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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:00.580] - John S. Berry
Great leaders do what it takes to keep top talent. And that means you're going to have to take some shit from people from time to time. And it's okay to take shit from your best talent because they're giving you feedback. And feedback is always a gift. Welcome to Veteran Led. On today's episode, we'll talk about three leadership myths that may be holding you and your team back. Now, as veterans, we've all heard that leaders eat last. In fact, a non-veteran, Simon Sinek even wrote a book about it and how he experienced the military did this. When I was a young ROTC cadet, that's what I was told. But as a new Infantry Lieutenant, I can remember after a field problem, getting in the chow line and the sun is setting and I get to the back of the chow line so that all my soldiers eat first. First Sergeant Fowler came up to me and said, Lieutenant, what are you doing? I said, First Sergeant, I'm the platoon leader. My platoon is going to eat before I eat. The first sergeant No, you're not. You have an after-action review that you have to go to in 10 minutes.
[00:01:06.670] - John S. Berry
You're going to get a plate of food, you're going to eat it, and you're going to go. I said, But first sergeant, he said, No, no, no, no, no, leaders Don't eat last. Leaders make sure there is enough food here. Did your platoon sergeant do his job and give me the right numbers? Yes, first sergeant, he did. First sergeant Fowler said, Okay, lieutenant, do you think that I'm incompetent? No, first sergeant. He said, Look, you are an officer. Your job is to make good decisions. You have a ranger tab. You know that when you get hungry and you get tired, you make bad decisions. We don't need officers who make bad decisions in this company. You are going to get your plate of food, you are going to eat your plate of food immediately before these other soldiers, and you are going to the after-action review. Then later tonight, you're going to get an operations order for tomorrow anyway. You need to get your food, get your sleep, and stop pretending like you're not a human being. That was great advice. Of course, I learned that leaders don't eat last. The real leaders always make sure the team is taken care of, there's enough food, but they also take care of their bodies by getting enough food and Sleep.
[00:02:15.660] - John S. Berry
Now, I want to also apply this to your business. There's a book out there called Profit First by Mike McAlwitz. It's a decent book. It probably is a little bit long for the point it tries to make, but it's an important point. The point is this, is that when you run a business or an organization, you have to look at profitability. I think too often as leaders, we end up paying out way too much money in bonuses and other things before we save enough money to protect the organization. What I mean by that is this, is back in the day when I was fairly ignorant, if there was money in the bank at the end of the year, I assumed that we had made a profit and I would pay that out in bonuses. I would always say, I get my bonus last, I get my paycheck last. I'm going to not draw a salary. That was stupid. It was stupid for two reasons. Number one, in a growing organization, I don't care whether you're for-profit or nonprofit, you need to have two war chests. These war chests have the money that you need to fight battles and to take on opportunities when they show up in your face.
[00:03:18.190] - John S. Berry
The first war chest is the war chest for those opportunities. Look, you never know when the great opportunity is going to come. It may be right around the corner, but when it comes, what you don't want to do is be strapped for cash and not have the money to do it. You could say, Well, I'm going to borrow money from a bank. But the reality is, most banks are willing to lend you money when you don't need it, which takes me to the second reason why you need a war chest. You need a war chest for the storm. Look, in every business, you're either going in a storm, you're in the storm, or you're coming out of a storm. But when things go bad, when the economy changes, when there are circumstances beyond your control that are making you bleed cash, you need a war chest for that. Now, hopefully, you're up on your metrics, you understand the reports that you're receiving from your financial officer, but you need that war chest, regardless for when the bad times happen. Just like the opportunities, you will never know when those come. You as the leader, You, as the leader, are responsible for making sure there is enough money in the war chest to weather that storm.
[00:04:22.550] - John S. Berry
Your employees, your team members are counting on you to fund them through that next storm, and they're counting on you to jump on the opportunities when they present themselves. The point is this, leaders do not eat last when it comes to finances. You have to pay yourself first so that you can save that money to grow a bigger, better organization and to protect the organization, and most importantly, to protect those employees and team members who you promise to pay. So when the money comes in, don't eat last. Make sure that you are being judicious. Give bonuses, pay people well. Do that, but do not squander the money and let everybody else get the money. And then, well, there's nothing left for me. No, you are responsible for making sure they're getting paid every single two weeks or every single month or whatever the pay period is, it's on you. And you cannot eat last. You need to make sure that you treat people fairly, you pay them enough, but that you are also protecting the resources. You, as a leader, are the steward of the company's resources. Now, I want to make it clear, leaders don't eat last, leaders make sure everyone eats.
