1st Lead U - Leadership Development
This podcast, now in Season 3, is dedicated to self-development, self-awareness, and learning to lead oneself so listeners can lead others well. If someone cannot lead themselves well, it will be difficult for them to be an effective leader of others. This podcast will help listeners understand what it means to 1st Lead U and build confidence in themselves and their leadership ability. Personal Growth Coach John Ballinger has spent 35 years developing the knowledge and material he shares with individuals, business owners, and leaders from a variety of areas.
1st Lead U - Leadership Development
The Origin Story Revisited - Ep 313
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Welcome to the origin story of 1st Lead U, where hosts John Ballinger and Douglas Ford explore why America faces a leadership crisis and how personal development creates the foundation for professional success. This encore presentation revisits the podcast's founding philosophy: before you can effectively lead others, you must first lead yourself.
The statistics tell a troubling tale. Companies invested $93.6 billion in professional development in 2012, yet that figure has declined to $82.5 billion by 2020. Meanwhile, phenomena like the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting reveal a workforce desperate for authentic leadership. As John shares from conversations with CEOs, many organizations don't even recognize the importance of creating a "culture of care" for their team members.
Through personal stories—including John's transformative experience in Army basic training where he learned creative problem-solving by putting socks over his boots—the hosts demonstrate how self-awareness and emotional intelligence form the cornerstone of effective leadership. John reveals how his own emotional quotient improved from 63 to 93 through deliberate personal development, illustrating that growth is possible with intentional effort.
The hosts recommend three essential leadership books: "Emotional Intelligence 2.0," "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and "The Speed of Trust." These resources help leaders develop self-awareness, establish effective habits, and build the trust necessary for high-functioning teams.
Perhaps most importantly, the episode explores how every employee brings two "suitcases" to work daily—their professional skills and their personal circumstances. What happens during work hours affects home life, and vice versa. True leaders recognize this reality and develop the emotional intelligence to navigate both realms effectively.
What happens when you put leadership ahead of personal growth? A staggering $7 trillion in lost productivity from disengaged workers, according to a 2017 Gallup poll.
Ready to transform your leadership journey? Start by leading yourself first. Subscribe now and join us next week as we continue our CHART series, exploring human nature and the resources needed for our collective growth.
Hello First to Lead you leaders, Douglas Ford here this week. John and I are on vacation, so we thought it would be a great time to revisit our very first episode and provide some context for those who are new to the podcast and reminders for our longtime listeners about why First to Lead you originally began. We will be back next week with another part of our chart series as we continue to explore the H in chart, which stands for we are human, we have a human nature that needs to be provided with human resources, not the department usually found in companies, but real resources that help us along our human journey. And finally, if we lead properly or if we are being led properly, we are all more likely to produce human capital which benefits the individual, the team and the organization. So we hope you enjoy this encore presentation of the First Lead you origin story and we look forward to being back with you again next week as we explore the second H human nature in the chart series. Have a great week.
Announcer:H human nature in the chart series. Have a great week. Welcome to First Lead you, a podcast dedicated to building leaders, expanding their capacity, improving their self-awareness through emotional intelligence and developing deeper understanding of selfless leadership.
John Ballinger:Hello America and welcome to First Lead U where we believe selfless leadership is essential. America is suffering a leadership crisis. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence is the key to developing selfless leaders.
Announcer:Now here is personal growth coach John Ballinger man.
John Ballinger:I am excited today. Why are you excited, John? Well, first of all I'm excited because my partner and friend, Douglas Ford, for three years has been saying John, get this stuff out of your head and out to the public so that leaders can become better leaders in America.
Douglas Ford:And that excites me that we're doing this. I'm super excited.
John Ballinger:And I really am excited about it because it seems like from three years ago, when you first started putting some light pressure on me to do this, that things have really gone downhill in America from a leadership just in that three years. That things have really gone downhill in America from a leadership just in that three years. You think about COVID, the great resignation, quite quitting inflation. I mean, doug, that's some tough stuff.
Douglas Ford:We've been through a lot the last three years.
