Developing Equals - The First Degree of SuccessIf you could view your leadership from the eyes of someone else what do you think you would see? How effective do you believe others think you are as a leader? Asking others to comment on your leadership is ok – but it is not enough to identify to you why others should or would follow you. The one thing we do not get to do as people or as leaders is – well – to get to see and be on the receiving end of our own leadership. Ask yourself, why do you think others would voluntarily follow you? The first principle of being the leaders others would voluntarily follow is to develop the unmistaken ability to lead yourself well; this is the first degree of success. People follow your success not your failures; they follow your ideas more than they follow your objectives; they align with what you can make them to become because they see what you have become at your own hands. People who have conquered this first degree of success have achieved what I call a state of leadership that thrives. Thriving leadership is the ability to achieve highly effective performance in leading yourself and in developing uncommonly effective personal, professional and organizational performance through others. So how can you rise to the level of thriving leadership? Well there are ten leadership principles common to those who master the first degree of success to achieve a level of thriving leadership.
If you cannot master the first degree of success as a leader it is probable that you are on the path of 99 degrees of failure. When people perceive or believe that you have not mastered the ability to lead yourself well they will not permit you to lead them. So you may say but I have the position or title or status of a leader so that will make me the leader among others. No, that just makes you have something others do not have. Thriving leadership thrives in the lives of others because it gives to others and makes others to be in their roles what the leader is in his role. Thriving leadership makes it possible for everyone to become a leader where ever they are. It makes people more like the leader than different from the leader. When you make the leadership of the people you lead equal to your own leadership you enable people to become equal leaders with you. This is why people follow leaders who demonstrate the thriving leadership found in the first degree of success. |