Faith-Based Servant Leadership In Action With James McPherson
In this episode of the podcast, Andrew Cohn speaks with James McPherson, an attorney, business leader, and deeply devout Christian. James shares his experience with finding his faith, as well as some stories about the impact of choices he made to honor his faith in the context of his work life. The conversation largely focuses on servant leadership and what that means through the lens of faith. James’ point of view and energy are humble, patient, deeply faith-based, and inspirational. His experiences are beautiful leadership lessons and he tells them with enthusiasm and gratitude.
Near the end of the conversation, James answers the question, “How can we make it easier for people to bring the conviction of their faith into their leadership?” The answer involves developing self-awareness and humility, as well as getting to know one's team.
To learn more about James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-r-mcpherson-jd-mba-5a67a3b/
Music Credit: Kodiak https://open.spotify.com/artist/4rURKtnJr3jeHvZ0IVRQCe?si=dqdW71OISZOS8BYm-B4JNg&preview=none
---
Listen to the podcast here
Faith-Based Servant Leadership In Action With James McPherson
In this episode, I am pleased to interview James McPherson. He is a fascinating man from a different time and place than myself, which is one of the reasons I enjoy speaking with him. He is an attorney and a business leader. He's worked in a variety of leadership positions, including government, higher education, big corporations, specifically Xerox, and law firms, as well as in the US Air Force.
He tells a bit about his story and how his spirituality has always informed his leadership. He has strong Christian beliefs. What I would say about that is he has the unusual combination in my experience of being both extremely devout as a Christian but also inviting, inspirational, and not at all evangelical. He talks about when he was a college freshman and had a spiritual awakening in response to his personal search for why am I here.
He went to a family church with a relative. After a number of months, he fell in love with scripture, particularly as he talks about it, some of the leaders in the Bible, the Old, and New Testament, and he said it was personally the biggest event in his life to decide to follow Jesus. He talks about servant leadership deeply. We talked about it as a focus of our conversation together. He said he believed in servant leadership before he even knew what it was.
He talks about how he loves the evidence of servant leadership in the Bible. He brings things back to his faith in a curious and devout way. He told a story. At one point, he was working with Air Force fighter pilots and recognized that he needed to get to know these pilots. He made a decision not to get to know them because getting to know them would mean spending more time in the officer's club, and he didn't want to socialize in an environment where there was a lot of alcohol being served.
He talked about that as an example of not being willing to go against his values, even at the time, the age of 23. That was a values-based choice that he made. That was an interesting story to tell. He talks about stewardship as a critical attribute of servant leadership, being full of integrity and wanting to do what's right. He talks about his point of view on humility and patience, which, as I said, is deeply faith-based. As he said, it's important not to be evangelizing but rather to demonstrate love for everyone, including his personal practice of extending kindness towards people who don't like him.
Near the end of the conversation, he asks both of us how we can make it easier for people to bring the conviction of their faith into their leadership and workplace. He answers it by encouraging leaders to think about the core elements of servant leadership, including self-awareness, humility, and getting to know your team and people personally. I hope you enjoyed the episode as much as I did. Here's my interview with James McPherson.
I'm happy to have my friend and mentor, James McPherson, with me. He is a lawyer, a consultant, a teacher, a mentor to many, and an interesting man with an interesting copious background and somebody who has a lot to teach. I'm grateful that I was able to pin you down for these low, however many minutes we have together, and see where this conversation goes because my observation and experience with you is that you have a lot to say about leadership and spirituality. I look forward to your intersection of these two topics. Welcome.
It was a pleasure to be with you.
Looking Back
If I were to look over your resume, I'd say, “This is a lawyer, a consultant, a leadership consultant and teacher, a community builder, a mentor.” Your work experience from IBM to Duke as I reviewed some of what you shared with me about your background, the places that you've worked, and some of the things that you've done, it would be unfair to highlight certain things other than to say I'm grateful that the legal profession had you. I'm grateful for you that you left. I say the same about myself, but I know that that was one small stop on your long journey. Welcome, James. What might you say about how you would introduce yourself, at least at this stage in your career and your life?
