Hey, everyone, on this episode, we're going to look at the question how do you become a leader worth following? And how do you create a sustainable organization as a result, when I was in college, I went to University of Oklahoma, I pledged a fraternity no one in my family had ever been a part of a fraternity. But I learned a important principle during my time, when I was a pledge, there would always be older members who demanded respect, because they simply because they were older, some people in the fraternity conducted themselves in a way, which naturally made me want to respect them that made me want to follow them. And there were others that in spite of the fact that they were maybe two or three years older than me, I didn't respect and I didn't really want to follow. And so when I would teach future fraternity presidents, what I had learned along the way, probably the single best principle was that Respect is earned. It's not a result of position. And when we think about leading people and leadership, the same is true position titles don't make you a leader, people wanting to follow you is what makes you a leader. So how do you become the type of person that people do want to follow that people naturally want to be a part of your team, and to go whatever direction you're going. So a few characteristics that I've found are incredibly important for becoming a leader that others follow. The first is character and values. Ultimately, when people are trying to decide whether or not they trust you, and whether or not they believe in you whether or not they want to be like you whether or not they want to go, where you're headed, they're going to look at what you're about, and what is most important to you, and can they trust you. People are constantly going to be evaluating your actions. And this is everything from the words we say the words, we don't say the way we spend our money, the way that we handle recognition, the things that we sacrifice for people watch all of these things. And that's how deeply people will analyze your values and your character when you're in a position of leadership, and makes it critical imperative that who you are, is actually worthy of following. And this is not something that we do so that other people will follow us. It's something that we do for ourselves, but becomes an absolute prerequisite for other people following us. I think this is also one of those principles, that the longer that people are around you, the more clearly they will see your character and your values. This is not something that can be that you can pretend it's not something where you can model something that you aren't actually because people will very gradually or sometimes quickly, they'll sniff that out. And actually, the simple principle here is, we are the most cautious around people where we feel like there is a disconnect between what they say they are and why they say they're that way and who they really are and why they really do things. You know, the word we use for that is, is hypocrite. But the reason why we respond so negatively to hypocrites is that there's something deep inside of our wiring that says you cannot trust this person. Because who they are, and why they're doing things isn't going to line up with what they tell you. And so nothing disqualifies from leadership like hypocrisy. The second thing is humility. And when I think about humility, in some ways, has lost some of its meaning. And so the way that I defined it is really straightforward. It's just, it's accurate self awareness. It's at you know, it's having a sober minded view of yourself that you see yourself the way that other people see you. And one of the easiest ways to grow in humility is to have people around you that are willing to tell you what they see, that are willing to reflect to you what they see. There's certainly a tendency when with people that are in positions of leadership to try and surround themselves with people that will tell them what they want to hear. And one of the reasons why that's so damaging is that they will lose their own self view, they lose a sense of what other people see when they look at them. Third, I would mention growth mindset. Growth Mindset is simply the belief that we can get better at anything, that we're all gifted differently. And we all have different talents and abilities. And that no matter how much gifting you have in an area, there's always the ability for you to grow in it, or to become better. I've many times heard people use the kind of cop out excuse of Well, that's, that's not really my area, I'm not, I'm not really gifted at, you know, speaking in front of people, I'm not very gifted at casting vision, or I'm not a planner. And what they're really doing is they're trying to abdicate responsibility in that area by saying, Well, I just, I just, you know, I'm not very good at it. So I'm just not going to work on it. Leaders are about developing others and about developing themselves. And you can't do that without a growth mindset. When leaders have a growth mindset, the people that follow them develop a growth mindset, and the entire organization, the entire team thrives as a result. Fourth is vision, that leadership is about painting a picture of the future, have a picture of where you're trying to go, and convincing and rallying other people that they want to get there. If you're leading people, what are you leading them to? What is the thing that if they follow you that they're moving towards, if you can't define that for people, then there's no real impetus or under, you know, reason why they should be following you. But effective leaders are able to communicate, hey, if we all work together, if we all, if we all cooperate, that this is possible, this future that we all want to live in, and here's what it looks like. And here's what it feels like once we get there. And here's how we can get there. Finally, is generosity, that the best leaders, what people that follow them, takeaway is that they care about my needs, and that there is not a winner take all mentality. But there's a mentality of as they win, I win with them, and that they will be generous with me. We all have seen examples, unfortunately, of leaders where there are people in positions of leadership, where their mindset was that the entire organization, or the entire point of the position was for them to win. And they're terrible to work for and work with is really the reality. But hopefully, we've all experienced examples of the opposite, which are leaders that as they won, everyone around them, everyone on their team felt like they benefited that when the company's more profitable, everybody earned more money. When projects went well, the recognition went around to everyone, when there were there were new positions of leadership that that people were promoted, and