IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. The purpose of your business is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your financial success, your freedom, or even your happiness. It's even far greater than even your family, or even your biggest dreams and ambitions. You were born into this world for purpose and meaning, and your company was also born into this world for purpose and meaning. Your business is not about you - it's about others.
Do you want to be great? Consider for a moment that the greatest people in history, not just those who did or accomplished big things, but those remembered for TRUE greatness were thoses that were servant leaders, those that put the needs of others before their own. Martin Luther King Jr, lead a nation for equal rights under the law, equal dignity in society, and an America that judges people on the content of their character - not the color of their skin. Mother Theresa lived her entire life serving the poorest of the poor in the world - and she started a movement with the Sisters of Charity that today spans the globe taking care of the poorest and weakest in the world. Mahatma Gandhi brought freedoms and rights and dignity first to the people of South Africa, and then created a sea change in India that lead to the advancement and protected rights of the people in a nation that today has 1.4 billion people living there. Jesus Christ, washed his disciples feet, ultimately was crucified and started a global religion that today has 2.4 billion followers. These men and woman are great and were great - they were servant leaders.
Then you have folks like Stalin, Hitler and Mao. Yes, they did accomplish great things by their own definition of great. Yet by the world, they are remembered as murderers and are collectively rememebered by history as being the biggest killers in human history.
So the facts are clear...servant leadership is the only way to be great.
As a business leader, your business needs to be about others. Let's look at 3 key stake holders that you need to help in a big way to get it right.
Your Customer
How does your product or service help your customer's life be changed for the better in a real and meaningful way? Can you literally have a positive transformational impact on their life with your product? If so, you have the recipe to be the #1 player in your industry - otherwise you are just another company. Be great and never stop evolving until your company is transformational for your customer. The other question you must simply ask, is "do you treat your customers the way you want to be treated?" If so, you have a critical element in place to create loyalty from your customers and raving fans who will build your business for you.
Your Employees
How have you built your culture, your benefits, your compensation plans and your systems as a company to give your employees a truly great life? Do you treat your employees the way you want to be treated? Do your provide a proven operational and sales system that will make them successful? Do you give them work/life balance? Do you give them praise and appreciation at every chance you get? Do you measure employee happiness weekly and make changes to maxamzie it? You better do all the above or you are falling short of what you are called to. Be great.
Those In Need
If your company exists the the sole purpose of maxamzing shareholder wealth - you suck. That's right - you suck. How are you looking out for those that are in need? Sometimes that need can be temporal, like at ChoiceLocal how we were the sole sponsor for a Home for Habitat for Humanity, and played an important role in a family owning a home in Cleveland, OH. Or how we funded water wells in villages in the poorest parts of the world that did not have clean drinking water through Water First. Sometimes, those needs can be mental or spiritual, like how we have funded breiverment support through Cornerstone of Hope to those that have lost loved ones - often tragically. Somtimes, those needs can be community-based like funding clean up of pollution in our oceans. Sometimes, it might be reinvesting profits back into product development ideas such as zero emissions clean energy that can outperform fossil fuels with enough innovation. As a business leader, find something that appeals to you, that you care about, and focus your company on making lives and the world a better place by giving back.
Treat Others The Way You Want to Be Treated
In simple form, you need to treat others the way you want to be treated. For example, in the United States today there a companies, major companies with brands that you know, that are profiting off of the forced slave labor of the Muslim Uyghurs under Chinese Communist Party rule in China. One would have to assume that those companies know what they are doing as it is widely published that this is happing and stories have been written that these companies have lobbied Congress to allow that pipeline of cheap slave labor to fund their earnings and not have economic sanctions placed against it by the United States government. Those companies - suck. The leadership of those companies - suck. The CEO of the companies doing this - suck. They will be remembered by history in the same light as those that profited off of slave labor in the U.S., or forced labor in Nazi Germany. They suck. Their souls are dark. They are not great, they are losers.
On the other hand, if you have an employee going through a medical emergency, such as a very serious cancer diagnosis, are you telling them that work is not important, to not work and instead take time off focus on getting better and funding their salary and benefits? This action would be treating others the way you want to be treated.
Are you setting up an environment where your employees have good work/life balance? This action would be treating others the way you want to be treated. Or are you having them work 80 hours per week because it maxamzies profits...even if your request could destory their own family.
Are you holding your employees to high performance standards so that you can be great but also not setting your standards so high that causes them big time stress and anxiety? You can set goals in a way where the business flourishes, yet because your team knows how you operate and how you care about them that their job is super secure. Job security matters. Performance matters. If you just operate by the axiom of "threat others the way you want to be treated" you will be able to very easily figure out what the right goals are to allow the business to flourish as well as your employees in all areas of their life.
Personally, I find, running a successful and purpose-driven business is not hard. It just requires an unrelenting focus on being great and treating others the way you want to be treated. If you never take your eye off of these 2 goals, your business has a ten-time better chance of being transformational in your industry but also in the lives of your employees, your customers and those in need.
What do you want to be remembered for when you die? That you had a really nice Yacht and a kick butt set of homes with a thick bank account? Or, do you want to be remembered for the fact that you tranformed countless lives and an industry into something better and more beautiful than it ever would have been without you.
Be great. Be a servant leader.
