096： Leadership： Vision, Influence, & Impact ｜ David Burkus
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Summary
On this episode of The Manliest Podcast, Ryan Michler sits down with David Berkus to talk about leadership, management, and how to cast your vision and make an impact in the lives of those who matter most. David is an author, a podcaster, and an associate professor of management at Oral Roberts University. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies in the Naval Academy, and he also contributes to Business Review and Inc.
Transcript
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As you know by now, leadership lies at the core of what it means to be a man.
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We've all had great leaders. We've all had horrible leaders.
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But my guest today, David Berkus, talks with us about what it means to be a leader,
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how to align your vision with others, how to be more influential,
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and how to make an impact in the lives of those who matter most.
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest.
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Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
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When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, or strong.
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This is who you will become at the end of the day.
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And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler,
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and I am the host and the founder of Order of Man.
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If you guys are new to the show today, I want to welcome you.
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But if you've been here with us since the early days, which was a couple of years ago now,
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Either way, you guys are listening to the manliest podcast available today.
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We interview the world's toughest, the strongest, smartest, most successful men.
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We extract their lessons, their wisdom, and then we deliver it directly to you.
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Now, we do all of this with the goal of helping you become a better man.
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That's it. I'm on a mission to be a better father, a better husband,
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a better businessman, a better community leader.
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I know you are too. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here.
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So I've got a great one lined up for you today on the topic of being a more effective leader.
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But real quickly, let me give you a couple of resources
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that you'll probably want to delve into a little bit deeper.
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First, we're going to make all the show notes available, the links, the resources,
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all of that stuff for this show on our website.
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And you can find that at orderofman.com slash 096.
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And second, be sure you join our closed Facebook group.
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We are growing by about 1,000 members per week now,
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which means that there is a ton of value being shared there.
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And you can do that at facebook.com slash groups slash orderofman.
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And third, make sure you go check out what we're doing inside of our exclusive mastermind.
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It's a brotherhood of 200 plus men who want to take being a better man to the next level.
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So we're sharing the tools, the resources, direction, systems,
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and above all, we're sharing the accountability to help you and me
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So I'm going to share a little bit more during the break.
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But for now, you can get the details and the information at orderofman.com slash Iron Council.
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Now, I want to get into the discussion today with my guest, David Berkus.
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He's somebody I came across as I was looking for successful men to come on the show.
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You're going to hear that in the podcast today that I was able to connect with someone
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who is incredibly qualified to speak with us on the subject of leadership.
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He's also an associate professor of management at Oral Roberts University.
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But he wrote a book that I really enjoyed under new management.
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And he challenges the traditional vision of business management.
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And he proves that they're outdated and they just don't work.
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So he gets into that a little bit on the show today.
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He's worked with Fortune 500 companies in the Naval Academy.
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And he also contributes to Business Review and Inc.
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Today, he's here to talk with us about management, leadership,
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and how to cast your vision and make an impact.
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I don't know what happened as we were recording this.
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And I had no idea it was as cold outside as it is.
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I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is not supposed to be below freezing.
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Well, really, any time of year, but especially right now.
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Well, you're just going to have to deal with that, I guess, right?
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Everybody that's in like Alaska and listening is like, oh, I'm playing the world's smallest violin.
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So, David, I want to talk with you about leadership.
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I think there's a lot of misconception even about what leadership is and how this actually
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Can you help us wrap our heads around what leadership means to you so that we can maybe
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create some of the framework for the discussion that I want to have with you today?
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So you're asking someone whose background is an academic.
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And so, uh, my tendency is to give you an incredibly nuanced definition.
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One of the people that was my, um, you know, one of my big advisors when I was in my doctoral
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program once wrote a paper called an integrative definition of leadership.
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Basically, he and a coauthor tried to assemble every single definition of leadership out there
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and come up with one cohesive thing that would find all.
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You know, I think probably the biggest thing that people do when they define leadership is
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they take the sort of John Maxwell definition, you know, leadership is influence, nothing
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And, and I think there's a whole lot more and a whole lot less to that.
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But let's start with that, this idea, this ability to sort of influence or inspire people.
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And then I think there's a couple of responsibilities that come with that.
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I think you actually have to, um, inspire them to work toward an objective.
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You have to be motivating people to actually progress towards something that is mutually
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In other words, it's not enough just to have influence.
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If we have influence, but we don't actually lead people to where everybody agrees is a good
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place to go, then we end up like, you know, the used car salesman that sells you a lemon
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We end up like a, a dictator that history has taught us is sort of really, really quite bad.
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But so I would, I would say if I had to think of a concise, uh, short, narrow working definition,
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it would be the ability to influence or inspire people to work toward a mutually desired objective.
