April 22, 2025 • 21 mins
Value-driven Leadership is an approach which leaders often claim for themselves; however, living these values is a struggle for most leaders. The case of Harvard University versus Donald J. Trump shows how Alan Garber, Harvard University's president, lived a value-driven approach in the dispute with the White House.
Niels Brabandt discusses the case in this week's episode.
Host: Niels Brabandt / NB@NB-Networks.com
Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nielsbrabandt/
Leadership Letter: https://expert.nb-networks.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Niels Brabandt (00:02):
There was quite something going on between Harvard University and Donald j Trump recently, and
some of you might have heard of it.
Donald j Trump sent a letter to Harvard University demanding quite a number of things that,
let's say, significantly limits the options that Harvard University has about their personal
freedom of choice when it comes to running their own organization.
(00:24):
The question is how do you deal with that?
Because the answer that Harvard University gave was an example of value driven leadership.
And today, we're gonna talk about exactly that, value driven leadership.
So first, I thank you very much for your positive feedback on our YouTube channel.
If you're now watching on YouTube, please don't forget to subscribe here.
If you're now watching, sorry, listening on, spot Spotify or Apple Podcast, feel free to do so as well.
(00:49):
Today, I'm going to use a picture and a quote that is very important, and I do this in full
accordance with the quotation rights I have.
Just missed one picture of one person, you're not going to miss very much.
But feel free to join us on YouTube as well, of course.
So when we now talk about value driven leadership, the main question always is why do so many
(01:09):
organizations struggle delivering value driven leadership?
The classic reaction we have is that people say, oh, yeah.
I heard about value driven leadership.
My boss loves to talk about values.
When it comes to living them, not so much.
But it's always about, you know, respect, and we're a team and, you know, we're a team.
So could you please all work longer? That's our value. We we work longer. No. No.
(01:34):
We don't pay for longer. You just work longer.
So we see that there are lots of issues with value driven leadership.
So when we now talk about the case of Donald j Trump and the Harvard University, the the the
the very first question always is what actually was the case?
Because, of course, as soon as any case surfaces, there are lots of myths going around, and
people invent stuff, and then people add their own opinions to it.
(01:57):
So we looked into what actually is the case.
And the case here is that Donald j Trump, the president of The United States, sent a quite long
list to Harvard University demanding things from them.
And now some people might say, hey. He's the president.
Of course, he can do that.
And here is the very important issue.
Here's the very important point. Science is free.
(02:19):
If you like it or not, science is free.
When you want to have ideologically driven science where you basically order and you basically
command what they have to find out, what they have to do, that that's not free science.
That's just someone making stuff up and telling you what you want to hear.
If you wanna have something like that, listen to, for example, Robert f Kennedy.
Robert f Kennedy who thinks that certain substances cause autism, and they're now gonna put,
(02:44):
efforts into finding out which ones.
And when the journalist asks, so what do you wanna do when you find out these substances, He
says, yeah, we're gonna make them illegal.
We're gonna, make them forbid.
We we will tell companies not not to use these substances. Hint here.
Science already found out that no substances cause autism. Surprise, surprise. Who could have thought?
So what were the demands that Donald j Trump had?
(03:06):
The demands were, and, of course, we start with a classic one, the end of all DEI diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Very important here.
And to the people who haven't listened to our podcast so far, when you think that DEI is only
about gays, lesbians, trans people, and maybe people who are not white, then you are wrong.
I'll give you an example.
(03:27):
When you now say diversity is not for you, when you become sick, let's say you get cancer, do
you wanna get fired for that? No?
Well, then you need DEI because diversity, equity, and inclusion for example, when someone says, oh, sorry.
You want a job here? No. You're too old.
We don't hire anyone 50.
If someone says that and you don't like it because it's because you hey.
(03:48):
I have a lot of experience.
I'm I'm I'm I'm a proper asset for this organization. Yeah. You are. You are.
That's diversity, equity, and inclusion.
So it's about all of us.
Anyone needs diversity, equity, equity, and inclusion sooner or later in their life.
Being against that is absurd, and it also is a straightforward go against science.
