
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
Results Require Intentional Communication - CHART - Ep 328
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We push past platitudes to the final R—RESULTS—tying identity, emotional intelligence, and clear “turn signals” to real execution. From apprenticeships to role‑flexing, we lay out practical ways to set goals, shift direction without whiplash, and build a culture that learns fast.
• Identity vs how the team identifies you
• The final R - RESULTS - and why it lags without trust
• Role‑flexing: Back to the "C" - Coach, Cop, Counselor, Commander
• Blue collar apprenticeships vs white collar leadership gaps
• Turn signals for strategic shifts across departments
• Psychological safety clarity accountability as execution fuel
• Excuse‑driven vs results‑oriented mindset
• Four key behaviors a leader needs to get Results: strategic thinking, being proactive, showing an empathetic side, be adaptable
Please take time to visit the 1st Lead U website— 1stLeadU.com and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite platform to help us reach more people and expand the message of FirstLeadU
Leaders get results by setting clear, measurable goals, and creating an outcome-driven roadmap that inspires their team.
Announcer: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 You, 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.
John Ballinger:Hello, I'm John Ballinger with First Lead View, and I'm here with my trusted co-host, Mr. Douglas Ford.
Douglas Ford:Hello, John. How are you today?
John Ballinger:I'm well, sir, and you?
Douglas Ford:I am doing great. Well, we are on our last R. Yes, because we now we had five R's. We had five.
John Ballinger:We err. We were. And we went back last week to relationship because we wanted to dig a little bit deeper into relationship. And uh which made me before we go into our last R, I was talking today with uh just a few people doing what I do in my normal day. And I made the I made the statement that leaders don't know their identity.
Douglas Ford:I would say that's true for a lot of people. Yeah.
John Ballinger:And and so I started kind of playing around with the word identity and identify. One letter separate, the T and the F at the end of the you know how similar their their uh vocabular or the definition is? I would imagine it was pretty similar. Pretty similar. Very similar words. Yeah. One letter difference. And when I t when I'm talking through with this particular two two leaders in an organization, and I asked them the question, so what do you want your team members to identify you as? When they when they think about you, what do they think about? One leader said a dirty word. I mean, that's that's how they that's how this person thinks people think of that person.
Douglas Ford:But is that what they want people to think of?
John Ballinger:And or they just think that's how people perceive that. They know that's how perceived because people tell them this is how they perceive this person.
Douglas Ford:Gotcha.
John Ballinger:That's not good.
Douglas Ford:Yeah. Right. Did they have a desire to change that?
John Ballinger:I think there is some desire to change that, but given the state of the person, the company, the people in the company, uh, there's some feeling that you've got to be a tough person to be able to deal with the organization, which I would agree with. Gotcha. So the identity of someone and how someone identifies with you is extremely important in leadership. Even if you think, you know what, I need to be this way because of X, you know, in this case, the the top team of people that I have here, gotta be tough. Is that truly how you want to be identified with? Then I have another meeting today with a young man who's searching for his identity. And no one's been truthful to him, his word. No one has been honest with me about who they see in me. I I believe as we start going into the last R, which is results, one of the things that's imperative that leaders do is understand who their identity is and how their team identifies with them. And they really need to sit down and consider to get the results I need as a leader, I really need to to dig into that. And and so part of our, I'm giving away part of our uh at the end, here's your homework. Is sit down and ask yourself, what is my identity and how do people identify with who I am?
Douglas Ford:People can use that as we go through the episode.
John Ballinger:Yeah.
Douglas Ford:So uh last R results.
John Ballinger:And I'm gonna read the definition. It is the outcome or the consequences of an action, experiment, process is typically observed and recorded after a study or investigation.
Douglas Ford:Well, that was a lot.
unknown:Yeah.
Douglas Ford:You wanna you want to give that another go so we can we can kind of comprehend what you just said?
