A thought by John C. Maxwell from his
book, Leadershift (p. 99). HarperCollins Leadership. Kindle Edition. (Click
on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
And relationships are so important,
aren’t they?
1. POSITION (based on rights), where people follow
you because they have to.
2. PERMISSION (based on relationships), where people
follow you because they want to.
3. PRODUCTION (based on results), where people follow
you because you help improve the team.
4. PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT (based on reproduction), where
people follow you because you improve them personally.
5. PINNACLE (based on respect), where people follow
you because you help them become leaders at Level 4 themselves.”
He goes on, “In the forty years I’ve
used the 5 Levels of Leadership to train and develop leaders, I’ve observed
that the most difficult step for most leaders to take is from Level 2 to Level
3. Almost any likable person can develop relationships with people on Level 2,
caring about them and connecting with them. But Level 3 is about production.
Making the transition from getting people to like you to getting people to
produce better results can be daunting. And reproducing yourself on Level 4 by
investing in another person and helping him or her become a good leader is even
more difficult.
“How does a leader move others from ‘I
like being on the team,’ to ‘I need to produce for the team’? The answer is to
balance care and candor. I mention this because most people naturally default
to one or the other. But here’s why it’s important for you to practice both:
·
Care without candor
creates dysfunctional relationships.
·
Candor without care
creates distant relationships.
·
Care balanced with
candor creates developing relationships.”
He then says, “Care and candor are
like the two wings of a plane; you can’t fly with only one. They must work
together.”
He continues, “Caring should never
suppress candor, while candor should never displace caring. When I have the
responsibility for leading people, I must care for them, but I must also
challenge them by initiating honest conversations to help them improve. My
mind-set should be, ‘I love you too much to let you stay where you are.’ That
thinking was difficult for me when I was a young leader. Caring was easy;
candor was difficult. Today I’m able to sit down with people and have honest,
tough conversations with them. But the principle that guides me is a saying I
adopted long ago: people don’t care how much you know until they know how much
you care. That helps me to keep the right balance of care and candor.”
He later says, “I don’t know how much
difficulty people pleasing has given you. Maybe it’s not an issue at all. I
hope that’s the case. But no matter what, you need to learn how to positively
challenge people if you desire to become the best leader you can be. If you can
help people to positively reach their potential, you help them, your team, and
yourself.”
Good advice all around, isn’t it?
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