The IMPACT Show
The IMPACT Show is where leadership meets legacy. Each episode unpacks the stories, strategies, and insights of visionaries who are shaping industries, communities, and futures. Whether you're a business leader, entrepreneur, or changemaker, this podcast offers real conversations with real impact—designed to inspire, challenge, and equip you to leave a lasting mark. Tune in and start building your legacy today.
The IMPACT Show
Part 2 of the 20 Leadership Mandates
In this part 2 eipsode of the IMPACT | Leadership & Legacy podcast, Jeremy Melton, alongside co-hosts Maddie Atkinson and Daniel Brown, takes a deep dive into the foundational attributes every leader must embrace to make a lasting impact.
The hosts revisit the core lessons on leadership's foundation—being humble, hungry, and honorable—and build upon them by introducing 20 essential leadership mandates. From ownership and clarity to resilience and integrity, this episode unpacks why these attributes are crucial and how they shape a leader's influence and legacy.
Whether you're leading a team, a family, or yourself, this episode is packed with inspiration and practical advice to help you lead with purpose and conviction.
Tune in now and discover how to elevate your leadership!
Welcome to Impact Podcast. My name is Jeremy Melton and I'm your host along with Daniel and Maddie For the next 30 minutes to an hour, or however long you choose to tune in, on this show, we're going to uncover some things that will help you on your journey to make an impact on the world that we live in. Our highlight question is, what kind of impact are you making on the world that we live in? And remember, our goal on this show is to generate the desire to understand it sooner rather than later. This is episode number four. And last week in episode number three, we talked about leadership mandates. We're going to go through those together. So how about we just get started? Number six, determination. Determination is important because the cards will fall out of favor from time to time. And Your determination, and there's some resolve. We're going to talk about that in a minute too. Like you said, they go hand in hand. The leader will fail in some capacity on a regular basis. The leader will. It's just the way it works. If you're not failing, then you're not maximizing your potential. If you're not failing, then you're not doing something right. You need to get to doing some more difficult things because you want to fail. Failure is where you learn. And years ago, I read a book on failure. And man, how important failure is as a person, as a leader, but even as a human being. It's very important to fail. It's something. And so the whole world has raised us, no, don't fail. Well, dude, you're not ever going to grow. That's how you grow, right? And so can y'all ever think of a time where... You had to be determined. Your determination level went up, and you overcame something. I think we talked about that the first week, too. But if you have a quick story where you had to be determined
SPEAKER_01:to get it done. I mean, I just jump into being determined, but failures. And I just had a project just this week, and it was a client that I really wanted to knock it out of the park. And she said, I want this. It was very clear. This is what I want. And I said, I got you. Was it above my capacity and my abilities a little bit? But I pushed myself and I was like, let's, you know, we went hard and I spent way more hours than I should have on the project. Was it perfect? No. Was she happy? Well, to be determined. But, It didn't matter. I said, yes, I'm going to do it. And I put it together, and I pushed my own abilities. And even if it's not that project, the next project is going to benefit from that. Oh, yeah. I fail every single day. Every single day.
SPEAKER_03:Me too.
SPEAKER_01:It's all good. And I just think it's important, just like, yes, we're failing every day, but how do you handle failure? How do you...
