Quick Takes On Leadership Advice

SPEAKER_01 0:14

All right. JC Fowler here with my partner James Wilson Jr. Let's go. Here's where we're going. James, what is the best and worst leadership advice you've ever gotten?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

The best advice has been um you're doing better than you think you are. Yeah. And the worst advice is you are better than you think you are. That's like you know what I mean? It's it's this, it's the it's the tension of like, yeah, you are doing better than you think you are. Great advice. Worst advice is oh yeah, I it maybe it's giving to myself. It's like you you're you're a stud. You're the man. Like, no, you you're thinking of yourself a little too highly right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

There's such a there's such a nuance there. That's that's yeah, that's leadership, right? I that's leadership. I have stolen the you're doing better than you think you are. I say that to every coaching client. Not well, listen, I'm I'm not um I'm not ingenuine, yeah, but it's just often true. It is people beat themselves up, or on the flip side, they think their stuff don't stink.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

And but no, but that's so good just to hear you're doing better than you think you are. Who said that to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Do you remember? Um Do you remember? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My so years ago, um, a senior pastor, my my boss, uh Freddie, uh, he he was like, you know, that was one of the things he kind of um you're not things are not as bad as they as you think, and you're doing better than you think you are. I love that. Yeah, yeah, it was a game changer for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

It's like, huh. I heard the phrase the other day, um, oh, that's just a tornado in a teacup. Mmm. It was like, yeah, but tiny little teacup. Isn't that so good? It's a tornado's like, don't worry about that. Yeah, that's just a tornado in a teacup.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah, that's good, man. Because it's like you're you're you're but the tornado is real, but it's just a teacup.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Wow, that's good. Yeah, that's really good.

Best Vs Worst Advice Nuance

SPEAKER_01 2:21

That's really good. Okay, my my best advice. This is don't judge me for this. I was at a conference, and one of my one of my heroes, great, great leader, author, um uh Doug Fields, he's in the like the youth ministry leadership marriage space. I was 25. I'm leading the team of 20 volunteers, and they are all older than me, most of them double my age. And I asked him, I said, Hey, if you were if you were me, 25 years old, what would you tell your 25-year-old self? And he said, Uh, don't be a wimp, just lead. Now, he didn't use the word wimp. And I'm gonna let the listener's imagination fill in the gaps with that one. Don't be a wimp. Don't be a wimp. Just lead. Now, I actually think that's horrible advice, but it is it is what I needed to hear in that moment of like, hey, God has put you in this position. You you have this opportunity, take advantage of it. People are looking for someone to lead them, like they're looking to you. Yep. So go ahead. And that doesn't mean have all the answers, we'll get into that. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the worst advice I got was I was a young leader and I had some good intuition. And um, but I couldn't, I couldn't necessarily articulate like the theory or the why. And so there's this idea of lead measures and lag measures, right? Like a lead measure are the things you put in that get to the result, the lag measure is the result. So we talked about this last time lead measure, make sales calls, lag measure, grow revenue, right? Well, we had wanted to get more um parent involvement. And so we met with this consultant, we came up with all these goals. I was all excited, and I thought I had this genius idea. I said, Oh, my goal is to get um something like uh five parents in the building where they were dropping their kids off a month. So I was like, all right, here's my goal. I want to get five parents in the building, and uh uh the leader was like, So what if you get them in the building? Well, the lag measure was to get them involved in the program and help them experience transformation and bring health to their family. Yeah, and I had known intuitively, again, young leader, I couldn't really articulate. I had lead measure, lag measure. What are you talking about? I had known intuitively if I could just get them in the building, I got it from here. It'll yeah, yeah. And so it kind of bursts my bubble. Yeah. I was like, man, yeah. Anyway, we've got some great advice over the years, some terrible advice over the years.