You appropriately indicated a jumping-off point when you said I'm an intersection of spirituality and leadership. Anywhere I have led, it has been because of my spirituality. My spirituality forms the foundation for my leadership. We'll talk more about that later on. I've been fortunate to have numerous opportunities outside of the law and business. I have served clients in 56 different countries. I have visited 21 countries and spent many days in the motherland, the continent of Africa. When I was in Kenya, they adopted me as a Masai warrior because of my high cheekbones, my thin physique, and my height of 6’3”.
That's a part of me that I did not know that was going to happen. It only occurred because of a blue-eyed soul brother. A Caucasian in Raleigh, North Carolina had observed me in certain Christian capacities and said, “How would you like to go to Africa with me?” I never thought about it. I was in my late 40s and early 50s. I said, “Absolutely, Jim.” That was the beginning where we started out in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest countries in Africa. It's because of Dr. James Seymour that I first went to Africa.
That is an example of how my work has been woven together outside of my race. I've been the first Black in many instances, having grown up in the South in the ‘50s during segregation and before that segregation. I was a product of desegregation after the Brown versus Board of Education decision in 1954. I had already been born for one year. When I was in the 10th grade, I was forced to go to a formerly all-White school. I'll leave this one point, and we'll move on. At one point in that formerly all-White school, I was the only Black basketball player on the team for one semester. Andrew, I was the worst player who said all Black guys can jump. I could not. I yield to you, Counselor.
You are one year old, and the Supreme Court said, “We got to change it.” You have worked in different environments from the military to Corporate America, it doesn't get much more Corporate America traditionally than IBM, to academia and other settings, medicine. To hear about your journey is to see a wandering path that seems like it has a bunch of turns on it, and yet it's one big natural, understandable, and lovely flow. Would you describe it that way, or has your journey been more of a jaggedy peak thing from your experience?
From my experience, there is a common denominator in all of those roles and responsibilities. That would be my love for people and to see them flourish and achieve potential, whether I was an Air Force officer directing the work activities of young soldiers or my last official role, a member of the senior executive service in the Federal government in Washington DC, where I had a portfolio of $1.2 billion in sales. In all those instances, I was responsible for creating a team around a common vision to put plans in place to implement those visions and associated goals.
I did not realize when I was born in poverty in 1953 that I would be the first college graduate in my family, much less the only lawyer in my family. Here we are 70 years later. There's only one lawyer in the McPherson family tree. There were some intentional career moves and unintentional ones. We may cross those paths later on in the conversation.
Spiritual Awakening
How has spirituality been at the center of your leadership along the way?
When I was a freshman in college, I had a spiritual awakening. I had been asking that age-old question. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? That was back in the early ‘70s. I went to my family church. My first cousin invited me at the same time I was asking those kinds of questions. After about eight months, I realized that the Bible consisted of the Old Testament, primarily looking at the lives of Jews and the New Testament, looking at the lives of Jews and Gentiles, that I'm supposed to be engrafted with the Jews and the Gentiles.
I fell in love with the scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, where we looked at people, primarily leaders. I didn't understand it then, Andrew, that I was looking at Moses, David, Isaiah, Joseph, and in the New Testament, Jesus, Paul, John, James, and Peter. I fell in love with what I was reading. I made a personal decision in 1972 that I was going to follow this Jewish guy from Jerusalem for the rest of my life. I'm in my 51st year, and I'm not looking back.
Once I began to understand the scriptures, not as a lawyer then, but as I look back, I love the evidence for the proof claims that Moses and Jesus were making. For example, Jesus said, “I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life, a ransom for many.” That blew me away because I grew up in the South, thinking I needed to make a lot of money. I need to be on top. I need to be in charge. My role model is saying, “If you want to become great, become a servant.” I wanted to live out those truth claims.
If you want to become great, you must become a servant.
In 1972, I made a decision that I was going to walk as Jesus walked, as he gave me the ability by the Holy Spirit to do so. That was the most cataclysmic event in my entire life. That began to inform my leadership. You and I talked earlier about how I believed in servant leadership before I knew what it was because of some major statements that Jesus made in the Bible. He said at one point, “I don't want you to lead like the leaders in Jerusalem because they like to lord it over you.”