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And, you know, there's a lot I'm leaving out in there, but the important thing is I'm putting
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in enough to say that not only is it influence, it's influence that comes with a moral or an
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ethical responsibility to take people where they want to be.
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No, this is a good point and a good distinction because I think we almost cross into that
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And although maybe you can define that differently, I think manipulation falls on the negative end
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of the spectrum versus influence, which is a win-win type situation.
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I mean, with, with respect to John Maxwell, he would never actually say that leadership is
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And I don't care what you do morally with that influence, but we leave ourselves too open to
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If we use a definition, like it's just influence, nothing more, nothing less.
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So I think we're all, we all know that there are certain other ethical boundaries in there.
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There are certain other responsibilities you take on when you become a leader.
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And that's, I think that has to be in the definition almost as a reminder, right?
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You would think that no one needs to be reminded, but no one needs to be, we can say no one
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needs to be reminded to do a lot of ethical things and yet we still have a lot of people
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So, you know, no one, the speed limit sign, no one needs to be reminded what the speed
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limit is every mile and yet people still speed, right?
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Well, then I think you start getting into this point of now you are, let's say somebody's
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a formal leader, for example, or even an informal leader, and they have a clear objective
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of what they want to accomplish and maybe they want to obey the road signs.
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How do you help others articulate and see the vision that you have and then get them
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on board so they actually want to go to that place as well?
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I think, I think that we spend so much time talking about casting a vision and getting
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And I don't think that's how true, formal or informal, true leaders actually operate.
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I think one of the biggest things is figuring out how, I mean, no one does anything because
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No one listens to this podcast because it would really help Ryan earn sponsorship dollars
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And so when leaders start from that position of my job is to help people realize what's in
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And when those things align, suddenly we're a community, suddenly we're a team pursuing an
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And you see the same thing in informal leaders too.
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You know, one of, one of the interesting things that's forgotten from history are all of these
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instances of, of some of the best leaders were reluctant, right?
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Martin Luther King Jr., for example, he got into the civil rights movement because they
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needed to borrow his church to hold these rallies.
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And he resisted for a really long time before he realized that his assets, his resources,
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and his leadership ability was needed to right this, this wrong, right?
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But he didn't want to get involved at first until he saw that so many people were relying
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on things that he had that he then took responsibility for helping those people get that objective.
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So, so I do, I think it doesn't start from you and what you want and how do you persuade
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And can you align what you, what your, uh, desired objective is with what they want?
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So how do you then identify what it is somebody else wants?
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Is it a matter of asking or is there more to this?
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You know, I think the best leaders, they don't have the, they don't ask what they do is they
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Your, your Simon Sinek's of the world would say they find the why, but they find a way
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So a lot of it starts with just listening to the conversation, listening to the desires,
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listening to the yearnings, listening to the, oh, it'd be great ifs, and then finding
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a way to crystallize that into a compelling vision that unifies enough people.
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But really it starts with that listening idea and seeing what the uniform threads are and
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And the, the beautiful thing is once you do that, you don't have to get buy-in because
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You've just helped them articulate what they've already been feeling and wanting in their,
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And then the next step is then articulating the, okay, so we all agree that we want this.
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And then again, you don't need to get buy into that plan because you started from a place
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of, I know you want to get here and I have a plan.
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So is the planning process then, I think we might be getting a little ahead, but since
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we're talking about it anyways, this planning process, how much are you including other
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people who potentially could be quote unquote, your subordinates, if you're in a formal working
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environment, how much do you allow them to be part of that planning process versus you
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planning it out and then implementing what's that balance look like?
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So, I mean, we'd have to kind of split this out here from when we're talking about leaders
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of social movements to leaders of organizations, et cetera.
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When, when it comes to formal organizations and we talk about that plan, now we're really
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We're not talking about a vision or a dream or that sort of thing.
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We're talking about what is the strategy from the organization.
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And there are fundamentally two schools of thought in strategy.
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There's sort of the planning school and the emergent school.
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The planning school says, you know, you have the senior leadership team.
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Their job is to, uh, define what that plan is and then hand it down to the mid-level managers
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Except of course, around the mid nineties, people then started to write all this literature
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about execution and that, you know, the strategy was solid.
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Well, no, a strategy that doesn't take into account the needs of people who are executing
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So the others, the other school of strategy is more the emergent strategy, which is we,
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we know what we, uh, what we want and we have a good inkling of how to get there, but we're
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What we're going to do is we're going to take like what my friend Peter Sims would call little
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We're going to take a lot of different experiments as we're going to, we're going to head out
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We're going to see what's working and then we're going to adjust.
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And so a lot of companies, you see this in the tech world a lot with, with bold agile
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and also with keeping a lot of products in beta for a long time.
