061 Jan Rutherford - Self-Reliant Leadership

In just a few seconds, we've got another amazing leader for you on Walking the Walk. But first, are you a member of the Sensei Leader Movement yet? And if not, why not? Your success as a leader is measured by one thing: the success of your people. And you're at your best when, and only when, you help your people perform at their best. Our mission is to help our members inspire, empower, and guide the people you lead to their very best. Our first level membership is free, always will be. Now, I don't want to keep you any longer from today's guest, so just visit slmjoinfree.com for all the benefits and join the Sensei Leader Movement today. Go to Jan Rutherford's website, selfreliantleadership.com, and you're going to be impressed. Not only is he a great speaker and a successful business consultant, he's a former Green Beret. But what really inspired me to share him with you today was his focus on two concepts: grit and self-reliance.

That's what we're going to talk about today with Jan Rutherford.

People who inspire, empower, and guide us to our very best. Leaders who are walking the walk. Your host, leadership activist, author, and founder of the Sensei Leader Movement, Jim Bouchard.

So here we are with Jan Rutherford. You know what? When I landed on your website the first time, I just love— I love the idea of self-reliant leadership. That's something we could use a lot of right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we're forced into it. Well, yeah, you're up there where, you know, Emerson and Thoreau and where all that, that whole idea of self-reliance started. And I'm out here in the West where people are considered rugged individualists. But what I mean by self-reliant leadership is not, hey, you go it alone. It means that first and foremost that you have to be squared away physically, mentally, emotionally, and then you can serve others and take care of others and all that, but you've got to make sure you have a personal responsibility for that, a duty to others, if you will. And I think that's the age in which we're in right now is, boy, if you're not taking care of yourself, you can't take care of anybody else.

I'm so glad to hear you say that, you know, and for people who might be listening later, as Jan and I are meeting here, this is— we're right in the throes of the coronavirus epidemic here. And you know, some people who don't understand this, you know, the idea of self-reliance as you're expressing it, or no, they're gonna have to learn it pretty quickly. But you said it right. I mean, one of the things we've been dealing with, I'm sure you have too, is, you know, leaders struggling to take care of themselves while they're so busy taking care of other people, right? Right.

How do you—

Yeah.

Yeah. And you've had quite a career. So I mean—

Thanks.

Special Forces and all that. So this is, well, it's an emergency, but you've been there before.

Yeah, well, you know, and I went in the Army as a 17-year-old, so I was just a kid. I mean, scrawny, 114-pound teenager. And, you know, we were— I was a follower first, but almost from day one, you're being trained to be a leader. And there is a lot of, "Hey you, you're in charge now." And if you weren't a good peer, a good follower, nobody was going to listen to you when you were chosen to be the leader. So it was, and again, I use this phrase over and over again, but you had to be squared away in order to take care of other people, in order for other people to trust you, to follow you, any of those things. And the same thing exists now is, well, you've got to take care of yourself. You've got to stay healthy. You've got to make sure you're resourceful. All of a sudden, all of us Americans have to be resourceful. Do with less, figure out that we all have limit, there's scarcity, which in the business world, there is always scarcity. And so you've got to allocate resources, your time, your talent, your treasure in ways that you might not have had to think about before. And—

Yeah, that's for sure. Especially in our business, right? I mean, I've been talking to so many speakers the last few weeks and people in the event business. I mean, we were the canaries in the cave this time. Boy, we came to a full stop quick.

Yeah, yeah. Real quick, well, a lot of my colleagues and peers that did everything in person are struggling to learn technology now. And, right?

I hear you.

You know, I'm really lucky. I've been online teaching and learning since 1992.

Oh, wow.

When it was over modems and there wasn't even really a web. It was just stuff scrolling across the screen. And I remember being at hotels on the road and, you know, I had to have a little screwdriver to, you know, to figure out how to get my phone cord inserted behind the desk in the room or go to the front desk and get something dialed in. And that's kind of where we're at now. I had a CEO the other day tell me, he goes, "Everybody on my team wants stand-up desks shipped to their house." He goes, "Can't do that. We're doing everything we can to cut millions of dollars so we don't have to do layoffs." They're gonna have to be resourceful. They're gonna have to make desks at their house.

