one of the keys to leadership I learned early on was to pick great people to work with you. And Mark was certainly an example of that way back when we were both cadets at the Air Force Academy. When I think about leadership, I think about the similarities between being a leader and being a grave digger. In both cases, you have a lot of people under you, but it seems like it oftentimes nobody's paying attention. So we call a groaner, yeah. We've got really a variety of different people in the audience today from people who are just starting on their leadership journey to people who have decades of leadership experience. So it becomes a little bit of a challenge to determine how you want to address the topic of leadership with such a diverse group with respect to their leadership experience. I've had over 55 years of leadership experience and over that time I've learned a lot of lessons, some of them the hard way. And so what I thought I'd share with you over the next few minutes are 20 of the ideas and thoughts that I share with other leaders at various times with the hope and the expectation that maybe one or two of these thoughts or ideas will resonate with you. I'm continuing on my leadership journey. I learned something new all the time about leadership and I think leaders, iron sharpens iron and leaders can learn from each other. And so I'll go through these fairly quickly because there's 20 and I've got about 15 minutes so you can do the math. If you ask me about what the most important attribute of a leader is or the most important job of a leader is, there are lots of different ways to cut that and people have different definitions of what a leader is but for me the most important job of a leader is to determine what an organization should be doing. There are lots of people in the organization that can ensure that whatever it is that you're supposed to be doing gets done right but there's one person in that organization who has to set the direction, who has to determine what way that organization should move and that's the leader. And so it's always important to one, understand how to set direction for an organization and then two, once you've set that direction, to have clear priorities that the organization can understand. And the larger and more complex the organization, the more important that is. It's always amazing to me and it's one of the things that I do when I get into an organization is to ask the people who are actually doing the work what the priorities of the organization are and it's amazing to me how many times you find out that what the leadership thinks the priorities are is very different than what the people who are doing the work think and there are lots of different agendas going on. So having clear priorities and direction, really important responsibilities for the leader. If you're gonna be, I think, an effective leader, you've gotta be solution-oriented and by that I mean you can tell when you ask someone to take on a challenge what their initial reaction is, in many ways, what kind of leader they are. If it's a sort of lean away from it or sort of a cringing when you ask them to do something, in my experience, they're probably not a great leader. If you're looking at somebody who's leaning into it, you can sort of see it in their eyes, even when it's a tough challenge, they're probably a good leader. And the reason I say that is to be a leader means you are a problem solver and if you're not into problem solving, if you aren't excited about solving problems, then it's a job that can eat you up every day because you'll sort of wither under the weight of the problems and the challenges that you have. So to be a good leader, I think you've gotta be solution-oriented, you've gotta lean in. When you start your leadership journey, we're looking for you to be able to separate the important from the unimportant. As you get higher in your leadership journey, we're looking for people who can separate the important from the very important and then when you get into more senior leadership positions, you've really gotta be able to distinguish between the very important and the critical. And good leaders understand how to do those things. There are three types of people in every organization, something that I really recognized back in my days at the academy looking at my fellow cadets. And there are people who, one type of person, are people who wanna know where the lines are, if you will, so that they can stay as far as possible away from them. There are other people who wanna know where the lines are so they can get just as close to those lines as possible without going over them. And then there are a third type of people who want to know where the lines are or actually that third type of people, they don't even care where the lines are, right? The lines are for other people, they're not for them. And I say that because if you think about yourself, if you think about your family, if you think about your friends, or you think about people in every organization, you can probably put them in one of those three categories. And knowing that is really important for a leader when you start to set up teams and your leadership teams and the people under you. All three of those types of people are valuable in their own way, but you have to know what someone's attributes are and you can't put the wrong type of person in the wrong situation or it usually ends up in a bad way. So it's a good way to sort of frame how to set up teams. Strong core values bind organizations. And so if you've got core values in your organization and they're just something that's written in a piece of paper or on the wall and they're not really driving your organization, you're missing an opportunity because when, we can maybe talk about this in the session, but there are just many, many ways in which strong core values used properly in an organization can really bind your teams together. Strong leaders recognize problems before they become emergencies. And I'll just sort of leave it at that, but obviously you want as a leader never to get into an emergency and to take actions if you can to prevent emergencies, but guess what? Things happen. And even in the strongest organizations and with the strongest of leaders, you're going to have problems that you didn't foresee or couldn't prevent. And so then becomes the idea of what you're going to do about them. And that's when we get into, make sure that if you've got a challenge that you up-channel it early. When I talk to leaders who work for me, I tell them that it's not the absence of problems that's going to determine your failure or success as a leader, it's what you do about them. And don't tell me about a problem that I need to intervene on before it's too late for me to be able to make a difference. So oftentimes leaders think I've got to make sure that everything within my organization is right, going well, and if something's wrong, then it reflects poorly on me and nothing could be further from the truth. So it's important, I say for people, if they're going to have an issue, make sure I get to know about it early enough and tell me four