John Ballinger:Yeah, so I you know we were talking about when we started preparing for this that maybe this is the right time to actually be doing this, because we are in a leadership crisis in America and I personally am excited to launch First Lead you podcast to help leaders in all parts of society learn that self-development and personal growth leads to professional success. It's really a core belief statement we have as an organization. I have myself, I've carried myself that way for over 30 years and those two components of personal growth leading to professional success really hasn't permeated in society.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, I agree, I think we we focus on one much more than the other, which, uh, is the purse, uh, the professional side, uh, and you know, the numbers really bear that out. I mean, the amount of money that's spent on professional development every year is just staggering.
John Ballinger:It is. I was reading some statistics to prepare for this, and in 2012, companies spent $93.6 billion annually to train staff annually to train staff. Since that time, that number has actually decreased up to 2020, which is the last statistics that we could pull down to 82.5 billion.
Douglas Ford:So about a $10 billion per year drop off from 2012 to 2020.
John Ballinger:Dropping off and the crisis of leadership growing, while we're lowering the amount of time and effort were spent on training individuals.
Douglas Ford:And that was just money that was spent on professional development. That was not. There's no personal development, no personal growth. That's just how to be a better worker, Right.
John Ballinger:And another statistic it's quite disturbing to me is that companies spent approximately $2 billion to bring motivational speakers in in order to implement that $90 to $80 billion, whatever they were spending that year. So they would bring these people in, send you to a conference, motivate you. Go back to work two days later, same old rut well, what are they doing when they get back, though?
Douglas Ford:is there anything that's supporting when they get back from the conference, that that helps them maintain that kind of that mountaintop experience they had at the conference?
John Ballinger:they're probably really trying to figure out where to put that bag of stuff that they got at the conference, like what am I going to do with the swag?
John Ballinger:bag yeah, the swag like what I do with this stuff and I thought, man, that is crazy that we'll spend that kind of money and and have the lack of success we have in our team members after after these conferences. I recently read the speed of trust by ste M R Covey and he's the son of Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and in the book he referenced a 2017 Gallup poll that said over $7 trillion in productivity was lost to disengaged workforce.
Douglas Ford:Disengaged workforce. What's that mean?
John Ballinger:I don't care. I mean really, if you, if you think about like I'm going to go do a J O B, I'm going to clock in, I don't care, cause you don't care, kind of attitude and because of that, you have an unmotivated workforce that goes in and cares about taking care of the widget, the customer, whatever it is, and $7 trillion almost one care of the widget, the customer, whatever it is, and $7 trillion almost one-third of the GDP is lost due to disengaged workforce.
Douglas Ford:Is that you think that's probably what led to the great resignation that happened in the midst of COVID?
John Ballinger:Oh, I'm sure when people went home and realized what am I doing. I think it was a wake-up call, because COVID happens, the great resignation happens and then quiet quitting starts, inflation sets in and now you've got pandemonium in the workforce and you've got companies calling us and saying what do we do? I mean we're talking about large, large companies calling saying what do we do? And when I ask the question, so what's the culture like in large companies? Calling saying what do we do? And when I talk, ask the question so what's the culture like in your company? The what? I recall one CEO asking me and me telling him he's like what do we do? And I said, well, I think we've got to work on the culture in the company. And he said what kind of culture? And I said a culture of care that you care about the team member. And he said what kind of culture? And I said a culture of care that you care about the team member. And he said is that a thing? And I said oh, what's the thing?
Douglas Ford:It's not a thing. It's the thing it's essential.
John Ballinger:It's absolutely essential. So I would encourage our listeners that are interested in self-development, personal growth, to read emotional intelligence 2.00, the speed of trust and seven habits. They're excellent resources and they really speak to the importance of personal development leading to professional success so so all right.
Douglas Ford:So we just made our first recommendation. We did so. Emotional intelligence give us a little bit. Uh, what, what? What if I read that? What am I going to get out of that, and why should I read that?
