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Ep. 11 - Leading From Below
8 Plays11 days ago
In this episode, Ken Freire and Patrick Lowndes unpack the powerful idea of "leading from below" and how young professionals can become indispensable leaders even without formal titles. Drawing from biblical principles and real-world experience, they dismantle the false belief that authority is a prerequisite for leadership. Instead, they share five practical strategies that any believer can use to serve, lead, and influence from any level of an organization.
Resources Mentioned:
- Frontier Operator Forge (https://www.frontieroperators.com/forge)
- Join the Frontier Operator Community (frontieroperators.com/community)
- Take the Clarity of Calling Assessment (frontieroperators.com/calling)
Timestamps:
- 00:00 - Welcome and episode intro
- 01:22 - Shoutout to Forge community and launching the program in Denver
- 02:10 - False belief: "I can't lead until I have authority"
- 03:14 - Biblical model of leadership: Jesus' example in Philippians 2
- 06:14 - Step 1: Take initiative without overstepping
- 07:41 - Step 2: Master your role to free up others
- 09:43 - Step 3: Bring solutions, not just problems
- 11:44 - Step 4: Model a positive can-do attitude
- 13:02 - Step 5: Support and elevate your teammates
- 15:15 - Final encouragement: Pick one of the five steps and take action today
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Transcript
Introduction to Buried Talent
00:00:00
Patrick
Welcome to Buried Talent, the show for young professionals that tears down false beliefs about faith and work so you can unbury your God-given talent right where you are.
Meet Your Hosts: Patrick and Ken
00:00:11
Patrick
I'm Patrick Lowndes and with me my host, Ken Vrede. And today we're talking about leading from below, which is going to be a fun topic. I talk about this a lot when I'm in colleges especially like leadership classes.
00:00:25
Patrick
hey, before we jump in deep, let's do quick check in. Ken, how you feeling today, my man?
00:00:31
Dan Sanchez
You know, mentally I'm doing okay, but if some of you guys are listening and it sounds like I ate a frog, I kind of lost my voice last week and I'm still trying to recover from it.
00:00:41
Dan Sanchez
So we'll see. Hopefully you could be okay hearing my voice the way it is.
00:00:46
Patrick
I mean, it's a little bit of real life. If we're going to keep it 100 right here, that's what we have to get into.
Launching The Forge
00:00:53
Patrick
We actually, just a little bit of backstory,
00:00:56
Patrick
behind that. We were not at a big football game or something like that or a baseball game here in the Seattle Mariners are like still hanging on. It's we actually were launching one of our programs called The Forge and we're doing that in Denver at some conferences. We had just had a great time with everybody. So if you're listening and you're in the Frontier Operator Forge, here's a shout out to
Do You Need a Title to Lead?
00:01:17
Patrick
you guys.
00:01:18
Patrick
You guys are awesome. Shea, Tanner, Theo, uh corbin noel the whole bunch there you guys are you guys are awesome can i know i'm forgetting a few people so but we're just going to jump on into today's topic for leading from below because you came here to listen to that let's jump head first into that a little a little subtitle is is how to be the most valuable person any room even without a title and as you think about that ken Kind of just kicking us off. We always like to kind of tackle like a false belief.
00:01:49
Patrick
Can you just open that up for us? What is this kind of what does the world say about especially young professionals who are usually not like at a VP or some crazy title level? How does the world lie to us about what what its version of success or authority or leadership is?
00:02:04
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, I think for a lot of people, most of them feel like this false belief that comes is I can't lead until I have authority or they feel like they need to have a certain position or title before they can actually jump in and step in and do something of impact.
00:02:21
Patrick
Yeah. Yep. And, you know, it's interesting because, and so I started my career in compensation and it was all about like titles and leveling and how do we get, you know, get people to get promoted. and we always joke that like at a bank, like everyone's got a VP, like the receptionist is like the VP of first impressions.
00:02:36
Patrick
you're like, and you're just a receptionist. That's what you are. Yeah. That was our little inside joke at the bank. So you're like, so but when you think about this in your career, there's a backhandedness to like, oh, you're only an entry level employee, right?
