10 Leadership Truths That Never Fail Remote Team Leaders

Welcome to episode fifty of the Eric Dingler Leadership Podcast. Now, I know it’s not always been titled the Eric Dingler Leadership Podcast, but it’s the same podcast. New name, different name, not new anymore. But this is, for me, a significant milestone: episode fifty. And maybe it’s because I am fifty, I don’t know.

I wanted to do something a little different today. If you’ve been listening for a while, or as you’ll discover if you’re new, you know I end every episode with a leadership tip, a little nugget. And every once in a while I’ll be in weekly open office hours where people can come ask me questions, or I’ll be working with a coaching client, and one of them will say something. They’ll say, well, you know, in the podcast how you always say this. And they’ll say it exactly, or some form of it. It’s exciting and rewarding to hear that, and then we get to have a conversation about how that leadership truth changed them or had an impact on them.

And what I love about truths is there’s no such thing as a new truth. What’s new isn’t true. What’s true isn’t new. Truth is truth. It always has been and always will be. It’s fact. It’s law.

So what I want to do today is take ten of my favorite leadership truths and share them with you. Some of these I’ve already shared at the end of a previous episode. Some I’ve never shared, but they’ve been on my list. So I’m going to share them here today, and I’m not going to end with the leadership tip of the week, because this whole show today is going to be tips. A little bit of a different episode, a different flow.

I love leadership axioms. Leadership proverbs. Leadership nuggets. Leadership truth bombs. Whatever you want to call these things, they’ve sparked thought in me over the years. Conviction. They’ve helped shape me as the leader I am now. It’s not just the saying, it’s the meaning in it, the growth that happens as I take time to consider these.

So welcome to the Eric Dingler Leadership Podcast, a show designed to help you lead better, to live better.

Now, I also like to study communication, and one of the things I learned is that memorable is portable. I learned that from Andy Stanley, and I really like it because it’s true. The easier we make things for our team to remember, the easier it is for them to use it. For example, in my own digital marketing agency, we have a messaging framework, nothing new, lots of marketers and agencies use versions of this. There are three parts to it. A lot of people talk about a customer avatar, or a customer profile. We use the word persona. In our messaging map, we talk about having a persona that has a problem. So you’ve got a person with a problem, that’s the persona. Then we have a product that solves that problem for that person. And then one pathway for people to buy that product that solves that problem. So it’s persona, product, pathway. Anytime we’re creating content for ourselves or our clients, we make sure we’re using that messaging framework. And what we do to help our team remember that is we call it Op3. Op3 is memorable, so it’s portable, and it’s easier for our team to go, Op3, three P’s, what were they? Persona, product, pathway. They don’t do it that fast the first time, but they eventually get it.

That’s what I like about leadership nuggets, leadership truths, little leadership sayings. The more memorable they are, the more portable they are, the easier it is for you to repeat them, because what gets repeated gets remembered. What gets repeated gets remembered. That’s communication. A leader has the job and responsibility to make sure the vision, the mission, the core values are being shared and repeated and encouraged to the team, putting everybody on the same page. We do that through communication. Memorable is portable. What gets repeated gets remembered.

Some of these are even my own personal core values. Some are core values of our company. And some are just really solid leadership truths that, out of all the ones that are out there, these are the ones I repeat the most. In fact, I have a list of fifty at this point, because, you know, fifty episodes. I thought about having my kids or my wife go through the list and highlight the ones they hear me say all the time. I didn’t do that, but I guarantee you the very first one would have been on the list from all five of them. Anybody on my team would tell you this. Anybody I coach would tell you they’ve heard this. I’ve repeated it in previous episodes.

So the very first leadership truth of ten I’m going to share right now:

Number one: consider the third option. This is one my team will repeat back to me in meetings. Or, my wife and I were talking about something with the business yesterday, and she said, well, I wanted to make sure to consider the third option. I say it so much that my kids repeat it back. My team uses it. My wife uses it. So many times we immediately believe we have to choose between one of two options and we get stuck. We get paralyzed because we believe a choice is down to one of two options.

I’ll be honest, as a person of faith, I’m a Christian. I believe the only thing that doesn’t have a third option is how you get to heaven. There’s only one way to heaven, and that’s through relationship with Jesus Christ. In every other area of life, in every other decision, there’s a third option. This just happened earlier today in a meeting. I was talking with our director of web services, and we were debating an issue, going back and forth between this or that. And I said, well, wait a second, what’s the third option here? We spent a little time, and suddenly we came to a third option that was better than the first two we were considering. That’s what often happens with the third option. It’s where creativity, ingenuity, it’s where the wow often happens. So I’ve fully embraced consider the third option. Now, sometimes the third option just sucks and it’s no good, and that’s okay. The idea doesn’t change. The number of times the third option leads to a creative solution is worth the effort of always considering it.

