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chapter five: RIDING IN THE FRONT SEAT

LEADERSHIP: STEPPING UP WITHOUT SCREWING UP.

Leadership is the ability to get extraordinary achievement from ordinary people. -Brian Tracy

Have you ever flown into Las Vegas?

I think the first time is the same for everyone. The plane begins to make its initial descent, and you look out the window expecting neon lights, exotic buildings, and people dangling from the sky on streams of Cirque fabric.

Instead, you see nothing but miles upon miles of rows upon rows of houses, all in various shades of desert brown and each one with a crystal blue swimming pool.

And all of a sudden it hits you: People live here.

On a recent trip, as my plane banked for the final descent to the airport, I was about to get a new perspective on those thousands of homes. I was in town to have lunch with the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company that had built entire cities just like the one I saw from the sky.

I had been looking forward to meeting with this man for a while—as far as I was concerned, he was a success rock star. At the time of our lunch, his company had over 16,000 employees and was growing at breakneck speed. They were building 200 homes a day. Can you even imagine that? Give it a try: Picture for a moment one of those large, perfectly planned suburban home developments. An idyllic neighborhood where cul-de-sacs are plentiful and the color-coordinated rooftops stretch endlessly in every direction. Got that image in your head? Now imagine building that in just 24 hours. It would be like mobilizing a small army every single day.

As the CEO ordered his lunch, I tried to fathom being at the helm of that kind of growth. I rolled a few of the variables around in my head—the people he had to manage, the surveying and permitting, the multitude and complexity of timelines, the massive capital required. I thought about the challenges, the problems, and the liabilities. Not to mention the volatile nature of the new-construction market. My mind was spinning just thinking about everything required to keep a company growing at that pace. There were just so many things that could go wrong. So many constraints.

As I expressed this to the home-development rock star, though, he seemed unfazed. Dismissive even. In his mind, there was only one factor limiting his company’s growth: him.

“The only constraint of a company’s growth and potential,” he told me, “is the owner’s ambition. I am the constraint. The market, the opportunity, everything is there. It’s up to me to set the pace, clear the obstacles, get the resources, and create the conversations to grow the company faster.” “As CEO,” he continued, “the most important thing I manage is myself. Do that right, and everything else falls into place.” (Just to be clear, “falling into place” for this guy meant a billion dollars a year.) That single conversation forever changed the way I saw Las Vegas, and it forever changed the way I see myself as a leader. Every time I feel that descent into the LAS airport, I look to the window and the sprawling city below. For me, it’s no longer a meaningless sea of desert-landscaped homes. It’s the expression of a leader’s ambition.

And I remind myself: As a leader, I am my only constraint.

“The number one bottleneck or constraint to the growth of any organization is the leader.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Doing what that CEO did for a company that size takes some serious leadership. But what he said of his organization and its limitations isn’t just true of billion-dollar companies—it’s true of any company, yours included.

The number one bottleneck or constraint to the growth of any organization is the leader.

It’s true every time. There are no exceptions. Your leadership ability is the major limit to what you can achieve in business. It’s that skill that determines if you can turn this roller coaster into a rocket ship to the moon.

This chapter is about the essentials you need in order to make sure that the sky, not your leadership, is the limit.

IT’S YOUR FAULT

Is your company rockin’ and rollin’? Are sales high and morale higher? Are you dominating your marketplace and leaving others slack-jawed and mystified? Then go ahead, my leader friend, take a moment to pat yourself on the back and do a little celebration dance. It looks like, at least for now, you’re doing a nice job at pushing through your own limitations and, as the leader, you get first dibs on the credit.

Feel good? Okay. Now stop.

Because, yes, while you are “to blame” when things go right…

… when they go wrong, it’s also your fault. All your fault.

“As the leader, you ultimately have 100% responsibility for everything. Don’t waste your time blaming.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

As the leader, you ultimately have 100 percent responsibility for everything. When a widget rolls off the line with a broken thingamajig, it’s not the fault of the guy who was texting instead of quality-controlling. It’s your fault. When a customer is mistreated at a store halfway across the country, don’t blame the customer service agent with a bad attitude. You’re to blame. Top to bottom, front to back. Everything. Is. Your. Fault.