Scientific evidence is rock solid on the matter that diversity, equity, and inclusion is a must have for successful organizations.
(04:15):
But it doesn't stop there.
Donald j Trump, of course, also put aspects of race in there so there there shouldn't be any
programs which probably promote some sort of person or initiative regarding race.
Of course, it's again about immigration, so Harvard should be forced to fully cooperate with immigration offices.
That is unheard of in the history of universities.
(04:36):
Universities are not investigation companies that need to find out who should get who who who
should get shocked out of the country.
And, by the way, the history Donald j Trump has with his team now isn't a great one.
Deporting the wrong people and then doubling down on that isn't a good look to to say it very politely.
So when it comes to immigration, Harvard should help.
(04:57):
And, of course, they didn't wanna do that.
And there should be, buckle up, external audits on ideological diversity.
I just put this in plain words.
What they wanted to do here is that someone says, yeah, you know, these far right wing views
should also be equally discussed.
So when someone says, women belong at home and should have children and shouldn't have a say
(05:20):
in the household or the economy or anywhere, and they shouldn't have voting rights, someone
someone then would come up and say, oh, yeah. That's ideological diversity.
And, of course, that's plain nonsense.
Ideological diversity does not mean that we leave the common ground of sanity or that we go
fact free into just jabbering out some sort of gibberish and saying, oh, this is part of ideological diversity. No, it's not.
(05:42):
And, also, I'm quite sure that when someone says, oh, ideological diversity, so we should discuss
if socialism and communism is actually good for The US, I am pretty sure that this would not
be part of the ideological diversity Donald Trump was talking about.
So with all these demands and, of course, there there there there was a way longer letter.
(06:04):
We we we we just picked some here the the most important ones, the most prevalent ones.
Of course, we now need an answer.
And Ellen Garber is the president of Harvard University, and Ellen Garber gave an answer, which
I'm now going to quote word by word.
Ellen Garber, president of Harvard University, said word by word, and I quote, no government,
(06:25):
regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom
they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.
This is probably one of the most clearest, the most standing down for values, speaking up for
(06:45):
values, the most crystal clear answer of we received the letter, and the answer is no.
In the history of university, no's.
And by the way, that was not all.
The quote the the quote goes on.
The university and then I quote here, Alan Garber again.
The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.
(07:08):
It couldn't be any clearer.
It couldn't be any clearer.
And, of course, now some people will come up and say, look look, Niels.
This is not really standing up for values.
What does this man have to lose?
Alan Garber is probably some privileged academic. He's probably well off.
And also Harvard University, they they they are all rich. They're all rich. So Harvard is rich.
And, yes, they have a massive multibillion endowment, under their belt.
(07:34):
And then many people think, oh, this is one of these, you know, one of these moments where where
people stand up, and they don't really have a share of the whole issue.
They just try to do virtue signaling.
And, no, this is not the case here.
Of course, when the Harvard University answer came out, we knew it's an unambiguously clear no.
And the main part here is the consequences that could have happened for the university.
(07:57):
So we so when we talk about the consequences, when someone speaks up for values and they have
zero risk, that is like that's something which we in Germany call translates roughly free courage. Courage.
Free courage means you show courage, but you are never at risk.
So when you, for example, say, I stand up for the values of nature. Nature is important.
(08:17):
But you already live in the middle of nature, and there's no danger no one wants to take nature away from you. People say, yeah. I mean, obviously.
And this this free courage, German free courage, is what you will get in roughly six weeks' time.
In roughly six weeks' time, companies will pull out their rainbow flags and say, oh, it's pride month. You know? Pride and diversity.
(08:39):
We stand up for the values.
And then they say, yeah, well, you know, this rainbow colored logo is only available in Europe and The US.
We're not gonna put maybe maybe in South America as well.
We're we're we're not gonna put that into certain areas of Africa and not into Saudi Arabia because, you know, difficult. So that's free courage.
(08:59):
When you pretend to stand up for values but you don't, And you exactly get the backlash that
you deserve as a leader when you decide to do that.
So the consequences here for Harvard University, and we looked it up.
