The Leader’s Greatest Return Continued

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Everyone Wins When You Develop Leaders

There is nothing in this world that gives a greater ROI to a leader than attracting, developing, and multiplying leaders.  The good news is that leaders can be developed, and everyone wins when leaders develop other good leaders.

Developing Leaders Is Going to Be Difficult but Worthwhile

Developing leaders is like herding cats. That is why so many people who lead let themselves become comfortable attracting and leading followers instead of seeking out and developing leaders. Followers usually follow. Leaders, not so much.

As Art Williams is apt to say, “I don’t promise you it will be easy. I do promise you it will be worthwhile.”  Developing leaders is the one activity that compounds a leader’s time, influence, energy, vision, culture, finances, and mission.

Developing Leaders Is a Job That Never Comes to an End

If developing ourselves as leaders is a lifelong process, then we should also expect the development of others in leadership to be an ongoing process that never ends.

If you desire to fulfill a bold vision or do something great, you have to let go of a microwave mind-set for leadership. The process can’t be done instantly. It’s slow, like a Crock-Pot. Anything worthwhile takes time. You must give up looking to cross a finish line and instead find your own internal fulfillment line. That’s something you can cross every day when you embrace the process of developing leaders.

Developing Leaders Is the Best Way to Grow Any Organization

Grow a leader—grow the organization. A company cannot grow throughout until its leaders grow within.

The strength of any organization is a direct result of the strength of its leaders.

The first law of leadership in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is called the Law of the Lid, and it says leadership ability determines a person’s level of effectiveness.

People too often overvalue their dream and undervalue their team. They think, “If I believe it, I can achieve it. But that’s simply not true. Belief alone is not enough to achieve anything. It takes more than that. Your team will determine the reality of your dream. A big dream with a bad team is a nightmare.”

Developing Leaders Is the Only Way to Create a Leadership Culture

As a leader, you get the culture you create.

Mark Miller, Chick-fil-A’s vice president of high-performance leadership and author (Great Leaders Grow and The Secret: What Great Leaders Know & Do), has trained leaders at Chick-fil-A for years, and he’s written extensively about it. In his book Leaders Made Here, he wrote, “A leadership culture exists when leaders are routinely and systematically developed, and you have a surplus of leaders ready for the next opportunity or challenge.”

Nineteenth-century steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie described his desired epitaph:

Zig Ziglar used to say, “Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have.”  Success for leaders can be defined as the maximum utilization of the abilities of those working with them.

IDENTIFYING LEADERS: Find Them So You Can Develop Them         

Most people have a difficult time describing what a good leader—or good potential leader—looks like. Leadership experts and authors James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner said, “Our images of who’s a leader and who’s not are all mixed up in our preconceived notions about what leadership is and isn’t.”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos remarked, “I’d rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person.”

Peter Drucker observed, “Making the right people decisions is the ultimate means of controlling an organization well.”

How do you identify good potential leaders, people you want to develop?

1. Assessment of Needs: “What Is Needed?”

2. Assets on Hand: “Who Has Leadership Potential Within the Organization?”

1. They Are a Known Quantity
2. They Already Fit the Culture
3. They Have Already Established Influence
4. How do you measure their influence? Use the 5 Levels of Leadership:
   1. POSITION: People follow because of title
   2. PERMISSION: People follow because of relationships
   3. PRODUCTION: People follow because of results
   4. PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT: People follow because of personal life change
   5. PINNACLE: People follow because of respect from earned reputation.
5. Speaker and author Mark Sanborn said, “Great leaders help people have a larger vision of themselves.”

3. Assets Not on Hand: “Who Has Leadership Potential Outside of the Organization?”

David Walker, CEO and cofounder of Triplemint real estate brokerage in New York City, uses four questions that help identify if a candidate is a good culture fit.  These questions work, no matter where your company falls on the culture spectrum: 

1. How did the culture at your last company empower or disempower you?
2. What were the characteristics of the best boss you’ve ever had?
3. Describe how you handled a conflict with one of your coworkers.
4. What kind of feedback do you expect to receive in this role and how often do you expect to receive it?

