Position Is Only the Beginning

“Why does everything always seem to land on my plate?”

If you’ve led for very long, you’ve probably asked yourself that question and even wondered whether becoming a leader was worth the struggle.

Many people aspire to leadership believing they’ll gain authority, increased prestige, a larger paycheck, have people to rely on, and finally be able to delegate the work they don’t enjoy.

What if leadership isn’t a reward at all—but a commitment to serve others before yourself?

Most, if not all, leaders have asked themselves that question more than once.

We believe that earning the promotion should simplify our work lives. After years of hard work, we finally get rewarded. We imagine we can catch our breath, celebrate our success, and direct activities like a chess master without having to get our hands dirty.

When I worked for NYNEX, we made this mistake over and over again.

We promoted our best technicians into leadership positions because we had no better way to recognize their performance.

Then we simply expected them to become great leaders.

Most accepted the promotion because of the prestige, the increased compensation, and the opportunity to leave behind the day-to-day field work. No more crawling through damp basements.

No more climbing telephone poles in the middle of a snowstorm.

As appealing as those benefits were, we never prepared them for what leadership would actually require.

We never helped them shift their focus from what they could accomplish to what they could help others accomplish.

We never taught them that the primary responsibility of a leader is to develop the people they had the privilege to lead.

And why didn’t we?

Because we were consumed with making our numbers, advancing our own careers, and solving today’s problems. We rarely invested the time necessary to develop tomorrow’s leaders.

If new supervisors succeeded, we celebrated.

If they struggled, we concluded they simply didn’t have the right makeup for leadership.

Then we promoted someone else and repeated the cycle.

We never stopped to look in the mirror and ask whether we had failed them first.

The problem wasn’t the people.

The problem was our philosophy of leadership.

We believed influence came from position.

In reality, position only gives you the opportunity to influence.

Influence is earned by how well you serve, develop, and care for the people entrusted to your leadership.

Looking back, we were wrong.

We believed leadership was about achieving results.

It isn’t.

Results matter.

But they are the by-product of leaders who first invest in people.

Whenever we place numbers ahead of people, we’ve missed the point of leadership.

Leadership is not about climbing the corporate ladder.

It is about helping others climb theirs.

Are you spending more time developing yourself or developing your people?

If one of your leaders struggles, is your first instinct to judge them or coach them?

Who can you intentionally serve today?

CHALLENGE
Today, intentionally invest in someone’s growth with no expectation of recognition or reward.
Because influence isn’t measured by how many people work for you.
It’s measured by how many people become better because of you