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Their strategy may not be formally defined until a year or two out when interaction with
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the customers and interaction with the market has helped them kind of have that strategy
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I don't have a problem with the planning school, but I tend to be from that emergent school because
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as the great management thinker, Mike Tyson said, everybody's got a plan until they get
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And so I think the emergent school has a little bit better response, being open to being wrong,
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That said, if you are of the planning school, then from the very beginning, soliciting opinions
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and getting a good cross section of everybody involved in the organization is highly necessary.
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I know that's a really long answer to say that everyone is necessary, but depending on your
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personality and your persuasion, you might be planning or you might be emergent.
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The only difference is when they're involved in planning.
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They ought to be involved from the very beginning so we can come up with a plan we execute.
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And in emergent, they're obviously already involved because we're setting out lots of
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So how might this differ then from a social movement?
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For example, a movement like this, Order of Man, or even maybe in the family unit as well.
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So I think social movements are almost always an emergent strategy format.
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And one of the reasons for that is that there's not a lot of literature and not a lot of models
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But also the planning school has its grounding steeped in looking at a competitive environment,
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trying to figure out what other competitors are going to do.
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Therefore, we need to do this in order to attain market share.
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We need to occupy this position in the mind of our consumers, all of those sort of things.
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And I mean, the only sort of social thing I could see that really might follow that would
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be something like an election, like a campaign for a senator or president or anything like
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That might have a little more formal planning strategy.
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But most social movements, most grassroots efforts, most podcast communities, all of those
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sort of things necessarily become that kind of emergent thing.
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You start doing something because you're driven to do it.
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Other people resonate, but they also provide feedback.
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And I would imagine, Ryan, without knowing too much about your life and your past history,
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I'd imagine this is not the only experiment you've ever had.
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And I'd imagine some of them didn't work out that well, but they had lessons in them
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I started a podcast previous to this that was a financial planning podcast, and I love the
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And now we've created what you're listening to right now.
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And, you know, I'm the same way with growing as an author, growing kind of my audience and
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You know, we started as a podcast with a totally different name till we found out we were infringing
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But even in that, we experimented around with PDFs and e-books and even publishing, self-publishing
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And the stuff that didn't work, we just kind of let it fall by the wayside.
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And the stuff that did work, we invested more of our time and energy in that.
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How much of this leadership style and these two types of planning, if you will, is personality
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and how much of it is just, hey, you learn this and you adapt it and you can make this
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So I don't know that I have any solid data showing a personality influencing a preference
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I think a lot of it is actually just what you were what you were raised or trained to
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I think a lot of people I mean, there is like there's some personality research on a phenomenon
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called conscientiousness, which essentially is like a a personality trait of how ordered
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and how much like how many of your ducks you you have in a row and all those sort of things.
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But I'm not aware of any research that shows a preference towards one or the other.
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I think it really we learn so much from the people that came before us.
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And so I think a lot of it stems from that idea of just who did you train with and who did
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You know, I was very much the planning school and not really into the emergent strategy ideas
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until a thinker named Roger Martin, a professor at University of Toronto and a former consultant
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and a huge mind in the business space really sort of, I guess, grabbed me by the brain and
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spun me around 180 degrees and really showed me this other way.
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So, you know, I think a lot of it has to do with we learn leadership from the leaders that
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So when you talk about grabbed you by the brain, I like that phrase, by the way, grabbed you by
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the brain, spun you around 180 degrees, was this just an awareness or did he put you into
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an environment that literally caused you to think differently about the way that you approach
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So I began, you know, Roger was really a mentor from afar to me for a long time, didn't even
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I was just reading his work and loving it, et cetera.
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And that inspired me to kind of reach out to him.
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And I wish I actually could remember, I think we met at a conference and I probably looked
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like a total fanboy because I knew he was going to be at that conference and I was also
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So I emailed him and then I brought like copies of his books and all that sort of stuff and
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Like I have a lot of a lot of author friends and, you know, people that that dramatically outsell
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Even though, like, I consider them colleagues now, they're just way better at it than I
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So and that that began a conversation and it was a lot of times it was a lot of back
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And then, you know, being invited to go watch him talk at other places and hearing what
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And, you know, so a lot of it was after that point was him more deliberately pointing things
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But it started with that kind of mentorship from afar.
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I mean, the reason I ask this is because I know for a lot of the men that are listening
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that are in leadership positions are really curious how to get people thinking differently
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about a different subject or to change the way that maybe they've been raised to believe
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over a lifetime or over decades of believing one way.
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And you're now asking them to do it differently.
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You know, I mean, changing people's minds is quite odd, right?
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Because there's the logical and there's the emotional.
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And truthfully, I think if you attack either, you trigger people's defenses.
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I think your best bet is to start with the emotions.
