If you wanted further insight into a come
follow me lesson, you'd probably search in YouTube
or get the We Believe app. Tough church
history questions? You'd reach out to the BH
Roberts Foundation. But what if you wanted to
learn to be a better leader? Well, I'm
glad you asked. You'd come to Leading Saints.
That's why we exist, to help Latter day
Saints be better prepared to lead by being
familiar with others' leadership experiences,
understand the latest leadership research, and finding a
community to share ideas. That's why I'm glad
you found the Leading Saints podcast. We hope
you will dive into the archives and visit
leadingsaints.org
to find out what are the top most
listened to episodes on the podcast.
Welcome. You're gonna love
it.
Here we step back into Zion Labs to
do a live stream. This is a recording
of that live stream where we interview Daniel
Johnston
who is a major in the air force
currently stationed at Dover Air Force Base, originally
from Idaho, Meridian, Idaho, went to BYU, was
involved in their ROTC program there. Just I
love interviewing military guys who have been through
the ringer with some of these things. I
mean, this is true leadership when you're in
the military
insight is always beneficial. Daniel recently wrote this
book, Leading with Faith. Subtitle is Timeless Lessons
from Spiritual Giants. He takes six leadership styles
and talks about, in each one of those
six,
specific individuals either in church history,
you know, prophets in the restored church, even,
scripture examples of prophets or individuals in the
scriptures. So just a a fascinating
discussion that we as we talk about different
leadership styles and what we've seen from leaders
in our time, you know, in in in
modern times, but also anciently. And,
you know, how did these leadership styles impact
the way that they led? And we talked
about each one of these six and and
share examples, and this would be a book
to definitely check out to
explore different leadership styles and learn from them
and then ask ourselves, what kind of leader
am I? How do I show up? And
maybe what's another style that maybe I can
try on for size and see if there's
anything beneficial that comes out out of that.
So a great discussion with Daniel. Let's jump
into it. Here's my interview with major Daniel
Johnston.
Alright. Welcome back to another podcast episode, which
we are live streaming at the same time.
It's sort of becoming the norm in, the
leading saints world that we're not just a
podcast anymore. We're also a online
community. And so a part of that community
through Zion lab, as we call it, we
are doing more and more live streams
that a lot of those we turn into
podcast episodes like this. And, I always appreciate
bringing in a good author here, especially somebody
who's taken some time to, think about leadership
in the context of of being a Latter
day Saint. And, that is, Daniel Johnston. How
are you? I'm doing great, Kurt. How how
are you doing today?
Very good. And I just love you I
mean, you you are dialed in when it
comes to, you know, doing the the book
promotion. You got the book behind you here.
I got a copy here. Maybe I should
put it on my shelf. But, yeah, it's
called Leading with Faith, Timeless Lessons from Spiritual
Giants.
So, Daniel, tell me what, where did the
idea come for actually putting this, manuscript and
book together? So very simply, I'm a officer
in the United States Air Force. And
when you are an officer,
the first thing you're taught is you are
a leader first, then you're your job second.
So I came in and as a brand
new lieutenant,
24 years old, graduated, I was in charge
of over a 100 guys who all knew
my job better than me. I'm I'm a
maintenance officer, so responsible for fixing the aircraft.
All of them knew that the job of
fixing the aircraft better than me. My primary
skill set was supposed to be leadership. So
I would look to
other officers. I looked to enlisted leadership. I
would look everywhere. It it got to the
point where I couldn't watch an MCU movie,
a Marvel movie, without trying to be like,
what can I draw from, you know, Iron
Man here or whatever? So I was just
really looking out for every
every avenue I could to see how I
could do better at my job. And then
one day, I realized
the Lord has provided some of the greatest
examples of leadership
in scriptures that I read every day. And
the only thing I'm taking from them is
spiritual guidance, which is great. We should take
spiritual guidance from our scriptures, but there are
real life leadership lessons. These are amazing men
and women that led with faith, and we
shouldn't put them in a box so that
we they can only help us on Sundays.
So I had some time over, my last
deployment to Saudi Arabia, and I started putting
together some notes. And they came together much
quicker than I thought. So there's the book.
That's cool. I love that. And, you know,
I think, naturally, we think if I wanna
write a church leadership book about,
you know, some figures in church history or
in the scriptures, we we start with the
person and then kinda fill in the principles.
But you kinda did it the other way
where you started with the principle, like the
builders, the peacemakers, the exemplars,
and then you, you know, attach to certain
individuals to that. Is that a fair way
to frame that? No. Absolutely. I I feel
like a lot of people who are either
beginning to get into leadership or aren't in
leadership yet but are looking to, they think
of there's such thing as in their mind
as an ideal leader. It's probably a leader
that they had growing up, like a church
leader, a parent, a teacher who
that really was impactful to them, so they
think there's this one way to lead. And
I've seen through my career lots of different
kinds of leaders. And so as I was
going through and I was reading the scriptures
and kinda thinking about this, I thought, let
me show specifically different styles of leadership that
can be found in the world around us,
but also in the scriptures. We can see,
you know, two leaders. You know, there's captain
Moroni, and there's
Esther. Two incredibly different leaders, and they're both
in the book, who accomplished great things, you
would say are great leaders, but did it
in a entirely different way. Yeah. And was
there a certain
like, how did you come how did you
settle on the certain principles or the the
titles that you, use in each section?
I kinda see them throughout my career. So
I didn't have hard names to them, but
I knew there was different kinds of leaders
throughout my career because, like I said, right
from when you're a lieutenant, you're expected to
lead. So you're defining your own leadership style,
and you're looking at officers around you and
stuff, and you very notice very quickly there's
there's different styles. So they were I didn't
have names for all of them, but they
were amorphous ideas I already had of, like,
when I meet a new squad or come
in, like, okay. This guy's a builder. Oh,
this leader's more of a servant leader. So
Mhmm. To kind of get what you're you're
saying, I have six kinds of leaders in
there. There's the communicators, the builders, peacemakers,
exemplars,
servant leaders, and disruptors.
