Beyond the Scoreboard: The Leadership Lessons Baseball Taught Me

0:02 What's working on purpose anyway? Each week, we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want, working on purpose. Now, here's your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has been brought to you with passion and pride since February of 2015. Thanks for tuning in this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. I'm an organizational psychologist, workforce advisor, Vistage Chair, and the founder of Gusto Now, your partner in growing your people, leader, and culture.

0:52 We are all about helping you unleash the energy and capability of your people by accessing their gusto, the life force for performance that drives commitment, perseverance, and genuine ownership of a shared mission. You'll learn more about us and how we can work together at gusto-now.com or my personal website, alisacortez.com. If you are just joining today's program, we have with us Daniel Como. He's the current chief of police for the city of Dallas, bringing more than 30 years of law enforcement experience. He began his career with the Houston Police Department before joining the DEA, where he led major operations in Houston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and later oversaw the Houston Field Division. Chief Como is known for his focus on intelligence-driven policing, recruitment, and strengthening community trust.

1:35 He is the author of The Active Sport of Leadership, Discipline, Culture, and the Responsibility to Lead. We'll be talking about how what he learned all the years of playing baseball growing up has taught him about leadership throughout his career as an adult. He joins us today from Dallas. Chief Como, a hearty welcome to Working on Purpose. How are you today? I'm looking so forward, Dr. Cortez. I told you before we got on, you asked me how I was doing. I said, I'm doing great. I'm hanging out with you. That actually made me smile, made me feel good. Not everybody likes hanging. Out with me. Well, I suppose. I do have a few friends who are police chiefs, and I suppose it depends on where you're sitting, I suppose, right? At that moment. At that moment, exactly, that very moment. Well, let us celebrate this beautiful gift you brought into the world. I can tell you, Chief, that what you did here is harder than bringing a child into the world. I have done both, so kudos for making this happen. Congratulations.

2:29 Thank you very much. It is hefty and just chock full of so many terrific nuggets, which we're going to get to as many of them as we can in this conversation. So before we get into some of the great leadership nuggets that you talk about in your book, I would love for you to share a bit about your philosophy that is, of course, leadership is an active sport. This is thread throughout the whole entire book. So let's situate that for our listeners and viewers first. Yeah. So one of the things I always say as a leader, you should have three words and those three words should define your philosophy. And my three words are to inspire, motivate and empower. And that's the crux of my leadership style. I start with those three words and it all goes from there.

3:14 Well, that you and I share that. In fact, I, as I said to you in my notes, there are many things, of course, that we align on it. There's very, I can't think of anything that you wrote in your book that I don't align on. Um, But next, what we have to do, because so much of your story, and this is really delicious and delightful, Chief, so much of your story is drawn from your experience of baseball. And I love the chapter that you have, the story of how $ 25 decided you were going to play baseball and not learn to play the saxophone. So let's hear a little bit about that story and what your dad hoped to teach you by you playing baseball. Yeah, it goes all the way back. I was in second grade. I think I was seven, eight years old, second, third grade. And I came home. I attended St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarters of New Orleans, Louisiana.

4:01 And I was all excited because I had a little flyer. And the flyer said it was $ 25 to learn how to play the saxophone. And it was $ 25 was the cost. And it was a reoccurring cost. And I took the flyer home, and I was all excited. And I was like, hey, Dad, I want to play the saxophone. I want to learn how to play the saxophone. And I gave him the flyer. And he looked at me, and he says, son, we can't afford this $ 25. As a reoccurring cost. We just can't afford it. But there's a baseball flyer here, and it's $ 25 for the whole season. And I would love to get you to play baseball.

4:42 It wasn't I would love to. It was more you're going to play baseball instead of learning how to play the saxophone. And that's where it all started for me playing baseball. It was called the Goretti Saints in New Orleans East. And did he say back then or hint at what he hoped you would learn by playing baseball? Or did you just get that later as you shared so well in the book? Yeah, so I think a lot of it was little nuggets that came later. Initially, with the baseball, I kind of pushed back a little bit, as much as I could push back. My father didn't play. He was definitely the boss of the house, especially when it came to me as a kid. But I questioned why baseball, because all my friends were playing basketball and football. And at that moment, he basically said, look, We want to do something a little bit different. We want to be different.

5:40 Everybody plays baseball and football here. I'm sorry, everybody plays basketball and football here. We want to be a little different. Let's play baseball. And I think without saying it, I understand now exactly what he meant. And I started understanding that as life went on. I got to experience different cultures just from playing baseball. Go and hang out with some of my teammates. They were completely different than me and they were growing up differently than me. So I started experiencing different things than I would experience on my street corner where I grew up. And of course, we know how well that serves you today in your role, which brings me to my next question here. I did introduce you a little bit about your background, but I think our listeners and viewers want to hear just a sketch of your career and how it is that you became our chief of police here for the city of Dallas.