people who had been developed were promoted into those positions, that great leaders not only help get to that better vision, but as they get to that better vision, everyone who's been a part of it feels like they benefit as a result. So here are some personal takeaways I've had over the last few years that I think have helped me to grow as a leader. The first is that when the leader role that we have finding our identity from something a part of that is very important. There's this thing about CEOs that when they leave the position, they tend to really struggle emotionally in the months and years afterwards. And one of the primary reasons is because it's such an all consuming role, that it's easy to find your identity in that role. And to think that your value as a person, and the reason why people care about you is because of the role that you hold. I'm a CEO, but that's not who I am. And it's not the most defining thing about me, and I'm able to be a better CEO, I'm able to be a better leader, when I'm not relying on that for my identity. So this is a fairly deep question. But where do you find identity, we all tend to triangulate on identity and something outside of ourselves. And it turns out, we can, you know, we can do all kinds of places to try and find it. And some of them are much more healthy than others. But I found that it's it's pretty profoundly unhealthy when we find our identity in a particular role or title. Second, I think another aspect to developing into this type of a leader is surrounding yourself with people that you trust enough to have open and honest feedback from and that are willing to push you that are willing to challenge you. One of the greatest gifts I have in my life is I have Several relationships that are multi decade relationships, who I know that they care about me, and they're certainly willing to challenge me. And I need that. And I think that that's been a cornerstone of me being able to thrive the last few years. The most important thing when it comes to your friendships is that there are relationships that are not tied to your performance. Because again, the more that you think about your worth as being tied to your performance, the more unhealthy we tend to become, and the less effective of a leader, we are. Another huge category is like your just mental well being. And it's easy when you're the leader, to deprioritize that to think that the the entirety of the job is to make good strategic decisions and, and leading other people, but there's no way that we can lead others when we're not leading ourselves. Well, a couple of examples of that are the information that we take in? How are we defining success? What is the why behind the work that we're doing? And are we do we have people in our life where we can talk about the things that are hard and difficult, the reality is that leading is stressful, and that we have to acknowledge that and we're never going to be able to be the kind of leader that other people need. And we're certainly not gonna be able to do it for an extended period of time. If we're not managing that stress, if we don't have people that we're talking to regularly about the things that are hard in our life. It's easy when you're the leader that you get all the problems and you view your role as being the person who gives solutions. But all of us need places to process things. Counseling is really helpful. close friendships, spouses, where you can talk openly and freely. Often it's a lonely when you're leading, and you feel like most people don't understand your day to day. So finding other people that are situated similarly in their careers can be extremely helpful in growing in that way. Are you taking care of your physical body? Are you getting enough sleep? I am, I've been terrible about this. Over the years, there have been so many nights where I stayed up an extra hour to working on a project and I look up and it's one or two in the morning, and I'm going to get five hours of sleep. And part of it's because I've loved what I've gotten to work on. But doing that consistently enough makes me unsustainable. Another example is eating well, it's easy when you're managing an organization when things are growing quickly. It's easy to just not put focus towards him, am I being smart what I put in my body? And similarly, are you setting aside time to exercise? When we're leading others, it's tempting and easy to put ourselves last. And in many ways, that's, that's an effective mindset, like leadership is about serving other people. But taken to an extreme, it becomes unhelpful to others, and unhelpful to ourselves when we're not taking care of ourselves. If we can't lead ourselves, we can't lead other people and taking care of our bodies taking care of our mental health. This is one of the cornerstones. So as we've talked about today, becoming the kind of leader that you want to be and being sustainable. And the way that you're approaching leadership depends a ton on our character, who we are. It depends on us prioritizing, taking care of ourselves, mental health or physical health, it depends on our perspective and our ability to cast vision for other people. And one of the hallmarks of great leaders is that people want to follow them. But another hallmark is that they naturally produce other leaders, great leaders inevitably multiply. And when we multiply, our impact becomes exponential. My hope for simple modern is that more than anything else, it would be a place that produced other leaders, and that we would become an exporter of healthy culture that as a result of people working here, they'd be developed as leaders, and whether it's in their communities, or their families or their company someday, that there would be a lot of leaders that would come out of this place. And that's probably the biggest hope that I have. And as a leader, it's the greatest hope that we can have as as a result of our leadership, not only are people going to thrive, not only is our organization in a win, but that it's going to produce a lot of other leaders, and that other people's lives are going to be impacted as a result. And all this has positioned our company for growth and hopefully for sustainability. And these are principles that you can take and apply to your own life. So here's some questions you can ask yourself as you're thinking about how to apply this personally. How are you finding identity in your role or your job? What is an area where you're making compromises about your physical health because of your position? Is your leadership helping to create and encourage the development of other leaders? If not, how can you be more deliberate in that area? Do you have people in your life that are giving you honest and candid feedback about how they experience you? Are you experiencing being a follower, as well as leading others?