Leaders Who Don T Listen Quotes

It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" "What?" "I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?" "I'll look. Tell me about the lizards." Ford shrugged again. "Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it." "But that's terrible," said Arthur. "Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.

Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.

Dear Max - You looked so beautiful today. I'm going to remember what you looked like forever. ... And I hope you remember me the same way - clean, ha-ha. I'm glad our last time together was happy. But I'm leaving tonight, leaving the flock, and this time it's for good. I don't know if I'll ever see any of you again. The thing is, Max, that everyone is a little bit right. Added up all together, it makes this one big right. Dylan's a little bit right about how my being here might be putting the rest of you in danger. The threat might have been just about Dr. Hans, but we don't know that for sure. Angel is a little bit right about how splitting up the flock will help all of us survive. And the rest of the flock is a little bit right about how when you and I are together, we're focused on each other - we can't help it. The thing is, Maximum, I love you. I can't help but be focused on you when we're together. If you're in the room, I want to be next to you. If you're gone, I think about you. You're the one who I want to talk to. In a fight, I want you at my back. When we're together, the sun is shining. When we're apart, everything is in shades of gray. I hope you'll forgive me someday for turning our worlds into shades of gray - at least for a while. ... You're not at your best when you're focused on me. I mean, you're at your best Maxness, but not your best leaderness. I mostly need Maxness. The flock mostly needs leaderness. And Angel, if you're listening to this, it ain't you, sweetie. Not yet. ... At least for a couple more years, the flock needs a leader to survive, no matter how capable everyone thinks he or she is. The truth is that they do need a leader, and the truth is that you are the best leader. It's one of the things I love about you. But the more I thought about it, the more sure I got that this is the right thing to do. Maybe not for you, or for me, but for all of us together, our flock. Please don't try to find me. This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, besides wearing that suit today, and seeing you again will only make it harder. You'd ask me to come back, and I would, because I can't say no to you. But all the same problems would still be there, and I'd end up leaving again, and then we'd have to go through this all over again. Please make us only go through this once. ... I love you. I love your smile, your snarl, your grin, your face when you're sleeping. I love your hair streaming out behind you as we fly, with the sunlight making it shine, if it doesn't have too much mud or blood in it. I love seeing your wings spreading out, white and brown and tan and speckled, and the tiny, downy feathers right at the top of your shoulders. I love your eyes, whether they're cold or calculating or suspicious or laughing or warm, like when you look at me. ... You're the best warrior I know, the best leader. You're the most comforting mom we've ever had. You're the biggest goofball, the worst driver, and a truly lousy cook. You've kept us safe and provided for us, in good times and bad. You're my best friend, my first and only love, and the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, with wings or without. ... Tell you what, sweetie: If in twenty years we haven't expired yet, and the world is still more or less in one piece, I'll meet you at the top of that cliff where we first met the hawks and learned to fly with them. You know the one. Twenty years from today, if I'm alive, I'll be there, waiting for you. You can bet on it. Good-bye, my love. Fang P.S. Tell everyone I sure will miss them

A brave leader is someone who says I see you. I hear you. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m going to keep listening and asking questions.

what makes you a leader is the will to lead, not the knowledge how to do it best. You just have to be bright enough to listen to those who do know, and make the decisions that they don’t want to be responsible for. That’s how a team works.

Build your house on granite. By granite I mean your nature that you are torturing to death, the love in your child's body, your wife's dream of love, your own dream of life when you were sixteen. Exchange your illusions for a bit of truth. Throw out your politicians and diplomats! Take your destiny into your own hands and build your life on rock. Forget about your neighbor and look inside yourself! Your neighbor, too, will be grateful. Tell you're fellow workers all over the world that you're no longer willing to work for death but only for life. Instead of flocking to executions and shouting hurrah, hurrah, make a law for the protection of human life and its blessings. Such a law will be part of the granite foundation your house rests on. Protect your small children's love against the assaults of lascivious, frustrated men and women. Stop the mouth of the malignant old maid; expose her publicly or send her to a reform school instead of young people who are longing for love. Don;t try to outdo your exploiter in exploitation if you have a chance to become a boss. Throw away your swallowtails and top hat, and stop applying for a license to embrace your woman. Join forces with your kind in all countries; they are like you, for better or worse. Let your child grow up as nature (or 'God') intended. Don't try to improve on nature. Learn to understand it and protect it. Go to the library instead of the prize fight, go to foreign countries rather than to Coney Island. And first and foremost, think straight, trust the quiet inner voice inside you that tells you what to do. You hold your life in your hands, don't entrust it to anyone else, least of all to your chosen leaders. BE YOURSELF! Any number of great men have told you that.

The leader who listens is the one society needs most. They don’t force their commands on people. They pay attention to their demands and set the pace for the change that society truly needs.

Leaders should not interrupt teammates during conversations, because that will establish an interrupting norm. They should demonstrate they are listening by summarizing what people say after they said it. They should admit what they don’t know. They shouldn’t end a meeting until all team members have spoken at least once. They should encourage people who are upset to express their frustrations, and encourage teammates to respond in nonjudgmental ways. They should call out intergroup conflicts and resolve them through open discussion.

