Archive for Influence
Some insights into the 5 Levels of Leadership
Posted by: | Comments
The 5 Levels of Leadership will be available for purchase starting TOMORROW (October 4, 2011)!
I can’t wait! Why? Well, as I’ve told anyone who asks, “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
People who have known me for awhile always smile when I say that. That’s because they know I believe it about everything I do. “This is the best lesson I’ve ever taught.” “This is the best book I’ve ever written.” “…Until the next one,” is what they add in their minds.
And they have a valid point, most of the time. I AM a pretty positive guy, and my favorite project is almost always the one I just worked on. But I might have to argue that The 5 Levels of Leadership truly could stand the test of time as the best book I’ve ever done. That’s because it’s the first book based solely on a concept I’ve been teaching for over 30 years, with great positive response. It’s clear, it’s proven, and it’s well-received.
Here’s one last excerpt before the book arrives on shelves. Just a few insights into The 5 Levels of Leadership:
1. You Can Move Up a Level But You Never Leave the Previous One Behind
Now that you’ve seen the levels and learned the basics about them, you may assume that a leader climbs them, leaving one to arrive at the next, similar to the way one moves up a staircase. But the truth is that you never leave a level behind after you’ve achieved it. Instead, you simply build upon it.
2. You Are Not on the Same Level with Every Person
Leadership is dynamic, and it changes from relationship to relationship. The same is true for the 5 Levels of Leadership. I may be on a different one of the 5 Levels with each of five different people at my job. Someone the first day on the job will acknowledge only my position, while someone in whom I’ve invested and whom I’ve raised up to lead will likely put me on Level 4.
3. The Higher You Go, The Easier It Is to Lead
Here’s some good news. As you work to climb up the levels of leadership, you’ll find that it gets easier to lead people. Each advance allows you to be more effective in leading others because your influence increases as you go to a higher level. As your influence increases, more people follow you more readily. Limited influence, limited leadership. Greater influence, greater effectiveness.
4. The Higher You Go, the More Time and Commitment Is Required to Win a Level
Which is harder? Being given a leadership position (Level 1) or getting people’s permission to lead them (Level 2)? That’s pretty obvious. It takes time, effort, and commitment to develop positive relationships with people. How about moving from Level 2 to Level 3? I believe it is harder to become consistently productive than it is to make friends. It’s even harder and requires much more time to go to Level 4, where you develop people to become good leaders. And it can take a lifetime to become a Level 5 leader who develops leaders who in turn develop other leaders.
There is no easy way to get to the top. And each time you go up, you pay.
5. Moving Up Levels Occurs Slowly, But Going Down Can Happen Quickly
I’ve had people ask me, “How long will it take me to become a Level 5 leader?”
“A lot longer than you think” is my answer. Building always takes a lot longer than destroying. A lot of things have to be right to climb to a higher level, but sometimes it takes only one thing going wrong to cause someone to fall. While it’s unsettling to think about how quickly one can fall from a level of leadership, I hope you can take solace in this: once you’ve climbed up to higher levels, the ones below you function as a safety net. So the more you’ve advanced up the levels, the more secure your leadership is.
***
By now you may be wondering, “What level of leadership have I reached with the different people that I lead?
Well, there’s an app for that!
My publisher has created a 5 Levels of Leadership iPhone app. In it you’ll find quotes, more insights, and best of all, an assessment. You can get an idea of where you stand on the levels with every person in your life, if you want. Just click the image below or search the iTunes store for “5 Levels of Leadership.”
It’s my sincere hope that this app and the book would add value to your life and help you grow as a leader!
Thank you for joining me on this journey through The 5 Levels of Leadership. I’ve enjoyed sharing a sneak peek at my book and reading your insights into what makes an effective leader. Now we’ve got just one more week before the book comes out. I hope you’ll purchase and read it – not just for my sake, but because I know that the concepts within it can teach you how to grow as a leader.
Here’s a sneak peek at Level 5: The Pinnacle. I hope it inspires you to become the kind of leader who can eventually rise to that level:
***
Rare is the leader who reaches Level 5—the Pinnacle. Not only is leadership at this level a culmination of leading well on the other four levels, but it also requires both a high degree of skill and some amount of natural leadership ability. It takes a lot to be able to develop other leaders so that they reach Level 4; that’s what Level 5 leaders do. The individuals who reach Level 5 lead so well for so long that they create a legacy of leadership in the organization they serve.
