Signs of an Effective Leader: Home Service Contractors

What is leadership, Nathan? So I think leadership has mostly an objective, qualitative definition. A lot of people tend to put some sort of morality around it that drives me absolutely crazy. Leadership, from my perspective, is essentially a person who's in charge of accomplishing something, and they have to involve other people to do it. They have a team of people to do it, and they are the one who is ultimately responsible for the accomplishment of that thing. And so that is trying to make it as basic of a definition as possible. I don't care who says it. You'll see it on LinkedIn all the time. Like, if you micromanage your people, you're a dictator, not a leader. No, you're a leader. You're just a leader who's a dictator. Okay? So quit trying to. It's just a huge pet peeve. Quit trying to put all this. You're a leader, not a leader. Like, if you can be a terrible leader in a leadership role, you're still a leader. You're just not a very good one.

One.

Or you can be a really nasty human being who's in a leadership position. You're still a leader. You're just a leader who's a nasty human being.

Yeah, I would say a leader is a person that has a vision that he can get other people on board for to follow him. That's, I think, right out of the dictionary, the definition of it. And I agree with Nathan. There's no morality aspect of it. We can all think of terrible people that led millions of people. So that person was a strong leader. He was very good at it, or she was very good at it. Right. There's also examples of good people who were leaders. They would be strong leaders. Had a lot of people follow them. The other side of the coin, if you're strong as a leader, you can get a bunch of people to follow you. Chasing this vision that they all get on board for and believe in. The other side of that coin is a poor leader. I can't get a lot of people. We hear this all the time. People don't want to work. They're lazy. But I just look around and I go, well, wait a minute. You look at these larger companies that have 170 salespeople. Well, somebody wants to work. So it's one of those things where I would challenge folks. And this is a bit of a tough pill to swallow sometimes. If people don't want to work for you, you might want to take a look in the mirror on your leadership skills. Have you put in the effort to grow as a leader, to learn the skills that you need to learn to be a great leader. This isn't some God given talent. It's not like God goes, oh, you're a great leader. Now there are people that have natural predications that afford them the opportunity to lead easier. But anybody can learn to be a leader because the skills are like any other skill of being a carpenter or being anything that's a profession. Lots of folks become professional leaders. Look at any CEO, cfo, CEO, coo. They are professional leaders. They have put in the time to learn the necessary skills, to get a group of people to follow them on a vision that they believe in because it benefits them as much as it benefits the company. So they're on board for it.

So what's the difference between a bad leader, a good leader, and a great leader? Because that's something that both of you kind of talked about. You can be bad but still be in that role. Where you can be great and be in that role. It's just, are you a good one, a bad one, or a great one? So what's the difference?

Let's get clear on that. Because you're talking about that morality thing. Whenever you use the word bad or good, people associate morality with that, like a good person or a bad person. So I don't use that. Whenever I use the term leadership. I don't think people are bad or good leaders. I think they're strong, poor, or weak. And I want people to get really clear on that. Because a bad person could be a great leader. We can all see examples.

Like I said, could we maybe substitute. Would you maybe substitute the word effective for ineffective versus good versus bad versus strong versus weak? Like you're an effective leader, capable leader, or you're an ineffective leader or incapable.

I think you could substitute the words. I think they mean the same thing. Effective, ineffective, strong, poor. I think too many people get this, that guy was a bad leader. I might have been a really good leader. As we would look at it from the terms of effective. Like he was getting a lot out of what it was. They just didn't like him because he's a bad person. Right? So I think we got to be really clear on that. That, hey, one of the best examples I can think of is Steve Jobs. Dude was such a rough person as a leader making millions and billions and trillions of dollars for a company that they fired him and their business took a dive. So much so that they hired him back and then fired him again and then hired him back. Again, so he was a strong leader that could get what was necessary for that company to achieve their goals because of who he was. But people didn't want to work for him. People didn't like him. Certain people did like him because he got a lot out of people. Right. And so you've got to know that whoever you are as a leader, whoever you hire wants to be like you. They see themselves becoming you as a leader. And that's a pretty, like. I don't know, I take that as a pretty serious responsibility.

