{"id":11846,"date":"2010-08-16T22:19:57","date_gmt":"2010-08-17T03:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artofmanliness.com\/?p=11846"},"modified":"2025-11-16T18:08:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T00:08:57","slug":"the-art-of-manliness-podcast-episode-29-serve-to-lead-with-james-strock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/character\/leadership\/the-art-of-manliness-podcast-episode-29-serve-to-lead-with-james-strock\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Manliness Podcast Episode #29: Serve to Lead with James Strock"},"content":{"rendered":"
 <\/div>\n

We will all serve in leadership roles at some time or another. It might be at our work, in our communities, or in our families. But what separates the great leaders from the merely good ones? Are great leaders born or made?<\/p>\n

Our guest today is an authority on the topic of leadership and will answer those questions. His name is James Strock<\/a> and his latest book is called Serve to Lead: Your Transformational 21st Century Leadership System<\/a><\/em>. (I finished the book last week. One of the best books I’ve read on leadership. A Definite must read!)  James has also published two other books on leadership: Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership<\/a><\/em> and Reagan on Leadership<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

We talk about why service is integral to leadership in the 21st century, what leadership lessons we can take from Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, and what you can do today<\/span> to become a better leader.<\/p>\n

Listen to the Podcast! (And don\u2019t forget to leave us a review!)<\/h3>\n

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Read the Transcript<\/h3>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Brett McKay here and welcome to another episode of \u2018The Art of Manliness\u2019 podcast. As men we all lead at some point in our lives, we service leaders in our jobs, our communities or maybe in our families. What sets apart the truly great leaders from the merely good ones. Is leadership a skill you can develop or is it something you\u2019re just born with.<\/p>\n

Well, our guest today is a recognized authority on the subject of leadership and can answer those questions. His name is James Strock and he is the author of several books on leadership including \u2018Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership\u2019 and \u2018Reagan on Leadership\u2019. His latest book is called \u2018Serve to Lead\u00ae: Your Transformational 21st Century Leadership System\u2019. I just finished reading this book and it was fantastic and I encourage you all to go get it, in addition to writing on leadership, Mr. Strock travels the world, consulting and speaking to companies on the topic of leadership. James, welcome to the show.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Well, thank you Brett, I\u2019m delighted to be here and I just love the work you do, what a tremendous website and what terrific information and what great history you share with all of us, thank you.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Well, thank you sir. So, James your new book \u2018Serve to Lead\u2019, you\u2019ve written about leadership before, why did you decide to write this book \u2018Serve to Lead\u2019 now.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Well, for a few reasons, one is that whenever I would be speaking to groups many people would try to say let\u2019s get leadership down to one sentence, one word, what would it be, then I thought about it, struggled with it and it became quite clear to me that the service is the answer.<\/p>\n

The second reason is that leadership really is changing before our eyes right now for a whole lot of reasons. We all recognize the tremendous leadership failures from Wall Street to Main Street, from Washington all the way to the Vatican, but there is also extraordinary things happening right now, and I think we could look back and see if this it\u2019s not just the end of one era, but the beginning of golden age of leadership. I felt that really I had not seen a book that dealt straight on with these changes in a practical way that all of us could apply and that\u2019s what the goal of this book is.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Yes, it\u2019s one of the things I enjoyed about it, it wasn\u2019t just theory, but it was very practical, you know, things that you can use right away, and that\u2019s what I really enjoyed about it.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Thank you, it\u2019s intended to be that way, it\u2019s also intended to be particularly because it is built on the strengths the readers bring to it, to really become their own book, and it\u2019s a book that anybody could hopefully apply at anytime of life.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> So, you mentioned that we\u2019re kind of in a transformational stage in our society and governance, there are lot of things going on, lot of upheaval, what\u2019s the difference between effective leadership today, how things are now compared to what effective leadership was 30-40 or even a 100 years ago.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Well, one of the biggest difference is that we all see everyday it\u2019s in the midst of the information revolution, it used to be that organizations for example, whether it\u2019s the military or a company or perhaps a family would tend to have a person like a boss and the notion was that they knew best what to do and sort of used others to help them extend their reach. Today, that\u2019s entirely unloaded and as you know what happens today is that in any organization there is clearly much greater useful knowledge and value at the so called bottom of the organization and there\u2019s also always more useful knowledge and value outside of any organization than within it.<\/p>\n

