Business & Leadership Co-Writing Sample

One of my great joys is working with authors to produce a book they can’t wait for others to read. Below is a sample chapter from an author I worked with who, after a long career building three health care companies, decided it was time to write down the management lessons she’d learned. This author’s voice was a seasoned and accomplished entrepreneur from West Texas who is honest, relatable, and funny at times, yet direct.

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Humility

When I first cut my teeth in management, humility was a dirty word. If you didn't know what else to say about someone back then, you might've said they possessed great humility, not because they were great, but because they probably weren't. At that time, it was a virtue most people viewed as a vice and a liability to the power dynamics that existed in the workplace.

Ironically, my first boss was one of the first to teach me how backward this was. I had been the manager for a full year when things slowly started to turn around. But even with the progress we were making, let's just say my relationship with this owner hadn't tracked with the same positive trend. He would still regularly come by my office to yell at me, telling me how awful I was at my job and how none of my ideas would ever work. From his perspective, he had built this company, he had spent the money, and he knew better than anyone else in that office what it took to make it all work. All I was to him was a cog in the wheel of his machine, just barely necessary enough for him to keep me around.

After every one of our little chats, I felt deflated, defeated, and belittled. If there was something to celebrate, he would gloat about the victory like he'd accomplished it. If a problem came up, it was always my fault. And, if I dared comment on how to improve how we served our clients, he would shut me down or hijack the idea as his own. In those days, I often thought, "What am I doing here? Why do I put up with this?"The picture of my family on my desk was reason enough to stay, if for nothing else than to keep food on the table. But I knew that things had to change. And if he wouldn't change them, I would.

As a manager in the home healthcare industry, we had the advantage of building direct relationships with the people we served, and the people who built and maintained these relationships were our nurses. They were the ones who spent hours with patients and their families administering care. More than anyone in our company, they were able to know what served our clients best because they knew them best. The longer I managed, the more I realized that they were the real experts, not me or the owner, and if I wasn't going to be heard, I would make sure they were.

You would think this would have been an easy task, but it was more of a challenge than I had initially bargained for. People knew the drill there. In a company dominated by a tyrant, people were afraid to speak up. Gossip was common because fear was the currency we traded in. So, after failing to get people to open up about how they thought we could better serve our patients, I realized as the leader, I had to be the one to go first. We were trained to believe might was right, but I would have to model a better way forward with a strength of a different kind.

I had to model humility. I had to admit that I needed my employees. I needed their voices, their insight, and their opinion. I needed it all. As the leader, I not only had to acknowledge my need for my employees but welcome my need. It wasn't merely enough to set up a comment box where someone could drop in a suggestion or two that would most likely never be seriously read or considered. I had to relentlessly pursue the voices around me, inviting them to speak into the organization they were vital members of. I had to convince them that I placed more value on them as a person than the tasks they performed for me. My employees had to know I was for them, whether I agreed with their assessments or not.

I would like to say this process happened overnight, but if you've spent any time in management at all, you know how long change actually takes. At first, I met plenty of suspicion and cynicism, but the longer I persisted and the more consistently I chose to value their voices, the more their trust in me grew. They tested the waters again and again to make sure leadership wasn't waiting to pounce on them once they were comfortable enough to let their guard down.

But as they learned to trust me one by one, something started to happen: we began to grow. It became clear that the only thing strong enough to tear down the fear, suspicion, and cynicism was the strength that unlocked the potential of so many who worked with us. Humility had turned the tide. Whereas leading with fear produced what was demanded, leading with humility was the first step in helping our employees produce beyond what was expected.

It wasn't enough simply to listen, however. Faking humility only to get a nugget of perspective for my own benefit would be quickly sniffed out and would have only served to affirm their bias against me. I actually had to be humble. And if I was going to begin trading in a new currency, I had to put my money where my mouth was. I had to let others receive the credit. Even when the owner came storming into my office looking for an opportunity to attack, I couldn't steal the recognition from my employees to shield myself. Even when those in the community started to notice the growth we were experiencing, I couldn't accept the praise as the sole beneficiary.

I took the vulnerable, humble position of not pointing to every success as my own but pointed back to the person or the team of people that made each success possible. And in a culture that used achievement as a weapon, I knew I was opening myself to potential attack by giving credit away. I was giving away the only thing that, at that time, validated my position in leadership and bolstered my authority.  

Humility is what happens when we reject the idea that we are the expert. Humility teaches us to trust the voices of others as much if not more, than we trust our own. In that exchange, we trade the strength of one for the strength of many. We trust that by admitting our weakness, we won't be taken advantage of but instead will be surrounded by others who can shore up the things we lack—humility, at its core, trusts.