After all:

When a company gets in trouble, what do they do? They fire the CEO.

When a team starts losing? They replace the head coach.

When the country’s not doing well? They want to oust the President!

Sure, when your ship comes in, you’re going to win big.

But if the ship goes down? You go down with it, Captain.

THE MATH OF DECEPTION

Knowing that everything hinges on you, there’s only one question you should be asking right now: How’s my leadership?

Let me guess your answer: I gotta say Darren, it’s pretty good.

Am I right? Is that your answer?

You think you’re at least above average? Maybe better?

Are you sure?

Studies consistently show that we often think we’re better at things than we really are. Doctors, pilots, teachers—the vast majority of professionals—think they’re better than average. Leaders are no different—in fact, 75 percent of people in leadership positions think they are in the top 10 percent of the field.

See anything wrong with that?

The math doesn’t work. We can’t all be in the top 10 percent. And to make it worse, if you’re like most people, even as you are reading this sentence, you’re still thinking: Well, that doesn’t apply to me. I’m ACTUALLY in the top 10 percent.

Trust me. We all need to take a close look at our leadership skills. When I first heard these statistics, I thought the same thing you did—they’re just talking about other people. In fact, in an effort to prove it to myself, I even took my entire team to a leadership seminar.

We were having a great year, and I was feeling pretty good about our performance. I wanted to take things up a notch and reward the team at the same time—and, although I wouldn’t have admitted it then, I wanted to stroke my ego, too. But regardless of motive, we all loaded up in a 40-passenger travel bus one Friday afternoon and took off to a beautiful conference center in Santa Barbara for a two-day retreat.

As part of the first day, the seminar leader guided us through a multiple choice and short essay exercise that was designed to be a 360-degree review of each member of the team, including me. He gave us an hour, put on some music, and we each sat and anonymously reported on each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and personality.

Oh, I ate it up! I dug right into the exercise, taking care to offer never-before-considered elements of each of my team’s strengths and areas of weakness. I was looking forward to both improving the team, and earning a few well-earned kudos for my stellar leadership.

At the end of the hour, the leader turned off the music, collected the feedback, reassembled it for each member of the team, and excused us to read and process our reviews in private. We would reconvene in an hour to discuss.

I found a little nook next to a window overlooking the bluffs and the sea, and settled in to gorge myself at the ego buffet.

Oh boy.

As I worked my way through the first few “strongly agree,” “agree,” “strongly disagree” responses, I could feel my face growing hot and my palms begin to sweat. The way my team saw me was nothing like how I saw myself. Nothing at all.

Where I thought I was being organized and transparent, they saw me as being too secretive and shortsighted. When I thought I was being inspiring and encouraging, they thought I was being demeaning and a braggart.

I picked up the pace a little, quickly scanning each review, looking for a glimmer of confirmation that I was the leader I knew I was—that the first few responses were just a fluke. And there were some parts that were very complimentary. But as each page passed, there was no hiding from the truth: I was not the leader I thought I was.

I was flabbergasted. At first, I felt betrayed and questioned the results. But there was no way around it. This was the truth like I’d never been willing to see it before.

Ironically, it’s moments like this, when we question our leadership, that true leadership emerges. I put the papers down and stared out the window, watching the waves rhythmically touch the shore. Sitting there alone, just moments before we were scheduled to return to the group, I knew I had two choices. I could discount the feedback as nonsense and continue to believe what I believed, thereby preserving my ego. Or I could take it seriously and make a decision to get better.

I have to admit I was tempted by the first option. My ego and I have been friends for a long time, and it would be inconsiderate of me to just throw him under the bus. But then I realized the truth: I had fallen for the same trap as most other leaders. I believed I was better than I actually was.

The only solution, I realized, was to stop believing I was better, and simply get better.

THIS AIN’T YOUR DADDY’S LEADERSHIP

The choice I faced that day is the same one you face now. The truth is we can all improve our ability to lead.

The challenge is that leadership has changed.

For a long time, leadership was a pretty static idea. The industrial age taught us that organizations were economic entities—“machines” for making money. The priorities for leaders in those days were to develop structures, set controls, and leverage capital as effectively as possible—to, in effect, treat parts of the company, including the people, as parts in the machine.