Yeah.

You can't do that. And yet people are just saying, "Hey, I can't work unless you do this for me." That's crazy.

Right, right. No, I understand perfectly. That, you know, that's a constant struggle. It's a constant struggle. I don't like the idea of too much dependency, man. We are interdependent. And in fact, it's funny 'cause this leads to something that I wanted to share with you because when I'm pressed to summarize leadership in one idea, I always lean on this one. I said, leadership is sharing. A leader shares. And you can't share what you don't have. So like you said, if you're not taking care of yourself, if you're not strong, keeping yourself healthy, relatively keeping your head screwed on straight, what do you have to share with other people, right? You're not as valuable to them. And yet we live in an age where a lot of people, and I don't wanna say necessarily it's generational 'cause I think that's a bad rap sometimes. It may be concentrated there, but we do have a culture of demand, I think. I don't like the word entitlement, you know, more of a culture of demand. Give me this and then I'll do fill in the blank, right? I deserve, and I think that's a dangerous place to be.

Yeah, you know, I'm reminded of two things. One, I remember teaching MBA students 15 years ago this definition of leadership that it was about managing your energy and the energy in others. Nice. And every year that seemed to resonate with young people more and more to the point now that people really get that. The second part of that is, okay, but remember this whole leadership thing, it ain't about you. And so the best question I ever had a mentor ask me is, for whose good do you serve? So when we think about leadership, Oftentimes we think, you know, like this, it's all about us. Well, leadership is all about serving others in whatever way we can, you know, for managing our energy and the energy in others toward a common good, a common purpose, whatever that may be. So I, you know, even job seekers, oftentimes people talk about the perfect role, the perfect company, the perfect industry. And I'm like, well, tell me who your people are. Who is it that you want to serve? And I think about, you're up there by LL Bean, I'm over here by REI. You go to LL Bean, you go to REI store, those people know exactly who they want to serve. They like outdoors people. They like hikers and climbers and fishermen and kayakers. Those are their people. Well, I think as leaders, the more that we, align and gain affinity with who we know our people are, I think, you know, the passion is what takes over and, you know, work becomes easy because it doesn't feel like work.

Isn't that the confusion? I mean, I get pretty militant about this where people confuse management and leadership too much, you know, and it was Admiral— I quote Admiral Grace Hopper all the time where she said, "You manage things, you lead people." And she said, for too long, we went overboard on the management, right? And you know, when you're talking about these things and people get into management positions sometimes, you know, through political maneuvering or charisma, or, you know, they happen to, their dad runs the company, whatever the case might be, right? I always say it this way, you know, anybody can make you a manager and sometimes for the wrong reasons, but as you just said, only the people that you serve can make you a leader. And you have to earn their trust for them to respect you as a leader, no?

Yeah, well, the famous definition of manager versus leader is managers do things right, leaders do the right things. But I would phrase it just a little differently. Managers are focused on what people think and what they do. Leaders are focused on how people feel.

I like that.

Yeah, and I think, and the way I've been coaching my clients over the last few weeks is, Check in with them. You know, of course you want to know what they're thinking and what they're doing, but check in with how they feel and be intentional. How do you want them to feel after you've left the room, quote unquote? Do you want them to feel empowered, trusted, or do you want them to feel like, oh geez, I can't do anything right? Because right now we will get nothing out of our people if they are not confident. So part of what we've got to do is really help build build the confidence and positivity and hope and determination and persistence to see this all through.

You're so right, and we're so singing in harmony because a lot of people too have been responding because they're suddenly thrust into work-from-home positions.

Mm-hmm.

And I said, well, now you've got that person, that person's in a position of leadership now, maybe self-leadership, but all of a sudden, right, they're responsible for their own day. They have control over their time. Nobody's looking over their shoulder. That's a whole different thing. And again, that fits perfectly with your theme of self-reliance. By the way, Thoreau though, Thoreau cheated up here. You know that, don't you?

I didn't know that.

Yeah, he cheated a little bit. He always had supplies nearby. They always thought, and I love his books too, but he was a little more comfortable than we usually are when we wander out in the woods.

