25 Apr Keys To Successful Leadership
What are Two Key Ingredients to Successful Leadership?
Christopher Hart here from Transforming Lives Coaching and Consulting, coming to you live from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And we’re continuing our series titled Lead Strong, how to build strong leaders in all sorts of different environments, businesses, organizations, as well as our families.
So last couple days we’ve been going on a journey of really understanding people and there’s been some various different topics that we talked about leading up to today where we’re titling today’s video is Two Key Ingredients to Successful Leadership. So before we jump into that, one of the things that I just want to lay out there just from conversations that I’ve had with some of you all since doing this series is what we understand about these leadership principles and characteristics and understandings, and whatever we want to call it, whatever labels you want to put to it, understand they apply to all the different facets of your life as a leader. If you’re leading a business, these apply; if you’re leading an organization, a church, a charitable organization, whatever you want to call what you’re leading, these principles apply too. If you’re a father, if you’re a spouse or a husband or wife, or anything of that nature, you’re a leader, these principles apply across the board; even if you’re leading people, friends and circles of influence, that sort of thing, all these principles apply, they don’t just apply to business. I’ve had people tell me “Well Chris I don’t own a business, how does this stuff apply to me?” And I said, “Well are you a parent? Are you a spouse? Do you have friends? Are you part of organizations?
And here’s the thing, one of the things John Maxwell talks about is 360 degree leadership where in 360 Degree Leadership the whole premise of that book is leading people not just from a hierarchal position meaning you’re their boss, you’re their leader, you’re their manager, supervisor et cetera, it’s also about leading people laterally, people that are to your left and right that may not be your boss, that may not be your direct report, but it’s also about leading them laterally. Who are the people that are on the same plane as you, how can you lead and influence them, as well as leading up, the people that lead you, bosses, managers, supervisors, leaders, team leads, whatever. How do you lead them?
Understand the principles apply to everyone in your life.
So understand, these principles apply to every single person and really in every area of your life. So I just wanted to kind of throw that out there because there’s been some confusion, some lack of understanding; so as you hear this, as you hear maybe you go back and re-listen to some of the videos that we’ve done previously, allow it to speak to you to where you show up as a leader.
So two key ingredients to leadership, the first… well let me define both of them first. Discipline your patience and discipline your disappointment.
Now when most people hear that what they think is “Oh I need to be patient… Well Chris I’m already patient…like I don’t get disappointed.” Okay, I get it, you don’t have to argue with me, this is not about judgment. And the reason why I say that is because when I do teach this to people or when I try to impart this on people they tend to get defensive, like “Man I’m not impatient.” Well you’re not even patient with me being able to teach it to you so. Understand it’s operating on both ends of the spectrum with patience and disappointment.
So what does that look like? What it looks like is when we talk about patience there’s going to be people in your worlds of leadership, in your circles of leadership that you’re going to need to be patient with based off where they’re at. So for instance let’s say I have a sales position role that I hire a brand new sales agent and maybe a new licensee, and I understand that there’s going to be a growth process with this individual, I have to be patient as this person grows, I can’t hold this person to the same level of accountability as I would maybe another sales agent who’s been in the business five years. I have to be patient with their growth process, I have to be patient with their failures along the way. So there’s an element of disciplining your patience that in its appropriate nature with people that you have to be patient with them.
Now on the other end of the spectrum of that is disciplining your patience to be impatient when it requires you to be impatient. So what does that look like? Let’s use the same example of that individual’s been in the business for five years and they know what they need to be doing, or just someone in my organization, someone in my business, someone in my world that shows up in a manner in which there’s things that they should be doing. Like for instance my children, I’ve got a 10 year old or soon-to-be 10 year old, a five year old, and a six year old, do you think I’m a little bit more patient with the five and six year old about cleaning the room as I am with the 10 year old? If my 10 year old doesn’t clean their room knowing that that’s part of their daily chores I’m going to be a little bit more impatient with that individual than I am with the five or six year old who they do anything but clean their room, they just destroy their room. So understanding that both of these disciplines need to be met on both ends of the spectrum in their appropriate encounters with people. So discipline your patience when you need to be patient with people in their growth process, like I’m being patient with my two boys that are five and six and helping condition them. We talked about that I believe it was yesterday’s video about conditioning them to understand the importance of keeping their room clean. So I’m being patient with them in the learning and the growth process but I’d probably be a little bit more impatient with my daughter when I walk past her room and it’s a bombshell at 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon, that’s a no- brainer.
