The New Leaders are Learners
How are you investing in your future success? How much of your time and money do you invest in your own personal development?
If you are like the vast majority of people, you probably aren’t. When you consider the common denominator of performance in every aspect of life is you, and you want better results, it doesn’t really stand to reason does it?
So many people choose to stop learning when they leave school. Not so the emerging leaders. They are learners, continually seeking a greater understanding of who they are, what they want and how they can improve on their potential. They are open to new ideas, aware that existing thinking and behaviour will not cut the mustard tomorrow.
In an economy of inexorable and quickening change, leaders cannot afford to stop developing. The key ingredient that is missing for so many leaders is self-development, self-learning, understanding the self and the values that shape personal leadership.
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Orison Swett Marden articulated it well when he wrote ‘growth everywhere neutralises decay, renewing the mind, constantly reaching out for the new and progressive, the retrograding, disintegrating, aging, deteriorating processes can not be operative’.
When a leader fails to grow and develop emotional intelligence, it violates primal responsibility, as he or she cannot develop others effectively.
Huxley said ‘there’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self’. The leader who chooses not to will find the creative economy tough to navigate.
April 26th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Very well said sir! The first journey of any leader should be the inner journey to understand who they are and how you can most effectively lead. Far too many fail to take on this first challenge. I recommend Kevin Cashman’s book Leadership from the Inside Out as a resource to to my clients to help them on this journey.
As it relates to learning I love the term creative destruction. Part of the leaders journey is to lean about their own mental models and biases that hold them back. To examine them blow them up and become more authentic in the process.
Ron Hurst
June 3rd, 2009 at 1:01 am
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