And it just when I actually sat down
and started putting down, like, I know there's
different kind of leaders. Let me try to
see if I can put this down on
paper. Examples came to my mind from my
own career of, like, oh, okay.
That's the definition of this kind of leader.
Can I find those examples in the scriptures?
And as soon as I had the the
category defined, the examples as I was reading
just jumped off the page. Yeah. That was
fascinating. And I appreciate you breaking up that
way because, obviously,
every leader individual will naturally have their own
style of leading, and sometimes
we see may maybe more dynamic leader who's
really strong in front of a group of
people or good presenter or very charismatic, and
we think, you know, that's a leader. Right?
And you see we kind of try and
be that person when maybe we're not. And
so do you feel like you've identified maybe
six different types of of leaders? And, obviously,
they may overlap in some areas. But it's
that there's a certain leader for and a
different approach, not because they're the only ones
that can do
that the task at hand, but that there's
just different ways to approach leadership.
Absolutely. And once again, I would just want
to get away from the ideal leader myth
that there's not just one way to be
a leader for two reasons. One,
to, you know, so you can identify in
yourself what is, like, maybe everybody has different
skill sets. God's given us all different gifts.
And if you have a strength, but it's
not what you've seen in or in your
organizations, maybe you have an organization that's full
of builders. And you're like, oh, I'm not
a great builder. That means I can't be
a leader. That's not the case. You have
strengths, and that strength can be nurtured and
developed to where you can lead. And the
big thing I wanna say is if I
go through these six types of leaders and
you don't see anything that speaks to you,
okay, there's this is not the complete exhaustive
list of types of leaders there are. These
are just six that I identified.
Every god has given us all gifts, and
every single one of us can be a
leader by developing those special gifts. Very good.
Well, let's go through each one, and you've
you know, maybe we'll dive into some, some
of the examples you talk about. But the
first one being communicator, and you specifically high
highlight, Gordon b Hinckley in this. Maybe give
us some background there. Yeah. No. Absolutely. So
the funny thing with communicator, this is probably
the one that's the most broad. I chose
Gordon b Hinckley, but in this one I
have, Captain Moroni, I have Alma the Younger,
I have King Benjamin because, you know, as
a communicator, even within that, there's, you know,
those leaders that speak with power. There's those
leaders that can break down complex thoughts and
simplify them so they can be understood, and
then those leaders who can can, like, communicate
logistically well and get their message spread. Gordon
B. Hinckley, I I picked him out specifically
because he's a leader who understood that it's
not just important for a leader to be
able to communicate internally
and so that their people understand them, but
the leader is also
the voice of the organization and shapes the
perception of the organization,
which Gordon b Hinckley
excelled at. Like, I love Gordon b Hinckley.
He was the prophet of my youth. I
always thought he was really funny and, you
know, he he had that smile, but as
I studied his life a little bit more,
it's amazing how masterful a communicator he was.
Even at a young age, I something I
didn't realize, you know, you hear about Gordon
B. Hinckley's mission and there's that quote where
he just goes to work where thou art
do thou part and, you know, forget yourself
and go to work, that was it. But
also, he worked with journalists in The UK
during his mission because the church wasn't perceived
well there, and I know this firsthand having
served my mission in England, and he worked
with journalists in the local area to try
to get some good publicity for the church.
And to have that kind of foresight, that
innate leadership ability, that understanding as a communicator
at that age to me is is incredible.
And that's why when he came back at
age 25, he was put over the media
and public relations for the entire church.
So just And that put him on a
a path where we all know ended up,
you know? So really cool. I'm curious. I
have a a follow-up question around the communicator,
but we're recording this
a handful days after the passing of president
Nelson before general conference. And, obviously, there's a
lot of talk about president Nelson right now.
Just like not to put you on the
spot, but off the top of your head,
like, what type of leader was president Nelson
in in these six categories? Where would you
put him? I have thought about him because
I was actually thinking about putting president president
Nelson in the book. Once again, any one
of these leaders, you could put them in
a couple of categories. There's but for me,
there's defining attributes, and I'd put president Nelson
as a disruptor,
which is funny because you think disruptor, you
think it has to be Steve Jobs, has
to be somebody confrontational.
Disruptor, and we'll we'll get into it in
a little bit, but disruptor is just somebody
who sees the paradigm. Because a lot of
leaders, they come in and they wanna, like,
make alterations, make things a little bit their
own. Disrupters are people who have a clear
vision, and it has if it's different than
the paradigm in front of them, it doesn't
matter. They just are committed to their vision
into a total change. And I think Yeah.
President Nelson, I mean, we were all sitting
in our seats at every conference to see
what the big changes would be next. Right?
I feel like that's the kind of the
legacy he left behind during his during his
tenure. Yeah. The reason I asked that at
this point in the interview is that going
back to communicator and, obviously, president Hinckley was
was masterful at that. You know, there's so
much comments right now online about president Nelson,
and I think there's one that was a
little bit, you know, a cynical commenter that
does happen on online, believe it or not.
But they said something like, why didn't president
Nelson ever do an interview with the media?
Right? And I'm thinking, you know, you think
back to president Hinckley. You know, he was
with Larry King a few times. It's like,
I don't know if I want president Nelson
on Larry King or a similar type of
interview because I don't know how he would
fare that. I don't know if that was
necessarily his forte, and I don't think you
know, just as you know and I don't
want president Hinckley doing my heart surgery either.