The individuals who reach Level 5 lead so well for so long that they create a legacy of leadership in the organization they serve.
Pinnacle leaders stand out from everyone else. They are a cut above, and they seem to bring success with them wherever they go. Leadership at this high level lifts the entire organization and creates an environment that benefits everyone in it, contributing to their success. Level 5 leaders often possess an influence that transcends the organization and the industry the leader works in.
Most leaders who reach the Pinnacle do so later in their careers. But the Pinnacle level is not a resting place for leaders to stop and view their success. It is a reproducing place from which they make the greatest impact of their lives. That’s why leaders who reach the Pinnacle should make the most of it while they can. With gratitude and humility, they should lift up as many leaders as they can, tackle as many great challenges as possible, and extend their influence to make a positive difference beyond their own organization and industry.
***
P.S. October 4 is the actual date of publication for The 5 Levels of Leadership. I’d appreciate it very much if you would help get the word out. On Twitter, you can use the hashtag #5Levels. And here’s the link that you can share anywhere:
http://tinyurl.com/5levelslead
Thank you!
Level 2 – Permission: You Can’t Lead People Until You Like People
Posted by: | CommentsIn only a few weeks, my new book, The 5 Levels of Leadership, will be on bookshelves. And I can’t wait. Here’s why I’m really excited: this book is about a concept that I’ve been teaching for over thirty years! With that kind of history, I really KNOW that it works.
Lately, I’ve been using this blog to provide a sneak peek at the book and what a reader can hope to learn from it. So far, I’ve given you an overview and quite a few details about Level 1. Now I want to use the time between now and October 4 to give you a basic understanding of Levels 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Level 2 – Permission:
You Can’t Lead People Until You Like People
Making the shift from Position to Permission brings a person’s first real step into leadership. Why do I say that? Because leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. Leaders who rely on their positions to move people rarely develop influence with them. If their subordinates do what they are asked, it’s usually because they think they have to—to receive their pay, keep their jobs, prevent being reprimanded, and so on.
In contrast, when a leader learns to function on the Permission level, everything changes. People do more than merely comply with orders. They actually start to follow. And they do so because they really want to. Why? Because the leader begins to influence people with relationship, not just position. Building relationships develops a foundation for effectively leading others. It also starts to break down organizational silos as people connect across the lines between their job descriptions or departments. The more barriers come down and relationships deepen, the broader the foundation for leading others becomes.
When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. And that can change the entire working environment. The old saying is really true: people go along with leaders they get along with.
Moving up to Level 2 is an important development in leadership because that is where followers give their supervisors permission to lead them. People change from being subordinates to followers for the first time, and that means there is movement! Remember, leadership always means that people are going somewhere. They aren’t static. No journey, no leadership.
Level 1 – Position: It’s a Great Place to Visit, But You Wouldn’t Want to Live There
Posted by: | CommentsFor the past two weeks, I’ve been writing about The 5 Levels of Leadership, my book coming out on the 4th of October. Last week I shared an overview and description of Level 1.
Here’s the overview of the book again:
This week, I’d like to continue discussing Level 1: Position.
Leadership traditionally begins with Position. Someone joins the Army, and he or she becomes a recruit, working to earn the rank of private. A person gets a job, and along with it usually comes a title or job description: laborer, salesperson, waiter, clerk, accountant, manager. Position is the starting place for every level of leadership. It is the bottom floor and the foundation upon which leadership must be built. Real influence must be developed upon that foundation.
There was a time when people relied heavily on position to lead, which is no surprise when you consider that at one time, hereditary leadership positions were handed down from father to son (and sometimes daughter) within families. Princes became kings and their decisions were law—for good or bad. In most industrialized nations, those days are gone. True, there are still nations with kings and queens, but even in most of those nations, such as England, monarchs rule with the permission of the people, and the real leaders are usually elected. Position gives you a chance, but it usually carries with it very little real power, except in systems where the penalties for not following are dire.
There’s nothing wrong with having a position of leadership. When a person receives a leadership position, it’s usually because someone in authority saw talent and potential in that person. And with that title and position come some rights and a degree of authority to lead others.
