730: How Leaders Can Succeed by Mastering the Eight Paradoxes of Effective Leaders with Dr. Tim Elmore

Pete Mockaitis
Tim, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Tim Elmore
Thank you, Pete. Good to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to chat. You’ve worked with a lot of leaders over a lot of years. I’m curious, what’s one of your most surprising, counterintuitive, fascinating discoveries you’ve made about us human beings and leadership across your career?

Tim Elmore
You know, this won’t shock you, but meeting with C-level leaders and finding out they’re just as humans as the intern at the office. We gain experience and we gain wisdom, I think, I like to think we do, but then you find out, “Bob puts his pants on one leg at a time, and he struggles with his daughter and his dog,” that sort of thing. So, I think that’s liberating a little bit because I think we think we have to perfect something by the time we reach 50, and that just doesn’t happen.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I find that really reassuring and true to my own experience. I remember in consulting, the first time I was in a meeting with, like, “A CEO is going to be in the meeting and I’m going to be there too? Oh, my gosh.” My first sighting of a CEO up close and personal in real life. And then he asked us a very basic normal question, it’s like, “Oh, so does that number include the benefits or just the salaries?”

Tim Elmore
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like, “That’s what I would ask if I were him. Wow!”

Tim Elmore
Yeah, maybe becoming CEO means you get the guts to ask those questions that we’re afraid to ask.

Pete Mockaitis
Perfect. All right. So, your latest work is called The Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership: Embracing the Conflicting Demands of Today’s Workplace. That’s cool. Tell us, what’s the big idea behind this book here?

Tim Elmore
Yeah. Well, I think it’s not hyperbole to say we’re living and leading in very funky different times. This is my 42nd year leading something as a paid leader and I’d just never seen a time like this that we’re in. So, I don’t mean to exaggerate or create drama, but I think I just look around. In fact, I tell you what, the genesis for this book actually was a green room conversation I had with 16 CEOs.

So, it was right before an event and I thought, “I’m going to capitalize on this moment and talk to these people about what they’re experiencing.” So, Pete, I asked the question, “Do you think leading people today is harder than it was when you first learned to lead?” And I thought I’d get a mixture of answers, but every single one of these people said, “Absolutely.” One of them said, “A hundred and ten percent.” They were ready to wave the flag.

And then I kind of pushed back, and I said, “Now, that’s kind of odd that you would say that. Wouldn’t you think leadership would’ve been harder when we were in our 20s and we first started leading something but we didn’t know much?” But everyone of them stuck to their guns. And that set me on a search, really, “Why is it that we would say that?”

And part of the reason, I think, is that we do live in just complex times. Post-COVID 19 pandemic is just weird and we don’t know what normal will look like two years from now. It may look much like this. We thought we were coming through the Delta variant, and then there’s another variant. But here’s what I also note. When I look around at leaders and teams, I feel like people come to our teams today with higher levels of education, higher levels of expectation, what they expect from a leader today, higher levels of entitlement, meaning, “I feel like I’m entitled to more perks and benefits than ever before.” That’s not wicked or evil. It’s just true. Higher levels of emotion.

Pete, I remember when I first began my career, it was very common for bosses to say, “Leave your personal problems at the door. Come and get the work done,” and then we say, “Okay.” Today, it’s, “Bring your whole selves to work,” and that’s awesome. We keep it real that way but we bring emotions, we bring baggage, we bring personal problems with us, and so it’s just a different day. And that’s perhaps why leaders go through decision fatigue.

I heard a leader say recently, “I feel like I’ve made a year’s worth of decisions in one month, last year. So, I’ll stop there but just feel like, because of the complex times, there are paradoxes. Here’s the premise of the book. There are paradoxes that all involve social and emotional intelligence. So, they’re doable for all of us, we can learn these, but we’re often not practicing them, and then we see a resignation that didn’t need to happen or a retirement that didn’t need to happen so soon because we just weren’t leading as effectively as we could.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, Tim, I love what you said there because, well, as you might imagine, I’ve read a lot of business books, and, as we know, the first third-ish, I don’t know, it varies, of the book is convincing you how critically necessary, “This book is right now.” And a lot of times it feels a little trite, because you’re, “Oh, with globalization and competition,” it’s like, “Yeah, okay, globalization and competition has been going on for a while now.”

But, no, I think you’re keying in on something in terms of genuinely the human experience and expectations, it’s cool, like, “Bring your whole self to work,” has advantages in terms of, “Oh, yeah, we’re getting some, we’re tapping into some creativity and some passion,” which you just can’t get when it’s like, “No, no, no, leave that at home and you crank through the task list that I need you to crank through.’ You just don’t get that.” Well, you do with bring your whole self to work. But you also have a new whole set of challenges and expectations to live up to and deliver upon effectively. So, yeah, well-said. Thank you.

