So what is meekness anyway? Webster's dictionary defines meekness as "the quality or state of being meek: a mild, moderate, humble, or submissive quality." My definition of meekness is slightly different. You, the leader, command your organization with humility, understanding, and gratitude (HUG). To achieve this, leaders must actively listen and create a shield wall to protect their team from the dangers of the outside environment.
Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. 25 Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock. 26 But anyone who hears my and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. 27 When the rains and floods come, and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash. - Matthew 7:24-27
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My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills.
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Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC
So what is meekness anyway? Webster's dictionary defines meekness as "the quality or state of being meek: a mild, moderate, humble, or submissive quality." My definition of meekness is slightly different. You, the leader, command your organization with humility, understanding, and gratitude (HUG). To achieve this, leaders must actively listen and create a shield wall to protect their team from the dangers of the outside environment.
Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. 25 Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock. 26 But anyone who hears my and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. 27 When the rains and floods come, and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash. - Matthew 7:24-27
✅ SHARE THIS PODCAST
✅ GIVE A 5-STAR REVIEW
✅ SUPPORT
-Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/McMillionLeadership
-Resilience-Based Leadership Program: https://resiliencebuildingleader.com/
Discount Code: JMCMILLION
My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills.
Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!
Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!
Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC
You're listening to the Tells of Leadership podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader what I like to call a pal. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership.
Speaker 2:All right team, welcome back to the Tells of Leadership podcast. I'm your host, josh McMillian. I'm an active duty Army officer, I am an Army leadership coach, I am a servant leader I have tons of different labels that you can kind of associate me with, but I am on a mission, most importantly, to end toxic leadership by promoting transformational leadership stories and skills, and I plan to create better leaders, what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader, and I have a big, bold vision by 10 years that I have positively affected 1 million people by showing you that you can be a purposeful, accountable leader, care about people and still have exponential growth in whatever field you want to grow in in terms of leadership. On today's episode we're going to be in part two of a series that I'm calling House of Leadership, and again all credit is due to JR Flatter. He was the one who created that concept of building a house of leadership. But to kind of just walk that back, what is a house of leadership? Really, it is a leadership philosophy, and in the previous episode I did a big, broad brushstroke of what a house of leadership is. Today we're going to start breaking each one of those pillars down of you building your house of leadership, and I'm going to use my personal one as inspiration. So today we are on the foundation, the bedrock of what makes a house of leadership, and I'm going to be using mine. So let's jump right in. All right? So, again, the purpose of this podcast episode is to lay out how you can create your house of leadership and, again, jr Flatter was the mastermind behind creating this concept of a leadership philosophy.
Speaker 2:But remember, what I'm sharing with you is just a way. It is my way through deep self-reflection and personal growth. This is how I developed mine, but I'm hoping that mine is an inspiration for you to take the time that is needed to build your house of leadership. So each house of leadership is crafted to the unique specifications of the owner. To start constructing your house, you must create intentional thinking time to reflect on who you are as a leader. The first part of developing your house of leadership is finding and setting the foundation, the base of where you want to grow as a leader. And remember, leadership is such a broad definition. Right? Leading yourself Phase one, we talked about that. Leading your family, leading a team, leading an organization, a business, a community, it does not matter, you are a leader of something, so it is important to understand what the base foundation of your leadership philosophy or style is. What will your bedrock or foundation of your leadership philosophy stand on? The elements is the most important piece in any leadership philosophy and must not be rushed. This is critical because if you build on a poor foundation, your leadership philosophy style will road over time.
Speaker 2:My goal in this podcast episode is to share with you again my leadership philosophy using the acronym MEAK, which is my foundation meekness and I hope to clearly define what that means. But before we do, I want to share a quote with you from Matthew, chapter seven, verse 24 through 27. Anyone who listens to my teachings and follows it is like a wise man, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Through, the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against the house. It won't collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my words and does not obey is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand. When the rain and the floods come, the winds beat against the house. It will collapse amidst the mighty crash. And I'm not saying right that this is the right way. This is what I've learned over time To connect, to be vulnerable and authentic with people, separate you from other people. It creates a purposeful, accountable leader, someone who does not shy away from emotions but embraces them, use them as a power to motivate and, most importantly, inspire other people.