Having grown up with a slave mentality, I think, “Slave owners are driving the slaves to get things done.” Jesus said, “Those officials flock to their authority over those under them.” He made this statement that struck me, “Among you, it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must become your servant.” I began to listen to him and other leaders in the Bible in the early ‘70s, and it became a part of who I was and how I lived and led.
I joined a fraternity, the oldest African American fraternity founded in 1906 at an Ivy League school in Cornell, New York. Its motto was, “First of all, servants of all.” I became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity the same year I became a member of the church. The commonality was servanthood. I had two axes on which to drive my life around the servant. As I look back, I can understand now what was happening in 1972 that I did not fully appreciate back then.
Sticking To Values
How many of us fully appreciate epiphanies we may have when we're in our early twenties, but beautiful. Because of some of the stops you've made along the way, the diversity of those stops, the different environments, and the way leadership works in different places, academia, Corporate America, the US Air Force, government administration, and OPM. This question is big, I feel like I should break it down, but I want to ask it to you in a big way and have you pick it up wherever you'd like.
How have those environments welcomed you, your strong, clear sense of belief and servant leadership? How have you brought that sense of servant leadership into those environments? You’ve been true to yourself and carried who you were with you in all those different places. What can you share about that?
The first thought, in response to your answer, took place when I was a young Air Force officer. This was between the years of 1975 and 1979. I recognized that to get promoted rapidly in an environment with pilots, I worked primarily with fighter pilots, F-4 pilots, F-15 pilots, and F-16 pilots. I was their controller on the ground. I had a headset and a computer-type device that I would look at, find them on the scope, and tell them where they needed to go. I told fighter pilots where to go, how fast to go, and how high to go. They had to listen to me.
However, when I was back on the base, I recognized I needed to go to the officer's club, hobnob with these pilots, and get to know them so they could get to know me for them to recommend me for certain assignments and promotions. I realized that an environment where there was a lot of alcohol being served was not conducive to me and did not serve my values. I made an intent decision, Andrew, not to frequent the officer's club. I would go periodically for lunch or dinner, but not to hobnob to be seen so that my career could take off.
It did not hurt me at all. I must say that before I left, they had already said, “James, you will become a captain at the four-year point. You have been selected to go to the first level of in-person leadership school called the Squadron Officer Leadership School.” I turned both of those down because I had projected that for me to rapidly ascend, I had to potentially go against my value system. I was not willing to do that. That was the first major decision I made as a 23-year-old, not to engage in that environment so that I could be successful.
What was that like for you at 23? Was it a tough decision? That's a big character decision to make at 23.
It was. Before I went into the military, I had time to spend on the college campus in ROTC, Reserves Office of Training Corps, where I was selected as the commander of that unit in my last semester. I had a wonderful lieutenant colonel who was responsible for training us. He gave us some insights into what it would take to excel. He was a pilot. I had a chance to understand that mentality.
I began in my last year of college to think through, “What career do you want?” I was gung-ho. I wanted to be at least a colonel and a potential one. I had that drive in me because I remember Jesus said, “If you want to become great, become a servant.” I thought, “I can become great if I serve in a way that would lead me to be recognized.”
When I came against that fork in the road, I had to decide, “Is it your career or your convictions?” That was not planned. I love having fun when I'm engaging with great people like Andrew Cohn. There's another stick. I made a decision after some knowledge while in college that I had to decide, are you going to live by your convictions or live by a potential trajectory in your career as a commissioned officer?
The choice was made, which limited one path. Did it open doors to another?
It did. While I was in Iceland, my second tour of duty in the Air Force, I had a lot of time to think about whether I was going to make it a career or do something else. It was in 1977 and 1978, having been in there for 2 to 3 years, that I decided I was going to leave the Air Force because I had examined the evidence, even though I didn't use that language back in 1977 and 1978, that the path that I was on would be too rocky. I would not be able to have smooth sailing to the desired destination.
