Episode 93 – Brock Culpepper – Leaders On Leadership
Leaders are defined not only by their goals but also by their followers. Learning how to lead is not just about building your own values but also inspiring others through those same values you care for. Dr. Tracey Jones sits down with Brock Culpepper of Redeemed Ministries as he shares the right way to determine your purpose in life without ignoring the important role of serving others and how connecting more with a community helps dispel the challenges of leadership. He also shares the strategies he uses to nurture his own team and hone them to be leaders, as well as his ministerial journey that sheds light on the strengths that can be found even at our lowest points.
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Brock Culpepper – Leaders On Leadership
Our guest is Brock Culpepper. Brock is the Director of Learning within a Fortune 500 organization and has been in that space for over twenty years. He also works in Birmingham, Alabama, with a ministry called Redeemed Ministries, which is a recovery program for those battling addiction. You're going to enjoy Brock's perspective on what it takes him to pay the price of leadership.
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My special guest is Brock Culpepper. His passion includes professional development, creativity, innovation, multimedia, and community service. Brock also served in bi-vocational ministry for over twenty years and volunteers with Redeemed Ministries, a recovery program for those battling addictions. We'll love to know more about that. Brock, thank you for being on our show.
Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this.
Brock, my dad gave a speech called The Price of Leadership. In it, it was one of his most given speeches, he spoke a lot about leadership. He said it was misunderstood but he also said that there is a price you have to pay to be a leader. He included four tenants that if you're not able to accept, deliver, and honestly bear, then you can't truly be a leader. The first one of those he says is loneliness. We've all heard it said, “It's lonely at the top.” It looks great up there but then you get in the seat and you're like, “It is different when you're in the seat.” Can you unpack what loneliness means for you as a leader if you've been in that space or what you would do to encourage our readers if they are in a season of loneliness?
I've heard that whether you're in an organization or whether you're in ministry. As with you, I've always heard the CEO and the pastor, those can be the loneliest positions within the organization. I don't think it's necessarily just leaders. You can feel that loneliness, weariness, or abandonment regardless of your position. It takes having the right focus and mindset to come out of that.
How do you look at that where people do come out of that? What helps you get out of that mindset when you feel alone?
For me, one, you got to know what your values are. Know what your purpose is. Know what your mission in life is because that drives everything. Your mind drives your behavior, your behavior drives your results. If you know what your purpose is, and for me, if you're a leader, regardless of what level leader you are, if you're not a servant leader, you have to question whether you should be a leader or not.
A lot of times you talk about your values and your purpose, but we read about the greats throughout history and there are times where that was the only “bedfellow” they had. It was that knowing that this is what they were put on this Earth to do and being humble enough to go, “If I have to do this and go this route alone for a little while, I will.”
If I have my best interest at heart, and that's my focal point, then that might take me down a path where I may get to the top. I may earn that position that I want but I may do it through improper means. I may step on people along the way to attain what I want because I'm self-driven. If I’m driven by adding value to other people and helping other people get promoted, to me, a lot of that loneliness can come from being focused on yourself. If you're looking outward at how you can help others, that fades away.
If you're stuck in a rut or you don't know what you're supposed to do, the quickest way to get out of that is to start doing things for other people. I love servant leadership. You also talk about it but you do it not based on anything you're going to get out of it. Not everybody you sit there and serve is going to turn around and say, “Brock, thanks. I needed that.” Loneliness is almost a lot of times quite thankless.
I'm a firm believer in the Law of Reciprocity. You don't know necessarily when you're going to see it, and you may not see it immediately but you reap what you sow. I value giving. That's one of my top values. I can't give what I don't have. I have to invest in myself, but not just for myself. If I don't invest in myself, I don't have anything to give to anybody else. As I'm giving to somebody else with that whole Law of Reciprocity, you reap what you sow, give and it shall be given unto you, and that type of thing.
Learning How To Lead: Know what your mission in life is because that drives everything.
Whatever seeds you're putting down, even the parable of the sower, some are going to fall on the right soil. Not all, but eventually, some will and you don't know when. That's encouraging for leaders out there to keep putting out those seeds even if you feel like you're alone because sooner or later, something that you sowed sometime in your past is going to take root. It's going to come back to you in a mighty way.
