Hi everyone,
Welcome to the leadership series! Whether you are aspiring to your first leadership position, inspired to step up your game to an advanced or elite level, or even if you are a leader who has messed up so bad your career is all but over, this series will have something of value for you. As always, I am not a guru. You are the expert on your own situation, so trust your own gut and do your own best thinking. Take what you like in what I have to say, and jettison the rest. Let’s begin!
Leaders hold an awesome, sacred responsibility to achieve missions, grow teams, and develop individuals. You do not own your people, they are yours only for a time. Too many of our leadership colleagues are treating their organizations and teams as commodities in their quest for personal gain. Too many of them treat their people as discardable. The abuse or neglect of power carries grave consequences. Leaders are spiritually responsible for the impact they have on those under their command. Leaders who focus on anything other than improving themselves, the team, the organization, and ultimately the communities in which they operate will eventually have their choices come back to haunt them. We all reap what we sow, and the clock of accountability is ticking.
Leadership magnifies flaws. Too many of our leadership colleagues are running their teams like their dysfunctional families growing up. If leaders have not yet done the difficult work of intentionally clearing away the impact of whatever dysfunction they may have gone through, and the maladaptive coping skills they learned as a result, then it is likely they will repeat living room drama in the boardroom. It doesn’t have to be that way. Leaders who choose to put themselves through the necessary discomfort of a personal growth plan evolve into leaders who are a powerful, positive force to reckon with. Alternatively, leaders who choose to sacrifice their team on the altar of their own dysfunction will eventually encounter a rebellion that forces them to grow and evolve. If they’re lucky. The news tells us that some leaders don’t get a second chance. Some of them get fired. Some end up on the nightly news. Some end up behind bars. None of them emerge unscathed. Your mission will not succeed beyond the constraints created by the weakest leader on your roster.
Leaders my leaders, it’s time! Time to get real. Time to get serious. Time to protect those who are counting on you. Time to act with boldness and grow to the next level. Arise, and let your light shine!
Next week we’ll introduce the topics we’ll be studying for the next several months. Until then, be wise, be strategic, and stay on the grow. I’m praying for you!