Leaving a Leadership Legacy -- Part 6 -- Yield Good Fruit through Good Cultivation

The 6th and final installment of the LEGACY series relates to yielding good fruit. We talked in the fourth part about growing ourselves. Today's article is about producing good fruit in others.

Cultivate is a word often used in agricultural terms and carries the meaning to prepare and work on the land in order to raise crops and to promote or improve growth by labor and attention. The word is a verb which, as we learned in grammar school, is an action word.

So what a some practical steps to help our people grow? I think it's as easy as following the care and feeding instructions for each crop we have in our fields. Caring for crops is a customized as opposed to a commoditized process. What's the difference? Customized can also be called individualized and for leadership purposes, commoditized carries the meaning "one size fits all". Customization seeks out the needs of the individual whereas commoditization is the hallmark of a weak and ineffective leader.

Many years ago as a young leader, I thought that a business performance contest would be a great driver of team results. I spent a few weeks developing a level playing field contest where each of my teams (and individuals on each team) would be rewarded for performance through the competition against one another. Oh boy, did I learn some things. Here's what I found out. About a third of people on my team were ambivalent to the contest. They were the ones that were going to drive results anyway and the competition wasn't an effective way to drive them as they were driven by other things (self satisfaction, etc).

About a third were super engaged in the competitive environment and were on fire to "win". The final third of the team actually went backwards. Not only was the contest/competition not a motivator, it actually had the opposite impact. It caused friction and frankly some poor productivity because the environment to them introduced to much stress.

My biggest takeaway from this failed experiment was that every person has unique 1.) motivations, 2.) inspirations and 3.) aspirations (AKA Care and Feeding instructions). I also learned that my real role as a leader is to understand those three simple things about each of my team members so I could help them grow -- as individuals. Further, when each person is being taken care of in a way that is meaningful to them, there is a amazing symbiosis that occurs and the team also thrives!!!

From this exercise, I committed to becoming the Chief Cultivation Officer of my organization. Like a good farmer, I needed to provide the appropriate balance of good, fertile soil, sunshine and food. When I began to do that consistently as a leader, I saw them grow like never before. I was yielding good fruit through good cultivation! The farm thrives!

Well, there you have it. LEGACY. Leading by our example. Encouraging/Exhorting daily, Growing ourselves, Accepting new ways of thinking, Creating opportunities to forge strong relationships and yielding good fruit. I hope that I gave you great practical ways to think about your legacy and how to reflect on the reality that we are leaving a legacy with everything we do.

Would love feedback on your thoughts and on how you plan to put these into action. Feel free to drop me a line on LinkedIn.

Kenny