You saying root triggered a thought. For those of your readers that are in the faith-based community, a lot of you will know a guy named Dennis Swanberg. He's a comedian. He does great impressions. He wrote a book and I forget the name of the book, but the whole premise of it was, you should be in the business of building shade trees. You're planting a seed and you may not even live to see that thing grow fully but at some point, that thing's going to grow fully. There are going to be people sitting underneath that shade tree benefiting from what you planted, and you may not even see the rewards of it, but it’s worth it to do it.
You talked about your values, purpose, and servant leadership. The next price that my dad talked about was the price of weariness. How do you handle the pace of leadership? How do you keep refreshed when you're casting the vision, you're doing this and that, some people get it and some people don't get it? How do you shoulder the load?
It's tough. I'll back up before you even move into a leader. A lot of times, people reach the leadership position because they were the absolute highest performer on their team. They knocked it out of the park and they got promoted into a position because of that skillset but that doesn't necessarily mean that that person is naturally going to become a great leader. There was a Harvard Business Review article a number of years ago that said on average, people move into their first leadership position at the age of 30. They get their first leadership training at the age of 42.
There's a big gap right there. That's what I focus on within our company, narrowing that gap. When you move into that leadership position, you can't bring in that same mentality that you had when you were the high performer. You have to learn to delegate. Delegation is huge and it takes some time to not want to do everything yourself. If you look at it on a spectrum, when it comes to delegation, you can be that type of leader that says, “I'm the boss. You're going to do what I say because I say it and I'm giving everything to everybody.” That creates resentment on your team.
On the other end of the spectrum, you're that leader that says, “I'm in my position for a reason. I can do it better than anybody, therefore, I'm just going to do it.” What that does is it creates a victim mentality for yourself and you're mad at your team because they’re not working as hard as you are. You're punishing your team for something that you're doing. You've got to find balance in delegation where yes, you do cast the vision, but at the same time, you're walking beside your team, yet nothing is beneath you. You can absolutely get in the weeds with them if you have to.
I want you to break down to the leaders. I know this because that's how I met you and had you on this podcast. Tell them what you do, Brock. You've got this thing that you're recording all year long for your people. You're a director of learning. Everybody always says, “We get to pick for a leader. We want to train them into leadership.” I was halfway through my PhD, I was 55 before I finally realized there's a difference between being a leader and leadership. We missed this somehow. How do you close that gap with your people so that they don't get bitter with their employees, so they don't keep trying the old ways and acting like a real souped-up individual contributor? Tell them how you integrate that into your director of learning position?
It's twofold. As the training department, we have to make every effort and opportunity available for people to better themselves, but it's also on the employee to take ownership of their development. It's on both of us. From a learning and development standpoint, there are a number of things we do. What you're talking about, it's either 30 minutes or 1 hour every single business day at 11:00, we give people professional development opportunities.
In 2020, it's on ten different topics. You're a part of our leadership panel. We do presentations, emotional intelligence, Excel courses, sales, and all of these soft skills. I don't know what the percent is at. You hear people say, 75%, 80%, 85%, 90% of what makes a person successful is soft skills, and yet, many places don't do that at all. It's just product training, which is important, but we got to learn all that type of stuff as well.
The way I see it, everybody can get better. It doesn't matter if you just joined our company this week, or if you are that person that retired from our company last week after 35 or 40 years of service, which happens a lot here. Every single person can get better and we can do it every single day. From a learning and development standpoint, we make opportunities available every single day of the year. By the end of 2020, we will have 252 professional development modules that had been recorded and loaded into our learning management system that people can take from now on. On the topic of leadership, there are 44 different modules that we will have recorded.
Learning How To Lead: A lot of that loneliness can come from being focused on yourself. That fades away if you're looking outward at how you can help others.