4. Attitude of the Potential Leaders: “Are They Willing?”

Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Airlines once said, “At Delta, we hire for attitude but train for aptitude. Always start with attitude.” He continued, “Bring people on the team that the other members will enjoy working with.”  Attitude is a choice, and at the heart of a good attitude is willingness—willingness to learn, to improve, to serve, to think of others, to add value, to do the right thing, and to make sacrifices for the team.

5. Ability of the Potential Leaders: “Are They Able?”

Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed, “Talent is always conscious of its own abundance and does not object to sharing.”

6. Accomplishments of the Potential Leaders: “Have They Produced Results?”

Builders share five characteristics:

1. Builders Love Results
2. Builders Are Seldom Satisfied.  Builders don’t get comfortable. They live the Law of the Rubber Band, which I taught in The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. It says growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where you could be.
3. Builders Are Comfortable with Uncertainty. Change is constant and essential to progress, and change brings uncertainty. Builders make themselves comfortable with that.
4. Builders Are Impatient
5. Builders Are Contagious. 

Red Auerbach, who was the longtime president of the NBA’s Boston Celtics, said, “How you select people is more important than how you manage them once they’re on the job. If you start with the right people, you won’t have problems later on. If you hire the wrong people, for whatever reason, you’re in serious trouble and all the revolutionary management techniques in the world won’t bail you out.”

ATTRACTING LEADERS: Invite Them to the Leadership Table         

The Law of Magnetism in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states that who you are is who you attract.

No matter what level you occupy in leadership, you can create a leadership table, a place where people not yet leading at your level can come, be welcomed, and try on leadership.

Tim Elmore, founder and president of Growing Leaders, has written about culture in the workplace.  When the culture is strong, it’s like the tide that raises all the boats on the water. What you lack in culture, you must make up for in legislation.

When questioned about his masterpiece (the statue of David), Michelangelo is alleged to have said that the sculpture already existed within the stone; he simply had to chisel away the rock around it. That’s what leaders do. They see the future leader within the person, and they help that leader emerge. Maybe that’s why professor and bestselling author Brené Brown defined a leader as “anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people…and who has the courage to develop that potential.”

Encourage Everyone to ACT:

• “What can you apply to your life?”
• “What can you change about yourself?”
• “What can you teach to someone else to help them?”

How people learn:

• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of learning a theory = 5%
• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of learning a theory and seeing a demonstration = 10%
• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of theory, demonstration and practice during the training = 20%
• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of theory, demonstration, practice and corrective feedback during the training = 25%
• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of theory, demonstration, practice, feedback during training and in situation coaching or mentoring = 90%

Leadership is more caught than taught.  As you attract leaders, put them in groups with people smarter, more experienced, and better than they are. If their potential is high, they will rise to the occasion.

In the end, the only way for any person to learn leadership is to lead. Leading isn’t a theoretical exercise. Lead is a verb, and to get better at leadership, people have to lead.

UNDERSTANDING LEADERS: Connect with Them Before You Lead Them         

On May 4, 2004, Coca-Cola announced that Neville Isdell would be its new chairman and CEO. Isdell said, “A company can’t succeed unless it has its employees behind it. They have to be convinced that the leadership truly has their best interests at heart and can win for them.”

Isdell was able to get Coke going in the right direction again. And he actively worked to prepare his own successor, Muhtar Kent, to take his place. Gregory Kesler reported, “Isdell’s leadership, along with that of Muhtar Kent, the successor he helped identify and develop, has enabled the business to meet its growth targets 11 quarters in a row.

Isdell was sixty in 2004, when Coke asked him to lead the company. In 2008, Kent stepped in as CEO.

In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, the Law of Connection says that leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand .

Soft skills, such as asking questions and listening, having empathy for people’s journeys, and understanding their perspectives, are crucial in today’s leadership environment.  Good leadership requires a perspective shift from it’s all about me to it’s all about others. That means we need to try to see things from others’ points of view.

Asking questions has the opposite effect of giving direction. When you give direction to your team, you often confine them. When you ask questions, you create discovery room for them—room for articulation, communication, innovation, and problem-solving.

When we face the fact that none of us knows all the answers and all of us will make mistakes, we create a culture where creativity can flourish, mistakes are acceptable, and people learn from setbacks.

Asking questions helps leaders build relationships.  As Maxwell wrote, Good Leaders Ask Great Questions.

Ask “Back-End Questions” that prompt leaders to evaluate and reflect on their experiences. Gauge their level of awareness.  Good questions asked on the back end can often prompt people to make discoveries and learn for themselves.

Someone once joked that we hear half of what is being said, listen to half of what we hear, understand half of that, believe half of that, and remember only half of that. If you translate those assumptions into an eight-hour workday, here is what it would mean: You spend about four hours listening. You hear about two hours of what is said. You actually listen to an hour of that. You understand only thirty minutes of that. You believe only fifteen minutes of that. And you remember only seven and a half minutes of it!

Psychiatrist and author David D. Burns observed, “The biggest mistake you can make in trying to talk convincingly is to put your highest priority on expressing your ideas and feelings. What most people really want is to be listened to, respected, and understood. The moment people see that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your point of view.”

During the “wet cement” stage, you have only about thirty days or so to put your company’s “handprint” on new team members before the cement dries and their thinking patterns, attitude, and habits are hardened and difficult to change.

As John Wooden once said to Maxwell, “Why is it so difficult to realize that others are more likely to listen to us if we first listen to them?”

Television host Larry King said, “I remind myself every morning: nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So, if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.”  If you want to be an effective leader, you must make learning by listening a top priority every day.

James Brook, a joint founder of Strengths Partnership, said, “Research shows that the majority of leaders still use far more advocacy—putting forward arguments as a means of persuasion—when interacting with direct reports and other co-workers. This behavior is frequently reinforced by top leadership and the culture of the organization which encourage ‘tell’ approaches to getting things done over active listening and questioning.”

MOTIVATING LEADERS: Encourage Them to Give Their Best         

Daniel Pink describes “seven deadly flaws” of external motivation (or what carrots and sticks can do):

1. They can extinguish intrinsic motivation.
2. They can diminish performance.
3. They can crush creativity.
4. They can crowd out good behavior.
5. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior.
6. They can become addictive.
7. They can foster short-term thinking.

THE SEVEN MOTIVATIONS OF LEADERS

1. Purpose—Leaders Want to Do What They Were Created to Do

With purpose, people’s have-to life turns into a want-to life. They live for a cause, not for applause.

Consider the notion that “a great man is one sentence.” His leadership can be so well summed up in a single sentence that you don’t have to hear his name to know who’s being talked about.

Maxwell says, “My one sentence is: I add value to leaders who multiply value to others. I want to be a catalyst for transformation, to help change leaders to change the world around them. What’s your sentence?”

2. Autonomy—Leaders Want the Freedom to Control Their Lives

When you ask people to share their opinions and then give them the space to make choices and find their own way to be productive, they feel more valued and gain a sense of control over their own lives.

3. Relationships—Leaders Want to Do Things with Other People

In Winning with People (see 25 Ways to Win with People and Be a People Person), Maxwell wrote about the Partnership Principle, which says that working together increases the odds of winning together and also increases the joy of working.

Personal transformation comes when we give ourselves to a cause greater than ourselves and believe in its possibilities to make a difference. That transformation goes to a whole new level when we find our people, lock arms with them, and work together to reach for a positive impact that is just beyond our grasp.

4. Progress—Leaders Want to Experience Personal and Professional Growth

A mentor once told Maxwell, “Spend your life being for something and running to something.”

John Wooden used to say, “Make each day your masterpiece.”

5. Mastery—Leaders Want to Excel at Their Work

NBA coach and general manager Pat Riley said, “Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.”

6. Recognition—Leaders Want Others to Appreciate Their Accomplishments

Everyone desires to be recognized, praised, and appreciated. As you lead and motivate others, never forget that.

7. Money—Leaders Want to Be Financially Secure

Radio comedian Fred Allen said, “There are many things more important than money. And they all cost money.”

Wanting financial security is a worthy goal. The best thing money can buy is financial freedom, which gives a person options. But money is a powerful motivator only until you have enough to get what you want.

As you develop leaders, you need to learn what motivates them and tap into that motivation.  For years Maxwell has used the acronym BEST: Believe in them. Encourage them. Show them. Train them.

As writer John Ruskin said, “When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”

EQUIPPING LEADERS: Train Them to Be Great at Their Job   

USC professor Morgan McCall said, “Survival of the fittest is not the same as survival of the best. Leaving leadership development up to chance is foolish.”

