How To LEAD & INSPIRE Others - 7 Great Leadership TRAITS! | Daniel Harkavy

Leaders are responsible for taking a collective group of humans, galvanizing them, aligning them, bringing out the best in them, so that together they can create a better tomorrow.

One of the things that I love most about following what you've been doing is this presence about leadership and doing it well. What is the number one thing that holds most leaders back?

Themselves. I mean, it's the number one thing, it's themselves. It's faulty thinking, it's faulty belief, it's maybe faulty understanding of identity and how that impacts your thinking and your feeling, which then impacts your behavior. So, you know, I've been, I led an executive coaching company building champions for 25 years now, Team of coaches working with thousands of business leaders. And.

It'S what we see most of the time, it's the leader's head or heart and then how that manifests itself through their, their actions and their communication that holds them back. Big conversation, my friend.

Yeah, well, that's why I want to dig into it because, you know, there's in the thought leadership world, right? So there's, I know as a aspiring leader myself, you know, I've had multiple sessions of journey around my, around my creating of companies and whatnot. So started very early on, incredibly insecure. In fact, I was, it was probably, I was probably 10 years into business before I ever shared the fact that I was, I had been homeless or anything like that. I had people with more degrees in a thermometer working with me or you know, in my, in my various levels of leadership under me, or how you.

Want to pronounce it.

And secretly I went home every day praying that they wouldn't discover that honestly didn't know what the heck I was doing.

You're in good company, my friend.

Good deal. Well, what is the trigger point? Because I know what the trigger point for me for change was. What do you find that working with all the leaders that you've worked with has been a trigger point for their catalyst for change?

I think it's different for everybody. There's an old saying, and that is people don't change until they've heard enough, had enough or hurt enough.

And I believe that every leader goes to this place where they have their crucible. They have this near death experience. There's an awakening after it. So if we're going to talk specifically about business and leaders or organization and leaders, leaders are responsible for taking a collective group of humans, galvanizing them, aligning them, bringing out the best in them so that together they can create a better tomorrow. That's what great leadership is all about. So you talk about your insecurity, which I dealt with as well. Barely made it through high school, no college degree, and here I am coaching, you know, executives that run multi billion dollar global organizations. And I started this when I was 30, and it wasn't till.

I was probably around 45 to where I really understood that I could be used in my role without all of the degrees because I was a hungry student. I wanted to learn. And I went into many a meeting, Steven, where I was just flat out.

Let'S not talk about schools, please, please don't bring that up. And let's not talk about sports because I don't know. I don't know this ball from that point. A surfer, right? So it's like, if you want to talk about surfing or you want to talk about coaching, game on. I'm in. You want to talk about marriage and family and having net worth in all areas of your life, love it. You want to talk about how to build a great team, let's go. But just stay away from those, because I'm scared.

Yeah.

All right. So I'm in my mid-40s, and basically I came to this realization that I'm actually more effective when I truly understand that I'm not the smartest guy in the room. And I don't need to be. I actually just need to have the vision for tomorrow. I need to have a burning passion around it. I need to have the intellect to bring out the best in people and then find the best people and then figure out who needs to make the decisions. Which is. It kind of leads into my most recent book where I say a leader's effectiveness is determined by only two things. The decisions you make and the influence you have. End of story.

Yeah.

What does it take to actually have healthy influence? Because I think there's a lot of starving leaders. I don't think that they've come, had that catalyst moment where they have the. What I refer to as the wake up call, which is, oh, you know, it's okay to admit you don't know if you don't have it all figured out. Instead, we puff our chest out and walk around like, we've got to know it all. We've got to answer all the questions. So if we know that that leads to unhealthy influence or even downright manipulation. What leads towards healthy influence?

Inspiration.

I believe it starts with a clear understanding of who you are. It's an identity issue. What I like to work with, what I like to share with clients. In the different organizations that I work in, whether it be with business leaders or young adults. Just imagine, Steven, two gears, okay? There's an inner gear and it's inside of me. And that inner gear inside of me, it spins on my identity.

I.

Identity is right at the center. Then there's belief, there's thinking, and there's feeling. That's my inner gear, identity, thinking, belief and feeling. That spins and it connects to this outer gear which you see, which is people, actions and results. So what you see when you see Daniel see me, you see, how does Daniel engage with people? What are Daniel's habits and actions and then what kind of results does he get that are observable? Well, most people make decisions based upon that outer gear. Most people try to change that outer gear. You and I have a very shared passion around one word, and that's transformation. Transformation is an inside job. It's an inside gear job. It starts with identity. And what I tell people is you need to be really comfortable with knowing who you are, whose you are and why you're here. And if you got that figured out, you don't need to be everything to everybody. You don't need to please everybody. You know, you're here, why you're here. And then you live into that space knowing that we on this planet, we need you. We need your unique, unique giftedness, your unique beauty. We don't need you to be. The world doesn't need you to be me. And they don't need me to be you. I can't. I just need to be the best me.