So, this is entirely changed what people in leadership roles have to do where it used to be about directions, now it\u2019s about empowerment and that\u2019s not just the worse speaking, it totally changes what leaders or people we think of as leaders do day-in day-out if they\u2019re going to be effective.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> And so would it be fair to say some of the problems we\u2019ve had is that people or leaders are applying this old way of leadership theory from a 100 years ago, what worked during the industrial revolution, they\u2019re still trying to apply that to now, to the informational \u2013 the informational revolution.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Exactly, I think it\u2019s a terrific summary and what\u2019s happened is I think you\u2019ll see this in the book \u2018Serve to Lead\u2019 on the one hand some people they might feel a little bit at sea in that things that they\u2019re quite different than it had been in recent decades, however, many of these changes and what they require of people if they\u2019re going to be effective as leaders also open up the experience, knowledge, and history of people much further back in the mid 20th<\/sup> century. And that\u2019s one of the very interesting things about working on this book and I would add by the way that\u2019s one of the great things about you\u2019re website because your constantly bringing in history in a very useful down-to-earth applicable way to let people know that some of the things they\u2019ve seen in their own lives just don\u2019t add up to be enough to work with.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Yeah, and throughout your book, you refer to what you call the four questions. What are these questions and how do they help people become better leaders.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Well, you know, one of the things that Peter Drucker, the great management theorist has been quoted as saying, surely before his death, is that in the future, meaning now, questions are increasingly more important than answers and that sort of thinking is the premise to the book, because it\u2019s built on questions that can be applied in any leadership situation one faces, that also means that each person will come to their own answers and the people that do it best will bring all their unique characteristics and experiences together to come up with answers that serve others that no one else really got. So, with that mind, what the book does is offer four questions throughout as you pointed out.<\/p>\n

The first is the key one, \u2018who are you serving\u2019. The second, \u2018how can you best serve\u2019 and that goes to any given circumstance and the next level up, \u2018are you making your unique contribution\u2019. And finally, \u2018are you getting better every day\u2019. And if you think as I hope you saw on the book about those questions and apply them, they can literally structure all of your thinking in actionable way.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> So, James, you talked about in the beginning there\u2019s been kind of all the failure of leadership in lot of our \u2013 in lot of places in our society, are there any leaders right now who exemplify the \u2018Serve to Lead\u2019 philosophy.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Yes, and I would only name two or two types. One is Nelson Mandela. And the other is there are a lot of people you\u2019ve not heard about yet in public forums, but you maybe encountering whether it\u2019s a Walmart either as customer or working there, whether it\u2019s at a local church or the high school, I think they\u2019re many people who\u2019re not yet known in a public way, who\u2019re beginning to apply these things and as they go, particularly young people, further in their careers you\u2019ll see it in positional leadership as well reflecting these changes. But among renowned figures, the one that just flies out above all others who is today thankfully with us is Nelson Mandela.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Now, James, you talked about how you like to try to go back to history and take lessons and practical lessons from that, and you\u2019ve actually in your two previous books looked at two American Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and try to extrapolate lessons from their political careers, what leadership lessons can a man take from Theodore Roosevelt, you know, we\u2019re big fans of T.R. here at the \u2018Art of Manliness\u2019.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> T.R. is the best isn\u2019t it. T.R. is \u2013 he\u2019s been, well, called the most lovable Presidents and he is just a spectacular figure, I think because of history and the things you can\u2019t predict, because we tend to measure presidential greatness by victory in a war particularly, some of his very successors that avoided war as president may have held him back a little, but even with that, he\u2019s constantly regarded in this time period as among the handful of Best Presidents ever, and I think with really good reason.<\/p>\n