There's a number of different things that go into it. It's nuanced. So some people might say a good leader is the person who accomplishes the objective set before them. I would agree with that. If you were set to do a thing and you get that thing done with the people around you, that's good leadership. Now, whether that thing was morally reprehensible or morally upright. Right. That's kind of where we're making that, parsing that out. I think that a marker of great leaders would be how much people willingly desire to follow them. That's a big one, is how when you look at somebody and people go, I want to be on that person's team or even in a neutral setting, people just kind of. They tend to gravitate towards that person. And when that person sets out to do a thing, people just want to be a part of it and join it. I wouldn't say that's an ultimate definition, but that's a marker of a powerful leader. Now, sometimes people get involuntarily placed underneath somebody else's leadership, and that person helps them, inspires them, get. Let's gets them to accomplish that objective. From the leadership perspective, that's a good leader. And poor leaders, I think poor leaders, they muddy the waters of the objective and the thing that people are trying to accomplish, or their own goals or the primary goal and cause strife and frustration inside of getting that done. So I'm trying to be very black and white about it, but everybody's had a lot of experiences where they've worked with good leaders and they've worked with poor leaders. And it's one of those things where you kind of know it when you see it a little bit and you go, man, I really like that person and that person. So you can have people that you like very much that aren't really a great leader. You just like them and that's okay. And then some people, I think a real big marker is just how willing are people to voluntarily follow them.

Yeah, you sit there and we can all look at experiences probably in our lives where we've worked for other people and what they were in their leadership. And nobody that I've ever worked for do I go, that was just an awful person. There have been cases, I know for sure, and I thought that at one point. But then as I thought back about it, there were certain aspects of what they did as a leader that I go, I see that drive aspect of it. I see that really push aspect of it. I see that really strong drive and dedication towards this thing, come hell or high water, regardless of anybody. And that can be a very valuable asset when it's tempered with the other side. And so while they may have been an ineffective poor leader, they may have had an asset to them that was actually very valuable. I think a lot of people get put into a position of leadership without being given the training or skills to be a leader.

That happens all the time. I agree.

So let me ask you this because that kind of leads me to my next question. Are leaders made or are they born? I think that's a question a lot of people, I've heard that debate over the course of my lifetime. Are they made or are they born? Because we're talking about putting people into leadership roles. Can you make somebody a good leader or do they just are they born with that innate ability to lead?

I've bounced back and forth on this one a little bit. I do believe that certain people are born with, and maybe not even born, but maybe nurtured might be a better way to put that in their environment. Growing up, usually between the ages of 5 and 15 or so, that they've been put into situations that it seems innate, but they've really kind of been taught they probably had a natural predication for it. But that doesn't mean they're going to be a great leader. They still have to get the skill side of it. I've seen people that had the worst possible situation during that nature or nurturing side of things become amazing leaders because they dedicated themselves to the discipline of learning the skills to become a great leader. Do you agree with that?

Yeah, I agree. I think it's both. And this is such a hard question. I think it is both. I think some people, like you said, they have an innate. They have qualities in them that give them a little bit of a leg up in the development of leadership. And then there are people who maybe don't have those qualities and those qualities need to be developed. But sometimes some people are strong here and they're weak over here. And that weakness needs work. And the strength also contributes. So it's almost like. It's almost like trying to define why somebody's good at a particular thing. Were they born that way or did they develop it? And the answer is both. Pretty much every time. I mean, people have innate talent. You look at athletes, athletes have talent. Sometimes you look at them and just genetically, some of these, some athletes, you just look at them genetically and you're like, that is a different human being.

Like Tyree Kill, he's the fastest person to ever run in the NFL. He's just born different.

So there is that component.

And I would argue that. That, yes, he, he does have that for sure. And lots of people, like you said, have talent. There's also lots of people that don't have a lot of talent that have superseded the people with talent because of the discipline and effort they put into the.

Yes, that's why it's both. Because that's why the guys like a.

Tyreek Hill, while, yes. Naturally predicated toward applying the discipline, also.

Still had to build it.

He blew it out of the water.

