Order of Man - The Plight of Leadership Eclipsing ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:00:04.980 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.420 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.120 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.660 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Brian Michler.

00:00:27.420 I'm your host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast movement. Welcome here today.

00:00:32.280 We're going to talk with you about a very important subject, especially as it relates to being a

00:00:37.820 leader. And isn't that what we all want? All of us as men want to lead in our families.

00:00:42.000 We want to lead within our businesses. We want to lead in communities. Maybe you're coaching

00:00:45.720 or mentoring, but in some capacity or another, you either currently are a leader or you have

00:00:51.600 a desire to be one. And so what we're going to talk about today is a common pitfall that

00:00:57.020 many successful leaders or otherwise successful leaders fall into myself included. I've dubbed it

00:01:03.040 the plight of leadership eclipsing. We're going to talk a little bit about what that is. We're

00:01:07.920 going to talk about why you want to avoid eclipsing as a leader, how to avoid that specific strategies

00:01:14.160 and mindsets for how to avoid eclipsing. And then we're going to get into three or four tactical

00:01:19.140 strategies so that you do not do this to the people that you're trying to lead.

00:01:23.780 And instead of eclipsing their performance or overshadowing their performance, you're

00:01:29.700 allowing them to shine. You're allowing them to grow, which is the point of leadership.

00:01:33.980 The point of leadership is not to create a bunch of followers. The point of leadership

00:01:38.060 is to build additional leaders who can then go on to serve their families, their businesses,

00:01:45.020 and their communities. Guys, before I get into that, I just want to welcome you.

00:01:48.540 If you're brand new to the Order of Man podcast, we're giving you tools, resources, conversations,

00:01:53.580 everything dedicated to men. We talk exclusively with men. Now, I know there are some of our

00:01:58.160 female counterparts who listen to the podcast, and I want to welcome you here if that's the 0.81

00:02:02.160 case. But we are talking exclusively to men, which means that I can focus all of my time,

00:02:07.220 energy, attention, and resources on giving you what you need to thrive as a husband, a business

00:02:12.520 owner, a community leader, a mentor, a friend, a brother, a father, et cetera. So with that

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00:03:19.200 All right, guys, let's get into the plight of leadership eclipsing. I was thinking about

00:03:24.920 this concept in a conversation that I had earlier the week with my guest on Tuesday, Vic Keller.

00:03:30.400 We were talking a little bit about how sometimes a leader has the potential to absorb all of the

00:03:39.120 energy in the room and in the environment. And the problem with that is that you're not allowing

00:03:44.820 any energy or even oxygen or light, if you want to use that analogy of eclipsing, for other people to

00:03:51.520 shine. That's a problem. As a leader, you want to develop and build additional leaders. And if you're

00:03:56.040 absorbing all of the energy, consuming all of the resources, taking all of the light, it doesn't

00:04:02.060 give any to your employees or your children or your wife or anybody that you're trying to lead.

00:04:08.420 And it starves them. It suffocates them of opportunities for growth. So let's talk about

00:04:13.080 why to avoid eclipsing. Number one is if you are eclipsing, and let's talk about what that means first.

00:04:19.640 That means if you look at the definition, I actually pulled it up here. Let me see if I have it.

00:04:23.380 It's an obscuring of the light from one celestial body by the passage of another between it and the

00:04:29.820 observer or between it and its source of illumination. So what happens as a leader is eclipsing, this is

00:04:34.920 a larger than life personality. This is somebody who has to have all the praise, all the accolades,

00:04:39.540 all the attention, all the notoriety, all the credit. And what happens is when you get in between

00:04:44.780 the productive outcome and your employees or your kids or your wife or anybody you're trying to lead,

00:04:51.980 it gives them nothing. And they need light, right? They need energy. They need resources.

00:04:56.920 They need to see that their hard work is producing results. If you're absorbing it all and taking it

00:05:02.360 all, what resources does that leave for anybody else? And what ends up happening is we have a lot

00:05:07.260 of resentment, a lot of contention, a lot of animosity, because a person's leader is not allowing

00:05:13.820 anything to pass through onto those individuals who are being led so that they can grow and develop.

