00:00:00 Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 55. I'm Gina Johnson from synergy mindset coaching. I encourage you to find your own journey from surviving to thriving. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader., If you're not in a positional leadership, if you just have influence,
00:00:33 if you are able to develop that influence and help more and more people get what they want, whether you're a business owner, whether you're in a church, whether you're in another organization that allows you to grow and get even better, that allows you to step outside of the day today. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be,
00:01:03 then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can Impact It tonight. Saturday night, special. I talk with you about the answer to the question. Are you a leader though? There is an answer I always give I talk about why that's my answer.
00:01:36 I share why I think everyone is a leader and how leadership can be defined. And I also talk to you about why you should actually care. Now, one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really, really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your passion.
00:02:06 That's designed to help you do this, and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done. What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality.
00:02:31 Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type. But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com
00:02:55 slash launch. So one of those that I ask in every single interview that I do just about is for somebody to define their own definition of the word leadership. It's one of those words that if you look it up in the dictionary, it basically says that leadership or leading, you know, it's one who leads basically, which is a circular definition at best.
00:03:22 And if you kind of go down that rabbit trail, it always talks about having followers, people that follow you. And you know, my actual best definition that I like love of the word leadership. I first heard from John Maxwell and he said, leadership is influence nothing more and nothing less. And when you think about it, that way you recognize why one of the questions,
00:03:49 one of the answers that I always give when people ask, you know, is somebody a leader? Pretty much the answer is always yes, in some way, shape or form. So, you know, at first glance, are you a leader? The answer is yes. Okay. We're done with the episode, but I wanted to talk a little bit about why my answer is always yes.
00:04:12 You know, what about somebody who is influencing in a way negative way? Are they still a leader? And to me, the answer is still, yes. You know, whether somebody is manipulating somebody or influencing somebody, whether somebody is, is providing good guidance or good feedback or what, even if somebody has no followers, nobody listening to them, there's still a degree to which we,
00:04:38 we have influence over even ourselves. So if nothing else, there's a degree of self leadership that hopefully we exhibit that ability to have some level of discipline over ourselves, that ability to have some level of self awareness, that ability to have some level by which we make decisions about what we do, what we say, how we act at its very basics.
00:05:06 Self-leadership is still a form of leadership. And we all hopefully exhibit that as well. If you kind of scale up a little bit, most of us have family members of some sort around us or friends, others who are in our social or relational circles. And again, we're usually going to have some level of influence over those people. No one is usually a pure 100% follower that just goes along and does what others say without ever creating some level of feedback,
00:05:43 some level of influence that in return. So there's always a degree to which everyone is a leader. And if you think about it as influence, influence over ourselves, influence over others. And remember how I define influences, helping someone else get what they want, you know, being able to help someone do something because it's beneficial to them while manipulation is doing something or getting someone to do something because it's beneficial to yourself.
00:06:14 It's always about relationship. It's always about connecting with others. It's about communicating with others. It's about all of those many, many, many things that we do that allow us to have some level of connection to others that at his core, at his fundamental is this act of leadership. So why is this important? Why should we care? Why should we pay attention to getting better at communicating?
00:06:45 Why should we pay attention at getting more emotional intelligence? Why should we pay attention to connecting to other people in a more authentic and real way? Why should we care about becoming a better influencer and a better leader? And I would argue is that that's us because ultimately at the end of the world, you know, when everything is said and done, we need more leadership.
00:07:13 We need more leaders. We need more people who are able to influence others in a positive way. It makes the world a better place. You know, the truth is, is as you get better at leadership, inevitably one component of that is bringing others up. It's helping others get what they want. It's helping others become stronger themselves. You know,
00:07:39 I used to tell the leadership members on my team that one of the, one of the goals I had for them was to develop their team to such an extent that there was somebody who obviously was not only their replacement, but was able to lead the team as well, or even better than they were in a way by, by working really hard and getting,
00:08:03 you know, getting it where the team didn't need you anymore was sort of the ultimate success as a leader. But that's really hard to do for one thing it's threatening to us. You know, if you have a positional leadership thing, somebody has come down and said, you are the leader of XYZ department recognize that's not true leadership, but we call that positional leadership.
00:08:29 You've simply been given the position of being a leader. Then in that role, if you actually create a situation where your team is able to operate without you, then at first glance, they can just let you go, right? You're not needed anymore, but what actually ends up usually happening at least in a well run company or well run organization. So they recognize that that just means that you've been freed up to go on to bigger and better things.
00:09:02 You're able to now step outside of the immediate circle and do something more there. They're able to create new opportunities for you that perhaps weren't immediately obvious before things that allow you to grow outside of what you're able to do today. And to me, that's important. That's valuable, same thing for if you're not in a positional leadership, if you just have influence,
00:09:34 if you are able to develop that influence and help more and more people get what they want, whether you're a business owner, whether you're in a church, whether you're in another organization that allows you to grow and get even better, that allows you to step outside of the day today and do even more. That allows you to grow yourself and others around you,
00:10:02 which just means more success for all of us. I think that's actually one of the problems that we have right now is we have too many followers and not enough leaders. So if that's an area that you want to get better on, I encourage you read books, study, implement it, go out and get better at communication. Get better at making connections.
00:10:25 Get better at relationships, increase your emotional intelligence and become the leader that you're meant to be. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode,
00:10:58 please, please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate. All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact.