Leaders Reproduce Who They Are

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. I am so glad that you are joining Chris Goede and I today because we really do want to add value to you so that you’ll multiply value to others. Today, John is going to be talking about leaders reproduce who they are. Chris. He. He makes a statement in here. He says there are days that a leader wishes they were not a leader. So just before we get going to.

Mark Cole:
Is this that day for you? Are we. We’re going to have a good podcast here?

Chris Goede:
It’s today, it’s yesterday, it’s tomorrow. Right? It’s like every day.

Mark Cole:
Hey, God says there’s no. He’ll say it in the lesson today. There’s no two good days in a. Two good consecutive days in a leader’s life. Well, why does there have to be two bad consecutive days?

Chris Goede:
But not. That’s right. I am glad he told us that when we were young, though, because we would not be sitting here. I would have checked out. But I go, man, tomorrow’s coming.

Mark Cole:
It’s called resilience, man. It’s called resilience. Hey, welcome. We are so glad you’re here. In fact, John, today is really going to drive home a quote by Jack Welch. Jack Welch says, before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. So we want to talk about how you grow yourself today and how you reproduce that growth in others.

Mark Cole:
So I hope you’ll grab a pen, a piece of paper. In fact, if you would like to Follow along with John’s notes. We have a follow along worksheet for you and you can find that at MaxwellPodcast.com/Reproduce. We’ll also put the link to our YouTube channel. You can watch the podcast visually. We’ll put some show in our show notes. We’ll put some other things for you, some value add for you as we get started today. Understanding that leaders reproduce who they are.

Mark Cole:
Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
Well, every day I have challenges because I live in a world of always wanting to stretch myself and grow myself. And I tell people, if you live in a world, I live in a world that’s out of my comfort zone. So I’m always learning new things, trying new things. I’m still growing, I’m still learning. And so every day is a challenge because I’ve got things before me that perhaps I’ve never done before, or they’re hard to do. I tell people all the time, do you either wake up in the morning with a yawn, which basically means it’s just gonna be another day like yesterday, or do you wake up with a gulp like, oh, crap, I got a mountain in front of me today. I got something bigger than me that I’m gonna have to tackle. I’m gonna have to.

John Maxwell:
It’s gonna take courage. It’s gonna take time to live in a world that is bigger than you, beyond you, that stretches you, that doesn’t allow you to get comfortable. I don’t think people stretch uncomfortable. I have daily challenges every day. But my greatest daily challenge has been the same for all my life. And it’s never gone away. And it’s the same today. And my greatest daily challenge is leading me.

John Maxwell:
It’s truly leading me. It’s easy to lead you. It’s easy for me to tell you what to do. It’s easy for me to tell you the qualities of a leader. It’s easy for me to lay out a blueprint for your life. It’s easy for me to do all this stuff for you, but my greatest challenge is I gotta do it too. It’s easier to tell people what to do than to do it yourself. Are you with me? And so.

John Maxwell:
And you would think that by this age I would be over this, but I’m not over this. I still have to lead me every day. I still have to. I still have to step up and be the example. And there’s no such thing as leadership by proxy. Now, there have been a lot of days I wish I was. Maybe you have. Have you ever had a day when you wish you didn’t have to be the leader.

John Maxwell:
You know what I’m talking about? You gotta make a tough decision, and you gotta. And there’s a whole bunch of days I’d like to say, you know what? Today you be the leader. You know, and I’ve got a whole list of things for you to do that I don’t wanna do, but that isn’t the way leadership works. So my greatest daily challenge is still to this day leading me and making sure that I have credibility and authenticity and that when I say something, I do that. And I think I’ll probably die with that still being my greatest challenge. Again, to tell others is easy to. To show others is difficult. To tell others to lead, it’s easy to lead.

John Maxwell:
It’s not always easy. There are no two good consecutive days in a leader’s life because you’re responsible for people. And so every day I wake up, my first thought is gratitude to God for who he is and what he’s blessed me with. And my second emotion immediately behind gratitude is responsibility. The day that you become a leader, you realize that you’re responsible for other people, and it just never leaves you. It never leaves you. Now, I take that challenge with great joy, too, because you get to help a lot of people. So I’m not negative about it, but I’m realistic about it.

