Mark Cole (3:26)

Well, I never ask a question without being prepared with an answer, Rome. But I'm not giving an answer after that one mic drop. Hey, for all of you that are listening today, watching today, what do you wish everyone knew about your leadership? What is it? What is that thing? You know, when you, Chris, were answering that question, I thought about John. And I think the thing that I wish everyone knew about John is how much he loves people, how much he truly. John has this phrase, he says, hi, I'm John Maxwell and I'm your friend. He means it. It's not just a cliche that everybody now finishes. It's authentically, he wants them to know, I'm not your leader, I'm not your guide, I'm not your guru, I'm not your mentor, I'm your friend. And that's, that's a statement of equality. That's a statement of valuing the other person. That's a statement of putting them both on the same field, that let's just walk together in this journey of le. And so when you answered that, so authentically, I thought about John's and I went, I'm not answering mine. Man, I feel silly. Hey, seriously, I hope you pause and take a moment. What is it that you want people to know about your leadership? John's going to talk about qualities of authentic leadership. Grab a pen, grab a paper. Maybe on that piece of paper, why don't you jot down like Chris did? What is the thing that you wish people knew about your leadership? If you would like to download our bonus resource today, if you'd like to watch us on YouTube, if you'd like to take advantage of the different things we'll talk about today and click the links. We'll put all of that@maxwellpodcast.com authentic. All right, are you ready? Five characteristics. Five qualities of authentic leadership. Here's John Maxwell.

John C. Maxwell (5:20)

Let's talk about the qualities of, of an authentic leader. Because authenticity is the only thing that will guarantee long term success. This fake it till you make it just isn't going to work. And so let me tell you what I think the qualities of an authentic leader are. And I think that the first quality is heart leadership, that you lead with the heart. Well, I think an authentic leader, they not only lead with the heart, but they're not afraid to dig deep and lead their team with courage and with empathy. That only comes from a heart that really wants to help people. You put your heart out front in your leadership. You don't put your hands out first. You don't even put your mind out first. You put your heart out first. I think another quality of an authentic leader is good listening skills.

Mark Cole (6:17)

Wow.

John C. Maxwell (6:18)

Maybe if anything is needed today more than anything else in our culture is good listening skills. Because I think what we have right now in our culture is yelling skills. And we just kind of yell at each other and point at each other and we're so divisive. And good listening skills means that I'm willing to consider your thoughts. It shows maturity in my life. And not only am I willing to list your thoughts, I'm even willing to change my opinion if your thoughts make good sense to me. Great leaders are great listeners. In fact, the process of a great leader is they listen, they learn, and then they lead. You see, they don't lead first. They listen first. They wanna find out where the people are. They learn, they ask questions, and then they have this incredible foundation now to lead. Well, because they know exactly where they found the people so they can lead the people. So I think the qualities of an authentic person and leader is that they have heart, leadership, they have listening skills, they have transparency. They're just open and they don't try to cover. They know what it's like to say, I was wrong, I missed that. I'm sorry. I would almost say that the core of all of these qualities is humility and just the ability to be teachable, the ability to ask forgiveness, the ability to ask permission to enter into somebody's life and try again. These are all qualities. Consistency, that's another beautiful quality, I think, of a person that is authentic, you know, consistent people. They stay with their values and they stay with their principles. Wow. And then I just close with. You know, we're talking about qualities of an authentic leader.

Chris Robinson (8:29)

Okay.

John C. Maxwell (8:29)

And these are good, you know, the heart, leadership, listening skills, transparency, consistency, and then integrity. And I'm going to read just a paragraph in closing out of Jamie Kern Lima's book on Believe It Again, you want to get that book. And she quotes a person that I enjoy very much, and I'M sure you do too. Brene Brown and here's what she says. Brene Brown says owning your truth and sharing it, even when it's hard, is the only way to truly connect with another human being. An authentic connection is the key to love. When you hide important parts of who you are, you can't ever have authentic relationships because that other person is loving someone who isn't exactly you, we hesitate. Well, what if they won't love us as we truly are? But when we have to ask ourselves what's worse, losing that person or losing the chance for true authentic love the rest of our lives, we are born with a need of human connection. So if you've been scared to show up fully and authentically as the real, true you, then you're robbing yourself of that real human connection. Wow. Authenticity alone, it won't guarantee your success. But if we lack authenticity, it will guarantee our failure.

