Author: Kent Myers

Everyday Leadership has nothing to do with hierarchy, or power, or authority, or where are you sit on organization chart. It has everything to do with every single one of us, every single day.

Welcome back to another discussion on Everyday Leadership. From our discussion so far, you know that Everyday Leadership has nothing to do with hierarchy, or power, or authority, or where are you sit on organization chart. It has everything to do with every single one of us, every single day. That definition that we use to frame an Everyday Leader, is a person that thinks more about the needs of others than themselves, speaks with integrity, acts with purpose, and most importantly, consistently, positively impacting the lives of others every single day. 

We’ve been talking a lot about the eight commitments that Everyday Leaders make to themselves. And today we’re going talk about the commitment of extending trust. That commitment is just this: “EVERYDAY I will extend trust to others even before it’s earned and will assume positive intent of everyone”. Wow! That’s a commitment that is a lot easier to say and to write down on a piece of paper, than to actually do every single day. It’s a push against human nature for most of us. The tricky thing about trust is that it can mean different things to different people. For example, if you were to say to me “I don’t trust you”, the things that I would hear, the way that I would interpret that, is a direct attack on my character or my integrity. But trust can also refer to competency; how well you do something or doing it on time. And when the word trust is misused and not understood, conflict happens. 

Trust is the ultimate outcome in investing in others. Trust is the glue that holds relationships together. Trust isn’t about just believing in someone, but taking action toward that belief. Because real trust, can’t be realized until it’s extended it to someone else. And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. 

We can think about trust as a continuum. On one far end of the continuum is mistrust or suspicion. The other end of the continuum is blind trust or gullibility. The reality is, is if we live our lives at either end of that continuum,  we’re going to be constantly finding ourselves in resistance, and difficulties in our teams and our relationships. We have to find ways sometimes to extend and give trust to live in the middle. After studying teams for many years, the things that I realize is most conflict does not arise from trusting each other too much, it’s from trusting each other too little. Trust is a bit like a spiral. Is when we trust, and extend trust others, they can sense that. And when we do extend trust others, they want to do they’re very best not to disappoint. To live up to both, from a character perspective and competencies perspective, the expectations that we have when we trust them. But the opposite is also true. Is that when we mistrust, or distrust, or are suspicious of others, they can sense that. And when that happens, they rarely will live up to the commitments or expectations that we’ve set. Trust matters. 

Let me tell you little story about extending trust and the impact that it can have on someone else’s life. A few weeks ago, I standing in my driveway and got an opportunity to be able to carry on a conversation with a neighbor that was out for a walk. And we got into a discussion on the difficulty of the times that we’re in, and in the subject of trust, and he told me a story that I think perfectly exemplifies the power of extending trust. My neighbor is an accomplished professional in his 50s now, but he told me a story about when he was in high school. A time when he didn’t always hang around with some of the best of friends, and didn’t always make some of the best of decisions. And he talked about in his sophomore year in high school, when he and some friends got into trouble for breaking into cars, to take car stereos or other miscellaneous items. And as he told me that story, I could see that, that wasn’t a pleasant time in his life. The thing you have to understand, is my neighbor is an avid golfer today, and he was in high school. And the story that he told me was about a family friend, who is actually now his father-in-law, his wife’s father. And while they were dating in high school, he told me the story of his father-in-law coming to him and saying, I know you love to play the game of golf, and I own a golf cart rental business as you know, and anytime that you want to use one of the golf carts, here is a key to my shop. Go in and use the cart. All I ask is it when you’re done, if it’s an electric cart, plug it back in, or if it’s a gas cart, fill it back up with gas. And keep it clean so that when someone comes to use it, it’s ready. My neighbor said he sheepishly looked at the gentleman, who is now his father-in-law, and said you understand that I’ve been in trouble with the law for stealing. I just wanted you to know that. And he said the gentleman looked down at him, and said well, I guess I’m just going to have to trust you now, aren’t I? And as my neighbor told me that story, I could see the tears form in his eyes. That it’s still that emotional for him. And he said that in that moment, that man changed his identity. Changed the way that my neighbor saw himself. Not as a misfit, or a criminal, but actually someone that was worth trusting. The power of changing someone’s identity, in one moment. 

