There’s No Such Thing as a Self-Made Leader

I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve heard folks reference different individuals - in business, in politicks, or any other walk of life - as natural-born leaders. I think the most humorous anecdote I ever heard around that idea was when John Maxwell mentioned being asked if leaders are born or made. He responded that he’s met a lot of leaders but never one that hadn’t been born. His point being that, regardless of any natural talent or ability, all leaders develop over time; no one is as good as they can be at anything from the very beginning. I’ll take that one step further by suggesting that no one reaches their individual best by themselves: There’s no such thing as a self-made leader…

In the now more than two and a half decades that Cindy and I have been married, we’ve been blessed with some incredible opportunities. If you were to challenge me to pick the one single thing that I did on my own to deserve any of those, I’d go with having a tremendous work ethic from a very young age. But I’d only mention that if you specifically included the phrase “on my own” because even the strongest work ethic would have only helped me open a select few doors - and I’ll circle back to why soon. Before that, though, I’ll emphasize something I likely didn’t even fully appreciate a few short years ago: I’m remarkably more effective in every aspect of my life today - personally and professionally - because of the relationships I’ve developed with friends, mentors, and peers. Before you blow off that statement because you know just how limited my skills are, I’m going to risk stepping on your toes by stressing that the same is just as true for you - and for everyone else on this ball of mud!

From my early teens, most of the folks I hung out with were several years old than me. In some cases, that was because I started working at such a young age and the majority everyone I worked with had been in their roles for a while. Outside of work, though, it was often because those older friends could buy things for me that I couldn’t go into a store and buy for myself. Being the youngest, and usually the smallest with the least amount of experience, I did all I could to compensate by attempting to out work everyone I could. Even when I couldn’t keep up, I was able to earn a reasonable amount of respect from the folks around me. That said, the larger the group or company I became a part of, the harder it became to stand out on work ethic alone.

In May 2000, the day I returned to work after our honeymoon, I started in my first role where it was no longer about how hard I could work or how many tasks I could juggle on my own. Interestingly enough, the work ethic that I had developed through the jobs I held in the decade leading up to that was one of the determining factors in me being offered this new position. However, I quickly learned that it would not be solely responsible for any success I achieved in that new role - and it’s only played a small part in each role I’ve held since. Within weeks of starting in that position, I had gotten a glimpse of the reality that no leader succeeds alone; relationships are the bridge to achieving anything worthwhile, let alone anything great. I quickly found myself in a spot where I was expected to produce measurable results through dozens of co-workers, most of whom had been with the company longer than I had been alive, and I had ZERO positional authority. In case that wasn’t a steep enough hill to climb, most of the their supervisors were at least mildly annoyed with the time and resources I needed from their teams and in their areas of responsibility. That’s where I learned the difference between management and leadership. It’s also where I started learning how important it is to find professional mentors and build relationships with peers. Had it not been for those two things, my new role would have been short lived and I likely would have found myself swinging a hammer again to keep food on the table.

The Hidden Power of Professional Relationships

Just a few months before accepting the position I started immediately after getting married, I interviewed for a role with responsibility for the behavior-based safety process that I had been involved with for a year or so prior on a volunteer basis. In addition to performing the observations that process was built around, I had started helping with some aspects of training while I still ran a stamping press on the manufacturing floor. Even with all that involvement, I wasn’t selected. The gentleman who was had been a supervisor for a few years and had quite a bit more experience (at least on paper) with the clerical work required in the role, and he had a earned an associate’s degree just before he became a supervisor; I didn’t have a degree of any kind at that point.

After falling short, and being more than a little let down by the decision, I solicited feedback from two of the folks on the interview panel. I wanted to understand what they saw in the candidate they chose and learn what I could do to have a better chance the next time threw my name in the hat for any similar role. Both provided me with powerful feedback, but the conversation with one of those men changed the course of my life. Neither stood to gain from the time they carved out for me; the one who had been in the role for the year leading up to that point was taking a position at a facility in another part of the country and the other had responsibility for a specialized group of employees that I’d never be a part of. To this day, I deeply appreciate both of them providing me with that time and their guidance. That said, my initial interaction with Terry Ward not only helped prepare me to interview successfully just a few months later, it started the process for what’s become one of the strongest and longest lasting professional relationships in my life.

