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EPISODE OVERVIEW:
In the podcast episode "Unlocking Great Leadership Through Paradox," renowned leadership expert Tim Elmore engages in a thought-provoking conversation with host Skot Waldron. Elmore explores the concept of paradox and its role in effective leadership, emphasizing the power of embracing tensions and contradictions. Drawing from his extensive experience, Elmore shares practical strategies, real-life examples, and captivating storytelling to help leaders navigate paradoxes in their journeys. By understanding how qualities like vulnerability and strength, humility and confidence, and flexibility and stability can coexist and enhance leadership effectiveness, listeners gain valuable insights to cultivate self-awareness, adaptability, and authenticity in their leadership roles. This episode serves as a valuable resource, challenging traditional notions and equipping leaders with the tools to unlock their full potential through the power of paradox.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
SKOT WALDRON:
Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Unlocked. We are going to talk today about unlocking the potential of people with Tim Elmore. He is the CEO and founder of Growing Leaders. Growing Leaders is a nonprofit organization here in Atlanta that helps with emerging leadership. And Tim knows a few things about this topic, first of all by working with the man himself Dr. John C. Maxwell for almost two decades, writing lots of books, though he hasn't written one book or two books, or even 10 books, or even 20 books, Tim has written now 37 books, and his newest book, The Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership, is what we're going to talk about today, and the idea of what those paradoxes are. We're going to talk about multi-generational leadership, we're going to talk about all types of things around this context that I think is going to add some really good insight. He had some really great tweetable moments in this interview that you've got to check out.
His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Psychology Today, he's been featured in CNN headline news, Fox & Friends, he knows some stuff, like I said. So get ready for a fantastic interview with Tim, here we go.
Tim, it is awesome, awesome, awesome having you on the show today, thanks for being here, man.
TIM ELMORE:
It is my pleasure, Skot. It's been fun to even take a couple of minutes before we started recording just to see how many overlaps our lives have had over the years, it's fun, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
Isn't it interesting how it all comes together, right? I mean, there have been a lot of overlaps here.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
So I'm eager to learn from you, I'm eager for my audience to learn from you, and you have a lot to offer, 37 books worth, I'll say, plus speeches, plus a career of working with Dr. John Maxwell, just all kinds of things. You're now leading your own organization, nonprofit organization of Growing Leaders there, we'll talk about that, but I really want to touch on your book, your latest book, Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership. Now this title is not your typical leadership title, right? Your leadership book title.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
I want to know where this even came from, where this idea spark, why'd you write this book?
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, good question. Well, probably the short version, or short answer of that, is the genesis really started a few years ago at an event where I sat in a green room with several other CEOs, and I decided, Skot, to turn it into a focus group. So I just threw out the question, "Do you all think that leading people today is harder than it was back in the day when you first learned to lead?" And every one of these people said, "Absolutely harder today." Now I pushed back and I said, "Now that's strange, wouldn't you think it'd be harder back when we started leading at 27 years old than today?" And every one of them stuck to their guns.
So that sent me on a search, why is it harder today? If indeed they're right, and the answer to that question really was what happened in this book. I think the leaders that just have flourished, particularly in the COVID-19 pandemic, but yet even in the aftermath of 2020 and 2021, have practiced some social and emotional skills that maybe 15 years ago were a luxury, and now we're seeing they're a necessity. And I think this great resignation we've all read about, people quitting jobs, I think sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes they didn't feel like they could trust their leader, or they didn't really connect with their leader, and I believe the job now is we've got to connect with our people better, and I think that means practicing some ironic, almost contradictory paradoxical traits that this book is about. So yeah, that's my answer.
SKOT WALDRON:
Interesting. Okay, so next time I'm in the green room with a bunch of CEOs, which happens every... I'm just kidding, it does not happen to be very often.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah, no.
SKOT WALDRON:
But I will definitely use that as a focus group moment to write my next book, so great insight there. Okay, so you've started us along the path here, introduce us to one of these paradoxes.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
I want to know what it is.
