Inspiration Station - Leadership Rules 101

What does authentic leadership truly look like? It starts with a hard look in the mirror, not with comparisons to others around you.

The difference between genuine leadership and merely holding a leadership position lies in three critical practices. First, authentic leaders invest time in truly knowing their people—not just names and titles, but histories, challenges, and potential. Many supposed leaders focus more on impressing their superiors than developing their teams, creating environments of hollow, performative care rather than genuine connection.

Second, real leadership demands relationship development. "The stronger the relationship, the greater the potential for leadership." When leaders fail to duplicate themselves in others, it reveals a white-knuckle grip on position rather than a commitment to organizational growth. Contrast this with General Norman Schwarzkopf's practice of "walking slowly through crowds"—deliberately slowing his pace to create space for meaningful interactions with those under his command.

Perhaps most revealing is the podcast host's personal story of leadership failure. After delivering an exceptional presentation, his longtime mentor responded to his resignation with, "I didn't know you had that in you"—exposing years of missed opportunity for genuine mentorship. This powerful example demonstrates how leadership without prayer, investment, and genuine care ultimately fails everyone involved.

If you're too busy to appreciate the small details of people's lives, you might be enslaved to systems rather than practicing authentic leadership. Share your own leadership successes and failures in the comments—we're listening and would love to continue this conversation with you. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more insights on leadership and personal growth.

• Real leaders take time to assess who they're leading – understanding their history, talents, and challenges
• Authentic leadership requires developing genuine relationships with those you lead
• True leaders duplicate themselves in others rather than clinging to their positions
• Effective leaders initiate connection rather than waiting for others to approach them
• General Schwarzkopf's practice of "walking slowly through crowds" demonstrates valuing connection with people
• Personal story reveals how leadership fails when leaders don't truly know or invest in those they mentor
• Leaders who are too busy for the details of people's lives are likely not authentic leaders

Please show some love on our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button. Share your leadership stories in the comments - whether successes or failures - we'd love to hear from you.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Three Ways Real Leadership Should Look
• 1:46 Assess Who You're Leading
• 5:01 Develop Relationships and Duplicate Yourself
• 6:09 Real Leaders Always Initiate
• 7:34 Walking Slowly Through the Crowd
• 9:28 A Personal Leadership Failure Story
• 13:46 Closing Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

On this episode of the Inspiration Station, I'm going to give you three ways that leadership, if it's real and authentic, how it should look Don't look at your boss, don't look at your mama, don't look at your pastor. Look directly in the mirror at you. Once you lead yourself, then you can lead everybody else. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the All Purpose Pod for an all-purpose life. Wherever you are and however you're listening today, call me Mr U in the Inspiration Station. Thanks again for making us part of your week. We definitely appreciate it, man. We get in love with you guys on social media platforms. Our YouTube channel is amazing. Thank you, guys, for what you're doing and for supporting us and supporting all that we're putting our hands forth to accomplish and all the changes that are going on with our brand. Man, we just thank you for sticking with us. Thank you for believing us. We definitely, definitely, definitely receive it and accept it and appreciate it. I want to talk to you about leadership real quick. I know we talk about leadership a lot, but if you look at the world around us and even the world in your neck of the woods, you see what a lack of leadership looks like. You see what fair leadership can do to a community, to a city, to a world. So, talking about leadership, I feel like it's my responsibility to do that. These areas have been areas where I did not particularly excel at. I had to learn how to deal with those things. So hopefully my story will help you out with what you're trying to accomplish on your leadership journey. So I want to share a few things and then share a quick story that may be good for you. Maybe it might make you sad. It might kind of cut to the heart a little bit. I'm not sure how it's going to go down, but I'm going to share it anyhow, all right. So, as far as leadership goes, real leaders are always going to take the time to assess who they're leading. That sounds really simple In corporate workspaces. We're taught that. We're told even in the manual. We're supposed to take the time to assess who we're leading, take the time to look at their talents and abilities and skills and assess fit within the organization and help them to become the best not just associate, but the best person that can be within the confines of the organization, just doing skills and and following tasks. That's a part of the job, but honestly, there's so much more to us as people. We bring so much more to organizations. And I'll tell you what. The right person makes an organization skyrocket. The right person can cause an organization to soar. The wrong person can cause an organization to go down. So the right person and the right fit, the best use of their skills and abilities. It plays a big part in success of wherever they are that they're serving, whether it be in an organization, in their church, in their community, on behalf of their family. Wherever they're serving and leading, they play a big part in the success. So a real leader, an authentic leader, should always take the time to assess who they're actually leading.