It's not intrinsically obvious. Leadership is a skill and you can hone your skills. You're not born a leader, you learn that. It was fascinating to me. I love that you set people up for success and let them know, “If it is weary and it's hard, everything worthwhile, you got to work at.” There's a bad weariness and there's a good weariness. The good weariness is, “I did everything I could, and when I go to sleep and my head hits the pillow, and I’m like, ‘Yes.’ I get up the next day.” The bad weariness is, “This is hard. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.” I love that you set leaders up and that you also said it's a two-way street. You provide the opportunity, but then the leader in training has to want to be developed. If they don't have that growth need, they're going to miss stuff.
Two words that you're saying there with weariness and loneliness. I would say you are wearier when you're trying to do it by yourself. From a learning and development standpoint, we're not just interested in connecting people with content. We're interested in connecting people with people that go on learning journeys together. What I did is I created what I call an Impact Team Program where every other month, people that have been nominated for the leadership program are going through courses from different third-party companies. We might do Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, John Maxwell's Five Levels of Leadership, or we get other organizations that we deal with.
We'll go through a one-day course every other month and then for retention and accountability purposes, we'll read through the corresponding book one chapter per week. We have one person, a volunteer, or it's actually a voluntold, to lead a follow-up discussion of that chapter. We're creating community and engagement. These people are coming from different sides of the business that don't necessarily interact with each other. You might have an accounting person, a marketing person, or someone that works in the distribution center. It breaks down these silos.
As a part of that program, we create what's called an ideal job description. I've got mine. We do a Myers-Briggs profile. For my profile, I'm an IN/SFP. What does career satisfaction look like for an IN/FP or IS/FP? We do the StrengthsFinder. We do an interest survey. We then create a personal mission statement. We're looking at what does success look like for me? We then do a value survey based on my strengths, skills, gifts, and abilities, and then we write a personal mission statement.
We do that through coaching. After every class, there's a 30-minute coaching call with a professional coach, also part of the leadership impact team. This goes back to what we started out saying at the beginning that it's not just about us. People want to be a part of something that's bigger and larger than themselves. Part of the program is we're required to go out and do two community service projects together.
As part of the program, we also partner with the YWCA every year in downtown Birmingham, where we help prepare what they call their Santa’s workshop event. They serve the homeless and the low-income community in Birmingham, giving those kids that would not get a decent Christmas the opportunity to do that. As the leadership impact team is going out and doing these things, we also partner with Red Barn that's in a nearby city where kids have cognitive disabilities. They can go to this farm and get some help that they need. We go out and do surveys there.
From a business standpoint, people might say, “You're doing this because it's good for business or it's good for recruiting.” Those things are true, it's good for business and recruiting, but we’re not even publicizing that stuff. We do it because it’s the right thing to do. This team is going out and doing all of this stuff is giving them a purpose, and it's giving them something to do outside of the confines of this building and making some connections that they would not have otherwise. We then do team building events and things like that. It's a full year-long program where these people who have been nominated because of their leadership abilities allow them to take it one step further. For the purpose of influence, leadership is influence. We can influence our customers. We can influence in all directions. You can influence the people you work with, you can influence your bosses.
The next thing he talked about is abandonment. Abandonment can have a negative connotation but in this case, my father was talking about a great focus, a hyper-focus of what you need and ought to think about, rather than what you like and want to think about. In your roles, you probably get a million good ideas, and we all have our sacred cows or our pet projects that we love. I look at everything everybody's doing and I'm like, “Let's do that,” but you can't do everything because you'll go off point. How do you stay focused on what you need to stay focused on?
That's hard for me because part of my values that I've identified is creativity and innovation. If I'm not creating something, coming up with a new idea, or some new project then I can get bored, I'm always wanting to create. With the small team that I have, we have to focus on the most important things and let some things fall off to the wayside.
I will tell you this, Brock. Almost every entrepreneur that I've had, innovator, or creator struggle with this as you said. Ideas fly into my head 1,000 a minute. I'm never at a loss for things to do. The tough thing that I struggle with is, “What do I need to drill in to and focus on?”
