Leadership is a Learning Process

To lead is often not in our makeup. It has to be learned. When to command. When to delegate. When to do nothing. Getting these doable actions mixed up does not produce good long term effects. Some leadership actions have to be done by you. Some must be delegated. Some may be demanded but should not be acted upon due to timing or lack of information.

Guiding and Mentoring your Leaders

Each of us has someone we delegate leadership to or quite frankly we are not leading. Knowing when to step in or stay out is a delicate balancing act. If you are a hard charger you can bully most people for a while but this doesn’t last for long. Those who are being bullied either leave (because they had character and integrity) or tell you what you want to hear because they didn’t (have character and integrity). Then you have not only a loss of productivity but a personnel issue to deal with.

Developing those leaders you lead takes patience and time as they learn what you want and expect. This takes constant communication and mentoring. In the beginning this can only be done with a few people at a time. However you will duplicate the amount of work you can accomplish so it is worth your time.

Leadership vs. Micromanagement

As your organization grows you may think you are able to closely lead 10-15 people without some leaders beneath you. And you may be able to effectively for a short time or ineffectively for a long time. “Let’s assume we are trying to be effective.” You cannot be involved in the details of that many lives and the decisions they make very long. If you are being effective the stress will overwhelm you. However, you cannot effectively lead without making the investment of knowing the details of there lives and decisions. It is well worth it because you can exponentially increase the work your organization can accomplish if you develop leaders beneath you who are good at performing tasks that you can or cannot do but are necessary. Continuing to manage or lead areas that are not your passion leads to burn out and lost productivity. This means you have to find people who have different strengths than you and lead them.

Identifying Leadership Within your Organization

Invest in your most valued leader by investing in your support people. Often we look to find someone like us to invest in to create more sales, profits, managment etc… Our thought process is, if I can lay this part of my work on someone else they will do what I do and the organization will grow. It may but you have basically created a rocket without a guidance system, or a rocket with a guidance system – not ordained by you. It will probably go to another galaxy taking your hard earned investment with it. Instead of duplicating your strengths, find complimentary support personnel first that will maximize your potential. Soon you will be accomplishing far more and have more business than you can handle. Then, bring managers or salespeople in to handle the overflow of what you have created. This keeps your vision intact throughout the organization.