SPEAKER_03:You have to fail and you have to get back up. And again, if you're not failing, it's like, man, let's try something else. Let's do something that makes it hard. Number seven is humility. We talked about that last week. We beat it in the ground. But I'm going to read this that I wrote. So one of the most dynamic leadership lessons that I ever learned, I actually say it, I taught myself, I read the book of Nehemiah, and it's in the Bible, of course. Years ago, I did a Bible study with my pastor at the time. This was back in 2015, May of 2015, I believe is when it was. But we did a leadership study on the book of Nehemiah, on Nehemiah. And then later on, I went back and read the book and I went through and picked out all these different things. We're actually going to do that study on here one day. But Nehemiah did not regard himself higher than those that were with him. And so he was the governor and he stayed with the people. But it was early on in my career and my development as a leader that where I learned what Nehemiah did. And a lot of y'all might be thinking, well, I don't even know what Nehemiah did. But he rebuilt the wall in the Bible. And I'm not going to get into that deep today because we're going to do it later. But essentially, the lesson that was taught was he was never better than his people, never higher than his people. And in fact, he devoted a whole chapter, I believe it was a whole chapter, to... talking about what his people had done. He basically committed, he wrote the book, but he committed a whole chapter to say, this guy did this, this person did this, this person did this, this person did this. Very cool. But again, we talked about humility, and that's what that is. Part of that is that humility. Humility is critical for a leader. It's not always present. like we talked about, but it's critical. And then, of course, basically don't get caught up in the worldly rankings and seek to be equal with others. Seek to put everyone else above you. That's humility, right? Everyone else has to be better or more important than you. And So cultivate humility constantly. Now, I don't want to beat a dead horse because we talked about it a lot last week, but do y'all have anything on that?
SPEAKER_00:This one's a hard one for me. I've thought about it, too. Earlier today, you said that you've thought about the three H's. And I really have, too. I think that the other two hungry... But the humble and humility, it's really hard for me to kind of grasp that in my everyday life. We've done a lot of these episodes, and that's just the one thing that really has stuck out to me that I feel like I fail at.
SPEAKER_03:Hey,
SPEAKER_00:that's good. I
SPEAKER_03:was going to say it. Me too.
SPEAKER_01:Break the ice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't know. I fail at it
SPEAKER_03:every day.
SPEAKER_00:It's hard.
SPEAKER_01:Well, in everything we talk about, we talk about how, like, do these things be intentional? But humble is something that it's difficult to be intentional about because if you're being intentional about being humble, then... Might be pride. Yeah, exactly. It's just tricky, you know? And maybe it's just... I don't know. How is it created? How do we really... Latch on to it.
SPEAKER_03:The other day I sent y'all the thing that Pink had said. Did y'all watch that?
SPEAKER_00:I'd seen it before.
SPEAKER_03:She talks about Chris Stapleton and says he's the most humble guy in the room. Dude, that's what I want people to say about me.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:But they're not because I'm not. Look, I mean, let's just be real.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's so difficult to balance it because you want to be humble. But then you feel like you need to be confident, but there's such a line there. And at the end of the day, when I hear someone is the most humble guy in the room, it's like, man, that's an aspiration. And so you think, like you said, Daniel, how do you do that? How do we find that? Well, you've got to seek it. You've got to be intentional about it. But, man, just make it. It ain't about you. You know? Right. It's not about you.
SPEAKER_00:It's just really going back to the human nature thing too, because it's just very easy to just, and I think of putting everyone before myself, of course, I'm like, well, of course I put my kids, you know, that's the easy stuff. It's the lady at the checkout when you're, you know, like do you, you're being intentional by asking these, how's your day today? Or, you know, stuff like that. But do you really and truly feel like, Are you really putting that person first? Is that person really and truly above you? Or are you just trying to make conversation? I don't know. So I've really thought about this one a lot.
SPEAKER_03:That's good.
SPEAKER_00:And we don't have to keep beating the dead horse. Number eight. Oh, we're going to keep talking about it. I can't wait for that episode. Number eight
SPEAKER_03:is courage. Courage is the big one for us all to embrace. Courage is strength. Undefined because, and that's what I put here, but Courage is necessary to lead. Without it, you're not leading. People will not see your willingness to fight, and you must be willing to fight for your people. And I put that, fight for right. Again, that courage is what makes people initially start following you. When you exhibit courage, and by the way, people want a leader. They do. They starve for it. I think it's in our nature. We talk about our nature. God made it. He put it in us that we want a leader. And they might say, I don't want nobody. But deep down, everybody wants a leader. At least, I mean, even the strongest leaders in the room want a leader. They need it. And so, you know, then the ultimate leader is Jesus, of course. But everybody needs a leader. And courage... is critical and imperative to the leader's influence. Number nine, recognition of others.
SPEAKER_00:Can I say something? Sorry. Oh, yeah. Courage goes back to your story. I can't remember which number it was about the friend that's... He wasn't involved in the thing at all, but he was like... Tyler. It was me. Tyler's
SPEAKER_02:story.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. And he was like, it was me. And you were like, I'm very proud of you. That took courage as well. That right there is like... You're taking the blame for everybody. I mean, how scary could that have been?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I mean, he could lose his job.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Or
SPEAKER_03:whatever. But you know what? It didn't matter to him. What mattered to him was his people.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And that's what, when I say that, that's the kind of, those leaders will lead some people. Those guys that are willing to do that are dynamic, great leaders.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And yes, he had courage.
SPEAKER_00:And courage is scary. I mean, I think that's a huge thing is you can be courageous in everything that you do, but then there's a lot of things that are very scary for people, like that situation. It's like they had the courage to get through it when no one else did. So I don't know. Sorry. No, it's good.
SPEAKER_03:Good, good, good, good. All right, so recognition of others. And this is going to kind of go back. That's important. You've got to recognize that. others not yourself we talk about that and i told in nehemiah chapter three it actually was chapter three where he spent the whole chapter talking about how those people what they did and so uh but that's super important number 10 is vision the great leader must have vision or said in another way direction right so you got to know which way the boat is going And the leaders must have a direction for others to follow. He or she must be able to share that vision and give direction to whomever may be following. And not when asked, but the leader ought to regularly be casting vision. Because at the end of the day, if you want to keep a team together, then you've got to talk about where you're going. And you've got to constantly echo that over and over and over again. I have been in situations where the leader that I'm under is not casting vision. And whenever that's happening, you know, in 20 years it's happened, right? Whenever it's happening, the people, they just kind of flounder. And they do their own thing. You don't even realize it, but it makes everyone suffer. No vision. then...
SPEAKER_00:No discipline.
SPEAKER_03:No discipline. Well, everything else goes away.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean...
SPEAKER_03:Because there's no... You know, the vision is what it is and it's where everybody's going and the team, in order to keep going that direction, has to know where we're going. And if you don't, all this other stuff just kind of falls to the side.
SPEAKER_00:Also, I think vision is more... Long term, too. So it's not just like a day by day thing. So you're not just like, all right, today I know that I'm going to go Christmas shopping later. You know, like it's not it's very it's it's the bigger scope. It's the bigger picture of what direction you're going. It's.
SPEAKER_01:Well, let's talk about this studio. All right. We're in my dining room right now. Right. But you both know this isn't. the end of this vision. This is just one small step in what I want all
SPEAKER_03:this
SPEAKER_02:to be. Oh, yeah. That's great.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we've talked about that, where we want to take this podcast. And you'll notice we'll text each other and stuff along the way to continue to keep that in front of us because, you know, we're going to get tired. You know, four or five more weeks of this, you're going to be like... what am I doing? We're going to do the podcast. Well, we've got to continue to stoke the flame and talk about where we're going. Dee Brown's going to have a brick-and-mortar place where we can go and sit and be set up for this. That's going to be good. That's right. It's happening. I love it. Number 11 is integrity. The leader has to have integrity. We talked about that. The leader must do the right thing when no one's looking. Always... Always. Always. And if he doesn't, then leadership capital goes away, right? And like we talked about, it's a whole lot easier to get in a bad spot than it is to get out of it. This is one of those times where you mess this up, it takes years to overcome. The leader will not overcome an integrity break very quickly. And I put character with it. Number 12 is character. A leader must have character. He must be trustworthy and be good to keep their word. How important is it that you keep your word? And I'm sure you were taught that as a child. Keep your word, keep your word, keep your word. But it is really important for a leader. And never break the word. in this life about the only thing you can protect that no one can ever take from you is your name and your word. And so guard that with everything that you have, period. Number 13 is resolve. The leader must decide firmly on a course of action. Without resolve... the leader can, I'll say, kind of sway, right? So when you say resolve, I mean, you have to be able to set things in motion and then have the courage and the resolve to hold it, okay? Even when the waves get high, even when the times get tough, even when it gets hard, okay? You've got to be able to plant your feet as a leader. Plant your feet. Now, on the other hand, there's times where you've planted your feet and you may find out that you've made a mistake, at which point you need to have the resolve to pull it back and say, all right, I've made a mistake. And look, there's no one in the world that does this better than a leader that I know. And hopefully someday he'll come on here. I'm not going to name his name right now. There's this guy. And I'll talk to him later. But he, man, when he screws it up, he'll tell you. Like, and it's noticeable. And it's not, I don't think it's really, it's genuine. You would think, man, this guy, he does this every time. But it's genuine. He truly will beat on himself. And he says, he'll tell you. It's hard for anybody to beat on you when you beat on yourself. And like I said, I'm not going to throw his name out just yet because I'm going to talk to him first. But if he'll join us, He's a strong leader, and he will tell you real quick, man, I screwed up, and I'm sorry. And that really helps me because I think, man, I don't, again, a reminder for me, I don't do that enough. So number 14 is be prudent. What does prudent mean? Anybody? I
SPEAKER_00:don't know. I don't have Google.
SPEAKER_03:All right, so it's good, careful judgment with the future in mind. Okay? Now, good, careful judgment with the future in mind. Maddie, can you think of a time where you were good? You exhibited good judgment with the future in mind.
SPEAKER_00:That's such a broad question.
SPEAKER_03:Well, let's look at it like this. Sometimes a decision can be made quickly and sometimes you've got to really think about it, right? And what the consequences are of the future. So if you're presented a scenario and you say, you know, again, you can make a decision or you can make a decision with the future in mind. Typically, the leader is faced with decisions all the time, okay? And the leader... does act quickly, makes decisive decisions, but again, the strongest leader with the most influence is thinking about the future, and that's prudent. Being prudent is thinking about the decision that you have with the future in mind, with the consequences in mind, with all the bad things or all the good things that could come of that decision.
SPEAKER_00:I've done many pro-cons lists. I mean, that's kind of what comes to my head. I don't think, I can't think of something like...
SPEAKER_03:That's prudent,
SPEAKER_00:right? Right. So, and most of them on the pro-con list are, you know, immediate pros and cons. But then once you start digging down into the pro-con list, it does definitely get more for future. So... I've definitely done it. I just can't think of.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's what being prudent is. And the opposite of that would just be to flippantly make decisions without any concern with how it affects the future.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And so, again, the leader is always looking ahead and making decisions based on what's coming down the pipe.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And so that's important.
SPEAKER_00:I always have a, like thinking about that, at what point is a question or where you have to decide something reactionary where you're like, okay, yes, do that. I mean, I guess in my head, I'm like, I make so many decisions every day that I'm just like, yeah, or no, let's not do that or whatever. And I think deep down I'm being intentional on how I'm answering the question or doing the actions or whatever, but I don't, It's like, at what point do you sit there and really sit and think how this is going to affect the future?
SPEAKER_03:Right. Well, that's important. You've got to think about the future and how it affects your team.
SPEAKER_00:So
SPEAKER_03:number 15 is be temperate. Now, people are going, what does that word mean? Well, self-control, right? So temperate could be said to be, I think Google says self-restraint. Either way, the great leader must be able to control thyself and emotion. This one I struggle with. If I'm honest, well, between this one and humility and probably all of them I struggle with, but this one is high on the list. I'm a very emotional guy, and when I'm not in the right place in my heart, I can just unload And that hurts a leader, okay? Big time. Because a leader, the leader's supposed to be in control no matter what. And they always say the test of a leader is when things aren't going good, what place are they in? Well, yes, that's 100% right. Because when everything's going crazy, it's haywire and people are whatever, you want to be the guy or the girl that I'm the leader, this is good, We're going to roll with the punches. They talk about that, I think, in extreme ownership. But being able to control your emotion is very important in your influence.
