Tales of Leadership
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Tales of Leadership
Ep 96 | The Principles
We are continuing with the House of Leadership (HOL) series. Throughout the series, my goal is not to persuade you toward the six principles I've selected. However, I do want to inspire you to critically think about what your principles will be. The best mentor we have is ourselves. Why? Because we spend literally every waking moment with ourselves. Remember, the first leadership phase is self-leadership, a fact throughout our journey to become Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs). Start discovering who you are and become the leader your team and this world need. Here are the first three of six principles that guide me, which I call BAD HUG.
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You're listening to the Tales 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 Tales of Leadership podcast. I'm your host, josh McMillian. Quickly just kind of introducing myself if this is your first time. I'm an active duty Army officer. I've been in the Army for over 16 years in leadership positions. I'm an Army leadership coach and I own and run my own company, mcmillian Leadership Coaching, or MLC, and I'm on a journey to become the best possible leader. I can and I plan to do that by doing self-studies on leadership topics and to bring very inspirational figures that I know like and trust onto this show. So today is super pumped because I am just filming my first podcast in over seven months. So I took some time off. I started a new position and I was getting very pulled between my passion of leadership and then my career. So I had to drop for almost seven months filming a podcast, which I think is okay and it's a perfect example of true vulnerability and understanding true priorities in your life. But we're getting back at it and I'm continuing the series of a house of leadership and all credit goes to JR Flatter of Flatter Incorporated for creating that methodology that I learned when I was going through the Army coaching program.
Speaker 2:So today, just to kind of arm you with the tools. You can go to McMillian Leadership Coaching you with the tools. You can go to McMillian Leadership Coaching, article number 28,. Or you can also go to Buzzsprout Tales of Leadership and find this podcast article or podcast and listen to it on any one of the platforms that you want. And on McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom it has a article that kind of summarizes this podcast and the article into a much more condensed version to kind of just give you the so what. So if you want to follow it's number article 28 on mcmillianleadershipcoachingcom, or you can just listen to this or you can go to mcmillianleadershipcoachingcom and read a much more summarized version of this.
Speaker 2:So today is all about the principles and this is really the core values that you have. Today I'm going to be walking through my core values, which I absolutely love them. It's called BAD HUG. If you know me, you know I love creating acronyms and that basically is boldness, accountability, discipline, humility, understanding and gratitude. Those are the core values that drive me day in and day out, for myself, for my family, for my work, for my country. That's who I am and it's funny that the acronym fits perfect into a bad hug, right? So let's dive into this.
Speaker 2:We continue with the House of Leadership series and throughout this series. My goal is not to persuade you towards these six principles that I'm going to be talking about today, that I've selected. However, what I want to do is to inspire you to critically think about what principles will you select? The best mentor we have is ourselves, and why is that? Because we spend literally every waking moment with ourselves.
Speaker 2:Remember, the first phase of leadership is self-leadership. We're all leaders, that is a fact, and throughout your journey to become a more purposeful, accountable leader, you need to understand what your core values are, the leader, your team in this world, your family, your self needs. Here are the first three of six principles that helped guide me. That I'm calling bad hugs. And before we start, let's start off with the quote that I've kind of developed and to lead others you must master yourself, and to do that you must unlock who you are. So the first one is boldness, and really this is in no distinct order. For me, this is just the core values that I really hold near and dear to myself.
Speaker 2:The first principle in my house of leadership is boldness. Let's start by kind of defining what that is and why it's critical for my leadership style. First, leaders with confidence takes calculated risks and, at the end of the day, leadership boils down to your ability to handle risk while moving forward in a complex situation. Boldness is a leader's ability to stand in front of their team in complicated situations or environments, professionally, communicate what the organization needs to do and shine a light that illuminates the path forward for the team. I value leaders willing to tell me straight up when I'm doing something wrong or point out where I could be better, more efficient ways of doing things in specific tasks or even with the mission, and that's okay. And I'm reading a book right now, kind of going off script, about Elon Musk and if you think about his leadership style, he is a deeply passionate, but he is sometimes either your most inspirational figure or one of the worst bosses that you ever have, and I think that that's okay. Right, but at the point of that, he is bold and he takes calculator risk in a way that I think military officers take calculated risks, or even special forces. Everything we do in life has risk associated to it, but if we want to move the needle forward, we have to learn to accept that risk, and that's something that, as a country we need to start embracing even more.