You know? So it's like one of those
things. Like, it's not like president Hinckley was
better than president Nelson or they just were
a different leader,
and, they definitely shined in those areas. However,
I'd also say that in other areas, president
Nelson was extremely effective communicator where I just
think about how effective he was with these
taglines and phrases where he could take a
a huge message and compress it into a
think, celestial spiritual momentum, covenant
path, you know, type of type of, phrase
and, you know, the his,
three principle identities types of things. Like, he
was masterful at that as far as communicating
a spiritual message in the right context, but
I didn't necessarily wanna, you know, put him
on a national media
interview where he's answering questions.
It really is amazing how when we see
how the prophets
you know, when their strengths come out, like,
maybe we kind of had an idea when
they're apostles, but as they become a prophet
and they we see their strengths as a
leader to see why God has put them
in that position at the time. Like you
said, Gordon b Hinckley held press conferences. He
went on talk shows. He was he really
was a master communicator, but not all leaders
have to be great at all things. I
think that's a common misconception. Like like, so
why didn't president Nelson go on the talks?
Okay. You know? That might not have been
his strength. And it's important great leaders
know their strengths, and they also know
what their strengths aren't, and that's okay. Yeah.
I think for somebody to reach a certain
level, they have to know what got them
there. Yep. Very good. K. So, I mean,
this isn't if if people aren't thinking of
it, they'll slap their forehead when they think
of the who's the church leader? Who's the
builder? Yeah. No. I feel like this one
was the easiest one. This is the one
as soon as I, as soon as I
came up with the categories builder, I put
Brigham Young. There's other ones. There's Joseph of
of Egypt is a is another big one.
And there's we see throughout history and and
church history a a lot of builders. But
Brigham Young, I mean, a builder to me,
I mean, it's a easily definable one, but
it's a problem solver. It's it's a I
like to think of them as progress drivers.
Mhmm. Progress just doesn't happen on there, the
key driving factor for it. And they established
something that that last. And Brigham Young took
on his shoulders what, at the time, I
would consider the greatest logistical feat in the
history of The United States and still maybe
today is the greatest logistical feat in the
history of The United States of migrating an
entire
almost nation of people, not just from Illinois
to Utah, but also overseeing
the migration of the European saints
over being in charge of all that while
also standing up the Utah territory,
which was not a hospitable environment.
And it would have been completely understandable
if the Saints had been in little rundown
outpost
like what the rest of the West was,
but he built cities that just
were perfectly built to expand and not just
the infrastructure,
even to the infrastructure. I I know coming
from,
all the places I've lived, I don't have
a great sense of direction. When I moved
to Provo, it was my first time living
in Utah. I'm like, oh my gosh. I
can find my way around here without without
a GPS. The grid system was just like,
it was so perfectly constructed just the way
Utah cities are is incredible. Just kind of
a testament to his building expertise. But getting
back to him, he he didn't just build
to survive, he built to thrive. Like, you
know, there's the physical components. There's the components
of culture. Like, he established playhouses,
the choirs,
universities.
And then from the church component, obviously he
was the prophet, but I love the foresight
and the kind of commitment, and I think
it's a story that people know, but that
he called elders and sent them across to
Europe to study cathedrals
for the blueprints of how to build temples
here. Just it wasn't enough for him to
just be like, okay, let's get here, let's
get set up. It was, I'm gonna build
something.
I'm responsible for building Zion. He knew that,
and he treated that responsibility with care. So
I don't know if the church, through scripture
or church history, has had a better builder
than Brigham Young. That was true. They literally
have a statue in The US Capitol because
he was such a dynamic builder and settler.
Right? He was a force to be reckoned
with. Right? And I'm curious. Obviously, you know,
Brigham Young can be a controversial figure, especially
in the social media world. A lot of
people love to just throw him under the
bus, which is usually unmerited. But I wonder
if there's almost like an antithesis to each
one of these
the one of these, right, where it's like,
I don't maybe I didn't I don't expect
Brigham Young. I'm sure there's stories of him
being a servant leader, but, you know, he
doesn't jump to mind. That's sort of a
thing. Right? And and that's sort of just
the nature of these leadership, different types of
leaders is that you're gonna get different styles
at different times, and sometimes there's a lot
of purpose that God is putting up leader
there at the at the right time. But,
it's interesting to think about that. Sometimes their
strength can also reveal a weakness. You're absolutely
right. And there are I heard stories. I've
read them of Brigham Young's softer side and
servant leadership take taking kids into his home
and stuff like that. But once again, I
don't think that's why god had him in
that position at that time for his servant
leadership skills. It was Brigham was the man
who could get the job done. And it
is funny. I think I don't know if
there's as much of a contrast in leadership
styles
we have
from Joseph Smith to Brigham Young. Mhmm. Like,
I was in one of my, leadership classes
at when I had got my MBA at
BYU,
and the comparison was made. Joseph Smith to
Brigham Young is Steve Jobs to Tim Cook.
You have
the more visionary
leader. And Joseph Smith was a builder. He
had his building tendencies, but, you know, built
up Nabu, but not on the same scale
as Brigham. But he was more of a
disruptor, you know, just taking the status quo
and and smashing it where Brigham was, okay.
I'm gonna take Joseph's vision, and I am
going to make Zion here on Earth, and
I am going to will it to happen.
Yeah. Yeah. It would be interesting. Maybe in
sometime in eternity, you will be able to
play with parallel universes, but it'd be interesting
to see how Joseph Smith would have handled,
you know, if he wasn't martyred and he
carried on, you know, the the leadership with
the saints. You know, what would that expansion
look like? How soon would they have left
Nauvoo? You know, what would the Western settlement?
And I'm sure there's a lot of things
that look the same, but they've been done
differently. That's, you know, that's the way it
is. I I love that. I'm looking forward
to the LDS fan fiction right there. That's
right. Coming out soon. That's right. Alright. Let's
jump to the the peacemaker, and this takes
us to a scriptural figure. Yeah.
