Lonely at the top? It shouldn't be! This is the most important video you'll watch today!

Whenever I'm working with a C-suite group, I'll tell you what, one big problem still comes up again and again. Too many people still confuse management and leadership. Look, management and leadership are two distinctly different things. Admiral Grace Hopper said it beautifully. She said, "Management is about things, leadership is about people." We've got to stop confusing the two. Look, now a lot of the time when I lay into this heavy, people will say, "But Jim, I'm a good person." I care, I care about my people. I'm really trying to do the best I can. Well, look, this happens to good people too. All right, why? We get busy, there are emergencies and just urgent stuff that comes up, or we just let other priorities get in the way. But we can't let that happen. We can never let things take priority over people. We can't let the manager take precedent over the leader. And then just for fun, we throw COVID into the mix, right? You know, when it first started, I heard from a lot of good people saying, hey, we're reaching We're reaching out, we're doing our best, we want to maintain connections, we want to take care of our people. We're all in this together, right? Well, now that it's dragged on for a few months, and it may keep going for a year, maybe even longer, alright, things are starting to get a little strained. It's hard to maintain connections virtually. It just is. It's not the same as being in the room with somebody. And plenty of organizations are facing some hard decisions. Despite their best efforts, they may have to lay people off. They may have to let good people go. And like I just said, even despite those best efforts, that's not always perceived as an act of compassion. And somebody's gonna take the fall, and that somebody is you. You're the leader. I just quoted Admiral Grace Hopper, and I'm gonna quote her again because I don't think anybody's ever said it better. "Management is about things. Leadership is about people." And for too long, we went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. Now, most of what I learned about leadership came from my 30-plus years as a sensei, as a martial arts instructor. What's that got to do with the corporate world? What's that got to do with, you know, high-level business management? Well, I'll tell you, it's all all the same thing because it centers on developing the 3 most valuable assets that any leader can cultivate: respect, trust, and loyalty. I am sick to death of people throwing these things in some soft skills bucket, alright? I want you to think about this very seriously. These are a leader's most valuable and important assets. What can you possibly accomplish without the respect, the trust, and the loyalty of the people you serve. All right, so how do you earn that respect, trust, and loyalty? Here's the intersection. This is why my experience as a sensei can be so valuable to your experience as a leader in business. First of all, a sensei's job is really very, very simple. It's to inspire, empower, and guide. That's it. That's what we do. Now, isn't that what all effective leaders do? And think about it. Think about it in your own life. When you're operating at your best, isn't that what you really do? Inspire, empower, and guide. I want you to think about two very important questions: What are you trying to accomplish? And are you doing it alone? All effective leaders know that we are nothing without the people we serve, and if they're not performing at their best, there's no way we can perform at our best. Alright, that all sounds nice, it sounds real philosophical and all that, but how do you actually do it? How do you make this real? Well, first of all, there are a lot of important differences between a manager and a leader. Today, let's focus on the inspire part. Now, one example is a manager motivates, or at least tries to. A leader inspires. What's the difference there? Now, here's the thing about motivation and why it's so tempting. It's, it's simple. It's simple to motivate people. You bribe them or you scare them. You offer them incentives, bribes, bonuses, whatever, gifts. Or you scare them. You give them quotas. You threaten their jobs or hold their promotion over their heads. Now, there are two big problems with motivation. The first one is this: it only leads to an expected outcome. You can only bribe or scare people to an expected outcome. That's as far as they're going to go. Inspiration blows those expectations out of the water. You know, the root of the word motivation means to give someone reason for action. Here's the problem: we're not reasonable creatures, we're emotional creatures. Alright, so if you want someone to meet expectations, fine, motivate them, appeal to their brain. But if you want people to go the extra mile and stick with you when times are tough, then you've got to go for the heart. You've got to inspire them. You've got to connect deeply with people on an emotional level. Alright, so let's get down to the nuts and bolts of it. How do you actually get this done? And this is where Sensei can help. First of all, train people to surpass you. My success as a teacher or a leader isn't measured by helping people come up to my level, alright? I'm most successful when people take what I've given them and