February 17, 2025 • 38 mins
We are continuing with the House of Leadership (HOL) series. Throughout the series, my goal is not to persuade you toward the six principles I've selected. However, I do want to inspire you to critically think about what your principles will be. The best mentor we have is ourselves. Why? Because we spend literally every waking moment with ourselves. Remember, the first leadership phase is self-leadership, a fact throughout our journey to become Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs). Start discovering who you are and become the leader your team and this world need. Here are the first three of six principles that guide me, which I call BAD HUG.
🫡 My Why: I’ve seen the cost of poor leadership — how it can destroy morale, break trust, and in the worst cases, lead to lives lost, including through suicide. That’s why I’ve committed my life to helping others lead with purpose. Through Tales of Leadership, I share real stories and actionable insights on how to overcome adversity and become the kind of leader people remember for the right reasons.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Tales of Leadership podcast.
This podcast is for leaders atany phase on their leadership
journey to become a morepurposeful and accountable
leader what I like to call a pal.
Join me on our journey togethertowards transformational
leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
All right team, welcome back to the Tales of
Leadership podcast.
I'm your host, josh McMillian.
Quickly just kind ofintroducing myself if this is
your first time.
I'm an active duty Army officer.
I've been in the Army for over16 years in leadership positions
.
I'm an Army leadership coachand I own and run my own company
, mcmillian Leadership Coaching,or MLC, and I'm on a journey to
(00:40):
become the best possible leader.
I can and I plan to do that bydoing self-studies on leadership
topics and to bring veryinspirational figures that I
know like and trust onto thisshow.
So today is super pumpedbecause I am just filming my
first podcast in over sevenmonths.
So I took some time off.
(01:01):
I started a new position and Iwas getting very pulled between
my passion of leadership andthen my career.
So I had to drop for almostseven months filming a podcast,
which I think is okay and it's aperfect example of true
vulnerability and understandingtrue priorities in your life.
(01:22):
But we're getting back at itand I'm continuing the series of
a house of leadership and allcredit goes to JR Flatter of
Flatter Incorporated forcreating that methodology that I
learned when I was goingthrough the Army coaching
program.
So today, just to kind of armyou with the tools.
You can go to McMillianLeadership Coaching you with the
(01:46):
tools.
You can go to McMillianLeadership Coaching, article
number 28,.
Or you can also go toBuzzsprout Tales of Leadership
and find this podcast article orpodcast and listen to it on any
one of the platforms that youwant.
And onMcMillianLeadershipCoachingcom
it has a article that kind ofsummarizes this podcast and the
article into a much morecondensed version to kind of
(02:07):
just give you the so what.
So if you want to follow it'snumber article 28 on
mcmillianleadershipcoachingcom,or you can just listen to this
or you can go tomcmillianleadershipcoachingcom
and read a much more summarizedversion of this.
So today is all about theprinciples and this is really
the core values that you have.
(02:29):
Today I'm going to be walkingthrough my core values, which I
absolutely love them.
It's called BAD HUG.
If you know me, you know I lovecreating acronyms and that
basically is boldness,accountability, discipline,
humility, understanding andgratitude.
Those are the core values thatdrive me day in and day out, for
myself, for my family, for mywork, for my country.
That's who I am and it's funnythat the acronym fits perfect
(02:53):
into a bad hug, right?
So let's dive into this.
We continue with the House ofLeadership series and throughout
this series.
My goal is not to persuade youtowards these six principles
that I'm going to be talkingabout today, that I've selected.
However, what I want to do isto inspire you to critically
think about what principles willyou select?
(03:16):
The best mentor we have isourselves, and why is that?
Because we spend literallyevery waking moment with
ourselves.
Remember, the first phase ofleadership is self-leadership.
We're all leaders, that is afact, and throughout your
journey to become a morepurposeful, accountable leader,
you need to understand what yourcore values are, the leader,
(03:47):
your team in this world, yourfamily, your self needs.
Here are the first three of sixprinciples that helped guide me
.
That I'm calling bad hugs.
And before we start, let'sstart off with the quote that
I've kind of developed and tolead others you must master
yourself, and to do that youmust unlock who you are.
So the first one is boldness,and really this is in no
distinct order.
For me, this is just the corevalues that I really hold near
(04:10):
and dear to myself.
The first principle in my houseof leadership is boldness.
Let's start by kind of definingwhat that is and why it's
critical for my leadership style.
First, leaders with confidencetakes calculated risks and, at
the end of the day, leadershipboils down to your ability to
(04:31):
handle risk while moving forwardin a complex situation.
Boldness is a leader's abilityto stand in front of their team
in complicated situations orenvironments, professionally,
communicate what theorganization needs to do and
shine a light that illuminatesthe path forward for the team.
I value leaders willing to tellme straight up when I'm doing
(04:55):
something wrong or point outwhere I could be better, more
efficient ways of doing thingsin specific tasks or even with
the mission, and that's okay.
And I'm reading a book rightnow, kind of going off script,
about Elon Musk and if you thinkabout his leadership style, he
is a deeply passionate, but heis sometimes either your most
(05:18):
inspirational figure or one ofthe worst bosses that you ever
have, and I think that that'sokay.
Right, but at the point of that, he is bold and he takes
calculator risk in a way that Ithink military officers take
calculated risks, or evenspecial forces.
Everything we do in life hasrisk associated to it, but if we
want to move the needle forward, we have to learn to accept
(05:41):
that risk, and that's somethingthat, as a country we need to
start embracing even more.
So a more concise way toencompass this term that I
absolutely love is disciplineddisobedience, and I first heard
that from the former GeneralMark Milley when I was going
through, when I had the Dougiethat you see in my background,
(06:02):
the General Douglas MacArthurLeadership Award.
I had to go to a competition atthe time for Bragg, in my
background, the General DouglasMacArthur Leadership Award.
I had to go to a competition atthe time for Bragg now Fort
Liberty, and it's still hard forme to remember the new names of
all these in 2018.
So discipline and disobedienceis the leader's ability to
practice constructive candor.
If you ever read the book KimScott, it's exactly what it is
radical candor in theorganization by professionally
(06:24):
challenging the status quo.
We need that in today's world,and then the status quo is a
flawed way of thinking thatplagues every organization that
I've ever worked for.
Trust me, your organization hasit unless they have bold
leaders.
The thought that the way we'vealways done it will solve
(06:46):
problems today is a fallacy.
You and the organization willnot grow because you're handling
issues in the same way thatthey've always been.
That's okay, but you're nevergoing to grow, you're never
going to move forward.
You're going to stay in thispurgatory type state.
Think of it like this If youunderstand that there is a
better way of doing somethingand you do it anyway, then
(07:09):
that's totally on you.
That is the reason that we havetoxic leadership, because
they're unwilling to hold peopleand themselves accountable and
they do the easy wrong over thehard right.
Leaders choose to pass.
They can tap into that 60seconds of courage I like to
call that the 60 seconds ruleand embrace that position and
(07:33):
make a positive change.
Or they can spend the next 60hours or days attempting to
correct the organization'smistake because they did not
take bold, decisive action.
It only takes 60 seconds ofthat bold, decisive, confident
leadership to save countlesshours, and that's for yourself,
that's for your family, that'sfor your organization.
And I think a really good way ofthinking about this is in the
(07:56):
morning.
I could choose to sleep inuntil probably eight o'clock if
I really really wanted to, right, and then just go straight to
work and not work out in themorning.
But I choose to beuncomfortable and wake up in the
morning at four o'clock,immediately go to my basement
and a cold plunge which is setat 45 degrees, which, I don't
care what you say, you never getused to that, especially if
(08:19):
that's the first thing you do inthe morning.
And then I go work out, andthen I go to work, and I'll tell
you that every single day whenI do that, that 60 seconds of
bold courage, right Of waking upand making a cognitive decision
to actually get up, sets me upfor the rest of the day.
