On July 19th 2013 The very popular Malaysian radio station BFM 89.9 hosted and Interviewed Author Dave Dungan on his breakout book, “Don’t Follow Me I’m the Leader”. The Interview was on the Raise Your Game program hosted by Freda Lui. Listen to the audio, read the transcript below or feel free to check out the original post at BFM’s Website
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Voice: This is a Download from BFM 89.9 The Business Station:
Freda Lui: Good morning, this is Freda Lui and it’s time to raise your game. Whether you’re in business, ministry or a classroom, there’s always an appointed leader. Today we have Dave Dungan who wrote a book titled “Don’t Follow Me I’m The Leader. Now He’s an ordained minister and he creates ministries to equip inner city kids in Boston to find their purpose and help pastors to help grow their churches. In crossroads between working with kids and growing churches, Dave realized you can do neither without great leadership. Now before we get to the book, how would you personally define leadership?
Dave Dungan: Well, you know I think in the book it was my desire to really define the difference between a boss, someone that’s in charge and someone who’s a leader that empowers. I believe a good definition of a great leader would be someone who empowers others to be great leaders.
Freda Lui: When you were working with the kids, what did you see missing?
Dave Dungan: Well I guess, role models that create influence and influence is such a powerful tool and we saw that we had opportunity to influence these young people to believe in themselves in order to obtain the dreams that they desired. We had adapted a quote that we used to share with them every week and that was “Losing to a better opponent will make you a better competitor, but losing to yourself is unacceptable. Never Ever quit on you.” – Dave Dungan. And Thats what we used to instill in these kids is that if they had the right influence and the right tools, they can accomplish pretty much whatever they want to accomplish.
Freda Lui: Right. Now the title of your book “Don’t Follow Me…” What’s that all about? {laughs}
Dave Dungan: It’s a play on words, there are a lot of people that are in leadership that probably shouldn’t be and you know it’s a play on words to make people realize are you really following the leader you’re supposed to be following. And you know we kinda got that title as a hook to make you pick up the book and pretty much say just what you just said {laughs}
Freda Lui: Alright {laughs} Now you also mentioned that you came up with three truths about success. Um, and maybe what I’ll do is go through these with you. One is that it’s never a constant and success will be held one moment and taken away the next.
Dave Dungan: You know you realize as you come up that people hold the idea of success in a lot of different ways, for instance with leadership there used to be the concept that to be a great leader you pretty much had to step on whoever you could step on or move whoever you had to move out of the way to reach your top wrung on the ladder. And now I think we realize more than ever that, you know great leaders create other great leaders. You know you have to stop and look around and realize, who is really following you and so you realize in life that there is a constant motion of things that you want to achieve and sometimes circumstances come along and you have a setback. So you have to get back up and strive again so I’ve come up with those three truths that it’s never a constant and you will always have to strive to obtain what you desire and you always have to be reaching further than where you are at in order to constantly grow. Secondly when you look at It’s relative to a focus, I commented in the book, you may be great at business but you might not be doing very well as a husband, wife, father, mother or friend. So I wanted to hit on those points to realize there is a lot more to leadership than just getting to a particular point for yourself.
Freda Lui: Hmm and the other one you mentioned is that it is circumstantial.
Dave Dungan: Well again it’s, you may feel in your own eyes that you have reached that place of success by doing what you want to do but in other people’s eyes they don’t feel that maybe you’re where you should be and so you know I put there that the circumstances are constantly changing.
Freda Lui: Hmmm, how do you know then that you are always on track?
Dave Dungan: Well you know what? With Leadership I put in there that there was really two qualities of great leadership. One was Character and character which we know involves honesty, accountability, dependability and that creates a safe environment for those that you are leading. And then I put that the other one was empowerment. That means giving people the right tools and giving them instruction, guidance and providing opportunity which ultimately provides growth. So if you can again look back and see how many lives are you changing? How many leaders are you developing? And if you can look back and see that you’re empowering people and that you’re seeing growth and that leaders are growing and people are wanting to follow you then you can pretty much you know see that you are on track.
Freda Lui: Right. You know sometimes we also see Political leaders who may have followers and they may think they are on track and that they have people following them but they may not have the qualities like integrity and you know all these good qualities. You know some people are blinded to that.
Dave Dungan: Yea I think so, I think so. Well again, you’re blind to that if you have yourself in mind at all times. If it is all about you, you pretty much do go through life with blinders on.
Freda Lui: Alright I’m here with Dave Dungan and we are talking about his book “Don’t Follow Me I’m The Leader” and we’ll continue our conversation right after this. Raise Your Game on 89.9
Freda Lui: This is Raise Your Game on Enterprise Good Morning, This is Freda Lui here and I’m talking with Dave Dungan about his book “Don’t Follow Me I’m The Leader”. You know with your book as well, you know when you say don’t follow me, you could be working with kids and all. Are you asking kids to question society and who they are following?