You can see from that story, that extending trust changes lives. What keeps us from extending trust? Is it a fear of being let down? Of being burnt? Well, the reality of life is there are those times where we’re going to be disappointed when we’ve extended trust. But I think if you consider it, you’ll understand that the benefits of extending trust far outweigh the potential of being disappointed. As Everyday Leaders, my challenge to you, is to go and positively impact someone’s life by extending trust.

By now we’ve talked about Everyday Leadership. That definition of leadership that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with hierarchy or power or authority, but is the kind of leadership that we all have the ability to, and quite honestly the obligation to be, every single day. An Everyday Leader is a person that thinks more about the needs of others and themselves, speaks with integrity, acts with purpose, consistently, positively impacting the lives of others every single day. That’s easy to say, but more difficult to put into action. Everyday Leaders make eight commitments to themselves, eight commitments strive to demonstrate every single day. Of these commitments, today we’re going to focus on commitment number one: Everyday I will demonstrate kindness and caring for all that I interact with. Kindness and caring are a couple of words that get lumped together, sometimes with other terms that we use that describe in our minds the same type of things: kindness and caring and empathy and sympathy and compassion.  As we think about putting these feelings into action I want to separate some of these words a bit. Empathy is a way that many of us feel when we see someone in need. When we see someone that is hurting in some way, and we understand how they feel. And we have a feeling of wanting to try to help them. We’ve all  been in that position, of those intentions to be able to make their lives a little bit better. But the most interesting thing, and the most important thing, is what happens next after we have that feeling. Because it’s one of two directions in which we go. We either have the feeling and take no action, which is just complacency. Or we do something to demonstrate that feeling of empathy, that understanding of hurting toward the other person in order to make them feel little bit better. When we take action on our empathy we demonstrate compassion. Empathy without action is just wasted compassion. 

When I think about true compassion, the empathetic feeling of need for others and taking action on it, I think about a neighbor that I had when I was a young boy growing up. Her name was Mrs. Mayo and she lived across the road from me. I got to know her because I mowed her yard, but I also got to know her because for 39 years Mrs. Mayo was a cafeteria lunch lady. She served food in an elementary school little town in Boonville, Missouri in grades kindergarten through second, for 39 years. Many, many years ago Mrs. Mayo retired from that 39-year job. I was speaking with my mom as I called home one week to find out all the happenings in Boonville, Missouri and she had mentioned that they had the opportunity to go to Mrs. Mayo’s retirement party. A retirement party for the cafeteria lunch lady. I thought that was interesting and one of the things that my mom told me was that they told a lot of stories about Mrs. Mayo, some, that she didn’t know even after living decades across the street from her. And one of the stories was that Mrs. Mayo for those 39 years that she was a lunch lady, knew every name of every child that went through those lines, and strived to call them by name every single day. I thought that was amazing, but  I didn’t know why. I have to tell you that there’s another reason that Mrs. Mayo is so near and dear in my memories is that every Christmas Eve, Mrs. Mayo would bake our family a large tray full of cinnamon rolls. And as long as I can remember, every Christmas morning, we had Mrs. Mayo’s cinnamon rolls. As a kid it was a tough decision when you wake up Christmas morning to know whether to run to the Christmas tree and all those presents, or the smells wonderful cinnamon rolls coming out of the oven. Well I remember after college being home for Christmas, actually it was the year that she retired in May, and Mrs. Mayo called. And she said I have your cinnamon rolls ready but I’m just not feeling very well, can somebody come over and pick them up. So I went across the street, the place that I’ve been many times knocked on the door and Mrs. Mayo came to the door. And I have just enough manners to know that I can’t grab the cinnamon rolls and run, that I wanted to go in and talk for a while. We went in and sat around the table and we chatted. And I asked her, I said, I heard a story about you. I heard that all of those years that you served food to kids that you called them by name every one of them every day and then she kind of paused and looked at me and she said yes I did understand that not every kid that came through the lunch and had a loving mother and a father that they were raised with like you were across the road that some of these kids raised by aunts or uncles or their grandparents not all of them had a mother and a father some of them were raised by single parents some of them didn’t have all of the things that you were given in life she said so I thought there’s not much I can do about that but if I could learn their names and I could call them by name when they came through the breakfast line in the morning maybe I’ll start the day right and maybe if I continue to do that I said hi to them and ask them how their day was going called him by name at lunch maybe i can keep the day going and then she said something to me that I will never forget she said I never saw my job as serving food I saw my job as serving kids what a blessing a woman like Mrs. Mayo is to every one of these lives that she touched she was empathetic that she understood that not all of these kids came from a solid family background we’re probably struggling with things that she couldn’t comprehend but she didn’t stop with just empathy she did something about it intentionally for 39 years of her life she demonstrated compassion every day by caring about those kids calling them by name and trying to better every dang it she said very interesting we think about the jobs that we do we can think about them from a couple perspectives we can think jobs means to paycheck and occupation or we can think about them in the way to Golden male thought about them calling purpose of all cash my challenge to is to be an everyday leader strive every single day to demonstrate commitment number one show kindness and care action moving towards the cash every single person we have no idea what’s going on in people’s lives and you can be there in that moment to be able to make a great positive impact in someone else’s life be an everyday leader.