Years earlier, while briefing Colin Powell on the missions we conducted in Colombia, I mentioned to him that we were successful because we were nimble. We didn’t ask anyone to approve our concepts; we moved first, and figured things out as we went along. Listening intently to the story, he smiled and reflected to me that good leaders don’t wait for official blessings to try things out. They use common sense to guide them because they understand a simple fact of life in most organizations: if you ask enough people for permission, you’ll inevitably find someone who believes that they should tell you no.

In 90% of cases, you can start with one of the two most effective ways to open a speech: ask a question or start with a story. Our brain doesn’t remember what we hear. It remembers only what we “see” or imagine while we listen. You can remember stories. Everything else is quickly forgotten. Smell is the most powerful sense out of 4 to immerse audience members into a scene. Every sentence either helps to drive your point home, or it detracts from clarity. There is no middle point. If you don’t have a foundational phrase in your speech, it means that your message is not clear enough to you, and if it’s not clear to you, there is no way it will be clear to your audience. Share your failures first. Show your audience members that you are not any better, smarter or more talented than they are. You are not an actor, you are a speaker. The main skill of an actor is to play a role; to be someone else. Your main skill as a speaker is to be yourself. People will forgive you for anything except for being boring. Speaking without passion is boring. If you are not excited about what you are talking about, how can you expect your audience to be excited? Never hide behind a lectern or a table. Your audience needs to see 100% of your body. Speak slowly and people will consider you to be a thoughtful and clever person. Leaders don’t talk much, but each word holds a lot of meaning and value. You always speak to only one person. Have a conversation directly with one person, look him or her in the eye. After you have logically completed one idea, which usually is 10-20 seconds, scan the audience and then stop your eyes on another person. Repeat this process again. Cover the entire room with eye contact. When you scan the audience and pick people for eye contact, pick positive people more often. When you pause, your audience thinks about your message and reflects. Pausing builds an audiences’ confidence. If you don’t pause, your audience doesn’t have time to digest what you've told them and hence, they will not remember a word of what you've said. Pause before and after you make an important point and stand still. During this pause, people think about your words and your message sinks in. After you make an important point and stand still. During this pause, people think about your words and your message sinks in. Speakers use filler words when they don’t know what to say, but they feel uncomfortable with silence. Have you ever seen a speaker who went on stage with a piece of paper and notes? Have you ever been one of these speakers? When people see you with paper in your hands, they instantly think, “This speaker is not sincere. He has a script and will talk according to the script.” The best speeches are not written, they are rewritten. Bad speakers create a 10 minutes speech and deliver it in 7 minutes. Great speakers create a 5 minute speech and deliver it in 7 minutes. Explain your ideas in a simple manner, so that the average 12-year-old child can understand the concept. Good speakers and experts can always explain the most complex ideas with very simple words. Stories evoke emotions. Factual information conveys logic. Emotions are far more important in a speech than logic. If you're considering whether to use statistics or a story, use a story. PowerPoint is for pictures not for words. Use as few words on the slide as possible. Never learn your speech word for word. Just rehearse it enough times to internalize the flow. If you watch a video of your speech, you can triple the pace of your development as a speaker. Make videos a habit. Meaningless words and clichés neither convey value nor information. Avoid them. Never apologize on stage. If people need to put in a lot of effort to understand you they simply won’t listen. On the other hand if you use very simple language you will connect with the audience and your speech will be remembered.

Anybody who wants to be President, you should right away say, "I don't want to hear that guy anymore." WOMAN: I'm sorry? You should say, "I don't want to listen to that person anymore." Anybody who wants to become your leader, you should say, "I don't want to follow." That's like a rule of thumb which almost never fails.

And yet that performance has a method. Trump's artlessness, like Mark Antony's, is only apparent. Listen, for example, as he performs one of his favorite riffs. He begins by saying something critical of Mexicans and Chinese. Then he turns around and says, 'I love the Mexican and Chinese people, especially the rich ones who buy my apartments or stay at my hotels or play on my golf courses.' It's their leaders I criticize, he explains, but then in a millisecond he pulls the sting from the criticism: 'they are smarter and stronger than our leaders; they're beating us.' And then the payoff all this has been leading up to, the making explicit of what has been implied all along. 'If I can sell them condominiums, rent space to them in my building at my price, and outfox them in deals, I could certainly outmaneuver them when it came to trade negotiations and immigration.' (And besides, they love me.) Here is the real message, the message that makes sense of the disparate pieces of what looks like mere disjointed fumbling: I am Donald Trump; nobody owns me. I don't pander to you. I don't pretend to be nice and polite; I am rich and that's what you would like to be; I'm a winner; I beat people at their own game, and if you vote for me I will beat our adversaries; if you want wonky policy details, go with those losers who offer you ten-point plans; if you want to feel good about yourselves and your country, stick with me. So despite the lack of a formal center or an orderly presentation, Trump was always on point because the point was always the same. He couldn't get off message because the one message was all he had.

