Do you have a philosophy of leadership? Do you have strong beliefs about who leaders are? Not who they are by name but who they are deep in their core. Do you have a clear understanding of what leaders do? I do. And more importantly, I think there is a definitive process that leaders go through to become successful.
The following are the 12 steps that successful leaders go through to reach their full potential:
- Successful Leaders Go Through A Process Of Preparation – For a leader to be successful when everyone is watching, they must first have gone through a process of preparing when no one was watching. Whether it is the countless hours an athlete spends in the gym practicing, or the business leader who studied deep into each night while in high school or college, or the musician who played in obscurity honing their craft, all successful leaders must prepare.
- Successful Leaders Develop A Love For Reading – Leaders are readers. Reading expands a leader’s mind, teaches them new concepts, and exposes them to new possibilities.
- Successful Leaders Develop Relationships – Leaders learn early on to prioritize relationships. They understand the value of shared experience.
- Successful Leaders Struggle – Struggle is necessary for strength.
- Successful Leaders Must First Fail – Failure can make leaders bitter or make them better. The most successful leaders learn some of their greatest lessons from failure.
- Successful Leaders Are Driven To Prayer – This flows out of failure. The most successful leaders reach a point where they realize that no matter how great their competencies, experiences, connections, or resources are, we all eventually come to the end of ourselves. God takes each and everyone of us to place where we have no other options but Him.
- Successful Leaders Build Teams – Part of realizing our inadequecies is also realizing the need for skilled individuals to come alongside us in our journey. The old saying is true, we can accomplish more with we than me.
- Successful Leaders Plan Well – With a team, leaders can now begin advancing the organization’s mission and vision. Once this journey begins, leaders understand that a failure to plan is a plan to fail.
- Successful Leaders Execute The Plan – Planning is fun partly because there is no pain during the planning phase. It is in executing the plan that there is a cost. John Maxwell teaches that The Law Of Priorities is when leaders understand the difference between activity and accomplishment.
- Successful Leaders Recalibrate – Things rarely work out like we originally planned. The ability to be flexible and adjust plans along the way is critical to a leader’s success.
- Successful Leaders Celebrate – In an effort to be completely transparent, this is my weakest area. After leaders have gone through the previous 10 steps and ultimately achieved their objectives, the most successful leaders know how to celebrate in a big way.
- Successful Leaders Multiply Themselves – It is never lonely at the top for leaders who have spent a lifetime investing in others.
Preparing, Reading, Relating, Struggling, Failing, Praying, Team Building, Planning, Executing, Recalibrating, Celebrating, and finally Multiplying. If you have gone through this 12-step process, you are a successful leader.
What is one thing on this list that you can do TODAY to get better as a leader?
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