So peacemaker, I I spent a long time
thinking about this one of what to call
it because
I feel like the term peacemaker
I'm not gonna use it maybe the way
it's classically thought because the peacemaker I feel
like a lot of times peep what comes
to people's mind is somebody who is passive,
somebody who avoids conflict, somebody who
does not want
to will do what it takes to settle,
which can be the case in some situations.
But a peacemaker, I'm defining it literally as
a leader who makes peace for their people,
who does what is necessary to preserve
the peace and prosperity of their people. And
this sometimes can, you know, have them make
hard decisions. So what I have for here
is Nephi.
Nephi is somebody who
was not afraid to stand up to contention,
not afraid to do what it took, but
his first his first instinct was always
peace. And I think we see examples of
this within his family and then
as the Nephi people grow larger. I mean,
the classic example
is Laban.
Nephi is, a man who wants peace, but
he is sent there on a mission and
he knows for his people to have peace
and prosperity in the future, he's commanded to
kill Laban. And he he hits against this
because that's not what he wants generally, not
what he doesn't wanna kill, but these tough
decisions need to be made. Again with the
boat. I love his example of building the
ship. He can't do it by himself, or
it'll be more difficult, take longer to do
it by himself, And he knows he needs
his brother's help, and he's given this power
by God to two men, really, who have
abused him for a lot of his life
to have kind of power and control over
them. And what does he do? He gives
them just a taste enough to let him
know he means business
and says, okay, now I'm done. Bury the
hatchet. Let's build the ship. Let's get on
mission.
I mean, the restraint that Nephi has coupled
with the ability and power that he has
is, I think, the recipe for a peacemaker.
And then, obviously, when he becomes king of
the Nephi people, there's not much where where
we know about Nephi's reign, but we do
know he built cities and he built weapons.
Now a peaceful man like Nephi, one of
his first things is to, I'm gonna make
weapons.
Kind of out of character except he knows
that war will come, and he wants to
preserve peace for his people. So
Nephi does it, like peace through strength. I
also have Esther in this one, peace through
emotional intelligence,
Pahoran, peace through empathy.
So there's it's not always having to be
I'm the strong one to preserve peace,
but the, a peacemaker,
that is their primary goal, and they'll they'll
use the tools at their disposal to make
it happen. Yeah. Very good. And this is
another opportunity for a shout out for president
Nelson that we can never think of a
Peacemaker without thinking of him, which, again, is
is awesome. Right? I just love that message
that will continue to influence us in so
many ways. So And I think president Nelson,
him his you know, I said disruptor, but
you you got it close there with Peacemaker.
And the time that he was serving, everything
that's been happening in the country at the
last during his tenure as profit, I think,
once again, needed needed somebody with his sensibilities.
Yeah. So true. Alright. Let's jump to the
exemplar.
Exemplar is your I didn't know a better
word for this. I was going back and
forth with friends and family. But exemplar is
leader by example. If you've been on a
sports team before, there's the classic, oh, he's
the team captain. Well, does he say much?
No. But he he kinda shows us how
to do things the right way. In the
military, you say, you know, they lead from
the front, these type of leaders, where they
they say, hey, I'm not one for speeches,
I'm not one for all this touchy feely
stuff, but if you get behind me and
you follow me, I'll show you the right
way to do this. This one was interesting.
I had a couple leaders who stuck out
to me for this one. One that I
think is an interesting case study is King
David, because he is your classic, like, I
mean, what do we first know him from?
David and Goliath, where Yeah. As a young
man, you know, he goes and he's like,
who's this Philistine
mocking the people of God? I'm going to
show you what needs to be done. I'm
gonna be brave in it, inspire the people
of Israel
after he defeated Goliath.
And there's records of David fighting with his
men. He was a lead from the front.
But then also on spiritual matters, David didn't
just talk the talk, he walked the walk.
He wrote the Psalms. He wrote a whole
book of scripture as a warrior king. He
brought the Ark of the Covenant
back in, and it's
David progressed the nation of Israel so much
just by his reputation, the actions he took.
He was a leader by action. And so
interesting about this is that puts a huge
responsibility on the shoulders of an exemplar to
continue
acting that way. Exemplars, I feel like, are
the leaders most often we put on pedestals,
and we think they're perfect because it's not
just what they say. It's like, I wanna
be this person. I wanna do what they
do. And so when they mess up, it
feels like a personal betrayal.
David and Bathsheba,
I don't know how widely known it was
at the time, the depth of his, like,
sin, but, you know, for it's funny when
you talk about King David in the in
Sunday school, it almost feels like you're talking
about two different people because we're so crazy
worthy of him and all of his other
stuff. And then almost to to us in
the class feels like a betrayal, but but
he did this to us. Like, we were
looking up to him. We wanna follow his
example. How could he do this? And that's
kind of the two edged sword of being
an exemplar.
Yeah. Yeah. That takes my mind, and I
don't know if there's any you know, my,
this thought may fall apart if you, you
know, dug in a little bit further. But,
you know, there's so often where these leadership
attributes that are your your strong suit that
they can sometimes lead you to your downfall
as well. Right? The I mean, the you
think of David's fall of, like, it was
because he took action, and he you know?
And those actions sort of built upon themselves.
And I'm just thinking, like, you know, the
peacemaker with Nephi. I mean, maybe he was
in a moment too much of a peacemaker
where they're actually they actually had to you
know, were were able to tie him to
the master. You know? Like, I'm just thinking
these in in my own leadership where I'd
place myself and I kinda see that, yeah,
sometimes I, like, am in that gear so
much that I miss some things or I
I don't know. So I don't know if
there's anything to that, but that's where my
that sort of went and intrigued my mind.