A woman named Cynthia once told me a story about the time her father had made plans to take her on a night out in San Francisco. Twelve-year-old Cynthia and her father had been planning the “date” for months. They had a whole itinerary planned down to the minute: she would attend the last hour of his presentation, and then meet him at the back of the room at about four-thirty and leave quickly before everyone tried to talk to him. They would catch a tram to Chinatown, eat Chinese food (their favourite), shop for a souvenir, see the sights for a while and then “catch a flick” as her dad liked to say. Then they would grab a taxi back to the hotel, jump in the pool for a quick swim (her dad was famous for sneaking in when the pool was closed), order a hot fudge sundae from room service, and watch the late, late show. They discussed the details over and over again before they left. The anticipation was part of the whole experience. This was all going according to plan until, as her father was leaving the convention centre, he ran into an old college friend and business associate. It had been years since they had seen each other, and Cynthia watched as they embraced enthusiastically. His friend said, in effect: “I am so glad you are doing some work with our company now. When Lois and I heard about it we thought it would be perfect. We want to invite you, and of course Cynthia, to get a spectacular seafood dinner down at the Wharf!” Cynthia’s father responded: “Bob, it’s so great to see you. Dinner at the wharf sounds great!” Cynthia was crestfallen. Her daydreams of tram rides and ice cream sundaes evaporated in an instant. Plus, she hated seafood and she could just imagine how bored she would be listening to the adults talk all night. But then her father continued: “But not tonight. Cynthia and I have a special date planned, don’t we?” He winked at Cynthia and grabbed her hand and they ran out of the door and continued with what was an unforgettable night in San Francisco. As it happens, Cynthia’s father was the management thinker Stephen R. Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) who had passed away only weeks before Cynthia told me this story. So it was with deep emotion she recalled that evening in San Francisco. His simple decision “Bonded him to me forever because I knew what mattered most to him was me!” she said.5 One simple answer is we are unclear about what is essential. When this happens we become defenceless. On the other hand, when we have strong internal clarity it is almost as if we have a force field protecting us from the non-essentials coming at us from all directions. With Rosa it was her deep moral clarity that gave her unusual courage of conviction. With Stephen it was the clarity of his vision for the evening with his loving daughter. In virtually every instance, clarity about what is essential fuels us with the strength to say no to the non-essentials. Stephen R. Covey, one of the most respected and widely read business thinkers of his generation, was an Essentialist. Not only did he routinely teach Essentialist principles – like “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” – to important leaders and heads of state around the world, he lived them.6 And in this moment of living them with his daughter he made a memory that literally outlasted his lifetime. Seen with some perspective, his decision seems obvious. But many in his shoes would have accepted the friend’s invitation for fear of seeming rude or ungrateful, or passing up a rare opportunity to dine with an old friend. So why is it so hard in the moment to dare to choose what is essential over what is non-essential?

I’ve got a problem,’ he told his mentor. ‘I’ve got these two guys who I don’t know if I can control, they don’t listen to what I say and that affects how everybody else receives my messages. And the problem is, they’re two of the leaders in the dressing room and the best players. I will lose without them on board.’ Cruyff ’s response was blunt: ‘Get rid of them. You might lose one or two games, but then you will start winning and by then you would have turfed those two sons of bitches out the team.

Today the intellectual leaders of the Republican Party are the paranoids, kooks, know-nothings, and bigots who once could be heard only on late-night talk shows, the stations you listened to on long drives because it was hard to fall asleep while laughing. When any political movement loses all sense of self and has no unifying theory of government, it ceases to function as a collective rooted in thought and becomes more like fans of a sports team. Asking the Republican Party today to agree on a definition of conservatism is like asking New York Giants fans to have a consensus opinion on the Law of the Sea Treaty. It’s not just that no one knows anything about the subject; they don’t remotely care. All Republicans want to do is beat the team playing the Giants. They aren’t voters using active intelligence or participants in a civil democracy; they are fans. Their role is to cheer and fund their team and trash-talk whatever team is on the other side. This removes any of the seeming contradiction of having spent years supporting principles like free trade and personal responsibility to suddenly stop and support the opposite. Think of those principles like players on a team. You cheered for them when they were on your team, but then management fired them or traded them to another team, so of course you aren’t for them anymore. If your team suddenly decides to focus on running instead of passing, no fan cares—as long as the team wins. Stripped of any pretense of governing philosophy, a political party will default to being controlled by those who shout the loudest and are unhindered by any semblance of normalcy. It isn’t the quiet fans in the stands who get on television but the lunatics who paint their bodies with the team colors and go shirtless on frigid days. It’s the crazy person who lunges at the ref and jumps over seats to fight the other team’s fans who is cheered by his fellow fans as he is led away on the jumbotron. What is the forum in which the key issues of the day are discussed? Talk radio and the television shows sponsored by the team, like Fox & Friends, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity.

