Yeah. And I mean, even that extension of the leadership is the decisions that we make. And if it’s a decision of, you know, a very task based, you know, yes or no to this or that, or it’s just how I’m choosing to interact with you or this group in this moment. I mean, that those are the dynamics, and I think a lot of the work that I’ve done and I’ve done that, right? You know, next to you, in some of these spaces is saying, you know, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m also seeing what you’re doing, and I don’t know that they’re both communicating the same thing.

And so which dynamic is going to win out in that moment with your people, right? So, you know, it’s, it’s one thing to just say the right things or whatever you think might be the right thing. It’s another thing to actually do some of these things and what that looks like. And then, I mean, like, we always talk about actions speak louder than words, right? A common, you know, kind of phrase. But in reality, if I’m looking at someone else and I’m trying to make sense of them, yes, I’m going to hear what they’re saying, but I’m also going to watch what they’re doing, because in my worldview, that tends to be more at the gut level. What do you actually think is how you’re acting and what those choices are, and then that is what’s having the ripple effect out into the culture of the spaces that we have influence in.

But I love how you’re framing. You know, you’ve got the authoritative part. You’ve got that transformative part. You’ve got kind of that service aspect that I think can kind of almost like bobble back and forth between where there’s moments where we need to be directive and there’s moments that we need to cast vision, but that we’re doing that, you know, we can do. We can do both of those things in a way that now I’m in it with you.

And so it doesn’t matter how I’m kind of like, you know, directing or transforming what may be going on. I’m also in this with you. We’re making this happen together. It’s like a different positionality, even within leadership itself.

Yeah. And knowing, I think that’s such an important piece of knowing my role and just how important it is, not my role in terms of what do I need to get done, but knowing the role I play in other people’s lives. I remember reading a stat recently that your manager has a greater impact on your life than your therapist does.

Yeah.

And just when I, when I read that, I was like, oh, my God, that one, that’s so true. Because way more and impact your life way more tangibly. And it’s just like when I realized that, that as a leader, I’m impacting someone’s entire family because if I treat them a certain way at work, well, they’ll take that back home and maybe treat their spouse differently, maybe talk to their kids differently. And, like, the way that I show up as a leader is impacting a generation in someone else’s family.

And so that’s why I say so often that leadership isn’t positional, it’s personal, right? It’s influence. It’s example, because I don’t have to be the boss to be a leader. I just have to be someone who’s compassionate and empathetic and people want to follow you, right? And just, just understanding that. One thing my mentor taught me is that good leaders never miss opportunities to cast vision. And that’s something that I’ve always worked so hard to apply because even this morning, for example, I’m on a coaching call with some people that I work with, and before we hang up the call, I commend someone on the work that they did this week. And I saw you did such a good job, and they’re like, yeah, but I didn’t do good enough.

And I was like, well, what makes you say that? Right? And kind of, we talked about that little, that little phrase there. What makes you say that? Go back and check it out if you haven’t. But we, I asked them to say a little bit more, and they’re having this self defeating dialogue internally of, yeah, I did something, but it wasn’t good enough. And I say, hold on, let’s take a pause here. Let’s take a quick pause.

Always remember, it’s 100% success mentality that when you do the thing you are supposed to do, that’s the best that you could do. And the results? We’re going to figure out the results. The byproduct will figure those pieces out. But you did what you were responsible for. That’s all I asked of you, and that’s all that you’re capable of doing. So you did a great job. And like in those moments, I’ve had spaces in my life where I’ve kind of shared something like that with a leader, hoping that they would catch on to it and encourage me.

And they just said, yeah, we’ll figure it out next time. And just hang up, right? And then you’re left with your own thoughts. So that’s one thing that I so value, my mentor for teaching me, is that good leaders never miss an opportunity to cast a vision, not just for an organization, not just for a goal with a deadline, but for a person’s future. And that’s something I even learned from Doctor King. He’s one of the greatest orators and someone who, when you look at his monument in Washington, DC, like the stone of hope, right? He’s known for always being able to inspire hope in the hearts of his listeners. And I remember one time reading that broken down as an equation when I was studying his mountaintop speech and he talks about, you know, I’ve seen the mountaintop, I may not get there with you, we have a long road ahead, but.

And he goes into casting that vision. But the role of a good leader is I always ground myself in kind of two big pieces, which is reality plus possibility equals hope, right? The reality is, hey, we’ve got a long road ahead and I may not be there with you, right? That’s real. Possibility. But I’ve seen the mountaintop, I know what’s coming and therefore the listeners feel, hopefully about where they can go.

