I was reading The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C Maxwell, and one thing that he mentioned in the course of the book really stuck with me. He mentions that bad to mediocre leaders have followers underneath them while good to excellent leaders have and create other leaders underneath them.
Knowing the importance of creating leaders beneath you is an important thing, but it is a completely different yet equally important thing to know how to create leaders beneath you. In my experience creating leaders beneath you requires you to have two qualities: trust and openness.
First let’s talk about trust. When it comes to having subordinate leaders, we hope to be able to delegate responsibilities to them. Delegation is something that does not come easy if we only trust ourselves to complete a task or a project. We need to learn to trust others to do what we want them to accomplish for us with the appropriate amount of training. Once we have given the appropriate amount of guidance to the person that we want to lead, we need to take a step back and allow them to complete the project. Micro-managing the person will defeat the purpose of delegating to them in the first place. In doing so, you will not allow the person to develop as a leader and simultaneously you will get burnt out. Trusting an assistant instructor to teach a class each week on their own is a good example of this. When they know what the requirements are, it’s important to allow them to do their own thing within the confines of what you expect. Doing this will also help foster a development of trust between the students and the assistant instructor. The assistant instructor will seem more competent to the students if they are given the space and authority to lead their own way.
Next, let’s talk about openness. At the end of the day, leaders at all levels are tasked with some sort of decision making. In creating a new subordinate leader, you must be open to the suggestions that they make and their ideas. In giving leadership responsibilities to my assistant instructors, I have reaped the most benefit when I have seriously considered their ideas and had the openness to allow them to try them out. It is important to resist the urge to have things done your way 100% of the time and allow for new ideas.
One of the most unexpected skills that I have gained from being a chief instructor is the ability to manage a team of people. While it may seem that this article only pertains to those that run martial arts schools, in reality, this article applies to anyone that wants to lead and develop an organization big or small in any aspect of their life. To build a tree of leaders with strong roots, learn to trust and to be open to new ideas. These two things will lead to your school, company or organization branching out in ways that you might not expect!
