Latest / Leading Leaders Podcast with J Loren Norris / 5/15/26 DEEP FAKE LEADERSHIP

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5/15/26 DEEP FAKE LEADERSHIP · Leading Leaders Podcast with J Loren Norris

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He was in charge. He was in charge because he had
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all the stripes. And he had all the stripes
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because, well, because he was a bookworm and he was a studious
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and he loved to take tests. But that did not make him ready
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to be a leader. There were people older than
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him, more experienced than him, who'd been on the job longer
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than him. They knew exactly what to do in
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a crisis better than him. But he outranked them because he
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could take a test well. And that's what I want to talk
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about in this episode of Leading Leaders.
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I'm Jay Lauren Norris with Leading Leaders Podcast.
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I don't know if you've ever had to serve under a leader for whom
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you should have been their leader.
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I mean, if you've ever been in a place where someone younger,
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someone less experienced, someone with the right perhaps
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family name or the right perhaps education comes in and you
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realize they don't really know what the job entails.
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They, they don't really have a grasp of what their decision
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making looks like. I I've been in a place where
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leaders come in and when they come in, because they have to
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prove their moxie, they have to demonstrate their authority.
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They've had to make changes. Now they have no idea what
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cascade of decisions, consequences, outcomes will
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follow their decision. They just know because I now
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have this role, I have to make some decisions.
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I have to make some decisions to prove to everyone that I deserve
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to have this role. And those decisions have 0
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historicity behind them. They have no experience behind
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them. They have no mentorship behind
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them. They have no idea.
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Now they have an agenda to sell that.
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They want to make sure that you believe that they are capable
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and qualified and competent to have this role.
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They don't have a single story to back up their idea to say we
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did this before and here's what happened, or we did this before
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and even though it didn't work completely, we have a pretty
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good idea what to do differently this time.
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We live in a world where for the last couple of years there's
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been a Facebook meme going around, but probably all social
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media, Tik Toks, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
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That starts with who's going to know?
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How would they know? They'll never know.
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And that little vocal expression was placed as the soundtrack
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behind everything from cats running into glass doors to
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people crashing their cars to people playing pranks on their
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friends, scaring their friends. That little sound clip they'll
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never know how would they know became a deep mantra in the
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psyche of the world public. And I don't want you to
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underestimate for a moment how powerful that programming is.
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Asking the question, How would they know if I just asked that
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question? Often enough, long enough, it's
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like a repeated lie. Eventually it becomes the truth.
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And something deep in your psyche makes you at least
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ponder, how would they prove it if I cut quarters?
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How would they prove it if I lied on my resume a little bit
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and padded the? I would ask you if you are alive
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to raise your hand if you've ever padded your resume.
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I have to be honest and say the thought never crossed my mind.
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In fact, I've been so detailed for as long as I actually filled
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out job resumes, which I think the last one I updated was 2018.
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Maybe when I left the television network as a full time employee,
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I'd already had my own business since 2005.
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We've been incorporated since 2003.
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We've been a sole proprietorship since 1993.
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So we've always had a side hustle to become our business.
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In 2022, we actually created Story Power Academy, but tell it
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like it is incorporated has been around since 2003.
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So it's not a new thing to be on my own.
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But from time to time I'll go out in the job market and I'll
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take a job for a couple of years and, you know, put some money in
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the bank. But the last time I updated my
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resume, I remember somebody saying to me, where's all your
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keywords? And I went my, what I mean, I,
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what I wrote down there was the actual jobs that I did, the
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tasks that I was assigned to, the accomplishments that I had,
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the people that I worked for and the names and phone numbers of
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people you can call and go, hey, did he work here?
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Did he do this? Did he accomplish all these
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things on here? I was just that transparent.
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Apparently that's not the way everybody plays the resume game.
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In fact, when they asked me what are all your keywords, I was
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like, what do you mean by that? And they said, well, you know,
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humans don't see these resumes until after the second or third
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round, right? I mean, they, they take a resume
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that's submitted, whether it's online or in paper, and they
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stick it into a system that looks for the keywords to say
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you're a matchup for that job. And if your keywords don't match
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up with the job description, you're out of the pile.
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Oh, didn't know that. Frankly, didn't care.
