Leadership growth

 Personal growth is essential for your success as a leader. When you increase your leadership skills, you get a better result. One of the reasons is because you attract better leaders around you. 

Leaders will develop their people. That is why you get more than a 20% increase in the company's result if you build your leadership skills from a 7 to an 8.

Another example is in recruiting. A leader with a level 8 in leadership skill will recruit leaders of level 7. However, if the leader is a 4 he will recruit a 1. 

It is a fact that leaders with lower leadership skills always surround themselves with followers. Consequently, the overall result will be down due to high turnover, low engagement, and lack of teamwork or cooperation.

Leaders who develop followers want to be needed. They only lift themselves. Leaders who develop leaders lift others and want to be succeeded. 

When you decide to lift people and develop new leaders, you should focus your attention on their strengths. Invest time with them and help them to become better leaders. If you support the best 20%, you will get an 80% return. On the other hand, if you focus on the bottom 20%, you will get a 20% return even if they level their game.

Therefore, chose whom you are mentoring and don't send ducks to eagle-school. 

If you take over a management team, make sure that the people you are leading have the right mindset, and are willing to grow themselves. If not, you have to replace those who are not ready to grow. 

 

Influence is the foundation of leadership.

Influence is the foundation of leadership, and the more influence you have, the more people will follow you. Even though you might have a leadership position, the true leaders could be among the people you lead. 

As the positional leader, your job is to find out who is the most influential person in the team and get to know them. If you gain their trust and commitment, the rest of the team will follow. 

Speaking from my experience as a leader, I would say that the specialist can often be the company's informal leaders. They don't have a leadership position; however, they influence many people with their knowledge and experience.

If they don't get the attention that some of them often crave, they can negatively influence the company with their negative attitude. Give them attention and praise them for their positive behavior and show them that you value them. Ask them to share their knowledge with others. They will feel more important, and their self-esteem will go up. 

Here are other ways of how you can increase your influence with others:

Get to know your people more sincerely. Show them that you care. Ask about their hobbies, children, sports, etc. Remember their name and tie back to your conversation the next time you meet. Interesting people are interested in others.

Value the people around you. See good in everyone.

·Add value to people. You cannot add value to people if you don't value people. 

Share or give away something to others for free. People don't like to be in debt, and they will repay you later on, even though you said you didn't want anything in return.

Encourage others to add value to others. By nurturing and helping the organization, the trust will increase, and cooperation will flourish.

·Have others say yes to small things first, and then they are more likely to say yes to larger items later. Build their confidence by believing in them and encourage them continuously.

If people say something in front of others, a social commitment is created that will be hard to break later on.

·Social prof is working for you when others are saying the things you are saying. If other people talk positively about you or want to be with you, you are more likely to have more followers.

·Always talk positively of others. Criticism is like a carrier pigeon; it will always come back to you.

 

Know your greatest asset in the company

When the CEO of the company says that the company's number one priority is the customer, you know that there is something wrong. Of course, knowing what the customer wants is essential, but if that becomes the most important object, the CEO has forgotten the most critical asset: its people. 

The CEO should focus on the people who are responsible for knowing what the customer wants.

The company employees will very fast after recruitment pick up if the leaders are there for themselves or the employees. You can probably guess the difference in the performance of the company. 

In companies where the leaders are there for themselves, you will eventually see a lack of engagement, severe turnover, and overall bad performance. Most of them won't even last, and if they do, it will be at a high price.

 

An influence example 

When I started my leadership journey, I got a tip from a friend to write Christmas cards to the people closest to me at work.

I have kept that tradition alive, and the feedback I get is always overwhelming. Sometimes I see people keep their Christmas cards in their bookshelves or pin them to the wall, a long time after the holidays are over. 

I usually handwrite something personal that has happened during the past year and what I have appreciated. 

I especially remembered one time when I wrote a card to a person for the first time. She was new to the company, and here is the response I got back in the mail a couple of days later:

"Dear Thomas!

Thank you very much for your Christmas card. I loved it. I have to admit, though, I usually don't receive appreciation for my work, especially not writing. I have not, during my 27 years of work-life experienced anything like this. 

I will keep this card for the rest of my life!