When we allow others to receive the credit, we are trusting that their success won't be weaponized against us but instead that their success will become our success. We lean into the old axiom that "we is greater than me" and step towards each other, not away. Ironically, this act of vulnerability is a gateway not to losing power but truly gaining it. Not in the personal sense but the corporate one. In surrendering our personal power, we lay down our weapons to take up the collective strength available when we give others the credit they're due.

Leading with Humility

A funny thing happens when you begin to trust others: you start to see their strengths not as a threat but as an asset. Your posture towards those you lead changes from opponent to ally, and over time your ability to spot the strengths in others can become the most significant strength you can possess. But, to get there, you have to make a conscious decision. How high will you let those you lead rise? Are you willing to help others to heights greater than your own? Are you willing to even let your ceiling be someone else's floor?

While leading my third company, ____________ , one of my vice presidents, _________________ , had come to me with a fantastic question. She wanted to know how our company could begin to make an even more significant impact, not only on our community but around the world. As we continued to talk about the possibilities we could pursue, it dawned on us that our greatest potential for impact was also our greatest resource: our people. Through our conversations, a vision was born to create a non-profit organization, later named _____________ , that would provide a way for our own employees to use their gifts to provide in-home healthcare and training for people in need across the street and around the globe.

But there was a catch. To release our people to make this enormous impact, I had to release _____________ to a task that was beyond what I could've accomplished myself. I had to be willing to step out of _____________ way and use every opportunity at my disposal to help her pursue something genuinely great. Because I knew _____________ and had identified her strengths over many years of working together, it wasn't a sacrifice to commission her to this task, but instead, it was my privilege. One of my favorite things is giving people the opportunity to achieve goals they never thought they could, but even more significant than that is watching those I've helped turn around and do the same for those behind them. And as _____________ took off and began to make its global impact caring for those the world had forgotten about, I saw _____________ develop something great. And as she did, she made others great in return.  

 As you begin to consistently discern the strengths of others, it isn't long before you start to project what they might become if nudged in the right direction. In fact, it isn't long before you begin to see potential in everyone. The key as the leader is turning someone's potential into their pathway.

I want you to think about the moment when someone recognized the potential in you. Maybe it was a boss, a parent, a teacher, a coach, or a friend. I want you to recall how empowered you felt when they identified not just what you were good at but gave you insight into what you could be great at. For many of us, these moments were the catalyst that cultivated a direction marking us for the rest of our lives. When someone calls out the greatness in us, it creates a fork in the road of our personal development, and we are forced to choose which version of ourselves we will become. Our responsibility for those we lead is to help them discover the potential we plainly see and to create a pathway for them to achieve it. As the leader, we take people to places they never thought they could go, so they can then lead us farther than we could on our own.

Keep in mind, in the struggle between leading with humility or leading by control, leading others to discover their potential is by far the more challenging choice. It's far easier to tell people what to do than to believe in who they could become. It's hard to give people space to fail as they grow into their potential. And yet, like most things in life, the harder path often yields sweeter fruit.

If you have kids, you know this to be true. As the mother of five children, few things are as exciting and terrifying as when your kid takes their first step. It's exhilarating because it wasn't that long ago that they didn't exist, and here they are walking without even a hand to hold them up. It's equally terrifying because your child-proofing tactics are about to be tested to a degree you've yet to imagine.

As our children grow, we don't expect perfection from them; in fact, we expect a good amount of failure to accompany most new things they try to do. Yet the difficulty of raising children is also the source of one of parenting's great delights when the years of teaching and loving lead our children to run towards who they were created to be.

With those we lead, our goal should be helping them grow into their untapped potential while giving them space to figure out what that might look like. Just like our children, we shouldn't expect others to immediately understand their potential, nor should we expect them to immediately reach it simply because we've identified it. If we can learn to lead people step by step, soon they will no longer need a hand to support them but instead a voice to guide them. Yet, just because they've learned to walk doesn't mean they won't still occasionally fall.

One of the objections I hear when talking about giving people the space to grow is how risky it is to give people open permission to make mistakes. If we let people know it's ok to fail, won't they abuse our leniency? Won't the bottom line suffer if we knowingly give people a position they're not entirely ready for? How will it not cost us more than what we get in return? 

To those objections, my answer is simple: it will always cost you more to replace someone than it does to develop someone. You can't place a price tag on buy-in. And when we choose to pay the cost of believing in the potential of others, the ROI is far higher than we could've imagined. Instead of someone's mistakes being used as an excuse for their removal, when we choose to believe in people, their mistakes can become their milestones. They can become the moments where we help them back up and remind them of who they can still be.

