Start With A Win - Solocast: The Truth About Leadership

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

In this episode of the Start With A Win podcast, Adam shares his insights on leadership and the ways many perspectives on the subject are missing the point. You are not a leader simply because of your job title or having people reporting directly to you. In fact, leading has nothing to do with who you are but rather what you do. Leadership is learned on-the-job, first-hand, by being responsible for other people and their outcomes. This responsibility spans from CEOs to stay-at-home parents, from little league coaches to real estate broker-owners, and is different than just “being in charge."Leadership involves an intentional daily practice of managing your emotions, attitudes, interactions, and actions. Take a moment to evaluate how you are doing in these areas. How are you leading through your attitudes and actions? What are you portraying to those you are influencing? What are people hearing and experiencing from you? This self-awareness should partner with a willingness to lead yourself as well. It is crucial people see you doing what you are telling them to do, setting that example and consistently living it out. Leading by example is especially important when leading within a company. Adam gives the example of encouraging RE/MAX employees to utilize video and directly communicate with clients by demonstrating those actions himself. Leadership is an opportunity and a responsibility that should not be taken lightly. Evaluate how you are doing, and then take steps to be better.Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContos https://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Hey, Mark, you know that word leadership? I love that word. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because a lot of people go, ooh, I need to go take a leadership class. But here's the reality. Leadership is not a class. So what is it?

Well, let's talk about that. Every day is filled with choices. You're here because you're choosing to start with a win. Get ready to be inspired, learn something new, and connect with the win nation. And coming to you from Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Contos, CEO of Remax with Start With A Win. In a very special presentation today, you know, we're going to be talking about leadership. So in the studio with me today, I have producer Mark. How you doing, buddy?

Oh, I'm doing fantastic. Awesome. And I guess we're in a virtual studio, right? Yeah, it's the virtual one. But you know, it's a great looking virtual studio. So if you are interested in actually watching us, you can head over to our YouTube channel and, you know, watch it or listen, watch from there. And you can get there just by getting on YouTube. Type in Adam Canto, CEO. Boom. Page will pop up.

You can subscribe. All that fun stuff. But I love this topic. Hit the whatever. All those fun things. The thumbs up. The bell. Do it all. You know subscribe, all that fun stuff. But I love this topic. Hit the bell, hit the whatever, all those fun things. The thumbs up, the bell, do it all. Just go big. It was a rating and review, whatever, all that stuff. And I think you should be a leader and whoever's listening to this should lead by going to that YouTube page and subscribing. Also, if you just listen passively to our podcast and you get on, you listen to it,

maybe click the subscribe link. Then you get notified every time that we release a new episode every Wednesday. And we got some quick wins that come out every other Friday. So that'll be a treat. But hey, today we're talking about leadership, which I think is a fantastic topic. And it's something that if you are a person who is responsible for other people, whether that's a family or whether that's employees, I think that this is a topic that we need to revisit constantly to remind ourselves. And so I'm very interested to hear what you have to say and talk about as far as leadership goes. So what do you got for us today, Adam? Okay. Well, I mean, first of all, people talk about being a leader. They're like, I'm a leader. And let's just kind of throw it out

here on the table and look at the hard truth. You're not a leader. There's no such thing as being a leader. I mean, nobody can give you the title and say, congratulations, Mark, you're not a leader. There's no such thing as being a leader. I mean, you just, nobody can give you the title and say, congratulations, Mark, you're now a leader. It just doesn't work that way because leading is not what you are. It's what you do. Okay. So it's a daily practice, a daily activity in how you structure your emotions, how you deal with other people, how you influence, how you carry your attitude, what you do with your ego, all these different things. So we're going to dig into all of this stuff today, but I want to kind of, I want to take a look at a couple of quotes here. First of all, what is leadership? Okay. What is leadership? Okay. What is leadership? It's getting people to want to do for their reasons

what you want them to do. Okay. So think about that. You're taking what you need to get done because ultimately you have a task that needs to be completed. It might be get more sales going in your business. It might be launch a marketing campaign. Who knows what it is? Maybe it's, I don't know, wash a car, but you want them to do something that you want done, but you want them to want to do it for their reasons and getting them to do that. So it's putting their why behind the results that you need to achieve. And that's not manipulative or that's not, you know, secretive in any way. It's just what you're trying to do is you're trying to find a common cause that you're both working towards and get people's attention and devotion to working on that. And here's another one. This is from Tom Landry, Getting people to do what they originally didn't want to do

to achieve what they want to achieve. Getting people to do what they didn't want to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve. Exactly. It's like this dichotomy of thought where you've got this, well, they want want the results but they don't want to take the action in order to get the results right everybody wants to win the game but do they want to go to practice every single day over and over and over again to win the game nobody wants to go to the practice right exactly nobody wants to win the game yeah they want the satisfaction of going, I'm the best. I just won. Yay, we did it. But really, it's kind of fascinating because those that become incredibly successful as leaders and really moving business along or a sports team or whatever it might be,

