41 - Stop Promoting Ego | How to Keep Leaders Who Only Win the War

Welcome to the Impact Podcast. I'm Eddie Wilson, here to help you visualize what others cannot see. Create opportunities where others have failed, and push you to build empires where once there was empty space. Let's embark on this journey together and make a difference in this world. Welcome to the Impact Podcast today with Eddie Wilson. I'm super excited to bring to you an episode that tells you how to get rid of the leaders in your organization that shouldn't be there. To start off, I want to go back to the book that I wrote, which is called The Titan Doctrine. When I was writing The Titan Doctrine, it was actually very different than what you see on bookshelves today. It was written from almost a biblical point of view. I used biblical characters, but then I went to a book publishing company, and they told me that I had to get rid of all the biblical characters, and I had to use historical characters. I rewrote the entire book, made it available for mainstream consumption. Maybe someday I'll go back and add the biblical characters back in, because I ended up self-publishing the book. One of the first paragraphs or one of the first chapters that I took out of the book because this mainstream publisher said they didn't like it, I'm going to give you today. We're going to call these the Lost Files. The Lost Files of Leadership that should have actually led into the book. If you think about it, ancient text brings ancient wisdom. And wisdom is something that actually takes work. It's knowledge put into action. Knowledge is just information. Knowledge is truth, but then truth put into action becomes wisdom. Now, what I'm coming from today is a position of wisdom. I'm not saying that with a prideful kind of spirit, it's from a place of not just understanding, not just textbook learning. This isn't an MBA class that I took on leadership. And so therefore, this is my thesis on leadership. This was a lifetime of building leadership teams from corporate America to my own personal companies. And then understanding that these qualities really, really matter. What's interesting is is that the Bible really has what I would say ancient wisdom, not just knowledge, not just truths or information. And so oftentimes we can shortcut what is knowledge to wisdom by looking at people who have practically carried out things that work. And so what's interesting is that as I was doing research on this book, I had my thesis. And I had the three things, the three characteristics that I wanted in every leader. And I didn't realize that it actually already existed thousands of years ago. Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you back to a battlefield in the book of Judges. So this is old testament. This is early, early scripture. Go back to this group of people that were ruling Israel at the time called the Judges. There was no king at this time. There was just judges. So think of it as a grouping of people, almost like a grouping of judges that would then information would come up. They would make rulings and they kind of governed the people. Okay, but during the type of during the time of judges, there was a battlefield. And this group of people were fighting. And there was a man by the name of Gideon. They was called on. Okay, Gideon was called on. And you've probably heard it. There's been movies made of this where Gideon took an army of 300 and defeated an army of thousands. And what's interesting is is that in the Bible, Gideon really had no resume. There was no, he didn't have some formal resume of battlefield leadership or some kind of conquest that he had experienced. He was just called on to lead and go after this massive enemy. And instead of God giving him more people, he gave him less people. He actually reduced him down to a smaller size. And my thesis in leadership has often been that you never really have the chance to lead the masses. Until you have a core group of people. And that means that you have to lead the few. So you lead the few so the few can lead the masses is kind of the concept. And so as I built out this kind of piece, I had been running an organization of thousands of people. And in running that organization of thousands of people, what I realized is it wasn't the issues that I was having with the thousands of people. It was always the issue that I was having with the few that were leading the thousands. And so I determined that I was going to come up with my way of creating the few that lead the thousands. And so what's interesting is if you go back to this battlefield in the book of Judges, Old Testament, ancient wisdom, that you find a God having a conversation with Gideon. And Gideon is told that you need to go to the masses first. And he starts with a grouping of 32,000 men. 32,000 men is the group that Gideon is really called to look at. And then what he did was he said, now what I want you to do is I want you to have all the men come up. And I want you to tell the men that whoever is afraid, whoever is fearful, go home. No repercussions out of 32,000 men, 22,000 out of honesty stand up and say, you know what? I'm afraid. And I'm going to go home to my family. And he loses 22,000 men. So that was the first filter. The first filter was the fear test. If you are afraid, if you're going to walk into this battle with fear, I need you to exit. And 22,000 out of the 32,000 gone. Right? The second thing, the second filter was God told