Creating Leaders vs Conserving Workers
Your organization is either creating leaders or conserving workers.
You are either elevating the next generation of leaders, or you’re content with people who will never progress.
Workers are necessary, but they will never be enough. You’ll need more workers to scale and require oversight—and even then, your company is compromised without someone at the top who can lead them forward into greatness!
However, by developing leaders from workers, you will create a pipeline of success that feeds back into itself.
Leaders help scale the organization and carry your business further than you could ever imagine. But, unfortunately, I see many organizations that are just getting workers and not developing their leadership ability. Typically these companies always have a hard time initiating new programs and maybe even worse problems – they’re burning out the current leaders who manage everyone else’s workload while trying to lead every worker! General Omar Bradley said, “The greatness of a leader is measured by the achievements of the led. This is the ultimate test of his effectiveness.”
It’s natural for humans to change as they mature. The same goes for organizations. Growing up is a necessary function, and growth laws apply everywhere, including your journey towards adulthood. An organization that matures workers to leaders will win every time.
The goal of leadership is always to develop other leaders. It’s not about overseeing workers forever, but rather making sure they’re being led to success from the frontlines themselves. If your organization puts people in charge who “keep an eye on things,” you don’t understand what authentic leadership really entails – because without raising up those around them as well, there can be no genuine progress made whatsoever with any given situation or organization. Leadership expert Warren Bennis said, “Growing other leaders from the ranks isn’t just the duty of the leader, it’s an obligation.”
On day one, my mentor, Dr. John C. Maxwell, told his newly hired employees they were to start figuring out ways to replace themselves by raising up other leaders. It was their very first expectation on their job responsibilities list.
So you need to ask yourself, “Am I raising up other leaders?” And the follow-up question is, “Am I raising up other leaders to raise up other leaders?”
To create a true leadership culture, you have to model what it means and help your leaders develop so they can spend time investing in others. This creates a pipeline that will propel the company forward into greater success. Ronald Reagan said, “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”