Forgiving and Forgetting

If you take a moment to think about what typically separates work relationships from normal friendships, there's one big fundamental difference between the two: the foundation that each is built on. At work, our relationships are an arranged marriage. The day we are hired, we are thrust into a preexisting network of complex relationships and history, and over time we learn how to navigate that relational web to meet deadlines and finish projects. It's a contractual obligation to form working relationships with the people on your team or your department, and you get to know people enough to get the job done. In that space, relationships are typically built on performance and always seem to ask the question, "What have you done for me lately?"

Yet, if we had a friend who always seemed to be asking us that question, I think it's safe to assume we wouldn't have that friend for long. The truth is, we all yearn for relationships that aren't built on performance but on love, which is the foundation of friendship. Love allows us to operate in true humility, and love changes a workplace (or any place for that matter). When relationships are planted in the soil of love and humility, they stand a decent chance of growing into friendships that are deep, thriving, and life-giving. Imagine that your workplace relationships weren't first and foremost based on output but were instead based on a love that counted each other as more important. How different would it be? How much easier would it be to get out of bed in the morning? How much harder would it be to leave a work environment where you knew you were valued, accepted, and loved?

And I know what you're thinking. It's easier to love some people more than others. And while that's certainly true, I have a saying that I like to live by "Love something about everyone." It's my firm belief that there is something that you can genuinely love about every single person. Even if it's a person that you find 99% disagreeable, you can find at least 1% that you can wholeheartedly and earnestly love. This is a conviction I hold dear because I also know if I can love at least 1% of someone, I can learn to love the rest of them.

And if I can learn to love somebody, I know I can learn to forgive them too. You see, if love is the foundation of friendship, then forgiveness is the frame that holds it all together. Because without forgiveness, relationships won't last. Sure, you can cover things up and keep things working on the surface, but down beneath, if there's no forgiveness, it's like termites eating away at the bones of your house. Eventually, it all falls apart.

I could list the countless (and successful!) co-founders who ended up at each other's throats because they couldn't forgive each other. It's a familiar story that people will often sabotage what could have been just to get even, sometimes to the chronic detriment of their company. When I hear stories like that, I often wonder what their future might have been like if they had loved each other enough to at least forgive each other. Would their companies still be around today? What products don't we have today because of the relational fallout? Would they at least be happier?

There's no denying that being in business is not for the faint of heart. It can be gut-wrenching and devastating, and when things get tough, forgiveness is what will carry you through to the other side. It's in the stressful times when tempers flare, when patience runs short, and when it seems that our better angels have taken an extended vacation that forgiveness will reorient our relationship back to true north, back to love. If we can learn to be leaders who love others not for what they do but solely for who they are, then forgiving each other our debts will become second nature. And in turn, friendship will become the foundation that our leadership is built on. 

Applying Friendship Management – Cultivating the Habits of Humility

Humility isn't something you achieve once and master, and it's not something you acquire and hangs on your wall that certifies your expertise. Humility is as much a direction as it is a destination and is far more concerned about our progress instead of our perfection. It would be easy to simply list what humble leaders do, but it would carry a bit of irony because humility is an attitude more than an action. So, if that's true, what do we do next?

If we want to be _____________ Managers who operate in true humility, we must learn how to let the habits of humility cultivate an attitude of humility in us. As we learn to adopt the habits of humble leaders, humility will begin to seep more into who we are. Although humility is more than achievable actions, it's certainly not less. These habits will help reshape and redirect our actions to ultimately affect our attitudes, moving us toward humility. Here are 10 habits I've sought to incorporate into my leadership that have deepened my capacity for humility:

1.   Own your mistakes. Here's an excellent diagnostic for your current capacity for humility in leadership: think about the last time you blew it as a leader. And I'm not talking about small mistakes that can be debated away; I'm talking about an obvious mistake that was apparent for everyone to see. Who was the first person to identify your mistake (assuming it was pointed out at all)? Was it you, or did you wait for someone to confront you? And in the time between the mistake and the confrontation, who did you place responsibility on? The answers to these questions will help you know your own capacity for humility. Leaders who cultivate an attitude of humility seek to be the first person to identify their mistakes and own 100% of the blame. They don't shift the blame to others downline from them or justify their mistakes in hindsight. They clearly and publicly own their mistake and seek to make amends and fix whatever the effects of their mistake were. Humble leaders own their mistakes.

2.   Refuse to be the expert. Early in leadership, I thought I had to be the resident expert on anything remotely related to our business. Yet, I quickly realized not only was that goal merely impractical, but it developed in me a resistance to anyone's perspective that was different than mine. Because I felt like I had to be the expert, if anyone's expertise diverged from mine, it was a personal affront to my leadership. In other words, it hurt my pride. Thankfully, I learned that leaders cultivating an attitude of humility don't seek to be the expert but instead refuse to be the expert. What do I mean? Humble leaders practice the habit of being taught by others and refuse to let their opinion carry the most significant weight unless absolutely necessary. Make it a habit of looking for someone on your team who knows more about a given subject than you and defer to their expertise as much as possible. This doesn't mean their advice will always be followed, but it does mean that it will always be heard and valued.

