If you could create leaders, who believe what you believe, follow you because they want to, and have the passion to create leaders themselves, imagine what kind of organisation you could build.
The more you show respect for your people, the more it will get noticed by other leaders within your organisation. Some of the leaders (low performing leaders) will react negatively to you, but the other leaders will react positively.
Even the senior leaders will notice you, and will consider you an asset who can help them develop the other leaders and their teams within the organisation. I have had this happen to me before when I worked at Siemens, and I was asked to create resources that would help develop some of the leaders.
It is highly likely that the organisation you work in, whether it is your own business or not, when it comes to leadership development of your people, a leadership expert will be hired.
Most organisations throughout the world will not use their own people when it comes to developing their leaders. The reason is, they do not encourage their people to work on themselves every day in the area of leadership, just like I am doing with my articles.
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1. Leadership Is A Lifelong Journey
To be a highly effective leader, you should not wait for your organisation to hire in a leadership expert to train you for a week and then disappear. Leadership is a lifelong journey for you, and it is a lifelong journey for your people too.
Most leaders do not pay any interest in leadership development, as they don’t believe they need it. They have the position of leader, and that is all they need. That is how most low performing leaders think.
However, because you work on yourself every day, and you are striving to become a highly effective leader, you are in a great position to take the responsibility for leadership development in your organisation.
Just like I did when I worked for Siemens in London. The resources I produced still help leaders in Siemens today and they were delivered in 2015.
That doesn’t mean that you need to start creating leadership resources, but it does mean that you must take responsibility for developing leaders, starting with your own team.
You should position yourself as the leadership development resource for your organisation. You have been reading, studying, and applying leadership principles in your own life, so you are in a great position to help others within your team and the organisation to do the same.
2. How Do You Position Yourself?
Being the leadership development resource will also help you to keep learning and developing your own leadership and personal growth. By continuing to work on yourself every day, helping others will form part of that work you are doing.
“Leadership is not about you, but it does start with you.” That is one of my favourite leadership quotes, and it is one of the most prominent. If you are not developing your own leadership, then how can you help others to develop theirs?
As you are teaching your team, and others the leadership principles that you have developed yourself on, you will be continually learning as you do it. Your people and you will be learning together, and helping each other along the way.
The more people you help develop into leaders, the more your influence will increase, and that is the key to being a leadership resource for your organisation. Leadership is influence, so leverage the leaders that you help develop. As they increase their influence with others, your influence will flow through them.
The leaders at the same level in the organisation as you will be asking for your help too, as you help develop the people who report into them. This is a great opportunity to increase your influence with leaders who already have a lot of influence within the organisation, and the industry that you are part of.
Build strong relationships with them, help them, and they will help you in return. They will use their influence to raise you up, and help you to increase your influence.
As you are helping their people to develop too, you are reducing problems that they currently have in their team. By helping their people to develop their character, and strive to become a highly effective leader too, the number of followers you will have will be increasing day by day.
The leaders of the organisation will be happy to follow you because they want to.
3. Going The Extra Mile For Your People
I would recommend to you that you create leadership materials. For me, I created 3-5 minute videos on a leadership topic. I took a leadership book, I read through it thoroughly and learned everything I possibly could. I would apply what I learned in my own life first, and then I would create leadership videos from the content.
If there were ten chapters in the book, then I would create ten videos based on each chapter. I would try my best to make them 3-5 minutes as this seemed to be the best for the people I was helping.
This might seem a bit strange to start creating leadership materials, but I assure you, they really will help you and others. Especially when increasing your influence throughout your organisation. You are on a leadership journey, and so is everybody else within your team, and the other teams. Travel on the journey together.
When I created leadership videos at Siemens, I received so much support from the senior leaders, including the CEO of Siemens UK at the time, Jürgen Maier. The most influential leaders within your organisation will support you too, and your resources will become more in demand each week.
You will be viewed differently and others will want to follow you in creating their own materials. Whether that be in leadership or other topics. It will be great to see others want to follow in your footsteps and help others.
However, at first, you will get a bit of resistance from some people, and they will not buy-in to you straight away. Don’t let this phase you, just keep going with what you are striving to achieve. Keep practicing what you are learning from my articles, and the other leadership and personal growth resources you are studying.
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4. Don’t Give Up
Keep working on yourself every day, and keep helping others to do the same. Take the responsibility for teaching others, and create your resources. Make it your mission to become the leadership development resource of your organisation, and I promise, you will get there.
As you become the leadership resource for your organisation, your team will want to help you. They will want to become a leadership resource too.