As the maintenance supervisor at that point in time, the only business related reason Terry would have had for blocking time to talk with me in his office would have been if I’d damaged the machine I operated each day. Although he stood to gain nothing and had an extremely full schedule, he took a half hour to give me tips on how I could make a better showing in an interview, but the most impactful thing that came from our conversation was the realization that I didn’t have to learn everything on my own; there were actually people who would be happy to guide me IF I was willing to listen.

Not long after that first one-on-one interaction, Terry accepted responsibility for managing the entire engineering department in that facility. I remember congratulating him on that, saying “you must be a brilliant engineer!” He shut that idea down immediately by explaining that every engineer on his team was better in their specific area of expertise than he was. He told me that his job wasn’t to be the best engineer, but to know exactly who was the best in every area and to make sure they had everything they needed to do the best job they were capable of. That alone was a powerful lesson, and we’ll dig into it more later on, but it also served as an example for how I would soon need to recognize who had the best skills for the support I’d need to get results in my own roles.

Looking back on that half-hour conversation in early 2000, I’m still amazing by all that’s unfolded since. He provided an example of building relationships to serve other people - that’s exactly what he did for me because I couldn’t have done anything to help him at the time - and he also helped me start to understand that hard work alone would eventually result in me hitting a ceiling.

During my first four years in manufacturing, I took a ton of pride in churning out as many parts as I possibly could each day. I also worked to learn all I could about the different types of equipment in my home department. While it only took me six months or so to consistently maintain one of the top five productivity averages on my shift, that was a group of less than twenty people; the effort that had previously earned me a lot attention and respect kept me in the mix but I was still just a average fish in a very large pond at that point. Even on that second shift crew of less than two dozen team members, there were several folks who had developed more expertise that could get better results with far less effort. Regardless of how hard I worked, it would have been a long time before I could produce the same results.

Less than three years into my manufacturing career, I learned that my supervisor added me to a list for mandatory training on the still new behavior-based safety initiative that was being pushed down from the company’s corporate office. Begrudgingly, I sat through the two eight-hour sessions (as if I had a choice) and became a less than willing “volunteer” observer. Everything I had done to that point in my career was very physical. Sitting in a training room for two straight days was the closest thing I had experienced to torture. While I didn’t realize it at the time, the two guys conducting the training ended up being the two who provided me with feedback on the interview I mentioned before; isn’t it interesting how unaware we can be about the makings of strong professional relationships?

Once I completed the two days of training, I was expected to perform two 15-minute observations on coworkers around the facility each week moving forward. I won’t pretend that I took it all that seriously to start; I viewed it as a bit of a break from being stuck in one spot at the stamping press I operated daily. But I quickly realized that these observations, still viewed by many of my peers as a “flavor of the month” that would get kicked to the curb sooner than later, gave me an opportunity to become familiar with processes and people outside the small department where all of my time had been up until that point. Like most everything else I’ve ever done, I pushed the limits a bit and often did three or four observations each week instead of the minimum of two. That soon caught the attention of the process facilitator; not because I was doing a great job, but because he could barely get anyone else to do just what was expected. That soon yielded me with an invitation to serve on the “steering committee” for the entire process and became the catalyst for developing those two relationships that provided me with insight on how to interview better a year or so later.

My work ethic in my regular job kept me employed and likely played a role in my supervisor sending me to that training initially. Being willing to do even a little bit more than I was expected to do with those behavior-based safety observations, albeit not out of complete dedication to the actual process, provided me with the opportunity to get to know people that I may have never developed relationships with otherwise. Hard work opened some doors but the relationships that have come along the way have led to opportunities for sustained growth and experiences I never could have dreamed of. The mentorship that came through process was critical in closing the gaps - and we’ll pick up there soon.