SPEAKER_00:I think we talked about, or we kind of talked about people's personalities and a lot of the leaders that we brought up that were in our personal lives is like everyone was just the same. It didn't matter if, you know, crap was hitting the fan or whatever. It's the same emotional, like, okay, what we're gonna do is we're gonna do this. Whether it's calm, whether it's energetic or whatever, but they were always the same. I think that was maybe one of the first episodes that we did, but I think that's a great one.
SPEAKER_01:It makes me think of, we used to say, organized chaos. And just no matter how wild, crazy things... hey keep it here yeah keep it level yeah you want to keep it you want to
SPEAKER_03:keep it level um and you know again this is my struggle i'm on the struggle bus because when things get sideways i tend to get elevated like i get angry right i get mad i'm like this ain't working we need leadership we need this we need that we need this we need that and look it's again I'm on the struggle bus. It's so difficult because when you're really passionate, you really care, you really want everybody around you healthy, and when it's not, you tend, at least me, I tend to get emotional. And that's a bad place. You've got to control it. And so I've worked for years to do that, and I've never really mastered it. I don't know that I ever will, but I'm going to keep trying. Number 16 is be meek. Oh, I love that word. I don't know why, but ever since I read that in the Bible, man, it's a good word. So many people might say the leader doesn't need to be meek because that's weak. And my old buddy pal Jordan Peterson has a really cool teaching on that. I heard it from him, in fact, so he gets the credit. But meekness is not weakness. To be meek... is quiet and gentle. Some people might say, who wants to be that? You don't want your leader to be quiet and gentle. There is times when the leader needs to be quiet and gentle. There's also times when the leader needs to be angry. I believe that there's times when the leader needs to show his passion and show his anger at different times. If all your people are being taken advantage of and you're just sitting over there being meek, what are they thinking, okay? In my opinion, I want to follow the guy that has the courage, that has the care, has the inside of him. I want to see a heartbeat. I want to see him get a little worked up every now and then, right? Now, he needs to be in control. He needs to exhibit self-control, but he needs to get worked up every now and then or what's inside of him, you know? And so Jordan Peterson said, being meek, is like having a sword and knowing how to use it, knowing how to use it, but keeping it sheathed. And that's what Jordan Peterson says. And that, to me, it's like, man, that's awesome. Because, again, he knows how to use it. He's been trained to use the sword. He can kill people, take people's head off, whatever. But he keeps it in the sheath and tries to work it out diplomatically. That's meek. And To me, that's a very strong one that we ought to look for.
SPEAKER_00:I think one of the ones that we talked about, too, was your enthusiasm. It rubs off on whoever you're around or whatever. So being meek, gentle, and quiet. Is that what you said? Gentle and quiet. It's just like if you approach a situation where someone's upset or emotional or angry or whatever, if you come in With meekness, I feel like they'll end up mirroring
SPEAKER_03:each other. That's good. Mirroring's good. Yeah. That's good. 17 is honest, obviously. We all got to be honest. Honesty builds trust. Trust builds leadership. One must always be honest no matter what the consequences are. Even little white lies are off the table. You cannot lie ever, ever, ever. In order to grow in leadership, you must be trusted. And you must be open. And never conceal information or hide things. If asked upon, right? So, number 18, the ability to delegate. This is necessary too. Y'all seen me reading the Bible earlier. I was trying to get caught up on that story. But in Exodus, Moses was a strong leader, right? Delivered the people. But in Exodus, and you may not know this, but in Exodus, Moses was... told that he needed to delegate. And so you can go back and read it later. We're not going to read it now, but I think it's in chapter 18 where Moses' father-in-law told him, hey, look, dude, there ain't enough of you to go around for all these people. You're going to have to delegate. And that's all throughout Scripture, by the way, which is where a lot of leadership principles come from, especially in my list. But You've got to go do this different because there's not enough of you to go around. Your ability to delegate directly impacts your leadership. You have to delegate. You talked about it, Daniel, with your guys. Go do this. Go do that. Make it happen. That's it. You've got to do it. Anything on that?
