Developing the Leader w/in you #3
Authored by John C Maxwell, enhanced by Peter Wiz4.biz 9/13
10 Traits are discussed, by Author John Maxwell, that an individual needs to focus on – in life – in order to become more effective in their leadership roles.
Chapter 7 – Developing your Most Appreciable Asset – People
No one leads in a vacuum. If you don’t have other people following you, you’re not a leader. And, if you are concerned about the people that you lead eventually leaving you, you’re limiting yourself & your Visions. The ability to develop other people into leaders is a force multiplier. If you can raise up an army, you’ll do well on your own. However, if you can raise up leaders of other armies, you’ll have allies in your quest. By developing leaders, you don’t just attract more followers. You create loyalty in those you’ve trained in the past, and they’ll be willing to journey along with you to achieve your dreams. Viewing other people as individuals, not as numbers, is crucial to your own success.
Chapter 8 – The Indispensable Quality of Leadership – Vision
Vision is what drives a leader to become more than what they currently are. They see things as the way they should be, not as they are, and they formulate plans to make the changes necessary to get there. It’s amazing, but many people are so set in their ways that they cannot imagine life being any different than what it currently is. A leader not only has a vision for the way things should be, they also have the ability to pass that vision on to others. If you can’t articulate the way things should be, you’ll never be able to convince other people it’s worthwhile to come along with you.
Chapter 9 – The Price Tag of Leadership – Self-Discipline
Oh my word, I hate this one. It’s really not much fun to do things that you don’t want to do, but sometimes it’s necessary. Self-discipline is about suppressing the things you want to have or do, in order to be able to achieve the things that you have to do. What you have to do is achieve your Vision. What you need to eliminate is anything that’s going to get in the way of achieving the goal you’ve set – in the timeline you’ve set it. If you’re trying to finish a Master’s degree in order to get a job that will provide a better standard of living for you and those you love, then you might have to give up things like Friday & Saturday night at the bar, Football games on Sunday, or playing XBox in the evenings. You’d much rather be doing something fun, but you know that what you’re doing instead is better in the long run. You have to focus on the results of the activities you’re doing, not on the activities themselves.
Chapter 10 – The Most Important Lesson of Leadership – Staff DevelopmentThis chapter combines a lot of the teaching from Chapters 2 & 7. You need to take the time to develop the people around you, and you identify those folks using the 80/20 principle. You encourage everyone in your organization, but you need to invest time with those who are already making a difference the 20% – who are making an 80% impact. The people who will rise up as leaders will self-select. They’ll show you they want to be leaders by how they work and achieve results. It’s all about teamwork; people pulled together by a common purpose.
Recommendation: You could really do love this book. There are so many things to think about – and focus on – in your own life. The central truth to take away from reading this is that you have to become a person you’d want to follow before anyone else will come with you.
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