Truth And The Authentic Leader
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How does a leader speak? What are the primary qualities of a great leader? In this episode, Bill Stierle and Tom talk about the authentic leader, their primary qualities, and how he or she uses words and phrases that make a difference in the energy of the listener. They also dive into the types of leaders there are and the current leaders of today that point to these types. Tune in to learn about Bill’s insights on how a great leader should present themselves to the public when running for the presidency.
7 Primary Qualities of a Leader:
- Small messages of Engagement
- Developing a quality of Trust
- Trust that they have been there and done that
- Inspiration
- Call to action and progress
- Set the vision
- Stands for values – real or imagined
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Watch the episode here
Bill, I was thinking of you as the second set of the Democratic debates on CNN. I wanted to be a fly on your wall and see how twisted into a pretzel you must have been hurting because of how tragically some of these candidates are unskilled at communicating. I’m sure they’re all bright people. They’re all well-intentioned but they don’t always have the best command of language and how to communicate on what it is that makes them a great leader. We will talk about what it takes to be a great leader or what are some of the qualities of a great leader are, but I can’t wait to know how you felt about some of what you saw in this debate.
Tom, thanks for framing this topic, Truth and the Authentic Leader. How does a leader speak? How do you get behind it? How do words and phrases make a difference to the energy of the listener? As somebody that spends time both as a communication specialist trying to give people the right words at the right time and being able to support better adult style dialogue. It’s important for us to look at the things that people say and do and realize, “That’s nice but it didn’t land.” With a little bit of communication coaching, you might be able to win an election on this. You might be able to raise 10 to 15 points in the polls just by having your points ready to go and stop winging it, stop being responsive and stop doing stuff that you’ve all already done. Stop surrounding yourself with people that are just yes people. You’ve got to surround yourself with people that are going to give you push back and that are going to sharpen your language and sharpen this all a little bit. Not sit back and just say, “That was great. You did well tonight.” No, you didn’t do well tonight. You did modestly. You said a message that’s not in alignment with creating leadership edge.
I can appreciate that, Bill. I was struck by Joe Biden. One of his quotes was, “Everybody is talking about how terrible I am and all these issues.” Do you think that’s something that he should have said? That’s not how I would say it.
It’s not the strongest sentence because you’re asking people to investigate how terrible you are. What you want to do is approach an obstacle or a pushback with curiosity. What happens is it changes it into incidental judgment, “There’s been a message going around here that I stood for this. My request is don’t be distracted by that as a voter.” I was a great Joe Biden without being a great Joe Biden. This is the message and then frame the criticism in the field to time, “If I think back on my 1985 mind that made that decision the way it did and thinking about the circumstances I was in. It was the best response at that time as we move through the period of time and as we go into the future as a nation.”
You left the past in the past.
Handle it and stick it where it belongs because the framing of when the thing is, is not the framing of my identity. Don’t look at the picture but reframe the frame. Stick it where it belongs. Tom, have you ever redecorated your house?
Yes.
When you’re doing that, you’re going like, “Here are some of the things I want to keep. This has been on the wall for years. I may want to change this thing.” It does not fit. Somehow, it was nice when I put it up back then and it was delightful for a time period but now, it’s not a good fit. Clearly, Tom, you and I have not rested in our 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s clothing.
The fun part about this is that we want to do a better job of talking about what leadership is. If you’re going to be a type of leader, step into the type of leader you are. Let’s talk about the four types of leaders and what the politicians are not doing to claim their space. Claim your space as a leader, stick in there and make it work. The ones that are doing the best jobs of this are three of the four front-runners. Bernie Sanders is staying inside his identity and messaging. The last person that’s done that this well is Ronald Reagan. You can take the first speech that Ronald Reagan delivered as going to become the Governor of California and look at one of the speeches as he got elected. The way he did that speech there are almost identical. It’s the same.
Bernie Sanders did own who he was. He didn’t apologize for anything when he was attacked on the qualities of a bill that he wrote. Other people are trying to characterize what he did or what was in the bill and he says, “I know what was in the bill. I wrote the bill,” or something to that effect. He did not apologize at all.
