I make a difference, but I can't do it alone: Barry Posner at TEDxUnversityofNevada

[Applause] today I want to tell you about two truths about leadership you make a difference and you can't do it alone now I could make leadership much more complex than that if you took uh a moment on Google and put the word leadership in in 25 seconds you'd come up with 148 million hits you can make leadership complex let me make it simple you make a difference and you can't do it alone now let me tell you why I think that those are two important truths for us to remember so that we don't get lost you make a difference you might ask the question who's the very first person that's got to follow you very first person that's got to follow you now some of you are hoping I can tell you who that person is you've been looking around for a while wondering who is that person and when will they come into my life but let me tell you it's not a complex question ask the question who's the first person that's got to follow you and the answer is the simple answer is it's got to be you first person that's got to believe in you is you the first person that's got to pay attention to you is you the first voice of self-doubt that you have to deal with is the little voice inside of yourself that says gez if this is such a good idea how come I thought of it right I mean how come somebody how come somebody and you f like how come somebody with more education more age more experience more salary why isn't somebody else already thought of this but you see if you can't believe in it yourself then it's hard to imagine that you can get anybody else to believe in it if you're not willing to follow yourself hard to imagine that anybody else is going to be willing to follow you so leadership begins with this belief in yourself and it begins with an exploration of the inner your territory it begins with an understanding of who you are and what you're about and what you care about because answering those questions are important to you to try to figure out given all the choices that you have in front of you what am I going to do with myself how am I going to use myself what is it that I care about what is it that I'd be willing to put my time and energy into I'd be willing to suffer for even sacrifice for truth of the matter is you make a difference and it's easier when you know who you are it's easier to figure it out now I had a a business executive recently in my leadership class I introduced him to the class as you would any any senior executive I want you to to meet Spencer he's got these degrees this experience this education these accomplishments and welcome him here today and Spencer got up to the front of the class and he thanked me for that gracious introduction but then he said to the students he said well I appreciate Barry's introduction but all Barry has told you is what I've done he hasn't told you who I am and if my insights on leadership are going to make any sense to you then you need to know who I am and I'll tell you this he said knowing who I am has been enormously helpful to me in figuring out what I would do and how I would go about doing it and Spencer's comments were echoed by a student 25 5-year-old student in an MBA class that I had when I was at the University at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Olivia told me this she said at my personal best when I was at my personal best as a leader I realized that the first thing that I needed to do was I needed to figure out my values and my principles and just this last year I conducted a a leadership seminar for a national leadership seminar sponsored by campfire we had had 100 high school students from around the country I met one of those students telling me again about his personal best leadership experience and Jason said you know I said when I was in high school he said I was a goof off he said I joined this club I joined this club because my older brother and his friends were members of this club but then all of a sudden they graduated and they turned around and they made me the president and he said all of a sudden I needed to figure out for myself that I couldn't be a goof off anymore I needed to figure out within myself and for myself what I thought was important and why I thought it was important and then he said I needed to make sure that my behavior was consistent with those values now you know we can make this a lot more complex traditional uh thinking has it that somehow leadership happens at the top of organizations myth and Legend somehow says that it's reserved for uh for people who have who are cares mad and kissed by the gods only a select few people but when we've talked with people at the times that they've been at their personal best for 30 years we've been asking thousands of people to tell us about that experience and you know what everybody's got a story to tell everybody's got a story to tell now you be the leadership scientist for a moment and just think about this you spend 30 Years Around the World asking all kinds of people tall people short people thick people thin people blue people green people you ask all kinds of people to tell you about a time that they've been as a been as a leader and they'll tell you about a time leadership is broadly distributed in the population we'll never know when we hear the call to lead to make a difference in our schools our families our homes our communities our unions our congregations if we don't know who we are and if we don't know that what we do matters and what we say is important but you know if this were the only truth if this were the only truth it would lead to it would lead to huus and arrogance you'd begin to think that leadership was all about you and it was and it was all about you the leader even Martin Luther King put it this way he said I have a dream and he described that dream as his four children walking hand inand safely down the street with your four children and then he said I have a dream but in order for this dream to happen we we'll have to struggle together we will have to fight together we will have to go to jail together see the truth is you make a difference but it's also true that you can't do