5 Levels of Leadership

You can have a leadership game plan for your life

Photo by Anna Tarazevich on Pexels

“Leadership is much less about what you do and much more about who you are.” — Frances Hesselbein

The first and most important thing to know about leadership is that it’s not a position. It’s a process. Being a manager is a position; leadership is different — it’s the relationship between people. The challenge of leadership is to create change and facilitate growth.

And remember, leadership is not about advancing yourself. It is about advancing your team.

Define your leadership style.

Action Steps:

1. Define your leadership style. Answer these questions: Who am I? What are my values? What leadership practices do I want to put into place?

2. Write a declaration of commitment to growth that describes what you will do to grow and how you will approach it. Then sign it, and date it. Put it somewhere for future reference.

Explanation

You will not grow as a leader if you don’t commit to getting out of your comfort zone and trying to become a better leader than you are today.

There are 5 levels of leadership, and each level is very distinct from the others:

1. Position: People follow you because they have to.
2. Permission: People follow you because they want to.
3. Production: People follow you because of what you’ve done for the organization.
4. People development: People follow you because of what you’ve done for them.
5. Pinnacle: People follow you because of who you are and what you represent.

Here are some important things to know about these 5 levels:

• You are not on the same level as every person. With every person, you have to build your position from the beginning.
• The higher you go, the easier it is to lead.
• The higher you go, the more time and commitment are required to win a level.
• Moving up levels occurs slowly, but going down can happen quickly.
• The higher you go, the greater the return.
• Not climbing the levels limits you and your people.
• When you change positions or organizations, you seldom stay at the same level. However, it’s much easier to climb because you know how to do it.
• You cannot climb the levels alone.

Action Step:

1. Know yourself — improve your self-awareness. Very few people in the world have natural self-awareness. Most people have to work on it. Become a student of yourself. Discover your strengths and weaknesses. Ask others to evaluate you.
2. Get along with yourself — improve your self-image. There are many things you can improve about your self-image — work on these. There are some things that you cannot change about yourself — accept them.
3. Realize that the person who causes you problems is yourself. Be honest with yourself. Most likely, it’s your fault if you’re not getting anywhere. Don’t blame others, blame yourself.
4. Work on self-improvement. If you want to change your life for the better, the first thing you should do is change yourself for the better.
5. Realize that you are the only person that can make a difference for yourself. If you want to make a difference, step up and commit to taking the first step towards this difference. No one else will do it for you.

Explanation

You will not connect with others if you do not connect with yourself first. You will not like others if you don’t like yourself. If you want to build a relationship, you must always start with yourself.