Leadership has nothing to do with your title

Thank you, Mick. Great to be here with you.

So it started a very, very long time ago when you were not even a gleam in your parents' eye. so yeah, I've been at the Extreme Leadership Institute, my company has been around for 26 years, but I've been doing the work of leadership development in some form or another for 35 years. So it's been a really amazing journey because I've had the opportunity to work with just about every kind of company you can imagine in every kind of industry. And I started out in my twenties as an entrepreneur. Well, actually, I started out as a musician. I was going to be a working musician, but I also started a family pretty young and soon realized that being a working musician and feeding people were mutually exclusive pursuits. So I went into business. I ended up in a in a in the financial services industry. I was in the commodities futures business. And that's where I discovered that I was an entrepreneur, but I also discovered that I hated that business. I was I was miserable, had my own company, and I was miserable. So what I did have was a business background at a young age and a a love for working with people and kind of a natural communication ability. And I put all that together and I started doing Training and development, you know, workshops and culture initiatives and all that back in in the late 1980s. And that's what set me on my path. So I have over the decades now, learned a lot about leadership from my mentors, who we we'll talk about here in a little bit, I'm sure, and also from my clients. You know, I I've I've I've learned what leadership looks like, what effective leadership looks like, or what I call extreme leadership, how you know, how it works, what the best practices are. and and all of this has has nothing to do with what industry a person is in. and that's so that has become my life's work. I I I talk about it, I teach it, I coach leaders, I I write about it. I've this is book number six, The Radical Promise, my new book. And I work with clients over over you know extended periods of time with the executive coaching and I do a lot of keynote speaking. It's just it there are a lot of different things that I do, but it's all grounded in this body of work on on extreme leadership and helping people regardless of their position or title, regardless of what industry they're in, to help to help them change things for the better. That's essentially what this is all about.

I think the the number one would be that leadership is about your position or your title. that in order to be a leader, you need to have people that report to you. You need to have the right, you know, title on your business card, if you have a business card nowadays. and and leadership has nothing to do with your position or title. Nothing. with a with a couple of caveats. First of all, let me just say, and I'll be polite about this. I've met many people over the years in my work. Who have very lofty and impressive sounding titles that sit at the top of their organizational chart and still have, this is the polite part, a bit of work to do as far as their leadership goes, right? And the other side of that is even more important. I I can't tell you how many people I've met who don't have any positional authority. Nobody reports to them. They're on the front line, they're doing the work, or they're they're solopreneurs and a venture on their own. And yet they're great leaders by virtue of who they are, how they live, how they work, and their ability to influence people around them to change things for the better. That's the what I call the extreme leader. So the myth is that I would like to lead one day when I have earned that position. The opportunity is to ask the question what can I do to lead now? From wherever I am. And having said all of that, even though leadership doesn't automatically come with position or title, the expectation does. So if I'm the CEO of a company, people expect me to be a good leader, not just a chief executive officer, right? So this is something that's really it's important to all of us. our success, our credibility, our market. you know, market position, our profitability, the quality of our work, all comes down to the quality of leadership from from wherever we are. So it's an is an opportunity that's open to everybody. And you see, by the way, Mick, I am short answer challenged. If if you're I there are no one or two word answers from me. I'm just gonna warn you ahead of time.