things. One, tell me what the problem is or the challenges, tell me what you're doing about it, tell me where you need help, and then tell me when you're going to give me an update. And if you do those four things, then you'll more often than not be in a lot better position than if you hold something until it's too late and it becomes much more of an emergency than it could have been and or should have been and you can't get the help that you need. One of the, I think, strongest ideas and thoughts about leadership for me is when you get into a leadership position, you have the power to say yes. Within an organization, lots of people have the power to say no, and no is usually about preventing something from happening. Yes is where you get to the next step of progress and you have to ensure that the right people have the power and the opportunity to say yes, but as a leader, it's one of the most powerful tools that you have and you ought to look to say yes as much as possible, look to get to yes, not to no. And so think about opportunities to get to yes and to say yes because that's where progress comes. No non-concurrence through silence and never leave the room without understanding what's being said or what's being asked. This happens all the time, it happened to me just last week. I'm in a room with a group of people, we're talking about something and the person on my right says, you know, we really need to clarify what's being said because every time we meet with you, meaning me, you say something and we all sort of nod our head and then when you leave, we all kind of ask each other what are we supposed to do, right? Happens all the time and that's my fault because I have to make sure that whatever I'm asking is clear and clearly understood and if I don't do that, I have very little chance of having what we want to have done get done correctly and right. So focusing on making sure that people understand what needs to be done and that there's this corollary to me which is no non-concurrence through silence. The thing that, another thing that sort of drives me crazy is when there's a meeting, everybody's in it, something gets decided and then after the meeting, you hear somebody in the hallway say, you know, that's a really dumb idea or I didn't agree with that and they didn't speak up in the meeting. In my judgment, if you're in a meeting, you're only there for one purpose which is to contribute to getting to the right answer and saying so after the fact doesn't help anybody. So this idea that, you know, you think that everybody's agreeing because no one has said something to the contrary and then they say it later is not helpful. So leaders have to be able to speak up and to make sure that their leadership voice is heard even when it's difficult or can be uncomfortable. Another corollary to that is, you know, don't make us ask the perfect question. If you are the expert, if you're the leader and you're the expert in whatever it is and somebody asks a question and it's not the perfect question but you've got a better way to communicate the information then communicate the information, right? There again, it's really difficult when, you know, you sort of get to a place where somebody has information and they say, well, you didn't ask me that, right? Well, you know, you're the expert here. Make sure that we get to the right answer in one way or another and don't make us ask the perfect question especially if we're not in a position to understand what the perfect question is. Why people make mistakes? Oftentimes you'll have an issue happen. Somebody says, you know, John Smith or Jane Doe is responsible for this mistake that happened. I always ask myself three questions. One, did that person have the right training for whatever they were asked to do? Two, did they have the right resources for whatever it is they were asked to do? And three, did they have the right supervision and guidance, right? And oftentimes you will find that one or two or even three of those situations or facts were not in existence and that's why the mistake happened. And if that's the issue, then it's not that person's fault, it's the institution's fault for not providing them with the right training, resources or guidance and so you need to go to the right place to fix the challenge. And oftentimes those three are there and then you can, you know, make sure that you provide corrective action to the individual. But just asking those three almost every time will help you get to a better place with respect to fixing the actual problem and not blaming the person, right? Mentor everybody, sponsor a few. Mentoring in my view is about having everybody in an organization reach their potential. Sponsoring is about taking those people with the highest potential and providing the opportunities for them to reach that potential. And they're different. And what I find in a lot of organizations is there are a lot of people who have a higher expectation of their potential than they actually have. And they'll come to you as a leader and they'll say, hey sir or hey doctor, would you write a recommendation for me for this? And you know that that's probably not a good fit for them or they're not the best person. If you're a leader, you've gotta learn to say, in my judgment, you've gotta learn to say no, right? I mean, I say no all the time to people who ask me to write recommendations because as soon as I put my pen to ink on that recommendation, it not only reflects on them but it reflects on me and my ability to recommend other people in the future. And so I have no problem telling people, hey, I can't write a recommendation for you for this but here's maybe what you can do that I could write the recommendation or maybe you should ask somebody else who knows you better or whatever. But just be very careful about who you recommend and who you sponsor. I'll help anybody to reach their potential but I'll only sponsor those that I think are strong enough to help make the organization better in the future. And I think it's a real important responsibility of leadership. You can't solve every problem. And by that I mean, again, it's oftentimes where you're in a leadership position and people from all directions will come and say, you need to fix this, right? You need to fix that. Well, again, oftentimes I say no, I don't need to fix this or that because it's not something either I have ability to actually change. I recognize it's a challenge or a problem but not something that I think given the amount of time and energy that I have is worth expending on that and it's going to take away from my ability to deal with the issues that I do have ability to affect. And the reason I say that is because I've run into leaders who feel like they've got to deal with every challenge that somebody else puts on their desk. And by doing that, you diminish your ability to really be effective and to focus your energy on those things that you can impact and it dilutes your effectiveness as a leader. So don't worry about, in my judgment, trying to solve every problem. Worry about what you want to do, more about what you want to do than who you