Empowering Those You’re Charged to Lead with Mike Yates

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As leaders, we have privilege, and it’s up to us to empower the people we’ve been charged to lead.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Today’s guest,</span> <a href= "http://yatesmike.com"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mike Yates</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, empowers people on a daily basis. Mike is an educator, the host of the Schoolish podcast, TED talker, and runs the Reinvention Lab at Teach for America. In this episode, he sits down with host Richard Lindner to talk about recognizing privilege and power structures and how leaders everywhere can leverage that knowledge to gain a better understanding of their team.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mike’s journey is fascinating and unconventional, and he’s doing some pretty awesome things with his life.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Jack Of All Trades: An Insult or a Compliment?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mike grew up hating school. His mom was a teacher, so that didn’t go over very well in his house. He remembers being raised to be a well-rounded person, so he had his hands in a lot of stuff. “No one ever told me to hyper-specialize,” he says, “and I developed an ability to multitask. I decided to use my varied interests as a strength.”</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ironically, he became a teacher, and not surprisingly, he hated it. So he found a side hustle which led him to build a teacherless school that utilizes technology in cool ways. He built his personal brand, started a podcast, and became a jack of all trades, a phrase he discovered is actually misquoted (or incompletely quoted) most of the time. The actual phrase is “A jack of all trades is a master of none</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">but better than a master of one</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">.”</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Richard, who identifies as a “generalist,” was thrilled to hear him say that. It too