What is leadership? Pt.4

Welcome to Leadership Sovereignty. I'm your host, Terry Baylor, along with Ralph Owens. Today, we'll discuss topics, what is true leadership? Understanding your words and the feelings of those words, the power of agreement through partnership, and the atmosphere of servant leadership versus authoritarian leadership. Enjoy the show.

The easiest way you can determine whether you're in a situation where there's true leadership is it that person who is in charge. Are they serving? Mhmm. Are they serving?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that that brings up a good concept that, you know, what does leadership look like? Right?

You know, what what does true leadership look like? Does it look like commanding? It could depending on the situation. Because there's sometimes you have to know when you have to go into command mode to get things done. It could be to save a life.

That's not the time for you to try to, you know, get get up and close and personal with somebody. You may have to and that may be the way of serving them in the moment. Right? So we're not trying to discount that. But what does true leadership look like?

It looks exactly like Terry said, it looks like serving. Even in that moment, you're still serving that person. They may not figure it out until later on after you get them out of harm's way that, oh, you, man, you you really trying to look out for me. Right? But most of the time, it's not in command mode.

It's in leading mode. Right? I'm gonna go ahead of you and I'm asking you to come with me. We walking in the same direction together. I'm not telling you to go do something then report back to me.

Now we so I I think it's so important that as we continue to talk about what does leadership look like. I sit in meetings sometimes and I hear people say, well, let me back up. You have to be very careful with the words that you say because it it, what's the word I'm looking for? It gives off a certain feeling to other people because people can feel who you are better than they can hear who you are. Right?

Wow. So if if I I sit in meetings with some pretty powerful people and I hear them saying, you know, my this and I that, that communicates something to people around the table. But when you say we this and our that, that also communicates something to people around the table. And if you hear certain words like that enough, I and mine, people around the table who have issues with their ego, they're gonna start having an issue with you. Right?

It's hard for you to be mad or in disagreement with someone who is speaking for all of us together as a team. Right? But when you say I, now you make yourself a target. Right? So not that that and and again, that's not to say that there won't be times where you need to stand up for what you believe specifically.

Right? But, in influencing people, if you go in talking about only what you wanna do, what I wanna do, what's mine and this and that this and that this and that, then you start to alienate people. When you say ours, now you bring them together and your partners in this. You get more agreement out of a partnership than you do if in opposition. Right?

So, you know, just talking about, you know, what does leadership look like? Things, you know, things like that. I mean, what what things come to mind for you, Terry?

The first thing that comes to mind, Ralph, is when you think of the leader that or the person in charge that you're following, do you feel as if they are, if they're commanding, does it conjure fear simply? Right? I mean, it's it's pretty simple, man. I mean, we've we've, you know, I've been in the workforce, man, for over thirty years and I can list every single every single leader that I've worked for and those who had an authoritarian type mantra and those who didn't. Right?

And from what I see, right, historically, those who were authoritarian

really folks,

quite honestly, they just didn't enjoy those environments. They were very stressful. They were very accusatory, a lot of finger pointing. And that and again, right, that's both in my corporate career, that's in sports, that's in I've worked in non for profits. It's pretty much across the board.

Right? And those folks who were more servant style leaders, from what I saw, those teams went the extra mile with joy. Right? Versus, you know, even, you know, in authoritarian style, folks still go the extra mile, but they hate it the whole time.

That's right.

Right? There's no The joy in teams aren't having they aren't having much fun. There isn't a lot of comradery. They don't wanna spend time with each other. They don't wanna be in the environment.

Is simply a nine to five gig. Simply that. Granted those teams, you know, again, business is gone, you know, unless you're being successful, then there's gonna be a massive level of turnover. And I'll say this, on those authoritarian type ships that I've had to, you know, kind of work on, There has been a tremendous amount of turnover in those places, right? So operationally there is impact, economically there is impact, you know.

Just, another and reason I'm pointing this out, right? You know, know, we can lead from the seats we're in and it's just to identify and understand the type of environment that you're working in. Because again, the goal for everyone here is to one day be that leader. Right? So if we can identify what good leadership looks like, right?

Take notes, write it down, identify and man, this brings to mind. So this was, I don't know, maybe ten, fifteen years ago. And Shamika and I, you know, Elizabeth was playing softball and this is early on. And we were reading this book by Jimmy and Karen Evans. I think you may know that name.

But anyway, and in this book, again, it was a marriage book, but he termed a phrase and I thought, oh, that's brilliant. I need that because my daughter is just now starting to play sports. And you know, with all the stuff that we've been hearing about coaches this and that. The the term was coined in this book, unrighteous leadership. And so that was important to understand because now I could give it a term

Mhmm.

And also equip my daughter, right, who's gonna start playing sports. This is what righteous leadership looks like.

Right.

And this is what unrighteous leadership looks like. Right. So I just started going down the list, man. Okay. You have righteous I started at the most common thing for us, right?

You have righteous preachers and you have unrighteous preachers. I said you have righteous coaches and you have unrighteous coaches. Have, and just down the list, right? You know, every form of leadership. And so that empowered us as parents, right, to start framing for our children what good leadership looks like.

So now my kids will come to me and say, hey dad, I was in a situation like this and this person did this. Mhmm. I don't believe that was right. I said, you know, son or daughter, you've identified that

Mhmm.

You know, in the correct way. Now on an EQ standpoint, how did you respond? Right? Mhmm. From your personal, you know, how it impacted you and your your who you are as a person, how did that impact you?

So now how do we strategize to move forward? But in recognizing these things, right? And understanding that you're gonna have righteous leadership, unrighteous leadership.

And

to develop methodologies, to your point earlier Ralph, a few episodes back, you have to know how you are going to respond in those moments. Don't wait to the moment to try to figure it out. Right? Let's have an idea beforehand. Here's the thing, right?

I had a young man, man, I just had a conversation here over the last week or so about a gentleman who went through a tough time, right? And the number one thing I shared with him is look, those kind of leaders are everywhere, right? You can get to another job, you're just, man look, you are one promotion or one company transition away from having that person, that guy, that gal, right? But again, if you know who you are, right? If you know who you are and the situations won't dictate your response, you've already you your your response is already predetermined mainly because you know who you are.

You don't have to operate in fear. Right? I'm gonna take it back. You don't have to operate in fear. Even and this is this is probably the best piece of advice that I can probably give on this.

Even though there's a person who may seemingly from a natural standpoint not deserve it, we can still treat that person in a way that, I'm a go back to my affirmation, I operate in love towards myself, my family, and everyone I encounter. Now let me be very clear on something. Operating in love doesn't mean I'm a doormat.

Right. That's right.

Right? Yeah. Operating in love is look. I'm gonna make it simple. Right?

Man, I got kids so we got all kind of nursery rhymes. We go honor up, honor down, honor all around.

I see. I see. I see.

That's how I'm gonna show that love. I'm a honor up, I'm a honor down, I'm a honor all around. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna honor you. I'm gonna honor the role that you're in. Right?

You as a person could be very You're just not a good person. Sometimes it's like that. What I will do is honor the role that you're in, be the best version of myself that I can be. Right? Because when I'm doing that, I'm loving myself.

Yep.

Right?

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