Leadership speaker, best-selling author, and global influencer Jon Gordon explains why when it comes to employees, you’ve got to love ‘em up but hold them accountable, why to be demanding not demeaning and to start with the believers, how there IS such a thing as healthy delusion, and shares a story involving fellow Action Catalyst alum Donna Orender.

Great episode for you today, Jon Gordon, he is just

one of the most genuine like down to earth coolest guys ever.

I'm sure you've probably heard of The Energy Bus, continues to

stay on the bestseller list week after week after week. But he

also wrote The Carpenter, he wrote The Seed he wrote You Win

In The Locker Room First, he works with a number of the NFL

NBA and Major League Baseball teams fortune 500, just an

awesome, awesome guy. And he has a book that is out called The

Power of Positive Leadership. And so that's why we brought him

back on the show. Jon, welcome back, brother.

Great to be back with you. Thanks for having me

back.

So what's this all about? Like the power positive

leadership? Where did the inspiration come from?

So I wrote the energy bus in 2006. It came out

in 2007. And I've been speaking on, you know, the power of

positive leadership. I've actually been given these talks

on the energy bus and leading with more optimism and belief

and positivity and loving your passengers and building a great

positive culture. And this book was really the culmination of

all that I've learned working with businesses, working with

sports teams working with all these great leaders, like I've

had the opportunity to work with so many great leaders like Dabo

Sweeney, or Doug Conan at Campbell Soup and Southwest

Airlines and Dell and you get the opportunity to work with

these great leaders that I started to think about positive

leaders are the ones who change the world. They're the ones who

transform teams and organizations.

What exactly is positive leadership?

Naysayers talk about problems, but they don't solve

them. It's the positive leaders who changed the world. It's the

positive leaders who transform their teams and their

organizations. So you know, when people hear the words positive,

they often roll their eyes, right, they think we're talking

about Pollyanna positive, where life is full of unicorns and

rainbows. But, you know, when I wrote this book, I really want

to make it clear that we are positive not because life is

easy, we're positive, because life is hard, were positive,

because you will face all sorts of adversity, all sorts of

adversity, challenges, obstacles and setbacks. And as a leader,

you need to maintain optimistic in order to lead your team

forward, you have to have a vision of where you want to go,

you have to have a bigger purpose that ultimately drives

you. So this is a book that includes a framework of nine

characteristics, nine things that positive leaders do. And

then each chapter is one of those nine things broken down

into smaller parts. This is what makes great leaders great. My

favorite feedback from this book so far is that almost everyone

who's read it said, you know, I thought it was gonna be one

thing, but it turned out to be another and what it turned out

to be was very real, very grounded a lot of great examples

of leaders and how they've led how they've changed the world

how they've won national championships. Dabo Swinney, for

instance, incredible positive leader Alan Mulally turned

around Ford in 2006. They were losing $14 billion, had them

profitable in a few years, one of the greatest leadership feats

in history, people talk about how he did it, it was

unbelievable. I interviewed him for this book, this book would

not have been great without Alan's information, because he

defines his leadership as positive leadership. He's like,

You gotta love him up, John, you gotta love him up. But you got

to hold them accountable to the process, a lot of love and a lot

of accountability. He centralized Ford Ford was very

regionalised. He centralized them to become one team, one

Ford with one goal. And one plan. He said everyone had to

know the plan, embrace the plan, and relentlessly work towards

the plan. And that's another key. It's about being demanding,

but not being demeaning. Positive leaders pursue

excellence. They want to achieve greatness because they believe

in a brighter and better future, like okay, hey, let's create it.

And that often includes innovation. It includes a focus

on excellence, a passionate desire to be your best because

you can't create a great future if you're not working hard for

it. But you also have to be optimistic and positive as you

work hard. So that's what I love about this. People are saying,

you know, the research in it the examples and really dealing with

the negativity that exists in a very practical way. This makes

this a book that's not pie in the sky, not theory, not

Pollyanna. This is real stuff.

So what about realism? So how do you reconcile those two

dynamics?

Well, you don't have to be an extrovert to be a

positive leader. You can be an introvert First off, and I think

it's important that we address that because people think

positive leadership means you're bouncing off the walls, you're

high energy. No, it's really from your essence of how you

lead the love you have the passion you have from inside

you. So it's not anything that you necessarily do, you know, on

the outside in a in an energetic or frenetic way. But there's

something about positive leadership that says, I believe

in a brighter and better future. So yes, these are challenges. We

do address them in a realistic way we confront the reality that

exists but because we're optimistic because we're

positive, we're finding ways and we're finding solutions to help

be successful in the future. It's not pessimistic, it's not a

complainer if you're complaining you're not lead thing

complainers focus on problems, positive leaders focus on

solutions. So we have to understand too, that it's all

about, you know, it's subjective. It's never

objective. You talking about realism, you know, people say,

I'm just being a realist. You know, I'm just being a realist.

