Bestselling author, speaker, and business consultant Ken Blanchard explains the ideas behind his book, “Lead Like Jesus”, including why the disciples were pretty lousy hires, how leadership is what happens when you’re NOT there, being a pioneer of servant leadership, managing the present to create the future, how self-doubt is still an ego problem, and why feedback is the breakfast of champions.

Ken Blanchard is our guest, and if somehow you've

never heard of him, he is one of the most influential leadership

experts in the world. Ken, we're honored to have you welcome to

the show my friend.

Nice to be with you. It's a real special time.

So you say that Jesus is the greatest leadership role

model of all time. So beyond thinking of him as the Lord and

Savior, and there's a spiritual figure and you say that we

should think of him as our leadership role model.

Well, I first started thinking about that I

hadn't really thought about it, because I wasn't a big faith

based guy at the time. But I was asked to be on the Hour of Power

with Robert Schuller in its heyday in 1983. And was about

the One Minute Manager he wanted to talk to me say can you know

the greatest one but it mattered your law climate said Who was

that? He said the Jesus I said, really? He said, Yeah. So are

anybody doing anything good. He praised him. He'll him. People

stepped out of line. Jesus wasn't afraid to give him a

woman to reprimand he threw the moneylenders out of the temple.

And I went, Whoa, that's really interesting. And so as I got

down in my spiritual journey, I first thing I did was read the

gospels in the book of Acts, because I wanted to see what the

man did. And I just laughed because everything I had taught

about leadership Jesus did with these 12 incompetent heart guys

he hired I mean, you wouldn't hate to get a decent preacher,

the whole group, you know, and the important thing I've said

for a long time about leadership isn't what happens when you're

there is what happens when you're not there. You know, but

it was funny I was when John Ortberg, one time in Atlanta, we

were doing a lead like Jesus program, and he's one of my

favorite authors and pastor of this church is up in Northern

California in Menlo Park. And I said, John, why would you travel

all the way across the country to tell people Jesus to create

his leadership role model of all time, and John's got a great

sense of humor, he turned to his crowd, he said, let's hit the

boats 2100 years or so ago, you're a gambler. Now, he said,

I know some of you don't like gambling, but where would you

bet your money on lasting the Roman Empire? The Roman army, or

a little Jewish carpenter? And he said, Isn't that interesting

that 20 120 200 years later, we're still naming kids, they

sue Peter, Paul and Mary. But we name our dogs, New Orleans,

Caesar. So Jesus was amazing leadership role model.

That's interesting. Jesus has been dead for 2000 years.

And today, he's got to point one or two, something be a billion

followers. But one of the questions I wanted to ask you,

Is this his style of leadership? Is that really relevant today?

Like isn't? Isn't it sort of soft?

No, but I think people do think that because he

was a servant leader, you know, they think that's often, but the

reality is that people don't understand servant leadership,

there's two parts of it. And Jesus understood that the first

part is, the first part is the leadership, part of servant

leadership, which is vision, direction of values and goals,

you know, that's got to come from the hierarchy. It doesn't

mean you know, involve people, but people look to you for

direction. So Jesus was really clear with his disciples that

come with me, I'll make you fishers of men, there the

picture of the future is go and make disciples of all nations,

you know, and, and then the values he said, you know, what

are your key values will love God with all your heart and all

your mind, Love thy neighbor as thyself, you know, and so he was

really clear with them at all. And then once the people

understand and are really tuned into the vision and direction,

and values and all, then the second part that kicks in is the

serving part of serving leadership. And now that's when

you turn the pyramid upside down, and you're now work for

them. And Jesus symbolically did that, you know, he had kind of a

slow group, it took him a while to understand exactly why he was

here. But when he knew he was going to be leaving, what did he

do with the Last Supper, he got up, got a basin and a towel,

filled it with water, and he washed their feet just

symbolically sort of saying, you know, I work for you, you know,

what can I do? And a lot of people say, Oh, my God, I don't

want to do that. I'll lose my position. No, what did Jesus say

right after he washed their feet, he said, You call me

Teacher and Lord, rightly so. So I'm not giving that up. But

essentially said, just as I have done for you do for others,

because even I have come to serve not to be served. And I

think that's where the real action is in organizations, is

if you turn that pyramid upside down, once people understand

where you're going in the goals and values and all, then you're

working for them so they can accomplish the goals and live

according to the vision, and all, and you're trying to

empower people all the way down to the people who deal with your

customers. You know, it's it's so obvious, you know, in sales,

you know, if it's all about you, and your goal accomplishment,

people are going to read right through that at all. But if your

main concern, which I think is sure you have a vision about

what you want to accomplish, when you have a good product,

hopefully, and all that kind of thing. But the real great

salesman, focus on developing a relationship with the person

that they're working with, so that they know how what they're

selling really can help those people be better at what they do

and all and so it's, it's, you know, it's that whole thing

about relationship selling, and the results will come. If you

develop great relationships, it's really amazing. When we

look at our company, people will often we'll work with them in a

company, and then they'll get transferred or decide to leave.

And they always take our people with them. Why because they have

a relationship with them. And then they say, gee, you know,

I'm moving over here wants you to come on in and, and tell us,

you know, how you can help us. So that's, that's where the

action is. And that's really kind of turning that pyramid

upside down. A lot of people misinterpret D, Jesus, he didn't

come to start a religion, he came to build a relationship.

