LAW #2: IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU from "The 17 Laws Of Leadership"
Chris Collins explains why leaders focused on belonging and approval undermine their effectiveness. He uses Jouy Merloo's work on influence and Marcel Duchamp's ideas about art to show how followers shape leaders, then argues servant leadership often becomes performative rather than genuine.
Chapters
Foreign.
Today we are talking about rule number two. That is from your 17 laws of leadership in the back of the leadership book. This is what we have pulled for you. We're going to turn this into two stacks. I'm kind of upset right now because I bought this French made outfit for this and it clearly on here says that it comes with a duster. There is no duster in the package. It was funny when I, when I went to get this all over town, we found a place on Hollywood Boulevard that had it. And I asked the lady, I said, hey, do you have a French maid outfit? And she looked at me up and down and she goes, what size? And I go small. And she goes, okay, good. But hey, maybe I should have asked if they had my size. But we'll get to that later. So rule number two is, it's not about you. And one of the hardest things to fight in human nature is the need for belonging. Because belonging is the fuel or catalyst for everything that, that we do. It goes really, really deep. And you know, in the training that I've had of about human behavior and different things, a lot of what people try to teach can be summarized by just saying that everything comes down to people's need for belonging and meaning. It really is at the core of, of everything. And this, this is a little dark, but one of one of my favorite authors, Joust Merloo, wrote a bunch of books that we have here in the library. But his two kind of more well known ones are Delusions and Mass Delusions and the Rape of the Mind. And Merloo was fascinated, like many of his time, with how the, the Nazis could get people to overlook what they were doing to the Jews in a sense and how the Holocaust happened. But there's something here in Rape of the Mind that really shows and once again, this is dark, but it's very relevant in that we really at our core need belonging. He does say in here at one point that the, the people that were in the camps that survived and didn't go crazy were the ones that had somebody at home to think about and survive for that if they had a loved one or, or they were close to their family, more than not, they would endure the mental torture. But he does say in here the experiences from the concentration camps give us some indication of how far this passive submission to the enemy can go. Because the deep seated human need for affection. Many prisoners lived only for one thing. A friendly word from their guards. Each time it came, it fortified the delusion of grace and acceptance. Once the prisoners, mostly those who had been in the camps a long time, were accepted by the guards. They easily became the trusted tools of the Nazis. They started to behave like their cruel jailers and became torturers of their fellow campers. So just in the need to belong, they would turn on their own people to please their jailers. Is, is nuts. And so rule number two is it's not about you. And that's a really hard thing. It's, it's easy to, to understand in concept, but it's hard to apply as a, as a leader in the everyday world. And it feels good to belong. It feels good to have the approval of others. It feels safe in, in a lot of ways. And there's also this kind of need for power that often happens in leadership, which is, which is the darker side of this where people that really need control and power.
They'Re not leaders, but they, they are playing the part of a leader. And it's not for belonging. It's for control and power. More dangerous, but comes from the, comes from the same place. So the problem is that if we are seeking belonging, improve and appro. Approval, we actually in a sense are the followers, we're not the leaders. So think about that for a second. If we're seeking the approval of others, then the approval of others is what's controlling us and we no longer are leaders. And that's what we're going to talk about. We're also going to talk about this thing called servant leadership. It's a popular style of leading a lot of people reference. You know, I'm just trying to be a servant leader. There's tons of videos online of people talking about servant leadership. I, I won't call anybody out by name, but there's actually like people that, they start crying when, when they're talking about the subject. Like they're, you know, they're so superior and they're, they're serving of their people. But I'm going to tell you how that, that's a, that's a catch 20. It's not real whatsoever and it makes the, the person feel good, but is not an effective form of leadership at all. It's a, at best it's a kinky fantasy. There's going to be a lot of kink in this one today because that's really what it is, is, it's a, it's a kinky role play, but not realistic when it comes to true leadership and creating followerships and others. So that's what we're going to do today. It's going to be a lot of fun. And I think we should start with Daddy. You guys know who Daddy is?
Marcel Duchamp is Daddy. So Marcel Duchamp emphasized in some of his theories that when it comes to art and an artist, an artist isn't complete with. Without.
The spectator. So the spectator plays a specific role in the. The art. Because if art isn't viewed and engaged with the spectator, it really doesn't exist in a sense. Marceau famously, in the Creative act, he said, it's not performed by the artist alone. The spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. So the viewer makes the artist exist in a sense, right? And then the viewer's point of view or interaction with the art affects the artist in many ways. If the spectator doesn't like the art and speaks ill of the art, it can have a couple different effects on the artist. One is the artist could want to push back, like a lot of artists will attack their critics. Or it can make the artist give up completely. On the other side, if the spectator engaging with the art.
Is so enthusiastic about it and thinks the artist is a God and bigger, you know, than just being a mere mortal, like they grandize him or her, in a sense, that can go to the artist's head and. And they can become ineffective in that way. And then also you could have an artist that just tries to please the audience all the time and never actually creates good work. Right. Same thing with leadership is leadership only exists with a follower. You're not a leader without followers. And how you interact with the followers and how they react to what you're doing is the outcome of how effective you are as a leader. It's very, very similar. It's not a individual sport, it's a team sport in a lot of ways. And you got to kind of keep that in mind is the follower has a vote. The spectator has an opinion of the art and can choose to buy the art, criticize the art, whatever it is. It's very similar. Just side note for everybody.
That quote by Marcel Duchamp is the title of Rick Rubin's book, the Creative Act. This is a famous lecture that Duchamp gave in Texas and it's on YouTube. You can find it. The Creative Act, Marcel Duchamp. It's a great little talk that he does about that. But this is a signed copy, one of a thousand from Rick Rubin. But Rick Rubin is is paying attribute to Duchamp. There with his. With his title. So I want you to think about it that way. Like, you're not a leader without followers. And you're also not a leader without a mission. You need a mission. You got to be going after something. There's no leadership or forward motion unless you are. We're going to break that kind of down into four strategic parts, or what we'll call them a strategic points today. So let's get started. The first one is.
Sam.