It’s like, “I know what’s in the bill and I hear that you’re trying to pick on it but that’s not what’s in the bill fully. I wrote the thing the way I wrote it because I write bills and you haven’t written a bill.” You could pick on that but quite frankly, you write a bill. Stand out there and take the shot. You see how I could get as animated as version gets it because I’m channeling the internal advocacy. Let me frame for everybody the four types of leaders. Let’s take a look at somebody in our history like Colin Powell as a leader. He’s a military guy, sequential rule follower, follows orders, safety-oriented and strong structured person. Colin Powell as a leader is going to stand in a place. The female side of Colin Powell would be like Martha Stewart.
Those are similar leaders. One is Martha Stewart with how to put the decorations around your Thanksgiving table and how to do all the details that go into that. That’s a part of her leadership and it’s very much a part of his leadership. Opposite of that is Richard Branson, “I have multiple companies. I am bringing leadership in several different verticals and several different industries. I am giving small messages of engagement to those leaders to run the mission that my brand, Virgin, is standing for. That’s what Virgin Airlines, Virgin Mobile and Virgin Records did. You can go down the list and even Virgin Galactic, it’s a space program. It’s going to take people up in space, “I put an airline together. I might as well shoot people into space if they want to go.” How much money is that? How safe can I get it? How can I get comfort and safety to go together, instead of putting people in a small little capsule?
Because that’s what I got to do money-wise and whatever it costs to do that.
That entrepreneur and risk-taker out there in that place is different than the safe keeper. Those are different leaders. The visionary leader is going to have an Elon Musk quality. That would be another one that’s in that same category, “I did this PayPal thing, but now I’m going to do this car thing. I’m going to do this transportation, now I’m going to do this space thing.” Those are different leadership. I can’t imagine Martha Stewart or Colin Powell shooting anybody in space or anybody trusting them to do it. They’re not those visionary people. They’re not going to take that risk. They’re not in that mindset. They’re not even getting near the spaceship.
They might watch but they are not going to take that risk. I want that mindset in charge of the safety of the capsule.
Let’s look at the other two leaders if you think about the strong connector person. Oprah Winfrey, her job is interviewing people and her leadership is, “How can I create stories, multiply and amplify stories of these people in their journey and share those stories with others? How can I interview people to get out of the stories to engage spirituality in a certain way? Many religious leaders are in the same category as Oprah Winfrey. It’s about here’s what the connection that is valuable when you get two people together and connecting in a strong way. Jeff Bezos has meant much in that interpersonal category as a leader who wants to make it easier for people to get things. That’s also valuable and the opposite of that is the person with a strong financial, business, logical and analytical mindset. Somebody like Bloomberg that knows number, Jack Welch and Lee Iacocca that drove the bottom line. They had good interpersonal skills but had a sense of what the numbers would be to make sure that they’re hitting the bottom line. Oprah’s not paying attention to the numbers. These other guys and these other business financial leaders are strong in that space. They know the numbers and that’s good. Let’s take a look at those four qualities and then let’s set the candidates on that same template.
I understand the people that you associated it with, but can you run down those four types quickly?
The planner-detailer versus the visionary.
This is Colin Powell and Martha Stewart versus Richard Branson and Elon Musk. Those are two of the four.
The inner personalizer and the connector is going to be Oprah Winfrey. The person that’s interested in customer service, a Jeff Bezos which is different than the bottom line Bloomberg the analyzer, the logical and rational leader that’s interested in the numbers. Let’s do the low-hanging fruit. If you take a look at one of the candidates, Andrew Yang, that comes out of the technology world. He’s in that logical analytical and he said on the last side of the debate. He goes, “I’m on the exact opposite. I know how to do Math and Donald Trump doesn’t know how to do the Math. I’m a stronger analyzer than the person that I’m running against. I know this living wage and incentivize things and my Math works.” Is he making the strongest case about his Math? No, because people stink at Math. If I’m going to get a virus on Andrew Yang’s team, I would say, “You want to make you the most Math-friendly person that they would say, ‘I trust him with Math and this other guy, I don’t trust him because he won’t even show me the Math in his taxes.’” If Andrew Yang would have gone there, it’s like, “I know Math better than Donald Trump knows Math because he doesn’t want to show the Math on his taxes.” It’s a power move that sets up the narrative. People don’t know the breath of language and advocacy about what can you speak to differentiate yourself.