go way beyond whatever I could do. Now, why doesn't this happen all the time? There are a lot of reasons, and some of them are very rational reasons. People are protecting their jobs, they're protecting turf, any number of things. But look, all of these things are holding you back. And there's nothing worse— and believe me, I hear it in our workshops all the time— there's nothing worse than having people say, "I believe they're holding me back. I believe my leader, my supervisor, they're holding me back. They're not allowing me to express my talents. They don't even appreciate my talents." Nothing will destroy an organization faster than people feeling and believing that. So that touches on those other two leadership functions I talked about. Empower and guide. If you want to be an effective leader, be an effective teacher. Be the sensei. Empower people. Give them what they need to succeed. And guide them. Mentor them. Bring them along in the process. Alright, this leads to the next discipline, and I can't hit this one hard enough: Kill the manager. Now, before you get the wrong idea, this is based on an ancient Japanese mind exercise called a koan. Now a koan is just a riddle or a puzzle that's designed to help us think really deeply about something. And one of the most famous is, "What do you do when you meet the Buddha on the road?" Kill him. Now, why would we want to kill the Buddha? He's a nice guy, right? We're not talking about the Buddha as a person. We're talking about the Buddha as an example of someone who's enlightened, has true understanding. Now the funny thing about enlightenment or true understanding is as soon as we think we've got it, we probably don't, right? We're probably fooling ourselves. So we've got to kill that part of us that's holding us back. And it's the same thing with this evil manager. You know, we already said the manager will motivate or try to, where the leader inspires. The manager will delegate where the leader empowers, and the manager will push or drive where the leader guides. So it's about killing those management parts of us and letting that inner leader shine through. Simplify. You know, the greatest leaders have an ability to take the most complex issues and problems and challenges and simplify them. To reduce them to their most fundamental parts, which means these are the parts that can be translated into action. In today's world, even in a simple business, we're just drowning in complexity. I'd argue that we're addicted to complexity today. So again, the best leaders, the most effective leaders, have the ability to take all that complexity, reduce it to what needs to be done, simplify, and help people embrace it and move forward. And that's how you help people deal with uncertainty and fear. Because think about it, uncertainty and fear is very often rooted in complexity. Things are just too overwhelming. So the better your ability to simplify, the more effective you are as a leader. This is gonna be a short one: walk the walk. Now, first of all, people follow examples much more enthusiastically than they do orders. But it goes a little deeper than that too, right? You have to model the behavior. You expect from others. If you want people to be excellent, then you have to model excellence at all times. There's really no room for slack in this one. Nothing will wipe out trust and respect faster than someone who says one thing and does another. Look, "Do as I say, not as I do" doesn't work for 3-year-old kids, and it certainly doesn't work for adults in the workplace. Seek the support of others. You know, the old saying goes, "It's lonely at the top." Well, it really shouldn't be. First of all, make sure you take advantage of peer groups. Network with other people that are in your position so that you can share your experiences, your ideas, your concerns, and your challenges. And I do mean seek support at all levels too, especially in a larger organization. You can't possibly know what's happening at all levels, but you need to know something about it, and you need the support, the respect, the trust, and the loyalty of people at all levels. Well, if you want it, these things are not given, they're earned, right? So you need to reach out and seek their support. After all, as a leader, what can you possibly do without the support of people from all levels? And it's interesting that I still run into people who are afraid that if they seek the support of people, especially— I hate this term— from lower levels, that somehow they're going to lose respect or esteem in their eyes. No, quite the opposite. People really appreciate it when you ask for their help, for their advice, and for their guidance. When you show an interest and an appreciation for their expertise, Nothing will earn you respect faster than that, which leads us to a hugely important discipline. Now, if I were in the room with you today, I'd be asking you all if you like the TV show Undercover Boss. I'd ask you to raise your hands, and no doubt most of you would raise your hands. Well, usually— I don't want to slam the microphone— but usually I'd slam my fist on the desk and I'd say, look, I hate that show. I hate that show. You want to know why? How can they be so obtuse? You need to be engaged with people at all levels of the organization. People you serve at all levels. Don't be an undercover