Four Steps for Building Leaders at Every Level

Winning organizations and people who build leaders at every level come in all shapes, sizes and nationalities, and can be found in any industry. The goods and services they produce and the strategies and tactics they employ are widely divergent. But they all share a set of fundamental similarities.

First, leaders with a proven track record of success take direct responsibility for the development of other leaders.

Second, leaders who develop other leaders have teachable points of view in the specific areas of ideas, values, and something called E3 – emotional energy and edge. Winning leaders and teachers have ideas that they can articulate and teach to others about both how to make the organizational successful in the marketplace and how to develop other leaders.

Third, leaders embody their teachable point of view in living stories. They tell stories about their past that explain their learning experiences and their beliefs. And they create stories about the future of their organizations that engage others both emotionally and intellectually to attain the winning future that they describe.

Finally, because winning leaders invest considerable amount of time in developing other leaders, they have well-defined methodologies and thoroughly developed coaching and teaching techniques. Among these is a willingness to admit mistakes and show vulnerability in order to serve as effective role models for others.

“Every person in a key position has to see himself or herself as a minim-CEO. They have to conceptualize what has to be done in the same way the CEO has. Then it cascades.”
- Michael Walsh, former CEO, Tenneco

Take a moment to assess how ready you are to develop other leaders based on the following criteria in this questionnaire.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=MSbPZbHfxqv8N_2fVPCgraPQ_3d_3d

Congratulations!
If you scored 5 (or Strongly Agree) on all of these, you are rating yourself an outstanding leader/teacher. If you scores lower than 5, congratulate yourself as well. The first step in teaching others is an honest self-assessment of how prepared you are to do so.