TIM ELMORE:
Okay, well the first one I put in the book, there are eight, the first one I put in the book really seems rather almost predictable. But when you think about the two traits, they often don't go together. So I believe extraordinary leaders, paradoxical leaders, are both confident and they're humble. And isn't it true you often see a very confident leader or a very humble leader, but oftentimes you don't see those together. You go, oh my gosh, that guy's got, we just talk about John Maxwell, John Maxwell's a very confident leader. Whenever he walks in the room you think, okay, what do we do? Go ahead and tell us.
But I actually believe, well, think about this today. We're living in very uncertain times, people are anxious, they're not quite sure about the marketplace, their investments, all these things going on. I think people need to see confidence in a leader. I don't think people will follow an unconfident leader. But at the same time, if we're only confident, if that's all they see, they're going to go, what are you smoking? You can't be sure about all of this. And I think the humility piece just adds humanity to our leadership. They see that we realize, we're self aware, we don't know everything. So confidence makes our leadership believable, but humility makes our confidence believable, so that would be one of the traits.
And by the way, Skot, in every one of these paradoxes I put a case study in there, Bob Iger is my case study on this one. The former CEO of Disney, who came in not knowing how to run a company that did theme parks, animated movies, plush toys, you name it. And so he said, "I had to lead people that I didn't even know what they were doing." so he said, "You got to ask questions, because you can't pretend to be someone you're not, but at the same time, when it's time to make a decision, you got to make it with confidence." So I just felt like he was a brilliant picture.
So every paradox I try to give them a point for their head, a picture for their heart, and a practice for their hands, that was my goal, and I was learning as I wrote, I was thinking, I got to do this. So anyway, I'm waxing eloquent now, I'll stop talking.
SKOT WALDRON:
No, that's fantastic. So let me ask you this, and Bob Iger's a great example for that, so super cool, glad you picked that example. So what is the opposite of confidence in this framework? So you've got confidence and humble leaders, at times when I'm talking with people I add security, there's your secure, confident and humble.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
But let's talk about, because I have my opposite that I use for the confident word.
TIM ELMORE:
Yes, yes.
SKOT WALDRON:
But before I share that with you I want to hear your opposite.
TIM ELMORE:
Okay.
SKOT WALDRON:
What are the leaders that are the opposite of confident and humble?
TIM ELMORE:
Okay, I actually think it's two sides to the coin, so the opposite of confidence would either be cocky, where we're pretending to be confident. And everybody, that's so distasteful, that's so unappealing. You see somebody that's arrogant and you go, my gosh, who do you think you are? And we tend to be repelled by that cockiness or that arrogance. But then as you just alluded to, I think the opposite of confidence can also be just an insecure person. They might say something but you go, gosh, I don't even know if you believe what you just said. So I think most people feel insecure and they need a secure leader that says, we don't know all the answers, but here's the first step we're going to take, let's go.
SKOT WALDRON:
Right on. I'm glad we see eye to eye on here so we don't have to have a big argument, because you'd probably win, but arrogance is my word. It's insecurity, arrogance, and pridefulness that really hits against the other side and encapsulates those traits. So love that you brought that to the table, it's really, really good.
TIM ELMORE:
May I give you a picture? In the book when I talk about by Bob Iger as the case study, his predecessor, Michael Eisner, was the arrogant one. And I say that in all due respect, he's still alive and so forth, but his board kicked him out because of his arrogance. He was off putting to, in fact, Michael Eisner was talking with Steve Jobs about a merger, an acquisition of Pixar, and it was two egos meeting, you can imagine, Michael Eisner and Steve Jobs, and oh my gosh. So eventually it just went away, the possibility went away. Bob Iger takes over, waits for a little bit of time to pass, but then he contacts Steve Jobs and says, "Hey, I know you and Michael were talking, and I know it went away," but he said, Bob Iger said, "I just can't help but think that we might be better together." And Steve Jobs said, "Well, that's not a crazy idea."
