You are a good leader: Yes or No? This is the second of a two-part conversation, about five characteristics of exceptional leaders.
Podcast Transcript
Joshua MacLeod:
I love the quote, the Maxwell quote, “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can,” leaders aren’t complaining about, what they don’t have, or letting what they don’t have define their actions.
Podcast Announcer:
Welcome to the Growability podcast, teaching business and nonprofit leaders. A more excellent way to run a business. Visit growability.com for your leadership, coaching consultation and business collaboration needs. Are you comfortable in your own shoes? This is the second of a two-part conversation, about five characteristics of exceptional leaders. Here are your hosts, Joshua MacLeod, and Bernie Anderson.
Bernie Anderson:
So comfortable with your own shoes, comfortable with your style. So those are the first two. What’s the next one?
Joshua MacLeod:
Okay. The third S is comfortable with your screw-ups. Yes, probably the most important one ever. When I was in my litigation services career, I spent the first year knocking on doors, trying to go through “the front door.” I could not get an attorney that was on “the small end” of legal services to even return my call…. the paralegals wouldn’t call me back. And after a year of frustration, I was just like, this is the hardest industry in the world. I’m never going to do anything legal, but I had that mover and shaker in me that was like, okay, I’m going to just, I’m not going to give up. So I was doing a deposition, videotaping a deposition and I met an attorney and I said, Hey, you guys really need to check out the legal tech services that we offer. And so he was like, oh yeah, that sounds good. We have these weekly lunches. You seem like a smart guy. Why don’t you come out? So I got a presentation set up. It was the back door. I was at the deposition. I would have never been able to get this attorney on the phone. So he was at an uppity up partner at one of the biggest law firms in town. So I got set up, I got my projector, I got my screen. I put my PowerPoint together. So I’m going to give a presentation to a group of attorneys. And I decided that I’m going to lead off with an attorney joke. So I go up the escalator, I get to the top of the escalator and I opened the room into the conference room that I’m going to give this presentation in. And there’s a table in this room. That’s like bigger than my house. And like, we’re on the top floor of one of these skyscrapers downtown. There’s a table with like a hundred chairs around it. I set up the screen and the projector and my screen at the end and all these attorneys start coming in. It’s time to start. And I give my attorney joke… And not a single person in like a hundred attorneys sitting this room even smiled or snickered or anything. They all looked at me like you are the most pathetic human in the entire world. We are the big dog. You were an idiot. What are you doing? How did this guy get past the guard to come and give the presentation? And literally I struggled through that presentation and I left and I was just like, I quit with litigation service. I’m not going to do this. But here’s the thing. The attorney that invited me, he wasn’t there that day. He had to go out of town. So he wasn’t at my horrible presentation. And he called me and he said, Hey, will you help me with this case? I’m going to work on. Right. So I was like, yeah, absolutely. And I went over and I helped him learn a technology. He went out with this case, ane he won a $60 million lawsuit, which was the largest verdict against the state in this individual case. And then he told everybody about how amazing this tech was and how the supp...