In this LMScast episode, Kurt Von Ahnen disclosed that John C. is the source of one of his fundamental ideas on leadership. According to Maxwell, “Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.” He thinks that everyone has an innate ability to lead, whether it be in the form of managing a team, a small group, or even just one other individual.

But a lot of people think they are better suited as a “number two” or support person, so they avoid taking on that job. Like in physics, when that occurs, a leadership void is created, and it will always be filled often by the wrong individuals, which will result in bad choices and unfavorable outcomes. Kurt used a tale from his business background to demonstrate this point, in which a sophisticated bonus scheme for merchants was implemented without first determining whether or not they wanted it.

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Kurt was the only person in a boardroom full of international executives who had ever worked at the retail level. Based on his personal experience, he cautioned that the program would fail despite making him the “protruding nail” a Japanese term for an individual who deviates from the group.

The scheme ultimately failed as he had feared, but his bravery in speaking up gained him a say in subsequent initiatives. Kurt believes that being a leader frequently entails stating the truth, going into awkward situations, and stepping in before someone less qualified does.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badget. I’m the co-founder of lifter LMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. State of the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMS Cast. I’m joined by a repeat GA guest. His name is Kurt Van Ahnen. He’s from Manana, NOMAS, and Kurt and I are gonna be talking about leadership today. But first, welcome to the show, Kurt. Hey, man, it’s always good to see you. Yeah. I know you’ve written books on leadership.

What’s the name of your book again? My book is Action Leadership from the Edge. Awesome. Let’s just start super high level. Like when you, somebody asks you like, what is leadership? How would you answer that question? 

Kurt Von Ahnen: I actually steal that answer from someone I consider a mentor. That’s John C.

Maxwell. He is if you don’t know, he is like an unbelievably prolific author on leadership, but he is quoted multiple times as saying leadership has influenced nothing more, nothing less, and that’s that alone has helped guide me on my pathway to continuous learning in this space.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, it’s a, it is an interesting question and it’s such a broad topic. I feel like everybody’s a leader in the sense that once you grow up from being a baby. You have to influence yourself and make decisions and move throughout the world. And then you have friend groups and you make decisions and so on, and it just keeps going out.

Not everybody goes all the way to becoming a transformational leader that LE leads a country or a religious movement or something like that, but there’s like leadership potential in everybody. 

Kurt Von Ahnen: You’re touching on. The actual purpose of the book I wrote, and that was for me and I saw this through the pandemic and stuff, so I really got amped up through that space.

But I personally believe everybody, every single human on the planet has some natural calling to some leadership position, whatever that is. You’re called to have influence on somebody or a group of people. And personally, I feel a lot of people bypass or abstain from that calling, right? So a lot of people go, oh, I’m not really a leader.

I’m more of a good number two, I’m a good support person. I’m not, and when you see people pull back or restrict themselves from fulfilling that natural call, I believe it just leaves a gap in leadership. And and I think the universe. All the energies of the universe. I think it hates the idea that there’s a gap in things, and so it allows that gap to be filled, but then it’s filled unnaturally and that’s how we see things where.

Normal people like us can look up, people running things and go, how did that moron get in that position? And you go, oh, that’s how, because the people that were meant to fill that position never stepped up. They never stepped into their natural call of leadership. And it allowed poor fits to fill those gaps.

And then they land and expand and it propagates nonsense instead of what’s meant to be. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s a huge deal. A leadership vacuum, I call it. Yeah. Like it’s missing and like you said, it’s like physics. Something will fill that space. Yeah. And it’s not always the best thing, but it will, that’s, that vacuum will always get filled.

Kurt Von Ahnen: Yeah it’s cra