The TRUE Meaning of Leadership

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm.

What I want to share with you. And if you have something you can take some notes on. And by the way, I want. This is important. I will be speaking to you without any notes, but I'd like for you to take some notes. And let me tell you what, what I mean by that. I find that when I was in school, I could take notes. I learned the art of having something come in my ear, down my neck, through my shoulder, out my arm, on my pen, through my pen, onto the paper, and never touch my brain. And it was, you know, called taking notes. I didn't learn a whole lot that way. Some things you learn, you do. But I. Someone shared with me, they said it's really important that you don't listen carefully, that you don't listen to take notes, that you listen to retell. See, there's a big difference between I'm listening to you and I'm taking some notes versus I'm listening to you and I'm writing some things down because I want to retell this to someone else. It would be the difference between me asking you, are there any chick fil a's near you? You might say, yeah, there's two or three in town. Or unfortunately, no, they're not any in town versus could you tell me how I could get to the nearest chick fil A? Because I've got some friends that we want to go tonight. Now, I want to tell them how to get there. See, that raises my listening level to a whole new level because I'm listening to retail. I'm listening to not just get it, not just write it down on a piece of paper, but to use it. So with that in mind, I want to share with you the way I understand leadership. Leadership has 10 letters in it. L, E, A, D, E, R, S, H, I, p. Probably about 30 years ago, I started putting together a talk, a concept, a training, a teaching on leadership. Because I had spent. I'm 72 years old. So 30 years ago I was in my 40s. Can you believe that? And so I started putting together what I understand leadership to be. So I'm just going to quickly go through this and if you want to jot some of these things down, please feel free to do so, but not just to have them on a piece of paper, but to have them in your heart. You See, today I'm not going to be reading something that's on a piece of paper. I'm going to be reviewing something that's in my heart and life. Because this is, to me, what leadership's all about. L. The letter L in leadership stands for love what you do. Someone said if you love what you do and you do what you love, every day is a vacation. I think that's true. I love what I do. I believe I was born to teach and train primarily about personality information, how to understand yourself and others if you just have to. And all of us. Don't beat yourself up. All of us have had a job that we didn't really like, but we needed some income and we had to get up and we had to do it. We had to go through the motions. We. I understand that. I get it. We've all done that, and that's okay for a period of time. But there's something better, and that's to get up, knowing today I will do what I love to do.

I want to say this carefully because I don't want to anyone to misunderstand me. I would do what I do for free. I would. I don't have to get paid to do this. It's nice to get paid so I can run a business and have the necessary finances that I need. But I. I want to go once. I would almost pay you to let me teach you and train you about personality information. Because it's so important, it's so invite, it's so vital. Zig said to me one time, chase helping people and money will chase you. Well, that's why the letter L is love what you do. Just love you don't love what you do. Start looking for what you think you would love to do. If it'll help you to live longer, be less stressed out, be more productive. The letter E, my way of thinking. He stands for enthusiasm. Now, I don't know if you know the word enthusiasm, what it means. It comes from two Greek words in Theos. In means in or inside of something. And theos is where we get the word theology. Most of you know the word theology means the study of God. Now, whether or not you believe in God or whatever that means to you that you know, I believe there is a higher power, and it's not me. And you've heard the phrase that we were created in the image of God. What in the world does that mean? It means that the highest form of creation is mankind. We have the unique ability to do one thing that no other Creature can do, and that is think and reason. I know animals can react and respond and they have somewhat of a learning system, but not like ours. We can build buildings, we can build fly airplanes. We can go to the moon. We have an. We were created in the image of the Creator. Think about that. The Creator made many creators. That's us. We build buildings, we build houses, roads, schools, ocean liners. It's incredible our ability. And so when I think about in enthusiasm, I thank God. Thank you for making me in your image. Meaning I know how to think, I know how to reason, and I know how to be a blessing to other people. I want to be helpful. I want my life to count. And I can learn and grow and think through things and be able to help myself, my family, my life and other people and have them help