John D. Richardson is a Financial Planner at Capital Planning Group, where he specializes in retirement planning, investment advice, and risk management for clients seeking to align their financial decisions with their values. As a recognized leader in the financial services industry, John has served as president of both NAIFA-Nashville and NAIFA-Tennessee, received the NAIFA Young Advisors Team Leader of the Year award, and was named a NAIFA Presidential Citation recipient, in addition to being elected NAIFA National Trustee for 2025-2026. Beyond his professional achievements, John is active in politics, serving as State Executive Committeeman for Senate District 21 in Tennessee and as a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
Leadership takes many forms — from commanding figures who lead through authority to quiet mentors who inspire from behind the scenes. But what truly defines a great leader? Is it influence, humility, or the ability to elevate others beyond themselves?
According to John D. Richardson, a purpose-driven leader and advocate for servant leadership, true leadership begins with service. He believes leadership is not about titles or control but about empowering others to succeed and replacing oneself by developing the next generation. He highlights that the most effective leaders balance strength with empathy, guiding teams through challenge and growth while fostering trust and collaboration. When leaders embrace service over ego, they create a culture that not only performs but transforms.
In this episode of Advisor Today, Chris Gandy sits down with John D. Richardson, Financial Planner at Capital Planning Group, to discuss how servant leadership shapes lasting impact. They explore how to build transformative cultures, develop future leaders through followership, and navigate different leadership styles with integrity. John also shares insights on creating alignment through values and vision.
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Intro 00:02
Welcome to NAIFA’s Advisor Today podcast series, where we focus on how financial advisors work, live and give to their local communities and our greater financial services industry. Now let's get started with the show.
Chris Gandy 00:20
NAIFA Nation, welcome to Advisor Today podcast, where we give you the voice of the advisor so that we can all be collectively better for our clients and the leaders in the industry as we come together, an opportunity to this platform to share the voices of knowledge, education and also opportunity. So with that being said, Zack, I don't know if we have a sponsor for today's program, but I'm super excited to talk to one of our collective board members today on some unique topics.
Zack Huels 00:52
Yeah, absolutely. I think I would be remiss if I did not mention our 2025 National Leadership Conference coming up on October 14th in Arlington, Virginia, at the UVA Darden Sands Family Grounds. It's the National Leadership Conference, is the meeting where we gather each year to learn from each other, plan for the future, and celebrate our award winners and colleagues in leadership. This is an opportunity to really get to know other members in the space and grow and plan your member experience for 2026. So if you identify yourself as a leader in the native space and you're not coming to the National Leadership Conference, we urge you to reconsider and to come and see what it's all about.
And you can find more information at leaders.naifa.org/nlc-2025.
Chris Gandy 01:36
Thank you. With no further ado, I get a chance to introduce our other host and also guest. Today you get to serve in both roles. J-dr how does that feel like 20.
John D. Richardson 01:50
It's been it's been a minute since we got together, so it'll be good catching up with you today.
Chris Gandy 01:55
Great. So with that being said, we're on the precipice of NLC. So the idea today is to talk leadership opportunity. We want to kind of define that and kind of talk about what are some of the the key pieces and not only embodying leadership, but also some of the key pieces that I think a lot of our, our constituents and also our leaders need to hear about. So with that being said, so so JR.
You're now on the national board in a role helping out. You've been a part of your state. You've also positioned yourself to be in the political realm. What is leadership? You've been around a lot of people that embody leadership, you know, what is that?
What is that word really mean to you?
John D. Richardson 02:50
What does leadership mean to me? Is that the question? Yeah. So I'll tell you what. Well, I will say this.
I believe that my purpose in life is to lead leaders, and I believe there are multiple ways that you can be a leader. The the the the type of leadership I subscribe to is called servant leadership. And I'd be more than happy to unpack that with you today and tell you about some recent experiences I've had in that space, and how I apply those principles and those values in my career, as well as in my personal life as well. So but I, I'm a big fan of the style called servant leadership.
Chris Gandy 03:29
So, John, are you familiar with other forms of leadership that are out in the market space and perhaps may, may fall into space for our our leaders out there?
John D. Richardson 03:43
Sure. Oh, yeah. There's all kinds of different types of leadership, and there's like some examples of ones I'm not a big fan of, like a big boss. This is a person who's the you know, when my legs crossed, the board is met. I make decisions unilaterally.
