Four Essentials For Developing Your Leadership
Thanks to John Parker Stewart and Daniel Steward for this guest post.
The great hotel founder, J. Willard Marriott, once said, “You can’t improve 1000% in one thing, but you can improve 1% in a thousand things.”
Too often leaders look for a single experience to vault them to success; the unique moment that qualifies them as a complete leader. What they misunderstand is that true leadership development happens through a process of accumulating leadership skills patiently, yet persistently.
4 essentials in leadership development:
1. Build four critical relationships.
Every leader must achieve results for their boss, their peers, their direct reports, and their customers. As you develop your action plan, identify and focus on the skills and behaviors that provide what each relationship values and needs.
2. Start small; be persistent.
From small, seemingly simple things, major gains occur. Real and lasting improvements in one’s skill level and leadership talents are developed one step at a time. Patient, persistent effort over time is required to experience gains in one’s ability to lead.
3. Learn by doing.
Leadership development does not happen during a single event or training session. Instead, leaders must commit to practicing their leadership skills every day.
Leadership development is a journey of insight, action, and reflection.
4. Improve one or two specific behaviors at a time.
Key leadership skills and behaviors include a range of essential leadership elements such as strategic thinking, decision making, coaching, change management, and more. When pursuing your leadership development, focus on one or two of these at a time.
You experience more profound success when you aim to accumulate skills over time.
Questions:
When you reflect on your own leadership skills, what is one change you can make that will most improve your overall effectiveness?
Would your boss or your direct reports agree?
What small action can you take every day this week to improve and practice this leadership skill?
John Parker Stewart is an internationally recognized award-winning author, coach, and speaker. He and his Stewart Leadership team provide coaching, training and consulting services to clients globally on change management, leadership development, talent management, and team performance.
Daniel Stewart is a sought-after talent management and leadership development consultant and coach with proven experience advising senior leaders, leading change, and designing leadership-rich organizations. He is the co-author of LEAD NOW! A Personal Leadership Coaching Guide for Results-Driven Leaders and he leads Stewart Leadership’s extensive consulting practice, business development, and international partnerships.
The comment about leadership being a journey of insight, action and reflection completely resonates with me. I’m almost 3yrs into a new role and finding that learning from mistakes (part of that reflection) is what’s making me a better leader. Thanks for the opportunity!
I agree. I need to do more of the leadership journey of insight, action and reflection. I am not an introvert or extrovert, I am an ambivert, a combination of both and it is a real struggle at times to remain positive.
1000 1% improvements. Love this, I am going to use this thought heavily in the days ahead. Love to read this book.
Thanks Christ and best wishes!
We leaders tend to be too much hare and not enough tortoise. Slow and steady wins the race.
Thanks ourkindoffolk. Nicely put. There’s a place for the hare, but no one can live that way all the time. I’m originally a farm boy. Farmers don’t get in a hurry. They work steady all day. One friend of mine says, “Steady on.”
I think daily reflection and information intake from this blog is an example of ““You can’t improve 1000% in one thing, but you can improve 1% in a thousand things.” and relates also to point #2, “start small, be persistent.” The subscription to the daily email arrives every day at lunch time here in Holland, which is an excellent time to bring this into action. What I especially value is the brought range of topics covered over time, all of which gives a good overview of all the factors involved in building good leadership.
A awesome post !!
I love the idea of small improvements in different areas. My focus right now is building strong relationships with my employees. I get so caught up in my own work, I sometimes neglect my job of helping them grow.
I consider myself as a practitioner and proponent of leadership. Practitioner means I get to do it, which fits into the “Learn by doing”. As a proponent, I not only teach and speak about leadership, I read and learn every day about leadership. In short, there is DOING (practicing the discipline) and BECOMING (learning through the doing). It is these 2 that resonates the most with me. And relationships, persistence and behaviors become the things we focus on on our “doing” and “learning”. And doing abd learning over time = wisdom. Thanks for the wisdom.
To be a leader you must reflect on your deeds and results, good or bad. The key point is improving your emotional intelligence and integrity. I have found that keeping a journal is a great tool to improve your effectiveness, as a leader and as a person.
I am excited to read this book!
