22 Apr Leadership Lid
Are you raising your leadership lid?
Christopher Hart here with Transforming Lives Coaching and Consulting. So today’s topic we’re talking about has to do with learning, and so what we’ve come to understand about learning with leadership is we understand that leaders are learners, and it’s an imperative aspect of leadership because without learning you’re not raising your lid and if you’re not raising your lid you’re not leading the most amount of people that you could possibly lead or you’re not leading effectively which means you are putting a ceiling of achievement on your ability to influence others. So what we’re going to look at this morning is how do we understand what learning is with regard to leadership because I think there’s an element about learning with regard to leadership that gets overlooked. People tend to think that learning is learning, and it is, and any sort of learning is better than no learning at all, but what we really want to look at is what is the learning element to leadership that can make us effective leaders.
So what we want to look at is learning for leadership.
What it means, how it can be effective to us, how it can raise our lid and how it can allow us to maximize our ability to be effective in influencing others and the most amount of people in any particular environment.
So the first thing I want to talk about is the importance of learning. In leadership the challenge of leadership is that it’s a moving target, it’s not formulaic, it’s not X plus Y equals Z; if you do this and that you get this. What it is is it’s leading people, and people become the variable that we can’t control in essence because everybody comes to us with a different element of programming from either their experiences in life, the environments in which they grew up in and their own learning journey along the way. So what we’ve come to understand is every single person is unique and they come to us with an element of programming that we as leaders are basically responsible to be able to influence. And what I teach in my script mastery as well as my leadership development classes and coaching is in order to influence someone you must know what influences them. What people learn along the way in life, both directly or indirectly, becomes part of their programming and their programming is what influences them. So learning, and as a leader what you’re learning is going to be what you’re going to pour into other people to become their programming such that if you understand what their programming is then you have a greater chance of being able to influence them because you understand what influences them.
So to dig into this a little bit further, here’s what I’ve experienced as a leadership coach and consultant. There’s a lot of people out there, and you see this quite often on social media, you’ll hear people or see people on social media put a post out there and say, “Hey I just finished this book,” insert whatever book that everyone’s reading at the moment, “… what do you recommend as the next book?” And then all of a sudden you see all these comments below it and it’ll say stuff like “Oh The Grind,” or “Wealth Can’t Wait,” or “Tony Robbins this,” or “Jim Rohn that.” They’ll tell you all the popular names, and if you walk into a Barnes and Noble and you go to the self-improvement area or the business in leadership area in Barnes and Noble those are the ones that are prominently displayed. Or maybe it’s a book that in your circles everybody is bragging about saying, “You should read this.” I believe in that, there’s an element of purposefulness that brings value to taking that approach, but in leadership what we have to understand is that you have to know your strengths and your weaknesses, and in business we say “play to our strengths, leverage our weaknesses.”
Well it’s okay to leverage your weakness to a certain degree, I do believe that you also have to learn about your weaknesses in the areas that how you can improve in those areas and even strengthen what your strengths are. So what that requires is a leadership growth plan. And what’s a leadership growth plan? Leadership growth plan is understanding the leadership journey that you’re on, where you are at and where you’re trying to go, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses; what are the areas that can maximize your ability to influence the most amount of people in your current journey as well as make the most amount of money. If you’re naturally a grinder, if you’re going to get up and grind it out every day because that’s just in your personality, do you really need to read the book The Grind by Angela Duckworth? Fantastic book but if you’re already a grinder do you really need to read that? Or are you reading it because all the cool guys or the name brand people in your industry or company are reading it, or someone from a stage told you to read it, or Angelo was the keynote speaker?
You know if you’re in an industry that requires marketing at a high level and you’re reading something that’s not marketing, that’s improving your strengths and knowledge in that particular area, yes you’re learning but you’re not learning effectively. You see leadership requires effective purposeful learning meaning there’s a purpose to it, not just learning for learning’s sake, learning purposefully. And so the best advice that I can give to leaders today is that we want to ensure that our learning journey is a purposeful learning journey, that it has a purpose and the purpose is we’re either closing the gap on a weakness or we’re expanding the capacity of our strengths, and all that comes in the way of a leadership growth plan.
