“The bottom line in leadership is not how far we advance ourselves, but how far we advance others.”
John Maxwell
Service. This chapter is about service to your people and what do you add to your people.
I have been under leaders that have sucked the life out of me at virtually every interaction. I was a phone call away from leaving the company many times. It had gotten to the point I would go out of my way to avoid interacting with him.
This is not the type of leadership people need.
This chapter is about how do we add to people to make it better because of our leadership.
A long time ago when I was running a restaurant, I was short a manager We were working 6 days a week, 12-14 hours a day. It was exhausting, but that was the standard– if you are short a manager, all management staff was to work 6 days a week to cover. After a few months I got a new District Manager. He saw my staffing and how the store was being run well. The first thing he did was tell us to go to a 5 day workweek.
This leader went on to encourage me to be better and eventually I was being noticed by corporate. It wasn’t long after that time that I took a position in the training department, and we relocated.
This leader added value to my early leadership days.
It does not seem like much, but at the time his leadership added morale and gave rest to me and the management staff. He continued to add value as a leader to me and my staff for the next couple of years. I have always had a positive impression on the leadership he provided to me while we were associated.
Later in my career I had another supervisor that challenged me in positive ways. He challenged my thinking and decision making and made me explain why I wanted to do things a certain way. He did not do this to criticize, but to ensure I was making good decisions. He added value to me.
Just the other week I received a note from a former member of my team who told me thank you for all of the things I did to push him and make him better. He is now with a company as a Training person and doing a great job, and very satisfied.
I have had a few of these notes over the years, and it reminds me that my role as a leader is to add value to others.
As leaders we all need to step back and ensure that what we are doing as leaders adds value to other people and to the organization we are working for.
I am working with a group on developing their leadership skills. One of the activities I am having them do is to read through and provide their insights to each chapter of the book 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. This series of post provides the basic summary of each of the Laws along with my thoughts.
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