Olivia: Alright Jackson, I'm going to say the title of a leadership book, and I want your brutally honest, one-liner roast. Jackson: Oh, I was born for this. Hit me. Olivia: Simple Truths of Leadership. Jackson: Sounds like a pamphlet they'd hand out at a corporate retreat right before the trust falls. 'Truth #1: Meetings could have been emails.' Olivia: Your roast is hilarious, and also accidentally spot-on. The authors, Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley, almost titled the book 'DUH! Why Isn’t Commonsense Leadership Common Practice?' Jackson: No way! That’s brilliant. Because it’s so true, right? We all know what good leadership feels like, but so few people seem to actually do it. It’s the ultimate ‘duh’ moment. Olivia: Exactly. And this comes from Ken Blanchard, the legendary mind behind The One Minute Manager, and Randy Conley, who is basically the go-to expert on building trust in the workplace. They argue that these 'duh' moments are exactly what's missing in leadership today. Their whole book is about making common sense common practice. Jackson: I love that. It’s not about some complex, secret formula. It’s about the simple things we overlook. Olivia: And that starts with their very first big idea: turning the entire concept of leadership completely upside down.

Jackson: Okay, 'upside down' sounds dramatic. What does that actually mean? Are we talking about anarchy in the office? Olivia: Not quite anarchy, but it is a radical shift. Think about a typical company org chart. It’s a pyramid, right? The CEO is at the top, and everyone else is below, working their way up. The energy, the attention, the sucking-up—it all flows upward. Jackson: Right. We call that 'boss watching.' Everyone’s job is to figure out what their boss wants and then do that, hoping for a promotion. Olivia: Precisely. Blanchard says that’s a broken model. In that system, the people who are actually closest to the customer—the frontline employees—are at the very bottom, with the least amount of power. A servant leader flips that pyramid over. Jackson: So the CEO is at the bottom now? How does that work? Olivia: The CEO and the entire leadership team are at the bottom, and their job is to serve the people above them. And at the very top of this new, inverted pyramid are the customers and the frontline employees who serve them. The leader’s role isn't to be served, but to ask their team, "How can I help you win? What barriers can I remove for you?" Jackson: That’s a huge mental shift. It’s moving from "you work for me" to "I work for you." But I have to be a little skeptical. Does this 'soft' approach actually work in the real world where you have to hit hard targets? Olivia: That’s the beautiful paradox. The book argues it's the only way to get both great results and great relationships. The alternative is what Blanchard calls 'Seagull Management.' Jackson: Seagull Management? Oh, I have a feeling I know this one. Olivia: I think we all do. The seagull manager is the boss who is mostly absent. They fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone from a great height, and then fly out again, leaving everyone else to clean up the mess. Jackson: Wow. I’ve definitely worked for a seagull or two. They only show up when something’s wrong, and their only tool is criticism. It’s incredibly demotivating. You end up living in fear of seeing them. Olivia: Exactly. It creates a culture of fear and blame. The servant leadership approach is the complete opposite. Instead of looking for what’s wrong, the key to developing people is to catch them doing something right. Jackson: Okay, so if we're not being seagulls, what are we doing instead? What does 'praising progress' actually look like? Is it just empty cheerleading? "Great job on sending that email, team!" Olivia: Not at all. It’s about being specific and praising the journey, not just the destination. The book uses this fantastic analogy of teaching a toddler to speak. Imagine you're trying to teach your child to say, "Give me a glass of water, please." Jackson: A noble, and probably lengthy, quest. Olivia: Right. The child’s first attempt might just be pointing and grunting. Then one day, they manage to say "waller." What do you do? Jackson: You go nuts! You celebrate, you clap, you give them the water. You act like they just recited Shakespeare. Olivia: Exactly! You don't say, "No, that's wrong. It's pronounced 'water,' and you forgot the 'please.'" If you did that, the kid would probably just give up. You praise the progress. "Waller" is a huge step forward. Over time, you raise the bar. You wait for "water," then "water, please." You praise the small wins along the way. Jackson: That makes so much sense. You're building them up, not just waiting for perfection. And I can see how that applies at work. If you have a new employee, you don't wait for them to be a top performer to give them positive feedback. You praise them for mastering the first part of a new skill. Olivia: You got it. It’s about letting people know they’re on the right track. It builds confidence and motivation. It’s the difference between a leader who develops people and a leader who just evaluates them. And this whole philosophy, this entire way of operating, is only possible if one other element is in place.