Yeah.

And then trust that I will be used and figure out how to be the best version of me.

You know, when, when I, when I.

When I look at seven perspectives, which I want to break down in just a second, you know that the concept of self leadership leads to team leadership. I've actually experienced in my own life.

When I remember the first time I.

Did it, in fact, you know, I was 10, probably 10 plus years in business, got into a top line revenue of, you know, 15 million something to be, you know, in theory, to be like pretty excited about.

Yeah. You know, I could go out and.

Do the things that I never could do before. I could do that at Spades. Nobody in my family had ever been able to do it before. We had a fantastic relationship with the community around us, fantastic reputation with the business and the community around us. You know, we had all those different things going for us. And then I went to a seminar, ironically, out in Franklin, Tennessee. And in the seminar, I Was kind of challenged as a leader for the first time. The core speaker was like, you know, leaders are X and if you're not xyz, you're not a leader. And it really kind of pushed back and it kind of opened my heart to the point of I learned the power of telling a story and letting people basically be part of that story. So I came back, I spent about, gosh, three and a half hours telling my entire team everything. Like, I was totally broken and probably six months in. I'm doing the right things. I'm trying as hard as I can do. I'm trying to change my entire mindset to how I lead, how I talk to people, what can be expected, communicate at a deeper level, give the details that need to kind of get there.

And I, And I remember within about.

Six months I was still like, nobody's still accepting us. Like they can't see that I'm trying. Like, you know, that's. And then the same speaker, I had a one to one meeting with him a few months after that at a different event.

And I stood up and in the.

Group and I said, hey, here's what's going on. I don't understand.

Like, I'm doing, I'm trying to do all these things.

I started crying in front of a lot of people and I was like.

I don't know, I don't get it.

And he said, you just need to give yourself some grace, doing all the right things. The cadence is there. I can, I can sense that you feel it. I can sense that you're trying have some grace. And it took about 12 months of consistency to break down a decade of bad leadership. Now are you finding that that's normally the trend? Because that aha moment, obviously nothing happens like overnight. Like when you look at the seven perspectives, how can some, how can we use the seven perspectives to aid us in a more complete transformation, hopefully in a quicker fashion so we can help more people.

Well, thanks for sharing a bit of your story. It's a common one. We live in a microwave society.

Right.

I learned something. Let me now jump into the microwave for like a minute and 15 seconds and I'll come out cooked and everything will be fine and it'll taste great. It doesn't work that way, you know. How old were you when you had that conversation with him?

Yeah, I was probably, gosh, I may.

Have just turned 30. 31.

I mean, it takes 31 years to get to who you were. The team knows you as who you were. You can go ahead and say who you are now, you've had a transformational belief experience. But that's inner gear. Inner gear. People don't see and they don't see the results. It takes time for those gears to spin and all of a sudden the relationships change, the habits change and then the results change. It takes time. So great advice from whomever that mentor was on just giving yourself grace and time. So my book, the seven perspectives of effective leaders and how do you use it to improve the results that you get as a leader? You know, I would love to say that if you read the book the next day you're going to be so much more effective. And I can say that, truthfully, I can say it. It's not theory. It's a model that I've used with some of the largest organizations in the world. My team of coaches and I coach our clients through the seven perspectives. We've got, we've got CEOs and executive teams using the seven perspectives for their strategic off sites. CEOs communicate through the seven perspectives. The best thing you do is you, you fill your calendar with a focus on the seven perspectives. You make sure that every week you're, you're paying attention to each of these seven. So you know, maybe what it would, maybe what would be beneficial is if I just really quick come of gave your tribe a fly by.

I mean they need to pick up the book for sure.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want.

To spoil it for them but believe.