Yeah. So first of all, let me let me give a little context as to as to what that what that stands for. So you're right. It is it is a framework. I wrote about it first in my first book, which is called The Radical Leap, which came out the first edition was in 2004. So it's been out there in the world for quite some time and used by a lot of people in in a lot of different organizations. Leap stands for love, energy, energy. Audacity and proof. And there's a verb in front of each one of those. There's an action for each one of those. It's cultivate love, generate energy, inspire audacity, and provide proof. So those are all very highly charged words that have a lot of depth of meaning and a lot of ways to interpret them. So I want to I want to be clear. At the foundation for all of this is love. And we are not accustomed to using the word love and business in the same sentence, most of us, which is really at least short-sighted and at worst tragic, because love is really the foundation of any great, thriving, competitive business, and it's right at the core of what a great leader cultivates. For example, and by the way, I feel so strongly about this that I've been talking about it for 26 years, and I wrote a book. Came out in 2019 called Love Is Just Damn Good Business. And the reason I wrote that, the reason I titled it Love is Just Damn Good Business is because Love is Just Damn Good Business. So what I mean by that is, as a company, as a business person, Our competitive advantage comes from our customers or clients, whatever terminology you use, loving doing business with us. If they don't love the product, service, combination of those two, if they don't love the experience of doing business with us, then we are nothing more than a commodity. And if we're nothing more than a commodity, they can find the same product or service somewhere else for cheaper, right? It becomes a Price consideration. But if they love us, that's where the loyalty comes from. That's where the word of mouth comes from. That's where the repeat business comes from. That's where the money comes from. And any decent business person understands this. So if we want our customers to love doing business with us, that's about as high a standard that we can put on ourselves. So we have to ask the question: what do I need to do as a business person or as a business or as a leader? What do I need to do to make that happen for them? And if I have a company or if I have a team, the only way that I can make that happen for customers is I need to create a culture, an environment, an experience that people love working in. So do I love working here or not? Do my does my team love working here? Because if they don't, it's very difficult for that, for them to create that experience for customers. Right. And then if I back it up one more step, as a leader, I can't create that kind of culture or environment unless I have it myself first. So the question it becomes very personal. Do I love this work? Do I love this team? Do I love these customers? Do I love this product or service? Is that do I love the mission of of what we're, you know, what we're trying to do here together? Do I love the values that we stand for? And I've got if I start with that and I can ignite that. Then that gives me the ability to generate energy in the people around me, you know, to to to generate the the enthusiasm and the effort that it takes to to be successful. It inspires audacity, in other words, our willingness to to not just think outside the box, but to to change everything for the better, to make the world a better place. That's what I mean by audacity. And it requires that I prove that I mean what I say. That I'm not just talking a good game, but that I'm acting in a way that's congruent with with this this love that I claim to have for the for the people and for the business, which is where, by the way, the new book, The Radical Promise, comes into play. So love, energy, audacity, and proof is a framework that that you can use both individually and and organizationally. So if I if I can cultivate love for this thing that we're doing, generate the energy that it takes to make it happen. inspire people to be audacious in the proof in the pursuit of it and prove that we mean what we say all along the way. No matter what it is that I'm trying to do, no matter what my objective is, no matter what our strategy is, I have a much better chance of making that happen if I can implement all of those things.

yeah, I think it's changed it's changing things dramatically. Like for example, this is not really me. This is my AI that you're talking to. No, I'm kidding. so yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. No, it it is changing things. and I as you know certainly we're we're all aware, we've just begun to see the nature of of

How it's it's hard to predict exactly what that's going to look like. But here's my prediction. AI, first of all, is a great tool. And and I I use it in varying capacities to really streamline my work and it allows me to focus on the things that I really need to focus on versus getting caught up in some of the some of the busy work sort of thing. but there is one thing that AI will never replace. And that is the human-to-human connection that we that we have with each other. I think if used appropriately, it will enhance our connection with each other because it'll free us up to spend more time in in those kind of relationships and those kind of conversations. And already what what I'm experiencing, and and again, there's no no science behind this. I'm just talking from my own experience here for a second. When already I'm seeing that when I'm doing business with a company, when I have real human-to-human connection from somebody in that company, they're already standing out from the rest of the versus you know throwing me into the into a you know chat bot kind of a kind of a thing. I mean again it has its place. But when it comes right down to it, when I'm looking to partner with the company, when I'm looking for for a you know a vendor who really understands me and really wants to help me solve my issues, I I want that relationship. I want that human connection. So I think more and more As we use AI as a tool, our leadership opportunity to create the human dynamic becomes more and more of a competitive advantage for ourselves the more we embrace it. And it's going to require our going even deeper into this idea of cultivating love, for example, going even deeper into what it means to be fully human at work. So I I'm I'm optimistic. But you I will give you the caveat that I'm I'm an optimistic person. So it's part of my it's part of my DNA, you know what mean? and I'm still an optimist. I just have to work harder at it nowadays.

Yeah. So there's there are boy, there's a there's a lot to that. So I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna take that as a as an entree into the subject of of my new book, which is called The Radical Promise. And the the subtitle for the book is Mastering the Art of Doing What You Say You Will Do. So let me give a little context to this. First of all, my my co-authors in this book, Jim Cuzas and Barry Posner. Are two of the preeminent leadership researchers on the planet. They've been conducting their research for over 40 years now. They also happen to be my most significant mentors. So I started working with Jim back in 1994 and got really immersed in their research. And one of their foundational findings. Is and I'm gonna I'll I'll simplify this that leadership is built or destroyed on the level of the leader's credibility. So in other words, if I don't see you as a credible person, I will not follow you. the way that they put it is, and that we talk about this in the book, if I don't believe in In the messenger, I won't believe the message. So the very simple behavioral description of credibility is a person who does what they say they will do. If I'm congruent, if if if I follow through on my promises and commitments, if I act in a way that's that's consistent with the values that I say are important, I'm demonstrating my credibility to you. So to your question. About creating a connection with clients, it really starts there, right? Am I seen by my clients as a person and a company that does what we say we will do? When I make a commitment to you, no matter how small or big, do I actually do it versus just talk a good game? Right? So back to the love thing. I could say all day long, I could print. Banners and buttons that say we love our customers, that's the say part of do what you say you will do. But my credibility is earned by doing it, by by operationalizing it, by by showing what love looks like in the way that we do business, then I'm congruent between the say and the do. On a on the more surface level, if I say I'm going to deliver to you a project, a product, a report, of whatever, by such and such a date, do I do it? All of that contributes to my credibility. And the better track record I have as a person and a company that does what we say we will do, the deeper the connection is going to be with them. And on that basis, I can I can really delve into the relationship. Now, you know, that gives me the opportunity to learn more about them, to learn about. To become an expert on their challenges and their problems, because once the credibility is established, they're gonna trust me more and vice versa, so that I can learn more about them. So I could use my talent, my skill, my ability, to help them solve their problems. And any company that does that for their customers, again, has that that tremendous competitive advantage. So it all starts with doing what you say you will do, which on the surface sounds simple, but it's a pretty challenging thing.

