The leadership game -- creating cultures of leadership | Drew Dudley | TEDxAnchorage

Summary

This inspiring talk emphasizes the importance of planning and defining personal values for leadership and personal growth. The speaker shares a transformative exercise to identify one's core values and suggests setting daily questions to live by those values, leading to a more fulfilling life. The narrative includes a personal journey of weight loss, illustrating how consistent daily actions can lead to significant change. The speaker encourages everyone to play the 'leadership game' by creating a culture of value-adding behaviors.

Takeaways

• 😀 Hope is important, but it's not a strategy for achieving goals in life.
• 🚀 To achieve what we want, we must plan and take action, not just hope.
• 🌟 Leadership is a skill that can be developed and should be planned for.
• 🤔 Many people underestimate their potential to be leaders and overestimate their understanding of what leadership means.
• 🧐 Defining our values is crucial for personal growth and leadership development.
• 🔍 A powerful exercise is to consider what three fundamental values one would stand for if observed for two weeks.
• 💡 The speaker emphasizes the importance of defining values in simple terms, as if explaining them to a four-year-old.
• 📝 Setting personal goals that align with our values allows us to celebrate achievements and live a fulfilling life.
• 🗣️ The 'leadership game' involves asking oneself daily questions that align with one's values to ensure consistent behavior.
• 🔄 Embracing failure as part of the process is key to growth and achieving long-term goals.
• 🏋️‍♂️ The speaker shares a personal transformation story, demonstrating the power of daily questions and actions in achieving significant life changes.

Q & A

What is the main message the speaker is trying to convey about hope?

The speaker suggests that while hope is an important force in our lives, it is not a sufficient strategy for achieving our goals. Instead, we should plan and take deliberate steps towards what we want in life.

Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of planning to be leaders?

The speaker believes that many people do not plan to be leaders and think that leadership is beyond them. They argue that planning to be a leader can bring happiness and fun, and it's a role everyone should consider.

What is the 'leadership game' the speaker refers to?

The 'leadership game' is a mental exercise where one asks themselves what actions their ideal self would take in a given situation, and then follows through with those actions.

How does the speaker suggest we discover our core values?

The speaker proposes a thought experiment where one imagines being followed for two weeks and asks what three fundamental values that person would identify as central to their life.

Why does the speaker think it's important to define our values?

Defining our values allows us to create a set of criteria for decision-making that aligns with who we want to be, and it enables us to recognize and celebrate when we live up to those values.

What is the significance of the question 'What would the person I want to be do in this situation?'

This question is significant because it helps guide our actions towards embodying the values and characteristics of the person we aspire to be.

How does the speaker use the example of the cashier to illustrate the impact of recognizing leadership?

The speaker uses the example to show how a small act of kindness and recognition can significantly impact someone's day and potentially change their behavior towards others.

What are the six questions the speaker uses to operationalize their personal leadership values?

The six questions are: 1) What have I done today to recognize someone else's leadership? 2) What have I done today to make it more likely that I will learn something? 3) What have I done today to make it more likely someone else will learn something? 4) What positive thing have I said about someone to their face today? 5) What positive thing have I said about someone who isn't even in the room today? 6) How have I been good to myself today?

How does the speaker relate the concept of leadership to personal growth and self-improvement?

The speaker relates leadership to personal growth by suggesting that embodying leadership values and asking oneself reflective questions can lead to a more fulfilling life, better relationships, and a successful career.

What is the speaker's advice on how to achieve significant personal change, like losing weight?

The speaker advises to identify specific, actionable questions tied to the desired outcome and commit to answering those questions positively most days of the year to achieve gradual but significant change.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Embracing Leadership Through Planning

The speaker emphasizes the importance of hope in our lives but argues that it's an inadequate strategy for achieving goals. They stress the need for planning to have fun, become leaders, and make a difference. The speaker, a leadership development expert, highlights the misconception that leadership is unattainable or not enjoyable. They introduce the 'leadership game,' which starts with identifying role models and emulating their actions. The speaker shares a personal experience of being unable to define leadership, which led to a deeper reflection on the concept. They propose a thought experiment where one's actions over two weeks are observed to determine their core values, suggesting that most people struggle to define their values, which is crucial for self-improvement and leadership.