I’m seeing some opportunities here. Another way that he could have said it was, “I know Math and the President knows Math poorly, that’s why he’s always under audit.” The President has nowhere to go but, “I know Math, just because I’m under audit doesn’t mean I don’t know Math,” then show your tax return so we can see your application of Math.
If he was good at Math, he would have no problem bringing his taxes out. He just isn’t as good at Math as he would like people to believe. He has his edge of a sword because he says, “I’m on his nightmare and this is the reason why I’m on his nightmare.”
Note to the Democratic candidate for 2020, the eventual nominee who’s going to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump, please take notes now.
When you know what your strength is, step into it and pull the edge.
I have a suspicion about the best leaders in which of these qualities they have. You’re right that regardless of where you fall as a leader, you’ve got to go with your strengths.
You also got to know what office you’re running for. The office that you’re running for is supposed to be a CEO mindset and we do not have a CEO mind in the office right now. The reason why Barack Obama got poked at is because he brought into the office a CEO-safe mindset that had to distribute information in leadership to all four of these strengths. Maybe we can talk about next time, what is the ideal mindset for a President?
That’s where I was going. We can see that for a future episode.
It’s defining it this way. If I take a look at the strong visionary people that are on the stage, the one that sits at the strongest margin of vision is going to be Marianne Williamson. She’s going to get dinged the most because of that. All the comedians are happy to take swipes at her and put her into the, “This is the category of that, this is what she said in the past and this is why she wouldn’t be.” One of the problems that visionaries get into is it’s unbelievable. If we didn’t have visionaries, we wouldn’t have entrepreneurs. Think about Richard Branson being stuck in the Caribbean and saying, “This looks like a business opportunity. I’ll start an airline.” That’s the origin story. It’s like, “I’ll start an airline because I happen to get stuck in the islands. I can’t get off of here because the airlines to these islands run poorly.” That’s what he thought and he did it.
He’s one of the most terrifying people because if he would say the following sentence, “I’m going to start Virgin Soda. I’m going to go into soda business,” then he takes on Pepsi and Coca-Cola. They would be terrified because they know somewhere between 15% to 25% of the revenue that they’re all having, he’s going to pull it right off. He does that in the mobile industry. He’s going like, “What happened to my bottom line?” He showed up. Why? Because he’s optimizing and he does that. That’s what the entrepreneurial visionary does.
Marianne Williamson is the push. She was the most googled candidate coming off of the debates because she’s standing in the visionary place. It doesn’t matter what she is saying or doing. What matters is the delivery of her small messages and engagement. I would coach her to speak and pick better words and phrases and that would boost her from here to here then she would be in the 10%, 20%, 30% or 40% of the votes of the things. Her visionary message is a little bit too high for people to grab ahold of. I love that the need for love. I want to talk about how love is important for each other, but not at the initial debates. I would talk about mutual respect. Did you see the difference?
Her best thing is what mutual respect, fairness and truth regarding the healthcare system would look like. All of a sudden, she’s got greater ground to stand on and then she can deliver micro-message after that. Her visionary is a little bit too much for the bottom of the run of the ladder for some people. It gives the comedians and the news pundits opportunities to take shots at her and she’s exposed, even though what she’s standing for is a strong value. Who doesn’t want to stand for love or loving each other? Isn’t that what most religions do like Jesus’ primary message? Isn’t that like a message from Buddha or Muhammad? It’s a little wacky but she’s talking in that larger visionary standpoint.
She has a spiritual quality to her. She has that loving and caring but to get traction in the political and leadership realm, she is going to sit in. This is why she has a little bit of that Richard Branson and able to lean towards down the Oprah people to the interpersonal pieces. Oprah loves her. She’s a spiritual guidance and they talk on that level. She does capture that. The ones that are getting beaten up are the ones that are more in the bottom line, analytical place or even the safekeeping piece. They’re called the moderates. All the moderates are going to get stuck a little bit because of the visionary message and the extreme progressive message. As soon as you move it from the moderate to the center place, what happens is that the Republicans are in that dominating space here.
They’ve been pulling the narrative into this scary safekeeping place and scary financial place that it’s allowed them to get more votes. They have done a scary and wonderful job of marginalizing the visionary message because they call it crazy. They are trying to use the message of socialism and trying to redefine socialism as a scary thing. What the real value is how do you create stability so people can go to sleep that night and wake up the next day and feel some general sense of certainty in their world. Stop scaring people. That would be my micro-message. The problem in politics is it’s moved to scare people. The problem with news media is that if they don’t scare people, they won’t watch the news. That’s the tragic circumstance that we’re in. We’ve got these different people. Tulsi Gabbard is going to sit more on the safekeeping military organized. That’s where she is and she’s got some great strength over there that I appreciate. Pete Buttigieg has more of a balance of all four.
