Leading From the Valley: 6 Leadership Lessons from Robert Owens

These lessons come straight from a conversation I had with Robert Owens on The Learning to Lead Show.

What defines you when you lose everything?

Sit with that for a second. Because the honest answer to that question might reveal more about your leadership foundation than any success story ever could.

Most of us build our leadership identity around what we’ve accomplished, the teams we’ve built, the businesses we’ve grown, the titles we’ve earned. But what happens when those things are stripped away? When the company you built becomes someone else’s? When your office becomes a literal broom closet? When you’re starting over from scratch while everyone watches?

Here’s what I’ve learned: the deepest leadership lessons don’t come from the mountaintops. They come from the valleys. From the seasons when you have nothing left to lead with except your character. From the moments when influence matters more than authority, because authority is the one thing you don’t have anymore.

That’s why I wanted to share what I learned from my conversation with Robert Owens, Regional Vice President overseeing five construction companies across multiple states and recently named Citizen of the Year in his community for his nonprofit board service.

Robert didn’t just survive a devastating business collapse; he emerged from it a better leader. He didn’t just recover from humiliation; he turned it into a masterclass in controlling what you can control.

What Robert learned in concrete and crisis applies directly to every leader reading this, regardless of industry or current circumstances. Here are six of his most powerful lessons.

Robert grew up riding shotgun in his father’s car, visiting construction sites across the Southeast. His dad sold specialty millwork, staircases, and windows to developers, and from an early age, Robert was absorbing the sights, sounds, and culture of the industry. But what his father gave him went deeper than industry exposure — he passed down a work ethic, a tenacity not to quit, and a commitment to chasing your own dreams instead of someone else’s version of success.

Robert’s journey took him from stocking shelves at Lowe’s in Marietta, Georgia, to specialty concrete subcontracting, to sudden business ownership at 23, to devastating economic collapse, to working from a literal broom closet, to managing five regional companies.

Along the way, he learned what it means to be a servant leader, not from seminars, but from being covered in concrete alongside his crew, from losing everything and rebuilding with character, and from standing in the gap for his people when the pressure came from above.

Ask Robert what he’s most proud of, and he won’t point to the title or the awards. He’ll point to a photograph on his wall — him and his wife Tammy covered head to toe in concrete, working alongside their crew to meet a deadline. That image captures the essence of his philosophy.

“He doesn’t define me. I define myself. And so what I’m gonna do is get up and do what I do, and I’m gonna do it every day to the best of my ability. And that’s what I can control.”

That posture, taking responsibility for what you can control and releasing what you can’t, is where every principle in this article begins.

Here’s a truth most leadership books won’t tell you: the moments that define you as a leader aren’t the promotions, the wins, or the standing ovations. They’re the moments when everything falls apart, and you have to decide who you’re going to be when no one’s watching.

For Robert, that moment came when he received three phone calls in 72 hours. Three of his largest clients were closing their doors immediately. Half his business, gone. Not paused. Not delayed.

Permanently eliminated. The contractors were bankrupt. The developers were bankrupt. The banks were in trouble. It was a house of cards collapsing throughout construction, and Robert was caught in the middle with 51 employees, suppliers to pay, equipment debt, and almost no revenue.

What followed were some of the darkest months of his life. Yard sales every weekend to generate cash. Rolling coins to make payroll. Sleepless nights carrying the weight of 51 families depending on him. But here’s what struck me about Robert’s response: his primary concern wasn’t his own loss. It was his impact on the people who had trusted him.

“What really worried me was not the fact that we would not succeed, but it was the fact that failure to not do what I had promised I would do. That haunted me more than just I’m not gonna make money.”

When everything else is stripped away- the business, the title, the financial security- what remains is your integrity. Your commitment to honoring your word. Your sense of responsibility for the people who trusted you.

Robert eventually sold his company to settle his debts and walked away with nothing but the possibility of employment. From business owner on Friday to employee in a broom closet on Monday.

That was Robert’s valley. And how he conducted himself in it, the quality of his work, the way he treated people, the integrity he carried, defined his character far more than any success ever could.

Reflect: Think about the hardest season you’ve been through as a leader. What did that valley reveal about your character?

What did it teach you that success never could?

In the middle of his darkest season, working from a broom closet under a vindictive boss who had taken his old office, Robert was venting to a mentor. He listed everything his new manager wouldn’t do, every way he was being mistreated, every circumstance beyond his control.

His mentor stopped him and gave him an exercise that would change everything.

“Take out a piece of legal paper. Draw a line down the middle. Write everything you can control on the right and everything you can’t on the left. Now fold the paper in half. That’s what you do. You only worry about what you can control.”

The left side filled quickly: his boss’s attitude. The economy. Decisions made by ownership. How he was treated. The office he was given. What others thought of him. All outside his control.

