53 - The Leadership Reversal | Why Real Leaders Step Down to Rise Up

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, Eddie Wilson. Thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. It's my pleasure to talk to you about one of my favorite topics, which is leadership. I think I've dealt with this topic more than just about anything else on the podcast. But I want to give you true leadership philosophy. Leadership that I believe is a role reversal from what is typically taught. As we go through school or college or whatever it is, or you've actually seen it in person, you've seen it in the workplace, you've seen it exemplified in a coaching situation or on a team. Oftentimes, true leadership is exemplified in a way that creates a ceiling for our growth and for the growth of others. Today, we're going to talk about that kind of infamous term, servant leadership. What does it actually mean? Because I think even in that term, it's like we immediately think of this role reversal. Leaders eat last mentality. But I think oftentimes it puts the wrong connotation around leadership. We are going to talk about that topic, but I'm going to redefine it for you. This is the leadership reversal. Most leaders want position. As you go about your, let's just say your professional career, you are taught to seek for position. You're taught to fend for yourself, to stand up for what is yours, to essentially not allow someone to take advantage of you. If you have a lot of output, then you should expect input. This is a lot of the modern culture around us in the workplace. A lot of people want that position, but few of them actually want responsibility. Few want what it actually takes or what comes with it. Even fewer want sacrifice. If you think about it as a descending model, it's like a lot of the people that want leadership, they want the position. They want the title. They want the pay. They want to recognition the authority. Few, next rung on the ladder, few of them actually want the responsibility that comes with the pay, the title, and all of those things, the authority. Then beneath that, the next level down is even fewer want the sacrifice it's going to take. Leadership always takes a level of sacrifice. Leadership and good leadership takes more sacrifice. We've confused in this kind of modern culture visibility with authority. We think, well, if I'm visible, if I'm out front, if I'm sitting at the head of the table, if I've got the title or fund my email signature, it says this big title, that then therefore I get authority. We've confused this idea. That's not the case at all. We've also confused control with leadership. We think that if we control a situation, then we're leading. If we're dominating, then we're leading. Especially in this modern social media culture, we really confuse visibility and control as if it is leadership. The last thing that we oftentimes misalign with is that we believe that speed also comes with maturity. You see somebody growing and you see them all of a sudden with a title and you immediately think that, okay, well, now they have the maturity to handle it. Oftentimes, it's a lack of authority, a lack of leadership, and a lack of maturity that actually exposes the person for their lack of leadership. The strongest leaders that I've ever met in my life, and I've met some great ones, I've shaken hands with many, many great leaders. Whether it was in Washington, DC, I've shaken the hands of many joint chiefs of staff, I've shaken the hands of presidents, I've shaken the hands of Fortune 500 leaders. I will tell you that unequivocally, the ones that stand out the most, the ones that have the most respect, the ones that have gone the furthest, always have two things in common. Number one, they get low, and number two, they go last. Here's the crazy thing, that when they get low and they go last, people follow them anyways. If I were to write a book on leadership, it would be called Get Low and Go Last, because I think that if out of all of the leaders that I've actually seen and followed and been a part of their world and their ecosystem, their ethos, their sphere of influence, I've noticed that the ones that have the greatest power, that wield the greatest influence, are the ones that get low and get last, or go last. Let's go back to, I know oftentimes I bring in elements of faith and business and different things like that. I think that one of the greatest models of a servant leader, and you've probably heard this, is the person of Jesus. Jesus walked this earth a little over 2,000 years ago. As he walked this earth, we see the stories chronicled in the Bible. Not only did we see stories chronicled in the Bible, there's also contemporary writings about it. You can go back to Josephus, the historian of the Hebrew historian, and he writes about Jesus. But what we notice about Jesus is there's a difference. I love the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5. It's something that our church has been going through recently. The Beatitudes are almost a contrarian view. It's blessed are the peacemakers, not blessed are those who are conquering. It's blessed are the poor in spirit. It's like all of these things that are so contrary to popular culture. We mistake servant leadership with a lack of strength. I think that oftentimes we portray the person of Jesus as this meek and mild character, but we miss the pure strength that comes out of the character of Jesus. What I want to show you is just this last effort before he ultimately goes to the