Empowering Others: The #1 Habit of Great Leaders

Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind. George Wright III here with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. Today is a busy, busy day, but I absolutely wanted to take time and make sure that I put a message out to you. And I had one this morning that I have been thinking about, and I thought it would really bring some value to you today. So before I get started, The quote of the day in the Daily Mastermind mobile app, if you have the app downloaded, is by Helen Keller, and it's, Optimism is the father that leads to achievement. Optimism is the father that leads to achievement. What a great quote, especially from Helen Keller. I love that. So today I want to talk to you a little bit about leadership. And I want to talk to you about leadership because I think, and you'll know why as I kind of get into this, I read a recent article in Inc. Magazine, and it was an interview with Bill Gates, and he was talking about what's going to separate successful people and unsuccessful people and successful and unsuccessful leaders over the next century. And he says that there's one main thing, there's one key ingredient that's going to separate these leaders, and that's that successful leaders will empower others over the next coming century. Empowering others. And so it's interesting that he uses that as the one separator. And he goes on to say that leaders themselves already separate themselves with their skills and their habits and their ability to influence others. That's what you would typically think of. But the key is going to be a leader's ability to empower and build up other people. So let's talk a little bit about that. You think normally when you think of leadership and you think of leaders and main successful or famous leaders you always think of these larger personalities driven people the Bill Gates the Richard Bransons the Tony Robbins things like that And the bottom line is that most leaders are average everyday common individuals that separate themselves in what they do So let talk about what it means to you know I know it kind of sounds a little ambiguous. What does it mean to empower others? So if you're trying to be a big, a good leader, whether that's in your home, your family, your business, your environment, your community, if you want to be a leader that empowers people, it's important, Bill Gates says, to first clear up what a good leader is not. And I do think there's some misconceptions around leadership versus management versus controlling. And so let's talk about what a good leader is not. Number one, a good leader is not about titles or position of authority. See, with leadership, a lot of times people think, I wanna be the leader, and so they think they need a title and they need to have power. And I know that a lot of times over my years of doing business, I felt like control and the ability to be the title over people was the key. But that's not real leadership. Leadership is not needing a position of authority or title. Second, good leadership is not about personality traits. I know that many people think leadership requires your ability to be outgoing or problem-solving or whatever personality trait that you may think a great leader has to have. That's not the point. In fact, sometimes those personality traits can be a detriment to a leader because it doesn't allow them the humility and the patience. So it's not about a personality trait to be a leader. Number three, it's also not about management. It's not about being a manager, and there's a key difference. See, managers maintain work and workflow, and leaders lead. So you might be in a position where you're a manager of people. that doesn't mean you're a leader of people. And Peter Drucker said, you know, one does not manage people. The task is to lead people. And the goal is to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of each individual. And that, I think, is the key differentiation. A leader goal is not just to lead people but to help empower the individuals and bring out their strengths and their knowledge and their contribution to the team And so I really like that comment by Peter Drucker. The fourth thing that a leader is not, leadership is not about you. Leadership is not about the leader. A leader needs to have humility. It's about the goals of the team, and it's about the goals of the individual. because if a leader can help bring out the goals of the individual, then overall the team will be much, much more productive. So like I said, leadership is not about a position, it's not about certain traits, it's not about managing people, and it's not about you. What leadership is and what great leadership is, I believe is summed up in what Bill Gates said, which is to empower your team members, to empower individuals that you're working with. And so, you know, first and foremost, a great leader has to allow people to fail. You have to allow people to fail. And Richard Branson said something I kind of wrote down. He says, Richard Branson, who is obviously the owner, developer, and builder of Virgin Group, he says, we've never been 100% sure that any of our businesses we've started at Virgin were going to be successful. But over 45 years, we've always stood by our motto, which is, screw it, let's do it. So don't be embarrassed by your failures. Learn from them and start again. Making mistakes and establishing or experiencing setbacks is just part of the DNA of every successful entrepreneur, and I'm no exception. So this just goes to show that Richard Branson, as well as what I was mentioning here, is okay with allowing people to fail. Failure is just a gateway. It's a key. It's a ticket to success. And the other thing a good leader is, is a good leader creates opportunities for people to thrive. You have to look for ways to help your team grow. A great leader, if you want to empower your people, look for opportunities that will give them a chance to grow. That a really good thing for you to do for the people around your organization or inside your organization Another thing is that great leadership and empowering people great leaders will embrace respectful disagreement Now this is one some of us with dominant entrepreneur personalities struggle with sometimes Respectfully allowing disagreement. Because look, building consensus is great for leaders. That's a good thing. But people don't always agree. Let's come back to reality here. You have to realize that the goal is not to make everyone get convinced of what you want. Sometimes it's okay if people don't disagree, and a great leader will allow people to disagree, but yet bring them together to move on, and that's the key. And that's something that's a big struggle for our economy, our culture, and everything we're seeing in the marketplace today is that people disagree, and that just stops on a dime. A great leader will allow people to disagree, respectfully disagree, but bring them together to move on and create that direction. And finally, great leaders, and this is a big one, great leaders, if they want to empower their people, they share leadership. That's true empowerment, sharing leadership. So you have to be able to release the controls and not dictate and really get your team involved in leading and building because then when you do that, you'll get massive loyalty, you'll get massive involvement. And I believe that that's when people are truly, truly empowered. And so that's the message I wanted to share with you today, because whether you're working in a group or by yourself, you always have the opportunity to be a leader. You always have the opportunity to make a difference through leadership. And so that's the message I'd like to impress upon you today. I hope you'll look for ways to empower others, and that by default will help you to become a better leader. That's my message. I hope you're having a great day. I look forward to getting some of your feedback. I'd love to hear your feedback on some of these podcast episodes. So hit me up at The Daily Mastermind on Instagram or Facebook, or send me an email to george at g3worldwide.com. Send me a note. I will get back with you personally, and I would love to be able to provide some more resources for you if you need them. Once again, this is George Wright III, and this has been The Daily Mastermind. Have a great day.