THE TEN MOST COMMON PROBLEMS Here are the ten most common problems in communications. Read the list. If any of them apply to you, the principles in this book will help you solve them. 1. Lack of initial rapport with listeners 2. Stiffness or woodenness in use of body 3. Presentation of material is intellectually oriented; speaker forgets to involve the audience emotionally 4. Speaker seems uncomfortable because of fear of failure 5. Poor use of eye contact and facial expression 6. Lack of humor 7. Speech direction and intent unclear due to improper  preparation 8. Inability to use silence for impact 9. Lack of energy, causing inappropriate pitch pattern, speech  rate, and volume 10. Use of boring language and lack of interesting material Various polls show that the ability to communicate well is ranked the number-one key to success by leaders in business, politics, and the professions. If you don’t communicate effectively, you may not die, like some POWs or neglected babies we mentioned earlier, but you also won’t live as fully as you should, nor will you achieve personal goals. This was a lesson drummed into me at a very early age.

Then you don't think there will be any more permanent world heroes?" "Yes—in history—not in life. Carlyle would have difficulty getting material for a new chapter on 'The Hero as a Big Man.'" "Go on. I'm a good listener to-day." "People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoi, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It's the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over." "Then you blame it on the press?" "Absolutely. Look at you; you're on The New Democracy, considered the most brilliant weekly in the country, read by the men who do things and all that. What's your business? Why, to be as clever, as interesting, and as brilliantly cynical as possible about every man, doctrine, book, or policy that is assigned you to deal with. The more strong lights, the more spiritual scandal you can throw on the matter, the more money they pay you, the more the people buy the issue. You, Tom d'Invilliers, a blighted Shelley, changing, shifting, clever, unscrupulous, represent the critical consciousness of the race—Oh,

To create psychological safety, Bock said, team leaders needed to model the right behaviors. There were Google-designed checklists they could use: Leaders should not interrupt teammates during conversations, because that will establish an interrupting norm. They should demonstrate they are listening by summarizing what people say after they said it. They should admit what they don’t know. They shouldn’t end a meeting until all team members have spoken at least once. They should encourage people who are upset to express their frustrations, and encourage teammates to respond in nonjudgmental ways. They should call out intergroup conflicts and resolve them through open discussion.

...The gulag—with its millions of victims, if you listen to Solzehnitsyn and Sakharov—supposedly existed in the Soviet Union right down to the very last days of communism. If so—as I've asked before—where did it disappear to? That is, when the communist states were overthrown, where were the millions of stricken victims pouring out of the internment camps with their tales of torment? I'm not saying they don't exist; I'm just asking, where are they? One of the last remaining camps, Perm-35—visited in 1989 and again in '90 by Western observers—held only a few dozen prisoners, some of whom were outright spies, as reported in the Washington Post. Others were refuseniks who tried to flee the country. The inmates complained about poor-quality food, the bitter cold, occasional mistreatment by guards. I should point out that these labor camps were that: they were work camps. They weren't death camps that you had under Nazism where there was a systematic extermination of the people in the camps. So there was a relatively high survival rate. The visitors also noted that throughout the 1980s, hundreds of political prisoners had been released from the various camps, but hundreds are not millions. Even with the great fall that took place after Stalin, under Khrushchev, when most of the camps were closed down...there was no sign of millions pouring back into Soviet life—the numbers released were in the thousands. Why—where are the victims? Why no uncovering of mass graves? No Nuremburg-style public trials of communist leaders, documenting the widespread atrocities against these millions—or hundreds of millions, if we want to believe our friend at the Claremont Institute. Surely the new...anti-communist rulers in eastern Europe and Russia would have leaped at the opportunity to put these people on trial. And the best that the West Germans could do was to charge East German leader Erich Honecker and seven of his border guards with shooting persons who tried to escape over the Berlin Wall. It's a serious enough crime, that is, but it's hardly a gulag. In 1955[sic], the former secretary of the Prague communist party was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. 'Ah, a gulag criminal!' No, it was for ordering police to use tear gas and water cannons against demonstrators in 1988. Is this the best example of bloodthirsty communist repression that the capitalist restorationists could find in Czechoslovakia? An action that doesn't even qualify as a crime in most Western nations—water cannons and tear gas! Are they kidding? No one should deny that crimes were committed, but perhaps most of the gulag millions existed less in reality and more in the buckets of anti-communist propaganda that were poured over our heads for decades.

