Ed O’Malley is the Founder of the Kansas Leadership Center, President and CEO of the Kansas Health Foundation, and the author of four books, including his latest, “When Everyone Leads.” Ed discusses how leadership differs from authority, and that authority is required to lead. He explores the disruptive aspects and the risks of leadership. Ed explains the type of problems authority solves and the challenges that require unleashing the leadership of the whole team to move forward. Listen in for how to move forward when faced with daunting challenges. https://bit.ly/TLP-346   Key Takeaways [3:25] In Ed’s book, When Everyone Leads, the key is getting people to separate leadership from authority. In some situations, the reliance on authority gets in the way of progress. We need people to know that even if you’re not the captain of the team or boss, the toughest challenges require your leadership, also. The book is about how you unleash that in everybody. [4:45] Ed talks about over-reliance on authority. Authority is necessary, but it’s not sufficient for making progress on our biggest problems. Challenges between people need to be resolved by the people involved. [6:14] On our toughest challenges, none of us know exactly the way forward. Trust that the collective is stronger than one person’s idea. If we unleash the leadership of others, so they feel empowered to exercise that leadership, then we start making more progress. [6:49] If we assume that we have the answers and we know the best way forward, that conveys a lack of trust in the collective. The toughest challenges get solved by people working together. [8:46] The book is about the toughest challenges. A prerequisite for unleashing leadership in more people is to help people break apart the idea of leadership from the idea of authority. They are different things and people know this intuitively. Ed uses the example of Rosa Parks showing leadership by choosing her seat on the bus. [10:20] Ed wants people to be conscious of the differences between authority, leadership, people holding positions of authority, and people exercising leadership. Sometimes people in authority exercise leadership. Sometimes People not in authority exercise leadership. Sometimes nobody does. If people see it separately, it opens up a conversation about what the exercise of leadership looks like for them. [11:22] Jim cites Jim Detert, author of Choosing Courage, regarding the courage it takes to step up and face big problems. [12:08] Julia McBride, Ed’s co-author on the book, would say it’s all about clarity of purpose. Those who exercise effective leadership are clear in their deep purpose, and clear on the purpose for the meeting they’re walking into and the role they play in that meeting. They’re clear on the purpose of the project they’re a part of. [12:46] A lot of people’s purpose is to keep their boss happy. Our toughest challenges are usually about something a lot bigger than that. Leadership is motivating others to make progress on daunting challenges and it hardly ever happens. [14:24] Ed cites the work of authors Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky who pioneered the concept of the Zone of Productivity, where there is enough conflict that people are uncomfortable enough to change the status quo, but there is not enough conflict to shut people down. If you don’t have enough conflict, nothing is changing. If you have a lot of heat at work, consider if progress is being made in the work. [15:32] If the conflict or heat from the top is not leading to progress, then it’s time to ask questions and intervene in the lack of progress. [16:52] An executive team needs a common language to talk about the dynamics of productivity. [17:30] Leadership is always about disrupting things. Ed quotes Marty Linsky, “Leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.” When you’re intervening up, you can’t anger the boss too much; you might be out! But If you’re just keeping the boss 100% happy, you