Great Leaders Make Others Great
“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great,” Mark Twain.
The most important thing
The leaders greatest challenge isn’t leading, it’s making others great.
Settle for nothing less than growing leaders that become greater than you.
10 ways to make others great
- Think less about what you want and more about what they want. Tap into who they want to be. Ask -how can I help you get where you want to go?
- Provide opportunities for failure. Nothing succeeds like a good failure. Our failures, more than successes, make us. Organizations that learn from failure go farther than ones that punish them.
- Accept average performance as long as there’s passion to learn and grow.
- Throw wood on their fire. Anyone can quench someone. Try igniting them. Passion, passion, passion …
- Learn from them by honoring what they know. They learn by teaching you. Additionally, Honor opens the door to influence.
- Listen to your selfishness. Give to others what you want from them. Not so you’ll get it back but so they’ll be built up.
- Step back so they can step forward. Prepare them. Provide resources. Set deadlines. Remember, leaders learn by leading.
- Be a safety net. Young leaders need a place of refuge where they can recover, renew, and refocus.
- Be direct with correction. Don’t play around. Describe wrong behaviors and explain the path to success.
- Leverage ownership over accountability. The power of accountability fades in light of ownership. Say, “This is your project.”
Your organization won’t suffer because it has too many qualified leaders. Effective leadership development taps potential and enhances opportunity. It creates the future.
Drucker said, “No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.”
Why don’t leaders grow young leaders?
How can leaders grow more leaders?
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Insightful post Dan – speaking to me of both organisational leadership and parenting leadership.
Reminds me of a saying – there are two ways of exerting strength, one is pushing down, the other is offering a helping hand to move up or along.
I’d like to share this post, if I may Dan, with a group I’m undertaking reflective practice with soon in the area of family violence.
The people who access their service do so to ‘recover, renew and refocus’ on leading a decent life.
Often the enablers need to ‘reflect, restore and renew’ their own selves to continue to resource their clients. By this I refer to a parent enacting and modelling leadership in good decision-making to the vulnerable in their family group and moving away from harm in their own lives.
The practice challenge from this post relates to how may managers in a family violence refuge ignite leadership skills, and create both a safety net and place of refuge for young leaders to ‘recover, renew, and refocus,’ a parallel challenge for and offered to their client group?
Thanks for the opportunity to express ‘out of the box thinking.’
Best
Angela McCullagh – Mediator and Workplace Consultant
Angela,
Love the spirit of your comment. Thank you.
You have my respect for the work you do and I wish you success.
I’ll pour this in your cup. In my own life a vision for something better is a huge motivator for learning to lead and change both myself and others.
I love to see the light come on in a person’s eyes when the vision for a preferred future begins to emerge. Of course the struggle in your arena is many don’t have enough self-esteem or life experiences to dare to dream of something better.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Best,
Dan
I want to ‘second’ Dan’s appreciation to you for the light burning inside you! Tough tough work you do, be sure to take good care of yourself in your efforts.
BTW, there is no ‘box’, only the ones we think we construct… 😉
Interested to hear what you mean by:
“Leverage ownership over accountability. The power of accountability fades in light of ownership. Say, “This is your project.”
Maybe you could expand on it in an upcoming post?
Love this lesson by the way! Thank you for sharing!
Rochelle,
I’ll write more about ownership over accountability when I review “All Hands on Deck” by Joe Tye. Stay tuned.
BTW, Joe will be giving away 100 of his latest books when I review All Hands..
I’m thankful you dropped in today.
Cheers,
Dan
Dan, you may have to change your middle name to Amazon with the number of books you seem to be dealing!
Dan – This is a great post for senior pastors with staff. Point #1 is what rings true with me:
“Think less about what you want and more about what they want. Tap into who they want to be. Ask -how can I help you get where you want to go?”
A leader tends to be goal-oriented on behalf of the organization. With eyes on the prize, it’s hard for some leaders to remember the wake they are leaving behind.
Scott,
We are on the same page with #1. Leaders get consumed with what they want to do. Then they start trying to make others do what they want them to do.
Great leaders find ways to align the dreams of others with the dreams of the organization. When that happens…watch out!! When that happens, leaders move from pushing ropes to fueling fires!
I thankful for you.
Best,
Dan
The phrase in this post that strikes me most is “Your organization won’t suffer because it has too many qualified leaders.” What a simple truth. It’s a misnomer to think that being a leader means you never follow. An organization of many leaders ensures that there is always someone who can take point.
Julia,
Thanks for affirming a fundamental point. I’ve seen business cultures where roles are set in stone and training people to reach higher is the exception not the rule. One result, the leaders are overworked and make themselves seem indispensable.
Cheers,
Dan
Julia is a featured contributor on Leadership Freak. Read her bio at http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/julia
Why don’t leaders grow young leaders?
How can leaders grow more leaders?
Great post, Dan, and our work world would be a better place if more leaders embodied at least some of your 10 points. These points apply outside of the workplace to, in schools, civic organizations, and families.
