Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader with Marquez Ogden

Marques Ogden Ogden is a 2002 graduate of Howard University[2] with a Bachelor of Science in Finance, with emphasis on construction and cost accounting. He was also part of their NCAA Division I football team. In 2005, he participated in a program through the University of Southern California on project development and construction developed specifically for NFL players hoping to diversify after their football careers.[3]

After retirement from the NFL, Ogden formed a company called Kayden Premier Enterprises Inc., an earth-moving company based out of Baltimore, Maryland.[4] After going out of business in 2012, he received a grant from the Gene Upshaw Players Assistance Trust Fund to assist in turning his life around.[5] He has since become a public speaker and has been involved with the National Youth Football Organization, teaching the fundamentals of football to youths.

Episode Highlights Here:

Marques:

It’s not about talking so much that you overload people or you overwhelm them need to be very straight to the point and learn how to be an active listener.

Brett:

What’s the number one thing you need to be in order to be a highly effective leader?

Marques:

Number one is an active listener. The best leaders listen to their team. They don’t try to bark at their team or snarl or yell. And they do less talking. The Talking is more intentional. And it’s more straight to the matter of fact, but it’s not about talking so much that you overload people or you overwhelm them need to be very straight to the point and learn how to be an active listener because you can’t listen to understand, you then are going to be listening to respond, and it goes into a response. That means you’re really not listening.

Brett:

Sec active listener, one of the things that stick out there, says, careful not to overload walk us through what that looks like, and an example of how to strategize not to do that.

Marques:

Those are such great questions. So when I had catered, and we grew it to the largest company, African American owned in Baltimore City, the state of Maryland, for site work, as the company started to go downhill, I would yell a lot of things, get this done, get that done, get this done, get that done, I would overload my team because they didn’t know what to focus on. At that time, they couldn’t prioritize because I was such a hybrid, I was such a tyrannical lunatic, that they didn’t understand or process what was most important to do. And because of that, I was talking too much. And things didn’t work out.

Brett:

Got it. So maybe a lot of orders versus listening in versus building the processes with them. It’s more telling versus showing or doing with them. Is that a fair summary? Absolutely. Excellent. So that’s number one, being an active listener. What’s number two,

Marques:

learn how to delegate a task to the right people. People are going to follow what you give them, but know who you are dealing with, know who you are talking to and know who you are giving certain responsibilities, too. It’s important because if I tell somebody to do something, and they’re not really the best to do it, I’m delegating to the wrong person. And as a leader who’s serving people, you have to put the responsibilities with the right people. So a delegation of tasks to the right people is absolutely essential. As a leader,

Brett:

what’s the number one secret to finding the right person for the right task or position?

Marques:

So you have to do the hiring process, get people’s strengths and what they do well, and over time, you’ll go from believing in that person to trusting in that person with discipline, dedication, and consistency. We interviewed on our podcast Willie Parker, a two-time Super Bowl champ with the Steelers. He has the longest touchdown runs in Google History. He said, People that do what they’re supposed to do, they are available, and they show up. And that’s what you have to do when you’re trying to make sure smokers are doing the right task. Are they available? Are they going to show up? Do they have the competency to go along with it? So it comes, in my opinion, Brett, from this overtime consistency, and then developing that congruence? See that you show up at all times to get me to be done, done correctly?

Brett:

Excellent. active listener, number one. Number two, learn how to delegate tasks to the right people. Number three, what’s number three or number four on the list?

Marques:

Number three is to create a culture of inclusiveness, where people can feel they can speak without being judged. Steve Jobs said it best his hardest job at Apple was keeping all of his senior leaders on when they had meetings on task. We have all these brilliant minds in the room, right, Brett? But if people feel they can’t communicate, if people feel they’re gonna get looked down upon by their peers, what are they going to do? We’re going to close, and they’re gonna stop talking, they’re gonna start to feel Whoa, I don’t know if I’m gonna be judged or looked at or ridiculed. And that’s what happened to me with my eight-figure construction company. I put people in a position where they couldn’t express themselves freely as a result of that, right, Brett? I lost everything. It all started with me. Dissolving that strong culture, the ego, the arrogance, and just honestly, planes do liquidity.

Brett:

I wrote a book called Crucial Conversations right and talked about making it safe. Right, and the idea that you know, approaching situations with curiosity and open-mindedness and not assuming you have the facts, in fact, just the opposite. So when you don’t have the facts and ask good questions to help bring out good answers, right? And oftentimes, the team members or those that are closest to the problem, and as the CEO or as the entrepreneur or as the leader, on, you know, flying, let’s say, at the top and going 100 miles an hour, it’s hard to see those challenges, and so you want to slow down ask those questions.