So what already was the threat that Donald Trump put out there is $2,200,000,000 of funds should be frozen.
(09:19):
That already is a multibillion dollar damage to the organization.
Plus $60,000,000 in contracts where people where Donald Trump said they they will not be awarded
to Harvard, and that's not all.
Probably hardest threat that would that was put out there was about the tax status.
Someone said, we're gonna reconsider the tax status of Harvard University.
(09:42):
Just just to give you a bit of background here, Universities do research, and this is re this
this research usually gets passed on to free enterprise for free.
So they do the research. They find something out.
For example, they find out how to produce a car or an engine that consumes less fuel or a photovoltaic
cell that can produce more energy out of sunlight, they pass it on, and free enterprise makes
(10:05):
lots of cash from that.
And, of course, because we need science, it wouldn't make any sense to say, hey, university.
You have to pay taxes so you have less money for research, so we tax you and have less scientific findings.
And that is the reason why university are usually, depending on the country in which you are,
either they have a favorable tax regime or they are tax exempt as Harvard University is here.
(10:27):
So the tax status was threatened.
They threatened to say Harvard University is a political institution, an activist institution.
Some of them even said we should we we should class it as a business.
And with the region Harvard University is in, which is the Northeastern region, that that's
a pretty tax higher region in The US.
So if that tax status goes on the other side of the game, Harvard University would lose probably
(10:53):
with, of course, the tuition fees coming in and everything else, probably a 2 digit billion of dollars.
So if anyone here says that what president Garber said was free courage or nothing really was
on the line for him, for Alan Garber, his whole career was on the line, and for Harvard University,
everything was on the line.
(11:15):
Basically, their whole because you are in competition. There's Harvard University. There's the MIT.
One after another, and you see so many businesses after Donald Trump took office, many businesses
suddenly surrendered their DEI program because, oh, you know, diversity is important, but getting
on our knees for power is more important. You know?
That's exactly that's exactly the leadership that people complain about.
(11:37):
And that's, by the way, the reason why many young people today do not believe free enterprise
or political or charity leaders anymore.
Because often they think when you're on that level, on that income, you probably just say something
to be well off, and then you move on from there.
By the way, what was the result of all this?
You could, of course, now think, well, it might be pretty harsh to just do all that.
(12:00):
And, yes, it would be pretty harsh if they did that.
However, it ended with the White House saying that the letter with the demands was sent out by error.
It was not fully authorized.
Look. If you I don't know if anyone out there believes that. Hint. I don't.
(12:23):
If you think that something with a signature from Donald j Trump, the president of The United
States Of America, if the White House sends out letters that were not fully authorized, I have
a lot of question marks I have to say. Do I believe that? No.
And if I believe because I I don't want to believe it because that would mean that the that
that that the White House sends out letters which random people just write and send out in their name.
(12:48):
So what's happening what's happening next? Oh, sorry.
We just sent out this war declaration against this country, but, you know, we had a really bad
intern, and that bad intern had had bad shoes produced in that country.
So he just sent the declaration of war then, and we didn't fully authorize it, but it went out somehow. That will be catastrophic.
Not admitting as a leader that you did a mistake is probably one of the worst things you can do.
(13:12):
If you want to be considered a leader, the first thing you need to do is when you do something wrong, admit it.
Admit it, and then then continue to do better from there.
The main question people now often have is how how can we actually implement a a value driven approach to leadership?
Because many people say, look, so many businesses struggle.
(13:32):
We are one of them.
And the first thing you have to do is give your people a professional leadership education.
I cannot quote this often enough.
Chartered Management Institute in London, Eighty Leaders had zero minutes of leadership education.
And then you wonder that things things go south in real world practice.
(13:53):
You can't be serious because things will go south when you do not properly educate people.
As soon as people know this is how I lead, then you build up the value system you work with.
And the value system you build up is always a bottom up process.
So you cannot, of course, ask anyone.
I mean, you can do an online poll with anyone.
That's something you can really do.
But then you ask representatives what are our values on operational level, technical level,
(14:18):
strategic level, and all of that creates the value system in which you work.