No. I think that's why it's important that
all these people
are in this category, but they all showed
other signs of leadership as well, which is
why it's important for us. If you I
mean, was it a one trick pony? Right?
If you do one thing all the time
and you're unable to adapt to different situations
and you try to maybe fit a square
peg through a round hole and it's yeah.
You can put yourself in uncomfortable situations.
Yeah. Like Brigham Young where he was a
builder. That's about and, I mean, you hear
some stories of him sending people out to
places to settle and it just kinda didn't
work or I don't know. I'm sure there's
examples where his gusto of taking action of
building was maybe didn't take time to think
it through because he was just sort of
plowing forward with his strength. You know? That
might be, I think, the best example right
there of somebody taking their strength too far.
I think Yeah. As much as I love
Brigham Young, is it easy to say, you
know, maybe sometimes he went overboard with, some
of his great tendencies of building and pushing
and trying to make people do more. Yeah.
I think that'd be pretty easy to find
some examples. For as great as he was,
as important as he was, I think your
online commenters that you mentioned before might be
able to pull up an example of to
a Brigham Young taking it too far. Yeah.
For sure. Alright. Should we jump to the
the servant leader? Yeah. This one was pretty
easy to find because I think the church,
we kinda build servant leaders. We try to
fall on the model of Christ, and at
the end of the book, I show how
Christ is every one of these leaders, but
I think the way we think of him
most often is as a servant leader, which
the role of the servant leader is to
lift others. It's to help others grow, gain
confidence, and succeed. It is all about the
betterment
of the people
who you lead and really who you serve.
Your job is for them. Who I picked
is, Gail Halberson. For anybody who's seen the
movie Meet the Mormons, you'll be familiar with
him. He's also known as the candy bomber.
This one hit close to home because I
was actually an ROTC instructor at BYU for
one of my assignments as a captain.
And while I was there, we had Gail
Halverson come and speak to the cadets.
And it was amazing,
and I'll go through his story in a
minute, but once you know his story, to
have him there in the room and see
the graciousness that he had and the love
that he had for all of these future
officers,
and understanding the responsibility and just his appreciation
for them just really came yeah. It was
great. And that was just a couple of
months before he died. And when he did
die in 2022,
the ROTC served as kind of the security
and ushers for his for his funeral.
And the people who came to his funeral
were incredible. We had,
General Oakes, four star general, and and General
Authority. We had the German hatache.
We had president Euchtdorf come to speak. And,
you know, they didn't come to speak because
he was a war hero. Like, all the
stories in there were just about, like, how
he touched lives of others, and that's what
a servant leader does. It was for what
Gail Haversen did sorry, I forgot I'm assuming
everybody knows During the World War two,
Berlin was separated into the German side and
the Russian side, and the Russian side, was
essentially starving out the people of Berlin. Russia
and Russia and Germany were on separate sides
of the war, and The US undertook one
of the greatest humanitarian missions of the time.
It was called the Berlin Airlift, where they
air dropped supplies
into the Russian side of Berlin and, you
know, essentially tried to keep the people alive.
And Gil Halvorsen was one of these pilots
dropping in and there was a there was
a literal wall, the Berlin Wall, and a
fence separating
East from West Berlin and he went up
to the fence one day and he saw
a bunch of
children at the fence. And he told the
story to us as well when he came
and visited, and he just saw the look
on their faces. He didn't have hardly anything
to give him. So he had one piece
of gum left, tore the gum into lots
of pieces, and gave it to the children.
And then they passed it around, and then
they took the wrapper and started licking the
wrapper. I apologize. This always gets me choked
up, just, his spirit when he tells it.
And they told him,
hey. Don't worry about us. We'll have food
to eat one day. But if we lose
our freedom, we'll never get it back.
And he took that to heart. You know?
That's a wonderful story in its own right,
him giving the gum. And that's not a
story he could have told the rest of
his life. But what he did is he's
like, okay, kids, I have candy rations.
I'm gonna wiggle my wings when I fly
over, and I'm gonna drop the candy out.
And that's how you'll know it's me when
I when the plane wiggles its wings. And
I don't wanna belabor too long because this
whole thing isn't about brother Halverson, but once
his superiors understood what was going on because
why is this pilot shaking the aircraft upon,
landing, It grew and grew and grew until
it became Operation Little Bittles, and
candy was being sent from all over the
world, and Hershey's itself was sending him candy.
So he's under this whole operation
that, like, years later, you know, when he
went to visit Germany where he has schools
named after him, You know, the German chancellor,
at the time, Angela Merkel, was thanking him
because she had been touched by it. So
Yeah. Servant leader, and I specifically from brother
Halverson, it's the idea that it doesn't take
much for a leader to, you know, to
touch the people under them. I know I've
had opportunities as, when I'm in charge of
maintenance units, you know, you go and it's
the little things. To him, he dropped candy
off for kids. I go when I when
I see one of my airmen doing a
job and I go, like, hey, what are
you doing here? Like, can you explain this
job to me you're doing? They take pride
in their work, they step back,
and I remember as a young lieutenant, I
had a an airman come to me, the
day after I was talking to him just
about his family, the job he was doing.
He's like, hey, sir, I just wanna let
you know how much I appreciated
you doing that. It was five minutes of
my time. I didn't realize what an impact
it would have on him because me, I'm
like, oh, one of my airmen's doing something.
Let me just talk to him real quick.
I don't think leaders understand the impact that
they can have with simple acts of kindness
for over their people. And that's what Gail
Halperson shows. I really appreciate about his story,
and and there's so many this is such
a strong leadership principle of, you know, nobody
ordered him or assigned him to do that.
