The TriNet Extreme Leadership Series: Greater than Yourself

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Matt Meigs in Best Practices, Entrepreneurs, Leadership

In Greater than Yourself, the eleventh program in the TriNet Extreme Leadership Video Series, leadership expert, bestselling author, and host Steve Farber examines a curious paradox that nearly all great leaders share—one that Farber fully admits he has not mastered.

Do great leaders have a special power that the rest of us can learn to use? Farber suggests that whether they acquire it consciously or unconsciously, they do and yes, it is something that those who aspire to become Extreme Leaders can indeed learn. He points out the truism that many business people like to pepper their discussions with the latest business buzzwords as if speaking those words will, “Miraculously transform our business, our company, and our organization,” Farber observes. Words and phrases such as ‛think outside box,’ and ‛shift the paradigm,’ may represent great ideas but if the actions of the people using them don’t align with the ideas those words describe the result is skepticism. And that’s Farber’s point; people don’t follow leaders they are skeptical about. People follow great leaders because great leaders do what they say they will do.

Delving deeper, Farber comments that in his 20 years of doing leadership development work with many different companies he has noticed that nearly all great leaders follow the simple, yet universal message found in the golden rule. By doing unto others as they would have others do unto them, Extreme Leaders bypass the negative influences that hold many of us back, and tap into an inner power that enables them to change the world for the better. Farber asserts that the resulting paradox of this is that, “The greatest leaders become the greatest by making others greater than themselves.”

Nowhere is the desire to make another individual better than one’s self more rare Farber believes, than in the business world. He points out that healthy parents want their children to grow up and lead more fulfilling lives than themselves, great teachers want their students to go on to achieve more than they did. Yet in the business world the rules change, “Now your success is predicated on you not being as successful as I am, or maybe even on your failure,” he says.

Farber challenges viewers with an assignment that he calls Greater than Yourself. Greater than Yourself is designed to give those that follow its exercises a starting point for developing the capacity to mentor others into becoming greater than themselves—an ability than he hasn’t fully achieved. As Farber admits, “I don’t have the capacity for that. I aspire to it but I’m not quite there yet.” What he does do is to promise those who take up his challenge that they will feel like they are, “mentoring on steroids.” Farber recognizes that Greater than Yourself is a pretty tall order and invites participants to exchange ideas about it with him on The Leadership Lab.

All of the videos in the TriNet Extreme Leadership Series—an exclusive program for TriNet client companies—can be accessed through our online portal, HR Passport^®. Trinet.com visitors are welcome to get a sampling of the program or to contact us for additional information.