“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch
I absolutely love that quote by Jack Welch. If you have had conversations with me, you’ll hear me talk a lot about the leadership lid. I could just type in this blog that nobody on your team will ever grow themselves more than you. You are the highest potential to your organization. So the more you push yourself to grow, and push others around you to grow, the stronger your team will be. That is it! That is essentially what the leadership lid is all about. Grow yourself, grow others. The end! Ok, I won’t do that to you guys!
I talk about the leadership lid often because I feel that it helps people understand the value of leadership. If you can get a handle on understanding how YOU are the highest potential of your team, you will see the incredible impact of leadership on every aspect of life. So here it is: leadership ability is the lid that determines a person’s level of effectiveness. The lower an individual’s ability to lead, the lower the lid on his or her potential. The higher the individual’s ability to lead, the higher the lid on his potential. To give you an example, if your leadership level rates an 8, then your effectiveness can never be greater than a 7. If your leadership is only a 4, then your effectiveness will be no higher than a 3. Your leadership ability, the higher or lower it is, always determines your effectiveness and the potential impact of your organization.
In this short video below, a simple analysis of the law of the lid is shown utilizing fleas placed in a glass jar for 3 days. Notice what happens after the lid is removed.
Yes, I get it. Before you go thinking “me and my people are smarter than fleas”. Well, I sure do hope so. That is definitely not what I am getting at with my point here sharing that video. But if you have been doing the same things over and over again for days/months/years on end without changing your growth habits, you probably are frustrated because your team is not improving any. You think it’s their fault “I have bad employees”. When the truth is, there is no such thing as bad people, a team is only as strong as it’s leadership potential is!
Your “jar” is your organization. Your people will never jump higher than the “lid”!
I’ll land the plane with this. Success is within the reach of just about everyone. But I also believe that personal success without leadership ability brings only limited effectiveness. Without leadership ability, a person’s impact is only a fraction of what it could be with good leadership. Whatever you will accomplish is restricted by your ability to lead others.
You have to work every single day to increase your level of leadership. By raising JUST your leadership ability, without necessarily increasing your success dedication at all, you can increase your original effectiveness a tremendous amount. That’s because leadership has a multiplying effect. I’ve seen it’s impact time and time again, both for the good, and sadly even for the worse.
What are you doing daily to raise the lid on your level of leadership and your Team’s potential? A great Team starts with YOU!