Leadership: Do you build it or hire it?

I recently asked a couple hundred business managers if they prefer to train and raise up leaders from within their organization or hire it from the outside.

They held the common thought: "raise it from your own people."

There were a couple who went against the popular belief and shared some great insights.  Really the question is a wrong question.  It forces the respondent to think either/or.  In many cases I try to re-frame questions posed to me so I can think both/and.

A better question could be, "Why should we raise up leadership and hire outside leaders for our organization?"

Three Benefits of Raising up Leadership:

1.  They know your vision, values, and philosophies.

2.  It gives others hope for career development.

3.  I gives your leaders a sense of personal fulfillment.

Three Benefits of Hiring Leadership:

1.  You get fresh ideas injected into your organization.
2.  You receive the rewards of another companies leadership development efforts.
3.  You can get a leader ready to step into a high level of responsibility much faster.

Human development and recruiting are not mutually exclusive.  A great leader does both at the same time.  Constantly looking for ways to develop their people and constantly looking for new talent.

Leadership Path

I am writing a book on business development.  Sharing our story of how we are taking a small local sub-million dollar company in Minneapolis and turning it into a multi-million dollar and multi-location company.  Thought I would just quickly share the leadership path that came out in one of the sections.

If you want to grow a large organization and you want it to be stable, first consider your own leadership capabilities and experience.  When you find yourself somewhere on this continuum, do three things:

1. Make sure you came up from the bottom and not just skipped some of the basic areas.
2. Figure out how you can master your current level.
3. Decide on what you need to do to get to the next level.

Level 1:  Self-Leadership

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  You already do this.  Well, maybe.  Let's look at a couple areas:

1. Goals and Vision written out with plans?
2. Finances in order with monthly budgets?
3. Diet and Exercise routines taking care of the machine that is going to help you achieve?
4.  Relationships in order?  Close with those you need to be close to and building your network?
5.  Intellectually expanding?
              1.  Reading, listening to audio programs, or going to seminars?
              2. Thinking Big.  Thinking past all obstacles?

If you are doing great here then go on.  If not, may I encourage you to spend a month or two and focus on the key areas of self-leadership needed.

Level 2:  Leading Another Person

Apply Level 1 to someone you oversee by teaching and inspiriting them.  This includes letting this person into your life for you to model self-leadership for them.  Begin the steps of delegation and performance review.  If you do not have positional authority over someone, learn the more powerful art of influence as a step in leadership. 

Level 3:  Leading a Team

Take the skills you learned on teaching, inspiring, and modeling, add to that the goal setting and vision creation you did in level 1 and expand it to a team.  At this level learn team dynamics.  Learn the areas of personality styles and how they compliment and conflict with each other.  Expand your skills of delegation, project management, and running meetings.

Level 4:  Leading Leaders

Many small business leaders and managers plateau at Level 3.  That is not for you.  Review your team and begin leadership development of one or two high potential leaders.  Take them through the Levels 1-3.  Delegate whole projects and teams to them.  Measure their leadership and team results. 

Level 5:  Leading Multiple Enterprises

This is the CEO level of leadership.  It is the culmination in leadership that everyone can achieve.  Encourage the leaders you developed in Level 4 to launch a new business line or division of the company.  If you are not the  president of your company and you are wanting to go to this level, create multiple streams of income for yourself.  Not by doing more but through leaders you created.  Develop a great board of directors for yourself.  Get advisers in your life and continue to advise yourself.

Go through these levels of leadership success.  Let me know what you experience.  What would you modify or add?

Leadership is what makes a person, a company, and a nation great.  It expands your influence for good.  It enables you to help people and customers that you cannot help by yourself.  It is worth the effort and the journey.

Leadership: 3 Styles

Some things just don't change.  James Allen's eighth pillar in his book, Eight Pillars of Prosperity, written over 100 years ago is, "Self-reliance."

So I ask myself, "Am I self-reliant?"  We all would say "Yes. Of course."   

Self-Reliant Leader                       Self-Conceited Leader                    Self-Abasing Leader
Proper view of self worth              Exaggerated view of self worth         Reduced view of self worth
Continually Growing/Learning       Closed to Learning because            Thinks Learning only Helps                                                                       they "know it already"                   Other

Leads Confidently                         Leads Arrogantly                             Leads either:
  -Without Fear of Approval             -Tries to impress crowd or                 -Not at All
  -Concerned for Well-being            -No concern for followers                   -Tries to Please Crowd as
       of Followers                               - Most concern=Resume'                        Leadership Method

So key questions to help us objectively determine if we are self-reliant or not:

1. Am I continually learning?  Going to conferences? Reading books? Listening to audio training?
2. Am I concerned about what people think of me?
3. Am I more concerned about others well being than how they think of me?
4. Am I leading to build a great resume or because I really believe in the cause?