00:02:43
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:02:51
Patrick
And the lie is like, you're kind of worthless until you put in your time. And there is some truth to that. lot of times there's some truth in what these lies have. But the lie part of it is what we want to get after today, which is how can we lead from below?
Servant Leadership in Action
00:03:04
Patrick
And I don't know, Ken, if you just want to maybe ground us a little bit in scripture about how does Jesus talk about leading and what does it look like from a biblical perspective?
00:03:14
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, you know, there's a lot of examples, but I think one of the best examples is Jesus himself. You think about this, he is one of the three people in the triune God, and forgive me, I shouldn't say one people, one of the God, of the Godhead, excuse me.
00:03:29
Patrick
Yep. right.
00:03:32
Dan Sanchez
And he models this. He decides to come down to this earth, incarnates himself. He's both fully God and fully man. And you can see this in Philippians 2 where he says he took on the nature of a servant.
00:03:48
Patrick
Mm-hmm.
00:03:49
Dan Sanchez
He didn't come here and say to this earth and he was like, look, I am the new ruler. I'm going to overthrow Rome. I'm going to be the new king. He completely flipped the way a Messiah and Christ should actually come and serve his people.
00:04:06
Dan Sanchez
He says, came to serve not to be served.
00:04:09
Dan Sanchez
And if we were to take that model and say, hey, how are we going walk in leadership? We should say, well, we're going to serve others. We're going to lead others. We don't need the title.
00:04:19
Patrick
Yeah.
00:04:19
Dan Sanchez
We don't need the position.
00:04:20
Dan Sanchez
I always find this fascinating when think about Jesus. He has everything at his disposal. He's the king of the universe. He is God. And then he decides to come to this lowly, earthly state.
00:04:35
Dan Sanchez
And he's living, and think about it, all times he could have come in all of history, right?
00:04:36
Patrick
Yeah.
00:04:41
Dan Sanchez
He went 2,000 years ago to
Implementing Servant Leadership
00:04:45
Dan Sanchez
Judea, and it's just like, it's dirt, right?
00:04:48
Patrick
And he was also like an oppressed people group.
00:04:48
Dan Sanchez
It's not like he's...
00:04:52
Patrick
And he literally came in as like a fragile human infant, which we know you're kind of worthless for your first year in terms of self-sufficiency. You're lots of worth, but in terms of your ability to hold your own.
00:05:02
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:05:07
Patrick
I just have to put in my time. just have to grind it out. And here's what we want to talk about today is you can have that posture of Jesus saying, I want to show up want to serve first. I'm here to serve.
00:05:17
Patrick
And it's not like we're all just have this shadow motive, like I'm just going to dominate take over this place one day. But Jesus calls us to be all about serving.
00:05:26
Patrick
And he actually says the greatest among you is the servant.
Five Steps to Lead Without a Title
00:05:29
Patrick
right so i kind of want to jump into ken when i'm in class and we're talking about this topic leading from below there's five steps ways just tips that i've seen if you do this well as a young professional and it could you could be listening right now you're maybe still in school or maybe you're couple years two three five years out and you're still like not at like a level of status this is relevant like regardless of where you are so ken am i am i cool to jump on in
00:05:53
Dan Sanchez
Jump on in.
00:05:55
Patrick
Jump on it. He's like, hurry up. Get on with it, Patrick. So step number one, there's five ways to lead from below. Number one is take initiative without overstepping. Okay.
00:06:06
Patrick
And what this looks like in practice is lot of young professionals, when they get in there, you're kind of like the eager beaver sometimes when you kind of just like want to hurry up and like get your name out there, get known.
00:06:17
Patrick
And, you know, it's really important is to find the balance of wanting to take initiative, but also not just like coming in too hot and heavy and maybe overstepping what you should be doing in your role and as you're in a learning posture. So we like to coach people like clarify people's expectations of you and what your role is.
00:06:37
Patrick
And then also when you notice a challenge or a problem, It's cool to like spot that. But but again, be careful you're not coming across as this pompous young professional like that figured it all out. Right.
00:06:50
Patrick
And so we like to say CEO of my friend of mine used to tell me, hey, never bring a problem to a leader unless you have an idea for what the solution might be. Right. we're going talk about that on point three a little bit more. But here's that's number one. Take initiative without overstepping.