This was accomplished through pyramids of people arranged in hierarchies who performed a fairly narrow range of tasks within clear guidelines. As a leader, your job was to pour orders into the top of the pyramid machine, and watch the results come out the bottom.

And now?

Fuhgettaboutit.

Things have changed. Not only have the rules of business changed, but also the landscape of who you need to lead is radically different.

The Millennial generation (those born in the 1980s and 1990s) is the largest generation to enter the workforce in human history. Nurtured through a different era, this generation has a completely different value system. They value self-expression, not compliance. They care about independence, not routine.

If you’re having a hard time motivating and leading Millennials, you better figure it out, and quickly. Millennials will soon represent half the current workforce, and by 2020 they’ll hold the majority of leadership positions. Like it or not, they’re going to play a star role in how the marketplace works in the future. They will make up both your workforce and your competition.

Not only is the workforce younger, its gender makeup has shifted. As unemployment figures fluctuate, there are often more women working than men (and the number of stay-at-home dads has doubled to over 20 percent). This is a massive shift from the previously male-dominant, top down, rank and file industrial age corporate system and culture.

But wait! There’s more. Adding to this new complexity is the fact that by 2050, minorities will make up 55 percent of the working-age population. Making them what?

Majorities!

Add it all up, and you’ll realize the people you’re going to be leading are extremely diverse. Did you know that for the first time in history we’re going to have five generations in the workplace at once? When the Millennials occupy the majority of leadership positions not only will there be two generations following them, but their parents and grandparents will still be working, too. How’s that for a mind-blowing, nerve-racking leadership challenge? You can’t be an old-school leader in this new-school workplace and expect to thrive.

ENTER THE 21ST CENTURY LEADER

“Leader” used to be synonymous with “boss” or “manager,” but not anymore. A boss leads by authority, fear, and command. “You’ll do it because I said so. I’m the boss.” Everyone hates bosses. Don’t be a boss.

And managers? They try to incentivize with brass rings, Starbucks gift cards, and the chance to ring the bell. “If you do what I say, I’ll give you this.” Managers are wienies. Don’t be a manager.

So what should you be?

This is clearly not your daddy’s leadership, but unfortunately that’s all most of us know. Leadership to us is what we saw while growing up. Today we are mindlessly repeating the patterns and behaviors of the models we experienced. We are using twentieth century leadership skills to try and lead in the twenty-first century… and we wonder why it’s not working.

So what do you do?

You change. You adapt. You become something new. You become a Twenty-First Century Leader.

Twenty-First Century Leaders aren’t bosses. They’re not managers. They’re not relics from a bygone era. They’re leaders in the true sense of the word because they understand and embody the four things that set all great leaders apart.

1. LEADERS SET THE PACE

Here’s a secret: People don’t go as fast as they can. They don’t work as hard as they can either. They aren’t as disciplined as possible. They aren’t as positive-minded or enthusiastic as they can be.

They’re only as fast and disciplined and positive as you are.

As the leader, you set the pace. You create the standards. It doesn’t matter if you’re leading salespeople, engineers, or creatives. They will only be as disciplined, driven, focused, and consistent as the person leading them. The speed, quality, and culture of the pack are determined by the leader. That means the most important, but also the most underused and violated, principle of leadership is lead by example.

Here’s how to set a good one.

“People don’t go as fast as they can. They only go as fast as the leader. You set the pace.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

LEAD FROM THE FRONT

In 1944, the Allied generals gathered to discuss their battle plans for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. After listening to how each general was going to send his soldiers into battle, an angered Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander, slammed his fist down, stood up, and placed a piece of string in the middle of the table.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “Do you see this string? This string is like an army. Push it from behind, and it doubles up on itself—you get nowhere. To drive it forward you have to pull it from the front, and it will follow you in perfect order.” We should have learned this valuable leadership lesson in preschool. Do you remember preschool? Those early education years are when we learned the basic skills of sharing, sitting still for more than a minute, and the classic “our hands are not for hitting.” It’s also where we learned to walk in a straight line.

I can still hear sweet Mrs. Morrow’s voice as she called, “All right, boys and girls, let’s line up!” She would stand at the classroom door, and we’d fall into line behind her. She’d grab the tiny palm of a student, and we would all do the same. Mrs. Morrow would open the classroom door and fearlessly guide us, single file, through the hallways to our destination.