John Maxwell:
And realistic means that every day I’ve got to be to you who I am, and I’ve got to, you know, we teach what we know, but we reproduce who we are. And great leaders reproduce great people because of who they are, not because of what they say. And so there’s something beautiful about example. There’s something beautiful about being a visual. You know, leadership is very visual. It’s very visual. And what people see is what people do. So that’s just very important for me every day to understand that I’ve got to model for you what is hopefully good for you.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back, Chris. As John was teaching today, and of course you and I have this discipline. We go and lean into it, listen to it, come back out of it and talk about applying it. But, but I love the thought that kept hitting me. My greatest daily challenge is leading myself. And that really is, I mean, I find myself in the good times and the bad times, always looking to how I can sharpen myself. We call it around here self leadership. And it’s a big focus for sure.

Chris Goede:
I tell people all the time I’m the best salesperson I’ve ever met. So you travel a lot. I travel a lot. And when I’m on the road, I know I shouldn’t have that Oreo milkshake. That’s right, Chick Fil A. But I had a rough day. It wasn’t a good day. Right.

Chris Goede:
It was one of those gulp days as John talks about. And, and so leading yourself is hard and that has to. That that’s where leaders have to start. And I love that. We’re going to start right here on this podcast from John because this is a passion of yours. Your, your personal growth trajectory and the intentionality behind it is a direct result of where you’re at today. So let’s start right here. Leading Mark Cole.

Chris Goede:
What are some things that are non negotiables for you? You know, the irreducible daily minimums that you are sold out to in order for you to be so intentional about your growth? Because it, we’re going to, we’re going to talk about then how that impacts everybody around you, including my leadership. And it starts with you. So talk a little bit about that. What are some of your daily routines? How, where have you seen the most growth? Like, what really resonates when I say, hey, talk to me about your intentional personal growth. What?

Mark Cole:
Well, I think a daily routine is to learn something. I start out every single day and I identify the environment I’m going to be in. That will probably teach me the most if I have a learning posture. You know, as leaders, often we look at our agenda and we go, where have I got to step up? In fact, John teaches. He’s taught on this podcast. He teaches about the time of the day to be a hundred percent. And I agree with that. I think a leader has a responsibility to look forward to the day.

Mark Cole:
But for me, I, I look at the beginning of every day and I look and say where do I think I’m going to have the potential to learn the most? And so call that intentionality, call that mindset, but I think that’s one of them. I think the other that I’m really passionate about is, and we’re talking a little bit about this today. Where is the moment that I’m going to transfer something that I’m learning? Where is the moment? In fact, you and I sit here today before recording, and I told you a little bit of what I’m personally working through right now in my leadership, and I’m telling you, on the drive in today, I went, okay, what. What little bit do I give you? Because I didn’t give you anywhere near a ton. What little bit do I give to Chris that will be paying it forward, what I’m learning and processing right now? I have a lunch this afternoon with another one of our leaders, and I’ve already kind of thought through, what can I transfer that’s going on inside of me to those that’s going on around you?

Chris Goede:
Actually, you actually helped me with this several days ago. We had a meeting outside of this. You did the same thing. You’re like, hey, I hear you saying this, but I’ve learned right through my process. It’s. This is what’s really happening. Not that. And it was super helpful.

Chris Goede:
And I told you as I was leaving, I was like, that was a big distinction for me. And so just talking about that, even in the daily conversations with people around you, being able to transfer, that adds value to them. But you were intentional about it. You were, you were looking in that conversation to help me learn something in that moment. Transfer what you’ve learned. Yeah. From that.

Mark Cole:
Yeah. You know, John said something, chris, you may be going here, but it’s that gulp factor.

John Maxwell:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
And John talked about that lesson today, and, And I thought about the gulp factor of all of us as leaders. You. You’ve played ball at the, at the highest level, and you’ve worked with a lot of athletes. You. We work with a lot of professionals, you know, and often in leadership, we. We want to eliminate the stress.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Mark Cole:
We want to eliminate the pressure. I was with Jack Nicklaus just about a month ago now, and he was talking about he lived for pressure. And somebody raised their hand, says, what do you mean you live for pressure? He said, well, where’s the greatest pressure in golf? It’s playing on Sunday. Yeah, it’s playing in the last pairing on Sunday because all the TVs there, all the crowds are there. They’re at the last they’re at the last two or three holes. I mean, everybody that’s on the course is there at the end. And guess what? You want to be in the last pairing. That’s right.

