The Power of Emotions in Leadership

hey before we dive into new content i want to tell you about a very special leadership event that takes place this year on august 5th and 6th it's called the global leadership summit which is honestly probably the biggest leadership event on the planet it's broadcast to hundreds of sites around the us live on august the 5th and 6th and then hundreds and hundreds of sites around the world in 61 different languages all throughout the year this year we have some very powerful speakers i'll be doing the opening talk we have malcolm gladwell coming dr henry

cloud juliet fund jerry lorenzo jamie kerm lima and amongst many others if you'd like to be a part of this event on august the 5th and 6th i want to give you a code for a special discount for the craig rochelle leadership podcast family go to globalleadership.org and just type in the code cglp21 craig rochelle leadership podcast 21cgl for a discount to come to the global leadership summit now what i want to do today is show you a talk that i actually did a few years ago at the global leadership summit i pray it not

only empowers you to think differently but it also empowers you to share differently because we don't just lead from the head we also lead from the heart do you think it would be a mistake for me to tell you that i'm a little bit nervous about doing this talk some people say do you still get nervous and the answer unfortunately is yes i do you'd think after all these years the nerves would go away it is much better honestly in the early years when i first started to preach my wife amy will tell you i

used to get these big blotches on my face when i was delivering that was the good news the bad news is i was always vomit in a bucket right before going out to preach i don't do that anymore i've grown so much in my ability to communicate now i just throw up in my mouth i swallow it and we're good to go it's clean no problems nobody gets hurt i carry tic tacs and we're ready do any of you recognize that speaking publicly can be intimidating all of our sites all of our sites all of

our sites here's a little trick for you i learned from my pastor whenever you forget what you're going to say next you simply repeat the last thing that you said and you walk slowly back to your notes you just repeat the last thing that you said and you walk slowly back to your notes i am a bit nervous the reason is because i really really really care about you i want to do a good job i want to help you grow in your leadership and honestly if i can be really transparent i kind of want

you to like me i hate it when people hate me it's no fun and that's a little bit why i'm nervous is it a mistake for me to tell you that i'm a little bit nervous possibly but probably not what i could do on the other hand is fake it and i could convey total confidence impress you with my posture oratory skills breath of expansive vocabulary as i poetically explained to you how i systematically spearheaded a new category of ministry piloted a world-changing venture revitalize modernize optimize my organization to a paragon of innovative transformation you

might say that guy's strong i'm impressed but there is a real problem impressing you is not the same as connecting with you there's a big big difference as a leader to really move you to stir you to inspire you to stretch your faith to believe that you can do more and to make a bigger difference i cannot just communicate to your head i have to connect with your heart and that's why i'm incredibly excited to talk to you about this talk i call it heart overhead the power of emotions in leadership the power of emotions

in leadership now let me acknowledge what some of you might be thinking right now some of you are probably thinking the best leaders don't let emotions interfere with business you might be thinking emotional leaders are weak leaders emotions get in the way of difficult decisions i would submit to you that emotions are not only relevant and important but emotions are the catalyst to change and growth in fact if you're taking notes you may jot this down the fastest way to change someone's mind is to connect with their heart the fastest way to move someone in

action is not just to speak to their head but to move their heart with emotion now here's what i know about all of you as leaders if you step into a meeting if you're going to do some type of presentation in your mind either intentionally or intuitively you're going to want to communicate a couple of things you're going to want to communicate information that leads to action how many of you want action in your organizations raise your hand if you want some action you intuitively or intentionally will try to communicate information that leads to action

you will think and you will do some form of this you will think here's what i want the people to know that's information and here's what i want people to do that's the action know and do know and do before you leave the meeting what do we want them to know and what do we want them to do the problem is that knowledge alone rarely leads to action i can prove it to you you can know that you're 20 pounds overweight and all you do is eat another donut you do nothing about it even though

you know you can know that sales are down in your organization by four percent and yet no one's changing their behavior you have a knowledge but it hasn't led to action you can know that your church ministry has declined for the third year in a row but you're not changing anything because bless god this is the way we did church in 1820 and we're going to do it the same way today you can know it but knowledge alone does not lead to action the difference between knowledge and emotion is this knowledge leads to conclusions while

