Its so amazing how time flies, by next week we will be welcoming the month of March 2017. This post is a continuation of our series on Leadership & Work Ethics, in the previous posts we’ve looked at the first 3 levels of leadership namely : Position, Permission & Production or Rights, Relationships & Results.
Today’s focus will be on the 4th Level of leadership, which is PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT
Levels of leadership – LEVEL 4 PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT
At this level, the focus of the leader is about the people, ensuring that they reproduce the results again & again. In 2014, I was part of a John Maxwell’s live cast in which he digressed from the main topic about “Thinking for a change“& talked about mentorship & the art of teaching. He explained that the 1st level of teaching or mentoring is imparting the knowledge ( the WHAT), the 2nd level is sharing the wisdom ( the HOW), the 3rd level is helping the mentee DO IT ( TAKE ACTION) while you provide support & the last level is helping the mentee to teach someone else to DO IT.
People begin to follow you because of what you have done in their lives personally. They begin to see the level of investment & value that you can add or have added to them. At this point leaders start to reproduce leaders as the focus shifts to personal development.
Leaders become great not because of their power but because of their ability to empower
others & often times at this level, institutions are formed.
Bill Gates is a typical example. After achieving so much success in business, he has now turn to the pursuit of the total eradication of diseases like malaria & other around the world with his foundation. It’s no surprise that Mark Zukerberg is also towing that line seeing that he was mentored by Bill. Oprah Winfrey built a school in South Africa for girls so as to add value to them to become successful in life as she is & to even surpass her.
A lot of religious institutions across the world have leaders at this level who have spent time to invest in people & their development & they have significantly transformed lives in their millions.
In my life & career over the years, I’ve work so hard to move along the leadership ladder from Level 1 to 3 & I’ve achieved some successes & results along the way by the grace of God. Now I am working even harder to move into level 4 in which I begin to add more value to people, to empower them & ensure that they become the best they can be & achieve results of their own.
Success vs Significance
While talking to airmen at the Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas last year, John highlighted the difference between success & significance. Success is all about “self” while significance is about “others“. Level 4 leaders move from just achieving success & results to significance by reproducing the same results in the lives of other.
I love watching dance shows like “Dancing with the Stars(DWTS)” & “So you think you can dance (SYTYCD)“, but I fell in love more with SYTYCD when the producer Nigel Lythgoe started a fresh season for kids ( SYTYCD – the next generation). With this action, the show has moved to a level of significance beyond all other dance shows & I personally believe that true generational success requires succession to be complete & lasting.
In the coming posts, we will look at the last level of leadership, delve into another leadership concept & finally highlight some work ethics that ensures success.
Are you a leader? What is the level of your influence? No matter where you are now, strive to move to the next level. There is much more to achieve!!
This is my snippet, I am SHALOMESQ!!!
Shalomesq Snippet 