Yeah, 100%. I agree. Well, Jordan got cut from his JP basketball team in high school or the varsity basketball team in high school. He went back, put the work in over the summer. He came back and it was the greatest basketball player that's ever lived.

But, but here's, here's what I would say, though. Just like athletics, just like mental acuity, it's something that if you really want to be good at it, you got to work at it. No matter how much natural talent you have toward it, you still got it. You still are going to have to work on it. If you want to be excellent.

Yeah. If you want to be effective, it's going to take the discipline to the work on the skills. No matter how much natural gifting you.

May have, no matter what leader you bring into your company, what I'm understanding is there still needs to be like a training and mentoring from the actual person who is over the company to ensure. Or maybe not, I don't know.

Well, if he has the ability, he might not have that ability. We see it all the time. And I'm not trying to be mean or rude to anybody, but I was very fortunate. I got really, really lucky in my life. And I think Nathan has had some of that type of stuff too. Where the first company I ever worked for, that was a big part of their thing. It was two sides of a coin. They wanted us to be great salespeople so we got great sales training. I mean I've been to anything and everything you could ever be on sales go. They were also big on leadership. They didn't believe that they were the best leaders, but they believed getting the training from some of the best leaders that existed on the planet out there would make us more effective as leaders in their company and thus grow them too. And so they would send us to leadership training, but they would attend with us. It wasn't just a hey, you go learn it and get better than me. They wanted to be great as well. And I think that you really need to take account of yourself as an owner. Are you truly that great leader that you should be or not? And I think even today I'm like, man, I'm a long ways away from where I want to be. I want to be better than I'm constantly striving for excellence.

So what does that conversation need to look like when you're looking at yourself in the mirror, when you're trying to figure out am I a good leader or am I an effective leader? Am I ineffective? Am I strong? Am I poor? You know, like in the different areas, because there's different areas of leadership. It's not just one all encompassing thing. But what does that conversation look like when you're really trying to be honest with yourself?

Do you have a lot of people that want to follow you and choose to follow you and not only do they want to follow you and they choose to follow you, but do they continue to follow you over a sustained amount of time? Because if they don't follow you over a sustained amount of time, you're not a leader, you're a salesperson. You were able to convince them that getting involved with you was a good thing and you could hire a bunch of people, but if you're having a lot of turnover in your organization, it's probably likely that you could be a more effective leader.

This is a broad general statement and I think I'm willing to say also a truth, and that would be that the beginning of any self development or growth starts with self awareness. And so if you want to increase your leadership ability, you have got to become aware of yourself from, from an outside perspective. This is one of the most difficult things I think for human beings to do to be able to objectively look at yourself. And I don't think it's 100% possible because you can't look at yourself objectively 100% of the time and 100% objectively, but at least striving to look in the mirror and then ask yourself questions like what are common things I see with people around me when I'm talking to people? What are common ways people respond to me when I'm dealing with an issue? What's my first instinct when I'm um. Do I tend to make things better or worse when I walk into the room? Do people ask for my advice? No. If nobody's ever asking for your help, then either A, you're unapproachable or B, they don't think you can help or C, they don't want your brand of help.

And even that you might not be a leader, you might just be an encyclopedia.

You could, yeah, you could still be it. So, so that you've got to gain awareness of yourself, how you communicate, how you, your maybe your love language, your, the way that you, what you expect of people, how much you project onto other people, your own attitudes and your own feelings. If you're in a bad mood and somebody responds to you and they're maybe quick, short or to the point, do you interpret that as they're in a bad mood too? Or is it you're in a bad mood, they were to the point and you put that on them. So I'm just giving quick examples. But your self awareness has got to increase exponentially if you want to grow your leadership. Because here's the thing, you're probably good at some stuff. You're probably good at some stuff and you should, you should celebrate that. And there's some stuff you're probably not at. And there's where we need to start thinking, how can we improve those places. I would be careful about, that's probably getting too deep into the weeds. The idea that you, you can improve every one of your weaknesses. Sometimes if you're weak at it, maybe you just let that thing go. All right? Unless as a leader, it's something that's consistently negatively impacting other people all the time, then that's something we do need to put some focus on.