John Ballinger:Results, the outcome or consequence of an action, experiment, or process typically observed and recorded after a study or investigation? So if you're going back, and here's a uh this is a question on the Rs. Can a leader build a trusting relationship by being respectful and resilient so they so that you, the leader, receive the expected results that you want and that you that's the question. The obvious answer is you should be able to. The difficulty is as a leader, can I build a trusting relationship? Can I learn to be respectful even in today's very difficult time? Be resilient while I'm doing it to get to the point where I uh achieve the the outcome or the results that I need for myself as in leadership and the organization I'm in charge of. Now, that's not easy. That's a big it's a statement. It can be done, but again, going back to the chart, unless you are embracing, and I'm gonna go back all to the seat for a second, if I can if I may. Please do. We're asking a leader to learn how to be a coach, a cop, a counselor, a commander. Think about what we're asking a leader to do. Morph in from what their natural bend is, how they've been trained, their DNA, and we're saying, no, you have to be these four at any given time. And as you progress through the chart, you're gonna be able to get to a point where results take place. Now, I did some light research this weekend.
Douglas Ford:As opposed to last week when you're on vacation and you had multiple days to do research.
John Ballinger:Yeah, I I just and I you know I'm not a big uh AI person. Like I don't I don't go out and just use Chat GPT or Gronk or any of those things, but I thought, you know, for this exercise, I really want the answer that is going to shoot out to all these different and pull back in. Okay. So here was my question. How many programs in the blue collar trade industry are there that starts with an apprentice program with a mentor, mentee, journeyman type class? That was that was my question. I'm gonna read there are not exact numbers for all apprentice journeyman programs in the blue-collar industry, but as of physical 2024, physical year 2024, there are approximately 27,000 registered apprenticeship programs in Nation.
Douglas Ford:Wow. I would not have guessed that many.
John Ballinger:I wouldn't have either. Then it started breaking them down. Tight fitters, shipbuilders, I mean, it just went down the list. Approximately half of these participants are in the construction industry alone. That makes sense. Okay. So then the question was: how many mentor programs in the white collar industry are there? How many programs are there for pastors? How many programs are there for government officials where you would take that same kind of process coming in brand new, you're going to be paired with, you're going to go through this process.
Douglas Ford:And we're talking like kind of official processes. Official process. Not informal or casual.
John Ballinger:This is this is an official, just like the journeyman program would be to a mentor in the electric, we'll say the electrician trade. Gotcha. Okay. There is no definitive account of any apprenticeship programs designed specifically to lead executives or leaders through the white-collar industry. While the number of white-collar and management focused apprenticeship programs is growing, the system is not as standardized as traditional trade apprenticeship programs. Most executive positions are reached through career progression, not apprenticeship programs. That was my results that I got back asking how to ask that question. So I I sit back and say, so we our society has established a series of up to 27,000 programs for people to do things that need to be done to lift society up, the business community. But the people over the people in those blue-collar trades do not have a specific program that they go through in order to lead those 27,000 programs. That's not it. At the sound of my voice, I would challenge any MBA program person to come on our podcast to tell me as they were going through their MBA program, here's what they learned about leadership development for themselves and how they're going to implement it inside an organization in their MBA program.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, well, I think if you just think about the idea of leadership development, I mean most well, there certainly are companies that have leadership development programs within them. And I'm sure they have curriculum that they've developed or that they utilize. But when you think about you know John Maxwell's of the world, you think about other kind of private organizations that are developing leadership, and it goes back, I think, a lot to what we talk about, which is in a lot of leadership roles it's left to the individual to do their own personal development to try to get to some sort of professional success. That may be a very formal process that you go through classes, or it may just be you may be naturally inclined to pick up the information you need to develop yourself as a leader. But um, yeah, I mean, certainly the military would be a great example of a leadership mentoring program.
John Ballinger:You know, it didn't come and none of the results brought the military into it because I was very specific about pastors, business leaders, and government officials. And I ask you this question, and maybe we talked about it on the last podcast. Just because someone's elected official, does that automatically flip a switch in them and then now they're a leader?
Douglas Ford:Yeah, no, we know that answer.
