The Art of Manliness - Episode #29： Serve to Lead with James Strock

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another episode of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:21.160 As men, we all lead at some point in our lives. We serve as leaders in our jobs,

00:00:25.620 our communities, or maybe in our families. But what sets apart the truly great leaders

00:00:29.880 from the merely good ones? Is leadership a skill you can develop, or is it something you're just

00:00:34.260 born with? Well, our guest today is a recognized authority on the subject of leadership and can

00:00:38.860 answer those questions. His name is James Strzok, and he's the author of several books on leadership,

00:00:43.660 including Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership and Reagan on Leadership. His latest book is called

00:00:48.300 Serve to Lead, Your Transformational 21st Century Leadership System. And I just finished reading

00:00:53.100 this book, and it was fantastic, and I encourage you all to go get it. In addition to writing on

00:00:57.760 leadership, Mr. Strzok travels the world consulting and speaking to companies on the topic of

00:01:02.200 leadership. James, welcome to the show. Well, thank you, Brett. I'm delighted to be here,

00:01:07.040 and I just love the work you do. What a tremendous website, and what terrific information, and what

00:01:11.840 great history you share with all of us. Thank you. Well, thank you, sir. So, James, your new book,

00:01:17.560 Serve to Lead, you've written about leadership before. Why did you decide to write this book,

00:01:21.820 Serve to Lead, now? Well, for a few reasons. One is that whenever I would

00:01:27.240 be speaking to groups, many people would try to say, let's get leadership down to one sentence,

00:01:33.840 one word. What would it be? And I thought about it, struggled with it, and it became quite clear

00:01:39.120 to me that service is the answer. The second reason is that leadership really is changing before our

00:01:45.600 eyes right now for a whole lot of reasons. We all recognize the tremendous leadership failures from

00:01:52.180 Wall Street to Main Street, from Washington all the way to the Vatican. But there's also

00:01:58.360 extraordinary things happening right now, and I think we're going to look back and see this.

00:02:02.660 It's not just the end of one era, but the beginning of a golden age of leadership. I felt that really,

00:02:08.780 I had not seen a book that dealt straight on with these changes in a practical way that all of us could

00:02:17.180 apply, and that's what the goal of this book is. Yeah, that's one of the things I enjoyed about it.

00:02:21.620 It wasn't just theory, but it was very practical, you know, things that you just, you can use right

00:02:28.260 away, and that's what I really enjoyed about it. Thank you. It's intended to be that way. It's also

00:02:34.060 intended to be, particularly because it's built on the strengths the readers bring to it, to really

00:02:39.060 become their own book. And it's a book that anybody could hopefully apply at any time of life.

00:02:43.700 So you mentioned that we're kind of in a transformational stage in our society and

00:02:49.260 government. There's a lot of things going on, a lot of upheaval. What's the difference between

00:02:53.600 effective leadership today and how things are now, compared to what effective leadership was 30,

00:02:59.340 40, or even 100 years ago? Well, one of the biggest differences that we all see every day

00:03:05.820 is in the midst of the information revolution. It used to be that organizations, for example,

00:03:12.240 whether it's the military or a company or perhaps a family, would tend to have a person

00:03:17.760 like a boss. And the notion was that they knew best what to do and sort of used others to help

00:03:24.180 them extend their reach. Today, that's entirely outmoded. And as you know, what happens today is

00:03:30.120 that in any organization, there's clearly much greater useful knowledge and value at the so-called

00:03:37.860 bottom of the organization. And there's also always more useful knowledge and value outside

00:03:43.700 of any organization than within it. So this has entirely changed what people in leadership roles

00:03:50.300 have to do, where it used to be about direction. Now it's about empowerment. And that's not just a

00:03:57.540 word of speaking. It totally changes what leaders or people we think of as leaders do day in, day out,

00:04:02.900 they're going to be effective. And so would it be fair to say some of the problems we've had

00:04:07.940 is that people or leaders are applying this old wave, you know, leadership theory from 100 years

00:04:14.740 ago, what worked during the Industrial Revolution? They're still trying to apply that to now to the

00:04:19.240 new information revolution? Exactly. I think that's a terrific summary. And what's happened is,

00:04:25.920 and I think you'll see this in the book, Serve to Lead, on the one hand, some people today might feel

00:04:31.160 a little bit at sea, in that things today are quite different than they have been in recent

00:04:37.020 decades. However, many of these changes and what they require of people, if they're going to be

00:04:43.320 effective as leaders, also open up the experience, knowledge, and history of people much further back

00:04:49.540 to the mid-20th century. And that's one of the very interesting things about working on this book.