me. Because we know how to think, we know how to process, and we know how to use the gifts, talents and abilities that the Creator gave us. We are enthusiastic. We are created in the image of God. The letter A stands for, of course, attitude is your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude in life. Everybody served that. But are you aware of this? I love this one. I tell you, is one of my favorite Zig Ziglar stories. And of course y', all, if you don't know, I was with real close to Zig for several years back in the 80s. Back long time ago. Gosh, I hardly miss 40 years ago, but Zig used to say this. I don't miss it. Positive thinking won't make you do anything. Say what? I thought Zig was all about positive thinking. What do you mean it won't make you do anything? Here's the sentence, here's the quote. Positive thinking won't make you do anything, but it will help you do everything better. I'll run through that again. Positive thinking won't make you do anything. You can lay in bed in the morning and be very positive about. I'm going to get up and I'm going to make myself a cup of coffee and I'm going to have a great day and just lay there. Nothing will happen. Reminds me of the story of the. Of the joke. There are three bullfrogs sitting on a lily pad. One decides to jump in. How many are left? Answer 3. Just because you decide to do something doesn't mean you do it. Ah, get it. You see, positive thinking won't make you do anything, but it'll help you do everything better. Whether it's surgery or digging a ditch or cleaning the house, washing the dishes. I'm gonna have a good attitude. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna smile. I just do whatever I do. Every day I run into. I was in Home Depot earlier today, and I could tell the lady who was helping me was not having a good day. And I just smiled and I said, well, I said, I'm not sure what all is going on, but I hope everything gets better. And she. She said, I'm sorry. She said, I'm just in with some rough customers today. And I said, well, I'm not one of them. I'm your angel. And she laughed. Everything got better. See? Why? Because my attitude. You're listening one more time. Positive thinking won't make you do anything. But it will help you do everything better. Even going to Home Depot. A is for attitude. Your attitude. Get this. You have 100% control over it. Even Almighty God will make you have a good attitude. You get to choose your attitude. The determination. Determination means you just keep going. Have you ever noticed how life is so daily? Flint Wilson once said, if I had my whole life to live over again, I wouldn't have the energy to do it. What was he saying? Lot involved in life. Why, it's daily. Daily. Daily. See, determination means if you strike a thorn or rose, keep it going. If it hails or if it snows, keep it going. Ain't no use to sit and why. And when the fish ain't on your line, bait your hook and keep on trying. Keep it going. Determination. Is that part of you that just says, I'm not going to ease up, give up, back up, let up or shut up until I'm taken up. You just learn to have determination. Don't quit. Quitters never win. Winners never quit. Just. Just keep going. I didn't mean you have to run over anybody. Doesn't have to meet you. Don't be mean and nasty or hateful. It just means I'm not going to quit. I'm just going to keep on keeping on. I'm just going to be determined. A little girl one day was talking to her mom. She's asking her mom a million questions. You know how kids are sometimes. They never stop asking questions. She said to her mom, she said, mom wanted flowers grow. And the mother was so tired. And she was thinking, oh, not another question. Why do flowers grow? And their mother said, I don't know, sweetheart. I guess the seed just gets tired of being in the dirt. So it comes on up. And you know what? I like that. What a great answer. The seed gets tired of Being in the dirt. So it just comes on up. You ever gotten tired of being in the dirt? You got tired of just being negative and hateful and bitter and critical about everything? See, that's not determination. That will do you no good. It will do the people around you no good. Have determination. Just keep on keeping on. So, L, E, A, D. We're up to the next E, the fifth letter. And here's what it stands for. Expectations. This is a good one. Expectations means, what are you expecting, you say, Well, I don't know. I thought about it much. I'm not expecting anything. Well, if you're expecting nothing, that's exactly what you get. You see, there's the law, if you'll think about it, the law of attraction. The law of attraction means you find what you're looking for. Have you ever lost your car keys? And you're looking for them, and you're looking for them, and you're looking for them and you finally buy them. How do you find them? That's what you're looking for. I know the old adage was, why did you always find everything you're looking for in the last place you look? Because after you find them, you don't have to look anymore. I know you already know that, but expectations means what are you expecting? Now listen carefully. Not only what are you expecting from yourself, what are you expecting from others?