Mark Cole:
You want to be there at the last. You want to be playing on Sunday. You play to be in a place of pressure. And you know what? For years I went through, I went through a leadership dip to where I was leading at a high level, lost everything, wasn’t leading anything. Nobody cared what my opinion was. And I can remember back then going, I can’t wait to be at the table again. Well, guess what? Today I’m at the table. And you know what’s at the table? Pressure.

Mark Cole:
The gulp factor. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. And often leaders, we ask for the opportunity and then resist the consequences of the opportunity. I would encourage all of us to go back to, are we playing to be in the game on Sunday? Are we playing for no pressure and no ease? The greater the player, the more they pursue the pressure. The greater the pressure, the. The more that they matter. The more they matter, the more they’re back to what they ever set out on the journey to become. And that is my leadership to matter.

Mark Cole:
I want my leadership to matter.

Chris Goede:
Isn’t it true, like John talks about what gets you out of bed in the morning in that situation, oftentimes people look at that and the gulp factor, and they look at it in the positive light. I get to go, whatever today. This is amazing. But they don’t do the same thing when it’s tough and when it’s. When it’s a big gulp, because it’s a big leadership challenge or a moment to be in that on a Sunday, the final pairing. And it’s interesting of the mindset of what gets you out of bed in the morning. Listen, leader, sometimes it’s going to be the goal and a lot of problems that you got to get up and solve and fix. And I know you’ve had your share of going through that with John, right? And I can think about so many different things.

Chris Goede:
And I often know, and you refer to Stephanie, your wife, saying, man, you were made for hard.

Mark Cole:
That’s 100.

Chris Goede:
But that, that doesn’t come without developing yourself. So let me come back to the very first point. He’s been super intentional about that, but that allows you then to get up every morning and gulp, but to get after it.

Mark Cole:
Well, and again. So my mind was all about this playing on Sunday, and I guess about a month ago, it was the Cadillac Classic. Or something. In Miami, Scotty Scheffler was playing. He had had three second place finishes in a row and now he comes to the Cadillac Classic, whatever it’s called, I’m butchering the name. And he comes to that and the leader is six or seven strokes out at the beginning and he and about five other are battling for second place. And he gave it post match interview and he said, I didn’t really feel like that I could put the pressure on myself of overcoming a six or seven stroke to get first place. But what I did do is I said, okay, how? When’s the last time somebody’s finished four times in second place? And he said, I put pressure on myself that day to keep myself in the game.

Mark Cole:
A lot of times I put pressure to win it. But this time I wasn’t sure that I could put pressure. So what did I do to put pressure to be one of the first people in a long time to have four consecutive second finish starts? And I went, wow, the greats know how to find the pressure and apply it so that they’ll become greater.

Chris Goede:
What’s one thing in, in your developing yourself, what’s one thing that you are intentional about that allows you to handle that type of pressure as a leader?

Mark Cole:
So it is reminding myself every single day that I’m a pressure. You’ll. You saw this happen just while ago. You saw this happen just while ago. I’ve had a particularly. John. John Maxwell called me this past weekend and he said, hey, how was your week? Because we didn’t get to talk much. I said, oh, I’ve had better.

Mark Cole:
That was my answer. He went, well, I don’t think I’ve heard you say that very often.

Chris Goede:
I said, you say, well, it’s because of conversations.

Mark Cole:
It was one of those kind of weeks. And so I came in today because it’s a Monday. We come in off the weekend and I’m kind of quickly as I set out on the car, I said, in the car, I got to give Chris just a little bit to kind of reproduce who I am. And then you saw me, we started listening to John. I went, okay, Mark, let’s go. I clicked something in my head to say, hey, whoa, wait. Everybody coming into the podcast today may be coming to figure out how to overcome difficulty, but they’re not coming to try to understand my difficult times. They’re coming to understand how to be an overcomer.

Mark Cole:
And I pop myself together and I went, hey, whoa, wait. Bring you a game, baby. It’s game time. It’s not lament. Time. It’s not struggle time. It’s not oh, poor pitiful me time. No, no, it’s time to lead.

