Are We In A Leadership Crisis Or Have We Stopped Mentoring Leaders? With Russ Ewell, Todd Singleton and Dave Banks

Russ Ewell sits down with Dave Banks and Todd Singleton to discuss if it is worth the time and effort to build and train leaders, allowing them the opportunity to fail and learn through their mistakes. Mark Zuckerberg, according to Kara Swisher’s opinion piece in the New York Times, has cost many people their privacy while he learns “on the job” how to lead in a digital space that has never been explored before. Is our unwillingness to be patient as leaders grow through the process placing us in a leadership crisis? Finally, learn about the mentorship to build leaders with the “competence, character and connection” to bring about a change in the world.  With 32 years of experience as a CEO, Interim CEO or Chairman of a variety of startups, Dave Banks has spent the past 20 years working with early stage company CEO's as an adviser or board member to assist in the growth and development of tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Todd Singleton is currently the Head of Field Engineering for Saffron AI at Intel in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he and his team are working to develop and deliver AI-driven solutions with memory-based machine learning. With twenty years of entrepreneurial leadership experience Todd is adept in a wide range of back and front office functions and a builder of high-performance teams in technology-driven markets. Be sure to check out the books referenced in today’s episode: The Last Lion, a three volume book series on the life and leadership of Winston Churchill by William Manchester and My American Journey by Colin Powell

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Eh, not what your country can do for you and what you can do for your country. You are like an entree. One word, I have a dream, but one thing, this nature has the chains or whatever it turns.

Speaker 2: 0:26

So welcome to our podcast. We've got two great guests here today, Dave banks who has been a CEO for 32 years at a variety of companies and you can read more on our site about, uh, Dave's bio, uh, and he, uh, has been, uh, doing a great deal of, uh, of coaching and developing of leaders over that period of time. Uh, and then Todd Singleton, uh, who is currently the head of field engineering for Saffron AI. He's always good at Intel, which is always good to have an AI person in here, especially considering the fact that today we may talk about, uh, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg a little bit and he will have some interior knowledge about what goes on there. Maybe, uh, but Todd also played basketball at Duke and he and I spent a lot of time talking about that and being around coach Shashefski. But again, you can look on the site. These guys both have a, a tremendous resumes and a lot more, uh, that you'll, you'll maybe wanna get his background. Uh, but this is the leading good podcast, changing its name to leading different, uh, we wanted to be able to get a little bit more focus on what we do. And so today our theme is addressing the leadership crisis. Now, uh, Todd has had a great deal of influence on me. The host, your host, Russ UIL and uh, so is Dave banks. And so I brought them together because I thought we could have a tremendous, at least beginning conversation. Hopefully I'll convince these guys to come back, uh, about leadership. And one day, about four to five weeks ago, uh, Todd and I were talking and we were discussing probably the NBA draft first, but then we were discussing leadership and I was making some comments and he said, well, I feel like we're in a leadership crisis right now. And so I wanted him to go ahead and tell us what, what he, what he meant by that so that he can begin the theme. And thesis of his book, He'll be right. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:15

Yeah. Well, firstly, thanks for being, um, it's good to be here, Russ. And talking about this particular topic, it's a topic that I follow quite a bit, but in terms of why I said that a few weeks ago, why is there a leadership crisis? I think a lot of it has to do with how you see leadership[inaudible] as to whether or not you believe there's a crisis or not. Okay. So if I look at leadership in terms of two things, one, my philosophy towards leadership, and two, what's the qualification of a good leader? Okay. That influences my perspective. Makes Sense. So on the first point, if I think about leadership and I look at that and I say, if I lean towards the servant model of leadership where a leader is a servant of the people they serve. All right. That's one view. The other far extreme is a leader is to be served or more authoritative or fastest type view. So depending on how, you know, I lean more towards the, the former. Yeah. And then secondly, how do I qualify good leadership. Um, when I'm hiring somebody or what, I'm just trying to grow myself as a leader. I look at three things. I look at competence. Okay. I look at, um, character. Yup. And I look at connection, relationship building. I like those. And so in my opinion, in terms of why I said there's a leadership crisis, I think as it relates to character as a qualifier, we are certainly at a crossroads, right? I think most people lean heavily on competence. Can someone get something done? Can they move people from point a to point B? And then connections, you know, certainly from relationship standpoint, are you connected to power? Right? Um, but what's often underplayed is, are you connected to people who aren't in power? Right? And do you build relationships in that way? But I really think character is a qualifier is being, uh, challenged quite a bit right now. Wow, that's great. So, Dave, we're going to come over to you. Todd just rolled out. I had not heard these from you before. So when I steal them and you hear them being spoken as my ideas, you can appreciate my ability to steal. But, uh, competence, character connection, leadership crisis. What do you think about Todd's thesis is getting US started right here?