Think about this. I have a friend. He told me, he said. My son told me, he said, when I grow up, I want to be a fireman. He said, my son's probably not going to grow to be a fireman. But what I said to him, that's great. That's wonderful. He said, you know, firemen are always washing the trucks. You want to wash the car today, that will give you the opportunity to see if you like that he talked his son into washing the car. Now, you could say, oh, he was just manipulating him, trying to get him to wash the car. I know this guy. And what he was doing was giving his son feet to his thoughts. Do you get that? That put some feet to your thoughts. That's what expectations are. You're able to expect things from yourself and from others. When's the last time you looked at a son or daughter or brother or sister, mom or dad, and just say, you know, you would make a real good. Whatever it might be you, I think you would be really good at. I was talking to my grandson the other day. He, My second grandson. He. He's a talker and he likes to argue, and he's smart. I said, sam, I think you'd be a really good attorney. I said, you thought about going to law school? He said, oh, I'm just graduated from high school. He said, but that's something to think about. See, I don't know if he's going to be an attorney or not, but I'd rather him shoot for the moon and miss and end up in the stars, then shoot for dirt and hit it. Do you get that? See, if you shoot for nothing, that's exactly what you'll get. What are your expectations? Are you expecting yourself to be a better person? Are you expecting to learn and grow? Are you expecting to write a book? Are expecting to go on a vacation? Are you expecting to get married? Are you expecting to have children? Are you expecting to take the necessary time it learns, it takes to learn a new skill. Wow. I'm reminded of Dr. Scott Peck. He wrote the road less traveled. He's a psychiatrist. He's passed away now. His lawnmower broke one day. He was cutting his grass, his lawnmower broke and he rolled it next door to his next door neighbor's house. I love this story. In his next door neighbor, he said, my next neighbor could fix anything. He said, we picked the lawnmower up, we put it on his workbench, and he said he started tinkering with it. He said, I casually made the comment, I've never been good at fixing things like that. I'm just not very good at fixing anything. He said. My next door neighbor said to me, aren't you a psychiatrist? Aren't you a medical doctor? And Scott pick said, yes. And then the next door neighbor said, how long have you been lying to yourself about this? And of course, psychiatrists are in the exact business of helping people stop lying to themselves. You know, that's why they're called shrinks. They get a mirror in front of you and they, whichever way you turn, they make you look at yourself and they shrink you down until you can face the reality of your own life. I have a friend who's a psychiatrist. He told me that that's why they're called shrinks. So anyway, Dr. Peck's neighbor said to him, how long have you been lying to yourself about this? And Scott Pegg said, he called me off guard and I said, what do you mean? So my next door neighbor said, if you can graduate from medical school and if you can become a medical doctor, I'm pretty sure you can learn how to fix a lawnmower. You see? You see, the problem is you've never taken the time to learn how to do it. He said, if you take the time, he said, anybody that don't miss this, this is powerful. Anybody can learn how to do any thing if you take the time to learn how to do it. Anybody. Listen to this. Anybody who knows how to do anything right now, any skill set they know, they had to learn. Cause you're born tabula rasa, sort of like a blank slate. Piaget believed. And we constantly are learning and growing and receiving information. What I'm saying is this. Everything you know right now. At one time in your life, you did not know you had to learn it. How does all that happen? I think it happens because of expectations. Are you expecting something? Are you expect. Are you expecting to read a book this year? I remember when I didn't know anything about real estate, so I started reading about it. I bought a piece of property. Boy, you want to learn how to learn something fast, get some experience in it. I remember when I didn't know much about computers, and I still don't. Y' all are going to think this is crazy. I remember the day I learned how to add an attachment to an email. Oh, man, I thought I was Steve Jobs. I couldn't believe it. I knew how to add an attachment. Attachment.

That crazy. You say, well, that's no big deal. I know, but if you don't know how to do it, it's a. It's a big deal when you learn how to do it. I've often said open heart surgery is not hard if you know how to do it. L, E, A, D, E. We're halfway through. The next letter are one of my favorites. It stands for responsibility. What goes on in my life, I'm responsible for. If you ever come to one of our trainings, we have a plaque that says I'm responsible. We give that to everybody who goes through our advanced training. Why? Because if you're not the problem, there can be no solution. Now, this is hard stuff, so bear with me. What do you mean if you're not the problem? Say, well, I'll put it in the first person. If I'm not the problem, there can be no solution. I know there can be problems going on all around me that are not technically my fault. But if I look at them with the attitude of, well, how can I work with this better? How can I be responsible? I can blame everybody all day long, but when I finished, I'm right back where I started. See, if I'm responsible, that means I can do something about it. I can make things better. I could perhaps make things worse, but I can perhaps change some things if I realize what can I do? How can I look at this situation? Hear me well. We all get trapped in situations where the red light or the green light doesn't work, or we're stuck in traffic, or there's been an accident, or somebody shortchanged us in a deal. On and on and on. Then you get a choice where I'm going to blame them for all my problems or I'm going to learn from this. I'll do better next time. Almost every problem I've ever had has been the. Not the stumbling block, but the stepping stone to teach me how to do something better. I've learned I own a print company. I have learned you can't write a book, print it, send it to the printers, get it all, get it back all in a day. That takes time. So it's called lead time. It's called margin. And if you have a big event coming up, you have to plan that. You have to be responsible for what could go wrong. How long is this going to take? What do I need to do? It's all in the area of being responsible. I want to say this. This will hurt a little bit for all of us. Out of all 10 letters, responsibility is probably the one that I see everybody lacking in. So what do you mean lacking? Everybody can be more responsible. If you will start living your life in such a way as I'm not going to blame anybody, I'm going to ask myself, what can I do in this situation to make things better? Now you're being responsible. Listen, responsibility. I will go out on a limb.

