The Leader's Greatest Return by Maxwell John C

Author:Maxwell, John C. [Maxwell, John C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
Published: 2020-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

THE THREE KEYS TO BECOMING AN EMPOWERING LEADER

Where does the ability to empower others come from? It is based primarily on earning respect, building relationships, and providing an environment of empowerment. Respect is the fruit of being competent and having good character. Relationships are formed based on care and trust. Then if you provide an environment where empowerment is encouraged and facilitated, leaders will rise up to their potential. Let’s look at how these three areas come into play.

1. Respect: Earn the Power of Credibility by Achieving Success

What is empowerment? It’s giving power or authority to another person. When you empower your leaders, you increase their power to plan, think, grow, problem-solve, and act. You give them the power to be more successful. There’s an implication to this concept if you really think about it. You cannot give away something you don’t possess yourself. You must have power to give power away. That power comes from credibility. Only after you have achieved success and earned influence do you have credibility.

I believe credibility develops as outward success and inward success. Outward success, which is what you achieve in your career, catches the attention of others. They may admire you because of your ability. They may be drawn to you because they want to be part of a winning team. They may desire to work with you hoping to learn how to be successful or have some of your ability “rub off” on them. You have influence with them because of your professional credibility.

Inner success grows when you lead yourself well. It comes from the development of good character, from making the right decisions instead of the easy decisions, from putting in the work of intentional growing instead of taking life as it comes. While the outward career success gives you credibility based on what you can do , the personal growth that fuels inward success fills you up so that you have something to give from who you are .

During the early years of my leadership career, I discovered that I lacked credibility because I had not yet achieved outward career success. Because of that, I learned that there was a difference between giving people power and giving them authority. I had no power. The only things I possessed were my title and position. That did give me some authority, but it was at the lowest level of influence. People would follow my leadership based only on the rights I was given. That meant I could delegate tasks within my limited authority. So, I used my position to delegate to people who would help me. And I started working to equip people.

There was no empowering in those early days. But the harder I worked, the more experience I gained, and the more wins I achieved, the more credibility I earned. At the same time, I fought to achieve inward success through personal growth and personal disciplines. Now, after fifty years of work in these areas, I have more experience and direction to give.

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