Position is a good starting place. And like every level of leadership, it has its upsides and downsides.
The Upside of Position:
You Have Been Invited to the Leadership Table
Just as there are positive and negative aspects in every season of life, there are both positive and negative aspects to every level of leadership. If you are new to leadership and you receive a position, then there are things to celebrate. I’m going to tell you about four of them.
1. A Leadership Position is Usually Given to People Because They Have Leadership Potential
Most of the time when people enter a leadership position, they do so because it was granted or appointed by some other person in authority. That probably seems obvious. But think about the implications: It usually means that the person in authority believes that the new leader has some degree of potential for leading. That’s good news. So if you’re new to leadership and you have been invited to lead something, then celebrate the fact that someone in authority believes in you.
If you have a new leadership position, then let me say welcome to the first step in your leadership journey. You have a seat at the table and have been invited to be part of the “leadership game.” You will have opportunities to express your opinion and make decisions.
Your initial goal should be to show your leader and your team that you deserve the position you have received.
2. A Leadership Position Means Authority Is Recognized
When an individual receives a position and title, some level of authority or power usually comes with them. Often in the beginning that power is very limited, but that’s okay because most leaders need to prove themselves with little before being given much. As the Infantryman’s Journal (1954) says, “No man is a leader until his appointment is ratified in the minds and the hearts of his men.”
As a new leader, you must use the authority you are given wisely, to advance the team and help the people you lead. Do that, and your people will begin to give you even greater authority. When that happens, you gain leadership, not just a position.
3. A Leadership Position Is an Invitation to Grow as a Leader
There should always be a relationship between receiving a leadership position and fulfilling the requirements demanded by it. One of the main requirements is personal growth. I learned this early in my life from my father, who loved to quote, “To whoever much is given, much shall be required.” He believed that each of us had received a lot in life, and we had a responsibility to learn and grow so that we could make the most of it.
The journey through The 5 Levels of Leadership will only be successful if you dedicate yourself to continual development. If you believe that the position makes the leader, you will have a hard time becoming a good leader. You will be tempted to stop and “graze,” meaning you’ll stay where you are and enjoy the position’s benefits, instead of striving to grow and become the best leader you can.
4. A Leadership Position Allows Potential Leaders To Shape and Define Their Leadership
The greatest upside potential for people invited to take a leadership position is that it affords them the opportunity to decide what kind of leader they want to be. The position they receive may be defined, but they are not.
When you first become a leader, your leadership page is blank and you get to fill it in any way you want! What kind of leader do you want to be? Don’t just become reactive and develop a style by default. Really think about it. Do you want to be a tyrant or a team builder? Do you want to come down on people or lift them up? Do you want to give orders or ask questions? You can develop whatever style you want as long as it is consistent with who you are.
As you think about the way you will define your leadership, take into consideration what kinds of habits and systems you will consistently practice. What will you do to organize yourself? What will you do every day when you arrive at work? What spiritual practices will you maintain to keep yourself on track? How will you treat people? What will be your work ethic? What kind of example will you set? Everything is up for grabs. It’s up to you to define it. And the earlier you are on the leadership journey, the greater the potential for gain if you start developing good habits now.
The bottom line is that an invitation to lead people is an invitation to make a difference. Good leadership changes individual lives. It forms teams. It builds organizations. It impacts communities. It has the potential to impact the world. But never forget that position is only the starting point.
The Downside of Position:
True Leadership Isn’t About Position
Like everything else in life, the Position level of leadership has negatives as well as positives. Each of the levels of leadership possesses downsides as well as upsides. You will find as you move up the levels that the upsides increase and the downsides decrease. Since Position is the lowest level of leadership, it has a great number of negatives. On Level 1, I see seven major downsides:
1. Having a Leadership Position Is Often Misleading
The easiest way to define leadership is by position. Once you have a position or title, people will identify you with it. However, positions and titles are very misleading. A position always promises more than it can deliver.
2. Leaders Who Rely on Position to Lead Often Devalue People
People who rely on position for their leadership almost always place a very high value on holding onto their position—often above everything else they do. Their position is more important to them than the work they do, the value they add to their subordinates, or their contribution to the organization. This kind of attitude does nothing to promote good relationships with people. In fact, positional leaders often see subordinates as an annoyance, as interchangeable cogs in the organizational machine, or even as troublesome obstacles to their goal of getting a promotion to their next position. As a result, departments, teams, or organizations that have positional leaders suffer terrible morale.