cross and he dies. But the disciples are arguing about status. They're in the famous upper room. I think most of us depict the painting of the upper room and they're all sitting at this table. It's like that wasn't it at all. The upper room was very much a room that they were all in and in Middle Eastern culture, even as some of the Middle Eastern cultures today, they're not sitting around this formal table with high back chairs. They're laying on the ground. There's cushions and typically the feet are in the center and you're laying there. Because you're not elevated off the floor, you're at the same level as everyone's feet and you're there. By the way, this area of the world is a very dusty, dirty area. If you've ever been to the Middle East, that's the one thing that comes back in your mind. I was in Egypt just this past year. I love Egypt. Egypt is this beautiful place, but it's dirty. You come back with sand in your luggage. You just can't help it. It's in the air. It's just everywhere. No matter how much it's cleaned, you just always notice that there's just this film. There's this dirt. The roads are that where you walk is that way. You've got Jesus in the upper room. All the disciples are there. This is before the end of his life on the earth. The disciples are arguing about status. They're arguing about who's going to be first. Jesus has been talking about this kingdom and they're like, arguing about who's going to be first. Jesus, who would have been the highest, let's just say, ranking person in the room, was sitting there and he doesn't begin to chastise them, nor does he begin to puff up his chest and say, Hey guys, the reason we're here is because of me. I brought us here. No, he does something that I think is indicative of one of the greatest leadership traits that you could see. He kneels down and he begins to wash their feet. This is the job that's reserved for the servants as you typically enter into a room and begin to take off your sandals. It's necessary because you're literally laying next to somebody's feet while trying to eat. Their feet are by your food and by your drink and it's dirty and it's dusty and it's stinky. This is a ritual that goes on almost every time you walk into someone's house before you ever partake of a meal. They're all arguing about who's going to be first and who's going to have authority and all the stuff. Jesus doesn't even combat that. He literally just kneels down, takes out the water pot, takes out the towel and begins to wash the disciples' feet. He begins to go one by one by one, washing their feet. It just shows this idea of leadership. That is true leadership. Foot washing was for servants. It was the lowest, dirtiest, most humiliating work, but yet he was doing it. Jesus then says, now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should go and wash another's feet. I just did this as an example because I want to show you that it's not about positional authority, it's about service. It's about doing something for others. The leadership principle that I want you to see in this is that authority is not proven by your elevation. You don't automatically get authority by the fact that you just got a new title or that you self-appointed yourself, the leader, owner, CEO, whatever it is, that doesn't give you authority. Authority comes by proven service. Oftentimes, the greatest generals in war and in the army and in the military are those that have already proven themselves in battle and in service because they're already willing to be the lowest level and then they step into that leadership position. What does it mean to actually get low? I'm going to go over those two phrases, get low and go last. What does it mean to get low? This is where I think we go off the rails when it comes to servant leadership. I think oftentimes when we think about servant leadership, we think about that self-depreciation where we're just diminishing ourselves so everybody else can grow. It's almost exemplified in a lack of confidence. I just don't deserve. There shouldn't be these words or these feelings or these ethos of I don't deserve to be here, but I've just been pointed and so therefore I'm here and I'm going to lead. That's not servant leadership. That's not what getting low actually means. It doesn't by any means, it doesn't mean being passive. I love in the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5, we're commanded to be meek and meekness isn't a weakness. Meekness isn't a weakness. It's quietness under strength and under pressure. What does it mean to get low? Get low means number one, taking responsibility first. This is important because I will tell you that this is a great indicator. If you have two or three or four employees, this is an amazing indicator of where you are as a leader. When your people fight to take responsibility, that is the culture you want. When clearly there has been something that has been done wrong or something isn't going right and someone fights to take that responsibility, they're like, hey, you know what, that's on me. Then someone else says, no, no, you know what, that's on me. I should have. When your team is fighting over taking responsibility, this is what I'm talking about. We don't blame. A culture of blame is always a culture that erodes at the fabric of trust. When we begin to go side by side, we begin to talk about whose fault it was. Man, that person really just isn't holding their weight. Then that's a culture that's eroding at the very fabric and it's lacking leadership. At