The right side, what he could control, included his attitude, his work quality, his integrity, his relationships with clients and team, his effort, his professionalism, his character. These things were entirely within his power, regardless of circumstances.

“I sort of made the decision that, you know what, he doesn’t define me. I define myself. And so what I’m gonna do is get up and do what I do, and I’m gonna do it every day to the best of my ability.”

That shift, from victim mentality to agent mentality, changed everything. Robert stopped fighting his circumstances and started focusing on his response. He showed up every day and did excellent work regardless of how he was treated. He maintained integrity with clients even though the company wasn’t his. He built relationships and served others from a broom closet.

Here’s what’s remarkable: within a short time, the owner fired the vindictive GM and asked Robert to run his old company, not as owner, but with full authority as general manager. Why? Because the owner had been watching.

He saw how Robert conducted himself. And when the GM’s poor leadership became undeniable, he knew exactly who should replace him: the man in the broom closet who controlled what he could control.

Reflect: What are you spending energy trying to control right now that’s actually outside your control?

Make your own list. Draw the line. Fold the paper. Then focus exclusively on the right side.

There’s a photograph hanging in Robert’s office that captures his entire leadership philosophy better than any mission statement ever could. It shows Robert and his wife Tammy on a concrete pump, covered head to toe in concrete, working alongside their crew on a weekend.

Here’s the story behind it. It was a Friday afternoon. Robert was behind schedule on a major project for one of his largest clients. The deadline was Monday, non-negotiable.

Cabinets were coming from out of the country. The concrete had to be poured. Robert had one pump, one crew, and when he started making calls, he came up two or three men short of what he needed.

Most leaders would make frantic calls, try to poach workers from other jobs, or tell the client it couldn’t be done. Robert made a different decision. He called Tammy, told her to get the kids ready, and headed to the job site.

Robert ran the pump and busted bags. Tammy operated the bobcat. And together with the crew members who showed up, they worked through the weekend and completed the pour.

“At the moment, it was out of desperation. That’s the truth. But what I didn’t see at the time was what it was doing to my men, showing them that I was all in and that I was willing to do anything that I would ask them to do.”

Robert wasn’t asking his crew to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself. He was one of them. There was no hierarchy that put him above the hard, dirty work.

That was his very first leadership lesson: you have to be a servant leader to lead and influence people.

The dividends from that approach are still paying out three decades later. Many of the crew members who worked with Robert in those early years are still with him today, now in management positions.

They didn’t stay for salary alone. They stayed because they worked for a leader who earned their respect by being willing to get just as dirty, work just as hard, and sacrifice just as much as he asked of them.

Reflect: When was the last time you demonstrated, not declared, servant leadership?

When was the last time you did the work alongside your team rather than just directing it from a distance?

One of the biggest challenges Robert faced expanding from one company to five was creating alignment across diverse teams, locations, and roles. How do you connect individual success to organizational success when you can’t personally know every person on the payroll?

Robert breaks it down simply. For a laborer, success means having a job and getting a check on Friday. For that laborer’s project manager, success means the laborer showing up, not getting hurt, and doing the job. By the time it reaches Robert’s desk, success is the sum of every one of their successes, plus: did we make money? The bottom line.

So how do you connect the laborer busting cement bags in 100-degree Atlanta heat to the regional VP managing strategy? How do you create shared purpose when daily realities are so different?

“What I’ve come to learn is the more that I invest in that guy who’s busting a cement bag, that he knows that I care about him and that I worry about him, and that I want his dreams to be my dreams and I care about his ambitions and his family. When I can achieve that, then he cares about my success.”

That’s the reciprocal nature of servant leadership. When leaders genuinely invest in their people’s well-being, dreams, and success, those people naturally invest back into the leader’s success and the organization’s mission. It’s not manipulation; it’s an authentic relationship creating authentic commitment.

This shows up in Robert’s daily “need to” list, things like calling an employee to thank them, checking on a customer’s sick family member, asking about someone’s new baby. Not because there’s a business transaction pending, but because relationships matter. These items could easily be deferred for “urgent” matters, but Robert makes them non-negotiable.

Reflect: How are you investing in your people beyond transactions? Do your team members know you care about their dreams, their families, their well-being?

What’s one personal investment you could make in someone this week, not because you need something from them, but because you genuinely care?

Robert’s nonprofit board work with organizations like CAYA and WellStar taught him lessons that made him a better business leader. Why? Because in nonprofit leadership, especially with volunteer-dependent organizations, leaders have none of the traditional levers to pull.

Volunteers aren’t paid. They can’t be promoted. They don’t get benefits. They can walk away anytime without consequence. So why do they show up? Why do they invest their time and energy?

