How To Become a Leader – Richard King, past President of Rotary International

How To Become a Leader – Richard King, past President of Rotary International

Alan
I’m here today with Richard King Richard King is a attorney with King King and King here in the Silicon Valley, and also served as the International rotary president in 2000 to 2003 2001 2000 to 2000, late 2002. Thank you, Richard, welcome to the show.

Richard
Good to be with you again. Thanks for inviting me back.

Alan
So, Richard, give us some of your background.

Richard
Well, I’ve been an attorney for half a century for 50 years. As of last January, I took the bar exams in California and Utah and I belong to those both of those bars for the last 50 years and have had a general trial practice in the Bay Area. Now my office is in Pleasanton, the Stoneridge Mall. And we do criminal defense work. We do family law. We do personal injury automobile accident cases, and then we do some estate planning. And I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed litigation over the years, and I’ve enjoyed courtroom work. At the same time when I was young, like you, I was singing three shows a night in Las Vegas, somebody came to my office one day and said, How would you like to sing in Las Vegas? I was doing amateur musicals around the Bay Area. And I should Sure why not. I was still single in those times. And so I would fly daily from the Oakland airport to McCarran field and Las Vegas go to the desert in 11 o’clock at night, they’d say here he is from San Francisco, the baritone barrister, better known as the singing sewer. And I’d go out at 11 o’clock at night, sing it one for an hour sing again at 1am and at 4am. And the 4am show, of course, was always for the losers. But that was the show where I got to sing all the songs I like to sing. And then 5am I go to my room in the desert and have a little corned beef sandwich for breakfast, could hop on a plane and be back at Oakland around noon. And I would be in my office all afternoon and those days in San Leandro suing all day and singing all night. And I was having a good time. And of course, I was single. So I was dating all over, I was doing a lot of church work, almost slip there for a minute, and was young man of the year in San Leandro, and so forth and so on. Today, I traveled the globe, about 40% of the year doing rotary work humanitarian projects, and giving speeches to Rotarians all over the world. And I’ve been to 132 countries, many of them many times over the year I was international president of Rotary. I traveled 538,000 miles in the air. We did 79 countries that year. And we ran around the globe about 22 times last year we were in India, and Thailand, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. This year, we’ll be in Europe primarily a couple of times, doing rotary work. And I’ve given talks in every state in the country, most of the provinces in Canada. Last week, I was way up north in British Columbia, talking about leadership and Rotary. So I’m on this stream on Symphony board with UL and I’m on the boyscout board of the San Francisco Bay Area Council. I’m on the High Council of the Latter Day Saints Church here in the Fremont stake. So I keep moving.

Alan
Well, let’s talk about Dan, and I’ve heard you, I’ve heard you with the rotary and also several times in speaking and I just I love every talk that you give, I feel inspired leadership, which is how I know you best for the the attributes that you bring out to others and helping us understand the principle of leadership. How do you define leadership?

Richard
I’ve had read and heard many definitions of leadership over the years. My favorite is this. A leader is somebody who influences somebody else to do something. In other words, I define leadership as influence and results. A lot of people talk about it. But you got to walk the walk in addition to talking to talk, and you got to see results. So I believe there are four steps to a good leadership program. First, you set a definitive goal, or goal that is reachable, but one that causes you to reach. So it’s got to be a goal that everybody understands. Everybody buys into second, you got to develop a business plan to reach the goal. In other words, it doesn’t do any good to have a goal without having a plan on how to get there. Every business yours and mine has to have a business plan on how to succeed. And the same is true in any leadership objective. So if you’re trying to get something done, you set a business plan on how you’re going to reach the goal. Third, you got to work the business plan. It doesn’t do any good to have a goal and have a plan if you don’t work it and then fourth, you got to recognize those who do did significant achievement in making the plan work and reaching the goal. And I believe that any business that does those four steps, reaches its goal and can achieve A change in leadership leadership is changing anything, any organization, any club, any church, any business, any family, any institution, from what it is to what it ought to be. That’s how I define the objective of leadership for business for plan program that I just outlined.