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I thought if I sold what's here, what I've actually done, what
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I've actually accomplished, that would be impressive enough, that
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would be sufficient. What I found, though, was
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there's a little twist to what Grant Cardone says.
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Grant Cardone says best known beats best every time.
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If you can play the keyword game, you can be best known.
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You can rise to the top, whereas John Maxwell says get out of the
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people pile. Well, you can get out of the
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people pile by putting stuff on your resume in certain keywords
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that really trip the system to think.
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Perfect candidate, my friend. We were workout buddies.
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He was in much better shape than I was.
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He was a specimen, quite the specimen.
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Last I saw him, Technical Sergeant Oakes.
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We were Airman Basic together at our very first duty assignment,
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and in the two years at that assignment, I went from Airman
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Basic to Airman first Class, and he went from Airman Basic to
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staff Sergeant. I was working on his technical
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Sergeant when I got assigned to another base.
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What's the difference? Well, in rank, position,
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responsibility, the jobs that you're assigned to do, the
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people who are under you, the significant difference being an
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E456 or seven, That's that's huge.
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As an E7, he could be in charge pretty much of the whole
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station. He was 20, he was 20.
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We had deputy chiefs that were 4550 years old with 2530 years
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of experience dragging bodies out of burning buildings,
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experience fighting chemical fires, experience handling
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aircraft crashes. But they have to do with the 20
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year old says because he has the stripes.
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I'm not sure that's a good choice.
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I mean, he read the books, that's how he passed the test.
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He studied the material, he showed up.
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He's got physical fitness down with no problem.
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He's easy to do that. So at the minute that time in
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grade was available, he's already taken the test, He's
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ready to go. There were times that he took
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the test far in advance because there was nobody else in our
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field ready to take that test. In my opinion, it's just my
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opinion, that's not different than playing the keyword game
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with your resume. But how would they know?
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How would they know if you've never actually done this?
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You just knew what keywords to put in your resume?
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You you show up on the job, you show up in the crisis and you're
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like, I've never seen one of those before.
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The perfect example was the day that I nearly cut the pilots
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legs off. There were four other airmen
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with me, four other firefighters.
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We've all been through the same training school.
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We're on the training ground. And when that pilot that I
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lifted up out of the seat and sat over the cockpit when his
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oxygen hose caught on the closed canopy switch, four of us tried
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to stop that thing. We weren't going to stop that
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thing. We couldn't have stopped that
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canopy to save our lives. It would have cut his legs off
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and smushed all of us and not even cared.
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That window would have closed until it latched and that would
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have been the end of the day. And it didn't care how many
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humans were shredded in the process.
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But it took the 65 year old assistant chief sitting in the
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fire truck smoking a cigarette to get out of the truck, put a
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cigarette on the hood of the truck, walk over and disconnect
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the battery. Why?
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Because he's the only one that knew what operated that stupid
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canopy. None of us had ever flown an
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aircraft that's not in the manual.
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It's not in the manual to disconnect the battery before
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you start working on it. That probably ought to be in the
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training at the very beginning. When you approach an aircraft,
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before you put water on it, before you climb on it, turn the
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battery off. We didn't know that.
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I'm not sure that my very intellectual bookworm of a
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friend would have known that at 20 years old.
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But the old dude, he's been there.
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He's seen a thing or two. He knows what he's talking
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about. I want me to take this just a
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little bit further because it's one thing to be an astute,
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intelligent, crafty, beat the system kind of a human who can
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say I've just got to put the right words in the resume to get
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the job. I'll figure it out once I get
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there. If I'm known, if I get out of
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the people pile, if I rise to the top because I got the right
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keywords to the right job title, the right description, the right
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references. You know, if you go off to one
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of the military academies, one of the things you have to have
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is senatorial reference. I can tell you for a fact I
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would have loved to have go. I'd love to have go, would have
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loved to have gone to the Air Force Academy when I joined the
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military. I think I have the intellectual
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prowess to have actually graduated from there and and
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done great things. Nobody in my family knew anybody
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who could give me the kind of voucher that would allow me to
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do that. I had scholarship for music,
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physics and speech to state universities and local
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universities, universities of note.
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I turned them all down to study robotics, which I abandoned then
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too. That's how I became a
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firefighter. But you got to know the right
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people to build those kinds of relationships.