John Ballinger:Yeah. Well, I'm gonna say the same thing about pastors. Just because you graduate seminary or Bible college doesn't flip a switch in you and all of a sudden make you a leader that you need to be for yourself and the organization. Right. Now, you go on down to the business. Here, here the system is telling us there's no formal process or program for the white-collar trade industry. It's a it's a series of progressions. That's what it's saying. Yet we'll take some of the most difficult trade industries in America and we'll develop programs for them, require them to go through it. Like you can't, you can't pass go until you do these things to do this thing. But the people leading those organizations don't have to go through some kind of process. My point being to all that with results is how do we expect to get the results that we need to get as leaders if we're not willing to put in the time and effort to do the things we need to do to develop ourselves, yet we're expecting people that work for us to do that. My my you can't. You shouldn't. And we're failing those 27,000 groups of people and everybody else because we won't do the hard things to do the hard thing.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, we are actually going to be participating in a group locally where we're going to go in and share some emotional intelligence uh scenarios with them and give them the opportunity to um act those out in their small groups to talk about those, talk about ways that they can improve. I mean those those types of things on a regular basis is what helps you grow as a leader because I mean we've talked about it's the same as journaling. And when you you know when you're journaling, you kind of look back to look forward. When you're in some of these kind of uh scenarios uh where you're kind of active learning, you use that to look ahead. Like how would I deal with that? So um, yeah, I think it's crucial, and of course we're we're kind of developing a process at firstly you uh that will help people do that. But I think it's crucial for people to figure out what they can use, how they can use the resources they have to systematically start to develop themselves so that they can become a better leader.
John Ballinger:Yeah. We we that class that we just had, the beta class, uh, I I've got a personally, I've got some messages sent back to me from people that are in that class saying that's what's needed. And our age range, rem remind tell the audience what the age range was with the people in our leadership 27 to 70. That's a pretty big age range.
Douglas Ford:There were there were multiple people, it wasn't just two people. There were multiple people in the air.
John Ballinger:Yeah, but the the age range was we had young to older in the group that want to know how do I learn to lead myself well so I can learn my lead my team well. So it's important to get the results that are needed for yourself and your organization that you lean in and and again, very important. Building relationships, learning to be respectful, and be resilient as a leader. Now, in today's workplace, how does a leader get maximum results from themselves and then from their team? In today's environment that we're we're dealing with, how does how does that happen? I'm gonna tell you how that are you asking the question, Mr. Ford?
Douglas Ford:I did. I mean, I was going to ask you the question, but since you ask yourself, go ahead and answer it.
John Ballinger:I want to answer the question. Does that mean I'm crazy? Leaders get results by setting clear, measurable goals and creating an outcome-driven roadmap that inspires their team. The audience has heard me. If you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, one of the things that I described is a leader must learn to give turn signals to their team. Because there's a frustration level that happens to everyone that's a driver when they're driving down the road and they're they're uh the car in front of them just abruptly stops and turns, it takes you into a lot of times a place of anger and frustration. You have to think about your team that way. If you do not, if you go in and you set these these goals one week and say, This is the way we're headed, and then Monday morning you come in with no turn signal whatsoever and say, abandon those goals. Now this is where we're headed, and this is what we're gonna do. You have just completely frustrated your team.
Douglas Ford:So let me ask this question. How do you have that conversation which may need to happen on a semi-regular basis because market conditions change, business changes, priorities change, there's there's plenty of good reasons why you need to change direction on a semi-regular basis. Because you've experienced this as we've been involved in organizations where you have shared directions and you have uh provided turn signals and it just goes over. You know, it's just like it just goes over their head, there's no response, there's uh so how do you have that conversation in a way that engages your team and helps them understand that you are providing them with turn signals, you need to be that specific.
John Ballinger:Yes. Yeah. Because most people that are are working, and depending on the uh industry of people that you're working with, if you're working with a bunch of linear thinking people, you better be able to over-communicate turn signals because they'll get so laser focused on the project that you can be talking to them and you could be looking through them and they don't hear words you're saying.
Douglas Ford:So that necessitates the idea of relationship, but you need to know who your people are, you need to know how to communicate to them, you need to know individually how to communicate to them.