Why Leadership Sayings Mislead

SPEAKER_01 5:06

A lot of times it just falls on deaf ears, absolutely, and and and that, and that could that could deal with us. Um, some leadership advice isn't completely wrong, yeah, it's just incomplete.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

And so we want to unpack that uh today. There are leadership sayings we hear so often that we stop questioning them. We accept them as fact because we heard it growing up, or we heard it from someone we looked up to, and some of that advice helped, some of it hurt, and a lot of it needs a giant asterisk next to it and some nuance. So today we want to talk about leadership advice we don't believe anymore, or at least not the way that we used to.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

So

Winners Never Quit Reframed

SPEAKER_00 5:48

I think one of the, as we kind of dig into this, we were right before we started, just thinking through a couple, and the one that I've been really wrestling with a lot is uh winners never quit and quitters never win. Okay, coach. Right? It's this and it's yeah, you every team, every coach like, oh, you gotta winners never quit and quitters never win. And it's like, oh, just don't quit, don't quit. And I struggle with it because I think that there are times when you should quit. Um, in fact, not only do I think it, there's actually, as you live long enough, it's like, yeah, there's something, some things that we should not keep going. I think that we give um an un let me let me rephrase it because this is such an underdeveloped thought, but I think we give a great deal of praise to longevity. And I think it's important. We celebrate the leader who's been in a place for you know 20 to 30 years. It's beautiful, it's great. I think what we struggle though is that we start to miss or distrust um folks who their assignment changes, or the job changes, or this this goes. And so there's a nuance there because it's not just like, hey, what I'm saying is, okay, uh in order for you to be great at something, you've got to stay in it to the long haul. That that's a part of it. But I'm also saying, like, but there's sometimes in order to be great at something, you need to know when, hey, this is no longer the role for me, this is no longer the space for me, this is no longer the lane.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

And that takes courage. Yeah. Yes, a lot of courage. Yep. To start something new, to leave what's comfortable. Yep, yep. And I hear what you're saying, though, because you say, Oh, uh, quitters never win, winners never quit. And I'm like, Yeah. That's right. Push through, keep going. Who's gonna carry the boats? Yeah, me, yeah, yeah. And meanwhile, I'm being crushed. Right. Um, no, yeah, that's good. Where was there a time in your life that you believed that? Like, and it hurt you, or you kind of, or from the get-go, were you like, no, I don't believe that.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

I mean, I think in real, real time, and um that probably shows up so strong for me because I'm living it, right? It it is it's the sense of we are recording this, and over a year ago, um, I left a role that I was like, man, this is I was gonna spend the rest of my life there. I I just really thought that. And kind of unpacking um maybe the last two years, Ashley and I really looking at the struggle that I was having was that the role itself wasn't a great fit for me. And I struggled with it because as a leader, right, quitters never win, well, or winners never quit, quitters never win. And so I'm thinking, I just need to push through. I just need to keep going. And what it cost me was some emotional and mental health. What it cost me was looking at even maybe some relationships. What it cost me was here, these this initiative that I was leading wasn't done the best it could have been done because there was a space where we had the right people. I just probably wasn't in the right seat in that in that space. And so being able to, I'm not saying I'm super courageous, it it got me to a point, point where I had no other option, right? Like, so it wasn't even courage, it was just like I just I can't keep doing it. So that was a real time where this advice began to show me like, I don't know if that's the truth or if it's the full truth, right? Because what we talked about, it's it there's some truth to it that there are things like when it comes to my marriage, yeah, I do want to have this longevity. This is a relationship where we are sharing values, and there's gonna be hard times, it's gonna be challenges, but oftentimes we will treat, and this is the this is a maybe another nuance, we will treat leadership assignments as marriages, dude. I was just thinking that. And it's so it's dangerous because there's this sense of nah, that's this when this changes, if that assignment changes, it all changes, right? It's so so I'm I'm I don't know, man. I'm trying to get my thoughts together, but that's like a real-time example for me.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