3. Positional Leaders Feed on Politics
When leaders value position over the ability to influence others, the environment of the organization usually becomes very political. There is a lot of maneuvering. Positional leaders focus on control instead of contribution. They work to gain titles. They do what they can to get the largest staff and the biggest budget they can—not for the sake of the organization’s mission, but for the sake of expanding and defending their turf. And when a positional leader is able to do this, it often incites others to do the same because they worry that others’ gains will be their loss. Not only does it create a vicious cycle of gamesmanship, posturing, and maneuvering, but it also creates departmental rivalries and silos.
4. Positional Leaders Place Rights Over Responsibilities
Poet T.S. Eliot asserted, “Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important…they do not mean to do harm…they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” That’s what positional leaders do: they do things to make themselves look and feel important.
Inevitably, positional leaders who rely on their rights develop a sense of entitlement. They expect their people to serve them, rather than looking for ways to serve their people. Their job description is more important to them than job development. They value territory over teamwork. As a result, they usually emphasize rules and regulations that are to their advantage and they ignore relationships. This does nothing to promote teamwork and create a positive working environment.
Just because you have the right to do something as a leader doesn’t mean that it is the right thing to do. Changing your focus from rights to responsibilities is often a sign of maturity in a leader.
5. Positional Leadership Is Often Lonely
Positional leaders can become lonely if they misunderstand the functions and purpose of leadership. Being a good leader doesn’t mean trying to be king of the hill and standing above (and set apart) from others. Good leadership is about walking beside people and helping them to climb up the hill with you. If you’re atop the hill alone, you may get lonely. If you have others alongside you, it’s hard to be that way.
6. Leaders Who Remain Positional Get Branded and Stranded
Whenever people use their position to lead others for a long time and fail to develop genuine influence, they become branded as positional leaders, and they rarely get further opportunities for advancement in that organization. They may move laterally, but they rarely move up.
If you have been a positional leader, you can change, and this book will help you. However, you need to recognize that the longer you have relied on your position, the more difficult it will be for you to change others’ perception about your leadership style. You may even need to change positions in order to restart the process of developing influence with others.
7. Turnover is High for Positional Leaders
When people rely on their positions for leadership, the result is almost always high turnover. In my book Leadership Gold, one of the chapters is titled, “People Quit People, Not Companies.” In it I explain how people often take a job because they want to be part of a particular company, but when they quit it’s almost always because they want to get away from particular people
Every company has turnover. It is inevitable. The question every leader must ask is, “Who is leaving?” Organizations with Level 1 leadership tend to lose their best people and attract average or below-average people. The more Level 1 leaders an organization has, the more the door swings out with high level people and in with low level ones.
8. Positional Leaders Receive People’s Least, Not Their Best
People who rely on their positions and titles are the weakest of all leaders. They give their least. They expect their position to do the hard work for them in leadership. As a result, their people also give their least. Some people who work for a positional leader may start out strong, ambitious, innovative, and motivated, but they rarely stay that way.
The greatest downside about Level 1 leadership is that it is neither creative nor innovative. It’s leadership that just gets by. And if a leader stays on the downside of Level 1 long enough, he may find himself on the outside. If a leader fails on Level 1, there’s nowhere to go but U-Haul territory. He’ll be moving out and looking for another job.
Why I wrote The 5 Levels of Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s coming! I don’t know about you, but I can hardly believe that August is already here. Before I know it, September and then October will arrive. And with October (on October 4, to be exact), comes my newest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership. With just weeks to go, I’ve decided to give you a sneak peek. For the next few posts, I’ll be sharing excerpts and concepts from the book right here on the blog.
Today’s excerpt describes why I wrote The 5 Levels of Leadership. Hopefully it will give you an idea of what you can expect from the book:
You Can Have a Leadership Game Plan for Your Life
Leadership is one of my passions. So is teaching it. I’ve dedicated more than thirty years of my life to helping others learn what I know about leading. In fact, I spend about eighty days every year teaching leadership. In the last several years, I’ve taught about it on six continents. The subject is inexhaustible. Why? Because everything rises and falls on leadership. If you want to make a positive impact on the world, learning to lead better will help you do it.