So, let’s hear about these paradoxes. You’ve, in fact, listed eight specific paradoxes. What are they?

Tim Elmore
Yeah. Well, let me be the first to concede, there might be 8,000 of these things we need to learn but I found eight. So, just to list them or, at least, a handful of them, the first one in the book is I believe effective leaders, uncommon leaders, must be confident and humble. And very often, you get one or the other. At least you lean toward one or the other. You’re a very confident leader. In fact, some people wonder, “Are you too confident now, Bob?” Or, they’re very humble and that’s winsome for us, but with a humble leader only, you kind of wonder, “Are we going to get to the goal or we’re just going to be nice to each other?”

So, I think the best leaders bring both – confidence and humility. And what I do in this book, Pete, just so you know, is I center on a case study for each of these paradoxes. And my case study for this one was Bob Iger, the former CEO of Disney. Bob took that role, followed Michael Eisner, and Michael was this very, in all due respect, cocky, kind of just full of himself, and actually was so arrogant that he stopped conversations with Steve Jobs when they were trying to buy Pixar, and never got it done under Michael Eisner.

Bob Iger comes in, knows less about leading an empire like Disney because he’s never done it before, and calls Steve Jobs up, and says, “Steve, it’s Bob. You don’t know me. We’ve never met. I’m heading up Disney now, and I just can’t help but think that we might be better together. What do you say?” And Steve Jobs goes, “That’s not a crazy idea. Let’s talk.” And he gets it done. Disney buys Pixar.

But then what I love about this story about confidence and humility is when they buy Pixar, Bob and the Disney enterprise put Pixar in charge of all Disney animation, “So, I just bought you. Now, would you tell us what to do?” That, to me, is confidence and humility, and that’s rare but I think it needs to not be rare. So, that would be the first one in the book, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Tim, once again, I love what you’re saying here. It’s like we have an idea, we have an example, and it’s like, “Okay, I get what you’re saying.” So, can you just do that for the next seven, please?

Tim Elmore
Absolutely, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re crushing it.

Tim Elmore
Well, let me give a homework assignment to listeners on this one. I am trying to practice these eight paradoxes. I didn’t write them because I know them all. I wrote them because I’m trying to be them. My assignment for this one is when I’m in a meeting, I need to speak as if I believe I’m right, but I need to listen as if I believe I’m wrong.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s kind of thing will re-tweet, Tim. That’s well-said.

Tim Elmore
Yeah. Well, thanks. It’s a great assignment for me because I don’t do that listening thing well. I listen as if I believe I’m still right and I’m just waiting for my next turn to talk. Anyway, that’s been good for me. So, the next one is even more, I think, challenging. I believe uncommon leaders, paradoxical leaders, leverage both their vision and their blind spots, which sound like, “No, you can’t have those together.” But I actually believe, in all the leaders I interviewed, they actually said, “No, I ended up benefiting both from my vision, ‘Here’s the target we want to hit.’”

But isn’t it true, when you talk to leaders, a lot of them will look back, and go, “Man, if I had known then what I know now, I never would’ve started this enterprise. I learned so many things.” And it was because they didn’t know the protocol. They didn’t know how it was done before that enabled them to find a whole new way to reach the goal.

So, my case study on this one is Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. So, she created this industry, shapewear for women, it’s kind of a combination of pantyhose or stockings and girdle, and she ends up calling Neiman Marcus, and ends up talking to a female executive, and says, “Hey, can I come have 10 minutes of your time?” She gets the meeting, she tries them on, she tries on Spanx in front of a lady in the restroom and, of course, sold, “This is great.”

Well, later, when Sara was doing a Q&A session for a large group of business leaders, one of the people in the audience stands up and says, “Sara, how did you get the attention of a major department store in a trade show where there’s a thousand exhibitors?” And she said, “Tradeshow? I never went to a tradeshow. I just called up this executive.” And Sara looks back and says, “It’s what I didn’t know that saved me. I didn’t do the normal stuff that people wade through that most people die in.” It’s what she didn’t know that helped her.

Pete Mockaitis
So, she didn’t know, “This is not how this is done, Sara, the whole process by which we onboard new products into our merchandising lineup.”

Tim Elmore
Yes, that’s exactly right. And isn’t it true, the more experience you gain, the more you know what the protocol is, and you can get stuck in doing it the way we’ve done it before. So, Sara says, “Hey, it may be what you don’t know that may completely put you in a blue ocean where there’s nobody there yet.” And that’s what happened.