And I'm going to have the loudest voice in the room, and everybody's going to listen to what I have to say. And that's, that's that's good. In some cases, if you've got an emergency situation, like if you've you're a you're a parent and your kid's about to cross the street and get hit by a car for safety reasons, you need to be loud and speak up and make sure they don't get hurt. But that being said, leading through that type has a tendency to create fear and intimidation for those folks. And it's it's usually short lived because a person will only listen to somebody barking orders at them for so long, and then they get to a point where, like, enough's enough.
So that's one style I call like a big boss or a person who's in charge, kind of a leadership. Another type of leadership is be through collaboration, where constantly and this is there's some organizations or some folks in their church world where their board meets or their committees meet, and they meet over and over and over again and they have meetings for the sake of having meetings. And you're wondering, okay, when are we actually going to make a decision? Well, the whole group has to, through group thought, come to a consensus and get an answer. And then time passes and you look back and you're like, man, that was a wasted opportunity.
Because what happens is usually folks go with the lowest common denominator answer whatever is the least offensive to this group of 5 to 10 people. That's the answer they go with. And as, as a as a fallout is you often have times where you have missed opportunities, where folks could have dreamt bigger and thought bigger and led the organization, because that's what leaders do sometimes is make calls that perhaps they have the vision, they know where they should go, and they're encouraging folks to go there, but they just you get the idea. So that's another that's the downside of that's the opposite of of that big personality is like everybody's going to be everybody's going to play nice and just be, you know, we're just going to be kind to each other. But they're not being kind.
They're being nice. Difference between nice and kind. Nice is like you know you know you're just you're just you're pleasant to be around. Kind is you tell people the truth, but in a way that they receive that truth and so that they understand where they are, and they can then make decisions to move them in the right direction. So sometimes kind is telling a person some tough love that they perhaps don't want to hear, but it's in their best interest to hear the truth about the situation.
So those are just two examples. There's plenty more out there as well. But like I said, I'm a big fan of of the servant leadership style.
Chris Gandy 06:17
So so John, let me dig into that. Just the definition. I think there's some gray on the definition for people. So I want to, I want to I want to lean into it for just a moment. So here you go.
So leadership defined. Let's let's I'm going to read it to you because it makes sense. Leadership is the ability to influence, inspire and guide others toward a shared vision, goal or purpose. It is less about the position of authority and more about the impact per person or each for each person collectively, as a culture or direction. True leadership balances vision, action, strategy, empathy, and personal integrity with collective responsibility.
John. Here are the types of leadership there is. Okay. So as we go through it so our nation think about what kind of leader are you and are you a different type of are you a hybrid because we you know, John, we could be one or the other. We don't have to be this all the way through, right?
Sure, there's transformable transformable leadership, which is defined by inspiring and motivating followers to create visions for the future and energize people through an exceeding expectation. This happens typically in the workplace. Then there's your servant. Leadership focuses on serving others first, putting people's growth and well-being and personal ambition ahead of your own. Okay.
That's yours. Okay. Autocratic leadership leader leader's best defined are makes decisions independently with little input of others. I think you were mentioning that democratic or participative leadership, which you mentioned that one involves team members in decision making within groups, and a leader just maintains the final authority, like the stamp of a fair, okay, laissez faire leadership, hands off approach granting team members freedom to make decisions and work independently. Transactional leadership based on structures, tasks, rewards, and penalties.
Charismatic leadership relies on charm, communication, and inspiration and influence to lead. Situational leadership last to situational leadership adapts leader style depending on the task ahead of them and the environment. That's really interesting, actually. Bureaucratic follows rules and policies strictly and that is how it is led. And then last but not least is coaching.
Leadership focuses on personal development, mentoring and building long term capacity. So John, let me since since now I've defined those shares a little bit on the 2 or 3 that kind of make you, because I think when I spend time with you, I can see 2 or 3 of those in there. And I would I would challenge the thought that a lot of our members have the ability to be kind of 2 or 3. Are there any that stand out outside of servant leadership that sound okay, that sound like, yeah, that's kind of me.
John D. Richardson 09:22
Sure. No, that's a great question. So just to rewind, as you would say, rewind the tape back a bit. And before you become a good leader, you have to be a good follower, because good leaders are also good followers. And that's called followership.
Oftentimes folks come into a role and they give them a title of leader, but they don't know how to listen to other people. They don't know how to play nice with others. They're not good followers. And again, people get frustrated with them. And when their time is up, they're like, thank goodness he's gone On because they weren't they just weren't a good team player.