So the two of meet, and you know the rest, Disney buys Pixar, and then, here's the paradox, they buy Pixar and then Michael goes, "Okay Pixar, you tell us how to do Disney animation." So the very company that bought the other company says, "All right, you lead us." That's confidence and humility, and I just think we need to move forward this year with this kind of paradox, and it's just so rare, unfortunately.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's awesome, I love that. Give me another one, can I have another? I don't want to reveal the whole book, but I love this.
TIM ELMORE:
No, it's okay.
SKOT WALDRON:
Give me another one.
TIM ELMORE:
One that people seem to love to talk about is I think paradoxical leaders leverage both their vision and their blind spots. Now those don't seem to go together, you say vision's good, but blind spots aren't good. But I tell you what I've found, the most unusual, brilliant leaders leverage both. So vision is obvious, every leader needs a vision. We need a target to hit, a dream to follow. But I find in every great leader, every one of them say, "Oh my gosh, thank God for my blind spots." It's that person that started the company and looks back and goes, "If I'd known then what I know now, I would've never started this company." Haven't we heard people say that? And it was the very blind spots that enabled them to approach the new company in such an unusual way.
So my case study on this one is Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, the shapewear that women buy in the millions now, she's a billionaire. Sara Blakely, her story's fascinating, she graduates from Florida State in 1993, is selling fax machines, remember fax machines back in the early nineties? And she was wearing stockings and high heels in the hot Florida sun and she thought, this is not working. And so she cuts off the ends of her panty hose and creates Spanx and says, oh my gosh, this could be a new product. So she gets a manufacturer to make them, but now she's faced with the dilemma, who can I get to distribute these? And she's an unknown, she's a 20-something, but she calls up an executive at Neiman Marcus, a female, had to be a female, goes up and she gets 10 minutes with this executive.
Well, Skot, after five minutes of meeting she realizes this is not going well, I'm not getting anywhere, this lady has heard 50 pitches today. And so Sara stands up and says, "Would you follow me?" And the woman goes, "Excuse me?" She goes, "Would you follow me into the restroom? I want to do a show and tell." And Sara Blakely leads her into the women's restroom, puts the Spanx on, sold. I mean, immediately she sold the brilliance of this product. So they decide to beta test this in about a dozen, 10 or 12 Neiman Marcus stores. Sara wisely calls up all of her friends in those cities and says, "I'm going to send you some money, buy up all the spanks that you can't." Well, it takes off, and then next thing you know different Bloomingdales and other department stores are buying them.
So fast forward several months, Sara Blakely is now telling her story at a conference, and in a Q&A time somebody stands up and says, "Sara, how did you get noticed in a trade show with thousands of other exhibitors, how did you get noticed?" And Sara, of course, said, "Trade show? I never went to a trade show, I didn't know that was protocol, I just called an executive and got a meeting." Well, you can see it was her blind spot that chutes and ladders, she was accelerated and her product took off, and then she's on television, and blah, blah, blah. So I share that to encourage listeners, don't let the stuff you don't know stop you from perhaps approaching something at a whole unconventional way, a new product, a new service. Skot, you're launching new things all the time, you're thinking about writing a book, don't let your ignorance stop you from launching because you don't know. Maybe the very things you don't know might be your saving grace.
SKOT WALDRON:
And that takes humility.
TIM ELMORE:
Yes, it does, that's right.
SKOT WALDRON:
And that takes security, and that takes confidence.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah it does.
SKOT WALDRON:
That takes all that stuff you talked about at the beginning, embracing those things. And sometimes our blind spots, we don't know what we don't know, and then you're right, later on we go, oh man, wow, that was, okay, I see it now, you know?
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
So that's amazing. So tell me, why do you think it's so important that leaders embrace this idea of paradox when they're leading right now?