Strategic leaders who receive the highest return from their people equip and empower them. They position them and mentor them. They teach them how to reproduce leaders.

In the Bible’s New Testament, the word equip occurs fifteen times. One of the key insights about the concept of equipping is that leaders are responsible to equip people for works of service.  In context, that means fully preparing them and helping them to be effective in the work they will do.

Here’s a five-step plan for equipping: I model. I mentor. I monitor. I motivate. I multiply.

Use the acronym IDEA to describe equipping:

• Instruction in a life-related context
• Demonstration in a life-related context
• Exposure in a life-related context
• Accountability in a life-related context

Here’s a new equipping model:  I do it. I do it and you are with me. You do it and I am with you. You do it. You do it and someone else is with you.

You can see that this process starts with the leader but shifts the focus from I to you in the third step. But more important, it includes a multiplication part in the last step.

ESSENTIALS FOR EQUIPPING

1. Be an Example Others Want to Follow

Here is what you need to be asking yourself:

• Learning: “What am I learning?”
• Experiencing: “What am I experiencing?”
• Applying: “What am I applying?”
• Developing: “Who am I developing?”

Telling others to do what you haven’t done yourself isn’t equipping. It’s bossing. When you learn, experience, apply, and then develop others, that’s not bossing; it’s leading.

2. Gather Your Potential Leaders Around You

The Proximity Principle:  Bring people close to you to equip and invest in them. You can’t do it from a distance. The closer potential leaders are to you, the more interactions they will have with you and the more lessons they will receive.  There’s just one secret to getting started: never work alone.

3. Ask the Right Questions

What kinds of challenging questions are you asking your potential leaders? Are you challenging them to think and solve problems?

4. Encourage Potential Leaders to Learn by Doing

In hospital emergency rooms, nurses have a saying, “Watch one, do one, teach one.”

Research supports this idea. Industrial psychologist Robert Eichinger, along with Michael Lombardo and Morgan McCall, developed what they called the 70/20/10 learning and development model in the 1990s. It says that 70 percent of the time, learning and development occur in the context of real-life and on-the-job experiences, tasks, and problem-solving; 20 percent of the time, they come from informal or formal feedback, mentoring, or coaching from other people; and 10 percent of the time, they result from formal training.

5. Set Equipping Goals with Them

• Make Sure the Goals Are Tailored to Each Person
• Make Sure the Goals Are Attainable.  Ian MacGregor, former AMAX chairman of the board, said about this: “I work on the same principles as people who train horses. You start with low fences, easily achieved goals, and work up. It’s important in management never to ask people to try to accomplish goals they can’t accept.”
• Make Sure the Goals Require Them to Stretch
• Make Sure the Goals Are Measurable.  It’s not enough to say, “I want to get better,” or “I want to grow as a leader.” Those are good desires, and they may provide direction, but they are not goals.
• Make Sure the Goals Are Clear and in Writing

6. Remove Barriers to Growth

The ultimate goal for all leaders should be to work themselves out of a job. Equip people to replace you.

Try to pass the baton in as many professional areas as you can. To accomplish that, do these three things:

1. Place a High Priority on Working Yourself Out of a Job
2. Place a Higher Priority on Developing People than on Having a Position.  Ironically, hoarding power is often what leads to someone losing power. The position doesn’t make the leader; the leader makes the position. The way you expand your potential is to help others develop theirs.
3. Place a Higher Priority on Succession than on Security. 

Understand the truth of the old saying, “a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”  As a leader, if you work yourself out of a job, you’ll always have another job.

EMPOWERING LEADERS: Release Them to Reach Their Potential      

It’s very difficult for people to rise up if their leader refuses to put the wind of empowerment under their wings.  Developing other leaders can be hit-and-miss. Trial and error can’t be avoided. And that’s okay.

WHY SOME LEADERS DON’T EMPOWER OTHERS

• Lack of time. Many leaders feel so much pressure to get tasks done that they never take a step back from doing, to see where they could be releasing people to take on greater roles.
• Lack of confidence in others. Some leaders have a difficult time trusting others and placing their confidence in them.
• An “I do it best” mind-set.
• Personal enjoyment doing task themselves. There are some things each of us loves doing—that we should no longer be doing.
• Inability to find someone else to empower.
• Reluctance caused by past failures.
• Ignorance or inability to empower others.