emotion leads to actions so important you walk into a meeting you're going to do a presentation you're going to try to get someone to buy your product you're going to try to get investors to invest in your organization instead of simply walking in saying this is what i want you to know and this is what i want you to do you as a leader are going to add an element that's going to increase your effectiveness you're going to ask what do i want them to know what do i want them to feel and what do

i want them to do do not forget the emotion the key to movement is in the emotion what do i want them to know you can know that you're 20 pounds overweight but when you feel the reality that your health could be compromised if you don't make a change when you do feel that reality that will get you to move if you know that sales are down four percent and you feel the impact on your bonus that you may not get suddenly baby you're motivated to get the sales up if your church has declined for

the third year and you recognize you might lose your pastor if you don't turn things around or more importantly people's eternal destination might be impacted when you truly feel that that might move you to have the courage not to change the message but to change the method in how we actually try to reach people what do we want them to know feel and do so important in leadership knowledge leads to conclusions while emotions lead to actions so as leaders how do we create the emotion that moves people to action how do we harness the power

of emotions to motivate and inspire people to fulfill the mission we're gonna look very practically at three things and the great news is you can do this anywhere you can do this in your seventh grade class if you're the leader of your seventh grade class you can do this in your startup tech business you can do this in your nonprofit these three tools can help you move the needle emotionally in your leaders so you can accomplish more how do we do it number one we're going to share stories purposefully we're going to share stories purposefully

in fact jennifer aker is the marketing professor at stanford and she did a little research she asked all of her students to do a one minute pitch and studied the results one in ten of all of her students told a story one in ten told a story asked to recall the pitches only five percent could recite some statistic that was said in that amount of time but 63 percent could remember a story in great detail why because stories stick but facts fade let me say it again stories stick but facts fade in fact could i

hel see these little props for just a moment to try to help illustrate this um whenever you're talking to people whenever you're casting vision people are processing what you say with one of two different processors in their brain for example as i'm going through this talk you will hear this in one of two different ways and all day long you've got one of two different processors that are working there is first of all the emotional processor the emotional processor is automatic and unconscious you never have to get this one worked up it gets worked up

on its own there's also the logical processor the logical processor is controlled it's conscious it functions much much slower the logical processor it takes more fuel more focus it gets easily depleted that's why when you use this one at work all day long it gets worn out it gets tired and when you come home the emotional one says let's get into a fight this one's worn out and this one's ready to get it going the emotional processor this one is the default this one jumps up whenever it we're not sure what to do this one

is never ever rational the logical processor it compensates for the emotional one by rationalizing for the emotional side's irresponsibility for example if this one says eat the whole thing the logical side compensates by rationalizing and saying well you've worked really really hard and besides you had a salad last tuesday you might as well enjoy it all why am i telling you all this when you use a story you connect the heart of the emotions to the strength of the logic igniting a powerful action let me say it again you're connecting to the emotional processor you're

leveraging the strength of the logical processor and you're igniting movement that does create action in fact let me try to give you an example of this and i want to be really really clear what i am not here to do is to try to push my spiritual beliefs on anybody but i'm never ever going to hide them my goal is not to try to convert you to believe and be passionate about something that i'm passionate about what i am going to do is i'm going to give you an illustration about something that i'm passionate about

because this will hopefully help you understand let me give you an example first i'm going to give you some statistics then i'm going to tell you a story and then i'm going to show you a story let's start with the statistics and this is for an example i don't know if you knew this but there are about 1.5 billion people that don't have access to a bible in their language that's about 2163 people groups people groups who don't have a bible they can read i want you to know this is something that i really want

to do i really want to help people get the bible are you with me a couple of you are most of you probably aren't i gave you some staggering statistics but statistics don't create emotion let me tell you a story just that statement alone if your mind was drifting how much longer is this guy going to go and when do we get out of here just that line alone for some of you brought you back into engagement because i said let me tell you a story and this is a very true story about me back

when i went into college i was really really wild was anybody at any of our sites really really wild in college days about that age okay i i you could kind of joke around and say like if sinning was a major i was majoring in i was wild party guy how many of you know that sinning can be fun everybody everywhere we are raise your hand ready raise your hands like i'm not raising my hands they said no sinning can be fun listen to me if you don't think sitting is fun either you didn't do

