Transcript: Inspiring Leadership: 7 Tips for Building Trust and Boosting Morale at Work // Dr. Sam Adeyemi

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“Inspiring Leadership: 7 Tips for Building Trust and Boosting Morale at Work“

December 4, 2023

Dr. Sam Adeyemi

Intro: How can you identify and live out your core values as a leader? Well, what leadership traits are important as you influence the culture in your organization? Well, today on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we’ll focus on essential leadership qualities. Listen in and learn how you can keep growing as an inspirational leader who spurs others to lead with excellence.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of the Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being, which was a finalist in the Christian Book Awards. I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

Today I’m delighted to welcome Dr. Sam Adeyemi to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast. Sam has several decades of experience in training leaders through the Daystar Leadership Academy. He speaks to leaders around the world and has written the book Dear Leader: Your Flagship Guide to Successful Leadership.

Throughout our conversation, you’ll hear Sam talk about the importance of knowing and living your personal and organizational core values, keys to building high morale on your team, seven trust-building principles for inspirational leadership, and why your brand as an employer makes a difference and how you can cultivate it, along with, and finally, the importance of self-leadership.

I think you're going to love this interview with Sam. But before we dive in, today’s podcast is brought to you by BCW’s proven Leadership 360 Survey as well as our new personal and group coaching. We help you transform your leadership effectiveness with our stakeholder-based coaching process. Learn more by going to workplaces.org/coaching, and check it out today.

Well, hello to our new listeners. Thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time in creating valuable episodes like this.

But let me tell you a little bit more about Sam Adeyemi. Currently, Sam is the CEO of Sam Adeyemi GLC, a global leadership-consulting company, with the mission to raise up high-impact leaders. He founded the Daystar Leadership Program 20 years ago and trains leaders through this venture. I learned about his work when he spoke at the Global Leadership Summit. In fact, he's spoken to the Global Leadership Summit stage twice and continues to speak at GLSs around the world. Sam holds a master's degree in leadership studies from the University of Exeter and a doctorate in strategic leadership from Regent University. He's the author of Dear Leader: Your Flagship Guide to Successful Leadership.

So, here's my conversation with Dr. Sam Adeyemi.

Sam, it's great to have you on the podcast today.

Sam Adeyemi: Thank you so much for having me on the podcast, Al.

Al: Well, let's start, Sam. I'm really thrilled to introduce you to our audience, but let's start off with your own story of growing as a leader. In your book Dear Leader, you mentioned that you grew up as a young person in Nigeria, and you felt that you would need to leave Nigeria to be successful and have an impact. But in that process, you were blaming your environment for your lack of success. So share with us a story about your own personal development, a little bit of your background, and how did you change your mindset and take intentional steps towards a different approach towards growth?

Sam: Thank you so much, Al.

So yes, I grew up in a loving family. My dad was a civil servant, worked for the government. We were fairly okay. Then he went into business as a builder. He owned a construction company. And that influenced my choosing to study engineering at school, civil engineering. And the plan, of course, was to work in his business. The only problem was by the time I was done in college, the business was no more because the country was going through a difficult time. So our family went through a very difficult time, and I was also trying to get a job. I couldn't get a job, six months, one year, 18 months. And honestly, that was really scary and frustrating for me. The future looked bleak. Then I began to explore opportunities to leave Nigeria. And the challenge, of course, was that it didn't work out. One fantastic opportunity showed up, and at the last minute everything just fell apart. And then I began to wonder, “Is there any way, any sure way, really, to be sure one can be successful?”

My way out was books. Interesting, it was books. I read Tough Times Never Last but Tough People Do by Robert Schuller. And I'll tell you the one line that had the greatest effect on me in the book said, “Attitudes are more important than facts.” It was like it was that stigma was going to twist my brain. I had to read it over and over and over because facts are facts anyway. But how do you say, “Attitudes are more important than facts”?