Well, you know what we used to say in Special Forces? I'm gonna get in trouble for telling you this.

Oh, please do then.

You know, we had, you know, land nav course and you couldn't use the roads. You couldn't use a flashlight. You had all kinds of rules. You couldn't pick buddy and you couldn't talk to anybody.

—We call that Saturday up here.

—But here was what was unspoken. Well, it was, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. If you get caught, you're wrong." So, but Special Forces, we always thought we were the thinking man's special operator because, you know, unlike some of our brethren, boy, if there was a house we could break into and be warm, You know, that was a good alternative to sleeping, you know, against a log on the wet moss or something. So yeah, we would like to think we were smart, not hardcore. There you go.

There you go. But you know what's interesting too, I watched a couple of your videos clips that you had up and I'm never surprised. One of my great regrets, I was busy messing up my life instead of serving in the military. And I had still one of my greatest regrets. And I really think I would have thrived there. I think my life would have been a lot different when I I was younger if I'd done that, but I have so much admiration for you. And like I said, I'm no longer surprised by this. People, a lot of people still have this strange perception of military leadership, you know, it's strict command control and all that. Well, that has to be there, but of course you have to earn the respect for anybody to follow you. But I've always, and I saw that in your videos, I see that, you know, as a theme throughout all your work, the compassion is the most important part there. I mean, that caring for, right, for others.

Yeah, it's everything. And, you know, I subscribe to the fact, and a lot of military leaders feel this way as well, is if you ever had to give a direct order, you failed. Because a direct order is going to get compliance. A direct order is not going to get commitment. Ah, yeah. And the same thing applies in the business world. I mean, when we have authority, We can direct people to do things, but it doesn't mean they're gonna be committed. And now more than ever, the people working remotely, they need to be committed to this common purpose. I mean, and the other thing, the reality is we can trust people, but it doesn't mean we don't have to help them structure their day. And it doesn't mean, and I might make some people crazy saying this, but I think the days of us working 8 hours a day are long gone. I think the average American before all this happened was working about 7.5. I think leaders are crazy if they think they're getting 8 hours of productivity out of people working from home. Oh, really? It's just, you know, especially with kids being homeschooled and all this other stuff, there's just no way that, you know, that focus can be there. Most people, you know, don't have a beautiful office set up that's nice and quiet and away from everything and the dogs and the kids. So I think leaders have to confront that reality and not skirt around and pretend it doesn't happen. All right, hey, if you're going to give me 4 or 5 hours, let's talk about how those 4 or 5 hours are structured. What's quitting time? When can I call you? When can I? Is it okay for the dog to barge in at a certain point? I think leaders need to be having those really candid Conversations with people, and I think we're gonna find that people are just as productive and efficient, if not more so, than when they were commuting and working, you know, crazy hours. I think there might be some good that comes from this.

Well, trust is definitely a fuel for productivity, right? When it's handled properly. Yeah, no, I agree with you. Sometimes I hear the concerns, well, you can't trust everybody. So obviously you can't. I always fall back on, you know, sadly we lost him a couple years ago, but I think one of the America's greatest thinkers as Stephen Covey, where I said he had the out clause, you know, it's win-win or no deal. If you're making, you know, as much of an accommodation as you can and you're really, but I say you have to be making the effort, right? If you don't care, don't bother.

Yeah. So yeah. I'm doing a webinar in a few days and I've been digging out some research and some of it was from an HBR article from 25 years ago on virtual teams. And it's so prescient. And one of the things it says is trust is tough. Yes, you know, you have to trust people, but if people betray that trust, you have to be tough enough to let them go because the team will— the glue comes apart. So, but at the very beginning, the leader owes it to their team to to talk about the expectations. What exactly is expected of people, what trust looks like, and also what the consequences are of things that are not, you know, these are things that you do not violate.