Mark Cole:
And so back to your question, selftalk. I go, you know what, Mark, let’s get it going. This is the time to lead. And people don’t pay for average and people do not ask for trouble.

Chris Goede:
Right? And you want your leaders talking about reproducing yourself. You want your leaders doing the exact same thing, 100% right, with the teams that they lead and then also the clients that we get the privilege to serve with. So John talks about then that, you know, we teach what we know, but we reproduce who we are. Do you think leaders underestimate how much their behavior is actually mirrored within their team? Like, do you think that the way the example that they set, they’re just like, oh, well, that’s just me. My team’s not going to do that? Or do you really believe that they go, man, my team’s going to mirror who I am.

Mark Cole:
It’s so interesting. And we’ll spend the balance of our time, no doubt, talking about this because that’s what we’re talking about in this lesson is leaders reproducing who they are. And oftentimes as a leader, and I have been known, even on this podcast, to admit to you guys that I’m a recovering people person. I’m a. I’m a recovering people pleaser.

Chris Goede:
Right?

John Maxwell:
That’s right.

Mark Cole:
I’ll tell you, my new discovery is I’m now realizing that I am a. I don’t know if I’m recovering yet, but I’m an admitted control freak. Okay? And everybody already knew that, but I’m now letting people know that I now know that. So it’s not like this is a revelation for anybody else. It’s a revelation for me of how deep it is. Here’s what. So back to your question. Here’s what’s interesting to me.

Mark Cole:
I think us type, A driven leaders, control freak type leaders, we do more suppressing the diversity around us and highlighting the. The similarities to us.

Chris Goede:
Agree?

Mark Cole:
So then what happens is we squelch diversity on a team because we highlight, we celebrate, we ask for and we discourage anything different than what’s like us limited perspective. It is. And what I’ve discovered is, is the more of a control freak you are, podcast listener, or let me say it this way, the more control freak we are, podcast friend, I believe the more that we squelch diversity on our team and we try to draw people that are like us, and that’s not the point of what John’s saying right now. We’re not reproducing who we are in the sense we only bring similar characteristics, similar strengths around us. We’ve got to find a way to celebrate the diversity of leaders and people around us to complete us.

Chris Goede:
Totally agree.

Mark Cole:
And too often I’ve been guilty of bringing people around me that are like me, that make me feel good about me, that make me feel validated about me, rather than people that will make me feel more confident and well rounded as a team.

Chris Goede:
Well, and you know that that’s how you make the body complete, right? And oftentimes as leaders, we do want to control. By the way, self admission here. I had a coach of mine about six months ago, flew out to spend the entire day with them and within the first hour said, why do you feel like you need to control everything? So maybe you, you and I ought to have a different conversation outside of this podcast. But what’s. What’s really interesting is he’s like, man, we. I want you to lead where you’re strong, okay? But you have weaknesses. You. You have blind spots.

Chris Goede:
And I want you to build a team around you that can handle that so that you guys make up that. That complete body. I want to come back to something you just said that triggered me for just a minute. You’re talking about your personal growth journey. Learning this. Now I’m learning I’m a control freak. The. In not the inconsistency, the continual growth that you have and the message you just so transparently share with our podcast family, but also with our leadership team.

Chris Goede:
How does that. How do you keep your team from being less confused on what’s important to Mark because you’re on such a growth journey that there is different seasons of life that are so important to you. What’s your expectations, I guess of mirroring that because of the team, you want them to represent who you are. How do you communicate that? What’s your expectation of the team to follow you along that growth journey?

Mark Cole:
I’m trying, Chris. And this is confessions. Good for the soul right here. You’re leading beside me. You see me in leadership environments all the time. I’m trying something a little bit different recently that I hope is going to make me more effective. It’s as simple as asking more questions, but I have found that recently I am asking more questions with a lot less pre determination of the questions or the conclusions. John teaches.

Mark Cole:
John teaches that the power of an answer is in the second and third question, not in the first question. And what he’s really teaching us in that statement is oftentimes we as leaders go in and ask questions for a multiplicity of reasons, but it’s not to get to the conclusion, because most of us already have the conclusion. If you will go in and find the art of the second or third question, it indicates that you didn’t come in with preconceived ideas. And so I’m asking a second or a third question now, and that’s making me listen to what the answer is. So I know what the second or third question is, because I don’t come in with a second or third question. I come in with one question and a determination to ask two or three after that. And it’s a game changer for me. And here’s what I’m finding out in that.