I see that as well. He has a balance of all four and I was wondering if he’s the tortoise in the race of the tortoise and the hare with all these twenty people. When he speaks, he speaks well. He stands up for his positions and he’s articulate. He has empathy and compassion most of the time and he’s trying to draw a distinction. He’s playing the John F. Kennedy, “It’s time for a new generation of Americans.”
He has the mindset to sit in there. He is the tortoise in race with the hare. There are other people in the race and they don’t fully know how to learn to be known. They’re more in the space of doing things. He’s in the being place like, “I went to Afghanistan and went to war. I came back and served. I did it this way and that way. I’m standing in my truth about who I am as my identity. I’m not going to hide from that. I got to be truthful and let’s see what the voters do about it. Are they interested in it? I’m sounded better than the other guy, so I’m going to get voted. Who do I need to win the election? I need to be better than the other guy.” He’s going to be a part of a long-lasting political career. He’s not going anywhere for the next 25 years because he’s strong and committed. He’s standing for the best of acceptance of differences. He’s going like, “I’m standing here. I’ve got this thing.”
If that doesn’t start contrast to the present occupant of the White House, I don’t know what it is.
One of the things that President Trump does wonderfully in regards to leadership is that he keeps the sizzle and the smell of the sizzling steak in front of the people that cultivate the value of loyalty. It says, “They might not be perfect but I am sticking with this person because this person makes me feel like they’ve heard me.” It doesn’t mean they’re going to do anything. “I’ve just been heard and being understood. He’s speaking to my cultivated propaganda belief about myself.” He’s in this place, whether it’s a relative of mine or a relative of yours, a friend of mine or a friend of yours. It’s easy to hijack the brain to believe that this person is doing something for them but they’re doing things that are not in my best interest. They’ve hijacked the identity of, “What I used to vote for?” All of a sudden, the front door is locked but the back door is open so they can steal anything they want out of the house. These different leaders are in different places. Elizabeth Warren in her leadership has an interesting blend of things that puts her as a forerunner. She has the numbers on her side. She knows how to do Math and also knows how to do plans.
That’s her big thing. Her mantra is, “I’ve got a plan for that which is going to get old.” It’s true, she does appear to have a plan for everything but there’s got to be more than that. Is this social connection piece missing?
I’m glad you opened that up. She doesn’t have the appeal of Oprah. It’s funny that you said, “The plan is going to get old.” The discussion of a plan gets old to a visionary. Tom, you and I are visionaries. You and I are sitting in the visionary place as consultants and as people that look to promote, market and help people get their messages out to the world. That’s a visionary quality. I’m going to say something upsetting that every politician needs to know. The government is an organization and a system that is built around foundational safety regarding law, stability, predictability and consistency for the masses. It’s the homemaker of Martha Stewart and the military of Colin Powell. That is where the government sits. Organized, planned, detailed, sequence, laws, rules, trust, stability and certainty, that’s what the government is. The Republicans have that, plus their secondary value is logical, analytical, fact-based and how do the numbers work. That’s the old Republican, not the new Republican.
The old Republicans are there. It’s got to be financial. Why are we not balancing the budget? They’re not going to balance the budget for things they want, but they’re going to work against the Democrats. The Democrats are Martha Stewart plus Colin Powell and then you’re adding Oprah Winfrey. They’re interested in the people in how do you take care of the collective masses. How do you care for this group of people over here and make sure everyone’s included? The Republicans are saying, “We can’t spend on those social programs.” The Democrats are going, “If you don’t spend on these social programs to bring along everyone including the middle class, you’re having a short-term win at long-term suffering, and welcome to our nation.” None of them have any new ideas. None of them have any Richard Branson and Elon Musk narrative because that scares the safekeeping people and the foundational part of government. Who gets the hijack, that safekeeping narrative? Donald Trump does with his message of loyalty.