But as a Puerto Rican woman, she belonged to not one but two minority groups. New research suggests that her double minority status may have amplified the costs and the benefits of speaking up. Management researcher Ashleigh Rosette, who is African American, noticed that she was treated differently when she led assertively than were both white women and black men. Working with colleagues, she found that double minority group members faced double jeopardy. When black women failed, they were evaluated much more harshly than black men and white leaders of both sexes. They didn’t fit the stereotype of leaders as black or as female, and they shouldered an unfair share of the blame for mistakes. For double minorities, Rosette’s team pointed out, failure is not an option. Interestingly, though, Rosette and her colleagues found that when black women acted dominantly, they didn’t face the same penalties as white women and black men. As double minorities, black women defy categories. Because people don’t know which stereotypes to apply to them, they have greater flexibility to act “black” or “female” without violating stereotypes. But this only holds true when there’s clear evidence of their competence. For minority-group members, it’s particularly important to earn status before exercising power. By quietly advancing the agenda of putting intelligence online as part of her job, Carmen Medina was able to build up successes without attracting too much attention. “I was able to fly under the radar,” she says. “Nobody really noticed what I was doing, and I was making headway by iterating to make us more of a publish-when-ready organization. It was almost like a backyard experiment. I pretty much proceeded unfettered.” Once Medina had accumulated enough wins, she started speaking up again—and this time, people were ready to listen. Rosette has discovered that when women climb to the top and it’s clear that they’re in the driver’s seat, people recognize that since they’ve overcome prejudice and double standards, they must be unusually motivated and talented. But what happens when voice falls on deaf ears?

You can manage people or you can lead people. You can be good at managing people, or you can be great at leading people. But if you can’t do either of these things very well, then you should probably start working somewhere else. People aren’t always motivated by money. They’re motivated by relationships, by personal fulfillment, by status. The leadership skills of some people mean nothing, because those people don’t know how to connect with others. In the real world, the best leaders are great at both managing people and leading people. They have people around them who they can trust, and they trust them to do the right thing. They inspire, and they listen. They show their followers that they care, and that they want to see them succeed.

One of Satya’s first moves was to abolish stack ranking. He worked to reverse the traditional emphasis on rewarding the smartest person in the room, who dominates and pushes around others. He encouraged people to ask questions and listen—to be “learn-it-alls” not know-it-alls. He pressed people to live the One Microsoft philosophy, that the company is not to be “a confederation of fiefdoms” because “innovation and competition don’t respect our silos, so we need to transcend those barriers.” To support this new culture, Satya changed the reward system so that the superstars were people who worked across silos and teams to build products and services with pieces that meshed together well. And so that people deemed as superstars were those who helped others succeed in their careers. The backstabbers who’d flourished under Ballmer changed their ways, left the company voluntarily, or were shown the door.

Anyone who’s ever been in a leadership role quickly learns that you’re squeezed between others’ lofty expectations and your own personal limitations. You realize that while others want you to be of impeccable character, you’re not always without fault. You learn that you can’t see around every corner, and even if you know your way forward everyone may not end up at the same destination, let alone be on time. You discover that despite your best efforts to introduce brilliant innovations, most of them don’t succeed. You find that you sometimes get angry and short, and that you don’t always listen carefully to what others have to say. You’re reminded that you don’t always treat everyone with dignity and respect. You recognize that others deserve more credit than they get, and that you’ve failed to say thank you. You know that sometimes you get, and accept, more credit than you deserve. In other words, you realize that you’re human.

Charisma in this world is often just looking good and speaking well. Others merely project onto you what they want to believe to be true. Most people have superficial attachments and shallow thoughts, so the glib man can persuade many. One does not have to be a supreme salesman. No need to be a wizard with words. People clamor for a confident speaker that sounds the part. That your actions can deliver on words cements their allegiance. But even if you don’t become a leader yourself, you may find a key supporting role as a great communicator. Even before you speak, work on being a better listener and observer of cues in others. All messages must be tailored to the audience. In a group, there may be one listener who, if engaged, can turn the whole room towards your speech. Speak calmly, clearly and keep eye contact. Your voice is the voice of a leader confident in his capabilities and beliefs. Changes in tone should have a reason.