Did Mrs. Morrow stand behind us and shout “GO!”? No.

Did she walk along beside us trying to manage our every move? No.

She walked in front, leading the way, and at every turn she called to us: “Follow me!” Certainly, the people in your organization are not preschoolers (even if it sometimes seems like they would benefit from a nap), but the leadership principle remains the same: If you want to move your organization forward, you can’t just give a speech and say go. You only need to say, “Follow me,” and make your action your instruction.

“To lead, you only need to say ‘Follow me.’ Make your action your instruction.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

DO IT FIRST

Before I ever ask someone to do or be anything, I think of Mahatma Gandhi and the story of “The Little Boy and Sweets.” It is such a great example to live up to and delivers an invaluable lesson on the character of leadership.

Coming to see Gandhi, a woman waited in line for more than half a day with her son at her side, in order to have an audience with him. When at last it was her turn to speak to him, the woman said, “Mahatma, please. Tell my son he must stop eating sweets. It is ruining his health, his teeth. It affects his mood. Every time he has sweets, I see the change in him, and there is nothing I can do to stop him from eating more and more. He’s a good boy, but when it comes to sweets, he becomes a liar and a thief and a cheat, and I’m afraid it will ruin his life. Please, Mahatma, tell him to stop.” Gandhi looked at the boy for a long moment as he cowered there, trying to hide in his mother’s sari. Finally, Gandhi broke the silence and said, “Come back to me in two weeks’ time.” Confused, and a bit disappointed that he could not simply tell her son to stop eating sugar, the mother left with her son.

Two weeks later the woman returned with her child and once again waited in line for hours before finally it was their turn to see the Master. “Mahatma,” said the mother, “we have returned. We came to you for help with this boy and eating sweets, and you asked us to come back after two weeks.” “Yes, of course I remember,” said Gandhi. “Come here, child.” He motioned the boy forward.

The boy, at the urging and prodding of his mother, disentangled himself from her sari and stepped up to Gandhi, who reached out, put his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and pulled him closer. He looked the boy squarely in the eye and said, firmly, “Don’t eat sweets.” Then he released him.

“That’s it?” said the mother. “That’s all you’re going to say?” She was flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you just tell him that two weeks ago?” “Because,” replied Gandhi, “two weeks ago I was still eating sweets myself. I could not ask him to stop eating sweets so long as I had not stopped either.” “Ask only for others to do what you have done yourself first.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

If you really want to have leadership influence, you have no choice but, as Gandhi, to be the change you want to see in others. Leadership in the twenty-first century is less about the words that come out of you and more about what exists within you. Is there a behavior that is rotting the teeth of your organization and ruining its health? If so, you’ll need to be the first one to throw those sweets away.

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

A mother of six who I know is the most affectionate, affirming woman I have ever met. Her children are the purpose of her life. For decades she poured incredible amounts of love and positive feedback into those kids. Even now that many of them are in their 40s, she relentlessly praises and applauds them, still telling them to this day how special, talented, capable, and beautiful they are.

Yet now, as adults, they all suffer from severe low self-esteem. Each one of them lacks confidence. They even admit to thinking they are ugly.

How can this be? No one was ever loved and encouraged more than those six people. Their mother told them so often… why didn’t they listen?

The answer is that kids, like most people, don’t really listen.

They watch.

If you watched their mother, as I have, you’d noticed that every time she looks into a mirror she grimaces and comments on how ugly she is. Every time she sees a photograph of herself she winces and points out how unattractive she looks. When encouraged by a friend to try something new or to do something adventurous, she is quick to say that she could never do such a thing. “That’s for other people,” she says.

Those six kids didn’t listen to what their mother said. They watched what she did and internalized how she felt about herself. When she looked in the mirror and winced, they thought, If she thinks she’s ugly and I look like her, I must be ugly too.

When she refused to do something because she didn’t believe she could, they thought, If she couldn’t do it—this woman who was their idol, their rock, their mother—then there’s no way such a thing would be possible for me.

When we were children, we quickly learned to tune out the voices of our parents and other authority figures. We did that quite consciously. It’s how we started claiming our own identity. But unconsciously we never stopped watching.