Speaker 2:So a more concise way to encompass this term that I absolutely love is disciplined disobedience, and I first heard that from the former General Mark Milley when I was going through, when I had the Dougie that you see in my background, the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award. I had to go to a competition at the time for Bragg, in my background, the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award. I had to go to a competition at the time for Bragg now Fort Liberty, and it's still hard for me to remember the new names of all these in 2018. So discipline and disobedience is the leader's ability to practice constructive candor. If you ever read the book Kim Scott, it's exactly what it is radical candor in the organization by professionally challenging the status quo.
Speaker 2:We need that in today's world, and then the status quo is a flawed way of thinking that plagues every organization that I've ever worked for. Trust me, your organization has it unless they have bold leaders. The thought that the way we've always done it will solve problems today is a fallacy. You and the organization will not grow because you're handling issues in the same way that they've always been. That's okay, but you're never going to grow, you're never going to move forward. You're going to stay in this purgatory type state.
Speaker 2:Think of it like this If you understand that there is a better way of doing something and you do it anyway, then that's totally on you. That is the reason that we have toxic leadership, because they're unwilling to hold people and themselves accountable and they do the easy wrong over the hard right. Leaders choose to pass. They can tap into that 60 seconds of courage I like to call that the 60 seconds rule and embrace that position and make a positive change. Or they can spend the next 60 hours or days attempting to correct the organization's mistake because they did not take bold, decisive action. It only takes 60 seconds of that bold, decisive, confident leadership to save countless hours, and that's for yourself, that's for your family, that's for your organization.
Speaker 2:And I think a really good way of thinking about this is in the morning. I could choose to sleep in until probably eight o'clock if I really really wanted to, right, and then just go straight to work and not work out in the morning. But I choose to be uncomfortable and wake up in the morning at four o'clock, immediately go to my basement and a cold plunge which is set at 45 degrees, which, I don't care what you say, you never get used to that, especially if that's the first thing you do in the morning. And then I go work out, and then I go to work, and I'll tell you that every single day when I do that, that 60 seconds of bold courage, right Of waking up and making a cognitive decision to actually get up, sets me up for the rest of the day. And then, trust me, I've learned the hard way that inaction multiplies the suck, trust me, and that's a military term away from your time as a leader. It just sucks away your time if you choose not to take action. Purposeful, accountable leaders are confident in themselves and they're willing to be unreasonable when their team sees a better way.
Speaker 2:And if you're following me on the article, I have a picture of last year, my daughter wrestling me. On the article, I have a picture of last year, my daughter wrestling. So she is an incredible young woman. I really mean that. She's wrestling her second year in Alabama, uh, or sorry, um, virginia. We moved again cause I'm in the military, sorry, and she has grown leaps and bounds. But the one thing that I see in her now is a level of boldness that I didn't see last year Her ability to actually go out on the mat and not get those butterflies that she got before. Except that this is going to be a tough three to five minutes of wrestling and just give it her absolute all. And when she does lose she doesn't have those emotional outbursts, she accepts it, and that's part of being bold. Sometimes we lose, that's okay.
Speaker 2:The next piece of this bad hug is accountability. So let's start off by defining what accountability is, and I've done it several times through the Tell Us the Leadership blog and podcast, but we'll kind of define it again. And it's an essential element in my house leadership and then in our personal lives. We must have accountability systems, accountability trees, people or processes that keep us on azimuth. And let's kind of define that, because maybe you don't understand what azimuth is, how I'm referring to it.
Speaker 2:In the army, we do navigation. You get a compass to it. In the army, we do navigation. You get a compass, you get a projector protractor, you get a map and you have to plot out your points after you got your eight or 10 digit grid coordinates and then you have to go navigate to those points. An azimuth is your direction of travel from point A to point B. If we deviate from that, the farther the distance is, the more that we will drift off of the target. So it's very important to have a tight azimuth so we have the shortest direction of travel to the next point, and that's what I mean by an azimuth. An accountability tree is someone that can be empathetic and provide shade when times are tough.
Speaker 2:Leaders are forward moving and growth oriented when they are accountable in their personal actions. The same is true for professional accountability. Great organizations do not become great because they allow mediocre performance. Great organizations hold their members and their teams to a standard that is the bare minimum to be successful within the organization and without accountability checks, the culture of any business I don't care who you are shifts from problem solving to problem making very quickly when others understand that there is no ramifications really for failure, there's no intrinsic motivations to try and to continue to move forward and there is a simple barometer.
