What Great Leaders Actually DO

People always ask me, Brendan, what do leaders actually do? Maybe you're leading a team or you're in charge of a large organization, or you're just trying to even lead your own life. I mean, what is it that leaders actually do? Many of you know, this was my graduate school work. In 2001, I wrote a book called the Student Leadership Guide. And I never had any clue that thing would blow up the way that it has. And this framework for leadership, it's called Eclipse 6 is from that book and it's been used at I think 40 of the top 100 schools in the world. Major corporations from around the world, major associations have called me in to speak on this topic because it's a great framework for leadership. It answers that question, what are the major practices of leadership that we must enact on a continual basis to be able to have the amount of influence and impact we desire in our work lives or in any role in which we're leading other people? So let's get right into it. The first E of these six E's is envision. Great leaders. Envision a compelling and different and vibrant future than what is here. They have an alternative, clear view of what the world could be like tomorrow than it is today, right? They have a shared purpose. They believe that they and others would be compelled by, interested, inspired by, and want to work towards. That's a big deal. And you always read about it in leadership, right? You have to have vision. I mean, it's biblical. Where there is no vision, people perish, right? We know the power of having that vision. So you have to sit down though, and actually do it. The reason we say in vision versus just have a vision is you have to sit. It's a practice of envisioning what should tomorrow look like for my team? What should tomorrow be like for my business, for my organization? What should tomorrow be like for my life and not just tomorrow. A long term mindset and view the dream, right? That magnificent obsession, that bold desire, the moonshot goals and purposes and missions of life, the bigger picture that's envisioning a different reality in the future than we experience today. And that's what everybody gets excited about in leadership. Where there's no vision, there's a no leadership. Where there's no vision, people perish. So you have to envision. And I say that these are six practices of leadership and not six steps because it's not like you do envisioning once and then you move on in the process. We always have to continually sit down and envision where are we? Where can we be going? It's an active process. If you set a vision one time and you forget about it, it's not going to help you accomplish the influence or the impact you want in your lifetime or in those that you lead. The second e here is enlist. As you're developing this vision, it's not just your vision. You're enlisting other people to share their voices, their perspective, their dreams, their desires for where you could be going. You know, I think that the most important leadership lesson in the world is that people support what they create. If people are involved in the ideation of a vision, they're involved in creating ideas, of brainstorming, of figuring out what is it we are about, what do we stand for? Where are we going? Great leaders enlist that from other people. They're constantly asking people what they think, how they feel, what things they desire and need. And it's that enlistment that is always going on. A great leader is always enlisting other people to believe in the dream, to shape the dream, to. To stay dedicated to the dream. It's an honest and authentic and a genuine desire to see other people be involved in the process and to enjoy that process. I mean, it's so vital. And that methodology of what you know, how do you get people involved in it? You're asking questions, you're paying attention to their needs, you're reflecting back to things that you're hearing. You're always enlisting others to support and to build this vision, this ideal future together. The third thing that great leaders are always doing is embodying their message. They stand for something. There's a congruence between who they are, the behaviors that they're enacting into the world, how they treat people, what they're working towards, and what they say is important. Right? That, that's. It's just basic line. It's integrity. You know, it's a congruence between what we say we're after and how we are behaving. There's nothing more important, is there? You know, it's like it's that old message. It's like you don't believe the message unless you believe the messenger. So as leaders, we have to stand for and demonstrate and show and portray what we are really believing in. I mean, are we really. Is our team and the people around us seeing us work for it, sweat for it, sacrifice for it, champion it over and over and over again, even when it's hard, even when there's conflict, even when people are pissed, even when People want to quit. Are you still there? Do you still stand for it? If you do, you become a legend. Third and fourth, what we have to move on to is now empowering people. Empowerment means we give people the decision making authority and the trust to be able to work towards this vision, to allow them the autonomy, the strength, the input, to equip them with the knowledge, the skills, the abilities, the technologies, the tools, the training to allow them to succeed as they march with us to achieving something extraordinary and phenomenal. That's vital. That's what empowerment is about. And a lot of leaders who come in with a big vision, they get everyone excited. You know, they seem like they want everybody involved and they, they do a great job of standing for it, but they don't equip their