“True leadership development happens through a process of accumulating leadership skills patiently, yet persistently” So very true. Putting into perspective that I need to focus on improving 1% on 1000 things takes the pressure of catapulting to show my leadership skills. Better yet, I need to brush up my skills only 1% at a time; as I know it won’t take long for me to touch a 1000 things. This helps me put my mind into a growth mindset and to commit to developing my leadership skills while remaining patient, yet persistent.
Being newer in a leadership role, I have to sometimes step back and recognize that I can’t take on everything at once for true long term success. In fact, I’m likely to drop the ball on something if I take that approach. One change I can make this week is to focus more on really listening and less on speaking just to be heard. I feel like I do that but I can slip back into a pattern of speaking too much.
Taking on everything at once is very appealing but completely impossible. I have to remind myself to do one thing at a time better so as to not overload myself. Great article
It’s trying to identify the activity that will create/add/enhance true value. This can be focussed on single huge transformational projects or multiple tiny actions that happen today, tomorrow and every day thereafter. It’s understanding what is important and what the priority is that is key.
I love the insight that building leadership skills takes time. You are not going to become a great leader overnight based on one conversation or a title change. It takes time and practice to build any good skill!
When you reflect on your own leadership skills, what is one change you can make that will most improve your overall effectiveness?
Do a better job of connecting the current problem or opportunity to the bigger picture.
Learn by doing has been and still is the key to my success as a good leader. I want those who I manage to be encouraged by my effort, see me as an example of a strong leadership and become inspired by my efforts to reach and achieve “our” goals.
My golf coach in high school used to tell me just to “advance the ball”. He didn’t want me to focus on how far it went, just as long as it moved forward in the right direction. This post reminded me of this and how it relates to leadership. Intentional movements in the right direction without focus on the distance.
“Start small, be persistent”. Reminds me of the parable of the mustard seed. What starts as the smallest of seeds grows into a large tree. By being persistent and doing small things well, leadership skills can grow and bloom. Leaders often try to be great at once rather than honing skills a little at a time. Good reflection!
Perfect timing on this topic for me. My team has been floundering and this was just the refocus on the small, bite size items I can do today to move the team forward. Thanks.
If a leader can truly understand and embrace point number one, they will be on the path to exceptional leadership. Every leadership book, journal, article, speech, etc… mentions something about relationships. If you can build a relationship with each of the four critical partners AND customize it to those partners, your impact will be limitless. Thank you for the reminder!
Sound like the good timing to refresh some principles and to learn new way toward becoming a better leader.
Growing up I always heard that “Leaders are born” but boy do I know different now. Every day is a commitment to 1% better than yesterday. I also find it helpful to be around leaders that I admire and spend far more time watching and learning from them. A great boss once told me to put myself into situations with managers above me to gain both knowledge and experience. It has paid off.
Wow, Just what I needed to hear today. I have to concentrate on small wins and 1% right now. I am really struggling with this, because everything feels like a Big Rock. Thanks!
That is true in leadership and in education. We talk to our students about just trying to +1 yourself each day in an area at school. Great reminders!
I like how the article is so easy to follow with specific action steps. I am going to work more on developing my range of skills rather than one particular skill.
This is great insight. The last nearly 2 years have been overwhelming. I’m struggling to find the small victories, but remembering that small steps/improvements make a difference. Thank you for the reminder!
All four are very solid and important points. #3 really resonates with me — “Learn by doing.
Leadership development does not happen during a single event or training session. Instead, leaders must commit to practicing their leadership skills every day.” I continually strive to do so, and build that into the programs we run. Great post — thank you1
Persistence and patience rings true for improving leadership. Thanks for making leadership development simple for everyone.
“Learn by Doing” resonates with me because I am new to my first leadership role. I find that I am learning new insights every day and I’m trying to make the most of those each day. I’m reflecting on the good and bad, and trying to spin the bad or not so bad into a learning experience to be able to develop upon improvements upon my skills. We can all learn by lessons.
Thanks for sharing. I like the idea of focusing on one or two specific behaviors at a time. This will allow me to make adjustments when needed.
“2. Start small; be persistent.