That's the limb. Cracking. Responsibility will get you into heaven. Responsibility is. What about my life? Where am I going to spend eternity? What? What, what do I believe? I can blame it on everybody in the world, but what do I believe? Who am I trusting in? How do I have a relationship with the creator of the universe? I want you to have one, too. But I'm not to be unkind, but I'm a little more interested in my own because I can't do anything about yours. I knew something about mine. I know who I have believed in and trusted in. See, that's being responsible. L, E, A, D, E, R. Those are the leader. That's the first Louis runs. But leadership. The last four letters, S, stands for serve. Do you like to serve? Do you like to help? He Ken Blanchard wrote a book called Servant Leadership. It was hailed as one of the greatest concepts in all of business training books. And here's what the concept is. Learn to serve. Well, that's it. Learn to serve. Learn to serve. You see, if you want to be successful, you got to learn how to serve. You know, running a business is. It's learning to serve your customers is learning to serve your clients. It's learning to be a servant, it's learning to help. Ken Blanchard even played off of some of you've heard the what it means to wash someone else's feet. You can read the story even in the Bible. I think it's in John chapter 13 where Jesus washed the disciples feet. Boy, they had a hard time with it. They said, you're the leader, why are you washing our feet? We ought to wash your feet. He said, I'm trying to teach you a lesson. Whoever is greatest among you must be your leader. You see, whoever owns a business has to learn how does that business work? How can we serve better? How can we meet more people's needs? How can we be the best at what we're doing? How can we outwork, outperform out serve our competition? That's what serving is all about. You want leadership in your life, Learn how to serve. That's challenging sometimes because you're like, oh my goodness, I've been serving all day long and I'm tired. Guess what a servant does when he serves all day long. Keep serving. Keeps figuring out new ways and better ways to serve to meet the demands of his customers. The letter H H stands for honesty. Honesty is the real you. It's who you are at your deepest core. You're not about cheating somebody or being every once in a while, believe it or not, at Personality Insights, something goes wrong. So when we talk to our customers, here's the way we start listening. We want this to be a win win situation. My father told me there's four ways to do every business deal. I lose and you lose, that's no good. I win and you lose, that's no good. I lose and you win. That's no good or I win and you win. Let's see how we can work this out. That kind of puts a good taste in everybody's mouth because we're trying to be honest. We're running a business here. It does require goods and services and money. But believe every once in a while so a customer will get charged twice for something. Because we live in the world of electronic technology and things that that happen, mistakes, you know what we say, listen, it's no problem, we'll work this out and then we always try to sweeten it a little bit by saying, we appreciate your attitude. We'll give you a full refund and we're going to send you a couple of gifts just to let you know we care. Honesty will take you a long way because you can sleep really good at night knowing you didn't hurt somebody or you didn't cheat somebody. Honesty is always the best policy. Then the letter is integrity, boy. Integrity is. Our world is falling apart. Everywhere you look, we see among whether it's politicians or lawyers or people who are not being people of integrity. It hurts others. You know, people are being faithful to their mate. It's not trying to protect their family and their children. And to be able to see Billy Graham, you know, he passed away a few years ago. I heard him being interviewed one day and they said, what do you want on your gravestone? And some of you maybe know the story. His casket was made by people in recovery, former inmates in jail. I believe some of them were still in jail. They handmade him a casket. Billy Graham said, well, I want the day I was born and the day I died. I think he lived close to being 100 years old. He said, and then I just want my name Billy Graham. And he said, I know, yes, one other thing. A man of integrity. And I thought to myself, what could be better than that? And by the way, did y' all hear about the big scandal in Billy Graham's life? Did you hear about the big scandal in his ministry? Did y' all hear about that? You didn't, did you? That's because there wasn't one in that. Good. I love that. We all need integrity. See, you want everybody you deal with. You deal with. You want your husband, your wife, your kids, your parents, your family, your brother, your sisters. And the companies you deal with, you want all of them to have integrity. And then the last letter P. They know how. Listen carefully. This is a good one. I saved the best for last. They know how to be persuasive. What Leadership. The person knows how to be persuasive. Yes. Here's what I mean by persuasive. They don't live a wishy washy life. They're persuaded. They're is such a thing as good and there is such a thing as bad. There is such a thing as the bright side or the light side or the white side of the force. There is such a thing as dark side of evil. It really does. And so they're persuaded in their daily life to take the high road. They're persuaded that when they're talking about things.