Gideon, he said, okay, now send these men to the brook to drink. Tell them to go get a drink. And they're literally a short ways away from this enemy that they were about to fight that could come in at any time. Well, what happened was there was a 10,000 men left, they go down to the water to drink. And Gideon is told to just pick the men who drink by staying alert. There were men that literally just was like they were submerging their faces in the water, just down drinking like dogs. And then there were ones who were alert and they're awake. And they were they were drinking water with an understanding and awareness of the situation at hand. Right? So you had those that got down on their knees and drank without awareness. Right? And then you had those who stood alert and lapped the water with their hand. Right? And we're constantly watching and vigilant. So Gideon was told only take the ones who were diligent and vigilant and those that were aware. Well, the interesting thing about that is it goes from 10,000 now to 300 men, 300 men. And Gideon is told, okay, here's the army that you have to go defeat this group of people with. This now have to go fight the thousands with this group of 300. And what's interesting to me is that these are similar filters that I was seeing, but I saw it through experience rather than reading an ancient text, right? And saying, Oh, this is wisdom. I should adhere to it. What's interesting is when ancient wisdom aligns with current events, right? Like current experiences. It's a validation of sorts, right? So let me walk you through what I had written down and then let's tie these two together. Okay? So after going through leading thousands of people looking at my leaders, and that's what my Titan doctrine is all about is the eight principles that are necessary for leadership, but there are not just principles for leadership. There's qualities of leadership. And so these are the three qualities that first supersede all those principles that I talk about in my book. So this is the chapter. This is the lost chapter that they told me, hey, you can't do this. You got to get rid of it. And so let me give you the qualities that are necessary to then stack the principles on top of, right? And so if you go back, God didn't keep the strongest. He kept the most focused, the most disciplined, and the most aware. He kept the most focused, disciplined, and aware. Okay? So keep that in your mind. Now, let me explain to you what my essentially thesis was for the conditions of leadership that must be adhered to so that we could stack principles on top of it. So my first filter was vision loyalty. Okay? Vision loyalty, not just like loyalty to a man or an institution or a person, right? Like I think oftentimes when we demand loyalty to an individual, it's nothing more than ego that's present. When you say, hey, you have to stay with me. You have to believe in me. That's ego. And so what I always wanted to do in my organizations, even the early days was remove the ego and get very vision focused. And so what I wanted my organization is leaders who understand that the vision that we're all going towards has to be the number one priority. So I would say it's vision loyalty. Are they aligned or are they just available? There are oftentimes people who are strong personalities that we say, oh, they've got the quality of a leader. But if that's strong personality is driving towards something that's outside of the vision, then they're not a leader. They're the greatest disruptor, right? You could have somebody who's a very strong personality that people will attract to, but that doesn't mean that they're a qualified leader. What it means is there's somebody that can actually draw people to them, but could create the greatest disruption. Sometimes in in going after this desire to lead an organization, we pick strong people. We're like, oh, this person's a leader because of their personality, because of who they are, because of their traits. But if that person isn't aligned to the vision, that you are far worse off than picking somebody who has a weak disposition who no one will lead who you can force people to lead if they'll stay attracted and direction towards the actual vision at hand. Not everyone that shows up belongs at the table. Not everyone that shows up belongs to the table. Not every loud speaker or everyone that somebody follows or will walk behind deserves a position at the table. We have to start filtering based on the mission, not just competency. You have to filter on the mission, not just competency. I would much rather take someone of lesser competency, but complete a band and reckless abandon towards the vision of the mission, than somebody with extreme competency, but questioning the mission of the vision. You've got to hear me here because this is so vitally important when you're building an organization. If number one, you don't have a vision or a mission, that could be a big part of the problem. But once you establish that vision or mission, when you see people steering outside of it and you allow them to continue because of their competency level, like, wow, this person is a brilliant person. They're an amazing individual. You are eroding the very fabric of the organization. So filter number one is that vision loyalty, not just loyalty, vision loyalty. Number two, the second trait that I said had to be present in the leaders that I was building was mental toughness. Can they lead under pressure? It's