Well, yeah, you're being a realist. But guess what time and

time again, Steve Jobs as team would say it was impossible to

create the software, the hardware that he wanted created,

they talked about this in his biography, they call it as they

call it, his reality distortion field. And time and time again,

he would actually convince them they could do it. They said he

distorted their reality from pessimism, or some would say

realism to optimism. And then time and time again, they

accomplished the very thing that they thought was impossible

because of his optimism. So leaders lead with this faith,

they lead with belief, they lead with what's possible. So I think

it's often dangerous to say, I'm just being a realist. I think

it's okay to confront the reality. But why not say we

could find a way to make it happen. You know, when you look

at Ford, for instance, during the Great Recession, they had

done everything, right. They had done the restructuring, they

were making great products. Now, they had a great platform for

the Ford vehicles. Alan did everything right. And yet the

great recession hit, and it looked like it was all for

naught. But did they wallow? Did they complain? Alan? Well, he

said wallowing is not an option. Complaining is not a plan, we

have a plan. And we will continue to work towards it. If

we have to adjust we will but positive leaders find a way

forward and without him for doesn't turn it around without

him for doesn't save hundreds of 1000s of jobs for doesn't make

it back. So it's incredible of what they're doing and how and

how they're accomplishing great things. What happens if a

realist was in in his role? What happened if that was the case? I

told my dad I want to be a writer and speaker, his response

was what the heck you want to do that for? That's a load of junk

that would amount to anything. My dad was in New York City

police officer in his mind, like, No, you focus on your

restaurant at the time and I owned a restaurant. That's

something that's real, that's something you can make money at

writing and speaking, doing that for a living. For him. He was

being a realist. He wasn't even trying to be negative. He was

just being a realist of how he saw the world. But I didn't see

the world as he saw it. I saw it through an optimistic lens. And

I pursued my passion with a vision. I think that's a very

real example that we confront all the time. Now, will I ever

play in the NBA, I could say I'm gonna go play in the NBA right

now, that is not being realistic. And that is not even

optimistic. That is a pipe dream. It's so hard to identify

what the difference is. The difference is when my son is

growing up, and he's a tennis player, and he says, I want to

play professional tennis. And I say to him, You know what, if

you have a dream work towards it, let's see what God has in

store. Let's see what the plan is. But should I ever crushes

Jim and said, That's not realistic? No. So I believe you

have a dream, you go for it. As he gets older, you'll start to

see if that's now possible. If that's realistic, now he's a

junior, right? In high school, we're starting to see is it

possible still too early to tell? Because he's good, but

he's not great. But they say he has a lot of potential. So he

could become great over the next couple of years. So I'm never

going to shoot it down. I'm never gonna say that's not a

possibility. You see what happens? And then you trust that

God has a plan? Being positive doesn't guarantee you'll

succeed, but being negative will guarantee you won't. So we're

not saying hey, just be positive and anything can happen. No, I

like what Maxwell Kato said. He said, You know, you can't be

everything or anything you want to be because you really can't.

But you could be everything that ultimately God created you to be

you trust that there's a plan, you work hard towards it, you

believe you put it out there, and then you see what happens.