00:07:06
Patrick
Ready for number two. Good?
00:07:08
Dan Sanchez
Yes.
00:07:08
Patrick
All right, let's get after it.
00:07:08
Dan Sanchez
Patrick, hold on one second. Keep going. I got step out for a second. My daughter's crying, but I can edit all this out.
00:07:15
Patrick
Oh, okay.
00:07:18
Dan Sanchez
Just keep going and I'll sneak back in. Just keep recording.
00:07:20
Patrick
All right, good. All right, that was the first step for how to lead from below. But let's go to the second step, which is master your role to free up others.
00:07:32
Patrick
All right, I know we spent a lot of time talking about, you're gonna be a team player and we're gonna, and yes, we're gonna work on that in just a second. It's actually one of the fifth points we're going to to, but mastering your own role is critical.
00:07:44
Patrick
If you show up to your job and you are not like nailing the basic responsibilities of your job, then like all other things you could do to try to help influence the culture is kind like in vain, right? So,
00:07:57
Patrick
What you need to be really thinking about is how do nail the key fundamental points of my job? So if you're in sales, like are you hitting your sales targets? Are you putting in the calls and doing the emails and building your pipeline?
00:08:09
Patrick
If you're more in engineering, like are you delivering and building high quality product or designing solutions for your customers that are going to work? Or if you're in finance, like are you closing those books? Are you doing the analysis with excellence, right?
00:08:25
Patrick
So if we want to think through mastering your role, it is like step one. But then imagine after you master your role, how can you free up other people, right? So that you've now figured out your job and you're delivering value there. And now you can go and help other people.
00:08:42
Patrick
with their projects. But if you try to go help your friend, like without like nailing your own role first, your boss is hey, like, you know, bro, like focus on your own work. Like you haven't even hit the goal yet, right?
00:08:55
Patrick
So sometimes we need to think about like, let me make sure I get my stuff done so that I can anticipate the needs of others and help out.
00:08:59
Dan Sanchez
Let's
00:09:02
Patrick
And this is, you'll become like your favorite person on your team if you nail your work and then you go and say, hey, I got some extra time. What else can I work on? What else can I do? every leader loves when someone does that, right?
00:09:13
Patrick
That's number two. Cool. We're going to get number three next.
00:09:17
Patrick
I know I'm kind of, Ken's like, my throat hurts, Patrick. Keep talking. All right.
00:09:21
Patrick
number three, we just alluded to this earlier, is bring solutions, not just problems. So when your business is like full of challenges and problems and setbacks, you're dealing customers that are not happy, you know, you get off track on you're trying to build a solution or deliver a service.
00:09:39
Patrick
And so imagine if you build a mindset of while you're listening and hearing the challenges, you're also thinking about, man, how can I add a little bit of value to like what might be a possible solution?
00:09:52
Patrick
A lot of rookies show up and like, hey, boss, like that thing you asked me to do, like it's broken. Like full stop, and then boom, awkward pause. And then insert in the manager's mind, really, like we hired you to just tell me it's broken? Like I could have had like a dummy light tell me that it was broken.
00:10:09
Patrick
So this is where we can add the value of, hey, I noticed that that system's down a little bit. There's a couple ideas I had of like how maybe to adjust that or maybe anticipate that in the future.
00:10:20
Patrick
Can I share those with you or is there already a way to kind of get after that? Notice kind of the tentativeness. Even when you bring a solution, going back to the first point, how can offer something of value without overstepping? Hey, maybe there's this way that I can help.
00:10:34
Patrick
Or, hey, I thought this thing that might work. Notice that tentative language. It might work. it could help. What that says is you're humble, but you're also ambitious. You want to help. You're not just going to bring, hey, the thing broke.
00:10:45
Patrick
Right. OK, so that's number three. Bring solutions, not just problems. And this fourth one, you might be able to hear it in my voice. But hey, that thing broke.
00:10:56
Patrick
There's a couple of ways I think we might be able to get around it. But boss, I just want to bring this for you. You might already have a solution. Here's a couple of ideas. What do you think? Like, let's fix this. Doesn't that sound like more fun to work with? And hey, that system broke. And like, I'm pissed, you know, or I'm mad. Right.