Speaker 2:If you try and fail, it's okay because you're trying, but if you try and fail consistently and there's no accountability to improve that performance, that's not okay. Remember the rule of 100%. Each day we can only put our best earnest effort forward. If you're a leader of yourself or your team and you put in 75% today because you just weren't feeling it, you physically can't do 125% tomorrow. Mathematically that's not possible and that will lead to burnout. If you try to do that, trust me.
Speaker 2:Once individuals understand leaders do not hold them accountable, their motivation to give their best effort significantly reduces. However, be careful when you're holding other people accountable. We just talked about that because it can lead to a loss of risk-taking. That's not what we want To exact opposite of what you want in your personal and professional life, because that's how we get past that. Resistance is by risk-taking.
Speaker 2:Leaders must walk a fine line when holding themselves and others to that standard and first, realize your goal is not to isolate failure and punish people for failure. Your goal is to isolate failure and discover how it happened. When you discover why the loss occurred, you shift the organization's mindset to a problem-solving versus a problem-making and in a second, make sure there is one standard. Often I have seen the leader and those in my inner circle hold themselves to a different standard or requirement and that is utter BS. Everyone your organization is equal, regardless of seniority, rank or title. If a team member is causes a problem, a purposeful accountable leader or a pal will hold them to that standard as a senior organization member. Finally, accountability is shared. In extraordinary organizations.
Speaker 2:It's not just the leaders pointing out inefficiencies. Right, every team member is an accountability tree, regardless of rank, position or title, pushing the entire organization to the next level. And you have to do that, again, with tact. If you are listening to this and you're private and you go up to your company commander and you say, hey, sir, you're all ate up, probably ill-advised, there's a chain of command for a reason and you can communicate that. And if you have a good leader, they'll listen. Trust me, I had an open door policy and I meant it. I had a legitimate open door policy. The only time I shut it is when I was having to do things that were very private in terms of like UCMJ, or I needed time to really think and cut out distractions. The rest of the time I had a clear open door policy. So make sure you understand that within your organization before you move forward with that really constructive candor, the organization will match the level of leadership that you show.
Speaker 2:Purposeful accountable leaders develop systems to maintain accountability in their personal and professional lives. Those could be a mastermind, it could be an inner circle, it could be a coach or it could be friends, it doesn't matter. The next one on our bad hugs journey is discipline. The next pillar that I hold dear is discipline, and why so? I define discipline as the intestinal fortitude to push beyond your own perceived limitations. Trust me, we are incredibly gifted miracles. Humans are capable of feats that a lot of people never thought possible. I mean, you look, throughout history, we are incrementally improving, both through the body of knowledge, of science, but physically, people running miles. Now, I think no one thought before you could break a four minute mile. Someone finally did that. Like it's. It's absolutely incredible what humans are capable of, but it has to come down to being disciplined mind, body and soul. A purposeful, accountable leader continues for one or more minute when their body and mind is screaming that they need to stop. That often separates individuals who achieve success and those who end up quitting. One more lap, one more podcast, one more book, one more call, one more network engagement separates winners from losers. Trust me, it all comes down to one word and we've heard it countless times and that's discipline.
Speaker 2:Do you have what it takes to chase hard things, especially when everyone else is looking for the easy path. Chasing hard things does two things. First, it forces you to continuously push yourself to the limit. Each time you try something new it molds you into the leader your team and your family needs. Second, because you're challenging yourself, it allows you to grow. Growth is uncomfortable, that is just a fact. Because it's foreign to our bodies. We want to stay in that comfort state. That's like human nature. We want to be comfortable. Trust me, you have. You live an extraordinary time. Push yourself to the limit and be extraordinary by putting yourself in that discomfort zone. If you're taking calculated swings, it increases your capacity to handle increased responsibility.
Speaker 2:Leaders who lack discipline are not aligning their head, heart and hand. Remember the rule of 3H. When you're clear on your why, it causes a burning desire to achieve more, push farther and chase significance. Disciplined leaders understand that to progress it must require sacrifices, and those sacrifices may come from family time or a lack of social interactions. But what's important is the leader can see the destination and is willing to make short-term sacrifices to achieve long-term growth. For example, when writing this blog, it's 8.30 at night. I'm sacrificing modern pleasures like watching television. Why? Because I'm committed to growing myself in terms of leadership and helping change this world Team.
