Lesson #1 Fundamental Leadership

The Juice is Worth the Squeeze.

Principle 1.  The juice is worth the squeeze.  The first principle of leadership is that there is a greater benefit you will experience for every effort you put into improving your leadership ability.  Leadership, when done correctly, will magnify your outcomes.  Think of it this way.  You have two choices, do the work yourself, or recruit people and have them help or do the work with you.  One person or many people?  The difference is leadership.  With leadership, you can get more people involved.  I heard this saying many years ago, “I would much rather have 1% of a hundred people’s efforts than 100% of 1 person’s efforts.  The sum can be, and often is, greater than the individual parts.  It is like a drop that hits the still surface of water.  The energy that is released roles out to all corners in waves.

Principle 2. Leadership starts with me.  In order to be a leader a person must choose to engage in this work.  To do so they must have some fundamental skills. Think of a sports team or musical group.  To be a member of the team one must be able to dribble a ball or play an instrument.  After they have demonstrated proficiency, they are then put on the team or in the band where they learn their part. So step two is learn fundamentals.  

Principle 3. Leadership is a team activity.  Leadership requires interaction with people above, to the side and below the person leading.  The shear act of leadership is to convince others to support and follow.  Once a person has learned the fundamentals of leadership they then need to learn how the group works together to lead. This system of philosophies, tools and practices is called a Business Operating System (BOS), no pun intended.  Great organizations have excellent business operating systems.  Examples of systems and partial systems include the Studer Group’s, “Hardwiring Excellence”, Lean Six Sigma.  All organizations have a BOS either intentionally or unintentionally created. High performing organizations have a better BOS than other companies.  

Principle 4. Leadership has its own, intrinsic rewards.  To choose to be a leader, and remain engaged in the responsibly, stress and pressure that come with leadership positions one must “see the end from the beginning” as Steven R Cover explains in his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” There are a few perks that come with leadership such as titles, offices, salaries and benefits.  If you go into leadership for self serving purposes you most likely will burn out.  When you see the difference you make and want to be apart of something greater than yourself then the rewards will be far greater than dollars and titles. 

Principle 5. Leadership is far more than authority.  If your plan for leadership is to use control, manipulation and maneuvering to accomplish your ends you will never accomplish your full potential.  Why?  You will only have a small group of people over whom you have authority, while all around you are people you could lead with others means to engage in your cause and movement.  I call it ten to one.  For every one person you have authority over there are ten people you could influence with the right approach.  To be an effective leader one must strive to learn and implement more approaches than just authority. 

Principle 6.  Leaders know two things, Who they are, (Identity) what their purpose is.  They then help others learn their identity and purpose.