6:30 First of all, I'm super excited to be the chief of Dallas. And even it goes through a lot of things in the book. There's many people that didn't think I could accomplish this. So you never know what's behind the curtain unless you really swing the bat. Hard and find out, right? So I started off as a Houston police officer at 21 years old. After playing college baseball, I became a Houston police officer at 21 years old. Did six, six and a half years as a Houston police officer before I decided to go to DEA. And many people say, hey, why DEA? Why did you go to DEA? And I remember a little story. I was a task force officer working with DEA, and there was this one agent that said, man, I finally made it. And I said, being the smart mouth that I am, said, made what? Because I know it's not a case.

7:19 And he's like, I'm making $ 100, 000. And I was like, you're making $ 100, 000? And he was like, yes, I finally made it. And I was like, holy crap. As a HPD officer, I think my base salary was probably $ 40, 000 at the time. So I walked right up to the recruiter's office and I said, hey, what do I need to do to be an agent? He says, hey, do you have a degree? I said, no, I think I'm like 26 hours short of a degree. He said, go back, get your degree, and then come back. So I went to the University of Houston downtown, finished my degree, and then I came back a year later and I said, hey, I have that degree. He said, well, let's start the process. And then I went on to do 28 years with DEA.

8:02 And I always knew, especially, I shouldn't say I always knew, but coming towards the end of my career, I said I wanted to end back in local law enforcement, and I wanted to be with a major city. Now, here's the good or the bad about me. I don't like cold weather. And I started circling cities and locations on the map that was a major city where the weather wasn't too bad. And people will laugh at this, but Dallas was the furthest north I wanted to go. And I had it circled. It's a department that swings a big bat, a major player. When it comes to law enforcement.

8:43 And the stars lined up, and there was an opening that came, and I put in for it. And either the city manager's really smart or she's... I don't know. But here I am as the Chief of Dallas now. Well, a hearty welcome. Although you might be questioning your decision is how many, I think it's like 42 days of over 100 this summer as opposed to 21 that we normally have or something like that. Hardly any rain. I don't know. But anyway. You said hardly any rain. I don't know if I've seen rain in two months. Okay, so I was trying to be optimistic. Yeah, I am really missing my rain. But anyway, I hope the fall and winter are something else. But The next thing we have to talk about, Chief, is, you know, you really strongly believe that leadership is ultimately about development of people. And, of course, we do, too, at Guster now. That's almost all we do. So I appreciate your perspective on that.

9:34 If you could say a bit more about, you know, why do you believe that and how do you believe in developing people? Look, you have to lay that foundation for those to walk over a level, hard, concrete foundation. Many of us had to walk through and around dirt and over potholes. I want to make it smooth for everyone that follows me or as smooth as possible. So I believe in giving back. And there's mentors. That was in my life that made it a whole lot easier for me to walk on that foundation. So some of those potholes, some of my mentors allowed me to jump over them. So what I'm trying to do is fill those potholes so everyone that follows me can just walk smoothly. And obviously, everything's not smooth when it comes to leadership. But you definitely want to make it easier for those who follow you. By all the mistakes that I make, make sure those who are mentoring don't make the same mistake. And as we keep passing it down, it just makes it easier and easier and makes everyone a little bit more successful.

10:33 For sure. And there's a couple more things I want to celebrate about that point there, Chief. And that is, one is you talk about how in terms of the true measure of your leadership is often found not in personal achievement alone, but in how many strong leaders exist because you invest in helping them grow, which I think is fantastic. How many careers did you actually help make? And the other thing that I thought was delightful about this particular topic is you say that it taught you multiplication. It taught you that strong leadership is ultimately measured by how many followers one person creates, not by how many followers, but how many future leaders became stronger because somebody intentionally invested in helping them grow. That's building on what you just said there. But those two pieces, that multiplication piece, I thought was really, really powerful. So I wanted to make sure that we resurface that in this conversation.

11:22 Yeah, look, I'm really proud. So let me tell you this. This is one of the things I'm really proud of. When I retired... Many people told me, oh, man, once you're gone, the agency will forget about you. Your phone will stop ringing. People will forget about you. True, the agency might have forgotten about me, but the people definitely haven't. There's not a day that goes by probably in the 18 months that I've been gone from DEA where I don't get a phone call or a text message from someone saying, hi, how are you doing? What's going on? How's your day? And that makes me feel really good because the multiplication.