[00:05:36.360] - John S. Berry
When those opportunities or storms come, if there's not money in the bank, they're not going to eat. You need to make sure that you are taking that money out and doing something smart with it. Now, the earlier part that I want to hammer again is that in a more literal sense, leaders get enough food and they get enough sleep to function at optimal levels. I know a lot of leaders that they get stressed out, they're working long hours, they don't eat, they don't sleep, and eventually it will catch up with you. I saw this in ranger school where some of the best ranger candidates that I knew going through the course failed because they got so hungry and so tired, they couldn't function when they were put in leadership positions. So take care of yourself. As a leader, you have to perform your best. Every single day is game day. There are no rehearsals when it comes to making those business decisions. Once you make them, you've made them, and you've got to move forward, and you can't do it if you're not taking care of yourself. Myth number two, strong leaders don't take shit off of anyone.
[00:06:37.750] - John S. Berry
Now, you probably remember that first sergeant who was always right, and you always did what the first sergeant said. That's great in the military. Doesn't always work in the civilian world. In fact, it rarely works. Look, great leaders take shit from team members because they know if those team members don't feel heard, they're going to leave. Look, great leaders do what it takes to keep top talent. Sometimes that means letting team members be heard by being open and honest about your mistakes. That means you're going to have to take some shit from people from time to time. It's okay to take shit from your best talent because they're giving you feedback, and feedback is always a gift. Now, as a leader, you're also going to have to take shit from customers. I know what you're saying, Well, the customer is always right. Well, no, the customer isn't always right. Look, we work in the legal field, and we have people come to us with all these legal theories, and the reality is that a lot of times it's stuff they read on the internet that is inaccurate. But it is important that that customer feel heard and feel respected.
[00:07:47.010] - John S. Berry
Sometimes we have to take shit because that is the only way. That is how that client or customer is going to express themselves. Once they express themselves and feel safe it or feel they have to express themselves however they feel they need to do it, as we listen, we can then figure out the problem. Sometimes the problem isn't always what they're upset about. It could be something else. But if we aren't willing to take this shit and listen and truly listen, maybe to not what is being said, but what is not being said by the client or customer, and dig in and figure out how to fix it, we fail as leaders. And look, we know how these things manifest. They can manifest in one-star reviews, which you will get some earned one-star reviews when your team screws up or you screw up. But you will also get some unearned ones that I may be fake from competitors, or it may be from someone that you declined to. It happens to us frequently. We declined to take a case and we say, Look, we can't help you with your case, and we're not going to waste your time.
[00:08:51.640] - John S. Berry
And some people get offended by that. They get upset by it, and they want to yell at us, or they want to leave a one-star review or whatever. And they're like, They say they help veterans. They don't help veterans. But the truth is, We can't help everybody. And if we can't help someone, we're not going to waste their time and pretend. We're going to be honest and upfront. And that requires us to sometimes take some blowback. But that is part of being a leader. It's about doing the right thing regardless. Regardless of how the other person behaves. We have to stand strong as leaders. Of course, yes, you're going to get attacked on social media, and you're going to have to take some of that, too. Of course, You're going to get attacked by competitors. But as Winston Churchill said, and I'll probably misquote him here, but it's something to the effect of, You can't throw a stone at every barking dog. What he meant was, If you're throwing stones at every barking dog all day long, you'll never get anything done. So dealing with trolls, it's a waste of time and energy. And as I've said before, many people have said, it's all repeated on this podcast, the people who are talking trash about you and trying to bring you down are never the people who are doing more than you or doing better than you.
[00:10:04.440] - John S. Berry
These are just individuals. And you can say, I'm not going to take any shit off them. But what happens? What happens? You waste half an hour, an hour, a day being mad about it. Look, there's an old Mafia saying, Revenge is a dish, best-served cold. You may not be big enough yet to fight back with people who are trashing you. Let's face it, you could get in trouble if you throat punch somebody. Now, of course, you can do it literally. Yeah, you will be charged with assault, so physical violence is never the way to go in a dispute. But also figuratively, if you go back and try to fight somebody on social media or somewhere else, you're just going to get mud on both of you. It's just better to take the high road. And often, I should say, no response is the best response. I remember there was something called the Barbra Streisand effect. Essentially, what people talked about was if someone says something negative, instead Sometimes it's better just to ignore it instead of blowing it up and blowing it way out of proportion. So if you don't want it to get out and get bigger, sometimes the best thing you can do is just take it and ignore it.