teams to kick some butt. They never get to that place of real stride, of real momentum, and that happens all the time. Training other people and equipping them with everything they need to succeed has to be a vital practice of every great leader. And again, it doesn't happen just once. That's a huge failure in the working world is, especially in corporate America. Great leaders come in, they nail the vision, they get people around it, they stand for something, but they only empower people at the beginning. They give some training and then they just disappear. Training has to be consistent. Coaching has to be consistent. Equipping people to deal with the new challenges, the new tools, new technologies, the new competitive realities, that's vital. We have to have that in place. So we've been doing this practice. We envision a better future. We enlist other people to help shape that vision, to believe in that vision, to support that vision. We stand for something by embodying our own message. We empower other people to be able to support and to be able to win. Then we have to evaluate some of the hardest things that we do in all of leadership, to evaluate the key people who are with us, their contributions, evaluate their skills, evaluate their needs, and, and to evaluate the ethics that are going on in our organization, in our team. Are we being excellent and are we being ethical? Is the questions that we're evaluating on, right? Are we being excellent and ethical as we are progressing? Which I guess would be the third question, are we progressing? If not, why are we being ethical? If not, why, if our people are not being excellent, if not, why? These are the questions that we have to ask as this practice and evaluation. It's like every day as a leader, you know, you got to keep your thumb on the pulse to see, hey, how are we doing? Are we alive? Are we moving forward? That evaluation also brings up the incredible challenge that we face as leaders, which is to give honest, direct, immediate, constructive feedback to those people who are trying to influence and lead, you know, to our collaborators, to our friends, to our followers, whatever word that you use for them. I mean, it's vital. It's vital that we are paying attention and seeing when things are going off the rails, you know, that we never check out. I mean, it's a consistent process of checking in, seeing how we're doing, and paying attention to really evaluating the progress of our mission. And that final thing, that sixth thing, that thing that makes the magic encourage. To encourage, to be the champion, to be the cheerleader, to be the person always motivating, inspiring, uplifting people, to never just have. You know, a lot of leaders, they get their pet projects, they get excited about it, and they disappear. No, man, you need to encourage on a continual basis. You need to light people up. You need to have it in your heart and in your soul that desire to want to lift people up, you know, to lift them up and lift them off their butts, to get them excited about things. You know, if you can't motivate them with your passion and your example, then what are we doing? You have to encourage people. When this gets hard, you know, when you're working towards a mission, it gets hard longer term. The more people involved, the bigger the organization, the bigger the vision, the bigger the dream, the longer the duration to accomplish it. The more struggle, the more challenge, the more conflict, the more discord, the more disappointment, the more frustration, the more doubt, the more delay. All those things happen. Leaders have to deal with them. And the way they have to deal with it is always being that encouraging voice. When the chips are down, when it looks most bleak, you're still that beam of light. And when it gets dark, when it gets challenging, when there's conflict and turmoil and turbulent seas, you're solid. You're somebody that they know they can go to. Because you're always going to turn a negative into a positive. You're always going to help them see the alternative view, the next step. You're going to champion people. You're going to champion the mission of the cause. That's leadership. That's the six leaders of leadership. Envision, enlist, embody, empower, evaluate, and encourage. And I'll say, what overlays all this is a philosophy about what we're doing, that it's important to us that there's a purpose, there's a mission, to it that we feel that deeply within us is so powerful and we honor, we respect, and we love those we work with. Last thought. You know, I never use the word. I try to. Maybe I use it in this video a little bit to give us context, but I try never to use the word follower. People aren't following you. They're actively engaged. They are collaborators. When you get people to collaborate with you in all areas of these six E's, you're building leaders. You're building collaborators within the organization, within the team with those who you are serving, a magic happens. It's not just you the leader. It's a group of us. We are a pure set of leaders. We are the movers and shakers who are shooting, shaping and making this mission happen every single day. We love to work together. We have fun. People are standing up. They now are helping come up with vision. They now are championing and cheering on, bringing in, enlisting other people. They now are doing all they're standing for something. They're living that value and the truth. They now are empowering other people and championing the cause. They're your eyes and your ears evaluating how the organization has, how the mission is going. They now are encouraging it so it doesn't just ride on your shoulders. When we do that, right then we have this thing called leadership.