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Leading Divas In Business As An Entrepreneur

Every great organization that’s grown very fast, take the tech industry for example, there are a lot of engineers that are divas. You can go to Hollywood and find actors, actresses, producers, and directors that are divas. If you look at the financial industry there are hedge fund manager, stockbrokers, and insurance agents. There are divas everywhere. Now, here’s the challenge. Many times, a person rises through an organization and they say, ‘Oh my God, he’s so difficult or she is so difficult. They are such a big pain in the butt.’

No! If you don’t like divas, I’ll take all your divas. The challenge is never to divas. The challenge is for most people have no idea how to lead divas. Believe me, I didn’t know at one point. Once you figure out how to lead divas, your organization’s going to go to a whole different level. So today, we’re going to talk about the wiring of divas, how they were bullying you at times, and how to get the best out of them.

There are two ways I want you to watch this video. One of them is maybe you’re a diva and the second way is if you have people on your team that are divas. You either are going to discover how you are a diva or you are going to find out if you are getting the best out of your diva? Let’s define what a diva is.

1. What is a Diva?

A diva is someone who:

• thinks very highly of themselves.
• They have a dark side they’re not aware of all the time.
• They want a ton of attention and will do anything even taking the credit or ideas from others.
• They are a pain in the butt at times.
• They have deep insecurities with a point to prove.
• They are bullies but never believes they are actually bullying anyone.
• They can be passive aggressive at times, deflect mistakes, and blame others to avoid responsibility.
• They feel entitled
• Demand a different kind of treatment
• Is more about themselves then the team.

Now, if you’re listening to this, you’re probably thinking about a few different names. ‘Bobby’s like this. Mary’s like this. Cindy’s like this. I’m like this. I hope nobody knows about this.

Why Tolerate Them?

Here’s the thing, if you are one of these or somebody on your team is one of these, why would anybody want to deal with divas like this? I mean, Kobe is a diva just like Michael Jordan is a diva. Westbrook is one and Billy Donovan doesn’t know how to lead his divas.

The reason why owners, CEOs, executives, leaders, sales leaders are willing to tolerate these divas is because the return is so high that it helps you experience massive success. However, some of you guys are saying, ‘I wish my boss would understand that I’m a real diva and he just doesn’t know how to work with me.’

Now hang tight. There’s good news and there’s bad news. You may not be a real diva because there’s also annoying divas. Annoying divas are those who want respect but don’t deserve it. They are secretly very lazy hypocrites, unreliable, disrespectful, and untrustworthy. Real divas are willing to work their tails off. You can rely on these guys, they’re just difficult. So why do you deal with them?

If you know how to lead a diva, they’ll make you. If you are trying to learn how to lead divas, they’ll slow you down because spend too much time second guessing yourself. If you don’t know how to lead divas, they’re going to break you because you’re going to worry about your insecurities and they’ll eventually leave and find a person who knows how to handle them. Now, does this mean that you give in to them all the time? Absolutely not.

Divas are All Over Business

I’ve had divas that I worked with in sales. I’ve had divas I worked with who are partners, employees, executives, investors, board members. I mean I can go on and on and on. Divas come in many different forms and work in every department and for many different companies. I’ve dealt with a carrier, who is multibillion-dollar company, where the main relationship we had was a diva.

You always must tell them how amazing this person was and at the same time you have to take it away from him. It was like a very weird relationship. It was like a bipolar relationship when you were dealing with this person. Now you might say, “Why would you work with a company like that?”

I didn’t have a choice. That was the partner. You must deal with that personality. If you don’t, you’re going to lose that relationship.

The Goal for Leaders When Dealing with Divas

A diva comes in and it’s all about what? Me, me, me. ‘Do you know who I am? Do you know how special I am? Do you know what I’m going to do to your company? I’m going to change everything. I’m going to make you so rich. I am so amazing.’

There undermine and undermine and undermine everybody on their team. Your goal as a leader is to help them gain perspective and sometimes have very serious conversations with them. You are trying to achieve an equilibrium. Okay? They can still shine along with the team. They’re starting to realize, ‘You can be here, but you ain’t going to be here all by yourself.’

So how do you achieve this? You don’t give credit to that person every single time they do something good or bad. You can give them a score for all that they do so that you start distancing yourself from them and they start to realize what it will take to work with you. Prove to them that they can get all the accolades they want, but one day this is what we could have if they help pull your team up with them. So, you’re trying to make him less and less and less selfish

Divas Will Play Games

Now say you don’t know how to deal with them. What are they going to do to you?

• Don’t let them bully you.
• They will threaten you to leave you.
• It’s like dating a girl that every other day wants to break up with you.
• They’ll threaten you
• They’ll exploit you.
• They will play games.
• It’s been their way their whole lives because they are masters at it.

You have to understand divas before you can truly deal with them in an effective way. What do they like? What did they want? What value do they bring when they come into work and why do they decide to work with certain people?

Why did Kobe Bryant work with Phil Jackson? The first few times he played for Jackson he couldn’t stand him. Kobe went to the owner, Jerry Buss, to push to get rid of Jackson. Then Kobe doesn’t win any championships and begs Phil to come back and they win two more championships. Jackson’s won five with Kobe and six with Jordan, how? Because Phil knew how to deal with divas in his team and Kobe finally realized if I want to get here, that’s the one guy that knows how to get the best out of me.

