Hello people, I have been silent for some time now.  It was due to some other competing needs. Good news is that I am back and will be bringing some wild information here. Target audience is young business executives. Watch this space......

What kind of leader are you? Part V

By Wisdom Kwame Nuworkpor FCCA, ICA, MBA

Over the past weeks, we have attempted to answer the question “what kind of leader are you”.  Having looked at the first four levels of leadership (Position, Permission, Production and People Development), today we shall conclude this series by looking at the 5th Level of the leadership hierarchy, Pinnacle.  

Level 5 - Pinnacle

In his book, 5 levels of leadership: proven steps to maximise your potential, John C. Maxwell asserts that the highest and most difficult level of leadership is the Pinnacle.  He mentioned that “while most people can learn and climb to levels 1 through 4, level 5 requires not only effort, skill, and intentionality, but also a high level of talent”.  He also stated that “only naturally gifted leaders often make it to the level 5”.

Level 5 leaders develop people to become level 4 leaders.  Developing followers to lead on their own requires quite substantial effort and time.  As a result, most leaders unfortunately shy away from this activity.  

The level 5 leader is known to create opportunities that others do not.   They instill in other men, the convictions and the will to carry on.  People follow them because of what they are and what they represent.  Due to this, they often transcend their position, their organisation and sometimes, their industry. The level 5 leader is measured by the caliber of leaders they develop, not the caliber of their own leadership.

Level 5 leaders are not ordinary; they stand out from anyone else.  They succeed everywhere they find themselves.  Such leaders lift high their organisation they work for.  It is not uncommon to associate their names with their organisations.  It appears their names are synonymous to their organisations. For example, Jack Welch and General Electric, Mensa Otabil and International Central Gospel Church.  Great organisations have great leaders and what the organisation becomes is largely influenced by the quality of the leader at the top.  

The level 5 leader during their tenure in the organisation would have trained a lot of leaders to lead other people.  As a result, succession planning is usually not an issue.  Should one leader decide to retire or resign, there are always other leaders ready to step in to fill such shoes.  

The influence of the level 5 leader far exceeds the organisations they work for.  Examples of such leaders are Nelson Mandela and Billy Graham.  

One of the downsides to the level 5 leader is that, there is a very high risk of them thinking that they have arrived.  It is worth mentioning that the level 5 is not a place to rest, rather, much is expected of you to stay afloat and relevant to the millions outside your organisation who look up to you.

In conclusion, let us take note of the following points:

1. You do not leave the previous levels behind as you climb up the leadership ladder. The principles of the previous levels are very relevant for your success at the next level.

2. You may not be on the same level with all your subordinates at the same time. For example, a leader with about 4 subordinates may be on Position level with one, Permission with the second, production with the third and people development with the fourth.

3. The higher you climb up the hierarchy, the more time and effort you need to succeed at that level.

4. When you change positions or organizations, you seldom stay at the same level.  You are more likely to start from the bottom of the ladder again. This is because, you need to build trust again.

I trust that these articles have provided some leadership insights to you.  For further reading, kindly get a copy of John Maxwell’s book.

Keep your feedback coming through and remember to share this link and help build great leaders.

References:

1. John C. Maxwell (2011), 5 levels of Leadership, Proven steps to maximise your potential.

What kind of leader are you? Part IV

By Wisdom Kwame Nuworkpor FCCA, ICA, MBA

Throughout this month, we have been studying leadership and have so far looked at the first three stages of John Maxwell’s leadership hierarchy: Position, Permission and Production.  Today, we will be looking into detail, the 4th stage of the hierarchy which is People Development.  

Level 4 - People Development

Great leaders are those who are able to empower their people.  This is a distinguishing feature at the 4th level of John Maxwell’s leadership hierarchy.  Leaders at this stage use their position, relationships, and productivity to invest in their people until they become leaders in their own right.  

The development of people starts from the recruitment phase.  It is important for the leader to hire the right people at the on-boarding phase but that should not end there.  There is also the need to nurture your people as great leaders personally deal with the issue of nurturing their people.

In nurturing and developing your people, ensure that they are assigned demanding tasks that will help them use their strength to their advantage.  Set a process in place to regularly assess their performance and development. Provide feedback and monitor the outcome of the feedback.  

Level 4 leaders usually end up reproducing themselves.  As a result, people follow these leaders because of what the they have done for them personally and this is usually a lifelong relationship.