[00:11:12.770] - John S. Berry
And then, of course, as you continue to grow, you're going to deal with frivolous lawsuits. It was interesting. I was sitting with this CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and I was asking him how things were going, and he said, Well, we're down to 10 lawsuits now. I was like, Wow, 10 lawsuits. If you're going to grow, you're going to deal with frivolous lawsuits. People are going to come after you. The key for that is don't lose focus with anger and don't fight it on your own. This is why There's that opportunity to hire good lawyers. Instead of trying to pound someone on the ground, let the lawyers do the pounding. That's the lawyer's job. You, as the leader, must remain focused. When you let these things distract you because I'm not going to take any shit off of anyone because I'm the leader, and that's leaders do, no, it doesn't work that way. Don't be the first sergeant who didn't have to take any shit off of anybody because he was in charge of the company. Yeah, he was, but he didn't have to deal with a lot of the external forces that you saw.
[00:12:11.260] - John S. Berry
But you can bet that he still had to deal with that sergeant major. He may not have gotten along with that company commander. He may have had all sorts of extraneous forces, but you just didn't see him. So I think when we think back to the glory days and we think about that strong first sergeant who didn't take shit off of anyone, he probably took shit off a lot of people, but he never took shit at his own company. And that's the difference. But he was in a company where, of course, people couldn't leave. People can leave your company every day. Now, if you're going to leave, I've heard this before, you need the mane of a lion. You need to be able to take beatings, ignore ankle biters, and overcome all betrayals with grace and ease. Look, you're just going to have to put up with it, and you're not going to look like a weak leader if you take it from time to time. Just take it. Ignore it. Do what you have to do. But where you look weak is when you fight back against the ankle biters and some of these small things that should be way below your periphery.
[00:13:08.840] - John S. Berry
You shouldn't even be seeing them, and you shouldn't be dealing with them. And great leaders don't get sucked down into the mud. Now, the third myth is that strong leaders come into every situation with confidence. And that is absolutely not true. If you're always confident, you're arrogant and probably ignorant. You probably don't even know some of the jeopardies and dangers ahead of you. As Andy Grove said, only the paranoid survive. The truth is that when you run an organization, care whether it's in the military or a civilian, you are going to worry about a lot of things that never come into fruition. We would do our risk assessment, the DRAW, D-R-A-W, worksheet, and we would think about all the possible bad things that could happen during a live fire exercise. Did those things happen? Rarely. But it was in identifying the risks and taking matters into our own hands to mitigate those risks that prevented those bad things from happening. So the reality is you're not always going to be confident, but you must always have confidence in your team. You look, you don't have to know everything, but you should have a team that knows everything that you need to know to function and to get to the next level.
[00:14:28.360] - John S. Berry
So the caveat is that You as a leader may not know everything, but collectively as a team, you should know everything you need to function on a daily basis. Know the things that your company needs to do. If you don't have the ability, then bring in the ability, bring in the talent. Now, if you don't have that talent, then it's probably time to top grade and hire better leaders on your staff so that people that have the answers are on your team. This happens all the time. As your organization grows, you're going to become less confident in your team because you are going to outgrow some of the team members. Some of those team members who had the capability to lead your team when you had 10 team members will not be able to lead the team when you have 100. It's just like saying that that sergeant team leader can be a first sergeant. Maybe, maybe after time, but it's not always true. Not every person that makes E5 makes E8. And so not every leader who is successful, leading a smaller element, can lead a larger element. We hope all of our leaders grow over time and develop, but not all will.
[00:15:31.160] - John S. Berry
Everybody has a ceiling. And it's important to understand that at some point, when you're not confident, it might be time to top grade. But it's okay to not be confident because then you'll know, I'm not confident. Something isn't right here. Why am I'm not confident? Is it in my own knowledge or do I feel like I don't have the experts on my team who can solve the problems that need to be solved in this stage of our growth? Look, you won't be confident in every situation, but you must never panic. Now, I remember a woman that I greatly respected. She was leading a business and her business took a hit and she lost it. She started crying in front of her team when she broke the news to them. The team got scared, and some of her key leaders left. They're like, Well, we don't want someone who can't handle adversity. It's easy to sit back and judge and say that emotional response that leader showed weakness. But look, the other leader wasn't confident, but the leader probably should not have shown fear in front of her team. I think a better leader would have acknowledged the situation but assured the team they would get through it.
[00:16:44.150] - John S. Berry
Even if we don't have the answers, it's okay. But if we as leaders empower our team and say, Look, we know this is a problem, and we know we've got the right team members here, and I really need your help. Let's work through it to get through it, you're going to instill more confidence than showing an emotional reaction to your team. So Will you ever, as a leader, be totally confident? No. But you should always be confident enough to prevent the team from panicking. In sum, strong leaders don't eat last. Strong leaders make sure that everyone has enough to eat. They do their planning, and they take care of their minds and their bodies. Number two, strong leaders are able to take shit without losing focus. Finally, strong leaders are not always confident. They just appear to never be shaken or rattled by anything. Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led. We appreciate the listeners who sent us their leadership myths. If you have believed leadership myths that you have found are no longer true, please put them in the comments.