But eventually I had to settle in and become more comfortable with the fact that what happens inside me is what controls what happens on the outside. So while I was blaming my environment and believing that being in another environment will automatically transform my life, I got to realize that it starts with me. You've got to deal with being before you deal with doing and then having. Most people want to change it the other way around. They want to have and they want to do before they be. But the being has to come first. And honestly, that empowered me because the more I focused on the environment, the more powerless I felt because I was dealing with things I could not control. But once the focus shifted to inside me, then I was dealing with things I can control because then I'm dealing with my thoughts and I'm dealing with my emotions.

So that was the game changer. And once I started on that path, there was no stopping for me anymore. It helped me to be less anxious, helped me to be more peaceful, helped me have more hope, helped me to have more faith.

And then an elderly reverend gentleman in my church gave me a book. He said, “There's something about you. Read this book, Christian Leadership by Donald S. Aultman.” That was the first book I read on leadership. And gratefully, the author said, “If you believe that few people are born to lead, everybody else is born to follow, you’re on the wrong path. Those ideas are dead. If you read your Bible and you read that, that God created us in His own image and God blessed them and give them dominion, then you've got to agree every human being has capacity to lead.” Now, that was difficult for me to take because I'm an introvert, and I used to be extremely shy. If you ask somebody to volunteer to lead a group and I was part of the group, I would be the last person to volunteer. But then this author is arguing and saying that I have leadership ability. He listed the qualities of a leader and said, “Look at them. You will see you have some of them already. The ones you don't have, you can cultivate.”

So I accepted there that I had leadership potential, and I took on the challenge to begin to develop the qualities that I did not have. And honestly, my capacity to influence others just literally exploded, and I haven't stopped.

Al: Yeah. Well, that’s a great story, Sam. I love that.

So you had a pastor, you had a mentor, that saw something in you and encouraged you. And I think that's something for all of our listeners to think about. Who is that person around you that has a gift, the capability, and how can you encourage them? Yes, every human has the capacity to lead. And then, it’s a matter of developing it from there. Yeah. That’s fantastic. Thanks for that story. Yeah. I remember that book Tough Times Never Last but Tough People Do, and “Attitudes are more important than facts,” which is hard for an engineer to really grasp, isn’t it?

Sam: Thank you for taking note of that.

Al: Yes. Yeah. But, yeah, so, Sam, you know, one of the areas that you emphasize in your leadership and in your books is core values. And you've said in your book, “We never rise beyond the capacity of our character, because our character is an outward reflection of our true inner workings.”

Sam: Yeah.

Al: So what are some of the ways that leaders can identify their core values? I mean, this is something that is really near and dear to me. And practically speaking, how does a leader share those core values with their team and even help their organization embrace their own core values?

Sam: Right. Thank you. Well, I happen to share your passion for organizational culture and values, right? And so in my journey, what I did was I Googled “words that describe values.” And that is what I encourage leaders to do today, right? Just go online and type in “words that describe values.” So I saw 25 words somewhere. I saw 50 words somewhere. I saw 100 words somewhere. So I went for the 100 words, and I went through and wrote out the ones that actually mattered to me. So that's what I encourage readers to do. Just write out as many as possible, then come back and drill them down to 10, right? Just look for the words that look similar, you know, and pick the one that best represents what's important to you and keep reducing the number till you get 10.

So the values of leaders need to align with the values of the organizations. So now, if you are, say, a founder, one of the major things you need to do in your organization is to lead your team to define the core values of the organization. And that requires some discussions, you know, within the team: looking at the vision of the organization, who we're going to become in the future, what kind of behavior, you know, or behaviors will get us there. Then we can define our core values if that vision will be fulfilled.

When it comes to communicating values, the starting point is training. The equivalent of it at the national level would be education, right? So the basic principle, it's in Proverbs 4:20-22, “My son, attend to my words; incline your ears to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart.” So whatever we see and hear consistently over time will enter the heart. And once it gets into the heart, it puts our lives on autopilot. So leaders need to leverage that principle. That's the principle that drives the media; it drives the entertainment industry. So leaders, therefore, need to have structured training that takes people from one level of commitment to the other, one level of understanding to the other, so that people have a good grasp of the vision of the organization, the mission and the core values and the structure and the culture of the organization. People need to imbibe it.