And then, trust me, I'velearned the hard way that
inaction multiplies the suck,trust me, and that's a military
(08:43):
term away from your time as aleader.
It just sucks away your time ifyou choose not to take action.
Purposeful, accountable leadersare confident in themselves and
they're willing to beunreasonable when their team
sees a better way.
And if you're following me onthe article, I have a picture of
last year, my daughterwrestling me.
(09:07):
On the article, I have apicture of last year, my
daughter wrestling.
So she is an incredible youngwoman.
I really mean that.
She's wrestling her second yearin Alabama, uh, or sorry, um,
virginia.
We moved again cause I'm in themilitary, sorry, and she has
grown leaps and bounds.
But the one thing that I see inher now is a level of boldness
that I didn't see last year Herability to actually go out on
(09:27):
the mat and not get thosebutterflies that she got before.
Except that this is going to bea tough three to five minutes
of wrestling and just give ither absolute all.
And when she does lose shedoesn't have those emotional
outbursts, she accepts it, andthat's part of being bold.
Sometimes we lose, that's okay.
The next piece of this bad hugis accountability.
(09:50):
So let's start off by definingwhat accountability is, and I've
done it several times throughthe Tell Us the Leadership blog
and podcast, but we'll kind ofdefine it again.
And it's an essential elementin my house leadership and then
in our personal lives.
We must have accountabilitysystems, accountability trees,
(10:11):
people or processes that keep uson azimuth.
And let's kind of define that,because maybe you don't
understand what azimuth is, howI'm referring to it.
In the army, we do navigation.
You get a compass to it.
In the army, we do navigation.
You get a compass, you get aprojector protractor, you get a
(10:33):
map and you have to plot outyour points after you got your
eight or 10 digit gridcoordinates and then you have to
go navigate to those points.
An azimuth is your direction oftravel from point A to point B.
If we deviate from that, thefarther the distance is, the
more that we will drift off ofthe target.
So it's very important to havea tight azimuth so we have the
(10:54):
shortest direction of travel tothe next point, and that's what
I mean by an azimuth.
An accountability tree issomeone that can be empathetic
and provide shade when times aretough.
Leaders are forward moving andgrowth oriented when they are
accountable in their personalactions.
The same is true forprofessional accountability.
(11:16):
Great organizations do notbecome great because they allow
mediocre performance.
Great organizations hold theirmembers and their teams to a
standard that is the bareminimum to be successful within
the organization and withoutaccountability checks, the
culture of any business I don'tcare who you are shifts from
problem solving to problemmaking very quickly when others
(11:41):
understand that there is noramifications really for failure
, there's no intrinsicmotivations to try and to
continue to move forward andthere is a simple barometer.
If you try and fail, it's okaybecause you're trying, but if
you try and fail consistentlyand there's no accountability to
improve that performance,that's not okay.
(12:01):
Remember the rule of 100%.
Each day we can only put ourbest earnest effort forward.
If you're a leader of yourselfor your team and you put in 75%
today because you just weren'tfeeling it, you physically can't
do 125% tomorrow.
Mathematically that's notpossible and that will lead to
burnout.
If you try to do that, trust me.
(12:23):
Once individuals understandleaders do not hold them
accountable, their motivation togive their best effort
significantly reduces.
However, be careful when you'reholding other people
accountable.
We just talked about thatbecause it can lead to a loss of
risk-taking.
That's not what we want Toexact opposite of what you want
in your personal andprofessional life, because
(12:44):
that's how we get past that.
Resistance is by risk-taking.
Leaders must walk a fine linewhen holding themselves and
others to that standard andfirst, realize your goal is not
to isolate failure and punishpeople for failure.
Your goal is to isolate failureand discover how it happened.
When you discover why the lossoccurred, you shift the
(13:08):
organization's mindset to aproblem-solving versus a
problem-making and in a second,make sure there is one standard.
Often I have seen the leaderand those in my inner circle
hold themselves to a differentstandard or requirement and that
is utter BS.
Everyone your organization isequal, regardless of seniority,
(13:28):
rank or title.
If a team member is causes aproblem, a purposeful
accountable leader or a pal willhold them to that standard as a
senior organization member.
Finally, accountability isshared.
In extraordinary organizations.
It's not just the leaderspointing out inefficiencies.
(13:49):
Right, every team member is anaccountability tree, regardless
of rank, position or title,pushing the entire organization
to the next level.
And you have to do that, again,with tact.
If you are listening to thisand you're private and you go up
to your company commander andyou say, hey, sir, you're all
ate up, probably ill-advised,there's a chain of command for a
reason and you can communicatethat.
(14:09):
And if you have a good leader,they'll listen.
Trust me, I had an open doorpolicy and I meant it.
I had a legitimate open doorpolicy.
The only time I shut it is whenI was having to do things that
were very private in terms oflike UCMJ, or I needed time to
really think and cut outdistractions.
The rest of the time I had aclear open door policy.
So make sure you understandthat within your organization
(14:31):
before you move forward withthat really constructive candor,
the organization will match thelevel of leadership that you
show.
Purposeful accountable leadersdevelop systems to maintain
accountability in their personaland professional lives.
Those could be a mastermind, itcould be an inner circle, it
could be a coach or it could befriends, it doesn't matter.
(14:51):
The next one on our bad hugsjourney is discipline.
The next pillar that I holddear is discipline, and why so?
I define discipline as theintestinal fortitude to push
beyond your own perceivedlimitations.
Trust me, we are incrediblygifted miracles.
Humans are capable of featsthat a lot of people never
(15:15):
thought possible.
I mean, you look, throughouthistory, we are incrementally
improving, both through the bodyof knowledge, of science, but
physically, people running miles.
Now, I think no one thoughtbefore you could break a four
minute mile.
Someone finally did that.
Like it's.
It's absolutely incredible whathumans are capable of, but it
(15:37):
has to come down to beingdisciplined mind, body and soul.
A purposeful, accountableleader continues for one or more
minute when their body and mindis screaming that they need to
stop.
That often separatesindividuals who achieve success
and those who end up quitting.
One more lap, one more podcast,one more book, one more call,
(15:58):
one more network engagementseparates winners from losers.
Trust me, it all comes down toone word and we've heard it
countless times and that'sdiscipline.
Do you have what it takes tochase hard things, especially
when everyone else is lookingfor the easy path.
Chasing hard things does twothings.
First, it forces you tocontinuously push yourself to
(16:22):
the limit.
Each time you try something newit molds you into the leader
your team and your family needs.
Second, because you'rechallenging yourself, it allows
you to grow.
Growth is uncomfortable, thatis just a fact.
Because it's foreign to ourbodies.
We want to stay in that comfortstate.
That's like human nature.
We want to be comfortable.
(16:42):
Trust me, you have.
You live an extraordinary time.
Push yourself to the limit andbe extraordinary by putting
yourself in that discomfort zone.
If you're taking calculatedswings, it increases your
capacity to handle increasedresponsibility.
Leaders who lack discipline arenot aligning their head, heart
(17:04):
and hand.
Remember the rule of 3H.
When you're clear on your why,it causes a burning desire to
achieve more, push farther andchase significance.
Disciplined leaders understandthat to progress it must require
sacrifices, and thosesacrifices may come from family
time or a lack of socialinteractions.
(17:26):
But what's important is theleader can see the destination
and is willing to makeshort-term sacrifices to achieve
long-term growth.
For example, when writing thisblog, it's 8.30 at night.
I'm sacrificing modernpleasures like watching
television.
Why?
Because I'm committed togrowing myself in terms of
(17:49):
leadership and helping changethis world Team.
