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July 22 - November 29, 2022
Mentoring is meant to give a return on investment to both people. When both people benefit, the relationship is life-giving. When they don’t, somebody will soon want out of the relationship.
The person being mentored expects to be made better. But in the best relationships, the mentor gets better too.
I like asking the people I mentor to set the agenda when we initially meet. I want them to tell me what their objectives are, what issues they are currently encountering, and what questions I can answer. I put the ball in their court. Then each time we meet, I ask them to send me their questions the day before we sit down together.
As long as the person I’m mentoring is making progress, I’m willing to keep meeting. If progress stops, so do I.
That’s why the first question I often ask people I’m mentoring is how they applied what they learned the last time we met.
Trust is a result of authenticity, not perfection. Their part is to be real with me, not hide, and be open. They can expect me to be safe.
You can teach the masses, you can coach groups, but you have to mentor individuals one at a time.
Every organization needs more and better leaders. The only thing limiting the future of any organization is the number of good leaders it develops.
The quality and quantity of leaders within the organization determines its lid.
It’s so simple yet so profound: make decisions against yourself. We want success without sacrifice, but life doesn’t work that way. Success will not be shortchanged. You have to pay the price, and it never goes on sale. The best decision you can make for yourself is making decisions against yourself. You have to discipline yourself to do the right things day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out. And if you do, the payoff is far greater than the price you paid.
The culture of the team or organization you lead starts with you. You must model it, nurture it, monitor it, and incentivize it.
As I work to lead organizations that focus on leadership development, I strive to model the six Cs of a reproducing culture. You should too. • CHARACTER—BE IT.
CLARITY—SHOW IT.
COMMUNICATION—SAY IT.
CONTRIBUTION—OWN IT.
CONSISTENCY—DO IT.
CELEBRATION—EMBRACE IT.
Everyone has someone to mentor.
It’s vital to understand that it takes a leader to reproduce another leader. A nonleader cannot develop a leader. Neither can an institution. It takes a leader to know one, show one, and grow one.
When I select leaders, I look for evidence of the three Gs. They have to be grounded, gifted, and growing. And
Authenticity is the new authority in leadership, not power or position. Authentic people are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and don’t try to be what they’re not.
Humility, teachability, authenticity, maturity, and integrity provide a solidly grounded foundation upon which to build strong leadership.
The most important growth area you need to help leaders work on is how they think. That is what separates successful from unsuccessful people.
If you can create a reproducing culture where the development of leaders is normal, expected, and pervasive, and if you can personally develop 3-G leaders, taking them to the highest potential and insisting that they develop leaders as one of their highest objectives, you will create a leadership-intensive organization with a great bench of current and future leaders.
When developing leaders becomes a lifestyle for everyone in your organization, you can’t help but be successful.
Applying this concept to my own life, I thought, That’s the return that comes from continually developing leaders. It compounds! And the longer you keep doing it, the greater your advantage becomes.
Very few people take leadership of their own lives. Most people passively accept what comes.
Anything you can do to help your leaders in the areas of gifting, timing, relationships, or intentionality will give them a small advantage, and every small advantage, if sustained, has the potential to grow into a big advantage in the future.
I’m living proof that consistency pays off. Today I am reaping a harvest as a result of decades of sowing and cultivating. In fact, I’m reaping a harvest of abundance much greater than I deserve or expected, and I think that’s happening because I’ve been at it for such a long time. Here’s how this works: Right Choices + Consistency + Time = Significant Returns
If I have ten people on my team, I invest 80 percent of my time and effort into my top two—my top 20 percent. I add value to them, so they can multiply value to others.
Organizations with the highest quality leaders were 13 times more likely to outperform their competition in key bottom-line metrics such as financial performance, quality of products and services, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction.
The lesson: don’t wait for the resources before you begin. Start where you are with what you have. Don’t wait until you have the leaders you need. Start with the leaders you have. If the vision is right, the right leaders will show up.
When the team you lead is growing, you have to keep growing to keep leading them well.
The primary reason so few leaders or organizations ever become great is because they get good and they stop. They stop growing, learning, risking, and changing.