Well, that's why you see the visionary integrator thing. The visionary leader has this charisma about them. They have goals, they see things in the future, they chase and they're after it all the time. And then that integrator leader is a person that's more grounded, tries to do objectives step by step, wants process and stuff. And so if you understand that I'm this type of leader and I am good at that, never say, if you ever look in the mirror and say I'm a great leader, that's your downfall. You can just expect to start going downhill from there. If you're not constantly striving to exceed where you currently are as a leader, you become stagnant. We've coached thousands of contractors. Many of them are pretty solid leaders in certain skills and they vary. But as a broad statement and a broad coverage of those skills.

Not an absolute truth.

It's not an absolute truth, no. It's like I don't think anybody has it covered. I mean even the greatest, like I have a big affinity for John Maxwell. I think he's one of the greatest leaders to ever walk the face of this planet. He's not perfect and he knows it. That's actually the sign of a great leader, is that he still has humility. He still knows that there's personal growth and development that he needs to do that. He's still not getting everything out of everybody from a potential standpoint that he could if he was more effective. I deal with that on a daily basis. I could be better for sure. I know where those weaknesses are. Some of them I have worked on to improve. Some of them I'm like, I'm just never going to be good at that thing. So I have to put other people in place.

It's the same problem that most people have is that like we tend to look at ourselves from what we want in our perspective on the world versus looking at our impact on like what we want, what we're after. Like most human beings, myself, all of us included, we're really thinking about ourselves all the time, but generally not from a self reflective perspective. So when you say, how often do you, do you think that most company leaders are thinking about this on a regular basis? Most are probably not.

Okay, okay, no, there's no way you can think about it on a regular basis. You drive yourself insane. Right? But like maybe, maybe like once a quarter we're just having like that conversation where we're reflecting, was I a good leader in these different areas and how can I get better in the coming quarter type of thing.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to allow your direct reports to score you on your leadership skills, on your ability to communicate, on your ability to problem solve, on your ability to think as a visionary, on your abilities to integrate and implement. And I didn't want to do it because I knew the answers. I knew the. I was like, oh man, I probably haven't done this stuff. Great. But that coach convinced me, hey, do the score. The best thing I ever did, I was Pretty accurate with what I knew I was deficient in. But there were a couple of things that really opened my eyes. I thought I was a pretty solid communicator. What I came to find out was I wasn't giving enough time. I wasn't as open door of a policy as people thought I should be. And what I created was this idea that everybody had open door policy to me, and I had 200 people working for me at the time. That can't happen. And so what that really told me was I did a poor job of building the leadership that were in my company. That was the takeaway I had for that. I think that's the sign of a truly great leader. Strong leader is he builds other leaders.

I think that you should have a time of reflection. I think just for your own mental health, personal reflection should be something that's probably a part of your daily routine. One way or another, whether it's in the morning or at night, you should be reflecting back on your day and upon your own actions, behaviors, attitudes and emotions on a regular basis, evaluating your leadership. You certainly don't want to get too tied up with navel gazing, like forever. You should take action because how else are you, what are you going to have to analyze if you don't do anything and you're just thinking about it all the time? We talked a little bit about this last night. So in your leadership, sometimes you just got to do some things and then be like, well, that went really well. Or, ooh, that might not have gone so great, you know, so don't be afraid to get out there and do it. The thing, though, that I have noticed especially is as we talk about the context of contractors and small business owners, as you guys are watching this, there's this component of leader. This idea of leadership is going to be absolutely necessary for you to build your business. You're going to have to build leaders. People are like, I don't want to have to be involved in every single thing in my business. Well, guess what? If you don't want to do that, then you're going to have to have people who do do that. Okay? And so, but, but the concept of leadership is not something that naturally develops for you as you build your company. That's the thing that people, for that people overlook. So if I'm really good at creating estimates, doing sales, or doing production, I can train people in those processes to do those things. And I might be really good at doing that. And I might be able to be like, this is how I. How I generate an estimate, and then I can show somebody else how I do it. And if they do it the way I do it, bam, they're good at generating estimates.