So yes, being a good leader is a good follower and understanding the role of being a followership. There are four dynamics, four dynamics or stages I should say, of team development. So if you're going to lead an organization, you realize that whether internally or your team is going to go through these four stages and that's forming, storming, norming and performing. And for those folks who've been through Leadership and Life Institute, this may sound familiar as this is oftentimes brought up during the Lilly process. But when you get a group of folks together they've never met before, you've just formed a team.
Inevitably, storming is going to happen. And some people say, well, do you have to storm? Can we just go skip, go to right to performing? Perhaps you could, but it'll be short lived and you really want to draw close to others. You got to go through a storm.
You got to figure out what are my values, what are your values. And we need to get alignment of those values and figure out how to effectively communicate in a way that shows respect for other people. Because guess what? There's going to be friction. Whether you're married or you're a business partner or you're doing life with other folks or you got friends, there's going to be times where you're not going to want to be in the same room with them or do life with them, but you, you figure out how to way to talk to each other, where you show respect and you move forward.
So once once you go through that storming phase, which you know you're storming because it's you're loud and you're mad at each other, just realize, hey, that's natural. That's step two. Step three. Things get normal. Again, we're in alignment.
We're not performing at the highest level, but we'll eventually get there. And then the fourth one is performing. That's when you just you can't you just can't help but win all day long. You're winning and everything's clicking. You're just like, I don't get it.
Why are we winning at such a high level? It's because you went through those four stages and as a leader, if you my style. You're right, Chris, there are multiple ways. I like the more of a collaborative, more of the coaching, more of that servant leader. Because guess what?
In all those situations, guess what? The story is not about as a leader. It's about me. It's not about me. In fact, none of this has ever been about me.
My goal is to find people who are up and coming, pour into them, hear their stories, and figure out how quickly can I replace myself with that next leader. And oftentimes with organizations, I look at my local or my state chapter. This is an area of disconnect where folks are like, I'm really good at my job and I can do it, but they forget to bring up that next generation. So what if they actually focused on the needs of others? They don't need the limelight.
In fact, they don't crave it or want it. They want to live as as Joe Jordan would say. They don't want a life of success. They want to live a life of significance. And the only way you measure that is through how much of an impact you've had in other people's lives.
And so. So there you go. That's that's my style. I love coaching up that next younger folks and finding people that are winning, showcasing them and getting out of the way because it's it's not about me. Does that make sense?
Chris Gandy 12:46
It makes perfect. It makes perfect sense. And I believe that there are people out here listening to the podcast that perhaps see themselves as so, so, so, so, so j.d.r. Let's, let's kind of go through this. So I want you to just think we'll think out loud and identify people that we see or possibly in TV, government, whatever history that that represent this type of leadership form.
Let's let's see. So transformational leadership inspires and motivates followers by creating vision of the future and energizing people to exceed expectations. Okay, J.d.r. It's on you. Yeah.
Who do you who do you think? History. Now. Who who who who are some of the who are at least one of those people. And I'll go to so we'll go down this list.
It's kind of interesting.
John D. Richardson 13:40
I like it. No, this is going to be fun. And I will say this on the front end. Any, any use or use of names that are political or whatever. I'm setting aside all things politics, so we're not going to go down because I know these days people get easily triggered when we talk about people, leadership and styles.
We're just going to we're just going to call it like we see it based upon the body of evidence. And so I'm not I don't want to show any bias or favoritism towards these different folks because some you never know what's going to happen in the media tomorrow. They may say something silly or and you're like, why did that person reference them? So out of the gate, I think of somebody who's a visionary. There's people that come to mind, which would be like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.
And definitely I would probably want to focus more on Steve Jobs, his story, because Elon Musk is in the news lately and I still don't I don't think the jury's out with him. He's but I think Steve Jobs actually, from a creation standpoint was like, you know what? I'm sick and tired of having a regular phone. I want a phone that I can do all the different things on it. And when the iPhone first came out, people were like, how do you use this silly thing?
Because there's no buttons. And you know, and now it's it's I mean, it's it's just I mean, it's it's a staple every. I wonder how many Americans, actually. But what percentage of Americans have a smartphone and they can easily access it. So.
And that transformational taking the company in this case Apple to that next level hands down Steve Jobs.
Chris Gandy 15:02
I'm gonna go with Walt Disney. Oh you can dream it. You can build it. So the idea was simple. Let's keep it simple, right.
