This morning I had the honor of speaking to the Campolo Scholars at Eastern University. The topic was leadership and the talk was centered around why I wrote the book Salvaged.
At one point we covered the leadership ideas of Max De Pree, which concludes that all leaders finish their job by saying “thank you” to everyone involved. The process for a leader is basically, 1) define reality, 2) become a servant, 3) become a debtor, and finally 4) say thank you.
There’s generosity to this model. It’s basically the servant leadership concept from Scripture, but expressed in more modern terms. It’s putting others first.
During the questions afterward a young woman asked me how I thanked people on my team. My answer was probably not very helpful or interesting. But a few hours later (isn’t that how it always happens?) a story popped into my head about the time I understood the power of saying “thank you.”
The story begins with a nasty eviction. A tenant had not paid, but more concerning was that the tenant was a known drug dealer and rumored to be a child molester (the rumors were later proved true). Getting this jerk out was important for the community.
Past property managers were reluctant to enforce the rules because this tenant was … well, he was scary. Intimidating.
But now we had a much tougher — and frankly bigger — property manager. Let’s call him Ricky.
Ricky and I showed up at the courthouse with my attorney and proceeded to explain things to the judge. The tenant was a no-show, which makes sense — not a lot of drug dealers willingly walk into a courthouse. At one point Ricky was on the stand and I was sitting next to my attorney. The judge, a no nonsense kind of guy, bluntly asked Ricky, “This tenant of yours sounds dangerous. Aren’t you afraid of him?”
Ricky nodded and said, “Yes sir, but I’m more afraid of that man right over there,” as he pointed toward me.
Thankfully the judge laughed, though my attorney was anxious for a moment. So was I.
Later I said to Ricky, “Dude, you made me out to be some kind of mobster you are afraid of!”
He just turned to me — all six foot five 285 pounds of him — and said, “But I am afraid of you. You’re a tough SOB.”
That moment made me realize something. My own employees, who were doing amazing work for me, were sometimes afraid of me.
That’s not good. Not good at all.
It was a pivot point in how I treat my employees. I became much more of a servant, and I went out of my way to say thank you whenever I could.
Oh I’m sure there is still a touch of fear at times. Hard not to be when you have an unbalanced power dynamic that accompanies all employer / employee relationships. And I certainly forget to express my thanks.
But for the most part, most of the time, I think the fear is gone.
And it’s largely because of those two very generous words: thank you.
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