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But I think your best bet is actually to just kind of if you're trying to change people's
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And you'll eventually like there are the logical reasons.
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And the more you say, why, why, why, why, why, you'll get at the emotional ones.
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And then, you know, at a certain point, once you sort of have uncovered all of that, then
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you can start pushing back on whether certain assumptions are true.
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Like, so if I'm trying to change someone's mind, I'm, I'm usually asking them a lot of
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exploratory questions and trying to figure out what their underlying assumptions are and
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what the emotions behind why they feel that way are.
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You know, a lot of people might have a really logical reason for believing something and then
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you tear it down, not tear it down, but you, you, you investigate further and you find
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that there's an emotion or an experience that's also what persuaded them to, to take on that
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And then, then you just start to, to kind of lightly challenge those assumptions.
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And, you know, sometimes you might try and change someone's mind and end up proving them
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And then you change your own mind and that's fine.
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But again, I think you do it from that standpoint.
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You, you don't do what I watch far too many people do, especially, you know, we just are coming
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out of an election cycle here in the U S and you find that people are just reiterating
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talking points to each other that never really changed, changes people's minds.
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How do you avoid just to talk about the opposite end of the spectrum?
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How do you avoid these types of questions and crossing the line of being too probing
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or just flat out annoying as opposed to, I really do care about you or.
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And then, and then if you like people worry about this off at, Oh, I'm going to look
00:19:45.000
No, if you're generally interested in someone, you're not going to look authentic.
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If you're not generally interested in them, then you shouldn't be doing this.
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But you, if you can authentically, the only way to authentically demonstrate that you
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And then if you do that, you, the odds that you're going to be seen as inauthentic and uncaring
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People get misread all the time, but you know, let's make up a stat.
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That 90% certainty that if you authentically care about someone and you're having a real
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open and honest conversation with them, it's not going to be misinterpreted as you just
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Now, when you're manipulative, there's no possible chance that you're going to get interpreted
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People can see right through that and they understand what's going on.
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We've, we've all been in that interaction where it's overly obvious.
00:20:36.280
Men, just a quick pause to introduce you to the iron council.
00:20:39.220
This month, we're talking all about time management inside our elite mastermind.
00:20:42.880
We are covering efficiency, effectiveness, the tools, strategies, and the resources to
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Each and every month, we cover a completely new topic to help you take your life to the
00:20:53.240
next level from communication to leadership, from time management to physical fitness.
00:20:58.040
We cover it all inside the iron council and give you all the tools, the insights, the
00:21:01.640
strategies, again, the resources to help you take your life to the next level.
00:21:05.320
So you'll have access to the other 200 plus men inside of the iron council, all on their
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And you'll have the opportunity to learn from me and from them, how you can be a better
00:21:14.440
father, husband, businessman, leader, whatever it is you're trying to improve in your life.
00:21:18.700
If you're interested in learning what we're all about, head to order of man.com slash iron
00:21:22.300
council, where you can get our schedule, what's included in the membership, and then reach
00:21:29.100
But for now, let me get back to my interview with David.
00:21:31.320
So now we're talking about communication in the way that we obviously care about people
00:21:36.620
in the way that now we're communicating with them.
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What are some communication pointers or tips or ideas that you have with regards to being
00:21:43.940
a leader and helping others get to that vision, whatever that win-win situation you guys have
00:21:49.300
You know, I think so much of the work of leadership as opposed to management is concerned with
00:21:54.160
understanding the emotions and the motivations behind people.
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And so I think you listen for that and you ask questions based on that.
00:22:00.780
So, you know, if I just if I asked you about like, Ryan, what's your what's a hobby you
00:22:05.180
do outside of sort of work and family that you're really engaged in?
00:22:12.340
And when you say, I mean, big projects, little projects.
00:22:16.700
Mostly just restoring furniture, small projects.
00:22:20.040
I built the bunk beds for my boys, for example.
00:22:23.600
I, you know, I've got a friend that does sort of restorations and really, really enjoys
00:22:28.180
kind of taking older antique pieces, pieces people have sort of discarded and bringing
00:22:33.180
them back to life and having sort of that new life.
00:22:39.960
So you see, I mean, I literally I asked you to.
00:22:42.500
So I asked a couple of questions and then I tried to relate it to something that I already
00:22:47.380
I have now, I am awful with tools and woodworking, my my the best tool I have is my phone, right?
00:22:56.560
But I reached out to try and find something similar.
00:22:58.820
So I'm asking you questions and I'm trying to get at motivations and emotions, right?