He did support the military. He overfunded them. All of the military branches said to him, “We don’t need this much money. This is an overkill.” Did they say that? No, the military contractors go like, “We’ll spend that money. Thank you very much.” All of a sudden, that message of safekeeping that’s funded into the Colin Powell mindset is going like, “We’ll figure out how to buy a new battleship.” It’s like, “What are we going to do with our old stuff? I don’t know, sell it to another country.” They’re figuring out how to have the used weapons thing of, “Maybe we could get all these other countries to buy our old jets. They might need one of our old jets and we’ll sell it to them because we just got funding from the American public in order to do that and expanding the military budget.” The biggest truth part of the leadership is that leadership is going to be defined by these four groups of things. They’ve got to run down the seven narratives. If I set the foundation for this, then all of a sudden we can say, “This is what Kamala Harris needs to do next. This is what Cory Booker needs to do next.” They’re doing some of it, but this is what an advanced communication narrative would look like.
They have to step out of their comfort zone and these comfortable places whether you’re the Democrats and they’re all jockeying for position. What you were articulating is what they stand for. The Republicans have what they stand for. Whoever is going to rise to the top has to embody that but also chart out a future vision, step out and be that visionary. Bring that along with what they’re comfortable for it seems.
Here are the seven primary qualities of communication that I would advocate for. If I want to start getting ahead a little bit here and Donald Trump will wilt with these things if the person brings it or the Republicans would struggle with it. I know that Mitch McConnell is going to have a hard time getting rid of Moscow Mitch. He’s in big trouble with that label that somebody stuck on him.
Why did he get that label?
Because he is not voting on any protection. It’s trending so he’s going to have a difficult time getting rid of that. The reason why he’s blocking that is because all the primary voting machine companies are saying, “Please don’t let them go through because this is going to cut it into our bottom line.”
They’re saying, “Paper ballots are the ultimate analog way to keep the Russians from hacking into our voting system.”
If there’s any question in the margin of the error, then we’ve got the paper fall back to go like, “This is what we’re going to do recount-wise and this is how we’re going to do things.” Then they get to do a sampling and they can build a system of that. If you don’t go to something that’s hard and fast, you can’t double-check things. Double-checking is what the government is supposed to do and faster. It’s supposed to say, “You did this study in medicine and you’re going to promote this study and the results.” Seriously? Unless there are five follow-up studies that validate this, you cannot market that thing. There’s no funding for validation studies that just let the marketing fly, let the damage come out and regrettably forget about the lawsuits and stuff like that.
Let’s get back to what true authentic leader is. The authentic leader would do something like this. The authentic leader is going to number one, develop and bring small messages of engagement. Barack Obama did this consistently. Hillary Clinton did not do this. Develop quality of trust. How do you develop a quality of trust? You stick to, “Here’s where I’m going. Let’s go ahead and follow this thread. We’re going to run into wiggly pieces on this. Here’s the thing that I would like you to hear about it. It’s not flip-flopping if it’s honest.” It’s like, “I used to think this way. This is what I said in the past and this is what I’m saying now. I’m not going back to that past thing. I’m doing a thing called self-correcting.” That’s what an adult does.
If Joe Biden had done some of that regarding the whole segregation thing and busing thing, this would have been over.
He could have done that in seven small messages of his engagement. Number two, develop a quality of trust like, “I said that back then. This is how I meant that and this is what that means. This is where my strength is. I can sit in the room with somebody spitting nails at me at something that is important that I would never agree to. I was fighting all the way from the beginning there. I was one of the leaders that did that when it was the toughest time to do it.” Did I just become Joe Biden again? It’s easy to translate a compelling narrative when you know what frame you’re talking from. Number three in this list is that I’ve got to advocate for truth that I have been there and done that. Here is where Donald Trump gets his great access to power, “I have been there and I have done that. I know how to fire people and I know how to select the best person.” I know how in The Apprentice take 25 mediocre celebrities and pick the best one of those mediocre people. The scary honesty is he does not know how to pick the best person. He knows how to fire nineteen inferior people that would never make it to the environment.
Do you mean he knows how to pick the lesser of all the 25 or 20 evils?
That’s right. Can you imagine whoever the Democratic candidate would be? The Democrats could chip into a third of this base with like, “One of the best things is that he’s one of the best-sellers everywhere. He sold everybody that he could pick the best people.” What he did was he knows how to fire nineteen inferior people on a reality show. Let him see if he can get that jacket to come off him.