I feel like, when I started Growing Leaders, I didn’t know what I was doing. Thank God, I didn’t know what I was doing in some ways. Anyway, I’ll stop there but that was a really, really important one for me to learn from as I wrote it down.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Well, let’s hear about the third paradox.

Tim Elmore
Okay. The third one is I believe effective leaders practice both visibility and invisibility. And all I mean by this, and everybody listening that’s a leader will go, “I know exactly what you mean.” When you’re up front, in other words, when you’re beginning any project or product or offering that you are going to sell, people need to see their leader very visible. We need to model the way. We need to set the example. We can’t just give a lecture. We need to show them the way.

But along the way, if we stay visible, other people aren’t going to step out. They’re going to defer to us in the meeting. They’re going to lean on us. They’re going to say, “Well, I can’t say anything. Tim, go ahead.” I think there comes a point in every leader’s journey that he or she says, “I need to be invisible now. I need to perhaps not show up at that meeting because John or Susan needs to step up.”

So, my example on this one is Dr. Martin Luther King. Between 1955 and 1963 in the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King was a very visible leader. He marched, he protested, he boycotted, he, on purpose, got himself thrown into prison. There were 29 times Dr. King was imprisoned. Part of it was just setting the example for making sacrifices.

From ’63 on, you begin to see him do something different in his leadership. He didn’t show up at some meetings. And when young John Lewis would call him and say, “Dr. King, we need you here,” he’d say, “John, you know what to say.” He knew that young John Lewis wouldn’t speak up if Dr. King was in the room because, “I defer to Dr. King.”

So, there’s a point in our training process, in our equipping process, we’ve got to be not absent emotionally, or not purposely absent because it was a hard meeting…

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, didn’t feel like it.

Tim Elmore
Yeah, exactly. And that’s a problem today, absentee leadership, because we didn’t feel like it is a problem. But I’m saying, now we start strategically saying, “You step up, you step up, you step up.” And I just think the greatest leaders always find their way to do that, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Keep it coming. Number four.

Tim Elmore
All right. Here’s another tough one for me. I believe uncommon leaders are both stubborn and open-minded. Now, does that not sound like an oxymoron? How can you be stubborn and open-minded? But here’s what I would say to this. I think, at the beginning of any venture, leading any company, you have to be stubborn about a few things. You’re not going to reach a goal unless you’re strong-willed, and you say, “Doggone it, we’re going to do this.” You just have to have that. Obstacles will throw you if you don’t.

But I think any leader would say, “If you’re only stubborn, you’re not listening to anybody, you’re not open-minded to new ideas, you don’t think you need anybody else, aargh, that puts us in trouble.” So being stubborn means you got a chance at reaching the goal. Being open-minded means you have a chance at taking others with you to that goal.

So, my example on this one was Truett Cathy, long time ago founder of Chick-Fil-A restaurants. Truett only had one restaurant for 10 years, and he was tweaking his recipe, not just for chicken but for the way he was going to run this restaurant. And you and I both know he was very different. You’d like him or hate him but they’re closed on Sunday, “This is our values,” so forth and so on.

So, I discovered Truett was extremely stubborn when it came to some core issues. He was very open when it came to almost anyone else. And what his core issues were, Pete, was his people, he really erred on believing in his people. He would keep people long just because he so wanted them to know they were believed in, but he also had his core values. I know that sounds cliché, but he had a core set of beliefs, that he said, “This is how we’ll run the company. I don’t care if it’s 2021 or 1951.”

And those cores were what he was stubborn about, and everybody knew this is sacred here, and I think it’s actually served them. I think they’re becoming a leader in the quick-service restaurant industry. Now, McDonald’s is copying them. Now, Kentucky Fried Chicken is copying them because, I think, they had that core that they’ve never left.

Pete Mockaitis
And there are some of the things that they just totally throw out the window, like, “You know what, let’s do the opposite of what we were doing. That’s fine.”

Tim Elmore
Yeah. Well, so you might know this. I don’t know how often you get to a Chick-Fil-A, but wherever a Chick-Fil-A is, you know if you walked in that restaurant and you order something, and you say, “Thanks,” they’ll say, “It’s my pleasure.” That’s their phrase, “It’s my pleasure.” It doesn’t sound like a big deal.

But Truett Cathy introduced that phrase at their big annual conference for all the operators, all the owners, and he didn’t push it. I mean, he did push it but he didn’t demand it. He didn’t say, “Now, you’re going to get fired if you don’t use this phrase.” But he kept creating a tone and a spirit and a culture of, “Let’s say, ‘It’s my pleasure. It’s my pleasure. It’s my pleasure.’” Ten years later, it stuck.