I began to think, “What do you want to do next?” While in undergraduate school, I was fortunate enough to have been selected to attend Ohio State University for a weekend to consider the MBA program. Because I decided to go to the Air Force, I did not pursue that opportunity, but the seed was planted.
While I didn't go to Ohio State, I went to another Big 10 school North of Ohio in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin, where I was able to win a fellowship with a stipend to go to the University of Wisconsin. It took me a year and a half because I went to summer school. I had a business degree already. I was able to finish that MBA program in three semesters as opposed to four. I recognized that there was a different path to pursue this greatness that I had instilled in my mindset. I thought, “I would do it in business.”
You did. I want to be careful here because if we take it one small step at a time, we're going to have tons of recordings here. The challenge here is to do some level of prioritizing on the fly and get to where we are, but you did take it to business both in IBM and later at Duke University, which is where I first met you when you were there some years later, and in Washington DC and otherwise.
Spirituality And Business
There's so much that I'm curious about, but what I'm most curious about is how I serve people, men, and women world, in the business space, sometimes in academia, and some other settings. In the world of business, which can often be as secular as secular can get, how have you been able to hold true to who you are, whom you serve, and how you are?
I'm sure that my observation over the years is that I haven't taken as many breaths as you have on the planet, but over the years, even the topic of religion or spirituality in business is more or less acceptable. What gets discussed at work has changed an awful lot in my 35-year career. How have you been able to walk your particular path, which may be informed by some other lovely paths and powerful paths, in this secular space? How have you bridged that intersection of religion, spirituality, and business? It’s another huge question. Forgive me, but you'll take it wherever you take it.
One of the underpinnings of my Christianity is to prefer others over yourself and not think more highly of yourself than you ought to. I had to operationalize those two mindsets. Whether I'm working for a Fortune 500 company in Amark, New York, IBM or a Fortune 500 company in Raleigh, North Carolina, Carolina Power, and Light Company, or if I'm working for the eighth largest law firm in the State of Michigan in 1985 to 1988, or finally in the Federal government, three levels from the President of the United States, I had to come to each of those opportunities with the true James McPherson.
Prefer others over yourself. Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to.
As I said about the Air Force, I had decided how I was going to show up. Similarly, when I went to those ventures, I had already decided that I was not going to compromise, but I was not going to focus on myself. I've learned that if I focus on people and what's important to them to help them achieve their vision, mission, goals, and objectives, it'd be much easier for them to accept me for who I am. At no time did I say, “You must follow Moses and Jesus for me to invest in you.” That was not my approach at all.
Over time, people would ask me, “James, what drives you? You seem to be even keel. You don't fly off the hand and get upset as some of your colleagues do.” I would respond that I have been intentional in the way that I live my life. One of my character traits would be patience, kindness, and most importantly, self-control.
I've developed these character traits over time in my closet, in my office, at home, at church, and in smaller groups. When I was involved in secular work, it was much easier for me to demonstrate my true values regardless of the nature of the work, whether I was practicing law as the first Black male in an all-White law firm in 1985 in Detroit, Michigan or being responsible for coaching one of the top ten IBM executives on his behavior on a weekly call with 100 executives from around the globe. It was one humorous statement.
I was on a call with this IBM executive. He made a statement on the phone that I need to be careful what I say because my coaches are on the line. He may report back what I'm saying. It took opportunities with him to develop that relationship where he could be vulnerable and transparent with executives. I was not an executive. I was an organizational leadership consultant responsible to him and his leadership team.
Over time, when people recognize that you are genuine and are committed, number one, to the organization, stewardship, which is one of the key attributes of servant leadership and committed to developing people, another critical attribute, and most importantly, that you are full of integrity, you want to do what's right for the organization. It's been important for me to make sure that my personal values will mirror those of the organization. It's not going to be a one-to-one match, but when IBM talked about integrity, speed, and helping leaders grow and develop, I can identify with that. It's easier for me to embrace what the organization was trying to accomplish.
State Of Loving
The way that you learned about and came to embody servant leadership, and I disagree. You did know about servant leaders. It was before that book was written. You knew about it because Jesus knew about it. Whether that book was written or not, it was written, the fact that you could embody and represent that.