Speaker 2:So let's start off with the defining what meekness is, because I think that is absolutely critical. So what is meekness? And always start off with the gold standard. And whenever one looks up a definition, that is Webster's. So how does Webster define meekness? The quality or state of being meek, a mild, moderate, humble or submissive quality. Note, that is a hundred percent wrong. Throw that in the trash, where it belongs. My definition of meekness is slightly different. You, the leader, command your organization with humility, understanding and gratitude, and add an S on that have a servant heart. And then I just gave you an acronym. It's one of the favorite ones I've ever created Hugs. Leaders lead with hugs humility, understanding, gratitude and having a servant heart. To achieve this, leaders must actively listen and create a shield wall to protect their team from the dangers of the outside environment. Your goal is not to protect them from everything, but you need to create a shield wall that's conducive to growth, communication and candor within those walls. So there's no silos bill. Some of the worst organizations that I've ever worked for has had so many different matrix silos within the organization that no collaboration or communication or, most importantly, candor Was ever able to be achieved.
Speaker 2:You know, being an infantry officer by trade, meekness is not the first thing that you would think of. That comes to mind as a bedrock of a leadership foundation. However, this characteristic is the driving force behind my leadership style and was discovered Through going to church, and I credit chris hodges, the church of highlands in alabama for this. But also a book is really instrumental. My growth is called jesus co and I don't I do not shy away from my faith because it is Part of who I am, especially as a leader. I reflected on the question after I read that book jesus co, how did one man impact the world so greatly that we literally record time in his name? Through those reflective thinking periods, I discovered my foundation, which is really leading with love.
Speaker 2:In essence, of what meekness is, if you could just sum it up in its simplest terms, it means loving. It means to love the people you work for, to love the organization, to love the mission. Most importantly, love yourself right. We're all in perfect, so you just have to embrace that imperfection and keep moving forward. So let's start off with the first and make that acronym that we're gonna be walking through. Meekness is not weakness, and it rhymed, so you're welcome. I feel pretty pretty good about that one. Jesus is the lion, right, but he is also the lamb, and as a leader, you need to strive for both. You have to understand when the switch it on.
Speaker 2:Throughout my leadership experience in the military, I've been blessed with numerous leadership positions and in these positions I was directly responsible for the well being of our greatest national resource and, make no mistake, it is the men and women who volunteer selflessly for this country. That is our greatest resource and our treasure and it should be protected, and that's why I want to create better leaders, purposeful, accountable leaders that are willing to take the guide on and continue moving forward and challenging times. I consistently led with meekness and most of those periods and would clearly state do not misunderstand my empathy and humility for weakness. I would demand excellence from you and hold you to the same standards I hold myself. And guess what? We've talked about this before, especially with ivy mars, previous guest. The standard is the bare minimum. The organization. I always hold myself above the standard. To give you kind of an example, the a cft that we used to have the army combat physical fitness test, and a bare minimum. What I believe was the standard was a two seventy five score, perfect scores, three hundred. You're in the combat arms, right like I was in combat arms, so I needed to be more fit than anyone else because my job predominantly focused on physical fitness and I trust me, I've seen what happens when soldiers have heat injuries or exhaustion on the battlefield they freeze up, and that's exactly what you don't want to do, because one individual could cause countless others to be injured or, worse, even killed.
Speaker 2:However, purposeful, accountable leaders rarely use the power and authority granted by their position again being weak Team. Let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share an additional leadership resource with you, and that is one-on-one leadership coaching through McMillian leadership coaching. So what do I do? I help leaders discover their purpose, create a long-term growth plan and take inspired action. I believe everything rises and falls on leadership and, regardless of where you are in life, one fact is true you are a leader of others. You are a leader of your family and, most importantly, you are a leader of yourself. To lead others well, that starts by leading yourself well. If you want to learn more, you can go to mcmillianleadershipcoachingcom and schedule a free call today. Back to the episode.
Speaker 2:Think of meekness like this. Strength under control. Leaders wield large amounts of power in the organization. However, purposeful account of leaders, pals rarely use the power and authority granted by their position. Instead, they empower others and build trust by learning to control their positional authority. You don't need to use it just because you have it. When PALS lead with meekness, it develops them to forge stronger bonds and develop deeper professional relationships. Here's a quote the job of a leader is building relationships, but the currency to develop them is trust. The first one M was meekness is not weakness.
Speaker 2:Now we're going to get to the E engaged listening. If you want to grow, then give. If you wish to lead well, you must listen. The only way you can listen is to quiet your mind. I'm going to say a bad word and I like to think of PG rate of podcast.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you just need to shut up as a leader and listen to your team. You do not need to always be talking. I want to go in a tangent. I catch myself often doing this when I'm talking to senior leadership or I'm talking to my team. I catch myself just continuing to talk. But you should not be the one constantly talking. You should be the one listening and when you do talk, it demands a response from your team. Leaders feel obligated to constantly speak, but you must strive to listen to your organization.
Speaker 2:Be a leader that speaks with purpose and power. When leaders speak from the heart, their team will listen and, as a result, begin to create head, heart and hand alignment. Remember the rule of Triple H? That was probably one of my favorite acronyms that I've created so far. You have to be able to create alignment. Learning to actively listen to others will give you a deeper understanding of your organization's concerns and, more importantly, how to overcome obstacles together as a team. Once you clearly understand the concerns, you can act decisively with what I like to call a commoncy confidence With hugs, humility, understanding, gratitude and having a surrogate heart at your core. Purposeful account of leaders. Tap into the transformational listening style and look for the whispers from their organization. That's critical and kind of like defining what a whisper is. Whispers are the subtle hints through words, tones and body positions or expressions that allow a leader to really understand what is happening within the environment around them and understand them when something's wrong. So the next one that we're going to be going to in the acronym MEEK is evaluate the moment.
Speaker 2:As a leader, there is a time and place you must command and take decisive action, and meekness really goes out the window. When those times come, you'll know, but trust me when I say those times are rare. An extreme example that I have in my life is when I was a platoon leader in Afghanistan. We were embedded with our Afghan counterparts. For four months I lived on an outpost, sleeping on sand or dirt or whatever we used to call moondust, whatever the ground was made of, with my Afghan counterpart. We were embedded with them. I started to learn Posh2 and Dari because we were embedded with them. And you have to be intentional with the time, and most of the time I would tap into my meekness to build and foster those types of trusts.
Speaker 2:But during a recon by fire and really what a recon by fire is is that you have a gut feeling something's wrong. You can't quite pin it down, but you just have that stillness in the air and if you've ever been in one of those kind of traumatic experiences, it's really easy to identify when something's getting ready to go south, because it's like almost the air becomes still, it's no longer fresh. It's really hard to describe. Everything goes quiet, the kids are not playing, the birds are not chirping. It's that everything is just getting ready for an explosion of chaos and violence. So a recon by fire is really doing a couple bursts of a machine gun or an M4, a saw, a 249, whatever it is, in a direction that isn't going to hurt anyone, but to see if we elicit a response back. And during the recon by fire, my platoon was ambushed by over 100 Taliban fighters, and this was during Ramadan. There was no time to listen or be compassionate, there was only decisive action. My platoon did that. They immediately went into action mode.
Speaker 2:However, after those exceptional events, I quickly turned back to what my house of leadership or my foundation was. Meekness shines after those rare events and I'll tell you that I didn't even know that that was my leadership philosophy. Really, maybe two years ago is when I kind of discovered who I am really as a leader. It took me a long time, but I was able to connect that traceability. But why does Meekness shine after those chaotic and very extreme events? Because you quickly move away from positional authority that you have to have in those moments towards people, resulting in deeper bonds. Meekness is quiet confidence aligned with mighty deeds.
Speaker 2:The worst thing a leader can do is say all the right things and actively do the opposite. The worst yet is when leaders take credit for their teams perform us. Remember the rule of refraction. Right Is that we must bend the spotlight from us onto those who truly deserve it. All right, team.
Speaker 2:Let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share a leadership resource with you, and that is the resiliency based leadership program. Rblp's vision is to create a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading resilient teams. So why do you need to build and lead a resilient team? Resilient teams are the key to individual and organizational growth, regardless of being in the military or in the civilian workforce. Building collective teams allows for exponential growth and the team's ability to overcome adversity, adapt and, most importantly, grow. And in bottom line, up front. Resilient teams are just stronger together, and here's the fact 99% of the people who take that course recommended to others, and I'm one of them. I would just completed my certification and I highly recommend this. And the great news is it's most likely free to you and if you're in the military, it is 100% free to you. And if you want to learn more, you can look in the show notes for this episode and find the link and use the discount code J-M-C-M-I-L-L-I-O-N, and that is also in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Back to the episode. Purposeful accountable leaders understand when to be seen and heard. In those moments they unleash their full strength and it will help their team to win All right. So the final acronym part of me, k keep a servant heart First, have a repentant heart. This means you must understand it is not about you and your performance, it's about the organization, the legacy of that organization, because if the organization is successful, you will be successful.
Speaker 2:And I used to have a saying when I was an HHC company commander for Hawk Company. If anyone's out there and you're a fellow Hawk, we used to go Hawk Company, right. That was probably a poor, a very poor example of how we used to say it. But I had a. I had basically a mantra for our organization a team of teams. They're at the lowest level. There's teams, you know three man teams, and then we have squads, and then we have platoons, and then we have companies. All of those echelons of the organization have to be working together for the company to be successful. Now let's break it up even more. We have companies to feed into a battalion and battalions that feed into a brigade, and so on and so on and so on. Every single team has to be switched on and on point. And if you're not switched on and on point, then the other organizations above you are detrimented. They're decreased in their capability. So a team of teams means if you perform well, our company performs well. If our company performs well, then the battalion will perform well. And that is the legacy that I want to leave. We wanted to be the number one battalion in the brigade and I think we were able to achieve that. But we had that mantra of a team of teams. Understanding wasn't about us, it was about the collective whole.