What divas want

1. Trust

The moment a diva knows that they can trust you, you gain points with them. They need to feel safe because one of their biggest insecurities is lack of trust. It must be real trust, they liked that. That’s a value for them. Respect must go both ways and it absolutely must be consistent.

2. Consistency

Sometimes divas had a very inconsistent parent growing up. Their mother might have been in and out of the picture. Or they suffered some other gaps in growing up that made them self-reliant. All of us have some screwed up history in our family, including myself. Divas typically have something that broke them. So, they like somebody to be consistent with them because they typically haven’t had that in their lives.

3. Reliable

This is very important to them. Here’s what’s crazy about them, they want you to understand that at one point they may not be reliable, but they still want you to be reliable to them. If you remain consistent and reliable to them, they kind of feel like, ‘I’m probably not going to find somebody like this again. I am going to run with this person and I’m no longer going to be a diva to this person because they’ve earned my trust.’ Reliability, respect, consistency.

4. Tolerance

Can you tolerate having their back when they hit rock bottom so many times? Divas are going to break things cause that’s what they do best. They’re not just divas with you in the workplace. They’re going home to a family, friends, cars, and parties. So, something’s going to happen, and you will be in the situation where you must be there for them when you are done there for them.

5. When they hit rock bottom.

Nike stayed with Tiger when he hit rock bottom. Everybody can’t believe why they would do this. They are calling on Nike to drop him, but Nike doesn’t. Then Tiger wins The Masters. The day Tiger won The Masters, Nike’s net worth went up $335 million one day. Tiger worked all these years and paid Nike back for their belief and tolerance in him.

6. Divas Want to Work with Somebody That is Not Afraid of Them

I remember I recruited a guy for our company. He already had his own TV show, and all this other stuff he could ever want. It’s two o’clock in the morning and I said, “I want you to know something. I like you a lot. I know you’ve done a lot of great things, but I want you to know something I’m not afraid of you. Like I’m not afraid of who you are, your resume, any of that stuff that doesn’t impress me. I know this business very well. I know how to lead people like you if you’re willing to listen, I can direct you to success, but only if you’re willing to do so. If you’re not, you can go find somebody else. What do you think about that? Are you comfortable with that?’ He said yes.

I had another guy at the beginning stages of running a business bully me. He was one of my best sales guys. I needed him and he knew I needed him, so he bullied me a lot and I didn’t have leverage. If I was having a conversation with him, he was trying to push me. He was testing me to see if I could handle more. Eventually I told him, ‘Look, here’s my line. You cross it, then we have a problem. I’m a very forgiving guy. I’m easy going. But if you cross the line and don’t realize the level of gratitude, trust, all this stuff I’ve already given you, we are going to have a problem.’

This is when you don’t tolerate them. In the beginning of the relationship you do but after you make it evident to them how things work and they still push you with no signs of improvement, that’s when you don’t tolerate them. If they keep pushing you, that’s when you show them how unafraid you are of them.

One time we were on the phone and he told me, “You know you are the one that always calls me first. You need me.” So, I stopped and told him that I am not going to tolerate that. Eventually he called me, we sat down, and for three hours I showed him every single selfish thing about him. I told him that I wasn’t not afraid if he wanted to leave and that I wasn’t playing his games. Today we have a great relationship and it was all because we had that talk where I expressed to him that I wasn’t afraid.

Sometimes leaders are so afraid of losing divas, that the fear causes them to lose divas. I don’t know if that makes any sense but let me try it another way. I used to date a girl drop dead gorgeous girl. I mean, she was a 10, but I was young. I just came out of the military, no money. I’m broke trying to figure out my identity and she had all these people with money around her. I was like, man, what if I lose this diva? I lost the diva. What happened there? Because I was were afraid of losing a diva and she felt it and she didn’t want to be with somebody who was afraid of losing a diva.

All of these experiences add up to realizing a great company. Today, our company filled with divas, and we want more because we have learned how to create an environment where we’re able to foster divas, develop diverse work with them, give them respect, trust, consistency, and the opportunity when they hit rock bottom will pick you up. We’re not afraid of you. We’ll do all this stuff with you.

But I want you to know here’s a line and if you try to cross this line, we’re not playing that game. We have certain standards because our goal is to get you here. If you want to be here, you need to be here. I’m okay either way because it’s binary. You want to be here or here? If you are willing to be here, great! I got your back. Let’s go do it. But here’s what I need from you. Great!

Reassess yourself. Watch this video again.

• Are you a diva?
• Are you an annoying diva?
• Are you dealing with divas?
• Are you allowing them to bully you, threaten you, play games or manipulate you?
• Are you putting time in divas that are not going to do anything anyways because they’re lazy? They don’t deserve it. They just talk a big game and never show up. These guys have a lot to offer and if you figure out a way how to lead them, oh my gosh, it could make you.
• You must identify all your divas in different departments so you might need to watch this thing multiple times.

The next video I want you to watch, is called 32 other types of personalities that you deal with in business. And if you haven’t subscribed to the channel, do so. You got any thoughts about today’s video? Comment below. Thanks for watching everybody.

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