05:01

🤔 Defining Values for Authentic Leadership

The speaker discusses the challenge of identifying and defining one's core values, using a hypothetical scenario where someone follows you for two weeks to determine your values. They note that people often struggle to articulate their values, even when they believe they know them. The speaker shares their own struggle with defining 'transparency,' 'accountability,' 'friendship,' and 'passion.' They emphasize the importance of defining values in a way that is understandable to a four-year-old or someone unfamiliar with the concept. The speaker suggests that defining values creates a decision-making framework that aligns with one's character, distinguishing good leaders who live their values when opportunities arise from great leaders who actively create opportunities to live by their values.

10:02

🛒 Recognizing Excellence and Living Values

The speaker recounts a personal experience at a grocery store, where they witnessed a cashier's excellent performance amid customer impatience. This encounter led to a realization about the rarity of recognizing excellence in everyday jobs. The speaker decided to acknowledge the cashier's skill, intending to make her day better with a kind word. However, the interaction escalated emotionally, leading to the cashier's tears and a deeper conversation about the lack of basic courtesies in her day. This incident underscored the impact of small acts of kindness and the speaker's commitment to recognizing and valuing others' contributions. The speaker introduces a set of six personal questions aimed at operationalizing leadership values through daily actions, emphasizing the creation of a positive culture of leadership in one's own life.

15:02

🏋️‍♂️ Transforming Values into Daily Actions

The speaker shares six personal leadership questions that guide their daily actions, designed to add value to others and oneself. These questions focus on recognizing leadership in others, continuous self-improvement, mentorship, positive recognition, and self-respect. The speaker admits that maintaining these values is challenging, with failures expected but also built into the plan. They provide an example of how these questions were applied to achieve a significant personal goal of losing 100 pounds in a year. The speaker concludes by encouraging the audience to define the questions that will help them embody their values, arguing that consistent daily actions, rather than extraordinary moments, shape who we become over time.

Keywords

💡Hope

Hope is described as a powerful force in our lives that we should foster. However, the speaker argues that it is not a viable strategy for achieving our goals. In the context of the video, hope is initially presented as a universal desire but is quickly contrasted with the necessity of planning and action. The example given is that one cannot merely hope to be a leader or have fun; instead, one must actively plan for these outcomes.

💡Leadership

Leadership is a central theme of the video, with the speaker emphasizing that it is not just for a select few but something everyone can develop. The speaker challenges the common misconception that leadership is unattainable, suggesting that people often underestimate their potential to be leaders. The narrative includes the speaker's personal journey of defining leadership and encouraging others to do the same.

💡Planning

Planning is presented as a critical component of achieving one's aspirations, in contrast to merely hoping for them. The speaker advocates for intentionality in becoming a leader or in seeking enjoyment in life. Planning is exemplified by the speaker's own approach to developing leadership skills and the importance of setting clear goals to guide one's actions.

💡Values

Values are the fundamental principles that guide an individual's behavior and decisions. The speaker discusses the importance of identifying and defining one's values to lead a fulfilling life. The video script uses the example of asking what three values someone would stand for if followed for two weeks, highlighting the challenge many face in articulating their core values.

💡Character

Character refers to the moral and ethical qualities of an individual, which the speaker suggests should be deliberately developed. The speaker promotes the idea of setting goals for one's character, similar to how one might set financial or career goals, to ensure consistent growth and self-improvement.

💡Celebrations

Celebrations are mentioned as a positive reinforcement for achieving goals, including those related to personal values and character development. The speaker suggests that setting goals is essentially planning for celebrations, which can bring joy and a sense of accomplishment, as opposed to merely crossing off tasks.

💡Mentorship

Mentorship is one of the values the speaker identifies as important, emphasizing the role of guiding and teaching others. The speaker encourages embracing the opportunity to mentor, regardless of one's age or status, as a way to add value to others' lives and to embody the principle of continuous learning and growth.