An Everyday Leader is someone who thinks more about the needs of others than themselves, speaks with integrity, acts with purpose, and most importantly, consistently, positively impacting the lives of others every single day.

I get the opportunity to frequently talk to different groups about leadership. And I usually get a chance to ask several questions. And one of the first questions that I always enjoy asking is, how many of you without question, unequivocally would call yourself a leader? And it’s always an interesting response. Similar, every single time is that about a third of the audience will raise their hand. And of the third, half of them give this half a hand raise, because they’re not completely confident in that answer. And that’s unfortunate because I think that we’ve raised this term “leader” or “leadership” to something so heroic that very few of us will ever have an opportunity to be a part of, in our minds. Well I hope we change that perception today as we talk about leadership.

A couple of other questions that I ask frequently are, what’s the first attribute or word that you think of when you hear that word “leader” or “leadership”? And I get a variety of answers. Things like “courage” and “vision” and “compassion” and “honesty”. Another question that I usually follow up that with, is who is the very first person that you think of when you hear that word, leader or leadership? And those answers vary as well, from that fifth-grade teacher to the wrestling coach to someone of hierarchy and power like a president or a general. Well the one thing that I know is true is that if there’s 100 people sitting in a room and I ask the question: “give me your definition of leadership” – I would probably get about 115 different answers. And that’s because we all see leaders and leadership slightly different. 

Well I hope today we’re going to put a stake in the ground and we’re going to talk about a kind of leadership that I refer to as Everyday Leadership. And it’s interesting when I talk about that word “everyday” how that resonates, how people hear that. Cause they hear it usually one of two ways. Is one everyday kind of person is “all of us”. And then the other aspect of it is the chronology: every single day. The definition of an Everyday Leader is an Everyday Leader is someone who thinks more about the needs of others than themselves, speaks with integrity, acts with purpose, and most importantly, consistently, positively impacting the lives of others every single day.

If you were to ask me the same question that I just posed to you, of who do you think of when you think of a leader or leadership? I’d have to tell you a story. A story about one of the greatest jobs that I had between my freshman and sophomore year in college, in a little town in the middle of Missouri name Boonville. The job that I had was an umpire for a five and six-year-old T-ball league in the evenings. Now those of you that have ever been involved in five and six-year-old t-ball know that there are probably some great examples of leadership and some not so great examples of leadership. But one night that I will always remember, I saw one of the greatest examples of an Everyday Leader that I’ve ever seen. It was a July night; muggy, warm, dusty and the game had to be close to an end because we’ve been going for some time. Now to understand how five and six-year old t-ball works, is that kids rarely strike out in t-ball. So what happens is one team will bat all the way around the order, and then it’s the next team’s turn, and they will bat all the way around the order. And when about an hour is up, the game is over. So, my job is really a glorified timekeeper. Well this night, a little boy was coming up to bat and he was the last batter for that team, and as I glanced down and looked at my watch, I knew that there wasn’t enough time for the next team to bat. And I would imagine that the parents felt the same thing cause behind me I could hear cooler lids shutting and chairs folding up.  Well as this little boy came up to bat, he had a big smile on his face and was just filled with joy. Now this little boy unfortunately struck out twice that night. You see this little boy suffered from down syndrome so he struggled somewhat with muscle control. Well he came up to bat, and got up to the plate and stood in the batter’s box and his coach came down off the first baseline. Got his legs spread apart just right. Got his bat back up on his shoulder. And I did my job and put the ball on the tee, and a little boy looks back at me and I kind of give him the confirming nod to go ahead. And that little boy swings as hard as he can, and hits the tee and the ball falls off. And it’s strike one. Well the coach comes over again, and gets him set up and gets his legs spread apart, and the bat up and I put the ball on the tee, and the little boy swings as hard as he can and hits the tee again. 