Next to that formal structure is that in formal training, leaders need to describe their vision at every opportunity, the vision, the mission, and the core values. We've got to be talking at every opportunity. In our church, I've gotten it down to actually saying something about the vision every single time I preach because I found out it's one thing for me to be a good preacher and teacher; it's another thing for me to be a good leader. So I want to do both preaching and leading at the same time because tens of thousands of people listen to me every week. So I found out I can do good preaching, they can enjoy it, and yet they can all be pulling in different directions. If I'm going to be moving everybody in the same direction, then I need to describe the vision. That gives them the strong why for everything we do.

Then the core values. I pick the core values one at a time to describe them. I encourage—when it comes to communication, leaders must leverage storytelling. Every leader ought to be a good storyteller. Again, Jesus Christ is a fantastic model because they said that He said nothing to the crowd, without an illustration or without a parable. Stories have a way of bypassing people’s rational thinking to connect with them at a deep level and to influence their beliefs and decisions.

For a church, oh, I would definitely understand, pick a Bible story to represent each of the values, you know, that you're pushing. Then pick contemporary stories from your staff. So if somebody does something that aligns with a value, repeat the story, right? Repeat the story again and again. Some of the stories you turn into legends. Even long after somebody’s left the organization, it can really fit in the story.

The next thing, of course, is that leaders have got to model. They’ve got to model the values. Our own behavior has got to be in alignment with the values. When our behavior is not in alignment, it communicates to people, “Well, the core values are nice to have, you know, and they're good for people and good to have on the wall and in the magazine, but they're not actually to be practiced.” So there's a heavy responsibility on us as leaders to model, you know, the values that we want to see.

I also recommend structure and infrastructure, let me put it that way. The environment shapes our behavior. I mean, my study now, and there's only one door into the study, and that has controlled how I get into this room, how I get in and get out. Now, if we close off that wall and open up the door somewhere else, that changes how I come in and go out. So, leaders, we pay attention to the environment, attention to the structure of the organizational chart of the organization, the flow of authority, and how people use their authority, the flow of communication within the organization. These things influence how things are done, how decisions are made. And before you know it, what was new becomes a normal part of our lives. And then the people in the organization can always tell those just coming in, “Oh, we don't do things like that here. This is how we do it.”

Al: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's always great when somebody is repeating the stories that you've told, and they become their stories and not just your stories when it comes to values. Yeah. I encourage all of our leaders, that's just such great advice. You know, start with personal values. In our family, we developed a family-values statement, and the values spell our last name. So you might have a little more trouble with your last name than mine. But that was a start. But yeah.

Sam: Fantastic.

Al: And then at Best Christian Workplaces, we actually, at an offsite, we had a series of values, but then our team changed, and it grew, and we decided, “Well, let's revisit, what are our values?” And we put a lot of stickies on the wall, and we boiled it down, and we ended up with five of our own organizational values that we talk about on a regular basis. But your point is a really good one. Having a story around the values and how it applies. That really is good advice for all of us. Yeah. I love it. And then the structure and infrastructure, like the door to your office, that is a very compelling picture in how it controls the environment, and what we talk about controls the environment. It gives us a structure for our culture, no question. Yeah, great stuff, Sam. Thanks.

So now let's go beyond core values. You know, here at the Best Christian Workplaces, we help organizations build healthy workplace cultures and engaged employees. And I like the—you use the phrase “morale” in the workplace, which is very similar to what we talk about in terms of a flourishing culture. And so “morale” is something you use to communicate the idea. Give us some examples of how a leader or a leadership team can build an atmosphere of high morale in the workplace. You know, what are the traits and practices of a leader who builds high morale?

Sam: Well, I guess the starting point is that the leader has got to be enthusiastic and excited about the vision of the organization, right? The leader has got to show up every day excited, showing up, you know. Enthusiasm is contagious, so if the leader is not excited about the job, that also is going to be contagious. So the leader has got to have a high morale, you know, themselves.