This phenomenon is part of our evolution. Thousands of years ago, when we were still living in caves and carrying around cattle bones as clubs, a newborn needed to be accepted by the tribe or it was left behind to die. Over time, nature selected the ones who could mirror those around them to gain acceptance. We developed what neuroscientists call mirror neurons. You can see them in action when you take a picture of someone smiling and you find yourself automatically smiling, too. Your mirror neurons did that. These mirror neurons are always working below the level of your consciousness. It’s why people will eventually model and match your behavior, particularly the behavior of the one deemed “leader.” I see this mirroring phenomenon played out in many of the large organizations I speak to. If the leaders of one company dress professionally and wear custom-made suits, lo and behold, the entire auditorium of their people are dressed to the nines in suits. Another organization’s leaders in the same industry might wear ripped designer jeans, T-shirts, and dog tags, and guess what? The whole audience looks like their clones.

I’d bet most of the people in those organizations didn’t dress like that before they joined, but over time they started unconsciously emulating, adapting to, and mirroring their leaders. Your teams will do the same.

YOU’RE ALWAYS ON STAGE

So what’s the overarching lesson here? Who you are, how you show up, how you act, live, and represent yourself is your greatest source of influence, and your people will, without even knowing it, mirror your lead.

“Your people don’t listen to you, but they do watch you. They are always watching. BE the example.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

You are on stage at all times.

Every room you enter, every conversation you engage in, everywhere you are, you are being watched by those around you. Think about the interactions you’ve had in the past few days. Did you show up promptly, enthusiastically, and joyfully? Were you an example of your best self? Were people uplifted by your presence, conversation, observations, and encouragement? Or were you complaining, joining the gossip, and perpetuating the defeatist dialog? Whatever your example, rest assured, you got matching results, even if you didn’t notice.

Every action, comment, and reaction you put out there is training your team. They’re simply reflecting what you project, and if you want to change the reflection, you have to change the projection. You have to lead by example.

1. LEADERS DO WHAT’S UNPOPULAR

“It must be nice to be in charge.”

How many times have you heard that statement? How many times have you said that statement, or wished you were in charge?

Now you are.

Once you really are the leader, though, you quickly discover that leadership isn’t always that “nice.” It’s not easy or fun. It’s hard work. And not just hard in the long, demanding hours sense (though the hours are long and demanding), but emotionally hard.

In July 2008, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz agonized over the decision to lay off thousands of employees and close 600 stores, 70 percent of which had only been built and opened in the past few years. He calls it the most painful day in his professional life. “The decision to close that many stores was tough,” he said. “But it wasn’t stores, it was people.” He recalled the moment he made the announcement to his headquarters team: “It was a very emotional moment for me where I couldn’t hold myself together. I was looking at people whom I’d known for ten to fifteen years who I was now asking to leave. It was a heartbreak.” While he knew it would make him very unpopular to thousands of people, particularly to those people whose lives would immediately change based on his decision, he also knew it was the right decision and one he had to make to save the company and its future.

He said, “I was faced with the burden and responsibility of saving the company. In order to preserve and ultimately enhance the company, I had to make emotional and highly charged (unpopular) decisions that in the short term were really going to fracture the lives of people.” Like Schultz, you’re going to have to make tough calls, too.

You might have to make the tough decision to abandon a big marketing and distribution channel like Michael Dell did when he decided to pull out of Wal-Mart (and all retail) to focus his company on its direct-to-consumer model. It was a decision that revolutionized the computer sales industry back in 1993.

You might have to shut down existing profit centers like former CEO of McDonald’s Jim Skinner did when he sold off controlling interest in the Chipotle brand and all other non-McDonald’s businesses in 2006 in order to “remove distractions” and “get back to basics.” Profit more than doubled under Skinner’s reign as leader.

You might need to step in and terminate entire product lines as Steve Jobs did when he returned to lead a nearly bankrupt Apple in 1997. Those, and other difficult decisions, propelled the company to ultimately being deemed the world’s most valuable brand.

Rest assured, if your name badge is going to say “leader,” you will be called to ruffle feathers, ride roughshod over poor performance, fire nice people, kill sacred cows, terminate pet projects, and veto the democratic vote.