12:05 How many people did I try to build branches for to follow me? And they really make me feel good by staying in touch. And so I think so far I've been doing it right, but I still have a long way to go, and I want to continue to build branches from this tree trunk that I'm trying to create. I love that visual. That's so great, so powerful. Now, you alluded to this earlier already, but this idea of I want to put two things together here, learning how to be different, and also your dad was like, I don't care, no quitting allowed. So if you could speak a bit more, and then I do want to get to, I'll build on that in just a second, but let's start with this idea of You know, this learning to be different and also this idea that you don't get to quit what you started.

12:48 Yeah, so being different. It goes back to everyone played football and basketball where I came from. So it was different for me to go into playing baseball. And I still remember some kids like, man, why are you playing that boring sport? But there's so much strategy in the baseball. And I know my dad knew that because he was a fan of baseball. But he used to talk about the strategy of it. There's so many things that you learn from doing something different. That you can pick up so many nuggets. And while I end up playing football also, I learned so much just from doing what others.

13:32 Didn't do where I came from. And especially those that look like me wasn't necessarily doing back then. And so it put me in some uncomfortable positions. It put me in some uncomfortable situations early on. But all it did was made me stronger. Right. And and I know my dad was thinking of that as I was going through. It, doing that. So, you know, shout out to my dad. And I always give give him major shout outs and especially because he's. not my biological father, but he is my dad and he raised me without him. I know I'm dead or in jail. And part of the way that kept me away from that was sports and playing baseball.

14:13 I really loved how you talked about your dad and made that distinction. That's really, really powerful. I also have a, a, a dad who raised me, um, who was not my biological father. And he really just, just like you talk about, he, he's my dad. He earned that title. Um, So now we have to talk about, though, this, I saw a parallel in your book when you were talking about learning how to be different because I watched the Jackie Robinson documentary. And I do not know how true that is to historical fact. I don't know. However, what I think I can glimpse and what little I do know of Jackie Robinson in his life, he certainly had to navigate learning how to be different and, you know, develops tremendous social and emotional skills to be able to do that. Incredibly inspiring documentary. It definitely was blazing a trail that maybe in some ways, you know, you got the benefit of, but just would love for you to comment on the Jackie Robinson history and his contribution.

15:09 Jackie Robinson's one of a kind and knowing what he had to go through in order to get to where he was, but then more importantly, to be able to stay there and to be able. To fit in, but still be, continue to perform. And be himself. And look, I want to also talk about, because it fits right now. One of the things that baseball gave me was the different cultures that. I got to experience at a young age, right? So I'm one that was able to, when I was in seventh and eighth grade now, I was able to talk about Def Leppard. And Ozzy Osbourne. No one else in my neighborhood can talk about that. Van Halen.

15:53 I was able to talk about that because I played baseball. So I was around different cultures. And it's the same thing, again, When you start adding things in your toolbox, it allows you to become the chief of Dallas when no one else thought you could become. I really, really appreciated that. I thought it was just a standout, stellar. It's threaded throughout your whole book. So on that note, let's let our listeners and viewers think a little bit about and reflect on what we've talked about so far. We'll take our first break. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. We're on the air with Chief Daniel Como. He's the chief of police. for the city of Dallas, and he's bringing more than 30 years of law enforcement experience along with him. We've been talking a lot about how his experience growing up playing baseball has really threaded through and informed his approach to leadership. After the break, we're going to continue the conversation and get into the importance of expectations and having a standard. We'll be right back.

16:57 Thank you. Dr. Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, an inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose-inspired leadership and meaning-infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at EliseCortez.com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with Dr. Elise Cortez.

17:37 To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise, A-L-I-S-E, at EliseCortez.com. Now, back to Working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I am your host, Dr. Elise Cortez, as I am dedicated to helping create a world where organizations thrive because their people thrive. They're led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness, and we keep doing business that betters the world. I keep researching and writing my own books. So one of my latest came out. It's called The Great Revitalization, How Activating Meaning and Purpose Can Radically Enliven Your Business. I wrote it to help leaders understand today's very discerning workforce. What do they want to need from you to be able to stick around and give their best? And then I give you 22 best practices to equip you to do that through your leadership and your culture. You can find my books on Amazon or my personal site, EliseCortez.com. If you're just coming into the conversation, my guest is Chief Daniel Como.

18:36 He's the author of The Active Sport of Leadership, Discipline, Culture, and the Responsibility to Lead. So, of course, I really, of course, connected with this idea of what you talk about with expectations and having a standard. I really appreciated that this notion of when expectations are low, people perform accordingly. And when you put a higher standard on somebody, it's because you take them seriously and you know that they can rise. If you could speak a bit to that and where that came from. Yeah. So first of all, let's talk about the standard. I have a main question on Mike Tomlin. And I love listening to Coach Mike Tomlin. There's so many nuggets that I can take away from him. And he always talks about the standard. And one of the things about the standard to me is expectations. So you have to let everyone know what you expect from them.