Mark Cole:
I’m finding out that I was controlling a lot more than I even realized because I was coming in and asking a question so that I could give you understanding.

Chris Goede:
Well, you know, for so long. Let’s talk about this, because so long, that was your role, right? John would say, hey, I feel like we’re being led this. Go do that, Mark. And you go. Got it. And you would ask questions to make sure you were right, but you knew where you were going. And so now you’re making this shift in a different seat, right, as the visionary, the CEO. So much so that I was just reminded last week I said to you in a meeting, well, you know where you’re going to tell.

Chris Goede:
Remember the conversation? I said, you. I know you know where you’re going. I’m trying to help you get there based off the questions you were asking. So we’ve been together long enough. I’ve made some assumptions. And you’re. What you’re saying here is that my growth is in the area of becoming more curious so that I can have a team that wants to share their perspective and so that we can have diversity of thought. Then you can make the best decision.

Mark Cole:
I’m going to go somewhere real quick, man. We’re going to run out of time, as usual, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to go to the third point yet. I know.

Chris Goede:
Sorry.

Mark Cole:
So. So I’m gonna. I’m gonna go one step further. So go back to that meeting where you went. I know you’re. I know you know where you’re going, so. So tell me where you’re going, where I can help you. And I, I.

Mark Cole:
I have taken great pride in that, Chris. Great pride that I am a leader. That knows where I’m going. It’s my responsibility to rally people to the Hill, and I think I’m one of the best. Rallying to whatever heel John wants to show you.

Chris Goede:
Absolutely.

Mark Cole:
Like crazy.

Chris Goede:
Like crazy.

Mark Cole:
Well, I really came into that meeting to where you did make an assumption, but it wasn’t an assumption. It was like we’ve worked alongside of each other for two decades plus. I know what you’re doing. And I went, I’m really not. I really don’t know where I’m going at the beginning of this meeting. And I think you kind of smiled and went, yeah, we’ll say I didn’t believe you until right now. You didn’t. I can see it in your eyes.

Mark Cole:
But even this morning, you know, I was telling you kind of some of the stuff in process, I’m still figuring it out and it feels very destabilizing to me. But I think it’s a great thing because I’m trying to reproduce leadership that will be able to adapt and to respond to the times rather than to go in with the preconceived ideas. This is a book that really impacted me. I brought it in the studio today. For those of you that are watching the podcast, I’m holding up a non John Maxwell title book. I don’t do that very often. It’s Pat Lincioni, a very good friend of mine, wrote the book the Motive. And in this he talks about responsibility based leadership and reward based leadership.

Mark Cole:
And what I’ve discovered over the last probably decade. Chris. That the style of leadership I used in the first decade of leadership in John’s organization is different than the style of leadership I used in the second decade. The second decade was much more of a reward based leadership than a responsibility based leadership. And whether that’s right or wrong, I’m not getting into today. I’m really studying the concept. But here’s what I’ll tell you. It’s got to get back to responsibility based leadership.

Mark Cole:
And that’s why I described to you a little bit earlier this tension of needing to be out on the road and needing to be here in the office. That’s a responsibility.

Chris Goede:
Both of those are your responsibilities.

Mark Cole:
Exactly right.

Chris Goede:
So you’re like.

Mark Cole:
But one is more of a reward based of the last decade of leadership and the other is more of a responsibility base. I’ve got to be here in the mix to help us figure out some of the things we’re working through.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. So this conversation, if you’re listening right now and you’re a Leader, I want to challenge you to grow like Mark is growing. But here’s what’s really just resonating with me in this conversation. I also want to challenge you to be transparent about the shifts in what’s going on in your leadership through your personal growth so that your team can come alongside and also go, he’s actually going to a place of his growth and what he’s learning. But that doesn’t happen unless you have conversations like this.

Mark Cole:
That’s right.