Other leaders will want to become leadership resources. So, before you know it, you will have built a team, and a culture of leadership development, and leadership resources throughout the organisation.
Focus on leading and developing leaders. Help them to develop themselves first, then help them to help others develop. We are not talking positions or titles here. We are talking about passion and the desire to help each other.
To achieve something good, do it alone. To achieve something great, do it with others. Leadership is about others, not about you.
I welcome hearing how this post has influenced the way you think, the way you lead, or the results you have achieved because of what you’ve learned in it. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below.
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All the best,
Some useful tips here Tom, thanks for sharing. Your comments ring true particularly with respect to removing the focus from yourself and emphasising the need to invest in colleagues and those around you. Far too often do people confuse ‘management’ with ‘leadership’ when in truth there is an enormous difference. People can lead at all levels of an organisation big or small. Building on an individuals innate leadership skills with a genuine desire to see them grow and succeed is in my view key to creating as successful and proactive leadership team. It can be difficult to take the focus of yourself but its critical to an organisation’s success.
A good read.
Hi Jason,
Thank you for your comment. It’s great that you sound some useful tips in this article.
I couldn’t agree with you more that leadership and management is so different, and we need to help more and more people realise that. Managers manage things and processes, leaders lead people.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
Thank you so much for this wonderful post, Tom (I commend you for your hard work and dedication toward building effective leaders)! When we’ve been in leadership positions ourselves-we’ve experienced the highs and lows of supervising a team of promising young prospects-, we understand what the role truly entails. Leadership is not about barking out orders and making people do what you say; leadership is not about beating your own chest, thinking that you’re smarter or better than anyone else because of your position. Leadership is about making those around you better-encourage your coworkers/employees to work harder, push farther, think better, and reach their fullest professional (and personal) potential. When leaders invest in their teams, their teams are more engaged, they’re willing to go the extra mile to ensure a job well done. and they’re more willing and likely to pick up on the requisite skills to become leaders themselves. We should always be a resource for one another. Let’s build leaders, not followers. God bless you!
Hi C.N.,
Thank you for your comment. I am so pleased that you found the article helpful.
I really appreciate your commendation and I will do my best to help leaders. I am grateful for your thoughts, and I agree that leadership is not about giving our orders, telling people what to do, or taking credit for what the team achieves. Leadership is about inspiring our teams to be their best, for themselves, for the team and for the organisation.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom,
You have done it again! Another practical and informative leadership piece.
There are lot’s of useful advice here but I particularly like the notion that ‘leadership is influence’ because when you see it that you begin to see the invaluable practice of developing/supporting other leaders. As you infer, it is invariably a way of multiplying your own influence.
Thanks again for this lesson and keep them coming:)
Cheers
Femi
Hi Femi,
Thank you for your comment. It’s great that you found that this article has some useful advice.
You are right, leadership most certainly is influence. When we create more leaders within our own teams, we are increasing our influence through their influence. It becomes a snowball effect of leadership.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom, I have come across many good leaders in the workforce who have become deflated very quickly because they were never asked if they could take on a project or help or lead a team. Instead, others outside the firm have been hired to fill the role as leaders.
Many people love the organisation they work in and setting up a team from within is excellent for moral. It shows that they have been trusted and many people shine and produce great results when allowed to express their ideas, share knowledge on what has been tried in the past and what could be tested in the future.
I love your site; it’s so interesting.
Hi Yvonne,
Thank you for your comment. I’m so pleased that you found this article helpful, and it’s great that you find my site interesting. Means a lot to me.
I appreciate you sharing your experiences of working with leaders. I have had similar experiences of leaders who do lose morale and become deflated when they cannot lead a team. I am actually having that experience now.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
What a great idea to make videos as teaching material. Why don’t you post an occasional one on your blog? I would love to see and hear you in action! 🙂
Having been an entrepreneur most of my life I haven’t had a lot of bosses. Some during my holiday jobs, who haven’t left an impression. Probably because I was too young then.
And some principals during my time as a teacher. Not the best examples either.
So to think of leadership as a result of reading your blog this time, I think of the world leaders.
Quite a difference in approach. My example of how it should be is Merkel, who does an amazing job in my eyes. With that big child on the other side of the ocean as example how one definitely should not lead.
Thanks, Tom, for your – as always – inspiring article.
Hi Hannie,
Thank you for your comment. I’m so pleased that you found this an inspiring article.
I have posted lots of videos on my blog, have a look at the earlier posts. You can check out my YouTube channel too: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxZwCOV4JzaXUAX1WOtcqEA
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
Tom, I really enjoy your articles. I’ve signed up for your Ebook on highly effective leaders and look forward to putting what you have to share into action.