What you should not do is the typical management sits down and creates the values by themselves.
Some marketing companies produces posters, and one Monday morning, people get into the office
or to their production facilities.
And on the wall, you have these posters where it says, respect, teamwork, value for the customer
(14:44):
because, you know, the customer pays my salary. You know?
People heard all that, and no one believes any of this anymore.
Because when you do values top down, many people will say, okay. Look. You say respect here.
Here's example one, two, three, four, five, where I have dealt with with no respect.
So what do you do now?
And when you don't act on that, you're immediately on zero credibility.
(15:06):
So the first thing you have to do is professionally to education and then build your value system professionally.
From there, you have a CSI process, continual service improvement, because you will make mistakes.
When you say, oh, I want to have all this professional leadership education, and then we build
our values because we don't want to have any errors anymore, any failures.
We don't want to have any of that.
(15:27):
You will, if you like it or not. Errors will happen.
Every single time, sooner or later, an error will happen, and then you will you need to deal with it.
That is just part of the game.
So be sure that when you have all of these aspects in place up to the point of continual service
(15:49):
improvement where it means you look at the error and then you do it better, what you implement
is a culture of failure.
Because a culture of failure simply means when when when some sort of error or failure happens,
people openly talk about it.
If you don't have that, what happens is people make an error, and then they cover it up.
Then they're gonna finger point, blame someone else, and then anyone blames anyone, and you
(16:10):
will end up in endless conflict.
Your productivity will go down.
With productivity going down, immediately, your profit goes down because you have higher costs.
With more conflicts and especially these pointless blaming conflicts, people will be dissatisfied.
So you have higher recruiting costs. Again, lower profit.
People are less motivated, so they don't like to work there.
(16:31):
Your leaders will be considered not credible people. People don't leave organizations. People leave people.
So you have more people leaving.
You have more people being dissatisfied, meaning more people will call in sick one or more days
per year because they don't like to work where they actually work.
All of this piles up a massive amount of cost, higher recruiting cost, and whatnot else.
(16:51):
And everything, all of that puts down the motivation, and all of that immediately affect the bottom line.
So if you say, oh, all of this soft skill thing, I'm here for the profit.
Everything we do here is about the profit. Everything affects the profit.
You simply have to understand that value driven leadership is part of how to make an organization successful.
(17:13):
And by the way, you do not have to like every single organization's values.
When some organizations today say, well, we don't do work from home.
We all work in the office.
You may or may not like that, but but some companies simply say, well, that's part of our value system. We just do that.
And some people will say, you know, we are a remote first company, and that means we expect
(17:34):
you to work from home most of the time.
And you say, well, I don't like these values. You don't have to.
No one forces you to work there.
But they clearly communicated what their values are, and that's what this is about. Communicate your values clearly.
So when you have professional leadership education, your value system is built.
Your continual service improvement program is in place.
So you continually make every process and approach better.
(17:56):
And when errors happen, you openly speak about them and you make everything better than it was
before, then you are on the right way to value driven leadership.
And as soon as conflict arises, people will always see a moment of truth and say, let's see
what they do, and then you have to stand up for your values just as Harvard University did here
(18:18):
as the perfect example of how value driven leadership works.
And I wish you all the best implementing that in your organization.
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So first, when you're now listening on YouTube here, please leave a like here.
Please subscribe to my channel. This is very important.
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(18:42):
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(19:04):
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(19:28):
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(19:54):
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(20:18):
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(20:40):
At the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say.
Thank you very much for your time.
There was quite something going on between Harvard University and Donald j Trump recently, and
some of you might have heard of it.
Donald j Trump sent a letter to Harvard University demanding quite a number of things that,
let's say, significantly limits the options that Harvard University has about their personal
freedom of choice when it comes to running their own organization.
(00:24):
The question is how do you deal with that?
Because the answer that Harvard University gave was an example of value driven leadership.
And today, we're gonna talk about exactly that, value driven leadership.
So first, I thank you very much for your positive feedback on our YouTube channel.
If you're now watching on YouTube, please don't forget to subscribe here.
If you're now watching, sorry, listening on, spot Spotify or Apple Podcast, feel free to do so as well.
