Welcome to Technically Short! Alright, that was loud. Yeah, today's episode,
well first welcome, I'm Thomas Carney. I'm Sean and this is Technically Short
as Sean said. This episode we decided that we are going to talk a little bit
about leadership and personally for me that is definitely a, this is definitely a
topic that I take passionately, I think I said the same thing on the
last episode, but like definitely something I take passionately, it's
something I am trying to take as seriously as possible in my life as time has
gone on, so it's definitely something I'm excited to talk about. Yeah, if you want
to dive in, yeah. So initially, what we really want to talk about first is how I
used to view leadership and like what it's, and I talk about what leadership
isn't and what it is. And when I first had my first quote-unquote leadership
position, and Sean you can feel free to jump in at any time. Okay. When I had my
first leadership position, I was a manager at Idlewild Park and Soak Zone and
in one of the food, in the food stands it was at the time, what was it called?
Ah, the pizza place, that's what it was called. It can't be that simple. The pizza
place, that potato patch, a couple different places throughout the years I
was a manager there. And I do, I, I felt like leadership at a time was more
based off experience and then that also gave me the authority to just
tell people what to do. So, and like that's something I've learned as time
has gone on that like that's not what makes a leader. There are tons of people
with tons of experience that just aren't, that aren't leaders in their
industry, that aren't leaders on their teams and sometimes that's not their
fault, that's just not who they are. Other times they are in a leadership
position, kind of like I was, given I was, I was still like a teenager, but didn't
have the leadership aptitude. And so like Sean, what did you think about leadership
whenever you were younger? When I was younger, I thought leadership was the guy
in charge. Everybody wants to be that guy and as I came to find out, it's so
different. My concept of leadership now is way different than how I thought it
was as a kid and I'm so much better for it. Amplified Church, I have to give them a
big shout out because they really taught me in such a way what leadership truly
is versus what I used to think it is. So, what do you think it is now? Leadership
now to me is serving, being a servant who leads other servants. So okay, so for
instance, like if I'm the ice cream manager or the pizza manager or whatever,
sometimes as a good leader, I am not only teaching people what to do, telling
people what to do, but I'm also doing those things as well. Yeah. That's good.
We're gonna ensure if you're good. Yeah. No, I 100% agree with that. I'm gonna
steal something from John Maxwell and he said this all the time
and it's in a lot of his books that leadership is influenced nothing more
nothing less and what that comes down to is that everything that you do and
anything anybody does is influencing somebody. Whether it's influencing
people through their social media, through the posts that they post on social media, how
you show your demeanor when you go through the drive-through at McDonald's
or how you're actually intentionally influencing your team to look
forward to the vision that you've set before them.
And it's funny the way John Maxwell kind of puts it out is that
influences the overall encompassing attribute of leadership and then there's
all these other attributes that fall underneath. That's how I kind of
envisioned it. He never directly has said that but his books
like the one I'm reading right now, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership,
he has a chapter called The Law of Solid Ground and what that's talking about is
trust. It's that if they don't trust that you are solid, they don't trust that you
are a leader, then they're not going to follow you and they believe
in the leader before they believe in the vision.
Because if the leader is a person putting out the vision,
they have to believe and trust in that leader before they can trust in
the vision that they're putting out. I definitely just jumped around a little
bit. I thought you stuck to it. It made sense.
I think leadership now as versus to when I was a teenager, like John
said, it is a drastically different view and the reason is because I've been able
to be around other leaders, specifically around other Christian leaders who are
very very serious about leading well and serving well because like John said,
leading isn't telling people what to do. It's not telling people what
to do. It's not telling people what to do, but it's also showing them how to do it.
It's also serving them.