This will be a great advantage to me in building my business and educating my team too.
Thank you so much, and keep up the good work.
Hi Kay,
Thank you for your comment. I am really pleased that you enjoy my articles.
I am so appreciative that you have downloaded my E-Book and I hope you enjoy reading that too. I would love to hear your feedback on the E-Book.
All the best in building your business and educating your team. Please do return, engage and keep leading.
Tom
Great article as usual Tom. I have to suggest a great book for the leadership of a company. I think this is the best example of how a company should be run. It’s called “Everybody Matters” by Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia.
Highly recommended.
Regards,
Aparna
Hi Aparna,
Thank you for your comment. I’m so pleased that you found this a great article.
This is so strange because I am actually reading the book “Everybody Matters” right now. I listened to Bob Chapman on Simon Sinek’s podcast and I thought I had to get to know him better. Then when I found his book, I knew I had to get it.
Thank you for the recommendation and keep reading those leadership books.
All the best,
Tom
It does first start with you first making the change of thinking like a leader and acting like one. This should be implemented everywhere in our opinion leadership skills are developed.
These only come from you if you want the change and set examples for others on how they need to act or speak. The main thing that we have learned is it starts with you and how you show leadership skills. Then you can teach others but this should be the norm by now in a long-term committed job.
We do think this is a perfect subject for others to view and maybe even become a leader themselves?
Cheers,
Mathew&Deloris
Hi Mathew/Deloris,
Thank you for your comment. It’s great that you found this article valuable.
I completely agree with you that it does start with us to change ourselves, if we want to help others to change too. I love how you have taken away that leadership starts with us, but it is not about us.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
You are so right, leadership is about others, not about you at all. Wonderful line. I love it.
Great post as always.
Regards,
Aparna
Hi Aparna,
Thank you for your comment.
I love how you love that leadership starts with us, but it is not about us.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
Hey Tom – I agree with everyone one of the points in your well-written article.
I read a book 20 years ago titled, “Everyone a Leader: A Grassroots Model for the New Workplace”.
I think the author’s premise was closely aligned with yours. By developing and empowering as many as possible in the workplace to be influencers, decision makers, innovators, etc. transcendent outcomes are possible.
Thanks for articulating, so well, your important points.
Hi Glenn,
Thank you for your comment. It’s great that you agree with the points in this article.
I really appreciate you sharing the book “Everyone’s a Leader.” I haven’t read this book yet but I have added it to my list of leadership books to read. It is my pleasure to share this article.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom,
I’ve always enjoyed your articles. Leadership is indeed a lifelong journey, so as anything that is related to self-growth. Going the extra mile – that’s selflessness. And indeed a quality of an effective leader.
John C Maxwell’s books and podcasts are excellent resources for me. Would love to hear some of your book recommendations!
Cheers.
SAM
Hi Sam,
Thank you for your comment. It’s great that you have always enjoyed my articles, it really does mean a lot to me.
John Maxwell’s books and resources have helped me too, but I also read Simon Sinek’s books and at the moment I am reading a book called Everybody Matters written by Bob Chapman. I can highly recommend that book.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
“Leadership is about others, not about you” – I like that quote and it is true. A leader leads and is part of his people. Some bosses behave as if they are on another level and forget that they used to be a part of a team. As a leader you are still part of the team,
Creating leadership material is great, to always work on themselves and be a better leader every day. I can imagine that your superiors were very happy with you at Siemens. By being part of the team and continously working on yourself you inspire others to do the same, so the leader not only improves himself but also the rest of his team.
Hi Christine,
Thank you for your comment. I’m pleased that you found this a valuable article.
I agree that there are some levels who forget where they came from and that they were part of the team too. They need to realise that they are still part of the team, and that the team re their responsibility.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom
What a wonderfully detailed post that is so accurate! I think one of the key attributes of leaders is to lead by example. Of course leaders who create leaders in a mould of themselves are basically doing this.
And in the main, those leaders that go the extra mile for their people are usually also leading by example. If you want to team to work hard and be successful then you must also work hard yourself and show your output to your team.
I’m sure there probably are successful leaders that manage to be cut-off from the activity of their team, but I generally believe that most successful are those leaders that pitch-in with the team.
Thank you for an insightful post. We all need reminding to work on our own attributes and develop ourselves!
Hi Lawrence,
Thank you for your comment. I’m so pleased that you found this a detailed and accurate article.
I really appreciate you sharing your insights on leadership and your thoughts on this topic.
Keep returning, keep engaging and keep leading.
All the best,
Tom