There's a certain thing. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Sometimes I get challenged on that point because, you know, people out say, Jim, you're talking about compassion, compassion, then you just said, well, sometimes you have to fire people. That doesn't sound compassionate. I said, well, it is because that's why one of our key strategies, in fact, it's tough yet compassionate. And people will say to me, "Well, why don't you say compassionate but tough?" I said, "Because the tough has to be there, has to be in the front." If you don't confront bad behavior, if you don't address those issues, if you don't dismiss somebody that you can't trust, you're not showing compassion to the other people around you, right? The other people who have to pick up the slack. And I know that's a theme that a lot of the military leaders that we have on talk about, right? This sounds kind of cliché, but that emphasis on the teamwork, right? That if you let, if you don't do your job, somebody else has to do it, right?

Right. Yeah. Yeah, well, there, you know, that's the whole idea. There's a sense of duty. And as a former CEO, the fantasy I always had was that there would be shared accountability and I could do what only I could do and my immediate team would all hold each other accountable. Well, that ended up being a fantasy. It was not a reality. There's a lot I've learned since then that I would have done differently. But I think, you know, what I'm also hearing out there is figuring out different ways to connect people cross-collaboratively, cross-functionally in organizations where there is that shared accountability and a sense of duty to each other. As we know, the famous adage is, you know, soldiers don't fight and die for their country, they fight and die for the soldier on their left and right. The same thing in the business world. They might not fight and die for your purpose, your why, but if they have a strong tight-knit relationship with their peers, they will make sure that they keep their promises, they don't let them down. And we as leaders, part of the compassion is that we uphold the standards. That, hey, just because you were selected to be on this team doesn't mean you get to stay on the team. You have to earn the right, and I have to uphold that standard because it's not fair to the people operating at the highest level. And so oftentimes I'll talk to my really empathetic leaders and say, you know, there's a difference in being nice and being kind. Amen. Yeah. So kind is what you need. Nice might not serve you so well.

No, it's a luxury sometimes, huh? Jan, let's pick that up on the other side of the break. We're gonna take a short break. We're gonna be back with Jan Rutherford and continue. What a great conversation. Thanks for being with us today, Jen. Thanks.

As I said at the top of the show, Jen Rutherford is a successful business consultant and a former Green Beret. He's seen firsthand why character still matters because it separates effective leaders from those who are mired in mediocrity. Developing grit is the secret ingredient that helps you and your team build trust, overcome tough times, and achieve the extraordinary. Speaking, executive coaching, online courses, and his incredible Crucible Expeditions, Jan and his team give you the tools to develop true self-reliance, expand your leadership capabilities, cultivate grit, and amplify action. Learn more about Jan and his services at selfreliantleadership.com. Selfreliantleadership.com. The research is bombproof. People perform at their best when and only when they know their leaders care. When they know their work has meaning, and when they have the chance to learn, grow, and develop. To accomplish this, we need to connect with the people we serve, the people who trust in our leadership. Leaders today need emotional intelligence, strong interpersonal skills, and an accurate sense of self-awareness. I'm Jim Bouchard, leadership activist and founder of the Sensei Leader Movement. The sensei enjoys a very special relationship with students. It's one built on respect, trust, and loyalty, and these are also a leader's most valuable assets. I help you build these relationships. I work with you to help you inspire, empower, and guide your people to their very best. That's what the best leaders do, and that's what the Sensei does. My job is to help you be the Sensei so you can lead your people to their very best and and yours.

Executive coaching, workshops, corporate training. Visit thesenseileader.com or call 207-751-4317 today to learn more.

Jan Rutherford, thank you so much for being with us today. Why don't, before we go any further, let's make sure we know, people know how to get in touch with you. Why don't you share your websites and, or however you'd like them to access you, yeah.

Everything you would like to learn about the work that we do is on self-reliant leadership. Our book, our videos, our podcast, our Crucible Expeditions, our TED Talk. I mean, everything is on that website. So love to hear from you.

And I've got to say, Jan, you've got one of the best— and we have, you know, we have a network of real dear friends that have some great podcasts, and yours is one of the best. I really enjoy it. Oh, thanks. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah.

Just today we had Lisa Monaco was on, who was in charge of pandemics under President Obama. So it's pretty timely.

I'm gonna have to give that one a listen for sure.