Leadership: Rise and Fall

Why do some leaders seem to climb so fast?  Why do some of those same leaders fall from the heavens?

I'm currently reading The End of Empire: Attila the Hun & the Fall of Rome.  The Huns were not subject to a king.  They had clans with leaders who could go to another clan and become a "comrade."  If that leader was charismatic he would build up a huge following.  "...Equally that following could quickly dissolve if he failed to live up to his promise.  The possibilities that ambitious individuals from any clan could choose to offer or withdrawal their support permitted the rapid rise - and sudden fall of prominent leaders."  p. 68.

At the same time I am finishing a book, Renovation of the Church.  In it the authors talk about how church goers and other church leaders evaluate the success of the pastor on a church's size and growth chart rather than on the pastoral care and direction given.  This pushes pastors to do two things to keep adherents:

1. They have to give talks aimed to attracts people.  Thus they tend to avoid talks that offend people or show the total cost of discipleship.
2. They do what they have to do, usually politically, to keep the influential leaders happy, pleased, attending, active, and donating.

"Church Leaders are too often like Political Leaders and

Political Leaders are too often like Church Leaders." - MWH

You can just look at the last election and see the impact of various preachers speaking politically and politicians trying to speaking like an evangelist.

The mark of a great leader is not the ability to draw a mob.

When we measure successful leadership on the numbers that follow (as a primary or sole indicator) rather than on the course set and how they are getting the organization there we expose ourselves to be:

1. Highly impressed with the rapid growth in an organization and 
2. Question, or believe something is secretly wrong with, a rapid decrease.

On my recent trip to Africa this summer I worked with a man who pastors a church over 1,000 people and oversees over 200 other churches.  He said,

"If you listen to what people want you will never make it [as a leader]."

I have tried to teach my adult children, "The mob is fickle."  

"They are like sheep without a shepherd."  - Jesus Christ.

What are your comments?  Agree?  Disagree?

Leadership: Leading Junior Leaders

Leadership is the ability to take a group of people to a predetermined objective.

It is not just the ability to determine the right objective.  It is the taking them there that is leadership.

Sometimes the selection of the rout to the objective can be delegated to your junior leaders.  This helps develop their leadership skills.  Sometimes the route must be selected by the senior leader.

When the senior leader must do the selection that leader must make the right decision no matter if he/she has consensus or not among the follower or among the junior leaders.

Yet, it is wise to make sure the junior leaders feel their perspectives and opinions have been heard and considered.  They they will come along the senior leader even if the route is different than they would take.

1. Sometimes the Junior leaders may have a more fresh or more creative route to the objective not considered by the senior leader.
2. No one likes to feel they are a slave to the leader.  All want to believe they are part of a team on a cause.  Not everyone likes the play called but they all have buy in to the play.  They want to feel that the team sees their value and contribution to the team.
3. Part of the development of junior leaders is teaching them to become great followers.  Great followers sometimes have to do what they don't want to do.  In fact one person said that is the definition of leadership, "making others do what you want them to do and not what they want to do.

Isn't that the way it is in marriage and work?  I may not want to do what my wife asks me to do but as long as she knows what other things I think need to be done and I know she values my opinion, I am much more willing to do as she asks.  So does that make her the senior leader?

Strategic Thinking - Unity of Command

For every objective, ensure that you have one person and only one person completely responsible for the accomplishment of that objective.

From a leader's perspective, that means giving the reigns of authority, influence, and accountability to a subordinate who can take ownership for the mission.  From a follower's perspective, everyone knows who to take direction from.

This is the problem with many companies that are owned in a partnership.  I know...I violated this principle in a franchise I helped buy.  FIVE owners.  Yes, I said five owners at all 20% ownership.  Disaster waiting to happen.  The objective for the company was never clearly defined.  The real estate agents that worked for us didn't really know who was THE leader.  Yes, we had a sales manager as one of the partners.  That did not stop the agents from approaching the other owners to get direction and help. 

End result:  Failure.

Someone has to call the shots.  Someone has to have the weight of the success or failure on their shoulders. When they do they take personal responsibility, a concept in steep decline in our culture, to make sure the objective is achieved.  Winston Churchill said, "The price of greatness is responsibility."

Can partnerships work?  Sure- if the organization is utilizing the Unity of Command principle.  A family is designed to have a partnership of a father and mother guiding their off spring.  Yet, every child knows that if one parent says, "no" they can try the other parent to get a "yes."  If the kids don't turn out some parents blame the other parent.  Both parents need to be unified and someone HAS to be 100% responsible.

When I was an infantry platoon leader we had a motto for our leadership:  "I am fully responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen  under my command."

When a leader takes responsibility for the success or failure of the battle, they grow in self-confidence when they succeed and grow in experience and knowledge when they fail.