“I know what I am doing now.” That is what I thought after a few years leading sales teams. I thought I had arrived. But each time I allowed myself to think that, I was proven wrong.
Someone or something always surprised me. A new challenge would surface that I was not prepared for. It took awhile, but I finally realized becoming a leader has no end point.
Unfortunately, some leaders fall into a rut and stop growing. To be a lifetime leader, leaders need to never stop growing. If leaders stop growing, over time people will stop following.
Growth Takes Work
There are three things leaders need in order to embrace a lifetime of growth. Without them, leaders are unlikely to grow beyond who they currently are. With them, leaders will grow and flourish throughout their lives.
Three Keys To Personal Growth For Leaders
1. Openness
If I am to grow, I must be open and honest with myself. I must truly believe that I need to get better.
Without that type of vulnerability, it is unlikely that I would ever spend time examining my weaknesses. It is unlikely I would even recognize there are people who lead better than I do. It is unlikely I would ever ask for help.
2. Humility
Openness and humility are tied together. But just being open is not enough. I know many people who believe they are open to new ideas or criticism, but they rarely take any action to change based on what they hear.
It takes openness to recognize growth is needed. It takes humility to be willing to try something new that could initially cause me to be uncomfortable or fail.
The pride I carry for my past accomplishments can often cause me to ignore a new strategy or idea that would cause growth to happen. My pride can keep me in a comfortable place, when in fact I need to be uncomfortable in order to grow.
It is like exercising. If I never get uncomfortable and break a sweat during a workout, am I getting any stronger? Am I growing when I am comfortable?
3. Focus
Once I am past the two character issues that prevent me from growing, I need to maintain my focus. I must focus on growing the areas in my life that will have the largest impact on me as a leader.
I know there is a laundry list of things I need to improve upon. If I asked the people I work with daily or my family, that list could probably double. But what are the one or two areas that will do the most to improve my ability to positively influence others?
Here is a list of things I have worked on over the years:
- Eliminating gray areas and half-truths
- Saying what needs to be said, when it needs to be said.
- Praising good performance
- Being the last to speak in meetings
- Listening longer than I want to
- Focusing on priorities
- Avoiding sarcasm
- Following through on commitments
I did not work on them all at once. These are things I focused on over the last 20 years. What’s next for me?
- Serving others when it is inconvenient
Notice I am only focusing on one thing. But I believe this is probably the most important thing for me to improve upon if I am going to continue to grow.
I cannot achieve focus by diffusing my efforts across multiple tasks or strategies. Diffusion and focus do not go together. I wrote a blog on this topic: Focus Requires Elimination
The other thing you should notice is none of the areas I focus on has anything to do with skills or competencies. Skills and competencies are important. But people will follow character before they follow skill.
They want both. But if they were to choose, they always follow character. We can all strengthen and grow our character.
The Bottom Line:
Once a tree stops growing, it starts dying. As a leader, if I am not growing, my influence is likely dying as well.
To be a leader who grows I must first be open to my need for growth. Then I need to be humble enough to risk my comfort in order to grow. Finally, I must maintain my focus on growing the 1-2 aspects of my character that will improve my level of influence on others.
Becoming a leader is a never-ending quest. None of us have achieved the potential we have inside of us and we never will. But, being open, humble and focused will help us stay on the path to growth throughout our lives.
Question:
What prevents you from taking positive steps towards growing?