Speaker 2:Transitional leaders suffer from a hardening of the heart I think that's the best way to describe it which will cause them to fail to complete their leadership journey because you're gonna just be very I guess what's the word jaded and as you progress on your leadership journey. If you don't have that servant heart behind you, you will learn to become jaded. You won't have that alignment between your head, hand and heart. So, second, have a receptive mind which is kind of focusing on the head, that actively listening and implementing others' ideas. Often the best solution within the organization is from other team members, and that's okay. Embrace it, cause that's where the best ideas come from. I guarantee you it's not gonna come from you. And if it does come from you, you should seriously reflect on who and how you're hiring within your organization, cause you should not be the smartest person on the team. Highlight those moments of brilliance and build them up. Encourage your team to give those types of ideas. Third, lead with action hand. So head, hand, heart alignment triple H rule Hand is one of the most important ones and follow through with words.
Speaker 2:So this is where we do deeds, not words, and we're gonna get into that in just a second. That comes down to a simple quote that I heard from a battalion commander during a live fire exercise deeds, not words. We have to be able to say what we want, emulated and done within the organization, but we also need to follow it through with deeds. Leaders, not managers, say the right things and they do the right things. Managers say the right things and watch other people and supervise. Don't matter where you are in your career. And listen to me, I don't care where you are in your career, how high of rank you are. You're a leader, not a manager. You're gonna say the right thing and then you're gonna model that behavior when you're gonna do the right things. Deeds, not words. All right, team, it is time for our after-action review, or our hot wash.
Speaker 2:We kind of walk through in this episode, helping inspire you to build your Foundation within your house of leadership, and my purpose, and really the goal of this episode, was to share my Foundation, which is meekness, and then define what it is and the components that make up meek, using the acronym. Meekness is not weakness. M E engaged, listening. The other E Evaluate the moment. And then, finally the K keep a servant heart. So here are my final thoughts and some questions to reflect on.
Speaker 2:Leading with meekness is hard, but you will build an organization that will stand the test of time. Your Organizations legacy will live beyond you and spur others to follow your footsteps. The hardest part of leading with meekness is not actively forcing your position, but listening and implementing policies with hugs right. It's not about authority, it's about the people having humility, understanding, gratitude and a servant heart. When leaders create safe work environments, that highlights others success, the leader wins, the team wins and the Organization wins. And the word of Michael Scott and I think I've used this at least a dozen times now, but I'll keep using it because I love it it's a win, win, win. As a result, momentum is built, a winning becomes routine. Remember the quote by Aristotle we are what we repetitively do excellent standards and an act as a habit. I live my life by that quote.
Speaker 2:Pals, understand that today's world requires a different type of leader, who leads With love, regardless of the profession. Remember if you've learned anything from this episode meekness is love. That's what it means, at least to me. And here's a quote by Matthew, chapter 11, 28 through 30, to kind of just leave you with and this is what the purpose of a real leader is within the organization. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest For your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So here are three questions to reflect on to help you find your foundation within your household leadership number one what is possible when you lead with love? Number two what can you start doing to become a better listener right now? Number three how can you prevent your Hardening of your heart and learn to lead with hugs, humility, understanding, gratitude and a certain heart? And the last question is I challenge you to develop your foundation. What is your foundation in your house of leadership?
Speaker 2:Guys, do me a favor make sure you share this podcast, whatever platform you're listening to, make sure you leave a review and then, if you want to support the show, you can go to tales of leadership, dot, buzz, sprout, comm and there's different ways that you can support the channel there and it helps me. All of the money that I make from this goes directly back into the podcast and once I get to a neutral break even, I'm gonna donate all the rest to a veterans cause. I don't do this for money. I do this to chase significance, not success. I want to make a change in the world.
Speaker 2:And also, go follow me on Social media. You can follow me on LinkedIn. You can follow me on Instagram and go join our Private Facebook group that is called purposeful account of the leaders, and I have tons of other leadership resources for you guys. You can go to MacMillion leadership coaching, comm, and you can schedule a one-on-one call if you're wanting to find a leadership coach. Or just go read all the content that I've been able to develop for you guys in terms of blogs, and you can find that on MacMillion leadership coaching. Or listen to some of the previous episodes that I've released. My goal is to help you take Control and learn to lead in this world and be a beacon of light that inspires. As always, I am your host, josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours. I'll see you next time.