Let's take a quick break fromthis episode and I want to share
an additional leadershipresource with you, and that is
one-on-one leadership coachingthrough McMillian Leadership
Coaching.
So what do I do?
I help leaders discover theirpurpose, create a long-term
growth plan and take inspiredaction.
(18:10):
I believe everything rises andfalls on leadership and,
regardless of where you are inlife, one fact is true you are a
leader of others, you are aleader of your family and, most
importantly, you are a leader ofyourself.
To lead others well, thatstarts by leading yourself well.
If you want to learn more, youcan go to
McMillianLeadershipCoachingcomand schedule a free call today.
(18:35):
Back to the episode.
To remain disciplined, you needtwo things First, understand
your why and align it to yourpassion and second, create
routines throughout your daythat make consistent wins,
because that's how we buildmomentum and gain that burning
(18:56):
desire.
If we start knocking down those50 meter targets and, as a
result, you will begin toweather any storm, purposeful,
accountable leaders discovertheir why, they create routines
and they're willing to make thesacrifices to chase hard things.
I started doing cold plungesprobably last winter, around
December and I have a picture ifyou're following me on million
(19:17):
leadership coaching of mesitting in an ice bath.
Uh, the water temperature atthat time was 25 degrees.
My neighbors and everyonethought I'm absolutely crazy.
But I'm telling you I have somenerve damage in my neck, so
doing cold therapy helps me withthat.
But I have a picture of mesitting in.
It was 25 degrees outside andcold ice water that was roughly
(19:38):
20 degrees and I would stay inthere for three minutes at a
time and I do it every singlemorning and that's why I
progressed to where I'm doing itnow.
It's much easier to do it in acontrolled environment.
I'll tell you that going downin my basement in my robe in the
morning is so much easier thanwalking outside and then sitting
in the bath.
The only thing that's worse isthe water circulates and I think
(19:59):
that's one of the hard things.
But that's what separates mefrom a lot of other people is
I'm willing to embracediscomfort and I am disciplined
enough to wake up in the morningand do hard things.
So the next one is humility Atthe core of who I am.
It's really one word and it'shumility and, to kind of go on a
(20:22):
tangent, one of the hardestthings that I have is trying to
accept an award.
Right, I'm recognized.
I always feel guilty because Iknow in my core the only reason
(20:42):
I'm being recognized is, one,that I'm in the leadership
position and two, it was becauseof my team.
So I always feel guilty when Iget recognized, but I also know
that I put in a lot of work anda lot of hard work and it's
absolutely humbling to get that.
So anytime I get recognized one, I always want to make sure
that my team understands thatthey're the reason I did.
And two, I also take some timeand reflect on the hard work
(21:03):
that I had to sacrifice to getto that.
And that's really humility.
Understanding that you're notthe center of the universe is a
powerful thing.
To achieve this, it takes aconfident leader that's being
able to realize two things.
First, the organization issuccessful only when
collaboration and communicationis unleashed.
Purposeful, accountable leadersunderstand that people are the
(21:26):
heart of any successful team.
When you realize people, notyourself, produce those results,
it creates momentum and itdisperses the mental fog.
Second, humility requires youto let go of your ego.
That is one of the hardestthings to do.
Again, confidence is vital.
(21:48):
It's important.
Once you understand who you are.
You share power.
You do not hoard it.
Transitional leaders, toxicleaders, control power because
they have a scarcity mindsetYou're a pal, you don't.
They are scared not to achieveresults, scared to let others
(22:08):
take the lead, and they'rescared to not feel needed.
And trust me, I have a personright now that I'm working for
that is probably one of theworst leaders I've ever seen,
and that's exactly what they dothey hoard power.
To become a transformationalleader, you must let go of your
ego and understand success comesfrom people, not yourself.
Your job is to put yourself outof a job by training your team
(22:32):
so well, by delegating so well,that you're no longer needed.
Crazy thought, right, but it'strue.
When leaders tap into humility,they make tough decisions with
decisive confidence.
Some of the most challengingpositions that I've had, faced
with tough decisions that I wasonly able to do by really
(22:56):
tapping into my humility.
Humility humbles, and nowhere isthat more critical than pivotal
moments in our life.
Being humble allows you to seethe second and third order
effects.
Most importantly, it enablesyou to see what happens if the
most deadly course of actioncame to fruition, when you can
(23:20):
see what's possible.
It opens your mind to all theinformation and prevents tunnel
vision.
One of the most deadly militaryexercises you could ever
complete is entering andclearing a room.
The decisive point of enteringa room is the doorway.
They call that the fatal funnel.
Right, when learning how toclear a room, most people focus
(23:43):
on the door itself, which causestunnel vision.
At its core, tunnel visioncreates dead space.
Dead space is deadly andpurposeful.
Accountable leaders areconfident in their decisions,
surround themselves with morequalified team members and they
let go of their egos.
Here's a quick story on humility.
I'm a brand new platoon leaderin Afghanistan.
I'm going to one of the firstpatrols that I was able to go
(24:06):
with my platoon near the ArgonDob.
I think Shershaka was the townthat we were kind of walking
through.
We get separated.
Where we're operating at is ina grape row.
If you've ever been in SouthernAfghanistan, it's a different
type of topography.
It's very flat, has some curvyIV lines that we call wadis and
it's really nomadic types oftribes like the Kuchi tribe and
(24:29):
other people like that.
But when we were doing thesepatrols, ieds are prevalent.
It's probably the biggestthreat to the force, and so much
so that we had baby powder andwe'd try to mark our lines and
we'd walk in files If you don'tknow what that is, go look it up
and we'd have gold hound ormine hounds and gizmos and all
these other things to kind ofhelp us identify IEDs.
(24:52):
Brand new platoon leader me, myRTO and a couple other people
get stranded away from the mainforce and we didn't have that
ability to detect IDs.
Why?
Because we were on the radio,we were trying to send something
up and it was totally my fault.
I humbled myself at the momentbecause some of my more junior
soldiers wanted to walk that 500meters through grape rows that
(25:13):
wasn't clearly marked to get tothe platoon and then also keep
in mind at this point in time,we've had countless amputees and
we lost a lot of people withinthat platoon before I took over.
So I humbled myself and I madea bold decision that I'm going
(25:34):
to walk in front of these guys.
And who am I right If we hit anIED?
I have made the decision thatmy life is no more important
than my RTO or my privates.
And it should be me, becauseI'm the leader and I should be
in front, especially in times ofrisk and making decisions.
And that was an extreme exampleof tapping into humility,
(25:56):
because I could have easilygiven an order for one of my
soldiers to walk out in front ofme, but I don't think I could
ever live with myself if theydid hit an ID.
So I made a decision to do so.
So let's continue and that'sperfect kind of transition to
the next one, which isunderstanding or empathy, which
is a better way of kind ofdefining it, but it didn't fit
into my acronym, bad Hugs, so wewill define it as understanding
(26:18):
.
The next critical principle inmy house of leadership is
understanding, and I defined itas empathy.
You must listen to trulyunderstand someone's perspective
, decisions and rationale.
This is a secret to being anempathetic and transformational
leader.
Be there for those on your teamand listen.
(26:40):
I think that there's four typesof listening that a leader can
do.
Two of them are selfish and twoof them are selfless.
To become a transformationalleader, you must tap into
selfless forms of listening.
The first form of selfishlistening is passive listening,
and maybe someone's doing thatright now, listening to this
podcast.
(27:01):
But the leader who uses thisform is physically there, but
mentally they are somewherecompletely different.
The second form of selfishlistening is transitional
listening, and this happens waytoo often.
The leader is only listening tofind ways that they can benefit
and not add value to the teamor the organization On the other
(27:22):
side.
The first selfless form oflistening is empathetic
listening.
When leaders practicecompassionate listening, they
see the issue from otherpeople's perspective, and that's
a powerful thing.