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You got to have somebody who will say, I know this guy, he's
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a good guy, I know this person, they've done their homework.
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I know her. She's quality people.
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That's what gives you the opportunity to move into that
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arena. And if you don't know those
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people, to make those connections, to make those
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invitations, to give those endorsements, your opportunities
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are a little bit limited. Let's see, there's the other way
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of doing that is to fake your resume to, to have those fake
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endorsements and hope nobody calls on them to put down a
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little name dropping and hope. How would they know?
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I mean, it's not like they're going to call.
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I can tell you a true story. At one point, part of my job was
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training pastors, training communicators within an
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organization. Some of them were pastors, some
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of them were volunteers, some of them were outsiders coming new
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into the organization. And one of the things that we
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eventually had to do because we were getting so many
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applications, we'd get 150 applications for people to go
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through this qualifying course. We would accept about 20 and 8
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or 10 would graduate. And at one point we got a
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referral letter, actually a reference to someone.
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They said, you know, who do you know in ministry, we need to
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know at least three names that we can verify the quality of
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your character, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
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And we would call those people and go, hey, do you know so and
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so? And if they said yes, so we'd
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get, you know, a couple of minutes.
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It's not a job interview, it's just a qualification to be
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elevated to this space. And one of those recommendations
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said call so and so. Well, so and so was like the CEO
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of an organization of 60,000 and both myself and the person I
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reported to looked at that and went, you call them.
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I'm, I'm, I'm not calling. The only reference they put on
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here is the CEO and the CE OS wife.
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And do you dare call and have them go?
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How dare you look down on that person because they referred me.
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Of course I endorsed them. Or do you not call and then find
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out later they're just making stuff up And they were really
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stretching to go. The only name I know is the CEO.
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So I'm going to put his name down and hope that works.
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That's a bit of a challenge. So as the filter, as the person
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who had to kind of stand in the gap for that, we had no idea
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what to do. So we just let that person into
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the class. Turns out the sister of the wife
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of the CEO. Good thing we didn't call and
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question their integrity for putting this person's name down,
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because that would have been a disaster.
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But see, sometimes somebody will just stretch out there.
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They don't really know that CEO. They just know that name or that
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endorsement, that senator, that representative that that's going
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to get you in the door if by chance they know you and they're
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willing to vouch for you. But if you're just making stuff
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up, how would they know? What are they going to call
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them? Yeah, hopefully.
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But see, we now have another threat.
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We have this system that has the ability to answer every question
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accurately in theory. And what about the
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contingencies? I mean, we have enough evidence
15:38
now to know that a bumblebee actually can fly.
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There was a long season of time that we thought the Earth was
15:45
flat, not round, that we had no pictures from outer space.
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And the ones that we did have perhaps were created in a lab
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like other things. The only evidence we had to the
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helicopter being able to fly was that we actually watch one fly.
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But all the calculus says no, that ain't going to work.
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So where do we draw the line between this massive amount of
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data information manipulation? You know, there there are people
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out there who are perfectly happy to lie to you as long as
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what they get, as long as they get what they want in the end,
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they're really not even concerned with the consequences,
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the cascade of consequences that comes from that one decision
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they make, as long as in the moment they get the glory and
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they get the recognition. I don't even have to give you
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the examples of that. All you've got to do is watch
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any news channel from any persuasion for the last 15
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months and you will see disaster after disaster after disaster
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after disaster. Some of them planned, some of
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them caused, some of them created, some by policies, some
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by personalities. 78 year old man is now gone, left this earth
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and went on to the next life. Pushed down a stairwell by a
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criminal still wearing the psych ward bracelet.
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He had literally committed similar crimes almost half a
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dozen times, one of his victims said.
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I don't want to see another person of color thrown in jail.
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So I'm not pressing charges and in the place where they are no
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victim, no crime. The other victims never had a
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chance to make that argument. But after the most recent
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arrests, they said, well, you know, at least let's have an
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evaluation and see if this person is a valuable member of
17:59
society or needs some help. And so after some time in a
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psych ward under legally mandated emotional mental
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evaluation, 5 hours after being released, pushed an old man down
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the stairs to his death. Not with cause.