And I think people would remember that, you know, and I

think the minute you put that into a religion and get into a

hierarchy and bureaucracy, then you get into judgment and

evaluation, and Jesus said, You'll be noticed by disciples

by how you love each other, not judge each other. And so I think

that's what relationship selling is, is to realizing this person

in front of you is an important human being, and how can you

help them be the best that they can possibly be?

You said that a part of what leadership is, is managing

the present, but also preparing for the future or something to

that effect. What is that principle? Where did you learn

it from?

Yes, I wrote a book a number of years ago, but

the philosophy was, is that as a leader, you have to manage the

present and create the future. And where you get a lot of

problems in organizations, I think is when you take people

with present time responsibilities, and send them

away to plan your future, because very often, they'll kill

the future because they're either overwhelmed with the

present or have vested interest in it. And so when I came up

with that concept, my wife was the president of our company,

she has a PhD in communication, and she's much better at that

kind of thing. But she said, that's what I want to do, I want

to head up the office of the future. And she stepped down as

president and turned it over to her brother, and had two or

three people full time jobs, studying what was happening in

our industry. So that when 911 came, you know, and all that

kind of thing. We were prepared because we knew about the

internet, we knew about training online, and then a lot of people

didn't know about that. So it's it's an interesting concept, I

think.

Okay, so here's what I wanted to really kind of get to

Okay, so you hear all right, lead, like Jesus, and whether

you're a believer or not, you go okay, well, it's hard. It's hard

to argue with the guys results, right? As little as a leader and

the impact that he's he's made. So then what is the biggest

roadblock to us actually going out and doing this?

The biggest addiction in the world is the

human ego. In a they always call that edging God out. You could

say everything good outside, but when you're focused on yourself,

and there's two ways that ego shows up, one is false pride.

When you have a more than philosophy, you think you're

brighter than smarter than you kind of push people away because

they just don't know as much and, and people with that

mindset, running organizations, they want everybody sucking up

the hierarchy and realizing all the brains are in their office.

But the other ego problem is a fear or self doubt. You know,

when you have less than, you know, philosophy now you

thought, Oh, God, I don't know, if I can do this, you know, and

that said, That person is really smart, you know, and all that

and your battery will go problem. That was it. Yeah.

Because people didn't think that but when you're into your

moaning and groaning and self doubt, what are you focusing on

yourself or others, you're focusing on on yourself, and we

have a 12 step egos anonymous program, I had them stand up one

at a time, talking about a time when their ego got in the way in

the last 48 hours. And I said if you can't think of one, you lie

about other things, too, because, you know, periodically

we either somebody says something you think got you

gotta be kidding me. We got this false pride thing, or somebody

will just tell me Oh, God, I could never do that, you know.

So, the anecdote for false pride is humility, which I think is a

really key aspect of what we're talking about. And I think of a

blog great salespeople know, Jim Collins, and Good to Great The

greatest leaders have two things in common, I think the greatest

salespeople, which is resolved, which is determination to

accomplish a goal and all. And the second is humility. And he

usually thought that was a weakness. And he said, the

researchers, you know, you know, that can't be the number two,

and they kept on saying it is people with humility, don't

don't think less of themselves, they just think about themselves

less. And so that's a really important concept that you don't

think less of yourself. You just think about yourself less the

anecdote for self doubt and fears to distrust that God

didn't make any junk. You know, you don't conditional love it,

my mother used to say, there's a pearl of goodness in everyone,

gig for some people, but it's there. You know, and so we just

need to trust that we might not have all the skills we think we

would like to have. But we were beautiful in our own way. We

have a lot of leaders now. Or when they have their meeting

with their people once a week, they start off with an egos

Anonymous meeting, and it it really has brought the group

together unbelievably, and people admire your skills, but

they love your vulnerability. And I think a lot of people are

afraid to admit that they don't know something. You know what I

think, Boy, salesperson, if somebody says, Has your

question, the other than trying to fake you know all the answer

you say? That's a really good question. Let me see if I can

find the answer. And I'll get back to you. And who other than

thinking less of you, they're gonna think more of you.

Yeah. Again, this is so so good. And I knew that this time

is gonna go by fast. Where would you direct people? Ken, what are

you focused on?

Well I think that they could go to

leadlikejesus.com. And our book is called Lead like Jesus

revisited. It's a more up to date version of that, that book

if they wanted. And then in terms of our own company,

Kenblanchard.com is great.

Well, the last thing here, what are some of these warning

signs? You know, like, if somebody is out there listening,

and they go, You know what, I'm not so sure that I haven't

leading like Jesus, what are some of the warning signs that

if these things start to show up in your life, you probably need

to really dig in and get real about, you know, understanding

this?

Well I think the biggest thing is to watch the

people around you. And when you show up to everybody stop

talking. And when you try to get feedback from them, they they

kind of go silent or they butter you up or what have you, I I

think that the the real sign that you're a servant leader, is

that feedback is the breakfast of champions, you know, and that

people are willing to be straight with you about things

and also praise you as well. When things are going well, but

the big thing is, do they feel like they can bring their brains

to work couldn't make decisions, or do they always have to run to

daddy to find the answers.

Well, thank you for an amazing lifetime of work, you

make a real difference in the world and you've meant a lot to

a lot of people and you know, I'm one of them.

I appreciate that and I feel very blessed. You

know, I just the Lord has been good to me and opened a lot of

doors that have helped and so I'm, I feel really, really