TIM ELMORE:
I think my answer to that question, it's just me, I'm not brilliant, but is I'm looking now at the average team member that comes onto a team at an organization. Think about this, they come with higher levels of education than ever before, education levels are just higher in gen Z and millennials than they were with boomers and builders. They come with higher levels of entitlement, I know that sounds like an old grandpa right now, but people feel entitled to perks and benefits that we didn't have 20 years ago. Higher levels of emotion. Skot, when I began my career, the typical mantra for a boss was leave your personal problems at the door, you come and get your work done. Well today the mantra is, bring your whole selves to work, and that means baggage and emotions, and so forth. And I'm for that, I think we need to keep it real, but we got people with stuff going on in their personal lives today, and we're trying to lead these people, and we're not therapists.
One last, there's several I list in the book, but another one is I think people come with higher levels of exposure. We all have smartphones in our hands, and we can search anybody we want to, including our boss. There's armchair quarterbacks everywhere. So all this to say, it's not impossible to lead, for sure, it's just harder to lead. And all I'm saying is I think we don't have to be smarter, we don't have to have a hire IQ, we don't have to have a better strategy, what we need is the ability to connect with people and read, do they need confidence from me right now? Or do they need humility from me right now? And at 10:00 AM they may need confidence, at 3:00 PM they may need humility. We got to read them before we lead them, and that's really the message of the book.
SKOT WALDRON:
Great insight, read them before you lead them, and lead them how they need to be led.
TIM ELMORE:
Yes, yes, absolutely.
SKOT WALDRON:
No more of this, hey, this is how I lead, if you don't like it, peace out.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
It's, how do I lead you the way you need to be led, and you need to be led, and you need to be led, and when I talk to leaders about this they go, "Wait, what? You mean I got to learn about every single person, and then I got to learn to lead them?" And I was like, "Yes." You can't raise all your kids the same way.
TIM ELMORE:
That right, that's exactly right.
SKOT WALDRON:
You have a parent style, but you really adapt that to the kids and your family, and what they need, because we all know that they're all different, even though they came from the same people sometimes.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
So is a really interesting idea. So let's talk about gen Z, let's talk about this whole, you've spent a lot of time researching gen Z, the digital space, your TEDx talk is fantastic, if people haven't checked that out, people need to check that out, the talks about the digital landscape of how we interact with things there. But let's talk about gen Z and how this interaction with older team members is drawing on this paradox maybe.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah. Well, gen Z has gone through a shift. For listeners that aren't familiar with this term, generation Z would be the youngest population that is entering the workforce today, they're the ones following the millennials. So just when we thought we'd figured out the next gen, they've changed on us. The millennials grew up with a cell phone, gen Z's growing up with a smartphone, and that's been a game changer. So I feel like, Skot, what I've noticed over the last two to three years, even before the pandemic, was gen Z shifted from an external locus of control, we learned this in psych class, where they were really looking outside for answers, they were overwhelmed by all of what was going on around them, to an internal locus of control where they're stepping up, and the stepping up isn't always to compliance, but it's to say, I'm going to protest if I feel like I need to protest, and we saw that on the streets of American cities. And by the way, I'm not saying that's bad, I'm just saying it's real.
So gen Z, I think, are going to be the ones that may be tougher to lead, and we're going to have to earn the right to lead them. The data shows they come in not trusting institutions, like corporate America, educational institutions, certainly politicians, and so leaders can't say, "Because I said so, or because I got the badge on, that's why you should follow," we need to earn the right, and that means we need to build bridges. So let me give your listeners a phrase that I live by that might be helpful for them, we must build bridges of relationship that can bear the weight of truth. We must build bridges of relationship that are strong enough to bear the weight of honest disclosure, truthful conversations, sometimes hard conversations.