I'm also hearing you talk about humility, putting others first, and disarming being disarming in these conversations. There's nothing I could be wrong with this, but I'm hearing nothing is patronizing or evangelizing. I'm not here to convince you of anything. You could recognize, and this is one of the hypotheses of this show, that these core dimensions of us as people, as we develop them in particular, pay attention to them and nurture them as you have. These are, I would submit, spiritual dimensions, and people are drawn to those dimensions, at least at certain times in certain ways.
I'm more drawn to them when I'm quiet, paying attention, and recognizing what's important. They come to you and ask, “How do you do that? What is this superpower that you could stay calm in these circumstances?” I wonder if you could speak to that. What would you say about your dimensions of that calmness, steadiness, non-reactivity, and that state of loving that's so core? I wonder how you can talk about how that has served you in these different environments. Maybe there's a story to tell.
I'll start with one at the Fortune 500 company based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Having served as a lawyer and HR leader in this company, my primary client, the responsible executive for customer operating services, made an offer to me one day in his office. While we were talking about business, as we were concluding the conversation, he said, “James, have you considered working as a district manager, a line manager job?” I said, “I thought about it.” I was getting ready to walk out. He rushed to the elevator and said, “James, would you be willing to leave Raleigh and go to a town called Sanford, about 40 miles south of Raleigh?” I said, “Absolutely.”
A few months later, I was selected to be a district manager for the town of Sanford and surrounding areas. When I moved to that job, there was a vacancy at the first-line level called a customer service supervisor. Through my listening tour, I recognized that we had some smart, experienced first-line frontline workers who met with the public and the district offices. He went to pay their electric bill in the old days back in the ‘90s.
I concluded we didn't need that supervisory job. I want to empower all women at that time to get out of their comfort zone and make some decisions on the spot instead of relying on a customer service supervisor. It was my desire to see them grow and develop, not only in the office but in the community. Consequently, they performed extraordinarily well. We had no customer complaints. I was available if they needed me.
I was proud when that team of women was selected for the highest award that the company offered for employees. They were a self-empowered team. They reached their financial goals, their customer service goals, and their employee engagement goals. That was an example where I showed humility and my commitment to developing people and empowering them to expand beyond their ordinary scope.
Near the end of my tour there, two of the young ladies, one in Ashburg, about 60 miles away from Sanford, said, “Have you ever thought about running for the President of the United States?” This was before Obama. I said, “No, I have not.” They said, “If you do, you have two strong campaign workers, Mr. McPherson.”
I love to tell the story that those two young ladies had recognized that I cared for them as people first. I gave them opportunities to grow and develop. They returned the love to me. That was not my intent at all. I believe in the principle, “You reap what you sow. If you sow well, you will reap well. If you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly.” That's another one of those mindsets that I keep in the back of my cranial cavity.
If you sow well, you will reap well. If you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly.
Faith-Based Leadership
I'm curious to know because you have a strong sense of faith. A sense of faith doesn't even have a strong faith-based foundation. How do you navigate spaces where that may be less friendly to discuss, or it could be even perhaps, I don't want to say, used against you? I hope that's not the case, but it's not thought of in a complimentary way if you carry a strong faith in certain environments, certainly some business and work environments, and particularly you've worked across cultures, different cultures and or even regions in this country if you were to stay within the US, treat these things differently, have different reactions.
You've stayed true. You know who you are, You love who you are, and you're going to be who you are, which is wonderful. How have you navigated some of these environments to continue to lead in the way you're speaking about, even though conversations perhaps about your faith may not necessarily be as welcome?
I've been fortunate. I've never had any leader, peer, or direct report to say, “You must not act that way according to your Christian beliefs in this workplace.” No time has someone said, “You are not welcome here because of your convictions.” I often think about that. I've been shielded supernaturally from those kinds of attacks. I don't know.
