Here is the transcript and summary of Alex Budak’s TEDx Talk titled ‘YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A CEO TO BE A LEADER’ at TEDxKI conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Alex Budak – co-founder of StartSomeGood
There’s a magical moment that I live for when I’m teaching. A moment when I have the absolute privilege of seeing someone transform right before my eyes. It’s when someone realizes for the very first time the potential they have to create change. Where they find their own agency to make a difference for themselves and for others. And when they realize they have far more power than they ever realized.
I’m not a typical UC Berkeley faculty member. I don’t have a PhD. I wear bright socks and blast eclectic playlists as I pull into the faculty parking lot. And I’ve dedicated my life to helping others find their own voice and step into their leadership potential. And it’s that potential that I recognize in everyone that helps me see that the way we think and talk about leadership is broken.
We love to tell stories that are heroic, mythical, almost superhuman. But when we put leaders like these up on a pedestal, it causes so many of us to look around and say, well, it’s just not who I am. Not that brave. Not that charismatic. Not an extrovert. Maybe that means that leadership just isn’t for me. I’m just not meant to be a leader.
I’ve heard that reaction way too often. And it makes sense because the way we talk about leadership and the way we teach leadership at schools and in companies is often divisive, discouraging, and disempowering to nearly all of us.
But I have a fundamental belief that drives everything I do as a social entrepreneur, an educator, and as a dad. Leaders might be scarce, but leadership is abundant. We may have only one CEO, only one executive director, only one assistant regional manager. We may have only a certain limited number of people in traditional positions of leadership. But each and every one of us can practice acts of leadership. Leadership is not a title. Leadership is an act.
Microleadership
To put this abstract idea into practice, I want to introduce you to a concept I call Microleadership. Microleadership breaks leadership down into its smallest and most meaningful unit, which is a single leadership moment. We have these leadership moments that appear before us dozens of times per day. Small little moments to step up and serve others.
Maybe it’s noticing a colleague who hasn’t spoken up during a meeting and saying, “Hey, no pressure here, but we’d love to hear your perspective if you’re willing to share.” Or maybe it’s being willing to say no when everyone else is saying yes. Or maybe it’s being the one person to stay late and help a new colleague clean up after their very first event.
These are all tiny little moments. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice them pop up for you many, many times every single day. The bravest act is to stand up and believe that you can be a leader. But when you think about becoming a leader for the first time, it can feel like a big, scary leap. Like the time my friends and I decided to go skydiving, but made the exceedingly poor choice to use a coupon to try and save some money in my early days as a social entrepreneur.
As we boarded the plane, we saw that even the pilot was wearing a parachute, which was not exactly confidence-inducing. Fortunately, I lived to tell the tale. And once I was back safely on the ground, only then did I let my mom know I had made it.
But your entrance to leadership doesn’t have to feel like a huge freefall. As you make your own leadership leap, let micro-leadership be your parachute. And let that give you confidence to leap from greater and greater heights as you go. And unlike me, you won’t be trusting your life to a guy who I later found out didn’t even work there. He was just a local enthusiast who filled in on tandem jumps when the actual pros were out sick. You can start with a much smaller leap and build your confidence from there using the concept of micro-leadership.
Leadership can feel intimidating. But micro-leadership is inclusive. It’s for all of us. And it all starts with small steps that anyone can do. Let’s take a look at an example of micro-leadership in action.
Sedona Prince was 21 years old, a college sophomore, and a member of the University of Oregon basketball team. Both the men’s and women’s NCAA championship tournaments were taking place simultaneously. But due to COVID, each was being held completely within a single city.
As Prince entered the women’s weight room, to be shared by every single athlete, she noticed a huge discrepancy. She noticed that while the weight room for the men’s teams was huge and fully equipped, the women’s weight room was basically just some yoga mats and this one really sad-looking rack of dumbbells.
To be sure, Prince was not the first person to notice this unequal discrepancy. Among coaches, players, and staff, across 64 teams, there must have been at least 2,000 people who saw exactly what Prince saw. But they all let the leadership opportunity pass them by. Perhaps they thought they had to wait for permission from someone else to step up and take action. Perhaps they thought only coaches or athletic directors, by virtue of their titles, could affect change. Or perhaps they thought that taking action here had to be grandiose and to fix all of gender inequality in one swoop. Who knows?