And Skot, to your point, you just said we can't lead everybody the same, in every one of these paradoxes in the book I share a habitude, habitudes are images that form leadership habits and attitudes. My habitude on the confidence and humility is chess and checkers. I think we can't play checkers with our people. Checkers, all your pieces move alike, so you treat them all alike. In chess you lead each piece different, every piece does something a little different, you better read who's the Knight, who's the rook, who's the Bishop. So I think we've got to figure out, how do I build trust with this team member, and lead them based on who they are and what they need, so that we can all get to the goal. It still is for the benefit for the team and the organization, but it's leading wisely, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
And I think that on top of that, that gap when we think about the industrial age, when we think about the baby boomers, their parents came out of the Great Depression, they maybe came out of the war, things like that where they were great grateful to have a job, and they were grateful to put food on the table, and they were grateful for everything they had, and they had to work hard for that thing. And then now coming in, now that we have five generations in the workforce, and how do we navigate this? Which leaders are all bombarded with, is the old school way of thinking that, hey, I'm your boss, you immediately need to respect me, and I immediately have influence with you because I've been here for 30 years and you haven't.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
But you're saying, no, no, no, no longer. Now it's, I'm going to come in skeptical of you, because think about what they've grown up with, thousands of media channels at their fingertips bombarding them with this thought, that thought, that thought, that thought, they are programmed to be skeptical of everything they read, everything they see, everything they hear, so when they come in now they're immediately going, yeah, I don't trust you yet.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
I can get some respect for where you are, but I don't trust you yet, let's work on that.
TIM ELMORE:
Scott, I just spoke to a 20 something team member, and she said to me, "When I meet a new person, they start with an F and they have to earn an A." And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm just the opposite. You start with an A, I'm going to love you and trust you, hug you, buy you a Starbucks latte, and I'm not saying I'm awesome, I'm just saying, isn't that a shift? They start with an F, they have to earn an A, and I thought, oh my gosh, how hard it must be to lead you where you're prone to distrust, every decision, every move, that would just be hard to move forward quickly on a team if we're thinking that way. So we've got to win the trust, and that's really, I think that would be the number one thing I would say to an employer about a gen Z team members is we've got to earn their trust.
SKOT WALDRON:
You mentioned, when we talk about the definition of workplace culture, that it's evolved from complicated to complex.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
So when you first hear those words you think they're the same thing, right?
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
Complicated to complex, it's kind of the same. Unpack that for me.
TIM ELMORE:
Okay. Well, neither are fun, complicated and complex, neither one of them are fun. Here's the way I see it, and I've just learned this after just reading and studying from people that are smarter than I, a complicated problem is one that's very difficult but unchanging. So picture yourself back in school, there's a math problem on the chalkboard, it's hard. You doze off, take a five minute nap, you wake back up, the problem's still there, no easier, no harder. Complex is you're an air traffic controller and you doze off for five minutes, you wake back up, several planes have crash landed, more are coming in, it's evolving, it's gotten worse. And I think we live in a pace of rapid change right now where things have gotten complex, and we can't even fall asleep at the wheel, if I dare say it that way, and not be reading and attending conference and listening to podcasts like yours where were going, I'm continuing to learn, because I can't think the way I thought last year and stay on top of things. That's what I mean by complex.
SKOT WALDRON:
And are you finding that as you work with leaders now, your organization Growing Leaders, give me a quick brief overview of what that is, and is that the thing you're finding with the people you're working with at Growing Leaders? Tell me about that.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah. So Growing Leaders partners with any organization that works with the next generation. So we teach leadership, for sure, but we especially focus on how do we lead these young team members? Or schools, how do we connect with students? Or coaches, how do we connect with student athletes? So we work with Alabama, Ohio, State, Oklahoma, wherever there's next gen people, that's where we are. And what we try to do is help the older veteran, like you and me, better connect with that millennial or gen Zer, but then how do we teach them timeless principles of leadership so they can embrace what we know and move forward.
So the mantra I always talk about, Skot, is leaders today need to be timely and timeless, and that's one of the paradoxes. Timely means I am on the cutting edge, I do leverage the latest technology, and I do leverage the latest strategies and ideas to move forward. But timeless means, but I don't leave behind those timeless values and principles that perhaps our grandparents taught us that we should not leave behind, integrity, honesty, building relationships with people, you and I both believe in those things. So timely and timeless is the name of the game, and it is so hard to do both, because we tend to do one or the other. So anyway, that would be my response to that question.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's great. And I think that goes with a lot of different personality types.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
You've got those that are going to honor tradition, honor the past, honor where it's got us here, and we want to always pay respects to that, and use that to build on what we already know, build on the things that we have.