A leadership isn't servant. A leader isn't supposed to be above, it's supposed to be
beside or sometimes even below because Jesus, the ultimate leader,
he came down from heaven and he came down to our level and walked
alongside us to show us what we were missing and to explain to us what we are
missing and then he went and he died. He went further down. He went down into
hell and paid a price that we could never pay. Sometimes a leader sees,
there's another thing from John Maxwell, a leader sees more than before the people
that they're following. A leader sees the troubles ahead or sees potential
problems before anybody that they're leaving ever does.
That's so good. And so then they can preemptively make a plan.
Okay, when this happens, because it's going to, how are we going to handle it?
I'm sure there was a bunch of things happening within the pandemic.
That was almost like a sifting of leadership.
The way I'm thinking about it is because the leaders that were good,
the leaders that were great, the leaders that weren't as good but were great,
are the ones that stuck and the ones that were okay, maybe some of them stuck,
but maybe they were barely holding on and then the rest of them just got taken
away with the tide. And so that's the way it happened.
And you hear that time and time again with, if you listen to a leadership
podcast, any leadership podcast or read any leadership book that is post
or current pandemic, you read about that kind of thing.
And I think the same thing goes for even the type of leadership that I'm in right
now or Sean is in right now, with me, I'm a volunteer leader at our young adult
group Inspire Collective.
Not else, Inspire Collective.
And whenever I started with that, when I started leaving that team,
it wasn't really a team, in my opinion.
It was me and another person who knew how to do everything.
And I was there positioned as a leader, but I wasn't seen as a leader.
And that was because I wasn't, one reason, because I wasn't positioning myself as one,
because I didn't feel like I was worthy or qualified to be in that position
because the other person knew more than me in certain area.
But that's one thing I've actually learned about leadership real quick,
side note, is that leadership, you don't need to know everything about certain field.
Like I said earlier, you have tons of experience to be a terrible leader.
You don't have to have all the experience.
You just have to know, it's going to sound really dumb,
but you have to know who you're leading, why you're leading them.
Okay, maybe it won't sound dumb, who you're leading, why you're leading them,
and what you're leading them towards, and how to lead,
and a good leader studies leadership.
But going back to production, the ideas of, as I grew in that role,
only being once a week was a slow process.
And I would have moments of self-doubt, moments of like, I don't belong here,
and moments where I was like, I don't think that this is a position for me.
And as time went on, I realized the error of my own thinking of like,
well, if there's a team, if I was positioned, if I was put in this position,
it's because somebody believed in me and saw something in me that I didn't see myself.
So then I was like, okay, well, my next vision was like,
okay, well, then I want to actually live up to that,
make sure I'm actually living up to what that person saw.
And if that's in me, let's find out where that is.
So like, I, that's when I started more actively thinking about who can be on this team,
who can be on this team, who can work more cohesively,
who would be a good addition to production,
and would also be able to be like, okay, I'm not here to do a job,
to put on a show of lights and sound and stuff.
I'm here to have people help people with their experience with the Lord.
And there's a whole other topic of how production at,
sets the atmosphere in these instances, but that's not for this conversation.
Sean, like, what are you thinking right now?
Honestly, I'm thinking how a good leader leads is by serving, right?
And I think you were such a good leader because before you got the role,
you had the heart for it, you know what I mean?
You had the desires for it.
And I think a lot of people, they honestly, they want the role,
but they don't have the heart or the desire or the passion or the call to do the job.
So if you don't have any of those things and you're trying to be a leader,
you're going to do it horrible.
Like we have that in sometimes in the police department,
sometimes you have that in the military, sometimes you have it as a pastor,
sometimes you have it as a teacher, sometimes you have it as anything in life, right?
Anybody who's at a leadership position who doesn't want to be there,
hurts other people.
And it happens because the heart is not behind it.
Like I know there's tons of great cops, there's tons of great pastors,
there's tons of great teachers, there's tons of great people in leadership,
but the reason why they're so great is, I would say, three reasons.
One, God called them to it.
Two, they have the passion for it.
And three, they think about how they can help others while doing it,
but they don't let the role go to their head.
All right.
That's good.
I think that's good.