it right or you're lying i mean it can be fun until it's not because it it really will like it it will hurt you and hurt others it's a little bit like sneezing you know sneezing it feels really good when it comes out and then there's snot everywhere that's kind of what it's like it it messes you up and so i was um i don't know how to say this i was i was building my testimony and and my sin caught up with me and i hurt a lot of people and i started feeling guilty

and afraid and ashamed and i was a part of a fraternity that got in trouble there were four guys that committed grand larceny and so they were going to kick our fraternity off campus and i was a leader of the fraternity none of us were spiritual in any means whatsoever and but i said partially as a public relations move partially because i was very spiritually curious i said we're going to start a bible study now you can imagine like you know hellraiser frat boy saying to other wild frat boys we're going to start a bible

study they're like what the bleep are you we're doing bleep and bleep bleep bleep bleep bible study and like no no i promise you we'll do it and like it's going to be on tuesday night and you're going to go it's going to be great it's going to be bleeping great you know and so tuesday rolled around and i was walking into my one of my business classes and i realized i don't have a bible i'm going to leave a bible study i don't have a bible so i'm not going to tell you that i

prayed because i don't think i was that spiritual i just kind of like thought in the direction of up like like i don't have a bible if there's anybody that cares i don't have a bible i walked into my economic class i walked out of my economics class i was walking across the campus and there was a gentleman and a suit and tie from an organization known as the gideons who said young man would you like a free oh i sat down with seven non-spiritual guys i tried to sound pastoral i had been to church

i knew somewhat pastors say i said turn to the first book in your bible they all turned to genesis i turned to matthew no wonder it's free it's not all there and so we just read the bible and then we try to pray with emphasis on trying we didn't know how to pray we prayed like this is truthful like god you know like watch over us as we party tonight god keep us safe oh god and we pray mitch his girlfriend's not pregnant god we didn't know i got so excited about what i was reading

that i read ahead i read all the way to ephesians chapter two and i read in ephesians chapter 2 a principle that i never ever had comprehended before i knew about jesus i knew the story but i didn't know it personally and i read in scripture that you could be saved in other words you could be made right with god by the grace of god not by works and it's only through believing in jesus that your sins could be forgiven and you would actually become new so what i did without knowing anything was i went

out into a softball field hating who i'd become devastated by the people that i hurt embarrassed by my sin and when i knelt down that day i was one person and i'm not trying to push this on anybody but i'm telling you when i prayed and when i stood up i was i was different i was different and there is a truth there is a truth in here that changed my life when i tell you that i'm passionate about getting this truth into the hands of people around the world that do not have access to

this truth in their heart language i would hope that there would be some of you who would believe this is important and join me on this venture statistic story and i might just show you and maybe you'll feel and what i want you to do is watch about a 37 second clip i could show you longer but it doesn't take long and i want you to watch the emotion of the guy in the background who can't hold back the tears when he gets the bible in his heart language for the very first time you foreign

stories stick and facts fade no matter what you're leading share stories purposefully help people engage in the mission behind what you do this isn't just what we do this is the why we do it i think it was simon sinek said that people will work for what but they'll give their lives for a why create emotion how do you do this as leaders share stories purposefully the second thing we're going to do is we're going to choose words deliberately choose your words deliberately why because the words you choose determine the emotions that people feel let

me say it again the words that you choose determine the emotions that people feel if you're describing something you can say it was sad or you can say it was heart-wrenching you could say something hurts or instead you could say it was agonizing you might say it was amazing which is a word that i overused and under delivers or you could choose a stronger word to say it was remarkable it was awe-inspiring it was mind-blowing it was epic choose your words deliberately for example how many of you in your organizations you would have like vision

and or values raise up your hands raise your hand vision and values i hope you do i hope you do i hope you do visions drives us values help create the culture let me help you understand some meaning behind the emotion of vision and values vision and values should never be words on a wall they should be burned on our hearts if your vision doesn't inspire you if your values don't stir you or move you they're too dull they're too small and they're too safe i'll illustrate the power of words creating emotions around values for

example our church has some values i'll give you five of them are you ready to be inspired we value reaching people we value faith we value generosity we value empowering people we value serving who wants to move and be a part of our great church probably again not many people so what we did is we tried to put some emotion behind some words that would move people from ideas in their head to truths in their hearts that created action in life change by the way they would live i'll illustrate it to you instead of saying

we value reaching people we say this and we mean this we'll do anything short of sin to reach people who don't know christ and to reach people no one's reaching we'll have to do things no one's doing a little bit of emotion perhaps if you have similar beliefs to me instead of saying we believe in faith we say this we are big thinking bet the farm risk takers we will never insult god with small thinking or safe living generosity we will demonstrate it you will see it the youversion bible app it is free on almost