THREE KEYS TO BECOMING AN EMPOWERING LEADER

1. Respect: Earn the Power of Credibility by Achieving Success

You must have power to give power away. That power comes from credibility. Only after you have achieved success and earned influence do you have credibility.

2. Relationships: Be Secure Enough to Give Your Power Away

The Law of Empowerment in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states, “Only secure leaders give power to others.”

Secure leaders who value relationships think of others first.

The greatest leaders aren’t necessarily the ones who do the greatest things. They are the ones who empower others to do great things. To do that, leaders need to be willing to give up center stage.

3. Environment: Create a Place Where Empowered Leaders Can Rise Up

Seven characteristics of an empowering environment:

1. Empowering Environments Embrace People’s Potential. 

Most people are unaware of the possibilities that lie within them. Good leaders introduce the people they lead to those wonderful possibilities.

In the Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, these words hang over the doorway of a large meeting room: “Through these doors pass ordinary people on their way to accomplishing extraordinary things.” That’s the kind of mind-set an empowering environment promotes.

Empowering leaders also raise up their people. They want them to go above and beyond the jobs they perform. Their mind-set is opposite of the one expressed by Henry Ford, when he complained, “Why is it that I always get the whole person, when what I really want is a pair of hands?”

2. Empowering Environments Give People Freedom

Nordstrom stores became famous in the 1990s by giving their employees the freedom to help people. Their motto reportedly was: “Use your own good judgment in all situations. There will be no more rules.” That’s why Nordstrom’s customer service was notoriously spectacular.

3. Empowering Environments Encourage Collaboration

Ed Catmull’s book Creativity, Inc., described his way of thinking like this: “If we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather than competitive, we become more effective because our ideas or decisions are honed and tempered by that discourse.”

4. Empowering Environments Welcome Accountability

Ken Blanchard wrote, “Empowerment means you have the freedom to act. It also means you are accountable for the results.”  People always produce better results when they are held accountable.

5. Empowering Environments Give People Ownership

When you empower your leaders to own a job, project, or task, they do everything in their power to bring it to completion.

6. Empowering Environments Value People Serving One Another

7. Empowering Environments Reward Production

Do you know what always gets done? Whatever gets rewarded.  As Britain’s former prime minister Winston Churchill said, “It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”

HOW MAXWELL EMPOWERS LEADERS USING 10–80–10

The First 10 Percent—All’s well that begins well.

As a leader who has experience, Maxwell helps the leaders who work with him to begin well so they have the best chance of ending well.

Start them off by doing five things:

1. Communicate the Objective:  Do not communicate how the job must be done. That’s up to those who are actually doing it. General George S. Patton said, “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
2. Ask Questions to Help Them Plan.  “What is the potential?” This question makes the leader aware of the upside. “What are the potential problems?” This question makes the leader aware of the downside.  “Do you have any questions?” “How can I help you?”
3. Provide Resources
4. Offer Encouragement. Believe in people, and have as your goal as a leader to help them believe in themselves.
5. Release Them to Take Ownership

The Middle 80 Percent—Where Leaders Rise Up to Their Potential

Leadership expert Warren Bennis said, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”  They do what’s needed to translate the vision into reality. How do they do that?

• Empowered Leaders Add More and Better Ideas
• Empowered Leaders Seize Opportunities. There’s an old saying: “No business opportunity is ever lost. If you fumble it, your competitor will find it.”
• Empowered Leaders Use Their Influence. Good leaders use influence, not power, to get things done.
• Empowered Leaders Facilitate the Success of Their Teams

The Last 10 Percent—All’s Well That Ends Well

As empowered leaders get ready to take their team across the finish line and complete the project they’ve been working on, this is where the leader gets involved again. The leader wants them to win, so he or she does these three things:

1. Add Value If You Can.  Ask, “Is there anything else I can add to this effort that will take us to a higher level or that will make sure we go the distance?” If there is, do it.
2. Give Recognition to Them and Their Team. Psychologist William James said, “The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
3. Ask Questions to Help Them Learn from the Experience.  “What did you learn?” Every empowered experience of leaders should be a learning experience. This question prompts leaders to reach for the lesson in both success and failure. Most leaders believe they need to walk ahead to show the way. A leader walks alongside successors and lets them discover the way, with her or his help.