Go where you feel like your heart is going. And he went there. He said, if I can dream it, I can build it. So the idea was, I'll take this land and create something that's magical, where people forget all the things that are going on in their lives. And then that became the seed, the vision for what now we understand is Walt Disney, right?
One of his famous quotes is if you dream it, you can build it. And if you build it, you can live it. Right. And so that's that is unbelievable. And so the idea that that he was definitely one of the most transparent, like, who doesn't know Walt Disney, who doesn't know Disney doesn't matter in the world like Disney.
They're like, oh yes, everybody knows Disney. Why? Because every time you watch a Disney movie, it doesn't matter what it is. You feel like you're on cloud nine. It doesn't matter which one it is, right?
Just pick one. It doesn't matter if it's the Little Mermaid, it doesn't matter. Just pick one. And all of a sudden you feel a certain way. You go to Disneyland, you feel a certain way because you're in this magical land that they've even not even called people.
They don't even call them anymore employees. They call them cast members, or they call them dream. Dream weavers or whatever. I'm like, what? Like so even the constructs of business, they've gone about changing.
You think about NAIFA, right? What if we changed the way in which, you know, we have our presidents and we have our what if we went through and we changed. You know, this is going to be the visionary and this person's going to be the architect. and this person is going to be. It brings a different type of conversation to the table.
So transformational leadership. I'm sure other people out there are thinking of other ones, but I think that's those are two really good ones. Let's go to we'll skip servant since I believe that John you you you you know probably tons of them. Let's go to autocratic. Let me define it.
Leader who make decisions independently with little input from others. Go ahead.
John D. Richardson 17:15
All right. So again, politics aside, because I'm what I'm about to say is going to be very unpopular with half our audience. But at this time in our season of life, I would put our president, Donald J. Trump, at the top of that list. And here's the reason why.
And this is, again, don't get mad at me. If you're on Team Republican or you're on Team Democrat, you're like, has nothing to do. Politics has everything to do with personality and style. If you look at the process in which our those folks who are in the inner circle, they are supported and they their, their ideas are shared. because as a leader, you realize there's a support challenge matrix and the support challenge matrix states basically.
And this is from the book Robert Greenleaf on Servant Leadership that first has to first, people have to first feel support before you bring challenge. And so part of being a leader is sitting down with a person hearing asking a ton of questions. One of the questions I love to ask is what does support look like to you again? What does support look like to you? How can I support you?
And then just shut up and they'll tell you what they want and you're like, okay, if I heard you correctly, you want this, this and this, and if I do this, you feel like I'm going to be leading you properly, right? And they say, yes. Got it. Now I do that. I build trust and rapport.
They're like, you got my back. You're my guy. Now. When it's my time to bring challenge and to bring correction, which happens as a leader, sometimes you got to correct people and use the, you know, I call it a poop sandwich, but you got the bun, the, the burger and then the bun, or it's like a crystal burger if you're from the South or I like White Castle, so I'm not going to pick on White Castle, but you get the idea. When you when you give correction to people you recognize and bring instruction, then you motivate.
But you get the idea. You have to correct people sometime at some point. But if you don't first have that support built there, you don't have that trust. All they hear is a person being mad at me or being mean to me. And if you're in the inner circle and you feel supported, you're good.
If you're on the outside looking in, you just feel like this person is being autocratic and mean and being pushy and making decisions unilaterally. And that's no fun. And so again, not again. Politics aside, just the style. I mean, is it effective?
Could it be effective in times? Yes. Again, there's times when you need to have a person being pushy to for safety and for reasons of trying to get people on the right page, whether it's like, again, you got kid in the street or person's about to get hurt or you get the idea, but long term and sustainable, it's not because people feel like they're being used and they're not properly supported. So there you go again. May not be popular with some.
And again, if you knew my backstory involving politics, you know, that's kind of ironic that I'm sharing that. But nonetheless, I'm here to talk politics. We're just talking leadership style. Chris.
Chris Gandy 19:53
I would tell you that I'm going to go with Fidel Castro, right? And so if you go back in history and we look, he was a leader that made decisions with no input from other people. Like he was like, here's what we're doing. We're not negotiating. We're not going to we're going to cut off all boundaries with other countries.
We're not going to allow people to come in from other countries. We're going to do this, and we're going to do this all with the idea that he can control the environment. If he was able to control the the income and the output. Right. And so creating an environment where people felt like they they had less of a decision to make.