3.   Give away credit. The flip side of humble leaders owning the effect of their mistakes is giving away the credit for their success. Why? Because leaders who cultivate humility understand that they aren't a one-man team, and if they are a one-man team, they're not leaders. Be generous with the credit you give away, and make it a habit to look for opportunities to publicly praise the work of others on your team. This habit will develop an eye to see the contributions of others outside of your own.

4.   Invite and receive feedback. There's no getting around it. Leaders who cultivate an attitude of humility want the perspective of others more than they want their own perspective and look for ways to invite others to speak in as much as possible. Don't wait for feedback to come to you, but be proactive in seeking it out, not just from people that expect to be listened to, such as other managers and those on the executive team. Seek out feedback from every level of the organization, and when it's given, receive the feedback with open hands and without qualifying its validity. Cultivating the habit of inviting and receiving feedback will help shape our tendency to qualify the input we receive and instead accept it for what it is.

5.   Choose kindness over severity. I can't count the number of times a harsh word was on the tip of my tongue, ready to be delivered with authority and severity, only to be reeled in by a still small voice that saved me from severing a relationship for the sake of justice. It's easy to let arrogant words run rampant, feeling as if we have justification for their use. But if our experiences tell us anything, how often have those quick-tempered words sparked the flames of prejudice and hatred instead of executing the justice we thought we wanted to impose? Leaders cultivating an attitude of humility make it a habit to tame their tongue, choosing kindness over severity. When harsh words rise up, make it a habit to filter out your anger, retain the truth, and speak the truth with kindness.

6.   Put others first. Putting others first requires us to take the backseat whenever possible and requires us to willingly think about others before ourselves. As we develop this habit and the more we put it into action, the easier it will be to implement consistently. This is a finely tuned skill that intentionally looks to serve the needs and desires of others over your own and asks, "Who does this benefit most?" Leaders who make it a habit of putting others first make those around them feel valued and wanted and cultivate humility in themselves and those they lead.

7.   Make promises you can keep. The hard part about this habit is it forces us to be ultra-realistic about what we can accomplish for others. In a meeting with a client or with an employee, it's easy to make a promise that seems beneficial at the time, but unless we can make good on our promise, it would seem the promise we made was more about boosting our ego than serving the person we made the promise to. It feels good to assure people of the desired outcome, but it feels much worse when we can't deliver. By making promises we know we can keep, we are purposefully under-promising now so we can over-deliver later.

8.   Refuse to gloat. In leadership, there are far more opportunities to choose the wrong answer than the right one. And when you make the right decision or select the correct option, it seems a celebration is in order, and rightly so! But, for leaders cultivating an attitude of humility, how we celebrate is just as important as what we celebrate. We must refuse to gloat when we're right (or even more importantly, when others aren't right). Delete the phrase "I told you so" from your functional vocabulary and make it a habit to instead replace condescension with gratitude for a favorable outcome.

9.   Push others to the top. To implement this habit effectively, we have to choose to believe in people. We have to believe that every person has something truly unique and valuable to contribute and, if given the right opportunity, will excel beyond what's expected. As leaders striving to grow in our humility, we must be experts in identifying and calling out the skills of those we lead and placing them in positions to grow and stretch their skills, helping them reach heights they'd otherwise never achieve. A practical way to implement this habit is to first identify your weaknesses and then seek to surround yourself with people more gifted and skilled in the areas you're weak. Make room for people at the table and invite them to their seats.

10. Forgive and forget. As someone who's made no less than a few mistakes, I feel like I can say with confidence that anyone you will ever work with has the capacity to royally screw things up. Humanity has a real knack for missing the mark, and no amount of training or vetting can keep mistakes from happening. And when mistakes happen, we must make it a reflex to forgive and forget the wrong that was committed. Because if we get hung up on what happened, continually bringing it up and thinking about it over and over again, we will lose the trust of that team member, and they will lose their confidence to move forward from the mistake they made. We will take a road bump and make it into a roadblock that keeps people from moving on, keeping them in our debt until we deem they've suffered enough. If, instead, we choose to exercise the habit of forgiveness, we will develop our ability to empathize with the mistakes of others and free them from the debt of earning their way back to our good graces.

Cultivating an attitude of humility means keeping ourselves from reacting how we otherwise might and choosing to exercise counter-intuitive habits that will retrain our instincts from focusing on ourselves to focusing on ourselves less. Over time, our habits shape our hearts, and choosing to develop our humility means changing our natural bent and attitude and allowing our attitude to be shaped by these new ways of living. As _____________ Managers, we must cultivate humility as the ground that all our relationships will grow.

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