However, they're still missinga key element, and that's to
fully immerse themselves in anactive listening process.
And that's the final and secondform of selfless listening, and
(27:44):
that's transformational.
Transformational listening isthe ability to block out all
distractions and become laserfocused on your team or yourself
if you need to do that or yourfamily.
You're looking for whispers,and that's a coaching tool that
we always look at.
Is the underlining root causeof someone's disdain or problems
, change in tone, physicalmanifestations or hidden
(28:09):
memories that are kind of beingtucked away?
To become an empathetic leader,first learn selfless listening,
and I think here's a greatexample If someone comes in your
room or your office and you'resitting there typing and you're
middle of the thought and you'regoing, uh-huh, yeah, okay,
perfect, let's do that.
I think that that's great.
That's not beingtransformational, especially
(28:32):
when my kids come in the office,what is is separating yourself
from any type of distractions,shutting your brain off
temporarily to what you're doing, shifting your time and
attention and talents towardsthat individual and listening
wholeheartedly and giving actualresponses versus oh okay, yeah,
cool, let's do that.
(28:53):
That is transformationallistening.
The funny thing about empathy iswe're all born with that
ability.
However, like over time, lifechallenges us and we slowly
start getting weighted thatability.
However, like over time, lifechallenges us and we slowly
start getting weighted down withthese chains right.
These chains become the causeof resentment and jealousy and
lead to a hardening of ourhearts.
(29:14):
When leaders allow the world tomold them through
self-defeating beliefs, theylose the ability to connect
emotionally Authenticconnections is critical to
building relationships.
Always remember relationshipbuilding is the one thing that,
if done well, will result inextraordinary success.
(29:35):
However, avoiding becoming tooempathetic and falling into this
sympathy loop and the sympathyloop I define is an endless
cycle of your inability to holdothers accountable because you
just feel sorry for them.
That's not what leaders do.
You hold people accountable.
We just talked about that.
Your team encounters a problemand comes to you for help.
(29:56):
What do you do If you give themguidance and the tools and
resources to be successful.
You're practicing empathy andactive listening.
However, if you give into theirstory, you are a rescuer.
And look up the CartmanTriangle.
There's two different things.
You could either be a rescueror you can help people and hold
(30:18):
them accountable.
Growth will never happen if youconsistently fill the role of a
rescuer.
Purposeful, accountable leaderslisten, they make decisions
that are formed from theirbeliefs and they hold themselves
and others accountable.
So understanding here's areally good quote by Stephen
Coveney seek first to understand, then to be understood.
(30:42):
I think that's powerful.
All right.
The last one is gratitude, thefinal principle in my house of
leadership, gratitude, which isone of the most challenging
elements for me to master,because it requires two things.
First, you have to createpersonal time to reflect.
Remember the acronym STOP, stop, silence your mind, take a
(31:04):
tactical pause, observe yoursurroundings, pursue with
purpose.
Life is extremely fast-paced.
We have all these AI things nowthat help us make even faster
decisions, but sometimes youjust need to slow down.
The only way to become gratefulis to revisit your past.
I think that's why we have apast.
What memories are you thankfulfor?
(31:25):
It's easy to select greatmemories, for example, birthdays
, your first date, your firstkiss, etc.
However, that's not gratitude.
Gratitude is looking into thedarkness, those places that you
would not dare revisit, and findthe light.
If you find gratitude in yournightmares, you can practice
(31:50):
gratitude in your present, trustme.
Second, when you begin toreview your life's chapters, you
are forgiving and accepting,and that's a powerful thing.
At the core of gratitude isforgiveness.
To be a purposeful, accountableleader, you must be willing to
forgive.
Without forgiveness, we allowthe darkness to block out the
(32:12):
light, and that's not what we'rehere for.
We are always grateful when weget what we want.
That's easy.
But here's the real questionhow are you grateful when life
gets a vote?
I've learned to overcome anger,fear, jealousy, all those
self-sabotaging beliefs.
You have to make it personal.
(32:33):
For example, I've lost morefriends and soldiers than I care
to remember.
But reflecting on thosememories does two things First,
it allows me to honor thoseindividuals and the memories
that we shared, the times I'vespent with those individuals
before they were taken.
And second, it drives me togrow and become a better leader.
(32:57):
Every day, I refuse to stopwhen I am confronted with loss,
either personally orprofessionally.
I may pivot or be momentarilyhalted, but eventually I will
try again and I'll gain traction.
The mountaintops our iconsstand on are forged through the
(33:18):
losses and failures and theyincrementally build upon those
each time, and that's how youachieve the summit.
Unless you're willing to takethat journey, you're never going
to achieve the summit.
Purposeful, accountable leadersare grateful in tough times
because it drives them to becomea better leader, and I'll share
(33:39):
a story.
I'll keep some names out, butthis is something in my personal
life.
One of my best friends that Igrew up with in rural West
Virginia, where I'm from Fenwick, west Virginia Go try to find
that on the map Was murdered ina double homicide over a hunting
dispute for land.
Again, I'm going to keep namesout, but this was one of my best
(34:00):
friends.
We spent every single wakinghour in the woods playing sniper
, paintball, four-wheeler riding, you name it.
We shared so many things and itwas one of my true high school
friends that I kept a connectionwith.
One of the hardest things washearing that he passed away and
(34:21):
his wife passed away, but thathis son was still there, and I
really reflected on this and Ithought what could I do?
Like, this is a hard thing todo.
I remember that I had a MarineK-Bar that he may or may not
left at my house and I justnever returned it.
I was like this is reallyreally cool, right, I want to
keep this.
I wrote a very heartfelt noteof what that relationship meant
(34:45):
to me.
I got one of my PCs that Ideployed with one of my multicam
PCs and I got that K-Bar and Igave it to his son and to me.
I would have never been able toget beyond the anger and some of
those self-sabotaging behaviorsthat I had to actually take
(35:06):
action.
And that's what gratitude isabout is when you get in moments
like that of where you are justfilled with so much darkness,
you have to learn to be grateful, accept it, to then go take
inspired action.
And that's an extreme example,but I'm here to inspire you.
So here are some final thoughts.
Each principle selected foryour house of leadership must
(35:31):
come from you.
Do not be influenced by others.
Chances are you resonate withone or more of the principles in
my house of leadership, andthat's okay.
But I challenge you to discoveryour principles, because it is
liberating.
Once a leader finds who they areand why they believe, what they
believe, it buildsinspirational confidence.
(35:54):
Remember the six phases ofleadership.
The first phase is masteringyourself, or self-leadership.
To lead others, you must masteryourself and to do that you
must unlock who you are.
Do not adopt buzzwords or otherleadership philosophies because
it's trendy and that's utter BS.
Anyway, do it because youbelieve in it or your team will
(36:17):
see right through it.
Trust me, every word I wrote isa bold statement followed by
confident action.
Leaders tap into the rule of 3Hhead, hand, heart.
When they know who they are,purposeful, accountable leaders
can see where they want to go,create an emotional connection
to push through tough times andengage their hands to put in the
(36:40):
work and grow, and engage theirhands to put in the work and
grow.
So here is three powerfulquestions for our after action
review that I want you toreflect on from this episode,
and the first one is whatprinciples resonated with you
and why.
That's the most important piece.
Number two what are your topprinciples?
(37:01):
Select three what are your topthree principles that you want
to focus on and what actionsalign to those three principles?
Are they actually somethingthat you live out every single
day?
All right, team.
Again, I'm absolutely humbled,honored, excited, motivated,
inspired to get back intopodcasting, but do me a favor.
Podcasting as an active dutyarmy officer that travels three
(37:25):
times a month, often for work,is challenging.
It is hard.
I do all this by myself, butI'm passionate about it, and how
you can help me is you can helpme by sharing this, liking or
subscribing or whatever platformyou listen.
