It takes a leader to raise up a leader.

John Maxwell once conducted an informal poll to find out what prompted people who attempt to become leaders. The results are as follows: 10% because of natural gifting, 5% because of crises, 85% because of the influence of another leader.

According to the origin of leaders, more than 4 out of 5 all leaders that you ever meet, have emerged as leaders because of the impact made on them by established leaders who mentored them.

If a company has poor leaders, what little leadership it has will only get works. If a company has strong leaders and they are reproducing themselves, its leadership is just getting better and better. Occasionally a company will emerge where the leadership is so strong and the development system is so deliberate that the impact not only drives your company to the highest level but also overflows into other businesses. That is the case at GE by Chairman Jack Welch.

GE has become one the best run companies in the world and it keeps developing leader upon leader. In fact it has lost more leaders capable of running organizations than most other good companies are able to produce in their lifetimes.

How was GE able to produce so many outstanding leaders?

First, leadership development is one of the company’s first priorities. It spends more than 500 million dollars a year on training and it develops leaders at its own institute in NY, often called the Harvard of corporate American. Even more important than that is the fact that the company is run by Jack Welch, a great leader.

When it comes to developing leaders, it all starts the topic because it takes a leader to raise up another leader. Followers can’t do it. Neither can institutional programs. It takes one to know one, show one, and grow one.