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The video shows it randomly walked up behind somebody, threw
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him down the stairs. Now there's someone somewhere
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who looks at that loss of life and says sorry, but you know
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what? The policy that I put in place
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that may have allowed that has saved so many other people.
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It's done so much good for all these people over here.
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That one life is an expense that I'm OK with.
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And there are some who are like, I, well, you know, I did sign
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the policy. I, I did write down that that
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should be our procedure. I, I did agree with that when we
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voted on it as a politician, as a candidate, as an officer of
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the law, I thought that was a great idea.
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Sorry that it panned out that way.
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And see these policies and procedures, they're the
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decisions made by people who in the moment want the glory, but
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they don't care about the consequences. 2 minutes, 2
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hours, 2 weeks, two months, two years, 2 decades down the road.
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All they want is the spotlight for now.
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I signed that bill. I mean, how many times we heard
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in past elections, I voted for it before I voted against it
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before I voted for it again. Just make a decision.
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Have some core values. Have some basic moral principles
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in your life that you decide things by.
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I don't fake my resume because I believe in truth.
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I believe in authenticity. I believe in being present in
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what I've done and accountable for it.
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Yes, I make mistakes. I don't try to hide them, but I
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do try to correct them. I do try to acknowledge them and
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go, well, shouldn't have done it like that.
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Let me try another way. I've done that in relationships
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as a leader, I've done that in business decisions that I've
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made. I've invested in things that
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were, well, it was a dumb idea. It happens.
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Everybody makes mistakes. Not everybody's willing to
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acknowledge it. And those leaders who just have
20:28
an agenda to sell. I want the 5 minutes of
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spotlight. I want the 15 minutes of fame.
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I, I just want to win the election.
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Whatever I got to do to win the election or make sure that they
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don't, I'll lie through my teeth.
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I'll pad my resume. Recently, someone was elected to
20:44
office, appointed to a committee, and they later found
20:47
out that 90% of what was on the resume that got them elected to
20:51
office was made-up of whole cloth.
20:56
I call that a leadership deep fake in the same way that an AI
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or a voice bot or a generated image.
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I have not yet figured out why people think cloning themselves
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in AI is a phenomenally good idea.
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I don't get it. I I don't know if you've ever
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been in the place where someone says of you something that you
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would have never said, right? Those words would never have
21:25
come out of my mouth, whatever they are.
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I I don't talk like that. I don't think like that.
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That's not my way of being. That's not who I am.
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Let me just tell you, the minute you give your voice and your
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likeness to a bot, the likelihood that someone else is
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going to use that tool to say or do something you personally
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would never do, it is off the charts.
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Hi and it's happening to people left and right.
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You think I'm kidding? Just go do any social media
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platform search of Joe Rogan and look how many times the bots
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have duplicated his face, duplicated his voice, even made
22:09
his lips move to make it look like he said it.
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We've been seeing this since Skydance was the first one that
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started way back in the early days of Facebook with the little
22:20
animated characters. But the voices sounded real.
22:23
You could tell they kind of had that underwater sound of the
22:26
digital effect. Not anymore.
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Heaven knows there's enough video of me out there if
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somebody decided they wanted to destroy me through video and
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audio. My voice, print, my face has
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been in social media for over a decade consistently.
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You know what else has been my core values?
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I live for faith, family, and freedom.
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I fight for those things. I fight for those things
22:58
predominantly in words. But don't test me, because I
23:00
will fight you if I have to, for faith, family, and freedom.
23:05
And if you hear this voice or see this face uttering words
23:12
that are inconsistent with that, you should know if it violates
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my core values of faith, family and freedom, that ain't me.
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As a leader, have you been clear enough?
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Have you been solid enough? Have you been consistent enough
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that if somebody tried to duplicate you and as a puppet,
23:35
make you say and do things that are not you, would it be clear
23:40
enough for the world to look at and go, yeah, that's a fake?
23:45
And I see these Joe Rogan implications where they've taken
23:48
his voice and they've taken his face.
23:49
They've even taken his little scene.
23:51
They even take the little clip that's like, hey, roll that
23:54
video. This is hilarious.
23:56
And that little 2 1/2 three seconds is Joe Rogan from one of
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his shows. And then the video that follows
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it likelihood Joe's never seen it.
