Learning, Performing and Becoming a Leader - Keller Williams Agents in Pembroke Pines Are Albert Schweitzer believed, "The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives." Leaders don't allow that tragedy. They live while they are alive.
In Brief Let us look at the five levels of influence taken from Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward book Launching a Leadership Revolution
Level 1 Learning
The first of the 5 levels is learning, Harry Truman said "Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders must be readers." Books represent the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the ages, available for pennies on the dollar.
Oprah Winfrey, when asked about her success said, "It all started because I was a great reader." Mark Twain stated, "The man who does not read good books, has no advantage over a man who can't read them." Learning must become a consistent way of your life and as an old proverb says, "Let it lead to action."
Level 2 Performing
Performers understand that success comes when opportunity and when preparedness meet. They also understand that desire trumps talent and that they can never be satisfied and are always changing the status quo. As the saying goes, "If what you did yesterday, still looks pretty big to you, then you haven't done enough today."
Performers initiate activity; they understand that personal initiative is not optional; it is their sole responsibility to motivate self.
Level 3 Leading
Leaders understand that dealing with inadequate resources is common. Here are a couple of examples;
Two British generals were conferring during the American Revolutionary War. General James Grant complained of the English army's lack of provisions and thin lines of supply. Commanding General Cornwallis replied, "Let us not dwell on what should be, General. Let us use the means we have at hand, and make it so.
In the American Civil War George B. McClellan was twice made overall commander of the Army of the Potomac, the major fighting force of the "Union" each time, he did a marvelous job of training the troops and bringing disciple of a "regular army" to the rank and file, but he was incessantly unready to take action. On the rare occasions when he did confront the Confederate army, he outnumbered them by two to one or even three to one, but he always found ways to become convinced that the opposite was true. He complained unendingly to President Lincoln that he didn't have enough men, arms, or supplies to conduct a proper campaign. McClellan suffered from an incorrect presupposition of leadership: he mistakenly thought leaders could demand and expect perfect situations before taking action. Reality for a leader is almost always a situation of lack and want. True leaders understand this and make do the best they can anyway. As the saying goes, "If you wait for all the lights to turn green before you set off on a cross country trip, you'll never leave."
Leadership is not a nine-to-five operation. It requires constancy and diligence and continual pondering. The major job at this level is to inspire people, they understand that the outstanding performers must be recognized and rewarded.
Ulysses S. Grant, Al Kaltman writes, "The superior leader knows that the key to success is his or her ability to attract and retain good people and get them to work well together as a team."
An old fable tells of the farmer whose mules pulled a man's truck from the ditch. It was a big truck, the cross country type, complete with sleeper and fuzzy dice. "How much can one of those pull?" asked the truck driver, sizing up the farmer's two scrawny-looking mules? "Bout ten tons each," said the farmer. "But my truck weighs at least three times that," the truck driver said. "Doesn't matter what they can pull separately," answered the farmer. "It only matters what they can pull together." That's the power of a team. Good leaders compel people to work together and hereby amplify the efforts where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Comments(1)