John Ballinger:Right. So let me let me give you an example. So let's take three departments in a company. Okay, and let's say this is an a company that has an engineering department, okay, a construction trades department, and the marketing and uh branding department. Okay. So I'm gonna I'm gonna be talking about shifts with those three departments.
Douglas Ford:Okay, this is the way you would approach the discussion with these three different departments. Right.
John Ballinger:I'm gonna go into the engineering department, knowing that it's a bunch of linear thinking people, and I'm gonna I'm gonna have to grab their attention and I'm gonna ask them to forget what they're doing right now. I need you to just totally forget what you're doing right now and listen to what I'm saying. Okay. And then I'm gonna start with I know we were headed in this direction. This is still important, but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take you two and I'm gonna continue moving you down the pike, and you three, I'm gonna have to change directions with you, and I need you to go this way. And I'm gonna separate the two because I don't want to lose the momentum of what's going on with these two. And I I want to change directions and move this direction and sit down and have a conversation. So I'm gonna I'm not even gonna keep these two in the room because that's just gonna cloud what they don't need to know it. Keep keep going, keep keep going. And I'm gonna have a clear conversation with them, and then I'm gonna ask the question, and you've heard me ask this is there anything that you heard me say that you don't understand.
Douglas Ford:Which can be a difficult question to answer, to be honest. Well, because they understand the words, right? They understand English, uh, but they may not understand the intent, the meaning, or really what the weight of that conversation actually entails.
John Ballinger:Right. But here's why here's why I know I've got to do this with linear thinkers. I'm gonna say, because you're reflective thinkers, which linear thinkers are, tomorrow at 2 o'clock, come back to the table with any questions you've got. I had I had a conversation Monday. Today is Tuesday at Tuesday almost evening. And I had a conversation Monday that elicited a response finally from the person I had Monday morning because I know this person's a reflective thinker. And I didn't say reflect on this and respond to me. I just knew that in the meeting I was gonna get very little communication because they are a reflective thinker, and the day at 5 o'clock I get a text. I've been thinking. That's the same way the linear thinkers. I'm gonna leave the linear thinkers with that. Mark 2 o'clock, come back to the table with any questions you've got based on what you've heard today, and I'm gonna plow forward. That amount of time, which is could be 30 minutes that I sit down and show them here's the turn signal, and it may be 30 minutes or an hour. Is that hour and a half of my time and their time worth it to get maximum results from them? Absolutely, all day long. Okay. I'm gonna leave there and I'm gonna go to the construction trades department. I'm gonna tell them what I need them to do. Most of them are very uh, most construction people can see things that aren't built by looking at blueprints and designs or even somebody saying, hey, this is what I need to do. That means they have a more creative mind. And the most I'm gonna get into them with um I is eye rolls and some conversation after I leave, they're gonna have heard me, but then they're gonna they're gonna chide and make fun and all this stuff when I leave. So here we go again on the roller coaster, things like that. But they will listen to what the turn signal is because in the in their world, with all the different aspects that they work with, they're used to gear shifting, and the best that they can do is just make fun of it. I'm gonna leave there and go to the marketing department, and I'm gonna have the marketing department say, you know what, this is this was important.
Douglas Ford:This is where you're really gonna get your results.
John Ballinger:This is where I'm gonna get the maximum eye roll. Is I'm gonna talk to the team about it because most of them are very creative in their mind. They may actually push back and say things to me as I'm talking about turn signals. Especially if I say, tell me if if what I said, did you hear and understand why I said, there could be people in that department that say, well, I this is how I heard it, is this how it was intended to be meant? They they will ask questions, and I would want them to ask questions. So very reflective, uh jovial, talk about it, talk about me when I'm leaving, kind of mentality, more serious because they want to get it right, because they don't want anything leaving their department that's gonna make them look bad.
Douglas Ford:Or the organization.
John Ballinger:Well, yeah. Which in their mind, as the organization is pointing to the marking team.
unknown:Yeah.