00:05:19.400 So the reason you want to avoid this is number one, your team members cannot grow. If you're sucking 0.99

00:05:25.260 all of the light and all of the oxygen and all of the resources from the environment, it's like a

00:05:31.260 plant. Okay. You need the plant needs sunlight. The plant needs water. The plant needs air. And if it's

00:05:37.000 not getting any of those nutrients, it's going to wither away and it's going to die. So if you're sucking 0.98

00:05:43.700 up all of the resources, your teammates at best are going to be stagnant and at worst, they're going to

00:05:50.360 wither away and they're going to render themselves less capable than they otherwise could be. We cannot

00:05:55.760 dare to say that we're leaders if we're sucking up all the resources and not allowing our team members

00:06:01.140 to thrive and grow and be tested and pushed. Uh, one thing my, uh, ex-wife's grandfather used to do

00:06:08.320 when he was growing tomatoes and he grew these big, beautiful tomatoes, uh, tomato plants. He would

00:06:14.220 take a shovel and he would drive that shovel into the roots, not all of them, but just one side of

00:06:20.780 the roots. And I don't know if this is true or not, or anecdotal, but his belief was that if he did

00:06:26.500 that, he added that stress to the plant and therefore it bore better fruit. I don't know if that's just an

00:06:33.640 anecdotal story or if there's data to support that, but I like the story because if you're not

00:06:39.040 providing your kids, your colleagues, coworkers, employees with opportunities to be tested,

00:06:44.020 then they're never going to be under that stress, which allows them to grow and build and develop

00:06:49.300 and build better fruit. Number two, if you're sucking up all the light and therefore your team

00:06:55.300 members aren't growing, guess what? You can't grow, right? You actually may be by sucking up everything

00:07:02.780 that you possibly can boxing yourself into your current position, because if you don't have

00:07:08.460 anybody that you've trained and groomed and developed and built into a position that could

00:07:12.960 potentially replace you, then you're, you're not able to expand. You're not going to grow into an

00:07:19.280 any new position because if you do, you're going to leave this big void in this big vacuum.

00:07:23.440 Often we hear from men who say, Oh, I'm just training my competition. Yeah. Well, you might be.

00:07:28.200 I think that's a short-term outlook. I think that's very pessimistic way to look at it,

00:07:33.140 but you might be training your, your competition, but you also might be training your replacement,

00:07:37.940 not a negative thing so that you can actually grow and build and develop and move into something

00:07:42.800 bigger and better and greater than you previously were. So we got to get over the scarcity mentality

00:07:47.940 of saying, you know, if I just train that guy, he's going to replace me. Right. That's the point.

00:07:52.460 Isn't that the point? My oldest son and I, we lift three days a week in the mornings and he likes to

00:08:00.760 tease and joke that he can lift more than me. And in certain lifts, he absolutely can at this stage

00:08:05.800 in his life. But the way that he says it is almost as if it's a dig to me that I'm going to feel bad

00:08:12.640 about. I don't feel bad. Now we have good hearted competitiveness between us, but I don't feel bad

00:08:19.000 that he's stronger than me. That's actually what I want. Right. And as a father, isn't that what you

00:08:23.620 want? Don't you want your kids to be better, smarter, more successful, wealthier, more fulfilled,

00:08:29.960 happier in their relationships? Of course, that's what we want. Right. And if that's what we should

00:08:35.020 want for our employees, and we do that by getting out of the way on allowing some of that sunlight to

00:08:40.680 pass through, not eclipse, but pass through and give our subordinates what they need to thrive and grow

00:08:46.320 and develop so that we can also go on to bigger and better things. And then number three is your

00:08:51.780 mission can't expand. So you have your teammates, you have you, and then you have your mission.

00:08:56.740 What is your mission? What is your goal? What is your objective? What is the movement that you're

00:09:01.380 part of? What is the business you're trying to grow? What is the family dynamic that you're trying to

00:09:05.340 create? If you're stunted by an inability to level up, your teammates or your family members are

00:09:12.440 stunted in their ability to level up, how in the world is the mission going to move forward?

