Money. Power. Respect?! Do You Really Care? Your Why

This episode is a moment of reflection for listeners to decide on their true motivation for becoming a leader. ​

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We need better leaders. We need more people who care about people. We need more people who genuinely intend to carry out the missions they have committed to. Missions that bring out the better side of our humanity. Missions that heal and missions that impact. Are you one of those better leaders? Or do you know someone who is? Or have you lost hope in us having better leaders? Or are you simply curious if it could still be possible? I'm here starting a conversation with you so we can go on a journey together to actually answer these questions. And whatever conclusion you come to, at least you will know what is and what isn't worth leading. Hey, it's Amanda Sophia, and we're continuing our conversation on what's worth leading. As a reminder, this podcast is for people who are hesitant about leadership, lost hope in leadership, curious about leadership, former leaders who are looking back in hindsight, or current leaders who are making a few adjustments in their leadership approach. Feel free to join the conversation at any time, regardless of the reason why you're here. So if you want additional resources for this podcast, make sure that you visit worthleadingpodcast.com. There's a blog there reflecting on my experiences of recording this. There's uh things that will be available for download for episodes that are posted. So yeah, just visit it, check it out, send me a message if you want to. Uh, but I look forward to hearing from you. So let's get into today's episode. This is uh an episode that is called Do You Really Care Your Why? We're kind of back on track. The past couple episodes have been background, have been history, talking about you know the eras of leadership. And so now that we know that we're in this era of AI leadership, it is not very top-down, but very follower-focused, very team-based, very collaborative. You know, the question is do you really care about being a leader at all? It's a very interesting question. And I say that because we can choose whatever path we want in life. Like anything we want to do, we can choose. Yes, there's constraints that yes, there's limitation depending on what country or what background or whatever. But at the end of the day, when it comes to choosing to actually look or walk towards a mission, move towards a mission, move towards a cause that you believe in or you subscribe to and actually get other people to follow you in that direction, that's a choice. So the question is, do you really care? Now, this is kind of scary, and I feel like with if you are into the news, if you're looking at online, I don't know if you uh scroll a lot, but the current reflection of what it takes to lead in this environment is a bit confusing. Uh, because even when thinking about the errors of leadership, uh personality-based or uh if it you know, transformation-based, you know, it doesn't really explain why a lot of leaders in this time, um, it seems, are are successful. And the question is, what does success mean when it comes to being a leader nowadays? That is a good question. And I think that is very subjective. Everyone has their own opinion about it. Um, but the question is, do you even care to have an opinion? My assumption is that if you are on this podcast and you're listening to a podcast about leadership, you do care. Um, and if you do care, um the thing that has to happen is there's some roots that have to start to form if they are not formed already. You have to really be grounded in your why of the cause that you believe in for leadership. There's so many external factors that impact us when we choose to lead. For example, uh, people's opinions. That is the first thing. People's opinions about what you're doing. Someone will always have an opinion about, oh, I would have done it this way, or the last leader did it this way, or, you know, I think that you're just doing it wrong. It everyone has their opinion about leadership. I think that is one of the most important things to recognize before you even fully embrace the thought of going into a leadership position or stepping to a leadership position or committing to a leadership position, is that the fact that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, no matter how transparent, honest, whatever you are, there will always be someone who is questioning your leadership. And if you can't accept that and and and have a why that's deep enough for yourself, then you've already started to make headway when it comes to leadership. So just to let you know, that is kind of like top of list for us today. So people's opinions is one reason why you need to know your why, because people will question you every step of the way. And that is experience space. This is not a theory. Like, you know, the last couple episodes, we've been talking about theory, we've been talking about research. You know, you can go online and look at other people's experiences too, but on experience, people will question you every way. I don't care if you have degrees from you list, you know, top universities. I don't care if you've traveled the world and spoke to, you know, high-ranking people. Doesn't even matter. People question you every step of the way. The next thing is another reason why you need to have your why. You need to have clarity about your mission and vision personally. And the reason why I say that is there has to be some type of rooted value system about leadership that you hold on to before you attach yourself to a system. I'll give an example. You are choosing to lead, you are choosing to be a leader as a human being first. Your humanity is important. Your your life is important. And I think it's really important for us to recognize our humanity before we even connect to the systems that we can potentially serve through our leadership. Why is that important? Although, when we are enlisted as leaders to maybe an organization, you work for a certain company and they have their mission and values, they can choose to switch things up, change things if they need to or want to. If a quarter doesn't work uh right, if they don't make enough money uh a certain quarter, or you know, if it's more of a nonprofit organization situation and they're not getting the funding and they want to tweak some things, or they have a grant or something like that, and they're making some uh changes because of donors, they can they can switch things around. But it doesn't necessarily mean that you want to change your root system as a leader for your why. So you need to understand what is