#5 Lyric That Shaped My Leadership Style

For the background of this list – see my original post from 2-10-12.

The Top 5!  I have to be honest, I didn’t think I had the patience to follow through with this series – but as has gone on over the last 20 weeks – it’s been fun!  The #5 Rap Lyric That Shaped My Leadership Style comes from the Greatest Hip Hop Group of all time – Run DMC!   Off their Raising Hell album, from the 1986 song “It’s Tricky“, here’s the Lyric:

“When I wake up people take up mostly all of my time
I’m not singing, phone keep ringing so I make up a rhyme”


This line reminds me of what is important in HR – the People!  It’s a reality of what we do in HR and Leadership that people are going to take up all of our time – it’s why we have positions in our organizations, and I’m find with that.  I meet so many peers who truly get put off by having to “deal with people” and I find it to be the most enjoyable part of my day.  I couldn’t be an accountant and deal with numbers all day, or an engineer building or designing things all day – I’m one of those crazy people-persons I like dealing with people.

Too often I meet leaders who are struggling in their positions because they have this belief that they shouldn’t have to “deal” with people issues – when it’s really the only thing they should have to deal with.  If you have great accountants, engineers, marketing pros, etc. working for you – you shouldn’t have to worry about the functional stuff – all you have to do is worry about that your people are happy, productive and competent – and then let them go.

A great day for me is when I get to help someone working for me – relieve some pain!  Something that is bothering them, which is causing them to be less productive, less happy or less competent.  I can help remove that and they can get back to do what they do best for the organization.  I’m at the point if I’m not being “bothered” with people stuff – I go searching for people stuff – assuming it’s out there, but they’re just trying to do it on their own.  I want to help – I want to be “bothered” – It’s what I’m suppose to do!

BTW – Run DMC has so many great lines -you should go back today and re-listen to some of their old tracks – pure Awesomsauce!

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