00:09:17.320 If I was so worried, for example, with this business about getting all the praise and all

00:09:21.960 the notoriety and all the accolades, and I didn't develop or build anybody else along with me,

00:09:27.820 this mission doesn't grow. I'm only one person. And these are all issues of leverage.

00:09:33.360 When you eclipse the people you care about, you're not leveraging resources to develop other people

00:09:40.260 who could do maybe a better job than you can in certain situations. And we'll get into that

00:09:46.040 in a little bit. But guys, it's very, very important, as you can see, for growth and

00:09:50.180 development, not just of you personally, not just of your teammates, but of your business that's

00:09:55.040 going to go on to impact hopefully thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

00:09:59.800 That's going to hinder your family performance, and they're not going to get what they need to be

00:10:03.420 able to go out at some point, start their own families. So next, guys, let's talk about how to

00:10:08.580 avoid eclipsing your people. We'll just use that term as your people. Specifically, I'm going to

00:10:16.180 talk about five mindsets. Number one, you are not the center of the universe. I am not the center of

00:10:23.320 the universe. Now, these are all mindsets. So we can wrap our heads around the mindset, and then we'll

00:10:26.900 get into some tactical strategies here in a minute. But if we understand that the world doesn't revolve

00:10:31.880 around us, and we can build our organizations and build our families in a way that would be

00:10:36.980 sustainable, even if we weren't here, then we know we're on the right path. Every once in a while,

00:10:41.760 I go on vacation or go on a hunt. I've got a vacation coming up, and I'm going to be gone for

00:10:46.380 about seven, eight days. I know that my organization is going to be okay without me for a week. And not

00:10:53.900 only okay, they're going to thrive because I have processes and systems in place to ensure that

00:11:00.560 everything continues to move forward, that we have all the bases covered, that the meetings will be

00:11:06.200 accounted for, that the assignments will go out, the scheduling needs to be done. Everything's taken

00:11:11.300 care of so that in my absence, not only does the business continue to move on, hopefully it continues

00:11:16.520 to grow and thrive even in my absence. It's not about me, guys. It's not about you. Now, I think it'd be

00:11:24.740 easy from the outside looking in to look at our organization or look at what I do on social media and

00:11:29.660 think, well, that guy needs all the attention. And I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and tell

00:11:33.660 you I don't like it. I certainly do like the attention. But how many movements do you see

00:11:38.160 who are built around a central figurehead? And if what would happen if that central figurehead went

00:11:42.920 away? If they decided not to do it, if they, heaven forbid, died and passed away, does that

00:11:49.300 organization or that movement crumble? If it does, then we know that they were the center of that

00:11:54.020 organization. And they didn't build any systems or structures in place to ensure that the mission

00:11:58.800 drives forward in their absence. Guys, understand we are not the center of the universe. We are here

00:12:06.140 to help facilitate growth and development and expansion in our people and in our missions.

00:12:12.600 Number two, wrap your head around the idea that if other people win, you win. The same cannot be true

00:12:19.200 if I said, if you win, other people win. That's not always the case. But if your people win and you give

00:12:26.040 them the tools and resources and guidance and direction and space to allow them to win, you will

00:12:31.480 win, right? You're aligned. You're on the same team. You're part of the same family. You carry the

00:12:36.500 same family name. When my children win, I win. That means that whatever I did and their mother did

00:12:43.580 was instrumental in their development to nail that recital, to land that team, that position on the

00:12:51.400 football team, to pass that exam, to get their driver's license, to eventually go on and develop

00:12:57.740 and build a family of their own. When they win, I win. But if I'm so worried about me winning at the

00:13:03.780 cost of everybody else, they don't necessarily win in that environment. I want to leverage. I want them

00:13:09.040 to win. And my mindset is when other people who I'm connected with have success, I view success that

00:13:15.820 way. When I see somebody in the Iron Council, that's our brotherhood, go on to do bigger and

00:13:21.040 better things, even if it's start a quote unquote conflicting or competing organization as what we're

00:13:27.160 doing here with Order of Man, it doesn't bother me because I want people to win. And because I want

00:13:33.060 people to win, I pour into them and I get out of the way to allow them space to do so. Number three,

00:13:38.760 and we already hit on this, leaders create leaders. That's a mindset. Is that one that's ingrained

00:13:43.780 and etched into your DNA? Because if it's not, then you won't do what's required to create leaders.