Right. And I, I can see and there's some situations where analysis is paralysis. Right. So I also can see my first leader at when I was at a company in the industry was he would make decisions for everybody. And then basically we were in this role like we didn't have to make a decision on what kind of CRM system we had to use.
We didn't have to go look at 50. He would make decisions about what company we would use to underwrite our insurance policies. He would make a decision on who hired who, who worked there and who didn't. Right. It was all stop.
It was all by him, period. And so we probably have found ourselves in some of the if I go back 20 some odd years, 26 years in some of the career companies, that's how it was. It was decision was made by one person who was the CEO or whoever was the GA in our system, and that was top down, top down politics, top down leadership. It started there, it ended there, and that's where we had to abide. It was very little input.
You know, as a new agent, they didn't come to me and say, hey, what do you think about us hiring this recruiter? They didn't care. It was one person or two people making that decision and it was pushed down. So I think down. Top down politics, top down type of leadership there.
And it's done in a way that. Specifically, it says useful in crisis situations to be quick and decisive. And so when people are first starting in this business, John, it is really a little bit of a crisis right there. Like I gotta make a check, I'll make a check and I'm not going to go in, I'm going to go out of business. I gotta write policies, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So if you can take some of the decision making from people so they don't have to make those and say, do this, do this, do this, or you're out, it makes it really easy to do so. Not necessarily just the bad things about it, but there are some good things that can that can come from it. Because it launched someone like myself. I believe you came from one of those career systems when you started to I mean, we, you know, kind of a bunch of us came from those spaces and a bunch of our family and friends are still there. But, you know, I think there there's there is some light there too, as, as opportunity and perspective.
Okay, let's go to the next one. Democratic or participative leadership. Okay. Involves team members in decision making while the leader maintains the final authority. I'm going to go first one on this one I'm going to go with.
Our national NAIFA. We collectively work together as teams. And there's different groups. There's our executive committee and our board. And we as a team make decisions.
And even though Kevin is kind of the final guy to to put it out there, but I think we are we are a participative type of leadership. And I think that served NAIFA for, for, for ever since we've started. And that's kind of our culture. And I think that's a very healthy culture because it gives people empowerment to be involved. Specifically, it talks about involvement of other people from different perspectives.
What about you? Did I take yours?
John D. Richardson 23:46
No, no, actually I've got. I've got other ones. But you nailed it. You're exactly right. I agree with you.
So I'm. As for some folks, don't know. I mean, there's some things I'm really into, like tabletop strategy, board games. I'm a nerd, but I'm also involved in scouting, and I serve on the executive committee within my council here in the greater Nashville, Middle Tennessee area. And recently, I had an opportunity to serve at the highest level on a training course at Philmont Scout Ranch, which is out in Cimarron, New Mexico.
It's called the Philmont Leadership Challenge. Went through as a participant last year. They enjoyed having me so much they invited me to come back on faculty. I was one of 20 folks nationwide out of the hundreds of thousands of adult leaders, which was humbling to know that I was able to participate in that. But one of the things I took away from that experience, because they do it's a democratic approach to leadership, is what we learn in scouting, because it's a it's a based on Baden-Powell's patrol method, and you have a person who runs the patrols called patrol leader, or in the case with a bunch of patrols, you have a senior patrol leader.
So there's a hierarchical system, but it's based upon the ability or the leader to bring up that next generation or those people in there under their control, under their their their guidance. The phrase that we use at the Philmont Leadership Challenge, I love it. It's primus inter pares. Again, primus inter pares, which means first among equals. Imagine we're all on the same level as leaders.
And yet there's one person, at the end of the day that's got to make the shot. There's one person that's got to make the call. And so but but by coming together as a collaborative and working together, thinking about the greater good and what's important, what are the values, what are the priorities for this organization? Where are we going? And then we we come together and we think it through.
And then we have one person says, you know, we're going to finally make that decision in the sense of NAIFA you have, of course, Kevin May is doing an amazing job as our CEO and that's leading the organization as far as the the people who are on the payroll. And then you got you have why am I blanking on his name now? Oh my gosh. Our day for Texas president Doug Massey. Thank you.
Yeah Doug Doug's doing a great job on on our on our volunteer side. Why I had a blank right there because I, I his face. But Doug is doing a great job as far as leading. But again there's the office of the presidency, which you know firsthand, Chris, for the NAIFA Nation perhaps doesn't know what the office of the presidency is, but a group of folks get together on a regular basis. That way there's continuity between years.