Number two: the principle behind the practice. Some of you have been in my coaching programs long enough that you’ve heard this before. This is a core value of mine and a core value of our company. In fact, both one and two have been personal core values and core values of our company. The principle behind the practice says: before you go copy something someone is doing, stop and make sure you know why it’s working. So many times we see somebody doing something, we believe it’s working for them, they say it’s working for them, it appears to be working for them, and so we try to copy what they’re doing. What we miss is that the tactic we’re trying to copy is actually part of an entire strategy, with multiple things happening before it and multiple things designed to happen after it, that make the singular thing we see actually work.

This is why you can’t just decide, well, I’m going to be a social media influencer. Not everybody who wants to be an influencer can, because the principle behind the practice isn’t turning the camera on and talking. There’s a lot more to how somebody actually becomes a true influencer. It’s why you can’t just go online and run your first Facebook ad and expect success. There’s more to a working, effective practice. So when you see something working for someone and you’re tempted to copy or imitate it, you have to stop and ask: what don’t I know? What am I missing? What could be happening here? What are the universal truths I need to know to make that work? You have to reverse engineer success. But we can’t always do that on our own. Sometimes we have to go to people and ask them to teach us. That’s good. That’s where growth happens.

Number three: if you want to know what someone knows, read what they’ve read. This is advice I got about fifteen years ago from an old United Methodist pastor, and it’s served me very well. It began a habit of mine, asking people I respect and admire, when I meet with them, who their favorite authors are, or now, their favorite podcasts, because I want to know what’s influenced them. What are the books that had the most impact in their life? Because I may get to speak with them for thirty minutes, forty-five minutes, an hour. Sometimes I don’t get to speak with them at all. There are authors I’ve sent a copy of their own book to in the mail, with a card asking them to autograph it, and I provide the postage for them to send it back, and I ask them that question in the card. Oftentimes I get those back and they’ve answered it. I can’t do that anymore, honestly, because I travel full time and I don’t have hard copy books anymore, but it’s still something I’d do today if I could. If you want to know what someone knows, read what they’ve read.

Number four: shoot a bullet before a cannonball. This is a good one. I believe it originally came from a Jim Collins book. The idea behind bullet before a cannonball is: always test an idea. On pirate ships, they’d have small aiming guns, a miniature version of a cannon, and they’d shoot little bullets to get the targeting right, then shoot a cannonball, because cannonballs were heavier and more valuable, and they didn’t want to waste them. So they’d go through several bullets getting the aim right, and then shoot the cannonball. Test an idea. Test it on a small scale. Try things small. Test before commitment. Shoot a bullet before a cannonball.

So, where are we at? We’ve covered four: consider the third option, the principle behind the practice, if you want to know what someone knows read what they’ve read, shoot a bullet before a cannonball. Let’s go on to number five.

Number five: your calendar is the receipt of your priorities. Boy, do I like this one. You can tell me your family is important to you, but if I looked at your calendar for the last three months and there was no time for your family, but it was filled with work, hobbies, hanging out with friends, rushing off to this thing, time in front of the TV, time sitting alone by yourself, whatever it is, that would be the true receipt of your priorities. And if your family’s not on it, well, then your family’s not a priority. I don’t care what you say. Your physical health is a priority? Show me on your calendar. You show me your calendar, and I’ll show you your priorities. Your calendar is the receipt of your priorities. So if you’re struggling to reach a priority, and you’re like, man, this is important to me, why am I not making progress, the first thing I’d ask you to do is look at your calendar for the last three months. Have you given it any time at all? Look at it for the last three weeks. Have you given it any time at all? Your calendar is the receipt of your priorities.

Number six: mind the gap. If you’ve ever been to the UK, you’ll recognize this from the London Underground. They say it in the stations when the train doors open, there’s a gap between the train and the platform, and a voice comes over the speakers, mind the gap. They have signs up. It means watch your step. In leadership, for me specifically, mind the gap is talking about the gap between communication that’s been received and waiting for the next piece of communication.