He perceived a need, and he moved forward
with, you know, fulfilling that need. He you
know? And that's,
I think the more we can do that,
right, where we're not trapped inside
the calling descriptions of what our calling is
and how we're supposed to show up. And,
yeah, I would do that, but that's more
of, like, a bishop thing to, like, shake
hands at the back of the room or,
you know, whatever it is. The reality that
we can all step in and perceive a
need and and step up and and fulfill
that need.
A 100% true. And that leads me to
kind of an idea of just this, you
know,
yes, we need to do all these things,
but it has to come
someone naturally.
You can't be going through a checklist in
your mind. So especially in servant leadership,
just follow your instincts to reach out. It's
kinda like following the spirit. Right? If you
have a a good thought, just go and
do it. But if you force yourself like,
oh, I've been told servant leadership is important.
Let me go do x. People aren't stupid.
They can sniff out disingenuous leadership, whether it's
you trying to put on the face of
being a servant leader because you think that's
what you're supposed to do, or you're trying
to be a builder because that's what you've
been told you should be. People sniff it
out, and it it becomes so clear so
quickly that you are not being true to
who you are. Yeah. Love it. The other
ones you feature in this chapter is, Ammon,
which that's one's, like, obvious once you you
mentioned that.
Ammon, Emma Smith, and then colonel Havelson, and
then Heber j Grant. And a name that
came to my mind is I was so
impressed after I read the two biographies of
Spencer w Kimball. Just what a like, in
the simplest moments of the, you know, of
him showing up and being that servant regardless
of his title and, you know, the the
famous airport experience of him holding the child
or the mother's figuring things out. I mean,
there's story upon story that and he his
his Christ like approach to just the simplest
of interactions was was so impressive to me.
So No. I I haven't read as much
about Spencer w Kimball. I I did for
specifically what the chapter I put him in,
but I I, yeah, I need to dig
more into that. Oh, so is he in
the in the book, just not that section?
Yes. Oh, he's, brings us to this the
disruptors here. Right? Yes. Yes. A disruptor is,
somebody who
is not
deterred by the status quo, who has a
very clear vision. They don't wanna tinker around
the edges. They want to make big lasting
change. They need to have the vision and
commitment to hold to that vision. In this
chapter, I have Spencer w Kimball,
not for the entirety of his leadership, but
I I felt like it was important to
address how big of a change bringing the
priesthood to all worthy members Mhmm. All worthy
men, was, and how much courage that actually
took. You know, this is, that was a
policy that had gone all the way back
to some people say Joseph Smith, some people
say Brigham Young, but you're going over a
hundred plus years and you're saying, yeah, no
more. And it yeah. So I have him
in there for that. I also have Joseph
Smith. I have Paul, who I was gonna
highlight here. Mhmm. So, and Paul's similar, I
would say, is Spencer W Kimball where, you
know, radical first off, the radical change he
had as soon as he got a clear
vision. I mean, going from Saul to Paul,
like, when you put that in real,
like, what that would actually really mean in
your life, that radical kind of change of
just abandoning everything you had worked your entire
life for and doing a one eighty, and
not just doing that change but then becoming
a vocal, like, proponent of that is kind
of a an insane and admirable quality and
something that I think shows how much of
a disruptor he could be even within his
own life. Yep. But then preaching the gospel
to the Gentiles.
There's, a famous conflict that he has with
Peter in the scriptures. Yeah. You know, Peter,
the chief apostle, a man at the right
hand of Jesus. Paul who had never met
Jesus in the flesh, he had seen him
in his vision, but, you know, I'd have
to think that's intimidating. I have to think,
like, as a follower of Christ, he's he
looks up to Peter, and yet, as he
understands it, like, you know, these people are
accepting Christ, the Gentiles, and Peter's refusing to
eat with them because dude, you know, according
to the law, they are not worthy. I
believe it was the law of circumcision. It
was just you couldn't be eating with them
because they were uncircumcised.
And lesser leaders would have been like, you
know what? I'm not gonna ruffle feathers.
Peter's kind of a big deal.
I'm just gonna do my own. He said,
no. He publicly rebukes Peter because the vision
of what he has for the gospel of
Christ
doesn't have any room for that. And so
it was important enough for him in the
moment to do that and then preach that
gospel
throughout. And I think people don't realize
a lot of time within the church how
much of Christianity is really shaped by the
teachings of Paul. Like, a lot of the
scriptures which we quote in the New Testament,
most of them are Paul's epistles.
Yeah. Very true. I and this is I
just love you know, of course, there's no,
like, perfect, like, descriptors of of leadership's gonna
fit everybody or whatever. But I I appreciate
someone who's like, let's just take these six
and see, you know,
where this leads us. And I think everybody
could sort of look at these. Like, I'm
thinking I'm maybe more of a disruptor type
of leader. Obviously, I started, you know, leading
saints and doing what we're doing right now
to disrupt the the culture and disrupt the
the thinking patterns and and hopefully get people
to think differently about about different concepts. Right?
I'm curious, like, what you would say, like,
just to the average church leader who's, like,
looking at this. I mean, is it important
for them to identify the type of leader
they are or the type of leader they
wanna be? Or what would you say? I
would say yes. I think for you to
grow in any capacity, you need honest self
assessment. And if you don't wanna do it
by what Daniel Johnson's leadership categories are, that's
fine. But I think you need to understand
who you are before you can grow. Because
if you understand your own strengths, you can
develop them. It's it's the principle of the
talents. Right? God gave us all gave three
men talents, and some men, you know, bury
them away and just kind of are fine
with who they wanna be. But if we
believe in the idea of internal progression, you
need to understand what your strengths are to
continue to grow them so you're not just
hitting yourself against the brick wall of of
not growing because you don't know who you
are. And the idea that I don't none
of these leadership categories in my mind are
any better or worse than the other. I
I like to think of it as, like,
the analogy of, somebody who's making a pizza.