But you shouldn't ever not go after your goals. Because you're

being a realist. Like, you know what people from our family

don't achieve success like that people from our part of the

neighborhood in our part of the town, don't go after dreams like

that people in our family, don't go to college, you know, over

and over again, you'll hear things like that from people and

I that's why I say it's dangerous to tell people what

they can't do. The world needs more encouragers believers

inspires to inspire people to encourage them to what they can

do. But then someone say you it's dangerous to tell someone

to go out to California and pursue their dream of acting,

they could fail and come back and be miserable only if they

allow that failure to define them. And so if it's an

experience that you get pursuing something and you don't succeed,

then you don't succeed. My brother was an actor right out

of college, he pursued acting, he worked in New York City, he

bartender for years while he pursued acting, he never made

it. It was never a huge success with acting. He never really

also committed to being great. That's part of the journey. But

He then got into sales became very successful in sales. Then

he actually went to consulting and now he's the Chief Marketing

Officer. serve a company. You know, it's unbelievable how his

path has moved forward, but I would have never told him don't

pursue acting because the odds of being a successful actor is

minuscule when Dabo Swinney, for instance, was fired as a coach,

you know, Alabama, the whole coaching staff was fired. He

went into real estate, you know, for a couple of years, and then

went back to pursue coaching. Now, if he was a pessimist, he

would, he would say, You know what, that coaching thing, I

don't want to lose my job again, I'm not gonna go after it. He

said, Now, the best is yet to come. I'm going for it. So now

he's a wide receivers coach and a recruiting coordinator at

Clemson, then he gets the job as the head coach, because Tommy

Bowden was was let go. And so now he steps into this

opportunity. He meets with the Board of Trustees, and the Board

of Trustees says, We want to create a program, a football

program, that's like Florida. That's like Michigan, we want to

be like them and dabbles in that meeting. And he says, Sir, I

respectfully disagree. But my vision is so much bigger than

that. I want to create a program where they want to be like us.

That's my vision. And so he was now saying that they probably

thought this guy is crazy. Right? This guy is full of pipe

dreams. He's got a lot of words. But let's see what happens.

Yeah, sure. Dabo. Thanks. We'll see you in a couple of years

when you're not coaching anymore. But he believed and

then he walks into the room with a sign that said, I can't with a

T crossed out another sign that said Believe and he starts to

instill that program with belief that they can be great believe

that they can be the best. Now they had some couple couple good

seasons, but they go six and seven in 2010 was almost fired,

but wasn't ad still believed in him. After that 10 OR MORE WINS

every year with a run up to the national championship and

winning the national championship. People outside the

program never thought this was possible. Many inside ERP I

never thought this was possible. But there's one belief is one

man's positive leadership changed everything.

What about when people internally don't believe?

I'm glad you asked that. Key story, Donna Orender

takes over the WNBA, she had left the PGA Tour to take over

the WNBA to become the commissioner, there was so much

negativity in the WNBA, there was a lack of belief that people

cared about women's basketball, there was a belief that they

didn't care, there was a lack of optimism of what it could be.

But Donna saw the passion in the players and the coaches. And she

believed that the WNBA could be something special. So she said

you start with the believers, there are those core group of

people that believe and you get them on your bus first and

foremost, and you really energize and inspire them to

move forward, then you have some wins, you actually create a few

wins here in there, then you have to reach the next level of

believers. And that happens when you show proof of concept, you

show that success, you show what is being accomplished. And that

might be in a football season, you know, you have some more

wins every year. And so people start to see that success. So

now you get the next level of believers on your bus. And now

they're believing. And then the next level are the people that

don't believe that no matter what you show will not be

successful, you have to get those people off the bus. So

you're letting the people who have no belief who will never

believe in you and what you're doing, you have the next level

that you have to see proof of concept. And you have your early

adopters, you have your core believers. So she said you

create a system of collective belief going through one group

at a time. And that's how she did it. And I share that in the

book. It's some great advice.

What a practical way, like a systematic way to go about

creating transformation from the inside.

Right. And that's your A lot of times they talk

about painting the building just by painting the building by

painting the shed by painting the bar and people start to see

improvements. So they actually start to get excited about

what's happening. And you'll see that with businesses, hey, we

got this win here, hey, we got this sale, things are looking

up. And so you do want to highlight the successes. You

want to showcase the real successes, but it's really

important that you address the negativity that exists the lack

of belief when William Bratton was the police chief under Rudy

Giuliani and I wrote about this in the book as well. They said

that crime couldn't be reduced in New York. Well, we know years

later that he reduced it. He was asked how he did it. He said

well, I met with my five bureau chiefs one on one and I asked

him one question, do you believe that crime can be reduced in

your area? Three said no. Wow. Two said yes. He said

unfortunately, I had to fire three people that day. Why play

the game if you don't believe you can win. So he hired the

optimist people who believed and then set out on their plan. Now

you have to have a plan. Alan Mulally says everyone has to

know the plan, embrace the plan and relentlessly work towards

the plants he that's the thing. It's relentless optimism

relentless work towards a goal and plan that brings it to

fruition. Duke University did research and they studied opt in

Next and they found it, they worked harder, got paid more and

more more likely to succeed in business, sports and also

politics, which is interesting. And with the research, what the

researchers found was that the optimist because they believed

in a brighter and better future, they then actually worked harder

to create it, it became a self fulfilling prophecy. The

researchers called it deluding that they will deluded

themselves to working harder. I'm not a fan of that term, but

because they worked harder, they then took the actions necessary

and then created it and so much of life is belief leads to

action.

Jon Gordon is who you're listening to JonGordon.com. J.

O. N. Gordon. No. H. Man, Jon, just thanks for being a catalyst

of this light in the world.

Well thanks, appreciate it.