Alan
I’m visiting here today with Richard King Richard is an attorney here in the Silicon Valley with offices in Pleasanton, and also former international rodeo president for 2001 2002. And today we’re talking about leadership by rich, we need to take a quick break. And we’ll be back after these messages because I want to talk more about how person actually steps and we’ll be right back after

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Richard King Richard is a former international buttery president from 2001 to 2002. And an attorney here in Silicon Valley offices located in Pleasanton and Richard. Oh, somebody become a leader.

Richard
More often than not, it’s thrust upon them by the sequence of events in their lives. Great leaders like Winston Churchill, are there at the right time at the right moment in history. But often, leaders are people who step forward, because they want to extend their own sphere of influence. And they want to develop their own character and their own human relations skills. So the first thing someone does, even he wants to become because I believe that leaders can be developed. I don’t believe that anyone is a born leader. I personally believe that leadership is a skill that can be developed by anyone. So the first thing a person does to become a leader is recognized that there needs to be something done, there needs to be a change organized, or a growth, perceived and achieved in a business or an occupation, or in a family or an institution or a club or an organization. So that’s the first thing. The second thing then is to begin with this four steps that I’ve outlined, developing a goal, a business plan, working the plan, and recognizing those who help someone once said, don’t worry about arriving, everybody who got where he is, had to begin where he was simply because there’s no one else to begin. And when I’m talking to young people in particular, a lot of times, they don’t know where to start, they don’t know how to begin. And they’re a frightened, they’re a little afraid of it. And I always say, begin where you are now, where you are, with what you have. Because in the words of Richard L. Evans, there is no place else to begin. Now each of us has to begin where we were, a lot of times, people want to be somebody without having to go through the steps to get to be that person. And that’s an important thing. So you got to begin, and you got to begin as soon as possible. I don’t like people to waste time, especially young people, because they don’t know what they want to do. I always said to my kids, do something. If it’s not what you want to do change, but don’t waste precious time. Each of us has 86,400 seconds in a day. And that’s it. So we have to use that time as best we can. Third, then you have to work the business plan that you developed and how to achieve the goal. And that is when the sort of person re becomes a leader. Now, leaders can be quiet. They can be noisy, they can be extrovert, they can be introvert, they can what they need to do is develop influence, so that other people want to make the changes that they see and buy into those changes. So if you don’t have to have a loud speaking voice, some of the greatest speakers, leaders I’ve ever known were soft speakers. You develop your own personality, your own God given talents and skills. Each of us has certain amount of gifts, certain amount of talents, certain amount of skills, and if we exercise and develop those, then leadership can become a natural trait. So I believe that those are the elements necessary for someone to become a leader, and we need leaders desperately. We have a lot of managers, but we need leaders.

Alan
What’s the difference between being a leader and holding a position of management

Richard
I read had once an article in Fortune magazine many years ago, wanted corporate leaders, mere managers need not apply. The article went on to point out that managers are people who organize and administer. But leaders are those with a vision leaders are those who see the potential leaders are those who develop a goal from where they are, to where they want to go from what it is to what it ought to be. Leaders are those who think broadly, and who influence those to follow them to reach an objective. In this country, every year, we graduate a lot of MBAs, a lot of managers of Business Administration, and every year 1000s of businesses, if I read the Wall Street Journal correctly, are managed into bankruptcy. So there’s a big difference between management and leadership. Leadership is the idea of developing a vision of where you want to go and then developing a plan to get to reach the goal. The manager is the one who administers and manages on a daily basis.

Alan
Busy here today with Richard king. He’s a local attorney with King King and King also the former international rotary president, from 2001 to 2002. And Richard, we need to take a quick break. We’ll be back after these messages and I want to talk about how an individual balances life.

