SHRM26 Debrief · Leadership & Development · #1404

If Leadership is a Game, These Are the Rules

with Steve Gilliland

▶ Watch on the SHRM portal ~81 min, distilled

leadership developmentcore valuestrust and integrity

"The day that you leave one body bag in a hallway is the day you should resign. You do not sacrifice human capital for any financial gain."

What it was about

Leadership follows a set of timeless personal rules: grow others to grow yourself, define and live your values, treat problems as opportunities, choose understanding over being right, build trust daily through integrity, and care about the people you lead. The speaker illustrates this through stories about his mentor Margaret Shannon and his own career and life.

By the numbers

75% of all NFL coaches

In 1996, 75% of all NFL head coaches had at one time been an assistant coach for either Bill Walsh or Tom Landry, used to illustrate leaders who develop other leaders.

less than 13 minutes a week

A magazine article cited by his counselor stating the average male spent less than 13 minutes a week one-on-one talking to his children.

Key notes

To grow yourself, you have to grow others. Measure your success as a leader by whether the people you develop outgrow you and move on, and celebrate them as 'alumni' rather than fearing their departure.
Define your values by watching what you actually do, not what your mission statement says. The only values you believe in are the ones you live.
Audit how you spend your 168 hours a week against the five things you claim matter most to you, then adjust your time to match your stated values.

The contrarian takeGilliland pushes back on the common HR truism that 'you have to earn respect.' He argues respect is never a milestone you reach and keep. It's something a leader builds or loses fresh every single day through their actions.

Take this back Monday

Do this for your team

Audit your 168 weekly hours against your top 5 stated values, then adjust your calendar to match what you claim matters.

Say this in your next leadership meeting

Respect isn't a milestone you earn once: as leaders we're either building trust or losing it every single day through our actions.

Watch out for

Leaders fear that mentoring and developing employees will cause them to outgrow the role and leave, instead of celebrating that growth as the point of leadership.
Organizations write down core values or a mission statement as a corporate exercise but don't actually live them, creating a mismatch between stated beliefs and daily actions.
Leaders erode trust through small dishonesties (e.g., lying about being late 'over two miles') rather than recognizing that minor lies compound into major trust loss.

Fun fact · Steve Gilliland

Steve Gilliland is in the Speaker Hall of Fame and was ranked a top-10 global motivational speaker out of over 9,000 candidates.

If this landed, see these

↳ Go deeperMentorship Is Dying: And We Are Pulling the PlugGrow-others-to-grow-yourself only works if mentorship survives; this diagnoses why it's dying.⇄ The counterpointThe Secret Superpower of High Functioning Leaders: How Process Intelligence Creates Aligned, Accountable TeamsArgues personality-driven leadership like Gilliland's doesn't scale without systems behind it.✦ The unexpected one2026 Annual SHRM Employee Benefits Survey ResultsLiving your values daily runs into budget reality here, where benefits decisions get made on cost pressure.