Leadership Toolkit: 3 Ways Leaders Grow
Great leaders pursue growth. They don’t wait for growth to happen — they pursue it. Whether you’re a father, husband, son, daughter, business manager, student or pastor of a local church, you have a leadership role to fulfil in this life.
Our leadership naturally resolves around our sphere of influence — that’s where God has planted you to inspire others in your calling. Leadership is not static but dynamic and every true leader must learn to adapt to new challenges and opportunities.
So what practical toolkits do I use to grow my leadership capacity? I will share three with you. I encourage you to act on them immediately and notice a key difference in your life.
Read! Read!! Read!!!
Growing up, I fell in love with knowledge. My siblings wouldn’t have me in the same room while watching a movie. I’d ruin their experience with a barrage of questions.
Hardly had the movie started, I’d be asking who the lead actor was and whether he’d be killed in the end!
My love for knowledge helped me embrace books.
Reading grows your mental capacity. Read biographies of leaders you aspire to emulate. Study the lives of people of similar passion and learn their successes and failures.
Leaders grow by reading.
Seek out mentors
Leaders expose themselves to other leaders who inspire their vision. Mentors won’t come to you; you go to them. Seek out people of conviction and connect with them. Mentoring is a powerful tool for leaders.
I wrote a piece on mentoring a few months ago and recently spent a day in Amsterdam sharing stories of young people I’ve been privileged to challenge through my mentoring platform. Leader needs mentors. Don’t run alone.
Leaders grow leaders.
Invest in your growth
To become an influential leader, you need to invest in your development – great leadership will cost you something.
Invest in a personal library and spend your money on leadership resources. Invest in training programmes designed to teach you life skills such as communication and people management.
Invest your time in serving in your local church in the area of your passion. Attend leadership conferences where you can connect with other leaders and grow your network.
Leaders invest.
Question: What fourth tool can you add to the list?
Looking for a great leadership resource that can help you? I recommend John Maxwell’s Leadership Wired blog. Check it out.Image courtesy of Jaywillis1 | Flickr
About Joseph Iregbu
From a homeless, near-school-dropout to living a story worth telling. Purpose is my passion. What's your story?
I think everyone should invest in a personal retriever device like tablets, phablets and smartphones. They are great tools that can connect us to valuable contents and more and can help us keep information and resources easily accessible.
Great ways to always be growing our leadership. I’d include listening to audio content.
That’s a good one. Technology can be a powerful resource. I use it too!
Thanks for this Joseph.
Thanks for reading, Tope.