I have just started reading “Highest Duty” by Chesley Sullenberger (pilot of the plane that had the Hudson “landing”). He talks about his first flight instructor, a man of few words who did not use flowery phrases to make his point – this goes a bit to your admonition to be direct with corrections – in the case of Sullenberger having an instructor who didn’t “play around” paid off decades later when the student demonstrated the lessons he had learned from the very beginning.
Paula,
Thanks for adding to the conversation. I appreciate that you leave stories that illustrate important points.
Best to you,
Dan
Paula is a featured contributor on Leadership Freak. Read her bio at http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/paula-kiger
Dear Dan,
I love the point of ownership vs accountability. Ownership lasts long than accountability. Why don’t leaders grow young leaders? Well, my view on this issues is that there could be many reasons. It could be fear of facing of their curiosity, fear of being challenged, fear of being exposed ect. It actually depends but reason is based more on self serving approach.
I think leaders can grow more leaders by sacrificing, serving and sensing. Sensing their needs make leader to know what they want. Then it helps leaders to serve people by addressing and meeting their needs. Sacrificing is the most important components of leadership because leaders need to devote their time where making cost benefit analysis could bring unexpected outcome.
If we recall the great leaders who impacted, influenced and transformed people and nations, they all had three qualities. So, I think any effective leaders should essentially possess these qualities to be effective and authentic.
Great post Dan. Here is one more to add to the list:
Encourage open and HONEST communication. You can’t help them learn and grow if they are afraid to tell you the whole truth.
Have a great Tuesday,
Joan
Dan,
If you get a chance swing over to my blog. I have a two day post running about some leaders I had the honor of training.
Your 10 points are spot on.
http://wp.me/p1fWSr-6s
-Matt
“Settle for nothing less than growing leaders that become greater than you.” Love that phrase Dan. The servant leader in this one is strong. Great legacy statement.
“You are accountable for this project.” “You own this project.” If you use the first phrase, there is that element of command, control and hierarchy. The second would definitely motivate me and contains many messages..trust, responsibility, collaboration…
Why don’t leaders grow young leaders?
Is it because they may not really be true leaders yet? Or because they cannot see beyond a narrowed or short-term perspective, yet?
How can leaders grow more leaders?
Do your top 10, a phenom list! Ask probing questions designed to help growth, expand vision, shift paradigm. Gently point out nuances they may have missed, including fine points in presentation, pace, timing, connections, etc. Recognize, endorse, nurture those who have expanded your own vision, shifted your paradigm or helped your company evolve beyond the scope you could see.
I love the quote “power is about what you control, freedom is about what you can unleash”, great leaders give away power to enable others to grow. Perhaps we need more lazy leaders, they make great delegators!
Hi Dan,
“No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.” This is so true. It took me a long time to realize that having great staff could also be a reflection on myself and my company.
What great advice and what a great list of principles – that all of us as leaders tend to forget at times. I am printing this list to put up on the wall of my office so I can remember to incorporate all of them. Thank you!
A wonderful post. Lot of deep learning from the views shared. Great leaders are surely in a habit of preparing other leaders to ensure achievement of goals at a faster pace and with a greater efficacy.
The quality of leadership is seen when you say ‘Accept average performance as long as there’s passion to learn and grow’. The true leaders will put good faith in trusted people and shall devote time in preparing them to be high performers with right guidance and support.
However, leveraging ownership over accountability is incorrect. It goes hand in hand yet commitment approach will come only with accountability. Owning the project with no accountability will lead to miserable failures.
Great leaders always depend on the next line of prepared leaders to take care of execution of current line of actions and move forward with a select good team to visualize the future and immense opportunities that lie ahead. Preparing leaders thus become part of a regular process and become more like a habit for the great leaders to ensure all-round success.
Hey Dan, great reminder. Thank you.
Ownership beats accountability every time. Sounds like I’ll be reading Joe Tye!. Park the ego, focus on winning by letting someone else cross the line – every day.
Sorry just read Dr. Ashers comment properly. I agree they are inseparable, though regard that without accountability you can’t have ownership. Ownership is the higher place. Like the difference between jobs and position descriptions. It’s not whether you have a PD it’s anther you own your job.
Agghhh, iPad! That is : it’s not whether you have a PD it’s whether you own your job.
And on that theme – it’s not the IPads it’s mine for not checking!
Love this post today. It’s all about honor.
I have found that some average leaders need challenged to take them to the next level. If they cannot see their own potential, a good challenge to become a go to guy, or to help them see they possess greater ability than they think. A good challenge with a promise of a new level seems to always be the jump start to the next level.
Great post. If you first help others get what they want, you will get what you want. Be great by making others great. I enjoyed the 10 ways to make others great. Can’t wait to apply them.
Keep serving, growing, and leading.
Dan
Dan,
Wow! Great post! Again!
I have bookmarked this post and come back to it when I need some direction or energy. I plan to share this with the student leaders in our band to give them some guidance on how to support the other members.