August 12, 2024 • 12 mins
Discover the essential advice for anyone aspiring to be a great leader. Many individuals make common mistakes by overcomplicating leadership, focusing on numerous traits instead of understanding why people choose to follow others. At its core, effective leadership revolves around sharing a compelling vision that resonates with followers and aligns with their aspirations—whether financial or altruistic.
We’ll explore how true leaders engage others through authentic visions and maintain credibility by educating themselves and their teams. By simplifying leadership into seven key principles, we can unlock our potential as influential leaders who inspire genuine commitment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jim Johnson (00:00):
My best advice for anybody wanting to be a good
leader.
I think people make a lot ofmistakes, but whenever they
chase leadership, they, theyconsume a lot of information.
They find 37 different thingsthey're supposed to do instead
of really simplifying it down towhy do people actually follow
other people?
(00:20):
The reason that most peoplefollow somebody else is because
they aspire to be like them andthey have.
An alignment with whatevervision it is that they're
chasing, something therebenefits them could be
financial, it could change theirlives financially, it could be
altruistic, they're solving aproblem.
Uh, the concept of the vision isreally important because it
(00:42):
needs to be aligned with thatleader first, like it needs to
be their core comes from theheart what they're chasing and
they're chasing it for a reallystrong reason.
And then when they share thatvision, it engages others to get
involved with it.
Now, that's kind of step one ofgetting people to follow you,
and I want to kind of take onestep back because I think a lot
(01:03):
of people make this mistake whenit comes to leadership as well.
They think of leadership asbeing good or evil, or good or
bad, right?
As a good leader, he's a goodperson, or he's a bad leader
because he's a bad person.
That's not really the definitionof leadership.
The definition of leadership isan individual who can get other
people to follow them in ashared vision.
(01:25):
And there's been a lot ofnefarious folks along the way
that you can think about thatgot a lot of people to follow
them.
They knew what it took and thatfirst one was engaging people in
a vision that was shared amongstthem that there was something to
achieve together that wouldbenefit everybody.
But if they would have came onboard for just that and the guy
didn't follow through.
Well, his leadership's not goingto last very long.
(01:47):
He's not a good leader.
And so that leader, his nextstep would be the fact that he's
going to educate people.
He's going to get them educated.
He's going to continue toeducate himself.
And he's literally putting proofin the pudding to what it was
that he said we were going todo.
And that gets this belief, thisbuy in like, Hey, okay.
So he said it was going to bethis way and it is that way.
(02:09):
So there's continuity there.
So those were the first twopieces of being a great leader.
And we've distilled them down.
Like if you look at all thedifferent ones that are out
there, like I said, it'ssomewhere in the thirties, all
these different characteristicsand traits and things that
leaders should be or shouldn'tbe.
If you boiled them all down.
They really come down to sevenvery key things that we need to
(02:31):
start with.
Think of it as like the core orfoundation of being a great
leader, because ultimately whatwe want is if we're going to
lead, we want a group of peopleto follow us and get them to
follow us.
We talked about having thisengaging vision that we're
aligned with.
You're going to attract peopleto.
Uh, or you're going to repelthem and that's good.
It's going to repel the onesthat don't want to be on board.
(02:52):
It's going to attract all theones that do want to be on
board.
We're going to educate them.
We're going to follow throughwith what we said.
And then the next thing up iswe're going to set the example.
So if I say, Hey, part of who weare is hardworking, high
performing, extra effort, uh,being 1 percent better every
day.
And I didn't set that exampleevery single day, then my vision
(03:16):
isn't real.
And my leadership is fake andfalse.
And so I have to lead by examplebecause ultimately the people
that are being followed areusually being followed by people
that want to be more like them.
And so if we say, Hey, it'sgoing to be this way, and it's
not that way, we're setting apoor example, especially when it
comes to our core values.
I think that's something that isa common characteristic among
(03:38):
great leaders.
That they have these corebeliefs that are not
questionable, like they havethem and if you are in line with
them, great.
If you're not, you need toleave.
And by having that, it gives youa grounding rock.
That it's your character of whoyou are.
And this character aspect iswhat people tend to be attracted
(04:00):
to as much as your vision.
Because they're looking at, hey,I want to be able to achieve
things like this guy.
Thanks But he's also doing it ina way that's aligned with them.
And so, again, this right orwrong, I wouldn't get caught up
too much and then I would getmore in alignment.
Like, hey, this alignment ofthis example that somebody's
setting.
So this is key.