Me, I'll tell you what makes the book so great. The book. And I say that people, please don't think that I'm arrogant. I have 20 plus amazing leaders in there who propped it up. So I've written a few books and I'm the kind of guy that my books are never good enough. Like I'll edit them and edit them and edit them and if I ever watch myself speak, it's never good enough. I edit it and I edit it and I edit it. Now I'm like going to be 57 and, and I'm finally at a point now I'm like, you know what, it's good enough. It's just good enough. Whatever. I hope somebody was impacted. I hope I was spot on. So I'm getting, I'm giving myself a little more grace but I still fight those little boy insecurities in this old grandpa body. So anyway, seven perspectives. Okay, Thesis. A leader's effectiveness is determined by just two things. We're talking leadership effectiveness, the decisions you make and the influence you have. Those two things, all categories of leadership, all disciplines, fall into those two buckets. That's decision making or influence. Whether it's strategy, team building, succession planning, execution, it's all falling into those two primary huge buckets. All right, well, how do you make great decisions and grow influence in today's times, especially today, being this pandemic still impacted world we live in, where you've got hybrid work teams, you've got people that haven't seen their teams face to face in more than a year. How do you build culture and lead an organization when you don't get to sit down at the water cooler and say, hey, Steven, I got an idea. Like, it's just very difficult.

Or how's your family? Or what's going on with your life?

Yeah, yeah, we're slammed back to back. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. Right. And so how do you do it? All right. The best leaders have intentional curiosity. And I've studied leaders. I've been using this model in organizations. It used to be five perspectives back in 2014, and then I wasn't done with it. Then it went to six, and then it was seven. And I'm like, okay, this is it, we're done. So.

You have to have intentional curiosity knowing that you don't know it all if you're intentionally curious. In perspective one, Current reality. Current reality. Where's the business at today? What are the forces at work? What's it like to do the work that we need to be doing? The best leaders are not ivory tower leaders. They still understand the business where leaders get disconnected and they start to lose influence because they make poor decisions is when they're so far removed from the front lines, whether that be the people delivering the services, making the product, whatever it is. When the leader no longer understands that, they're going to start to lose influence. Because the team knows, man, they don't really understand what it's like to do the job anymore.

Yeah.

So we have to go walk around cleaning up their mess because they're so focused on other things that they're just making our lives miserable and they're hurting the business. Current reality. Imagine a gps, Steven. This is our starting point. Both feet firmly planted on current reality. Perspective two, Long term vision. If your long term vision isn't in writing, ok, this is ours and it's all marked up Monday. My team was here 25 years in business. We continue to update and modify ours. And I'm only showing you this because our purpose is very much like yours. It has to do with transformation.

Yep, pretty Cool.

If your long term vision isn't in writing and if it's not clear and compelling, it's worthless.

Yeah, worthless.

So why? If you don't have a clear and compelling vision, a vision that will cause you to sacrifice, well, then you're not going to serve the business. You're going to actually create a fence around it and you're going to figure out how to, as a human, make it serve you. You have to have a vision that's worth sacrificing for so it's compelling. If it doesn't cause your palms to sweat and you to feel some angst and some excite and if there's not a burden or a passion, well, you're not going to engage the heads and the hearts of your team. You'll never be effective. It needs to be clear enough to build a plan from. If you can't build strategy from that second point on your GPS destination, well then you can't build a roadmap perspective. Three strategic bets. What bets are you going to place? Grounded in current reality, anchored in long term vision, that if you execute on these strategic bets, you have a higher probability actually moving the business forward to that future. State Leaders fail with strategy and execution because they're not anchored in current reality, they're not well resourced, nor are they anchored in long term vision. And they're more of a reactive strategy based upon a change in the climate, environment, society, whatever. First three perspectives, okay? All of those enable you to make great decisions and to grow influence if you have intentional curiosity and perspective for the team. Hey team, what do you think? What do you need? What are you saying? It's not you telling the team this is where we're going. There needs to be intentional curiosity with you, engaging the brains, the thoughts, the ideas, the concerns of your team. Oftentimes leaders fail because they have a monologue with their team, not a dialogue. They don't have intentional curiosity. I was with the leader just the other day where, you know, I could just tell this leader, I know where they struggle. They believe they're the smartest one on the team. And if you believe that, then you don't want to hear from your teammates because what value do they bring?

Yeah, that's true.

Right?

You also take away from people that way. I've learned the hard way that I have to, even if I do in fact know a better way or know the way that maybe they should potentially take a chance at doing something. I have learned to let them do it their way, learn from their way. But More importantly, let them have the mistakes and the successes that go along with it. Because my, my discovery has been that's how they learn.

Absolutely. How they learn. And, and that could take you and I down a different conversation, which is around failure. And maybe we hit on that in the moments ahead.

Sure.

I'll wrap up the next few perspectives really fast for you, for your listeners, when you have the team's perspective. All right, now you're getting some good input, but don't miss the next perspective number five, which is the customer. Our businesses are all here to serve somebody.

That's right.