SPEAKER_00:That's hard for me.
SPEAKER_01:It's something I'm definitely working on. I want to...
SPEAKER_00:No one can do it better than me.
SPEAKER_01:And I really had to get over that my way is the right way. That's
SPEAKER_03:interesting you said that.
SPEAKER_01:Because, again, especially in creative, let's talk about video. I could take 10 minutes of footage and turn it into a video. And then I could hand it to each of you guys, and you could turn it into video, and it's art. It'll be different. They're all going to be different. There'll be three different videos, completely different. And I got to the point where I was just spread too thin. And I was like, I have to delegate, or this is my ceiling. And it's like, is this where I want to be, or are we ready to start investing and delegating?
SPEAKER_03:Right. That's good. Thank you for sharing.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Number 19 is being consistent. The great leader must be consistent in all his moves. Inconsistency leads to distrust every time. You have to be consistent. I had a guy that worked for me years ago. He told... I don't remember who he was telling, but... Anyway, I'm not going to... They were talking about me, and the guy said in front of a bunch of people... Jeremy's very consistent. And I thought, where did that dude, what is it? And I still to this day don't know what he said, but he said it. And I thought, man, that's good. I need to be consistent,
SPEAKER_02:right?
SPEAKER_03:But it was a conversation we were having. But to me, consistency is very important. Again, leads to trust. Number 20 is resiliency. Last but not least, he must be resilient. The great leader must be able to get knocked down and get back up. Take a punch, right? They must be able to fail and re-energize, learn lessons, and come back stronger. Again, failure is important, and you will do it as a leader, and you must be resilient because if not, you're going to get tired because you're going to lose. You're going to fail over and over and over again. And being able to come back stronger is important. So there's 20 of these. All are values or traits or attributes or whatever you want to call them. We're going to call them mandates. Mandates. Mandates. I like it. And all of these are founded on two things, in my opinion, trust and presence. Trust and presence. That is what the leader ought to strive for. You focus on these attributes, and you will be present and trustworthy, and then being present and trustworthy will build your influence. So what might you say is the most important attribute? It's hard to even say.
SPEAKER_00:I don't.
UNKNOWN:I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:I can tell you the hardest one for me is humility.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know what the most important one is. I feel
SPEAKER_01:like ownership. You went first with ownership and it kind of encompasses everything. It kind of like touches on like it includes all of that because if you can't own it, there's nothing.
SPEAKER_03:That's good. So what about our guest? Let's ask the guest. Maybe like... We're asking our guests, what do you think is the most important attribute to all the 20 that we covered? Tell us what you think is the number one important one, right? Let's let them on our Facebook page, maybe on the post, can just comment what's the most important. That'd be cool. Yes, sir. Yeah. We'll put it together. Yeah, we'll put that together.
SPEAKER_00:Very cool.
SPEAKER_03:So,
SPEAKER_01:all right. Anything else? I have a key takeaway that I want to share with you guys. And this was all beautiful and wonderful and a lot to think about this week. But you said a couple times you used the word leadership capital. And it really stuck with me. And I've been sitting here thinking about leadership capital. And... That's what I want to get. Some more leadership capital. And then it's like, okay, all right, all right, I understand capital, and I'm going to go get money. Currency. Currency. I want to go get leadership currency. That's right. And what do I need to do to do that? Yeah. That's what I want to think about.
SPEAKER_03:Yep. Yeah, currency, that's what it is, essentially. Leadership capital, leadership currency. You do... You get.
SPEAKER_01:And I think of my kids at school and getting little clips and rewards. I want us to set up our little... Gold star. Oh, man. Maybe we can set up a little system so we can give each other some leadership capital. Yeah. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:that's good. How much you got in the bank?
SPEAKER_01:Excellent. Good stuff, Jeremy. Thank
SPEAKER_03:you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Maddie.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:All right. We're signing out.
SPEAKER_00:I guess so.
SPEAKER_03:Thank y'all. Appreciate it. Signing off.
SPEAKER_01:Great job. One hour.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I felt that
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