💡Recognition

Recognition is highlighted as a means to appreciate and acknowledge the positive attributes or actions of others. The speaker stresses the importance of verbalizing positive feedback, both to the person and about them when they are not present, as a way to create a culture of positivity and respect.

💡Self-Respect

Self-respect is discussed as a value that individuals should embody and is linked to how one treats oneself. The speaker points out the irony of expecting others to treat us well if we do not treat ourselves well first, advocating for self-care as a foundational value.

💡Excellence

Excellence is used to describe the high quality or outstanding performance in a particular field. The speaker uses the example of a cashier to illustrate how excellence can go unrecognized, especially in roles perceived as common or easy, and encourages the audience to notice and appreciate excellence wherever it occurs.

Highlights

Hope is a vital force in our lives, but it's not a sufficient strategy for achieving goals.

Planning is essential for fun, leadership, and making an impact on others.

Many people underestimate their potential to be leaders and the importance of leadership development.

Leadership is often misunderstood as being reserved for a select few, rather than a skill anyone can develop.

The 'leadership game' involves asking what a desired leader would do in a given situation.

Most people overestimate their understanding of who they want to be and what they stand for.

A pivotal moment in the speaker's life was when a student questioned the definition of leadership.

Leadership is not just about embodying values but also about creating opportunities to live them.

Defining one's values is crucial for leading a fulfilling life and making consistent decisions.

The exercise of imagining someone following you for two weeks can reveal your core values.

Values should be defined in a way that is understandable to a four-year-old.

Great leaders create opportunities to live their values, not just react to situations.

A personal story about recognizing a cashier's excellence and the impact of small acts of kindness.

The power of questions in driving behavior and creating a culture of leadership.

Six key questions that the speaker uses to operationalize personal leadership values.

The importance of adding value to others and oneself through daily actions.

Accepting failure as part of the process towards achieving long-term goals.

A personal transformation story involving weight loss and the power of daily questions.

The transformative effect of living a life aligned with one's values and the joy it brings.

