Reflection
We launched the Real Leadership podcast about a year and a half ago.  Our primary objective was to highlight Real Leaders in the real economy who were not getting the air-time we felt they deserved.  

The upside on this project for me personally was 1) to get better connected with our client base and 2) follow my own curiosity and learn how to be a better leader myself right alongside of our listeners.  I do not have the business pedigree, I didn’t get an MBA from Wharton, I have grown up professionally here at Onin and frankly I am figuring out this whole executive leadership thing as I go.  Getting to know our guests has been an elevating experience for me.    

We are 27 episodes in and the most striking commonality between all of our guests, my most pleasant surprise, is that I genuinely liked every single one of them.  Honestly I went in thinking at least half of our guests would be jerks.  Even as someone leading an organization myself, I had bought into the narrative, the caricature of the selfish, egotistical, “horses-rear CEO.”  But that has not been my experience, we are 27 for 27 at this point!  

No one is perfect and wanting to build a virtuous organization and actually doing it are two different things.  That said, our guests have all been extremely affable, genuine human beings who are approaching leadership with a servant heart.  Don’t get me wrong, these folks are drivers, running in some cases multi-billion dollar organizations – but doing it with a real sense of reciprocity with soul.  

Maybe leading with the win-win in mind is not the only way to the top.  But 27 interviews in, I can say unequivocally through this experiment that one can get to the top and be wildly successful while serving others – our customers, our teams, our shareholders and our communities.  That is really encouraging and I think there is a lesson in it.  

Leading from the Middle in 2025
As we enter the new year, we have just experienced a very divisive political season.  A little more than half of our country is excited and filled with hope by the outcome of the most recent election and the other half is on a spectrum of disappointment to terrified.  Based on almost 250 years of US history, I can confidently say that things will not be as good or as bad as either of the right or left think due to the election.  The reason our general trajectory has been up and to the right regardless of who is in power in DC is all the great Americans who lead from the middle, leaders in the real economy, leaders at the heart of our republic.  

I am thankful we are in a democratic republic, but the reality is we don’t have that much impact on how Washington operates.  You may not even have all that much impact on how your company operates.  But whatever station we find ourselves, we do have personal agency and have an opportunity for massive impact within our sphere of influence.  If I am concerned about a just and equitable society, my activism must start with how I relate to the people around me.  Instead of worrying about how politicians lie, how about I stop lying to myself!  If I am concerned about the economy I have the agency to kick butt as an individual performer and the agency to innovate and execute as a department manager or a business leader – that is my role.  I may not be able to change the way the whole world works but I can be a change agent that builds a team or company that is driven by purpose, accomplishes great things and shares in the spoils of success.  This is what it means to lead from the middle.  That is my biggest takeaway as I think back to my interviews over the last year.       

What we do is who we are, our individual actions as a group added up over time define our American culture.  Our future, our ability to keep things up and to the right is up to us.  We need a critical mass of people doing the right things to keep things moving in the right direction.  My encouragement to you for 2025 is to lead from the middle – be the innovator, the change agent, the encourager, the advocate, the economic stimulus package.  I’m thankful to our season one guests for showing us how this is done!