(00:49):
Today, I'm going to use a picture and a quote that is very important, and I do this in full
accordance with the quotation rights I have.
Just missed one picture of one person, you're not going to miss very much.
But feel free to join us on YouTube as well, of course.
So when we now talk about value driven leadership, the main question always is why do so many
(01:09):
organizations struggle delivering value driven leadership?
The classic reaction we have is that people say, oh, yeah.
I heard about value driven leadership.
My boss loves to talk about values.
When it comes to living them, not so much.
But it's always about, you know, respect, and we're a team and, you know, we're a team.
So could you please all work longer? That's our value. We we work longer. No. No.
(01:34):
We don't pay for longer. You just work longer.
So we see that there are lots of issues with value driven leadership.
So when we now talk about the case of Donald j Trump and the Harvard University, the the the
the very first question always is what actually was the case?
Because, of course, as soon as any case surfaces, there are lots of myths going around, and
people invent stuff, and then people add their own opinions to it.
(01:57):
So we looked into what actually is the case.
And the case here is that Donald j Trump, the president of The United States, sent a quite long
list to Harvard University demanding things from them.
And now some people might say, hey. He's the president.
Of course, he can do that.
And here is the very important issue.
Here's the very important point. Science is free.
(02:19):
If you like it or not, science is free.
When you want to have ideologically driven science where you basically order and you basically
command what they have to find out, what they have to do, that that's not free science.
That's just someone making stuff up and telling you what you want to hear.
If you wanna have something like that, listen to, for example, Robert f Kennedy.
Robert f Kennedy who thinks that certain substances cause autism, and they're now gonna put,
(02:44):
efforts into finding out which ones.
And when the journalist asks, so what do you wanna do when you find out these substances, He
says, yeah, we're gonna make them illegal.
We're gonna, make them forbid.
We we will tell companies not not to use these substances. Hint here.
Science already found out that no substances cause autism. Surprise, surprise. Who could have thought?
So what were the demands that Donald j Trump had?
(03:06):
The demands were, and, of course, we start with a classic one, the end of all DEI diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Very important here.
And to the people who haven't listened to our podcast so far, when you think that DEI is only
about gays, lesbians, trans people, and maybe people who are not white, then you are wrong.
I'll give you an example.
(03:27):
When you now say diversity is not for you, when you become sick, let's say you get cancer, do
you wanna get fired for that? No?
Well, then you need DEI because diversity, equity, and inclusion for example, when someone says, oh, sorry.
You want a job here? No. You're too old.
We don't hire anyone 50.
If someone says that and you don't like it because it's because you hey.
(03:48):
I have a lot of experience.
I'm I'm I'm I'm a proper asset for this organization. Yeah. You are. You are.
That's diversity, equity, and inclusion.
So it's about all of us.
Anyone needs diversity, equity, equity, and inclusion sooner or later in their life.
Being against that is absurd, and it also is a straightforward go against science.
Scientific evidence is rock solid on the matter that diversity, equity, and inclusion is a must have for successful organizations.
(04:15):
But it doesn't stop there.
Donald j Trump, of course, also put aspects of race in there so there there shouldn't be any
programs which probably promote some sort of person or initiative regarding race.
Of course, it's again about immigration, so Harvard should be forced to fully cooperate with immigration offices.
That is unheard of in the history of universities.
(04:36):
Universities are not investigation companies that need to find out who should get who who who
should get shocked out of the country.
And, by the way, the history Donald j Trump has with his team now isn't a great one.
Deporting the wrong people and then doubling down on that isn't a good look to to say it very politely.
So when it comes to immigration, Harvard should help.
(04:57):
And, of course, they didn't wanna do that.
And there should be, buckle up, external audits on ideological diversity.
I just put this in plain words.
What they wanted to do here is that someone says, yeah, you know, these far right wing views
should also be equally discussed.
So when someone says, women belong at home and should have children and shouldn't have a say
(05:20):
in the household or the economy or anywhere, and they shouldn't have voting rights, someone
someone then would come up and say, oh, yeah. That's ideological diversity.