John Ballinger:Well, I would say that most Americans, especially those in leadership positions, know what their IQ is, or what an IQ is, and and we're talking about professional development we're really big on the IQ thing. What's how smart are you? There will be people tell you how smart they are. What we do not ask is what's your EQ, or your emotional quotient, and that's what gives you the ability to handle the stress, the pressure, the, what I call the the various things that come at you every day. It's it's actually your soft skills, people skills that allow you to go from issue to issue, crisis, crisis, problem, problem, and the person you're dealing with at that time has no idea that you just got through working on two other crisis no idea whatsoever. So the emotional quotient is critical to helping you as a leader in the workplace and it's part of personal development, because it's something a lot of times, you have to work on. I had to work on it, my emotional quotient and in the mid eighties was 63 out of a hundred.
Douglas Ford:That's not good.
John Ballinger:It wasn't. I had a bad temper. I would let things get to me. I would have to force people to follow me instead of people willingly be led by me. And in 2022, I was uh challenged to take it again the IQ test and the EQ test and my IQ was the same thing. It was in the mid eighties, it was one 18, but my EQ had increased to 93.
Douglas Ford:Well, that is good, that's a good improvement.
John Ballinger:It's a great, but think about the years that it took in personal development to increase that score. And when you read the book, it'll tell you that one point is a huge leap in your emotional intelligence so so all right.
Douglas Ford:So I'm gonna get the book. Just walk me through this. I'm gonna read the book. After I'll read the book, I'm just I'm gonna be better. What what?
John Ballinger:I don't think you're better. I think that's just the beginning. I think the test that's in the book lets you know here's where you're lacking in your emotional quotient and your emotional intelligence. And then you have to start working, much like an athlete has to go be coached in the ball game to perform in the ball game. But if that person wants to be better, they have to hit the gym. That person that plays basketball that wants to shoot three point shot has to go into the gym. That person that plays basketball that wants to shoot three point shot has to go into the gym when nobody else is there and shoot. And one of the things that we don't do because we leave work, we're so exhausted that we don't even think about all right, what do I need to do after I leave work to personally develop myself? We don't. We're just just done, but you've got to put the time in in order to grow okay, so.
Douglas Ford:So emotional intelligence 2.0 has an assessment in it. Yes, that I would take, and that's going to tell me maybe we're. That's, I guess, my benchmark of where I'm starting. That's a baseline, yep, and then I'm going to read some other instructions that's in there and then at some point in the future I'll probably want to try to take that again. Am I six months?
John Ballinger:I'm a year, probably a year yeah, let's and and don't do not take it get your baseline and then do nothing and expect to have increased in that year. You have to put effort and work in and we're going to be talking through the podcast on how you actually put the effort in what you need to do. But part of it is you've got to get in the game. You can't just be on the sidelines and expect to grow.
Douglas Ford:And well, and one of the ways that we can get in the game is, uh, the seven habits. So, uh, I, I personally I really liked this book. I think it's a great book for people to read. Stephen Covey does a great job of laying out Now, these aren't seven habits that he came up with. He did a lot of research talks about in the book. Probably a lot of our listeners have read this book. It's very popular with even professional development. It's a very popular book. But he talks about all the research he did to try to distill these seven habits out of really the course of history and what people who have been effective did on a regular basis to make them effective.
John Ballinger:Yeah, and like when my journey started as a kid I mean as a basic trainee I went in the Army on a dare yeah, and I remember going in because I'm a very competitive person, a high energy, got to get it done, kind of a watch me guy, you go sit down and watch me do this. And so I had in my head that out of the 330 people in my unit that first day of basic training, I was going to be number one out the door in formation.
Douglas Ford:I'm going to let you stop right there and we're going to be right back and we're going to let you tell the rest of that story. Hello First League Youth listeners, douglas Ford here. I want to take just a few seconds during this break to say thank you for spending a few moments with us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of being a leader. We hope that in every episode, you find some bit of information that will help you on your own personal leadership journey. In order to reach more people and to improve our positioning on all the podcasting and social media platforms, it's important that you subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcasting platform, like Apple, spotify or any other platform where you listen to First Lead you. We would really appreciate you clicking on the subscribe button to help us reach more people and expand the message of First Lead you, and please take time to visit the First Lead you website. That's the number one S-T, the word lead and the letter youcom Firstleadyoucom. Number one S-T the word lead and the letter youcom. I hope you have a great day as you continue to learn to first lead.