they're infatuated with that process of getting through the process, not with that result. So they're leading the process. They're not leading the result. The result comes from the process. Yeah. I was talking to somebody about this the other day, just saying how I've found so much more gratification and I would even say success in life when I learned to love the process. I think there's so many times that we see this goal or this thing we want to achieve. And so then we're always, our heads are always in the future. We're always not being present. And as soon as I kind of changed my mindset on that, I started just enjoying life more and then looking forward

to like Mondays, like, Ooh, I can't wait for, to, to work on this process, you know? So, and then when you get the win and that big success, it's great and it's awesome, but then it's like, all right, like, let's get back to, you know, the day-to-day, the work, you know? So. Oh, exactly. It is. It's fascinating because when you look at truly what is, uh, those that lead or leaders or whatever you want to call them, I mean, what are they responsible for? They're responsible for owning the outcome, right? Right. So you either own the positive outcome or you own the mediocre outcome or you own the negative outcome. Right. And it's just the reality as somebody who leads, you just need to say, I own the outcome. If it's fantastic,

that's great. If it sucks, that's just the way it is. But I own the outcome because I own the process. I own the process of influencing people to get these things done. Right. And it seems to me too, that like leadership is kind of earned as well, right? Like, like you can maybe put in a leadership position, but I think in order to motivate people or to get them to do what you want them to do, you kind of have to earn that, that trust and that lead, I guess that leadership title, right? Like you can be in charge, but being in charge and being a leader, I think are kind of two different things. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's being in charge means somebody said, Hey, you're in charge,

but being a leader truly means that you have, as you said, you've earned that trust, that confidence, you know, that enthusiasm of the people that you're truly leading, that you're theoretically in charge of when I put up my air quotes here and it's not a position, it's an action. It is truly how you influence all those people around you. So just to peel this away a little bit more. So I've said, you know, leadership is not a class and you look at it and you go, Ooh, I'm going to go to a leadership course. All right. Well, what are you doing in this leadership course? They're not, you don't get to be a leader walking out the door of this leadership course. Basically what you're doing is you're looking at different case studies of how people influence. It could be like Winston Churchill

or General Patton or Barack Obama or who knows who, George Bush. I mean, pick some leaders in this world. World leaders influence people. Sometimes they influence for good. Sometimes they influence for bad. But the reality is they're influencing people to do things. That is leadership. Now, your judgment of whether or not it's good or bad isn't functionally whether or not they were able to influence people. The question is, were they able to influence people, yes or no? We get to judge based on our morals and values. Were they good for humanity or bad for humanity or good for taxes or economy or whatever it is? But the reality is, if they're leading, they're getting people to do things. And maybe they're making a mistake or maybe they're doing

things extraordinarily well. The reality is, they're trying to lead. They're trying to influence people by building that enthusiasm, that trust, that effort behind it. So leadership is not a class. It's a way of life. It's a combination of your attitudes and your actions. So your attitudes and your actions, how do I feel about this and what do I project about it? Am I having an attitude of kindness and generosity and helpfulness? I mean, look at Jesus, for instance. Okay. Yeah, let's look at it. I mean, for crying out loud, talk about somebody who could influence, right? Yeah. You know, attitudes and actions and, and, you know, ultimate sacrifice for the people that he leads. So you, you, you look at it and you go, wow. Okay. And then you look at, you know,

take and look around the room that you're in, and maybe you're listening to this on the treadmill or in your car or sitting in a, you know, on a couch someplace, how are you leading through your attitudes and actions? And take a step back and put yourself in the shoes of somebody who sees you, who watches you lead through those attitudes and actions? And what are you portraying? Because people will not just follow you based on what you say. They won't. They will follow you based on what they hear and what they experience, the combination of those two things. Right. Yeah. And I think it's such a powerful thing. And like you brought up Jesus, right? The ultimate example of like someone who changed history forever by just leading by example, right? Like he just said, hey, do what I did and be loving, kind, peaceful, generous,

all these other kinds of things. But that really makes us turn our attention not towards the people that we're leading, but it really makes us turn the attention towards us as what we're doing, what actions are we taking? Are we doing what we say or just telling people to do what we say? Wow. Okay. Great question because you actually lead right into my next note item here, Mark. All right. Good. It's like you're leading this conversation,

man. Listen, we're buddies. I figure we've been doing this for a long time. You get it. You get it. So, all right. So this is a great question because you can't lead others unless you're willing to lead yourself. Okay. I mean, that's, that's truly the answer to your question there is if you're not willing and very visibly demonstrating your desire to lead yourself, you can't lead others. Why? Because you're a freaking hypocrite then. All right. I mean, not just a hypocrite, a freaking hypocrite. Freaking one. Yeah. It's, it's the whole say one thing and do another. And you just, you can't live your life like that. And here's why people hear one thing, they see another and they do what they see, not what they hear most of the time. So people are influenced by what they see you doing. And there's this story, I'm going to butcher this story, but it's so true,

where this guy rides up to these soldiers who are digging this fortification many, many years ago. They're shoveling out this fortification to put a cannon in it or something like that. And there's a guy there standing there managing them, supervising them, saying, dig, dig, dig out the fortification. And this man rides up on a horse. And he says, how come you're not digging? And the guy goes, because I'm in charge. Well, the man gets off the horse and helps them dig out this fortification. And then he gets back on his horse and the man says, why did you do that? He said, because I'm in charge. And it was general George Washington that got off his horse to help them dig out the fortification.