important and what your personal why and North Star is is as far as far as being a leader. Let's break it down to maybe uh just a human perspective. I want to insert with people who are following me. I want to make sure that they feel supported. I want to make sure that they feel like someone cares. I want to make sure that the people who follow me can learn something. I want to make sure that the people who follow me are not disrespected. It could be simple stuff. We're not talking about complex, you know, no essay writing, a few sentence starters that frame your perspective, your way of thinking, your philosophy about your why as a leader. So your why of your North Star personally. I'm actually gonna write that down. Your personal North Star. Okay. And so we talked about people's opinions. Your personal North Star. Another thing that we need to think about with regards to why and the why really being our root system is your capacity as a human being. You believe that at some point in time that you will have the skill set and capacity to navigate what leadership is in its totality. Why is capacity a part of it? And we know that this is part of a definition of leadership, having the skill set and capacity to lead other people. It's an important part of your root system because being a leader isn't like a one-note thing. It it requires, you know, soft skills, you know, hard skills, depending on what type of what type of leadership you're doing. But there are so many, it's like this mixture of skills that you need to lead, that you need to lead and and and and navigate when you're leading. You really need to understand or believe for yourself that you have the capacity to either use or develop these skill sets. One of the skill sets that is extremely important, and I would say it's a skill set, is emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence. I do not think that a lot of people talk about this enough. I don't think we have enough conversations about emotional intelligence. I do not think so. And when I'm talking about emotional intelligence in this context is to understand how to process your emotions and really um display them or navigate them in ways that will protect and uh not harm your capacity to lead. So you can lead other people, you know, things impact you as a human being naturally, your environment. I mean, it could be anything. I mean, you could have spilled some coffee on yourself in the morning time and just be in a bad mood, but the fact that you don't start work or go someplace to lead and start, you know, cursing everybody out, that is a part of emotional intelligence. Like, hey, I'm not feeling so good in this moment emotionally because I spill coffee on myself. It's not because everyone who I'm who I need to lead is horrible or whatever. I don't like I don't like her pink hat or whatever. And then you, you know, you're you're fussing at the person with the pink hat because you spill coffee. You really have to understand how your emotions impact you. And that takes some reflection, it takes some introspection, it could take some therapy, but we need to understand these cycles and these ups and downs of why we feel certain things. So, you know, what why is that important? If you do not have control over your emotions, you will have a hard time, one, building trust with followers, with people that you lead. You will have a very hard time building trust. You're not predictable. Oh, so-and-so, I don't know what happened at home, but I know we're all getting it today. And I I want you to think about your personal experiences. Have you ever worked in a place or been in a place where you knew you that leader, supervisor, manager, whatever, president, executive, whatever, they were in a bad mood. And everybody knew just stay away from them today. Okay. That's on the outside looking in. And so our responsibility as leaders who truly want to be better leaders, not have any distractions, truly build trust and really uh as effectively as possible, get people moving towards missions that we value or are important to us. We have to not um not do harm. You know, it's okay not to harm other people as a leader. I'm gonna say that out loud. It's okay not to harm other people as a leader, all because you have power, all because whether it's position, whether it's influence, what it is okay not to do harm. And I'm saying it that way because I think that we should take a pause and reflect on the fact that you can do a lot of harm on other people just by not using emotional intelligence. So much harm. Writing a diary, go to therapy, do something, have an outlet, run, exercise, do whatever you have to do, but offloading negative emotions on other people as a leader is um, I would say it could be negligent. Maybe some people do it on purpose, I don't know. But I think the majority of people who are leading, who truly want to lead, are not necessarily intentionally trying to harm the people that are following them. It's counterproductive, right? Okay, I can't repeat that enough times. I think maybe even at some point in time we should dig deeper into emotional intelligence and what that looks like. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, emotional intelligence. So people's opinions, having your personal value system about leadership before you connect to a system, understanding that you need to exercise emotional intelligence. What's another re why of the root system? What's another thing that you need for the why? Well, let's talk about the real reason why. Why do you want to why do you want to lead? Why do you want to lead? Knowing how hard it is, knowing the challenges that you may face, why is it important? We'll kind of, you know, take this turn in the road. Because I I did mention these few things about the root system and and having them together, but really digging into why as far as motivation, what is your true motivation for wanting people to follow you? Is it ego? Is it because you want someone to see you as important, as valuable? Look, see me. I'm important, follow me. Look what I've done. I'm in this big world. Look what I've accomplished. Is that why you want to lead? Is it about you? Are you just really just kind of sweeping people into this direction towards praise for self? Maybe it is, but you need to be honest about that. Sometimes people just want to follow other people that they like just for the sake of following another human being that they like. Everyone has choices. So, you know, if you're on this podcast and you're like, I love myself, I want people to just love me or praise me, it's not my thing. Uh, it's not my thing at all. However, if you're consciously choosing that as a human being and other people, your