Welcome to The Get Real Podcast, your high-octane boost and in the trenches tell-it-like-it-is reality therapy for personal, business and real estate investing success with your hosts, power-preneurs Angela and Ron. It’s time to get real!

Angela: Hey everybody, welcome to the Get Real Podcast. I’m Angela Thomas. And I’m here with Ron Phillips. Hey Ron.

Ron: Yup. Pumped to be here.

Angela: Joining us from South Carolina. All right.

Ron: Sunny, hot South Carolina today. It is actually hot today.

Angela: We have cloud covers so it actually feels pretty nice. Yeah. All right. So today we are going to talk about leadership. Leadership. Yes.

Ron: Great topic.

Angela: It is. Yeah. I don’t know if we’re qualified to talk about it, but you know, we still, you know, we’ve seen really good leaders. We have really good leaders in our group of friends and, and we’re…

Ron: We talk about all kinds of things we’re not qualified to talk about Angela what would stop us today.

Angela: We’re not qualified to talk about any of the things we talk about, but here we go. All right, so leaders, we’re going to talk about qualities that we’ve seen in effective leaders,

Ron: Leaders, not managers. Let’s not get the two confused out of the gate.

Angela: You want to, you want to separate them, run. What’s a manager?

Ron: I think that man there was a picture one time that I saw about managers. Managers like sitting behind a desk and he’s got a whip and he’s like cracking the whip on everybody and then the next picture it shows a leader in the leaders out front with a flag and he is marching and everybody’s behind him.

Angela: Yes. I love that.

Ron: Difference between leaders and managers.

Angela: Yeah. All those war movies. You know, if the leader actually is the first one out charging the field, I know that’s kind of an ancient war movie. But if they’re out there fighting in front of their team, that’s a leader compared to a manager that stands behind them and yells at them too, you know, work harder, kill more people.

Ron: You know I’ve got a great example.

Angela: Okay.

Ron: I’ve got a great example. I used to work at a company and I was pretty decent friends with the owner. He hired this guy, this manager, sales manager guy. And I really didn’t like this guy out of the gate. I couldn’t put my finger on what the problem was with him, but there was a problem, couldn’t figure it out. We had this massive flood one day, right? So we had this two-story office and the call center and all of the computers were on the bottom floor. And I mean, when I say it rained like couldn’t see the other side of the street kind of rain.

Angela: Wow.

Ron: And before long there was this little creek behind the office. Before long, the creek was completely out of its banks. It was in the parking lot and it was starting to float are our vans, right. Service vans were starting to float up, right. So now it’s coming into the building and it was all hands on deck. Like everybody, you know, including the, you know, the little office girl, I don’t know.

Angela: Little office girl.

Ron: She may have been scared or whatever. She’s yeah and she’s dressed in nice clothes, were all dressed in nice clothes. You know she was wearing, you know, some kind of white thing. I remember, because she was going to get into this water was dirty and I’m thinking, oh my gosh, you’re going, that’s going to be ruined. There’s no way that’s coming clean. Every single person in that building, including the owner, are all down in the water. We’re trying to drive the vans out and up on the streets so they don’t float down the creek. And you know, we’re trying to put all of the computers that were on the floor upon the desks.

Ron: We’re trying to save everything, right? We’re just down there in triage and everybody’s running around, nobody’s noticing anything. And all of a sudden I had to go upstairs to get something, go upstairs and here’s this dude sitting by himself in a chair. And I said, dude, we’re all down there trying to like save the company. What’s going on? And he’s like, yeah man, I can’t like my shoes.

Angela: Oh my gosh.

Ron: So what’s the problem with the dude? Is he’s not a leader? Did he lead anybody? No, he was sitting upstairs concerned with himself.

Angela: It sounds like the owner was an actual leader, but your sales manager wasn’t a manager.

Ron: I mean everybody else at that moment was more of a leader than he was including the girl who sat at the front desk because she was, she knew instinctively what needed to be done. She didn’t wait on anybody to go tell her what to do. She just went and did it. So what everybody was doing, there’s the difference between a leader and a manager. He was hired to be a manager. That’s exactly what he was. And it’s unfortunate because that position actually needed a leader. So.

Angela: That’s a great story. Thanks, Ron. So yeah, so we’re just going to talk through a couple of the main qualities that these leaders have. Obviously the most important one has illustrated the story Ron just told, if you have that, you’re, what, 90% of the way there, 95%. But let’s talk about a couple more here. So number one, leaders get the give and take of communicating, okay. So a manager talks to you and a leader communicates with you and it’s a two-way street.

