[Music] there are two things that I think that great leaders need to have empathy and perspective and I think these things are very often forgotten leaders are so often so concerned about their status so their position and organization they actually Forget Their real job and the real job of a leader is not about being in charge it's about taking care of those in our charge and I don't think people realize this and I don't think people train for this when we're Junior our only responsibility is to be good at our jobs that's all we really
have to do and some people actually go get Advanced educations and so that they can be really good at their jobs accountants or whatever right and you show up and you work hard and the company will give us tons and tons of training how to do our jobs it'll show us how to use the software they'll send us away for a few days to get trained in whatever it is that we're doing for the company and then they expect us to go be good at our jobs and that's what we do we work very hard
and if you're good at your job uh they'll promote you and at some point you'll get promoted to a position where we're now responsible for the people who do the job we used to do but nobody shows us how to do that and that's why we get managers and not leaders because the reason our managers are micromanaging us is because they actually do know how to do do the job better than us that's what got them promoted really what we have to do is go through a transition some people make it quickly some people make
it slowly and unfortunately some people will never make that transition at all which is we have to go this through this transition of being responsible for the job and then turning into somebody who's now responsible for the people who are responsible for the job and as I said before one of the great things that is lacking in most of our companies is that they are not teaching us how to lead and Leadership is a skill like any other is a practicable learnable skill and it is something that you work on it's like a muscle if
you practice it all the days you will get good at it and you will become a strong leader if you stop practicing you will become a weak leader like parenting everyone has the capacity to be a parent doesn't mean everybody wants to be a parent and doesn't mean everybody shouldn't be a parent leadership is the same we all have the capacity to be a leader doesn't mean everybody should be a leader and it doesn't mean everybody wants to be a leader and the reason is because it comes at Great personal sacrifice remember you're not in
charge you're responsible for those in your charge that means things like when everything goes right you have to give away all the credit and when everything goes wrong you have to take all the responsibility that sucks right it's things like staying late to show somebody what to do it's things like when something does actually break when something goes wrong instead of yelling and screaming and taking over you say try again when the overwhelming pressures are not on them the overwhelming pressures are on us at the end of the day great leaders are not responsible for
the job they're responsible for the people who are responsible for the job they're not even responsible for the results I love talking to CEOs and say what's your priority and they put their hands on their hip so proudly and say my priority is my customer I'm like really you haven't talked to a customer in 15 years there's no CEO on the planet responsible for the customer they're just not they're responsible for the people who are responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer I'll tell you a true story a few months ago I
stayed at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas it is a wonderful hotel and the reason it's a wonderful hotel is not because of the fancy beds any hotel can go and buy a fancy bed the reason it's a wonderful hotel is because of the people who work there if you walk past somebody at the Four Seasons in this and they say hello to you you get the feeling that they actually wanted to say hello to you it's not that somebody told them that you have to say hello to all the customers say hello to all
the guests right you actually feel that they care now in their Lobby they have a coffee stand and I one afternoon I went to buy a cup of coffee and there was a barista by the name of Noah who was serving me Noah was fantastic he was friendly and fun and he was engaging with me and I had so much fun buying a cup of coffee I actually think I gave 100 tip right he was wonderful so as is my nature I asked Noah do you like your job and without skipping a beat Noah says
I love my job and so I followed up I said what is it that the Four Seasons is doing that would make you say to me I love my job without skipping a beat Noah said throughout the day managers will walk past me and ask me how I'm doing if there's anything that I need to do my job better he said not just my manager any manager and then he said something magical he says I also work at Caesar's Palace and Caesar's at Caesar's Palace the managers are trying to make sure we're doing everything right
they catch us when we do things wrong he says when I go to work there I like to keep my head under the radar and just get through the day so I can get my paycheck he says here at the Four Seasons I feel I can be myself same person entirely different experience from the from the customer who will engage with Noah so we in leadership are always criticizing the people we're always saying we've got to get the right people on the bus I've got to fill my run my team I gotta get the right
people but the reality is it's not the people it's the leadership if we create the right environment we will get people like Noah at the Four Seasons if we create the wrong environment we will get people like Noah at Caesar's Palace it's not the people and it was so quick to hire and fire you can't hire and fire your children if there's if your kids are struggling we don't say you gotta see at school you're up for adoption so why is it that when somebody has performance problems at work why is it that our instinct
is to say you're out we do not practice empathy what does empathy look like here's the lack of empathy this is normal in our business world you walk into someone's office someone walks into our office and says your numbers have been down for the third quarter in a row you have to pick up your numbers otherwise I can't guarantee what the future will look like how inspired do you think that person is to come to work the next day here's what empathy looks like you walk into someone's office someone walks into your office and says
your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row are you okay I'm worried about you what's going on we all have performance issues maybe someone's kid is sick maybe they're having problems in their marriage maybe one of their parents is dying we don't know what's going on in their lives and of course it will affect performance at work empathy is being concerned about the human being not just their output we have for some reason our work world has changed over the past 20 and 30 years we are suffering the side effects of business
theories left over from the 80s and 90s and they are bad for people and they are bad for business let me give you an example the concept of shareholders Supremacy was a theory proposed in the late 1970s it had it was popularized in the 80s and 90s it is now standard form today you talked to any public company and you ask them their priority and they say maximize shareholder value really that's like a coach prioritizing the needs of the fans over the needs of the players how you going to build a winning team with that
model but that's normal today we don't even perceive it as broken or damaged or wrong or outdated remember the 80s and 90s were boom years with relative peace and a Kinder gentler Cold War nobody was practicing hiding under their desks in school anymore we are no longer in those times these are no longer boom years these are no longer peaceful times and those models cannot work today here's another one Mass layoffs using someone's livelihood to balance the books right it's so normal in America today that we don't even understand how broken and how damaging it
is not only to human beings but to business you know companies talk about how they want to build trust and cooperation and they announce a round of layoffs do you know the quickest way to destroy trust and Destroy cooperation in a business literally in one day lay people off and everyone gets scared right can you imagine sending someone home to say honey I can no longer provide for our family because the company missed its arbitrary projections this year and forget about the people who lost their job think about the people who kept their jobs because
every single decision a company makes is a piece of communication and the company cut the company has just communicated to everybody else this is not a meritocracy we don't care how hard you work or how long you've worked here if we miss our numbers and you happen to fall on the wrong side of the spreadsheet I'm sorry we cannot guarantee employment in other words we come to work every day afraid and we're asking our youngest generation to work in environments where how would any of us ever stand up and admit I made a mistake we're
constantly being told you have to be vulnerable leaders are vulnerable what does that even mean it doesn't mean you walk around crying I'm vulnerable right no what vulnerability means is you create an environment in which someone feels safe enough to raise their hand and said I don't know what I'm doing you've given me a job and I haven't been trained to do it I need help I made a mistake I screwed something up I'm scared I'm worried all of these things no one would ever admit inside a company because it puts a Target on your
head in case there's another round and so we keep it to ourselves and how can a company ever do well if nobody's ever willing to admit they made a mistake that's scared or they don't know what they're doing and so we've literally created cultures in which every single day everybody comes to work and light hype lies hides and fakes and we're asking our youngest generation to work and succeed and find themselves and build their confidence and overcome their addiction to technology and build strong relationships at work we're asking to do this and these the environments
we've created we keep saying to them you're the Future Leaders we're the leaders now we're in control what are we doing this is what empathy means [Music] thank you