I'll go in two directions with this. One, in the business professional life and then one in ministry. I sit at a mid-level manager position. We talk about, “It can be lonely at the top.” It can be lonely in the middle especially if you're the type of person that has all kinds of ideas, but what you have to understand is that there are people driving the business, making leadership decisions and strategies about the business. You may not be privy to that information.
Learning How To Lead: Find balance in delegation where you cast the vision and yet no one is beneath you.
You may not have a seat at that table. You may not be a part of that discussion. You're still trying to add value but you can't wear your feelings on your shoulders if your idea is not accepted or not received. There are reasons for that. The phrase that continuously comes to my mind is respectful persistence. This didn't work? I'm going to keep going, I'm going to have a new idea. Ask for feedback constantly from your supervisors. How can I add value to the business? Is there some information that I need to know or could know that would help me with what I'm trying to create? That respectful persistence and just never quitting.
From a ministry standpoint, this is a much more personal story. I was in bi-vocational ministry for twenty years, most of that had to do with the music ministry. I was the deacon in the church and whatnot. For the most part, I went to what we would consider a traditional church. You put your coat on, you put your tie on. A lot of good-hearted people who know they preach the gospel. A good community and you go out and do what you can, but it was comfortable. We never got out of our comfort zone all that much, maybe some. You might take a mission trip here or there or whatnot, but you're not exactly suffering or anything.
It was a few years ago, I got out of that bubble, got out of that comfort zone. Going back to my calling and what is it am I supposed to be doing? How am I supposed to be influencing and helping people? If you had walked into one of those traditional churches that I was talking about, let's say you were a person that didn't fit the mold. They didn't look like you, they didn't look like me. Maybe they were full of tattoos and body piercings and whatnot. Had they walked into the back door, people might have looked and wondered what was going on. I'd been a little uncomfortable or whatever.
For years or so, I've now been going to a church that was formed a few years ago as a ministry for recovering addicts. That ministry just started to snowball and reach more and more people in the addiction community. When they opened the doors of this little bitty church, the first Sunday that they opened those doors was the day that my family of six, homeschooled family, I've got four kids under the age of fifteen. The first Sunday we'd walk in the back door, we were the people. They said, “What are you doing here?” We didn't fit the mold. We weren't addicted and whatnot.
I can't tell you how that place has transformed my family's purpose. The pastor of that church, you talk about abandonment, he had abandonment that was not of his own making from the time that he was a child through different abuses and whatnot. He relied on drugs to overcome that. It worked until it didn't work. When it didn't work, it got worse and worse. He went through nine rehabs, he lost his kids. He tried to take his life unsuccessfully, as low as you can go.
He's been clean for more than ten years. He is the pastor leading the ministry that my family sits under. He discovered his purpose. You think about when you get to your lowest of lows, even that can be used. Had he have, abandonment overcome his purpose, I could not be fulfilling my purpose because what he has created is something that I am now passionately a part of. The twenty-something years of ministry that I was involved in, this is the first time that my wife and I are on the same page as to what ministry should look like.
As husband or wife to find where you want to land then go all-in in serving. What a beautiful testimony.
There's a guy, and I don't mind saying his name. His name is Scooter. Scooter is now my adopted fifth son. He is older than I am though. Scooter has tattoos all over his body. He's got a spiderweb tattoo on his neck. There's a 32-year meth addict. Through the connection of this ministry, he will experience his two-year clean anniversary. If I were to take my kids to a candy shop and let's say I needed to run to the restroom or something and I had never met a guy that looked like Scooter. He's probably the absolute last person that I would ask to watch my kids until I get back. We go on weekend rides, he was a 1%-er in a biker gang. Don't tell my parents this but my wife and every one of my kids had been on the back of that motorcycle. That's how much trust I have in this guy. That's how close our relationship has become simply as a result of one man being faithful to his calling.
Due to some events going on early in his life, he gave up, lost hope, abandoned hope, and went into a black space. He then turned and abandoned that and went into a different space. What a beautiful thing for people to hear that even if we do abandon a throw it all in and go the wrong path, at any given time in life with the right spiritual dwelling, the right network set around us, the right anointing, you can turn that around at any time. Look at Saul to Paul. That's a beautiful testimony.
Going back to what you said, people follow you for different reasons. A lot of times, going back to the corporate world here, people might follow you out of fear because you now have control over their livelihood or because of how you have treated them in the past. People might follow you out of duty. If people can follow you out of impassioned devotion because of who you are, because of what you represent, what they've done for you, what they're doing for the organization, your community, your church, or whatever it is, then you have something special.
Learning How To Lead: Make sure your values are in alignment with the vision of the company.
The last point he talked about was vision. He said that vision is simply knowing where you're going, seeing what needs to be done and doing it. Sometimes we're like, “I'm not a visionary, I don't have the vision.” Vision, a lot of times, is just doing what needs to be done because a lot of people are just waiting for somebody else to do it. How do you hone your vision, Brock? What made you all of a sudden make the decision to go from your church to the other one? What was that spark, that vision that led you to the next thing?
It was a two-year transition. I was serving on staff. It was a great place with great people but there were just some things that needed to change as far as how I was serving it and being involved. There was a two-year period of time where you could almost say that that was the job that I went to on Sunday even during Alabama football season. For two years on Saturday night, we went to the home of a friend of mine, Donnie Ingram. He's on the same panel that you're on. He’d be fantastic to have on your podcast.
We went to his home for two years. We would show up and we'd have dinner together. We would sit in a circle and we did some praise and worship music, and then somebody would lead the devotion. I had small kids at this time. That was several years ago and my youngest is six. I had a small kid at that time. Even when it was over, nobody wanted to leave. Donnie may have wanted us to leave because it was so late, but they never told us so. We would sit there and talk until 10:30, 11:30 at night.
We would go home and then I would get up early and go to my bi-vocational job Sunday morning. That was a great place but Saturday night was where I was getting fed and not going through the task of what I had to do to make Sunday morning successful. Doing something different than what was useful, getting out of that comfort zone, that two-year period of time gave us the time to change our mindset and be open to something so radically different from what we're doing now.
How do you craft a vision?
The first thing that comes to mind is the scripture that says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” That's big. When I think about it, every company out there has had their clever vision statements as it relates to 20/20. This is the optometrist dream they've been waiting on. If I understand it correctly, 20/20 vision means you should see exactly what you should see at twenty feet away. When it comes to people in an organization, you've got to get a lot closer than twenty feet to make a connection with that person to find out what they're good at, what drives them, and what's important to them. I do a value survey for every single person on my team so that I can know what's important to them, and then we have to make sure that those values are in alignment with the vision of the company. If there's ever conflict, it gives an easy template for addressing that conflict.
Brock, we’ve talked about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Anything else for our leaders that you want to share with them that we haven't already addressed?
Just some thoughts off the top of my head. You, as a leader, have to have credit. If you're driven by ego, your team is going to resent you. That is going to be one of the loneliest places you can find yourself. Don’t just focus on yourself. You have to know that you're called and you have to know that you want to serve in that capacity. You can't just want the position for the benefit that it is going to give to you. If that's the only reason you want the position, don't apply for the job. You've got to know what your higher calling is. You got to know what your purpose is. You got to know what you valued, where you're headed, and why you're headed in that direction. Knowing your why is absolutely critical.
The thing you have to be willing to accept when it comes to leadership is the fact that you are never going to make everyone happy, whether that's a CEO, a pastor, or whoever it is. Think about the crisis that we're in with the COVID. You think about the pressure that was put on people. Take a pastor, for instance. That pastor is concerned about the spiritual and physical health of his congregation. Whether you get together in person or whether you do virtual, whichever direction you go, you're going to have a side that is angry with the decision you made. You just have to know why you're doing what you're doing and make the best decision you can make for what that purpose is, and then let the rest fall where it may.
I'm glad you said that because I know that. I've been hard on leaders, and then I got into a leadership position, but then, you forget. It's easy to judge other leaders. The pastor as well. They came back too soon or they didn't come back and it's like, “Just stop judging.” It's a tough road and it's a tough decision. Maybe God told these guys, “Stay meeting online.” Maybe he told these other guys, “It's not your business to know.”