And I would say what happened was originally people were going, “I’m not going to say that phrase.” First of all, in quick-service restaurants, they’re not asking for great customer service. They want speed and cheap. In other words, most of the time you go to a fast-food restaurant, you want it really fast and you only want to pay $2.50 for a burger or something like that. He kind of introduced a whole new…and they adapted along the way to introduce some things that they just became open-minded about.

So, the way they’ve gone about it, the new menu items on the restaurant, it always involves chicken in some way, but there’s all kinds of menu items they were adaptable about. At 92 years old, Truett Cathy actually designed a brand-new restaurant called Truett’s Luau. It was a Hawaiian restaurant. It wasn’t just selling chicken. He came up with all the décor and the menu at 92 years old. He’s still learning. He’s still growing.

He wrote me a thank you note in his 80s for a book I’d written, and just said, “Here’s what I learned,” and I thought, “Oh, my gosh. He’s in his 80s, he could teach me everything.” So, I’m not sure if that answers your question but that’s what I think of when I think about what you asked.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that open-mindedness, that really shows in terms of it’s not like, “Oh, we’ve already figured out restaurants. That’s how it is.” Like, “Nope, here’s a new kind of restaurant.” As well as, “Hey, I read your book in my 80s, and here’s some learnings,” and that’s got to feel good to get that letter.

Tim Elmore
Yeah, absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Let’s hear number five.

Tim Elmore
Okay. Next one, yup. This one really is geared at the heart of a leader, and I think sometimes leaders maybe aren’t as aware of their heart issues, not just head issues, we need to master. I believe uncommon leader practice this paradox. They hold high standards for their people but offer gracious forgiveness. So, high standards and gracious forgiveness.

What I mean by that is…well, let me put it to you in the opposite way. If we only have high standards and not gracious forgiveness, our people aren’t going to take any risks because they’re going to be afraid for their jobs. If you just have a bunch of high standards, “I may get fired if I make a mistake,” they’re going to be scared to try certain things that we need them to try to move the company forward. But if we only have gracious forgiveness and not high standards, people are going to give you mediocre work. They’re going to go, “Oh, he’ll forgive me. He’ll forgive me if I’m lame on this one. It’s no big deal.”

So, I think we need to say, “We got these high standards.” This about Amazon, think about Apple, these great companies that set these ridiculous high standards for the industry they’re in. But I think the best leaders say, “I’m calling you up to this high standard but just know I love my team members. And if you shoot for the standard, you give it everything you got and you miss it, you’re going to be forgiven.”

So, if you don’t mind, I want to double-click on this one because this is one I often talk about, and people go, “How do I do that? I don’t know how to do that.” One of our habitudes images,- we teach leaders with images. One of our habitudes images is called the Golden Gate paradox, and it’s actually a paradox for this one.

You’re familiar with the Golden Gate Bridge. It was built way back in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Because it was built during the Great Depression, they had a whole line of people that joined the team to build the bridge that were just regular workers, they were just looking for jobs, so they weren’t engineers, they never built a bridge before, but they needed money.

So, they hired these workers who were up on the scaffoldings, building this incredible engineering feat in San Francisco, and people were falling. They were falling to their death. So, they have a meeting with the foreman, Mr. Strauss, and Strauss is asked by the workers, “Could we put a safety net underneath this bridge?” Well, that was not common because it was going to cost a lot of money and that was just not common at the time. But Strauss, thankfully, said, “You know what, it’s going to cost us some money so we’re probably going to go overbudget, and it’s going to cost us some time to build this net so we’re probably not going to finish on the deadline, but I owe it to my people to do this.”

So, they put a $300,000 net, and back then, $300,000 was a lot of money. They put the net up and quite the opposite happened. They actually finished on time and on budget. But here’s why. Now, the workers, because they had a safety net beneath them, could focus on succeeding not surviving.

Pete Mockaitis
More attention on the thing itself, and so it’s like, “Whoa, don’t do this wrong or you die.” Okay.

Tim Elmore
Yeah. And, by the way, don’t you know companies, everybody is just trying to survive, not succeed. I mean, if they were honest, they’d say, “I just don’t want to lose my job.” So, I’m saying if we find a way, figuratively speaking, to put a safety net, and say, “Go for it. Give it everything you got. I’m going to catch you if you fall,” oh, my gosh, people stay.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a beautiful image, yes. And I guess what I’m thinking about, I’m thinking about the infamous, or it can just be famous, it’s both, the Netflix culture document, which is funny that that’s achieved such fame. Part of me thinks like, “Well, every company should just have that and be clear on that,” but it’s rare and that’s why it’s famous.