Speaker 4: 4:25

I would agree. So it's a good, a good way to characterize it. For me, I like to, um, I live in a world where I like models. I like to have examples of things. And uh, the two examples I look to that, um, I don't think we see these days on one's corporate and the other is political. The corporate example was who a bill and Dave, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started Hewlett Packard. And um, they, um, they basically built the company around the HP way, which was not like a mission statement or some kind of a advertising thing. It was really what they believed in, which is we have trust and respect for individuals. We focus on a high level of achievement and contribution. We conduct our business with uncompromising integrity. We achieve our common objectives through teamwork. We encourage flexibility and innovation. Those were our words. You don't hear very much today from corporate executives. Yeah. The second example, political example is Winston Churchill envoy. And I'm Kinda to keep it short. I'm a big fan of his, um, all during the 30s, he warned everybody who had listened to him, which was not very many people that Germany was rearming and I'm going to be a big problem and nobody listened to it. Right. And then finally, after a lot of turmoil, uh, where the appeasers got in trouble, uh, in, in Britain, uh, he was made prime minister and in 1940 and he gave, you know, he, he communicated well, gave speeches. He basically galvanized the British populace to, um, be ready for war. But what most people don't realize is from 1948, so almost the end of 1942, he also ran the war. He led the war effort and every single initiative in those two years, he led, failed. It was a, it was an f. He was defeated by Germany time and time and time again. And yet the people never, never gave up on him or gave up on believing that he, that, uh, that basically he was going to get them through it. Right. So, um, Todd was talking about servant leadership. I mean, he, he saw his responsibility to, to galvanize, to lead, to keep the people of Britain, uh, strong and really being the only bulwark against, uh, Nazi-ism in Europe if he had not been there. Um, you know, who knows what happened, right? So those are two, those are two kinds of models I look at and I think about, and I agree that we are, um, we have a dearth of that kind of leadership both in the corporate and the, uh, political level now.

Speaker 2: 7:18

Wow. So as I'm listening to you, and I love Churchill too, that that whole documentation of his journey in the Wilderness, William Manchester, the book called alone. Well, I've read all three of those volumes. Yeah, me too. And I that the second one's my favorite because he's just all alone. Completely alone. Never gave up. Yeah. Now what? Strike boy, we have never talked about that before. We need that. That's a podcast right there. Todd, you're back. Dave. You're back. We're going to do a Churchill Pike. So here's the thing that strikes me about it too. You guys, you both have a theory of leadership, like you both have a view of what a leader ought to be like. And I'm wondering, do you think that's part of the crisis is that a lot of people who are being developed as leaders are becoming leaders? They actually don't have a theory of leadership. They don't to take your phrasing and frame Todd, they don't have a sense of, okay, I know here's the extreme on one end and here's the extreme on the other. And having that philosophy of leadership, I'm able to draw from that. Having read history, I'm able to draw from that to figure out what kind of leader I should be. And when I get into good situations I know how to behave because I've seen the success of a leader or when I'm failing, I know how to handle it. I don't know. But do you think, unless you know, we look at, okay, so I mentioned before we were on area mark Zuckerberg and I think he's taking a big, a lot of hits for his company, failing to protect the elections, which I'm not sure that's his job, but, no, I am sure it's not his job. But I'm wondering if a lot of our young leaders don't have a philosophy of leadership. I'm wondering if they're not getting a of leadership because it's not being taught and our educational system and other places do. So you guys have great definition of leadership. Do you think that's a problem is people don't have a philosophy or a definition of leadership? You didn't want to be?

Speaker 4: 9:07

I think the, I think the values have, have changed as technology has led to, um, instant gratification instead of delayed gratification. Okay. I grew up in the 50s and most men thought about working their entire life and then retiring and having fun. You know, that delay gratification, right? We now are, we're now unhappy if we don't get something delivered that we've ordered, you know, two days guilty. Exactly. Yeah. So I think, I think part of this is a, um, is a move a movement towards kind of s selfishness. Uh, you know, you want things the way you want them and you feel like if you don't look out for yourself, there's nobody else that's gonna look out for you. I'm not sure whether it's an educational failure or whether we're just culturally, we've culturally undergone a, a, a major shift in the last 15 years where, um, you know, our values have changed.

Speaker 2: 10:06

Well, so I'll just keep riding on that for a minute. Isn't culture a result of where leaders lead us? So if the culture is more selfish, would that not be indicative of the fact that our leaders we have have led us to greater self? And it's, I'm not saying that's for sure, but I'm asking you a question.

Speaker 4: 10:20

Yes and no. I think our leaders, um, I would put it differently. I would say our leaders have not, have not done enough to lead us toward the, the servant end of the tod scale. Their, their, their example has been more about, you know, keeping the economy strong. I mean it's a, it's kind of good stuff. It to some extent, but it, it we're not, um, we're not putting out people who are, um, going to stick their necks out to make sure that the population or the, the group they are responsible for are, are, are cared for.

Speaker 2: 11:03

Okay. All right. I love where we're going. I see Todd over there thinking he looks like he's about to lay one on us. Great

Speaker 3: 11:08

points. Um, so in terms of your question, um, do young people or do leaders today have lacked a lack of definition or personal conviction about what leadership is? I'd say yes, but I want to, you know, there's a caveat to that answer. Okay. In that I don't think that things are getting worse as it relates to leadership, which sounds like a bit of a contradiction in that I said we were in a leadership crisis. If I look back throughout history, I think we have cycles. Yeah. And I think there are several periods in American history where I feel like there was certainly a leadership crisis. Yeah. I think we are in a similar period now. And then there are periods in history where I think,

