The Incomplete Leader (Part 2)

Mark Cole: Hey, welcome back to the John Maxwell leadership podcast, Mark Cole here. Part two of the incomplete leader and, John… Last week John really shared with us a couple of things that I think was extremely helpful in our journey to becoming a complete leader. I challenge you if you did not listen to last week’s podcast, go back and listen to it now. I really do believe this particular podcast builds off of each other, but then hurry back, because today after John Maxwell teaches part two, numbers three and four of the capabilities of a leader, I’m joined today in the studio by Chris Goatee, and we’re going to come back and dissect what John shared from a personal standpoint, and from a team standpoint. 

Look forward to doing that with you. But now you need to go to maxwellpodcast.com/incomplete. Download the fill in the blank worksheet, and we’re going to join John Maxwell on the incomplete leader, part two. Here is John Maxwell. 

John Maxwell: Let’s look at the third capability of a leader, which is visioning, casting vision. Sense-making and relating can be called the enabling capabilities of leadership. Your ability to make sense of what’s happening around you and relate with people enables you to lead. They help set the conditions that motivate and sustain change. 

The next two leadership capabilities, what we call visioning and inventing, are creative and are action oriented. They produce the focus and the energy needed to make change happen. Whatever change has to happen, you want to see these two characteristics or capabilities visioning, and inventing, take place. Visioning involves creating compelling images of the future, while sense-making charts a map of what is. In other words, that’s what sense-making does. It says, okay, here’s what is, vision produces a map of what could be. And more important, what a leader wants the future to be. Visioning gives people a sense of meaning in their work. Boy that is so true. 

People begin to have purpose, significance, and meaning when you cast vision. Leaders who are skilled in this capability are able to get people excited about their view of the future, while inviting others to help crystallize that image. If you realize other people aren’t joining in or buying into your vision, they don’t just turn up the volume. They engage in a dialogue about the reality of the hope that they want to produce. They use stories, metaphors, to paint vivid pictures of what the vision will accomplish. Even if they don’t have a comprehensive plan of getting there, they know if the vision is credible and compelling enough, others will generate ideas to advance it. 

Somebody always said, “How do I know that I have a good vision?” I’m going to tell how you know you have a good vision. They not only buy into that vision, but they help you make it better. So get that, would you, it’s not in your notes, but you probably ought to write that down. You know that you have a good vision when, number one, they buy into it. In other words, people say, “Oh man, let’s go do it,” all hands on deck. And secondly, they make it better. When they start making your vision better… In other words, they’re buying in now enough to say, “Boy if we did this, what would happen?” And they begin to create a new vision and begin to increase that value of that vision, then you have done a great job. Okay. 

The more valid reasons a leader can give to the people for pursuing the vision, the greater the odds in achieving it. Now you need to take that sentence and put a star beside it, or a rocket ship, or something that tells you that’s a very important statement, because it is huge. The more valid reasons a leader can give to the people for pursuing the vision, the greater the odds of achieving it. In other words, there’s a difference between the people achieving the vision because there’s one reason to achieve it, than the people that are wanting to achieve the vision, because there’s five reasons. The more valid reasons you have for achieving the dream, the higher your odds of doing so. 

So therefore when people drop out on a dream, they drop out on a dream because they probably only had one or two reasons to achieve it. But if you got a half a dozen reasons, you can’t give it up as easy, because you say, “I got to do this because of that. And then I got to do it because of that.” So the more reasons that you can create for a vision casting, in the lives of people, the much higher odds of them achieving it, okay. 

Next statement. The more inclusive a leader allows others to contribute to the vision, the greater the odds of achieving it. Oh my goodness. In other words, how do you get your vision achieved? Give people a lot of valid reasons to do it, and then include them in it till they contribute to it. Because when they contribute to it, then they become owners of it. So how do you create a vision? Five things. Practice creating the vision in many arenas. Your work life, home life, community groups. Ask yourself, what do I want to create? Practice your visions in many areas. Number two, develop a vision about something that inspires you. Why? Because your enthusiasm will motivate others, obviously. 

Number three. Expect that not all people will share your passion. Be prepared to explain why people should care about your vision and what can be achieved through it. If people don’t get it just don’t turn up the volume… But we’ve all done it. How many… Let’s stop here for a moment, how many of us… I mean us, because it’s me. I mean, how many of us, the people didn’t quite get it so we thought if we get louder, they will. How many of you relate to this, huh? You know what, I think screaming will help. In fact, I think if I can scream, point and repeat it about 22 times, that’s what I need. I’m just going to scream it and repeat it a lot of times until… In fact, I’m going to give you a headache until you catch on. Okay? Okay, we’ve all done that. That was just kind of fun to stop there. 