And then, the big word: trust. The leader has got to be trustworthy. People have got to believe in the leader, and then with that, they can believe in the words of the leader. A leader has got to be trustworthy. That requires for the leader to be honest, to be transparent. And I say to people, especially in a Christian message like a church or in ministry, you know, I say, “Look, people don't expect us to be perfect. They just expect us to be perfectly honest.” Right. So once they know that, okay, even when we make a mistake, we're going to own up to it, then they can trust us.

What kills morale? One thing that kills morale is hypocrisy. Once people begin to believe that the leader is being hypocritical, it just erodes the credibility of the leader with the team. To build a high morale, we need to communicate play, right? There’s got to be clarity. That requires using simple words that people can understand and ensuring that we have successfully transferred the ideas in our minds into people's minds. And that requires getting feedback, because sometimes you'd be surprised when you communicate and it goes through people's filters, what they get at the end could be very different. So we've got to communicate, and we've got to be authentic, and we've got to radiate a positive attitude.

Now, this positive attitude, then, is a big deal because in recent times I've been asking people, “Is your cup half full or half empty?” especially with all the disruptions going on in our world. It’s like the cup is getting emptier. And when people focus on the emptiness in the cup, focus on what they don't have, focus on what they can't do, it produces negative emotions, produces fear, produces doubt, produces anxiety. You know, there's a lot of depression going on in our world. But when you focus on the fullness in the cup—that is, what you have, what you can do at the moment—it builds feelings of hope, feelings of faith, you know, and that becomes the foundation for building.

When I look at some of the miracles in the Bible, it's amazing, actually, that is what they communicate. The widow and her son are down to their last meal, and when Elijah the prophet shows up, he says, “Actually, that's all God needs. We can build from that,” right? “And we can be sure you won’t lack all through the famine.” Christ wanted to feed the crowd. “What do you have?” “Oh, we don't have.” That's what the disciples said, because, you know, we don’t lie. “Okay. But there’s a boy here. He has five loaves of bread and two fishes.” He says, “Exactly.” That’s how God works. It doesn't matter what we don't have. What we have is what God can use to create the next level.

So I say maintaining a positive attitude in the team, it's absolutely important. Checking the vocabulary in the team, if people are making negative statements, the leader needs to step in and to shift their perspective, you know, and to make sure the conversations are positive.

And with that, finally, I would say creativity, being creative and encouraging creativity and innovation, because we can always invent new levels. We can always imagine new levels. Since we're being positive here anyway, then we can see possibilities. And leaders actually need to allow the ideas to bubble up, you know, encourage innovation. When innovation is a part of the culture, then this feeling that “we could be stranded” would not be permissible in the team. Yeah. Not be part of the team.

Al: I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: Welcome back to my conversation with Sam.

Sam, this is fantastic. Yeah, I love your responses. First of all, the leader must be excited. I mean, here's a checklist for all of our listeners. Are you excited? Are you coming to work excited today? Do you have a positive attitude? Are you trustworthy? And how do you know? I mean, you know, and you were saying, well, that requires feedback, and that means that you're asking questions and actually in communication with your team, maybe getting some really good feedback. I like to say feedback is the breakfast of champions. Sometimes it doesn't taste so good, but it's good for you. And yeah, not being hypocritical is key to building high morale; not, you know, not saying one thing and doing another, but following through with integrity. Yes, absolutely. And asking that question, is your cup full or empty? And really checking vocabulary was a great thing. Thanks. And then when you have a culture based on trust, then people are willing to engage in creativity and innovation. If there's a lot of fear in the culture, then they're afraid to take a risk or a step, take a step that might result in an unexpected outcome. So, yeah, really great. Thanks, Sam. Yeah.

So, you know, in our years of serving at the Best Christian Workplaces, our Employee Engagement Survey results say that trust is a key attribute for what we call inspirational leadership. We describe there’s eight keys to build employee engagement and well-being. So how do leaders build trust? I mean, this is something we talk with our ministry partners about a lot. And not only that, but what are some of the pitfalls that destroy trust in leadership?

