Leaders create leaders...

We, as leaders, are continuously evolving to meet new needs. The way we led in the 90s, and even over the last decade, is not the same as it will be in the next decade. There are similarities, but also significant differences. Today’s leaders are dealing not only with a pandemic (will there be more?), but also with millennials in their ranks, social economic pressures, social media cancel cultures, markets driven by overseas buyers, and international supply chains — relatively new problems.

“The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.” - Kenneth H. Blanchard.

The greatest leaders are those who don't look for followers. Think of Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. They were trying to create more leaders in order to help many others to find and create their own destinies. Tom Peters famously said, “leaders do not create followers, they create more leaders.”  While it is certainly a powerful and true quote, I have yet to meet someone who says they have mastered how to accomplish it.  

We know there are certain qualities like: small egos, knowledge sharing, open minds, humble hearts, greater purpose, constant coaching, and openness to change – but it is not that easy.  The best leaders give away the power and responsibility to others so they can take ownership of their decision making and behaviors. This is easy to write but difficult to put into practice.  

A leader’s failure to develop the people below and around them can be dangerous and damaging, a fact that we, as leaders, are keenly aware of. Feedback for senior executives, be it via 360s, executive assessments or anecdotal, has shown time and again that most executives significantly under invest in developing their people. The consequence is poor talent pipelines, weak benches and leaders who are unable to fulfill what is perhaps the single most important job of every leader - to create other leaders.

John Hillen and Mark Nevins describe three elements most essential in developing leaders: “helping leaders clarify and prioritize goals; deepening their understanding of the others whom they must engage and influence to achieve results; and developing a keener knowledge and awareness of themselves”. They call this model the leadership triangle. Leading executives must help their top leaders focus on all three of these dimensions.

The leadership triangle can be used as one way to convey the mindset that self-knowledge and self-awareness are a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves. Bringing one’s best self to the forefront as a leader is how they will engage others to achieve the organization’s goals.

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about others." - Jack Welch

How do we become better leaders?  Some things I have learned along the way include: leading by example – it is critically important to live the values and be authentic; when you have made a mistake, own up to it; always notice other acts of leadership by your team and say thank you; take time to celebrate the achievements; encourage your team to put their ideas forward and defend them; listen twice as much as you talk (that is why my grandmother said we have two ears and one mouth); be available and accessible for your team to discuss problems and solutions; encourage your team to challenge you and your ideas (and praise them for doing so); and provide clear and helpful feedback to everyone.

"A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind." - Nelson Mandela

Leadership is the action of leading our team towards achieving goals. As leaders, we do this by influencing our employee behaviors in several ways. As a leader, we set a clear vision for our organization, motivate our employees, guide our employees and build morale. 

Leadership is an important element of the directing function of our management. Wherever there is an organized group of people working towards a common goal, some type of leadership becomes essential. “The power of leadership is the power of integrating. The leader stimulates what is best in us.  (S)he unites and concentrates what we feel only gropingly and shatteringly. (S)he is a person who gives form to the uncoarctate energy in every man. The person who influences me most is not (s)he who does great Deeds, but (s)he who makes me feel that I can do great deeds.” Marry Parker Follet.

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves". - Lao Tzu

According to the philosophy of transformational leadership, an effective leader is a person who does the following: creates an inspiring vision of the future; motivates and inspires people to engage with that vision; and coaches and builds a team, so that it is more effective at achieving the vision.

Everybody defines leadership differently, but I really like the way John C Maxwell defines leadership, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”  As leaders, we need to help people become expert not only at leading themselves and building a great leadership team under them, but also appreciating that leadership in 2020 will most likely be very different in 2025.  Work from home, work remotely, video and artificial intelligence, etc.

For an organization of followers, the ability to adapt is limited to the capacity of a single individual or leadership team. When the rate of change is slow - this is enough. But when the changes include technology, culture, customer needs, suppliers, competitors, legislation, the economic environment, and climate all at once then a single team or leader cannot know all the details and can easily become overwhelmed by what they do know. 

Leaders who create more leaders increase the ability of every person to manage their own change. This balances the workload across the organization.  And if every person not only knows how to remain calm in a crisis and find their own solutions but also knows how to find more opportunities and inspire themselves and others to do what needs to be done then the organization faces a new problem: how to choose between the multiple opportunities it faces.

Leaders who create more leaders make themselves, their people, and their organizations able to use change to become stronger. And as we have learned - the only constant in life is change.

Together.  We.  Win.