody that fits the mold.

Leadership is leadership, right?

So that's a leadership thing that I'm talking about.

Parenting, marriage, like you could find mentors in all different walks of life.

I think ego stops people from having the right mentors because they're afraid to show

vulnerability that they need anybody in any area of their life because leadership starts

with you.

In order to lead, you have to learn to be a great follower.

People don't get this.

The best leaders are also the best followers.

If you can't follow, it's going to be hard for you to lead at the highest levels.

And you may think, I'm an alpha, I'm an alpha female, I'm an alpha male, that's fine.

You could be an alpha female and an alpha male, but you also have your ego out of control

if you think that you can't learn from anybody or you can't, you could never have been led

or are not able to be led in any way, shape or form.

You're going to miss out on growth.

You could do a good job.

You may be like success is the worst teacher.

So you may be having some success and you think you got it all figured out.

That's when you need to be the most paranoid.

In order to grow others, you got to grow yourself as the whole airplane mode.

Maybe when you get on the airplane, they say of any event of a lack of oxygen, please

put the mask on yourself before assisting any small children or helping others.

Are you putting the mask on yourself?

Are we leading by example with integrity?

I think that like one of the biggest things that stops people from being able to lead people

is when you start to say one thing and do another, like you say this, you say beyond time

and you're not on time.

You say get up early, you don't get up early.

You say my body spirit, you don't do my body spirit.

You say, and so it's like man, am I a man or woman of my word?

Can people count on me?

Am I consistent?

Am I rolling with integrity?

And then understand that leadership is not title leadership is influence.

Nothing more, nothing less.

When you see people's potential, like as a leader, you got to be able to be good at finding

talent.

I think sometimes another mistake that leaders make is they only lead people with certain

titles versus leading people with potential.

And so you got to lead people and go find the people with potential and lead them for not

where they are now but for where they can be in the future.

Down the road with the right influence.

And it starts with the relationships and what you could do to make that person a better

person.

I'm not saying you got to be perfect but this is why it takes it takes you working on

yourself so much to do what you need to do in leadership because you got to be able

to help another person become a better person.

And it's easier to tell somebody else what to do than it is to tell yourself what to

do.

But we got to be able to go and find those people help them out in areas of their life,

develop them personally.

That'll lead into professional development and identify your people that you're leading,

identify their strengths.

And weaknesses and try to see how you can accentuate and continue to pour in and put

them in zones of their strength while you're working on their weaknesses.

So don't just look at their strengths and weaknesses and go full tilt on I want to

try to work on all their weaknesses and then you neglect their strengths.

That's like if someone's really fast but they're not strong and I put them in a game and

all I'm trying to work on with them is their strength and I'm neglecting how we can

get them to ball in an open field because they're fast while we're working on their

strength.

That's bad coaching.

Keep coaching people and putting people in their strengths on their strengths on the

best that you possibly can while you're working on their weaknesses.

Don't neglect the weaknesses.

Some people say only focus on your strengths.

Think you should focus the majority.

But I think you also better develop them weaknesses or you're going to have a lot of holes in

your game.

You got to at least be able to function in those weak areas.

And then you got to know the people that you're leading.

You can't lead them properly if you don't know their vision, their vision, not your vision

for them, what their vision is.

If they don't have a clear vision and you don't know what their vision is and then they

got to have goals.

What's their vision for the future then you have goals?

So I just had this conversation today that your vision, so like here's the roadmap.

You got a vision that's something a little bit longer term further out there.

It's big.

Get you excited.

Okay, then you got goals.

These are things that are more realistic right now, timely right now with the date on them

of when we want them to be accomplished.

You got like short term goals, long term goals and then daily goals like goals.

So let's say my goal for the years this but I also need a goal for the month.

And then I also need a goal for the week.

And then I need action steps and goals daily of how I'm going to get to that place.

So you know, the vision is I want to run, which is not my vision, but let's say the vision

is I want to run 20 miles.

And the goal is I want to be able to run 10 miles by the end of the year, but I can only

run one mile now.

So maybe I look at it and I say, well, we're in June.