You have something to say to me, Cassidy, say it. Or shut the fuck up.” “All right,” Jules said. “I will.” He took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Okay, see, I, well, I love you. Very, very much, and . . .” Where to go from here . . .? Except, his plain-spoken words earned him not just a glance but Max’s sudden full and complete attention. Which was a little alarming. But it was the genuine concern in Max’s eyes that truly caught Jules off-guard. Max actually thought . . . Jules laughed his surprise. “Oh! No, not like that. I meant it, you know, in a totally platonic, non-gay way.” Jules saw comprehension and relief on Max’s face. The man was tired if he was letting such basic emotions show. “Sorry.” Max even smiled. “I just . . .” He let out a burst of air. “I mean, talk about making things even more complicated . . .” It was amazing. Max hadn’t recoiled in horror at the idea. His concern had been for Jules, about potentially hurting his tender feelings. And even now, he wasn’t trying to turn it all into a bad joke. And he claimed they weren’t friends. Jules felt his throat tighten. “You can’t know,” he told his friend quietly, “how much I appreciate your acceptance and respect.” “My father was born in India,” Max told him, “in 1930. His mother was white—American. His father was not just Indian, but lower caste. The intolerance he experienced both there and later, even in America, made him a . . . very bitter, very hard, very, very unhappy man.” He glanced at Jules again. “I know personality plays into it, and maybe you’re just stronger than he was, but . . . People get knocked down all the time. They can either stay there, wallow in it, or . . . Do what you’ve done—what you do. So yeah. I respect you more than you know.” Holy shit. Weeping was probably a bad idea, so Jules grabbed onto the alternative. He made a joke. “I wasn’t aware that you even had a father. I mean, rumors going around the office have you arriving via flying saucer—” “I would prefer not to listen to aimless chatter all night long,” Max interrupted him. “So if you’ve made your point . . .?” Ouch. “Okay,” Jules said. “I’m so not going to wallow in that. Because I do have a point. See, I said what I said because I thought I’d take the talk-to-an-eight-year-old approach with you. You know, tell you how much I love you and how great you are in part one of the speech—” “Speech.” Max echoed. “Because part two is heavily loaded with the silent-but-implied ‘you are such a freaking idiot.’” “Ah, Christ,” Max muttered. “So, I love you,” Jules said again, “in a totally buddy-movie way, and I just want to say that I also really love working for you, and I hope to God you’ll come back so I can work for you again. See, I love the fact that you’re my leader not because you were appointed by some suit, but because you earned very square inch of that gorgeous corner office. I love you because you’re not just smart, you’re open-minded—you’re willing to talk to people who have a different point of view, and when they speak, you’re willing to listen. Like right now, for instance. You’re listening, right?” “No.” “Liar.” Jules kept going. “You know, the fact that so many people would sell their grandmother to become a part of your team is not an accident. Sir, you’re beyond special—and your little speech to me before just clinched it. You scare us to death because we’re afraid we won’t be able to live up to your high standards. But your back is strong, you always somehow manage to carry us with you even when we falter. “Some people don’t see that; they don’t really get you—all they know is they would charge into hell without hesitation if you gave the order to go. But see, what I know is that you’d be right there, out in front—they’d have to run to keep up with you. You never flinch. You never hesitate. You never rest.

Instead of concentrating on how we can include the “other,” too often in American Christianity the focus becomes on when, how, and finding the right justifications for excluding the “other.” When I truly begin to appreciate the inclusive nature of Jesus, my heart laments at all the exclusiveness I see and experience. I think of my female friends; women of wisdom, peace, discernment, and character who should be emulated by the rest of us. When I listen and learn from these women, I realize what an amazing leaders they would be in church—but many never will be leaders in that way because they are lacking one thing: male genitals. Wise and godly women have been excluded, not because of a lack of gifting, education, or ability, but because they were born with the wrong private parts. I also think of a man who attended my former church who has an intellectual disability. He was friendly, faithful, and could always be counted on for a good laugh because he had absolutely no filter— yelling out at least six times during each sermon. One time in church my daughter quietly leaned over to tell me she had to go to the bathroom—and, in true form so that everyone heard, he shouted out, “Hey! Pipe it down back there!” It was hilarious. However, our friend has been asked to leave several churches because of his “disruptiveness.” Instead of being loved and embraced for who he is, he has been repeatedly excluded from the people of God because of a disability. We find plenty of other reasons to exclude people. We exclude because people have been divorced, exclude them for not signing on to our 18-page statements of faith, exclude them because of their mode of baptism, exclude them because of their sexual orientation, exclude them for rejecting predestination…we have become a religious culture focused on exclusion of the “other,” instead of following the example of Jesus that focuses on finding ways for the radical inclusion of the “other.” Every day I drive by churches that proudly have “All Are Welcome” plastered across their signs; however, I rarely believe it—and I don’t think others believe it either. Far too often, instead of church being something that exists for the “other,” church becomes something that exists for the “like us” and the “willing to become like us.” And so, Christianity in America is dying.

Of course, many leaders do ask questions constantly—questions such as these: Why are you behind schedule? Who isn't keeping up? What's the problem with this project? Whose idea was that? Too often, we ask questions that disempower rather than empower our subordinates. These questions cast blame; they are not genuine requests for information. Other sorts of questions are often no more than thinly veiled attempts at manipulation: Don't you agree with me on that? Aren't you a team player? If you tend to ask these sorts of questions, this book is for you. So the point isn't that leaders just don't ask enough questions. Often, we don't ask the right questions. Or we don't ask questions in a way that will lead to honest and informative answers. Many of us don't know how to listen effectively to the answers to questions—and haven't established a climate in which asking questions is encouraged. And that's where this book comes in. The purpose of Leading with Questions is to help you become a stronger leader by learning how to ask the right questions effectively, how to listen effectively, and how to create a climate in which asking questions becomes as natural as breathing.

