Leading Hope with Kevin Jack

Why you don’t lead at home:

Because you don’t adjust to change of pace & maturity.

Your ego is in the way: you only want to command and not to serve.

You might be lazy.

You are replaceable in every environment, don’t fail to lead in the one environment where you’re not.

A powerful idea: Make your decisions based upon maximizing future joy.

- If they’re not a fit culturally or skill-wise, they’re not going to be fulfilled long-term.

- We violate ethics because we lose long-term perspective and isolate the immediate.

- Another frame: What is the wise thing to do? Wisdom is about joy.

Joy is communal.

The nature of leadership is to become isolated. To be lonely.

The key to joy in leadership is a generous leadership:

- Be generous with your time.

- Be generous with your authority.

- Be generous with information.

There is no job that will give you joy.

One of the greatest things impacting your joy is a feeling of helplessness.

- We act contrary to what we feel we should do.

- When we do we begin to see the world in a way that justifies our action.

- This affects our worldview creating behaviors that become character traits, and provokes others to do the same.

I believe one of the clearest culprits is a feeling of helplessness, which is a feeling that we strengthen with our own actions.

We’ve fundamentally misunderstood why we lead.

If profit is your purpose you’re always going to struggle for passion.

The purpose of leadership is to increase joy.

From Simon Sinek, “So many leaders, even some of the best-intentioned ones, often ask, “How do I get the most out of my people?” This is a flawed question, however. It’s not a question about how to help our people grow stronger, it’s about extracting more output from them. People are not like wet towels to be wrung out. They are not objects from which we can squeeze every last drop of performance. The answers to such a question might yield more output for a time, but it often comes at a cost of our people and to the culture in the longer term. Such an approach will never generate the feelings of love and commitment. A better question to ask is, “How do I create an environment in which my people can work to their natural best?”

What you need: The right decision at the right time in the right way.

The 3 Components:

The right decision: Obviously making the right decision matters. Tons has been written on making good decisions so we’re not jumping into that here. Just press this: Decision making is a skill, it can be developed, but you might not be good at it yet.

The right time: It’s not always the right time to make decision. You can make it too early- which we’ll dive into in process, you can also make it too late and miss the opportunity. The timing of the decision matters.

In the right way: Process matters. Who contributes, who is heard from, has appropriate research been done or are you just going on your gut, who all is involved in making the decision.

The best decisions involve all 3, but you can get away with just doing 2 out of the 3.

How to grow courage. What is worth it whether it works or not?

Courage is like a muscle

Strengthened over time.

Big moment courage comes from small moment courage.

Simple Practices that gain courage

Speak when it’d be easier to overlook.

Listen when you would rather yell.

Stay when it’d be easier to go.

Go when it’d be more comfortable to stay.

Slow down when you want to just keep going faster.

Go faster when you’ve been steady at the same pace.

What is the difference between stupidity and courage?

- The difference between stupidity and courage isn’t wisdom, it is conviction.

- Stupidity shuts its eyes, courage sees everything.

- The difference between courage and stupidity is subjective: It’s based upon you and what is worth it to you.

You need convictions if you’re going to have courage!

We often define reckless as courageous.

Individuals view disagreeable as courageous.

Courage is the excuse for the person who is truly arrogant.

Definition:

The ability to do something that frightens one.

Strength in the face of pain or grief.

For it to be Courage:

You must know what’s at stake.

You must know who will be impacted and how.

Knowing that, you’re willing to move forward anyway.

Courage establishes you as a leader.

The risk of Leadership:

1. You might be wrong.

2. You might be alone.

3. You might be criticized.

Leadership is established through a very simple practice:

Embrace the Obstacle.