What is leadership? Pt.3

Welcome, and thank you for tuning in to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. I'm your host, Ralph Owens, along with Terry Bell. In today's episode, we'll cover topics such as your purpose by design, subjective promotion, controlling the narrative about you in rooms you can't be in, decoding the rules of the game and what is true you to show. Enjoy the show.

You tap into who you are, what your purpose is. Right? And that purpose over time, that's and I was listening to part six of your perspective, your choice. And Ralph, when you started talking about the young ladies who had mentored you like early on in your in your in your journey and how as time has gone on, they're still on their leadership journey. But it it was evolving like the one young lady is now a writer.

Ralph, do you understand the level of influence that she has over the world? Oh, Hallmark. Her books are becoming Hallmark move. That is true leadership and that is true discovery. Right?

She tapped into something inside of her as she got out of that realm of leadership into another.

Mhmm. It's an interesting story. Yeah.

Yeah. And so so here's the thing though. Right? So just to tap to to to go back to the original point in that leadership historically has been said looks like this, sounds like this, is based in this framework. Right?

And no one can prescribe where your journey is gonna take you. Have no idea how you have been designed, right? Designed by purpose to impact the world, to impact your sphere of influence. So, you know, again, Ralph, I I I wanna make sure I coined this because you have the twenty first century version of you know what I'm gonna say. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

That's right. You

coined it. Said this and I love it. I've been telling my kids this. I've been repeating it to my wife. Look, you can hate the game and get stuck or you can win at the game and prosper.

It's your choice. It is 100% your choice. And for so long, we thought that we didn't have a choice. We thought we had to act a certain way when things were presented to us. No.

It is 100% your choice. If we can step back long enough to get over the anger and sometimes the pride to realize this game that we're in, that we're all in and understand that, okay, this this this game is being played a certain way and there are rules to every game. You may not know what the rules are, but you you being held accountable to them. I I got a chance to visit we'll go to an event last week with an author. Her name is Carla Harris.

Has been on Wall Street for over thirty years. Went through the ranks, was able to achieve some amazing things. And I was telling Terri, her ability to articulate these things that we're talking about is is on a whole another planet. Right? She's been able to live through these things and articulate it in a way that I it was just completely blowing my mind.

But she talked exactly about what we're talking about. One specific thing she called out was she talked about how promotion is subjective and not objective. And she talked about how, you know, when she first got into her role first role, she believed that if she just worked hard that she was gonna be promoting. And then she got a chance to be in the room with those decision makers as they were going down the list of people who to promote and how they use specific words. Right?

And how it didn't matter necessarily if the person was a stellar performer, it was more about how they felt about the person that determined if the person was gonna be promoted. Right? I mean, it's it's it's completely subjective based on the person who is interpreting that person. It is it it you would think that if it was based on your performance, then it would be completely objective and it's based on you meeting this. It's 100% not that.

So if that's the game that you're in and that's the game that you have to play, how do you win that game? And she she she has a a beautiful prescription for how you win in that game. Right? And I won't try to ruin it for her if if you if you're interested. I believe her book is called, Strategies to Win.

Something something to that degree, but it's here's a it's her latest book. She does a fantastic job of talking through, a lot of the different topics that we talk through. Right? I I will share one thing with you. She she talked about, and this is so powerful.

She says, you need to be thinking about what you want other people to say about you in rooms that you're not in. Who who sits back and thinks about that? Right? But when someone is in the room speaking about you, what do you want them to say? And the first term she used is you want them to say that you're commercial.

And I'm like, okay, that's interesting. What what what does she mean by that? And when she says commercial, she means you need to understand the language and the vernacular of the discipline that you're in so well that when people talk about you, they can say, oh, yeah. He understands that. He he's really good with that.

Right? I mean, so so many so so many like but but to go back to Terry's point, you can be mad all you want when you're in this game. Now if you wanna win at the game, you gotta take a step back from your pride and your anger, and you gotta figure out what are the actual rules so that I know how to play the game and win. Because whether you like it or not, you're being held accountable to rules that you've never been told about.

But here's the thing, Ralph, That's exactly when the sponsors and the mentors come in. Right? Because then these are the individuals that can start to decode some of that for you. Absolutely. And as well, some of the, you know, information that we're given, you know, just like the book that you referenced that And here's the other thing too, right?

I'm gonna say this and make sure I say it the right way. The books that we reference for you guys, there are two aspects of the book. One aspect of the book is just the pure information of it. Right? I'm gonna take the book and I'm going to practice the techniques of the book.

Let me say this, most of these books that we're referring to you, folks that look like you and me didn't write these books. So now you gotta start looking at the books like I'm gonna do the bill the bill, Belichick. You mean I can look at your place? You mean I get the playbook?

Mhmm.

So you gotta look at this, there's a dual dichotomy here. One is this is good information. The other aspect of it is, this is a cheat sheet.

That's exactly how it feels. Yeah.

I'm I'm not are some I'm a tell you, there's this one book that Ralph had he know when I so I used to work on Ralph's team. And he was like, hey, I want you to read this book. He said, Terry, I already know some of these things in this book. You I already know what you gonna say. I was like, Ralph, I love the techniques.

I got a problem with why they're doing it. The reason.

Mhmm.

It was I'm like, you you mean you're get close to me so so you can get productivity? You know, this is not because you just really love me.

I

was like cheat sheet.

Mhmm.

But the beauty in it is, right, I took the information. I used the information because it made me a better leader. It did allow me a higher level of trust from those who were following me. Here was the difference though. Here was the difference.

Let me read this. One of some of the notes I took today on what a true leader does. A true leader leads with purpose, passion. They are principle driven. They're concerned with the interest of the people.

Mhmm. And they have vision. They operate with vision. I believe the most successful leaders are those who, and Ralph we've said this term so many times, a real leader where you can identify and know not the person in charge. That's totally different.

You got a person in charge and then you have, well, I'm gonna use Doctor. Miles Monroe's term. He calls it true leadership, not just leadership. True leadership is the person who's serving.

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. We hope that you not only enjoy the content, but gained something to help you on your personal leadership journey. Feel free to reach out to us on x and Instagram under the handles Leadership Sovereignty. Until next time, stay safe, peace, and blessings.