00:13:49.340 You'll do what you can to create followers because it strokes the old ego, but it doesn't create

00:13:55.060 additional leaders. And it doesn't give people autonomy over their own lives and their own

00:13:59.480 personal development and growth. And again, that's what we should want for our people.

00:14:03.840 So the mindset here is that I don't want somebody who has to rely upon me for every answer.

00:14:09.380 I would love for a problem to come up and one of the men in our organization to solve it,

00:14:17.120 even without my permission. Now, it may not be exactly right. And as long as they don't blow it

00:14:20.940 up, I'm okay with that. But you know what? That means that I relayed or made it clear or made it

00:14:27.440 known that they don't need to come to me for every question or every answer. They are now leading

00:14:35.020 because they're looking at problems and they're addressing them assertively. Now we may need to

00:14:38.900 go back as a leader in my position, especially as the owner of the organization and say, Hey,

00:14:43.880 in the future, here's what I'd like to have happen. But explain to me why you did it this way.

00:14:48.140 What went well? What didn't go well? What can we tweak? What can we adjust? What can we improve?

00:14:52.860 But I'm always about creating more leaders. I think weak people, cowardly people don't understand that 0.51

00:15:00.500 because they view additional leaders as a threat. I don't view it that way. Many of you don't view

00:15:05.920 it that way. But if you do, you might need to check your level of fear and why that's driving

00:15:12.900 decision-making, especially as a leader. Number four, and we'll go back to the analogy of the eclipse

00:15:18.020 is that leaders deflect light and they absorb darkness. So what I mean by that is that when things

00:15:26.600 go really, really well, that's light, things are positive, things are optimistic, things are

00:15:31.600 positive and going well, you need to deflect that. And where do you deflect it? To your subordinates.

00:15:38.100 It was them who did it. It wasn't you. Now you may have facilitated some of that, but, and, and you'll

00:15:44.980 get your notoriety and praise if you need it for doing that. But really what you need to do is put the

00:15:50.020 attention and the emphasis and the light, allow that light to pass to your kids, to pass to your wife,

00:15:55.920 to pass to your employees and let them reap the benefits and the rewards and the notoriety and

00:16:02.220 the feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment that comes with doing a job well done. Deflect that

00:16:06.940 light. If somebody comes to you and says, Hey Ryan, you know, as the leader of this team, you did such

00:16:10.880 a phenomenal job. You know what? Thank you. I appreciate the compliment, but let me tell you,

00:16:15.400 the real work was these people right here. These are the people who put in the hours. These are the

00:16:20.500 people who stayed late. These are the people who were innovative. These are the people who poured all their

00:16:25.260 time and energy and sweat and tears and blood into this project to make it work. It was them. It was

00:16:29.460 not me. It was them. They did a phenomenal job. So that's the first half of that. The second half

00:16:34.980 is that we absorb darkness. So when things go wrong, we don't deflect that to other people. We absorb

00:16:41.540 that. We absorb the darkness. We sit in the shadows and allow the light to be shine on them. And we take

00:16:47.620 the darkness. Mr. Deadline, that's on you. Didn't team didn't have the resources they needed.

00:16:52.860 That's on you. Project didn't go as smoothly as it could have went. That's on you.

00:16:57.760 Even if it was one of your employees, quote unquote, fault, why didn't you give your employee

00:17:01.980 what they needed? Why didn't we have a realistic expectation of the timeframe? Why didn't we give

00:17:07.620 them the resources that would have helped make that project a success? That's not on them.

00:17:11.900 You're the one with access to those resources. You're the one that makes those decisions.