19:24 First of all, as a leader. But you have to also be careful with it. Because one of the things that I realize, if you say, and let's. Talk about a narcotics group, for instance. If you're leading a narcotics group and you say, hey, our goal this year is to get 100 arrests. And you set that goal to get 100 arrests. Well, what happens when you start getting the 90 arrests and you still have four months to go? Does everybody just. Say, Hey, we just got to get to a hundred and we're good. So you have to be careful when you set an expectations, right? You don't want to set the expectations too low because then you can affect the actual performance of the group. So you have to project accordingly or you It's more open-ended.

20:12 You set the standard. You lay out the expectations, but not necessarily in numbers. More in words, more in actions, more in what you're looking for, more what. You call success. Not necessarily that number. But too many times I think people put numbers on it, and you might be capping the actual success. Because a lot of just humans in general, if you say the number's 100 you need to reach to, they'll project 100. to get to that 100. It's not like running a budget.

20:52 You know, you give someone a budget, you want them to first quarter spend this much, second quarter this much, and at fourth quarter, you want them to hit the budget accordingly. I think when it comes to leadership and expectations, you want to sometimes, most times, leave it open-ended so. You can get the very most out of everyone. 100%. And I know for us, Chief, in our programs, we have this whole notion of, you know, lead to where you think, where you believe people could rise to. So they can see that vision for themselves and step into it. So in terms of their own development, right, you know, I know I've got a story that I tell all the time. I had a boss that had a vision of me that was so much bigger than I had for myself. Even my parents had for me, and he painted it for me, and I stepped into it. And he's still my hero because of that. Yeah.

21:41 And I love that. And, you know, expectations are everything. And I know I talk about, and you mentioned it earlier, if you don't set, if you set weak expectations, that person's going to sit back and say, oh, maybe I'm not as good as he thinks I am, or maybe I'm not as good as I can be. And if you set those strong expectations and you lead them to believe that they can accomplish anything and everything, they don't work that much harder as long as they have it in. Them to work that much harder. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. And, of course, there's talent in being able to communicate that in a way that they believe that they could do this right so that it's not so far out of reach that they're like, I shut down. I can't do that.

22:21 Keep the carrot in front of it and keep moving a little bit at a time. Right, right, right, right. It's going to be delicious when you get to it. Yeah. Okay, so as I said before we got on air, Chief, I thought your idea, and this is so important. We were talking about psychological safety before we came on as well. And you thread throughout your book quite a bit this notion that the importance of composure under pressure and an emotional discipline. And you also say in your book that you really never allow yourself to get too high or too low. And how important that was on the field that you learn how to handle your emotions so they didn't get the best of you. And so, of course, we do a lot of work with emotional intelligence regulation to be effective as leaders and also learning how to access your fuller spectrum, but also knowing that, as you say, you are the temperature in the room when you're the leader.

23:09 So if you could speak a bit to this composure under pressure and your approach to emotional discipline. Yeah, I think this is extremely important. So away from the book, I'll tell you a story that really helps set the tone with this. And the tone was already set from sports, but this really drove it home for me. As a young police officer, there was a crook that was arrested and he was talking to the detectives and he had committed murders in the past and we arrested him. And the detectives came to me and he said, you know what? I guess it was your lucky day. And I was like, what do you mean? He said, well, the guy you arrested said he was looking for an opportunity to kill you. Because he felt like he was going to be able to get away. But he never had that opportunity to kill you.

24:01 And I'm looking at him like, what? What's going on here? And he said, well, the guy said that. You kept your composure. You never yelled. You never screamed. So he didn't see an opportunity to take you out. And I was like, wow. And a lot of that came from the fact that I had watched a documentary before. And it was a serial killer who had killed some cops before. And he said in the documentary, hey, when a cop comes up and they're doing all this yelling and screaming, most of the time they're not under control. And I'll take that opportunity at that moment. And so I bring all that back.

24:42 to sports, I remember making errors. And I'd be like, all right, I just won't make an error next time. Okay, that's how I'm going to roll. And I remember people saying and coaches saying, hey, you're not upset you made an error? No, I am, but. I'm not showing any emotions about it. I just won't do it again next time. And then I had a game-winning hit. I remember having a game-winning home run. Ran around the bases and kind of came in and everybody else is jumping up and down and I'm just walking. And they're like, Hey man, you're not excited. And I'm like, yeah, I'm super excited. Like I'm thrilled. And they're like, yeah, your emotions are not showing that. And I'm like, Hey, cause I got another bat next game. And, and I just picked that up from sports. It was like, Hey, if you do something really good, just take it in stride.

