2010 31 May
Being quite in an interactive group, where people are discussing and talking in various subjects will not be the desired situation for an active person who is trying to be a leader, but it’s thousand times better than talking where no one is listening.
He starts saying why I’m not able to lead this group, or he thinks how can I influence this group and be the number one leader in the conversation.
Leadership is influence, in another word the right question is how to be the influencer, how to influence the group? He shall learn how to increase his influence.
Based to John Maxwell, the God of leadership and influence practices, leadership has five levels which a successful leader should pass by to arrive to the desired and optimized influence level.
In the ground floor of leadership, the key is the position; at this level people follow you because they have to follow you, because you are the boss. The Level one of leadership is the base level, without it and the authority that is given to you, you can’t lead.
All leaders of level one, and in order to enhance their leadership should move to level two, the keyword is the relationship; this is a cool level because here people follow you because they want to follow you. You like people and they begin to like you and want to move to the next mile with you. So in this level your ability to connect with people is very important.
After moving to level two, leaders should work moving the production level, and the keyword is results, in this level the people follow you for what you did for the organization, they start talk about you in term of the organization result. In Level 3 you start having the success feeling and the winning atmosphere. Here you should be careful as a lot of people think that Level 3 is the ultimate level of leadership, they start having some profit and getting some bottom line production.
The level number four is the people development level; here the people follow you because of what you have done for them, they love to follow you because you are developing them and start feeling happy because they’re being better, and become loyal to you and give you the credit.
If you have the position and the title, and you have good communication skills and you connect well with people, in addition to a bottom line profit for the organization that being added by you, and if you’re developing people; here you’re layering your leadership and you deserve being in level number 5, in the personhood level, where people follow you because who you are and what you represent, it's the personhood level.
If you passed the first four levels now you don’t have to do more, your people will pick you up to the level five, which becomes automatic.
In your leadership path, you can’t become in a level without passing the levels that comes bellow it, don’t think that a leader can become in level 5 without passing the first four levels.
Dear leader, you have to start building your skills based on this segmentation of the leadership path, it’s up to you and only you!
Good luck
Resources: Five Levels of Leadership DVD Training Curriculum.
10x for the summary, it's really helpful and simple, and these levels are the base line for all leaders. thank you J@F for the graet job, and the big thanks to John Maxwell always following both of you.
very useful information that i wasnt aware of. :) go jaffal go
Nisree, Hassan,Dani and Ali thank you all, hope to be always on the lebel.
i think no one can go from level to level without being in the level 1 first
I think, no one can go from level to level without in the level 1 /leadership from position/ first
Nice article, but i think leaders are many styles, and it is not something straight forward and anyone can follow a specific steps and be a successful leader.There are many situations where one can be a successful leader, whereas another situations it is impossible to be that leader.I think everyone is a leader with a different style.
Thanks Adel for your Comment, what’s important about leaders that they are born leaders, and it’s not exact that anyone is a leader somehow, a leader should have the ability to lead and to influence people around him first, then he can work on performing better and enhancing these skills. But as Maxwell says, no one can start the road of leadership without having 1- the talent 2- the position, you can start leading people without having the authority to lead them, and you can’t leading them if you don’t have the ability to influence them. In addition leadership is not a just a knowledge and in general the leaders are leaders wherever you put them, take an example of project managing, a project manager is measured how much he knows about project management and not how much he knows about software development project management for example. Don’t you think that not just having the authority is not enough to lead? Don’t you think that a person having the leadership charisma can lead anywhere?
Leaders Are Born Leaders ! you can see them even when they are little kids playing around you ! it's a born quality that can be enhanced and not a skill that we can learn. thank u
I agree with you Jad, in other meaning leadership is a process towards the common good that involves other people through empowerment, inclusion, and ethics. It is something that cannot be done with one single person. Though a manager/administrator can be a leader, it isn’t definite. but don't you all guys think that the majority of Managers are not Leaders !!??