Chris Goede:
So that they can come alongside you and understand and help what your growth is. Right. And a rising tide raises all boats. Then all of a sudden I get into that boat with you and start learning and start sharing and then it just compounds. And so that’s a very important part of what you’re hearing. Mark and I do right now is his transparency and authenticity and where he’s at as a leader and the journey he’s been on. Because if he didn’t share that and I didn’t have context or our leadership team didn’t have context in that, then it would be so confusing. We wouldn’t have clarity, which.

Chris Goede:
And if we don’t have clarity, we have confusion, which leads to failure, which

Mark Cole:
again, you’re going to want to pick up the motive book, by the way. Pat Lynson, you’re welcome. So, so, but here’s what I’m saying with this is the responsibility driven leadership leader slows down and explains that to the team. A reward base does it. It just keeps going. And so that creates that confusion. Without context, people are okay with a leader that’s trying to figure it out. If they know that that’s what the leader’s trying to do, they’re not okay with a leader that’s trying to figure it out.

Mark Cole:
And he will not admit, she will not let them know because then it

Chris Goede:
feels like confusion and the team can see it. That’s right. Okay, so then I love this next point because you have modeled this with John and John talks about that leadership is visual. We talk about it being a visual sport. People are watching you all the time. And reproducing yourself into leaders inside your organization does require proximity. It’s why you’re committed and called. You and Stephanie are called to the proximity of John and have access to him so that.

Chris Goede:
Right. You can become a leader that has John’s values and DNAs to be able to carry that mantle forward. Why is that? So important for leaders to go, man, I better make sure my team has some proximity, some access to me. If you want to reproduce who you are versus just telling them that, hey, this is the type of leader I want you to be.

Mark Cole:
You know, I watched in my developing career here at Maxwell Leadership, I watched leaders come and go and the seeming consistency was a separation between the founder and the leader in vision, direction and implementation. It would start like as this one degree of separation that would end up being a 10 to 15 transition separation. And so, and I watched that happen time and time again. And it wasn’t a moral and ethical, a passion, even a calling. It was that the organization was going one way and the founder, the leader was going another way. And so I truly learned from that and said, I will make progress. Proximity to the founder, a pre. Speaking of irreducible minimum, it will be a pre decided decision that if I ever have too much to do that I can’t be in proximity with John, then I have too much to do because that’s a requirement.

Mark Cole:
We’ve come a long way, we’ve seen results that we never even imagined. A business plan didn’t even yield some of our results. A huge wonderful team didn’t even necessarily deliver the results. It was proximity. It was keeping myself, my leadership, our team in close proximity with the rainmaker, with the, with the entrepreneur minded leader that we had. And so today, as I look at that power of proximity, I realize that it keeps the team, the organization, the leaders together. Proximity does, it allows mentorship to happen so that there is this seamless connection. And then the third thing that I think is incredible benefit is you are certain that the results you’re getting is because everybody’s vested in the results.

Mark Cole:
You don’t have a leader out there doing whatever John was doing or whatever Mark’s doing and have a disconnect on the results. We’re all in it together. When you have proximity.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And this year specifically, what I love about it is you’re transitioning. This leadership journey you’re on, you made a commitment and you said, hey, once a month for sure, I’m going to be in Atlanta in a conference room with our leaders and you’re going to hear from me and you’re going to hear my DNA and you’re going to hear your heart, which has never been done before. And I think that is part of you going to this next season of developing leaders that represent Mark Cole and your heart and where you’re at for the future. And I know, I know it Speaks volumes, volumes to the team. Because even recently one of our leaders said, I cannot believe we’ve had every single one of them through the first part of the year because that’s not common. Let me, let me close with this question for you. Do you think, do you think it’s possible to be a high performing leader yourself leading an organization, but then reproduce unhealthy leaders underneath you? And if you do, why does that happen to leaders?

Mark Cole:
Well, I do believe that’s possible. You’ve been around, you and I have been around and we’ve seen a lot of leadership teams and leadership environments. You have this hard charging, high performing leader that there is no depth to the DNA of that leader in the organization because he or she has not taken time to develop others. There’s no producers outside of that one because they’re not taking time and make it attractive to other producers coming. I think a lot of times it’s either because of, forgive me for using very common words that are overused, narcissistic leadership. They don’t see the value of the team. They perceive themselves as being the only one valuable on the team. That’s usually a big cause of that.