You have the same basic ingredients. Leadership is
the same basic ingredients. You got dough, you
got sauce, you got toppings, cheese. Some choose
to make a deep dish, some choose to
make thin crust Italian pizza, and some choose
to make the best pizza I've ever had,
which is Barrow's
Buffalo Chicken Pizza
in Phoenix, Arizona.
Wow. Alright. There's a there's a shout out.
There you go. There's a plug. Put it
on my list.
But yeah. And until you know what your
natural strengths are, what your spiritual gifts are,
it's gonna be difficult for you to grow
and to develop and get better. That's Yeah.
That's the whole idea of why, like, why
it's more than just a passing curiosity of,
oh, okay. That's cool. That's who I am.
It's like, no. You gotta you gotta know
who you are so you can test yourself.
You can grow yourself.
Yeah. It's powerful. And I'm just thinking there's
a great book I love called the alter
ego effect,
and the author talks about this dynamic of
a way to, like, bring out the best
parts of yourself is actually to step into
a different
mindset or alter ego. Right? And even when
it maybe feels a little awkward, it's amazing
what and it's not about, like, posing or
pretending like you're something you're not, but it's
sort of like, I'm gonna show up this
you know, I'm gonna show up this week
as if I was Brigham Young. Like, how
would Brigham Young approach my ward, right, as
a builder or just with his intricacies and
and personality? And what happens is you start
to discover parts of your own personal approaches
and and styles that, maybe you've been, you
know, dampering for a while. And so it
might be an interesting exercise for not only
people to discover or to think about, you
know, what what one of these six types
of leaders am I, but maybe this Sunday,
I'm gonna be the try to be, like,
every part the peacemaker that I can be.
And how would I show up in my
ward, in my quorum, in my really society
if I was the peacemaker? Right? And I
think you'll you'll discover things as as you
sorta take that that exercise on. Oh, absolutely.
And I think, let's say,
you've you've been taught your whole life the
way to lead is to be a great
communicator.
Mhmm. And that's what you try to do,
and you put all your effort into that.
Maybe that's not your natural try these different
things, and then all of a sudden you
discover, wow, I have a lot of skill
as a servant leader that I didn't really
know before because I just never I never
identified that as a path. So, yeah, I
think there's there's a lot of goodness in
in testing yourself and trying different things than
maybe you have before. So, Daniel, I gotta
ask what what kind of leader are you?
It's changed. It's changed over the years, which
I think is Yeah. That's another dynamic they
can have. Right? It can change. Right? I
consider myself more of a servant leader and
peacemaker.
I've developed as a like, I've developed more
as a communicator. I've developed as a builder,
but my natural inclination is to
put the people under me in the positions
to grow
and to
create peace for my organization.
That's where I've gotten my best results, and
that's where I've gotten my best feedback. Because
I've tried, like, to what you say, you
know, I looked at other leaders, like,
let me try to do it like them.
And then I find out soon, like, okay,
there's some things that can help me here,
but that's also not me. Yeah. So
kinda lead out to your your example. I
think that's the easy way of figuring out
who you are. Put yourself in these positions
and you'll find out. But that is me.
What about you, Curt? Yeah. You said you're
a little bit of a disruptor. I'd put
builders there as well. You don't build something
like bleeding saints with that That's true. With
having those tendencies.
Yeah. For sure. I'm just all the things.
You know, I hate to brag, but, no,
I'm just
it's here's an antithesis for you like a
Australian video. But, anyways, yeah, this is this
is fun. I'm so glad you wrote this,
and let's definitely open up. If if somebody
has a question here in our remote studio
audience,
use the hand raise icon. Love to have
you unmute and ask that. But while people
think through and get the get the courage
to speak up, obviously, this is published by
Cedar Fort, so it's probably available in in
Desert Book or soon will be. And, of
course, Amazon, anywhere else you send people for
the book? Yes. Available on Amazon, available on
seaterfort.com,
and is carried by Desert Book.
Awesome. Very good. And it's not I mean,
the and the it's not like a thick
book. Right? So it's not like an encyclopedia
of all these different leaders, but what a
great even just spending
spending time with each, each person, each story
once a day and reflect on it and
and see what you can gather from it.
So Thank you. Awesome. Anybody have a question
for Daniel you wanna ask? You raise your
hand or or put it in the chat,
but it's always fun to when you actually
speak up and there's other voices on the
podcast. So, yeah, Dan. That was man, I
don't know if you're related, but you have
the same last night.
I find it interesting about
Daniel and what type of leader he he
identifies as. Could you expand more,
maybe some examples why you think you fall
in that categories or those two categories
versus the others? You alluded to it a
little bit, but what are some things that
brought that out with you that helped you
identify that
that then gave you the opportunity to, I
guess, hone that in more
and be better at it for the either
the unit success, your group success,
or your particular airman, whoever you were working
with and yours?
I'll speak to the the servant leader aspect
of it because I think that's easier one
to idel identify. And I I said before,
I think the church grows servant leaders to
a degree.
I found in in my career, as a
maintenance officer, it's very operationally driven.
So meaning the there is a large focus
on mission and results
as there should be because we provide the
aircraft that train the pilots. And if you're
in a combat area, which I've been in
before, which drop the bombs and if they're
not ready, there's not much room for for
softness in that. Mhmm. And so
when you're put in that peg, you feel
like, okay. This is all I have to
be. I found myself fighting against that in
areas which I could. So meaning,
hey, like, if something goes wrong, I don't
wanna put our guys on twelves. I wanna
put them in position to get rest, to
get back, and maybe so I tried to
I found myself
within the constraints, working with commanders
to do things that would better help the
people because my philosophy was if you put
the people in good positions to succeed, you
will get better results,
which goes against the natural inclination a lot
of times of a career field like aircraft
maintenance because there's just so little room for
error and there's so little room for kindness.