Sam: Well, trust is a big word in leadership because some people said leadership is moving people from point A to point B, and the point is they're not going to follow you from A to B if they don't trust you, right? So I say that we can build trust as leaders primarily, first, by being authentic, you know, by being real, by being transparent, by being honest. And then there's a second dimension that is just also so big: showing empathy. Well, the big word is love. People don't want to hear that in the corporate setting these days because of the colorations that have been given the word. But that’s the big word. A leader has got to love people. Leadership is about people, and people have emotions. So everybody responds to love. We need to care genuinely about the people that we lead.

I said to our managers in our church, I said, “You know what? If someone uncharacteristically comes very late to work and you feel like you have the right to explode in anger,” I said, “Just hold your anger. Ask them first why they came late, and then get angry deliberately if you need to if the excuse is flimsy.” Because if it's not in the person's character, honestly, you will be making a huge withdrawal on your emotional bank account with them. If they have a loved one that is sick or they're grieving, they just lost someone close to them, and all that, don’t give the idea that the task is more important than humans to you.

I say to leaders, “If you occupy a leadership position, you find out you don't have love, take a break, take an excuse and take a break. Go find love, then come back,” because I don't see how somebody is going to be successful when you don't genuinely care about people.

I encourage that to build trust, we've got to show good character. We've got to be disciplined. Also, we need to demonstrate courage because, okay, so sometimes as a leader, I know how to get from A to B, sometimes I actually don't. I've not been to B myself sometimes. And I've got to be positive, and I've got to take the team and jump and figure out how on the way.

Sometimes making some decisions, just making the decision requires courage, right? because it's—or you're saying we're going to do, the goal you're setting right now is big, hairy, and audacious, right? and that requires courage. But honestly, leaders have got to demonstrate courage with almost always, as you say, we could go out a ways. Something turns out right, things work out right, and that's how people develop trust in our leadership. In the event that it doesn't work out, it also takes courage to admit, “Sorry, I made a mistake there. It was the wrong call.”

And yeah, and I would just add modeling. Modeling high morale also builds trust. And we spoke about that earlier on. So talking about the pitfalls to avoid hypocrisy, which we mentioned earlier on, just making sure that we're not breaking the rules ourselves. And then putting tasks and results before people, we should avoid that.

I think that coming out of COVID, we had the great resignation because COVID made people to evaluate their values in life because everybody was just fighting to stay alive at some point, especially the earlier part. And then, the actions of leaders said a lot to the people that we lead. That was where some people realized, “Okay. So they value money more than they value my life here. Oh, so they value power more than they value my life here.” It was not surprising to see many people, political leaders in government, lose elections. It was because people's value systems, you know, were changing. And some people may think, “Oh, my God. Okay. Since they're not thinking for me, I have to think for myself. I have to plan for my life.” Now people were making decisions. So putting tasks and results before people is a pitfall when it comes to trust in leadership.

And finally, not listening to our subordinates. People need to feel heard because that's the way, one primary way, they feel that they are contributing to the success of the workplace. So we've got to listen to people.

Al: Well, I think we’ve got a book right here, Dr. Sam Adeyemi’s. Let’s see, I count at least seven or eight keys to building trust in leadership, from being authentic, real, and honest to showing empathy and love. And yes, love is a key. Good character, being courageous, modeling high morale, putting people before tasks, and then listening to subordinates. Listening, such an important part to the whole process. Thank you. That's very good, and I appreciate it. Yeah.

Well, Sam, also, you talk about branding for talent to make sure an organization is known for being a great place to work, as part of your writing. And I couldn't agree more. So tell me about why it's important to be known for having a great workplace culture. You know, can you give some examples how a leader can cultivate this brand in their organization? And of course, we certify, we let organizations and give them a recognition for being a certified best Christian workplace. So that’s like branding for talent. So give us your thoughts, again, on this branding-for-talent concept.