Among his top lessons, the one that he would want everybody is to look at his life and take away is that character as the fundamental part of everything and it doesn\u2019t matter so much what a person accomplices in a certain way of life, it matters what they are, that\u2019s what the lessons are. He said that over and over and over again. He also believed very strongly that leaders are to the greatest extent self-created and that seems at first a little odd with him, because he came from such a privileged background, but from his point of view and also from the point of view of others who are around him that T.R. that became famous, that became President, that became the great leader was very much a self-created figure and he would want everybody, he used to say, boys, and I would say boys and girls to be able to look at that life and get to their own greatest contributions.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> So, leaders are made not born.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> That\u2019s right, with this caveat, I mean I absolutely believe that leaders are made and I can see it my world, in my work, because you can have people make dramatic strives adjusting habits of thinking and habits of living and it\u2019s measurable, you see it, people live it, they\u2019re affected by it. At the same time, as in anything, there are obviously certain people who\u2019re supremely gifted, their leadership, the nature of the gift may vary, how it\u2019s valued in a given time to some extent. And I often think of like basketball, look with respect to you, I\u2019m sure you\u2019re a fine athlete, but I bet that if you had the best coaching in the world you still not going to be Michael Jordan.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Probably not, definitely not.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> But you could be a hell of a lot better, you could become a star and that\u2019s I think how leadership is as well.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Was there a particular moment in Roosevelt\u2019s career that, you know, you showcased as exceptional leadership ability.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> It\u2019s interesting because as you know from reading \u2018T.R. on Leadership\u2019 and your own knowledge of Roosevelt that\u2019s already very great, he had a number of rather spectacular leadership moments and so I think to me what\u2019s the most interesting is the one that he valued most and that of course would be his service in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and you\u2019ll recall that even after he left the presidency would he had his choice of honorifics, he would prefer to be called the Colonel not President Roosevelt.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Yeah, I thought that\u2019s interesting, yeah. Edmund Morris is actually coming out with a new biography about his career after his presidency, it\u2019s called the Colonel I believe or Colonel Roosevelt\u2026<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Absolutely, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to be spectacular and like \u2013 I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve done, I will be one of the first to have that fly my way when it comes out this October.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Exactly. So, what about Ronald Reagan, he\u2019s pretty close to us in history, and we haven\u2019t had \u2013 I guess we had some time to evaluate his impact as a leader, what lessons in leadership can men take from Ronald Reagan.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Well first, I guess let\u2019s talk about men then men and women, how\u2019s that and I got to tell you\u2026<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Sounds good.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know how you think of it, I\u2019ve noticed sometimes on your outstanding website some people take offence for say manliness or whatever or all the womanliness or something, well, number \u2013 I don\u2019t take offence, I know and I think it\u2019s great, but I also recognize that the number of things that traditionally might be called manly traits in the good sense, also woman can have in a similar or their own way\u2026<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Certainly.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> I\u2019m sure you don\u2019t exclude them either.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Definitely not, no.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Reagan \u2013 when my book first came out a decade ago a lot of folks did not recognize it yet universally how consequential he was, and of course now everybody does from all political parties no matter whether you like his views or not or what he did, they recognize he is a very model of a consequential president and James MacGregor Burns one of the great historians who politically disagreed entirely Reagan said that he along with Franklin Roosevelt would stand as the two most consequential presidents of 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