Like whatever you say yourcompany is going to be or how
(04:22):
you're going to lead and howyou're going to execute your
vision and the core values thatyou have.
You got to be the example ofthose.
You can't tell everybody theygot to do it one way and you do
it a different way.
Everybody go work hard and yougot your feet kicked up on the
desk.
That's never a good, goodapproach.
Now, if we want to be a littlemore laid back and easy, that's
cool.
That's setting a bit of yourcharacter and your culture and
(04:43):
your environment that people aregoing to be in when they're
around you.
Just know that if you do that,that's going to be the
temperature and environment ofthe entire company.
I prefer high performance.
I prefer exceptional.
I prefer those types of thingsbecause.
That tends to drive the wholemachine a little bit faster.
The fourth thing is one that weas beings aren't usually very
(05:05):
good at.
Empathy.
You know, we, we tend to bekind.
Funny enough, you know, a lot ofleaders seem to be gruff and all
that other good stuff.
The reality is, When you getthem in one on one situations,
they're a big softy just likeeverybody else and nobody wants
to fire anybody.
Nobody wants to reprimandanybody.
Nobody wants to have conflictwith anybody and this idea of
(05:28):
empathy where we understand whatsomebody's going through, but we
don't have sympathy where wemake excuses and enable and
entitle people to take advantageof a situation because they're
not executing or performing.
So we have to have empathy.
We understand where you'recoming from, but then we have an
action plan or example to getthem out of that mindset and way
(05:50):
of thinking of something,holding them back.
There's obstacles for everybody.
It's time to jump over them.
And so you, it's a big thingabout remembering.
I think that's a big part of itis just remembering where we
were one day, like back in thebeginning when we started,
whatever it was that we wereinvolved with, we were
uncomfortable.
We weren't good at it.
We fell over a bunch of ridingour bicycle.
(06:12):
Yeah.
There were all these things thatwe just kept failing and not,
not doing it well, struggling.
We didn't have a lot ofcompetence, so we didn't know
it, which helped, which hurt ourconfidence.
And so we were kind of in thisbad place until somebody had a
little empathy, said, Hey, Iunderstand.
Do X, Y, and Z and you'll get alittle better at it.
You'll become more competent,that education that we were
(06:34):
giving them.
And then this confidence becausewe're empowering people, which
we're going to talk about injust a minute.
But, but this idea ofunderstanding.
But not allowing that's, that'sa big part of it.
So I have this empathy.
I care enough that I'm going tobe hard on you.
I'm going to challenge you.
I'm going to push you.
I know that you have potentialthat you don't even know you
have yet.
I want to see you do well.
(06:56):
And once they kind of do that,we start to get some activity
and then I start to do somethings, whatever it is that
we're trying to get them to do,whether you're in technology or
you're a home servicecontractor.
Whatever it is that you're doingout there in the world, in your
business, you're going to startto get activity from them and
they're learning.
They're getting more and morecompetent, allowing them to
become more and more confident.
And as they get better andbetter, we want to encourage
(07:19):
them every time we see somethinggood.
So that's the fifth thing isencouragement.
And so you see them do anactivity.
Well, high fives, but this ideaof Encouraging somebody because
they've done something well,what ends up happening is that's
reinforcement and they want todo more of it and get more of
that from you because they'relooking at you as the leader,
(07:39):
the person they want to be.
So look for every opportunityyou can to encourage people
whenever it's Something toencourage them or recognize them
for their success.
Do it in front of everybody whenthey're struggling and having a
difficult time, this is whereyou're going to go and have a
one on one.
You don't want to put negativityinto your environment or cause
(08:00):
other people to have to dealwith one person's particular
situation.
So we get that encouragementgoing.
We start to get now someresults.
We have activity, some resultsstart happening.
There's some fruition to thiseffort and work that we've put
in bringing this new person intoour vision and what we're
chasing.
And now is the time for the funstuff.
This is the part where we startto grow leaders and we've been
(08:23):
feeding and watering and sellingwith them so far.
Now we're going to start to getto reap a little bit of the
benefit of that by empoweringthem.
This is the part where you startto give them little things that
isn't the whole thing.
You have something in mind forthem.
You want them to be your CTO.
You want them to be a CEO.
You want them to be a salesmanager.
(08:45):
You want them to be a productioncoordinator, whatever it is.
It's the next level up.
You don't want to just go, Hey,guess what?
Your next level up.
Here's this little thing.
Let's see how you do with thatthing in teaching other people
or showing other people orexecuting in the way that we're
looking for.
And we empower them and they doprovide whatever it was you
(09:07):
empower them with.
