The Evolution of Leadership

Studying leadership will change your life forever! 

You might be an assistant manager of a small operation, or CEO of a large company - your current position is of no consequence, because the study of leadership is a journey – not a destination.  You are never “there”, you can only aspire to become better, stronger, wiser.

Throughout my career in business management and training, I found that no matter what position I held, leadership training was the most valued and revered I thing I had to offer.  I’ve managed thousands of people, I've crushed goals, won numerous awards – experienced all kinds of “highs”… and I also experienced all kinds of lows… I've missed goals, I've had to lay off employees, and I've worked for impossible supervisors.  But, every job I had had one common thread, one thing that always prevailed as a constant truth. And that truth is - everyone craves outstanding leadership.  Everyone wants to work for a great leader and everyone wants to be a great leader.  Additionally, people absolutely love good solid leadership training.

Yet, with all of this interest in good leadership, we've all seen our share of substandard and even horrific leaders.

Dwight Eisenhower once said, “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionable integrity.  Without it, no real success is possible.”  So, why it is our country has so many leaders lacking in integrity?

Today’s economy and political environment are frightening… there is so much scandal, so much dishonesty and seriously too much corruption.  These things all boil down to a string of bad leadership. We need to ask ourselves - where did these bad leaders come from?  Who trained them?  When exactly did these bad leaders begin to believe was OK to put the screws to everyone else meanwhile pumping their own bank accounts with hundreds of millions of dollars?  Dwight Eisenhower also stated, “A people that values its privileges above its principles, soon loses both.” Hmmm, makes good sense.  My biggest fear is that someday, excessive bad leadership causes our country to lose both. 

Now, my best explanation for the evolution of bad leadership – is that earlier in their careers of these folks, they simply never learned the critical elements to good leadership.  They, most likely, had bad role models and somehow, along the way learned to set extremely low ethical standards for themselves.  As Gordon Gecko from the movie Wall Street would say – they learned that “greed is good”.  

That said, we are all familiar with the saying “what comes around goes around”… and anyone who has lived for a while knows that all bad deeds eventually come back to bite you.  So, with a sense of justice, we often watch these bad leaders ultimately come crashing down… but very sadly, they usually bring down a monumental number of people with them.  And sometimes the downfall has an enormous impact on our society.

This is why I have committed myself to the study of leadership excellence.  I certainly don’t know it all, but I am constantly learning, and you should be too.  Read books, attend seminars, take a class, listen to a podcast, watch a video, whatever… there are countless ways in which you can learn and grow and develop your leadership skills. Remember:  leaders is a journey, not a destination. 

Even if you are the president or CEO of your company, you have plenty of room to grow and advance your skill set.  BUT - Herein lies the pitfall of many potentially great leaders:  lower level managers know they need to learn more to propel their careers forward.  Therefore they tend to be more open minded towards improvement and hungry for new experiences.  They will jump at the chance to take a seminar or read a book.  Not only does it look good on their resume, but are expanding their knowledge base.  Now, as these managers move up the ladder to higher pay scales, and loftier positions with greater demands… they tend to have more confidence in themselves and less time for things like learning new skills.  What’s worse, a sense of complacency settles in, and they tell themselves, “I’m a good leader, I’ve come a long way, I've worked hard, and I do my job well.”  This is where trouble can start brewing.  Yes, you’ve come a long way… but face it, the higher up the ladder you go the more developed your leadership skills needs to be.  You are never as good as you could be or should be.

John F. Kennedy said, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."  He really hit the nail on the head with that quote.  When you learn the critical values, tools and techniques to great leadership, something within you changes.  You no longer except the very nature bad leadership… you set higher goals for yourself, you set higher goals for those that work for you… and most importantly ….you set higher goals for those who you work for.  Yes… expecting more from your supervisor is an important component in the evolution of leadership.

To quote Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change to world.” 

Let’s change the world together, one lesson at a time, one person at time, one leader at time…

Studying leadership will change your life forever!