From small, seemingly simple things, major gains occur. Real and lasting improvements in one’s skill level and leadership talents are developed one step at a time. Patient, persistent effort over time is required to experience gains in one’s ability to lead.” This one stands out. Too often one is in a rush to accomplish something believing you have to score right away. If one just incrementally moves forward step by step you will score and you will learn and grow along the way.
Leadership is a life long learning journey, with a need to continuously develop soft competencies, hard skills, and insightful capabilities. To be an impactful leader, they need to be purpose driven, passionate, optimistic, courageous, humanistic, and open communicators. Key is to align leadership critical competencies with organizational learner needs and the desired company growth. Skills with persuasion and influence foster trust as well as purpose driven actions. And leaders need to always be compassionately empathetic and to be strategically transformational drivers.
I’m at a point in my career where I’m leading the largest team I’ve ever lead and I sometimes move so quickly that I forget others are watching and taking their cues from me in my daily walk. I acknowledge it, when I take a minute to reflect, and sometimes find myself asking team members for forgiveness. I hope that they learn from that as well – that even as leaders with 20+ years in leadership role, we have to ask for grace and forgiveness at times.
During this time…the need for leadership is more pronounced than ever. This book can help in that leadewrship development.
Building the 4 critical relationships resonated with me. Positive relationships are one of the things that makes showing up fun.
Just from reading the questions, will help me understand why it is important to think about what needs to get done and why. Becoming a better leader will help my staff grow, so books like this are very helpful.
I am a nursing home administrator, coming off of the last year-plus, my team deserves the best leadership I can give them. I have been trying to sharpen my skills and it sound like this book is what I need.
When working with leaders on their development I tend to say “Your development is now. Think of one single step you can make today / this week to make this development happen.” This is about thinking “small” to finally anticipate an important change (in approach to leading people). I am so happy to see leaders experimenting with this new ways of thinking and acting. When they start this experiments – magic happens! This is much about 1. designing scenarios for crucial relationships (this magic can happen in a single meeting if you design this “event” the right way) 2. starting small (the single step start a journey!) 3. learning by doing (experimenting is exactly that) 4. improving one or two single behaviors (anyway – it may be challenging! – that’s why I encourage to build on strengths, being aware of one’s limitations…) p.s. I would be very happy to be able to read the book, which seems the one for me 😉
I have found that learning to do several tasks very, very well can catapult your knowledge in a major way. This can often be accomplished through coaching/mentoring my team and asking them to explain their work in detail. It’s a win-win: I learn while they are shown their skills are valued.
One of the things that I’m currently working on is taking the “we” out of comments that really mean “you”. I look for ways to soften the blow but recently read that by doing so, I’m taking away an individual’s accountability. I’m not a softie manager, but I do try to use phrases that get the point across without being too harsh. It’s about finding the right balance for myself so that I am able to provide necessary feedback that is both heard and is actionable.
Leadership has evovled in a lot of ways, but yet stayed the same. All people have some leadership traits in them. Leadership doesn’t just mean a title it’s in what you do and what you say. How you do and how you say things. But like any skill or ability it needs to be cultivated and we have to work at it. Leadership skills can be used in all aspects of our lives not jsut the workplace.
As was written, I believe leadership requires practice to become skilled and idea leaders must commit to practicing their leadership skills every day.
Focusing on one or two areas to improve in is a tough one for me. With a constant desire to be better, picking one or two areas creates internal conflict and I end up not choosing anything. It’s something I am working on
Taking the little steps is vital! Across time these ‘little steps’ amount to giant leaps and you build relationships along the way.
Looking forward to reading the book!
It’s the little things, they add up!
#3 Learn by doing. Too often we believe the fix is to have a one-hour training and believe they are knowledgeable. Get the training, put it into practice, reflect, evaluate, practice and do more, reflect, evaluate…..
I’d love to read this book 🙂
Great post. New leaders, especially, want everything to happen fast and get impatient. Start small, build relationships, learn by doing, and work on two specific behaviors at a time is such great advice, for the newer leader, and great reminders for those of us who have been “practicing” for years.
Huge fan of working on 1% improvements, they certainly add up!