But we do know that countless people saw the same thing, had the same leadership moment appear before them, but let it pass by.
So what did Prince do? She didn’t have much of a platform at all, not many followers on social media, but she did have a phone, and a perspective, and a voice, and she made a choice right there to step up and seize the leadership moment.
She pulled out her phone and filmed a 38-second TikTok video that showed firsthand the differences between the two weight rooms alongside some brief and entertaining commentary.
She posted her video on TikTok, reposted it to Twitter, and then went to bed. When she woke up the next morning, she’d received over 100,000 retweets and invites to appear on national television shows, including ABC’s Good Morning America. Her one short video had catalyzed a national conversation.
More importantly, her video got the attention of the college athletics governing body, the NCAA, and the wider sports world. Sports stars, both men and women, including NBA star Steph Curry, weighed in on the conversation that Prince had started. And as a result of all this attention, which all started with one tiny act of leadership, the NCAA agreed to make the weight rooms equal.
Three Steps For Micro-Leadership
There are three steps for micro-leadership, and just like Prince did, each of us can follow them to embrace our own leadership potential, no matter our situation, our goals, or our desired impact. Let’s go through each of the three steps to show how you can start practicing micro-leadership right now.
Give Yourself Permission
Step one, give yourself permission. The only permission we need to begin practicing micro-leadership is our own, and it can happen anytime and anyplace. When I lived in Stockholm, our next-door neighbor was Virginia, a wonderful 92-year-old with a passion for weak tea and strong desserts. I didn’t wait to ask her for permission, and before I knew it, I was serving as her one-man IT agency, fixing her printer, resetting her router, and helping her post status updates on Facebook.
And without me asking, she took it upon herself to help me learn Swedish, regularly going to the library to pick up books just for me, and then surprising me by sliding them under my door. I’m not too proud to admit that they definitely weren’t classic Swedish literature. They were definitely all from the kids’ section. Neither of us waited to ask for help. We gave ourselves permission.
So alongside learning a lot about Swedish Donald Duck, I also saw firsthand what’s possible when we encourage ourselves to take action. Singer-songwriter Joan Baez has a quote that I love. She says, “Action is the antidote to despair.”
When we look at the world around us, we all have so many reasons to feel despair, whether that’s the climate crisis or just a messed-up corporate culture at work. We can easily feel frustrated, intimidated, and overwhelmed. For many of us, these very real feelings lead us to never doing anything.
But what if, instead, we saw these feelings as an invitation to step up and take action? Action need not be grandiose, and it need not be complicated. But before we can take action, there’s a single key we need to get started. Just like Virginia did every time she was at the library, we have to first give ourselves permission to act.
Go Beyond Yourself
Step two, go beyond yourself. Micro-leadership is rooted in taking small actions that serve others. We often over-glorify leadership as being about one powerful person in one room telling others what to do. But in reality, so much of what leadership takes is a bottom-up approach about rolling up our sleeves and getting involved. No one will ever tell you not to arrive early to help a colleague set up or not to stay late to help a colleague clean up. We can give ourselves permission to take on these small acts of leadership rooted in helping others at any time.
This beyond-yourself mentality is embodied by Sam McCracken, a member of the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes of northeastern Montana and a general manager at Nike. Three years into his role, he developed an idea that was informed by all of his experiences to that point, both his professional experiences and his community ones.
He developed the idea for an indigenous-inspired line within Nike, one which would leverage the brand and its resources to encourage increased athletic participation among indigenous communities.
How did McCracken know that this was an idea worth pursuing? In his own words, “I heard there was a need in my community, and I listened.” The Nike N7 line to date has awarded more than $8 million in grants to tribal communities supporting more than 500,000 youth.
Both McCracken and Prince’s actions were rooted in helping others. In Prince’s case, she was serving her fellow women athletes; McCracken was serving his communities. And in both cases, their leadership began not with formal permission, but with a decision they each made to step up and serve those around them.
Take Action Again And Again
Step three, take action again and again. We often think that there’ll be a magical moment when we’re finally given the title of leader or someone tells us that it’s our time to start leading. If you’re waiting for that to happen, you will probably be waiting a really long time, maybe forever.