And I think one of the points there was, “Hey, you know you’re going to perform at an exceptional level or you’ll be given a generous severance and you’re going to be compensated top of market as well, so it’s kind of how we operate.” And I get the vibe that there’s no animosity, it’s like, “Hey, you know what, you’re just kind of not delivering at this level, and so this may not be the place for you.” That’s not going to feel good, of course, to get that messaging but there is a bit of that net.

And I’d been on the receiving end of that as well. I remember a notion of…it was an expectation that in consulting that I was to perform zero defects analysis, which is really kind of intimidating when you’re a few months out of college, like, “So, don’t make any mistakes. That’s our expectation.” Like, “Really? Is that fair?” But I guess no mistakes mean like the clients will notice or your manager will notice so just take the time to double-check in advance, basically, is the practice.

And so, I remember falling short of that and also receiving sort of gracious forgiveness in terms of like, “Hey, well, it’s just work. Nobody died but, yeah, this is why we believe in this because it can hurt our credibility, and we’re backtracking a little bit, and so let’s figure out how we can do that.” So, that is nice and it feels good.

It’s interesting, like, I remember the word forgiveness is interesting in that…well, I believe we all make mistakes and we all need forgiveness. And, yeah, I remember one of the first times someone actually said to me, “I forgive you,” it was sort of off-putting. One, people don’t say that very often.

Tim Elmore
Yeah, it’s true.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, literally, “I forgive you, Tim.” It felt a little odd to me because it was like, “Oh,” because it’s sort of like, “You’re not telling me I didn’t screw up,” which is what most people would say, “It’s fine. No big deal. It happens, Tim.” In fact, it almost double-affirmed, “Yeah, you screwed up, Pete.” But then it also… so at first, I didn’t like it, it’s like, “Whoa, that’s kind of intense but also very true and right and big of you, and I like and respect you more.”

So, yeah, just that…it takes a little getting used to but it’s awesome. That’s my take. What do you think about forgiveness as a word and a term and a social vibe?

Tim Elmore
Yeah, no, I think you’re spot on. It’s weird. It seems spiritual, like, maybe in church we’d say that, or maybe God says to us in church. But, you’re right, when someone says, “I forgive you,” it can feel at once, like, “Well, that’s patronizing or that’s condescending,” “I’m the holy one here and I’m going to forgive you. I am perfect and you’re not.”

But I think what I love about what you just said was that person didn’t say you didn’t make a mistake. They’re actually saying, “Yeah, I’m sorry. It was really bad. It was bad. It’s wrong.” But then they let you off, and say, “Let’s do better next time.” One phrase we try to live by at our organization, Growing Leaders, is this, “Let’s shoot for perfection but settle for excellence.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Tim Elmore
Yeah, because excellence is pretty good. We know we’re human. So, I worked for John Maxwell for 20 years, and I feel like John modelled this for me right out of college. I was in my 20s at one time, and, gosh, I did some wingnut foul-tipped bonehead things. I didn’t know what I was doing. But I went to John with fear, thinking, “Oh, my gosh, he’s going to let me go,” and he didn’t. He said, “You know, we learned from that, didn’t we? And let’s talk about what we learned,” so I had to come up with some things I learned.

But I built some confidence up, and thought, “I’m going to keep pushing myself because he’s not going to let go of me.” And for 20 years, I stayed there. So, anyway, it was just a great, great lesson for me to say there’s a heart issue to leadership, and I think that’s it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s beautiful and John is beautiful, and we’ve had him on the show a couple of times.

Tim Elmore
That’s neat.

Pete Mockaitis
I actually keep forgetting I need to send him something.

Tim Elmore
That’s awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
Listeners can hunt down that episode if they’re really curious about that.

Tim Elmore
There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Okay, so high standards and gracious forgiveness. And so, maybe while we’re on the topic, like, in practice, when someone screws up, what do you recommend we say? So, that’s a good phrase, “Hey, we learned something today, didn’t we? I forgive you.” For some personalities, it can really be powerful. For others, it can be very off-putting. What do you think?

Tim Elmore
Yeah, it can be. Of course, people bring different experiences to the workplace so that might be I don’t know how they’re going to respond. But I tell you what, the classic story for this one is…it’s not my case study. My case study for this one is Harriet Tubman, the leader of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. She’s a brilliant picture of this. But the story, I think, we’ve probably all heard, the business story, is Tom Watson who was a former executive at IBM. He was quite famous for having a young manager under his care that made a million-dollar mistake decades ago.

And Watson called him into the office, and the guy came in and spoke first, he thought, “Man, I’m going to just rip the Band-Aid off,” and so he said, “I suppose you want to fire me for my mistake.” And Watson said, “Why would I want to fire you? I just spent a million dollars on your education? Let’s keep going.”