want to be. And if you follow that, you're probably going to be pretty successful because there are lots of other people mostly in every organization whose job it is to pick out who has, again, sort of the greatest potential and to provide you with the opportunity to be who you want to be. And I say that, again, this is all not, these are all the ideas and thoughts that I've had based on multiple experiences with multiple people. As you find people who are too focused on what they want to be, right, and who they want to be, and not focused enough on what they want to do, and it reflects poorly on them, it reflects poorly on their performance, and ultimately it stunts their growth in an organization and catches up with them. So focus on what you want to do and who you want to be will take care of itself. Many people can give you advice, but the decision is yours. I say that because it's a corollary to something I'll end up with, but at the end of the day, you ought to, you know, I find sometimes that leaders get insulated and it's a very lonely place to be a leader at times, and so you're reluctant to ask for advice or help. Even at the most senior levels of my leadership journey, I've got people that I ask for advice, lots of times lateral people, people that I came up with, people that I've met, people that I think can help me, you know, solve a situation. At the end of the, I might even ask my boss, right, you know, what do you think about this or what do you think about that? And a lot of people are reticent to do that because they don't want their boss to think that they don't know what they're doing. But you only know what you can know in a very narrow sense oftentimes as a leader, and you've really got to figure out other areas and other ways and other means to get a better perspective on the challenges that you have in front of you. And so asking other people for advice is a key piece of that, and not thinking that you've got to be able to, as I said, solve every problem yourself and own the decision at the end of the day. So you're accountable for the decision. Use every means you can to make a good decision. Keep your promises. I say that, again, because we've all probably been in organizations where you've got leaders who you just don't have confidence in what they say, right? So be very careful and very intentional about what you commit to. Be thoughtful about saying yes, because if it's not something that you can actually follow through on and you get the reputation of being somebody that doesn't keep your word, doesn't keep your promises, doesn't follow through, it really has a very negative effect on an organization, oftentimes in ways that you don't really appreciate or understand. So just be very thoughtful about your time and what you commit to and what you say yes to, and then follow through and keep your promises. Focus on the things that only you can do. Whenever, it doesn't matter what kind of leadership position I was in, there's always time to do what's important, unless you start doing a lot of things that you don't really need to do, and it's very easy. It's very easy to do the things that you like to do. It's very easy to do the things that you're comfortable doing. It's very easy to do the things that you used to do that you were really great at in your last job that aren't part of your job now. When you get to be a leader, there are certain elements, there are certain activities that you're the only person that has the authority to execute those activities. Nobody else does, and that's where you need to focus. And whenever I felt like my schedule was getting too crowded, I didn't have enough time to do what I wanted to do. I'd look at my schedule, and I'd work with my secretary and my staff, and I'd start taking off those things that somebody else actually had authority to do, right, and only leave those things that only I had the authority to do, and I always found that I had enough time to do the work that was in front of me. Be self-aware, and this is another important one in my judgment. I was with a group of people, I don't know, it was about three weeks ago, and we were talking about the attributes that you needed to be a CEO of a large organization. And one of them that we all agreed is oftentimes missed is this idea of self-awareness, especially for leaders. You kind of get, again, into a position where you see it from one perspective, and you don't really understand the impact that some of your decisions are having, or other activities that you're directly involved in are having on that organization, and you're not self-aware. Everybody, or at least lots of people, are ready to go out and change the world, but very few of us are really interested in changing ourselves. And you've gotta be adaptive as a leader, you've gotta be aware of how you affect the organization, you've gotta be ready to change as the situation needs it, and it only can happen if you're self-aware and ready to change. So good leaders are self-aware, ready to change, and ready to change themselves. Pass-fail items, honesty, integrity, and loyalty. Three things that I always tell people that work for me, leaders, we have to have. Honesty and integrity are different, in my judgment. Honesty, are you gonna tell the truth or not? Obviously, pass-fail. Integrity is a little bit more nuanced in some respects, but not really, right? It's about doing the right thing for the right reasons. And that's, you know, you gotta have that. I've gotta trust that you are going to do the right things for the right reasons when I let you go and put you in charge of something. And then loyalty, you know, vertically up and down, in 360, all around, is just another critical element that leaders have to have to bring to the table. And I've seen great, great potential leaders fall off the track on each one of those in multiple occasions. So it seems obvious, but in everyday life, when you're trying to, you know, live life, it can be difficult for a lot of people. Pass-fail, honesty, integrity, and loyalty. And then the last thing I'll say before we get into the panel here is this idea of you are not alone. And somebody picked you to be a leader because they had confidence in your ability to do the job, and those people that picked you have a stake in the game. They want you to be successful. And even though leadership can be a lonely place, as I said, the idea that, you know, you should avail yourself of the assistance that you have around you, especially your boss, who wants you to be successful is a missed opportunity for a lot of people. And so I encourage the people that work for me to come, let's sit down and talk, and I'll help you in any way that I can to be successful. The decisions are yours at the end of the day, but you're not alone in this, and nobody succeeds by themselves, especially in these challenging leadership positions. So I could go on, but let me leave it at that because we've got more to discuss here. But thanks for the opportunity to be here, Mark, and appreciate you inviting me. Thank you.

leadership

great people

direction

solution-oriented

effective teams

core values