All of which will likely make you very unpopular.

But the aim of the leader is not to be liked. It’s to lead. To do the right thing. And more often than we like, the right thing is not the popular thing.

“When people are calling you out and calling you names, they’re really just calling you a leader.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Are you willing to make the difficult choices? To do what’s unpopular? It’s not easy, but remember this: When people are calling you out and calling you names, they’re really just calling you a leader.

1. LEADERS GROW OTHERS

I went to school with a shy, quiet girl named Cassie.

Through her entire childhood, Cassie had been told, “If you don’t have something important to say, Cassie, don’t say anything at all.” Throughout most of her childhood, she heard, “That’s not important, Cassie,” “Nobody cares, Cassie,” “Be quiet, Cassie.” By the time I got to know her a little bit in high school, most people referred to her as “the girl who never speaks.” In my junior year of high school, we had Mr. Wilson for A.P. English. Mr. Wilson was a different kind of teacher. He didn’t lecture much, but he asked a lot of questions of students. And instead of lining the desks up in rows like the other teachers did, he organized them in a circle, always including a desk for himself.

One day we were discussing Romeo and Juliet. Though this was about the pre-Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes version, the class was still animated—there’s just something about that rebellious teenage love story that gets teenagers all fired up. Students were throwing their opinions at each other like a wild game of dodge ball. Mr. Wilson delighted in our enthusiasm and acted as our referee, strategically posing questions to keep the discussion moving forward from student to student.

At one point, during a particularly heated discussion about the death scene, Mr. Wilson noticed something the rest of us missed: Cassie had taken a small breath, the kind you take when you have something you want to say.

Mr. Wilson stopped the other students mid-sentence. He turned to her. “Cassie,” he said, gently, “is there something you would like to add?” Wide-eyed, the entire class turned to her and waited. Would she speak? Cassie shifted forward (No way! She’s going to say something!), then shrank back into her seat. (Nope, she’s not.) Mr. Wilson asked again. “Cassie, I can see you have something to add, and I would be delighted to hear it—we all would.” He motioned to the class, nodding, and we nodded in return. Cassie raised her eyes toward Mr. Wilson. They were bright blue, innocent, and scared. And after a long pause she whispered, “It’s not important,” as her voice trailed off and she looked back to the ground, as if hoping to disappear into it.

“Leave her alone, Mr. Wilson,” one student said.

“Yeah Mr. Wilson, Cassie doesn’t like to speak in class.”

Mr. Wilson quieted everyone. We watched as he rose to his feet, walked across the middle of the circle, and crouched down in front of Cassie’s desk.

“Cassie, you are a smart, witty, and extremely wise young woman. I have had the honor of reading your essays all semester, and I know we would all find great value in any insights you want to share. Believe me when I say that anything you have to share is important. Always.” Slowly, Cassie lifted her gaze. She looked around at a room full of 17-year-old faces, captivated by this interaction, and murmuring in agreement that yes, they did want to hear what she had to say—that it was important.

That morning, for the first time since we had known her, Cassie spoke in class.

I don’t remember exactly what she said—something about the knife and Juliet breaking patterns of female archetypes—but whatever it was, it sounded pretty good to me. What I do remember clearly was the real-life metamorphosis that happened before my eyes. This once inconspicuous caterpillar transformed into a butterfly. For the rest of the semester, she sat tall and beamed as she spoke. From then on, every rapid-fire discussion that took place had Cassie right in the middle of it.

Mr. Wilson taught me a lot that day about what it means to truly be a leader. He taught me that leaders don’t tell you what to think, they encourage you to think for yourself. They don’t dictate, they facilitate—they arrange chairs in circles and sit alongside you. He taught me that people and ideas thrive in the process of engagement and co-creation.

Perhaps the greatest lesson Mr. Wilson taught me that day is that many times the greatest contributor is not the loudest or the most confident. He showed me that as a leader, you must look for those small intakes of breath from the quieter members of your team. And when you hear one, gently and persistently encourage that person to speak. Every voice is important.