And, of course, that's plain nonsense.
Ideological diversity does not mean that we leave the common ground of sanity or that we go
fact free into just jabbering out some sort of gibberish and saying, oh, this is part of ideological diversity. No, it's not.
(05:42):
And, also, I'm quite sure that when someone says, oh, ideological diversity, so we should discuss
if socialism and communism is actually good for The US, I am pretty sure that this would not
be part of the ideological diversity Donald Trump was talking about.
So with all these demands and, of course, there there there there was a way longer letter.
(06:04):
We we we we just picked some here the the most important ones, the most prevalent ones.
Of course, we now need an answer.
And Ellen Garber is the president of Harvard University, and Ellen Garber gave an answer, which
I'm now going to quote word by word.
Ellen Garber, president of Harvard University, said word by word, and I quote, no government,
(06:25):
regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom
they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.
This is probably one of the most clearest, the most standing down for values, speaking up for
(06:45):
values, the most crystal clear answer of we received the letter, and the answer is no.
In the history of university, no's.
And by the way, that was not all.
The quote the the quote goes on.
The university and then I quote here, Alan Garber again.
The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.
(07:08):
It couldn't be any clearer.
It couldn't be any clearer.
And, of course, now some people will come up and say, look look, Niels.
This is not really standing up for values.
What does this man have to lose?
Alan Garber is probably some privileged academic. He's probably well off.
And also Harvard University, they they they are all rich. They're all rich. So Harvard is rich.
And, yes, they have a massive multibillion endowment, under their belt.
(07:34):
And then many people think, oh, this is one of these, you know, one of these moments where where
people stand up, and they don't really have a share of the whole issue.
They just try to do virtue signaling.
And, no, this is not the case here.
Of course, when the Harvard University answer came out, we knew it's an unambiguously clear no.
And the main part here is the consequences that could have happened for the university.
(07:57):
So we so when we talk about the consequences, when someone speaks up for values and they have
zero risk, that is like that's something which we in Germany call translates roughly free courage. Courage.
Free courage means you show courage, but you are never at risk.
So when you, for example, say, I stand up for the values of nature. Nature is important.
(08:17):
But you already live in the middle of nature, and there's no danger no one wants to take nature away from you. People say, yeah. I mean, obviously.
And this this free courage, German free courage, is what you will get in roughly six weeks' time.
In roughly six weeks' time, companies will pull out their rainbow flags and say, oh, it's pride month. You know? Pride and diversity.
(08:39):
We stand up for the values.
And then they say, yeah, well, you know, this rainbow colored logo is only available in Europe and The US.
We're not gonna put maybe maybe in South America as well.
We're we're we're not gonna put that into certain areas of Africa and not into Saudi Arabia because, you know, difficult. So that's free courage.
(08:59):
When you pretend to stand up for values but you don't, And you exactly get the backlash that
you deserve as a leader when you decide to do that.
So the consequences here for Harvard University, and we looked it up.
So what already was the threat that Donald Trump put out there is $2,200,000,000 of funds should be frozen.
(09:19):
That already is a multibillion dollar damage to the organization.
Plus $60,000,000 in contracts where people where Donald Trump said they they will not be awarded
to Harvard, and that's not all.
Probably hardest threat that would that was put out there was about the tax status.
Someone said, we're gonna reconsider the tax status of Harvard University.
(09:42):
Just just to give you a bit of background here, Universities do research, and this is re this
this research usually gets passed on to free enterprise for free.
So they do the research. They find something out.
For example, they find out how to produce a car or an engine that consumes less fuel or a photovoltaic
cell that can produce more energy out of sunlight, they pass it on, and free enterprise makes
(10:05):
lots of cash from that.
And, of course, because we need science, it wouldn't make any sense to say, hey, university.
You have to pay taxes so you have less money for research, so we tax you and have less scientific findings.
And that is the reason why university are usually, depending on the country in which you are,
either they have a favorable tax regime or they are tax exempt as Harvard University is here.
(10:27):
So the tax status was threatened.
They threatened to say Harvard University is a political institution, an activist institution.