00:04:55.620 And I would add, by the way, that's one of the great things about your website, because you're

00:04:59.320 constantly bringing in history in a very useful, down-to-earth, applicable way to let people

00:05:05.420 know that some of the things they've seen in their own lives just don't add up to be enough

00:05:09.340 to work with. Yeah. And throughout your book, you refer to what you call the four questions.

00:05:15.680 What are these questions, and how do they help people become better leaders?

00:05:20.460 Well, you know, one of the things that Peter Drucker, the great management theorist,

00:05:24.920 has been quoted as saying shortly before his death, is that in the future, meaning now,

00:05:32.560 questions are increasingly more important than answers. And that sort of thinking is the premise

00:05:38.500 for the book, because it's built on questions that can be applied in any leadership situation one

00:05:45.020 faces. That also means that each person will come to their own answers. And the people that do it best

00:05:51.500 will bring all their unique characteristics and experiences together to come up with answers

00:05:57.280 that serve others that no one else has done. So with that in mind, what the book does is offer

00:06:02.880 four questions throughout, as you pointed out. The first is the key one. Who are you serving?

00:06:08.820 The second, how can you best serve? And that goes to any given circumstance.

00:06:12.640 Then the next level up, are you making your unique contribution? And finally, are you getting

00:06:18.660 better every day? And if you think, as I hope you saw in the book, about those questions and apply

00:06:25.320 them, they can literally structure all of your thinking in an actionable way.

00:06:30.920 So James, you talked about at the beginning that there's been kind of a failure of leadership in

00:06:35.780 a lot of places in our society. Are there any leaders right now who exemplify the serve-to-lead

00:06:42.300 philosophy?

00:06:44.220 Yes. And let me name two or two types. One is Nelson Mandela, period. And the other is,

00:06:54.020 there are a lot of people you've not heard about yet in public forums, but you may be encountering,

00:06:59.520 whether it's at Walmart, either as a customer or working there, whether it's at the local church

00:07:05.940 or at a high school. I think there are many people who are not yet known in a public way who are

00:07:11.800 beginning to apply these things. And as they go, particularly young people, further in their

00:07:16.440 careers, you will see it in positional leadership as well, reflecting these changes. But among

00:07:21.800 renowned figures, the one that just flies out above all others who's today, thankfully, with us is

00:07:28.020 Nelson Mandela.

00:07:29.940 Now, James, you talked about how you like to try to go back to history and take lessons and

00:07:34.660 practical lessons from that. And you've actually, your two previous books, looked at two American

00:07:38.900 presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, and try to extrapolate lessons from their political

00:07:43.900 careers. What leadership lessons can a man take from Theodore Roosevelt? You know, we're big fans of

00:07:48.380 T.R. here at the Art of Manliness.

00:07:51.660 T.R. is the best, isn't he? T.R. is, he's been well called the most lovable president. And he's just a

00:08:00.260 spectacular figure, I think, because of history and the things you can't predict. And because we tend to

00:08:06.480 measure presidential greatness by victory in war, particularly, some of his very successes that

00:08:14.200 avoided war as president may have held him back a little. But even with that, he's constantly regarded

00:08:19.340 in this time period as among the handful of best presidents ever. And I think with really good reason.

00:08:25.620 Among his top lessons, the one that he would want everybody to look at his life and take away

00:08:31.400 is that character is the fundamental part of everything. And it doesn't matter so much what a

00:08:39.280 person accomplishes in a certain way in life. It matters what they are. That's what the lessons

00:08:45.260 are. He said that over and over and over again. He also believed very strongly that leaders are,

00:08:54.800 to the greatest extent, self-created. And that seems at first a little odd from him, because he came from

00:09:01.700 such a privileged background. But from his point of view, and also from the point of view of others who

00:09:07.780 were around him, the TR that became famous, that became president, that became the great leader,

00:09:13.700 was very much a self-created figure. And he would want everybody, he used to say boys, now he'd say

00:09:20.940 boys and girls, to be able to look at that life and get to their own greatest contribution.

00:09:27.080 So leaders are made, not born.

00:09:28.400 That's right. With this caveat, I absolutely believe that leaders are made, and I can see it in my world

00:09:37.980 and in my work, because you can have people make dramatic strides through adjusting habits of thinking

00:09:43.360 and habits of living. And it's measurable. You see it. People live it. They're affected by it.

00:09:50.320 At the same time, as in anything, there are obviously certain people who are supremely gifted.

00:09:56.640 Now, leadership, the nature of the gift may vary how it's valued in a given time, to some extent.