John Ballinger:What have I done? I've spent an hour, hour and 15 minutes changing directions, but as a leader, I need to make darn sure that the directions I'm giving them come with turn signals and communication so that they can move forward. Otherwise, there's significant frustration. And here's here's the here's the gold nugget, Doug. Let's say that all of that total was three hours. If I don't do that, how much time is lost in productivity if I don't do that?
Douglas Ford:It's easily 10% of that. I mean 10 times that. 10 times that.
John Ballinger:At a minimum. Right? So leaders to get the results you need. And I know we're we're up on a break. We're probably way past the break, but leaders to get the results, it is critical that you know who you're talking to, how to speak to them. And in today's environment, with as fast as things move, make sure you're using turn signals to do it. We'll do that.
Douglas Ford:We hope that in every episode you'll 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 position 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 FirstLeak D. We would really appreciate you clicking on the subscribe button to help us reach more people and expand the message of FirstLeed D. And please take time to visit the FirstLeadG website. That's number one, ST, the word me, and the letter B.com. Firstly.com. Number one, ST, the word lead, and the letter D.com. I hope you have a great day as you continue to learn through first lead. You today we are talking about the final R, the fourth R in our chart box tick, which is results. And we've been talking about how do you get results. And so some of the research I was able to do uh for this episode was really around how do leaders act uh in relation to the teams that they lead. And there was a couple things that stood out. So four kind of quick uh high-level concepts, uh, one of the things that uh leaders need to do is they need to foster a culture of trust and psychological safety. And we've talked about that before. I mean, if there's a lot of uh fear in an organization, nobody's gonna be speaking up. And uh so to create that culture of trust and psychological safety, first you want to encourage risk taking. That means you want to solicit ideas, you want to encourage people to put their thoughts out there, and then you need to handle those suggestions, thoughts appropriately, because if you are misusing that time or you're not responding properly, uh, people are going to not want to share uh that information. Um the next one is to clarify and streamline communication. We talked just a a good bit uh in the previous uh set segment about thinking about who you're talking to. Be clear and concise with them, give them room to think about it if they need to, give them room to uh kind of make jokes about it if they need to, also give them the opportunity to ask the questions they need to get the clear uh definition of what uh you want as a leader or where we may be going as an organization. So that's good stuff. We've got a couple more empower through intelligent leadership. That means that you're going to serve the team, you're gonna share credit and take the blame. We all know that good football coaches you know, credit the team for the win, accept the responsibility for the loss, right? Um, and then leverage the accountability. Finally, we want to create a cycle of continuous learning and improvement. We talk about that all the time. If you're not working on developing yourself, you're probably missing something. Uh so you provide continuous feedback, celebrate successes, and learn from failures. You know, and this is something that I continue to work on for myself, uh, for the members of my family, for members of my team, is I think too often we don't take the time to celebrate successes appropriately. And then we look at failure as defeat. And I know this has been said by many per people, but the thing that I heard uh that stuck with me most was uh a couple years ago when Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles had been to the Super Bowl and they lost. And a reporter asked Jalen, what do you think about that? Yeah, but when you're reflecting on the day, what do you think? He goes, Well, you either win or you learn. And I was like, that was a pretty strong statement. That's strong.
John Ballinger:That's great, that's green onion strong right there.
Douglas Ford:Anyway, so that those are just some of the things that uh as you think about results, how can you as a leader get results and help your team? accomplish what you need, create trust and psychological safety, be clear and streamlined in your communication. Empower them through intelligent leadership and create a cycle of continuous learning and improvement.
John Ballinger:That's great. As you were talking through that, something popped in my mind that we said a lot in the military, especially in aviation. Easy.
Douglas Ford:This is PG These are not all they're not always PG things.
John Ballinger:We said as a leader, you're either excuse driven or results oriented. Oh that's good. And and I want the leaders to really reflect on that. Excuse driven or results oriented. If your first reaction to a failure taking place with yourself or the organization is to make an excuse about it, you really need to sit back and and and reflect and think through that. Because as you're failing yourself in being that way, your team is sinking. Just like you talked about the coach. If we win the team wins. If we lose the coach is like it's on me. Too many leaders today start pointing fingers at every we're dealing with something right now with a business leader who is pointing fingers at everybody but himself. And we personally know for a fact that the problem's with the business but no never admit that's a problem. So listen to this audience write it down. I'm either excuse driven or I'm a results oriented person and and really reflect on that.
