I didn’t know how to lead

Dear Leader,

I trust this meets you in pursuit of greatness.

In my letter last week, I shared with you one of the things that hindered me and hinders a lot of early stage leaders.

Early stage leaders are individuals who are just beginning their leadership journey or are in their foundational phase of their leadership experience – either newly appointed or elected to leadership roles or developing leadership capacity in informal or other capacities.

The assumption that everyone who runs for office, wins an election or holds a position inherently knows how to lead is a fallacy. One of the things that hinders the productivity and effectiveness of early stage leaders is that they don’t know how to lead.

As an early stage leader, your journey into leadership will only be as successful to the degree at which you dedicate yourself to continuous leadership development. For many years, I have enjoyed the privilege to work with leaders, both young and elderly and I have seen the gaps first hand. Your effectiveness is tied to what you know!

Like I mentioned in my last letter, you must delete from your mind that your title or position makes you a leader and makes you suddenly know how to lead. I have seen many young people run for office and win elections only to constitute nuisance with their titles. Some of them don’t intentionally do it (I’m not judging, I’m explaining), They just don’t know how to lead better. If they know better, they will do better. An average early stage leader barely pays the price for continuous leadership development and they expect to lead well. I can say this because I was once there.

If it takes a lot of work for you to win a political office (saving funds, buying forms, attending screening and interviews, campaigning to get votes, mobilising supporters and volunteers, persuading people, etc.), why do we expect to automatically lead well without any effort to know HOW to? Even if it was given to you on a platter of gold, leading successfully requires the right knowledge and effort. 

You must know how to lead. You cannot produce consistently on a level higher than your ability to lead. What you know about leadership determines how you lead. Many early stage leaders simply don’t lead well because they don’t know how to lead well. If it’s a skill, you can learn it. That was what I found out more than a decade ago when I failed at my first leadership attempt and since then I have dedicated my time and resources to develop my leadership ability. I realised that leadership is a skill that requires continuous investment and it will compound and grow overtime and definitely show in how you truly lead.

If you are in a leadership position and you suddenly discover that no one is following you or your people have stopped following you or they are just following you because of your title and position, then you have just come to the point where you need to learn HOW TO LEAD. 

Take this serious:

1. Start now and make the commitment to learn how to lead. The greatest danger many of us face as young people is the idea that we can do that later. You think you have the time to develop your ability to lead later. Some of us are waiting till we win an election, get into a leadership position before we learn how to lead. Don’t fall into that trap. “Later” is one of those dream killers. It has killed many people’s potential. By reading this letter, you can make a commitment to go further in developing your ability to lead, beyond any title.
   
   
2. Don’t attempt to become a leadership expert. Just choose to be a student of leadership. Since the first year I started an intentional growth process in my ability to lead, I discovered it was going to be a lifetime process. So I changed my mind from “becoming a leadership expert” to “becoming a lifetime student of leadership”.
   
   The best you can do in life is to make the most of the position, titles and opportunities you have been given to lead. You do that by investing in your ability to lead, making yourself the very best you can be.
   
   
3. Create the time. Move from being accidental to intentional growth. Many early stage leaders say they are too busy and can’t find time to attend leadership training or read a book on leadership, and when they even sign up for one, they don’t complete it. They work harder on their job, than on themselves. It is a wrong attitude.
   
   You must go out of your way to seize the opportunities to develop your leadership ability as if your future depends on it, because your future actually depends on it.
   
   It is difficult to do what you don’t schedule.
   
   – Create a time in your daily and weekly calendar dedicated to reading resources on leadership or listening to podcasts and videos. You can start with reading one chapter of a book daily.
   
   – Schedule time to attend leadership training, not just the one your organisation sent you to. Create a budget for leadership training every year.

A lot is dependent on your ability to lead. People don’t accidentally lead well, you have to be intentional about it.

The world needs better leaders. We need you!

I’m rooting for you,
The Great Owete