The Fearless Leader: A Sensible Guide to Practicing Authentic Leadership

By Chris Baron

Leadership is never defined by the size of an organization. Integrity, passion, and a commitment to serve others enable every individual to lead effectively. This book is a powerful tool that will resonate with anyone at any level looking to strengthen their influence. Invaluable lessons are shared practically to demonstrate how to lead with candor and authenticity to a broad audience. Whether you are a front-line leader, individual, or most senior corporate executive, great insights will be gained from this read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Baron
• Release date: Oct 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9780692155523

Chris Baron

Chris Baron is a professor of English at San Diego City College. He's also the author of the (adult) poetry collection, Lantern Tree, which was published as part of a poetry anthology, Under the Broom Tree, winner of the San Diego Book Award. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife and their three children. All of Me is his first novel.

Book preview

Introduction

At a very young age, I learned the value of hard work. The eldest of three, I was raised by a single mom who worked three jobs to take care of her children. My desire to contribute started at an early age, beginning at eleven years old, when I held a variety of odd jobs to earn my own money. In the summer, I ran a lemonade stand, and in the winter, I shoveled sidewalks and driveways in my neighborhood.

Prospecting for customers was never an issue. In the winter, I learned the key was to bundle up and be the first one out when the flakes stopped falling because the first one to ring the bell typically got hired. After I completed shoveling a driveway or sidewalk, I asked my customers, who were really just my neighbors, if they were satisfied with my work. When they said yes, I gave them my landline phone number and asked for theirs in return. This proved to be very productive because it meant I no longer had to go door-to-door, and I could book my business the night before the storm and line up my day. Even at an early age, productivity and time management came naturally to me.

I remember after one blizzard, I made my usual rounds, struggling to shovel snow off a neighbor’s sidewalk to no avail. It was too heavy to move, but I wouldn’t give up. I had a job to do, and I planned on finishing it, but I couldn’t do it. The homeowner, who felt I was trying my best, came out and still paid me. I handed the money back to him because I didn’t finish the job. I never thought about why I felt that way, but even then, it was in my operating framework that if you start something, you have to finish it, I felt like I didn’t earn it. It wasn’t about pride; it was about humility. If I didn’t complete a job, I didn’t want to be paid for it. After that, the guy never hired anyone else to shovel except for me. That was one of my first lessons in business: Finish what you start.

When I was fourteen years old, I began working at a local bakery to stuff jelly donuts. My shift started at four thirty in the morning, so the fresh donuts would be ready for the store’s opening at six. I remember not being quite satisfied with the production line because it seemed inefficient to me, so I asked my boss if we could speed the machine up by twenty seconds. I explained that if we did this, we’d stuff more donuts in less time and eliminate the need for three people to do the same work. Even at fourteen years old, I looked for process improvements to speed things up. Downtime seemed senseless to me.

During those early teenage years, I also worked after school making pizza at a local pizza parlor. While I loved that job and had a lot of fun, it also taught me the importance of integrity. I vividly remember my friends thinking they could show up and get a discount on their order because I worked there. That never worked. I told them No way. It wasn’t my company or my prices to discount. I never lost any friends over it, but I certainly got some sarcastic responses. I didn’t care.

These early jobs as a donut maker in the morning and a pizza maker at night taught me the critical lesson: Work for what you want.

My work ethic was a gift from my mom. I come from a home affected by divorce. I’m the oldest of three children, and my mom needed to support us by herself. She was the hardest-working person I ever knew. My mom worked three jobs. She woke up in the morning and made us breakfast, then went to the bank where she worked in the accounting department as a bookkeeper. She came home from work to make us dinner, then she left again to work at a doctor’s answering service from six in the evening until ten o’clock at night. She returned home late at night, checked in on us, and started all over again the next day. On weekends, she worked at a local department store. My mom worked so incredibly hard because she wasn’t going to let a divorce defeat her or deprive her kids.

I don’t actually remember receiving my first paycheck, but I remember feeling empowered. Even though I wasn’t contributing to the household, I could take care of my own spending needs, whether it was going to the roller rink with my friends or buying new sneakers or cool jeans. I was able to take care of myself to a certain degree and it empowered me.

Later, when I was around seventeen years old, I worked at Caldor’s department store in West Orange, New Jersey as a cashier. I’d heard a rumor that other people hired as cashiers were earning fifty cents more per hour than I was. I wasn’t happy about that. I asked for a meeting with the regional human resources director who was only in town one day per week. I recall telling her, I work hard. I’m always on time while a lot of other people are late. I always pick up other people’s shifts whenever someone is sick. I don’t think it’s fair that people who were just hired are making more money than me. Could you take a look at my salary and see if you can make an adjustment? I’d really appreciate that.

I’ll never forget the look of shock on her face. I don’t think many seventeen-year-old cashiers had conversations like this with her. In hindsight, I realize I was practicing Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In theory¹ before Sheryl ever wrote the book. The human resources director thought it over and ultimately gave me a fifty-cent-per-hour raise. I was on top of the world. Fifty cents an hour was a lot of money at that time. That was when I learned my next lesson in business: If you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you don’t lean into the conversations, everything will inevitably stay the same.

This brings me to my purpose for writing this book. I’ve been in business one way or another for over forty years. I’ve worked the front lines of the lemonade stand all the way up to becoming the area CEO of a major Fortune 40 organization. Over the years, I’ve learned a thing or two about practicing authentic leadership to not only get the most out of your team or employees but to get the most out of yourself. Because learning lessons has always been so valuable to me, I decided to compile my hard-earned lessons, tips, and guidance in this book. I have a strong desire to help you become the best possible leader you can be. If you don’t work hard at improving yourself, especially in the areas where you are the weakest, things will undoubtedly stay the same, and you will never realize your full potential.

The title of this book is The Fearless Leader to remind all of us that we too can rise to every challenge, both personal and professional, with our most authentic selves. The alternative is to pretend to be someone you are not, to become stagnant in your life, and to fall prey to fear and limiting beliefs of yourself and what you are capable of.

I encourage you to use this book for guidance, for inspiration, and for support. Let these lessons