My Father Taught Me to Lead for the Healthier Whole

My parents fled Cuba after Castro's revolution, and the perspective my father brought with him became the roots of my own. My father, Frank Llopis, was a Cuban immigrant. His timeless wisdom and perspective on life helped me reach beyond my own capabilities for the betterment of a healthier whole. That phrase has stayed with me for my entire career.

His guidance shaped how I think about business, about leadership, about the value of every person's individuality and about the responsibility we carry to the communities around us. I did not fully appreciate how much until I began advising executives and saw how rare that perspective can be.

What the Immigrant Perspective Really Is

People sometimes assume the immigrant perspective is simply about hard work. Hard work is part of it, but it misses the point. The immigrant perspective is a way of seeing. It sees opportunity where others see obstacles. It assumes nothing will be handed to you, so it pays attention to everything. And it understands that your success is never only your own.

When I look at how I approach leadership today, I can see his influence in nearly every conviction I hold, from how I evaluate opportunity to how I think about the people on a team.

That last idea, that success is never only your own, is what the healthier whole means to me. You do not reach beyond your own capabilities just to get ahead. You do it because the family, the team and the community around you become stronger when you do.

When Pressure Shrinks Your Focus

Leaders are under pressure from every direction. Work keeps changing, organizations keep reorganizing and markets are being disrupted by conflicts and events no one can predict. Under that pressure, it is tempting to narrow your focus to your own performance and your own survival. The perspective I inherited pushes the other way: when things get harder, widen the circle rather than shrink it.

That is exactly when the healthier whole matters most. Leaders who think only about themselves make decisions that protect their position but weaken the organization. Leaders who think about the whole make decisions that build trust, because people can see those leaders are working for something larger than a title.

Four Ways to Lead for the Whole

1. Stretch beyond what you already know. Your capabilities are a starting point, not a boundary. Take on the problem no one else wants, and learn what it takes to solve it.
2. Measure success by who else rises. Ask how many people are more capable today because of you. That number says more about your leadership than your own results.
3. See each person as an individual. The healthier whole is not built from sameness. It is built from people who are free to contribute what is uniquely theirs.
4. Treat responsibility as part of the job. Social responsibility is not a program run by a separate department. It is how you conduct yourself every day, with customers, colleagues and the community.

The Lessons We Inherit

Some of the leaders I admire most can trace their values back to a parent, a grandparent or a mentor who shaped them early. Those lessons often become the foundation of their conviction, the part of them that holds steady when everything else is changing. I explore this idea throughout my work on conviction, because I believe leaders cannot stand firm on values they have never examined.

Take time to name what you inherited. Who shaped your perspective on work and leadership before you ever had a job? What did they believe about work, about people and about responsibility? Which of those beliefs still guide you every day, and which have you set aside because they felt inconvenient in a corporate setting?

Then look at where you are leading only for yourself right now, rather than for the whole, and imagine what would change on your team if everyone measured success by who else rises.

For me, the answer has always been clear. My father's perspective is the lens through which I see opportunity, and it is the reason I have spent my career helping leaders see the full potential of the people around them.

Passing It Forward

The greatest tribute we can pay to the people who shaped us is to pass their wisdom forward. Repeating their words is the easy part. Living their perspective in the decisions we make and the people we develop is the real work.

My father taught me to reach beyond my own capabilities for the betterment of a healthier whole. I have tried to lead that way ever since, every single day, and I believe it is the kind of leadership our workplaces need more than ever. It is also why I believe hope is a leadership responsibility.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.