Speaker 1: 4:00

You'd be surprised. Many people don't even know who you are. They don't know your history, they don't know what you do, they don't know what you're dealing with. They don't know anything about you except they might know your name and that's it. And it's not because you haven't shared, it's because it's not an emphasis for them, it's not a focus for them.

Speaker 1: 4:19

A lot of people who are inauthentic, fake leaders, are more concerned with impressing their bosses and maintaining their positions in the organization and they don't care about what's happening with the people and they don't care. And when they do care, sometimes it's a fake, a mock caring. I'm so sorry to hear that they're not really sorry to hear that, because the emphasis has been on themselves and impressing people and looking good in front of people for years. So it kind of speaks to what their heart is. But a real, authentic leader should never be doing that. So we take the time to assess who they're leading.

Speaker 1: 4:54

Also, point number two a real authentic leader should always requires the development of relationships. Real leadership always requires the development of relationships. Real leadership always requires the development of relationships. The stronger the relationship, the greater the potential for leadership. I mean, if anybody that you know is a leader and they have not duplicated themselves than anybody else, it tells you all you need to know. If they have not I don't mean train, I'm talking about duplicate. That means that everything that they know how to do, they're trying to show somebody how to do it so that they can become a better leader and begin to grow and take the organization to the next level. Progress is necessary for any organization, I don't care what it is. So if a leader is not duplicating him or herself and other people, you know what that means. That means they're concerned about their spot. They ain't trying to lose their position. They're going to maintain it with a white knuckle grip and they don't care who they got to step on to maintain and keep what they have. That's not real leadership. I mean we have that example throughout the Bible constantly. What real leadership looks like? The sacrifices that are made by real, authentic leaders. Leadership looks like the sacrifices that are made by real, authentic leaders. Read it sometime, you might get blessed.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Third point real leaders always initiate. What does that mean? That means that they don't walk around saying they don't have time, but they make time. They initiate the opportunity to connect with those people that they lead. I mean this sounds like elementary stuff, one-on-one stuff, right, but you'd be surprised how many leaders, in every facet, in any genre, don't seem to get that part. They feel better about themselves as a leader when somebody comes to them to ask for their help. They never initiate helping. They never initiate being supportive. They never initiate encouragement. They never initiate connecting with the people who they lead. It's astounding to me. How can you lead like that when you don't do anything except if it's reactive? You don't initiate or spearhead any chances for you not for everybody else, but for you as a leader, to get to know your people. Politicians do it but you can tell it's half-hearted because they only do it when it's time for election or re-election and they start reaching out to people who are in the community wanting to hear from them and hear what they think, and they were doing that all the time, even when they were not being elected or reelected. Then that speaks differently. But a lot of times it's done because they want something in return. That's not real, authentic leadership.

Speaker 1: 7:30

There's a gentleman by the name of General Schwarzkopf. You might remember his name, norman Schwarzkopf. He was the leader of the Central Command of Desert Storm in the Gulf War. He's known for a lot of things, but one thing he does that I respect so much he really valued connecting with his people and I think about 1990, I think it was he started this process or initiated this process of how he connected with his people, what he called walking slowly through a crowd. Whenever he was around his people he would walk slower than normal. He has a normal fast pace. He walks slower. He would spend more time almost meandering through the crowd of his people that were serving under him, just to get to know them, to talk to them, to learn their names, hear their stories, take time and say you know what? I'm present, I'm here.