But we need to know, what do they think, what do they need? What's it like to do business with our firm? Where are they today and where are they headed? What are their concerns? What are their needs? Where could we aid them in our area of expertise, our product or service, how could we modify it? When I've watched the best leaders, whether it be, you know, I've coached the executive team for Chick Fil A for years, Daimler. When I Look at these CEOs, they spend time face to face with the customer and they're learning, they're asking, they're sitting in their restaurants, they're driving their trucks or their buses, they're going out and actually in the product, talking to the customers, experiencing what the customers see, need and want, not just today, but in the future. That helps them make better decisions, helps them to make better strategic bets. They get buy in because they know that their opinion matters, just like the team. First five perspectives impacts perspective six, you, your role. What are those non negotiable disciplines and where do you need to grow as a leader? All leaders need to grow into becoming the leader the vision will require them to be. So you bring a lot of your goodness today in 2021. But if I don't evolve and if I don't continue to grow, well, then I'll be the limiter and I'll hold the business back. Because what the business is going to need in accordance to my vision, what I see for us in 2030, well, I got a lot of growing to do.

Yeah, me too. Me too.

Final perspective is perspective seven. That's the outsider who is on your team, outside your organization. They're transferring hope and belief and encouragement and wisdom to you. It's an executive coach, it's a mentor, it's a board. You know, I know you're a hungry, hungry student. I have this conviction I'm a lifelong learner and can only give away what I possess.

That's Right.

So who am I learning from? So all great leaders have outsiders to help them to think. Well, because that old saying, it's lonely at the top. Well, it is. Because everyone in your organization, as good as they are, they've got skin in the game. Yeah, your decisions can help or hurt them, but who's on that person on the outside that you're willing to let them to see? Your take on those first six perspectives, they speak to your role, how you need to think, believing and behaving so that you can be the best leader you can be. Seven perspectives of effective leaders.

There you go, man.

You know, it's such a great conversation because I, you know, as you were talking, yes, I'm thinking about leadership, but I'm also thinking about life. I'm literally thinking about. That's a winning strategy for life. You know, your customers can be replaced with your family or your community. Your need for growth is always going to be there. You know, I think that it's such a. Such a powerful tool because we need frameworks. Otherwise we get lost in the hustle and bustle of life in general. I'm a big believer that principles govern promises. And if you're trying to reach a certain promise, all you got to do is live by a different principle. And, you know, with the seven perspectives, I think there's a great. Basically, there's great access to wisdom that has yet to even be discovered just by utilizing the tools.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things for those. So let's take a little shift here, because you just said something that I agree with 100% about frameworks.

Yeah.

You look at, you look at how we're doing life today, and so many humans spend so much time as voyeurs. They're looking at that little black shiny screen and they're watching everybody who has a platform share their thoughts, their take, their opinions, their level of professionalism, their expertise, blah, blah, blah. It's overwhelming, right? It's overwhelming. What do we do? I, for my entire life, have been a guy that I like to take the complex and I like to make it super simple. I like to create tools and structures and frameworks that help the brain to think better. Now, when I first started doing this, I had no idea why it worked. And probably 15 years ago, I was sitting down with a friend, Dr. Henry Cloud. He's written ton of books.

Yeah, he's a good dude.

And the guy is. He's amazing. So we're sitting down, we're spending a day with each other. First Half of the day is me explaining to him what I do. Second half of the day, it's him explaining what. What he does. And that started a really cool relationship. We've done some fun stuff together. Well, Henry's like, as I'm walking people through, as I'm walking him through my core four, this is what I do. I start off with life planning. Henry. Living forward people. It's a framework for getting your life straight. You know, life planning. Because I believe that people need to be intentionally focused on all areas of their life if they're going to be the best leaders. Because nobody wants to follow a really smart leader whose life is a freaking train wreck. Right. Like, I don't want to grow up to be you.

People do it all the time.

They do it all the time, but they lose that. Humans, teams, teammates, lose that level of commitment, engagement when they see their late leader walking off of a cliff for the business. Because most of us don't want that for our lives. We don't want to have bad, funky, you know, addictions, and we don't want to have crap marriages, and we don't want our kids to hate us, and we don't want to have super poor health. We want to follow leaders who are actually growing in all areas of their life. So I'm in this conversation with Henry and I'm walking him through it all, and he's like, where'd you learn that? Where'd you learn that? Where'd you learn that? Over and over and over again. I'm like, I don't know, Henry. I don't know where I learned it. It just works. I said, I've been doing it for decades. It just works. And he says, daniel, academia now is coming up with all the brain science around your frameworks. Help the executive functions on what matters most, inhibit all the noise and have a system for working memory, and you'll transform. I was like, really? That's what school's figuring out? I love that.

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, you know, some of the. One of the greatest. There's really two great struggles that I had in trying to become a better leader and still even to this day, struggle with. To it, you know, to a degree, because to your point earlier, hungry, voracious learner, always wanting to improve. I know that the journey's not over until I'm in heaven kind of scenario.

Yep.

You know, there's my first, greatest problem that I ever had was trying to build a business about building myself. And the second was very similar in that lack of focus created multiple distractions. What kept. Which kept me from leading. Well, to begin with.

Yeah.

How, how can leaders learn to be less distracted and more intentional in their overall process of being leaders?

Well, focus.

Is a superpower. Thinking well is one of your greatest responsibilities. And you have to create an environment where everyone around you can think well. Henry Cloud, that comes from him.

So what happens is if you focus on each of these seven perspectives and you spend a good chunk of your days learning and understanding current reality, you can't just trust reports.

Yeah.

You have to walk through the organization. You need to have the freedom as a leader to ask anybody in the organization anything you want. And your leadership team needs to know that's not micromanaging. You're not looking to hang out your team. You're not looking to be judge and catch them doing wrong. You're looking to be coached to help them to do right.

Yeah.

So when you understand your role is to cast a vision, align yourself with the absolute best people, then resource and coach them in order to accomplish the vision. That's your job. Well, then everything changes. So you fill your days with a lot of the right things. And I like to say, you say yes to the good so you can say I'm sorry. You say no to the good, so you can say yes to the great. You need to know as a CEO, what are the great, great, true high payoff, only you can do, only you should do five or so functions, six or so functions on a daily and weekly basis. And then you figure out how to surround yourself with the best and right people to delegate the rest to. Because what they need you to do as a CEO or a leader is they need you to be casting vision. They need to make sure they need you to understand current reality. They need you to be speaking into strategy. They need you to be connecting with all external constituents and they need you to be the one that drives culture. You show up how you walk, how you talk, how you listen, you set the tone for culture. And if you got crap culture, look in the mirror. Not your people's fault, it's yours. Right? So how we show up all of that, you know, those are like the non negotiable high payoff activities, those few things that I just walked you through that every leader needs to make sure they're doing well.

On the subject of vision casting, because you know, you hear thought leadership all the time talk about the importance of vision casting. And one of the things that I've both experienced and seen with other leaders, with other businesses and other areas of the marketplace is the misunderstanding about what casting a vision is. So I take it back. So one leader comes up and he says, well, I cast, you know, I casted a vision. Like, okay, well, tell me, you know, what'd you say? I said, we're going to be a $50 million business in five years. And no, that's what I told him. Okay. Another person comes up and another leader comes out and they say, well, I just casted a vision. Yeah, what was it? I talked about the way in which we're going to treat the marketplace, the way in which we're going to treat the team, the way in which we're going to treat how we conduct our processes and how it's going to improve everybody's quality of life and what our ultimate revenue projections might be and things of that nature. But even in both of those types of leaders, and I've been both of those types of leaders, if I'm being honest, there are times that I'm not sure I can fully articulate what I see in my head as being the vision of what the future holds, therefore making it more difficult to cast a realistic vision for the team members. How do we try to clear that up a little bit?

Every great vision answers three questions. What do we belong to, who are we going to become, and what are we going to build? I walk all clients through 3B Vision. When your vision can clearly answer, what do we belong to? Who are we going to become, and what are we going to build? Well, now it can be compelling because what we're going to build should cause you to get pretty excited. Who we're going to become should cause you to be pretty excited. And what we belong to should bring the right people to the table. The problem with your example of person number one, we're going to be a $50 billion, $50 million, whatever it is, who gives a rip? I mean, nobody wakes up super excited to make shareholders richer. Like, that is not what I want to trade my life in for. And, you know, years ago, years ago, this has got to be 20 years ago. I was in your neck of the woods 20 years ago with John Maxwell. John and I did something called real teams. And we traveled all, all across the US Doing these half day events called real teams. And when I was doing my portion, I would talk vision and we'd have rooms full of leaders. And I challenged them. I said, I would love for one of you to stump me. You tell me what your business does, and I will help you to find why it's needed in the world. What your greater purpose is, what it is that you transfer that can be incorporated into your vision. Never stumped. Never stumped. I don't care if you make this little gizmo for this little gidget that goes into a sprinkler head. Well, why is that important? Well, it saves water, which is great for the planet. And by using it, you have beautiful yards. So you have neighborhoods that are aesthetically pleasing, which gives people pride of home ownership. And it just makes our world a better place to live because look at, it's green and it's pretty. Right. So you have to figure out ultimately what does the little gizmo and the gadget actually contribute to. And everybody on the team, whether they're accounting for that little gizmo gadget or whether they're actually building it in the, in the factory, they need to know every time they go to work, they're saving the planet by reducing water. They're making, you know, water use is going to be, and this is just a silly example, Stephen, but. And if people use their product, it's going to be reliable. People are going to have beautiful yards and they're not going to have to worry about it. That's our contribution.