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Richard king. He’s a local attorney here in Silicon Valley, its offices in Pleasanton and served as the International rotary president from 2001 to 2002. Richard, we’ve been talking about leadership today. Is there anybody who has motivated you in your life to do what you’re

Richard
doing? Well, many have, of course, Alan. One of the great things about being a people person is the people you meet. But years ago, I was teaching at Brigham Young University. And I came across a book called successful leadership, a series of talks given by people that were printed in the in this book, and I’ve read it from time to time, and one that I particularly like, is a speech that was given by Herbert Hoover that he gave a number of years ago. And I if I could just read a short paragraph of it. Herbert Hoover said among the delusions offered us by fuzzy minded people, is that imaginary creature, the common man, it is Dindin to us that this is the century of the Common Man, the uncommon man is to be whittled down to size. It is the negation of individual dignity and a slogan of mediocrity and uniformity. The whole common man dogma, he said, may be abused as a vote getting apparatus is supposedly proves the humility of demagogues, but the greatest strides of human progress have come from uncommon men, and uncommon wisdom. The humor of it is he said, that when we get sick, we want an uncommon doctor. If we have to go to war, we yearn for an uncommon general or admiral. And I’ve added to that in talks I’ve given all over the world. If we have a child in school, we seek the uncommon teacher, if we’re running a business, we want the uncommon professional, anything that is good in our lives as caused, been delivered by people who have dared, often in the face of peer ridicule, to reach out and be uncommon. And I guess in my own life, I’ve always strived to be a little uncommon, not because I want to be better than anybody else, but because I want to better myself every day that I live as my gift back to the God who created me.

Alan
Richard out of all the years that you’ve been traveling around the world 40% of your time on the road, you’ve been in many countries met many individuals in the capacity of a servant and spending time with them. What what experience stands out the most to you,

Richard
or Alan Durbin, many of them, many of them will touched me deeply water wells in Ethiopia, and picking up orphan babies in the streets of Jamaica. But 30 some odd years ago, I made my first trip to India. And I went to a village where the people were very poor. Pennies every year was their income. The Children Of course, didn’t know They were poor. They sang me a song and Punjabi. I sang the song in Las Vegas. But we understood each other even though we didn’t understand each other. They took me into a cow dung hut. kneeling on the floor was a beautiful young Indian woman, with her head all bandaged. She couldn’t see. The Hindu physician, a Rotarian had just operated on her with crude utensils supplied by the Rotary Foundation. This was years ago. She had had cataracts and had been blind for a number of years. In this country, it’s nothing. But in those days in India in the hinterland of the country, it was a big deal. And people were blind for a long time. The doctor let me kneel beside him, as he began to unravel the bandages from her eyes. Sitting in front of her were three young children, big brown eyes, matted hair, soiled little white robes, staring at this woman. I deduced quickly this was their mother. I’ll never forget it. I visited Helen Keller’s home in the south one year. And I remember when someone asked her Is there anything worse than being blind? She said, Oh, yes. Having sight and no vision. I remember that phrase. As I watched this doctor removing the bandages from this young mother’s head. And in an instant, Alan, she opened her eyes. And for the first time in her life, she saw her own three children. The look on her face seared me. I began to cry. She wasn’t the only one who got vision in the day. I had always been able to see. So I thought, I crawled out of that cow dung hut with a different perspective. What it was like to look on the face of a mother who sees her own three children. For the first time in her life. It was a stunning revelation to me. And it scared me. And I remembered to this day as if it were yesterday. I’ve never forgotten it, even though I’ve had many other searing experiences all over the world, in the Ukraine, in Bucharest, all over the world, in Shanghai, with wheelchairs. But I’ll never forget the look on that mother’s face, staring at her own three children.

Alan
It’s inspiring. Thank you. Now, let me move on to the next area. I want to cover a balance in life. You know, we see that this world is getting busier and busier as things go through. And you know, you got to work, you got your family, you got your community.