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Mark Cole (11:01)

Hey, welcome back everybody. I probably will open this segment of application and close it with the same quote by my friend Pat Lencioni. He says people will walk through fire for a leader that's true and a leader that's human. And I'm really struck by that, both in how you answered the question. How I think John answers the question about friendship being the key characteristic of his leadership, which is all a statement of valuing others. And I'm really excited to kind of go through. You heard heart in that answer. And that's the first one that John touches on.

Chris Robinson (11:42)

That's what he leads with, is with heart leadership. And this one he talks about leaders not being afraid to lead their team with courage and empathy. So let's just give an example from John how you've seen him live this out, because immediately when I heard the word heart leadership, his face popped up for me.

Mark Cole (12:00)

Yeah, I'm with you. Me, too.

Chris Robinson (12:01)

So give an example how John's lived this out in front of you with heart, leadership.

Mark Cole (12:06)

Well, I think that it really does come to courage. You know, John says, you can't ask for a hand before you touch a heart. I've watched John. John is the consummate sales guy. We've laughed. We'll have to tell some more. David, your son, stories about his ability to sell and to make business. It's just absolutely wonderful how you're training 61,000 entrepreneurs, but you're doing it at home. Home, too. Speaking of product. Of the product. But John loves to sell, loves to do it. But I'll never forget the time, Chris, I'll never forget the time I was getting customer service complaints after customer service complaints. All John wants to do is sell his books. All John wants to do is sell stuff at the back of the room. John, John, John. And I just had this moment with John. I was only with John for two and a half, three years at the time, riding in the back of a car in Kansas City, Missouri, close to your place. Kansas City, Missouri. We're getting ready to go have barbecue. And I looked at John. I said, john, I gotta ask you a question. Why do you always sell books? Why do you always, when you're speaking, why do you sell something? He said, mark, I owe it to the people to give them something that will last longer than my words. I've got to give them something. Even his passion to sell was baked in his authenticity of heart for people. And he never let people accuse him of overselling. He never let them put that weight on him. He knew he was challenging people to invest in the value in themselves that he saw in them. It was all heart. And that's why to this day, 50 years of this, he continues with the longevity to go. It's because he's authentically from the heart. But here's how that wraps with courage. Chris, I think that you have to have the courage to stay true to yourself when everybody else wants to define yourself, they want to mislabel you, and they want to change you. And if you don't have courage to stay true to your heart, and there's only really now, I believe in God, as many of us do. You do. God knows the condition of our heart. But outside of the Lord, in human world, we know our heart more than anyone else, every one of us. Podcast viewers, listeners, you know your heart. And when you know your heart, you have to have courage to stand true to that heart. Even when everybody Else wants to misidentify your heart.

Chris Robinson (14:26)

Wow, that's good. That's good. You know, let's move to this next one here. This one I want to touch on briefly because we talked about it a little bit on a previous podcast about listening. But in this one, John talks about great leaders don't lead first, they listen first. So in this one, I want to talk about what's the cost of leading first, and what do leaders miss when they skip listening? Whoa.

John C. Maxwell (14:51)

So.

Mark Cole (14:51)

So I think what you miss when you don't listen first is you miss the best idea. Winning. If your answer, if your conclusion is always the best conclusion, you're living a small life. So what you miss is a better idea when you don't slow down and listen. You don't listen to group collaboration. You don't listen to the creativity of another person. Therefore, you are stuck with whatever's inside of you. And for some of you, you're pretty proud of being stuck what's inside of you. Congratulations. But if you're the inspiration of all of your life, your life has a shelf life and it's shorter than you think. But the other thing I think we miss when we don't listen is we miss blind spots within us. We miss truly being able to get better, but we miss how we are limited in our current thinking. And I'll tell you what's worse than not getting better. It's being stuck within yourself. And people that don't listen, they get stuck. I think probably from a leadership thing that we miss the most is we miss the opportunity to show people they matter, to show people their value. When you stop and honor someone else by listening to them, there is an increase of felt, perceived, realized value in that person that we miss as leaders. And I haven't taught this yet, but I want to. I'm going to. I was struck by a question. John and I were doing a Q and A recently in front of a large crowd, and I do a lot of Q and A with him now. And they said, what's the best way to listen? And I briefly touched on it. I'm going to teach on it. At some point, you've got to listen with your ears. That's easy. You got to listen. You got to listen with your mouth, you got to speak back what you heard, and you got to listen to with your eyes. See, people say more with their facial expressions, with their hand gestures, and with their emotions than they say with their words. And most leaders try to listen with their ears. But you want to be a Great leader. You'll listen with your ears, your mouth, and your eyes to really get what someone is saying. Therefore, when you ask the question, what do we miss when we don't listen first? Yes, there's the best idea wins. Yes, there is. You hear blind spots about yourself. But the biggest payoff to listening for a leader is you increase the value of the people you're leading.