Transcripts

I think that we all hope to have fun in

our lives I think that we all hope to be

leaders I think that we all hope to

matter in this world and hope is a

wildly important force in our lives it's

something that we should foster in our

own lives and the lives of other people

but hope is actually a lousy strategy I

think if we want things in our lives we

can't just hope for them we have to plan

for them I think we have to plan to have

fun I think we have to plan to be

leaders I think we have to plan to

matter to other people in the world and

the interesting thing is I don't think

enough people are planning to be leaders

like leadership development has been my

whole adult life and I'm discovering

again and again that for whatever reason

people are planning to be leaders they

think that leadership is something

Beyond them they think that leadership

is something that Beyonds in the realm

of other people they think that

leadership is no fun and it's honest

leadership can take Comm it can take

sacrifice but I honestly believe that

planning to be leaders can bring so much

happiness and so many moments of real

fun in our lives that we've really got

to all start to play what I like to call

the leadership game and I think the

leadership game begins with one rule

when you don't know what to do in a

situation ask yourself what would the

person who I want to be do in this

situation and then do that the

difficulty is that rule is hard to

follow when we don't actually know who

it is that we want to be and what I've

discovered in my work is that most

people tremendously overestimate their

understanding of who it is that they

actually want to be and I was one of

those people and it was one of my

students that showed me that I spent

eight years running the leadership

development program at the University of

Toronto in Canada and I gave my first

ever Workshop when I was 28 years old

and at the end of that Workshop a young

woman came up to me and said what every

educator wants to hear at the end of

their first lecture

I don't get

it and I saidwell what don't you get and

she said I don't understand leadership

anymore and I said that's okay we have

all semester to figure out what

leadership means to you that's why we're

doing the workshops and she says no I

understood it before I came to your

class and now I don't understand it

anymore and I realized now that's what I

want to happen when I do a workshop but

at the time I felt like I'd let this

woman down and I saidwell what

specifically confuses You' and she

saidwell I'm an international student

I'm not from here and where I'm from

we've always been taught that the

smartest people are supposed to be the

leaders and the smartest people are the

ones who get the best grades in school

so if you want to be a leader you have

to get good grades it's your way of

showing people that you deserve to be a

leader and if you don't get good grades

it's your way of showing the world that

you don't deserve to be a leader but

after listening to you I think that

leadership means something different in

Canadian can you tell me what leadership

means in simple English and I don't know

if you've ever been asked a question to

which you are certain you have an answer

until someone asks you the question but

that woman completely stumped me with

that one and Leadership was in my job

title I ran a leadership program and she

just asked me what is it I had nothing

and so I did what Educators do when we

get stumped by a student we go for the

glasses

well what do you

think and to her credit she says I don't

know that's why I asked

you and I said well tell you what why

don't you go home and think about it and

tomorrow tomorrow we'll talk about it in

class which also gives me the

opportunity to go home and figure out an

answer to the question because I was

upset by that because leadership was a

value that I wanted to embody every day

of my life I wanted to stand for

leadership every day of my life and this

woman asked me the most basic question

what does it mean and I had nothing and

I went home and I put myself a

hypothetical and it's one that I'd like

you guys to go through with me as well

let's say that I have someone follow you

around for 2 weeks of your life you

don't know what two weeks of your life

it's going to be it could be any two

weeks and they see everything public and

private that you do they witness every

interaction that you're a part of they

watch how you interact with people that

you love with people that you can't

stand with people that you've never met

before in restaurants and in stores at

the end of those two weeks someone sits

that person down and says that one you

that person you followed around what are

the three fundamental values that they

stand for every day of their life what

are the three things that they want to

embody every day of their life what

three words do you hope that person who

followed you around says that you stand

for every day of your life I want you to

think about those three

words I have asked hundreds of people

that question and everybody struggles

with it they might come up with one and

then they have to take quite a bit of

time to get to a second a lot of people

never actually get to a third because

you watch as they're struggling to get

it they're actually annoyed with

themselves that they can't come up with

these three fundamental values that they

want to stand for every day of their

life and eventually they start saying

things like Integrity respect uh Family

Faith compassion and those are all great

words but I want you to think of your

three words I want you to pick one of

them I want you to imagine that young

woman walked up to you and said I'm

sorry that word doesn't exist in my

language what does integrity mean I want

you imagine a four-year-old walks up to

you and four-year-olds are the best

people in the world to ask you questions

and make you realize you have no idea

what you're

talking four-year-old comes up to you

and says I'm sorry what does respect

mean and like most the people in this

room for the for the question for the

words that I came up with that night

give me 5 to 10 minutes I could come up

with a tremendous definition for every

single one of them for transparency

accountability for friendship and

passion but I was 28 years old and it

was the first time in my life that I had

ever never actually done it and yet I

had spent the better part of two and a