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But then Joe comes back in. The next thing you know, he's
24:09
selling, I don't know, Ed pills. And I realized when I watched
24:14
that they've done a really good job of imitating him.
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But the odds that Joe Rogan would sell his face and his
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voice, his time, his sponsorship for that kind of product in that
24:26
kind of way, pretty slim. The fact that he would
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supposedly articulate it that way.
24:33
Yeah. I say I give that a zero chance.
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Have you been consistent enough as a leader that a deep fake of
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you would be really hard to create if it was inconsistent
24:47
with your character as a leader? Have you done the time?
24:52
Do you have the stories to tell? You can verify the stories that
24:57
I tell that almost all of them point to the time, the place and
25:00
the people. And you could, if you were a
25:02
sleuth, go back and find those people and ask, is he lying
25:05
about that? I'll do that very often.
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And when I make up a story and I do this, it's in my teaching.
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I tell you this story was crafted for a teaching purpose.
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This is not a real event. Don't try going back to find the
25:22
people involved. It didn't happen.
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It's crafted for teaching. Do you make up stories that
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people would call you a liar over because they don't have
25:35
that preface? Do you make up stories that are
25:37
like the fake words in the key search of your resume?
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Do you do things just to get that moment of glory and fame
25:45
without any regard for the consequences?
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If those things are the nature of your leadership or the nature
25:53
of you, I'll give you Bob Newhart's advice.
25:57
Stop it and realize that as a leader, the decisions you make
26:03
have myriad choices following them and a cascade of
26:08
consequences that you will ultimately be held responsible
26:11
for. Maybe not right now, but there
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will be a day. Take the time to lead well.
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Don't be an easy deepfake. And if you're faking it now,
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take a step back and reinforce the quality of your leadership,
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the strength of your communication.
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Find the stories to tell that prove your context, content,
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credibility and credential. And if you can't find those
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stories, come to story Power Academy.
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We'll help you mind them out of the experiences of your life so
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you can tell the truth about who you are and what you're capable
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of. I'm Jay Lauren Norris with
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leading leaders podcast for Tell it like it is TV.
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Have a blessed day. Think storytellings just for
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bedtime? Nah, it's the secret sauce for
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business magic. Stuck in a rut with bland
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pitches and yawning clients? Enter Boost Your business with
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Story Power, Six weeks of epic storytelling training.
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It's like levelling up in a video game, but for your career.
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Master the art of narrative and watch connections blossom like a
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viral TikTok. Simple, impactful, and game
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changing. Ready to transform your biz
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vibes? Dive in now and make
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storytelling your superpower. This six weeks guided program is
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specifically designed for those people who say, I know I need to
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tell stories, I need to tell better stories because the ones
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I have are boring or they're not getting across.
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Or as John Maxwell says, everyone communicates and well,
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you connect. Now, as a participant in this
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course, what I would really love to know from you, put it in the
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discussion on the course. If you're already registered
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online, send me a chat, send me Adm, send me a text, send me an
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e-mail. I'd really love to know what you
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hope to get out of this course. I can tell you what we're going
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to discuss and I can tell you what I plan to teach and train
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you on, and I can tell you even what we plan to discuss each
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week on the calls for the next six weeks.
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I'm going to go over all of that for you in just a moment.
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I can also tell you that my clients who get the greatest
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success are the ones who apply the Story Power process to their
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business development to increase their impact, their influence,
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and their income. Now, the Story Power process
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includes story mining, story selection, story qualification,
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story crafting, connecting with your audience, and leading the
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narrative. And if you leave any one of
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those parts out, you're going to find that or you're just not as
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effective as you want to be. You're not going to grow your
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business to the same level. You're not going to lead with
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impact and influence like you hoped to.
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I can also tell you that the people who apply these things,
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well, they're not failing in their business.
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The reason a lot of people fail in their business is they
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continue to fail to connect the solution they offer with the
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problem that their clients have. The pain in the solution never
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come together. And a lot of that failure is
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because they're not clearly articulating how their solution
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solves someone else's problem. It it comes down to a question,
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something like this. Who do you help and how?
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Yes, that's one of the first things we're going to discuss
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over the next six weeks of Boost Your Business with Story Power.
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Subscribe now for our extensive video library of leadership
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lessons promoting faith, family, and freedom.