Mark Cole:
Or the second one is they don’t see the value of developing others. That’s right. And your business, that’s right. Your business at Maxwell Leadership Corporate Solutions is all about getting leaders, getting teams to slow down and develop people along the way. And I think it’s those two things. I think it’s narcissism to where I don’t need, no, I don’t need anybody else but me. So anybody else come and they, they either never attract great performers or they push great performers out or they just don’t see the value of developing leaders.

Chris Goede:
And I think a lot of leaders that are, are super influential, productive, they understand the value of both. Yep. Right. And then you bring other leaders in and if you don’t intentionally and have proximity and spend time with them, they know it’s important to produce. That’s our human nature. We get a job, we’re excited, it’s great, let’s go produce. And we forget about the value in people. And it’s such a, it’s such a precise blend because you got to do both.

Chris Goede:
We know that you can’t do one or the other. And if they don’t understand, then the value of people, in my opinion and what you’re saying too is that they become unhealthy. 100 and we have a turnover problem and that’s costing the organization money. And then eventually, and I’ve seen you do this throughout the years, eventually gets to a point where then you got to make a transition with that unhealthy leader. The reason that we say that is, as I wrap up, is that we want to make sure that as you’re leading any part of a team or an organization or a family or community volunteer group, make sure that you are reproducing who you are completely, but not necessarily just to have the same type of people on your team. The core of who you are, the values behind what drives you, the DNA, that’s what’s important. But we got to have them skilled in different areas because they bring different perspectives to the team.

Mark Cole:
Yep, yep, I agree. Hey, you. Our community is what makes this podcast not only possible, but makes it effective. We can, we can put out our examples of applying, but it’s you taking them and then applying them in your context that makes this podcast what it is. So one of our podcast listeners, and there may be a reason they didn’t want to us to use their name, this may be a little too close. Maybe it’s a team of people listening. But had a great question for us and I want to give you this question, Chris. I’ll answer it and then I’d love to hear your thoughts on Most of the people in my organization are older than me.

Mark Cole:
How do I lead up and create an environment of trust and respect? And I love the question because it’s a hunger question, it’s a posture question scan. It’s not saying how do I deal with people that won’t pay attention to me? How do I pay attention to people that think I’m too young? I love the way you contextually reference this question because it puts you in the driver’s seat of the answer to the question, which is how do I lead up and create an environment of trust and respect? I spent most of my career leading up. In fact, today I still lead up. I’m the CEO of the organization, but I still lead up because the influencers in my world are people that I need to learn how to influence, how to gain trust, how to gain respect. I have found there’s about seven things in the book 360 degree leader on how to lead up. So my friend, first get that book because it’s an incredible, incredible insight in how to lead up. One that really sticks out to me is you find out the agenda, what, what makes those leaders you want to gain respect in, what makes them tick, what is important to them and make that important. To you go give them results in that.

Mark Cole:
What do you think, Chris?

Chris Goede:
Today, it’s so funny. We start our leadership team this morning. We start all of our team meetings with the Daily Reader. Maxwell Daily Reader. And it was an excerpt just right out of the 360 leader, just like you talked about. And it was a little passage that was leading from the middle. And just like Mark said, all of us are always leading from the middle. There’s always somebody, always that we are reporting to.

Chris Goede:
So I think this is extremely relevant. No matter the age of your leader, it doesn’t matter. You’re gonna be leading from the middle. And my answer was simply become a really good question.

Mark Cole:
Ask. Yep.

Chris Goede:
To your point, go in there and ask questions and really find out what is driving him. What are the priorities? Yeah, I report. Up to you. We had a conversation this morning, man, where are you at? How can I help you? Like asking questions so that as. As you’re leading, as you’re thinking, as you’re growing your influence, what is important to them? Like Mark talked about, when you hear an art, when you see an article, when you hear a podcast, when you have a thought, you just start peppering that stuff up. And all of a sudden they’re like, who is this Chris Goede? Right. And now all of a sudden leading up. So.

Chris Goede:
But 360 leader talks about it, and it’s a great book to. To dig deeper in that one.

Mark Cole:
There’s another podcast we did called what you expect is what you experience. We’ll put that in the show notes. We’ll get that to you as well. Thanks for the question. Thanks for all the comments. Thanks for leaning in and making this podcast effective, not only to you, but to those around you, because everyone deserves to be led well.

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