And I thought, “What a great attitude that is.” But it sounds cliché but that’s essentially what a boss needs to, “We learned from this. Let’s make sure we did learn from this. Let’s not repeat it but now let’s move forward but let’s keep the standard high.” And I think most people need a leader to keep the standard high.

Most of us would begin to settle in for average, “Whatever my teammates are doing, if it’s average, I’ll be average.” And I think leaders need to keep calling people up to a standard that’s above and beyond what we would do on our own.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. Thank you. All right. Well, let’s hear about the paradox about being both deeply personal and inherently collective.

Tim Elmore
Yeah. So, all of these are different categories of paradoxes. This is the paradox of vocabulary. This paradox is, have you ever noticed when a leader is communicating with a team of people, or any audience, for that matter, the best ones are inherently collective, meaning when they speak, you can tell they see the big picture? They have a grasp on the gravity of this issue, they see the whole, not just part, they see the whole, and yet, as they communicate, you get the feeling they’re talking to you. They’re deeply personal in their language.

So, I can think of great speakers I’ve heard before. You hear them talking, you go, “Man, he gets it. She gets it,” but then they start telling a story, and you go, “Oh, my gosh, did he read my mail last week?” that sort of thing, “How did they know I was feeling that right now?” So, I think this ability we need to develop of being inherently collective but yet deeply personal is brilliant.

My case study on this one was Mother Teresa. So, most people have heard her name, she’s now a saint in the Catholic Church. But Mother Teresa was a great leader. She started this order The Sisters of Charity in Calcutta, India, and it became the largest order of its kind, thousands and thousands and thousands. And she didn’t start thinking, “I’m a great leader. I’m going to build the biggest company.” She didn’t do that.

But what she did was she grasped a big-picture issue, there were people living in poverty and dying on the streets, and she thought, “I’m going to address that issue. We’re going to do it one life at a time so I can stay personal to the needs. And when I go to a donor, I’m going to have a story to tell, not, ‘Well, did you know that 53% are actually dying?’” She didn’t do that.

So, she would talk to people that would say, “Don’t you think a government program would be more effective than a bunch of nuns and Catholic Church?” And they would say, “This is going to destine your plan to fail,” and she would say, “No, it’s going to destine us to scale.” Ain’t that brilliant? And the reason she said that was you scale when people see you setting an example but you’re not leaving the personal touch, and people go, “I know that’s how life ought to look.” In customer service, we don’t want to lose the personal touch.

And so, she was doing it so beautifully, people just kept joining and joining and joining. So, she’s in Calcutta, then there were men and women, then there were this group and then that group, and now there’s groups all over the world. I think the brilliance of it is it is counterintuitive. She never lost sight of the big picture. This is huge. But she never ever, ever lost the touch.

Let me tell you one cool story from her life that might be a cool thing for your listeners to hear. One day, she’s in Calcutta, on the streets, even though she’s heading up this huge thing. She’s wiping the leg of one of the people that are living in poverty. She’s wiping the leg because it’s leprous. They have leprosy and it’s pretty gross. Well, there were some business people that were touring the building, and they saw her on the ground wiping this leg that’s just “Aargh.”

And one of the men turns to the other man next to him, and says, “Aargh, I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” Mother Teresa looks up, and says, “Neither would I.” Her point was, “That’s not my motivation.” And it’s moving to me but I’m just thinking, “I never want to lose why I got into this gig in the first place, which is to serve these people. And I need to feel what they’re feeling, and so when I address them, they don’t feel like I’m in some ivory tower that can’t be touched, and I’m some lofty guru now that’s written a bunch of books or whatever.” I don’t want to lose that touch.

So, yeah, Mother Teresa is my great example on that, and, one, I feel like that’s an aspiration that I want to have – collective and personal. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is powerful and quite beautiful, indeed, that in having the personal touch and such, in this case, compassion or…I guess there’s many virtues or dimensions of excellence, just depending on your flavor and vibe and organization that you’re working with, when done at an exceptionally high-caliber level, inspire and touch and motivate. And that is hard to quantify exactly what impact that it has but it is vastly greater than the one, even though your focus is on the one. So, I’m picking up what you’re putting down with regard to the word paradox here.

Tim Elmore
Yeah, it really is weird. It’s almost oxymoron kind of what it feels like until you dig, and go, “Oh, I see. I see how those two can go together.” So, yeah, it’s really fun. Okay, so let me…let’s see, what am I missing? Oh, two more. Is that right?

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hmm.

Tim Elmore
Okay. So, one of the paradoxes is one that I think we’ve all said to ourselves at one point, “I need to be both a teacher and a learner.” So, Angela Ahrendts is my example on this one. Angela Ahrendts was asked to leave the United States and take over Burberry coats in London, this high-end fashion coat, plaid coat that usually was purchased by rich old ladies back in the day, back in 2006 when she took over. When she came in, the brand was on a decline, not an incline. They were losing money, and they thought, “Oh, my gosh, we may be on our way out.”