not just enough to lead. It's not just enough to attach to vision. It's what do people do and how they react when things are tough, when finances are tough, when customers are coming at you, when you have people that leave the organization, when you have people that oppose you, when you have competition that's coming loud and strong at you, what do these people do? What do they do during the hard times? Because you have to be able to put people at the top who can carry weight. People that cannot carry weight, people that fold under pressure, people that break that show an emotional crack when the pressure is tough do not deserve to lead. It'll always be a liability for you. Look for emotionally stable people, not hype, right? Like, oftentimes I will be told how amazing someone is, right? Like, oh, this person's amazing. Look at what they can do. They can sell. They can lead. They can, they're dynamic in their personality. Let me tell you something that always comes as a secondary based on somebody who is mentally tough. Somebody who can withstand weight. Go back to Gideon, right? Gideon's army wasn't an army of adrenaline junkies. When you think about Gideon's 300, this isn't like the Spartans, right? Like, this isn't like the movie the 300 where you've got these jacked up adrenaline junkies. Like, let's slay the world. I'll take my, you know, I'll kill my hundred. You kill your hundred. Right? Like, it wasn't that at all. These were mentally tough people who didn't allow fear to creep into their decision making, right? Think about that. How much does fear creep into the decision making of your leadership team? Well, if this doesn't happen, if this doesn't take place, if we can't get this, right? Like, fear-based decision making, right? Mental toughness is everything. We need calm under pressure. In the deepest, darkest, most rigid, crazy moments, you need people who can walk up right with their head held high, slowly, calmly, and carefully. That is what you need in leadership. You do not need knee-jerk reactions, frantic responses, emotional outbursts. That will lead to a team that will eventually dissolve. So filter number two was mental toughness. Filter number three. This is my three filters. Okay. So we had vision loyalty, mental toughness, and number three situational awareness. Okay. Do people see what you see as a visionary leader of the organization? Right? You have some level of vision. Now, not most people in the organization are not going to have the same level of vision you have. However, they have to be able to see glimpses of it. They have to be able to see glimpses of it. Are they eyes up leader? Are they leaders that are looking to the future? Are they head down leaders that are only dealing with reactionary decisions based on the past? Can your leaders, the people that you allow to sit at your table, can they see what's next? Can they predict with somewhat some level of accuracy what's coming next? Right? Like, can they see the future with you? They may not be able to see as far down the road, but they have to be able to see down the road. Some if someone cannot anticipate what is next, they'll always react too late. Okay. You we were talking to Alex Rodriguez, one of the benefits of having the aspire tours. We get access to all these amazing people who've done amazing things in their life. And we were standing backstage and we handed Alex Rodriguez a bat, right? This is a bat that he had used in a world series game. And we believed that he hit a home run off of this bat. He picked it up and he said, oh, this is a P52. He knew exactly what the bat was. He then said, oh, this is when I switched. I started using Derek Geter's bat. He was like, this is Derek Geter's bat because I he said, I was in a slump and I decided to go away from my bat. I picked up this bat P pip 52. I began to do well with it in batting practice. I decided to use it. He said, I hit a home run and world series with this P52. But what he began to tell us about hitting a baseball was fascinating. He began to talk about how most of swinging the bat came from what you read from the actual pitcher. So you're watching the pitcher's demeanor. You're staring the pitcher down. You're watching how they place their feet where their hips are, where the ball placement is, how their glove is held. You're watching the eyes of the pitcher. You're watching the confidence of his nod based on the call that the catcher gave. And he began to break down the pitch. And then what we found was as he began to break down the pitch, 90% of all choices made in hitting a baseball were tied to something that happened before the ball ever left the pitcher's hand. That's the anticipation. And what he said was, is all great hitters are great anticipators. They're people who could anticipate what is about to happen and take that chance, right? Like if you swing for the fences and unbelieve that that ball's coming inside and low based on all the experiences you see. And he said, that's what every great hitter does. Every great hitter is not a reactionary hitter. They're not watching the path of the baseball. They're anticipating what they're about to see and taking action on it. This is what a great leader does. A great leader is not a reactionary leader. A great leader is anticipating what's about to happen and taking action before it actually takes place. Are they eyes up? Can they see what's next? If someone can anticipate, they'll always react too late. This is so