Anyone can lead from their chair – title doesn’t matter. For me, the key in bettering myself has been developing relationships and at times my behavior has hindered that. So every day I focus on how I show up and that has helped, especially on a day where I’m not feeling my best. Thanks for these insights!
The best part of this post is the reflective questions. I appreciate how this makes us pause, take a self assessment and refocus us on our North star. This gets lost in the daily shuffle. Sometimes less is more, focusing on a few things will get us farther than many. I hope succeed, dial and learn at the right things.
Change takes time and focusing on one or two thing will add up.
This book sounds incredible and valuable. I couldn’t agree with this statement more: “true leadership development happens through a process of accumulating leadership skills patiently, yet persistently.” Being a solid leader takes time, patience, and resilience.
Great article. These points are so important for leaders to learn. Leadership is a journey! Daily we walk along the road of that journey and learn new and valuable points one step at a time. This book looks like it will be a great addition to my leadership journey
As a school district administrator, I focus my thoughts, attention, time and effort on 3 of the 4 groups outlined under #1 Building 4 Critical Relationships. While I do interact with students, I am not intentional about sustaining a relationship with them. My interactions are friendly and casual. This post is making me rethink this behavior. Thank you!!!
I love the 4 essentials. Small incremental shifts lead to huge results over time.
For me, it is truly about relationships. In thinking about one small change that I could make as a leader I go back to investing time in others. When you asked whether my boss or direct reports would agree, I think they would! I consistently audit my time to see if I am spending it where I think I do. Others want to feel like they have all of my attention. I try to get to know others in ways that allow me to meet their varied needs. As a school principal, I juggle many relationships. So long as my escalator is moving up and is not stopped I am happy.
So much from this post resonates with me and my experiences! I strive to be the best leader I can be, but you said it perfectly in this quote: “Leadership development is a journey of insight, action, and reflection.” I find the more reflecting I do about my experiences is what helps me to be a better leader. It’s such a small thing that has such high rewards. I am definitely adding this book to my “MUST Read List”! Thanks!
Starting small is really the key! We are all busy and our cups runneth over. Taking on a new task to improve skills seems like it can’t be done. But, starting small…building those key relationships…it makes it easier.
The idea of making small, incremental improvements in multiple areas is so valuable. It’s so easy to get locked up or paralyzed expecting that it is necessary to make a big move in order to improve.
A great reminder this morning.
Great tips and wondering how I may use these to support a struggling leader.
We need the same things (fundamentally) from our leaders today as we did 200,000 years ago. Every person who starts a journey into leadership needs to take the core lessons of leadership to heart – things like humility, empathy, curiosity and belief in others. My experience is they often don’t do the work to make a deeper shift in their leadership approach. Mastering the skills of humility, empathy, curiosity and belief in others is uncomfortable, awkward, and oh…so…slow… Quick answers of technique are helpful, but I’m disappointed at the lack of effort I see in leadership development to expose and drive the deeper shift needed. I’d take a leader who believes in me over a leader who knows how to craft the perfect change leadership message any day.
My Director is results driven !
Your daily emails help me stay grounded and makes me think of ways to improve my leadership skills!
Thanks!
I am sitting here, mind blown a bit, at the simplicity and yet effectiveness of focusing on strengthening four relationships at a time! I have even given this advice to teachers with students, and yet never thought about it for myself. I guess always thinking that as the leader I should somehow make all the strong relationships happen at the same time with whole group meetings or activities. I am excited to use this strategy and see what happens from there…
I have tried this strategy with behaviors (#4). For me, consistency and reflection is the secret. Stepping back from time to time and realizing I am trying to conquer many, many, many behaviors at one time and to bring back to a focused few.
Great reminder to use your bandwidth wisely by only working on four relationships at a time. Also, you can’t hit a home run every time you get to bat so celebrate the singles & doubles…they are moving you towards your goal.
I like the idea of focusing on one or two areas of improvement. We often have a laundry list of areas that we “should” improve upon because we are leaders, but not having specific areas to focus on doesn’t allow us to really develop that deeper skill set that provides long-lasting results. I want to be intentional about who I am as a leader and prioritize the areas I need to develop to get there, then make a roadmap that I review and update regularly depending on changing needs.
