#233 Leadership Is Influence Part 2 w/Draven Hope & Ben Townsend

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Leadership is fundamentally about influence and returning more value than the resources invested. Our views on leadership evolve over time, often shifting from purely analytical approaches to recognizing the crucial importance of emotional connections.

• Leadership defined as the ability to influence others toward fulfilling the company's mission
• Effective leaders connect organizational goals to individual roles
• Leaders have a moral obligation to understand and support employees' career goals
• "Emotional resonance is more compelling than fact" - analytical leaders often must learn this truth
• The "Jaws effect" demonstrates how stories create stronger impact than simple facts
• Relationships matter in organizations - performance alone doesn't guarantee recognition
• Understanding human nature is essential for leadership effectiveness
• Building good relationships isn't compromising integrity, it's recognizing reality

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to you by
Dietzelman Productions.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
My next question is what made these experiences so
valuable?
But I feel like you guys did agood job at answering that, so
I'm just going to skip it.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
So the next one is have your own views of
leadership changed over time.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
You want me to go first?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
By the way, I kind of looked over.
Scott sent these questionsbefore and so I looked over them
yesterday but I didn't.
So I spent two minutes justreading through them and I put
it down and I didn't want tolook at it or think about it too
much before the interview.
So I'm cause I wanted to giveyou my reactions today.
So that's kind of the approachI took with this.

(00:50):
So have your own views ofleadership changed over time?
And mine is yes, 100%.
I remember early on, way beforeI was leading teams, I remember
people would talk aboutleadership and it was so cliche
and it just kind of bugged me.

(01:10):
But it's communication,communication, communication,
and I thought that was kind of acorny cliche.
But leadership is like I saidearlier.
I believe leadership is simplythe ability to influence.
That's what it is to me.
Because, you go into a companyand whatever company you have,

(01:34):
and your company has a missionand your job as a leader is to
fulfill that company mission.
And here are the resources youhave.
You have this much budget foradvertising or putting up
displays in the indoor gardenarea and this much budget for
the people spend in that areaand all this kind of stuff, and

(01:55):
so you have to take that spendthat you're responsible for as a
leader and you have to returnmore value for that spend than
the spend itself.
So that means developing people.
Of course you have your owncareer ambitions as well.
You want to get promoted andblah, blah, blah.
But you have to return morevalue as a leader.

(02:20):
The outputs have to exceed theinputs or you won't be in a
leadership position for verylong.
There's other reasons you couldbe out of a leadership position
, but that's one.
And so I think you know, in yourability to influence.
I do believe that communicationis.
That's how, that's how youcreate your ability to influence

(02:42):
.
It is about communication.
It's about understanding andbeing able to relate the mission
of the company to the job thatLiz has as an indoor patio
person, garden person, and howher job relates specifically to
accomplishing the big top levelmission of the company she works
for.
And so being able to do that,whether in leadership or not, I

(03:05):
think is very important, but fora leader I think it's paramount
.
And then I believe that youhave like a moral obligation to
understand what your employeeswant out of their job and try to
help them accomplish that.
It's about the mission, butit's also about building people,

(03:27):
because people is how youaccomplish the mission.
And so my views on leadership,with regard to how important
that communication is, is veryimportant and along those lines.
Just one other thing I'm apretty analytic kind of guy,
analytical kind of guy, and so,being that way, I think one of

(03:48):
the ways that I've kind ofchanged is especially, you know,
as you're relating to otherother people is to be less
analytical and kind offact-based in your approach and,
uh, spend more time on theempathetic, the empathy side of
things and dealing with people,because I read a quote this

(04:10):
isn't mine, but I read it andand it was, it was uh it.
It really struck me as yes,that's truth right there, and I
can see the error of my ways.
You know some of my you knowinteractions as a leader, but it
was a statement that saidSomething like this emotional

(04:30):
resonance is more compellingthan fact.
Emotional resonance is moreimportant than fact.
Emotional resonance is moreimportant than fact.
So you can be 100% right aboutsome issue or what you're trying
to accomplish with your team,but not have your team follow

(04:51):
because somebody else is makinga different case or you haven't
made the emotional case for it.
You haven't made, you haven'tconnected with them emotionally
to kind of like seal the deal onwhat you're doing, and so I
think my view of that hasabsolutely 100 percent changed
over time and I think you avoid,you ignore that, that need for