Yeah.

So who are we going to be? What do you belong to? Every human needs to belong. You belong to an organization that has these convictions and this purpose. Who are we going to become, paragraph by paragraph, something as aspirational? This is who we hope to be in the community, how our team will function, how we'll engage with clients. You know, this is really what I would love to see out there. You take some risk with that. And then finally, what are you going to build? And if you look at some of the best vision work, it was done by Collins and Porus back in good to great 25 years ago. And they said you needed to have a big, hairy, audacious goal. We say you need to have a compelling ambition. What is it that would require a Herculean God size effort? We would all need to strive in order for this to happen. And if it's connected to a dollar amount. You missed the mark.

Yeah, yeah.

You missed the mark.

Yeah.

So that help?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, it's got me thinking about the, you know, so when I think about the subject of leadership and how it's directly connected to teams, one of the commonalities I find with leadership specifically in my journey is in my immature state, or the most immature state, I was very reactionary where in my maturing state I was much more responsive. In other words, I went from subconscious to conscious, which then helped me understand the need for the team and their own needs. You know, I've always said that I think there are four really great needs when it comes to people seen, heard, valued, and appreciated. If you do those things consistently well, teams typically stay. Sometimes they'll stay even though they're being offered higher levels of compensation. All right, so there's. So I know there's something there. The one thing that I struggle with, and this is one thing that I saw in the book that really stuck out to me is the importance of team building. I used to think it wasn't important. Like, we got work to do, we got stuff to do. We got to go, we got to go, we got to go, we got to go. And then only to realize that myself and the team and everybody around us would end up in a burnout state. We would just be all be burnout, and then we're less effective. To begin with, we started scheduling some playtime. Like, we had a thing not long ago about shooting water balloons at each other out in the middle of the parking lot.

Right.

And after that, I noticed a huge pickup in overall progress. Right. Talk a little bit about the importance of team building, because I think people missed the mark there as well, like I did.

Yeah. So, yeah, a few absolute fundamental truths that I'm convicted by. I don't think these things are true. I know these things are true, and I'll actually fight you over them. Meaning, let's get into a great argument and debate, and I'm going to most likely prove you wrong. When you've done what I've been doing for as long as I have, and you see great teams, you just see things, and it's like, you know what? I'm absolutely convicted. This works.

All right?

Better humans make for better leaders.

Okay?

Just, better humans surround yourself with people that you just like them. They're good people now. They don't need to be just like you and agree on everything. As a matter of fact, if that be the case, alert, alert. You're in trouble. But you need to just know they're good people. Better humans make for better leaders. Self leadership always precedes team leadership. How we lead ourselves will always impact how we lead the team, Team effectiveness and the effectiveness, the trust. All of Patrick Lencioni's work around a functional team versus a dysfunctional team. Absolutely spot on. We do that with all of our executive teams. And so teams need to trust one another. They need to be able to engage in healthy conflict. They need to hold one another accountable for not just results, but for behaviors. They need to be committed to what it is that they're doing and they need to focus on results. Read the Five Dysfunctions of a Team or the Advantage by Patrick. Great work right now. When you're a healthy team, you're aligned team. And when everybody, all right, has the ability to do their job as the quarterback, you CEO, you can give any one of them the ball. And in their area of expertise, they're game winners. And if they're not game winners today. I was with a CEO yesterday, Big, massive old firm. The guy's going through huge transition. And we were talking about one specific individual on the team. If on a scale from one to five, the players a three, if you don't believe you can coach them up to a 4 or a 5, well, then the whole organization is going to know that we're not going to win because you accept a weak link and you're going to create support structures around that three, which will cause resentment and it will cause dysfunction. Now, it's okay to have a three on the team if you know you can coach them up to a four and you're doing so and then they can actually become a five. That's what you need. All right? If you have a team that is on a scale from one to five, they're fives or they're on their way to be fives. They're an effective team. They're aligned around vision. They engage in healthy conflict. They've got each other's back. They're high trust. They're there to serve and support, not there to be served or to fry or hang out to dry one another. The rest of the organization watches that team. They listen to that team. And that team creates this wake for the rest of the organization to follow. Self leadership always precedes team effectiveness. Team effectiveness always precedes organizational impact. When I get to do my work with firms where you've got CEOs that are leading the different business units around the world, you've got one that's leading Asia, you've got one that's leading North America, you've got one that's leading the eu. All of these leaders are responsible for the performance of their businesses in those countries and in those continents. But they're the highest levels of leader. And actually what trumps the performance of their individual leadership is the organization's overall success. So there are times where we have to have real frank conversations to where it's like, you know what, you're going to lose some resources over in Europe because they're needed over in North America. And if we prop up North America well, then the overall organization wins. You're going to have short term pain. Are you willing to endure that because you are responsible for the overall organization? Best leaders understand all of that and they're selfless in serving the organization for a better tomorrow.