Key take take away, Simplify your focus to one or two leadership elements. Takes the pressure off of getting it all at one time.
I like this; “Leadership development does not happen during a single event or training session. Instead, leaders must commit to practicing their leadership skills every day.” I do not believe you can teach leadership development, it must be experienced.
Yes! One of the silver linings of Covid, for me, has been a re-ignited passion for reading to improve myself. A large part of that has been leadership. I’d love to add this book to my growing collection. I am continuing to grow my long list of mantras… ‘fail forward’, ‘take just 1 bite of the giant elephant’, ‘check something small off your list’, and on and on and on. Big things really are accomplished with little, consistent steps.
As always, a good informative article.
I echo the priority on building relationships. Point 4 is also a great reminder for me to focus on a few key skills or behaviors at a time where I can see specific and measurable growth, instead of aiming for vague general improvement. Would love a copy of this book!
This discussion reminds me of Danny Meyer’s Constant Gentile Pressure –
Danny Meyer, the successful restaurateur and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, has a business philosophy called “The Salt Shaker Theory” and grew out of a conversation early in his career when a friend and mentor stopped by his first restaurant and helped him understand the nature of leadership. As Danny tells the story:
He pointed to the set table next to us. “First,” he said, “I want you to take everything off that table except for the saltshaker. Get rid of the plates, the silverware, the napkins, even the pepper mill. I just want you to leave the saltshaker by itself in the middle.”
I did as he said, and he asked, “Where is the saltshaker now?” “Right where you told me, in the center of the table.” “Are you sure that’s where you want it?” I looked closely. The shaker was actually about a quarter of an inch off-center. “Go ahead. Put it where you really want it,” he said.
I moved it very slightly to what looked to be smack dab in the center. As soon as I removed my hand, Pat pushed the saltshaker three inches off-center.
“Now put it back where you want it,” he said. I returned it to dead center. This time he moved the shaker six inches off center, again asking, “Now where do you want it?”
I slid it back.
Then he explained his point. “Listen. Your staff and your guests are always moving your saltshaker off-center. That’s their job. It is the job of life. Until you understand that, you’re going to get pissed off every time someone moves the saltshaker off-center. It is not your job to get upset. You just need to understand: That’s what they do. Your job is just to move the shaker back each time and let them know exactly what you stand for. Let them know what excellence looks like.
For Danny, the lesson led to the creation of a management technique he calls constant-gentle-pressure. Each element is critical, and every member of the leadership team is responsible for reinforcing all three.
“Patient, persistent effort over time is required to experience gains in one’s ability to lead.” This statement here really helps me to take a step back and reflect on how far I really have come over the last year. It wasn’t huge growth all at once it was small efforts that contributed. I look forward to keeping this at the forefront of my mind as I take on different things throughout the weeks ahead.
Sometimes we need to change certain behavior radically in order to cope with unprecedented situation. For example, during COVID-19, many of us have realigned to save our business and ultimately our jobs. So , the situation dictates the most appropriate approach for developing the skill and behavior that are more valuable for that specific situation.
As I am working on developing my supervisory team here, I will use this post of 4 things to help them grow. I think so often we want to make some big sweeping changes that are hard to sustain and come off as artificial for our front line team. 1000 1% improvements is a great idea. I also love the reminder to learn by doing. For some this is natural, but for some young leaders, it is intimidating to ask someone they supervise for help or to let on that they don’t know how or what they are doing. I have found that by asking to help and to be part and in the trenches, I have learned more about my leadership and my team at the same time!
Words to live and lead by. As a leader of wildland firefighters for 20 years, I have shared these same tenets with them. Look forward to reading your book. Thanks, Dan, for sharing great content.
A good leader is developed over time with the right kind of mentorship and guidance. It requires you to show up for your team every-single-day!
It’s amazing that one of my classes this semester is Leadership. We just had this discussion in the class last night. My supervisor signed me up to receive these notifications maybe over a year ago. I would like at them and read them thinking she really see something in me. Than as I began to reflect over myself I knew she was right on point. My leadership class just sums it all up for me. A great leader ends with great results.