The the truth is uh no matter how great you are in your role or not, and how long you've been there, you will be replaced, and the organization will go on without you. Now, if it's a little startup and you know you're gonna dissolve, whatever, but most of the time, like I feel like I have seen that over time by seeing transition, but it took kind of the wisdom of overtime to see that. There it is. It's like, well, if I leave, what's gonna happen to the to the mission, to the organization? It's like they will miss you and replace you very quickly, and as they should, as they should, right? It's not because it can't be about yeah, as yeah. I also I bristle a little bit against that because working with and not to look, every generation has their own gifts. I think Gen Z is amazing and innovative and is really doesn't settle for like, well, that's just the way things are, and you know, and and I love that, and like the agility they have to adapt to change, which is like a young person thing, but I think it's specifically a Gen Z person thing. However, I had asked um someone to fill uh an assignment uh a couple months ahead. Hey, can you do this? And they said to me, Um, I'm very interested. Okay, so I'm gonna need yeah, what does that mean? What does it mean? I just like oh, I'm very interested to see what I could maybe come up with. Okay, so I said, Hey, I'm glad you're interested, but I'm gonna need, and I know this person, so I was like, but I'm gonna Gen Z, I'm gonna need like a commit. It's a yes or a no. When and when can you let me know by right? Return, execution. Yes. And uh he said, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm totally in translation, language. I'm totally in anyway. I say all that to say about the the quitters never win, winners never quit, because we have become allergic and millennials are guilty too of commitment. And I think that only really fruitful things happen in the context of commitment, but sometimes the assignment could be short. So let's before we get into the flip side of this, let me I'll share mine, what is um which is similar.

Strength Without Vulnerability Fails

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Uh for me, like the advice, or like maybe it's like a mantra that sounds better than it works is only the strong survive. OTSS. Oh, you got an acronym for it, guys. I must I must have a tattoo for it. I essentially have a tattooed on my chest. That's 20-year-old me. Uh no YouTube, you will not get a visual. Um, man, I but I thought the first time I heard that, I thought, oh my gosh, that's brilliant. That's so true. Only the strong survive, so I'll be strong. But of course, we color in that word strong with all sorts of things that are helpful and not helpful. And you know, you know us, we we love pushing the envelope, working hard just like anybody else. But it's like, oh, being strong means incorrectly, never showing weakness. Never showing weakness means don't let them see you sweat. Yeah, don't let them see you set sweat means that your team thinks uh that nothing is hard for you, or that uh nothing is a challenge, or that you don't have any anxiety, and therefore uh your team isn't able to express that stuff because that becomes unacceptable because the standard that you set is only the strong survive. Right. Never be vulnerable, so now you're alone and then you're acting out in these other ways because you don't really have an outlet and everybody needs an outlet. If we don't release it, it leaks, right? Yep, and so man, I went I thought when I first heard that, wow, that's so helpful, and then realized, wait a second, how am I defining strength? Is it like strength uh and vulnerability?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

That's really good, you know, and so that that for me I think is I think it makes sense that you're hitting it because it sounds like in order to get a more fuller picture of some of these things, you actually need to define them a little more. Yeah, I think that's what it is. When we what what what am I okay, what is strength, right? What what do I define as winning? What it like some of that stuff is that's where some of the nuance feels like it comes in.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

That's so good when we have conversations with people, whether it's direct reports, someone you're coaching, and maybe it's your supervisor, whoever, or just your spouse, your friend. It's like we can be uttering the same expression and bringing two completely different meanings to it. Yeah, yeah. Like, no, you should be strong. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, great, okay. Never tell anyone that I have any weakness. And you're like, what? That is not what I was thinking, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I yeah, that's that is without that. I I feel like I could riff on that all day, but you could be having the same conversation, but using completely different language, and so we we miss each other, yeah, right? So so it it's the talk to someone who I went to Africa. I think I've shared the story. Yeah, went to Africa. Um, I was given this presentation, it was I thought awesome. It was just really, really great. Um, and I'm doing my thing. We get back to the debrief, and uh my the the sponsor, the guy who's with me, he says, uh, James, that that was he's Kenyan. So he smiled and he challenged me at the same time. Um says, James, that was great. Uh, it's not that you um are not a good communicator, we just didn't understand what you said. I said, Oh, shoot. Wow, and that's I mean, that's that's that's leadership so often because we're assuming that people know what we're saying just because we may be passionate about it, just because it's something that we've deeply lived, because it's something that we we are uh super convicted about, it doesn't mean that that person on the other side has the same experience or that we've actually taken the time to figure out what's behind this. So, yeah, man, that you you just hit

Define The Win Then Commit

SPEAKER_00 16:43

a nerve there.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

So go with so uh quitters never win and winners never quit. What would you say instead? Or how would you change that to I don't know, like what yeah, how would you pack out the full thought?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Obviously, not simple, but quitters never winners never quit. I would say that winners define the win. I think that I I would really say winners define the win.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

That was off the cuff, people.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

That was off the cuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

This man is a genius.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

No, no, no. Winners define the win and stick to that. Right? Like there, there's so so what we just talked about. My wife, I'm not quitting on her. Yeah, right? Like, so because the the win for us is a long and faithful uh marriage, it's a faithful relationship that hey, we we have shared values. Our our assignment is like, yep, this is our assignment. So I'm going to stick to the assignment, stick to, for other words, I'm gonna stick to the calling. My wife says something to me brilliant. Um, when I when I left the role, I left, she said to me, um, she's brilliant, but she says, babe, the your calling hasn't changed, just the direction of it. Yeah. So so if I'm sticking to the win, if the win for me is that my ultimate purpose is this, and if I keep going after that, that's where that I absolutely don't quit that. Absolutely keep going to that. But if I'm so married, right, to every assignment, it's like, no, some things you need to let go, some things you do need to quit. In fact, it's in quitting that you actually discover some things. You're just like, oh, I actually like this more, or I don't like that, or I do like this, right? And and so that's what I would say. I say, I would say winners define the win and stick to that.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

That, yeah, because now I was thinking about when you were talking earlier, uh talking with an organization, they had a bunch of transition recently and they were launching and but they hadn't put the date out yet. Oh, we gotta hurry up and launch and do this thing, and da da da. And it was like, well, what if you push it back by a week or two? Yeah, what happens? What do you lose? It's like, what do you gain? Yeah, well, what's the win? Well, if the win is we launch on this date, okay. Maybe we need to rethink the win. But if the win is we launch well, intentional, yeah, prepared, yeah, at a pace that we can not just launch and burn out and then we hate what we're doing, but we launch and and the snowball of enthusiasm rolls down the hill because we all came in not out of breath but excited. Oh, that's the win. Yeah, that's should we push it? Yeah, we should probably push it. Right. That's that's good. Yeah, okay. How about you, man? I was trying to be as clever as you. No, don't do that. You're much more clever than I. Oh, sorry, oh sorry. Yeah, only the strong survive. I'll be clever. It takes strength and weakness to thrive. If it rhymes, it must be good.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I mean, if it doesn't rhyme, it sucks. But if it rhymes, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

It is a yeah, only the strong survive to it's it takes strength and weakness to thrive. And I think embedded in that is like an awareness that we all bring strengths and weaknesses, we all bring things that energize us and things that drain us, and that when we embrace our weaknesses, we recognize that we're not an island and creates that interdependence, which creates that synergy. And then you talk about like teamwork being the superpower that so many of us don't tap into. I'm just gonna stay in my lane. That's that's like another piece of advice. Just stay in your lane. Uh whether it's like whether it's dealing with interpersonal team dynamics or just like, oh, I need to take care of me. I'm like, you could stay in your lane, but you're gonna be running a race of one, and what we could do together is far more than what we could do apart.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Change the game. Don't stay in your lane, change the game. It rhyme. That's why, see, see, that's what's happening. Oh man, anyway, here we go. No, so we we've hit a lot in realizing that this is not necessarily bad advice. Yeah, it's just it's not full. Yeah, and we've got to figure out how to get it more full. Um, and so as we kind of get ready to land the plane, man, what what's one leadership conviction you're more certain of today