400 million devices anything and everything we can give away we will give away why because we truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive we will lead the way with irrational generosity because we truly believe it honors god emotion empowering people we say this we don't recruit volunteers we release leaders because volunteers do good things but leaders change the world we value serving but we say it this way we aren't spiritual consumers we are spiritual contributors because we do not believe the church exists for us but we are the church and we

exist for the world what we want to do is we want to use the power of words to create emotion to move people to action here's what i don't want you to say about your organization well we want people to really believe in our organization no no no no listen to the words we want people to feel a deep dwelling furnace raging white hot inspiration drawing them out of the mundane into a sacrificial life of mission mom would you please clap get this crowd going mom you can do it please clap mom don't just sit

there that's like really my mom and she hadn't clapped yet today come on mom help me out so again back to the bible back to the bible something i really hope to do is to get the bible into their hands those words don't create much emotion or i could say it this way mark my words in my lifetime we will be the generation that eradicates bible poverty joining with forces and strategic leaders from around the world by the year 2033 99.9996 of people will have a new testament in their heart language and they will have

access to the same truth that changed my life we want people to have a bible that's generic hope or we can make a prophetic promise carefully crafted statements they engage the heart and move people toward the mission so what are we going to do leaders we're going to share stories purposefully we're going to choose our words deliberately and number three we're going to show vulnerability thoughtfully we're going to show vulnerability thoughtfully and the reason i say thoughtfully is because you can do it irresponsibly how many of you know someone who's ever over shared raise your

hands do not point at them right now don't elbow them i'm trying to save your marriage right now as we speak if you walk into the office on monday morning and you decide you're gonna be vulnerable and you say you know what i'm thinking about quitting my depression medicine's not working and my hemorrhoids are flaring up listen that's too much back off hire a counselor do not do that to your staff show vulnerability thoughtfully is it a mistake for me to tell you that i'm a little bit nervous maybe or maybe not and the truth

of the matter is i was really nervous and i'm a little nervous because what i'm about to tell you take some emotional vulnerability is it a mistake maybe or maybe not i would say probably not and here's why because we may impress people with our strengths but we connect through our weaknesses we may impress people when we look strong but we connect in moments of vulnerability you know this is true you know that lady in your office that you hate cause she's so perfect i just hate miss perfect she just walks in here she never

ever has a hair bad hair day and she walks in she's just kind of perfect and then she comes in and she has a real problem and said oh i like her she's just like me you connect through your weakness think about the speakers that we've heard over the last couple of days when the speakers are scripted with powerful good content you're engaged but the moment they slow down and the moment they open up you're engaged on a whole nother level when they talk about their weaknesses their own self-doubts their own struggles suddenly your heart

bonds with them and there's real power and real connection leaders this is complicated it feels risky but it's so important show the people what's in your heart help them know who you are what you value where you're sometimes a little bit afraid where you need help having faith lead with vision lead with boldness lead with vulnerability we had so many people in our um kind of leadership circle ask about how do we do this i did create two particular podcasts on this very subject i'll give you kind of a shameless plug but episode 51 is

called keeping it real how do you keep it real in leadership episode 53 is called how to be real and not be weird both of these talk about how to be real transparent the way i end the podcast is always something like this what i always say is listen leaders don't feel pressured to know it all you don't have to be perfect people would rather follow a leader who's always real than one who's always right emotions will connect you with the hearts of your people and you can leave them somewhere specifically i want to close