25:33 If you do something really bad, you never know the opportunity because if you get too high and, I think it will affect the next move. If you get too low, it will affect the next move, right? So you just have to stay even-keeled throughout. I really believe that. Now, where it's bad, and I'm trying to work on this. I'm trying to improve. But if someone gives me a gift, it's the same emotions. I don't get too happy and too excited. And I'm not sad to get it either, but I don't, oh, this is great. And people are like, hey, you're not happy you got a gift? Yeah, I am. But I don't show those emotions. But I think it has helped me in leadership because everyone's always watching when you're a leader. So when there's something that's going on that's really bad and you can just keep your composure, when there's something that you know you're getting really angry inside, but you can keep your composure, you don't make emotional decisions, I think it's so important as everyone that works with you is watching.

26:32 Yeah, well, and if we can illustrate from the Jackie Robinson documentary, right, one of his strategies, right, was he would rile the pitcher by stealing the bases, and the pitcher would get so wound up, he'd be so mad, like, I could already stand the situation, didn't want to play with him, right? And the manager would say, you know, be sure and rile up the pitcher, right? So that's an example of how when emotion works against us, right, so if you don't learn how to be able to manage your emotions properly, And now you can't even perform. Look, I'm smiling because that's something that I really did do. Two seasons in a row in college baseball, I led the conference in getting hit.

27:16 As a batter. Wow. And I let the. Conference in getting hit because when I got on first base, I normally would tell the first baseman some, something crazy, like, man, your pitch is not that good. And then next at bat, he'll hit me. And then I'll be on base again. I said, man, he fell for that. And I'm still second. Well, you take them out their game. Yeah. See, I mean, that's just, it's so, you know, in other words, emotions are very powerful and learning how to deal with them is really, really important. And, you know, if you are the leader that gets so upset and you're radiating rage and Of course, people are going to be frightened silly of that. So there's really something to, I think the way that you're talking about being able to moderate your emotions and be able to have composure under pressure that I wanted to make sure that we brought home and bring it across home base. And I think we did.

27:59 Yeah, a hundred percent. I, I, I look, a lot of it's mind games too, right? You have to win the mind game in order to be a great leader. I 100% agree with that, of course. And that's part of what we do is to help people to develop that mind game. So your operating system, if you will. Which brings me to the next point, which is really also very center for us, Chief. And that is you talk about how culture wins championships. And of course, we agree with that 100%. And I thought what your point was so interesting, because when we do service interviews about culture work, one of the questions that we ask is, what do you have to put up with around here?

28:41 And one of the things you put forth in your book about culture is that it speaks to, you know, it weakens to the point of what people put up with. And so if you could speak a bit about, one, why does culture win championships? And what does this notion about putting up with things have to do with the bottom of it? Culture wins championships every single day. First of all, it goes back to, does this person just want to come to work? Because most of the time you want to come to work, but you don't want to come to work because of what? The culture that's at the workplace. So one of the first things I did when I got here, I wanted to see what the culture was like at.

29:21 The Dallas Police Department. What could we improve here? About the culture to make everyone that works here want to come to work, want to be excited about coming to work. So I started trying to identify some of the things that we can change. And then I'll go back to my three words that we talked about. I wanted to inspire and motivate. But the most important word for culture was the empowerment. Yes. One of the things that we. Needed at DPD was for the ones that had three stars on their collars and two stars and one stars and the majors, the lieutenants, the sergeants, the. Senior corporals, and the POs. To be able to empower them to make decisions, to be a part of the decision-making where it actually mattered.

30:06 And so many times in organizations, there's a culture that everyone looks at the leader. Oh, well, he or she's going to make all the decisions. He or she's going to have the final say in everything. And that's what I wanted to change here immediately. I wanted my executive chiefs, my deputy chiefs, associate chiefs, majors, lieutenants, to know that what they said matter and that it can actually become policy. We can actually put it in black and white so we can change some of the culture around here that they know, what I say, could change the way this department runs for the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years.

30:46 Because what I say matters. So for me, culture wins championships. And if you allow everyone that works with you to be a part in changing that culture, then you'll win. You'll be in first place. Of course, 100% aligned. 100% agree. That's when you know you're adding value. And that's what we get into the whole mattering space. Which brings me tangentially to the next point that I wanted you to cover up on, and that is you have a whole chapter on the responsibility of brotherhood, which I thought was so beautiful. Could you speak to that? Brotherhood. So... I was a former athlete. I don't think I can call myself an athlete anymore. I got to call myself a former athlete.