Dave Dungan: Well yea, again you look for those qualities in leadership that number one are going to empower you for the right things. I mean I know there’s leadership, you know someone had asked me about people who never want to lead or whatever and my comment was everybody has the power of influence. You’re going to be influenced all the time especially whether it’s through television programs or school programs or the music you listen to. The Power of influence is amazing and if those things are not providing for the right quality of life, in other words empowering others and looking out for others and seizing opportunities to do good, seizing opportunities to make dreams happen, those things and those qualities, you will find in great leaders which you won’t find in leaders who are not doing the right thing is they will be about themselves always. And I call them Master Manipulators. You know most Bosses in the workplace who are not leaders but are just Bosses of people who are in charge. They are master manipulators and they will manipulate situations and circumstances in order to make themselves grow. And this is the sure sign that you know you should not be following that particular individual.
Freda Lui: Right, you know what would you consider to be a successful business person? What other traits that they would have because you know you think of the outwardly things where it’s about money and power.
Dave Dungan: Right, well you know what as far as business goes, again. It has to have great character. That’s the foundation that you can build true success on. And again we talked about being honest and accountable and dependable. It creates a safe environment for people to grow. You talk about business, their employees are the greatest asset that they have. You look in the banking industry, those tellers are the people that the consumers are with every single day and you are only as good as that employee that is in constant contact with the people who are doing business with you. So if a business owner is not empowering his employees to grow and providing tools to grow with then they are not going to be good business leaders.
Freda Lui: Hmmm, You know I have conversations with people that want to go in to business and the conversation stops with, “I want to make a lot of money”. What is the pitfall of just saying that’s the ultimate goal.
Dave Dungan: I learned form a very wealthy man one time that money equals influence and influence equals power. When you get to the point that money in it’s self is your end then you will lose focus on what is important to not only grow your business but to grow people. When it’s all about the power then it’s all about you and when it’s all about you, you seize to become a great leader, you become a boss who is very manipulative.
Freda Lui: So money equals influence and influence equals power.
Dave Dungan: Yea when you have money, for instance this particular gentleman who was wealthy. When we would walk in to a room somewhere, the atmosphere totally changed because he had the power to write a check and totally change somebody’s life in an instance. So that influence produced a great deal of power and when you use it to manipulate situations for your benefit, I think that’s the direct opposite of what a great leader is.
Freda Lui: Hmm, Ok. Well what would be the best advice or parting words you would have on leadership based on what you wrote in the book?
Dave Dungan: Well I think that if the goal is to be a great leader than the goal is to empower others. In other words as you constantly grow, you have to stop at the end of the day and you have to turn around and look behind you and see how many people are following you. I think one of the greatest things in the leadership movement is being the leader of leaders. That’s got to be one of the most rewarding things is to realize that you used your influence and you used your power to make other people great.
Freda Lui: And just so people know, what is some of the work that you are doing with the inner city kids in Boston?
Dave Dungan: Well with the inner city kids, we have not been doing that directly for about six or seven years now. I have been doing consulting work for church growth, churches wanting to do multiple campuses, I have been doing work in training leadership. And I am finishing up on a third book that is soon to come out before the end of the year.
Freda Lui: Right, and what is the new book about?
Dave Dungan: Influence {laughs}
Freda Lui: Oh?{laughs}
Dave Dungan: and I’ve got another title that’s got a hook on it. The title of the book is called “The Me I’m Not”
Freda Lui: Ok and hopefully we’ll be in touch to talk about that book.
Dave Dungan: Yea and I just want to say I appreciate so much that you all provide through the program here, opportunities to empower your listeners and for them to have the tools that they can grow and be great leaders. And so I appreciate it so much Freda.
Freda Lui: Thank You! I was speaking to Dave Dungan talking about his book “Don’t Follow Me I’m The Leader”. This is Raise Your Game BFM 89.9.
Voice: Thank you for listening to this podcast to find more great interviews, go to BFM.my or find us on itunes, BFM 89.9 The Business Station.
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You can, as long as you include this complete statement with it: Author and Dynamic Speaker Dave Dungan has over 30 years in leadership development. Dave’s experience ranges from startups to non profits, consulting to event speaking. Dave’s unique ability to connect with people and truly inspire future leaders is unmatched in todays presentations. His breakout book “Don’t Follow Me I’m The Leader” is taking the businesses world by storm and is paving the way for the future leaders of tomorrow. Sign up for Free success and leadership tips at http://dontfollowmebook.com. “Don’t Follow Me I’m The Leader” is available at all major online retailers.