Leave me a five-star review onApple or Spotify and, if you
feel so inclined, you can go tobuzzsprouttellsleadershipcom.
(37:47):
You can subscribe, or you canleave me a donation and all of
that money goes back into thispodcast to create more powerful
content.
As always, I'm your host, joshMcFillian, saying every day is a
gift.
Don't waste your money.
I'll see you next time.
You're listening to the Tales of Leadership podcast.
This podcast is for leaders atany phase on their leadership
journey to become a morepurposeful and accountable
leader what I like to call a pal.
Join me on our journey togethertowards transformational
leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
All right team, welcome back to the Tales of
Leadership podcast.
I'm your host, josh McMillian.
Quickly just kind ofintroducing myself if this is
your first time.
I'm an active duty Army officer.
I've been in the Army for over16 years in leadership positions
.
I'm an Army leadership coachand I own and run my own company
, mcmillian Leadership Coaching,or MLC, and I'm on a journey to
(00:40):
become the best possible leader.
I can and I plan to do that bydoing self-studies on leadership
topics and to bring veryinspirational figures that I
know like and trust onto thisshow.
So today is super pumpedbecause I am just filming my
first podcast in over sevenmonths.
So I took some time off.
(01:01):
I started a new position and Iwas getting very pulled between
my passion of leadership andthen my career.
So I had to drop for almostseven months filming a podcast,
which I think is okay and it's aperfect example of true
vulnerability and understandingtrue priorities in your life.
(01:22):
But we're getting back at itand I'm continuing the series of
a house of leadership and allcredit goes to JR Flatter of
Flatter Incorporated forcreating that methodology that I
learned when I was goingthrough the Army coaching
program.
So today, just to kind of armyou with the tools.
You can go to McMillianLeadership Coaching you with the
(01:46):
tools.
You can go to McMillianLeadership Coaching, article
number 28,.
Or you can also go toBuzzsprout Tales of Leadership
and find this podcast article orpodcast and listen to it on any
one of the platforms that youwant.
And onMcMillianLeadershipCoachingcom
it has a article that kind ofsummarizes this podcast and the
article into a much morecondensed version to kind of
(02:07):
just give you the so what.
So if you want to follow it'snumber article 28 on
mcmillianleadershipcoachingcom,or you can just listen to this
or you can go tomcmillianleadershipcoachingcom
and read a much more summarizedversion of this.
So today is all about theprinciples and this is really
the core values that you have.
(02:29):
Today I'm going to be walkingthrough my core values, which I
absolutely love them.
It's called BAD HUG.
If you know me, you know I lovecreating acronyms and that
basically is boldness,accountability, discipline,
humility, understanding andgratitude.
Those are the core values thatdrive me day in and day out, for
myself, for my family, for mywork, for my country.
That's who I am and it's funnythat the acronym fits perfect
(02:53):
into a bad hug, right?
So let's dive into this.
We continue with the House ofLeadership series and throughout
this series.
My goal is not to persuade youtowards these six principles
that I'm going to be talkingabout today, that I've selected.
However, what I want to do isto inspire you to critically
think about what principles willyou select?
(03:16):
The best mentor we have isourselves, and why is that?
Because we spend literallyevery waking moment with
ourselves.
Remember, the first phase ofleadership is self-leadership.
We're all leaders, that is afact, and throughout your
journey to become a morepurposeful, accountable leader,
you need to understand what yourcore values are, the leader,
(03:47):
your team in this world, yourfamily, your self needs.
Here are the first three of sixprinciples that helped guide me
.
That I'm calling bad hugs.
And before we start, let'sstart off with the quote that
I've kind of developed and tolead others you must master
yourself, and to do that youmust unlock who you are.
So the first one is boldness,and really this is in no
distinct order.
For me, this is just the corevalues that I really hold near
(04:10):
and dear to myself.
The first principle in my houseof leadership is boldness.
Let's start by kind of definingwhat that is and why it's
critical for my leadership style.
First, leaders with confidencetakes calculated risks and, at
the end of the day, leadershipboils down to your ability to
(04:31):
handle risk while moving forwardin a complex situation.
Boldness is a leader's abilityto stand in front of their team
in complicated situations orenvironments, professionally,
communicate what theorganization needs to do and
shine a light that illuminatesthe path forward for the team.
I value leaders willing to tellme straight up when I'm doing
(04:55):
something wrong or point outwhere I could be better, more
efficient ways of doing thingsin specific tasks or even with
the mission, and that's okay.
And I'm reading a book rightnow, kind of going off script,
about Elon Musk and if you thinkabout his leadership style, he
is a deeply passionate, but heis sometimes either your most
(05:18):
inspirational figure or one ofthe worst bosses that you ever
have, and I think that that'sokay.
Right, but at the point of that, he is bold and he takes
calculator risk in a way that Ithink military officers take
calculated risks, or evenspecial forces.
Everything we do in life hasrisk associated to it, but if we
want to move the needle forward, we have to learn to accept
(05:41):
that risk, and that's somethingthat, as a country we need to
start embracing even more.
So a more concise way toencompass this term that I
absolutely love is disciplineddisobedience, and I first heard
that from the former GeneralMark Milley when I was going
through, when I had the Dougiethat you see in my background,
(06:02):
the General Douglas MacArthurLeadership Award.
I had to go to a competition atthe time for Bragg, in my
background, the General DouglasMacArthur Leadership Award.
I had to go to a competition atthe time for Bragg now Fort
Liberty, and it's still hard forme to remember the new names of
all these in 2018.
So discipline and disobedienceis the leader's ability to
practice constructive candor.
If you ever read the book KimScott, it's exactly what it is
radical candor in theorganization by professionally
(06:24):
challenging the status quo.
We need that in today's world,and then the status quo is a
flawed way of thinking thatplagues every organization that
I've ever worked for.
Trust me, your organization hasit unless they have bold
leaders.
The thought that the way we'vealways done it will solve
(06:46):
problems today is a fallacy.
You and the organization willnot grow because you're handling
issues in the same way thatthey've always been.
That's okay, but you're nevergoing to grow, you're never
going to move forward.
You're going to stay in thispurgatory type state.
Think of it like this If youunderstand that there is a
better way of doing somethingand you do it anyway, then
(07:09):
that's totally on you.
That is the reason that we havetoxic leadership, because
they're unwilling to hold peopleand themselves accountable and
they do the easy wrong over thehard right.
Leaders choose to pass.
They can tap into that 60seconds of courage I like to
call that the 60 seconds ruleand embrace that position and
(07:33):
make a positive change.
Or they can spend the next 60hours or days attempting to
correct the organization'smistake because they did not
take bold, decisive action.
It only takes 60 seconds ofthat bold, decisive, confident
leadership to save countlesshours, and that's for yourself,
that's for your family, that'sfor your organization.
And I think a really good way ofthinking about this is in the
(07:56):
morning.
I could choose to sleep inuntil probably eight o'clock if
I really really wanted to, right, and then just go straight to
work and not work out in themorning.
But I choose to beuncomfortable and wake up in the
morning at four o'clock,immediately go to my basement
and a cold plunge which is setat 45 degrees, which, I don't
care what you say, you never getused to that, especially if
(08:19):
that's the first thing you do inthe morning.
And then I go work out, andthen I go to work, and I'll tell
you that every single day whenI do that, that 60 seconds of
bold courage, right Of waking upand making a cognitive decision
to actually get up, sets me upfor the rest of the day.
And then, trust me, I'velearned the hard way that
inaction multiplies the suck,trust me, and that's a military
(08:43):
term away from your time as aleader.
It just sucks away your time ifyou choose not to take action.
Purposeful, accountable leadersare confident in themselves and
they're willing to beunreasonable when their team
sees a better way.