00:23:03.160
And trying to figure out, you know, there's a there's a couple different possible motivations
00:23:09.820
So now if I'm trying you if I'm trying to persuade you to kind of, you know, do anything,
00:23:17.240
You know, this is another opportunity, just like you do with with woodworking and with
00:23:20.960
restoration to take an idea that really hasn't been fully developed and really get it to scale
00:23:27.020
So I'm going to use very similar language now that I understand your emotions and your
00:23:32.800
I'm going to use similar language to try and show you how something might be in your best
00:23:39.440
If I really, truly believe that this actually is in your best interest, then I'm going to
00:23:44.700
If I don't, then I'm going to just be seen as, well, he's just trying to use stuff he
00:23:50.360
And there's a good reason I'll come off looking that way because I am because that is what
00:23:55.620
But but so the way that you ask questions, you ask questions around why people do things,
00:24:01.440
If you think you've got it, I like to often check in and try and find some common ground.
00:24:05.580
In my case, I had to reach to another buddy of mine that restores stuff.
00:24:11.800
I mean, you could have also said, no, that's totally not it.
00:24:14.200
I like to cut the tree down and bring something out of nothing.
00:24:16.720
And I learned something different about you, right?
00:24:18.440
So it's all about that kind of idea of I'm looking for as I'm asking you questions, I'm
00:24:23.460
asking you questions to get at your emotions and your motivation, not to get at, you know,
00:24:28.100
just the the bland reason that you I like woodworking because it occupies my hands and my
00:24:33.320
And so I don't have to think about, you know, other things or something like that.
00:24:37.260
No, this is fascinating because I think a lot of I think a lot of men maybe understand
00:24:41.400
this to a degree and start asking these questions and engaging a conversation.
00:24:45.180
And then it's like, where do you go from there?
00:24:51.740
So I'm glad you filled in the gap because I think that is critical.
00:24:55.900
So, you know, and I think, you know, so much of the way men tend to interact.
00:25:01.960
So one of my one of my pastors, who's also a marriage and family counselor, will use this
00:25:06.180
analogy all the time that like women, women relate face to face and men relate side by
00:25:12.460
In other words, women, you know, women can have that conversation, that deep emotional
00:25:16.720
It's something that I have no idea, nature, nurture, any of that.
00:25:21.800
But for some reason, you know, it's a gross stereotype as well and overgeneralization.
00:25:26.880
But in general, there's something that trains them to kind of be able to have those conversations,
00:25:31.060
whereas men tend to bond side by side doing things.
00:25:34.360
You know, it's one of the reasons you have like the Boy Scouts, for example, where we
00:25:37.120
take a bunch of of boys trying to become men and give them a bunch of different activities
00:25:42.020
Or one of the reasons sports are so important to kind of the male culture is not actually
00:25:45.920
I mean, you're almost all of them are the same.
00:25:49.440
There's a couple of rules that change, but that's pretty much it.
00:25:52.620
But it's the idea that we're using the shared activity as a means to bond side by side.
00:25:56.880
The challenge in that in that bonding side by side is that when you're playing a sport,
00:26:01.300
for example, or when you're out camping or doing those sort of activities, those activities
00:26:07.600
So we often fall out of practice in having these conversations about emotions and motivations
00:26:14.840
Now you're talking about bonding and forging bonds with other men.
00:26:17.980
I'm really curious about how close a leader should get to somebody that he may be leading.
00:26:24.600
Because there's the old school theory that, and maybe this is still a theory, that you
00:26:28.040
should have a lot of distance between you and the people you're leading.
00:26:31.020
And then there's the idea that you should be very close and know and have an intimate
00:26:36.700
I mean, so there's the, you know, I was speaking at the Naval Academy one time.
00:26:40.100
I got to dine at the officer's club, which is this room and this, you know, area where
00:26:47.300
Officers don't socialize, et cetera, et cetera.
00:26:49.960
I can understand certain reasons for that in certain fields.
00:26:54.060
I think in general, most of us have a much more, we're all one team and I might be the
00:26:58.900
team leader, but that only gets me a, a, a tiny degree more, um, status or power than
00:27:05.780
I think that, um, and leading from the middle of the pack tends to be where, especially
00:27:10.620
in business and in hobbies and in life, et cetera, that tends to be, um, the better
00:27:15.960
Now, like I said, there are other situations, you know, the, one of the reasons the military
00:27:19.540
is so strict on that is that when, when your life is on the line and you need to get information
00:27:24.160
quickly, hierarchies become great systems for giving orders and conveying information
00:27:29.560
But when kind of you're in a business setting and the stakes are a lot lower and also you
00:27:34.100
kind of have the benefit of time to analyze certain things, I think you can have a much
00:27:38.420
more congenial relationship and a much more sort of team focused and leading from the middle
00:27:44.060
And a part of that is me talking about my own personal preference too.
00:27:47.540
You know, I deliberately eschew most kind of power scenarios.
