Dear Leader,
Happy easter to you.
I trust this meets your in pursuit of leadership.
In more than a decade of my studentship in leadership and talent development, there has always been a debate of leaders being born or made, but that’s not my goal for this letter today. I wanted to tell you where I stand on that question, to enable me share what I have in mind with you this week.
So for me, just like babies are born as babies, leaders are born but they grow to become adequate, good and great leaders. So it all begins with birth, but leadership is developed. We were all born, but we go through a process to become great leaders.
I have studied and I am still studying great leaders and great leadership in the world. It is my obsession as someone whose work is concerned with leadership training, coaching and consulting.
I want to distill what I regard as a quick leadership incubator. What I mean is that there are 3 main components I have figured thus far that contributes immensely to the development of good leaders. There may be more, but this 3 is sure:
- Your Environment – Most of the leaders I know are masters of their environment. Our environment has a tremendous impact on us because more often than not leadership is caught and only a few percent is taught.
If you don’t have anyone modelling good leadership around you, it may be difficult for you to grow into a good leader. If you grow up in a leadership environment, you will recognise your own leadership ability early enough. Your environment and the leader who created it puts leadership in you.
The right environment always makes learning easier.
Let me give you an example, most of the career paths people choose today are influenced by their environment. Many years ago, it was almost impossible for a Nigerian to dream of being an astronaut because it wasn’t common in our environment, not even our university having a curriculum for it.
If you live in a sporting environment for example, you easily gravitate towards a career in sports. If you live in an artistic environment, you easily and naturally become creative.
So also, live in a leadership environment, you will become a better leader. If you are not in a leadership environment and have never spent time in one, you may have difficulty knowing what it means to lead. You will need to find a positive leadership environment to help you in your leadership development.
Although it is possible to learn leadership without a conducive environment but be sure that the process will be very slow and very difficult. A good environment makes it easy for the right seed (of leadership) to blossom. - Your Exposure: This in my research is one of the things that contributes to our development as a leader – I mean your exposure to other great leaders.
Exposure is very powerful. It expands the limit of your thinking. This is one of my biggest hacks. Exposing myself to great leaders, and this has become easier today.
To make this very practical; Make it a goal to study great leaders through their autobiographies and biographies. Reading books written by great leaders help you learn leadership concepts, learn from them and be inspired to pursue your goals and visions.
My goal as a person is to visit every presidential library in the world (even though we only have one in Nigeria built by President Olusegun Obasanjo). I like to get into their space and learn from them, soak in leadership from that space and be inspired by it.
Exposure is powerful. Try it. - Your Equipping – Leadership is influence and it can be learnt. Who is teaching you?
You can learn how to connect with people, how to communicate your vision, how to plan and strategize, how to create goals and achieve them, how to prioritise, how to get people to work together in your team, how to train and equip people, how to inspire and motivate others.
Everything can be learnt, and that’s where you need to be equipped as a leader.
This is so important now that today many organisations have specialised academies to train or groom their future leaders or develop plans to train current leaders. Leadership development cannot be left to chance, it is not accidental.
The one thing you can do to have the greatest impact on your leadership potential is to be intentional everyday about becoming equipped to lead.
This is why I facilitate a lot of leadership training sessions – to raise more leaders, it has to be conscious, intentional and planned.
What’s your plan for leadership growth this week?
If you don’t have a plan, the odds are against you growing as a leader.
I’m rooting for you,
The Great Owete
Be First to Comment