Yeah, well, you know, I'm glad you.

Brought up short term pain because that's one of the things that I've seen with a lot of folks is, and this is one that I've historically been fairly strong at, I love change. I like innovation. I like trying to think different. I like trying to start something new. But I've noticed that a lot of the leaders that have been part of my businesses in the past that have moved on, the one number one thing that held them back in many cases from an organizational standpoint was we would have to pay a short term sacrifice. And they didn't want to do it. They just, it's going to be too hard on me today not thinking about how it's going to, you know, make our success successful in five years from now or three years from now or whatever. Do you find that in a lot of like, call it maturing leaders in all your work, that, that same tenacity?

Yeah. What, what happens, Stephen, is that.

We as humans, as we age.

We get into patterns where being comfortable matters more as we age than it did when we were younger. So there's a very real human aging element to it where like I said earlier, you want to start to build a fence around it so that no enemy creeps in and takes away the goodness. So you move from a conscious offense. We're going to build something that's going to be kick button amazing to a subconscious defense, which is, boy, this is good. I make great money, I'm respected, I've got clout. You know, what I say goes. It serves me well. It may not be that blatant, but there are those subconscious realities to where it's like, I don't want to grow anymore. I've been growing for three decades and I'm tired. I just want to. Okay, hey, leaders, if that's you, you eater, you need to look at your vision. It's not big enough and you need to figure out what's going to compel you to move forward. Or you just need to step aside and find a role where you can be an individual contributor and not hold the organization back. That's one group. Then there's another group, Steven, where it's just some back to that inner gear stuff. Fear holds them back and they don't want to take another risk because actually what they're experiencing right now, they're winning. And if you've done any research on Dr. Carolyn Zweck and her book Mindset, have you read that one?

I have.

Growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, all to do with how we deal with failure. There are some people based upon their nurture and their environment during their first, let's just call it 14, 15 years of life where they there, as a result of their environment, they believed they would only be loved if they got great results and if they performed really well. So what happened was the world told them they were crap unless they did something really great. You were the best, you were the prettiest, you were the fastest, were the strongest, you kicked the most ass, whatever it was. Right. So it was an affirmation and accolade over result instead of effort.

The people that continue to grow and have just this insatiable appetite for growth are people that know failure is a learning step in the path to success. And I'm no less loved if I fail. Because in my early years, I was told that I'm special, I'm good based upon just effort and trying to do well and be the best that I can be. It's a being thing more so than a doing thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

I love it.

I love it. You know, if you got time for one more question, I want to. I want to touch on something that we had a chance to just briefly talk about before we popped on the air. And that is set path.

Yeah.

What?

What? You know, with all the success, all the things that you've done, all the different massive leaders you work with, why is that has been. Has that been such a burning position in your heart? And what are you trying to do with it? What are you trying to create?

All right, so just don't let me forget, I want to give your followers some tools, including you. So I will do a little giveaway at the end for you folks, direct you somewhere. Set Path is birthed out of a passion of my wife, myself and my family to transfer hope and belief into America's young adults. Sheri and I have been married 33 years in July. We have four beautiful kids, two of them married. So six beautiful kids, two grandbabies. But we have also had nine other young adults living with us from 96 through today. Some of them came in just in some rough shape. They leave doing really well. They are beautiful and they are part of our extended family. And I believe having all these young folks around just keeps me younger. It is good for me and we are so blessed as a result of doing it. People are always like, wow, I don't know how you could do it that just, you know, they come in with addiction or they come in in some dark places. It's so wonderful to create space where you get to share and cry and pray and serve and think with young people. I love it. Okay. Set Path is birthed out of that passion. So Set Path is a community benefit, not for Prof. Where we are going to give the model the framework of life planning that Michael Hyatt and I wrote about in Living Forward. It's a model that I've used at Building Champions with my coaching company for 25 years. All leaders go through it. We've rewritten it. We've created a highly illustrated, gamified version of it for America's 15 to 30 year old. We're almost ready to release the.