According to John Maxwell,1 two things happen at Level 4 of the hierarchy. First of all, teamwork goes to a very high level because people know each other and the more people know each other, the more their loyalty strengthens.   Secondly, because there are more leaders on the team, they help to improve each other's’ performance and as a result, overall performance increases.

The fastest way to grow the performance of an organisation is to invest in its people. There is  positive correlation between number of leaders in an organisation and the organisation’s performance.  John asserts that “Production may win games, but People Development wins championships”.  

In researching into why some companies make the leap and others don’t, Jim Collins2 observed that, great leaders first looked out for “who” and then “what” followed.  According to Collins, during their research, they had expected that good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy and getting people to pursue the vision.  On the contrary, what they found was that, great leaders first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats -  and then they figured out where to drive it. Collins added that, the old adage “people are your most important asset” turns out to be wrong.  This means that the right expression should be “the right people are your most important asset”.  

Next week, we shall conclude the series by looking at the 5th level of the leadership hierarchy (Pinnacle).  

Keep your feedback coming through and remember to share this link and help build great leaders.

References:

1 John C. Maxwell (2011), 5 levels of Leadership

2 Jim Collins (2001), Good to Great: why some companies make the leap....and others don't.

What kind of leader are you? Part III

By Wisdom Kwame Nuworkpor FCCA, ICA, MBA

Over the past two weeks, we have been studying the levels of leadership.  In the previous articles (What kind of leader are you Parts I & II), we learnt that taking a leadership position is the beginning of your leadership journey (thus Position).  We also said that, the position level should not be the desired level of any leader and so the leader at this stage should aspire to build relationships.  The result of this is that, people will follow you because they want to.  This is the Permission stage of leadership.  

At the Permission level, it is exciting to see people follow you because they believe in you and trust you.  The leader at this stage needs to be careful because, there is a high temptation for the leader to stop there.  However, good leaders don’t just create a pleasant environment, they get things done. Getting things done introduces the third level of the leadership journey.

Level 3 - Production

John Maxwell1 in his book 5 levels of leadership refers to the level 3 stage of leadership as Production.  According to him, production level leaders gain influence and credibility and people begin to follow them because of what they have done for the organisation.

In the book of John 2:23, the bible says that, at a Passover feast, many believed in the name Jesus when they saw the signs which he did. There are also several scriptures in the bible which support the fact that, people followed Jesus because of what they had seen him do.  For example, in Luke 5:1-11, we read the account of Jesus preaching to the multitude from Simon’s boats.  After the sermon, He asked Simon to launch out into the deep and let down their nets for a catch.  According to the story, Simon and His partners had toiled all night and caught nothing. But at the instruction of Jesus, they did let down their net and to their astonishment, they caught so much fish that their boats begun to sink.  After this miracle, they did not hesitate any further but to forsake all they were doing and followed Jesus.  

If even Jesus Christ, people followed him because of what they saw, the production level is certainly a prerequisite for every great leader.  

In politics, the Permission leadership (level 2) gets people to follow some political leaders but this is only for a while.  After the followers realise that they are not producing results, they switch camp to other leaders they believe are more productive.  

In the corporate world, subordinates will switch roles or jobs when they realise that their leaders are not producing results.  In order words, you may be the nice guy, likable leader, which is a great thing but if you do not produce results, your people will leave you.  

Many positive things happen at the Production level of the leadership hierarchy: work gets done, morale improves, profits go up, staff turnover declines, goals are achieved, momentum kicks in, leading and influencing others become more exciting, mistakes are overlooked and rather, people are encouraged to be innovative which in itself, tolerates mistakes.  It is fun to both the leader and subordinates at the level 3 stage of leadership hierarchy.

It is not uncommon to see leaders who produce results sit close to the Chief Executive during monthly or annual performance review meetings.  Such leaders easily get their budget approved because they have demonstrated that they are profitable.  The leader who is not productive struggles to get his budget approved.

Every good leader should therefore aspire to build on level 2 of the hierarchy and climb up the next levels.  This is not in anyway suggesting that the level 3 leader forgets about level 2 principles.  As we learnt last week, a good leader builds on the previous level.  

Next week, we will look at the 4th level of the leadership hierarchy (People development). This is a must do for every great leader.

Keep your feedback coming through and remember to share this link and help build great leaders.