Ron: Love that. You’re like talking at you.

Angela: Talk at you, thank you.

Ron: Talk at you.

Angela: You get this done and this is how I want it done.

Ron: And if talking to you and then talking at you doesn’t work. They talk down to you.

Angela: Yes.

Ron: Next step. Right?

Angela: Yeah. We’ve all worked for somebody like that. I mean, honestly, I thought I was never going to last at a company for longer than like a year because I worked for quite a few managers that talked at me and didn’t care what you had to say or didn’t value your opinions.

Ron: I’ve had some really, really good examples of leaders too who sit and listen and understand that some of the best ideas don’t come from them. They actually come from the people who are doing the work.

Angela: Yes, love that.

Ron: That is in the field doing whatever it is that we’re trying to elevate, right?

Angela: Yeah. And if our team members are listening to this, we realize that we are not always good at this. It takes work to, it takes more time to sit and, and listen and actually try to understand people and then figure out what’s actually happening and learn people’s opinions and learn about people than it does to just dictate, right. So it’s an easy habit to fall back into, especially if you were trained by a manager that did that, which I was at several jobs.

Angela: So I apologize to anybody that I do that too. But I know that this is super important and all of me, you know, all the leaders that I look up to in my life have done this very well. And I don’t want to call Ron out, but he’s usually pretty good at this. I mean, occasionally he gets busy and he talks to you. But most of the time the reason I’ve been with Ron for what, 11 years of working with Ron for…

Ron: A long time.

Angela: A long time, 11, 12 years, something like that is because I felt valued and Ron’s loyal and he listens. And you know, it’s a two-way street and so I appreciate that.

Ron: I’m blushing. Can you guys see me? I am blushing right now.

Angela: But every good leader in my life has done that and we try so hard to do that in our company. We know that. I mean, some of the best ideas we’ve implemented have come from like new people in our company. You know, somebody we hired to do the paperwork for us or whatever, brought in an idea that changed the business completely. So.

Ron: There’s a quote that I absolutely love. I’m pretty sure it was Andy Stanley who said this, and he says leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who don’t have anything helpful to say.

Angela: That’s awesome.

Ron: Think about that for just a second. Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who don’t have anything helpful to say.

Angela: That’s crazy. That makes me think of The Office with Andy, like being a yes man. If you don’t listen to anyone and you dictate, you’re going to surround yourself with yes men that just agree with you because it’s easier, right?

Ron: And that’s not useful. It doesn’t do anybody any good. And because they’re scared to say anything out of what you have already dictated, which is man, that’s really shortsighted because for anybody who out there who we, I think we went over this in the last episode, but anybody who out there who thinks that they know how to do everything better than everybody else, I promise you to don’t.

Angela: Yeah. And some of the best leaders in the world say that they surrounded themselves with people who are smarter than they are. You want to hire people who are smarter than you in different ways, and that have different skills because otherwise, you’re going to miss out on tons of stuff.

Ron: And then you have to empower them, right. You have to empower them to use the intelligence that they have to make things better than you are able to make them.

Angela: Yep.

Ron: And then you have to get out of your head about the fact that somebody did something better than you did. And it’s okay. Because it helps everybody else out for that to happen. So get rid of the pride. Just check it at the door every day before you go in. That’s the first step in being a leader.

Angela: Yup. All right. Next one. So number two, they know how to establish and maintain momentum. Yeah. So this one is interesting…

Ron: Tell me more about that.

Angela: Yes. No, I instantly think of the bad example first because I’ve seen it a lot.

Ron: Plus it’s more fun. Yeah. It is more fun to talk about anyway.

Angela: It is more fun. Yeah. So, I mean I’ve worked for, you know, several companies and managers that did this the wrong way. They’d give you a huge project and yeah, I’m thinking of one at a retail store I used to work at, but they’d give you a huge project. Don’t laugh, Ron. C’mon.

Ron: Oh, it’s a great organization.

Angela: I know, I know. Yeah, I was Abercrombie in case anyone’s wondering, but I was a manager for them straight out of college. And so, you know, it would come down from home office that we’d have this huge project and we’d have to like redo the whole store in one night. Man, you know, everything is dictated out like specifically page by page with pictures on how to make everything look because they can’t, you know, run the risk that you do anything wrong.