But you're a trainer.

But so now I've taught somebody something. Okay. And they might be really, really great at that. Okay, well, here's the problem. You didn't actually develop any leadership skills necessarily in doing that. Now teaching is part of leadership, and maybe you're good at teaching. Okay. But now I've created somebody else who can create estimates. Well, guess what? If I do that 10 times, I no longer need to worry about generating estimates anymore. What do I need to worry about? I need to worry about the people who are doing the estimates. And in teaching them how to do the estimates, I did not necessarily get any better at managing and leading those people. So what I'm saying is that, like, if you're working on your footwork in a particular sport, it doesn't mean that you're also increasing a different skill in that sport. Your footwork is getting better. So you have to be aware that leadership is not something that will naturally develop as you grow your company and grow your people. You have to purposefully invest in increasing your leadership ability.

Yeah, you got to look at it like anything else. It doesn't matter whether you want to be a doctor, you want to be a biologist, you want to be a lawyer, you want to be an athlete. You're going to be disciplined to the skills to learn that thing. Right. Whatever it may be. Leadership is a profession. That's how you need to look at it. It is truly a profession. So any profession that exists out there, you need to learn the skills. To learn the skills, you have to be very disciplined. And even more than that, and why I say leadership is the one that tends to be the hardest one to really like, see people become great at is. I think a lot of people want to lead because they have this belief of what leadership is. Leadership leads them to wealth, leadership leads them to power, leadership leads them to authority. That type of stuff where what it really leads you to is responsibility. You now have responsibility for other human beings and where they're going to go in life. They are your charge at that point. And if you don't put in the full effort to be as good of a leader as you possibly can, or strong, as we like to say, or effective, another word for it, you're doing a disservice to every single one of those human beings you're responsible for. It's the thing I lose More sleep over than anything else in my life. I own this company. I run Contractor Coach Pro. I have several of you that work for me. I think about it constantly. Am I doing everything I can possibly do to serve you guys well? And my answer every single time is no. I know I could do more.

Can I drive you crazy after a while though?

No. Because I am at peace with. I'm doing what I can do the best I can. Do it. I'm just becoming better. As long as I'm becoming better every day, I'm at peace with it. And I think I'm becoming a more effective leader. The older I get, the more experience I get, the more time I put into personal growth. Leadership skill gaining. I think a lot of people believe that they can go and listen to a video or listen to a book or read a book and become a leader. And that's not the truth. It's this practiced skill over and over and over and over again until it becomes a part of you, until it becomes an actual habit. We talk about those leadership habits if we really want to connect with our people. Which I think is really kind of the super skill of a leader is being connected to the people that work for you where they feel like, hey, he cares for me and. And you care for me as well. There's really. Because there's. You read a million books out there. There's. I think the last time I did a count on it, There was like 37 skills I needed to learn, which got really confusing. And I'm like, which one and which one am I great at? Not good at? And there's a million guys that write books about it, and they're all great. And you really should take a lot of time to read those. Great place to start, but then refine it down to what are the ones that I really need to connect with people. Because if you can connect with somebody, you become magnetic. That's the inherent part of connection. And so those skills, for us, we call them the leadership wheel number one, you gotta engage people. You're the sales guy, you gotta engage them in the vision that become a part of what it is that we do. And not only will you help us achieve what we're after, but we're gonna help you achieve what you're after, which is more important to us. It's more important to see you grow. Because if I see you grow, my company will grow. The byproduct will be the success of my company if you're successful. But that's a start, right? We get started with that engagement and this vision of how they're going to play a part in our business and how it's going to benefit them not only while they're here, but for the rest of their lives. But then they come in, you go, yeah, that sounds great, I want to be a part of it. Then you actually have to give them the education. You got to educate them and you got to educate yourself. You're continually in this growth thing, this idea of being 1% better every day. You hear it all the time. Why not 2% or 10%? Like, hey, let's, let's go for it all. Because if you sell them on this vision and then you don't give them the tools and education, you were just a salesman, you weren't a fulfillment. And that person then goes, hey, I had some buy in. And I lose that buy in because I'm not getting what you said I was going to get. So if you do the education part and you educate them, you educate yourself, you all get better at what you're doing. The next piece of that is you got to set the example. You've got to be this person that's like, hey man, you're not going to outwork me. Now, that doesn't mean one of the things that always bothered me. I'm going to ask you this because I haven't talked with you about this, but there's been something bothering me here lately. This idea of leading from the front. While I believe there's value in that and you shouldn't discount it, I don't believe it's what you should always be doing. For example, if I led a sales team and I was out there knocking doors every day, I'm probably going to be a pretty ineffective leader because I'm out doing what it is I'm supposed to be teaching and coaching people to do well, that affords me more capacity to teach, train and coach more people. So where does that balance lie? And is that a truth that you should always be leading from the front as the example? Because that's a big part of what we teach in those habits that we need to have to connect with people is I'm setting an example. But that example, I think is by the work ethic that you apply to your job. So they see it that they should apply that work ethic in their job.