Douglas Ford:All right, we're back, john, and you were in the middle of the story. I cut you off, because I wanted us to be able to have the full story and one kind of one segment. But before you get back into that story, I want to talk about the last book that we referenced in the previous segment is the Speed of Trust, and that's one of the books that we talk about and we recommend when we're working with companies. And why do you like that book? Why is that one of the three that we typically recommend?
John Ballinger:I've learned over the years that a team is led well when they can trust the leader. They can trust the leader in times of crisis. They can trust the leader in great times because they know that there's going to be cohesiveness with the company or the people. And the speed of trust. When I started reading it, it and it just so happens to be written by Stephen Covey's son, and the dad writes the forward in the book and he said this the trust factor was the missing link to really taking those seven habits and applying them in a much greater fashion in an organization. And so yourself, trusting your team and your people actually makes your life better as a leader, because you can actually empower them to do what it is you you selected them to do in the company and let them go do it. And so I think it's a great read and it's something that's probably one of the books that I have with me that's the most tattered and torn and has a lot of bookmarks and write-ups in it.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, so a quick recap on that. So Emotional Intelligence 2.0 really helps you start to create self-awareness about where you are. Seven Habits by Stephen Covey really helps you understand what you need to do from an actions. And still self-awareness, but how you need to perform kind of outwardly. And then the speed of trust is the organization, how the organization needs to act and how people need to act inside an organization to really develop a team. Yeah, I think speed.
John Ballinger:Of trust wraps around seven habits and emotional intelligence. I think you just kind of put a bow around it, if you will. Habits and emotional intelligence I think you just kind of put a bow around it, if you will, because once the team all gets involved in self-development through emotional intelligence and understands the seven, the habits that they need to take as a team, now you wrap that in trust and I tell teams this this may seem strange, saying this you'll get to the point where you trust each other so much that you could just know that the other person is going to take care of business.
Douglas Ford:Well, that's a great feeling.
John Ballinger:It is. It is and I call it actually the head nod. It's like you go in, here's what the issue is, here's what the solution is, and you just nod your head and you walk out and you go get things done and, um, I want teams to get used to the head nod. I think that's a great place to be.
Douglas Ford:Excellent, yep. So you were telling the story about basic training, you were starting down that road, and so tell us a little bit more about that. So this is really where your leadership, understanding of leadership and your leadership journey started. For uh, for yourself.
John Ballinger:It did. So I grew up in Knoxville, tennessee. Um went in the military on a dare and I go in and and my my goal. Because of this. I'm a self-starter, self-motivated, and I wanted to be the first one out formation that morning and I was going to prove to the other 329 people in my my company that I was Charlie in charge. I mean, I wanted to get out and make things happen.
John Ballinger:But two days prior in processing, the drill sergeant would ensure that we heard him say do not walk on my floor with your boots on. And I heard it for two days while I was in processing. That night I go to bed First day of basic training. After I'm processing I lay on top of the bed so I don't mess my bed up. You want to be ready to go? I'm ready to go. I jump out of bed when he starts beating on the proverbial garbage can. Throw on my uniform to include my boots, walk out the door, which are not supposed to be on the floor. Not supposed to be on the floor. I'm on the third floor of a four story building. I was in the third platoon and I looked down at the hallway and there stood the drill sergeant and he looked at me and I looked at him and he looked down at my feet and I looked down at my feet and my boots were on his floor.
Douglas Ford:That was not a good day.
John Ballinger:It wasn't because he came running at me screaming get down. I was just like panicking, like get out, Okay, I'm getting out. And he started to say two pushups and then when he said the words make this concrete floor grow grass, I knew I was in trouble.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, that's. That's going to be a hard task for sure.
John Ballinger:So I'm doing pushups first day, basic training five o'clock in the morning and all I see is socked feet walking by me. Everybody headed to the stairwell with their boots in hand and their sock feet to put their boots on and go down the stairwell Seemed like 15 minutes, I don't know, but I know my arms could not hold myself up. He told me to recover, take my boots off, walk 50 feet to the stairwell, put my boots back on and then walk down to the unit outside. I walk outside and everyone's in the front leaning rest position doing pushups and drill.