Micro-leadership isn’t about any one single decision. It’s about the collective power of lots and lots of small actions over time. Here, I think of 18-year-old Paige Hunter, who has experienced her own mental health challenges and started writing notes of hope and attaching them to Wearmouth Bridge in Sunderland, England. Her notes provided perspective as well as information and resources and are credited with saving the lives of several people. In writing these notes, she could never know which single note would have an impact, but she kept showing up week after week with more notes. Each note, in and of itself, is a small gesture, but collectively over time, these notes add up to big impact.
Looking ahead, you might see becoming a leader as a huge mountain to climb, an insurmountable one at that. Maybe you feel uncomfortable calling yourself a leader, where you come from a culture which tells you to wait your turn, where you think that leadership can only come from a position of formal authority, a notion that my toddler delights in challenging every single day.
Regardless, micro-leadership is a way of breaking your leadership journey down into small, achievable steps. Take action again and again and again. After doing this for weeks, for months, for a year, you’ll look back and realize all of the leadership that you’ve practiced, perhaps without even realizing it. Each tiny act, in and of itself, might feel insignificant in the moment, but collectively, they really add up.
Raise your hand if you can already picture a friend or a co-worker who would benefit from your act of micro-leadership. Great. Start by seizing at least one leadership moment today before you go to bed. Here are some practical ways to get you started. Finally, share that idea that you’ve been sitting on with someone else, even if it’s not yet perfect. Take the time to give really thoughtful feedback to a co-worker, or kindly but firmly tell a friend who’s about to go skydiving that they should definitely not use a coupon. I bet you have lots and lots of other ideas here, too.
Micro-leadership shows that we do not have to be the CEO to perform acts of leadership. It’s a framework for rethinking how simple and achievable it actually is to take on small leadership acts consciously and consistently. In doing so, we develop not just leadership skills, but also a brand new identity. We become leaders right before our own eyes.
Micro-leadership is an invitation to you to start changing the way you think about leadership, from believing it’s something that other people who are braver, more outgoing, or more charismatic than you do, and instead to start seeing it as something you do. To lead, don’t wait for permission. Step up, serve others, and do it again and again. That’s micro-leadership, and that’s how tiny leadership moments will unlock your leadership potential.
Thank you.
Want a summary of this talk? Here it is.
SUMMARY:
In his inspiring talk on “Microleadership,” Alex Budak challenges conventional notions of leadership and empowers individuals to recognize and harness their leadership potential in everyday actions. Here is a concise summary of the key points from his talk:
1. Redefining Leadership: Budak begins by highlighting the common misconception that leadership is reserved for CEOs and top executives. He argues that this traditional view of leadership is limiting and discouraging to most people.
2. Microleadership Concept: He introduces the concept of “Microleadership,” which involves breaking down leadership into small, meaningful acts. Microleadership emphasizes that leadership is not about titles but about actions.
3. Permission to Lead: One of the central messages of the talk is that individuals don’t need formal permission or titles to be leaders. Budak encourages everyone to give themselves permission to take action and initiate change.
4. Serving Others: Microleadership is rooted in helping others. Budak emphasizes the importance of going beyond oneself and taking small actions that benefit others, whether it’s offering support to colleagues or stepping up in various situations.
5. Consistency is Key: Leadership is not a one-time event but a continuous practice. Budak urges individuals to take action repeatedly, highlighting that small, consistent acts of leadership can lead to significant positive change over time.
6. Inspiring Examples: Budak shares real-life examples of individuals who embodied microleadership. Sedona Prince’s viral TikTok video exposing gender inequality in sports facilities and Sam McCracken’s initiative to support indigenous communities through Nike’s N7 line demonstrate the power of small actions to spark change.
7. Changing Perspective: The talk challenges listeners to shift their perspective on leadership. Instead of viewing it as something reserved for a select few, Budak encourages them to see leadership as a mindset and a set of actions that anyone can embrace.
8. Embracing Identity: Through microleadership, individuals not only develop leadership skills but also transform their identity. They become leaders in their own right by consistently taking action to improve their communities and the world.
9. Practical Tips: Budak concludes by offering practical suggestions to get started with microleadership. He encourages listeners to share their ideas, provide thoughtful feedback, and take small actions to make a positive impact in their daily lives.
In summary, Alex Budak’s talk on microleadership empowers individuals to recognize the leadership potential within themselves. He challenges traditional notions of leadership, emphasizing that leadership is not tied to titles but is a result of small, consistent actions that benefit others. By giving themselves permission to lead and embracing the concept of microleadership, individuals can make a meaningful impact in their communities and beyond.