the very top, it has to be exemplified and it comes from the top. We don't just blame. We don't blame. We fight for responsibility. We always examine ourselves first. Even in times where we have to correct, it helps soften the blow of correction when you've examined yourself first. The greatest line, and I hate firing people, right? Firing people is one of the most uncomfortable thing. But when you know that you have done your dead level best, you have tried so hard, you've communicated the way that they need to change, you've communicated the path to success for them, you've given them the measurables by which they're successful or lack success. You go to that person and you say, you know what? I really have sought internal and I feel like I've done everything I can. If you believe that, then when you say, I've just decided that it doesn't make sense for you to continue to be a part of the team. When you have sought internally to make sure that you have done everything you can, then there is no responsibility that is then transferred back to you in that separation. We have to ask ourselves, where did I miss it? At what point did I contribute to this wrongdoing? Take responsibility first. Number two, absorb pressure. All leaders absorb pressure. They don't necessarily give pressure. I think that sometimes we look at leadership and we think, oh, this is the person with a authoritarian downforce. We put pressure on other people to perform. Accountability holds people towards a performance standard, but downward pressure rarely gets people to perform consistently over time. You can get those short bursts, but oftentimes they just fizzle and fade out. True servant leaders absorb pressure. They shield their team. They only allow the team to feel the pressures or the accountability that makes sense for their upward progression or their development. They take public responsibility. Anytime there's a leader that something has gone wrong and you see a good leader, they will take public responsibility. A good coach never says, hey, you know what? I wish my receiver would have ran the right route or I wish my fullback would have blocked the right guy. I wish my defense would have had better coverage today. It's the coach. The coach will say, you know what? Maybe we didn't prepare correctly last week. Maybe I didn't have everybody in the right headspace. That's when you see a true servant leader. They then correct privately. You shield your team. You take public responsibility and you correct privately. Very, very rarely is it ever appropriate to correct someone publicly because you'll never get the right reaction and you'll never get the right action, not just reaction, but also the action past that point. Week leaders push pressure down. When they feel pressured, they just pass it along. It's like they become a conduit of pressure. When they feel it, they just pass it on to their people. Strong leaders absorb it. They only allow the followers to feel what is necessary for their growth. And then the next kind of last piece of getting low is listening before speaking. This is really important because you don't have to win the room as a leader. You already have the room. The room is already yours. And so you have positional authority. You need to understand the room. You understand the dynamics in the room. You need to understand what's going on, the emotions in the room. Ego talks and servants listen. Ego talks and servants listen. Okay, so that was get low. Next phrase, go last. Okay, go last. And there is a piece of this that is tied to that concept of leaders eat last, but I want to define it just a little bit more because this is where it becomes really powerful. You need to go last, number one, in your decision making. You say, well, what do you mean by that? What I mean is that when you've got a group of people and you as the CEO or you as the leader speak first, what happens is it never allows their opinions to come to light, right? We have to create what I call psychological safety. Psychological safety is when you create a nest, a space where ideas and thoughts can foster. They can come to light. And when you do that, then people begin to share, right? A poor leader will always go first. They'll speak first. They'll demand what they want first. They'll, they'll essentially speak and expect everyone to adjust and agree at some point. And that's never a great leadership, an environment that a leadership is fostering. So going last actually protects the truth. What happens is, is truth will come out. Everyone has a piece of the truth, right? Like no one is absent of all truth, right? In your, in your meetings. So what happens is you foster this environment where truth comes to light. Now, not everyone possesses all truth either. And you have to believe that about yourself. And so I don't possess all truth. I am frequently wrong, right? So why would I put my frequently wrong opinion out first and then expect everybody to adjust and agree? So what I do is I create this environment where I'm fostering the ability for them to speak up and give me information. Then I can begin to corral it and begin to finesse that and then make sure that we are looking at it from a, from a, you know, a very pragmatic standpoint. Next in credit. So we go last in decision making, we go last in credit. Servant leaders give the credit away. Weak leaders hoard it. Weak leaders want to hear their name. Weak leaders want to see their faces. Weak leaders sit there in the meeting and wait for the accolade, right? And