POSITIONING LEADERS: Team Them Up to Multiply Their Impact    

When good leaders are gathered together, motivated by a leader, focused on a vision, and working together as a team, there’s almost nothing they can’t do. Teams of leaders are powerful. But they are difficult to create.

Leadership development has three levels of difficulty:

• LOWEST LEVEL: Developing Yourself as a Leader
• MIDDLE LEVEL: Developing Others as Leaders
• HIGHEST LEVEL: Developing a Team of Leaders

When you’re ready to start developing a team of leaders, here’s what you need to look for:

1. Leaders with a Track Record of Demonstrated Leadership
2. Leaders Who Understand Their Place and Purpose on the Team. The Law of the Niche in The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork says: all players have a place where they add the most value. Top executive coaches who work for the John Maxwell Company report that poor self-awareness is the number one problem they see in leaders.
3. Leaders Who Know the Place and Purpose of the Other Leaders
4. Leaders Who Love, Respect, and Believe in the Team No team succeeds when its members put themselves ahead of the team.
5. Leaders Who Embody the Values and Model the Vision of the Organization.  Coach Wooden said to his players: “Don’t tell me what you are going to do. Show me.” Talk can be cheap. Action is powerful.
6. Leaders Ready to Give Up Their Personal Agendas to Raise Up the Team.  The Law of Significance in The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork says: one is too small a number to achieve greatness.
7. Leaders Who Continually Produce Results in Their Leadership

FIVE STEPS TO DEVELOP A BETTER LEADERSHIP TEAM

1. Make Sure Your Leaders Are in Alignment with the Vision
2. Help Your Leaders Bond and Care for One Another.  Consultant Paul Arnold shared insights that researchers have discovered about the impact of team bondedness. On his blog, Arnold wrote: in conclusion, any group who wants to perform at a high level, needs to more closely bond (at an emotional level). Mike Krzyzewski, head coach of Duke University men’s basketball team, advised, “If you set up an atmosphere of communication and trust, it becomes a tradition. Older team members will establish your credibility with newer ones. Even if they don’t like everything about you, they’ll still say, ‘He’s trustworthy, committed to us as a team.’” Teams of leaders who trust one another, who are connected to one another, and who are bonded enough to want to give more than they take are able to communicate with each other and be highly productive. Mark Sanborn said, “In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly.”
3. Ensure That Your Leaders Are Growing Together.  Give them a growth environment. Recognize each person’s growth needs. Open up opportunities for them to grow. Walk with them in challenging times. Teach them to learn from every experience. Help them add value to their teammates.
4. Position Your Leaders to Complement and Complete One Another.  Coach John Wooden explained how he was able to get so many great players to play so well together. “It’s not easy,” he stated simply. And then he said something I’ll never forget. “Each player must have a place for himself and a purpose beyond himself.” What a perfect description of team players!
5. Communicate to Your Leaders How They Are Making a Difference

MENTORING LEADERS: Coach Them to the Next Level         

THE VALUE OF MENTORING

We cannot reach our potential without the help of others. Self-evaluation is valuable, but the perspective and assistance of mentors are essential. We all have blind spots where we lack self-awareness, and only another person can help us by providing another perspective. Mentoring helps us go farther, faster, and more successfully than we could ever travel on our own.

For the mentor, nothing is more fulfilling than developing other leaders.  Every leader you mentor can then positively impact other people. Mentorship is both caught and taught.

Whether you’re seeking a mentor or seeking to be a mentor, the following questions need to be answered positively to indicate that someone has the potential to be a good mentor.

1. Does the Mentor Have Credibility?
2. Is the Mentor’s Strength Compatible with Yours?  We teach what we know, but we reproduce who we are.
3. Does the Mentor Reproduce Other Leaders?

HOW TO MENTOR LEADERS

1. Choose Who You Mentor—Don’t Let Them Choose You

No one mentored leaders more effectively than Jesus did. He started with a small group of ordinary people, and those leaders created a worldwide movement. Regi Campbell, an entrepreneur and author who founded Radical Mentoring, wrote about the importance of the selection process in mentoring: Jesus picked the twelve. They didn’t pick Him. This is one of the most valuable lessons we take from Jesus. And one of the most countercultural aspects of becoming a mentor like Jesus.

2. Set Expectations Up Front for Both of You

Charles Blair, one of Maxwell’s early mentors, used to say, “Have an understanding so there is no misunderstanding.” That’s great advice as you enter a mentoring relationship.

The great John Wooden never wanted to be Maxwell’s hero. He wanted the best for John. In his book on mentoring, he described the difference between heroes and mentors: “A hero is someone you idolize, while a mentor is someone you respect. A hero earns our amazement; a mentor earns our confidence. A hero takes our breath away; a mentor is given our trust. Mentors do not seek to create a new person; they simply seek to help a person become a better version of himself.” That’s what you’re going for.

3. Personalize Your Mentoring to Help Leaders Succeed

Leadership expert Peter Drucker said, “It is important to disciple a life, not teach a lesson.” That’s what mentoring is. It’s discipling another person.

4. Care Enough to Have Crucial Conversations

Mentors deal with the “elephants” in the room even when others won’t.

Crucial conversations should be a two-way street. We need to be just as open to hearing the truth as the people we mentor. That’s why Maxwell gives all leaders permission to speak into his life.

Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta, has the same attitude. He says to his inner circle: “Tell me what I should stop doing . . . keep doing . . . and start doing.”  (Brady’s sidenote: At NASA, we’ve found the simple “Keep/Stop/Start” is a great way to receive individual and organizational feedback!)

REPRODUCING LEADERS: Show Them How to Develop Leaders       

Every organization needs more and better leaders. Why do I say that? Because the Law of the Lid from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership says: leadership ability determines a person’s level of effectiveness.

The Law of the Bench from The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork says great teams have great depth.

Maxwell provides good and bad news for us.  “The bad news: I’ve earned three degrees and never taken a leadership course. The good news: I’ve studied the Bible my entire life, and it has provided my leadership education. Everything I know about leadership I can connect back to a statement, story, or principle I learned in the Bible.”

Paul instructed Timothy, “Pass on what you heard from me . . . to reliable leaders who are competent to teach others.”  The reproduction of leaders would continue until it reached at least a fourth generation: from Paul (1) to Timothy (2), from Timothy to reliable leaders (3), and from reliable leaders to others (4). That’s how reproduction occurs. From one leader to another.

It takes a degree of skill and dedication to actually reproduce yourself and help another person grow into your job.  To develop a reproducing culture, you need to have these five expectations in place and ensure that they are met by the people in your organization:

Expectation #1: The Leader of the Team Is the Primary Culture Carrier.  Model these six Cs of a reproducing culture:

Expectation #2: Everyone Mentors Someone.  The bottom line is that taking on a mentor’s role in developing others must become a mind-set, and it must be practiced daily by everyone.

Expectation #3: Leaders Focus on Developing Leaders, Not Recruiting Followers.  Noel Tichy, author of The Leadership Engine, said, “Winning companies win because they have good leaders who nurture the development of other leaders at all levels of the organization.”

Expectation #4: People Are Continually Growing Themselves Out of Their Jobs

Expectation #5: Leaders Become More than Mentors—They Become Sponsors.  On the difference between an advisor, a mentor, and a sponsor, an advisor speaks on your behalf. She is an advocate. A mentor helps and guides you by pouring into you. But a sponsor actually opens doors for you so that you can walk through them to be successful. Essentially, a sponsor says, “Here’s the opportunity,” and all you have to do is show up.  Mentors matter. You absolutely need them—they give valuable advice, build self-esteem, and provide an indispensable sounding board when you’re unsure about next steps. But they are not your ticket to the top. Mentors can sometimes be passive teachers. But sponsors take an active role in making the leaders they’re developing successful.

DEVELOPING 3-G LEADERS

Seek evidence of the three Gs. They have to be grounded, gifted, and growing. And as you develop them, make sure you see them continue to develop in those areas to keep working with them.

1. Grounded—Possessing a Foundation That Makes Them Solid.  Characteristics of a grounded leader include: Humility; Teachability; Authenticity (Former South Africa president Nelson Mandela said, “I do not want to be presented as some deity. I would like to be remembered as an ordinary human being with virtues and vices.”); Maturity (Many years ago, columnist Ann Landers wrote a marvelous piece on maturity.  It’s the ability to say, “I was wrong,” to keep a promise, to make decisions, and to follow through. She finished by writing, “Maturity is the art of living in peace with that which we cannot change, the courage to change that which should be changed, no matter what it takes, and the wisdom to know the difference.”; and Integrity.  Humility, teachability, authenticity, maturity, and integrity provide a solidly grounded foundation upon which to build strong leadership.
2. Gifted—Possessing Strengths That Can Help Them Succeed.  Ability determines potential. The giftedness of leaders is the first step making it possible for them to grow and succeed. George Washington Carver said in 1915, “No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.”
3. Growing—Possessing a Hunger and Capacity to Be Developed.  As writer and coach David J. Schwartz said, “Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking. How big we think determines the size of our accomplishments.” People usually rise to the level of expectations of a leader who believes in them.

COMPOUNDING LEADERS: Receive the Highest Return of Developing Leaders 

An article by author and photographer James Clear dug into the Pareto principle.  Clear took the 80/20 rule one step further. He described what he called the 1 Percent Rule: “The 1 Percent Rule states that over time the majority of the rewards in a given field will accumulate to the people, teams, and organizations that maintain a 1 percent advantage over the alternatives. You don’t need to be twice as good to get twice the results. You just need to be slightly better.”

Applying this concept to his own life, Maxwell thought, “That’s the return that comes from continually developing leaders. It compounds! And the longer you keep doing it, the greater your advantage becomes.”

THE COMPOUNDING EFFECT OF THE PARETO PRINCIPLE

1. Small Advantages in the Beginning Become Big Advantages in the End—Be Strategic

2. It Takes Time for Little Things to Add Up to Big Things—Be Consistent

Right Choices + Consistency + Time = Significant Returns

3. A Few Leaders Will Give a Greater Return than Many Followers—Be Intentional

HOW DEVELOPED LEADERS COMPOUND YOUR RETURN ON INVESTMENT

1. Developed Leaders Help You Carry the Leadership Load. Recently, Maxwell was asked, “What is greater than using your gifts to help others?” His reply was, “Using my gifts in collaboration with other leaders to help others.”
2. Developed Leaders Multiply Your Resources
3. Developed Leaders Help You Create Momentum. The Law of the Big Mo in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership says momentum is a leader’s best friend .  What is the best way to create momentum? Harness the positive power of good leadership. Leaders are all about forward movement.
4. Developed Leaders Expand Your Influence
5. Developed Leaders Keep You on Your Toes.  Dave Anderson wrote about the growth of leaders in his book Up Your Business! 7 Steps to Fix, Build, or Stretch Your Organization: The primary reason so few leaders or organizations ever become great is because they get good and they stop. They stop growing, learning, risking, and changing. It’s dangerous to think you’ve arrived as a leader. As someone once quipped, today’s peacocks are tomorrow’s feather dusters.
6. Developed Leaders Ensure a Better Future for Your Organization. G. Alan Bernard, president of manufacturing company Mid-Park, Inc., said, “A good leader will always have those around him who are better at particular tasks than he is. This is the hallmark of leadership.” Mark Cole, the CEO of Maxwell’s companies, has been with John for twenty years and has proven himself as a friend and leader. Maxwell said, “I asked Mark to describe what it has been like for him to come alongside me in this preparation process, and here’s what he said: To succeed a leader, you must fall in love with that leader’s vision and agenda, so much so that there comes a point in the partnership where people can no longer tell whose agenda is whose. The two become so interwoven that they merge and become our agenda.”
7. Developed Leaders Multiply Whatever Investment You Make in Them.  Quinn McDowell, the founder of Arete Hoops, an organization that seeks to develop transformational leaders in sports, wrote, “The biggest benefits in life come from compounding interest. Relationships, habits, money, success, and growth are the result of making small investments in the right things and watching those investments grow (on top of each other) over time. As a leader, you must think like an investment manager.” 

Developing leaders gives a return to others.

Developing leaders gives a return to the leaders.

Developing leaders gives a return to the developer.

And what’s wonderful is that you can have that same experience…