Leadership, like most business skills, is completely learn-able. The secret to become a great leader is to be patient and to allow yourself the time you need to gradually grow into the type of leader you need or want to be. All leaders who commit to grow daily, both personally and as a leader and who consistently commit to grow their knowledge base and leadership skill set. Will over time compound into great leaders, who can positively influence their followers. Leaders are developed daily with consistent and focused effort, never in a day. So anyone who wants to grow into a great leader must see their growth as a process and never an event. All the small efforts invested by leaders, into their development, will add up to massive growth over time.
Oseola McCarty was a humble washer woman who lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. On her death in 1999 she had accumulated almost $ 250 000 in savings. How had a humble washer woman managed to accumulate such a sizable fortune, when she had only earned a few dollars every day for her efforts as a washer woman? Well the answer was due to the eighth wonder of the world, namely compounding. Oseola lived frugally and every day she would go to the Trustmark National bank and deposit the few extra dollars she had left over. This consistent effort gradually compounded into a sizable fortune by the time she passed on in 1999.
The same is true for anyone, who wants to grow into a great leader. Invest time, effort and resources every single day into your growth and development and allow the compound effect to work its magic. As time passes, you will gradually grow into a really great leader. Someone who can influence other people to deliver their best, for the greater good of all concerned. Great leaders are always lead by example with the adage of Let’s Go Do It” rather than one of ”You better go and do it”.
Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus made the connection between growth and leadership; they stated that “It is the capacity to continually develop and improve their skills, which distinguishes leaders from their followers”.
If you want to motivate people to take a few steps forward, then see your leadership growth as an event, if on the other hand you want to consistently improve and grow into a great leader, who people will readily follow, then commit to an on-going lifelong process of personal and leadership growth. There is a really powerful boxing analogy, which states that champions don’t become champions in the ring, they are only recognised there. If you want to see who will become a great leader in the future, just look at their daily routine and their commitment to on-going growth.
If you are cheating on your roadwork every day and not consistently working to grow your knowledge, skill and leadership ability, you will be caught out in the future. As Joe Frazier so aptly said, “You can map out a life plan or a fight plan, but when the action starts you are down to your reflexes” Invest time every day into growing and becoming more, for as you become more, you will most certainly attract more into your experience.
Action Idea: Map out a plan for your personal and leadership growth. Ensure that you build measurement criterion into your plan and ensure that you take consistent action daily on your plan.
The way I consistently ensure that I am growing both personally and as a leader is to follow a simple system. I break my year up into ninety day segments. During each segment I choose a specific area I want to improve in my life. For example: presentation skills. I choose two books, four audio books and attend a seminar related to that specific topic during those ninety days. This helps me to keep growing personally. To get the most value from the books, audio books and seminar, I find three new behaviours I can introduce into my life from each book, audio book and seminar. This gives me 21 possible new behaviours I can adopt. I explore these 21 possible new behaviours and discover 4 new super behaviours, which I will actually introduce into my life.
Growing into a great leader is an on-going lifetime commitment, so during each ninety day segment I also include one book and one audio book on leadership into my program. I also attend at least one seminar a year on leadership. I repeat the same exercise for the books and audio books on leadership, where I pull out 3 new behaviours from each and then refine this down to a single new super leadership behaviour.
These five new behaviours, four related specifically to the area I am working to improve and one new leadership behaviour, become the foundation of my “CODE OF PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT” or my commitment, which I make with myself, to use my willpower and discipline to carry out these five new behaviours every day for the next 90 days. After 90 days these new behaviours are entrenched new success habits.
As you know knowledge is never power it is the application of the right knowledge, which empowers you. It is for that reason my system described above has proved to be so successful. When you use this system, you so not randomly read books, listen to audio books and attend seminars. You have a focused approach to gaining knowledge and you have a system for extracting the most important information and turning it into new behaviours and finally your new success habit set.
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