Speaker 1: 8:26

I know plenty of leaders who breeze past folks because they don't want to be bothered with what they have to say, the messy stuff of their life. They want to stay as clean and pure as possible and they don't want to be involved with all of the messy complexities of people's lives. So they speed through crowds. They don't want to be bothered. You don't walk slowly through the crowd like this general, who has all the reasons in the world to act like that, but he doesn't. He wanted to connect. Connect was important to him and it says a lot about that because he set an example. He established a system of value for his people and let them know that he was there, that he was present, that he had time for them. And let them know that he was there, that he was present, that he had time for them. Sounds simple and sounds like a leadership 101, but it's being failed on so many levels all the time. This is an example and I almost hate telling this story sometimes because it's rough, but I got to share it. I shared it on multiple podcasts, so if you go back in our first three seasons, you'll hear it once or twice at least.

Speaker 1: 9:36

I was part of this ministry Huge ministry I'm talking about international. It was huge, right and I was part of a ministry I won't say which one but I was asked to serve in a more public capacity within this ministry. That was my first time being asked to do this, even though I was there for years, almost four years. It was my first time being asked to step up into this role and to do this particular public ministry, if you will. Well, I did it in such a way and I believe this was all God, not me, but I did this in such a way that it was considered outstanding. It was considered amazing or awesome, whatever phrase you want to use and at that time I believe that the Lord was saying it was time for me to move out of the state and move to a different city. So I already had the letter written and everything. This was before I walked into the assignment. So after the assignment was done, there were rave reviews. The congregation was really excited about it. The pastors thought it was one of the best things they've heard, excuse me so I went to my leader after the service was done and gave him my letter saying I got to resign.

Speaker 1: 10:59

I believe God is saying for me to move.

Speaker 1: 11:02

I got to go. I don't want to, but I got to do this. I got to be obedient, and he read the letter. I sat there with him so he can read it, because I want to just respect him that much. Don't just drop it off and just leave.

Speaker 1: 11:15

I wanted to give him a chance to say whatever he wanted to say to me. If he wanted to validate me or encourage me or shoot me out, I wanted to make sure he had the opportunity to do either one. So I stood with him while he read the letter. It wasn't long, but it says how much I respected him and appreciated him mentoring me and teaching me, him and appreciated him. You know, uh, mentoring me and teaching me. Uh, I didn't lie, but it was room for growth there, but I just wanted to be kind and respectful to him. Uh, his words to me were words I'll never forget all the days of my life. I still talk about it with my wife every once in a while.

Speaker 1: 11:49

This is the mentor whose role it was to bring out the best in me, to duplicate himself in me, to teach me, to train me, help me become the minister that he was, and even beyond that, and maybe even go further than he's gone. That's what real, authentic leadership does, or that's what they should do. His response at the reading letter he put his head down and he said after what you did today, I said I didn't know you had that in you. I can't help you if you don't understand what that meant and where that sat. He said I didn't know you had that in you.

Speaker 1: 12:28

What he just saw, what he just witnessed In all the years I was there with him at his side, learning, growing, carrying his bag, doing everything he wanted me to do. Excuse me, he said I didn't know you had that in you. What I just saw In my mind. I'm like do you pray for me? Have you been praying for me at all? Did God reveal anything to you? And it changed my, it locked my world and it showed me what can happen when leadership is not on their game, when leadership is not in prayer for its people, when leadership just want to have followers that don't care who they are and what they're going through and what part they play in your success as a real, authentic leader.

Speaker 1: 13:11

If you're too busy to appreciate the small details of people's lives and people who follow you, you're probably slave to a system and you're probably falling short of real, authentic leadership. You should have more time to get deeper, but it is what it is. Drop your comments in the comments and share a story with me. If you have a story about leadership, whether it's a success or failure, love to hear the stories. Love to respond back to you as soon as I can and hear your thoughts. But thanks again for listening to the Inspiration Station and the Call Me Mr U. Please show some love on our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button. Thanks again, guys. We'll be right back.