I think Reagan offers a number of lessons, of course, my book about Reagan is about them and it\u2019s going to come out again with an update late this year for Reagan\u2019s 100th<\/sup> anniversary centennial and its by the way I\u2019ve got some very exciting new parts to it. I think perhaps the biggest lesson goes back to your prior point and that is that he was also to a very great extent self-created as a leader. He used to always say that he would try to make it look easy, but he wasn\u2019t and Reagan made a study of leadership, a study of leaders, in fact there are several contemporaries of his who wrote about situations when they saw him observing leaders such as Eisenhower in public situations and that\u2019s of course what actors do, they study very, very carefully in a way most people don\u2019t, they listen better, they look more carefully, Reagan had a lot of that and it was Franklin Roosevelt was his ultimate idea of kind of how a leader did the job, not Roosevelt, obviously the Roosevelt as a leader, which in term you\u2019ll recognize connects him in a sense to T.R. because T.R. was Franklin Roosevelt\u2019s model.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Yes, yeah, so what was Reagan\u2019s defining leadership moment.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> You know it\u2019s interesting that\u2019s a really good question, if you ask most people they would point to his public address in October 1964 where he spoke on behalf of Barry Goldwater\u2019s sinking presidential campaign, Goldwater and the campaign went through a record defeat, but Ronald Reagan went on television to raise money for the campaign right before the election made a huge impression and from that began to be lifted repeatedly in many people\u2019s mind toward the political elective route that he had considered off and on for the prior 20 years, but it actually then would take within two years running for Governor of California, of course, he first ran for president, before he was governor within two years, people forget about that, 1968\u2026<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Yeah, well, yeah, I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> But I think Reagan I would argue that what I find really hinged time of his life was at the immediate post World War II period, he had his marriage breakup to Jane Wyman and he \u2013 that was very much outside of his world view at that time and I needn\u2019t add that time was also politically deadly so was thought, until he was elected in 1980 to be divorced. He also lost a baby girl shortly after her birth with Wyman before their divorce, he had health issues, his career was in bit of downstate. He began to be fighting communists in Hollywood and that was not just a little debating society thing you know people who threatened to disfigure his face with acid, he often had to carry a gun.<\/p>\n

And my guess is it was that period in which a lot of the traits that became so important for him particularly his spectacular self-containment. If you look at key times in his presidency or in his life for example 1976 where he was losing every primary to President Ford almost in an embarrassing way, people all urged him to get out, but he just sat there literally in his sort of granite-like way, he just said no, we\u2019re going to see it through and he came very closely in the end.<\/p>\n

In the early 80s when the economic situation was grievous, the international situation was very tough, he was again very self-contained, able to withstand that and hold his views and work through it and likewise late in his term when you had a whole series of tough things happened, with the stock market crash, you had problems with his immediate staff, you had Iran-Contra Affair, all this in the 96-97 period loosening his party control to senate and his mother-in-law died, his wife got cancer, it was a tremendously difficult time, he got through all that and then had a last burst where he basically dis-batched the soviet empire completely and in so doing reconfigured a lot of that the political alignments because he wasn\u2019t entirely supportive in that by his own side much less his political adversaries, so that\u2019s a long way of saying I think that self-containment, that remarkable power to be in engaged in the world, but to maintain that kind of separation may have really been tempered in that immediate post World War II period.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> So, James, we\u2019re coming to an end here and before we leave any parting advice to our listeners on how they can improve their leadership skills today.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Well, you might have mentioned, I think the best possible way is to read \u2018Serve to Lead\u2019 and the reason I say that is again I think the focus if they could do one thing by getting this very moment after listening just to your outstanding podcast and always reading your great website, it would be to begin by asking that one question, who you\u2019re serving and take a look at that every day, look at your life and that one question in the book can help you then really work it through how it plays out in real life, it can begin to change your whole world and make your world a better one, because you\u2019re serving others.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Excellent. Well, James, it\u2019s been a pleasure.<\/p>\n

James Strock:<\/strong> Well, many thanks Brett and again thanks for all you do, it\u2019s just a terrific delight to be with you and I love all the work you do.<\/p>\n

Brett McKay:<\/strong> Thank you sir. Our guest today was James Strock. James is the author of the book \u2018Serve to Lead\u2019 and you can purchase his book on amazon.com and for information about James\u2019 book check out jamesstrock.com.<\/p>\n

Well, that wraps up another edition of The Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out The Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And until next time stay mainly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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