half Decades of my life evaluating how I

felt about myself as a leader and as a

human being based on how well I lived

those values and I had no idea what they

actually meant and it's why I say that

one of the first steps we have to take

in leadership is we have to define the

things that we want to Define us because

if we don't we're always going to feel

unfulfilled somehow cuz let's say that

respect is a value that you want to

embody every day of your life you want

to stand for respect every day of your

life if you haven't actually defined

what respect means if you haven't turned

into a goal that you know when you hit

it you could be embodying respect every

day of your life and you've never given

yourself permission to celebrate that

fact I think that setting goals is

basically planning celebrations and I

think that celebrations are fun and I

think that we do it in our financial

lives I think we do it in our careers I

think that leadership means starting to

do the same thing for our character as

well to know exactly what it is that

you're aiming for every day I think

there's three steps that we have to take

one I think you have to identify your

values and we have to help especially

our kids and the students that we teach

we have to help them do that as well I

love asking it with that hypothetical

what if someone followed you around for

two weeks what if a film crew followed

you for two weeks of your life and then

showed it to an audience of 100 people

what words would they say that you stand

for what words do you hope that they say

and then two I think we have to define

those values for every single word that

you come up with that you want to be a

core of Who You Are ask yourself how

would I explain this to a four-year-old

how would I explain this to someone for

whom that word does not exist when you

do that when you list your values and

you define what they actually mean what

you do is you create a set of criteria

that you can use to make decisions that

are consistent with your values every

time the opportunity presents itself you

create a list of criteria to which you

can pivot every time you have to make a

decision in your life and if you've

never done this my question is to what

have you been pivoting to make decisions

your whole life like good leaders this

where great leaders separate from good

leaders is that good leaders live their

values every time the opportunity

presents itself great leaders great

leaders create opportunities to live

their values they take deliberate steps

every single day to make sure that

they're living the values they want to

stand for let me give you an example of

how we did it once I worked with a group

of students once and we said we want to

put this into practice we said step one

what's our core value we said we want to

stand for impact then we said all right

how would we explain that to someone

well impact we said is creating moments

that cause people to walk away feeling

as if they are better off for having

interacted with you and every day we'd

come together at the end of the day and

we'd ask how did we do that the problem

was what we were doing is that we were

using our value to evaluate behavior

that had already happened we realized

what we really wanted to do is we wanted

our values to drive our Behavior so we

said let's create a question a question

that if we ask and answer it every day

we know we've lived our core value and

we're going to make sure that we have an

expectation of ourselves to answer that

question a personal cultural expectation

to answer the question because if you

think about your day the list of to-dos

that you have in a given day most of

them are obligations that you're trying

to fulfill for other people you got to

go to work on time you got to get that

assignment done you got to pick up the

kids or go grocery shopping we should

have obligations to other people and we

should try to fulfill them but when

every obligation you have in a given day

is to meet someone else's need or

someone else's obligation ultimately

it's hard to feel like you're a leader

it's hard to feel like you're in charge

of your own life and we said even if 90%

of our lives are to meet the obligations

we made to other people we will make

obligations to ourselves and this

question will be where we start and the

question that we created tied directly

to our value of impact is how have I

recognized someone else's leadership

today and as soon as we started to make

this a personal cultural obligation for

ourselves of leadership creating a

culture of leadership in our own lives

things started to change a few days

after we created this question I went to

a grocery store I went on a Saturday

which is ridiculous don't go to grocery

stores on a Saturday it cired a solle in

there every lineup 25 people finally I

got in the shortest one at the end of

the line was the greatest cashier I have

ever seen this woman was a ninja

everything she threw at the scanner

beeped and she would throw six things at

the scanner at once and I remember

thinking that is the best I have ever

seen and as soon as I said it to myself

I thought what an odd thing that is to

say because I started to realize that

the more people in our society that we

think can do a job the less likely we

are to recognize excellence in that job

and if you're an athlete you're a

musician there are magazines dedicated

to the top 50 of all time if you're the

cashier you're a bartender you're a

waitress and even worse if you're a

teacher or a nurse for some reason we

think everybody can do it so why

recognize excellence and I had that

question in my head though and it

changed what I did next and I said I'm

going to tell this woman she is the

greatest cashier that I have ever seen

and I was really excited but for 20

minutes I watched everyone be mean to

her everyone was in a hurry they kept

making that that loud sigh that you make

when you want the person to know that

you're

waiting so by the time I got to her she

was just about to cry there was the line

of tears at the bottom of her eyes I

said okay I cannot just say something

nice to this woman I have to do

something nice to this woman so I turned

to the candy counter and I said excuse

me which of these chocolates do you

think are the best and she snaps at me

she goes

caramels there was a list of words in

the English language you do not expect

to be snapped at you in Anger

ever caramels is on that list there like

seriously there's English words that you