I don't really have too much to add to that,
but I think it brings us to our last point,
talking about how as a leader, or pretty much if you want to lead anybody,
if you want to influence anybody, you have to start with yourself.
That change starts internally before you can go and try to focus on anybody externally.
I... one of the verses I really like from the Bible,
my favorite verse is Philippians 4-8, and I'll just read it real quick.
It says, finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble,
whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable,
if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.
I think a lot of people, like, they think about such things like,
oh, you're telling me how to think.
Like, that's, like, you know, I choose that.
That's my decision.
That's something I can control.
And newsflash, it's not.
Not right off the bat.
Not just through instinct alone.
And I think the, whenever you're able to practice the skill of thinking
and knowing the things that are noble, right, pure, lovely,
admirable, excellent, excellent, or praiseworthy,
whenever you're able to also take those thought captive,
as it says in the book of Corinthians, like, and turn them,
take any thought captive that is of God, which means it's not of love,
it's not of joy, it's not of something that is good,
and you give it to him so it can become something of him.
If you can't do that internally and you're just bitter,
and you're just bitter, you're angry, you're angry, or you're gossiping,
like, that's not something that makes a good leader.
You have to be able to lead yourself before you're ready to lead anybody else.
And with, I think there's, last episode, we talked about trials.
And we talked about, like, how, like, how, what our kind of experience with them.
And I think one very positive part of trials is that,
this is kind of something I didn't touch on last episode, what I wanted to,
is that the trials, they're not like, it's kind of a revelation I kind of had the other day,
and like, these trials are not for defining you, they're for refining you.
They're for, they're for taking, they're for, they're for,
they're for these moments of hard trials, the moments where you're,
the moments where you're suffering, that's where your true self will come to the surface.
You're either, like, you're either, you're either fall further down,
because you don't have that solid foundation below you, beneath your feet,
or you're going to rise further up, you're going to rise to the occasion.
The, hmm.
And I think those experiences, a lot of the time, at least in my experience with me,
like, it's what's caused me to become a better leader.
It's because it's forced me to be, have more of a humble mind.
And think of myself, think, look at myself and be like, well, crap, I can't do this all on my own.
So, like, who do I trust?
Who do I trust that, who do I trust to have on my team?
Who do I trust to help me out in this certain situation,
so that I don't have to do it on my own?
And I think that's, after starting with the trial of, like, learning, like,
okay, well, if it starts inside me, of being able to turn my thoughts, captive to God,
and then going to somebody else, and being leading them to be able to do the same,
then how do you, then what's the next step after that?
Sean, I'll let you take it.
Honestly, I feel like that was good, man, like, honestly, a great leader has great counsel.
There's a scripture in the Bible for that.
I know the opposite scripture right now, which is, bad company corrupts good manners.
I was thinking of, I was trying to figure out the one with great, great scripture,
great leadership has good counsel.
But, there's a whole point of, like, the people you surround yourself with,
as a leader, especially as a leader, should be great counsel.
Your inner circle has to be great counsel. Why?
Because you're leading, and if you're not having somebody pour into you positively,
then they're pouring into you negatively.
And if you're leading, you need great counsel,
so anytime you're doing something wrong, they can hold you accountable,
so that you don't, the people under you don't get hurt.
And how do people get hurt by leadership is when the leader doesn't have great counsel,
and he's too high, and he doesn't have nobody to hold him accountable.
So then when he falls out of line with what God called him to do, or what he's supposed to do,
he just makes people follow him blindly.
And when you're following blindly behind a leader,
that's where all the scandals and all the bad stuff happens.
And it happens because you take yourself from focusing on God to focusing on you,
and when you focus only on you, that's where the problem is, because we're not perfect.
But if you focus on God as a leader, the people under you will get the love,
the joy, the peace, the refining qualities that you get from all the trials that you face in life,
you'll be able to use those qualities to help them be refined so they can get better.