So it's not just one person doing their own thing. And then next year that we forget about it. And through that continuity, NAIFA is trending in the right direction on and I we know this having sit in the meetings financially, moving in the right direction, membership is growing. We're doing all the right things. We're empowering our members at a new level.
They're excited about the, as you call it, like that Disney magic experience. They're starting to see it at a high new level. And it's it's kind of fun. So you're right. Knife is killing it.
And I I've learned about that type of leadership through my involvement with scouting. And for anybody who's a scout leader, you know selfish plug go through the go through woodbadge as a as a scout leader and then go through the Philmont Leadership Challenge, and you'll learn firsthand what primus inter pares is all about.
Chris Gandy 27:01
I like it, I like it. Look at that. Is that French, John?
John D. Richardson 27:04
Yeah, it's Latin, it's Latin.
Chris Gandy 27:07
Okay. That's that's that's.
John D. Richardson 27:08
First among equals. Yes.
Chris Gandy 27:11
Among equals I like it. All right. Let's go to the next one. Laissez faire leadership, hands off approach, granting team members the freedom to make decisions and work independently. That one's actually a little bit of a challenge, but I'll, I'll JD r do you have somebody that comes or some a situation that comes to mind?
John D. Richardson 27:30
Well okay. So I'm blanking on her name now. She was the former mayor of Atlanta, Anna, Georgia. I read a book from in the book Study Club. I'm Stacey Abrams.
So Stacey Abrams wrote a book. You know who Stacey Abrams is, right, Chris. Okay, so she wrote a book called Lead From the Outside, and it's a fascinating book. Sometimes people feel like I. In order to be a leader, I have to have the title or I've got to be the person everybody looks to.
No, you can actually lead from the outside, which is a person who is doing a good job being a follower or being a part of an organization, but they're noticing that there are things that could be better because they're intuitively they're just like, you know, that could be better. And instead of undercutting the leader, they're supporting the leader. And by building trust with that people in charge, they get to know them. And before you know it, the people in charge are like, this person's got it going on. Let's give them an opportunity to step up into leadership.
And so they're leading from the outside and they get to come in. So that laissez faire, which is hands off, you're not directly. It's kind of indirect leadership is how I would interpret or basically you're not you don't have the title, but guess what? You don't need the title. There's positional leadership and there's persuasion leadership.
I would I would tell you that people with persuasion leadership that have built that trust, that people know they can count on, is more important than a person that's got a title who they don't know you, whether you can count them or not. So that's Lead From the Outside Stacy Abrams book in great detail. She's tells her story and you get an idea about how that works. And again, I'm thankful that Nyfa has a book club. And that was I guess it was about a year or so ago.
It's the book we read. And it was it was fantastic. Chris, how about you?
Chris Gandy 29:20
I'm going to go with and I'm going to shift gears for a moment and go in a different direction, but I'm going to go with pastors and ministerial people, okay? And I'm going to go I'm going to use the Pope a little bit, right? We can say that Influentially wise, he's one of the more powerful figures in the world, right? Regardless of religion, regardless of religion, regardless of belief, you look at it and you say, okay, well, and I think of this because I think of and I'm going to shift. So I think of ministerial leaders.
But then I also think about here's one I think about my therapist. Okay. Let me let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. Because I go to him and he makes it think.
He makes me think it's my idea. Right. He makes me think. But he leads me in a direction that naturally helps me see the fact that it's here is the solution without giving me the answer. Does that make sense?
Right? So numerous conversations. His approach is very conversational and very asking me questions to make me feel very like I'm empowered and I can make these decisions and I'm doing it independently. And he is just a catalyst for me making these, these, these decisions. Well, all along, I understand that his his form of skill, his his his skill is very, very, very unique in the way in which he's able to get me to a place of discomfort and challenge and awareness that he is not specifically telling me.
Does that make sense? So, so so I think about that, and I think about the pastor I grew up with is he would deliver a message, but at the end of the day, he never told people what to do. He never he invited people to be a part of the mission, the vision, the journey. But he never told people what to do. But people rallied around him.
People rallied around, you know, his support. And as you know, if anybody was watching Monday Night Football last night or was it Monday night? Sunday night football. Last night. They brought a kid.
I don't know if you saw this. They brought a guy that was a, like, a, like, 28 year old veteran into Buffalo. And he had he wasn't even on the team. He was he didn't go through any pre-games. Nothing.
He got there three days before. Three days before. He didn't have a jersey the day before, right? He got there three days before. He was thinking about retiring.
And, you know, he's like, I was done. You know, I was I was actually just going to work on my farm. And, you know, I was at a high school still kicking just in case somebody called or whatever it may be. And last night the Buffalo Bills beat the Ravens. They came down.
They were down 14 points with less than six minutes to go. They came back and and then guess what? The guy without the jersey, the guy without a name on the back of his jersey, the guy that was kicking in. They were like an Arizona and somebody like backyard or something like that. They bring him in with less than 11 seconds left to win the game and he wins it.
They say for the first time ever, a someone was carried off of the field and it was him. So yeah, that was quite laissez faire leadership because he was able to lead by example without having to a even have a name on his jersey. B and it's funny, the announcer says he doesn't even know everybody's name on the team, but he didn't need to, right? Because in the situation, he was highly skilled enough to be able to come through and lead him to victory. So.
And again, don't come after me, Ravens fans. And it is what it is. I'm just telling you, I saw it. And to me that was a form of leadership because he was able to step up and lead people in a way to, to, to, to a game winning field goal. So that's good.
What about this one John Jr. Transactional leadership based on structures or tasks, rewards or penalties. I'm going to go first here and I'm going to say a judge like a circuit judge who's sitting in a courtroom. They are given specific things that they have to follow, which is the guidelines of the law. Right.
So if you go into a transactional, a transactional court, that is what's going on. They're going to go down the path. This is what's going to happen. And there will be a decision made. Either you're guilty or not guilty.
Right. Whatever it may be. And here is the penalties. And they go down the list and they say based on x the x this is what happens, right. And there's some ranges there.
But they're following a structure and there's a rewards and penalties for that decision being made. I'm looking at that as more of a transactional leader in our kind of space society. What about you, Joe?
John D. Richardson 34:24
All right. So this the best way I can approach this one is to is to use myself as an example, and I believe that I was a transactional leader for the longest time. In fact, I believe that many of us are in our in this industry, not to not to pick on anybody. But I think at the end of the day, there's folks who are in our business. And again, half the people listening were mad at me already.
Now the other half are getting mad at me. There's a lot of folks that that basically are like, hey, I'm just here to make a buck and I'm here to move on. Yeah, I'm going to do the right thing by my client. I'm going to meet all the I'm going to check all the boxes. But, you know, at the end of the day, I got a mortgage to pay, you understand?
I got bills to pay, and I'm number one. And if that's your motivation, then you know what? That I'm not mad at you. Because guess what? Your story was my story?
Because when you get started in the business and you're grinding it out, you're doing whatever it takes to make it work. Obviously you play by the rules. Obviously you're in alignment with compliance, but you're just trying to. You're just hustling and you're not thinking about others. But at some point you realize, you know what?
This is not how it's supposed to be done. We're about in the business of transforming lives, about impacting, not creating a ripple effect, where I'm planting a seed that grows into a tree that provides shade that I will never enjoy. But you know what? 100 years from now, somebody's going to enjoy that shade. And I know, I know that my small part, I put in a little seed, and it grew into something bigger than I ever thought possible.
To me, that's a better way of living. But. So I'm going to pick on myself and say, yeah, I was a transactional leader for many years. And honestly, if you're listening to this podcast in the back of your head, you're like, yeah, that's that's kind of me too. It's okay.
I'm not mad at you because guess what? I was there too. But there's a better way. And I'm going to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone. Go start doing life within Napa with people that are more transformational, people that have a more of a laissez faire, more servant leader, other types of leaders besides the.
At the end of the day, I just got bills to pay kind of person because again, that's in my opinion, it's not sustainable long term for the person as well as the organization. So there you go.
Chris Gandy 36:32
Let's go. There's three more, but we're going to I'm going to pick one that I think will be a good at least conversation starter. Charismatic leadership relies on charm, communication and inspiration to influence and lead. So I'm going to go with and I'll go first if that. If you're okay with that, I'm going to go with Barack Obama.
The charisma ooze from oozes from his like the guy is smooth. I don't I don't know if there's too many smoother guys than that, not only in in his communication, but his ability to inspire even across the aisle. Even people that hated his guts for all practical purposes, respected who he was and what he what he did and what he was able to do at the time of being able to do it in the environment in which he was able to do it in. I would say that even going back years and years and years and years and years and years and looking at people who who give speeches. I would say that he is probably one of the more influential speakers that we've come across during, I mean, for the last hundred years.