00:10:03.140 And I often think of it like basketball. Look, with respect to you, I'm sure you're a fine athlete,

00:10:09.760 but I bet that if you had the best coaching in the world, you're still not going to be Michael Jordan.

00:10:15.880 No, probably not. Definitely not.

00:10:17.560 But you could be a hell of a lot better. You could become a star. And that's, I think, how leadership is as well.

00:10:24.320 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:10:27.360 And now back to the show.

00:10:29.700 Was there a particular moment in Roosevelt's career that, you know, he showcased his exceptional leadership ability?

00:10:37.220 It's interesting because, as you know from reading TR and leadership and your own knowledge of Roosevelt,

00:10:43.080 that's already very great, he had a number of rather spectacular leadership moments.

00:10:50.000 And so I think, to me, what's most interesting is the one that he valued most.

00:10:55.100 And that, of course, would be his service in the Spanish-American War in 1898.

00:11:01.340 And you'll recall that even after he left the presidency, when he had his choice of honorifics,

00:11:08.440 he preferred to be called the colonel, not President Roosevelt.

00:11:12.460 Yeah, I thought it was interesting.

00:11:13.780 Edmund Morris is actually coming out with a new biography about his career after his presidency,

00:11:18.360 and it's called the colonel, I believe, or Colonel Roosevelt.

00:11:20.540 Absolutely. I'm sure it's going to be spectacular.

00:11:25.140 And like I'm sure you have done, I will be one of the first to have that flying my way when it comes out this October.

00:11:31.620 Exactly. So what about Ronald Reagan? He's pretty close to us in history.

00:11:36.640 I guess we've had some time to evaluate his impact as a leader.

00:11:41.080 What lessons in leadership can men take from Ronald Reagan?

00:11:45.080 Well, first, I guess, let's talk about men and men and women.

00:11:51.040 How's that?

00:11:51.940 Sounds good.

00:11:52.800 And I've got to say, I don't know how you think of it.

00:11:55.160 I've noticed sometimes on your outstanding website, some people take offense.

00:11:58.960 Sometimes they'll say manliness or whatever, and I'll be womanliness or something.

00:12:02.220 Well, a number, I don't take offense at it. I think it's great.

00:12:05.720 But I also recognize that a number of things that traditionally might be called manly traits in the good sense,

00:12:13.020 also women can have in a similar or their own way. 1.00

00:12:17.220 I'm sure you don't exclude them either.

00:12:18.700 Definitely not.

00:12:20.080 Reagan, when my book first came out a decade ago,

00:12:25.180 a lot of folks did not recognize yet universally how consequential he was.

00:12:31.000 And, of course, now everybody does, from all political parties,

00:12:34.000 no matter whether they like his views or not or what he did,

00:12:36.560 they recognize he is the very model of a consequential president.

00:12:41.320 And James McGregor Burns, one of the great historians who politically disagreed entirely with Reagan,

00:12:45.840 said that he, along with Franklin Roosevelt, would stand as the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century.

00:12:56.000 I think Reagan offers a number of lessons.

00:12:59.400 Of course, my book about Reagan is about them,

00:13:01.580 and it's going to come out again with an update late this year for Reagan's 100th anniversary, centennial.

00:13:07.500 And it's, by the way, got some very exciting new parts to it.

00:13:10.600 But I think that perhaps the biggest lesson goes back to your prior point,

00:13:15.060 and that is that he was also, to a very great extent, self-created as a leader.

00:13:20.880 He used to always say that he would try to make it look easy, but it wasn't.

00:13:26.340 And Reagan made a study of leadership, a study of leaders.

00:13:31.960 In fact, there are several contemporaries of his who wrote about situations

00:13:35.820 where they saw him observing leaders such as Eisenhower in public situations.

00:13:42.660 And that's, of course, what actors do.

00:13:44.960 They study very, very carefully in a way most people don't.

00:13:48.800 They listen better. They look more carefully.

00:13:51.000 Reagan had a lot of that.

00:13:52.140 And, of course, Franklin Roosevelt was his ultimate idea of kind of how a leader did the job.

00:14:00.020 Not Roosevelt's policy, but Roosevelt as a leader,

00:14:02.400 which in turn, you'll recognize, connects him in a sense to T.R.

00:14:07.640 because T.R. was Franklin Roosevelt's model.

00:14:11.000 Yeah. Yeah.

00:14:12.320 So what was Reagan's defining leadership moment?

00:14:16.320 You know, it's interesting.

00:14:18.280 That's a really good question.

00:14:20.680 If you ask most people, they would point to his public address in October 1964,

00:14:29.200 where he spoke on behalf of Barry Goldwater's sinking presidential campaign.

00:14:33.820 Goldwater and the campaign went to a record defeat.