So, Angela comes in, and her job, the board said, was to save this brand. The first thing she does after she meets her fellow executives is she meets with the youngest team members at Burberry, I mean, 20 somethings, interns were in the room, and she says, “I want to learn from you. What do we need to do different that will build the brand again and start reaching your people, your colleagues, your peers?” They weren’t reaching the millennials. And at the time, it was the millennials that were the new adult consumer.

Well, this group of people came up with a bunch of ideas, these were young professionals. One of the ideas they came up with is the Art of the Trench, and they said, “Let’s, on our website, put a place for our customers to put pictures of themselves in our coats, which will prompt them to buy our coats.” Now, it sounded kind of funny but it worked. In fact, the Art of the Trench is a page on their site. You scroll through it, there’s all kinds of pictures, mostly of young adults, young professionals, in a very nice coat. The brand began to take off, tripled in size, it was crazy.

But, Angela, if she were here today, she would say this, “I had to be a teacher and a learner. I, obviously, went in as a teacher. I had to lead the way. I had to run point on saving this brand, but I knew one of my first jobs was, if we’re going to reach new customers, I got to talk to some people that understand them, and say, ‘Here’s what you need to know.’” So, it’s just…I actually have found that most leaders will confess to me, “I’m either one or other. I’m either really good at learning,” or, “I’m really good at teaching but not learning.” And I think this is one we have to kind of juggle together.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. And uncommon leaders are both timely and timeless.

Tim Elmore
Yeah, the last one is timely and timeless. This would probably make sense. I have found that, in today’s world of rapid change, this is cliché, but we have to be timely, meaning we’ve got to keep up with the times. We need to read the culture before we lead the culture, so we need to be relevant with technology. We need to be on the cutting edge with our offerings, our products and services, but, at the same time, I think the best leaders are also timeless, meaning they don’t leave behind those timeless skills and values that made the company what it was when it first began in 1901, maybe.

So, Walt Disney is my brilliant, brilliant example, I think, here. If you think about it, if you walked into Disneyland in Anaheim, California, the original theme park, you look to your left, it’s timeless. You see Frontierland, Adventureland. He looks back at the past, and says, “Here are the heritage of our nation. Here are the virtues that built us into a great country, integrity and honesty.” But you look off to the right, there’s Tomorrowland. He was fascinated by science fiction and technology and science and animatronics.

So, Walt Disney was this leader that said, “I’m going to use cutting-edge technology to message timeless virtues that we dare not leave behind as we progress into the future.” So, I think great leaders jump on a swing set. They swing backwards in order to swing forwards. Swinging backwards is what enables a swinger, a person on a swing set, to swing forward. A swinger, that’s right.

So, I think we need to say, “What was our beginning? What problem were we trying to solve? What was the mission? Why were we doing this in the first place?” And then swinging forward, “Does that need still exist today? How can we repurpose our mission? Are there changes that we need to make?” So, I think that timely and timeless, I saved it till last because I think it’s so important that we master both being pioneers along the way as well as originators. Let’s hold onto the foundation that we built ourselves on.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s really interesting, you talked about the Walt Disney example and timely and timeless because, as we speak, I’ve got two toddlers at home. And so, they went through a bit of a Frozen phase, which I guess most American toddlers have, it seems.

Tim Elmore
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
And then I just noticed at the end that it was based on…the whole story was based on the fable, like the Ice Prince, or Ice Princess, by Hans Christian Andersen, or one of those, or not them, but it’s like Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen. Then, at the same time, we’ve got these books of like Aesop’s Fables and fairytales and just sort of books like these classics, like Jack and the Beanstalk, and all these things, and then you see Pinocchio.

And what’s fascinating, it’s like many of these stories are like old, like centuries old, and yet we’re bringing in the most cutting-edge storytellers, musicians, designers, animators, to make something like Frozen happen. And, sure enough, it’s like if you just really sit with some of the emotions and some of the songs, it’s kind of like deeply moving, “Oh, my gosh, this person feels so isolated. Whoa.”

And then if you open up and get vulnerable, and think about the ways you feel isolated, that can really be moving. So, Tim, look, you and I are both tearing up in one interview.

Tim Elmore
I know.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you’re like, “This is a child’s cartoon. What is going on here?”