00:17:15.660 So if they drop the ball, that's on us as the leader. The more we do that, the more we create,

00:17:21.560 I hate and hesitate to use this word. I was going to say safe space just to change a little bit. I'll

00:17:26.960 say safe environment. The more that we reflect and deflect light and absorb darkness, the safer the

00:17:34.980 environment that we create to allow our employees and family members to experiment, to test new things,

00:17:42.720 to work hard, to pour into it, and to feel comfortable enough to do that in repetitive

00:17:49.920 situations so they can produce the results over time. Number five, guys, and this is very important.

00:17:56.500 This is the last point on how to avoid leadership eclipsing. And then I'll move into a few tactical

00:18:00.740 strategies. Number five, we need to exercise humility. Again, these are mindsets I'm talking about

00:18:06.720 right now, but humility, right? You don't have all the answers. You aren't good at everything.

00:18:13.240 And when I say you, I'm actually looking into the lens of this camera, which is reflecting. I can see

00:18:16.600 myself in the lens. That's me too. I don't have everything figured out. I don't have all the

00:18:22.240 answers. I fall short in so many ways. And because that's the case, I need to realize that there may be

00:18:27.600 somebody who's better equipped to do a project or a task or an assignment or something within the

00:18:32.560 dynamic of our relationship better than I can. If I have the attitude of humility, then I can get

00:18:38.700 out of the way and I can let that person shine. I can let that person do what they're good at.

00:18:44.060 I can let that person try things that they've never done before and maybe open themselves up to new

00:18:50.080 skills and new experiences that they never would have had an opportunity if you were in the way

00:18:54.680 overshadowing their performance. Humility. You don't have it all figured out. I don't have it all

00:19:00.540 figured out. Let's as men work together. And by the way, this is so important. This is why it's

00:19:05.960 important to have a band of brothers, men in your corner who can shore up your weaknesses, who can

00:19:12.080 point out some of your deficiencies in constructive ways. I'll talk about that in a minute. And then

00:19:16.340 can step into places that you can't step into yourself because you don't have the skillset to do

00:19:20.400 it. Again, I know it's threatening. I know it doesn't feel good to say, you know what? I don't know

00:19:24.280 the answer, but Bob over there does. Let's get Bob involved. But you think you're, we have this

00:19:29.760 tendency of believing that if I call in Bob and say, Hey Bob, you know, yeah, I know I'm the project

00:19:33.960 leader on this assignment, but you know, this thing about logistics that we really need. And I'm going

00:19:38.720 to defer to you. Why is that so threatening? Why does that make us feel inferior? It shouldn't

00:19:45.480 because you're the leader. You're the one that put together the team. Bob's working with you.

00:19:51.100 That's a compliment. Somebody who's as qualified, for example, as Bob is, and yet he's here working

00:19:55.860 with you and you're giving him the tools and the space to thrive. All right, guys, last points I

00:20:01.780 want to make today. Let's talk about tactical strategies. So again, just to reiterate and,

00:20:06.200 and review here, we're talking about the plight of leadership eclipsing. We've talked a little bit

00:20:11.060 about why it's important that you avoid eclipsing your people. And we've also talked about how to

00:20:17.100 develop the mindsets for avoiding eclipsing your, your people. Now let's talk about tactical strategies.

00:20:24.400 Number one, and these aren't in any order, excuse me. Number one, give responsibility to people.

00:20:31.280 I had a great, great manager. Her name was Stacy and she was my manager when I worked at Buckle. Some

00:20:39.020 of you guys may know that that's another life that was like 20 years ago, but my background is retail

00:20:44.220 management, specifically men and women's clothing. And she was phenomenal at this. She would give us

00:20:50.480 assignments or tasks with the books or bookkeeping or finances or inventory, or even displays,

00:20:56.720 merchandise, the way the front room looked. She would give us this responsibility. And I remember

00:21:01.220 one particular example where she said, I need you to take care of this display wall. And I didn't

00:21:07.060 really know what I was doing. If I remember correctly, I was new to the store and I was in a

00:21:10.360 management development program and I had gone through all the material, but I had never done this.