LEADING LESSONS Criticism can be useful. I’ve taken a beating from the DWTS judges on many occasions. Most of the time, because I’m always aware of the cameras in my face, I just suck it up and take it. Here’s the thing: I realize that maybe they’re seeing something I’m not. Sometimes you’re too close to a situation, too connected to it, to be 100 percent honest with yourself. Or your ego gets in the way and won’t let you improve, because that would mean changing course and admitting you were wrong. I tell my partners to listen carefully when Len, Carrie Ann, or Bruno has a constructive criticism for us. Yes, sometimes it boils down to taste and opinion (and I don’t always agree), but often it’s a valid point. They want us to succeed. The way I see it, you have lots of choices on how to handle it: the first is to lose your temper, get defensive, and spend the rest of the night beating yourself up about it. The second--a natural reaction for most people--is to mentally shut down when someone points out your flaws. Who wants to hear that? Let me just drown it out and ignore it. The third option is your best: keep your mind and your ears open. You can learn about your weaknesses and how you can improve them. A leader is never scared of criticism, but instead knows there is always room to grow and improve. So bring it on.

Society cannot afford to forget the lessons of the past—nor to learn the wrong lessons. But there is a third danger—and it is the greatest threat of all, if only because it is the least well recognized. Humanity can no longer afford to have only a handful of its citizens and leaders understand the lessons of history. We cannot count on a select few to be the caretakers of knowledge. The elite guardians of wisdom will be rendered useless if the masses are incapable of understanding their language, unable to appreciate their concerns, or uninterested even in considering their advice. This danger is not new, but it is always magnified during those times when a population is empowered at a faster rate than it is educated. And it is worst in societies where the value of any idea is measured only after it is filtered through the lens of politics, partisanship, or ideology. Of the diabolically complicated Schleswig-Holstein affair—as pertained to Denmark and Prussia in the mid-19th century—Lord Palmerston is said to have remarked: “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead, a German professor, who has gone mad, and I, who have forgotten all about it.” We can no longer rely only on princes, professors, and lords to understand the affairs of the world. The professors and Palmerstons of the world must educate—and hence enable—the rest. And they must do it soon. The time will come when the masses no longer listen to their advice—when expertise is unrecognizable because the gulf between those who know and those who don’t is too wide to bridge. That day is almost upon us.

It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again,** "why?"** "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" "What?" "I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?" "I'll look. Tell me about the lizards." Ford shrugged again. "Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it." "But that's terrible," said Arthur. "Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.

Finally, you get to explain the way you are, and justify staying that way. This payoff, the strongest of the three, is directly connected to the “in order to” column of your Winning Strategy. Indeed, a racket can be thought of as the “dark side” of your Winning Strategy, the side that you would rather dismiss from sight, because you don’t want to acknowledge its hold on you. The film producer who never works up to her potential is running a racket. She can always say to herself, “I could have done more to make that work”—which becomes a handy justification for things staying the way they are. An executive named Jack identified his racket accurately when he said, “I keep telling my people what I want them to do, but in the deep recesses of my mind, I wonder, with a good deal of concern, what would happen if they really did all the things I requested. In my gut, I can’t help but feel I would no longer be necessary. Of course, that’s very human of me and not something that readily comes into my mind, but whether I am aware of it or not, it lives very viscerally for me. Do I really want to be dispensable? I tell myself and everyone else, I want to be dispensable—I harp on it all the time—and yet I have the ugly confrontation with the truth inside my thoughts. The recurring fear is: If I become dispensable, I’ll have to find something else to do.” Jack’s Winning Strategy was listening for “What is the largest possibility?” so as to act by “challenging and arguing,” in order to “be the best and avoid being ordinary.” When he looked at the unwanted condition of being indispensable, saw it as a racket, and asked, “What is the payoff?” he replied, “The payoff is to justify staying the way I am—that is, being indispensable. If I were dispensable, I would be like anyone else—ordinary. And in my Winning Strategy, being ordinary is something that I’m constitutionally unwilling to tolerate.

I’ve watched too many leaders shield themselves from task conflict. As they gain power, they tune out boat-rockers and listen to bootlickers. They become politicians, surrounding themselves with agreeable yes-men and becoming more susceptible to seduction by sycophants. Research reveals that when their firms perform poorly, CEOs who indulge flattery and conformity become overconfident. They stick to their existing strategic plans instead of changing course—which sets them on a collision course with failure.

Be sure we are on the right path. Some people don’t see God work because God never promised them what they are trying to get. If we feel like we are not getting anywhere, we need to step back and make sure we have heard God. We should go to leaders whom we trust, who know us. We need to listen—and take notes—as they speak into our life. We need to ask them, “Is this really what God is saying to me?” If it isn’t God’s promise, no amount of perseverance will get us there. Presumption is not faith. We need to be certain that we have heard from God.

