Executives, business owners, and leaders in different industries across the world may find themselves in situations where they are forced to rely on external factors or resources in order to find a solution. And in their time as leaders and executives, there may be times when they find themselves lacking the resources to fix problems. There might be no room in the budget, not enough personnel, not enough training resources, or not enough time to implement a specific strategy. But that’s not where the road ends for a true leader.
John Morales welcomed Dave Durand onto Morning Air to talk about the five resources that every leader always has access to. And these five will lead you to the tangible resources that you require to find logistical, financial, ad operational solutions.
1. Decision. Dave talked about how he used to ask his kids what the most powerful thing in the world is. And he finally got them into the habit of saying, “Decision.” While yes, God’s love is perpetual, permanent, and all-powerful, that love is undebatable. But Dave is saying the decision is the most powerful because we have the power to either accept that love or reject it. Just so, in a position of leadership and management, we have the power to make decisions: whether to build a new building, whether to hire this new employee, whether to move forward with a campaign. Those decisions can make or break an entity and we should recognize how powerful decision is.
When making decisions, a leader will weigh the occasion and the timeliness required for this specific decision and act accordingly. A business lunch should not take hours to organize, nor should one go out and whimsically buy a car without thinking. The lunch decision should be made quickly but prudently, and the car should be contemplated. But once a decision has been made, a leader acts on that decision swiftly.
2. Conviction. “Conviction is an energizer. It is power behind things.” If you tell your team and the people around you that you’re going to do something, but you do it passively, nobody will be convinced of your confidence or trust in your actions. Getting your team to trust in you and find loyalty requires influence. Influencing people to do bad things would require manipulation. Influencing people to do good things requires conviction.
Many people say, “I’m too nice to be a leader,” which implies that all good leaders are rude or mean, which is false. To be a good leader with conviction, you have to be willing to tell people things that they might not want to hear in order to reach a common goal. Leading by example requires conviction, confidence, an authentic level of enthusiasm, and honesty.
3. Love. Dave said that whenever he’s in a business environment, he grows weary of people that say, “Trust me, I’m a Christian. Trust me.” Anybody that wants something from you, whether it be resources, attention, trust, or loyalty without earning it is immediately suspicious. Counterintuitively, they’ve made themselves less trustworthy. Instead, they should show that they are worthy of those things by living out faith, hope, and love like a true Christian.
In the board rooms of the organizations that he built, Dave used to tell his senior leaders, “I want you to love your people to success.” That’s not asking them to immediately trust the process or blindly follow suit. Loving your people to success means directing your team towards the common goal and then going out of your way to sacrifice yourself for their success. Accept feedback where necessary. Challenge others when necessary. Love your people to success.
4. Forgiveness. Dave said this resource is the one that goes the most overlooked. While one half of the world has given into laziness, the other has embraced the competitive nature of the workplace, and many have gotten carried away. No longer are they a member of a team. They’re a runner in a race. Disappointment and frustration at the way somebody treated you can turn into grudges, retribution, and withholding power. But that doesn’t do anything good for anybody.
Goodness begets goodness just as misery begets misery. If you want to show somebody that you’re willing to put the team before yourself, you will embrace forgiveness. And if the person you forgive is truly a team player, the sacrifice you’re making will be obvious.
5. Encouragement. Encouragement is helpful both to the people who need it and to the people who don’t. It’s easy for great people to be great when things are going great. But great people are also capable of performing well in suboptimal conditions. So, a great leader or mentor will recognize when he needs to sacrifice his good conditions for those on his team who need better conditions. Dave compared this to someone who gives their oxygen tank to somebody else who might be struggling to breathe. It’s going to become more difficult for that first person to breathe, but they know they are capable of withstanding the difficulty. The second person might not be.
Encouragement is a temporary support, like jumpstarting a car with a dead battery. It’s short and can’t be infinitely perpetuated, but it can be the boost that someone needs to get past the obstacle they’re currently struggling with and find renewed vigor.
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