it all by yourself you can't do it alone if you think about the definitions of leadership in the academic literature there are hundreds of definitions of leadership and I presume every one of you has your own definition but if you took a moment to think about the essence of your definition of leadership the kernel the essence what's it really come down to see if you answered this question I know that someone is a leader because fill in the blank I know someone is a leader because you ask the question because because what is it that they do what what happens how do you know well I'm sure You' come up with lots of different answers to it but let me tell you that I think the simplest answer to the question I know someone is a leader is because they have followers hard to imagine that you can be a leader without a follower we've already said the first person that's got to follow you is you but if you find yourself walking forward and you turn around and there's nobody there then I suspect you're just out for a walk in the park leadership's a relationship it's a relationship between those who would lead and those who would choose to follow and why would people choose to follow you well the Paradox for us as Leaders is that leaders turn their followers into leaders see if you're going to be a leader you have to be a leader leader that makes it possible for other people to lead often times when we ask people to tell us about the times that they've been at their personal best as Leaders it wasn't unusual for them to tell us well here's here's what one young man charl in Australia said he said you asked me to tell you about my personal best he said I can't because it wasn't me it was us another financial analyst in Europe put it this way she said to us no matter how capable a leader is he or she won't be able to accomplish anything without the joint efforts that come from the team leadership's not a solo act it's not a monologue it's a dialogue it's a conversation and leaders develop relationships between themselves and their teammates their colleagues their constituents and within and they do that largely by having the interest of others ahead of their own interests maybe you remember the Academy Award winning film called as good as it gets it won an Academy Award for Jack Nicholson and an Academy Award for Helen Hunt the two main actors in this movie if you remember the film I'm going to tell you about a scene about three4 of the way through the film Jack Nicholson plays a character named Melvin who's a writer but he's got some obsessive compulsive disorder he doesn't seem to like very many people doesn't seem to have very much nice to say about anybody Helen Hunt plays a woman named Carol a waitress and for a variet of reasons they get thrown together and they're in a in a restaurant and finally Carol turns to turns to Melvin and says something like this she says look you're about the most miserable person I've ever been with you have nothing nice to say about anybody or anything and I'm getting sick and tired of it so I'll tell you what I want you to give me a compliment I'm going to make this really easy for you you just give me a compliment but if you can't then I'm going to get up I'm going to walk out this door and I'm never going to talk to you again so you know Mel takes this breath and he says to her he turns to her and he says to her something like this you make me want to be a better person and Carol says gee I think that's maybe the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me in my life now think about what Melvin was saying in this relationship I'm better off being in this relationship than I would be if I were all by myself being in this relationship makes me better off than I would be than if I were all by myself now put that into an organizational context and isn't that what we want we want to know that being with you working with you being in this organization will make me better than it would be if I were someplace else I want to be in this organization and with you because you believe in me you see greatness in me you give me chances to do things that maybe I don't even think I'm ready to do it's a relationship and the relationship is Central if you think about it how many of you are in relationships and if you are in a relationship how many of you would stay in a relationship in which you knew that the other person thought you were an idiot well psychologically healthy people making a great assumption here there's a wonderful uh pop rock song called according to you and the and the and the singer says something like this according to you I'm stupid I'm useless I can't do anything right but according to him I'm beautiful I'm incredible he can't get me out of his head and then she says why can't you see me through his eyes well that's what it's about it's about wanting to be in a relationship in which people have our best interest at heart and they think that we're great and those are the people we want to be with and we want to work with and we want to do great things with in fact I submit to you that we'll work harder and more effectively for people we like and we like them in direct proportion to how they make us feel and the research is quite clear about this if you ask the question why do some managers get get get ahead in an organization and some don't it all has to do with the quality of the relationships with the people that they have in the organization and you look at studies HR studies that ask the question why do people leave an organization and the most typical response is people don't quit their companies they quit their managers they quit the relationship well I told you I had two points I wanted you to try to remember you make a difference and you can't do it alone now I think if you can put these on your dashboard you'll never get lost I make a difference and I can't do it alone thank [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 63,897

Keywords: ted x, TEDx, United States, ted talk, TEDxUniversityofNevada, tedx talk, Leadership, tedx, Reno, English, tedx talks, Barry Posner, ted, Nevada, ted talks

Id: 3cpLFFZsbWY

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 30 2014