The most important behavior on your part involves dedicating a disproportionate share of your own time, attention, and discretionary resources to creating new business models. Existing businesses, and the leaders in charge of them, face little difficulty in articulating their needs, building a case for their support, and attracting people. Entrepreneurial initiatives, on the other hand, are usually seen as marginal or unimportant in their early stages. Unless you personally allocate to them disproportionate attention, disproportionate resources, and disproportionate talent, they will get squeezed by the existing business to the extent that they never have a chance to take off. Your challenge is to provide counterpressure to the inertial forces that lead your people to constantly attend to the demands of today’s business. [...] By disproportionate resources, we mean budget, access to operating capacity or operating assets, and, most vitally, the very best people. Ironically, these are the very resources that are highly desired by managers of the existing business, who are apt to hotly contest any other claim on them. Like the payment of disproportionate attention, the disproportionate allocation of resources to new business models has its costs. Every dollar and every hour of operations capacity allocated disproportionately to entrepreneurial initiatives is money and time denied the existing business. Disproportionate allocation must be a deliberate process, with commitment of resources being visibly recognized as a matter of strategic choice, not a struggle between long- and short-term goals. [...] Finally, you must be prepared for your organization’s top talent to work on entrepreneurial initiatives. This can create a painful dilemma. When top talent works on an entrepreneurial initiative, the current business is weakened accordingly. However, if only mediocre talent is assigned to the difficult task of new business development, the ventures are doomed. Furthermore, allowing ventures to be run by mediocre people sends an even stronger signal to the rest of the business about your real priorities. The smart people in the firm will recognize that business development is not truly a priority for you, and they will organize their own priorities accordingly. The message: If you don’t walk the talk, only the dumb people will listen.

If you don’t listen to them, you’re shrinking your influence and limiting your impact. If you can’t work with people who disagree with you, you will never become the leader you could be.

The Ten Commandments As Interpreted by Robin Palmetier 1. Don’t lie. Unless it’s to the police. 2. Don’t cheat your customers. Robin always made sure her dime bags were just a bit larger than any other dealers’ in the area, insuring loyalty in her clientele. 3. Always be polite. Especially to people who don’t like you, as it will piss them off. 4. Don’t steal from anyone. Anyone meaning people, leaving corporations and the IRS fair game. 5. Don’t kill. This one was also on the Bible’s list but, like many Christians, Robin had a long list of exceptions to this rule. It was okay to kill sexual predators (unless they were born-again while serving time), liberal commentators, and anyone described as a "bad guy" by the greatest journalist and political leader of all time, Box News commentator Malcolm Wright. Unless, of course, Mr. Wright happened to be talking about one of her personal friends, which, on occasion, he had. 6. Do not take the Lord’s name in vein. Shit, fuck, cock, pussy, bitch, bastard and their ilk were just fine. Goddamn’s and Jesus Christ’s were no-no’s. 7. Always repay a favor with a favor. Someone does something nice for you, do something nice right back. Being in someone’s debt is a dangerous thing. 8. Affirm that every word in the Bible is true, except the parts that clearly aren’t. Like that thing about eating shellfish—though supposedly an abomination on par with adultery, murder, poly-cotton blends and paying interest on a mortgage—it could not possibly be God’s will. Robin loved scallops and knew the good Lord would not wish to deny her this pleasure. 9. Discuss all decisions with God directly and listen closely to his advice. Sadly, when Praline tried this himself he got nothing but an extended silence, while his mother always seemed to get very detailed instructions. 10. Always remember your mama loves you.

This is what happens when the leaders of an organization listen to the people who work there. Without coercion, pressure or force, the people naturally work together to help each other and advance the company. Working with a sense of obligation is replaced by working with a sense of pride. And coming to work for the company is replaced by coming to work for each other. Work is no longer a place to dread. It is a place to feel valued.

Now listen to me. I will not walk on one-way streets any longer. Your wound is my wound, (though you don't know that mine is yours), and I do what I can, but the well will run dry. You will use us up. There are women whose first stretching across borders was into your lives. When they discover how you make use of their compassion, they will turn away heartsick, stricken, withering in the freshness of their hope. There are women who were leaders, who worked night and day, defeated not by foreign policy, but by the sexual politics of solidarity, bitter now, unable to work anywhere near you. How dare you speak of the New Woman! We are your richest resource besides your endurance, and you use us like rags to wrap around your pain.

So if there ever was a time when an examination of ethical leadership would be useful, it is now. Although I am no expert, I have studied, read, and thought about ethical leadership since I was a college student and struggled for decades with how to practice it. No perfect leader is available to offer those lessons, so it falls to the rest of us who care about such things to drive the conversation and challenge ourselves and our leaders to do better. Ethical leaders do not run from criticism, especially self-criticism, and they don’t hide from uncomfortable questions. They welcome them. All people have flaws and I have many. Some of mine, as you’ll discover in this book, are that I can be stubborn, prideful, overconfident, and driven by ego. I’ve struggled with those my whole life. There are plenty of moments I look back on and wish I had done things differently, and a few that I am downright embarrassed by. Most of us have those moments. The important thing is that we learn from them and hopefully do better. I don’t love criticism, but I know I can be wrong, even when I am certain I am right. Listening to others who disagree with me and are willing to criticize me is essential to piercing the seduction of certainty. Doubt, I’ve learned, is wisdom. And the older I get, the less I know for certain. Those leaders who never think they are wrong, who never question their judgments or perspectives, are a danger to the organizations and people they lead. In some cases, they are a danger to the nation and the world.