Speaker 2: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. To remain disciplined, you need two things First, understand your why and align it to your passion and second, create routines throughout your day that make consistent wins, because that's how we build momentum and gain that burning desire. If we start knocking down those 50 meter targets and, as a result, you will begin to weather any storm, purposeful, accountable leaders discover their why, they create routines and they're willing to make the sacrifices to chase hard things.
Speaker 2:I started doing cold plunges probably last winter, around December and I have a picture if you're following me on million leadership coaching of me sitting in an ice bath. Uh, the water temperature at that time was 25 degrees. My neighbors and everyone thought I'm absolutely crazy. But I'm telling you I have some nerve damage in my neck, so doing cold therapy helps me with that. But I have a picture of me sitting in. It was 25 degrees outside and cold ice water that was roughly 20 degrees and I would stay in there for three minutes at a time and I do it every single morning and that's why I progressed to where I'm doing it now. It's much easier to do it in a controlled environment. I'll tell you that going down in my basement in my robe in the morning is so much easier than walking outside and then sitting in the bath. The only thing that's worse is the water circulates and I think that's one of the hard things. But that's what separates me from a lot of other people is I'm willing to embrace discomfort and I am disciplined enough to wake up in the morning and do hard things.
Speaker 2:So the next one is humility At the core of who I am. It's really one word and it's humility and, to kind of go on a tangent, one of the hardest things that I have is trying to accept an award. Right, I'm recognized. I always feel guilty because I know in my core the only reason I'm being recognized is, one, that I'm in the leadership position and two, it was because of my team. So I always feel guilty when I get recognized, but I also know that I put in a lot of work and a lot of hard work and it's absolutely humbling to get that. So anytime I get recognized one, I always want to make sure that my team understands that they're the reason I did. And two, I also take some time and reflect on the hard work that I had to sacrifice to get to that. And that's really humility.
Speaker 2:Understanding that you're not the center of the universe is a powerful thing. To achieve this, it takes a confident leader that's being able to realize two things. First, the organization is successful only when collaboration and communication is unleashed. Purposeful, accountable leaders understand that people are the heart of any successful team. When you realize people, not yourself, produce those results, it creates momentum and it disperses the mental fog. Second, humility requires you to let go of your ego. That is one of the hardest things to do. Again, confidence is vital. It's important. Once you understand who you are. You share power. You do not hoard it.
Speaker 2:Transitional leaders, toxic leaders, control power because they have a scarcity mindset You're a pal, you don't. They are scared not to achieve results, scared to let others take the lead, and they're scared to not feel needed. And trust me, I have a person right now that I'm working for that is probably one of the worst leaders I've ever seen, and that's exactly what they do they hoard power. To become a transformational leader, you must let go of your ego and understand success comes from people, not yourself. Your job is to put yourself out of a job by training your team so well, by delegating so well, that you're no longer needed. Crazy thought, right, but it's true. When leaders tap into humility, they make tough decisions with decisive confidence. Some of the most challenging positions that I've had, faced with tough decisions that I was only able to do by really tapping into my humility.
Speaker 2:Humility humbles, and nowhere is that more critical than pivotal moments in our life. Being humble allows you to see the second and third order effects. Most importantly, it enables you to see what happens if the most deadly course of action came to fruition, when you can see what's possible. It opens your mind to all the information and prevents tunnel vision. One of the most deadly military exercises you could ever complete is entering and clearing a room. The decisive point of entering a room is the doorway. They call that the fatal funnel. Right, when learning how to clear a room, most people focus on the door itself, which causes tunnel vision. At its core, tunnel vision creates dead space. Dead space is deadly and purposeful. Accountable leaders are confident in their decisions, surround themselves with more qualified team members and they let go of their egos.
Speaker 2:Here's a quick story on humility. I'm a brand new platoon leader in Afghanistan. I'm going to one of the first patrols that I was able to go with my platoon near the Argon Dob. I think Shershaka was the town that we were kind of walking through. We get separated. Where we're operating at is in a grape row. If you've ever been in Southern Afghanistan, it's a different type of topography. It's very flat, has some curvy IV lines that we call wadis and it's really nomadic types of tribes like the Kuchi tribe and other people like that. But when we were doing these patrols, ieds are prevalent. It's probably the biggest threat to the force, and so much so that we had baby powder and we'd try to mark our lines and we'd walk in files If you don't know what that is, go look it up and we'd have gold hound or mine hounds and gizmos and all these other things to kind of help us identify IEDs.