00:14:37.240 But Ronald Reagan, who went on television to raise money for the campaign right before the election,

00:14:42.460 made a huge impression.

00:14:43.840 And from that began to be lifted rapidly in many people's minds toward the political elective route

00:14:52.820 that he had considered off and on for the prior 20 years.

00:14:55.840 But he actually then would take within two years running for governor of California.

00:14:59.760 And, of course, he first ran for president before he was governor, even two years.

00:15:04.840 People forget about that.

00:15:05.660 But I think Reagan, I would argue that what I find a really hinged time of his life

00:15:16.600 was at the immediate post-World War II period.

00:15:21.260 He had his marriage break up to Jane Wyman.

00:15:24.880 And that was very much outside of his worldview at that time.

00:15:28.140 And I needn't add, at that time it was also politically deadly, so it was thought,

00:15:32.040 until he was elected in 1980 to be divorced.

00:15:34.380 He also lost a baby girl shortly after her birth with Wyman right before the divorce.

00:15:42.900 He had health issues.

00:15:44.960 His career was in a bit of a down state.

00:15:47.940 He began to be fighting communists in Hollywood, and that was not just a little debating society thing.

00:15:54.460 There were people who threatened to disfigure his face with acid.

00:15:58.040 He often had to carry a gun.

00:15:59.260 And my guess is it was that period in which a lot of the traits that became so important for him,

00:16:06.820 particularly his spectacular self-containment.

00:16:10.620 If you look at key times in his presidency or in his life, for example, 1976, where he was losing every primary to President Ford,

00:16:21.080 almost in an embarrassing way, people all urged him to get out.

00:16:26.140 And he just sat there literally in his sort of granite-like way and just said, no, we're going to see it through.

00:16:33.020 And he came very close in the end.

00:16:35.460 In the early 80s, when the economic situation was grievous, the international situation was very tough,

00:16:43.040 he was, again, very self-contained, able to withstand that and hold to his views and work through it.

00:16:48.940 And likewise, late in his term, when you had a whole series of tough things happen, with the stock market crash,

00:16:58.320 you had problems with his immediate staff, you had the Iran-Contra affair, all this in the 96-97 period,

00:17:05.080 losing his party control of the Senate, his mother-in-law died, his wife got cancer.

00:17:10.440 It was a tremendously difficult time.

00:17:12.440 He got through all that and then had a last burst where he basically dispatched the Soviet Empire to oblivion 0.98

00:17:20.440 and, in so doing, reconfigured a lot of the political alignments because he wasn't entirely supported in that by his own side,

00:17:29.020 much less his political adversaries.

00:17:31.180 So that's a long way of saying I think that self-containment, that remarkable power to be engaged in the world

00:17:37.520 but to maintain that kind of separation may have really been tempered in that immediate post-World War II period.

00:17:44.900 So, James, we're coming to an end here.

00:17:47.000 Before we leave, any parting advice to our listeners on how they can improve their leadership skills today?

00:17:53.300 Well, you might imagine, I think the best possible way is to read Surf to Lead.

00:17:56.760 And the reason I say that is, again, I think the focus, if they could do one thing beginning this very moment after listening just to your outstanding podcast

00:18:08.680 and always reading your great website, it would be to begin by asking that one question, who are you serving?

00:18:15.520 And take a look at that every day.

00:18:17.200 Look at your life.

00:18:18.040 And that one question, and the book can help you then really work it through how it plays out in real life,

00:18:24.860 can begin to change your whole world and make your world a better one because you're serving others.

00:18:30.860 Excellent.

00:18:31.100 Well, James, it's been a pleasure.

00:18:33.160 Well, many thanks, Brad.

00:18:34.360 And again, thanks for all you do.

00:18:35.720 It's just a terrific delight to be with you, and I love all the work you do.

00:18:39.980 Thank you, sir.

00:18:41.700 Our guest today was James Strzok.

00:18:43.920 James is the author of the book, Serve to Lead, and you can purchase his book on Amazon.com.

00:18:49.720 And for more information about James' book, check out jamesstrzok.com.

00:18:57.400 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:19:01.900 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com.

00:19:08.320 And until next time, stay manly.

00:19:13.920 We'll see you next time.

00:19:15.640 We'll see you next time.

00:19:15.920 Bye.

00:19:16.920 Bye.

00:19:17.920 Bye.

00:19:18.920 Bye.

00:19:19.420 Bye.

00:19:19.920 Bye.

00:19:20.920 Bye.

00:19:21.920 Bye.

00:19:22.920 Bye.

The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2014

Episode #29： Serve to Lead with James Strock

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