But I could be wrong. So that's just my opinion. Everybody has a right to them. So it's my perspective. So Joe, what do you think?
John D. Richardson 37:53
I totally agree. In fact, back in the day I wanted to have a beer with President Obama. I mean, you couldn't help but remember that one, that the beer where he's, like, meeting with people and he just you just wanted to get to know the guy because you just can't help but like him because he's got a strong personality. Another president, I would say, is Ronald Reagan the great communicator. You couldn't help but like the guy and the way he approached things.
Again, politics aside, he had a way of sitting by that, that the what do you call those fireside chats with, with the American public looking directly into the camera saying, look, I know what's going on and in your world and I want to help. Or another president was Bill Clinton, who cleverly always said, I feel your pain. And people are like, he feels my pain. He's just like me. And so those those types of leaders are fantastic.
Again, short term in my opinion, because just like in our business and I'll I'll tell him myself here, I'm a very personality driven business type person. However, there's folks that are killing it and we all know who they are. And they're not about the personality, they're about the process. They don't reinvent for each client they meet. They have a proven process.
It's methodical. And because of that, their business is scalable. Well, personality driven business. As a financial planner, it's like I'm one off. I'm making this unique for every single person, which is great.
They love me and I love them. However, at some point you get to about 150, 200, 250 clients that you're doing life with and managing, but you can't scale to that next level because you're focusing more on your personality than you are about your process. And so be aware. That's a great door opener and it's a great. But at some point you have to we you know, our our we're limited by our ability to be organized and have systems and processes.
And so that would be my encouragement. If you're a strong persuasion leader, get some people around you that are more systems oriented and help them coach you in that space would be my $0.02.
Chris Gandy 39:50
I love it. So JR, I look up at the time man and we're we're out of time man. And we that was that went quick. You know I mean we were right at we're on the cusp of NLC. We get a chance to come and transform and to lead others.
We also get an opportunity to to to to grow as a, as a family of of constituents and members. And, and we get a chance to actually create a new path, a new shift forward as we continue to grow into the future. So, JR, I'll open the door to you. Anything you want to share with our brothers and sisters as they as they are thinking about. Should I be there or should I come?
Or if I'm. If I'm not going to come? You know what? If they're making, you know, their their egos, telling them reasons why they should shouldn't come. But any final words for NAIFA Nation as we as we're on the cusp of NLC?
John D. Richardson 40:49
Absolutely. Well, as they say, as iron sharpens iron, bringing people together in community to encourage each other, to catch them doing things right, to help them build bridges to the future generation of leaders. This is the event of the year that you don't want to miss. The National Leadership Conference is that premier opportunity for folks to come together to see who's rising in the local state chapters, getting plugged in, and also to hear from people that have that are doing it right in the areas of these different areas of growth, whether it's membership growth or advocacy growth or all the other areas that we're doing well. So I look forward to seeing you guys in Virginia right outside of DC.
And I'm looking forward to get to know you guys on a personal level. So, Chris, thank you for your time.
Chris Gandy 41:36
If you don't know who JD, he's the guy running around with a bow tie. I may have to put a bow tie on just so you can. So they confuse who we are. They're like, who is that? Is that JD?
No, that's JD so but JD Jr, thank you for your time, energy and effort. Thank you for serving on not only the state boards and being participative there, but also going around the country and sharing the message of the nation and the importance of US building. You know, the word I'm going to use, and you'll hear me use over the next 12 to 16 months, is transformative culture. You're gonna hear a lot of that. And what does that really mean and how do we embrace that?
So transformation being a catalyst to transform something where we can grow exponentially. So with that being said, that wraps up this episode of advisor today the podcast. Thank you all for listening, NAIFA Nation, and thank you for your support as we continue to celebrate Main Street America and Financial services around today and our conversation today. If you feel inspired, challenged and or feel like I want to get involved, please, please put your hand up so that we can identify you. Touch base with Zack.
If you know people that would potentially be great guests on the podcast. We'd love to have them and touch base with zack@naifa.org. And he is the person, the talent scout, the person who's making this happen. And remember, leadership begins when you show up in our business, in your community, and also in this profession. Until next time, keep leading with a purpose and keep leading and serving with your heart.
Thanks! Have a great day.
Outro 43:11
Thanks for joining us for NAIFA's Advisor Today podcast series. Make sure to subscribe to get future episodes and if you're interested in coming on the show, let us know.