Angela: And then on top of that they checking in on you like every five seconds like your direct manager is like calling you or is there breathing down your neck while you do it and saying let’s go faster. Let’s get more people in here. What’s taking so long, blah blah blah. So I know why they have to do that. They’re a large company, but man, does it take the wind out of your sails?

Angela: I mean it just, I mean we are, I was a robot and so was everyone else working for us that just had to follow exactly what we were told and stay on their timeline. And it basically felt like they’re behind us with a whip. Compared to in our company, we don’t believe in micromanaging people.

Ron: To a fault sometimes.

Angela: To a fault sometimes. Yeah. I mean sometimes we’re lacking on training as well.

Ron: There’s a fine line there are people.

Angela: But man, do I work better? And I know there’s most of you out there are probably the same way. Like how much more fun is it if you’re given a task that has to happen or a project and you actually get to decide how to make it happen, maybe you have a timeline that’s great, but getting to use your, you know, creativity and logic and whatever else to figure out how to do it is the fun part. I mean if you take that all away, you take, I think that takes away all the motivation if you, I mean there’s, you know, who wants to just sit there and follow exact instructions with someone with a whip behind you when you could, you know, figure out how to do it yourself in your own timeframe and feel like you accomplished something.

Ron: And more often than not do it better than whatever someone had it laid out, right? Because…

Angela: I mean who decides that’s a perfect way, you know.

Ron: Right? And if you’ve hired well, right, if you’ve put the right person in the right seat, that means they probably can do it better than you can. That’s the whole reason that otherwise, you didn’t hire well. So, hey, you’ve got to let people and then when they come in and it’s not like you think it should be, there’s a couple of ways you can handle it. There’s the way that Angela has already described, which basically beats them into submission to do it the way you want and completely eliminates any creativity or motivation to do anything any better ever, right? They’re just going to do the minimum that you can do.

Angela: That you’re forcing them to do. Yeah.

Ron: The other way is to, even if it’s the, sorry, my computer completely went out.

Angela: We can still hear you.

Ron: It’s the biggest piece of junk you’ve ever seen in your life, that’s likely your fault because you didn’t describe what you wanted very well. But even if it is, the best way to get a better product is to compliment the piece of trash that they brought in and then give them some ideas about how to make it better and then let them own it again. Because look, you have to be willing to let people fail for them to be able to grow into the position and become better than they are.

Ron: And unfortunately, a lot as entrepreneurs, we are not geared to let people fail. Can’t do it. It’s got to be this way. It’s got to be done just like this. And if it’s not, then I’m going to whip you and potentially going to fire you too. And what a horrible job, right? That is what naturally what a lot of entrepreneurs do. And it’s really unfortunate because it absolutely kills any momentum. From a person, right, from a person’s growth and inside of your company and your company will grow to the extent that you are able to build momentum in human beings, not in projects, in human beings who can run the projects with little to no supervision because you have led them and help them become a leaderthemselves.

Angela: And they naturally will elevate within your company because they have that motivation to keep growing because you didn’t squash it right.

Ron: I think we’ve talked about this before Angela. But a lot of times I think why the reason that people quash the spirit of other people like that is that they’re scared that they’re teaching them too much. They’re going to go out there and become their competition. And man, that is shortsighted. Man, that is shortsighted.

Angela: Yup. Yup. Okay. Well that actually leads us right into the third one, which is leaders teach, train and mentor others. So leaders invest, right, Ron?

Ron: Leaders invest. How many years ago was it that I created this keynote speech about leaders invest?

Angela: A couple years probably.

Ron: I think we own the domain leaders invest.

Angela: Yeah we do. Didn’t do anything with it.

Ron: Didn’t do anything with it, everybody. Didn’t do anything with it. I did create an entire keynote though about this leaders invest piece and it was pretty good.

Angela: Yeah it was.

Ron: Didn’t fit my vision, so never went and did it. And that all kind of happened around the same time. I was figuring out my vision and I didn’t really want to be on the road a million weeks a year, so I didn’t do that. But this is a big deal to me. Leaders Invest, they invest like we were talking about, they invest in other people. They also invest in themselves. The only way to become a better leader is to surround yourself with people who are better than you and learn how to become a better leader.

Ron: Get rid of that old school management, bs that is…

Angela: Yes.

Ron: I hate that stuff. And it drives me nuts when I see it. Gosh, guys, you can’t treat people like that anymore. It’s just, nobody should have ever treated anybody that way. But we all know better now and unfortunately, some people still do. They don’t have to do that to get results out of people, right? So what do you do? Instead? We were just talking about this, Angela.