I can tell you when I was at that company in Raleigh, the CEO wanted to launch a new diversity initiative, and he selected me to lead that effort where we focus on various dimensions of diversity. It was race, gender, age, and years of service. It was not religion. You can imagine in the South and the late and early ‘90s, there was no anti-religion or anti-Christianity in the South. For example, that same senior leader who asked me to become a district manager had his leadership meetings in his office. I heard, in the late ‘80s, they would start those leadership meetings off with a prayer and Bible study.
I spent more time there in that company than any other company, twelve years. It was friendly toward Christianity, Judaism, and Catholicism. Those were the three primary religions in our area at that time. It's primarily because I was intentional about not evangelizing. Instead, I wanted to demonstrate love, not only for other Christians but even for my enemies. I had recognized some folks who were against me without them telling me, “You can't do it in discern.” I would make a practice of showing kindness, gentleness, and goodness toward them.
I'm thinking of a story. It happened inside a local church. I was the first Black elder in this formerly all-White church in leadership. They had twelve elders. All were White until I was selected. When I went to the elder's meeting, I always took my Bible with me because it was a church elder meeting. I later found out that one of those elders told me, “James, I was wondering. Who do you think you are? You'll bring a Bible to a business meeting of the church.” It helped me immensely for him, number one, to be that vulnerable, to share that with me after he left the council. Number two, I didn't realize that it would be strange to do that.
In that instance, where you expect it to bring your Bible, and you do, it may be held against you by one person. I never took my Bible and put it on the desk at work, but I had it in my drawer. I remember one time at a healthcare system here in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of our employees had her Bible on her desk.
That gave me an opportunity to engage her in dialogue. I was like, “What does that mean to you? I believe in the Bible.” We have had a conversation. When the door opens to engage in a spiritual conversation, I will do it on friendly grounds, not on enemy grounds. Fortunately, I have not had any instances where people have confronted me directly about how I lived out my Christian principles and practices in the workplace.
I suspect that's because, as you're describing it, it's about the how. It's about modeling. It's not about labeling if we could talk about it that way. It's not about winning a prize. It is about supporting others. That's from Alpha Phi Alpha. That seed was planted too.
At that last healthcare company, my boss, the Executive Vice President of Human Resources, had delivered a course on servant leadership. When she recognized that I was exemplifying those behaviors, she said, “James, I want you to take over this course.” I looked at it and said, “I will deliver a course on servant leadership, but give me the authority to develop the content.” She did, and I did. I designed, developed, and delivered a course on servant leadership at Carolina's Healthcare System, one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States.
When I delivered that course in open enrollment, one of the leaders said, “James, I want you to deliver a course like this to my North Carolina Association.” It's an example of how I approach the topic that people would be motivated. They wanted to spread that content and role modeling with their peers from other healthcare systems across the United States.
I was looking in preparation for this show that I delivered that course nine years ago in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina. At least I had a chance to go to the beach during the fall to do something that I was very passionate about and spend an extra day or two there. These are some of the benefits of doing what you believe is right. I didn't deliver that course to that particular man, thinking that someone might recognize my contribution and invite me to deliver a similar course at one of my favorite beaches in South Carolina.
It’s a great example of attraction, not promotion, and giving. I saw a quotation. It's interesting. This is occurring to me. The way it was shared with me was described as a Sufi saying. I don't know who said what, but a Sufi saying. It said, “If we give all our nothingness to God, he gives us everything.” There's a lot in there. I don't even know how to tie that up in a show like this, but the point is simply that you are acting from your foundational faith core from a place of service and recognizing what comes back, not giving so that it comes back, but that it does. You've beautifully stayed the course. I feel like I could spend another at least three months listening to you and stories and there's so much to tell.
I hear the voice of Jesus saying, “If you are going to come after me, deny yourself.” That's that nothingness. He said, “You make yourself of no report. Pick up my cross and follow me.” He told the twelve disciples, “You will become fishers of men.” That means that we're going to invest our lives in the lives of others. At the same time, there's another principle where he said, “Give and it shall be given unto you.” Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over shall men have given unto you in the same measure that you've given unto him to them.” It's a two-sided coin.
Servant Leadership: Jesus calls us to become fishers of men. It means investing in ourselves and in the lives of others.
