How do you measure success as a leader? Every leader should know precisely how to answer this question. The most accurate way for any leader to answer that question is for a leader to be clear about their leadership paradigm. A paradigm is our perception of reality. Paradigms are basically about the way that we view and see the world. Paradigms represent our mindset about the way we think about the issues that are before us every day of our lives. As a leader, what is your particular leadership paradigm? From your personal perspective as a leader, what do you believe is your primary task and responsibility as a leader? How you answer these questions will determine how you measure leadership success. If a leader lacks clarity about their primary role as a leader, they will not be in a position to make an accurate assessment about whether they are actually succeeding or failing as a leader.
My passion in life is to engage in the work of leadership development. This necessitates me challenging leaders to consider that their primary task and responsibility as a leader is the growth and development of their people. All leaders, without exception, are in the people development business. If developing their people is not the highest priority in the life of a leader, a leader is living a misdirected life, and will never be in a position to provide effective leadership for others. Everything else that a leader does must be secondary and subordinate to their primary task of growing and developing their people. From a purely objective and logical standpoint, the most practical way to increase the bottom-line productivity and profitability of a business is to improve the performance of your people. Outstanding leaders focus on growing their people, while coaching and mentoring their people to improved performance.
The critical choices and decisions that leaders make must be driven by their mission, values and priorities. The ability to prioritize by “putting first things first” is one of the fundamental conditions that results in leadership success. One of the most significant challenges that many leaders are facing in this hour, is the challenge of losing their focus on developing their people in light of the innumerable distractions that are occurring in our world. Excellent leadership is focused leadership. We must not lose sight of the priority of growing and developing our people.
The true measure of a leader is not what we do as leaders, but rather what others do because of what we do as their leaders. There are far too many leaders who believe that leadership is primarily about what they do, and who they are. This approach entirely misses the point of leadership. Leadership is about what our people potentially have the ability to do, and who they can actually become as a result of our personal involvement in their lives. The leaders who have had the most enduring impact upon my life, were those leaders who had a vision for who I could become someday, not necessarily who I was at the moment. Leadership is ultimately about what others do as a result of the influence, impact and investment that their leaders have made in their lives. The priority of all priorities in the life of any leader is the growth and development of their people. If you want to know whether you are succeeding as a leader—don’t look in a mirror, but rather look at your people. Are they succeeding? If so, you are succeeding as a leader. If not, it’s time for you to change the way you are measuring your success as a leader.