You see I see a lot of leaders jump into leadership, or people jump into leadership and they do a very entrepreneurially, very naturally. And in the KW world in the six personal perspectives they talk about go from E to P, go from entrepreneurial to purposeful; and so purposeful means doing something with a purpose, being full of purpose. So if we’re going to look to go from entrepreneurial to purposeful in leadership then our growth journey which is going to allow us to raise our lid, because John Maxwell says that the level of your lid is going to determine the level or the capacity of potential for your organization, that your organization and its people will always perform one level below what your leadership lid is. So if you’re looking to increase your leadership lid, which is your capacity to influence people, then we want to look at making sure that it has a purpose to it, that we’re not just showing a smart book of …you know there’s a lot of people out there that will do a video and they’ll stand in front of their bookshelves and it has all these books and they’ll even pull them out and say “Oh this was a great fantastic book.” It’s a great fantastic book for someone that’s on that particular journey.
If you’re not on that particular journey and you don’t need to close the gap of a weakness or increase the capacity of a strength then all that is is just a great book sitting on a shelf, it’s not doing you any good, it’s not creating any sort of purpose in your leadership journey.
So what I hope you take away from this video today is that leaders are learners, we have to constantly be learning, why? Because leadership is a moving target, we need to constantly be increasing our capacity to influence people at a high level based off of all the variables that are involved in leadership. And that’s the key element about leadership is that there are so many different variables that come into play that cause us to have to be able to adjust on the fly and not just say, “Here’s my personality that’s how I lead, deal with it. If you don’t like it go find someone else.”
It’s more about being able to be flexible.
Being adaptable to different environments, adaptable to different situations, and it’s about learning and understanding what all those situations and environments and experiences can or are along your leadership journey based off of where you’re at and where you’re trying to go. You see John Maxwell has a great daily devotional, I’ve posted it on my Facebook page, and on April 6th he actually talks about this topic, Leaders are Learners, and there’s something very key that he says in there that I want to share with you guys. He says in a study of 90 top leaders from a variety of fields, leadership experts Warren Bennis and Burton Eunice made a discovery about the relationship between growth and leadership, quote, “It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from their followers. Successful leaders are learners and the learning process is ongoing…” you’re ready for this? Here’s the kicker leaders, “… a result of self-discipline and perseverance.”
You see leadership, learning along the way is going to help increase our capacity as well as the capacity of other people, but it requires two key elements, self-discipline and perseverance, why? Because leadership’s a moving target, it’s a fail forward concept. It’s not a destination, it’s not an event, it’s not a place, it’s an ongoing journey just like life. And in life if you think you’ve arrived you’re really dead, just like leadership, same parallel, it’s a journey. If you think you’ve arrived as a leader truly you’re dead, you’re dead in your shoes because it’s a journey of constant learning and growth and it requires self-discipline and perseverance, the self-discipline to do the right thing and do it when it needs to happen and persevere through hardship, through difficulty, through when things aren’t going your way, when life’s not meeting your expectations you’re still learning, you’re still growing, you’re still failing forward, because if you’re not doing those key elements as a leader you’re not increasing your leadership lid, and if your leadership lid is here you’re organizations here. If your leadership lid is here you create the capacity to bring your organization to the highest level possible. So leaders let’s get together, let’s start a learning journey, a purposeful learning journey, one that has a purpose that understands where you’re at, where you’re trying to go and you’re looking at different ways of how you can close the gap of your weaknesses, increase your capacity of your strengths so that you can influence more people, any situation, any time in any environment.
Guys I hope we brought value to your biz … not just your business but your life also. When I talk about these leadership principles in our Lead Strong video series I want you to think of it more than just a business, this is about life and the ability to lead our spouses, our children, our friends, our family, our organization, our churches, et cetera; because we’re dealing with people. Anytime you’re dealing with people and you’re leading them these principles apply, they parallel themselves in all the various different environments.
We’re going to keep bringing you various different topics that can increase your lid, increase your learning, increase your ability to influence people anytime, anywhere, any situation. So thanks for joining me today, we’d love to hear your comments down below or even on the replay and in our YouTube channel. If you don’t know what our YouTube channel is here’s the link, click here.
Remember one thing, God loves you, so do I. Lead strong and have a great rest of your day. Take care.
About the author:
Over the course of 8 years, Christopher Hart went from an enlisted Private First Class to a Commissioned Officer-Captain. In 2005, Christopher chose to move on from his military career to focus on starting a family and embarking in the world of entrepreneurship. Christopher’s passion is now working to help others be the BEST version of themselves and helping them Lead others to the same!
To learn more about Christopher Hart or to get in touch with him regarding a coaching program you can email him at Chris@TransformingLivesCoaching.com
No Comments