Sam: Thank you so much. Now, that is awesome, that you recognize organizations for being good workplaces, right? I think that the basic thing is that human capital is the greatest asset for any organization. And of course, most times we don't put them on the asset register. But humans are the greatest asset. So having a reputation for being a place that frustrates human potential is damaging to the reputation of an organization. If we're unable to attract high-quality people, that's going to ultimately affect our output and affect our productivity. It's going to affect our results. So it's so important for the perception of people to be that our organization is a great place for someone to work. In my leadership, especially in church, you know, we have various units, and then when people volunteer, I would see people excited to move to certain units or departments, and then they're not so excited about working in some departments. And I found out it all comes to leadership. It's the leader, right? So that perception is just important. This is a great place to be in. The morale is high. People are happy to be there, and oh, I'll be able to express my talents and my skills here. I think that is huge for an organization.

To cultivate such a positive brand, my recommendation would be, first, the organization has got to live out its values. The leaders have got to live out the values of the organization. Those core values have got to be beyond clichés. You know, if you say excellence is your core value, then the excellence, people have got to feel it. They've got to experience it. If you say exceptional customer service is one of our core values, then when people come there, they've got to have the experience of their life, you know? So we've got to align decisions and actions with our core values.

And then we've got to be authentic. That's important. And then I recommend valuing talent across generations. These days, the one thing that is creating challenges for organizations is the fact that we're having a multigenerational workplace, and we're having three, four generations in the same office. And honestly, the changes across generations is so deep that it's practically like people living on different planets trying to communicate with one another.

I was on a flight, so a few years back, and right here in the U.S., and I got talking to the gentleman sitting next to me, and he got to be an engineer like myself, and about my age. So he said, “What do you think about the workplace of these days?” He said, “These young people don't like to work like we did.” He said, “They want to come at the exact time they should resume.” He said, “And they can't wait to go at the official closing time.” He said, “When we were young, like them, well, yeah, we started work at nine, but closing time was when the work was done, not five.” So I said, “I understand what you're saying.” I said, “You know what I observed about them?” I said, “It looks like for us work was life, and then whatever extra time we had, we took care of other things” I said, “For them, it seems to me like entertainment is life, and work is what they do to fund life,” right? So when you look at it, it's not a matter of right or wrong; it’s just a shift in values, that's all; and we've got to be able to accommodate that.

Now, another story. This was in Nigeria. This organization employed this young man to be a graphic artist. On the day he was to resume, he did not show up. So the head of HR called him, said, “Excuse me, are you aware you should be showing up today and resume?” And he said, “Yes.” “So why are we not seeing you?” The guy said, “Wait. At the office.” He said, “At the office? What do you want me to come do at your office? You employed me to be a graphic artist. I'm expecting you to send me my job, send me work to do. I do the job. I send it back to you. That's fine. What do I need to do in the office?” And the head of HR was stunned, right? So to this young person, “Work does not equate to go into the office; work is the laptop. And then you tell me what to do. I do it. I send it back to you.” That's his definition of work. So there is that need for us to be able to communicate across generations like that. Understand and value people and talent and value the differences across generations.

It's also important to deliberately set employees up for success. It is just a matter of attitude. People have got to feel it. They're not here just to use me to achieve their own goals. They actually help me. They want me to succeed. So I said to the average person that resumes work in our organizations, “The greatest rewards you will get for working with us will not be your salaries; it will be the person you become in the process of serving with us. So tell me your vision so that in working with us, you help the organization to go where it wants to go. At the same time, we will be helping you to go where you want to go.”

It's important, also, that we focus on strengths and not on weaknesses. That's has to be an organizational attitude that we let people know, “We cultivate stars here,” and that happens when we focus on people's strengths. Everybody has weaknesses. What if we all focus on our weaknesses? People will be demoralized, all right, and courage. We continue to protect that brand image. And then we use the stories of our people to humanize our brand.