00:27:51.160
Um, I might still have influence in a lot of the organizations that I'm a part of, but
00:27:54.260
I'd much rather have the autonomy that comes with not having a formal title.
00:27:57.620
So that might also be my own personal preferences.
00:28:01.280
And I tend to agree with you, which is part of the reason that we have this order, right?
00:28:06.000
It's not just any one man who, who has it all figured out and who's directing everybody
00:28:16.980
Why is it that we chase titles so much as opposed to just being natural leaders?
00:28:21.840
Because I think a lot of people think that they can only be a leader when they have a
00:28:28.440
Um, I mean, as to why I definitely agree that it's, it's something in there and then
00:28:32.260
it might be, you know, go back to like, it might be more primal.
00:28:34.880
If you look at most, um, primate species, et cetera, there are, um, there's pecking orders
00:28:41.660
The, the interesting thing is I think one of the challenges is as, as Jeffrey Pfeffer,
00:28:47.260
a brilliant, um, psychologist based out of Stanford would say, you can have power or
00:28:51.680
you can have autonomy, but you can't have them both.
00:28:54.360
In other words, as soon as you sort of attain power, there, there comes a responsibility
00:28:58.540
to be accountable to those that you have power over.
00:29:01.380
There comes a responsibility to take care of them, protect them and also interact with
00:29:06.060
So they have a little bit more control over your schedule.
00:29:08.240
You know, most, most days I'm, uh, interacting in a university setting and I'm not a chair or
00:29:15.300
But I watch how those people's schedules are just dominated by legitimate requests by the
00:29:21.580
I'm kind of like, I don't, I don't know that I want that.
00:29:25.260
So, so I think it goes back to something that's kind of just encoded in who we are as a, as
00:29:31.960
But that said, I, I think sometimes the intelligent choice is to choose to influence and lead without
00:29:37.700
a title and understand that you're not going to have as much say and as much authority as
00:29:43.020
those people who do, but you're going to have a whole lot more autonomy and you can use that
00:29:48.940
So this leads me to wonder and even question, because I think a lot of times men will chase
00:29:53.720
those titles because of the increased income opportunities.
00:29:57.620
Are you seeing still, and I know this has been the case in the past, but is there still
00:30:02.080
a continued correlation between your official title and your level of income?
00:30:08.840
I, you know, my, my last book under new management, I looked at a lot of different, you know, kind
00:30:14.840
And this one didn't make the cut, but one of the things I'm grateful for is over the
00:30:18.460
last 10 or 15 years, there's really been a trend in organizations to create ways for
00:30:25.180
people to demonstrate progress and increase in, in pay levels as they get better in a skill
00:30:31.860
So, you know, one of the tragedies in a lot of sales organizations is you'll see like,
00:30:36.940
And then we be, we promoted them and we gained a crappy manager and we lost a great salesperson.
00:30:42.080
Well, now there's a lot of organizations that are saying, okay, well, we'll continue at the
00:30:46.540
longer you stay with us and the more you have success with us, we'll continue to increase
00:30:49.840
You'll get benefits similar to a manager, all of those sorts of things in order to reward
00:30:56.220
So we're seeing that trend, but yeah, I mean, you're definitely right.
00:30:59.280
If you want stock options and million dollar paydays, then you got to try and be the CEO.
00:31:04.320
That said, there's a whole bunch of research that supports the idea that all of that money
00:31:10.980
You know, money, money does buy happiness, but it tends to level off somewhere between
00:31:18.160
And after that, it doesn't really buy any more happiness.
00:31:20.680
So trading, uh, the, the time, the loss of your own calendar, the, the responsibilities,
00:31:27.740
all of those sorts of things for that extra money.
00:31:30.480
I'm not sure that's a worthwhile trade-off unless you really do believe that the organization
00:31:35.060
or the movement needs you in that leadership role.
00:31:37.860
You know, that's, and that's the thing, you know, I often say this about presidential
00:31:40.760
candidates and, uh, senators and congressional people, et cetera.
00:31:44.400
It's like, I want the guy or girl who doesn't want the job, but really feels like we need
00:31:52.560
I very rarely find that person, but I'm always looking for that person because that's who
00:31:57.620
It doesn't, doesn't necessarily want the job or doesn't even need the job, which I think
00:32:01.760
eliminates a lot of the conflict of interest that, uh, that inherently comes with the,
00:32:07.580
So I, I, I want to talk with you about the differences between management, the term and
00:32:14.120
Are those synonymous or are those completely different things?
00:32:19.960
It's a distinction without much practical difference, right?
00:32:22.920
So in general, when we talk about managers, we're talking about, um, managing behavior.
00:32:27.640
We're talking about trying to get certain outcomes.