31:29 Tumbling, I know. Also a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Incorporated and also been. In law enforcement for 30 plus years. All of that equals brotherhood. And when you can compete against each other, but you're going for the same goal. It's so important. And what I love to say is I can talk about my teammates, but I won't let anybody else talk about them because we're putting together that bond of one. And it goes to the culture. It goes to the discipline that we have together, the preparation that we have. As a team. And when you're one, man, it's hard to beat you.

32:12 When you're all moving in the same direction, not necessarily all the same thoughts, but You can go A, B, C, D, but. Our end goal is Z. And we're going to get to Z. And we can go different lanes to get there, but we have the same end goal. And we know we're going to do it together at the end as one. It's so important. I totally agree with that. Let's take our next break as we let our listeners and viewers think about that. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. We're on the air with Chief Daniel Como. He's the current chief of police for the city of Dallas. known for his focus on intelligence-driven policing, recruitment, strengthening community trust, among many other things. We've been talking about the importance of culture, which is near and dear to our hearts. After the break, we're going to build on what he was just talking about in this notion of brotherhood by talking about this beautiful concept that he has called the weight of the jersey.

33:01 We'll be right back. Dr. Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, an inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose-inspired leadership and meaning-infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at EliseCortez.com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with Dr. Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise, A-L-I-S-E, at EliseCortez.com. Now, back to Working on Purpose.

34:09 Thanks for staying with us and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I am your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. As you may know by now, this program is dedicated to empowering and inspiring you along your journey to realize more of your potential as an individual and as a leader. If you'd like to learn more about where you are on our gusto leadership spectrum, go to LinkedIn, find me, Elise Cortez, scroll to the featured section, and you can find the free assessment there. You will learn a lot about yourself and the spectrum of potential awaiting you for ongoing development and involvement. Pretty amazing. If you are just coming into the conversation, my guest is Chief Daniel Como, the author of The Active Sport of Leadership, discipline, culture, and the responsibility to lead. So as I queued up before the break here, and this is going to probably build on what you were just talking about in terms of the responsibility of brotherhood, but I was really delighted by the way you talked about the weight of the jersey.

34:56 As somebody who really hasn't really carried a lot of jerseys, I ran track in high school, but nothing in college. There's something really powerful about the way you talk about the weight of the jersey and what that really means. Yeah, so look, One thing I learned from sports, it can teach you how to perform under pressure and it can teach you teamwork. But there's so much more when you're a member of a team, when you're a leader. There's so much more there. And the leadership, the discipline, like everyone loves to say, oh, man, I wish I can play college sports. Right. But people don't understand what really goes into it. Waking up at 5.30 in the morning to go work out.

35:43 The discipline that comes with that. The fact that. You do two hours of practice before you get to eat breakfast. And then you have to go to class. And then right after class, you have to go to the training room. Then after the training room, you have to go to practice. And then after practice, you have to go to study hall. And then you get to go to bed, and guess what? You got to do it all again. And if you don't do it in the offseason, there's somebody behind you that's working out even harder to take your position. So when you start thinking of that, the preparation that goes into it, the integrity, the discipline, that's what sports was really teaching you. And that's what I mean when I say the weight of the jersey.

36:27 It's not just the jersey. It's everything that goes into being able to wear that jersey. And you can put that in so many different ways, right? Just the way to the jersey, being a leader of an organization, that's the jersey you're wearing. And you have to have that discipline. You have to have that motivation, that ability to teach and learn. to be able to wear that jersey the right way. Yeah, and it maps over to everything. You mentioned the uniform. And, of course, when I'm speaking on stage as a keynote presenter, what I wear is my uniform. It says a lot. It's very important. What leaders wear and how they show up in a room is also their uniform and conveys something and speaks to do I have the integrity to be standing here to be able to convey what I'm about to convey. So I really thought that was such a rich concept.

37:16 Thank you. Yeah, so welcome. Okay, so next we have to talk about the difference between authority and influence and how the two of them matter in terms of followership. So authority, you're the boss. And I tell people all the time, every morning I wake up, I know I'm the chief of police now. Ever since they hired me, I know. I'm the chief of police. So the authority part is one thing, but influence is another thing, right? And you want to be able to influence everyone that works with you in a positive way to where it. Makes the office better. It builds on that culture that we talked about, that brotherhood, that teamwork that we talk about.