Speaker 2: 11:54

you know, you could feel better about leadership. And so I thought that was a nuance where saying, um, in terms, so with that said, I don't think there is a historically significant lack of definition or philosophy around leadership. I think it comes and goes and in a lot of ways, because as a culture, we're not very deliberate about teaching leadership. It's not institutionalized very well. So we could, you could argue that these cycles are somewhat random based on what surface is. Yeah, I do think there's a lack of conviction and foe, a definition of leadership, but a, I don't think it's historically far worse than any other period in American history. I just think it's, it feels a bit more random. Yeah. So you guys got so many questions are flying through my mind as you're talking, and I'm going to jump to history. So if you go back to the beginning of the country, right, and you pick, one of my favorite leaders is Alexander Hamilton. And this is before Hamilton was written. I went to Alexander Hamilton elementary school. I ran for treasurer when I was like in fourth grade of Alexander Hamilton elementary school. Um, when you go back at that time, say Thomas Jefferson, who happens to be one of my favorites, but in, in east in bad shape, you know, now because people see the slavery, et Cetera, et cetera. Uh, and in all that, but they saw that then there were people who saw him keeping slaves then and didn't like it. And yet he was able to be a leader. Um, there were people, Alexander Hamilton, who I think is his, his history is pretty well known. You know, not coming from a two parent family and, and maybe mixed and all this stuff that would have been far worse back then. You know, he, he was able to serve as a leader. Um, um, obviously George Washington was able to serve as leaders. Several others were able to search the Benjamin Franklin, you go through the list. Ray, all these guys know some people out there and say, well, they were all white guys. Well, that, that, that's where we were at the time. So let's, let's, let's, that's correct for time and say, do, did have through history, through those cycles, have people been more forgiving of leaders flaws than they are today? And is that part of the crisis, which I want to thread that needle. You were threading Todd, which is, it's not that we're worse off now. I would agree with that. We're not worse off now, but we are shallower now. I think we've got a shallower bench. It's not like when you look at the next presidential election or the next, even the governor's elections that there's these, all these people that are running that you're like, oh my gosh, who do we pick? Right? It's not like that. So I'm wondering if we are, we have become more unforgiving of, of leaders because leaders are going to make mistakes. They're going to do things that are wrong. And Churchill, right? He's a perfect example of a guy who had extraordinary run of success. And then he, he did, uh, he made a number of mistakes, some military, um, and they, they drove him out and he was in a desert. And yet in the 60s, he comes back and leads and becomes probably the most significant, if not most important, leader of the 20th century. So I'm wondering are we less forgiving because right now Abraham Lincoln couldn't get elected because people would say, well, at one time you were forced slavery. Now you're, now you're kind of more understanding of it. Uh, FDR wouldn't be elected because we'd say, well, you're in a wheelchair and you're disabled. And obviously the, you know, hid some of that. But I just think, you know, Kennedy couldn't get elected for, you know, the obvious reasons. Martin Luther King probably couldn't be out there speaking because people will be talking about his things. So I, it, things are so much more transparent today that I'm wondering, is it possible for someone to endure all that? Just a question.

Speaker 3: 15:39

The creek question, I, I don't think we're less forgiving. I just think we know more. I think information flows more freely and 200 years ago was way easier to control the narrative. Right? Or someone could have a double life and hide it very easily. Right. Um, and I think, um, in all errors, culture affects leadership and leadership affects culture. I do not think we are more shallow today than we were then. Like I don't think that at all. I just think, um, yeah, there's just a proliferation of information and it's easier to get your flavor of information right, than it was before. Okay.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Dave, you're going to weigh in on that?

Speaker 4: 16:26

Yeah, I, uh, I'll come back to technology. Uh, we can get anything, any information we want almost instantly and a lot of information we don't want. And, and, and so, um, I agree with, you know, Todd and you, I mean, I don't know whether we're more accepting, less accepting. I think we just know more and we probably judge based on what we know and, and you know, that leads to, um, uh, more chaos as it were. And, uh, that was more, it felt like there was in the forties, in the 50s, more respect toward leaders. I mean, it was all, you know, with, from Roosevelt and the media, not, um, you know, photographing him in a wheelchair and things like that. But the other thing that I think has happened, I began thinking about the topic. Uh, you and I did not have a discussion five weeks ago about it, but I noticing in the, in the world of business, the education of business people has shifted way toward, um, management and efficiency and, um, analytics and, uh, you know, the use of data and things like that. And, and yet if you look at the, if you look at the best companies that we've come out, come out with, you know, the Fang Facebook, uh, you know, apple, so forth and so on. The people who have created those companies are not, were not managers, they were leaders. Great Point. And Hewlett Packard were leaders. I mean, they were engineers, they were leaders. They lead the company. And when they, when they left, they had bright and great managers. Things, you know, did not go well. I think that the, from an education perspective, the, the, the people who are being trained to be business leaders are being trained in everything but leadership and, and, and they're, they're missing the fact that, you know, Steve Jobs, Larry and Sergei and all these people, they were leaders. They wanted to build something great. They had a, they had a vision of what they, what it would do for people who knew that these things would end up being this way. And I think that from the world and Todd and Todd, not that Todd's not in business, but from, from my world. I mean, when, when I was educated and when I went to business school, we spent quite a bit of time on, um, what they used to call, you know, human behavior. We spent a lot of time on how to communicate on how to inspire wasn't, they didn't use that word, but it was, it was, uh, it was more a balanced, it was not all numerically focused. That's all.