In all the years that I’ve taught about leadership, there has been one lecture that I have been asked to give more often than any other—from West Point to Microsoft and in countries all around the world. That lecture explains how leadership works, and it provides a game plan for learning how to become a leader. It’s “The 5 Levels of Leadership.”
My belief that everything rises and falls on leadership solidified in 1976, and it set me on a leadership journey that I am still traveling to this day. I began the journey by asking many questions. How do you define leadership? What is a leader? How does leadership work? Unfortunately, people’s usual answers to those questions are not very helpful. Some people identify leadership with obtaining a leadership position. But I’ve known bad leaders who had good positions and good leaders who had no position at all. Haven’t you? Other people say of leadership, “I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it.” While that may be true, it doesn’t help anyone learn how to lead.
The conclusion I came to early on is that leadership is influence. If people can increase their influence with others, they can lead more effectively. As I reflected on that, a concept for how leadership works began to crystallize in my mind. That concept was the 5 Levels of Leadership, which took me about five years to develop. I have been teaching it ever since. And whenever I present it, one of the questions people always ask is, “When are you going to write a book about this?” As you can see, I’m finally answering that question.
You Can Learn Practical Leadership Tools
There are a lot of books about leadership lining people’s bookshelves. Why should you read this one? Because it works. The 5 Levels has been used to train leaders in companies of every size and configuration, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies. It has been used to help nonprofit organizations understand how to lead volunteers. And it’s been taught in more than 120 countries around the world. Every time I talk about it, people ask questions and make observations. Those things have helped the 5 Levels of Leadership to become stronger and to develop greater depth. The concept is tested and proven. In addition, it offers several other benefits:
The 5 Levels of Leadership Provides a Clear Picture of Leadership
How do people get a handle on leadership? For those who are not naturally gifted for it, leadership can be a mystery. For them, leading people is like walking down a dark corridor. They have a sense of where they want to go, but they can’t see ahead and they don’t know where the problems and pitfalls are going to lie. For many people in the academic world, leadership is a theoretical exercise, an equation whose variables are worthy of research, study, and rigorous debate. In contrast, the 5 Levels of Leadership is visually straightforward, so anyone can learn it.
The 5 Levels of Leadership Defines Leading as a Verb, Not a Noun
Leadership is a process, not a position. There was a time when people used the terms leadership and management interchangeably. I think most people now recognize that there is a significant difference between the two. Management is at its best when things stay the same.
Leadership deals with people and their dynamics, which are continually changing. They are never static. The challenge of leadership is to create change and facilitate growth. Those require movement, which, as you will soon see, is inherent in moving up from one level of leadership to the next.
The 5 Levels of Leadership Breaks Down Leading into Understandable Steps
The subject of leadership can be overwhelming and confusing. Where does leadership start? What should we do first? What processes should we use? How can we gain influence with others? How can we develop a productive team? How do we help followers become leaders in their own right? The 5 Levels of Leadership gives answers to these questions using understandable steps.
The 5 Levels of Leadership Provides a Clear Game Plan for Leadership Development
Too often when people think of their journey into leadership, they envision a career path. What they should be thinking about is their own leadership development! Good leadership isn’t about advancing yourself. It’s about advancing your team. The 5 Levels of Leadership provides clear steps for leadership growth. Lead people well and help members of your team to become effective leaders, and a successful career path is almost guaranteed.
The 5 Levels of Leadership Aligns Leadership Practices, Principles, and Values
When I developed the 5 Levels, I conceived of each level as a practice that could be used to lead more effectively. As time went by and I used and taught the levels, I realized they were actually principles. Here’s the difference: a practice is an action that may work in one situation but not necessarily in another. A principle is an external truth that is as reliable as a physical law. For example, when Solomon said, “A gentle answer turns away every wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger,” he stated a principle that is universal and timeless. Principles are important because they function like a map, allowing us to make wise decisions. If we embrace a principle and internalize it, it becomes a part of our values. The 5 Levels influences my leadership life every day.
If you’re interested in pre-ordering The 5 Levels of Leadership, click the publisher’s link above for more information. Next week, I’ll give you more of an overview and teach on Level 1!