Richard
I knew a man by the name of Phil smart. He was a Mercedes Benz dealer in Seattle, Washington, a wonderful man. And he gave a talk called the third eighth. And he talked about the eight hours that we sleep, the eight hours that we work, and what it is that we did with the 38 hours of her life. The first time I heard him talk I was stunned. Because I had to take a look at myself and say, What am I doing with the third eight hours of my life. Most important, of course, is one’s in my own opinion, is one’s devotion to the God who created that individual. Second is family because in the final scheme of things, nothing takes the place of family. I’ve been blessed by a wonderful with a wonderful wife, and wonderful sons and grandchildren. And these are the things that matter most when we move into eternity. Third, of course, is our work. We have an obligation in rotary to be professionally ethical, competent, and give good service to our clients, our patients, our customers, our students, whatever it is we do for a living. So that’s an obligation that we have. And that comes third. And fourth is what we give to others. Because I’ve learned that what we give to others comes back into our own life. And I can tell you just one story. I have a friend or had a friend he since passed away down in Orange, California, who invited me to come and speak at his Rotary Club. On a Thursday noon, I got into his beautiful black Mercedes car. And I could see he wasn’t himself. I said, What’s the matter with you? And he said, Rick, my wife and I had an emotional experience this morning with our daughter and her husband, young kids. We went to the children’s wing of the county hospital to pick up our first grandchild. And I said, Well, congratulations. That’s a wonderful day in anybody’s life. Your first child, your first grandchild. It was he said because he was born 10 days ago on a Sunday. And they told us he probably wasn’t going to survive. For a week we couldn’t see her. And my daughter was in tears. Her young husband had no idea how to console her. My own wife was in tears. It was not a happy week at my house last week, last Sunday, which was just now three four days before I had arrived on the Thursday, they said you can come down for a few minutes. And you can see this child, we walked into this room, white wall, clinical room with one little patient about this big sitting there laying there and a little bit hooked up to a big machine with tubes and wires. You know how they do. My wife and I cried, we prayed, we wanted to will this little baby to live. And then I got the shock of my life. Because they are in the corner of the machine was the rotary wheel, the rotary emblem, and I rubbed my eyes, and I couldn’t believe it. And I went over there. And it had a plaque underneath it. And it said this machine was donated by my rotary club. And I remember writing a check, because Rick, Rotary is always asking for a little of our money. And then I remember selling hotdogs at the county bazaar fair, as a club fundraiser. Because you know, Rick, Rotary is always asking for a little of our time. And I forgot all about it. I’ve been in rotary 30 years, how many projects how many checks how much giving to others? I forgot all about it. Until last Sunday when that machine was keeping my first grandchild alive, and he began to cry. And he said, How did we get so lucky to belong to an organization that’s always asking us to give? Because the more you give, the more you get, you can never give it away. And I’ve learned that in my own life. I’ve had a very, very rich experience traveling all over the world. We have friends, Sherry and I can hardly look at the news every night on TV, whatever country it is. There’s somebody in that country we love deeply. We’ve stayed in their home, we know them, we’ve worked with them. And they are people just like us wanting the same things for their family peace and freedom and security. So you decide what’s important. you balance it out. And Alan, you’re a good example of that. You’re always giving in the community. You’re always giving your family, you’re a giver. givers receive a lot in return.

Alan
And I think that there was a individual that wrote a book once I think you should write a book you got so much history with 40% of your time. traveling around the world. Few people get to see the things that you’ve seen in life, but I’m sure you do it because of giving back

Richard
Oh Albert Schweitzer said that we become the more truly human man the more truly human woman when we give and I believe, giving his enhanced my own humanity.

Alan
And visiting here today with Richard King Richard is an attorney and Pleasanton and former international rotary President Richard Best way to contact you and individual wants to engage your services. How would they do that?

Richard
Well, we’re at Sweet tool five at the foothill Corporate Center, 5820 Stoneridge Mall Road. And we have been there for the last 13 years. And my phone number is 925-469-9155

Alan
Maitreya. Thank you for being on today’s show.

Richard
It was a pleasure, Alan, thanks for inviting me. Good to be with you.

 

 

 

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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About Richard King

Richard D. King has practiced law for 50 years in both California and Utah, and is the senior partner of the law firm King, King, and King. Originally from Litchfield, Illinois, he earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of California at Berkeley where he is a member of the California Club and the Order of the Golden Bear. He taught law at Brigham Young University. He is a distinguished military graduate of the University of California and served as a U.S. Army captain in military intelligence.

A Rotary club member since 1968, Mr. King currently belongs to the Rotary Club of Niles-Fremont, California. He has served as a Trustee of The Rotary Foundation, director and chairman of the executive committee of Rotary International’s Board of Directors. One of Rotary’s most popular speakers, Mr. King has addressed members at Rotary International conventions and other Rotary functions in more than 75 countries.