Speaker 3: 18:59

That's funny because one, oh, go ahead Todd. Get in there. Well, I just totally agree with what Dave is saying. Um, and in a lot of ways I think our corporations are set up to, to be what you just described. Um, in that, uh, young inspiring company must be led in to start a new market. It must be led to grow quickly. It must be led to capture market share. It must be led. But as soon as the business in my observation becomes financially driven or driven by the finance department, it becomes managed. So I'm at Intel Corporation and the legacy of leadership of the core founders, Robert Noyce and, and, and, and more, I mean that legacy is alive and well in terms of the leadership they provided. That's interesting. But they are no longer there. And you can see in the business where, you know, great market share, great reoccurring cash flow, right? And you can tell it's financially driven now, right? It's now an annuity in a lot of ways. And so it has become a managed business, right? As opposed to something that's being led and such businesses over time, you know, fall away or it begin to erode or it's hard to wrap up or get disrupted, right? Like, and we see that with some of the great businesses throughout American history. And so the hard part about that though, if you look at the system that's in place, I mean, if the definition of a corporation is to benefit the shareholders, right? You will eventually, if you're successful, get to that point where the only thing you can do is manage it, right? Because you have to money to your shareholders, more money to your shareholders. It's hard to continue to lead it. I'm learning a lot as I'm listening to you. So I'm enjoying just talking about this. So let me push back a little bit. So if I'm in a company that is primarily focused on

Speaker 2: 20:47

the efficiency, I loved your definition. I'm going to go back and listen to the podcast just to hear what you said day. Um, that's focused on the finances, focused on efficiency, focused on the data. I remember when I was in college studying economics, right? They came out with, it's how old I am. They came out with and they were like, oh, there's a new branch of economics called econometrics. And it began to shift economics from focusing on cause part of economics focused on the behavior of people and we're getting back there with behavioral economics. But at that time they were getting more toward data. Like look at the numbers, let the numbers tell you what it's, what's there. So I, I agree with you guys on that. I'm pushing back on the unforgiving part. So if I'm a person who believes that I can make mistakes, I can have the, let's take Mark Zuckerberg, right? And um, Mark Zuckerberg, his company gets thrashed at, in the stock market because they've not handled this whole Facebook election thing. Well, I'm simplifying the issue, but that's what it is. Um, to be able to handle that kind of failure, that kind of criticism, you have to have some sense that somebody somewhere is going to say, okay, I'm still behind you. Now you said, Todd, that you think society's more forgiving. But I think the record of how easily we toss people out, whether it's, whether it's college coaches, it CEO's, it just seems like they're on a short leash and if they blow anything, Bam, they're gone. Because the company is concerned that it's going to affect their brand and then it's going to determine who gets who was willing to buy their product. And so I don't know that we are as forgiving. I don't, I don't think the newspaper headlines tell me that we are a country that would put up with anything much cause you can run out. And I think that, I don't want to get too political because that's dangerous, but I think you can even trace some of Trump's success to people loving the fact that he's doing all the things you shouldn't do and he's still president. And I think there's a part of that that people love because it's like he's defying everybody. Now. I'm not saying that's good, but I'm saying that a forgiving, and I'm not saying it's to be forgiving at the highest level. So maybe what it is is there is a lot of forgiveness on the way up. But it seems to me you can't make many mistakes today if you're a leader. And that deters people from making mistakes, lends towards more focused on data and efficiency. That's just what I'm thinking. But I may be wrong about that. I'm more trying to get you guys tell me more about it.

Speaker 3: 23:13

I think there might be less tolerance today for hypocrisy. But again, I don't know if we're less graceful as much as we just know more, but knowing more or don't we have to become okay, we know more, but our grace has not increased. That's a fair relationship.

Speaker 2: 23:29

And what I'm saying is that I think, and I, I'm, I'm out here in a ocean sailing and I don't know where I'm going, but part of what I think having led a lot and been in leadership a lot, I think there, for me it's been a process. And so if you go back to my teen years and you go to my college years, there's lessons learned, uh, right up till now, you know, my plus 50 years, there's lessons learned all along the way. And I feel like the cultures that I was part of, the people that were around me are as much a reason that I've been able to become a leader or be a leader. As before. I would say I started out not the servant leader cause I did. That wasn't my definition of leadership. I read history books and I always liked the strong leader, Leno, Napoleon, he's going to take it, you know, and lead everything. And so it took me some time to even understand there was another definition and I had to make mistakes along[inaudible].

Speaker 1: 24:16

The way to do that, you're listening to the lead, different by triangle media. You can find us on iTunes, stitcher, and soundcloud. Make sure to subscribe for more content on leading different. Now back to the show.

Speaker 2: 24:32

Well Zuckerberg is, it is my model. It's a, here's a guy who's running a company who's come up from his college dorm room. He's 2019 yeah, he's going to do a lot. Ron before he's done. And I, and I think he's holding up fine. Seems to be holding up fine and it helps to be a billionaire, right? But I look at that and I go, where are the Zuckerberg running for president? They're nowhere to be seen. Why? It's too risky. You're going to have your kids drawn out there. And, and you're going to have your marriage drawn out there. You're going to have your, what you said in second grade, what you tweeted in in eighth grade. I Dunno. I mean, I, I, I'm saying this more, I think probably there's more crises of people willing to lead in public.

Speaker 4: 25:16

Oh, that, that's what I wanted to get into based on this. Um, the effect of, uh, whether we're more forgiving or not, the effect of this, um, instant information, um, quick judgment, kind of a cycle that we see all over the place, right? Is that, um, Colin Powell didn't run for president.