John Ballinger:Thanks to me. First morning, first day and the drill sergeant tells everyone to thank me for them doing that this morning because I decided to walk on his floor. And, douglas, I'm telling you that day, that morning, first day I was paralyzed because what I wanted to do showing people that I was a leader I failed miserably at that first day and it ate me alive that whole day and I was like what am I going to do to try and recover and show these guys I'm a leader? So all day I'm thinking about it and it just so happens we went to basic training Cold weather here was, uh, when it was very cold outside, and so we got some cold weather gear and there were some oversized green socks that we were issued and I thought I'm gonna put those socks over my boots and I'm gonna walk out and my boots wouldn't be on the floor but my socks would be on the floor.
John Ballinger:So I get up the next morning, do it again. Put those socks over my boots before I went to bed, put the boots on. I walked out of the door. There stood the same drill sergeant. He looked at me, I looked at him, he looked down and I looked down and he had this slight grin on his face, which is not very often, not often, at all and I walked past him to the stairwell, took my socks off, put them in my side pocket and I was the first one out.
John Ballinger:And 10 weeks later, uh, because my name wasn't called by my name through basic training, I hear my last name called and I didn't turn around because I wasn't used to being called by my correct last name and he came up to me and he said you know what I knew after that second day, you were going to be a leader and it just so happened at the end of the fifth day he may be a squad leader, and then I became a platoon leader before a basic training was over with. He said because you took a bad situation where you made a poor decision and come up with a solution within one day, and during that cycle there were more people that put green socks over their boots to save time to get down the stairs and so people started following that and it became a thing in basic training be able to get outside, so you didn't have to wait and stare. Well, and you know, when you've got 300 people trying to get downstairs, out one door and put boots on all that stuff, it is chaotic and a lot of people picked up on that. But he said I knew that's the day that you were going to be a leader and for me, I needed to recover for those that I was placed in charge of. And so it was really. It was.
John Ballinger:It was kind of the defining moment for, wow, you can't let your people down. And the way you don't let your people down is you. Figure out what you can do to ensure you develop yourself. Think for yourself, make sure that it's not about them, but it's about you developing yourself so that you can lead them. It's not their fault, Don't blame it on them, it's you and you've got to own it as a leader.
John Ballinger:So, yeah, that was a very critical time in my life and that led me on the journey that set me in this chair to do this podcast, and I was really amazed at how that developed out of basic training into what was called advanced individual training and then, through my military career, as I rose up in rank, I used personal development with my soldiers when they would have problems. A lot of the times it wasn't the military training or things that was going on, it was personal things in their life or life before they got into the military. After I left the military, it seemed a natural progression to start a risk management company, because I was in aviation, everything related to risk side investigation, just a lot of risk management in aviation and military. And so I started a risk management company and one of the things that stood out is that leaders aren't taught how to engage team members on a personal and professional level. Everything's about professional professional.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, engagement. So that's the second time we've kind of talked about that word just in this episode. So we had disengagement earlier, but people aren't really taught to engage people. So how, how do you think that? And what was your, your process of really trying to help leaders learn how to engage with their, their, their team members, whether it be, you know, uh, other leaders in the company or or workers that were there?
John Ballinger:Yeah, one simple question I ask people is when you throw back the covers in the morning, are you excited about going to work or are you like, oh crap, I got to go to work. And when they tell me which one, which is normally the oh crap, I got to go to work, it's like, well, why? And they'll tell me why. I don't like my boss, I don't like my job. I'm like you know, and as uh, I've mentioned this and you and I talking before, when I was on an airplane coming back from New York to Atlanta and the guy that's sitting next to me said uh, uh. I said is Atlanta home or New York? And he said no, it's Florida, I'm just going to Atlanta to get to Florida. And I said, oh, he said I'm retiring. And I said, oh, he said I'm retiring. And I said, oh, what'd you do? And he said I worked for the New York transit authority for 40 years and I said, oh, man, you must've loved that. And he said I hate it. Every day I hate it every day.