An associate of mine used to sign off on her emails “In Progress,”. That honest sentiment resonated with me strongly, and it mirrors the 1% improvement concept. Daily trying, learning, and reflecting are essential to the small improvements that lead to long term leadership growth.
Dan, Would like a copy of the book to read. Great information as usual, Start Small be persistent and learn by doing. Improve 1-2 specific behaviors these are great leadership development.
Leadership in the environment I’ve worked in for the last 25 years has changed so much over the years. I work in 911 Dispatch, and when I started there wasn’t really a concept of leadership so much as being managed. We now have a wonderful Director who believes in leadership; this allows me to be a leader and mentor in turn.
Serve and thee shall be served. People want leaders, they want to be followers, servant leaders accept that responsibility and commit.
Would love a copy of the book!
I would like to work on coaching and strategic thinking. I appreciate the focus on bite-size growth opportunities. Sometimes it feels overwhelming to bridge the gap between where I am now and where I would like to be. Thank you for your insights.
Essential #4 about improving behaviors over time stuck with me. I love the quote:You experience more profound success when you aim to accumulate skills over time. I like word pictures and it took me back to exam time in college and before I fostered good study habits, I tried to learn the entire exam material aka cram in 3 nights or less. It was better success for me in the long run to learn the material over time. I’ve carried that behavior with me through to my corporate career and everyday life activities. Awesome article. Can’t wait to read the entire book.
I have been a student of leadership for over 40 years. We all have different experiences, but we all become better through our unique experiences. When I speak to young leaders, I emphasize that I can effectively share not so much what I know, but what I have learned. The good news is we can all experience success through what we learn from good and bad experiences. I appreciate the opportunity to keep learning from others who share their insight in writing!
“Start small and be persistent” resonates with me. I am new to my Leadership role in my agency and these ideas will be invaluable. Look forward to reading this book!
Leadership should be a way of life, by practicing it everyday it becomes natural. A leader should be the same person inside and outside of work, genuine and someone who ls always learning.
Great post. Full of excellent content and practical suggestions. Keep ’em coming!
I’m at the point in my career where the gardening calendar looms larger than the fiscal calendar and so I’m closely mentoring several staff so their in a position to take over when I retire. In a nutshell, this is the philosophy I developed over a very long time. I’ll definitely pass this along to them.
My new quest is to build courage. Has been a daily challenge to be courageous in my words and actions.
I wish I had this book when taking my masters degree I leadership. would love to get a copy!
Be able to “reflect authentically” (by owning our actions whether in a small win or a mistake), will chart our path for becoming a successful leader.
Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence. So small but frequent improvements make the major change.
I’m a peer mentor to new nonprofit leaders, and really like #4. Busy leaders cannot be expected to address multiple skill areas concurrently. And you’ve reminded me to ask about a next skill area to focus on in tomorrow’s coaching meeting.
For those not in formal leadership positions a good starting point is to routinely soak in a greater awareness of the many elements that encompass good leadership practice. My small action step to that goal is to add in just enough time before the work day reading Dan’s leadership writings – as well as to reflect on readership replies. I often miss the learning oppty’s for the normal tasks at hand. Persistence in a daily LF reading plan will help me to more readily recognize the leadership skills that need to be developed related to the work I do going forward.
Thanks for the coaching along the way!
Great thoughts. As with all things, you cannot tackle a Rube Goldberg device by trying to address everything at once. The above ideas certainly reflect this between a few critical relationships, starting small, learning by doing, and and always improving. These tenets apply in so many things. Just pick one and continue your journey towards leading and developing leaders.
Thanks David. Wonderful encouragement. The enemy of progress is trying to do everything at once.
Leadership development is needed at all organizations to ensure sustainable future success. It can focus on updating knowledge in all business functions, business ethics, and humanity-based relations with all stakeholders. The necessary inputs can come from experts and professional forums.
Self-improvement should take place on an ongoing basis.
Marginal gains and continued improvement on a personal level
Great read!
Employee training is worth the investment because replacing talents is far more expensive than retaining existing ones.
The executives is tied in with convincing individuals to would things they in all actuality do like to do, while authority is tied in with rousing individuals to do things they never figured they could. Thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts on this.