Speaker 2: 25:41

Oh, I ran for

Speaker 4: 25:42

president was he didn't want his family subjected. Everybody has stuff in their background that they're embarrassed by. Right. And, um, through, uh, an odd connection. I won't go into, I'm sure you read his book. Um, journey to America. I did not read his book. Well, anyway, uh, one of his top generals when he was a joint chief, uh, head of the Joint Chiefs of staff was a man, a general named Becton right. And back then had a kid in college with my daughter. And my daughter's boyfriend. And so, um, my daughter and her boyfriend and back then went to Washington and they met Powell. And it was around the time that, you know, everybody was saying, you know, why isn't this, why aren't you stepping up for running for president? Right. And he basically told them, he said, I, I, um, I've served my country my whole life. I would love to serve my country as a chief executive, but not going to say, submit my family to what goes on in a presidential election. Right. And this was like 20 more than 20 years ago before all the, the instant. Yeah. So I think the one effect of the way things are is people who would maybe in a past time want to step up and lead, be it the country or you know, in any way, are cautious about that. Yeah. Because you know,

Speaker 3: 27:17

well, could that be an increase in cowardice? It could be. Well, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm x all took bullets in the head or bullets. That is risky. Yup. No, I'll step out and leave. And there's a cost. I'm not denying that at all and my kids could lose their father.

Speaker 2: 27:35

Right. And so if I take your thought to, to the it's final conclusion, no one wants a bullet in the head, therefore no one will lead because no one does. And prior, neither the day prior to their assassination, how many assassinations like that took place? Two presidents, plenty. Oh, Malcolm x and Martin Luther King or black men in America. But you're in this, you're still in the same area though, but for which they were lynching less same. You're still in the same era. Right? And there are plenty of, previously, previously as a president, they'll know, but historically, but historically as black men who stepped out to speak, right? But I'm, I'm not talking about black men. I'm saying you're pink[inaudible] era of history. And you're using that era of history as a frame to say you're coward if you won't take it.

Speaker 3: 28:16

Well, I'm not saying[inaudible] saying there was a, there was a, in the sixties and fifth, there seems to be a, probably an uptake of courage. Okay, okay. Not to condemn everyone who's not counting that cost today. Right, right, right. I don't mean to say everyone, but to lead requires courage. Right? Right. And I don't think there's ever a time in history where you can, that requirements going to go away. So that that's, that's just the cost or leading.

Speaker 2: 28:43

But that, that, that's, so the interesting thing about that, and I loved, I loved the discussion, the issue, the thing about that is it's always easy for people who are not leading to tell leaders they need to be courageous. That's the easiest thing to do, right. The, some of the Roosevelt quote quote, right? Yeah. Step in the arena. And absolutely. And so I think, I think that what I believe is there's, let's take, let's go back to England and Churchill. Yup. England was primed to want a leader stronger than they had had in decades. Churchill was over the top. That's why people got rid of them. I mean, that guy was, I mean, there's a lot there. I love him. But there's a lot there about his sense of dominance, his sense of elitism, about being English being English noble, et Cetera, et cetera. That was all there and that's why he was pushed out. He was only brought back because Hitler was at the doorstep. That was the, and the, even then when Chamberlain was going to step down, they didn't him. They wanted, I can't remember the guy's name, Halifax. They wanted Halifax. They were like, yeah, let's give him Halifax. And so I think that the people have to be in a position where they encourage courage. And so the word I think, I like what you're saying, Todd, is that it's not really about being forgiving that that's not the appropriate word for it because that's not what it is. It's that there has to be a culture or the people have to be in a spot where they will encourage courage. And still when Martin Luther King started out, he didn't want to be the leader of, of, of, of the organization and the southern leadership conference. He didn't want to be a leader of it, but the people encouraged his courage and I think they saw his hypocrisy in various areas. Yeah. That happened with the poor man's march around Chicago. Yet they still encouraged his courage. I think with Kennedy, he was surrounded by his, you know, the Irish mafia as they say. They encouraged his courage. So I think I love what you're saying is that this is not an issue of forgiveness. I'm going to go with you on that. This is an issue of courage, but then I will say it's always easy for like Kara Swisher's article about Zuckerberg is about, well look where he's led Facebook and they've weaponized this and they've done that. And I'm like, okay. Um, that's making him responsible for an extraordinary amount of things. That is totally unfair. And it would be smart of him to say, you know what, I'm, I'm out of this business. I'm retiring. I'm going to go over here and do this. Let somebody else take over and do this and watch Facebook take a dive. He could do that. That would be, I suppose, somewhat cowardly, I suppose. Right. But if you're in a culture that says we love the fact that Mark Zuckerberg started in a, in a dorm room, has connected millions of people, has changed the lives of millions of people. We love that. So yeah, he's gotten this wrong, but he got this wrong because of a failure of leadership on a government level. Let's, you know, certainly I want to devote, I want to snap back on you a little bit of shirt. Can, I would love all the pushback.[inaudible]

Speaker 4: 31:43

yeah. Push back a little bit. Um, double down on that. You know, there is this law which is called the law of unintended consequences. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I believe in that law and it's a, it's a big deal. The only thing I would fault Zuckerberg with in, in his journey thus far is at least it's not apparent to me that he has availed himself of, of older, um, experienced, uh, people around him where he could ask about, you know, what are the things that could happen here that I'm not thinking about. Right. So his, his, his, his genius was, we're gonna, we're going to allow people to connect with each other, communicate post pictures, talk about our lives share. And there was a time when he said, if, if, uh, when, when, when from privacy issues came up early in the company's history, he said, well, everybody just thought to share everything and then we wouldn't have problems, which is a really nice thing to say. But the thing about it is that the, the unintended consequence of Facebook is they collect all this information. Yeah. They have all this information about people and that information can be used for good or for ill. And, um, I'm not ascribing any, um, you know, nefarious, uh, motives to what he's doing with that information. But you have to think about what the unintended consequences are going to be of the way you build a business.

