"The age of command and control is dead." Are you ready to Inspire, Empower and Guide?

Please join me in welcoming leadership activist, international speaker, and the author of The Sensei Leader, Jim Bouchard. Thank you. You know, there are only really two types of people in the world today: leaders and and people who refuse to be. You know, some people think there are too many leaders in the world today. I say there can't be enough. For one thing, too many people still confuse management with leadership, right? Management, leadership, these are two distinct things, and they require two different skill sets. Admiral Grace Hopper said it so beautifully once. She said, "Management is about things, leadership is about people." And for too long, we went overboard on the management and we forgot about people. We've got to understand this difference between the manager and the leader. Now, it'd be nice if all managers were also really effective leaders too, right? But it's not so much. So we gotta kill the manager. Now, before you get the wrong idea, all right, this is based on an old Japanese mind exercise called a koan. And all a koan is, it's a puzzle, it's a riddle, and it's designed to make us think very deeply about something. And one of the most famous ones is, "What do you do when you meet the Buddha on the road?" Kill him. Now, why would you want to kill the Buddha? He's a pretty nice guy, right? It's not about the Buddha as a person. It's about what the Buddha represents. And the Buddha represents— it's about killing those things that hold us back from what he represents. The Buddha represents enlightenment, right? True understanding. And the strange thing about enlightenment, as soon as we think we've got it, we usually don't. So it's about killing those parts of us that hold us back from that, which might be, when we talk about enlightenment, that might be delusion, arrogance, pride, things of that nature. Well, it's the same thing when we're talking about our evil manager. Now don't get me wrong, management is important. But it's not leadership. For one thing, the manager motivates, the leader inspires. The manager delegates, the leader empowers. And a manager pushes or drives, the leader guides. So when we're talking about dealing with people, we're talking about killing that manager in us and letting that inner leader shine through. Simon Sinek said, "All you need to be a leader is followers." Makes some sense. I understand what he was trying to say. There's a lot of truth in that. But it doesn't give us a complete picture of a leader, at least not a genuine leader or an effective leader. A genuine leader is a person who has the ability to attract willing followers. And the will to serve them. Now notice the emphasis on that word "willing." The age of command and control is dead. If you're still stuck in that mode as an individual or as an organization, you're either in trouble now or you're heading for trouble. Now I know the feel-good thing to do usually when we're doing something like this is to look at things always from the other person's perspective, right? Let's be constructively selfish for a few minutes. Let's think about what we want as leaders. Right? What do you want? Do you want to be in command of a bunch of people who can't think for themselves? Who have to run to you for every little thing? Who bring you more problems than solutions? Or worse than that, do you want a bunch of yes-men around who are never really quite honest with you, right? And they only tell you what they think you want to hear. Or do you want leaders? Leaders: people who see what needs doing and they do it. People who are innovative and creative. People who are self-directed, self-motivated, and want to go the extra mile. Leadership has nothing to do with authority. You got plenty of people right on your front lines that are terrific leaders that have little or no authority, right? And let's face it, we all know there are plenty of people with a lot of power and authority who are just plain lousy leaders. Again, we don't need rank or title or even permission. We can lead or we can refuse. Now, before we go too much further, I suppose I should give you my resume. Why should you be listening to me anyway, right? Well, I'm a two-time college dropout and a former drug addict. Aren't you glad you came to see me today? Right? Now, what has this got to do with you good people, and what has it got to do with leadership? Well, first of all, I used to think drug addict and dropout was a pretty damn lousy resume for someone training leaders. I came to the realization that it's a pretty good resume. Here's why. Most experts today concede that almost all leadership, at least to some degree, is situational. Would you agree? The best leadership today, though, is transformational. Transformational, right? Because the world is changing at such an incredible pace, if you're not constantly engaged in a process of transformation as an individual and as an organization, you're in serious trouble. So who better to talk about transformation than someone that had to learn that process intimately in order to survive? I had to transform myself, first of all, from a loser to a leader. From a dropout and a drug addict to a black belt and later to a sensei. So what can the sensei teach you about leadership? A sensei's job is just to inspire, empower, and guide people. Inspire, empower, guide people to their very best, right? That's it. Now isn't that your job as leaders too? And let's face it, having met some of you, I know I'm preaching to the choir. Isn't that what you do? Inspire, empower, and guide. Now in the dojo, that usually means we're helping people get to black belt and hopefully beyond that. What does this mean in your life as leaders? And what do you want to accomplish? And are you doing it alone? Just by the fact that there's a leader means that there are followers, right? So what's our job as a leader? Job— our jobs as leaders is to try to pull everybody into the same direction so we can all succeed, right? To turn me into we. Now, to do this, and the research on this is crystal clear, if we want people to perform at their best, they will only perform at their best when and only when they know their leaders care about them, when they know their work has meaning, and when they have a real opportunity to learn, to grow, and develop. Now in order to achieve this, we need leaders with a high degree of emotional intelligence, very strong interpersonal skills, and a well-developed, and I'm gonna add, an accurate sense of self-awareness. This is the type of leader we call a human-centric leader. In a dojo, we call this person sensei. You see? So my job here today really is just to help you be the sensei too. When people press me to sum up leadership in just one idea, it's this simple, and you expressed the same thing, didn't you? Okay? Leadership is sharing. A leader shares. Thank you so much for your attention today. I really appreciate you guys.