TIM ELMORE:
Yes, yes.
SKOT WALDRON:
And then you've got people coming in that are blazing trails, that are like, the old way is the old way, that's not relevant anymore. We're going to do this now, because this is the way the world's going.
TIM ELMORE:
Yes.
SKOT WALDRON:
And then you have turmoil, you have these clash of the Titans going on because whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't do away with that, that's where we came from, and you've got the new people going, hold on, you're thinking is old and dated and you are going to drive our company into the ground.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My favorite metaphor, Skot, for what you just said is Alexander the Great, that great Greek conqueror from centuries ago. So we've all heard of Alexander the Great, he marched across the known world with three armies conquering every bit of territory along the way. But he didn't stop there, he marched into lands for which we had no maps for yet, it was the uncharted territory. In fact, he was known to frustrate some of his soldiers, he turned the soldiers into map makers, they were literally mapping as they marched. You see where I'm going with this?
I think that's where we are today. We're marching into unknown worlds. We don't know what social media's going to look like in five years for our companies. But here's what I share in the book, "But you know when he marched into those unknown lands, he found water, he found food." In other words, there was the timely and the timeless, we're still going to need water in this new territory, just like we did a century ago. So it's a marriage between the two, every great organization says there's some timeless virtues we dare not leave behind, but now let's go, let's go march into that brand new territory and lead the way for our industry.
SKOT WALDRON:
You talk about one of the biggest mistakes companies make when it comes to their culture, when it comes to leading, is that you say we normalize defects too easy, and do workarounds that prevent teams from being effective.
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
I love that, normalizing defects too easy. Unpack that.
TIM ELMORE:
Well, I'll just give you some of it, I'm going to tell on ourselves now. So a normalized defect is a fairly common term in business circles today, it's where change is happening quickly, we need to solve a problem rapidly, maybe offer a new good or service, and we do a work around because we don't have time to fix it ultimately, we just need to fix it immediately. So maybe it's running a piece of paper down to the other end of the hallway, or a receipt, whatever.
So we at Growing Leaders were doing quick fixes, and we were patching things up rather than making things right. And so a normalized defect is when, in the name of fixing something quickly, we get to it right away, and it's a workaround, it works for a few weeks or a few months, but it's going to slow us down if we keep doing this for years, sooner or later we need to stop that and say, is this the best solution for that problem? So that's really what I mean, and we just did an audit on our own systems at Growing Leaders about a year ago and we realized, oh my gosh, I can't believe we still do this, we came up with that in 2015 and we're still doing it today because we didn't stop and say, that's dumb. So that's the normalization of defects right there.
SKOT WALDRON:
Well, and there you are living your confidence, humble, timely timeless paradoxes, and you're drinking your own medicine. And I think we all need to do it, just because we come from this space doesn't mean we're fantastic at it.
TIM ELMORE:
Yes, that's right.
SKOT WALDRON:
And leading, I say this all the time in my own personal story is doing the design work and external communications work that I did for almost two decades, and then going through my own personal leadership journey, I realized I was a pretty bad communicator. I was just like, really? But I help people communicate every day. But I had a lot of blind spots, I had a lot of things I was not aware of, and so kudos to you for recognizing that and making some changes to do that. This has been powerful, I want to know, in all of your years of doing this, of being exposed to the people you've been exposed to, writing 37 books, there's a ton of little pieces of wisdom you can impart on us. At the end of this thing, what does it all come down to for you? What is the thing that drives you that we all need to take with us?
TIM ELMORE:
Wow, that's a loaded question.
SKOT WALDRON:
Get ready, I'm going to pause this video for about five minutes and let you think about that.