Speaker 2: 33:25

So see, I agree with you 100%[inaudible] but this is my point and you, you, you, you guys are helping me get this. This is my whole point. My point is that that's how you develop leaders like that. That if the, I'll pick the secretary of state or we'll pick him. If someone had come in and said, this is where a government matters had said, look, you have the data of whatever, 1,000,400 million people or whatever, or 200 million Americans, let's say. And because you have that data, you're going to have to allow something to happen that gives us confidence that you're handling that data appropriately. So we're appointing this task force to examine what you have. You don't have to give away your secrets, but we have people in every venture in America that are government people that know banking secrets and are able to keep them. We're going to have him in there. He demons, it'd been better if he had just walked down the street, right. And asked some CEO's that are, you know, living in his neighborhood and said, hey, can you, would you come over to my house? But I think that's part of the, the right education. I think the education that I'm probably saying is it a deterrent to leadership, is the education that takes place in, in, in the media that that is the examination of, and to some degree, the destruction of people who could lead instead of there being some mechanism by which they are being coached up now they have to make that choice. I get that.

Speaker 3: 34:45

Okay. I'll push back on both. Slightly. Go for, so in terms of your point, Russ, about encouragement and a culture of encouragement. I think encouragement is a basic human need. So any leader has to have a circle. However big that circle is to be three people or 300 right? Where they can draw encouragement, right point. But if a leader depends on the adulation of the larger crowd and need encouragement from the greater culture, that leader is doomed to fail from[inaudible] hundred percent and the great leaders throughout history, it actually had to operate in many cases without the adulation or encouragement of the greater crowd. And so again, I think that goes back to the courage piece. Dave mentioned, what can I just share[inaudible] good point. So I agree with that 100%.

Speaker 2: 35:33

The question is how do you teach someone between the ages of 15, let's say, and 30 to go seek that out? How do you help someone know? Because I know I never learned that there was no class I took in college. I think I did learn some from coaches, but not a lot about how you proceed down the path of maturing as leader because things you're talking about, even courage, that's a mature thing. There's a book called the seminarian about Martin Luther King that talks about him in the seminary and, and what he went through and, and some things that, that, that, that probably weren't good that he was doing. Uh, as far as, you know, studying and all this stuff, I won't get into all the details. I can go read that book. But I think there's the things you talk about to me are really good, but there are things that come about after someone's been on the journey for awhile and I don't think they're easy to get. I don't think it's easy to become a courageous person. I think some people are born with gifts, you know, but if you look at Churchill, I think he had a tremendous amount of ambition and he had a tremendous desire to be. I mean, Churchill had a tremendous desire to fight in wars and thought death would be glorious. So there are people like that. They just, you know, they're like, Hey, I'm going for it. Um, I'm just concerned that, that, that, and I like the pushback. I'm just tossing the tennis ball back over that you're over-simplifying how difficult it is to be a leader. Uh, I think it's okay. Sorry. I think it's really hard to, it wasn't an accusation. I'm just thinking it's really hard to be a leader. That's why I think it, it requires deliberate training and culture that teaches it. And I think we can infuse in our young women and young men or young girls and young boys courage. And it often taught, uh, requires being a part of something greater than oneself. Because if I'm only thinking about myself, the courage will not follow. So courage outside of prop for profit comes with great loss because if you have the courage to stand up and then you, let's take the extreme example, you get shot or the less extreme example, you get attacked. Then once that happens, you're alone. Like Winston Churchill. And not a lot of people want that for their life. They don't want their life to be, I gave my life to a cause. I mean let's take you hit it one for my life. That's a, if you know, leadership can't typically be driven by that desire. So then how do you motivate someone to want to be a leader? Because everybody has to self-interest of I want a quality life. I'd like to live a while not like that. So if you look at MLK, his last speech, when he said when he kinda knew he's about to get killed and he said, of course I want a long life. Right? Longevity has its place. Right? And he had young kids and he said, but he accepted. That's not my lot. Right? That's not mine. And then he started shaking. Tell me now in case we got into ran out of air, how many we have in his bullet the next day, but how many hits, how many do we have in history? I mean, because we're talking about leadership crisis. If you're going to have to wait for the MLKs word finished, that's the, that's the, that's the obviously more extreme example. Yeah. But just thinking on a, on just a day to day, local ground level, how do we teach kids to have character and conviction? Right.

Speaker 3: 38:46

And it'll show itself in many different ways. I think the combination of those two, like I said at the very beginning, is at a crossroads right now.

Speaker 2: 38:55

Dave, my concern on it is that, that as I told Todd, I think over simplification. I don't mean that to be a negative word. I, I think some, you've had a long journey in leadership. And so I think, you know how up it goes, how down it goes, how tough it is in life on life. I'm, I'm concerned. I see this and in the work I do, um, whether it's, uh, in, in the little startup world of finding people who are willing to make sacrifices to, to build, which may be taking less money for awhile while you're building a product that may even be to help people less than to make money, whether it's in the spiritual realm of, of, of helping people be motivated to serve and do good things, even though they're not getting a financial, you know, benefit from it. Um, I find a lot of people don't want to be leaders. I find a lot of people don't. I tremendous numbers and I worry that, that, that the[inaudible] and I think the thing you point out to on that, and I've done it in this conversation by using the big example once we, it probably exaggerates how tough it is to be a leader. So I hear that. But I, I, I, I'm a little bit more on the journey side going. I look at my, I look at my journey and I go, wow, you know, it. Yeah, it's tough. And it, you make you, you make mistakes every day. Every time you open your mouth, you, you look 10 years past and you go, what was I doing? As you, as you get older and you're like, I don't even know why I, I don't even know why I made those choices I made. Or you get trained by somebody to lead in Hawaii, this totally not effective. And then you have to unlearn what you learn and then learn from people, new ways to learn. So I, I, I'm in, I'm on that journey side of will people take up that journey with the level of difficulty that it seems to present?