They executed as well as theycould.
And then we give feedback assoon as possible as coaching.
We give strength to those thingsthat they're learning.
They're learning new skills now,usually in the individual role
type situation.
We've got a skill, we executethat skill, but when it takes
Now, empowering and teachingsomebody else, there's teaching,
coaching, retaining, all theseother things that have to be
(09:30):
considered.
We got to coach people up to beable to do that because if we
empower them to do that and theyget good at it, it starts to
take some of the load off of us,allowing us more time to work on
our business instead of in it.
And allows them to step up intothose leadership roles that
we're looking for, which finallybrings us to the last one.
The most difficult one of theseseven things that we got to do
(09:52):
to be what we call a magneticleader around here, which is to
expect.
We set this criteria of who itwas that we were, what we were
doing, why we were doing it.
We have standards, we haveexamples, we have education
that's provided, we'veencouraged and empowered.
Sometimes people tend to putthemselves up on a pedestal and
(10:15):
think that the rules don't applyto them anymore because they are
exceptional.
And, uh, the reality is therules apply to everybody,
including you as the leader tothe lowest person on the totem
pole.
And so if they're not doingwhat's expected of them, these
standards, so performancestandards, core value behaviors.
Alignment with vision, customerservice, these things that
(10:37):
you've set as the boundaries,the guardrails of how it is to
act appropriately in yourbusiness.
If they're not doing that,that's when you need to.
Set down the law, have a one onone, set up an action plan to
get them back on board.
But when they are doing what youexpect to celebrate, I mean
celebrate hard because that'swhat we're looking for.
(10:58):
We want people that see thatcelebration to want to be a part
of that celebration for doingwhat was expected.
It's the part where the leaderactually finally gets what he's
been chasing the entire time asa leader.
I don't think most leaders arechasing money, fame, fortune, or
any of these other things that Ithink people tend to believe is
(11:22):
why a leader's doing what aleader's doing.
I think a leader's doing whatthey're doing because they want
people to believe in them.
And if we hold to ourexpectations, we hold to these
standards, we're consistent withthese seven things over and over
with everybody that we meet, westart to get some belief in us
as a leader.
Uh, so much belief that if youdo it right, People will run
(11:43):
through hell and high water andcrawl in their belly through a
swamp to do whatever it is thatyou're after together.
They'll go through the hardtimes.
They'll take on the obstaclesbecause they actually believe in
you because you are a man ofyour word.
You have a great reputation,which means that your character
is high and people want to beassociated with people of high
(12:06):
character.
My best advice for anybody wanting to be a good
leader.
I think people make a lot ofmistakes, but whenever they
chase leadership, they, theyconsume a lot of information.
They find 37 different thingsthey're supposed to do instead
of really simplifying it down towhy do people actually follow
other people?
(00:20):
The reason that most peoplefollow somebody else is because
they aspire to be like them andthey have.
An alignment with whatevervision it is that they're
chasing, something therebenefits them could be
financial, it could change theirlives financially, it could be
altruistic, they're solving aproblem.
Uh, the concept of the vision isreally important because it
(00:42):
needs to be aligned with thatleader first, like it needs to
be their core comes from theheart what they're chasing and
they're chasing it for a reallystrong reason.
And then when they share thatvision, it engages others to get
involved with it.
Now, that's kind of step one ofgetting people to follow you,
and I want to kind of take onestep back because I think a lot
(01:03):
of people make this mistake whenit comes to leadership as well.
They think of leadership asbeing good or evil, or good or
bad, right?
As a good leader, he's a goodperson, or he's a bad leader
because he's a bad person.
That's not really the definitionof leadership.
The definition of leadership isan individual who can get other
people to follow them in ashared vision.
(01:25):
And there's been a lot ofnefarious folks along the way
that you can think about thatgot a lot of people to follow
them.
They knew what it took and thatfirst one was engaging people in
a vision that was shared amongstthem that there was something to
achieve together that wouldbenefit everybody.
But if they would have came onboard for just that and the guy
didn't follow through.
Well, his leadership's not goingto last very long.
(01:47):
He's not a good leader.
And so that leader, his nextstep would be the fact that he's
going to educate people.
He's going to get them educated.
He's going to continue toeducate himself.
And he's literally putting proofin the pudding to what it was
that he said we were going todo.
And that gets this belief, thisbuy in like, Hey, okay.
So he said it was going to bethis way and it is that way.
(02:09):
So there's continuity there.
So those were the first twopieces of being a great leader.
