Resulting in the leader needing to keep pounding the message, over and over again. One offering will garner the attention of this quarter, the next lesson garners the attention of a different quarter, the lesson after that catches yet a different quarter of your audience, and so on. What I have finally come to grasp is that it appears this one quarter is a rotating one quarter, meaning it’s not the same one quarter that catches every offering. It’s just that the inescapable noise of modern society competes, almost to the point of drowning out the leadership message at times. I do not believe it is their intention to be ungrateful. The same is true with leading people.Ī leader must come to grips with the fact that of the people you pour your heart and soul into daily, less than one quarter will really latch onto what you are offering. Just as the key to every successful business lies in the philosophy of under promising and over delivering on service. In my experience, leadership is not about keeping score. Human relations is not a popularity contest. A leader must be at peace with not everyone liking them. Which, by the way, is a very important attitude for a leader to develop. It is sad to see and sadder to confess that I have encountered exponentially more of this sort than of the loyal sort. Then they did the dump and run, chasing after something that appears beneficial, but in the end holds much less value for them or their families. Yet, along this journey, I have also encountered many, many more who, either because they have zero sense of personal mission or lack a self-defined direction, absorbed my loyalty without reciprocating until (as Jim Collins describes it) “the next glittery object” came along. Had I realized the critical importance of the development of such a support ecosystem earlier in my career, my tribe would be much larger today.
It is just a basic best practice to find, cultivate, and continuously nurture your “tribe” – the people you know will have your back, no matter the circumstances. For those relationships, I am forever grateful.
In this 40-year business career, I have encountered many people who responded to and reciprocated the loyalty and generosity I have always tried to extend to every member of an organization with which I have been involved in a leadership role. Frankly, it is most likely that the realization I am closer to the end of my career than the beginning that I even bother to write this stuff down. Perhaps this brief sharing will help others avoid some of the landmines I stepped on. Yet, some of them are good lessons worth passing along to those who come behind me. Some are best forgotten because they were caused by my own stupidity. The universe has taught me many hard lessons in the intervening years since that overcast day in 1982. By far though, the most rewarding has been Benchmark Realty, LLC which is now part of the 5th largest real estate brokerage in the country, United Real Estate. In fact, I have failed financially multiple times, always with lots of zeros behind the cost. I suppose that makes me what some business schools would call a “serial entrepreneur.” All but two of those startups were positive experiences, with those two handing me solid and humbling financial defeats. That started me on an entrepreneurial journey that led to the founding or co-founding of 6 more companies. Within a year of graduating, I launched a commercial printing company with my father, which we sold in 1988. What is important though are the lessons I have learned and the people I have helped and been helped by along the way. Which is unsurprisingly not important to me now. Boy howdy, was I misguided! I did eventually become a millionaire in fact, I have been blessed to become a multi-millionaire. I was 22 years old and thoroughly convinced that I would be a millionaire within 5 years. The following Monday, I began my business career by going to work for a printing company in Nashville. in Business Administration concentration: Management.Ĥ1 years, 1 month and 10 days ago as I write these words. A quasi date “that will live in infamy” as this was the date I was graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with a B.S. It was an overcast Friday as I recall, with a cool damp common to Knoxville at that time of year.
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