vitally important. So what I said was is these conditions that a leader has to exist in. These are the traits of a leader. Before I ever get to the things like that I teach in my Titan doctrine, you have to possess these qualities. And you should really be hiring and promoting your leaders based on these qualities. Number one, they are loyal to the vision. Number two, they're mentally tough. Number three, they have situational awareness or the ability to anticipate what's coming. That is a good leader. Okay, so let me give you the application. All right. So as an empire builder, if somebody who's building an empire, building an organization, you're building what you believe you're called to build. Number one, let me give you a few steps that you have to walk down. Number one, you have to prune your leadership team regularly. If the same people are sitting in front of you that sat with you 10 years ago, you are not doing it right. Leadership comes and goes. People do not earn the right to sit at your table forever. There are some that will come and some that will go. But there is a consistent adherence to these things. Do you follow vision with loyalty? Are you mentally tough? And can you give me situational awareness? That should be the litmus test for if someone should sit at your table or not. On an annual basis, you should do a leadership review. You should rate them based on these qualities and determine should this person have the right to influence you first of all and your organization. Secondly, right. So number one, prune your leadership team regularly. Number two, elevate by behavior, not by tenure. Please listen to this. Somebody should not have a seat at your table because they've been at your organization longest. Right. They should sit at your table because of the behavior that they are showing. They're there because of their behavior. They're not there because they were the first to the organization or they've been with you through thick and thin or they have there are people that have been with me for a very long time who are amazing people, but they don't get to sit at my leadership table. Right. And if they want to sit at the leadership table, the bar is vision, loyalty, mental toughness, situational awareness, right. And they have to be able to adhere to these three things. And then last, you have to protect the inner circle like the blueprint or the success depends on it because it does most of what you are seeing as an organization in the detriment of the organization isn't coming from the lowest level. It's not that you don't have the right customer service representation or it's not because your salespeople are overselling or it's not because whatever it is, right. Like your truck drivers aren't adhering to your practices and processes. It's not because your dental hygienist isn't greeting the person well, right. The reason your organization is struggling is because you've allowed at the leadership level in erosion and they're missing out on this fundamental piece that's going to make the blueprint or that what I call, I always say that you should not adhere to a business plan. You should have a battle plan. They're not adhering to the battle plan, right. They're not they're not working through that process with you. You can scale a team with talent. You can scale a team with talent, but you'll never build an empire without trust. How do you get to trust? Well, number one, you have to believe that no matter what, they're going to take action on the vision that you're having. How do you have trust? Well, you know that when everyone else cracks, the people around you and your leadership team are not going to crack mental toughness and situational awareness. You have to believe in the people around you that they can see beyond our current situation. You're never as you grow an organization, you scale an organization, you build an empire, you're never going to be able to see everything. There's if you believe that you can, you're fooling yourself. There's an impossibility. Think about yourself now. Let's say you got a one, two, five, 10 million dollar organization. Okay. Now, a billion. Can you see everything? Can you see the steps ahead? Absolutely not. And the moment that you get over yourself, ego, right, it'll allow the others to come in. And then you can trust those people who have the situational awareness. Protect the inner circle like your business, like your empire depends on it. You can scale a team of talent, but you build an empire with trust. Here's the last thing. I want you to ask yourself three questions. Okay. Here are the three questions. Number one, who is in your inner circle that might need to be released? Who's the inner circle that should not be there? Number two, who's carrying fear, but you're still letting them lead? Who's carrying fear, but you're still letting them lead? And thirdly, who's alert and who's drinking with their eyes up? So now go back. This was my thesis. I wrote this. I wrote this in the absence of paying attention to what I was taught as a child, you know, when I was taught the stories of judges and Gideon and the Gideon's mighty men, right? And this army of 300 that defeated an army of thousands. And what's interesting is I wrote these things because of the knowledge I had, but then in practice turned it into wisdom, right? And what I saw was is these leaders that I really needed that I needed to rest on and to rely on and to trust, right? I saw that and I began to write this thesis out. Well, as I began to write the book, the Titan doctrine, I was using biblical references. I was using historical biblical references. And I was looking for an example of how God would instruct someone to lead. And I did a Google search. How would God instruct someone to lead? And I was led to the story of Gideon, which I had heard as a child dozens of times, right? What was crazy is this thing about it. Number one, fear, right? What is the greatest reason why people avoid loyalty to the actual vision itself? Oftentimes it's fear. It's fear of missing out on their own ideals. It's not getting where they want to go. It's whatever it is. And God said, look, if you're afraid, you need to go ahead and step away. If you're, if your leaders are fearful, they're leading with fear, right? If they're carrying fear and you're still allowing them to lead, it is a detriment to your organization, right? First thing that God did was said, Gideon, I know you're not a battle tried and hardened soldier and leader. But let me tell you how to actually get an army that's going to work for you, right? Let me show you how to get leaders that are actually going to take you to war and win. Number one, get rid of fear. Number two, he said, I want you to the water test, right? Take him down by the brook. And what that showed was a situational awareness. The fear dealt with the vision and the mental toughness, right? The cracking under pressure. And then that water test ultimately gave that concept of situational awareness. What was interesting was as I began to dive into that story, it just validated everything that I had experienced, right? It's like that ancient text, that ancient wisdom came to life because I had experienced it, right? Like it was knowledge and action. It was my own wisdom that was then validated by this other wisdom. What's interesting is over the years, I think I've intuitively known that. But oftentimes my ego was the thing that prevented me from choosing that type of a person. I wanted them to be loyal to me. I wanted them to validate me, right? Like I wanted them to look at me like the leader, like the person, right? Like I almost was the vision or the mission, right? And that's never big enough. You as an individual are never big enough as the vision or mission. Something greater than you has to be the vision or mission, right? I oftentimes would put fearful people around me because what they would do, fearful people come to you for reassurance. And what it does is it gives you some sort of weird self-validation. And you're like, well, if they need me to help overcome their fear, look how useful or valid I am because maybe I don't have fear, right? So you put fearful people around you because they validate your own insecurities. And then lastly, when you have people that see the future and challenge how you see it, it oftentimes flies in the face of our own egos. There are leaders in my organization that see the evil tomorrow that I don't see. And my situation, my own personal situational awareness is I have to put down my own ego, validate what they're doing, and then act on that in trust, right? You see where ego gets in the way so much and ego always gets in the way of the leadership and the leaders that you want to build. Here's the moral of the story, all right? Here are the three things I wrote in the chapter that is now gone, right? Maybe one day I'll all resurrect it. I wrote this, God didn't build with the biggest. He built with the most aligned. He didn't build with the biggest. He built with the most aligned. Are your leaders aligned to the vision at hand? Gideon didn't win because of strength. Gideon didn't win because of strength. He won because of clarity and who he led with. Gideon didn't win because of strength. He went back to the story and Gideon with 300 men. It's a crazy story. If you haven't read it, go to the book of Judges or read a summary of it. It's an amazing story and historical past. And Gideon didn't win. He didn't defeat the army of thousands because of strength. He won because of clarity and who he led with. He had trust in the people that were standing next to him in the battle. I want you to take a test today. Who's around you? Are they propping up your ego or do they have ultimate reckless abandon, right? For the loyalty to the actual vision? Are they mentally tough? Do they crack under pressure? And lastly, which I think is so important? Do they possess situational awareness? If you violate these things, beware. Your organization will always suffer. Take care. Thanks so much for being a part of the impact podcast. Really quickly, I want to say a quick thank you to my podcast sponsor, which is Collars and Co. I am loving doing the collaboration with them. If you know me, I love good collars. Okay, there's something about a shirt with a good collar. And these collars are literally amazing. When I found these on social media a while ago, I fell in love with them. And they recently reached out and asked me if we could collaborate together. And I got to tell you, I have loved all the clothes they've sent me and all the clothes I've purchased. If you haven't checked it out, go check out collars and co. Thank you so much for them for sponsoring the podcast today. Thanks so much for being a part of the podcast for listening today. I'd love to connect with you further and you can connect with me on social media at Eddie Wilson official on any of the social media channels.