Douglas Ford:Well and when you think about results oriented I mean that orienting yourself uh in a direction and with a purpose and you know I've I've used the word orient a lot today for some reason so that's that's just kind of sticking in my brain. Yeah.
John Ballinger:So as we as we kind of close out uh this uh the results podcast results happen when a leader learns how to apply building relationships building respect through resiliency to navigate the treacherous waters of today's personal and business climate. And I use the word treacherous waters because as I'm thinking about a ship being tossed around in treacherous waters what it takes for that captain to get that ship through those treacherous waters versus if you set out set sail and everything's smooth safe. Well you need a good chart you gotta have a good chart. I think we'll talk about that to do that I've got four things that I'm bringing to the table that are from me not from an article but these are things that I personally do myself that help me with results. Okay? Can I share those? Please do yeah I really think today's leader needs to be much more strategic in how they think so strategic thinking is critical in today's leadership. I think they need to be proactive in problem solving they don't need to wait and hope it goes away hope it fixes itself sweep it under the rug let's go ahead and and solve the problem they need to be empathetic yet motivating at the same time so I hear you I feel what's going on I understand but here's how we're going to do it and let's let's you know that's that cheerleadership that's needed today and then lastly be adaptable make sure that as you're being a strategic thinker you're solving problems proactively you're being empathetic and motivating the entire time you're being adaptable to your surroundings because the reality is you can have all the education you want as a person go to college get your master's get your PhD but if you don't learn how to apply that there's going to be no transformation for you or your organization. And I really feel like at the end of the day if somebody asks me John what what are we missing in business when it comes to you talked about earlier a program we we've missed taking education into an application process to develop transformation because Douglas that's the hard part it's it's like it's like when we had that gentleman up at the one organization he was building a horseshoe for it and that slag that kept coming off of that metal it's hot it'll burn you and and you know transformation is hot and it's it'll burn you it it you have to expose yourself.
Douglas Ford:He was up there with no apron on no gloves I mean he had did he have gloves he had gloves on but I mean that stuff was going all over the place hot well and you know after the first couple times and he knocked the slag off of it you thought oh well he's he must have gotten goes back to the fire comes back horse lag goes to the fire comes back more slag like what an hour an hour and a half or something like that? Yeah to make one horseshoe one horseshoe. Of course we did ask him to make the most difficult horseshoe.
John Ballinger:We we did we did that but at the same time I'm thinking good gracious that's that's a complete process that he's gone through that really looks like leadership development.
Douglas Ford:It's just all right a little bit more a little bit more put it back in the fire a little bit more yeah and when you see that what the horseshoe looked like at the end and where it started which was just a a sa a iron bar and then it's formed to the shape of a horseshoe. Everybody thinks it's got nail holes in it it's got a ridge in it so that you can put nails in it to hold it to the hoof I mean it was amazing to watch the process.
John Ballinger:Yeah and the fact like I said that it was an orthopedic horseshoe which was much more difficult which means that the sides were different uh thicknesses because the horse his hoof needed a different so it's it's like a an it was an orthopedic horseshoe that's what he called it the same thing for us as leaders there there may be much more slag taken off of one leader than another or different slag taken off one.
Douglas Ford:And you have to keep going back to the fire. Gotta keep going back to the fire to refine yourself.
John Ballinger:Yeah so you know you said something about chart earlier I'm gonna toss it to you to talk about that.
Douglas Ford:Yeah so if uh you just joined us or recently joined us uh you can download the chart acrostic from our website firstlyju.com uh we encourage you to go and do that uh there's ways to communicate with us to send us messages out on the website so uh if you'd like to do that we'd love to hear your thoughts on chart any specific element of chart or where we're going as we head toward the final letter T and the four words of the T.
John Ballinger:So great I appreciate that Mr. Ford and remember leaders in order to lead your teams well you must first lead everyone