So always having that moment of sometimes I see so many leaders only talk about reality. This is the deadline, this is the goal, this is the gap, this is why the schedule slipped, this is why this happened. Who’s going to figure it out versus this is what’s going on. Hey, I know that we have such a competent team of people. You are one of the best people I know to be able to solve things like that. Can I delegate this task to you? Do you feel comfortable with that? Hey, and I know that you’re one of the sharpest people with communicating and pulling things together.

Can you help me figure out this and ideate some options? And together, I know that in the next two, three months, we’ll be able to accomplish this and move past something we could have never even imagined and never losing those moments to really bring the best out of people, because that’s my role, is to make people feel better about who they are, feel like they contribute at a high level. And as a full organization, we move closer and closer to where we’re trying to accomplish.

I mean, I hear what you’re saying, and it’s making me. I think I’m kind of, like, being surprised at how many connections I’m making even with some of the work that we do at TLC, because we’re constantly pulled into chaos. We wouldn’t be there if it was working well, right? So, like, there’s clearly something up, and it’s literally, we call it, like, threefold hope. Where it is we are going to honor and acknowledge the fact that there is stuff happening, and that is why we are here, right. That is the reality of the situation, and we’re not going to, you know, up play downplay. That is just what it is.

But we’ve also been here. Like, we’ve walked this. You know, you’re not scaring us away. This isn’t too big. Like, there are options. There are opportunities, and it is something that you yourself can actually walk through as well. And that we can walk that with you and, yeah, then it’s going to keep going, right? Like, we’re going to fade ourselves out of there and you’re going to keep it happening, right? Like, and that’s. That’s okay.

But I’ve never framed it in exactly that way in the sense of, like, yeah, we honor the reality of the situation, but we can also cast that vision to say, hey, it doesn’t have to be this way. I know in, in my role, a lot of times that means I’m working with staff to say, yeah, I hear you. This is rough, right? Like, not okay. And this is hard stuff, but there are some strategies, there’s some angles. There might be some options here that we can go with, right? I can meet with a kid and be like, dude, if your team gave up on you, we wouldn’t be here.

Right? Like the fact that we’re here, they’re signing up to do some work. So can you, like, give them some grace and let them try some weird stuff and let’s see if it works for you and give them some feedback on it, right? And then also to work with the families and say, hey, like your school hasn’t completely tossed in yet because, like, they’ve chosen to reach out. Like, we’re here, we’re trying to figure it out. Can you work with us so that we can try to close some of this, like, school to home gaps? So we’re literally working on all three fronts to say yes to what it is right now and create that little bit of like a, hey, but there might be a potential here, there might be some options here and really, like, work in that direction.

I never framed it in the way that you framed it, but that’s exactly what we do.

Yeah, but I mean, you highlight something else that I don’t think a lot of people pay attention to is that you talked about building relationships, but so often I see a leader only build relationships with the people they lead. But what you just highlighted is that I can’t effectively lead my people if I don’t know what else is going on, if I don’t actually have resources to connect them with. So as a leader, if I want to help them most and serve them, I also need to be building relationships with other people and other organizations and spaces that don’t directly connect to me, but they can connect to the people I’m serving.

So that’s such a great point that you bring up.

Well, but that connects too, because you were talking about just, you don’t have to have a title to be a leader, right? How many times have I said, okay, who are my go to people? And I basically get the chart and it’s like, okay, cool, got it. But who actually runs the place, right? Like, whose voice matters? Whose voice do people listen to? Not who has the title to be listened to, but really within the dynamics of what’s going on, who are your key players?

And that could be a whole, you know, bunch of different, you know, ways they could be key players, but those are leaders, right? Like, with or without title, it’s who has that influence.

Yeah, it makes me think of an old John Maxwell training that I’d gone to, and he talked about taking over a church. And it was as he was young and just brand new in his, I think, twenties or thirties, he just became the pastor of this church and he wanted to go into it. But there was an old guy who was in his sixties who always sat in the back row, the back pew, and no matter what the pastor would do from the stage, people would always do what that old guy who’d been at the church for 20 years told them.

And his first role as the new leader was to create an ally in the current leader and exactly that. That it’s not always the position but finding the environment, cultivating the culture, building the right groundwork for people to actually blossom and grow together.

Yeah, well, I mean, we’re smooth transition into next week for sure because next week is all about team building, leadership strategies and this, that’s those dynamics, right? It’s knowing who we are as leaders, knowing what, you know, either formal or unofficial leaders are in our midst and then how do we partner with them through and toward whatever that vision may be.