MM#107--An Essential Leadership Question to Ask Yourself!

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.


Hello, I'm David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. Way back in August, we introduced leadership week, we dove deep into the best leadership books on the market. And we answered those essential questions required for great leadership. For example, how do we grade leadership? Check out Mojo minute number 34 for that answer, and be sure to check out the whole week of mojo minutes because there's a lot of good stuff their numbers 34 through 40 is where you will find that actually ranks as some of our most listened to Mojo minutes of all time. 

So in today's Mojo minute, let's add to that bucket with another great leadership book. From a very similar author we have studied before former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink, released in 2019, his third book on leadership, and this leadership trilogy. This book is titled leadership strategy and tactics. And it's a book full of great nuggets of wisdom. And I'm excited to share one of those with you right now. So without further ado, let's go to the book, quote. Leaders might be above their support subordinates and rank structure. But they are not actually superior to those below them in the chain of command. And this means leaders must respect them, unquote. So let's repeat that. Again. Leaders might be above their subordinates in the rank structure, but they are not actually superior to those below them and the chain of command and that means leaders must respect them. It's a very important point. And Jocko expands on this let's go back to the book. 

Quote. It also means there's no job too small or menial for the leader to do. And the SEAL teams we shoot a lot of weapons on vast highly dynamic ranges that cover dozens of square miles of land. When we shoot the weapons leave behind brass shell casings by the hundreds of 1000s, if not millions, because Brass has value and can be recycled and because the training ranges must be kept clean. When a seal platoon finishes a block of training, it then has to pick up all those brass casings. This is pretty much a miserable task. And usually it takes a couple of days of putting through or getting through high temperatures in the desert heat and crawling around on your knees picking up shell casings. It's a menial task that requires zero skill, and no leadership whatsoever. Because of that, it's very easy for a co leader to leave the menial task of picking up brass to his subordinates. There is always administrative work that needs to be completed meetings that need to be attended to and future operations that need to be planned. But leaving the brass for others to pick up is usually not the right call for a leader. I always picked up brass with my troops. Not only did it display that no job was above me. It was also a good time to interact with the frontline seals, bond with a subordinate leaders and troops and observe how everyone interacts with one another. It also revealed who on the team was slacking leaders who chose not to pick up brass missed out on all of that. 

Let's stop there. Because there's so much goodness. And what we just heard. So to recap real quick, so that we can capture these nuggets of wisdom. Let's go through it again. First, leaders rank in the chain of command is only the place leaders rank and the chain of command is the only place that matters real leaders respect their subordinates. How many of us have worked for leaders who were only in that leadership position? Because they have been with a company for so long? And they were the next on the list to get promoted? I call that an administrative leader, not a real leader. And I've worked for many companies that have promoted people just like that, not based on merit simply based on, they were the next person with seniority and had to be moved up.

And I've also worked for new incoming leaders, that they were just an administrative leader at best. Now, that doesn't mean that I or you should not respect them as a new leader, because your own leadership means you have to be a professional. And remember our mojo minute number 40, where we salute the rank, not the man. That's incumbent, so that same rule would apply here. But back to our breakdown, second, no job is too small or menial for the leader to do. How many of us if we are the leader in our small business, or of our little team within a company? How many of us can say we do the menial tasks? At least some of the time? For example, do we take out the trash at our place of work? Now, you might say, wait, it's an administrative department job to do that. And perhaps it is. 

But can you help the team be a little bit better by helping that or helping them to take out the trash in your own area or your section of the cubicles? That's just one example off the top of my head. But I think you understand the point that do we look at all the different jobs that our subordinates do? And do we start and compartmentalize them to stuff as leaders that are not part of our job description? And finally, did you pick up on the notion in our breakdown that Jocko was picking up the brass on the reins for two or three days? Dang, it just wasn't a quick 20 minute affair. And then he was headed off to the next meeting or back to administrative paperwork that needed to be completed or on to the next mission that needed to be planned. So he took two or three days of a menial task and what some could consider time wasted. Jocko took that opportunity as just that as an opportunity to bond with his subordinates, to hear the jokes to be among the guys to pick up the vibe of the team, see who's becoming natural leaders and see who was slacking off. 

And finally, to see how the team was gelling together or not. I thought that point was just fantastic when you read between the lines. And we all know as a leader, it's hard to be one of the guys once you've been promoted. And you're part of leadership. How many of us as leaders have missed these opportunities to take advantage of situations in our own leadership development. And let's face it, I think we talked about this on previous podcasts. But everyone is a leader, no matter their rank or their position in an organization. You're always leading yourself no matter what. So there's that. Then if you're a leader of a small team, you have a small team to lead which might be part of a larger organization. So they're you're a leader. And then obviously as you scale higher, that leadership just continues to grow. So we all need to remove the notion that none of us are leaders. Everyone is a leader at minimum you're leading yourself. So the small nuggets of wisdom from Jocko in his latest book are super, super good. 

Now, Jocko does make clear that as a leader, you shouldn't always be in the trenches doing the mean the menial tasks. Remember his book, The dichotomy of leadership? If you haven't read that book, I'd certainly recommend you run out and get it right now. It's that good. Because it'll help you to see the balancing that is required for for great leadership. And he brings home this point. So let's go back to the book. Quote. This is not to say that the leader should always be in the trenches. That is not true at all. A leader has to lead a leader does have to attend meetings, does have to take care of administrative work, plan for the future and attend to all kinds of pressing tasks. But there are times especially when a job is put girlie taxing on the troops, when is it's important to get down in the dirt with the folks on the front line and do the work? Unquote.

Boy, that's just very good stuff. Very, very good wisdom right there. So in today's Mojo minute, here's the essential question we need to ask ourselves, no matter where we are at in our leadership journey. Do we have the right frame of mind to be great leaders? Do we respect our subordinates? And do we help them with some of those menial jobs? As an opportunity to bond with them? And demonstrate our humility? That isn't that is so important to great leadership? Or do we have contempt for our subordinates? Maybe not intentionally. But are we self reflective enough? To really see ourselves in a clearer picture? And do we leave those menial jobs to the subordinates because it's their job and not your job as a leader. thereby breaking that number one rule of great leaders, which is to start from a foundation of humility. 

And we learned that way, way back in our leadership week, last August. And how you answer that essential question will be how well respected you are in that organization. And much more importantly, it will be how much respect you have for yourself as a leader. The you want to be a great leader or not. It's an important question. And most leaders get it wrong over and over again, as our current culture clearly examples. Now, do you want to be a great leader or not? I hope you do want to be a great leader. So great leadership starts with action and it starts with humility. Let's be better leaders. And let's strive to be great leaders.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on