And if you're following me onthe article, I have a picture of
last year, my daughterwrestling me.
(09:07):
On the article, I have apicture of last year, my
daughter wrestling.
So she is an incredible youngwoman.
I really mean that.
She's wrestling her second yearin Alabama, uh, or sorry, um,
virginia.
We moved again cause I'm in themilitary, sorry, and she has
grown leaps and bounds.
But the one thing that I see inher now is a level of boldness
that I didn't see last year Herability to actually go out on
(09:27):
the mat and not get thosebutterflies that she got before.
Except that this is going to bea tough three to five minutes
of wrestling and just give ither absolute all.
And when she does lose shedoesn't have those emotional
outbursts, she accepts it, andthat's part of being bold.
Sometimes we lose, that's okay.
The next piece of this bad hugis accountability.
(09:50):
So let's start off by definingwhat accountability is, and I've
done it several times throughthe Tell Us the Leadership blog
and podcast, but we'll kind ofdefine it again.
And it's an essential elementin my house leadership and then
in our personal lives.
We must have accountabilitysystems, accountability trees,
(10:11):
people or processes that keep uson azimuth.
And let's kind of define that,because maybe you don't
understand what azimuth is, howI'm referring to it.
In the army, we do navigation.
You get a compass to it.
In the army, we do navigation.
You get a compass, you get aprojector protractor, you get a
(10:33):
map and you have to plot outyour points after you got your
eight or 10 digit gridcoordinates and then you have to
go navigate to those points.
An azimuth is your direction oftravel from point A to point B.
If we deviate from that, thefarther the distance is, the
more that we will drift off ofthe target.
So it's very important to havea tight azimuth so we have the
(10:54):
shortest direction of travel tothe next point, and that's what
I mean by an azimuth.
An accountability tree issomeone that can be empathetic
and provide shade when times aretough.
Leaders are forward moving andgrowth oriented when they are
accountable in their personalactions.
The same is true forprofessional accountability.
(11:16):
Great organizations do notbecome great because they allow
mediocre performance.
Great organizations hold theirmembers and their teams to a
standard that is the bareminimum to be successful within
the organization and withoutaccountability checks, the
culture of any business I don'tcare who you are shifts from
problem solving to problemmaking very quickly when others
(11:41):
understand that there is noramifications really for failure
, there's no intrinsicmotivations to try and to
continue to move forward andthere is a simple barometer.
If you try and fail, it's okaybecause you're trying, but if
you try and fail consistentlyand there's no accountability to
improve that performance,that's not okay.
(12:01):
Remember the rule of 100%.
Each day we can only put ourbest earnest effort forward.
If you're a leader of yourselfor your team and you put in 75%
today because you just weren'tfeeling it, you physically can't
do 125% tomorrow.
Mathematically that's notpossible and that will lead to
burnout.
If you try to do that, trust me.
(12:23):
Once individuals understandleaders do not hold them
accountable, their motivation togive their best effort
significantly reduces.
However, be careful when you'reholding other people
accountable.
We just talked about thatbecause it can lead to a loss of
risk-taking.
That's not what we want Toexact opposite of what you want
in your personal andprofessional life, because
(12:44):
that's how we get past that.
Resistance is by risk-taking.
Leaders must walk a fine linewhen holding themselves and
others to that standard andfirst, realize your goal is not
to isolate failure and punishpeople for failure.
Your goal is to isolate failureand discover how it happened.
When you discover why the lossoccurred, you shift the
(13:08):
organization's mindset to aproblem-solving versus a
problem-making and in a second,make sure there is one standard.
Often I have seen the leaderand those in my inner circle
hold themselves to a differentstandard or requirement and that
is utter BS.
Everyone your organization isequal, regardless of seniority,
(13:28):
rank or title.
If a team member is causes aproblem, a purposeful
accountable leader or a pal willhold them to that standard as a
senior organization member.
Finally, accountability isshared.
In extraordinary organizations.
It's not just the leaderspointing out inefficiencies.
(13:49):
Right, every team member is anaccountability tree, regardless
of rank, position or title,pushing the entire organization
to the next level.
And you have to do that, again,with tact.
If you are listening to thisand you're private and you go up
to your company commander andyou say, hey, sir, you're all
ate up, probably ill-advised,there's a chain of command for a
reason and you can communicatethat.
(14:09):
And if you have a good leader,they'll listen.
Trust me, I had an open doorpolicy and I meant it.
I had a legitimate open doorpolicy.
The only time I shut it is whenI was having to do things that
were very private in terms oflike UCMJ, or I needed time to
really think and cut outdistractions.
The rest of the time I had aclear open door policy.
So make sure you understandthat within your organization
(14:31):
before you move forward withthat really constructive candor,
the organization will match thelevel of leadership that you
show.
Purposeful accountable leadersdevelop systems to maintain
accountability in their personaland professional lives.
Those could be a mastermind, itcould be an inner circle, it
could be a coach or it could befriends, it doesn't matter.
(14:51):
The next one on our bad hugsjourney is discipline.
The next pillar that I holddear is discipline, and why so?
I define discipline as theintestinal fortitude to push
beyond your own perceivedlimitations.
Trust me, we are incrediblygifted miracles.
Humans are capable of featsthat a lot of people never
(15:15):
thought possible.
I mean, you look, throughouthistory, we are incrementally
improving, both through the bodyof knowledge, of science, but
physically, people running miles.
Now, I think no one thoughtbefore you could break a four
minute mile.
Someone finally did that.
Like it's.
It's absolutely incredible whathumans are capable of, but it
(15:37):
has to come down to beingdisciplined mind, body and soul.
A purposeful, accountableleader continues for one or more
minute when their body and mindis screaming that they need to
stop.
That often separatesindividuals who achieve success
and those who end up quitting.
One more lap, one more podcast,one more book, one more call,
(15:58):
one more network engagementseparates winners from losers.
Trust me, it all comes down toone word and we've heard it
countless times and that'sdiscipline.
Do you have what it takes tochase hard things, especially
when everyone else is lookingfor the easy path.
Chasing hard things does twothings.
First, it forces you tocontinuously push yourself to
(16:22):
the limit.
Each time you try something newit molds you into the leader
your team and your family needs.
Second, because you'rechallenging yourself, it allows
you to grow.
Growth is uncomfortable, thatis just a fact.
Because it's foreign to ourbodies.
We want to stay in that comfortstate.
That's like human nature.
We want to be comfortable.
(16:42):
Trust me, you have.
You live an extraordinary time.
Push yourself to the limit andbe extraordinary by putting
yourself in that discomfort zone.
If you're taking calculatedswings, it increases your
capacity to handle increasedresponsibility.
Leaders who lack discipline arenot aligning their head, heart
(17:04):
and hand.
Remember the rule of 3H.
When you're clear on your why,it causes a burning desire to
achieve more, push farther andchase significance.
Disciplined leaders understandthat to progress it must require
sacrifices, and thosesacrifices may come from family
time or a lack of socialinteractions.
(17:26):
But what's important is theleader can see the destination
and is willing to makeshort-term sacrifices to achieve
long-term growth.
For example, when writing thisblog, it's 8.30 at night.
I'm sacrificing modernpleasures like watching
television.
Why?
Because I'm committed togrowing myself in terms of
(17:49):
leadership and helping changethis world Team.
Let's take a quick break fromthis episode and I want to share
an additional leadershipresource with you, and that is
one-on-one leadership coachingthrough McMillian Leadership
Coaching.
So what do I do?
I help leaders discover theirpurpose, create a long-term
growth plan and take inspiredaction.
(18:10):
I believe everything rises andfalls on leadership and,
regardless of where you are inlife, one fact is true you are a
leader of others, you are aleader of your family and, most
importantly, you are a leader ofyourself.