And then I found this expanded when I
went to teach ROTC
and I was an instructor responsible not just
for students, but the development of cadets into
officers.
So I just it's a general leadership philosophy
of mine that if you like I said,
if you put people in positions where they
can succeed and grow, you will be rewarded.
And people are not just parts to be
moved around, which as you get into larger
and larger leadership roles with more people, you
have to remind yourself of because it can
feel like there are pieces on the chessboard
if you are not intentionally
practicing servant leadership.
Awesome. Leonard, do you wanna go next? I'm
curious as to get your opinion. Do you
think prophets
in the church are brought to the presidency
because their leadership
styles
match the needs of the times,
or are there situations
where the president of the church has had
to change leadership styles to match the needs
of
the times.
Does that make sense? It absolutely does. I
think both.
I think in unique circumstances, God absolutely
has called people
at certain times to lead the church. I
think, you know, we just talked about Brigham
Young, Joseph Smith. I think those two men
were very specifically called at that time for
God. But I there are examples of, you
know, apostles
who were very focused on one thing, and
they become present in the church, and they
they adapt themselves.
So I think it's absolutely both ways where
God puts the people who he needs at
the time he does, but also
the prophets are better men than most leaders
and they understand
that they are tools in the hands of
God. So whatever they are needed for, they
will do what they are needed.
And I think we are just such in
a blessed state, obviously, because this is God's
church and he leads and guides it to
where have gone through so many different changes
in leadership,
and we don't have the air of, like,
oh, let's forget about that prophet because they
didn't they went completely off the rails. I
don't think you have to agree with everything
that every prophet has done, but it is
clear
after the fact, like most of, god's work
among the children of men that, okay, this
is why this turned out this way. So
I sorry. It's a bit of a cop
out, Leonard, but I think both.
Yeah. I think it will be interesting to
see our preconceived
ideas of how president Oaks will lead the
church versus
what really happens once he's become the prophet.
Yeah. Yeah. I definitely had some preconceived notions
about president Nelson that did not pass,
as did the secular media. And,
and I think those of you old enough
to remember the transition and, with president Benson.
Right? He was definitely maybe a different personality
before
he was in that chair, so it's really
interesting. And and I don't know. Sometimes, that's
a really interesting question to think about. I
think naturally as
religious people,
you know, that believes in revelation and inspiration,
we we sometimes put more meaning behind things
than maybe is intended where, again, in a
parallel universe, let's imagine
president Nelson served at the time of president
Hinckley and president Hinckley in the time of
president Nelson. Because right now we're saying, oh,
isn't it cool that a doctor was, you
know, the president of the church during a
pandemic? But we could have said, isn't it
cool that president Hinckley is the prophet during
a pandemic because he's a great communicator? And
in this world of social media, he's just
out there doing his thing. Right? And so
sometimes we put more meaning there, but it
is interesting to see I think that that's
a unique thing we have is we
we've seen president Oakes
develop as a leader since, well, 1985,
really, where we saw his conference talks and
different positions he served in. And, you know,
I think that's a it's an interesting leadership
lesson for sure. Yeah. I think you're absolutely
right there. I with president Oakes and especially,
he's been in so many leadership
scenarios that have been well documented throughout his
career as, you know, president of Brigham Young
University. He was the assistant dean at the
Chicago School of Law. So we already know
who he is as a person. So who
he is as a prophet will be
very, very interesting. But like you said, president
Nelson is one of those that as an
apostle, you're kinda like, okay, I'd he'll be
pretty pretty steady, pretty regular prophet. He just
came in guns blazing, which is fantastic. Yeah.
And maybe in the nineties, president Nelson would
have said, oh, we're gonna build 200 temples,
not 100. You know?
So he definitely had his,
he got his 200 temples. So Yes. Awesome.
Well, Daniel, this has been fantastic, and I'm
so glad you hopefully, this is one of
many books that you you put out and
you keep writing, and the I'm sure there's
other leaders to explore and things like that.
So we we wish you well on that
journey. The last question I have for you,
especially,
I love interviewing military guys because, you know,
there's just
a extra
edge of leadership when it comes to the
military when you're literally under fire and, you
know, you need to really lead people when
lives are at stake. I'm just curious as
you reflect on your time as a leader,
maybe in the church, but also in the
air force. How has being a leader helped
you become a better follower of Jesus Christ?
I think there's a lot of assumptions made.
When you are in an organization of any
kind, family,
ward,
job, you make assumptions about why decisions are
made and how easily they are made. And
being a leader and being in the room
having to make tough decisions on my own
and then being in the room where decisions
are made that affect a lot of people
and seeing the good leaders
who
the care and thought and time they put
into that and the emotional toll it takes
makes me just think of
God and Christ who are the perfect example
of leaders,
and
how much
care and time and
consideration and sometimes pain is put into all
of their decisions for us as their children
for our betterment.
So it's weird to say it has given
me a greater understanding than I would have
had before of maybe just God's relationship
with us and
more patience with trials as they come. Because
I understand, okay, this has been put here
before me. There's an opportunity for me to
grow. How do I not waste this opportunity
that God has given me? Because obviously,
I believe he's in control.
The end. That's it for this Leading Saints
episode. I encourage you to check out some
of the most popular episodes of the podcast
that we list at the bottom of the
show notes. If you haven't listened to all
of those, do so now.
It came as a result of the position
of leadership which was imposed upon us
by the God of heaven who brought
forth a restoration
of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When the declaration
was made
concerning the only
true and living Church upon the face of
the earth,
We were immediately put in a position of
loneliness,
the loneliness of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
and to which we must face up with
boldness and courage
and ability.