CULTIVATING LEADERSHIP

What formed your thinking about leadership? Was it the top down gets the job done? Or perhaps, it was more of a leader as expert and all things to all people that shaped your concept of leadership.

Dr. Myles Munroe, in his book The Spirit of Leadership wrote:

True leaders possess the leadership attitude of self-cultivation, a passion for personal development. Some marks of a genuine spirit of leadership are a desire and commitment to gain knowledge and insights, to keep improving oneself, and to learn from others.

A part of the satisfaction of leadership that makes a difference is that it’s unique from person to person. That means we don’t have to have a one size fits all approach to leading, rather seek to cultivate an approach that best fits your skills, outlook, manner and your ability to develop trust and rapport.

While you may be inspired by other leaders, the question is how can you cultivate an approach that best fits how you are wired? By asking this question, there is a good probability that you will ask your self what kind of teams you best lead? Where are they? What are their collaborative outcomes?

Leadership that is far reaching is cultivated, nurtured and never quite arrives, it’s not finished. Even successful outcomes don’t “finish” your leadership.

When a leader comes with the comments that they feel “done” or “stuck” it always invites the question, “what might happen to create a new way of being as a leader in this space?”

This will often throw the leader off for a moment because they have come to the conclusion that they need to quit or go to a different position, sometimes that’s true.

Sometimes the way forward is cultivating a new way of being as a leader. The next step may be imparting your expertise to growing leaders or designing a way to advance the process that may not have been done before.

This is all a part of continuous cultivation of your leadership, and a willingness to live in the development of other ways to lead and move forward.

Leadership is to be cultivated rather than conquered.