Yeah, she was really good. She was all about tone and pace. As leaders, tone and pace. What's the right tone? What's the right pace? And that resonated with me because I've led a lot of expeditions and the key on an expedition is the pace. I mean, even if you think you're going slow, you're probably not going slow enough to keep the whole group together. Well, in the business world, you know, we're going 90 miles an hour. Sure. Yeah. You know, everybody in their cube or everybody remote all looks like they're keeping up. We have no idea if everybody's truly on the same page and moving the project, the initiative forward. So, I think leaders need to pay a lot more attention, especially now. I think that's a big thing. Big thing is pace.

Those are the key words. I mean, I always share this story when I'm doing presentations. I used to play a game with my little dragons class, you know, when I was still running the dojos, I say, what's the two most important words in the martial arts? And they'd yell back, pay attention. And I'd say, well, those are the two most important words in life and business, right, as well. And then I usually ask people if they like Undercover Boss and I slam my fist. I hate that freaking show. I said, how can these people be so obtuse? We need to pay attention. We need to know what's going on. Walking, you know, leadership by walking around is not a new idea. Nothing I share is new. I mean, most of my stuff comes from Lao Tzu 2,000 years ago, but Yeah, they used to say that in the military.

They'd say everything— nothing new in the military since, you know, everything's— they used to joke that everything comes from the Bible. They would say that's the last original document.

There you go, there you go. But we have to practice it. There's the key, isn't it? Right? We got to keep renewing it and rediscovering it for ourselves. Hey, tell me about True Grit. You know what? I loved seeing that word on your website. Not only was it my favorite movie of all time, you know, but again, I like this idea of grit. And, you know, I don't want to make generalizations, but, you know, part of the curse, I guess, of us being so active on social media and whatnot in our business is that we see the best of the best and the worst of the worst. And there's so many people I'm seeing just collapsing and I try to offer, you know, a little bit, hey, you know, hang in there, we can do this. We can do this. Tell us, define grit for us and how you—

Well, let me tell you what grit isn't. So we hear a lot about resilience. Tom Peters in Search of Excellence talked about it, and he called it bounce-back ability. And we're not talking about that. We're not talking about getting up after you've been knocked down. Grit is really about persistence and determination and stamina and endurance. When I reflect back on, you know, the only reason I got my Green Beret was I didn't quit. I mean, that is the only reason I got it. And luckily, I learned that lesson as a teenager. That, you know, anything worth getting is really hard and difficult. And my TED Talk was on when you create your own crucible, you change your narrative. And so we took that concept out into the field on an expedition and along with the LinkedIn Learning crew and filmed a whole course and series on cultivating grit on your team. And, you know, this whole idea that, hey, there's adversity, there's difficulty, there's hardship. And you've got to power through it. It's an ultra marathon. It's not a 100-meter dash. And, you know, what's it going to take to keep people up? And, you know, when they have down days and, you know, how do you keep the whole team motivated and moving forward? And how do you as a leader dig deep? Where do those reserves come from?

Hmm. Well, that's a whole interesting conversation there, right? Because when you said that about the Green Beret too, took me back to what some of my masters said about black belt, you know, say you don't want to make it to black belt, quit. You know, that's the way. If you want to make it, just keep on slogging along. But yeah, you know, how do we inspire people to keep that energy going? And sometimes we have to accept that not everybody's going to, right? Well, yes.

But you know what's interesting when I do these expeditions, knock on wood, I've never had anybody not make it. And it's not like I take out a whole bunch of people that are fit. But, you know, we take people rock climbing and on glaciers and climbing big mountains. And the reason they make it is because they don't want to let the team down. Nice. That's why they make it. And part of what we tell them from the very beginning, we tell them they've been selected for 3 reasons, which also happened to be the expectation of— for their behavior on the expedition. One, you've been selected because you're selfless. Two, you're an adventurous person, you're willing to be bold and take risks. Three, you possess heroic aspirations beyond power and money to make the world a better place. Hmm. So that's why people are selected. That's what we reinforce. That also is the expectation for the way people behave out there. And we see it. And oftentimes people will say, After 3 days, they're like, "I've been with my team 2 years and I don't feel as close to them as I do to this team. You know, what is it? What magic happened?" Like, well, part of that's the environment. But part of that environment is what we create and what we have control over. And that is setting those expectations right from the get-go and reinforcing when we see the good stuff. The other thing I have to say though, that, you know, also helps is when you have a group of strangers and no hierarchy and they're not going to be together a long time. They have nothing to prove and nothing to promote.