Speaker 3: 40:46

Well, I think our incentive structure is, is incorrect, right? So Dave Ray made a great point about Dr Bergan than I ever the, of some of the early decisions that were made without full consideration of longterm consequences. Right? But I say, I don't think that's new at all. And I think you could look at any error of American industry and there's niativity across the board, be it forward, be at Rockefeller, be it, you name it. Yeah. And we are suffering the consequences of that now.

Speaker 2: 41:16

Like if you follow, if you follow global warming or anything like that, those are nice. The

Speaker 3: 41:22

short term decisions that were made because the incentives for them were really, really positive financially. Same with Zuckerberg, right? Our whole economic structures around four year, 10 year increments, never longed longer than that. Yeah. Right. We're older, more mature cultures might've thought about multigenerational type of decisions, right? So there's more sustainability and things like that. Right? And so there is a systemic nature to the[inaudible] and that's just how it is. That's how we have built this little boy that leads to a whole nother discussion. But, um, uh, meeting is it, did we do it intentionally? We didn't intentionally. I just think sh, you know, the nature of male narrative, 70 years, 80 years, right? So I want mine, right? That's the culture that we're far. It's the nature of man though, right? There are plenty of cultures that didn't live that way. Oh. As successful United States it, depending on how you measure success, if you look at it, it just DDP then no, but if you look at it as sustainable over a long period of time. Yes. Yeah. Dave, I'm, we're, we're both looking to you for wisdom. We're both out there. We're both out there in the ocean with our sailboats going, we think we're getting somewhere, but we don't know.

Speaker 4: 42:37

Well, I want to come back to your question, which was basically, you know, how to, how do we encourage people to be, to be leaders? Um, my response to that is, um, leadership requires mentorship. You have to have people around you who tell you the truth. In many instances, we don't want to hear the truth, right? Be it about marriage or, you know, raising kids. Um, it's amazing to me how little that, the whole, the whole aspect of mentorship, uh, is, is, is valued and understood. And, and it's interesting just kind of across the board, some cultures, uh, consider it a demeaning. Um, I had a consulting client, uh, who, um, is a, uh, uh, somebody who, who moved to this country from somewhere else. And, and, uh, I posted, um, on linkedin that I was going to be doing consulting with this company and this individual had a number of his, uh, of friends contacts reach out to him saying, is this resists real? Are you, are you really getting help? And so, you know, I basically was asked to take the posting down. Interesting. And, um, and I was just blown away. I said, really? So I mean, um, I think that this sounds self-serving cause I'm the oldest guy in the room, but on the whole, I don't see a lot of situations where, um, you know, mentoring is, is valued.

Speaker 3: 44:14

I think that lands pretty squarely, um, or addresses pretty squarely my concern. I think part of what is hard about being a leader is if you're alone and the people who tend to be less caught up into the adulation of the crowd are who are mature enough

