Climbing the Leadership Ladder
Lee Kuan Yew is one, Margaret Thatcher is one, Bill Gates is one, Mother Theresa is one, you are one and I am one. No, I am not referring to being a politician. I am referring to being a leader.
Everyone is a leader. A leader is someone who has followers Leadership is also about influence. When we are able to influence other towards a common dream, then we are a leader.
While everyone is a leader, there are leaders and there are effective leaders.
5 Levels of Leadership
The path of leadership development is like a 5-step ladder, as suggested by John Maxwell, a leadership guru. Some are just stuck at the lowest level for life whereas some people seem to grow in effectiveness! The 5 levels of leadership are:
Rights.
The lowest level of leadership is based on rights or positions. Some leaders exert their authority solely by their position. We call this pull rank in the army. Such leaders will not find many followers in life. The best way to test whether you are at this level of leadership is to ask your subordinates to do something beyond the job scope or beyond your level of responsibilities. Leaders who operate at this level finds minimal co-operation from their followers beyond their job scope. Generally, their followers are characterised by low morale and high staff turnover.
Relationship.
While many people start off leadership at by being appointed to the position, it will spell trouble if you remain there for too long. I advise you to move to next level of leadership, which is to build on relationship and rapport with your followers. We call them the people-oriented leaders. They know the followers by name, their strengths, and their struggles. People will work for you and trust you because you know they as a friend.
I suspect one reason why the Singapore Suzhou project or for that matter the Singapore-Malaysia water negotiation is not as successful is because both parties operate more on level 1 and have not spent enough time of level 2 of leadership.
Results.
While people who operate in level 2 are more effective than those operate in the first level, they must ultimately show results. At the end of the day, leaders must be able to influence their followers to deliver the goods. Failing which, such leaders will be better off as friends than as a boss. People like to follow leaders who are showing results.
Reproduction.
No machine can go on producing without breaking down. Similarly, leaders who continue to operate at level 3 will burnout in no time. Level 4 leadership is about reproduction. The wise leader is the one who invests his time and energy to reproduce leaders. In this way, he will not become the bottleneck of your own success. Reproducing leaders is about multiplying your impact. Leaders who want to leave a legacy must reproduce leaders. While you may not agree with everything that Mr Lee Kuan Yew has done, we must respect him in the area of leadership reproduction. He did tremendously well in this area.
Respect.
Most people will be able to climb the ladder of leadership to level 4 through hard work. But the highest level of leadership is not something that can be planned. Instead it is something that is earned and bestowed on you by others. People trust them because of who they stand for. People like Lee Kuan Yew, Margaret Thatcher, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, etc are some of these leaders. Level 5 leaders have one common characteristic i.e. they all have character integrity.
Conclusion
It does not matter which level of the leadership ladder you are operating on today. The question is whether you intend to remain there forever or are you challenged to move to a high level of leadership effectiveness?
You are a leader and you can be a better leader.