Number four, this is huge right here. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to accomplish the vision. If it’s compelling and it’s credible, other people will discover all sorts of ways to make it real, ways that you never could have imagined on your own. Now, I got to teach here for a second before we go to number five, because this is a huge stumbling block in leaders casting vision. Many times they know what they want to do and they visualize where they want to go, but they’re not sure how to get there. Can you relate to this? 

Now here’s the key, here’s the key. Hang on. Clarity comes before strategy. You’ve got to be clear about what you want to do, or where you want to go, before you tell people how to do it. Clarity precedes strategy. And when people get lost in the visioning process, it’s because they’re trying to map out a way to do something that they’re still fuzzy about what’s going to happen. Clarity first, and then strategy. 

All right, one more quick thought. I’ve got to hustle. Use images, metaphors, and stories to convey complex situations that will enable others to act. Okay, I think we understand that. Let’s go to inventing. Number four is inventing. Even the most compelling vision will lose its power if it floats unconnected above the everyday reality of organizational life. To transform a vision of the future into a present day reality, leaders need to devise processes that will give it life. This inventing is what moves a business from the abstract world of ideas, to the concrete world of implementation. 

In other words, inventing is what makes the vision realistic, tangible, expressible. In fact, inventing is similar to execution, but the label inventing emphasizes this process often requires creativity, I love that, to help people figure out new ways of working together. To realize a new vision, people usually can’t keep doing the same things they’ve been doing. They need to conceive, design, and put into practice new ways of interacting and organizing. So how do I cultivate inventiveness? 

Four questions. Number one, what am I missing? Don’t assume that the way things have always been is the best way to do them. What am I missing? Number two, are we creating and changing? Are we constantly creating new thoughts? Are we constantly changing within ourselves? Number three, how can I connect people and ideas? Wow. You put good people with good ideas, good stuff. Number four, what are the options? What are the options? 

Now let’s take these four leadership capabilities. Let’s take these four leadership capabilities and let’s bring them into a balancing so that they blend correctly. Sense-making, relating, visioning and inventing are interdependent. They’re not independent, they’re interdependent. You need each one of them in your organization for it to be successful. And let me tell you why, I’m going to show you why. Without sense-making, there is no common view of reality from which to start. Without relating, people work in isolation or strive toward different aims. Without visioning, there is no shared direction. And without inventing, a vision remains an illusion. 

No one leader, however, will excel at all four capabilities in equal measure. Once leaders diagnose their own capabilities, identifying their unique set of strengths and weaknesses, they must search for others who can provide the things they’re missing. Leaders who choose only people who mirror themselves, are likely to find their organization tilting in one direction, missing one or more essential capabilities needed to survive in a changing, complex, world. In other words, you don’t want people that are just like you, around you. You want people that are different than you. 

Now time out, time out. Here’s the problem, gang, here’s the problem. Insecure leaders don’t want people around them that are different. Insecurity sabotages more leaders than anything else. Nothing is worse than an insecure leader, dear God, help us. They can’t empower, they won’t. They have to control, they have to be on every issue, they’ve got to be in on it. They got to touch it, feel it, smell it, taste it, kiss it and cuss it… All right. You’ve got the idea. 

Now I close this lesson by saying to you that this is in praise of an imperfect leader. It’s in praise of an incomplete leader. I looked at all these signs and I asked myself, okay, where am I weak? And it was a little bit embarrassing and a little bit discouraging because, I found weakness in each one. But where I’m really weak is in sense-making, and inventing. I’m much better in the other two. Now what I’m going to say to you is what does that mean to me? What that means to me is I better make sure that I have sense makers around me. I better make sure that I have inventors around me. Are you with me? You want your inner circle to complete you, not compete with you. Have an abundance mindset, don’t have a scarcity mindset. Ask yourself, where am I strong? Where am I weak? Then ask yourself, who do I have around me that makes up for my weaknesses? And develop a leadership team. 

I close with this thought. In the 1980s, if you went into a bookstore and you wanted to run a business, you picked up a management book. Management was the key word in the 1980s, Peter Drucker, who I had the wonderful privilege of having mentor me, Peter Drucker was the management guru. In the 1990s, you didn’t go into bookstores to pick up management books. They were replaced by leadership books. And the reason was that in the eighties, people were wanting to get their hands around things and manage a bit, but by the nineties, things started going so fast they couldn’t keep up with… You can’t manage speed. And so they had to say, “I better learn how to lead and get out in front.” 

And now today, if you would go in the bookstores, I can promise you the books that are coming next are books on team leadership. How do you develop a team? How do you get consensus out of your organization? How do you get people to come together as a team? Not only to be a team to help you and work together, but how do you develop a team of leaders? The question is not only do you have a team, but do you have a team of leaders. 

Mark Cole: Welcome back to what was an incredibly deep thought provoking question from John. Do you have a team of leaders? I mean, Chris, he sit there, and in that last 30 seconds, grabbed me as a leader. Now, not everybody listening to our podcast has a team of leaders, but you all plan to have one. 

Chris Goede: That’s right. 

Mark Cole: Some of you are a participant in a team of leaders. Some of you are leaders, such as myself, or Chris, that we have people leaders that work alongside us and report to us. But the question that John is asking, is not just relevant to a CEO or a president, it’s relevant to all of us that are trying to accomplish something bigger than us. 

Chris Goede: Yeah. 

Mark Cole: It’s all of us that realize in this two-part lesson that we’re incomplete leaders. And so, Chris, I’m excited to dig into this. I’ll be honest with you guys, when John was done teaching today, I just kind of was like, okay, I’m done. I don’t have anything to share. I got a lot to go study and think about, I’ve got work to do on these two. 

Chris Goede: What I love about what John said as we wrapped up there, and I don’t want our listeners to miss this, he said, “Hey, we’re deficient in all of these, by the way.” And not only are Mark and I convicted by listening to the lesson, you need to be convicted in these as well. But there are certain ones you have strength on, and there are certain ones that you need to surround yourself with a team. And as we talk about these two capabilities, and Mark and I never even left the studio after last conversation, we’re still talking about this. And Jake and I were watching Mark listen to John’s lesson, and it’s so relevant. And we were so convicted, we were just going to let Mark riff, but we said, no, we better have some type of interaction. 

With where you’re at with leadership and what we’re doing, you’re building your team this year, and all of the things we went through. And John begins talking about this visioning capability that you need to have. Talk to us just a little bit about some of your thoughts around the vision being incredible, making it compelling, getting your team to have multiple reasons to align with that vision that you have. What were some of those thoughts that are going through your mind, with your leadership right now, around this capability? 

Mark Cole: Yeah. And this will be a fun lesson for us, Chris, because you’re side by side with me, and you’re getting to see the inconsistencies, the incompleteness of my leadership in a new way. And so this is going to be interesting, and I’ve got some things that really are swirling in my mind, but I’m going to be interested to hear you come back and pull out of that, of what you’re observing too. 

John says that in sense making, it’s about what is. We know where we are, let’s chart the course to get where we need to go. And visioning, it’s what could be. And I think many of you podcast listeners know, if you’ve listened to us for some time, John has been mentoring me for several years to see if I have the capability of leading his legacy for the next decade, two decades, five decades. And so we’re working through that and he is mentoring me very intentionally. There’s going to be a day that John and I are going to do a multi segment on succession, succession planning. I can’t wait for it, John and I are working on it. Every time he’s mentoring me right now, we’re working on this content, because so many transitions fail. So many, 80% plus. 

Chris Goede: That’s right. 

Mark Cole: We’re committed not to fail. We’re committed to learn from mistakes. But John is on a four part mentoring time with me. And there’s no timeframe to it, there is just an awareness when we look each other in the eye and say, “We’re ready for the next segment.” It’s been four segments. Segment number one was leading at a big level. John’s brand is one of the largest, most recognized leadership brands in the world. Can Mark Cole be developed to lead that kind of a brand? That’s a big push for me. 

The second thing that he did was communicate. Now I’m not going to ever communicate like John, but I need to communicate a lot better. John’s been talking, in the last two lessons, about quit talking so loud. Just because people don’t understand don’t mean you need to up the volume. Well I was an up the volume kind of guy. You couldn’t get it, I relied on my passion to convince you to get it. And John’s been working with me for several years now on communication. And for those of you that know me and have loved me through that mentoring, I’ve gotten at least a little bit better. 

The third area that John has just began to start mentoring me on is visioning, visionary. Creating vision that is bigger than me, creating vision that is compelling to others, creating vision that is unseen by anybody else, but motivates others to reach for the unseen. And I got to tell you, Chris, this one’s a hard one for me. I thought communication was hard. Leadership came a little natural to me, I’ve been around leadership all of my life. Communication is a little hard. This one’s difficult. 

The next one, just for those of you that love lists and want it to be completed, is on sensing and seizing opportunity. But we’re right now working on visioning, and Chris, last week in the podcast that I’ve encouraged all of you to make sure you go and listen to, we talked about a recent leadership meeting that we had a couple of weeks ago. And we talked about how that, I walked into that meeting and I anticipated, I sensed that there was going to be a little bit of hesitation. 

And sure enough there was. And last week I fear that I made that sound really good, this week I feel so convicted because I’m telling you, I sit in that meeting and I just raised the decibel. What I didn’t do is give valid reasons that a leader can give for pursuing the vision. In other words, when the first level of resistance, so the first level of uncertainty was there, Chris, I talked louder. I restated myself. I talked with more convincing tone. 

Chris Goede: That red hair- 

Mark Cole: That red hair flared up. And I’m sitting here today, and while last week I shared my opinion of that meeting and went… Nailed that one. I sensed it. I knew it was coming. This week I go, I was terrible because there was a better way to get a quicker, unified, conclusion. And I left the meeting with great action step, but I didn’t leave the meeting as good as it could have been because I didn’t lean into this visioning characteristic. 

Chris Goede: Yeah. And to that point, as an observer, you struggled to get buy-in in the moment, right? So you did talk a little bit louder, the red hair came out. And John talks about if you’re not getting buy-in from those around your leadership team, whatever that might look like, where you’re incomplete, they’re not going to help you complete that. They’re going to almost… John talks about, it’s not about competing, but we almost began to compete, right. It was, hey I need some more information, hey, this is not going to work. Versus, man, listen, I’m totally buying into where we’re going and I want to help make that better. Which is to your point where you felt like you just began talking a little bit louder. 

Now, Mark, what I do want to talk about a little bit more before we move on to the inventing side of things, is in addition to turning up the volume that we talked about, this past week in the meeting, you said something over and over again. And I want leaders to hear this because I want them to understand it. I want them to begin using this common language with their teams. John talks about clarity precedes strategy. And you came back several times to us on several different things, as an enterprise and as a leadership team about, you’re not really sure. 

Some of the leadership team were saying, “Hey, I just need a North star then I’ll go figure it out. Just give me the North star.” And you’re working through some things there, and you’re like, “Got it, God, I got to get that vision for you.” But you came back and you were talking about uncertainty and clarity. I want you to just talk a little bit about that for those that are listening, because in what you’re going to share, I think leaders need to be using with their team as they lead on a weekly basis. 

Mark Cole: Yeah. You know, it’s this concept that everyone wants clarity. Everybody wants it. And really this came from a friend of John Maxwell’s, a leader that I respect and know as well, Andy Stanley. But everybody wants clarity. They want to know, they want to know what’s going to happen. But oftentimes, and 2020 really showed this, we don’t always know. But we can never be uncertain. Uncertainty is leadership malpractice. And so many times we spend more time trying to get clarity before we express certainty, and what that does is leaves a team waiting without direction on what is next, and what needs to happen. 

And again, going back to sensing, last episode, John was very good on that. And I’m sensing pretty good, and I really got this on a sensing piece. But when you go to that vision piece to where people really do want clarity, and you start giving certainty that we’re going this way, but they don’t know how it’s going to end up, there is this fear almost, or this uncertainty, or this pushback. And so what I knew, and Andy talks about this, leaders during uncertain times give handles for people to hold on to. And what John’s saying in this vision, keep repeating it from different angles so that somebody can walk out of there and say, “The certainty of this direction, I can go there without the clarity that I would like to have, because I have a handle that’s going to help me make the next step. That’s going to help me go to the next place.” 

And again, going back to… I’m confessing all over on this particular podcast, where I realized just in this lesson was, I didn’t give enough handles on a personal level. I told you about a conversation that I had after that, with someone that gave them a handle, they’re all in. They’re all in because the issue was not the issue. The issue was they didn’t have a handle to help them make the next step. 

Chris Goede: Yeah. Yeah. And what I love about that, and what John teaches us is that in that clarity, Mark, you told us, “Hey, there’s uncertainty.” But in that clarity, you gave us valid reasons, compelling reasons, of why you were clear and where you believe we’re going. It’s uncertain, but you gave us that clarity, which then John talks about, the more of those that we have, the more handles, the more reasons, the higher success rate we have in accomplishing that vision that we’re set out to accomplish, on behalf of John and his legacy, and this enterprise. 

All right, so the last capability he talks about is inventing. And he talks about in here, really just developing processes that give the vision, that we have life, that makes it realistic, it makes it tangible. And I think for so many years of your leadership with John, you’ve been this component for John. I even mentioned it in our meeting the other day. I said, “Look, you have been the… You’ve been the inventor, you’ve been the turnaround, you’ve been the, I’m going to fix this. Hey, I’m going to create this. Hey, John, this is your vision, now I’m going to put the people behind it, and we’re going to make this work.” 

That’s changing for you and your leadership. You’re going to have to have people around you that help complete that. Because, not that you’re not good at it, but it’s not what the organization needs from you most right now. Talk a little bit just about that from your perspective, and your seat as the leader of our enterprise. 

Mark Cole: Yeah. And it goes back to my first statement of coming out of John’s teaching, do you have a team of leaders? And the answer is, I do, Chris. We have more horsepower, you and I, and our leadership team meeting, we have more horsepower in there than we’ve ever had. Linda Eggers, who’s been with John for 30 plus years, she says, “Mark, John Maxwell’s organization has never had a leadership team as good as this one.” And I believe her, I believe that’s right. I believe in our leadership team, I have a team of leaders. The question is, is am I going to allow them to invent with me, sometimes even for me? 

Because for 20 years, but really most specifically, the last 10 years, I have been the inventor, or as John said, the implementer with creativity, for him. And I want to pause right there with that point before I continue with the answer, Chris, the question that you asked, because did you love that, what John said? Inventing is really like implementing, only with creativity. And that is so true, I’ve never seen implementers as inventors, but really it is. And they just have the creativity to get it done. And I don’t want to miss that point, because so many times us ideators, or visionaries, or creators, don’t give implementers credibility on creativity. 

But John said, “Oh, well wait just a minute. A good execution leader is a leader that knows how to implement with creativity, which is inventing.” So I want to make sure we hit that because that’s a big shout out, a big prop to all of you operational leaders that get overlooked in the area of creativity too many times. 

Back to your question, so for years, John would ideate, would envision something, and then I would go in and balance how much, how often, and at what pace, to give those ideas to the team. And I was kind of like his air traffic controller of inventing and implementing. Now I’m in a place to where I’ve really got to rely… And not just because of his transition of ownership, or leadership responsibilities between John and I, but because of the magnitude of what our brand is trying to do. We’re going after transformation. We’re going after change your world. Because the dream and the pursuit of that dream has gotten bigger and faster, now the need for inventing has to get wider and deeper in the organization. 

And my greatest fear, and I said this to you guys on our last leadership meeting, and then one of our leaders asked, “What did you mean that that’s impacting you, Mark?” And then you came in and gave the best answer. When we went through that, in essence, what that means is it’s making me nervous, angst is the word that I used. It’s making me anxious because I’m giving up something that, for years, I became good at, so that we can get better. And that, as a leader, is scary. Not because I don’t have a team of leaders, but because I, as a leader, have to get better at inventing with others, rather than inventing through others. 

Chris Goede: Yeah. 

Mark Cole: And it’s a big deal. 

Chris Goede: What I love about this is, listeners, you guys, this is real time leadership stuff right here. John gives us incredible, consistent content. And what we’re doing is we’re just talking about how we’re living it out. This is not philosophical. This is real time between Mark and I, and what we’re dealing with, and he’s dealing with as a leader. And I hope that you’re taking notes, and I hope that you’re learning from this conversation, from Mark, and things that you need to be questioning, and talking about, and thinking about when it comes to your capabilities as a leader, more importantly, the capabilities of your leadership team. 

Because they do need to be diverse, and you need to be okay with that. You know, John says, “Don’t mirror ourselves.” One of our team members, Perry Holly, who we do a lot of work in organizations with around the world, shares a story where he was an executive at IBM, and they were at a leadership team meeting and he wasn’t paying attention in the meeting. And so the leader said, “Hey, Perry, what do you think about that, that we just talked about?” And he got caught off guard, so to try to be funny, he said, “I think whatever you think, boss,” and the boss pulled up the chair and looked at Perry and said, “Hey, if you think what I think, one of us is not needed.” And Perry’s like, “And I knew right away that I better have my own point of view. I better bring my skillset of why I’m at the table.” 

And so I share that story just to say, hey, we need to make sure that we’re allowing that to happen because we don’t want a Chris at every seat of the table. We don’t want a Mark at every seat of your table, be secure. I love what John said. I’m going to throw it back to you to wrap up. John talks about insecurity sabotages more leaders than anything else. And I think as you go through change, and as you think about these capabilities and people begin to understand that they’re deficit in certain areas, you’re going to find out who your secure leaders are. And do you have a team of leaders? 

That’s what we want. We want you to take the content and the principles that we’re living out, and we want you to think about, does your leadership team have that? Do your leaders have that? And if not, let us help you do that. That’s what we do, that’s what we’re passionate about doing. And so I’m convicted, but I also have a spirit today, after listening to these two lessons from John, of knowing the fact that he said, this is in praise of an incomplete leader, it’s okay that we’re incomplete. And we got to be okay with that. 

Mark Cole: Yeah. You know, when you were just talking about security as a leader. I get asked all the time, what’s the greatest attribute you admire about John Maxwell? And what’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned from John? And I have a whole lesson that I created on that, the five greatest lessons I’ve learned from John. But one of those is security. John is one of the most comfortable in his own skin people I’ve ever met. He has not let success, popularity, fame, wealth… He’s not let any of that change how comfortable and how non-serious, to be honest with you, he takes himself. 

So let’s tackle, for the next two minutes before we send everybody off this week, this idea of a secure leader. And I would ask you today, are you a secure leader? Hey, podcast listener, are you secure? Are you secure in your leadership? But the next question I’m going to ask you is just as important. What secures you? What is it that secures you? Whether you answered yes or no on am I a secure leader, you still are pursuing something that gives you a sense of security, because we’re humans, and we want security. We don’t like insecurity. 

So are you secure? Answer that question. Are you a secure leader? And maybe you need to ask a few people around you what it’s like to be on the other side of you, to see if you really are a secure leader, you may not have a proper perspective of yourself. But let’s go to the second question, what secures you? Is certainty what secures you? You’ll never lead anything big, because there is uncertainty all around us. The bigger the task, the more uncertainty. Is it comfort that secures? You’ll never grow because growth is uncomfortable. Is people’s affirmation what secures you? You’re in trouble because there are lonely moments in a leader that’s out front. And if you rely on people’s affirmation to secure you, then there will be a time of great insecurity in your leadership. 

And then the final question I would ask you, is it the known? What you know, what you can control, is it control that secures you? And what I’ll tell you there is, you’ll never have a team of leaders around, you’ll have a team of followers because you can’t control leaders. I tell people all the time, I’d rather reign back a mustang, than kick a mule in the side. I want people on my team that is faster than me, that is quicker than me, that is trying to go somewhere I’m trying not to go. And I want to have enough confidence and security to pull them back into the lane that we’re trying to go in, rather than trying to get a bunch of people to go somewhere and they don’t want to go anywhere. 

So control can’t be your security blanket either. There’s got to be, in my opinion, a calling that secures leaders. A sense of purpose that is beyond themself, and all the secure leaders and insecure leaders, Chris, that you and I have worked with, worked beside, observed throughout our time with John, two decades plus. I have seen that the most secure of leaders is a leader that leads from a place of calling, a place of purpose. A sense that this idea of leadership is for something bigger, and more significant than themselves. It’s the infinite game that we talk about, it’s the higher calling, it’s the greater sense of purpose. It’s the dream, the aspiration that is bigger than any one of us. 

That when a leader grabs hold of something like that, there is an internal and external security in them, that magnetizes a team of leaders, rather than repels a team of leaders. And John has given us, in the last two weeks, an incredible, insightful way to be satisfied with our incomplete leadership ability, but to be passionate about becoming a complete team of leaders. Chris, I’m blown away that I get to lead alongside of you, 10 other leaders on our leadership team that I’m blown away that we get to lead beside, because we are aspiring to be a team of great leaders. 

And this whole last concept of inventing, and John saying, “You want to be a secure leader,” should propel us this week, until next week’s podcast, where we’re going to challenge you again. It should propel us to pursue calling, so that our security and being incomplete does not make our pursuit incomplete. Because our pursuit can still be complete with a team of complete leaders around us. 

Hey, thank you for joining the John Maxwell leadership podcast today. We hope that we’ve added value to you. Our desire in this uncertain, crazy, world is to continue to proclaim a message of valuing people. In fact, we think that our message is one of people-centric values-based servant leadership, and we invite you on that journey, lead yourself so you can lead others. And until next week, let’s lead. (silence).