When we disappoint in leadership.
Now when we look at disciplining our disappointment, same concept. As we start to grow leaders …or excuse me, as we start to grow people, remember we talked about conditioning processes, everything that you want people to show up to do is a conditioning process, well in that conditioning process what we need to understand is that people are going to fail, they’re erred. The Bible speaks it, we can go back to Genesis in the Bible and understand that when God made man Adam, and he made woman Eve, and he put them in the garden and he said you know “Enjoy the garden, everything but this tree. Don’t eat the fruit of this tree.” And then the serpent, the devil, when the devil came in and distracted them and said “Hey don’t worry about it, you can eat this fruit,” sin entered the world, that’s when you and me became erred, every generation before us and every generation there after us.
So why is that important? I’m not just sitting here trying to speak biblical to people, what I’m speaking to you is the understanding that every human being you encounter in your world is going to be erred, they’re going to have sin, they’re going to do things wrong; they’re going to disappoint you. Whether it’s that lowest person on your team or in your organization to the highest leader in your organization, to your spouse, to your children, to your best friend, to the person that you may have voted for yesterday, they’re going to disappoint you. They’re human, stop holding people to perfection, life is not about perfection it’s about progress. The second you hold yourself to perfection or you hold other people to perfection you’re going to be highly disappointed. Good morning Lionel, good to see you brother man.
So we understand something, if we’re going to be disappointed in people, because that’s just our very human nature, then guess what? We have to learn to discipline that disappointment, and the only one that’s ever going to not disappoint us is God and His Son Jesus, so let’s just get that straight. Whatever your beliefs are, I’m not here to sway your belief, if that speaks to you I’m glad it does, if it doesn’t, just understand it’s speaking to someone. So when we come to understand that God and His Son Jesus are the only ones that are not going to disappoint us, that any human being walking this …or this earthly realm will disappoint us, you have to learn how to discipline that disappointment.
What that looks like is again, both ends of the spectrum; you discipline it …you discipline your disappointment to understand that through growth processes, through that conditioning process with people that you’re going to be disappointed and you have to say, “You know what, I expect this; I want them to fail, I want to embrace failure with them because it’s in the failure that they’re going to learn.” Step Two or Level Two leadership that I’ve defined in my five levels of leadership, lead by self, you have to learn to be okay with your own failure in leadership. Leadership is a path of massive failure before massive success, it’s the whole psychology part. The problem is some of us are conditioned to think that we need to show up in the perfection realm. Leadership is about the failure realm, massively fail on the front end in order to experience the success that we need. It becomes the model by which we define right and wrong, it’s our boundaries.
So when we talk about disciplining your disappointment, sometimes it’s about disciplining your own disappointment with yourself and then disciplining the disappointment that other people tend to bring into your world. So understand, like be disciplined that disappointment when you’re working with people through the early stages of conditioning and growth.
Now on the other end of the spectrum, let’s say I have a leader… let’s say I have a leader in my organization or my world that maybe does something that leaders aren’t supposed to do. Maybe they just kind of do something that maybe is a little immoral, unethical, whatever. Or maybe they just show up, or they don’t show up for a couple days, meaning they’re not doing the activities that leaders are supposed to do because leaders lead the way. For my Marine friends out there Rangers lead the way in the military. Just had to throw that out there, sorry guys.
So what do we understand? If that leader shows up and we look at them and we go “Really? Like you didn’t lead generate this week?” Like come on, leaders lead generate that’s why we called leaders, they go first, they do what others are supposed to be doing. And we have to discipline our disappointment, we have to let that person know “Look I am disappointed in the very simple fact that you did not show up as the leader that you claim to be.” This is not positional leadership that John Maxwell talks about, this is about earning it.