37:59 What can I do to give you the empowerment to make us better? And when you start talking about authority and influence, that's what I go back to, all those words that we talked about. And I think. Sometimes when it comes to leadership, sometimes we try to make it a little bit too complicated sometimes. Once you get those certain words and those. Certain values and those certain things you believe in, you just keep coming back to them. And you keep ringing that same bell over and over and over. And that was one of the things that I was trying to do in the book, right? I was trying not to talk about a thousand different things. I wanted to keep bringing it back to the same point.

38:41 And you did, beautifully. And that's why I was being very, very intentional about that. And then I could write another book down and wrote about all the other. Things I thought about. Right, since then, right, of course. But the authority and influence, right, you want to do it in a positive way where everyone that's working with you feels they have buy-in and their voice matters. Yeah, so you choose to follow someone because they have the influence. You have to follow them because they have authority. And I think that distinction is incredibly powerful. Learning the desire for people to follow you. Yeah. Okay. So I can't let you get off the show, Chief, without talking about, you have a chapter on the courage to be intentional and leaders must keep growing. So I find this to be so kind of, I will just say it, exasperating. There's a fair number of leaders that I run into who don't believe that they need to grow and learn anymore. They're like, I got the job.

39:33 I'm good. I make good results here. I don't need to learn and grow anymore. And I find that to be completely backwards. You clearly have a similar sort of mindset as me. So talk a little bit about this idea, the courage to be intentional and why do leaders have to keep growing? Look, the courage to be intentional is very important to me, and I think it shows by me becoming the chief of police. Okay, what do you mean by that? I worked for the federal government for 28 years, and I knew I wanted to end as a major city chief of police. Probably the last, I don't know, 10 years or so of my career on the fed side, that's when I started thinking about it. So I was like, you know what?

40:14 I have to be very intentional about some of the things I do. And so, okay, what do you mean by that? Well, made sure I stayed involved with the state and local police departments all the time, every stop of the way. I was always involved in the Haida meetings, and I wanted to meet with all the chiefs of police that I could at every stop of the way. So I was very intentional about what I was doing. Another thing that I was very intentional about with my federal career was moving around. And some people are like, why are you moving so much? Because I know what my end results are going to want to be. And I'm not going to be able to sell myself as a 28-year fed if I can't say, hey, I worked in various areas because I worked along the border in Tucson, Arizona.

41:00 So I understand how law enforcement works along the border. I worked in Los Angeles. in a major city. So I understand how that works. Oh, by the way, I worked in San Francisco, a very liberal type location. I worked in Mississippi. Very rural and very Republican type city, right? So I was very intentional with a lot of my stops and a lot of my moves to prepare me for the end results of becoming a chief of police. Now, one of the things about you. Got to keep growing, I love to tell people all the time, I still have mentors that I talk to all the time. And what I believe in You got to make sure your mentors are not just like you.

41:49 They don't have the same personality as you. They don't think and act like you. Now the end result is success. You want someone that, that has a roadmap to get to success, but you don't want all of them to think alike because you think you might as well just have one. And one of the things, even though I'm the chief of police and I've been in law enforcement since 1991, I love surrounding myself with CEOs of businesses or corporations. Hmm. Because technically what I'm running here is a Fortune 500 club. Right. Sure. As the chief of Dallas. This is a major city. It's a major budget. It's a lot of people. So why not get a CEO as a mentor?

42:35 Because guess what? They're doing the exact same thing in a different line. And you have to continue to grow. You have to continue to learn. And not just from a book, not just from podcasts, which they're great. I love listening to podcasts, especially the five-minute, 30-minute clips sometimes. Man, I take some things away from them. But being able to grow with CEOs of Fortune 500 clubs, I think it's special. It is. And that is one of the big reasons, Chief, why I'm a Vistage Chair, because it is a peer advisory group for CEOs, business leaders, and business owners, et cetera, who get the benefit of being able to hear from other people, other peers, about how they've solved their problems and gone through to grow their business. So 100% agree with that as well. I heard you say a little bit about this at your book launch. And listeners and viewers, that's how I met the Chief as I was invited to his book launch. That's how I met him. But I'd love for you to share just a couple of things that you are especially proud of as the Dallas chief of police just since you started in your role.

43:35 Man, look, I'm excited to be the chief of Dallas. Every morning I wake up, sometimes I ask the Lord, why me? Because I'm so excited to be here. It was a goal that I had, and I was able to accomplish that goal. One of the things that I wanted to do as a chief was make sure I was able to connect with the community. That's so important to me. And that's one of the things that you couldn't do in federal law enforcement. And this is why I wanted to end back in local law enforcement, because I wanted to build that. Relationship with the community. And I feel like so far we've been able to do that with the Dallas Police Department. We go to every town hall meeting that we're called on, every church that calls us.

44:21 We're there. I try to attend every single meeting that I can to build that bridge with the community because I believe as a police department, if you're not fully engaged in the community, you're not doing it the right way because we're serving the community. So we want that community to be part of us. Now, what I've also done is I've really launched the whole campaign to make sure that we're also involved in the business community. Not just neighborhoods, but the business community. So where I go in and I talk to these CEOs and I say, what are you looking for from the Dallas Police Department? How can we serve you better? And I'll tell you, one of the things that's coming from that is they know we care. And all of a sudden, people started saying, hey, I want to donate to the Dallas Police Foundation. And I'm like, wow, really?

45:11 But it's us engaging with the business community because you know what they say? hey, in order for us to make money, we need this to be a safe city. And if we can help give you some resources and tools to make. Our city safe, we're all in. And in some of the other communities where, say, they might not have as much money, Hey, Chief, what can we do? Can we reengage with the VIP program, Volunteers in Patrol? Because we want to be ears and eyes for you and your department so we can work together as one. So one of the things I'm really proud of is the fact how the Dallas Police Department is engaging with the community. And not just one part of the community, the entire Dallas. As I love to say, we're Dallas.

46:00 I dare say chief, this is where you're getting to the top of your emotional range. Cause I can feel your passion. I can feel your pride. It's beautiful. Just beautiful. Thank you. You're welcome. So let's finish this conversation. You know, this show is called working on purpose. And so let's end by bringing it directly into the heart of the show, your, your experience. So I would love for you to share, what does it mean for you personally to work on purpose? And what do you believe becomes possible for humans, for an organization, for our society to, when we treat our leadership as an active sport the way that you do? Look, we have to be very, you have to have a purpose, first of all. You have to be fully engaged. You have to know what you want. And you have to understand what it takes.

46:43 To get there. And that's where we go back to being intentional. Once you understand what you want And figure out what it takes to get there You have to be very intentional And putting all those tools in your toolbox To make sure you get there And never stop Even if you hit a roadblock You got to figure out how to go around Or get over that roadblock And again, you learn that from being intentional. The leadership is engagement, right? You have to be part of the community like we talked about earlier. There's just so many little things that you have to understand in order to succeed. Many people want to be successful, but not everybody's willing to do the climb to get there.

47:31 And again, going back to being very intentional. Understanding what's the end result, understanding what it takes to get there, being intentional to get there. And you know what? Really, putting the time and effort into it. Again, a lot of people want to be successful, but they're not willing to do the climb. They're not willing to put the time, the effort to get in there. So what I love telling everybody is let's talk about what you want to accomplish. Now let's talk about how we're going to accomplish it. Now, let's also talk about the desire and the willpower to get to what you want to accomplish. What a beautiful way to finish the program, Chief. This has been a beautiful conversation. As you know by now, I think that I really got a lot out of your book and so much of it is aligned with what we do at Gustano and our philosophy here. I want to say thank you first for writing the book.

48:23 And secondly, thank you for coming on Working on Purpose to talk about it. And welcome to Dallas. Thank you. I am so happy to be here in Dallas. I am thrilled. I'm looking forward to doing some great things with everyone in this department to serve Dallas. Fantastic. Listeners and viewers, you're probably going to learn more about Chief Daniel Cuomo, the book that he wrote, The Act of Supportive Leadership, and what's going on with the city of Dallas. There's a couple things you can do to engage with him. You can look at the website, which is dccbooks.com. That's one place to start. You can check him out on LinkedIn. He has two profiles. One is his own name, Daniel C. Como, and Como is C-O-M-E-A-U-X.

49:05 And then the other profile is DC10investments on LinkedIn. So those are all three different ways that you can go check him out and engage with him. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it via recorded podcast or wherever you find them. We were on air with Carson Kelly, Todd about the work he is doing at Compassion 2.0 and flourishingly to help companies transform toward human-centered organizational performance by embracing compassion and the care at their core and thus make it psychologically safe for people to contribute and create at their maximum capacity. It was an incredibly inspiring and neuroscientific conversation. Very interesting. Next week, we'll be on the air with Paul Drew, a local seven-time entrepreneur here in Dallas. We'll be talking about his new book, soon to be released, called My Client is the Devil and Other Myths Revisited, which is a masterclass in developing the emotional, relational, and business skills to be effective in sales, account management, and customer service professionalism in today's world. It was a very clever book and it's chock full of incredibly practical advice and tools.

50:07 See you then. Let's continue learning how to help more people flourish, elevate your operating system as a leader, and create destination workplaces where legendary business takes place. Let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune in to Working on Purpose, featuring your host, Dr. Elise Cortez, each week on W4CY. Together, we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires in passion performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there. Let's work on purpose.