Tim Elmore
I know. I know. Well, can I volley back really quick, Pete? I think one of the shows that Disney+, speaking of Disney, just put on their channel was Hamilton, you know, the Broadway play. Hamilton is such a great example of this. It’s a rags-to-riches story that is timeless, the story of Alexander Hamilton, and they’re doing rap music, they’re hip hop on the stage. So, here’s a timely medium to share this story to kids you might not want to read in a history book but you’ll go to a stage show.

So, I think that’s the need of the hour. We have some pretty cool principles that our nation was built upon, and perhaps every civilization down through history was built upon, but we’ve got to find new ways for the next generation, your kids, my kids, that will say, “Oh, I can embrace that because you found a fresh way to say it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Tim, I really appreciate the rundown here, the clear ideas that are powerful and vast in their implications along with very clear illustrations, stories, case studies, that bring them to life. So, perfection. Thank you. So, lay it on us, for professionals, maybe they’re not yet leaders or they’re just starting to lead, if you had to boil it down to one starting action that you recommend folks take that gives a big bang for the buck, a high ROI in terms of your time and effort and energy, and the leadership shot-in-the-arm it gives you, what should we start doing or stop doing right away?

Tim Elmore
Wow, that’s a great question. I’ll be honest with it; two quick items are coming to mind. Let me see if I can share them quickly. One is, and, by the way, we’ve done a course, Habitudes for Young Professionals. So, when it’s kind of beginning of the journey, one of them is a principle or an image we call coffee step, and it was built off a story.

We had some interns, when I was working with John Maxwell, that I was overseeing, and one of the gals that was an intern told me this story way later when she became a professor at a university. But she said to me, “I was immediately asked to get the coffee for the executives on the team as an intern,” and she goes, “I was actually kind of put off by that. It was off-putting to me,” because she thought to herself, “Do you not realize I got a college degree? Are you asking this because I’m a girl?” that sort of thing.

And then she said, “I made a decision that I’m going to get the coffee,” and she said, “It was the smartest decision I made. When I was willing to kind of stoop and do that menial task, it got me in the room. I’m meeting the executives. I’m meeting the VPs and I’m starting up conversation. Pretty soon, they asked me to sit down with them and talk. Next thing I know, I’m interacting, they know me,” she starts moving up.

And so, coffee step is simply this challenge. Don’t be afraid to do the small thing even though your talent enables you to do way more than that. If you’ll execute the smallest of tasks, you might be amazed what will enable you to do. Because I think early tasks are not about talent; they’re about trust, “Can I trust you to do what I’ve asked you to do?” So, that would be one.

The other is an image that we call early birds or mockingbirds. And this is kind of cheesy but here it is. I think when people come onto a team at the beginning, they either start becoming a mockingbird, “I’m just going to imitate everybody else. What are you doing? I’ll do it too,” or an early bird, “I’m going to be the first one in the office. I’m going to be the one that sets the pace.”

Pete, you’re going to love this. I had an intern a few years ago, second week on the job, he was an intern, a summer intern, he said, “Dr. Elmore, could I get a key to the office?” I said, “What do you need a key for?” and I didn’t say it but I was thinking, “You’re an intern, you’re going to leave in August.” He said, “Well, I’ve been noticing, I got a lot to do here and I actually want to do a really good job. I may get here before everybody else. I’m going to need a key.” I said, “You’re going to get a key.”

So, my point of that, it seems so simple, but if you’ll be the early bird that’s just going above and beyond, that second mile, that whatever, and then don’t be afraid to do the small thing, it’s probably going to lead to bigger things. That would be what I would say.

Pete Mockaitis
Tim, that’s beautiful. We only have time for a couple of your favorite things, but can you give us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Tim Elmore
Being a good parent has been very important to me, and one favorite quote I’ve tried to live by is this, when it comes to the next generation, “It’s better to prepare the child for the path instead of the path for the child.” I think so many parents are trying to pave the way for their children and make it easier. I think we don’t need to make it easier. I think we need to build strong kids that are ready for whatever comes their way. So, prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Tim Elmore
One book I re-read every year is a book called Leadership and Self-Deception. Have you read that one?

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hmm.

Tim Elmore
Yeah, it’s one I re-read probably because I tend to be selfish, and that book just gets me out of the box, that whole thing of…and I think we don’t realize it as leaders but, even though we say, “Well, I’m a leader. I’m about everybody else.” Really, we’re about getting our stuff done, and now we have everybody at our beck and call. So, that book has been so rich for me.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Tim Elmore
Well, you can go to TimElmore.com, you can find the book there at Amazon prices, and I do events. But the nonprofit I lead for the next generation is called GrowingLeaders.com, and that’s where you can find me there.

Pete Mockaitis
Tim, this has been a real pleasure. I wish you much luck and fun in navigating these paradoxes.

Tim Elmore
Thanks, Pete. Great to be with you.