Ron: What you’re supposed to do instead is give the very best of you and create more leaders inside of your, every single person in there should want to become a leader of something. And it’s your job as the leader to instill that in them, to teach them proper leadership style and technique. And that comes from giving everything you’ve got. Everything that you’ve learned, everything that’s in you and to make other people become better. And I’m telling you there’s nothing. And man, did we talk about this last time to, Angela?

Angela: Probably, but you know, it doesn’t hurt…

Ron: There’s nothing better. There’s no better feeling than having made an impact on another person’s life. Nothing better.

Angela: And if you’re wondering if you’re a manager or leader, you know, a great way to do a little check on yourself is to look around and see if you’ve created any leaders around ou in your circle. Because real leaders teach and train and share their knowledge and give to others. So you should naturally have new leaders, you know, showing up in your circle and in your business.

Ron: And I don’t know if you agree with this or not, Angela, but I think that to the extent that you have done this well like I never worry about anybody who I have taught just…

Angela: Going out and stealing everything.

Ron: Yeah. I just, I don’t ever worry about that. I guess. And the reason that I don’t worry about that is that hopefully what I have taught is to be the same kind of leader and that kind of a person would never screw anybody else over.

Angela: No. Because this…

Ron: That doesn’t mean that people can’t leave and go do their own thing. That’s not what I’m saying. But there’s a way to do that in a way to not do that. And I would hope that over the years, having the right people on the bus in the right seats, that we’re all headed the right way, same way. And that, you know, I just don’t ever worry about that. So maybe, you know, somebody out there is going to go, that’s really stupid of you Ron. But I just don’t hurt myself with it. I teach, I’m an open book.

Angela: No, and we have people ask why we’re loyal to Ron. I know you’ve asked me to tell you that because somebody asked you, why people in the company are loyal.

Ron: They asked you that and I had absolutely no idea.

Angela: But the way that you inspire a loyalty, first of all, being loyal to others, but if you give to people in this way and give of yourself and are willing to, you know, invest in other people and raise them up as well, it inspires loyal to you. I mean, they’re not going to want to screw you over as Ron put it. And so, yeah, it’s, I mean it’s just the way it is. If you’re giving that much to people, they’re going to you give to someone, they feel a loyalty in indebted to you. And that happening is just super unlikely.

Ron: I think it’s coupled with the empowerment piece because you can teach and give and give and give. But if when you, when it comes right down to it, if they don’t do it exactly the way you want them to do it, that you quashed them.

Angela: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s part of it.

Ron: That doesn’t work, right. You have to be able to figure out how to reel things in and then empower people to do it again. There’s nothing wrong with, so I’m a youth leader at church and you know, 12 to 18-year-olds just sometimes they just don’t get it, you know, and the whole purpose I believe, I feel my whole purpose is to help these people become leaders themselves. So we give them things to do and sometimes they show up and I’ll be doggone if it’s just not done right, didn’t happen.

Ron: And you could be really hard on those people. But in the other way to do it is just to explain to them what not doing. Whatever it was that they were assigned did to everybody else. So you don’t let them off the hook for not doing what they’re supposed to do or not doing it right. But then you teach them how it should have been done, what they could have done, eliminate all of the excuses and then the very next thing you do, because now they’re not going to be feeling so great about themselves. So what’s the next thing that you can do to make them feel great about themselves again? Give them another project.

Ron: So you’ve got to let people fail, but then you also have to be able to double down and say, look, I believe I believed you could do it the first time. I believe you can do it this time too. And then let them do it again, right. Now, if people just fail over and over and over again and they just aren’t, they don’t care. Well, you can’t help that person, right. They’re the wrong person. They shouldn’t be on your team. But if they’re the right person and they fail, that’s not the end of the world. How you deal with it may be the end of the world.

Angela: Awesome. Perfect. All right, I love it. So quick rehash. So leadership, you know it’s important to communicate well, not to talk at people, establish and maintain momentum. In our company, we call it letting people own it. And you heard Ron say that letting people own what they’re assigned to do and just giving feedback when needed so that they’re empowered to, you know, to own it, to master it and to grow in their skills.

Angela: My number three is leaders invest. Leaders, teach, train, mentor and give to others. So thanks so much for listening everybody. Thanks Ron for being here. Please check us out on GetRealEstateSuccess.com and give us any, you have suggestions for other topics you want to hear about and subscribe to our podcast. We’re also on Facebook as Get Real Podcasts and thanks so much. We’ll talk to you next time.

Ron: See you.

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