It’s true in organizations and in the government, but you take where I live. Going back to Redeemed Ministries where I go to church, you take the number of COVID deaths in the area where I live, it's non-existent. There are a lot of places that have set them and if that's the right thing for their congregation to do. You look at the makeup of our congregation and in the community that we're reaching where if we're not gathering, what do you think those people are dealing better? If you take the overdoses and suicides that have taken place and compare that to the COVID deaths, we're absolutely getting together because that's our purpose.
Learning How To Lead: When it comes to leadership, there is always the fact that you are never going to make everyone happy.
That's one of the things that’s like, “How can you close the doors and not be there for them? You always have to be there for them because they are going to be in need. Otherwise, something else bad is going to happen.” That's a great point you brought up, Brock. Anything else for our readers, Brock, that you want to include?
I appreciate what you do and I appreciate what you're doing for our company. I didn't know your dad until you sent me the book that I'm reading. It's interesting that as I make connections in this learning and development world, I run into person after person who does know your dad and says, “He was an influencer.” “He was my mentor.” “He was my hero.” Al Argo told me, “There's one guy that you don't know that I had a meeting with a coffee shop and he's on the same panel that you're on. He's doing the DISC profile, assessment, and whatnot.”
He had the brochure in his hand looking through all the titles of the program that we do. There are 250 titles. He stopped on your name. The word tremendous popped out to him. He said, “Tracey ‘Tremendous’ Jones.” “That wouldn't be any relation to Charlie ‘Tremendous’ Jones, would it?” I said, “Yes, that's his daughter.” He's like, “You're kidding me. I've got a picture of him and me in my drawer. I've got to find that, so you can send that to her.” He said, “He was one of my heroes.” Going back to that whole thing that we talked about planning shade trees, that idea is going to sit under that.
Thank you for sharing. Of course, I had to keep the tremendous and the kicking man because that's what he did. He loved people, faith, and books, and that's all it was about. Keep pouring out to people and keep gathering people, and you'll be the same person five years from now, except for the people you meet and the books you read. I'm thankful that somebody in a big organization of a Fortune 500 company gets this and integrates this continuous learning and growth to grow future leaders because a lot of people say it. You see it in the entrepreneurial or the sales world because they have to be honing their skills. Otherwise, sales don't happen. You don't always see that in other companies where it's a more traditional brick and mortar. Brock, you're my hero. You're at a big entity and you're doing it right.
I appreciate it. It speaks volumes. The company that I worked for, the years that I've been in this department, never once have I had to justify our existence. We’ve always been a part of the strategic plan, so I'm blessed to be here.
How can people reach out to you or connect with you, maybe even on LinkedIn? How can they know more about the Redeemed Ministries as well?
You can connect with me on LinkedIn, Brock Culpepper, easy search. I'm in the Birmingham, Alabama area. I'm on Facebook. You can send me an email to BrockCulpepper22@Gmail.com if you'd like. Redeemed Ministries’ website is RedeemedMin.com. I'll say to that point, it's not a ministry just for our region. If anybody struggles with addiction, no matter where they are, get them here. It's a faith-based rehab and it doesn't cost them anything. They don't have glamorous headquarters, but there's work therapy. The ministry has a thrift store, woodshop, a fab shop, auto mechanic shop, carpentry crew, and lawn care crew. All the while going through a nine-month rehab program. If you know somebody that is struggling with that, absolutely go to the Facebook page or reach out to me personally and let's get them to heal.
For our readers out there, please do connect with Brock, and please do check out, especially if you know anybody in the Birmingham Alabama area. If you know somebody that could use this nine-month program, that's incredibly powerful. Brock, thank you for being here as our guest and sharing what it took you to pay the price of leadership.
Thank you for having me, Tracey.
You're welcome. Everybody, thanks for reading Tremendous Leadership, Leaders on Leadership. If you like what you read, please be sure and hit the subscribe button and do us the honor of a rating. We would be forever grateful. Here's to you becoming the greatest leader and the most tremendous leader that you can and paying the price of leadership. Have a tremendous day.
Important Links:
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Facebook - Brock Culpepper
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