When you come to him, you come broken. There's nothing to offer because he's paid it all for you. He says, “Once you give your life away, I'm going to give you a new life so that you can give that away.” My life is not my own. I've been purchased with a price. That has been another mindset and associated practice, giving myself away to other people. I was thinking early in preparation for this call. Even though I'm not an ordained minister, I had ministers in Raleigh come to me for mentorship, leadership, guidance, and counsel to help them frame their calling in life so that they could be the very best minister they could be.
They chose wisely. I hope and expect that they will pay it forward similarly to the next generation or the people coming up behind them. I'm grateful to you. I haven't worked with you, but I'm working with you now. I've expressed gratitude on behalf of all those people you've served along the way for the gifts that you've given them. I appreciate the way you carry your faith strongly without the need to evangelize. It drives and serves you. You serve others. It's a beautiful flow. Why can't it always be this simple and graceful?
Servant Leadership
As we prepare to close, I'm trying to see what we can unearth around how can we make it easier for people in the workplace to be true to their spirituality while they're leading. I will encourage them to think of some of the major attributes of servant leadership. The number one is awareness. If one does not have a full appreciation for what I used to say in the healthcare industry, what makes you tick, and what ticks you off, it would be hard to be successful in your environment.
Number two would be humility. Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. People can quickly recognize proud and bombastic people. People will shy away from you. That will repel them. If that's your purpose for work, go for it. If you are there to attract people to help them be successful, the organization to be successful, and they will help you be successful, deploy humility. Finally, as leaders, we're supposed to help others to grow and develop. Get to know your direct reports.
When I went to Washington to be a member of the senior executive service, that's another story. When I first was elected for that job, people said, “Who did you know? How did you become a senior executive and you've never worked in the Federal government? You must know someone.” I said, “I know someone who owns the entire Earth. He gave it to me.” That was an example where I had a legitimate reason to be truthful because it was a godsend for me to get that job in Washington.
One of the first things that I did, which was not earth-shattering, was to have a one-on-one conversation with all the twenty people in my portfolio. A couple of ladies said, “I had never been to this senior executive's office before.” It was mind-boggling to me to think that it was a corner office, but it wasn't huge. They were not allowed to have those kinds of relationships with the senior executive. That was one of the first decisions I made. I had quarterly follow-ups with everybody. I took the time to learn what ticked them off and how I could serve them to become better public servants for the taxpayers of the United States of America.
It's by simply being inclusive, welcoming, and looking for a door to open. Simple is the most beautiful.
The latest research on how to attract people to you to achieve your goals and leave a legacy at the Federal government. I didn't have to go to the public archives to learn. As I said at the outset, “Love people more than you love yourself. Help others get what they want.” That's what Zig Ziglar said. Pay attention to what upsets people and be a resource to help them grow and develop so that they can go home feeling good about themselves. They're in a better position not only to be a great worker but to be a great spouse, parent, friend, and family member.
Pay attention to what upsets people and be a resource to help them grow and develop.
Episode Wrap-Up
Thank you for sharing your wisdom for continuing. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me because I'm sure you've got people knocking on your door if they're smart. Thank you so much. I look forward to continuing this conversation in whatever form. I appreciate your presence and your sharing your experience. You share a journey with such simplicity. I am inspired by the humility and the service ethic.
It's funny. The expression I've heard is you're not thinking less of yourself. You're thinking about yourself less. I’m looking forward to our next conversation however that might be. I wish you the best of luck in everything, and please continue to carry that torch that you're carrying because it's lightening the path for many others. Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew. It's a pleasure to be with you. Best wishes to you.
Important Link
James McPherson – LinkedIn
About James McPherson
James McPherson has delivered legal, business operations, procurement, sales, and human capital consulting, coaching, mentoring, and learning services to 10 industries in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, and South America (3 Fortune 500 companies and 56 nations). He has diverse expertise and experience as an in-house and law firm corporate attorney, HR and Learning executive, in business development, sales, and procurement, and as a customer service leader. He has coached physicians, university administrators, executives, leaders, and professionals. James is also a subject matter expert in executive, leadership, management, and team development; performance, succession, and career management; and employee engagement.