00:32:29.760
We're talking about, uh, controlling certain resources and allocating them appropriately, all
00:32:35.240
And when we're talking about leaders, we're talking about inspiring and influencing people
00:32:39.920
So we're talking about much more emotion and motivation like we've been talking about before.
00:32:44.000
That said, I don't know many people who are amazing managers who don't also have some
00:32:51.300
And I don't know very many, um, amazing historical leaders who didn't either also have great management
00:32:57.160
skills or knew that their second in command needed to have those skills.
00:33:00.520
So in terms of leading a movement or leading a big organization, you need both skills, uh,
00:33:06.620
when you need them is kind of up to you and your positions, your hierarchies, et cetera.
00:33:09.940
But in general, I mean, I think we, we've spent a lot of time pushing back against the idea
00:33:15.020
of management and saying that leadership is better.
00:33:16.940
The truth is we ought to be practicing and learning both.
00:33:21.400
How do you, how do you propose that somebody practice the skills to be better managers and
00:33:26.680
So, I mean, in terms of leaders, it's this, again, it goes back to this emotion, this caring,
00:33:32.660
this, um, ability to kind of start to understand what's behind other people and then see if
00:33:37.280
you can speak to their motivations and emotions.
00:33:39.720
Um, and that's, I mean, that's really something you can practice anywhere.
00:33:42.240
You can practice it, you know, in, in small groups and hobbies inside an organization,
00:33:48.540
It really, honestly, you have to have some level of responsibility for something to practice.
00:33:53.200
I mean, yeah, you can manage your own time and your own resources and that's good
00:33:56.240
practice, but when it's other people who you're sort of in charge of making sure budgets flow
00:34:01.800
to, et cetera, that's, um, that's a little bit bigger, bigger deal.
00:34:05.200
So if you're not in that management role yet, is there a nonprofit you can volunteer for?
00:34:10.540
Is there a small scale project you can decide to run point on in your organization?
00:34:14.800
Just a small way to begin to get that feeling that comes with responsibility and that need
00:34:19.740
to learn these different, these different things with planning and budgeting and all of those
00:34:24.280
Those are, those are really hard skills to practice outside of organizations.
00:34:28.500
Fortunately, there are usually smaller scale projects or smaller scale organizations that
00:34:37.560
I mean, obviously you're well-versed in this stuff.
00:34:39.140
How did you even get involved in discussion and research of leadership?
00:34:46.980
Um, so, I mean, I, and I would say I come from this weird background where I, I liken my
00:34:52.740
role in this entire field to that of much more of a coach, right?
00:34:59.180
And so Bob Stoops, I probably don't want him behind the huddle.
00:35:06.120
However, Stoops is responsible for seeing the entire field, relying on experiences acquired
00:35:11.460
from years of different, um, observations and providing counsel and guidance.
00:35:15.760
And that's, that's a bit more where I come in from that.
00:35:21.320
I mean, I trained, um, as an organizational psychologist that involves doing experiments
00:35:25.980
and working with lots of different, um, organizations to, to make lots of different observations about
00:35:31.020
But really one of the biggest things that I observed, even in my undergraduate years, I
00:35:35.740
came to college as an English major and I thought I was going to write like novels and
00:35:41.300
And what, what happened was I fell in love with authors like your Daniel Pink.
00:35:45.740
And Malcolm Gladwell and Chip and Dan Heath and these people who could find a way to tell
00:35:50.860
social science research like a story because humans are kind of hardwired to understand
00:35:58.320
Um, they found a way to sort of say that and it became a very useful resource to the leaders
00:36:03.660
And so that became the, wow, I want to do that.
00:36:05.500
I studied storytelling as an undergraduate, you know, English and creative writing major.
00:36:09.140
So I just now need to go understand the science.
00:36:13.980
Again, the goal was, was not to be that person that was, Oh, I was the CEO of Coca-Cola for
00:36:21.420
It was much more, Hey, I think there's a bunch of ideas that are coming out of the world
00:36:25.740
of social science research that if we can find a way to put a solid handles on people
00:36:30.300
would be able to use them as tools much better.
00:36:32.340
So if I understand correctly, you, you look at your position, what you do as the ability
00:36:37.080
to bridge the gap between the knowledge and the science and, and all of that, and then
00:36:45.840
My, my, uh, podcast is called radio free leader and that's a callback.
00:36:49.600
It's a pun because podcasts don't air on the radio.
00:36:52.620
So they're by nature radio free, but also it's a callback to radio free Europe.
00:36:56.960
And the idea that, uh, we needed a broadcast free, accurate news coverage over the iron
00:37:02.780
curtain, you know, into, into the communist areas so that people could be liberated, uh,
00:37:08.080
at least in their minds, even if we couldn't liberate them physically for a little while.