They can then relate his Cabinet over the course of his first four years as a season of The Apprentice firing one by one all these different Cabinet Members and not filling many positions that are in the acting phase.
Who’s going to want to come into government and come in under that advocacy with that low leadership value set that he runs with? Everybody’s going to be the acting person because the acting person has a huge grace period. Who’s going to fire the acting person? This is what they’re doing. They’re just acting. It’s an actor. Who fires an actor? A casting director fires an actor. Who’s Donald Trump? He’s a casting director. He’s like, “Who’s going to be the best one? Put these people on and I get to fire these people.”
Inspiration is number four on this list. If we’re going to jump and lean into inspiration, Donald Trump does that well. He does truth that, “I’ve been there before,” even though where he’s been isn’t really where he’s been. He’s not making any real decisions and all the people underneath him are in there and staying out of the fray of things. He inspires that he has somebody’s back, just like he inspires an auditorium full of people that’s at his Casino. He’s going to inspire them to gamble and that’s what he’s done.
He’s inspired people to gamble in him. That’s what he’s done and they’re betting their vote. Whereas in the past, they would bet their money. I can’t advocate more importantly that the votes were betting on a disruptor not going with the person with the best resume about all the different people that Hillary Clinton knew in the environment. She could pick up the phone and call somebody that was working at another government agency that met her ten years ago that she built a relationship with and get them to do something. Donald Trump didn’t call anybody. He can’t call anybody downline. He doesn’t know anybody downline. He doesn’t know those government people that are there. Why? It’s the fodder.
If I want to inspire somebody, I’m going to inspire them to be a disruptor. What is a disruptor? I’m going to do a thing called drain the swamp that is inspirational. Why? Because this government is not serving the tragic vision of what we think they should do. He’s not talking about the problem with the disruption which is the collaborative and cooperative nature of government has been polarized.
It’s not collaborative and cooperative. It’s what’s going to get me the next donor that’s going to give me the money so I can get elected again. Regrettably, there’s going to be some term limits stuff that needs to come, in order to stop that as well as getting the money out.
The number five on my list as the authentic leader is a call to action and a call to progress. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders is doing that. Kamala Harris is getting traction because she’s the prosecutor and some people are saying to themselves, “I want her because she is going to prosecute him for breaking crimes. The other two people, I’m not sure if they’re going to prosecute them.” That’s what tends to happen is, “I’m not going to prosecute him,” but Kamala Harris is got to prosecute because that’s in her DNA just like Donald Trump has got to fire people because he’s been practicing that for whatever years he was on The Apprentice. Set the vision is number six and number seven is stand for values. Donald Trump sets the vision of bringing Colin Powell back. Why is that such a strong vision? Because it’s a part of our history and it something people value. Who are the people that vote? The people who like history.
Who is that? Martha Stewart and Colin Powell. That’s where the primary base is sitting in those two mindsets. Who’s got the best appeal to that? Elizabeth Warren, she has greater access to Donald Trump’s base than Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris does. She has greater access to his debates. Every time you say, “I have a plan,” and show the advocacy for vision and for small messages, she’s going like, “Those rich people, it’s not going to bug them if I tax them over $50 million. How many of you voters have $50 million? None of you does, but is it going to affect you if you elect me? No. Is it going to affect the top 0.1%? Yes and even the top 5% and top 10% are going to take a ding. You could see that on the stage when she went after the guy, “You have a $65 million asset.” Elizabeth Warren put her hands together and goes, “If you’re sitting with over $50 million, that $15 million you have above is time for you to pay back. It’s time for you to help the nation out because you’ve been taking money from the middle class long enough and that $15 million that you set above your $65 million, we’re not going to touch your $50 million. Be satisfied with that and help us rebuild the nation. I will take and be glad to name a bridge after you with the $15 million I take to reef bridge that.”
That’s her best pair up powerful narrative. Her best narrative say, “Do you want to do something with your $15 million? Let’s take it, let’s build a bridge with and I’ll put your name on it.” They’re going to look at her and as soon as she tells that story, everybody else is going like, “I would like a bridge so I don’t have to go cross and it’s stinging me for $5 every time I cross this bridge because some capitalist has got their hand in my pocket.” There are two bridges in Detroit and you’ve got to pay the new one. You don’t have to pay the old one but it’s falling down. I’m ranting on an old fact but this is the storytelling. You’ve got to get these value sets to have a story that’s associated with it. Something for the listener to go, “That makes sense. Now, I see where you’re going.” That’s it. Get out of explanation.