It is the responsibility of the leader to draw out the talent, drive, and capability of the people on their team. Most people are operating at a fraction of what they are really capable of. As the leader you will need to find the unique seeds of greatness buried in each member of your team. You need to remove the weeds (fears, inhibitions, uncertainties), water and fertilize (invest in their personal growth), and provide the sunshine (your positive attitude, belief in them, and example) to transform that miraculous seed inside them into a bountiful harvest of results and productivity.

“The leader’s responsibility is to draw out the talent, drive, and capability of the people on your team. Your job as a leader is to grow your people.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

It’s easy to be distracted by the job of growing your business. But never forget that your job as a leader is also to grow people.

1. LEADERS LET OTHERS LEAD

A few years ago, I had the chance to ask a billionaire how he achieved the proverbial “B” status. His answer—which was only three words long—floored me. Ever since then, I have been trying to master his advice.

At the time, his net worth was about three billion dollars. That makes his answer worth about a billion dollars per word.

Here’s what he told me:

“Be a quitter.”

Did you just say, “Huh”?

Yeah, that’s what I said, too.

But he wasn’t being trite. “Be a quitter” truly was his advice, and he felt that it was the secret to his Big B status.

“Whatever you are doing in your business right now,” he told me, “your goal really is to find a way to quit it. You need to stop doing almost everything you do at the office.” He could see I was perplexed (as I’m sure you are now too), so he explained further.

“Once the founder has the vision, the key to achieving that vision is to delegate—as much and as fast as possible. Delegation is a form of quitting. Even if you are the most well-rounded and capable CEO of all time, you are still better off delegating functions to specialists. This allows you to multiply the size of your endeavor through large numbers of people rather than trying to do everything yourself.

“The process of quitting is really trying to give up every part of your job as fast as you can,” he said. “All the parts that is, except the part of being the visionary leader.” “Easier said than done…” I mumbled under my breath. The billionaire chuckled.

“Look, when you first start a business, you’re likely going to have to do everything—sales, customer service, accounting, all the way down to taking out the trash. Your goal is to get enough sales going so you can quit taking out the trash and hire someone else to do it. Get more sales going, then quit doing the accounting. Hire a specialist to do it. Get more sales going and quit doing customer service, too. You want to go from everything to nothing—except leading. You only get there by quitting everything as fast as you can.” He concluded by saying, “You want to turn labor into leadership. As the founder and CEO, you should not be doing anything. You should only be leading.” This is brilliant advice.

“You can’t be a great leader if you spend your time doing tasks that aren’t actually leadership.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

The reason most people don’t make it to billionaire status is because they’re doing the opposite. They are taking on more and more tasks for which they are not the most skilled or best suited. When you are not a specialist at something, results are diminished. And when you’re doing more and more tasks, you’re simultaneously diminishing your ability to do what your real specialty needs to become: lead.

You can’t lead if you’re designing brochures.

You can’t lead if you’re doing accounting.

You can’t lead if you’re managing production.

You can’t be a great leader if you keep doing things that aren’t actually leadership.

Get out of the way. Let others take the lead on those roles. You’re the head coach, not the player. Imagine if the head coach ran onto the field to throw a pass, make a block, or intercept a throw? They’d throw him out of the stadium. But business leaders are doing that to their people all the time.

Be a quitter. Do your real job, and let your team do theirs.

KNOW WHEN TO LET GO

Twenty years ago I started a professional training and development company with a partner. We started it organically (a fancy way of saying “we had nothing”—no money, no people, nothing). We needed help in the office but didn’t have the revenue to pay someone.

There we were, stuck right smack between a rock and a hard place, when an idea came to us: Diana!

Diana had worked for my partner in a previous venture. She was capable and, as luck would have it, available. Fortunately for us, she was also open-minded.

We called Diana in for an official meeting in my partner’s living-room-turned-office and pitched her on our big vision. We promised her that if she would be willing to work for free—for just a little while—that’s all we’d need! Soon we’d be rolling in money and able to compensate her generously. She bought our story, hopped on board our dream-ship, and started working for us pro bono.

When it came to her job description, she didn’t really have one—Diana did a little bit of everything. She handled the bookkeeping, set up our event logistics, booked our travel, tracked our marketing results—whatever came up, Diana tried to figure it out.

It didn’t take long for our business to become the big success we had promised, and when I handed Diana her first paycheck, I don’t know whose smile was bigger, hers or mine!