To lead others well, thatstarts by leading yourself well.
If you want to learn more, youcan go to
McMillianLeadershipCoachingcomand schedule a free call today.
(18:35):
Back to the episode.
To remain disciplined, you needtwo things First, understand
your why and align it to yourpassion and second, create
routines throughout your daythat make consistent wins,
because that's how we buildmomentum and gain that burning
(18:56):
desire.
If we start knocking down those50 meter targets and, as a
result, you will begin toweather any storm, purposeful,
accountable leaders discovertheir why, they create routines
and they're willing to make thesacrifices to chase hard things.
I started doing cold plungesprobably last winter, around
December and I have a picture ifyou're following me on million
(19:17):
leadership coaching of mesitting in an ice bath.
Uh, the water temperature atthat time was 25 degrees.
My neighbors and everyonethought I'm absolutely crazy.
But I'm telling you I have somenerve damage in my neck, so
doing cold therapy helps me withthat.
But I have a picture of mesitting in.
It was 25 degrees outside andcold ice water that was roughly
(19:38):
20 degrees and I would stay inthere for three minutes at a
time and I do it every singlemorning and that's why I
progressed to where I'm doing itnow.
It's much easier to do it in acontrolled environment.
I'll tell you that going downin my basement in my robe in the
morning is so much easier thanwalking outside and then sitting
in the bath.
The only thing that's worse isthe water circulates and I think
(19:59):
that's one of the hard things.
But that's what separates mefrom a lot of other people is
I'm willing to embracediscomfort and I am disciplined
enough to wake up in the morningand do hard things.
So the next one is humility Atthe core of who I am.
It's really one word and it'shumility and, to kind of go on a
(20:22):
tangent, one of the hardestthings that I have is trying to
accept an award.
Right, I'm recognized.
I always feel guilty because Iknow in my core the only reason
(20:42):
I'm being recognized is, one,that I'm in the leadership
position and two, it was becauseof my team.
So I always feel guilty when Iget recognized, but I also know
that I put in a lot of work anda lot of hard work and it's
absolutely humbling to get that.
So anytime I get recognized one, I always want to make sure
that my team understands thatthey're the reason I did.
And two, I also take some timeand reflect on the hard work
(21:03):
that I had to sacrifice to getto that.
And that's really humility.
Understanding that you're notthe center of the universe is a
powerful thing.
To achieve this, it takes aconfident leader that's being
able to realize two things.
First, the organization issuccessful only when
collaboration and communicationis unleashed.
Purposeful, accountable leadersunderstand that people are the
(21:26):
heart of any successful team.
When you realize people, notyourself, produce those results,
it creates momentum and itdisperses the mental fog.
Second, humility requires youto let go of your ego.
That is one of the hardestthings to do.
Again, confidence is vital.
(21:48):
It's important.
Once you understand who you are.
You share power.
You do not hoard it.
Transitional leaders, toxicleaders, control power because
they have a scarcity mindsetYou're a pal, you don't.
They are scared not to achieveresults, scared to let others
(22:08):
take the lead, and they'rescared to not feel needed.
And trust me, I have a personright now that I'm working for
that is probably one of theworst leaders I've ever seen,
and that's exactly what they dothey hoard power.
To become a transformationalleader, you must let go of your
ego and understand success comesfrom people, not yourself.
Your job is to put yourself outof a job by training your team
(22:32):
so well, by delegating so well,that you're no longer needed.
Crazy thought, right, but it'strue.
When leaders tap into humility,they make tough decisions with
decisive confidence.
Some of the most challengingpositions that I've had, faced
with tough decisions that I wasonly able to do by really
(22:56):
tapping into my humility.
Humility humbles, and nowhere isthat more critical than pivotal
moments in our life.
Being humble allows you to seethe second and third order
effects.
Most importantly, it enablesyou to see what happens if the
most deadly course of actioncame to fruition, when you can
(23:20):
see what's possible.
It opens your mind to all theinformation and prevents tunnel
vision.
One of the most deadly militaryexercises you could ever
complete is entering andclearing a room.
The decisive point of enteringa room is the doorway.
They call that the fatal funnel.
Right, when learning how toclear a room, most people focus
(23:43):
on the door itself, which causestunnel vision.
At its core, tunnel visioncreates dead space.
Dead space is deadly andpurposeful.
Accountable leaders areconfident in their decisions,
surround themselves with morequalified team members and they
let go of their egos.
Here's a quick story on humility.
I'm a brand new platoon leaderin Afghanistan.
I'm going to one of the firstpatrols that I was able to go
(24:06):
with my platoon near the ArgonDob.
I think Shershaka was the townthat we were kind of walking
through.
We get separated.
Where we're operating at is ina grape row.
If you've ever been in SouthernAfghanistan, it's a different
type of topography.
It's very flat, has some curvyIV lines that we call wadis and
it's really nomadic types oftribes like the Kuchi tribe and
(24:29):
other people like that.
But when we were doing thesepatrols, ieds are prevalent.
It's probably the biggestthreat to the force, and so much
so that we had baby powder andwe'd try to mark our lines and
we'd walk in files If you don'tknow what that is, go look it up
and we'd have gold hound ormine hounds and gizmos and all
these other things to kind ofhelp us identify IEDs.
(24:52):
Brand new platoon leader me, myRTO and a couple other people
get stranded away from the mainforce and we didn't have that
ability to detect IDs.
Why?
Because we were on the radio,we were trying to send something
up and it was totally my fault.
I humbled myself at the momentbecause some of my more junior
soldiers wanted to walk that 500meters through grape rows that
(25:13):
wasn't clearly marked to get tothe platoon and then also keep
in mind at this point in time,we've had countless amputees and
we lost a lot of people withinthat platoon before I took over.
So I humbled myself and I madea bold decision that I'm going
(25:34):
to walk in front of these guys.
And who am I right If we hit anIED?
I have made the decision thatmy life is no more important
than my RTO or my privates.
And it should be me, becauseI'm the leader and I should be
in front, especially in times ofrisk and making decisions.
And that was an extreme exampleof tapping into humility,
(25:56):
because I could have easilygiven an order for one of my
soldiers to walk out in front ofme, but I don't think I could
ever live with myself if theydid hit an ID.
So I made a decision to do so.
So let's continue and that'sperfect kind of transition to
the next one, which isunderstanding or empathy, which
is a better way of kind ofdefining it, but it didn't fit
into my acronym, bad Hugs, so wewill define it as understanding
(26:18):
.
The next critical principle inmy house of leadership is
understanding, and I defined itas empathy.
You must listen to trulyunderstand someone's perspective
, decisions and rationale.
This is a secret to being anempathetic and transformational
leader.
Be there for those on your teamand listen.
(26:40):
I think that there's four typesof listening that a leader can
do.
Two of them are selfish and twoof them are selfless.
To become a transformationalleader, you must tap into
selfless forms of listening.
The first form of selfishlistening is passive listening,
and maybe someone's doing thatright now, listening to this
podcast.
(27:01):
But the leader who uses thisform is physically there, but
mentally they are somewherecompletely different.
The second form of selfishlistening is transitional
listening, and this happens waytoo often.
The leader is only listening tofind ways that they can benefit
and not add value to the teamor the organization On the other
(27:22):
side.
The first selfless form oflistening is empathetic
listening.
When leaders practicecompassionate listening, they
see the issue from otherpeople's perspective, and that's
a powerful thing.
However, they're still missinga key element, and that's to
fully immerse themselves in anactive listening process.
And that's the final and secondform of selfless listening, and
(27:44):
that's transformational.
Transformational listening isthe ability to block out all
distractions and become laserfocused on your team or yourself
if you need to do that or yourfamily.
You're looking for whispers,and that's a coaching tool that
we always look at.
