In December , 2010 , I initiated a discussion on a group called" Leadership Think Tank" on the popular social network site Linkedin by asking this question:"Is there any relationship between leadership and capacity to love?".It attracted an overwhelming response of more than 1500 comments , and even after 14 months , the discussion is on from participants from all over the globe on different aspects of leadership.It is amazing how stimulating , useful , interesting and important the subject of leadership is .
Leadership can be learned .It can be taught , practised and developed.In the New Year 2012, I decided to improve myself on at least one quality,skill or area of leadership .In search for this one skill , I selected John C. Maxwell's book "The 21 irrefutable Laws of Leadership" .First published in 1999, it has 226 pages.Let me share with you the result of my search .I feel that the most important law of leadership is:"The Law of Explosive Growth".Out of 21 Laws of Leadership that Maxwell has listed , this Law is at serial number20.It says that "To add growth , lead followers.But to mutiply , lead leaders".
Maxwell has listed a few qualities in a leader.We can learn and improve our qualities of leadership over entire life time .One quality is mentioned in the Law number 6.This Law is called The law of Solid ground .It says that Trust is the foundation of leadership .And character is the foundation of trust .Trust, character/integrity is therefore the foundation of leadership .
The other quality of leadership is sacrifice , mentioned at serial number 18 .This is the law of sacrifice and says that "A Leader must give up to go up."A leader should have a capacity to sacrifice money , sleep , physical comforts , and swallow his/her pride and in extreme cases lose personal liberty and even life.This sacrifice is constant and ongoing, not a one time payment .
The other quality is skill to connect , given at serial number10,as The Law of connection.It says that "Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand"
Skill to have the sense of timing is also important .It is at serial number19 as The Law of Timing .It says that "When to lead is as important as what to do and where to go."
The most important law is The Law of explosive growth .A leader must commit the largest part of his /her resources , and attention on developing leaders and leading those leaders .Build people who are going to build the organisation.There is no harm in developing the followers , but developing the leaders mutiplies the results/ growth exponentially.Development and mentoring of leaders is the most important skill that a leader needs to learn .When developing the leaders becomes a part of our culture, we stop asking what we accomplished during our tenure . Rather we start asking what the organisation and its people accomplished after we were gone .
When we see all around ourselves , we find very little being done to develop leaders .We need to focus more on developing character, trust and sacrifice in our children .This needs to be done by parents , teachers , writers and leaders in all spheres of life .We need to think hard on how to achieve this development .What concrete things are needed to be done to create a system where this gets done with reasonable efforts?.Maxwell does not tell us how to do it .To be fair ,that is also not within the scope of "Laws of Leadership."We should all be looking for ways in which we can develop leadership in our society and organisations .Do you have any ideas on this ?
Leadership can be learned .It can be taught , practised and developed.In the New Year 2012, I decided to improve myself on at least one quality,skill or area of leadership .In search for this one skill , I selected John C. Maxwell's book "The 21 irrefutable Laws of Leadership" .First published in 1999, it has 226 pages.Let me share with you the result of my search .I feel that the most important law of leadership is:"The Law of Explosive Growth".Out of 21 Laws of Leadership that Maxwell has listed , this Law is at serial number20.It says that "To add growth , lead followers.But to mutiply , lead leaders".
Maxwell has listed a few qualities in a leader.We can learn and improve our qualities of leadership over entire life time .One quality is mentioned in the Law number 6.This Law is called The law of Solid ground .It says that Trust is the foundation of leadership .And character is the foundation of trust .Trust, character/integrity is therefore the foundation of leadership .
The other quality of leadership is sacrifice , mentioned at serial number 18 .This is the law of sacrifice and says that "A Leader must give up to go up."A leader should have a capacity to sacrifice money , sleep , physical comforts , and swallow his/her pride and in extreme cases lose personal liberty and even life.This sacrifice is constant and ongoing, not a one time payment .
The other quality is skill to connect , given at serial number10,as The Law of connection.It says that "Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand"
Skill to have the sense of timing is also important .It is at serial number19 as The Law of Timing .It says that "When to lead is as important as what to do and where to go."
The most important law is The Law of explosive growth .A leader must commit the largest part of his /her resources , and attention on developing leaders and leading those leaders .Build people who are going to build the organisation.There is no harm in developing the followers , but developing the leaders mutiplies the results/ growth exponentially.Development and mentoring of leaders is the most important skill that a leader needs to learn .When developing the leaders becomes a part of our culture, we stop asking what we accomplished during our tenure . Rather we start asking what the organisation and its people accomplished after we were gone .
When we see all around ourselves , we find very little being done to develop leaders .We need to focus more on developing character, trust and sacrifice in our children .This needs to be done by parents , teachers , writers and leaders in all spheres of life .We need to think hard on how to achieve this development .What concrete things are needed to be done to create a system where this gets done with reasonable efforts?.Maxwell does not tell us how to do it .To be fair ,that is also not within the scope of "Laws of Leadership."We should all be looking for ways in which we can develop leadership in our society and organisations .Do you have any ideas on this ?
3 comments:
VN, it HAS been a great discussion on Linkedin with a few side trips that could have been avoided, but such are conversations in the social media world, eh? :)
As to your question above, how about being an assistant to those under your authority? A student learns as he/she is taught, a teacher learns as they teach and are challenged by the "student." Hopefully I will publish Tom Watson Sr.'s "We Are All Assistants" next week on my blog. Tom Watson during the Great Depression cleaned out the Home Office and sent all IBM executives out into the field to be assistants to the people in the field for three months. Here is his comment:
"WE ARE EXTENDING this week the practical application of our policy that there should be no bosses in business—that every manager, assistant manager, department head, foreman, etc., of an organization must be instead a good assistant to and leader for somebody else. Accordingly, all the managers, assistant managers and heads of the various divisions of our sales department have gone out into the field where they will work as
assistants to the men under their supervision. The best way to teach a man how to do something is to assist him in doing it and that is what our executives are doing."
The next day Tom Watson Sr. pulled in the executives' secretaries and said, "You are now running the business and I am your assistant!" This was a man that practiced what he preached.
As I stated once on your Linkedin discussion never mix up a "position of leadership" with the "qualities of leadership."
Cheers
Peter E. Greulich
Author, Speaker and Publisher
The World's Greatest Salesman and
Tom Watson Sr. Essays on Leadership
I think, the Leaders who develop followers grow their organization only one person at a time. But leaders who develop leaders multiply their growth because for every leader they develop, they also receive all of that leader’s followers. Add ten followers and you have ten people. Add ten leaders to your organization and you have the power of ten leaders times all the followers and leaders they influence. That’s the difference between addition and multiplication. It’s like growing your organization by teams instead of by individuals. You will go to the highest level only if you begin developing leaders instead of followers. The better the leaders you develop, the greater the quality and quantity of followers.
Leaders who develop leaders experience an incredible multiplication effect in their organizations that can be achieved in no other way. That’s the incredible power of the Law of Explosive Growth. In fact we can not define the Leadership in few or more words as this is an ongoing process........ Today’s Leaders who develop leaders will be the Role Models of tomorrow!!!
Dear Pete G.,
It is an excellent idea , to be assistant to the people who work with you or under your authority.It is also helpful to send people in the head office to field so that they can be assistant to those in the field .Thank you very much for giving this perspective to the development of leaders .
I will look forward to your publishing Tom Watson Sr.'s "We Are All Assistants" next week on your blog.
I appreciate your valuable comment here and also your contribution on Linkedin.
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