EVERYTHING RISES AND FALLS ON LEADERSHIP.
Teaching others to become a Leader is like passing off a baton in a relay race.
No matter how well you run the race, if you can’t pass the baton, you will
never win the race. What we must do is learn how to pass the torch. This is only
way great organizations, families and partnerships are built and maintained over time.
People have to become inspired. You must empower and mentor others in order to
get the baton into their hands. If you don’t, they have no reason to keep
running, the momentum dies and they will eventually quit running.
The benefits of becoming a great leader...
1) It raises you to a new level by increasing your personal credibility and
influence. When you limit the growth of others, you limit your own growth and
your own personal credibility and influence diminishes.
2) You raise the bar on the potential of the people in your life. Whether it be in your business, your family or you job. Your own personal Leadership is the lid on your Leaders’ ability to grow and to move the Vision forward in all areas of your life.
3) Growing Leaders multiplies resources. This absolutely cannot be
underestimated. As you develop and maintain and move other’s forward, the
value of your own resources grows exponentially. One of the most valuable
resources you have is time. By growing other Leaders, you increase your own
time. Growing Leaders also grows the resource of loyalty within your life and
this resource is what determines the long term stability of relationships.
4) Growing Leaders assures a positive and secure future for you and for everyone you are leading. A good Leader will always have people around him or her that are better than they are. One of the hallmarks of a truly great Leader is the ability and motivation to find incredibly talented people, and empower them and move them forward in life.
There are four imperatives to get yourself on track for long term, sustainable
growth:
1) Lead yourself well. It starts with you. Very simply stated: You can’t
reproduce what you don’t have. Think of the travel agent who’s never been to
the place they want you to go as opposed to the tour guide who knows the land
intimately. We teach what we know… we reproduce what we are. I think back to
something Truitt Cathy once said, “The number one reason that Leaders are
unsuccessful is their inability to lead themselves.” Act with Integrity, never
ask people to do something that you would not do yourself. A true Leader learns
the art of self motivation. It’s called Discipline.
Leader of one, Leader of many. If I can’t lead one, I can’t lead any. Hint:
the “one” is YOU!
Begin a regimen of self development. Four incredible books by John Maxwell on
Leadership are: “Developing the Leader Within You” “The 21 Irrefutable
Laws of Leadership” “Developing the Leaders Around You” and “The 360
degree Leader”
2) Continue to look for Leaders. More scarce than ability, more scarce than
talent, is the ability to recognize ability and talent. In sports, you have to
have good athletes to win no matter who the coach is. Andrew Carnegie once said,
“No man will make a great Leader who wants to do it all himself or who wants
all the credit for what he’s doing.” When the Teacher is ready, the Students
(future Leaders) will appear. Look outside, but don’t forget to look around you for Leaders to develop. Again, thinking of a sports team, often the best future athletes are already on the Farm Team.
3) Put people first. I cannot stress this enough. Great Leaders always
consider the welfare of others, whether that be your family, your business associates, your customers etc. The goal is not to get people to think more highly of you, but rather to get them to think more highly of themselves. The great basketball player Bill Russell was famous for saying, “The most
important measure of how well I played the game is how much I helped my teammates.”
Ask yourself these questions:
• Do I add value for others? What did I do for others today?
• Do I add value to the family, friends, business associates etc ?
• Am I quick to give away credit when things go right? If the answer is no,
then something is very wrong with the way you’re leading.
• Am I constantly empowering others?
There is no success without a successor. Your ultimate goal is to train and
mentor people to ultimately surpass you.
4) Commit yourself to promoting Leaders, not maintaining followers. You must be
committed to the task. There must be a conscious effort to raising others up.
It’s not enough to perform well. You must be able to TEACH what you’ve
accomplished to others so that THEY can REPRODUCE what you’ve accomplished.
Most people live in a maintenance mode. The average income in America is
between $30,000 and $40,000 for a reason. People quit playing to win. Instead,
they simply play not to lose. If you want to make a real impact, you have to
play to win and playing to win means multiplying Leaders.
Five Stages of Leadership: Ask yourself - and be brutally honest with yourself
- “Where am I within these Stages?” Beginning at the bottom:
1) The “Replacement” Stage: Not doing anything to promote and develop
people. The mark of this stage is that attrition rates are staggeringly high. About 20% of all leaders are in this Stage.
2) The “Hang On” Stage: Leaders do nothing to develop their people, but
they manage to keep people hanging on. About 50% of all leaders function in this
Stage… but no one really benefits in this Stage.
3) The “Farming” Stage: In this Stage, we’ve begun the process of
developing peoples’ skills but we fail to develop relationships with them.
It’s impossible to truly and effectively lead people without loving them.
About 10% of all leaders function in this Stage.
4) The “Progressive” Stage: When Leaders move beyond simply teaching people
toward empowering them. About 19% of all Leaders reach this level but the ones that do become Great!
5) The “Reproductive” Stage: This is the PINNACLE! Only about 1% of all
Leaders ever make it to this level. At this Stage, Leaders don’t measure success by the harvest they reap but by the seeds they sow.
What are the 10 things you need to do in order to reach this Final Stage? How do I grow Leaders who grow Leaders?
Keep posted and I will share great tips from my mentor Brad Hager!
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