Leadership Competency Focus: Lifelong Learning

Becoming a life long learner is a role each of us should pursue beginning early in our careers, but it is never too late to begin. Life is short and the time we spend each day and over a lifetime in the end must stand for something. It begins with an attitude and desire to learn, and turns into a passion to improve, to innovate, and succeed.

Over the last three years, as part of my research for my books I surveyed more than 1,000 leaders around the globe regarding the meaning of influence and leadership, hence the label "Influential Leadership." 16 of these leaders were invited to be interviewed and were featured in my books. One of the important byproducts that resulted from those surveys was a large list of leadership traits shared by these leaders I like to call competencies. In my books I share the ranking of those competencies in a Top 40 list, and then a Top 13 list (e.g. Integrity, Creative Thinking, Emotional Intelligence, Vision Sharing, etc.) that is shared in my latest book, “Become a Super Leader,” and used for weekly personal mastery program in the book.

Traits and Competencies of a Great Leader

One of the questions I asked in my surveys and interviews was, “What are the traits or competencies that great leaders demonstrate in their daily roles as leaders?” What I learned in the process of the conducting these surveys and interviews is that leaders unanimously agree that leadership is a skill that can be developed and acquired through good habit forming, weekly focus and application.

Leadership obviously is a broad term that includes many traits, skills, and competencies. When an emerging leader develops expertise in any number of these competencies, they become known for their proficiency, gaining a reputation for certain skills, expertise and ultimately are labeled influential because of their knowledge, wisdom and experience. Because of the various competencies acquired these leaders become more useful and productive in their roles and their skillset becomes more competitive in nature, therefore gaining what I coined in my book, The Power of Strategic Influence, “Competitive Competencies.” Competitive competency and Influential Leadership can be acquired with a weekly mindset and dedication to “Lifelong Learning.”

Bottom line, we need great leaders to rise up in each nation around the world in order to carry us safely and successfully into the future. It is going to take commitment by emerging leaders to assess their potential competencies as related to their roles, and then to focus and dedicate regular time to gaining proficiency and expertise so that others will want to follow them.

So why is leadership attraction (influence) important?

In my book Become a Super Leader, I share the findings of a Gallup poll which found that only 18 percent of leaders demonstrate a high level of talent for managing others-which means that a shocking 82 percent of managers aren’t very good at leading, and therefore aren’t very good at influencing people. The same poll found that only about 1 in 10 people possesses the talent to manage effectively. Though many people possess some of the necessary traits, few have the unique combination of talent needed to help a team achieve excellence in a way that significantly improves a company’s performance. The number one talent a manager or leader must have is the ability to influence their subordinates to excel.

One of the quotes and teaching points I share from my book demonstrates the importance of Lifelong Learning.

“Once you stop learning, you start dying.” --Albert Einstein

How true! Our ability to learn—at any age—is what separates us from all other forms of life. We humans have an incredible ability to absorb new information and think of new ideas. The cessation of this process is a sure sign that our time on Earth is limited. Speaking more narrowly for people in business, I humbly present this variation: “Once you stop learning, you start going broke.” The world is a competitive place, and if you remain static, trying to solve today’s problems by depending upon only what you learned yesterday, then you’ll come up short.

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Sources and References:

Gallup Poll: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231593/why-great-managers-rare.aspx#:~:text=Nearly%20one%20in%20five%20(18,companies%20than%20average%20managers%20do.

Become a Super Leader by Gary C. Laney: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXY4B4VY

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