in the end, a good servant leader starts by giving all credit away. Even if, even if it is them that drug everybody up the hill and it's them, it's the leader that, that made everyone else successful in the room. They never make it about themselves. They spotlight the team, they name the contributors and they elevate others in the room. There are people on your team that need elevated and the only way they're going to elevate is sometimes to give them credit for even the minor role that they played and that minor role that they play will get them and will foster an environment for them to grow into more responsibility, which then leads to more credit. When something fails, we always want to take credit first. When there's success, we want to pass the credit on to the team. We have to step forward. And then the last thing, which is, which is contrary to popular belief, is I believe that we should always go last by, by looking at compensation and sacrifice. So during downturns, during times where there's a difficult, let's just say financial situation going on in your company, I believe the servant leader cuts their own compensation first. Now you say, well, no, I've heard opposite. I think that I should always protect my salary first. I think that that's the wrong move because in doing so, you begin to protect yourself. And what you're doing is teaching everyone else to protect themselves. When you're in a culture where you are not building team and everyone's protecting themselves, no one is safe. The servant leader does not protect their lifestyle over the team. That builds loyalty that money cannot buy. I'm not saying that you, you have to go broke and you have to be homeless while everyone else has something, right? But what I'm saying is, is that there should be equal pain and equal sacrifice and you should go first. Loyalty is built not on compensation, but on taking responsibility when others won't. So why do we take this approach? Why do we take the approach of getting low and going last? And it's because servant leadership builds a level of trust, loyalty, and emotional equity you cannot get in any other way. Let me say that one more time. Servant leadership builds trust, loyalty, and emotional equity deeper and better than any other methodology. If you want cultural depth, and culture is not just like what you say you want the office or the workspace to be. It's the systematic behaviors that are coming out of your people, right? It's like, you can't just say, hey, I want a family culture and then you don't care and love your people, right? Like the systematic way of them behaving tells what your culture is, right? And you don't get cultural depth unless you have servant leadership because without servant leadership, it's everyone fighting for themselves, fending for themselves, defending themselves, putting themselves first, and then there's no trust, there's no camaraderie, there's no team. People do not follow titles. People, I think we oftentimes think, well, when I get the title or if I get the title right, I do this exercise with so many businesses where we'll build a organizational chart and the titles matter so much to them. And oftentimes I say, it's not the titles that matter, it's the responsibilities that matter because if you carry out the responsibility, trust, authority, leadership always comes out of it. Titles don't matter, volume doesn't matter, aggression doesn't matter. All of these things that we see. And I'm kind of sick and tired of it on the modern social feed, right? Like I'm so sick and tired of the bravado of so-called leaders, right? Because that's not real leadership. You're not going to find somebody beating their chest, telling you where to go with aggression and volume, ever having this big group of people following or they're ever building something big. But when you see a big group of people following and you see someone building something big, you know that there is something special going on. And oftentimes it's exactly what I'm talking about here. These servant leaders, they follow, with character, stability and sacrifice, they endear the people to them that are willing to then go to war and sacrifice beside them. So here's the hard question and I'll wrap up with this. I want you to ask yourself this. Do you need to be first? If so, why? Oftentimes it's ego, oftentimes it's, it's, we lack the confidence and so we need to be propped up. But do you need to be first? Do you need recognition? Do you crave recognition? Are you waiting for your name to be called? Are you waiting for your name to be in lights? Do I protect myself before my team? Do I always put myself first? Am I the person who is always getting versus giving? If we had to put your actions on a scale, would they be giving or would they be getting? Right? Like are you always taking or is there a give component to who you are? When pressure hits, do you absorb it or do you redirect it? Do you pass the buck all the time or do you absorb that even when it's not even your responsibility? If your leadership disappears when comfort disappears, when pressure begins to show up, right? It's not real leadership. It's just a position. Today I want you to ask yourself, am I just occupying a position or am I stepping into true leadership? True leadership is servant leadership and the two phrases I want you to take with you this week is get low and go last. Thanks so much for being a part of the podcast and for listening today. 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.