Stop explaining things. That’s the biggest complaint I have on the stage is stop explaining. Give me a picture. Tell me a story. Not the story of your childhood. Don’t tell me that story. Let me pick that up after I start following you. Set the vision and treat inspiration. Tell me about the action towards and progress towards that vision, then give me a small message that’s going to work. Start the messages of truth and trust moving in my direction. You may not get there but I’d rather have a more stable experience getting there rather than the roller coaster of tweet rides that we have to ride on a day-to-day basis from a generally agreed upon person that is not bringing stability in the environment. It’s not helping us with progress. It’s just complaining about something that is not real.
That’s what he’s doing because that’s what the sizzle is to the steak. I’ve been ranting a little bit, Tom. What’s showing up in your mind here as we are setting the stage for our next episode? What do you see in this coming forward? What’s landing for you and the celebratory things that might be showing up?
It helps because these debates are all of these aspiring leaders. Some of them are leaders, no question. They all have some of the qualities. These people who are aspiring to be the leader of our nation or at least their party and the nation. It’s helpful to look at these different qualities, evaluate them and understand who they are. What’s interesting is it’ll be fun as we go over the journey of this show over the years to be able to look back. I do look forward to doing a little bit of analysis and Monday morning quarterbacking of the performance of each of these candidates in the debates and say, “They’re showing that they’re strong in this area. They have this quality. They’re demonstrating these qualities of a leader, but they’re missing these other ones.” See if that ends up being an indicator of who eventually outlast.
At this moment, we’ve got Elizabeth Warren sitting in a strong position. Bernie Sanders is sitting there. Pete Buttigieg is sitting there.
Kamala Harris is at the top four even though Joe Biden has the votes that he does. He’s not having the level of strength of narrative.
He’s got the name recognition. The challenge with it is he’s got to back that up with stronger framing. If I was on his campaign, I would start framing the issues in a way that’s going to stick because his framing is not great. He’s being reactive and responsive. He’s gotten that way. He’s a great interpersonal leader. He’s got the humility. He’s got the ability to be kind and supportive to people and being a social advocate as he’s been over the years.
The amount of service that he’s done is crazy. How do you not like a person that’s sacrificed and his family members have sacrificed their lives for the nation? How do you say, “I sacrificed one of my kids. My kid followed me and went into war and died from it.” It’s like, “How do you do that?” It’s touching and moving. The framing that he needs to do around his history and around his visionary leadership is significant. It could be a lot stronger and written a lot stronger in his speeches and what he’s going to be delivering to people. He is a nice guy. He doesn’t have to lean on that much, but being responsive rather than setting the inspirational tone is different. There are many moments of interface that human beings have on this planet and those moments of interface are going to go to the ones that can set the vision, give small messages, engender trust, advocate for truth, create the calls to action and engage the values. Even if they can’t get it if it’s real or imagined, at least they’re fighting for what mutual respect looks like. If you start talking mutual respect, people are going to start vibrating towards mutual respect. They’ll start doing it but if you go after name-calling, people are going to start vibrating around name-calling. Who wants to be in that middle school fight?
Thank you, Bill. That was fun and helpful. It’s great to not just talk about each of these candidates on how they’re succeeding or how they’re falling short, but framing it with a common language that we can understand and a set of qualities that make sense to judge them against. It’s helpful for me, so thank you for that.
You’re welcome. I have such great joy to do this and in any way that we can move the needle is significant. More adult voices and more scary honesty about what we’re facing here. For the people that voted for Donald Trump, we want to bring them messages that they can re-hook into the collective or the greater message. It’s not going to affect everybody. Some people are going to stay with their limiting beliefs or the things that inspired them. There are still people that follow tragic leaders whether it’s a different country or whatever. You can get hooked up and a tragic leader can create the illusion of these seven things. We needed adults to start speaking in an adult way. That’s the ability to be an advocate as well as knowing that there are only certain things we can get done in the field of time. More to come, Tom. This has been great. I appreciate us doing this. This is a lot of fun.
Thank you. See you next time.
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