To, to have some thoughts about whatever it is that they're involved in that are good and wholesome and helpful. See, I'm persuaded if you hang around me very long, you will find out. I'm persuaded that the disc model of human behavior is the best one in the world. I know that there are others. I know there's true colors and there's Myers Briggs and there are animals. I've studied all of those. There are 11 different ones that I use in the appendix and the back of my book, Positive Personality Profiles. You can get a copy of that if you want to. And I show their nine, nine other models that are out there. Why do I. I'm persuaded that the disc model is the best one. Why am I persuaded? Well, I've studied all of them. I've talked to other people about them. I've heard people say, oh, it's so easy to understand. I was able to remember it. I don't have to go back to school. I was able to listen to you for an hour. And I basically have the basic tenets of the disk model. See, I'm persuaded that that's the best one. You need to find out some things that you believe because listen, strong persuasion is what causes your life to have direction. I'm not just a wandering generality, I'm a meaningful specific. Mean another Zig Ziglar quote. Are you just a wandering generality? Well, we'll see what happens. I'll kind of look every day. Dr. Rome, have you ever heard about this model of human behavior? And I said, yes, you know I have, thank you very much. And I'm not going to be ugly or unkind about it, but I think it's not the best one. I'm persuaded because I've studied them, I've used them, I've talked to millions of people on six different planets and everyone said the same thing. My, wow, that's the best thing I've ever heard. See, I'm not a wandering generality. I'm a meaningful specific. If you remember old westerns, there was a tumbleweed blowing through town. That's a wandering generality, a meaningful specifics. A heat seeking missile, like that's what I'm going for, that's what I'm going after. There may have to make some mid course corrections, but I want to specifically focus and be a person of persuasion. I was talking to two guys on the phone one day and we were talking about something that each one of us believed it had to do with a business deal. And I made the comment and I. I said, you know, I think I'm right. I'm not, I'm not trying to run over y', all, but I just think I'm right. Next guy said, well, let me tell you what I think. And he said, I think I'm right. And then the final guy said, well, I think I'm right. And then he made a comment in. He made this comment, I'll never forget it. He said, guys, guys talking to me. And the other guy on our three way conversation, he said, I'm not trying to be right, I'm trying to get this right. When he said that, it was like electricity went through me. I grabbed my pen and while I was listening on the call, I wrote, I'm not trying to be right. I'm just trying to get this right. You see, that's what persuasion's all about. It doesn't have to be my way. I just want to find what I believe and go after it. I want to be focused on being a person of persuasion. I want to be focused on this is what I believe. If I'm wrong, I can always change and say I was wrong. But I'm not going to live my life guessing at everything, not making any decisions and not willing to take a position on something. If you spent a day with me, if you spent a day with me, you would say this. Wow. He's pretty focused on what he does every day. From the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, I'm busy. And I'm not busy chasing my tail. I'm busy doing things that will matter. So there are your 10 points of leadership. Let's review them one more time. A leader. L loves what they do. E. They have enthusiasm. A. They have an attitude that's positive and good. D. They have desire or dedication to what they're doing, either. Expectations, looking forward to things happening. Are they responsible? Oh, that's such a good one. Stop. My brother, not my sister, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Responsibility. S. They know how to serve. H. They're honest. They have integrity and be their personal persuasion. They have goals, dreams and desires to focus on being persuaded about certain things that they believe. They're flexible. They can always change them. You're a winner. Get involved in leadership and these qualities and you'll be glad that you did.

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