followers are consciously choosing that, hey, interesting. And send me a message because I'm curious to know how that works and how that goes and what that feels and looks like. Goodness gracious. But is it just about you? Now, for those of us who are really not trying to lead because we want people to follow us and what we've done and our accomplishments, and we truly are have a separate mission that is aside from us that can benefit other people, or benefit society, or benefit this entity or organization that we are leading with or for, whatever it's important for us to understand how to get out of the way and understand the motivation and how to motivate people towards something that is important not only to you because you believe in it, but important to them. So motivation towards a shared goal, cause that fits maybe a shared philosophy or value system. When you really start digging into the why of leading and you get outside of yourself, it starts to paint a picture about your value system. What's worth it to you? It could be something that is for a nonprofit, for the greater good of humanity, the greater good of your neighborhood, the greater good of your family or your friends. There are some organizations as well, for-profit companies that choose to highlight and center humanity around their work. I hadn't thought about if I need to use certain names of companies, but I do want to give an example of one company, eyeglass company, uh Warby Parker, they not only give uh eyeglasses to people. You know, after you know other people purchase, but they really believe that everyone should be able to see, and that's kind of like a company mission. Like, you know, everyone deserves uh access to glasses that will allow them to be able to see, something like that. I really believe that's a really amazing mission. Are they trying to make money? Yes, they are, and there's numerous companies out there. Now, I have also, you know, seen large organizations have these great, beautiful missions and and then start putting their money in and supporting causes that are destructive, that he that are extremely destructive, even things that support uh death, war. So you have to do your research, you have to do some reflection before you step into stuff. But I want to talk about another why motivation, another motivation, another why. It could be money. Now, I have to bring this up, and it's important for me to bring this up because if we're really being transparent and honest about how life works and survival, people surviving at the end of the day, no matter where you live, basic needs. Let's think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You need the food, you need the shelter, you want to belong, all types of stuff. Okay, most of us work because we have to work. We do labor because we have to do labor. And in having to do this labor, and in having to do this work, we need jobs and jobs that pay well or pay us well enough to take care of our basic needs and more. We want to save or say for retirement. Like we need money for that. And so sometimes I believe that we get jobs or get work because it pays higher. It pays more. Oh, this job pays more than that. I want to get this job as a supervisor or executive director or whatever type of leadership level that you're going to because it has a good salary at the end of the day. Man, I that will, I'll work that job for five years, pay off some things, save some things, and be good to go. So now the reason why you're leading is for money, is for a personal gain. Now, let's just pause and think about that for a second. If you are getting into leadership to make money, just like emotional intelligence and not being aware of the impact of what you do emotionally, leading just for the sake of lining your pockets. Yes, I said lining your pockets is a dangerous thing to do. And the reason why I say that is because your core push, power, motivation for it is literally just a transactional exchange that you receive from an entity outside of the people that you lead. It's not even about your followers, they're not the ones paying you. So they're like secondary to your cause. Your why is hey, run me my direct deposit. I don't even think people get like actual paychecks nowadays. Maybe some people do. But if my money is in my bank account every two weeks, every month, however you get paid, I'm okay. But I think that out of everything that we're talking about, if your why to lead is simply for personal financial gain, I truly believe it's time for a full stop. Yes, in my biased opinion, full stop. Your mission, your why is dangerous. You're gonna hurt people. And if you are in leadership right now and your whole motivation is to lie in your pockets financially, it's time to rethink, it's time to reset, or it's time to get out. Please. Because if you haven't hurt anyone, you probably will in the future. And yes, you are responsible, you are accountable for that. I am feeling a certain way right now, and I'm not trying to make it too personal, but it's serious. And on that note of a rant that I just went into. We are ending today's episode about do you really care your why? Think about that. Think about your motivation. Take some time to write down your why of why you would be willing to lead anything, and just make sure it is not for your own financial or personal gain. I would even say, you know, power. Power is another reason. I want people to see me as a powerful person. I want access to power. I want access to people who have power. That could be another reason. Just like the money, rethink, reset, get out. You've hurt people or you're gonna hurt people. Money, power, respect. Yeah. That is not a good why for, or those are not good whys for wanting to get into leadership. Like I said, in my biased opinion. But guess what? I'm sharing it. Anyway, I am gonna go down a long rant and continue to go down a long rant if I do not stop myself, full stop myself for this. Today's episode, once again, was do you really care? Your why? I hope that you think about some things, you write some things down, you flip reflect on it over the next couple weeks. Next week's or next two weeks episode, the next episode, however you want to say it, is so you care. Uh now what your approach. And I look forward to having that episode with you all. And uh, questions, comments, concerns, send them to me. And until next time, you are healing your own humanity, you are a whole human being, and in this, your courage is activated. And with this courage, you can choose to lead. Choose to lead something worth leading, choose to lead something worth doing, choose to lead something worth giving your best and rest with your humanity. Till next time. It's worth getting it.