00:21:13.860 And she said, I need you to go through this and I need you to redo this wall featuring certain things

00:21:18.640 based on the season. So I went through and I kind of clunked and stumbled my way through it.

00:21:24.140 And I told her, I said, I don't, I don't really know what I'm doing here. What if this doesn't work?

00:21:29.940 And I'm paraphrasing, but I'll never forget the way that she responded. And that was,

00:21:33.520 it may not work, but we're going to put it to the test. That's a great leader right there.

00:21:37.900 Remember what I said about a safe enough environment to experiment and to try something

00:21:42.500 new and to push past our people's current comfort zones. That's what she allowed me to do.

00:21:47.440 Now, I don't remember in that specific instance, whether or not what I put together worked,

00:21:51.700 but what I do remember is there was great leadership in that moment that she was willing

00:21:56.580 to give me responsibility. And isn't that an amazing compliment? When you look at somebody and

00:22:03.140 you say, I think you can do it. I'm going to let you do it. A lot of the times we think we're

00:22:07.480 putting things onto their plate that they shouldn't have, or they can't handle. Why don't

00:22:11.240 you test it? Why don't you see? Because again, worst case scenario, they're going to be complimented

00:22:16.540 by you giving them responsibility and placing some important level of trust in them. Give

00:22:22.360 them responsibility, let them shine. Or if they don't shine, correct them in a safe, comfortable

00:22:28.680 way so that they can actually grow and develop. Number two, don't solve people's problems.

00:22:34.560 You're not here. You and I are not here to solve people's problems. You're not listening

00:22:40.500 to this podcast for me to solve all your, I don't even know what your problems are. I've

00:22:44.360 got my own problems to deal with, let alone trying to figure out how to solve yours. What

00:22:48.960 I want in this podcast, in this movement is to give you some information so that you can

00:22:55.160 solve your own. I believe in you as a man. If I didn't believe in you and I thought you

00:23:00.080 were this incapable little boy, I mean, how, how insulting, how long would you listen to

00:23:05.540 this podcast? If I treated you like a piece of garbage or treated you like an eight-year-old 1.00

00:23:09.200 kid? I don't think you'd listen very long. If you were in the iron council, how long would 1.00

00:23:13.480 you be in the iron council? If I berated you and I made you feel like garbage every time 0.99

00:23:18.500 we interacted, I don't think you'd stick around for long. If I went in and rushed to save 0.79

00:23:23.600 all, fix all your problems, you came to me with a problem. You're like, Oh, you're doing

00:23:27.260 it wrong. Let me tell you how to do it. Do it this way. How much ownership would you

00:23:30.440 have in that? You wouldn't. So what I would suggest is that we don't rush in to solve

00:23:34.540 people's problems, but that we have the mindset of working to allow them to solve their own

00:23:38.760 people that are capable. Your kids are smart. Your wife's intelligent. She's mature. She's

00:23:43.740 an adult. The people that work with you are also adults. And if they're not, they might

00:23:48.960 be young college students or young kids. They're smart enough to figure it out. Give them

00:23:54.500 guidance, give them instruction, make them think, ask them good questions, but don't

00:24:00.740 solve their problems. A great question is what are you going to do about that? Oh man,

00:24:05.380 that's really hard. You're dealing with that. What are you going to do about it? That's a

00:24:07.920 beautiful question because it puts the responsibility where it belongs, not on your shoulders, on theirs.

00:24:14.100 And it gives them what they need to grow and develop. Number three, we have to communicate

00:24:18.180 effectively. All right. This is a social media problem and others as well. This is a social

00:24:23.500 media problem. I think primarily because of the way we communicate and text, maybe an email and

00:24:27.540 some of these other digital technologies. Like we don't communicate effectively. If you're anything

00:24:31.940 like me, you're impatient and you're brash. And at times you can be condescending. You can talk down

00:24:37.280 to people. You make them feel stupid. These are things I do habitually. I'm working on improving in 1.00

00:24:44.260 these things, but we need to understand what our people are after. What makes them tick? What's their

00:24:49.280 personality? What motivates them? What inspires them? How do they like to be communicated to? How do they want

00:24:53.400 to be talked with? And you can look for the way they communicate with other people. The way they

00:24:57.020 communicate is typically a pretty good indicator about the way they want to be communicated with.

