Another insightful exclusive excerpt from former WD-40 wunderkind CEO’s newest book.

Excerpted with permission from Garry Ridge and Martha Finney’s “Any Dumb-Ass Can Do It” (Matt Holt Books; March 2025).

Chapter 23: Leadership Is Purpose, Not Power

Back in 2001, I wrote a personal purpose statement:

My life purpose is to use my leadership skills and common sense to motivate and encourage people so they can maximize their opportunities, meet our common goals and have a lot of fun doing it. My paramount aim is to act in the best interest of those I lead.

Now here’s my current personal purpose statement:

I help leaders build cultures of belonging where love, forgiveness, and learning inspire a happier, more connected world.

There were quite a few iterations between 2001 and now. Each one reflecting my own stepping forward out of a yesterday version of what I thought a leader should be and into a more current version. Step by step, refinement by refinement. Learning Moment after Learning Moment. And now here we are. Is this my last version? Only time will tell. (It goes without saying, though, that I hope you have already outgrown whatever personal purpose statement you might have had before you picked up this book. Back to the drawing board with you!)

If you were to stop me along my headlong, rushing way into the future and ask me about leadership, its power and purpose, I might have given you some well-intentioned, half-assed answer. Which was the best I could have done because I was learning along the way myself. But I think the main aha that has framed up all my learning along the way is this:

Leadership is a followership.

As a team, you’re working together to face down an “enemy.”  In normal days, that enemy is the natural resistance that comes with reaching for a gigantic goal as a tribe. The fear. The self-doubt. The challenge to keep trusting each other, even through dramas that might arise. In abnormal times, that enemy might appear to be more overpowering. A global pandemic? A sudden economic downturn? Earthquakes? Political upheaval and the social divisiveness that comes along with it? You name it.

If you’re a leader, whatever the biggest challenge is, it’s not likely to be on your bingo card. Unpredictability. Unforeseen circumstances. It’s what you signed up for. Did your tribe sign up for it too? Not really. They signed up for you, with the full faith and confidence that the tribe you have cultivated will see everyone through to better days beyond the immediate crisis.

If you’re going to start marching toward the enemy, whatever it might be, do you have to call for your people to organize themselves, refocus, shake off the inertia, gather up their energy, and drive for the extra push?

Or are they already right there, with the words “We got your back!” on their lips? Which scenario appeals to you the most? I know which one I prefer.

How we create those followerships is not what happens on heroic days. It’s what happens in the ordinary, in-between times, those interactions when you think a moment doesn’t matter. That’s when your behaviors count the most.

Garry Ridge is the former CEO of WD-40 Company and founder of The Learning Moment.

Martha Finney is the author and co-author of 30 books on world-class business leadership culture.