Larry Weidel argues leadership is the highest-payoff skill because great leaders produce disproportionate, repeatable value. The difference: real leaders are driven, results-focused, and willing to rally teams through problems. Mediocre leaders talk the part but fail to deliver.
What we're talking about here is looking at a career and one that will give you a big repeating income, one that will give you the opportunity to do other things you want in your life and basically be willing, you know, make it worthwhile for you to put extra effort into the thing. And we looked at sales, sales management, and discovered that beyond that, the thing, the magic, the center, you know, if there's one thing that you're good at, a lot of things, interested a lot of things, but something that you really want to throw your energy behind where you could be lifetime. The biggest lifetime payoff would move into whatever arena interest you, go for the leadership position, develop that leadership skill. Now, here's. When you're in leadership, you don't want to be. You want to go for greatness. And here's the thing. Mediocre leaders are a dime a dozen. It's the great leaders that are priceless because essentially, mediocre leaders are like having no leaders. They're like pretend leaders. They're essentially fraud. And don't be afraid of the word great. Great means they get things done. They set out to do things, they make commitments, and they find a way to get it done. They might necessarily come up with all the answers themselves, but they find the answers, find the resources. And if you're in leadership, you're supposed to actually accomplish things, not just talk about doing it. That's where the greatness comes in, and that's where the skill comes in. So when we look at great leaders, let's look at some of what makes them valuable. They're valuable because they bring things to the table that they are driven to not just get by. They're driven to do great things. They can't see the big picture. They can get excited about doing something bigger than most people are thinking about it. And as a result, they can get people not only to join and get excited about doing this themselves, but they can get large numbers of people to actually work harder than they ever would because somebody showed them the big picture and showed them a way of doing it and creating an environment and a team and a structure to where that can happen. People want to be a part of championship team. They want to be a part of the things that make a difference. I remember meeting people and just traveling around. I saw a guy one time and he said he was. He was bragging about his fact that his grandfather was one of the ones who built. No, actually, he was the superintendent of construction who built the Empire State Building in New York. I mean, he's still bragging about that. You know, how many years has that been? But you know, their pride. People, you know, people want to accomplish things now, great leaders of value because they find ways. Winning is elusive, but they're going to find ways to win. They're going to overcome problems and they also see they're going to overcome. It's one thing to have a problem, it's another thing to overcome it. You're never going to do anything without overcoming. And so that's what they do. They're so driven, so motivated, they're going to keep after it till they find ways to win. And that drive and enthusiasm inspires others. It inspires hope and effort in others. It takes people who are going just through life, just getting by and giving them a cause to not only get excited about, but to get behind. And so now they're inspired as a result is they provoke people to greater production because they're working harder. As a result, they're making their lives count. And the harder you work, the more you get done, the more satisfied and satisfaction you get out of life. And those are things that make the great leaders valuable. And in the business world, which is what we're talking about and business leaders are a specific kind and we're talking about making money. Of course, any arena, you're going to be the highest paid. And what even if you're in a volunteer, a charity organization, a foundation, a non profit, people get paid to work there. And if you're the director, you're the leader, you're going to be the highest paid there. Not as much money as you'd make out in the private sector or. But you're still going to be one of the higher paid. But let's just talk about business leaders. Business leaders, what they do is, what's specific about them is they are competitive, they compete, they want to go into the marketplace, they want to get a bigger market share. They know who their competitors are. And because they want to be better, they want to be good, they're not just satisfied, they know they're not looking for guarantees. They know nothing is guaranteed. And so you have, they understand they have the temperament to be able to operate where there are no guarantees. Very few people can get comfortable living where you have a, what my cousin Edward used to call a high degree of ambiguity about your life, but where there's a lot of unknowns and not sure, what about this, what about that? What if this goes wrong? I don't know. We'll figure it out, we'll get an answer. See, the business leaders are people who will jump in there and they can handle those kind of challenges, risk and questions. And they know that they're willing to get in there for themselves and their team and get into an arena where whoever competes, whoever gives the most value wins. See, because that's not going to happen by itself. I mean, you have to make the extra effort, you have to revise it one more time, send it back to the drawing board. You have to not accept mediocrity. But when you're driving your company, you know, this is exactly the kind of leadership they don't have at Comcast in their service department now. And the biggest joke in the world is a commercial on TV about wow, what does it take to hit a two hour window on service calls? Let me tell you, whatever it is, Comcast doesn't have it. Just kidding. Comcast, I'm sure you're great, but you know, if you have a leader in there, it's going to take a leader who insists on that kind of performance. And that's what makes them so valuable and so unique. They're not going to hide from this like the people at Comcast. They're going to actually put their nose into it and make it come out right. And see, they have, you know, they're not going for an arbitrary goal where it'll make them money or make them satisfied. They are chasing, they're after no limits. What if Steve Jobs had just wanted to build a nice little computer company in, you know, California, be number one in California? Well, we wouldn't have that. We wouldn't have had the Apple computers that we wound up with. We don't have the Apple products we have today. See, the great business leaders are not trying to hit an arbitrary limit. They're going for the sky. They're going to make history. They want to do something dramatic that's with the great leaders and that's what makes them again, that makes them so valuable. So let's look at, you know, this, these are the things, the specifics about their personality drive. Now another thing, you can look at them, what are their background? Where do these people come from? They come from all walks of life. They come in all sizes, all sizes, races, ages. They come with all backgrounds. Some are trained, some are highly trained with highly skilled. Some are kind of on the job training. It's not always the most trained, you know, the one with the most education who gets. That's not necessarily the thing you go by. Education helps. It's not always the most creative. It's also not always the most, you know, the ones with the greatest personalities, these dominant personality people. But it is always, always the most driven. You wonder who the leader is inside organization or who's going to be, you know, is on their way to become them in charge, take over. It's the person who's the most driven of the group to win and to do great things. If that sounds like something that excites you, that you'd like to be, you got a chance to be a leader.