Chris Robinson (17:36)

Wow. Incredible, man. That was. Hey, that's a good teacher right there. I want to see you expand on that one. I see that one coming to a stage near us. That's outstanding. You know, this next one here, we talk about transparency. All right, so what does healthy transparency include and what does it not include? Because I think sometimes we just. We hear the word, hey, we got to be transparent. That means open up the whole book, you know, and let everybody know everything at every moment. But as leaders, sometimes it's not best to share everything. And so talk to me about that. What's healthy transparency include? What does it not include?

Mark Cole (18:14)

I think, number one, it comes down to motive. To be honest with you, I think transparency comes to motive. You know, when you were saying that, I was struck by a quote I use all the time. I've used it probably hundreds of times on this podcast. Max Dupree says leadership is about disappointing people at the pace they can stand. Right. We disappoint people. Oftentimes we are transparent with people. Cause we're trying to prove a point and we're trying to make ourselves look better. And therefore we don't realize that our oversharing, our complete transparency. Because the motive is not for you to feel seen, to feel heard. The motive is for me to look better in your eyes. And therefore, we actually do more damage with over sharing than what is really needed in authentic transparency. See, authentic transparency is being transparent. So I don't hide something from you. That's authentic transparency. If my motive is to share with you because I don't want you to have a misconception of me or a preconception of me that is not accurate, then I believe oversharing, in that case, will always win in the long term. I may shock someone with my transparency, but because the motive is to not be hiding from you, it'll win eventually. Maybe not immediately, but it'll win. If I overshare with you because I'm trying to prove a point of how good I am and somebody else is bad, in other words, I over share at the expense of someone else, I think that's bad transparency. If I overshare something with you that you're not ready to hear. I think it's selfishness. We want to share and we don't consider the impact of my transparency with you. And oftentimes we weaponize transparency. We don't utilize transparency. We don't endear people with transparency. We weaponize. We weaponize it and use it against other leaders that we want to look better than. We weaponize it against followers that are not at the stage of leadership that we are. Use transparency under the guise that we're just trying to put it all out there. No, Your motive is trying to overshare, to impress someone, to suppress someone, or to not be aware of what people can handle in the area of transparency.

Chris Robinson (20:44)

Wow. Incredible. Incredible. I love it. I love it. You know, he says humility is the core engine of all these qualities. So how can a leader practice humility without becoming passive or indecisive? Because, you know, there's a pendulum swing when it comes to humility. But how does someone do that?

Mark Cole (21:02)

Yeah, I think it's so interesting, Chris, I think you're an incredible, humble leader. I think you exude gratitude, which I think is a attribute, a big attribute of humility. I think you listen. I think that's another attribute. I've watched leaders in this concept of humility mischaracterized humility as weakness. And I believe it's absolutely the opposite. I think humility is strength. I think it is courageous. I've watched other people misuse humility as indecisiveness. Well, I don't know. What do you think? And I've watched that form of humility actually do more damage to the strength of leadership. Humility is not about not knowing, not decisiveness. Humility is not about a weakness. But humility, true, in its true form of strength, is actually a gap closer between success of position and depth perception of somebody that'll never be able to lead like that. When you exhibit humility, you and I are leaders in one of the most sought after leadership brands in the world. And when we express gratitude and awe at being able to lead in that, that humility actually shows a strength that compels people to come take a journey with us. And that's what most leaders miss about humility is the strength of humility, the connectivity of humility, and the accessibility of humility. And when you get those, now you have people going, wow, I will follow that guy. I will follow that lady because they are somebody that is accessible to me. Wow. Wow.