Takes a little pressure off, huh?

Right. And so, you know, there isn't this jockeying, you know, that would happen in a normal political environment. No, sure.

But you know what part of it too, I'm sure, is because I'm, you know, I did some time as a bodyguard, so I trust my instincts on these things quite a bit. And I'm pretty comfortable in saying when they're on this expedition with you, they're with somebody who models the expectations. You model the expectations that you, the things that you expect from others. But I like your idea of the crucible too. That's interesting because adverse, we did a bumper sticker a few years ago. We gotta bring it out again. Celebrate adversity. Hope I quote this right. It's your opportunity to discover the leader you may have never imagined without it. Sometimes these things are so— I don't know how I woke up with that in my head one day, but you know, these are, and it's not diminishing, you know, what we're going through, it's not diminishing the danger, but I strongly believe that. And it seems, again, it seems like my friends in military leadership, you know, a lot of their discoveries of themselves happened under really adverse conditions.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, You know, again, I go back and I would say to people, you know, what's the toughest thing you've ever been through? And I've had people say, I don't think I've ever had anything tough. And part of my TED Talk was, well, you know, a crucible is a severe test in which things, you know, a crucible transforms, you know, metal into liquid, forged into something stronger. For a human, it's something that, you know, breaks you down and makes you stronger. Well, you know, heck, if this whole pandemic isn't breaking us all down, I don't know what is. So we can either remain broken, or we can, you know, be stronger from it and learn. And for those that never kept journals, I would urge the listeners to think about keeping a journal and and looking at that maybe a year from now, you know, what were the things that you went through? What did you learn each day? You know, what were you grateful for? What were your priorities? Yeah. You know, to reflect on that, and I think again, that goes back to self-reliant leadership is you're responsible for your own personal and professional development. Right, right. As a human.

Yeah, and I hope afterwards too that, you know, sometimes when we go through something like this, we forget some of the lessons and journaling would certainly help us remember them and document them. But we also have to remember, right, if we want to develop leaders in our organizations, we've got to expose them to some of the adversity. We've got to trust them. I mean, you have to manage the risk, obviously, if you're in business, but right, how do they grow if we don't give them the chance to be in the crucible a little bit? Right. Yeah. Jim, listen, I know you've got to go here. Thank you so much for the time you spent with us. Will you come back again?

I would, Jim. It's been a pleasure. I, uh, you know, I— it's funny, I know you're in Maine and I didn't call you a maniac.

Um, well, I've been called that, but I gotta tell you my first—

real quick— my first experience ever in Maine, I was at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, right, when it was a fort. And we got on a plane and we, um, flew into the White Mountains and we jumped out of these planes, yeah, into the White Mountains. It was probably July I'm gonna go 1982 to age myself. And I jumped out of this plane, it was freezing even though it was July, and I got on the ground and I just laid there and looked and saw the Milky Way and the most beautiful stars. And it was like heaven on earth. I mean, it was so beautiful and peaceful. And that was, you know, one of my first experiences ever up in New England and it was in Gloria. So whenever I talk to somebody from Maine, it takes me back to that night and I just, remember, because there weren't very many times when I jumped out of a plane, I just kind of laid there and looked at the stars. Most of the time you're like, hey, let me get all my gear, let me do this, let me do that. And I remember just laying there going, this is amazing.

I think that's what keeps us here, but right around this time of the year is when we question our sanity for being here.

Yeah, I'm all for a short winter. Yeah, yeah.

The older I get, I think, you know, wintering someplace warm and coming back here in the summer would be nice.

Let's tell people one more time how to get in touch with you. Yep, selfreliantleadership.com.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Walking the Walk. Please like and share. Our mission at the Sensei Leader Movement is to support and develop human-centric leaders, leaders who put people first, leaders who inspire, empower, and guide people to their very best. Be part of the movement. Join and access all our free resources by visiting thesensileader.com. To book Jim or host your own event, call us at 207-751-4317.