Is the underlining root causeof someone's disdain or problems
, change in tone, physicalmanifestations or hidden
(28:09):
memories that are kind of beingtucked away?
To become an empathetic leader,first learn selfless listening,
and I think here's a greatexample If someone comes in your
room or your office and you'resitting there typing and you're
middle of the thought and you'regoing, uh-huh, yeah, okay,
perfect, let's do that.
I think that that's great.
That's not beingtransformational, especially
(28:32):
when my kids come in the office,what is is separating yourself
from any type of distractions,shutting your brain off
temporarily to what you're doing, shifting your time and
attention and talents towardsthat individual and listening
wholeheartedly and giving actualresponses versus oh okay, yeah,
cool, let's do that.
(28:53):
That is transformationallistening.
The funny thing about empathy iswe're all born with that
ability.
However, like over time, lifechallenges us and we slowly
start getting weighted thatability.
However, like over time, lifechallenges us and we slowly
start getting weighted down withthese chains right.
These chains become the causeof resentment and jealousy and
lead to a hardening of ourhearts.
(29:14):
When leaders allow the world tomold them through
self-defeating beliefs, theylose the ability to connect
emotionally Authenticconnections is critical to
building relationships.
Always remember relationshipbuilding is the one thing that,
if done well, will result inextraordinary success.
(29:35):
However, avoiding becoming tooempathetic and falling into this
sympathy loop and the sympathyloop I define is an endless
cycle of your inability to holdothers accountable because you
just feel sorry for them.
That's not what leaders do.
You hold people accountable.
We just talked about that.
Your team encounters a problemand comes to you for help.
(29:56):
What do you do If you give themguidance and the tools and
resources to be successful.
You're practicing empathy andactive listening.
However, if you give into theirstory, you are a rescuer.
And look up the CartmanTriangle.
There's two different things.
You could either be a rescueror you can help people and hold
(30:18):
them accountable.
Growth will never happen if youconsistently fill the role of a
rescuer.
Purposeful, accountable leaderslisten, they make decisions
that are formed from theirbeliefs and they hold themselves
and others accountable.
So understanding here's areally good quote by Stephen
Coveney seek first to understand, then to be understood.
(30:42):
I think that's powerful.
All right.
The last one is gratitude, thefinal principle in my house of
leadership, gratitude, which isone of the most challenging
elements for me to master,because it requires two things.
First, you have to createpersonal time to reflect.
Remember the acronym STOP, stop, silence your mind, take a
(31:04):
tactical pause, observe yoursurroundings, pursue with
purpose.
Life is extremely fast-paced.
We have all these AI things nowthat help us make even faster
decisions, but sometimes youjust need to slow down.
The only way to become gratefulis to revisit your past.
I think that's why we have apast.
What memories are you thankfulfor?
(31:25):
It's easy to select greatmemories, for example, birthdays
, your first date, your firstkiss, etc.
However, that's not gratitude.
Gratitude is looking into thedarkness, those places that you
would not dare revisit, and findthe light.
If you find gratitude in yournightmares, you can practice
(31:50):
gratitude in your present, trustme.
Second, when you begin toreview your life's chapters, you
are forgiving and accepting,and that's a powerful thing.
At the core of gratitude isforgiveness.
To be a purposeful, accountableleader, you must be willing to
forgive.
Without forgiveness, we allowthe darkness to block out the
(32:12):
light, and that's not what we'rehere for.
We are always grateful when weget what we want.
That's easy.
But here's the real questionhow are you grateful when life
gets a vote?
I've learned to overcome anger,fear, jealousy, all those
self-sabotaging beliefs.
You have to make it personal.
(32:33):
For example, I've lost morefriends and soldiers than I care
to remember.
But reflecting on thosememories does two things First,
it allows me to honor thoseindividuals and the memories
that we shared, the times I'vespent with those individuals
before they were taken.
And second, it drives me togrow and become a better leader.
(32:57):
Every day, I refuse to stopwhen I am confronted with loss,
either personally orprofessionally.
I may pivot or be momentarilyhalted, but eventually I will
try again and I'll gain traction.
The mountaintops our iconsstand on are forged through the
(33:18):
losses and failures and theyincrementally build upon those
each time, and that's how youachieve the summit.
Unless you're willing to takethat journey, you're never going
to achieve the summit.
Purposeful, accountable leadersare grateful in tough times
because it drives them to becomea better leader, and I'll share
(33:39):
a story.
I'll keep some names out, butthis is something in my personal
life.
One of my best friends that Igrew up with in rural West
Virginia, where I'm from Fenwick, west Virginia Go try to find
that on the map Was murdered ina double homicide over a hunting
dispute for land.
Again, I'm going to keep namesout, but this was one of my best
(34:00):
friends.
We spent every single wakinghour in the woods playing sniper
, paintball, four-wheeler riding, you name it.
We shared so many things and itwas one of my true high school
friends that I kept a connectionwith.
One of the hardest things washearing that he passed away and
(34:21):
his wife passed away, but thathis son was still there, and I
really reflected on this and Ithought what could I do?
Like, this is a hard thing todo.
I remember that I had a MarineK-Bar that he may or may not
left at my house and I justnever returned it.
I was like this is reallyreally cool, right, I want to
keep this.
I wrote a very heartfelt noteof what that relationship meant
(34:45):
to me.
I got one of my PCs that Ideployed with one of my multicam
PCs and I got that K-Bar and Igave it to his son and to me.
I would have never been able toget beyond the anger and some of
those self-sabotaging behaviorsthat I had to actually take
(35:06):
action.
And that's what gratitude isabout is when you get in moments
like that of where you are justfilled with so much darkness,
you have to learn to be grateful, accept it, to then go take
inspired action.
And that's an extreme example,but I'm here to inspire you.
So here are some final thoughts.
Each principle selected foryour house of leadership must
(35:31):
come from you.
Do not be influenced by others.
Chances are you resonate withone or more of the principles in
my house of leadership, andthat's okay.
But I challenge you to discoveryour principles, because it is
liberating.
Once a leader finds who they areand why they believe, what they
believe, it buildsinspirational confidence.
(35:54):
Remember the six phases ofleadership.
The first phase is masteringyourself, or self-leadership.
To lead others, you must masteryourself and to do that you
must unlock who you are.
Do not adopt buzzwords or otherleadership philosophies because
it's trendy and that's utter BS.
Anyway, do it because youbelieve in it or your team will
(36:17):
see right through it.
Trust me, every word I wrote isa bold statement followed by
confident action.
Leaders tap into the rule of 3Hhead, hand, heart.
When they know who they are,purposeful, accountable leaders
can see where they want to go,create an emotional connection
to push through tough times andengage their hands to put in the
(36:40):
work and grow, and engage theirhands to put in the work and
grow.
So here is three powerfulquestions for our after action
review that I want you toreflect on from this episode,
and the first one is whatprinciples resonated with you
and why.
That's the most important piece.
Number two what are your topprinciples?
(37:01):
Select three what are your topthree principles that you want
to focus on and what actionsalign to those three principles?
Are they actually somethingthat you live out every single
day?
All right, team.
Again, I'm absolutely humbled,honored, excited, motivated,
inspired to get back intopodcasting, but do me a favor.
Podcasting as an active dutyarmy officer that travels three
(37:25):
times a month, often for work,is challenging.
It is hard.
I do all this by myself, butI'm passionate about it, and how
you can help me is you can helpme by sharing this, liking or
subscribing or whatever platformyou listen.
Leave me a five-star review onApple or Spotify and, if you
feel so inclined, you can go tobuzzsprouttellsleadershipcom.
(37:47):
You can subscribe, or you canleave me a donation and all of
that money goes back into thispodcast to create more powerful
content.
As always, I'm your host, joshMcFillian, saying every day is a
gift.
Don't waste your money.
I'll see you next time.
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