Chris Robinson (22:55)

Come on, you're teaching today.

Mark Cole (22:58)

You and I together.

Chris Robinson (23:00)

I love it. I love it. Let's go here. Let's get it wrapped up with this one here on integrity right here. Because, you know, integrity, you know, we've all heard the phrase, is who you are when no one's watching. And integrity can be tough. Integrity can be easy. But what's the hidden roi, the hidden return on investment of integrity that leaders forget to count?

Mark Cole (23:24)

Oh, the hidden ROI of integrity.

Podcast Announcer (23:30)

Wow.

Mark Cole (23:31)

Okay, so first let me say this. I've heard integrity taught for years, as if it's a moral aspiration or an ethical aspiration. And certainly I want my integrity, Mark Cole's integrity, to be about morals and ethics. But that's not what real integrity means. Cause steel can have integrity. A building can be integrous. A car can have integrity for the way it was created. I happen to like BMW as the ultimate driving machine, but let me tell you something. When it's broke down on the side of the road like a BMW, I had one time. That's not very integrous to the ultimate driving machine, because I'm not going anywhere, okay? So a car can have all the. Or not have integrity. So I don't think it's fair to use morals and ethics as a descriptor or a definition of integrity again. Although that's what I want people to say about my integrity is I have morals, I have ethics, I have a sense of character, no doubt about it. But ethics in leadership, or, excuse me, integrity in leadership, I think really is about doing and being leaders that are for other people. We're sitting, Chris. It saddens you and I. We talk about it offline all the time because we don't like to go into the political space and even in the religious space, because the perception of leaders in that space is the wrong perception of leaders. You and I, it grieves us to watch our world leaders and how they treat people. It grieves us. And let it be said here. It grieves me how it is. I don't want to get into political discourse about that. I want to get into leadership discourse because I believe when someone is integrous with their leadership. Here's what the hidden ROI is to your question, which is a brilliant question. You ready?

Chris Robinson (25:22)

Yeah. There we go.

Mark Cole (25:23)

Loyalty goes back to the quote of Pat Lincione. People will walk through fire for a leader. That's true human integrity. Leaders are human. They're not deity. Leaders are. Leaders are influencers. They're not positional. Leaders are servant not go first. All the definitions of leaders that are Being defied by so many of our political, religious, business leaders is not true, and it's not human. But give me a leader that's true. Give me a leader that is accessible. They're human, just like me. They don't lord their position over me. Show me the fire, I'll walk through it. That's why I think that Lencioni got it right when he said people will walk through a fire. People will demonstrate loyalty. So the greatest ROI, I believe, to stay in Integrus is people that will stand back to back with you, shoulder to shoulder with you, foot to foot with you, and go into battle with you because they know they can trust who you are in adversity. They know they can trust who you are in triumph because you stay integrous.

Chris Robinson (26:35)

Wow, that's good.

Mark Cole (26:36)

Now I want to close this with saying you and I get to work alongside one of the most integrous leaders that I know. I know John Maxwell. I know what he is behind the scenes. I know what he is in front of people. And what you see is what you get. My challenge to all of you that are leaders today, one is that John wrote a book called 21 Qualities of a Leader. It's kind of the companion, if you will, to one of his bestselling books, 21 Laws of Leadership. Wade, I really want to get that into our show notes, the 21 qualities of a leader. It's not in our show notes yet, but we'll put it in the show notes. And what I'll do is the team will give you a discount if you buy that. That book will help you understand qualities of what a real leader looks like, and I want to do that. We had an episode, a podcast episode, that I want to Share with you 5 ways to win with People. And I want to share that with you because that will help you be an addendum to this. Go back, search for that podcast, 5 Ways to Win with People. It'll help you. Damien is one of our podcast listeners. Damien listened to the podcast. We'll put this in the show notes as well. Principles that guide your life. And here's what Damian said. Attitude is everything. Chris, you love that you're Mr. Attitude. Attitude is everything. The right attitude develops the right belief, which creates the right character for success. Damion, you're spot on. I'm honored that you're a podcast listener. Thank you for viewing us listening. Go make a powerful, positive change in the world around you, because everyone deserves to be led. Well,

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