00:37:13.220
I'm trying to, to broadcast ideas from the ivory tower into the corner office in the hopes
00:37:18.260
that they can be of use to people who were, who were on that field, making those decisions.
00:37:22.520
Well, David, as we wind down, I do want to, obviously we've talked a lot about what leaders
00:37:26.300
are, what they do, how they behave, how they respond.
00:37:28.880
What are some things that we need to maybe consider avoiding or just be aware of as we
00:37:35.340
So like we were, we've kind of, uh, I wouldn't say hinted at, but actually beat over the head
00:37:39.320
with often is this idea that, I mean, the first thing is honestly to care.
00:37:43.600
You will, the, yes, there are, there's money and there's titles and there's all sorts of
00:37:48.140
fun things that come in perks when you climb up the hierarchy, but you will burn out unless
00:37:52.660
you legitimately care about the movement or the organization that you're trying to further.
00:37:57.380
The other thing is you won't be seen as authentic unless you legitimately care.
00:38:02.060
Really check your own motivations for wanting to engage in this leadership journey, because
00:38:06.380
if you don't deeply care about it, you're not going to have enough to sustain you when
00:38:11.520
I can see how that would be probably the foundation for leadership and everything else that you're
00:38:15.640
going to do regardless of the position or where you find yourself.
00:38:23.500
I do want to ask you a couple of additional questions.
00:38:25.600
The first one is what does it mean to be a man?
00:38:29.820
You know, I think what it means to be a man is probably the same thing that it means to
00:38:33.580
begin your leadership journey, which is that you take on a realization that you're accountable
00:38:41.120
So I don't really know that I was 18 with no responsibility.
00:38:47.680
I got married and yeah, I had responsibility to a staff, but like, I don't really think
00:38:51.600
that my right of passage into manhood, I don't think it happened until my wife and I
00:38:55.940
gave birth to our first son and, and look down and realize like, wow, we're responsible
00:39:02.620
And I, you know, I think that's also when you become a leader is when you recognize that
00:39:05.600
you have a responsibility to the people around you and they're counting on you for something.
00:39:09.020
But I definitely think it applies to man, manly to student manhood versus boyhood is
00:39:13.460
when you realize that you are responsible for much more than just yourself.
00:39:18.600
And obviously something we talk a lot about responsibility and accountability.
00:39:23.420
So like you needed to be affirmed anyways, right?
00:39:32.900
I want to give you an opportunity to tell us about how we connect with you, how we know
00:39:36.400
a little bit more about the work that you're doing.
00:39:38.120
And then you've got a summit coming up that you wanted to mention as well.
00:39:43.600
So the, I mean, the short version is if you have enjoyed the last, you know, 30 minutes
00:39:47.800
or so of us talking, uh, I have a podcast too called radio free leader.
00:39:52.680
Just search for that or search for my name and you'll find it.
00:39:55.080
Of course, if you hated the last 30 minutes, then please don't, don't search that out.
00:40:08.420
And, you know, the biggest thing is we're planning in, in February, we are launching
00:40:15.560
We're kind of, rather than dripping out a podcast over a year, I'm driving myself wild by interviewing
00:40:22.640
Um, and we're just kind of going to have a week dedicated to how do you work smarter,
00:40:29.500
All of those sorts of things with some really, really cool guests that I was, I was so blessed
00:40:34.020
And so we're putting all that together and launching that in February.
00:40:36.780
So you want to check that out as well, worksmartersummit.com.
00:40:39.620
And I'm sure Ryan on an order, man, I'll have links to it, et cetera.
00:40:42.540
And the show notes, I'm not to steal your next line.
00:40:51.840
I know leadership is, is critical in a lot of guys' lives.
00:40:54.480
And I know that there's going to be more men listening to this that I hope are going
00:40:57.260
to be better leaders because of the conversation we've had.
00:41:06.680
David Burke is sharing some insights with us with regards to being a better leader.
00:41:10.420
If you're interested in learning more about his work and even the summit that he mentioned,
00:41:15.960
We're going to have all the notes and all the links that you need.
00:41:18.700
And while you're there, make sure you learn how you can connect with the men who want to
00:41:23.680
This is available inside of a mastermind group, the Iron Council.
00:41:27.360
Again, you're going to get all the tools, the resources, the skills, the accountability.
00:41:30.860
You need to be as effective as you can with your time.
00:41:34.620
You can learn more and join us at orderaman.com slash Iron Council.
00:41:38.160
I'll look forward to talking with you on Friday for our Friday Field Notes.
00:41:40.900
But until then, take action and become the man you were meant to be.
00:41:44.520
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:41:47.460
If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be,
00:41:51.520
we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.