(05:15):
emotional resonance at your ownperil as a leader, and so that
would be my answer to this, thisquestion.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
That makes sense yeah , I think, I think, yeah, that's
right, that's you know.
Uh, you can have the facts.
Facts don't sell.
Um, for example, you know,don't go in the water, don't go

(05:44):
swimming in the water, becauseyou might get.
You know, there's a shark outthere and if you just leave it
at that, ok, you're going toforget that the next 10 minutes.
And then pretty soon someonethrows a ball and it goes out in
the water.
You go out there splashingaround, go get the ball and come
back on the beach, you know,and now everyone's kind of

(06:09):
splashing around in the waterand totally forgot about the
fact is, you know.
Fact is, somebody did seesomething earlier this morning.
Or you can tell the story ofjaws and there's no way you're
getting in the water today ortomorrow, you know, know, I mean
, after jaws came out, there wasa huge.
I mean nobody wanted to get inthe water.
You know, even in swimmingpools everybody was freaked out

(06:30):
at the deep end, cause it's justso scary.
And so, yeah, telling a goodstory sells the fact, the facts
themselves don't sell.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
But yeah, and internal relationships.
Because let's say, let's say,in the indoor garden center,
let's say that, let's say thatyour boss is number one.
My, my biggest objective foryou guys here on the team is is
to say the most important thingfor us is to sell barbecue pits.
And let's say say that Kim isnumber one in barbecue pit sales

(07:06):
.
And let's say that there'ssomebody else but Kim.
I don't make this personal.
Person A sells barbecue pitslike nobody else, but they don't
spend any time developing arelationship with their boss.
And then you have person B whodoesn't really enjoy selling

(07:26):
barbecue pits.
They're a vegetarian and theydon't you know whatever, I'm
just making this up and they andthey sell whatever patio
furniture, whatever it is, andbut that this person has a
really good relationship withtheir boss.
You can say that they'reschmoozing or brown nosing or
however you want to say it, butthey're.
They're spending a lot of time,um, you know, building a great
relationship with their boss.

(07:47):
And then the boss has to make adecision.
Well, who gets, who gets thetickets to the whatever the
thunder game in Oklahoma citythis coming weekend?
Who gets the tickets?
And the boss awards them to theperson they have a great
relationship with, rather thanthe person who is executing the
number one thing that leader hastold the team to execute.
So that's an example of whatthat to me, what that emotional

(08:13):
resonance makes.
When you get more than oneperson involved in an
organization, you have politics.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, but isn't that kind of crappy if you're selling
grills like nobody's businessand yet Joe Blow over here who's
?

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yes, it's crappy.
Yes, 100% it's crappy.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
And they get the tickets to the thunder game.
That sucks and really, reallydoes but but it's, it's.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
I'm not, I'm not.
I'm not saying whether thatthat is right or wrong.
I'm saying that's what it isand I'm saying that's human
nature.
And so, along with if you knowthat it's not about being a
bootlicker, it's, it's aboutlook, if I, if I execute my job
perfectly here but I don't spendany time developing
relationship with the peoplearound me, then human nature is

(09:14):
going to, is going to point outtheir frailty and I'm not going
to get what I want and somebodyelse is going to get what they
want because they're just a 100%bootlicker.
And so you can't ignore thatside.
Emotional resonance again, thisis human nature.
And is it right?
No, and as a, you know, kind ofleft-brained person, you're
going to say, well, that'sridiculous.
You know, I can't do that, I'mnever going to do that.

(09:35):
Okay, well, this is something Ihad to learn, you know.
I had to learn.
You know that emotionalresonance is more powerful, more
compelling than just the fact,is just human nature.
And if you, if you ignore humannature, you can leave yourself

(10:01):
kind of out of what you want andwhere you want to go, just by
not recognizing that fact,there's nothing wrong and it's
just smart to build a goodrelationship with your boss and
the people around, and so don't,I would say.
That's one thing that I w Iwould not neglect.
You know, as I, as I executethe mission, it's not a moral
issue, or you know the issuewhere you know you're
sacrificing.
You know your belief system.

(10:22):
It's just one of recognizinghuman nature, and you can have
it either work for you oragainst you, which one you want.
Thank you.