I got seven months.

If I could run one more mile or a little bit over per month more, I'll be there.

So the goal next month is to run two miles and the goal next month after that is to run

three and a half miles and the goal the next month after that is to run five miles and

the goal month after that is six miles.

And so every month, I'm, I'm, I'm, I got a different goal that's growing it to get me to

that 10.

But then all right, if, if my goal is to go from one to two in a month, then basically week

number one, I got to do a mile and a quarter week number two, I got to do a mile and a half.

Week number three, I got a mile and three quarters week number four, we got to go get that two

miles.

And so what do I got to do weekly to break those goals down into something smaller and then

what can I do daily?

What are the action steps because to not have action steps and think that it's just going

to increase.

Everybody wants to do big things.

They want to make big changes.

The big things are in the small things.

That's how you do big things.

And it requires an investment of your time and energy.

It requires a culture of discipline, accountability and growth.

And you have to recognize and reward the good when you're leading people.

You have to recognize and reward the good before addressing what needs worked on oftentimes.

So I see people that all they do is, is, is lead with the negative in hard coverage.

or they give 80% of what they talk about is negative.

I mean, this is a tough one.

Because as a coach, you need to fix the things

that ain't right to make your person

or your team a champion.

We can't spend all this time on what went right

filling ourselves.

And I think the hardest people is,

and this one was hard for me, it's still hard for me.

Because I don't need a ton.

Some, I appreciate some, I really do.

But I want to know what can I do better,

what can I do better, what can I do better?

What do I got to improve on?

Appreciate that you said I got better.

Appreciate that you noticed that I did that good.

Couple of those are good.

But I need to know how can we get better?

Because I just want to win.

But not everybody's like that.

Some people need more add-a-boys, add-a-girls.

So try to look at how many times you're giving

an encouragement to people versus how many times

you're only talking like when you're phone number

rings that they know that you're just calling

the complaint.

Can you at least keep them off balance with the 50-50?

Or if I'm having a tough conversation,

can I start out with some positive

and then give them some of the tough, ideally,

you end with something positive at the end

of that conversation?

And really in leadership, your success

relies on the impact that you're going to have

on other people.

The hardest thing to do is lead people,

I think personally, a lot of our people, not all of our people,

but a lot of our people are on commission.

So that means if you, that's why you see some people

young in our business and they'll make 10 grand a week

because they're on commission.

And it's based off of your performance, which I loved,

because I thought that I would put the work into perform.

And so when you lead commission-based people,

it's tougher because you can't lead

with your title of I'm Your Boss and you're making this much money.

And it's because I'm the one and you got to listen to me.

It's not as hierarchical, so to speak.

You can't just lead them with position and title.

They're not getting a direct paycheck from you.

And then on commission, people that are new that don't have

experience, the emotions get high and low.

Based off of the outcome, they haven't yet

learned to stay even keel and put their effort into the process.

And so most people start out emotionally high and low

based off of how well they did that week.

So if they did good, they're excited.

If they did bad, they're low.

And what we want to do is if they did good,

we want to knock them down a couple levels

and keep them in the middle, say, let's stay focused.

And when if they did bad, we want to bump them up.

If you levels and say, look, they didn't end to the world.

It's part of the game baseball.

If you got a good batting average or batten 300,

that means seven out of 10 times you ain't going to get a hit.

You can't cry every single time you don't get a hit.

Because you're going to have some failure, especially when

you're in sales.

Sales is, you know, you're going to probably fail more

than you succeed if your barometer is, did I make a sale or not?

OK.

So hopefully some of this stuff helps.

I can go on and on some of this stuff.

But take good notes on this stuff.

You know, those of you guys that are in leadership

and I didn't hit every single thing you can get in leadership.

But I guarantee there's some things that if you put pen to paper,

you know, I don't want you to lose the message and then don't,

you know, go back and say what one thing or two things

can I implement that I got from this?

So I didn't waste the last 20 minutes of my life.

Let me say, I'm going to grab these two things

and I'm going to work on these two things over the next two weeks

and see if we can improve in those areas.

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