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A Leader’s Lasting Value Is Measured by Succession
Max Depree, Author of Leadership Is an Art, declared “Succession is one of the key responsibilities of leadership”.
Achievement comes to someone when he is able to do great things for himself; success comes when he empowers followers to do great things with him; significance comes when he develops leaders to do great things for him; but a legacy is created only when a person puts his organization into the position to do great things without him.
Success is not majored by what you are leaving to, but by what you are leaving behind. When all is said and done, you ability to leadership will not be judged by what you achieved personally, or even by what your team accomplished during your years, you will be judged by how well your people and your organization did after you were gone. Lasting value is majored by succession.
This is the end of 21 Laws of Leadership.
John Maxwell summarized the following:
Everything rises and falls on leadership. The more you try to do in life, the more you’ll find leadership really does make the difference.
Personnel determine the potential of the organization; relationships determine the morale of the organization; structure determines the size of the organization; vision determines the direction of the organization; but leadership determines the success of the organization.
Learn to lead, not for yourself but for the people who follow behind you. As you reach the highest levels, don’t forget to take others with you to be the leaders of tomorrow.
To Multiply, Lead Leaders
Follower’s Math VS Leader’s Math
Leaders who develop followers grow their organization only one person at a time; but leaders who develop leaders multiply their group. Because for every leader they develop, they also receive all that leader’s followers. Add 10 followers to your organization and you have the power of 10 people; add 10 leaders to your organization, and you have the power of 10 leaders times all the followers and the leaders they influence. That’s the difference between addition and multiplication. To add growth, lead followers; to multiply growth, lead leaders.
Becoming a leader who develops leaders requires an entirely different focus from that of developer of followers. Consider some of the differences:
Leaders who develop followers want to be needed; leaders who develop leaders want to be succeeded.
Leaders who develop followers focus on weaknesses while leaders who develop leaders focus on strengths.
Leaders who develop followers develop the bottom 20%; leaders who develop leaders develop the top 20%.
Leaders who develop followers treat their people the same; leaders who develop leaders treat their people different.
Leaders who develop followers hold power; leaders who develop leaders give their power away.
Leaders who develop followers spend time with others; leaders who develop leaders invest time in others.
Leaders who develop followers grow by addition; leaders who develop leaders grow by multiplication.
Leaders who develop followers impact people only they can touch personally; leaders who develop leaders impact people far beyond their own reach.
When to Lead Is as Important as What do Do and Where to Go
The Law of Timing is a double-edge sword. Great leaders recognize when to lead is as important as what to do and where to go.
Every time a leader makes a move, there are really only four outcomes that can result:
If the leader performs the wrong action at the wrong time, it leads to a disaster;
If he performs the right action at the wrong time, it brings resistance;
When he does the wrong action at the right time, people see it as a mistake;
But the right action at the right time results in success.
The Law of Timing ever seems to be more apparent than before as the consequences are so dramatic and immediate.
Reading the situation and knowing what to do is not enough to make a leader succeed. Only the right action at the right time will bring success. Anything else exacts the high price.
A Leader Must Give up to Go up
Many people today want to climb up the corporate ladder, believing that freedom and power are the prizes waiting at the top, they don’t realize that the true nature of leadership is really sacrifice, it is a constant in leadership and ongoing process, not a one-time payment.
Leaders who want to rise has to do even more than occasional cut in pay, they have to give up their rights. Gerald Brooks says, “When you become a leader, you lose the right to think about yourself.”
The Law of Sacrifice demands, “The greater the leader, the more he must give up”.
Leaders Understand That Activity Is Not Necessarily Accomplishment.
Leaders never grow to a point where they no longer need to prioritize. It’s something that leaders keep doing.
All successful people live according to priorities.
Great success cOmes only when you focus your people on what really matters.
Momentum Is a Leader’s Best Friend
All leaders face the challenge of creating changes in an organization. The key to succeeding is momentum, what John Maxwell called the Big Mo.
