There are No Natural Born Leaders
Great leadership is not a natural occurrence. Though some people have innate leadership traits, the best heads of the pack get that way through ongoing mentoring, training and real-world experience.
In our company, we’ve invested a lot in developing strong leaders. Recently, we brought in an executive coach to help take our management team to the next level.
In this all-day session, business leader and executive coach, Todd Palmer, did things for us that we could never do for ourselves. He provided us with a framework to think about our business from a leadership perspective. He backed up his model with the business intelligence and savvy of a successful, multi-million-dollar industry leader.
It could have been intimidating, but it wasn’t.
In listening to Todd, we discovered that leaders aren’t born, they’re created. And they require ongoing support to reach high levels of performance in any organization.
Kevin Eikenberry pointed out in his article, “Five Things that Matter Most When Leading Leaders,” that:
1. Coaching matters more
2. Thinking matters more
3. Your example matters more
4. Conversation matters more
5. Influence matters more
In the time that Todd spent with us, he demonstrated the value of these things by providing us with a structure that fostered leadership discussions. He listened intently and then shared his expertise and insights with us (with NO posturing or platitudes). In doing so, he modeled the behavior of how successful leaders support other leaders.
Gallup recently did a survey on the most critical factors when leading leaders. The greatest one was the need to banish the “leader-in-training” mentality. This meant that leaders need to be allowed to lead right out of the gate. They need to be able to try new things, fail, adjust and learn on the fly.
Other critical factors included:
· Being accountable for organizational performance
· Capitalizing on existing talent
· Developing a culture of trust
· Being provided ongoing executive coaching, mentoring and support.
Throughout our day with Todd Palmer, he was able to highlight these key points with us, allowing to work through our organizational issues, while providing tactical things that we could do to foster continuous growth within our executive team.
By the end of the day, we were tired, worn out and enlightened. It was clear that Mr. Palmer had done his work. He was a very capable guide in starting us along the leadership path.
As I reflected on the day, I was reminded of what gurus Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus said:
“The problem with many organizations, and especially the ones that are failing, is that they tend to be overmanaged and underled.”
It’s easy to lose the forest for the trees without the help of an experienced trail guide.
It was clear that we were on the right path for turning our managers into leaders, and though we had a long way to go, we now had a great head start, with a team that was pointed in the right direction.
Ultimately, we learned that great leadership does not occur by accident — it comes through planning, purpose and expert guidance along the way.