00:25:02.160 So you might have one person who wants to be communicated with bluntly. Hey, just give me

00:25:06.880 the facts. What do I need to know? Somebody else, you may need to work around a little bit. Like,

00:25:10.720 Hey, like here's why we do this or tell me why you're feeling the way you're feeling and let's see what

00:25:14.880 we can do to create a different solution. And you know, every time I bring up stuff like this,

00:25:18.880 I'll have people say, well, you know, you just communicate the way you communicate and then

00:25:22.040 other people can figure it out. Well, that's great in fantasy land, but here in the real world,

00:25:26.300 we're talking about interpersonal communication. And the way that I communicate with you is either

00:25:31.500 going to drive you to do something better, or it's going to repel you and keep you from doing what I

00:25:36.700 think might be a good thing for you to do. So as the person who wants to communicate and convey a

00:25:41.480 message to you, that's inspirational, it's motivational that you can implement in your life.

00:25:46.500 Wouldn't it be important for me to figure out how you communicate or how you receive things?

00:25:50.220 I mean, would you say that about your kids? Oh, well, you know, I know they don't respond to me

00:25:55.500 being a bully to them, but I'm going to do it anyways. Cause this is just the way I am.

00:25:58.780 You would never do that. Oh yeah. I, I know my wife doesn't like when I talk to her like this, 1.00

00:26:03.380 but you know what? Too bad, tough for her. She better deal with it. She's not going to deal 0.97

00:26:07.220 with that for long. Let's have some more empathy and kindness and understanding about what our people

00:26:13.200 are dealing with and what they need. And then like mature, responsible men think about ways that

00:26:18.780 we can communicate differently, convey different messages. So we produce different results.

00:26:22.920 And the last point that I wanted to make here is talking, and this falls into, uh,

00:26:27.340 critical, um, communication is praise and, uh, critique praise and critique guys. You can

00:26:34.260 protect praise all day long, as much as you want. It has to be honest though. And it has to be specific.

00:26:39.920 Don't just brown nose and praise. Cause people can see right through that. So if you're making things

00:26:44.320 up, even with your kids, like, like if they get a D on a test, you're like, Oh, you're so smart.

00:26:49.260 You're so into you. I can't believe you shouldn't have got a D they know. Cause it's conflicting what

00:26:53.960 you're saying. And the reality of the situation is different. And so it's a conflict. So you need

00:26:58.680 to be honest in your praise and you need to be specific. Okay. So if your kid gets a D in math,

00:27:04.900 but you know, they're intelligent, then that's something you can do. Hey, look,

00:27:09.000 Billy, you're, you're a smart kid. Like I've seen you be really, really successful.

00:27:14.220 Like you're so good in English and, and writing. And then it doesn't translate as well to math.

00:27:20.060 Help me understand why, what things do you do in, in your writing class or your reading class

00:27:26.200 that maybe you can transfer over here into math class that might help you a little bit.

00:27:29.840 Now I'm actually getting them involved in the process. I'm not solving their problems. Remember,

00:27:33.240 we talked about that, but praise has to be honest and it has to be specific for it.

00:27:39.000 That can happen all day long. Critique can't happen all day long and it can't typically happen

00:27:46.480 in public environments or yeah, I should say public environments. If you're critiquing people

00:27:52.720 publicly, you're going to have issues with buy-in and you're not going to lead people where they

00:27:57.820 want to go. Cause they're not going to believe in you. You're going to undermine your trust and

00:28:01.640 credibility with them. Cause they don't, they think you're going to throw them under the bus and you

00:28:05.840 are. Cause it's not at that point, if you're doing this in public, it's not just about correcting

00:28:10.520 behavior. It's about maybe propping yourself up or looking good or looking powerful in the eyes of

00:28:16.320 other people. Maybe it's about humiliating that person. So you can be that authoritative figure,

00:28:21.220 but that's no longer about them. There's no referendum on them. That's now about you and that's selfish.