Jackson: Let me guess. Trust. All of this—inverting the pyramid, praising progress—it feels like it only works if there's a foundation of trust. Without it, it could just feel like manipulation. Olivia: You've hit the nail on the head. That’s the entire second half of the book, which is Randy Conley's specialty. He argues that trust isn't a soft, fuzzy feeling. It's a hard, practical, buildable skill. And he introduces this incredibly powerful idea: the opposite of trust is not distrust—it’s control. Jackson: Whoa. Say that again. The opposite of trust is control. Olivia: Think about it. When a leader doesn't trust their team, what do they do? They micromanage. They demand constant updates. They hoard information. They control every little detail because they don't trust their people to get it right on their own. Jackson: That is a massive insight. It reframes micromanagement not just as an annoying habit, but as a symptom of a fundamental lack of trust. Olivia: And it creates a vicious cycle. The book explains that when leaders withhold information, people can't act responsibly. But they don't just sit there in a vacuum. They fill in the blanks, and they almost always fill them in with negatives. Jackson: "The boss didn't tell us why the budget was cut, so it must mean layoffs are coming." Or "She didn't include me on that email, so I must be getting pushed out of the project." Olivia: Exactly. People with accurate information, however, are compelled to act responsibly. When you trust your team with the real numbers, the real challenges, the real strategy, you empower them to be part of the solution. You treat them like partners, not just employees. Jackson: This is huge for remote and hybrid work, isn't it? When you can't physically see people at their desks, the temptation to control—to use tracking software, to demand constant check-ins—must be massive. Olivia: It's a defining challenge of modern leadership. A high-control leader will struggle immensely in a virtual environment. A servant leader, who already operates from a place of trust, will thrive. They focus on outcomes, not activity. They provide clear goals and then trust their people to get the work done. The book makes the point that the most important part of leadership is what happens when you’re not there. Jackson: That’s a powerful measure of success. Does your team fall apart when you're on vacation, or do they step up and own it? That really tells you if you've built a culture of trust or a culture of control. Olivia: And building that trust often comes down to very simple, very human actions. One of the most potent truths in the book is: True servant leaders admit their mistakes. Jackson: Okay, I love this in theory. But in practice, how do you apologize as a leader without looking weak or incompetent to your team? There's a real fear there. Olivia: The book reframes this beautifully. It says apologizing is not necessarily an admission of guilt, but it is an admission of responsibility. You might not have been personally at fault for a project's failure, but as the leader, you are responsible for the team. Jackson: So you're taking responsibility for the outcome, for the relationship, for moving forward. Olivia: Yes. When a leader says, "I messed up," or "I should have seen that coming, and I take responsibility for it," it doesn't make them look weak. It makes them look human, honest, and authentic. It gives everyone else permission to be vulnerable too. It signals that this is a safe place to learn from mistakes, not a place to hide them. Jackson: It kills the blame game. Instead of everyone pointing fingers, the leader absorbs the initial impact and redirects the energy toward finding a solution. Olivia: It's one of the fastest ways to build trust. And conversely, a leader who never admits fault, who always has an excuse, erodes trust with every interaction. Their actions are speaking so loudly that you can't hear what they're saying.

Olivia: When you put both halves of the book together, you see this beautiful, self-reinforcing loop. Servant leadership actions—like inverting the pyramid, praising progress, and admitting mistakes—are the specific, tangible behaviors that build trust. Jackson: And that trust, in turn, makes true servant leadership possible. You can't effectively serve a team that doesn't trust your intentions. It all locks together. Olivia: It really does. And this isn't just a feel-good philosophy. The authors open the book by citing a staggering statistic: they estimate that 65 to 70 percent of the workforce is disengaged. Jackson: Wow. That’s more than two-thirds of people just going through the motions at work. And the book's argument is that this is largely a leadership failure. It's not a soft issue; it's a massive economic and human one. Olivia: It’s a failure to make common sense common practice. The book offers 52 simple truths, one for each week of the year, as a way to start closing that gap between knowing and doing. It’s a practical roadmap. Jackson: I think that’s the real power of it. It’s not asking you to become a different person overnight. It’s asking you to pick one small thing and practice it. Like this week, maybe you just focus on listening more than you speak. Or you make a point to catch someone doing something right. Olivia: It makes you wonder, what's the one 'simple truth' you could practice this week that would make the biggest difference for your team, or even in your family? Jackson: That's a great question for everyone listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Find us on our socials and share the one simple truth you're going to try. What's your 'duh' moment from all of this? Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.