Some of them even said we should we we should class it as a business.
And with the region Harvard University is in, which is the Northeastern region, that that's
a pretty tax higher region in The US.
So if that tax status goes on the other side of the game, Harvard University would lose probably
(10:53):
with, of course, the tuition fees coming in and everything else, probably a 2 digit billion of dollars.
So if anyone here says that what president Garber said was free courage or nothing really was
on the line for him, for Alan Garber, his whole career was on the line, and for Harvard University,
everything was on the line.
(11:15):
Basically, their whole because you are in competition. There's Harvard University. There's the MIT.
One after another, and you see so many businesses after Donald Trump took office, many businesses
suddenly surrendered their DEI program because, oh, you know, diversity is important, but getting
on our knees for power is more important. You know?
That's exactly that's exactly the leadership that people complain about.
(11:37):
And that's, by the way, the reason why many young people today do not believe free enterprise
or political or charity leaders anymore.
Because often they think when you're on that level, on that income, you probably just say something
to be well off, and then you move on from there.
By the way, what was the result of all this?
You could, of course, now think, well, it might be pretty harsh to just do all that.
(12:00):
And, yes, it would be pretty harsh if they did that.
However, it ended with the White House saying that the letter with the demands was sent out by error.
It was not fully authorized.
Look. If you I don't know if anyone out there believes that. Hint. I don't.
(12:23):
If you think that something with a signature from Donald j Trump, the president of The United
States Of America, if the White House sends out letters that were not fully authorized, I have
a lot of question marks I have to say. Do I believe that? No.
And if I believe because I I don't want to believe it because that would mean that the that
that that the White House sends out letters which random people just write and send out in their name.
(12:48):
So what's happening what's happening next? Oh, sorry.
We just sent out this war declaration against this country, but, you know, we had a really bad
intern, and that bad intern had had bad shoes produced in that country.
So he just sent the declaration of war then, and we didn't fully authorize it, but it went out somehow. That will be catastrophic.
Not admitting as a leader that you did a mistake is probably one of the worst things you can do.
(13:12):
If you want to be considered a leader, the first thing you need to do is when you do something wrong, admit it.
Admit it, and then then continue to do better from there.
The main question people now often have is how how can we actually implement a a value driven approach to leadership?
Because many people say, look, so many businesses struggle.
(13:32):
We are one of them.
And the first thing you have to do is give your people a professional leadership education.
I cannot quote this often enough.
Chartered Management Institute in London, Eighty Leaders had zero minutes of leadership education.
And then you wonder that things things go south in real world practice.
(13:53):
You can't be serious because things will go south when you do not properly educate people.
As soon as people know this is how I lead, then you build up the value system you work with.
And the value system you build up is always a bottom up process.
So you cannot, of course, ask anyone.
I mean, you can do an online poll with anyone.
That's something you can really do.
But then you ask representatives what are our values on operational level, technical level,
(14:18):
strategic level, and all of that creates the value system in which you work.
What you should not do is the typical management sits down and creates the values by themselves.
Some marketing companies produces posters, and one Monday morning, people get into the office
or to their production facilities.
And on the wall, you have these posters where it says, respect, teamwork, value for the customer
(14:44):
because, you know, the customer pays my salary. You know?
People heard all that, and no one believes any of this anymore.
Because when you do values top down, many people will say, okay. Look. You say respect here.
Here's example one, two, three, four, five, where I have dealt with with no respect.
So what do you do now?
And when you don't act on that, you're immediately on zero credibility.
(15:06):
So the first thing you have to do is professionally to education and then build your value system professionally.
From there, you have a CSI process, continual service improvement, because you will make mistakes.
When you say, oh, I want to have all this professional leadership education, and then we build
our values because we don't want to have any errors anymore, any failures.
We don't want to have any of that.
(15:27):
You will, if you like it or not. Errors will happen.
Every single time, sooner or later, an error will happen, and then you will you need to deal with it.
That is just part of the game.
So be sure that when you have all of these aspects in place up to the point of continual service
(15:49):
improvement where it means you look at the error and then you do it better, what you implement
is a culture of failure.