And I'll tell you what, that man who stood there managing dug out the next fortification too. Right. So it was, you know, an example of you can't ask somebody to do something that you're not willing to do yourself. And that we can't get that confused for, you know, trained skills. So like, for instance, if you're leading a bunch of pilots, but you don't know how to fly an airplane, don't go out and try and fly an airplane. Just be transparent with them and say, look, I don't fly airplanes, but I'm here to help you maximize your ability to do so. So there are certain skills that, you know, like the heart surgeon is probably not supervised by a heart surgeon. They're supervised by a medical director.

Right. And that medical director does not need to know how to do heart surgery, but they need to know how to support the heart surgeon. It's not a binary, if you can't do it, you can't lead it. It's a, can you support somebody that's doing it with your leadership? And that's, you know, an important aspect of, are you willing to lead these people? Because the predominantly, if somebody sees you trying to lead for them, they're going to try and lead themselves back as well. So if you're not leading yourself, it's like, you know, have you ever had a personal trainer, Mark? Yeah. Yeah. You know, would, would you have a personal trainer who was morbidly obese?

Absolutely not. You want that trainer that's on point, you know, you're like, oh, I want to look like this guy. You know, they, they, that is a function of, let me show you how I'm leading myself so I can lead you. And, And that's not to be down on anybody who's overweight. That's just the reality of, hey, there are a lot of things where if you can't teach it, if you can't demonstrate it, which you're fully capable of doing, you are not capable of leading it. So we do what we see, not what we hear. And that's because of these things in our brain called mirror neurons, and that's how babies learn. If you see a baby and you smile at the baby and the baby smiles back, that's them learning how to smile. Interesting.

So that's fundamentally how leadership is. If you have a group of military people, troops, and they line up for inspection and their leader who comes to inspect them looks like crap, their shoes aren't polished, their uniforms wrinkled, it doesn't fit, their decorations, their ribbons, whatever, all out of place. What kind of inspiration does that give the troops? Really none. They're like, I'm being inspected by somebody who's not willing to do what they're asking me to do. So there's a fundamental major aspect of life. It's the same thing with leading in a company, leading in a company. So people look at me, I have 600 employees, okay? 600 partners in this business, 600 families that I care about in my organization. Not to say I don't care about other

families, but I feel responsible for them directly. And they look at me and they go, how is this guy being the best leader possible? How is he caring about himself and caring about us? I have to set the example. So I'm up each day. I ask them to be on video to our customers. I'm on video every day. I ask them to communicate. I'm on the phone with our customers pretty much every single day. And last week, I even went to another state and had lunch with one of our customers because

I really care about that customer. And it's demonstrating what you want others to be doing yourself. And you've got to holistically lead. Yeah. And I find too, in those situations where you may not have the skill or what not to do exactly what one person that you're leading is doing. I find that sometimes it's just them knowing that I'm willing to stay up late with them or to go the extra mile to get something done so that it makes their job easier. I feel like that goes a long way too as a leader where it's like, yeah, I may not be able to do this particular thing that you do, but I'm going to do my best to show you that I'm willing to go the extra mile and put in the work to help you get the thing done that needs to get done.

Bingo. And just to kind of put a bow on this whole podcast about leadership here, some of these concepts, here's one thing that I'll close with Mark. And that is the positive and negative of leadership, the positive and negative of leadership, because people will not just follow you and your influence of doing the right thing. They will follow you and your influence of doing the wrong thing as well. It's interesting when you look at this, because if you take a look at, let's say the pandemic, for instance, I had to make a distinct, absolute, certain statement to those that I lead during the beginning and throughout the pandemic.

And that distinct, certain statement was, I'm confident our organization will come out doing well, helping people being okay through this. And that's how people thought then. Because if I came out and I said, oh my gosh, this is horrible. I don't know what's going to happen. Who knows? This is terrible. How do you think everybody else is going to act? Yeah, the same way. Exactly. Exactly. So leadership is not just this opportunity for you.

It is a dedicated responsibility of anybody who's been put in that position. And I take this back to this Aristotle quote that I absolutely love. It was about habits, but it's also about leadership. And Aristotle's quote is, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. So make your positive leadership a habit. Make it something that you strive for excellence in every day, both verbally as well as visually, and get in front of those you lead. So that's what I've got for you on leadership today, Mark. Hopefully we enlighten some people, we open their eyes a little bit, because growing a business does not work if you don't have leadership. It's not just about sales. You got to lead first in order to get those sales.

I love it. I love it. Hey guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks for listening to Start with a Win. If you'd like to ask Adam a question or tell us your Start with a Win story, give us a call and you can leave us a message at 888-581-4430. And there might be a chance we'll actually play that response on the show. Don't forget to go onto iTunes and subscribe, write a review and rate the show. And for more great content, head over to startwithawin.com.

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