However, while we were right about the fact that our company would grow, we seriously underestimated how quickly it would happen. Before we knew it, we had outgrown Diana’s skill set. We needed an experienced CFO. We needed a professional event manager. We needed a veteran marketing director.

At first, we weren’t too concerned—certainly there was a place for Diana. But when we tried her in several different positions, nothing worked. Either she didn’t like the role, or she wasn’t equipped for it. Determined, we sent Diana to several training classes to develop her skills in other areas, but still, it just wasn’t enough for what we needed.

We loved Diana. But we were jeopardizing the business to keep her.

I hate to let people go. I can’t sleep the entire night before. I remember it was a Friday afternoon when we finally decided to say goodbye to Diana. I called her into my office, and as she walked in, all the color drained from my face. There’s got to be another way, I thought, maybe she could… I desperately tried to conjure up a last-minute position that would suit both Diana and the company’s needs, but we were out of options. It was time for Diana to go. I could barely speak the words I needed to say, and when I did, she started to cry. And I started to cry.

I handed her a check for a six-month severance and helped her pack her things.

It was finally done.

Sometimes, there comes a point, even after all of the growing, after all of the caring, after all of the dreaming and delegating, when there is really nothing else that can be done except to let someone go. It’s part of the leader’s job, and employees across the world are getting fired every minute. But that doesn’t make it any easier on the leader who has to do it.

When the day comes that you’re facing this crossroad, I want you to consider this quote from Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix. He points out a subtle but profound distinction—one that has helped me in these difficult moments.

In a discussion with his own team, he said:

“We are a team, not a family. It is the coach’s job at every level to hire, develop, and cut smartly so we have stars in every position.” —Reed Hastings JoinTheRide

“We are a team, not a family. We’re like a pro sports team, not a recreational kids’ team. It is the coach’s job at every level of Netflix to hire, develop, and cut smartly so we have stars in every position.” Why a “team” and not a “family”? A family culture sets up a mindset of entitlement and privilege. After all, you can’t fire your brother-in-law or get on the case of your mother for not pulling her weight.

A pro sports team culture elicits an entirely different attitude. You are either performing at the level the team needs, or you get cut or traded. Nothing personal. If it’s going to win, the team needs to be able to rely on the best person in every position. And the coach’s job (you) is to recruit, develop, and trade up for the best player in every one of those positions. Every chair in the office needs to be the best it can be.

There is one last twist to the Diana story. A few months later, I was at a friend’s intimate vineyard wedding in the Napa Valley. During the cocktail hour, while the guests were mingling, I approached the bar and who did I see… but Diana. She was working with the owners of the vineyard, learning the elegant details of the wine business, and managing the guest experiences.

I’ll admit, it was a little awkward at first—for both of us. But after the initial shock, she poured me a glass of her favorite cabernet and admitted that the last few months working for us hadn’t been great. She was overwhelmed, stressed, and unhappy. “I would have stayed forever,” she said. “And I would have been miserable.” Now she was living her dream life and thanked us for having the courage to let her go.

We raised a glass to her happiness, and as I walked to join my friends at dinner (drinking my new favorite wine), I felt happy, too.

THE GIFT OF LEADERSHIP

Every entrepreneur who leads also feels the weight of responsibility for those who follow. Day after day, you are significantly influencing people’s lives—often in ways you don’t even realize. People will look to you. They’ll emulate you. Your ride will provide them with challenges, opportunities to grow, a livelihood, and the chance to do something that matters.

It’s an awesome responsibility. Take it seriously.

With that responsibility, though, comes a grand opportunity—one that brings with it the highest rewards. I’m not talking about success and bank deposits (although those are great, too!). I’m talking about the fulfillment you get from knowing you have left the indelible imprint of making a truly positive difference in someone’s life. It’s a profoundly rewarding experience and a great privilege—one you should accept with honor and dignity.

“Everyone in your organization is learning how to think, act, and react from YOU. Lead by example.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Those sitting in the roller coaster cars behind you are watching you. They’re taking their cues—at work and at home—from you. They’re learning how to think, act, and react based on what you do.

How you ride? That’s how they ride.

You’re in the front seat now. So put a big smile on your face, shoot your arms up into the air, and shout, “Look! No hands!” figure