boss. Here's another short one, but I'd say probably if you press me, this is the most important discipline on the list. Share. When people ask me to summarize leadership in one thought or one idea, I always lean on this one: Leadership is sharing. A leader shares. The rest of the conversation is about what it is exactly we're gonna share and how we're gonna do it. And while we're on the topic, 3 of the most important things that every leader must share if they want to be effective is respect, trust, and loyalty. Too many people are still of the mindset that, for instance, with respect, I'll give respect when someone shows it to me. No, it doesn't work that way. We're leaders. Leaders go first. If we want the respect, trust, and loyalty of the people we serve, we've got to be willing to give these things unconditionally. And real quick, two more things you need to share if you want to lead effectively: power and authority. Authority— that one's simple. Unless you're trying to do everything by yourself, you better be willing to share authority. And power— okay, this power thing can lead to some arguments, again because people don't understand really what this word means. First of all, power is not control. We'll save that for another day. Power is your ability or capacity to act or perform effectively. So it ties right back to that word empowerment we talked about, that function of an effective leader. When you help other people become more powerful, you become more powerful in the best and most positive sense of the word. Ultimately, the idea is we get more done, right? We're able to perform at a higher level. Well, it's that simple. If we want to be more powerful, we want to be better, make other people better. Power expands one way and one way only. Sharing. Okay, finally, and I hate to lean on a cliché for this one, but last, certainly not least, practice beginner's mind. In martial arts, beginner's mind is really the mind of the true master. Always curious, always seeking, always wanting to improve. Happy, never satisfied. Always wanting to learn, grow, and develop. This is my actual black belt. There's a little bit of a story behind it. I didn't get into my resume today. Actually, I'm a former drug addict and dropout. How's that for a resume for someone that's training leaders? I actually used to think it was a pretty poor resume. I came to realize it was a pretty useful one. Here's why. Process of leadership, we're talking about it, this concept of mastery, is one of transformation, isn't it? That's what it's all about. It's what life's all about. I had to transform myself in a number of ways, from a loser to a leader, from a drug addict and a dropout to a black belt, and later to Sensei. Now, the reason I'm telling this story now is because, believe me, when I earned that black belt, it was the best day of my life. I had friends betting I wasn't going to live to see 30, so that was the first real accomplishment, at least the first real accomplishment that I was recognized for. When I got back from my test, my master had a present waiting for me, and it's that belt you're looking at. First of all, I just thought it was the most beautiful thing ever. It was the deepest, richest shade of black. It just meant the world to me. But there's something else that's very special about that belt. It's a heavyweight belt. And my master told me when he gave it to me, he said, "If you continue your life in the martial arts, this belt's gonna change over time. First of all, you're gonna tie it and untie it thousands of times. But you're also gonna get dragged across the floor in it. You're gonna sweat in it, cry in it, bleed in it, right?" And believe me, he was right. So over the years, yeah, it changed a little bit, didn't it? First of all, it got gray. You can see that. Happens to the best of us. But more important, that black covering frayed away, and underneath it reveals something very special. At the core, there's a white belt. That's to remind us of that concept I just talked about— beginner's mind. Every time we tie on that belt, we see that white belt there, and it reminds us that Every day is a new beginning. To approach every day with a sense of wonder and curiosity and a desire to improve. That's what that black belt trip is all about. That's what this whole Sensei thing is all about, right? It's about wonder. It's about curiosity. It's about learning, growth, development. It's about never being satisfied with the status quo. It's about a never-ending burning desire for self-perfection, knowing that perfection is not a destination. It's a never-ending process. Now, this process is simple, not always easy, and it centers on discipline. You might have noticed I used that word once or twice today. And to a martial artist, discipline is the development and cultivation of meaningful and purposeful habits. Now, I don't talk much about to-do lists or action steps. Those can all be one-offs. Check a box, you're done, right? A discipline is something you're gonna embed in your life every day, every week, every month, every year. When you embed these disciplines, and some of them I mean in every moment of every day, you will be a more effective leader. You'll connect with people on a deeper level, and you'll inspire, empower, and guide them to their very best. And that's what makes you the Sensei.