How Successful People Lead Part 8

a Change Agent

Progress always requires change. Change in an organization is always a leaders.h.i.+p issue. It takes a leader to create positive change. And the best way to start working as a change agent is to do what you do when trying to build a relations.h.i.+p. You need to find common ground. Leaders who want to make changes are often tempted to point out differences between themselves and others and then try to convince others why change is needed. But that rarely works.

Instead, focus on similarities and build upon those. To get started, look for common ground in the following areas: Vision: If your vision and others' can line up, then everyone will see it clearly and have a strong desire to see it come to fruition. That means you can probably work well together.

Values: It's difficult to travel with others very long if your values don't align. Find out what others stand for and try to meet where you share the same standards.

Relations.h.i.+ps: Great teams have people who are as committed to one another as they are to the vision. If you've done the work on Level 2, you should already share common ground in this area.

Att.i.tude: If you are going to get people to work together for positive change, their att.i.tudes need to be positive and tenacious. If they're not, there will be trouble ahead.

Communication: For change to occur, communication must be open, honest, and ongoing. Ignorance breeds speculation that leads to wrong a.s.sumptions, and that undermines change.

If you can find or create common ground in these five areas, you can move forward and introduce change. That doesn't necessarily mean that being a change agent will be easy. But I can guarantee that if you don't win in those five areas, change will be very difficult.

6. Never Lose Sight of the Fact That Results

Are Your Goal

There's a big difference between Level 3 leaders and critics who simply theorize about productivity. Good leaders have an orientation toward results. They know that results always matter-regardless of how many obstacles they face, what the economy does, what kinds of problems their people experience, and so on. They fight for productivity and are held accountable no matter what. Even when they experience success! If they gain momentum, they don't back off and coast. They press on and increase the momentum so that they can accomplish even greater things. And they help their people do the same.

Beliefs That Help a Leader Move

Up to Level 4

Leaders.h.i.+p is an exciting journey. The most talented and dedicated leaders feel the pull to go higher. They hear a call to continually grow and help others do the same. Their beliefs give them the incentive to climb, but their behaviors are what actually take them to the next level.

If you want to go to that next level, then embrace the following ideas while still on Level 3.

1. Production Is Not Enough What's better than excellence at your work and high productivity from your team? Developing people so that they can lead with you. Great leaders measure themselves by what they get done through others. That requires developing people in a leaders.h.i.+p culture. That is the focus of leaders on Level 4. If you have reached Level 3 with your team members and you lead a productive team, congratulations. You've achieved more than most people ever do. But don't settle for Production. Seek the higher levels, where you can help change people's lives.

2. People Are an Organization's Most

Appreciable a.s.set

Most of what an organization possesses goes down in value. Facilities deteriorate. Equipment becomes out of date. Supplies get used up. What a.s.set has the greatest potential for actually going up in value? People! But only if they are valued, challenged, and developed by someone capable of investing in them and helping them grow. Otherwise, they are like money put on deposit without interest. Their potential is high, but they aren't actually growing.

People don't appreciate automatically or grow accidentally. Growth occurs only when it's intentional. If you want to go to the next level in your leaders.h.i.+p, think beyond Production and start thinking in terms of how you can help the individuals on your team to improve themselves and tap into their potential.

3. Growing Leaders Is the Most Effective

Way to Realize Vision

Companies get better when their people get better. That's why investing in people always gives a positive return to an organization. Everything rises and falls on leaders.h.i.+p. The more leaders an organization has, the greater its horsepower. The better leaders an organization has, the greater its potential. You cannot overinvest in people. Every time you increase the leaders.h.i.+p ability of a person in the organization, you increase the ability of the organization to fulfill its vision. Everything gets better when good leaders are leading the organization and creating a positive, productive work environment.

4. People Development Is the Greatest

Fulfillment for a Leader

Few things in life are better than seeing people reach their potential. One of the keys to developing leaders-at any level-is seeing people not as they are or as others see them but as they could be. Seeing what could be-and helping to make it a reality-takes vision, imagination, skill, and commitment. If you help people become bigger and better on the inside, eventually they will become greater on the outside. People are like trees: give them what they need to grow on a continual basis for long enough and they will grow from the inside out. And they will bear fruit. If you invest in people, they will never be the same again. And neither will you. It is impossible to help others without helping yourself.

Level 4

PEOPLE.

DEVELOPMENT.

Helping Individual Leaders Grow Extends

Your Influence and Impact

Successful leaders understand that if they want to improve, they have to be willing to keep growing and changing. Each move up the 5 Levels of Leaders.h.i.+p requires a paradigm s.h.i.+ft and a change in the way a person leads. To reach the upper levels of leaders.h.i.+p, which create elite organizations, leaders must transition from producers to developers because people are any organization's most appreciable a.s.set.

Good leaders on Level 4 invest their time, energy, money, and thinking into growing others as leaders. They look at every person and try to gauge his or her potential to grow and lead-regardless of the individual's t.i.tle, position, age, or experience. Every person is a potential candidate for development. This practice of identifying and developing people compounds the positives of their organization, because bringing out the best in a person is often a catalyst for bringing out the best in the team. Developing one person for leaders.h.i.+p and success lays the foundation for developing others for success.

A leader on the People Development level puts only 20 percent of his or her focus on personal productivity while putting 80 percent of it on developing and leading others. This can be a difficult s.h.i.+ft for highly productive people who are used to getting their hands dirty, but it's a change that can revolutionize an organization and give it a much brighter future.

The Upside of People

Development

The Potential of the Organization

Just Got Greater

When you become capable of leading people on Level 4, the upside of leaders.h.i.+p becomes even stronger and the potential of the organization increases dramatically. Here are the primary positive benefits of leading on the People Development level: 1. People Development Sets You Apart

from Most Leaders

Most leaders are looking for ways to grow their organizations. Where do they usually focus their attention? On Level 3. They work to increase production. That's the wrong focus. How do you grow a company? By growing the people in it. And if you really want to expand the organization and its potential, focus on growing the leaders.

In a compet.i.tive business world, the ability to develop people is often the difference maker between two organizations competing to succeed using similar resources. Former secretary of labor Robert Reich pointed out, "If employers fail to upgrade their workers, then they're trying to be compet.i.tive only with their capital. Anybody can replicate physical capital. But the one resource n.o.body can replicate is the dedication, the teamwork, the skills of a company's employees." Develop them, and you become a one-in-a-thousand leader.

2. People Development a.s.sures That Growth

Can Be Sustained