Because a culture of failure simply means when when when some sort of error or failure happens,
people openly talk about it.
If you don't have that, what happens is people make an error, and then they cover it up.
Then they're gonna finger point, blame someone else, and then anyone blames anyone, and you
(16:10):
will end up in endless conflict.
Your productivity will go down.
With productivity going down, immediately, your profit goes down because you have higher costs.
With more conflicts and especially these pointless blaming conflicts, people will be dissatisfied.
So you have higher recruiting costs. Again, lower profit.
People are less motivated, so they don't like to work there.
(16:31):
Your leaders will be considered not credible people. People don't leave organizations. People leave people.
So you have more people leaving.
You have more people being dissatisfied, meaning more people will call in sick one or more days
per year because they don't like to work where they actually work.
All of this piles up a massive amount of cost, higher recruiting cost, and whatnot else.
(16:51):
And everything, all of that puts down the motivation, and all of that immediately affect the bottom line.
So if you say, oh, all of this soft skill thing, I'm here for the profit.
Everything we do here is about the profit. Everything affects the profit.
You simply have to understand that value driven leadership is part of how to make an organization successful.
(17:13):
And by the way, you do not have to like every single organization's values.
When some organizations today say, well, we don't do work from home.
We all work in the office.
You may or may not like that, but but some companies simply say, well, that's part of our value system. We just do that.
And some people will say, you know, we are a remote first company, and that means we expect
(17:34):
you to work from home most of the time.
And you say, well, I don't like these values. You don't have to.
No one forces you to work there.
But they clearly communicated what their values are, and that's what this is about. Communicate your values clearly.
So when you have professional leadership education, your value system is built.
Your continual service improvement program is in place.
So you continually make every process and approach better.
(17:56):
And when errors happen, you openly speak about them and you make everything better than it was
before, then you are on the right way to value driven leadership.
And as soon as conflict arises, people will always see a moment of truth and say, let's see
what they do, and then you have to stand up for your values just as Harvard University did here
(18:18):
as the perfect example of how value driven leadership works.
And I wish you all the best implementing that in your organization.
And when you now say, well, mate, I really have to talk with you about this, feel free to do so.
So first, when you're now listening on YouTube here, please leave a like here.
Please subscribe to my channel. This is very important.
We, do this to grow a bit so we can reach out to more people.
(18:42):
And when you're now with us on, for example, Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please leave a review if you like it.
For example, you can leave a five star review. Very much appreciated.
If you now like to talk to me, just send me an email.
Nb@nb-networks.com, and then you send me an email and we take it from there. We can have discussions.
You can also suggest new topics.
By the way, if you like new topics, if you have any questions, please also put them in the comments
(19:04):
and you on on YouTube.
Feel free to do it there as well, and I will go through all of them personally.
By the way, if you now say, well, do we have live sessions? Yes. We do.
When you go to expert.nb-networks.com, and I put all of that in the show notes of the podcast
on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, etcetera as well. Expert@nb-networks.com.
When you go there, you could put your email address in there, and then you receive only one email every Wednesday morning.
(19:28):
It's a % content at free guarantee.
And this email contains free access to all articles I publish, free access to all podcasts,
and the direct access URL, the direct access link to our next live session, including the date and the time.
We only communicate live sessions via the leadership letter, so it pays off to sign up there.
However, the most important thing you really need to do is apply, apply, apply what you heard in this podcast.
(19:54):
Because only when you apply what you heard, you will see the positive impact of everything you
just heard in your organization. Let's face it.
You probably want to see a positive impact because you wouldn't sit here with me twenty minutes
if you're not interested in having a positive impact.
So apply, apply, apply what you heard in this podcast.
And if you do so, you will see a better situation very soon.
(20:18):
At the end of the podcast, it's very important.
Please get in contact with me, if you have any kind of topic suggestions.
Please get in contact with me if you have any kind of aspects you'd like to discuss, and please
sign up for the leisure letter because that is where you get free access to all of our live sessions.
When you now applied everything or you're on the way to apply everything, you know how this ends every single episode.
(20:40):
At the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say.
Thank you very much for your time.
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