00:28:27.580 So if you do have to critique, I suggest these are general rules of thumb, but I suggest that you do

00:28:33.620 that in private praise all day long, everywhere in public. If you can is preferred even, but critique

00:28:40.680 ought to happen behind closed doors, unless it needs to be brought up in real time because of the

00:28:46.240 situation or, or project you might be working on. But even then you're not going to attack personally.

00:28:51.220 You're going to address the problem or the approach to the problem, not the person. And then you're

00:28:57.380 going to fix that. If it's directed at the person, then you pull that person aside. Hey, George,

00:29:03.080 I wanted to pull you aside. We've had some struggles with this, this challenge or this topic or this

00:29:09.740 assignment, and you've done a phenomenal job with bringing ideas to the table, but the implementation

00:29:15.940 with those ideas has left to be, has yet to be what, what I expected. And I'm really trying to

00:29:22.620 figure out why you have such great ideas, but then the implementation of them begins to be a

00:29:27.440 challenge. Can you help me understand that? So there was some critique. Here's the problem,

00:29:31.980 but you also gave them responsibility. You're also helping them solve their own problems and you're

00:29:36.580 giving them authority and autonomy over their own lives, not telling them, Hey, you're going to be

00:29:40.000 fired. If you do this, you might get to that, but that doesn't need to be what it is right out of the

00:29:44.300 gate. Guys, we really, really auto avoid this leadership eclipsing. It happens a lot on social

00:29:49.580 media. You'll see it. And you, again, you might accuse me of this. And in many ways, I think that's

00:29:55.320 a rightful accusation, but I don't want to be the center of attention. I want to use social media as a

00:30:01.220 way to inspire and motivate so that you come into the fold and that you learn not only from me, but

00:30:05.400 you learn from other men who might have additional resources that I don't have access to. So let's recap

00:30:10.280 here. Again, the plight of leadership eclipsing, why to avoid it? Your team can't grow. You can't

00:30:16.380 grow and evolve and your mission can't expand. That's a leverage issue. Now, how do we avoid it?

00:30:21.440 The mindsets are you are not the center of the universe. Uh, when others win, you win. Number

00:30:26.100 three is that leaders create additional leaders. Number four is you are to, uh, deflect light and

00:30:32.140 absorb darkness. Number five is that you're to exercise humility, knowing that some people might be

00:30:38.780 better at certain things than you are. And if you find them, you win. And then we talked about the

00:30:42.780 tactical strategies. Number one, giving responsibility to people. Number two, not solving

00:30:47.560 their problems, helping them solve their own. Number three, communicating effectively with people

00:30:51.960 based on where they are. And number four, how to praise and critique properly. Okay. I hope that

00:30:59.680 helps. That's a lot of information today, but I wanted to get that to you because I've seen this as so

00:31:03.560 prevalent. And I had a good conversation with Vic Keller earlier in the week. You guys probably

00:31:07.660 listened to it and, uh, this, this idea, this concept got brought up. So I wrote it down and

00:31:12.920 expanded on it. Guys, that's it. That's all I've got for you. Again, we're all here to serve each

00:31:18.260 other. We're all here to learn and grow and develop myself included. And so if you have ideas or

00:31:22.580 resources or podcast topic ideas, please let me know. Hit me up on Instagram at Ryan Michler. Send me an

00:31:29.780 email, Ryan at order of man.com. You can connect with me. Make sure if you would, please leave a

00:31:34.840 rating and review. Check out origin USA. If you do use the code order at checkout, that helps them.

00:31:39.740 That helps you. That helps me to win, win, win, and let's get to work. So with that said, guys,

00:31:45.480 go out there, take action, avoid the plight of leadership, eclipsing, and let's all become the

00:31:51.260 man we are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take

00:31:56.420 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order

00:32:01.040 order of man.com.

Order of Man - July 21, 2023

The Plight of Leadership Eclipsing ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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