As a Leader, Your job is NOT to Make the Horse Drink, Your Job is to Make the Horse Thirsty

As far as formal education goes, I’ve had more than most. In terms of career advancement, I’ve had more formal education than what was needed, but in terms of understanding the world around me, I haven’t had nearly enough. I’ve been taught by some amazing professors who have had a profound impact on my career and life, but it was only in the past few weeks that I came to the realization that the best instructor I’ve had for success in business and leadership was found far from the classroom. That instructor was a man who barely graduated high school; my father.

Business skills are important, and you can learn them from the classroom, but those skills are not what separate you from the thousands of other people who have the same skills. When I think about the toughest challenges I have faced in my career, the key to navigating them successfully had little to do with business skills and everything to do with understanding people and being clear on my values. That was where my father excelled, and he passed that wisdom on to me.

It's amazing how many problems can be avoided by respecting people, knowing their “why” and being clear on your own values. My father modeled respect for people of any station in life and he taught me that your values should never be compromised. When you pay a price for staying true to your values and you feel a sense of pride rather than regret, you know you are committed to your values.

As a leader, you are required to make some tough calls. Those calls often come down to a choice between what is right for the moment vs what is right for the future. What will be popular for people today is often at odds with what will be right for people in the future. If you are unclear on your values, you lean toward the immediate impact of your decisions. If you are clear on your values, you lean toward the long-term impact of your decisions. A core competency of mine has been my ability to think long-term and I credit my father for that.

When I was managing people for the first time, I complained to my father about some of my direct reports because they weren’t following my direction. At the end of my venting, I summarized the situation with what I thought was the only logical conclusion, and said, “Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right?”

My father didn’t let me off the hook that easy. He told me as a leader, I need to dig deeper when people don’t take my direction and I need to look at myself before looking at them. That was his message, but those were not the words he used to express it. ?

When I said, “Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right?” he responded with, “Son, you’re a leader now. Your job isn’t to make them drink, your job is to make them thirsty.” That was the end of his instruction, but not the end of my learning. I’ve lost count of the number of leadership books I’ve read or classes I’ve taken, and I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a more perfect description of leadership than that. I have used that concept ever since to teach leaders, coaches, and educators.

He wasn’t perfect, but my father got the big things right and I’m grateful for the many ways he made me who I am today. He was my biggest fan and he encouraged me to pursue my dreams. He believed I was better than I was, and I didn’t want to let him down.

My father passed away on February 17th and I’ve been thinking a lot about him. He had a major impact on my life. He made me aspire to be a better father, a better husband, a better leader, and a better man. In many ways he was a simple man with a simple life. When you consider the impact he’s had on those around him, you see that he was anything but simple.

He was a man of very few words, and he underestimated the value of the wisdom gained from his experiences in life. That was unfortunate because we should never stop learning, and experience can be a priceless teacher. Educational opportunities are all around us if we are open-minded and pay attention. My father is a great example of that, and I credit my tendency to seek understanding of people through observation to him.

If I have half the impact on the people in my life that he had on his, my life will be a success. It's a lofty aspiration, but eminently worthy of pursuit. Rest in peace, Dad, and thanks for a lifetime of business, leadership, and life wisdom.