And this time that ball falls off directly in front of Homeplate. Well nobody is a complete expert on all of the rules of t-ball, so there’s a moment of silence. What seems like about three minutes, which was probably about three seconds. And then that silence was broken by a voice from the opposing teams’ dugout. And all you could hear was, “run to first, run to first, run to first!” And the little boy looks back at me, and I give him the universal sign run to first. And he takes off as hard as he can toward first base, which is amazing because many try to run to third. And this little boy is going as hard as he can, and now at this time you see the opposing teams’ coach, Coach Schuster, come out of the dugout, yelling for this little boy, cheering him on to “run the first, run to first”. This little boy is more than halfway toward first base, as Coach Schuster turns to his catcher and screams, “throw the ball to first, throw the ball to first!” Well if any of you understand the athletic ability of five-year old, to make the throw from Homeplate to first base, you know what happens. It’s not even close. It ends up on the far-right side of the base, with a whole bunch of little kids chasing it. As that little boy rounds first base, Larry Schuster is now in the coaches’ box cheering him on to, “run to second, run to second, run to second!” And this boy is going as hard as he can, almost turning second base by the time that the other kids get to the ball. Well you see what happens. This little boy hits an inside-the-park homerun. I get choked up telling that story because in my mind I can still see that little boy turning third-base running toward home with the biggest smile on his face and his arms pumping just as hard as they can. And when he crossed Homeplate, kids from both teams met him cheering. Every parent in the stand, it didn’t matter whose parent was for what kid, on what team, they were all just applauding. It was one of those unbelievable, inspirational moments that I will always remember in my life, because one man, in one moment, came out of a dugout. 

And that was always a great story, and that moment I will always remember. But a couple years later, I was calling back home and talking to my parents, like I did on a weekly basis, and I was chatting with my mom and I said, “what happened in the little town of Boonville this week?” And she said, well we had the opportunity to go to Larry Schuster’s funeral. And I knew that Larry Schuster had passed away. And I asked her the question. I said, was it very well attended? And she told me that the church was able to seat 200 people, and 150 had to stand outside. 

We talk about Everyday Leadership not in a position of hierarchy, or power, or authority, but in character. And that’s exactly what Larry Schuster was. Larry Schuster, his occupation was a simple mechanic. One stall in a little garage taking care of people. Well the interesting thing about that service that my mom told me, was that there was a young man, probably in his late 20s early 30s at this point, that was now an executive for Special Olympics. And that young man got up and gave Larry Schuster’s eulogy by telling the story of a night on a t-ball field when Larry Schuster changed the trajectory of his life. Changed the way that he saw himself and his identity. And changed the path that he was on. One moment. One moment in time where one man to decided to come out of a dugout that changed the trajectory and the path of a young boy’s life. I’ve told that story hundreds if not thousands of times, and I’m sure that young man has as well. The ripple effect in the legacy that Larry Schuster had, not because of his power or authority, or position, but because of his Everyday Leadership. 

We’re going to carry on this journey of talking about 8 commitments that Everyday Leaders make to themselves. Commitment number one: Everyday, I will demonstrate kindness and caring for all that I interact with. Commitment number two: Everyday, I will extend trust even before it is earned and assume positive intent of everyone. Number three:  Everyday, I will be the example that I want others to follow. Number four: Everyday, I will strive to make every person successful through proactive accountability and respect. Number five: Everyday, I will take 100% responsibility of things within my control, with zero excuses. Number six: Everyday, I will seek to discover and develop potential and everyone, including myself. Number seven: Everyday, I will work for extraordinary results by focusing on our “why”.  And number eight: Everyday, I will appreciate everything that I have and show gratitude to all while celebrating our progress.

We have to remember it’s not the heroic moments in life that create the greatest impact, in and with other people. It’s the little things that we do that make the biggest differences. Just like Larry Schuster coming out of that dugout to be able to change the trajectory of that little boy’s life. My challenge to you is just this, today and every day going forward be very intentional and be an Everyday Leader.