Al: Cultivating a brand, that's fantastic. Yeah. And very effective. Yeah. Living the values, being authentic, valuing talent across generations. And those are great stories that I know many of us can relate to those experiences and the differences by generation. Absolutely. But really thinking, focusing on, how do we set people up for success? and focusing on their strengths. That's great advice for each of our listeners to reflect, how are we doing that in our own organization?

So let's talk a little bit about how a leader can encourage new ideas in their organization, something you've written about. You mentioned that younger employees in Nigeria might be discouraged from sharing new ideas because the culture emphasizes respect for elders. And as an elder, I really like that idea. But that's true in some settings around the world. But it seems that like Gen Z, millennial employees in the U.S. come into an organization, wanted to share ideas, and have influence really from the beginning. So what gets in the way of leaders becoming open to new ideas bubbling up from their staff that we've, you know, we've often heard ourselves? How can leaders encourage the open sharing of ideas and learning from people throughout their organization?

Sam: Thank you. Now that's a big issue there in the sense that leaders are usually people who have become successful, you know, uses that in methods and tools, and they've developed trust in their own methods and principles and those tools. Even people, I think people, you know, they've developed trust working with certain people. So it then becomes risky, you know, experimenting with new ideas. So the challenge of old age, they say, is prejudice; is the fact that we have our own tested methods, and our minds are made up. We have things we've tried before. They did not work. Our minds are made up about that. So when young people are coming in with their new ideas, because we're not used to them, it's easy to discard them.

However, the younger generation that is growing up sees the world through different eyes. Let's put it that way, right? Some of the stories that my wife and I share with our children right now, they can't even relate with those stories. They find it difficult to imagine you not having a phone before a phone, right? And social media, it's like, “But how? But how?” They have no reference point. And we can't blame them for not being around 20, 30 years ago, right? We've got to communicate with them using their own frame of reference.

What we have to admit, also, is new innovations bring greater efficiency, right? So they have faster ways of doing things. That's the truth. And we've got to learn to rely on them.

So I would say leaders, therefore, need to pay attention to the relationship within their teams. If you lead a meeting, you don't allow a few people to dominate the conversation. We brought a strategy consultant to do some sessions with the top leaders at our church in Nigeria. Some nine years ago, the church was clocking twenty. And we said, “Okay. Come help us explore the next 20 years.” So the consultant said, “Okay. Your target is young adults, right?” We said, “Yes.” Said, “What do you think gets the attention the most right now?” We said, “It's entertainment. It's music and movies. They're fine.” “So do you have a good choir, good music in your church?” We said, “Yes.” He said, “Do you have any videos of your choir on the home page on your website?” We said, “No.” So he said, “So what do you want them to come to do on your website? Do you have a good drama group?” We said, “Oh, yeah.” “Do you have any of the clips of their drama plays on your website?” We said, “No.” Then we had two teenagers in the room. One of them said, “Excuse me, excuse me. I’ve been saying it. I’ve been saying it. They’ve not been listening to me.” So the consultant said, “You know what? Can you help me to get more of these young people here in this room? I think they're the ones that will understand what I'm saying more. You guys have done fantastically well, 20 years. You know, we did conduct a survey on people who don't come to your church. They love what you are doing. But you asked us to discuss the next 20 years,” right?

So I would say at the personal level, all the leaders need to have flexibility in our thinking. I remember what Jesus Christ said, “You don't pour new wine into old wine bottles.” He said, “The wine bottles will break; the wine will be spilled.”

So I was having this discussion with the leaders of a church, and you had the older pastors, you had the young people. There was this question, “What do you do? We're having conflict between the two generations. What do we do?” I said, “If you were God and you wanted to discuss your ideas of what you want to do for the next 50 years with someone, who would you rather discuss with? The 70-year-old or the 17-year-old?” And everybody in the room was laughing because they got my point. So I said, “The point is if the older generation doesn't listen to the younger one, we are at the risk of actually missing out on what God is planning to do next. So we need to have flexibility. We need to encourage open sharing of ideas. We need to ensure some few people are not dominating the whole conversation, that we let young people in the room also speak up.”

