Leadership, and personal development, have to be caused. They do not just happen on their own. Intentions to do something about the growth of your leadership and enterprise are only the first step. They mean nothing until you actually act on them. Acting on your intentions, on its own is also not enough. Your actions must be consistent. This is be beginning of growth; doing something.
You will not get better by accident; sustained growth and impact take consistent work
Organizations and wise leaders know that growth starts with an increase in knowledge. If this were not true then people would never spend money and other valuable resources writing and reading books. What would be the point? When we look to increase our muscle in a particular skill we look for information we do not have.
capacity building starts with knowledge building
| image by swanksalot | cc
We talk to people who have been through what we haven’t been through. People with more insight than us. The point: increase in knowledge is an important first step to any growth. We would all love to get information by osmosis but unfortunately it takes a little more hard work than that.
You cannot act on what you do not know. Information is one of the lifelines of enterprises. You cannot exploit an opportunity you’re unaware of.
Do
You have to read blogs and or listen to books. This means planning reading or listening time into your day or week. One new and challenging piece of information could revolutionize your leadership and organization.
Spend time with people who know more than you do. Shut up, sit down, listen and learn. Stop trying to show how smart you are at the expense of how smart you could be.
Seek out other opportunities of learning. Perhaps being part of a case study group.
Do not just work in your business; work on your business ~ John Demartini
Interact with people from completely different fields and disciplines than you. Being with people in your field all the time can pigeonhole your thinking and compromise clear sight. Spending time with different people from different disciplines helps keep you a dynamic thinker.
Not looking to grow yourself as a leader and organization is downright arrogance. It will bring you down. Not intentionally acting on your growth is a silent claim of arrogance and that you have arrived.
Great leaders are learning leaders.
How often do you intentionally get new information? As a leader? As an organization? Do you challenge your teams to grow? How do you hold yourself and teams accountable in ensuring that you are growing?
The reason you are not where you want to be could be an information gap. Mind the gap and do something about it.
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I think people join fraternities, clubs or whatever you want to call them because the intention to do what you say is there but life gets really busy. Most people are juggling with so many balls, each important, it is difficult to keep them all in the air. You have to keep up with all the knowledge explosion, especially in your chosen field as well as all the stuff on personal growth. Then there is family, finances, fitness or well being, the list can get quite long, and all in a 24 hour day. Perhaps then random connections are ill advised.
the challenge is that despite what is going on around you, for growth to happen in your enterprise, as a leader, you have to grow yourself… the beginning of this is growing is one’s knowledge base. random connections can happen.
however, i recommended being intentional about interacting with others from different disciplines and planning in when you will challenge yourself with new information into your day or week.
if leaders are serious about their growth then they have to be intentional about it, starting from building their knowledge base one way or another… i guess the balance is what separates growing leaders from ones that are not.
Also see: https://blessing.im/successful-leaders-have-a-d-d/