Give It Away Character Matters

SPEAKER_00 21:10

than you were 10 years ago? I want to kind of lean into what's what's sticking to you.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah, let's, yeah, let's yeah, not just the the critique, but um I heard early on that you have to give it away to keep it. And some you might even say you have to give it away to get it.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

And so at that as a core conviction that we both share, that our ultimate purpose that everybody shares is one of service, yeah. To be of maximum usefulness to our fellows and the people about us. This service, this uh love your neighbor as yourself, right? And as like a leadership axiom that it's easy to forget, like, oh, you have to give it away to keep it, you have to give it away to get it, whatever it is, and to think, well, I gotta, I gotta hoard this, I gotta take this, you know, my time. And it's like actually, um our life grows as we give. Yeah. And that if we bring that mindset to our organization, it creates a culture of generosity and and it just it just blooms. But even from a really practical standpoint, it's like we were just talking about five, 10-year plans. And right now, uh, you know, we have some administrative support, like employee-wise, but it's us, lead consultants and coaches. And we thought, well, what would it look like to raise up a whole team of people that were on fire about helping leaders thrive to restore the world? Well, you got to give it away to get it, which is like the opposite of I want it done right, I need to do it myself. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's gonna stay pretty small then. Yeah. So that's it for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

So so there's a I think it's a proverb uh that the world of the generous gets larger and larger, and the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. Um it's just true. No matter where you go, it's just true. Um, I think for me, man, the one that jumps out is character matters. Um I I I don't care. I've seen great leaders, I've been in rooms with high-powered leaders over the last 10 years. I I've been super blessed to be in some of the spaces I've been in. What shows up for me more than ever is not how well you can speak, not how much money you have, not how big your team is, how big your organization is. What I've found to be true is that your character matters. Um, and the challenge in leadership I've found even in my own life that the best seasons of life I've had and the best leadership I've been under or best leadership I've done is been when I have been working on my gifts, right? Working on those gifts, but really deeply forming my character and understanding that what I'm doing, right? The the the that's a whole thing, the assignment that I'm in, the the thing that I'm uh supposed to be doing is actually for character building. And I think when we get to that space of, hey, character matters, then all the other stuff, it's not that it doesn't matter, but that becomes now I'm more vulnerable. I'm I'm more I'm more able to take off the lid that I've created as a leader. I I'm just I'm giving room. And you're right, if I'm if people are following my lead, what's happening for me to say that character matters, now the rest of our team understands that as well. Like, no, I'm I'm you can say all the great things you want. You could be the most talented person, but give me a person who's moderately talented, but has great character and potential, I'll work with them all day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

We severely underestimate that all that we do flows out of who we are. Yeah. And you talk about this all the time. Like, what do you want to do? Good question. Great. Yep. Better question, who do you want to become? Yeah, that's it. And to become the type of person that can carry the weight of leadership, yeah, there's skills and tricks, and we love them, and systems and strategy, all of it. Bring it all in. Yeah, but if it's on a shaky foundation, it's not gonna stand. Yeah, yeah. All right, friends, here's how you could cross the threshold this week. What is a leadership belief that you've been carrying

A Question To Re Examine Beliefs

SPEAKER_01 25:22

that needs to be re-examined? What's an assumption about leadership, about life? Maybe one of the ones that we lifted up or something similar that really needs to be re-examined and potentially brought some nuance um to it. So we want to encourage you, share this episode uh with a leader that's been around long enough to have changed their mind about something, or a young leader uh who's trying to avoid making the same mistakes. I'm JC. I'm James. Till next time. See ya.