don't expect to hear

bubbles fluffy the words don't sound

right and I was always taking them back

so I put the chocolates down on the belt

and she beeps them through and goes to

put them in the bag and I said no no I

got those for you you look like you're

having a really bad day I thought you

deserved

chocolates cuz I wanted to make her

smile right I was willing to drop two

bucks to make the cashier smile she

starts to cry not what I was going

for cuz now all there is is 20 people in

line watching the woman cry across from

the dude in the goofy hat they don't

know what just happened I'm Canadian I

have apologized to inanimate objects

I've tripped over okay okay so this

crying woman set me off so I started I'm

so sorry I didn't mean to upset you and

she goes no it's okay it's just nobody's

even been polite to me today and you

bought me chocolates I just don't know

how to deal with it and I thought it

would be one of those moments that makes

you feel good for a second and then you

forget about it like when you buy coffee

for the person behind you in line at the

coffee shop and you all nod like you do

it all the time you did it once four

years ago you've been coasting on it

ever

since but I realized this that moment up

until that moment when she went home to

her family and they asked how was your

day I bet she snaps at them and pulls

value out of their lives I bet you now

even if nothing else good happened all

day in her life she leads with this guy

did the nicest thing for me and it took

me nothing and I and it was that

question that made me seize a moment and

there's so many of those moments in our

careers and in our friendships in our

family lives that we let go past but

this question wouldn't let me that time

and that's become the leadership game

for me what I strive to do every day I

started to operationalize my personal

lead leadership values through these

questions let me share with you the six

of them that drive my life and I want

you to think about what yours will be

here my six one what have I done today

to recognize someone else's leadership

that embodies the the value of impact

how what have I done today to make it

more likely that I will learn something

to embody the value of continuous

Improvement and make sure that we don't

just learn things to solve a specific

problem at our job we are continuous

lifelong Learners what have I done today

to make it more likely someone else will

learn something to embody this value of

mentorship cuz I don't care how old you

are how much money you make or where you

think you fall on the soci economic

status you have something to teach other

people and for some reason we wait we

don't do it we don't Embrace this

ability to tell other people things that

will make their lives better what

positive thing if I said about someone

to their face today this is so simple

that we assume we do it all the time and

I think as a result we've stopped doing

it I think that that's such an

empowering thing to just pick something

about someone and say you're doing that

well thank you for it well what have I

what positive thing have I said about

someone who isn't even in the room today

to to embody this value of recognition

of the great things in our lives and the

great people in our lives but also about

this fact however you talk about people

who are not in the room everyone who is

in the room assumes you talk about them

the same way and if you think of the

people you like and respect the most you

will think of very few instances where

they slam people who aren't in the room

you can be those people let's make it

part of our Lives if we're going to talk

about people who says it has to be

negative and the last one how have I

been good to myself today to to embody

self-respect and also this fact I do not

understand how we expect bosses and

children and husbands and wives and

boyfriends and girlfriends to do

something for us that we're not willing

to do for ourselves and that's to treat

ourselves well six questions four to add

value to other people two to add value

to me that's what I aim to do every

single day that's the game I think that

we can play every single day if you do

it right ultimately what you end up

doing should create 1,200 additional

pieces of value a year but you're going

to fail sometimes so here are my lessons

four out of six 300 out of

365 four of the six questions is what

you aim to answer every single day 300

out of 365 days of the year because

failure is a part of life and yet we all

say it we never build it into our plans

and if you do that 300 out of 365 1,200

additional pieces of value tied

specifically to who you want to be every

single year if you add 1,200 conscious

pieces of value you're life gets better

your relationships get better your

career gets better and it changes you it

worked for me this is me

364 days ago that's me on the on the far

right

299.8 pounds at that point and I said

you know what I want to do I can't be

300 lb I got so close but I can't be 300

lb so so I said I want to be 100 pounds

lighter a year from today so I wanted to

apply the same idea of what are the

questions that we should ask so I went

to an expert and I said what questions

if I ask and answer them every day will

make me lose 100 pounds in a year and

she came back to me and she said here

they are have I eaten less than 1,00

calories today have I done 15 more

seconds of cardio than I did the day

before and have I done one more rep on

these four specific exercises she gave

me she said you know what 300 out 365

days if you can answer those questions

you will be 100 pounds lighter in a year

that was 364 days ago I am

oh thank

you they said you should get on a scale

and show it to them but I only am 199

pounds in my underwear so how about we

all

disagree let you take my word for it

today who you're going to be in a year

isn't going to be determined by five or

six extraordinary giant days between now

and then who you're going to be in a

year is going to be determined by what

questions you decide you're going to

answer for 300 out of the next 365 days

make those questions tied directly to

the values that you care about the most

and ultimately question by question

action by action step by step we get to

turn ourselves into someone that we love

and I'll tell you that living your life

as someone that you love that is an

awful lot of fun guys thank you so very

much for letting me share it with you

today all the very best