00:11:14
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Or there's, there's a, the negative part about it is like, there's people who are always going to be complaining. And number four always have a positive can do attitude where people are excited.
00:11:21
Patrick
Yeah.
00:11:24
Patrick
That's right. That's right.
00:11:26
Dan Sanchez
Like, Oh, it's broken. Cool. We'll figure it out. Versus like, Oh, this thing broke again. Kind like my throat right now.
00:11:32
Patrick
Yeah, that's right. That's right. No, thank you for that. And so, yeah, modeling that positive can-do attitude, it's like the opposite, all right? Like it's living out what you see in Philippians talk about, like do everything without complaining or arguing, right? Like that's a hard thing to live out when you've got tense work environments, you got things that might not go the right way. So bring a positive attitude and outlook to whatever challenge you're dealing with or whatever project you're working on, and people will just have more fun working with you, right?
00:12:01
Patrick
So that's number four is model a positive can-do attitude. Here's the fifth one, Ken, and then we can bring this one home. But fifth one is, just quick recap, taking initiative without overstepping, number one.
00:12:13
Patrick
Two, master your role to free up others. Three, bringing solutions, not just problems. Four is you're modeling that positive can-do attitude. And then the fifth one that really rounds out great way to kind of demonstrate leadership from below support and elevate your teammates.
00:12:30
Patrick
This is critical. So when you're working on a project, be quick to recognize the contributions of others and the teams, right? This is a we thing.
00:12:38
Dan Sanchez
Wow.
00:12:40
Patrick
This is not a me thing. And man, I'll just tell you, like the me focus culture, is just pervasive in the business world. And if you can imagine you're on a team, you're leading and some and you know, a group of your team
Recap and Call to Action
00:12:53
Patrick
figured something out.
00:12:54
Patrick
But then one person kind of like takes the cake a little bit, takes the spotlight, brags like, hey, check out this thing that I deliver. Right. They're kind all about themselves. Isn't that a bit of a turn off? I mean, just like, all right.
00:13:05
Patrick
All right.
00:13:05
Patrick
Cool. Like maybe I should buy tickets to be in your presence because you're so amazing. Right. So what I would say is like one of the great leaders really good at deferring when there's praising others, right? For when there's success.
00:13:19
Patrick
And then when there is challenges, can you talk about this lot is, is you actually take extreme ownership of, Hey, this is my problem. It's my fault. going to try to come up with a solution. Right?
00:13:30
Patrick
I know you talk about that a bunch.
00:13:31
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, it's of my preferred axioms, leadership axioms.
00:13:36
Patrick
That's right. That's right. So those are five ways where if you're doing those things consistently in your job, people are going to notice. They're going take notice. Like, wow, this person is great at their job. They're high capacity. They're always thinking about the next level, the next way they can add value to my team and the overall organization.
00:13:55
Patrick
And you're doing it not in a self-glorifying way, right? But you're doing it in a, I'm here, like we're all working on this together. Like let's all win. And can I tell you, that's a good description of what a lot of emerging leaders look like. They have that kind of persona. So even if you are entry level data analyst, you can apply these all five things. If you are serving food in your school cafeteria as a part time thing, you can even apply all these things for there as well.
00:14:26
Patrick
But we're going to try to keep this tight today. So that's what we got, five ways to lead from below. Ken, any words on the way out with the frog in your throat still?
00:14:35
Dan Sanchez
I would just today, find one way that you can actually step up and lead without having the title. Take one of these five and say, I'm going to focus on this one and I'm going to pursue that to get one step closer to looking like Jesus and leading like Jesus.
00:14:51
Patrick
And we're going to put these things, as you know from hearing about us before, we're going to put these five steps in our online community. We're going to stick it in one of those discussion threads. So if you want to engage with us there, you're more than welcome to.
00:15:03
Patrick
But we'll ahead and post those there so you don't just have to be a talk. We have to be talking heads here, but we can be real live people. So I appreciate it.
00:15:09
Dan Sanchez
Thank you.
00:15:10
Patrick
Thank you so much. Go forth and unbury your God-given talent today. We'll catch you next time.