Step 19; Leadership

What is Leadership? To me leadership is the ability to influence. Is leadership important if you want to run a successful business? Of course it is! Why? This is because you will need to inspire, motivate and influence your team to run the system.

I learned from John C Maxwell the 5 levels of leadership

Level 1 - Position
Level 2 - Permission
Level 3 - Production
Level 4 - People Development
Level 5 - Personhood

Position leadership - People follow you because they have to and influence will not extend beyond your line of job description. In the long term, staff turnover will be high and morale will be low.

Permission leadership - People follow you because they want to and will follow you beyond your stated authority. This group of leaders also allow work to be fun. Staff are highly motivated but will be restless in the long term.

Production leadership - People follow you because of the results you brought for the organisation. Your success is sensed by most people  and people like you for what you can do.

People Development - People follow you for what you have done for them. Your commitment will be to grow and develop leaders. Grooming leaders will lead to sustainable growth of people and organisation.

Personhood leadership - People follow you because of who you are and what you represent. You will consistently grow leaders and organisation over years. These type of leaders are larger than life. People like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Lee Kuan Yew and many others.

The next thing that I want to share with you about leadership is the Law of the Lid. What do I mean by Law of the Lid? People will follow you to the level that you are at. People will follow a leader to learn from them and they will most likely leave you when they can't learn anymore from you. This is why as a leader we have to continously upgrade ourselves.

One of the reasons why I decided not to retire is because I love to teach and I love to see my graduates grow and become successful.

Thank you for reading, see you next week.