There are so many times in communication, especially asynchronous communication, and this is even more important if you’re leading remote teams, where it’s really easy to misunderstand someone’s intentions. Someone will say something, someone will do something, and it’s in written text, and there’s this gap between the written words you’ve read and the heartbeat behind what they sent. What we have to do as leaders is learn to assume the best and not expect the worst. So many times we read an email with a faulty attitude, a perception that’s not there. We’ve fallen into the gap. So what we have to do is read written communication somewhat sterile. I try to remember, when I’m struggling with this, and I don’t always do a great job, to read messages from people as if they were smiling, because it’s easier for me to assume the best when I’m reading an email from someone with a smile on my face. We have to assume the best and not expect the worst when we’re reading emails from someone. Or if you see a person’s name in your inbox and immediately start preparing for the fight, preparing for the objection, preparing for the complaint before you’ve even opened the email, that’s the gap you’re not stepping over carefully. You have to mind the gap. Maybe I should do a whole episode sometime on communicating and avoiding misunderstandings, especially with remote teams. One of the best ways to do that is to mind the gap.

Number seven: leaders are repeaters. I think I’ve already said this one. You cannot say something too many times to your team. You cannot remind them of the vision and the mission too many times. You cannot teach core values too many times. You cannot tell somebody too many times that you appreciate them. You cannot remind somebody too many times that there’s a certain way to do things. Leaders are repeaters, and you have to get comfortable saying some of the same things over and over again. I can’t believe how many times I’ve believed I’ve said something so many times that everybody should know it, only to be in a meeting and have somebody say, I didn’t know that, or, I think I remember something about that. Because to them, they heard it once, and the first time they heard it, they may have only caught half of it. But I’ve heard it in my head when I thought about it, when I prepared what I was going to say, as I was saying it, in the follow up, in all the side conversations. I often repeat things to myself and deal with the same information multiple times before I interact with just one person, one time, on that piece of information. So it’s easy for me to perceive it’s been over-communicated, but that’s because I’ve spent so much time preparing what I was going to say, so much time actually saying it and being fully present, and then again the follow-up thoughts about it afterward. Your audience, your team, they don’t experience it that way. Leaders are repeaters. You always have to say it, and you always have to say it again.

Number eight: leaders never say someone’s no for them. This is a leadership axiom from a guy named Bill Hybels, and it’s a good one. It can be a little controversial for some people. They don’t like it, but it’s true. I think the reason it can be controversial is because it’s easy to take this and use it as an excuse to be a jerk. There are a lot of leadership axioms that get weaponized as permission to be a jerk, and that’s not being a leader, that’s being a jerk.

Leaders never say someone’s no for them doesn’t mean you put people in impossible or uncomfortable situations. It’s about this: there are so many times you want to ask somebody something, but you’re afraid they’ll say no, and so you don’t ask. Or you just assume they’ll say no, so you don’t ask. A leader wouldn’t do that. A leader approaches someone and says, hey, I’ve got a question for you, I’ve got a favor to ask, and you’re obviously allowed to say no. Just so you know, you’re allowed to say no. I just don’t want to say no for you. If you want to say no, I’ll support you on that, I’m behind you. But here’s my question. I’d like for you to do this, I’d like for you to take this on.

I just did this again earlier today. In a team meeting, there was a big project we wanted to do internally, and I was going to ask a guy on my team to do it, and in my head I talked myself out of asking him. I said no for him. And then I thought, no, wait, that’s dumb, I’m not going to say his no for him. So I went ahead and asked him, and he jumped on it. He was actually more excited to do it than I imagined. I thought he’d be bummed out having to do it, and he was pumped for it. That’s the power of leaders never saying someone’s no for them.

Number nine. I have to be honest, this one might make you laugh, or chuckle, or roll your eyes. It’s more of a social media saying, a pop culture kind of thing, but it’s actually a really good leadership truth. And it’s my wife’s. I think it’s one of her favorites. She says this a lot, and I don’t even know if she realizes she’s speaking a leadership truth when she says it, but I put this one on the list to honor my wife, because she’s absolutely amazing. I love her and appreciate her so much. I wouldn’t be nearly who I am if it wasn’t for her. She’s phenomenal. So in this list of ten, I’m sharing one of hers.

She says: don’t yuck their yum. Or sometimes, don’t yuck my yum. As leaders, we have a tendency to project, and we think that because we hate something, somebody else will hate it too, or because we like something, somebody else should like it, or the team should like it. The idea behind don’t yuck their yum is you have to be careful, when you’re talking to your team and somebody says they really like doing something, that your reaction isn’t, what, really? Because you may unintentionally make somebody feel bad, or feel like you don’t perceive their work as valuable.