And it's like a triple down effect.
Whatever is, you're focusing on God,
then all the good stuff God's pouring onto you pours onto the people who are under you,
and the people around you, and then it just keeps going down, and it keeps going.
It's a flow. But if you move from the flow as a leader, that's where everything goes haywire.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think I had something.
Earlier I said when you're in the trial, you rise to the occasion, but it's not really true.
What's, either you fall or you rise, and really it's both times you fall, it's just how about how far you fall.
It's not, you might have heard this saying before, you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training.
Oh, that's good.
And what that means is like, again, last episode, I talked about preparation, you prepare for the trial.
So if you're, so like right now, I'm not in a massive leadership position, but I'm preparing like I am.
Because one day I believe God has something out for me that will be bigger, maybe not,
I don't even want to say better because I love what I do right now, but I would say I have a bigger point of influence than I have now.
So I want to be ready for that when it comes and also be ready for the trials when they come.
Because, yeah, so I think like if there's something that you want to be, would like to do in the future,
if you see yourself as a leader, if you feel like you want to be a leader, you need to start now.
You need to start preparing now, even if you don't have the position.
The like, like I just told you this yesterday, Sean, like you've heard it before, before I said it,
but it was like the best time to plant a seed was yesterday, was 10 years ago.
Second best time is now.
Yep, there we go.
And like, so like if you haven't started preparing yet, start it.
There's books, tons of books out there.
Tons of tons of courses, tons of free courses, tons of paid courses.
Like there's so be careful with those, by the way, I've got maybe we'll have another episode on that.
Eight courses actually should be an episode.
Make sure you get a good teacher when you're paying for money.
Oh, man, there's a whole story behind that.
I said, do you want to make an episode on that?
But the you know, I think like we kind of covered a lot, we covered a lot in this episode and it's like,
I think it was a nice compact one, too.
Absolutely.
So if you like this episode, definitely give it a like.
You got to share it out with your friends.
Give us five stars.
Give us five stars on Spotify and whatever platform you can rate us and give us some comments on Apple podcast.
If you have already, I'm sorry.
I haven't seen them yet.
I have to look because Sean has access to the account and I don't.
But yeah, I guess honestly, really appreciate everybody that's been listening so far and everybody comes up to us and says like
that they're really liking the podcast.
I've had honestly had tons of people.
I shouldn't say tons. I've had a few.
I've had a few people come up and say that they really, really do enjoy the podcast and say that each episode gets better and better.
So I really appreciate everyone that has said that. And I also we love for a technically short family.
One that we'll talk about that off off the podcast.
But I have another thing I want to say.
But, uh, no, Sean, uh, that's the wrap up.
Let's make this a short and sweet little and end.
You know how these podcasts typically end with something, something fun when it wrap it up.
I don't really.
Hmm.
Sean, what's your favorite anime?
Anime. Oh, that's a hard one.
It'd be between Naruto and Drammo Z.
I guess Naruto has a better storyline, but Drammo Z I've been watching since I'm five.
So that was like a lot of years.
So I would have to go Drammo Z just because of it's where I started.
Technically Speed Racer, but at the time nobody knew Speed Racer was anime.
I didn't even know that for a while.
Dude, I love my One Punch Man.
Punch Man's good.
It's not my favorite, but one of my favorite short animes.
That's like a really one season anime, isn't it?
Am I wrong?
Two.
Two seasons?
Okay, short.
Short season.
A lot of the ones are short.
A lot of the really good ones are really short.
They make me mad.
Me too.
That's like the worst.
You find the best anime of all time and it's 12 episodes.
And you don't even realize it.
You don't even realize it.
You're like, oh, when's the next season coming out?
I was like, oh, it's not.
This came out in 2014.
The worst.
Worst pain of all time.
My brother really hates that too.
Aw man.
But alright guys, again, thank you for listening.
Again, share it, subscribe, do all the things, and we will see you next time.
See you next time.