So both ends of the spectrum with disappointment is, look I’m not going to… I’m going to discipline my disappointment with my five and six year old when they’re slinging spaghetti across the kitchen, but if one of my buddies comes over and he’s like, “Oh that’s a great idea, let me join in with them.” Like I’m going to look over at my buddy and go, “Really dude? I’m a little disappointed that you’re 30 something years old slinging spaghetti across my kitchen. My boys can do it, I’m a little… I’m patient with their growth process but a grown adult not so, so I’m a little disappointed in that. I’m disappointed in your behavior.”
So two key ingredients to all leadership success is disciplining your disappointment, and disciplining your patience. And as leaders we need to understand both ends of the spectrum. How and where do you show up as a leader on those spectrums with your people on a daily basis? Where do you show up on that spectrum with yourself? Like some of you guys that are on the East Coast here in a few short minutes it’s going to turn 9:00 o’clock. When it’s 9:00 o’clock maybe your calendar is telling you to lead generate and if you do anything other than lead generate because your calendar tells you to do so maybe you should be disappointed in yourself.
Maybe if you end a day or maybe you end a week and you know you didn’t give it your best like you weren’t absolutely doing what needed to be done to be the best version of yourself, maybe you should be disappointed in yourself on Friday. Maybe that’s not what you want to hear but it’s the truth.
Now we don’t be disappointed in ourselves and disappointed in other people to make them feel bad, understand something, let’s be very clear about leadership. Leadership is not a feel-good, foo-foo all the time feel good, sometimes the truth needs to be spoken and the truth hurts, that’s why in that movie there’s, “You can’t handle the truth.” Some people can’t. And understand something, we don’t say things to make people feel bad, to be just a negative driving force in their life; sometimes they just need to feel that little bit of pain to realize they just need to feel that little bit of pain to put them into action. Because we talk about people move in one of two directions, towards pleasure and away from pain, so if they’re not moving towards pleasure and we have to make them feel a little bit of pain then that’s what leaders do, that’s why I defined in one of my previous videos great leaders are willing to have the tough conversations. If you’re not willing to have tough conversations you’re going to have a tough time being a great leader I can promise you that, but we can also be patient when we need to be patient, impatient when we’re supposed to be impatient with results.
If you commit to doing two appointments this week, 20 contacts a day, whatever it looks like in your business, some of my clients… for those of you that are my clients on this video, like I’m going to be impatient with your lack of showing up in the activity room when it comes to your results because that’s what good coaches do, that’s what great leaders do… great coaches, great leaders do, we’re impatient with your commitments. If you commit to do that and you don’t show up and do it I’m going to be impatient. But I also know that if I have a younger individual that I’m working with, it’s a conditioning process and they’re trying to do everything they possibly can, I’m going to be a little bit more impatient. But if you tell me… if I say “Look you believe you can do it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you committed to doing it?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything that’s going to hold you back?” And you say, “No,” and then you don’t show up, I may tell you “Look I’m disappointed in you. Disappointed. You’ve said last week that you had everything you needed, your belief, your commitment, your skills, your resources, et cetera, and you didn’t do it, I’m a little disappointed.”
And then the other end of spectrum of that is people in the conditioning process I have to temper that disappointment when I really want them to show up and they don’t. I understand there’s certain things that I need to condition and in that conditioning process there’s obstacles I need to help them overcome. But if I help you overcome an obstacle and it still becomes an obstacle that you allow to show up and you understand how to move through that obstacle, yeah that’s going to be some disappointment, and I think rightfully so, but I think the disappointment should come from you first.
So hopefully those two elements and ingredients disciplines of leadership, help you better understand how to lead people. So I hope this brought some value to your business, your life, understand … remember one thing, you’re a child of God, God loves you, so do I. Lead strong. Have an amazing day. Take care
About the author:
Over the course of 8 years, Christopher Hart went from an enlisted Private First Class to a Commissioned Officer-Captain. In 2005, Christopher chose to move on from his military career to focus on starting a family and embarking in the world of entrepreneurship. Christopher’s passion is now working to help others be the BEST version of themselves and helping them Lead others to the same!
To learn more about Christopher Hart or to get in touch with him regarding a coaching program you can email him at Chris@TransformingLivesCoaching.com
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