Speaker 2: 44:32

to have already figured out that it's not going to be with you forever anyway. I mean that's how I live. I live like, you know what? Um, I, when I was young, I used to think, man, if people are cheering your name and, and, and thanking you and pat you on the back, you're in good shape. And then you realize in the down moments when they're not patting you on the back, you sit here and go, hey, what happened with all that? And you start learning. I can't live for that and I can't have that. But I think it takes someone older to tell you that. And I think our, the point maybe we're all, because we are all are converging on, I'm going to check with you guys on this, is that at the end of the day, leadership is hard. And sometimes I think one thing a leader has to do is he has to pick his culture, right? He has to say, this is the organization I want to lead. And don't go lead something where the culture is gonna eat you up. And so you guys say, if you see that you've got to get out of there, you want to be in a culture, this, they're going to mentor you. They're going to understand you, they're going to be patient with you, they're going to let you make mistakes. Uh, they're gonna let you do things wrong. And probably, um, the mentorship part of it is the part that it's interesting. I've, I face it with guys that are younger than me. They really want to prove they can do stuff and they, and they can sometimes think if I get help, then that detracts from my accomplishment. Um, and I don't, I don't think it does. Uh, um, and so I think that's probably hard. And I think going back to what we were, we were bouncing back and forth about, um, and I like how we switched that word unforgiving. Cause I, I, I mean we need to be gracious, but I think, I think, I think we're, what we're talking about about development is a much bigger issue. And a mentor I would think would say to someone who is at a certain age, say they're 25 and they're making mistake, certain area would say, you know, you shouldn't take that promotion. You shouldn't go over there and try and run that. You're not ready. And, and that, that, that's how you protect yourself. Or when you go down and fall on your face to help you get back up. I'll tell you guys a story I want to, so when I moved here in 93 to the Silicon Valley, um, I took, uh, I was, uh, took it, took a program at Stanford, uh, um, on innovation. They had program, had an innovation. Jim Collins was here, one of my favorite business thinkers. Um, several engineering people, MBA business school, people from Berkeley were there. And it was sort of my introduction to the place, but it was all about leadership and innovating and leadership. And it introduced ideas to me. I'm from the east coast, new long ways that I hadn't thought about. You know, they were much more into the silicon valley type. Well, in fact the first story I heard was about Hewlett and Packard, Jim Collins, first thing he said, is this how you build a company? And I sat there and went, oh, I hadn't heard that story. You know, that they, that they did, they were what he says, they were more concerned about who's on the bus than about what they were trying to do. And that's why they built such a great company. But in the evening session, and there's about 40 people in the program in the evening session, Steve Jobs was there, but he was at next, and I had read the book Odyssey, but John Sculley, so I'm expecting this, you know, charismatic Dynamo Guy and I walk in, he's got his kid with him and he's talking and I'm like, this isn't the, this isn't the guy I read about in the book. I mean, and I actually said, asked him after he was done talking, he talked about leadership and I asked a few questions. I said, how are you? How do you pick leaders? What do you do? And I was sort of struck by the depth of his understanding, but he was at the time being seen as sort of a failure. Like what happened to that dude? And I walked out with him and I was like, Hey, can I come over to the next sometime? He goes, there's nothing there, but computers, you don't want to come over there. And, and he was so ordinary. Like I was expecting so much power. And I, and I think that Kinda stuck in my head is a lot of, a lot of people cast him aside and yet, you know, arguably, he now could be argued to be the greatest CEO of the early 21st century, 20th century. He could be in that discussion of whether it's a hundred people or whatever. Um, and I think he's still probably, Dave, you know, better than me. He still probably had some of the weaknesses that he had previously, but time, age, a little bit of time in the wilderness. And he became, you know, extraordinary things that I think was extraordinary. As I read an article where he was interviewed, he goes, well, I think the differences I've learned, I need a team and I can't do it by myself. And um, I don't think a lot of people are talking to. That would be my point. I W I, I mean probably somebody out there who taught me what to say. I taught you that, but I wasn't taught that early. Like I was taught you need to be the star. You know, you get out there and hit the most shots, do the most stuff, be the accomplish it, show people you can do it. And then you get older and you realize that that just makes you tired and it makes you make a lot of mistakes and you cause you overreach and you exhaust yourself and you burn yourself out and you don't even know it. Um, he's my example of a guy who I look at and I say, I'm not sure politically that a, that and this is this such a big statement. I should be careful, but I'm not sure politically that we know how to develop a Steve jobs in the political world that we know how to let a guy go off to the wilderness and show back up later after having totally falling on his face and then run for president. Maybe we do. Maybe it's just that they don't have the courage that you were talking about to come back. But

Speaker 3: 49:34

I appreciate your story. A quick story about what Dave said around mentorship. Um, I don't know if Dave remembers this, but about 10 years ago, Dave gave me an hour of his time and uh, I was an overeager young professional, silicon valley, et Cetera, met with them and uh, he talked about a number of things very calmly as he is today. And he shared, uh, two things that jumped out. One about his journey of self awareness as it relates to leadership. And he also shared with me, encouraged me to be more patient and more faithful and to stop jumping around. Quite Frank. He was one hour of his time. I must have revisited those two points hundreds of times. And I've shared those points via that story with dozens of people. Unlike Russ, I don't take credit for it. I say a friend of mine, Dave banks, and I think when you shared about mentorship, I was like, man, I spent an hour with Dave and it I'm, you know, we're 10 15 years later, I continue to grow on the advice that you gave me in that one hour. And it's really powerful and I share those stories all the time about you. I don't think I ever came back and told you that, but I tell them that you know, that it came from you and not me. But anyways, I think that's a, a story I just wanted to share about mentorship and Dave's point.

Speaker 2: 51:08

So I think we've had a good discussion and I think that if you guys tell me if I'm correct or if I'm wrong, but I think one thing we all agree on is there's a crisis in leadership at that crisis is in the development of leadership, the development of leaders that we have to, we have to improve, develop the infrastructure, the culture where great leaders can be developed and that a, it's not necessarily saying we're worse off than we ever have been in history, but we haven't figured out how to, I'm going to put words in all of our mouths. We haven't been able to figure it out, how to take those, those may be local leaders that are out there being courageous and get them to step up into more leadership that we think part of that is courage, that that that courage has to be nurtured. The willingness to say it doesn't matter if the crowd is cheering my name or not, and that part of that is mentorship. That you can't get that kind of courage unless you have somebody watching over you, like a parent, so you can walk, fall, walk, fall and get back up. Um, one thing's for sure from what we're talking about today that you have to be intentional about developing leaders. It's not just going to happen. Um, so hopefully y'all get you guys back because I could sit here for three hour now. I could sit here all day and just have him bring in food and keep talking

Speaker 3: 52:22

free cause food, bringing food with me.[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 52:24

well I, I didn't have a lawyer. I could have a two hour one with you on Churchill and a three hour one. Scott was Todd on uh, on courage and leadership because it's such an expansive subject. So hopefully I'll get you guys back and we'll keep, I love the fact that we're all pooling our sort of experience and opinions and coming in with some kind of consensus about what we think and uh, I'll leave you with this. Todd. Put down competence, character and connection. I think it's a good place to start. Also don't forget to go read the book alone by William Manchester, that, that I really recommend Dave would recommend the whole set, uh, by William Manchester on a, on Churchill. He certainly epitomizes everything we're talking about today, the ups and downs and all. Thanks a lot for listening to our podcast leading different. Thank you to Todd singleton and Dave, thanks for joining me, Russ Tule, and trying to figure out what may be the unfavorable, but we enjoyed the journey and have a great day.