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Resources
- The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
Transcript
Hey friend, in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what makes a leader successful and what makes a business successful.
And it’s important to kind of define it because many people have different definitions of success. So when it comes to a business, like what makes a business truly successful? When it comes to a leader, in a sense, how do we define a leader and how do we define success of a leader?
Because depending how you define it is the outcome that you get.
So for example, sometimes people say, oh, that person has this or this such quality, he’s such a leader. Okay, so maybe they are, say, charismatic, for example. So they have people who follow them. Does that mean they’re a leader?
Where if you define a leader as someone who just has someone follow them, then yes, that’s a leader.
Or do you define it as someone who’s a good leader, who gets good results, who treats people well? I mean, what do you define as a leader? And do you define it as the outcome, or just the fact that they have someone follow them?
Because people can be charismatic, people can have people follow them, but that doesn’t mean they get good results. And I think sometimes that’s the danger of sometimes when people talk about certain qualities or this person’s leader, he’s this type of leader, he’s this style of leader, he’s this, they focus on certain aspects because people are following them or they have a good quality, but it doesn’t mean they actually are an effective leader. They don’t necessarily get good results. And I think that’s important to think about.
So when it comes to leadership, what do you define as leadership? When you think of a leader and you’re thinking of qualities, or you’re thinking of what makes a good leader, do you think about the results or just the fact that they have people follow them, or they give the appearance of it?
And similar with business, how do you define success with business? Simon Sinek in his book, The Infinite Game, talks about two kind of games. He talks about the finite game and the infinite game.
Now with the finite game, it’s something like chess, football, soccer, baseball, whatever, there’s set rules that you follow and there’s an ending. You know when you’re done. Like someone wins, someone loses. It’s a finite game.
But there’s also infinite games that they keep going. And they go and the rules change over time, the way things work over time. There’s never actually a win where, okay, it’s ended, we’ve won, it keeps going.
For example, if you think of relationships as a game, relationships are an infinite thing. Your friendships, the way the government works, government planning and goals and going forward, there’s no end to it.
Same thing with business. It’s an infinite game. The rules change. The way the things work changes and there’s not really a set end. There’s not really a way to say we won. Even saying, hey, we’re the best, that’s very relative. How do you say you’re the best? What defines best?
Does it mean you’re making the most money? Does it mean you have the best customer service? Does it mean that most people follow you on social media? What makes you the best? And how do you define that?
That’s a very relative term.
The problem with a lot of businesses is they don’t think in an infinite mindset, in long term. They think very finite. They think a certain goal, boom, I’m done. They think in the frame of making money now.
One of the things that Simon Sinek talks about is, I think it was Milton Friedman, and the theory that businesses need to focus solely on the shareholders and getting them their return. And that, and he talks about, that has really destroyed the effectiveness of a lot of businesses, because people focus on that versus people versus purpose, and it has a lot of negative consequences.
It’s a very finite game. And so a lot of businesses, they have very short-term thinking because of that. Their goal is to make money this quarter. Their goal is to make money, show growth, show profit for this quarter, for this period of time, and that’s what’s making them successful.
But the problem is, often, that ends up in long-term failure because they’re propping up their business to show growth. They do acquisitions, they do layovers, they do all this stuff just to show growth, just to show wealth, just to show money coming in so they can show something to their shareholders, to whoever’s looking, and long-term they’re killing themselves because they have a very short-term thinking versus a thinking of the infinite game, the long-term.
So people are hurt, the businesses hurt long term, and that’s why many businesses fail, because they have that finite mindset. So when it comes to success as a business, what makes it successful? Is it making money right now? Is it making money in this quarter? Is it showing growth? Or is it kind of more of a long-term thing?
If you are sacrificing long-term for short-term, are you really being successful? If you’re thinking long-term, and you’re doing things to implement long-term growth and long-term success, that may mean short-term you make less money.
That may mean short-term you don’t show growth. Is that bad? Is that failing? In my opinion, no.
I think long-term is the way to look. But it all depends how you define success. And many people view business in that very finite mindset.
Let’s go back and focus on the leader again. So what makes a leader successful? Is it just that people follow them? Is it that they just get results? Is it that they’re successful while they’re the leader?
What makes them successful? Because if you look at it, sometimes leaders come in and they seem successful while they’re there in the business and executive, CEO, or just different parts of the company. They’re in that part, they do well, they make money, or whatever they’re defining as success for that leader, and they leave and then everything falls apart. And for that leader, he’s like…
But is that really success? Is when the leader leaves, things fall apart after the leader, was that leader truly successful?
In my opinion, no, because an effective leader is one who prepares for succession. An effective leader is one who raises up other leaders.
People can come in and their force of will bring about some results. But if it’s their force of will and they have yes men and yes women always following them and saying yes to whatever they do, group think and people don’t innovate and think for themselves and they leave and everything falls apart, were they really successful? In my opinion, no.
If leader gets results and they do well for the company in whatever metric they’re looking at but they treat their people poorly and badly and they end up being a toxic leader, were they really successful? In my opinion, again, no.
Because part of me thinks about, okay, they had some results. But what kind of results would they have been if they used influence, if they treated people well, if they built a good culture?
They may have gotten results, but what better results could they have gotten?
So, how do you define success? How do you define a leader and what makes leaders successful? How do you define what makes a business successful? Because how you define it matters. As for me, I look at what makes an effective leader gets good results.
Just because someone may be charismatic doesn’t mean they’re a great leader. In fact, in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, he found that the non-charismatic leaders were more effective generally than the charismatic ones. I look at business as more of the infinite game. I think it’s about treating everyone well, all stakeholders well, and thinking long term, not just short-term results.
So when you hear me talking about leadership and great leadership and good leadership, that’s what I mean. When I’m talking about business and a successful business, I’m thinking the long-term view. And I hope you do too.
Thank you for listening. If you have any comments, questions, just go to nomorebadleaders.com and send me a message. See you next time.