References:

1 John C. Maxwell (2011), 5 levels of Leadership

What kind of leader are you Part II

By Wisdom Kwame Nuworkpor FCCA, ICA, MBA

In the previous article we discussed the first stage of the leadership hierarchy - “Position”. We learnt that it is the worst stage of the leadership hierarchy anyone should remain at because anyone can be given a position.  At that stage, the leader does not have influence over his subordinates except that provided by the role he/she occupies.  It is therefore fundamental for anyone desiring to develop his/her leadership capabilities to climb up the ladder in the subsequent stages.  

Today, we shall be looking at the second stage of the leadership hierarchy referred to by John Maxwell1 as “Permission”.

Level 2 – Permission

At the permission stage of the leadership journey, people follow you because they want to.  They follow you because they trust you and also because of the relationship you have built with them.  The leader at this stage knows his followers and the followers know their leader.  Without liking your followers, it is almost impossible to lead them.  

We cannot talk about leadership without picking some great lessons from the greatest leader of all time, Jesus Christ.  In the book of John 10:27, Jesus said “my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”. In verse 14 of the same chapter, He says, “I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep and am known by them”

To be a great leader, you must know your sheep.  There is no compromise to this. It takes a conscious effort.  It does not come easy.  John Maxwell says that “when you like people and treat them like individuals who have value, you begin to develop influence over them, you develop trust and the environment becomes much more positive”.  

In their book, “In Search of Excellence”, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman2 identified eight common themes which they argued were responsible for the success of the best run American companies and one of them was “Productivity through People”.  This attribute talks about treating the rank and file of employees as source of quality.

It is very easy for leaders to be preoccupied with other staff and ignore the very fundamentals which is, building relationships with followers.  To maximise the benefits of the Permission stage of leadership, the leader has to develop that skill of building relationships with his followers.

Next week, we shall be looking at the third level of the leadership hierarchy - Production. As we progress these discussions, you will notice that moving up the ladder happens slowly.  It is also important to remember that, as you move up the ladder, you do not leave the previous level behind.  Rather, you build upon it.

Please keep your feedback coming through for they are important to me.

References:

1 John C. Maxwell (2011), 5 levels of Leadership

2 Tom Peters and Robert Waterman (1982), In Search of Excellence: Lessons from   American’s Best-Run Companies.

What kind of leader are you?

By Wisdom Kwame Nuworkpor FCCA, ICA, MBA

A young executive was recently promoted into a supervisory role and he was so excited that he “had been made” a leader.  His exact words were: “thank you for making me a leader”.  What he didn’t know was that, he had in fact gotten himself a position which begins his leadership journey. 

Leadership is a journey and so taking up a supervisory role does not automatically make you a leader.  John Maxwell¹ refers to this kind of leadership as the basic stage of the leadership journey.  This is true because any person can be given a position. Does that make him a leader? Certainly not.  In fact, it is the worst kind of leadership level anyone should remain at.   

In his book “5 levels of leadership”, John Maxwell describes the 5 stages of leadership.  These are Position, Permission, Production, People Development and Pinnacle. The chart below represents the 5 levels of leadership.

Over the next few weeks, we shall be looking at each of the 5 levels of leadership.  In view of this, for today, let us take a look at the very first and basic level of leadership

Level 1 – Position

Position leadership is the lowest level on the leadership hierarchy.  Here, people follow you because they ought to and not because they want to. It is a right assigned to the role.  This kind of leader does not have a team.  Instead, he has subordinates and the relationship here is thus boss-subordinate. 

Position leaders have no influence (except that provided by the authority that comes with the role).  As such, position leaders use the authority vested in them by the position to get the job done.   This kind of leadership depends on regulations, policies, rules, organisational charts and operates within strict boundaries.  There is therefore no motivation for subordinates to go the extra mile. 

It is very easy to identify a team led by a position leader.  Some common habits usually exhibited are:

1. Subordinates are mostly average performers.  They eagerly check the clock waiting for the hour hand to tick at the top of the hour (say 5:00pm) and voila, they are on their way home.
2. The leader hardly appreciates the feelings of the subordinates and so you hear comments from subordinates such as; “my boss doesn’t care about my feelings”.
3. The number one reason for people leaving such organisations is; the leader.

Clearly the position leadership stage should not be the preferred destination of any leader.  It is therefore very important to aim at moving up the ladder to the next level of the leadership hierarchy.  John Maxwell refers to this stage as Permission.  This is the stage at which people follow you because they really want to do so.  We shall be looking at this stage in my next article. 

Please keep your feedback coming through for they are important to me.

References: 

¹ John C. Maxwell (2011), 5 levels of Leadership