I have thought about this significantly quite a bit, and I think that the trait of example, setting an example, it might be the single most important thing that you could do. If you're going to establish like, okay, well, where's. If I was to try and break down all these different things into a place I should consistently have focused, setting the example of what you want and expect out of your people, you'll never going to go wrong there. I think it was Gandhi who said, be the change that you want to see in the world, okay? And so instead of going, I see this problem and I see that problem, and people should be more like this and people should be more like that. You got to ask yourself, are you like that? And so leading from the front, I think should always be necessary from the standpoint that I don't expect a character trait or I don't expect something out of people that I don't also expect out of myself.

One of the ones I see a lot, this is the one that, like, as an example, right? In our world, in the home service industry, there are lots of companies, especially in the restoration side of the world, where they want their people to work sun up to sundown, whether they're selling, producing, what, maybe even administration, right? Like all hours, all the time. But then that guy is off on a boat, he's on a vacation, he works, he comes in at 10, leaves at 4. Like, if you're expecting everybody else to work sunup to sundown, they're not going to if you're not the example for it. Now, I see some great examples of that. We have contractors that they do expect their folks to work sunup to sundown, but so do they. And even when the sun goes down, they keep working. They're still focused on growing. And I think that's okay. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. As long as I think there's something.

Wrong with working sun up to sundown all the time. I got no desire to do that.

For you, maybe for you, maybe for me, maybe for him. And the people that work for him, they're bought into it, they believe in it, because he's setting that example that, hey, this is what I expect here.

You'll attract to yourself. That's the thing. You will. And this also plays in a lot of different areas in life. As a leader, you will attract to yourself the thing that you are. And so if you're really not happy with a lot of the people that you have around you, if you're frustrated with your team, if you're upset with how people are acting or responding, you might need to take a look in the mirror and go, did I like, Am I like that? Do I prioritize Things that way. Is that how I speak to people? Because people will mimic, especially if you're the leader and you're the owner or you're the most successful person in the business. People who are aspiring to the success or the leadership level you have, they'll mimic what you do, not what you say, especially if there's a difference between them. So if they see you doing a thing and they're like, well, they do that and they're at this place, so I'm going to do that, too. And so that's why if you're unhappy with the people around you, you're going to have to take a look at yourself and be like, are they just doing what I do? Is that. Is that what's happening here? These people are late for appointments. They don't call people back. They don't check their messages. And you look at your phone and.

Your voicemail is full, and you're late.

For meetings, and you're always the one late for meetings. And you say you're gonna do something, and then you don't do it. And you make commitments that you either don't or can't keep. And then you're looking at your people and you're frustrated because they all showed up late for a meeting, and none of them answer their phone, and none of them are doing the things they promised they would do.

Yeah, that's. That's why I asked you about example. I think that is such an important part of being a leader, is the example you set for others because they want to aspire to be like you.

I mean, I see it when I talk to young men, too. It's one of my favorite and most funny things about dudes who want to get a girlfriend or they want to get married at some point. And they all have that checklist, right? All of us have a checklist. She's got to be hot. She's got to be hot, right? She's got to be.