Al: That's great. Yeah. Thanks.

Well, you know, at the end of your book, you have a section calling leaders to a commitment of personal responsibility, and I want to get to this before we finished. It highlights the importance of self-leadership for someone to be effective over the long haul. And, you know, I think I've said this on the podcast before, self-leadership is really the beginning before we can start to lead others. So for your leaders today, what would you call in terms of how would you call them to commit to in terms of taking responsibility for their lives and leadership?

Sam: Thank you. What I did in my book Dear Leader: Your Flagship Guide to Successful Leadership is to invite leaders to be responsible for the use of their time, for the use of their money, or the status of their relationships, and for creating their own experiences. Because like you said, leadership actually begins with self-leadership. I was trying to find out how leaders are made, and I came to the conclusion: leaders are made when people confront extraordinary challenges. In the process of overcoming those challenges, they change their thinking, and they become better people, right? And in overcoming those challenges, they then become sources of inspiration to other people. So confronting your own issues, setting your own goals, doing whatever you need to do to achieve those goals, that's where the leader is made. And I'm saying you've got to take responsibility for how you use your time, how you use your money, how you cultivate relationships. Gratefully, Jesus Christ put the responsibility on you, that whatever it is you want me to do to you, you've got to initiate. You want them to smile, you smile at them. So you do it first, right? And then create in your own experiences. You have to ask yourself, what kind of a life do I really want to live? And then you set goals and take practical steps to create that life.

Al: Yeah. Creating your own experiences. I have not heard it say that way, but that's a great way to describe it. And you're the one, and it really, and it's your own decisions that help you to kind of move forward and create your own experiences. Yeah.

Well, this has been a great conversation. I just think back, you know, starting with our discussion around core values. Then, we talked a lot about building high morale. We talked about the foundations of trust, how we need to focus on branding, having a great workplace. How we bring new ideas to the forefront in our organizations, and self-leadership. Boy, this has just been a great conversation, Sam. Thanks so much.

Is there anything you’d like to add that we’ve talked about?

Sam: Well, thank you so much for having me on this podcast, first, Al. This has been quite an interesting discussion. And I would like to add that everywhere I go right now, I keep emphasizing, based on my experience, that everyone can lead. Everyone can lead. A friend of mine said to me some time ago, “Look.” They were about to play the Super Bowl. He said, “This is the team that is going to win.” I said, “Why?” He said, “The team with the better bench strength always wins.” I thought, “Wow.” And since then, I found that principle to be consistent. So while we're expecting that one super man at the top to create the success for everybody, at the end of the day, everybody's got to pull their own weight. So it's the average leadership quotient in the team, actually, that determines how we win. So everyone is to pull their weight. Everyone can lead. Leadership is a set of character traits and skills, and we all can cultivate them. And I want to throw the challenge out to our listeners that the world's greatest need right now is great leadership because the world is going through a lot of destruction at the moment.

Al: Yeah. Amen, Sam. So thanks so much. I just, I've loved our discussion today, and I really loved your contribution. So I appreciate your commitment to training leaders who live out their calling and experience. And so thanks for taking your time today to speak in the lives of so many of our leaders. Thanks, Sam.

Sam: Thank you very much, Al, for having me here on the podcast. And thank you for the work you do.

Al: Thanks so much for listening to my conversation. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

And you can find ways to connect with Sam and links to everything we talked about in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And if you have any questions for me about our podcast or any questions on flourishing workplace cultures, email me, al@workplaces.org.

And leaders, if you want to improve your leadership, expand your organization's impact for good, and see greater faithfulness in our broader culture, help us achieve our goal to see more Christian-led workplaces on the road to flourishing. To help, please share this podcast with another leader or launch a project in your organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. And if you're interested in learning more, go to workplaces.org and request a sample report.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al: Next week, you're going to really love my conversation with John Pearson, sharing best practices on board governance with his new book, Lessons from the Nonprofit Boardroom. John has lots of experience with board and board-governance work, and you're going to learn a lot from our comprehensive discussion.