Excellent Leadership Development

Leadership Development with Rebecca Hartnell

My Leadership Development mentor tells me there are as many different leadership styles as there are different leaders. When leadership development is done well, this is exactly how it should be!

Leadership development is about recognising the gifts that each and every person brings to the crucible. We all have gifts, and, we don’t always know we have them. A good leader will be able to mirror these gifts back to the person who brings them so that they can use them of their own good and for the good of the common purpose. If you are wise enough leader to be able do this, then, you can harness the very best outcomes for your team. You can also harness the very best outcome for your profit margin. When you design it your own way, then, you can give others free-reign to design their bit their way too. This way begins the upward business spiral of business success.

My experiences of Team Leadership began with the Princes Trust Volunteers, the ambition was that I didn’t stay in a leadership role for too long. Although I had overall responsibility for the outcomes for the team, once we had take the journey thought the forming, storming and norming phases, my job was to empower each of the team members. My remit was to enable all the 15 members to step right up to shoulder the responsibility of leading in their own best ways. This resource, entitled “the leader everyone wants to follow”, supports this “know thyself” style that PTV will always bring to participants: This is a know the fear and challenge it; It’s a know your strengths and play to them; It’s a know your vulnerabilities and attend to them kind of leadership development.

Empowerment

In all my formal training and development opportunities I have never, ever seen the growth in confidence that happened through empowering people in that role. I do see it over and over now in my coaching capacity. It’s not just about teaching someone some new skills in a top-down kind of way. This processes concerns itself with enabling another person to identify their own strengths and design leadership their own way.

The Bottom Line

Fear and power are closely linked in western culture. If, when we empower others, we fear losing our own status, we can never truly empower others at all. If you do not empower your colleagues then how on earth can you have the very best outcome for your project or organisation. How can you have the best outcome for the bottom line of your business? If you can enable everyone in your team to lead in their own way too, then you are enabling every single member of the team or organisation to bring their very best. This is the way to ensure success.

Altruism

So how can you be altruistic enough to empower others? How can you be secure enough to give your power away? How can you have enough trust to be able to engage with the process and let go of the outcome because you have placed that outcome in the hands of others? You have to risk it. And how to you risk it? You get to know yourself well enough and to know what leadership, your way, looks like. When you have refined your own leadership style you can then recognise the gifts that others bring.