out with this our church is 23 years of age between years 11 and 13 i didn't know if i could continue as the pastor darkest scariest most vulnerable time of my life here's what had happened we had been one of the churches that had pioneered kind of the multi-site movements and this was we didn't have churches to learn from we were on the front end of it and we had outgrown our systems we'd outgrown our ability to care for people we'd outgrown our leadership pipeline we were big but we were weak and we were vulnerable

and i had some leaders that had been with me almost since the beginning and these leaders didn't trust me the way they once had and i didn't like them or believe in them the way that i once had and we were at each other's throats and it was ugly and the whole organization could feel it we would have behind closed doors talks where we'd raise our voices we'd go home we wouldn't talk for days at a time i would say we're going to do this in staff and then they'd come behind and say yeah groschell

said that but here's what we're going to do and then they would try to initiate something i'd come in and kind of blow it all up and it was so ugly and on the inside i was more depressed than i ever know how to describe some of you you may know exactly what i'm talking about because you were there at this very moment and here's what i felt i've lost the church that i loved i don't have the ability to get it back i'm not capable i'm probably not the right person for this job anymore

i don't have the words to describe the desperation i felt in my soul i want to quit this is my life calling and i'm not good enough i went to a conference i spoke right before marcus buckingham who will be at the global leadership summit in 2020 one of my heroes one of the greatest teachers around i put my head down in my seat afterwards and couldn't hold back the tears because i felt like the biggest hypocrite who in the world am i to tell anyone how to do anything when i can't even lead my

church in the right direction and i just sobbed and sobbed and shook and sobbed and then in that lowest moment i heard something that wasn't audible some of you will know what i'm talking about it seemed like a voice that was almost louder than audible and i just wrote down what i heard quit whining you're sharp fix it it was life it was hope i'm an old athlete i love a good coach get up in your business this was like my coach it was like my dad it was like my heavenly father saying quit whining

you're still the pastor if i wanted someone else to be the pastor they'd be the pastor you're sharp that was language that i needed in other words you're you're still capable you still have gifts you're still in the role that you're supposed to be fix it you're the pastor you're called you're chosen you step into it and do what only you can do and suddenly for the first time i had faith i went back to my other leaders who are still with me to this day all of my executive leaders for over two decades still

together that is something that i celebrate and i honor in these great leaders and i told them i'm sorry i've been dysfunctional i've created a toxic culture i've been wrong you've been disrespectful and i told him not in a harsh way i started this without you and i can continue without you i've named all of your replacements and i can pull that trigger or i can walk away neither plan seems good to me we can all apologize we can lock hands and be on the same side of the table and if we can do this

we can lead this church out of this depression and we can do something great and i'm telling you bobby groomwall's here and he was in that meeting and in 30 minutes we all changed and we told the staff and everybody sighed with relief and what had been stuck and stagnant came back to life what i want you to know leader pastor mom dad what i want you to know you're capable you're called you're gifted you are a masterpiece what i want you to feel inspired driven loved celebrated what i want you to do do what

leaders do step into your calling embrace your mission if i could get at all of our locations every leader just to stand to your feet just every single leader around the world would you stand to your feet and i want to declare this over you we started with this and i want you to feel this leaders like never before our world needs strong consistent bold courageous integrity infused leaders feel the power of the words feel the power as leaders we will lead with profound humility and furious resolve we will cast a vision for a brighter

future and we will inspire others to do more than they thought possible we will strive for excellence giving our best and demanding the best we will confront injustices and right wrongs we will have the courage to stand up when others back down as leaders we will get better because everyone wins everyone wins in every nation in every city in every village everyone wins when the leader gets better well i hope that talk will give you some tools to lead not just from the head but to lead with emotion sincerity authenticity and integrity from the heart

and i promise you can make such a big difference in the lives of people when you lead from the heart i want to thank you sincerely for being a part of our leadership community and just remind you to subscribe or follow wherever you consume the content also thank you for inviting others to be a part of our community again the global leadership summit is a very very powerful event it's one that changed my life and now i'm honored to help lead it it's on august the 5th and the 6th broadcasting live around the united states

and then all throughout the year in hundreds of countries around the world if you want to be a part of the live event go to globalleadership.org and again the code is cglp21 investing in your leadership is always worth it because we know that you never get better by accident so we're going to intentionally grow in our leadership because everyone wins when the leader gets better you