And we've distilled them down.
Like if you look at all thedifferent ones that are out
there, like I said, it'ssomewhere in the thirties, all
these different characteristicsand traits and things that
leaders should be or shouldn'tbe.
If you boiled them all down.
They really come down to sevenvery key things that we need to
(02:31):
start with.
Think of it as like the core orfoundation of being a great
leader, because ultimately whatwe want is if we're going to
lead, we want a group of peopleto follow us and get them to
follow us.
We talked about having thisengaging vision that we're
aligned with.
You're going to attract peopleto.
Uh, or you're going to repelthem and that's good.
It's going to repel the onesthat don't want to be on board.
(02:52):
It's going to attract all theones that do want to be on
board.
We're going to educate them.
We're going to follow throughwith what we said.
And then the next thing up iswe're going to set the example.
So if I say, Hey, part of who weare is hardworking, high
performing, extra effort, uh,being 1 percent better every
day.
And I didn't set that exampleevery single day, then my vision
(03:16):
isn't real.
And my leadership is fake andfalse.
And so I have to lead by examplebecause ultimately the people
that are being followed areusually being followed by people
that want to be more like them.
And so if we say, Hey, it'sgoing to be this way, and it's
not that way, we're setting apoor example, especially when it
comes to our core values.
I think that's something that isa common characteristic among
(03:38):
great leaders.
That they have these corebeliefs that are not
questionable, like they havethem and if you are in line with
them, great.
If you're not, you need toleave.
And by having that, it gives youa grounding rock.
That it's your character of whoyou are.
And this character aspect iswhat people tend to be attracted
(04:00):
to as much as your vision.
Because they're looking at, hey,I want to be able to achieve
things like this guy.
Thanks But he's also doing it ina way that's aligned with them.
And so, again, this right orwrong, I wouldn't get caught up
too much and then I would getmore in alignment.
Like, hey, this alignment ofthis example that somebody's
setting.
So this is key.
Like whatever you say yourcompany is going to be or how
(04:22):
you're going to lead and howyou're going to execute your
vision and the core values thatyou have.
You got to be the example ofthose.
You can't tell everybody theygot to do it one way and you do
it a different way.
Everybody go work hard and yougot your feet kicked up on the
desk.
That's never a good, goodapproach.
Now, if we want to be a littlemore laid back and easy, that's
cool.
That's setting a bit of yourcharacter and your culture and
(04:43):
your environment that people aregoing to be in when they're
around you.
Just know that if you do that,that's going to be the
temperature and environment ofthe entire company.
I prefer high performance.
I prefer exceptional.
I prefer those types of thingsbecause.
That tends to drive the wholemachine a little bit faster.
The fourth thing is one that weas beings aren't usually very
(05:05):
good at.
Empathy.
You know, we, we tend to bekind.
Funny enough, you know, a lot ofleaders seem to be gruff and all
that other good stuff.
The reality is, When you getthem in one on one situations,
they're a big softy just likeeverybody else and nobody wants
to fire anybody.
Nobody wants to reprimandanybody.
Nobody wants to have conflictwith anybody and this idea of
(05:28):
empathy where we understand whatsomebody's going through, but we
don't have sympathy where wemake excuses and enable and
entitle people to take advantageof a situation because they're
not executing or performing.
So we have to have empathy.
We understand where you'recoming from, but then we have an
action plan or example to getthem out of that mindset and way
(05:50):
of thinking of something,holding them back.
There's obstacles for everybody.
It's time to jump over them.
And so you, it's a big thingabout remembering.
I think that's a big part of itis just remembering where we
were one day, like back in thebeginning when we started,
whatever it was that we wereinvolved with, we were
uncomfortable.
We weren't good at it.
We fell over a bunch of ridingour bicycle.
(06:12):
Yeah.
There were all these things thatwe just kept failing and not,
not doing it well, struggling.
We didn't have a lot ofcompetence, so we didn't know
it, which helped, which hurt ourconfidence.
And so we were kind of in thisbad place until somebody had a
little empathy, said, Hey, Iunderstand.
Do X, Y, and Z and you'll get alittle better at it.
You'll become more competent,that education that we were
(06:34):
giving them.
And then this confidence becausewe're empowering people, which
we're going to talk about injust a minute.
But, but this idea ofunderstanding.
But not allowing that's, that'sa big part of it.
So I have this empathy.
I care enough that I'm going tobe hard on you.
I'm going to challenge you.
I'm going to push you.
I know that you have potentialthat you don't even know you
have yet.
I want to see you do well.
(06:56):
And once they kind of do that,we start to get some activity
and then I start to do somethings, whatever it is that
we're trying to get them to do,whether you're in technology or
you're a home servicecontractor.
Whatever it is that you're doingout there in the world, in your
business, you're going to startto get activity from them and
they're learning.
They're getting more and morecompetent, allowing them to
become more and more confident.
And as they get better andbetter, we want to encourage
(07:19):
them every time we see somethinggood.
So that's the fifth thing isencouragement.
And so you see them do anactivity.
Well, high fives, but this ideaof Encouraging somebody because
they've done something well,what ends up happening is that's
reinforcement and they want todo more of it and get more of
that from you because they'relooking at you as the leader,
(07:39):
the person they want to be.
So look for every opportunityyou can to encourage people
whenever it's Something toencourage them or recognize them
for their success.
Do it in front of everybody whenthey're struggling and having a
difficult time, this is whereyou're going to go and have a
one on one.
You don't want to put negativityinto your environment or cause
(08:00):
other people to have to dealwith one person's particular
situation.
So we get that encouragementgoing.
We start to get now someresults.
We have activity, some resultsstart happening.
There's some fruition to thiseffort and work that we've put
in bringing this new person intoour vision and what we're
chasing.
And now is the time for the funstuff.
This is the part where we startto grow leaders and we've been
(08:23):
feeding and watering and sellingwith them so far.
Now we're going to start to getto reap a little bit of the
benefit of that by empoweringthem.
This is the part where you startto give them little things that
isn't the whole thing.
You have something in mind forthem.
You want them to be your CTO.
You want them to be a CEO.
You want them to be a salesmanager.
(08:45):
You want them to be a productioncoordinator, whatever it is.
It's the next level up.
You don't want to just go, Hey,guess what?
Your next level up.
Here's this little thing.
Let's see how you do with thatthing in teaching other people
or showing other people orexecuting in the way that we're
looking for.
And we empower them and they doprovide whatever it was you
(09:07):
empower them with.
They executed as well as theycould.
And then we give feedback assoon as possible as coaching.
We give strength to those thingsthat they're learning.
They're learning new skills now,usually in the individual role
type situation.
We've got a skill, we executethat skill, but when it takes
Now, empowering and teachingsomebody else, there's teaching,
coaching, retaining, all theseother things that have to be
(09:30):
considered.
We got to coach people up to beable to do that because if we
empower them to do that and theyget good at it, it starts to
take some of the load off of us,allowing us more time to work on
our business instead of in it.
And allows them to step up intothose leadership roles that
we're looking for, which finallybrings us to the last one.
The most difficult one of theseseven things that we got to do
(09:52):
to be what we call a magneticleader around here, which is to
expect.
We set this criteria of who itwas that we were, what we were
doing, why we were doing it.
We have standards, we haveexamples, we have education
that's provided, we'veencouraged and empowered.
Sometimes people tend to putthemselves up on a pedestal and
(10:15):
think that the rules don't applyto them anymore because they are
exceptional.
And, uh, the reality is therules apply to everybody,
including you as the leader tothe lowest person on the totem
pole.
And so if they're not doingwhat's expected of them, these
standards, so performancestandards, core value behaviors.
Alignment with vision, customerservice, these things that
(10:37):
you've set as the boundaries,the guardrails of how it is to
act appropriately in yourbusiness.
If they're not doing that,that's when you need to.
Set down the law, have a one onone, set up an action plan to
get them back on board.
But when they are doing what youexpect to celebrate, I mean
celebrate hard because that'swhat we're looking for.
(10:58):
We want people that see thatcelebration to want to be a part
of that celebration for doingwhat was expected.
It's the part where the leaderactually finally gets what he's
been chasing the entire time asa leader.
I don't think most leaders arechasing money, fame, fortune, or
any of these other things that Ithink people tend to believe is
(11:22):
why a leader's doing what aleader's doing.
I think a leader's doing whatthey're doing because they want
people to believe in them.
And if we hold to ourexpectations, we hold to these
standards, we're consistent withthese seven things over and over
with everybody that we meet, westart to get some belief in us
as a leader.
Uh, so much belief that if youdo it right, People will run
(11:43):
through hell and high water andcrawl in their belly through a
swamp to do whatever it is thatyou're after together.
They'll go through the hardtimes.
They'll take on the obstaclesbecause they actually believe in
you because you are a man ofyour word.
You have a great reputation,which means that your character
is high and people want to beassociated with people of high
(12:06):
character.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!