Speaker 2:Brand new platoon leader me, my RTO and a couple other people get stranded away from the main force and we didn't have that ability to detect IDs. Why? Because we were on the radio, we were trying to send something up and it was totally my fault. I humbled myself at the moment because some of my more junior soldiers wanted to walk that 500 meters through grape rows that wasn't clearly marked to get to the platoon and then also keep in mind at this point in time, we've had countless amputees and we lost a lot of people within that platoon before I took over. So I humbled myself and I made a bold decision that I'm going to walk in front of these guys. And who am I right If we hit an IED? I have made the decision that my life is no more important than my RTO or my privates. And it should be me, because I'm the leader and I should be in front, especially in times of risk and making decisions. And that was an extreme example of tapping into humility, because I could have easily given an order for one of my soldiers to walk out in front of me, but I don't think I could ever live with myself if they did hit an ID. So I made a decision to do so. So let's continue and that's perfect kind of transition to the next one, which is understanding or empathy, which is a better way of kind of defining it, but it didn't fit into my acronym, bad Hugs, so we will define it as understanding. The next critical principle in my house of leadership is understanding, and I defined it as empathy. You must listen to truly understand someone's perspective, decisions and rationale. This is a secret to being an empathetic and transformational leader. Be there for those on your team and listen.
Speaker 2:I think that there's four types of listening that a leader can do. Two of them are selfish and two of them are selfless. To become a transformational leader, you must tap into selfless forms of listening. The first form of selfish listening is passive listening, and maybe someone's doing that right now, listening to this podcast. But the leader who uses this form is physically there, but mentally they are somewhere completely different. The second form of selfish listening is transitional listening, and this happens way too often. The leader is only listening to find ways that they can benefit and not add value to the team or the organization On the other side. The first selfless form of listening is empathetic listening. When leaders practice compassionate listening, they see the issue from other people's perspective, and that's a powerful thing. However, they're still missing a key element, and that's to fully immerse themselves in an active listening process. And that's the final and second form of selfless listening, and that's transformational.
Speaker 2:Transformational listening is the ability to block out all distractions and become laser focused on your team or yourself if you need to do that or your family. You're looking for whispers, and that's a coaching tool that we always look at. Is the underlining root cause of someone's disdain or problems, change in tone, physical manifestations or hidden memories that are kind of being tucked away? To become an empathetic leader, first learn selfless listening, and I think here's a great example If someone comes in your room or your office and you're sitting there typing and you're middle of the thought and you're going, uh-huh, yeah, okay, perfect, let's do that. I think that that's great. That's not being transformational, especially when my kids come in the office, what is is separating yourself from any type of distractions, shutting your brain off temporarily to what you're doing, shifting your time and attention and talents towards that individual and listening wholeheartedly and giving actual responses versus oh okay, yeah, cool, let's do that. That is transformational listening.
Speaker 2:The funny thing about empathy is we're all born with that ability. However, like over time, life challenges us and we slowly start getting weighted that ability. However, like over time, life challenges us and we slowly start getting weighted down with these chains right. These chains become the cause of resentment and jealousy and lead to a hardening of our hearts. When leaders allow the world to mold them through self-defeating beliefs, they lose the ability to connect emotionally Authentic connections is critical to building relationships. Always remember relationship building is the one thing that, if done well, will result in extraordinary success.
Speaker 2:However, avoiding becoming too empathetic and falling into this sympathy loop and the sympathy loop I define is an endless cycle of your inability to hold others accountable because you just feel sorry for them. That's not what leaders do. You hold people accountable. We just talked about that. Your team encounters a problem and comes to you for help. What do you do If you give them guidance and the tools and resources to be successful. You're practicing empathy and active listening. However, if you give into their story, you are a rescuer. And look up the Cartman Triangle. There's two different things. You could either be a rescuer or you can help people and hold them accountable. Growth will never happen if you consistently fill the role of a rescuer. Purposeful, accountable leaders listen, they make decisions that are formed from their beliefs and they hold themselves and others accountable. So understanding here's a really good quote by Stephen Coveney seek first to understand, then to be understood. I think that's powerful. All right.
Speaker 2:The last one is gratitude, the final principle in my house of leadership, gratitude, which is one of the most challenging elements for me to master, because it requires two things. First, you have to create personal time to reflect. Remember the acronym STOP, stop, silence your mind, take a tactical pause, observe your surroundings, pursue with purpose. Life is extremely fast-paced. We have all these AI things now that help us make even faster decisions, but sometimes you just need to slow down. The only way to become grateful is to revisit your past. I think that's why we have a past.