John Ballinger:And I'm like, why did you do it? And he said it was a J O B, it was just a job. And my mom got me the job out of college. That's just what I did and I and all those things are forming Like why? Why would we do a job we hated doing? Why would we do a job that we're not suited to do? It doesn't make us want to throw the covers back and go to work.
John Ballinger:And as I started the risk management company, started another company, an insurance agency to help people transfer risk from a risk management standpoint. Started a company that did claims management for people. Started another company that was a small business association, aggregating small business. It just everything centered around how could I help people become the best version of themselves personally and professionally at the same time and professionally at the same time. And that was a 35 year journey now that I've been on, which is, uh, I think leading to this uh podcast, first, lead you.
John Ballinger:Um, it's odd that when people hire people, they don't think about the baggage of the personal suitcase. And I try to take the word H, I, r, e out of business equation and put select. If you're going to select someone, like the professional teams do put them through a series of tests make sure they're suited for the job, make sure they want to do the job, make sure they're excited about the job, and then realize that there's two suitcases they bring. They bring their professional suitcase, which is on the resume that you read, but they also bring that personal suitcase with them and know that that's some unpacking that you're going to have to do as a leader in that organization.
Douglas Ford:And we talk about that when we go into organizations, about how to think about this. Because even though we've talked about the amount of money that was spent on professional development, the lack of time and effort that's spent on personal development in companies, it's that 8 to 5, 5 to 8, right? So whatever happens from 8 to 5 at the job place is going to go home and it's going to impact what happens from 5 until 8 the next morning and vice versa. So whatever's happening between 5 and 8 at home's going to be drug into the workplace between eight and five. And now all of my coworkers have to deal with whatever I brought in with me and they have no idea what I just brought in the door with.
John Ballinger:Yeah, there's a term in the business world where the employee asks what's the temperature of the boss today? And I tell business owners and leaders they should not have to ask that question, they shouldn't need to wonder did the boss come in mad because of something that happened in that eight to five? So that comes back to emotional intelligence. When you walk in the door, even if it has been bad, guess what? When you walk in the door, you're excited, you're there, you're leading the people. Because your inability to lead those people that day because of something that happened in the eight to five you weren't there is going to impact their productivity all day long.
Douglas Ford:And you're not talking about just, you know, faking it.
John Ballinger:You're not just no, absolutely not. I mean, it's literally. You know that you're the leader you come in. You are motivated to lead these people, no matter what's going on, even if it's you've been there for two hours and have dealt with three crisis. That next person you're going to run into that that needs to hear from you or ask you a question. You're motivated to lead that person well so that they can go accomplish their job.
Douglas Ford:You're motivated to lead that person well, so that they can go accomplish their job. Well, that's a great kind of ending point for us today in this first episode of First Lead you, and let's unpack that just a little bit. I think we talked about at the beginning. But First Lead you, how did we come up with that name? Where can people expect from that? Where are we going?
John Ballinger:to go with this podcast. Well, obviously, like most people do, you sit around and you play ping pong with what to name the podcast and what's going to resonate. And the more we talked about personal development leads to professional success. It was clear that in order to lead one person, you had to lead yourself first. One person you had to lead yourself first, and the more that you develop yourself, the one can become two, three and four. The more your emotional intelligence increases, the more you can handle from a capacity standpoint, because every person comes with his or her own sets of issues you're going to have to deal with, and if you don't learn how to first lead you, you will never learn how to first lead them. Excellent.
Douglas Ford:Excellent. Well, I think, uh, that's going to bring us to a close for today, but, uh, we appreciate you listening and over the next few weeks you'll hear more about this concept of first lead. You we're going to unpack some of the things that John's talked about in the meetings that he's had with corporate teams and some of the philosophies he's held to bring people along in that as well. So, john, I want to thank you for finally getting in front of the microphone and us putting this out for people to hear, and I look forward to exploring some of these questions and topics over the next few weeks with you.
John Ballinger:Thank you, look forward to doing it.
Douglas Ford:We hope you enjoyed this encore presentation of the Firstly Jew origin story and we look forward to being back with you again next week as we explore the second H, human nature, in the chart series. Have a great week. We'll see you next time.
