Power and Influence – Leadership concepts that earn greatest respect & drive

Date: March 5, 2015

Name: Power and Influence – Leadership concepts that earn greatest respect & drive

Presenter: Ryan Thomas

Many leaders are facing a lack of employee momentum problem in their organizations. When leaders are not receiving the mutual respect from their team members, they are frustrated and question their leadership strategies. This presentation is hosted by the meetup group called “I love Bubble Tea”. This seminar invites Ryan Thomas, a national officer from Canadian Forces, to share his knowledge of how the leadership in army supports leadership development. He also published his leadership book, “Become a Natural Leader: What a former army officer can teach you about leadership”. In this seminar, Ryan Thomas will explain the difference between management and leadership. Leaders will learn the simplest method to earn respect; moreover, leaders will improve their strength, motivation, and their identity.

In 17 years of military training, Ryan Thomas served as captain for 11 years. After the completion of his army, he participated in local dance community, accepted Sales Manager role in Australia, and educated leadership concepts in Canada. Thomas believes the passion in communication comes from the words people are using. While training in NLP program, he understands the importance of relationship building, which helps him develop the impact of combining leadership and military.

Is leadership important?

Thomas believes people are the social creature. They tend to be in small group that looking for direction. People need leaders. When organizations do not have leaders, the operation productivity will not be effective. In the end, hierarchy will be formed.

Many leaders think leadership is equivalent to management; however, Thomas emphasizes manager is not always equal to leader. In Thomas’s experience, he explains that he had to choose a direction to serve oversea or Chilliwack. He selected Chilliwack and accepted the instructor role to see day-to-day operation. As an instructor, Thomas trained to handle stress, become solider, and earn respect. Afterwards, he accepted another role of Assistant Operating Officer in Edmonton.

The way to earn respect is a big deal

The way to earn respect comes from action. Thomas shares his colleague from army to his respect from losing a limb and still returns to war. Another colleague accepted the duty in Afghanistan and lost her 2 team members. Thomas indicates in leadership, principle is all the same.

“You cannot force people to give respect; they need to earn it first”

In the military, it is mandatory to complete the leadership courses. The course contains military responsibility, professional development, physical fitness, curriculum activities, and bilingual language. After 5 years of taking leadership courses, the true leadership starts. With all the military leadership training, Thomas encountered many personal leadership challenges.

Thomas shares an example of women issue. Thomas faces a woman who do not feel she has been respected and challenge the issue with unnecessary force. This results of women in anger. Nevertheless, Thomas recognizes he has leadership issue. While he researched the woman’s history, he changed his approach to dissolve the problem. Thomas believes it is important to understand and be accountable.

Thomas shares another example in the military service. Thomas encounters a man with 3 harassment complaints. He could not talk or communicate with people. After the investigation, he realizes he is the one with the problem.

Thomas believes leading by example is important. He is inspired by a military leader who takes the time to know his troops. He manages to encourage army of 1000 to run together. He is also inspired by another military leader that creates the friendly atmosphere. The leader creates the trust and allows others to trust her. People respect back and create more respect between her and her troops.

“If you have a problem without a solution, you are just whiny”

Leadership culture

All leadership concepts are the same. Thomas believes leaders need to inspire people with values and allows values to become a part of the company. Leaders must recognize other values and encourage them to be the character of the company.

Leadership management

Management is given to people to manage the resource. This includes tasks, roles and responsibility. However, leadership is different because it is lead people with values. In the economy, big business and investors will find ways to create system to generate profit without the leaders present. As for employees and self-employees, they need to be present to generate profit.

Thomas believes it will not work if leaders cannot treat people as resources. In fact, leaders need to treat people as a part of system that helps them earn profit.

How do leaders earn respect?

Thomas believes feedbacks from success and failures are significant. Without feedbacks, people might not be effective in military. Thomas provides a simple list for leaders to identify people who respect their role.

Not Respect	Respect
A lot more drama	Not abuse system
Arguments	Inspire to work
Against system	Offer feedback
Bare amount of effort	Extra effort and offer new solutions
Ineffective employee	Job opportunities

Thomas also shares 3 ways to recognize people who give leaders respect.

• People who will ask advice
• People who will invite conversation
• People who will stop talking when leaders are talking

Thomas shares three ways to earn respect

• Lead by example
• Accountability
• Listening

People give respect when leaders perform the tasks in front of their team members. It is important to show people how leaders want them to become. It is necessary to learn the ability to recognize leader’s mistakes. In addition, leaders cannot be controlled by ego. Many people feel weak if they admit their mistakes; nevertheless, Thomas believes in the long run, people will obtain the strength to face the future challenge. It is proportional.

During the interaction, it is leaders’ responsibility to ensure the team understands. It is leaders’ responsibility to reconsider the value from communication. Therefore, leaders need to listen and consider others perspective. Thomas suggests leaders to reevaluate and ensure what other’s need and allow them to be heard.

Leadership assertiveness

Thomas illustrates there are 4 types of people. Passive people have no real boundaries. They believe they are nice people and people will be nice to them. Aggressive people are violent. They force people and people fear them. Passive aggressive people are the combination of passive and aggressive characteristics. They are too afraid to bring it up, but they always say something aggressive. Thomas believes these three types of people are manipulative. Leaders need to become assertiveness people. They are responsible their own believe, actions, and desire. Others can decline, and they can decline others as well. They create their own boundaries with no emotion behind. Thomas believes assertiveness people will earn respect. Assertiveness people shift their relationship and filter out all the negative people in their lives.

Leadership change life

Leadership changes Thomas’ life. In the military, there was a time he felt a complete failure due to his personal issues. He could not handle the stress and started to quit on every opportunities. When he was depressed, his supervisor, Captain Steve Parker, encouraged him to seek for help to resolve issue. That was his first time in military that feels people are listening to him and care for him. He pulled himself out. Up until this day, Thomas is still respect Captain Steve Parker.

“You need to step up or else you are hurting the team”

Questions and Answers

The most pressured moment in Thomas’ military life is when one of the officers’ personal information got leaked. He needed to calm down and control the situation. Even though he was not responsible for the situation, he was accountable for the result.

Many leaders treat work as friends. Thomas feels it is difficult to separate friendship and work. This is a part of his personal leadership style. Thomas believes leaders can still be respectful leaders but they do not need to know all the details from their team members. Create positive communication is what matters the most.

In corporation, employees will see their boss’s effort. The leaders in corporation need to create social atmosphere. Leaders need to demonstrate they are working the extra effort for their corporation values. People respect leaders who they are standing on their values.

The next step in leadership

Thomas illustrates the common leaders’ leadership pattern.

Stimulus -> Habits -> Behaviors -> Awareness -> Punish

A majority of leaders punish themselves based on the awareness they react, but they are not changing the behaviors in the long run. Instead punish, Thomas suggests leaders to reward awareness. By rewarding awareness, it will eventually change the behaviors.