Aviv Shahar has a great post on “Developing Leaders” stating that…
“The greatest leadership act in the world is growing and developing new leaders and then empowering and releasing them to lead.”
The development of leaders is of critical importance. The question is how? As discussed in Aviv’s post much of leadership development is focused on formulas, a leadership framework to guide a potential leaders thinking and actions. Leadership development programs usually focus on creating a leadership framework, in essence a map, which the leader uses to guide and inform their actions. The goal of these leadership maps are to get people to behaviour as a “leader”.
Aviv makes the following insightful observation concerning maps and leadership development programs…
“As a leader, maps can help you a lot, but you need something even more important than maps—You need your own compass. You need to know yourself and have the capacity to enter an unknown terrain that has not been mapped, where you draw the map as you walk the terrain. This is the nature of leadership. You find a path forward in a place you have not travelled before. ‘To lead is to take the next step, to go where you have never gone, to open a way forward into the unknown and the uncharted.’
The best and most impactful leadership programs help leaders find and develop their own compass, sense of vision and direction and offer tools to draw the map as you walk the terrain. In our leadership summits and retreats we take the view that you are unique. Your strengths and success formulas are unique. While all formulas and maps carry helpful teachings, the greater reward is in discovering yourself, and understanding your values, areas of passion, personal capabilities, learning inclinations, energy cycles, and your own way of creating and achieving success. Successful leaders first lead themselves.
The greatest leadership programs are those that help you lead yourself and then help you get on the path of developing leaders around you.”
The development of a personal compass is a critical part of a leaders development. Unless you can lead yourself first, you will not be effective in leading others.
- Do you have your own compass?
- Do you know who you are? Your weaknesses? Your Strengths?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Development, Purpose, Self, Strengths, Weaknesses, Management
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s great to see that people are finally getting that leadership should be more about getting the most out of those you lead instead of simply exerting power over them. I’ve been reading a cool book by Jo Ellen Roe, A Dog’s Advice to Leaders, in which she talks about not only what leadership skills we can learn by observing our dogs, but also about how developing better people skills in general makes us better leaders.
A map can be too constricting, as unknown challenges will always emerge for leaders. But having a few basic principles to measure decisions and actions by — that’s just common sense — and usually effective, too.