Just as every sailor knows that you can’t steer a ship that isn’t moving forward. Strong leaders understand that to change direction you first have to create forward progress, and that takes the law of the big mo. Only a leader can create momentum. Followers catch it. Managers are able to continue it once it has begun. But creating it requires someone who can motivate others, not who needs to be motivated. Henry Truman once said, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ But for leaders, that statement should be changed to read ’If you can’t make them heat, get out of the kitchen.’
Momentum really is a leader’s best friend. Sometimes it’s the only difference between losing and winning. That’s why in basketball games, for instance, when the opposing team scores a lot of unanswered points and starts to develop too much momentum, a good opposing coach will call a time out, he knows that if the other team’s momentum gets too strong, his team is likely to lose the game.
Momentum makes a huge difference in an organization. If you have no momentum, even the simplest task can seem to be insurmountable problems. But if you have the momentum on your side, the future looks bright, obstacle appears small, and trouble seems temporary.
Momentum does many things for you. E.g. It makes leaders look better than they are. It helps followers perform better than they are.
Though hard to start, momentum makes it easier to steer an organization. Momentum creates an environment where the leader can most effectively act as a change age.
If your desire is to do great things with your organization, never overlook the power of momentum. It truly is a leader’s best friend. If you can develop it, you can do almost anything. That’s the power of the Big Mo.
Leaders Find a Way for the Team to Win
Victorious leaders share one quality, the complete inability to accept defeat. The alternative to winning is totally unacceptable to them. So they figure out what must be done to achieve victory, then they go after with everything at their disposal.
Victory is possible as long as it has 3 components.
No.1: Unity of vision. Team succeeds only when the players have a unified vision no matter how much talent or potential there is.
No.2: Diversity of skills. It almost goes without saying that a team needs diversity of skills. Can you imagine that a football team of quarter-backs? In the same way organizations require diverse talent to succeed, each player taking his part.
No.3: A leader dedicated to victory and raising players to their potential. Unity of vision doesn’t happen spontaneously; the right players with proper diversity of talent don’t come together on their own. It takes a leader to make these things happen. It takes a leader to provide the motivation, empowerment and direction required to win.
Leaders who practice The Law of Victory believe that anything less than success is unacceptable. Because of that, they have no Plan B. That’s what keeps them fighting.
What is your level of expectation when it comes to succeeding for your organization? How dedicated are you to winning your game? Are you going to have the law of victory in your corner as you fight? Or when times get difficult, are you going to throw in the towel? Your answer to that question may determine whether you automatically are going to succeed or fail as a leader.
People Buy into the Leader, Then the Vision
Many people who approach the area of vision and leadership have it all backward, they believe if the cause is good enough people will automatically buy into it and follow. But that’s not how leadership really works. People don’t start out following worthy causes, they follow worthy leaders to promote worthy causes. People buy into the leader first, then the leader’s vision. Having and understanding that changes your whole approach to leading people.
People who need others to follow his vision should ask himself question like this:
Have I given my people reasons to buy into me?
If a person hasn’t built his credibility with his people, it really doesn’t matter how great his vision is,
Once people have bought into someone, they are willing to give his vision a chance. People want to go along with people they get along with. You cannot separate the leader from the cause he promotes, it just can’t be done no matter how hard you try. It’s not an either-or proposition, the two always go together.
What happens with followers depending on their attitude towards the leader and his cause?
When followers don’t like the leader or the vision, they look for another leader;
When followers don’t like the leader but they do like the vision, they still look for another leader;
When followers like the leader but not the vision, they change the vision;
When followers like the leader and the vision, they get behind both.
If in the past you tried to get your people to act on your vision, but weren’t able to make it happen, you probably came up against the law of buy in, maybe even without knowing it.
As a leader, you don’t earn any points in failing a noble cause, you don’t get credit for just being right, your success is majored by your ability to actually take the people where they need to go. But you can do that only if the people first buy into you as a leader.
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.
Only Secure Leaders Give Power to Others
Theodor Roosevelt said, the best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good man to do what he wants done, and self-restrict enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Only secure leaders are willing to give themselves away.
Mark Twain once marked, the great things can happen when you don’t care who gets the credit. I believe the greatest things happen only when you give others the credit.
Empowerment is powerful, not only for the person being developed, but also for the mentor. Enlarging others makes you stronger, but to give power away to others you have to secure yourself.
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