TIM ELMORE:
You know, I think my answer would be to live with your sentence in mind. And what I mean by that is at the end of all of our lives, I'm going to turn into a chaplain now, baby, but at the end of all of our lives people are going to talk about us, and we're not going to get a book or a paragraph or a chapter, we're going to get a sentence, and I think that sentence is what we need to keep in mind as we make petty decisions every day. What are my children going to be saying about me by the way they watch me live my life Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? Was it, he was just busy? Sometimes I think we hold busy up like a trophy. I don't think anybody's going to go, Well, he was a busy guy, wasn't he? Or how about that 401(k)? They're not going to say that.
So living with the end in mind means I think long term, I think high road, and I think big picture. So that's my takeaway for your listeners, think long term, live with the end in mind, long term, don't make short term decisions. Think high road, that means I'm going to believe the best about people. They're going to begin with an A, not with an F, and then think big picture, I've got to see beyond my own life, what's the big picture here? How can I benefit others? And so please listener, forgive me, I did turn into a chaplain there for a moment, but that has saved my butt many, many times, to keep those thoughts in mind and live with the big picture and that sentence in mind.
SKOT WALDRON:
Preach it, Tim, preach it. I am [inaudible 00:33:56], that's brilliant, I love it, I love it, I love it, so thank you so much for that. Where can people get a hold of the book, The Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership?
TIM ELMORE:
Yeah, well you could certainly get it at our site, growingleaders.com. In fact, we do events and have resources there, so growingleaders.com, but you can get at anywhere books are sold, Amazon, the book is Eight Paradoxes, and it's been so fun, I'm learning them as I go, so I don't claim to be some sort of guru, but I'm learning as I go, and I know these paradoxes are where the future is going. So thanks for the honor to get to talk to you for a little bit today, it's been fun.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah, it's been awesome, and I love the opportunity that hopefully we'll get to have some coffee here down the road in a bit.
TIM ELMORE:
You betcha.
SKOT WALDRON:
So let's do it. Thanks a lot, Tim, you're amazing, I really appreciate the words of insight today.
TIM ELMORE:
My pleasure, thanks Skot.
SKOT WALDRON:
The paradoxes of great leadership, we talked about three of those, the first one confidence versus humility. Being confident and humble, not versus necessarily, it's confident and humility, and how those work together to really help leaders be who they need to be, recognize when we need to be confident, recognize when we need to be humble, and use that in a way to serve and build trust. Vision, blind spots, having vision, but understanding that blind spots play a great role in the way that we lead, lead others and lead our organizations, lead our families, lead ourselves, and embracing those blind spots, being confident and humble about those blind spots, is really, really important. Being timely and timeless, recognizing and honoring the past as we seek to look to where we're going in the future and embracing both of them, how can they both play a role of being timely and timeless, and understanding how is going to help us evolve and grow.
Two more things, building bridges of great relationship that holds the weight of truth. Truth isn't always the most comfortable thing, but if we don't have relationships of trust built, we're not going to be able to withstand the truth, sometimes it needs to be said and comes out. We're going to crumble, and that's what that saying said to me, and I really appreciate that. And at the end live your sentence, and this goes all into the idea that I have about what I preach about personal brand development. Your brand is what people say about you when you're not around, they're what people are saying about you when they go to the barbecue this weekend, and when they go home at night and talk about you, what are they saying? And it might not be a paragraph, it might not be a whole book, it might just be a sentence. Live your sentence is what Tim says. Think long term, think high road, think big picture, amen. Thanks Tim, appreciate you.
If y'all want to find out more about me, you can go to SkotWaldron.com, I have a lot of interesting resources there, and some assessments you can take. You can also go to my YouTube channel, like, subscribe, comment, I'm really wanting to get some of these message just out, so please do that. And connect with me on LinkedIn, because I love to be there, and I offer a lot of good free resources for you there to help you build a brand and build a leadership brand worth following. So thank you everybody for being here, see you next time on another episode of Unlocked.
