Everything goes up and down in leadership. The destiny of our country in the coming years will be determined by employment and small/medium enterprises. To run these organizations effectively, leadership is needed. Orrin and Chris do an excellent job of outlining the five stages of leadership.
Why is this important to me?
I don’t want to waste your time and I want you to get actionable insights from this summary. With that being said, there are a couple of components that I want to point out in relation to influence. Leaders sell the difference between their vision and current reality. If the vision is compelling and the leader has character and integrity, people will follow.
People need to be honest, honorable, and hungry to become leaders. Leadership requires effort. I can tell you personally that leading people is not easy. I am also a beginning leader with a lot to learn. To gain a share in people’s minds, you must influence them and compel them to the cause.
Launching a Leadership Revolution looks at 5 levels of influence on the leadership ladder. For reasons of time, I will outline each part in summary. Leadership can be like herding cats because people are different. To that end, the leader’s goal is to unite people toward a common cause.
1. Learning: Continuous learning is now required for any field, especially leading. You have to commit to learning every day. This has to be a habit. You can’t influence people en masse if you’re not willing to take the hits and get the job done. Learning leads to better performance and enlightenment. Without it, you cannot lead. The world is too sophisticated today out of ignorance. You need to be a lifelong learner.
2. Performance: It’s not the number of hours you put into an effort, but the effort you put into the hours. Leaders have to act. NFL coaches have a three-year lifespan. If they don’t perform and create a winning team, they get fired. People expect performance and want to follow winners. Everyone remembers Muhammad Ali and George Forman. Do you remember Ernie Shavers or Jerry Quarry? These two fighters were good but they were not the champions. There are a couple of keys to performance: 1. 80/20 Rule – Focus on what matters and throw away what doesn’t and 2. Parkinson’s Law – Focus on effectiveness and states that a task builds up to the allotted time. Shorten task deadlines and they will get done. In college, how many of you finished your term papers in the last week before the deadline? This is Parkinson’s Law in its negative effect. Term work could be done in one week instead of 15 weeks.
3. Lead – “To Serve Is To Rule” – Leaders know they have to serve others to get the job done. Selfish and egotistical leaders will typically be stuck in positional leadership, which is the lowest rung on the leadership ladder. Lee Iacocca was a good leader but not a great leader. He lost focus on him and began to focus on his ego after the Chrysler switch. His focus became too “me focused.” To be a great leader, you must be humble and put the collective before you. If you look at the truly great leaders, you will see this trait: Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, and George Washington.
4. Develop Leaders: Developing other leaders is the real key multiplier effect. Having great people lead allows organizations to grow. In business, this is the difference between being self-employed and owning a business that doesn’t require your full attention. Do you have a local dentist? Usually what you see in these practices are very successful people doing all the work. They make an excellent living, but they can’t scale past a certain point because THEY can only do so much work and there are only so many hours in a day. Contrast this with Warren Buffett. Warren owns several businesses and does not run any of them. He buys them with excellent management and leadership. He provides additional leadership and capital to expand the business and scale. That is one of the benefits of developing leaders.
5. Developing leaders developing leaders: This is the holy grail of leadership. Orrin sets a great example in the book. Christianity is 2,000 years old and is so mainly because of the Apostle Paul. His ability to develop leaders who developed leaders was unparalleled in history.
Launching a Leadership Revolution is a good book worth studying. Orrin and Chris do a good job of outlining the key aspects of influence and leadership.
I hope you found this short summary video helpful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes a habit. Habits are formed in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is learning. The main ingredient for your leadership skills to take off is learning. Make it a habit to read a few pages, watch educational videos, and connect with associations outside of your comfort zone.