Speaker 2:What memories are you thankful for? It's easy to select great memories, for example, birthdays, your first date, your first kiss, etc. However, that's not gratitude. Gratitude is looking into the darkness, those places that you would not dare revisit, and find the light. If you find gratitude in your nightmares, you can practice gratitude in your present, trust me. Second, when you begin to review your life's chapters, you are forgiving and accepting, and that's a powerful thing. At the core of gratitude is forgiveness. To be a purposeful, accountable leader, you must be willing to forgive. Without forgiveness, we allow the darkness to block out the light, and that's not what we're here for. We are always grateful when we get what we want. That's easy. But here's the real question how are you grateful when life gets a vote?
Speaker 2:I've learned to overcome anger, fear, jealousy, all those self-sabotaging beliefs. You have to make it personal. For example, I've lost more friends and soldiers than I care to remember. But reflecting on those memories does two things First, it allows me to honor those individuals and the memories that we shared, the times I've spent with those individuals before they were taken. And second, it drives me to grow and become a better leader. Every day, I refuse to stop when I am confronted with loss, either personally or professionally. I may pivot or be momentarily halted, but eventually I will try again and I'll gain traction. The mountaintops our icons stand on are forged through the losses and failures and they incrementally build upon those each time, and that's how you achieve the summit. Unless you're willing to take that journey, you're never going to achieve the summit. Purposeful, accountable leaders are grateful in tough times because it drives them to become a better leader, and I'll share a story. I'll keep some names out, but this is something in my personal life.
Speaker 2:One of my best friends that I grew up with in rural West Virginia, where I'm from Fenwick, west Virginia Go try to find that on the map Was murdered in a double homicide over a hunting dispute for land. Again, I'm going to keep names out, but this was one of my best friends. We spent every single waking hour in the woods playing sniper, paintball, four-wheeler riding, you name it. We shared so many things and it was one of my true high school friends that I kept a connection with. One of the hardest things was hearing that he passed away and his wife passed away, but that his son was still there, and I really reflected on this and I thought what could I do? Like, this is a hard thing to do. I remember that I had a Marine K-Bar that he may or may not left at my house and I just never returned it. I was like this is really really cool, right, I want to keep this. I wrote a very heartfelt note of what that relationship meant to me. I got one of my PCs that I deployed with one of my multicam PCs and I got that K-Bar and I gave it to his son and to me.
Speaker 2:I would have never been able to get beyond the anger and some of those self-sabotaging behaviors that I had to actually take action. And that's what gratitude is about is when you get in moments like that of where you are just filled with so much darkness, you have to learn to be grateful, accept it, to then go take inspired action. And that's an extreme example, but I'm here to inspire you. So here are some final thoughts. Each principle selected for your house of leadership must come from you. Do not be influenced by others. Chances are you resonate with one or more of the principles in my house of leadership, and that's okay. But I challenge you to discover your principles, because it is liberating.
Speaker 2:Once a leader finds who they are and why they believe, what they believe, it builds inspirational confidence. Remember the six phases of leadership. The first phase is mastering yourself, or self-leadership. To lead others, you must master yourself and to do that you must unlock who you are. Do not adopt buzzwords or other leadership philosophies because it's trendy and that's utter BS. Anyway, do it because you believe in it or your team will see right through it. Trust me, every word I wrote is a bold statement followed by confident action. Leaders tap into the rule of 3H head, hand, heart. When they know who they are, purposeful, accountable leaders can see where they want to go, create an emotional connection to push through tough times and engage their hands to put in the work and grow, and engage their hands to put in the work and grow.
Speaker 2:So here is three powerful questions for our after action review that I want you to reflect on from this episode, and the first one is what principles resonated with you and why. That's the most important piece. Number two what are your top principles? Select three what are your top three principles that you want to focus on and what actions align to those three principles? Are they actually something that you live out every single day? All right, team.
Speaker 2:Again, I'm absolutely humbled, honored, excited, motivated, inspired to get back into podcasting, but do me a favor. Podcasting as an active duty army officer that travels three times a month, often for work, is challenging. It is hard. I do all this by myself, but I'm passionate about it, and how you can help me is you can help me by sharing this, liking or subscribing or whatever platform you listen. Leave me a five-star review on Apple or Spotify and, if you feel so inclined, you can go to buzzsprouttellsleadershipcom. You can subscribe, or you can leave me a donation and all of that money goes back into this podcast to create more powerful content. As always, I'm your host, josh McFillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste your money. I'll see you next time.
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