I’ll be honest, I hate administration tasks, I hate bookkeeping, I hate any task that has to be done over and over that isn’t teaching. I have no problem teaching, recording fifty podcast episodes, no problem with it, I can record podcasts all day long. I kind of love the sound of my own voice, so it works out. Keynote speaking at conferences, training, coaching programs, facilitating team training, I can do that all day long. Editing the podcast, to me, is an administrative, repeating task that I loathe. And this is one where, when I talk about it, my wife will say, yeah, don’t yuck their yum. She loves doing that kind of stuff, she absolutely loves it. And if I talk about it like, oh, I can’t imagine somebody likes doing that, that’s just terrible, it can come across like I’m discrediting that other person, downplaying the work they’re doing. I never want to do that. So in leadership: don’t yuck their yum.

Number ten. I’m really pumped for this one. I’m going to give you number ten, and then I’ve got a resource to share that goes with it. If you’ve been listening and you’re like, these are good, I like these, I need to remember these, I’ve got a list of fifty leadership nuggets right now. Could be longer later, but right now, fifty. Little nuggets of gold, worth having. Even though they’re little, they’re very valuable.

I want you to be able to download the whole list of fifty. Here’s what you need to do: if you’re on my email list, you’ve already gotten an email with access to these, because I put them on the resource page. What’s the resource page? It’s a link I give to people who sign up for my email list. How do you get on the list? Go to ericdingler.com and scroll down until you see five leadership habits. It’s a guide I’ve put together of five leadership habits that every leader who wants to stay on track, whether it’s reaching a goal or building a new habit, needs. Go download the five leadership habits at ericdingler.com. If you’ve already downloaded it in the past, you would have gotten an email with a link to the resource page, and I’ll email you every week there’s a new resource. Not every episode gets a new resource, but I often come up with these for each episode, and I don’t want to build a whole new landing page, form, and email sequence every time, so we’ve made it simple. Go to ericdingler.com, scroll down to the five leadership habits, download that guide, and as a bonus you’ll get a link to a resource page where you can access a seven-day leadership reset, the eleven questions I ask during one-on-one meetings with my team, and, for example, this right here, the list of fifty leadership nuggets. So head over to ericdingler.com and get that today.

So, number ten, the top truth I’m going to share today, and it kind of goes with the leadership habits:

Leadership is forged in the consistency of intentional, ordinary habits. So many times people think leaders become successful when they build these grandiose habits, when they’re swinging big for the fences, and that’s not how leaders are formed. Leaders are formed, and success in leadership is found, in actually just being consistent at some very intentional, ordinary habits. It’s like, how do you lose weight? You eat less and move more. That’s it. Every diet, every program, everything out there to help you lose weight in a healthy way comes down to taking in fewer calories and burning more. It’s not rocket science. Developing success as a leader isn’t rocket science. It’s doing some ordinary habits. But you have to be intentional. You can’t just choose any habit. It’s intentionally choosing ordinary habits and being consistent in them.

So, three big takeaway recaps from today’s episode. But before I do that: it’s episode fifty, and if you’ve never left a review, this is your time. Leave a review. Make sure you’re subscribed. It would mean the world to me. I’d really appreciate it.

Three takeaways from today’s show:

Number one: memorable is portable. What do you need to make easier to remember? What’s something you’ve been trying to remember, or want your team to remember, and it’s kind of complex? You need to boil that down. Come up with a framework, a tool, some way to make it memorable. Wordsmith it into an easier statement. Memorable is portable. So what do you need to make easier for others, or yourself, to remember?

Number two: core values teach your team how to make decisions when you’re not around. This is why some of these are my core values, or the core values of my company. Consider the third option, the principle behind the practice. This lets me know that when I’m not in the room, my team has developed the habit, because of our values, because we talk about it, we live it out. My team now has the habit to consider the third option even when I’m not in the room. It’s why, when I come into meetings or conversations, my team has come up with innovative ideas, and I’m wowed and excited, because they don’t settle for option A or B in making a decision. They wrestle with the third option. So, core values teach your team how to make decisions when you’re not around. If you’ve never done it before, I’d encourage you to sit down and figure out your core values, put them in writing, and start living them out.

Number three: leadership is forged in the consistency of intentional, ordinary habits. So I’d invite and encourage you again to download the leadership habits guide today from ericdingler.com, and as a bonus you’ll get the full list of fifty leadership axioms.

Well, that’s it for episode fifty, my friends. So until next time: pick one thing, take action on it, to help you lead better, to live better.