Why No More Bad Leaders (Episode 1)

Transcript

Hello friend. In this episode, we’re going to talk about the why of this podcast, the why of No More Bad Leaders.

Well, a lot of it goes back to a lot of the experiences I’ve had with leadership. I know throughout the years, throughout the different bosses and situations I’ve been in, I’ve experienced a lot of bad leadership.

And it’s hurt me in a lot of ways. It has caused me a lot of frustration and pain and heartache. And I’ve even quit jobs because of the leadership. You may have experienced similar in your life as well.

I want you to think about some of the experiences you have had with negative or bad leadership and the heartache and pain and frustration that caused you.

Maybe you quit a job because of it. Or maybe if you haven’t really experienced it, you may know other people who have.

And the thing is, with bad leadership, there’s actually two things. First is that there’s so much of it. Now I know just looking around in my experiences, I’ve experienced and seen and see a lot of bad and negative leadership.

But the stats show it too.

 If you look at the stats between, depending which one you look at, 60 to 80 something percent of people are disengaged in their jobs, which ultimately goes back to leadership. At least one out of every two people who were surveyed have quit a job because of leadership.

And another one said that 70 something percent of respondents said that their leaders were toxic. There is so much bad leadership out there.

And it’s scary because everything rises and falls on leadership.

Everything, the success of a company, of a non-profit, of a school system, of your kids being educated, it all goes back to leadership.

And it’s scary because there’s so much negative leadership. And it keeps us from where we could be.

 Think about it, if we had good leadership, where would our school systems be? Where would our government be?

Where would our businesses be and nonprofits and all of those things if we had good leadership?

Think about the positive outcome that we would have if we had great leadership as the norm and sort of negative leadership.

Here’s the thing about bad leadership. No one thinks they are a bad leader. I want you to think about that.

Think about some of the worst bosses or leaders you’ve had or have seen. Do they think they are a bad leader?

My guess is no.

Rarely you may could find somebody, but most people think they are good leaders, no matter how bad they are. And it makes sense because first, as humans, we do rationalize our behaviors. We like to think well of ourselves, and often we rationalize and make excuses of our behaviors and try to see ourselves in a positive light.

But there’s a couple other reasons as well.

One is that I think sometimes people are put into a position of leadership, but they’re not trained or trained well. They just have a superficial view of leadership from what they’ve seen in other people, or what the kind of common internet search reveals, and they don’t really understand what good leadership is.

And part of that too, number two, but part of that as well is a lot of what is out there, because a lot of money is spent on training, but a lot of the stuff out there when you search, on the LinkedIn memes and all of that, it’s common knowledge, common practice.

 Or it’s superficial. Or there’s misconceptions. Or not complete truths on those things. And it’s hurting us.

And I want you to think about that when it comes to common knowledge and common practice, is that if common knowledge and common practice was right, if what is commonly taught and presented is right, why do we still have so much bad leadership? If it’s right, why isn’t it working?

I’ve come to equate common knowledge and common practice to wrong knowledge and wrong practice in general because so much of it is out there, is not necessarily 100% accurate, or it’s so superficial, and I think people get these perceptions of what leadership is and it’s wrong and it’s hurting them as a leader and it’s hurting us as a society.

So when it comes to this podcast, our goal is kind of in sense twofold. One, right now the trend seems to be bad leadership is the norm.

So we want to end the trend of bad leadership and we want to create a world where great leadership is the norm.

 So there’s two things I ask of you. First is to examine yourself and see where you are at as a leader. The thing is, it’s okay if you’re a bad leader right now. It’s okay if you’re making mistakes, if you’re not what people would consider a great leader, because what’s important is that you recognize it and then you work to be great.

Everybody’s at a different part of leadership. Leadership is a process. You’re not just gonna be, boom, I’m the greatest, best leader ever. It’s a process.

So it’s okay if you’re not there yet. What matters is if you’re working toward it.

Second, I ask that you join the mission of creating the world where great leadership is the norm. I encourage you to share this podcast and any resources we mentioned to people you know so they can also grow and be a leader so that over time we can create that world that we’re talking about, where great leadership is the norm.

So in these episodes, we’re going to talk about different aspects of leadership. We’re going to talk about bad leadership, talk about good leadership, talk about different mistakes that leaders make and principles of leadership and so on, just so you can grow and hopefully help encourage others to grow as well.

I’m excited. I hope you are too. And I’ll see you in the next episode.