“They have to take people who aren’t getting paid, and they have to get those people to be on the front lines of their success. They’re only as good as their people. So from that, you sort of get shown the model that character, integrity, and caring for people will build influence. And if you have influence, people will follow.”

That was revelatory for Robert. In nonprofit leadership, influence is everything because it’s all you have. You can only inspire, serve, care, and lead through the strength of your character and the clarity of your vision. People follow because they want to, because they believe in the mission and the leader’s authenticity.

Robert realized these same principles applied to business leadership. Sure, he could use salary, bonuses, and promotions. But if those were his primary tools, if his leadership relied on transactional motivation rather than inspirational influence, he was missing something profound. He began asking himself: If I removed all financial incentives, would my employees still follow me?

That question reframed everything. He brought business discipline and strategic thinking to nonprofit boards. He brought people-first, mission-driven, influence-based leadership back to his construction companies. The result was a more holistic leadership style, one that drew wisdom from both worlds and was more effective in each because of it.

Reflect: If you removed all positional authority and transactional incentives, would your team still follow you?

What are you building your influence on, your title or your character?

We’ve arrived at the principle that, for me, ties everything else together. And it’s the one I want to leave you with.

Perhaps the most powerful truth in Robert’s story is this: his deepest leadership lessons came from his greatest failures. The economic collapse that cost him his business taught him more about resilience, character, and what truly matters than any success could have.

The humiliation of the broom closet taught him about controlling what he could control. The necessity of working covered in concrete taught him about servant leadership.

When everything financial was stripped away, what remained was character, relationships, and impact on others. Those intangible assets proved more valuable and more enduring than the business he lost.

Robert’s thirty-year team members remember when he showed up covered in concrete. They remember when he lost the company and worked from a closet. They remember how he treated them through good times and bad. That shared history creates bonds that transcend typical employment relationships.

The valleys shaped Robert more than the mountaintops. The failures refined him more than the successes. And his willingness to share these lessons with the same transparency as his victories is what makes him the kind of leader others want to follow.

Robert emerged from his darkest valley not bitter, but better. Not defeated, but developed. The broom closet became a classroom. The humiliation became a refining fire. The loss became a foundation for future growth.

“What really worried me was not the fact that we would not succeed, but it was the fact that failure to not do what I had promised I would do.”

That commitment to integrity — to honoring commitments even when it cost him everything — is what ultimately restored his leadership. Character endures when everything else is stripped away.

Reflect: What valley are you in right now, or what valley have you emerged from? What is it teaching you that success never could?

How can you share those lessons in ways that help someone else navigate their own valley?

Robert Owens came up from stocking shelves at Lowe’s and built a career that now spans five regional companies and community-wide impact. But his journey wasn’t a straight line up. It was marked by devastating setbacks, profound humiliation, and seasons when character was the only thing left to lead with.

What he learned in those valleys applies just as powerfully to a leader in any industry as it does to a regional VP in construction. The principles don’t change with the title or the circumstances.

• You control what you can control and release what you can’t.

• You demonstrate servant leadership rather than declare it.

• You invest in people and create reciprocal commitment.

• You build influence through character, not position. And you let your worst moments become your greatest teachers.

Leadership isn’t about avoiding the valleys, Robert taught me. It’s about how you conduct yourself when you’re in them.

Every day you choose character over convenience, every time you invest in someone when you could just transact with them, every moment you lead from the front rather than direct from behind, you get a little further down the road. And the people following you get further too.

That’s not a small thing. That’s the whole thing.

The photograph on Robert’s wall, him and Tammy covered in concrete, captures it all. Not the polished headshot. Not the title on the door. Not the awards or recognition. Just two people, willing to do whatever it took, serving their team with everything they had.

Pick one principle from this list, just one, and put it into practice this week. Not all six. Just the one your gut already knew you needed when you read it.

• Maybe it’s the legal pad exercise: draw the line, fold the paper, and stop spending energy on what you can’t control.

• Maybe it’s rolling up your sleeves and doing the work alongside your team this week instead of directing it from a distance.

• Maybe it’s making one personal investment in someone on your team, a phone call, a check-in, a thank-you, with no agenda at all.

• Maybe it’s sharing a lesson from your own valley with someone who needs to hear it.

Whatever it is, take the step. Then come back next week and take another one. That’s how character-driven leaders are built. One intentional decision at a time.

Now go out this week and Lead, Grow & Lead taking your team to the next level!

• Good to Great — Jim Collins

• The Bible — particularly the Book of John, the model of servant leadership

• The “Control What You Can Control” legal pad exercise — draw the line, fold the paper, focus on the right side

• Mentorship and nonprofit board service — surround yourself with diverse, passionate people who can pour into you

• LinkedIn

• Website