Everyone leads. Our voices and actions impact other people's lives. John Maxwell tells us that "leadership is nothing more than influence." Sometimes we influence others in healthy ways and at other times, not so much... but we all lead.
However, all leaders are not the same. The wise are those who understand the importance of developing their leadership acumen so they will be more effective in leading others towards a common goal.
Here are the 4 steps of High-Impact Leaders:
1. KNOW
Leaders know themselves and the areas where their leadership is lacking. Whether in vision casting, self-discipline, motivation, conflict resolution, team building, finance, systems and procedures... they have the self-awareness to recognize their own leadership deficit(s) and the courage to admit it.
▶ Key Leadership Trait: Self-Awareness
What is one area where your leadership capacity is lacking?
"Without self-awareness, even a move backwards will feel like progress."
2. GO
Leaders take action! Once they have identified an area where their capacity is weak, rare leaders are willing to leave the comfort of familiarity for a greater future. Leaders understand that movement is required. Talk is cheap. Excuses are fatal. Delay is an enemy. Nothing changes until you move. Your desired future is one step ahead of where you're standing right now. GO!
▶ Key Leadership Trait: Pursuit
On a scale of 1-10, how committed are you to taking action?
"We have no right to anything we are unwilling to pursue."
3. GROW
Growth is essential! Everything healthy grows. However, new growth also requires us to outgrow our former state. If children don't outgrow their clothes or if plants don't outgrow their pots, something is fundamentally wrong. In like manner, healthy leaders must outgrow old, familiar and comfortable mindsets. This is why growing leaders must possess both a robust humility (ability to ask questions and learn from others) and a rock-solid endurance (ability to withstand the pain of change). Growth is painful... but great leaders choose the struggle for advance over the comfort of stagnation.
▶ Key Leadership Traits: Humility & Endurance
Are you teachable? Can you handle the pressure of pursuit?
What course or coach are you using to increase your capacity?
"The level of success one achieves is directly related
to the level of pain they were willing to endure."
4. SHOW
Nothing rewards a leader's heart more than showing others how to know, go and grow. Nothing. Just as others have so generously contributed to their own successes, great leaders now take joy in generously sharing their decades of learned insights, personal struggles, practical wisdom and seasoned encouragement with others. These sages have discovered that by teaching and developing the next generation, their lives will excel beyond public success and into the pinnacle of personal fulfillment. It is in those selfless moments of empowering others when a leader's life becomes a legacy.
▶ Key Leadership Trait: Generosity
Who are you investing in? Whose success matters to you?
"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein