Blog about Leadership

I have written several blog entries about vision and I cannot emphasis enough the importance of vision for leadership. It is the single most effective and focused tool of a leader.

1. If you don’t know where you are leading than you are not leading.

John C. Maxwell: “Show me a leader without vision, and I’ll show you someone who isn’t going anywhere.”

Leadership is action. It is moving the organization through change to something better, stronger, and more enduring.

2. If you don’t know where you have been than you cannot know where you should go.

John C. Maxwell: “Vision starts within.”

To determine your vision, you need to do a bit of self-evaluation and learn your history. You have to know where you are as people and you have to know where you are as an organization.

3. Don’t be concerned about aiming for the impossible.

Edwin Land: “The first thing you do is teach the person to feel that the vision is very important and nearly impossible. That draws out the drive in winners.”

Winners like to win. Winning is encountering competition and overcoming the challenges. Those who win are motivated by challenges and by the achievement over those challenges. The tougher the challenge is, the greater the winner needs to be.

4. Vision is the conduit for a leader to inspire and influence winners.

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This is the third and final entry for the series: How to Create a Foundation for Developing Leadership Potential.

In Create a Foundation for Developing Leadership Potential Part 1, I wrote about:

1. Recognize what you know that you do not know, write it down, and then learn.

2. Recognize there are things you don’t know that you don’t know and create a lifetime of continuous learning.

In Create a Foundation for Developing Leadership Potential Part 2, I wrote about:

3. Take time to write out your thoughts on leadership.

4. Learn daily and start learning today.

5. Practice leadership daily.

For this 3rd part, I want to mention an analogy from the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt that John Maxwell wrote about in his book, Leadership 101.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

6. Know that you may fail, but, in the end, success as a leader is built on turning the stumbling blocks of failures into stepping stones on the journey of leadership development.

Nearly a decade ago, a generation-older friend of mine told me that I would probably be happier in life if I found a normal job, started a family, and just lived and lead in a community. I have always been focused on the highest offices of leadership – the leaders of nations and leaders of national, regional, and global change. I am a far distance from interacting or participating in such leadership roles, but I knew then as I know now, that I would rather run for higher offices, try to make the most difference, and fail in the process than to settle, compromise, or stifle my interests and ambitions.

I do not know what the next decade or three may bring in my life, but I am focused on learning as much about the world that we live in as I can, on creating a career foundation (financial and experiences) to be able to try, and then, when the opportunity is there, I will run for a public office – whether I win or fail, whether I can be a Senator or merely a candidate. I would rather try and fail, than to merely be normal and “happy.”

I encourage you to create a foundation for developing your leadership potential. Know that most important of all, you may fail, but that does not mean you are a failure. It means that you have created an experience in life to learn from.

To be a leader, you must take action. You must lead to be a leader.

The final thought today is from John Maxwell in another book of his, Failing Forward:

“The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.” ~John Maxwell

Take action!

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Last week, I started the new weekly article series with How to Create a Foundation for Developing Leadership Potential with the first two steps:

1. Recognize what you know that you do not know, write it down, and then learn.
2. Recognize there are things you don’t know that you don’t know and create a lifetime of continuous learning.

Continuous Learning

Today, I want to focus on leadership development by focusing on a lifetime of continuous learning.

John C. Maxwell on leadership development:
“Leadership develops daily, not in a day.”

Write, Learn, and Practice

Last Wednesday, I wrote Developing as a Leader Takes Time So Start Today.  In short, you will not be a great leader at the age of 27 and I know that I personally have many years ahead of me of learning and developing as a leader.  One major focus of my learning and developing is this blog where I can think about and write about leadership.  That powerful act of writing about leadership is a powerful act of developing my personal leadership potential; that is why I write this blog.

3. Take time to write out your thoughts on leadership.

You don’t need to start a blog or write a book, but take the time codify your thoughts.  You are invited to comment on my blog and I will engage you in a dialog to work together on developing leadership.

4. Learn Daily and start learning today

This is no more powerful force of change and development than a positive, daily habit.  Take learning, changing, and developing on an incremental, daily process to produce the greatest impact on your life.  You can read my blog, read other blogs, read some good books, or review leadership quotes.  What ever you do, do it daily.

5. Practice Leadership

I should add “daily.”  Each day, you will be presented opportunities to lead.  Tomorrow I am going to write about the most difficult place to lead (so come back tomorrow), but that place is somewhere that you are nearly every day.  For practicing leadership, there are four basic steps: To Be, To Develop, To Think, To Lead.

See also: How to Create a Foundation for Developing Leadership Potential Part 1, How to Create a Foundation for Developing Leadership Potential Part 3.

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The new weekly series that I started on Monday is: How to Create a Foundation for Developing Leadership Potential. John C. Maxwell writes prolifically about leadership and one point he continually emphasizes is that to be a leader it takes time, a lot of time, years and decades of time. While I agree, I also know as John does that to develop as a leader for tomorrow, you have to learn to be a leader today.

Leadership quote from Anthony Jay:
“The only real training for leadership is leadership.”

You can learn everything there is to know about leadership, you can read and memorize great quotes from leaders, you can study examples of leadership in practice, and you can codify your own leadership philosophy. At the end of it all, you will not develop as a leader until you “do” leadership.

It takes practice. Practice, as with anything, makes perfect. Leadership is an art, but it is a more complicated art than most recognize. There is no such thing as a scientific perfect in leadership, but rather an independent perfect that is unique to each and every individual leader.

To become a leader, start by being a leader and then practice, develop, improve, and mature over time, a lot of time, years and decades of time.

To start, you can follow my 7 Steps to Lead without Inherent Talent.

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“All Leadership is influence.”

“Vision starts within.”

“Show me a leader without vision, and I’ll show you someone who isn’t going anywhere.”

“Leadership develops daily, not in a day.”