Beta and pilot it. We're just a couple months away. We're training up guides. So we're going to bring this life planning and mentorship to America's young adults and we're charging nothing. Corporate America is helping me to fund it. So I've got, I'm just, I think I'm one month, maybe two months away from the IRS approval we filed December 30th. And setpath.com is where you learn more about it. Buildingchampions.com is for you business and organizational leaders. I mentioned 3B vision and if you want to give that away, it's on my website.

Yeah, I'd love to.

You can go to resources buildingchampions.com and you can download under Resources any of the tools that we're talking about. The Life Plan 3B Vision, a one page business plan. You can go and look at the Seven Perspectives book. There's a free assessment there. I like to give a whole bunch of stuff away. So.

Yeah. And it shows in the work.

I mean, the work is sound.

Your book's definitely a highlighter book. There's doubt about it.

There's plenty to learn and that's why I wanted to have an open and dial open conversation around everything that encompasses everything you've been working on because I think it is so incredibly impactful. We do both share a heart for transformation at a very deep level, you know.

Yep.

So one final question before I let you roll.

Who does my hair? The Same guy that does yours, right?

For sure.

No.

The final question is what does a life, well, love look like for you?

Great question.

So I have a prayer every single morning, people. I always like to say this when people are listening to me in the business realm. One of the things that I learned early on was we do ourselves well not to listen with the intent of agreeing or disagreeing or judging. Suspend all of that and look for the nugget. Understand how some other humans journeying. So I'm a man of faith. I go face down every morning and I pray. And the first part of my prayer is always me just acknowledging who God is and who I'm not. Yeah, and that's big. I'm not on the throne. I'll tell you what, man. I mean, I control so little.

And I'm grateful every day. I wake up. I woke up. Yeah, baby, let's go. Part 2 Lord, help me to be who you want me to be so I can do what you want me to do. Help me to see people like you see them. Help me to love them like you love them. Help me to serve them in ways that bring you fame and you glory. Use me today to flip the switches up on every heart of every person I meet. I strive to please an audience of one. That is part two. Part three is me begging for help and intercession and.

Health and goodness for everyone around me. So your question? Life well lived. My wife at the end of life has been my most intimate best friend. Nobody I'd rather spend time with. My kids are my best friends. I dig them. And who I, who I say I am to you is who they believe I am when I'm with them. And hopefully I've been used to flip switches up on the hearts of people and may God get the glory, buddy. It's a good life.

Amen. Amen. That's why I wanted to close with that. You know, it's. I get a sense there is a. There's a part of you that is completely surrendered but also complete steward. And just from me to you, thank you for stewarding so well, for being obedient in writing, for being obedient in teaching, for being obedient in leading and teaching leaders. That's how you make transformation at scale. And you're already doing it. And the crazy part is, in many ways you're just getting started again. You know what I'm saying?

It's not done.

No.

I tell you what, at soon to be 57.

Retirement'S not a concept for me. Maybe a Little bit more free time to go surf here and there. I was actually trying to do a strike mission to Mexico last night. I was like, all right, I'm going to leave tomorrow night or Friday morning. I want time to be able to do those kind of fun things which have always been a part of my life. But even in that, I always want to be used. So no retirement. Let's keep going. Let's try to flip switches up on as many people as on the hearts of as many people as we can. And I know you do that, Steven. I'm excited about what you're doing, and I love the difference you're making. I really do. You're a stud.

Thank you very much, man. I've loved hanging out with you.

We're going to.

We definitely have to do a lot more of this.

There's no doubt.

But for the time being, I know you got other things you got to roll on with, so I'll bid you adieu and wish you the best, my friend, and we'll chat again soon.

Excellent, man. Thanks for having me as your guest.

All right, take care.

See ya. Bye.

Bye, guys. I told you, Daniel Harkabee is legit. And if you haven't already done so, make sure you go pick up your own copy of the Seven Perspectives of Effective leaders. I know it will bless you. It's blessed me. It's turned into a highlighter book for me. But in the meantime, if you love that interview, I know you'll love this one right here, so go ahead and check it out.

Nobody has an excuse, Steven. No one has an excuse. If they do, they're not seeing that they can actually get there. For some reason, they're stuck.

And we've all been.