Yeah, very hard in practice. Sure. yeah. so I I I will I will do that. maybe it'll be three, maybe it'll be two, maybe it'll be four. We'll we'll we'll see. We'll see what what comes up. I don't know that three is a magic number. you'll tell me if I'm wrong. But let me just say, first of all, that I hope that people will read the new book. I think it really has it really has the capability of changing cultures. And the book is written as a novel, it's written as a parable, and it has a very significant application section after it. So you could read the story, kind of get the get the principle, and then have a very significant roadmap to follow to put it into practice. But as for our conversation today, there are three things, at least. One is ask yourself this question. Why do I love this? You pick the context. Why do I love this work? Why do I love this business? Why do I love this team? Why do I love this customer? And how do I show it? So, to start, the first step is to ask yourself that question. And make it a habit of doing that, let's say for the next week or two weeks, whatever, whatever you want. Just start out during the day. Why do I love this work? And Let me just acknowledge that some days that question will be easier to answer than other days. Right? Some days is why do I, why do I love this business? Let me count the ways. And you can write a sonnet, a love sonnet to everybody on your team. And other days, the question even comes out differently. It's not why do I love this? It's more like, why the hell did I sign up for this? And really, all I want to do is go back to bed. So the more difficult it is to answer that question, the more important it is to answer that question. So it's and see what that does. See what, see what it creates for yourself. in, you know, what what what it kind of stirs in your heart. The second part of that question, how do I show it, is the part that you have to answer behaviorally. Okay. So am I acting in ways that are congruent with that love that I'm I want my customers to feel from me. Which brings me to number two. I'm going to suggest that let's stay with that one week time frame because I think that's a that's a manageable thing. For the next week. Keep track of the promises and commitments that you're making to people. So, you know, oftentimes we have a to-do list, you know, this is all the shit that I gotta get done, and we make a long list of the stuff that I gotta do. This is very similar. It's a said I would do list. So whenever I say something in a conversation, no matter how small it is, hey, you know, we should have lunch next week. I'm gonna write that down. We're gonna have lunch next week. Even though it didn't sound like a big commitment or promise in the moment, I'm gonna treat it as such. Just make a list every day. What are the commitments that I made, big and small, to people? And at the end of each day, just look look over that list and say, okay, how did I do? How did I do? Is there anything that's still in motion that I can carry over to the next day? Where what can I check off as having having been done? And the reason that's important is because every time I don't follow through on a promise or a commitment. No matter how big or small, it damages my credibility. And if I do that too often, pretty soon my credibility in your eyes is gone. And then everything that we've talked about here today is moot, no longer applies because you don't trust me anymore. So I'm going to keep track of them. And then at the end of the week, I'm going to look back and I'm going to see how I did. I'm going to kind of score myself. But then I'm going to, I'm going to reflect on it. Hmm. Where Where didn't I follow through and why? What did I learn from this? Did I learn anything about myself? Are there any patterns that I find myself falling into where I'm making promises but I'm not following through? And like for me personally, I have a tendency to say yes too easily. In the moment. Yeah, sure, let's do that. that's a good idea. Let's do that. And in the moment I'm excited about it. But the next day I might be thinking, not so much. But I already made the commitment. So maybe I shouldn't say yes as easily. Right. So that's one of the things that might come up. So ask the question, why do I love this work? Number one. Number two, how do I show it? Number three, keep track of your promises and commitments and see how you do at the end of the week. See where that takes you. That's a lot. That's a lot to start with, but it can make a huge difference, even just in the awareness, the self-awareness that it creates in the process.

So the book is is it's out there. It came out August twenty-fifth was a publication date. so it's still still a new baby in the in the marketplace. you can find the book anywhere, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all that. But I encourage people to visit theradicalpromise dot com. because there you can you can learn more about the book and its content, about the authors, myself included, of course. And And a place for you to get to get involved. If if you if this is a message that that you really want to be a part of, we're kind of building a community around this as well. or and you can download a sample chapter, or we're gonna be putting other resources around like a reader's guide and all that on that in that on that website. And then of course you can find me, Steve Farber, at you know, on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. It's always at Steve Farber. You can find.

Micolas, it's been a great pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.